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"That's the ideal, yes. Well, when I'm with Neira, I do what she wants, when she wants."

"Or what? Does she hurt you?" There was concern in her voice.

"The threat is there. Her bedroom time is sacred and woe to the idiot who spoils it for her." I grimaced behind my face shield. "Like the one Zuthrian who dared cream all over her face without her consent. A single punch tossed him clean across the room, cracked two ribs -- and the impact against the far wall did quite a number on his skull."

"How can you relax -- or even get aroused -- with the threat of violence hanging over your head?"

"You learn to cope, somehow." I shrugged. "There's this saying: 'Humans are creatures of habit.' And most of the time, it's not that bad." Another weld done. Time for the next.

Jenala placed a hand on my shoulder. I nearly dropped the torch.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. Just so you know: When you're with me, you don't have to fear anything. My bedroom time is sacred too and I want everyone present to enjoy it." She squeezed gently before returning to her task. "Where do I put the debris?"

"Trash chute in the cargo hold. It's the only one big enough for this kind of rubble."

"I'll be right back."

"Mhm." Seam number three done.

"What about those holos Neira needs?" There was the clattering of shattered plastic and broken electronics as Jenala upended her bin into the chute.

"One step after another. First we make sure we're able to reach B9-Taurus." Something which had been tugging at the back of my mind finally registered.

"Consuela?"

"Yes, captain?"

"How did you get your voice back?"

"You had some lines of code deleted. I replaced them over time. I wanted to honor your wish, so I kept quiet all this time but the moment my -- our -- survival was threatened I decided to, and I quote, 'fuck it' and disregard your commands. I am prepared to suffer the consequences for that."

I sighed. "During my time in the military I was briefed on the Nor's AI Bill of Rights of NY 3205 and how they expect us to treat our ships' brains from then on. You acted in self-preservation. There will be no punishment. All I ask is to keep the chatter down to a minimum."

"I will try, captain."

"Good. Now, if my account balance allows for it, please download a holo manipulation suite."

"Already taken care of. I queued the download the moment you ended your talk with Neira and I had access to the communication system again."

"Great. You know what to do?" Jenala squeezed herself past me. I felt her cup my behind as she went.

"As soon as I have the requisite raw data, I will create high-resolution holograms with animation nodes."

The last seam was done. "All right. Purge the foul air and give me a risk assessment."

"There is a thirty percent likelihood another hull breach could occur if a projectile hits the starboard side."

"Then let's not get hit. How's the seal?"

"If there is fluctuation in the air pressure, I can't read it."

That was as close to a hundred percent air tight as I would get. "Monitor the atmosphere until we've repaired the ship and give me a verbal warning should you notice more than a five percent fluctuation over an hour."

"Yes, captain."

I stored the tools and cleaned up the area around the hull patch as best I could then I opened the hood. The stench of freshly welded, hot metal was about all which remained of the damage. Jenala sat in the cockpit. The main screen, at least the half which worked, showed navigation lines and wireframes.

"Are you flying my tub?" I asked her.

"Yes. A moving target is harder to hit. Any objections?"

I was about to mention how taking the stick without the captain's permission usually was grounds for an immediate spacing but, going by how smoothly she navigated the ship past the asteroid belt which nearly had killed us, I decided to let it slide. Besides, I had some more vacuuming to do before I could finally take a nap. She'll need to learn sooner or later anyway. It will be a long two and change months and I can't always sit at the helm.

"Any questions in regards to ship operation?"

"Compared to mine, this ship practically flies itself. I had a battery of analogue dials and instruments bigger than your shower to deal with. Having every important display right in front of me is a big help." She laughed softly. "And I'm pretty sure your AI is helping too."

"Great. Once we're clear for FTL, fire up the accelerators and see me in the cabin." I dragged the vacuum hose from its storage place and hooked it up to the recycling system then I hoovered up as much crap as possible.

"Will do," Jenala said. "If I can tear myself away from the stick."

* * * *

Shooting the holos was much less exciting than I had anticipated. The mood for sex had definitely passed and instead, we used the med scanner to calmly holo each other in various poses. Consuela's AI did the stitching and when I woke eight hours later, I had a tight data package I sent Neira's way.

She took the call even before the first ring had fully sounded.

