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Chapter 8

Jenny had put her paw on the back of a bench and was about to sit down, already exhausted with Tosker's ranting paranoid tirade when he surprised her. The bulky badger rushed forward, a wall of muscle and fury, and had slapped a handcuff on her wrist and then to the bench's back before she could do more than stare at him in fish-mouthed surprise.

Then his fist smashed into her already-bruised cheek, pitching the small cat back and bouncing her off the concrete bench with a thump of impact and yelped squeak of surprise and pain. Her head swam with the shock of pain and she was overwhelmed with dizziness, struggling feebly as he grabbed for her neck, shouting nonsensical words of fury.

Bewildered by the sudden violence, Jenny tried to yell, but the paws on her neck choked off all breath, as the badger banged her head into the back of the bench.

From the corner of her eye, she saw as the steel maintenance door exploded off its hinges. Then a rushing freight-train of infuriated black wolf came on like a roiling thunderstorm toward them both, and hit the badger so hard he released her throat and roared in surprise while flying off his feet and to the floor.

The wolf wasted no time, and followed him in a fury of motion and brutality. As the badger was still struggling to get feet beneath him, the brawny wolf's paw slammed him across the face, dropping him back down to the floor. Then the badger tried to roll, and received a boot to the gut that had him vomiting from pain and yelling out with a breathless sound of pain and surprise.

As his metal tiger tail lashed about in fury, bearing left to maintain his balance, her lupine savior dropped down and grabbed the badger, wrapping an arm around his neck and the other behind his head, bunched muscles shaking with what she could only assume was rage. From the wolf's throat, snarling sounds of anger bubbled forth, and he sat on the badger's back, maintaining his submission hold until the struggling creature beneath him finally went still.

With a snarl, the wolf released his unconscious foe and stood, delivering one last hard kick to the chest for good measure, before whirling on the shocked cat. His eyes held death in them, dark and smoldering with murderous intent, and the terrified girl curled in on herself, flinching away from that terrible visage.

Her arm hurt, wrenched as it had been by being jerked about when she was restrained, and her wrist felt tight, like an overstuffed sausage, already swelling where the steel cuff had cut into her. Her head was still spinning from being hit, and now she was instinctively sure she was about to die, that an angry larger predator was going to leap on her and...

"Are you okay, miss?"

Jenny opened her eyes and blinked up at him in startlement. He was close, close enough she could smell the sweat and wolfish musk sour in his fur. His eyes were dark, but that could be a trick of the light, and what she'd taken for murderous frenzy seemed quite different up close. Defensiveness, wariness, and an anger that bubbled just beneath the surface. Also, she saw protective instinct there, and her heart thudded wrong once in her chest as she began to nod convulsively.

"Y-yes I...He...I'm okay..."

The wolf reached down slowly, and Jenny's breath caught in her chest until his paws went past her and to the handcuff. Nearly nose to nose with the Marine, she finally took a breath, sucking in his scent dizzily.

"How old are you, kid?"

She would have flushed with anger, if the situation were different. Constantly she was being treated like a child because she was short and small-bodied. Now, though, it seemed silly to be mad about it.

"I'm twenty-two...Grad student at the university."

The wolf gave her a raised eyebrow, a surprised and half-believing look, before going back to work with whatever he was doing to her wrist and the cuff around it.

"You're the girl from the protest, aren't you?" His voice sounded matter-of-fact, uninflected. She hoped the truthful answer was what he wanted to hear, but feared he'd be angry that she'd jumped that concrete wall. Jenny half-expected he'd blame her for the fighting, even though it was obvious she'd merely been there at the wrong time.

"Y-yes...Someone had to get word out...About what's going on here."

"Why'd this asshole attack you?"

She flinched, as a crackling noise reminiscent of breaking bone came from the cuff. Then, she raised her wrist with surprise to rub at the already-darkening bruise beneath her dirty fur.

"How did you..."

The wolf grinned, and the dark look in his face vanished.

This guy's just a kid...Younger than me even, she realized. Beneath the grime and anger and training, the Marine was probably no more than twenty years of age. He was holding up a couple of metal bits like a badge of pride.

"I used to boost things for a living, before I wised up and joined the Corps."

The words didn't process for a few seconds, and he began to explain, avoiding the awkward moment.

"Car thief...Uh...Not proud of it, but I was good-"

"Thank you, Marine."

He flushed and sat back on his heels when she said it, and Jenny looked down at her lap, uncomfortable looking into his deep, intense eyes. Her ears felt like they were bright red, and she had to fight the urge to feel and act aroused. The heat between her legs was back, and she was taking slow, deep breaths, sitting helpless on a bench in front of a big, desirable wolf that had just violently protected her.

