FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Sorry for the slowness, everyone. Inspiration has been difficult to come by lately. Possibly the onset of writer's block? Never really suffered it before, so I don't know.

Anyway, comments are welcome!

Chapter 32

"So what you're telling me is you left her there, alone in the dark surrounded by enemies, to lead people who were after you away?"

"Yes. Stalker would have killed her just to spite me. Her chances were far better if I abandoned her at that time and drew the enemy in another direction."

Derry wanted to yell, to kick something, to throw a punch. But as he paced back and forth across the suite's common room, furious as a thundercloud, the Marine Sergeant in him couldn't deny Tenh's logic and tactical assessment. Unfortunately, that rational, calm explanation from his mentor didn't serve to make him any less angry, only remove an easy outlet for his tempestuous wrath.

"Did it occur to you that she's not even fourteen years old? That it isn't normal for some barely-teenager to have to fight for her life like that?"

The steam was dying, even though his anger still burned acidly in his chest. EvenDerryknew it. Their argument was already coming to an end, and he was going from an anger-high to a sudden depressed urge to curl up and hide somewhere. Fear of losing his sister had rushed through him the moment he'd seen his mentor sitting on the bed, just as intensely as it had for hours of watching her unconscious, blood-slicked body back in the underground. Logically he knew she was fine, recovering well and better-protected than most furs in the war-torn galaxy, but the sensation just wouldn't leave.

Tenh had removed his jacket before the conversation began, and undone his uniform shirt. If he hadn't, the lion would have been in uniform, andDerrywouldn't have been allowed to address the high-ranking officer with such anger and informality. Nor would the next set of questions been tolerable Then again, given he'd just failed to respond to Derry's previous question, leaving it to hang in the air with a pointed stare, the wolf felt like forging on uniform or not.

"Who the fuck are you really?"

"I am precisely who I have told you. I never lied to you, Darrel. Never once in your life."

"Yeah, but you also never gave me the whole truth. For all I know, I'm some...Fucking expendable pawn in your little millennia-long game of fucking chess..."

His shouting was devolving into pouting andDerryknew it. Embarrassed by his own childishness, his face flushed with heat, though the rumbling growls hadn't entirely stilled in his chest. The wolf folded his casted-over arms and finally sat down glowering, staring daggers at the lion he found himself still thinking of as his father, across the wooden dinner table of his suite. What he saw in the other fur's face startled him, forcing his brows up in confusion.

Tenh looked tired, his eyes not fully open, seeming even a bit sunken, though his posture was as upright and ready as ever. It was as if the great age that had once exhausted his frame now rested solely behind his ancient ocean-deep eyes, weighted with ten-ton stones of tragic knowledge. Nonetheless, there was no hesitation in the lion's voice, as there would be from any normal fur speaking of such a thing.

"I told you the truth, but left out key facts you did not need to know. Telling you would have caused more trouble than it was worth. For what value such words have, I apologize for the confusion I have caused you. It must be difficult. Please understand, Darrel, I never wanted either of you to be part of this."

"Then why'd you push me to join the Marines?"

"Primarily because you had the right to do with your life as you wish. You wanted to serve something greater than yourself, and find a way to raise you and your sister out of poverty. Who am I to say no to that? Secondly, because I was foolish enough to believe the other Shadows would remain inactive for longer than they did."

Tenh had never been arrogant, thatDerrycould ever think of. The ancient lion had never been precisely humble, either. It had always seemed to him that the mountainous old man had seen no use in such emotions, seen them as frivolities that he neither understood nor cared to. Now,Derrysaw, the 'mask' he'd been so furious about discovering had merely been hiding a far more human individual underneath. The crumbled façade scared him, as if the mountain's cliff face had just cracked and begun to fall, revealing unknown and frightening caves of personality behind.

Letting himself hate the man who had saved him, raised and protected him, and more importantly his sister, was just somethingDerrycouldn't bring himself to do. With a gut, deep sigh of aggravation, he let his head fall to the table top with a thump, while grumbling out a short sentence filled with emotional exhaustion that seemed all too quick to return.

"So...Now you're my commanding officer. You prevented me from having sex with one of my subordinates because it would be bad for unit morale and against the uniform military code."

"No. I stopped it to warn you about the unintended consequences of such a relationship. As a special operations unit, I am authorized to ignore minor infractions so long as they do not contribute to lessened unit effectiveness."

"So if I went in there right now and screwed Nivea's brains out, you wouldn't stop me?"

