Umbra's Legion: Raid of Ismara

[Galneda]

Hey, NG. My roommate and I submitted short stories to a writing competition late last year, won, and are getting our stories published! A hard copy being available to buy in March called "The Dog's of War"

It is a furry publication, so I don't know what to expect in content with the others included in the anthology, but my roommate and another friend of ours had already been working on a universe, building a world of intergalactic war. We pretty much thought of it as "Starfox meets Blackhawk Down" kinda tone.

So I chose to write about a sprawling empire of gorillas/simians, my roommate chose dogs, and our friend chose a race of cats. From there we would collaborate and confer on details about each other's worlds and how their cultures interacted with each other. We're really hoping it's something cool that people could get behind.

We're still writing stuff, we've been made aware of a similar anthology / short story competition that's themed towards "Dystopian" settings, and we think we can each find something in the same world that could apply. We've drafted horror-themed shorts as well as an expansive epic trilogy which is kinda like our "A" story. I mean, really that came first, but we're still polishing it. "The art of writing is rewriting" kinda thing.

I'll be posting the published short here throughout the day. Anyway, here's "Raid of Ismara." Enjoy!

-G-

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“What are they hiding?” Skulking, shifty looking dogs. The doberman soldier had no idea she was being watched. Seen at such a distance that the air seemed to simmer and shift as if she were a full-bodied mirage, seen from on high. She filled the screen at such a clarity that her simian watcher could identify markings on her uniform. Worn, old battle dress, clunky and cheap weaponry. She was clearly unaffiliated to any official military, but rather some sort of soldier of fortune. Every uniformed body down there seemed to confirm the fact that this massive prison facility was guarded by mercenaries. A hodge-podge mixture of bored dogs baby sitting a bunker-complex labor camp.

She yawned, directing her attention to her prisoners. Getran citizens, simians of all walks of life. A finger tapped the brim of his observation monitor impatiently. The scanner wade through the many faces of these prisoners. Humiliated, dirty, avoiding eye contact with the Doberman guard as she paced between their ranks. She sneered as she cradled her rifle. The same finger tapped more forcefully, and its host let out a sigh. “This is disgraceful.”

The Olive Baboon had the distinction of being an Intelligence Officer of the Getran Naval fleet. Aboard a stealth reconnaissance cruiser designated “Blackdrift” in low orbit above a remote planet within the Canine cluster. The dogs probably named this planet after a figure of their worthless lore, but to Getran cartographers, this planet's name was computer-generated centuries ago as CB4L. “C” for Canine, “B” for “Breathable”, “4-Low” for being the 4th rock from their lowest star. The planet looked unremarkable and dusty. Terraformed by dogs as a mining colony mostly. This sprawling prison facility had been kept secret to any database the apes had eyes in.

“Where are you...” the Intelligence Officer muttered, sweeping the sensitive camera over the crowds of simian prisoners. There were so many of them; apes of different shapes and sizes, different ages. All of them lugging around mining equipment and navigating back and forth between patrolling guards. The Baboon stopped and his heart sank. The camera paused over a very young Silverback gorilla mopping up a puddle. Quietly, he closed his eyes as he internally held his emotions in check. His eyes opened with reinvigorated, fierce hatred for the dogs.

“Those fleabags are gonna pay.” he seethed.
“What? What'd you see?” A voice piped in from the dark control room.
“A kid...they got kids down there, Brekan.” he rubbed his temples in frustration.

Brekan, the Lars Gibbon pilot of the cruiser, jolted up from his seat in the dark bridge, clambering over empty chairs that he could barely see, wading his way to the only light source in the room. “What the hell, they're slave driving kids now!?”

“He's a tiny gorilla, I think he was born in the facility.” the camera settled at the mouth of a tunnel where workers funneled in and out lugging canisters. The prisoners leaving the tunnel handed off a small re-breather to a worker on their way in. Guards with batons barked and beckoned the new worker to hurry adjusting the mask, and threw an empty gas canister in their arms. After kicking them into the tunnel, the cycle resumed endlessly.

Brekan shook his head in disbelief. “Just how long has this place been here?” A tinge of worry swept over Brekan's face. He pawed the Baboon's shoulder. “You don't think they have more kids in there, do you? You don't think they're having them work in the tunnels, do ya Pillen?”

Lieutenant Pillen eased back into a more relaxed position in his seat in a futile attempt to suppress his disgust at the notion. “The kid's the first I've seen, and he wasn't anywhere near the lines or the cave. Kid was probably mopping up...blood...or waste, or I dunno.” Pillen sulked. “But our guy...he's gotta be in there. I've identified Getrans that were on the same missing ship as he was in that tunnel line, and unless he's somewhere inside, far away and safe from the gas, they probably threw him in the tunnel.”

Brekan leaned in closer to the surveillance feed. An orangutan ripped off his mask and shoved it into the hands of the next in line. The guards tensed preparing to beat the ape, but he buckled over and vomited on the floor.

Pillen turned his chair, facing the empty space between Brekan and the monitor, “They're gonna try and get him to develop weapons, but I don't think he's going to help those dog bastards.” Concerned for his fellow Getran, the ape that was next in line moved closer to assist the orangutan, but gets pushed back by the guards. The sickly slave spewed more at his own feet.

The Lieutenant cupped his long chin, trying to wrap his head around the situation “It could be a few more weeks of observation, but unless he's inside one of these giant bunkers, somewhere in this expensive facility.”

The orangutan leaned back, looking up to the sky while the sun washed over his face.

“They probably shoved him into the tunnels...” Pillen's wandering eyes returned to the monitor. “Trying to force him to change his mi-...” Pillen's jaw slacked open in disbelief. The orangutan in the monitor was the ape he had been searching for. Weeks of dodging patrols high above CB4L, of blackouts, electronic silence, of tension and stuffy air in a cramped and lonesome ship. The tired visage of relief on that orangutan's face validated all of their efforts and hardships.

Pillen could hardly contain himself. “B-Brekan! THATS!- He's!- Call-get the-CALL HQ ON THE-!”

Brekan grinned ear to ear, “I'm on it, Lieutenant! Nice and steady.”

The monkey returned to his seat. Soft red lights breathed to life illuminating his control panels as he flipped switches that lit the bridge several screens at a time until the whole room conquered the suffocating black. Blast shields over the window ports lifted tepidly.

The Lars Gibbon peered to the orbiting spaceport, geosynchronized above the heavily defended facility. One wrong move, one misstep, and that platform would alert the Canine Defense Force. The fragile truce between the Simian Empire and the Canine Government would tip into a costly war if the galaxy learned of this heinously illegal labor camp.

With a magnetic buzz, a panel popped out just long enough to silently but firmly jettison a capsule out the front of the stealth cruiser. The projectile quietly, subtly, flung in the direction of the space port.

to be continued, pretty tedious that I can't just copy/paste the indentations I made, gotta copy/paste it paragraph at a time.

[Galneda]

The dogs and the apes have had their scuffles once before. Long ago in the Ragnarok War. The Getran Empire of United Simians now trade freely between all species. Rightly so considering the innumerable space colonies that wove nets of tightly controlled territory across a vast crescent of the galactic spiral arm. Their numbers grew in every direction, exploring reaches of space towards the outer rim, slowly making their way to the galactic center over centuries of expansion.

As the capsule glided over to the space station, the massive stealth cruiser, Blackdrift, pitched it's nose in the opposite direction delicately. Should Blackdrift be discovered, not only would they be in danger of attack from fighters, but everything they worked for could be undone with the relocation of the prisoners below. Most of all, with their target lost, they would have once again let their most brilliant military engineer slip past their fingers.

Which begged to question: What were they hiding? Why were they risking all-out war with the largest military force in the galaxy? What was this mysterious gas they were mining, and why use simian slaves to do the dirty work for them?

The capsule drifted closer and closer to the space station as if it were ordinary debris. However, it looked just out of place enough to pique the curiosity of someone aboard a space platform. Amid the array of listening outposts and satellite dishes, a small searchlight activated from the station fuselage, and after some small overshooting, found and tracked the capsule curiously. In an instant the capsule separated into two-halves, connected with a spool of cables unwinding rapidly. The two halves, propelled by rockets reached the full extension either of them could reach!

As fast as the capsule engaged, a tremendous flash of light! Blinding flares burned steadily, and Blackdrift scrammed away under the cover of the disposable decoy. As instruments aboard the station attempt to reset, the half of the capsule pointing planet-side plunged down into the atmosphere. Self-disposing evidence, and not a trace of a Getran ship having ever been there. All in an instant and right under the nose of the space station.

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The orangutan finally caught his breath. A stocky pug merc nudged him with a baton.

“Well, ya gonna stand there all day!? Get a move on, you nappy lookin' beast!”

“What are you going to do?” the ape glared at the considerably shorter guard. “None of you are gonna kill me.” He turned and squared his mighty shoulders. The gray jumpsuit expanded with his musculature. With a bark off to his blindside, a larger guard rushed him. The ape turned to swing, but got cold-cocked with a rifle stock! The pug went for his knees, which promptly buckled. This ape was no fighter, but rather an engineer. A scientist. A gentle creature from a gentler place. His arms lurched up to protect his head from further blows, his legs protected his belly from the unrelenting battery.

“You are correct sir, I'd say you're quite correct!” a piercing, tiny voice erupted from behind the crowd of worried Getrans. The mercenaries bared their teeth, but shouldered their weapons as they backed away from the defeated orangutan. The fearful simians parted to make way for a tiny chihuahua in a suit. The ridiculously tiny dog stood tall with his nose pointed skyward, staring sternly down his snout at his rebellious prisoner. He was known as the terrible Warden Nyx.

He let out a paw to his side. “File.” A mercenary that resembled a Boston Terrier promptly handed his boss a clipboard. Warden Nyx wasted no time perusing over the paper as he trot over to the orangutan. “Let's see, mister.....mister....”

