by Chris Hechtl
While he attended to paperwork and canned intelligence briefings, Red stuck to catching up on her homework or sniffing around with Pam. Pam tended to like playing card games or other games in the mess though.
“We're really hauling ass,” Roarack murmured in appreciation. The crew had mentioned seeing what might have been a convoy in transit, but they had been going too fast to be certain. It didn't matter.
“Hey, watch it around the kid,” Pamplona scolded mildly. The Neowolf eyed her. “The language,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Oh, yeah,” he said sheepishly, eying Red sitting next to her new best friend.
With Lil Red on board, things were still settling down. The good thing was her presence allowed them to put off some of the questions from the RECON squad traveling with them, which was why the fox had her practically joined at the hip.
“What's she doing here?” Roarack demanded. “I mean; I know she's with the skipper but a civilian? And a dependent? Come on …”
“She's a dependent of the warrant and on her way to be dropped off with family on Kathy's World,” the fox said pointedly as she texted him to behave. “Right?” she turned to look at her companion. Red nodded obediently.
The wolf blinked. “Oh. I didn't know you had family on my homeworld kid.” He shrugged.
Red's eyes turned into saucers. “You're from there?”
“Sure,” he said expansively as he recognized the signs of intrigue from a female. He leaned back and basked in it a little.
“Can you tell me about it? I saw some of the stuff in the encyclopedia and in the news, but what's it really like? Are there really a lot of Neos there?”
“Well,” Roarack drawled, sitting back further as he got comfortable. He picked up a toothpick and picked at his long teeth. “I don't know a whole … lot,” he caught himself as Pamplona glared at him, “about the cities and such. I'm a country boy, born and bred. I was with the packs and we were …d …,” he caught himself as the fox gave him another glower. “Um … pretty feral for a long time.”
“Like me and my family on Protodon,” Red said.
“Hey, so we're neighbors?” Roarack asked. “I've been there. I was with the skipper too. I think I remember you now,” he said thoughtfully.
“I remember you a little. You don't have a smell like Jethro does,” Red said.
“Oh. Yeah, well, that's true,” Roarack said.
“Come to think of it, none of you do,” Red said thoughtfully. “Not a good one.”
“Good deodorant. We should get you some,” Pam teased.
Red glowered at her, then took a delicate sniff at one armpit. That set the mess off laughing. Her ears went back, but Pam hugged her. “It's okay, Red; we're teasing,” the fox said, tugging on an ear.
“Oh,” Red said in a soft voice. The fox recognized her unease and rubbed her shoulder before she got into a story about her time with Jethro as a cub.
That got the Neocat to perk up and listen attentively.
<)>^<)>/
“You are lucky we have to stop somewhere to refuel,” Captain Z'll said as he took a seat next to Red. The cat looked up to the Veraxin captain in awe. “We'd have to stop in Kathy's World to refuel since we're burning so much fuel in subspace anyway. We burn more fuel there than we do in hyper.”
“The hyper collectors help out that much,” Red said with a nod. “I heard we're really cruisin,” she said using Roarack's expression.
Jethro flicked his ears in support and humor.
Captain Z'll signaled second-level approval to her. “Right, little lady. Glad at least one person knows their stuff.”
“Thank you sir,” Red preened. “I'm not a marine though, ma'am,” she said, looking at the others. “I'm not really cut out for it, nor being in the Navy, sorry,” she said with an ear flick. “I prefer wide open spaces.”
“That's okay. Being in the Navy isn't for everyone I admit,” Captain Z'll said with another signal of approval to her audience. “Do you know what field you are going to go into? Intelligence?”
“A few people have suggested it, but I've been thinking about government service somewhere else. Where I am not sure yet. I had a teacher who suggested I'd made an interesting aide or staffer,” she said. “I thought about other fields, but I don't know. I'm not comfortable with large groups.”
“You could have fooled me, all the parties you went to,” Jethro teased.