"I would."

"But you just said..."

"You have no condoms."

Derry looked up, his chin flat on the table, and raised an eyebrow at his mentor, who sat back opposite to him with burly arms crossed over his massive chest, fixing his junior with a stare involving the half-raised brow that meant he was disappointed inDerry's lack of forethought. Or amused. Probably amused, the wolf thought sourly.

"You searched our things?"

"No. I did not smell latex dust in either of your rooms, and I sincerely doubt the otter and armadillo pair have condoms that correct for canine anatomy."

"Fuck."

"Rather the opposite I should think."

Gazing up from under his eyebrows,Derryfixed him with a glare that had all the effect of a bird kicking a boulder. Tenh let him have his thoughts for a moment, content as ever to be silent when there was no immediate need for words. In his way, it was his method of showing amusement. Then, he surprisedDerryagain by standing and striding around the table.

Before he knew what was happening, the muscular, tall wolf was picked up as if he weighed not a thing, wrapped in a burly hug that surrounded him in thick fur and bone-smashing muscle flexed only precisely as powerfully as was needed for a father to embrace his errant son. His face felt hot, burning as acid tears rolled down from his eyes into the fur of his mentor and father-figure, the single rock upon which his whole adult life had been inspired. Derrydidn't realize he was shaking with emotion and relief until his arms were buried in the older male's fur in the best embrace he could give without functional arms.

"If you or your sister had died on my behalf, I could not have forgiven myself," the great lion rumbled out, voice low, the words for Derry andDerryalone to hear. "You are both my children, in every meaningful sense. It is the most important truth of all the ones I have told you. Whatever else you wish to know from me, just ask."

Derry couldn't vocalize his thoughts then, and simply buried his face in the older fur's chest, letting quiet shakes of his shoulders and gut spill the conflicting tides of an emotional whirlpool until they could drain away of their own accord. His mother was dead, his sister severely hurt, but the only important things about his life had all been saved now. For all the terror and pain he had suffered, the Dragonslayers under his leadership had achieved victory, and in that moment he felt it for the first time.

Adriana's regulation-short golden hair bobbed slightly with each motion of her creamy-skinned naked body, bright eyes blue as the tropical sea looking up at Galen as she grinned around his endowment, slurping it like a popsicle as he massaged her scalp with the fingers of one paw. The other was cupping her cheek, tracing the silk-soft and delicate skin there, so strange to paws long experienced with furry females.

That his former Captain, the iron lady of the Fist, hero of the fleet, was down on her knees, hands gripping his chiseled-muscle thighs, bobbing and slurping noisily on his steely prick was an amazing thought to him. No less amazing than the delicious sensations rolling through his groin and up his body as her tongue did something she'd quickly discovered during their wonderful tryst that made his toes try to curl. He'd yet to figure out exactly what it was, but it involved a rather dextrous swirling motion in time with her bobbing, twisting head.

He felt almost sad there wasn't much he could do in return for the pleasure she was giving him, at least not at that moment. All he could do was sit back, stroke her silky hair and cradle her beautiful face, as she did all the work of bringing him to what would no doubt be a volcanic climax. One hand's worth of Adriana's fingers were gripping into the soft charcoal fur of his thighs, her hips wriggling in a way that made him envision her with a tail, lashing back and forth with vixenish, mischievous lascivity.

Galen's head thumped back against a porthole, tinted black by the adaptive pigmentation that gave them privacy from the EVO crews that were working overtime to repair his ship. The expansive quarters afforded the Captain of the Star of Aden sprawled around them, space far less a concern here than aboard the pocket-sized and economical Fist of the Nascent Dawn. Fine hardwood paneling was smooth against his nude upper back, soft-grain leather enfolding his rear and lower back in a caressing embrace, the most comfortable office chair he'd ever encountered aboard ship.

Meanwhile, Adriana Leith's delectable, steaming-hot lips were slurping with tireless hunger up and down his shaft, tongue teasing veins and little nerve clusters that had his hard-muscled ass dancing in the chair and his tail flapping about like a brain-damaged seagull. Never one for subtlety, her brilliant blue diamond eyes looked up at him, met his own with a sparkle, and the corners of her lips curled in a grin right before she jammed herself downward. Galen's jaw went slack as he stared, watching her shoulders twitch as she struggled not to choke, before a quick trio of swallows had his tip sliding down her throat.