I'm like a bloody feral cave-girl...Ugh!

"You're...Uh...Welcome..."

When she looked up, his snout was twitching. The wolf's eyes trailed down her front briefly, before jerking back up to her face as a flush ran up his ears at being caught. Jenny couldn't help but blush back, an awkward moment shared as they met one another's eyes.

The spell broke when Staff Sergeant Herrin stepped through the door with two other Marines, pistols drawn and followed by several anxious-looking resistance fighters.

"What the hell happened in here, Private?"

The badger surprised everyone by sitting up, rubbing at the blood on his snout, and speaking.

"Nothing, nothing. I slipped and fell."

Jenny didn't like the look he gave her. Not one bit.

From his quarters, Commander Galen Forza watched the exterior monitors on one of their escort fighters, as the Fist of the Nascent Dawn continued its marathon flight to stay ahead of its pursuers. Whoever was commanding the enemy knew they could not afford to let the Fist get away and call for reinforcements, and for a day now they had run a murderous race. The smaller of his enemy's ships were fast enough to catch up, but not nearly well-armed and armored enough to make any use of such a tactic, while the enemy's larger vessels were too slow to do much more than struggle to stay somewhere in the vicinity.

Repeated sorties by the Fist's fighter wings had done some damage to the enemy, but the small, maneuverable pursuit ships had fairly strong point defenses, and for the last twelve hours no sorties had been allowed to approach close enough for an attack. Leith was, wisely in Galen's opinion, conserving her fighters and bombers for later in this lethal game.

Ahead of them somewhere, at least another day away, lay the asteroid belt Captain Leith hoped would stop the remarkably tenacious jamming signal emanating from Atria Prime. Stymied by his injuries, left to watch the deadly race from his quarters, Galen folded his arms over his chest and twitched his feet under the blanket. He yearned to get well enough for bridge duty, to be up there where all the information was, helping to make certain they would win.

Instead he was stuck in his cabin, fielding occasional calls for advice from various ship staff, but largely being bored. At his side, the computer system beeped, and projected a second holographic display to give him an idea about the system's shape and stellar topography.

Captain Leith had given him work to do, and despite the inability to stand on the bridge before the glory of space, he was dead-set on doing his best for her. She'd impressed him with her fast, smart calls, her calm head even when furiously commanding death down on their enemies, and he wasn't about to disappoint her.

"Captain," he said, addressing the voice-activated intercom system, "based on the gravity wells and space stations they have, this coup was a long time coming. They planned the area around Atria Prime to be a trap, and took at least a year to build it. However, the third habitable planet seems to have no trap or defenses around it. My guess is that they don't have total control of the system for some reason."

Leith's voice came back, disembodied and projecting from above his head.

"Understood, Commander. Keep analyzing the data as we get it. If we've any hope of pacifying the Atria system, we'll need to find good hiding places and any potential allies. Good work."

"Thank you, Captain. My advice is that once we've transmitted from the asteroid belt, we should head for Atria Three. It's an industrial world with what looks to be a functional stardock. My guess is that the main reason Atria Three isn't under their control is that they had to divert too many resources for dealing with us. With any luck, we can parlay that fact with the locals to build an alliance against this...Mutiny."

For a few seconds, his closest companion was silence and the soft strumming sound that his sensitive lupine ears often heard when alone in the ship. He figured it to be something like a pulse, as if the ship herself was alive, delicate and powerful and all around them.

"I agree, Commander. We'll head for the third planet as soon as we get off tight-band to Admiral Kerrick. Keep an eye on the intelligence as it comes in. I expect reports every two hours. If you get any information about our Marines on the Prime planet, please inform me immediately."

"Understood, Captain. Commander Forza out."

The communicator clicked off, and he laid back in the bed, fiddling with its controls to get a better sitting position. His neck already hurt, from looking back and forth between so many displays, and his head was faring little better. Still, the wolf smiled; while he loved the heat of battle, gloried in command and in diplomacy, he hadn't gained a Commander's epaulets just by being a space cowboy.

"Computer, connect me to Senator Bull, security priority three."

"Yes, Commander Forza," the machine chimed back in its harsh metallic buzz of a voice.

Really could use a nice female voice instead. People would be more likely to listen.

The old veteran's gravelly voice came through then, his words clipped and efficient.

"This is Jared Bull, go ahead Commander."

"I've just had an idea. Do you have a way to get information to the Marines we left on Atria Prime?"

A short pause was followed by a dry coughing chuckle.

"I do, but it isn't going to be instant. Should take about a day to reach the Marines. Assuming they're in any condition to receive messages."

