《Atalor's Fate [Audio Book and Written]》


 0 Prologue - Yivreen

    I stared down at my writing assignment in the low light apartment. My eyes glazing over the pages of the history tablet sat beside it... Then I began internally reading my paper so far.


    ¡°Atalor is a planet thick with vegetation. Always had been, always would be. Even here in the city a particularly resistant brush, a patch of ferns, or a tentacle-like root could sprout up between dense concrete sheets in nights. Much like the Cyonians, the planet was untamed. We liked it that way.


    Then the Coalition came. They spoke of machinations greater than our simple world before we¡¯d even had time to reel on the realization the galaxy had other intelligent life beyond our own comparatively primitive planet. A multi-species Coalition coming from a silver sky-ship down to a barely industrial society: That was the sight Cyonians were met with.


    A great, calamitous galactic horror would gobble us up if we did not yield to the space-borne visitor¡¯s will. So they said. A gargantuan empire ruled by bloodthirsty predators willing to do anything to get a meal was out there right now. Fighting to take the known and unknown, like us. We¡¯d be made to be conquered on our own planet. Our people kept alive only to toil as slaves or sequestered off as food for these would-be subjugators and hunters. The Bala¡¯ur, they were called.


    The Coalition insisted that we allow them to do a ¡®sweep¡¯ of our world to cull the naturally occurring predator population. Claiming such a high concentration of their foul energies would attract this yet unseen Bala¡¯ur threat. In these times we were a superstitious people, and were easily cowed into accepting this seeming truth.


    When the first of the Coalition¡¯s workers had landed on our soil and tried to burn away our jungles and tropical forests it¡¯d been wasted effort. All they¡¯d accomplished was creating ashen fields that would regrow in a generation or two, and drove the native predators further into the mainland. Making them harder to remove for our pest control agencies that¡¯d endured from the pre-Coalition age of breech-loaded firearms. We¡¯d always referred to them as rangers.


    Protests had broken out, rioting even. Burning away the natural beauty of our planet was unacceptable. No amount of dogma from aliens could possibly persuade us. We¡¯d not known they would simply burn our world. They¡¯d insisted still we must destroy all predators on our planet, wherever they may pop up.


    In the end our own representatives had struck accords with the supposed friends they claimed to be. The Coalition would maintain a guild on our planet to ensure a low predator population. However, they¡¯d only be permitted to operate in city limits. Our locally maintained rangers would take care of the Wildlands, the less developed settlements, and disparate outposts that dotted the super-continent we called home. None of them would be permitted outside the cities for official duty.


    Shortly after. Our induction into the Coalition as a member nation was ratified. The transition government dissolved, and The Cyonian Assembly was born.¡±


    My eyes traced over the words again. Had I blanked out? My paw numbly let the stylus fall from my thumb grasper. Staring down at the writing tablet. My ringtail patterned appendage behind me flicked this way. Its black and grey fades swirling like the anxiety in my gut.


    How well could an paper like this really go toward my degree in Journalism? I mean: It was just a mock up article to be put on the net right? Something to remind our society of how we got here, stuck in this seemingly eternal war with the... The Bala¡¯ur.


    Would it be interpreted poorly to talk about one of the most contentious treaties between the Coalition and the Cyonian people? Even to this night it was clear from talking heads from the Coalition that the only reason the treaty had held the test of time was because they couldn¡¯t be bothered to renegotiate it. Our wild predator population index was highest in the sector. Which.. Probably lent even more fuel to recent rhetoric from Guild Chief Bohor¡¯s insistence we ¡°attracted Bala¡¯ur¡± with our neglect, the snotty old avian he was.


    I sighed. Pushing my chair and myself away from the desk. Standing up and walking to the mirror. On the other end of the seeing glass I was met with a tired eyed Cyonian. The nocturnal browns of my coat, the flicking tail for balancing, the wide fluffed out and tired looking ears.. I could see past some of the fur on them to see the peach coloured flesh of the inside. My coat was- to say the least in a state of unrest. I¡¯d been so excited to take up this course, this semester. The stars had aligned when I was accepted for a competitive profession such as journalism, not a lot of creatures on Atalor could flaunt that they¡¯d schooled for such things.


    Then had come the semesters on Coalition journalistic integrity policies. Publishing rules a book long. Ethical sourcing. Writing practices. Panic prevention. Restrictions on Bala¡¯ur reporting, restrictions on war publishing, restrictions on-


    I¡¯d whined audibly, rubbing a paw to my face as my eyes closed. There was just... So much more than I¡¯d even imagined. So many loops, hoops and branches to jump to get anything mildly controversial or scary past the editor¡¯s phase. ¡°That¡¯s enough for now.¡± I breathed, my lighter toned voice had danced in the empty air of my apartment. I¡¯d pulled an all-dayer so most places would be opening up soon. Maybe a stop to my favourite breakfast spot would do my mood well. I strapped my bag to saddle to my hip, plopping my writing tablet inside. Breakfast sounded good.


    After a quick brush down of my fur I headed down to the front area of my apartment. The only problem? I spotted a familiar face by the street level entryway to the diner. Admittedly, I thought about going right back inside and then entering through the artificial branchways that dotted above the vehicle lanes, but he¡¯d already spotted me.


    ¡°Yivreen, Yiv!¡± Came the excitable call from my project partner. His tail giving me a swish swish to hurry up.


    Already I could feel myself sighing into a pleasant mask of smiles I put on for him. ¡°Hey Geal. Good dusk.¡± I waved my tail back at him, a polite pair of ears turned at attention to him as I drew closer. He was a couple inches shorter than myself, and his little insistence of ¡®just happening to be there¡¯ so often around me was only mildly annoying.


    Best I could tell he just needed a friend, and I¡¯d been wrangled into it by circumstance of being linked with him for one of our projects. His excitable voice chipped up again like he¡¯d just gotten out of bed. Bastard. ¡°Good dusk to you too! Did you hear the news? Classes are cancelled tonight, apparently the campus had a grow-in in the basement. Some of the lower to the ground lecture halls soaked inches high!¡±


    ¡°A grow-in? It takes nights for a grow-in to cause any real damage, how¡¯d they let roots get bad enough to spring piping?¡± I¡¯d asked with an incredulous tone. ¡°Beats me! But it means we have the night. Well. I have the night. It looks like you need some sleep once you¡¯re done here.¡± Had come the reply.


    I set a withering eye at him. The fact he¡¯d been able to start reading my ¡®I haven¡¯t slept¡¯ face was starting to mean he was becoming more than a clingy acquaintance. I stepped through the door, finding the early hours with the place mostly empty. Sliding into a booth without much trouble and finding my classmate doing the same across from me.


    ¡°I think I need to scrap my final project.¡± I mused out-loud, a bit too late to realize I¡¯d said it to him.


    ¡°What? Why?¡±


    I reached my graspers down and pawed over my tablet, letting the first opening pages pop up, and showing off the particularly problematic paragraphs I¡¯d been staring at earlier. His face scrunched lightly. ¡°A brief history of Coalition contact and the consequences of-¡± His face had gone from scrunched to worried. Geal had been unable to finish even saying the title of my project. ¡°Yiv this is- why did you pick something like this?¡±


    I squirmed, it was weird being judged by someone you only ever thought of as a mild nuisance. Had this idiot become a fixture in my life enough I valued his opinion? ¡°Well! I thought I¡¯d go for something a bit ah- controversial! Something to stir up my reputation on my way out, so I could land it well. Ahh... I think I might have taken it a step too far though..¡±


    He gave an acknowledging flick of the ear. Scrolling through it with a skimming eye. His whiskers twitching in latent agitation at nothing in particular. ¡°I mean... It¡¯s not going to land you in good branches with the interplanetary affairs office. I can see what you¡¯re going for though.¡± He pawed the slate back over to me. ¡°Maybe lose the parts where you used your editorial tone to criticize the uplift years? I know it¡¯s the new and fashionable thing to criticize the Coalition, but with the war we need herd unity yeah? I don¡¯t think it¡¯d be wise to add your voice to the disunity. Where¡¯d you even get bit about the Guild only being permitted in city limits? The treaty doesn¡¯t have that line now.¡± What he said was a common talking point from pro-Coalition talking heads in our own politics.


    The Jungle burnings and the feeling we had been treated as a second class vassal state by the Coalition was swept aside as a necessary evil was a... resurfacing feeling that we hadn¡¯t felt as a society for a long time, but war weariness was beginning to take its toll. People, myself included, needed to start looking at the war and the Coalition uplifts objectively.


    ¡°Places.¡± I managed back. ¡°There¡¯s... Old outposts in the Wildlands south that have some precursor logs still on them. From after Coalition night-¡± The night we¡¯d first met our benefactors from the stars. ¡°-but still old enough they had some tidbits we¡¯ve ¡®forgotten¡¯ since the war started.¡± I put emphasis on forgotten, I wasn¡¯t so sure it was accidentally forgotten we used to have a better deal in the treaty than tonight.


    Some of the more grainy details, like an accidental burning down of a hanging settlement in the trees during an early Coalition burning operation was something even I¡¯d not heard of until finding it myself. Heck, it might even be why there were so few branch-level villages out there anymore. We probably stopped building them wholesale.


    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    From then on we¡¯d chatted a bit on it. I.. resigned myself to putting away some of my more problematic findings. There must have been good reason to not include them, I mean. The burned village had probably caused a panic back when it¡¯d happened, I could only imagine now it¡¯d spark some light of outrage my people hadn¡¯t known for centuries against a galactic community that for all intents and purposes we were a fairly early member of. Our seniority was respected in most Coalition circles these nights, despite our chilly attitude with the Founders. There was a naysaying voice in my head now. Would all my project as it was written now do is distance my people from our respected pedestal in the galactic community?


    Oh? Was my gentle chitchat conversation with Gael coming to an end? Thank the Obelisk.


    A gentle nod of the head, and I¡¯d been up and headed back to my room to catch some shut eye. Finding the door to my room, I slipped the key in with tired paws and stepped inside. Ah... Sweet bliss as I flopped into the big hammock-bed.


    I¡¯d barely even glimpsed the top news article on my tablet before I climbed up into the hanging nest-bed. ¡°Comms relay upgrades due to temporarily disrupt traffic to and from Atalor.¡± Huh... A dismissive tail wave came with the news. Supposedly it¡¯d only last the night. Ah well. Not like I was going to be awake for it- The net on our planet had plenty of backups of anything I might need to look at in that time. The threat to our planet in a comms blackout was nothing anyway, we had the strongest fleet in the sector despite being on the border with the hated enemy. I let my eyes drift closed, bundling myself into the sheets and drifting into a cocoon of much needed rest.


    ___________________________________


    Thunder rocked through my mind, throwing me into consciousness. Concussive thump thump thumps jolting me to wakefulness and driving my heart rate up. A frightened squeak emanating from me before I realized what the noise was... Someone was knocking on my door, loudly. ¡°O-one moment!¡± I called before slinking out of my bed. Tablet in paw. I looked down at it.. It was only three quarters of the way through the night, and tomorrow was a rest day. Who could possibly... It wasn¡¯t some solicitor, they¡¯d never have made it to the fourth floor before being thrown out.


    I opened the door, looking like I¡¯d just crawled out of bed. ¡°What!?¡± I gave the annoyed ask before my eye had recognized Geal again. He¡¯d known my address for a while now, since I¡¯d /given/ him it, but he¡¯d never came unless it was for school work.


    ¡°Aa-a Yiv! Can I come in?¡± He asked politely, his eyes fidgeting left and right down the hall.


    ¡°This isn¡¯t going to be some weird love confession right?¡± I flatly replied. You never knew with guys like this.


    ¡°Wha- N-no! It¡¯s important. Listen just- I¡¯m not like that. I just trust you.¡± I felt my eyes roll. ¡°Fine.¡± As I moved out of the way and ushered him in with my tail, shutting the door behind the both of us. ¡°What¡¯s this about?¡±


    He was wearing a vest, which wasn¡¯t entirely usual. Maybe he¡¯d needed the pocket space? ¡°I was just auh- so. What your paper said in the diner. I wanted to find out more.¡± No.


    ¡°Oh come on Geal you didn¡¯t-¡± He waved his tail to shush me, and then gave an affirmative up and down with the appendage. ¡°I did. I tried to scour the university archives for that incident you talked about. The... burned village.¡± Came the verbal confirmation. ¡°But... There wasn¡¯t really anything beyond what we were taught as children. Just the moss-heaps about the ranger accords.¡±


    And oh mercy he¡¯d just kept on talking as I sat myself on the couch with a concerned look on my face. ¡°See, that got me curious. Why would they hide that sort of thing even from academic records right? And then I saw the news about how we were cut off from the Coalition communication network for the night. And then-¡±


    I cut him off with an annoyed huff. ¡°Geal you¡¯ve never struck me as the paranoid type.¡± Which was true. I¡¯d never seen him getting fired up about anything like this.


    ¡°Hey- aa.. I just feel more comfortable talking about this with someone who apparently goes to forbidden outposts for scoops as old as my great great great grandparents.¡± Alright. Point taken, I flicked my ear to indicate he continue.


    ¡°So. I started looking back at our voting records in the Coalition Assembly.¡± Ah. That made sense, even with the network cut off there would be archives of common things like that. I was listening intently now. The grumpiness from my early awakening dissipating. ¡°We¡¯ve voted against majority votes lead by the Founders at a rate of seventy-eight percent since our induction as a voting member. And that number has only historically climbed. Now, the Coalition¡¯s assembly is up to vote for extending another emergency power term of ten years to the Assembly chair-¡±


    I cut him off. ¡°-Aerun is the current chairholder. A Founder.¡± He gave me a bright eyed flick of the ear. The implication... ¡°Well how would communication downtime impede our vote?¡± I asked.


    ¡°It¡¯s not about that I don¡¯t think. See. Our representatives for a long time have presented leading and sustainable arguments against Founder war policies. Even moreso in the last couple years. What they need is for our representative to not be able to attend remotely.¡± To prevent swinging neutral votes. Made sense. Our main representatives usually hologram into the assembly remotely, rather than maintaining an ambassadorial party on the Founder¡¯s homeworld of Ancestra. I could see the political intrigue all slotting together. Our relations with the Founders had been cold, but this was freezing if true.


    ¡°So what?¡± I asked, giving him a questioning head tilt. ¡°Sooo- Yiv! This is the perfect end of term project! You can amalgamate it with what you already have for your paper. We can work together! You and me, we¡¯ll forage the case and find evidence! There¡¯s no way they¡¯ll get upset over us joining our papers together if it¡¯s this good. Imagine! ¡®The Sinister Truth, a cold war between Atalor and Ancestra.¡¯¡±


    I snorted. ¡°That¡¯s stupid! And it breaks way too many anti-panic laws for a title. Try again swamp-brain!¡± I whisked my tail at him in chiding way. There was no way something so hyperbolic would ever be accepted. ¡°F-fine. Working title. The point is, you and me should go out tomorrow and work on it.¡±


    He¡¯d sat himself across from me in that filled bag-seat. My own voice coming to me with some level of doubt. ¡°So, you /do/ want to go out?¡± I teased, before quickly amending. ¡°How does by the third level labs around midnight sound? You bring the food.¡± I set terms simply enough. All he managed was an affirmative flick of the ear and yes of his tail. Standing up with a hop. ¡°That was auh- easy! I kind of expected you to be more nervous like this morning.¡±


    ¡°I am nervous.¡± Came the truth. ¡°I¡¯m just more interested if we can find anything to back up your theory. It could serve our herd far and above any other opportunity we¡¯ll probably ever see in this line of work again.¡± And I felt it. Whereas before I was just kind of digging in the ashes of ancient history with my paper, this sort of foraging of news could change our planet¡¯s outlook on the Founders, and with any luck elevate someone better suited to leading the united species against the Bala¡¯ur instead of Aerun.


    ___________________________________


    The rest of the night had been spent alone in my thoughts, laying on my hanging nest-bed on my back as I contemplated what could happen. If it was worth it. That bundle of anxious, cold energy has bubbled up from my stomach again. The same energy that¡¯d made me put down my paper last Dusk. ¡°Hhh.. Why¡¯d I have to be born on such a belligerent world.¡± You didn¡¯t hear about the Dommis having political shadow scuffles over war policy with other members of the Coalition. Heh... Those silly song birds probably couldn¡¯t lie if they wanted to. They were good neighbours, all things considered.


    I needed a climb. The sun would be up soon, might as well get it all out before I try sleeping. With little trouble I threw on my belted hip bag, and a jacket. It¡¯d be a bit hot in the tropical weather of Barr City, but I didn¡¯t feel like combing down my fur, and I didn¡¯t want people to see my fur¡¯s bedraggled state. I slipped my tablet and a water bottle into the pockets of the jacket and opened my apartment window out into the welcoming air.


    Hopping out on my fores and legs I turned around, pulling the window closed and locking it up. From there? Simple as following some of the artificial branch paths. The paths always seemed to help me slow down my mind, put things into perspective. The branches themselves had been designed to simulate moving from tree to tree in a forest, and many chose to take them over walking below on the sidewalks because they gave a bit of recreation in what was otherwise a dull city with a well off educational sector and an imports hub. Which meant I usually got first pickings on ordering foreign knickknacks. I could see a couple people of varying Coalition species walking the streets below aside from the vehicles. Hmh.


    My body was moving from branch to branch, my legs and arms moving with an arboreal-quadruped locomotion. ¡°Hmm hm hmmm~¡± I¡¯d taken to humming as I broke out into second street, hoisting my arms up and over myself as I dropped a floor¡¯s worth of branches to land on the third, then the second floor branches with little hops. With more ¡®cover¡¯ above me and less below me I could see I was nearing a suburb at the end of my apartment¡¯s street. The shorter buildings instead featuring twine and rope in place of the purpose made gymnastic equipment of the city¡¯s thicket. And of that it only lead down to the ground, an end to this route, unless I wanted to walk or start jumping on people¡¯s rooftops. Which... was going to be seen as rude.


    And then... Something strange happened. I heard a couple gasps from above me, up in the higher levels. ¡°Look!¡± Someone had shouted. My head hinging up, and eyes turning skyward for what little I could see from there. Were those...? Meteor showers? No. they weren¡¯t streaking. They were moving closer. I¡¯d never seen anything like it before in my life. Little puffs of light in the night sky like twinkling orange stars-


    No. My eyes widened, and my chest felt like it was wearing a sweater four times too small. But then, of course, the shouting had started. Alarm calls. Then the sirens blaring across the streets. Another sound I¡¯d never heard before. ¡°A Bala¡¯ur incursion in system has been confirmed. Please proceed to-¡± But my ears were already flattening, my perception of reality warped between life and death.


