Teamwork Keeps You Alive

Story by The Wizened Raconteur on SoFurry

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#1 of The Final Frontier

This was originally a commission for James la Fey.


The place was damned noisy. It was a bar after all. Duma had her ear plugs in to dampen the sounds. Humans could tolerate having their hearing blasted out of existence, but not her. She relied on every sense her development had honed, from her eagle-eyed gaze to her marathon-ready speed.

She even had a taste for alcohol, something a lot of the other synths couldn't handle. Too bad for them. There was pleasure to be found in the right bottle of liquor.

She felt a hand on her shoulder and she waited before taking a drink. On occasion it was one of the local dregs, trying to be a big shot in front of his fellows. But it was only John. She corrected herself. He liked to be called Mutt.

"Don't drink too much tonight my friend. We have a big day tomorrow."

She turned to face him as he descended onto the bar stool. "I know. Why do you think I'm drinking?"

He ordered a glass of beer and a whiskey. He poured the small glass into the larger one. She made a face. "That seems like a desecration to both the beer and the liquor. Why do you do that?"

"It's an old family tradition. It's something called a Boilermaker."

"Ugh. I'll stick with vodka thank you."

He grabbed her glass and sniffed it. "I see you've finally convinced Harry to carry a little bottle of catnip oil for you."

She growled in a low tone. "The hell he will. I bring my own. The fucking bastard will hardly serve me, let alone cater to my needs."

"Well, you are hard to get used to for a lot of folks. We aren't at war over nothing you know."

She poured the drink down her throat and purred in a way that sounded menacing. "Like that's my fault? I didn't ask for this."

"Calm down Duma. This started well before you came around. You're a result of the war, not the cause for it."

"Well, sometimes I hate it. Being a synth sucks."

He took a pull off of his huge glass and set it down. "I don't call you a synth. That's a term from the religious side of the war. Technically you're a Genetically Engineered Intelligent Synthetic Human Analog."

She slammed her spotted fist on the counter. "Goddammit! Like I prefer that term and it's stinking acronym any better!" She turned to the man behind the bar. "Get me another fucking drink!"

The bartender brought the bottle over, a sour look on his face. "Look here you stupid slut. I may be forced to allow you in here, but I don't have to take your shit!"

Mutt pulled out his pistol and placed it against the bartender's head. "Look cutiepie, just serve the lady and keep your opinions to yourself. If you don't like it, sell the place and cross the border. But then, you won't be able to sell your slop because it's illegal on hallowed ground. So unless you want to be out of business when the fanatics take over, I'd suggest you treat the lady right."

"She ain't no lady. She's a fucking cat."

Duma tapped her nails on the bar. "Be careful what you call me. My genetics are a blend of feline and human. So I'm both and I'm neither. But the fact remains that under it all I'm female. Don't forget it." Her voice was tense with anger.

"See," Mutt said, "now you've gone and made my friend angry."

"So what?"

Mutt took the safety off of the pistol. "You see, when she's angry, then I'm angry. I'm in charge of her, and it's my job to see that she remains calm before a job. You getting her all riled up just made my job more difficult."

"Like I give a shit. You Freecos can all go to hell. I'm tired of being told how to run my business."

The word he used, Freeco (sounds like freak-oh) is an abbreviation of Freedom Corps. It referred to the army that was fighting the religious networks. The latter term is plural because there were many factions on that side as well, fighting either the techs or themselves, depending on who was closer at hand. All this fuss because their gods had been proven to be nothing more than mental constructs from a day and age where mythos was more common than intelligence. Delusions are hard to be rid of.

Duma's hand slapped down on the bartender's knuckles. Her claws were sharpened to pinpoints. Blood leaked out around where they punctured his skin. "In about three seconds I'm going to claw your eyes out. That's if my friend here doesn't blow a hole through your braincase first."

The man wisely set the bottle down and turned away. Little droplets of scarlet littered the countertop.

"Fucking idiot!" muttered Mutt.

"Too true. Do you ever wonder why we're even trying to save people like him?"

"Because we're told to, that's why."

He downed the remaining half glass of his drink. "Grab the bottle and we'll go back to the barracks. This place is beginning to eat at me too."

Despite the military no-fraternization rule, these two were close. There was a reason for that. Synths always worked in a team. Usually it was with a sole human and on a few rare occasions, with more than one synth. But these two were unique in all of the corps. They were the only pair that were of the opposite sex. There was a reason for that.

