FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

I

Night settled its dark embrace over the Akkad countryside. Laid out in the middle of the arid landscape a village of squat, flat-roofed buildings lay quietly, their denizens either sleeping or watching late night B-movies.

Silence settled over the village like the night's dark. A wild dog barked in the distance. The cries of an upset baby wailed out of an open window, which quickly turned into a lone puddle of light.

Off to the east, separate from the village sat a single compound, a two-floored mansion clad in white plaster. The garden was walled by a 10-foot concrete perimeter topped with taught runs of barbed wire. A large satellite dish sat atop the flat roof along with an array of antennae. The garden gates were solid plate steel, with a large spike-topped steel gate blocking the end of the dusty driveway. A metal roofed shed stood separate to one side of the compound.

Like the town it shared its foundation with, the compound was silent bar the crunch of boots in the grit paving a neglected garden. Rosebushes had turned to wiry shrubs and sharp weeds grew to almost head height in places.

Unperturbed by the state of his boss' garden, the orc wandered along the perimeter wall. He was alone, there was no need for more guards, if any. This compound was far off the beaten track. Nobody came here, and the locals feared the compound's owner enough not to poke their green noses in. Orcs were exceptionally good at keeping their heads low and minding their own business at the best of times.

The guard kept his pipegun holstered lazily across his back as he fiddled with cigarette. His thick fingers brought the stick to his thick lips, perching it next to where one of his stubby tusks jutted out of his pout. He was patting his pockets for a lighter when he heard it.

A distinct metal clang disturbed the quiet night. It came from a nearby garden door, like someone had knocked. But not a proper knock. Just one single knock, and then decided to abandon all pursuit of the issue.

With a frown the orc changed direction and halted by the door. He checked the security frame. All looked good. Even the padlock was undisturbed. He rattled it with one of his claws just to be su—

The door exploded inward on a cloud of smoke and with a flash of fire that was extinguished immediately. The muffled bang was loud enough to fill the air all around, but sharp enough that there was no echo to return. The damage was done though. The door was out of the concrete, security frame and all as nearly a hundred kilos of twisted steel creamed the lone orc.

They landed with a squelch and a pronounced thud, the orc's arms and legs sticking out from under the hefty debris and twitching like a freshly crushed spider.

The lingering dust settled and through the darkness the operator poked his head through the newly opened doorway. His visage was almost alien thanks to the four horizontally oriented lenses of the night vision goggles hanging over his eyes.

Peering through the eerie green glow that bathed the region around his eyes, the operator checked left and right, the bushy beard that practically touched his chest twitching as he grinned at the sight of the pancaked orc at his feet.

'Okay. Let's get it on.'

The operator pulled back, then pressed into the walled garden a second later, following the muzzle of his carbine and in turn followed by three of his peeps. The four men were clad identically, dark colours forming a smear of camouflage across their fatigues, armoured vests, helmets with mounted night vision goggles and rugged facial hair bulwarking their faces.

The breacher with his shotgun primed for an up-close-and-personal gunfight followed swiftly after the lead operator, followed in turn by the team leader who angled his assault rifle on the building's upper floor windows where lights had flicked on in response to the noise of the first breaching charge. Trailing in the rear the sharpshooter with his longrifle kept turning to watch their backs every few paces.

Like ghosts the four men reached the house's back door, splitting in two pairs to flank their next entry point. The motions were a choreographed dance of deathly precision. With the operator and team leader covering, the breacher delved into his gear and produced a breaching charge, three long strips of shaped charges connected by a bundle of wires.

As this was going on, the team leader pressed a fist against his right eye in mimicry of a sniper scope, then pointed his subordinate to the nearby shed. Silently the sharpshooter broke from formation and made a bee-line for the indicated perch. He was up the shed's concrete side and laying prone on the corrugated metal roof before the breacher finished his work.

It took the breacher another ten seconds to finish peeling the adhesive backing off the breaching charges and stick them to the door, two along the locks and hinges, and one diagonally down the middle. Unravelling the detonator cable and plugging it into a clacker, he handed the detonation device to the operator covering him and readied his shotgun again.

'Charges, set,' he whispered.

The speakers in their headsets clicked. 'Overwatch, set.'

'Ready to breach.'

The operator looked to his team leader, who nodded shortly. 'Do it.'

He punched the trigger with a double tap and like the metal garden door, the house's back door came off its hinges on a shockwave of fury and fire. The breacher was in first, shotgun horizontal. The team leader and his assault rifle were in next. Then folding aside the magnifier portion of the hybrid-sights mounted on his carbine, the operator followed them in.

Two pops of fire and the roar of a shotgun discharging ripped through his hearing protection before the operator had even crossed the threshold. And by the time he came into the back-room proper, his peeps had left a grisly mess on the floor.

Two orcs lay in bloody heaps, one with two neat holes in his chest, the other missing the flesh around his ribcage. Their swords and simple pipeguns were drawn, but lay forgotten in the pooling black orcish blood.

'Take your sectors. You know what to do,' the team leader ordered, met by two nods and a click on the comms from the sharpshooter outside.

The men scattered, the breacher taking the stairs up to the top floor and the team leader moving to systematically clear the cellars and tunnels below. The remaining operator set out straight ahead to clear the ground floor room by room. The first door was exactly where he expected it to be, the exact number of paces down the first corridor from the back-room as he had anticipated.

The thermal scans that mapped the compound's layout for study during the pre-mission briefing had been bang on the money. Of course, the scan hadn't accounted for the grisly trophies and banners lining the walls in typical old-school orc warlord style, but every room, corridor and junction drew in exactly where the operator remembered encountering them in the pre-mission mock-up.

Her Majesty of the Imperial Commonwealth and Her allies expected much from the operators. Sometimes even miracles. But in their long history of precision engineered violence, Her operators had never gone into a situation totally blind. The Imperial Commonwealth spared no expense in putting the highest quality equipment and latest in warfare ingenuity on the front line so that the operators could do their jobs with merciless efficiency. And that showed especially now.

The operator weaved from side to side, anticipating corners and clearing rooms with choreographed ease. The top floor layout was etched into his memory, practically overlaid in his field of view so he knew exactly where everything was and which angles offered the best approach. The old adage “shooting fish in a barrel" came to mind.

The operator swept into one room with two entrances, kicking the door off its hinges and nailed the three armed orcs inside with a headshot each. The noisy rap of his carbine – pop-pop-pop – unmasked and probably heard by the neighbours a hundred metres to the west. But it was the more immediate neighbours he was more concerned about.

Backing out, the operator just narrowly avoided a hail of ball bearings tearing through the thin plywood connecting to the next room. Two orcs rushed in from the adjacent bedroom, their wives somewhere in the background scrambling to pull on their robes and hijab. The orcish breacher snapped open the breach of his pipegun to eject the smoking shell and replace it. He was fumbling to press the ammunition into the chamber when the bedroom door of the room they just left flew open.

The five orcesses trying to dress behind them were interrupted, scrambling against the nearest wall and throwing their hands over their naked green flesh as the operator barged in from the corridor and nailed their husbands in the next room from behind.

One of the women screamed, the others sobbed, but they made no attempt to attack. The operator double checked them for weapons, but bar a ceremonial halberd of elven design – no doubt looted from the dead – sitting in the corner, but none of the women even looked up from their frayed cots, nor did they pull at the iron chains clamping them to the wall.

In just a few moments of observation a very grim picture of marriage within the old orc tribes was painted. Akkad wasn't the most progressive land in the world, but the majority of orc women didn't live like this anymore, and for good reason.

