Johan and Ruth
JOHAN AND RUTH
By Paul Lucas and Moldred
The following is a story commissioned from me by Moldred. He supplied the characters, plot, and setting and I wrote it out for him and worked out many of the details. Like many of Moldred's stories, by himself or commissioned from others, it takes place in his Furries in Space universe. Please visit his site, which has a lot of cool pics and stories: http://www.furrysinspace.com/
Also, I am always willing to accept new COMMISSIONS, for STORIES or ART! I'm a professionally-published writer dozens of times over (with even a novel under my belt), reasonable priced, and easy to work with! = ) If interested, contact me at: [email protected]
This is yet another chapter in Moldred's interconnected mega-storyline. Some quick relevant background details: Doctor Enoch Long is an okapi with an unusually long lifespan measured in centuries, making him older by many decades than most of the other individuals he deals with. He is the owner of the Long Odds, a spaceship almost as old as he is. Because of his reputation as a humanitarian and peacemaker, he is one of the most highly respected sentients in known space.
Geode at the time of this story is a mid-tech garden world, vying for membership in a large, loose, and more technologically-advanced interstellar community.
Also, I have been trying to contact Moldred for MONTHS now! If anyone has talked to him recently or plans to talk with him soon, please tell him to contact me. Thanks!
Now, enjoy! = )
The tall Okapi sneered at the line of self-propelled artillery marched slowly by, hydraulic legs hissing under their multi-ton loads. "Barbarians."
The ocelot felinoid reporter scritched idly at his furry neck with the thin remote control for his zepp cams. The off-world medic obviously wasn't referring to the huge crab-like robotic tanks. "Come on, Doc. We're not that bad."
The equinoid regarded the scrappy ocelot with a raised eyebrow. The two small football-sized blimps carrying his cameras slowly orbited a meter over his head, idling. His female counterpart, another ocelot, leaned against a half-blasted ruin of a building foundation and shrugged. "I wouldn't be so sure of that, Freddy. You know how these things work. These wars are only going to get worse before it gets better. 'Barbarians' might be accurate after all."
Standing off to the side, Ruth sighed as she approached the trio, clipboard in hand. The last thing she wanted to do today was babysit a couple of embedded reporters and a stuck-up freelance medic, but she was the one who lost the draw among the adjutants. She should be taking care of her real assignment.
Patience, she counciled herself. Covert murder required patience above all else...
"Good morning," she beamed at the trio in her too-familiar role as prim, proper, and pleasant military adjutant. She flipped through her papers on the clipboard. "Enoch Long, Frederick Rayne, and Jillian Strum, right?"
The female ocelot frowned, her triangular ears tugging back against her hair. "I thought we were going to talk to General Steenbok."
"I'm afraid the general will be busy this morning. As one of his assistants, I've been assigned to answer your questions in his stead."
Jillian rolled her eyes. "Another gods-damned runaround..."
"Come on," Frederick said. "The man's going to be busy. He is fighting a battle here..."
"A 'War of Unification,'" Doc Long interjected. "Officially, that's what they're calling it."
"If you'll just follow me," Ruth said, her artificial smile already beginning to hurt. "I figured the whole process would be much more pleasant for everyone if we started over breakfast."
She led them a short distance across the make-shift base to the officer's mess tent. As they sat down with their food, Ruth checked off some items on her clipboard. Fred trained his zepp cams on her. "That's a bit low tech for such a high tech army, isn't it?"
"The nomads have hit us with EMP weapons three times just in the last month. We can harden only so much with our budget, and PDAs are one of the "non-essentials" that they allow to remain vulnerable. So we've switched to hardcopy for day to day data needs."
The ocelot's triangular ears folded against his head. "EMP?" he said worriedly, casting a concerned glance at his zepp cams overhead. Electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, could put out a wave of high-energy photoelectrons that could fry unshielded electronics.
"All right, Corporal Faulkner," Jillian said, pulling out the paper-thin keyboard on her PDA and typing notes. "If this is how we have to play today, let's get down to it. What can you give us about General Steenbok's background? Where does he come from?"
Despite herself, Ruth was startled a bit by the question, almost losing her plastic smile. The General's background was more than just academic to her; she'd lived through some of it. Memories flooded.
She was eight years old again in the small South Parkland town of San Drezen, nestled in the rolling hills near the border with its northern neighbor. Her family was only one of only two Honey Badgers clans in the settlement.
Johan Steenbok, ten years her senior, belonged to the other. When she first became aware of him, he already was famous locally as a boxer and wrestler. All of the badgers in town followed his every fight, but her father was an especially rabid fan and as soon as he thought she was old enough he began taking her to all of Steenbok's bouts.
