Dark Space: Origin by Jasper T. Scott

subordinate Gors answered her. Tova asked them to stand down, but the subordinate Gor responded by demanding to know who she was and what authority she had to make such a request. Tova allowed him to know her name and status as a praetor of her people, and she was immediately sent to the top of the cluster. Now she spoke with the one in charge of the ship. Again, the same question—why should they stand down? Tova explained that the alliance was in danger. Something had happened to destabilize the human government, and now it was more important than ever that they gain the admiral’s trust, because he stood poised to take command of the entire human remnant. Without his consent, the alliance could be dissolved all together and the Gors might be massacred.
    The one in charge hesitated, but at last he agreed. They would cripple their ships’ engines and bail out. That would mean yielding more of their vessels to the humans, and Hoff would have even more tools with which to reverse engineer Sythian technology. If they succeeded in doing that, they would have much less need for the Gors. They had made themselves useful by helping humans to develop their own cloaking devices, and by using their telepathy to sense theirfellow Gors, even aboard cloaked enemy ships, enabling them to serve as living cloak detectors. That deal had worked well to keep humans dependent on them, but Admiral Heston had still refused to join the alliance, and given enough time, he would find his own solutions to those problems.
    Tova hissed with displeasure, thinking that this latest gesture of goodwill had better be enough for the stubborn admiral. She broke her telepathic connection and opened her eyes. That was when she noticed the blinding crackle of sparks coming from the bridge doors. Gina stood covering the doors with her sidearm drawn.
    Someone was trying to break through.
    “They agree to stand down,” Tova said. “They disable their ships and bail out. You need rescue them.
    Gina turned to her with wide eyes. “They’re surrendering? I could kiss you, Tova!”
    “Do not.”
    “Wait—you said they’re bailing out. How many are there?”
    “More than a thousand.”
    “Tova, we don’t have room for that many Gors! The Interloper isn’t even half the size of the Defiant! ”
    Tova hissed again. “Then you need make room for them.”
    Gina sighed. “We’ll have to talk to the Captain about it.” Tova watched as the human woman touched her ear and said, “ Interloper, this is Gina —you can cancel your jump. We’ve just secured three more Sythian cruisers for your fleet, but there’s a catch . . . we’ve got over a thousand Gors gone EVA, and they need a pick up before their air runs out.”
    *  *  *

    The corridors were dark, barely lit by the dim, red emergency lights. Brondi and the other zephyrs illuminated that darkness in bright swaths with their floodlights. The atmosphere was tense, no one speaking. Brondi listened in silence to his breath reverberating inside his helmet, to the thudding of his squad’s footsteps, and to the whirring of servos and motors in the zephyrs’ legs. Each squad was made up of eight assault mechs, and dozens of squads were now striding through the ship on the way to Valiant’s reactor core. Brondi hoped that when they reached the core they wouldn’t find it ruined beyond repair. He gritted his teeth, furious that the alien saboteurs had made such a nuisance of themselves.
    This wasn’t how things were meant to go.
    Up ahead, the squad leader, Sergeant Grovin Gibbs, held up a hand for them to stop as he reached a junction where the corridor split into three divergent branches. Brondi heard his comms crackle as he checked in with the others to see which way they’d gone.
    “Hunter One here,” one of the other squad leaders replied. “We went left. The Lokis went right. The middle’s for you and the rest of the Alphas, sir.”
    “Roger that,” Gibbs replied. “Have you found any more