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Joined in Mind and Body

Chapter 12

Andrew watched in horror as the beam emitter for the weapon finished its charge cycle and the weapon fired. Damn, they WERE too late! A whole planet full of people was about to be destroyed. He felt choked with shock.

The beam never reached the planet though. Light speed weapons were fast. Psionics were faster.

The signal that went across the psionic tactical net was straight to the point. Hundreds of specially-assigned Kats focused power under the direction of the message, their mates sending supporting energy as they did. Even as the beam began to fire, a shield went up around the whole planet. Quicker than the beam could even reach the atmosphere.

The destructive energies and charged particles included in the weapon's beam were shunted off by the shield. Monitoring of the shield generating Kats over the tacnet informed everybody that the energy shunt was not putting a strain on anybody involved at all. All that energy, all that destructive power, gone into... Where?

Not even the Kats really knew. Perhaps the same place that their positive energy came from. The pseudo-religious belief is that the energy was shunted to the Dark, since it was destructive, while positive energy came from the Light. In between were this universe, and the Shadows, where all dead Psionics went. The difference between the Shadows and any human belief system though, was that there was known and confirmed contact back from there. Psionic minds and spirits were never completely destroyed.

The beam cut off when enough energy had been fired to easily demolish the planet. But of course none of it had even come close to the planet. The firing had taken a vast majority of the stored energy for the weapon as well. It would have to recharge to fire again, and it was doing so.

It would never get the chance though. Another command went across the psionic tacnet. A few thousand large psibeam nodes lit up around the Karenthis and fired at the massive vessel simultaneously. The ship's shielding, both energy-based and physical, offered no protection for it whatsoever. The beams ripped through energy shielding and physical shielding alike. There was no explosion. There was no burst of energy. Just dissolution.

The huge planet-buster was just gone. No residual energy or matter. Its very subatomic structure had been converted to energy and shunted to the same wherever as the shield sent the massive weapon blast. Andrew was left in complete awe. He had heard of this, and read about it, but seeing the actual effect... this was completely different.

The tacnet began to contain readings of various important minds from the remaining ships. The enemy was strongly considering turning tail and running. Unfortunately, while this would have been a good choice, this was not the choice they made. Command on the enemy side insisted that there was no way a ship the size of the Karenthis could have enough energy to repeat the destructive blast there, especially after shielding the planet. Plus of course they had plenty of fighters, the bane of large ships since they were so hard to hit, regardless of whether you were targeting with projectiles or energy weapons.

A bit of cajoling from the enemy command, as picked up by the psionic scans, and the fleet was ready, though not completely sure, to engage this single ship and teach it some manners. Interestingly enough, tacnet orders were to hold fire, and shield for now, unless any ships attempted damage to the planet. Shielding around the Karenthis was adjusted by thousands of Kathari to be hull-tight and physical-restrictive. Nothing except low-power visible light was permitted through, not even physical objects.

Tacnet information began feeding more strongly about the locations and status of all ships and objects in the area. Andrew felt like he was aware of the battle from a great distant vantage point. Nothing could bypass his notice. The swarms of more fighters being launched and enemy ships powering up weapons. Cruisers, destroyers, and other large classes of ships maneuvering into positions surrounding the Karenthis, to be able to barrage it from all sides and prevent any possible escape.

There were some doubts in the minds of the enemy as to why this mammoth ship was not responding at all to the obvious threat they created. It was not maneuvering to escape, nor even moving. It was not showing any signs of powering up weapons, and they could detect no shielding systems on board. In fact, one enemy commander went so far as to point out that even though the Karenthis was large, it did not have the energy signature necessary to create the blast that had destroyed their massive weapon. But through verbal whippings, all questioning was quelled, and the enemy were sure they were about to splatter an annoyance across space.

A few test shots were fired to gauge response and results. Beam weaponry from a larger destroyer lanced through space. But upon reaching the psionic shields, it simply vanished. No visible effect on anything, let alone damage to the massive Kathterran ship. A few more questions amongst enemy commanders, and then a much larger volley of energy weaponry. Nothing. Andrew wondered if it was really actually fair to be able to know precisely what the enemy was thinking. But he had to guess that all was fair in war.

