The Black

“Navigation, go!”

“Propulsion, go!”

“Slip drive shell, go!”

“Data link, go. All vessels report successful integration.”

Ami watched the Commodore, flicking through pages of data on his wrist pad before walking over to the station's command chair and flicking through some more data on the holographic projectors.

“Coordinator? All we need is a destination to seal our fate.” He turned to her.

“If what I think happened, I believe Delmar space will be the safest. I believe you already have their beacon coordinates.” she stated.

“That we do. NAVIGATION, lay us to Confederation space, commence burn at your digression.” Commodore Burgoyne barked before taking a strange stance facing the viewer with his feet shoulder-width apart and his hands clasped behind his back.

“Humanity is certainly an interesting bunch. Are you sure this will work?” She took a step to stand alongside the

“Derek gives us about 80 percent. The man is always a pessimist. It doesn’t matter, Tours picked up a mass of ships in subspace headed to us from the opposite direction your escorts were supposed to come from.” The Commodore was maybe in his mid-40’s he had a short professional cut to his salt and pepper hair, and he was currently stroking a short beard he had grown since his arrival. “We counted 20 individual signatures, I’m not worried for my fleet, but I could not defeat them and protect you at the same time. Too many to not have one sneak through.”

“No indeed. We were stuck out here for to long. Word must have gotten out. A GHO station is a once-in-a-lifetime prize.” Ami nodded.

“Course laid in sir, commencing burn.” the commodore turned to sit on the command chair that had been made for him for this occasion. Ami just lowered her tail to lean on.

“Very good, time to jump?” He asked.

“Jump velocity in 20 minutes, Commodore.” Came the voice of one of Ami’s engineers.

“Very good,” the commodore responded before he began typing on his console. Ami just saw numbers and letters of gibberish before he sealed in a data packet. “Tours, send this on a directional transmission to the Delmar home-world.”

“Affirm’ Commodore.” Came the voice of the carrier’s Captain.

Ami looked a question at Gregory.

“We received an intel update late last night from Sol, Delmar was attacked recently by a group called ‘Voids Revenge’ then an Inquisitorial fleet that believed our ambassador’s ships were the attackers.” he stated with an absurd calmness.

“Ancestors… how bad was it…. Did your ambassador survive?” Ami whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

The commodore quirked an eyebrow at her, “Why are you apologizing. the Delmar defense fleet is a bit banged up, but the Ambassador’s fleet took no damage.”

“How... the VR are not your average pirates… and an inquisitorial fleet is a death sentence to anyone who crosses its. Commander… just one of their frigates would be enough to take most of a full-strength Delmar Defense force to defeat. Your standard defense fleet has two plus’s a carrier. How?!?” Her eyes were wide in panic which turned to terror as she took a step back from the commodore as he gave her a horrifyingly predatory smile.

His tone matched his smile, “Her Eros took one of those frigates with a single shot...”

Ami slowly peeled her eyes off of the Human’s expression to look toward the one ship that was not towing her station. The USN Kyle burned in formation with the station, but her duty was protection. Her long spear like center reminded Ami of a flying dagger that crackled with barely contained energy. The Kyle was at full alert with a two-round salvo of Ithaca prepped for a quick firing if needed. She turned back to the man next to her to find the expression gone and his attention back on the task at hand.

‘Humanity is terrifying’ she thought as she suppressed her flight instincts.

“Jump velocity reached Commodore.” came a voice over the comms, “we are on course, and on velocity. Ready to jump.”

Commodore straightened and activated the fleet-wide, “All hands, all hands, this is Commodore Gregory Burgoyne. We are about to jump into the history books once again, one way or another. Godspeed, and…” The humans in the stations command deck interrupted him with a roar that startled the non-human contingent “I’LL SEE YOU IN HELL!!”

Gregory just chuckled into the ship-wide. “Very well, jump in 5… Mark!” He shut off the ship-wide and settled into his chair as the silent count wound down and the computers all activated the jump together.

Ami let out an explosive gasp as the stars did not blink out like a normal jump to subspace but stretched and bent as pale blue plasma started trailing from the edges of the station and her attached ships.