Duma had proven to be an excellent assassin. It was her cheetah genes that had proven to be the dominant factor in her overall makeup. Combining the DNA from one species with another had been outlawed long ago, so the resurrected science was still working out the kinks. There had been many failures, but out of that mess had risen her wonderful self.

That didn't mean she didn't have some quirks. One of them was a nervousness; a high level of energy that she found impossible to contain. If she were loose on a battlefield, then it was fine. She had daggers designed specifically for her hands. But her real talent lay with the sniper rifle. With her eyesight and hearing, she hardly needed a scope.

She should never have slipped out of the barracks alone. Luckily for her, he knew where she would go. As much as she hated a lot of human conventions, this bar always seemed to draw her in. He didn't know why, and he never cared enough to ask her. That point was, if she wasn't where she was supposed to be, she was going to be there.

They were let through the gate to the camp without showing any ID. There were both recognizable and didn't need a pass. She was thin, and while her stature wasn't tall, her lithe form tended to look more imposing than it was. Part of that was the way she carried herself. She didn't take crap from much of anyone. There was even a general who said something rude who still had scars on his face. Since she was a top priority sniper and he was only an over-decorated toady, she had never been punished.

So people knew not to fuck with her, leastwise they did if they wore a uniform. Dregs could be stupid sometimes.

Back in their rooms, he dropped his coat on the floor and went to take hers. "Thanks Mutt. You know, you don't always have to be nice to me."

"I'm not always nice to you. But there is no law against being polite."

She turned and put her claws to his face. "I hate it when people are being false to me!"

"Are you accusing me of being a fake?" He didn't quaver for a second.

Her hands came down. "No. I know you too well and we've been through hell and back. Why don't you ask for another assignment? This one is killing you."

He laughed with just a touch of irony. "Duma darling, this war is killing us. Neither of us will live out our lives nearly as long as the rest of the idiots on this forsaken rock. We have our duty and we do it without question."

Her lips curled upward, showing sharp teeth hidden away behind them. "Without question? Fuck that. I say that we should turn the scopes on a few of the assholes on our side who seem to delight in stirring the pot."

"That'll get you killed without a court-martial! Trust me, I know what you mean, but we have to hope that these guys know what they're doing."

She pulled off her top, revealing a pert pair of breasts, covered in fine soft fur and topped by a pair of dark nipples, which in turn were surrounded by a pattern of rosettes. The typical cheetah markings covered her from head to toe, including the somewhat truncated tail her genetics had refused to give up.

She eyed him from across the small room. "Mutt, I have more brains in this little skull of mine that all the members of the war council combined. I think that this war is just an excuse for them to have something to do. We out-gun the fanatics three to one, and yet all we do is play games and kill people from a distance."

"I don't disagree," he said as he pulled off his shirt. "But let's just say that we were to go awol. Where could we possibly go? We've been through this a thousand times."

"I know. After all, I'm the property of the corporation who created me." Her voice grated with anger. "I have no rights beyond those extended to me by the corporation, or by those for whom I work."

"The same goes for me. So we make the best of it and go on with life."

She was peeling off her pants. She was a size all her own, and everything was custom made for her. When she was done, she stood proudly in front of him, in no way embarrassed by her nudity. That was a human quality. She had no silly concepts of morality. She killed when she was told, and in public she behaved as she was told. But here in the barracks, she did as she pleased.

He noticed; not her nudity which he saw all the time, but her twitchiness. That would never do. When one fired a Viper 34-T, one had to have perfect control. For with the right scope, you could hit a target standing just on the horizon. She had done it many times. But she had to be in control.

Being her spotter wasn't usually a difficult task, especially when the target was that far away. Mostly he was there as her friend, talking with her during the waiting, and on occasion doing other tasks to sooth her. There were times however, when danger was as close and as real as it could be, and he saved her life more than once from an assassin trying to kill another assassin.

She was the best and everyone who mattered knew it. And for that reason everyone wanted her dead, even some on the good guy's side.

He dropped his pants and kicked them to the side. He was hairy, but it was a soft straight kind, not the normally curly stuff humans had. He was a bit of an experiment too. He had started out human, and had volunteered for gene therapy. It hadn't done much to help him, but the scientists were ecstatic over the fact that his body had accepted the modified canine DNA.

When the two of them had been assigned together, there had been the usual jokes about them fighting like cats and dogs. It had never happened. Both were now outsiders and they found the only ones who understood their dilemma was each other. They had become inseparable.

