***FLASH TRAFFIC***

TO: HASEGAWA, Cpt. Jade, cmdg. FWSC Carefree Victory AGS-3172
FROM: KIRK, Cpt. Winona, cmdg. FWSS Kongou CA-314

I'm afraid I don't have much in the way of good news for you this week, Captain. On the political front, we've received an updated analysis from the sociology team at Starbase Canaveral. Canaveral believes that your current diplomatic effort is the best move going forward, but they're also estimating that you'll hit a diplomatic wall within the next month or two. Every faction you've tried to persuade so far has been inclined to at least listen, if not agree, and the sociologists don't expect the remaining factions to be willing to hear you out. They may even become hostile if you press, so Canaveral advises that you take as light a touch as possible. That said, my chief sociologist wants me to include that zhe disagrees with Canaveral's assessment; a show of strength against any pushback might—and I want to stress the might—be enough to give you space to work. Cmdr. zh'Charrath's cultural background obviously has something of an influence on zher analysis, but I can't say that zhe has steered us wrong in contact scenarios with aggressive sophonts in the past. As the operative on the ground during an intervention, the decision is yours to make.

On the defense front, attached to this message are a collection of psionic shield systems you ought to be able to put together using available resources. We've sorted the designs according to how much strain they'll put on your autofac tanks and whether or not you need to start cannibalizing components from the ship. The bad news is that all the shields we've managed to come up with are very limited in scope so far; the majority are personal-scale, or at best could cover a radius of less than three meters from the source point. Our engineers understand from your reports that you have a set of networked drones that might be able to expand coverage but these psi-shields are very energy intensive. It's likely that you wouldn't have more than a few minutes before losing power and having to swap power cells or hook the shield up to main power. We can get longer and better performance from the shields, but that requires a larger and more consistent energy source. Ship's mains could sustain a 1km bubble more or less indefinitely, but that would require removing the warp core or one of the secondary fusions to do it, and we know that's not an option at this juncture. Your best bet for any defensive measure would be to find a consistent external source of power and exploit it to the fullest. I know that's a thin reed, but it's all we've got at the moment.

I'm sorry we don't have anything really better for you, but we're not giving up yet. My engineers are working on the question, and they might be able to pull something out of their hats. In the meantime we'll keep you abreast of the situation on our end as best we can. Clear skies, Captain.

—Kirk

CATELYN

In her youth, Catelyn Stark had spent much time on boats; they were, after all, one of the best ways to get around the riverlands she called home. The creaking of wood and the sound of water against the hull of the boat were things she knew, understood and appreciated, familiar things that reminded her of Riverrun and her family.

The Carefree Victory was wholly unfamiliar to her. The sky-ship betrayed no sense of motion, only the ground gliding beneath it at once faster than she ever dared anything could move and yet still so very slowly let her believe that she was not standing still. The sound of current was replaced by the soft rumble of whatever magic drove the ship through the air, low chimes and notes coming from the walls and the sorceress softly singing as she wove her magic.

Mado kara mieru
Kagayaku ume ichirin
ichirin hodo no
sono atatakasa

Mado kara mieru
Mabushii me ni wa aoba
Yama hototogisu
Aa hatsugatsuo

The words made no sense to her, but they sounded like the strange words the sorceress used to greet the king that day in Winterfell. Every now and again more such words would slip into her speech, and Cat would wonder how much more there was to the Ulthosi woman and her ways. The sorceress' song finished, and Cat turned away from the window in the front of the ship. "More of your magic?" she asked.

"Hm?" The sorceress looked up from the panoply of lights on the desk before her and blinked. "Oh!" she said, seemingly a little embarrassed by the sudden attention. "No, it's just an old song my grandmother taught me," she added with a small laugh. "She liked to sing when she was traveling, I guess I inherited it."

"It was very pretty," Cat said. "Even though I knew not the words. Is that the language of your people?"

"Some of them," replied the sorceress. "Somewhere between half and two-thirds of my family come from that background, I think. Genealogy was never really my thing. Anyway, the song's about the seasons, from spring to winter and back again. Each verse is its own poem, and... well, nihongo poetry is tricky to translate at the best of times. The first verse is something like, um, 'Looking through the window I see on the plum tree, one blossom's worth of warmth.' Or at least that's what Maga told me when I was little." She smiled sheepishly. "The things you think about when you're far from home, yeah?"

