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Chapter 17

Nivea 'Niece' Gordon lay on the soft grass in her two-piece bikini and stared up towards the sky with a relaxed smile. They weren't going to get a lot of R&R, so she intended to make the best of it, sunning her soft brown fur in the warm sun on Atria Prime's Harrack Plateau. Surrounded on all sides by resorts stuffed full of Marines, Naval staff not associated with engineering and repairs, and the deeply grateful civilian population, she finally felt safe enough to relax.

Which might have been a mistake, she mused, as a shadow crossed over her to blot out the warming sun. She rolled to the left, long powerful muscles shifting her supple body with practiced ease that only saved her a moment form the pouncing attacker. As she rolled to her belly and tried to get up, the far larger fur recovered from his missed dive, came up on his knees, and grabbed her by the scruff and tail base to heave the Marine girl flailing into a roll.

Struggling, grunting, the two rolled a short ways downhill, before she ended up face-down in the grass, one arm twisted up behind her back and a heavy weight pinning her pelvis to the ground. She tried to roll, to kick, but her heels just hit heavily-muscled glutes to little effect.

"Say uncle, Niece!"

She was laughing now, writhing as a tickling paw came down and dug into her side, hitting the spot that made her flinch and snicker when poked.

"Damnit, Derry! Now's not the fucking time!"

He laughed, a rumble she could feel through his swim-trunk covered thighs, and gave her wrist a tweak that had her struggling again.

"Alertness training! You never know when someone's gonna sneak up on you!"

Airy giggling told her Derry's shadow had come along as well. The tiny little slip of a thing was their guest and ward during their little miniature furlough, and had slipped right into things like she belonged. Probably, Niece figured, because she looked like a little girl and thus a little sister.

Luckily she weighed about as much as a sheet of paper, so when the cat girl jumped into the grapple, it didn't add much to the weight squeezing her breath out.

"Totally hot, Derry," the cat bubbled, "you two make a cute couple! But you should get a room or something, like seriously. Just so long as I get to watch!"

The big male laughed, though Niece imagined she could feel the heat of his blush. For her own part, she was snorting and wriggling again, in a futile attempt to get free of the pin.

"Sorry, kiddo, I'm a big dyke. Derry's not girly enough for me. Also, he's a big fat-ass who won't get off my back!"

Derry was laughing, but Niece knew the subtext to it. He was trying to play nice about the whole thing, but it was pathetically obvious how much the big black wolf wanted her. The sad thing was, she would have loved to reciprocate - He was brave, caring, strong but gentle, a good friend who understood her sense of humor. Sadly, he had a dick and balls already attached, no tits, and was shaped like a body builder.

She had figured out days ago that Derry and Jenny were intimate. The looks, the sudden and impressive boner Derry had sported in his trunks that first day, when Jenny had given him that meaningful gaze and licked her lips like a starved gourmand. Nivea also knew Darryl was struggling with guilt over his infatuation, from the pained looks he kept giving Jenny when he thought the cat wasn't looking.

Niece wasn't sure if the cat was just somehow oblivious to it, or didn't suffer from sexual jealousy. Based on what she'd read about Atrian mix-breed culture in the last few days, she was inclined to think it was some combination of the latter and a high-minded sense of biological 'ethics.'

A beep in her ear must have been echoed in Derry's, because he finally let go and rolled off her back at that same moment, sitting in the grass to answer. As Niece rolled over and sat upright, brushing grass out of her fur, Jenny looked a bit perplexed by the sudden movement.

"Gordon here."

"Blake here."

Hearing Derry in stereo was a bit disorienting, but it seemed they were in conference call. The hard, dry as the desert voice that came through had both of their backs unconsciously going ramrod-straight.

"This is Major Thaurun. You are both to report at twenty-one-hundred, to room 1741 in your current hotel. Private Blake, leave your civilian with the unit. They are under orders to guard her while you are at the meeting. You are not to speak to anyone about this. Understood?"

"Yes, Major," both wolves responded.

"Thaurun out."

Derry turned his big brown eyes to Nivea, their habitually guarded expression momentarily gone. She could see the concern in his eyes - Such an order was odd, to say the least, especially two days in to a week-long R&R.

