"This is Lieutenant Commander Wraia Clay, commanding the Sol Naval Vessel Cobra," Wraia said, putting on her best, crisp diplomatic voice. She'd perfected it as a teenager, attending the prolific fund-raisers and political rallies that her father had been dragged to.

A different kind of training, but one she hoped would serve her well now.

"I address the Chief Navigator of your vessel," she continued, digging the proper term of address up from her studies. "We are not responsible for the Narvorian ships lost in this system. I urgently request communication with the Chief Navigator to discuss terms of ceasefire. I repeat, we wish to discuss terms of a ceasefire. We are standing down our weapons systems."

She looked over to Gallagher.

He held her gaze for several seconds, and she could see that every fibre of her XO's body want to keep their guns firmly locked on the Narvorian cruiser. For a moment she thought he might refuse, and in that moment a host of terrifying thoughts raced through her mind. If he disobeyed her orders she would be obliged to toss her best officer into the brig. The crew liked and respected Gallagher – who knew what that might do to morale.

Wraia suddenly felt very vulnerable, commander or not. Gallagher might well hold the fate of the ship in his hands.

"Aye, ma'am," he grated. His sense of reluctance surrounded him like fog, but he carried out the command nonetheless.

Reticules disappeared from the main HUD as the Cobra's targeting lasers switched off. In reality it would be the work of a few seconds to refocus the cataphract's guns on their adversary, but the gesture was more important than the practicalities. She glanced down at her right hand, and noticed it was shaking.

She wondered if this was the kind of situation that called for a prayer or two.

Praying wasn't really her style, though. Wraia clamped her hands together tightly and waited waited, staring at the Narvorian ship, willing its commander to understand. They had to talk.

A full minute passed without a response, violent or otherwise. She supposed that was a start.

"Ensign Briar, resend the last message," she said quietly. "Make sure they know we mean it."

"Aye, ma'am."

The bridge crew lapsed into silence again, and she could feel their nerves now. The adrenaline of the battle was wearing off. Scarreth fidgeted with her controls; Hooper paced back and forth in front of her console. She could see Gallagher out of the corner of her eye, speaking in hushed tones to the gunnery teams. Below decks she knew it would be a different story, with medical teams and damage control parties racing up and down the ship to deal with casualties and repairs.

"Ma'am," Ensign Briar blurted, his voice shrill. "Ahem. Ma'am, I have ship-to-ship with the Narvorian flagship."

Wraia sat bolt upright, taking in a sharp breath. "What are they saying?"

"They want to talk to you. You'll be speaking with Chief Navigator Prallas Fifthhorn of the Narvorian Expeditionary Fleet."

Fifthhorn.

Wraia closed her eyes for a moment. That meant her counterpart was an experienced commander, a veteran of real war. 

Not someone to be taken lightly.

She nodded; opened her eyes and looked to Briar. "Translators?"

"Fully operational ma'am."

"Then put him through."

"Aye, ma'am. You're live...now."

"This is Lieutenant Commander Clay," she said. "Do I have the honour of addressing Prallas Fifthhorn?"

A few seconds passed as the translators converted her words from standardised Sol-Galactic into the staccato Narvorian dialect and fired it out into space. Then the process was returned, and an approximation of the other captain's voice erupted in the speakers.

"This is Chief Navigator Prallas Fifthhorn of the Rummus Lone," Prallas rumbled. "Speak quickly, Clay. Speak carefully. If I judge you to be false, we will fire upon you and your sister ship."

"I thank you for speaking with me," Wraia replied, speaking a little slower than normal and enunciating her words clearly to ensure there was nothing lost in translation. "You have attacked us because you believe we destroyed the Narvorian ships over this planet. This is not the case. I am not here to fight with you. I believe we have a joint enemy."

She stopped there, not wanting to overload too much through the translator at once. Little steps, little steps.

"Your scenario does not fit with our evidence," the Narvorian commander replied a moment later. "You are outgunned – your sister ship will not fight again. I believe you are playing for time."

Wraia bristled at that. Clearly Prallas Fifthhorn did not view her, or humans in general with much respect.

"With respect, Chief Navigator," she answered. "I do not need to play for time. My ship is still fully operational. If you truly wish to continue this fight, we can and will defend ourselves."

She felt the uneasy looks from the bridge crew, but she knew she had to present a front of strength. The Narvorians were not savages, but they had a far more martial culture than their human neighbours. Sheer backbone went a long way with people like that.

