FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Apologies for the slowness in getting this chapter written. Up until today, I had a bit of writer's block that luckily seems to have gone away.

Anyway, please give comments, votes, and whatnot - They really, really help me stay focused on putting out more good material :)

Chapter 10

Corporal Kerr was covered in garbage, lying in a filthy alleyway in one of Atria's dirtiest inner city streets. To the casual eye, he'd be nothing more than another disgusting heap of refuse, festering and untended thanks to the general collapse of civil services during the military crackdown.

Inching his way across the city would take days, and when SSgt Herrin had asked him to do this, Kerr knew the lion hadn't asked lightly. If all went to plan, he would end up marooned here, potentially for months, with no support and few allies to help him. Still, despite all of his personal foibles and the constant dance of promotion and demotion he'd brought on himself over the years, Kerr wasn't about to turn down the chance to serve in the best way he knew how.

For the moment, that meant falling back on his original MOS and training. For the moment, that meant being a very slow-moving trash pile. A trash pile that was slowly, carefully belly-crawling through alleyways and dank gang-land territory toward a vantage point he'd identified hours ago as being the best possible place to set up a sniper perch and wait.

For a while, he ended up having to lay perfectly still, covered in the ghillie he'd built during the night from local trash and detritus. He felt like he'd need to take a bath for a week once his mission was over, but that simply went with the job. As he lay near the mouth of an alley, a patrol of four local soldiers walked within arm's reach of him, close enough he could easily smell the menthol in one of their cigarettes.

These weren't regular military, of that he was certain. Their headfur, for one thing, wasn't regulation length. On top of that, their weaponry seemed to be a mish-mash of military assault rifles, pistols, civilian model hunting weapons, and in the case of one of the four patrol furs, an antique double-barrel shotgun.

"I fucking hate night patrols," the shotgun-bearing dog grumbled, as he leaned against a wall not five feet from Kerr's face. The Corporal kept himself absolutely still, fighting to keep every muscle at the same tension he'd had when the patrol passed into view.

Another irregular leaned against the far wall of the alleyway, and lit up a new cigarette. Cheap brand, Kerr noted, rank with the smell of artificial menthol. This one was a rat, missing half his tail and carrying a civilian-model hunting rifle based on an older assault weapon.

"The hybies hate our night patrols too. Fucking trash can't go out at night, so they're fuckin' jealous that we get to."

Kerr catalogued the word, intending to ferret out it's meaning later. His mission was half intel-gathering half other things, after all.

"Dude, I'd love it if we caught some," the third fur chimed in. He was a sleazy-looking, skinny horse with oily, dandruff-ridden fur and the gangling limbs of someone in their late teens. An old but serviceable pulse pistol was strapped to his outer thigh, and he kept a hand on it like he was itchy to pull it out.

"Colonel Brag says we can do whatever we want with 'em now. I wanna corn-hole me a hybie."

He made a note to find this Colonel Brag. Inwardly, Kerr labeled him as a secondary target, either for interrogation or neutralization. The fact he was clearly letting these clowns play soldier and push what sounded like a racial cleansing agenda certainly made him less concerned about whether this Colonel got to live through the experience.

The rat snorted at him, derision and disgust written across his face.

"You'd dirty your dick with one of those fucking things? You're sick, Bill."

"Hey, a cornhole's a cornhole, rat boy. I ain't no hybie-lover, but it's hard as shit to get pussy around here anymore."

The fourth finally spoke up, growling out a command that got the others grumbling but continuing to walk.

"Get your asses moving, you shits. I ain't getting punished because you three wanted t'stand around strokin' dicks instead a' patrolling."

The boar pushed one of them with his scoped hunting rifle, and the group began to move on. Not before the rat stubbed out his cigarette, though, and tossed the butt. It took everything in Kerr's arsenal of self-control tricks not to flinch when the thing landed on his painted, camouflaged face. Any movement would catch the patrol's eye, and while he was sure he could take these fools, he was also sure he couldn't do it without one of them getting off an alarm.

By the time they'd moved away, the thing's remaining cherry had singed his face, and the sniper moved quickly to bat it away. Then he scurried up to the side of a building, and quickly climbed the rusty iron fire escape he'd been inching his way toward for hours.

Six floors later, he pulled himself over the lip of a flat roof with the kind of concrete half-wall that was perfect for what he intended. With a much taller building directly to his back, anyone in the bustling military camp occupying the major city center to his front would have trouble noticing his silhouette. The concrete wall was a good three feet high, and damaged enough that he could lay flat behind it and still see out in places.

He smiled, and made sure the roof was secure and empty of any other residents, before laying flat and taking up position.

The rifle he'd commandeered from the local rebels was a work of art, and he was amazed at his good fortune. Someone in their resistance network had to be military, to get their paws on this kind of hardware. He slid a fingerless-gloved hand up its stock, enjoying the gentle roughness of its matte-finished metal and composite, on his way to flicking up the cap on his scope.