Nivea took his offered paw as he stood, and helped herself up with a slight wince. She had spent five days in the ship's hospital recovering from her broken ribs, and even with nano-surgeons to help, still felt a bit bruised.

The wolfess offered a paw to little Jenny, who took it and pulled herself up with her head cocked.

"What's going on, guys?"

Derry beat Nivea to the response, the two wolves exchanging a meaningful look.

"Not sure."

Olly Tense grunted, as he heard hips slapping into his ass, the force of impact pushing his face into the pillow again as he slid slightly on a well-padded table. The paraplegic otter knew an orgasm was close, by the tingling in his chest and throat, the clenching of his jaw and puffing of his lungs, the heat in his face and the twitching of his fingers as they gripped the table's edge.

"Fuck, Olly...Nngh...You want me to cum in you?"

The elite Whip bit his lip, sardonic remark about who would have to clean it up cut off by the surge of sensations from his sternum that radiated out like a slow-motion zero gravity fireball. His body was twitching, spasming muscles crying out with pleasure that he had thought no longer possible until a sex-drenched week ago when the armadillo now pounding his ass had gotten him off as a prurient 'medical' experiment.

It was addicting, to have so much sensation now. He couldn't feel his motionless spread legs, or his cum-gushing cock that splattered the floor beneath him with urgent strings of white, his twitching roiling balls that supplied the glorious rain of juices, or his spread-open dick-stuffed ass. But he could most certainly feel the orgasm that played up his chest into his shivering arms, along his throat, exploding in his no-doubt hilarious o-face and wiping out all thought from his brain for a moment.

The furtive nature of their relationship only seemed to enhance things for him. He was, at least technically, a prisoner of war when this had started, although he'd already been informed that he was going to be released. As of two days ago, with hostilities ended, he was a free man, though he had elected to stay at the resort with Corpsman Derkin until the Atrian military was sufficiently re-formed.

Derkin, the same fur who was now grunting and pounding into Olliver's ass with short, hard strokes that had the otter whining in overstimulation and burying his face into their suite's pillows. Another full-body orgasm was wracking through him, seeming to billow up from the first before it had yet faded away.

Then Derkin was grunting, puffing, and wrapping both big, strong arms around the once-athletic otter's chest, blowing hot breaths across his ear as he made soft noises deep in his throat. Olly imagined, hazily, that the armadillo's cum was blasting up his ass right now, filling him with warmth that logically he knew came from oxytocin in his blood stream and not the silky, gooey tactile warmth of the male's sperm.

After a while, he felt like breath and thought had finally returned, and Olly consented to allowing a lazy smile to wriggle across his muzzle.

"We've got to slow down...What if my nerves get too used to this, huh?"

The armadillo laughed and licked at the rim of his round, soft-furred ear. It had taken time to break down Olliver's angry resistance to intimacy, and he was barely able to tolerate it. He wanted it, though, despite all paradox of emotion, and flicked his ear back as the larger and more ambulatory male tightened his arms, pressing Olly's naked back to his smooth chest.

"I doubt that's going to be a problem, but if you want to start topping let me know."

"Pff, ass. How am I going to top when I can't move my legs?" Previously, his tone would have been full of sullen rage. Now it was just vaguely sardonic, amused, mostly relaxed. He was a top, back before the accident, always wanting to be in control and 'superior'. The otter still missed that feeling, though he'd come to realize how poorly he'd treated some of his lovers.

"Oh I don't know. Horniness is the father of creativity."

"I think you mean...Oh hell, nevermind."

The entertainment center built into their wall beeped, indicating an incoming message. Then the screen began to light up, to Olliver's squawked horror. Derkin blinked, confused for a second, then looked up, just as the screen went from grey to being full of color and Commander Forza's smiling face.

Well, smiling followed by eyebrows trying to climb off his forehead.

For a few seconds, all three sets of eyes just stared at one another. Then Olliver elbowed the usually-unflappable medic, growling at him.

"You left auto-answer on? Goddamnit!"

"No, I haven't touched the thing since we got here...Uh..."

Forza coughed and fiddled with something out of sight.