The first No Human Jump to Slips-pace winked out of existence.

——————————————————————

Silu woke up, he was being pushed down a hallway. His life mate, and wife, was walking by his side.

“Hi dear, it’s time,” she whispered. Gripping his hand.

“How long.” he croaked,

“The surgery should take the day, it’s currently mid-morning; everything is ready. This isn’t the first time I’ve bolted you back together.” Icario leaned into his vision, “I wanted you two to have a moment, this one’s going to be a rough one.”

“I love you... I’ll see you soon.” His mate was holding back tears.

“And I you... I’ll look for you when I wake up, my dear.” Silu said as she stopped at the doors to the sterile operating room.

“See you soon,” Icario said as he pressed a sedative injector to his neck.

——————————————————————

Lyrian woke up. Something was off, her Mac was gone, and the bed was…. Moving. Lyri had never been prone to sea sickness, but a flicker of it flared through her for a second until the memory of last evening came flooding back ‘we’re on the water, in a big boat’ she looked up to see that Mac had hung some warmer clothes for her on the door and they were leaned to one side… no... the BOAT was listing to one side, and was bucking a touch more than last night.

Lyrian dressed quickly, almost tumbling a couple of times, before making for the main hatch. A whisp of spray caressed her face as her eyes found her husband in a wide stance, stable as a mountain, with a hand on the long pole attached to the rudder. Lyrian had been on the water before for a couple of field trips and an outing on a schoolmate’s parents-powered skiff, this was another experience entirely. Lyri ducked slightly as the wind shifted causing a luff in the giant piece of cloth above her head. She staggered over to Mac as he caught her and held her to him as she looked out over the deck.

Lass was heeling gently to a single reefed gaff rigged main and a three quarter Jenoa. Mac had her gently loping along in the 15knot winds, headed down the coast to the south. Compared to a motorized skiff or a fishing trawler, she was almost silent except for wind, wave, and hum of rigging.

“Good morning, how did you sleep?” He asked through the wondrously new, yet strangely peaceful noises.

“The bed is comfy. If we went moving, I might not have come up. You got up early?” She nuzzled into him, sharing in his human warmth. It was barely 20 deg, which felt much colder under wind and spray. The warm sun shone down through cloudless skies as she leaned into him to look up at the canvas pressed tight by the wind, driving Lass as she frolicked in the soft 1.2-meter surf.

“I wanted to get an early start, and you looked too peaceful. But now that you are up, let’s get some more drive on her, we have a day’s sail to the shore of the Winter celebration.” He coo’d to her before handing her a harness that was tied off to a central loop on the deck. She shrugged it on as Mac engaged the very un-period correct autopilot.

He set the autopilot to maintain the current wind angle and moved forward to the main mast. He eased its sheets to take pressure off the canvas before removing the reeding lines and hoisting her to full sail. Lyri held onto the windward deck-rail as Mac sheeted the main home, pulling the mainsail tightly back into position. Lass surged under her new press of power, but Mac then stepped back to the aft winches and shook the last reef out of the Jenoa before pulling on another set of lines to draw a smaller staysail from its Furler.

Lyrian sucked in the fresh ocean air in surprise as Silver Lass listed further to leeward as she leaped to the press of the power she made under full sail. She was no longer frolicking. She was a raging beast crashing through the swell with barely a shudder.

“Are we ok? We are listing hard to starboard.” She asked as Mac returned to her with a wild grin on his face.

“Heeling, love. Sailing ships heel to the press of their sails. Listing implies flooding or bad cargo distribution. And we aren’t even near her limit. She is a copy of my family’s Bristol Cutter. She can safely Heel ‘till her leeward scupper’s are awash.”

He took her safety cord and clipped it to the line he had run along the centerline of the boat, “Go on, walk around a little. Time to get your sea legs.”

Lyri made a quick circuit of the deck before ending up back around and leaning on the aft windward deck railing just watching the sails work. Two of them were both pure white, and the Staysail was silver with an ornate version of the Delmar skin pattern on it.

