The liquid crystal display glowed a dull green, the only faint illumination in the diminutive cabin. From it stared green letters, barely showing on the haggard face of the man sitting at the console as he stared back, his mouth moving in a disembodied fashion from the rest of his body, seemingly worn thin by time and neglect. His raven black hair hung in grimy tassels and clumps; the expanding stubble over his chin only indicative of his general lack of care, the dirty existence of submarine crews long past revisited. His lips moved, his larynx uttered sounds, and letters and words multiplied on the screen in time, spreading from left to right and down again, new lines, paragraphs, sentences. Just another log entry, just going through the motions once more.

<Log of the Terran Stellar Cruiser TRIDENT (PAUN, Alashein, Captain [TDSN]) on 2340 hours ship standard; estimated Earthdate 12 JUL 2373; shipdate 1,032 days from port>

>> SHIP'S POSITION: Delta Sector Periphery, Galactic coordinates Theta362 R12 Z-3

>> SUBJECT: Patrol of the Terran/Rasalhaguan Treaty Line (as usual)

<ENTRY BEGINS>

The border, is as usual, quiet. Since the defeat of the Imperial Rasalhaguan invasion fleet back in 2570, the Trident has been diligently patrolling the periphery of Terran space, defending it from any Rassie raiders.

As if it was even possible. Hell, I was there at the Battle of Rasalhague II. We literally obliterated any chance of their military ever getting back to combat readiness. A few backwater rednecks from Y'k'cutenk VII armed with flyswatters, shotguns, and some cans of stale 6-proof beer could take over the radioactive remains of the Rasalhague Empire.

So, as the nine-hundredth and twenty-third day of the Trident's patrol closes, it is safe to say that morale is the lowest it has been in three years -- the end result of putting this old crate on patrol. We haven't had a single shore leave since dry-dock a third of a decade ago because the big brass higher up have bad dreams at night of big bad Rassie ships crossing the border and blowing up Earth. Dammit, the 'Imperial fleet' couldn't crush an empty can of soda pop.

I don't even know why a keep this log. It's a useless, pointless endeavor, but I suppose it keeps me sane by being allowed to vent my feelings to something. I can't complain to the crew. If they see I'm just as fatigued as they are, they'll talk me into a mutiny.

Oh, how I'd like to go home. Oh, to see the methane seas like plates of green glass back on good 'ol Titan again. Hopefully I have enough days of leave saved to stay off a stinking cruiser for a year! Maybe I'll take a vacation to Earth, see what all the hype's about.

But, orders are orders. If the admirals say patrol the border, we patrol the border. They probably have information from the MilIntel services I haven't heard about, like Rassies building a planet-buster or something in a secluded asteroid field around a dying star. Or not. Either way, we stay here until further notice.

<ENTRY ENDS>

Paun leaned forward, tapping the red button on the metal console that shut off the logbook program before slumping forward, elbows resting heavily on the jutting console; hands sifting through his greasy hair. Dragging his hands down over his eyes and cheeks, drawing his loose flesh into a mask of pain and fatigue, he only hightened the effect of the bags under his eyes, corneas under half-closed eyelids reflecting the dull green of the screen. Just like every night, he turned in his seat and stared at the blank wall of his spartan cabin. The hard steel, once burnished but now drab with lack of care, glowered back as only dull metal can.

His hands made another ineffectual pass of his face. "I've got to learn how to crochet," he said to no one in particular, "because this goddamned room needs some tapestries to cheer things up." A reply, to himself. "Naw... The moment I started on the stupid thing and the tapestry would begin taking shape, we'd be called off to do something important and I would forget it and never finish it."

Just like every night, another self-similar tick of the clock. He fell asleep in his chair, only to awake more depleted than when he drifted off; the habitual pains of poor sleep aching in his bones.

Light years away on Earth, five general officers in stuffy-looking uniforms huddled in a tiny room deep within the complex that made up the general headquarters of the Terran Dominion Military. A single incandescent light-bulb suspended from the ceiling from a wire, both reused relics of an earlier time, filled the room with its feeble yet harsh yellow light. A female officer, rank-stars glittering with reflected light, leaned forward as she slipped a device back inside her jacket. "It's safe."

"Now," a man in a naval uniform asked, "what brings all of us here? I'm afraid now is a bad time..."

