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2021's novel is an experiment, set decades after "Hatikvah"

Hello folks! I feel like I have a handle on this narrative now... maybe. This first intro is going to be a bit long, but basically the goal here is that the novel is a set of individual stories, some of them with recurring characters, but for the most part telling self-contained stories. This takes place 25 years after "Hatikvah," and contemporary with "And To You Your Wassail," 2019's Christmas story. Patreon subscribers, this should also be live for you with notes and maps and stuff--this is a slightly edited, and commented, version of the one posted in the Dropbox folder. Part 1 of 17, so... let's get this started!

Released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. Share, modify, and redistribute--as long as it's attributed and noncommercial, anything goes.

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Crucible, by Rob Baird. Part 1.

Spaceport al-Hass hakh-Kin

_Kashkin, Jericho

8.3.2560_

He thought of the pilot as a wolf. This wasn't true, of course: no Yucatec company had ever manufactured wolves, and most of the freeborn in the Kashkin were mixed-breeds like him.

Probably she was a husky, or a husky-shepherd--he didn't know her full name, let alone her breed--but with her dark fur and the smoldering fire in her saffron eyes Kalanja Tarashir thought of her as a wolf, anyway.

"We're slow, Tarrich."

He went by Kala, to his friends. "The fuel trucks were late, comrade Sochek."

Dekakos ha'Sochek was pure-bred: an old Rottweiler, and while her muzzle had started to whiten, her teeth were still as sharp as her tongue. "Let them be late. Keeping track of their tardiness isn't your job, Tarrich. Figuring out how to get the planes back up is."

"They're up," he pointed out. The last fighter had almost finished taxiing to its takeoff position. "Nearly up."

"Numbers?"

"Seventeen minutes, on average." He handed her the report. "Better than last week."

Sochek's eyes wandered over the computer. "On average, yes, but less consistent. What's this thirty-one minutes, here? On 6674."

"Wear damaged one of the tools. The team had to wait for 6670 to be reloaded before they could swap 6674's pylon. I recommend that we start stockpiling spares here. It'll be faster than having to repair them."

Sochek nodded before handing the computer back. "Agreed. How many spares do we need? Two? Three?"

"I'd say three. When they break, they need to be recertified. There's no telling how long that would take in an emergency."

"Agreed," she said again. "Get it done. Let the teams know they're released. We'll see them tomorrow at first light."

The teams were ordnance crews, training to reload and refuel the Kashkin's fighters. They had barely thirty: two dozen of the Boreas that ArkMash sold all over as "light utility" craft, and seven Kestrels scrounged up from mercenary units. Two more Kestrels sat, half-disassembled, in an open hangar.

Lockheed intended the Kestrel as a warplane, and though they touted its ease of maintenance the F/A-206 was packed with delicate electronics and high-precision machinery. Spare parts were difficult to come by, and expensive.

The Boreas was older, less maneuverable, and slower. It was also sturdy and adaptable. The crews called them kosturja--the "bones" of the Kashkin's air force, without which nothing else mattered.

It was Kalanja Tarashir's job to maximize the efficiency of both crew and craft: to ensure that each Boreas was available when called upon. Two months after the start of Major Sochek's project, they'd made substantial strides.

Ammunition for a sortie was staged ahead of time, in new bunkers built for the purpose: a crew could now completely rearm each plane in under twenty minutes--so long as spare tools remained available to fix the ones they broke in their eagerness.

More fuel trucks had been ordered, so returning planes could be replenished simultaneously and tankers kept in reserve when others ran dry. If nothing went wrong, the ground crews could now inspect and prepare a Boreas for another mission in just under forty minutes.

When things did go wrong, Tarashir's firm had studied the results until they knew the most common failures and could anticipate what would need replacement, and what might simply be ignored until a quieter spell presented itself.

He was happy with their progress. And, though he wasn't in the Kashkin's military himself, watching the crews at work filled him with a sense of pride. They'd be ready for whatever came to them.

Planes, pilots and all.

Major Sochek intended for Tarashir to leave--to rest, presumably--but the collie mix waited until the four kosturja had departed on their training mission.

And then he kept waiting, drawing idly on his computer until his ears caught the sound of distant engines. With dusk approaching, the flight had nearly reached Cosmodrome Aless Ha'kin by the time he saw them.

