Talon was mentally on autopilot as she watched the prowler lifting off of the hangar floor, nosing out of the narrow entrance with barely a hand's-width to spare on each side as Ensign Jardin's nimble and agile fingers danced across the — don't think of that right now!

Had the Lashret really sent what Talon thought she had? It hadn't been an 'order,' no, but the arrir felt that maybe it would have been better had it been so phrased. That would have been clearer, at least — she was no mizol, to read extensive instructions out of a sanzai message shorn of most of its side-channels!

{No need to worry! Now you can tell that listel tozet that you are simply 'following instructions'! Or maybe she will want to work 'with' us!} Spiral teased playfully. At least someone seemed happy to have received Stillstorm's… 'permission.' {You know, at the right monasteries, they let you 'double-book' an encount—}

Talon shut down that line of thinking instantly. {We will approach him as one would a fellow warrior and friend, not as one would an encounter.} That was the wiser option, no matter what Stillstorm had implied. For one thing, between his height, his skill at piloting, and his lack of sanzai, Alexander would have made a very strange male. Better not to try to fit him into that category.

{Why not both? There was this one time I went to Tempest's flight-deck baths during off-time, and...} Spiral sent back, along with an image that was not helping Talon's thoughts right now.

{That particular teidar has a 'reputation.'} Talon pointed out. {And not one that I want for myself.}

Acceleration pressed the two of them back into their seats, as Did Ever Plummet Sound raised his nose and leapt into the sky. Jardin was hopefully too focused on piloting to notice that his two copilots were distracted with their own conversation.

Spiral conceded the point. {But it is still only warriors being close friends, nothing more. And even if some seek to make it 'similar' to an encounter, for others it can also be simply the pure camaraderie of fellow warriors.} She added a few memories of her, Talon, and several of their diral-sisters trading off back-scrubbing and hair-cleaning in the same compartment after returning from a mission.

Talon's heart clenched at the scene, at faces and mind-signatures of loroi forever lost.

Waterfall and Carbon comparing their kills from the last sortie while they cleaned the interiors of their suits. Talon herself rinsing shampoo from the shoulder-length black hair of another loroi, the flowing mane that Brook had claimed was her right first as leader of first their diral and then their squadron. Sharpleaf leaning her head on Emerald's bare shoulder as both dozed off while their suits dried on the rack behind them.

She felt the affection that Spiral still held for them all. The memories of how the stresses left by combat had melted away under the massaging of soft water and strong fingers.

Spiral let the memories fade from the sanzai link, but her emotions were still raw as she sent {Now imagine if we in the squadron had never been that close. If we had not been diral-sisters, knowing each other, trusting each other in mind and body both.}

The junior tenoin indicated the human who sat in the cockpit with them, a faint smile on his face as he piloted the prowler out of the Ring's artificial atmosphere. {Aliens cannot form these bonds. They are mind-blind. They cannot feel each other, not really, not where it counts. Physical touch and intimacy are the closest imitation they can get, whether they are Neridi, Barsam, Arekka, Delrias… or Human.}

Spiral re-sent the sense of comfort, of belonging, that she had felt when being so close to her diral-sisters. And compared it favorably to a — thankfully brief — memory of her own encounter with a male, Spiral still flushed from her diral graduation. {It is always… closer with fellow warriors, I am told. And it seems to me that it would be so. Would you deny that comfort to a warrior of a species that looks so like us, just because he is a male and it seems strange?}

Talon thought about it as the prowler banked into a sweeping turn, better able to maneuver stealthily now that it was free of the atmosphere. It would feel wrong to… 'manipulate' a normal male in such a way. Especially since she knew that the Lashret hadn't suggested it out of the softness of her flinty heart or any concern over the human's mental well-being.

But to provide a shoulder to lean on for a fellow warrior? One who had lost so much more than had even Talon and Spiral's ever-shrinking diral? Even more than had that red-haired berserker in the hold down below?

Talon could do that, and she let that certainty leak into her sanzai.

