The captain rubbed the bridge of her snout to try and forestall a headache. She looked at the two grinning jerks who were the unwitting source of her irritation.

"{You know what this means, right?}"

It was a good thing for [Oscar] that he was so damned cute, because otherwise she'd have found his chipper attitude infuriating. "[I sure do! Our main suspect isn't one any more and we have no [clawless] idea who's behind this whole mess.]"

"{But now we can let Tk'Serk know she's no longer wanted for murder,}" added Bgrarh. "{If we can get her talking to us, we can get more information. For sure we can get her talking about the Green smuggling.}"

Rgrarshok tapped a paw pad absently against her cheek as she thought. "{Hmm, I agree that Tk'Serk is key to this affair. But this needs to be done delicately. Who else knows about this?}"

"{Just those in this room,}" replied Bgrarh.

"{Let's keep it that way for the moment. I'm not making the same mistake twice; nobody in Chief Kergrth's department is to know about this discovery. As much as I hate to do it, we'll have to keep Ta'Stak'qa's people in the dark as well. I want our murderer to think their framing is still successful.}"

She thought for a little longer. "{It's public record that Specialist Bgrarh was sampling feathers from random [Karnakians]. Kgrashak, I want you to get some more random feathers and the same number of Dorarizin fur samples. Our cover story is that we found some evidence of metal contamination in the colony and just wanted to make sure it wasn't becoming a health issue. The colony doctors will be pissed at us for thinking they're not doing their job, but we'll just have to accept their anger.}"

Rgrarshok called up the main murder-case diagram. "{Then we need to start chipping away at the other members of the Rrelren pack. We need to double-check their movements both before and after our arrival. Was Hrzharh the only one involved in Green smuggling, or were there others? I'll focus on the other male, Nrgeth.}"

"{And I'll keep up the pressure on Rgratz,}" said Ngralh.

Bgrarh took his hat off and clutched it in his hands. "[But we are going to somehow let Tk'Serk know about this, right?}"

The captain loped forward and put a hand on his shoulder. "{Of course we will, we just have to be careful.}" She looked down at [Oscar]. He was the most obvious choice for what she had in mind, but he was such a fragile little thing! Her instincts yelled at her that she was sending a child into danger...

[Oscar] might be a mere pup in size, but he wasn't an idiot. He picked up on the captain's thinking right away. "[You want me to approach Ti'Etka, don't you?]"

Rgrarshok sighed. "{Yes. You're the most obvious choice. I fear that he believes we Dorarizin won't give his sibling a fair hearing. You'll appear more 'neutral' than us. I want you to get in touch with Ti'Etka and see if he can somehow get word to Tk'Serk about this.}"

"[Without letting anyone else in the colony know about me talking to him, of course,]" replied Oscar. The little [Human] rubbed the back of his neck. "[All right, I got a notion of how to approach Ti'Ekta, but I'm gonna need some of [Bgrarh's] time.]"

"{You've got it. And Specialist Myyreh, you're [Oscar's] shadow, understand? I want you watching his tail non-stop from here on out.}"

The warrior's tail wagged slowly. "{That's not a problem, Captain. I like looking at his tail.}" She looked down and gave the little [Human] a wink. [Oscar's] face didn't change, but Rgrarshok heard his heartbeat pace just a little faster. His scent also picked up slight sour tang that showed that Myyreh's comment had indeed flustered him.

Rgrarshok tilted her ear curiously towards Myyreh, who didn't respond to the unspoken question. The captain hoped that Myyreh was just teasing. She had heard rumors that certain [Humans] had gotten very...experimental with their fellow crewmembers. As cute as they were, [Humans] were also rumored to be quite the randy little things.

She sure didn't want anything like that happening on her watch. Not that the captain had anything against it in principle, but she did not even want to imagine the paperwork involved if [Oscar] got himself hurt fooling around with Myyreh.

The colony was in a foul mood. At least that was how Mx'ylept thought of her home, as if the entire place was like a single person in the middle of having a very bad day.

No matter how much cubic the two species tunneled out of the moon, it was still an enclosed space. And thus when things were wrong, as they were right now, it hung in the air like a foul smell that wouldn't go away. Old hurts and minor issues would blow up into major ones. Clutch-mates would snap at each other, Dorarizin packs would snarl among themselves.