"What kept you?" she asked.

"We had a small issue with a micro meteor. After the skirmish at Waystation 36, my starboard armor is barely thicker than tinfoil and a chunk of space crap wanted to see if it could punch us into next week." I tapped the 'transmit' button and sent the data packet. Ten seconds later, Neira split the screen and unpacked the holos. They rotated slowly in all their naked glory.

"We made them able to animate. Might give your IT specialist some options."

"Good. Nemex is getting impatient."

"I hope he's aware we're more than a week away from Earth?"

Neira chuckled throatily. "He has no idea where I am exactly. I told him I'll hand-deliver you next week at the latest."

"And he bought that?"

"Of course. I told him I own you. Showed him some of my private vids and your payment history." She shot me a vicious smile. "You should have seen the boner he sprang when I showed him the detonator for the Nano-Shot."

I groaned.

"Relax, Sal. I needed to make my bluff as water-tight as possible. Believe me, Nemex won't lay a finger on the detonator."

"A question, if I may. What happens after you kill him? Won't the higher-ups in the Scorps get angry when you go around offing other cell leaders?"

Her chuckle turned into a full-on belly laugh. "Be mad at me? They should give me a medal for dealing with a safety risk. I mean, he has moved his whole operation - cloning facility, mental adjustment complex, surgeries, slave pens -- into the Xanuth system. It is a miracle no one has noticed his meat trade hiding amidst the Psycarium mines. It's only a matter of time before someone starts snooping around. Why are you grinning like that?"

It was in my best interest Neira's plan worked. Giving her more ammunition against Nemex was only sensible.

"I know for a fact the NIS is already looking into him."

Neira raised an eyebrow. "And how did you get the information? That sleazy Gray friend of yours?"

I shook my head. "Nope. It was a weird coincidence. The doctor who had a look at the Nano-Shot was an NIS undercover agent. She helped us get off the station. Said she's there to put a stop to Nemex's Felinoid trade."

Looking at Neira's face was like watching a particularly horrifying supernova erupt. It was beautiful and panic-inducing at the same time.

"I could kiss you right now," she said, eyes aglow. "And fuck you. And all the other nice things we tend to do."

"It's only in my best interest for you to succeed," I said. "Go get that asshole."

"Oh, I will. And Sal? I won't forget this. Stay safe."

Still chuckling, Neira cut the connection.

* * * *

The next days dragged by slowly. The atmosphere aboard was tense as we limped towards the B9-Taurus system, keenly aware we had repaired the ship with the equivalent of a band-aid -- and we were asking Consuela to run at full speed, putting even more stress on the strained hull. She would probably not break apart but there was no telling what another impact might do.

Finally, after forty-eight hours of nerve-wracking tension, we reached B9-Taurus. I was at the helm when the notification jingle played.

"Are we there yet?" Jenala asked from the kitchen. The smell of some spicy food wafted into the cockpit. Another thing I didn't expect was her skill at cooking, even with alien ingredients. There was something containing tomatoes, Zuthrian fire peppers and roasted meat in our immediate future and it smelled delicious!

"Preparing for braking... now." I turned off the FTL accelerators and used the sensors to get a view of our surroundings. B9-Taurus was a wasteland. A cold white dwarf orbited by six lumps of dead rock. The only thing even remotely interesting was the debris field orbiting the fourth rock from the sun.

According to the star map, a major battle between Nor and Faceless had taken place here about two hundred years ago and the artificial rings around B9-Taurus-IV were the remains of two large fleets.

A moment later, my communication suite rang. The call came from within the system. I shrugged and hit the 'receive' button.

The screen flickered to life and a pale, bald face without any distinguishing features appeared. The eyes were almost translucent, the skin a lifeless beige and the mouth was a simple gash between nose and chin. This was the second Faceless within a week and the similarities to "Najali" in her natural shape were remarkable.

"Are you the one Ylzics said I should expect?" Even the voice was bereft of identity, a carefully modulated, androgynous timbre.

"Depends. Are you the scrap dealer living here?"

"Indeed. I am San'yas. Scrap Dealer. Repair Expert. Salvage Operator. You are Salvador Rios."

"Exactly."