Johan, like all Honey Badgers, was stout but with an exceptionally solid build under his shaggy fur. More, he had trained himself to the point that he was practically a brick wall of muscle and had garnered a reputation for brutality in the ring that the crowds loved. Of course, it didn't hurt that he was a Honey Badger; long ago their ancient ancestors had been the very last of Geode's many races to give up eating other sentients. Even in modern times, they were still called savages and cannibals. Rarely to their faces, though.
She saw Johan fight bare-pawed through a long succession of opponents, winning against them all. Even if they had him beat in size or strength, they just couldn't match him for sheer tenacity or ferocity. A running joke had it that Johan had tasted his own blood so often that he sometimes cut himself just to flavor his food.
After a while Ruth began hanging around his training gym after school, and started going to his fights even without her dad. Johan eventually noticed hher and began talking to and joking around with the scrappy little kid. He inevitably adopted her as a kind of an unofficial sidekick, and let her hang out as much as she wanted. Afterward, at night, he'd walk her home. He always explained that the honey badgers were always at the shit end of Geode society, as he put it, so they all had to stick together, big and small.
She loved the attention, of course, and even came to think of him as yet another older brother. When one was the second youngest of eight kids, having someone big and strong who pays attention to you but doesn't push you around was always a great comfort.
Things changed drastically one night when she was waiting outside the locker room for Johan to finish cleaning up. He had just trounced an white-furred equine over twice his size. The stallion was all mass and muscle and little skill. Johan had him unconscious and bleeding on the mat in under three minutes.
Unfortunately a group of the equine's boosters, very drunk and more than a little miffed at having lost a substantial sum of money on the fight, managed to make their way backstage of the small sporting stadium where the fights took place. What they had been planning to do Ruth had never found out, but they spotted her, and recognized her as Johan's little mascot. They came up to her, calling her names like weasel fart and cannibal, and pushed her around. At first it seemed kind of a joke, but they got more and more belligerent. She cried out as one grabbed at her dress and the garment tore half way down her furry back.
Johan emerged from the locker room then. As soon as he spotted her among all the males, her clothes ripped and half off, he bellowed in strangled rage. His face purpled under his facial fur, and he took only a heartbeat to launch himself into the midst of the startled males.
It was over pretty quickly. After only a minute, five of the males lay unconscious and Johan struggled with the last one, a muscular Black Lab. Desperate, the caninoid pulled a gun from his jeans. Ruth remembered screaming as the two males struggled wildly. The gun went off, echoing loudly down the corridor's concrete walls. The Lab crumpled to the ground in a pool of blood, Johan crouching over him, splattered with crimson.
Ruth remembered she began crying uncontrollably after that, scared out of her wits. She couldn't stop shaking. Johan picked her up, grabbed his satchel, and carried her home. He handed her over to her older sister Crysta, explained what happened, and left as if it had been just another typicla night at the fights.
That was the last she or anyone else in San Drezen saw of Johan Steenbok for ten years. After he dropped her off, he fled the authorities, not even returning to his apartment or to say goodbye to his family, and crossed over the nearby border into North Parkland. And that old autocracy had always been desperate for soldiers...
Ruth shook herself out of her momentary reverie. "The general's background is freely available to everyone who wishes to look it up," she told the female ocelot. "I can give you the general's official website address."
Jillian frowned. "All a bunch of carefully-worded vanilla press releases. What can you tell us about the real general? I heard that besides prize fighting, he also did some shady jobs for the local mobs around San Drezen."
Ruth blinked at hearing the name of her old hometown, careful not to let her composure crack. Some memories she would do well not to dredge up, if she wanted to retain her veneer of detached calm. "I'm afraid I know nothing about that, Miss Strum."
"I'm much more interested in recent events," Frederick Rayne said. "Like why the hell Steenbok is so worried about these mountain rebels. The polity they're nominally a part of has already capitulated and signed Steenbok's pet Unification Charter. Why doesn't he just move on? He can come back once the rest of the planet's pacified."
Ruth smirked just slightly. Finally, a question she was prepared to answer. "The general is afraid that if given a chance the rebels will entrench and declare independence. These mountains have been a hotbed for violence and rebellion for centuries for one country after another in this region. He would rather not leave his flank exposed, as it were, and be blindsided while he may be engaged with some of the stronger polities that are sure to oppose the Unification Charter in the future."