Things hadn't been exactly great, not for a long while, but at least they'd been stable. Now there was a murderer at large in the colony, and what was worse the killer was the clutch-mate of his supervisor. Ti'Etka was bearing up under the strain with admirable strength, but Mx'ylept could tell that the Karnakian was paying only nominal attention to his job. Mx'ylept supposed that she couldn't blame him.

The Karnakian looked up from her datapad and sighed as a familiar large newcomer loped through the large entrance to the docks. "|Good afternoon, [Brgarh]. Come for more feather samples?|"

"[Nope! Just checking on a few cameras.]"

The big Dorarizin jogged closer, and Mx'ylept realized there was something different about him. In addition to his odd headgear, Bgrarh was wearing a large garment that covered his torso completely. It also bore the same fine criss-cross patterning as his hat, and hung down past Brgarh's knees. The garment also had an extra bit of fabric around Bgrarh's upper shoulders.

Mx'ylept cocked her head curiously. In the view from her rear pair of eyes, Bgrarh's head was filled with the dancing, shifting aura of sapient neural activity that his hat did nothing to obscure. Normally she would expect to see a similar if greatly reduced aura from the rest of his body. But his torso and limbs were curiously muted.

"|What is that you're wearing?|"

"[It's [Human] garment!]" said Bgrarh with his usual cheerfulness. "[They call it an Inverness Cape. It goes with the hat. Do you like it?]"

"|It's...interesting. It seems to be very shielding, though. I would imagine it would make you very hot. What's it made of?|" One of her talons flashed out and nudged at his cape-covered front. She was careful not to press too hard. After all, she didn't want to poke a hole in his nice new outfit.

Bgrarh's grin froze on his face as she did so. It could be her imagination, but he felt a lot more...squishy in the front than she'd expected. She also thought she picked up the merest hint of a pained grunt from the direction of his chest, although the Dorarizin's throat and lips didn't move.

Was he injured, and using this strange clothing to conceal his wound? "|Um...|" she began.

"[Anyways, I've got to get going! The captain will be after me if I don't report back soon.]" Bgrarh turned and all but leapt away as Mx'ylept cocked her head. She could swear she heard that same faint and pained grunt again as the Dorarizin's feet hit the floor.

Ti'Etka's foot-claws tapped against the stone of the docks as he half-heartedly walked along a row of crates. A datapad held in one clawed hand showed the manifest he was supposed to be checking, but his heart wasn't in it. Fear and worry gnawed at his gut, both for his clutch-mate as well as for himself. The Karnakian was sure that every single movement of his was now watched by several different 'interested' parties. He expected to be confronted at any moment by either one of the Senate investigation team or, more worryingly, one of the other people keeping track of him.

He came to the end of the row and crossed to the next. He glanced down it automatically and then whipped his snout back in a double-take. There was a small form huddled midway along the line of containers, out of sight of any cameras.

"[Don't look surprised, idiot!]" hissed the diminutive alien. "[Just get over here.]"

Ti'Etka's innate curiousity won out over any fear that this was a setup. He glanced at his datapad and trotted into the aisle formed by the surrounding crates as if he wanted to double-check a particular section.

"[Good,]" said the [Human] when Ti'Etka reached him. "[Keep looking around as if you're reading crate labels and such.]"

"|I'm surprised you trust me enough to let me approach you,|" murmured Ti'Etka while he acted as instructed.

"[Oh, [Myyreh] is around here somewhere to keep an eye on me. Don't ask me exactly where, though. She's a sneaky one.]"

"|Fair enough. You do realize that the dock cameras will have seen you come in here, right?|"

"[Nope, I snuck in under Bgrarh's cloak. We lined it with metal foil to keep my brain from being seen by your aura-sight-thingy. Got a helluva bruise from a poke by one of you guys, but I don't think anyone knows I'm here.]"

Ti'Etka looked up at the distant furred figure as Bgrarh made a great show out of examining one of his camera drones. "|And I presume you'll leave the same way?|"

"[Yeah, which doesn't give me a lot of time. We need to talk about your sister.]"

The Karnakian clicked his foot-claws against the floor in irritation. "|For the last time, I don't know where she is. And she didn't kill...|"

"[We know she didn't kill him.]"

The flat declaration derailed the Karnakian's train of thought and he tilted his head in curiosity. It took every ounce of his self-control to not look around at the [Human] while the they continued talking.

