FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

based on a concept by Field T. Mouse

-*-

"So. You're insisting on him, are you?"

"I am." The new captain of the FNSC Umbra, Izel, leaned back with her paws held loosely together in her lap. She had one leg over the other, the raised footpaw loose, her lightly furred tail curled under the chair. Her gray eyes, however, were set straight on the wolf across from her, as she sat in that wolf's office.

The office was pretty well set up. It wasn't as sumptuous as she'd seen other offices decorated, though Izel did see some personal touches. For example, there were either diplomas or citations hanging on the wall near the desk. The desk was on the higher end of standard, a heavy looking dark brown wood that nicely balanced the lighter colored walls. They also offset the gray fur of the wolf behind that desk. In fact, balance could be a theme to the office in general, and to its occupant.

Admiral Daler, the wolf in question, had her ears back. Her fingers were loosely interlaced in front of her muzzle while she leaned her elbows on her desk. Maybe it was a wolf thing, but she had an implacable stare. But Izel guessed that many predators never expected a mouse of any sort to stare right back at them, especially with the calm and steadiness that Izel had. She knew, and Daler knew, that this was a game. A dangerous game, a dominance game, but a game with low stakes, and high reward. Besides, if she overplayed her cards here, Izel was going to do what she wanted to do anyway. This was just an argument for some official backing.

Sighing, the admiral closed her eyes, and Izel knew she had won. The fact that predators played these sorts of games with each other often seemed exhausting to the grasshopper mouse. Even with a predator she was on friendly terms with, they still happened. "You can't take the ship," Daler began.

"I can take a ship, though?"

Daler's ears flicked outward, then back again. "I can arrange for something to take you out there."

"So you know where he is, then."

"Yes."

Just that. An agreement, nothing more. The grasshopper mouse tilted her head very slightly as a picture formed. "I'm not the only one that wants him back into the fold, am I?"

"No." A sigh from Daler, who begun the next sentence with her eyes closed. "If you bring him back, I'd consider it a favor. Even so—"

"I want him, though."

"A ship cannot launch without its first officer, so it's just as well that your ship's upgrades are not yet finished."

"And I still want him."

"My point is, Captain, that we should plan for the very likely contingency that your first choice won't want to come back into the Navy, never mind serve under you."

"Then I trust you to pick another fur in the event that he doesn't. But I still want him, and I'm prepared to go find him if need be."

"I can see that," Daler said, looking down at her desk and activating a display. Izel couldn't see what was on it, especially as the display stayed on her desk, but Daler tapped a few times before pushing something on the display toward the mouse. "I'm sending you with Jabril. You'll need some muscle. Take some other furs with you, but not more than four."

"I have some furs in mind."

"I'll bet." Daler tapped a few more times on her desk. "The longest I can wait for you to come back is three weeks, give or take a few days. If you take longer than that, then you're going to risk your captaincy." Unlike before, the wolf's amber eyes were hard as she stared at Izel. "I can only protect you so much. And due to the nature of who you are going to get, I can't commit much in the way of resources. That, and a lot of the Board of Defense has a problem with you being a captain for reasons I know you're well aware of—"

"Not enough sharp teeth. I understand, admiral. But I still want him."

Admiral Daler studied Izel. "I think you do understand." Her gaze returned to her desk, where she tapped a few things. "Have your list of who you want to take with you sent to me within two hours. If you hurry, you can ship out in four."

"That pretty much limits me to furs already stationed locally."

"They're going to be your crew, so you'll be working with them eventually anyway. May as well start now. Dismissed."

The grasshopper mouse rose and turned to leave. "Izel," said the admiral, causing the mouse to look over her shoulder. "Good hunting."

In the spirit of the well wishes, the mouse turned and saluted, smirking. Daler stood and saluted back, then shooed her away, so Izel left.

-*-

The place smelled like sadness and fear.

It was clean. Enough. It presented every indication that it was a semi-professionally run environment, to a degree it almost stuck out on a frontier world. It was a little too new, a little too clean, a little too straight, but not enough for it to notice unless one was looking for it. Which Wamai had been, when he found the place. The first time he stepped inside the building he smelled it; a scent that numerous cleansing agents and machines couldn't dispel entirely because of how pervasive it was. This was the place.

The image cloaking he had was subtle; it gave him a longer mane, different color eyes, curled his whiskers in a fashionable way, and changed his spot pattern. He didn't recognize himself when he looked in a mirror, which meant his cover was secure as long as the cloak held, and subtle enough to not run out of power before it could be charged. His cover should hold, but he brought an extra battery or two just in case.

"Lord Borin!" one of the slavers said with a smile that never quite touched her eyes or ears. "Welcome back."

"Thank you," Wamai said. They had a jaguar be his point of contact. Species solidarity, he supposed. It had to be at least a layer of security on this illegal operation. "I hope I haven't missed anything."

"Not at all, not at all. If anything, you're just in time." The jaguar slipped an arm around his back as she guided him through a door and further into the complex. The fear scent grew sharper with an acrid tinge. "My colleagues and I have been thinking about the investment you've wanted to make into our enterprise."

"Oh you have? I promise you, I won't make any trouble. I simply need somewhere to park some funds."