Lyri wandered into the galley after a bit and came up with simple sandwiches for the both of them and the afternoon was spent with Mac sharing what all the ropes and winches did, the names of everything, and some lessons on keeping the sails drawing properly. They also had several visitors. Two fishing trawlers had trundled over to see this strange craft as Silver Lass plied herself to wind and wave. One of the recovering Defense wings that had been decimated, in the previous fight with the VR, were on a training flight. Ivar had spotted the Lass and had led them in a wide circle around the Yacht before departing. The crown jewel of the visitors was a 3-man coastal patrol boat that had chased them down from there the harbor they had spent the night near. The captain was a younger man who had apparently watched the Lass get assembled and asked to come aboard to see her finished state. Mac hove the Lass to and the three sailors ogled at her inside and out for a half hour asking questions.

Later that evening, around last light, Mac settled the Lass to her anchor in 15 meters of water. They settled in for the evening, just a few hundred meters from the beach of the still-being-collected and assembled celebration Pyres.

Lyri started on a hot dinner as Mac tied off the snubber and put the lass to bed once more. Mac had been towing a line all day and ended up snagging one of the edible fish Delmar had to offer, so fresh, hot steaming fish tacos by sunset light punctuated perfect day sail.

The next morning Mac woke up to a buzz on his communicator.

“Hmm?” Came a question from his sleepy angel next to him.

“Oh, that’s amazing news.” Mac half prayed before kissing the top his wife’s head, “It’s Silu, he made it through surgery.”

“Thank the gods.” Lyri whispered.

——————————————————————

Ami sat curled up on the padded mat the constituted a couch in Saurian culture. She was browsing the latest reports on the station’s first trip in a realm previously thought only useful for data packets. The blue-white streaks of starlight pranced past her viewer. It was currently set to show her the view from out of the station’s optical sensors. The ship was showing some alarming flexing along its central equator, but they were within acceptable limits for now. She flicked back to the report she had yet to write.

The official acceptance of Humanity as a sapient species by the galactic unity was…. Unorthodox... the news that a new species had simply arrived on the galactic scene without an officially known home world had thrown everyone from the scientific community and the military community into turmoil. The scientific community secretly lamented that they had not been given the opportunity to examine Humanity ‘properly’ *she had scoffed at that remark*, The media was clamoring for interviews with this ‘ambassador Gwen Trenton’; and the military was screaming for blood claiming that a Demon attacked them unprovoked during the commission of their duties, and that Humanity should be sanctioned as to violent to be allowed in The Unity.

Ami threw the pad down in disgust at that article. It skittered along the floor until it came to rest at her quarters desk. She perked up at the gift that Gregory had left her. A data packet from the prehistoric times of his home world, or rather what their scientists think prehistoric times looked like. She hoisted herself up and lumbered over to retrieve the pad and the stick. She used the adapter she had made to get the stick to download to her pad, and soon she had it all.

She sauntered down to her ‘couch’ and opened the file.

An hour later she finally closed the file. Shaking uncontrollably, she tapped out a private message bound for the Saurian home world, then reopened the file once more.

——————————————————————

Rear Admiral Folmur stood on the bridge of the Surviving Helyon cruiser Warden. It was about a week until the Winter Festival, he was due to be relieved in 2 day, so He would make the bonfire this ye….”

A massive flash of spiraling blue and white Erupted from the Beacon arrival point as a massive monstrosity erupted into real space shedding tails of blue plasma from its edges. Folmur had learned from the failed ambush that cost so many ships and had spread his fleet out to maximize angles of fire and minimize collateral impacts.

“Report!” He bellowed as the monstrosity broke pieces of itself off and began to reorientate. A moment later he recognized the detachments as ships and his eyes widened as he realized that the central monstrosity was a GHO Response Platform.

“Sir! That matched Humanity’s Slip Drive profile!! That did not come from subspace!!” came the frantic voice of his Sensor officer.

“Sir, we are being Hailed Their code matches the one that we received two days ago.” Coms responded.