Kerr sighted in. Four hundred meters away, past another line of buildings, a large military bivouac bustled with activity even in the dead of night. A quick few glances and some basic math, and he knew there were at least ten thousand enemy troops down there. Twelve tanks bristled with barely-restrained carnage at its center, waiting for orders to deploy. Not far from the tank command, a motor pool contained ninety other vehicles, two thirds of them modified civilian models. The rest were light military trucks, designed for fast engagement and reconnaissance.

Under his cheek, the rifle hummed so softly no ear could possibly have traced it. Here, though, snuggled up against it like a lover, it was as if the weapon were alive, enthusiastically waiting for him to pick a target so they could share the experience of ending its existence.

Rationally, he knew the humming was from the network of electro-magnets that would, upon a pull of the trigger, accelerate a five inch iron spike to velocities that would punch through all but the most determined of armor. What it would do to exposed flesh was simply pulverize it into a sloppy mess of hamburger and bone chips.

"I need you to locate and disrupt their command structure however possible, Kerr," the SSgt had told him, in private, just after they had reached the subway station.

"Kill commanders, shoot down messengers, down their comm. equipment, whatever you can do. Problem is, we won't be able to evac you, so you're going to have to get clever. Or tell me no. We can use you on the firing line, too."

Kerr had laughed once, a harsh bark, and shrugged his shoulders.

"Staff Sar'nt, if it helps us get our people off this rock, I'll do anything you ask me to."

The big lion grunted once, and fixed him with an intense stare.

"We need intelligence more than anything. Who's in charge of this mess, what's happening, what their forces look like, where they are...You know the drill. No fucking heroics. You're not given leave to get killed, understand me, Corporal?"

Kerr had saluted, by way of response, and received a salute back for it. Then he'd gone off to do his dirty work, shaking his head.

An hour of searching and he knew the camp layout, likely better than anyone inside of it. He pulled a simple digital camera from his breast pocket, and snapped a few flash-less photos of the massive formation, then sent them off through his armor's comm. unit to SSgt Herrin.

Then it became time to wait for the worthwhile opportunities. The ones worth getting killed for. If even a single individual spotted him, there'd be no real way to escape.

Derry woke with the terrifying choking sensation that he was drowning, letting out a strangled gasping sound full of wetness as his heart raced like it was about to explode. Before his flesh eye could begin to make sense of the swirling blurriness, his ocular implant filled his vision with images of green-outlined individuals, as well as yellow, green, and red miniature outlines of them all, standing in two rows of five.

He wasn't sure if someone was sitting on him, or if his ribs were broken, until the screaming noises in his head finally started to calm. Beneath his back, he felt the rumbling and rocking of a vehicle in motion, bouncing on rocks and rough terrain, as the repulsors struggled to keep up with uneven ground.

"Guhk..."

A paw pushed his head down as he tried to sit up, and the crinkling of plastic film sent up red flags in his head. A voice spoke, low and tense, and it took Derry a moment to recognize his Corpsman.

"Don't talk, don't move if you don't have to. I think you've got a punctured lung. Armor saved your life, sure as shit, Blake."

Derry coughed, and felt a stab of pain from his back. His stomach felt full of acid, far more so than the sardonic, harried Corpsman's voice.

"You broke some ribs when that IFV blew. Gutierrez tells me you got hit by a flying armor panel. What the fuck were you thinking, running out there like that? No, wait, y'know what? Don't answer that."

The Corpsman muttered something about 'goddamn crazy Marines,' while tearing some tape to continue bandaging someone. As Derry's eyes slowly came into sync with his brain, he realized they were in an APC, and knew they must already have rendezvoused with the third team.

There were too many things he didn't know, so listening to the Corpsman's orders not to speak was out of the question. He forced air slowly through his throat, seeing how far he could compress his lungs before the pain got serious. The answer was 'not much.'

"Sit...Rep," he whispered out.

The Corpsman just stared at him, a look of disbelief and aggravation in his big black eyes. The Armadillo growled low in his throat, but responded properly, while continuing to work on another Marine Derry couldn't lift his head enough to see.

"Mission successful. The virus got transmitted, and we brought the tower down as ordered. We have rendezvoused with the medical group, and are en route to rendezvous with Staff Sergeant Herrin for the assault phase of our plan. Martinao, Samovar, and Kelly are KIA. You, Gordon, and Gutierrez are seriously injured. The Ix'kat are flying escort above us. Fuckers had some sorta UAV up there, which is why the bugs weren't fighting with you on the line.

"Staff Sergeant found our ship crew, at least most of them anyway. Sounds like the Atrian military intel people got their paws on most of the officers and had them in some other facility...So we'll be flying a fucking Cruiser without any flag officers of any kind."

The wolf slowly nodded his head, careful in case he'd hurt his neck. There wasn't a brace, though, and he didn't feel any pain beyond the flaring pinches in his back and chest.

"How's...Gordon?"

The Corpsman turned, showing his armor-plated back to Derry, as he leaned down to check someone.