"So we hear." The arm stayed. The hall seemed interminable, and that smell grew stronger. "We have come to the conclusion that your investment is too large for our business."

Wamai forced a laugh. "What do you mean, 'too large'? Surely a growing enterprise such as your own needs funding, does it not?"

"Of course, of course. But perhaps there is a more appropriate vehicle for your… needs."

"Do go on?"

The jaguar grinned, showing her teeth. She stopped by a door, pivoting to stand beside it. "Through here."

"So mysterious," Wamai said. "Am I allowed a hint?"

"Don't you like surprises, Lord Borin?"

"I am not overly fond of them."

"Indulge us with this one, if you would." She gestured, the door opening. The stench was at its strongest, mingling with something else. "After you."

What to do? After a moment of staring at the jaguar, he nodded with deliberate slowness, and entered. The jaguar entered at his back, and another, peculiar smell entered the air, mixing with all the others to create a melange that made his stomach clench, then twist as he came into the open area.

It wasn't necessarily the weapons. He saw unregistered phase pistols and phase rifles, which were relatively minor offenses and expected for this kind of operation. It wasn't necessarily the drugs, which may have been the most legal part of the enterprise, though no doubt completely run through unofficial channels and in amounts that exceeded legal doses. Nor was it the personnel, who all screamed "pirate" as various species looked up at him as he stepped into the room.

It was the slaves. They had large, thick, garish collars slapped around their necks, easily identifying them from the riff-raff. One was a mouse with tawny fur, because of course. The mouse's face was buried in the lap of one of the pirates, a badger who slouched in a chair, shirt pulled up to expose breasts while one of her fists held the mouse's face down. The other slave was a stag with all his points cut off, his face buried in another stag's crotch. The pirate stag had all his points, and was vigorously fucking the slave stag's face, looking as if he wanted to rip off the rest of the slave's antlers prematurely.

"Maybe you'd like to sample some of our wares?" said the jaguar from behind.

He felt the phase pistol press into his back, and Wamai did his best to throw a haughty glare at the jaguar. "Really? Was this necessary?"

The jaguar smiled thinly. "It's a matter of trust, you see. We need to make sure you're on our level, Lord Borin."

Turning fully, he pointedly pressed the barrel of the phase pistol down with a finger. "You could have just invited me."

"We needed to be sure."

"Mm. Well, as soon as the one with the mouse is done, I'll take her."

"She's got a tongue on her, that's for sure!" cried the badger, jerking the mouse slave's head away from her damp crotch. "Woo! Been a while since I've been ate like that!"

"I'll take her, then," Wamai said again, crossing the distance and hauling the mouse up by hooking a paw under her arm. Here the sadness, the despair was rank, along with the scent of the badger slaver. "Is there anywhere…?"

"Bed right behind you," said the jaguar, still holding onto the phase pistol though it was pointed at the ground. "You're not afraid to show us what you got, are you?"

"No." Wamai sat on the bed, hoping the mouse was as good as the badger claimed she was. He nudged her, and the defeated look on her face infuriated him. Just as quickly, he packed down the anger, jerking open his pants. "You know what to do," he told her, and she nodded, trembling.

-*-

"Still don't understand why you need him," Mingo said, the raccoon walking alongside Izel.

"I don't. I want him, though."

"Okay, but why do you want him?"

"Because I'd rather have him than some random predator that the brass wants to install to try and keep me in check."

Mingo sputtered, trying to speak for a few moments through his exasperation. "A-are you serious? Why in the void of hell do you need a sitter? They asked you to rejoin the Navy and you said yes when you had every right to tell them to bury their heads in stumps!"

Izel rolled her eyes as she and Mingo rounded a corner. "Mingo, you know they need every decent officer they can get their paws on. Besides, I bet that's not even it."

"What is, then?"

"You remember the Luminous?"

Mingo frowned. "Luminous? Is that a ship?"

"Wabash-class. The first Wabash-class."

The raccoon's frown deepened until it came to him. "Oh right, yeah! First Wabash-class, supposed to be a heavy scout/destroyer. They updated the weapons systems after a redesign from the first... Wabash-class which got stricken from the... They were the ones that got exiled!"

"They defected."

"They-- oh yeah! They defected because... Luminous was the one that found that plot to attack the snow rabbits, right? I remember you kept saying that--"

"Captain Wren was my role model," Izel finished with Mingo. "He was the first prey captain in the Federation. And he got the run of his ship, including personnel--"

"Oh no..."

"--and most of his crew was prey."

Mingo groaned aloud. "Yep," Izel said, a set of double doors opening before them as they entered a cavernous shuttle bay. She paused, scanning the open space. "We're looking for one of the Infineon shuttles."

"Infineon's one of the bigger one's, Belmel-class. They'll be over here," Mingo said, taking the lead. Then the raccoon shook his head. "Brass is really paranoid about us prey, aren't they."

"Yeah. That admiral got expelled from the Navy when his involvement got found out. He was funding a lot of underpawed crap."

"Navy leadership is still majority-predator, though, so it's not like anything's changed. This is why I don't vote."

"Really? Because voting is how we got the new prey Prime Minister, with her predator deputy, and the Unity Forward party. They even picked up seats in the Senate."

