FSE

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"So, doc... What's the verdict?" Ilaria sat upright on the scanner bed with a silly grin. "I'm not ~dead~, am I?"

Elliot flipped through a few layers of his Ari's body scans and gave a shrug. "Not sure what to think of all this, but I'll comb through the details later. You look healthy though."

"Oh, heavens yes." Catherine stood up from a nearby chair and ran to embrace her daughter. "Don't scare me like that, sweetie."

"Hey, it wasn't ~me~." Ari looked over to her girlfriend and nudged her snout her way. "Rhyme's the one that raised the alarm."

"Only after hearing from Liv that your brother might have been hurt." Rhyme raised her paws defensively. "Don't shoot the messenger."

"Well don't worry about him. He'll be just fine—false alarm." Ellie perked up as he remembered something, then grabbed a small paper bag and gave it to Rhyme. "Before I forget, here's your meds. New ones shouldn't leave you feeling sick to your stomach, but might not work as well. I gave you a half-fill just to test them out."

Ari took the pair to the side and lowered her voice. "Anything I should be worried about?"

"Uh... No., not really." Rhyme took the bag and nodded in thanks. "They're just some hormone and pheromone blockers. Without them... uh... the other guys..."

"Gotcha. Best not to let them catch your scent." Ari broke the impromptu huddle with a large smile. "So I'm alright and the kids are... hyper, but alright. Nothing to worry about, correct?"

"Well actually, your pups have been a bit more docile today than usual. Not humping my leg or ~anything~." Ellie smirked and batted away Ari's playful attacks. "No, seriously though... They've been pretty quiet today. Guess crashing the honeymoon took a lot out of their normal... uh, ~drive~."

"Now that you mention it, they are kind of quiet."

Vasily stepped in from the room the girls were hiding inside and chuckled lightly. "Well they ~are~ deaf, you know."

"I'm not kidding though. They're usually squeaking and scheming this time of day." Ari peeked in on her kids, finding them just quietly playing around with Ashe on her blacked-out laptop. "I don't know what Yoyo did to them, but he's got to share it with us."

"Simple—dicipline." Iolvin, Dee, and Zoë gathered near the hallway door, with the taller otter shooting the girls a knowing glance. "Figuring out how to express anger with just your paws helps too."

"You yelled at my whelps?"

"No, I set them straight. They did something... quite ~wrong~ without the proper permission." Yoyo looked over to Zoë, then instinctively walked next to her in mock protection. "They actually did something that we wanted in any case, but at least now they know to mind their pawprints on society at large."

"My handsome anthropologist..." Dee gave his mate a hug at the waist. "He might be putting too much importance on that part though. They also screwed their brains out, so maybe they're just building back the reserves."

"Calm before the storm, eh?" Ari walked over and gave her brother a quick, but thorough, inspection. "So what happened yesterday? I slept right through it. Are you alright?"

"Long story, Lulu." Yoyo took a step back, placing the other two between himself and his twin. "I'm not sure if I'm willing to share the details, either. It's... a tad embarassing."

"But honey, we ~should~ divulge at least one thing, right? Something ~important~?"

"I'm not saying anything. You can if you like, but a certain someone needs to help." Yoyo looked over to the holograms currently loaded in the scanner and nudged his snout towards the doc. "Ellie, could you be a champ and load up some ~visual aids~?"

"Sure."

"Thanks. So then... I think we did the tribe and our raft a great justice on our little honeymoon." Yoyo nodded and then nudged Zoë forward to make sense of the body scan showing. "Your turn, kiddo. Just as I told you."

"Um, I... Uh..." Zoë slowly walked past Ari, looked back to her patron as she closed between Cat and Vasily, and then finally decided to stand before the larger husky and hold his paw. "I'm proud to... bear your family and tribe... a-another member."

Cathy's face squirmed in confusion at first, then beamed pure joy as she leaped across the room and suffocated the human in kisses. "Oh my gods! Zoë, dear... And Iolvin, you ~rascal~!" She held the now-disoriented expectant mother out on display and rubbed her tummy for emphasis. "We're going to have another grandchild? Sweetie, I'm not sure what to say!"

"A... grandchild?" It took a moment for Vasily to understand what Zoë had said, the old canine not as deeply immersed in his wife's tribal rituals as he'd care to admit. "That means she's having a pup? Or... well, a kid, whatever the species?"

Yoyo walked over and gave his father a slap on the back. "Sure does. We don't know much else for now, but we can definitely confirm Zoë's pregnant."

"I actually want to get some more scans, but he's right." Ellie nodded in confirmation with a hefty smile. "They're going to be parents, yes yes."

Ilaria practically took her twin to the floor as she swung around his neck, actually managing to kick off her prosthetic leg in the same maneuver. "Yoyo! I'm so fucking happy for you!"

"And DeeDee," Elliot corrected. "After checking over the few samples I got earlier this morning, I found both DeeDee's and Yoyo's contributions mixed up in the DNA chain. It's... a longer chain than normal too—much like your own kids for coincidence, Ari."

Ilaria put the pieces of the puzzle together. " Girls! What did you do?" She tried to go question them in a way they would actually understand, but quickly noticed she couldn't walk with only the one leg. "Yoyo, don't tell me they... uh...?"

"They did. Don't get mad at them for wanting to, though; Carbon said that was part of their purpose as a third sex, right?" Yoyo held his calming sister tightly and lowered his voice to a soothing level. "They just... helped us ~pollinate~ Zoë, like their instincts told them. I already had a talk about asking permission, so... leave it alone for now to bake?"

"You... always cared about them as much as I do." Ari took a few deep breaths and nodded in agreement. "Fine. I'll have my own talk about it later."

"Thanks, sis."

"Oh, son..." Vasily took a second to get his facts straight. "Doesn't this mean Zoë is off the hook for this life debt stuff? I though a child was a ticket out of it."

"Yea, I guess that's true." Yoyo smiled for Zoë, but that smile slowly soured when she didn't return it. "That is true, right Zoë?"

"When I have a male child... you may either have me forfeit him as your heir and I'd be free, or... I must marry as a mistress and tend the child. If it is a girl, you may choose whether she is yours, but I must still bear an heir." Zoë sighed as she tried to interpret the meaning of her own laws for her odd scenario. "But I owe you two debts on my life. That means... I must bear a second heir should I break our bond or become your mistress."

"Shit..." Yoyo tried to go to Zoë to comfort her, and Ari risked balancing on one hindpaw to allow him that courtesy. "Zoë, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to take over your life, or to make you bear so much responsibility. That burden—"

"Is mine to take, and I'm much happier now that I've taken it." Zoë stunned her master with her change in mood and sudden confidence. "I never thought I'd enjoy a single moment when I left home. Then you showed me how wonderful it was outside, and showed me what it was to be loved by so many... and you even changed my views on ~physical~ relationships... And now, you give me a child." The human gave her patron a confident shake of her head. "You didn't burden me. You helped free me. For that I'd give a hundred lifetimes."