"Please let me know if you hear anything from the ground, Senator. I hope that goes without saying."

The old tiger chuckled.

"Commander, if I learn anything of use to you, be assured you'll be the first to know."

Nivea Gordon was just a Private First Class. As far as the Marines were concerned, she was about as low as military personnel could rank, just above lower Privates, and really only because she'd been in the Corps longer than theyhad.

Just a few weeks out of boot, the thought that she was now a combat veteran made her squirm inside. The squirming came less from the fact she'd now killed other furs, and more the fact that these locals, dirty, terrified, and almost universally her senior, were looking to her like some kind of leader or heroic warrior legend.

The Marines had been camped out in what they were privately calling 'Local Guide Central' for nearly a full day now, waiting for information from the locals so they could build a plan to escape the planet or do some damage to the mutinied local Army.

In the meantime, as many other Marines had done, Nivea was walking the sprawling subway station turned resistance base on a sort of patrol, with the secondary purpose of getting to know their new allies of convenience. Especially after Derry's little encounter with the badger who ostensibly lead the place, everyone felt it wise that Staff Sergeant Herrin didn't trust the locals, and wanted eyes on their new 'friends' at all times.

As she'd walked, many had looked to her with eyes full of wary hope, and Nivea felt as if she were a child again, touring through the poorest slums of her homeworld in her uncle's company, with bodyguards and good clothes that locals looked upon with hope and fear all bundled into one. The rich could do whatever they wanted in most systems, and that could range from handing out wealth that was unimaginable to the truly destitute down to acting out their worst perversions on the masses with little fear of punishment.

The squirmy feeling of embarrassment at being such a center of attention was almost as annoying as the pain and itching in her shoulder. An itch she scratched at, against the Corpsman's orders, while readjusting the sling that was keeping her rifle arm immobile.

"Are you fucking crazy?"

She heard the conversation, muffled though it was, through one of the many doors that honeycombed the subway station's back hallways. Nivea slowed and leaned up against the door to listen, as her tail went still for stealth's sake. The voices she heard were ones she didn't recognize, likely locals, though she by no means knew all the Marines yet.

"Straight from the Senator's lips to my ears, Jack. He wants the message delivered to the Marines, if they're here."

"I don't know about that...If they pull this shit and it gets traced back here, we're dead. All of us."

"Sorry, Jack, but orders are orders, and the Senator outranks us both here remember?"

Before the local could disagree again and try to keep intelligence away from the Marines, Nivea pushed the door open with her good left shoulder. As she did, the two foxes in the dingy room beyond turned toward her. One looked surprised and pleased, the other far less so on either count.

The one she assumed to be called Jack was a sour-faced fox in his forties, with the tail of a lion drifting out the back of filthy cargo pants and eyes that matched his dirty-looking brown fur. He glared at her, as if she'd intruded on his home or caught him doing something wrong...Which in her mind, she had.

Niece gave her best toothy smile, and let her left paw hang down over where her sidearm was holstered. If this little Podunk local was going to try scaring her off when actionable intelligence was around, he had another thing coming.

"Nice to meetcha, Jack. I'm Private Gordon. You two have something for my commander?"

He was about to respond when his more-helpful compatriot stepped forward. In the grungy underground lighting, what Nivea saw was a vixen, though as she came forward out of shadows, Niece realized this was another of the strange local hybrids. Her ears were certainly those of a fox, grey-brown and pointed, and her muzzle had the typical cream underside and long slender snout. What was different, though, were the female's ape-like paws and feet that had opposed thumbs and no shoes.

The wolf realized she was staring, and coughed, meeting eyes with the vixen, though her mind momentarily wandered into wondering just what she could do with those things. An extra set of paws would be damn nice.

"Senator Bull sends his regards, Marine."

The vixen-ape held out a medicine bottle, with a rolled-up scrap of paper inside. Nivea took it, and blinked at the odd texture of fur touching her paw. It was bristly, more like human head-hair than the fur of a furry sub-species.

The vixen creature smiled and shrugged, pointing a thumb at the quietly brooding, glaring fox.

"What say we get outta here, before Mr. Helpful decides to be a prick and call down his boss on us?"

Niece couldn't help the grin that stole up her face.

"Yeah sounds good. C'mon, we've got shitty coffee and everything! I'm Niece Gordon, by the way."

"Candace. You can call me Candy."

SSgt Herrin looked down at the note and chewed his lip, the lion's tail lashing side to side as the Marines gathered around him waited on a decision. Or even information, as he hadn't told them what was on it yet. The order had simply been to gather up and keep all the unknown and increasingly chilly locals out.

