Best as they could tell, there was very little, if any, power running in the ship. The wreckage appeared to be ancient, but in space such things were hard to tell. It wasn't a make or model of ship that she or any of her crewmates recognized, and the scant amount of language printed on its hull was as foreign to her as any star chart. They'd compared it to everything on the computer, and it didn't come back as any known language, and it certainly wasn't Erassian,

Athaleen, or just Athy for short, was just a technician, and right now her job wasn't to fix loose handrails or replace fuses, but to get a pair of very ancient metals doors open by any means necessary. No one had any idea what they'd just found, but their Captain was excited!

They were all excited.

If this ship was something they could report to the Union, then they'd all be given such a huge reward they could all quit running freight and go home! Being in the middle of a cold war with the Erassi made freighter life dangerous. The last time the fighting was hot, the Erassi targeted all the major shipping routes and ransacked and scuttled civilian ships no different than they did military vessels.

And Athy didn't want to play any part of that. This weird ship could be their meal ticket out of a lot of worry.

And they'd found it by complete accident! Wendle, their navigator, had detected a weird anomaly on his sensors. It was far off the normal shipping lanes, but he justified it to the Captain that the anomaly had a signature similar to a ship, a large metallic mass that couldn't possibly be an asteroid. If it was an old war wreckage the Union would pay them a salvage fee, since anything from the war would still have value in it, especially if it was Erassian.

But no, what they found wasn't any sort of obvious warship.

It wasn't anything like they'd see in the history vids or on the news today. The ship they'd found was shaped like a large diamond, but very flat like it only had one or two decks. You couldn't see it clearly with the naked eye either, since the hull had this weird coating of paint that acted like a mirror. You looked at it and just saw a black void with twinkling stars. All of their ship sensors had trouble maintaining a steady lock onto it, too. The only reason Wendle found it was because he was a mental case that couldn't stop himself from checking every little thing on his computer. His sleepless nights of staring his eyes raw were finally paying off, since that weird anomaly that kept appearing and disappearing in front of him turned out to be something!

They, meaning she and Teri, now had to cut their way through the only access hatch they could find. A full quarter of the ship had been destroyed. It looked like something had crashed into it at high speed and punched a hole clear through from one side to the other. The rest of the ship seemed fine, if you ignored the gaping hole in its starboard side.

They'd first thought to enter through the damaged portion of the ship, but it was just too dangerous to try to enter the ship through the damaged section. Their space suits weren't meant for exploring salvage and wreckage. The material of their suits was only about as thick as Athy's pinky finger and was intended to preserve body heat more than anything else. Her helmet did all the breathing for her with a compact air tank strapped to her back.

Athy held her plasma cutter steady, carefully torching the metal surface of the hatch. That weird paint was on the hatch, too, and the heat from the cutter was making it bubble and pop silently in the vacuum of space. Judging by the shape of the hatch, and the apparent controls for it, she should be cutting through a lock of some kind. They'd find out soon enough.

Teri had his hands on a handle, weird letters etched in white around it. Probably instructions for how to open the door without a plasma cutter, but too bad they couldn't read it. She finished cutting her way through the area they felt was a locking mechanism, and Teri gave the handle a tug.

The hatch wiggled for the first time since they'd found it, not even a single hiss of atmosphere escaping through the crack in the seal.

"Easy." Teri told her before nudging her aside.

He took hold of the handle with both hands and planted his boot on the ship's hull. He tugged, and the now loose hatch began to swing out. The cuts she'd just made were already growing cold and she hooked the plasma cutter on her belt so she could grab the hatch and help him shove it open the rest of the way.

It was open now.

Teri unhooked two magnetic tethers from his belt, along with a short length of cable. Normally these were for safety harness when they were doing space walks on the hull of their own ship, a tether that could keep them from floating away and off into space. Today, they were being used to hold the hatch open, just in case.

"Didn't leave the lights on." Athy said out loud as she shined her flashlight into the opening.

"Captain, we just gained entry." Teri said after touching the radio on his shoulder.

The ray of light from her flashlight revealed an empty airlock of foreign design, which was then verbally relayed to the Captain.

"You can go in, but be careful. We've finished packaging the scan data and external video log of the ship. Just waiting on you." Their Captain replied, Athy hearing it through the earpiece in her own helmet, same as Teri.

He touched her shoulder, and she took it as a signal to start easing herself through the opening. More of that weird foreign language was printed everywhere inside the airlock. She couldn't read it, but the gist of it seemed to dawn on her, considering there were narrow seats built into the walls with little handrails and seatbelts. There appeared to be lockers with foreign equipment stored inside them, some of them left open and others shut.

"This definitely isn't Erassian." Teri muttered after he opened up one of the lockers. A spacesuit was folded into a rectangle inside of it. The helmet above it was of a strange design. It was almost completely round with a glass faceplate that wouldn't have fit a muzzle. It was too short. Even an Erassian would have to smash their noses up against the glass to fit inside it, and they were notoriously short-muzzled creatures.

"What's that?" Their Captain voice came over the radio.

"I said it wasn't Erassian, Sir." Teri spoke up.

"Alien, you think?" Athy looked over at him. Athy caught his eyes through the glass of his own helmet, and he looked excited! She was anxious but seeing him smile was making the excitement infectious.

"I think we're going to retire early, Athy." He grinned.

"Don't get your hopes up. What else is there?" Their Captain ruined the moment.

They pushed ahead, Teri relaying verbally what they we seeing, describing the airlock in as much detail as he could while Athy moved to the opposite end of the airlock where there was another hatch.

This side was much easier to open, too.

Even with the ship being out of power, and despite that fact they had to force their way through the outer door with a plasma cutter, the interior door of the airlock was just a simple locking mechanism, some kind of handle in the shape of a wheel. Neither of them could read any of the language printed on the metal, but a wheel was a wheel, so Athy grabbed it and began to turn it to the right.

It didn't go very far, so she started twisting it to the left and that was the trick. Both of them heard the bolt slide. For an airlock this seemed like a very crude method of sealing a ship, but it did have a gaping hole punched through it with no power supply. Maybe this was a failsafe to make sure crew could go in and out during an emergency?

The hatch popped open with the smallest of hisses, venting what little atmosphere was on the other side out into space. Athy gave it a tug, but it was no good. She swapped places with Teri and he had to plant his boot to the wall again, heaving the hatch open enough for Athy to shine her light through the opening. Beyond the airlock was barren gray hallway. Tiny amounts of debris floated in the air, but it didn't look like anything important. Trash debris.

Teri touched his radio, describing to the Captain what they were seeing. His description all but confirmed that what they'd found was alien in origin. In the background noise of the radio, the ship's doctor, Creet, could be heard stressing caution, but the Captain was eager for them to get inside and take some video footage.

They needed to send as much proof to the Union as they could. The more they sent, the faster they'd send a ship out to verify it.

Teri couldn't hide the excitement in his voice, and honestly she was, too! This was a once in a lifetime opportunity! They were going to go down in history as being the second crew of Rankalans to ever discover alien life, and they'd actually get to survive! The first sentient life Rankalans met in space had been the Erassi, and then they were all promptly blown up, triggering the start of a very long and bloody war that had only just recently grown cold.

The two of them pushed ahead, moving slowly through the hallway.

Teri pulled out his own flashlight, and together they scanned their surroundings until they both noticed that there must be a power source still active in the ship. Their flashlights were reflecting light off these small glass orbs mounted into the ceiling, like tiny camera lens. Athy clicked hers off, then pushed off the floor with her foot to float up to one of the orbs.

"It's on!" She gasped, seeing that inside the black glass of the orb was a tiny red light.

"Are you sure?" Teri asked.

"Yeah! There's a little light bulb in here, it's red. Turn off your light." She told him.

He clicked off his flashlight and now they were bathed in total darkness, except for what was inside their helmets. She looked down the hallway and saw the tiniest evidence of more little red lights mounted into the ceiling.

"Think they're cameras?" Teri asked, clicking his light back on.

"Probably, but I don't think the security guard is still around to watch us though." She pointed out.

"Ter** *an y** *pea* **at?" Teri's radio was starting to have static.

"Captain, that was mostly static, copy?" Teri thumbed the radio.

"Dam**t, interf****ce. C** ***k and g* * *ignal boo****." The Captain tried to tell them through the static.

"We can barely read you." He replied, Athy clicking her own flashlight back on.

"I think he wants us to get a signal booster." She told him, and Teri nodded while waiting for a reply.

"We should head back. Grab a booster and mount it in the airlock like he says." Athy suggested.

Teri agreed, telling her that that'd be a good idea. If something happened to either of them, they wouldn't be able to radio back to their ship for help.

"Captain, if you can hear us, we are returning to the ship to get a signal booster." Teri told the radio, not knowing how much of his message went through. They could try again once they were back at the airlock, they hadn't gone too far into the ship yet.

Teri began to move first, but Athy gave the hallway one more pass with her light. The emptiness of the ship was eerie, but apart from the little red eyes in the ceiling there wasn't much to see. Her excitement to explore had been dashed by their need to go back for more equipment.

"Athy." Teri whispered to her.

She turned back around and found Teri was waiting on her. She touched off the floor and floated to him, but he grabbed her by the arm as soon as she was beside him. He stopped her from going any further, and she turned to him confused. His helmet was set ahead, staring forward.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

He hastily shook his flashlight up and down, the ray of light aimed at something in front of them. She turned, looked.

A small glossy black disc was now sitting in the middle of the hallway in front of them. It was about a foot wide and half that tall in its center and set right in the middle of it was a fist sized glass orb with a red light in the middle, like the ones in the ceiling but bigger. Athy's heart was suddenly racing, and Teri tugged her by the arm to draw her backwards.

"Let's go back." She told him.

"Where to? It's in our way!" He hissed back in a whisper.

The disc had somehow appeared behind them, and now blocked the only way back to the airlock.

"Captain? Captain!" Teri tried his radio.

Static was all that returned, not even a scrap of a word!

The black disc began to move towards them, a low buzzing sound echoing through the hall as the small machine slid across the floor. Teri grabbed her and hauled her backwards, yanking her roughly down the hallway and away from the little machine.

"Teri! Where do we go!" She shouted at him with panic.

"I don't know!" He replied, his voice shaking.

The buzzing got louder, and they both stepped backwards into a junction. With her flashlight she threw light down one of the other hallways, and a second small black disc was there, sliding across the floor in their direction.

"I don't know what to do!" Teri shouted, and she grabbed him by his arm, the pair clutching at each other as they each spun their flashlights around and checked every corridor that led away from the junction.

Athy spotted a third disc, and she cried out in fear, then felt Teri yank her again. He dragged her down the last hallway, their flashlights dancing across the metal surfaces as he quickly pulled her away from the frightening devices, the red eyes in the ceiling following them everywhere they went. Athy reached out her hand and grabbed the radio box on Teri's shoulder.

"Captain, please!" She screamed.

There was no reply.

"Let's just keep going, Athy!" Teri kept his hand on her arm, his grip tight with fear, as they came to a stop at a sealed door.

Teri started groping at it, searching for a wheel or a handle, anything. She joined him, clawing her fingertips at the smooth metal, searching for any kind of seam that might have revealed a panel, anything!

"Captain! This ship has these things inside it! Captain!" Teri shouted into the radio.

Athy was crying now, turning her back to the door and shining her light back down the hallway. It felt to her like all those little lights in the ceiling were staring at her, and below them in the distance was a single black disc with its own red eyes watching them as it slowly slid across the floor.

"Teri!" She screamed, her tears flowing hot down her cheek.

"Captain Troyler!" Teri shouted at the radio.

There was a loud thump, it echoed through the entire ship like someone had beat a large metal drum with an even bigger hammer. Another thump and the entire ship began to shudder.

"What's happening!" She cried, and Teri spun around and put his back to the door.

"Ok, Athy, we need to stay calm! H-hand me the cutter." He told her, and she fumbled with her belt until she finally unhooked the plasma cutter and shoved it at him. She saw his face through the glass of his helmet, and he looked as frightened as she did.

"Captain? Can you hear us, please!" He tried the radio again, his voice pleading, but there was no reply forthcoming.

Suddenly, something collided with the hull of the ship, shaking them both off their feet, leaving them spinning in the hallway until they both landed against the wall with a harsh clap. Athy's ears were ringing, and she felt a sharp pain shoot up her arm.

She screamed.

Teri groped to find her through the darkness, both of their flashlights drifting, spinning wildly in the air and throwing light in every direction. Spinning, spinning, Athy felt Teri grab her, making her scream as the pain in her arm shot up to her shoulder again.

Little red lights staring at them from down the corridor, the buzzing sound of a small black disc growing louder as it approached.

There was another loud thump, but it didn't stop. It kept happening, a deep bellowing echo that shook the ship so violently that they both collided with the ceiling, Athy screaming in pain again right before her faceplate smacked against the metal wall. She heard it crack.

A large white star was now spreading out across the glass in front of her nose, and she started screaming with terror as the cracks overtook most of her vision.

"Teri!" She cried his name and felt him grab her.

The thumping wasn't stopping, the ship shook again, but they were now floating in the middle of the corridor where the violence couldn't reach them.

"Calm down, Athy! Calm down, it's going to be ok!" He pulled her into a hug, kicking his legs in the air like he was trying to swim them to the sealed door.

Their flashlights were still spinning, her plasma cutter lost now to the darkness.

"Captain! We've got an emergency! Captain! Wendle, anybody!" Teri was shouting at the radio, his voice wild with panic.

The door behind them opened, the spinning light of their flashlights showing the metal spin in a circle before sliding out of sight. Teri let go of her, groping at the open doorway to stop himself from spinning, and then grabbed her by her injured arm.

She screamed, but he pulled her to him, dragging them both through the open doorway as she wept from behind the spiderwebs etched across her faceplate.

There was then another collision with the hull, like something was trying to break it apart from the outside. The entire ship lurched violently, slamming Athy against the ceiling. She could feel her left arm hanging broken at her side. The door they just passed through slid shut, and in doing so bathed them both in darkness, as their flashlights were now on the other side of the door.

"Athy! Athy!" Teri was calling for her from somewhere in the room.

There was an audible pop as the cracks in the glass finally gave, and she felt the air leave her lungs as oxygen vented out from the hole in her faceplate.

Athy died in darkness, while a little red eye watched.

Captain Kylene woke up in a strange place. She was supposed to have been in a stasis pod, but it looked like she was presently strapped into a medical pod. Not only that but those pods all had clear glass covers and it looked to her like the outside of her pod was iced over thick. There were only two of these types of pods on board her ship, the FSS Trajan, and both of them were in the medical bay. So why was she in the medbay?

She made an effort to move, but her limbs and torso were all strapped down securely, even her head. There was a brace fixed around her neck that kept her from doing much more than wiggle, and her arms and legs were presently bound tight by security straps, which were usually only used for combatant patients or cadavers.

"Good afternoon, Captain Kylene." BOA, the ship's AI, greeted her with its cold monotone, but from where she couldn't tell.

"BOA, why am I in the medbay? What's happened?" She asked it.

"Captain, during your scheduled shift in the stasis pods the FSS Trajan was struck mid-warp by an unknown object, presumably an asteroid. We sustained catastrophic damage and fell from warp in an unknown quadrant of space. Under Federal Protocol I maintained stasis on all non-essential crew and only woke those with the relevant skills needed to stabilize the ship's condition." BOA replied calmly.

Kylene was very suddenly not calm!

"BOA! Get me out of this pod! I want a status on my crew!" She shouted, jerking her body at her restraints but failing to do anything more than make her arms and legs sting from where the straps dug into her flesh.

"I'm sorry, Captain, but I cannot open the pod without killing you. You are no longer inside the FSS Trajan." BOA replied, and Kylene sucked in a breath and forced herself to count backwards slowly from ten to calm herself. She was going to need her meds for this. Her heart was too old to put up with this shit.

This was a non-combat exploration mission with zero chance for anything to go FUBAR, so how the flying fuck does something hit them while they're in warp!

"Give me a status report, please." She asked the AI, trying to calm herself and her heart rate down.

BOA was a highly advanced artificial intelligence that was only used within certain makes of Federal warships. It was a ‘military' grade AI. Civilian AI were legally required to be several orders of magnitude dumber than BOA.

"After the Trajan was knocked from warp, I instructed select members of the surviving crew to begin emergency repairs. The asteroid made contact between the stern and starboard sides. The ship's engines were irreparably damaged as a result, but the reactor was unharmed." Kylene continued to count numbers to calm herself as she listened. BOA had mentioned, "surviving crew". She had 54 people on her ship when they'd left Ganymede! How many did she have now? And why wasn't she "inside the Trajan"?

"Chief Engineer Daniels was able to secure the Trajan, but without the engines we were stranded. I failed to estimate an exact location for the Trajan with our star charts. When we fell out of warp, I can only surmise that we were propelled dramatically off our intended course." BOA said.

"Casualties, BOA." She commanded.

"You are the only survivor, Captain." And she felt herself grow still with shock.

"What? How?" She asked. Her fists were clenching so hard she felt her fingernails bite into her palms, the straps holding her arms down biting hard into her skin.

"After the repairs were made, I instructed all crew to return to stasis. I cut all non-essential systems and routed everything to life support for all functioning stasis pods. I compiled a data packet containing our situation and best-known location and loaded it into all available cloaked beacons. I launched them all in a staggered array to optimize the chances that one of them would reach friendly space so the FSA could detect their signal." BOA explained, and Kylene was still struggling to accept that she was somehow the only survivor.

"You and the remaining crew were then kept in stasis for 5 years, 7 months, and 13 days. Several stasis pods suffered malfunctions from the initial damage and those crew members perished. I was able to maintain the rest of the crew's life signs until first contact was made with a pair of unknown vessels."

"First contact?" She asked, heart racing and still in shock.

"Two vessels of unknown origin approached the Trajan. The first arrived and was non hostile. Two humanoids forced entry through airlock A5 and explored our interior while the second vessel approached. I was able to determine that the first vessel was likely a trade vessel, but the second vessel was using primitive stealth technology. The second vessel fired on the first and destroyed it with kinetic weaponry."

"Jesus, fuck me." Kylene exhaled hard and started to feel her body get the shakes. "You're lying to me, BOA. This is all a fucking joke!"

"No, Captain. I cannot lie to you." BOA replied, and Kylene wanted to punch the glass, and she would have if she could move her damn arms!

"I know that! You just fucking told me my entire crew is dead! What happened to the Trajan? My crew!" She shouted.

Her voice, now that she had heard herself a few times, sounded funny. Being strapped tight in a medical pod, and having been silent for nearly 6 years, had messed with her voice. She was damn certain it'd messed with her head, too, because all of this couldn't be happening!

"With the destruction of the first vessel I rerouted power and activated all combat systems before opening fire on the hostile vessel. Despite the damage from the asteroid collision I was able to operate the ship at 46% combat effectiveness. The hostile was destroyed after thirty minutes of engagement." BOA said.

"Jesus Christ. Thirty minutes?" She asked, incredulous that anything could last that long against the Trajan.

"The enemy vessel was armored with hull plating that appeared resilient to direct laser fire, but their targeting systems struggled to maintain a lock on the Trajan. After exhausting their ammunition, they attempted a retreat. I was able to destroy it shortly after they were no longer capable of returning fire. The prolonged engagement drained much of the Trajan's remaining power, and half of the surviving pods had gone offline or were compromised as a result. Seventeen pods, including yours, were all that I could safely maintain."

"Per Federal Protocol, and per our Mission Directive, I had to ascertain the likelihood of rescue. I determined that it was not possible to save the Trajan if we were to be attacked again. I launched a standard distress beacon in a deactivated state with a timer set to 48 hours, including an update to our status. I cannot provide an ETA on when, or if, it will reach allied territory."