The battered ape still had not recovered from the sickness in the tunnel, his voice quavered as he struggled to hold his head up to the Warden's height. “You....know who I am...”

“Jaggum! Yes, Marxis Jaggum of course. Indeed, I knew who you were...it's simply your name I forgot!” Nyx flashed a smug, closed-mouth smirk. “Bad with names, y'know.” He frowned at the crowd of simians all around him. “Your....weird Getran names. Hmph. But you're absolutely right mister Jaggum. We simply cannot afford to kill you.”

One of the larger guards dragged something behind him as he approached Marxis. With a thud, the full gas canister Marxis was carrying dropped beside him. He winced from the light-colored dust it kicked up from the ground. Nyx thumbed further through the file, “But if you were to succumb to the side effects of the Ismaragen Gas, then...well...I'd say that would be a waste of a good brain.”

Marxis deeply coughed. His eyes strained to focus as he peered over the tiny oppressor's shoulders and to the faces of his comrades. When Marxis Jaggum puked, it was contents he expected like bile and food. Some of these apes had been vomiting blood for quite some time. Others had boils and irritation in place of fur. Pocked and diseased skin. Some were too sick to stand while fewer had yet to get their fill of gas exposure. He locked eyes with the worried, tiny gorilla in the back of the crowd. The only infant among them. Warden Nyx blocked his view by stepping in front of his face, locking eyes with Marxis.

“This is all preventable, you know.” Marxis focused on the chihuahua's face. The Warden softly urged the ape with an uncharacteristic tinge of sincerity. “Just work with us. We'll get you out of this mine, get you off-world to a much freer, much more relaxed environment. They're willing to even pay you for your work.”

Marxis chuckled. “Let's say...hypothetically...I agree to your leader's proposition. What then? I design weapons for the Canids....to be used against Simian kind?”

Warden Nyx scowled visible disappointment at the inquiry. “We utilize a militant defense force. The only way a Getran would find themselves at the tip of our sword would be if we saw them come at us with the tip of theirs.”

Marxis slowly lifted himself upon one knee and laughed heartily. “Is that what, uhh...” with a smirk, he pointed in loops all around himself, “...this is? This...labor camp? This prison was a defense?” He stood upright, looking down upon the small Warden. “Was it defense that wrenched us from our unarmed transport vessel?”

“Your kind refuses to respect our borders! Our walls! Our airspace! Your kind respects nothing- no one, but yourselves!!!” The enraged canine lacked in height but compensated in posture, bearing teeth, eyes wide and wily. He relaxed his mouth and furled his lips back down across his white teeth. After collecting himself, he adjusted his disheveled suit from the outburst. “...But if they will listen and respect only their kin...maybe they'll listen to us with our newfound leverage.”

The unmoved orangutan noticed a glimmer from just beyond his brow, high above the sky. Without being too obvious, he witnessed the streak of something small burning up in the atmosphere. He knew it could be anything ordinary like space debris, but he suppressed a smile. Somehow he knew that friendly eyes had been upon him. Without moving his head once, he glanced back down to the Warden. “You can't keep me here forever.”

“It's my job to ensure that, Mister Jaggum...one way or another. We'll either send a useful version of yourself to homeworld Cerberus...or we send a useless version of yourself to the bottom of the mine.” The orangutan tightened his lips and swiftly punted the Warden like a football. The clipboard twirled harmlessly to the side while the chihuahua himself ragdolled, arms and legs fully extended making an “X” shape. He cartwheeled over the heads of the awestruck apes, the awestruck guards, the slow-thinking guards, and the guards that have snapped to ferocious focus by beating the orangutan. The laughing, battered and bleeding, Marxis Jaggum.

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to be continued...

[Galneda]

Wurran stared, still as a statue. He sat upon an ammo crate with his five other Getran Marine squad mates. No one moved, but they were visibly uncertain about what they were seeing. They sat angled in a way to better launch from their seats. To have multiple places to run should abrupt motions come from the ten jungle-cat warriors who were sitting opposite of them in their own hangar.

The cats were calm, but equally transfixed on the simian warriors of relatively equal size across the hangar bay. No one spoke. The air felt stuffy, the silence deafening, and the minutes that passed were eternities measured with each rhythmic click of the artificial air generators overhead. To Wurran, this felt like torture. Something inside him boiled his blood the way these cats unblinkingly stared at him. He was sick of being left in the dark.

While he felt right at home in combat roles, he wished only to rise in rank if nothing else but to be kept in the loop. These days more than ever, since 'being left in the dark' apparently meant waking up at the crack equivalent of “morning”, falling in to the hangar bay unarmed in your casual wear, and only noticing the militarized cats over your shoulder after one of the silent bastards sneezed.

That initial encounter was an exciting ordeal, a lot of yelling and screaming. Lutoi, the
chimp marine lugged a wrench over to their side. At this point, it still rested over there, but it was the immediate leaders of each group that calmed the frenzy. Wurran's stone-like temperance grounded the simians, while the cats seemed to obey their Sabretooth.

There they sat waiting for briefing. Each outburst from the Getrans were immediately silenced by Wurran, and every question he asked the Sabretooth was met with deflection. “Just wait for the Lieutenant, he'll fill you in.” These passive statements and the like, again and again. So Wurran stopped talking. So did his squadmates and the rest of the whiskers didn't say anything to begin with when the apes lost their shit. Just when the sleep-deprived gorilla couldn't stand it anymore, in walked Lieutenant Pillen.

“Attention on deck!”
“Ah, 'morning troops. I hope you were friendly to our guests, here.” As the long-faced Baboon gestured to the ten cat squad, he couldn't help but notice the indentation on a metal panel and a discarded wrench on the ground. He frowned, but didn't call too much attention to it. Files at his side, he briskly marched front and center between the two groups.

Among the Getrans, a cascading spectrum of the squad's experience. The chimps, Lutoi and the Rookie, knew they would get yelled at if they were doing anything but standing at attention. The Medic Silverback gorilla, and their Marksman spider monkey were shifty, unable to contain their curiosity by glancing over to them. The Mandrill Chief never stopped eyeballing the cats once, while Wurran locked onto Pillen.

Lieutenant Pillen reached his destination between two heavily armored dropships in the hangar before the two groups. With a quick referral to his notes, he pivoted to face his apes and ordered coolly “At ease.” All Getrans resumed to more relaxed stances, except for Wurran who remained standing. He simmered with irritation as he glanced at the stoic cat warriors.

“Lieutenant...what the fuck are those!?” The mighty gorilla popped his arm pointing at the strange creatures while his squadmates cheered in agreement.

Pillen narrowed his eyes, wincing in disappointment “Honestly, have none of you peanut-brains graduated from school? Can't you tell a Felid when you've seen one?”

Lutoi and the other two green marines chattered in astonishment “Those are Felids?” “I thought they'd be bigger...”
The Chief Mandrill snorted, “We know what they are, Lieutenant. Why are they here?”
“What's going on!?” Wurran added impatiently.
Pillen simmered, clasped his eyes shut, and beckoned his apes to silence. “Just- JUST....settle down troops. This is a rescue operation. The Canids have enslaved innocent civilians to mine some kind of hazardous gas, most likely used in production of weapons-grade materials.” The Chief sat back down, honed on the Lieutenant as he paced around the hangar as he addressed the feline Marines as equals. This, in it of itself, made the troops uncomfortable.

“Furthermore, they have Marxis Jaggum. The brilliant engineer responsible for perfecting our Spaceclimber technology and inventing Gorger Super Mechas. No doubt, they are attempting to pressure Jaggum into developing weapons for the CSDF.”

The squad of Getrans locked into focus. The severity of this situation rippled through their fur. Spaceclimbers were heavily armored mechs used extensively through the Getran military; siminoid machines that house one or two simian pilots in the chest. Gorgers, on the other hand, were extremely rare, but extremely powerful variants of the same concept.

Gorgers were the size of battlecruisers, but were insanely fast and strong machines. Hulking monstrosities of armor and technology with enough power to decimate scores of war vessels at once. A machine that could orbitally bombard completely on its own. Named so for the vast amounts of resources they consumed in order to operate, they were a super weapon used only as a last resort. At the time, only four had ever been made. Marxis lead the development of each.

If the Canids found a way to bridge the gap between their level of military technology to anything close to that of a Gorger, it would be everything the dogs needed to vie for outward conquest. It would be a bloody expansion that would disrupt the balance of intergalactic trade between ALL species, and undoubtedly result in the enslavement of more Getrans. Killing more simian-kind. This cannot happen.

The Lieutenant leaned upon the black armored nose of the nearest dropship, The Bearhawk, named after one of the terrifying beasts indigenous to their homeworld, Getra, its armor and armaments fit the tribute. The olive baboon gestured to the 10-cat squad. “Sabretooth, if you would please speak on behalf of your pride, sir.”

The chiseled Cat Marine lifted from his make-shift seat of an ammo crate with mechanical ease and jutted to a snap at attention once upright. The proud warrior locked eyes with the Lieutenant for a beat, then nodded once.

“Smilodon.” His mouth flared rows of sharp teeth to the Getran Marines. “...Fatalis.”
Wurran felt skeptical of these bizarre creatures, but even more skeptical of the Sabretooth. He towered above his troops, easily the tallest soldier on the ship. But Wurran was transfixed on his odd and seemingly impractical teeth. Were they engineered to be that way? His ability to speak without a lisp was enough of a mystery to warrant a peer-reviewed study. Lots of creatures couldn't help but bare a bit of fang when they spoke, but these were as ridiculous as there were utterly terrifying to the unsettled gorilla.

“Is that your name?” Wurran shifted in his seat to be more front-leaning. “Is that a Felid rank?” Wurran furrowed his eyebrow in an attempt to offset his fear by projecting intimidation. The Sabretooth eyed Wurran up and down as he slowly stepped in his direction. Eerily silent, like a bipedal prowl, heel-toe to heel-toe.

