FUBAR Space: Few, Proud & Brave

Story by SniperSpartan-977 on SoFurry

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#1 of FUBAR Space

Lance Corporal Caleb Deacon and Lance Corporal Preston Strickland throw themselves up against the odds to save the frozen colony of Attric from a rapey alien menace.


Through the blinding swirl of snow taking to the sky they could barely be seen. But their cries were distinct and clear over the howl of the wind.

"Oh, shiiiiit!" Caleb Deacon yelled, slamming into the hillside feet first.

Bouncing, the armoured human was thrown forward and hit the snow at the heel of the slope face down, arms spread as if he was making snow angels the hard way. His faceplate buried itself into the snow as he slid to a halt, leaving a deep groove in his wake.

Right behind him, a blur in the snowstorm, a second figure came tumbling down.

"Ow!" he yelled as he bounced. "Fuck! Shit! Crap! Barbara Streisand!" He bounced three more times on his way down the slope, cursing in time with each impact that left a crater in the snow before Preston Strickland flopped to a halt beside Deacon.

"Jesus," Strickland choked as he slowly lifted his helmeted head. His breathing was erratic like he was suffocating, his helmet's air-filters clogged with ice.

With a crack of the frost formed between where the helmet armour-plates jointed together, the helmet popped loose, expanding for a moment as several flaps on his collar opened up. Quickly and without hesitation, the now loose plates of his helmet re-configured, sliding down over his fur and tucking themselves neatly out of sight to reveal his face.

The anthropomorphic coyote's dust coloured fur was almost immediately dusted with specs of white as the snowstorm battered his bare head. His black mohawk was tousled by the wind as he squinted through the whiteout, taking a few deep breaths of fresh - though frigid - air.

His armour had absorbed most of the blunt force trauma from that hard landing, but Strickland's brains still felt like scrambled eggs. His limbs hurt. His fingers and toes hurt. Hell, even his hair and nails hurt. He had pain in places he was pretty sure he never even had until now.

Rolling onto his front, fingers dug into the soft carpet of snow beneath him, Strickland pushed himself to one knee in time for him to look up and hear the explosion. The earth shook violently in time with a long, monstrous grumble that rumbled off into the distance and was overpowered by the howling wind.

There was no sight of the fireball or the showers of debris, but judging from the volume their ride couldn't have gone down more than a mile away.

"Damn," Strickland cursed as he brushed some of the snow from his hair. "Let's not do that again."

Turning as he rose to his feet, Strickland quickly floundered through the knee-high snow to where Deacon slowly pushed himself up and out of the ice. He too choked a few times, his filters clogged up. And as with Strickland's armour, the human's helmet broke apart and slid away to reveal his face.

The young human flinched as his bare skin was battered by high-velocity whips of snow. His nose and cheeks, usually a pale colour, were flushed and reddened by the cold. The flecks of ice that didn't bounce off him with the sheer velocity they travelled clung to his short black hair and bushy eyebrows. A little bit of stubble had formed on his jaw over the past few days. He'd be livid if he had time to look in a mirror.

Though if he did, he might not recognise the eyes looking back at him. Strickland and Deacon had been through a lot. Neither of them were the same as they had been before. And Strickland feared they never would be again.

"Deac, you okay?" Strickland asked as he held out a hand to help his friend up.

Deacon didn't accept though, furrowing his brow into a glare and smacking the ice-encrusted gauntlet out of his face.

"Get the fuck away from me," the human spat as he stood.

Strickland looked at the hand Deacon had swatted away and held out his arms. "C'mon, man! I said I was sorry! What's it going to take?"

Deacon outright ignored the coyote as he turned around, seemingly speaking to himself over the wind. "Tamara!? Tamara do you read?" He punched the computer node mounted to the chest-plate of his armour a few times. "Tamara, it's Caleb! Come in!"

Suddenly there was a reply. A woman's disembodied voice replied with clarity as if she were standing right beside the duo, her voice projected through the sub-dermal communicators implanted in Deacon and Strickland's mandible bones.

"Caleb!" 'Tamara' cried with relief hanging heavily in her tone. "Thank the marker! What happened?"

"We had to bail out. The transport went down," Strickland explained as he tuned in on the comm-frequency.

"Caleb, do you still have the shard?" Tamara asked as if ignoring Strickland.

"Negative!" Deacon informed over the wind beating him. "Tamara, the shard was still in the cockpit when the vulture went down."

Tamara gave a sigh over the radio. "Damn.... Okay, let me check if the satellite feed is still active... there. The beacon is still active. The vulture and the shard my still be intact. I'm sending you a waypoint now."

Strickland watched as the holo-pod on his chest armour lit up with a bright blue glow. A pane of light materialised in the air in front of his face, slanted like a laptop screen. Rolling across it were lines of code and data indicating his RIG was accepting a data transmission from Tamara's position. A green status-light lit up on the holo-board and the panel faded from view again.

Holding out his hand, Deacon tapped his knuckle plate with his other and watched as a little beam of blue light connected with the snow between his armoured boots. Taking on a life of its own, the pinprick of light touching the ground widened into a small band that snaked its way over the snow and shot off into the haze.

A breadcrumb trail for them to follow to the waypoint Tamara had sent them.

Deacon pressed his chin down against his armour's ballistic collar. Sensing the motion his armour reacted, opening the flaps on the collar and deploying the helmet. The plates slid up over his head and locked in place, his breath misting from the scarf pulled over the faceplate and the eyes lighting up with soft blue light.

Strickland had done the same, his own helmet locking in place and the single NODs-style optical lens oriented over his right eye lighting up dark red.

Keeping is hand held out and following the trail of light, Deacon reported, "Tamara, I'm moving now."

"Okay. Please be careful, Caleb."

"I will be. See you soon."

"Okay."

Strickland followed with a shake of his head, making gagging noises.

Hands up instinctively shading their faceplates from the incoming hail of ice, the two trudged through the blizzard, silent bar the heavy huff of breath passing through their air-scrubbers, and the crunch of snow compacting under their boots. Whiteout blocked everything past five metres, making their surroundings indistinguishable bar the odd patch of pale grey rock that would sometimes stick out of the carpet of white. Their march took them into the storm for a good few minutes before Strickland felt the need to say something.

"This is crazy!" he cried over the howl of the wind. "Deac, we should bunker down and wait for the storm to..."

Even as he said it, the wind suddenly halted. It was like a switch was thrown. The gusts settled and the flurries of snow kicked up from the ground slowly settled. Their field of view suddenly widened and stretched far and wide. The horizon became visible, glowing bloody red with the setting sun. flurries of snow still fell from the sky, descending softly from the greyish clouds still hanging over their heads.

And at their feet was a valley.

Strickland wobbled realising he was standing on the edge of a sheer cliff, teetering over a kilometre drop straight down the side of a valley. Deacon reacted immediately grabbing one of his flailing arms and pulled him from the edge.

"End," Strickland finished, his eyes bugged somewhere behind the emotionless veil of his helmet.

At their feet was the edge of a cliff, a sheer drop down into the level valley floor dusted with shallow snow and centred by a sprawling habitat of pre-fab buildings and large domed tents. Surrounding the settlement were snow banks and signs indicating it was a private civilian archaeological camp.

Angling their gazes upward, their eyes followed the path following the cliff top until they saw the hulking behemoth of twisted metal looming over them.

The CC-180 vulture-class transport plane was a gargantuan feat of aeronautical engineering. With the sheer size of the vessel it was a shock the craft was even able to lift off, even with an enormous wingspan and eight massive jet-engines, six wing-mounted and two on the tail.

The nose section of the vulture alone was like a four story apartment building, the tiny cockpit windows perched at the very top.

Where the flying beast had landed, it narrowly avoided plummeting into the valley and crushing the sprawling habitat below. It had impacted with the peak of a razor-rock tipped mountain, gutting itself like a fish before keeling forward and planting itself on the edge of the cliffs forming the valley wall. The tail hung partially severed and shattered high in the air, just shy of the mountain peak that had impaled the cargo hold.

Under the howl of the wind whipping under what remained of the bent wings of the vulture, with every slight shift of the plane's remaining structure there was a crack of snapping bulkheads and a metal groan of the breached hull. Fires blazed in places, a small fuel fire trickling down the cliff-side like a waterfall, dousing itself on impact with the snow far below. Massive stacks of smoke rose from the jet engines still attached to the structure, choking clouds above.

Despite the depressing sight of the mutilated transport late, Strickland managed a chuckle.

"Hehehe." He nudged Deacon and pointed at the vulture. "We were totally in that earlier."

Deacon said nothing, his visor's blank stare fixed on the plane before he moved further down the path leading closer. Frustrated by his friend's silence, Strickland threw up his arms dejectedly and followed.

Rounding a rocky outcropping, they were met by the sight of the vulture's belly cratered into the path, blocking their progress down the walkway. The hull was breached however, the metal skin torn open like a gash-wound spitting black smoke that rolled up along the vulture's side like infected puss. And gathered around the opening was a mish-mash of ammunition boxes as well as a few discarded firearms.

Dead bodies lay among them.