"Zoë, I... I don't..."

Ellie switched off the scanner and helped balance Ari, a huge smile plastered on his face. "I think we're done with the exams today."

Dee slipped behind Zoë and added himself to the hug. "I'm happy if you're happy, Zoë. You're part of the family now for sure. Might... need to figure out the whole mistress part, though."

Yoyo smiled and snickered. "What? 'Mistress Zoë' sounds pretty sexy to me."

"Well, our tribe allows polyamorous families. I don't know more than that, though." Ari flagged down her teary-eyed mother for an inquiry. "Mom, what's the word on that? How do we—"

A heavy thud sounded near Ellie's desk, then the odd stone sphere slowly rolled to a stop beneath the scanner table.

"Holy shit. That nearly gave me a heart attack." Ari hinted that she wanted to pick the ball up, but Ellie held her up straight. "Hey, grab it for me. I'd like to put it on the mantle behind my station."

"No, you wouldn't." Ellie helped Ari find a seat, then grabbed a set of rubber tongs and forcefully broke the sphere loose of the floor as if it were glued down. "I can't explain it, but it reacts to anything inorganic it touches. Seems like some kind of chemical reaction. Actually DeeDee, I hoped you could—"

The foreign object suddenly jumped out of the tongs and slammed the floor, denting the metal it landed upon. Then it slowly rolled back to the same spot beneath the scanner.

Ellie tossed the tongs like they were burning hot. "What the fuck!?"

"It... didn't do that before?" Ari very defensively reached her leg out and barely pulled her prosthesis back to her chair. "This is why I said to quarantine it until it was tested!"

"I did! Glass containers quarantine everything, but this ~ate~ the glass!" Ellie tried grabbing the object again, this time with a rubber table protector for better grip. "It's... It's moving like it's magnetic or something."

"Yeah... Alex warned me about that when she found it." Ari snapped her leg into a locked position and promptly walked next to Ellie to inspect the strange sphere. "Why is is moving around all of a sudden?"

Dee pointed to the scanner, noticing the trend first. "I think it's pulled by the magnetrons or whatever are in that thing."

Ellie curiously moved his paws around the scanner, and sure enough the pull from the orb changed direction to tug up to the main aperture. "I think you're right, sis. It's just too heavy to be pulled up."

Ari raised her arm and Prisma flickered into view over her watch. "Yes, captain?"

"Ari. I'm ~Ari~." The otter shook her head as she tried to find a local camera. "Can you see this thing? You know the most about the Starbreeze's installed systems, and something in this scanner is affecting it."

The watch blacked out, then Prisma appeared sitting on the scanner bed. "This is a resonance imaging device. It is designed to only interact with the moisture inside organic and semi-organic materials, by way of hydrogen and nitrogen agitation."

"Well does it have any magnets or anything?"

"No..." The AI flickered a tad, becoming much more personal afterwards rather than monotone. "I don't think there's anything being put off by this device. We're long past the ages of using high-energy particles and waves with these things. Let me check." Prisma's visage faded away, then came back after her data search completed. "There's a few magnetic systems, but nothing too strong. There's stronger ones in the wall terminals for old key card systems."

"Then what's pulling this thing?" Ari leaned in for a closer look and suddenly the sphere snapped onto her false paw, leading to panicked flailing of the whole limb. "Ah! Help! What the fuck do I do!?"

"I don't know!"

Yoyo rushed over and disengaged his sister's arm from her shoulder socket. "That, for starters."

"Wait, look..." Dee once again found an odd quirk in the orb's 'behavior'. "It isn't attracted to the arm anymore. What...?"

The sphere rolled around limply for a moment, then resumed pooling beneath the scanner. "I'm completely lost here. Prisma, anything else you can tell us?"

The AI pouted for her captain, then smiled as a solution came to mind. "I can't do any real tests without being there in my mobile body, but my sister Sprite is only a room over. Hold on a sec and I'll get her."

"Good, because I'm going to lose it if we don't figure this out." Ari huffed out a sigh of frustration. "My science is hurting. We—" The otter's phone chirped as Sprite fluttered into view. "Oh, that was fast. Sprite, could you examine this thing and figure out why it's being pulled towards this scanner or my arm?"

[Readings are strange. This is not a simple object.] Everyone's phones updated now with Sprite's messages, so she wouldn't have to wait for the inefficiency of organic verbal relaying. [Allow us a moment to interpret our various signals. We are computing differences based on intercept angles.]

Yoyo rolled his eyes as he picked up his sister's arm for inspection. "Robot speak. Great."

"Yeah, even I didn't understand that one." Ari took back her arm, frowning at a large scuff on the side that contacted the floor on impact. "I guess Liv's gonna chew me out for this."

"Or ~eat~ you out." Yoyo grinned, but quickly went docile-faced when his sister didn't approve. "Sorry, Lulu. I know you take your new boyfriend seriously now. Forget I said it, even as a joke."

"Actually, I need to talk to you about—"

Another round of phone messages shook everyone's pockets and paws. [Analysis partially complete. Probability of accurate translation of simple phrases: 10%]

"Translation? Of what?" Dee locked his phone and them crouched near the peculiar object. "You mean this thing? It requires translation?"

[Correct. We detect unknown communications patterns emitting from this object. We require more sample data to build a reliable translation codex.] Sprite nodded her head a few times as she silently communicated with Prisma. [We recommend stimulus tests on the object. Changes in the environment provoke changes in the patterns. The signal is comprised of polarized light and radio waves, so related stimuli are preferable.]

"So it... might be a transmitter of some kind? Maybe Yangurran?" Ari nodded to herself slowly as she worked out her next set of actions. "If we're done here, I'll loop Carbon in on this and we'll break the code on it. It could be just the break we've been hoping to find."

"Or it could be a spy drone." Yoyo looked out a bay window in an adjacent room. "A well disguised one at that, considering all the rocks out there."

"Just be really careful, Ari." Dee held his husband's arm as he thought of potential dangers. "It could be a bomb, with those signals coming from it and all. Or... maybe it's alive... Gods..."

"Nope. No way." Yoyo led his mate out the room, assured his sister could handle a science project like this. "I think we've had enough science-fiction horror for one day, Adri. Rock monsters from space are just a little too much."

"Sounds like a great idea for a B-movie, though." Ari's eyes glossed over as she remembered one of her favorite pastimes shared with her late wife. "I'm sure it would have been a favorite."

"Come on, Zoë." Iolvin paused before leaving, using the human wrangling as a feint while he examined his twin's emitted feelings. "And... take it easy, Lulu."

Ilaria sighed as she prepared to dig in deeper with her new task. "I... I will—just after I take care of this."