"[I reckon your sister is involved with the [Green] smuggling, but she's not a murderer. We have proof that someone planted that feather. Now, are you willing to talk to us? You could help us a lot by naming who else is involved.]"

The Karnakian wondered if he should admit the truth, but his worry about Tk'Serk won out. "|I don't know any of that. Tk'Serk handled all of the interactions. I was paid to look the other way, and nothing else.|"

"[So we need your sister. Can you get in touch with her?]"

Ti'Etka looked down at his datapad and wondered if he could trust the alien. "|I don't know where she is,|" he finally said.

"[I hope for her sake you're just keeping up a front of plausible deniability. I don't care. You need to get word to her about this however you can. If we get her safely into my team's custody, then maybe we can figure out who's really behind all this nonsense.]"

At that Ti'Etka finally did give in and glance over at the [Human]. "|Into your custody? Not the police?|"

"[Of course not. For all we know the cops here are the ones who set up this frame-job.]"

"|You don't trust Ta'Stak'qa?|"

"[She might be clean, but can you say the same for those working beneath her?]"

"|Yes! They're all good people.|"

"[Are you willing to bet your sister's life on it?]"

Ti'Etka's silence was enough of a reply for the [Human].

"[So you see why we need to play this close to the chest. I know it's a big risk for you to get in touch with her and it's a big risk for her to stick her [snout] out of wherever she's hiding. But the risk gets even bigger the longer she stays in hiding.]"

"|I don't know what to do.|"

"[You need to trust us, which I know is a big ask. I won't lie, there will be a lot of pain coming in the future. Both for her and at least a little for you. But it won't be because of a murder charge.]"

Ti'Etka stared at one of the crates without seeing it while his mind raced. "|If I can set something up, how do I get in touch with you?|"

"[We have no idea who might be listening in, so we need to keep this off of the grid and use written messages only. You see where [Bgrarh] is working right now?]"

The Karnakain glanced up and saw the Dorarizin's cloaked figure against the far wall of the docks. "|Yes.|"

"[One of our team will be checking that camera twice per [sleep cycle]. Leave your note there.]"

Ti'Etka shook himself and fluffed his feathers out. "|I'll do as you ask. And thank you.|" For the first time in days, he felt...not great, but at least not entirely awful.

Kgrashak prodded at Oscars's bare torso while he sat cross-legged on a piece of luggage that they'd repurposed as an impromptu exam table. "I told you it's fine, Kate. Just a little bruise."

The medic didn't look up as she let out a 'hmph' that said louder than words that she would be the one to decide that, thank you very much. Oscar did his best to ignore her fussing as well as Myyreh's amused scrutiny of his upper body.

Bgrarh just looked abashed. "[I'm sorry, [Oscar]. I didn't know she was going to poke at me like that, or I would have dodged.]"

The human couldn't understand why the xenos were kicking up such a fuss. "It's no big deal, really! I've gotten way worse while sparring."

"[You should have let me carry you in]," said Myyreh. The specialist sprawled languidly on her side on the floor of the team's suite.

"That would be a lot more noticeable," said Oscar. "The Karnakians have seen Benny wearing his hat already. So him wearing the cape looks less suspicious."

"[I know,]" she replied as she rolled onto her back. "[I'm just a little jealous of Bgrarh getting to cuddle you like that.]"

"What the hell does that mean?"

"[Relax, I'm just teasing. You're cute when you're all flustered.]"

Oscar resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he and Bgrarh continued their brainstorming session.

"[I still think it's someone wanting to set up their own rival operation,]" said Bgrarh.

Oscar shook his head. "Why go to all of this trouble, though? I imagine that smugglers in your society are much like ours. They're all about maximizing profit with minimal work. If a drug cartel wants you out of the way, they'll just step on you."

He touched his bullet scar, which lay on the other side of his torso from Kgrashak's probing paws and nose. "Or at least they'll try to step on you." Oscar pointed a finger at the main display, which showed their collected evidence on the murder case. "This is not their style. A frame-job like this is too cute!"

"[Cute?]"

"Too fiddly, too complicated. Too much effort. If they wanted Hrzharh and Tk'Serk out of the way, why not just kill 'em?"

