Personal log:

We're more than halfway through the interference zone, but things are getting tight and pretty much everybody's on edge. The Breoll ship that's coming to intercept our projected exit point got going earlier than anyone expected when the details of the plan were being worked out, you see, and that kind of puts us behind a rock and a hard place. Push our engines harder, and we'll escape free and clear - but everybody gets a big dose of pseudo-cosmic rays.

If, on the other hand, we don't go fast enough and the enemy ship intercepts our position - well, I've heard Max and Christin talk about tactical contingency scenarios, but as far as I can tell, the only sure way we'd have to avoid getting captured would be to let the engine go boom and destroy ourselves. The Breoll ship isn't heavily armed - probably just has a simple ray gun and a few rocket bombs - but we're a courier ship, entirely without weapons except for the alien powers of the crew and passengers. Which aren't entirely to be discounted, but if it came to using them in a space fight - nobody's saying this for my sure, but I'd guess we had a ten percent chance of coming out on top, including trickery. Not too encouraging.

Isabel seems distracted all the time, and I'm sure that I've caught her checking to see if she has any of the three big symptoms of radiation poisioning already. Max and Liz don't seem to be letting it get to them, and I'd want to be hanging around with them, except that it's pretty clear that they want to spend a lot of 'couple time' alone together, and being a third wheel is not really so attractive an idea. Let's see, what else.

Haven't seen much of the crew, even Christin, since she's been working on making sure that the Breoll can't jam the broadcast from Kaalto, which would put us all suddenly in the dark as to their locations. The one exception is Jevrok, since his crew duties are mostly about taking care of us passengers, and he's been doing anything he can think of to help us feel more at ease - and by now I think he's frustrated that nothing's working too well. It probably doesn't help that he also has to do double duty as the medic, and has been preparing medications for radiation treatment and asking people if they feel okay every five minutes or so.

I asked him about those medications, by the way - apparently they're not preventative and you're not supposed to start treatment until symptoms have developed, which means that it does make sense for him to be asking. On a mild case, they don't kick in well enough to stop you from feeling miserable at first, but you 'bounce back' quicker or at least don't feel the effects after the first few days, as long as you stay on your dose. So that's some kind of a relief at least.

Michael, Maria, Rath, and Ava have all agreed to do the room switch, mostly I think because doing it now and moving everybody's stuff back and forth is a distraction from the waiting game. I've helped them carry some clothes etcetera, and so has Isabel, both of us wanting to get in on some of the diversioney goodness. Just hope that Maria doesn't regret her agreement to room wth Lonnie - she's been pretty nice ever since we got onto the ship actually, but I know that everybody is still wondering if she's going to suddenly change her spots back.

Guess that sort of covers everybody. I'm probably going to go do some more research on the alien computer programming stuff that I began before we got to Kaalto, maybe try running some travelling salesman problems and similar stuff through the ship's computer. It's quantum-based, the same technology as the one in Las Cruces that Tess sent me to, but the Antarians have had a while longer to figure out how best to use the best processor technolog in infinite dimensions... or something like that. I still can't quite get my brain around the descriptions of how quantum computing work.

#

"Oh, man, I don't feel good," Michael muttered, getting up from the table and the sort-of three dee jigsaw puzzle that they were building. The pieces of this particular diversion were actually tangible, little bits of metal and ceramic that fitted together in only particular ways. The computer could simulate flat jigsaw puzzles with pictures on a screen, but actually interacting wiith real objects, (if ones that had been made specifically for them when they decided to start a puzzle,) was a refreshing change after playing so long with simulated cards and board game pieces. "Like, for real this time."

"Oh, no," Maria breathed. As the rem exposure count got above fifty, everybody had been starting to feel slightly hypochondiracal and queasy, but Michael hadn't been prone to false alarms as dramatic as this announcement was. "What, what should we do, find a sink or toilet?"

"The ones in the rooms are probably too far," Michael said, swaying uncertainly for a moment. However, his next instinct seemed to be on target.

"Go for the recycler waste disposal," Isabel suggested just as Michael headed over to that particular compartment, right next to the food ordering slot.