A longer pause greeted her statement, but she forced herself to remain patient. Who knew what the Narvorians might be discussing in the confines of their own bridge?

"If what you say is true," the Narvorian voice burst over the comm again, making her twitch in the command chair, "show us. Words are easily spun. I would see facts before deciding on your destruction."

"And you'll have them," she answered, and motioned to Briar to mute the channel.

"This guy must be a riot at parties," Ratcliffe chuckled nervously.

"Ms. Hooper," Wraia ordered, putting the pilot's inappropriate jibe down to the nerves they were all undoubtedly feeling. "Put a data packet together. All our information on the Manticore and Myrr Idol. Leave nothing out – the interior of the ship, our damage reports, the state of the colony – all of it. And make sure you include the image of that... thing as well."

"You want to send all of that to the Narvorians?"

"Yes I do."

"Gueller's not going to like that," Gallagher warned.

"He'll like it a lot more than breathing vacuum," she countered. "If we really want to convince them that we didn't destroy their ships, we need to provide an alternative. Ms. Hooper?"

"Aye, ma'am." Hooper's hands moved uneasily over the controls of her console, before she shunted the data packet across the Ensign Briar.

The comms officer fired the transmission out across the void.

And they waited. Minutes passed in anxious silence and she could almost feel the Narvorians chewing over the data she'd supplied. It would take them days to sort through it all, but she hoped even a cursory glance at what they'd uncovered would be enough to show the truth of the matter.

"Clay?"

Wraia inhaled sharply as Prallas Fifthhorn's voice – or at least the translator's immitation of it – burst over the comm without preamble. She nodded to Briar.

"I'm here," she said.

"We must speak in the real. You will come to our ship. I will permit a party of four to accompany you. Will you accept?"

"In the real?" Scarreth looked back over her shoulder with a confused frown.

"He means face to face," Briar interjected. "The translator's just being a bit literal."

"I accept," Wraia replied before anyone could say another word. She felt heads turn, horrified gazes lock onto her.

"Ma'am-," Gallagher started to say, but she cut him off with the wave of a hand.

"We will dispatch a galley," she continued. "Please send boarding instructions."

"We will speak soon. No harm will come to you, Commander Clay. We have much to discuss. Do not waste time."

Then the transmission cut out. Silence fell over the bridge again and Wraia exhaled, the ramifications of what she'd agreed to now washing over her. She should have been happy – thrilled even – but actually going over to the Narvorian vessel hadn't been in her plans.

There was a bleep from the comm station.

"Boarding instructions received," Briar said quietly.

"Ma'am, are you sure about this?" Gallagher asked. "If they want to harm you..."

"I think they would have done it by now."

"She's right," Ratcliffe interjected. "If they wanted to kill us they'd just start shooting. Narvorians are a lot of things, but they're not liars."

"Pass the word. Deck Officer Mayeda and a security detail will meet me at the launch bay."

"Aye, ma'am."

Wraia rose from her chair. "Ensign Briar?"

"Ma'am?"

"How's your Narvorian?"

The young man swallowed hard. "It's passable, ma'am."

"With me."

"But, the translators-"

"Are very good pieces of tech, Ensign, but I'd appreciate having someone with an ear for the language. Just in case."

"Aye, ma'am." With all the enthusiasm of a man walking to the gallows, Briar rose from the comms station and saluted.

Walking over to her second officer, Wraia stood to attention and faced him, hands clasped behind her back.

"The bridge is yours, Mr. Gallagher," she told him, the firmness of her voice masking the trepidation she felt. "If this goes wrong, you have my permission to blast that ship to atoms."

"Yes, ma'am." He saluted firmly. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

*

The Narvorians were bulky bipeds that reminded Wraia of a rhinoceros. A little taller than humans on average, but much broader, almost square in their shapes, they trudged along on trunk-like legs, big arms hanging by their sides. Boulder-like skulls protruded from the necks of their armoured spacesuits, and from those thick, bulky snouts jutted forward.

Prallas Fifthhorn was bigger than most, standing at an imposing six and half feet tall, his leathery skin dark and weathered. His suit was the colour of brass, and a long-handled power mace hung from his belt. Speckled eyes of blue and green appraised her, suspiciously, but it was the large horn that protruded from the Narvorian leader's snout that kept her attention.

Almost twelve inches in length, it curved skyward, and Wraia knew from her histories that the horns were anything but decorative.