"About that...Why is our esteemed 'First Citizen' in such a rush to bring all the resistant states under the Charter so quickly? A number of people are saying that we should step back, consolidate what we already have before pushing headlong into conflict after conflict. The Charter nations--or maybe I should say Provinces now?--under Steenbok now constitute over three quarters of Geode and are pretty much unassailable by any possible rivals."
"And how much consolidation time are we talking about, Mr. Rayne? A year? Five? Ten? And during that whole time, hold-outs will have all that much more time to entrench and build up their arsenals. Plus we know there are any number of off-world profiteers who would be more than happy to sell the resistants megaweapons that we perhaps can't match."
"Now that is just not true," Doc Long injected. "Those are rumors started by Geode xenophobes. The Galactic Empire simply doesn't work that way. The Imperial forces would come down like an asteroid strike on any organization that illegally possessed a megaweapon, much less one that tried to sell it to a non-member world."
"Even if that is true, we still have to worry about arms smugglers from off-world bringing in weapons we can't easily counter, or even worse, magicks from Loam. You may not have been on world for it, Doctor, but we had several incidence of terrorists this past year using gravity-pulse munitions, and those could only come from off world." Gravity-pulse munitions created short-lived pinpoint gravity sources that could measure in the thousands of G's, tearing apart anything nearby through intense tidal forces. Some tanks and armored vehicles could survive, but the crews in them would become nothing but pulped viscera. Gravity control that sophisticated was still far outside of Geode's current technical capabilities.
The tall Okapi crossed his shaggy, zebra-striped arms and threw back his dark mane. "This is an appalling state of affairs as it is. The clause that a planet must be unified politically before it is allowed to become a member of the Imperium is meant to be applied to worlds that undergo a natural evolution to a world government. Engaging in a military campaign to shove unification down peoples' throats will only work against Steenbok in the long run."
"Other worlds have done what Geode is doing, Doctor. Its hardly unprecedented."
"They are in a very small minority of member planets, Corporal Faulkner, and usually have to work three times as hard over a much longer period than necessary just to get other chartered worlds to trust them and open up trade. Trying to do in a few years what takes most planets several centuries will ultimately prove disastrous."
"Corporal Faulkner," Jillian asked suddenly, "What is your opinion of the fire-bombing of San Drezen?"
Ruth coughed at the question to cover her surprise. She could see by the female ocelot's sly, calculating smile that it was exactly the kind of reaction the reporter had been hoping for. Someone had done their homework.
Less than a year after Johan left their hometown so long ago, a bitter war broke out between the nations of North Parkland and South Parkland, one of many such hostile flare-ups between those old political rivals. Her family had known from Johan's single letter to them that he had joined the North Parkland army. What they hadn't known was that due to a number of factors, including politics, vicious infighting, and Johan's own natural aptitude for military endeavors, was that he had risen rapidly through their ranks. The new war, with its horrible attrition rate for men and officers on both sides, had accelerated even that.
In short, within a few short years Johan found himself making strategic as well as tactical decisions for the North Parkland army along the front. And one of those involved wiping out what had become one of South Parkland's major staging and resupply areas along the border--San Drezen.
He later said in interviews that not him but an under officer had authorized the fire bombing. His intention had been for surgical strikes, to destroy the town's military and industrial capacity with minimal civilian casualties. Few ever believed him, including Ruth. In fact, it had become part of his own legend for ruthlessness that he had coldly wiped out his own childhood home.
Eleven at the time, all Ruth could remember was the frenzied terror of the bombing raid that had shattered her life. The distant thrum thrum thrum of incendiary bombs hitting their targets, like some ghastly giant's heartbeat vibrating through the ground. Her family had all rushed into their vehicle to join the frenzied exodus from the city. She remembered looking back from the rear seat window to see her father locking the door for fear of looters. The bomb hit then. Fifty meters away, but she could still feel the blast-furnace heat of the strike.
In that instant she saw her father catch fire, all his fur and clothes immolating instantly like a torch. The windows on the house behind him shattered as the air inside was superheated in seconds. Her older brothers had had to fight hard to hold their mother back, who was screaming like a banshee in hell. They were afraid that if she ran up to Ruth's father and she'd get herself burned to death the same way, all in a mindless frenzy to save her mate of twenty-six years.
Ruth's world ended that day, and a new one began. Her surviving family retreated to Manhous, one of the few nearby settlements that welcomed refugees. Her mother was like a zombie for years after losing their father; her older brothers were the ones who had to support the family, but the best they could usually do was drug running and petty larceny. Anti-badger prejudice still ran very strong, preventing them from getting more legitimate jobs.Her family Her new life was one of squalid poverty and constant struggle. The filth, the stench, the horrible things she had to do just to survive from day to day...
