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Leina stretched and yawned before shutting down her computer at precisely 5:00pm and not one second before or after, as was her habit. Her office chair creaked and groaned as she stood up and pushed it under the desk in her cubicle in the Design Farm at Hawthorne-Orson Aerospace. She'd always found it funny that the CEO, Thomas "Tom" Hawthorne, gave everything large sounding names, even appending Orson to his own just to make their small design firm sound big and important because "People like two names, Roger." Not to say they weren't at least a small player in the industry, but even Tom's office was actually just another cubicle like her's. A door that was usually never closed was the only real difference.

The serval scanned around the office for a moment and smiled when she saw Gahn chatting with the sole proprietor of Hawthorne-Orson. It looked as if her husband was going over the tackles from last night's Cardinal's game with more than a little enthusiasm. The "five-foot eight-inch" (really, more like six-inch) tall, dark-skinned, and equally-enthusiastic human who was their boss was as active a participant.

"In a recent peer-reviewed study published in Sports Illustrated, it was discovered that Steelers fans are more likely to meet deadlines than Cardinals fans," Leina said in the informative tone of a newscaster as she approached them. She moved in close to Gahn as the two turned to face her and asked, "Ready to go, hon?"

"Oh Roger, why do you always hit where it hurts? I thought you Northerners were supposed to be nice," Tom jokingly complained.

"I've been here for six years and your team still can't play the game, being nice hasn't helped," she teased back.

Gahn laughed and said while nodding sagely, "Stubborn, all Northerners are. You're just like Roger, babe."

"Careful, Bill, the wily Northerner is known to attack at the slightest provocation," warned Tom with his typical bright beaming smile.

"That's why he married me, he gets advance warning," Leina replied while reaching up to kiss Gahn on the cheek.

"Have a good night you two," their boss said with an exaggerated wink. "I've got to catch Roger before he leaves, like clockwork that one."

"Night boss," the cat said as the man turned to leave.

"Goodnight Tom," Gahn added and started leading Leina in the opposite direction.

"We'll make a good old Cards fan outta you one of these days, Roger," came Tom's last words as he disappeared into the cubicles.

Gahn and Leina made their way to the sole elevator that serviced the three-storey building that housed Hawthorne-Orson Aerospace. The wolf pressed the down button to call for the lift but instead the doors slid open and the two Rukot walked through them and out the large glass double doors into the parking lot in front of the building. For a moment the serval thought it was odd, but the feeling passed as quickly as it came.

Tom was in the parking lot, just about to get into his car. It was a 2019 Tesla Model S that he'd just purchased new, as he did every year or two. Leina thought of as more an affront than a car, claiming that the all-electric vehicle was more of a luxury toy than a fun to drive car. When the man spotted the two of them he stopped and made his way over to Leina's half rusted-out Landcruiser, where they soon joined him.

"Bill, you're crazy for riding in this deathtrap," he said to Gahn with his ever-present smile and jovial manner.

"Deathtrap?" Leina defended, "At least my truck won't take over control from me when the sensors go on the blink, because it doesn't have any of that shit."

Their boss just rolled his eyes and quipped back, "Driving's for computers, Roger."

"Never going to happen," the cat insisted. "I like to be in control."

"That's what she said," Gahn interjected.

The three of them couldn't help but laugh at the wolf's stupid pun.

"Alright, goodnight guys," Tom said once they'd stopped.

"Night boss," the cat said as the man turned to leave.

"Goodnight Tom," Gahn added and got in the passenger side of the truck. The door made a slight crunching sound as it closed that caused Leina to wince before she got in the driver's side.

A few minutes later the truck pulled out of the parking lot and Leina found herself driving down the familiar dusty road into the city from the shooting range. She didn't notice the change in location or that the truck was back to its current, lightly-modified, configuration.

It was always an uneventful trip and Gahn rode shotgun silently while Neil Young sang about hearts of gold on the radio. Random trucker chatter came over the CB and the Planetary Locator mounted to the dash box blinked out their location as she drove.

The situation changed as soon as they were in the city proper though, as if cars and semis materialized out of thin air. She ignored the few drivers who slowed down to gawk at their truck that stood out of place amongst the sea of much more modern vehicles; her focus being solely on getting home.

"What the fuck?" She exclaimed, slamming the horn and swerving left as the SUV beside them decided to make a lane change without looking. They were getting dangerously close to being in the oncoming lane, and the driver of the SUV remained oblivious of the fact they were pushing them into it. She looked in horror at the semi that had slammed its brakes with its horn blaring and practically stood on the clutch and brake pedals, knowing that a head-on collision with it was inevitable. Over the CB screamed "GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY YOU IDIOT!" likely the semi's driver, probably fully aware of the uselessness of his words. Despite all of this, Gahn remained completely silent and still, and largely forgotten by the terrified cat behind the wheel.