Oscar twitched as Kgrashak's cold wet nose touched his bullet scar and gave it a few tentative snuffles. "[Is this old wound bothering you? I have some nanotheraputics that could replace the scar tissue, you'd never know you were damaged.]"

The human gently patted her snout. "Nah. I appreciate the offer but I want to keep it. It'll remind me to duck next time." He looked at the main display. "Assuming no hypothetical other cartel, then we're down to either the others in the Rrelren pack or maybe Ti'Etka as our main suspects."

The three Dorarizin looked at him with expressions of shock. "[Ti'Etka?]" asked Bgrarh. "[Why would he frame his sibling?]"

Oscar shrugged. "I'm just speculating. Maybe he thought Tk'Serk was bringing shame to the family name with her smuggling activities...and so he frames her for murder instead. Yeah, that doesn't make much sense. What about the pack? Maybe one of them found out about the smuggling and wanted to punish Hrzharh."

Bgrarh's ears flicked as he regarded the main display as well. "[It's highly unlikely that Hrzharh was able to keep his activities with Tk'Serk secret from the others. Pack members get very attuned to each other; we can smell when one of our own is lying."

Ocsar kept his face carefully neutral and hoped he himself didn't count as a 'true' pack member. Ultimately he was here on a clandestine mission and effectively 'lying' to his adoptive pack by his very presence. He hoped his alien body language and scent profile would be enough to throw the Dorarizin off, and figured that it must have done so thus far. If they were suspicious of him they'd have confronted him long before now.

"So the pack has known about the smuggling for a long time," he said. "Which raises the issue of timing. Why kill Hrzharh now?"

"[We're not thinking widely enough,]" said Kgrashak as she handed Oscar his shirt. "[What about Chief Kergrth?]"

The human pulled on his tee shirt and hopped off of the table. "Now that's a good thought. If there was some bribery going on, maybe Hrzharh was the bag man for it. If so, he'd be the only one who knew of the chief's corruption. If Kergrth takes him out, he can sit back and claim innocence while we roll up the rest of the smuggling ring."

"[He'd have access to the necessary nanofabrication facilities for making that fake feather,]" said Myyreh. "[And he has the technical training to construct a drone disruptor.]"

"So the chief's a good possibility." Oscar donned his uniform's shirt and buttoned it up. "He strikes me as too much of a doofus to be our perp, but he could be faking stupidity. Lord knows I've used that dodge plenty of times myself."

The door to the suite chimed and slid open. Ngralh entered, and his taciturn face split into a large grin as the door closed behind him.

"[I take it we heard from Ti'Etka,]" said Rgrarshok.

With a little flourish, the XO pulled a slip of paper out of his pocket. "[He's heard from Tk'Serk. No details on where she's hiding, of course, but he expects to get us another note by tomorrow with a place and time to meet her.]"

The next note was a lot longer and not an unmitigated cause for celebration. Tk'Serk wanted to meet at the Dorarizin docks during the graveyard shift, which wasn't a problem. She insisted that Oscar be the only one to meet her, which definitely was a problem.

"[I don't like it]," said Rgrarshok.

Oscar folded his arms and regarded the note that lay in the middle of the assembled team. Looking at it was pointless on his part, since the note was covered in the unreadable glyphs of alien writing. "I can't say as I like it much either. But she is allowing me to come with Myra and Jeeves, so it's not like I'm waltzing in all by my lonesome."

"[That's the only reason I'm even considering going along with this]," growled the captain. "[I don't doubt your bravery [Oscar], but you know how slow you move compared to us. Myyreh is very capable but she cannot guarantee your safety.]"

"[Thanks for the vote of confidence there, boss,]" said Myyreh dryly.

"[You are very fast, Specialist. But you aren't infinitely fast.]"

Oscar held up a hand to forestall any argument. "Don't forget, I'll have Jeeves too. Drones are faster than any of you guys."

"[We should be nearby as well, just in case,]" said Ngralh. He called up a map of the docks. "[If we situate ourselves in this alcove here, we can be on the scene within seconds if anything goes bad.]"

"[There are still a few bulkheads in between,]" replied Rgrarshok. "[If those get closed on us it'll take much longer to reach him.]" She sighed and laid a huge paw on Oscar's shoulder. "[My personal recommendation is to not go, Trainee. But I leave the final decision up to you.]"

