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_ Ow..._

_ _ Patrick slowly, reluctantly merged with the conscious world. As feeling began to come back to him he added painfully to the list. He ached abominably... from his feet to his very finger tips he felt a dull, throbbing pain.

_ I don't remember any alcohol..._ was the first thought to form in his stuttering mind.

_ _ After a few moments, or maybe hours, not like he could tell, Patrick remembered where he was... what had happened.

_ _ He remembered making it to the barricade, after a long shin-splitting run â€" which explained why his shins ached â€" and hitting it at waist height before he could slow down on the slick muddy surface beneath him. He remembered toppling over the top of the barricade... and hitting his head. The pain, oh he remembered that all too clearly... then what?

_ Oh..._ right. Yes, then he recalled being shot in the head by a predator, a black furred feline to be exact.

_ Fuck. I'm dead..._ The pain reminded him otherwise_. ... Or maybe not._

_ _ Eventually it occurred to him that taking stock might be prudent, considering his last memory. Slowly, he rolled his eyes; it was like rubbing salt into a wound for his headache.

_ _...

_ _ Slowly, almost lazily, he devoted himself to the gargantuan effort of raising his eyelids. A hazy blur coated his vision, his view no more than a slit. Eyes barely opened allowed his eyelashes to compound his sight problems, converting all before him into indistinct blobs of light and color.

_ _ Blinking a few times cleared his sight... marginally.

_ _ A majestic view awaited him; Gritty, muddy asphalt between his legs. Hmm... Raising his head slowly, feeling every painful twinge and pop in his sore, abused, strained neck â€" but he persisted, it wouldn't be wise to go ignorant of one's surroundings for longer than need be.

_ _Head finally raised to a normal level, Patrick sighed, blinked, and said; "Shit."

=====================================================================================

_ _ Sable had been in the middle of going through the human's pack, eating a bar of chocolate she had found earlier in one of his pockets while searching him for weapons, when a soft sigh behind her signaled the waking of her prisoner.

_ _ She turned, slowly; Sable had no reason to be afraid or wary of the now conscious human. Her natural feline instincts - though faint and repressed by millions of years of evolution and growing up in a relatively civilized society - pushed her to 'play' with her captured ‘prey'. So she unconsciously would toy with the human, acting like nothing so much as a sadistic dominatrix. Though actual torture - if someone at command thought that was necessary - would be carried out by trained interrogators, she could have her fun in a more mild form of it.

_ _ Perhaps a cut here or there with a claw, or knife, perhaps something mental â€" she could tell him all about the things they would do to him at base, or a disposal camp, just to watch him squirm.

_ _ Before turning completely she made sure to fix her face into an evil, toothy, and painfully suggestive grin... Now facing the human, who's gaze immediately locked upon her wicked visage, she was about to make an attempt at a witty remark, but the human cut her off.

_ _ "Shit..."

_ _ Puzzled by his unexpected reaction she just stopped and stared for a moment, the mask she had worked so hard to make melted away, leaving a ‘discombobulated-cat' look in its wake. Fear, anger, anything... but... he just sounded... well... bored.

_ _ "..."

_ _"..." Sable responded.

_ _ "Eghh... um... what?" The human, ‘Patrick' said, appearing just as confused as the cat. "Who- Who are you?"

_ _ Sable had gotten caught up in thinking about the humans unexpected first reaction to her â€" she was sure â€" terrifying presence, but the human's question snapped her out of her pondering and back into the ‘worst-nightmare' mode.

_ _ He questions her? How dare he, a bound prisoner â€" who's bonds had been tied by her very own paws â€" question her? Now irritated by the captive taking the initiative she snapped back; "Quiet! I am asking the questions! You are in no position to question me! You will speak when spoken to you hairless freak!"

_ _ "Um... sod off?" Patrick was not thinking much at this point, an error which often proves fatal in war, if he had been thinking he might have displayed more tact.

_ _ Rage burst from the depths, all the pain, anger, and sorrow of the last day rocketing up to the fore of her mind, the red, feral storm taking control. She lashed out, claws extended, catching the helmetless human on the right temple.

_ _ The blow caught the already mildly concussed human by surprise â€" in his muzzy state of awareness it had never occurred to him that his enemy might actually strike him... of all the things. The damage was terrible; humans are fragile creatures all things considered, Patrick was no exception. The thin skin, lack of the protection offered by a fur pelt, the relatively diminutive stature... all contributed to the disadvantage of Patrick's body under the duress of the feline's blow.

_ _ Claws tore, ripped through the thin flesh on the human's skull, shredding to the bone â€" leaving thin scratches on the solidified calcium. The sheer force of the blow itself forced him, already sitting, to topple over, knocking him cold once again.

_ _ "BASTAARD!" Sable shrieked at the empty evening around her. The skeletal burnt structures around her seemed angered by the disturbance, the anger quickly subsided. She realized what she had done... for some reason she felt... it felt wrong, looking down at the unconscious form she felt a pang of what could only be regret, the unseeing eyes of the human were accusing. The blood leaking from the long, deep gash along the side of his head only accentuated her guilt; she had perhaps been a bit harsh...

_ _ To compound her problems, she'd just broadcasted her position publicly to anyone, and everyone for a mile... if not more, in the near absolute silence of the dead city. She was technically in no-man's land, the Southern quarter of Ssenka proper. Of course it was common knowledge, though no one admitted it, that no-man's lands belonged to NAR forces. Everywhere. It was only no-man's land because NAR didn't place permanent positions there; they probably could, but they didn't.