A sudden burst of musky spice scented the air, as Adriana's eyes lidded shut. Her whole body twitched, shivering and shaking like a tiny earthquake, muscles fluttering in waves that radiated out from where fingers dipped into her steaming core. Galen realized she'd just orgasmed, her throat plugged shut by his thick cock, long delicate fingers jammed into the baby-soft place between her shaved-bare lips.

The sight and thought in combination were too much, and as if she could read his mind, her hand was wrapped around his pendulous balls just before the first cathartic, overwhelming surge of pleasure shot through him. Tingling had seemed to start from the tip of his prick, where it was mashed down her throat, but spread with the speed of lightning down into his knot, through it to his balls, then boiled back up along with a tidal wave of cum that rocketed directly down the quivering human beauty's throat.

She'd figured out a rhythm of squeezes, he noted distantly, milking his balls for all they were worth, as her dew-dripping hand came up and enveloped his knot, constricting it as if he were locked to her vice-tight pussy as he had been their first time together. Galen's howl echoed off the sound-proofed bulkheads as he exploded all over again before the first set of jets had finished, jerking in his seat as his cock exploded a seemingly endless supply of watery wolf sperm straight into her belly.

After a time, he came down from a primal, atavistic swirling realm of pleasure and instinct, to the sound of Adriana coughing. His eyes shot open, as his snout flared to take in the scent of cum and female juices, sweat and leather, and he saw here knelt between his legs, leaning on one of his knees, coughing and blushing. She must have pulled off, he realized, and choked herself on one of the little drizzly spurts that would continue coming out of his prick for at least the next few minutes.

She had a grin on her face, though, and her chin was dripping the watery remnant of what she hadn't been able to swallow on her way off him. Adriana looked up his way as he reached forward to touch her cheek in amused apology, furrowing her brow as if in confusion as her mouth opened like she were about to speak.

Galen thought he recognized the motion, and quickly grabbed for a waste bin, wincing and hoping she wasn't about to vomit up his cum all over the place. It wouldn't exactly be romantic, or pleasant for his lover, who had just been so good as to drink his balls dry for the last half hour.

Instead, as he was about halfway to her with the bucket, she let out a rumbling noise.

"URRPPpp!"

With both brows raised, he finished turning towards her to find Adriana's face gone red like the dawn sun, both dainty hands clasped over her mouth as she tried desperately not to laugh hysterically. She'd just belched like a dyspeptic elephant, off a meal of his copious load of canine spunk. Galen dropped the bucket laughing, grabbing his stomach and chortling until she managed to straighten up enough to punch him once, hard, in the chest.

"Watch it, doggy boy!"

"Hit me again, you're even prettier when angry!" the wolf snickered out, tail wagging as the human woman sat up straight, perky b-cup breasts thrust forward and jiggling as she laughed and swung again, only to be deflected by a hastily-erected defense of his raised arm.

They play-fought for a while, laughing and whapping at each other, until he finally slid out of the chair and ended up on the floor with her, grabbing the slender female and tugging her into his sloppy lap for a sloppier kiss that had her arching her hips toward his lap and groaning softly by the time it was done.

Finally, she rested, panting softly with her damp chin on his shoulder, their arms wrapped firmly around one another's tired bodies. Their amorous interlude came at the end of a long day of inspections and paperwork that promised to be followed by many other such long days, and he could feel the fatigue in her slender frame. Galen took her rest as an opportunity to taste Adriana's salty-skinned neck, trace his sharp fangs along the delicate skin, feel her baby-smoothness with paws that roamed the weary warrioress' trembling back.

"So," Galen whispered, before slavering his great long tongue up her ear to elicit the helpless shivers of arousal he so loved feeling rock through her body, "how are repairs going aboard the Fist?"

"Mm...Hm?" she answered, distracted, while tilting her neck. Having been granted better access, Galen wasted no time in nibbling her throat, lapping and nipping happily as she struggled to gather herself enough for a lucid answer.

"Fine for now...Replacing a lot of electronics...Mm...Nothing so bad as here, though..."

The Star of Aden had been crippled, almost to the point of being designated as a space wreck and abandoned. In their savage exchange, the Fist had come out a clear victor due to her vastly superior maneuverability and the heroic acts of her crew. Already rumors were running around the fleet that the Fist's performance was being codified for addition to military texts. What wasn't rumor was that Galen had sat in meetings of the admirals, wherein they had openly discussed constructing a whole line of Dawn-class tactical battleships once the Titan shipyards had ben recaptured.