“That is my species, Gorilla.” He lapped the roof of his mouth and tilted his head to the side. “I am...'top combat rank' in my squad. A battle-ready two ton terminator. A veteran of multiple tours.” He halted within arms reach of Wurran, looking down at him from the length of his body, Wurran now sat upright repositioning his face away from the cat's crotch.

The Sabretooth snarled, “...and I am your ally for the duration of the mission.” His pupils were pin-holes amid their golden iris. With ferocious intensity he lingered there, overlooking the dead silent apes. He sized them each up. “...My Hellcats depend on you six for survival. Cast your xenophobic weights aweigh and come to accept that your survival depends on us as well.”

[Galneda]

The Smilodon Fatalis popped a precise 'left face' and slowly prowled to the Lieutenant, still leaning a shoulder against the nose of the dropship. “I only hoped there would be more of you...six is the most you could spare?”

Lieutenant Pillen shrugged in a way that propped him back up to his feet. “We weren't quite sure how many your leaders were willing to spare. I know for certain that Getran Command wanted this group small and contained, but...” Pillen scratched his heads as he looked at the other nine cat warriors loitered around crates, “Ten soldiers? ...Can't say you fangs fuck around.”

“My names' Obsidiran. If the dirty fleabags are on the cusp of gaining Gorger technology...we don't want that any more than you do.” He offered his paw for a friendly handshake. The Baboon only came up to his diaphragm and hesitated at first, but noted his retracted claws. With a nod, he accepted his handshake. Taken aback that instead of clasping hands, the cats clasped the inside of the forearm, closer to the elbow to rather, 'shake arms' firmly. Odd, but Pillen respected the gesture. He looked into the eyes of a creature he could now call friend.

Obsidiran, he thought. The ebon pelt of his fur makes sense of the name. Wurran stood in place, offset by this diorama of civility with entities he had been raised to believe were threatening alien menaces, just like the dogs. The fact that he was prepping for battle against mutts, shoulder to shoulder with 'backwards laser-chasers' disturbed him. The era he knew was evolving before his very eyes, but the times were going to change regardless of how he personally thought of it.

“We'll be there for you.” Chief called out. Wurran had thought the Chief was similarly skeptical of the cats, but there he stood to salute Obsidiran. “We are kin as soldiers. We'll bleed and kill together. We're gonna do this right.” The other nine cat stood to their feet. The feline Chief was a ragged and stocky, five-foot-tall Pallas cat. It was their Chief that was the first to shout “Caedo!”

The other cat warriors stood tall and sounded off in unison, “SAEVIS CAEDO!”

The siminoids were surprised and perplexed by the strange ritual, but recognized it as their rallying cry. Wurran looked to Obsidiran who gazed upon his squad with a radiating pride of his own as they chanted.
“Caedo!”
“SAEVIS CAEDO!”
It became very apparent by his body language, the father-like wear on his face, that he cared very deeply for his troops. The gorilla wanted to think it was weak of him but instead, he admired it. No commanding officer ever swelled with pride over his actions, no instructor, squadmate, or even his ex girlfriends.

Getran military were disposable in their culture. Seen typically as a dime-a-dozen, disposable end to justify any means that benefit the greater good. Enlistment was generally considered the right thing to do and some found it cool, but it was an existence that culture lacked compassion for. The armed forces that spanned the galaxy were so vast and dense that the citizens were well aware these apes knew what they were signing up for.

Missing limbs? Well, we'll help you out, but you better not complain about it; you should've read the fine print. What's this? Mental anguish? Shouldn't have become a soldier then. Veterans were bitter, but complacent. They understood that no one else would understand what they went through every day. That was just the way it had always been.

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“Commissioner, I'd rather us play it safe than sorry.” Warden Nyx's eyes bulged as he handed the report back to the five foot tall Dachsund, who even still towered above the weirdly short Chihuahua despite her lanky slouch. She was no different from the rest of the grunts under his command; loyal, capable, but stupid.

“Pray tail, Warden, Ah dun thought a place like this'here would have th' gangly space ape lock'd up tahter than a fee-murr in STONE.” The Warden winced with every punctuation the Soldier of Fortune borked. “Whut if it's just one a them thar false ay-larms?”

“Ugh...this could be really bad. I have a very very bad feeling about this. Do you realize what would happen to us, to all of dog kind if the apes have discovered this place?” Nyx felt a churning in his gut, the hairs between his shoulders bolstered against the collar of his suit. Strained against the bandages still freshly applied from the injuries he sustained from Jaggum. He searched his own thoughts over and over again, and each time he tried to justify it as nerves or paranoia. His gut only lurched dread into the forefront of his mind.

“Listen to me. Our prized prisoner is to be relocated immediately. Do we have any ships on standby?” The Commissioner and the Warden stepped up into a brisk pace as they patrolled down the corridors of the dense prison complex. This particular section held mostly dogs, no doubt perpetrators of severe crimes upon the dog homeworld. “Warden, it was yer own order not ta haf no ships loiterin' dirtside. We'd have ta call it dahn from that geosynctified space station.”

Nyx's face twitched. “'Geosynchronized', Commissioner! Tell them to send one shuttle down immediately! Also, patch in with the Navy, we need heavy patrols, I want warships! I want Gladius Squadrons! I want Carrier support! I want-” Warden Nyx stopped his frothing for a few beats while he hyperventilated, blinking wildly. The Commissioner stood terrified at the spectacle, cocking her head to the side in confusion. In the years she had worked with him, she had never seen him this riled before.

He loosened his tie, freed up his neck. It was clear by the way his paws shook and his ears drooped that he was extremely distressed. He looked up to the Commissioner and methodically, nearly-pleaded his point. “Commissioner....Keila... please. Boot up the AA batteries. Clear the Central Hub, and load up the monkeys right in the middle.”
She scoffed a laugh and looked at him incredulously. “Mistah Nyx...”
“All of them, Keila.”
“I really don't think-”
“Do it, Commissioner!”
“They said it was a flash! It may've been a dang fluke, Warden!”
“You don't understand what's at stake here!”
The Commissioner let her arms drop to slap her legs as she searched the ceiling while trying to calm him down, “What, yer 'career' or somethin', ye think mine ain't on the line for wastin' dog hours tryin' ta-.”

“FUCKING! LISTEN!! TO ME!!!” The Warden checked his immediate surroundings, where guards and prisoners with perked ears listened intently. His lips tightened as he quieted his tone. “If I'm wrong about...all of this...I will gladly take full responsibility for the overreaction. Bonuses all around! Do as I command and while you're at it... pray that I'm wrong about what's coming.”

She shook her head slightly, trying to figure him out. She let slip, “What's gotten into ya....” in a moment, with a look while his guard dropped, he flashed a worried sideways glance to her eyes. “I'm going to step outside...please hurry.” He walked away, passed the concerned faces of his hired goons. Passed the cells of career criminals.

“This got anything to do with them apes I smell, Warrrdennn?” a prisoner Wolf cackled.
“Those monkeys start fighting back, little guy? Hahahaha” a Hyena sneered.
“Betcha they found out, huh! They're comin' for you, Mister Nyx, you're fucked!”
“YOU FUCKED UP! YOU FUCKED UP!”

The whole block chanted as they rhythmically banged on their doors and hard plastic windows in unison. Guards cussed them out and tazed them through slats. They sprayed down others to suppress the jeers. But through the rippled yipes and screams, the chant rippled to every cellmate within earshot. The caverns of metal and concrete rung with the song of unified 'YOU FUCKED UP's. For once in the Warden's career, he didn't have the stomach to enact cruel retribution on his prisoners. Not this time.

to be continued...

[Galneda]

Eight security checkpoints later, and the Warden sat alone outside on the upper deck, outdoor activity area. He stared at the Geosynchronized Ismara Space Station above. It took him a couple of minutes to find it initially, but the unmistakable speck appeared to be quivering in the center of his gaze. He had been staring long enough at it that he knew it was actually his body doing the quivering.

He hoped it was a fluke. That the obviously flare-like event near the space station was just some sort of honest mistake. But if it were Getrans, would they go to his government first? Would the Canid government throw him under the bus because the facility is technically privatized, and they'd prosecute him to save face? Or would the Getrans rain hell upon the whole prison because of this whole situation with the ape prisoners, which were orders thrown to his lap by his own government.

One possibility would be legal but take longer. He snorted amused at the thought of becoming cellmates with the prisoners formerly under his watch. That would spell certain doom for him. But the other possibility. One with Getran force. If they ever found out about the conditions these apes were subjected to. He's fucked either way. He's got to get out of here.

The distinct whine of the rusty metal door creened open, and with familiar footsteps followed a familiar voice. “Howdy, Warden....” Her inflection implied bad news hugged her words.

“Commissioner...” Warden Nyx bruffed sadly. “Are they sending the reinforcements I asked for?” She stepped closer, and sat upon the picnic-like table he sat upon, resting her feet on the platform his tiny legs couldn't even reach. “The pack 'err mighty concerned for ya, Nyx. Say yer actin' a lil' crazy....” She looked at him with still-reserved emotions, hoping that the statement wouldn't set him off again.

His default rage gave way as he locked eyes with her with sweeping helplessness.

“I can't explain it...I can't even explain how I felt, but...somehow I know something terrible is going to happen.” She recognized the fear. She could smell it. She respected his openness. “Warden...what is it?”

What laid open allowed the waterworks to escape as Warden turned his head away to conceal his tears. “Did we get the reinforcements or not!?” He braced for the news and with enough time for her to clear her throat by swallowing her own spit, she told him “Shuttle's preppin' fer launch, sir.”

He turned to her, leaning in with trembling, fleeting hope. “The reinforcements? Dammit, are they sending anybody else!?” He clenched, teeth and fist, in a chorus of fear and wrath.

Keila leaned away, “They've dispatched a modest squadrin' of...” He leaped off of the table and shook with rage, she elevated her voice hoping the rest of the news would alleviate his anger, “...S-Squadron of Gladius Interceptors and Gladius Recon!” As he tightened his eyelids, the tears streamed down and crept into his short-haired fur. He relaxed his jaw only to relieve his grinding teeth.