    My imagination conjuring up those shadowy-grey images. Killers. Teeth. Cattle. Cruelty. Fly. Escape. Run. Climb! A miasma of horrifying, not quite corporeal Bala¡¯ur chuckling within the confines of my own mind.


    When I blinked back into reality I realized my body had been moving for minutes without me, just pounding away at the branches toward the lit up neon signs showing the way to the bunker. If I made it there!


    Whho-omp boom. As a slicing bright light filled the sky, causing me and everyone around to shield our sensitive eyes. That¡¯d landed in the inner city! And then? The shockwave, the sound. Both crashing into me. I flew into the air, cursing my flimsy grip at a time like this as I sailed back from the concussion of the clustering city levelling bombs that¡¯d landed mercifully far away enough to not kill me immediately.


    I sailed right past the gymnastic branches and into the tangle of catching ropes. My arms and legs instinctually tangling into them to suspend my fall. There were screams, panic. ¡°How have they already started dropping bombs?! It¡¯s impossible! They¡¯ve have never made it past the fleet! Never past the defensive belt!¡± I screamed at the impossibility, mind desperately negotiating against the reality I was dealing with.


    An older feminine voice from below me responded even as I climbed down. ¡°They didn¡¯t wait to defeat the fleet this time.¡± Whatever I¡¯d been planning to say was caught in my throat as more explosions rocked downtown, concussive forces drilling and drilling...


    I needed to find my relatives in the western suburbs, my nephews and nieces must be terrified! I needed to call Geal on my pad, maybe he survived? I needed to make a plan. I needed to- another explosion rocked through, and the sights of little dots that denoted incoming ships from orbit. I¡¯d never seen those before, but I knew what they could be. I didn¡¯t need to do anything. My mind was already conjuring up more wispy ghosts of feathered horrors, chasing me down and tearing my throat out.


    Screaming, panic, alarms, the buffeting winds of millions dead with each bombfall- it all melted together into a dinner bell gonging away my last moments if I didn¡¯t flee. I could feel saliva dripping down my back, despite none being there. My head whipped around in a blind panic to find the danger that wasn¡¯t even here yet.


    My instincts decided to run. My instincts chose to flee as fast and far away from Barr as I could go. It wasn¡¯t quite me holding the berry branches in my mind anymore, only panic. The rest of it... All a blur.

 1 - Yivreen

    When my mind had finally caught up with itself after my panic ridden run I could see the sky was beginning to lighten, heralding the sun. It must have been at least thirty minutes since I lost myself then, maybe? I didn¡¯t recognize where I was. My breaths sucked in and out in heaves, leaning on a house. This was... The city outskirts. I could tell from the prefabs, my rational mind was coming back to me. Thank goodness.


    The crowd I¡¯d run with was dispersed into groups of a couple dozen at a time, running to and fro down different streets. We¡¯d gone from a herd of thousands to a mob running in any direction that might reasonably mean safety.


    I pulled out my tablet, cluing into what little of our planetary communication¡¯s network remained, trying to push the sounds of panic and the distant alarms still blaring from the city behind me to the back of my mind.


    Bold lettering met my inquiry to the news. ¡°Seek Shelter. Barr city shelters A, C, E, F, K unresponsive.¡± That did little to nothing to help my nerves, but- I had to keep it together. The closest intact bunker was about four kilometres to my south through open forest. Well- there was closer ones, but I wasn¡¯t headed anywhere near in-city. The bombing had ended, but the smouldering ruin was in no good shape.


    Almost as if to further cement the situation I heard the streak of in-atmosphere jets whooshing by. My head craning up to see as three of our interceptors bore down on incoming dots in the mid-atmosphere. Dazzling explosions and lights followed, and I thought I could see the Bala¡¯ur ships crackling and falling to the planet surface in husks. My chest fluttered, and I let out a little cheer. ¡°Get em! Yes!¡± Oh thank goodness... We weren¡¯t out of the fight. We might still be alright.


    I looked back down at my pad finally when the fight grew too distant for me to see in the searing sunlight, flicking to my messages and seeing a lit up text from Geal. It was timestamped at about forty minutes ago.


    -¡°Yiv, are you home?¡±


    -¡°Stay put. I¡¯m only a minute away. I¡¯ll come get you.¡±


    That idiot. My eyes watered, where did he get the idea that we knew each other well enough for him to go playing hero? The world goes to the Bala¡¯ur and his first thought was to save me? I¡¯d seen the bombardment hits, the chances of him surviving were slim. My paw digits moved on the keyboard briefly.


    -¡±Hope you¡¯re safe, Geal.¡±


    Before my sentimentality killed me I checked my other messages. Nothing. Our infrastructure must have been fractured to oblivion after the first couple bomb hits. Communication satellites were target practice for the raiders too. I breathed the first calm breath I had since this all started, looking around.


    Alright.. OK. I was shivering with fear, the world was ending, and I had to traverse out of here and into the forest to get to a safe place. The plan in my head formed... With some amount of effort I willed my shaky, tired limbs to move. Climbing up the side of the habhouse with one paw over the other. My hind claws affording me enough grip to manage little leaps up to handholds until I was on the roof about two stories high. The sturdy not-quite plastic material under my paws assuring me of safety from the street level. At least those prowling grey shadows in the edges of my vision couldn¡¯t get up here. Could they?


    I shook my head to dissipate the thought. With that, my journey started, and I hopped from rooftop to rooftop. A couple others had had the same idea, no surprise considering our arboreal roots. I could spot a few on the houses across the street from me, and over the neighbouring street¡¯s rooftops as well.


    Jump, land, allow my legs to shock absorb. Take a quick run, jump, land. I was concentrating for a couple minutes before I heard the sudden crackle of something popping and whizzing. I pushed myself to lay flat on the rooftop. That must have been!... I hadn¡¯t been paying well enough attention, there was a firefight just a hundred meters ahead. The buzzing of the sirens and the booms from the air had distracted my ears from setting off alarm bells. ¡°By the Obelisk.¡± I swore.


    There were shouts, I could hear some of my own kind giving off chirps and squeaks in what I recognized as military shorthand. Their vocalizations were crisp and clear, but I could hear the panic in their tones. Even if I couldn¡¯t parse the meaning, the fight was going poorly for our side. I could hear death calls, pinging bullets flying off surfaces as they went wide, and the guttural calls of the enemy I¡¯d yet to see face to face. All that left me was my imagination, and it nearly seized my mind again.


    With a shuddering breath I stood up and leaped a house closer, hunching over and scurrying my way along the opposite side of the rooftops from the street, growing closer but staying well enough out of sight. I thought I was out of sight at least. By sheer bad luck or something else I heard a rocket flaring. There was a shout. ¡°Get down!¡± but before I could even think to look where it was coming from something impacted the building I stood on.


    The loss of structural integrity had caused the roof to suddenly and without mercy slant down like a slide toward the street, my hinds slipping out from under me as my fur coated rump and back made for an excellent surface to slip down on at high speed. ¡°No- no no no no!¡± I could hear my voice as I squirmed to right myself and jam my claws into the angled roof, but it was too late, all I got for my effort was the gritting sound of my claws trying to stop my momentum before I tumbled off the lip and down to the road.


    Whump. I¡¯d landed hard, ensuring bruises on my thigh and side would form soon enough. None of that was my concern though. I was on my footpaws before I¡¯d even had time to think, scrambling for the closest cover as whooping Bala¡¯ur voices slammed into my ears from not too far away. Had they enjoyed that!? I didn¡¯t even bother to look, just diving behind a chunk of the house I¡¯d just been on. There was still gunfire on both sides, but the amount of chirps I could count among my kind were dwindling. They sounded just as afraid as I felt.


    My chest was heaving again, this time from adrenaline and panic. This was the closest I¡¯d ever come to dying and I knew there was a fate worse than dying even closer on its heels. Two snapping jaws on either side of my psyche, threatening- ¡°Stop! Stop!¡± I thrust both my forepaws to my head, eyes shutting as I tried to block out all the horrible images.


    A crackling voice met my plea. ¡°...Close Air Support Briar-1 for south-southwest Barr is ready for tasking. Point me at em.¡± It sounded like a rudimentary radio device. My eyes popped open as I tried to find the source. ¡°Briar-1 for tasking. Anyone there? I¡¯ve got uhh.. only so much time.¡± I dived for the discarded speakerbox. Whoever had owned it previously mercifully wasn¡¯t in sight. They¡¯d probably ran. Hopefully.


    My own voice responded back. ¡°Yes! Yes! Uh- Briar! Please, t-t-there¡¯s a street fight. The Bala¡¯ur- they¡¯re shooting!¡± A couple horrible gut wrenching seconds, and then the voice returned, as if realizing they were dealing with someone who had no idea what they were saying. ¡°Alright, do me a favour? There should be a switch with a red dot on it, click that, and then point the top of the communicator at the ground where the Savages are.¡±


    I balked. ¡°W-why!? They¡¯ll see me!¡± The idea was anathema. Even looking in their direction would send me running for the hills all over again like a wild animal. ¡°It¡¯s a guiding system. It¡¯ll ping out your location, and show me where to bulldoze so you don¡¯t get hit. I won¡¯t know where to shoot otherwise.¡± Came the curt reply. No assurances, no pep-talk, he¡¯d just answered my question and left it up to me. How could I do this? Did I have a choice? I wanted to live. I had to.


    With a flush of unmitigated fear I breathed back. ¡°OK. I¡¯ll do it.¡± Before I scrambled my back up against the rubble I¡¯d been hiding behind, slowly scooting my way along it until the street firefight was just a few whisker lengths away. All I¡¯d have to do was poke my head out around the corner and point, right? With a monumental effort scrounged up in no small part by me convincing myself this was the only way to live I popped my head out. The sunlight made it hard to see, everything down the street was a silhouette of haze back-dropped by the bright sunrise. The Bala¡¯ur had been fighting with their backs to the sun, and we¡¯d been... Those clever bastards.


    I couldn¡¯t make their details out, but I could see the huddled cover their guns were making that racket from. I pointed best I could with only one of my eyes as the other strained shut from the light and held the trigger of the red button. A couple seconds later I heard the voice of the pilot come through. ¡°That¡¯s it. Just keep them lit up.¡±


    A whooshing noise flashed by overhead as the jet cut a T across the road, I couldn¡¯t see where it was after that, but I could hear it changing direction. My ear swivelling to track it... ¡°Alright. I¡¯d get down if I were you missy.¡± They didn¡¯t need to say it twice. I backed up and stuck the communicator into my jacket pocket. Huddling tightly with my tail curled around my front.


    Painful seconds passed. Ten... Twenty seconds. ¡°We¡¯re over-run! Flee!¡± Had come the call from one of our survivors. ¡°Scurry!¡± Another called. They¡¯d put up the fight for longer than anyone could have asked. And then- A thundering thk-thk-thk-thk-thk-thk-thk-thk noise peppered into the street, nearly deafening me as chunks of asphalt and... Something chunky and red splattered against a nearby overturned car. Whatever they¡¯d shot, they¡¯d shot a lot of it, and it was explosive.


    A few seconds later the concussive noise of solid bvrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr sounded. It took a moment, but with numb amazement I realized what it must have been. A voice crackled from my hip pocket again. ¡°Briar-1, gottem. Do me a favour and get to safety whoever you are. Good luck. -- Briar-1 is dry, returning-¡± The rest of the jargon was lost on me as I shut it off. I didn¡¯t need it attracting attention to me.


    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    On fast paws I ran my way out of cover, only chancing a look down where the Bala¡¯ur had been. The street was quiet, save for the sounds of the chaos going on in the distance. I needed to find those soldiers, they could get me to safety. ¡°H-hello? Is anyone left?¡± I called. Curse the sun, my eyes weren¡¯t built for this. When I spotted movement though... Ah the swampbrained dolts had really lost their nerve, and hadn¡¯t realized they¡¯d just been saved. I could see three or four of them retreating up the road back toward the smouldering city. I wasn¡¯t going that way.


    My ears perked, on high alert while I hunkered down by a hastily placed concrete block that had likely been used for cover. A quick look around confirmed what I¡¯d heard. There were bodies. Bodies of my kind, some of them laying slumped in the alleys on either side, one of them half buried in rubble. Feathery bodies too, too mashed by the jet to be recognizable as the enemy, and- well the blood made it hard to make out anything. My breaths came through as dry. I could feel my stomach threatening retribution if I looked too long at any one of them.


    I¡¯d still not heard any Bala¡¯ur... So I chanced to pop my head up from behind the barrier. Was that?... ¡°Are you alive?¡± I¡¯d asked outloud, jumping from behind the block and toward where the Bala¡¯ur had been. Sliding to a stop in an indent in the street that¡¯d half collapsed into the sewer system under the streets. A Cyonian lay face down, his chest moving. Ahhh ff- I could feel the shadowy grey beings in my imagination stalking up behind me, making my neck and back fur rise. Did I really have time to play nurse?


    If there were gods out there, they¡¯d have best been watching my good deed. I rolled the downed soldier over, his body armor looked like it¡¯d taken chunks of street to it from an explosion. A stitched name on the chest denoted a simple ¡°Els¡±. Besides the bleeding coming from his head from under the sturdy metal helmet though he looked fine. I didn¡¯t know how to tell if he was too hurt to wake up but... I pressed a paw to his chest. ¡°Wake up.¡± I gave him a gentle shake. All that came back was the wheeze from my forcing air out of his lungs with the push.


    ¡°Aaa- c-come on...¡± This was a death sentence to try and help, but I had to right? I wrapped my paw around his waist and hoisted him up and over my back, taking on a more semi-quadrupedal posture to help support the weight. I also happened to yoink the little sidearm out of his holster, not that I knew how to use the thing. ¡°Alright Els. Let¡¯s at least get you somewhere you won¡¯t end up eaten.¡± I muttered, beginning to carry him out of the crater he¡¯d been taking cover in... or landed in. The sewers were a non-option from what I remembered reading about the Bala¡¯ur. They¡¯d smell him a mile away with the blood in an enclosed space, and the darkness favoured their eyes as much as it did ours.


    The Bala¡¯ur had been trying to cordon off the street out into the wilderness, so... That must mean it was the good option. Luckily, I was a silver tail and this poor fellow was white tail. The difference was subtle, and most non-Cyonians never noticed the distinction because of the black-on-white or black-on-silver ringtail pattern. Silvers were known to grow a bit taller, so he was in strong paws. Comparatively.


    More minutes. His weight was beginning to tire me all over again. I¡¯d been moving almost non-stop since the start of all this and... The treeline in the far distance hadn¡¯t been growing closer. I opted to try and find some place to bunker down, at least until Els was better. I could use the rest anyway.


    A short visual search and I spied a house with an open front door, plodding my way inside and kicking the entrydoor shut behind me. ¡°Alright... Hhh... Just gonna play some house until I¡¯ve got my breath back.¡± I managed, carrying the poor guy up the thin stairway to the second floor. At the least the construction for our short species height would impede them getting up there. They¡¯d have to blow the wall out or come up a very cramped stairway to get to us.


    ________________________________


    Setting him down in a bed that had hastily been vacated by its last occupant not long ago had been easy. As had been finding some food in the fridge, which meant I was gratefully munching on a fruit off and on. The home had no power, predictably.


    Getting his helmet off and stopping the light oozing of his bleeding head had... Churned my stomach again, but I¡¯d held on despite the peachy pink of his blood. I¡¯d tied a rag ripped from a pillow case around another compacted rag to at least keep some pressure on it. I¡¯d helpfully found an electronic telescope on him too, which... He wouldn¡¯t be needing so I pocketed it.


    My mind was running the numbers. I could go now, I¡¯d gone far and beyond what anyone else would have done at a time like this. A tired sigh as I leaned up on the wall, letting my used muscles finally rest. The adrenaline, the constant stress, it¡¯d all taken a toll on me. The distant explosions, the jets, all of it had died down. Or at least the sounds of them were dampened in here enough it sounded like they¡¯d lessened. With a tired growl I flipped my tablet back out, jamming my pointer digit into it until I¡¯d scrolled to find that yes, everything was down by now. I had no connection. Cut off. In just a matter of an hour or two we were on our knees. I had to wonder if it was this bad elsewhere. Was my homeworld on fire? How was the fleet? Was help coming?...


    Tears welled, and I choked back a sob. Shit, I would have taken anyone right now to tell me it was going to be alright. Geal... You stupid twit. Why couldn¡¯t you be here? As I sat there, quietly crying with my muzzle buried in my arms I realized I was grieving for all of it. My life, my family, even Geal of all people. I¡¯d liked his company and never admitted it to myself. It felt terrible to leave that unfinished, to have never told him he was a good friend at least.


    For now the threat outside seemed far away, and all I could do was wallow in my feelings. Alone. Well mostly, Els didn¡¯t seem up for conversation.


    ________________________________


    I blinked, eyes blearily opening. Where... Oh no. I¡¯d fallen asleep, I¡¯d literally cried myself to sleep. My head snapped up and I looked around frantically. It was still daylight out, and the distant sounds of warfare hadn¡¯t stopped. ¡°I-¡± My body was standing up, having at least caught some rest after its adrenaline fuelled day so far. I checked the time, it was an hour past noon. Oh. Oh no. I mean, I felt... Less horrible after letting it all out but that lost time was not good. I reached to the military radio in my belt satchel, turning it on.


    ¡°-tomated message repeats: All ground forces from Barr are to retreat to east-town across the river. The city is lost. Orbital containment has failed. To those of you trapped within: Reports from Caldoni, Ataln and Olympia are the same. This doesn¡¯t appear to be a raid, you can¡¯t afford to bunker in place. The Bala¡¯ur are staying planetside and maintaining strategic bombardment as needed. The predators are staying. Refugee corridors west have been forced shut by-¡±


    I snapped it off before it could continue. Eyes wide with alarm I looked to my sleepy companion. If the only escape west was shut, and the only place we were still fighting was across the river... That left me little options on where I could go. Crossing a river with hunter teams around was the stupidest idea anyone could ever have. The treeline south was becoming more and more like the only option. ¡°Els, now would be a good time to wake up.¡± I said, almost more for my own sake than to actually hope it¡¯d yield anything.


    ¡°I am. Have been for a little while.¡± A dry mouthed voice came back to me. He sounded like he¡¯d been kicked in the gut, or maybe smacked in the head by concrete I supposed. Regardless, my heart jumped with relief. At least I had a soldier with me now right? He knew how to get out of here all sneaky- ¡°O-oh good! How are you feeling? Do you need water? I¡¯m Yivreen. We need to get out of here as soon as we can.¡±


    He flicked his tail dismissively at me. ¡°Not unless you¡¯re carrying me. I tried to get up. I¡¯m too dizzy to do much of anything when I move my head.¡± Came the sober response. Aah... I just couldn¡¯t get a win today could I? ¡°I can try-¡±


    Again, he waved me off. ¡°I was kidding swampfly. You¡¯ll get yourself killed trying to do that.¡± This was... not how I¡¯d planned for this to go. I¡¯d wanted guidance, a plan that wasn¡¯t just my mind blindly grasping at straws. ¡°Well, what do I do then?¡± I asked earnestly, my own voice catching on the words.