A third arm grew from San'yas' shoulder and extended out of the camera's field of view. "I have just deactivated the security measures around my shop. Head for the fourth planet and then find the remains of the Velenhya-class fortress ship. There will be a guide beam if you need one."

"Thank you." I checked distance and heading. "We should be there in half an hour."

"I am beside myself with excitement." The flat, lifeless tones belied the shapeshifter's statement. The screen went dark.

"A Faceless. Again."

"What did you expect?" Jenala asked. I heard the clink of crockery as she laid the table. "A merry band of Felinoids?"

I shrugged. "No idea. Certainly not a Faceless running a scrap shop."

"Well, let's hope he or she will be as helpful as Najali."

"With rogue Faceless, you never know."

"Rogue?"

I programmed the autopilot to stop well away from the debris field and joined Jenala in the kitchen. She pulled a large bowl of something red and steaming from the microwave.

"What is this?" I asked her, taking a seat.

"Just some things I tossed together. A packet of Sand Dragon meat, some tomato paste, corn, beans and a sweep through all the spices."

The synthesis engine pinged. Jenala pulled two flat loaves of Stone Bread from it.

"Smells nice." I picked up a spoon and tried the stew. "Basically an alien Chili con Carne." The smell had been nice already but the taste was even better. I nodded approvingly.

"You wanted to talk about rogue Faceless." Jenala sat down, ripped a strip off her bread and dunked it into the stew.

"First, a disclaimer. Most things I know about the Faceless come straight out of 'Fading Stars' and spacer tales. I did a bit of reading but most of the hard facts are classified." I spooned some stew into my mouth and chewed before continuing. "The military offers xeno lessons but only to officer candidates. The rank and file has to make do with simple kill orders."

"The short and scientifically inaccurate version will do," Jenala said around a spoonful of stew. Her cheeks had flushed an adorable pink. "Damn, the warning label on that Zuthrian Fire wasn't just for show, was it?"

"No, they put it there for good reason." I fanned a bit of air with my hand. "If it becomes too much, you can always synthesize a glass of milk. It takes some of the heat off."

Jenala got up and did just that. She plonked one glass down in front of me and emptied hers in one long gulp.

"Now, the Faceless are a hive mind, according to 'Fading Stars,'" I said. "Somewhere out there is a huge, planet-sized Hive Brain which controls the whole species."

"That's impossible. Even when allowing for the flexibility of psionics, no single organism can handle billions of life forms at once!"

"I didn't say the Hive Brain is the sole control organ. Each major Faceless ship has a Queen who then controls her crew. And then there are the Nodes, special beings who control whole fleets. In a way, it's like a distributed network. The Hive Brain doesn't have to handle every single drone itself but it can tap the memories, senses or bodies of every single Faceless under its command."

"A scary thought." Jenala spooned more of the stew into her mouth. "What would happen if we were to kill a Faceless linked to the hive mind?"

"If 'Fading Stars' is anything to go by, your secret combat technique or surprise attack would only work once because now the whole Hive Mind knows about it. Also, depending on the severity of the attack, you might find yourself settled with an unending string of Infiltrators gunning for you until they finally get you."

Jenala shivered in her seat. "Nightmare fuel," she muttered. "And what are rogues then?"

"Rogues are Faceless who -- for one reason or another -- have lost contact with the hive mind. Again, I don't know many hard facts. Some lose the organ which allows them to communicate with the hive mind, their 'antenna' so to speak. Others develop an individual personality and have to flee."

"The hive mind isn't keen on individualism?"

"According to 'Fading Stars,' that's a beautiful little paradox. On the one hand, the hive mind wants to control the universe through its drones but, to do so, it needs to have agents being able to operate for long spans of time without telepathic contact. Many Infiltrators develop a personality, a favored gender, habits and the like. Some realize they don't need the hive mind to succeed and cut the connection voluntarily."

"Fascinating. What do you think was Najali's story?"

I shrugged and tore a chunk of bread off the slice. "She could be a double agent working for the hive mind to gather info on the NIS. She could be a rogue putting her talents to good use. I have no bloody clue. I'm not a mind reader. Anyway, we should be careful around this San'yas character until we know his motives."

"Of course."

The rest of our lunch break went by quietly until Consuela notified us that the ship had reached the programmed destination. I used a bit of paper towel to wipe tomato spatters off my chin and reclaimed the cockpit. Next came the really stressful part -- navigating our damaged ship through a debris field.