“They were kid's birthday parties,” Red said eying him. “Well, okay, I snuck out to a few clubs too, but just to check them out,” she said hastily when he opened his mouth and glowered down at her. “I didn't drink or anything,” she said.
The captain shivered. Jethro grimaced but then nodded once.
“So, government or corporate practice. Well, President White Wolf might have a position for you. I understand your sister is a messenger while going to school too,” Jethro said.
Lil Red flicked her ears. “I don't know what I want yet. I've got my whole life ahead of me to decide.”
“Wise,” the captain said with another signal of agreement before she left them.
Red watched her go. “She's so … regal,” she said. “Confident. In charge,” she murmured.
“She has to be. She has to project that to the crew so they will be confident in her ability to command,” Jethro said.
“Oh.”
“It's harder than it looks,” Jethro said. She turned to eye him. He shrugged. “A Neo’s natural command style is to rule through dominance and fear. I'm bigger and meaner so obey me or else,” he said, baring his teeth.”
“Bully, which you are,” Red mock grumbled, pretending to pout.
“Eat your veggies,” Jethro growled. She snorted. “See? It doesn't quite always work. Of course I could tickle …,” he made a wiggling motion with his fingers.
She tucked her hands in to her sides. “Okay! Okay! I give!” she said, picking up her fork again.
He snorted.
“Bully,” she muttered again before she popped the fork load of green beans into her mouth.
<)>^<)>/
Jethro’s interaction with the Neochimp sergeant in charge of RECON: “Look, Warrant, Gunny,” Sergeant Chege Sekibu said eying Jethro. “I know you've got a suit, and I know the others do too. I don't know the full story; obviously, OPSEC is involved. So I'll try to keep my schnoz short so my pecker isn't lopped off.”
“Wise, very wise,” Jethro said in a droll voice as he flicked his ears. “We can still train together,” He offered.
“Cool,” Chege said. “I was going to suggest it. Do you have any ideas on what we need to work on?”
“Well I didn't see your 201, so I don't know what your skill-sets are. I can look them up I suppose. In the meantime, I think we can play hide and seek virtually. Set up an objective and have you scout it while my team plays the op force, then switch.”
“Works,” the Neochimp sergeant agreed with a nod. “Let's get our people off their butts and put them to work. I was about to stick them on KP,” he said.
“Oh, yeah, that'd be a nice incentive. Looser squad does KP for the day.”
“Shit,” Chege said with a grimace. “Best two out of three?” he asked.
Jethro grinned. “What do you think?”
The Neochimp groaned.
<)>^<)>/
When the Marines trained together, Red didn't have anyone to interact with other than the crew. That was fine with her sometimes; other times she was bored. She found out though that Jethro had somehow gotten a hold of her classload including her homework assignments. After she tried to distract him, he sicced the homework on her.
After that she learned to behave, get the homework done out of self-defense, and then be patient.
<)>^<)>/
Roy Boehm jumped into Protodon space and flashed her IFF. There were no inquiries about the reason they didn't go to the B-95a3 jump point or the planet; word had apparently spread ahead of them through the ansible of their coming. T
here were no stop orders, so the ship's navigator worked on the course to the next jump point.
The ship's crew oriented on the Kathy's World jump point and moved out quickly once they had a course plotted.
Once the communications channels were cleared, Jethro sent off requests as the ship received news broadcasts to bring them up-to-date on what they'd missed in transit.
The news was digested by the ship's A.I. and officers before it was disseminated to the crew and passengers. Rumors began to circulate about a battle in B-95a3 and began to build until the officers relented and broadcast the news over the ship's video network during dinner. When the news broadcast got to the part about the Retribution Fleet getting its clocks cleaned, the ship echoed with cheers and hooting. Red laid her ears flat but even she was in good spirits over the news.
Jethro realized that each star system that had an ansible would also give them a download of what was going on at Destria. Apparently, the brass was anticipating their movements and getting them the downloads ahead of time to allow them to prepare.