    He¡¯d sighed, a beady nocturnal eye we all carried looking back at me. ¡°You take that gun, take some of the extra bullets I have, you take your tail, and you go roof to roof until you¡¯re in the woods. Then you keep going until you¡¯re too far in for them to follow. If that broadcast was true, for some reason they aren¡¯t levelling the cities entirely. The wildlands are the safest bet you¡¯ll get. They can¡¯t climb trees as well as we can.¡±


    I locked my jaw. He was sending me away. I¡¯d been thinking of myself and how he could help me, but... He was writing himself off as dead already, and I couldn¡¯t really blame him. ¡°I¡¯ll try to find a working car first.¡± I muttered, collecting the extra ¡®mags¡¯ of bullets from him and headed out, despite his incessant protests and verbalization. ¡°I¡¯m telling you to get out of here-¡± I made sure to leave him water before I went out, for what it was worth.


    The sunlight bore down on me even as I stepped out into the back porch of the home, my form again finding a good spot for climbing up to the roof to at least get a good look around. With careful paws I was hoisting myself, aaaaand- the sight wasn¡¯t what I¡¯d hoped for. All around us gentle fires burned. The fires of the orbital bombardment had simmered, but the flames of war were everywhere. Every couple dozen seconds I could hear the quick bark of those infernally loud guns belting out, probably marking the end of another one of my people. I thought I could also hear... deeper chirps and guttural verbalization on the wind. It had to be them, communicating long distances with their disgusting language.


    With some reluctance at what I¡¯d find I flicked out the telescope, setting it to ¡®day¡¯ mode so it¡¯d dim the light of the sun for easier viewing. The sky was thick with smoke, and from what I could surmise our airforce was nowhere to be seen anymore, just a small, steady trickle of Bala¡¯ur landers from orbit touching down near the city center, with others leaving like a looping convoy. I turned the scope in the direction of east-town, the smaller half of the city on the other side of the river it was hard to make out over some of the buildings between me and there but... It looked like there were still explosive flashes, I even caught sight of a lander using its bottom mounted gun on some target I couldn¡¯t see, only for it to get nailed by a missile from the ground and tumble into the factory building under it. I¡¯d jumped a bit at the vivid show of violence, but... I was quickly finding that if I didn¡¯t start reeling my sensitivities in they¡¯d get me killed.


    ¡°Balge nashka!¡± A loud, guttural voice barked at me from the street below. It couldn¡¯t have been more than a couple houses down from where I was. My attention was suddenly not so centred on the telescope, but on jumping away from that voice to the opposite side of the roof. The raucous speech had been unmistakably Bala¡¯ur! ¡°No!¡± I shrieked. It was as if I could feel the smokey snapping jaws my mind continued to plague me with biting onto my tail, urging me to move.


    The barking retort of a gun slamming its payload toward me came, and I felt the whizzing bullets just barely graze past the fur on my back as I narrowly dodged out of sight. That had been lucky. Not that I was considering it at the time. My body jumped down into the backporch, and I was putting precious distance between me and the predators by hopping the fences over into the next street. ¡°I won¡¯t!¡± Came the senseless denial of whatever they¡¯d said from my voice.


    I thought I could hear the patrol barging through the fence I¡¯d just hopped, giving chase to me with their bigger forms. I didn¡¯t dare look. Instead my eyes were ahead, plotting an escape.


    I¡¯m sorry Els.

 2 - Qinal

    I stepped out of the room of unwashed food. My shift with the cattle having ended as my replacement took to prowling the corridors behind me. My feathered digit pressed the button to the doorway and let it slide shut, erasing the grating noises of the few creatures still in there from our journey here. Hhh... Keeping animals alive on space trips was a luxury that was only afforded to command ships, but the tradeoff of a fresher kill and meal was worth it to the frozen or preserved stuff. There was little sport to hunting and killing wild animals though, so it would never compare to what we were about to embark on. The ones who played at civilization and possessed higher thinking were infinitely more interesting. I licked my lips at the thought.


    With a scratch at the tip of my muzzle I kept walking, trying to suppress the annoyance I felt from having had to sit in there for a couple hours before getting to the actual exciting part of our duties today. The hunt, and what a glorious one it¡¯d been promised to be. We weren¡¯t hunting animals today... Well, not animals in that these ones were a bit more of a fight. Coalition hunts were always a privilege to embark upon.


    No amount of excitement could have prepared me for the undertaking the Domn had announced days ago. ¡°An end to the Cyonian resistance.¡± The Oracle had said, and she was never wrong. Came with the territory of her name I supposed. She¡¯d taken the moniker of Oracle on after her ascension to Domnitor of Az¡¯ta as a form of authority and intimidation. Any who defied one of her ¡®futures¡¯ was branded a traitor and killed.


    With steady steps my form strode into the battle bridge of ¡®Laznel¡¯s Teeth¡¯. A fairly large carrier intended for at a distance resupply and fleet support. Someone had to refit missiles on our smaller compliments out in the field after all. Already out the fore window I could see the dazzling show on display. The fleet had been engaged for a little over half an hour now, which had caused me no amount of anxiety to get off cattle watch duty... At least it fed well.


    I stepped past the captain¡¯s chair and toward the partially occupied hanger operations consoles, even as he slammed his fist into the chair arm and tore our communications operators a new hole. One benefit of being on a battle-logistics craft was that we acted as an in-between for command and control for a portion of the fleet. You got to hear all sorts of things. ¡°What do you mean our early parties are failing to land?! We¡¯ve sliced a hole a gas giant wide in their pitiful defensive ring.¡± He said, gesturing to the tactical display below the view window.


    And it was true. Thousands of red dots that denoted the defensive flotilla for Atalor were all engaged, their line having collapsed after we¡¯d brute forced thousands of lander ships and their escorts past their weak left. Causing a panic as some retreated to try and intercept, which we¡¯d easily taken advantage of. Perhaps if they¡¯d still had contact with their colonies and the rest of their ships engaged in a feinted raid on Illis-03 they might have held us, like they had in the past. The foolish prey creatures had been midway through refitting a key communication buoy in deep space when our cunning Domn had it destroyed. Ensuring the only way they got help was if they outran our FTL blockers out of system. So far none had made it past our ships prowling on the outside of the defensive belt, at least I presumed since we hadn¡¯t posted any scouts outside the star¡¯s gravity.


    I pulled from my musing at the sound of Captain Vike¡¯s question getting an answer. ¡°The Cyonians have in atmosphere manned interceptors.¡± Came the contemptuous but restrained and respectful tone of the subordinate. It prompted an annoyed puff of air from Vike, a quick back and forth around the ship ensued.


    ¡°Tactical! Anti-matter on their airports.¡± Came the demand. ¡°We¡¯re not getting anything from sensors!¡± Which in turn prompted a response from sensors. ¡°We cannot find them, the vegetation and non-sapient life is thick on the surface, and they¡¯ve concealed their takeoff zones-¡± A roar of authority from Vike to shut down the infernal bickering between all the stations. He didn¡¯t care if our lifesign sensors weren¡¯t working, he wanted it done. ¡°They¡¯re just prey, they aren¡¯t clever enough to hide them for long! Hanger Station!¡± I stiffened, having been singled out by my commander¡¯s fury and rage. Trying to pretend I¡¯d not been staring at the tactical display I turned to him with utmost respect in my voice. ¡°Yes, captain?¡±


    ¡°Recall and retask our fighters, they¡¯re to break from void combat and escort landers. And priority to shoot down those primitive buckets.¡± He nearly hissed on the end of the order. I nodded. ¡°Yes.¡± Came my curt response. No need to engage in more words than were necessary when Captain Vike¡¯s mood was sour. I set about my task with a hunter¡¯s efficiency. First typing, and then tasking the order to our engaged fighters. This station was a job even a juvenile could do, and so I¡¯d signed up for it between my core duties as a way to learn from the minds here on the bridge. Oracle would not miss those fighters, I thought to myself. Her fury and cunning would inevitably destroy the Cyonian¡¯s pitiful navy without our help.


    As I went about my duties my mind wandered to a place of solitude, to simmer in my thoughts and concentrate on the hunt itself. A gentle sigh escaped me as I pondered. The Cyonians, had they been hunters themselves, they would have been close to being equals with us. They had endured far longer than they had any right to these last fifty years. They¡¯d suffered on the front line of our attacks, and of the ones we interrogated when captured... Well. This planet of Atalor, it was a regional power in the Coalition according to them. I could see it too. A number of lander ships had returned from their missions in atmosphere to our hangers for repairs. There was battle scarring, and damage that was far and above what you¡¯d expect from a planetary defence force. The Coalition wasn¡¯t suited to in-atmosphere combat usually. These Cyoanians were one of a choice few exceptions. Perhaps only beaten out by the Isstal and perhaps the Trikua, though the latter was too far removed from our region of space to ever taste their abilities. Perhaps if a full scale conflict ever came about I¡¯d have the privilege to meet them?


    My mind wandered back to the planet out the fore window. It would be amazing to get on the ground, the tropical atmosphere, the wide open forests and woods, the plains and hills... Wide breaths of land uninhabited for a Bala¡¯ur to be on a hunt with their pack, or simply enjoying the wilds as they were intended. It¡¯d almost be paradise compared to all but the most reserved spots on Pamant.


    I thanked the ancestors silently that I¡¯d been born into the bloodline I had. Having been chosen as one of the first to sample its beauty once we¡¯d pounded out resistance was a privilege onto itself. My time since ascending from whelp to serving in the fleet could be measured in months, but here I was! On the frontline of a blow that would shatter the entire sector¡¯s ability to resist our hunts!


    ________________________________


    I cursed the Ancestors silently as I held my hand to my right eye, the bleeding had stopped, but the throbbing to my skull had not. A blow incurred by my commanding hunter, as we rocked about in the lander. ¡°-and as Qinal has so helpfully demonstrated, talk of bloodlines is cheap in my hunting party! You will keep Oracle¡¯s orders in mind, you will follow me, and you will respect the party system.¡± Verner, the captain¡¯s offspring. I winced at the memory of her whipping her arm around to slam my head minutes before with that backhand. She¡¯d tried to humiliate me when I¡¯d come aboard, and I¡¯d tried to rebuke her with my ancestors, and their many deeds. Did the hypocrite just presume she¡¯d gotten a hunt command on her father¡¯s ship by circumstance of her cunning?


    I seethed, quietly. My arms working at the firearm strapped partially to my chest. It looked to be a standard make, albeit shortened for more urban settings... Or perhaps the tight fighting you found in dense woodland and jungle. A snort came from me at the thought. The Cyons were said to be twiggy little things. Tree climbers. No good, powerful species ever ascended from tree climbing as their primary survival method. It was an inherently cowardly way to evolve.


    I may bear some respect for what they could have been had they been hunters themselves, but in person they¡¯d be like most Coalition prey. Terrified, weak, and occasionally tasty. It was easy to be brave when behind the controls of a ship, or a plane, or a gun emplacement. Even for them.


    Thankfully, despite the prey¡¯s tenacity for hiding their air assets in mountains and deep forests we had successfully secured the airspace around a number of their cities. The stubborn arboreals certainly had a shocking amount of air power, and the only reason they had been forced to ground it in our target zones was from dedicating armoured fighter-bombers from the void fleet above. Perhaps wisely or from cowardice they were unwilling to attack our landing zones now that we¡¯d shown our teeth in force.


    I found myself comparing their behaviours to that which I¡¯d studied of other Coalition species. They were just as weak and snivelling as any of them, but... Something here was different. The usual disarray of their ground forces the second we¡¯d hit their soil like other worlds had never come. Even now I could hear a nearby communicator picking up signals from the first wave trying to clear out the less significant suburbs around the silly slab of concrete these creatures called a city. If this had been another homeworld all cohesion among them would have broken down by now.


    I was broken from my musings by a guttural growl from our commander. Her index digit pointing to the exit door of the lander. ¡°Thirty.¡± She intoned. I reached my claw up, grasping at the shuddering handle on the craft¡¯s interior to steady myself as I stood up preemptively. My party of seven standing with me as we all made ourselves ready. I could hear two of them off to the side conversing in old Ta¡¯alish, the prospect of hunting in an urban setting was going to be fun seemed to be the gist of it. The clicks and chirps that made up Ta¡¯alish was admittedly lost on me sometimes, and I didn¡¯t have my translator engaged... Hh- My hand went down to my belt and clicked the small box on, hearing the ping in my ear piece alongside the radio channel.


    Moments passed... And then I felt the craft touch down, and the cabin was lit up as sunlight poured through the gap of the exit, instantly my nose was smothered in the exciting smell of fear, blood, and smouldering ruins. We stepped out, my own claws hitting the packed dirt of the side street before the lander shut its door. The pilot and accompanying crew would keep the engines warm, and the top mounted guns manned to prevent retaliation to its presence. It¡¯d be waiting here for us when we returned with snackfood and intelligence. Now that the opening waves had softened the city it was time to actually get a bearing on what we were dealing with.


    This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.


    Verner spoke up now as we found ourselves prowling through one of the many streets, the sun high above us. ¡°Listen. We¡¯re tasked with finding why one of the early hunting parties that made it to surface but went quiet.¡± She surmised simply, glaring at me in particular just a moment as she took to leading from the front. Each of us took a position around or behind her lead, moving in semi-independent searching sweeps. I took to walking the side as close to the buildings as I could, taking pulls of air for any scents that weren¡¯t stagnant. Unfortunately, this place was teeming with so many scents it was hard to discern much of anything. At least for now.


    As we moved deeper, I could see simple street signs, my translator figuring them to those amusing names like ¡°East Pawville Drive¡± or ¡°Branching Street¡±. I felt myself working my jaw, I was getting hungry. The food in this place though had mostly fled, it seemed.


    There was the occasional sign a particularly ravenous party of our own had slain and gobbled the majority of a caught meal on the spot, but the scraps left behind were already being picked at by insects, and not very appetizing for my taste. Raw meat could only be appetizing to the first wavers, really. They were low on the rungs in the mental department. You only volunteered for first duty if you were desperate to sink your teeth into something besides the farmed or wild caught stuff. A slave to your instincts.


    You¡¯d have to be desperate for the rush of a hunt against a real threat that could fight back. There was something tantalizing to it, of course. Otherwise we wouldn¡¯t all be here. Hunting something that could put up an intelligent resistance instead of some wild beast. No sport or thrill in killing a Zelabeast from four hundred meters away with a bullet when it didn¡¯t even know the applied sciences of a wheel. Only the most demented of our kind would find killing animals anything more than necessary for eating.


    ¡°How far in before we see the piled dead?¡± I mused. There must have been plenty of leftovers by now, yes? I could sear myself a quick munch to hold over until we actually got to the real stuff.


    One of the others spoke up, her scarred brow denoting her seniority through sight alone. ¡°Choke points, deep city... Places where many of them had lived. We won¡¯t be finding many here. Why? A little over-eager are we? Don¡¯t want to hunt one down yourself?¡± She motioned the point of her gun to the residential area. Its density was that that each dwelling was not more than meters apart, but I took their point. There were no bomb drops here, the beings that had lived here had had a chance to escape before we¡¯d landed.


    The ambient warmth of the planet was welcoming to my feathering. A bit... humid for my own preferences, but the prospect of staying here longer term was a good one. My claw tripped at something on the ground, my snout turning as my eyes bore down on what it was. I blinked, then sniffed.


    It had been a pockmarked explosion into the road about a couple hand lengths across. I smelled dried blood, our blood, my eyes turning to look around. There were other marks. I gave a quiet growl to alert those around before moving slower, more deliberately. Up the street for a long stretch there was nothing but those little pockmarks, hundreds of them. Kicked up pieces of road, and more importantly what looked like red meat chunks. The remains of my kind. What kind of weapon had done this? With stealthy steps I stalked up the road in the shadows, keeping my eyes on the front, though Coalition weren¡¯t nearly as predisposed to ambush tactics as we, the possibility was never zero, and my nerves at this being my first outing on anything even approaching a raid had the best of me. My nostrils flared... Something was nearby.


    It was as we moved in silence that I spotted one of those creatures, their weak frame was peering through what must have been some sort of magnifying device. It was clearly distracted, and I thought I spied on its side a firearm, keeping it in mind as I pointed a claw to signal to my hunting party, and then levelled my rifle, lining up the shot to take it out before it even knew what had happened. Just as I¡¯d been taught. As I went to pull the trigger on the perfect shot though- Verner shouted out from beside me. ¡°No, silver-tail!¡± Alerting the blasted thing as it scampered. A pathetic squeal that translated to a ¡°No!¡± in my ear. Aghk! By the Ancestors! I pulled the trigger, but a feathery hand on my gun pushed it to the side, making my bullets go wide by precious claw lengths that allowed my quarry to disappear from view.


    ¡°It¡¯s a silver-tail!¡± She affirmed again, already running after it. ¡°Did you not hear Oracle¡¯s general instruction? Captured silver-tails are worth accolades beyond just a snack! They grow meatier, catch it alive!¡± I hissed back at her, but a warning glare told me if I pushed it my other eye would receive a bruise as well. Just why was the Oracle interested in keeping them alive anyway? For planned hunts of her own? To keep them from extinction? Tch...


    I began to run with her, intent on capturing it myself then. If she wanted to collect tails as trophies to show off to the captain, I would at least put the effort in to scoop them out from under her. That creature would be mine. Even as she was approaching the gate of the high fence separating the street from the backyard of the home I instead opted to charge, bashing through the shoddy woodwork with my shoulder. Kkra-kss! As I came out the other end, my eyes fixing right on the fleeing form. Suddenly... with my eyes dialing in on the fleeing creature and my feathers picking up with my own speed it made me realize just how much more of a thrill this was than I thought. Nothing about the simulators or training had prepared me for this instinctive feeling in my body. So this was why we hunted. This... Was intoxicating.


    I was spiteful in the moment, I wanted to refuse to see the silver in this creature¡¯s tail. But... It did appear to be one of the silvers.