Leaving them for the follow-up sweepers that would secure the compound after mission completion, the operator set out to cut through the remaining orcs in his sector. Above him the roar of shotgun fire escalated and the pop of assault rifle fire drifted up from the cellar steps. The others were no doubt running into their own share of hostiles, and the operator picked up the pace to keep up.

Speed was a killer though, and it drove the operator headlong into something unexpected.

Turning a corner, the corridor running the eastern exterior wall was blocked about ten metres further up. Furniture and sand-bags had been piled up to make a sturdy, rather permanent barricade atop which a machine gun with a hefty barrel for a hefty calibre bullet was rigged.

That hadn't been on the schematics.

Two orcs manned the gun, bleary eyed from having been woken up by the racket of gunfire, and heavy frowns indicating they didn't take kindly to interruption of their much-needed beauty sleep. The click of the trigger being pulled was deafening in that tense moment of silence, followed by the heavy retort of the machine gun filling the corridor with death.

The operator was already back around the corner, diving to the ground as heavy rounds penetrated the plasterboard somewhere above him, showering him with powdered rock and tufts of insulation. He felt just a little pathetic, curled into a foetal position and hoping the orcs didn't have the bright idea of shifting their fire downward. The operator needed to move, get around the side or behind that gun to destroy those orcs. But from his memory, the schematics didn't fit. That corridor was a bottleneck, the main connection between the front and the rear of the house, like the architect had purposely limited flanking routes.

More rounds tore through the walls, lower this time as the gunner raked from side to side hoping to gut the operator through cover. He couldn't think of a way around the strategically placed barricade, nor did he see a way of peeking around to snap the gunners. He could pop in a frag, but then he might shred an innocent. For all he knew the gunners were using the mission objective as a human shield.

No, he was stuck for the moment. But it wasn't a problem just yet.

'Overwatch-…?'

The operator was interrupted by the sharpshooter's cool retort on the comms. 'Sights hot.'

'Well by all means, feel free to help out.'

The sharpshooter chuckled in time with the match-grade ammunition puffing from the suppressor on his longrifle. Shards of glass puffed inwards from the window beside the orcs. One of them was flung sideways, followed immediately by a second cloud of glass shards. The second orc fell shortly after, the roar of the machine gun abruptly giving way to the gentle clicking sound of the barrel cooling.

'Tangoes down.'

'Thank 'ya kindly.'

Dusting himself off, the operator pressed forward again. In the aftermath the corridor more closely resembled a wheel of cheese in a mouse-infested store room. Vaulting over the barricade, he grimaced at the sight of the smoking weapon. Turned out the orcs' ammo had been rather finite, and the tail end of the belt hung limply out the side of the machine gun. They had been about twelve rounds short of running out of ammunition, at which point the operator could have pressed the position and destroyed them solo.

Hindsight was a bitch that way.

Leaving the barricade behind him, the operator crossed to the next chamber, a large atrium located at the front of the building. A grand chandelier threw a warm orange light about the space, illuminating a grand staircase curving along the far wall. He boldly poked his head inside and lifted his night vision goggles up, deciding things were going well.

'Ground floor is good-…' the operator began to say, but he was contradicted before he even finished the last syllable.

Tiles exploded at his feet, spraying him with grit and the operator fell backwards. Follow up shots tore through the doorpost, showering splinters and blowing holes in plasterboard. More shards of light tore through solid matter like a hot knife through butter, a rapid succession of magical bolts filling the air with the smell of greenish-yellow purple.

Things were suddenly not going so well anymore.

'Ground floor is not good!' the operator shouted into his vox, crawling through cover. 'Repeat! Ground floor is not good!'

The rip-roar of gunfire had escalated above and below, and there was a distinct echo of DMR fire somewhere outside. Everyone else was busy. The operator was on his own.

Righting himself he ducked around the shattered doorpost and fired his carbine as quickly as his trigger-finger would allow, albeit not aiming at anything in particular. He put rounds downrange just for the sake of hopefully hitting something. And as he did, he was rewarded with a look at his aggressor.

The shaman was clad in what orcs may have considered was quite gay. Instead of wearing armour fashioned out of faded and scuffed metal scraps, the shaman was clad in a robe fit for a wizard. The operator recognised the colours and crests of the Equae College of Sorcery. He had no doubt that like the elven spear he spotted earlier, the robe was a spoil of war. Much of what the old orc tribes gathered tended to be such – from armour and weapons, to slaves and wives. They were all looted from battle, one way or another.

Unlike the flamboyant robes though, the shaman's wands were typically orc.

Magic wands usually had a sort of elegance to them. Not with the orcs though. Like their blades and firearms, the enchanted weapons were twisted, gnarled branches curved at the hilt for an easy grip. One of them sported an iron razor set into the tip, doubling it as a melee weapon. The surfaces were unpolished, the wood cracked and blackened from overuse of dark magics. The ends of both levelled wands were glowing red hot as more beams of light shot across the atrium.

The shaman dove out of the operator's field of fire as he fired both wands at the same time. One glanced the edge of the operator's helmet, leaving a blackened, ragged hole in the fabric cover and a scorch mark on the kevlar below. The second swatted the operator in his side, throwing him backwards into the grit dusted floor.

He grunted, nearly losing his grip on his rifle, and looked down at the black splatter left on his tactical vest. The dragon scale trauma plates had saved him from being turned inside out, but the impact had driven the wind out of him and probably left a nasty bruise.

Righting his rifle, the operator fired from his compromised position while kicking desperately, sliding his bulk through the dust and debris. His rounds didn't find any particular target as the shaman rolled away.

When the gunfire stopped, the shaman was out of cover again, both wands firing indiscriminately in the direction of the operator. He gave it a good thirty seconds of continuous blasting, then paused to listen.

The shaman's nose ring twitched as he sniffed the air, trying to identify that typical copper tang of human blood. It would be a sure tell that he'd found his target, but through the magical energy buzzing in the air it was hard to make out anything.

Digressing, the shaman pushed through the doorway he'd spotted the operator in, both wands still levelled like a pair of pistols. His attention was drawn to the drag marks cutting through the debris swathed floor. The operator had definitely taken a hit, and hurt he had retreated. With a confident smirk the shaman followed the tracks away from the atrium, keeping his wands up.

The tracks suddenly ended though, right at the base of the machine gun mounted barricade—

A gloved hand smacked the barrel of the machine gun and the weapon swivelled one-eighty-degrees. The operator sprang to his feet on the opposite end of the barricade, caught the machine gun's grip and pointed the barrel square at the orc's chest.

The shaman's eyes went wide, but he could barely utter a curse or spell-trigger before the operator depressed the mechanical trigger with both thumbs. Twelve heavy ear-splitting chugs of the machine gun tore the shaman apart. He was flung backwards like a rag doll and went sprawling across the now gore-slick floor.

The weapon clicked empty and the bleat of the gun was replaced by a faint ringing in the operator's ears.

His second attempt to clear the atrium was a little more successful. But before doing anything he flicked the mostly-spent magazine from his weapon and slotted a full one in its place.

He peeked into the cavernous space gun first. Peering through his magnified holographic sight, the balcony at the top of the steps leapt closer and he double checked the shadows. Satisfied there were no snipers waiting to take his grape off, he released the magnifier's lock, letting it snap sharply alongside the weapon and he swept the rest of the room through the vanilla holo-sights. Striding in he did one final rotation to be sure he didn't miss anything.

A lesson in overconfidence hard learned, he finally reported clear.

The team leader's return was immediate. 'Copy that. Basement is also clear.'

'Trouble outside. Nothing I can't handle,' the sharpshooter replied, pausing between shots.

There was silence on the comms for a pregnant moment. Then finally the breacher chimed in from upstairs.