"Is that really a good idea?" Kyle asked, as Michael pulled open the door, stared inside for a moment, and then made a burp and grimaced at the sour taste of it. "I mean, what if it clogs the mechanisms or something? We don't want to break that." And right at that point, Michael retched straight into the intake."

"Um, it should be alright," Liz said. "I mean, that disposal isn't just for dry stuff, it can take leftover food, even messy stuff, or - or drinks or whatever."

"Didn't Jevrok say that it was okay?" Isabel asked. "I remember that Alex actually asked him about safe places to barf a little while ago."

"Hmm... well, I guess we'll see," Maria said. "You feeling alright Isabel?"

"Um - yeah, I think so," she admitted, "but if Michael's actually feeling symptoms and hasn't just managed to psych himself into somatics, then I'll probably be showing them too, soon." She reconsidered, and turned to Alex. "Actually, I do feel a bit peaked."

"Maybe you should go lie down, then," he suggested. "Get some rest, and if you do feel queasy, you'll be only steps away from the can." He thought about that a bit longer. "Probably should make sure that the can isn't retracted into the bathroom wall, though."

"Yeah," she agreed, and kissed him on the cheek before leaving. "Liz, you gonna go check on your mate?"

"Hmm... might be good to warn him about Michael, at that," Liz said, running a hand through her hair pensively. "On the other hand, if there's any way that nerves could add to the situation, I don't really want to spread them around."

"Well, I'm going to go tell Jevrok," Maria put in. "The sooner we can put Michael on his meds, the better."

"Good idea," Michael agreed weakly. He had closed up the disposal again and was sitting very limply on the floor and leaned up against the wall. "I definitely don't want to let myself in for three weeks of this."

"Yeah, that's okay," Alex agreed. "He's probably in his cabin or the infirmary." Both of these locations were aft in the ship. "I'll go fore."

"Hmm... are you spreading the news?" Liz asked. Max was probably fore, watching in the cockpit or someplace else, and it didn't really matter much if Liz refused to go and scare Max with the fact that his best friend had thrown up if Alex told him, after all.

"Umm - not deliberately, but I won't stay quiet if it's on topic," Alex said. "Don't worry."

"Well, okay." She turned back to the puzzle, keeping one eye on Michael, and Alex left the room. He thought about stopping at the second passenger cabin from the fore, which was theirs, but Isabel probably didn't need him popping in and checking on her already. In the cockpit, Max was indeed watching the forward viewing port and the screens with an intense, worried look, as Flaii and Variun went about their business silently. Quietly, Alex asked how things were going.

"Not so good," Max muttered. "Looks like things are going to be very dicey, avoiding the intercept. We're going to have to accelerate more, in a little bit."

That hadn't been anything that Alex had expected. "But... but Michael just barfed in the game room," he blurted out. It hadn't been at all how he'd expected to break the news, but what Max had said drove every other consideration out of his head with surprise.

"Already?" Variun muttered, irritated and just a bit worried. "We're hardly past four hundred... err, sixty rems." The sudden substitution started Alex even more, until he realized that 'roentgen equivalent in man' was a human equivalent that had caught on when Liz had started the monitoring program using it, and that the Rahlicx and Antarians probably had their own scale with different units. (Why were they making such a point of using ours, though, Alex wondered?)

"Sixty-three point nine," Flaiisar said, reading the first few digits off a slowly mounting indicator on the control board right in front of his seat.

"Still," Max muttered, looking around with a troubled expression on his face. "We thought that everybody would be safe from showing symptoms until reaching seventy."

"Maybe that was too optimistic a guess," Alex said, very slowly. "I mean, I know that you didn't really have any other info to go on - but you guys aren't really the same as natural hybrids. Your genes were carefully picked by the protectors, to show particular characteristics, and being sturdy under radiation exposure probably wasn't a criterion that they prized particularly highly."

"Right," Max agreed. "Well, I feel okay... how's everybody else?"

"Isabel said that she was a bit tired, went to lie down - and was talking about making sure that the toilet was ready just in case. Actually, no, that was me worrying about her more than Isabel herself..."