"Of course it is, Admiral," replied a bass voice emanating from a green-tinted Special Services uniform, "and that is why we're here. I'm sure you all know of... the situation."

The admiral nodded with a frown. "That's what worries me. We've hid it for three years, but even with our conservation efforts... it's becoming critical. Civilian prices are reaching untenable levels and rumors are getting out. Half of my fleet is scattered about on 'patrol' because we cannot afford to maintain them with fuel."

The Special Services officer grinned slightly. "Exactly. I know we've kicked around ideas in the past; now I believe it is time to implement them."

The female, an Army general, frowned. "I agree it may be necessary... but the last thing we need is for the liberals to come back into power."

"Exactly... which is why we are taking precautions," the bass voice replied. "We have established the mining colonies we need and we should reach self-sufficiency for hyperspatial fuel in both civilian and military applications in two years. However, as you all know, even at current rationing we can only hold out for six more months... and the political situation won't survive that long. We need, and know of, a plentiful source of fuel within standard jump distance. All that is needed is to take it..."

The plan unfolded between the five, contingencies accounted for and situations established. Coming to an agreement, they agreed to impliment it as quickly as possible before dispersing back to their Headquarters offices.

Captain Paun tottered into the mess hall right on schedule, only somewhat less disheveled than he was the night previous. Still, long nights of little sleep multiplied by days of sheer boredom had shaken his balance; what was once a slight limp from a shell fragment in his left hip now came out as an almost drunken, rolling gait; a teetering waddle threatening to spill him across the deck. Limping up to the drink dispenser, Alashein took the mug of ship's regulation lukewarm coffee the machine proffered and finally dispensed himself into the nearest table, dropping down heavily into the seat.

The mess hall, the third largest room on the ship, followed the standard arrangement of any large cafeteria. Several paths defined by metal bars sifted people into lines that led past banks of compilation machines and flashcookers, then disgorged them into the mutual seating area. Its off-white walls were nothing to please the eye, nor was the ship's insignia emblazoned on the far wall. The gold three-tined war fork on a blue star-studded circle, glittering like new during the war, now acted as base for three years of dust, grime, and the occasional spotch of color from some spill. Ragged-looking souls in regulation jumpsuits and fatigues filled the mess, mechanically eating artificially processed meals between clockwork shifts. Each individual simply sat in silence, staring at the too-yellow "scrambled eggs" and the too-brown Teflon "toast," mulling over their miserable Fleet existence and how, when they returned home, they would never step aboard another starship again.

Into this graveyard of zealotry stalked Commander Frederik Hinlibber, passing through the far bulkhead door towards Paun's table. "Libby"--not that anyone under him ever called him that to his face--looked just as dapper and polished as usual, his mirror-shine boots clicking against the metal deck, his black of uniform somehow avoiding all creases, all signs of anything less than perfection. His face and eyes glittered with engagement, flashing back and forth in situational-awareness sweeps, screeching to all who saw that this was a professional officer. Stopping right next to Captain Paun, he pulled himself into rigid attention then removed his hat and saluted simultaneously, a feat perfected by years of experience.

"Damn, Libby, how the hell can you do this every day?" Pawn demanded.

Commander Hinlibber rocked once on his heels, barely allowing himself a sickly grin through which he replied quietly: "It's the only way I can stay sane, sir."

Paun leaned back in his chair. "Any communiqués through the night, Libby?"

Hinlibber resumed the exemplary militaristic style that he was renowned for. "No, sir."

"Any standard communications from Fleet?"

"None, sir."

"Any intercepted signals from anywhere?"

"No, sir."

Paun sighs. "What's Cree's take on The Chance?"

"Lieutenant Cree believes that the chance that Fleet has utterly forgotten about this ship is now up to ninety-two percent."

Paun bolted down his coffee, stretched, then flattened out the creases in his uniform. "It's about time we did something about that, Commander." With that, Paun strode out of the mess hall with renewed vigor. A few minutes later, Paun leaned back in his seat in the command cabin, already looking much better than he had for three years, with a very nervous Hinlibber standing by the side. The command cabin was a spherical room three and a half meters in radius of plexiglas screens with a chair set up on a small platform in the middle. This allowed a commander to get a full three-dimensional view of the unfolding situation and react accordingly.

"You're going to break radio silence?" Hinlibber asked as he pulled at his tight black collar. "Regulations clearly state--"

"That all ships on deep enemy-space monitoring missions are to maintain radio silence until notified or an emergency worth note occurs." Paun replied smugly. "We have a morale emergency, and it's up to Fleet to solve it."