    I saw the evasive form claw up the back fence into an alleyway then ran between the two rows of houses with back access out of their yards. My shoulder ached from the first run, but I couldn¡¯t afford to let this creature escape, and I was already ahead of my hunt lead. A squeal came from it in babbling speak, before my translator informed me it¡¯s meaning. ¡°I won¡¯t!¡±


    I felt my pounding legs instead leap the height of the fencing, my foot paw catching on the top lip as I continued into a stride to drop down onto the other side. Gaining precious seconds on my quarry. My form solidly rocking into the opposing side of the alley from my carried momentum. I hissed after them, throwing my body into a deep forward lean and leaping after the Cyon intent on trapping it in my jaws. One bite and it¡¯d be over, our saliva made certain of that.


    It wouldn¡¯t die if I was ¡®gentle¡¯, probably. Just as I was on the precipice of snagging the infernal creature two palms slammed into my back and yanked me back, my jaws snapping into empty air. ¡°I said don¡¯t kill it!¡± Came the call from my assailant. Verner again. I felt myself hit the ground from the force of her interruption.


    Before I could breathe my defence and defiance she soundly kicked my jaw from my prone position, and continued the chase on her own. I snarled, if we didn¡¯t already have prey to take out our instincts on I would have challenged her right to lead right then and there. I could feel blood tingling in the back-right of my mouth where a tooth had punctured my gums. So be it. I stood up defiantly and again went to chase at the two of them.


    They¡¯d both suddenly turned into an alley running horizontal to myself, off to the right and between what looked like a more squared building for some sort of business. As I skidded around the corner a couple seconds later I saw that it broke out into a patch of ¡®garden¡¯ for decoration in front of the ¡®Grocery Store¡¯. Feed shop would have been more appropriate, judging by the overabundance of grains I could smell wafting off it.


    Our hunt commander had trapped them, more or less, after the short run. The smaller, terrified Cyon was up on one of the branches of a flat leaved tree with few handholds. It was clear it wouldn¡¯t have made it much further before tiring. Having been forced to take refuge where we could eventually get it. From what it sounded like over my live communicator the other five in our landing party had taken to examining the corpses and fighting scene I¡¯d been investigating before spotting this miscreant. Although a couple alarm calls in shorthand from another hunting party drawing closer seemed to be on the air around us in the opposing direction we¡¯d come from.


    The Cyon was too busy screwing its eyes shut, shivering as it held onto the branch for its life.


    Verner was growling and swishing her tail up at it like that would persuade it to come down. ¡°We can just shoot it down.¡± I heard myself say. ¡°Enough from you!¡± She pointed a claw at me. ¡°You¡¯re off my hunting party when this is over!¡± She hissed warning at me to stay back. With a defiant march forward I felt my chest feathers puffing out in challenge, legs bundling up with muscles intended for ambush and pursuit. I leaped, and felt my hands let off my gun, instead grasping deep jagged clenches around the thin trunk of the tree, alongside my foot talons doing the same as I began to slowly and noisily climb up it. If this had been a thicker tree I¡¯d have fared better, unfortunately the trunk was too thin.


    The entire thing shook with my weight, and I heard a squeal from above, paying it no mind. ¡°P-please! Geal! Anyone! Leave me be!¡± It was bad form to acknowledge prey speak unless you were speaking to it intentionally, so I blocked out its cries.


    Piercing eyes belonging to Verner were following me right up the tree. ¡°Are you a fool?¡± She grabbed at my ankle before I made it too far and yanked me right back down. I felt my grips fail and a moment later my body hit the dirt. My blood was boiling by now, she¡¯d ruined my catch twice by now, bloodied my eye, drew yet more in my jaw. Who was she to treat me like this? Her position and her strength were a sham! I shoved back with an amount of strength I hadn¡¯t known I had, my tormentor stumbling back with the brunt of the sudden insubordination and falling into the tree. Her larger body audibly cracked the thin trunk of it when her full weight fell upon it.


    The whole thing tumbled almost in slow motion as more and more of the flimsy twig cracked at the base. My eyes locked on my prey again. Already I was leaping to be there when it landed, and yet again Verner was already back up. Throwing me down on my back and trying to pin me with her jaw around my neck, my eyes and head stuck eating the gravel of the road.


    The tree fell with a slam beside our heads, but I was too preoccupied to try and blindly grab for the prey. I could hear it giving a high pitched bark of alarm, scrambling paws and- Three snapping booms sounded from my right side, the unmistakable discharge of a firearm even to my inexperienced ears. The loud noises clapped into my head from mere clawlengths away.


    I felt Verner slouch over me, and a horrible stinging pain had slammed into my right shoulder from- somewhere. The gun! It had had a gun! In my rage I¡¯d- I shoved my incapacitated leader off of me, and rolled over to get my bearings, binocular eyes staring as a terrified Cyon was already hightailing it at full speed into the second story window of the prey feed shop. Its scrambling paws hauling it over the lip. I tried to aim my rifle to put the thing down but- my shoulder reported back I wasn¡¯t raising my shooting arm. ¡°Gnaa!¡± I roared in frustration and pain. A few more seconds and I could hear it leaping out the back window.


    That was a lost cause, there was no way I was catching it now. I wheeled on Verner. ¡°Your foolish behaviour has ruined the hunt!¡± Came my piercing yell. In my enraged state I kicked them over to face belly down. It was only then I realized... Her left eye was gone. She wasn¡¯t breathing. The panic shots from the silver tail had...


    Oh no. Oh no no. My mind reeled. Just who would be blamed for this? I was frozen in place. Ancestors... I¡¯d- we¡¯d- it wasn¡¯t my fault. It couldn¡¯t be.

 3 - Yivreen

    Hours had passed. My mind was still reeling from the back to back encounters with the Bala¡¯ur. I¡¯d found myself taking to the far side of the commercial area I¡¯d been chased to by the predators. I couldn¡¯t even remember how many there were. I just... the gunshots. My head shook, and I banished it from my mind. Once I was out of here there would be time enough to think back on it.


    My eyes had adjusted to the preferred darker lighting now that the sun had gone down. My foot paws ached, tail drooped to drag behind me. My mind was still weary and tired. And... My heart was heavy. But I was almost there. I¡¯d been walking for a while after getting my bearings. Another deep breath and I took a look around myself, letting my wide eyes take it all in as I swivelled my head to see behind my blind spot. Since my accidental stumbling into Bala¡¯ur twice in a row I took things a lot slower now, and kept my ears perked. The barbarians were quieter than I¡¯d thought they¡¯d be when they stalked for us.


    A couple two story shops, all mashed together wall to wall, were down the road on one side. On the other side was the remains of a tree park that looked to have a crashed lander streaked across it, with a huge impact line of kicked up dirt. I tried to ignore the bodies of my own kind I was wandering past as I went. By now my mind had almost numbed out to all of it. I¡¯d already lost what food I¡¯d eaten earlier when I passed by a checkpoint that had been manned by our local security forces. It¡¯d clearly been overrun, and all the... blood. Obelisk protect me.


    There was the occasional spotting of another one of my own kind, or even another Coalition species but... None of them seemed interested in coming to say hi. I didn¡¯t blame them. No safety in numbers right now, right? Just a bigger collective target.


    And Els... Hh- I¡¯d not gone back for him, not even dared try. I just had to hope I¡¯d done enough to conceal him, stop the bleeding, and allow him to take care of himself well enough to escape when he could move. I desperately wanted to go back, to try, but every time I¡¯d given it a shot my legs would freeze before I could take a step back. Every nerve in my body was unwilling to confront what I knew was lurking there.


    I shuddered. ¡°S-sswamp-faced predator.. ferals!¡± I really needed to work on my muttered insults in times of stress.


    With torpid realization, I found my left paw hitting on earthy dirt instead of pavement. I looked down, then up at the quietly chittering woodland, and the dirt carved path leading deeper into it that marked the southern reaches inland. This way had been my first choice, and now it was my only choice now that north was a smouldering ruin, west was cut off, and east was a river and fighting. Still... Headed this way meant no civilization for nights and nights of walking. Outside of the occasional mining town, ranger¡¯s watch, or lodges at least. Well- probably a lot more than that, but I¡¯d only come through this territory by vehicle to go to the more abandoned outposts deep inside from our earlier years. Most of our cities were coastal or upriver, and so could be accessed through sea, air, or rail.


    ¡°Hhhhh...¡± I could still hear some of the increasingly distant booms and thunders from deep in east town. And when I looked in that direction I thought I saw little flashes on the twilight smeared horizon every so often. ¡°Well. Let¡¯s just do it then.¡± I muttered. Stepping into the woods and already searching the surrounding trees to see a good climb point. My eyes were skyward, and the canopy was already thickening as I moved deeper.


    It took a minute or two, but a good, thick trunk wide enough and with a couple downed branches still partly attached to their higher growing points was my safe bet. With some amount of trepidation I went down on my fores and began climbing up one particularly safe one. One paw in front of the other with my hunched posture. Up, up, up, and the further from the ground I got the better my sense of security from any potential hunters.


    I could almost feel a gentling of my mood as I found myself- well- up where my kind had belonged when we were hunted by the local fauna. It took a minute or so before I breached up into the depths of the thicker branches that made up the proper canopy. Up here it¡¯d be hard to spot me from below at night unless I was moving, or too exposed.


    Admittedly... I didn¡¯t climb in the wild like this very often. It had been a pastime of mine when I was young, but moving to the inner city had changed that over to the climbways above the roads.


    With my trepidation slowly leaving me with each planted paw though I found myself getting into it again, and took my first leap to catch at the branches of another tree.


    ________________________________


    A couple hours more, and I was starting to feel like I was really in the clear. There had been signs of others fleeing into the woods too. Dozens of paw prints left in the dirt below, or smells on the wind of my own kind. I had no doubt there must have been hundreds, if not thousands that had reached out here.


    I hopped a branch, my eyes catching on light deeper in the woods. ¡°Mmh?¡± I heard my own voice report back in inquisitive curiosity. We didn¡¯t need light in these conditions, so that left maybe the Bala¡¯ur?


    But it was a flickering light. Fire. My eyes widened. Were they burning us out? But no. It¡¯d have been a wall of flames. I found myself slow crawling along a slender branch and plopping on over to an adjacent one across to get closer. Once I was within shouting range I could hear the crackling, and my eyes spotted what was causing the flames. A truck on the dirt path I¡¯d been staying adjacent to from above. It¡¯d crashed into a particularly large tree and was kicking up a fuel fire it seemed. Though... I thought I could spy something between it and the tree. Wedged like a- my nose picked up the smell of burning flesh.


    I put my paw to my nose. ¡°Hhr-¡± and before I knew it my stomach was emptying out what was left inside it. The acidic bile burning my throat as I audibly coughed it up and out in a few little gasps. ¡°F-ffuh..¡± It was a Bala¡¯ur corpse, judging by the shape I¡¯d gleamed. I wasn¡¯t going to look much harder after the realization though. Whoever had been driving it must have been panicking, or tried to hit it or- I couldn¡¯t even guess.


    ¡°H-Hey. Who¡¯s up there?¡± Came a pitched voice. I gasped, snapping my gaze down toward where it¡¯d come from. That tone couldn¡¯t have possibly been from one of them.


    ¡°Hello? I¡¯m Yivreen.¡± I was letting my forelimb claws drag on the bark of the trunk, and my legs moving in tandem to the controlled descent with a reverse wall climbing posture. ¡°Are you hurt?¡± Came my voice.


    It was a women¡¯s voice, from what I could guess. Thankfully, by the time I was halfway down I saw her peer out from a den between two larger roots on the tree¡¯s base. ¡°Keick.¡± They returned.


    As I drew closer I could see that thankfully she seemed fine enough. Tumbled fur locks haphazard around her body, dirt smeared in places, and eyes looking like she¡¯d been through the same horrors I had. Finally, my paws planted on the ground next to her and with a careful lean I looked at the lower half of her form tucked into the hiding spot in the tree. Unharmed! Whew! And from the length of her ear fur she was indeed a lady. ¡°Why are you hiding in there? Up top would be safer.¡± The relief to see another of my kind that wasn¡¯t a corpse or avoiding me was almost enough to recover my mood from my lost lunch.


    Her mouth nervously twitched. ¡°T-the aah. The crash.¡± Keick¡¯s body language told me she was relieved to have any sort of friendly face, shaken up as she was. To tell the truth... after Els I was too. In both regards. ¡°I was shocked, tired. I had to find someplace to just-¡± She shook her head, grasping both her paws to hold her head. Big mood, I felt it too. I¡¯d been more or less away and running since... last dawn? A bit before that? I¡¯d had a sleep of some kind when I¡¯d grabbed Els but- my mind was getting away from itself again.


    With a concerted effort I offered a paw. ¡°Here, cmon. We need to keep going. Just because the featherbacks haven¡¯t gotten here yet doesn¡¯t mean they won¡¯t soon.¡± The presence of that burning flesh told me that if there was one, there could be more. They came in packs usually. If they were prowling the forests I¡¯d been smart to stick to the trees.


    It took coaxing, but me and Keick had climbed up, me sticking behind her while watching the shaky limbed climber. This was good. If I had a partner at least one of us could sleep while the other kept watch.


    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    She spoke to me as we reached the canopy branches. ¡°Are you a soldier? The gun-¡± She flicked her tail to indicate it. The idea made me balk a moment, did I look like one? Not really!.. Right?


    ¡°Hah, no, no. I ah- I borrowed this, then its owner gave it to me.¡± I responded in truth. I looked down at the tool still half showing in the holster I had it in. Just the idea of pulling it out again made my paw feel like hot iron in my mind. I could feel the memory washing back-


    ________________________________


    ¡°P-please! Geal! Anyone!¡± The shadowy Bala¡¯ur in my mind were laughing at me, even as the actual ones below bellowed and growled at me. They¡¯d gone to climb the tree, and I¡¯d nearly fallen from the shaking. Only just holding on with my paws wrapped around the branch as I hung from it from all fours. They were gripping harder than I could ever recall in my life. I hadn¡¯t dared open my eyes to look, there had to be at least four of them!


    More angry chirps and barks between them all and- This time they succeeded. The tree was swaying, crack as the whole trunk crumpled under their assault. Why didn¡¯t they just shoot me!? Did they want to eat me alive!? Or do something even more horrible?! I-I couldn¡¯t let that happen. As I¡¯d fallen finally my eyes were forced open, a paw scrambling for the gun. I- still didn¡¯t know how to use it but by the Obelisk I wouldn¡¯t go! They couldn¡¯t take me!


    I crashed to the ground on my hinds, whining from the painful bruising I¡¯d incurred from the falling house. ¡°D-die!¡± I squeaked out. I aimed the barrel vaguely into the fearful miasma my brain conjured around their horrifying figures. But- it wasn¡¯t going off! My paws fought with the firearm, all my attention on it as I scrambled back and away from them- pop! Pop pop! As they thundered out. My off paw had clicked some metal bit that had let the trigger pulls finally work. I heard a grunt of pain, my eye caught red blood from one of them unmoving, and suddenly I remembered myself. Nothing had pounced me, I wasn¡¯t surrounded. Run! Run!


    ________________________________


    I blinked away the brief flash of memory. ¡°It saved my life in the city though. I think. I might have killed one.¡± I murmured the last of that, unsure. Had I killed? Had I really done it myself? I hadn¡¯t even really been aiming beyond vaguely at them, just.. fumbling with it to make it work, and I¡¯d prevented whatever horrifying plans they¡¯d had for me. My mind seemed to refuse to let me ever look a Bala¡¯ur dead on. And the ones in my mind¡¯s eye were like evil spirits, feeding off my despair and fear. Was that normal, to have those? I felt a bit of moisture in my eyes, and... I let the thought go.


    Keick was settled to sit with her legs bundled under her, looking at me while her fores held for balance on the branch. She was as much a natural as I was. It took a bit of practice for those that¡¯d never tried it, but it was rare to find a Cyonian who hadn¡¯t climbed a bit in their life.


    It was probably part of why we¡¯d been so insistent on keeping our woodlands from being burned during our early years with the Coalition uplift teams. Why those zealots had been allowed to handle our uplift was a mystery to me, but others hadn¡¯t had to deal with their pyromaniac streak.


    I was brought back to the present by her voice. ¡°You killed one of those things?¡± She breathed back, a glimmering beady eye flicking down to the wreckage below. ¡°I... suppose that makes two of us.¡±


    I felt a small smile, despite my own confused emotions. I¡¯d never wanted to be a killer, but the joke made me feel a little better. ¡°Yes. It does I guess huh?¡± I offered a paw on her shoulder, giving it a reassuring rub before pulling back. ¡°Listen Keick, I¡¯m headed inland. The west is cut off, and crossing the river this close to the city is a death sentence. I think I can find my way back to one of the old outposts dotted in the mountains.¡± I flicked my ear in the general direction. I¡¯d be hard pressed to remember the way from memory, and while not taking the dirt paths and roads directly. But... A couple nights journey and we¡¯d have shelter. If I could find it without the help of our geo-location network. ¡°I¡¯ve been to one particular one a few times for overday stays. So there¡¯s a cot and some camp out supplies. Wanna come with me? I have this-¡±


    I tugged at the communication device I¡¯d gotten off the street and clicked it on. Swapping off the signal that was just repeating the same message I¡¯d heard lastday until something crackled in. It sounded like a stern feminine voice on the other end.


    ¡°-tens of thousands of people relying on that route. You¡¯ll hold it until the beasts are at your throat do you hear me!? Kill the feathernecks!¡± I¡¯d... never heard such fierce determined speech in my days in the city, but the tough talk coming from my kind didn¡¯t shock me. Our reputation among the Coaltion wasn¡¯t quite on the level of the Trikua¡¯s aggression, but when you got a Cyonian with a stiff lip, well- you got these sorts.


    ¡°B-but they¡¯re nearly on us! We¡¯ll be overrun! Killed! Eaten! We¡¯ve got hundreds on optics! They have shuttle support.¡± Came back the terrified voice.


    ¡°Your reinforcement are enroute already, you¡¯ll hold there until they arrive or a grow-in collapses the whole thing and you into the river. That bridge will not be captured. If you leave you¡¯ll doom those refugees. Are you a herd protector or a quivering Zenis?¡± Who¡¯s side was he on? That was a harsh question. I could entirely empathize with the fighters on the bridge. The idea of so many teeth bearing down... I¡¯d have wanted to high tail it too.