No one had batted a lash at the creation of a new ship-class designation. Kerrick had coined the phrase, and no one had questioned it.

Galen smiled at the memory, and set his cheek against hers, cradling the exhausted woman in his arms and lap while he relished in the soft warmth of her body against his fur. Meanwhile, his eyes traced around the spacious Captain's quarters of his new command, spotlessly clean but for the musky sticky remnants of their recent mutual recreation. The Star of Aden, a massive battleship, was so large that even blasted nearly apart, whole sections of the capital ship had suffered nothing more than minor cosmetic damage.

"Star ofAdenwill be at about 75% in three weeks. Not really battle-ready, but Kerrick tells me we'll have to make do."

The soft-skinned human in his arms snorted in amusement, her button nose crinkled and eyes closed as she snuggled into his neck, words ruffling the fur there as she responded.

"That's just like Kerrick, isn't it? The Fist should be at full strength by then, even with the modifications. Did I say you could stop kissing?"

Galen chuckled amusedly and lowered his muzzle again, licking at the side of her neck where it met her jaw line, before kissing his way down to her collar bone. If it weren't for his duties, the wolf knew, he would gladly stay here and nibble, lick, kiss, and fuck the beautiful woman forever. Adriana, however, kept his mind at least partly on the world outside their personal den of hedonism, continuing to speak.

"Mm...That feels good...Kerrick told me privately he doesn't believe the war will end with retaking Earth...We'll have to conquer Galatea itself...Mmf...Keep that up and we won't sleep tonight..."

The wolf laughed softly and kept nibbling at her exposed throat, until she'd sat back in his lap, looking at him in startlement when he proved flexible enough to bend down and capture a nipple between his lips and give it a tug. Her hips twitched, and she grunted low in her throat, before burying her hands in his short headfur.

"I can do with four hours' sleep," he murmured, sucking and nipping at her little pink nipple.

"Sh-shit..." she muttered, as Galen's paws moved her hips, and his tip began it's all-too-welcome entry.

Trisha kept her eyes closed as the seamen wheeled her through the Fist of the Nascent Dawn's labyrinthine corridors. Ever since waking a few days ago, sudden changes in light had bothered her over-sensitive eyes and made her nauseous, something the doctor had said was a 'side effect of nano-treatments in some pubescent children.' One of the seamen, a Corpsman she'd met just minutes ago, patted her paper-robed shoulder and spoke in a gentle tone that didn't help the street-toughened girl relax at all.

"We should be there soon. You should try to relax, all that tension isn't good for you."

Trisha reminded herself not to snap at the Corpsman. It wasn't his fault she was utterly out of her element, frightened and lonely in a strange place and given only minutes a day to speak with her brother via the ship's communication system. Though they were orbiting Atria Prime, where all her remaining family was now ensconced, they might as well have been a million light years away.

"Where are we going, anyway? We're way outside of the medical bay by now, right?"

The Corpsman laughed lightly and shrugged, the fabric of his brand-new uniform crinkling audibly.

"Ship's Doc said you were lonely and bored, so I'm taking you to meet someone."

After an interminable time of being rolled around, stopping at intersections, and hearing the sounds of booted feet passing her by, her wheelchair finally slowed to a stop. Opening her eyes with a wince at the fluorescent lights that lined the long sterile metal halls, Trisha blinked at a metal door whose name plate had been recently removed, leaving a bit of metal glue still stuck to the door. Underneath that spot, a cryptic paw-written note suspended by tape read 'Beware of Genius :D'.

Trisha quirked an eyebrow, and looked up at the housecat Corpsman, who grinned back at her with a knowing look that made her nervous, as if she were being wheeled into some kind of embarrassing trap. The door slid open with a smooth shushing noise, a metal sandwich with proper grease filling.

Before it was even fully open, a soft but excited-sounding voice issued from the dimly-lit chamber beyond.

"Did you bring my mechanical expert? I have so much to show her!"

The Corpsman touched Trisha's shoulder gently, as he rolled her into the room.

"You can give me a call when you're ready to go back to medical."

With that, he left, and Trisha sat for a moment to regain her dim-light vision. The room wasn't large, mainly consisting of an open living space complete with bolted-down metal table and a few chairs. Beyond that, a hospital-style rolling partition closed off an area that looked to be stuffed full of view screens, all of them off at the moment.

