Firebrand

"I swear, this station is so fucky," Boyd complained as he followed them down the ramp. "What's with all the Escher painting shit?"

"If you want to build something as incredible as the Pinwheel, then you need to come up with creative solutions to these kinds of problems," Miller replied as they neared the end of the curving ramp. "You have to transition from vertical to horizontal, from AG fields to inertial gravity, you have to figure out how to get power and water where it's needed. If you think this is crazy, you should see the pumping system that we use to get water from the torus to the hub."

Moralez made sure to keep one boot on the deck at all times as Miller had instructed, his eyes firmly fixed on the ramp beneath his feet. They had transitioned from the inertial gravity that was created by the spin of the station to simple magnetic boots now, but the torus was still rotating with them standing on the side of it like they were rappelling down the sheer face of a skyscraper. He could feel the tug of inertia as it threatened to sweep him off the hull and throw him into space, the boots just enough to keep him latched on.

For the first time, he dared to look up, and he immediately narrowed his eyes against the glare. With no atmosphere to filter it, the light of the system's star was sharp and harsh, casting the blackest shadows that Moralez had ever seen. They were always in motion due to the slow rotation, every jutting piece of metal and every greeble creating an effect like a sundial being played back at exaggerated speed. The lack of atmospheric haze made it difficult to judge distance, his eyes simply weren't evolved to see the world this way, his brain unable to process it. The curving horizon of the hull might have been ten meters away, or ten kilometers, there was no way to be sure. Just looking at it made him feel dizzy.

"This way," Miller panted over the radio. Moving around in this unconventional fashion required an unexpected amount of effort. "Judging by the length of the jumper cable, he couldn't have had a range of more than a hundred feet or so. I don't know what you expect to find, but keep an eye out."

The ground beneath their feet was made up of massive, armored plates the size of tennis courts, matte white in color. Here and there were strange details and exposed machinery that Moralez couldn't make sense of, but which no doubt served important functions. What he did recognize were the hill-like structures that projected up from the torus at intervals, hatches that contained the station's defensive railgun batteries that would open to reveal the massive cannons on their flexible arms. There were also dishes in the distance, for communication, or perhaps radar. It all created a kind of surreal topography, an alien landscape made from white metal.

"Can you see anything that's not supposed to be here, grease monkey?" Boyd asked.

"Just you two so far," Miller replied.

"What are we even looking for?" Moralez added, carefully stepping between two armored panels. "What kind of evidence might the shooter have left behind?"

"I'm hoping he left some kind of bipod or brace," Boyd said, breathing heavily as he followed close behind. "Whatever he used, I can't imagine he fired it from the shoulder, both for recoil and for stability reasons. To make a shot like that, you want some kind of stable firing position. Ideally, you'd go prone with a bipod, but he couldn't have done that here. There's no gravity. I'm betting he attached some kind of bipod to the hull, maybe welded, or bolted it into place. That'd make it a pain in the ass to remove in a hurry."

"He certainly had a good view from here," Moralez muttered, glancing to his right. The hull sloped out of sight, giving way to the spokes, which trailed off into the distance. The hub looked so far away, but it was hard to judge. It was a tough shot, that was for sure.

"We should probably split up," Boyd suggested. "Covering a hundred-foot radius is going to take all day if we stick this close together."

"You're welcome to go off on your own if you're confident that you won't lose your footing," Miller replied, "I won't be there to catch you."

"What are you, my mother?"

"No, if I was your mother, I'd dress you better."

"There's no need," Moralez interrupted, pointing ahead of them. There was something jutting from one of the armored plates that didn't look like it was part of the station. They slowly made their way over to it, the impact of his magnets snapping to the hull vibrating up Moralez's legs with each step. It felt strange wearing a boot over his prosthetic again, but it worked well enough.

"Yep, look at this," Boyd said as he stopped in front of the object. He began to kneel, then thought better of it, bending at the waist instead as he examined what looked like a three-legged platform made from yellow tubing. "It's a jury-rigged tripod, and it's in exactly the right place. The shooter would have attached the rifle to this flexible gimbal here."