"This is Commander Forza, are Captain Tense and Corpsman Derkin available? I'm not getting visual."

A blatant lie for the camera, but neither fur was going to complain that he was covering for them. Derkin finally pulled free with a lewd sucking sound, followed by drip-splat noises as thick white cum leaked from the immobile otter's asshole. Quick motion took the burly armadillo to the screen, where he punched a button to factually render Forza's declaration correct.

"Uh, yes Commander, we're both here. Sorry about the tech difficulties."

Forza laughed and shook his head with that easy grace of his.

"Understood, Corpsman. I'm sorry to interrupt your R&R, but there's a briefing and both of you need to be present."

Olly felt his heart sink, and sighed, letting his face flop into the pillow. So much for rest and recuperation.

"2100 hours, room 1741. I'm under orders to tell you that this meeting is confidential. Need-to-know, understood?"

That got Olly looking up, despite the awkward angle it left his neck in. Both eyebrows went up, to be met by a single raised brow from his...Well, he was uncertain whether to call him 'his personal medic,' or 'butt-buddy' or 'boyfriend.' Frankly he didn't want to think that far ahead. The current mystery was more pressing in any case.

"Understood, sir. Olliver and I will be there."

"Good, I'm glad to hear it. You two enjoy the rest of the day. Forza out."

The screen went black again, and Derkin jerked forward like it was on fire, grabbing the control and fiddling until the settings screen was up so he could shut off auto answer. Then, as an afterthought, he shut off visual communication altogether.

Olliver, meanwhile, gripped the table and carefully rolled himself over, leaving his legs flopped to one side at an awkward angle. He was blushing like a fire hydrant, now that he had a second to think.

"That...Shit! Goddamnit...Fuck...Mmfp!"

Further cursing was cut off as the big medic stalked over, leaned down, grabbed him by the back of his head, and tried to eat his tonsils.

No one would have known the two delinquents were ranked Lieutenant Commander just by looking. The shorter one, a slim red-furred squirrel, was handling the hover-cycle's controls, zipping along unpaved terrain at speeds that hovered somewhere between 'completely illegal' and 'deranged risk to self and others.' The taller of the two, a long-limbed alligator lizard, clung with what looked like terror to the other male's middle.

"Bill, slow down! You're gonna get us killed!"

"Oh chill out you pussy! We're fighter pilots, this is nothing!"

"We're used to SPACE, you nutjob! SPACE...Which is full of NOTHING TO CRASH INTO!"

A very rude tree tried to decapitate him with a low-flung branch, and only a last-instant adjustment by his wingman saved Randy Kerrick, called Solomon Sign, from a broken skull or worse. Instead, the branch just clonked off the top of his high-crested helmet, startling the nervous-natured male as his boyfriend whooped out in exhilaration.

"GodDAMNIT, Void! Set this thing down or so help me...!"

He grabbed at the mad-squirrel's nuts, hoping to use them as a threat, but found his hand grabbing onto an obscenely-bulged erection stuffed into the skin-tight leather clubbing pants. The lizard glared at his boy's ears, unable to see his eyes, and gave it a squeeze. The communicator in his helmet let them talk at normal tones, even at such wind-blasting speeds.

"Fine, goddamnit. I'll make a deal. Take us back to the hotel and I'll suck your dick till you get tired of it."

"Pff, you like doing that anyway."

The lizard snapped his jaw, clicking his teeth together inside the helmet. The squirrel flinched, his big bush of a tail, trapped between them, trying to flag instinctively. It was an old signal between them, ever since they'd first dated at flight school. He'd finally pissed the lizard off too much one fine day, and got himself bit in the dick for his trouble. Explaining the necessary stitches at the base hospital had been one of his trickier bits of flying that year.

"Okay okay, jesus Randy. I get it."

A beep over the headset came like the toggling of a light switch, both of them falling back into their 'business' demeanor as the hovercycle coasted and began to lose speed.

"Lieutenant Commanders Verman and Kerrick, this is Lieutenant. Cross on the Fist of the Nascent Dawn, do you copy?"

"Copy, El-Tee, go ahead," the squirrel responded, as Randy clung to his back, panting in relief at their return to sane, safe-ish speeds.