In a flash, deadly-serious Spiral was gone, replaced with the always-teasing sister that Talon had long known. {Especially when he is cute, if you ignore his weird height and broad shoulders. I wonder if—}

Talon cut her off. {A warrior is never 'cute.'}

{Message received, Arrir!} Spiral acknowledged her as if to a formal superior. But she couldn't keep up the façade of seriousness for long. {Then what is he? As a warrior, of course.}

Talon glanced over at the alien pilot. The alien warrior. She searched her mind for a term that fit. It was… difficult for someone that she had known for less than a day, and she was not sure how much was her own mind projecting what it wanted to see in the admittedly-intriguing alien that she was ordered to 'approach.' Friendly? Brave? Determined?

"Just right."

{Yes, exactly.} leaked her subconscious mind, before she realized that it was Jardin who had spoken.

Spiral let out a strangled squeak as she fought to keep her peals of laughter contained to sanzai only, and Jardin continued. "Right above the target site." He glanced over at Spiral before turning to Talon with a quizzical expression on his face. "I understand that it's an, uh, emotional moment. Would your Lashret wish to say a few words?"

{See?} sent Spiral. {He's as perceptive and thoughtful as any—}

"That is good of you to say." Talon spoke aloud, even as her eyes flashed a warning at her diral-sister that she didn't risk putting into sanzai. "I will ask her now."

{Lashret, we are holding station at the drop coordinates above Tempest's wreck. Pilot Jardin asks if you wish to speak the ship's honor before we resign the vessel.}

Stillstorm's curiosity echoed through the link. {The humans have a similar practice? Or did our ancestors of his era all practice as we do on Taben?}

{I do not know, Lashret. He did not say.}

{Inform him that I will be there in seventy solon.} The Torrai cut the link.

"Lashret Stillstorm agrees with your suggestion." Talon said, before adding "We are appreciative of your mindfulness." She considered asking the mizol for aid in cramming her thoughts into the limited form of vocal words, but decided against it. This was to be personal.

"Sure, I—" Jardin paused, grimacing. "I know what it's like to lose one's ship. And—" his eyes searched Talon's for a moment, before he turned back to his display. "And if I'm not mistaken, your 'Tempest' was shot down fast enough that you probably didn't have time to pull all the bodies from the ship. Still unburied dead left aboard."

'Unburied'?

"Humans bury their dead?" That didn't seem quite… sanitary.

"That's most traditional, but cremation is done when, uh, the circumstances require it. I understand that—" he cut himself off again, clearly thinking even while he spoke in that peculiar alien way. "Actually, how do loroi handle their war dead nowadays?"

"Cremation is the honorable way." She answered. "Was it not always so?"

"The Soia kept the remains of those who 'lived greatly and nobly for the Empire' in large mausoleums. Mostly ended up full of architects, scientists and politicians, the 'Greats' that the Soia wanted everybody to remember. Dead warriors planetside were usually buried in communal graves, once stripped of their armor and anything else recyclable. Aboard the moon-ships, the bodies themselves were sent to the recycler too."

Talon and Spiral shared a moment of revulsion at the callousness. "And those who sided with humanity?"

"They, uh, didn't want to do things the Soia way. Usually went with cremation, but some requested to be interred in Loroi mausoleums, to make a point. Ended up with a good few of those on and above Earth, actually; the UEG and the Legions making a joint statement." He snorted. "More to each other than to anybody else."

Before she could say anything to that, the door hissed open and Stillstorm entered once more, followed by Colonel Jardin. "Still and steady, Ensign?" he asked his nephew.

"Holding nose-up above the drop point, sir, ready to go." the younger Jardin replied. "Rear hatch is ready to open on command."

The Colonel nodded and pressed himself up against the side of the compartment, opposite Spiral. He gestured with one hand. "Your show, Lashret."

Apparently understanding the meaning of his invitation, Stillstorm took a half-step forward into the center of the small open area right behind the two forward crew seats. Talon felt her brief indecision over whether to keep the ceremony to sanzai or break with tradition and speak aloud.

Tradition won.

The recently-awoken listel tozet briefly sent from just outside the cockpit, indicating that she was ready to memorize the proceedings.