Leina cried out "FUCK ME! FUCK ME! FUCK ME! FUCK-"

The vehicles hit in slow-motion, their much smaller truck beginning to crumple as she watched the brightly polished chrome radiator shroud of the semi grow larger and closer. She could see every detail in it, the small pitted imperfections in the chrome, the places where stones had bent fins of the radiator, mineral stains from dried water, and reddish brown dust in the harder-to-reach recesses.

Then the hood of their truck buckled upwards, time resumed its normal speed, and Leina gasped into her pillow as she awoke.

It was early in the morning, 1:44am according to the clock on the wall of her and Gahn's quarters aboard the Teshar. Her heart raced and her breathing was heavy but the serval could not remember why. As she calmed she closed her eyes and tried to think, but only tiny fragments of the dream remained, the name Tom Hawthorne, and the sound of the semi's blaring horn, but even those details slipped away as quickly as she grasped for them.

Her attention was brought back to reality by Gahn's gentle snoring. The sound reminded her she was still tired and she slowly turned to face her sleeping mate. She repositioned herself so that she could lay her head against his chest and let the regular beat of his heart and lull her into a return to sleep.

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The planet Hale was a gas giant that resembled Jupiter mostly due to being almost the same volume. The other characteristics it shared with the fifth planet of Sol, was that it was the fifth planet of Bopp, and at a about the same distance from the G5V star as its sister. The similarities ended there though, the mass of Hale was roughly 7.3 times that of Jupiter, and it had only 13 moons, ranging from a few hundred metres to the size of small terrestrial planets.

It was actually not the most massive planet in this system, as there was another gas giant still claiming that spot, which orbitted the star close enough that a barely-visible band of gas flowed from the former to the latter. It would appear as a spot traversing the star for two weeks out of every four. That planet had no name though, as one day it would be completely consumed. A mining colony existed on the second planet, the terrestrial Tyche, but its eccentric fourteen and a half month orbit necessitated its abandonment for three when it was close to Bopp. The third and fourth planets, The Brothers, were in as violent of a dance with one another as the star and the first. They orbitted each other as well as the star, and were much smaller relatives of the two larger gas giants.

These were the Human names for this planet and star, though, and to the Rukot who now called the three largest and outermost moons of Hale home, the planet and its moons were all simply Ument, and it's star, Rachim; Home and Victory in an early form of Rukot language. Though they used the original names for the other planets and also had none for the first.

Adrift at a lower orbit than any of the moons was a cluster of somewhere near to a thousand derelict ships. Each a scortched and monument to the battle fought here during the first Rukot uprising that ended with their capture of this system. It was not here the first battles were fought, but it had been the last major conflict, having resulted in losses for both sides that took centuries to recover from.

The three inhabited moons of Ument shared a government, and as such were collectively represented by Kudri Rels in the Council of Conglomeration. The two outermost moons were also the smaller pair, both covered in heavy layers of light grey dust, spotted and streaked with the dark grays and blacks of ancient lava flows around equally old craters. The largest moon however, was mostly water and other ices on the surface. Along with this difference, the largest moon had two large colonies located in equitorial craters while the smaller each only had one a piece.

Each of the four major colonies once represented the three original main groups of Rukot, divided by originating species, Carnivores, Herbivores, and Omnivores (though all Rukot are omnivorous). The fourth ally, now believed-extinct, comprised of five species of uplifted Great Apes; though the methods used on them were different than those used on Rukot ancestor species and Apes were considered distinct from them. The original Council of Conglomeration had been formed here, one representative for each colony.

In the time since those days though, Rukot culture grew and changed, as had the colonies. Barely recognizable were the original buildings, half-kilometre cubes at the centre of other box-shaped structures, domes, and shapes that gave each a distinct, yet oddly-similar look. Other structures dotted the landscapes of all three moons, satellite colonies and homesteads associated with one of the primaries.

They also became primarily the homes of species of Rukot descended from herding herbivores. Each colony represented a herd. Harl and Jun on the largest moon, Maf on the middle moon, and Rels, on the outermost. Each named for Rukot considered heros during the uprising.

Heoni Rels both loved and hated coming here, first and foremost, the colony of Rels was her place of birth. She had also visited Maf and Jun many times in her youth and went off-ship at all three whenever they landed. However, this time it was at Harl where she stepped off of the Teshar and into one of the landing bays that looked identical across the colonies. The ship had already been unloaded of the ventillation equipment they'd transported from Jinem and none of the ship's crew were with her as she had waited for them all to finish their duties first.