"Sir, I suggest that we try sending a courier shuttle rather than the hypercom system, you know, something that won't...er..."

"Advertise our position? Look, you remember our wholesale bombardment of Rasalhague?"

A pained shudder from Hinlibber answered in the affirmative.

"If they even have enough of their security net left to capture our signal and triangulate our position, what are they going to get us with? A tugboat?"

Hinlibber relaxed slightly, and sat in the bucket seat next to Paun. "Oh well, once you decide on something, it's usually hard-put for me to stop you, sir."

Paun grinned. "Do you feel up to exerting that much energy, Libby?"

Hinlibber tilted his head in mock thought and replied, "Hmmm - no, not really. Doing anything, even borderline mutiny, is preferable to the past three years."

A small screen to the right of Paun activated, glittered with electronic snow for a moment, and the visage of Admiral Kerensky appeared. "Terran Fleet Command here," crackled the tinny speakers in a poor imitation of Kerensky's deep baritone.

"Captain Paun of TSC Trident here, sir. Sir, we're in a fix. The crew are bored out of their minds, and morale is near the mutiny stage. Sir, we definitely need reassignme--"

"Captain Paun!" The Admiral looks down, checking something. "Just the man I needed to talk to," Kerensky continued. Paun was dumbstruck. Having been forgotten for three years, and remaking contact outside of regs, a jovial greeting was certainly the last thing he expected. Kerensky continued: "We're reassigning Trident. Your orders are to proceed to Rasalhague II and open up talks as the Earth envoy to the Rassies."

Hinlibber, noting that his captain had lost the capability to speak, took up the slack. "Excuse me, sir, but you expect Captain Paun to be the envoy?"

"That's the order."

"Sir, may I humbly remind you that the Rasalhaguans have an extremely matriarchal society? I suggest that one of our senior female officers act as our emissary."

Paun finally regained motor control of his mandibles and larynx. "I agree with Commander Hinlibber, sir. The Rassies see males simply as an evil necessitated by the fact that any species requires propagation to survive. If I were to talk to them, their high matriarchs would take extreme offense that a man was sent to talk to them. I know this from experience, Admiral."

The politico Admiral Kerensky frowned. "That was cold, Captain," Kerensky sniped, "and I must inform you that Rassie society had a great upheaval after the war. The male cannon-fodder grunts rebelled and set up a new system that is more... receptive of males. Females still hold most high positions, however. To retrain you in Rassie culture, we are uploading the Guide to Rasalhaguan Culture: New and Improved Summer 2373 Version now. It is currently commander's-eyes-only information; it's not often we release these things early."

Orders are orders, Paun thought as he stiffened in his chair. "What's the goal, sir. Are we going to sign a formal peace agreement?"

"Not just peace. We're going to enter into a trade agreement with them!"

Paun and Hinlibber looked at each other, each seeing his deepest fears reflected on the other's face. There is no way in hell this is going to work, is it?

Paun returned his gaze to the flickering visage on his monitor just as it announced the completion of the upload queue. "The Guide has been received, sir. To speak freely, sir... you're the boss, but I think our chances are slim at best--"

"Can it, Captain. You have your orders." The communications link broke, dooming the command cabin of Trident to a concerned silence.

The next day found the crew of Trident almost restored to their former glory. Once again having purpose in their lives, they worked feverishly to bring the ship back to full operational status. They finally cleaned and polished the long-suffering insignia in the mess hall; uniforms were cleaned and pressed for the first time in months; the hyperspatial jump drive was brought from cold standby to full readiness. The last refueling Trident had was three years prior before she left port; even running the engine on warm standby would have been an unacceptable fuel drain given that tenders just didn't seem to make it out that far. The day after, amidst mild concern that perhaps field de- and recommisioning the drive could lead to the usual side effects--nausea, headaches, abdominal pains, cramping, and death--Captain Paun ordered the ship to go to jump stations and turned the key.