Shadows, like birds of prey on the approach. This was the last flight of the day, and so they didn't practice their high-stress combat landings. Instead, the touchdown was remarkably sedate: each circled, and settled gently onto its landing pad with the sigh of waning engines.

Walking off the flightline took the pilots past where Tarashir sat. The wolf drifted over, shaking her head. "Another late night for you, comrade?"

"Busy."

"Yeah? What do you have there? More efficiency reports?"

Tarashir shook his head, and handed her the computer. The captain made a show of turning it a few times until she could tell which was right-side up. But then she grinned. "Not bad. Who are you spying for?"

"My own curiosity."

"I bet. I always see you around, you know? What's your name?"

"Kalanja Tarashir. Yours?"

"Vicket." He gestured at her nametag. "Well, fine. My name is Hanishal Runaki. Vicket is my callsign."

"There must be a story behind that." He took his computer back from the pilot, who held on to the edge of the plastic. "What?"

"You'll have to do a better job if you want to bribe me with art, Tarashir."

She let go, and he pocketed the computer. "Next time, then."

For once--they'd spoken occasionally in the past, but never conversationally--she grinned. "You'd better." And with a wink, she was off.

Tarashir's roommate Senno, an investigator with the Commonwealth's constabulary, proved much less impressed when he related the encounter. "Pilots," the badger scoffed. "They're too unpredictable, anyway."

"Progress, though. Right?"

"You think working on your drawing skills will help?"

He spent the next day looking over schematics for the Boreas, turning a model of the airplane this way and that until he saw the little things he'd missed. In the course of his work, the details were only lines in spreadsheets or efficiency models. He still didn't really know what they did.

But the day after that, back at work, he had a better attempt to show for it. The wolf's ears perked; she stared for a good, long time. "Hm."

"Well?" he asked.

"It's wrong. This bit, the fin here? It retracts when we're airborne. Unless you're hinting at a malfunction." Runaki flashed him a grin. "I'll show you, will that help?"

He followed the wolf back to her parked Boreas, whose boarding ladder was still extended, until she stepped aside. "Wait..."

"Climb in. The reactor isn't hot--you can't break anything."

Even so, Tarashir made his way up the ladder carefully. The cockpit was much smaller than he'd expected, up close. And, when he tumbled into the pilot's seat and looked around at all the controls, much more daunting as well.

Runaki leaned on the edge of the cockpit, propping herself up on her elbow. "Welcome to my home. You like it?"

"I don't even know where to start."

"Well, now that you mention it, isn't that a good idea?" Her grin was also quite lupine: sharp-toothed and wide. "Turn it on."

"What?"

"You're the reason the major is always riding us about our times, right? I want to see you try. Imagine we're under attack!" His expression clearly amused her: she stuck her tongue out, and indicated one area of the cockpit. "Start there. Time's wasting, Tarashir!"

"Yassuja. Uh, this says... 'GEN' might mean... generator?"

"It does. Turn it on." He flipped the switch in the opposite direction, to no effect. "I wonder why..."

"'BATT'? 'OPEN'?" Runaki shrugged unhelpfully. He tried those switches, too; nothing. "'MAIN'?" All the screens came to life, along with a steady, beeping alarm. "Yassuja!"

The pilot touched something, in his peripheral vision, which silenced the warning but left most of the lights blinking in agitation. "A bit out of order, but it'll do. And you only took... well. You'd be dead, let's leave it at that. See... now, how can we trust you and all those reports you do?"

"Flying isn't my responsibility."

"True. I'll go easier on you. That fin you drew is part of a system that you activate right... there."

He tried to follow where she was pointing. "GSC-ANT?"

"High-bandwidth antenna for communicating with controllers on the ground. Diagnostics, automated startup and parking, an approach computer... after takeoff, it's out of range almost immediately." She reached over him, flicking the switch. He heard a soft whir, and a clunk from outside when the antenna settled into place. "So we retract it, although it doesn't actually matter that much. We don't have the system installed here."

"Then why do you turn it on?"

"We might use it, one day, and it's on the checklist, too. Plus, we had the system at the CENS arco."

That surprised Tarashir enough to draw his attention from the cockpit panels. "You're from an arcology? I assumed you were Kashkin-born."

"With my accent? Ilhasha al-rog ha'al-khasarvikot ran ilkasavnag?"

She stressed the way her 'k's softened to 'g's, and in turn the 'g's sounded more like 'ch's. "You hide it well, then. Or you don't sing much..."