The caracal's voice sounded way too young to both sets of ears. Neither had met her in person, having had no reason to interact with the bridge staff, but the common joke among aviators was that the fleet had run out of real officers and recruited teenage models to run the Fist.

"Captain Leith has asked for both of you to be at a briefing, Hotel Caracas room 1741, at 21:00 hours. Confidential, need-to-know. Over."

"Lieutenant Cross, we're on leave. Are you sure this message is for us? Over."

"Yes, Lieutenant Commander. Sorry to bust up your fun. Lieutenant Cross out."

Randy sighed into the headset, and Bill grumbled at the same time.

"Damnit."

The sun was long set by the time the first two furs entered a 17th-floor hotel room half an hour early. Its door had been unlocked, allowing Derry and Niece to walk in first and get a look around, unsure what to expect. Unfortunately the well-furnished but otherwise empty chamber was empty and revealed nothing to the two BDU-dressed Marines.

Minutes later, Derry had found himself in a rather awkward staring match with a wheelchair-bound otter of his acquaintance, while the big wolf leaned against a wall corner and wondered just what the hell this was about. Niece leaned in to whisper something, her warm breath on his face sending a shiver he barely managed to conceal.

"Hey isn't that..."

"Yeah. Walker pilot that killed some of our Marines back at the elevator."

The Whip decided to ignore them both entirely after that whisper, pulling out a tablet to continue reading a novel Derkin had talked up the night before. He ended up snorting in derision at the terrible narration and cheesy themes of a dime-store medieval fantasy. The armadillo nodded to Derry and Niece, receiving nods in return, and stayed near his charge with arms crossed over his uniform's chest and armored back to the wall.

At 20:57, Derry raised brows as a pair of decidedly strange-looking furs entered. One was a shortish, skinny squirrel with a rather smug look on his red-furred face, dressed in skin-tight clubbing leathers and biker jacket. The other was a tall, stickish alligator lizard that looked downright shy despite clubbish black-and-mesh gothwear that showed off a rather obvious leather codpiece and some half-hidden bondage harness straps.

Finally, at precisely 21:00, as effervescent Niece was about to get bored and start trying to make conversation, Corporal Kerr strode into the room in his BDU's, rifle case carried in one hand and duffel over his shoulder. He let the door click shut behind him, and took two steps to its right, before nodding towards an empty corner of the room. Derry followed his eyes, but saw nothing, and just ignored the odd faux pas to look back at the Corporal and speak with a smile.

"Hey Corporal, good to see ya."

Kerr nodded to him and strode over, shaking paw to hand with the big wolf.

"Good work back there, Blake. Gordon, you too."

Derry actually blushed, though his black fur concealed it well. Such straightforward praise from a respected veteran felt strange to him, less like encouragement and more like acknowledgment.

"So...Any idea what we're here for? Looks like whoever's briefing us is late."

"Your chrono is off, then," said a voice that seemed to come from nowhere. All eyes were looking around then, except for Kerr's, trying to find any sign of the speaker. Derry's ocular implant failed to locate anyone, which made him nervous enough to step closer to Niece in case things got suddenly hairy. He felt naked, without a rifle to paw.

In that same corner to which Kerr had nodded, a shimmering of light presaged the sudden appearance of a shapely woman in a fully body-covering armor suit, who faded in seemingly from nowhere as her optical camouflage powered down. The suit was skin-tight, but for armor plating and pouches that fit in sleek profile, the suit itself a strange shimmery grey-green hue that swiftly shifted in liquid swirls to beige and brown colors more suitable to indoor camouflage in their particular environs.

The leather-pants'd squirrel laughed.

"Optical camo! Nice! Whoever you are, you're worth something to someone."

The agent reached up and unsnapped a pair of seals on her mask. Nivea snorted as it came off, and shook her head, as the vixen-ape hybrid girl who had saved her life back at the orbital elevator let her long hair spill out.

"Good evening, everyone. Sorry to drag you out of your vacation time, but your specific talents are needed."