"And my crew? Me?" She asked, her body sagging limp into the pod.

"Hull damage prevented me from prepping the launch of escape pods. I revived Chief Daniels and two other crew to attempt a repair. During their attempt several new ship signatures appeared on my sensors. I was forced to scuttle the ship to prevent its capture by hostile forces. Chief Daniels, Ensign Walters, and Yeoman Carlisle chose to reenter their stasis pods to go down with the ship alongside the remaining crew."

To scuttle the ship meant to overload the reactor and blow up the whole thing. The Trajan was a new model of warship. They were entering a new age of combat with an improved ‘stealth battleship'. So, of course, protocol had BOA nuke it to keep anyone from getting their hands on it!

"So why am I alive?" Kylene asked. She was alive in a medical pod, and she wasn't inside the Trajan. "Did you detonate the Trajan?"

"3 days ago, the FSS Trajan self-destructed taking all crew, included her Captain, with her." BOA answered her coldly.

Kylene was honestly too numb from everything she'd been told to immediately question what the AI had just told her. It took a few moments for it to click.

"I'm alive, BOA." She replied.

"Yes, Captain, you are alive, but you are not as you were. Protocol dictated that in the event that we lose the ship, that I prioritize Core Crew, yourself being the most critical asset, and then all other crew if I am able. Since Chief Daniels and his team were unable to repair the escape pod's launching mechanism, I had no conventional means of saving you or the remaining crew." It began to explain.

"During the destruction of the first vessel I sealed both airlock A5 and the surrounding bulkheads, then proceeded to use Mini-Rovers to corral the two humanoids into a sealed room so that I could safely revive members of the crew. One of the humanoids died from exposure after their helmet was compromised."

"Afterwards, the crew returned to their stasis pods, and I used a Mini-Rover to direct the surviving humanoid to bring the deceased to the medical bay." BOA finished.

"Direct them how?" She asked. They were aliens, weren't they? How could the AI tell an alien what to do.

"I spoke to them in what I approximated was their native language. We were within range of their communications as soon as we exited warp. I used the time the crew was kept in stasis to analyze their language and compile it into a translator for future use. May I continue, Captain?"

"Yes." Her mouth was dry as bone.

"After I directed the humanoid to the medical bay, I instructed it to place the deceased into your medical pod. I determined that the initial cause of death was asphyxiation and exposure to the vacuum of space, while all other injuries sustained to the corpse were due to combat turbulence. I began administering medical treatment, which included setting and fixing a broken humerus, several minor lacerations on the torso and right thigh, and sealing minor cuts to the face. The deceased was revived after four attempts, and I determined that they were effectively brain dead with no possibility of recovery. I then began the installation procedure for an EBB." BOA replied.

An EBB? An Executive Black Box was only issued by high-ranking officers to store everything that's in their head to be recovered later if they were killed in action. Heavily encrypted and secure. It was a fine example of technology intended for one purpose being used for a completely unintended one. The civilian use EBB was mostly meant to help people live normally after suffering extreme brain damage. With a civilian EBB you could be missing half your brain and still be your normal self with the EBB filling in the gaps.

"BOA, why did you install an EBB in the alien?" She asked.

"Protocol demanded I preserve as many of the Core Crew as possible, so I installed a copy of your EBB, as well as a copy of my OS, into the deceased's brain. Your original body and EBB were left on the Trajan when I triggered the self-destruct. Ethical constraints prevented me from installing an EBB into the second humanoid, as they were not brain dead. The hull over the medical bay was undamaged, and so after I completed the procedure, I sealed both pods and ejected them from the medical bay using the quarantine protocol."

"BOA, let me move my arms." Kylene demanded, the strange sound of her own voice was suddenly terrifying as her heart pounded in her chest.

"The pod will respond to your voice, Captain. I am not capable of speaking for you." BOA replied.

"You're speaking right now!" She shouted, her voice squeaking in a way she'd not heard since she was a teenager.

"I'm speaking to your internally, Captain. Say out loud ‘release safety constraints." Kylene was in full panic now.

What had BOA done! There was no possible way this was real! No possible way!

"Pod, release the safety constraints now!" She shouted in a voice that had to be her own, it had to be!

The straps that had held her in place relaxed and popped loose. Both her hands were shaking wildly as she pulled them up in front of her face.

They were young, smooth, and youthful looking, not a single spider vein or liver spot to be seen. As she counted five fingers on both her hands, a painful knot grew in her throat as tears welled up in her eyes. Instead of seeing her own pale complexion, she saw tanned skin like coffee with creamer. She began to hyperventilate.

"Captain, please remain calm, the medical pod has a limited amount of oxygen available." BOA told her.

"Good evening to you, Lady Asha." A tall wolf said with a broad smile.

His coat of fur was a finely groomed ebony, his golden eyes shining like polished coins, and wrapped about him were the trappings of status. His suit was neat and perfectly tailored, a mixture of black and red in honor of his House's banner. A golden brooch hung on his lapel, marking his status as a knight serving within His Majesty's order.

The dining hall was very crowded this evening; the white and blue marble floors were filled to bursting with guests. Dressed in all manner of fine livery, lords and ladies from across the kingdom had come to gather for His Royal Highness' 18th birthday. The prince was now of age and everyone was whispering to one another about when the royal prince would take a bride, and to whom he would be betrothed.

"And to you, Sir Malcolm." Lady Asha replied, who was another wolf of noble birth, one who boasted fur of ivory in contrast to the former's ebon.

She was clad much as the other women in the hall were, wearing a dress befit her status. White silk with thin threads and gold and silver woven into the embroidery on her every cuff and collar. Sapphires hung from both ears and around her neck with an especially large one resting atop the rise of her bust where her bodice failed to reach.

"You are not playing your part today." Sir Malcolm told her as he finished his approach.

In each hand he held a glass of wine, one red and the other white. He offered her the glass of the white, which she took from him with a graceful nod of thanks.

"And you are quite observant; might I ask the occasion?" She asked in reply.

"No occasion of note, apart from His Royal birthday. Should you not be in his entourage?" He asked, prying nosily.

She scoffed curtly before giving the wine a small taste. It was just sweet enough for her palate to tolerate.

"I should be, but Her Majesty wanted me far and away, as to ward off any suspicions of favoritism in the court." She replied candidly.

"Ah, that would do, as if a single day would make any difference with the court." He replied with equal candor.

She scoffed again, taking another albeit larger sip of her wine. Rumors were as common as fire in a hearth, and especially so when the royal family had a son.

"You look delightful in a dress, by the way." He added.

She laughed. He was not the first to tell her so, and no doubt he would not be the last.

Lady Asha of the Noble House of Vallum, was the chosen bodyguard to His Highness, Prince Julian Gisel. As has been the tradition for several generations, the Royal Family would choose a female bodyguard for every child born to their name. The tradition's origin was born from tragic happenstance. Once, in times long gone, Prince Gerrard Gisel was nearly slain in his crib by the blade of an assassin, and had it not been for the bravery of a handmaiden he would not have lived to take his rightful place on the throne.

An ugly dispute over who had right to the throne had turned into a bloody plot for power. Nearly a success, it was the effort of one handmaiden with a kitchen knife throwing herself at the Prince's assailant that stopped it. Through God's Grace and divine fortune, she was able to sink its blade deep and true into his neck, killing the assassin with only moderate injury to herself, and none at all to the babe in the cradle.

The King and Queen of the time rewarded the handmaiden with many honors, and from a commoner she rose to become the first Lady of a new noble House, the House of Vallum. Since then, the House of Vallum had grown much in size and was known for far more than its ancient history of a brave handmaiden, but a tradition had been forged by the Royals of old, born of sentimentality. The House of Vallum has forever since gifted to the Royal Family the loyalty of one of its noble daughters, specifically to the care of any child born to the Royal Family.

And now Lady Asha Vallum was the bodyguard to Prince Julian Gisel.

"Thank you, it is not often I get to wear one." She replied.

"I might also add that your seamstress did a fine job of disguising your features. One would not think you so well trained if they were not aware of your station." He told her.

She feigned a smile, feeling in that moment just how tight certain parts of her dress were. The fabric hugged her tightly in one place here and another place there, often leaving her feeling like a bird trapped in a cage much too small. Though her dress had its frills and folds, it was not a loose garment. Her corset was sinched tight, the buttons running up her back felt like they were sewed together with twice the thread of any other woman's dress. Even breathing was a labor of patience, an act that must be measured and calm so as to prevent her chest from swelling too greatly with a breath of air.

It was a far cry from the more masculine attire she would normally wear as a bodyguard to His Highness.

"Is this your way of telling me that I am not popping out of my dress?" She asked, giving him a sideways glance.

He smiled, shrugging with a lift of his glass.

"I've seen your arms. I dare to say no thread could contain them for long." He replied after taking a sip, the glass lowering back down as he grinned with amusement.

"Sir Malcolm, I dare to say you should mind your tongue as we are in noble company." She reminded him.

"Indeed." He chuckled.

In the distance there was a sudden but gentle clapping from a single set of hands. A lone, aged figure was now quickly moving through the dining hall, clapping to get everyone's attention. As the man moved through the throngs all conversation ended, and the whispers and murmurs fell silent. Now, the hall was quiet with the clapper retreating to the other end of the room as all the gathered guests focused their attention on the direction from which he'd come.

The ceremony was simple. His Highness was finally introduced to the hall, dressed in a fine ochre tunic and trousers with as much livery as he was allowed. It looked very pompous, but he was the Prince. Everyone saved their applause, as now was not the time for such things.

The Prince needed no introduction of course, but Sir Conner, the Knight Captain of the Royal Guard spoke briefly on the Prince's behalf, speaking boldly and kindly of the young man, before at last welcoming a congratulatory applause to the young boy that was now a man. Only then did the countless dozens of lords and ladies give warm applause, Lady Asha included.

"He looks so out of place in that tunic." Sir Malcolm whispered.

"Her Majesty wants him to look as robust as his father." She whispered in reply.

His Highness' attire wasn't ill fitted, but it was certainly padded in places. The young man was a fox built much like his grandfather had been, quite slender, the opposite of what Her Majesty had aims of him looking. He was a lean young man, but tall for a fox. The Royal Family was not known for birthing burly sons, but His Majesty was a rare breed. He had inherited too much of his late mother's lupin heritage and was thus built more like a wolf than a fox. The houses of wolves and foxes often intermixed, but the seed of a fox was known to be quite strong, so it was rare to see a fox built like a wolf.

"Maybe if we come to war and he's given a sword." Sir Malcolm replied.

"Perhaps." She replied noncommittally.

She hoped no such thing would occur, as this day's age was a peaceful one. She'd never known any combat outside of her training, but some of her knighted peers had experienced a skirmish or two. Sir Malcolm had seen the battlefield although sparring against a pack of rogues hardly counts as warfare. These were pleasant times to live in, especially when compared to the histories.

The Prince was now being shown off like a newborn, standing at the front of the dining hall and being greeted by many great nobles. Every lord and lady who was the master of any house was given preferential treatment, and soon after their daughters. There were a lot of daughters here, all ladies in waiting, and all like meat in a butcher's shop hanging for display to the hungry eyes of the unwed man. Even if they could not catch the eyes of His Highness, then perhaps they hoped one of the unwed noblemen would catch their fancy instead.

Lady Asha herself was unwed, a spinster due to her age. Any daughter that accepted the duty to function as a personal guard had to make sacrifices, such as putting off marriage until a woman is past her prime. It was not something her House did easily, and with time it became a challenge. Some years produced candidates eager and unwavering, and other years the pickings were slim or unwilling.

Asha Vallum had been a willing and eager volunteer. She'd only been eight years only when she was chosen, having first set her eyes on her young charge when he was still an infant in the crib. Born only days prior, she'd been asked by her parents if she would serve the new Prince as his protector and being only eight years old at the time, she excitedly thought of the stories she'd been told time and time again about her noble ancestors. She swore to them then that she'd make a fine protector, a perfect bodyguard to keep His Highness safe, just like the women that had served before her.

She smiled as she watched the Prince awkwardly accept the multitude of greetings and good tiding, carrying himself with as much grace as he could manage. He was not so good at accepting this level of attention.

"You aren't required to hide all night from him? I don't see a proper guard about him at all." Sir Malcolm whispered more quietly than before, leaning in towards her side to be cautious with his voice.

She sighed.

"I am expected to keep an eye, and no more, until the formalities are settled." She replied in a whisper of her own.

The wolf nodded.

In due time, those formalities were concluding. The dining hall had many tables, but no chairs except for those that were for Prince Julian's table. His and Her Majesty then arrived late, almost a tradition now, and announced with their arrival that a feast would soon commence. His Majesty was a stocky fox, as described, tall and broad of chest. Announcing the coming of a feast with serving carts being wheeled in behind him was like watching a stage play and all its actors fulfilling their parts.

Soon then, the Royal Family was seated at their table while food was brought to every table in great quantity. Chairs were then brought in, one by one as servants hurriedly stocked each table with a suitable number of seats. Some guests had to be asked to feast in an adjoining room as there simply weren't enough tables to seat everyone within one room. A great many guests had come for the occasion.

"There is a chair open for you." Sir Malcolm told her with a smile and hand on her shoulder as he stepped around her to make his way towards a table of his own where the other members of House Malcolm were seated.

"I noticed." She bid him farewell and eyed the open chair at Prince Julian's table.

She caught his eye, and he was looking at her expectantly, and so she sighed and began to move across the hall, weaving gracefully through the thinning crowd of servants and guests alike.

"Sit, Asha!" His Majesty invited her warmly, his voice a deep baritone, so natural a voice for a wolf but falling off the lips of a fox.

"Your Majesty." She bowed to him, and to Her Majesty and Prince Julian.

She took her seat, letting her glass of wine come to rest at her side where it belonged. A servant quickly arrived and began to top off her glass with fresh wine before departing.

"I hope your birthday has met all your expectations, Prince Julian." Lady Asha said across the table to the man of the hour.

"It has, thank you Asha." He replied with a voice softer than his father's, something more befitting a fox.

The feast in front of them was roast duck and Cornish hens, honey glazed butterflied quail, and what appeared to be some flavor of baked fish dressed with a lemon cream sauce. There was so much meat on the table that there was hardly any room for the bowl of mashed potatoes and the basket of bread rolls.

"The quail is quite good." Her Majesty commented on the food.

His Majesty agreed and seemed to have a share of everything on the table now sitting on his plate. Lady Asha was not fond of quail and the Cornish hens, and so she favored the duck and fish more. With such a heavy diet of meat in front of her she feared she'd not have enough appetite to last her through to the end of dinner.

As the evening grew longer, guests began to slowly excuse themselves with formalities and pleasantries, all the while the Royal Family and certain others remained. Sir Malcolm took his turn alongside a few others, bidding everyone farewell, including Lady Asha. Once enough had departed Her Majesty decreed that the festivities had been concluded and everyone that had remained were ushered out, save for a select few.

Lady Asha remained, the servants all making themselves busy to tend to the messes made by such a large gathering of people. Her Majesty took it upon herself to give instruction while His Majesty bid them all farewell as he wished to retire to his chambers. It fell to Lady Asha to take responsibility for Prince Julian, leading him from the dining hall with an escort of only a single guardsman.

"Did you enjoy the party?" The Prince asked her once they had left.

"I did, Your Highness. And you?" She asked in reply.

The fox nodded in agreement as they walked towards his chambers. He was tall for fox, as said, but she was still taller. The benefit of being a wolf was that height came naturally to their breed. Had he been a typical fox he might have risen as high as her shoulder, but with him taking height from his lupine heritage he instead rose to her chin.

"I do hope the next one is not so large." She told him.

"I agree. That was too many people, and I cared none for most of them." He replied with candor.

"You should mind your tongue a fair better, now that you are a man. As should others." She replied, turning her head to look over her shoulder at the guardsman marching behind in their wake.

The guardsmen's eyes opened wide at that, giving her a curt nod in return before she turned her head back. It would not do anyone any good for more rumors to spread, such as who the Prince did and did not favor in his parents' court.

"Asha?" The Prince inquired, clearly not understanding her.

"Do not be saying out loud whom you do and do not like. A boy can be forgiven for many things, but not a man." She told him.

The fox paused for a moment, then nodded. When they arrived at his chambers, servants were already present to greet them. Lady Asha dismissed the guardsmen to return to his other duties, and then she followed the Prince inside his chambers. He was quickly set upon by three servants, all of whom were directing him to the bath for him to wash and prepare himself for bed. Lady Asha had her own rooms adjacent to the Prince's.

She departed, drawing a single servant into her wake as she left. Her rooms were only two, and very modest for someone of her status. Though her position was important and well respected, the accommodations were humble. She had a single bedroom with an adjoined room for a bath and toiletries. The servant helped her unbutton the back of her dress and took care to collect every single item Lady Asha removed. Piece by piece she disrobed, her comfort rising like the morning sun as the cage of her formal attire was unlocked. When the servant had everything in hand, Lady Asha was quite bare and retreated to the bath to tend to herself while the servant girl made it her business to tend to the laundry.

Now alone, she breathed a huge sigh of relief, drawing in a large breath of fresh air. She let her lungs fill to the brim, her bust rising high with her inhale as she relished the freedom. She exhaled deeply, and then began to rub herself on her arms and legs to work away the discomfort from all of the places where her dress had pinched and squeezed her. She did not take a bath, as she had already done enough of that preening earlier in the day in preparation for dinner.

When she emerged in a nightgown, she enjoyed the draft that blew up the underside of the gown. She'd worn the uniform of a guard for so many years that it had become natural to her. The way a tunic and trousers hugged her body was so much more comfortable than the painful beauty of womanhood. Not only was she a spinster, but a tomboy at that.

Lady Asha then knocked on the door that connected her bedroom to the Prince's. A servant answered, and it was clear that His Highness was finished with whatever business he needed to do before bed, as he was now wearing a nightgown of his own. As was her duty, she stepped inside and performed a quick cursory check of his chambers to ensure all was well, and when she was finished His Highness dismissed the servants.

"You should get some rest, and soon. Tomorrow you and your mother will go through all of the gifts you were given today, and you will have to write letters of thanks to everyone." She told the Prince.

He sighed and gave her a nod.

"I am glad today is finished." He told her.

Asha stepped up to him and put her hands over his shoulders.

"I think you did well today, and you will do well tomorrow." She encouraged him, patting him over the shoulder.

"Thank you." He smiled up at her, and she returned it with one of her own.

The wolf then drew him into a hug and gave him a squeeze.

"Happy birthday, Julian." She whispered into his ear before pulling herself away, feeling his arms hesitate before letting her go.

She wished him a good night before retreating to her bedroom. After her door shut with a wooden clack, she breathed a sigh of relief. She'd spent the majority of her life as his bodyguard, spending nearly every day at his side, but it was very rare that she was ever truly alone with him. All manners of servants, soldiers, members of the royal court, the royal family and its many extensions were always around and about them.

A large black figure stood motionless on the shoreline.

It faced the horizon, looking out across the sea to watch the sunrise. The figure was silent, its bulk casting a shadow across the tar-stained sand behind it, the lapping waves throwing themselves futilely at its legs, now sunken deeply into the sand. The behemoth could not move, it could not speak, it couldn't even see the sunlight. The horizon burned like white phosphorus, the sunlight of a foreign world casting harsh light across the water. The higher it rose the less brilliant the view, the glittering of sunlight fading as the sun drifted ever higher into the sky.

She had been asleep for a very long time.