Spotting the bodies, both Deacon and Strickland wasted no time in arming themselves. Running closer, Deacon snatched up a climbing axe that partially buried in the snow and held it high, ready to swing. Approaching more cautiously, Strickland stooped to pick up a large rock that only just about fitted in one hand.

Dead bodies on this frozen shit-hole of a planet had the nasty habit of refusing to maintain that status.

As he got closer though, Strickland realised the bodies weren't moving. If they were going to, they would have by now. Especially considering they were pretty intact. They were the most intact bodies the duo had come across all day.

The pilots were missing most of their uniforms, the red fabric in their shirts having corroded away with most of their skin. They were covered in a bubbling, gloopy substance. It was white, viscous and hissed audibly as it ate into the leftover clothes and skin on the crispy corpses. Skin and flesh boiled and peeled away, revealing musculature, organ and bone underneath. That didn't last long too as the viscous acid ate into that too, spitting foul wisps of smoke into the air.

"Yuck," Strickland commented a she dropped the rock and knelt by one of the rifles. Deacon moved behind him, approaching the gash in the vulture's hull as he slid the climbing axe into the back of his belt.

The rifle Strickland observed was a bog standard repeater. The ever faithful backbone of the Sovereign Colonies Marine Corps. Furnished with olive green ABS in the grip, foregrip and stock, the rest of the bulpup rifle was made of durable, painted black steel. It was light, durable, accurate and could drop just about anything that came at you with a bad attitude.

Considering you knew where to shoot, of course.

Turning it barrel upwards, Strickland yanked back the charging lever with a satisfying 'cha-chik' and saw the rifle's ammo counter light up green.

"Hey, Deac! Catch," he called as he threw up the weapon.

Deacon turned just in time to catch the rifle by the front grip. Turning the bullpup assault rifle over in his hands and pressing the butt-plate against his pauldron, he inspected the ammo-counter and nodded. "Oh, good. My overwhelming desire to shoot you has returned."

Strickland huffed as he readied his own rifle and stood up. "Yeah, I love 'ya too."

Deacon shook his head, approaching the tear in the vulture's hull and stepped through he piles of smoke, boldly. Taken aback by his partners sudden boldness, Strickland double-timed his way over, leaping through the crack after deacon.

He immediately wished he had picked caution.

The moment his boots made contact with the floor inside the plane he slipped, the weight of his armour nor the snow-threading on his boots stopping it. His foot refused to purchase on the globules of slime coating the metal deck and he slammed into the ground, ass over tits.

Looking down at where Strickland lay groaning, Deacon sighed with a shake of his head. "Idiot."

Sitting up, Strickland looked around, then down at the goo covering his armour. The same corrosive viscous material that had been eating through the corpses outside coated the interior of the plane. Across every deck plate, hose, pipe, cable and furnishing it cluck, dribbled drooled and bubbled. Only it didn't seem to eat into the plane, or Strickland's armour the same way it ate through exposed flesh.

Cringing Strickland carefully climbed to his feet and tried to scrape some of the goo from his suit.

"Oh, that's right. They cream-pied the plane. How could I forget that?"

Deacon just shook his head and moved on down the service corridor. "You're an idiot," he repeated.

Strickland quickly followed through the cramped confines of the vulture plane, guided by the torch mounted in the foregrip of his rifle. The marines' individual beams of light criss-crossed as they checked each branching corridor, walkway and open ventilation grate. Only moments ago they had been aboard this plane, soaring through the air and fighting for their lives in a slippery, gory chaos.

Now it was eerie quiet, bar the sounds of the hull creaking and groaning.

So it was only natural when the thunderous 'clang' of metal echoed through the halls, Strickland's heart stopped.

Down the hall to their right a gloop covered vent cover exploded showering the corridor with shrapnel. Flying out of the hole came a ragdoll that slammed into the ground and slid to a halt. At first it seemed like a corpse. And then it twitched and started moving.

It had been dead once upon a time. And then the unnatural forces at work on Attric had warped the poor soul to a sinister purpose. Lost limbs had regrown into a pair of sinewy arms ending in killing four-fingered claws tipped with bone-scythes. The clothes were missing, this creature revealed to have once been a female. Fur had been shed and the flesh stripped from the head to form a devilish skull with razor like protrusions instead of ears and large dagger shaped teeth. The firm round breasts were still in good form, much like the curves along the rest of the body down past the hips. The bare legs were further corrupted though, broken in several places to forcefully great a pair of springy, digitigrade legs.

Between her thighs the pink flesh glistened with clear liquid, arousal flowing freely and drooling down the inner thigh from a line of swollen pink flesh.

As the creature clawed its way up to its feet, a second creature crawled out of the open vent. Similarly decimated as the first, this one was a flat chested male with a subtle musculature and a permanent erection throbbing between its legs, the tip secreting what looked like precum that dripped without pause, free flowing as the female's pussy.

Behind them was another crash as several more of the creatures, a mixture of male and female, some even sporting an erection and a pair of full breasts, dropped from a ceiling grate and hit the deck. Wailing and moaning as if trapped in constant unending orgasm, the creatures clambered to their feet and inspected the duo trapped in their midst.

"Oh, great. More philliacs," Strickland groaned. "Don't these assholes ever fucking quit!?"

"What do you think?" Deacon snapped as if the answer to that question should have been fucking obvious.

The 'philliacs' didn't pause any longer and charged, screaming and flailing their arms like maniacs.

Deacon cried out as he snapped up his rifle and fired one way. Strickland silently engaged the other way, weapon preferences beamed via wireless connection from his RIG to his rifle. The moment the safety was disengaged, the foregrip and stock shifted to a comfortable position and the laser sights engaged, beaming a dark blue targeting laser downrange.

The moment it crossed the first philliac, he squeezed the trigger. Semi-automatic shots rapped out of the weapon as fast as he pulled the trigger. Rounds zipped through the air and hit the sinewy decimated flesh of the first philliac that had fallen into the corridor. It twitched, rolling one way mid-sprint then slammed into the ground as one arm was torn from the torso. Shifting his aim, Strickland put two rounds in the head, then lopped the leg off at the knee for good measure.

The first philliac in the ground he turned to the second. It was close, too close for him to draw a good bead on it as it bobbed from side to side. So instead of firing, Strickland lowered his rifle and held out his left hand.

An instant later a dark blue liquid burst from the node in the palm of his gauntlet. The combat-linked stasis module ejected the stasis round with the accuracy of a grenade, sending the globule of liquid arching through the air before it splashed across the second philliac. It practically froze on the spot, the liquid glowing across the philliac's skin, but rapidly evaporating at the same time.

To the philliac time was moving at a normal progression. To Strickland, the creature was frozen on the spot for the next thirty seconds. More than enough time.

Snapping up his rifle again, Strickland took aim and fired off the rest of his magazine in semi-automatic. Bullets tore through the arms and legs of the philliac, tearing it limb from limb in clouds of slow-motion gore.

Satisfied arms and legs were severed, Strickland turned his rifle skyward and tugged the spent magazine from the underside of the stock. At the same time Deacon, just behind him, let out a loud "gaaaaaaaah!" that echoed with a tinny quality thanks to his helmet's faceplate.

Turning, Strickland saw one of the philliac's on his side jump the human. Deacon had never been a very good shot, so it was no surprise to see the human's magazine had dwindled to three rounds with only one of the three philliacs lying dead on the deck. The second in line had leapt high and jumped onto Deacon's head as he held up his rifle like a shield.

Grabbing Deacon by the shoulder, Strickland shoved his friend into a wall, then pulled a fresh magazine from his belt and slammed it into his rifle. As he did, it came down and by the time he caught the foregrip he was firing again, cutting the third philliac on Deacon's side to shreds.

As the creature fell, Strickland turned to where Deacon still struggled with the last philliac attached to his face. He'd crashed into the wall where Strickland had shoved him and fallen onto his back as the male philliac kept one taloned hand on the human's helmet. The other hand was wrapped around its throbbing erection, rapidly attempting to rub one out across Deacon's armour.

As much as Strickland's instinct told him not to blue-ball a fellow male, he couldn't let that monster snap one off. Unlike the goo that coated the inside of the plane, the sticky stuff shot from a philliac would have some detrimental effects on Deacon's armour. So stepping in, Strickland kicked the philliac in the side with one boot, launching it off his friend and into a wall.

Rolling to one knee, Deacon cried out and fired his rifle one handed into the philliac. As it twitched and convulsed with the rounds tearing through its body, Strickland joined in, aiming for the limbs and tearing both arms from the monster.

Satisfied the hostiles in the immediate area were down, Strickland grabbed Deacon by the back of his RIG and picked the younger marine up. Deacon immediately shrugged the coyote off him with a huff.

"I'm fine," he snapped as he clumsily dropped his spent magazine and tried to reload.

"I'm sure you are," Strickland said as he picked up the full magazine Deacon had accidentally dropped and helped him slot it into his rifle. "But I just..."

CRASH!

THUD!

Strickland and Deacon froze on the spot. This impact with the ground was not like when the philliacs had jumped them. This was something much larger. Much heavier; heavy enough to cause the deck plates to rattle loose beneath their boots. And looking down the corridor the way they had come they both saw a towering figure uncoil where it had crouched low from the landing. It had to stand slightly hunched so it wouldn't bump its head against the ceiling.

