TAS Valiant exited hyperspace close to the adrift ship.
"It is most definitely derelict," Big Barrows said. "A fairly recent one."
"Can you give me a full scan of this ship?" John said.
"Here it comes," Barrows said. "It appears to be a huge hole on the other side. It seems the reactor overloaded; entire rear blown from decompression."
"This is a Drengin ship, right?" John said.
"From the looks, yes," Barrows said.
"There can be valuable data on the Drengin there," Dick said. "More valuable than any physical loot."
"All right," John said. "We will go there. Dick, Barrows, take a salvage team there in a shuttle and see what you can find down there."
Dick and Barrows left the bridge and went to the shuttle bay. There, they and other members of the salvage team donned environmental suits and boarded a shuttle.
"We are ready to launch," Dick reported.
"Stand by," responded a voice of hangar control.
After a moment, the shuttle left the hangar bay and headed toward the derelict. It flew toward it and approached it through the hull breach. It landed inside a large bay and activated magnetic landing struts. The salvage team, 8 in numbers, exited the shuttle.
"Artificial gravity is working," someone said.
"Good," another person said. "I hate these magnetic boots."
"Let's get to work," Dick said.
The team spread out in pairs. Dick went with Barrows.
They moved through the corridors of the ship, stumbling upon a few Korath corpses. All were dead, killed by decompression.
They found an open door to a quarters and entered it. A computer was there, still active.
"Good," Dick said. "That's a catch. Let's see what we have here..."
They approached the computer and Dick activated it. Information about the ship appeared on its screen.
"Great!" Dick said.
"It ppears to be a science vessel..." Barrows said. "What is a 'Spore Weapon'?"
"It appears to be a biological weapon, created from ancient spore from Drengi..." Dick read. "It’s top secret of the Korath Clan... Not even the Drengin command knows about it."
"It is a valuable finding," Barrows said.
"If they deploy this weapon, this can be devastating," Dick said.
"Those honorless Korath!" Barrows said
At that moment, another group reported:
"We reached engineering. There is a huge tank here.”
Don’t open it," Dick said. "Collect any relevant data you can find and get back to the shuttle."
"What are we going to do with this information?" Barrows asked.
"The captain will decide," Dick said. "I think we will have to share it with someone who can stop these Korath."
They downloaded the data and left the quaters. They returned to the shuttle. Other pairs were returning as well. They boarded the shuttle and left the Korath ship.
As soon as they returned to TAS Valiant and went through the decontamination cycle, Dick and Barrows went to the bridge and reported to John what they learned.
"This is disturbing," John said. "But unfortunately, we cannot do anything about it..."
"We can find a Drengin outpost, raid it and "Leave these data in their computers," Dick said.
"It's a great idea," John said. "We will do it."
III.
"We’re approaching the Drengin outpost now," Barrows said.
"Are there any Drengin ships in orbit?" John asked.
"No," Barrows said.
"We are lucky," John said. "Dick, you’re in command here. Barrows, come with me."
Soon, five shuttles left TAS Valiant and headed toward the planet. As they were closing on the outpost, they were surprised by the fact that they were not fired upon. They landed without any problem on the outpost’s landing pad.
"Let’s go!" John said, and all of them deployed from the shuttle, with weapons ready to fire. But what they saw was a pad full of Drengin corpses. A few scans confirmed they were dead.
"What happened here?" someone said.
"Looks like someone did our job," John said. "Let’s see if there is anything left."
They moved toward the nearby building, not knowing that a four-armed entity was watching them from the shadows.
The Terran group entered a nearby building. There were dead Drengin there, but nothing else.
"Who did that?" someone said.
At this moment, shots came from a nearby corridor, killing two humans. Everyone looked: there was a being in yellow environmental suits, humanoid, robust, with four arms.
"Humans," said one of them. "You destroyed our homeworld, killed us... We will destroy you."
"Fall back!" John shouted. Terrans (and one Arcean) retreated under fire.
"John to Valiant," John said, activating his communicator. "The outpost has been taken by some other aliens. They may be Xendar."
"Xendar?" Dick answered. "They are extinct..."
"They wear environmental suits and claim humans destroyed their homeworld," John said. "Sounds plenty like Xendar to me."
"Wait, we are detecting a ship incoming from the other side of the planet," Dick said. "It does not appear to be a Xendar ship. Lifesigns are also not Xendar."
"Then what species is that?" John said.
"None known," Dick said.
"Maybe I can talk to them," Barrows said. "I am not human. They may be willing to talk with me."
"You are with us, humans," John said.
"But I am not of your species," Barrows insisted. "This can matter for them."
Barrows moved out.
"I came to talk!—" he shouted. "—Hold your fire!"
Fire ceased.
"You are not human," said one of the beings.
"No, I am an Arcean” Barrows said.