"Private Gordon's fine. Her helmet took most of the hit to her head, and the armor protected her pretty well. Nano-structures are good at spreading force, and you basically hit all over her body at once. She's in the other vehicle, making sure your civvie friend doesn't go nuts. She was a bit distraught when she found out you were hurt."

Derry winced. Somehow the idea that the two were likely worried sick about him wasn't fun to contemplate. Not to mention his sister, back home, and Mr. Tenh...He could imagine the old white mountain of a lion sitting there on his greasy work-bench, paws the size of pie tins resting on his battered titanium cane, with a deep frown creasing his care-lined face and admonishment in his shrewd old iron-grey eyes.

A sudden sensation of motion in his lung made Derry tense up and grunt, before blood came boiling up out of his chest, spitting in a spray as he gagged and hacked, imagination vanishing from his mind as the more corporeal worry of drowning in his own blood came up again. The Corpsman spun around, grabbing the wolf by the back of his neck and his shoulder to roll him, preventing the blood from flowing back down into his lungs.

"Nano surgeon injection is repairing the internal damage. You might have a couple of attacks like this, but we can't afford to let you heal the natural way...No time, and we need every hand on a rifle."

Derry choked twice more, spitting out dribbly mouthfuls and feeling about as awful as he could remember. The taste of tin and copper in his muzzle wasn't helping, and he felt like vomiting from the good old-fashioned stomach as well as his lungs.

"Guh..." he moaned out, as soft as he could manage. Then Derry let the repulsor lift engine's dull thrumming lull him a while, since things seemed to be in order for the moment. Some time later, he started, and asked the doc a question as if he'd never been out.

"Hey, don't those nano-surgeons cause cancer or something?"

The Corpsman had moved since Derry had last seen him, and he realized they must have stopped at least once. Jenny slid into his field of view, carefully moving through the rocking vehicle with her paws grabbing onto seat backs and cot edges, as she was too short to reach the hanging grips from overhead.

She was dressed in a slightly oversized urban camo top and faded grey jeans, and someone had seen fit to strap an old flak vest onto her likely taken from a downed enemy soldier. The slender little cat looked uncomfortable as all hell, tense and scratchy in her borrowed clothes, yet her face lit up with a radiant smile as she leaned in and gently hugged him.

To his surprise, he found the strength to laugh and squeeze her back, one-armed, though his chest did give a hard twinge.

"To answer your question," she said, in a voice tight with restrained tears of relief, "the jury is still out on whether military grade nano-surgeons can cause cancer. Anything that makes you heal that fast has got to have side effects in the long run."

"Oh great," he muttered, with his face pressed to her chest. The flak vest and shirt covered her in such a way that she looked more like a young boy than a girl. Nonetheless, the after-battle urge to do something naughty was strong, and the scent of her sweat made his nostrils tingle.

Unfortunately, he was surrounded by other Marines, and the back of an APC wasn't exactly the place for that sort of thing. Not to mention the still-healing wounds in his lungs, and how unfriendly they could get trying to do something that strenuous so soon. With a sigh, he tipped his head back to look up at the beaming cat. Despite her joy at seeing him, Derry could tell she was worried, by the wideness of her eyes, and her pinched smile.

"How far are we from the rendezvous?"

"Twenty minutes still. We've had to divert a couple times to avoid patrols...Uh...Derry?"

"Yeah?"

"What's going to happen to me...Y'know, once we're back with your fleet?"

The wolf gave a soft grunt, and took a few experimental breaths, before slowly starting to lift himself up. Jenny rushed to help, putting a slight shoulder under his arm to help him up, as she undogged straps that had been holding him on one of the cots bolted into the vehicle's interior.

"I'm...Not entirely sure, in the long run. There's gotta be a protocol for this, and I know in the short term they'll probably put you in one of the spare cabins. I know for sure we won't be leaving you."

He could feel the relief, in her muscle tension relaxing under the arm he had over her shoulder as she sat. Then she leaned against him, and Derry felt a spike of anxiety in his gut. Here she was, a pretty girl cut adrift, her life a total shambles, who'd latched onto him like a life raft in a hurricane. He wasn't even sure what they were to each other. She'd blown him in a dirty abandoned subway office, and he'd saved her life once, maybe twice.

Yet they hardly knew each other.

Still, it was nice just to have someone to hold onto. Someone who had at least some idea what he'd seen and done. He nuzzled her headfur, and snorted at the sour smell of sweat.

"You need a shower."

"You need a shut the fuck up."

Snickering hurt. He did it anyway.

"Our human creators NEED us! They created us to conquer the unsettled spaces for them! And now that we have done so, what do they do? They sit back and grow fat on OUR accomplishments! Our hard work!"

Half the crowd were stoic, military, in full-dress uniform and at attention. Behind them, a tall, handsome, elegant jaguar stood, pounding the pulpit with his fist as the huge flood lights arrayed to light the speech glinted off the four brass stars adorning each of his shoulders.