Johan would die for that, for her father, for her shattered mother, and for much more.
"I really don't have much of an opinion on what happened to San Drezen," she calmly told Jillian. "It was long ago, and I was a young girl."
"But..."
"Actually," Doc long said. "To be fair to the general, I believe it was his reaction to the bombing of San Drezen that started the Unification movement."
All three turned to regard the doctor. The zepp cams whirred around to focus on him.
"I was present at the signing of the first Unification Charter, as an observer and a guest,"Doc Long explained. "At the time I thought it a good thing for Geode, I had no idea that it would lead to years of non-stop warfare... Anyway, I had a chance to talk to General Steenbok, and among other things he mentioned how horrified he was at what happened to San Drezen. He wanted to make sure that the wars that led to it wouldn't happen again on his planet, so he had pushed for the Unification Charter as a means of accomplishing that. He thought that if all of Geode was one polity instead of a balkanized collection of squabbling nations, it would mean peace."
"I didn't know that," Ruth admitted quietly.
"I don't think anyone who's actually met your general really thinks he's the monster the resistant nations make him out to be, Miss," Doc long said. "I think personally that he is sincere when speaks of enfranchising the disenfranchised and such. I admire his convictions and his goals. Its his methods I question."
"But if a few years of war leads to a united planet and the end of regional conflict, wouldn't that be worth it?" Frederick Rayne asked.
The okapi sipped at his coffee thoughtfully. "The idea of peace through conquest has never sat well with me. I can understand some of where its proponents are coming from, but I tend to think more...long term than most people. The only practical way Geode can be united so quickly is under the banner--or fist as you will--of a single autocrat. Johan Steenbok is setting himself up to be dictator of your planet."
"But you said yourself you admire his convictions and believe that he has the people's best interests in mind."
"I do. There is such a thing as a benevolent dictator. But the problem with those is that they're very rare. Even if Johan Steenbok proves to be the best thing that ever happened to Geode, how can you be sure that the person who succeeds him won't be the worst?"
By making sure he never becomes a dictator in the first place, Ruth added silently. She scritched casually at her thigh and felt the slim stiletto she always concealed there. Someday soon, the ghost of San Drezen would exact its vengeance on Johan Steenbok, its betrayer.
Over the next few days, the Okapi medic's words haunted Ruth.
When she arrived at the general's area headquarters, Johan had been in the field personally leading the fight against the rebels. Her covert sponsors, the ones who helped to get her into her current position, had told her many things not in official reports, of Johan massacring villages, leaving widows and children in conquered territories to starve after he stripped the land for his troops, of mutilating and torturing prisoners.
But as Johan's adjutant, Ruth was more or less his remote secretary. Because of the problem with the rebel's EMP attacks and constant radio jamming by both sides, many of the routine dispatches from the general came in as hardcopy via courier. Often, she had to retype the material on the hastily-scrawled notes onto the computer for forwarding to his commanders both at home and in other regions.
The notes painted a different picture of her old friend than she thought. He demanded that his troops act with leniency toward civilians and enemy troops who honorably surrendered. No pillaging or looting outside of what may be absolutely necessary to replenish vital supplies. A dissertation on general tactics for his commanders stated that they should try to engage enemies outside of cities and civilian centers, not only to avoid the problems of urban warfare but to spare as much collateral damage and loss of life as well.
When she had first read these, she thought them just cynical manipulations by a general who could handle propaganda as well as a gun. It was an old tactic used by fascists everywhere throughout history; make the people love you even as you subtly take away their freedoms and substitute the will of the autocrat.
But now she had to wonder. What if these were sincere? There was a time in her life when she believed that people did good because they were good, and not just a cynical ploy to get something they wanted. Whatever happened to that Ruth? Had she been burned to ash that day of the bombing, along with her father and all the remains of her childhood?
Of course many of the dispatches from Johan were a far cry from roses and lollipops. Johan had a trio of enemy officers executed, angry at them for ordering their troops into a near-suicidal attack against an armored column. He also ordered a small city under siege in the mountains to be cut off from all outside aid and contact, to starve them out and speed up their inevitable surrender. A number of times he mentioned extracting information under extreme duress, a euphemism for torture, to get information on rebel caches and strongholds.
Johan was hardly a saint. But was what he doing really anymore extreme than what any other military officer would do during a time of war?
When word came the next day that Johan's on-hand adjutant in the mountains had been wounded and that they needed a replacement for him, Ruth readily volunteered to go.
