FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Are we ready? Tactical?" Tannis tapped the arm of his command chair restlessly. The felines long snow white hair flowed over the shoulders of his black bodysuit, the collar and left arm of which were a brilliant scarlet red. All around him the ovoid shape of the bridge swept, two consoles ahead of him, 4 aft and two small seats were astride his, empty at the moment. A severe looking K'han male standing at his rear left squared his shoulders, "All decks report ready sir."

"Operations?"

"Aye sir." The red headed Saelican who tapped the controls at the forward right ops console nodded his affirmative, "All systems are green."

"Engineering?"

The ship's main engineer sat at his console to the aft of the hulking K'han's tactical console. The short, stocky Corlitan male shook his ringed tail and nodded, "All propulsion systems are on stand-by. Manifold generators are in the green."

"Communications?"

A smiling Metaran female flashed a thumbs up and smoothed her white and black hair, "All channels clear sir. Ready for communications silence."

"Life-sciences?"

A curve hugging blue-sleeved jumpsuit cradled the J'rali male at the back console to the side of the comm. Station. He flicked his straw colored hair back and nodded brusquely, "Sickbay reports ready. All biosigns are steady, environmental controls are shunted to the main computer and atmospheric corrections are within the norm."

"Conn?"

The second spotted feline flashed Tannis a grin, "Conn is secure, coordinates set in, manifold backflow is holding at .21%. Go is green at your signal Captain."

"Comp Sci?"

A hum and a click brought the raised chair behind the captain into level with him, the Laslurian male in it pale and ethereal in his crisp white jumpsuit, the feline's bright amber gaze steady as his palms rested on the raised metal orbs on both arm-rests. The steady, faint electric hum that surrounded the lithe male flowed smoothly as he queried, checked and rechecked, scanned and input directly into the main computer core. After a moments consideration the slender male tipped his head and a glowing green checkmark appeared on every console screen on the bridge, giving his affirmative.

Tannis nodded, "All shuttles are secure, all docking ports latched, bring the manifold generators up to threshold."

A slight, teeth vibrating hum pitched upward throughout the ship as the massive engines cycled and pumped their output to the hyperspace fold generators. The sleek capital ship was the pride of the 3rd regimental Spacey fleet. The Silver City was wedge shaped, rounded at every point, encircled in an oval ring at the last quarter, the flared ring around her bulky trailing edge holding her main star-drives. A tiered step on the dorsal face of the silver wedge held a slender neck, topped by a rounded almost boomerang shape of the main bridge. The bright windows and running lights dappled her hull, giving the bright metallic sheen of her bulk a glimmering contrail as she slid slowly forward on her own momentum.

A gap in her tapered nose section was filled by a sunken cone-shaped indentation, rimmed with bright emitters. As the manifold generators powered up the cone seemed to ripple, projecting the wavering outward to the fore. The blinking green lights on her bridge signaled the peak power output from the manifold, the engines warming and cycling contently. Tannis looked at the read-outs, "All boards show green. Manifold threshold is stable. Take us to stage two Lieutenant."

"Stage two, aye sir." The Vakari at the Conn switched over to the auxiliary velocital stress dampeners, bringing the hull mapping protocols up and watching for stress fractures as he nudged the manifold up to stage two.

"Perception filters please."

At the captain's word all the windows and ports on the ship were darkened, their filters slipping into places to block out the majority of the perceptual discomfort of the hyperspace fold.

"Bring main shield reactors on to full, synch the frequency to the manifold threshold please and bring the secondary engine shunts on-line please, route all primary power to the manifold generators, shield reactors and VSD fields."

A shimmering blue bubble of energy flared to life around the ship, flexing and shivering as it was adjusted and faded to transparency. The wavering ripple of space in front of the sleek ship shifted, the gentle distortion swelling and contracting like waves in a pond, holding steady half a kilometer before the peak of the prow. The fluctuations of space grew till they were roughly the size of the entire hull, the wavering spot in space dilating and swirling more and more as the juice from the engines fed the machines creating a schism in space and time.

Tannis exhaled slowly, "Stage three please and all stations prepare for entry."

"Stage three, aye." At the flick of a switch the bridge rang softly with the klaxon broadcast over the entire ship's comm., the bridge lights flashing a muted blue as they signaled the impending departure. The ripple in space fractured and melted into a tunnel of swirling, disorienting lights and flashes of color. The fold in space/time that breached hyperspace looked like a pit into chaos, the disorienting rush of color and light making anyone who viewed the vortex slightly nauseous even behind the filters.

"Stage three sir!" The Vakari's voice was slightly high with tension. Despite the fact the ship had traveled by this method of alternative propulsion dozens of times when conventional faster then light transportation was impractical due to time restraint, it was still a nervous affair. So much could feasibly go wrong in nosing the ship directly into a tear in the fabric of the universe it wasn't amusing in the slightest. Every time a crew used a hyperspace jump their molecular energy and physical structures were altered by an infinitesimal amount, and even the bigwigs in the top R&D labs weren't sure what that precisely meant for evolutional science. As Tannis understood it each jump mingled a little of their molecular structure with one another and with the ship itself, a mere few molecules, but the thought was still unsettling.

"Stage three is go. Helm, take us in."

Hands gripped the arms of their seats tightly and breathing came in shorter strides as the Vakari pilot nodded and goosed the thrusters just enough to let momentum carry them into the hole in the universe ahead. The hyperspace fold loomed as the sleek ship plunged directly into its heart and then vanished with a flash. The fabric of reality turned inside out and upside down, as time seemed to splinter and fracture within the technological confines of the star-ship. Portals to realities seemed to yawn from every point in the maelstrom and the swallowing vortex swirled madly all around them. The only person who seemed to enjoy looking at the crazed field of light was Dex in his raised operating chair, the mute Laslurian grinned at the looks of pale nausea surrounding him.

The slender youth saw the sight outside the ship every time he looked into the heart of the ship's living computer, though he of course had never told anyone that fact. Even he wasn't sure what that meant, if he was crossing into a void in reality every time his mind melded with the ship. The computer core cooed soothingly to him as it monitored the whole of the existence of the vessel that both existed and ceased to exist around him. The quantum minutiae and interplay of the side step through non-reality was maddening, and it was for this fact most people's brains simply disconnected for the few moments they were within the fold. Trails of color and light danced within everyone's skulls, though they seldom could recall much of the trips through the looking glass.

Dex raised a brow as a chime sounded from the bio-sci panel and he adjusted his grip on the left-hand orb beneath his fingers, bringing up a display projected onto the lens of one of his eyes. The automated alert was flashing in red as he studied the display, then send a cascade of diagnostic scans through the thick skin of the vessel. The hull geometry was showing a faint red line to the side of one of the main support pylons for the star-drive ring. A tiny stress fracture had erupted on the joint between the primary and secondary hulls, leaking atmosphere. The main bio-sci computer core was designed to monitor atmospheric and temperature levels at all times during the hyperspace fold operations, but Larani the J'rali medical officer was in no shape to combat the situation, his amber eyes rolled up in his head.

Dex tweaked his fingers, immediately calling up engineering protocols and tactical while cross-indexing with the bio-sci center, ensuring no life-signs were within the affected section of the hull. He worked at the speed of thought, calculating angles, stresses, matter density and loss of atmosphere and hull integrity in the blink of an eye as he communed with the main computer brain of the massive ship. Queries and deliberations were swapped back and forth at immeasurable billions of computations per second, all of the computer sections deliberating with the central computer core that in turn melded its data with the living brain within the Laslurian's skull. The wet-ware components integrated into the young feline made it effortless to speak to anything with a sufficiently large enough processor, giving him no trouble at controlling most aspects of the vessel within the confines of his own head.

The deliberation was over before the computer could even chime and Dex did half a dozen things simultaneously that would have taken a normal sapient being several minutes to begin with their analog interfaces. Explosive bolts were fired with a series of thuds, locking bulkheads in place between personnel and the leaking support structure, placing shimmering force barriers into the corridors between the ship and the secondary hull. Atmospheric conditions were rechecked and cycled up to make up for the loss of oxygen, as well as raising the heat in the exposed sectors. The final counter-measures shifted the shield geometry to thicken around the stressed joint, as well as increasing the VSD output in the cardinal points of the ship, decreasing the strain on the hull and shunting the excess kinetic energy back into the engines.

The snow haired feline had taken barely 5 seconds to complete the temporary repairs, watching an exterior view with one eye and scanning damage reports with the other, feeling a slight relief as the stressed space-frame didn't buckle any more. Trips through hyperspace folds was a dodgy business, some ship just weren't designed for it and the ones that were like trawlers, haulers and the gargantuan cruisers and heavy combat capital ships weren't suited to actually moving that fast despite their stockier profiles made it so they would have a smoother ride.

The Silver City had been only the 5th ship in her particular class to receive a manifold generator, her retrofitting had taken a year and her next retrofit wasn't due for another 5. Captain Tannis Krayd had been promoted to the post of commander at the tender age of 27, being given his sleek vessel to fill a niche between exploratory cruiser and light combat vessel. The ship wouldn't live to see another boring sector mapping assignment if they were ripped to shreds in hyperspace so Dex did his best to ensure that didn't happen while the rest of the crew was overcome by the aphasia affect so common during site-to-site space transport.

The slender snow furred male checked the manifold threshold, counting down in his own head the nano-seconds left to their trip. The dimple in space-time had left the sector they had been present in half a second before and their exit fold was forming just afore. Dex gripped the spheres beneath his paws harder, willing the softly shuddering ship around him faster, increasing output to the manifold generator a fraction of a percent. Their new exit vector was now immovably set, the sink in hyperspace now trawling them back out into their own universe. As the ship began to dissolve back into reality a sudden klaxon blared, the lights on the bridge immediately shifting to cherry red, a dozen computer alerts flicking up all around the Laslurian as the ship's brain realized he was the only one with any semblance of alertness to the situation.

Dex's lips set in a thin line as he immediately shut down the manifold generators, shunting the power they were draining to the VSD fields caressing every strut of the space frame with their stabilizing power. The thin red line in the display was now a flashing scarlet gap, the ship bucking under him as half the pylon cracked through down to the struts holding it in place. The thudding whine of overstressed circuits screamed in the feline's head as he madly shunted and rerouted power to a dozen compartments, bringing up a schematic of the area of the ship affected by the venting pressure. Dex glanced around him, prodding the bio-sci computer into releasing a slight adrenaline boost into the central circulation system. A soft blue shimmer blossomed to life around the Laslurian's chair, shielding him from the effects as he fought to bring the shivering behemoth around him under control.

Pinpoints of stars were now solid around the ship, the waxing shimmer of hyperspace behind her swiftly collapsing onto itself but the feline didn't have time to ponder that as he ordered the main computer to bring translocators on 3 decks online, shunting personnel into sections of the hull not in danger of being exposed to space and slapping up force shields to prevent the atmosphere from losing its integrity entirely. Bodies were stirring fretfully around him, so Dex assigned a small part of his brain into shuffling through the music database and piping it into the bridge. With a comical chime the comm. system began playing a brass orchestral piece at full blare, making several people jump in their seats.

Tannis grunted as he regained consciousness, sitting bolt upright as the blaring music and klaxon competed for which one was more likely to give him a headache. The snow-furred male roared, "What the hell is going on?!"

The captain's shout roused almost everyone else on deck, with the exception of Cassie, the Metaran comm. officer, the skunks were oddly susceptible to space and jump sickness, and she always took longer to rouse. Dex pinged the music off and quieted the klaxon as he took over the vocal subroutine of the internal comm., "We are about to lose half the star-drive ring."

Tannis half rose from his chair as he felt his stomach drop, "Dry Dock was supposed to replace that damaged strut! Damnit, Hil, status!"

The stocky Cor engineer slammed his paws down on his console and punched controls, "Structural integrity is down to 25% in our port support pylon, starboard is holding at 88%, VSD fields have been pumped to maximum and emergency bulkheads are holding."

"You're welcome." The smooth, even tone of the male voice from the comm. system chimed in as Dex's gold eyes glanced back.

"Dex use your vocal amplifier. Conn, where are we?"

The cheetah spotted male at the controls read out, "About 9 AU off where we should be. We're near the third moon of the tenth planet in system. Class K, low gravity."

"Will the star-drive ring hold together?" Tannis gripped his chair rests tightly, watching the barely controlled chaos around them.

"If we try not to move for a while, she'll hold. I'd recommend a distress call all the same." Hil wiped his muzzle with the back of one paw, looking at the read-outs skeptically, "We're dead in the water cap'n, we try to jump again or engage standard FTL engines and we're probably likely to rip in half."

"34.543% probability of losing structural integrity of the aft dorsal sections 10 through 25 if we attempt faster then light travel presently Captain."

"Dex, use your vocal amplifier..."

"Perhaps when we're out of imminent peril Captain?"

Tannis shot a sour look at the Laslurian male, "I'll be the judge of that... We are aren't we?"

"For the moment, so long as we don't try any emergency maneuvers."

Hil sighed as he sat back, "The damned engineers at Leira station cheap-cut us again. This is the same pylon that buckled last time."