The other half were cheering him on, wild with enthusiasm for his message, many of them bearing signs ranging from "Freedom for Furs!" to "Down with Human Genetic Engineering!" to "Remember Mother Eva," with an old, classic painting of the first successful genetically-modified human printed beneath the slogan.

"It is time we cast off the shackles of their control! We are their betters, not their servants! Humanity was always good at using science to make creations superior to themselves, and we are the example! But it is now time for them to relinquish control, and fade into the mists of history, as they have brought upon themselves!"

Kerr could virtually feel the man's air of righteous indignation, even from over a kilometer away. He would almost have believed the viciously anti-human sentiment roiling in waves off the general was sincere, if not for the huge array of cameras fixed on him and the crowd, each of them operated by military personnel.

Instead of seeming like an enormous cultural movement boiling and seething in adoration, to Kerr's eyes it all looked like what it was - A staged demonstration, likely meant to be broadcast to other colonies on planets across the galaxy, in an effort to stir up resentment to the human preserves scattered about the UHF's great sphere of control.

"No more will we pay their way through lives of luxury, hidden away in their little golden cities where none of us are allowed to go! No more will our children live and struggle in filth and poverty so that human masters may grow fat on our slavery!"

Kerr snorted, feeling disgusted with the pulpit-pounding fool. As a human himself, he knew damn well just how full of shit the shouting jaguar was. Sure, humans lived in preserves and had fairly easy lives, but they were no more free than anyone else. The Accord had seen to that, after the end of so many previous wars. In exchange for their help preventing genetic drift from killing off whole branches of the species, humanity had to work their asses off to do much of anything beyond be kept like pets in their preserve cities.

The targeting reticle of his rail rifle sat perfectly, the ballistic scope following the arc of his calculation, showing where his round would fall. All he had to do, to end this pompous brassy monster, was give the gentlest touch of a squeeze on the trigger.

A name tag on the general's dress uniform read "Tinland, H." Kerr wondered if the jaguar were leading this insurrection. Without knowing what had happened to the Fist of the Nascent Dawn, though, or the situation in space, he could only guess that this fur was just one of a variety of conspirators. Revealing his own position now, just to kill a man who would likely be easily replaced as the local mutiny leader, would be counter to his real mission...At least for the moment.

With a wistful sigh, he shifted away from the set and ready rifle, and went back to scanning the massive and growing military camp section by section, looking for real intelligence, and most importantly any sign of a mass response to SSgt Herrin's daring plan to liberate the Starlit Maiden.

Thirty minutes on into the railing speech, Kerr was peripherally surprised that the crowd was still cheering. Their energy was amazing...Probably well-motivated, too, if his guess was right. He was barely paying attention to them, though, and as he spotted movement in one of the command and control areas, the crowd vanished from his mind.

Several someones with headsets on were shouting at one another, leaning over a large planetary map, moving markers like in an old movie about the Terrestrial Wars. Kerr consulted his own planetary map, stolen from an abandoned gas station during his interminable crawl to the vantage point.

So if their ten markers represent the ten thousand soldiers here...

Kerr snapped a device off the back of his belt and set it down on the concrete roof, depressing a small white button on its side. The little metal cylinder slowly, silently extended an antenna, and began its programmed process of checking for frequencies not in use. A trio of quick, soft beeps in his earpiece told him it was ready to receive a subvocal transmission, encode it, and send the thing off.

"Staff Sar'nt, enemy has thirty thousand troops within city limits. Half are mechanized, other half look to be local militia volunteers. Definite signs of a race war here. Speciesism and superiority rhetoric, with an anti-human and anti-UHF bent. Reason to suspect this is not just a local revolt."

He continued to study the maps and motions of the opposing force, watching as the various furs moved pieces around the bored, called in and received updates, and generally bustled like a hive of very focused bees.

"Looks like three to four hundred troops at the target location. No idea of their specific organization or placement, but I see indications of at least a dozen tanks and IFV's. Recommend a blitzkrieg approach. Standing fight not recommended.

"Local mutiny appears to be commanded by General H. Tinland, male black Jaguar. Photo included from scope camera feed.

"Multiple high-value targets of opportunity are available, but chance of engaging and escaping are minimal. Please advise. Over."

Ten minutes passed, and the night dragged on interminably as scattered showers rolled through the area. Kerr was just rolling onto his back to begin doing stretches to stave off sniper's stiffness when he received a return communication from Herrin. The decryption gave his voice a tinny sound, like an old-time ham radio set.

"All information received and understood. Stay in position until our current mission is achieved. Then exfiltrate and wait for evac. Out."

Kerr sighed and resisted the urge to run a hand over his face. The fatigue of sniper work was rough to deal with again after three years of dealing with the fairly cushy job of handling new Marines. Even having kept up with his PT, Kerr knew he wasn't at top form any more. He just hoped Herrin and the other Marines made it into and through the space port intact.