Time to look the devil in the face.
Johan didn't recognize her.
Not that she could blame him. She was a lifetime away from the chubby-cheeked ball of fur she had been when he had known her. She thought maybe her name would jog his recollection, but apparently not. But then again, he was always imminently distracted by his work, and she wasn't going to tell him--yet.
He didn't look that different. If anything, he was even bigger and more muscular than she remembered. His facial fur sported tufts of gray here and there, and his eyes certainly had a harder and more haggard aura to them, but this was definitely the Johan Steenbok she remembered. He was dressed very casually, almost slovenly, a beat-up general-issue jacket with his general's stars fastened to his shoulders.
The general's temporary headquarters consisted of a trailer-like modular base, the kind that they deliver in the back of a suborbital transport, and numerous tents and various antennae, towers, and vehicles. The general himself, however, was up on the mountain trails trying to flush some rebels out of some caves. She had to climb for half an hour through a winding mountain path with a pair of escorts just to reach him. She stood at parade rest while the general looked over the hardcopy messages she brought.
An odd scent caught Ruth's nose as she waited. She sniffed louder, more conspicuously.
Johan raised a scarred eyebrow at her. "Is something wrong, corporal?"
"That scent..." she said, crinkling her muzzle. "Is that dynamite?"
He blinked at her, uncomprehending. "Dynamite?"
"Its also called TNT, for trinitrotoluene. Um, basically nitroglycerine mixed with a stabilizer and reduced to powered form. Its a low-tech chemical explosive. The gangs back where I, uh, grew up used to mix it and use it as a scare tactic." Since offworld trade was ramped up, most nations and companies on Geode have been using more advanced explosives from the Imperium, such as semtex and TDX, almost exclusively.
Johan nodded, sniffing himself. "I remember reading about that somewhere. Hmm. The rebels have been using explosive booby traps on us, so I'm not surprised there's a residue in the air."
Hackles began raising on the back of her head. It was much more than just a residue. It smelled like there might be a whole lot nearby. Why weren't the others reacting to it?
She remembered reading that one of the first senses to go on a battlefield was the sense of smell. All the noxious chemical residues and explosives and engine exhaust a soldier was surrounded with on a daily basis deadened the higher end of his sense of smell. Soldiers who once had bloodhound-like smell were often reduced to barely being able to scent coffee right in front of them. She was probably the only one present capable of detecting the dynamite.
This could well be a booby trap. Ruth could just do nothing, and let the rebels spring it. She could perhaps kill Johan without lifting a finger. But then, there was no guarantee that he would die, or that she herself could escape from whatever killed him. Better to play it safe for now.
"Sir," she said after a few more sniffs. "Its not just a trace. I'm smelling quite a bit of it. There must be a good quantity nearby."
All the soldiers turned to regard her with alarm. The general grimaced. "Damn. Are you sure, corporal? I'll admit my nose isn't what it used to be. Do you think you can trace the source, corporal?"
"I think so, sir."
"Good." He called to the small knot of men by the cave entrance. "Wily!"
Out of the group stepped a small, scraggly canine with an heavily wrinkled uniform. He pinned back his heavily nicked ears as he approached the general. "Y-yes sir?"
"Come with us. Corporal..." he snatched a quick glance at her lapel name tag. "...Faulkner smells what she believes to be a large quantity of dynamite nearby."
Wily yelped nervously, but nodded, strapping on powered goggles. Johan grabbed an assault rifle and threw another to Ruth. "Here. In case we run into serious trouble, you'll probably need more than your popgun sidearm to deal with it."
They set out further along the mountain trail, slowly ascending, with Wily on point and an infantry man in the rear, sandwiching Ruth and Johan. Two guards were left behind at the cave entrance.
A hundred meters up the trail, Ruth reported that the smell was getting stronger. Wily held up his hand, ten meters in front of them, a signal to stop and be quiet. He crouched down, was busy with something, then a few breathless minutes later signaled them forward.
"Report," the general said.
It was odd; Wily's nervousness was now completely gone, replaced with a cool professionalism. His breathing was steady, his shakes had disappeared. The canine lifted his electronic goggles onto his sloping forehead and pointed with a long burka knife at the small path. "See here? Tripwire."
"Can--can we step over it?" Ruth asked, suddenly feeling dumb for asking such an obvious question.