The hyperspatial engine of the 2300s was the crowning achievement of humanity. More effecient and effective than the Rasalhaguan constant gravitational time-dilation linear drive, it was humanity's mastery of hyperspace, not so much nuclear warheads, particle cannon, or neutron beams that won the War. This becomes readily apparent when one remembers that hyperspatial jump drives and GT-DL drives are far apart as means of propulsion go. Gravitational time-dilation linear drives arguably keep a starship in Einsteinian space but exploits loopholes to get around the universal lightspeed limit. In Einsteinian space, an object is defined by the relation between two points of observation--one internal and one external--thus making it relativistic. Relativistic effects occur near lightspeed due to the fact that the speed of light is arguably the speed of information propagation in the universe--excluding some esoteric forms of gravitic and hyperspatial sensors--and so nothing can exceed the speed of light simply because the universe cannot react quickly enough to maintain the rules of reality around it. GT-DL systems encase the ship in a gravitically-powered asymptotic gravity well, essentially encapsulating it in its own little pocket reality. It cannot be detected externally because of the need of space-time to remain continuous; likewise, the ship inside cannot see out due to the spacetime asymptote. As the ship falls down its artificial gravity well of hundreds of thousands of gravities, its only frame of reference is itself and just outside itself, where it is stationary. It carries along the artificial well--more like a slope--with it, and so it 'moves' in realspace with no limit to its velocity except the amount of time it has to accelerate. This only becomes apparent when the drive is disengaged, revealing a vessel that is now once again constrained by the laws of relativity and reality. Its primary disadvantage is that it is dependent upon acceleration, and so it takes a good amount of time to reach faster-than-light velocities with it.

Hyperspatial jump engines, conversely, are a far simpler system to explain but far more difficult to execute. String theory and gravitational analysis tends to indicate that there are about twelve dimensions in addition to the four already known that can define any given point in the Universe. A hyperspace drive simply takes a ship, translates it into fifteen-dimensional mathematics, then moves on that plane by keeping twelve out of fifteen variables constant before retranslating the ship back into three-dimensional space at a point hundreds of light years away from its starting point in less than 1/32000 of a second. Jump range is generally limited to one thousand light years due to the mathematical precision and calculations required; additional range requires more precise calculation and a greater time in fifteen-dee space, which is naturally dangerous to human minds that exist in four dimensions, can visualize three, and prefer to work in two whenever they can.

Both systems require copious amounts of fuel, available mostly in the form of "electrolium" crystals that can store prodigious amounts of energy in their precise lattices, energy that can be released through the controlled deformation of those same lattices.

Later, Captain Paun peers through the observation dome in his steel cabin, now graced with several posters to relieve the monotony somewhat, down on the green orb of Rasalhague II. Turning momentarily from the dome to once again be told by the stern African man gazing heroically off into the distance "INFORMATION SECURITY BEGINS WITH YOU," he leaned back in his terminal's chair, watching the planet revolve above him and waiting for the antacid enzymatic packet he'd taken to calm down his thrashing gastrointestinal system. Rasalhague II was a jungle planet, fourty-eight million kilometers away from the roiling surface of Rasalhague. Covered mostly with thorny trees that collected and intertwined like nettles, the sentient species lived mostly in a few large metropoli whose towers and spires reached past the troposphere. Visible from orbit, these vaguely shiny black blotches stretched out against a mottled green background, all under wisps of thin white clouds.

A knock on the door broke Paun from his observations. Swiveling in his chair, he put down his copy of the Guide to Rasalhaguan Culture: New and Improved Summer 2373 Version, and called "Enter!"

The door opened to reveal a rather flushed Hinlibber, stepping forward and saluting sloppily, a gesture only common with him when very sick or very anxious. Forgot how jumps took a toll on the poor boy. "The Rassie Queen T'ret is on the hypercom. She's hopping mad--the translation computer had some trouble with the expletives. Apparently..." Hinlibber frowned. "Apparently we've come unnanounced." He turned just a shade greener.

"Calm down, Libby, and take some of these." The captain tossed his subordinate his package of stomach-relaxant pills. Catching them, Frederik gulped down twice the recommended dose while Paun swiveled in his chair and connected his logbook terminal to the hypercom system with a few deft clicks announcing his intent to the communications staff.

The face, or at least the analog thereof, of the Rasalhaguan queen appeared on the terminal's screen. Dual bright-silver pseudocompound eyes on each side of a head shaped like an eagle's beak bracketed a drum-like forward speaking membrane; her head extending from a thick neck that connected it to a bulky four-armed body with grayish-brown leathery skin wearing a scarlet cloak with steel-and-black piping. Her mouth was a small orifice at the top of the neck, just under the pointed chin, not visible from the transmission's angle--but if it were, it would have been pulsing with rage in time with her throbbing mouth-drum. Rasalhaguan speech sounded like a collection of variably-pitched and sustained drum beats, similar to three people playing tympani. All Paun heard, however, was the computer-synthesized vocal overlay that emulated emotion to the tone of a feminine nasal voice, currently screeching at the top of her lungs.