Projectile weapons were attempted. Shockwaves of inertial dampeners being stressed on enemy ships sent small bursts of energy out as dense masses were accelerated to barely sub-light speeds. The masses were only a few pounds altogether, but at their velocity, they would transfer massive energy to anything they collided with. Planets could be beaten to a pulp in hours with these if need be.

But again, no results. There was no collision. Not even a release of energy. As the masses collided with shielding, they were converted to energy and shunted to nothing. The shunting took no toll on the Kats generating the shields at all. Only keeping the shields themselves up consumed energy.

Andrew began to wonder if anybody else was at all worried, so he tore his gaze from the scene and glanced around furtively. Tyrin and Kelia were playing puzzle games against the overseer Kat on their wrist coms. If that wasn't a sign of a lack of concern, he didn't know what was.

A volley of explosive warheads was attempted next. The first of the missiles collided with the shielding and simply vanished. So the remaining missiles were detonated just meters away from where they figured the shielding existed. Still, no result, no damage, and no response from the big ship. Now the enemy was really beginning to wonder.

After a relatively long pause, which of course felt much worse in the combat situation, a squadron of fighters were sent in. Strafing runs with energy weaponry and bombing runs of physical projectiles were met with the same result as they swarmed as close to the ship as they could without hitting it. That same result was no result.

At the same time as another run was ordered with more fighters, a command went out over tacnet. The energy shielding was changed subtly, consuming more power from the Kats maintaining it.

"Reversive shielding?" Andrew sent to Serina questioningly.

"It flips the energy potential 180 degrees relative to its original path," Serina sent back. Andrew thought about this for a moment. That meant...

The larger group of fighters made another strafing run, and their energy weapon beams and pulses hitting the shield went right back up the muzzle of their emitters. The weaponry was meant to shoot out the energy, not get hit with its own energy in return. The result was devastating as a good three quarters of the fighters were disabled or destroyed by their own fire returned to them. The rest dodged the smoking remains of their comrades and limped back towards their formations.

The shielding was reverted to the prior mode of shunting all the energy off into n-space as reports from the fighters and evaluations of the results of all the attacks were compared and worried over. One commander was for an all-out attack, focusing all weapon fire on the ship, or even one portion of the ship. But what about the fire being bounced back at them, pointed out another. They had to do something though. They couldn't leave this thing alive.

A psionic transmission was received from Kathterran command to the Karenthis. The decision had been made to classify race H5-9 as a plague race. Andrew shivered. A standard transmission went out in hundreds of communication modes from the Karenthis, and Kat scanning of the enemy command confirmed that the enemy could understand it.

The enemy was informed that they, as a race, would be given one quarter rotation of the nearby planet as total time for their entire race in all sectors to land on racially-owned and uncontested planets, and destroy all means of reaching or observing beyond their planetary system. This included all ships and all transmission and reception devices other than purely optical amplifiers. Any members of the race still in space beyond this time would be destroyed with no quarter given. Any planets still having capability to transmit, receive, or travel outside the atmosphere would be swept and all racial members on the planet destroyed as well. Any racial members or items that took offensive action against anything anywhere would be also immediately destroyed.

Even as this transmission was being sent out, Kathari were busily scanning the local enemy. A racial mental fingerprint was determined, and after a psionic broadcast to all Kathterran forces, Kathari across the known universe had located every single member of the race, whether they were in space or on a planet, eating, creating waste, or anything else they were doing. A massive pooling of Kathari information, and the ultimatum was broadcast to every presence the race had that was capable of receiving the data. Instant questions and a spread of panic and outrage throughout the enemy species.

On a more local scale, the enemy command was not amused. Tacnet command went out to return fire only as the enemy command convinced their fleet that the Karenthis HAD to be destroyed at all costs. Full power to shields and weapons was ordered on every ship. They would destroy these bastards who got in the way of the proper liquefying and ingestion of any planetary inhabitants they wanted, or die trying.

Shielding on the Karenthis was reset to reverse energy fire first. Let the enemy take themselves out. Massive weaponry blasts tore through space at the Karenthis... and went right back towards the ships they originated from, stressing out enemy shields immensely and in many cases puncturing the shields and leaving gaping holes and severe damage in the enemy ships.