She rose from the chair she'd been given, smoothing down her uniform. To her right, Ensign Briar shot to his feet, lips pressed tight together and sweat beading on his brow. On the left, Mayeda looked a lot more at ease as he straightened up. Probably because the Narvorians had allowed him to keep his rifle, Wraia decided. If the aliens wanted to kill them all here and now there wouldn't be a lot that Mayeda and his guards could do about it, but letting them remain armed was a small olive branch.

"Chief Navigator," Wraia said, inclining her head respectfully. The portable translator on the table between them converted her speech into Narvorian, its little speakers gamely hurling her words out across the room.

The Narvorian returned the gesture, his big head dipping forward. Then he trundled forward. The accompanying guards stayed at the door like statues, eyes watching their human guests suspiciously.

Wraia stayed standing, trying to ignore the acrid tang in her mouth. The Narvorian atmosphere as breathable for short periods of time, but it tasted all wrong, like breathing a mix of woodsmoke and aerosols. The interior walls of the Rummus Lone were constructed of a blue-grey metal, all rigid angles and reinforced with dozens of thicker struts of armour. On their way through she'd seen little evidence of internal damage to the ship. The vessel was a bruiser, through and through.

"Thank you for speaking with me," she told him. "We did not come here to fight your people."

Prallas listened, his eyes inscrutable. His gaze shifted to Briar, then back across her to examine Mayeda. One big, three-fingered hand reached out with surprising gentleness to click the translator's power button. Then Prallas Fifthhorn looked her right in the eye and spoke.

"You trespassed."

Wraia recoiled slightly, unable to hide her surprise at hearing a passable version of Sol-Galactic coming out of the Narvorian commander's mouth. The accent was wonky, the vowels soft, but the words were clear enough. The big alien looked at her expectantly, his speckled eyes fixed on hers. She glanced at Briar; the ensign shrugged uneasily.

"I see." She cleared her throat, taking a moment to compose herself. "It was my understanding that the system we are currently inhabiting is unclaimed."

Prallas Fifthhorn let out a snort. "It is claimed now."

"It is?" Wraia pursed her lips. This stretch of space had remained unclaimed for a reason – to prevent further clashes between their respective civilisations. If true, Prallas' statement violated half a dozen different diplomatic backchannel assurances she knew existed between the human and Narvorian governments.

That was an issue to be dealt with another day, though.

"You have a colony here?"

"We did." The Narvorian inclined his head to the planet beyond the porthole. "Gone now. That is why we must speak. The images you sent. I have seen them."

"You've seen them?"

He pointed again. "Down there. The planet. When we found human ships in orbit, we thought you responsible." Prallas motioned one of his entourage forward, a squat female judging by the smaller hook of her horn. She wore the iron grey suit of the Narvorian engineering caste.

A black sphere was placed on the table between them, and a moment later an image projected out of the small hole in its top – a three dimensional camera recording. Wraia saw the remains of squat, flat-roofed structures that looked like Narvorian hab pods, but more than that, she saw the same strange spherical depressions in the ground around them, in their armoured walls, and in the streets beyond.

Just like Myrr Idol.

"This is your colony?" She glanced up at Prallas.

"Our people are gone." His nostrils flared with anger. "An enemy that steals the dead."

Narvorian honour had been greatly offended by this slight, she could see. She pursed her lips together for a moment as the images played out, then returned her gaze to Prallas.

"Your ships? They are the same?"

A nod.

"And you've examined the footage we sent you?"

Prallas's brow furrowed and he rattled off something in the clipped Narvorian tongue to the engineer. She looked just as baffled as she did.

"The images," Briar interjected, his voice shaking. "Pictures." He pointed at the sphere. "Mu-kir."

The Narvorian captain's eyes swelled with recognition and he nodded approvingly. "This one speaks."

"Only poorly." The ensign shifted his footing, clearly not enjoying being the focus of the burly alien's attention.

"We saw," Prallas confirmed, turning back to Wraia. "The thing in the dark. You believe it is what stole your dead? And ours?"

"I do."

"How did you come here?"

"We believe we can follow it. It is in the data we sent you," Wraia explained.

"Follow," Prallas repeated, rolling the word around in his anvil of a jaw. "You believe you can continue to follow it? From here?"

"We can certainly try."

"We do not follow. We hunt." Prallas edged forward, his stare intensifying as he placed his hands on the table. "You are strong, and you seek the thing in the dark. Will you hunt with us?"