'Orbital Elevator 573' didn't do the facility justice, as names went. As the Marine convoy approached under cover of false dawn and roiling smog, Derry had been bustled into the front passenger seat of his APC. Though the others could not yet see through the early-morning mist, his ocular implant had penetrated the fog with advanced optical sensors and was now showing him the sheer overwhelming massive grandeur of the compound they planned to assault.

The city ended like a line had been drawn in the sand. One moment, they were surrounded by ten story structures, offices and apartment homes, and the next they were surrounded by open, muddy fields festooned with 'no trespassing' signs. The space dock wasn't a passenger facility, and had none of the usual pretty amenities and marketing gimmicks placed around it.

Instead, it was a sprawling, multi-complex compound of squat, ugly duracrete buildings, hardened and designed to survive repeated shockwave impacts and potentially even orbital debris crashing to earth. Like ugly worshippers of a vast steel god, the buildings were arrayed around the base of the orbital elevator, all facing towards it in a strange geometry of angles.

At the facility's heart lay their goal, and the space dock's most important component. Built of shining poly-steels infused with trillions of carbon nano-tubes, the orbital elevator rose toward the sky like a shining hand reaching for Heaven. Even in the morning stillness, the enormous structure was so tall that it seemed to sway overhead, so huge it vanished into the sky and seemed to go over their own heads and backward.

Somewhere, up past the edge of even Derry's augmented sight, it would pass through all the layers of atmosphere, above the brown funk of smog, the white wisps of highest clouds, and into the cold dark vacuum of space. There, at its very peak, would be an orbital geo-synchronous shipyard, where dozens or hundreds of vessels would be repaired, restocked, or built new every year.

As he watched, a pulse of light shot up the spire at speeds he could barely track, out of view almost as soon as he'd registered the light's existence. At such speeds, any human cargo would have been juiced, and his ocular actually blurred the lines of the elevator for a moment as the complex structure dissipated immense static electrical charges through its surface and into the open air. Ionized clouds of smog arced, and surges of lightning flashed out, repeatedly striking the concrete structures to no evident effect.

By that point, the un-augmented Marines sharing his APC were looking out the window, staring at the majestic structure with some mix of awe and dread. Arrayed in front of it, Derry's ocular started picking out fields of red, as it identified hundreds of enemy personnel and vehicles, and was unable to quickly decide which were military and which civilian.

Herrin's voice came in over Derry's aural implant, transmitting from the vehicle behind his.

"Private Blake, Ms. Waters tells me the orbital defenses appear to be offline, so we'll do this quick and with as little engagement as possible. Your vehicle is the most heavily armored, so it's your team's job to break through the front gates and draw fire. Remember, getting the naval crew into their vessel is our main priority. We aren't here to hunt Atrian troops, make sure your Marines know that, over."

"Understood, Staff Sar'nt. We'll break down the gate and draw small arms fire while you get the seamen inside, then follow and guard until we hit the elevator. Over."

Herrin's voice came over one more time.

"Good. Keep that civilian girl's head down. I'm sure Captain Leith's flag staff are going to have a field day debriefing her about the politics of this mutiny. Herrin out."

Derry twisted in the seat, and tensed up as a flare of pain rose from his lung and into his throat, like sharp heartburn. These Marines had already been through a lot, lost friends, many of them been wounded, had insufficient sleep, and yet they still gave him hard game-faces in anticipation of his orders.

Nevermind he didn't really outrank any of them. Herrin had put him in charge and nobody had seemed inclined to question it. Derry, the street kid, who'd never been anyone important in his life, felt a flush of pride.

"Okay Marines, we're almost done. We'll be slamming through the front gates and making a road for our squad-mates and the seamen who're with them. Staff Sar says we aren't here to kill badguys, so don't go looking for them if they don't come looking for us. Priority one is to get the seamen into the Starlit Maiden so we can regroup with the Fist. My order to you is to not get killed unless it's fucking worth it, understood? No heroics."

"Yes, lead!" shouted the Marines, in chorus.

"Okay, arm up and get ready, we'll be at the gate in," Derry looked out toward the facility as the orbital elevator loomed larger and larger, "two mikes!"

As they bustled, checking weapons and buddies' armor, Derry's keen ears picked up some unknown Marine laughing and talking under his breath to his battle buddy.

"No heroics, coming from him? PFC 'charged-a-tank'?"

That was heroic? It was fucking stupid of me...

2nd Lieutenant Rigley was proud of his new butter-bar, and despite the early morning chill, bad coffee, and wet and shitty air, he was out walking his rounds dutifully near the steel security gates of Orbital Elevator 573. Even new to the post, he'd already studied the operational routine, just in case there were unusual things to note.

Every morning for the past three weeks on this new duty station, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,500 workers commuted from the company-owned housing in the nearby town. They would pass through the gate, showing credentials and identification, then spend another half hour or more moving through two sets of security systems just to enter the main thoroughfare of the orbital elevator facility.