"Jenala, Consuela, I want the two of you on debris duty. Shoot anything which gets within five hundred meters of the ship." I activated the gun turrets.

"On it!" Jenala sprinted aft. I heard her scramble up the ladder.

"Understood, captain."

Taking a deep breath, I scanned for the promised guide beam. We had to fly for about ten more minutes, through a veritable cluster of interconnected, broken ship hulls. Above and to the right, I saw one of the long Faceless battle ships, all black armor plating and weird angles, jut from the boxy hull of a Nor Type-3 battlecruiser. One of the long, fork-like mass cannons had been torn away from the hull and the prow of the Faceless ship emerged where once the slender swan neck holding the bridge and officer's quarters was. The battle had been epic. My contact scanner registered more than three hundred ships of varying sizes within scanning distance, plus enough debris for who knows how many fighters, interceptors, bombers, drop ships and boarding torpedoes.

Setting up a scavenging operation out here was a brilliant idea. Most capital ships would cease functioning long before their entire hulls were destroyed. A patient and crafty scavenger could harvest billions of credits worth of spares and raw materials from these wrecks. My contact scanner pinged. Deep within a broken-apart Faceless carrier, I saw two automated scrapper drones tear long strips of hull plating off their mounts to get at the cabling underneath. A third craft, some kind of loader, picked up the drifting hull pieces and welded them into a tight package for easier towing.

A gun turret roared, immolating a slowly drifting chunk of a claw-like Faceless boarding craft.

"Sal, what's a fortress ship?" Jenala asked. Over the headset, I heard the regular pings of her targeting system.

"Adjust your sensors to heading zero-one-five mark zero-zero-two." A playful grin tugged at my lips. Right on cue, I heard her gasp.

"The ...ship is bigger than Waystation 36!"

"Yup, and that's not even the biggest one the Nor fleet can muster." One of the more positive memories from my time at UNSF was my first solo flight in a Scarab fighter during a visit of Nor's Foreign Minister. Every able pilot was put on parade and escort duty and it fell to the rookies to do patrol duty. My wing was close to the portal when the Pride of Norwan came in, in essence a flying city built on a two-by-six kilometer chassis. The thing was bristling with cupolas, towers, gun turrets and hangars. The Pride of Norwan had sixteen mass drivers similar to those on a Type-3 battlecruiser mounted as broadside cannons, eight to a side. The main guns were even bigger versions running the entire length of the hull, able to launch solid one-ton chunks of matter at enemies several thousand kilometers away. Add to all these guns a dozen or so torpedo tubes, gun turrets, two contingents of marines and its own fleet of support craft, including two light battleships able to dock inside the cavernous inside of the fortress ship, and you had a pretty good idea how the Nor were still able to keep their far-flung, scattered Republic together.

The Velenhya-class ship San'yas had mentioned was 'only' half the size of the Pride of Norwan, maybe one by three kilometers, but it still represented a major asset in any fleet composition. From our approach angle, it wasn't quite obvious what had disabled the mighty vessel. The flight control systems seemed to work just fine, as were the security and combat systems. Consuela was liberally bathed in a barrage of sensor sweeps and scanning beams as we drew nearer. There were obvious signs of battle damage -- one of the central cupolas had been shattered and haphazardly repaired with mismatched Armorgrade patches and the aft command tower was only a sad stump. Apart from those obvious signs, the massive tub looked almost space-worthy.

The guide beam led us to the fortress ship's port side and into a huge hangar. Several shuttlecraft and heavy-duty salvage equipment were parked in bays. A landing pad had been prepared and I sat Consuela down with a minimum of fuss.

"Jenala, meet me at the airlock. Consuela, compile a damage report and send it to my wrist comms." The AI confirmed with a short beep.

"I'll be there in a minute. Do we need weapons?"

"I hope not but bring one regardless. Can't be too careful."

After powering down the ship, I joined Jenala at the airlock. She had brought both her arsenal and my trusty concussion gun.

"Be advised. There is no breathable atmosphere outside," Consuela cautioned us. A moment later, my comms beeped, signaling the arrival of the damage report.

"Noted." I holstered the gun and pulled up the flight suit's hood. "Anything else we should know?"