"Right," he said. "You - you realize that we still have to speed up, right? We need to get out into warp space before the Breoll can catch us - if we don't, then Michael got sick for nothing."

"Hmm... yeah, I got that," Alex agreed reluctantly, though the worry was starting to gnaw at him now.

"It's not like we'll be increasing our exposure all that much," Variun told them, though even he was starting to look a little bit apprehensive now. "We'll be out and into hyperspace sooner, where there's no particles to hit us, so even though the rate goes up higher, the lower duration partially offsets that."

"Yeah, I see that," Alex told him. Out of respect he didn't point out that it was completely obvious to anyone, though irritation at the whole situation actually tempted him. "Well, umm - rather not hang around here and watch, so I guess I'll go back and..." what? Try to read or listen to music in the cabin while Isabel was resting, which would probably disturb her? Try and stick some more pieces onto that stupid puzzle? He needed to find something else to distract him, but wasn't sure what.

"Good idea," Max said, even though Alex hadn't really gotten to much of an idea, good or bad. "I'll come with - could use a break from this stuff actually I guess." Alex nodded as some kind of a reply to this, and led the way out of the cockpit. As they got a few paces away Max cleared his throat. "Oh, by the way, would you be one of my groomsmen for the big wedding?"

Alex actually tripped over his own feet and crashed into the wall at that point, for no very good reason - he wasn't that surprised by the question, though it seemed a little out of the black sky, and there hadn't been so much as a tremor in the ship. "You're starting to plan it already?"

"Well, not really... I just thought I'd get some of the asking people stuff out of the way. Liz hasn't... well, last I knew she was still a bit stuck on who to invite to be her maid of honor."

"Right," Alex agreed. "Maria and Ava the front runners?" Max grunted an acknowledgement. Liz's oldest and best friend, and the 'sister' that she had only recently realized she had, who she had also grown very close to. Yeah, that could get sticky. Alex decided that Maria would probably get the job, unless she deliberately stepped aside and let Ava have it, because generally she was less secure and would have a harder time dealing with Liz picking someone else. "And I guess that you don't have that problem with naming a best man - it'd be Michael of course."

"Pretty much the size of it... which makes it very important to me that he doesn't get too irradiated," Max shot back dryly. "Oh, hi sweetie."

"Hey." Liz had stepped out of the games room just as they approached. "He spilled, huh?" That was said to Max, as he put an arm around her, and pointing a playful thumb over at Alex.

"Yeah, it kinduv slipped out when I found out that things are going to get worse before they get better," Alex said in a low tone back. "We're going to speed up - maybe already have."

"Ohh."

"And I think that maybe we should do something with Alex to help keep his mind off things, so that Izzie can get the rest she wants," Max suggested. "Not more puzzling. How about watching some galactica?"

"Sure I guess," Alex agreed, and Liz nodded as well. That was the old seventies version - part of the media that they'd traded for. "How did you... guess so much about how I was feeling? It seemed a little... faintly creepy actually. Or is it just easy to tell what's going on with me by the looks on my face?"

"Not that hard, actually," Liz said, leading the way back up to their room. "Though I'm not sure I could have told the part about you not wanting to puzzle anymore."

"I actually got a very faint flash," Max explained. "About you knowing the thing all over the game room - at least I assume it's the same puzzle. I haven't seen it since much work was started on it."

"Hmm." Alex considered. He hadn't been aware of that as even an idle daydream, but it was hard to deny that Max had gotten some insight into his state of mind from the image. "Oh - we'll have to keep the sound pretty low, if we're watching in your room, so that Isabel won't be able to get it."

"I don't think that'll be a problem," Liz said. "The soundproofing's okay for stuff like this. But maybe we could take the lounge, if nobody's there."

"I'll check," Max poked his head in. "Oh, hi Maria, Michael, Jevrok. How's the patient doing?" Alex couldn't really hear the answer. "Well, buck up - I guess that you'll be over the whole thing before any of the rest of us are."

Liz smiled just slightly and opened the door into the room that she shared with Max, pulling up the media library on the computer screen that covered the left wall as seen from the door.