— — — — —

Ilaria curved around a cargo crate of food supplies as she jogged further away from the elevator. something caught her eye in the manifest and she stopped, stepping in place as she copied the list to her new watch. She scanned through the contents of the crate as she started running again: canned fruits, preserved and dried meats, baking goods, and a fair supply of powdered drinks and milk. The otter shook her head at the rugged items and promptly planned to replace a few of those crates with a freezer and fridge once they landed in the Starbreeze's dry dock.

"At least we're not choking down MREs anymore." Ari passed into the front cargo hold and promptly slowed to a stop at the sound of gunfire. "Who the hell's training at this hour...? Um, hello?"

The familiar sound of her twin answered back to Ari's call. "Lulu? Are you still up?"

"Yeah. Hey, bro." Ari slid over to her twin brother's side next to their makeshift firing range and took in the situation. "Couldn't sleep either? You know, some of us just ~run~ until we're tired."

Iolvin snickered at the comment as he reloaded his pistol. "Yeah, well I had a lot on my mind. I figured I could use some practice with this relic anyway, so..."

Ari checked the target and chuckled. "Yeah, you could definitely use some more time with that thing. Not bad though. Oh hey," the otter paused to scrutinize the target itself, "did you do something to the firing range?"

"The girls set up some ballistic gel blocks for their own use. Not a bad idea, actually." Yoyo primed his modified C96 and held it down range. "I can always get behind more stuff keeping us from popping holes in the hull. That, and I guess it's nice to know this thing actually might kill someone after however many years of service."

"Dad's always kept his guns in perfect shape. Don't worry, Yoyo." Ari watched as her brother idly aimed his weapon at a target, but stopped him before he continued. "You've got it ~bad~. You'll never get any better if you fire that thing all emotional."

"Huh? O-Oh, yeah. I guess..." Yoyo finally went to fire, but ended up lowering Matilda in the end. "Hell... Maybe I should just try closing my eyes or something. This isn't productive anymore."

"Tell me what's wrong." Ari sidled up beside her brother and leaned against him lovingly. "I'd be happy to hear you out, lil' bro."

"Nah... You're doing something. I don't want to hold you up."

Ilaria groaned in disappointment, then pulled her own pistol out from a holster snapped on her waist just above her tail. "well if we're not gonna talk then I'll just have to join you."

"Lulu, you don't really have to—"

"No, I actually have something I've been wanting to try out. The girls have been creating so much stuff recently it's got the engineer in me going nuts." She reached for a pouch next to her holster and pulled out a pawful of odd bullets. "Actually, good thing you're here. Can you make one of those shield things with holes in it? Like, one that blocks out front but I can shoot through?"

"Uh... I can try, sure. Let's see..." Yoyo furled his brow as he concentrated in the same strange manner as his sister usually did. Then over the next few seconds a series of compressed air shields formed and dissipated as he experimented, until finally a full-sized shield with a small hole in the center remained. "Is that good enough? It's not that thick."

"That's what ~he~ said." Ari chuckled to herself as she readied her revolver. She placed one of the odd bullets into the loading gate, cocked forward the feeding slide, then repeated the same on the rearward loading slide. "Okay, this may go completely wrong. Shouldn't be too dangerous on this side of the barrel, but still..."

"Well this barrier should hold for a small pistol round like those plinkers you use."

"Shush. I use great ammo." Ari slid Mjolnir's barrel through the hole in the shield and steadied herself for a shot. "Ready?"

"Go ahead."

The weapon discharged its experimental round, but in a completely different manner than expected. Whatever was in the shell before, it was close to dust by the time the smoke had cleared. "Well, shit. I thought that one had the most potential."

"That was the best result? Shit, sis." Yoyo wiped up some of the fine white dust that had collected inside the firing gap. "What is this, anyway?"

"Glass. Well, it was something called a Prince Rupert's drop to be precise." Ari held up her free paw, showing off a few bullets loaded with odd rounded glass beads, and some that had been shaved down to resemble normal bullets. "The modified ones seemed like the best bet, but maybe there's something to the simplicity of the others?"

"I have no clue. They're glass, though?" Yoyo tried to pick up one of the rounds but they were cautiously taken away. "What, I can't touch 'em?"

"When they work properly, they explode like that last one deep inside you." Ari loaded one of the simpler versions next and readied her weapon. "Let me show you. Ready?"

"Yeah, sure. I need to see this."

"Heh, alright." Ari lined up another shot and fired, this time with the round flying as expected. A flutter of a paper sabot trailed the round, and then promptly the same snapping pop from before resounded from the target. "Aha! When in doubt, keep it simple stupid!"

"I don't even..." The otter watched in amazement as a large cavity caused by the flak caused the ballistic gel's top half to slide free and flop on the floor. "What the hell was ~that~? I want some of that for my rifle now."

"Well the slug is glass, so the magnetic rails won't do anything with it." Ari holstered her weapon and began pulling one of the shells apart, retrieving a glass bulb for an example. "It just looks like a teardrop, but if you snap off the tail the fat end explodes outward. I guessed the tail would snap off when the round began to roll on impact, but that worked flawlessly. The sabot could use some refinement though."

"You're... amazing, Lulu." Being so close to Ari that Yoyo could smell the light sweat of her run only reminded him too fondly of how they used to be after sex in bed. He corrected his posture, both to hide a physical reaction in his pants as well as to stop unconsciously trying to peer down his sister's sports bra. "I, uh... Do you need to fire a few more, or can I...?"

"Yoyo..." Ari stuffed her ammunition into her pouch and then pulled her brother's arms around her sides. "We need to talk." She pressed the base of her tail back into her brother's growing erection, eventually letting it rest between her ass cheeks. "I was... wrong this morning. I shouldn't have put you on the spot like that."

Yoyo's concentration wavered and with it so did his shield. "Lulu, stop... We can't..."

"But we can." Ari unlatched her twin's belt and then shoved down his pants. "I didn't actually want to stop what we had, but for my future with Rhyme I thought I had to."

"Ielunschra, please... Gods, you'll regret this later." Yoyo tried to reel his paws back but Ari held them in place with two nanite tendrils. "Lulu, I don't want to hurt you or Rhyme. I can... I can give you up if it means..."

"You can't even say it. I saw that hurt look in your eyes. I see it now." Ari spun around, yanked down her brother's underwear, and straddled his dick with her thinly-clothed thighs. "I ~feel~ it now. I can't let you feel that way."

"So what, we'll just fuck and hope for the best?"

"No, we'll physically show our love for each other," Ari pulled her running shorts and panties aside and forced her brother to enter her moist depths, "and Rhyme will know I can only love her more than that."

"Lulu! Fuck!" Yoyo bit his lip as his sister sank down on his length, then yipped when she tried to pull back and shifted his strained insides just right. "Ah, damn! Stop, Lulu. I can't do this."

Ari huffed out a sigh and sank down to her innermost barrier. "Yoyo, I'm saying we don't need to stop. Rhyme is... weird with it, but she isn't against us screwing around if we shield her from it."