Nivea stood next to Derry, feeling safer for her friend's presence, despite the mysterious awkwardness he'd had towards her in the last day. On his other side, the little slip of a girl who'd clung to him like a safety blanket stood holding his arm and looking like she was at war with herself, which seemed to be her standard state.

Niece tried to grin at her to set the girl at ease, but the little grey cat just averted her eyes instead of smiling back, her tail as puffed as it always was.

"So what do you think's in that note?" Derry's voice was rumbly and low, like usual, and Nivea looked up at him with a ready grin and shrug. Meanwhile, in the center of the ad-hoc circle, Candace the fox-thing was quietly answering questions, soft enough that Niece couldn't hear.

"What's she saying?"

Derry frowned. He never liked it when she asked him to use the implant to spy on people.

Stop looking so serious all the time, jeez. Would it hurt your face to smile?

"She's saying 'it's accurate' as best she can tell, whatever that means."

Herrin looked up finally, away from the note and over the tallish vixen's head. The iron look in his eyes told everyone to shut up and listen, and not a fur continued talking or making noise, rising to a near attention stance.

"I've just received confirmation that the Fist of the Nascent Dawn is still doing battle up above us. We're not alone, and they're sending us what aid they can in the form of information."

Relief flowed through the assembled Marines, and Nivea could nearly smell it, in the faint scent of trepidation's rapid vanishing. For over twenty four hours now, they'd feared the worst - Ever since the support bombardment stopped after a single salvo, they had assumed the Fist to be driven off or blasted apart somehow.

"The bad news is, she's being harried by a force too large for her to directly engage and defeat. So we can't rely on her for a ride home just yet."

Fuck...We're going to be stuck on this rock aren't we?

"We've also confirmed that our planned escort ship, the cruiser Starlit Maiden under Commander Orloff, is still in spacedock. We have to assume she's been boarded and captured. Which is where we come in."

Her brows shot up. Any space dock, if her knowledge of such facilities thanks to her uncle was any good, would be well-protected and more importantly enormous. Based on what she'd seen while they were descending in the transports, there was an orbital elevator connecting the geo-synchronous shipyard to the planet.

"Miss Greenway, we need to find out where the Starlit Maiden's crew are. If they're still alive, our first priority will be to get them free, followed by helping them retake the Maiden. If we can do that, we have a way off this rock and can move to support the Fist."

From her left, the little cat lady spoke up in a voice far harder and more confident than the feline herself had looked only moments ago. She still held to Derry's arm, though. Nivea felt a little jolt of jealousy, then amusement at herself. Niece was more attracted to the sleek little female than Derry, although she loved him far more than her.

"The Army has been using County lockup for holding high-security cases lately. If my guess is right, they'll be there if they're alive at all. Problem is, I doubt the resistance here is going to help us. These...Fucking cowards are just interested in staying alive. They don't realize that if you lose, we all die."

Niece almost grinned. The fierce little firecracker routine was impressive, even if the woman spouting it was a couple inches shy of five feet tall, and cute in the way of a pixyish waif-thin teenager.

SSgt Herrin nodded once, stoically accepting the information and moving on without a second glance.

"In order to get free of the planet's atmosphere, we will need to take down their orbital defenses at least temporarily. Any ideas, Ms. Greenway?"

Jenny shook her head, and bit her lip. She was a biologist and firebrand student protestor, not a computers or defense expert. Nivea was about to suggest just braving the gauntlet, when the odd fox-ape hybrid, Candace, shifted the hood of her jacket back and spoke up.

"Staff Sergeant, I have a hack module that should be able to scramble any computer it touches for a few minutes. It's not much, but I've kept it for a rainy day, and it seems to be raining. I can give you a map with the local defense platform's AI center on it. If you can get a squad in there, all they'll have to do is get my thumb computer linked up and give it about two minutes to work."

Herrin held out a paw, and Candace rummaged in her messenger bag for a moment, before putting a folded-up map in his paw. As the Staff Sergeant unfolded it, Niece saw that the map was a city atlas, heavily annotated with circles, lines, and dots, in a kaleidoscope of color.

"The resistance is full of factions, Staff Sergeant. I work for Senator Bull, who's one of the top leaders. This base here is a faction I don't get along with, so pardon me for not sharing with them."

Herrin snorted and waved for her to go on, as he turned and put the map up against a concrete wall, then grabbed at a roll of duct tape to keep it up there.

"Go on, fill us in. You're our only intelligence asset at the moment, miss...?"

"Candace Waters."

"Go ahead, Miss Waters."

The vixen hybrid stepped forward and drew a pen from her pocket, holding it up to touch the capped end against her atlas.