#

It only took a few hours before all six of the 'pod squadders' were feeling the effects of cosmic particle bombardment. The rest of the passengers occupied themselves with helping their beloved aliens feel more comfortable - Maria taking care of Michael, of course... Liz Max, and Alex Isabel. Kyle, offered an unspoken choice, made his feelings clear by attending to Ava and generally ignoring her New York compatriots except when it would be completely rude and insensitive to deny them a simple request. Jevrok took up the slack with Rath and Lonnie, though, dealing with both of them as competently as any professional nurse could have, and also served to help with the others whenever they needed something more than amateur nursing and genuine TLC.

Pretty much everybody was well enough to watch the screens for the final few minutes though. The Breoll had managed to jam their incoming signal from Kaalto, and every counterjamming routine that Christin had managed to try failed to clear up all the interference, so nobody really knew how close that one enemy ship was to catching them. Of course, it couldn't really alter its speed or course while still in hyperspace jump, not without switching to a new destination - but their warp sensor readings hadn't been precise enough to say definitively what the original course had been, how quickly it would arrive to the very second, or exactly where in the area it would re-insert to normal space. Also, they weren't entirely sure where the interference zone ended, although sensor readings would make it clear when that border had been crossed, and they were safe to jump to warp themselves. Varium had a new course all laid in and ready for Flaiisar to engage once they were sure it would be alright.

"We've got what looks like insertion signature... fraggin' close," Christin reported over the intercom, which everybody was patched into now. "Confirmed. Only around forty thousand clicks away from our projected course - still much further than that ahead, but we'll be there soon at our current speed - maybe one minute." She gasped. "Launching missiles toward us - probably can't face the idea that we might be able to slip by them, and... shirrit, we don't have any anti-missile decoys on board, do we?"

"One actually, though it's kinduv old," Flaii announced. "Launched."

"Any chance that one decoy will get - how many missiles is it?" Michael asked. Maria tried to call up enough of a tactical display to answer him, but things seemed to be progressing much too quickly, and...

The ship rocked with shrapnel and energy blasts hitting their meager shields, but not any direct impact. "All missiles have detonated at extreme range," Christin announced. "Estimating warp space capability in five seconds - three seconds..."

"We have positive warp diagnostic!" Variun announced. "Laying in course!" And with a whoosh and a great shaking of the whole ship, the stars disappeared outside, replaced by the telltale colors of warp space.

"Okay, so first - what happened with the missiles?" Liz asked over the intercom.

"No," Christin said. "First - any signs of warp pursuit?"

"Not sure, but yes," Variun answered her, "there does seem to be a trace of another vessel following our slipstream. It's not getting stronger, though, so based on that they're not terribly close to us."

"And so, unlikely to follow?" Alex put in.

"Not likely, no," Flaii said. "As far as the missiles - there were three of them, and two actually went for the decoy I launched, which I wouldn't have expected. Christin, the third? I think that you did something about that..."

"Projected energy out into space to act as another decoy," she said. "Kind of a slim chance, but it worked." She sighed. "We're clear, we're out of radiation danger, and if the Breoll ship maanged to follow us all the way through our warpspace trail, when we'll deal with that in five days."

"Alright, go team," Kyle said. "Any other questions?"

There was the sound of somebody else contributing back to the toilet. "Oh. Guess that's not a question."

"Not really, man. Sorry."

"Alex?" Kyle asked. "Oh, no - you've come down with it too?"

"Not too surprised," Liz put in. "Final exposure was eighty-four point seven rems. We've probably all been repressing our own illness because of trying to take care of our friends." There was a faint sigh. "I really do feel pretty tired, come to think of it."

"Well, I think that I'm starting to feel better," Michael put in. "Guess the meds are starting to kick in at last. Oh, and you should probably report for your own diagnosis, Whitman."

"Yeah, thanks, man," he replied weakly.

#

By three days later, everybody pretty much had the barfing thing down under control, and another ship could clearly be seen in what Flaii and Variun described as 'the slipstream' behind them. As far as Christin would say, (1) it would insert back into real space maybe five or six seconds after they did, within a range of 50 kilometers or so, (2) it would have other weapons to bring to bear against them as soon as that happened, and (3) she was worried.

