Marc’s pulse pounded in his temple. The Mother Commander’s little spiel sounded oh-so-benevolent and gracious. Along with the mild spike of adrenaline in his blood, the combination made him nauseous. “Is there some reason why we wouldn’t give equal weight to the best interests of the furrs?”
You know, as opposed to negotiating for the right to rape and pillage.
This was such a mess, and he had no idea how to fix it, how to even start. Or even if there was a way to.
He needed to figure something out really quickly, though. Hamm might not expect it of him, he knew the furrs in general didn’t expect any such thing. But Marc did. He expected it of himself. It was his one shot at forgiveness, his only way to make amends for every pink mist he’d crooned and crowed over, oblivious and ignorant. Inexcusably so.
Hamm had no idea what white carbon was, or where on Soma it might be. It was probably safe to assume they could find what they wanted well enough, but how much more destruction would it require? He raked his claws through the dense mane on the side of his neck. Andruski—whose role as the furrs’ human ambassador was an increasingly distasteful prospect—wore a startled expression similar to the one Marc had worn the instant the processor had engaged.
Andruski’s processor had been interfacing long enough that the man should’ve acclimated. To some degree, at least. And yet the lieutenant major looked as though he might maintain that state of surprise. If that were the case, Hamm would leave the human to Reccin to deal with. Because, no way.
No way would he be able to deal with that wide-eyed look being pinned on him constantly. Not even if Soma demanded it of him.
He glanced at Marc again, worried by what he saw in the lines of his form. His body language roared at him, and it didn’t say anything encouraging.
“There are stipulations restricting that best-interest consideration.” The human commander spoke as though biting each word from Marc’s flesh. The fierce gaze suggested a desire to do just that.
“Yeah. The sustainment of life, longevity, and quality of life aboard Mother. Which is why Commander Orsonna should understand why we kept pushing. Why no one bothered to notice the predatory attacks weren’t random, but resistant.”
“In this, I think we are much the same.” Hamm shifted closer, resting his hand heavy atop Marc’s head as he addressed the Mother Commander. “We furrs are also guilty of only seeing what we want to see.”
Nearby, Reccin rumbled his agreement and glanced at Marc. “I’ll admit I still dislike the implications of sympathy with someone not furr.” He snuffled, and shifted his attention to Makko. “Abnormal doesn’t mean wrong, though. I’m beginning to understand that. It doesn’t justify abuse.”
The Mother Commander watched them each very closely as they spoke, gaze unfocusing slightly as Andruski finished translating. “Our communication failures thus far only give us ample room for improvement.” A smile at Marc, then, baring more teeth than any benevolent expression should, “Wouldn’t you agree, Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir.” Marc gave off a strange blend of scents, deferral and disapproval. He baffled Hamm yet again with the apparent lack of respect for his superiors. Humans had a strange sort of hierarchy. “Ample room.”
Hamm flexed his hands, claws half unsheathed before he caught the involuntary response and relaxed. He wondered about the attitude shift from the Mother Commander. He took a slow, deep breath to catch a whiff of the cause as he watched the humans converse rapid-fire. His translation device seemed as though it were keeping pace with the humans’ conversation, but little of what they said had context or value for him.
“This does not appear to be going well for your human, Commander.” Largely unconcerned judging from his scent, Reccin seemed content to let them argue it out regardless of how long it took.
Hamm angled his head. “My human? They’re disagreeing over how much we can be told. Whose human is he now?”
Reccin gave a long rumble. “It’s not me you need to convince. It’s her. Them.” His chief looked past him and he hackled at the male’s expression, the subtle scent-shift that was cold, hard, and wary.
He didn’t need to look to know.
He’d known it would come to this, the moment that scout had registered his scent and then Marc’s. He couldn’t put his head in a hole and ignore this any more than they could ignore the humans. He pivoted to face it head on, determined to somehow do what was right. For the furrs. And for himself. He just wished there were an easy answer. One that satisfied both races without contradicting itself all over the place like a kit with the runs who didn’t make it outside fast enough. Shit and smell everywhere, and no good to come of it. Except an even bigger mess to clean up.