"I don't sing much. 'Clicky Connie' was one of the only Yucatec companies to fly the Boreas, which is a bit of a long story, but it boils down to a joint venture with the VRSO. One of the only Yucatec companies with non-Alliance moreaus, for the same reason. That's why I'm a wolf."

"I wondered if you might be. But I didn't want to ask..."

"CENS transitioned to Eagles. And you know what they say about old dogs..."

"No. What?"

Runaki reset the switches he'd moved, and the Boreas powered back down. "They say if you want to hear about old dogs, you should get dinner with one. What about tomorrow?"

"I could do that. It's not a flying day, right?"

"Nope."

Back in the dog's apartment, Senno persisted in his skepticism despite Tarashir's ebullience. "Pilots, though. Do you know what you're getting yourself into, Kala? Besides the pilot, of course..."

"Not yet. Just dinner. Somewhere... where's a good place for that?"

"For a... what's the human word? A 'date'?"

"Yes," he decided. "For a date."

"Hmm. You should go to Katosha's restaurant. Enjoy it while you still have the chance, you know?"

"Is Katosha closing the restaurant down?"

The badger shook his head. "No, but they might run out of ingredients. Nobody wants to be shot over fresh fish. Or maybe they'll arm the fishing boats, but then they won't be able to carry as much..."

"Senno, you worry too much. You just want an excuse to keep everyone out of the water."

"There was another close encounter just this morning. Someone came within a meter of ramming the Ninalas, and they cut all her lines. It's supposed to go to the cabinet again tomorrow."

Inquisitiveness, and a willingness to follow such leads, was a good fit for an investigator--Senno's intuition was often sharp, too. Privately, though, Runaki thought the badger was paranoid. The exact same proposal to step up protection for the Kashkin's fishing fleet had been discussed for nearly a year, and always with the exact same result: the Defense Ministry wouldn't approve it, and without their approval nobody was willing to table the measure in the first place.

If Tarashir argued the Kashkin's government would never be so openly provocative--as he had in the past--Senno would counter that they were only reacting to provocation, and that they could 'only be pushed so far.' A very badger thing to say, in Tarashir's opinion: the Kashkin would not take the first step towards military escalation.

Certainly not over a few cut fishing lines.

Runaki was enthusiastic about the suggestion, in any case. They met outside the restaurant; out of uniform, she settled for a sky-blue blouse, deceptively summery. He wore the same clothes most of the time: functional, if neatly tailored, as might've befit a human office worker.

The transformation was a little surprising, as was the warmth in her voice. "Thanks for getting me off-base for the evening," she said. "Sometimes I forget to do things like that."

"Of course! This is one of my roommate's favorite restaurant. He's been busy... I don't come here often."

"I don't, either. But we should enjoy this while we have the chance."

"You mean seafood? Senno said the same thing--do you really think it's that serious?"

Runaki shrugged. "I know I don't think they'd have us training as hard as they do if they weren't worried. We never flew like this at CENS."

It was an English acronym, short for Consolidated Engineering's Nuclear Sciences division--'Clicky Connie,' he'd found in looking the nickname up. "How did you wind up there? Were you bred for it?"

"Sort of, but not really. They had a joint program with the VSRO: only about two-thirds of the moreaus were from Yucatec stock, and they gave us regular placement tests to see if we might be used better somewhere else. I had good reflexes, so I moved over into pilot training."

"CENS had mercenaries?"

The wolf shook her head. "No, for once they really were using the Boreas as a utility platform. We'd run surveys, deploy probes, things like that. We were at a remote Connie research station--the Boreas was nice and hardy. It really is a great ship; you can do almost anything to it. As we're finding out."

"Pushing you really hard, I know."

"The planes, too. I have so many gripes." She stopped, looked at him, and barked a short laugh: "But you would know. You write them up."

"Yes. The whole system is under strain. Getting new parts in, getting them installed... you're right, I suppose: if they didn't think it might be necessary, they wouldn't do it. But..."

"I can handle the flight hours. If things get overlooked, though..."

"Are they?"

"Yes. The stability control module, for one. I've filed a report on mine after every mission for the last... eight? But it's not getting swapped."

Tarashir had an encyclopedic memory--he thought--of the air force's maintenance protocols. "It's not a priority-one part. If it fails, you should be able to keep the plane flying long enough to recover..."