"We are Bohandi” said the same being. “We were at war with humans but were defeated. They bombarded our homeworld and are hunting us down. We are part of 19 Bohandi Evacuation Fleet. We were escaping from the humans when we found an anomaly and entered it... and we found ourselves here. We found this place, attacked it, killed the occupants and took it over."
"It appears you come from another universe," Dahvin said. "Here, this universe is dominated by the Yor, these are robots and the Drengin, whose outpost you took. So you may be in trouble with them as well. If you agree, we can work together."
"I don't think I can trust any humans, not even those from another universe," said the Bohandi.
"Can you trust me?" said Barrows.
"All right..." said the Bohandi. At this moment, Barrows’s communicator activated.
"Barrows, we have a problem” John said. “There's a Korath ship incoming with a load of Spore Weapons. We need to have a ceasefire with these beings to move against the Korath."
"Acknowledged," Barrows said.
"Who are these Korath?" asked the Bohandi.
"They are part of the Drengin, who developed a devastating bioweapon in secret” Barrows said. “ And they have this weapon here."
"We will work with you," the Bohandi said. "I am Commander P’Lak."
"I am Big Barrows," Barrows said.
"I will contact my ship now and order it to assist the humans against the incoming threat," P’Lak said.
Barrows returned to the Terran group.
In orbit, TAS Valiant and the Bohandi ship moved toward the Korath ship. They intercepted it far from the planet and engaged it in battle. The Korath ship was quickly destroyed. Valiant and the Bohandi ships returned to the planet then, to pick up people from the planet.
IV.
TAS Valiant and the Bohandi ship were traveling together. They evacuated from the planet shortly after the destruction of the Korath ship. Soon after that, they received many communications on open channels, addressed to everyone. Apparently, Drengin agents discovered the Spore Weapons, as well as Korath's collaboration with the Dread Lords. This resulted in a full civil war within the Drengin Empire. After these news were received, a decision was made to try to send the Bohandi back to their universe. They were worried that humans would kill them, but P’Lak decided that he preferred to take his chances with the humans, not the Dragons and the Korath.
However, the anomaly that brought them here was no longer present. Fortunately, sensors indicated it only elevated and not dissipated. The ships were currently looking for it without result, so far.
'I am getting tired of it,' Dick said one day. 'Why are we even bothering with it? Why can't these Bohandi search for themselves?'
'They were harmed by humans,' John said. 'We must help them now.'
'Not our humans,' Dick said.
'True,' John said. 'But we cannot leave them for Drengin, Korath, Yor or Dread Lords'
'They will probably be killed by these humans anyway,' Dick said.
'Yes, but we must help them while they are in our universe,' John said, ending the discussion.
Finally, a few days after that discussion, the anomaly was located.
Both ships approached the anomaly.
'Scans indicate the anomaly is stable now,' Big Barrows said, 'But I don’t know how long it will stay that way.'
'P’Lak, it is time for you to go,' John said.
'Understood,' P’Lock said through the communication. The Bohandi ship moved toward the anomaly and entered it. It slowly disappeared inside the anomaly. And not a moment too soon. A moment the Bohandi ship fully disappeared, the anomaly moved again.
'You think they’re all right?' Dick said.
'We can only hope so,' John said.
TAS Valiant then left the place, entering hyperspace again.
V.
Some months later, TAS Valiant was going through hyperspace when, suddenly Big Barrows said:
'Captain, I am receiving a coded message... of a Terran Alliance coding sequence.'
'Terran Alliance?' John said. 'Who sent it?'
'Identification is “Odyssey”' Big Barrows said.
'Must be one of our Deep Space Task Forces sent before the war,' John said. 'Put it through.'
A scrambled message appeared on the screen.
'This is... Colonel Jenna Cory... Task Force Odyssey...' said a quite young-looking woman with dark hair and Asian features on the screen. 'Calling all Terran Alliance forces remaining in operation. I am sending my transponder signal. Track it and try to meet with me. Repeat, this is Colonel...'
'Do you have this transponder signal?' John said.
'Yes,' Big Barrows said. 'I am relaying it to the helm.'
Then suddenly, an alert sounded.
"A Yor fleet just exited hyperspace close by," Barrows said.
"Take us out of here!" John said.
TAS Valiant entered hyperspace, running from the Yor fleet.
"Are the Yor following us?" John asked.
"Yes," Big Barrows said. "And they're gaining on us."
"Is there any system we can hide in?" John asked.
"Yes," Barrows said. "I have a system…"
"Take us there," John said.
TAS Valiant exited hyperspace in another system and dived into an asteroid field.
"What is that Yor fleet doing?" John asked.
"They emerged from hyperspace around this asteroid field, but they're not entering it," Banor said. "Wait! They're sending a message on an open channel."
"Let's see it," John said.