She gestured to the suite's set of couches and chairs, inviting everyone to sit with a decorous motion as she herself took a chair and plopped down with careless grace. Reaching into a small pocket just above her right breast, the vixen-hybrid produced a holographic emitter in the form of a small cylinder with glass lenses ranged over it's surface.

Slowly, others began sitting down, though Kerr stayed with his back to the wall just next to the odor, leaving two empty seats around the coffee table at the room's center. With curious eyes flicking back and forth, meeting one another and passing, the seated furs waited in curious semi-tension, until Candace began.

"My name is Candace Waters. Before we begin, I need everyone here to give me their word that the topics and content of this meeting will remain completely secret. If you cannot in good faith promise me that you will speak of these proceedings to no one, including your families and unit-mates, I will ask you to leave now."

Everyone's eyes stayed on her, some curious, others bored but willing. No one got up to leave, and Derry finally cut the tension by speaking.

"I swore an oath to be always faithful to the USF and the Marine Corps. As long as this meeting isn't going to violate those oaths, I'll stay."

Nivea nodded her head, and gestured with a flick of her chin to Derry.

"What he said."

Olliver sighed and turned off the tablet with a flick of his finger, stowing it in the shining metal chair before crossing arms over his chest and fixing Candace with a sour-faced stare.

"Not sure what you are up to, but it's clear that you aren't just a civilian. Before I make you any hasty promises, I need to know who you are."

Candace smiled prettily, and produced a passport-sized badge wallet from her other breast pocket. Derry meanwhile frowned at the off-pawed jab. He wasn't hasty, at least he didn't like to think so. When the vixen-mix flipped the black leather thing open, he didn't bother worrying about the slight any further.

Most eyes around the room went a little wide at the insignia on the badge within. A stylized calligraphy letter 'I' was picked out on it in black. The badge's background was in red bronze, a pyramid with an eye engraved into its top. Admiral Kerrick's nephew shivered involuntarily at the specter that insignia summoned to mind.

"I am First Lieutenant Candace Waters of the Internal Special Security Bureau. You six have been selected as candidates for a Special Operations Group with a specific mission in mind. Your commanders have been made aware of the need, and have agreed to detach all of you should you volunteer. However, before I can give you any information on the mission, you have to commit to it with the knowledge only that the mission is of extreme priority and involves significant risk."

Now the real face-searching started. Derry's dark eyes found Nivea's, communicating in silence with her. The female wolf had faith in his choice, ears forward and eyes slightly wide, even though he would rather let her more intelligent mind make the call. A second later, he met eyes with the two civilian-dressed folk one after the other, unable to read the lizard's amphibian orbs but getting a sense of excited anticipation from the squirrel. Derkin's choice was obvious. For all his grumpiness in the field, the big armadillo was smart and enthusiastic about his duty.

Lastly, the Whip and the Marine met eyes. The otter's were green-blue like the stormy sea, filled with a hauteur that matched his crippled but aristocratic looks and posture. Derry had to restrain his hackles from trying to rise at the pampered rich fur, with the knowledge that this enemy had at least stood and fought honorably. They had been on opposite sides of the battlefield, trying to kill one another with all their artifice and skill, in defense of their duty.

Derry nodded first, a slight motion that less-attentive eyes would have missed. With a frown that might have been distaste, the motion was returned. The moment of decision passed, in a gesture of grudging respect between warriors. Derry could see in the otter's eyes that their dislike of one another was mutual. If they were going to serve together, they would have to find some way around it.

"Pretty sure I speak for everybody, ma'am, when I say we're in." It just felt right, to take the lead like that. Derry figured it must be the Marine Corps training that had made him speak up. Since nobody objected, he let himself relax.

Candace's smile was as vulpine as her face, eyes full of satisfaction. Then she pushed the button on her holographic projector device, and the pleasure faded from her face. Derry watched as it was replaced by a grimness that gave him a lump of trepidation. Something was direly wrong, he knew with certainty, just before the three-dimensional galactic map glowed into existence.

"You all probably have wondered why Captain Leith ordered that the communications blackout continue into your R&R. You're wondering about your families, and what's going on in the outside world, cut off as you've been from news and the GalNet.