The figure was clearly feminine, with an ample bust tapered down to a narrow muscular waist that widened again to form the elegant curvature of her hips. The legs were long and powerful, ending in paws that had three razor claws each, and a curled talon on the inner ankles not unlike the scythed blade on a raptor's toe. The arms were also home to bands of subtle muscle, ending in five digit hands, though each finger ended in a cat-like talon. Short, but pointed and sharp.

The neck was long and thin, almost giraffe like ending in an earless snake's head. The tail was equally snake-like, a long prehensile appendage at least five metres long tapering down to a stubby tip. The eyes glowed crimson, much the same way the scales did catching in the poor light with a shimmer. Etched across her body, the towering vipress was covered in undecipherable midnight black symbols.

She hissed, a cobra's hood slowly forming at the neck and opening out like her mouth to reveal the terrifying fangs oozing with venom within.

"This bitch is _still_alive?" Strickland hissed as he searched for an exit. "C'mon!"

Glancing over his shoulder he saw the hallway end in a dead end, cutting them off figuratively. The hallway ended in an open door where an elevator stood waiting. Though there was no way of telling if the elevator would work or not. The vipress hissed, Strickland's queue to disengage the safety of his rifle and prompting them to at least try and make a break for it.

"Elevator!" Strickland yelled as his finger moved over the trigger of his weapon. "Move!"

Deacon turned and ran as Strickland let fly half his magazine. Rifle bullets, a high enough calibre to tear philliacs limb from limb, bounced harmlessly against the vipress' hide, pinging and sparking against the surrounding hallway. An almost wicked smile played across her mouth as she lowered her head and dashed closer.

Strickland lowered his rifle and turned, sprinting full tilt after Deacon towards the open elevator at the end of the corridor. It was only fifty metres. They'd make it and they'd lock the bitch out. If there was no killing her, they'd avoid her.

At least, that was the plan. A plan he knew had no chance of succeeding. Mainly because she was fast. And they were slow.

Something caught Strickland's foot and pulled his leg back. With a surprised "whoa!" he flew headlong forward and slammed into the deck hard enough for him to actually bounce. Groaning, Strickland looked up from the profiled metal deck and saw the vipress' slender figure dart past him, like she wasn't even interested in him.

Like she had Deacon square in her sights.

"Deac! Watch out!" Strickland yelled as he ignored the pain racking his body and scrambled to his boots again to give chase.

Further down the hall Deacon turned with his rifle ready to fire. But there was not gunshot. Forgetting the safety catch in his panic, the human's finger jerked at the trigger but nothing happened. The vipress with her wicked smile promptly swiped the weapon from the human's hands, sending it clattering to the floor in a dark corner somewhere.

She immediately wrapped her other hand around Deacon's throat, squeezing hard enough for him to gag as she turned him around and slammed his back into the nearest wall. Breathing heavily through his constricted windpipe, a mixture of fatigue and panic, Deacon clawed at the vipress' hand holding him firmly in place, but it was no good. He was stuck.

Strickland wasn't about to leave his buddy hanging though, despite the rough patches in their friendship lately. Snapping up his rifle, Strickland aimed as he ran closer, hoping to zip a round into the bitch's head and be done with all this.

Unfortunately he forgot about that devilish tail of hers.

It whipped out, even cracking like a whip and swept the rifle away, sending it spinning down the hallway Strickland had come. Instead of stopping and going back for it though, Strickland reached back and pulled his bayonet from his belt. Yanking the knife free in an ice-pick grip, Strickland considered the same plan. Go for the face and be done with it.

But once more, that devilish tail got the best of him.

The whiplash end snapped around Strickland's wrist and pulled his whole body to one side, slamming him into a wall and forcing him to drop the weapon. As the dagger fell, the tail uncoiled from his wrist and wrapped around Strickland's throat. He gagged as the noose pulled tight, ample amount of her tail left to snake down his back and wrap around his waist to assume complete control of his body as she threw him into the opposite wall of the corridor. Grunting with the impact of his helmet against the wall-plates, Strickland was thrown to the ground, then dragged over the deck somewhere behind the vipress.

Grabbing hold of the coil of tail wrapped around his neck, Strickland struggled. As he did though the vipress picked him up, using only her tail, and slammed his head into the deck.

"Ack! Something tells me she doesn't like it when I struggle." There was a loud crash as she smashed his helmet again. "Or talk." One more clang as she whipped him sideways into a wall this time. "Ack! Okay! Okay!"

As Strickland fell silent, the vipress pulled Deacon from the wall, turned him over and slammed him into the ground. As he landed on his back with a rattle of the deck plates, the vipress straddled his waist on her knees, a glistening little slit of wet pink flesh visible between the crimson scales on her crotch. The outer labia was swelling with growing desire, so when she gently reached down all it took was a light brush to momentarily spread the lips of her pussy to expose the wet flesh aching for attention within.

With a devious smile, the vipress barely paid Strickland any attention as she lifted him to his knees positioned behind her where he struggled in vain. Her mouth opened wide, hood shaking as she let out a fierce hiss and darted forward. Her fangs contacted Deacon's ballistic collar with a shower of sparks, and in response his helmet malfunctioned. Spoofed into thinking he'd issued a retract command, the helmet broke apart and slid away to reveal his terrified expression. Clawing at the hand around his throat keeping him in place, Deacon was at a loss for what to do.

With that she slowly lowered her crotch onto the front of his trousers, the vipress bucking her hips lightly to rub her outer lips over his rough fatigues. Her free hand played with the zipper on the front of his pants, then slowly inched it downward. Reaching into his trousers, Deacon gasped as he felt her fingers wrap around the limp appendage hidden within.

"S-stop," Deacon stuttered, nearly pleading. "Stop-p i-it."

The vipress either didn't understand what 'no' meant, or she didn't care, pushing the man's shorts out of the way and gently pulling free the human's manhood. It was limp, literally like putty in her rough, scaly hand. And it might stay that way judging by the tears forming in Deacon's eyes.

He squeezed his eyes shut and angled his face away. He didn't want to see or feel what the vipress was planning for him next. Strickland on the other hand didn't stop struggling.

"Hey! Leave him alone!" the coyote yelled angrily. "You leave him the fuck alone!"

Complaints fell on deaf ears as the vipress began to gently grip Deacon's cock and with a slow, sensual rhythm, twisting her wrist a little with every cycle, began rubbing the palm of her hand up and down the underside of his length. Deacon squirmed hard against the reptilian restraining him. He was still sobbing and pleading "no," but his body didn't seem to share the sentiment as slowly his erection formed. His already sizeable cock grew in length and width, twitching and throbbing in the vipress' caressing hand as it grew more powerful.

Strickland was watching with horror as he felt his own pants get tight. Looking down he saw a bulge push through his shorts at the fly of his own trousers.

"Traitor," he hissed down at the part of his body that seemed to have a mind of its own.

Slowly lifting her ass up and balancing on her knees, the vipress shuffled forward a little and holding his erection so the head was pointed straight up, positioned her nether-lips directly overhead. Strickland watched with wide eyes, but Deacon didn't have to see to know what was happening next. He could feel it. Pressure on the head of his cock as she gently sank down and pressed her pussy against him.

The pressure maintained as she wriggled a little, her wet lips eagerly parting for him. He felt her soppy opening clench and squeeze his dry cock, but her lubricants did their job well. She was literally dripping with arousal, little trails of her fluids forming little trails down over his taught foreskin and running down his shaft.

The pressure continued and he felt her heat slowly begin to engulf him, her soft walls of velvety flesh yielding to him. His head went in with a pop before she paused as if savouring the sensation. Sneaking a peek, Deacon saw that gross expression of bliss on the vipress' face. She was enjoying every second of her control over him, her mouth hanging open and eyelids drooped seductively.

Acclimatising to his width, the vipress began sinking again, her deeper insides speared apart by his throbbing, twitching erection and the slick warmth of her pussy spread all the way down his shaft, right to the base where her labia tightly clamped hold.

Finally her lips locked against his, and with a sigh from his assailant she was raping Deacon proper. But she wasn't quite done yet. As his erection was spreading her out, the vipress leaned forward a little and reached back to get a firm grasp on Strickland's little Judas.

As she angled the head of his dick down slightly to line up with her anus, she pulled at her tail to bring him closer to penetrating her. As she did Strickland struggled, but it proved futile as his knees simply slid over the deck as she pulled him in.

"Fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck-fuck off!" Strickland yelled pulling at her tail.

But there was little use. With a firm grasp on his dick and a keen aim she pulled him right up against her sphincter. She squeezed at first, the muscles gently caressing Strickland's cock-head before she relaxed and yielded to his girth.

Squirming, Strickland was completely helpless as she forced his cock into her ass in one, slow, dry swoop. She clenched about half way in, her soft insides gently massaging his cock as the powerful anal muscles threatened to break Strickland in half.

Moving her hand from the base of his dick to his waist, she pulled at her tail and hilted him all the way, letting out a sigh as she felt both throbbing erections fill both her holes.