"Okay fine, but—"

"And that same prime minister's cabinet ended the war, negotiated the treaty reuniting the Federation."

"I think the Prey Tomorrow party would have negotiated a better deal."

"Oh so you do have political opinions."

"Okay, okay! Point made." Mingo shook his head, then nodded towards one of the shuttles in front of them. "One of these will do, they'll probably recall them all soon."

The mouse and raccoon headed toward the closest one where they were let on. They strapped down next to each other as the pilot went through the pre-flight checks. "You never really answered my question, though. Why, out of all the predators that the Board wants to saddle you with so you don't, what, tattle on them when they wanna do some shady whatever? So why this one?"

Izel didn't answer for a while, but Mingo was patient. The door slid to a close, and the engines started to power up as the shuttle detached and started lifting into the air. "Because he stood up for his entire crew, including the prey," Izel began while she watched the world receded. "And his entire crew followed him, including the predators. If they feel they need to put a predator in there to watch me, I want that predator." The grasshopper mouse looked towards the raccoon. "Otherwise I'd pick you as my first officer."

Mingo made a face. "No, thank you. Leave that sorta fur managing crap to others, and to the void of hell with all of it. You know me, I'm for the engine room. Speaking of, they just finished putting in a new kind of warp core into the Umbra, think I'm gonna wait until I'm on the ship to pore over the specs." When that comment didn't get a response, the engineer looked towards the mouse again. "Why'd you bring me, anyway?"

"In case we need creative solutions."

"You sure you need my kinda creativity?"

"I'm hoping we don't, but I don't wanna count on it."

"Mm." The sound of the shuttle persisted for a moment, before the raccoon looked toward his captain again. "So do you want this cheetah because of that noble stuff, or because you want him?"

"Oh, please, Mingo—"

"Carnally?" the raccoon said, waggling his eyebrows.

"Can't I just admire a fur and have it just be that?"

The engineer shrugged. "I'm not the one who wrote and coded—"

"Mingo."

"—a 'Captain Wren' scenario when we had access to a holo suite."

"Mingo!"

"What? I still have the logs! There are so many logs."

"Ancestors, Mingo…" Izel rubbed her forehead. "Can you just let that go?"

"Ha ha, never."

-*-

Izel watched the crew file into the meeting room she had commandeered. The Infineon's captain was strangely reluctant to release a single meeting room for her purposes or even meet with her, which lead the grasshopper mouse to wonder if this was one of the ships she'd pissed off in the civil war. It might explain some of the captain's hesitance, but they were all on the same side now, weren't they? Izel let that thought have the moment of whimsy it deserved before shaking her head to clear it and looking to her crew.

Jabril was the designated cubsitter, though Izel trusted Admiral Daler enough to guess that the wolverine wouldn't have any contradictory secret orders, especially with the admiral's and her own interests aligned. Still, the wolverine's brawny frame looked useful for intimidation purposes, though Izel couldn't find anything in his file that hinted at anger issues. Quite the sniper, though.

Jabril had entered with one of the prey on her crew she wasn't familiar with, a doe by the name of Yuki. An apparently accomplished pilot, though. Had won a few flying contests in her time in the Navy, and was rather adept maneuvering large craft like star ships, though with a preference for smaller shuttle craft. She seemed to be a quiet sort; not quite snow rabbit level of reserve, but reserved enough.

A little after those two had come in, Mingo came in solo. He immediately found a seat and slumped into it, fiddling with a data pad. While the mouse had joked earlier about making him her first officer, there was some appeal to it, though she knew the raccoon would hate every second of it. When he put his mind to it, he could do the "fur managing" thing he so detested, and a more perverse part of her wanted to put him into the chain of command higher than the planned Chief of Engineering so that he'd get some practice. Eh, he'd probably get enough managing the furs working with him in the engine room.

The only one who noticed she was to one side of the entrance of the room was Cipriano, as usual. But then, Izel supposed the capybara took notice of another fur who tried to shrink into the shadows, outside of himself. He noticed a lot of things, generally when he was picking through systems that he didn't strictly have access to. Maybe it was the hacker in him that absorbed so much information, but he had become very good and penetrating and also grabbing the right information from whatever system he needed to get into and leaving no traces behind. And though he was verbose over flat messages, the capybara was very quiet in the fur, to the point where Izel almost never heard his voice. If he had to say something, he had his tablet speak for him, which is why Izel always got a little thrill when Cipriano would greet her with a short, spoken "Captain" like he did now as he came in. A small smile and a nod back, and the data specialist made his way to a seat at the table.

Almost right on his heels came Kiyara. She was a sensor tech Izel had plucked from obscurity, languishing in a space station when the war broke out. Somehow, she'd managed to map an entire moon just by hitting radio waves off an orbiting satellite, and gotten it pretty accurate as well. Izel suspected the initial reason Kiyara joined her had been boredom. Regardless, having trained on substandard equipment, she had found a few novel ways to make more modern tech sing, even sniffing out a few Furry Federation vessels that would have demolished Izel's forces had the fox not found them when she did.