"Is there some way to use hyperspace itself to attackc them?" Maria brainstormed out loud in the rec room. "I mean - I realize that things are kind of complicated, but we're ahead of them, both travelling at insane velocities - can't we throw something back that they're going to have to run straight into?"

"Well, for one thing, it isn't as eaily as throwing something behind us and having it drift towards them in the slipstream," arium said solemnly, taking her suggestion seriously. "Releasing something massive and letting it 'drift' out of range of the discontinuity manifold - the warpspace drive - can be very dangerous for us. It won't drift back through warpspace because warp space travel is generally limited to characteristic velocities - except for some particular small variations - like the one that they used to follow our slipstream slightly faster than us and come up behind us."

"How dangerous?" Rath asked. Maria, Varium, and Max all glared at him. "Sorry, just curious. Would we explode?"

"Hmm... not directly," Varium said, "but whatever we were trying to throw at them would drop out of our warp space path, with explosive results even if it might not literally explode, and there'd be a shock wave of distorting space that would hit us. Not too many ships have tried it and brought back reports of what they went through - and I don't want us to be one of them."

"Or to be one of the ships who tries it and don't bring back reports," Max put in. "Okay, so we can't really reach them while we're both in hyperspace, and they can't reach us. What else?"

"We're going to have to see what we can do to prepare," Christin put in with a small smile. "We may not be armed at the moment, but the fabrication systems are running well, and we still have days to prepare for this action. I think that's enough time."

"Exactly what are you going to fabricate for them?" Maria asked, but Christin just turned the edges fo her mouth down slightly in thought.

"I should get started on the parts that I know we'll need," she said, and hurried out the door. Max turned and looked over at Liz, who smiled a bit weakly. He went over to where she was sitting.

"Still feeling a bit queasy?" he asked her.

"No, just tired. That thing you tried, 'healing' my stomach lining, actually seems to have worked better than the meds for the nausea." She looked down at the dry ration wafers and water sitting in front of her. "Actually feeling hungry for something a bit more interesting than this."

"Hey, I remember how tired I was of them," Max agreed. Jevrok had insisted that the ration wafers had the benefit of being very easy to digest and fairly nutritious, which had started Liz reminiscing of how her mother used to serve out crackers when she and Maria had the stomach flu when they were seven. "Tell you what, finish this now, and then if you're still feeling okay later I'll order a midnight snack for you out of the food slot in our room."

Liz's eyes lit up slightly. "Pizza?" she whispered, so low that Max could hardly hear her.

"Pizza might be pushing it for the first time off rations - a hamburger?"

"Hmm... yeah, I'll take what I can get," she agreed. And immediately started munching down her ration wafers with every appearance of pleasure. "So, what else can we do to keep busy? I get the feeling that Christin doesn't want our help with the Breoll issue, or for anybody to poke their nose into her plans."

"Yeah, I guess so," Max admitted. "She knows that she can ask any of us to assist, and wouldn't do it all herself if there was any chance that would increase the danger to the ship. We, umm - we could record a new video letter to broadcast out - now that we're past the blocade proper, we shouldn't have any problems transmitting."

"Not once the ship chasing us is taken care of." Something in Liz's eyes looked haunted, showing a suspicion deep inside that 'taking care' of the Breoll vessel might not be as easily done as said. Christin had been projecting confidence, but what if all that she, or any of them, could do was get a slim chance of prevailing, or even fifty fifty even odds? Liz knew that the situation was never truly as hopeless as it seemed - all the close escapes that she'd made through, or any of them, ever since meeting Max had told her that there was always a way. But the scientist inside her head said that just because there was always a way didn't mean that it would always work, that the coin flip would always come up heads just because it seemed to have done so up until this point. One time, they might really get the bad end of a fight...

"Hey, come on - don't let you face go all down like that," Max said, reaching out to put his hand on her leg, and that simple touch was enough to make her smile.