"No, that's not what I mean. Fuck, I couldn't stop you if I tried normally." Yoyo found the will to resist his sister, her grip on his paws purposefully light enough for him to break free and pull away a step. "I... I have something to tell you myself, but... it's embarassing."

"You're never embarrassed. Besides, you know I won't laugh at you." Ari adjusted her pants and mor seriously closed the distance to hug her brother. "We're twins; we share ~everything~, right?"

"Yeah, everything..." Yoyo rubbed his sore abdomen as he half-hugged Ari back. "You swear this doesn't get out? Just you?"

"Oh course, silly."

"Well... I'm more like you than we thought." Iolvin took a deep breath to calm himself. "I... I have a... vagina..."

Ari couldn't help chuckling a bit before she could compose herself, but stiffened up when she realized the distress in her twin's face was real. "You're... sure of that? I mean..." She reached between Yoyo's legs and belt behind his balls. "See? I never noticed anything before, so what are you talking about?"

"It's, um... hidden. It's right against my ass."

Ari wanted to test that at first, but decided to give her brother a bit more privacy on the matter and stuck to words. "So... you have a ~pussy~?"

"Uh, no. Not the whole deal, anyway." Yoyo reached his paw into his twin's shorts and grazed his claws over her labia. "I don't have the stuff on the outside, just a hole. I do have everything inside though."

"Can you... Mm... Can you have whelps?"

"Not sure yet. We know I have a womb though, and one ovary thingy. I forgot what Ellie called it."

"An ovoteste? Yeah, that's what I have in me that let's me cum from my... cock... thing. I thought we found one in you, too. Guess this confirms it." Ari rubbed her brother's stomach and grinned, trying to ignore his strengthening rubbing beneath her panties. "So maybe one day I'll see you with a baby bump right here?"

"Ah, shit..." Yoyo hunched forward for a moment to give himself some space. "Don't touch there, sis. It hurts."

"Hurts? Here?"

"Gah! What did I just say?" Yoyo slumped on the ground to get away from his twin's touch. "Adri... sort of hit the wrong hole and it stings."

"You lost your ~virginity~? Adorable." Ari followed suit and laid down next to her brother, staring at the ceiling with him. "Did it feel good at all?"

"I have a bruised cervix. No."

"Oof." Ari reached to her side and idly pumped her twin's manhood back to life. "Let me make up for it. Bet I can take your mind off the pain."

"I... Uh, you're... You're sure Rhyme doesn't mind?" Even as he asked, Yoyo reached back into his sister's shorts for a bit of light rubbing. "It hurts not being able to be close to you, but I'd die if I risked scaring away that girl."

"She just doesn't want to take part in it, but yeah. I'm sure about this, lil' bro." Ari went from a light touch to a firm grip, which only made her coo as Yoyo followed suit by dipping his fingers into her honey pot. "Gods... You sure we can't fuck? I could seriously use that right now."

"Not unless you like hearing me whimper. I know I don't." Yoyo groaned as he rolled his hips into his sister's motions. "Besides... I'm all out of condoms at the moment."

"Condoms? Since when do we care about wrapping up?"

Yoyo nudged his snout over to Zoë in the corner, who was curled up and sleeping with a set of gun range headphones on her head. "That's got me thinking, we might be more virile than we thought as well. I'd rather not knock up my own sister."

"Well, maybe on safe days? I love that feeling when you punch into my womb and fill me up." Ari smiled as she grasped her brother's growing knot and gave it a squeeze. "And as annoying as this guy can be, the knot's like the cherry on top."

"You... actually like when I go that deep?" Yoyo rubbed his abdomen as he literally felt what that was like. "I'm sorry if I... Gods, your paws... Uh, if I every forced you too much, Lulu."

"Oh, it hurts. But you get used to it, and it starts to hurt ~good~ when you're in heat." Ari rolled around and straddled Yoyo backwards, planting a kiss on his drooling cock. "Just knowing I can take all of you gets me off."

"Lulu, you don't—" Yoyo was too slow, and in a pawful of seconds Ari had forced herself to gag down everything until her large nose tapped her brother's balls. "Ah, fuck! The knot too!?" Yoyo didn't know what to do, and with nothing but pussy in his face he decided to just dig in for a meal. "I'm way too close, sis. Cum with me..."

Ari bobbed her head quickly, trying to pull back before her brother's knot fully inflated. Yoyo's instincts had other plans however, his paws reaching down to pull his twin's head until her slobbered lips ground into his fur. Mere seconds later he jerked his hips uncontrollably in orgasm, his knot locking behind Ari's teeth and forcing all of his liquid love directly into her throat. After a few grunting thrusts he calmed down below the waist, but the whole time Yoyo never ceased his assault on pussy hill. His lips crept higher and his tongue reached deeper until he eventually suckled Ari's piercing. Th stimulation of her artificial clit sent electric shocks rippling through Ari's whole body. Those few moments of unrelenting oral experimentation payed off when Ari sat down with all her weight and rode that tongue through an immense climax.

Yoyo forced a bit of room with his paws as Ari started squirting all over his face. "Oh gods, Lulu. Was it ~that~ good? Lulu?"

Ari only moaned and squeaked as she rode out the aftershocks of her blissful peak, her muzzle otherwise forcefully stuffed with knotted cock. She occasionally grunted as whenever she pulled back enough for a spurt of searing cum to find the path of least resistance out her nostrils.

"Oh shit. Lulu, can you breathe? You alright?"

"Mnhmm..." Ari tried to pull herself free of the odd tie, but halted when she caused her brother to hiss. "Ohoh...?"

"Ah, yeah... It hurts, but don't worry about it. Call it payback for not thinking straight." Yoyo noticed his sister's stomach slowly bulging as she was force-fed his seed, but frowned when he further concluded tat her lungs weren't moving. "You're holding your breath? You've got a few minutes tops after all that, and it takes like half an hour for that guy to go down. We need a game plan here, sis."

Ari tapped her brother's legs harshly as he started getting a second wind, hardening up in her throat again and spewing forth jizz with temporarily-renewed vigor.

Yoyo groaned as he dumped more into his sister's stomach, but particularly enjoyed the sight of cum streaming and dripping from her nose. "Sorry, Lulu. You just look so ~hot~ like that." Thankfully his knot didn't quite flare up as much as the rest, offering the possibility of an early break. "You might be able to just pull off. Can you get behind my knot at all? Sides of your muzzle maybe? I don't mind a bit of pain, but that would help a lot."

Ari nodded as little as she could manage, then reached a few fingers into the open sides of her muzzle. With a hard pull and a lot of hissing from her brother, she managed to pop herself free and clear of his cock for a deep exchange of the contents of her lungs. "Holy... shit, bro... Did I...?"

"Only a bit. I'll recover." Yoyo winced as he touched two spots where Ari's teeth lightly cut into his fleshy bulb. "Might not be having ~any~ sex for a while after that. Worth it though. You're always worth it."