"I know. But it shouldn't be disregarded like that; that's what I'm telling you. There used to be rumors about it at CENS. Nothing bad happened, but... well, a lot could go wrong, and I'd like it not to."

"I'll take another look--get it reclassified. How's that?"

"Yeah?" Runaki grinned, favoring him with a rather human wink. "What do I owe you for that, then, inana efficiency expert?"

"You can let me know if it helps."

"I will. And you can talk to me about... something other than work. Where are you from? You were born here in the Kashkin?"

She wanted to know what his childhood had been like--if it was as idyllic as all the rumors hinted. Compared to her own, of course, the answer was obvious. But she smiled all the same. Afterwards, in the riverfront park, she admitted how surprised she'd been to arrive in the Commonwealth.

"Maybe I'm still being surprised."

The words came with a glinting light, dancing in the wolf's eyes, and a grin, just before they parted ways. He turned the encounter over in his head for the rest of the night, and the next morning.

And then he settled in to work. The "stability control module"--formally the Boreas's Semiautonomous Control Stabilization Manager--smoothed out inputs from the pilot before feeding them to the flight computer. All the documentation agreed it made the pilot's job easier, but it wasn't critical.

The SCSM tweaked the plane's reactions to different loadouts and local gravities so that variation was minimized; in turn, it ensured that excessive force wasn't transmitted back into the joystick. The relevant section began: to maximize pilot comfort and minimize stress, the Boreas is equipped with...

If it failed, the flight computer could translate those inputs on its own. But--chasing it with doggedness that would've impressed Senno--Tarashir found the rumors Runaki had mentioned. In certain cases... with certain frames... certain configurations...

He logged it all, and brought it to Dekakos ha'Sochek before he left work for the day. "I'd like to re-flag the stability control module. It should be a priority-one component."

Major Sochek took his computer and spent a minute in silence, tapping between different documents. "It's an auxiliary system. Why would it be so important?"

"If it shuts down completely, there's no problem: a skilled pilot can fly it by hand. But it's possible for it to fail in a way that it sends junk data to the flight computer, and that would make the plane uncontrollable. ArkMash has a service bulletin on it--one of the appendices in my report."

The Rottweiler scanned that, too, though she was plainly unconvinced. "Six cases in three years. How many Boreases are there in active service?"

"Five of the six are like us, though: atmospheric operations with a high number of cycles per maintenance interval. Without the exact cause being known, I don't think I can guarantee that we're immune. It needs to be priority-one, ma'am, and we should run full diagnostics on the fleet. Frame 6658 has already logged errors."

Sochek sighed heavily. "How long to field-swap it?"

"Three hours, including the flight computer recalibration."

"And how many do we have in stock?"

"Four."

"Yassuja. Tarashir!" She bared her teeth at him. "Not every part on every plane can be high-priority. Now you're talking about grounding the entire Hasskit." With another sigh, she returned his computer, and calmed herself down. "Put an order for new modules in. When they're delivered, we can have the crews replace them--as part of routine maintenance."

"I think that--"

"I'll take the gamble, Tarashir. Training is our highest priority right now, though; we can't cut back on it. That'll be all."

Replacement parts would take a week to arrive. Just in case--even if the numbers were on their side--he spent his free time and his work breaks over the next few days not drawing but going line-by-line and revision-by-revision through the Boreas field manuals.

One was still open on Tarashir's computer when the cosmodrome's alarms went off. All ground crew, activate Case Four procedures. Search and rescue team, begin pre-flight. Kalanja Tarashir, please report to the control tower. He took off at a sprint as the message began repeating. Major Sochek met him at the door to the tower, and immediately started back up the stairs.

He padded quickly up after her. "Did we lose a plane?"

"Not yet, but we have a distress call--a bad mechanical failure on 6658. We're looking for qualified engineers to diagnose it. Who on your staff can help?"

"The stability control module?"

She clenched her right paw into a tight fist, shooting him a look over her shoulder. "Now isn't the time, Tarashir. Can you get me an expert, or not?"

"Is it the module?"

"Yes."

"Have the pilot switch the EAC package to the right bus."

The Rottweiler stopped at the door to the control room, not yet opening it. "Why?"

"Something I learned when I was researching the stability controller. A few pilots managed to recover--look, I think--" She growled and pushed the door open. He felt the tension at once: half a dozen airmen were at work, triaging the damaged plane in curt barks.