"Alright. Well... yes, I like the idea of getting something ready to send to Alinda," Liz told him. "That may not take so long, though - as long as we're sending letters back and forth, it seems to make sense to keep them short, rather than keeping track of long missives and having seven topics of conversation going on in each one." She sighed. "If the transmission delay to Kaalto was only eight seconds or so, then it'll be getting even shorter as we get closer, right? Maybe we could try talking to her live."

"Maybe," Max admitted. "Except that it requires keeping the connection open for longer. When we were at Kaalto, everybody knew that we were there, but now we kind of want to get lost again, and extended use of the communications array is still risky for that I think."

"Phooey," Liz pronounced, but she didn't really try to argue with the wisdom of that idea. "Oh, by the way, I've been meaning to mention this - did you know that the ship's library got extended further while we were docked?"

"Yeah, actually, Christin mentioned it," Max said a little vaguely. "What's the new stuff again?"

"Lots more on Vrelayan, to start with," Liz said with a smile, and Max brightened a bit too at the mention of their soon-to-be new home planet. "There's a lot more to it than the city of Landorin, which figures I suppose."

"Hmm, yeah, I guess," Max admitted. "I know that the city is a stop on a fairly remote trade route, but with a whole planet there would probably have to be parts that aren't deserted. Like what?" He paused. "Lonnie mentioned some scenic hills, actually, back when we were barreling through upstate New York."

"Yeah, I remember that," Liz said, and smiled. "That's Landorin state actually, and the city is nearly in the middle of it actually. But there's a big patch of forbidding rocky crags - bigger than Texas and California put together, at least.. that's all transuranics rush."

"Hmm?" Max frowned slightly in puzzlement. "The transuranics reference I get - those are stable elements heavier than any that have been discovered on Earth, right? Or semi-stable, still pretty radioactive, but at least they don't break down and disappear in microseconds."

"Yeah," Liz agreed. "So it's the 'rush' part that's confusing you?" Max nodded. "Think, like the Alaskan gold rush."

"Huh, really?" Max asked, and Liz nodded. "With prospectors working stakes and boom towns and everything? Huh - I'd have thought that if there was valuable stuff to be mined, they'd be more likely to go for super-efficient strip mining or something like that, not old fashioned single prospectors."

"Well, it's not exactly old-fashioned," Liz said. "I didn't really understand all of the reasons why, but there's weather conditions and something that futzes with the workings of big heavy machinery, so that a large-scale automated mining operation would be more trouble than it's worth."

"Hmm... maybe we could go to a trans-rush town on our honeymoon - it'd be something different, I'm sure," Max said. "Do they use any protection when handling the... ore? From radiation and so on?"

"Probably, I'd think, but the computer doesn't say," Liz told him. "Okay, all done." Sure enough, the wafers that she had been munching through were all consumed, and only a little bit of water remained in her tumbler, which she drained theatrically.

"Alright." Max got up a second after Liz did and took her hand in his. "Do you want to do the video letter thing right now?"

"No, maybe just lie down and listen to some music or something," she said. "Nineties soft pop or something, definitely not that Rahlicx stuff."

"Okay, whatever my darling bride desires," Max insisted. "Especially when she's still not feeling quite well."

#

"We're still underweaponed, but hopefully we'll have the advantage of surprise," Christin admitted to Max, Michael, and Lonnie a few hours before the warp space hop ended. "They won't be expecting us to put up any kind of a fight... I really think that that's true. Breollyn aren't clever this way, making do out of what's easy to hand, and I think that they have a hard time anticipating resourcefulness in others."

"Okay," Michael said. "So we need to find a way to sock it to 'em when they're not expecting it and either kill them or cripple them while we jump again, and make sure that they don't follow us." Christin nodded. "Huh... can't believe I'm admitting to this, but all I can think of was that if this was Star Trek, we'd agree to drop our shields so that they could beam a landing party over, to take us prisoner, and then fire when they dropped their own shields for the transport."

"Well, this ain't no star trek," Lonnie shot back. "And none of us have transporter beams."

"It's not an idea that's completely without merit, though," Christin admitted. "If they wanted to take us into custody, then they'd order us to dock and go through the airlocks - and that would require both ships dropping their shields as well."

"Alright," Max said evenly. "What's the problem with it? Or is there more than one?"