"Way to... make a girl—" Ari struggled to keep down the last of her brother's gift, relenting to the forces of he body and coughing up a hefty mouthful of his viscous magenta. "—blush. Ew."

"Sorry, Lulu. I know you don't like the taste and all that." Yoyo slid out from below his twin and pulle her down for a snuggling hug. "I didn't know how much I needed that. Thank you. I'll owe you a good time later, alright?"

"Damn straight you'll—Urp!—owe me. Gods, this feels strange." Ari flipped around and pulled her brother's arm over her shoulder so they could spoon closely. "So how are things going with you and Dee? You've just gotten some unexpected news, so..."

"Honestly, i was scared and furious at first." Yoyo sighed and wriggled up closely behind his sister. "Your whelps did something they really shouldn't have. I'm still a little pissed at them. I love them though."

"Well you started things, but I'll have to kick their hyper little asses when they stop hiding from me." Ari meshed one of her paws with her brother's and gripped down tightly. "I'm sorry if they forced you into something you weren't ready for, Yoyo. We'll get through it together, though."

"Oh, no. It's not like that." Yoyo playfully slid his free paw beneath Ari's sports bra and fondled her tits, searching for the piercing that no longer existed and settling for testing the realism of her false breast. "Actually, Adri and I were talking about maybe adopting. The act threw us off, but the timing isn't too bad. Those girls were just trying to give us a wedding gift now—I'm sure of it."

"So they found out and decided to give the most personalized gift ever?" Ari chuckled as she thought about the various nice intentions her children have had and the train wrecks that followed. "This might be the best fumble they've done yet. Extremely sweet of them in a way, though."

"Well, considering that's what they're biologically built to do I guess I can let it slide. I didn't ~actually~ have a heart attack over it. Plus... I sort of like the idea of a little ~me~ running around."

"It's the best feeling in the world. You'll make a wonderful father, Yoyo." Ari smiled as she remembered her rough patch just after the girls were born. "I probably wouldn't even have those whelps if it weren't for you. You've got a fair bit of experience from that."

"And some amazing nieces. I'd do it all over again for you too." Yoyo smiled and nipped his twin on th back of the neck. "I just hope my own pup isn't a heaping ~pawful~ like yours were."

— — — — —

"Mm... Wha...?" Ilaria fluttered her eyes open as she was woken from her sleep, the source of her awakening soon making itself known as it gently pressed into her nethers. "Ah, fuck... You couldn't wait, Yoyo?"

"Actually..." Iolvin gave a quick wave from his couch, where he held a soundly sleeping Zoë close with one arm. The free paw then resumed slowly masturbating as the otter watched his sister get plowed. "Adri's been doing that for a little while. He hasn't cum in you, has he?"

"You could have woken me up, you know." Ari reached past her cock and found no traces of nocturnal emissions from the smaller otter. "No, he's still going strong—slow, but strong."

"Well that's good. Once or twice isn't bad, but we should be more careful." Yoyo groaned as he squeezed down hard around his knot. "Speaking of, I'm gonna make a mess here..."

"No!" Ari practically flew off Yoyo's bed and grabbed her twin's manhood, quickly guiding it to Zoë's pussy so the tip fed inside. "Blow your load ~in here~ when you can, Yoyo. If your kid's anything like mine, it needs the DNA... or something like that."

Zoë jerked awake as her master slammed himself all the way up to her cervix without notice. "Ah! M-Master!?"

"Fuck..." Yoyo's balls pulsed as they emptied directly against the human's womb. "Gods, Zoë... Fuck, you never get any looser than a vice grip, do you? Must be great to be young..."

"Master... Ah, yes..." Zoë rubbed her belly as it started to lightly glow Arctic blue. "S-Something feels... ~perfect~ when you claim me, master. I'm y-yours to do what you w-will."

"Is it really that good? I didn't do much except fuck you dry? If anything, I'd expect that to ~hurt~." Yoyo panned his confused yet blissful expression towards his sister. "Lulu, is that really a thing? Zoë needs to get fucked? I thought that was an inside joke or something with Robyn."

"Yeah, the baby needs the help. It'll... even make mommy here crave your ~contributions~." Ari stood up, but leaned forward to rub Zoë's belly. "See how she's glowing? That's how you know it's working. Still, that's a bit weak... Maybe the baby's just not developed enough?"

"Maybe. Smaller kid, smaller glow?" Yoyo teasingly prodded his pointed tip into Zoë's womb for a few last spurts of warmth, then pulled back until only the tip remained inside. "Not like we don't fuck every day anyway. How often did you have to help with Robyn?"

"It varied with her mood and stuff. Usually about once a day, though sometimes... well, she gained an appetite." Ari corrected her posture, but suddenly found a paw on her back shoving her forward again. "Huh? What the—?"

"Sorry, Ari. I just..." Adrian aligned his cock with Ari's moist folds and shoved forward. "I woke up like this and... well..."

"I don't mind. Just be careful we don't fall over and you can—Ooh...—go to town on me."

"Sorry, but I'm about to... uh..." Dee pulled Ari's ass down a bit so he could push deeper, his cock twitching with imminent release. "Wh-Where do you want me to...?"

"It's okay. You can—" Ari perked up as she remembered her own point just seconds ago. She stood high enough Dee popped free, then shove the little guy into Zoë's already-crowded cunt. "You should cum in Zoë too. Your baby needs you to."

"Ah! B-But—!" The extreme tightness around him sent Dee crashing over the edge, his balls shriveling with the intensity of his genetic deposit in the human. "Oh! Oh gods! S-Sorry Z-Zoë!"

Yoyo grinned and pumped his hips playfully in counter-sync with his husband's own. "Lulu was explaining it before you did all this. We need to cum in Zoë once or twice a day for our pup."

"Oh, that's more like it." Ari rubbed and inspected Zoë's tummy, the area near her womb now shining a brilliant blue. "I think... this means that maybe you both have to cum in her pretty much at once? I mean, not exactly at the same time... Please don't break the poor girl doing it like this all the time."

"Hey, if a kid can come out then two or three cocks can sure as hell go in." Yoyo rolled his eyes at his twin's disapproving expression. "Not that we will, sis. I don't like making Zoë uncomfortable." He backed up his point by removing his own length from her depths. "See? Zoë, you alright? Don't sweeten it up, either; tell me the truth."

"I-I... It hurt a little..." Zoë huffed out a moan as Dee's contribution kept trickling into her. "I don't... I think I could... do this more though."

"Do you like it? I won't do anything to you if you don't like it, because in that case I won't like it."

"I... I might. Maybe we could, uh, try again later?"

Yoyo smiled and ruffled Zoë's hair. "Sure, kiddo. We can try later. Oh... Your hair's a mess, isn't it?"

"I'll fix it right away, master. Do you wish me to braid it again, or try something else?"

"Braid it. I like the pigtails, even if they do make you look even younger. They fit you... Make you look sexy."

"Y-Yes, master. Thank you, master."