"Do you think it's a structural defect?" Kanti the Vakari at helm swiveled his chair in a slow circle, glancing at the rest of the stations.

"Probability of structural integrity failure at focal point connection is higher then anywhere else, but seeing as The Silver City is the only Sho-Zu class vessel to encounter these abnormalities and she's fourth in the line of generation, it's very unlikely."

Dex folded his ears as Tannis turned his chair 180 degrees and glanced up. Just to be difficult the slender youth raised his chair to a height that required the feline captain to crane his head. The Laslurian stared right back, compressing his lips into a thin line over his fangs, making the comm chime in an irritatingly cheerful way, "Yes captain?"

"Dexian use your frelling vocal amplifier... I swear I'll get on the hyperwave at the next space-dock we get to and get your fathers on the channel. Don't be stubborn, we gave you the synthesis unit so you could talk, not so you could talk through the mainframe!"

The Laslurian male heaved a soft sigh, pitching his ears back as he rolled his giant amber eyes to the ceiling theatrically, keeping his lips tightly closed, "But Tannis..."

The bridge crew found it amusing that the feline youth's face exhibited his emotions, yet the smooth, flat intonations of the computer's speech pattern was a monotonous drone, "You want me to trade my neural net interface to the vocal subprocessor for the process of using my breath and movements of my throat and muzzle to produce speech?"

Dex looked as though he found nothing more displeasing, "That's so... Vulgar Tannis... It's barbaric, besides I can convey concepts so much simply and faster using my neural connection."

Tannis bristled softly, "Dex, talk, that's an order!"

Dex crossed his arms, the micro-thin oval metal wafers of polymer metal embedded just under the first 2 layers of the skin on his paw-pads and fingertips glinted as he flexed his grip. He slowly pressed a finger to the side of his throat and took a deep breath, swallowing and moving his muzzle as though it were something he weren't accustomed to doing regularly. A soft, almost femininely lilting voice issued from the Laslurian's muzzle, whisper faint at first before it strengthened, "Happy now, Tannis?"

"Aside from a slight lisp you sound fine Dex."

Tannis leaned on his paw as the other feline scowled, "It's still vulgar..."

Kanti absently tapped his console, "You've given blowjobs before, talking is low on the list of vulgar things you could be doing with your muzzle..."

Dex flushed, blushing scarlet to the tips of his ears as he huffed, "I'm a living computer, but my organics still have needs, Kanti..."

The Vakari smirked, "Yea, they do, you're made that clear."

Tannis shook his head and glanced over to Cassie, manning the communications console, the Metaran was looking much better with Larani fussing over her, "Cassie, how's communications?"

"Communications are still up and holding captain, I've started a distress call through the higher fleet frequencies and aimed an emitter toward the space port on the moon of the primary planet. We should have a response within the hour."

"Good." Tannis sighed and tapped his armrests with his fingers, watching people scurry about their jobs, feeling extremely left out of the festivities. There were times he hated being a captain, he had no one to tell him what to do with his idle hands while repairs or scans were going on. He could have easily skulked off to have a lie-in or written a very nasty hyperwave packet to the repair station Leira but he stayed where he was, focusing on watching Larani's ass tug at the confines of his uniform while the spotted male tended to everyone suffering from space sickness. He squinted in irritation as the comm implant in his jaw buzzed and he abruptly heard Dex in the micro implant in the canal of his ear, "You could study his ass better with a 2% turn of your chair."

The Laslurian smiled sweetly as Tannis turned in his chair and glared at him, Dex's synthesized voice speaking directly in his ear again, "I don't have to move my lips to talk, don't you wish you could say the same at the moment?"

Tannis simply shot the tech-head a withering look and resumed looking out the forward display port, situated in front of the bridge, the gigantic reinforced dura-plex window was almost a meter thick and as large as a picture window. The sheet of plex could have withstood the impact of a conventional nuclear device and not cracked, it would rip from its mountings before it would break. Tannis usually appreciated the inky, diamond strewn void of space, today it felt altogether too big for his tastes with no way to propel his beautiful ship faster then barely half the speed of light. With their star-drive sacked and manifold too risky to attempt the best they could do was sub-light, which would have taken them a few weeks to reach their destination.

The white haired feline punched a few controls, bringing up the experimental set of controls he was working on in his spare time. The arms of his chair flexed and curved inward, a series of switches, dials and keys blooming from the space within. The silvery and white keys were shaped like a standard synthesizer keyboard, about 15 for each hand, with the toggle switches and old-fashioned manual tension adjusters and tonal modulators. Tannis flicked several switches, depressing a series of stops and pressing one of the long keys. A short sweet musical note shivered over the bridge, making everyone glance up. Kanti perked an ear, "I wish you'd let someone else test those new controls Tan. You can't play a board for your soul."

"I can too." Tannis flicked his tail in a defensive posture, slowly picking his way along the scale before playing a chord. As he did so a scanning read-out popped up, as the chord went up, the scanning range slid into the higher, narrower bandwidth, going back down as the chord slid back into mellow bass regions. He brought both paws into motion watching as consoles and read-outs popped up in front of him, scanning, diagnostics, shield harmonics, the communications channel hail piped up. Tannis stuttered over a key and made T'lash, the hulking K'han tactical officer slam his paw down on his console, canceling a targeting sequence.

"Oops..." Tannis tried again, this time making Dex's chair spin over on its axis 180 degrees. The Laslurian was suddenly glad for his gravity harness, tucking his ears as Tannis kept sticking on that chord, "E flat Salieri, E flat!"

The feline captain grinned sheepishly, giving up on the harmonic controls as he just reclined in his chair and sighed, "I should have learned a wind."

Dex was swiveling back to a more neutral orientation when the ship under him gave a shivery buck and the alarms came back on, blaring stridently. The Laslurian's conscious mind split a hundred different directions at once as the rest of the bridge crew dived for their consoles and held tight to their chairs. The star field in the main view of the port was listing slowly a bare increment back and forth as the ship rocked, and Tannis winced as the meter thick plex pane issued a sharp ping.

"What the hell was that?! Plex that thick shouldn't make that noise!"

"Micrometeorite swarm!" Dex grimaced as he saw stress fractures threatening all over the outer hull, the inner skin of the ship holding out as he caressed controls, "I'd recommend distortion field as opposed to standard energy shields."

"Shunt engine power to the primary distortion field generators and bring up the forward particle screens."

"Aye." The shuddering deckplates ceased to vibrate as the hum of the primary engine reactor changed pitch and a bubble of force sprang into existence around the ship, deflecting the micro debris. The thrum of the engines sounded strained as Tannis tapped a few controls, "Lever back the output, shunt 5% to the structural field, and take us forward on maneuvering thrusters, all ahead 1/4. Get us moving so the engines can power up completely."

The snow-furred feline glanced back to the elevated engineering console, "Can she take a little forward momentum?"

The short Corlitan didn't look pleased or convinced, but shrugged softly, "If we haven't lost any more structural integrity in the last 30 seconds we aren't likely to implode. If it comes to it we can jettison the entire drive ring and coast in-system."

"Frag, jettison the entire flipping drive ring and let ourselves be towed to the nearest space-dock for a 3 month refit. Wouldn't that be wonderful..."

Kanti's blush colored nose wrinkled softly as he shared the sentiments of most of the faces around him. Tannis wasn't pleased at the prospect himself, while a ship sat in space-dock assignments and rosters were handed out to the functional vessels, if they didn't get a fresh assignment within 6 months their transit permits would be revoked and they'd be stuck in sub-light transport till the filings were pushed through in a year or so. A soft pinging hum strobed through the bridge as the distress beacon was turned to full blare, all their antennas pointed to the inner system in the hopes someone would happen by.

Dex moved for the first time in an hour, his hair rustling as it spread across the neck-brace of his chair, "Proximity alert Captain."

The computer specialist called up half a dozen separate windows and they flipped around to face the seated captain who perked an ear, "Sensor readings? Any ident on the signature or config?"

The outline of the large incoming ship lit up in a new readout, the relief being shaded half a dozen different colors as their energy signature was analyzed, "Energy signature and hull configuration seems to indicate Terran 6th branch. Deep trawler and transport."

"A pinkie ship all the way out here?" T'lash gaped at the sensor read-outs, "It's human alright, big, clunky, their hull geometry is brutal, but look at those engines; she's 3/4 our size, but could probably run circles around us at sublight and low FTL."

"I have an incoming hail. Standard council frequency."

"Put them on."

Tannis gestured over his shoulder to the skunk-striped female at the comm. who nodded and punched up the open receiver. He cleared his throat, "This is Captain Tannis of the 3rd Regimental Spacey Fleet ship The Silver City."

"This is Tsukisyo Shinai of The Daikokuten, Captain. We received your distress beacon. Can we render aid or assistance in any way?"

An evenly modulated male voice, with a slight inflection on the Ts, Rs and S'es answered on the frequency, making Tannis smile despite himself, "We've cracked a pylon coming through a manifold jump. We could use some assistance in getting into port."

"Mani jaunt almost ripped off your drive ring? That's harsh. We can give you a tow to the space docks, if you'll kindly drop your distortion fields and power down we'll get a heavy grav beam on you."

"Thank-you Captain Tsukisyo."

The captain of the human ship seemed taken aback at the use of his surname properly, answering after a moment's pause, "You're welcome Captain Tannis, I'll have our chief engineer trans over in a few minutes to put his head together with your main tinker to see how we can reinforce you enough for towing."

The comm. blipped off and Tannis swept his tail at Hil, "Get down to main engineering and see to the prep, would you Hil?"

"No problem Captain."

T'lash rumbled softly, "I'll go with him to supervise the other ship's Chief."

"Be gentle, they're doing us a favor."

Tannis watched the twin tails vanish into the quick-lift, indicating Larani who was still fussing over Cassie, running a med scanner all over her, "Lar, you're with me as XO, Kanti, Dex, you watch over things here. Get the reception room coordinates to the Daikokuten please."

Dex merely nodded as he got that slightly glazed look of communing with the ship's main computer core, Kanti resting his rump in the vacant captain's chair as Tannis tugged Larani to the lift with him, combating the J'ralan male's grumbling with good natured grinning, "Come now Larani. How often do we get to greet Terran compatriots this far out? Don't you have some human on your mother's side?"

"Yes." The J'ralan indicated the round pupils in his expressive honey amber eyes, "My second grandfather on my mother's side."

Tannis grinned, "Yes, your round pupils, and 10 toes on your feet, as opposed to the usual 8. I heard a few years back that the Science Conglomerate was supposed to start comprehensive genetic testing to see why Human and J'ralai DNA mixes so readily."

Larani shrugged and puffed softly through his nose, "You know it'll just degrade into theoretical hypothesis and hyperbola between xenobiologists about spontaneous and convergent evolution about J'ralans perhaps evolving on a distant human world millions of years ago, before mankind. Then the Universal Unionists lose their heads and start preaching about their vaunted genetic "Seeders" who traveled the galaxy some untold epochs ago and seeded worlds with genetic material."

"So what do you believe?" The lift hummed around them as the lights flashed, indicating their passage between decks, making the J'ralan's amber eyes flash, as he looked sidelong at Tannis, "What do I believe? Oh, you know I'm constantly forced into the United Galactic Peace temples by my folks to pray to Inokisa the disciple of healing."

Larani giggled softly, "I just can't see my people having been spawned on a world full of anthropomorphized monkeys... They can be so crude and rough."

The spotted male yelped as Tannis flicked his ear, "Don't be such a bigot Lari. They're not so bad once they assimilate, they're smart and loyal, most species just don't give them enough credit. They've only been members of the Council for about 150 years, first contact with them was only 180 years ago, so they're still catching up to the technological leaps."

The white feline smirked, "Besides, someone in your family obviously thought they had some redeeming qualities."

"Bah, grandma Lasi had a skin fetish, we all know it, she said he was a wonderful lover, though, the kittens were an unintended side-effect."

The medical officer tugged on the sleeve of his jumpsuit as Tannis steered him into the waiting reception lounge, with the high vaulted ceiling, elaborately carpeted deck and the gigantic windows on the far side looking out into the vastness of space where they could both see the oblong, slightly boxy Terran ship hovering in their wake, holding course with them via the dense graviton tether projected between the two. The raised dais in the center of the room glowed faintly, giving off a homing signal for the other ship's translocator shunt to lock onto.

They didn't have to wait long before the air above the dais shimmered and gave birth to 3 bipeds and two quadrupeds. As the tiny arcs of plasma faded a tall, slender human stretched and grinned at them, showing his blunt, pearly white teeth. Larani was always slightly off put by the lack of fur on humanoid sapients, they were so pink and soft and smooth looking, with rounded ears set too low on their skulls, their pushed in, flat faces, bizarre noses and clawless, uniformly fleshed hands. The captain of the Terran ship was a lean, solid looking Asian-Pacific human, with finely tanned skin, long, elaborately spiked blonde and red hair, with almond shaped silvery blue eyes, covered by a pair of sleek goggle-like spectacles.

