Mayday

Naera spoke first in the silence that followed Yril’k’s statement. “What’s a Wrikkith?” The warrior woman’s eyes flashed as she glanced at the shortstack, causing the smaller woman to glance around nervously before the Vex’ess spoke. “Ry’k’ith, not Wrikkith. They are… stories’k. Tales meant to frighten’k larvae into behaving.” Trea’k reached out and laid one hand on the other woman’s shoulder, taking over the explanation as the warrior stared darkly at the slowly rotating holoimage of the beast. “Unlike human stories, science suggests the Ry’k’ith may have once existed. Before the great hive overtook our homeworld fully, there were many creatures that had evolved to live alongside us - somewhat like urban foxes for you, my mate.”

Dustin thought about that for a moment before shaking his head. “Not sure urban foxes evolved tool use or started hunting innocent religious folk, but I get the analogy you’re trying to make. So, these things are what, Vex’ess bogeymen? Doesn’t explain how one ended up here though. Did they also do the dissolving when damaged thing? That seems more like vampires than any animal I ever heard of in Earth mythology.” Trea’k shook her head as she answered. “No. Ignoring the scare stories for children - eat your vegetables or a Ry’k’ith will eat you - and just considering the historical sagas, and they all agree. The Ry’k’ith are shadows in the night, they stalk the tunnels and pounce on the lone, the injured or the old.”

She paused, seemingly considering her memories then shrugged. “Translating some of the legends would take me a fair bit of time; as a queen I heard many of them through my genes, and more still from reading during dull moments. The main one I’d use as a reference would be ‘Vr’ikkr and the thousand days’ - in that, and this is heavily paraphrasing, the hero Vr’ikkr hunted, fought and killed the lord of the Ry’k’ith in his lair. There was a passage… ‘And the body fell, and left such meat that a hundredfold could feast a hundredfold days, but the hero bade the people to let it rot lest the darkness without become the darkness within.’ Doesn’t sound like dissolving to me.”

The assembled group shivered at the insect women’s tale, before Bleu leaned forward and tapped her tablet. The display flickered, revealing a diagram of a human body with lines drawn across it. “An old Vex’ess myth didn’t start trying to turn my patient into one of Naera’s stir-fries. And if they’re not supposed to dissolve, whatever it was must have just looked similar. Convergent evolution, maybe.” Neither of the insect women seemed convinced, but it was enough for Dustin to move the topic on, and they resumed their talk about options should they encounter a hostile **** on arrival. The rest of the fleet had gathered for this final jump, and they’d be moving in as one to maximize their chances if they needed to fight.

In the morning, the entire senior staff was gathered on the bridge. Sammie worked the controls for the jump - a short hop comparatively speaking at only four hours. As the return to normal space approached, everyone shifted uncomfortably. Yril’k’s blade arms tapped at her chitin, a sign that she was nervous as she checked and rechecked firing solutions. Meli appeared calm, but a slight periodic twitch of her ear-tips gave the game away to anyone that truly knew her. Emely’s tails were twitching behind her, while both Rye and Trea’k were tapping their fingers on their arms.

Only Bleu and Naera seemed vaguely calm - the plant woman because she was largely just monitoring the same station as Meli on the grounds that two eyes were quicker than one; whenever she had a task on the bridge, Dustin had noticed that she hyper-focused on it. And in the case of the doctor, she seemed to be keeping her emotions well enough in check that her colour remained uniform. Any further irritableness than her usual gruff manner was not significantly noticeable as the countdown ceased.

The system before them was small, lit only weakly by the light of a fading star. As he though on how fitting a destination it was for their prey, Dustin noted the hands of his lovers and crew working to sweep the space in front of them for threats. As they did so, Sammie moved them tentatively forward, clearing the way for more vessels to drop in behind them - the rest of the fleet ready to fan out and add to the scanning.

Nothing stirred as sensor after sensor swept across the void in front of Sola. Dustin found himself almost holding his breath, until at last Meli held up a hand. “Found a trace. It’s faint, but something sizable left the surface of one of the moons at around the right time for our escapee monster. The energy signature is very, very odd though.” Dustin raised an eyebrow, but the scientist shook her head. “I’ll figure out what’s happening there later, husband. For now, I’m tracking it’s movements… And they vanish.”

He sank back in his chair. “So they were here, in a ship of some kind and what, they jumped out? Can we trace their route?” Meli gave a noncommittal sound, hands already moving over the sensor controls. “Maybe. We couldn’t track this on our own, but it’s fresh enough that if we chain the scan through the fleet we should at least be able to get a direction to look in.” Dustin nodded. “Do it. Emely, hail the fleet and get Meli the help she needs. Is it better or worse if we’re closer to the jump point?”

A short while later and under Meli’s direction, the fleet held steady in a wide curve around the jump point - their own weave drives would mask any remaining signal if they grew too close, so faint was the trace. “Alright” she breathed, eyes fixed on the screen in front of her. “We’re lucky this is a super-low-traffic system. Even with the fleet, if there’d been the same amount of traffic as there was in the places we’ve encountered these things before we’d have no chance of a trace like this working.” At her signal, the scan began, and it seemed like everyone on the bridge was holding their breath.

Silence, followed by a faint ping as the signal returned, followed by a louder one and a cry of delight from the Velca. “Got them! It’s faint, but there’s a clean lock on the thread. Can’t say where they dropped off, but we know which way they went…” her voice dropped a little as she continued “…it’s not a charted route; I think this one goes somewhere that no-one in galactic society has been able to plot before.” Dustin grinned down at her, a thought crossing his mind. “What do you want to bet that our pilot can follow it? You saw yourself how many routes I was able to pull in; I know Rye’s not upgraded her console first but we could probably…”

His planning was suddenly cut off by Emely, the fox girl’s voice sharp and concerned. “Sir! A ship just dropped into system, and we’re getting a mayday call… it’s the Yuran ambassador.” Dustin’s thoughts slammed to a halt for a half-second before he swung into action. “Meli, plot that direction and save the data so we can return to this later. Emely, answer the call and patch them through to the fleet. Sammie, Rye, prepare to jump to assist the cats.” The women swept into action; even as the ones he’d named began to follow their orders, his other officers took up their own tasks. Bleu’s shouted request for someone to let her know what was going on while she prepped the medbay, Naera and Trea’k moving to standby on spare stations in case additional eyes were needed on any systems… Dustin felt oddly proud of his crew as the vidscreen flickered to show a haunted looking but familiar face.

“D’hust’hin? Thank the mother. We need your help, urgently.” Prd’r’s voice was hoarse and her eyes red with stress or tears, Dustin couldn’t tell which. “Ambassador, we got your distress call - what’s the matter?” He replied, earning a sniff from the cat on the other end of the call before she straightened up to her full yet diminutive height. “I need to get a message out to anyone that can hear it.” She began, her tail puffing with stress behind her. “Our homeworld is under attack. I… we… we won’t be able to get there in time to help, we’d need to double back on ourselves so much across all the jumps to get there but maybe someone else can…” The cat looked about to burst into tears, and Dustin glanced at Emely. “I’ve already routed the message to Star Command, sir.” She said, glancing sorrowfully over at the stricken feline.