"Does she really have to call you that?" Ari shook her head in disbelief. "I mean, can't you let her call you whatever she wants?"

"I already do. She just wants to be super strict about things now."

"Well she's going to birth your child, so at least—" Ari halted her statement as Prisma's physical body entered through the front door. "Ah! I'm half naked, Pris! Little warning before you expose us to the hall, maybe!?"

"Ah! Sorry, Ari!" Prisma slipped inside enough the door should have closed autonomously, but it remained wide open. "Uh, we have an issue. That foreign object that put a ~hole~ in me—"

"Woah!" Ari backed away from the door as the stone sphere hovered into the door frame. "What the flying fuck is it doing!?"

"Oh, it's alright! It won't harm us... probably." Pris reached over and held her robotic paw out, making a nice perch for Sprite to land upon. "My sister here has discovered a rudimentary way to talk to this being. It appears to be more scared of us than you are of it."

Dee pulled himself free of Zoë's wonderfully warm folds in favor of finding some pants. "You say it's ~scared~? It's a rock."

"It isn't organic, but it's definitely alive." Pris shrugged her shoulders at the floating ball. "I can't figure out how, but it is."

"But you said you can talk with it?" Ari moved a little closer as the sphere began slowly 'inspecting' nearby furniture. "How does that work? Can we hold a conversation with it?"

"Sprite says it has a complicated language and can only use energy waves to sense the world around it. Decrypting the waves it uses for talking is slow due to the volume of data, so she can only perform crude translations for now." The android nodded a few times to her gelatinous sister and relayed a message. "It's saying something like 'curious', 'dangerous', and 'permission' right now, with a questioning emphasis. My deductive skills are great, but I can't figure out the link there."

"It... wants something, maybe?" Ari watched the sphere tap some glass beads inside the pot of a fake plant. "Does it want some of those? They're glued together, but maybe...?"

"It might help if we knew what to call it," Yoyo pointed out.

"Oh, right. I guess we ~can~ talk to it. We should use the proper name."

Prisma conversed with Sprite again and returned to the group just as baffled. "Sprite says it doesn't have a name. It has a frequency and attunement vector. Wait, no. Their kind are segmented by wavelength, and the offset vector becomes their name within that..."

"So they have mathematical names. Great." Ari put a paw to her chin as she walked over to the door and manually closed it out of decency. "So there's more of them and their species or races are defined by wavelengths? Well that's represented by lambda in math. Maybe we could call it something like that?"

Dee shook his head. "Nah, that's too strange for a name. It might fit for the whole of them though—Lambda Asteroids or something like that."

"I could get behind that. The Lambda, our first alien species we've discovered." Ari leaned in closer to the sphere until it started slowly spinning in what appeared to be a defensive show of hostility. "It's pretty cute the way it acts, even if it might be scared or mad. We should find a good name for it. Anything, guys?"

"The way it blinks light as it talks..." Prisma paused and lowered her voice in embarrassment. "I was just thinking... it reminded me of a broken gimbal mechanism, only able to move in two directions..."

Yoyo quirked his head at that. "A broken what? Jingle? What's that even mean?"

"Like a gyroscope, where you have rings that can spin in different directions." Ari held out her closed paw to represent a spinning sphere as she explained, "When they 'break' like that it's called 'gimbal lock', where two directions line up just right to prevent the third from spinning."

"Gimbal Locke. I love that." Dee gained a smile as he closed on the ball as well. "It's a cute name for something that spins like that. It's also sort of androgynous like Carbon's name, too."

"Well, it doesn't have a gender, so I guess it would need to be." Ari slowly grinned as she got a feel for that name. "I like it too. So then... Pris, could you relay that we'd like to call it that? Maybe see what it thinks?"

"Oh, sure." Prisma's gloopy insides oozed a bit as she strained to process the message and put less priority on keeping a solid form. "It, uh... Gimbal seems to like it. We had to relay the concept instead of the name, but there was a happy response that just repeated it back. I ~assume~ that means it liked the name, anyway."

"Perfect. Nice to have you aboard, Gimbal." Ari crouched down near the being's level and watched as it broke down the mug into a syrup of porcelain. "What's it doing? It isn't eating my ship, is it?"

"On the contrary, I sort of... gave it permission to consume the cup instead of me." Pris walked over and held the mug still for the sphere, apparently having built enough trust to not scare it away. "If you haven't noticed by now, Gimbal is coated in a glass beaker as well. It appears to become stronger as it grows."

"Aha... Now that's a hint." Dee put on his game face and pondered the reasons for the strange glass shell. "For defense, maybe? Or what about insulation? It did just hurl through space."

"Sprite figured some of that out in negotiating with Gimbal earlier." Prisma caught a shard of ceramic as the cup cracked into three pieces. "It seems that our new friend was much larger before hitting my hull. Luckily its core made it through instead of breaking apart."

"That explains why the whole panel of aluminum got fucked up along with the hole." Ari stood and sighed as she relented to the chill of the room and searched for her clothes. "I guess it was just chance. Well, unless there's a reason for the impact you've found?"

"There is a curious pattern that it's been repeating. After we gave Gimbal math though, the pattern has changed to include it."

"What kind of math?" Ari fount her clothes rumpled in a corner and began dressing herself, if only to last long enough to find a fresh set. "Describe the pattern if you can."

"There's three sections now, where there used to be four. There's equations between each, then a reset pattern." Prisma pulled up a few random plot systems in Ari's watch hologram. "We've been trying to make sense of it. Gimbal repeats this after every response, so it seems important."

Ari rotated and scrolled around the various graphs, none making much sense as plots. "Wait... What direction would Gimbal have been traveling if we weren't in the way? What's the closest thing to intersect its path?"

"The closest intersection for her path would be the moon Rhea of Saturn. After that..." Prisma took a moment to calculate a more precise prediction. "Earth. She was heading for Earth."

"I thought so. Bring up the system map from here to there, please." Ari took a moment to manipulate one of the plots, then added a few lines to the scene to highlight her point. "See? You gave her radial math, so she gave us two rotations and a time unit. It ends somewhere on the surface of Earth. I think she's exploring. Wait, why's Gimbal a 'she' now?"

"The... tone? There's no known gender for her, but she just ~sounds~ like a female to me." Pris shrugged her shoulders. "I could always stop, but it just... you know..."

"No, I like it. It's better than using 'it' all the time." Ari walked over to the door again, this time dressed enough to brave the hallway for a moment. "Pris, you're in charge of keeping an eye on Gimbal. Make her comfortable while you or Sprite figures out her exact target. I'm taking a shower and getting us back home."

"As much as I'd like to join you, I don't think Rhy would like that." Yoyo slid Zoë off his lap and gave his husband a kiss. "We could always have one of our own though, babe."

"If Zoë gives us some room, I'm cool for that. Nothing like a handsome otter to join you in a shower." Dee stood himself and offered to pull Zoë to her feet. "I'm just happy you two can talk like this again. I don't know what happened, but good for you two."