The figure, a machine forged long ago, would never see anything again. It would never take another step, nor would anyone hear the rumble of its engine, nor the roar of its weapons. Its legs were now locked tight with age, the sand around its legs holding it upright, frozen forever in its final moments. It was a dark figure standing at the shoreline waiting for a rescue that never came, and scattered across the shoreline were the corpses of its brothers and sisters. Every corpse left upon the shore was painted black with death, every machine dripping with sea spray, their red painted hides stained black with vile ichor.

She had been waiting for so long.

The sun continued to rise, and the machine that watched the sunrise told the time, its shadow falling across the remains of what was once a foe. All across the shore, scattered amongst the remains of machines, were the ruined bodies of creatures long since dead, each reduced by time to skeletons. Ivory shafts of bone resisted the black tar ichor of the world around them, metric tons of heavy bone standing as evidence to the horrors they had once been. Now all slain, along with the machines, except for one.

Her mission had been so long ago.

Inside the machine, a tiny light glowed softly. Deep within its belly, a mighty engine hummed quietly, but it had long lost the power to move the machine. All it could do was hum and provide a small but steady stream of power to a system it struggled to maintain. After so many long years, it had become fragile, and the little light had begun to dim, softer and softer until only in the blackest of nights was it visible. Under that light's watchful gaze lay a body, cradled by ice and frozen against time. Her fur was stiff; her body shrouded in a layer of frost.

She hadn't moved in ages.

A ray of light fell from the sky, as brilliant as the sun. It passed over the broken bodies of metal and bone like a hand smoothing cloth. The light came to rest on the machine, its brilliance filtering through the ice-covered glass and the frozen body it protected. The wind began to whip up, scattering sand and wave alike. The crashing waves grew more violent as a behemoth descended, the roar of twin engines echoing across the shore. It hovered over the machine, like a hummingbird having finally found a flower at last.

Why did they abandon her?

"I'd say we've struck gold by several orders of magnitude, Cap'n." Chief Engineer Beckers announced with the biggest toothy grin he could muster.

Big toothy grins were commonplace as they all sat around the bridge for their debriefing. There was no table, just an assortment of chairs for every ship's station and a few extras dragged across the floor. Black and brown metal, the red hue of oxidization, the accumulated filth of decades of wear and tear on a starship far older than its crew.

"But by how many orders of magnitude! Spill the deets, I saw how much shit your crews were hauling up! That had to be at least a dozen of them! A whole fucking dozen!" Their Navigator shouted with glee, a younger woman who was on the edge of her seat.

Dozens of controls panels glowed brightly in colors of green and blue, all of them ignored. No one was minding the controls; everything was on autopilot. The attention was on the Chief Engineer.

"Beckers, just give us the quick rundown. I'll review the detailed manifest after you finish compiling it." The Captain shut everyone down.

The bridge was filled with all the top personnel for the salvage trawler Odysseus. The ship's Captain, Chief Engineer, Navigator, Chief Medical Officer, Chief Security Officer, their accountant, Ship's Chaplain, and all of the party chiefs from the Odysseus' four salvage crews.

"Right, I can do that. Firstly, it was not a dozen, but a total of fifteen separate units, so a full squadron." Beckers replied with a smile, which inspired a series of gasps, hoots, and cheering from the rest of the bridge before the Captain calmed everyone down again.

"Now, they are not all in one piece. If we had the facilities, you could probably cobble together maybe eight or nine of them with some scrap left over for repairs, but the Union Authority are a bunch of buzzkills, so that's illegal. But so long as we can prove its fifteen separate units, we will get paid for fifteen separate units. They are also complete with an ungodly amount of firepower. Half of them died fully kitted out with guns that were still operable when they fell. Died with loaded guns, basically." Beckers continued.

Many of the gathered crew leaned forward in their seats, all hanging on every word, the sound of a distant cash register ringing in the distance.

"Further, as we kept pouring over the units, we found that nearly half had intact guts. Enough to fit up the eight like I said, but it's more than that. That planet's atmosphere isn't as corrosive as we'd thought, so once we started wiping off that black gunk you've got some well-preserved internals. I could study this shit and earn a PhD in robotics." He added.

"Williams, your prelim report says you pulled everything off the beach?" The Captain interrupted him.

An older man took notice, sitting himself up straight in his chair at the sound of his surname.

"Yessir! We rotated through all four salvage teams, doing several comb overs with both metal detectors, magnetic snares, and electronic scanners. At best we might have left a thumb tack behind but there'd be no way to find something that small without us already knowing where it is." Williams, one of the four salvage chiefs answered.

He was considered the ‘boss' of the other three chiefs, considering he was the older and wiser of the bunch.

"Right. Keep going Beckers." He turned his attention back to the Chief Engineer.

"So, we've got all that going good for us, but here's the big fucking kicker." Becker began again, lifting his arms to capture everyone's attention in his hands.

"For almost all of them, their cockpits were cored out, the typical bug shit. Nadda there. But for three of them, we have actual corpses. We got their uniforms, their skeletons, their ID tags." He told the group, counting to three with his fingers.

"That's payment for three recovered GenJocks, my friends." Beckers finished with a sly smile, grinning ever broadly.

There was now a raucous clapping and cheering. Payment for bringing back a body was always top notch due to how the Union Authority was forced to pay reparations for how horribly they treated its GenJocks during the war. But before any further celebrations could get underway Beckers calmed everyone down with big waves of his hands, because he had one more piece of news to reveal. Their Chief Medical Officer was no longer able to hide his own near manic grin as he perched his butt at the very edge of his seat.

"We found a live one." Beckers said in almost a whisper, forcing everyone to lean forward to make sure they'd heard him right.

Beckers then looked over at their Chief Medical Officer. No one else said a word. What could Beckers have meant by a live one, they all collectively thought to themselves. Hadn't the war ended more than forty years ago? That squadron of mechs died where they fell and were abandoned. They'd been there on that black tar shoreline for more than four decades.

"Ladies and Gentlemen." Grant, the Chief Medical Officer, took over by hopping off his seat.

His excitement was contagious.

"One mech down there had its power plant intact and was running in standby. It survived the battle. She finished the fight and powered her mech down to wait for pickup. Obviously, that never happened, but her cockpit was intact, its seal was airtight, and her life support was still running. That so-called corpse we thought we were excavating is alive, but in a coma." He finished with a big smile.

"Bullshit!" One of the salvage chiefs shouted, the rest remained silent in shock or maybe even awe.

"She's alive, dammit! I've got her hooked up to every piece of equipment I've got, and I've verified that she's alive! Her pulse is steady, breathing is normal, the only abnormal thing about her is that she's in a coma from being stuck in prolonged cryosleep. No one is supposed to be on ice for that long!" Grant countered.

Stunned silence followed.

"Does anyone know how much money we get for bringing back a live GenJock?" Another of the salvage chiefs asked.

Beckers shrugged, so did Grant. Heads pivoted to the Captain for an answer, as he always had answers.

"Fuck if I know, it's never happened before." The Captain replied, and that was that.

No one had ever found a living GenJock before on a salvage run. They'd all either died in the war or returned home when it ended. There was no in between.

Until now.

In a porcelain white room there sat a single medical bed. The room was sparsely furnished with the typical items one would expect of a hospital, but it was also very sterile. There were no flowers, nor were there any gifts, and certainly no letters or cards to wish someone a speedy recovery.

Still in a coma, the now warm body of the sole survivor was hooked up to several machines, all of which were monitoring her vitals.

"Unprecedented, isn't it?" An older man spoke up from her bedside.

He stood with two others. All three men watched the woman intently, who was now only dressed in a hospital gown. None of the three men were doctors, but they were all men of great status. Dressed sharply in their grey uniforms, they all had pieces of colorful metal hanging on their lapels, each signifying achievement both big and small.

The three men were Admirals, each hailing from different provinces under Union Authority control.

"They were built to endure the unendurable. Perhaps we mothballed them too soon, considering our present company." Another one said in reply, but not in regard to the woman in front of them.

They were referring to the Mark VIII Scorpio, the two-billion-dollar machine that had kept its pilot alive for more than forty years.

"Expensive." The third Admiral replied, and the other two smiled softly and nodded.

"Expensive." Said the first in agreement.

But not in regard to the cost of the Scorpio. They were now referring to the woman in the hospital bed.

"But she has no living relatives at all? The report said she was from Taltus IV?" The second Admiral asked.

"Taltus IV, yes. Conscripted at age 17 a year before we lost the colony. Had an extensive records check performed on the evacuation, and found that we have no evidence that any of her next of kin made it off the planet before the orbital bombardment started. She is alone." The third answered.

The first then made a noise with his tongue, a tch tch tch of pity with a shake of his head.

"And that salvage rig blabbed to the media. It's all over the news now." He said after a moment of silence.

"Eager to make history." The second Admiral replied.

"Expensive." Said repeated the third.

"Well, it would be in the Treasury's best interest that she never wakes up." The second said with a deep sigh.

"You're right." Agreed the third.

The door behind them began to buzz. The three men exchanged glances, then turned and moved toward the door. The first of the three Admirals touched the button, and as soon as the glossy white door slid open, they were struck by the noise of several dozen voices, all shouting questions and demanding answers. The Admirals all stepped out of the room and into the hallway, pausing long enough to let the door swish shut behind them.

The second of the three Admirals lifted a hand and began to sign language an order that only military personnel would be able to understand.

More than thirty heavily armed marines were all that stood between that small hospital room and a galaxy's worth of news reporters. The Admirals all ignored the press, and a group of five marines forced a path open for the three men to make their departure. When they were gone the remaining marines shifted position and formed a protective line around the glossy white door. Only vetted and approved medical personnel were allowed entry.

Everyone knew she was alive, and if she stayed that way the Treasury of the Union Authority would have to pay an unprecedented sum in reparations for the suffering she had endured during the war.

Adjusted for inflation: 12,000,000 dollars for every year of service.

"Is it safe for her to be doing that?" A woman asked.

Two people sat alone in a room, a large television display in front of them showing a live video feed from a patient room. The woman who'd asked the question was holding a digital tablet in her hand, scratching down notes with her stylus as she spoke with her counterpart. Her counterpart, a man, sat with his arms crossed over his chest while he devoted himself to the screen in front of him.

"She's been cleared for this much physical activity. Her doctor has her under close supervision, and she is being given a physical every 12 hours." He replied.

"I wouldn't have cleared her for this. She's struggling to do basic exercises, Jonathon!" She replied, lowered her tablet and pointing to screen with her stylus.

There, on that screen, was the live feed of a woman trying to perform pushups on the floor of her patient room. Dressed in a pair of loose blue pants and a white tee shirt, she almost seemed normal apart from how skinny she was. Her daily meal plan wasn't designed to fatten her up. It was a carefully measured combination of proteins, fats, and carbs providing precisely the amount of vitamins and minerals her body would need to recover from her ordeal.

And all the while, her prescribed medications were a cocktail almost as bad as what she'd been subjected to before.

Everything they were putting into her was to careful wean her off of the old drugs, and to slowly bring her up to good health, rather than to force it. She'd been forced to do enough as it is. No more.

"Her psychologist insisted we allow her this much. This was her whole life, reduced down to that." He replied, breaking one arm away from the other to point to the screen, to point at the woman struggling to do a set of pushups.

He took the time to explain himeself.

"Her primary physician is a military doctor; he dresses the part every time he meets with her. All of the nursing staff wear the same. We had a team put together uniforms they would have used forty years ago. All this girl knows how to do is listen and obey, and when any of her doctors show up in uniform she listens and obeys. This is her world right now, and our first goal is to get her physically healthy again. Her shrink says it'll be easier for us to do that if we keep her in a familiar place, something she understands."

"I understand the logic of it, but I can do better pushups than that. If she hurts herself that'll set us back." She replied.

"We're continuing this plan, if she does hurt herself, we'll reevaluate based on her condition, but for now, she's doing well enough. Weight is increasing in small increments as planned, and it looks like we can drop one of her medications soon." He told her.

The woman tapped her tablet's screen a few times, studying the device with a furled brow.

"The Oxlindaphin?" She asked.

"I believe that's the one. The worst of the long-term effects of her daily stimulants have been curtailed. Remarkable to see it happen in person." He replied.

The stimulants the patient had been subjected to every day for her entire service career were designed to keep her from sleeping, designed to keep the effects of not sleeping from having negative effects, they were designed to keep her mind sharp, sharper than would be natural. It was a cocktail of drugs designed to turn a person into a weapon, and through great trial and error, and countless dead bodies, the Union Authority had figured out the exact combination of chemicals that worked.

GenJocks were tireless, ceaseless, obedient. They were just like the monsters they were fighting but untethered from a hivemind. They could, even drugged as they were, act with independent thought with reaction times only a computer could top. Except a computer was predictable. The hivemind could outwit a fleet of drones, and it did outwit them until the Union Authority was teetering on the edge of being overrun.

But it couldn't outwit a fleet of GenJocks. In the name of victory the Union Authority created its own monsters, by acting like monsters themselves by putting countless thousands through a program that left so many dead.

"She's blessed." The woman replied.

"She is, though from what her shrink is saying, I don't think she'll ever know it. Doesn't believe she's capable anymore." He said, still staring at the woman on the screen as she struggled to complete her next push up.

The patient collapsed to the floor exhausted, and a nearby nurse in uniform had to assist her, helping the patient rise. There wasn't any audio, but the body language was there. The nurse was telling the patient to stop, and the patient listened and obeyed before returning to their bed to rest.

He stared at her, a tiny face in the screen. There wasn't anything in that face that he could see. This wasn't a machine pretending to be a person, this is what a person looked like when they've been reduced to moving parts.

Blessed.

"This is General Wallace Brinks joining us on the program today! Hello, thank you for being with us this morning." The host said with a smile.

She was a sharply dressed woman, all in red, heels, the works. There was a smile on her face, but the way she extended her hand to the General betrayed her opinion of the man. Her body language projected a coldness that could freeze tap water.

"Yes, thank you having me." The General replied, who was a gentleman in his late 40s.

The two took their seats on the stage, the General in a large and comfortable looking brown seat, with hardwood arms with worn out tops from years of service to a nightly show that had been running since the end of the war. The host had her seat behind a small, austere-looking desk, and on the opposite side of the seating arrangement was the program's first guest sitting in a chair identical to the General's.

"Now, I know we've been told your pressed for time, so let me just push right in before our next break. Why are you here with us today specifically, because I tried very hard, been trying for months, to arrange an interview with Ms. Ford. But they gave me you instead, so why you?" The host began, revealing the source of her coldness.

Her tone was direct, biting, with every bit of her body language angled sharply at her opponent.

"I'm the most educated on the matter of GenJocks, and it was decided that someone with my level of expertise was needed to speak to the issue. Your program reaches a lot of people, Miss Dunham, so your venue felt most appropriate." The General replied, his voice unwavering in the face of his adversary.

"Well, I don't think someone like you can answer the questions I would have had for Ms. Ford. Apart from two public appearances, and brief ones at that! Apart from those two glimpses we've not seen her. I would have liked to have her on this stage to speak with her the way she deserves to be spoken to after what she's been put through." She replied sharply, Mrs. Dunham having been a vocal advocate for the wellbeing of Ms. Ford, whose situation was now on every news station across all of the UAG.

The General smiled politely and nodded in patiently, his features calm.

"I understand where you are coming from, but please do try me anyway. Ask me one of your questions, one you'd might have asked Lieutenant Ford." He replied, adjusting his posture to something more comfortable.

There was a moment of pause, where Mrs. Dunham stared at the General, then she leaned back into her seat and her expression shifted. With an irritated sneer, she let out a held breath.

"Ms. Ford, you've been asleep for forty years. How do you feel?" Miss Dunham asked the General, venom on her tongue with every word.

He continued to smile.

"Miss Dunham, I want you to understand that what I am going to say is spoken with the fullest measure of truth a man can muster. You want to know how Lieutenant Ford is feeling right now? She feels nothing, Miss Dunham. We took that away from her forty years ago, about a year after she was conscripted. We broke her down mentally and then rebuilt her with a cocktail of drugs that turned her into the perfect pilot. If she were here in this chair instead of me, she would only be capable stare at you blankly-"

"That's nonsense!" She interrupted him sharply.

"She would have no answer to give you." He finished.

"Let me interview her to see that for myself!" She demanded.

"It is the truth." He replied back.

"You people left her in a coffin for four decades, Mr. Brinks, and now that she's finally free you have her caged up in a hospital and you won't let anyone see her to verify if what your saying is true!" She shot back.

He inhaled quietly before letting it back out.

"My predecessors authorized a great many unethical things, and we are now trying to make right to those wrongs. Lieutenant Ford is not in a position to engage with you or I the same way that we are engaging with each other right now. Her mind works anymore; it would be putting her through more abuse to try." He replied.

"So, you say! So the other talking heads all say. Every piece of reporting makes excuses for why you won't let her out, to let her have even a sliver of freedom, of what she's been denied for almost her entire life!" Miss Dunham shouted, her hand clapping the top of her desk.

"Call us talking heads or any other derogatory term you wish, but it will not change the truth. Lieutenant Ford is no longer the woman she-"

"Stop calling her Lieutenant! She's not one of you anymore God dammit!" She cut him off.

With strokes of a stylus, the nurse began to take down a few notes on a digital tablet.

Her heart rate was healthy, and no signs of arrhythmia. She would still need to stay on her blood pressure medication, but at least it was working. He checked the notes that had been taken the evening prior, saw that they were much the same as the ones he'd collected so far this morning. Very little change, which was good. She was now down to only seven medications in addition to her curated diet and physical rehabilitation routines.

He finished that, then sat the tablet down on the table. Next to the tablet was a small narrow thermometer. Her physicals were thorough, measuring as much as could be measured provided it did not require a trip to another part of the hospital to use a machine. He popped the cap on the thermometer and approached the bed.

Sitting on the side of the bed was the patient.

"Open your mouth, please." He told her, and she obeyed.

She opened her mouth, and he inserted the tip of the thermometer so it slid beneath her tongue. He told her to shut her mouth, she did, and then a few moments later it beeped, and he pulled it free. 98.7 degrees.

He turned his attention back to the tablet and marked down her temperature. Most of her vitals were constants, with a few outliers related to her physical condition which were all related to the prolonged stasis she endured. The extreme atrophy her body went through was proving to be the most stubborn of her physical ailments.

Next, he began to prep a needle to take fresh blood samples. He would need to fill several vials to accommodate the large number of tests that would be run. Her blood was being rigorously examined for everything even though her condition had been stable for the last month. He removed an elastic tourniquet and told her to extend her left arm. She did, and he tied the tourniquet around her arm just above the elbow.

"There will be a small pinch." He told her as he felt around the inside of her elbow, using his thumb to push and pull at the thin layer of her fur until he found a good vein to use.

He stuck her, and she didn't so much as flinch. He snapped the first of eight vials into the collector, then waited for it to fill before removing it. He repeated this until he'd filled every vial, then quickly labeled each one with the patient's name. Out of professional habit he turned to her and offered one vial, showing her the label.

"This you?" He asked, knowing it was pointless since it was obviously hers, but some habits die hard.

"Yes, Sir." She replied in a monotone.

He lowered the vial and placed it with the others inside a small plastic tray and then sealed it with a lid. He double checked the labels on the tray to ensure they were correctly marked, then he stepped over to the patient room door and opened it.

"Samples here." He announced.

Another nurse on standby hopped out of her chair from a nearby desk and hurried over. He handed her the small tray, then watched her leave. As she made her way down the hall two armed marines pivoted from their guard posts and began to follow her down to the labs. Every part of the patient was under armed guard, even her samples.