"Major," one of them, a frazzled looking tiger, spoke up immediately. "The recovery aircraft is ready to launch. But, ah, the Boreas pilot says they're not sure they can eject safely, anyway. Did you find an engineer?"

Sochek looked at him expectantly; Tarashir cleared his throat. "The EAC pod. If you put the active jammer on one circuit, the same circuit as the control module, it drops the power enough for the module to switch into an emergency low-voltage mode."

"You're sure?"

Major Sochek stepped forward. "Do we have a better idea?"

"Starboard channel," another airman said. "SCSM is priority on the starboard channel, chief. If EAC is switchable--"

"It's a dark grey dial," Tarashir spoke with more authority he felt; he'd only read through the manual the night before. "On the system panel, below and to the left of the GSC antenna power switch. Left, auto, right. You want 'right.'"

"Could be, chief," the airman shrugged helplessly. "I think it makes sense."

The tiger's claws slid free, and he clenched his fist in frustration. "It's worth a shot, then. Hasskit 658, Cactus. Aviation Support says to try switching EAC to 'right.' Does that work?"

"What?" It was Runaki's voice, as he'd feared.

"Set your EAC power selector to the right bus only. It's a dark grey switch, auxiliary block, just below the GSC actuator. Set that to 'right.'"

Tarashir held his breath until they heard from Runaki again. "658 to Cactus. I have control restored. It's not great, but it is stable. I'm not sure why that worked."

"658, if you think it's safe, you're cleared to land immediately."

"Hasskit 658. Safer than staying up here, right?"

She touched down ten minutes later; Sochek, Tarashir, and two of the airmen from the control tower were there to meet her. Runaki sighed with visible relief when her feet hit the ground.

"Good to have you back, comrade," Major Sochek said. "Very skilled flying."

"Thank you, ma'am. I owe it to your help, though, too. Whose idea was that? We have somebody from ArkMash around?"

Major Sochek jerked her muzzle towards Tarashir. "Inana Kalanja Tarashir. He's a civilian consultant."

Runaki stared, and then burst out laughing. "You? Inana Tarashir--it was you?" and she pounced towards him, pinning the dog to the wall of the tower while her arms wrapped him in a crushingly tight hug. "Some efficiency consultant, eh?"

He couldn't answer. Sochek coughed. "Please do not damage him."

Runaki let go. "Yes, ma'am. I need his account for my report, anyway, I guess."

"Yes. But that can wait, Captain Runaki. You could probably stand to calm your nerves, I imagine. Just report to me when you're ready. You as well, Tarashir, I... suppose we should discuss the new maintenance requirements."

"Then I can get changed, ma'am?" When Sochek nodded and dismissed her, Runaki indicated that Tarashir himself should follow along. "I want you to explain yourself."

"About?"

"How you figured out we could reset the system."

"I wouldn't be a good efficiency consultant if I didn't understand the equipment--right?"

"That's one way of looking at it." She shook her head, laughing quietly. "The other is that I owe you my life."

"Don't think of it that way. I'll write it up, and you can make sure the rest of the squadron knows, and... hey. You want to get dinner again?"

She opened the door to a small, tidy bungalow in a row of similar quarters for the base's officers. "Yes. And I'll buy."

"Even tonight, maybe? You can get changed, and..." he trailed off; Runaki was giving him a strange look. "What?"

"Later. Right now, though..."

He couldn't get a question out before she nudged him into her quarters, and shut the door. There were two beds, both neatly made; the other occupant was nowhere to be seen. Tarashir finally spoke. "Right now?"

"Right now, I'm going to take advantage of my near-death experience. How efficient are you, Kala?"

He cocked his head, and the next thing he knew the wolf had him pinned again. This time she was more gentle--mostly--but her nose stayed very, very close to his own. "I could be... fairly efficient..."

"My roommate gets back in an hour." Her paw found his crotch, fondling him teasingly. "Enough time?"

"Yes," he gasped. "Plenty."

She stepped back, finger resting at the catch of her suit. "So what do you recommend? For... efficiency," she added. "All the clothes off?"

"Yes. But not for efficiency."

"No?" Runaki grinned anyway, pulling her flightsuit open. His eyes skimmed the wolf's naked body--her dusky, peppered fur sleek and supple, not quite enough to soften her trim frame. Her strong legs, moving gracefully when she stepped from the suit to leave it bunched on the floor.