His uniform was a tight, eye-gouging affair of scarlet red and neon yellow, tight around everything that mattered and cut oddly around the shoulders and knees. The pockets bulged with material and his wide belt was hung low on his hips, holding a fascinating array of tools and gadgets, but no weapon was obvious. His second in tow was a compact, interesting looking human with pale skin, bright red hair and green eyes, a small smudge of grease across his chin and hands made it obvious he was their chief mechanic. The third member of their party was a wiry Vakari, almost identical to Kanti on the bridge but with long violet hair and bright amber eyes, dressed in a snug bodysuit matching the human captains. The fourth was a hip high D'korlan male with deep black fur and white highlights, his bright silver eyes sitting at wide angles to his tufted ears. What Tannis assumed was a ridge of white fur down his back made him startle as it uncurled and yawned luxuriously, and chirped in a musical tone.

The small creature looked like a cross between a cat and a fox, with a long, angular face, bright blue eyes and a wildly fuzzy coat, with tufts on its lengthy ears, forelegs and long, coiling tail. The bright blue glowing eyes were expressive as the small creature stretched on its long, broad footed hind legs that were obviously meant for jumping. Tannis eyed the small white creature warily, noting its paws were nimble and had opposing thumbs on all 4 of them. A toolkit was slung on the back of the D'korlan male, the thickly furred male had a speech collar buckled around his throat that blinked sedately as it gazed up at the tall, slender Asian human.

Tannis smiled, raising his hand slowly, "Welcome to the Silver City, this is my CMO, Larani D'ten, he graciously agreed to accompany me down here."

"Thank-you Captain Tannis. Doctor D'ten It's a pleasure to meet you."

The spike haired human bowed softly, shaking Tannis' proffered paw and gesturing to his own assembled crew, "This is Chief Mechanic Brannigan, my second in command Lorenzi, and our Assistant Engineer Clor with Li, his Rixi."

The white creature chirruped as it bounced on the D'korlan's back, it's tufted ears perking. Its gigantic cobalt eyes were merry as it chirped its name over and over, "LiLiLiLiLiLiLiLi! Yes yes yes!"

Tannis smiled in amusement as the small white creature bounced almost to the ceiling, then hovered in midair, it's sides expanding like a balloon. It uttered a long, low whistle as it slowly floated back down, the note ending in a raspberry and it snapped a very good imitation of a salute, making Larani burst out giggling. Tsukisyo coughed politely as the fuzzy Rixi relaxed once more, the D'korlan giving a long, exasperated sounding huff. Brannigan shook his head, "Rixi are so high-strung, but they make good go-fors."

Larani nodded, leaning in to examine the bright bristles of ginger fuzz on the shorter human's face, "How do they float like that?"

The stock human rubbed his chin, making his stubble rasp, getting a set of perked ears from Larani, who seemed absolutely absorbed by the stiff bristle-like hair that was on the mechanics cheeks, "They're originally a low-G evolved creature, they can accumulate gaseous hydrogen in their secondary lungs if they're around water vapor. They can use it like a chemical jet, or hover very briefly and can even use it as a defensive mechanism. Don't piss a Rixi off, then light a match."

"We'll keep that in mind."

Tannis nodded, making a mental note to increase ventilation in the corridors where the boarding party was. The white creature bounced as it rode the spine of the massive D'korlan's pelt, whistling tunelessly, its bright eyes drinking in the new surroundings. It chattered at Tannis and Larani, "Kitties!"

The human captain looked chagrinned as he walked next to Tannis, "Er, he can't pronounce species names very well, I'm afraid, so any feline gets labeled as kitty and any canid, lupine and vulpine tends to be called doggy."

Tannis chuckled, wondering what the Rixi called humans as he showed the slender human captain and his retinue to the lower decks. Tsukisyo looked at the wide, well lit decks appreciatively, "I'll give you, she's a beautiful ship. The spacey knows how to build them."

The air swirled around them as they crossed through a junction, making the fur on Tannis' face riffle, "They just need to redesign the drive rings profile for less longitudinal stresses in hyperspace."

The ginger haired mechanic looked at the data pad Larani had passed him with a considering eye, "She cracked just above the port dorsal connection of the struts 1232 and 1254. Superficial, but that entire pylon will have to be replaced. You've got damage down to the frame and both inner and outer hull are fractured."

He whistled softly at the lines of damage invading the drive section, making the Rixi companion whistle back happily, "Whoever your pilot is must have had his work cut out for him. It's amazing your star-drive ring didn't rip off."

"It was our computer technician that attended the immediate problem, actually."

"Really?"

The human captain was looking in fascination at the display himself, "You have cybernet monitored systems, do you not? Your artificial computer core melds with a biological processor, a sapient brain, to form a matrix capable of governing almost all ship's systems if needs be?"

"Yes. Dex provides a command level control node with the ship's main brain. Everything else is governed by a series of computer relays and the main cores for all major departments."

"That's a hell of a lot of cycles. Must have 10 different redundancies."

"12, actually." Tannis grinned at the short human engineer who smiled back, showing his blunted teeth again. The feline tapped a bulkhead as they rounded a corner, "It's unusual to find a Terran ship so far out in this side of the galaxy. Are you a long hauler?"

Tsukisyo shook his head, "We're a long range shipping and tow tug. We're working for the locals in an exchange program. The Terran Ministry opened up a wing of the fleet for exchange with worlds in the core systems and out here in the outer arms."

"Had a desire to meet some exotic species?"

Larani tipped his head as he walked next to the ginger haired mechanic, making Tannis smirk as he saw the spotted feline's paw resting lightly on the stocky human's arm. Meeting his gaze the medic wiggled his ears and tucked them a bit, hiding the blush and averting his gaze from his CO. Tannis felt something dense and strong brush his hip, looking down at the brindle furred D'korlan male who gazed up at him with his freshly minted coin eyes. The quadrupeds were just as intelligent as any bipedal sapient species, just needed assistance performing anything requiring complex grasping or normal basic speech. The tufted tail wove as the thickly furred male cracked his muzzle in almost a smile and his speech collar lit up, "That's where they found me, out here in the fringes, Captain Tannis."

The soft grumbling grunts and ranges of huffing and barking whispered by the quadruped male were translated through the speaker of the speech collar, along with the muscle twitches of his throat and his blood pressure and breath rate. The chattering Rixi swung around Clor's neck, hanging upside down to watch the blinking lights on his collar, whistling and hooting happily. Tannis grinned softly as the D'kloran male grunted in chagrin, "Li functions as my hands. Rixi are exceptionally intelligent, just precocious."

"He's the first one I've ever seen." Larani giggled as he was now holding the human mechanic's arm, looking at the spun snow furred Rixi.

The surprisingly silent Lorensi nodded, "Rixi are rare off their own world. Any of their own that leave their trees are usually shunned."

"That's awful." Larani frowned as he watched the chattering alien, "He's adorable."

"Rixi who are curious enough to venture from their birth trees are usually the brightest of their bunch. It's a small wonder the rest of them aren't devolving."

The Rixi swung around on the D'korlan's back, gazing at Larani appraisingly before bouncing up onto his shoulder, immediately burrowing his prehensile feet into the feline medic's long straw colored hair. The fluffy creature was surprisingly light, a bundle of sniffing and investigating hands and tail as he explored Larani's hair, ears, collar and uniform. The spotted feline giggled helplessly as the Rixi clambered nimbly up and down his front and back, sniffing him all over. He uttered a squeak as the small Rixi dove down through his thighs and deftly gripped his tail, swinging back up to his shoulders, "Ooop, I'm a doctor, not a jungle-gym Li."

"Yes, yes, yes!" The Rixi bounced excitedly, surprising them all by bursting into a series of growls and deep throated chirruping barks. Larani blinked at the outpouring, glancing to Tsukisyo, "He speaks J'rali?"

"He speaks about 2 dozen languages..." the slender human paused, "And a few things we can't tell if its language or music..."

"I know he can simulate Zeegan fairly well." Brannigan grinned lopsidedly, "Even does a decent brogue Gaelic, but his accent is funny."

The squeaking and rumbling Rixi perked his ears as what sounded like a small burst of static issued from up the corridor, looking intensely focused as Dex padded deftly around the bend to meet their group. The smiling Laslurian watched the little quadruped in fascination till Li scrunched his ears and nose and shot a similar burst of sound back at him, the warbling notes being slower then when the snow coated feline had issued them. Tannis glanced to the computer science officer, "What was that?"

The small oval badge on the front of the human captain's uniform breast chirped, making him startle as a foreign voice came from it, "It was binary. He shot back mostly gibberish, but he's got the root structure down almost completely."

"Dex..." Tannis sighed, "Use your vocal amplifier please..."

A scowl flitted across the slender youth's muzzle as he pressed the side of his throat and uttered a gentle cough to calibrate his voice module, "Better?"

"Much, thank-you. Dex, please meet Captain Tsukisyo, his first officer Lorensi, Chief Brannigan and his assistants Clor and Li."

The feline captain ushered Dex closer, "This is Dex, our computer specialist and non-believer in analogue humanoid interface methods"

A soft flush crept into the Laslurian's ears as he shook hands with the newcomers, settling for a pat to the D'korlans broad skull and endured the attentions of the Rixi that leapt from Larani's shoulders to his own, "I spend half my life merged with the soul of the ship captain. I sometimes find it difficult to relate to other organic beings with their own terms of interface."

"It's probably like being forced to walk a mile instead of using a translocator to jump there in an instant. Concepts are complicated things when you have to talk about them instead of just showing everyone what you mean in a data stream."

Tsukisyo perched his goggles on his forehead, rubbing the bridge of his nose in a movement that fascinated Dex, the slender feline looking surprised at the depth of the human's thought processes. He went through a few hundred theories that perhaps humans weren't as intellectually backward as he'd been led to understand as he smiled, the gesture adding a touch of sapient warmth to his habitually neutral expression. Dex felt the curious Rixi prod his paw-pads, holding the other one up to expose the small discs of flexible metal dotting the tips of his fingers, "They let me talk to the City's computer, and just about any other gadget with a large enough processor."

"The human spacey is still trying to perfect that tech." Tsukisyo rubbed a finger along the bulkhead's smoothly polished surface as he walked with the group. Tannis nodded, glancing at Dex, "Was there something you needed Dex?"

"Hil says he's ready to start the temporary repairs any time. Estimate to get us structurally sound enough to be towed fast enough to make the trip in-system convenient is 46 hours. 20 would be possible, but that would require a triple shift and EEV."

"Understood." Tannis sighed, smoothing back his hair as he looked to the humans, "I hope you didn't have any pressing matters."

"Nope. We just finished a run, so we had about a week of pointless shunting to do anyway." Brannigan looked around, "This could be a nice place to spend a coupla days poking around in for a change. I bet your engine room is gigantic."

"Two and a half levels in the rear section." Tannis smiled, "Larani, why don't you take Brannigan, Clor and Li to the engine room and Dex can give Lorensi a tour of the bridge and computer facilities."

The white furred feline grinned, "That'll give me a chance to engage in captain talk with Tsukisyo here, right Captain?"

"Of course." The human captain bowed cordially, waving his engineer and executive officer off, "Feel free to look around boys, I'll message back to the Daikokuten."

The corridor emptied quickly, leaving Tannis and the handsome human captain alone. He gazed at the human's silver/blue eyes, finding himself flushing slightly as he stood in proximity to the human, "Could I interest you in a drink captain?"

"Sounds spectacular, thank-you captain."

Tannis chuckled, "All this captain. Just call me Krayd please."

"Alright Tannis, if you call me Shinai."

"Deal, Shinai."

Tannis stuck out his paw, gripping the human's surprisingly soft hand firmly, grinning as the human stroked the fur on his wrist and paw unconsciously. The human smiled, "Such thick fur and so soft, Lorensi has a very nice pelt himself, especially round the belly."

A blush crept up in Tannis' ears as he chuckled, guiding the tall human down the corridor to his private suite of rooms, the lounge having fared well despite the turbulence in their foreshortened manifold jump. The plush suite had smooth cream-colored bulkheads and a thickly padded mocha carpet swath from corner to corner, which were slightly rounded, no jagged or sharp lines assaulted the senses with the oblong, almost organic furniture. The multi-lounge was softly padded, with a pair of armchairs and a low, black enameled table that looked like it had been sculpted out of half melted wax, all curves and pleasant ripples. The synthesizer unit stood next to a tiny, functional desk and shelf seat that were otherwise ignored, several exotic pot plants taking the severity out of the flow of the corner.

Tannis opened a small bar made of highly polished wood, picking up a clear decanter and eyeing a selection of glasses, "Letron whiskey alright with you Shinai?"

"Never sampled before, should be nice, I'd think."

Tannis filled two wide-mouthed oval glasses with a few fingers of amber liquid, smiling as he handed one to the tall human captain and then folded himself onto the multi-lounge, sinking back into the self molding cushions, gesturing to the human, "Come have a seat cap-er, Shinai. I'm interested to speak, I've met so few humans."

The spiky haired male settled himself comfortably down next to Tannis, making the feline smile, "So many humans are so jumpy around other sapient species. I assume you're more at ease with your own crew members who aren't human."

"Yes, quite. Lorensi and 2 or 3 other crewmembers are non-human. I've gotten to know them well."