"We're currently here, underground. Your military vehicles will be spotted by surveillance satellites within minutes of emerging. The spy satellites will also be looking for civilian vehicles moving through the evacuated zones. So, we'll need to walk about ten miles through storm drain systems to get outside the evacuated area, then commandeer civilian transport to make our move."

Niece knew, instantly, that this lady was no civilian. She hadn't seen it before, probably because she'd been too amused conversing with the female - But she was most certainly experienced in giving briefings, and in intelligence work. A vulpine tail lashed slowly behind the vixen as she continued.

"Once we have transport, we'll need to go about sixty kilometers," she drew a line down the map, cap still on her pen, "to the prison compound here. The computer facility is about a hundred kilometers north of there, with the space dock ground facility approximately fifty kilometers north of that.

"Expect the prison to have between twenty and fifty armed guards at any given moment. The computer facility will have around ten guards, but they'll be in a fairly small area - The facility is just a small office building built around the base of a signal transmission tower.

"As for the spacedock herself...Well, expect it to have somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred soldiers protecting it. Our best bet, in my opinion, is to simply hit it as hard and fast as we can and get into the orbital elevator. If we can sabotage the controls on the ground, I can bypass the controls from inside the elevator itself. Then it's just a race to get up there before they can scramble too many defenders for us to handle top-side."

Herrin nodded, and waited until the vixen stepped back to take her spot. The big lion didn't look tired or mussed or nervous, like many of the young Marines had. Niece had read his record, and knew he'd seen dozens of combats across the galaxy in his years of service. The thought gave her comfort, though she logically knew a well-placed bullet would kill him just as dead as any other fur.

Candace ended up next to her again, and Nivea took in a breath as the whole room hushed expectantly.

"Here's the plan. We'll rest here another nine hours, then head through those tunnels. By the time we're through them, it will be night time. Private Blake."

Derry's spine was already straight, but by the way his metal tail twitched she knew he was surprised to be called on first. Now that she thought of it, she didn't see Corporal Kerr anywhere, and Nivea was immediately curious as to where the grim-faced human had gotten off to.

"Yes, Staff Sar'nt?"

"Your record indicates you have an operational knowledge of vehicle electronics. I take that to mean you can hotwire a car?"

The wolf's tail flicked, close enough that Niece could hear the soft metal on metal shushing its hundred of tiny articulations made. He was put on the spot, she knew by that tail motion, and wasn't happy to admit his past as a car thief.

"Yes, Staff Sar'nt, I can hotwire vehicles."

"Good. It'll be your job to get vehicles operational for us once we're topside. At that point, we'll split into three groups. We have 87 surviving Marines, twelve too wounded to fight. I'll take sixty to the prison, you take ten to the computer center. The other five will stay with the wounded. Each of us gets one corpsman.

"Once you knock out the computer center, be sure to shut down that relay station. The backlash from it should prevent the space dock from getting any real warning of what's coming. Signal me with the tight-wave as soon as you're done there. We'll rendezvous here."

He tapped a simple bus station's marker on the atlas, then drew a quick, harsh line to the starport.

"Once we get there...It'll be just like Ms. Waters says. Speaking of which, miss, you'll be with us during that attack. Until then, I want you and Ms. Greenway staying with the injured."

"Yes, Staff Sar'nt!" Derry shouted, eyes slightly widened. He looked nervous, though she was sure the other Marines wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Being put in charge of other Marines was something he'd been theoretically prepared for, during Boot, but the idea of actually taking charge in a combat situation scared him and she could see it.

Meanwhile, Candy nodded her head slightly, accepting the command. Greenway wasn't nearly so compliant.

"Hey, I don't want to be left behind! I can use a gun, let me go with one of the groups!"

Herrin met her eyes with a hard, emotionless stare.

"No. First off, you're a civilian. Second? It's called a rifle."

The Staff Sergeant turned away from her without further explanation, and waved for Derry to follow him as he went off for the door into what he'd been using as his office.

"Everyone get some shut-eye. Tomorrow's going to be a long day."

Derry pulled the metal door to his temporary quarters shut with a soft clank of metal on concrete, and was about to flop down on the pile of newspapers he planned to use as a bed when he noticed movement. Under the ratty blankets someone had piled up for him, a small shape moved, then stretched. The wolf's paw went to his combat knife's grip.

Then the bundle of blankets moved again, and a corner flopped down to reveal a familiar, if sleepy, face.

"Uh...Miss Greenway, what're you doing in here?"