All six listened intently. Indeed those questions had been on their minds, and rather prominently at that. Such a blackout was strange, once the shooting was over, and had led to undue stress among the enlisted especially. Kerr seemed unconcerned, and Derry wondered if it was something to do with his familial relationships, or if he knew more than he was letting on. The black wolf hadn't given a second thought to his mother, really. His little sister, though, he wanted to talk to, at the very least to check up on her.

With a sweep of her gloved primate-hand, Candace set the Galaxy, once hued mostly in blue and green with small dashes of yellow to indicate combat zones into a swirl of psychedelic color, a kaleidoscope of chaos.

"At about the same time your battleship came under attack, the Galatea Bloc stormed the USF Congress' joint session. Within ten hours, twenty six factions had formed, largely regional, some military or trade-based. Gentlemen, the reason behind our blackout was to prevent mass mutiny or desertion. The galaxy is in a state of civil war."

Silence fell like a shroud over the room, as if a hammer had just smashed the speaker which had given them all sense of sound. Derry's eyebrows had shot up, and he stared at the galaxy map in disbelief, unable to interpret the immensely detailed and tiny diagram. Nivea was off the couch, and down on a knee in front of the device, waving her paw and taking immediate command of the device, to Candace's evident surprise.

As the brown wolf zoomed and panned, the entire galactic map grew, occupying much of the space above the coffee table with swirling eddies of color and dots of light to represent stars. Written in tiny script, text labeled systems and major settled planets, detailing the astrography of the USF in all its incomprehensible massiveness. Nivea grunted, and pointed before speaking in a quick, inquisitive tone of observation.

"I don't see a 'USF' faction."

"The USF government is gone. For now, the ISSB and Admiral Kerrick's First Fleet are working to rescue the Senate."

Derry spoke up, leaning in to give the map a closer look now that he could make some sense of it.

"Atria is in the First Fleet-controlled zone. I assume that means we're fighting on behalf of Admiral Kerrick?"

The alligator lizard spoke up, his tone soft and distant with his eyes gazing into the galaxy's slowly spinning depth.

"Kerrick is my uncle, and I know him well. He's absolutely dedicated to the USF. Every bone, every scale."

Candace continued, the question effectively answered.

"We now know that the coup here on Atria was planned and fomented by members of a shadowy extra-governmental group. The same group appears to have been responsible for coordinating the attack on the USF Galactic Senate. ISSB intelligence suggests that certain members of this group disapproved of the plan, or had left the group before it took direct action. Your SOG unit is being formed to extract a member of the organization from a combat zone and return him to First Fleet for debrief."

"I assume the ISSB and First Fleet are working together...So why are we shown as separate factions on the map?"

Nivea didn't miss a trick, Candace knew, even from their brief time under fire together in the battles for Atria Prime. Sooner or later, the truth of the Shadows of Eva would come out, but for now she couldn't take the risk that such a newly-formed group would balk at such a far-fetched story.

"It was agreed between the ISSB's top people and Admiral Kerrick that we needed to hedge our bets. If one faction was unable to maintain its coherency in this chaos, the other could hopefully sweep up the surviving assets and continue on. This is going to be a long, complicated fight."

"No shit," grumbled from Nivea's lips. She was holding her poise, managing a façade of relaxed attentiveness. Under it all, Derry could see the tension anyway, in her darting eyes and slightly drumming fingers. Her uncle was a wealthy, powerful industrial magnate, a fat target stuffed with enough war material and manufacturing plants to make a very tempting target.

Olliver sighed, loud enough to catch Derry's attention. The otter's forehead was bunched, and he was rubbing at it as if he had the galaxy's most massive headache. When he spoke, Derry noticed how his own hackles tried to rise again, and scowled at the lack of self-control.

"This all makes a disturbing amount of sense. No wonder the Atrian military was going insane. All that said, just why in the hell am I here, Ms. Waters?"

Her smile was winning, charming, and she sat back on her chair, crossing one leg over the other and fixing the angry-faced otter with a disarming look that had him narrowing his eyes and about to explode with accusation.

"Why do you think, Captain Tense? You're the only Whip on-planet at the moment."