Tannis grinned softly recalling the human's earlier comment, "Intimately?"

Shinai coughed delicately into his drink, taking a larger swallow of the fiery alcohol then he intended and smothering a rude noise as he smirked slyly at the feline officer, "If I didn't know better I'd swear to the gods you were hitting on me Captain Tannis."

A non-committal movement of the feline's tail made the human captain blush softly, leaning back on his end of the lounge, "Yes, I've been with other species."

He rubbed the end of his blunt chin, making Tannis lean forward, "I've sampled tastes with a Vakari, a Saelican, a Metaran at the insistence of Lorensi, and I've even gone a few rounds with a K'han beta, he was the runt of his litter at 2.1 meters."

Tannis chuckled, thinking of T'lash and wondering what the tall tiger-striped male might think of the humans experience with a member of his own species. He flicked his long, tuft tipped tail, tapping Shinai's ankle with it thoughtfully. The human grinned a bit, "I think of all the features non-humans have the tails are the ones that mystify me the most."

"Some human species have tails, but I must admit, they look funny."

Shinai shook his head, "We went through the craze of gene splicing on Earth, people wandering around with fangs and claws and feline ears and tails, but being our brains aren't wired for the extra appendage that seldom ends well. It's a distraction at best and a menace at worst."

Tannis chuffed gently, nodding, "Are you augmented?"

A sly smile crossed the human's smooth, high-cheeked features as he shrugged, "My eyes, my ears, I have a few neuro-implants and one in my lung for thin atmosphere excursions, past that none you would notice without getting to know me a lot better."

Tannis tipped his head, then blinked and barked out a soft laugh, shaking his head as he tipped his glass back, "Well, I suppose I won't ask to see that one in action."

He paused thoughtfully, "At least not without dinner and dancing anyway."

"Dancing?" Shinai grinned, leaning toward the feline as he swirled his drink, "I like to dance."

"We have a fully equipped recreational bar here on the ship. It's got an amazing dance-floor. Would you like to join the captain for dinner, another drink and some... dancing?"

Tannis' vivid violet eyes flashed as he smiled, "You're more then welcome to invite your crew to use our recreation facilities. I suspect your hauler is not quite as appointed."

"That's the truth. Thank-you Krayd."

"Oh, think nothing of it Shinai, we may be from opposite sides of the galaxy, but we all work for the same ends and principles. Camaraderie is very important in this day and age."

Tannis waved a paw expansively, leaning back in his seat as the human captain pressed the front of his badge and it chirped, a tri-dee holograph window popping open to show another human male who had dark, burnished skin, lemon colored eyes and dusky hair the color of spun copper, "Captain?"

"Hello Kres, just wanted to give a status report and let everyone know that the Silver City's captain has graciously offered us use of their recreational facilities till we arrive at space-dock, you can coordinate with their XO to clear a roster and shift change, I'm sure."

"Yes'sir. Thank-you sir."

The window popped back into nothingness as Tsukisyo leaned back into the soft padding of the lounge, "Chances are they'll be buzzing around and getting things done and won't even need us."

"The curse of being captain I suppose? We get to sit on our asses and look pretty while everyone else does the work."

The faint breeze from the ventilation ruffled the fur on Tannis' cheeks and throat as he unzipped his uniform down to just above the top of his breastbone, showing his thick white fur. The human captain smirked softly, draining his drink and crossing his legs at the ankle, adopting a wide, relaxed posture that made Tannis smile. He shook his head, running a hand through his hair and adjusting his uniform, "I'd swear you're trying to seduce me Captain Tannis. But I know most furred species don't like to wear much clothing at all times. We humans catch a chill."

Tannis grinned coyly, "Asking me to get naked already Shinai? That's forward of you."

"Uh, well, I mean, no..." The human captain stuttered as his face flushed a deeper color, making Tannis lean forward, his breath stirring the fine hairs on Shinai's face, "You humans have chameleon abilities? The databases never mentioned it."

"Oh, no, no. Our skin just flushes or pales in response to... uh, stimuli... It's a semi-emotional response."

"Oh, that's intriguing. There's a lot I don't know about human physiology and anatomy."

The sleek feline smiled, "Do you have any battle scars?"

"One or two. Do you?" Shinai found he couldn't lean any farther forward or backward without either having the feline captain in his lap or offended. "You saw action in the war?"

Tannis nodded, "I was in a gunship at Cyvax II, we got beat up pretty bad."

He pulled the zipper on his uniform farther ground-ward, exposing his flared chest and slightly rippled belly, slowly shrugging out of the left side of his bodysuit and turning his back to the human, pulling his long hair to one side. A jagged slash in the feline's otherwise pure white fur made it ruffle oddly and Tannis arched back toward Shinai, "If you feel there, there's a pretty deep scar where a bulkhead blew out behind me."

The human captain blinked softly, trying to focus on the feline's words as he leaned in and rested his hands on the broad, lean expanse of Tannis' back, slowly parting his white fur and revealing the long, pinkish-red gouge along his otherwise smooth skin. The human male smiled as he ran his hands along the leanly muscled expanse of the feline's back, feeling other, smaller clustered scars down his spine, reaching over his sides and almost down to his hips. Tannis grinned as he felt the human stroke his back slowly, leaning into it and closing his eyes. He arched his spine a bit more, pressing into Shinai's digits, "You have strong hands."

"You have... nice curves." Shinai grinned sheepishly as he ran his hands along the curve of Tannis' spine, feeling the gentle flare of his waist and hips as he ran them out, over the feline's sides, feeling him jump softly and utter a soft squeak, "Oh, I'm sorry, did that hurt?"

"No... It just tickled." The feline's eyes were bright as he looked over his shoulder at Shinai, "We do have a lot in common with you humans in that respect. We're tender in a lot of the same places."

"And a few we're not." The human grinned gently, surprising Tannis as he reached up and gave the skin on the white furred nape of his neck a tug. The feline squeaked louder and stiffened a bit, relaxing into the tug and shivering, "Mmmph, hey, careful there, you're entering territory dangerously close to foreplay."

"I don't hear you complaining?" The fur on the feline's nape was thick and soft, almost like velvet rather then actual fuzz, his violet eyes slitting as the human male kneaded his nape with a hand, stroking it gently.

Tannis smirked, "Are all you humans horrible teases?"

He uttered a tiny sigh and bit his lip softly as Shinai tweaked the skin of his nape a bit and then let go. The human chuckled, "You're sitting half naked."

"Mmm, and I'll note you're still fully clothed."

Shinai chuckled and stretched an arm up to tap a sequence into the shoulder pad of his brightly colored uniform, making Tannis gape as the upper half of said article of clothing seemed to melt into nothing but a shoulder pad connected to a thin strip of the tight material stretched across the human's pectorals, holding his comm. unit. He tapped another series of touch pads on the side of his belt, making his leggings contract to the length of your average jogging shorts, exposing the smooth expanse of his calves and thighs, "Nano-fiber memory cloth, keeps uniform costs down. Self adjusting and repairing and it can also change color."

The grinning human adjusted the control on his belt, making his now short leggings darken in shade till they were almost the exact shade of bronze tan his skin was, giving the illusion he was nude to the waist. Tannis flushed at the tips of his ears, his eyes roaming the now exposed human body. He felt an odd sensation as he leaned forward, placing his smooth padded paws on Shinai's shoulders, running them down his arms and looking at his naked, blunt nailed hands. The soft, almost see-through hair on the human's arms and legs was bizarre, it didn't accentuate his profile, or obscure his flesh, just made a curious raised fuzzy patch along the length of his forearms and legs from thigh and ankle. The human's torso and belly were completely smooth, their bronzed tan pigment getting a shade darker around his exposed nipples.

Tannis ran his paw pads along the broad, smoothly defined arc of Shinai's chest, feeling the denseness of his pectorals and the soft, rounded bulges of the muscles in his abdomen. The human captain had a very nicely defined six-pack, the lean muscles moving as he shifted, leading all the way down to his low-slung belt just below the smooth expanse of his lower belly. Tannis gently probed at the funny indentation of the human male's navel, making his stomach scrunch a bit as he squirmed, covering his mouth in a laugh. The atmosphere was sedate as the human male endured the long, slow, attentive exploration of his lithe form, feeling the occasional almost imperceptible rasp of the feline's blunted claw tips where they were sheathed in his fingertips.

Shinai twisted a bit, pointing to his side, "I've got a scar there, and down there on my leg. I have a large one running up over my hip there, where a drone ripped through my vac-suit." He chuckled as he paused, "You won't be able to see the full course it runs unless I stand up. Heh, ouch, I couldn't sit for a few days."

"No damage, I hope." Tannis grinned as he examined the alternatively paler and darker zigzags of the human male's scars, feeling them slowly as he ran his paws all over his exposed, naked skin. Shinai shook his head, "We had a really good doctor. Didn't have as nice an ass as your doctor's, but he was a gamy old prospector. A K'han would've spit him out as being too tough to chew properly."

Tannis chuckled and nodded, "No one better to go into a fight with. Our executive liaison was an admiral, 50 years in fleet, missing a paw, half a leg, an ear, an eye and half his tail but you always knew which way a bulkhead was going to blow watching him."

"Ooof, yea, Terra wasn't much on the front lines in the war, but we did what we could to support the front."

"You built most of the weaponry used against the hoppers and drones. Ballistics technology was a long lost art to most of the species in the battles. I think things could've gone a lot worse without your planet's help."

Tannis settled himself, stroking a paw over the human's bare chest, smiling, "Your species is a little xeno-phobic but you learned a lot in your first galactic war."

"We're used to world wars, not inter-stellar dog fights. Our battle cruisers and gun-ships looked like tinker toys compared to the T'kantis heavy cruisers or the K'han frigates. The Lirau even sent one of their world-ships to act as a refugee center and medical ship. Now those ships were impressive, as big as a terrestrial moon but no weapons."

Shinai leaned into the comfortable embrace of the multi-lounge, "Lirau are one of the prettiest species, those wings, translucent bodies, those giant eyes, but no mouths, hard to imagine a creature who evolved feeding on sunlight."

"Most telepathic species are pacifists." Tannis toyed with the badge adhered to the strap across the human's pecs, making Shinai squirm softly as the handsome feline ran his soft, warm finger-pads across his nipple curiously. The squirming turned to fits of laughter, then breathless giggles as the two males playfully batted and prodded at one another. Shinai issued a breathless gasp as he felt sharp teeth nip at him, grinning as he seized Tannis and tackled him to the lounge, feeling the heavier framed feline bristle and yowl a bit as he was tickled mercilessly.

The squirming feline batted at Shinai, being careful to keep his claws sheathed, whipping his tail in thumps against the lounge as he growled playfully, attempting to prise the human's grip off him. The gales of laughter and playful grunts and huffs were shortening as they panted at one another, making Tannis giggle softly, "If the crews could see us now..."

"Hey, I'm just captain because I was promoted, this uniform comes off at night just like everyone else's."

"Promises, promises, so does mine you know."

Tannis screeched softly at the fresh flurry of poking tickles the human aimed along his sides and belly, getting both of them wrapped up in the feline's dangling uniform top. He wrapped his legs around Shinai's waist, levering him up and off himself, blushing as he felt the human's crotch grind into his tail-bone, grinning till he yipped at being pulled over with the taller male's momentum. There was a muffled crash as they ended up on the thick carpeting, Shinai landing on top Tannis as they panted softly against one another.

The human male inhaled as he abruptly felt strong paws grip his ass, opening his eyes to see the feline's muzzle hovering just beyond the tip of his nose. With a grin Shinai lunged forward and embraced the feline male in a kiss, feeling him startle and wriggle softly up into his firm body, grunting. The sensation was slightly alien to the feline captain, trying to adjust his muzzle against Shinai's relatively flat face, finding he adapted quickly, kissing and licking across the human male's lips and jaw. He purred as he felt the human male do the same, flicking his soft, smooth tongue against the feline's slightly rough one. The long, slow, deep kiss was filled with a good many experimental squeezes to asses and crotches, both feeling the other up heatedly till they broke apart panting.

Tannis lay flat on his back, panting, trying to get his uniform adjusted before Shinai could see the tent, failing miserably, then gasping as the handsome human flicked it gently with a fingertip, "You seem to have something on your crotch Tannis."

"Ha ha, so do you." The feline grinned sedately as he felt rather then saw the lump pressing into his hip, licking the human's chin with a faint rasp of his tongue.

Shinai chuckled and turned his face, prompting Tannis to nip his ear, carefully avoiding the studs in the human's earlobes, "Your tongue tickles."

"The curse of being feline I suppose. Lots of things on us tickles..."

Shinai arched a brow, leaning into the white furred captain, "Oh, you have... Well, those, there?"

Tannis shook his head, nibbling in an affectionate way on the human male's chin as he smiled, "No, I was born without them. So I can't really procreate with my own species' females."

"You know I think life on my planet would have been a lot easier if the percentage of our population born homosexual had possessed a physiological cue that they prefer the company of gentlemen as opposed to lasses."