"That looks like it was sourced from surveyor equipment," Miller added, "you'd usually attach an automatic level on top of it. They're used mostly in building projects planetside."

"I was expecting a simple bipod of the kind we use on XMRs," Boyd muttered as he ran his gloved hands over the top of the tripod. "But this makes more sense. It's at about shoulder-height, he would have needed to fire it from a standing position so that his magnetic boots could find purchase. Looks like he welded the feet to the hull."

"The gimbal is melted," Moralez added, "look at it. It slagged, and then cooled."

"The weapon must have generated a lot of heat," Boyd said with a nod. "He ran a lot of juice through that thing. That confirms our theory, then. Now we just need to figure out what kind of weapon was used, and where it was sourced from. Gotta admit, I was kind of hoping he was in enough of a hurry to leave it behind."

"If you're imagining someone sneaking it onto the station in a guitar case, I run a tighter ship than that," Moralez replied.

"You're suggesting it was sourced on the station then?"

"Maybe. I know a guy who will be able to tell us if any of the station's weapons or components are missing, and he probably knows more about the XMR platform than anyone alive."

"If you two don't mind," Miller interjected, "I think I'd rather have this conversation inside the station..."

"Lead the way," Moralez said, gesturing in the direction of the airlock.

***

"I...would like to ask for your advice," Holly said, Harry glancing up from the video that he was watching on his tablet.

"What kind of advice?" he asked, shifting his weight on the couch as she stood before him with her two pairs of hands neatly clasped.

"When I was in the conference room, attempting to make my case before the delegates, I was able to sway three of them. The human Admiral and the one that you call the Broker seemed as though they would be voting in favor of my application, and I believe that the Krell delegate's neutral response indicated that he would be joining them. If I am correct, then I already have three of the four votes required to pass the motion. All I need now is one more vote, but I am faced with a conundrum."

"And what conundrum is that?" Harry asked, setting his tablet down on the armrest beside him.

"I have been trained extensively in human social interaction and customs, I was designed to communicate with your kind, yet I know comparatively little about the other species. I wanted to ask if you would be willing to help me in my endeavor to learn more about them so that I might know how best to focus my future efforts. If only one of them can be swayed, then I will have fulfilled my purpose here."

"I dunno..." Harry muttered, shaking his head. "I promised to protect you, but helpin' you to get the vote that you need? I don't even know if..."

"You still doubt my intent," she sighed, more of a statement than a question. "Even after everything that I have told you."

"Listen, I don't want to get involved in the politics of all this. It's not up to me to decide if you should be admitted to the Coalition or not, I don't want that responsibility. I'm just a guy, I'm not qualified to judge anyone."

"And yet, you are uniquely positioned to help me," Holly replied. "I do not have the option of going to someone else. Is inaction not a form of action in itself? If you do nothing, and I fail, are you not equally as culpable as you would be if you had helped me succeed?"

Harry grumbled under his breath, crossing his arms.

"Are you tryin' to pull some reverse psychology on me?"

"I ask only that you provide me with resources so that I might learn about alien customs myself," she added, "access to a database or library of some kind."

"Chief says no computers," Harry replied stubbornly.

"Even if you were supervising me to ensure that I only accessed the relevant data?"

"I have my orders."

"And are you required to follow them so rigidly? Do you believe that your Security Chief does not trust you to make your own decisions, and to interpret his wishes? What is it about me that so offends you, Sergeant? What can I do to prove to you that my intentions are honorable?"

"It's not you," he replied. "For what it's worth, you're the nicest Bug I ever met. It's your Queen."

"I do not understand," Holly muttered, her antennae twitching. "Has my Queen not made her intentions clear by sending me here to speak for her?"

"The way you explained it to me, the Queen changed her strategy for purely logical reasons, yeah? She knew that she couldn't win, and so she switched things up. Bam, friendly hive."

"That is correct," Holly replied with a nod.

"But don't you see that it isn't enough?" Harry continued, perching on the edge of the couch cushion as the discussion became more heated. "I don't care that she changed her strategy, I care why she changed it. The way you talk about it, it's like hittin' a switch on a robot. She has no understandin' of right and wrong, she's just doing whatever is required to survive, which in this case is cooperatin' with the Coalition. She would just as soon kill us all without a shred of remorse if her analytical brain determined that to be the best course of action."