"Well, let's see. Breoll being Breoll, they might well fire on us before boarding, just to make sure that we're crippled too and to make sure that we don't try any funny tricks. And if they approach close to our airlock before dropping their shields, then we can't really deploy the weapons that I've jerryrigged - the cargo bay was the only spot I could really use as a firing bay."

"How about turning the whole premise around?" Lonnie argued. "Instead of trying to hit them when they're not expecting it, make a big show of threatening them with 'the weapon so terrible, we almost dare not use it.' If they're that dumb, they'll be pretty easy to trick. You could even blast an asteroid or something and say that that was using the lowest power setting."

"Hmm... this is what the humans refer to as 'a bluff,' right?" Christin asked after a moment's thought.

"Some of them, yeah."

"Well... just because the Breoll aren't that resourceful, don't think that they're easily bluffed. That sort of thing is definitely part of the way that they act among themselves, as far as I know from my reading." She sighed. "Still - that just might work, I have to admit. Especially since it might be a little bit hard for them to imagine that a bunch of hybrid earthlings and Rahlcix crew would have the nerve to play a bluff on them."

"Oh, if there's one thing we've got plenty of, it's nerve," Michael insisted.

"Yeah," Max agreed. "But if there's anybody who'd know how to play them - well, it's not us, Christin. You? Or would one of the crew have more experience?"

"I think that Variun has been in a few tight spots against the Breoll, back during the days of the Green Willow incident," Christin said. "Couldn't hurt to get his input."

"Hmm... I'll go see if he can make some time for us," Lonnie said, getting up.

"Yeah," Max agreed. "And you can tell us about the Green Willow incident, while we're waiting for him."

"Hmm? Oh, well, I wasn't around for it myself of course, having spent so many years on Earth myself," Christin disclaimed. "But, well... there was this huge row that started when the Breoll delegates to meet with some high Rahlicx official went and cut down a stand of trees in the Autarch's castle grounds that they'd been specifically told that they shouldn't touch. Apparently, to a Breoll's sense of stubbornness, being told not to do something just amounts to a challenge. There were marches and demonstrations in the city squares, some people even saying that they should go to war over the willows."

"Why were the trees so important to the Rahlicx?" Michael asked.

"Well, I'm not quite sure how to explain it to someone who doesn't share that cultural background," Christin admitted. "Having grown up on Rahlicx as an outsider myself, I don't fully understand it either, though I've picked up enough to accept what I don't fully appreciate..."

Captain Variun was indeed free to come and plan strategy with them, since there wasn't much that could be done for planning a new warp space jump until they actually got out of this one. They went over things for about an hour straight, working on the 'script' of their encounter with the Breoll, which seemed to go more like an old choose your own adventure book to Max, except it wouldn't be them making the choices, but the Breoll, since there were a few places where Christin and Variun admitted their enemies might react in a few different ways, depending on the personal quirks of the Breoll captain or anyone else who had input into his decision making process, or what kind of day they were having. Then they broke for natural functions and some quick snacks, and resumed with Liz and Isabel joining in on the project.

"You guys just about finished down there?" Flaii called to them over the intercom.

"Yeah, nearly," Variun replied. "Estimated time to insertion?"

"About three minutes."

"Alright, guess we'd better get up to the cockpit," Variun said, indicating that Christin and Max should accompany him with gestures.

"Places, people," Liz said with a small hopeful smile on her face. "We don't get 'take two' on this one, so nail it."

"Break a leg," Isabel chimed in.

#

"No, Captain Esstriss, I'm serious," Christin said to the short, pugnacious humanoid on the comm screen, genuine expression of panic crossing her face for the first time. "We need your help, and it would be to your benefit to assist us."

"Why would that be?" Esstriss shot back. "You are trying another trick."

"No, no tricks anymore," she insisted. "I'm coming clean with you. There isn't really any such device as the PU-286 explosive space modulator - we were just running some high-intensity power lines around the cargo bay in unusual configurations to make you think that maybe we did have a secret weapon. But when I tried to do a simple plasma ball as a 'demonstration bolt', it drained too much current from our secondary systems and unbalanced the main engines."