Stillstorm began, {The vessel Tempest served for sixteen years, twenty-four nanapi, and nine days. In that time, he earned eighteen Combat Banners and his crew were awarded the Union Starburst twice and the Emperor's Citation once. When the war was at its most dire point, he was always to be found where the fighting was fiercest. As his brothers foundered, he battled on through the worst conditions the war would see, in the hope that the winds of victory would one day sweep warmly across his decks. The names of more than a hundred battles are in his Record of Service and he has survived many attacks… until now. He has given his all for the Union and for his crew, and his honor as a warrior stands unmarred.}

Even tradition had to yield slightly, as Stillstorm then spoke aloud, "Open this vessel's hatch."

Ensign Jardin tapped a single command, nodding silently back at her.

With the number of loroi eyes and minds each broadcasting their view of events in the compartments below, it was easy for Talon to follow along even from the bridge. The somberness of the loroi packed into the prowler coalesced into a blanket, centered around the two Taben-born soroin that stood flanking the Type-A containers as the slowly-opening ramp let distant sunlight play across the scene.

Once the ramp was open, the two soroin performed a last-minute check on the simple guidance package that had been attached to the crate, and then gently pushed it out to float away towards the Ring interior below.

Stillstorm finished, {To preserve his memory and his dignity, we now put him to the torch.}

Few loroi eyes were dry aboard the Did Ever Plummet Sound as the package fell towards their former vessel. Even those not from Taben were pulled along by the emotions of those who did recognize the combination of Belerid warrior's-pyre and Amenalid ship-retirement ceremony.

For the first time in her life, it struck Talon as strange how loroi — well, mostly Tabenid loroi — felt nothing odd at speaking of a male warrior's honor… when the 'male' in question was a warship.

At a sharp nod from Stillstorm, the ramp closed once more. Even at a distance of fifty thousand mannal, the burst of radiation that would be released by the detonation would be nothing to sneer at.

Ensign Jardin glanced between the three loroi in the room, and then quickly tapped a brief series of inputs. The prowler rotated slowly on its vertical axis, the cockpit windows swinging around just in time for their eyes to track the Type-A canister as it fell out of visual range.

A video-feed projection flared to life above the pilot's console, alongside a rapidly-changing number of human characters. Another tap from Ensign Jardin, and it re-formatted to show a countdown in solon and using Trade numerals. Talon carefully eyed the feed and numbers, ensuring that she did her part in sending every detail on to the crew down in the hold, especially to the tozet in the corridor.

Eight, seven, six, five…

The two Jardins each disabled their lotai and snapped their right hand up to their forehead, palm flat, gaze fixed on the video feed. Sixty-two minds pulsed with mixed sadness and resolve as the eye-searing distant blast blanked out the display.

Talon was far from the only loroi aboard who felt that brief burst of kinship with their newfound alien once- —and perhaps future — -allies.

When the fireball faded, the two humans dropped their hands and raised their lotai.

Stillstorm said simply, "Thank you." in an uncommon bout of politeness. She looked to the Colonel. "You say that your craft can engage this 'slipspace' drive at any point within a system?"

Instead, it was Ensign Jardin who answered. "Ordinarily, yes. But once we drew clear of the Ring, our slipspace sensors went… strange."

The Lashret turned to him. "There have been several days of 'strange' in this system. Explain."

"Slipspace is… 'complex.'" The pilot said. "Ordinarily, it would be simple enough to slice open a portal here and leave. But the, uh, 'barrier' as one could call it between realspace and slipspace is much more… 'solid' for lack of a better word, than I've ever seen before. Than the nav computer even knows what to do with."

Stillstorm turned to Talon. {Pilot, see if any of this is recognizable to you.}

{Affirmative, Lashret.} Talon stood from her seat and squeezed past the torrai to lean over Alexander Jardin. "Can you maybe show the readings that are so strange to you? I am a little trained in ship-size navigation and also in travel beyond light."

"Sure. Here." He brought up the display again. "Display mode toggle is here, and this one's the scale."

"Very much thanks." Talon said distractedly, flipping between the data sorting modes and looking for anything familiar. Even with the screen set to Trade, the method of organizing the information was, well, alien. Until—

"This appears familiar." She finally came across a field-strength sort overlaid onto the system as a whole. She played with the amplification settings several steps in either direction, before returning it to the default. "It looks normal and complete to me. There is the jump zone on which we entered the system, there and there are the other two known jump zones. It all is looking normal for the purpose of navigation. For beyond that, I am not the best to be asked."