Enemy fighters were ordered to head to the atmosphere and do as much damage planetside as they could. But no fighter that moved in that direction made it more than a few hundred clicks as psibeams began to lance out from the Karenthis and annihilate them in an instant. Soon only a handful of fighters with terrified pilots remained intact. And these were soon shot down by their own ships for disobeying orders.

There was another pause in combat, and finally the next tactic was made obvious. Even the commanders here had not been aware of this move, so the Kathari could not have dragged it from their minds. A slipspace rip opened and a second version of the original planet-busting ship emerged, its weapons system online and fully powered. Situation information that had been broadcast by the enemy fleet had allowed for a precision entry into real space.

The planet-buster had inserted itself directly between the Karenthis and the planet, its weaponry aimed at the Karenthis. Even if the planet could generate enough shielding to save itself, they figured this little ship couldn't keep the beam off. And even if it bounced the beam back and through the enemy ship, it was just a quick jaunt to the planet from there. They'd have SOME effect either way, whether they destroyed the Karenthis, or destroyed themselves and the planet behind them. The massive beam lanced out towards the Karenthis.

Never could they have possibly realized that the shielding on the planet was generated by the Karenthis itself, nor could they have foreseen even this tactic failing horribly. The physical size of the beam itself was larger than the Karenthis, which was engulfed fully in the beam. Enemy ships opposite the Karenthis were ripped to shreds as the surrounding beam tore through them like a sneeze through a single sheet of soggy toilet paper. Of course, the beam reflected back by the Kat's shielding made short work of the core of the massive ship that was firing upon them, tearing through it before being stopped short of the planet by more Kat shielding.

The beam died off as the emitter was shredded and the core of the huge vessel consumed itself with the remaining energy intended to fire the weapon. This time there was an explosion, and a massive shockwave tore through space. Kathari shielding kept the Karenthis and the planet, and even its two moons perfectly intact.

The few remaining enemy ships that had been outside the original beam diameter were not so lucky though. The blast wave ripped them to shreds like a hurricane through a trailer park. The end result was messy. The Karenthis floated silently amidst debris, with Kathari scanning showing no living enemy present at all.

Andrew stood completely stunned at the sheer amount of destructive energy that had occurred here. And other than the original planet-busting ship and the fighters, nothing was destroyed directly by fire from the Karenthis. The enemy had taken more damage from their own weaponry than any other source.

Tacnet reported an incoming slipspace rip, and a single stealthed enemy recon ship came through. Not bad stealthing technology. But nothing compared to Kathari sensing. The recon ship flew about trying to gather information, and the mental reads from its crew were interesting to say the least. They were scared shitless.

The crew gathered information and transmitted it homewards, then began to contemplate the idea of not going home, staying stealthed, and finding a new place to go. The Karenthis made a simple broadcast to them advising them to depart, as time was ticking down on the planetary rotation. In a panic that they had been detected, and not even having gotten any sensor sweeps from the Karenthis, they turned tail and fled back into slipspace.

There were about five more minutes of high alert status, and then the combat alert status was downgraded to Beta. Monitoring had been started of all H5-9 presence that Kathari could detect, and it seemed that the vast majority of the race was following the ultimatum. Other Kathterran warships were dispatched to a few trouble zones as dissenters decided to go out fighting. With their minds being read forcefully, Kathterran ships were arriving at their slip destinations before they even undertook transit into slipspace, and the enemy ships were not even being allowed to look around when they exited slipspace before they were destroyed by psibeam fire.

The Karenthis began garbage duty, and all the Kats on observation were told to relax. The recruits sat or lounged and continued to watch. Serina lounged onto hir lower body's side and kept hir upper torso upright as shi tugged Andrew to sit on hir lowbody. He smiled and got himself comfortable on hir side as they both continued to watch and listen.

Massive amounts of targeting data and updates began flowing through the tacnet and smaller psibeams began to remove debris from the surrounding area. The overseer looked over the lot of them. "Any questions?" shi asked. "There are no bad questions. If you don't know, ask. I'd rather have you ask and find out, than be left not knowing."

"How much psionic energy went into this battle?" one of the recruits asked curiously.

The overseer smiled. "We never have exact numbers, but I'd personally estimate about one to two million psiens or so, based on the active crew and the actions we took."

Another Kat raised hir hand. "When will we be able to listen in on the battle net?"