Shinai smiled as he rubbed his hands through the thick fur on the feline's sides and back, noting in amusement Tannis' uniform was almost completely open now. The feline's violet eyes flashed as they turned toward him curiously, "The females of your species are called lasses? The only thing I've ever heard human females referred to by others are bitches... Which I found ironic as most canid species... What...? Did I say something funny?"

Tannis' ears were perked as he held himself to the human male caught in paroxysms of laughter, his sides twitching as he chuckled. Shinai shook his head and wiped his eyes softly, "No, no, I'm sorry Tan. You misinterpreted someone calling someone an insult... It's cute."

The feline blushed softly, licking the human's cheek idly, "I'm seldom referred to as cute."

"Well, you are." Shinai grinned as he strokes the feline captain's chest and bellyfur, sighing as his comm. unit went off again and the window popped up again, this time at an awkward angle. The window was partially obscured by Tannis, and the voice of his first officer sounded slightly puzzled, "Captain?"

"Yea, go ahead Lorensi." Shinai continued to cuddle with Tannis, chuckling as the white furred male's back moved slightly, continuing to obscure his first officer's face as the Vakari bobbed, leaned and squinted to see past the massive white blob blinding a good 75% of the viewer.

"Uh, the window seems to be malfunctioning sir, is your comm unit functional?"

"Yes. It's nothing to worry about."

"Uh, yes'sir. We need your approval to take crew rosters into halves and rotate the duty shifts to allow everyone some R&R. The engine room is also waiting on authorization to begin emergency repairs on the City."

Lorensi tipped his head, the angle that allowed him to see the most of his human captain's face, the blissful grin spread across it as Tannis massaged him somewhere inappropriate for public display was making the Vakari eye him tentatively, "Is everything alright sir?"

"Oh, everything is perfectly lovely. Thank-you Lorensi."

The human male gently prised Tannis' paws off his crotch, not without a touch of regret, making the grinning feline shift a bit. Lorensi startled as the field of white shifted and revealed an ear and part of a jaw, "OH, I'm sorry sir. I didn't know you and Captain Tannis were uh, improving Terran and Council relations."

The spotted feline coughed politely and nodded, "I'll see to it no one interrupts you further once you've made the proper approvals."

"Yo." Shinai sighed as he heard the blip of the com window close, grumbling at the exquisite tent on the front of his shorts, kissing the male feline softly as he stood and readjusted his uniform, "Shouldn't take me more then 15 minutes."

He smiled, "Then you can have the privilege of shutting my comm unit off and chucking it down the recycle chute while we... dance."

Tannis nodded and squirmed his way back into his uniform, not bothering to zip it back closed so it showed his torso from chin to just above his crotch, making Shinai grin, "Gods you're gorgeous."

Tannis blushed softly, "Why don't you meet me in my private quarters in say, 15 minutes. Bring your favorite bottle of booze."

"Deal. See you in one quarter of an hour!" The human captain trotted out of the lounge with a boyish grin, rushing off to find his mechanics and first officer.

Tannis stretched and adjusted himself and the wet spot inside his uniform, watching the human's ass vanish as the door slid shut again. He grinned, exiting himself and heading the opposite direction, the double doors to his quarters sliding open to admit him. The feline's quarters were plush for being relatively small, merely one open room, with a door leading to the hygiene/shower room, thickly padded carpeting over the deckplates done in shades of charcoal. There was another of the ubiquitous multi-lounges resting in the center of the room behind a small round table that sat beneath the half-globe dome of the holo-viewer jutting from the rounded ceiling. Another table, larger and more square then circular was in the corner that shared the tiny kitchenette and synthesis unit, it had a pair of chairs on either side and a glass top, thick and darkly smoked.

The feline's bed was large enough for 3, rounded into a semi-oblong oval, flanked on both sides by small cabinets that held his odds and ends and spare uniforms and relaxing clothes. Tannis hurried to adjust the soft, maroon red sheets that were soft as silk, fluffing the half dozen small pillows that lay scattered about the bed. He hurriedly jerked the zipper of his jumpsuit down, stepping out of it and dumping it into a basket next to the laundry washer and fluffer. He pried off his soft shoes and veered into the washing chamber, sliding the showering booth closed and keying the water on to hot, squirting himself with soap and lathering to twice his normal size in record time. Once the lather was sluiced down the drain he shut off the hot spray and kicked on the drier unit.

The feline's fur was dry within a minute or two, leaving him soft, fluffy and sleek as he tore out of the hygiene chamber to squat in front of the cabinet containing his relaxing clothes, rummaging in it till he found a loose, shift-like robe of aquamarine and silver, throwing it over his head and smoothing his hair before he dove back in and fished out a pair of ludicrously tight panties Kanti had once given him. They were soft, silky, bright violet that matched his eyes and had a tiny bow on the front of the waistband. As Tannis finished pulling the tight lingerie up over his hips the door chime went off, making him startle as he hurriedly smoothed his robe and flung himself onto the multi-lounge, relaxing, "Come in."

The doors swished open to reveal Shinai, still dressed in his uniform, with a small dark bottle in one hand and a long stemmed flower in the other. Tannis blushed as the human captain presented the white flower to him, taking it gently from him and sniffing it delicately, his snowfall of hair obscuring half his face, "It's lovely, thank-you."

"It's a rose, from Terra, we keep a small bush of them in our hydroponics bay, for special occasions..." Shinai grinned as he lifted the dark glassed bottle, "And for both of us, some Terran plum wine."

Tannis slowly levered himself to his feet, walking to the kitchen unit and keying in an order for two glasses, tapping his fingers as the synthesizer hummed. He gasped as the human male pressed into him from behind and kissed his nape, "Mmm, you smell good."

"Really? I'd never wondered what I smell like to a human." Tannis smiled as he felt the human's unencumbered hand slide over his side and hip, "You don't smell all that bad yourself."

"I've been chemically de-scented at the genetic level. Humans normally sweat ammonia and all sorts of horrid things that can offend non-human species. So I just smell like myself, just stronger when I sweat."

Tannis could barely keep his grip on the glasses that slid from the synthesis unit as Shinai did wonderful things to the nape of his neck, making him shiver and squirm softly. He gasped, batting at the human gently as he felt Shinai's teeth nip his throat between shoulder and cheek, "OH! Shin... Stop that... You'll make m-me drop these..."

"Mmm, well Kry, you best set them down quickly. It's just gonna get worse from here."

Tannis squeaked as he felt the human goose him, blushing beet red at the ears as he squirmed away long enough to reach the multi-lounge and sitting table, placing the glasses down with shaking paws. Shinai grinned and popped the cork of the bottle, pouring a measure of the dark, sweet wine for both of them before settling down next to Tannis on the lounge, leaning back. The feline sniffed his glass experimentally, sipping it and letting the taste work across his tongue, "It's good."

"It's not too sweet?" The human captain looked at the range of objects on the low table; a small brass compass, a telescope made of what looked like dark grained wood and more brass, a small gold colored bell swung gently on a minute stand and a large, silver watch with a hinged lid sat on a velvet pad, stabilized with a grav field. He picked up the watch and held it to his ear, hearing the gentle rhythm of the ticking, watching as the small hand inset on a smaller dial in the face swung around. He picked up his own glass as he gently replaced the watch, "The stations of captaincy?"

"Yes." Tannis smiled, leaning into the handsome human, feeling his warmth and the steady rise and fall of his chest as he laid his head gently against his it. He purred as the human male rubbed his nape and ears slowly, the rumble of his chest telegraphing through both of them. After their third glass of wine each they were both warm and amiable, chatting and giggling against one another as Shinai played slowly with the feline's long, snowy hair. Tannis slowly pulled away from the human, "I'll be right back Shin."

The human nodded as the feline padded to the door of the hygiene chamber, touching the controls of his uniform as the door slid shut. He slowly unbuckled the shoulder strap and his belt, kicking off his boots as he laid the straps of his clothing over the small table. Shinai grinned as he got up, dressed in nothing but a pair of bright yellow thong underwear, stretching his long, toned torso as he strode over and sat on the edge of the bed. The door slid back again to admit Tannis, looking sleek and soft as he smiled at Shinai, "I took a moment to rub on some fur oil and take a few stimulators. You look comfortable."

"Why don't you come see how comfortable I am?" The human male grinned, waiting till Tannis was within arm's reach before he seized the lithe feline by the wrists and stood up, teasingly pushing the white furred male onto his back on the bed, then promptly pouncing on him, making the both of them sink into the mattress. Tannis uttered a giggling shriek as he went down under Shinai's warm, toned form, smirking up at the human male, "I'm the feline one, why did I get pounced by you?"

"Kanti's taught me a few tricks." The human captain warranted no further talk as he pressed his lips into Tannis', feeling the feline's body arch into him as his tongue invaded the human's mouth, thrashing heatedly. Their kiss deepened till they were grinding against one another, their hands roaming freely and lustily all over, their lips and tongues pushing against one another in time with their panting gasps of breath when one or the other scored a particularly good grope or squeeze.

Tannis shivered as he ground against the tight, toned human on top of him, moaning as he felt Shinai's hands slide under his loose robe, caressing his lithe snow furred body. He gasped as the human's fingers found his perked nipples and pinched them softly, tugging them, making his tail puff comically. Shinnai grinned softly and licked the feline's chin, "Why don't you take that robe off?"

"Couldn't agree with you more..." Tannis wriggled out from under the human's densely lean body, slipping to his feet and unbuttoning the throat of his robe, letting it drop to the carpeting. The obstruction gone, Shinai could get a good look at the nearly naked feline captain for the first time, feeling his body surge with the view. Tannis' milky white fur coated his body sleekly, clinging to his curves, laying thickly on his chest, belly and the insides of his thighs. The feline's violet eyes flashed brilliantly as he flexed and stretched, showing off for his human companion, showing the lean expanse of his back, his curved, heart-shaped rump, lifting his sleek tail to show where the back of his tight panties dived into the cleft of his backside.

Tannis' narrow hips and long, lithe thighs flexed as he turned back toward his human companion, showing off his solid chest and softly rippled belly, smiling as he arches his back, making his hour-glass shape flex, flattening his belly and flaring his chest. He giggled helplessly at the long, thick lump straining at the crotch of his silky panties. Shinai shrugged and pointed to his own similar problem, lying back slowly. The air seemed thicker and warmer as Tannis eased back onto the bed, shifting so he was straddling the human's thighs, leaning over him and resting his paws on either side of his toned chest, "I'm not too heavy, am I?"

"Nope. You're just fine baby." Shinai grinned as Tannis flushed once more, chewing his lower lip softly, exploring the broad, naked expanse of the human's chest and belly once more, running his soft, sensitive paw pads over his smooth bronzed skin, feeling the perk of his nipples, rubbing the curve of his pecs and running his fingertips over the ridged plane of Shin's belly, grinning gently as his exploring went all the way down to the waistband of his low-slung briefs. The snowy feline leaned into Shinai's body, licking his chest softly, tasting the human's scent and the pheromone rush of his arousal.

The feline gently ran his slightly rough tongue over Shinai's nipples, feeling a flash of curiosity as the human's tanned skin prickled with goose bumps. He ran his paws all over the lean human's body, feeling the supple, smooth texture of his skin, the soft, bristly spikes of his hair, examining his jaw and cheeks, queer flat nose and odd rounded ears, prodding in fascination at the loops and studs in the human male's earlobes. Tannis ran his paws over the expanse of Shinai's throat and chest, mmm-ing softly as he felt the human's hands stroking his back and sides, rubbing the short, thick fur on his hips slowly.

The feline giggled softly as he felt Shinai's hands rub the smooth, tight expanse of his ass, both cheeks of which were exposed by the high cut, thong back panties. His giggle turned into a breathless squeak as the human's hand gripped the base of his tail and gently tugged it upward, using the fingers of his opposite hand to rub up and down the vee-shaped cleft in the white furred male's rump. The twin lumps on the front of their briefs were grinding against one another gently as they kissed once more, Shinai's hands gently peeling the violet panties over Tannis' hips and down his thighs, making him blush, moaning as this allowed the human to stroke the tender spot under the base of his tail freely.

A rumbling purr was building in the feline's chest as he pressed into the human male, rubbing against him as they kissed, making tiny noises of arousal at the tender, slow touches to the entrance to his body, feeling the soft tip of the human's finger rubbing his tail-ring slowly in a circle, tracing its edge. The feline's sides heaved a bit as he shivered, moaning into Shinai's chest, looking into his eyes as the human smiled, "You know there is one thing we humans are supposedly very good at in interspecies coitus."

"Mmm, oh?" Tannis answered slightly vaguely as his body rubbed and shivered. Shinai nodded, grinning gently as he tugged one of the feline's slightly rounded ears, "Here, scoot up."

Tannis looked puzzled as Shinai helped him sit up and scoot forward till he was straddling the human's chest, one knee tucked securely into each of his underarms. He flushed red along his ears as he looked awkwardly down at Shinnai, his pinking sheath almost resting against the handsome human's chin. He bit his lip, arching on reflex as the human's tongue flicked out and traced the edge of his tapered glans; "I hear we give one of the best blow-job in this half of the galaxy."