Strickland gritted his teeth as the vipress began bucking her hips. Slowly she lifted herself off Deacon's erection, the wet glove of her pussy sliding up along his shaft while her asshole hugged Strickland tighter. He gritted his teeth, eye twitching furiously as she dry fucked his dick with her ass. It was chafing like no other Strickland had ever experienced.

As quickly as she rose, the vipress sank back down, hissing with glee as Deacon was forced deep into her snatch again. The young marine under her squirmed and moaned between sobs as her slippery hold on him maintain, rubbing softly up and down as she rode him at a slow, agonising pace. As she was working her hot hole to massage Deacon's length up and down, she held Strickland tightly in place, doing the same with every slow buck of her hips.

Strickland would admit, were he lubed up this would be super fucking hot. But with his best friend crying below him and his dick being grated by the vipress' lower digestive tract like a funnel of fucking sand-paper he had to remember this was not an enjoyable situation.

Though as Strickland took note of what was happening, he suddenly realised what the vipress was doing. With one hand she was keeping Deacon pinned down. Her free hand was caressing his wet face as she slowly, almost romantically rode him up and down. Her eyes were open wide and fixed lovingly on the human beneath her, corners of the mouth turned up in a smile. Her tongue hung out of her mouth as she panted and hissed every time she impaled herself on his erection with a wet smack.

Strickland felt like the spare wheel in an orgy; only there to fill an extra hole, but in essence the guy the group could have probably done fine without.

Then he got an idea. She was riding them slowly! So why not speed things up?

"Deac! Deacon!" Strickland called between groans as the snake rocked back again, stuffing her cock in hard enough for his balls to slap her taint audibly.

Deacon whimpered, but he managed to answer. "W-what?" he snivelled.

"C'mon buddy, kill the waterworks. I need your help."

Deacon sniffed loudly, but it didn't stop the tears. "How?" he nearly wailed as the vipress sank down as she squeezed her muscles tight over his cock. Even as he wailed the vipress threw her head back and hissed with pleasure.

"Deac, listen to me. She's really into you, okay?"

"That's not helping," the human sobbed.

"It' means she's vulnerable. Not to me or anyone. Just to you. You gotta get into this," Strickland finally explained. "You gotta thrust hard and fast."

"What?"

"You're gonna have to thrust. Nail this bitch into a stupor and we'll take her down while she's distracted,"

"That's crazy!"

"That's why this'll work. We'll do it together. On three, okay?" Strickland managed to lean around the vipress a little and spotted Deacon's tear stained face. His eyes were wide with panic and he was literally permeating fear. But he nodded none the less seeing no other way out of this. "Okay. One! Two!" Strickland paused, waiting for the vipress to rise a little, giving Deacon some thrusting room, then yelled like he was ordering a 'breach and clear', "three!"

Deacon didn't hesitate like Strickland expected him to do. Closing his eyes and placing his mind as far away as he could, the human did his best to ignore the warm, slippery tunnel engulfing him and drilled sharply upward into the vipress' pussy. As he did, Strickland moved at the same time, pushing forward and going balls deep right into the vipress' warm anus. It was dry, he was chafing, but the way she coiled it was definitely worse for her than it was for him.

Worse in a good way though.

Gasping with surprise as both cocks thrust deep into her, the vipress doubled over, a line of drool absently rolling from the corner of her mouth and down her chin. Her eyes were wide, but she couldn't see. She was locked in a world of bliss all her own, digging her fingers into Deacon's vest as the duo mercilessly pulled back, then thrusted again to continue their assault. Her nails pierced the outer layer of fabric and raked into the underlying armoured plates with a loud 'scritch!' her only sign of a voice beside hissing were the small yelps and cries she moaned out over the sopping noise of Deacon pounding her wet snatch.

Strickland in the meantime had moved his hands away from the coils of tail around his throat as he felt them loosen. Instead he grabbed one shoulder and slid one hand around to grope her breast. For better grip, of course... or arguably to torture the bitch a little as he trapped one of her nipples between his thumb and index finger, pulling them lightly with a slight twist.

The vipress crooned from the contact, one hand slapping over the coyote's but making no attempt to stop him. Her hips no longer bounced up and down on Deacon, merely twitching back and forth as her captives finally did their job and fucked her silly. It was like a fire had been burning within her for an eternity, growing into an uncontrollable inferno since the first time she began stalking the duo, and now finally they were coming close to setting it out for the first time.

The vipress doubled over and sank her fangs into Deacon's pauldron and she bit down hard. Deacon cried out.

"Are you okay?" Strickland asked with concern.

Deacon nodded despite the teeth sunk into his shoulder. "She's biting the armour. I'm fine." He looked down at where his cock was being eaten much like his pauldron was.

He suddenly got an idea. Moving his hands up, he clamped one over the vipress' slender hip. With something to pull up against, the force of his thrusts suddenly doubled. The vipress reacted to the feeling, convulsing with each assault on her pussy. Deacon wasn't done though.

His other hand moved up and his thumb pressed against a soft nub of pink flesh visible just above the opening stuffed with his length. It was almost like a button, because as he pressed it the vipress bucked even harder, crying out in time through his shoulder this time.

A bit of civilised demeanour shone through the vipress' feral nature as her hisses turned to little squeals, like she was finding her vocal chords for the first time. Unfortunately she found them in the midst of carnal ecstasy and was merely reacting to a pair of cocks tearing in and out of her velvety caves.

She was drooling more profusely, pools of liquid soaking Deacon's shoulder as she bit down harder, causing one of the fangs to crack. The point snapped clean off against the armour. Pain shot through her mouth, but with the electric sparks shooting through her pussy with a mixture of stimulation to her clit, prostate and vaginal canal she overcame it in moments. And the agonised wail was quickly replaced by a howl of a whole different kind of agony.

An agony for release. Release that was so close.

She could feel it build up with every twitch of her hips. Pressure. A fire. She was ready to explode. Her jaws unlocked from the human's pauldron as she threw her head back and cried out. She was going to...

Deacon assaulted her hot canal with one final effort and came.

He arched his spine, thrust as deep as he could go with both hands holding on tight to her hips and hilted himself into her completely. The pressure at the base of his cock had grown too much. The thick ropes of semen forced their way up through his swelling shaft before exploding from the very tip, thick cum gushing into the vipress' womb in torrents. Each time he clenched, his cock twitched inside her and fired another round of semen into her.

After the fourth twitch he was all done. Empty, exhausted and finished, his member growing soft almost immediately. Soft enough for the vipress to feel like he'd slipped out of her completely.

The pressure remained within her as she felt his sticky cum coat her insides. The valve for her release remained untouched. Her fire wasn't doused and her loins burned and begged for attention.

A single sentient thought raced through the mixture of emotions clouding her brain.

"No," it said. "I'm not done yet."

But not much more could be thought as something hit her in the side of the head and forced the vipress to the ground. Both cocks filling her up torn mercilessly from her holes leaving her cold and empty on the deck.

In her moment of confusion, her tail had loosened and uncoiled completely, slipping from Strickland's body and dropping to the floor like a pile of useless rope. That had been his chance. As much as he wanted to finish inside her and call it a day, he really couldn't worry about being left hot and bothered. All he worried about was surviving the next couple of minutes. So he clasped both hands into fists and smacked them into the side of the vipress' head, tackling her to the ground.

The moment he was free from the vipress' grip and weight, Deacon clawed his way out of the stupor of his force orgasm and scrambled away from the convulsing femme fatale. Strickland immediately did the same, rolled off her twitching form and jumped to his feet. Quickly tucking his junk away - despite it still being rock hard - and zipping up his fly, he picked up Deacon as the human did the same.

Getting over the spasms of near orgasm and the resulting wicked case of disappointing orgasm denial, the vipress clawed at them, but drunkenly missed as the marines jumped back. She dragged herself closer, her sentient moans and cooing turning to angry, feral hissing as rage took over again.

Unarmed, the human and the coyote retreated wordlessly to the waiting elevator. Jumping aboard, they manually slammed the grated door shut as the vipress climbed to her own feet. Strickland reached back and fisted the controls, causing the whole compartment to shudder.

There was still power it would seem, and with a rattle the elevator slowly began to elevate. The vipress on the other hand threw herself against the door in vain. Deacon's cum still oozing from her pussy lips and drooling down her inner thigh, she hissed furiously... and then she vanished from sight completely.

The elevator carried them all the way up to the cockpit in silence bar the groan and creaking of the counter weights and the scraping of the metal guides. The cables let out a soft 'twang' as they reached the top and the doors rattled open again to let them onto the cockpit deck.

The uppermost forward deck of the vulture was actually quite spacious. There was an access door beside the elevator door that led down into the cargo hold of the plane, but directly ahead of them was the main flight control. A cocoon of dashboards, lights and controls wrapped around a pair of seats facing the forward cockpit windows. They were shattered, letting a cold wind whip into the space.

Stumbling out onto the flight deck, the two marines paused to catch their breath. Deacon was doubled over resting his hands on his knees, while Strickland had collapsed completely and was laid back, making an angel outline in the sparse goo still clung to the deck.

