One: Dax

Orbital Patrol Officer Daxton Miller peered through his standard issue LongView
scope at the vast, starry emptiness of Space. The scope's heads-up display
showed no activity as he panned to the left and to the right. All was clear.

Dax reached forward to his portable, which was clicked into place on its dock
in his patrol vehicle's dashboard. He scrolled down the list of destinations
and selected "Terran Orbital Defense, station 19C," home base. As his patrol
vehicle came to life and aimed itself toward Earth, he fastened the LongView
back onto his belt. He poked at the screen again, sending a communique to his
team that he was heading back planetside.

He glanced out the window of the vehicle and saw a vessel approaching. He
quickly tapped "Cancel," then grabbed onto the manual controls of his patrol
vessel and punched the throttle while activating the indicator lamps and
automated warning messages.

Inside the cabin of the approaching shipping vessel, according to Dax's
readouts, sat a number of Exans, extraterrestrial beings bound for Earth. A
recorded message in Terran English played back within the vessel's interior,
then repeated in a handful of other, widely understood Terran and Exan
languages. "You are being stopped by orbital law enforcement. Vacate your
current transport lane and deactivate propulsion systems immediately." As the
alternate translations warbled from the vessel's speakers, the laughter of
Exans rang out through the length of the mostly unadorned, rectangular ship.
Its speed increased slightly as an alien appendage adjusted the controls.

The computer of Dax's patrol vessel sensed the speed and energy output of the
vessel increase, and automatically activated the secondary, slightly more
forcefully-worded warning recordings. Dax focused hard on the opposing ship.
He brought his patrol vehicle alongside the small freighter and gestured
through his viewport to stop.

In response, an Exan with long, thin, barbed quills covering the back of his
head and neck glared at Dax through the viewport, bared his teeth, and flared
his cranial spines outward as though trying to appear larger. The ship
increased its speed further.

Dax clenched his jaw muscles. In a moment, he was directly behind the exan
vessel. With a series of beeps on his console, system procedures were
activated. A thin beam of energy appeared between the two vessels, then
disappeared, followed by another, thicker and steadier beam of light. The Alien
vessel was stopped, its engine was disabled, and its momentum arrested by an
orbital-grade tractor beam.

Dax remembered his training. Protocol was to wait for a second Orbital
Enforcement officer to arrive to assist with the stop. Dax pressed his
communicator in the dashboard again and spoke the proper code to let dispatch
know who he was, and that he had detained a vehicle. "Ten twenty-five, alpha
one orbital."

There was a pause. Then, in place of the usual dispatcher, his supervisor's
distinctly gruff voice glitched back, "Alpha one, negative. Ten-sixty-six,
please acknowledge."

What was 10-66 again? He didn't hear that one often. He poked the screen of his
portable docked in its place in his vehicle's dashboard, and opened the
procedural manual. He swiped to the section on radio codes. "Release from
custody," it read. He had never gotten back a 10-66 from dispatch before while
on orbital patrol duty.

Dax stared at the communication controls, then looked out his viewport to the
Exan vessel. Had his supervisor forgotten what had happened on Earth just over
a decade earlier? It was a ship vaguely like this one, if he wasn't mistaken,
and it had been used as a massive weapon when it was piloted at full pulse into
a population center. This ship could be headed straight for the station, or
worse. He had to stop it. Lives could be at stake. This was the reason for his
job's very existence.

It must be a misunderstanding, the thought. He pressed his communicator again.
"Ten-ten, sir. Repeat, Exan shipping and transport vessel, loaded for bear with
alien life signs and possibly cargo. Prior to disable and tractor, it was
headed directly for a main population center. Please. Advise."

There was a shorter pause, then, "Affirmative. Ten-sixty-six, Officer. That's
an order."

Dax gaped for a moment, doubting what he had heard. He managed to get his wits
about him and crackle back, "Ten-four." He deactivated the tractor beam.

There was a moment of hesitation as the automated "please fly safely" message
played and was translated. The the engine ports of the alien vehicle began to
glow bright with motionless exertion then, when the inertial dampeners were
suddenly deactivated, the transport lurched into motion, spewing over-rich
thermal exhaust from the flooded engine in a blue-green flare of plasma in its
wake as it sped away.

Dax sat for a moment, deflated. He pressed his comm again . "This is orbital,
Alpha One, I'm ten-seven. Going home."