Tannis groaned softly, arching at the hips as he felt Shinai's odd, soft, smooth lips and silky smooth tongue dance around the tip of his pinking cock, sliding around the opening of his sheath and lapping inside it gently. To the human it was like licking someone with a very pronounced foreskin, and it didn't last long as the feline's cock swiftly filled out, stiffening to its full beauty and his sheath tightening and retracting back against his body. The feline's cock was gorgeous, sleek, not too slender, not too thick, with a smooth, slightly curved shaft, tapered tip and set with a huge pair of swollen white velvet furred balls beneath it.

Shinai grinned softly as he felt the feline spring to diamond cutter hardness, his sleek cock bobbing gently in time with his heartbeat. He slowly wrapped his lips around the tip of the feline's shaft, hearing him moan deep in his chest, sucking gently to begin with as he kneaded the large white sac between Tannis' thighs. Tannis arched his back and hips; head buzzing as he felt the spectacular suction around his cock. Other species gave good head, but nothing like what he was feeling, the hard, deep suction, the warm, wet, smooth inside of the human male's mouth with his blunt white teeth and the soft ridges across the roof of his mouth.

Tannis gripped the spiky hair on Shinai's head gently, his hips bucking on reflex as the human's warm mouth sucked his sleek cock, bobbing up and down, taking a little more of the feline's shaft with each downward push. The rasping pants coming from Tannis' clenched muzzle were interspersed with muttered oaths and tiny mewls of pleasure, his thighs and hips twitching and shivering as his balls swung loosely, bumping gently against the human's chin.

Shinai surprised Tannis by slowly pushing two fingers into the feline's gaped muzzle, urging him to suck on them as the human himself bobbed his head up and down along the shaft of the sleek cat cock filling his mouth. After a moment the human withdrew his wet, saliva coated fingers, then slid them up under the base of Tannis' tail, making the handsome feline yelp gently as Shinai's fingertip pushed up against his tight tail-ring, the uncomfortable sensation of pressure making him bite his lip before his body yielded, allowing the human's two forefingers to slowly press into his body. The lean feline shuddered softly, his ears pressed back tight to his skull and tail thrashing over Shinai's belly and thighs in bliss as he bucked his hips between the human's wonderful mouth and his invading fingers.

The human male savored the musky, slightly saline taste of the feline cock between his lips as it oozed pre-cum. He lapped over Tannis' sleek erection, stroking his meat slowly up and down as he gazed up at Tannis' slitted violet eyes, "You liking that?"

"Oh gods, yes..." The snowy furred feline panted, groaning at the sensation of the human's tongue swirling over the tip of his cock and fingers buried up his ass, making him squeak gently as they flexed softly. Shinai grinned as he gently let his blunt teeth slide just perceptibly over the soft skin of the feline's glans, "You have any pheromone capsules?"

Tannis nodded shakily, leaning over just far enough to reach the bedside drawer, his twitching fingers pulling out a row of color coded, plas capsules the length of the tip of his littlest finger. He held them up with some concentration, selecting a cerulean one and a ruddy red one, offering another red one the supine human that gestured for him to snap it for him. Tannis nodded, popping the small plastic capsule in half along its midline, holding it down to Shinai as a fine white mist spread from the snapped ampoule. The human breathed deeply, taking in several lungfuls of the medicine scented mist, not really being able to smell the male pheromones laced with testosterone that filled the capsule, but enjoying the rush to his head and loins that accompanied them.

Tannis struggled with his own pair of tabs, popping them in turn and breathing deeply of the mingled scents of male and female musk that invaded his own nose, the sharp tang making him slightly dizzy and sending a surge of blood to his already straining phallus, making it twitch harder to the beat of his heart. He abandoned the empty capsules, moaning and leaning forward, holding onto Shinai's head with one paw and the other clutching the headboard of the oblong bed, his entire body buzzing with the stimulant properties of the double dose of pheromones, one male, the other of a female feline in estrus. For several moments once they'd been inhaled every sensation was magnified till it was almost painful and Shinai had to take it easy on Tannis for those long, splintered moments to make sure he didn't cause the lean feline to orgasm all over at the slightest stimulation.

He gently rubbed the feline cock in his face, giving it the occasional lick and kiss as it twitched painfully close to orgasm, "Mmm, it's been a while since you've mated, hasn't it?"

"A few months since I had a good session, other then a quick one here and there." The handsome feline shivered as he slowly moved his hips, letting Shinai finger his tight ass and give his cock slow, deliberate attention. He moaned heatedly as Shinai took his cock back into his mouth, fighting the sensation to thrust as the human's lips slid farther and farther down his slick shaft, wondering if the human could take it all. His question was answered as Shin took a breath and slowly let it out, sliding his mouth all the way down to the feline's flared cock-base, making him stiffen and gasp in a ragged breath.

The moment passed as Shinai pulled back, grinning up into Tannis' face, "You like that?"

A shaky nod was all he could muster, making the human male chuckle and do it again, and again deeper and longer, throating the pulsing feline cock till its owner was at the screaming edge of climax no matter what he did. He murmured up at Tannis, "Just let it out baby, I know you felines are good for two or three shots. First one's on me."

Tannis' snowy hair flew as he tossed his head, nodding in desperation as he moved his hips in tiny, hard jerks, his ass tensing around the long fingers buried in it. Shinai adjusted his fingers, stroking across the little round knot he could feel inside the feline's body, making Tannis' growling moans grow loader and his grip tighter. He sucked the feline's cock harder, letting his own mouth meet the wild little thrusts of the feline's hips, reaching back with his free hand and giving Tannis a small spank on the ass before starting to knead his tense, swollen balls. The tiny crack of skin on fur was enough to send the groaning, panting male over the edge of no return, his body arching hard, muscles fluttering wildly before the tip of his cock exploded. The flood of warm, thick feline essence was slightly surprising to the human, but he swallowed it as it came, sucking the throbbing feline meat hard, rubbing his balls and kneading them gently, feeling them empty into his waiting mouth.

The dimly lit room spun slowly as Tannis gasped and panted, slowly slumping over the supine human still sucking gently on his softly pulsing cock. Shinai grinned, softly tugging the length of feline cock that hadn't relented from its hardness, letting it bob back up and slap gently into the thick white fur on his belly, leaving a smear of wetness. The human rubbed his hands up and down over Tannis' naked form, stroking through his soft, milky fur, tweaking his perked nipples gently and rubbing his smooth, curved ass. He oof-ed as the feline male slowly scooted back and nearly collapsed onto him, kissing him deeply once more.

Shinai rubbed his hands over Tannis' ass, spreading his rump-cheeks and probing the tight, warm entrance to his body, "You have a really tight ass Kry. Don't get it much of a work-out?"

"Mmm, sometimes, but not too often." Tannis grinned, blushing a bit as he pressed into the sleek human's nearly naked form, running a paw down and squeezing the distended lump of his crotch, "Now, what do you have for me?"

The human male smirked, slowly stroking Tannis' hips, "Well, why don't you open it up and see for yourself sweetness?"

"I think I just might." The feline's soft padded fingers hooked the waistband of the high cut and low slung briefs about Shinai's hips, drawing them down with a moments hesitation as the elastic caught on the length of the human's trapped cock. He gasped softly in surprise as Shinai's cock jumped up at him with the springing of the elastic over it, nearly slapping him in the belly. Tannis stared at the human penis, transfixed with fascination at his first up-close look at human genitals.

Shinai's cock was very similar to his own, but a little longer, a little thicker and blunter at the tip, criss-crossed with a network of veins and soft contours in his skin. Tannis examined these details closely as he gingerly touched Shinai's erection, hearing the human male inhale in pleasure at the touch. His cock was gorgeous, with more of a flare where his shaft met his glans, sheath-less, but with a loose flap of skin just below his glans. Tannis marveled at how smooth and bare the human's cock was, except for a small bristly patch of hair just at the base of his cock where it met his lower belly. Even Shinai's balls were smooth, hanging low, responding to the feline's touch, tightening and loosening as the human's arousal waxed more and more.

Shinai smiled down at the transfixed feline, "This is your first time seeing one?"

"Well, of the human variety, yes. It's quite, handsome..."

"See how it tastes." Shinai grinned, rubbing over Tannis' nape and shoulders as he arched his hips slightly, making his cock bob an inch or so in the feline's loose grip, "This will be your first time for that too, I'm assuming."

"Y-yes." A tiny nod punctuated the feline's nod as he shifted position, thrusting his rump toward Shinai's chest as he tentatively stroked the human's thick cock, sniffing it idly, marking its sweet, musky scent and the dribble of clear pre-cum that slid down its tip. He swiped the drip up with his tongue, sampling its musty tang, hearing Shinai inhale at the sensation of the feline's slightly rough tongue. It wasn't unpleasant, just a slight bumpy tickling sensation of the dulled barbs on the feline's tongue being dragged over the tender skin of his erection. He grunted, stroking Tannis' ears slowly, "You won't break it, it's just like every other cock you've sucked..."

"Alright." Tannis nodded and let the lust boiling in his belly take over, running his tongue all over the human's inner thighs, balls and cock, lapping and sucking, purring loudly as he did so. He took Shinai's cock between his lips, slowly feeding it into his muzzle and sucking as hard as he could, rumbling gently, being careful of his fangs and the human's tender skin. He shivered as Shinai continued to stroke, rub and tug his ears, reaching a hand over and starting to caress his snowy furred ass at the same time. Tannis lifted Shinai's cock up and slowly ran his tongue all over his balls, sucking on them gently and rolling them across his tongue, hearing the human male moan.

The musky air in the cabin was getting overpowering between the both of them as Tannis continued his ministrations on the human's cock, trying to show him as good a time as he had shown his own member. He nuzzled into Shinai's balls, rubbing the human's cock over his muzzle and lapping all over it, getting it wet and his own cheeks matted with saliva and pre-cum. The growls coming from Tannis were of lust and love, not aggression as he moaned quietly in time with the human, taking Shinnai's cock slowly into his warm, wet maw, bobbing his head, working his way down. After one gag Tannis managed to take Shinai's length all the way down, the human's hands tightening their grip for an instant as he shivered, his soft skinned balls slowly pulling tense against the feline's paw.

Tannis was treated to a spectacular view of the human's sculpted chest and belly arching and taut, all his muscles standing out as his pecs rose and fell faster and deeper, his moans and cries of pleasure peaking just as Tannis was preparing to take him down his throat for the half-dozenth time. Shinai barely had time to bark, "I'm cumming!" in a strangled moan before Tannis' muzzle was filled with twitching human meat, the tip of which erupted into a flurry of salty, slightly chlorine smelling seed.

The feline had no time to mull over the flavor of the human's semen as he swallowed it quickly and stroked his pulsing cock wildly, milking him for every drop offered. Shinai gasped and panted, arching stiffly till his erection ceased its violent jerking in Tannis' muzzle, merely throbbing sedately and dribbling freely onto his tongue. The feline savored those last few squirts and drops, getting used to the taste and smell of the human's seed, finding it slightly bitter, but to his liking well enough, squeezing Shinai's shaft and milking out every drop he could get till the human stayed his busy paw, gasping at him, "Oh, oh... Easy Kry... They take a minute to recharge you know."

The feline nodded sheepishly and licked his lips, slowly laying down next to the human male and nuzzling into his chest, toying with his spent cock idly as he licked Shinai's chin, purring as the human male kissed him again, the tastes and scents of their respective seed mingling on their tongues. He giggled as Shinai licked his lips and kissed him, holding the feline close and rubbing his ass slowly, "Mmm, you want that next?"

"I wouldn't leave here till I'd had it. Your security officer would have to pry me off you."

Tannis grinned, "And he would. I'm surprised he hasn't been calling me on the comm every 10 minutes updating me as to the whereabouts of your crew. He doesn't completely trust humans."

"I'm wounded. Of course I feel as though I've just had my brain sucked out through my cock, so I might be confused."

The two degraded into giggles and snorts, rolling in one another's arms and getting in good solid gropes and squeezes while they were at it. Shinai sighed happily, "You felines are insatiable once you get going, aren't you? It's a lovely thing."

"Metarans are worse, but we felines tend to get on a streak once we've found a nice cock or ass we like, yes."

Shinai chuckled, "So which is it in this case?"

"Mmm, you've got a gorgeous cock, and a nice ass, I think. You've also got lovely eyes."

Tannis smiled as he ran his paws over the human's chest, purring softly. Shinai grinned softly, "Yours aren't too bad themselves, such a bright violet, and snowy white fur, and an absolutely perfect ass, so far that I've seen."

"Flatterer, you just want to put this in it." He twanged the human's cock playfully as he nuzzled into the crook of his throat, biting gently.

Tannis squeaked in surprise as Shinai did the same to him, biting a bit harder then he had and rolling over on top of his bleach furred body. With a grin the human male plucked up Tannis' wrists and held them over his head, pushing his face into the crook of the feline's throat and opening his jaws wide, biting him gently there and holding the pressure. The effect was almost immediate as Tannis arched his back, exposing his belly and tipping his head to one side, showing more of his throat, his tail wriggling underneath him as he groaned throatily, "I see your f-first officer has shown you a few other tips in feline mating..."