<<Duty,>> the doe thought bitterly as she stiffly walked across the pad Teshar was on and to a large open doorway. Asham Harl was from a small dome about fourty kilometres away from the main colony, but his remains, and thus her duty, lay in the Field of Mourning within the original colony hub. She was glad for that in a way, it had taken her three quarters of a century just to muster the courage to leave the ship and enter this place, and no amount of time could give her the courage to go to the homestead.

She could not go back to there, but she still remembered it. The cluster of houses in the centre, surrounded by small fields laid out in a grid. One of those houses had been built by Asham and his brothers and sisters. Like the others, it was made of wood carefully selected from the few trees grown there and contained three rooms, as the family was largely communal. It was to be a home for them and the children they never had.

With a snort she pushed aside those memories and thoughts, they were fantasies of a life that didn't happen. The war, and her years as a freighter captain had hardened and changed her so much that she was no longer the carefree and naive doe that had once thought the house was the only place she'd ever want to live.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a soft, yet masculine voice that asked, <<Heoni?>> During her solemn and stiff lone march to the hub she had ignored the few Rukot she'd passed, even those who'd recognized her, but this voice she could not ignore. She dreaded this moment, and had hoped he would not be here.

The elderly buck that had so far only spoken her name was Pyr Harl, Asham's father, and within seconds of turning to face him Heoni's eyes darted across his features. The curve of his jawline, his nose, the set of his eyes, even the way he still carried himself, all reminded her of her long-dead mate. He'd aged greatly since she'd last seen him, betrayed by greying and white fur blotching his ears and muzzle. Her mouth opened as if to say something, but in that moment, Captain Heoni Rels was that young naive doe again and she collapsed against him, sobbing.

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"Elisa Evans, you have been chosen to serve the Emperor, come with me," the uniformed officer said as the young woman opened the door of her parents' apartment in the Traverston district of Monridge, the capital city of Haskel, and seat of the empire.

She'd been expecting this and she shared an overjoyed look with both of her parents. Her mother, Emma, from who she received her long and straight raven-black hair, cream-coloured skin, and oval face started crying. To be picked for training and service in the Imperial Intelligence Corps was a high honour and her father, Pierre's bright blue eyes that stared into her own betrayed only his pride in this moment.

They hadn't known she'd been accepted until the officer came to the door, but Elisa always planned for the best along with the worst and she'd been ready, even hugged and kissed her parents. At only 78, she was going to be the youngest applicant accepted into the Corps, or, well, training for it, but Elisa was smart, and once again, she knew her destiny lay out there, amongst the stars. She'd dreamed of that life ever since Emperor William himself had visited her school when she was a small child, he'd spoken of the future, and she swore he looked right at her when he told them about how he was always looking for smart people to serve the Empire in ways beyond their imaginations.

Elisa returned her attention to the officer and saluted smartly, but could not help but smile as she said the words, "My mind and body for the Emperor."

"Come with me," the officer repeated impatiently. He remained at rapt attention as he waited, but inside he thought, "Great, another fanatic," and had to resist the urge to roll his eyes.

"Yes sir!" the woman replied excitedly and she quickly picked up the two satchels she'd packed already and moved to follow.

In the lift down to the ground level of the apartment block she studied the officer as a way to contain her excitement as she couldn't get more than a grunt out of the man. Taking in every detail of his uniform that she could she categorized the information using a mnemonic only she could understand. It was one of the first lessons she'd be taught during training. Always pay attention to detail. When the door opened again she followed him silently through the lobby.

Mirriam, a wolfess Rukot who wore an obedience collar because the owner of the building was too cheap to pay for remapping, was cleaning the main doorway when they reached it. Elisa knew this particular slave well, or as well as one could know an animal anyways. She'd give it treats sometimes, scraps from the table, really, and it was always grateful, cheerful, and kind, though never seemed to recognize her as more than "Mistress Evans."

"Out of the way, fucking animal," the officer ordered and did not hesitate as he bodily pushed the slave away from their path and to the floor before the poor creature could even utter its hasty "Okay!"

Shocked by his behaviour the woman dropped her bags and made to assist the wolf.

"You aren't the only one I have today, let's go!" the man practically yelled as he grabbed and dragged her out and to a nearby military ground transport.

They were gone by the time Mirriam managed to awkwardly stand back up. Without a second thought she picked up the two bags and rushed out the door, calling, "Mistress Evans, your bags!"