"Thank you, Dee. I was wondering if I wasn't making the wrong choice." Ari smiled and hopped into the hallway, keeping a paw in the door for a moment so it wouldn't close. "But I love my brothers, both of you. I glad we can be open like this with each other, too."

"Best feeling in the world." Yoyo held the bathroom door open for the others and smiled right back for his twin sister. "We're inseparable, after all."

— — — — —

"Batton down the hatches! All sails unfurled!" Ilaria snorted out a geeky chuckle or two as she held out a paw to the front window. "Okay, so I'm the only pirate buff in the audience? Get ready to dive, guys. We're going home in a few."

"You keep things casual with your crew?" Vasily mildly frowned as he contemplated such a system during his years in service. "If it works for you, more power to you I guess."

"It keeps the crew happier, dad. Bit less efficient, but morale never wavers so there's some consistency at least. Fewer issues and all." Ari perked up as she remembered a certain tanuki floating outside the hull, her paw immediately reaching for a radio control. "Rhyme, what's the status? Think the repairs will hold up for a dive and all that?"

"Not a... good..." Unfortunately Rhyme's microphone didn't switch off as the sounds of retching and vomiting filled the captain's console. "...time. Eww."

"Uh, you... alright? You need me to come out there and lend a paw, hon?"

"No, no... Just suddenly got really sick. I think it's the lack of earth for orientation or something, because I felt a bit like this last time I walked." A muffled whine fed back through the line as Rhy moved something around. "It's ~everywhere~. I haven't had to clean my suit like this since my first walk."

"Aw. Poor baby." Ari tried to find an external camera that faced the tanuki, but came up empty. "Well finish up and head back inside. My shower is your shower, Rhy."

"Oh, I'm already done. Everything checks out for atmo decent, so long as you don't expose the upper deck directly to friction. I'd say... stay within high and low of thirty degrees roll." There was another groan, then Prisma switched on an airlock camera for the upper freight elevator cabin as Rhy passed inside. "I'm coming back inside now. Give me a minute and you'll be good."

"Yeah, I see you. Damn, half your visor's ~opaque~ now. Take it easy for a bit and I'll help with the suit."

"Sure, Ari. I'll just ~marinate~ in your quarters for the jump."

"Alright. Love you, Rhy." Ari pouted for her girlfriend's unfortunate accident. "Poor thing. He's tough though."

"Rare sight, that." Vasily smiled and sat in his daughter's chair. "Supposed to be great luck if a space cowboy loses it. Or is that bad luck? Hmm..."

"Let's hope it's the former." The airlock light flushed green, followed by a rush of green status lights for the various ship bays. "Let's see... Yeah, everything looks good. Just one last thing left." Ari tapped her console and brought up a life size version of Prisma. "Hey Pris, what's the status on our new friend? You figure out anything more regarding those coordinates?"

"We've only managed to figure out she wanted to go there, but found us on the way. Something about food came up." Prisma flickered a bit, then an update set of coordinates appeared reflecting the drift and rotation of the Earth since they last talked. "The location mentioned is just above the surface of the planet, over the English wasteland. Specifically, it lines up with a rather large crater likely formed from several overlapping thermonuclear explosions. My records do not show atomic-grade weaponry being used nearby, however."

"Your records existed after all that. EMP feedback screwed most existing records for a few years after that, apparently. Sorry, but that's the extent of your memory." Ari found the last few status lights had converted to green and flipped a master safety switch to the armed position. "Okay, time to see if the girls are smart or the end of the whole ship. Mom, you still have a bead on them?"

"Oh, yes. They're right here, sweetie." Catherine stepped into the hallway and hinted that the girls should check in with their mother. "See? The grandkids are all yours, honey."

"Thank you, mom." Ari paused for a moment as she mentally switched into sign language mode. <Hey, pups. Your new control system you installed... is that safe to use, or should you trigger our dive?>

<We think it's safe enough. Just be careful where you point the dive computer, for now anyway.> The twins scampered over to Buck's science terminal to overview the dive. <We've already integrated the system into the AI cores. Same goes for the matter manipulation bays, actually.>

<Matter manipulation?> Carbon walked onto th bridge with a a very depressed Sydney in tow. <Are those the wall terminals you were modifying?>

<Yes! We downscaled our own foundry design using the foundry itself. Be careful though, as the fii working inside it require Æti to rebuild.> The girls tapped a few controls and pulled up a confirmation panel for their new systems. <All ready, mom. Have fun.>

<Thank you, my whelps.> Ari nodded as her children did their part, then signaled to Prisma. "Could you find a safe spot near that point Gimbal keeps mentioning and program the dive systems, Pris? I'd like to examine it before we decide where we land."

"Sure. And... done." The living hologram shuffled into a representation of the landing zone. "My engines are spooled up and ready. Energy reserves are nearly full. I'd say I'm ready to try this."

"Well then I think that's your cue, Alex. Show the girl a good time."

"Will do, cap'n. Ramping up to cruising speed."

Sydney raised a paw in protest, then immediately brought it to her mouth. "Ugh... Take it easy this time? Our last few jumps didn't play well with my stomach... or brain... or insides..."

"Oh, is ~that~ what's been bothering you?" Ari spotted a very injured Carbon attempting to secure Sydney against a wall brace, and instead shooed her father from her chair. "Take a seat here, Cid. The straps do wonders."

"Thanks, Ari. I'll take anything I can get until we're on solid ground again." The meerkat sat in the seat and buckled herself inside, with Carbon lashing his tendrils around her for both his and her extra stability. "Always such a gentleman. I just hope it works."

"The gallons of electrolytes I forced down your muzzle will work. I've never seen someone basically give up on life like you do when you're nauseous." Carbon grinned and gave his love a kiss atop her head. "Just breathe and keep your cool. This should be a smooth one."

"Yeah... you're right. That one was just... different." Cid sighed and hugged her otter's tendrils in security. "I guess we're all alive because of that crazy flying though. Good job, Trick."

"Thank you kindly. Now hold on tight." The frog tapped a few digital switches and a familiar orb of inverted space opened ahead of the Starbreeze. "Three... Two... One... Mark. We're away."

Gravity ceased to exist for a few wild seconds as the whole of space outside seemed to swirl around similar to the reflections on a chrome ball. Then as the quick dive ended seconds later, the Earth came into view—close enough to draw out a warning from Ari. "Alex! Pull up!"

"Got it!" Alex rapid-fired her fingers over her controls to override her basic safeties, then cranked her six-axis joystick skyward. "Gonna be close!"

"Do not say that right now!" Ari held onto her console for dear life, a nanite tendril managing to release the full set of piloting safeties for the frog. "You're free! Now don't scratch the paint!"

"Aye, Ari!" Alex grunted as she fought to keep just the right angle, blatantly ignoring the dozen warning chimes ringing in her ears. "Hold together, baby... We can do this..."