Sex wasn't a common thing between them, despite what other members of the sniper group thought. While everyone secretly wanted to bed the synth, no one wanted to admit it. She was an outsider both in looks and in intelligence. She was ten times smarter than the average soldier, and brighter than the men who plotted the next moves in this fruitless war. In fact, she was too smart to be nothing more than a killer. It disagreed with her sense of decency.

She wasn't against sex, but Mutt was. She thought at first he was gay, but discreet inquiries proved her assumption to be false. What he was, it turned out, was embarrassed. His genetic modification had seemed superficial on the outside. His hair wasn't as thick as a German Shepherd's, but it was noticeably denser than even the most testosterone loaded, muscle-bound brute the race had to offer. He could handle that.

No, it was his private area. The therapy had made some changes there that had turned him into a freak by the normal population's consideration. His cock would develop a knot.

What he found to be embarrassing, she found to be perfect. He found out for the first time when she had torn his clothing off and forced him to comply with her wishes. She hadn't cared what he had between his legs until she saw it.

"You little bastard! You've been keeping me from this the whole time?"

He was shocked that she hadn't recoiled from his disfigurement. "You're not grossed out?"

"Honey, that thing is a tool. No one buys a tool for its looks, they buy if for the job it can do. So quit your whining and put it to good use!"

He had.

The reason they didn't enjoy each other's company more this way was because she was sterile. The corporation had made certain there would be no unauthorized breeding, which was rather stupid, since there were no males even close to her makeup for her to breed with. She didn't know about Mutt fertility, but it didn't matter if he was or wasn't. All she wanted was some way of relieving the stress that was always in danger of engulfing her. Her uterus might be barren, but her hormones still raged through her veins.

He ended up being perfect for everything she wanted.

Right now her hands were shaking like a leaf in the wind. She would have rather taken a sword and beheaded a hundred worthless generals, but she couldn't. That left only one other outlet.

Mutt.

He saw the look in her eyes and said a little prayer. What she called sex was something more akin to a massacre. A dreg trying to rape her would have found out, if it were a good day, that she didn't know the meaning of the word. By the time she would have been done with him, he would have been a mass of bloody flesh on the floor.

She pounced. Her claws latched onto his shoulders as her legs wrapped around his torso. His cock sprung into action, growing a full three inches longer than he had started with prior to the experiments. He had been happy enough with that. He could have lived without the bright red color and the tendency to have the base inflate like a rubber raft.

Human girls freaked out over it. Duma simply fell in love with it.

He didn't know why exactly. His cock had turned into a regular chunk of meat and her hole was as slim and compact as the rest of her. She featured a feral's crotch, except that it was more elongated. Her fur was no different down there than it was elsewhere on her body, unlike the typical human female. Thus, his original cock would have been plenty for her to handle. His modified one often barely fit, depending on her mood, and when the knot went up, she turned into a raging maniac. It was like the pressure was hitting a specific nerve. And she rarely played without it inflated. It wasn't her style.

She literally went mad.

And that was the heart of the matter. It was tough as hell making out with a girl who went berserk.

"Are you up for this?" she asked, growling the words out.

"Do we have a choice?"

"Sure. We can scratch tomorrow's mission."

"No we can't."

"You're right. So sex it is!"

Without waiting for him to protest, she dug her feet into his back and rammed her hips down. She was right on her mark, as she always was, and impaled herself on his cock. He didn't know how she could tolerate it, doing it dry like that. His cock smarted from the force of the blow as his sensitive skin was forced into her damp but barely lubricated tunnel.

Duma stopped for just a few seconds, lifting up and then forcing herself back down. She had watched smuggled videos in the common room before, something they called pornography. It was of human males and females having sex. Some of it was interesting, but overall it looked messy and contrived. Only a few females in it looked like they were enjoying themselves. They catered to the whims of the males and seemed to ignore their own needs.

Screw that.

Mutt was her scratching post. She was glad he didn't mind. She never wanted him to feel abused, but when it came to relieving the stress the night before a kill, there was no use attempting to do what he liked to do. Calm and gentle sex did not rub away the tension. It only tended to make it worse. She needed something violent and vigorous to drive away her affliction.

He wisely moved over to the bed. She had been known to rip him off of his feet before. The bed was a custom job, something the others in the barracks called the "fancy bed". It looked like a canopy bed, but with no canopy. The framework around it was solid steel. He used it to hang onto, either while in bed or when standing upright next to it. She was extremely violent in her need to get off, and he often required something even stronger to hold onto.