With her was Vennie. Vennie was the extra she squeezed Daler on at the strategic last minute. He didn't have the schooling to be an actual doctor, so he couldn't be Chief of Medical. Izel still wanted Vennie in her crew, because the skunk had been the medic that kept Izel and her group alive and combat ready. It wasn't that she distrusted the Navy's medical department, it's just… more comforting to have someone she knew would treat every fur without bias. That, and whatever knowledge he had picked up doing ad hoc medicine out of the equivalent of a tent gave him a sense of triage that Izel trusted. And now, in a sense, he had a medical department to back him up, and a little formal education to be a nurse on a star ship.

The grasshopper mouse didn't give the group much time to notice her before she pushed herself off the wall and raised her voice. "We're all here? Good, let's get started." Izel crossed to the front of the meeting room, turning to take in her group. Her crew. Part of it, anyway. "Welcome. If it has somehow escaped your notice, I'm Izel, and I'm the captain of the Umbra. The reason that we're on the Infineon right now is because we need a first officer and we're gonna be picking up my first choice, a cheetah named Wamai." Tapping her data pad a few times, she flicked the image of Wamai in the middle of the table. "His last known location is Batacar, and the Infineon has been kind enough to take us out to the periphery and loan us a shuttle to get around. Now the reasons why we're a team in mufti and not a formal search party or something more official are one, Batacar's on the frontier. Pretty much they're sandwiched between the UT and ancestors know what, and whoever joined the colony probably wants to get away from the rest of the Federation while not entirely leaving it. Second, due to the hasty nature of this mission, and also politics, we were not quite able to secure as many resources leaving as we might otherwise, which you already noticed. And c, we don't exactly know what Wamai has been doing for the last little bit so we may need to extract him. Any questions?"

"So what's the plan?" Jabril asked.

"None, at the moment. The only thing we have is the objective, so outside of 'find Wamai' we're mostly gonna be information gathering. The Infineon is also allowing us to take some of their stores, so pack for a week. The ship is gonna be out of easy reach for at least that long. Try not to overburden yourself, though."

"Wait, we're going in completely blind?"

"More or less. But the Infineon's first officer has told me that there has been evidence of pirate activity in the sector. They're going to investigate that, but it's going to take them far afield. Probably why we're able to raid the Infineon's stores, since we're doing some of their work for them."

"I don't know why the Infineon isn't sticking around here to look for pirates. They could be anywhere in the sector, and there's been a bunch of official warnings of pirate activity in the year or so since the war ended," remarked Kiyara idly. "Some fur is trying to get the word out, I could probably scare up some additional information, let us know what we might be getting into."

"Sounds good. See if the Infineon will loan you a console or some equipment," Izel said.

"Do we need to?" the fox continued, glancing at Cipriano, then back toward Izel.

The mouse smirked. "I see no reason why we shouldn't do things by the book for now. We are trying to make the Federation better as a whole, so they should let you borrow a tablet at least."

"I could gain access to their systems," stated the capybara, through his tablet.

"Don't. So far as the Infineon knows, you're also a sensor tech, and there's no reason for them to know any different."

"Aye, Captain."

"If he's not a sensor tech," Yuki began, speaking the question Jabril probably had, "then what is he?"

"Good at his job," Kiyara replied, smirking.

"Regardless," Izel said, "Our mission is still, and only, to recover Wamai, whatever he's doing. Any pirate activity is going to be secondary to the main mission, so I want all of you to concentrate on finding him, first and foremost. Any other questions?" Nobody said anything, so Izel nodded. "We're still a few days out. Send any equipment requests to Jabril, he and I will be making the actual requests from the Infineon's security chief. I wanna be ready to get the shuttle out there as soon as the Infineon makes orbit, so sooner is better. Select widely, but assume we'll be out of touch of the Infineon or the shuttle for stretches of time." Izel clapped her paws. "Alright, meeting's over. Dismissed."

-*-

It was difficult, leaving that pit. Not because he wanted to be there, because Wamai very much didn't. But the anguish of the slaves distracted him so much that he had to shut out everything else just to achieve the finish the slavers were wanting from him. The streak of his seed on the tawny mouse's cheek fur lay as an indictment against him, even though he knew what he was doing, and he had to gain these people's trust. It was the best way he had to take them down.

The jaguar had agreed to a closer arrangement, after all. They were to be talking about it in a few days, in a nearby nightclub. It was all so cliché, but it was what it had to be. He'd done this before, but it was so much harder to do this on his own. There was an ache Wamai acknowledged, then dismissed. That part of his life was behind him now.

He was casing out the nightclub from the roof of the tallest building next to it, a few kilometers away, when he saw something catch his eye. Something was landing.

Why this particular vessel caught his eye, Wamai didn't know. But the cheetah turned up the magnification on his binoculars until he could make out the shape of the vessel clearly… it was a shuttle. The kind of shuttle the Federation Navy typically employed. In fact, if the identification tag from the binoculars was correct, it was from an active ship. Why was the Navy sending a team now, of all times?

Maybe he could take advantage of it. Regardless of whoever controlled the Navy, none of them liked pirates. It was… possible that some of these might just re-enslave the prey members but… he'd heard things. Maybe things had changed. That, and he could use a team.

Opening a protein bar, the cheetah took a bite as he considered his options. Going back to the camera he had fixed on the nightclub's entrance, he made sure it was still recording and that he had plenty of hard drive space to keep recording, then went back to his data tablet. The message to send was pretty simple, the hardest part would be how to send it. Finally, Wamai found a likely path that would obscure his origin point, and sent it to be bounced around the planet and off a few satellites before it would arrive at its likely destination. Now he just had to get a recipient.