---

The following morning, Dax double-tapped the screen to wake the garage's user
interface, and scanned his portable. He heard the machine whirring to life as
as his vehicle was lowered into place. The large garage door slid upward and
his patrol vehicle inched forward into the loading zone, then sat idle.
"Hopefully," thought Dax as he entered his car and snapped his portable in
place on the dash, "today will be boring."

As the vehicle hovered in place and increased its altitude above the patrol
station's garage platform, Dax's portable chimed, and the vehicle's screen
came to life. "Planetside orbital units, respond to a violent altercation at
the Downtown Medical Facility. Exan male, large build, code X, and Terran male,
medium build. Witness says they are agitated and creating a possibly dangerous
situation. Use caution."

Code X. He didn't need to look that one up. It had originally referred to
Xeltans, one of the more consistently problematic varieties of Exan. They bore
long, poisonous spikes on something like half of the total surface of their
skin. Every encounter Dax had ever had with a Xeltan told him that they were
prone to getting irrational, and could rarely be reasoned with once triggered.
Nowadays, Code X could refer to any variety of Exan that bore some aspect of
their anatomy that was potentially dangerous to human biology. Dax hoped it was
one of the more mundane and less lethal ones. So much for having a boring day.

His portable had detected the location from dispatch and was already displaying
a travel plan on the screen. Dax tapped the confirmation button, then activated
the communicator as his vehicle began its navigation toward the hospital. "Ten-
four, dispatch, Alpha One on route."

The building looked completely normal from the outside. Dax had half expected
to see a crowd gathering, or some other indication that there was something
going on inside, but there was only the usual hustle and bustle and vague
uneasiness of a hospital. Even as he entered, the usual group of worried
relatives and tense visitors barely glanced at him.

A nurse saw Dax enter, recognized his uniform, and beckoned, "Officer, it's
this way."

Dax followed the nurse as she waved something near a sensor to unlock a door.
It opened to reveal a long hospital hallway, harshly lit and nondescript. "An
Exan was starting to get pretty aggressive," she explained. "I called as soon
as I saw things start to go south between him and a human patient." A sudden
left turn through an open door brought them into a waiting room.

A very tall Xeltan was standing quite close to a cowering, terrified Human
male. The immense Exan was muttering something under his breath in that
unmistakable snarling Xeltan tongue. The Exan finished his incomprehensible
threats in Terran English, "Humanist DIRT!" He raised his muscular, spiked
arms, and aggressively pushed the Human's shoulders, causing his victim to
stumble backward into the wall and nearly fall to the floor.

Dax quietly told the nurse to go wait for his backup officer in the lobby. He
did his best to make both beings aware of his presence and establish a calm
environment. "Excuse me! Is there a problem here?"

The Xeltan's head whipped in Dax's direction, his amber-green eyes wide and
dialated, his sharp teeth bared, and his cranial quills flared to maximum
extension. As though in slow motion, Dax could see the alien's muscles flex,
his immense weight begin to shift, and his feet start moving. The Exan was
about to hurl his entire, immense, poison-spiked form at Dax.

In an instant, Dax grabbed the TASER beam on his left hip and aimed it at the
Exan. The wide, translucent beam that issued from it's muzzle, like a
flashlight or a tractor beam, only lasted for an instant. The massive Exan
froze in place, twitching slightly, then collapsed, stunned.

After cuffing the Exan, Dax snatched up his portable and crackled a
communication to base. "Requesting backup in the arrest of that Exan male,
large build, code X, in a non-reciprocal aggressive altercation with a Terran
male, average build, downtown medical center, come back, ASAP.

The pause was thick with tension. The Exan groaned and squirmed slightly in his
cuffs. Finally, the answer came, "Negative, ten sixty-six, issue citation to
Terran suspect, code H."

Code H. Dax knew what that meant because he had recieved training at the
station just a matter of weeks ago. It referred to a new, very controversial,
law.

In recent months and years, there had been a growing call from among some
Terran authorities to take legislative action against what some claimed was the
greatest threat to the security of all beings: humanism. After the unprovoked
Xeltan attack on Earth shook the planet to its core, anti-Exan sentiment had
spiked. Anti-discrimination laws had always been a tender subject in Earth's
history, but this time was different. Tempers flared hot on both sides, and the
debate had been fierce and long. Some said the law took too long to pass, that
the true impact of humanism needs historical context, and a critical eye.
Eventually, the anti-humanist law was passed, and took force of law. Now,
patrol officers like Dax were left to sort out the enforcement details. When
his boss said "Code H," it meant "Arrest the Human, ignore the Exan, we don't
want to flare tensions with Exan communities and provoke another attack."