Oscar looked at the inscrutable note again with a sour scowl on his face. "We need this, right?"

The captain shrugged. "[Perhaps. Our interviews are not yet fruitful, and our physical evidence is pretty thin.]"

"[I can say definitively that there was no wireless hacking of either of the drones at the murder scene,]" added Egwreh. "[But that doesn't help much.]"

"So we need Tk'Serk to name names and kick things loose again. How much time do we have before the meet?"

"[A few [hours]]," replied Ngralh.

The human ran his fingers through his hair. "All right, then let's do this. But I want some extra insurance. Emma, you and me need to come up with something."

"[That design won't be allowed,]" said Egwreh.

Oscar stared at her in disbelief. "It's only a damn slug thrower. This design is primitive compared with anything you guys have. I may as well be using a stone axe, fer Chrissake."

"[It still throws metal slugs at high velocity, and thus is technically lethal. Plus there are additional restrictions inside a pressurized environment like this."

He let out a disgusted grunt. "What about a laser or something?"

"[Lasers are good for ship-to-ship combat but they make rotten handheld weapons. Their effective blinding range is a lot longer than their effective lethal range, and it's way too easy to blind a friendly by accident.]"

Oscar glanced with regret at the schematic of the M9 Beretta on the screen. "Maybe we could come up with some kind of frangible round?"

"[We'd need to test it thoroughly, and we only have a little time.]"

"Okay, let's approach this from the other end. When Mr. John Q. Wolfdude decides he doesn't want to play nice and go with you cops, what do you use to make him? We could construct a smaller version of that."

Oscar squared his shoulders and tried to feel confident as he walked forward. He had Myyreh loping along at his left and Jeeves floating serenely at his right, not to mention Egwreh's gift tucked under one armpit. But it still felt wrong to walk away from the other crew and through the massive bank-vault sized bulkhead door. He'd picked up enough Dorarizin nonverbal cues to know the captain was worried sick about him in spite of her outward stoic demeanor.

To take his mind off of it he figured he'd tackle something else that made him uncertain. "Myra, I did apologize for the ear thing the other night, didn't I?"

His bodyguard looked down at him with a half smile. "[You certainly did. Why do you ask?]"

"I can't help but notice you've been a lot more, um, suggestive since then. Are you just messing with me?"

"[Why would you think I'm messing with you? Maybe I'm utterly smitten with your raw seething masculinity.]"

"Okay now I know you're just messing with me."

"[Perhaps.]"

"Please, we're walking into possible danger. If this is standard tease-the-FNG stuff then I'm willing to play along. But if it isn't I'd rather know now."

"[FNG?]"

"Fuckin' New Guy."

"[Ah, I get your meaning. Maybe after this is all over I'll tell you one way or another.]"

Oscar let out a disgusted sigh as they walked through another and equally massive bulkhead. "Figures. I head light-years into space and still wind up in the middle of a bunch of smart-asses."

The vaulted expanse beyond the bulkhead door was the one he'd looked over while interviewing Zergarh a few days earlier. Its gantry crane was in the center of the space, with another long flat ingot dangling from its claw as before.

Below the huge bar of metal was a Dorarizin operating the crane's control. Oscar didn't like that. He'd assumed that Tk'Serk had chosen this time because there would be nobody there. The operator still faced away from them, even though he must have heard them enter. Oscar glanced at Myyreh and saw her nose twitching. Her amused expression fell away and was replaced with one of utter concentration.

"Myra?"

"[Something's off.]"

Oscar looked again at the other Dorarizin, and saw that the alien's tail stood fuzzed out behind him like a bottle-brush. The penny dropped as he realized he was seeing something he'd only read about.

"Aw, shiiiit..."

He turned to sprint, just in time to see the bulkhead's thick metal door slide down and into its closed position with a substantial thump. He heard a strange squawk from Jeeves as the drone dropped like a stone and bounced on the stone floor with a metallic bong.

Oscar spun back as Myyreh's arm thumped across his chest to shield him from the danger in the center of the room.

Rgratz turned to face them as he tossed away a small cigar-shaped object. His eyes were black, completely black, like pits opened into an endless night. He crouched with extended claws as drool fell in constant streams from his multiple rows of sharklike fangs.

The Green-crazed berserker's growling voice sounded out in the huge cavern like the trumpet of doom.

"[Playtime!]"