'Wait one. I may have spotted the HVT.' He was breathing hard in the mike, like he'd run a marathon.

'Confirm. Do you see the objective?' the team leader demanded.

'Right height, right build,' the breacher said, but there was no further confirmation. Instead the roar of his shotgun rang through his vox, upset by the double click of the action being racked and followed by another mighty roar of buckshot. 'Get down! Get on the fucking ground! You! Yeah, you! Drop that-…'

The crash of an impact was deafening across the radio waves, amplified by the breacher's pained gasp. Then the line went dead.

The operator jumped off the X without thinking twice. 'I got him!'

He pounded up a set of marble steps, carbine angled upward and leaned slightly around the curvature of the grand staircase. The fact he might be walking right into an ambush didn't phase him the slightest, bruise twinging his side or no. He wasn't unafraid of death. But the instinct to protect his battle-brother kicked in and overrode everything else.

The upper floor was a mess of bodies leaving a bread-crumb trail for the operator to follow. The damage the breacher's shotgun had done was palpable. Gaping holes were torn out of walls, orcs chewed up armour and all, whole limbs separated from torsos and even a few star-shaped scorch marks left in rugs by flashbangs used to press the advantage around blind corners.

He skidded around a corner in full sprint, his carbine horizontal and finger hovering on, not quite touching, the trigger.

The first thing he spotted was a heavy door at the end of the corridor. The breacher's shotgun had made short work of the lock with a pair of shots, and an orc framed in the doorway was in the process of shutting the barrier.

The operator fired a single shot in full run, the orc's head snapping back, a black cloud exploding out the back of his skull. The greenskin fell out of sight and the operator lowered his carbine, pushing his sprint.

His shoulder slammed the door open and he snapped his gun up again. One orc resolved in the blur of the breach, practically touching the muzzle of his carbine. The operator reacted before the orcs pipegun could clear the holster.

His hand on the half-drawn weapon, he tugged the gun forward, orc and all, then threw the bulkier humanoid over his shoulder and into the ground with a thud. He then tossed the stolen pipegun and left a boot print on the orc's face. His carbine was up next, dead-checking the hostile with a single tap through the head.

The bodyguards dealt with, the operator drew on the last orc and took in the situation. His finger released the trigger with practiced discipline as he realised there was a body between him and his target.

The bedroom was fancy, fancier than the other rooms throughout the building. The other bedrooms were hovels with rough cots and dirty sheets. This room was home to a large half-rounded bed. Several orc women pulling silk sheets over themselves cowered in the corner where their chains were bolted into the wall. The operator had clearly found the master bedroom.

And standing before him was the so-called master.

The operator wasn't fully schooled in the ancient hierarchy of orc command beyond knowing the motherfucker with the hardest muscles and the largest tusks was usually in charge. And in that respect, it seemed the operator had found this tribe's warboss.

The warboss was not alone. Held between him and the operator's carbine was a slight figure, clearly feminine going by the wide hips and ample bust, but a heavy black sack pulled down over her head and wrists bound behind her back. Through tears in her dress he could make out crusty white fur and hooves instead of feet.

The breacher had been right. Right height, right build. This had to be the HVT the operators were after, but there was no way to be sure until he got that sack off her head. Unfortunately, that would have to wait.

The HVT wasn't the only hostage the warboss had. Perched precariously on a stool, the breacher stood beside the hulking orc with his hands bound behind his back. Wrapped around his neck was a thick chord of rough rope, the other end running through a pulley bolted into the ceiling and tied off to an iron ring affixed to the wall.

'How you doing, dude?' the operator asked almost casually, keeping his carbine trained on the orc.

The breacher sniffed. 'Not bad. Could be better, y'know?'

The warboss barked out an angry snarl, pressing the sadistically notched knife in one hand tighter to his hostage's throat. A whimper escaped the black bag on her head.

'No talk! You!' he nodded at the operator with a huff. 'We make deal.'

The operator shifted from foot to foot, leaning ever so slightly in case he was able to get a shot, but the warboss seemed to notice and shifted in time to keep his head hidden behind the HVT's.

'Okay, let's talk,' the operator digressed. 'You let the hostage go and surrender, and you get to rot in an Equae jail for war crimes for the rest of your life.'

The warboss growled furiously. 'Bad deal!'

The operator chuckled. 'Well, considering the alternative is I shoot you in the dick and walk out of here like a badass with the lady draped in my arms, I'd say that's actually a pretty good deal.'

'Where do I fit in that plan?' the breacher complained.

'Don't worry. You'll be remembered fondly.'

'Oh, fuck you, dude.'

In their back and forth, the warboss was clearly losing his temper.

Good, through the operator. Let him fume. Let him make a move, one way or another, because I can't get a shot otherwise.

He needed the warboss to do something. Anything. Make a dash, pull the hostage away, step out to try and kill something; anything would do. He needed the warboss to show just a little more of himself, just enough to get an angle, to shoot that knife out of his hand and finish him off for good.

Unfortunately, the warboss knew exactly what the operator was at. When it came to crack shots, the operators were hard matched. They were famous for their accuracy even, and the warboss had formulated a plan-B to counteract the operator's keen aim.

He lashed out with a sweeping kick and hooked the stool out from under the breacher's feet. He dropped half an inch and gagged as the noose pulled taught around his throat, cutting off his air supply with his own weight. His legs kicked violently trying to find purchase on the air, but no relief came to him.

The operator needed the warboss to make the first move, but in the face of his friend's imminent death instinct forced him into action. He lowered his rifle, and as he did the warboss took his chances. Practically picking the HVT off her feet he dashed for the exit, giving the operator the opening he needed. But everyone was already committed.

The operator wrapped his arms around the breacher's legs and lifted him up to give him a few precious gasps of air. At the same time the warboss had run out, pushed past where the operator had entered and escaped down the corridor. There was nothing to be done about it for the moment, so the operator focused on the task at hand.

Holding his buddy up with one arm, the operator drew the pistol from his thigh holster with a rasp of plastic and took aim. His sights lined up smoothly on the knot attaching the noose to the wall bracket. He didn't take his time with his shots either. Half a magazine disappeared down range, five bullets ripping chunks out of the rope and at least two missing entirely.

The breacher gagged again as the rope held by a single strand and the operator fired one more shot, severing the last membrane. The breacher's full weight fell on him and the duo collapsed to the deck.

Wasting no time the operator holstered his pistol and undid the noose before drawing his knife and sawing through the zip-tie binding the man's wrists.

'I'm fine.' The breacher coughed, rubbing his throat. 'Get after the HVT.'

The operator nodded and ran off.

'Wait, no hesitation?' the breacher called after him.

The operator was out on the balcony already. Looking down he had to give it to the warboss, that big motherfucker could move. He'd cleared the stairs already, gathered a surviving orc underling and with the HVT dragged along in his wake, the duo were making a mad dash for freedom. But they weren't clear yet.

One hand on the balcony railing, the operator vaulted smoothly over the edge and dropped straight down. As he did, he slid his carbine over his left shoulder and let go. An invisible force caught the weapon and swung it around, tucking the carbine neatly across his back as he landed on the orc underling just he passed below.

The greenskin went sprawling, chewing a mouthful of dirt, then going suddenly still.

The operator rose, sliding his knife from the orc's neck as he stood and left the corpse in his dust. His carbine swung back around as he moved.

the team leader was booking it out the front door to catch up. They were halfway down the driveway when the warboss abandoned his escape. His support had been decimated, the operators were right on his heels and the main gate leading out of the compound's walls were still locked tight. He was cornered and had nowhere to go. But that didn't stop him from trying.