He stepped back into the room, shutting the door behind him, and returned to his tablet. He was not her only attending nurse or physician. She had a very large team devoted to her care, and as he scrolled through the outstanding items that needed doing every morning and evening, he found that very little was left for him to do.

"I need to check your weight. You can-" He stopped himself mid-sentence, looking over at her as she continued to sit at the edge of her bed.

The tourniquet was still wrapped around her arm as he'd not removed it himself.

"You can remove it, the tourniquet." He told her.

He watched as she looked down and stared for a moment at the blue elastic band tied around her arm. She then reached for it and began to pull at it ineffectually. After a moment he stopped her and removed it for her.

He discarded the tourniquet, then went back to where he'd left off.

"I'll need to take your weight. Please use the scale." He told her.

She slid off the bed. He made sure to turn away from her. As he listened to the sound of clothing being removed behind him, he focused on the tablet, scrolling through its display and double checking for anything that might have been missed, whatever he could read that would draw his focus away from the woman behind him as she used the scale to measure her naked weight.

"125.8" She recited. The weight scale was located at the end of her bed and had a digital screen.

"Thank you, you can dress yourself." He told her without looking.

As he listened to the activity behind him, he updated her chart with the weight. She was down 0.3lbs from yesterday evening's weight. A normal fluctuation. He finally turned around, and found her standing next to her bed, dressed again in her whites and blues. He stepped around her and the bed and found the weight scale, then tapped the surface with his foot. The screen lit up, displaying the previous weight recording. The number read 125.8 before resetting back to 0.0.

"All of your numbers look good this morning. I'll make sure breakfast is brought for you, now that you've had your blood drawn." He told her, returning to the small table again. He began to collect the handful of items he'd brought with him.

With everything in hand or in his pockets, he made a last check on the tablet but spent most of his time looking at her schedule.

"At 10am you will be taken for physical therapy. Lunch at noon. 2:30 is your next appointment with Dr Sinclair." He told her.

"Yes, Sir." She replied.

He turned to look at her, and she was still standing there, arms at her sides, staring at him like she was waiting.

He hesitated.

"You can be at ease." He told her awkwardly, nodding at her like he'd been told to do.

There was a subtle shift in her body, but she didn't move from her spot. He sighed, nodding again but more to himself than to her.

"Breakfast will be here soon." He told her again, then quickly left the room.

Once he was out, he signaled to one of the marines stationed in the hallway, informing him that the morning's blood draw had been finished and that the patient could be served breakfast. The marine took the message and used the radio on his chest to call it in. Nothing was normal with their new patient, even breakfast had armed guard.

Two pairs of feet marched down the rocky trail. Surrounded on all sides by dense trees, the path would have been a scenic view had it not been 10pm on a Friday night. With only a clear sky full of moonlight to guide the pair, the two continued their trek through the trees in the heart of what was the city's largest park.

"You know, a smart man might have planned to do this during the day." The vixen chided him from behind, as he was leading the way.

"You might be right, but only a true gentleman would drag his girl out this late at night to the middle of the deep dark woods." The fox told her in reply.

"Uh huh. So, before I freeze to death, do I at least get to know what the secret is supposed to be? I'm cold!" She complained.

He laughed. The pair were a couple, some little lovebirds enjoying their second year of being Facebook official. Timothy was his name, and Chelsea was hers, a sweet pair of red foxes. Picture perfect, really and truly!

"Ok, ok. I'll tell you." He said, putting some somber tones into his voice.

"Oooh, ok? So?" She replied, hugging herself and rubbing her arms through her lightweight jacket.

Chelsea really should have brought something heavier to wear. Her boyfriend stopped, then turned around with a big sad sigh. Exaggerated.

She watched him deadpan in the cold.

"I'm a werehawk, Chelsea. I'm going to turn and carry you off into the sky and no one will ever see you again." He replied.

"Oh, you're such a butt, why are we out in the cooold!" She fussed at him, unhugging herself and pushing him playfully on the chest.

He laughed, then grabbed her by the collar of her jacket to tug it shut a little tighter, fixing the zipper with an upward tug.

"I told you it's a secret but we're almost there. You'll like it, I promise!" He assured her, then dragged her by the shoulders to start walking again with him.

Together they kept going, in the cold, girlfriend pouting at the thinness of her jacket, boyfriend reminding her that it'll be worth it once they're there. Also, that he was totally a werehawk just like in the movies.

"As if you'd be something cool like that instead of the Toxic Avenger." She told him.

They continued their banter until the trail led them to a break in the trees. The park had numerous places to set up for picnics and other activities, and what Timothy had led them to was just that. The break in the trees opened out into a modest grassy clearing with a few empty picnic tables and an old cast iron grill.

Between the two of them, Timothy was the only person carrying anything. He swung his backpack off and lured his girlfriend out into the middle of the grassy space, then sat his backpack down to unzip it. Chelsea watched him, now back to rubbing her arms to keep warm. She was pinching her lips together in consternation as he pulled out a rolled-up blanket.

"A picnic blanket, really? At 10pm?" She asked incredulously.

"You'll see, spoil sport." He told her with a smile as he shook out the blanket and let it flatten out on the grass.

He returned to emptying his backpack, drawing out a battery powered lantern, a lunchbox, and a pair of binoculars. All while Chelsea continued to stare at her boyfriend.

When he started to lay down on the blanket, he invited her to join him. She begrudgingly agreed, still pouting over the cold.

"There." He told her, at last revealing the secret by pointing up at the sky.

Now they were both laying down on their backs, looking skyward. The weather had been clear all day, and now at such a late hour the sky was crazy dark, and you could see the stars.

"Whatever possessed you to plan this?" She finally laughed.

"Well, I remember your dad telling me you loved astrology-" He began to reply.

"Astronomy." She quickly corrected him.

"Astronomy when you were little, and I know you have those glow in the dark stars stuck on your bedroom ceiling." He finished.

"Oh my God!" She laughed out loud, covering her face with her hands.

"When were you ever in my old bedroom! Stalker!" She accused him.

"You mom showed me when I was there last month." He told her, and she let out an ugly exasperated noise. Of course it was her mother.

Chelsea's bedroom hadn't changed since she moved out after high school, so it still had the glow in the dark stars stuck to the ceiling from when she was a kid obsessing over planets and stars and Lisa Frank.

"So, you wanted to take me out stargazing in the cold because I had glow in the dark stickers?" She asked him.

"Yes." He replied, then lifted the binoculars to his face and started looking skyward with them.

"That's not what those are fooor, you need a real telescope to see anything far away." She told him, hugging herself tighter on the blanket for warmth before scooting herself over to lay right next to him.

"Shows what you know." He told her a few moments later.

He handed her the binoculars and started pointing at a spot in the sky. She took them, and with more than a little skepticism began to use the binoculars to look skyward. You didn't need a telescope to see the stars, but if you wanted to see more than that you needed something better than a pair of binoculars, since those were really only meant to view things here on Earth that were miles away from you, not things way out in the cosmos.

"Stars." She replied.

Timothy grabbed one side of the binoculars and nudged her head with them.

She paused, her brow furling.

Then she batted her boyfriend's hand away and sat upright from the blanket, staring up at the sky.

"See it?" He asked her.

"I'm not sure what that is." She confessed.

What her boyfriend had found, and what she was now looking at, was a bright sparkling object very far away. It had been a long time since she was interested in astronomy, so she'd forgotten a few things about it.

"I saw someone on Facebook say they saw a shooting star a few days ago, and it gave me star gazing ideas. Then I saw the university put out an article saying they think we might be getting a few close calls. Meteors or something." He tried to explain to her as she watched the bright sparkle in the lenses, brighter than a twinkling star so it was something else, perhaps a comet.

"I hadn't seen anything about that. This is cool, baby." She was no longer that cold now, nor felt like pouting.

The night's sky was perfectly clear, with the stars much more visible than they would normally be in the city. It might have been cold tonight, but you didn't often get to see the sky like this most of the time.

"This was very sweet of you, I'm sorry for being a butthole." She apologized, and then offered to let him use the binoculars again.

"I forgive you." He replied and then took his turn to stargaze.

It was only just the one shooting star, or whatever it was. Chelsea didn't remember enough about it to know for sure, and Timothy didn't know anything about it at all, so the two of them just enjoyed each other's company and talked while they took turns watching the sky with the binoculars.

"Now I have to think of a way to outdo you." She told him after a few minutes.

"Breakfast in bed with a BJ." He told her.

"No, don't ruin the moment, baby!" She laughed. "Suggest something romantic!"

He laughed.

"I don't know, that sounded pretty romantic to me." He told her, and she sighed and tapped the binoculars so she could look again.

"Such a butt." She replied, taking the binoculars and looking through them once again.

The object they were looking at continued to sparkle, the glinting light of it wavering and undulating in a weird way she couldn't recall seeing before. She let the view linger, picking through her childhood memories to try and identify what they were looking at.

"Does it look bigger to you?" She asked him.

"Not sure, but I can kinda see it without the binoculars now that I know where to look." He told her.

She put the binoculars down and let them rest on her stomach. They both found it in the sky and watched, and sure enough, it was right there. They might not have been able to find it without the binoculars but now that they had, it wasn't that hard. It was just a bright spot in the sky, brighter than all the others.

"Pretty." She sighed.

"Regret letting me drag you out here?" He asked.

"No." She chuckled.

Turning her head to look at him, she tapped him on his side to get his attention.

"Seriously think of something romantic. If you come up with a good idea you might still get a BJ." She told him, genuinely wanting him to think of something she could do for him.

"I promise." He assured her.

She grabbed his hand and squeezed it, he squeezed back.

He suddenly flexed and started sitting upright. He'd forgotten all about the lunchbox, and it was quickly revealed that he'd brought some midnight snacks for them to share while they stargazed. It wasn't anything special, just one of those little 16oz box wines and a plastic bag full of charcuterie board meats and cheeses.

They began to share their modest meal, and the thing about alcohol is that it tends to warm you up, just start drinking and let the fuzzy warmth flow. Chelsea didn't feel so cold anymore, and with Timothy volunteering to be their designated drinker he only had the smallest of sips so she could enjoy the rest.

"I think we should do this again some time, but maybe when the weather is warmer." She suggested.

"Yeah, we can do that. Maybe I won't make it a secret next time so we can come better prepared." He told her.

"I would like that." She smiled.

"Man, that suckers pretty bright now." He suddenly said.

She looked and agreed with him that it was awfully bright. He picked up the binoculars and looked before letting out an audible ‘wow'. Chelsea reached over and grabbed the binoculars from him and took a look of her own. What had once been an unknown sparkle in the night sky was now a burning yellow ball much larger than it had been when they'd first seen it.

Putting the binoculars down, she sat upright and looked up with just her eyes. The object wasn't even streaking from one side of the sky to the other. It just seemed to be hovering there in the same spot but growing brighter and larger with every passing minute. Chelsea felt a chill that wasn't coming from the night air. After a few more moments of staring skyward, she felt her mood change.

"I kinda don't want to be out here anymore, baby." She said instantly, something not feeling right to her at all.

"What's wrong?" He asked.

"I think we should go." She said and started to stand.

"What's up, what's the matter?" He asked, startled, and began to pick himself up off the blanket.

"Let's just go, please, let's just go!" She suddenly heard herself say, the fur standing up on the back of her neck faster than she could explain.

"Ok, ok." Timothy was startled by her sudden change in behavior, but he started grabbing their things to leave.

"No, let's go, please!" She grabbed him by the arm and began to tug at him.

Something was telling her to get out now, and as she tugged at his arm he initially protested until he realized the look of terror on her face. He dropped the blanket and stopped resisting. He didn't argue with her as she pulled him along, and together they started to leave the park. Her feet were carrying her away faster and faster until both foxes were running back to the trail they'd started from.

"Chelsea, what's wrong? What's going on?" Timothy asked her.

"I think it's coming our way!" She told him, her heart pounding.

She dared to look up, saw only the limbs and leaves of trees obscuring the starry night sky.

"Ok, ok." He told her in confusion.

Now they were running, and she kept looking skyward. All she could see was the treetops and hints and teases of the night sky.

"Chelsea, it's dark, we need to slow down!" He shouted, but she was now lost to the fear that gripped her.

"Wait, Chelsea!" He shouted again and actually tripped just as he'd feared.

He tumbled to the trail, and Chelsea stopped, spinning around to see him just as he began to pick himself up off the ground. She rushed to him, grabbing him by the arm and started trying to haul him up.

"Chelsea, stop!" He shouted at her, now angry.

"We have to go!" She cried.

"What is wrong with you!" He shouted back at her angrily.

She kept pulling at his arm, but he resisted, demanding she explain herself. Somewhere in the far distance there was a noise, something like a low rumble of a truck.

"Please, let's just go!" She begged him.

The rumble was now louder, growing in volume until it began to sound like a roar. Chelsea's heart was pounding as she gripped her boyfriend tighter and tighter in an effort to make him flee with her.

Timothy looked up, his ears perked up at the sudden introduction of an unmistakable noise.

"What the?" He asked as the night sky grew curiously bright.

She looked up too, and though the limbs and the leaves the sky was brighter, far brighter than it had any right to be. Both of them froze at the sight of the night sky turning a strange bright yellow that overpowered their other senses. The noise then grew so loud that both of her ears began to hurt. The pain snapped her out of it, and she yanked on her boyfriend again.

"Please, we need to go!" She shouted, but her voice was now a muffled mumble.

"What?" He shouted back, unable to hear her as he tried to cover his ears.

Something struck the forest through the trees, a thunderous boom knocking the air aside like an explosion. Limbs were torn from their trunks; trees were ripped from the ground. Mother nature in an instant became shrapnel, wood and earth alike being cast aside like feathers in the wind. The night sky was absent, just a startling bright white light as the sound of a sonic boom deafened everything within its earshot.

The sky fell dark again, only the orange glow of fire somewhere in the distance giving the world light, distant car alarms echoing loudly from all directions. The moon was overhead, looking down at the scene of a devasted park. In its center, a gaping hole, a crater hundreds of feet wide. The forest around it had been knocked flat, snapped like toothpicks by an unseen and terrible hand.

A loud, shrill ringing was the only noise left. The pain and anguish of countless injuries added to the noise; a million little dentist drills whining all across Timothy's body. Slumped against the remains of a tree, its broken stump pressed against his back, the fox was trapped under the debris of broken limbs and loose earth.

He couldn't move, something was lying across his legs, and when he moved his arms, they both screamed at him when he tried. He tried to speak, but he couldn't hear himself if he tried. Timothy was suddenly tired, more tired than he'd ever felt in his life. As hard as he could, he tried to fight the urge to let his eyes close, because he needed to find Chelsea.

But he couldn't move, only blink his bleary eyes and try to look through the limbs and debris he'd been buried by.

Silently, something stepped into his vision though he could barely tell what it was. Something was in his eyes, they were burning hot as he blinked through tears. It was Chelsea and so he tried shouting to her, but he didn't know if she could hear him. He tried again. He blinked away more painful tears, then fell mute as his vision cleared enough to see.

That wasn't Chelsea.

Something tall and grey stood far away from him, it's body glossy and smooth with two legs and arms like a man, but it was unearthly, terrifying. Its elongated head was looking down at the ground, and Timothy watched in horror as its slender body reached low with a boney hand. It picked something up, and in its grip was Chelsea's crumpled body, limp and lifeless as the creature lifted it higher.

Timothy's heart pounded in his chest as a new terror filled him. His desperate exhaustion tried to drag him to sleep, but the fear fought it, his heart beating painfully harder and harder as the creature unhooked its jaw and began to open wide. It took a bite of her, and then the exhaustion finally won. Timothy lost consciousness, and his heart finally slowed down as the rest of him went limp.

The ringing wouldn't stop, it was like a piano key being held down forever, a constant high note that wouldn't fade. It radiated from his head and down to his toes, aching all over. The more he listened to that high note the more painful it became. It had once been dull, like a monotone, but now it was growing sharper, but not from the same source. Louder here, sharper there, quieter there. The more he listened the more disturbed the sound became until it became almost too much to bear.

Timothy finally opened his eyes, but he couldn't see a thing. Just bright white light that hurt to look at. He blinked, blinked more, his eyes beading up with tears as the ringing across his body became nothing more than large amounts of aches and pains. His legs and his left arm were the worst to feel it, and his head felt like it was splitting open with a migraine.

The white light faded as his eyes adjusted, and he finally saw that he was in a drab white and grey room. In his confusion he stared dumbly at the ceiling, then tried to look around but his body was surrounded by padding, he couldn't twist his head further than an inch. He was in a small hospital room, and it was empty. A vase sat on a table across from him with flowers. Twisting his head as far as he could, he saw the door was open and outside was the dull drone of people and activity.

"Dr Morr, you're needed at the 4th Floor Reception, Dr Morr." A lady's voice called out politely through an intercom system.

He saw a basket was to his left on another table, filled with what looked like candy and other things he liked.

Timothy was in a hospital; he suddenly was very much aware of himself and began to panic. He couldn't move!

His left arm was in a cast and on his right, he was hooked up to an IV. Something was wrong with his legs, he couldn't move them, and he couldn't look far enough down to see what was wrong with them. The blanket laid over him felt heavy, like it weighed a ton. Even his one free arm felt like it was cast from lead.

He saw the small red switch on the side of the bed, but it was on the side with his cast bound arm.

"Help." He said, but his voice came out weaker than a whisper.

Frustrated, he called out again, but not any louder than before.

He tried to lift his lead heavy arm, struggling to lift it higher than an inch. He barely achieved that. His fingers could move, and little by little he willed his arm to inch across his chest, pulling himself along by his fingers and pushing with all the strength he could muster through his shoulder. The fox felt totally drained, exhausted to his core like he'd just climbed out of a pool after several hours of swimming.

In a moment of triumph, he reached the call button and pressed it, then pressed it again. He stared at the button while he kept mashing it until a face popped into the doorway. A doe in a nurse's uniform quickly stepped through the door and looked at him, saw his eyes were open.

"Mr. Wallace?" She asked him calmly, and then began to check him over, looking at the machine he was hooked up to, asking him questions about how he was feeling.

He couldn't answer her; his voice was too weak. She then left the room and several minutes later she returned with another nurse and a doctor.

Timothy was then told that he had been in the blast zone of an impact from a meteorite that hit San Furnando's Eastwood Park. He had two broken legs, a broken arm, several broken ribs, a concussion, numerous bruises and cuts across his body, and a puncture on the left side of his abdomen that mostly damaged muscle tissue.

He kept trying to ask them about Chelsea, but his voice was too weak to reach them, or they kept interrupting him to calm him down and explain his situation. He'd been in the hospital for a week, his condition was stable, but he was far from recovery with how many different injuries he'd sustained.

When he again failed to ask them about Chelsea, he began to cry. Every time he asked about her, he remembered it more and more. He remembered taking her on a date, he remembered the two of them stargazing, and then running through the forest. He remembered being so angry at her for acting crazy, and then he remembered the explosion.

Chelsea wasn't here anymore, and it hurt to cry, his ribs letting their injury sing long and loud as his chest rose and fell with his grief.

"You're going to be ok, Mr. Wallace. You are pretty banged up, but the damage isn't anything someone your age won't heal from. Anything can happen of course, but for now I do expect you to make a full recovery." The doctor reacted to his tears by offering words of encouragement.

Someone was loudly talking outside his room, much louder than the general commotion of the hospital.

"Let me go!" A woman's voice demanded.

The nurses turned their attention to the doorway, then one of them left to check. Soon then, the doctor's own attention was drawn to the doorway as a young woman appeared. She was angrily arguing with another nurse to let her through.