    ¡°S-s-standard Coalition doctrinal tactics highlights that-¡±


    She¡¯d cut him off over the channel. ¡°I know what the Obelisk damned book says, ignore the Founder drivel and defend your position. They¡¯re happy to give everyone an excuse to run, but this is my planet as much as it is yours. If you leave, I¡¯ll stuff you in a cold, dark cell the rest of your greying days. Now kindly stop using this channel to spread panic.¡±


    That hadn¡¯t been what I¡¯d expected to hear over the communicator when I was tuning it around. I flicked it off again. It did explain why resistance had been as stiff as it had been here so far. Whoever was on the city area channels was really- really insistent. I looked up at Keick with a blink blink of surprise. ¡°Ah- yeah so I have a- a communicator for the military.¡± I said. ¡°I think it only works on local networks though, I¡¯ve never picked up anything on it from anything other than local command or one particular pilot.¡±


    She nodded. Having listened to my pitch and- the surprisingly aggressive message over the radio. ¡°Ah..¡± She looked down at the totalled vehicle she¡¯d made it this far in. ¡°Yeah. That¡¯d be a good idea.¡± The affirmative from her ringed tail bobbing behind her. ¡°I was hoping to make it to the ranger¡¯s lodge across the river through one of the back bridges, but from the sounds of it on that-¡± She tapped the box. ¡°They¡¯re already across, the only bridge I can think is so key is-¡±


    ¡°The grav rail for the trains.¡± I finished, we both quieted. So the battle for east-town was lost. They had the entire city at their mercy and then some. At least, anyone who hadn¡¯t already died or escaped. ¡°Do you know why they haven¡¯t bombed more?¡± I asked suddenly, it¡¯d been eating at me for a while now. I indicated with a tail point we should get moving and went to lead the two of us along.


    I could hear her paws behind me, matching my set pace. Her smaller form wasn¡¯t uncommon for me, I was used to being a couple inches over the majority white-tail population. Just came with the territory of the silver sheen in my tail. A subtle but present difference to the keen eyed. Her voice sounded thoughtful. ¡°I... I¡¯ve been laying in that hole for a while friend, I could only guess.¡±


    ¡°Guess then!¡± I looked back with a little friendly flick of my ear. My journalistic nose liked a bit of unfounded conjecture, and it was something to occupy the mind while we moved. I reached into my waist pack, pulling one of the dried fruits and some nuts I¡¯d pilfered in town and began eating some of them on the move.


    ¡°Hmh.¡± Her hum came through, and with a little hop she filled the gap between our two branches. By now the fire was well out of sight behind us. ¡°So... From my understanding they only bombed the city centre to rubble right?¡±


    ¡°Mostly. I think I saw a couple more hit further toward the docks. So... Probably the centre and more around it.¡± I tried to put aside the sickness I was feeling, speaking like this about so many of the dead. I¡¯d already emptied out my stomach so I doubted I was going to get more than a heave and the food I¡¯d just downed, but I restrained it anyway. Just... think of the practical, not the life loss.


    ¡°Yeah... So they must mean to do something other than eradicate everything.¡± I paused a paw when I heard her mention it. That made sense, and this was the first chance I¡¯d really had to rationally mull it over in my head. ¡°And they¡¯re fighting instead of just raiding...¡± A protracted ground conflict to capture city centres was... not something heard of since the first and second Coalition wars.


    What was the reason someone would want a planet intact like this? If they¡¯d just wanted to capture the mess of us like the barbaric predators they were they¡¯d have just done it and then bombed more by now. It was well known you had two fates if you were caught. Either you were eaten, or you were taken. ¡°Do you think they want to colonize Atalor?¡± I asked with some level of doubt.


    I stopped, not hearing my companion respond or feeling her weight shifting the branch. My head turned so my left eye could see behind me. She had stopped when I¡¯d mentioned a colony, shivering in place in fear. ¡°N-nn..¡± She murmured. It was like some ghost was trying to shut her up. ¡°Nn- A hhh-h-hunting ground?¡± She asked. My eyes widened.


    Suddenly, I hated my inquisitive brain. Asking questions aloud had yielded a horrifying result. There was no way! It wasn¡¯t- No! ¡°They couldn¡¯t. They can¡¯t. This is Atalor, it¡¯s ours! It¡¯s not a hunting resort for their...¡± But... What was stopping them? Most worlds that fell to them were hunted until they¡¯d had their fill, and then bombed into a dust bowl if they were particularly unhappy with the locals. That¡¯s what everyone had been taught. The food was already here when they¡¯d arrived, so... maybe they planned on inhabiting this place.


    I just had to hope it was just a scarily convincing non-truth. The idea they were more than just staying but that they were settling was terrifying.

 4 - Yivreen

    Two nights had passed. Well, more like the rest of the one where I¡¯d found Keick under the tree and then one more night after that. Since we¡¯d partnered up I¡¯d been able to sleep soundly through shifts during the day. We opted to stay up in the trees while we rested. One of us would be watching the other, and our surroundings while the other used the sheet we¡¯d recovered from a raided cabin to cover themselves and their eyes to get some sleep.


    Keick and I had learned a bit about each other. She was an accountant for one of the parts factories downtown. Apparently it synthesized some key component for manufacturing space ship alloys. I had to admit, as far as war industry jobs went it sounded pretty lame, but she had been well paid. When the bombing had started she¡¯d been in the suburb I¡¯d passed through to get to the woods. She... she¡¯d left people behind too, from the sounds of it. I didn¡¯t pry.


    It¡¯d been a long journey, and foraging for food had been a necessity. Going down to the forest floor to scrounge berry bushes, finding wild nuts, or refill water from flowing creeks and streams. We¡¯d always considered these woodlands a safe place, but now... the introduction of the extra-terrestrial predators and their hunt for us, plus the presumed collapse of our ranger institutions had left these wildlands open to dangerous fauna native to our planet that would have been kept from here otherwise. I had no doubt the further we¡¯d go in, the more likely we¡¯d finally spot one.


    I¡¯d let Keick fiddle with the communicator a bit. She¡¯d been able to figure out that the active frequencies were the city defense network, and intermittently others would pop up for ¡®munitions drop missions¡¯ like the one I¡¯d used, presumably after having been assigned it on one of the few still active main channels. It¡¯d almost been heartening to hear some of the voices on it while we travelled, it meant we weren¡¯t alone. That we were still fighting. Even if the news had become increasingly dreary...


    There had been no word over if the Bala¡¯ur were setting up any facilities on the planet. So our mutual theory of the place becoming a hunting colony wasn¡¯t confirmed, or denied. I tried not to linger on that particular topic though. The idea of my kind, or me, stuck on our own world in the reaches of the wilderness waiting to die by teeth, claws, knives, and all other manner of hunting- it was painful beyond words to even consider. And... we didn¡¯t know much about what they did to the captives they kept alive.


    When I¡¯d awoken from my sleep shift this dusk Keick had been shaking me lightly. ¡°Yiv, Yiv! The signals. I haven¡¯t heard anything for hours.¡±


    That hadn¡¯t been good news, and upon my own useless investigation it was true. The communicator certainly still had power enough to last for weeks, but I couldn¡¯t find one active channel. We¡¯d either passed out of range, which was unlikely, or the network truly had fallen silent. The only signs we had left were the dwindling explosions that only showed in the night sky, and even then only once in a while. They¡¯d become less and less since the night of the attack, and judging by the fact our fleet hadn¡¯t swooped in to rescue us I could only surmise the kindling in the sky signalled that our resistance was over.


    _________________________


    I glanced down at the firearm in my paw, it still felt like something hot and dangerous as my digits held it. My index digit manipulated what I now knew was the safety for the trigger, I¡¯d not been able to fire during that chase because it was tabbed over the sigil with a sign ¡®no¡¯. I¡¯d also learned how to unload, and then load it up again. I could tell there was more to it, like the ammunition in the rectangular boxes- one particular set of bullets was lined near the top with a blue loop, though I didn¡¯t know what that meant. I wasn¡¯t going to waste one of them by shooting to see what it did. All things considered it seemed pretty rudimentary, not that I had any frame of reference for fighting equipment.


    ¡°Keick, are you almost done?¡± My foot paws awkwardly shifted on the grass under them, my eyes in the dark gloom looking this way and that to see if anything was coming. So far so good...


    ¡°Sorry Yiv! Just a minute, I think I found some things we can use-¡± A loud thump sounded, and then I heard her walking back out of the abandoned ranger station. The simple one room blockhouse had a tower built into it with a ladder upwards to the observers platform. The power to it had been out when we arrived, and it¡¯d looked like whoever had been manning it had left in a hurry.


    She came out with a backpack on, the wearable harnessed around her waist and shoulders. ¡°See? I even found a couple spare energy packs and a sleeping hammock. They¡¯re all packed up and ready to go.¡±


    ¡°How about the medical kits? A dataslate at least? Aaaah...-¡± I stopped the questions when her ears wilted and she signalled no with her tail. No dataslate meant no local maps. I¡¯d neglected to download any on my own before the network went down. Now, our chances of getting any files like that were reliant on scavenging ranger outposts like this one.


    Her voice cleared. ¡°Whoever had been manned this place took everything they thought they¡¯d need to go it alone too. Or maybe took it to the actual lodge, wherever that is.¡± I sighed out, disappointed. We were basically set back to hunter-gatherer camping until we reached my little hidey hole, and if I¡¯m honest.. It still seemed like that was a couple nights out at best.


    ¡°Good work. At least now we can carry more if we need to.¡± I pressed a paw to her shoulder reassuringly, more than aware that for the sake of both of us we needed to at least show support at a time like this. I saw the appreciative look on her face, one of her ears signalling to the same effect. ¡°Lets get back up, we¡¯re far away enough but... you never know.¡± I intoned warily, stepping over to a nearby trunk and starting up it after her, the gun tucked away in its holster as I put my legs into the climb.


    Keick just sighed. ¡°I know. I¡¯d rather not end up some footnote in your autobiographical report on ¡®The Destruction of Barr City!¡¯ anyway. We play it safe, we both survive. Right?¡± Came the quip from her.


    ¡°Ahuh. Get your tail up the tree or I¡¯ll only put you in as an honourable mention in the credits.¡± The terrain had changed over time. Thicker and thicker trees, taller too. To the point that if you climbed some of the higher kinds the forest¡¯s bottom looked four floors down. It made going down and up more work, but made the feeling of safety once you were up all the better.


    We reached the top, and I took a glance around, pulling up my tablet and accessing the built in compass. ¡°Mmm...¡± a quick alignment later and I cross referenced where the dirt path we¡¯d been following was winding. I still didn¡¯t know the route by heart, but following the familiar path had kept us on course so far. ¡°Yeah. We keep following the path that way.¡±


    And so it was, more boring travel. The worst kind really, because it left me alone with my thoughts.


    Thoughts about how I¡¯d taken my first life. It wasn¡¯t like I could ignore that, even if it had been one of them. My mind had been constantly tiptoeing around it for a while now, and the few times I¡¯d tried to confront it while falling asleep, the wicked shapes of imaginary feathernecks would mock my weakness and frailty. It wasn¡¯t a good time, so... I¡¯d ignored it! Up until now. If I was going to protect Keick and myself I¡¯d need to get over the way the gun in the holster tried to sear my paw off every time I took it out.


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    One paw in front of the other, I let my mind wander into the metaphorical chasm where the repressed feelings were laid. My mind¡¯s eye was replaying the screaming, the falling, and then the scrambled shots right into the pack that¡¯d been chasing me. On reflection, I¡¯d realized that there was probably only like... two or three of them. My panic had got the better of me in the moment. Every time the painful minute replayed in my head everything seemed blurrier, more surreal. In turn every time I tried to reflect on the fact I¡¯d been made a killer by those Bala¡¯ur I felt a weight in my chest.


    ...


    ¡°Am I killer?¡± I heard my voice say out-loud. My head tilting so I could see Keick behind me.


    ¡°Huh?¡± Came the return from her own voice, sounding surprised I¡¯d just opened the conversation like that.


    I took a breath. ¡°The Bala¡¯ur I killed. They¡¯d chased me up a tree and then kicked it down. When I fell I-I shot it in the face I think. It wasn¡¯t moving and- I must have killed it. I saw red, that¡¯s the colour of their blood right? I¡¯m a uh... a killer. I guess.¡± I explained, it wasn¡¯t like I¡¯d told her the story before.


    My companion had been silent for a dozen or so strides. Our progress from branch to branch causing quiet rustling every time our weight distributed to a new paw placement. My ears could pick up the quiet noises of a forest, little hoots and calls from smaller creatures communing in their instinctive ways. I glanced back and I could see it in her eyes, she wasn¡¯t sure how to approach the topic. ¡°Yivreen, do you feel bad for killing one of them of all things?¡±


    That hadn¡¯t been what I¡¯d expected, and I felt defensive almost immediately. ¡°N-no! I mean- Well...¡± Did I? ¡°It¡¯s the principle of the thing. I¡¯m not a killer! Or... wasn¡¯t.¡±


    She was following behind me still, but I felt like she was judging me even if rationally I knew that wasn¡¯t likely. ¡°It was a monster trying to eat you Yiv. I don¡¯t think anyone is going to blame you for killing it but yourself.¡±


    I whined at that one, my voice pitching with the noise as I paused at the strong point of a branch, right next to the trunk attached to it, turning to her and standing up on my hinds. ¡°That¡¯s not the point! I feel- I feel-¡± The words weren¡¯t coming.


    ¡°Guilty?¡± She finished for me, and I flicked my tail yes, of course! I felt guilty! One of her arms outstretched toward me, and she took one of my paws into her own. She squeezed it lightly, clasping her other paw over-top the backside of it. ¡°Listen to me. You did nothing wrong, you defended yourself. You are a good person, and the fact that you were forced to defend yourself from those ferals is their fault. Not yours. Do you think our fighters are killers? The fleet?¡±


    I sucked a breath in through my nose, the miasma of scents from the woodlands around us was mostly incomprehensible beyond some of the familiar smells, like my species kindred in front of me. It helped to calm me. ¡°But...¡± I rolled over the last part. Can I really beat myself up over this when we as a people were forced to do this? All of us? ¡°I j-just auh- I didn¡¯t want to. It-ss-its horrible.¡± The voice speaking the words was cracking at the end, and there was a choking feeling in the throat attached to it. My eyes watered. I could feel the gentle tears beginning to pool, and then drop from my eyes and into the brown and blacks of my fur. The tears were held hostage by my coat as the moisture spread until it¡¯d lightly dampened streaking lines from my eyes down into the silver of my chest fur. My blinks only making the followups more obvious.


    By now my chest was pulling in strained and unsteady breaths. The paws holding my own had left, and instead I could feel my shorter friend leaning in, her fores wrapping around my body and holding me close in a hug. The physical warmth, the closeness, the reassuring way she rubbed the nape of my neck. ¡°It¡¯s alright Yiv. You¡¯re alright. You¡¯ve been through a lot.¡± I¡¯d shared most of my time in the city, save the.. exact moment of the killing. ¡°You can cut down the tree, but..¡± My arms wrapped around her in turn, her words gentling my mind.


    I¡¯d heard the saying a hundred times. So I finished it, little sobs forced to sit backseat. ¡°...the roots never die.¡± It was a common saying on Atalor. Although it never translated well to other species, apparently some species of tree didn¡¯t grow back after being cut down. Not that our planet harboured any such kind.


    I hesitantly let my fores drop, and my paw reached up to rub my face while she stepped back. ¡°Stupid pile of moss-heap that does. I¡¯m not a tree.¡± I said, feeling the subtle upturn in my mood. I could feel my humour slipping in. It was shockingly easy to open up to a stranger when you were experiencing the apocalypse together.


    ¡°Yeah well, you¡¯re built like one. So maybe just take the comparison and stop whining.¡± She moved both her ears to perk at me, giving one a mirthful flick.


    I found myself pushing my paw into her forehead to usher her out of my way as I kept moving. ¡°Whining?! You¡¯re talking rude as a Benaian now! And I am not thick as a tree.¡± I chimed back at her. I found my paws moving again, my heart beginning to rest. At least for now I could be alright with what I¡¯d had to do. For some reason... talking it out, being understood, just- having a moment of closeness had made me feel better. I felt a pang as the thought reminded me of how I¡¯d always denied myself those three luxuries with Geal. Obelisk- I deeply hoped he was alright.


    Keick, still catching up from my playful head push was speaking again. ¡°Yeah? Well you¡¯re getting physical like one!¡± I snorted back at them.


    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t mind having a couple with us now, they¡¯re scrappy from what I hear.¡± I answered back. Something we, the Trikua, and the Benaian had in common was we were seen as ¡®uppity¡¯. A reputation I could get behind, even if the latter species were like children compared to our storied history. ¡°You know I tried to get cleared for going to the Benaian homeworld? To document the aftermath of the uplift process for my final. They said the expense and time to travel wasn¡¯t practical though.¡±


    ¡°Yeah? Why would you wanna go to a planet filled with a bunch of hoppy primitives?¡± Came her reply.


    I turned my head to give her a raised eyebrow. ¡°Probably because we¡¯re just as hoppy as they are? Metaphorically, that is. And documenting their journey from when they were contacted to now would have been a great opportunity! I¡¯m sure they¡¯d have had some great stories to tell.¡± Besides, the adventure would have been fun on its own. So many of them from before the uplift times were still alive to remember them.


    With the distracting conversation to occupy my mind. I found the remainder of the journey that night pleasant. The planet was going to our worst enemies, but I still had something to hold onto. The Coalition would have probably noticed our silence had prolonged by now, and would send a relief force soon. Just had to stick it out, and with Keick around I wasn¡¯t alone.

 5 - Meris

    The CASN Bole had seen better nights. In fact, the entire armada had seen better nights. My wide visioned periphery gave me a perfect view of the teeth filled jaws that clamped down on the entire system. Our demise had been inevitable from the night the feathernecks had struck. They¡¯d made a game of making it slow, agonizingly slow.


    Our fleet, fighting on its own ropes had been forced to watch as hundreds of Bala¡¯ur ships bee-lined for our home and families. Too bogged down in fighting to break from the line and try to stop them. Those that could manage to break had caused them losses, but it hadn¡¯t been enough. At first, the reports from the surface had been promising.


    At least they weren¡¯t saturating the surface with bombs right? At least the signals from the ground army, and our government had been ringing clear and true, they were putting up a fight. The painted picture had been clear: We needed to keep fighting for as long as we could, to set the enemy back long enough for Coalition ships to arrive, and our own task force out to Illis-03 to return. Once they detected all the FTL jammers and Bala¡¯ur craft it¡¯d be trivial to send messaging ships to get help from our allies. Right?


    Yet, we¡¯d seen no sign of either eventuality. Had the Illis-03 action force been destroyed too? Had our allies and the Coalition not become suspicious of our extended leave of absence from the communication network? Four nights was a long time for a border system to go silent, especially a key regional power like Atalor.


    What rest anyone did get on the ship was when their shifts were over and they could be relieved to sleep. Then to only be up again to continue the constant fleet actions.