Sergeant Dehna led the mob of furrs. Beside the linguist was the scout from the edge of the clearing. Reccin growled. “Why did she pull my patrol scout from his position?”
Though the younger male appeared a little wide-eyed, he wasn’t trying to break away from Dehna. That may have been because she had her claws sunk into his shoulder. His adolescent mane wasn’t dense enough to hide her fingers. Even if it had, Hamm couldn’t mistake the faint tang of blood in the air.
No questioning what this was about. When Dehna wanted something, she got it. By whatever means. A rather resourceful female, their linguist.
Arrayed behind her and the scout was a bevy of furrs. It looked as though she’d emptied headquarters for this confrontation. Emptied it of everyone, judging by the flash of colors grouped at the back, lingering near the tree line. The feathers. Come to watch so they’d know who their alliance was with. Standing aside for politics that didn’t directly involve them, though the outcome would influence matters.
Substantively. For the feathers, the furrs, and even—he threw a quick glance at Marc and the Mother Commander—the humans.
“This doesn’t look good.” Marc glanced at Hamm before focusing on the furrs advancing across the meadow. His hand twitched toward his death stick, and Hamm stared in disbelief. Had the human just considered raising that weapon to defend a furr?
“Understatement, Sergeant. This looks like a display of hostility.” The Mother Commander shuffled, weight shifting nervously, voice carrying an edge of disapproval. “If this is how—”
“If I may, sir.” Marc stepped closer, lowered his voice. “You’re correct, but it isn’t focused at the humans.”
“At us, you mean?” The Mother Commander arched a brow.
“Right, yeah. They’re here for Hamm. To depose him.”
“I see.” The commander of the human forces blanched and glanced between the furr commander and the approaching faction. “How does that bode for a peace treaty? A trade agreement?”
“We can hope Hamm’s successor is benevolent enough to barter with us.”
“Hope?” The human leader wasn’t pleased with Marc’s vague assurance. “Not an option, Sergeant. I need certainty. We can’t afford to go elsewhere; the reserves won’t last that long.”
“I wouldn’t wait around for someone to scratch your itch, humans.” Their leader’s selfish focus annoyed Hamm, though he could admit a distinct lack of perspective. No doubt the priorities of a space-faring race would be different than their own agrarian structure. “I fought Dehna just to keep your scout alive long enough to question him. You’ll want to get back in your shuttle and leave. Now.” He included Marc in that as he swept his gaze over them.
The Mother Commander backed up a step under the force of Hamm’s gaze, and the C-C team mirrored the action with greater haste. They’d seen a little of what was coming.
Marc didn’t move. He lifted his weapon, holding it angled across his body again. And he shifted—to a position that gave him a clear line on Dehna and the rest of the furrs. What he hoped to accomplish, Hamm wasn’t sure. The death stick wasn’t a close-range weapon; it’d be useless.
The landing party retreated to the area between the shuttle crafts. “Sergeant Staille!” Hamm wasn’t certain which of the huma
ns had called for the sniper, but Marc’s only reaction was whitening knuckles as his grip tightened on the rifle. Hamm glanced at the huddle of humans, wondering how they’d ever managed to survive on their own planet.
And then he thought of the number of furrs they’d killed.
Right.
Dehna halted a few feet away. “You have to choose, Hamm. Step down, or kill the human. You can’t have both.”
Marc lifted the death stick a fraction, to a more shallow angle, the business end coming up almost parallel to the ground.
“Has my behavior suggested preferential treatment, Sergeant Dehna?”
“It’s our law, and you know it. But yes, it has. Anyone else would’ve killed the human already. Anyone else wouldn’t have stopped me from doing it.”