Putting the HVT between him and the raised guns, the warboss started making demands he was in no position to make. He was yelling at them to set down their weapons before he cut the hostage from her belly to her chin.

At the same time the team leader and the operator kept the warboss at gunpoint, barking commands of their own. It was the very definition of a stalemate.

The warboss had very little options to proceed. If he surrendered, he was fucked. If he killed his meat-shield, he was fucked.

The humans on the other hand may not have had a clean shot, but the situation was still within their control.

'Overwatch?' the team leader asked.

'Sights hot.'

The team leader did not hesitate. 'Bust 'em.'

A single shot echoed from the sharpshooter's prone position on the shed roof. With perfect faith in his peep's abilities, the operator snapped his carbine downward and moved in time. He was lunging at the warboss and hostage even as a match grade 7.62-by-51-millimetre armour piercing bullet entered the orc's left eye and tore through the soft tissue in the cranial cavity otherwise referred to as the “T-zone." The bullet travelled down unimpeded by flesh and bone, severed the medulla oblongata and passed out of the warboss' neck. Flaccid paralysis followed as all motor nerves immediately shut down and the orc's body turned to jelly.

The operator was on them at the same time, one hand tearing away the knife as the warboss crumpled, leaving the HVT standing bewildered. Her blind gaze swivelled from side to side in a panicked state, no doubt she was wondering what the hell was going on. The operator wasn't going to leave her wondering.

Slinging his rifle, he tore the bag off her head, and suddenly her appearance made a lot more sense. The hooves instead of feet, the white fur and the long equine tail. Giving him a bewildered look was an anthropomorphic unicorn of Equae. And not just any unicorn either.

Unicorns, anthro or no, were often a privilege to meet. Beautiful, kind-hearted creatures with the grace to rival the elves of Sylvaan and gifted in all arts magical. But this unicorn, the operator's high value target was special without compare.

She was the Queen of Equae…

But it took the operator a few moments to recognise her. He'd been expecting as much, but her state was still a shock for which there was no preparation.

Mystery stains crusted her unkept fur and tangled locks of golden hair. Her lip was cracked with evidence of blood marring her white fur, and her right eye was swollen and half shut. Microfractures ran up along her marble white horn indicating the sensitive nerve endings in the appendage had been prodded at, possibly a form of torture.

She hadn't just been beaten. Her ragged robes were a mockery of the elegant dresses she would have worn to the courts at the apex of her rule. She had not just fallen from grace under the thumb of the merciless warboss. She had been dragged down into a pit of despair and humiliation; a pit she no doubt thought she would die and rot in until she locked eyes with the operator.

Tears burst from her eyes and she sobbed in an unladylike manor, throwing herself into the arms of the operator. He let her press in, wrapping his arm around her protectively while looking to his team leader.

The man nodded back, keying his radio link back to mission control. 'It's her. We've found her. Platinum. I repeat; Platinum.'

Their target was secure. Though not entirely unscathed, she was alive and now in the protective embrace of the operator, the queen was safe. The sharpshooter stayed in an overwatch position and the breacher joined them outside. They heard the steady whud-whud-whud of helicopter rotors pick up in the distance. Their extraction bird was inbound.

'Gentleman we just saved a unicorn queen,' the sharpshooter put over the radio, making the breacher chuckle.

'Yeah… that was pretty fuckin' ninja.'

W'rogh was the old orcish word for “dagger." It seemed fitting on the W'rogh Range, sheer dagger pointed mountains forming something of a physical border between Akkad and the land of unicorns known as Equae.

But despite this physical barrier of harsh terrain, the border between the lush green lands of unicorns and the arid landscape of orcish heritage was a frequently a contested one.

The western provinces of Akkad were often the stomping ground of old world warbands, orcs who did not conform to the way the world had changed and grown more civilised in the past century. And without sanction of the Akkad Hierarchs, small warbands made regular incursions into Equae to harass their unicorn neighbours. As such, strings of defences, forward operating bases, military installations and firebases were set up along Equae's eastern border in sight of the W'rogh Range.

It was from one such firebase a lone unicorn anxiously watched the pale moonlight glint from the ice-topped mountains.

The intelligence analyst, known more informally as a “spook" by her colleagues, shivered in the cool wind that blew over the sparsely shrubby plains of Eastern Equae. The days were normally hot in this province, but the cloudless sky had made the night rather frigid for her to be dressed in just a t-shirt and pants. Her jacket lay in the command tent a hundred metres away, and she subconsciously calculated the seconds it would take her to run there and then run back.

She opted against going. She might miss something in the meantime. The operators were inbound with Equae's beloved queen, but she refused to relax until she saw that helo land safely at her hooves.

The spook had been on edge for two years straight now. Ever since that day she'd been pulled from her dull missing persons assignments and put on lead of Operation: Platinum Ghost. She'd been pulling overtime non-stop since that dark day in Equae history, when the orcs of warband Ur'huk probed a hole in their defences, stormed the royal palace and made away with the queen of the unicorns.

For two years the Equae military had searched, and for two years they had come up with nothing.

Until nearly a week ago, when at long last the spook picked up some actionable intelligence. It had started as a whisper on the wind. She'd pushed her magic further than she had ever before, reached across the border with an ethereal hand, jumped through the minds of countless orcs following the whispers and nearly lobotomised herself in doing so. But the risks had paid off. Two years of coming up short, of constant frustration and misery had finally been rewarded with a solid read of her queen's location. Finally, she had found where the queen was being held as a living war trophy of warband Ur'huk.

Rubbing her hands over the bare fur on her arms, the spook shivered with a mixture of cold and adrenaline aftermath. She might never watch a thrilling movie with the same eyes again. Frankly it wouldn't compare in the slightest to the helmet-cam feeds of the operators she'd watched during the rescue operation. In the command tent she'd been on the edge of her seat as the operators assault the compound and confronted that wretched warboss holding the queen hostage. Her usually manicured nails were uneven where she'd been biting them as the sharpshooter made that final shot that brought an end to the warboss of Ur'huk.

Finally, when they sent their report: “platinum," the spook had collapsed in tears of relief. Mascara stains still marred the white fur on her cheeks. Every other rescue attempt had ended with report: “ghost," indicating they had either lost the HVT or had been unable to locate her.

When the spook had called in her actionable intel on the queen's location the Equae Defence Council had taken no risks. They called on their allies, the Imperial Commonwealth for assistance, knowing full well that when it came to kicking down doors and splitting wigs that the operators were unmatched. And they proven themselves as such by taking down the target compound in half the time Equae special forces predicted they could do it in.

Were the objective not so dire, there certainly would have been some bravado, ego and dick-measuring going back and forth between the special forces groups. But frankly, so long as their beloved queen came home safe, no unicorn gave a damn about who did the rescuing or how.

Unfortunately, it wasn't quite over yet, which was why the spook was so anxiously watching the dagger tipped border. What if rival warbands caught wind of the operation and rushed to overwhelm the operators while they extracted? What if anti-aircraft guns tagged the extraction helicopter and they went down in the contested no-man's-land between Akkad and Equae?

There were a hundred more dark scenarios rushing through her head even as the Imperial Commonwealth helicopter moved out of the darkness. The gusts of air chopped out by the rotor blades as it passed overhead whipped at the unicorn's long sapphire blue mane. She turned to keep her eyes on it, then shaded her face from the small sand-devils blasted from the makeshift landing pad in the centre of the firebase. She made out the silhouettes of the pilot and co-pilot toggling switches and powering down engines that dimmed in noise to a quiet whine, the rotors slowing down their spin and allowing the East Equae dust to settle again.