With a sigh of mixed annoyance and relief, he let out the tension, and felt his fight response draining away. Only then did he notice she was outlined in green in his ocular. The little grey cat stirred again and yawned, before sitting up and rubbing at her face.

Derry glanced down at his wrist chronometer, and saw he'd been in meeting with SSgt Herrin for almost an hour. Easily enough time for Jenny to end up in his quarters and fall asleep waiting for him, though he wasn't quite sure why she would be in his quarters in the first place.

When the ragged blankets slid down her body, she made a soft 'eep' noise and clutched them to her chest, but not before Derry saw how much she wasn't wearing underneath. For a second, the paranoia was back, a shot of cold through his gut. The last time someone had come to him looking like that, she'd tried to lure him into an alley where her friends would have gutted him to take his shoes.

The tired, frightened look in her eyes, though, didn't match that female's hard, cold, calculating face that he'd seen so long ago and far away. It felt like a different life. Instead, he saw shyness, reddened ears and nose pad, blushing and bashful lowering of her eyes.

Her voice was nearly a whisper.

"I...Can't go back to Tosker's people. H-he told them what happened, and they think it's my fault. They'd...Do terrible things to me if I stayed with them now, I think..."

The wolf put a paw over his face, falling back on grumpiness, his favorite social defense.

"Look, Ms. Greenway..."

"Jenny," she whispered, while pulling the blanket up higher. He could see her clothes now, discarded and stuffed in a corner, like she was hiding evidence.

"Jenny, you don't have to sleep with me to join us. The meeting I was just in? Staff Sar'nt says we're leaving these people and taking you and Ms. Waters only. It's already decided...So you can put your clothes back on and go, okay?"

Silence dragged on, as his words' echoes faded after bouncing off the concrete walls a few times. When the blanket shifted again, Derry lowered his paw to really look at her.

Jenny's eyes were still down, staring at the dirty floor and filled with a thoughtful look. The girl appeared child-like with her clothes on, on account of being so small, but curled up there on the floor he could see signs she was older than had first been evident. The shape of her face was more adult, for one, and her body had none of the baby fat he'd expect from someone of an age that fit her young-teen body size.

The weight in her eyes, though, was the most telling. Eyes that had seen a lot, probably too much, of just how corrupt and evil the world could be. She looked up, and met his eyes with hers, wet as she shook her head.

"No, I'm not here to pay for safety with sex. I just...I'm afraid of wh-what's going to happen tomorrow, and...Don't want to be scared right now."

Her smile was sad and vulnerable, as she reached up a paw towards him. The movement split her blanket covering, revealing a long stripe of silvery-grey furred flank, and for the barest moment exposed a pink nipple before the blanket slipped back into place. When he hesitated, confused and awkward, Jenny managed a playful snicker through the nerves and stuck her tongue out.

"I know, I look like I'm twelve...Just c'mere okay? You make me feel safer."

The wolf sighed, knowing he'd just lost. Protecting other people was an instinct too strong for him to ignore. Since he was a pup, he'd felt an emotional need to look out for others, and to leave this girl alone in her concrete hell full of treacherous 'friends' wouldn't be right. As he came over, he grumbled.

"Goddamnit, fucking shining knight complex is gonna get me killed..."

Jenny snorted, and crinkled her button snout as she did. Derry sat down in front of the makeshift bed, shifting uncomfortably, as she realized just how shy he was. The wolf's ears were back, and his eyes down and flicking left and right, even though his chest was out and chin was in, military posture showing in every ounce of him. She took a second to admire his strong, muscular physique, the luster of his deep grey-black fur, and just how good he looked in body armor and uniform gear. She'd always liked the military look, although recent events had soured her towards the military itself.

For a few awkward moments, he just sat there, paws resting on his camo-covered knees, and stared at anything but the naked woman in his blanket. Then she sighed in amusement, rolled her eyes, and shuffled forward on her knees. The wolf stiffened as she slid into his lap and curled up, cheek pressed against the hard, muscular chest that smelled of dried sweat and dominant male musk.

Hesitantly, Derry brought his arms down around her, feeling as if he were hugging a child. She was tiny, though wiry with lean muscle under soft, short fur that felt nice against his aggravated finger pads. Jenny's pelt had none of the dappling, speckles or stripes he expected of a house cat-based fur, except for freckles around the delicate muzzle whiskers that were shivering against his chest when she breathed.

He also knew having soft, warm, breathing weight in his lap felt damn good. It was comforting to hold someone close, to let go of all the built-up tension of two days in the shit and under fire, and allow his body to go slack while someone friendly and female was curled up on his lap, teasing a half-grown erection with just their presence. His tiger-tail tried to do a lupine wag as her near-inaudible purrs caught in his ears, but just ended up flopping around on the floor with a metal-on-metal slithering noise.