“Damn themmm....”
“Nyx, talk ta me, please. Whut the hell is goin' on!?”
Warden Nyx looked skyward and immediately locked onto the distant speck of Ismara Space Station, screaming “Damn you, you cowards! Petty fucks! It's not enough!- You've left the door open for them- You've killed us all!!!” He seemed to jump with every shout, at remarkable volumes emitted from a creature so small.

“WARDEN!” She clasped his shoulders and slid to her kneepads where she could be more eye-level with him. Her pleas to calm him down and communicate were overpowered by his frothing as he continued, “If I could get my claws on you, I'd rip you apart! RIP YOU APAAAARRRT!!!”

He couldn't hear her. He couldn't hear her if he tried through all of his anger, but especially not now. Especially not after his jaw slacked in terror, his eyes widened to register the sight upon Ismara Space Station as it burst into flames. What was one explosion turned into several, and those several combined into a larger concussive plume of what resembled ash. Twinkling particles that he knew were metallic plates and debris spinning wildly, reflecting sunlight. No one could have survived that explosion, it was gone. And then it had hit him all at once. From the surface, he just watched so many die. Faces he knew, wiped out.

Finally, he gathered himself enough to tell her, “Look!” He pointed skyward. She obliged and gasped at the horror implied by the still-expanding plume at orbit. “Oh my God!” After a beat, she proclaimed. “What are...what are those three lights!?” It didn't take long for Nyx to spot the three bright specks in formation.

“Wh-When you talked to Ismara Station...how many were they prepping to send?”
She choked from her hyperventilating, “Just- Just one, sir.”
Warden, stunned as if in a nightmare, slowly turned skyward to the three fiery entities entering the atmosphere. “Oh shit....” He grabbed her by the sleeve and started scurrying to the door back into the complex. “The AA placements! Tell me the Anti-Air is up and running!” She wrenched her sleeve out of his paw, “I'm pretty gotdamned shore they up an runnin' now! Ya think they don't know what th'hell just kickt up!?”

Upon the hulking concrete and metal wall threading away from their position, an armored segment opened up its shell. Missile batteries spun out from the retracted armored plates and pointed their array skyward. “There, see? AA batt'ries are on top of it! Let's get back ta comms and git the Navy up on-”

Blinding first, deafeningly punctuated, the vibration in their bones confirmed the rest. They curled away from the AA battery from the heat alone, but also the shockwave that told their brain that any sense of ground was an unreliable illusion of security. They opened their eyes at the behest of all of their instincts that screamed 'flight' and saw only a tall skyscraper of smoke, dust, and debris, reaching still-skyward. Orbital bombardment.

“They're shelling the Anti Air!!!” Warden Nyx's voice cracked. “Ensure the monkeys are gathered in the central block! Converge all non-essential units there! GO GO GO!!!” The Commissioner was extremely distraught, but training took over. She merely did, and thus was so as they sprinted for the door to the complex.

-----

Bearhawk Alpha lead the three dropship squadron. Alpha was loaded up with six burly Getran Marines with plenty of room to spare, fully loaded with their rounded armor, and relatively youthful laser tech loadouts. The Getrans had always been a little ahead of the curve with war technology. Recent generations have granted them unprecedented access to finer and rarer raw materials across the galaxy, allowing their innovations to accelerate at an especially blistering rate ahead of other races.

These portable laser rifles, full-auto variants, sharpshooting variants, were long overdue for real combat test beds. The conditions of secrecy and the minimization of ape eyes were ideal. Wurran, a black-fur mountain gorilla lead the squad. The Mandrill baboon was their Chief. A Silverback gorilla was their burly medic, a taller-than-usual spidermonkey served as their sharpshooter, and Lutoi and the other chimp were relatively green soldiers.

Lieutenant Pillen reassured him that reinforcements were just a call away, but he couldn't help but wonder why the Getran chain of command wanted to start this mission with the odds steeped so far against them. Five years of service, twelve major combat operations. It seemed that only one thing remained consistent; nobody told him anything beyond what he needed to do mere moments before he needed to do it. This boiled his blood.

He guessed it had to do with these oddly plastic laser guns they were outfitted with, but there had to be more to it. Could it have something to do with the cats they were partnered up with? As far as he knew this had never happened before, which only made him more tense than usual before a mission. He peered out the window and his face lit up from the bright explosion of another orbital bombardment upon an AA battery below. One thing's for certain: this Marxis Jaggum better be worth the trouble.

cont...

[Galneda]

Bearhawk Beta was the Cat squad. Lead by Obsidiran, the hulking Sabretooth commander, a Pallas Chief, twin Cheetahs, a heavy LMG Bengal tiger, Jaguar marksman, and a relatively slimmer pretty-boy Savannah chatted it up with two cougars and an Ocelot in the back. Typically feline marines are extremely quiet during drops. A little of that was out of necessity because they couldn't hear each other easily if they tried; sensitive ears could barely pick out voices amid their own dropships rattling apart during entry unless you were shouting.

This, however, was a weirdly accommodating volume. Glancing out portholes to see an atmospheric sky indicated they were already past the worst of it and it wasn't going to get much louder than the hum they were experiencing. These Marines had been through so much bullshit that the jitters they all felt before a mission enticed excitement. Aboard a Getran vessel, this seemed like some kind of fucked up vacation for them. They had fun pretending they weren't scared. Laughing harder than they've laughed in a long time at the face of eminent danger, as only a crackpot cat marine would.

Obsidiran recognized this. In the intermediate years of his leadership, he would've chastised such banter but he had known these soldiers long enough to realize they were masking the jitters. They needed this. Sometimes it's the foolish, petty coping mechanisms that served as the glue that kept them intact, ensuring their survival. He looked out the port nearest to him to see the third dropship peel away from the rest. Shit's about to hit the fan, and he took this opportunity to attach his full-faced helmet.

Dropship Echo was designated such for being empty. That's why it was overloaded with exterior weapons for it's early role in the mission. Lieutenant Pillen himself operated the spacecraft, invigorated with an opportunity to deliver upon the fleabags the rightful karma they deserved. What he watched with his own eyes would be set right from the wings of the craft at his fingertips. He sighed a thanks to his command for allowing him to no longer be a helpless bystander to the dog's crimes.

All of the vessel's energy was devoted to shields as he accelerated his plunge into the atmosphere. Fire clashed with the blue energy of the shields into a brilliant white crackling sheet over all of his viewports. Flying partially blind, his instruments were his only eyes. As his secondary joystick retracted away, varying panels flipped into different indicators to signal atmospheric flight became recently possible. Parachutes first, flaps second. His gut did a somersault as he grunted against his seat harness from the brutal inertia. He heaved the joystick backwards, into his belly.

The sound of the air around him changed it's pitch as onboard levels and speed indicators confirmed the craft's obedience. He had to do a double-take to hear the chirps of a missile trying to lock on only to abruptly stop, eventually followed by the muffled crunchy thump of another orbital shelling. Brekan's got his paws full alone above on the sizable stealth cruiser, but without him bombarding these AA placements, this mission simply wouldn't be possible.

Still coming in hot enough to ignite the air around him, Pillen curved his nose upward and began trouble-shooting. Sweeping across, he flicked various buttons from forward facing rocket boosters to deploying additional flaps in an effort to slow down. Perhaps with the parachute still shaking behind him, the rest was overkill, but it got the task done quickly. Pillen's head slowly pulls back to his seat and he blinked to see the sky of CB4L for the first time from this perspective. The base of the parachute popped off with the help of explosive charges. More armored panels shed away to reveal the wing mounted armaments tucked away at the dropships underbelly. The craft flipped over and unfurled its wings as it descended further planetside.

First the two horizontal stabilizers at the main body which carried the explosive payload, the four diagonally formed vertical stabilizers near the tail, and the two that unfurl from the top that take with them additional armored engine pods. Lieutenant Pillen overshot their landing zone slightly in his speedier approach, the other dropships were descending at a more consistent pace.

Pillen main priority was getting to their landing zone first. He dumped energy from shields into engines and boosted forward. Low enough to see the complexities of the massive concrete facility that dominated the landscape below. Across the plains, yet another AA battery was obliterated from above. Pillars of smoke scribbled across the sky to indicate the growing number of AA placements that got hole-punched.

Bearhawk E swept across and battered out fully-automated grenade launcher rounds across the rows of concrete fortifications, Bearhawks A & B set down and opened their rear hatches to allow their troops to fall out. Their respective pilots, informed by their own cargo bay camera feed, knew precisely when to launch off of the ground. They couldn't stay stationary for long in case someone on the dog side of things became wise and hurled an anti-vehicle projectile in their direction.

Not that they didn't try, but as soon as one mercenary set up along the top of a wall or structure, Bearhawk E scattered them apart in a hail of dust and hellfire. As fast as they landed, the dropships were up off the ground again. Bearhawks A & B lurched forward in a slow ascent and churned their rockets forth into a wall face. With explosive proficiency, they burrowed a hole into the center of the prison by sheer force. The Sixteen troops had eyes in every direction, strained against the dust kicked up around them, and made their way towards the focus point of the barrage.

The dust puffed beneath each stomp they made forward. The heat from the point of rocket fire on the fortified wall was their door into hell. The smell of the dusty shithole tinged sourly with the nearby gas-mines, and mixed with the bouquet of burnt destruction from the Bearhawk's assault. CB4L's ground shook with Echo's grenade launcher bursts, the concert of fire warmed their faces and shone into their eyes. Their stomachs drummed with each occasional orbital pound into the crust. Piercing through it all was the loud alert siren from the top of each hub structure. It seemed desperate.