The spook was beside herself, willing herself to believe but somehow not quite comprehending as the troop bay door on the side of the helo popped open. She stumbled over her own hooves in the vacant rush to get closer. Already officers of the royal guard were gathering at the edge of the landing zone, but the plate armoured stallions made no attempt to stop the single mare shoving through their midst. They were just as stunned, loitering at the landing pad like a horde of disorganised thralls.

She broke through the masculine wall with a stumble and saw two of the operators disembark, the operator who had secured the HVT and his team leader half turned to help a third figure to the sand-swathed tarmac.

It was her, the queen. Though she didn't have that regal glow about her like when she ruled from the royal palace, it was definitely her. And the sight of the queen alive, albeit bedraggled and beaten up, forced the spook to choke and fresh tears to run down her cheeks. She wasn't sure if it was untethered happiness, or sadness at the abuse the queen had suffered in her time as a captive. Already the spook was swamped with regret; regret that she hadn't worked faster, found her majesty sooner…

The spook in her guilt-round-trip didn't notice the queen had clear the distance between them. Blinking away tears, she realised she was suddenly nose to nose with the queen. Up close, the regal unicorn's injuries seemed far worse and the sight of them made the spook wince.

'Highness-…' Her voice broke and the queen smiled through cracked lips.

She reached out and touched her subject tenderly on the shoulder. 'I believe have you to thank for finding me.'

Her voice was hoarse, like she had been screaming for weeks on end, and she had clearly done some crying of her own. Her eyes were bleary and red, and the operator who escorted had a large wet stain on one shoulder.

Remembering herself, the spook quickly bowed her head and went to kneel before the queen, but her highness held fast. Instead, the fallen queen pulled the spook in close for a tight hug. A quiet “thank you," was whispered in her ear and for a moment the spook was lost in bliss. Her hands found the small of the queen's back and she allowed the softness of the cuddle to envelop her.

After a few moments, they mutually ended the embrace, and the operator handed his charge off to the royal guard. They fussed over her, some of the burly stallions even shedding an uncharacteristic tear. But the queen refused to carried or supported. Standing on her own strength, she demanded she walk proudly and unbroken. Though there was a pained shuffle in her gait, she refused help.

'She's a tough one,' the operator said with a nod. 'It's good we found her though. Another week and-…'

The spook wasn't sure why she interrupted him. It was either because she didn't want to know what could have happened to the queen after another week, or she just needed to thank him so desperately. She collided with his body, paying no mind to the hard tactical vest bulwarking his already muscular torso and she hugged him tightly, sobbing and forming another wet patch on his opposite shoulder.

Watching with a frown, the breacher sheepishly held up a souvenir he had brought from the compound. Clutched in one gloved hand by its hair was the severed head of the orc warboss, expression slack and lifeless with coagulated gore still dripping from the ragged neck-stump.

'Uh, is now a bad time to show her confirmation of the warboss' death?'

The sharpshooter glared, shaking his head at his buddy and slowly pressing the severed head back out of sight.

II

When it came to the ingenuity of engineering, the dwarves were unmatched in their skill. That being said, humans had a practical approach when it came to their machines that even the dwarves were hard pressed to mimic.

The imperial Commonwealth plane idling on the makeshift landing strip was not a work of art. It was bulky, noisy and hardly as nimble as the gliders or airships of the Equae air force. But when it came to moving tonnes of cargo from point-A to point-B as the crow flew, AC130 “Deacon" was the fastest, most practical thing in the sky.

The ramp connecting with the ground under the tail-end of the craft hung open with a crew chief loitering just outside as he ran through his pre-flight checklist. Equipment previously loaned to Equae for Operation: Platinum Ghost had been packed up. The Imperial helicopter was stripped down and flat-packed, dominating the forward most section of the cavernous cargo hold. Much of the leftover space was taken up by other equipment the operators had brought with them, now nicely boxed up, netted and lashed to the deck.

The contents of the plane wasn't just cargo. Running along the port side of the interior wall were inward facing seats, enough to house thirty men. But sitting alone, lost in the space usually reserved for a platoon of fully equipped soldiers, a unicorn sat with her duffel secured in a rack above her head and a book opened on her knee.

It had been three days since the queen had been extracted. The spook had taken that time out like a long weekend. Most of it had been taken up by general maintenance of the apartment she'd barely slept in these past two years. She'd thrown out the dead potted plants, eradicated the civilisation growing in her refrigerator and even visited her cat, who had now become a permanent fixture at her sister's place.

She felt weird doing normal stuff after so long. And thankfully it was not meant to last. Before heading home she'd been given instructions to ship out to the Imperial Commonwealth as soon as the operators were ready to return home. So, she'd set her affairs in order as best she could in the short time, watched last night's official address to the people concerning the queen's rescue, treated herself to a glass of wine and started packing for a Commonwealth summer.

The spook was glad to find out her formal wear still fitted as snugly as it did before. A white shirt blending with her fur hugged her torso and a taught grey skirt stretched down to her mid-thigh. Translucent black tights covered her slender legs down to her hooves, which were covered by a pair of black suede boots sporting a long stiletto heel connecting her unguligrade ankles with the deck. Her long hair was pulled back and rolled into a taught bun to match the formal grace of the rest of her outfit.

The spook's book, a novel she was only a few pages into, was something she'd picked up a very long time ago before this mess with the Ur'huk warband broke out. It had apparently taken Equae by storm with a saucy narrative laced with wish fulfilling fantasies. But only a few pages into the first chapter, the spook was no longer surprised that the fanbase was mostly female. The tale of an innocent and introverted girl discovering her sexual potential with a rich and handsome corporate CEO wasn't going to resonate with many male readers. Still, the spook didn't have many complaints so far. The narrative was nice and simple, making it easy for her wary mind to follow. The main character was interesting, if not overly naïve and sometimes air-headed; but there was interesting potential for her to grow as the tale went on.

In all, the spook was excited to finally get stuck in and see what all the fuss was about. The crew chief had informed her the flight to the Imperial Commonwealth would take approximately eight hours, so she'd have plenty of time to set her teeth into the story.

Boots thumping up the ramp made the unicorn lift her gaze and she saw the crew chief sauntering past with a slate tucked under his arm.

'Are we set to go?' the spook asked and he smiled politely in return.

'Almost. Were cleared for take-off, just waiting for one last passenger to strap himself in.'

The spook frowned as her eyes were drawn down the ramp again. She expected four humans in the garb of an operator to be trudging after the crew chief. Instead, she saw only one.

He was easily recognisable as the operator who had secured the queen during Platinum Ghost. The one, she was embarrassed in hindsight, she had hugged tightly for the better part of ten minutes after the Queen of Equae had been secured.

He was still in battle dress, fatigues coloured randomly with smears of desert camouflage. Hewn into the knees of his pants were scuffed ABS pads, and his under-body-armour-combat-shirt consisted of conventional rip-stop sleeves with his torso wrapped in a light, breathing material for added comfort under his body armour. On his back was a bulky backpack no doubt stuffed with personal effects. Carried in one hand was his tactical vest, and in the other was his carbine – a locking mechanism inserted in the chamber to make it safe for transport. Humorously the spook noted the phrase “remove before pew-pew" written on the bolt lock.

'Afternoon, ma'am,' the operator greeted with a curt nod as he approached.

'Hello.' The spook paused a little awkwardly as he passed her and set his gear down one seat further into the hold. 'Where's the rest of your team?'

'They've been redirected,' he answered with the typical crypticity of a special forces operative. He either didn't know where the rest of his team were going, or he was sworn to operational security. 'And I've been reassigned back to the Commonwealth.'

'Seems unusual to split you from your team.'

He shrugged. 'Such is the life of a pipe hitter. We go where we're needed.'