Derry's mind, though a bit addled with fatigue and now the growing awareness of an aching boner, nonetheless struck on something he thought might be important.

"Hey...Why'd you agree to come with us? I mean, couldn't you go back to your own group?"

Her purrs stilled, and she shook her head, face against his chest now, her arms crossed over her chest and under the blanket to hold it up.

"They're scattered by now," she whispered, with a hitch in her voice, throat tight with the sudden reminder of that carnage back just before she'd met the wolf whose lap she was in.

"Scattered, gone to ground...If I want to help them, I have to get the word out, and I can only do that in person now. Anyway, the point was never to help just my people...I want to let the galaxy know what's happening here, to help everybody."

His discomfort was subsiding with that simple, heartfelt answer. It made sense. If she'd accompanied the Marines solely for her own safety, he might have thrown her off his lap in disgust. Anyone who would abandon their comrades for a little safety didn't deserve either.

Instead, her answer made him take a second look. All his eyes could see of her was one perked grey ear, the top of her head with its short, soft raincloud-grey fur, and a bunch of bandages covering her other ear. She was shivering, he realized, a slight quaking that went through her whole body as if she were nervous and cold all at once. What he saw, though, was someone physically weak and utterly outgunned fighting her hardest for something she believed in. The kind of girl who would charge a guarded barricade full of soldiers she knew might fire at her, on the off chance some off-worlder would give a damn.

With a sigh at his own foolishness for getting involved with the poor girl, he pushed gently on her shoulder. When she lifted her head, he met her amber-brown eyes, and saw the confusion there. She was afraid he'd just rejected her, and he hurried to explain.

"Can't get my armor off with you pinned up against it...Heh..."

The wolf gave a weak smile, and reached for the snaps and zippers, only to find her deft paws darting in to pat his aside and take over. Her look of fear and expected rejection was gone in a rush of grinning, and she licked her lips with anticipation.

Jesus...From hot to cold to hot again like my mom's water heater...

In moments his armor and uniform were open, and she was rolling up the moisture-absorbing under shirt. Then her muzzle was against his belly, licking, sending ticklish spikes of sensation up his chest and ruffling his fur as he laughed and squirmed, and pushed on her shoulders.

"Hey! No licking, that tickles!"

Her fingers were inside the waistline of his uniform pants, he noticed, and heard the clank of his belt buckle coming undone. Jenny looked up at him with an impish grin, and licked her chops like a gourmand at smelling a delicious steak.

"You're sure? No licking? None at all?"

He noted, distractedly, that as she was groping his well-grown bulge, the cat was dexterous enough to undo the same belt that had taken him ten minutes to figure out on his first day in boot. Likewise, she expertly opened his zipper from the inside, and had his bright red wolf meat in her paw before he had a chance to retort.

Jenny paused, fingers wrapped around the fat lupine cock, and swallowed a muzzlefull of saliva before letting out a nervous huff of a laugh that blew cold air across his leaking crown.

"Um, okay, licking is all you're gonna get, Private Porno...I left my lube in my dorm, and uh...This isn't fitting anywhere in me but my mouth without it..."

Crouched on the floor between his spread knees, she'd lost the blanket at some point during their flurry of uniform removal. She'd gripped him near his base, just where the knot was beginning to form, and her paw was resting against her own lower belly. She was lithe enough to have bent down, the tip teased by her whiskers. If she hadn't been bent down, if she'd sat up straight, his knot would be touching her mound and his tip would be nestled in the fur along her navel.

Derry blushed, harder than he already had, and stammered out an apology.

"S-sorry, I uh...Shoulda mentioned..."

The cat grinned up at him, still blushing herself, as her pink tongue flicked out and slurped his juice, tickling his crown with her slightly scratchy muzzle muscle in a way that made him gasp and break off trying to placate her. The last few females he'd gotten in such a position and circumstance had broken and fled, at the sight of his oversized shaft. Nine and three quarter inches of meat weren't something most women were brave enough to face.

Being a tough inner-city kid, having admitted to still possessing his virginity would have gotten him laughed at by other Marines, not to mention his own inner monologue. So he simply hadn't admitted it. Sure, he'd had a blowjob before, and paid good scavenged credits for it, gotten just about everything BUT the main act from some experimenting with friends, but still. Having a cock that could be classified as a weapon of mass vaginal destruction had made his sex prospects somewhat bleak.