"Yes, and a cripple. With no Walker. Thus about as useless as tits on a bull." Derry made note of that bitterness, watching the broiling fur's face as his paws clenched and unclenched in fists on the arms of his wheelchair.

"Oh, I think that could be remedied. Stick with us, Captain, and I promise you won't regret it."

He glared at her, as if expecting some trick, but when Derkin's paw landed on his shoulder, the otter looked up, met his eyes, and then sank into a sullen quiescence, muscular arms crossed over his chest. The Corpsman just sort of grinned and shrugged at Derry by way of explanation. The wolf was pretty certain he saw a well-hidden blush on the armadillo's cheeks, but had no time to ponder why.

With a swipe of her hand, Candace had the galaxy map flicked off and everyone's attention back on her. A moment later, she was switching to a second holographic image, tapping one of several setting buttons on the device's side.

As the new image appeared, Derry's heart jolted in his chest, his gut churned, and he shot to his feet, knocking the couch back as he did. Nivea shot to her feet, bewildered by the sudden explosion of motion, but backing her teammate without question.

"What the fuck is this?" he exclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at the image as he glared toward Candace. The vixen, evidently entirely unsurprised, met his eyes with a cool calmness that made his anger billow and then settle into a brooding anticipation for her answer.

"That is Tenh Kandal. The ISSB knows him as Shadow Four. He's the former Shadow Agent we will be extracting. Centauri is under attack. I thought you might want in because of it."

Derry trembled with fury even he failed, momentarily, to understand the source of. Staring at him, slowly rotating in the holographic display, was the white and pale golden face of his ancient mentor, the Old Mountain himself, the sage old Marine who had brought him the light hope through service. In the image, he looked younger, perhaps twenty years or so, but the look in his eyes and the shape of his face were utterly unmistakable, intense and staring, wary and unyielding. The very source of his own internal image, he realized, of what a 'good man' should be.

Now, in a few nonchalant seconds, the hybrid girl, an agent of a shadowy agency of spies and secret police, was accusing the male he saw as his own true father, of treasonous membership in an organization that had torn the guts out of the galaxy.

He rounded on Candace, vision narrowing until it contained only hear. His voice was a roar that had Kerr making his way from the wall, had Derkin jerking Olliver's chair back and hopping in front of it to protect the crippled otter, had the two pilots backing up.

"You've got it wrong, this man's no goddamn traitor!"

She tried to respond, but the rushing in his ears blotted out her words. The vixen had slid to her feet, the smug self-assuredness gone from her face, as eyes that looked too honest to be real tried to explain things he refused to hear.

A paw on his arm jolted him back, then, as blunt claw-tips dug in hard enough to leave little bruises on the bicep. He twisted, glaring at their source, only to find a wall of annoyance staring right back at him, unfazed by his wrath.

"Get a grip, Blake! We'll get more information in the dossier packets! Sit the FUCK down!"

Parade-ground yell snapped him back to reality, as Nivea Gordon slapped him with a lash of words and determination that had the big wolf staggering back and flopping onto the couch, going emotionally numb as he stared at the image with a sense of betrayal and dawning fear billowing in his chest.

If old man Tenh wasn't worthy of trust, then all he had come to believe might be false. His sister might be dead or in lethal danger. Candace's words finally broke through, as she repeated them a third time.

"Private Blake, he left the organization well before this plan was in direct motion. We believe he did so as protest. He's not the enemy. We're going there to extract him, not capture him."

The frayed ribbon of hope was all he had. Maybe there was some explanation for this, something more believable than 'the ISSB is lying for some arcane reason'. His face ended up in his paws, claw tips digging into his close-cropped scalp.

"Shit..."

The room was quiet, as others waited, uncertain the tension was done, that the dangerous storm had passed. Derry's voice felt pinched, as it came out, slicing through the thunderous gloom.

"When do we leave for Centauri?"

Lt. Waters reached over to a bureau, and produced from it seven thin manila folders. Within them, skeletal information, what little they had on the enemy force, the planned operation, and a much longer list of available equipment, waited to be read. As she set them down on the table, Waters stood up and looked around to every face in the room in turn.

"Gentlemen, welcome to 12th SOG. Your unit codename is Dragonslayer."