Between breaths, Deacon looked up and chuckled. Strickland lifted his head, then did the same. Their chuckles slowly escalated to full-fledged, relieved laughter as Strickland held out a hand and they smacked a high five. That could have gone much worse than it did.

Though it could still go badly.

Their laughter died in their throats as the elevator behind them let out a clang. Looking back they saw the whole compartment lift a good few inches before falling back to normal level again. A dent had formed in the floor of the elevator, and with three more subsequent impacts the metal began to buckle, and the vipress' fingers began to feel through the breaches.

Swallowing hard, Deacon grabbed Strickland by the arm and helped him up. "We should find that shard and get out of here."

"Yeah, good idea," Strickland quickly agreed.

Turning, they bounded across the flight deck and checked the cockpit. But finding what they were looking for wasn't hard. It was quite obvious really.

The shard was in a containment unit, a glowing cylinder much like ice-coring samples only much shorter. Somewhere underneath the lead lining and kinetic suspension field a shard of red rock hung. The shard was more important than anything on the planet. More important than even Strickland and Deacon.

Important enough to keep it away from the vipress.

"Got it!" Deacon cried as he picked up the cylinder tucked in the foot-well of the co-pilot's seat.

Turning from where he was checking the glove-box, Strickland sighed to see his buddy holding the intact containment unit. "Great, now let's..."

Interrupted for the second time in less than thirty minutes, Strickland let out a surprised cry. Deacon did the same as they both felt the entire deck shift and pivot under their boots. Collapsing to the ground, they both scrambled 'up-hill' and grabbed hold of the cargo netting by the emergency exit to the right side of the flight deck. As he desperately held on, his stomach swooping as the deck kept pivoting, Deacon deployed his helmet for whatever protection it would offer.

Looking back, Strickland saw the view out of the cockpit windows turn from sky to snow as the whole vulture, already teetered on the edge of the cliff, displaced. The colossal bird edged forward over the rock and snow until the nose was angled downward, looking at the far wall of the valley.

"That's not good," Strickland pointed out helpfully. "Now what?"

Deacon had an idea, unfortunately he was forced into executing it without the chance to reconsider. The whole deck tipped again, the plane sliding a little further over the cliff. And as it was, the duo were thrown sideways into the emergency exit. The door's locks already damaged in the crash, they fell through the doorway as it hung open, sending them tumbling into the frigid air outside.

"Whoa, fuck!" Strickland yelled looking into the snowy oblivion below as they both hung on to the emergency exit, the only thing stopping them from falling a thousand metres into the valley.

"Yeah, this really isn't where I wanna be," Deacon admitted, figuring bailing out wasn't such a good idea after all.

Strickland saw potential in the plan though as he looked up and noticed the spools of cable on the winch attached to the emergency exit door. It was better than nothing. Hanging on with one hand, he reached up and uncoiled the first wire, clicking the carabineer in place on the back of Deacon's belt.

"Let go!" Strickland ordered.

Deacon scoffed. "What?"

"Trust me!"

"There are exactly three things wrong with that statement," Deacon argued.

Strickland really didn't have time to argue though, so he swung forward and kicked Deacon in the back. Thrown forward, Deacon lost his handhold and dropped straight down with a scream, flailing his arms and legs. The shard still clutched in one hand, the cable attached to him pulled taught with loud snap and deacon swung down until his boots hit the valley wall. Glancing back with the shard clutched close to his chest, Deacon glanced back to see Strickland plummet down after him, similarly suspended from a descent wire. As it pulled taught and he rappelled face-down next to the human. Probably smiling behind his helmet, Strickland gestured for Deacon to run.

"Let's go! Move!" he indicated, then started running. The winch automatically unwound and allowed him to descend the valley wall at full run.

Deacon imitated the motions, clumsily running down after him, sidestepping around the deep cracks and chasms in his path. As he was running vertically, downward, he heard the swoop of things falling past his ears. A piece of wing scythed past them and embedded itself into the valley floor somewhere below them.

Deacon turned his head, but Strickland waved him off.

"Don't look back!" he yelled as more debris from the plane began to fall around them. "Keep running!"

One of the vulture's jet engines swooped past to Deacon's surprise and hit the valley floor below. As it did, the turbine burst into a ball of flame that clawed up between where Strickland and Deacon were running. The human shaded his face, feeling the heat through his visor before the fire and smoke faded.

About forty metres off the deck the duo jolted to a halt. They were out of cable and hung still, vulnerable on the side of the cliff.

"Detach-detach!" Strickland yelled as he reached back and ripped open the emergency release tab on the carabineer attaching him to the descent cable.

Deacon did the same and they both plummeted through the air into the bank of snow below, disappearing with a loud 'plof.' Popping out of the powder again came a hand clutching the shard's containment unit.

Hooking his arm over the bank, Deacon managed to pull himself out of the deep snow and shook the specks of white from his visor. Strickland did the same before another large chunk of steel cratered the snow beside them.

Looking up, Strickland felt his eyes widen to the size of saucers. The nosecone of the vulture transport plane hanging above them grew bigger. And bigger... and bigger, as it raced down as if trying to harpoon them.

"Oh, fuck! Move!" Strickland yelled grabbing Deacon by the arm.

Together they floundered out of the banks of fluffy, deep snow and ran full sprint to get clear. But as the cockpit of the vulture hit behind them, crumpled like a beer-can, split apart at the seams and burst apart like a water-balloon, scattering the valley with debris while a wave of snow rippled outward and threw the duo into the air. Surfing on the beginnings of the avalanche, the two marines hit the deck and kept sliding and tumbling as the ground kept whipping up like a carpet being dusted and threw them downhill.

Full white out clouded their visors as the powder seemed to consume everything around them, air included. Steel bars and bits of hull plating hit the snow like meteorites raining from space all around them.

A chunk of hull structure slammed into the space between Deacon and Strickland. The coyote hit the debris and trapped himself between one of the crossbeams with a thud and a winded gasp. Seeing him all of a sudden torn to a halt by the debris, Deacon rolled onto his side and reached out for his friend as the snow ripped him sideways and pushed him closer. Their fingers brushed each other, but in the end the tide of snow consumed the coyote and once more Deacon aside against his will.

"Strick!" the human yelled before another wave crashed down and flung Deacon head-over-heels into the air. "Gaaaaaaahh! Unfh!"

He hit the ground face down, sliding to a halt in shallow snow. Tired, bruised and battered, he just lay there, expecting the next avalanche to cover him over, crush and suffocate him to death...

Minutes passed and nothing happened. With a groan, Deacon slowly lifted his faceplate out of the snow and flexed his limbs. He wasn't buried alive. He was on the surface of the snow, free to stand and move around. Reaching out he felt around and closed his fingers over the shard's containment unit. Dragging it closer, he inspected the casing. Through another stroke of luck it was still intact, having now survived a plane crash and an avalanche.

Deacon wasn't relieved though. The victory was bittersweet. The shard was close to its final resting place. They... he was close to finishing this. But without Strickland, was it worth finishing. Nearly everyone was dead or turned into those things. What was there left to save?

Deacon managed to get up to his knees telling himself it was for the colonies. For Sovereign Colonies, the people who had escaped Earth and an oppressive government that had dragged them into one galactic war too many. For the others not hit with this epidemic yet. Deacon had to finish this. Stop this shit before it started properly.

That thought got him up to his feet... though he wished it hadn't.

As he straightened up, something batted the back of his helmet. Recoiling with a wince, Deacon stepped away, broke apart his helmet and stowed it as he turned to look across the camp. With the frigid air hitting his bare skin, Deacon stared in horror at the bodies dangling across the camp's courtyard, strung by their necks from rope, coils of wire, ribbons and pretty much anything else resembling robe that could be found.

Civilians, men and women, anthros and humans, all lined up neatly and dangling dead a few feet above the crimson stained snow.

Deacon was no doctor, but it looked like the people had been wrapped in the nooses before being forcefully hoisted up to suffocate. And the only ones who could have done that lay on the ground, clutching their own sidearms, the backs of their heads blown off. Crimson and navy armour, the tell-tale colours of marines from reaper company. A fitting name considering all the work they'd been carrying out on Attric lately.

The camp he'd left less than twenty four hours ago, the camp full of survivors gathered from all across Attric was now a zone of death.

His mouth fell open as he slowly picked his way across the courtyard, stepping over and between the bodies of murderers and their victims who hung, swaying slightly in the wind.

"What are you still doing out, lance corporal?"

The voice caused Deacon to flinch hard and recoil. Turning to face it, he was shocked to find a single man still standing among the slaughter.

Master Gunnery Sergeant Malcom stood unfazed by the death surrounding him. Normally Deacon would be afraid of Malcom because of his presence and rank. He was a large and very unpleasant man. He had authority and wasn't afraid to flaunt it. but that wasn't what threw Deacon now. Malcom's uniform was speckled with blood, definitely not his own and his beret and face were crusted with snow like he'd been outside for a very long time.

Still disbelieving of what he was seeing, Deacon started to say, "we were..." Deacon stopped himself remembering Strickland was gone and instead said, "I was securing the shard. I have to bring it to Doctor Spector." He held up the containment unit.