"An act of war! An act of war! To be destroyed, must you be! To finish the job you come with the intention of, eh? May you kill us, we shall not yield!"

Oh dear. This is an emergency. Needing no assistance from some guide on how to deal with Rassies, the captain leaned far away from the screen, tilting back his head to expose his neck in a gesture of submissiveness. "I'm afraid there's been a misunderstanding, Queen. We're here on a peaceful mission, but I thought Fleet Command would have announced my coming."

"What proof have you?"

"Well... for one, we're operating cold," Paun replied with a habitual shrug. "Our orbit also intentionally misses any of your population centers, so we can't do anything mean by deorbiting crowbars. If that's not sufficient..."

The being on the other end seemed to calm herself slightly, at least no longer shaking in rage. "There is that," she began as the computer could finally keep up with her complex but slowing speech. "Also, if you had wanted to bring evil, you would have done so already."

"I'd like to think I'm not so foolish a warrior to give away the element of surprise," Paun offered, "suddenly popping up in low orbit unannounced without immediate fire is just acting to get swatted out of the sky by SOD."

"Which we would have, had we still possessed such things," the Queen muttered.

Hinlibber and Paun exchange worried glances. "Well, then, everything ended for the best, I guess. Sure, it would've been Fleet's cock-up, but they probably would've gone ballistic if a Terran Stellar Cruiser got shot down. This sadly vindicates our... displeasure with Fleet Command."

"A displeasure which is at least matched by my people," the queen replied wryly.

"Err... yeah. Sorry about that and all..." Paun shrugged sheepishly. "There's very little we can do about changing the past, though. We're on a mission from the Terran Dominion to open a trade agreement with the Rasalhague Empire, and if we haven't completely blown it already..."

"No," Queen T'ret said quickly, "it is true we could use... a trade agreement of a unilateral nature."

<Log of the Terran Stellar Cruiser TRIDENT (PAUN, Alashein, Captain [TDSN]) on 2032 hours ship standard; estimated Earthdate 18 JUL 2373; shipdate 1,038 days from port>

>> SHIP'S POSITION: Rasalhague II (galactic position registered)

>> SUBJECT: Trade Talks with the Rasalhague Empire

<ENTRY BEGINS>

It's the strangest thing. The Rasalhaguans need us, and there's very very little they can actually trade. It feels like we're actually establishing some odd sort of foreign aid. That need is what keeps them going, despite us.

I'll admit, I'm running more off of instinct than the Guide, but some of the stuff in that book is fully backwards from what I know. Still, there has been change, so I'd better start studying harder. Cultures, just like people, change dramatically with trauma... or something. Now I'm beginning to wish I'd had paid more attention in comparative sociology back in my officer training corps days.

<ENTRY ENDS>

The surface of Rasalhague only managed to depress Paun and Hinlibber's estimation of their chances of success. The streets of the Rasalhaguan capital must have been a beautiful urban area at one time, but now the remains of mile-high towers lay collapsed in chunks upon swaths of city like beached whales. Starlight from Rasalhague shone through holes shot straight through edifices three years prior, silhouetting shattered girders, demolished sections of facade exposing the metal skeletons of these giants, shattered glass and composites sparkling in defiance of time. Detridus covered the cracked white marble streets, large irregular holes of shattered stone revealing where the perpetual low dust of the high-ozone hair originated from. The quadrupedal inhabitants cowered inside the dark interiors of the crushed high-rises, peering out at the sweating, comparatively small bipedal off-worlders in black uniforms.

The Rasalhague "Empire" was mortally wounded, as was the Terran Dominon's intent three years ago when it ended the war with as much violence as it thought was necessary to prevent future conflict. Only immediate triage and massive amounts of aid could even hope to save the Rasalhaguan culture from slipping backwards into the Iron Age, which made them pliable to what few demands Hinlibber and Paun could think of. Shutting off their portable translators, they muttered amongst themselves.

"This is odd," Hinlibber said with a frown. "Why are we doing this instead of some real diplomats?"