The explosions around the concrete formation shifted from the surface to inside the building itself. Bearhawks A & B ceased their concentrated barrage, and peeled away to join Echo in the top-side strafe runs. The dust settled as the Sixteen approached the still-smoldering hole. With a moment of pause to check for debris falling atop of them, and carefully scanning the ridge above for enemy troops, they leapt through the heap of concrete and metal into the charred interior of the mess hall.

Wurran honed his rifle towards a likely firing point to find an empty place in an empty room. In stillness, he felt his squadmates sweep the corners of the room. The cats filed in and fanned out across the heavily damaged floor. Metallic table setups had been blown apart, some of them embedded into the far wall having been flung from the blast. No bodies, but evidence that they got people out of here in a hurry. Wurran crept towards the still shut main hall door and listened.

The distinct rumble of the Bearhawks above streamed by overhead erratically, doppler effect from one area to another. He felt it letting out a burst of grenade fire to some unlucky mercenary topside. The thunderous blasts of orbital bombardment shook the whole facility, but became less frequent. The alarm pleaded with piercing long sustained howls. Dust fell from newly formed cracks around the silent soldiers.

to be continued...

[Galneda]

“Be advised...” the commset in Wurran's ear quietly chirped to life with Obsidiran's distinct murmurs, “Detaching four of my guys up top. Callsign: Strafer” the Getrans eyeballed each other quietly, not certain what they had to gain from splitting up so early in the mission, but nobody felt the urge to question it. Wurran clicked his comms “Copy that Bearhawks? We're gonna have four of our cats up top.”

“Echo Confirmed” Pillen chimed in almost immediately. The four cats, the twin cheetas and the two cougars, jumped up to a platform on the second floor meant to overlook the mess hall. Through a door, they found themselves at the top of the wall in that sector, advancing cautiously while Bearhawks zipped around overhead.

“Yeah, Alpha got it.” The squad approached the metallic sliding door between the mess hall and the main corridor. Wurran looked up at nothing impatiently waiting for the third confirm. “Egh! ….Beta copy!” The strain in his voice had incoming missile lock tones in his backdrop. The cat warriors started laughing. The Panther among them softly chuckled “Looks like the flyers got their hands full out there!”

As they snickered, the annoyed Wurran heaved the large, cumbersome metal door to the side with one mighty arm. He swiftly steadied his rifle with his other hand downrange. The violent metal shriek locked up the laughter and all guns stared down the empty corridor. Their silence was inadvertently punctuated by a nearby orbital strike and a fast-moving Bearhawk clicking out flares high overhead. The lights flickered and swayed from the shelling, yet successfully illuminated the ventilation and water pipes overhead. A long, cold, and sterile corridor was their path to the rest of the facility. Now perfectly focused, six apes and six cats trekked onward.

-----------------------

Warden Nyx shook violently, his comm unit trembled in his paw at his ear. “Yes!...Yes, Getrans!...They're shelling the place as we speak, send all the help you can get!” Two gargantuan mountain dog warriors filled the cramped office with him. A petrified Commissioner Keila stared into the eyes of her reflection at a nearby mirror. This is it, she thought. This isn't just a jailbreak, but this might be war. Actual war.

“WE'RE GONNA NEED MORE THAN JUST A COUPLE OF FIGHTERS, YOU MORONIC MUTT!!! Send in the Navy or we're all DOOMED!!!” Nyx let his arm fall to his side and dropped the comm on the concrete floor. He fought to catch his tiny breath before he snapped his attention to one of the two SWAT dogs. “Do you know where they are now?”

With a deep bassy voice that rattled the Warden's cabinet doors, one gruffed back “Breached through Central's southern mess hall. They bored right through the bulkhead and they're working their way up to Central Hub.”
“Dammit! How the hell do they know where they are!? They're heading straight for the rest of their kind... Oh what can we do...Can we- or should we relocate them?”
“In what way, sir?”
“Any way, can we uh...move them to a different part of the facility, can we...can we airlift them? Can we-”
“Ships'll git shot down, sir...” Commissioner Keila hung her head. “Or captured...either way wouldn't do us any good. And relocate 'em where, with the Canid crim'nals?” She brushed her shoulder with the massive SWAT dog's elbow who gave her what space he could spare. “No-sir. We fight...put 'em down fer good. Shut 'em down, cause we in the legal right. Present the findin's to the higher ups, git our heads in the clear.”

Warden Nyx stopped to think of it, if only for a moment. “Keila...I know we're rapidly running out of options, but these are soldiers we're up against!”

Keila scoffed, “We're soldiers TOO, sir! We were soldiers before we were reduced ta guard duty, and this's become our turf! We know these halls well, and we outnumber 'em too. 'Ey Chief, how many combatants are confirmed?”
“On the ground? Less than twenty.” She growled,
“Less than twenty, Warden...we're 300 strong, an' we got the arms.”
A burst of dropship fire emitted a tremor that shook the lights as Nyx furrowed his brow. “Those numbers are rapidly diminishing top-side, so you best act fast Commissioner.”

“Ah don't have the clearances you do. Levy overall command to me, an' I can git this nice and organized.” Warden Nyx's eyes were weary from stress. He'd had enough. “Done. Done, anything you need let's do it.”

She was still scared. More terrified than she's ever been in her life, but duty was more important than herself right now. With her shoulders back and her head high, she saluted with a look of determination. “Patch me thru with whoever's in charge at Central Hub.”

------------

The caged dogs screamed and shouted. The siren faded and the orbital bombardments became less frequent, but one noise seemed to be traded out with another as the squads cautiously walked down the rows of jail cells that held canine prisoners. The few that weren't scared shitless were confused. While many receded into their cells, others reached out with their arms to the strange soldiers, begging for answers, begging for help, begging for anything.

“Apes and cats!? What the fuck is going on!?” was a particular sentiment that seemed to come up the most as they strode their way down the block. Everything else was an incoherent mess of shouting and cussing, slurs directed to them, cheers as if they were going to free them. Wurran snapped back to the front when he had to remind himself that the crowd was marking their positions. The shock from one prisoner when they saw a Getran or Felid acted like a wave. The prisoners were like a living beacon, and it put the squads on edge.

The twelve hugged the concrete wall opposite of the cell blocks. On the other side of that wall, a mirrored arrangement of cells. They finally reached the connecting “H” between the parallel corridors, and the leading Getrans signaled the cats to split up. Six apes took one hall, Six cats took the other. Nobody questioned it. Obsidiran had been watching their rear carefully, and served as the caboose to the row of cats that stalked their way into position.

The loud crowd of Canid prisoners drowned out so much noise that a few of the cats felt comfortable sacrificing stealth for speed. Nobody could hear anything in this stressful chaos of barks, cries, and shouts. Just as Wurran was about to move on through his lane, he saw a large object twirl at the cats feet, and he spun to face it. He was met with a plume of smoke, the object bouncing made a barely audible clatter. It was one of the large canisters of gas with the valve all the way open. “Contact!” Could barely be heard from the Feline Chief over comms!

The two leading cats opened fire down their corridor to an unseen Canine Soldiers. With a few loud, echoing pops, the plume of gas that enveloped them ignited into a fiery explosion! The shouts didn't change, but compared to that crunchy gas explosion, seemed reduced to a whisper. Those two cats, the Ocelot and the Jaguar lifelessly collapsed in the carnage kicked up by the explosion, comms went unfiltered with inescapable shouts from one another.

“Cover! Get to cover right now!” many obliged except for the hulking Bengal Tiger who handled a large machine gun at waist level. He blasted a hot pull of fully auto fire down their range. The smoke of the blast still at his feet, unignited fumes threaded the air around them like otherworldly whisps of ghostly shreds. The gas had a thickness, the stench unmistakable, their eyes itched. Their eyes!

“Masks on! Masks on! Gas gas gas!” Wurran belted. In seconds, the soldiers had unsheathed and pulled their respective gas masks over their faces. With a checking glance at his surroundings to ensure no mercs were upon them, Wurran turned his attention to the rest of his Getran comrades. Their medic had his mask halfway across his face, the Silverback's mighty paw held firmly over his own neck. Blood gushed over the gasping gorilla's fingers. His other paw sifted through a kit mounted to his armor, desperately trying to find materials to patch it up on the spot.

to be continued...

[Galneda]

“Medic's been hit! Medic, took...” Wurran looked into the desperate Gorilla's eyes, to his surroundings, sharp flak of shrapnel from the canister, some large and twisted, some small. “Shrapnel to the neck!” the Silverback shoved a cluster of gauze into the wound, gurgled a cough, and bared sharp teeth already splayed with blood. The cats were furious, angrily sprinting down the corridor where the first canister was thrown, but Obsidiran, still checking both pathways to the rear, snapped a concerned glance to the injured gorilla.

“Get 'em away from that cage!” Obsidiran said to the apes. The medic's back was to the cage of a terrified border collie prisoner, who hunkered down at the furthest place he could between the shitter and his cot. “We need a fucking medic for our medic!” Lutoi shrieked, lending a supporting hand to his injured comrade. The continued gunfire from the cats robbed the mob of their spirit in noise-making, allowing Wurran enough time to detect a new noise. Down his lane came running two Canid mercenaries who lugged an open-valved canister in their direction.

Wurran snapped to action, straight to his feet, and swiftly shouldered his rifle while widening a death glare through the glossy curved viewport of his armored gas mask. Time slowed as he howled, “APES, CEASE FIRE.” The Getrans looked downrange to see the canister, spewing the thick and spindly gas, arc up near the concrete ceiling towards Wurran who continued to stride forward. “STOW WEAPONS!”

The other four Getrans rose to their feet, sliding their weapons behind and beside by the sling, the Medic troubleshot by applying necessary aid to the wound behind the tainted gauze. Just as the gas canister was about to sail over the mountain gorilla's shoulder towards the rest of his squad, he spiked it down with one mighty swing of his arm. With a denting crash and spin, the canister tumbled back the foggied way towards the mercenaries. Though faceless behind their own gas masks, and hiding behind their riot shields, their instinctive steps backwards were all the fearful indication the apes needed.