Most worked in the administration buildings that ringed it, tracking ship repairs and construction, ordering parts, riding herd on one another, and the like. Some 20% of them worked at the top of the elevator, and would spend their day operating the heavy machinery that kept interstellar travel flowing.

2nd Lieutenant Rigley wriggled in his uniform at the sense that he was part of it - Part of the great pulse keeping the universe flowing right. Sure, it was a bit questionable that the military had been called in to replace corporate security, but who was he to ask such questions?

As the six o'clock hour beeped on his wrist watch, the young officer touched his collar, initiating the communicator that was imbedded in the cloth. A tinny voice echoed from it.

"This is dispatch, go ahead, over."

"Good morning, dispatch! This is 2nd Lieutenant Rigley at the South gate. Everything looks fine, ov...huh?"

He turned, hearing a strange keening noise from the road. Rigley had just passed the guard shack, stepping out to look out, when dispatch called him back.

"Lieutenant, what was that? You didn't over us, over?"

"Some kinda road noi-FUCK!"

Out of the roiling brown mist, a huge silver shape flew on repulsors, smashing straight through the steel gate as if it were constructed of balsa wood and wishful thinking. The hurtling, wrecked steel hurtled up over its top, flapping like paper in wind before crashing to the pavement.

2nd Lt. Rigley froze in shock. The APC didn't even jolt as it hit him and left his mangled body behind.

Derry punched a button on the passenger seat's console, heard a 'whumpwhump' from somewhere behind and above him, then watched as a pair of smoke grenades impacted some hundred yards away and began dumping out obscuring greyness in front of what he judged to be the barracks and motor pool.

"Okay Marines, you know your jobs! Get out there and suppress those soldiers!"

"Hoo-Rah!"

The APC landed on the ground, its wheel-less chassis a perfect piece of hard cover as Marines dismounted on the side facing their own forces, game faces hard and full of fighting readiness. As they came around the APC's sides, rifles leveled, the smoke that billowed obscured their enemy, but more importantly sowed confusion and slowed response time for the Atrian Army's troops.

The other vehicles rushed right past them, taking the short stairs into the orbital elevator's main receiving area like a ramp, smashing clean through heavy ballistic glass designed to stop shrapnel and light flying debris, but not a determined, armored monster weighted with determination and poly-steel.

His ocular began lighting up, utterly un-concerned with the obscuring smoke. As he'd learned, only smoke designed to specifically impede about a half-dozen types of energy signatures could really shut it down. That or something solid and dense enough. Derry stabilized his rifle on the hood of his great armored beast of a ride, and began squeezing off single shots as enemy troops lit red outlines and tried to emerge from the barracks.

"Wait till they start clearing the smoke!" he called out, putting down another one as the creature tried to level a rifle their direction. From inside the building and over his aural's feed on the radio sets, he could hear as nearly eighty Marines began offloading more than twice that number in Naval personnel, while clearing guard stations in a hail of focused fire.

"Checkpoint one clear. Keep holding position, Rearguard-One, over."

Derry nodded, squeezing off another shot into the smoke and seeing a red puff resolve on his ocular's smoke-piercing sight. Other Marines fired sporadically, accurately hitting targets they could barely see through the mist. He had a sneaking suspicion, though, that there would be plenty more Atrian Army soldiers where these had come from. The barracks could hold five times the number they'd shot down or suppressed, and it was one of four such buildings within the compound.

"Understood, Entry-One, out."

Staff Sergeant Herrin was the first out of his vehicle, before it had fully stopped. Behind and above him, one of the Marines he'd just met a few days ago had his fingers down on the Rattler's triggers, and was pumping explosive rounds into one of the two heavily guarded security stations that defended the entry atrium from the top of a grand escalator.

The twin pillbox structures had only begun to return fire when one of them exploded outward, ripped to bits by the Rattler's brutal twin guns as rounds from the weapon flew through its gun port and detonated the ammo supply within. An ominous whirr told him the second pillbox was spinning up its chaingun, and shouts from that way said the soldiers inside were preparing for an assault.

Herrin didn't give them the chance.

As Marines surged from vehicles, followed by their Naval charges, the old lion cracked his neck, leveled his matte-black special weapon, and felt the thing jolt as he fired. The air lit up in a line of fire, as the accelerated rail cannon's iron and titanium sabot round shot past the speed of sound so swiftly it ignited loose oxygen in a trail of white and blue plasma.

The bunker's walls were meant to stop grenades, high-caliber machine guns, pulse rifle rounds, even some rocket propelled weaponry. They weren't built for the USF's top-end bleeding-edge weaponry.

In a split instant, the rail round hit. Its tip was titanium ribbed with veins of ceramic, meant to penetrate armoring before shattering apart. The shell's outer rim was iron, intended to give the round added weight and magnetism for the rail system, and to spall off upon impact. Its lethal core was a savage series of titanium nails, that exploded outward as the round penetrated and mushroomed apart just on the other side of the wall.

