It was raining in the captain’s quarters.

More precisely, it was raining in the three-acre atrium inside the captain’s quarters. Senior Fleet Captain Colin MacIntyre, self-proclaimed Governor of Earth and latest commanding officer of the Imperial planetoid Dahak, sat on his balcony and soaked his feet in his hot-tub, but Fleet Captain Jiltanith, his tall, slender executive officer, had chosen to soak her entire person. Her neatly-folded, midnight-blue uniform lay to one side as she leaned back, and her long sable mane floated about her shoulders.

Black-bottomed holographic thunderheads crowded overhead, distant thunder rumbled, and lightning flickered on the “horizon,” yet Colin’s gaze was remote as he watched rain bounce off the balcony’s shimmering force field roof. His attention was elsewhere, focused on the data being relayed through his neural feeds by his ship’s central command computer.

His face was hard as the report played itself out behind his eyes, from the moment the Achuultani starships emerged from hyper to the instant of the sensor array’s self-immolation. It ended, and he shook himself and looked down at Jiltanith for her reaction. Her mouth was tight, her ebon eyes cold, and for just a moment he saw not a lovely woman but the lethal killing machine which was his executive officer at war.

“That’s it, then, Dahak?” he asked.

“It is certainly the end of the transmission, sir,” a deep, mellow voice replied from the empty air. Thunder growled again behind the words in grimly appropriate counterpoint, and the voice continued calmly. “This unit was in the tertiary scanner phalanx, located approximately one hundred ten light-years to galactic east of Sol. There are no more between it and Earth.”

“Crap,” Colin muttered, then sighed. Life had been so much simpler as a NASA command pilot. “Well, at least we got some new data from it.”

“Aye,” Jiltanith agreed, “yet to what end, my Colin? ’Tis little enow, when all’s said, yet not even that little may we send home, sin Earth hath no hypercom.”

“I suppose we could turn back and deliver it in person,” Colin thought aloud. “We’re only two weeks out…”

“Nay,” Jiltanith disagreed. “Should we turn about ’twill set us back full six weeks, for we must needs give up the time we’ve but now spent, as well.”

“Fleet Captain Jiltanith is correct, Captain,” Dahak seconded, “and while these data are undoubtedly useful, they offer no fundamental insights necessary to Earth’s defense.”

“Huh!” Colin tugged at his nose, then sighed. “I guess you’re right. It’d be different if they’d actually attacked and given us a peek at their hardware, but as it is—” He shrugged. “I wish to hell they had, though. God knows we could use some idea of what they’re armed with!”

“True,” Dahak agreed. “Yet the readings the sensor array did obtain indicate no major advances in the Achuultani’s general technology, which suggests their weaponry also has not advanced significantly.”

“I almost wish there were signs of advances,” Colin fretted. “I just can’t accept that they haven’t got something new after sixty thousand years!”

“It is, indeed, abnormal by human standards, sir, but entirely consistent with surviving evidence from previous incursions.”

“Aye,” Jiltanith agreed, sliding deeper into the hot water with a frown, “yet still ’tis scarce credible, Dahak. How may any race spend such time ’pon war and killing and bring no new weapons to their task?”

“Unknown,” the computer replied so calmly Colin grimaced. Despite Dahak’s self-awareness, he had yet to develop a human-sized imagination.

“Okay, so what do we know?”

“The data included in the transmission confirm reports from the arrays previously destroyed. In addition, while no tactical information was obtained, sensor readings indicate that the Achuultani’s maximum attainable sublight velocity is scarcely half as great as that of this vessel, which suggests at least one major tactical advantage for our own units, regardless of comparative weaponry. Further, we have reconfirmed their relatively low speed in hyper, as well. At their present rate of advance, they will reach Sol in two-point-three years, as originally projected.”

“True, but I’m not too happy about the way they came in. Do we know if they tried to examine any of the other sensor arrays?”

“Negative, Captain. A hypercom of the power mounted by these arrays has a maximum omni-directional range of less than three hundred light-years. The reports of all previously destroyed sensor arrays were relayed via the tertiary phalanx arrays and consisted solely of confirmation that they had been destroyed by Achuultani vessels. This is the first direct transmission we have received and contains far more observational data.”

“Yeah.” Colin pondered a moment. “But it doesn’t match very well with what little we know about their operational patterns, now does it?”

“It does not, sir. According to the records, normal Achuultani tactics should have been to destroy the array immediately upon detection.”

“That’s what I mean. We were dead lucky any of the arrays were still around to tell us they’re coming, but I can’t help thinking the Imperium was a bit too clever in the way it set these things up. Sucking them in close for better readings is all very well, but these guys were after information of their own. What if they change tactics or speed up on us because they figure someone’s waiting for them?”

“Methinks thy concern may be over great,” Jiltanith said after a moment. “Certes, they needs must know some power did place sentinels to ward its borders, yet what knowledge else have they gained? How shall they guess where those borders truly lie or when their ships may cross them? Given so little, still must they search each star they pass.”

Colin tugged on his nose some more, then nodded a bit unhappily. It made sense, and there wasn’t anything he could do about it even if Jiltanith were wrong, but it was his job to worry. Not that he’d asked for it.

“I guess you’re right,” he sighed. “Thanks for the report, Dahak.”

“You are welcome, Captain,” the starship said, and Colin shook himself, then grinned at Jiltanith.

“Looking forward to sickbay, ’Tanni?” He put an edge of malicious humor into his voice as an anodyne against their worries.

“Hast an uncommon low sense of humor, Colin,” she said darkly, accepting the change of subject with a smile of her own. “So long as I do recall have I awaited this day—yea, and seldom with true hope mine eyes might see it. Yet now ’tis close upon me, and if truth be known, there lies some shadow of fear within my heart. ’Tis most unmeet in thee so to tease me over it.”

“I know,” he admitted wickedly, “but it’s too much fun to stop.”

She snorted and shook a dripping fist at him, yet there was empathy as well as laughter in his green eyes. Jiltanith had been a child, her muscles and skeleton too immature for the full bioenhancement Battle Fleet’s personnel enjoyed, when the mutiny organized by Fleet Captain (Engineering) Anu marooned Dahak in Earth orbit and the starship’s crew on Earth. The millennia-long struggle her father had led against Anu had kept her from receiving it since, for the medical facilities aboard the sublight parasite battleship Nergal had been unable to provide it. Jiltanith had received the neural computer feeds, sensory boosters, and regenerative treatments before the mutiny, but those were the easy parts, and Colin was fresh enough from his own enhancement to understand her anxieties perfectly … and tease her to ease them.

“Bawcock, thou’lt crow too loud one day.”

“Nope. I’m the captain, and rank—”

“—hath its privileges,” she broke in, shaking her head ominously. “That phrase shall haunt thee.”