    The readiness we¡¯d maintained could only be given thanks in part to Atalor¡¯s sibling Dwarf Planet, known to Cyonians as Enire¡¯s Yard. So called because it was the name of the orbital ring built around it. The facility was as much a way station and logistics supply hub as it was a manufacturing station for new ships. A key infrastructure the ferals had shown no interest in destroying, and because of that the railguns and torpedo tubes embedded into it, and the surface of the planetoid, were still online. Our enemies had wisely chosen to not draw close. But... Every ship lost was irreplaceable. We were under siege on Atalor and up here in the void.


    Many wireless communications planet-side had gone dark over the last two nights, and I was beginning to fear the worst. There had been no signals as to why, so all that could be imagined was they were intentional, or the destruction of ground command had finally come.


    I looked down at my paw, it was drumming into the console of my seated station alongside the anxiety of my thoughts. I adjusted the captain¡¯s cloak I still wore as a badge of my previous office. I could feel my eyes wanting to close from the exhaustion. Acting Commodore was a position I would have passed on to anyone else if I could.


    With a sigh, I bore into the incoming data on my quick-tac readouts. ¡°Recall Branch forces eight and nine. I want them on escort duty here.¡± I commanded simply. Since the destruction of the admiral¡¯s ship... and the rear admiral- and his acting replacement after that- It got messy. Our senior command had been rife with cowards or those who were much too brave to be pragmatic. The remnants of the fleet had been under my field assigned command for the past night or so, more or less.


    We¡¯d been too shocked in the initial meet and greet with the feathernecks. So much effort spent trying to rally the line... maybe if we¡¯d realized just how dire it was going to get we could have organized a breakout to seek help. If anyone had been able to foresee we¡¯d be left out to dry by our predicted reinforcements... I slammed my paw into the chair.


    Now was the time for action, not looking into the past. Maybe my mind insisted on retrospect because what I was doing next was suicidal. The nervous quiet the bridge had been in since I¡¯d marched on an hour ago was thick in the air. Nobody had said anything except when it had been important. ¡°Commander, are all preparations made?¡± I heard my voice ask.


    ¡°Yes Commodore. Ten Crown-Class battlecruisers. Twelve Rootline Cruisers. Forty-nine Ranger Frigates, a pawful of refits, and Four Pulp Frigates. All are assembled and ready for the task.¡± Reported back my first. Was that really all we could scrounge together? Seventy-six ships and some allied refits? I¡¯d had to leave some behind to try and prolong the inevitable collapse of our in system resistance, but the fact that from so many of our in service ships remaining we could only spare this many combat ready ships? It wasn¡¯t good. But... if this was all that the Ferals wouldn¡¯t notice missing, then so be it.


    As if to read my mind though, my second in command spoke up again. ¡°And... One Isstali battleship. The Indomitable.¡± That... Was certainly the most Isstal-like ship name I¡¯d heard.


    ¡°Thank you Commander.¡± I managed. ¡°Comms, open up a channel to the fleet please.¡±


    I heard an affirmative call from our communications officer, the fact the broadcast was now live noted by an at attention tail from the same officer. His striped whites and blacks were a familiar sight... It was sad to think that our tails would be less and less common in the galaxy if we failed.


    ¡°This is Acting Commodore Meris of the Cyoanian Assembly Star Navy.¡± I started by addressing the message with my own voice and name. This fleet and what came next would be my responsibility. It was important to remind myself, and the rest of the doubtlessly tired creatures under my command of that.


    ¡°Every single ship in the fleet has acted with courage that could only be asked of the most stern faced of Trikua. You¡¯ve acted with the fierceness of Isstal. The calculated pragmatism of the The Founders. Some of you I have no doubts too, have acted with the stinginess a Dommis to our enemies.¡± I heard a couple dry chuckles and laughs at the last jest from nearby command crew members. Harking to a number of our allies in the Coalition, and how we¡¯d embodied the spirits of all of them was as much to remind the fleet of our own status as one of the very first to touch the stars after our uplift. It would inspire them, I hoped.


    My eyes laid on the devastated remains of tens of thousands of ships off in the distance that could be mistaken for an asteroid belt where the initial engagement had taken place. Swallowing my own fears, and my need to run I steeled myself. This was the only option if I was to prevent my people from becoming yet another on the list of those who¡¯d lost their homeworlds to the hated enemy.


    My voice returned to me. ¡°Task Force Atalor has been assembled here and now to complete operation ¡®Last Branch¡¯. I need not impress upon anyone the importance that every single one of you hold your nerve. This is our last branch to hop to. If this branch fails us, the demise of Atalor, and of Cyonian society is inevitable. If your family still breaths on the surface, this is our last chance.¡± Brimstone and volcano-fire talk like this was rare, but these were extra-ordinary circumstances.


    In one paw I needed to inspire, but in the other everyone needed to know the stakes. We couldn¡¯t afford any captains losing their nerve and fleeing. We¡¯d had too much of that already. As horrible as it was, the majority of our flee-happy captains had been singled out and destroyed over the last couple nights. They made easy targets when they left the line.


    ¡°Our objective is to charge the FTL jammer on 217.815, destroy it, and allow the CASN Barr to warp to Coalition territory for help. The Barr will be assisted by Silver Flotilla as an escort and vanguard. CASN Aspira and Lespaw will lead the vanguard to spearhead through the blockade while the rest of us go for the blocker to make their escape faster, and pull Predator attention.¡± It was risky, using a diversionary tactic like this. The Bala¡¯ur were basically masters of it, but if we caught them off guard, still thinking we were just another weak willed prey species it might work.


    I steeled my voice. ¡°I cannot impress enough- The Barr must make FTL. If the blocker attack succeeds or not. The Barr must be protected even to the destruction of every ship command present. Atalor will not become a museum or history file collecting dust on Ancestra while we still breathe.¡± I sucked in a huge puff of air to stave off the instinctive need to pant. My tail was stiff with anxiety, and I could feel my heart throbbing with the moment. I couldn¡¯t possibly imagine the weight I¡¯d placed on every single soul listening. All of our backs were burdened with our world¡¯s weight upon it.


    I closed the transmission.


    _________________________________________


    Some time later,


    My sobering speech had quieted the fleet communication lines that were usually more threaded with snippy conversations between ships on any number of topics. All that came over the general network now was affirmations that ships were at full combat readiness for the task at paw. My ship, The Bole, was at the front of the Last Branch. The fleet was ready. Weapons primed, crews set in place, and I had no doubts the majority of our captains swearing oaths on the Obelisk that they wouldn¡¯t let their instincts get the better of them. At least- I hoped for the last part.


    The main battle around Atalor and Enire¡¯s Yard had continued, and we¡¯d successfully slipped ourselves away on a wide arc slinging past some of the debris of our own fleet that¡¯d drifted in an orbiting line as it was caught in the gravity well of the sun. Predictions from our navigation said they¡¯d likely be incinerated by the star in time. I could see the drifting debris out the front viewer, the remains of thousands of ships lost in that savage first strike.


    ¡°I-i-its... Horrible!¡± Exclaimed my first. His voice trembling as he caught sight of motes and specs of white stripes here and there in the wreckage. The Ferals were there too of course, you could see the feathery bastards easily on the black backing of endless space once our running lights flicked over them.


    ¡°Attention on sensors Commander. I want to know when they¡¯ve spotted us.¡± It was inevitable they would after all. He needed to get his mind off the killing for now.


    Thankfully, the breath holding wait only took another couple minutes once we¡¯d cleared the debris. Already I could see sensors tabbing and forwarding information to other stations, and my own tactical display by my chair was lighting up. The symbol for a FTL jammer, and its presumed range popped up in red. Already I could hear the compressed voices of crew members talking through internal ship communications to inform bridge stations of their statuses, the hum of the consoles and internal systems in the floor, wall, and ceiling above me. It was all a cacophony of noise I¡¯d grown used to over my career. It steadied my nerves every time, to at least hear the voices of my fellows with me. I consciously bore the look of the stern captain, one of my eyes glaring at the enemy occupied space as if fearless. An act I¡¯d perfected over long years.


    ¡°Fire coordination with the Valok and Koranak-¡± Two Dommis lend-ships we¡¯d not renamed. ¡°should be at any time they can be aimed at the blocker. If it goes down the Barr can make her run all the sooner, and with escort in tow.¡± I snapped my paws along the buttons on my chair console, giving out silent tasking to various ship crews. With some sobering foresight I shuffled the engine room security detail to instead hold the choke pointed hallway just outside the bridge, alongside the other two security teams already assigned there. If we got boarded, the last thing the fleet needed was for the voice of its Commodore to go silent. The hit to moral would shatter us to space dust at this phase. I needed to live as long as possible, even if it seemed selfish.


    ¡°One minute to engagement range. We have incoming Bala¡¯ur strike craft, and accompanying battlecruisers.¡± Reported tactical. ¡°Other enemy contingents are scrambling on intercept courses to block our way Commodore. I¡¯m counting a hundred at least. They must¡¯ve known we were coming.¡± I could see squadrons of dozens of fighters being deployed from our carrier banks from some of the battlecruisers who had still functioning hangers. I noted that the Dommis¡¯s doctrinal reliance on them was on full display now, with their two ships able to dump out thrice as many as our ships, at least. They were ready to put up a stream of low powered hate on any Ferals foolish enough to try and dogfight between our bigger ships.


    I flicked my ear crisply. My tail signalling we move forward despite the danger. ¡°Our opening salvo will decide the rest of the engagement, I want all of us firing on-¡± And before I¡¯d known it one ship had fired its coiled mass driver prematurely, somewhere off to the fleet¡¯s left flank. We- we weren¡¯t even in engagement range! ¡°Who ordered that?! I want an open channel to the fleet now!¡± And before I knew it I saw two or three more premature shots from various destroyers in the fleet. I cursed my luck. They were so wound up they were just doing what one hasty ship had done first.


    When I was signalled as on fleet comms I spoke immediately. ¡°Hold fire! Contact in twenty seconds! Restrain yourselves! Barr, I want you and our Silver designated ships breaking off now. Stay behind the pack and gun it once we¡¯re pushing for the FTL-¡± I was speaking automatically now, my own orders streaming out in line after line. I couldn¡¯t trust my comms to keep them in line, fleet cohesion was so dangerously low only the voice of the highest superior officer could hold their nerve at this point!


    I flicked my tail at my second. ¡°Commander, take the ship. I¡¯ll be coordinating the fleet.¡± I barked, standing from the command chair and instead opting to stand by the tactical table-map in the back of the command compartment. Leaning over it.


    My eyes watched live feeds on the sides of the black marred display of surrounding space. Charged cannons were firing, Bala¡¯ur ships bled and limped from our unusually bitter assault as it broke open. They weren¡¯t acclimated to bold attacking actions like this, let alone the formulation of a sallying move. Cyonian ships were made with two principles in mind, firing speed and armour. At one time we¡¯d produced fast and nimble ships that resembled our arboreal roots, but our time as a border state to their territory had changed that. We¡¯d been forced to adopt a defensive posture unlike our earlier days.


    The majority of the fleet was entering engagement range now, and on my mapped up overlay I could see that our friends in the Isstali battleship had gone right into the middle of the spearhead. Their oscillating shielding systems and heavy guns were imposing to any enemy, and it was making the smaller ships of the Bala¡¯ur compliment pull to move out of its trail of fury. The rest of the vanguard streamed into the gap they made, even as their ship was relentlessly pounded. Not even a Isstali ship could handle that much hate for long.


    I could see the flashes on the edges of my vision streaming in from the window far to the front of the room. My brow and down tilted head hiding the majority of the happenings. I could hear the shouts, the calls of crew members trying to keep cohesion under the brutal assault. From what I was reading we were... Dreadfully under specs to ever overcome these hunters. They badgered us, tried to split our fleet apart to pick at it. The initial shock hadn¡¯t done much elsewhere on the line.


    I slammed by fist down, using my free paw to press my index claw to one particular red dot in the second line of the assault. My own voice streaming over the comms. ¡°All ships within range of that ship, fire! It¡¯s their command craft!¡± I had nothing to back it up beyond my intuition, I¡¯d seen ships with those sorts of flight patterns before. The smug hunt-captain with an ego big enough he or she wanted to be close to swoop in for final blows, but away enough from the action to coordinate their subordinates. You didn¡¯t need to talk to the feathernecks to pick up on their commander archetypes.


    I felt the ship tremble and shake, an atmosphere alarm sounding as bulkheads shuddered closed in some distant aft section. ¡°We¡¯ve lost the starboard manoeuvring engines one and three!¡± I heard the call. Tch..


    My attention went to the live footage from a camera affixed near the bow of the ship, turning it to watch the command ship I¡¯d picked out. All of a sudden the sneaky backliner was being barraged by mass driver bolts the world over from too many directions for his ship to dodge. I saw it try to rotate itself out of the way of one bolt, only for another coilgun shot to blast through its left wing like a slashing claw, sending it flailing, uncoordinated, and adrift even as the missile pods that¡¯d decorated the wing were booming off and taking the rest of it. A commander puttering around in a strikecraft, albeit a well armoured one? Foolishness, I¡¯d expect nothing less from the Bala¡¯ur.


    You could see the pause in action as the ferals tried to understand what had just happened. Their leader had just be identified and targeted out of the equation. With a silent paw I ordered the fleet for a thrusting move forward, like a wall of magma rushing down a volcanic slope. ¡°If we have to physically push them out of the way then do it, the blocker goes down now!¡± While they were still reeling.


    I could see the Barr and its force rushing past us on a leftward angle, even as our left flank curled to enshroud the FTL jammer in an L shaped two sided attack. The latter move would doom us once the reinforcements that were only so far away arrived, but for now that mattered little. I punched in a few extra orders. ¡°This is it, all ships-¡±


    I could see the swing of our skirmish, we were overwhelming the shocked enemy with ferociousness alone. Dozens of red ship shaped lights blipped from the map console into dust. But we were trading close to as much. ¡°-We¡¯ve used our time. We only have minutes before reinforcements arrive. Take the last branch. Destroy that jammer!¡± I pulled up the camera feed again, glaring at the thickly armoured and shielded thing. Bala¡¯ur FTL blockers of this make were much like an oversized orb, manned with a couple close range ballistics and towed into system by their brutish ships. They were essentially ship sized space stations, but all the extra space from not having engines was dedicated to survivability.


    My eyes flicked to our spearhead- Agh.. The Isstali battleship was taking too much fire. It was the biggest, strongest beast on the field, and the Bala¡¯ur were salivating for the challenge. I gave a guttural growl. ¡°I want strike-branches screening the Isstali¡¯s now! They¡¯re-¡± But even as I was ushering the order mid-way through I watched as a flaming, beleaguered Bala¡¯ur cruiser turned his prow cannon and shot true, right into the depths of the damage behemoth ship and striking something critical. Almost at once the entire thing¡¯s power systems went offline before my eyes. A signal came through over the comms, I could hear the gravelly voice unmistakably belonging to their kind. ¡°That won¡¯t be necessary Commodore, please. Send me and my crew¡¯s regards to the jammer.¡± It sounded like there was shouting in the background of his transmission. Fires as well, judging by the crackling noise filtering through.


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    Obelisk... My eyes shot up to the bridge in front of me. We didn¡¯t have much time if they were out of the fight.


    ¡°Commander!¡± I was walking briskly up to the command chair again. Flaring out the back of my cloak with an arm to get a breeze of air under my fur to try and throw off the doubts their defeat had wormed into my mind. ¡°I have command.¡± I said simply.


    ¡°You have command Commodore.¡± He responded. Stepping to the side to assist with tactical. Commander Forthright had always been a capable second to me, but his tactical mind was entirely by the book. I could see that our advance was blunted by well positioned enemy battlecruisers. The only clear line was... between them.


    ¡°I want power to helm.¡± Already my mind was running through the situation, our shields were down, our right engines were fried so manoeuvrability was down. It looked like our final strike wasn¡¯t enough, the ferals were rallying before us with the determination of a predator with its jaws around our neck. I could see interceptor breakaways chasing the Barr out in the distance, they needed this to get away. It was make or break time. Our momentum would wane unless we took it.


    ¡°I want emergency power to helm.¡± I clarified once I¡¯d made my decision. A wild eyed look of fear came from the Cyonian manning the control chair. My right eye spotting a beleaguered key ship to our immediate right taking two railgun shots alongside a small swarm of self-propelled munitions. I could see its own power systems flicking on and off as internal explosions rumbled inside it.


    ¡°B-but Ma¡¯am!¡± Came the call. ¡°The overrides would-¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m aware.¡± I chimed back. ¡°Emergency power, helm. Put the engines to emergency flank and point us at the predator spawned FTL jammer. Tactical, I want whatever is left of our flying payloads and coil shots held for the blocker. Fire when I can make the call.¡±


    I saw two tail signals of affirmative, and that¡¯s all I needed. I could hear the ships energy systems pushed well beyond their intended running parameters. A red streak of light coming from the engineering console to my left peripheral warning the on duty crew member we were endangering the power systems.


    The momentary pause of a couple seconds while we spooled up was washed with flaming orange light as our sister ship in the formation took one final pummelling too many, much like the last. The entire thing going up in flames and purging ship parts and debris in all directions. ¡°We¡¯ve lost the Valok! The other Dommis cruiser is breaking off, they¡¯ve lost shields!¡± I heard from somewhere on the bridge as I blinked the bright, blinding light from my eyes. Shit. Without their strike craft escorts- we had to do it now.


    But the same ship formation that¡¯d just taken out our sister ship was moving into the way, intent on biting down on our throat as well. I could see the way they moved, they were going to bracket us from our port and ventral while a cruiser crossed our bow to cause us to stop. It¡¯d been how they¡¯d killed the Valok after all. ¡°Belay last! Nose down! Now! Forty degrees right!¡± Rapid fire, we had to react now or we¡¯d die, they¡¯d nearly had us.


    I heard a quick confirmation back as the ship suddenly dipped its bow from our thrusters kicking on, the Bala¡¯ur ship trying to impede our path trying and failing to do the same, and ending up with a face-full of our starboard ballistic batteries. Lines of ammunition thumping into them from rapid fire secondaries alongside that. ¡°Give them a bloody nose!¡± I heard someone in the back of the room holler out, only to be swiftly reprimanded by an officer.


    ¡°The Tynera is to ride alongside and cover us.¡± Came the order, it was a light cruiser assigned as a screen, but she¡¯d be able to stave off the hits barraging our right side. I heard affirmative, and set my sights back on the blocker.


    ¡°I want us moving now! Helm get me that emergency flank! Guns hold!¡± I barked, repeating my earlier orders before the Bala¡¯ur¡¯s kill stroke attempt. I was blinking out the afterimages of the flashing oranges and glaring at the wash of combat around us as the Tynera was hit in a vital section far earlier than I¡¯d expected. The whole thing cracked in half as the reactor flashed. Their corpse even still shielded us long enough to spool up, Obelisk.. I hoped it was worth it.