For Jethro, it was a bit of torture to hear about the death and destruction and not be able to do anything about it. And his little detour was going to take time up. He knew it was going to haunt him.
Just before they jumped for Kathy's World, he got a reply back from the admiralty. Admiral Irons had personally authorized him a limited opening of his unit's existence to military personnel only, but only when pressed. They were to keep the information about the unit to a bare minimum. The admiral's email informed him that Colonel Harley knew about them but the warrant had been right to ask. “Her senior staff will want to know. It's best to get ahead of the rumors and keep it above board since you'll be working with them. But don't get carried away,” the admiral finished.
Jethro nodded as he closed the email.
<)>^<)>/
When they arrived in the star system, Jethro was on alert. He received the downloads as the skipper dealt with the picket's IFF challenge. Two days later they had a quiet arrival in Kathy's World orbit. “You're going to need to be quick about it,” the Veraxin PO said.
“We will,” Jethro said with a nod. He turned to the assembled troops. All of the passengers were going down but only Red had luggage with her. The captain had kicked the cook and a couple assistants loose as well to try to scare up some fresh food. No doubt a few of them would get some limited downside leave in while grocery shopping.
“We've got twelve hours off the ship. It's going to take three hours down and three up so that's six on the ground. Not six and a half, not six and five minutes, six. So don't miss the bus or I'll have your ass,” the black cat said sternly.
“That hard up?” Roarack demanded.
Jethro turned a glare on the black wolf. “Stow it. Don't get comfortable; we're not staying long,” he growled. The others nodded.
They impatiently rode the shuttle down to the planet. Jethro was tied into the sensors and saw the spaceport rise up to them. It was a clear day, nice he thought. According to the weather report Bast helpfully put up on his HUD, it was shirt sleeve weather. Even better.
They didn't have a proper terminal. There was one he saw, but the shuttle disdained it for a standard set of movable stairs. He didn't care; he caught sight of his family from the top of the stairs. Red poked him into motion with a claw to the rear, making Pam snicker.
When they got to the tarmac, Jethro waved the others off and then took on half of Red's luggage as they went over to the group. He could see Rah and White were with them. Rah had two of the kittens; one was playing with her tail while the other was suckling from a bottle. White had her hands full with a leopard, and Shanti had a black cat in her arms.
“Hi,” Jethro said huskily when he saw her.
“Hi yourself, stranger,” she returned, eyes on him.
“If they get mushy, I'm going to hurl,” Red growled. Rah and White chuffed in amusement. Red waved a hand to her sister, then turned to Rah and cocked her head. “Rah?”
“Yeah. You Red?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I'm glad introductions are over,” Shanti said with a smile as she continued to look at Jethro. When he didn't move, she moved in and fished something out of the pocket of her dress. She juggled her kitten as she reached out and flipped up the flap on his uniform shirt.
“What are you …?” Jethro asked as he felt several objects dropped within.
“Video files,” she said gruffly.
“You didn't need to do that now,” he said, hand going up to touch her hand gently over her heart. He could see the touch got to her too.
“I wanted too. Just in case we forgot later,” she murmured, moving in to him. They had an embrace up until a squirming mewling kitten forced them to break it.
Jethro chuckled, tugging on an ear. The kitten growled and took a swat at him. He let the kitten catch his finger. but the little imp immediately tried to pop it in his or her mouth to gnaw on it.
“They do that a lot,” Shanti said dryly as Jethro got his finger back and shook it. She grinned at him. “Sharp teeth, huh?”
“Yes!” Jethro said as the others laughed at him. Letanga waved to him from a distance, then motioned he was going with the others. Jethro caught it out of his peripheral vision but didn't react; he was too busy trying hard not to swear as Bast laughed on his HUD.
“We know you've only got a couple hours,” Shanti said in a husky voice as she handed the squirming bundle over to Jethro.
“I don't think I can make up for my share of diaper duty in that time, Shanti,” Jethro joked as he tickled the squirming bundle. The black kitten squeaked and then met his eyes. He was arrested by a moment there and then Rah cleared her throat. “Um, who's this?” he asked. He tilted the kitten, then turned him or her upside down. The kitten giggled and thrashed its tail.