Would it be fair to hope? If nothing else, Wamai could use them. Maybe that would be enough.

He swallowed the piece of bar he had, then took another bite, preparing for the long wait.

-*-

It didn't take them too long to settle in. Izel found a decent motel that she booked three rooms in, and they disbursed among them. The next morning, the grasshopper mouse gave them their orders, though it was mostly information gathering, and a whole lot of nothing. Boring nothing. Worse, the colony they were on was poor, if the city around the spaceport was any indication, and while Izel tried to help them out, she did have more important things to do that personally see to it that every single fur here sought sources of relief they either couldn't or wouldn't access. Assuming they were even there, and not being embezzled by the local governor.

It was the third morning breakfast meeting that one of them actually found something. "Captain," said the quiet Yuki. "I got a strange message late last night."

"Strange, how?" Izel asked.

The doe pushed a message onto the ad hoc map Izel had brought up. It was an unsigned message, the sender obscured. "Are you a member of the Federation shuttle that touched down a few days ago?" said the message, and nothing else.

"Cip?"

"On it, captain," said the capybara's voice box, the capybara himself already on his tablet.

"Do I answer?" Yuki asked, the doe's ears flicking.

"Ask them… ask them 'who wants to know?'"

The doe sent that message off. One came back less than a minute later. "An ally in the fight against slavery."

"Slavery?" Jabril asked, taken aback.

"Ugh," Vennie said, the skunk's ears pinned back. "Called it."

"You didn't call anything," Mingo said, leaning back against his chair.

"It's not hard to see. Why else are we on some backwater for some mythical Federation officer?" Vennie waved a paw idly. "How much you wanna bet he's a slave?"

"I will take that bet," Cipriano's voice box said immediately.

"Are you sure we can take on a slaving ring?" Yuki said.

"I'll take that bet, too," said Kiyara, leaning her head on her paw. "You can eat me out of I'm wrong."

"I'm out," the capybara said.

"Enough," Izel said, gesturing for Yuki's tablet. The deer gave it over, and Izel sent a reply: "This is Captain Izel of the Federation Navy. I am here on other business, but if you have information on a slaving ring, I would love to help take it down."

"Well met, Captain," came the return message. "I do have that information. But I would like to make sure I'm dealing with someone who will take down the slaving ring, not take it over. I would like to meet in the fur in four hours."

"Fine, I will send you my personal tag." Izel attached her tag, then gave the tablet back to Yuki as hers pinged.

"Slavers. How dare they. This isn't the lawless UT!" Jabril said, teeth bared.

"Rot's always under the fallen tree," Mingo said, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair. "And I bet the Federation doesn't patrol too much by this frontier planet yet. The real question is what happened to singular focus on finding Wamai?"

Izel frowned, then shrugged. "If reports of Wamai are accurate he may even be involved in taking these pirates down. Besides, can't hurt to look, especially since at least one of us is offended by the mere existence of pirates," she said, gesturing to Jabril. The wolverine's eyes glittered and his ears were splayed in embarrassment, but he did not look away. "So. New plan for today. Mingo, you and Cip, see what info you can find on this slaving ring. Cip, you should have official access to the Federation's archives now, so try not to break into somewhere when you can walk in the front door."

"If I must," the capybara's voice box said.

"That is an order, Cipriano. Jabril, you, Yuki and Vennie are gonna keep looking for Wamai. Kiyara, you're with me."

"Captain, I really think you're going to need a weapons specialist, not a sensor tech for this meeting," said Jabril, the wolverine's agitation shifting smoothly to her.

"Don't worry about me, Jabril. I can handle myself in a fight."

"And I can hit anything I want to when I know where it is," Kiyara said, her grin a little toothy.

Seeing the wolverine's mutinous glare, Izel went on. "Look, Jabril, you're new. But I know my crew, and I don't think this is the time for a sniper. Not yet. I am, however, making sure I'm taking precautions. Mingo?"

"Yeah, I got a wire that can send video. I can put you on the take if it'll help, Jabril."

"Captain," the wolverine said, "I am trying to do my job."

"I know. I will take every precaution. And if I do get hurt, I will accept your lecture on safety while Vennie is patching me up with grace. Promise." Snorting, Jabril looked away, arms crossed, so Izel continued. "Besides, I need you to protect Vennie and Yuki while they are looking for Wamai. You can do that, right?"

Jabril bared his teeth, though kept his eyes averted. "I still don't like this."

"Your protest is noted. Furs, we got work to do, let's do it."

As they dispersed, Kiyara and Vennie shook paws. Izel rolled her eyes.

-*-

Jabril threw a pillow against the wall. It wasn't what he wanted to do, so he threw another pillow against the wall, then the third. Then stripped the bedding of all covers and comforters, throwing them against the wall. And for good measure, he threw his head back and roared his frustration. The wolverine felt… better after. Not by a lot, but by enough. It was just as well that the knock on the door came then.

"What."

"May I come in?"

It wasn't the captain. Jabril stomped to the door and punched the open button, revealing the fox that had come along. Kiyara was her name? "What do you want."