She sent {Lashret, I recommend that we—} Oh. She glanced over her shoulder to confirm that Stillstorm had left the room while she was distracted, and that Beryl was just now leaning over Ensign Jardin's other side. {Listel Tozet, is there anything that you can see which looks unusual about these readings?}

Several solon later, the white-haired loroi shook her head. {This all appears normal. It is as I remember it upon entry to the system.} She turned to look down at Jardin. "I cannot see anything that is unusual. Is this not what you are used to seeing with your sensors?"

The two humans looked at each other for some time. "Not at all." Ensign Jardin pointed to the screen, circling one finger around. "This? We've never seen that before."

Beryl looked over his head at Talon, both loroi exchanging a puzzled look. The tozet spoke first. "It is the system gravity well. The line describes the volume within which it is too dangerous to attempt a jump into hyperspace."

Talon added "This is not common in your experience?"

"The gravity well is a gravity well, yes." The younger Jardin repeated. "The weird part is that the slipspace boundary is suddenly tied to it."

"Is that not normal?"

"No. I'm a pilot, not a physicist, but I know that slipspace, uh, doesn't work like that."

His uncle mused, "Or it didn't work like that."

Ensign Jardin craned his neck, looking back in surprise. "You think slipspace could've... 'changed'?"

"We are floating here, right next to a Ring that was built to weaponize slipspace. We fired it, and now slipspace is acting 'different.'" He nodded to Talon and Beryl. "We already know that the Ring did not perform exactly as Tempest thought it would. If you want my guess?" He blew out a breath. "The Soia misplaced a zero or two in their math, and now they broke slipspace."

The two loroi in the room struggled to imagine the known laws governing FTL travel as being 'broken.' "If your slipspace is tied now to the gravity well, maybe it is a good thing to try if we move to a jump zone? It could be a solution to this problem that you have seen." said Talon.

"Do it." Said the Colonel.

{Lashret?} Talon asked, forwarding the essence of the conversation.

{That is… interesting. Does it appear that the humans are telling the truth?"}

{About things being different than they remember? I am no mizol to know for certain, but their surprise and confusion seemed genuine.}

{Very interesting.} Stillstorm repeated. {It seems that we have little choice but to hope that your suggestion will work. Do what you can to see that it does.} She ended the connection.

Well, that left Talon in an interesting position. "Lashret Stillstorm agrees that this idea is most worth attempting." Now, finding how a pair of tenoin — who had trained in the basics of faster-than-light navigation but had experience only as a fighter pilot — and a listel tozet sensor officer were going to help much when the two people who had even heard of 'slipspace' were confused would be a challenge.

"Good." said Ensign Jardin, who had already begun entering commands into his console. Did Ever Plummet Sound accelerated smoothly — but slowly — away from the Ring, faint waves of nervousness sent out from Spiral as her station outlined the massive Shell fleet which lay less than three light-solon away.

"How is this ship made not-seen by the Enemy?" asked the narrat.

"I'd say that it was classified," said Colonel Jardin, leaning back against the closed door, "but the truth is that I don't know how it works, only that it works. Baffles, paint, emitter fields; they are all black-boxes to me."

His nephew added "Don't worry, the Plummet has snuck around Soia home systems through sensor nets dense enough to walk on. Whatever these Bugs of yours have won't be enough to see her."

Spiral's mind-glow revealed her relief at hearing that. "That is good to be told." A pinging signal from the control console in front of her prompted a flare of curiosity. "Also, what means this alert here?" She pointed to the display.

Colonel Jardin looked over, and Talon saw his face go pale. "[Alex, gun the engines. Get us out of here. Now.]"

Talon was pushed back into her seat by the sudden acceleration. She didn't know exactly how fast the small ship could accelerate, but if it was enough to bleed through what must be very advanced inertial dampeners…

"What is it?" she asked.

"Slipspace tear. Big one. Looks like the Ring's generating it, or something."