He did that now, raising his thick arms and grabbing the foot-end crossbar. She didn't notice, for she didn't care. She would ravage him from any position, and sometime for hours on end. A regular human would die before she was finished. She was glad his volunteering at the lab had given him such wonder powers of endurance.

Her claws sank into the flesh of his shoulder blades as her feet pressed against his hips. Her ass was moving like a runaway piston, moving even faster once her body had caught up with her libido to produce the lubrication necessary to keep their parts from fusing.

He locked his feet against the legs of the bedframe, knowing he was in for a long haul. If she didn't get the built-up anxiety out tonight, she was going to be good for nothing in the morning. There wasn't much he could do to help her but to hang on tight and weather her out.

If normal sex could be considered a thunder storm, then sex with Duma was a cyclone. It was never quiet and it was never dull. She tore into the act like the winds of a hurricane, and if there was a quiet moment, things would only resume to even more epic proportions. Mutt had learned that there were two sides to having sex with her. There was this, before her jobs, and the after, when she apologized for putting him through the things she did. The latter one was more to his tastes.

It wasn't a bad job if you could handle the first part.

When she released the demon inside, she became a sexual tornado. The path of destruction she had been known to leave was extensive. As it was, her teeth found his shoulder and had embedded themselves into his flesh. He mentally shrugged it off. It was no worse than taking a bullet, which he had done a few times to save her life.

The real attention getter was the tightly wound-up hole his cock was currently engorging within. She had rammed her body down fiercely until his knot grew from all of the friction. It quickly filled up the opening, pressing with an uncomfortable (for him) pressure against her narrow, bony pelvic bones. He might as well have stuck his cock in a metal pipe and allowed the expansion to occur. She had no idea how taut she was. There wasn't a part of her that contained an ounce of fat, except maybe her breasts, but they were only of a size to rival those of an adolescent human girl.

He gripped the bar with the strength it would take two men to hoist a munitions box. Even so, his body was jerking in time with her movements. Truth be told, there wasn't much he could do about it. She was almost part of him now. What she did was reflected in his own body. It was a good thing the bed was bolted to the floor.

Duma was barely conscious of her actions. This was never the simple act the humans did and enjoyed so much. No, this was a cavernous nee, a gnawing, gaping hole in her emotions that could only be quieted with extreme, violent action. Mutt was so good to tolerate her. She had killed lesser men on the first go.

She rolled her tongue across her teeth and his skin, tasting his blood as it oozed from his puncture wounds. This was as much of the act as was the coupling of their bodies. Tomorrow evening she would let him be in control but tonight was her time.

His knot was a solid plug in her hole. It hurt, but it did so in a good way. Besides, it was the only way their bodies could remain together during her frantic pounding. Coming apart only heighten her anxiety. It took too much effort to reconnect.

Mutt had the perfect tool for the job. It had a no-slip grip.

She could smell him, but her eyes were unseeing. The room might as well have been pitch black for all she cared. Her ear plugs were still in, but the blood rushing through his arteries came loudly to her senses. She could feel his heartbeat thumping inside her, even against the force of her sexual machinations. Her own heart was racing at a pace that would kill a human in minutes, something they called super ventricular tachycardia. For her, it was just another night in the barracks.

In case you haven't figured it out already, they had an entire barracks to themselves. It made them unpopular with the rest of the unit, but at times like this there was a good reason. The noise became deafening. Even with her mouth clamped down, she was still able to scream from her throat. It was an unearthly sound, capable of setting even the toughest soldier's nerves on edge.

Mutt called it her come-hither voice.

An hour into it, blood was dripping slowly down his chest, weaving its way through his thick coat of hair. There was another pattern on it running down his back. It was a good thing the medics kept him supplied with the healing juice and the acceleration pad. He'd be fine by the morning.

Two hours into it and his grip was fading. Even the bolts on the floor were being to rattle.

Three hours and he let go and turned to fall on the bed. She let loose of his shoulder. "You're not getting old on me are you?"

"No. But look at the clock. I can't drain you of every last vestige of anxiety if it takes up the whole night."

"Sorry Mutt. I have more within me. Grab the posts and hang on."

He muttered. "Like I have a choice?"

She loosen her grip on his back and his hips, making him grimace was her claws pulled loose. She changed her stance, putting her face right into his.

"Sorry. But you know the drill."

"I do."