"A few." Shinai pulled back long enough to kiss Tannis passionately, then bent his head once more and bit the side of his throat once more, forcefully, giving it a squeeze that had Tannis panting, issuing a soft meow of submission as his ears folded against his head. The human grinned softly, "Well, I think that covers half of the mating ritual..."

He ran his hand over the pale, milky white fur of Tannis' exposed belly, giving his once more ragingly hard cock a tug as the feline panted and nodded desperately, "But I need to be let up for the next..."

Shinai nodded and gently lifted his form off the lean feline's, sitting back on his haunches as he watched Tannis roll over onto his belly in almost luxurious slowness. The feline male bent his arms at the elbows and rests on paws and elbows, arching his back and hips, spreading his thighs and resting on his knees. When he was on elbows and knees, he lowered his head, pressing his face into his forearm and lifting his ass high, arching his back almost painfully as he let his tail droop to one side. The soft pants and gentle mewls coming from the feline was arousing, adding to the almost desperate way his hips were grinding back toward the human male.

Shinai slowly got to his knees and slid in behind Tannis, running his hands over the curved expanse of his back, making him shiver as his fingers caressed his thighs and backside, slowly pushing his tail to one side and slipping his hips up against the feline's rump. Tannis uttered a soft moan of longing as he felt Shinai's cock brush the base of his tail, biting his own forearm softly, "Mmm, oh, please mount me..."

"You've been a good boy thus far, who am I to not give you what you want baby." Shinai smiled as he gripped Tannis' hip with one hand and guided his own still slick length up the cleft in his backside, hitting the vee under his tail-base and arching his hips, feeling his glans press into the feline's smooth, tight tail-ring. He just let his own weight press him forward, feeling Tannis' tight body slowly relent, taking his tip gradually, a fraction of an inch at a time, going gently. The feline's cries of pleasure were mingled with his stifled grunts of discomfort, making his whole body shake by the time Shinai's glans popped into him, swallowed by his tight tail-ring.

Tannis arched, yowling in a low rumbling tone as the human's thick cock slid into him a half inch at a time, letting him feel every vein, contour and bump on the length of his erection, letting the feline savor his first time being penetrated by a human cock. He felt his senses swirl, pleasure making him shiver and buck gently. Whatever shortcomings humans had personality-wise or culturally, they made up for it in spades with their versatile lovemaking ability. Shinai had learned from his past flings with his feline crewmembers or on his leaves, what spots to caress, how fast to go, what turned a feline on and what to steer clear of.

As their two bodies met, Shinai's hips pressing flush with Tannis' full, rounded rump, they both uttered a sigh of pleasure, the entire length and width of the human buried inside the feline male, making his muscles squeeze and ripple as they adjusted to the foreign object wedged within him. Shinai allowed the lean feline a moment to relax, just stroking and caressing his back and nape as he bent down over him, kissing his ears. When Tannis nodded he started to rock his hips, gently and slowly, grinding them softly, working his way up to a gentle thrust. The feline's moans and cries were muted by his hair and pressing his muzzle into the soft bed beneath them as Shinai's hips worked at a steady gentle rhythm, rocking with Tannis' body as he thrust into him deeply.

The feline panted, "G-g-go faster... H-h-harder..."

The human's thrusts intensified, getting longer, deeper and harder, jolting Tannis against the bed, his body bucking back to meet the pounding of Shinai's hips, his ass smacking against the human's smooth thighs and hips. The muted slap of Shinai's tense balls were softened by the fur of Tannis' ass and his own swollen sac, his own cock bobbing and jerking, rapping into his thickly furred belly and leaving long, wet smears of pre-cum. Their mating was deep and wild, their frantic thrusting and grinding punctuated by snarls, moans and cries of lust, the creaking of the bed making them both glad the bulkheads were soundproof.

Shinai was tense and shivering, his cock spurting pre-cum as he banged his hips into Tannis' beautiful ass. He bit the crook of the feline's shoulder and throat, nibbling his nape as he was seized by a sudden thought. Tannis blinked out of his pleasure-fogged stupor as Tannis pulled his cock free and bodily rolled him onto his back. The human lifted Tannis' knees, exposing his pre-cum matted rump once more and lifting his hips just far enough to sink back into the startled feline. Tannis moaned loudly, wrapping his legs around the human's waist and hips on reflex, holding his arms as Shinai bent over him, hands resting on the bed and began driving his hips downward in hard, jolting humps.

The long, thick human cock being driven mercilessly into his body made the feline arch and cry out, growling and moaning heatedly as he seized Shinai's face and kissed him hard, darting his tongue in and out around the human's, their chests pressing and the feline's sleek cock sliding up and down the flat, smooth expanse of Shinai's belly, leaking pre-cum freely. Tannis clenched down on the human's thick cock, squeezing it tightly as he ground his hips in sharp, tight jerks, panting into Shinai's mouth, "Mmm! Cum in me..."

"Only if you cum all over me." The human panted, grinning at the frantically nodding feline. He increased his pace, driving his hips downward, pistoning in and out of the feline's tight ass, feeling him squeeze and clench, milking his length as it impaled him deeply, its tip raking over his internal pleasure spots. Just when it seemed the tension was unbearable Shinai uttered a groan, slamming home into Tannis and arching hard, holding the feline's hips in a vice grip, his diamond hard cock twitching once more as it blew, pulsing its seed once more. Tannis shuddered, moaning blissfully at the sensation of the human's heat coursing into his body, clenching tightly, wanting it all as he clutched tightly to Shinai.

Their grunting thrusts degraded into animal growls and pants, Tannis shuddering as his eyes rolled partially up white, his throbbing cat cock creating a warm sticky mess all over Shinai's sculpted pecs and abs, thrusting desperately against the human's smooth, bronzed skin as they humped against one another heatedly. The room was filled with gasping pants and subdued moans as they slowly came to rest on one another again, their sweat and sticky seed mingling all over their spent bodies. The feline male purred, a soft rumble as he licked Shinai's cheek and jaw, kissing him softly. The human reciprocated, stroking Tannis' warm, if slightly sweaty fur, "Mmm, you almost make me want to request a transfer."

Tannis blushed, tipping his ears coyly, "You only just met me."

"Oh, I know, but there's something about you I'm certain I like."

"Other then my ass?"

Shinai chuckled, "Well, that does play a part as well."

"Mmm." Tannis' reply was muffled by their kissing again, long and deeply as he slowly bucked his hips up against Shinai, making the human smile, "Again?"

"As many times as we can get. I don't know if I'll ever see you again once you get back on your ship." Tannis held himself against the lean, strong human, feeling a soft pang he couldn't quite identify, perhaps it was loneliness, he wasn't entirely sure, perhaps longing for something he had never really indulged in as a young, eligible male. He nuzzled into Shinai's chin and throat, slowly bucking into him, feeling the human's long erection sliding in and out of him smoothly, lubed by his prior orgasm. The feline tasted and smelled his own scent and musk coating the human male, finding it pleasant mingled with Shinai's own musk and sweat. He closed his eyes, enjoying their gentle coupling, leaning back and rubbing into the human male with a smile till he noticed the ship roll gently beneath him.

They both sat bolt upright, still mid-coitus as a pair of viewscreen windows popped to life on either side of them. Dex's neutral face filled one and T'lash's imposing visage filled the other. The Laslurian male's bright eyes widened softly, as he scanned the pair of entwined bodies, but his neutral expression didn't change one iota as he gazed at Shinai and Tannis coupled together, "Captain. We have an incoming proximity alert, pattern is blue."

T'lash nodded from the other screen, his muzzle wrinkled softly as he gazed at his captain naked and entwined with the human male, his jaw set stonily, "Incoming hostile, 150 thousand km off and closing hot. I believe we have a problem, captains."

The last word was bitten off as he stared at the human male on top of Tannis with something not quite reaching disgust, but close, wondering what male feline in their own right mind would be a beta to one of the furless heathens, much less his own captain. Tannis nodded, now fully alert, his adrenaline mingling with the high of their mating as Shinai swiftly got to his feet, helping Tannis up, "We'll be right there T'lash, bring up translocation dampeners, get the crew from the Daikokuten on-board paired with our own crew for emergency situation briefings alert the Daikokuten herself, bring all available weapons on-line and charge the distortion and barrier shields to as much as we can squeeze out of them."

Both screens winked out as Tannis kissed Shinai hard before they both scrambled into their respective uniforms, "I'm sorry Shin, but looks like you're stuck with us for the fight."

"Oddly, no place I'd rather be at the moment Lorensi can handle the Daikokuten just fine in a crisis."

Their booted feet pounded up the corridors as klaxons blared, the normal lighting tinged red with the blinking emergency beacons. As Tannis and Shinai reached the lift Dex's window popped up again, he looked more harried then the white furred feline had ever remembered seeing him, "Captain, we have visual on the incoming hostile."

The Laslurian's face was replaced with the view-screen and sensor readings, showing Tannis an ugly, oblong shape with an almost scabrous looking hull, covered in blister-like protrusions and powered by gigantic fusion thrusters that glowed an eerie blue even at their angle away from the ships. Tannis chikked softly, "That's a Dracht hive ship..."

"Shit."

The human captain's comment seemed to best sum up the situation as they hurtled upward in the lift. As the lift slowed there was an eerie noise then the ship-wide intercom pinged loudly, "All hands, brace for impact incoming enemy fire!"

Tannis yelped as Shinai pushed him bodily against the bulkhead of the lift, slamming the control panel that activated the emergency brake-locks of the lift as he went, shielding the feline with his own body as the world seemed to end around them. The blast was colossal, Tannis screamed as his ears were tormented by the sound of ripping metal and the whoosh of exploding plasma but neither of them could hear it as the quick-lift jolted under then like a horse trying desperately to buck a tenacious rider. The ceiling of the lift suddenly became concave, making the lights explode and rain debris down on them both.

The entire ship listed sickeningly as the gravity field slackened for a moment, then reasserted itself. Tannis knew one of the main power distribution nodes must have gone up with the shock stress from the blasts along their hull. His head spun as he nearly went to his knees, the clattering debris from all around them having peppered their legs with thudding blows. The feline shook his head, his hearing slowly coming back as Shinai's comforting face swam back to somewhat more clarity. The human was calling his name, shaking him gently and patting his cheek, "Kry, Tannis, Tan, come on, don't black out. Good boy, come on... Steady on."

The feline heaved up straighter into the human's arms, gasping as he saw the dapples of blood across Shinai's arms and shoulders, noting the hand he had stroked his cheek with was dotted with sticky crimson spots. The human shook his head, "It's nothing. Just minor skin lacerations and contusions. Come on sexy."

The doors to the lift were ajar, creaking as they slowly, agonizingly prized them apart, the dented and battered doors finally giving up and just collapsing to either side as they jammed their full strength behind their shoves and fumbled out into the smoky corridor, the dim scarlet glow of the emergency lighting making shadow jump eerily. Tannis fled down the corridor as fast as he could, surveying the damage around them, the hanging wires, optical conduit, burst conduits and bulkheads popped loose or bent from the immense stresses that had rippled through them. He set his jaw grimly, "It's amazing the hull is still intac-Whooulp!"

He nearly shrieked as he tripped over a bundle laying across the corridor, their black jumpsuit melding into the shadows. Shinai tipped his goggles over his eyes, "There's 3 more here, bio-signs are all erratic."

Tannis stepped over the first body lying motionless in the corridor, spying a bright white jumpsuit amongst the tangle of the other 3, he groaned as he rolled Dex over, bright crimson blood splashing him as the front of the youth's bodysuit was soaked through, the source of his blood loss was immediately evident as Tannis ripped the sleeve off his uniform and tied it tightly around the ragged stump of the Laslurian's right arm. Dex's eyes fluttered as he coughed and tried to sit up till Shinai restrained him with a hand, "Don't. You're hurt."

The Laslurian shook his head, "Minor damage, internal diagnostics can manage for the moment."

His bright gold eyes looked tortured as he gripped the feline captain's uniform with his intact grip, "Tannis, the bridge is gone... Their first strike hit it, with the distortion and energy shields only operating on half power while the reactor was being worked on, it couldn't deflect their barrage."

The panting feline waved his stump of am arm toward the other bodies lying around him, "I had to do an emergency translocation. Couldn't calibrate or pick a destination other then anywhere but there... I could only get Kanti, Larani, Syven and myself..."

Dex's bright eyes almost wetted with tears as he gasped raggedly, "The others are all dead... We've got casualty reports from all over the ship."

Tannis helped the Laslurian to his feet despite the protests from Shinai, trying to wake the Vakari astrogator, their J'rali doctor and the compact lapin that had been manning the helm. Kanti snapped awake first, his eyes wild as he swayed in place then leaned forward and vomited all over the deck, blood spurting from his nose as he shuddered. Shinai patted his back softly, "Uncalibrated transit is always rough, jump sickness. He might have a few burst capillaries."

Tannis held Dex to his side, "Is that how..."

"My arm? Probably. I was just to one side of the transloc field when I had to do it or else we'd have all been killed."