"Um...I'm not a mechanical expert...Just a kid who knows some car stuff..." she murmured, while carefully pulling herself up out of the chair. Walking had been a challenge at first, but the docs had encouraged her, telling the young wolf that while her lungs weren't completely healed yet, she needed to get back on her feet. As she slowly, nervously shuffled toward the partition, that same soft, happy-sounding voice spoke in response. Despite sounding slightly slurred, each word was distinct, careful if slightly seasoned with an accent Trisha didn't recognize.

"That's okay. You won't need to un-learn a lot of collegiate mechanical engineering 'laws of mechanics' trash then."

"Uh...What?"

"No offense to the mech engineers. They know lots of useful stuff. But we're working with cutting-edge and theoretical tech here, and too much knowledge will slow down the thinking."

A strong scent, acrid and chemical, wafted to Trisha's sensitive nose just before she put a paw to the partition and shuffled her way around it. There, in a hospital bed surrounded by monitors and with a pair of interface pads in her lap, lay a creature whose appearance sent a flinch rippling through Trisha's body, starting as a sick sensation in her gut and roiling outward.

She was mostly covered in bandages, stained orange with disinfectants that stank to high hell. What little flesh peeked through was raw, red and naked, bereft of all but the patchiest bits of fur, as if the female creature had been skinned like a hunted feral. Her species was unidentifiable for a moment, to Trisha's shocked eyes, until a twitching appendage that hung down below the hospital bed through a hole in its bottom caught her eye.

"You're one of the otters. You were bred for EVO work, right?"

Bright brown eyes turned toward her, the only part of the mutilated otter that seemed entirely undamaged. Twitches on some of the facial bandages led Trisha to believe the woman was smiling somehow, despite her mangled state, and the wolf girl's mouth went dry. Suddenly, her own injured lungs and abdominal musculature didn't seem so bad. Trish shuffle-limped across the small space, maneuvering around monitor stands that looked to be on standby mode, and set her paws on the bed's rail.

The otter girl's eyes looked momentarily sad, distant as if swimming through memory, flickering down to her new company's paws.

"My name's Sati. You must be Trisha Blake."

"Guilty as charged, yep."

"Can I touch your paw? I promise it's not contagious. I got burned, but everyone seems to be scared of me. Leprosy's been gone for hundreds of years, and people are still scared of it. When I don't even have that. Heh."

Trisha grabbed the otter's paw, where it seemed least bandaged, and gave the surprised otter girl a squeeze, a girlish grin and tail wag. She knew what it was to be ignored, accidentally ostracized for her looks or place in the world, and though her instinct was to avoid new faces and strangers, Trisha knew herself well enough to realize how terrible she'd feel if she didn't do something to help a fellow outsider. That the paw felt raw, the pads mostly gone and skin covered over in scar tissue barely registered as important. She'd touched far worse.

Sati's eyes, already a liquid brown, shone slightly with wetness for all of a second, before the otter squeezed paws back, shook her head once, and pointed her free paw towards one of the monitors.

"So anyway, Captain Leith wants me to work on theories and ideas for how to improve our shielding technology. It's all based on gravitic rotation of the ship's rings, to create an artificial two-sided field. Wanna see the schematics?"

"Yeah sure, that sounds cool."

Well, Trisha thought, even if she had nowhere near the technical knowledge to be of any use, she could at least help the otter girl bounce ideas around.

A beep from one of the side consoles caused the burnt otter to wince and reach over, tapping a button before holding up a finger to what were probably her lips under the bandages and burns, gesturing for Trisha to be quiet. The wolf girl just nodded, as a strong masculine voice communicated via a panel in the wall.

"Ms. Anwar, this is Chief Karnen. Just wanted to share some scuttlebutt with ya."

Trisha grinned, at the wriggle Sati gave, whispering to her low enough that she was sure the communication system couldn't pick it up.

"Got a thing for him huh? Is he cute?"

The otter grinned back at Trisha, rolling her eyes before responding to Karnen.

"Please do, Chief. What's up?"

"Word is Admiral Kerrick's breaking up the flotilla to create battle groups, for strategic flexibility. Guess what that means for us?"

"Are we being attached to the Sword of Sol?"

"Hah, good guess but nope. Sounds like Kerrick wants to keep the Captain and former-Commander together. From what I hear, Star ofAden, Fist of the Nascent Dawn, and Starlit Maiden will be heading up a task force of light cruisers and frigates for a fast-attack battle group. Suitable for uh..." Trisha heard the shuffling of paper, "Heh, this is a nice euphemism. 'Removing Tumors.' Sheesh."