But it turned out not so dumb by what Wily said next. "Only if you're really careful, cutie. Look here." He dug a bit at the soil of the trail with his knife point, then blew away some loose dirt, revealing a second wire. "Pressure cable. We were meant to see the tripwire, give us a false sense of security thinking we've found the trigger. Then you step over and put our weight on the cable, and BOOM!. Classic double trigger boobytrap."
"Void's teeth," Ruth swore.
"Yeah," the general said. "The rebels may be thick-skulled suicidal bastards, but they aren't stupid ones. This whole mountain range is riddled with those kind of traps. They'll be generations finding them all even after all this is over."
Wily led them over the wire and further up the trail, eventually leading them to a small cave, no bigger than the trunk of a ground car. Underneath were several plastic crates.
"So how powerful is this dynamite?" Johan asked.
Ruth deferred to Wily, the obvious explosives expert. "Well, if those crates are full of it, it'd be enough to produce a very nasty multi-ton avalanche down this whole side of the mountain and scatter chunks of us over at least a dozen square miles. I don't think they're rigged to blow, that's pretty sloppy placement if they were, but I'll have to do an ultrasound to make sure. Check for other boobytraps too."
Johan nodded and was about to say more when gunshots echoed over the mountainside. Ruth looked back the way they came and saw bodies struggling next to the cave entrance below. Two wore the uniforms of Johan's army, the guards they had left behind. The other two looked to be snow leopards, judging by their fur markings, wearing local clothing. They must have been in the cavern and decided to make a break for it while the manpower guarding the entrance was minimal.
One of the distant soldiers went down, knife buried in his chest. Johan was instantly on one knee, rifle in hands, sighting one of the snow leopards. A squeeze of the trigger later and the male snow leopard was knocked back.
But he wasn't down. Johan's shot had only winged him in the shoulder. He looked back up at the general's entourage, a snarl on his lips, as he brought up a remote detonator in his remaining good hand and pressed a button.
The whole mountainside shook as thunder seemed to fill Ruth's world. At first she was terrified that the crates of dynamite near them had gone off. Instead, as she fought for footing as the entire mountain shook, she saw a shockwave blast out of the cave below, sending the bodies there flying to the ground a thousand feet below them.
Unfortunately, the soldier with Johan's group lost his footing as the mountain shook, tumbling down the sloping path they had come up on. He landed squarely on the trip wire and the pressure cable of the booby trap, triggering another explosion.
The additional vibrations under her feet was too much for Ruth. She tumbled and found herself skidding down the sloping trail, grabbing wildly for a handhold--any handhold! Just as she felt her legs slip over a void, she felt a strong hand slam over her paw, stopping her skidding plummet with easy strength.
She looked up to see Johan gripping her. "Easy there, Faulkner, I have you."
As she dangled there in his grip, looking up at him, their eyes met. The general's brows arched high in sudden recognition. "Faulkner? Gods! Ruth, is that you?"
Despite herself, she could only smile as he helped her away from the precipice. "Hello, Johan."
Ruth blinked at the lavish--by mountain headquarter standards--meal in front of her. "Isn't this all a bit inappropriate according to protocol, General?"
Johan flicked his paw dismissively. "Tonight, we are not officer and enlistee, Ruth. Tonight, let's just be old friends finding each other again after so long." He poured them both a plastic cup of wine. "I was saving this for when we could declare victory over the rebels. But, well, that might not be for quite a while yet."
"I was wondering about that," she admitted. "Doctor Long said you should just leave the mountains folk alone, that if you have to attack someone, there are more legitimate targets you should be worrying about, legitimate nation-states like Kush and Meropea."
The muscular badger shook his head. "That old Okapi would say that. But beating the Kushians and such are all a matter of logistics at this point. They know even going in that their surrender will be inevitable. They'll only put up enough of a fight to make sure they're in a good enough position to bargain well. No, my last real foes on this world are here, in these mountains. They're the ones who are fighting for real, and who are entrenching for the long run. These are the people I have to defeat if I want to really win all of Geode for the Unification Charter."
"For the Charter?" Ruth asked. "Or for yourself?"
He sighed. "That's a legitimate criticism. The honest answer is that I really don't know anymore."
She sat down across from the small folding table, smelling the roast bird and salivating despite herself. Definitely a step above the mess tent food she'd had to endure since enlisting.
Dammit, why did he have to be ambiguous? She was more unsure than ever if she should go through with her plans. "How come you never tried to contact us, Johan? Especially after the bombing?"
He shrugged. "I didn't know any of you survived. I'm sorry, Ruth, its true. I made some discreet inquiries, but no one could track you down. You fell out of the system, but I guess that's not too uncommon for refugees. Truthfully, I thought that if you had escaped, it would be better if I didn't look too hard. I had a number of enemies even back then, and if they found out I still had connections, they would have tried to strike at me through you or your family."