How strange this woman is floated through Catelyn's head in that moment as she beheld this creature that had fallen into their lives half a year prior. She could not reconcile the curious, amused girl in woman's shape that darted about the castle poking her nose into everything like an eager child, and the formidable witch that called down overwhelming force on Jaime Lannister's head to rescue her daughter. The way Sansa told the story, it was a whirlwind of magical fire that ripped the Kingslayer's armor apart like butter and left him naked before the sorceress's final blow. She wasn't entirely sure she liked the way Sansa's eyes gleamed when she told that last part of the story, though; the Kingslayer may certainly have deserved it, no question, but the pleasure her daughter took from seeing the Lannister unmanned was... unseemly. Ned was no help in that regard when she mentioned it, only noting that "the wolf's blood will out, one way or the other."

She hoped that, when the time came to betroth Sansa—properly this time, to some loyal Northern or river lord's son—that she would refrain from such behavior. Or at the least her betrothed would learn to tread lightly, lest he be trod upon.

"It'll be another hour or two before we reach Riverrun," the sorceress said. "If you'd like I can open up one of the spare rooms, give you someplace private to wait?"

"Thank you, but no," Cat said. Silence fell awkwardly over them for a time, punctuated only by the sky-ship's own noises. Cat turned back to the window, watching as the stony fields of the barrowlands turned to the deep greens of the Neck, letting the landscape beneath them quell a few of the twists in her belly. "May I ask a question, Mistress Jade?" she asked suddenly.

"Hm? Sure, go ahead."

"What happened in King's Landing?" Cat asked, turning completely away from the window to look as closely as she could at the Ulthosi.

The sorceress blinked hard. "I would've thought you had heard the story already," she said. "I mean, I'm pretty sure it was everywhere in Winterfell by the time I got back to the castle."

"I do not understand why you did what you did," Cat replied. "You took an enormous risk to protect my family, from what Ned said your own people will punish you for it—" a flash of pain crossed the sorceress's features at that "—and you knew that, but did it anyway. You are not our blood, you are not sworn to my lord husband, you are not even Westerosi. And yet you did this, and I know not why."

The sorceress closed her eyes. "There are a million and one reasons for why I did what I did," she said slowly. "Tactical, strategic reasons: I needed your husband to command the North while I dealt with the Others. Immediate reasons: Joffrey managed to punch every single button I have and by the end of our conversation I just saw red. But in the end, I did it because a little girl asked me for help and to my people if someone's in trouble and they ask for help, you help them. Everything else was a bonus. Or not; I suppose we'll see how that shakes out in the end." She opened her eyes and returned Cat's stare. "That's the why. If you want clarification on the what I'm happy to help." Her lips quirked upwards in a wry smile. "Or we could wait for Sansa to finish her song. It's actually a pretty solid accounting, as these things go, last time I heard her working on it."

"I feel like you're a terrible influence on my daughter, and yet I cannot fault you much for that. Like I cannot fault the sky for being blue, or water for being wet." Or wolves being wolves, for that matter.

"Thank you. I think."

***FLASH TRAFFIC***

TO: KIRK, Cpt. Winona, cmdg. FWSS Kongou CA-314
FROM: HASEGAWA, Cpt. Jade, cmdg. FWSC Carefree Victory AGS-3172

Well, I can't say I'm shocked by any of that. The political analysis sounds about right: I've pretty much burned through all the easy-mode alliances (or maybe "easy-mode" because goddamn some of these people are stubborn) and now it's onto the trickier ones. I've got decent hopes for the next three on the list, but that's just putting off the inevitable since the final two are either hostile-neutral or outright hostile at this point. Based on field conditions I've probably got a better shot taking zh'Charrath's advice more often than Canaveral's, so thank zher for the suggestion. I can't say it's worked perfectly but it's better than the sweet nothing I was on track to get previously, so.

Looked over the designs, I can retrofit some of these into the drones and get a decent phased-array going but you're right on the power consumption. I figure the array would only get me ten minutes of shield tops before the drones shut down, so that's less than ideal. On the upside though, you did enough of the groundwork that I think I can use your shield designs to recalibrate the deflector for anti-psi operations. That could end up being handier on a longer term than a standard shield.

Keep up the good work, Captain. Next report to come NLT six days from now.

—Hasegawa