Chelsea forced her way past the nurses and started sobbing when she saw him. She was dressed in a hospital gown with an arm in a cast. She looked rough, like she'd been sleepless for several days straight, her fur was unkempt, and her hair was a mess.

"Timothy!" She sobbed harder when she saw he was awake and staring at her.

The doctor let her pass by him, and while she rushed to Timothy's bedside the older man waved the nurses down to stop them from interfering.

"Oh my God, Timothy you're ok!" She was ugly crying, her warm hand reaching out to grab his own.

She gave him a gentle squeeze, and he didn't want to believe what he was seeing. It was Chelsea.

"How?" He tried to ask, but again it came out as a whisper, barely audible.

"I'm going to get them to call your parents, they were just here this morning to visit. They're going to be so happy, baby! You've been asleep for a whole week since it happened." She told him.

He didn't bother trying to talk anymore. It was pointless, no one could hear him. Instead, he let Chelsea tell him what happened, about the meteorite that they were watching, and how they were both found by first responders. The more she filled him in on what had happened that night, the more he gaslit himself into thinking that maybe he had just… imagined things. She was ok, hurt, but not as bad as he was.

Chelsea was standing right there, and that was her hand squeezing his.

Vera Walters quickly descended the stairwell. Despite being in her 30s she looked young enough to be in her early 20s due to her good genes and a special secret that would keep her looking youthful for years to come. Built thin with fair skin and dark brown hair she was an unassuming sort of woman who hid behind big round glasses and thick, modest outfits. She wasn't wearing her glasses for now since she didn't actually need them. They weren't prescription lenses, just for show. She just hated the risk of them breaking when she went out at night, so she always left them on her desk at home.

She lived on the fourth floor of her building and preferred the stairs to the elevator. Once she was on the ground floor, she dipped through the backway to the emergency exit. Despite the door being clearly marked as emergency use only, the alarm for it had been disabled a few years back and was never armed again. You couldn't open it from the outside, but if all you wanted was to leave out the back and into the alleyway that led to the dump then this was your best exit.

She pushed the door open, instantly feeling the cold night air hit slap across face. She looked up and skyward, seeing that there were no stars in the sky even though the weather was clear. She missed seeing the stars, but at least the moon was always visible. She hurriedly left the alleyway towards the sidewalk and pulled her jacket a little tighter around her shoulders. She had a few places to be tonight and considering how she planned to get there she didn't bother dressing appropriately for the weather, or even appropriately for her own sense of comfort.

Her lightweight jacket was unfit for a night that was down in the low 30s, and her jeans were equally improper. Normally, she'd be overdressed in sweaters and thicker weight pants that were warm and snuggly. She preferred outfits that hid her lithe figure and gave her a safe place of refuse to retreat into with a tight pull of a jacket around her shoulders. If there had been people out on the sidewalk with her, they'd think she was crazy for going out so underdressed, but with the weather being unusually cold this time of year most people were staying indoors as much as they could manage. Businesses were still open, but she had no idea if they were attracting any business.

She looked up again, Vera's pale skin feeling the bite of the night's chill as she searched the sky again. No moon, but she knew it was supposed to be a waning crescent tonight. If Vera was going to see it, she'd need to be in her favorite spot. She never liked moongazing from her apartment, as there were too many eyes around that might see her. She much preferred the privacy of her favorite spot a block and a half away.

It took several minutes, but when she arrived at the old City Metro HQ she turned and dipped down the alley that ran between the old HQ and the JP Morgan building next to it. Both buildings were as old as her parents, this part of the city having resisted the urge to flatten anything vintage so it could be replaced with the new aesthetic of cheap-to-build and same-as-everything-else. This part of the city had actual flavor to it.

Vera made it halfway down the alley before stopping on a dime, then doing a quick pivot and spin on her heel to give herself a 360-degree check of her surroundings. She was in the clear, and she knew there had been no one on the street with her the whole time she'd been walking here. So, she reached up to grab the rusted lowest rung of the fire escape and hopped up.

With the ladder to the escape in both hands she pulled herself up until she could start ascending the ladder to the escape. Once she was back on her feet, she quickly navigated herself up the fire escape to the top floor. The Metro HQ was currently vacant, and she'd searched online to discover that there were no plans to change that anytime soon. No one wanted to rent out the building for the price the city was asking, so it was just sitting here empty until either the city or a potential renter gave in to the other.

She reached the top and put her hands on top of the roof's ledge. She pulled herself up and over the ledge before swinging her legs over until she was sitting on the edge of the roof with her back to JP Morgan. Looking up, she saw the thin crescent of the moon far above her and she smiled. Getting back onto her feet she made her way over to one of the big air conditioning units that sat in the middle of the roof. She knelt down beside it, grabbed the side panel and wiggled it gently until she popped it loose. Inside the abandoned unit was a hollow cavity she'd made by removing some of the parts and equipment that had originally let the unit function.

This was her secret hidey hole.

Inside was an old black duffel bag, which she carefully removed and unzipped to reveal the contents inside. She looked back up at the moon above her, then started to pull off her jacket. With how cold it was outside she had to do this quickly for her own comfort. The jacket came off, and she hastily folded it over a few times until it was a neat square, then sat it on top of the AC unit, then she yanked off her tank top and bra, loosely folding both and putting them on top of her jacket to make a neat pile even as her hands began to shake from the bitter cold.

She resisted the urge to shiver from head to toe, her pale skin a perfect fit under the moonlight. She was a slender woman, her pert little breasts stiff in the cold air, nipples sharp like icicles. She unsnapped her jeans and unzipped them while she worked her shoes off with her feet. Seconds later she was standing naked on the roof top of the Metro HQ with a stack of clothing on the AC unit next to her, and the duffel bag down below at her feet. Had anyone seen her they'd think she was likely planning a suicide attempt to be naked in this kind of unforgiving weather, especially for a woman as petite as her. If she were a normal person, she'd not last thirty minutes in conditions like this.

Ignoring the contents of the duffel bag she stepped away and hurriedly walked around behind the AC unit until she was nestled in between the whole squad of units that had once kept the old building hot and cold at the appropriate times of year. Though she might have been on the roof of the tallest building in this part of the city, and thus leaving no way for an onlooker to accidentally see her from anywhere but the seat of a helicopter, Vera didn't like taking chances. She felt safer hiding in the middle of the AC units where privacy was near absolute.

Vera knelt down on her knees, the concrete roof cold and rough on her skin. She placed her hands on her knees and exhaled, the fog of her body heat coming out of her like a cloud before quickly vanishing into the night air. She shut her eyes, cleared her thoughts, then opened them again to look skyward at the moon overhead.

It didn't need to be a full moon. She just needed moonlight, and this was plenty enough.

As she stared at the moon above her, she let herself go.

Her body shivered, but not from the cold. The hairs all across her nude body began to stand on end, goosebumps running across every inch of her flesh as she felt it begin. Suddenly, her heart pounded once in her chest, a heavy thud like a sledgehammer hitting the hood of a car. Her heart rate was beating rapidly now, like she was on the final stretch of an intense sprint. Another heavy thud erupted painfully from her heart, but this time she felt it all the way up in her ears, the tinnitus ringing like a siren as her vision briefly went white, then black, then back to color again as her eyes turned gold. She was shaking now, her hands and fingers gripping taut onto her knees.

She opened her mouth, exhaling as she lost herself in the moonlight above her. The third thud hit her, and all she heard was the ringing of pain, a familiar agony she'd felt countless times before as her back twisted backwards, her head tilting back with her mouth open in a silent scream. Every bone in her body was explosively popping inside pockets of taut muscle, the noise of it rattling in her ears along with the sound of muscles being squelching and stretching. Her feet and knees slowly slid across the roof as her body grew painfully in size, from that of a short petite woman to a hulking brute.

Her face felt tight, her lower jaw popping forward and lengthening along with her nose. Her teeth began to bleed as they lengthened along with her growing muzzle. Her pale skin bulged with bright red veins as her body continued to warp and contort beneath the moonlight, her lower spine forced a fresh set of vertebrae out from above her rear to create a naked rat tail that shuddered and trembled in the air before falling flat to the roof.

As her head finished taking its new shape, she clenched her teeth that were now fangs, bowing her head as the goosebumps running all across her body exploded painfully into sharp tufts of dense fur. All over her naked body she grew dark patches until every inch of her was covered. Her fingernails were already long like claws, the rat tail behind her now a bouquet of bushy long fur. The long locks of brown hair had merged into the fur of her back to create a thick mane that ran from her head down to her newly grown tail. Two sharp ears sat atop her head, twitching in the night as her hearing was suddenly so keen that the entire world around her was revealed in crystal clarity.

A minute after her transformation began, she was left shaking and kneeling on the roof of the old Metro building, no longer looking like the skinny pale shut-in that had left her apartment before. She finally stood, now a full two feet taller than she had been moments before. A few of her joints popped and groaned as she moved, rapidly adjusting to their new form. In the short time it took for her to stand fully erect her transformation was complete. Her new body was physically fit, taut with wiry muscle, powerful from tits to toes. Cloaked from head to two in dark fur and a face like that of a wolf, she was the spitting image of many an old legend.

Vera was now proudly standing as the only werewolf in the city. Her city, her territory. She lifted her hands up, admiring the ivory claws sticking out from her cuticles, then clenched her fists tight. She felt so powerful! Now that the pain of the transformation was gone all that weas left was the RUSH of her newfound power, her superhuman sight and hearing. She was incredible, confident, able, a force to be reckoned with! She glanced up at the moon that gave her the freedom to assume this incredible form. She wanted to howl in triumph and gratitude, but resisted the urge, as she didn't want to attract unwanted attention to where she hid her belongings.

She turned and walked back towards the open AC unit and the duffel bag she'd left unzipped. She reached into it and pulled out a second set of clothing. It was a strange ensemble that she would have never had the courage to wear in her other form. First, there was the swimsuit, a black on- piece she'd found online through great difficulty. It was rare to find anything that could fit her impossible frame. She pulled it on, snapping the straps over her shoulders and adjusting her now enhanced bust into the chest. Second, was a pair of black leather chaps like a cowboy, or a gay man, would have worn. Finally, her outfit was finished by pulling on a black biker jacket which she zipped up all the way to the neck.

She took her stack of day clothes and tucked them into the duffel bag, rezipped it, then returned the entire bag to the empty cavity in the unit before closing it back again.

Now, standing proud and looking out over her community from the rooftop of the old Metro, The Wolf was ready for business. She had places she needed to be, but with her keen ears she could hear things people didn't want her to hear. There were eight phases of the moon, and only during one of them was she unable to change her form like she had just now. No one seemed to have caught on to that pattern, strangely enough. As soon as it became clear that the ‘werewolf' was showing up during more than just full moons all the thugs in her community just seemed to assume that every night was a bad night to be outside.

She liked it that way, and right now she couldn't hear anything going on that needed her attention, but that could always change. She stepped away from the edge of the building, then with a running start she leaped from the Metro building and landed on the JP Morgan building, and then kept sprinting like an Olympian.

With her superhuman speed she quickly crossed the rooftop of JP Morgan and leapt again, landing on the much shorter office building on the other side of it. She kept this up for several minutes, leaping from building to building like it was an effortless act. Her ears were on high alert, listening to the sounds of city life as she moved from rooftop to rooftop. She heard nothing that sounded like a crime in progress, and she was happy about that. Her community was a safe place to live, at least at night. She couldn't do anything during the day except for those rare times where the moon was still visible.

Vera leapt past her apartment building and kept going until she was another three blocks down. She found her destination, which was a three-story building. She stopped in the middle of the building's roof and knelt down. Going completely silent she listened and waited. Nothing she was hearing indicated that she'd been seen arriving, which was good. With her dark fur and black outfit, she was difficult to spot. The only trouble she ever noticed was shining lights, since her eyes would glow in the night like many animal eyes would.

She stood again and approached the northern side of the building and looked down at the two-story building next to it. What she was looking at was another small apartment complex, and this one had a convenient fire escape hanging off the side of it that gave her easy access to a window. The curtains were drawn on the window, but the lights inside were on and she could hear that there was a tv inside playing a rerun of some shitty sitcom. She stepped up onto the ledge of the building she was on, then hopped off and landed onto the ledge of the apartment building, then carefully climbed down onto the fire escape and down towards the window in question.

When she got there, she knelt down and lifted her clawed hand to the glass and gently rapped her knuckles on it twice.

A few moments later the curtains were pulled open, and a teenaged boy in his pajamas was looking at her with a big goofy smile on his face, He reached down to the bottom of the window frame and slid it open.

"H-Hi!" He stammered, his excitement obvious to both her eyes and ears. She could read his body language as easily as she could hear the beating of his heart. Her keen senses left little to the imagination.

"Shh." She shushed him with a finger over her lips, which left him clapping his hands over his mouth.

"Good evening!" She told him cheerfully and with a big toothy smile.

This young man was someone she made a promise two a few weeks ago. She had been making her nightly rounds, sprinting across rooftops, when she'd heard a distant cry for help. That cry had come from none other than this boy who had the unfortunate luck of leaving school late because he was being given a tutoring lesson for his failing grades in math. While walking home a pair of young men in their twenties tried to shake him down, but he'd sprinted away from them, and the pair were giving chase.

She of course reached the three of them quickly as she could, dropping down behind the two assailants after a running leap from the nearest rooftop. With her immense strength she easily lifted them both off their feet by the backs of their jackets and smacked their heads together. Dazed and confused by what had just happened she dispatched them both against a nearby wall, injuring them enough to stop them cold in their tracks but not so badly that would not recover.

The boy she'd saved was winded, frightened, and then suddenly enthusiastic that he just got to meet The Wolf in person. It had been a cold night then, too, and his teeth were chattering as he struggled to thank her for saving him. He'd asked for an autograph, and she asked him why he'd been out so late, and through his chattering teeth she got the gist, and then told him if he could prove to her that he'd gotten his math up to a passing grade on his next report card, then she'd give him that autograph.

She asked him where he lived, and he gave her his address, and then she told him that on the day he got his next report card, that he was to turn his tv on in the evening with a specific sitcom playing and she'd find him. With her hearing and his address, she knew she'd find him, and she had.

"I got a C!" He told her in a hushed tone. And scrambled to find his report card.

"That's very good!" She replied, and watched as he returned to the window, the boy now beginning to shiver from the cold. A C wasn't good, but it wasn't a failing grade, so a deal was a deal.

She leaned forward, maneuvering herself so that more of her body blocked the window. When he showed her his report card she poked her head in through the open window, hoping her body might shield his bedroom from the cold night air. Vera looked at his report card, smiled at the grades, then nodded.

"Ok, you held up your end of the deal. Got a pen and paper?" She asked him cheerfully.

He quickly grabbed a notebook and a pen and offered them to her with trembling hands. She took both items and flipped the notebook open, turning past pages of classwork until she found a blank page. He watched her with excitement as she started writing him a cheesy, yet encouraging, note to try his best at school, get good grades, and not to walk home alone from school anymore! Then she signed it with her name, The Wolf.

"There you go. Now, I have a busy night tonight, so I want you to shut this window tight and lock it, and go to bed when your parents tell you to, ok?" She told him warmly, but also firmly, and handed the notebook and pen back to him.

"Yes! I totally will, thank you so much!" He said while looking up at her then down at her very real autograph. She smiled.

"Goodnight." She told him, which snapped him back to reality with him now realizing that she was actually going to leave.

"Thank you for helping me again! Really!" He told her.

"You're welcome! Now, go turn off that sitcom before your parents think they're raising a crazy person." She told him, pulling herself back away from the window. Before the boy could do much more than approach the window, she hopped backwards off the fire escape and sharply dropped to the alley below her. Once her feet hit the concrete she dashed towards the street before jumping high, catching a wall with her foot before shoving off to catch the opposite wall with the other. In just a few leaping steps she'd ascended back to the roof top and off she went with the noise of the excited boy fading behind her as he no doubt tried to follow her movement until she was well out of sight.

Once she was several buildings away, she stopped and dropped down into a squat to listen. After several moments of letting her ears twitch in the night air she was confident there was nothing going on that needed her attention. She stood back up and shot off again like a rocket until she was covering buildings in one or two steps a piece. Once she reached her full speed she could zip across large distances as quick, if not quicker, than any patrol car on the streets. There were no traffic laws on rooftops and the sky as she sailed through the air to land on another building.

Her destination was in view, and she wanted to get there quick, as she was on a timer. So long as there was moonlight she was safe to patrol the city and move about in her transformed state, but once the moonlight faded she too would fade and return back to her human form.

The building she needed to reach was the tallest in her area. What she considered to be her territory had about 20,000 people living and working in it, and she felt she did a good job at terrorizing the thugs and numbskulls. Vera was very proud of her work. She reached the rooftop of the building next to her target, but she couldn't have reached the next roof over even if she tried.

Standing tall in front of her was the headquarters for Mach 3 Industries and about a dozen other companies. It was a large, modern, glass building with nine stories, and the three-story building she was standing on now was dwarflike by comparison. She was powerful, but she wasn't capable of jumping six stories in a single bound like a comic book character.

But the person she was meeting tonight had given her an easy way to get inside. She unzipped the top of her jacket and reached a hand inside until she found the small key fob she kept tucked into the inside pocket. With the key fob in hand she walked over to the edge of the building, looked down to check if the coast was clear, and seeing that it was she dropped herself down to ground level, landing flatfooted like she'd only hopped out of bed. Being in another alleyway she quickly moved to the back of the building where there was a loading dock for office supplies and packages. Next to it was a maintenance door with an electronic lock.

She thumbed the key fob and the door unlocked, and she carefully went inside. At this late hour the building was closed, and the only staff that would be in the building were all employed by Mach 3 Industries, and they all knew who she was. Well, they knew her as The Wolf, but they didn't know she was a pale, petite woman named Vera Walters. She found that the loading dock was empty of people, and so she quickly dashed to the elevator and pushed the call button.

Once she was inside the elevator she pushed her finger down on the button for the 9th floor, watching it turn it a bright yellow, but she left her finger there for five seconds until the button changed from yellow to a brighter red. Keeping her finger held on the now red button for the 9th she also pushed the button for the 1st floor and held it down until it turned bright red, too. That was a secret code to make the elevator go down to the basement level no one but Mach 3 Industries knew about.

It was a short trip down, and as she waited, she tucked the key fob back into her jacket pocket before zipping herself back up again. The doors opened, revealing a long hallway of white glossy floors and walls. The pristine, immaculate design of the secret floor's interior was like walking through some fancy set for some sci-fi movie. She exited the elevator, the security cameras all panning and tracking her every movement as she walked down the hallway. She passed by several doors, all made of solid steel which slid open sideways instead of swinging out or in like a normal door wood. Everything here was modern and high-tech.

When she got to the other end of the hallway she pushed the button next to the door in front of her. She heard the doorbell ring from the other side of the door, which was impressive since every door and wall in the building was soundproofed. Her hearing was just that good. Just above the button was a name plague for the Director of Mach 3's R&D division, which this entire floor was dedicated to. A Mr. Dane. The public face of the company was on the 9th floor, but the meat and potatoes that made them their money was buried underground where no one would believe it existed.

Despite its 10's of thousands of people living in the city there was absolutely no reason to pay much attention to whatever was happening in her terf, which was probably why Mach 3 put their headquarters here. They didn't want too many eyes looking in their direction. The only thing that made this part of the city special was Vera, and the media loved to write news reports about fresh sightings of The Wolf whenever she got spotted making her nightly rounds. For most she was one part legend, one part heroic figure. To others she was a tourist attraction, but more along the lines of those fraudulent ‘dolphin tours' where you get promised to see real dolphins, but they never show up.