The fox glanced past him at the wreckage of the room, then back to the wolverine. "May I come in?" she asked again.

"Why."

"To talk."

"There's nothing I wanna talk about." Jabril hit the button to close the door, except the fox wedged herself in so that the door wouldn't close and opened again.

"You're frustrated that the captain won't let you take care of her, right?"

Jabril's ears pinned back harder, somehow. "What do you care? You're just some sensor tech, right?"

"I also fought with Izel during the civil war."

Jabril refused to let his ears splay. "So?"

Kiyara leaned against the door jamb, crossing her arms. "And I can tell you that the captain knows what she's doing. If she doesn't think she needs you, then she probably doesn't. She chose us all for a reason, even if it isn't immediately obvious."

"I was chosen for her. I was given explicit orders to protect her! But now, because some stupid prey doesn't have the good sense to be scared and take extra security into a dangerous situation with an unknown party, she could get hurt or killed!" He pushed a finger into the fox's face. "And you're letting her!"

With infuriating calm, Kiyara pushed the finger to the side. "I don't want to have this conversation in the hall. May I please talk to you inside the room?" she asked again, nodding her head toward the room. Finally, Jabril relented and moved aside, letting the vixen slip past him before tapping the door closed.

She sat on one of the beds, and tapped a place for him next to her. The wolverine crossed his arms, but she raised her eyebrows and tapped again. Rolling his eyes, Jabril sat down. "What."

"We're gonna be on a crew together. Which means we're gonna be spending a least a little bit of time together, like it or not. So I'd rather you not get so upset about the captain that you're about to serve under doing things her own way. I trust her."

"You're going to be there. I'm not. That's the problem."

"Is it?" Kiyara asked, her head tilting. "Or is it that the captain… what was that phrase you used? 'Doesn't have the good sense to be scared'?"

If it was possible, Jabril would have pinned his ears back more. "Your point?"

"I'm beginning to think that you don't know prey very well."

"What more do I need to know? Prey are supposed to be scared, anxious! Mice especially! Or… or mouses. Whichever. The point is, they need us," he said, punching his chest for emphasis. "They need us to protect them!"

The fox shook her head. "No, they don't. But the thing is… I had a similar thought process. Or I did, until a mouse who invited me to her rebellion because she noticed I had skills I could be using to help her, led a charge to take a station. Took a stun to her shoulder, but kept running. We didn't even have phase pistols at that point, but we took that station and that got us access to weapons, even though it laid her up for a week as she tried to get use of that shoulder back."

Jabril frowned. "That wasn't in her service record."

"That's because she was a rebel then? But there is an after-action report. You know, from the other side. Got buried, but I found it. With some help. But what I'm trying to say is this," she continued, turning toward the wolverine. "You don't know Izel. But I do. And what she's done… well. Let's say I've gotten a whole new perspective on what prey can or can't do. And it's also made me think of what kinda roles we put ourselves into, just because society says so. I mean, you don't think I'm going to trick or deceive you right now, do you?"

Now Jabril's ears had to splay. "I… I hadn't thought of that, no."

"Good. Don't." The vixen patted his leg, rubbing over it. "I'm here to do a job. And your part will probably come later. So I'd like you to try trusting the captain."

"...okay, but like you said, I don't know her."

"Well, the Powers That Be in the Board of Defense thought she should captain a ship. So if you can't trust her yet, maybe trust them? They're still majority predator." At that, Kiyara stood and left the room with a swish of her tail.

Jabril sat on the bed for a while, frowning. Then he stood and started cleaning up his mess.

-*-

Captain Izel had arrived thirty minutes early. She'd also arrived in the company of at least one other fur, a vixen who split off and took a seat at a nearby outdoor cafe, observing the public park bench that Wamai had told her to meet at. Probably muscle, but the vixen didn't quite seem the type. Didn't matter that much, though, as the cheetah prepared himself, enabling the cloak of a different spot pattern than his "Lord Borin" fursona, just in case. The less that was different, the more power he could save, the longer the cloak could hold. He hadn't charged it yet… but it would probably go long enough for this meeting.

Wamai approached from an oblique angle, from behind the cafe so that the vixen wouldn't see him first. He was quick enough that he had to have surprised the mouse, assuming her tag was marking her correctly. "Oh hey, how've you been? I haven't seen you in a while!" he said brightly.

Thankfully, she was quick to catch on. Her face flashed surprised before she raised her eyebrows in a friendly manner. "Ancestors, I haven't see you in ages! How you been?"

"Oh I'm good, I hope things are alright with you. You doing anything right now, we should catch up!"

"Ha ha, I'm doing fine! But yeah, what have you been up to?"

Wamai brought out his tablet, tapping it a few times. "Oh, a little of this and that. Oh, I just remembered, you haven't seen my new cub yet! He's almost a year old now, we're so proud of him! Here, I have a few videos!" He tapped play and expanded it to the video he took a few days ago, of him coming into the room and seeing the guns, the drugs, the slaves. "What do you think?"

Izel's face was too stiff, but she forced herself to reply. "Oh you've GOT to let me come see him! I can bring my family, we can make a party of it!"

Family? Does that mean…? "Oh really? How much of your family is in town?"