Ruth found herself becoming momentarily angry at the mention of her family, even though she made sure her expression remained tightly neutral. He seemed to have a pat answer for everything. Was it an act or wasn't it?
They talked more as they ate, mainly reminiscing about their younger days in San Drezen. Ruth found herself laughing and smiling along with Johan. It was very easy to forget he was the most powerful, and to some, the most ruthless, man in the world. For a little while, it was very easy for Ruth to see her old friend, Johan the fighter. Her protector who fought a half dozen men for her, who had been there for her when she needed him the most.
The stiletto on her thigh seemed heavier and heavier as the night wore on. She needed to be sure this was the right thing. Johan the would-be dictator deserves a knife in his chest. Johan her friend deserved every benefit of the doubt she could give him.
Her eyes grew wide. There was one way in which men were poor at hiding their true selves. And she certainly had a legitimate excuse for it, after he saved her life.
They had just finished the last of the roasted hen and were quietly sipping their wine. Now or never, she thought. "Its...a little hot in here, don't you think, Johan?"
He shrugged. "Let me adjust the heater..."
"Don't bother. I can get more comfortable myself." With a winsome smile, she began unbuttoning her shirt.
In her experience, males fell into two general categories: those who just took, and those who asked first. It spoke volumes more for their character than empty words ever could. She would see what he would do if she tried to seduce him. If he took without asking, he would be dead by dawn.
He goggled as she undid first one, then three buttons, exposing her deep furry cleavage to him. Her white regulation bra peeked through the fabric. He looked away, blinking self-consciously.
She slinked over to his extensive stereo, a luxury only a commander would be allowed on the front, and bent over naughtily while selecting a song from its digital memory. She heard him swallow nervously as strains of an older melody filled his quarters. It was a song that had been popular when they both lived in San Drezen, with a low beat and quick dance rhythm. She rewarded him with a playful smile. "Come on," she said, pulling on his arm. "Let's dance a bit."
Johan looked stricken. "I've--I've never..."
"Never? The big bad General Steenbok has never danced?"
He blushed brightly through his facial fur. "Uh, once, kind of, at my sister's wedding..."
"Over fifteen years ago!" she teased. "Okay, you don't have to dance. I'll dance for both of us." With that she launched into gyrating motions with her hips, swirling them in broad circles, moving in time with the beat. She twirled slowly, letting him see her from all angles as her hips and chest and legs all swayed rhythmically with the music.
"Whoo, its hotter in here than I thought," she said with a light chuckle after a few minutes, unbuttoning her blouse all the way. She shrugged it off, sliding the garment back and forth over her shoulder, before tossing it aside. Without even breaking stride, she unclasped her shorts and began wiggling them down over her hips.
She laughed out loud at seeing Johan's slack jaw as her shorts slid down her muscular thighs. She had to admit this was fun. She'd never had a male so completely mesmerized by her before. Honey Badgers, for whatever reason, generally weren't considered overly attractive by other sentient species. She felt more alluring than she had in years.
Still, he made no move toward her, reached out no hand to feel the parts of her body his eyes were drilling so intently. No one could say he wasn't well disciplined.
The music changed, and she stopped abruptly, conspicuously adjusting her bra. What would it take to get him to act?
She walked up to his chair, smiling down at him. Then she twirled around and sat on the floor in front of him, looking back over her shoulder at the general. "That was quite a work out. Would you want to give me a back rub?"
He said nothing, but only nodded vigorously. His large paws settled very lightly on her furry shoulders, and she could feel them tremble. His movements at first were very tentative, slowly digging into her flesh and tracing small circles. She murred low in pleasure.
Before they were even aware of it, she was soon splayed out on her stomach on the quarter's skimpy couch. Johan kneeled beside it working at her shoulders and back and thighs. When he began massaging her feet, she couldn't help but moan. He may have started out clumsily, but he had learned quickly.
When he finished working her toes, he stood, and with a long hesitation in his voice, said. "I'll get our drinks."
Ruth blinked. What was he waiting for? Did he even like girls? It wasn't even a matter of his asking anymore. He'd already shown the restraint of a saint. She couldn't think of a single male she had known who would not have had his hands all over her by now.
While his back was turned, Ruth quickly slipped off her bra and kicked off her panties. The garments were just fluttering to the floor when the general turned back around, both glasses in his thick fingers. As he had predictably done for the past hour, he goggled dumbfoundedly when he saw her latest stage of undress.