The Wolf never showed up for the ‘Wolf Watch' tours, but the scammers operating them would point to the night sky and insist they'd seen her zip across a building, drawing the gazes of their gawking suckers towards wherever they'd just pointed. Queue the dazzling display of dozens of camera flashes going off like machine gun fire to capture nothing but a dull city skyline. She knew this was going on because she could hear them do it as she leapt across a completely different building where no one on the tour was looking. She was almost tempted to vandalize their businesses out of spite, but she stayed her hand through sheer willpower.

Meanwhile, she heard a person moving on the other side of the door and knew the Director was at the doorway before he had the chance to push the button on his side. The door swished open, and the genius that produced all the Mach 3's best work was standing in front of her.

"Evening." He told her.

"Evening to you, too." She replied with a smile.

He stepped himself to the side and made a sweeping gesture for her to enter his domain. She did, bending down so her head could clear the doorframe safely, and soon as she was clear of the door he pushed the button again and the door swished shut behind her.

"I take it you finished your little errand you insisted was more important than what you do for me?" He asked.

"Yes, I finished it. Don't pout, I'm here now aren't i?" She told him.

The Director, and genius behind Mach 3's success was a bit of a manlet. She estimated him to be 5'5" or possibly 6". Not a tall man by any measure and he was built like a pencil with clothing that was ill fitted to his frame. The only thing he wore that seemed to fit him was his lab coat, which he always wore whenever she saw him. In addition to his short stature, he was surprisingly young for someone so important and so intelligent. He couldn't have been any older than his early 20's, and yet here he was giving instruction to men and women double or triple his age with many more years of experience under their collective belts.

"Yes, yes you are. Come along." He told her.

She followed along behind him as he led her through the large open room that was his grand office. He led her through a side door to his personal laboratory where he played with various toys of his own invention. The room was filled with a wide array of mechanical devices, the purpose of which was often a mystery to her.

He directed her to her usual place, which was a table and chair. She took a seat.

Somehow, more than a year ago, he had figured out who The Wolf was, and privately contacted her for a job. First, the job was to recover stolen property that had been taken from one of Mach 3's shipping trucks. After that, the little genius had apparently snooped through her finances and discovered she was broke. So, now she had a new part-time job that paid all her bills, so she didn't have to work a real job.

She just lied to everyone saying she worked remotely as a copy editor for a publishing company, but the reality was she just sat at home watching Netflix and wrote romance novels she'd probably never have the courage to publish. She already had like eight finished books, but she couldn't bring herself to publish even a single one.

The Director retrieved a large thing platter from another of his cluttered tables and brought it over to her. The platter was covered in an assortment of metallic rods about twelve inches long and an inch in diameter.

"Just these?" She asked. He nodded and left to grab something else from another table. It was his handheld camera.

She waited until he returned, and now that he had his camera in hand, he began to film her. The camera wasn't only capable of capturing film, but he apparently could use it to collect data. Data like how much force was being applied to these metal bars before they started the bend or break.

He told her to begin, instructing her to start with a particular bar. She picked up the bar he'd requested, holding it by either end with both hands, she clenched her fists and started trying to bend them. After about two seconds the metal began to give, and then a few seconds later she had the bar bent to a 90-degree angle. She sat it down, and then he told her to pick up the next one, directing her to a specific bar over the others.

This went on for several minutes as she moved through each metallic bar. Some of them bent to 90-degree angles. Others snapped, but not always at the same amount of pressure or in quite the same way. Each bar looked like they were made of metal, but it was obvious that most were different kinds of mystery composite that Mach 3 was working on.

The last bar she picked up surprised her. She was applying about as much force as she had the others, but this one wasn't giving in. After several long seconds of applying normal pressure, she tightened her grip and forced herself to go that extra mile. Her muscles began to bulge larger, stretching and straining the leather of her jacket until at last the metal bar began to bend. From start to finish she spent close to thirty seconds trying to bend this single bar when the others only took between 5 and 10.

"Excellent. I felt that the last one would give you trouble. It'll be a good composite material for future vehicle frames. We're trying to improve the designs of several things the US Military doesn't want anyone to know about." He told her, then put the camera down so he could pick the tray back up and carry it over to where it had been prior.

"You pay me an awful lot to just come here and bend stuff. Don't you have a machine that can do this?" She asked, not that she was complaining about the salary.

"I have several machines, but they all require a team of staff to operate them and using machines to ‘bend stuff' carries with it the natural risk of injury. Using your superhuman strength is both cheaper and safer." He told her, setting the tray down and turning back to face her.

"Are you complaining?" He asked.

"No. I like money." She replied.

He chuckled, then turned and began to walk to another part of the room.

"Besides, ever since you started patrolling the streets the city has gotten safer. You are a kind of insurance policy against crime. Having you on speed dial is also worth the money I pay you to bend metal." He added.

He did have her number, which most men couldn't boast about!

"And, besides, the next time you're here I'll be having you stress test some infantry equipment. Your job will be to break as much of it as you can through applications of brute force. You might enjoy it." He told her with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"Oh, neat." She replied.

The Director then approached a tall locker that stretched from the floor to the ceiling, and he thumbed in a seven-digit number code before the lock disengaged. Though the locker's mechanisms were muffled silent she still heard the deadlock slide within the door after he punched in the code. He opened the door, revealing what looked like a series of shelving units and hangers. There was a large assortment of weapons and equipment stored in the locker, making her eyes widen at the sight of so much military grade firepower being held in one spot.

He pulled out a large black object that was shaped like the rubber handle of a hammer, but without a head to it. He shut the door back, her keen hearing picking up the deadbolt automatically locking itself. He brought the handle to her and offered it for her to take. She did. It wasn't as heavy as it looked, but that was because nothing ever felt heavy when she was transformed. If she'd been holding this as a human, she might have considered it hefty.

"You can take this with you. We were designing alternative forms of melee weapons for infantry use, and this was one of the designs I created. There is a button at the top near your thumb." He told her.

She looked, found the button he was referring to, and then adjusted her grip on the handle so her thumb could reach it. She pressed it, and then a polished steel bolt shot out from the top of the handle. The handle itself had been nearly eight inches long, but with the bolt now extended the length of the weapon was twice of what it had started as. The tip of the bolt was blunt and smooth, and she didn't know what this was supposed to be used as. It certainly wasn't a hammer or a knife, and it wasn't long enough to be useful as a baton.

"It's not charged, but I modified the bottom so it can be plugged into a standard wall socket with any extension cord you can find. Once fully charged it's good for three uses. It works like a cattle prod, but it's more powerful than most tasers on the market. Be mindful of who you use it on, as it could prove lethal. During testing we found that it was more effective than Police issue tasers in dropping a suspect, but too powerful to be considered for domestic use. Consider it a gift."

"I don't think I'd have much use for something like this. I usually just punch people." She replied.

"Be that as it may, take it anyway. You may find use for it one day and then you'll come to thank me for my generosity." He told her.

She pressed the button again, and the steel bolt did what she thought it would do, which was pop back into the handle.

"How to I make it zap and not zap." She asked.

"You don't. It's a prototype model. When its charged it will become electrified as soon as you press the button to extend it. It will use up a third of its battery when it touches anything that can pass a current, then after two seconds it will be ready to discharge again, etcetera." He explained.

"Guess it's a good thing I didn't touch it." She remarked, pushing the button again to make it extend, then pushed it again to retract.

"Again, it's not charged. The button to extend the bolt has its own small battery. There's a little compartment at the bottom of the handle you can open to install and single AA battery. Be mindful to have them on hand, since the mechanism to extend and retract the bolt is not energy efficient and will devour your AAs." He explained.

"Ok, well, thank you for the gift! I don't know if I will use it, but I will keep it in mind for the future. Better than have it and not need it than the reverse." She told him, changing her mood to be polite since he was gifting this to her for free on top of all the other benefits she was being given.

"You are welcome." He replied, then gestured towards the doorway back to his office.

She hopped up from her chair and followed him as he made to leave his laboratory.

"Also, the new outfit you asked me to manufacture for you will be ready in two weeks. There was a supply issue with the polymer I needed which caused a delay." He told her flatly as he began to walk towards his desk. She followed along quickly behind him, easily keeping pace with his much shorter gait.

"Oh, that's good news! I was wondering why it was taking so long!" She was excited now.

A full month ago she'd asked him if he could make an outfit for her that wasn't store bought. What she was wearing now was just normal clothing she'd found in stores across the city or online. It was real leather and fabric, but all of it was things that ripped and tore whenever she'd have to confront thugs and the like. She'd burned through pants, jeans, jackets, bras. She wasn't walking around in underwear and chaps because she wanted to. There used to be a matching skirt, but she'd tossed it last week after someone tried to knife her in a three way brawl. It had gotten torn so badly it wasn't wearable anymore.

"Yes, and I will let you know when it's ready so you can come by for a fitting. Even though we took your measurements I am not certain the polymer and synthetic fabrics will fit your frame without adjustment." He explained as he took a seat behind his desk and offered her a seat on the low couch across from him. Vera sat down in the middle, her knees rising up high from how long her legs were compared to the short height of the designer couch she was sitting on. Had she still been in her human form then this would have been a pleasant seat for her, but in her transformed state she felt childish sitting as she did, being forced to spread her knees and act as if she was sitting crossed legged with her feet still on the floor.

"Sure, I can come in for that if it means I get my new outfit! You think it will be tough enough to survive what I put clothing through?" She asked him.

"We've run samples of the materials through several tests. They will be flame retardant, resistant to most bladed weaponry, and offer limited protection to bullets. The jacket you requested will stop small arms fire, but nothing higher in caliber than that. The skirt and leggings are not bulletproof but when struck with a knife they will not tear. Direct stabs will penetrate if the strike is delivered with enough force. The outfit will not be indestructible, but it will last significantly longer than what you are wearing now. I will also be having spares made after we get you fitted so that they will all be adjusted to match the originals. It should be enough to hold you over for quite some time." He told her.

"Oh, that's wonderful! Thank you so much! You know, I almost wish you got robbed more often so that I could do more to help you for all you've done for me!" She told him cheerfully, but the look on his face was dissatisfied.

"I would rather not be robbed, thank you, but I understand your excitement. It is appreciated." He replied, and she settled herself down.

She noticed his heart rate was speeding up, though it was subtle. When she was in this form, she could easily pick up the subtle changes in a person's breathing or heartbeat, and after a while she'd learned how to use that information to her advantage. She could figure out a person's emotional state with the power of her keen eyes and ears. The Director here was like a placid lake, quiet and silent, but he couldn't control his heartbeat, though his breathing was always calm.

Despite how well he hid his inner thoughts she still picked up on the reason for his increased heart rate. She was so confident in this powerful body of hers that she rarely felt the shyness and modesty that was natural to her as a human, so she adjusted herself in her seat so she could close her legs and tuck them up under herself like she would have had she been sitting on her couch at home. Sitting there with her legs spread to him had had an effect on him, which she'd not intended.

"Thank you." He replied, even though they'd not spoken at all about why she'd done what she just did.

She smiled, offering not to say anything.

"Is there anything else you needed from me tonight or can I go?" She asked since she'd bent all his test subjects and he'd given her the little gift.

He leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands together.

"No, I don't believe there is anything else I need. You're free to go. Thank you for your work tonight, Wolf." He told her, and she nodded with a big smile before swinging her legs back out from under her to put them on the floor.

She stood up, handle in hand. Vera wondered where to stick it while she traveled, since she didn't want to have to hold it the entire time she was running and leaping.

"Ok! And you're welcome. You know where to find me if you need me for anything!" She replied, reaching up with her hands to unzip her jacket down below her breasts. She immediately noticed the uptick in his heart rate as she pulled the top of her swimsuit out and away from her chest so she could stuff the handle down between her breasts before letting it snap back into place. She zipped herself back up and smiled at him.

There was no harm in being the occasional tease, especially since she lacked the courage to even show off an ankle when she wasn't The Wolf.

"Have a good night! I'll be making some rounds before I head home in case anything comes up." She told him before turning and making her way towards the door.

"Of course. Goodnight, Wolf." He replied.

Once she was out of his office with the door sliding shut behind her, she made her exit from the basement floor. The loading dock on the ground floor was still empty of people, though she could hear the distant noise of at least one person milling about. Probably one of the security guards. She ignored them, since this building was one of the single safest and secure places in the entire city, and Vera emerged back out through the maintenance door and into the cold night air.

She leapt her way back onto the rooftop next to her before kneeling down and listened, picking up nothing that deserved her attention, and then stood back up. She still had hours more of the night, but she didn't think she'd need to patrol the entire time. Most nights were quiet save for the occasional driver making poor traffic decisions, but she left them to the traffic cops. Her bread and butter was crime: the muggings, the rapes, the assaults, the burglaries.

Dashing off at a sprint she began to make her running leaps once more, keeping her eyes and ears open wide for anything and everything as she sprinted across the tops of the city. As she ran her way across the rooftops making a sweep of her community, she responded to one car alarm going off, but didn't intervene when she discovered it was someone who only hit the wrong button on their key fob after they'd parked their car. Vera spent another hour and a half sprinting across large swaths of the city until she felt that her patrol was done. Tomorrow she could start earlier and end later to make up for tonight's lack of effort spent.

Where she'd stopped was on top of an Amazon warehouse. She could hear the dozens upon dozens of workers milling upon in the building beneath her, and she smiled knowing that she was about to give them both a fright, and something to talk about for days and weeks. Vera felt that she was a comfortable enough distance away home to do this, so she drew in a deep breath before throwing her head back and howling long and loud, spooking everyone working in the warehouse below her. The noise of her howl echoed far and wide, reaching every corner of her territory. If there was anyone lurking about with ill intent, they would hear her signal and think better of it.

After the howl faded, she zeroed herself in on the direction of the Metro HQ and started making her way back with great speed, and even greater leaps. When she arrived, she found it in the same condition as she'd left it, and opened the side of the AC unit so she could remove her duffel bag. She took out her human outfit, placing it on top of the unit, then stripped herself bare of what she was wearing now. Doing it now while she still had fur to keep her warm, she neatly folded the items and placed them back into the duffel bag before zipping it back up and stuffing it back into the AC unit before sealing it shut just like how she'd found it.

Now that she was naked, she knelt down into a squat and shut her eyes. Reverting back to her human form was as easy as it was to leave it. Every painful change she had to endure with every transformation began to quickly reverse. Her fur seemed to contract and fade as if it'd never been there to begin with, her skeleton shrinking along with her muscles, twisting and shrinking her body down while her head noisily shrunk, muzzle shortening back to what it had been while her teeth painfully pulled back and became dull once again. The reversal was just as quick, just as painful, but instead of becoming something powerful and confident she became something frail and timid. The sudden, painful lack of self-esteem was what lingered the longest whenever she changed back, lasting far longer than the echoes of pain her body had endured.

When she forced opened her eyes back open the world around her was so dark compared to what it had been before. Her golden eyes were gone, and now she could only see the world as a human could, dark and filled with uncertain shadows. She was freezing cold, shivering from head to toe. She snapped out of her funk, quickly hopped up and grabbed her clothing off the top of the unit to put everything back on as quickly as she could. When she was done, she tucked the handle of the new weapon she'd been given into her jacket so she could take it home and charge it.

Wait. She didn't own an extension cord! She'd have to buy one of those this weekend.

She could still take it home with her, and she did.

Going back the way she came she eventually made it back to her apartment and entered through the front entrance. It was close to 2am now, and everyone was probably asleep now or at least close to it. When she was in her human form, she didn't have the keen hearing like she did as The Wolf, which left her frustrated that she couldn't snoop on her neighbors or hear if there was anything criminal happening around her. She slipped her way back up to the fourth floor through the stairwell and unlocked her apartment door. Once she was back inside, she felt safe and comfortable again. The heater had been left running so the inside of her home was warm and inviting, and with all her windows shut, and curtains closed, she didn't feel like she needed to hide anything.

Vera stripped herself down to nothing but her skin, then went into the bathroom to turn on the shower. As she waited for the water to heat up, she went into the kitchen and set a pot of water on stovetop and turned it on to quietly boil with a box of macaroni sitting off to the side. After a quick shower, she hurried back into the kitchen to find that the pot was almost boiling over. She turned it down and finished making her dinner.

The UDF Carkarus was now docked at the Tritus Orbital Space Port. The warship was currently undergoing its routine monthly supply run. While docked, her waste material would be removed, her stock of necessities would be replenished, and all standard maintenance checks would be performed to evaluate her combat readiness.

And surrounding the Carkarus was a vast web of cord-like umbilicals and brutalist docking terminals. One such umbilical was affixed to her primary port side airlock, with an additional three connected to the starboard side and cargo lift airlocks.

Like a lattice of steel and glass, the Tritus Orbital Space Port was designed like a massive pendulum suspended upside-down, its bulbous domed head sitting at the top while the narrow spire beneath it, the Tritus Space Elevator, held it stable by stretching all the way down to the planet's surface.

The top of the Space Port was also colloquially known as Tritus Station, and it was the only way into and out of the planet's surface without a ship capable of sub-orbital flight.

It was also the sole space port in the system, the nexus of all commerce in and out.

With several dozen docking terminals, all arrayed around the neck of the Space Elevator, it looked very much like a pin cushion, stuck full of needles where each was a slender brutalist terminal. And each terminal was draped in the web of flexible umbilicals that connected starships to their docks, allowing for people and goods to flow freely between them.

Now, stepping off the access ramp and into Terminal 8-E, was Sub-Commander Alma Rocco of the UDF Carkarus' Mechanized Armored Infantry Squadron, and besides her was one companion.

The Luprine woman reached up to check the front of her dress uniform.

With a careful hand she adjusted one of the medals pinned to her lapel before slipping her fingers between the fur of her neck and her collar. She was trying to smooth flat her golden fur against her skin, in an effort to appear better groomed than she really was.

On her homeworld she would not have stood out in a crowd, her fur no different a shade than anyone else's, her bright red hair was shared by a full third of the planet's population, and her build was considered stock standard. Alma was of average height for her kind, but with a body in good physical shape from daily physical training and military discipline. Her only attribute that might have allowed her to stand apart would have been her bust. Otherwise, she was the perfect representative of the Luprine everywoman, a nice example for the rest of the galaxy to look at.

She finished her preening by reaching up to make sure her hair wasn't sticking out uglily from underneath her beret.

Alma then turned to her side, leaning forward to look at the front of her companion's own uniform. He noticed her attention, then turned to give her a better look.

"Good?" The Sauren asked her.

He was Commander Kay Rocco of the UDF Carkarus' Mechanized Armored Infantry Squadron, and Alma's commanding officer. While Commander Rocco was in charge of leading the Carkarus' MAI Squadron, which was split into two six-man squads, he also personally commanded the Squadron's A Squad, while Alma commanded the B Squad.

Kay was also her husband of eight months.

She rocked her head a little from side to side as she looked him up and down. Much like Alma, Kay was a perfect representative of his kind.

The Sauren male was average in height, although much taller than her. Saurens were always tall, and she'd seen taller than even Kay. About half the population of his homeworld shared his skin color, which was a deep purple color. The other half was a rich earthy green hue.

Also, much like Alma, he was a very fit man.

He wore his fitness better than she did, since her womanly body didn't enjoy showing off muscle, as her femineity was too potent for daily exercise to mask. Kay on the other hand very much looked like a man who spent time in the gym. He had the muscle tone and physique of someone obviously strong and well trained. He was the model soldier, much like Alma was in her own way.

"As good as we can get away with on such short notice." She told him.