A brief hint, of glistening, bare flesh, glimpsed in front of her swaying tail. "No, just for my benefit." He felt his trousers fall away, the movements of his paws that did it all but reflexive.

His underwear had joined them, and her stroking fingers found no barrier to the erection throbbing from the dog's sheath. "I don't want to do your job for you," she purred. "But would the most efficient way for you to tie me be if I got on all fours?"

She gripped his cock; squeezed a gasped growl from him. "Probably. We should find out."

The wolf almost turned away before he saw her smirk. She crawled onto the bed, lifted rear facing him. All of a few seconds later, by the time he'd settled behind her and Runaki glanced over her shoulder, the expression was already far less subtle. "Claim what's yours already, then."

Tarashir lined up, pushing gently between her slick lips. They yielded immediately, and slowly--as her breathing deepened and she finally had to turn away to brace herself on the sheets--he sank himself fully into the gratifying warmth of the wolf's folds.

A firmer grind--he couldn't help himself--announced that he'd hilted. Runaki panted shakily, her tongue lolling. Paws fixed to steady her, he rocked smoothly against her quivering hips, building the pace and strength over those first dozen strokes, testing the way she reacted.

At last a heavy buck overcame her: panting broke into a heady gasp as his cock surged deep, and the matching plunge that came next knocked it from her in a groan. Tarashir tightened his hold and started to pound her, reveling in the husky, coarse grunts huffing from the wolf's muzzle.

So you like that? My wolf bitch likes that? It occurred to him that he could ask, could drive the question into her with an emphatic thrust, but the first time he tried to speak--slammed against her unsteady thighs, cock buried in wanton wolf cunt--he only managed a snarl.

Runaki did better. "Like that! Fuck me!" She barked the oath out in English, but he understood, of course. And obeyed, urgency growing, ramming his length all the way into the steamy, wet grip of her silken insides while she begged for him now in messy, broken Rukhat. "Harder! Don't stop! Take me, hurry!"

The agreement was wrong; the tense mismatched. Tarashir, tense himself, didn't care. His knot had swelled enough that clinging pressure tugged at its base when he pulled back. He could feel it coaxing sharper, deeper, thrusts from him already. Forceful thrusts. Mating thrusts. She'd suggested the answer, but... "Runaki, when I finish--"

"Inside," the wolf gasped.

He slid into her, hips arching, tugging her upwards for a moment to press every bulge and contour of his shaft against her walls. "You're sure?" he panted, even if his mind was all but made up.

"Yes." She yelped when he shoved forward; gasped at taut resistance when he relaxed and his cock almost worked free. Almost. He didn't let it, staying hilted, movements tellingly erratic as they grew more and more restricted. "That's it! Tie me--oh--that's it--fuck, your knot's huge." English again, like Runaki had reverted to something primitive with the dog behind her growling, rutting to imminent climax deep in his mate. "Cum in me... cum in your bitch... claim her!"

When he did it was with a groan instead of a snarl, a long second of heady satisfaction before he gushed into the wolf. Ears back, eyes shut, Runaki stayed rigid as he started to fill her. Then she jerked, a shuddering, keening moan gasping from her clenched muzzle.

He wasn't aware of his paws on her sides, pulling the wolf close. But he felt her desperately squirming hips, bucking on the throbbing length that stuffed her. Felt the warmth of her pelt, flush with his as he held her in place to take his seed. Felt her squeeze him for every pulse of sticky cum he pumped in hot splashes, the slick mess spreading in her cunt.

Her legs gave out when he slumped on her back, and the two collapsed in a panting tangle of limbs. The sheets were rumpled, and the air reeked of their coupling--it would be more than obvious to her roommate, when they returned in... forty-five minutes? Half an hour? he wondered, glancing at his watch.

Not enough time, but Runaki made no effort to stir and she plainly didn't care. "Thanks for, ah... mm." She gave up, took a few deep breaths, and tried again. "Thanks for putting in all that effort to study the Boreas..."

"Thanks for making it worthwhile," he countered. When he hugged her, she squirmed her hips against his knot. "I might need more lessons..."

"Definitely need more lessons." Runaki twisted, licking the dog's muzzle. "And maybe a less dramatic way of making your point."

"Than a system failure? Or than... this?" He ground into her, pushing their locked bodies closer until she shuddered and groaned.

"I take that back," she gasped. "You're the efficiency expert. You tell me."