Just then, Dax heard the distinct soft metallic clattering sound of another
patrol officer's utility belt behind him. He turned to see a patrol officer he
didn't recognize (a female Exan, a Mondan, whose uniform's nametag said
"Kasprak") entering with the same nurse who had guided Dax.

Dax rolled his eyes to express his frustration to Officer Kasprak. He leaned
close and briefed her on the situation. She looked determined, unconflicted,
and ready to do her job.

"Understood," Kasprak replied. "You want to take point, or should I?"

Dax sighed, glanced back to make sure the Exan hadn't recovered yet, and
thought for a moment. "I don't think I can do this one. I recuse myself. I have
to go talk to the chief."

"Understood." Mondans were famously agreeable and conflict-averse, though for
whatever reason, they still made excellent patrol officers. She allowed herself
a smile and small chuckle. "Heh, good luck, Miller."

---

Dax threw open the door to the office of the Patrol Chief, his boss. "We need
to talk."

The Chief looked up from his screen, surprised to see him. "Dax? What the hell
are you doing here? What happened at the hospital?"

"Backup arrived, I briefed her, and now I'm here. We need to talk."

The Chief sighed. "Dax. Did you let the Exan go, and arrest the humanist before
you left?"

Dax felt a faint shadow of anger in the pit of his stomach. "I don't think he
was a humanist. I was there. He was terrified. He was practically in the fetal
position, and the Xeltan was about ten seconds from going critical. He tried to
charge me. I had to tase and cuff him."

The Chief looked over his reading glasses at Dax. "Dax... You're not a
humanist, are you?"

Dax's felt his nostrils flare, and his lips tighten. "Oh, come on, Chief, be
reasonable. You know me. Don't go there." Dax was doing his best to keep his
voice down.

"Dax," the Chief's voice took on a hurried and official demeanor, "If you're
not willing to do your job, you'll be reprimanded. If you're going to get
aggressive in my office, we don't need to have meetings anymore, and I
especially don't need a humanist officer on my orbital team."

Dax sat in the chair on his side of the desk, took a deep breath, and leaned
forward. "That wasn't my intent, Chief. Come on. What is this really about? Why
are you doing this? Level with me. What's really going on here?"

The Chief looked Dax in the eye for a long moment, then sighed and shook his
head. "Look, Dax, trust me, I wish I knew. This is all above my head. I'm
sorry. Give me your portable and badge, you're no longer authorized to be in
this building. I don't want to have to call security."

---

The door to Dax's dwelling slid open. He stepped through and rubbed his face
with his hands as it slid shut behind him, the autolock clicking into place. He
clomped off both shoes. With a finger pressed to his dispenser's display, he
ordered a drink, "ale." He released the button and turned around to hang up his
uniform jacket.

Behind him, he heard the dispenser's synthesized voice. "Sorry, you have
exceeded the daily caloric limit for your current profile. Do you wish to
override?"

Dax rolled his eyes and turned back to the device, "Ugh, yes!"

There was a pause while the device's indicator momentarily spun, then, "Sorry,
you no longer have the sufficient citizen privelages override the dietary
settings of the selected profile. Do you wish to contact support?"

"No! Just forget it." Dax sighed heavily and double-tapped his main viewscreen
to turn it on. "Public feed," he commanded.

A commercial was the first thing that loaded onto the screen. It showed various
Exans relaxing, or working, or farming, or laughing with Human friends,
interspersed with stock footage of the beautiful natural scenery of Earth. The
music was gentle and serene.

A voice spoke with over-long pauses in between each sentence to allow the music
to play. "What is truly Terran? Absolutely nothing. When we go beyond our
orbit, we return with the best the universe has to offer. In a way, Earth was
brought here, piece by piece. We found the best of our home, away from home. We
can't wait to see what wonderful things we'll bring home next." The screen
faded to a logo with dynamic, sweeping lines; the emblem of a commercial
spaceline company.

"What the hell did that have to do with a spaceliner?" Dax wondered idly.