Hamm exhaled hard, nostrils flaring as her pheromones flooded the air. She was trying to influence him? Or was she exerting her dominance over the others arrayed behind her? “Maybe it’s time for the laws to change, then. I’m still fit to serve the best interests of our allies and my fellow furrs here. For all of us. Do you want peace? Or do you simply hunger for dominance?”
“I want them gone! We all do! They don’t belong here! The simple fact that you tolerate them alive, permit them to walk among us unharmed, is proof you aren’t fit to lead. If you were, they wouldn’t be here right now!” Dehna bristled, her voice charged with emotion, every syllable as much a snarl as a word. “What started as one prisoner has become seven. How many will you allow? Next they’ll have a settlement and live on our land. They’re aliens, this is not their place. They don’t belong here.”
“And any other day of the year, you’d say that of the feathers, I imagine.” Hamm clasped his hands loosely behind his back, claws out of sight.
No shielding himself against attack, no subliminal preparation to assault or retaliate. He would counter her traditional offense and blind hatred with carefully chosen words. Rising above responses that custom dictated were the only way to defuse the situation.
Peace had been a few breaths away moments before. Dehna’s blind rage and hatred, her thirst for “right,” might have destroyed any hope for that. At the very least, it had set things back, undoing any headway he might have managed. But he would not stand by while his own slaughtered those who’d come seeking accord.
“My pheromones influence everyone, Hamm. Everyone but you.”
And the humans. He desperately wanted to say that, but knew it would only exacerbate the situation. “It’s always been that way! Long before Marc came along. But you use his presence to make my indifference an issue.”
“The human has a name.” Dehna exposed a fang, sneering. “What is he, your pet? The human doesn’t deserve that respect, from you or anyone else.”
“What makes you disrespect them? Why is your hate so strong?”
“Why is yours so weak? Why are you so weak? Why have you stopped fighting? Do you really feel you have the right to welcome them with open arms? As our commander, it’s your job to speak for all of us.”
“No, that’s not my job. You have it wrong. The clan leaders do that. And do it well.” He skimmed the crowd of furrs arrayed behind her, eyed the scout a few seconds longer. The young male had the decency to look chagrined. “As battlemonger for the clans, furr and feather alike, it is not my job to speak for anyone.”
She snarled.
“My job is to act in the best interests of furr and feather, regardless of clan. I represent the whole. But if the whole is blinded by rage and hate, focused only on vengeance and violence, then it becomes my job to reeducate you. To protect you from yourself.”
Behind him, the human commander’s voice: “Sergeant Staille.” The rough-edged tone sent a chill up Hamm’s spine, hair standing up in a bristle. “What the wormhole is going on? Staff Sergeant Makko, front and center, translate for us.”
“Stand down, Makko.” Marc’s cool, level tone wasn’t one that any sane individual would cross. “All of you, stay back. Our interference won’t be welcomed. Commander Orsonna is trying to defuse the situation without resorting to violence.”
Just as Hamm had done before, all but standing over Marc, a prisoner being interrogated. Holding off imminent death at Dehna’s claws.
“I feel the loss of the one you loved, Dehna. We all do. Every last one of us here. We feel every loss. We choose that sacrifice willingly. Not in search of blood and death and violence, but in search of a way to reach peace. My entire squad fell this morning, in case you’ve forgotten. I haven’t. Do you see me wallowing in hate, raging for blood and vengeance?”
“Because you feel nothing! You smell nothing but that vile human stench! You’re useless!”
She was wrong. The scent of her anguish was rancid in his nostrils. The uncertainty radiating from the crowd at her back—could she smell that, as he could? That they doubted her in any way would only infuriate her further.
He’d seen it before, the gangrene of resentment fueling hate that devoured everything in its path.
He wouldn’t stand by and let such a person lead the furrs as battlemonger. Instead of leading them to a peaceful resolution, she wouldn’t stop until Soma’s skin was bathed in the blood of every last human that dared set foot to soil.