Ruth practically purred as she stretched on the couch on her side, looking up directly into his eyes. "See anything you like, Johan?"
He nodded absently. "I like it all, Ruth, but didn't know how to ask..."
She smiled broadly up at him, holding out her arms, arching her back, and spreading her legs slightly in a signal not even Johan could ignore. "I think, from now on, you won't need to ask ever again."
They made love for a number of long, hard, sweaty hours. Johan proved surprisingly robust and enthusiastic, and it was one of the most erotic nights of Ruth's life. Johan was every bit as focused and tenacious a lover as he was a fighter.
He finally fell asleep after their third time. He rumbled-snored softly as she snuggled contentedly into the crook of his powerful arm.
She had not completely stripped naked earlier. The stiletto, with its thin sheath, was still strapped to her thigh. Johan had hardly noticed it. It certainly wasn't unusual for soldiers to carry extra protection of some form or another, and of course Johan had been imminently distracted by other things.
Gently as she could, so as not to wake him, she straddled his stomach and pulled out the knife. His bare chest rose and fell steadily under her. One thrust with the weapon and that would be all it took to rid Geode of its would-be ruler.
She thought about it, long and hard, for many long minutes.
"The fate of the world is in your hands, Ruth," came a hoarse whisper. She looked and saw, with a start, that Johan's eyes were open and lucid, watching her.
Their eyes met, and they just regarded each other silently for many breathless heartbeats. What was he waiting for? Ruth wondered. He was much stronger than her, and far more skilled as a fighter. He could have her disarmed and helpless--hells, he could have her dead--between one tick of the clock and the next.
Instead, he made no move. It seemed to Ruth that he had no intention of moving against her at all. He lay there, arms calmly at his side, his chest bare and exposed to her. "Johan?" she asked quietly, confused.
"In a way it would be so much better like this," he said quietly. "Just get it done and over with. End everyone's suffering, including mine."
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know who I am anymore Ruth. When I left San Drezen, I was just so angry at everything. I never stopped lashing out. I thought the whole world was my enemy, that I had to do everything I could to fight back. They gave me a weapon, they gave me a new opponent, and I went after him with everything I had. I hardly noticed the promotions. All I cared about was the fight. Now, I really am fighting the whole world. And, gods help me, I'm winning. This isn't right. End it for me."
"Johan, I--I don't know if I can. Yes, I was hired to do this, but I'm not really sure I want to anymore."
"Please, Ruth. What I'm doing just tears everything away from me. Before tonight, before you, there was no one else. There couldn't be. But you've showed me what I'm missing. What am I going to become, Ruth? What kind of monster am I going to be if I succeed?" Tears formed in his eyes. "What kind of monster am I already? Gods, the things I've done..."
Ruth sucked her lips, her ears tapering back. "You won't become a monster, Johan."
"How can you know that?"
She tossed the knife away. It clattered noisily on the floor as she bent low and kissed him deeply. Her eyes searched his. "Because I'll be there to make sure that doesn't happen."
"So, still think we're barbarians, Doc?" Frederick Rayne asked.
Doc Long frowned as he watched the Admittance Celebration on the wall screen. It had been five years since he had last visited Geode. Johan Steenbok, in full military dress, looked extremely uncomfortable as he gave a long, halting speech commemorating the admittance of Geode into the galactic community. Behind him, his wife, Ruth Steenbok, bounced the year-old George Steenbok on her knee.
Enoch Long looked back at Jillian and Frederick, married now after their long collaboration in the field. They would normally have been covering their First Citizen's speech, but they were both on leave to rear their own firstborn, Lisa. They had heard Long was on-world, and invited him to join them to celebrate the planet-wide holiday.
"That remains to be seen," the Okapi said. "Things seem stable for now, I admit. But they never stay that way. And all that death and bloodshed that was needed to get this point may come back and haunt us all."
Frederick slapped their guest playfully on his broad back, handing the tall equinoid a beer. "Oh, come on, Doc! You're always full of doom and gloom. This is supposed to be a holiday! Even us barbarian savages take a break from our dastardly scheming once in a while for a barbecue. We have those grilled ears of corn that you like..."
The off world medic managed a weak smile. "You're right, I'm sorry. I've just seen so much in my lifetime, seen so many others like Steenbok make the same mistakes over and over. Let's hope this time it will be different." With a weary smile, he followed his host outside, murring happily at smelling the wonderful scents of roasted vegetables.
On the abandoned wall screen, the new planetary autocrat completed his speech and nuzzled his wife happily.