"Yes, that much is obvious," another of the Breoll said with considerable delight. "But why is that our concern?"

"One, I think that you're still under orders to capture us alive, if you possibly can," Max put in. "That means that you need to keep us alive if you can - and we won't be alive if our ship blows up. Two - we're carrying enough fuel and exotic explosives now that I think your ship would be damaged too when we go boom."

"Hmm." The captain considered them and seemed to weigh his options - especially the obvious one of just retreating out of the immediate blast range and watching. Finally, though, (perhaps unsure if he could get away with any report to his superior in that case,) he bowed to the inevitable. "But how is your survival to be assured? I will not commit my engineers to repair work on your vessel - that might be a trap."

"You won't have to leave your ship, neither you nor any of your crew, Captain," Variun told his opposite number. "My engineers tell me that a short burst of positrons into our resonance chamber will get the self-repair systems online again. Then we'll surrender to any precautions you consider necessary - once it's safe for both of us."

"Positrons?" More than one of the Breoll asked that question in unison.

"You've got an electrophase-based shielding system, right?" Christin asked. "It's simple - just reverse the polarity on the particle confinement beam and narrow the emitters to target our left flank, close to the stern. And for all the stars hurry!"

"Do as she says," Esstriss snapped at his underlings. "If I am risking my life here for these stupid traitors, I do not wish to fail over such an undertaking."

One of the bridge crew started adjusting controls. "These adjustments are not recommended under the safety protocols," the Breoll computer announced. "Unable to proceed without..."

"Oh, what the fark's sake is new," the Breoll first officer, (Max guessed,) snapped. "Nothing's under the safety protocols. Override by my palmprint." And he slapped his hand down on another computer surface.

"Override accepted."

"Alright, positron beam is online," the other officer said. "Beginning infusion... what?" First the main lights on the bridge went off, and then the communication beam itself failed.

"All primary systems on the Breoll ship are down, yes!" Christin remarked, pumping her arm in a very human gesture of self-congratulation. "Including shields, weapons, and all engines." She tapped a few keys. "Launching two TNT rockets, just to make sure that they stay busy until long after we're gone."

"Be careful, Chris," Max muttered. "I'd rather not breach their hull - patching holes and restoring life support when they're already crippled wouldn't be easy."

"I seldom scruple about leaving Breoll to die," Christin shot back, "but maybe that just means I've gotten too caught up in the various wars. As you say, it shall be." Two little spots of yellow light streaked onto the screen and impacted the helpless Breoll ship - no, only one actually made contact, blowing apart a few pieces of the warp engines in the stern. Quite possibly that was an area that hadn't been pressurized with at atmosphere to start with. The other rocket detonated while still seperated from the ship, but close enough that shrapnel peppered the hull, mangling sensor pods and communication arrays, shield emitters, and so on.

"Course laid in and engaging," Flaiisar said, and they turned away from the Breoll ship, accelerating conventionally for about ten seconds before the transition to warp space happened.

"Whew, I'm glad that the 'pretend to be damaged' plot worked, because we didn't really have a backup," Max admitted, leaning back against the cockpit wall. "What if they'd had anybody who knew enough about positrons to know that our explanation of how they could fix our engine trouble was complete and utter bullcrap?"

"Not too likely, with Breoll," Variun put in, chuckling to himself with relief. "I was more worried that they wouldn't be able to figure out how to override their own computer security protocols."

"You guys were all great," Isabel said from outside the doorway. "So, Variun, how long is this jump?"

"Nearly two weeks - I think I outdid myself making it convoluted and unexpected," he said. "And this might cheer you guys up somewhat - now that we're well passed the Breoll, it sort of makes more sense to travel a bit more directly and quickly, instead of wandering around very slowly and through out of the way places, like the original plan was."

"Because going more slowly gives somebody a better chance to lay another trap for us, right?" Max guessed. "We might not catch the next one in time."

"So how long will it take now?" Isabel asked.

"Maybe two months more, can't be quite sure," Variun said. "Now, go on, you kids, get outta here and have some fun."

"Can't argue with that," Max said, and hurried off to look for Liz.