'You mean you go where the trouble is.'

'More or less.' He chuckled as he lashed his carbine into the overhead racks. Then glancing in her direction he added, 'So, what about you? Heading on a well-deserved holiday?'

It was the spook's turn to chuckle. 'I wish. I've been reassigned as well. It would seem your leaders are calling in favours already. You helped with Platinum Ghost, so I'm heading to the Commonwealth to help with something in return.'

The operator put away his tac-vest, then unshouldered his backpack to hang it in the cargo nets. 'Well if you're in the capitol do make sure to take a few days for yourself. The botanical gardens are well worth seeing in summertime.'

She'd heard of the summer blooms that swathed the capitol's botanical gardens in a myriad of colours, some said so vibrant beyond the visible spectrum that they seemed to give off light. But right then she wasn't thinking of taking the time to look if she did end up in the city. Instead her senses were focused squarely on how the light fabric of the operator's UBACS wrapped over his trim, muscular abdomen while he hefted his heavy burgeon into place.

Before long the unicorn realised she was biting her bottom lip and subtly rubbing her thighs together. Her nails were set into the cover of her book, and she wondered if she was going to get into the story at all. Or was the handsome operator seated beside her going to be too much of a distraction for eight hours?

The spook looked up wondering how long she had been staring pointlessly at page-ten of her book. To her credit, in the hours that passed she'd moved on from page-eight.

It wouldn't be so bad if she and the operator had exchanged more than a few sentences of conversation in that time. But he had just sat there listening to music and snoozing. And frankly too to buzzed to sleep, the unicorn kept glancing at him and imagining a saucy narrative of her own.

This time when she looked he was gone though. Over the whine of the four turbines keeping the plane in the air she could hear a distinct buzzing noise near the front of the hold. So, setting down her book, she undid her belt and went to investigate.

Rounding a stack of boxes lashed to the deck and stowed way behind safety nets she noted the door to the washroom cubicle was open. There wasn't much to the cramped space, just a sink with a mirror and a toilet. The services were a little anti-climactic considering how advanced Imperial humans were, and the size of the plane. But it was better than nothing.

The operator was bent over the sink, stripped from the waist up and peering in the mirror as he ran a set of electric shears across his face. In long, frizzy tufts the black hair of his beard sprang away and into the sink, trimming the facial hair down to a sandpapery stubble that left naught but a dark shadow along his jaw. He seemed mostly done, leaving just a long tuft on his chin, long enough to touch his chest still.

The sight was quite jarring, and suddenly it seemed the operator had hidden away ten years. Beneath what she had heard the operators jokingly call “facial armour" the man had a trim, sharp jawline and sturdy features that had matured well. The silver lines that stood out in the black of his beard was matched by the subtle greying at his temples.

The spook wasn't personally into guys with beards, or the ever-popular goatee amongst her own people, but even with that pet peeve she recognised the operator was good looking for a human. And with his beard shorn down to a light stubble, he seemed even more so.

It also helped that he had an impressive musculature despite his lean, light build. His training – the honing of his abilities to run fast, shoot accurate and never flinch in the face of danger – showed now his shirt was missing. He had the pale complexion of an Imperial of the Nordern province, and his fair share of scars indicated he was the veteran of numerous campaigns. The bruise on his chest was light but fresh, angry veins criss-crossing the blue and purple-ish flesh. He didn't seem the type of man to be bothered by such a trivial injury though.

'Hey,' he greeted with a smile drawing her gaze very suddenly away from his ripped physique and into his handsome amber eyes. 'You need the bathroom? I'll be done in just a sec.'

He went to hurry, but the unicorn quickly waved him off. 'No-no. You're alright. I'm just stretching my legs.'

And getting a nice change of scenery too, she thought to herself with a subtle up-and-down glance of his body. She secretly wished he weren't wearing his pants either, but the combat fatigues were well enough fitted. With the compression straps drawn tight and the cuffs wrapped about the tops of his boots it was easy enough to discern the athletic curvature of the powerful legs that were crafted to carry him for miles across any terrain.

She suddenly realised she was biting her lip again, the wonder if his stem was as impressive as the rest of his body bobbing to the surface of her thoughts.

With her absently watching the muscles about his shoulder blades clench and relax with his movements, the operator sheared off the final tuft of his beard, then checked he hadn't missed any strands. As he was looking he caught a glimpse at her in the mirror.

Fluttering her eyelashes involuntarily as she blinked away her daze, the spook quickly asked, 'How long have you been an operator?'

'Now there's a short conversation.' The operator grinned good naturedly.

'Classified?'

'They haven't even invented a word for how classified that is.' Brushing the loose hairs from his face and looking at her reflection in the mirror, the operator asked, 'What about you? How deep in the secret squirrel suck are you?'

The unicorn folded her arms just under her breasts, as if subconsciously propping them up into the low cut of her blouse, and leaned against a nearby container.

'Not very. I was in law enforcement before military intelligence picked me up for Platinum Ghost. I worked missing persons.'

'You must have been damn good at your job for military intel to draft you in.'

She shrugged humbly. 'I scored quite well in high school divination.'

'You did divination magic in school? Impressive.'

'Not really. Unicorn schooling is very magic based.'

'Well, it's impressive for a human.'

Suddenly realising what she had implied, the spook's eyes widened. 'Oh, stars! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply-…'

The operator turned and waved her off with a good-natured smile. 'I know you didn't. I'm just saying I think it's pretty cool. I didn't do any kind of magic studies until I passed operator selection. And even then, all I could really get the hang of was some light illusion.'

The spook grinned, secretly knowing illusion was a kindergarten school of magic in Equae. But she wasn't going to tell him that; he seemed quite proud.

'I guess I've helped find a lot of missing people with divination magic,' the spook chatted. Remembering something she laughed. 'I always had a gift for it. To the point none of the other foals in school would want to play hide-and-seek with me anymore.' The operator chuckled at that.

An awkward pause followed though and for several seconds the spook rubbed her arm avoiding the human's gaze.

'Well, I'd better-…'

'I'm sorry,' the spook suddenly blurted out.

The operator blinked, bewildered. 'For what?'

'For… y'know. Back at the firebase, when you and your team arrived with the queen for the hand-off.' The operator shook his head, still not following. 'I hugged you and didn't let go for the awkwardest five minutes in my life.'

The operator stared as if trying to figure out what she was talking about, or if “awkwardest" was even a real word. Then as if remembering he suddenly grinned.

'I hope I didn't offend you,' she said, relieved he was grinning about it.

'Don't even worry about. It's been an emotional couple of years for your people. For you especially.' He shrugged. 'Besides, who ever complains about free hugs, right?'

'Well, if you enjoyed it, perhaps we could do it again.'

'Sure thing. I'll give you a call next time I walk away from a gunfight.'

A half smile pulled at the spooks lips. 'That would be nice. It's not often I get called on by a handsome knight in battle-rattle.' She bit her bottom lip and threw him another head-to-toe look. 'And then see him without armour afterwards.'

His Adam's apple bobbed as the operator quietly swallowed. He glanced down, as if only just noticing he was shirtless and seemed to subconsciously suck in his gut a little. But considering his muscular mid-riff the spook couldn't really figure out why.

'Um… thanks?'

The spook licked her lips, suddenly having some fun. Something about watching a grown man – and a dedicated warrior at that – squirm uncomfortably was satisfying. It made her feel kind of powerful. And it was one of those things she felt the need to do every so often, but just hadn't the time to indulge in lately. 'And, uh… it's been a long couple of years, if you know what I mean. Not much free time to tend to… y'know. Needs?'

The operator stared.