“Knuckle down...” Wurran's mighty paws slumped to the ground before him, which positioned himself in a primal charging pose, shoulders and brow forward to the aggressors. Their bodies quickly faded back into the growing plumage of smoke. “...Tear them apart.”

Training came in handy for every day life of a Getran citizen. Gorilla, Baboon, Chimpanzee, Macaque, Gibbon, for any kind of ape in the Imperial Militaries. The training was pretty universal and only sometimes catered to the unique specifications of any particular race or gender. What mattered is they were all apes, and there was a way you do things. For the close quarter combat Wurran was charging forward into, training would have him do things a little differently.

But protocol, on paper, would have a gorilla soldier think that their natural, primitive rage is more-so a liability than a strategic tool. There's no thought to it, but if Wurran really thought about it, he probably couldn't recreate the disarming technique he had maneuvered on the closest dog Riot Guard. It wasn't strategy that swatted the baton out of his hand while elbowing the shield in such a way that the upper corner jabbed the guard in the face.

Wurran had learned the exceptions to his training, and when to know the time and place for terrifying, instinctual, primitive combat. So when Wurran screamed at the top of his lungs through his gas mask, he knew that what little this wide-eyed dog could see. If he tried to couple a face to this terrifying sound he was experiencing, all he would see were a gorilla's furious eyes of death in an ocean of shadowy blackness. It was only for a split second. A soul-withering second before the same arm that disarmed him and shield-bashed him, backhanded his whole body and caused him to sail down the corridor.

Training should also help keep these mercenaries at a level head when things don't go as planned. Now that the corrosive Ismaragen gas was being used against them, and these terrifying ape soldiers were practically swimming through it. To get to them and to beat the shit out of them. It's a scary situation that no training in the world could've prepared the other riot dog. His last words were an undignified whimper by the time the Mandrill Chief grabbed him by the neck of his armor, hurled him into the nearby cage wall, and repeatedly bashed him against the bars with forces exceeding the dog's body-weight.

Lutoi and their marksman spider monkey sprinted ahead of the corridor closer to where the other dog landed, the fog dissipated and separated in their wake. Wurran regained his breath thanks to his gas mask. He imagined that if he were to stare at his own reflection, he'd observe his pupils widening to normalcy. The Chief continued to savagely beat and thrash the riot guard in his clutches while the inmates around him coughed and gagged from the gas exposure.

Through their immediate anguish and the horrors they glimpsed, they wept. It began and ended in seconds. The ones more heavily exposed to the gas, reeled, vomited, and died soon after. The other unprotected prisoners breathing the gas raw traveled a longer, more grueling downhill road to death.

Comms chirped to life with the voice of one of the pilots overhead, “Blackdrift this is Bearhawk Bravo, I'm observing additional fortified anti-air, can we get some more shelling please?”

Brekan manned the Stealth Cruiser alone high above them in space. “Uh, that's a negative Bearhawk, got my hands full up here.”

There was a beat. “...'Hands full', Blackdrift?”

Brekan sounded stressed, “YEAP. Been micromanaging enemy fighters, seem to be scouts! As soon as my bubble's clear, I'll resume.”

It was way too soon for enemy space fighters to engage the stealth cruiser. After a stunned pause, the Mandrill Chief let the eviscerated riot guard's body slump to the ground before he ran to catch up with the front. The other chimp rookie hot on his tail.

“So yeah, if you folks could hurry up and find our prisoners? Now would be uh...a great
time for that!”

Wurran turned back to where they came and swatted at the strange gas to disperse it quickly. It irritated what little skin it could reach, and he knew he would need an immediate chemical bath once this was over. He marched through the blotches of smoke to their medic, and gasped at the sight before him.

The medic slumped lifelessly to one shoulder, back still to the cage. A prison shiv stuck out the side of his head, and there reaching over his body was a mangy canine arm desperately reaching for the sling to the Silverback's laser rifle. The dog froze when he saw the Mountain Gorilla emerged from the smoke.

The Silverback was a heavy creature, so Wurran huffed when he pulled his fallen brother away from the cage. The armor and equipment at the medic's back prevented his head from comfortably touching the ground at the back of his head, but it let flow the open wound at the neck caused by the shrapnel. The self-patch never completed, and his eyes remained open and vacant.

Even with the bandage, Wurran wasn't sure how much longer the medic would've even endured the mission. But this vermin, this Canid scum decided to take it upon himself to hasten the process when no one was looking.

“...Just kill me...” the dog whispered.
He felt like he should've listened when Obsidiran told him to get him away from the cage.
“Just...just kill me.” the dog said again.
He thought that he didn't seem like a threat at the time. He looped in his mind wondering why didn't he make the call.
“Ya hear me!?” the dog clutched the bars between his face.
The Pallas Chief jeered through comms “Alright Getrans, ground level cats made it to a forward intersection...more corridors... Looks like your corridor aligns. Waiting on you.”
Wurran collected a few of the medic packs attached to his brethren and began affixing them to his own loadout. “Medic's dead” he comm'd flatly.
“Hey!” the dog snapped the fingers of his paw at the gorilla.

to be continued...

[Galneda]

“UH, GROUND TEAM” Brekan's voice cracked back onto comms, “long range scanners picked up a few capital class cruisers that seem to be curving this way, let's pick up the pace shall we! May be actual Canid Navy, repeat, NAVY ACTUAL.”

Lieutenant Pillen specifically primed his mic just to say “Ah shit.”

“Bearhawk Alpha here, we're kinda running out of things to shoot. They've been staying out of sight topside.”
“Kill me, you fucking idiot!” the dog continued to snap.
“Yeah, kill him already!” an unseen prisoner chimed in.
Mandrill Chief gruffed into comms, “Where are you, Wurran? We met up with the cats.”
“I'm on my way.” Wurran unslung the Silverback's rifle, identical to his own and aimed it at the criminal before him. He stared at the pathetic Canid. “...I want you to know, it's not because you told me to.”

The dog let out a single weak laugh, “It doesn't matter to me, you gangly fuck. No one gets out of this place alive.”

Wurran pulled the trigger to the laser rifle. There was no recoil, but turbines spun rapidly to cool down the barrel. There was no blast, but merely the hum of the inner mechanisms whirred away to produce the laser, and the soft whine of the cooling turbines. There was no visible beam, but the super-heated point upon the dog's head immediately lit with flame. Glowing white hot, rapidly burrowing a hole through him and scorching the wall behind.

Trigger held, Wurran traced the invisible beam down and boiled the flesh of this body, separating unevenly, smoldering, with fur burning and peeling away. The jumpsuit caught fire next as what was left of the dog slumped to the ground, steaming black and red blood spilling on the cold concrete floor. Wurran looked to the body of the Medic solemnly and said “I'll be back for you, friend.” Even with the trigger off, the cooling turbines continued to work as Wurran double-timed down the corridor.

It was a straight shot, even after the cell blocks had ended. Bodies of dog mercenaries littered the ground. He didn't even consciously register the gunfire amid the chaos he handled back there. The claustrophobic corridors opened up vertically into a well lit clearing. More bleak gray concrete wills stretched skyward to natural light, the rumble of the Bearhawk dropships soaring around became clearer. They maneuvered more erratically in the hopes to catch more dog soldiers outside. The absence of grenade bursts indicated the dogs wised up.

There at the perpendicular intersection of this hall and a wider one, amid the dust and debris stood the team. The Mandrill Chief saw Wurran's approached and addressed by comms “Wurran's here.” Lutoi was scuffed up a bit, dirtied as if he had been dragged. “Did you get the gorilla's medkit?”

Wurran defaulted to being offended for their fallen comrade, but in his stunned acknowledgment bit his tongue and pressed it to the side of his cheek. He glared at the chimp while he pat the kit he had affixed to his belly. “Yeah....yeah I got your kit right here.”

“Oh good, you mind throwin' me a painkiller?” The chimp was bouncy, but ragged. It became clear as Wurran approached that he had been shot, but treated.

The pretty-boy Savannah cat stepped between the chimp and Wurran “He's had enough, I treated him.” The cat shrugged a shoulder to right his rifle's sling, and with a free hand doublechecked his corpsman kit was secure.

Lutoi looked skyward in a rush of rage, and shook his oversized Autolaser with frightening ferocity “C'mon, your pussy shit is weak! First you dig around with your fuckin' litter crusted kitty claw in my wound, and then ya stuck me with the biggest damned needle I've ever seen in my life, what kind of backwards Dark-Aged shit are you working with!?”

The Savannah's ears swept back and his lips curled to display his fangs when he spun to face the chimp, “I stopped your bleeding and saved your life! You have a proper painkilling dosage, so quit your apeshit!” he rolled his eyes and slinked back to the middle to watch over corridors, eyeballing the blasted corners where cameras used to exist.

The spider monkey marksman kept his eyes down the hallway he was propped up on, but leaned in to add “Apeshit's all we know; it's what we do, cat!” His chuckle rippled a laugh to everyone but the injured Chimp and Wurran himself. Wurran was locked onto the fact that they lost three soldiers already. He gained the impression that losing the Getran medic was merely an inconvenience to the rest of the squad.

“Hey team leader, you alright?” The other, Rookie chimp called out to him. “Are you fucked up about the Medic?” While his inflection implied itself to be endearing, the audacity of his own soldier chilled Wurran's bones. The chimp continued “It's alright, boss....we got another one.” as he casually pointed to the equally stunned Savannah cat. This should've been expected, considering the overall worth of a Getran soldier's life. Maybe that's why they sent six when the cats sent ten. But Wurran couldn't shake the unconquerable weight that this was wrong.

He hefted a laser rifle in each hand and all he could do was shrug. “Ha, uh....yeah.... You're damned right I'm pretty fucked up about it.” The cats recoiled away in silent sympathy. “But Wurran,” The Mandrill Chief said. “...Did you even know his name?”