"Apparently there's trouble back home," Paun replied. "They've been rationing hyperspatial fuel to civilians... well, rationing it more... and so I guess they're relying on the fact that we are technically trained for this sort of thing."

"Trained to buy Manhattan for a few quid in beads?"

"Shush, Libby."

Three days later, what few negotiations there were finally closed. In return for hyperspatial fuel, the Terran Dominion would send food, medical aid, scientists, and robots to assist in rebuilding what was left of Rasalhague. With a mixture of experience and good advice from the Guide, the humans had somehow managed to not mortally offend the notoriously mercurial Rasalhaguans. As per political directives, the entire crew of TSC Trident disembarked to Rasalhague where, with whatever natives that were not too afraid to do so, gathered around the circular dais where Queen T'ret and Captain Paun were to finalize the agreement. As the crowds gathered and the crew readied itself in parade formation, Paun wiped his brow in the stifling heat and checked his wristwatch. 1158 hours, ship time, normalized to local noon. Only two minutes to go.

A black ship silently slipped from both nowhere and everywhere simultaneously, letting the mild wash from its graceful jump dissipate before it began scudding towards Trident. A few scanners aboard the advanced Terran Stellar Cruiser try to keep the absent sensors operators aware of the situation.

The Queen addressed her people in a booming voice. No translation was offered or needed; the entire speech took up no more than three minutes and was oddly lyrical in its musical intonation and rhythm. Stepping forward, Paun repeated it to his own crew, explaining how for three years the Rasalhaguan Empire had eked out an existence with no support, and now this proud people was being recognized for its strength with support from the powerful Terran Dominion. With the resources of both empires combined, the greater whole was stronger than any single force of the past. Finally, Paun began the ceremony he had studied for all the night previous, scouring the Guide for all possible symbology necessary for such an occasion.

The Rasalhaguans gasped as Paun slowly drew his service pistol from its holster on his hip.

In orbit, worksuits from the dark ship began placing discreet metal cylinders half a meter long by fifty centimeters wide on equally discreet surfaces of Trident's hull, concentrating on connections between hull sections, sensor arrays, even inside drive bells. They worked with the speed and finesse of their training, having waited three years for this kind of action as their welders and suit thrusters sparkled in the night.

For a minute, the crowd watched in a an awed, frightened silence as Paun raised the pistol. When he had it at low standby, fourty-five degrees from the vertical, he discharged the magazine and rotated the pistol by hs trigger finger to take hold of the barrel. Holding out to the Queen grip-first, he bowed his head slightly, an indication of trust. All throughout history, in many different cultures, delivering a weapon to a former enemy often has similar connotations.

The Rasalhaguan crowd thrummed softly, a collective sigh of relief.

Then Paun let loose his grip, and the pistol fell.

Their work complete, the worksuits returned to the black ship, which scudded away to take observational cover in a nearby detridus field that was in a previous life the Rasalhaguan fleetyards.

The Rasalhaguans boomed, a horrendous roar of irate drums. Drawing her ceremonial sword from its scabbard, T'ret arched back with a roar. Paun vaguely heard the translator squeal something about revenge against dishonor as he stepped back in stunned surprise as the brawny natives fell upon the humans in rows and columns, who began to fall back in surprise. They dropped their flags and standards, running for the retrieval craft parked in a nearby field, shouts and screams of rout calling out as the Rasalhaguan crowd pursued and harrassed, throwing rocks and beating with balled fists. Paun pounced on his pistol, rolling to the side as the Queen chopped her blade down upon him. Sword sticking in the wooden deck, T'ret strained to pull it out while Paun swiveled and kicked her in her broad chest, knocking her down, then leaping down from the dais and breaking into a limping run as he slammed the magazine back home inside his pistol and drew back the block to chamber a round. He felt the heat of a poorly tuned maser that flashed by his ear, then jumped over the holed carcass of a human who wasn't so lucky. Turning as best he could from the torso, the captain fired several rounds into the more massive parts of the crowd behind him, not slowing down enough to examine the effects in any more detail than seeing some of the natives falling as he turned forward again. Seeing the longboat just up ahead in the middle of the field, swarms of black-suited troopers running for it, he was struck with a memory.