She pushed off the crate and slowly slid closer. 'Not many handsome men in uniform bumbling into my path either.'

'Um…'

With every step there was a sharp click of her heels on the deck. An exaggerated sway of her hips, only further highlighted by her hands sliding down either side of her waist to rest on her curvy thighs. For a long time the operator didn't even notice her half-lidded gaze as his eyes seemed fixed on the seductive motions of her body.

'I, uh… I could probably recommend a couple of good bars in the capitol?' the man stammered.

The spook visibly sagged with a sigh, blowing a stray lock of hair from her face.

'Stars and moons, you're insufferably slow,' she crooned with frustration.

'Wha-…' The operator didn't even get to finish the single word before the spook dashed forward and tackled him.

Tangled in each other's arms and their lips locked together, the two fell into the washroom and the spook only reached back to catch the door and close it hastily.

The door slammed shut behind her, but the latch didn't take and it swung open again. The spook wasn't going to waste any more time fixing it though. If the crew chief came down and caught them, so be it. Hell, he could watch for all the unicorn cared.

Perching herself on the edge of the sink, she managed to get her leg around the operator's waist and her fingers digging into the contours of his musculature she yanked him in against her.

'Let me spell this out for you,' the spook hissed in a low tone.

'O-okay.'

'Fuck. Me.'

'O-… okay.'

It's not like the operator could have said anything to convince the unicorn to take it easy on him. She practically jerked his head from his shoulders as she yanked him into another kiss, her tongue invading his mouth without invitation. But then if he didn't want this in one way or another it's not like the spook would be able to force him.

As she kept his lips on hers, the spook hoked her skirt up over her hips then tore at the operator's pants. His belt came away with a few tugs, but the zipper and buttons took a little more exploration. Eventually the spook grew frustrated though and grabbed him by the wrist. The human's hand wrapped about her waist was forced onto his own pants, like a brisk, wordless order to get moving.

The operator obliged silently, not daring to draw the unicorn's ire any further. Once his pants were open she took over again, clawing at the growing erection trapped in his shorts.

She gasped through their kiss as it throbbed in her hand, the heat practically burning her palm. She could couldn't contain herself for another second. One hand guiding his spear out from under his shorts, her free digits roughly tore aside her panties. She heard the stretch and tear of expensive fabric but didn't care anymore. Years of neglecting her base urges had stretched her patience thin. With a tug she pulled the operator until he lined up with her excited slit. He didn't need any more guidance from there.

Feeling the bead of hot arousal at her opening, the operator's hands found her waist and ass and held tight as he pressed forward. Inch by inch he sank into her yielding pussy. He gasped at the heat and wetness of it, and at the same time the spook nearly bit down on her own tongue. Their breaths were short and heated, and by the time he was hilted in her the spook was digging her nails into his back and giving needy moans.

Her body flexed, hips gyrating in time with the operator's thrusts. Long wet strokes pulled from the unicorn's stretched lips before delving back in all the way again. Each cycle kissed the mare's core and bit by bit she felt relief wash over her as the desperate itch within her was replaced by the stuff of happiness.

Her ankles locked around behind the operator's waist and she started encouragingly pulling him in, breaking the kiss a moment to look him up and down. The man's eyes were close with focus, but the spook enjoyed the sight of his muscles tensing and relaxing as he smoothly plunged into her, again and again.

Bit by bit his pace increased, and soon the repetitive hammering awoke something new in the spook. She let out a long moan and her inner walls rippled. She came all over his cock, her climax lubricating the ravaging motions further. Her hips twitched uncontrollably and she tightened her grip on the man. But at the same time she didn't hold him tight enough to stop him from moving.

As if encouraged, the operator continued his assault. The jackhammer blows were punctuated by wet slaps of skin on desire-soaked fur. His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her ass for desperate purchase. The spook could feel him swelling, almost growing has his thrusts bottomed out with every forward plunge. He was shaking with every press forward, until finally, with one final plunge he delved all the way into her centre.

The spook swallowed a breath as the familiar sensation of orgasm took her a second time. This time there was no stopping herself from tightening up around him. She practically pulled the operator into a stranglehold. Her vaginal walls tightened like a vice about his shaft and her legs locked him in place.

She shook like a woman possessed. Everything was a light with electric energy, from the ends of her hooves to the tips of her fingers.

The operator and the spook came together, his crown kissing her cervix as he erupted. The steaming torrent of cum jetted directly into her womb, thick ropes of cream filling her up to the point of bursting.

The spook wanted to coo, to cry out and lose herself in another passionate kiss… but she was interrupted by the world shaking.

She'd heard of the cliched experience before, friends telling her some new boyfriend of theirs “rocked their world" or something to that effect. Personally, she thought the idea was kind of cliché. Until it actually happened.

She looked up with surprise, bracing herself on the operator's body as the panelling rattled around them. The Deacon's airframe groaned in time with a hard sway to the right, and there was a momentary dropping sensation like they were falling out of the sky.

The wings and engines caught them however and she felt the plane change angle, the nose dropping several feet while the right wing dipped away. The pilot keyed the intercom as he manoeuvred the bulky aircraft.

'Sorry about that, folks. Just hit some chop there. On a lighter note, we're well into Commonwealth airspace now and should be landing in about two hours.'

Still breathing hard, the unicorn locked eyes with her lover and smiled. 'Only two hours? Well, we'd better not waste any more time.'

Before the operator could laugh she pulled him against her body again and locked her lips to his. Turned out she was deadly serious.

III

Early morning, the sun had barely risen above the ivory towers of the capitol and already Camp Dragonfly was a hive of activity. Recruits were running track or performing morning calisthenics. Cadets were attending early morning classes. Graduates were killing free time or practicing on the range, pops of hyper-accurate and controlled gunfire ringing out.

As the operator wandered behind a drill instructor breathing hellfire down a slow recruit's neck, he was reminded of his own young years at Camp Dragonfly.

Recruits, cadets and graduates were similar – they were all operators in training – but they were different. Recruits were fresh faced boots practically just off selection. Pulled from other regular military divisions for showing promise, recruits were driven through a month of very basic exercises that tested stamina, endurance and aptitude.

Considering they didn't wash out, they moved on to become cadets. It was at this point they learned all of the merits of becoming an operator. Each was honed into a finely trained, deadly accurate, well-oiled machine of death-dealing judgement. Finally, when a group of cadets were deemed ready to proceed, they underwent a test known as “hell-week" to determine which of them moved on to become graduates.

Graduates were technically operators already. It just had to be determined in what capacity they would serve their team. Graduates went through extra schooling that further honed their abilities and worked out which specialisation they would pursue before they were ready for the field.

In all, it took nearly a year-and-a-half to churn out maybe a class of eight graduates on average. And that was a good generation. Sometimes whole groups washed out and ended up back in the military divisions they started, never to be considered for the operators again.

Approaching the camp's headquarters, the operator paused to watch a troupe of a dozen cadets running across the vast asphalt square usually reserved for parade displays, graduation ceremonies and troop inspections. It was the very square upon which the operator had received his graduation pin.

The cadets were in full battle-rattle; helmets strapped on their heads, rucksacks stuffed with gear, guns dangling at their sides and body armour bulwarking torsos. In all they had to be lugging close to forty kilos per person.

And they were running like it weighed nothing. Though running was probably putting it generously. They staggered, driven only by the example and wrath of their supervising drill instructor.

The chief was lugging the same gear, clearly not the type to make his cadets do what he could not do himself. The operator recognised this mantra from when he was but a bright eyed wee cadet… running ten clicks in full gear at six in the morning. It was nice to see the chief hadn't changed a bit.

The group shuffled to a halt at the chief's indication, where they practically collapsed, breaching hard and dripping sweat.