    I couldn¡¯t even see what had become of our blockade runners. ¡°Emergency Flank!¡± Came the cry from helm, and with that the ship jumped suddenly, fuel and the stored power jolted into the igniters. The sudden change in momentum threw anything not strapped or braced on the bridge to the back of the cabin, inertial dampeners unable to keep up.


    My eyes watched with spots in them as the blocker came closer, I could see on the readout the numerals denoting its distance shrinking from five digits to four, and then to three. Ferals tried to pummel us from all sides as we jetted past them at a speed that they must have not expected. Shredding scrap, the sounds of something buckling, the alerts popping up on engineering¡¯s console. I could hear the shouts dimly of someone marking and denoting all the damage we were taking, but my focus was precision. The fruit that was our target was hanging there, waiting for us to pluck it-


    ¡°Tactical! All munitions!¡± Came my call. And with it, they fired. Missiles, ballistics, all of it. The coilguns hollowly reporting as their twisted bars sent the superspeeded payload off. Followed quickly behind by missiles and their shielded counterparts, the torpedoes. All of it sailed, and the feathernecks hadn¡¯t been ready for it. Their countermeasures failing to shoot down more than half a score.


    ¡°Load those damn tubes and give me more!¡± I shouted. Of course, our autoloaders and missile deck crews were likely working overtime to do just that, but it couldn¡¯t be helped. Another payload came in quick succession even as I could spy on the tactical display we were surrounded and being pounded like no tomorrow. Thank the Obelisk though, our second load was firing the second the tubes were clear. The first had severely damaged the infernal jammer, but it was still defiantly there. Well. Up until the second volley streamed in.


    I imagined their maws slack with astonishment- Fwboom! As each separate payload buckled and cracked their shielding, then the armour plates, and finally into the grinds and gears that kept the damn thing working. It went up in flame and destruction. I let some of my hatred for the damned feathernecks take joy in it, briefly.


    And then... I had to deal with the aftermath of what I¡¯d done. That had been... a lot of our alpha potential all extinguished in one desperate gamble.


    As if that wasn¡¯t enough I could hear the crackling over the fleet comms come to life as someone decided to broadcast on the line designated for every bridge. ¡°My ship is infested by boarding parties of Predators. I¡¯ve ordered the overloading of the ship¡¯s reactor. The tree falls, but its roots neve-kkssskt-¡± As the signal was lost. Our ship kept on sailing, turning at a limping rate to try and avoid the debris of the blocker, alas- the momentum from our bold charge threw us into it. The damage of uncountable dings, close passes, and hollow thudding booms as the scrap of our target tore at our outer hull. I saw rends forming, we were venting atmosphere. I doubted the ship wouldn¡¯t fall apart even if we tried to kick the engines on again.


    ¡°I need a report.¡± My voice demanded sternly, even though now the moment was passed and I could feel the fear of just where we were consuming me.


    Engineering¡¯s liaison spoke up ¡°We¡¯re hemorrhaging. The reactor was pushed beyond its apex limit, we¡¯re going to lose it any second. It¡¯ll take... An hour before we can get main power, at least. Repair crews cannot keep up with life support damage. No missiles, 24% of ballistics points remaining. They¡¯ve taken our most of our point defence- Decks four and five are depressurized entirely-¡±


    ¡°That¡¯ll do.¡± I stood up, and headed for the fleet map again. A shaky paw opening up the tactical map. My black eyes traced over it with as much keen effort as I could muster, I could see the fleet was beginning to crumple. The reinforcements from the ferals other jamming sectors had arrived a short time ago by my surmising, and- we were being picked apart from behind. My heart was pounding in my chest, trying to keep it under control this whole time had taken sheer force of will. I¡¯d never been an admiral, making a call like this- dooming so many of my kind and our allies on the hope that we¡¯d- I shook my head. Looking up toward the last known position for the Silver contingent. Its escorts were still fighting, but I could see the Barr and two escort ships moving to escape, a Crown class and a Ranger class on either side of it. Another ship playing at hero slamming itself in the way of an incoming railgun shot intended to knock out the ailing Barr¡¯s engines. In a moment, I saw it flash out of our tactical display range, followed closely by the two flashes as its surviving two escorts not engaged fled with it.


    A shocked breath leaped from my chest, a paw pressed to my pounding heart. I- by the Obelisk. We¡¯d- it¡¯d- I slammed the switch to broadcast my voice fleetwide. ¡°They made it!¡± I roared loudly across the cabin. Dozens of eyes on me as they paused in their scramble for damage control. ¡°The Barr made it! Operation Last Branch is a success!¡± I could hear some level of happy chatter at the news, but it was... Dulled. The price we¡¯d paid was enormous.


    It was like... My mind was awash with chemicals I couldn¡¯t even describe. So much alleviated stress. We¡¯d done it. We- we did it. I stumbled toward Commander Forthright. ¡°Commander- Commander-¡± I breathed out holding out a paw toward him, he looked back at me with concern.


    ¡°Commodore, hold on.¡± He was stepping toward me like he was going to hug me but... I felt myself stumble over my own weak legs. Exhaustion and the emotion of the moment just... I couldn¡¯t bring myself to- why was the ground so close to my... thud.


    _________________________________________


    My head hurt. ¡°Guh augh swamp-leeches...¡± A paw that I recognized as my own was pressing up to my head, cradling it where I felt some sort of bandage. I could hear chatter over the intercom above me. Frantic voices nearby, distant gunshots. Wait- gunshots!


    My eyes snapped open. How long had I been out? The gravity was still on, that was something. The bridge lights were off, nothing but the emergency dims by the floor were on, which wasn¡¯t too much of an issue for our adaptive eyes but- I could hear one voice clear over the din. I recognized it as our tactical officer. ¡°-nowhere to run to! Escape pods will just get picked off!¡± I¡¯d only just picked up the end of it.


    I gasped. There were four or five others laid with me. Some bloody but alive. Some dead. I turned over onto my stomach and felt a sick heave coming on. I shoved it down before it became an involuntary reaction, this was no time to burn my throat.


    With rapid glances around I realized what must have happened, and why I could hear fighting. My actions had doomed the ship to drifting without power, and the fleet had been being overwhelmed last I saw. The ferals had wanted lunch, and the ship was helpless thanks to my gamble.


    I stood on my paws, shaking off the strained headache that threatened my right side where I¡¯d fallen. My cloak was still on, and so- I reached for the service pistol in its built in holster. Checking it was flicked and ready for action as I marched out of the alcove near the tactical map where I¡¯d been laid down. ¡°What¡¯s going on?¡± I asked with a shaky breath. One of my eyes trained on the still open blast doors from the bridge to the hallway.


    ¡°C-commodore!¡± He yipped back. ¡°You¡¯re alright! W-we¡¯ve been boarded.¡± He gave me an apologetic look. The kind that said our security teams weren¡¯t up to the task to fight Bala¡¯ur in close quarters. I¡¯d known that of course... But you could always hope. We were like fragile twigs compared to them in person.


    ¡°I understand.¡± I looked around. ¡°Where¡¯s ahh... the commander?¡± I heard my voice ask.


    ¡°He went to repel the boarding minutes ago with a security detail.¡± Came the reply. Agh... That was typical. By the book right up until the minute it¡¯s time for last minute heroics. He was a prisoner or dead by now then.


    With as much authority I could muster from my tired body and spent mind I spoke ¡°We¡¯ll fight to the escape pods.¡± From the look of the others remaining of my bridge staff I could see that wasn¡¯t an option anymore.


    ¡°Some of them launched when abandon ship was called Ma¡¯am. They were intercepted and boarded too. What¡¯s left of fleet couldn¡¯t fight to them in time. It won¡¯t do us any good. The pods are no good.¡± Sometimes I wished we had just enough traits of the predators to be as ruthless as them, not that I¡¯d ever admit it out loud. I locked my paw on my weapon, we were left with one option.


    ¡°We fight then. How many of us are left?¡± I asked.


    ¡°Casualty reports and pod launches accounted for, we have four p-¡± I decided to cut them off, we didn¡¯t have time.


    ¡°How many?¡± Came my terse tone.


    ¡°A-a... Five security teams are still on comms, the bridge crew here, crew quarters, and the dorsal gunnery deck are our last strongpoints.¡± That... Alright, he didn¡¯t sound so sure about it. There was something to work with there, but we didn¡¯t have a lot of time. I walked to the panel adjacent to the hallway increasing with sounds of scrabbling paws and gunshots.


    Firstly though, I pointed to- well- I supposed they were my new second in command now. ¡°Get me a report on the fleet.¡± Before I turned back to the panel, a claw fumbled a moment with the speaking box.


    I could hear my own voice echo out across the hall, and the speakers above as I gave a general message over the intercom. ¡°This is Commodore Meris.¡± If they¡¯d thought I was dead or down they¡¯d hear my voice, hopefully heartening them to fight all the harder. ¡°These intemperate savages have defiled Atalor, to any who can hear this, fight. Do not go mewling into a den to be picked off. Help is on the way.¡±


    I jammed off the general channel. Had that last part been a bit of an embellishment of the facts? Perhaps. I didn¡¯t even know if the fleet was still coherent and fighting, but- they needed something to hold onto. It was better we all fought to the bitter end than be taken prisoner after all.


    I flicked by brown eye back to my second, their own paw to their chin as they looked over one of the backup monitors at the back of the tactical table. That look didn¡¯t fill me with confidence, and... it was getting harder to hear as more gunfire was booming closer and closer. There were howls, yowls, and cries of pain. The security crews must have been fighting a staggered retreat...


    ¡°No good Commodore. What sensors we do have are showing a full rout of what managed to make it out. We¡¯re on our own.¡±


    I felt lead in my gut. It was exactly what I¡¯d expected to happen when I¡¯d made this plan, but- maybe I¡¯d clung to hope too that we could at least make it back. There wasn¡¯t much else to do then... Except have that final stand.


    ¡°Order the delaying crews back here captain. We¡¯ll fight a defence, and once we¡¯ve repelled the Bala¡¯ur assault we¡¯ll breakout toward to the crew quarters.¡± Came my orders. Even now that feeling, that raw anchored ton in my stomach wasn¡¯t letting up. But... Maybe if we fought that plan could be true.


    _____________


    Sealing the blast doors would only encourage the Bala¡¯ur to use a blasting charge that would discombobulate everyone in the command compartment when it went off, so I opted instead to order the barricading of the bridge hall with as much debris as possible to form a physical firing line we could shoot over.


    Unfortunately, when they¡¯d actually managed to make it to us... it did little.


    ¡°Gah!¡± I flew back as two of the monsters charged the barrier, they¡¯d forced our heads down with a grenade thrown too short. Something that wasn¡¯t supposed to make a cracking noise did so when I hit the deck. The Bala¡¯ur bruisers had bullied their way through the chest high wall like it was tinfoil paper, alongside their shorter compatriots hopping it to slam their legs down into my crew behind it. Even now I could see through my unfocused eyes that same feral who¡¯d bowled me down had clamped his jaws around the helmsmen. The screaming ending with a crunch of neck bone. After that? The rest of my crew was broken, running for... dark corners and firing off shots in unaimed arcs while screaming in terror. I could see one trying to stuff themselves into the service locker under the viewer. Well. This was it, I supposed. When they had you like this, you kind of just... lost yourself to the panic. It was natural. Nobody wanted to be killed like this.


    My legs tried to stand me up, but I found that my left leg had been the victim of that odd noise I¡¯d heard when I fell. The appendage was no good for holding weight, and my exhaustion helped none at all. These Bala¡¯ur... They waltzed onto my bridge, and I felt my heart thumping harder than it ever had before. My nerves were broken, and I could feel my ears pull back. The sheer terror-


    And yet, I saw how nonchalant this whole operation was for them. Now that they weren¡¯t being shot at it was like a walk through a park. Taking in the sights and smells. One of them casually picked up one of the injured crew near the back who¡¯d been laid to rest and- Obelisk I couldn¡¯t concentrate on it. I needed to distract them away from my crew. ¡°Your kind are damned to the abyss beyond the Obelisk¡¯s guidance! You¡¯ll die, and realize all that awaits your cruel existence after death is oblivion! Hateful, empty oblivion!¡± I heard the brave voice from my own throat. I was putting on the act again, wasn¡¯t I?


    No less than five pairs of hateful eyes turned to me when they heard the words with such conviction. The closest lunged at me, but I grabbed at a metal shard of debris from the shattered barricade and slammed it into the featherneck¡¯s head. The disc-shaped vent cover clanging loudly as it snapped his open mouth shut on its tongue, causing my nose to pick up the tang of blood as it howled and stepped back clutching its face. ¡°I¡¯ll kill every last one of you!¡± Came the commanding boom of a voice, my voice, yet still insignificant next to them...


    That¡¯s when I felt... almost frozen. There was a pair of yellow eyes boring into me from the bridge entryway. My instincts told me to run, but I knew I couldn¡¯t... Rapid breathing, a flick of the eye and-


    I could see more clearly now, it was one of them, they were wearing ceremonial armour of some sort. I¡¯d never seen anything like the silver lined breastplate that took the majority of it all. This feral fashioned itself like a King! A circlet of black iron fastened across their brow and the top of their head. Dozens of scars and battle marks. Their left forepaw was missing a middle digit. It came to me, standing over me with barred teeth and a sick look on its face. It spoke.


    ¡°You, you¡¯re the captain are you not?¡± Came the throaty, growling tones of my enemy. My translator denoted a feminine pitch to their speech, not that I could have known that from it¡¯s repugnant true speech. I just sneered up at them, unable to formulate an ample response. ¡°You were the one to destroy one of my eyes.¡± It insisted. ¡°You, you lead the charge.¡±


    One of her eyes? ¡°T-th-the jammer?¡± I stammered out without thinking.


    ¡°Yes-¡± A talon laden, feathery paw reached down toward me, and I remembered myself. Trying to grab at the pistol in my own paw and holding it up right to them. ¡°N-no! Die predator!¡± My act of brave defiance accented by a single loud pop from the firearm, and then: Click- click- click- of my gun. I¡¯d forgotten I¡¯d spent it all but the one bullet. It¡¯d punctured right through the not very functional body armour, penetrating to their chest, but- this Bala¡¯ur seemed entirely unbothered. No more than a passing annoyed grimace at having been impaled by a bullet. I could SEE the red of their blood through the hole, but- had it just not gone deep enough!?


    The paw snatched around my neck, choking and hoisting me up to their face. ¡°Hmmh... I will afford you this one thing for your mutiny against the natural order of prey and predator. The hunter recognizes the prey who fights stronger than the rest. You¡¯re ruthless... Sending so many of your kind to die to achieve your goals should be rewarded.¡±


    I felt sick. Its fangs were inches from my face, and its words were like a sour pafruit in my mouth. What was it on about? I¡¯d- I wasn¡¯t a predator! I wasn¡¯t ruthless. We¡¯d been forced to do this! ¡°Cc-cc-¡± I could barely breath past the choke hold. My words unable to get out.


    She loosened up ever so much, giving me precious air to pull in. ¡°FFffffffff-¡± Came the deep suck of air as I hacked, coughed and heaved. ¡°N-not like you.¡± I managed out, trying and failing to break her grip.


    This creature laughed at me, her rancid features broken into a broad, terrifying grin. ¡°Oh? Hahaha! Did you think I meant you were a predator? No, no no- you¡¯re prey like the rest.¡± She glanced down and behind me for... something, but when it wasn¡¯t evident immediately she used a free grasper to move my cloak aside. Then came a little spark in her eye. ¡°Hmh. Not a silvertail are you? Pity. I did promise you a reward though, I think?¡± A pity? What? What did silvertails have to do with anything? Before I could ask though, that grip began to crush: ¡°K-klg...¡±


    She seemed disappointed, but amused all the same as she taunted me. ¡°Your reward is in front of you. You see the face of Oracle. I am the fist of the Bala¡¯ur of Az¡¯ta that will take your planet, and put your kind where they belong. I have seen it.¡± She was their leader!? The bringer of the this damned fleet? I-I- Her paw had tightened even further like a vine many times too strong, I could feel darkness in the edges of my vision and- my claws were scrabbling against her weakly- I could hear a distant voice, hers? ¡°Smell the fear on it, and yet it shot me. Haha. These ringtails are delicious and a show.¡±


    I couldn¡¯t breath, my paws fell from their attempts to free my throat. One thought crossed my mind despite the horror, we¡¯d gotten the Barr out. Help would come from our sacrifice. I¡¯d... Lived long enough to save my home.


    For the second time that night as the comforting thought crossed it: My conscious mind failed, and I dropped into senseless darkness.

 6 - Qinal

    My eyes were fixed on my clawed hands below. My idea of a good day usually involved doing something more than just self grooming. Yet, here I was, with my forearms shuffling back and forth and moving the pair of my hands under the heated water. The ambient temperature in the air of the climate controlled building not helping with the steam emanating from the sink.


    The pink and purple speckled blood of now dead Cyonians draining off and down to below my claws in a calm waterfall. The smell of the dead creatures still lingered in my snout, tantalizing but rather dull. I sighed, shutting off the water with a turn of the faucet.


    Butcher duty was a mixed bag these days. You got to be near to meat, you got to smell it. But... This kind of butcher duty well- you were butchering someone else¡¯s successful hunt, almost always the subject was very dead before it even arrived, at least it was supposed to be. I¡¯d been promised being on those hunts, going out to seek and kill. I¡¯d have been one of the ones who¡¯d get to taste of their own catches. But here I was, just... Preparing the meat for the feasting hunt parties who¡¯d brought back what they could. At least with the animal pens you got to do the killing before you minced them, even if it couldn¡¯t count as a hunt.


    The enjoyment had been sucked out of anything I did since then, there was no thrill to be had from butchering. This job... it was a punishment. A way to show me what I was missing out on out in the wilds and the cityscape still uncleared. Where once I¡¯d felt the desire to strike down prey and eat a fresh kill well hunted my thoughts only drifted to five days before though now... Urrgh.


    I shook my head. No time for such considerations. My body moved from its leaned position over the sink, waving off the moisture left behind on my clean feathers as I stepped past the freezer that now held some of my work. A nearby towel doing the rest of the drying as I passed it. Since the accident I¡¯d been assigned to nothing but busy work such as this. I could feel a dull headache forming too, rrrrh... I reached for my mug and took a swig from the stimulant infused water. At the least if I was going to be groggy with a headache from my lack of good rest then I¡¯d /only/ have a headache and starve off the ¡®grog¡¯ part with this.