"Most of you will be able to listen in next battle," the overseer answered. "A few of you are somewhat newer, so it will be a while longer. Don't worry. We'll have you up and running soon."

Andrew realized something he had a question about. "I saw their shielding didn't do any good. But what if an enemy got a hold of our psionic isolation field technology? If they made a strong enough field, it would protect them pretty well against psibeams, wouldn't it?"

There were a few giggles from the recruits, and the overseer glared at them. They shut up instantly. The overseer looked at them further. "Andrew is the one and only psionic human we know about. We only picked him up from Terra two days ago, and he only found out he is psionic within the past day. He's already pair-bonded to boot. I expect some respect from all of you for this human. He's been through a lot. In fact, here... here is the data on him..." Shi shared the ship-wide psionic network data that every Kathari knew about Andrew with the recruits.

Giggles and grins phased to looks of awe in a heartbeat. "They broke both shields in pair testing?!" one of the recruits murmured.

"I bet we could break both shields when they pair test us," one of them whispered to another.

The target of that observation looked distinctly embarrassed. "I love you, but really, nobody's even broken the inner shield in a thousand years." Shi suddenly laid hir ears to the side in thought. "A thousand years almost precisely... wait..." Hir ears suddenly shot back and shi looked at the overseer. Andrew glanced from one to the other. Apparently a private communication had just occurred. The recruit nodded and clamped hir jaw shut, looking afraid.

Andrew wasn't sure what was up, but the fear that leaked from that recruit was odd. Had shi just been threatened with discipline? Hir apparent partner looked concerned also. "Are you okay, Chars?" shi asked. "You're leaking fear like mad even through your shields. What's up?"

The scared Kat shook hir head and strengthened hir shielding, cutting of the leakage. "Sorry, I was just reminded not to spread rumors. I don't want bad duty for our first assignment. That's what I was afraid of."

Serina shifted beneath Andrew, and touched his mind. "Shi's lying. Shi's deathly afraid of something. Like a scared cub afraid for hir life. Something odd, trus. I feel the same fear as just an undercurrent through some of the Kats on the ship. And it started the first morning I spent with you. Hir fear feels the same, so it's about the same thing probably. I want us to find out what it is when we can."

Andrew sent acknowledgement as the overseer took hir attention away from the recruits and turned to him. "Andrew-k'is, the psionic isolation fields are not generated by technology alone. Anything except the core isolation field, which is really just a background noise blocker like a PPDU, is supported by psionic energy from Kathari. Eight shifts of Kathari a day, rotating on a weekly schedule, to provide the psionic energy for isolation fields throughout the ship. The energy is fed into an electronic routing device, and sent to where it is needed. Which is why we can't disable a field unless we have access to the controls or the emitter. We could pull the Kathari off task, but it would kill all of the fields. That would be bad for health services, among other things."

"Huh..." Andrew mused. "So it basically takes a Kathari to shield against a Kathari, no matter how the shield is supplemented by technology. Well, that makes sense."

The overseer nodded and looked around. There was a short while of silence. "Any other questions?" shi asked.

One of the recruits fidgeted rather obviously. The overseer tilted hir head. "Out with it. No bad questions, remember?"

The recruit's head shot up and shi seemed somewhat embarrassed. "Well... yesterday, when the ship cheered, and then everybody did that thing, we were all confused since we aren't allowed on the ship network yet. So I bugged my keeps about it, and they told me it was a... um... 'kiss'. And they said that a human showed it to everybody."

Shi fidgeted more, took a deep breath, and continued, "Well, I looked at the information you sent us about Andrew-k'is, and I realized... He must have been the human who showed us." Shi looked at Andrew. "Is that true?"

The overseer chuckled warmly. "Yes, Frina. Andrew was the one who showed us the kiss."

Frina looked at hir partner beside hir, and fidgeted some more. "Well... we tried it, but I don't think we got it right. So I was wondering. Um... Serina, can I try kissing Andrew?"

Andrew did a double take. Kissing Serina was one thing, since hir head was about the size of his. A regular-sized Kat had a head big enough to put his entire head in their jaws, snip it off his neck, and swallow it whole without blinking.

"Sure!" Serina exclaimed merrily. Frina perked up instantly, while Andrew spun on his mate.