Wurran glanced a betrayed look to the baboon. Stunned long enough that he became aware of the fact that he actually didn't know his name. He barely knew any of their names in the months he's spent with this squad. He only knew 'Lutoi' because he acted up all the time. Chief was Chief and Rookie was Rookie. He realized he perpetuated the very indifference he grew to despise, so deeply that he wasn't even aware of it. He strayed his gaze away and scoffed searching for an answer, only to land on the cat squad hanging their heads in sympathy. More sympathy than the Medic ever garnished with his own kind.

Of all creatures, Obsidiran was the first to break the silence.
“I'm sorry for your loss.”
Wurran gasped. He lost two. He lost two feline warriors and yet, he seemed to care more for a Getran than they would for their own. Wurran looked to the floor as he thought long and hard about everything wrong with his culture, as comms rang to life, “We found them!”

Obsidiran raised a paw to his ear as he called back, “Say again, Strafer?” It was one of the four cats that detached at the mess hall. The comms chirped back with the voice of one of the cheetah twins. “Getran prisoners are all corralled at one point, we see them! Looks like they're holing up in the core hub of the facility.”

The Chief took to a knee and started rummaging through his own backpack while the rest of them whooped and cheered. Wurran closed in on Obsidiran, slinging a rifle to his shoulder and clasping the giant by the shoulder. “Hey, thanks. I'm sorry for your losses as well, Obsidiran.”

The warrior looked upon Wurran with a deeming nod, through the red pin-camera points in the cavities of his full-faced helmet that was shaped to resemble his own skull. His actual jaw stood out, black fur among the matte black paint of the armor, when he spoke.

“It is an unavoidable hazard of the job, Getran...could've easily been you or I. We must remain vigilant, and get your people to safety.”
He punched Wurran's arm for good measured, “It's why we're here.”
Wurran wanted to default to mistrusting the cat, but fought to tear down the mental blocks built by his own culture. The same xenophobic culture that taught him that cats were equally as treacherous as dogs. But here now, before the warrior, he resonated with the genuine conviction in his voice. It wasn't charisma, but his gut believed every word in his voice. He now thought of the Sabretooth as an idol in leadership.

After a sniff to offset the obvious emotional swell he exerted, Wurran lifted his finger to his own comms.
“Can you give us coordinates based off of Blackdrift's mapping?”
One of the Cheetah's in the four cat squad chirped back, “Standby...”

to be continued...

[Galneda]

A glance to the Chief Mandrill confirmed he had a small portable device to readout the local terrain on a map. With the tap of a button, a blank interface awaited coordinates to be typed into it's program.

The apes lacked respect, Wurran thought. I aim to command respect not just to myself, but to impress the value in respecting each other. We're not disposable, we're not merely property...we deserve to be mourned. Not out of pity. Not as a tool of propaganda to prove a point, but as individuals. We deserve...worth.

Warden Nyx growled. “Hurry up...hurry up, how many times do I need to say it!” The Central Hub was an overcrowded catastrophe. All ape prisoners, all 42 of them, were huddled in the spacious central foyer of the large concrete dome of the central hub. Many segments of walls that adhered to the curvature of the circular room implied a line between them and the mass of dog mercenaries that scrambled and churned about like headless chickens.

Marxis Jaggum stood upon a chair in the dead middle of the petrified crowd. He watched as dogs in full riot gear continued to funnel into doors at either side trying to shout information to each other in the deafening storm of yells. This exasperated engineers who were actively attempting to barricade said doors.

The crying and stressed out apes were merely doing their part to add to the audible chaos. Marxis, battered and bruised from his 'disciplinary correction' outside, watched helplessly as officers of the prison dragged canisters of Ismaragen Gas into the crowds of apes. They were threaded together by a hose the officers held overhead of the seated ape prisoners.

Commissioner Keila held one ear down, struggling to hear the transmission from her comm unit in hand from her perch on the upper catwalk. “No, daggummit! Return to yer Anti Air post, BUT DON'T DEPLOY 'TILL THEY ON THEIR WAY OUT!” more radio garble continued through the comm unit only to violently, loudly cut out. Followed closely by the distinct ground quaking thud of another orbital bombardment. Keila clutched the comm unit with the intention to crush it with her bare paw, and with a shriek, threw it into the crowd of Getrans below like a skipping stone.

“ALRIGH, THE REST A YA!” her piercing voice stilled the Canid Mercenaries, commanding their attention, “Grab some canisters! Thread 'em together like Officer Ricknee showed ya, and integrate 'em nice an' good with the monkeys. C'mon, c'mon, don't dilly!” She clapped her paws loudly as most of the dogs began to move with refined purpose. “Don't dally! We got guests to please, c'mon now!” She kept clapping while all of the mercs moved to assemble the canisters into makeshift bombs rigged to blow. The apes screamed in protest, but fearfully huddled away from the surrounding riot units.

Nyx looked sick. He felt his back against the wall, both literally and to the situation. He had always been a cruel manager of the prison, brandishing tactics that evoked fear to get prisoners in line. He couldn't mentally swim out of the drowning feeling that decisions he made with the ape prisoners was going to bring the hammer of many worlds down upon him. For the first time in many ages for the chihuahua, the internal drag of hopelessness dominated his spirit.

Commissioner Keila wore a lifetime's worth of stress on her face, earned in a matter of hours. She sat next to him, “I sure hope this works, Warden...I got a bad feelin' about this'n.”

His voice was raspy from screaming all day, and his fatigue added even more texture, “They'll have to listen, Keila. It should buy us enough time for the Navy to come in...it's the only shot we have.”
“We're....are we actually gonna gas 'em?”
“If there's the slightest chance they'll kill us all......” Nyx tampered with the remote switch in his hand, normally meant for mining operations, but modified to trigger all of the gas canisters at once. “...Then they gotta fail. Plain and simple.”

A loud clang and clatter startled just about everyone in the room. Warden jolts upright to see it's origin; a shaky, tail-between his legs mercenary that accidentally dropped a loaded canister of gas.

“Hey asshole!” Warden shouted, “Careful with that thing, you wanna blow us-” all of a sudden, a piercing metallic explosion that prompted everyone to scream.

A secondary blast! The double doors to the further wall of the massive rounded room flung open as five fully armored Getran Marines strode in with weapons at the ready. They climbed over the ineffective and hastily positioned barricades with ease. The feline marines funneled in behind them training their weapons in every direction. To the armed mercenaries at the upper level aligned with Nyx, to the terrified mercenaries at the ground floor with them.

Wurran quickly surveyed the situation. Dogs more tempered to be maintenance workers were slowly backing away to flee. One, at his feet, was too close when they breached and crab-walked away in terror. Many others seemed more equipped for non-lethal riot control duty, the vast majority of them armed with batons, stun prods, and riot shields. An astonishing few of them were armed, and some even fumbled their rifle in an attempt to aim it at the imposing berserkers.

It was quiet enough to hear a pin-drop. The ape prisoners sitting on the floor in the middle of the room wasted no time to cooperatively lay as flat onto the ground as they possibly can. Marxis Jaggum stood with the surrounding mercenaries. The canisters, and the hoses connected to the still standing gas bombs that seemed to be partially setup, covering half of the crowd in a zone of certain death.

The mercs holding the Ismaragen gas cans froze. The ape prisoners flattened themselves like pancakes, squirming among each other just trying to get as low as they can go. Marxis tightened his arms to his side, bracing with eyes wide. Silence. Broken by a single laugh. Warden Nyx approached the center of the platform above the apes, remote trigger in hand.

“That's far enough!” He licked his teeth, concealing his fear with pure rage and conviction. He's going all in. “What you're doing is highly illegal, you know! You wanna start a war? You must first consult the law... In Ismara, my word is law! So if you're willing to talk, I'm sure we could negotia-” is about as far as he got before his throat lit with flame, and the concentrated laser beam streaked across his arm to his hand. The beam absolutely melted his flesh off, possibly liquefying some bone as well, before he reeled backwards tossing the remote charge.

One of the dog's shouts snuck in before the eruption of gunfire dominated all senses. The Getrans had an easier time maneuvering their perpetual death beams across to paint the many terrified, desperate canine faces. The smell of burnt fur and flesh became overwhelming, and the overall temperature of the room bumped up significantly. Dogs tasked with loading the canisters dropped into half melted, charred and burning heaps around the traumatized prisoners. Marxis closed his eyes tightly.

Round after round from the cats eviscerated the dogs that were missed. Obliterating ankles beneath riot shields that put up a wavering defense against the onslaught of super concentrated heat. Bullet casings danced and flickered across the ground as they repositioned themselves into what suitable cover they could find. Return fire from the canines bounced off of the rounded armor of the apes, and kicked dust off of the lesser armor of the feline marines. Rounds entered flesh of the warriors, and they let out primal screams as they ran them through by way of fire.

The Commissioner crawled on the upper platform, inconsolably screaming at the ghastly sight to Warden Nyx's fate. She was too far from the remote charge, and she called out for help amid the chaos. Responding was the heft of their Elite SWAT force, the twin mountain dogs with heavy shields. They linked up, and slowly strafed to form a covering bridge for Keila, rhythmically making their way to the remote.

to be continued...

[Galneda]

Wurran saw it first, taking cover behind one of the semi-circle concrete walls surrounding the prisoners. Concentrated gunfire between all parties drowned out his voice as he pressed into comms and screamed for help. Upon pressing his guns to the task at hand with the numerous canine warriors, his laser rifles overheated into invalidity. Once the barrels were toast, they were useless. He was down to his pistol, and without any angle to address the two SWAT dogs and the Commissioner.

A chunk of the ceiling behind the two SWAT dogs erupted from a charged explosive as concrete rained down upon them. Out of the fresh hole above streamed the two Cheetahs and the two Cougars, leaping directly onto them with guns at the ready. The Cougars unloaded on the more vulnerable spots of the mountain dog's armor and the giant beasts fell soon after.