Moving closer to Deacon, Malcom chuckled. "Ah, Doctor Spector. The believer. It's over, son. We lost. You realise this, don't you?" he added almost pitifully like an adult checking if a child was comprehending what he was saying.

Deacon shook his head and held up the shard. "No... I have the shard, sir! We can still stop all of this!"

Malcom's outburst was sudden enough for the other human to flinch again. "It's too late! We lost control!" Reaching out, Malcom snatched the containment unit from Deacon's hand and considered it quietly for a moment. Calmly he continued to say, "now we have to do what's right. For the colonies." His tired eyes flitted up to meet Deacon's gaze again. "You love the colonies, don't you son? Your mom? Your dad?"

"Y... yes. Yes, sir."

Malcom's smile did not calm Deacon. It was like the smile of a wolf about to kill a lamb. "Good. That's very good."

Malcom's hand came up, a gun clutched in it and aimed at Deacon's face. The junior marine didn't even have any time to react.

A deafening gunshot echoed out across the ice encrusted plains of Attric...

SniperSpartan-977 presents...

_ ... a parody fanfiction of a game developed by Visceral Studios..._

_ ... which was then raped by EA..._

_ ... geddit...?_

Because the FUBAR series is all about guys getting raped in the parodied game's universe. So guys are getting raped in a universe that was raped.

This shit is so meta , SoFurry can't even handle me right now!

FUBAR SPACE

A significant, but unspecific, amount of time earlier...

"Oh! Fuck! Yes! Yes, fuck me! Fuck me!" the polar screamed, completely forgetting she was supposed to be keeping quiet.

But with Strickland mercilessly pounding her pussy with a long, deep rhythm that jack-hammered her insides with every thrust, Tamara couldn't help let out a wail of joy.

Within the cramped confines of the janitor's closet, Tarmara sat perched on the edge of a large supply trunk, the holo-displays glowing red to indicate it was locked, just like the closet door. Behind where Strickland stood, his tail coiled around a rack of shelves and every time he drew back his ass rattled the flimsy steel construction before he ploughed deep into the polar bear wrapping her legs around his waist in a carnal clasp, begging for more.

"Don't slow down," Tamara cooed breathlessly, her breasts jiggling slightly as the coyote furiously hilted her. "By the marker, faster. Fuck me faster!"

Strickland sucked in some fresh breath and squeezed his eyes shut before obliging. He didn't mind so much, apart from the cramp forming in his leg. Still, he hugged the woman a little tighter and worked on thrusting as fast as he could. He was pretty sure the only thing keeping him going at this point was a little prompt hanging over his shoulder demanding powers on high to 'mash X.'

Tamara's bra hung unclasped halfway down her arms and nestled across her stomach. Both her hands were grasping Strickland's t-shirt tightly, pulling at him as if urging him to ram her harder still. Looking down she saw his cock slide smoothly out of her tight pussy, the swollen pink lips standing out against her clean white fur before he slammed in deep again. Juices coated Strickland's bright red member and made wet, slopping sounds with every furious thrust that splattered a few specks of fluid into the air.

Strickland groaned as he mercilessly pounded on, Tamara's hot, wet, velvety tunnel squeezing him as she threw her head back in response to his vigorous ploughing. He could feel a flow of juices warm his cock as her hips twitched and convulsed. She was cumming, and not so calmly either.

She creamed hard enough to force her juices to spurt out past Strickland's member and soak his crotch already dripping and matted from the last two times she came.

Only this time, Strickland didn't have the energy or willpower to hold back anymore. "I'm... I'm gonna..."

"Cum inside!" Tamara snarled through gritted teeth as she bucked her hips to meet his aggressive thrusts. "You know what I want! Do it! Fill me up!"

The polar barely even had time to complete her demands when she felt Strickland twitch inside her. Her eyes and mouth hung open wide as she felt it, the tip of Strickland's cock slam against her cervix with one final, aggressive thrust. Then she felt it. An explosion as rope after rope of thick, sticky cum was surgically injected directly into her with the force of a power hose.

Ejecting a double tap into Tamara, Strickland panted for air, drawing himself half out of her and depositing another load. As he did, he quickly hilted the woman again and fired two more final spurts of cum into his partner.

Tamara cooed, a big soppy grin on her face as her gorgeous eyes fell shut. Her expression as one of bliss as she felt the hot semen fill her up to the brim and over-flow. Panting for air like the coyote growing softer in her, Tamara looked down and saw his cum bubble out between where his shaft stretched open her tight pussy-lips.

Letting go of the coyote, Tamara quickly planted her hands on the surface of the box she sat on and caught her breath as she squeezed her lower abdominal muscles. She felt Strickland go from his usual ten inches of rock hard meat to a soft little weenie.

"Good boy," Tamara said teasingly like she was rewarding a pet dog for performing her favourite trick... technically she was.

Strickland chuckled as he slipped out of her completely, a mixture of his and her cum drooling down his limp member as it slowly withdrew into his sheath. Glancing down he saw a mixture of their juices matting Tamara's furry outer pussy lips as they very slowly closed over on their own. Though as they fell shut, the attractive little pink line breaking up the otherwise solid canvas of white fur was still visible. Either her insides were still stretched out from their little session and would be for a while, or Tamara was still aroused and ready for another round.

The latter wouldn't surprise Strickland at all. It was what he loved about her. She was always hot and ready to go, and while it was admittedly exhausting he still loved it so much he had to let Tamara know.

Eyes falling shut; he leaned in to his partner and pressed his lips against hers, his tongue gently probing her mouth as he moved to kiss her deeply...

Before he could even brush her teeth with his tongue though, Tamara's hand planted itself on his chest and pushed the coyote back. Opening his eyes, he saw a mixture of surprise and anger on the polar bear's face.

"The hell was that?" she demanded.

"Uhh..."

"What are we, going steady now?" The anger in her eyes faded as Tamara smiled teasingly. "Is the marine getting a little clingy?"

Strickland scoffed defensively. "O-of course not! I just got... um... carried away." He eagerly added, "aggressively," for good measure.

Sticking out her tongue, Tamara pushed Strickland back and pinned him against the rack of shelves before elegantly standing. "You're lucky your aggression is the reason I keep coming back to you over the geeks at the university."

Strickland smirked as Tamara squeezed past him to clean up and find where she'd dumped her clothes in the chaotic excitement to get the marine inside her.

After using some of the janitor's clean towels to clean themselves up they started dressing. Tamara pulled up her panties and tried to reach her pants hanging over one of the top shelves in the closet where she'd aggressively kicked them off.

Strickland just had to reach down and pull up the silkies and pants pooled around his ankles. Over his black t-shirt that had the word 'disGRUNTld' printed across the chest, Strickland pulled on his heavily insulated coat.

There were few things in the universe Strickland was thankful for. You're probably thinking I'm about to say 'tits'... and you'd be correct. But one thing he was more thankful for were the EDF marine issue all-weather fatigues.

As a marine, Strickland wasn't issued much fancy gear. Most of his shit he had to buy himself. But the all-weather fatigues were a God-send, especially on Attric. Not only were they snow-cammies, they were impermeable and they were snuggly to boot.

Strickland was born on raised on Attric. This colony was his home. But even he knew this world was a frozen shithole tucked into the ass-end of the galaxy. Minus-three Celsius in the sun, minus-forty in the shade; complete whiteouts were a common occurrence, some gusts of hail were cold and violent enough to strip the flesh from a man's bones. Try to go for a piss outside the urine might just freeze _inside_your dick.

Attric sucked. But there were a few things that made it worth sticking around.

As the marine was pulling on the armoured vest that made up the core of his RIG, Strickland looked over at the polar bear getting dressed too.

Tamara was an athletic woman, he might have mistaken her for a marine if she weren't wearing civilian clothes. Long powerful legs, a narrow, athletic physique covered in clean white fur that contrasted with the leathery black skin on the palms of her hands and soles of her feet, and dark circular nipples centred on her ample breasts. Her hair was short, platinum blonde with an angled fringe falling over her forehead.

She didn't notice Strickland staring as she absently zipped up the front of his tac-vest, the angular plates at the shoulder sliding down over his upper arms and detaching several plates that moved further down to form protection over the forearms. Similar hip plates worked their way down over his thighs and detached the knee and shin guards that worked down to his heavy ice-boots, armour deploying much like his helmet did.

Keeping his helmet retracted, Strickland enjoyed the unobscured view of the woman he shared a closet with, working her jeans up over her tight rear and the fluffy little tail poking through a hole cut in the back. It took every ounce of willpower not to reach out and give it a squeeze as she did up the clasp of her bra and pulled on her t-shirt and jacket, a bright orange all-weather coat like Strickland's fatigues with fur around the hood.

She paused, zipping up her coat to look back at the coyote and cock an eyebrow. "Well?" Tamara asked.

"Well what?"

She pointed at the door. "You gonna check if the way is clear?"

Strickland blinked, then looked at the closet door. "Right."

Shifting his bulky form around the polar bear, Strickland gently patted a hand to the glowing red holo-panel centred on the door. As he did, it turned blue and expanded into a rectangular board that spread over the upper half of the door. The holo-board interfaced with the hallway camera and revealed the empty corridor beyond. Satisfied the way was clear, he closed down the surveillance screen and twisted his fingers across the door controls.