"WHAT?!" he demanded, echoing his concerns over the size difference to hir.

"Don't worry, trus. Just link lightly with hir, and show hir how to kiss," Serina sent encouragingly. "With the link, you'll both experience each other's side of it. So you can't hurt each other. And this will help stop any rumors that we might try to be antisocial and not share."

Andrew blinked at the last bit, but as he reviewed Kat information that he knew, he knew it was true. He smiled to himself as he got up off Serina and walked over to the other Kat. All the recruits, and even the overseer and Tyrin and Kelia were all watching curiously. Frina looked hopeful, but a bit shy. Shi was already lounging on her lowbelly, so shi was only a little taller than him.

"I'm a lot smaller than a Kat, so the mouth sizes are different," Andrew said, sending hir a silly image of his head completely inside hir mouth. Shi blinked at the image and giggled. It broke the ice quite well.

Andrew reached out with his mind and offered a link to hir, and shi took it automatically, even though shi was not expecting it. He then reached out with his hands and caught hir cheeks softly. He dug his fingers lightly into the thick fur ruffs on hir cheeks and drew hir face towards his.

Hir eyes widened before he could reach though. "Oh my! You can link! And I never realized anybody could enjoy my cheek fur so much! Wow, Andrew-k'is, this is amazing already. Narin, feel this!" Shi linked the sensation from Andrew through to hir partner, who pursed hir lips and nodded approvingly.

Andrew grinned slightly, "Well, here... More..." He craned his face forward and met hir lips, slipping his hands down the sides of hir neck and around her shoulders. Shi obviously wasn't completely ready for the idea, but shi also obviously enjoyed it.

Andrew sent mental cues to hir and soon hir arms surrounded him in response as shi got more used to the idea of kissing. Andrew felt a thrill from kissing a regular-sized Kat, and obviously Frina sensed this, enveloping him more in hir arms to emphasize the size difference more strongly. Andrew also got a feeling of strong approval from Serina, and realized with a shock that shi was getting energy from his pleasure at kissing the Kat.

Feline lips parted and a tongue tip lapped softly at his lips. He let his mouth open and hir tongue invade. He was concerned for half a moment that shi would try to put too much of hir tongue in his mouth. But with the link, shi knew exactly how much was right, and sent comforting thoughts pointing this fact out as hir tongue danced with his.

Andrew was vaguely aware of Serina approaching Narin. "He's a human, and you won't get much out of kissing most humans. Kissing Kats is a little different, so I'll show you too. I'm small, like him, but you'll get the idea." His lovely little mate drew the other Kat down to kiss, and he was instantly presented with hir happiness and pleasure as energy for himself. Especially from hir satisfaction at showing big Kats something new and exciting.

Frina broke the kiss and peered at Andrew happily. Andrew blinked as he noticed that the other recruits were trying (With minimal luck) to mimic the action, while Tyrin and Kelia were being successful in the background, and the overseer was looking a mite bit put out at having no partner. Andrew looked at Frina and sent a small message to hir mentally, flicking his eyes at the overseer. Frina grinned and nodded, releasing him.

Andrew sidled over to the head Kat, who had busied hirself on hir wrist com. As luck would have it, shi was also lounging, so Andrew had no trouble reaching hir shoulder to tap it lightly. His sneaking had been successful, as shi looked up, startled by his presence. Without a word, he caught her neck in his arms and pulled himself to hir to kiss hir as well.

The look of surprise and delight on hir face before shi melted into the kiss was worth the effort he had gone to. He slid his arms around hir back as he received strong approval from Serina for the action as well. Large furred arms slowly encircled him as he let a link form between them, and everything got better from there.

He could hear Serina breaking off and doing the rounds to demonstrate to the rest of the recruits as he melted into the overseer's fur. Goodness, shi had soft fur! Not quite as soft and silky as Serina's, but a much thicker coat. It was quite luxurious. And his appreciation for hir fur was a benefit to Serina and his kissing partner as well of course.

He wasn't sure how long he stayed kissing that Kat, but their reverie was broken by a high-pitched, two-tone whistle over all the com units. A male human voice came over general call, and Andrew recognized it.