Sati snorted amusedly, and under the hospital bed her tail twitched back and forth, not unlike Trisha's own cautious wags. She didn't know quite what all this meant, but evidently it made Sati happy. Or, at least, talking to what was obviously an old friend was good for her.

"Any news on when we move out, Chief?"

"Nah, sounds like they're sticking to that one-month time table. Way I hear it, six battlegroups have already left the system though. Ships that didn't get beat up too bad in the battle, headed off to pacify some of the smaller factions that've cropped up."

Sati gave a slow nod, with a crinkle of plasticized bandages. Trisha reached over to a rolling table and grabbed a bit of treated gauze, using it to dab at a cracked, bleeding spot on one of Sati's arms. The otter flinched, but didn't pull away, as she responded to Karnen's words.

"So Admiral Kerrick is planning on the main fight being in the Sol system. That's going to be..."

"A mess? Damn straight. I think that's why he wants it. He wants to show all the smaller factions out there that we're willing to smash through any static defense they throw at us. All the local-defense fleets, if combined together, would outnumber First Fleet by like twelve to one. But if he can convince each individual group to be afraid of our combined power, they probably won't go that far. It'll give us a strong position to negotiate truces and reintegration or whatever."

"Which won't mean doodley if we can't get the Senators back."

"You got it, Anwar."

"Any idea who's going to get detailed for that? I mean...Breaking through the system defenses at Sol is going to be a pain in the ass, but actually trying to insert on the homeworld, liberate hostages, and get out? Shit. That's a suicide job."

"Way I hear it, the hostages aren't on Earth. The Senate was in session in two places when they got grabbed. Most of the Senators got grabbed on Titan or Zohar Station in Orion."

"Zohar...That's an asteroid base isn't it?"

"Yeah. Big asteroid bastard with defenses built into the debris belt all around it. Fucking nightmare to get at. No clue how they managed to get in there and grab the Senate in the first place."

"Whew," the otter whistled out under her breath, turning her head to Trisha with a somber look. The wolf girl furrowed her brows, wondering just what the otter was trying to say. Those eyes didn't match the otter's somber expression, glittering with calculation in the way she'd once seen a down-on-his-luck accountant plotting the numbers that gave his mind life.

"Heh."

Anwar's face split in a grin, as Chief Karnen's guttural came through the communicator. They were old friends, Trisha realized, and had a code language all their own. Karnen continued without waiting for Sati to respond.

"You're lookin' forward to playing more gravitic shield games with asteroids, you fuckin' crazyass."

The otter snickered and rolled her head to look over at the communicator, grinning despite the lack of visual transmission.

"Yep!"

"Well shit. I hope we get detailed to that. You're a bitch when you're disappointed."

Warm Atrian summer sunlight had turned to ruddy gold as the star set toward the horizon, and Bill Verman and Randy Kerrick waited in the front seats of a convertible flier, top down and basking in the setting sun. In front of and below them, the space port quietly and calmly bustled with cargo shipments being loaded onto the massive and currently stationary cargo scows that would carry precious resources into space and release them for pickup by stellar cargo vessels.

The civilian airport felt odd to both pilots, as if it should have been bustling with the hectic disorderly motion of tourists and pleasure travelers, as it had been built for. Instead, it seemed almost to be in a grieving silence, quietly and efficiently loading it's portion of Atria Prime's agrarian bounty for loading into the fleet.

A single civilian arrival lingered in low orbit up above them, a barely visible speck as it waited for clearance to land as it had for the last hour and more. Bill turned his red-brown furred head towards his boyfriend, and kissed the basking lizard's cheek, winning the slightest trail of a smile from the phlegmatic reptilian.

"I hope that civvy boat has good entertainment. Otherwise Blake's girlfriend is going to be going stir-crazy."

"Have you met her before?"

"Only briefly. She tried to eat Blake's tonsils outside their room when we all were leaving for that shit on Centauri."

Randy smiled languidly, giving a soft churring laugh, and reached a smooth-scaled hand over to trail through Bill's thick pelt, loving the silky feel of soft, dense fur passing between his fingers.

"She sounds fun. Did Blake say if she's staying long?"

"The whole leave, he said, so like another three weeks or so. Blake says she'll be working part of that time though. Apparently she's volunteered to help parse genetic information or something. Some shit to do with whatever those whackjobs were up to here before we got stuck in."