'Alright, boys 'n girls. Take five!' the chief announced, barely out of breath himself. He was supernaturally fit for a man his age; bald with age and his dark-skinned face visibly weathered and creased. He seemed closer to a man of sixty rather than the prime years his physique seemed to suggest.

Of the group, one of the few cadets still on his feet swallowed some bile and dropped his weighty pack.

'Chief, this is stupid.' he complained between breaths. 'Why are we always running? It's like you're training us to run away from a fight.'

Any other DI would have scowled, but not the chief. He maintained that good natured, motivational grin of his. 'Because running builds stamina, and it makes your legs really strong and fucking big. That way, when you're on leave and you get done fucking some college slut you go to put on your jeans, but your legs are so buff and big they tear your pants. So now you don't have any pants, you might as well fuck that bitch again!'

As the guys in the group were laughing at that ridiculous explanation, the chief leaned sideways and considered the three women in their sweaty, tired group.

'And for the ladies in the group, just imagine the college slut is a fancy-haired frat-boy.'

The women conferred silently for a second then shrugged. 'It's okay, Chief. College chicks are usually hot. We'd totally tap that.'

Laughing as a group now, the cadets laughed even harder, totally forgetting the pain of their ten kilometre morning run.

When they were ready the chief waved them off to stow their gear, get showered and treat themselves to some chow. This wasn't hell-week after all. They were still in training. It was only during the final test that chief would run them ragged for a solid week, nonstop physical activity with no rest, bare minimum sleep and under the maximum amount of stress and pressure he could apply in nature's elements or in a simulated combat environment. They'd either break or pass.

The operator had survived hell-week nearly a decade ago, and oddly enough he recalled the ordeal rather affectionately. Probably because he had passed where many others had failed. And the brutality of it had prepared him, forged him into the man he was today, and tempered the unbreakable bond he shared with his fellow operators. Can't go wrong with that.

As the chief watched his cadets go, the operator approached. Almost as if recognising the operator by the rhythm of his march, the chief turned smiling, his perfect white teeth standing out against his black lips.

'Look at you.' They shook hands as he looked the operator up and down. 'All grown up, big-boy-pants and all.'

'Good to see you again, Chief.'

'And you, Gunfighter. C'mon.'

Without dropping his gear or excusing himself to go change, the chief led him into the headquarters building. It must have looked odd, most other operators in the building were wearing simple battle dress, but among them walked one drill instructor looking ready to fight an extended campaign. Nobody batted an eye or looked twice though. They were well used to the chief and his ability to multi-task.

Not only did he train his own group of cadets with the highest graduation record, the chief was also in charge of Camp Dragonfly, one of two operator headquarters located in the Imperial Commonwealth. Dragonfly on the outskirts of the capitol was well known by most.

The other camp was a closely guarded secret from which active operators deployed. Only those who were stationed there knew where it was, or even what it was called. The operator, still following the chief through the headquarters to the op-centre on the third floor, hadn't had the honour just yet.

The op-centre was up three flights of stairs which the chief insisted on walking. Not for lack of elevators, he just wanted to make sure his old student hadn't gotten soft after all this time. He wasn't disappointed as the operator loped up three steps at a time just to keep up with the old man.

The centre itself was an amphitheatre of long desks at which intelligence analysts and controllers sat at computers, filtering data and passing it on to allied military units in the field. This wasn't just for the operators. It was for every nation that allied themselves with the Imperial Commonwealth. At the bottom of the room was a massive screen superimposed with a map of the world and glowing dots indicating deployed military assets, possible and confirmed threats to the security of the Imperial Commonwealth, allied assets and much more. The operator had seen this room plenty in his long career, but the sheer amount of information that was beamed at him from every direction every time he stepped through the security doors was overwhelming every time.

Waiting for them at the bottom of the op-centre was a familiar figure.

Dressed less formally than she had been on the plane, and a little more than when she had been tangled in the operator's arms in the washroom, the spook had her arms folded, legs crossed and was leaned back, her bottom perched on the edge of a digital map table. She had a silk shirt with a plunging neckline hugging her torso, the sleeves rolled up over her elbows, a pair of skinny jeans that ended at the ankles and a set of stark white high heels.

'Operator,' she greeted with an eager spark in her eye.

The operator smiled back. 'Spook.'

'You seem to have met already,' the chief observed.

'Oh, we're thoroughly acquainted,' the unicorn said with what she thought was subtle suggestion.

This turned out not to be the case as the chief glanced between them. 'You fucked a unicorn? Really?'

The spook's face reddened and the operator chuckled. 'We have a mantra here,' he told her. 'It goes: don't say shit in front of the chief.'

'We also have another saying. It goes: don't ask, don't tell.' The chief stepped up to the map table and beckoned the others to gather in.

The table was home to a digital map of the world, similar to that on the main screen but with the mass of complex information and markers filtered out.

'The situation is such. The daughter of the Bren Province king has gone missing. She's a bit of a rebel, as are most kids her age, but this isn't a regular runaway situation. Usually when she throws a tantrum she shows up at home again within twenty-four hours. She's been missing for the better part of a week; law enforcement can't find her and the king is getting worried. Our unicorn friend here is exceptional at divination and has loaned a hand to finding her… well, horn.'

The spook drew a line across the map and a highlighted path appeared. 'I traced the girl's location and projected a heading. She has not been careful enough about covering her tracks to stave me off, but she has been making noticeable effort to throw off pursuit. If her heading and progress holds she'll be on the border and into Wyrdwood by nightfall.'

'That's a dodgy neighbourhood,' the operator muttered thoughtfully eying the border. 'What's the mission exactly?'

The spook answered with a knowing smile. 'Rescue the girl. Something you seem exceptionally good at.'

He gave her a smirk as the chief took over again. 'The king is anxious to get his daughter back. And the emperor won't risk a diplomatic nightmare by sending in the grunts to pull her out of Wyrdwood. The relationship with the wood-elves is… fragile at the moment. We need someone to go in under the radar and-… sex with a unicorn. Seriously?' he suddenly said disbelievingly looking between the human and the once more red-faced spook.

Still grinning good naturedly, the operator gestured him to get on with it.

Figuring if the operator was good with it then he ought to be too, the chief drew back on the map. 'We're going to drop you off in the Bren Province, less than a day's hike to the border. You are to pursue on foot from there. The mission is to locate the girl and bring her back home at any cost. Go weapons free on anything in your path if you must. But with that being said, keep the situation under control. I don't want any nasty calls from the wood-elves about a gun-toting asshole tearing shit up in their back-yard. Is that clear?'

The operator nodded affirmative. 'Okay. Let's get it on.'

##GET GRINDIN'!##

So… that happened!

As an airsofter and a DnD nerd, this story has been the greatest feat of wish-fulfilment I have ever written. And this is but the beginning.

“Platinum Ghost" is a prologue to a series I'm starting on my Smashwords page called “The Operator." It will follow the titular operator on a series of gunslinging adventures across a semi-familiar world filled with unusual sorcery and colourful characters. I don't want to give away too much, but I can tell you there will eventually be dragons. Because a story is only worth telling if it has dragons in it.

Head over to my Smashwords page to read more. And guess what, my fuzzie-wuzzie friends? You are gonna get discount codes for all the other volumes and collections that follow. And if the operator and his exploits are shown enough love I'd definitely write more in-'verse adventures on SoFurry.

Stay sexy, peeps.

Matt Chapel (SniperSpartan-977).

Like what you see? Check me out on Smashwords!

The Operator Volume 1: The Romantic Antic by Matt Chapel

[Use discount code “AE88F" to get it for $0.99]