It wasn't technically a field, it was a leveled starport, the only one Rasalhague II had. Trident had bombed it into powder herself back in the War. Shaking off that strange memory, Paun jumped onto the craft, taking cover behind the frame of the ingress hatch and emptied his pistol's magazine into the crowd, Rasalhaguans trying to board flailing off with spurts of ichor as the longboat dragged itself into the yellow sky, all crew either aboard or dead.

Paun sat in his chair in the command cabin, mulling over the events of fifty-nine minutes ago. What went wrong? I did everything like the Guide said... Admiral Kerensky had only nodded shortly when Paun told him; he said that he "feared for the Rasalhaguans now." Having naught but the strange turn of events on the surface, a fifth of his crew dead, and the Admiral's cryptic remark to consider, Paun held his face in his hands.

The door opened behind him; looking over his shoulder, he greeted Frederik with a weak smile.

"What the bloody hell did you think you were doing, sir?" Hinlibber snapped, killing the smile both with his tone and the vein throbbing on the forehead. Aboard Trident, every crewman knew that the throbbing vein was a certain sign that the ship's enforcer was out for blood. "Dropping your gun like that," he continued with a tic in the left side of his neck, "have you forgotten everything you learned in the war? Good job there, flipping the Rasalhaguans the bird."

Paun blinked.

"It was the easiest way to make them make mistakes, remember? By just dropping even knives in transmissions, we gave them the idea that we didn't need weapons when fighting them. They're not worth the effort."

Paun blinked again. "I remember, sure enough... but the Guide said that was one of the things that changed. Sort of how a post-nuclear-attack culture's attitudes towards war changes, that's how it described it." He held up the manual as evidence.

Hinlibber grabbed the book and flung it off the catwalk with one apoplectic swing of his arm, sending it crashing through screens and holotanks beyond with the cracking snaps of thin plexiglas shattering. "Well, that Guide has just cost us that trade deal and probably our commissions."

"But it's been accurate otherwise..."

Hinlibber sighed. "Yes. Yes it has." He blinked, then frowned deeply. "You don't think..."

"I don't know what to think." Paun settled himself back into his chair. "We're getting the hell out of here." Closing a contact on his console, the captain leaned slightly towards the microphone. "Helm, get this ship moving. The Rassies said they didn't have any SOD, but no need to press our luck."

"Acting, sir," the helmsman replied via the crackling intercom... then made a soft sound of surprise as Trident began to accelerate. "Odd. Controls are sluggish, sir."

Paun nodded to no one in particular. "Doesn't feel like she's moving like she used to. Any reason why?"

"Checking with engineering--" discontinuity with a crackle "--Engineering here, sir. We're checking on it right now."

"Good, Gerard--"

"Bad news, Captain. We're about five hundred tons heavier than we should be, and we're nowhere near the orbital debris fields."

"That means..." Paun grimaced. "Cut power!"

The engineer sighed. "Done, but no point, sir. Energy emissions detected and growing right outside our hull. Good night, Gracie... just a matter of seconds now."

Hinlibber groaned. "Damn Rassies had this planned from the start. The bastards always were good at mining ships."

"What's the motive, though, Libby," Paun exclaimed, "doing this is suicide! There's no revenge in taking out a single cruiser, and we flattened their only spaceport. No field-launchable craft of theirs can haul five hundred tons without prepared strips."

"And their colonies were bombed out of existence." Hinlibber grimaced. "I don't like how this is adding up."

Paun blinked at another memory, then stood up. "Remember the Trident."

"What, sir?"

The captain turned mechanically, face distorted in a wry, pained grin as he chuckled humorlessly. Everything fit now, from the strange coincidences of conflicting orders, Fleet not calling ahead, and even the Guide being fatally flawed; the commander of the ship that ignited the Second Battle of Rasalhague II simply fixed his executive officer with an almost mad glimmer in his eyes, lips turning up at the irony of it all. "Spanish-American War. It's one way to gain an empire, isn't it?"

This simply confirmed his worst fear: he had lived up to his name.

Clipping from the school textbook Terran History (2470), Ch.34, p.325:

"Within 24 hours of the loss of the TCS Trident, destroyed by mines placed by Rasalhaguan spies during the peace ceremony, Terran Stellar Marine forces landed on Rasalhague II shouting their new war cry, 'Remember the Trident!' The Second Battle of Rasalhague was a short, bloody fight that finally ended the Rasalhaguan Wars. Let the treachery of the Rasalhaguans be a lesson to us all as we reach upwards and outwards through the stars."