Randy gave a slow, sun-addled nod, and was about to comment further when the low thunder sound of a ship engaging in controlled re-entry rolled over them. Both pilots looked up, and Bill laughed in relief.

"Fucking finally. I thought flight control was planning to make them wait all night."

Little Jenny Greenway glared over a playful smile as her two escorts failed to ask her if she needed help unloading. The exhausted grey cat felt as if she were a strip of jerky left lying out in the sun, dehydrated from a long time aboard an idling space ship, thus belted in and left unable to get up for a drink. She was also exhausted, and felt crusty with travel, as if the practice of using mass transit somehow coated her skin under the fur with oil.

The two pleasant if rather odd males had picked her up, as Derry had told her they would, and had cheerfully stolen her two heavy bags, shoving them in the hovercar to the sound of her stompy-footed protests that she wasn't a child in need of chivalry. They had then proceeded to speak in an eye-rollingly terrible enthusiastic pidgin "Olde English" for the whole half hour flight to the resort.

As the bushy-tailed squirrel bowed low and chirped out a "Milady, thine things doth await!" she managed to get down from the landed craft, blinking with flight lag and annoyed amusement. Her body was still on space station time, six hours different thanks to the bio research facility's geosynchronous orbit. With her things already inside thanks to the overbearingly cheerful squirrel and his stoically amused friend, she rolled her eyes and cut a crisp curtsy in her jeans.

"Gee thanks, sir knight."

The lizard bowed his head in a crisp mockery of courtfulness, and swept an arm toward the resort condo, before speaking in real English with his smooth tenor voice.

"The good Sergeant's kind of had a rough day, so go easy on him please."

Jenny's brows perked, as she dragged herself toward the opaque-glass front door. In her chest, a twinge of worry showed itself, as her fatigue-blasted mind struggled through any of a dozen possibilities. She hoped against hope nothing had gone wrong withDerry's sister. In their correspondence, he had told her little about the operation, given its confidentiality. He had, however, confided his fears for his wounded sister.

"Why, what's wrong?"

"Heh," the squirrel started, and opened his mouth to say something, before being elbowed by the lizard. "Well, you'll see."

Curious now more than worried, the tired little cat padded inside, taking in the splendid spaciousness of the place. Where her apartment aboard the space station was a tiny two-room metal-walled cabin, this luxury vacation condo was built like a miniature hotel, complete with marble tiling and open floor plan that left her feeling less as if she were inside a cozy little vacation bungalo and more as if she were standing in a museum.

"Wow, who'd you guys have to blow to get this place?"

Behind her, Bill snorted, at the same time elbowing the lizard coming up after him in turn.

"Nobody. We were as surprised as you are. Anyway, he's in there." The squirrel gestured, while wheeling the last of her bags inside, depositing it by the door he'd just pointed toward.

Within a minute, Jenny was inside the room, with her arms wrapped aroundDerry's chest, grinning and enthusiastically jabbering about science she would eventually realize he didn't understand at all.

Grand Admiral Kerrick's stride was smooth, almost preternaturally so, as he crossed the marble threshold into a darkened board room. Suspended 600 meters above the surface of Atria Prime, the view from the penthouse office suite was spectacular, showing the lights and lines of the great cityscape flying and flittering like a million lightning bugs at play.

At either side of the table were the two creatures he had come to see. One, hulkingly massive with calculating chilly eyes full of steel, put a heavy paw to the back of his chair, sliding it back in preparation to sit. The other, far more svelte and slender, was already seated, his footpaws up on the glass tabletop and an umbrella-laden drink in his paw, his tail tapping a beat only he could feel against plush carpeting.

"So, Admiral," the smaller cat said by way of piercing the looming ominous silence, "what's your plan?"

Kerrick let the words hang in the air a moment, as he stopped behind a chair slightly down the right side of the table. In total, the thick blue-glass oval had eleven seats, seven of them yawningly empty. His eyes trailed smoothly over them, numbering each, placing a mental image of who ought to have been sitting there, all those ancient faces so well-known to him centuries ago. Kerrick felt a deep sense of sorrow that would never show on his face, at how few seats were filled. So many of the Shadows had vanished, off upon their own affairs or perhaps lying 'dead' somewhere forgotten in the galaxy, awaiting someone to disturb them and wake the nanites that would revive them. The lizard turned his head to the right toward Shadow Six, who lounged in the next seat over, wearing a jaguar's dark-furred face and a knowing, wistful smile.