The bunker's gun never managed to start firing, its operators dead or horrifically wounded by the bouncing, slicing shrapnel. Herrin heard the magazine click, as the magnets inside it pulled another round into the chamber.

"Move up! Watch your sectors!"

He was up the escalator at a run, hunched low to present a smaller profile, and hit the deck as he reached the top to scan. Instinct and experience, from twenty years of service, had given him reflexes men half his age couldn't match. Bullets whizzed over his head, as a pair of security guards opened up with automatic rifles from behind heavy durocrete pillars that contributed to the thousands of supports that kept the orbital elevator standing.

The security checkpoint had scanner systems, tall and round areas where the security staff could watch advanced imagery scans on the glass, looking for contraband or weaponry. On either side of the four large scanners, heavy metallic barricades were still in place, likely locked since the previous night. The two guards firing at him were in front of the barricades, probably just on their way to them to unlock the things when this had started.

Herrin fired the rail rifle again, disintegrating one of the guards from his waist down and sending his guts raining all over the barricade. Marines came charging up the escalator behind him, and he surged to his feet to charge the suppressed guard. The wolf had a shocked look on his face, as Herrin gave him a vicious butt-stroke that sent him to the ground spitting teeth.

"Get this barrier down! Suppressing fire through the slats!"

From over the radio, PFC Blake's usually calm, almost droll voice spoke in a staccato harshness.

"Staff Sar, they must've guessed we were coming! Clicks has spotted a full battalion of heavy armor incoming to our position! Six mikes! Over!"

Fuck, thought this was going too easy...

Captain Leith kicked drummed fingers on her console, chewing the inside of her cheek in annoyed anticipation. Not usually one to allow an explosion in front of her sailors, she saved the savage swearing for the privacy of the Fist's bridge antechamber. Though now, with Senator Bull there to witness, she kept her poise and waited impatiently for the communications to connect. The old, white-furred tiger had his spider-thin ancient paws laced together in front of him on the transparent aluminum meeting table.

He just watched her stalk the room, with watery old blue eyes the color of washed-out antique film photos of Earth's sky. She was a pretty young woman, blonde, compact, smooth of skin and sleek of limb, and if he'd been eighty years younger, he wouldn't have batted a lash at the idea of asking her out to dance some night. As things were, he was amused by the mental image, of her dancing and him lying on the ground with yet another broken hip. Probably clapping and making jokes as he waited for the medics to show up.

Finally, the screen occupying one full wall of the briefing room illuminated, and the young caracal he'd seen manning the communications command center spoke.

"Captain, Mr. Senator, Admiral Kerrick is in the process of connecting now. Thirty seconds, ma'am."

Adriana Leith's voice carried none of the relief Bull could see in her posture.

"Thank you, Lieutenant Cross, put him through as soon as he's up."

"Yes ma'am."

Senator Bull rested his aching, ancient spine against the chair's upright back, feeling sneaking trails of cold pain sliding down the nerves into his arms. He laughed dryly, and gave the Captain a conspiratorial wink.

"Don't be so nervous, Captain. We old bastards like to leave people waiting. Makes us feel important."

Her button of a nose scrunched and she snorted in bemusement, as her hands laced together behind her lower back.

"Senator, if I ever get old enough to be that annoying, please throw me out an airlock?"

He laughed, a hearty sound that hurt his chest but felt good all the same.

"I'll have to come back from the dead, you know. I hear that's illegal in most systems."

She was about to quip back when the screen began to populate with pixels of light and color, swiftly resolving into an image that made Adriana's eyebrows shoot up like they were trying to crawl off her face.

Senator Bull was no less surprised, but never let himself show it. Instead, he just nodded to the Admiral. The admiral who was standing in a scorched, smoking chamber, aboard a ship that had obviously seen recent combat.

Kerrick, Bull's old friend from so many years ago, looked like he hadn't aged a day. Then again, the lizards rarely showed much sign of ravaging time until they simply dropped dead. He looked utterly unruffled too, which was even less a surprise. Admiral Kerrick couldn't change his expression if someone handed him a wrench to do it with.

Even his uniform was immaculate, despite the clearly battle-scarred ship. Assuming he was transmitting from the same sort bridge antechamber, the scoring meant his vessel had taken serious hits - Most classes of naval ship kept their bridge deep inside the ship's superstructure, and it would take some serious penetrating hits to start fires there.

Captain Leith saluted sharply, standing at well-practiced attention, all vestige of personality and humor gone from her face in a flash. Kerrick responded with a crisp return salute, his posture never having left the stultified stance he always held while standing.

"Captain Leith, I see you have at least one senator aboard. Where are the others?"

"Dead, Admiral. The entire system was a massive ambush. My ship's physician tells me one of the senators was carrying some sort of biological explosive inside his body when they boarded. I believe it's intent was to cripple our engines and kill the planetary Senate. Senator Bull tells me a military coup has been in the works for some time, and he's been unable to send unedited reports out of system.

