The Admiral keeps a civilian wife aboard much of the time. As vices among the Admiralty go, this one is fairly trivial.

"Merry, just tell them it's like Star Trek."

"I don't think anyone's heard of that but you."

"I saw a blog comparing you to Captain Picard recently!"

"Did they compare you to Spock?"

Renko grins. "I'm plenty emotional, Merry."

Oh, her bait failed...

"I've spent so long laying the groundwork for this, you know."

"I know. But why aren't you starting with someplace easier?"

"There's easier places, and there's places that need us more, probably."

Merry pauses for a bit, frowning.

"It affronts me how She runs it like a prison camp."

"Huh. You didn't explain this part to me, yet."

Renko leans forward, eyes shining. Decades of marriage, and it never gets old.

Merry is mysterious, closed-off, and hard to get a read on. Her mind is never quite in the room with you, not entirely.

Her political image is carefully fabricated, originally by Renko herself, in the days when it didn't take a dedicated staff, just long hours and a refrigerator full of extravagantly expensive non-synth beer. Reticence is spun into gravitas, mystery into intellectualism.

But Renko loves the real Merry. Every precious, irreplaceable glimpse into her mind.

"I'm not mad at Her for it being self-contained. It's a world, that's what they are. I'm mad at her for being obsessed with stuffing everyone in her little boxes. Not just the main ones. You know, she keeps planets as little preserves, like she wants one planet at every possible technology level or something. That's more Star Trek than me, really, it's like the Prime Directive if it said there was to be no interference with a planet's ordained dispensation from God."

Merry sighs.

"I know, I'm a hypocrite, right?"

"I don't think that's anything like what Gensokyo was, Merry. It was just an enclave. And Gensokyo wasn't you you, anyway."

Renko smiles.

"You are certainly this universe's biggest Prime Directive violator, though. Captain Picard would be so disappointed."

The distinction feels academic to Merry much of the time, but Renko has always been adamant about who she is and isn't married to.

It helps a lot.

"Can I at least be Sisko?"

"We don't have a son, so no. That's an important part of his character, Merry."

Merry raises her eyebrows.

"Fine, fine, I'll grant you Kirk. But I'm not going into pon farr for you."

"I don't know what that is."

"Maybe I'll explain when you're older. Like, after you address the crew."

"Sixty thousand crew, Merry. All these years and I've never really felt that number properly before today."

"I know what you're worried about, and six or sixty thousand doesn't change that."

"You're right."

The Admiral hails the helm.

"Bring us to a full stop," she orders.

"Should I go with you?"

Renko is a civilian, but she's long commanded the respect of the crew, and knows each of the senior officers well. Better than the Admiral, probably.

"I'd like that."

The Admiral heads to the bridge, her wife following in silent yet cheerful support.

The supercarrier, home to sixty thousand souls, is in remote deep space, far from anything. Random data was fed into the jump computer.

And as the Admiral enters, space opens before it.

The Admiral prepares to address the crew.

Merry is going to need all of her nonexistent charisma.

"I'm sorry for keeping you all in the dark so far," she begins.

"This isn't a dangerous mission. But I've let you worry that it might be."

"Please direct your attention to the gap in space to the fore."

It's not reassuring. Countless vast eyes stare out from the deep.

"It's standard procedure for us. Forcing open some warlord's domain and letting his prey out to join the civilized universe."

"It's just the destination that's different this time. And the scale."

"I possess the means to travel to other universes."

She attempts a smile.

"Trust me, it's not as frightening as it looks."

It's worse than it looks. But the crew aren't in danger.

"And if that sounds like it's straight out of a Dr. Latency novel... well, this isn't the best time to admit that Dr. Latency is me, and every story is true."

"But I felt like it was important background."

This is the part where the mutineers sedate her out of genuine concern for her well-being.

She waits a bit.

This is the best time for a gentle hand squeeze.

"We're going up against an entire other universe this time, because I don't like how it's run."

"You can't trust that anything will work as you expect it to, down to physics. But you're my flagship crew, and I know you're up to the task."

"Speaking of physics, I apologize, but I'm field commissioning you as a vice admiral, Renko."

"I resign, Merry," she says cheerfully.

(This is a bit they do occasionally. Though Merry reports it to the Admiralty Board every time, daring them to object. The bridge officers are smiling at it, some of their tension gone.)

"One of these days I might not accept your resignation. I hope you won't be too upset if it's soon."

"To all of my crew, I'm sorry for how shady this is. Even though you'll probably agree with everything later, I'm burning the trust you place in me as your Admiral."

"You're capable enough to serve on my flagship. You could have been rich or powerful under any other admiral; you chose me."

"Helm, ahead cruising speed. I'm sorry for the stares."

No one is anything but consummately professional as the supercarrier enters the gap.

The warship emerging from the Dark Tapestry is dangerous to any particular planet in Creation.

It's a supercarrier; not quite a fleet unto itself, but at least a usable battle group. Its weapons are quite sufficient to crack a planet, not that they've ever committed this wasteful atrocity on an inhabited body.

It's approximately disjoined permanently, though it's not quite the same effect; there's no particular way to attack it in a way orthogonal to its capabilities using this universe's native magic.

(There's no telling what magic it may have come through with from its own native world.)

It's not particularly exhibiting this capability as it emerges, but it can jump interstellar distances, bound not by properties of space but by the difficulty of computing a solution with its powerful onboard computers.

There is, of course, whatever capability is letting it emerge from the Dark Tapestry into creation in the first place.

It's not dangerous to the gods, though. The biggest threat it might pose to them is cracking open the planet holding Rovagug, and they could stop it if it came to that. It's just a starship in the end.

However, the gap in space is speaking to all the gods as the warship emerges, with the voice of the ocean speaking to a pond.

"We're willing to accept a negotiated surrender," says the thing from the Dark Tapestry.

As a gesture of good faith, it finds the hyperplane across which Dou-Bral was reflected by some other extrauniversal horror, and reverses the orientation of a boundary.

This also demonstrates a terrifying capability to the gods, but mainly it just leaves this universe better off. By the Admiral's values, anyway, but it'll be fairly popular with the locals.

"When you're ready, I can help you with the problem where your dimension is too high to drink tea with the Admiral. She's eager to meet with you all."

Renko gives Merry's hand a squeeze before releasing it.

The Admiral has a lot to do, after all. And so does a physicist.