Prisma popped up on the dash and quite plainly stated, "My structural integrity is only slightly impacted."

"Not if we slam into the fucking ground!" Trick slammed the display so it shut off all distractions, allowing her to fly by touch. She managed to level out the flight path of the Starbreeze, but quickly found herself weaving and banking to avoid hills and large rocks. "Revector the engines so we don't stall... keep the ass in line..."

Ilaria's hindpaws finally found purchase, lending her a proper view out the front window—and a clear vantage of rough hillside closing quickly. "Alex! _ Mountain! _"

"I know! Hold something, guys!" Trick directed the Starbreeze's engines downward on the port side and straight back on starboard, sending the whole ship into a controlled tailspin. Mid-turn she realigned the thrusters and sent the ship into a hovering powerslide over the perimeter of the mountain. "Fuck..."

The Starbreeze slewed to a stop, the main thruster wings pointing directly downward to suspend the ship safely. Ari picked herself up from the floor after being thrown about like a ragdoll, immediately heading over to Alex to check outside. "What the fuck happened?!"

"I... I just flew like a boss is what. Fuck yeah."

"Alex... Heh." Ari chuckled in disbelief and planted a kiss squarely on the frog's lips. "That was perfect. Thanks for saving our tails."

Trick flushed with embarrassment all of a sudden. "Y-You're.... welcome..."

"Urp—!" Sydney barely fought back the irge to spill the contents of her stomach. "Remind me—Ugh—never to fly Air Otter again."

"I'm sorry, Cid." Carbon pet his meerkat assuringly. "Us otters aren't exactly known for flying anyway."

Ari peered out the front windows curiously. "So where did we end up? Did we get off course?"

"No..." Alex slowly spun the ship around, bringing to light that the mountain connected to itself in a large circular shape. "We're right inside that crater you mentioned. A bit of a heads-up on those coordinates would have been nice before I got us to cruising speed."

"Well i didn't expect Pris to take that so literally." Ari tapped the pilot's console and brought back the AI. "Did my girls' new system fail or was that you? I mean, either way that was way too close."

"Our coordinates were for geosynchronous orbit. It would have taken half an hour of corrective flight to reach this location." Prisma flickered as she checked her new systems. "The drive systems worked correctly as well. I don't get it. One of us has to be wrong here."

"Just figure it out and make sure we don't do it again."

<Mom...> Michelle swayed from her tendrils near the science station, the twins having made anchors out of their vines in all the commotion. <We think we know what happened. The sensors aren't reporting something we both can see.>

<No, we see it too...> Ari waved over her brother, hoping he could use his nanites to create a telescope of some kind. "Yoyo, help me out here. I don't like what I'm seeing."

"Uh, sure." Iolvin finished checking his mate and vassal, then walked over to his twin and threw up some nano-crafted binoculars as Ari guessed he would. "Sis, that's not good. There's at least two of those walking tanks over there. That and... is that a fucking ship?"

"Can I?" Ari borrowed the ethereal scopes and confirmed the scene. "There's a few dozen enemies over there, mostly converts. That doesn't look like a flying ship though... just a rolling cargo transport. One... two... three walkers. What the fuck are they doing here?"

"Well, what are we doing here?" Carbon apologetically abandoned Sydney for a moment to confirm the enemy sightings. "They had to have seen us. Nothing to block our view for miles."

"Well we sort of gained a... new passenger. We named her Gimbal." Ari snapped her fingers a few times towards Prisma and a holographic representation of the floating sphere. "She knew something was happening here, but we only thought we were dropping her off."

"Well whatever ~that~ was seeking, we found it." Carbon peered through the windows, but his expanded visual bracket fought with the radiation shielding tempered into them and forced him to squint for even the broadest details. "Is that a portal? There's a spot that just looks empty to me, like our dive portals."

"That's right. The Sect... somehow must have reverse-engineered our dives." Ari looked back through the binoculars for a moment before giving them back to Yoyo. "Whatever they're up to, it's not some small operation. They're playing some high cards and it seems they're banking on this."

"Well I think I know why." Yoyo took another scan of the area and found a few crates that hurt his eyes much like ultraviolet light. "They've got the same plan we do. That's oxydium they're piling up."

"Fuck. They're trying to stop us from getting it? No, wait. There's infinite amounts out there." Ari quirked her head sideways as she dove deeper into thought. "They need it for something then, and they need a lot. A bomb, maybe? THink they'll try nuking the elevator again?"

"No, they don't need to. We gave them something better." Carbon looked around, finding a certain African wild dog just as she scampered out of the room. "The reason they chased us before was because Siamun reported the girls messing with that debris. What would you bet they wanted it to study how we dive?"

"And we left most of it behind... So then this," Ari threw a paw out towards the enemy operation, "is all our doing? We gave them what they needed, and now they can dive like us? Fuck, Viola..."

"Don't blame her, Lulu. She's just a scared little girl." Yoyo dropped his binoculars for a moment, then brought the back up. "Shit, they've started heading towards us. Two walkers."

"Pris, battle stations and boarding alert. We'll be ready." Ari ground her teeth as she seriously calculated the losses in various plans streaming through her head. "Shit. There's no easy target here. We'll just have to take them out."

"No, ma'am. We, uh... have a transmission." Carmine sat upright in his seat and flipped a few switches. "Ready to connect? It's a video stream."

"Do it. In the meantime, everyone get ready for that attack."

A two-dimensional video stream popped up in the central hologram projector, however the image was purposefully filled with static. "Oh? Nobody to greet me?"

Ari groaned at the oddly familiar male voice and quickly returned near her chair. "Only because I wasn't in the camera. Apparently neither are you."

"Oh, I see there's a bold tone to go with such a bold maneuver." The voice forced itself to stop at the end, just as Rhyme walked onto the bridge. "Pardon me. I suddenly feel quite sorry for your crew."

"Well your little project here nearly got them killed. You out to pick a fight? It might not work out like you plan."

"Oh, I would ~never~. I only fight where victory is assured. You always need to plan for the long game, but then again, you know all about that. You've been planning to destroy our fleet over the last months."

"Damn straight. We're here to show you Earth deserves to exist. We'll fight for that right." Ari threw an arm our towards what of her crew were inside the camera's sight, then roped Rhyme into a hug. "You'd be amazed what a close group can accomplish. We'll stop you ~together~."

"Comraderie. Cute. Well that won't stop me from destroying your silly civilian ship." The signal went quiet for a moment, only to return with a muffled snicker. "Well at least you'll die with a lover in your arms. Shame I couldn't meet you before this moment, though."

"Yeah? Why the fuck don't you come over here, then?"

"Oh, I wasn't referring to you. I simply feel remorse for the fur in your arms." Rhyme tilted her head as something about that voice clicked in her memory. "Oh well. Nothing I can do about it now. Adieu and good night, my dearest sister."

The transmission cut off, leaving all eyes on a baffled and frightened tanuki.