Mitzner roughly woke Wagner and then half dragged him with her to Coordinator Oola's tent. She began to rant the second she made her way in the flap.

"Change of plans!" Mitzner announced "A member of my crew is advising the Alliance. If we want to keep our tactical advantage we're going to need combined arms. Wagner, do you think you could rig some kind of artillery out of one of my particle weapons?"

"A member of your crew is helping the Alliance?" asked Oola, very concerned "Why?"

"Because he's Gibson and he's always wrong. He's not going to risk breaking the streak now," said Mitzner.

"But what about Ensign Gul? Isn't he one of your men?" asked Wagner.

"That-" stammered Mitzner "That's not a thing," she lied "And even if it was Ensign Gul is dead to me now. He's not one of my anything."

"Whatever you say," said Wagner.

"Look, Wagner, I'm not going to force you to participate in this," said Mitzner "If you want to leave you should leave. But do it after you rig me up with a Rube Goldberg's particle cannon."

"I'm sure you must know more about particle weapons than I do. I would just do the same thing you'd probably do, which would be pull out the safety inhibitor and then-" began Wagner.

Mitzner finished the sentence along with him: "crank up the power past maximum."

"Yeah," added Mitzner.

"Of course then it's a game of chicken to see how many shots you can get off without melting all the skin on your hand," Wagner continued.

"The ol' hotshot trick," mused Mitzner "Yeah I considered it. I was hoping you had something better."

"That's really more something Dr. Kang would do," said Wagner "If he or McAfree were here they'd be building autonomous combat drones out of rock and twigs."

"Hey, never compare yourself negatively to that human batrachotoxin," snarled Mitzner "You've been a huge help and you did so without shitting directly into everyone's mouths the whole time. If things go south for him I'm going to recommend you to lead up the department."

"It's nice of you to say that," said Wagner "But I don't have the seniority to head up a Department. And if things go south for Dr. Kang there might not be an Exploration Division much longer."

Oola was listening to the two talk, confused but fascinated.

"What are you talking about?" asked Mitzner.

"Dr. Kang and McAfree barely recognize that I exist. They slip up and talk about stuff I shouldn't be hearing in front of me all the time. Dr. Kang is the ideological leader of the faction within Admin that supports the New Era. He's their symbol. If his enemies are able to destroy him like this it might drive the others into hiding. Then it won't be long before reclaiming the lost worlds of humanity is in the hands of Military Divsion."

Mitzner couldn't believe it; there was actually an outcome worse than Dr. Kang still being alive.

"You have a lot of respect for him," said Mitzner. It wasn't as much of an insult as it would have been a few minutes ago.

"He's not a good person but there's no one better than him at what he does, whatever it is that you call it."

"This Dr. Kang," said Oola "Is there a way we could enlist his help?"

"NO!" Mitzner almost shouted "No there is not."

* * *

Inside the tent of the Dux, a similar meeting was taking place.

"I need to eat a bunch of aluminum and copper before I can regrow the fingers," said Gibson "But it is a possibility, yes."

"You eat copper?" asked Dax Simmons.

"Not as a matter of course but I'm capable of ingesting a large variety of materials for the purpose of self-repair."

"My respect for your people continues to grow," said the Dux.

"As important as your fingers are," said Gul "We really need to figure out what to do about Lieutenant-Commander Mitzner."

"She has disobeyed orders and defected to the Libertines," said Gibson "She will be neutralized via non-lethal means and returned to the Armstrong to face the consequences of her actions."

"You don't think that's a little hypocritical?" asked Gul "How is what she did any different from what we're doing?"

"The Lieutenant-Commander is not in charge of this mission," said Gibson "I am. I act with the authority of the Huxley Foundation. She is acting alone. Zarah Mitzner is not a stupid woman. She knew exactly what she was doing when she disobeyed a direct order."

"This defector," said the Dux "Is she very dangerous?"

Gibson and Gul exchanged a worried look.

"That bad huh?" asked the Dux.

"I won't lie to you," said Gibson "The last time she crash landed on an alien world she fought off what we would consider a modern military force with nothing but her pistol, some improvised explosives, and the help of an insubordinate graduate student."

"This time she has at least two out of the three," said Gul.

"We don't know that Wagner is helping her, but I can't imagine he would disobey her orders in the absence of a higher ranking officer," said Gibson.

"This is troubling," said the Dux "What would you recommend we do, Commander?"

"I will take personal responsibility for neutralizing Lieutenant-Commander Mitzner," said Gibson "She's our problem, we will deal with her."

"How exactly are you going to do that?" asked Gul "I know you're ex-Homeguard but Mitzner is a Foundation supersoldier. I've had casual conversations with her while she had an arrow sticking out of her stomach. I don't think stun bombs are going to cut it."

"Supersoldier or not, she still has largely human anatomy," said Gibson "If I blow off one of her legs no amount of pain control is going to keep her fighting."

"This is crazy," said Gul.

"This is the situation the Lieutenant-Commander created," said Gibson "I will give her a chance to stand down. If she continues to disobey orders she will have brought this on herself."

"What makes you think you're going to be able to take out one of her legs before she blows your head clean off?" asked Gul.

Gibson didn't have an immediate answer for that.

"Obviously," said the Dux "We're going to have to reassess our battle plan."