Recognising the command, the panel vanished and the doors slid open, parting down the middle and the metal panels sliding away into the walls to either side of the doorway until they were flush with the frame. Stepping through, Strickland looked left and right, then turned and waved Tamara out, confirming it was clear.

As she joined him, Strickland looked like something was bothering him though. His brows were knitting thoughtfully as he looked her over.

"What?" Tamara asked.

Strickland shrugged at first. "No it's just..." he paused, then reconsidered, figuring this was probably important after all. "It's about the way we... y'know." He nodded suggestively down at her stomach.

She placed a hand on her abdomen and quickly Tamara realised he was talking about her love for him cumming inside her and let out a small, "Ah." She quickly shook her head and added, "I've told you already. I'm on birth control."

"That's just it. The pills are getting pretty expensive, along with everything else. So, uh..." Strickland reached into his pocket and produced three slips of paper. They were like tokens you won at a carnival or fair and exchanged for prizes, printed on gold coloured paper with perforated little edges. They were emblazoned with the Sovereign Colonies logo, words 'ration seal' printed underneath.

Ration seals were the currency out here in the outer colonies where supplies were scarce. They were issued daily to inhabitants of Attric and used for a variety of purchases. From getting meals to requisitioning equipment or medicines; ration seals were designed to make sure everyone got only what they absolutely needed, equally.

Looking at the offered seals, Tamara quickly folded her hands over Strickland's and pushed his hand down. "We have a specific arrangement. Friends-with-benefits. You don't need to constantly take care of me, Pres," she said, smiling regardless.

"Yeah, but I want to. C'mon. What's the point of having a friend-with-benefits in the marines if you can't take advantage of all the benefits?" he smirked, then offered the seals again.

With a sigh, Tamara folded. It never took much to convince her. She was always too proud to take Strickland's ration seals out-right; but too friendly to refuse when he insisted.

"Thanks, Preston." Tamara pocketed the seals.

"Walk you to the transit station?" Strickland suggested while pointing a thumb over his shoulder in the direction she was going to walk.

Tamara nodded and grinned. "Sure."

As they moved out, Strickland did feel a little guilty. Not about the fact he was fucking Tamara and was barely even taking her out for dinner before or after. Because the sweet gesture of walking her to the transit station from where she'd take the mono-rail home had an ulterior motive. Their path to the transit station took them past where he was supposed to be posted as a guard. He could check in on the way past, and hopefully rub the fact he had a hot friend-with-benefits into his best friend's face.

As they walked, a respectable distance between them so they seemed like friends to passers-by, not a sex-crazed duo who had cum all over each other only moments ago, Strickland asked, "you coming around tomorrow again?"

Tamara shook her head to Strickland's disappointment. "Probably not. The boss wants me to take another trip up to the dig. My plane leaves in a few hours."

Strickland groaned at the news. Tamara was a forensic xeno-archaeologist. She went where the bones were buried. And unfortunately her latest fascinating 'dig' was on the other side of the planet. That made her visiting the base quite awkward.

"Again? Geeze, what do you guys keep finding up there?"

"Stuff," Tamara explained mysteriously with a joking smirk.

That made Strickland scoff. "Oh, yeah. That's helpful."

Tamara giggled, patting the marine apologetically on the head.

At an empty junction, Strickland took the woman's wrist and stopped her. To the left, as was signposted, was the transit station where a mono-rail connecting to the main colony city would take Tamara back to the university where she worked. To the right was where Strickland was supposed to be working, standing sentry by one of the base's armouries.

"Hold up a sec," Strickland said, beckoning her to follow.

Tamara frowned, tapping a finger on her watch. "My ride leaves in ten minutes."

Strickland took her wrist and guided her down the corridor. "We'll just be a minute. I promise."

Moving down the lonely hall, they found it turned a corner and ended in a sealed door. Outside the solid blast door at least two metres across was a makeshift little reception area. There was a single desk and chair with a computer terminal, the desk littered with requisition forms and other paper work. Set against the wall behind the desk were a pair of lockers, the locks glowing red.

Manning the armoury reception should have been two lance corporals. One Lance Corporal Caleb Deacon, the other should have been Strickland. Peeking around the corner, Strickland saw there were still two marines outside the armoury. However while one was Deacon, the other was definitely not Preston Strickland. Mind you, a doppelganger of Strickland would have been better than the marine who was actually standing in front of Deacon who stood to a panicked attention as he was chewed out by a larger, burlier man.

Both humans had their helmets retracted, though Strickland doubted Master Gunnery Sergeant Malcom even had a helmet. Unlike the young lance corporal, Malcom was clad in an officer's uniform, his bottoms coloured in the pale snow-camo colours and a thick olive green trench coat pulled over the torso and a drab beret perched over his high and tight haircut.

"Why is this armoury door not open yet?" Master Gunnery Sergeant Malcom demanded, squaring up to the comparatively tiny Deacon.

Deacon did his best to keep his expression neutral as he stared through the senior NCO. "Protocol states no one marine may hold both keys to the armoury, sir. And my watch-partner stepped off to relieve himself, sir. He should be back soon."

Malcom snarled like an attack dog, and Strickland couldn't tell if it was because Deacon had called the man 'sir,' or he just wasn't happy with the lance corporal's answer.

"Do you like potatoes, son?" he finally said quite dangerously.

Deacon blinked, taken off rhythm by that sudden random question. "Uh... no, not really, sir."

"Well then you'd better hope your buddy gets back soon," Malcom told Deacon in a low, even tone that slowly grew in volume and rage over time. "Because if this armoury isn't open in the next ten minutes I'll make sure you spend the remainder of your military career peeling GOD-DAMNED POTATOES!"

Deacon stiffened, his eyes fluttering as those last few words were literally yelled in his face. Without even waiting for a reply from the marine, Malcom briskly turned and marched away. As the senior NCO moved closer, Strickland jumped aside, flattening himself against the wall and snapped into a brisk salute.

"Good afternoon, top!" Strickland said as Malcom turned the corner and walked past.

Though 'top' was a common nickname for a master gunnery sergeant; hearing it uttered from the lips of a junior enlisted scumbag caused the man to miss a step. Pausing, Malcom looked sideways at Strickland, who straightened up a little more and flashed an apologetic little smile. The master guns narrowed his eyes a little, then shook his head and moved on. Clearly he had better things to do that NJP little shits in the hallway.

Letting out a breath of relief, Strickland glanced at Tamara. The polar bear was smiling and shaking her head slowly.

As he moved around the corner to see what that was all about, Strickland stopped again. This time because Deacon crashed headlong into him.

Looking up surprised and worried he'd crashed into Malcom without realising it, Deacon's expression quickly melted into relief at the sign of his buddy.

"Geeze, Strick! There you are! What took so lo-..." Deacon glanced sideways and froze, doing a double take to the anthro polar bear standing with Strickland.

"T-Tamara?" he stuttered, shock returning to his expression.

"Caleb!" Tamara blurted out, her own expression mimicking the human's. "Hi."

Frowning, Strickland's eyes shifted from Tamara to Deacon as the human said, "hi... uh... it's been a while."

"Yeah. How are you?" Tamara answered awkwardly as Strickland's eyes shifted to her when she spoke, then quickly slid back to look at Deacon to anticipate an answer.

"Good. Yeah. Thanks." Deacon paused a moment before stumbling over his words as he asked, "a-and yo-you?"

Tamara smiled brightly. It was a genuine smile, Strickland could tell that much easily enough. "Good." She said with a nod.

Deacon smiled back a little shyly. "Good."

Strickland was still frowning with confusion as he glanced between the two of them, silent now. This was almost as awkward as running into your ex-girlfriend. In fact, this was so much like that, Strickland was pretty sure that was exactly what was currently happening.

Swallowing, then clearing her throat, Tamara suddenly pointed down the hall. "Well, I've got a lot of work. We should catch up sometime, okay?"

Deacon quickly nodded as she started moving off. "Yeah. Yeah, that'd be nice."

Tamara paused and smiled at that. "Okay... bye."

"Bye." Deacon awkwardly waved.

Tamara turned, glanced over her shoulder once more, then walked off, disappearing down the corridor and around the corner on her own. Strickland wasn't even sure what to say anymore, but one thing was for sure. There wasn't a way in hell he was going to rub the fact he was fucking a hot chick with no personal ties in Deacon's face now. Not now he knew they knew each other and clearly had something going on.

Instead, Strickland just decided to dig a little. "Old friend of yours?" he asked.

"Yeah, you could say that." Deacon didn't really expand much more on it.

"Wanna talk about it?"

"Not really."

"Good! Neither do I," Strickland lied before walking with Deacon to their post at the armoury door and adding, "hey, you mind if I borrow some ration seals for dinner time?" Those seals Strickland had given Tamara had been his last. That meant borrow someone's seals or go hungry tonight.

Deacon sighed when his friend asked though. "Again? What do you keep doing with yours?"