"Oh, not much. About 6 of us are in town, and only for a week. I could probably bring in more, but that would take way too long. Hey, can you send me that video, they'd love to see it!"

Probably harmless. "Sure, sure, I can send it to you right now." Wamai closed the video, then sent it to the tag she'd sent him earlier.

Her tablet pinged. "Got it. Oh, it's been so good to see you! C'mere."

Unexpectedly, she opened her arms for a hug. He leaned into it, hugging her back, but wary as she whispered. "Whoever you are, if you help me take them down, I will personally see to it that you can join the Federation Naval Academy."

"I've already been," Wamai whispered, before pulling back and patting the grasshopper mouse on the arm. "We should catch up again soon. I know this place where we can meet up at, if you're interested."

Izel blinked, then said. "Send it to my tag. I gotta go make some calls, but I'm definitely happy to see you there! I gotta go, though, bye!" Without another word, she hurried off.

Wamai wasn't sure why she left so quickly. Before she blinked, she widened her eyes some, as if he'd told her something. But he had already been to the Federation Naval Academy, and he doubted that anybody in the Federation was looking for him. Why would they? They'd been ignoring this slavery ring for ages, and as far as he knew he was some admiral's loose end, if anything. Still, he'd gotten himself out of there, carefully not looking in any direction to make sure that he wasn't drawing further attention to himself. He'd figure out who that mouse was later.

-*-

This Izel was an unexpected variable. But that might mean that he could move his plans up of destroying this slaving ring. Assuming the information he collected was correct… oh, it would be a coup to take out this entire ring. It'd been slow, painstaking to get as far as he did, and now that the Federation seems to have finally noticed and sent a team to deal with it… well. Wamai could be patient. Had been patient. And he would live to see this disgusting practice taken out in this sector.

But, as always, he needed more information. How many resources did Izel have? Was it six furs or six ships full of furs? Six ships would be wonderful, but heavy-handed. That, and the possible destruction that six ships could rain down might let his ultimate quarry slip through his paws. Assuming they were even there to begin with. Assuming they even existed, since the cheetah had conflicting evidence. Wamai wouldn't say he knew much, but the scale of the organization that he could see, could speculate, would speak to a mastermind. It was part of the reason why he'd crafted his fursona to act as someone rich but desperate, with the capital to really expand the business to other systems, maybe even capture a Federation vessel, get them some real arms. Assuming that this arm had to fund itself, and didn't have to pass profits up the chain to someone else.

Too many variables. But Wamai could start solving for some as he sipped his drink at a table in the strip club. As the music pulsed around him, the cheetah cast a few glances at the dancers. He was fairly certain if they weren't enslaved yet, they just didn't feel the collar around their necks. That scent of despair hung over the place, masked poorly by the scent of too many bodies in one place, of alcohol liberally flowing, of the horny patrons who hooted and hollered for dancers that barely made any of the money they were collecting in their skimpy clothes. He hoped they could hold on, since he couldn't yet give them an exact date to their liberation.

Wamai sipped from his drink again. Water, because having an impaired mind at this stage was unconscionable.

The mouse slipped into the booth he'd gotten without warning, but Wamai was glad she'd come. "Why here?" she asked, over the cacophony.

Wamai nodded, then set out the privacy device and turned it on. Immediately, the desperate hoots of the furs outside, and the bone-rattling music, dropped in relative volume. "We're probably being watched," he said, "so I can't have this on for very long." To say nothing of the power requirements. "I need to know what kinda resources you have."

"Straight to the point, eh?"

The cheetah flipped his ears back. "Let me be more blunt: where is your ship? What class? Is your crew in orbit?"

The mouse chuckled softly. "In reverse order: six of them are on planet, Wabash, and several thousand light years away, unfortunately."

Wamai's irritation grew. "Then how did you get here."

"Hitched a ride on the Infineon. A Belmel, if you're curious. Should be coming back in a couple days."

"A Belmel. Okay, then that should give us a couple days to plan once we have the ship's—"

"Why wait?"

"W-what?"

The mouse closed a fist and propped it up under her chin, leaning on the table. "Why wait? You wanna take down this slaving ring, right?"

Something occurred to Wamai. "What did you do."

"Nothing you wouldn't do if you had the furs I work with, Wamai." The cheetah stiffened, ears flipped back. "Speaking of…" Izel made much of checking a chronolog. "Oh, good, about twenty seconds."

"Twenty—until what? Izel, what are you doing?"

"If you didn't let us know that this place existed, we wouldn't have found it. Or at least it would have taken longer to find it."

"No, you idiot, you don't understand, you're ruining my—"

There was a muffled explosion. Nobody seemed to move. And then there was a second explosion, and the furs inside started to react. Izel grinned and put a phase pistol on the table. "Try and keep up," she said, standing and drawing another phase pistol. "The slaves are in the back, right?"

The screams started, along with chittering and various yowls. Wamai frowned, then closed the noise-canceling screen, the sound hitting them both and causing them to flinch. After another moment, he dropped his cloak, and picked up the pistol. "They're gonna be herding them into the dressing rooms."

"I knew you'd know." Grinning, Izel scanned the chaotic room, various furs running in all sorts of directions as the fire alarms went off. "There!" She pointed, and Wamai followed her as she ran towards the backroom, now unguarded.