In the most potent panic she ever felt in her life, Commissioner Keila scrambled on all fours to the remote detonator. It was as if trying to run underwater as one of the Cheetahs rolled into a perfect landing, launched off in her direction with one leg, and without blinking once, reached out to her with one paw. She was still trying to crawl forward when his arm swiftly reached around in front of her and clutched her throat with his claws digging into it. Her legs kicked in futile protest as his clawed paw clenched into a blood-soaked fist. Her trachea was a handle for him to yank out and away as she lifelessly collapsed.

-----------------

Brekan's voice was a profound and unprofessional panic over comms. “YOU HAVE GOT TO GET IN THE AIR--- NOW!!!! Our own Navy warped in, and it's ship on ship out here! Get the fuck outta there!!!”

The soldiers could see he was right, they could see it in the sky above. Brilliant dots in the sky that reflected actual sunlight in the backdrop of an atmosphere softly at dusk, trading blows with each other. Smaller crafts among them battled it out, and somewhere in the chaos is their ride out of here; the stealth cruiser, Blackdrift.

The sun faded into blood orange hue over the horizon of dust and sparse mountains. The many pillars of smoke began to fade into wisps. Bearhawk Echo and Bravo were loaded up with fifteen prisoners each, hovering above, glancing around the ruinous nooks and crannies of the prison facility in their immediate area. They were covering for Bearhawk Alpha, landed and awaiting loadup.

Lieutenant Pillen impatiently comm'd in, “C'mon folks, let's shake a leg!” The remaining thirteen prisoners, including Marxis Jaggum were already aboard, along with all of their wounded; the Chimp Autolaser gunner, the Tiger, both Chiefs, and the Savannah Corpsman. They took close watch of their dead, the Ocelot and Jaguar that died from the gas ignition, and the recently deceased rookie chimp.

Obsidiran and Wurran double-timed as hard as they could while hefting the weight of the Silverback medic's body. The laser guns hung uselessly by their slings, the plastic bubbled and the barrel warped into invalidity. All of the laser rifles were toast. The Sabretooth and the Mountain gorilla dragged the body past their line of defense, being the spider monkey armed with one of the fallen cat's guns, and the twin group of Cheetahs and Cougars. Everyone was roughed up, and ready to go home, immediately trailing behind their leaders.

The engine noise was overpowered from the cheers and joyful sobbing from the prisoners. The craft itself lifted momentarily before the hydraulic gate came to a close. The involuntary wobbling of the passengers dissipated as artificial gravity pulled them to the floor at their feet, and in a moment of surreal, gut flipping bewilderment, the horizon out of the viewport rotated 90 degrees.

The injured soldiers grinned from ear to ear, the ones with injuries in their torso wanted to laugh the most, but couldn't. Most simply clapped. Wurran took a knee next to the body of the Silverback Medic, and after catching his breath, thumbed for his tags around his neck. With a smiling gasp of relief he at least knew his name. Trained with him for weeks, lived in the same quarters as him on a ship, and now, too late, he finally knew him to be Den Mutera. He shut Den's eyes and hung his head at the realization, he may be the only one aboard the dropship that cares.

With one more jolt of inertia, they swayed hard to the rear of the craft as Exit Jets burst to life with a colossal roar. The sound was like that of an angry gorilla god ripping the world apart. The Exit Jet thrusters were located on either side of the cargo bay, which made communicating to each other face to face nearly impossible. But by the vibrations and the pitch of the sky, they knew they were making tons of distance.

Alpha particularly climbed so fast they could watch them overtake Bearhawk Echo out the viewport, who was apparently experiencing a missile lock as he streamed flares out the underbelly of his craft. Unless the dogs had some special form of pursuit missiles on the ground, the Exit Jets could outrun them at these altitudes. Without any kind of warning to the abrupt change of speed, which was constantly pulling the passengers to the rear of the ship, the prisoner apes could faintly compete with the thunderous engines with their terrified shrieks and screams.

Ears popped and pressure built, the injured soldiers are feeling it even worse. Wurran scanned the crowded hangar to ensure everyone was doing alright, to see Marxis Jaggum attempting to speak to Obsidiran. Even when the mighty Sabretooth turned his head to better hear the orangutan, SCREAMING as hard as he can into his ear, he shrugged. Wurran watched as the ape clasped his own head and freaked out, looking frantically around the hold. He lunged for the dead Rookie, pulled the large combat dagger mounted near his collarbone, and disappeared behind the crowd of other prisoners, pulling at the cargo net strewn across the hold's ceiling one arm after the other.

The hue of the sky outside faded as the atmosphere grew thinner and thinner. The horizon of land transitioned into the hazy horizon of a planet ever receding to the rear of the craft. Obsidiran registered that he should do something a few beats too late, and struggled against the thrust of the ship by attempting to wade through the Getran prisoners. Wurran followed suit, taking a cue from Marxis by pulling himself by the cargo net above his head.

Wurran politely maneuvered his way past a mother Silverback rocking back and forth with her child gorilla. He wade past the snow monkey coughing up a lung, covered in boils from gas exposure. He firmly shoved aside the sickly bonobo, and after pawing a macaque aside, witnessed Marxis frantically digging into the back of his own skull with the knife. Blood flowed down his back.

The atmosphere to the planet CB4L outside refined itself as a distinct boundary to the blackness of space. The Exit Jets detached violently, shaking the whole dropship as other engines took over the task. Prisoners who turned their attention to Marxis when Wurran and Obsidiran rushed him screamed in a panic. Marxis himself couldn't help but to wretch from his self inflicted agony.

Obsidiran had his paws open and out to the orangutan, ready to pounce whenever he could “What the fuck are you doing!?”

With nothing but shock in his eyes, Wurran pleaded “Are you trying to kill yourself!? Put the knife down! Put it down!”

Marxis screamed “Stay Back!!!” the saw-like rhythm of his hand quickened while his other hand parted fur out of the way and dug into the wound. Obsidiran lunged forward trying to clasp his paws around Jaggum's to secure the knife, but the stubborn orangutan shoulder-checked him in the chest. Marxis swiped his knife wide, flaying a streak of blood across anyone immediately near him.

“Back off!!!”

to be continued...

[Galneda]

He gritted his teeth, dug his fingers into the bloody opening while wincing with intense pain. Suddenly his eyes widened. As Obsidiran righted himself off the wall, ready to pounce again, Marxis jabbed the knife into the back of his skull and pried while howling a sharp cry. The knife tumbled off of his back and fell onto the floor as his eyes narrowed. With his free hand he flicked a blood-soaked device about the size of a lugnut out in front of him, which popped mere feet from his hand.

BRRRRT! A cascade of similar, muffled pops rippled from the front of the ship to the rear. The soldiers flinched, not as much from the noise, but from the warm and wet slap of blood that flecked them from all around. Wurran was transfixed on Marxis in shock as he regained his breath. He didn't want to look, and yet, as bodies slumped against his legs he knew he had to.

The Pallas Chief was the first to shout in exclaimed profanity, but the soldiers were just...stunned. Wurran slowly turned around to see all of the prisoners, every single one of them, slumped over on the floor of the cargo hold, fountains of blood sputtered from the fresh cavities in the back of their skulls. Comms erupted with the Bearhawk pilots frantically trying to figure out what happened, but Wurran, with tears in his eyes, unhinged his ear piece and let his arm fall to his side. His mouth agape in wonder to the horrors of the world.

The other eleven soldiers were in a similar situation. Eyes wide, mouth agape, and painted in blood. The Savannah covered his mouth, and promptly fell apart. Others in the hold were soon to follow suit, because that's all they could do. But Obsidiran could only stare at Marxis. In the midst of this, Marxis Jaggum tugged at a blanket hoping to free it from beneath the dead body of a nearby ape who pinned it down. He wastes no time bunching the blanket up and pressing it firmly against the self inflicted wound at the back of his blood-soaked head.

Flashes of light shone through the viewports from the space battle they rapidly approached. Wurran was tired. He was numb and his emotions spiked into reaches he had never experienced before. It broke him. He collapsed, his mouth widened to suck in as much air as he could, thinking that would help the hole blown into his heart. Against his better judgment, in conflict with all of his training once again, he wept deeply. Wurran knew there was a time and a place for everything. So he let go. If only slightly. If only for a moment.

He opened his watery eyes to look upon the baby gorilla. Standing, his tiny paws pressed upon his mother's face. Wurran shuddered and with a gasp, locked eyes with the tiny creature looking at him. An explosion outside lit his face, and the tears streaming down his cheeks, the look of disbelief as if to ask what happened to his mother.

There was no thought. No premeditation, but, as if on autopilot, slowly and calmly wrapped one of his large arms around the child, and delicately pulled him closer to himself. The kid likely had no one out there. He quietly locked it up, the kaleidoscope of emotions, his ultimate distress. He closed his mouth, embraced the child. Then he slowly rocked as the little one cried into one of the pouches exterior to his armor.

Marxis hissed in pain, but spoke in shock, “I had to- there was no time, I- no one could...hear me, I-”

Wurran was not in an emotional state to utter a single word. His tightened lip quivered as his jaw clenched against his teeth and his head shook. He had to blink an insurmountable amount of times to clear the tears out of his eyes, viewing the distant CSDF Notos out the port window. Canid Gladius fighters doing battle with Getran Spaceclimber mechs. Missiles and rounds criss-crossed in the chaos outside.

“I was....I'm too important to lose here, I need to...back to work...” Marxis Jaggum continued.

The selfishness of the comment threw rage into the forefront of Wurran's mind, he snorted as he jerked his face to stare at the front of the ship. But he fought it. He fought the anger. The little one seemed too tired to cry, but he laid still against him.

“...Hey...” Wurran whispered.
The kid positioned himself to look Wurran in the eye, wiping a tear off of his own face.
Wurran was transfixed to the child. “...What's your name?”
The bay of Blackdrift swallowed the view of the battle as the dropships glided into its hangar bay. As it's hatches closed, so too did Blackdrift conquer the lights.

THE END