"This is Captain Sirelly. I am well aware that cleanup is fully completed, and we are on Beta Alert. I know that everything is running properly, and that all Kathari crew are performing their duties," the captain said. Then his voice turned pleading, "But for the love of God, would SOMEBODY please call the bridge and tell me why the heck all the Kats on the ship are kissing again today at the same time?! Extra benefits to the person who can tell me what's going on. Captain out."

Andrew blinked as the kiss broke. He glanced up and around, and realized that all the other Kats they could see were breaking off kissing too. All the humans were in avid and animated discussion and gesticulating in the direction of the Kats. Andrew found it all highly amusing, and indeed, heard a chuckle start up from Tyrin. Kelia was trying to hold in laughter, and all the recruits were about ready to explode laughing.

Tyrin tilted his head to the side, and grinned. "Andrew, the vote is unanimous for you to let the captain know what's going on. You deserve the bonus. Any Kat will corroborate your story. Just... Don't let him know about your abilities quite yet. We're still working through that in official channels."

Andrew took a deep breath. Okay. He raised his wrist com and reached for the controls, then blinked and let his hand drop as he activated the com with his mind and put in a call to the bridge. It was responded to by a bridge attendant. "Yes, Mr. Foster? How can I help you?" The man sounded somewhat annoyed.

"The Captain asked anybody with information about the Kat's kissing to call the bridge," Andrew said. "Since I know precisely why the Kats are kissing, and it's my fault, in fact, I'm calling the bridge."

There was silence from the other side for a moment, then the attendant responded, "Just a mo..." The man was cut off as the captain came on the line.

"Andrew Foster? Damn, you did a great job on fixing the ISABEN, but what's this about the kissing being your fault?" the captain demanded.

Andrew thought of what to say. "Well, sir, I was with some Kats last night, and I showed them kissing, because one was curious. They obviously liked the idea, and they've never done it themselves. So they tried it, and they spread the information between themselves, so they all ended up trying it." That should be good enough.

There was some more silence from the other side. Then after a moment, the captain was back. "I just checked with the Kats here on bridge duty, and they agree with you. But, Andrew... are you saying you actually kissed a Kat?"

Andrew hit the mic mute on his com with his mind as he laughed for a moment at the man's astonished tone. When he got his laughter under control, he reactivated his com mic. "Yes sir. Last night and again today. French in fact, sir. I'll admit they have VERY big tongues. But they really seem to like me, so I thought it wouldn't be a problem. It's not a problem, is it, captain?"

The captain seemed somewhat flustered. "Er, no, you can socialize and fraternize with anybody you like, and kiss anybody you like. But... I never expected anybody would ever kiss a Kat."

Andrew grinned. "You should try it some time, sir. The fur is amazing, and they really like kissing." He cut the mic as the whole group around him burst into laughter.

More silence for a while, then, "Well, thank you Mr. Foster. Every Kathari on my bridge crew just volunteered when they overheard that. I'll be sure to get that bonus to you. Captain out." The line went dead, and the laughter only increased in merriment.

There was a short tone, and Sybelle announced, "Dropping status to Combat Alert Delta. Secondary-shift personnel may retire." Andrew smiled. That meant the fight was over, and only a small amount of heightened alert was up in case of unexpected events.

Andrew turned his attention to Tyrin. "So what was that info you sent? I know you sent something, but I couldn't quite grasp it."

"That was information for actually making sense of the psionic tactical network. Serina needed it too. Otherwise you wouldn't have been able to make much use of the tacnet data," Tyrin replied. "But that brings up the next issue. We'll want to head back to our suite or yours to discuss it in detail though."

"We can head back to ours," Andrew sent. "Do we get any hints?"

Serina's gaze caught his eye. Shi looked distinctly worried, the skin around hir nose pale. "Yes, plenty of hints, trus. But best not to talk here, even psionicly," shi sent. Then shi did a quick transfer of knowledge to him.

Andre paled. The Kat leadership on the ship had taken quite an interest in him, which was good. So to deal with him better, they had called upon a lot of seers and discrete scans of certain high-ranking human people universe-wide. The results were not pretty.

It seemed that the full consensus was simple: If Andrew were revealed to the humans as a psionic right now, this ship would support him fully, but main operations in the Terran administration would override that support and insist on isolation, testing, poking, prodding, and eventually examination.

Post-mortem examination.

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