But locked.

Wamai still had his ears back, watching all the intelligence fly out the door. "They have their doors biolocked. And since you came in with explosions, they're all in there and not coming out."

Izel didn't say anything in response, then tapped an in-ear communicator. "Knock-knock," she told whoever was on the other end, which confused the cheetah. Until the light flicked to green, and Izel rushed in as the door opened. "Which way?" she shouted back at him.

"L-left!" he said, running after her. "How did you do that?"

"My crew!" the mouse said, scurrying down the hallway. Then she skidded to a stop as she came to a bunch of doors. Then she looked at him, raising a brow as he caught up to her.

"...I'm not sure."

"That's fine." She went to her ear piece again. "Knock-knock. Gimme all of 'em in the immediate area." All the doors flipped to green. "Pick one," the mouse said as she pushed her way into an opening door. Wamai chose to plunge after her.

This room was empty. The next one had a what looked like some drug paraphernalia in them, but the room was hastily vacated. "Bet the other two are similar," the mouse said as she left the room. But then she paused as she heard something the cheetah couldn't. "Cip?" she continued, touching her earpiece. Then she frowned heavily. "Where are they? Get me a route that I can come up on them from behind." And then the mouse went running.

"Where's the rest of your ship?" Wamai demanded as he sprinted after her.

"Just us for now!" the mouse called back, before dashing down another corridor, the cheetah hot on her heels. He started to hear the sound of phase rifles going off, the higher pitched noises that illegal ones made. Wamai checked his weapon and put on the stun setting.

Skidding to a stop, the captain glanced down another corridor, where all the noises of fighting was coming from. She beckoned Wamai closer, then told him to stop via Navy paw signs. After another glance, she dashed to the other side of the corridor and Wamai came up to take her former place. Izel peeked around her new cover, then tapped her earpiece. "In position," she said softly.

"NOW!" came a voice from down the hall, and both Wamai and Izel brought their weapons to bear, ambushing the pirates from behind.

The immediate area smelled like smoke. Some fire suppression system was still going off somewhere, and Wamai ran down the corridor to the makeshift barrier the pirates had set up, checking their pulses while Izel called a clear down, presumably to her crew. None of the pirates were alive. "Did you kill all of them?" he said furiously, rounding on the mouse.

Izel paused, and the wolverine she was with started to point his phase rifle at him before Izel pushed the business end of the weapon down. "Of course? They were attacking my crew."

"We could have used the intelligence!"

Again she paused. "How big is this ring?"

"I know they at least have a holding near the planet. I've been tracking their shuttle flights."

"Well," Izel said, eyebrows raising. She turned to the wolverine. "Grab Yuki and get our shuttle warmed up, we're gonna take down that off-world site." The wolverine nodded and ran off, and she turned to her earpiece again. "Cip, pack up, call local law enforcement. Start looking for any nearby abandoned platforms that could house a slaving operation that's in the range of a typical shuttle. You can do that on the move, so let's go."

"Commercial shuttles, model years from nine or ten years ago," Wamai added.

"Hear that? Good. Meet at the shuttle, I sent Yuki and Jabril ahead so you can meet them there."

A vixen chose that moment to peek her head around the barrier. "Captain-- oh. Captain, is that our cheetah?"

The mouse looked at him expectantly, and Wamai sighed, standing. "My name is Wamai, if that's who you're looking for."

For some reason, the fox grinned. She started to open her mouth to speak, but Izel waved her down. "Not now. We have to find the slaves first and free them. C'mon." The mouse turned to Wamai. "You gonna make us wander the halls in this place or do you have an idea where they might be? I think you said they're in the dressing room?"

"I hope your computer specialist or whoever is on standby for that," he said, and led the way to where he suspected they were.

In the end, though, it wasn't necessary. As soon as Izel identified herself as a Federation Navy captain, a locked door opened itself up and a senseless body was propped up against the wall while the slaves – now former slaves – looked up at the three of them in relief. Wamai was able to see the tawny mouse and the stag without points personally released into the custody of law enforcement, though that consisted mostly of a harried peacekeeping force with not a lot in the way of resources to speak of. "Don't worry, we'll make sure they get home safe. Thank you, Captain Izel," the head of the force, a deer, told the mouse, shaking her paw vigorously. By the time the deer was done thanking Izel, she got contacted by the rest of her crew. "Shuttle's ready. You wanna take down the rest of this cess pit?"

"Do you even know what you're up against?"

"Do you?" the brash mouse sighed and ruffled her own head a moment. "Serious question, by the by. I couldn't let this stand when I found out about it. But you seem to know what you're doing, so we can take down the bigger one together. You in?"

Wamai ignored that and asked the question that mattered. "Why were you looking for me?"

"Come with and find out," she said, and turned to leave. The cheetah watched her go, his ears splayed outward.

The fox from earlier came up to his side. "You coming?"

Irritated, Wamai cast a glance behind him. There wasn't anything else left for him, and it'd be best to act now so any further pirates wouldn't be alerted. He started walking towards the shuttle, following Izel, and the fox walked with him.

"Hey, Wamai, right?"

"What."

"You wouldn't have happened to be a slave at some point very recently, would you?"