“That's Suqi,” Rah said tut tutting. “You don't even know your own kids? Pathetic,” she said with a shake of her head.
“Hey, I knew it was one or the other. There isn't a label, is there?” he pretended to turn the tyke around and around to look for one. The kitten giggled in amusement before he turned the little female more or less upright. He and Shanti had come to something of an agreement with the kittens. She'd named two, a boy and a girl. He'd named two also a boy and girl. She'd named Sabu first after her brother and then had taken some time before naming Suqi after her late mother. From what he'd read in the emails she'd sent, Rah had done a lot of politicking for the name, and Shanti had finally given in.
Jethro hadn't put a lot of thought into his choices. He would be damned if he would name his son after his sire Jet, which was why the kitten had been named Hrriss and his daughter had been named Zuhura after the late matriarch. It was funny; he'd had to call Mw'beki to get the name of the matriarch. He and the others had grown up only knowing her by her smell and title, never her birth name.
“I think I recognize Sabu,” he said, pointing to the Neoleopard kitten who was trying to climb Lil White. The kitten was nearly as big as Lil White, so it was comical to see her getting bowed down by the brat. Sabu was grinning ear-to-ear and had a firm grip on one of her ear tips to keep him up there. “Nice to see you, White,” he said with a nod and ear flick to her.
“Nice he says … ooof, you little … watch your …,” a back paw went across her face and mouth to get a foothold and then she looked cross-eyed at a tail. The tip of the tail curled around her nose making her sneeze. Shanti took pity on her and picked the little tyke up and tucked him under her arm. That caused a squeal, then a giggle as she caught some kicking feet and tickled them. White turned around and got her own revenge on the kitten's ticklish feet too.
“So, you up for helping me? And going to school, sis?” she asked, turning to Red.
“Yeah,” Red said, surprising her by embracing her sister. “I missed you,” she said huskily in her sister's ear.
“I missed you too,” White said surprised as she returned the embrace.
&
nbsp; “Come on. We shouldn't burn the time to get to the house and back. The park is nearby, and we packed a lunch,” Rah said.
“Foo?” Sabu asked in a small voice, pointing to his mouth. His mother turned him around, then held him against her. He cocked his head at her, then turned to Rah. “Fod?” He started to make yum yum sounds and faces as he smacked his lips and rubbed his belly.
“Foood,” Rah said, poking the picnic basket at her feet. That got the other kittens interested. They cocked their heads, then went to investigate.
“They get into everything these days,” Shanti sighed. “And they are bottomless pits.”
“They are growing. Glad they are starting to talk,” Jethro said.
“Sure, he says that now,” Rah said. “Put up with the babble for a couple days …”
“Well, we'll see how a couple hours do,” Jethro said with a smile as he wrapped his free arm around his mate's shoulders and hugged her again. She nuzzled him, tucking her head under his chin and laying it on his shoulder as they walked to the parking lot.
<)>^<)>/
Roarack was surprised to run into his family at the spaceport. He'd planned to call them if he could and then hit the bars with the rest of the teams. To his surprise his mother and a crowd of wolves were there. Not everyone in his extended family was there but a few people were.
“Good to see you, son; you look well,” his mother said. He blinked at her, then rubbed muzzles. She chuffed. “Quit looking so surprised, Moira told me you were coming,” she said.
“M … um, President White Wolf? The colonel?” he asked, cocking his head at her.
“Yes, the one and only. She's proud of you too,” his mother said.
He sniffed the air when he recognized a couple of the females. They were putting out some heavy scents, pheromones … “Um …”
“Come on, son; the girls want to talk to a real genuine hero,” his mother said with an ear flick.
“Um …,” Roarack said just as a tail flicked under his nose. One of the females batted her eyes at him. He felt his machismo and something else rise within him. “Okay,” he said in a meek voice as he followed along.