"The Ring!?" Alexander Jardin exclaimed.

"It's too clean to be anything but intentional — it must be some kind of defense mechanism, maybe triggered by that blast."

The ship began to vibrate slightly, Talon's seat shaking underneath her.

Ensign Jardin didn't take his eyes off of his screen. "We're still too deep in its well, it's dragging us in after it!" His eyes flicked to the side, meeting Talon's gaze for a fraction of a solon. "Tell your people to grab hold of something, this is going to get rough!"

Beryl had been transmitting the spoken conversation over sanzai the whole time. Talon could feel the spikes of alarm from the loroi throughout the vessel, as the alien craft began to shake around them. More and more violently so, intensifying by the solon.

One of the gallen blurted out {Their jump drive must not be calibrated correctly! It feels as if it is attempting to engage outside of a jump zone!}

Talon's hands clenched and un-clenched. All of her tenoin training and carefully-learned instincts screamed at her to take control of the vessel, to turn it aside from the path it was on. But for a craft that she had never seen before? She would not know where to start. Unless—

She quickly said "Can you display the navigation data also on my screen?"

By way of an answer, Jardin tapped a command. The display in front of Talon's seat blinked over to showing the still-normal-looking gravity well that had so confused the humans.

Of course, a normal gravity well did not have an ever-deepening hole growing inside it, centered on an ancient Ring.

And encompassing a fleeing ship.

One corner of Talon's mind noted with grim satisfaction that the Shell fleet was scattering, fleeing in what could only be abject terror from the eye-searing tear in the fabric of space that had appeared near their formation.

That had already devoured eighteen ships, as its rate of expansion increased. Twenty-two, twenty-nine. Forty.

"Hold on!" Ensign Jardin shouted, as the ship creaked and groaned around them, straining under the brutal force imparted by blue-lined engines. "It's going to catch us in thirty solon!"

Talon's gaze flicked across the chart showing the exact curvature of the artificial gravity well that surrounded the tear. The rupture itself was a discontinuity too deep for the sensors to measure, but the gravity well forming around it seemed to be shaped as if from a normal gravity source, like the gas giant in whose shadow the action was unfolding.

And jumping from a normal gravity well was possible... although it had never been done from a well smaller than that cast by a star.

At least, it had never been done by any ship which had ever been seen again.

But as every child on their first diral learned, 'the Hungry can't be Picky.'

She blocked out the sheer pressure of the situation as best she could, concentrating on the smoothly-curving gravity plane as it bent and deformed in a wave. A wave that would catch up to the Did Ever Plummet Sound in less than twenty solon, by her estimation.

The layout of the controls was strange, but she managed to plot out a jump course. It would be rough, yes, and throw them out of the system in the wrong direction to rendezvous with Strike Group 51 on their route, but it would have to do.

"Ensign! Put us on this path! As quick as can do!" she barked, pointing to the screen. "And engage your jump drive when the field hits this point!"

He glanced over, and froze for a heartbeat. Sent a wide-eyed stare at her. Questioning. Doubting.

But only for a heartbeat, and then he nodded.

Did Ever Plummet Sound yawed sharply, engines blazing as they forced her onto a new course.

Mere solon later, and the torn-open gaping maw of unreality swallowed her whole.

Talon's eyes stayed shut, still stinging with the pain of just how bright the flash had been. Had the jump worked?

Or was she dead, now sunk in the Endless Deeps alongside her sisters-in-arms?

"[Holy shit.]"

Then again, the tales passed down through uncounted generations of Tabenid sailors probably would have mentioned if the Endless Deeps also held strange, mind-blind aliens.

She blinked away the after-image seared into her eyes, looking around the cockpit.

Ensign Jardin tapped at the controls in front of him with clumsy hands, disbelief plain in his voice. "We're through. Slipspace drive is nominal, no damage reported." He stopped, and turned to look over at Talon. "You plotted a slipspace jump — something you'd just heard of — in, what, eight solon?"

"It was as if a normal jump, only from a shifting gravity well." she demurred. "But is that unusual?"

"It's an absolute miracle!" he cheered, leaning over to clap her on the back. She hoped he hadn't hurt his hand on her armor.