Shinai and Kanti were cajoling Larani back to life, helping the spotted male totter to his feet breathing through his nose heavily as he tried not to puke. His uniform was dappled with blood, his tail was kinked and a chunk was gone from one of his ears, but he looked otherwise healthy. As soon as he regained his balance he took charge of Dex, leaving Shinai and Kanti to hoist the small lapin crewmale over their shoulder and carry him along till he regained consciousness.

Larani limped softly as he trotted along with the others toward an emergency lift to the aft of the main bridge conning tower, "We've all got multiple internal injuries, Dex has a complete radial-distal amputation, but his nano-ware is taking care of most of the major biological problems. Syven has a concussion and a broken rib. But all in all for a bad jump we're in good shape. We'd have all been killed otherwise if not for you Dex."

Tannis nodded grimly as he crammed everyone into the lift, shunted over to the reserve power circuit and pressed the lever, "Dex, do you still have control of the main computer core?"

"Y-y-yes..." The Laslurian nodded absently, his ears held flat as he leaned against the lift bulkhead, "It's difficult, but I have control."

"Is the auxiliary bridge still intact? Do we have any sensors at all?"

"Yes, and yes. The Dracht ship is currently in combat with the Terran ship. The Daikokuten is fully engaged with the hive ship and has only incurred minor damage thus far. "

Shinai grinned softly, "They'll give them hell till we're back under control."

The lift expulsed them onto a narrow, cramped, scarlet corridor deep within the confines of the stricken ship, Tannis slapping a control console outside the double doors and inputting a string of letters and numbers so fast he almost seemed robotic. The doors hissed open and the lights beyond hummed to life, exposing the auxiliary control center. The secondary bridge had never been used in the entire history of the Silver City's existence, it was for use in only the direst, extreme of situations where the main bridge was disabled or destroyed. Tannis led the battered group inside, immediately sliding into the spartan command console, scanning the familiar console configuration and barking to everyone else, "Dex, take comp control, Kanti, navigation, Larani monitor operations and bio-sciences please and Shin, please take tactical command."

"With pleasure." The battered and bloodied human lowered himself into the tactical console as the others ranged around their stations, sitting the still half conscious Syven in a chair next to the communications console. Tannis wiped his blood-smeared face with a dirty paw, "Call out!"

"Navigation is up. Our reactor is only operating at 25%, we have sublight thrusters and maneuvering jets only. The hyperspace manifold is still functional as well, for all the good that'd do us."

"Ops and Bio-Sci, We have ship-wide failures to structural integrity, corridors 24, 25, 26 and 32 on decks 4, 5 and 6 are exposed to space, deck one is exposed to space, the main bridge is gone..." The J'ralan choked softly for a moment before he could go on, "Life-support is within operating parameters, I have casualty reports from every deck on the ship, not counting crew from Captain Tsukisyo's ship, I estimate at least 12% of the crew is dead. The rest have sporadic to full life-signs."

"Computer sciences are functional. I have complete autonomous control of all functions, and am tracking the hive ship and Daikokuten. Putting it on the main viewscreen."

The main monitor flashed to life, showing the frenzied battle waged just beyond them, the Terran ship was holding its own, their massive engines keeping them just out of range of the Dracht ship to make most of the strikes just glancing blows and their shielding and tactical systems were all better intact then The Silver City's had been. There were flashes of blue and red light of particle weapons on both sides, the flare of shielding and distortion fields and the occasional chemical contrail of a missile or torpedo as they flew back and forth. The hive ship was listing badly, venting flaming plasma from one of her flanks where the Terran ship had scored a direct hit.

Tannis nodded grimly, "Scans of the hive ship?"

"They're heavily damaged sir, a lot of the damage looks old, probably remnants of the last of the war half a decade ago. They were probably drifting looking to do a sun dive to replenish their fuel supply when they stumbled across us. Couldn't pass up a meal."

"Status of their weapons?"

"Functional, but their power seems to be fluctuating. Their reactor core seems to be malfunctioning or damaged."

"They're still bloody dangerous, regardless of them being half crippled. Let's hope they don't get the grit to launch any drones or hoppers. The last thing we need is a hand to hand fight with the City half crippled."

Tannis swiveled in his chair, "Tactical Shin?"

The human male punched up his controls after setting them to Terran standard basic, "Main reactors are drained, we'd have to shunt power from the life-support systems and main engines to recharge, but I could have main cannons up in half a minute. 2 out of 4 main torpedo launchers sustained heavy damage, but the other two are functional. Ion cannon is functional and shielding could be better, but could be a lot worse, I'd have more faith in it if we were moving to get the reactors primed."

Larani gasped from the ops console, "SIRS! The Daikokuten has just taken a hit to their main engineering section, their reactor is damaged!"

Dex watched the energy signature of the Terran ship flux wildly, "It looks like a potential core breach."

Shinai gripped his console hard, leaning forward in his seat as he watched his well worn but beloved ship venting gouts of flaming plasma and debris from her belly. The Terran ship swung around toward the Dracht ship as another explosion wracked the massive ship's engines, half of their thrusters flaring out. A barrage of the deadly Dracht particle weapons struck the boxy Terran ship's hull, tearing out a large section of her mid-hull, making Shinai grind his teeth audibly. Tannis wanted desperately to comfort the human male, but he kept to his seat, clutching the arms with grim determination.

Suddenly a bright gout of venting gas erupted around the middle of the forward section of the Terran hull, obscuring the fin shaped bridge module just as the boxy cruiser braked hard from their engine failure, causing their vessel to roll back, almost 50 degrees, exposing her flaming belly to the ugly Dracht ship. The enemy vessel tried desperately to maneuver out of the way of the carcass of the flaming ship rushing toward them, but merely managed to swerve slightly, missing a head-on collision but allowing the bulk of the Terran ship to strike her at an oblique angle. The explosion was tremendous, ripping the Dracht ship in two about 3/4 of the way down her hull, wrenching their engine section off as both it and the Terran ship exploded in terrible pluming gout of plasma and antimatter.

Tannis gripped his seat as he shouted, "Impact!"

The blare of the klaxon over his voice sounded, giving everyone a moment's notice before the shockwave hit the listing Silver City. The world spun once more as the massive shock-front slammed the already stricken vessel, making stressed circuits blow and more of her buckle under the stress of two poundings in so short a period of time. Dex uttered a scream from his chair, his bright eyes wide as he thrashed, "She won't stop screaming! We're on fire! Oh gods, she won't stop screaming!"

Tannis leapt from his chair, grabbing the Laslurian's foreshortened stump of an arm to prevent him from hurting himself any further, his bulging glassy eyes bugging out as he clawed desperately at the side of his face and ear, "Make it stop! She won't stop screaming in my head!!"

Shinai bolted up from his console, jabbing Larani sharply, "It's the ship, his neural connection with the ship! It's overloading, it'll kill him if you don't turn down the immersion ratio or knock his ass out!"

The spotted feline medic scrabbled wildly at the med-kit strapped to the bulkhead, selecting a heavy painkiller and slotting it into the dermal injector till Tannis gripped his wrist, "Don't knock him out, we still need him for the main computer. Just dope him enough to dull the pain."

Larani nodded, pressing the blunt end of the injector to Dex's straining throat and triggering the firing stud. The vial slotted bubbled softly as he pulled it away and waited. After a handful of heartbeats the Laslurian youth ceased his thrashing and simply slumped, panting raggedly. They were all surprised as a loud yelp sounded from Kanti, "Cap'ns we've got trouble!"

Tannis, Shinai and Larani all snapped back into their seats as they looked out at the dispersing fireball, gaping in disbelief as the staggering hulk of the Dracht ship was drifting toward them on its chemical jets.

Tannis cussed loudly, "They just don't give up! We could take their ship apart a hull plate at a time and they'd still try to bite us. I have had enough. Strap in, we end this, now."

Webbing was drawn across laps and a safety field erected around Syven and Dex as Tannis keyed up controls, "Kanti, start the reactors in the drive ring, full power, then hard about, I want that Dracht bastard ship of fools behind us!"

"But Tannis, if we power up the drive ring it could rip off or blow its main core!"

"Exactly, now do it."

The humming drone of the ship around them jolted up to a grating rattle as the battered vessel suddenly powered up, showering them all with sparks as its straining power system tried in vain to keep up. Kanti throttled the sub-light thrusters up, nosing the ship around on its main maneuvering jets before pushing the throttle controls all the way up. The Silver City screeched and groaned its protest as the hull jittered and creaked around them, they could hear faint pops and booms as more hull plates went spinning off into the ether. Kanti set his muzzle in a maniac grin as he redlined the thrusters and shunted all reserves to the main engine in the drive-ring, watching the computer protest wildly.

The main view switched to an aft angle, showing the looming Dracht ship struggling to keep up with the bedraggled ship. Small, weak flickers of red shone from the ugly ship, showing they were still trying tenaciously to disable the fleeing ship's engines as they themselves were slowly shaking apart in space. Tannis knew that nothing short of complete and total destruction would shake the communal mind of the Dracht from their goal of killing all life-forms aboard the ship. He had no intention of allowing it to happen, his fierce anger flaring as he thought of all the dead from both ships, looking back at Shinai as he felt that pang again. With a snarl he punched in the command codes required for overloading the reactor core in the main drive-ring, waiting till he saw red alarm lights blink into existence before he snarled, "Blow the supports on the drive-ring! NOW!"

Kanti and Shinai both slapped panels on their respective consoles and there was a tremendous thudding boom as all 4 of the support pylons holding the drive-ring to the ship blew, shaking her to the core once more as the emergency explosive packets all exploded in concert. The effect was spectacular; the main hull of The Silver City separated from her drive-ring with a bang, the wedge of the main hull sailing loose from her metal loop as neatly as someone sailing a paper airplane through a hoop. All the built up inertia made the ship lurch forward with a squirt of speed as her engine ring spun back directly into the path of the pursuing Dracht ship. A beep on Tannis' console marked the time limit for the reactor core going critical and the battered loop of the drive-ring exploded, it's momentum paired with the inertia of the Dracht ship in its pursuit making them collide head-on, crashing into one another as the massive eruption blew them both apart, scattering bits of superheated slag metal, gouts of alien atmosphere and vaporized organic masses mushrooming outward into an expanding field of debris.

The momentum from their thrusters carried The Silver City fast enough to avoid the main thrust of the shockwave and they only lurched slightly before Tannis called for full stop and to stand down from their alert status. He slumped against his console; biting his lip as the sudden weight of dozens of deaths and the better then 50% destruction of his beautiful ship abruptly lowered itself onto him. He bit back a sob and jumped as he felt a pair of strong hands grip his shoulders and rub gently. The feline leaned back, resting the bruised back of his skull against the headrest of his seat and looking up into Shinai's bright silvery eyes. The human was smiling, although in a pained way.

Tannis merely nodded as he leaned into the human's side, holding his arm to his chest. The almost complete and utter silence that came after the anarchy was almost oddly disquieting as they all relaxed for a moment before going full tilt into stabilizing ships systems and Larani dashed out of the command center to see to the wounded, all of his nursing and medical staff had survived and were gathering in the main recreation hall for triage, sending out messages over the com system as sections of the ship reported in with dead, wounded and surviving system functionality.

Kanti leaned over his console, his eyes staring out at the wide expanse of starlight when he sat up, staring at a pinpoint of light growing larger on their aft view. The Vakari's head spun as he ran sensor scans all over the incoming unknown, letting out a barking laugh as the distress beacon from it came over the speaker relay in the communications console. Shinai looked up in surprise as Kanti zoomed in on the fore section of the Terran ship now coasting toward them on sub-light drive. The wedge of their bridge sat comically atop the forward jutting section of their hull that had been jettisoned the split instant before the rest of her hull had smashed into the Dracht ship.

Shinnai grinned gently, "Well, one thing my species has done well in space flight is the design of multi-stage space vehicles and modular component layouts. They blew the bridge section just before they hit."

Kanti scrutinized the readouts from the Terran half ship, "Heavy casualties. Heavy damage. But their section is fully functional and possessed of fully operational sublight engines. They'll dock in 10 minutes."

Shinai sank down next to Tannis, leaning against the battered feline, "Well, we've both lost half our ships, almost half our crews and half our bridge staff each. Sounds like we should just shuffle them all together and make a whole ship again."

The violet-eyed feline brushed his paw over the handsome human's face, probing tenderly at the bruise on Shinai's cheek, "Well, I will be needing a new executive officer... I don't suppose you'd..."

"Give up my captaincy and command of my now nonexistent ship to be here with you?"

The human finished Tannis' statement, looking grim for a moment before his features softened, "I think if you could swing reassignments for what's left of my crew, you may have a deal."

The feline nodded softly, closing his eyes as he rested against the human's broad chest, feeling him close a hand over his battered paw and squeeze it tightly, "I think we could work something out. The Silver City will be up for repairs for at least 6 months from the look of her, that's plenty of time to pull assignments for your crew here where we lost our friends. It will be good to make some new ones."

He paused, "And 6 months will be a good long time to get to know one another better... Don't you think so Shin?"

"I do absolutely think so Kry."

"Good." Tannis heaved a sigh as he cradled himself against Shinnai, gazing out the viewer at the expanse of stars, listening to the bustle of comm traffic and people coming and going to attend the wounded and systems in need of repair, "That would be very good."

Fin