“Put them through.” Folmur responded standing as a Holographic image of a Saurian… and a Human appeared in front of him.

The Delmar Admiral raised an eyebrow, “Well, this is a surprise. Coordinator Ami I presume. Commodore Burgoyne, we do appreciate the heads up; However, you failed to mention successfully dragging a GHO space station into a slip jump in you previous transmission.

“My apologies Admiral, We were racing against time. Coordinator Ami’s ‘escorts’ were late, and we picked up subspace contacts from another direction on intercept, too many to fend off without losing the station.” Commodore Burgoyne stated, “With your permission, we request entry into Delmar orbit for a refit and debrief before we depart for Sol.”

“Permission granted; we will send the Tugs to properly tow the Station to an orbital Mooring. Folmur out.” Folmur received a nod from both before terminating Hale, “Com’s Contact Delmar. Tell them we have a few extra guests for the festivities.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

Ambassador Gwen Trenton stood next to Darclemus. They were in the grand hall, and She was trying not to stare. A literal Dinosaur out of the pages of Earth Ancient history just walked into the building flanked by a bipedal wolf and…. A Gecko with extra arms…. ‘Jesus Christ how do I write this report’ She thought to herself as the three walked up and the Saurian extended her hand in a Human greeting, “Ambassador Trenton, It’s a pleasure. I am Coordinator Aminaira of the GHO. I apologize for my short notice, but extenuating circumstances forced our arrival here.”

“I hear Commodore Gregory had an exciting several weeks. His little feat is going to be quite the Talk of Sol.” Ambassador Gwen began, “Please, no apologizing needed. In fact, you are just in time to join Humanity, and Me in experiencing our first Delmar Festival. I am aware that you requested to see me, may I inquire to the nature?” Gwen eyed up, quite literally in this case, the woman before her. She seemed... agitated.

“Perhaps we could take a walk for some.. privacy.” Aminaira stated quietly.

The two of them walked out of the Hall’s front doors and down a ground level foot path with their respective Entourage’s a good distance behind them. “I must say You have me intrigued, Coordinator...” The Ambassador began before Aminaira shooke her head.

“Please, call me Ami, It is your adopted son that saved one of my closest friends after all, I happen to have known Captain Silu for most of his adult life. It is good to know He is well” Ami stated.

“Im sorry, you don’t know. Captain Silu was attacked by a VR assassin shortly after receiving your message.” She waved a placating hand as the much larger being began to panic in shock, “He is alive! He is alive… He came out of Clone Organ Implantation Surgery today; He is still in a medical coma however. I have it on good authority that he has been ordered to live.”

“Oh, now there is a story I would love to hear. Who could possibly order Silu to do anything.” Ami chuckled

“His niece, Lyrian, is Married, sorry bonded, to my Mac. We just found out that she is carrying twins. I’m told, that incentive was dangled as part of the order. And call me Gwen.” The older Human chuckled.

“Oh congratulations!! Delmar Twins are so rare.” Ami smiled, “That’s good, That’s good. I wish to be there when he wakes up. He is.. precious to me... I consider him family in many ways stronger than blood…. which… brings me to what I must ask of you…” Her voice dropped incredibly low in volume for a being of that size as Ami lowered her head to directly next to Gwens, “I need a sample of Human DNA, blood preferably. I do not ask this lightly, and I do not ask this as a member of the GHO, or any Unity Science Gild. I ask this for my people…I apologize.” The woman finished, bowing her head slightly as both of them stopped.

“I am not angry, I will give a sample myself if it is that important, but I must know why.” Gwen turned to face the Saurian fully standing directly in front of her massive head.

“You’re Gregory gave me a file on your Ancient ‘Dinosaur’ species from the prehistoric era of your world... My people, we have deep legends. Of many monsters and Demons of Fire and Death that we consider our species version of ‘horror’ entertainment.” Ami finally lifter her head, “They match almost perfectly with what Your Gregory gave me… Many of my people have speculated that our home world is not so… We have never had any proof, and sometimes have been hunted down for our beliefs… until now...”