    My form moved down the halls of the work house. This had once been some sort of feed packaging plant a mere week ago. Until we¡¯d moved in, gutted the whole place out, and built our own facilities into it. The majority of the tower-like structures that¡¯d made up downtown had been obliterated by our bombs, and then some. Estimates from our surveyors put the city the Cyonians called ¡°Barr¡± at about three fourths rubble, either from anti-matter or from subsequent precision bombardment to dislodge their defensive elements.


    The methodology had been simple, we had enough forces to safely occupy only so much cityscape before it¡¯d become unmanageable to clear out survivors.


    I stepped out of the butchers room, and followed the sign marked ¡®Cannery¡¯. Passing by one of the windows to the outside. When I glanced out at the night, the shimmering oranges on the edges of the city reminded me we¡¯d set fire to some of the surrounding woodlands in a controlled ring around the ruins. A temporary measure while our engineers worked on a simple powered chain-link and concrete bottomed fence around the old borders of the city that still remained.


    Even now, the rubble and ruins were being scoured for survivors who¡¯d hunkered down, or simply not made it out in the initial attack on the eighth. I¡¯d heard rumours that the natives had made it out into the wilds in the tens of thousands in just this area, if not more. Sensor sweeps from orbit were too inaccurate thanks to the thick biosphere this place was shrouded in. Perhaps if our instruments had ever been iterated upon beyond the schematics from the first hunt we¡¯d have something more accurate. Hmh. Perhaps that particular thought should banish itself from my mind actually, it wouldn¡¯t do to get in trouble for complaining at the dated state of some of our equipment.


    I looked away from the fires, and went deeper into the building. My legs carried me to stop by the break room which now served as a place for rest between shifts. I was still due to my next duty for the day in an hour. So I¡¯d opted to stay here instead of taking the walk to my quarters down the road and to the housing unit I¡¯d taken as my own. It was too cramped to be a good place to relax, except for the living room I¡¯d found.


    My form hunkered down on the under-sized couch, feathered tail flicking to the side to hang off the lip of the couch-arm next to it. Only one other of my kind appeared to be here, which under the current circumstances was just... one too many I was willing to deal with. He spoke first, something catching his eye when he¡¯d looked at me. ¡°Qinal.¡± Ah. He¡¯d remembered my name. I tried to put his name to a face back, but failed. ¡°That mark, where did you get it?¡± He was pointing a claw now right down at my right paw.


    I glanced. Ah. That. ¡°One of the locals bit me.¡± I responded with a musing tone, holding up the mark in question and inspecting it again. Their teeth were mostly flat, but four tiny puncture marks indented into my flesh where it had bled. Evidently their teeth weren¡¯t flat enough. Still, unsuited to biting through our hide in any meaningful way, my hand would be fine in a couple days at most.


    ¡°A ringtail bit you? And you let it?¡± He responded, using the pejorative some had taken to using instead of their own given name. ¡°I did not know they did bite.¡±


    My tail moved of its own accord, giving an agitated flick flick back and forth on the couch-arm next to me. ¡°I did not let it. Tsara botched her hunt of it, and it was still alive when it arrived in the butchery. It had played dead until I got close.¡± I explained. Minding the little scratch marks where it¡¯d seared into my skin below my feathering, thankfully... My conversation partner didn¡¯t seem to notice those.


    An unconvinced snort met my ears. ¡°But it broke your skin all the same. Did you kill it?¡± Just who was this again? To speak to me like that? I looked up with a challenging glare, and realizing a touch too late that puffing out my chest feathers wasn¡¯t going to do anything when I was wearing my robe.


    ¡°Of course I killed it, it was still wounded mortally! Why not bother Tsara about it? She¡¯s the one who didn¡¯t properly kill it when she caught it.¡±


    I was tired of the questioning, the pins and needles of sleep deprived aggravation were heaped on top of my other worries. It was threatening to make this interaction turn sour. Sour in a way that I could not afford, more attention from my superiors was the last thing I wanted. ¡°They have incisiform teeth between their molars and incisors. Probably for tough leaves or nut cracking. It bit me. That is the end of it.¡± I fell onto the dental jargon I¡¯d read a couple days prior while researching the Cyonians, we planned to hunt them after all. Anything beyond the edibility and life span wasn¡¯t too important to the average person here in the fleet but, I¡¯d found that... With the last week in mind it would be a testament to my acumen as a hunter to understand why these creatures were less hopeless in a fight than other creatures. After all, their tenacity had ruined my chances to enjoy this world.


    Finding what our inventive minds had uncovered about the ringtails from having captured some in the past had been stimulating, I¡¯d... found myself snout deep into documents on their habits and customs. Their physical characteristics had given me no hints into their tenacity, beyond the curious nature of those teeth. I heard the grating voice of judgment return. ¡°Good then.¡± He rumbled. ¡°But Qinal, your presence dishonours me. I will take my leave.¡±


    My breath jumped, and a maw of teeth baring a snarl met him as he left. Every instinct in me wanted to tear the low-blood down for size, but I restrained myself until he was gone.


    Dishonour was it? A grumbling huff, and leaning back into the too cozy furnishing behind me. My mind was drifting back, and I couldn¡¯t help it this time. Where had I gone wrong?


    _____________________________________


    Verner had died on the spot. The bullet had tumbled and lodged itself deep in her lousy skull. Leaving me to pick up the pieces of her failure as a leader. Injured and bleeding I¡¯d returned to the rest of her command, and informed the others that she¡¯d been killed in the pursuit with the local. From there only trivialities followed. Retrieving the body to confirm her death, returning to our ship empty handed and leaving for Captain Vike¡¯s ship.


    That... That had been when things had gone wrong, as I predicted. Vike had seen Verner as his successor and offspring. She was to be a great continuation of his legacy, it was natural, any strong blooded family line should strive to continue after all. He¡¯d needed a tangible thing to put the blame on, something he could strike against. When no thing had materialized it had been me Captain Vike blamed. Once it was apparent striking out against some nameless ringtail in a city ruin among so many of them wasn¡¯t possible, at least.


    ¡°She was foolish, and impeded my hunt for her own glory. Three times I had the ringtail, and three times Verner¡¯s misplaced arrogance stopped me.¡± I¡¯d said in my defence. ¡°I did not kill my hunt commander, she died of a Cyonian bullet.¡±


    Vike had not taken to my solid defence well. I knew he had nothing to use, no way to impugn me. So I¡¯d opted for the arrogant and stoic posture my own parentage wore whenever they¡¯d had to deal with their rivals and the inherent treachery that came with it. I had expected a trial, perhaps one of combat in one of the many tests of strength, or dexterity, or even wit that the Oracle had sanctioned for just such disagreements. A battle of blades? Or perhaps having brought the judgment up the ladder, to try and put me to death as vengeance for his lost protege and blood?


    Instead, Vike had just chortled with a worrying look in his eye. ¡°So be it, Qinal. You will continue to serve under me.¡± Had been his words, but actions had not stood to testimony for them. Within the day I¡¯d had my position as a tactical adjunct and hunter rescinded in favour of working as a guard in the ruins of Barr City. It was a ¡®great honour that would not be refused¡¯ to be given such a prime position, to spend my days ¡®safe¡¯ and ¡®comfortable¡¯ inside the perimeter of our ground base. I¡¯d be stuck with menial tasks for the duration of the hunt, so it seemed.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    Such a position was below me. This was not some glamorous reward for a hunt well conducted, it was not an appointment to a command position. It was an appointment to keep me from the real reward of being here, to hunt, and explore the vibrant wilderness within.


    I¡¯d been sidelined. My bloodline meant I could not be simply tossed aside, but this appointment was banal enough to be a snub to me personally. My prospects for climbing to a position of power and prestige were significantly limited.


    I¡¯d raged, storming onto the bridge. ¡°You can not! I am not a whelpling spawned of a no-name menial! The blood of planet killers runs through me!¡± I¡¯d came right up to the captain¡¯s chair, even as Vike himself had stood to match my posture. His height dwarfing my own by a head. My mind had been in no state to think rationally.


    ¡°Do you seek to challenge my leadership, Qinal?¡± Had come the question. Without thinking I¡¯d... I¡¯d shown my teeth to him, issuing my official challenge. He had been under no obligation to answer it of course. A young blood like me? A dozen statuses between us? Nobody would have taken a second look if he¡¯d laughed me off and had me removed. Instead, he¡¯d grinned and returned the gesture. I had no time to issue some formal crossing of blades, we would fight for supremacy in an older way.


    The flash of a fight had started with my rage fuzzed mind trying to charge him outright, arms extending to lodge firm claw to neck and snout to put him in his place. My body moving faster than I¡¯d felt myself move before, I¡¯d never been so disrespected- it was like I¡¯d downed a cup of undiluted adrenaline before marching in.


    Of course, the bravado and rage did nothing for me. Vike was an experienced fighter, and his own stronger arms batted away my own, his head throwing forward with a savage crack as his skull impacted my own muzzle.


    After that I remember waking up on the floor of the bridge only seconds later with a dull throb. He¡¯d shut me down in just one headbutt. The hit to my reputation had been immense, a young blood too eager to prove and unable to back up their strength. I suspected he¡¯d been anticipating my response when I¡¯d read the transfer. He¡¯d found a way to degrade me even further. Bastard.


    _____________________________________


    I broke from my half-sleep to the sound of the alarm for shift change buzzing in my ears. Arms unfolding from their crossed position as I stood, stewing in my hatred for my superior who¡¯d put me here.


    A quick pop by the weapons room was all I¡¯d need before putting my time in. With no more than a couple strides down the hall I found the old office that¡¯d been converted with a chest high barrier to cut half of it off. The weapons master wasn¡¯t present, so I took to reaching over and grabbing one of the rifled weapons myself and strapping it over my back.


    Another short walk, and I was standing in front of my last shift work for the day. The pen room. This place was always my least favourite duties even on the ship when the rare capture was brought aboard, and now it was magnified by my poor sleep and bruised reputation. I slid my ID card over the reader, a freshly installed apparatus to keep any escapes under control. The door slid open, and the ambient noise flew into my ears as I stepped inside. Keeping my eyes forward and away from either row to my left and right. I could hear their chirping, echoed voices. Meek vocal cords putting together speech pitched many times too high to be respectable. Some of them sounded destitute, some angry, some entirely devoid of feeling. I didn¡¯t mind any of it. My translator might impart meaning, but I didn¡¯t need to take the meaning to any of their words. They were just those lucky ones who¡¯d not been hunted to death.


    This being my first hunt, I hadn¡¯t initially understood why we had to keep those we didn¡¯t eat. Why not release them into the wilderness to be caught again and eaten? But then... That wasn¡¯t sporting was it? They¡¯d have little chance of linking up with their people before getting pounced by a hunting party, their eligibility as prey was extinguished. That left a couple options for just what to do with them. Selling them to the Pamantian Loyalist Clans was an easy, readily available option, loathful as their bleeding hearts were. Though... I had seen some preylings on Az¡¯ta while growing up there. Serving in tasks that were fitting for them, it was rare for a household to keep captured prey as servants, but not entirely unknown. Tch...


    I finally stepped to the metal stairway and began to climb to the over-head walkway and guarding station, the one I¡¯d been replacing... T¡¯sel I think his name was? He stepped past me without a word. I chose not to interpret his silence as derision toward me, I¡¯d have my nerves frayed being in here for hours listening to captures whine and whinge about this and that.


    I paused. Wait.. Some of the voices in here were angry? Were our forms not terrifying them into submission by now? This was a fate worse than anything for creatures such as- I turned my head to look toward the barking commotion. ¡°You killed them!¡± Came the call as I let my eyes fall on one of the ringtails, it was looking at me as it spoke. A clawed paw reaching out of the mesh metal door as if to try and scratch at me. Did it recognize me? Did they bear relation to one of the ones I¡¯d butchered earlier?


    I let my eyes subtly flick to look at T¡¯sel as he left. Waiting until the door had slid shut, and I was alone with these creatures before I indulged my curiosity. I stepped closer to the pen, glaring down at the creature as it suddenly seemed a lot less brave now that my mighty form regarded them with crossed arms. A predatory stare like this would induce panic in any of the weakling species. ¡°Who did I kill, ringtail?¡±


    It had stepped back a couple paces, the others in the pen had drawn quiet, except perhaps the snivelling ones I¡¯d learned to key out of my mind from previous shifts aboard the fleet. ¡°Y-you killed them! My brother and his- you!¡± Ah, the couple I¡¯d butchered before my nap. Yes... They had probably seen me carrying the already dead pair earlier. Well, one of them had been alive to scratch and bite, but I hadn¡¯t known that!


    Regardless, whatever revenge or anger it had felt, its mind had been changed by my attention actually being on it now. The thing couldn¡¯t even manage to curse me. Perhaps there was a way I could derive joy from this posting?


    With malice on my mind I decided to indulge myself, see if I could wind them up. ¡°Yes. Me. I killed my food, chopped them, cut them, stuffed their good meat into the freezer. What of it?¡± I asked non-nonchalantly, passively picking at one of my claws as if to write in stone with a chisel how unremarkable the whole process had been. It was a lie of course, I hadn¡¯t hunted those two, they weren¡¯t my hunt.


    Instead of an accusation, or anger, or something fun though its eyes teared up, and it looked like it might be sick. ¡°Monster.¡± It managed, choking a sob and retreating further into the back wall and covering its face with both paws. Just another crying ringtail. And...


    I felt nothing. Once perhaps I might have found it amusing, or it¡¯d have swelled my pride as a Bala¡¯ur to see a prey creature cowed back where they belonged. Instead I felt hollowed out. I had done nothing wrong. So why then did something that should have sparked any feeling in me instead just feel like an emotionless abyss? Amusement? Joy? Maybe even regret at having brought it emotional pain? Anything?... But nothing came, I was just empty.


    ¡°Did I get hit in the head that hard?¡± I muttered, turning away and opting to take my floor walk patrol for the half hour now. I could always log it when I got up the stairs after anyhow. I walked the breath of the cannery turned pen-house. The rectangular room had been split into four sections by two lines down the horizontal and vertical middles of the room. With the overhang walkways supported by one guard post with sight lines over the only door out of the room, as well as all four halls with doors to access the pens.


    My head was turned, looking into one row as I passed them. The facility was for now almost exclusively ringtails, with a very small pawful of other Coalition species that had been captured in the sweeps of the city. Unlike our orbiting capture ships, the existing infrastructure we hadn¡¯t bombed left enough room to comfortably fit quite a few of them all in one spot. Dozens of these buildings could be readied in little time. Less having to deal with accidental fatalities that way too. If The Oracle did opt to sell them to the Pamantian Clans maybe we¡¯d even get those updated bioscanners with the profit. At least then we¡¯d be able to find the ones hiding in the forests and jungles inland.


    I paused a moment, glancing into one specific pen that I could have mistaken for empty if not for the four or five forms huddled into the edges away from the door. Their coloration was slightly different, and they looked perhaps a touch bigger. Ah- Silver-tails. A quick glance at the labelling next to the door in great red ¡°Do not touch!¡± confirmed it so. Lucky them.


    I kept walking, the claws on my toes scratching at the flooring as I nearly finished my round. Riiiight up until I came face to face with one of the creatures staring me down with a brown eye from a position climbed up to the top of the mesh door. Of course, they couldn¡¯t escape up there. The pen was sealed, but the arboreal had climbed to my head height and was studying me. Hanging from the door like... some sort of gremlin, its silly head canted oddly in its upside-down position. I could see that it had an untended to cut scabbed over with dry blood on its left shoulder, neck, and up to behind his ear. Probably incurred during a more claws on capture. If it were a Bala¡¯ur it¡¯d be a scar to wear proudly once it healed.


    Before I could rattle the door to make it fall and scare it off it spoke. ¡°Y-you were working with the Trikua!¡± I blinked. What? The words made no sense. Was it deviant? The mental flashbang of nonsense from its mouth didn¡¯t dignify a response, but I found myself speaking anyway.


    ¡°I was working with the Trikua?¡± I asked back, the tone of my voice pitched in so many layers of disbelief I wasn¡¯t sure who¡¯d sounded more ridiculous saying it out-loud. Me or him? The absurdist idea of it all. The Trikua were the most resiliant of their silly alliance were they not? How could I have worked with them? Their hatred for our kind was measured in oceans.


    ¡°Y-y-yes. You, you feathernecks-¡± I raised my lips at the word in a subtle snarl. ¡°-aah- auh- you Bala¡¯ur. You attacked w-w-when we couldn¡¯t call for help. Maybe not- maybe just some of them, traitors. Some of them hate us so much- How did you know?¡± We knew because the Oracle had said it so, and she was never wrong. Perhaps our scouts had told her, there were dozens of reasons she¡¯d have known. Not least of which simple, it could have been well trained intuition. It mattered little how she¡¯d known anything.


    It spoke again before I could reply. ¡°Y-your voice is raspy, dry. You should aa- drink something.¡± What? I tried to blink away the confusion this stupid thing had cast on me but-


    ¡°Well you sound like a squeaky toy! All of you do!¡± This furred moron¡¯s accusation was delirious and crazed. He was insulting my voice too! It was outrageous!


    ¡°A-ah- maybe it¡¯s just the translator. You sound... bad.¡± I felt my eye twitch.


    I could hear one of its fellows speaking in a hushed, agitated whisper. As if they¡¯d been made to suffer the same fanciful talk for days. ¡°Geal, enough of it! You¡¯re g-going to get yourself killed! It¡¯s nonsense.¡± Only for the speaker to get a brushed tail of dismissal from this ¡®Geal¡¯. His brown eye was still on me, agitating me.


    I spoke with the intent to cut his little illusions apart. ¡°We knew because we sabotaged your network ourselves.¡± I slammed my palm into the flat of the mesh door, shuddering it and shaking the whole thing enough to cause the creature to fall to the floor with a shout. It landed on its legs and scampered back. ¡°Listen to your friend.¡± Came the snip of a growl as I continued past the cage and up the steps to my guard post to log the patrol.


    Against my better judgement, I boomed out my voice back towards the cage I¡¯d just left. ¡°And I sound perfectly fine!¡± The feathering of my chest puffing up. Almost immediately I realized how much of an indignant youngling I¡¯d probably sounded like. ¡°Tttshh- ahhgh!¡± I marched back all the faster.


    By the time I¡¯d gotten to the booth though, it¡¯d passed. What a silly imagination they had. Looking to blame anything but themselves for their defeat. Hah! I plopped down in the booth, shutting the glass windowed door behind me and glancing out past all four glass panels that made it up. It was... thankfully much more quiet in here. Bearably so.


    As I went about my work, I tried not to let the one stimulating conversation I¡¯d had all day linger in my head. Pff... Trikua, how silly.