If there were ever a thing like a female raping a male, this was it. Had she existed while they still made pornography, her movie would have been the most popular by far. She wasn't a big, floppy-chested, bleached haired bimbo, but her body moved like it was possessed by demons. No human could arch their back more, and while her chest was modest, her movements were vulgar and erotic at the same time. She was the epitome of the savage femme-fatale.

She pulled up on his cock, making him bite his lip as it felt as though she were going to rip it loose. She yowled as she pulled, for the knot was wedged so tightly that any effort to remove it doomed to utter failure. But she wasn't intent on ridding herself of it. Every time she pulled against it, it pressed against a nerve. This sent a vagal-type response, lowering her blood pressure and sending waves of endorphins through her body.

It was like biting down on a bad tooth until the morphine kicked in. The problem was, she needed a big-assed dose to calm her jittery nervous system. So she did it over and over again until he had tears streaming from his eyes. And still, it failed to work.

He finally had enough. He had hoped she would have downed the rest of the vodka. It didn't have the same effect on her that it did on most everyone else. Still, any help in getting her to relax would have been appreciated. She was a rough partner.

He grabbed her and flipped on the bed, pinning her under his weight. From this position he was able to be more in control, though that was mostly an illusion.

"Get your hands on the posts!"

She complied. Her lithe fingers gripped them with a strength unmatched by any single human. He pulled her down on the bed until her arms were stretched out entirely. From there, it was his turn to play the rapist. For the next half an hour he plowed into her until his muscles cramped and his head was spinning. He nearly collapsed with relief when he heard the telltale sounds coming from her throat.

Her scream was piercing. It was capable of breaking glass panes and beer glasses. It was part of the reason the barracks had no windows. They had shattered them long ago. Metal plates had replaced them long before this day.

He shut down his hearing as best he could. He had forgotten to put in his own ear buds, so the nearly ultrasonic cry was sharp against his enhanced hearing. He put his mouth over hers, and she instinctively bit him and kissed him at the same time. The cry diminished until she was fast asleep, heedless of the swallow and bruised cock still engorged inside her.

He let out a sigh and made quick work of relieving himself. It was far easier to do now that she was out than during the act. Before, it was all about her needs, and now, it was time for his. He could have done it for another hour; on a different day he would have. Tonight he was worn out. He blew his load and waited for his knot to drop.

They slept in each other's arms until morning.

They dressed without a word. Breakfast was eaten in silence, but Mutt noticed that her hands were as steady as a rock. He was sore, having fallen asleep without the benefit of using the healing procedure. But it was alright. There would be time after the mission.

They suited up and got into the heli for the transport to the drop site. It was the top of a craggy peak overlooking a valley held by the enemy. They had a photo of the target, and the hope was that she could take him out within twenty four hours.

She did it in three.

"Mutt?"

"Yeah?"

"You're moving a little stiffly today."

"Forgot to recharge. I'll live."

"That was stupid."

"Ehh, it happens. Don't worry. I'll patch up after the mission."

"You had better. I don't think I can do this anymore without you."

"I'm not going anywhere. Now concentrate on the target."

He flipped up a computer screen and pulled in the satellite image. The military had locked it over this spot for the duration of the mission. The image came up. The site was a military depot.

"Too bad we couldn't take the whole thing out."

She leaned back and glanced at the screen before refocusing her vision on the spot on the horizon. "Miracles used to happen according to these fools. Maybe I should pray for one?"

"Do what you will. Just kill this mark and let's be done."

When the time came, Duma homed in her target and squeezed off the shot. It missed. But it did hit the gas tank of military vehicle, sending it skyward in a fueled explosion. That was next to an ammo dump, which started a chain reaction that took out two acres of military camp.

Mutt watched it on the screen. "Shit Duma, did you do this on purpose?"

"What can I say? I get tired of playing games. One man is nothing. It's time that I felt like I'm doing something worthwhile."

"The brass will probably be pissed off."

"Fuck the brass. The day they can shoot like I shoot, they can take over my job and I'll sit in the big chairs doing nothing. Until that day, what I say and do goes."

She was undoing her uniform.

"What are you doing?"

"Undressing."

"I see that. Why?"

"Because when they come here to get us, I want to see their faces when they see me fucking the hell out of you."

"They already know that we do."

"Yeah, I know. But they've never had the chance to see it. I think it's high time that they understood our relationship. I think they need to fear us just a little more than they presently do."

"If they're watching the satellite image, I think they have an idea."

"Mutt?"

I looked up sharply. She snapped out a few more words.

"Shut the hell up and get your clothes off."

I was unbuttoning as fast as I could. It never pays to keep a lady waiting.