And what would that solve.
It would birth more hate.
Hamm glanced at the humans, smelled the cool, strange scent wafting from them. It would birth retaliation, as well.
And though the humans claimed they weren’t at war, if Dehna had her way, that’s precisely what this would become.
“Have you never stopped to consider the possibility of correcting the humans’ perspective of us and healing this rift to forge a relationship?”
She feared change. She wanted things back the way they were. The prospect of a sapient race from the stars opened myriad possibilities. She didn’t possess the mental resilience to come to terms with any of it.
That these aliens were as prone to flaws as furrs should encourage her. Instead, she held it against them and demanded a higher standard from others than she held herself to.
Which didn’t make a lick of sense.
She gave a vicious shake of her head and snarled at him.
“You fail. You fail because you refuse to attack. You fail because now you’re the stray to that human thing. We would have you gone, Hamm Orsonna. Step down or you will be removed.”
“That human thing.” Hamm stared up at the sky. Inhaled slowly, gathering his thoughts, assessing the scents crowding his senses. The human contingent. The furrs. His fefa. Beneath it all, the scent of the feather-clan’s whispering of remembered hostilities and the bitter tang of dread. From here, there was no turning back. As though there ever was. “You realize that in speaking of Marc in that way, you’re offering direct and deliberate insult to which there is only one viable recourse. According to convention.”
He lifted a hand, unsheathing his claws with deliberate lethargy. A demonstration of complete control.
“So you don’t deny it! You’ve formed a bond!”
He bared a fang. “I’ve never denied it.” He just hadn’t behaved like a gossipmongering old furr with nothing better to do. “I stand by my previous statement. I don’t see how it detracts from my effectiveness in this situation. In fact, I’d say this interspecies bond—unintentional as it was—is precisely what this situation needs to tip into peaceful negotiation. It’s a connection we wouldn’t have otherwise. It forced the inception of a relationship. And I would like to continue fostering it—to benefit us all.”
When he glanced at Marc, the sniper’s weapon had dipped considerably. Marc stared at him with his strange sky-eyes as though attempting to decipher something.
“Sergeant Staille! Report!” The Mother Commander’s voice was loud and sharp in the momentary silence. Marc flinched, glanced between Dehna and Hamm and then at Reccin, who nodded a fraction.
Hamm wondered at that look between his second and the sniper; he might be in charg
e, but sometimes he really did wonder who held the power.
Marc, definitely.
The Mother Commander’s tone made Marc flinch, but he acknowledged the direct order. “Sir.” Arm stiff at his side, holding his death stick in place, he stood there and waited for the commander to continue.
“First you mention you’ve been compromised. Granted, it can work to our advantage. Now Makko and Andruski agree that Commander Orsonna is referencing some form of relationship? You need to debrief, fast, and give us some situational awareness.”
“Yes, sir. The furrs use smell as communication. Part of that is their control of pheromones. Orsonna assures me it’s used mostly in one-on-one disputes. Not in broad-spectrum conflict scenarios, like this.” He glanced at the assembled mass of furrs. So much for the human squad and their edge of superior firepower. Blood and bullets, if push came to shove they were screwed. They’d be overwhelmed.
“They use attraction as a weapon? How does this work?” Arms folded, the Mother Commander took a widened stance and stared at Marc as though attempting to bore into his skull and tap into the corrected version of the truth.
“It’s not as simple as that. It’s heightened arousal that disengages rational thought.” Marc cleared his throat, took a slow breath. “It’s how Commander Orsonna captured me.”
The Mother Commander arched a brow. “The tawny used his pheromones on you? That’s impossible. We aren’t even the same race, not by a very long stretch. There is no way they should be even remotely compatible.”
Marc bobbed his head, agreeing. “That is Sergeant Dehna’s issue as well, from what I gather.”
He earned a look that clearly communicated the comparison was a blatant slight.
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