"I...do not understand," Holly said, the segmented plates on her forehead shifting to imitate a frown. "Why does it matter how the decision to make peace was reached? The outcome is the same."

"This is what I'm saying," Harry continued, gesturing to her. "You say that you regret the war and that you abhor violence, but you can't seem to grasp why what your hive was doing was so wrong. If you haven't learned anythin', then how can we trust you not to just flip that switch again as soon as it's deemed preferable to peace?"

"But I can assure you with utmost certainty that the Queen will not turn on you," Holly insisted. "In her mind, she is already joined to your hive, your blood runs through her brood's veins. This application is only a formality. To attack you, would be to attack herself."

"But does she feel regret for the Marines that she killed?" Harry continued. "Does she feel remorse, guilt, does she have the empathy to understand the pain that she inflicted? If not, then I don't know that I can support you."

"Do you feel remorse for the Betelgeusians that you have killed?" Holly asked.

"Come on," Harry complained, rolling his eyes at her. "You can't just change the subject."

"You kill my kind with impunity, do you feel regret for the pain that you inflict?"

"That's different, we're fightin' a defensive war, we don't have a choice."

"But now you are presented with a choice, are you not?"

"I don't see much of a choice," he replied.

"The choice is to genocide a people, or not to. To allow them to grow and change, or not to. My colony has been introduced to a new way of living, and we are willing to change everything that we are in order to survive, down to our very DNA. But we need time. Do we not deserve at least the opportunity to prove ourselves?"

"Not if it puts the Coalition in danger," Harry replied, as stubborn as ever. "Before you came along, the Bugs had never shown any signs of being anythin' more than thoughtless insects, animals driven by base instincts."

"That assumption would be wrong," Holly replied. "My people are sapient, we experience emotions, we have social lives. We may do it...differently, our two species experience the world in very different ways, but we are not animals. Perhaps it would make you uncomfortable to have to recognize that you too have been killing people, and not pests?"

"I've probably killed hundreds of Bugs with my own hands," Harry said, "and I don't feel a shred of remorse. I've assisted in eradicatin' half a dozen fleets down to the last Drone."

"And I understand why you had to do that," Holly insisted, "but it isn't necessary in this case. Doesn't the mere fact that you're talking to me right now, that we can interact without murdering one another, prove that something is different now?"

Harry was lost in thought for a moment, Holly looking on expectantly, her antennae twitching.

"I suppose it means somethin'."

"My Queen wishes to make more castes like myself, more Jarilans that can interact with the Coalition. We wouldn't be providing you with mindless hordes of Drones to throw against your enemies, but rather comrades, capable of friendship. There are other roles that we can fill, too, perhaps ones that never even crossed your minds. They would be more like you, more like...me."

He met her gaze for a moment, Holly blinking her expressive, pink eyes at him as she waited for his reply.

"I won't lie to you and claim that my Queen is fully conscious of her wrongdoing," Holly continued. "But she can learn, we can change. In your culture, are criminals not rehabilitated before being released back into society?"

"I'm probably gonna regret this," Harry sighed. "Alright, I'll help you. But I'm only lettin' you access the public database, nothing that requires any security clearance, okay?"

Holly nodded enthusiastically, her fluffy antennae bobbing in the air.

"What species did you want to learn about?" Harry asked, picking up his tablet. Holly slid onto the couch beside him, leaning close so that she could see the small screen. His first instinct was to recoil as her antennae tickled his nose, the skirt-like structure that was made from chitin and gossamer wings pressing up against his hip, but he hesitated. He had expected her pearly carapace to be tough and rigid, but it was actually fairly flexible, more like soft plastic than hard armor. Her smell was...odd. Like her namesake, it was flowery, perfumed. Something about it drew him in, and he had to make a conscious effort to dispel the strange impulse that had come over him.