Nonetheless, the little cat woman wasn't to be deterred, and as he lowered a paw to her shoulder with the intent of pushing her back to let her know she could wave off if she wanted, she forestalled his chivalrous plan by impaling her muzzle as far down as she could get it. Derry's toes curled, and he sucked in a gasp as the delectable electric sensations of suction and a soft, wet tongue on his aching staff salved his nervousness into quiescence.

At some point in his haze of dizzy hormonal bliss, he vaguely registered a shuffling of cloth, a chill wind across his cock tip, then more brain-emptying suction and slurping.

He shifted, getting a gasp from her as she pulled away when his cock jabbed the back of her throat. Derry winced, apologizing with soft wordless sounds as he kept moving, sitting on his rear instead of his heels, and bringing his spread knees up to give her more room. With a look of playful reproach, she crouched forward over the concrete floor, and twirled her clever little feline tongue over his pointed cap again before sliding his massive prick past her lips again.

Derry's brain decided it was time to short out, and all he could pay attention to was the sensation of suction and tingling from her licks, the paw that pulled his heavy balls from his pants and struggled to roll a sack that overflowed her palm. That and her languidly lashing tail, sliding back and forth in the air above her skinny little butt. A vague, hard-to-enact desire to reach down there and grab her cheeks went unrequited, both of his paws being occupied in keeping his half-reclined body from flopping onto his back.

"Shit that feels good...Ungh..."

Even the first blowjob he'd ever had, back when he was fifteen, hadn't felt half so wonderful. Back then, it had been furtive, fast, a paid hooker down on her knees and his back against a cinder-block wall, as she tried to get him off quick so she could get back to looking for better-paying work. Him trying to keep his wits about him, to make sure no knives came out to take whatever money she erroneously thought he had. Him trying to ignore his laughing friend Gabe, who'd teased him for days about how nervous he was about the concept of letting his best friend set him up with a hooker.

The adrenaline this time didn't come from fear or embarrassment. It came from a day and a half of combat and watching everyone's back, and now the pleasant surprise of someone else who actually wanted him deciding to worship his pole, taste his very essence, play with his balls without making him worried she might put a knife in them.

A flash of cognition broke through, and he imagined Nivea down there, slurping up his cock as she let the air cool him, grinning at him with feline amusement, a cat looking for cream to steal. He felt a quick flash of guilt, quickly replaced with pleasure as the little feline rubbed her cheek against his glans, smearing his copious pre all over her face before patting his tip against her nose pad.

"Hey," she whispered, pausing to slurp his tip and swallow his pre-seed, "when you cum, where do you want it?"

"Wh...What?" he asked, hazily, noting that at some point in all this she'd gotten his pants entirely down and off, though his boots were still on. She giggled girlishly at him, and Derry saw her grin deviously while tickling his tip through her soft face fur, tracing her whiskers under and along the veins.

"Well..." she sounded like a naughty professor, advising him on his options, "I love the taste...Side effect of growing up on drugged tapwater...Oooor," she drew out the 'o' so she could pop over his tip again, slurping and swallowing before pulling off to continue. "Cum's great for my pelt...Makes me really soft and shiny..."

"Oh god..." The mental image was too much for him, and Derry's balls lurched in her palm, right before a pencil-thick blast of cum blew up from his nuts through his shivering cock and straight toward her nostrils.

She choked, snorting thick jism in and jerking forward reflexively just before the second shot blew a trail of white across her face and forehead. A third was en-route, splattering her muzzle and cheek, before she regained herself enough to stuff her maw down over his spraying, spurting, straining, blood-red prick and start swallowing the richest meal she'd had in weeks.

Cheeks bulged with salty sperm, she swallowed hard, only to be quickly refilled by a half-dozen more surges, as Derry's powerful paw palmed half her head to keep her in place, though the wolf hadn't even seemed to notice his own motion. Gasping, slurping, dripping from face and pussy, she felt a sudden burst of clenches and pleasure from deep inside as her walls decided to dance a tango of orgasm at the sudden taste and volume of cum in her muzzle and sliding deliciously down into her empty belly.

Finally it was over, and Derry came back from a sea of stars and pleasure in his mind to find the messy-faced girl panting, face against his crotch with his still-hard cock buried in her cheek fur. The girl was twitching, moaning softly, fingers of one paw buried into herself and stroking her own orgasm to its fullest continuance. Finally, she slumped against him, his cock still letting out occasional dribbles of semen to add to the matting on her face and shoulders.

She grinned up at him with pleasure-dazed eyes, face glazed like a white-frosted donut, and let out a gut-churning belch that had her blushing. He burst out laughing at the sound, covering his muzzle with a paw to keep the noise from echoing out into the hall.

Jenny joined him, snickering soggily, and snuggled into his fluffy-furred embrace.