"Well..." Strickland had no idea how to explain. That tired old excuse of 'I'm not being issued any' or 'I keep losing mine' was wearing pretty thin. Even a green-as-grass boot didn't lose as many seals as Strickland was apparently losing. "Look, if you don't want to you don't have to..."

Deacon quickly waved the coyote off. "No, no. It is fine. I can only stomach two meals a day anyway. I'm just worried about you constantly running out. It's starting to look suspicious."

Strickland looked confused at that. "Suspicious? Suspicious of what?"

"Oh, haven't you heard? There's been rumour of some girls from the colony showing up around military bases, whoring themselves out in exchange for extra ration seals."

Strickland had heard no such stories. Then again, he spent most of his free time balls deep in Tamara instead of socialising with the rest of their battalion on base. As far as pop-culture and current affairs went, he was quite out of the loop.

"That's... bad?" he asked concerning the exchange of ration seals for sexual services. After all, the seals were supposed to be exchanged for services.

"Darn right!" Deacon scoffed as he pulled his armoury key from his pocket and indicated Strickland to do the same. "Terrible misuse of vital colony resources. Heck, I've even heard rumour in the barracks saying you're constantly running outta seals 'cuz your paying for their whoring."

Strickland's eyes went wide as he swiped his key the same time as Deacon. "... slander!" he blurted out.

Deacon nodded in agreement as the armoury locks disengaged the red disk centred on the bulkhead turning from red to blue. "That's what I said! I told the guys; Strick's my friend and I can tell you for certain he ain't paying for no two-bit-hussy!"

Double-negative. Nice bit of irony there. "Damn straight! Thanks for standing up for me, man."

Deacon smiled looking quite proud. "Eh, dont mention it. What are friends for, right? Besides; I know damn well you wouldn't' be so stupid," he added, swiping his hand over the door controls. With a beep, the clamps disengaged and with a grind of metal the vaulted doors slowly began to part down the middle, crawling open to either side.

"St-stupid? Why would a marine getting some on the side be stupid?" Strickland asked.

"Well, because Colonel Malcom's been watching everyone, all the time," Deacon explained as-a-matter-of-factly.

"He is?"

"Yeah. He's using the security feed to track everyone's movements. And when he's finished reviewing the logs he'll know exactly who's been doing all this 'peng' business and who's been encouraging it."

"He will?"

Deacon nodded. "I bet that's why he's on edge to get all this ammo moved. He's gonna be leading the witch hunt soon."

"Uh-huh?"

"I sure don't wanna be that poor sucker..." Deacon paused, noticing Strickland had turned quite pale all of a sudden. "Ehh. Hey, you okay?"

"Walkin' on sunshine," Strickland peeped.

True, Strickland was only giving his ration seals to Tamara so she could afford the birth control so the two of them wouldn't have a nasty little surprise in a few months. But on the security feed it might not look like that. And since Strickland already had more NJPs than a can of alphabet soup to his name, being charged with encouraging prostitution on base would likely warrant a visit by the MPs.

Strickland forced himself to calm down. There was no way the corps was so organised to lead a proper investigation. And if he got caught he could always convince Tamara to testify on his behalf... mind you, that'd be a trick-and-a-half.

With the armoury doors wide open, the duo stepped inside and inspected the supplies. Ammunition and rifles seemed to be running low in their little armoury, most of the equipment already having been transported to other bases, outposts or ammo being issued for live-fire exercises but not being re-stocked thanks to supply delays from the inner colonies. Run out of shit this far into the back-end of the galaxy and you would have to do without until the next re-supply ship sauntered by.

In one rack there were only two dozen or so sidearms and about six rifles. On the far wall the ammo crates were equally scarce. A few thousand rounds worth of bullets, they didn't even have ammo for the single pulse rifle hung in its own dedicated rack. Strickland had always found that to be a pity.

Pulse rifles were awesome! Triple-barelled death dealing war-machines with under slung grenade launcher and a rate of fire that could tear apart a feral moose in two seconds flat.

"The master gunnery sergeant wants us to load up everything that's left and bring it to the motor pool," Deacon said.

"I'll fetcht he dolly," Strickland said, crossing to the back of the armoury and powering up the anti-grav dolly.

As marines from the 2nd Engineering Corps, part of their responsibilities were logistical operations like these. Ensuring armouries were stocked and managed, running ammo and weapons to where they were needed, distributing supplies, etcetera.

It was important work, sure. They practically kept operations on Attric running. But at the same time, it made them feel like POGs - AKA, persons-other-than-grunts.

When they finished loading ammo onto the dolly, they piled on the rifles and sidearms, including the pulse rifle. Malcom had asked for everything, they weren't going to risk his wrath on the technicality that one of the rifles didn't even have ammo.

Fully loaded, the dolly groaning under the weight of the weapons and ammo, Strickland led the device out into the hall before Deacon locked up the empty armoury. Satisfied they were ready, the lance corporals moved down the hall, turned off instead of following the arrows to the transit station and took the ramps down to the motor pool.

Camp Whiskey was supposed to be the central facility for all Sovereign Colonies Marine Corps operations on Attric. As such it was the largest base on the planet. Though manpower and supplies were always spread across other camps, outposts and firebases across Attric. That was why there were very few personnel wandering the halls, their armoury was empty and the motor pool was equally pitiful.

The cavernous garage was empty bar for the few marines from the engineering corps welding together some gear in the corner workshop. And standing by the shuttered door leading out into the frozen wastes stood a single quad-caterpillar snow crawler.

It was like a large truck with the driver cabin fixed at the very front and a quad of caterpillar crawlers, each individually driven and capable of pivoting to produce tight turning circles. The armoured hull of the crawler was bright yellow, with painted black steel frames over the bonnet, sides, roof and back to protect from falling rocks and other impacts.

Travel by crawler was the easiest and fastest way across the Attric cross-country to places where mono-rails did not run.

Standing around the crawler were at least fifteen armoured individuals, and one in an olive green jacket. The armoured marines were from the 163rd Reapers, distinguished by the fill body thermal suit bulked out by navy and crimson armoured plates. Pouches wrapped around their waists, chests arms and thighs, their helmets fully enclosed 'ninja masks,' sporting improved night-optics visors with the distinct 'three-dot' lights.

Master Gunnery Sergeant Malcom turned to see the lance corporals approach and actually gave a satisfied nod. He quickly indicated the marines from Reaper Company to load up.

"Looks like you're not complete fuck ups, lance corporals," Malcom commented. "What is your unit?"

Strickland and Deacon glanced at each other before the human answered, "uh... Second Combat Engineers, sir."

"Excellent!" Malcom exclaimed. "Food Storage Outpost Alpha fell off the grid. You'll join the mission to figure out what happened, and if necessary retrieve vital colony supplies and bring them here." Reaching into the dolly as the marines from reaper prepared weapons, Malcom retrieved a pair of pistols and handed them to the lance corporals. As they took the weapons and holstered them, Malcom turned back to the other marines. "Reaper Company. Take these logistic monkeys with you while I write up their page elevens."

Strickland grinned. A 'page eleven' was a write up on a marine's permanent record. Essentially, the write up went on page eleven of their record, and could be doled out for admirable service or infractions.

"You think we'll be getting commendations for admirable performance?" he asked his fellow lance corporal.

Deacon didn't say anything, knowing full well as Strickland did that a page eleven was almost always bad.

"Yeah, you're right. Page elevens always suck." Honestly, he wasn't sure what else to expect. He should have counted himself lucky he didn't get another non-judicial punishment to his name for being absent from his post.

As Malcom left the motor pool, Strickland sighed and batted Deacon on the shoulder. Looking up from where he was fidgeting with the handle of his holstered pistol, Deacon followed Strickland to the crawler and climbed in.

As they entered the confined troop cabin, waiting for them was one of the reapers, the pulse rifle cradled across his chest. Either he was an idiot, or he didn't realise there was no pulse ammo for the weapon. Strickland assumed both.

"POGs ride in the back," the pulse rifle wielding marine growled, pointing down the aisle leading down the centre of the troop cabin.

"So we should like... what?" Strickland shrugged before he said, "ride in the front?"

"I think he's implying-..." Deacon interjected, but Strickland cut across him.

"I know what he's implying!"

Moving down the centre, the two lance corporals were subjected to the stares of reaper company as they snickered at the junior enlisted marines struggling through the cramped confines made even more cramped by fifteen armoured bodies. Deacon even tripped and landed, almost comically, face down on the deck. The reapers howled with laughter, some of them kicking him in the tac-vest.

Telling them where they could shove their own heads, Strickland picked Deacon up and helped him to the very rear of the crawler's cabin. Once there however they realised all the seats in the troop cabin were occupied by reapers, with only a little bit of empty space where stacks of spare ammo sat where Deacon and Strickland had been directed to 'sit.'

"Staff Sergeant, there are no seats back here!" Strickland hollered.

"I know!" he marine at the front shouted back.

Strickland scoffed as Deacon found some handholds for them to hang on to from the cargo netting hung from the ceiling.

"I guess we'll just stand alone," Strickland grimaced.

Deacon shrugged, holding out his fist. "Yeah. But we'll stand alone together."

That made Strickland smile and he cracked his knuckle plate across Deacon's in response.