She reached out a hand to touch the tip of her finger to one of his medals, nudging it slightly to fix its alignment on his chest. Together, they were well-dressed and decorated, a pair of perfect little examples.

"Well, if they want better, they can start sending us notices sooner than 30 minutes till." He replied, reaching up to adjust the beret on his bald head, Sauren's naturally never growing a single hair anywhere on their bodies.

She nodded knowingly, agreeing.

The Carkarus had only just docked with the station, and no more than thirty minutes later the ship's Captain was getting formal requests for both Kay and Alma to make a special appearance out on the terminal. A mad dash later and the pair were wearing their dress uniforms and medals so that they could present themselves in front of a camera as requested.

And not even for military officials, just the local political paparazzi that made their home on Tritus Station.

A small group of officials were already approaching them through the terminal, flanked by a small camera crew. One of the spherical floating drones zipped ahead of the crowd and reached them first, its silent presence broken only by the bright red light next to its glossy camera lens.

Alma forced a smile for the camera, as did Kay.

Waiting for the group to arrive was like watching a bullet slowly fly out the barrel of a gun. Every terminal in the port was just a long narrow walkway. Sterile, stark, brutalist in design. It was pure function, no form. The only color on display was what came from the neon electric signage that indicated which umbilicals were in active use and to what ship they were connected.

Back on board the Carkarus everything would be rolling forward as normal, just without two of its crew members. Neither she nor her husband were essential personnel for a supply run, as they were ultimately just MAI pilots. Anything the MAI Squadron needed would be taken care of by the support crew from engineering. None of the twelve pilots on the ship would have a job to do until the resupply was complete and the ship was back on its way for routine patrol around Tritus.

"Commander Rocco, Sub-Commander Rocco." The first of the officials to reach them spoke up.

He was a short stocky Bassian, his green fishy skin glossy and moisturized, his extra wide mouth and thick lips were beaming a politician's grin while the eyes on top of his head lazily blinked at them.

Even though the crowd was not military, both Roccos lifted their hands and returned the greeting with a sharp salute.

The fish waved his hands, assuring them that the military formality was not needed. Even if it wasn't, the pair knew they were being put on display yet again, and display pieces needed to look the part. The politicians might not care, but their commanding officers all did. Both sides of government had their agendas. The top brass of the UDF wanted to boost their recruitment numbers from both Kay and Alma's homeworlds, and the United League of Nations wanted to improve trade relations and promote tourism.

"Senator Gill." Her husband spoke first.

"Senator." She said soon after, both now lowering their hands to their sides.

Senator Gill stuck out his hand, offering it to Alma first. She took it gently, as he was a very short and frail man. His hand was small, fingers short and about as sturdy as the tip of her nose. If it weren't for the glove he was wearing, Alma would have had to suppress the instinct to wipe her hands clean, as normally you would be left with a fishy residue if you ever touched a Bassian. Thankfully he wore gloves for just that very reason.

Afterwards, Senator Gill shook her husband's hand. Her eyes watched the Senator, then moved to the others. She recognized most of the people gathered.

Senators Flock, Croke, and Cheek were the ones she knew. The other two were new faces, both Irdians. Three Irdians at the same time was a lot, since usually it was just Senator Flock who attended these things.

The others all began to introduce themselves, shaking their hands in turn. She learned the newcomers' names, but Senator Gill was hurrying them along through the pleasantries.

Meanwhile, the silent drone had been joined by two more. Three of the floating spheres now encircled them as the Senator led them and the group away from the boarding ramp.

Other members of the Carkarus' crew were starting to disembark. Anyone that wasn't strictly needed for resupply was given the option to visit the station to stretch their legs and enjoy some brief R&R. Since resupply was always scheduled to take at least a full 24 hours it gave everyone, even the crew needed for resupply duty, a chance to get a little air.

"When we learned that the Carkarus was docked we wanted to hurry to steal a bit of your time! We hope we weren't interrupting your duties on board the Carkarus?" Senator Flock was speaking now.

He was always the more friendly of the usual politicians they dealt with. They were all friendly, but Flock seemed the most genuine about it, despite being an Irdian. The rest were typical politicians. Very two-faced.

"No, sir. We're effectively off duty until resupply is complete." Kay replied formally.

Both of them would remain formal until they no longer had cameras on them. It was important that they maintained composure under scrutiny.

"Excellent! You see, well, if I may go ahead and get us started Salmon?" Flock interrupted himself, turning to Senator Salmon Gill.

"Oh yes, of course! Go ahead, this is your show." The fish replied.

The bird smiled, a weird thing to see a bird do, but it was technically a smile. The white feathered man was as tall as Alma, but skinny from head to toe. The pencil thin bird was elderly, but spry in his movements. His two Irdian companions looked much younger, but they too were Senators of the ULN.

Every Senator was a representative for their homeworld within the ULN senate, which currently had more than 200 senators. Her own homeworld had three, and Kay's had two. The number of Senators granted to a planet was based on population size, but that was only true for long-standing members of the ULN. Both the Luprine and the Sauren had been voted into the ULN as members within the last forty years, making them the youngest member states.

As such, the number of senators they were allowed was severely limited until fifty years of membership had passed.

Within the next decade their homeworlds would each see their senator count jump substantially, as they had larger populations than most of their ULN peers. The Luprine were predicted to have at least fifteen while the Sauren would have closer to twelve.

"Well, as you might have heard, we have been trying to promote a new work visa initiative for Birdra. With the kind of fortitude that your people have we believe it would be an excellent opportunity to build up our infrastructure while offering an equal opportunity for your kind to make good use of yourselves." Senator Flock started to explain.

Alma began to smile, listening, face tightening to brace for whatever else the Senator was going to say. And no, she had not heard anything about a work visa initiative. She was just military, and the UDF Carkarus was kept too busy patrolling Tritus for its crew to pay much attention to the local politics of any of the ULN homeworlds.

One of the other Irdian Senators then began to speak, a woman who had been introduced as Senator Waddle.

"Our work force in the development sector is quite lacking for many of the projects we've budgeted for on Birdra, and so we are hoping to draw up at least thirty or so thousand Luprine and Sauren laborers to assist. Your kind are very good at physical labor so you would be more than adequate to the task, but we've been having some difficulty in meeting the required number of votes in our local government to allow it." She told them both.

Alma nodded politely and used the moment to tilt her head to look at her husband. He was stone faced, only a tight polite smile on his face as he too listened.

"The public perception of Luprine and Sauren people is far too low on Birdra, so the progress on the initiative has stagnated. What we are hoping for is to record a quick interview with the two of you as a small fluff piece. We've been assembling a PR package that we hope to start releasing soon to the public to soften public perception, you see." She continued.

Public perception.

As one of the two youngest members of the United League of Nations, Luprines were not looked upon favorably. It had taken fifteen years to get approval to become a member state, and for the Saurens it had taken twenty-one, only joining two years after the Luprines had.

Both her and Kay's people were not thought highly of, partly due to the ULN itself. She wasn't alive for most of it, but before she and her husband were even born there were waves of anti-integration propaganda being spread by most of the ULN member states. None of them wanted any new members to be added.

The propaganda was so ugly and effective that the Luprine and Saurens were only allowed to join under the condition that their number of Senators was sharply reduced. They actually wrote the rule about restricting Senator counts explicitly because they wanted to suppress those same new members.

And now that it was forty years past, and now that they'd decided that the Luprines and Saurens were useful, the ULN was forced to fight against its own highly effective propaganda.

"What would you have us do, Senator?" Kay spoke up, and Alma tilted her head again to give him her attention as he spoke.

"Oh, we don't want anything specific to the work visa initiative, at least from you two. We felt it would just be good to slip something into the news stream featuring two of the better-known faces. With the two of you being such a strong credit to your people, it would work well for our purposes." Senator Flock was speaking again.

The propaganda had been so good that many sitting politicians still believed it faithfully, even if their predecessors were well aware that it was all ugly falsehoods. The three Irdian Senators did not look old enough to have been in the same generation as those that helped write their own planet's propaganda.

Alma wasn't sure what stereotypes came from where, as her people and the Saurens had been assailed by it from all sides and sources. At this point it didn't really matter.

Much of it has become so ubiquitous that the same stereotypes existed pretty much everywhere. At least, best as she could tell. She'd grown up on her homeworld of Labradia, had then spent time in the MAI Academy on Rodentia, and was then sent to Tritus for her first and ongoing assignment.

And everywhere she had been, and judging by what sort of reception she got from every other species she met, it seemed that everyone believed everything ever said about her and Kay's people.

"You know best what you need, Senator. We will cooperate best as we are able." Kay replied, then turned to her with a smile.

She saw the look on his face, then nodded. Both of them still wore their forced, tight smiles.

What followed was a very standard, emotionally draining interview. They were each asked a series of questions, many of which started off professionally. Each of them was asked about their military experience, their time on the Carkarus, and the sort of PR questions you'd expect from a politician if they were trying to boost recruitment numbers at home.

Then it began to twist into the difficult territory of battling against the negative stereotypes that had been built up against the Luprine and Saurens.

"Sub-Commander, the current recruitment rate from Labradia is 41% below the ULN target. Do you feel that this might be because of a lack of work ethic on the part of your kind, or a lack of motivation to serve for the greater good of the ULN?" Senator Croke was speaking now.

She tightened her smile to stay polite.

"I do not think it is a lack of work ethic, no." She began to say.

She just wished she could give the honest answer, that her people didn't appreciate being the target of slurs and the butt of jokes. Why serve a league that hates you?

"My people work very hard, so I do not think that's why. The UDF is not a poor employer, the salaries are very fair, but I do not think that is being translated very well to the population on Labradia. There is a fear that if you enlist with the UDF you will leave your family behind in exchange for a salary that will not be enough to support your loved ones." She gave a fine enough answer while avoiding the Senator's other comment completely.

Kay then interrupted.

"If you check the recruitment numbers for Reptilia, they are higher than Labradia's. I think the messaging from the UDF is penetrating a lot better with the Sauren people. I'm not familiar with how recruitment is handled, but from what I hear from back home, compared to what Sub-Commander Rocco tells me, the job could be done much better on Labradia." He added to the conversation.

She wished he hadn't used the word penetrating. You can say that on Labradia, or Reptilia, but not on the Tritus Station in front of cameras. Alma didn't even know if he was aware of his own slip. All it'd do is feed into the ugliness about what people already thought about Luprines and their sexual habits.

"They are indeed much better! Something closer to 63% of target goals! It is certainly something wiser minds should be looking into to analyze the disparity in results." Senator Gill chimed in.

Now, standing a fair distance away from their interview, a small crowd had formed, all of whom were crew members of the Carkarus. They were all watching them, and none of them were either Sauren or Luprine. It made her uncomfortable.

The Carkarus' crew was barely 5% Luprine or Sauren, making them a tiny minority. Out of a crew of 104 there were only three Luprines and two Sauren. One of the Luprines was a support technician for Kay's A Squad while the other two were junior engineers. Both of the Sauren crew were serving as additional junior engineers despite them both having over a decade of engineering experience from the civilian sector.

The Senators lingering on the topic of recruitment numbers for a bit longer, then began to shift away to domestic issues. Alma drew in a quiet breath as Senator Croke began to speak with Kay about the topic of Sauren immigration.

They had both tried to request protection from this sort of treatment. They had both appealed to their Captain on the Carkarus, and then further up the chain from him. Initially, it seemed like they'd be able to escape the news cycle, as it was verifiably interfering with their duties.

But then their request reached high enough that someone slapped it down. They didn't know who, but it was either an admiral looking to transition into politics, or the Senate got involved. They weren't letting go of their pair of perfect little paragons.

It was the price they paid for enlisting, for being good and decent people, for working hard. Nothing they did was exemplary. They did what was expected of them. They were just visible, and made for good PR. When they weren't serving on the Carkarus, they were serving as political pawns to manipulate voters.

Even the knowledge that they were helping undo decades of stereotyping and specist propaganda didn't help Alma to feel any better.

These politicians didn't actually care, and neither did most of the people she met that weren't her fellow Luprine. Even Saurens looked at her like they'd bought into propaganda. Kay would tell her the same thing about Luprines, that they had bought into it too.

Even she had looked at him the wrong way when they'd first met, and he'd confessed that it took time for him to see past the stereotypes with her. The burden of being a pawn that had been thrust upon them both was the only reason they were able to see past the lies and look at each other clearly.

Alma had grown up believing that Saurens were just these big stupid brutes, that the men especially were these disgusting animals, thoughtless and savage. Just walking muscle with no real brain guiding their actions. Low IQ backwards idiots.

The swapping of information between member states, the reviews and the research, every piece of Sauren information that was given freely in good faith to the galactic community had been used against Kay and his people. What should have been heralded as positives, their physical strength and hardy endurance, had been weaponized.

They were just as smart as the other species that made up the ULN's member states, but propaganda works, and it'd worked on Alma.

If it hadn't been for them both being selected against their will by the politicians, being forced to attend interviews and meetings, they'd never have gotten married. Even though their marriage made their lives so much worse, as it drew even more attention to themselves for all the best and worst reasons, they had found comfort in each other.

"I… Well, I think that is very overblown." She tried to answer a difficult question directed at her.

"Our birthrate is actually slowing down in recent years. I believe the causes are being studied at the moment." She continued, losing confidence.

Her own government refused to help her, and Kay's wasn't doing him any favors. To their leaders, Kay and Alma were also political pawns, just tools to serve the greater good of their respective peoples. There were days where Alma had wished she'd not enlisted.

Both Kay and Alma had been given reams of documents, all digital copies of forms and studies to help them with their unofficial jobs as spokesmen. They didn't have the time to read them all, as they had their own responsibilities to uphold on the Carkarus. Best they could do is skim the briefs and summaries, so that they could at least try and give the best answers they could for questions about birthrates.

Because some of the propaganda she was forced to fight was that Luprines breed so voraciously that they will flood the ULN with so many immigrants that it'll cripple economies and replace the native populations!

Luprines were a lustful people, romantically deficient. The males sire children with any female that spreads her legs, which is all of them. Look at how fast their population grows, there's no way for the women to know who fathered all of those children! A luprine woman forgets the face of the man that sired a child with her by the time she's setting eyes on the next suitor. The men don't even look at their women's faces, too absorbed by their bodies.

She had to endure it all, the ugly looks she got from members of other species, and the assumptions people made of her for a luprine. And worst of all was that Alma couldn't even deny that her people had a high birthrate, or that luprine women had a lot of children!

Because it was true!

Alma was even one of four children. She had a large extended family of cousins, aunts and uncles. She herself was already an aunt because her sister had two small children. Luprine women did have a lot of children, but that's how it was meant to be! But everyone knew their mother and father, her own parents had brought all four children into the world.

They did not deceive each other; her people all pair bonded for life! They found a soulmate and clung to them, and from their love they bore many children, as it had always been.

And all of it twisted into something so ugly and used to beat her and other luprines with.

"Perhaps so." Senator Gill replied.

He seemed about to say more, but Kay interrupted him.

"Likely a combination of economic and cultural factors. Both on Labradia and Reptilia we're seeing more people move away from rural communities and into the cities. It is understood on Reptilia that this is suppressing our own birthrate, so it is likely happening on Labradia as well." Her husband tried to step in for her.

"Similar phenomenon has happened on many worlds, it's a very curious system that likes to replicate itself across multiple species. Many studies have been done on it, but not so far with Luprine or Sauren populations." Senator Croke replied.

"This is true, it is certainly something the universities should be looking into more eagerly." Senator Flock added.

One of the floating drones caught her attention, and she suppressed the urge to look at it. She was sick of the cameras, the scrutiny, and the demand to be this perfect paragon. This isn't what she signed up for when she enlisted.

The interview continued for several more minutes, long enough for the crowd of their crewmates to get bored and leave. When the interview was finally done, the Senators all thanked them for their time, and departed along with their camera crew. Neither Kay nor Alma were ever told how much of their interviews would get used, nor were they told when the footage would be broadcast or where. Their faces, their voices, were simply on file ready to be pulled out and used whenever they wanted to put a face to one of their PR campaigns.

They were already easily recognizable faces, an ugly kind of celebrity. They didn't want to be that face, representing their people to defend against an unfair campaign that had been waged against them since before they were even born.

Kay touched her on the elbow, giving her a gentle squeeze. She was drawing in deep breaths and letting them out slowly to calm down. She was much better at dealing with combat than she was with interviews. Alma could at least shoot back when she was piloting her MAI.

Couldn't shoot a Senator. Couldn't even slap one for asking her or her husband ugly questions.

"You ok?" He asked her.

She nodded.

"You?" She asked back, turning to face him, grabbing him by the hand.

"No, not really. Let's get changed so we can hit the station." He told her in reply, and started leading her back toward the ramp, and then through the long umbilical to return to the Carkarus.

It felt like a long walk, the two of them silently making their way by foot through the curved tunnel of the umbilical. Both of them were using the time to silently decompress from the interview. They'd already been given permission to take leave on the station, so all they wanted was to get out of their dress uniforms and change into some more comfortable fatigues.

By the time they returned to the MAI barracks on the Carkarus, it was empty. Everyone else had already disembarked, and she could recall seeing many of their faces as they filed out through the boarding ramp during their interview. She didn't know how many of the crew were still on board the ship, but since resupply had only just begun, it was probably still all hands on deck for the majority of the ship.

But the barracks being empty made decompression easier. Neither of them was high enough in rank on the Carkarus to have their own cabin, they each had their own bunk space alongside all ten of their fellow pilots. The only blessing is that the MAI Squadron had its own small mess and head that kept them isolated from the rest of the ship and its functions.

The MAI Squadron only needed to be in one of two locations, their barracks or the MAI Hanger. With the barracks pressed flush against the stern side of the hanger, moving between the two zones put a minimal amount of strain on the rest of the ship's natural flow of foot traffic.

But soon they'd be away from the ship altogether, free to roam the station and rent a small room for themselves. It was the only time they had a chance for any real privacy and freedom. On board the Carkarus, Alma and Kay were parts of a military machine, not husband and wife with a home of their own. There was no state of civilian normal for them.

There was no freedom from the pressure of being perfect little paragons of their people, of being credits to their race, or being outstanding individuals that fought back against the harmful stereotypes inflicted upon them by propaganda long past.

With the brief moment of privacy afford to them in the barracks, they stripped themselves of their dress uniforms, returning them back to their personal lockers so they could be exchanged for the civvie fatigues that would mark them as off-duty members of the United Defense Forces.

By the time they were walking back down the ramp to head out into the station, they each carried a small duffel bag full of their basic necessities. It was just enough for them to make it through one night on the station before it was time to head back to the ship for departure.

"So, what do you feel like drinking tonight?" Kay asked her as they made their away from the ship.

Drawing in a big deep breath, thinking of all the alcohol that was available on Tritus Station, Alma loudly exhaled after making her decision.

"Gold Ecstasy." She told him.

He whistled in reply.

"Expensive. What's the occasion?" He asked, reaching out his arm to snatch her, tugging her tight to his side as they walked through the brutalist architecture of the terminal.

"No occasion, just for motivation. I don't think we're trying hard enough." Alma told him, looking up at her husband.

He looked down at her now with a look of confusion.

"What makes you say that?" He questioned her.

She reached out her free hand and slipped it around his arm to hook her elbow in with his.

"You heard the Senators. Our birthrates are low; we need to pump those numbers up." She told him with a wry smile.

He laughed.

She patiently scrolled through the list, running her finger across the glass of her tablet as she read through the list of items on display. Though everything on her list was months away on the calendar it was still distressing to see just how busy she would become in the not so distant future. As she read each line item she was left calculating the time dedication each would require, the effort needed, the planning they demanded. She sighed heavily, but it is what it was.