"We are currently being pursued by a combined fleet of approximately 30 ships, most of them modified cargo freighters carrying fighters. Their flag vessel is a tactical heavy cruiser. If we're going to put down this mutiny, we will need reinforcements. I'd like to request you send us the 5th Fleet's Dawn of Thunder and her battle group, along with the 7th Marine Expeditionary Force to retake Atria Prime."

Kerrick blinked, just once, the nictating membranes over his eyes flickering before he responded with further questions. He'd accepted the changed situation with his usual unflappable poise.

"What is the terrestrial situation?"

Adriana's jaw clenched a bit, and as she spoke, Bull could hear the slightest hint of a tempest of stress in her voice.

"The enemy attack was extremely sudden and well-coordinated. We were unable to extract about two hundred Marine personnel from their defensive perimeter around the starport. Senator Bull's people have managed to contact them, but it's been very intermittent. My understanding is that they are working their way across the planet in an attempt to self-rescue. Casualties, two days ago, were 60%, with all officers dead or MIA.

"From what little we've been able to observe, the Atrian military has total control of the Prime planet, and is engaged in counter-insurgency efforts on the other two inhabited worlds. Once reinforcements arrive, we will crush their fleet and begin using orbital strikes to knock out their ground forces in preparation for Marine drop-and-secure actions on critical government and military facilities."

Kerrick held up a hand, his long hooked fingers forestalling further words. Bull knew the movement well. The lizard was signaling he could extrapolate the rest, and was done wasting time.

"You will not be receiving reinforcements, Captain. The entire 5th Fleet is engaged in heavy fighting at Alpha Centauri, and the 7th Marine Expeditionary is holding onto the Titan Shipyard by will and vinegar alone. The Atria system is critical if we are to win this war...And a war it is, Captain."

Bull stared at Kerrick. So did Captain Leith. He felt his old stomach ball up, hard in the pit, at the realization of just what Admiral Kerrick was saying.

"I will be plain: The United Systems Federation is fractured into a dozen factions already. Most of the USF's senators have been arrested by the Galatea faction. As of this moment, I am in all effect your commander in chief until we can effect a rescue of SecDef and the CIC.

"Here are your orders, Captain Leith. First, I am commanding a total cessation of private communication for your crew. Knowing the galaxy is tearing itself apart would be ruinous for morale, and might lead to defections as your crew try to go home and secure their families.

"Your second order is to retake Atria system by any means necessary. As of this moment, you do not have authorization to use fusion weaponry, but any means up to that are acceptable.

"With the Titan Shipyards under heavy attack, it is unlikely we will be able to use the facility for some time, even if it manages to hold. Atria's drive core factories and space dock facilities will be of critical importance for our long-term strategy.

"Lastly, Adriana..." The Captain looked startled. Her Admiral had never used her first name before to address her directly. Bull noticed the sallowness of Kerrick's features then, as if something inside the steely Admiral could only hold up his façade partially.

"If the Atria system cannot be retaken, I want its usefulness utterly and entirely eliminated for our enemies. Destroy the space docks, the orbital elevator, their comsat system, everything. I know there will be civilian casualties, but...It is unavoidable at this point."

For what felt an eternity, the briefing room was filled with a pregnant silence, as the Captain digested her orders, considered them, formulated preliminary plans and questions. Kerrick simply waited, watching, until the ancient tiger spoke.

"No more secrets, Richard. I'm too old and you're too busy to bother with them any more. Project Eva. Where are the Shadows of Eva?"

He got only a glacial stare in response to his question.

"Senator," the Admiral said, with carefully chosen enunciation, "I have no idea of what you speak. Captain, you will contact me with a progress update in three days, understood?"

"Understood, Admiral. Ah...If I may sir, where are you?"

"That is need-to-know information, Captain. Admiral Kerrick out."

The screen went blank, and Adriana turned away from Senator Bull. He raised his paws in front of his face, steepling his fingers thoughtfully. For a minute or two, she brooded, before turning toward him and leaning back against the wall, arms crossed under her breasts as she fixed him with a calculating, penetrating stare.

"He doesn't want me to know about this 'Project Eva.' Is it germane to our current situation?"

Smart girl, Captain. You know better than to dig to deeply, at least for now.

The old tiger shook his head, and let the slightest ghost of a smile slip across his face.

"Ghosts and shadows of the past, Captain. If it becomes relevant, you'll know. Until then, we will both just have to trust Richard Kerrick to do the right thing."

Her penetrating look bored into him, but the old leatherneck simply stared back. It was a contest of will neither would win, and both knew it. Captain Leith shook her head and stood forward again, regaining her posture before entering the bridge.

"If these old government secrets come back to bite me, and I find out you held out information, our relationship will become significantly less...Pleasant."

The ancient tiger chuckled and shrugged lightly.

"I understand, Captain. Let me know when you come to a decision on our next move. By now, my aide will have delivered all of my intelligence information to your quarters. My people are at your disposal."

"Good. We'll need them."