Talon turned her head aside, flushing at the raw admiration in the alien's eyes. "I did not in time finish plotting the emergence point. It seems that we may now be adrift unless a gravity well that is strong enough appears to grasp us back down."

"Not a problem." He responded, gesturing to the screen once more. "The drive's got us held steady on this filament, and it looks like it goes on a ways without any cross-strands. The advance sensors will tell us when we sight an exit vector to take us back down, then we follow that route back to realspace."

Talon blinked in surprise, but Beryl beat her to a spoken response. The listel tozet pushed herself up from the floor and asked "Your vessels can maneuver during a faster-than-light jump?"

Now that she mentioned it, Talon's mind finally caught up to what had been eating at it. She hunted across the keyboard in front of her, finally finding the key that minimized the display.

With it gone, the pitch-black and featureless expanse 'visible' through the cockpit windows glared down at her. Was this what ships traveled through, in that brief moment between heartbeats during a jump? And why was the human craft… 'caught' here like a nimai whose intended solon-long flight out of the water had found it instead flopping on a boat's deck?

"Of course." the human said to her, brows furrowing as he turned to Talon. "Uh, how do FTL jumps normally go for your ships?"

A corner of her mind flared with satisfaction that he asked her instead of the listel. But mostly, Talon focused on clearly echoing her years-ago instructors as she answered "The navigator calculates a travel vector towards the target gravity well, and the ship engages its jump drive at a precise point along that vector. The set of safe combinations of vector and position are called the 'outbound jump zone.' If the calculations are correct, the ship emerges near the target star, within a field that is smaller and is called the 'inbound jump zone.'"

Beryl added "There is no maneuvering done during a jump. It is ballistic. It also takes less than a solon, too short to notice."

"Instant transit, ballistic course." Jardin murmured to himself, brow creasing as he stared through Talon. Then his eyes widened. "You ride a single filament section stretching from one star to another? But that can't be longer than what, eight or ten light-years?"

"Yes." Talon confirmed. Then her expression changed to match his, as the implication struck. "Human ships are not so limited in travel to only adjacent stars!?"

"No, and neither were the Soia." he confirmed.

Beryl mused "But our jump drives are based off of ancient Soia designs found on planets near ours."

The ensign snorted. "Then I think they left you a lemon." He paused, one hand rubbing along his chin. "Or maybe it was a short-distance probe?"

{Remarkable.} sent Beryl, musing over the strategic implications clearly visible in her mind.

{Indeed so.} agreed Stillstorm. {See if it is possible to navigate to the system through which the Strike Group should be navigating.}

"Can it be done that we turn around and move in the other direction from the system?" asked Talon.

"Once we get to a filament juncture, yeah. Should be one along soon. We've only justleft the system, now. Probably will—"

Before the human pilot could finish, another, more subdued alarm sounded. Underfoot, the steady hum of the Plummet's engines underfoot changed pitch suddenly.

Alexander called out "Proximity alarm! We've got a major mass source drifting just ahead, right in the middle of the thread. Should be close enough to—" his voice caught. "Wait, is that a—?"

Simultaneously with his spoken words, a mental ping of confusion and curiosity radiated from Spiral. Centered on the new reading on her sensor station.

A very large reading.

"[I'll be damned.]" Colonel Jardin murmured.

"What thing is it?" asked Spiral.

The Colonel pointed to the scale indicators on the screen, and his nephew sucked in a rapid breath.

"It is a stricken ship, floating dead in slipspace. Part of one, anyways. A fragment of a much larger vessel, destroyed long ago." The older human said, something… hungry in his voice. "A Soia moon-ship."

Author's Note:

For anyone interested, Stillstorm's speech here before Tempest's final destruction is largely a paraphrasing of USN Admiral Halsey's speech at the decommissioning of USS Enterprise CV-6. Given that Halsey and Enterprise are vaguely comparable to Stillstorm and Tempest (Aggressive, sometimes-harsh but highly capable commanders commanding a warship which became the sole survivor of their respective classes, an ambitious design that made use of a newly-developed weapons system in a crude and inefficient way which would be improved upon later but left those early classes with some serious design flaws) it seemed appropriate.