At least the season for Festival was only a week away, so there would be a fine holiday she could enjoy before her responsibilities caught up with her. For weeks the city had been preparing itself for the festivities, and for a month longer than that every store and market had adjusted their displays to coerce shoppers into buying food and drink for the occasion.

She highlighted three of the items on the screen with the tip of her finger, then marked them for their high importance. There would be a lot of work for those three in particular, so she was going to need to remind herself not to underestimate how demanding they would be. Tapping away from her calendar, she opened her document application and began to write numerous notations for herself about what she wanted to do and by what self-imposed deadline.

Wrenna Fah Lu'Min sat her tablet down on her desk and reached for her glass of water. The cool flavor of mint flowed across her tongue and down her throat as she drank. She never enjoyed drinking plain water, it had to have a flavor. If it was water, then she must have it laced with mint, or else she needed literally any other beverage laced with sugar or otherwise. She needed flavorful drinks.

Looking out across the room, the view outside was pleasant, and the weather was wonderfully clear today without a single thing blowing in from the coast. Her office space had blessed her with a glass wall, offering her the full view of the river in the distance and the cityscape all around her. With her office on the 14th floor, she had one of the best views money could afford, if one wanted to look across the port city of Velli.[1]Velli is a city on the far eastern side of Atina Nah, located next to the river that bisects the continent. It is similar in importance to cities such as New Orleans, which sits at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

And it was now creeping towards late afternoon, and the sky was beginning to show the changing of the hour. She enjoyed watching the colors of the sky change in the evening.

There was a flash on her computer monitor, and she saw that it was a message notification. It was from her secretary. She touched the glass square on her desk and used her finger to move the cursor over to her messenger. She quickly skimmed the message, then reached under the desktop to pull out the analog keyboard from a hidden drawer.

She enjoyed the old analog keyboards over the more modern slimline glass displays; they felt much more natural to her than all of the glass panes and touch pads. Wrenna was now nearing her 223rd year. Her birthday would be in five months, and she looked forward to it, as she would be taking the entire week off for a much-needed vacation.

She finished typing a reply, then hit send and waited. His reply returned quickly, she read it, then started typing again. The noise of the keyboard was satisfying; each key stroke was a noisy sign of effort. She'd been told that she was going to have a guest very soon, as he had just arrived and was now riding the elevator up.

Wrenna sent her next message, then rose from her seat. Stepping out from behind her desk, she approached the window across her office. She picked her blazer up from the back of a chair and pulled it on, covering up the thin fabric of her blouse.

The elevators in this building were quick, so she did not have much time to tidy her office, but fortunately her custodial staff was very detail oriented, and so she never needed to do much tidying of her own. When she resumed her seat she waited patiently, staring out through the window and her own distant reflection in the window.

She could just barely see her silhouette in the pane, her pale golden complexion hardly registering in the reflection. Her blazer was the only thing she could clearly see, a shade of warm brown that complimented her skin. She started buttoning her blazer, making sure she looked as professional as her guest would have expected her to be.

Comfort was her preference whenever it was available, but modernity demanded that she subject herself to the discomfort of eastern aesthetics. Cultural norms this far east within Atina had naturally bent to the whims of the rest of the continent, with an overlap of customs and habits rolling back and forth across the river.[2]Certain human customs have transplanted themselves across the river to influence Atinans. Within political and business settings, it has become common for Atinans to mimic human dress codes by wearing suits and dresses.

The door to her office buzzed, then slid open. Her hands instantly floated to her lap, and she assumed a posture of pleasant stoicism.

Her secretary entered first, a young Radan male by the name of Alten who had originally come to Velli to study abroad. Dressed in the full regalia of New Radan modernity, he wore a sharp suit that fit his frame neatly. In contrast to her own gold complexion and warm browns, he was dressed in a beige herringbone pattern that was too dark a color for a Radan as pale as he was. It made him look feminine even though he was clearly not a homosexual if you spoke with him.[3]Alten is a Caucasian male wearing a suit that is a darker color than his skin tone. This choice of color inadvertently mimics the skin tone pattern of female Atinans, whose dominant/outer color is darker than their sub/underbelly color. Wrenna is merely critiquing her secretary's poor choice of colors. He should have worn a pale color suit with a dark shirt under his blazer to appear more masculine by mimicking a male Atinan's skin tone pattern.

She smiled as a fresh face stepped through the door behind Alten, an Atinan of moderate height, and middle aged. Wrenna knew how tall Alten was, and she made liberal use of it to quickly estimate the age of any Atinan that stepped into her office.

Wrenna stood up to receive the newcomer but did not step out from behind her desk. She politely took in the sight of the man, judging him on his looks and dress. He was slim, and he had a pleasing russet hue under his chin and around the eyes. The rest of him was middling. She didn't like his color, but his suit complemented it well enough. Wrapped in modernity, he was dressed in the typical two-piece style of business suit, no pattern to the fabric to speak of, very plain and humble.

"Director Wrenna, Mr. Salta Er Run'Fy is here to see you, representing Fara Roch Incorporated." Her secretary introduced their guest, speaking in fluent Atinan.

"Eldest Wrenna Fah Lu'Min, I thank you for seeing me today." Mr. Salta greeted her with a polite nod, his hands clasped in front of his stomach.

The fact that he had addressed her as Eldest, instead of Director, was not lost on her. He came dressed humble and chose to honor her cultural title as opposed to her professional one.

"Mr. Salta Er Run'Fy, you are welcome. Please, sit." She replied, then offered him a seat in one of a pair of chairs just opposite her desk.

As he graciously nodded and began to step forward to approach her desk, Wrenna cast a glance at her secretary.

Responding to her gaze he was already on the move, heading to the wet bar to prepare her guest a glass of mint flavored water. As she and Mr. Salta sat down, a glass was produced for him while her own was refilled from a glass pitcher. She nodded to Alten to give him the signal that he could return to his own desk in the other room.

"So, you came to parley?" She asked with a disarming smile as soon as her door slid shut.

"Ah, well." Mr. Salta began, looking disarmed.

After dismissing her guest, and sending him on his way, Wrenna rose from her chair and walked to the wet bar to refresh her glass. Salta was less than half her age and it showed in his manner, though she had to commend him for his boldness in trying to get ahead of a council meeting that his employer was going to be the victim of. The real estate market in Velli was currently passing through its 14th year of an expansionist boom, and with her experience she knew that boom was only good for another decade or two before the bubble burst.

His bosses likely knew it, too, and were trying to lock in their land grab now even though they lacked the capital to actually build anything substantial on the properties. River front property was very expensive, and Velli had yet to sell off all of it.

There were still miles worth of land that had yet to be developed, as Velli's legal boundary stretched very far to the north and south, making up for how little it reached into the nation's interior. Velli was like a dagger lying across the shore of the river, its sharpened point aimed at the river's mouth that fed both sides of the continent with international trade.

The war between local communities and the real estate giants would continue for years to come, and she knew in the end that the big businesses that wanted to build hotels and casinos would ultimately win, as they tended to. Velli would continue to swell in size and greatness just as it had for her entire life.

Once, a decade or two before she'd been born, Velli had been a small town that lived off the river and traded with its neighbors, but as time passed Velli became one of the most critical ports that served Atina. With Velli being right next to all of its eastern continental neighbors, it was arguably the most valuable port in the nation, as New Radah did not have a meaningful port of its own on the other side of the river.[4]New Radah is the modern day name of what was once the Kingdom of Radiah.

New Radah Bridge was right there in the heart of Velli, so there was no point in having a port on both sides when there was an agreement that allowed shipping to freely move across the bridge between the two countries. She could see the bridge from her window, could watch as the tiny vehicles flitting across its great length from one side to the other. The six white towers that rose above it, and their many strong cables that held the bridge aloft, were one of Velli's greatest tourist attractions. It was the largest bridge on the continent, having taken sixteen years to construct as a replacement for the previous ailing bridge that barely supported a third of the current traffic.

Wrenna then crushed a white pill between her fingers before rubbing the dust into her glass. The powdered mix of mint and caffeine would liven her spirits as it dissolved into her water. Rolling the glass in her hand she stepped over to her window and watched the city. The sky was finally turning, and she could watch as the orange and red hues grew ever more brilliant over the river before they turned into a deep blue darkness.

Her office door slid back open, and she turned her eyes along the expanse of the glass until she could see Alten standing in its reflection.

"He's left, ma'am." He told her.

She nodded at his reflection.

"Get your tablet, I want to go over tomorrow's schedule." She told him, and he quickly hurried out of the room and to his desk.

Finishing off her glass of water she walked it back to the wet bar, placing the glass in the sink before fishing out a pack of cigarettes from a drawer. Her secretary had returned by the time she removed her first cigarette, lighting it with a touch of her breath before taking her first drag.[5]Smoking, which is an unhealthy habit for humans, is largely benign to Atinans due to their biology.

The menthol flavor of the nicotine was far stronger than what she found in her water. It was refreshing, modernity having failed to rob her of the stereotype that Atinans enjoyed anything that could simulate the sensation of cold without actually being cold. The pleasant cool sensation that came without pain was a novelty most Atinans relished.

She directed him to take a seat by the window, and he did, his tablet in hand.

"Chronological order." Wrenna told him, and he began with the first item.

She exhaled a cloud of smoke, leaving the wet bar behind and stepping past him to drop the box of cigarettes on the coffee table between him and an empty chair. As he started reading aloud the first item of tomorrow's agenda, she listened as she smoked and watched the sun finish setting.

With a cigarette tucked tightly between her lips, she removed her uncomfortable blazer while enjoying the view outside her window. She hung it on the back of the empty chair and shook out her arms. Her blouse was much more liberating, a faux gesture towards modernity with a solid front that covered her breasts, but with a backless behind that was held together only by a narrow string tied behind her neck and another tied around the small of her back.

There was a time during her youth when she'd traveled east across the river, her first time experiencing another country. It had been New Radah, another stereotype for an Atinan. Most Atinans were only as worldly as their tolerance for cold and modernity would allow. Their shared history grandfathered New Radah into the short list of tolerable places for an Atinan to travel, provided it was not during her fall or winter season.

It was on that first trip to New Radah where she'd indulged herself by buying souvenirs, many of which were what she thought at the time were stylish women's apparel. She'd been a glutton at picking up all sorts of items that Radan women were wearing, and Wrenna's takeaway was that modernity was an uncomfortable prison, especially for the breasts.[6]Atinan women, even in the modern era, do not feel shame over exposing a breast, and bras are considered a horribly restrictive garment. No lingerie company has ever managed to successfully penetrate the Atinan market.

As she continued to look out the window to enjoy the view, Wrenna smoked, and she listened, until he finished reciting the first item off the list, which was about a town hall session that she was scheduled to attend remotely. It was an inconsequential town hall, nothing she needed to add her voice to, but the law required a minimum number of city officials, and her name had been pulled by random selection. Inconsequential as it might have been, she still wanted to hear a full description of the meeting so she wouldn't be caught looking like a fool on the public record.

With a gesture of her fingers, he began to read the next item. Alten was a New Radan native, a recent graduate from the University of River City, who had first started working for her through an internship program. She had hired him as soon as he had finished his degree in Civil Law. He wasn't the first Radan she'd worked with, but he was the first she'd directly hired to work in her office. In her 223 years of life, she'd seen the number of Radans grow slowly across time. When she was still in her thirties, it was rare to see a Radan that wasn't simply passing through on business, but once the city of Velli began to make a name for itself as a vital trade port the number of foreigners grew.

Now the city's population of permanent Radan residents was around 7 percent with another 3 percent that was a mix of other countries. Almost all of them were here for business or politics. It was very difficult to properly immigrate to Atina without a business or government office acting as sponsor. Alten was here by the virtue of a student visa, and Wrenna had become his sponsor so that he could apply for residency outside of the campus' student complex.

By the time she'd finished her first cigarette he'd reached the third item. Stepping over to the coffee table she leant down and twisted the cigarette into an ash tray before taking a seat across from him. Then, pack now in hand, she tapped it into her palm before sliding another one free.

"Skip this one." She told him as he started reading off the fourth item.

Stopping, he scrolled down his screen with a fingertip, then started reading the next one. She listened as she lit the cigarette with her breath.[7]An Atinan can increase the heat of their breath, creating temperatures hot enough to ignite flammable substances, or even melt some solids. An hour later, she was just finishing her third cigarette, having now listened to the rest of tomorrow's agenda. It had been a sizeable list of mostly small items.

"Have you made your Festival plans? Will you be going home?" She asked him.

Now that evening was upon them, she considered today's work to be done. Fortunately, there was nothing on her plate today that required her to work into the night.

"No, I'm staying here. No one celebrates Festival in New Radah so everyone back home will be working. A normal week for them." He told her.

Wrenna nodded, taking another drag before exhaling it into the air. He was good at speaking Atinan, but his vocabulary and diction sounded like a textbook. Everything he said was correct, but his words seldom matched his tone. The body language he presented was always natural for the occasion, but then he'd speak and she'd have to pretend not to notice the textbook sterility that his language courses had programmed him with.[8]Most foreigners that learn Atinan will learn it through textbook programs, and without regular contact with native speakers, they end up speaking in a very sterile, robotic way.

"That is true." She replied, taking a drag on her cigarette.

Festival did not cross the river nor the sea, as it was strictly an Atinan holiday. Her family would be participating in some celebrations, but Velli did not have as powerful of a tradition as the other major Atinan cities did. Most large cities would hold a televised parade, and then they would host a formal fire dance at whichever venue won the bid that year. You could expect them to have other festivities, but those were almost always hosted by private businesses.

However, if it was any of the much smaller cities then the most one could expect was a fire dance. It was the only tradition most cities clung to. Every district within a major city would host their own fire dances in addition to whatever the city had planned. Mainly, because fire dances were much cheaper to hold than parades.

The only city in Atina that brought out the full Festival experience was the capital. That was an insanity that everyone had to see at least once, and it was a common pilgrimage that young Atinans made once they reached their thirties.

Wrenna had been to Anya Sur some three dozen or so times in her life, and a third of those were for Festival. She no longer cared for it as it was too much nonsense for her to tolerate. She would much rather spend the week visiting with one set of relatives after another, a comparatively calm way to spend her holiday as opposed to the chaos of the capital.

"I will not have you work over holiday. Find something for yourself to do." She then advised him.

"I thought I'd go see the fire dance at the Marlo Arena, but the tickets are expensive. The parade will drive two streets away from my apartment, so I think I will just walk over early so I can find a good spot to watch." He told her.

Once, you didn't have to buy tickets for the fire dance in Velli, but that was about 70 or so years ago. Velli was too big now with too many people trying to attend, so the tickets became a thing to cull the herd. Kept the poor out, too. The city likes it best when the tourists coming to celebrate have money to spend.

"We don't have a very good parade here. You would be better off watching the one in Anya Sur if you're actually interested in seeing the Festival. But do go to The Riverwalk and buy yik, but don't buy any honey if they try to sell it. It's not worth the price they charge, just get a jar from the store. It's all tastes the same." Wrenna told him, tapping ash into her tray.

"Those are the bread sticks, right?" He asked.

"They are. Radans like calling them pretzels." She replied.

"I think I've had them before, they were ok." He told her.

"Store bought perhaps, The Riverwalk shops sell fresh ones. It's a more traditional version of yik you won't find at the grocer. Check what's on my calendar for that week, please." She told him.

He looked back down at his tablet and began to tap the screen.

"For the week of Festival, you are free on all days except Tuesday through Friday. You have those four days blocked out as travel and family gatherings." He told her, and she nodded.

Four days, four visits. Her parents were no longer living, but she would visit her elder brother and his kin. Her husband's kin made for two more visits, as his parents were still alive and they always celebrated both sides of the family. Her son and his wife were the fourth visit. She could have made time for even more visits, but Atinan families were very extensive and many of her kin now lived in other parts of Atina. Sometimes it was just easier to give a phone call instead of trying to physically visit many dozens of people who all live in different places.

It used to be so easy to see everyone all at once, but that was over a century ago. Velli changes with the seasons.

"Our parade should be on Wednesday this year, but Anya Sur always televises everything they do so you can watch what you think you'll enjoy." Wrenna then told him, now reaching out to extinguish her cigarette into the ash tray.

"Check on what Anya Sur is doing on Saturday. It should be their fire dance at Queen's Keep and the fireworks show." She added.

He spent the next few moments using his tablet to run a search online.

"The government website says the full schedule for Anyan Keep[9]Queen's Keep and Anyan Keep are the same thing. Atina's equivalent of the White House. Anyan Keep is the more modern name, but many older Atinan's will still refer to it as Queen's Keep out of habit. The Queen being referenced is the 1st Queen of Atina, Yvvie Fah Ro'Sah. is sporting events from Monday to Wednesday, a fireworks display on Wednesday night. Thursday is the parade with more fireworks in the evening. Friday has the Festival Gala. Saturday is empty, and Sunday is the annual fire dance at the Queen's Keep with fireworks in the evening." He told her.

"Saturday is empty." She repeated after him thoughtfully.

"That's what it says." He replied.

She hummed, wondering what changed this year to skip a day.

"Also says both Prime Ministers are attending the Gala and the fire dance." He then added with skepticism.

"Both?" She asked, as it was the first she'd heard of it.

He began to read more from his tablet.

"Outgoing Prime Minister of New Radah, Eli Bradden, will be in attendance alongside the newly elected Prime Minster Winry Tuson." He quoted.

She quietly hummed with curiosity at that.

"Last time that happened there was a war." She finally said after a moment.

"When was that?" He asked, looking up at her from his tablet.

"One of Radah's many wars, from well before I was born." She replied, tapping the pack against her palm again. "You were still a proper monarchy back then."[10]Atina Nah remains an absolute monarchy, despite most of the world having left that style of government behind. Public support for their monarchy is consistently high, and most Atinans have disdain for other systems of government.

She withdrew another cigarette and lit it with a puff of air.

"Queen's Keep is probably just trying to be diplomatic since your last election was so contentious." She added in reply, taking a slow drag before an exhale.

"I don't really pay attention to politics." He replied.

That made her laugh.

"And yet you work for me, in politics." Wrenna replied, the current Executive Director for her district's Community and Public Works Departments.

He shrugged, and she smiled around the cigarette before letting another cloud of smoke escape her lips.

"I'll pay for your ticket to the fire dance. It's about the only celebration we do right here these days." She told him then.

"You don't need to do that, ma'am." He quickly assured her.

She took another slow drag on her cigarette, letting the embers burn hot for a while before stopping to exhale.

"You're in your twenties, go enjoy yourself so you can have something to brag about to your kin." She told him with a languid gesture of her cigarette hand.

He frowned at her in reply.

"I'm not bragging to my family about seeing a fire dance, they know what those are." He told her flatly.

She laughed.

"They don't approve of you attending a religious ceremony celebrating the founding of our proud kingdom?" She asked him with a knowing smile.

"My mother thinks you are all a bunch of degenerate exhibitionists." He replied.

She grinned broadly around her cigarette, holding back her amusement as she took another drag.

"Perhaps for next year's Festival I should send you to Anya Sur for your first pilgrimage, you're about the right age for it. There will be more degenerate exhibitionists[11]Many negative stereotypes surround Atinans and their culture. One such stereotype is that Atinans are exhibitionists due to how they dress in public. Casual nudity is so common in Atina that other countries are left shocked by news footage or television programming that comes out of Atina. Alten's family would be no different than other foreigners, holding a negative view of the Atinan people. than you'll know what to do with." She teased him.