"This is like the computer that my father used," she said, reaching out to touch the screen with one of her fleshy fingers. The exposed areas of her body that were not encased in chitin were a deep pink that bordered on red, the flesh encased in a layer of shiny skin, almost like it had been wrapped in a clear film. It was hard to judge if her skin was really transparent, or if its color just gave that impression. Did she have bones in there, or was it just meat? Harry was under the impression that insects couldn't move without an exoskeleton to anchor their muscles to.

"I would like to learn about the Araxie first," she said, Harry having to lean over a little so that the iridescent ruff of fur around her neck didn't brush against his cheek. "Their ambassador seemed more reasonable than the other Borealans."

"Alright," Harry muttered, scrolling to their entry in the database.

***

Moralez kicked off the heavy, magnetic boot, placing his prosthetic limb back on the deck. He was glad to be free of it, he hadn't worn a shoe on that foot since he had lost his original leg. Miller and Boyd were nearby, shedding their yellow space suits, Boyd almost falling over as he hopped on one leg. Lorza grew frustrated with him, marching over and lifting him off the floor by the collar, like a mother cat scruffing a kitten. She helped him pull the offending leg off, then set him back down, his cheeks flushing beneath his wrap-around visor.

"I can do it myself," he grumbled. "Lay off, you walking carpet."

"What, am I embarrassing you in front of the other children, malish?"

Moralez watched them interact, a smirk spreading across his scarred face. He knew enough about Polars to smell the sexual tension coming off the pair like a bad cologne.

"If you don't need me anymore, I'm going home," Miller said as he glanced at the two agents. "It's getting late, and they sure as shit aren't going to pay me overtime for this."

"Is it that late already?" Moralez asked. "I guess it's been a long day."

"It's gone ten PM Earth-standard," Boyd confirmed, holding a finger up to the side of his visor. "I know they only gave you three days to solve the case, Sheriff, but you aren't going to be much use if you don't get your beauty sleep."

"I suppose you're right," he replied begrudgingly. "I'll contact you in the morning, I'm not wasting a single minute that I don't have to."

"Whatever you say, Chief," Boyd replied as he slung his coat over his shoulders. "As for me, I'm gonna go check out these suites that you guys are so proud of. I'm expecting a Jacuzzi and a minibar."

CHAPTER 6: SQUEEZE PLAY

"You're back late," Kaisha said, Moralez stepping in through the automatic door to their apartment. She was sitting on the oversized couch, a tablet computer in her clawed hand, the lights dimmed. Her lab coat had been replaced with a more casual sweater, she must have been home for a good couple of hours. It looked like she had been reading while she waited for him to return. "I heard about what happened," she continued, setting the tablet down on the coffee table. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," he replied, making his way over and sitting down on the armrest beside her. "But my career might not be. Admiral Vos was furious, he's blaming me for what happened, and he's given me seventy-two hours to sort everything out. If I can't bring him the culprit in time, he's going to send in some sketchy SWAR guys to clean shop. It's gonna be bad."

"SWAR?" Kaisha asked.

"Special Operations types. I met one of them, something about him just...rubs me the wrong way. I don't doubt his combat abilities, but I doubt his professionalism, he doesn't have the demeanor of a Marine. He's an amputee, like me, quadruple."

"Quadruple?" Kaisha asked, raising an eyebrow. "That's pretty rare."

"Looks like he's made the most of a bad situation, his prosthetics were clearly geared for combat."

Kaisha's ice-blue eyes wandered down to his hand, narrowing as she noticed the tremor in his fingers. He quickly clenched his fist, then moved it out of view. She was smarter than that, almost knocking him off-balance as she reached out and gripped his wrist in her furry hand, holding his prosthetic up as she examined it.

"Your tremor is back?" she asked, her brow furrowing with concern.

"It's fine," he grumbled, trying to snatch it back and failing. "I'm just stressed out, you know how strong emotions interfere with the signals."

"I thought you were past this," she replied with a shake of her head.

"I just need to relax for a while, clear my head," he muttered as she released his hand from her grasp. "Come on, don't look at me like that...I'm fine, really."

"Well...you didn't bring me a longburger back, but I guess I can do the thing."

"Yeah?" Moralez asked, perking up a little at that.