As he sat, Shadow Four did so as well, the massive leonine sitting in an upright readiness that had always spoken to Shadow Six of broiling tension and restrained violence, a nascent volcano ready to explode, an almost comical diametrical difference from the relaxed and languid, placid-lake of infinite depths creature that lolled to his right.

Kerrick began as he was wont to; straight to the point, an iron hammer striking soft to shape hot steel.

"With the help of Ix'kat Great Queen Kt'shar'tik and the Naval and Marine forces currently at our disposal, we have sufficient capability to retake the Sol System's space lanes and affect a siege. However, we are deficient in ground forces and ship construction infrastructure. Given that most of the major industrial worlds have declared themselves independent or sided with the United Galatean Federation, the simple fact is that we cannot win this war if it is allowed to drag on."

Enigma raised a brow and lifted his paw into the air, as if he were a school child asking permission to speak. A glance from the leonine mountain across the table from them both caused him to shrug and lower his paw, all sign of amusement gone from his earnest blank-expressioned face.

Kerrick continued.

"We have options. If we request it, the Ix'kat Great Queen will use her forces for ground assaults. While this will allow us to more easily storm and recapture planets, such a large number of Ix'kat drones will be impossible for the sub-queens to fully control. The potential for significant civilian casualties would be extremely high in any defended city. I do not need to mention the public relations disaster that could result, and the potential that would have to damage our recruitment capability and supply availability."

Seamlessly, Enigma picked up where The Admiral left off, though he didn't sit nearly to the level of attention his neighbor and brother Shadow used when speaking.

"My sources indicate that approximately a third of Titan's shipyards are completely unusable. Sabotage by the defenders, if my guess is right. That means the remaining two thirds should be a major priority. If we can take them, we'll have the capability to replace damaged ships, using materials shipped from Atria and Centauri. Atria can also supply our necessary rations, at least for the moment. I think the Earth herself is a delicious target, politically speaking, but should be left for last. Once she's cut off, the Museum World is a symbol and nothing more. Additionally, I have contact with several major resistance movements there, who will happily accept supply drops from us and create chaos that will cost the UGF significant resources to do anything about. As for the great equipment foundries on Mars...Well, I leave decisions about orbital bombardment to you two. Not my department, right?"

Tenh picked up from The Faceless One, as seamlessly as he had done from The Admiral in turn.

"A traditional assault against the Sol System will lead to significant losses on our part. I suggest that we use intelligence assets to create safe landing areas for our troops and disrupt enemy defenses, utilizing local resistance wherever possible. Sol has three separate defense cordons, and to take Titan we only need to engage the first of them. Though it will give the second and third zones more opportunity to prepare, it is my belief that taking Titan constitutes the greatest strategic priority and should come first. It is also the most likely planet to have significant local resistance we can use to our advantage. The use of Ix'kat ground forces should be avoided, called in only if the situation becomes desperate."

Even without the others, the Council of Shadows operated to perfect form, rotating around the table. Kerrick picked up where Tenh had left off.

"In order to penetrate the outer ring of defenses, we will need to disable the Terminus Starbase. Once that has occurred, the fleet will section into three battle groups. I will hold overall command from the Hadrian, while Rear Admiral Vernier commands his group from the Sword of Sol. Our two battle groups will seek to outflank and destroy any remaining defensive naval assets. The third battlegroup will be commanded by Captain Leith, and tasked with escort and close support of our landing craft and troop transports. While Vernier and I engage the Sol Defense Fleet, Fist of the Nascent Dawn and Star of Aden will spearhead the invasion of Titan."

Enigma, called Faceless One, smiled and shrugged, taking his second turn to speak.

"I will depart as soon as this meeting is completed, with the objective of landing on Titan and establishing coordination with whatever resistance remains. I'll do my best to make sure the drop zones aren't too hot."

Tenh took his second turn then, nodding slowly to Enigma.

"I will inspect the Marines aboard the Fist and the Star of Aden, and spend the next three weeks preparing them for duty. When we arrive in the Sol System, I will insert my personal special forces unit first using stealthed fast-shuttle. They will assist in disrupting the enemy and creating safe landing zones. Following that, the Marines and Atrian Army personnel will take Titan."

Kerrick spoke, beginning the third and final round.

"I support the plan as laid out."

Enigma.

"As do I."

The Weaponmaster.

"So it shall be."

They departed by order of seniority.