_ _ Sable went to the human's pack and retrieved the field kit, it had instructions in her language, (she could speak common, a human language, but was unable to read it) which proved to be useful. Once she had finished dressing the wound she had inflicted herself she went to sit opposite of the human and continued to rummage through his pack. NAR equipment was generally better than its Southern competition. Another thing humans were good at...technology, always were that half step ahead. It's a damn good thing they were corruptible, just like anyone else, or the Southern Empire would have long ago been left in the dust.

_ _ Eventually she lay back to rest her head on the pack propped up against the concrete barricades, even though sleep was out of the question. So she just gazed at the torched cityscape before her, the human's assault rifle on her lap. She'd be here for at least another four hours, an extraction team was on the way though, she had called one in earlier. Command was always happy to recover lost soldiers, especially NCO's such as herself; troopers with any experience at all, were valued greatly. The fresh, green recruits â€" of whom the empire had a massive supply - tended to die so quickly, veterans were rare, priceless.

_ _ As she waited, watching the sun set on the Eastern horizon, she remembered...

_ _ Ssenka... Ssenka city, once a sprawling metropolis. Now a burnt, ravaged husk. Its parks had been beautiful, in fact; the muddy â€" now burnt â€" expanse behind her was once one of the green, beautiful parks, one of many the city once had. She remembered, as a small cub, growing up in this very city. It had been very, very different then. The dark shaded glass windows, green and brown in the light, the clean colorfully painted cement and plaster glowed beneath the harsh northern sun. Hundreds of furs bustling around the city, here and there, to and fro, in constant motion.

_ _ She remembered... the store fronts, bright signs at night, colorful during the day; extravagant colors decorated the walls of buildings. The cloud-breakers rising oh so high, like giant multi-colored tree-trunks, hundreds of floors of glass windows, we stunning. Cars always streaming like the very blood of the city, the streets were the veins.

_ _ That had been the good time, the ‘belle-époque', a time when the world was kinder, more forgiving. When war was just images on the holo-set, it was scary â€" it made her parents nervous, but it threatened no-one, just a speck on the far horizon. Always to be discussed, never to be seen. Humans were just monsters in stories to scare cubs, so far... far away they were. The war had been raging for a long time by then, that was before the drafts had started though. For decades beforehand, the massive population of the Southern Empire had provided enough volunteers to fill the equally numerous ranks of the Royal Army. Thirty five years had passed since Ullen Valley... thirty four years since the war had started in earnest.

_ _ At the beginning of the conflict, the Royal Army had massed somewhat further north of Ssenka - this was before she was born, mind you - and was preparing to begin the push into the newly formed NAR, to teach the hairless bastards some lessons in humility.

_ _ She'd seen the archived news clips, for some reason they always seemed more... truthful - in the early years of the war, when it was still thought of as the ‘little war in the north'.

_ _ Oh the shock, the anger, the disbelief. Thirteen divisions had been amassed, and one week from the planned attack... thousands upon thousands of NAR soldiers had poured over the border. It came as a complete surprise; estimates for the collective strength of all thirteen original NAR states had been barely eight divisions. Well experienced and hardened though they may have been, they were still vastly outnumbered by the Southern Empire, capable of fielding up to twenty-two field divisions at the time. The attack was unanticipated... it seemed like suicide to the southern strategists... it never occurred to them that the NAR High Command might've been a wee bit insane.

_ _ They had been outmaneuvered, outflanked, and overcome by the human hammer blow dealt by the NAR soldiery. Before the war, it is important to note, that the various northern human states had been very militarily active. Anti-human racism was rampant in many areas and terrorist organizations such as the "Our-World" group had been a constant thorn in the side of humanity. There used to be small buffer states just south of the human nations â€" none directly between the Empire and the northern states though â€" These ‘buffer states' were very poor, small, and decidedly lawless. They provided a wonderful haven, or base of operations for the terrorist groups to strike at the humans, so the humans had always maintained a strong military presence in the area, and often made sorties south to pacify the troublesome region. Thus the highly experienced troops NAR possessed early in the war were a direct result of the many vicious, bloody fights with the paramilitary organizations present at their borders.

_ _ The NAR troops had crushed the thirteen Royal divisions, tens of thousands strong, in less than a week. They lost the equivalent of one division casualty-wise collectively; a lot for them... practically nothing compared the Southern Empire's losses. The rest of the Empire's Army had managed to hold the northerners off and away from Ssenka back then, but just barely. The northern units had been almost completely mechanized or airborne, depicting the human penchant for completely integrated technology. This had allowed them to close the distance between themselves and the Royal Army before the Southerners could react, it had allowed them to run circles around the slower, more cumbersome outdated field divisions utilized by the Royal Army. NAR forces had long since been organized into ‘combined arms' units, instead of infantry or cavalry divisions, they had ‘air-mobile mechanized' or ‘mechanized-infantry' divisions. These obviously more effective type of formations had only recently been implemented by the Royal Army - a testament to antiquated, rigid upper echelons still in control of the military.

_ _ The early years of the war were relatively easy on the more southerly combatant, however it had been a harsh, ‘by the skin of their teeth' conflict for the much smaller NAR since day one. Only within the last twenty-fifteen years had the conflict begun to truly have an effect on the empire. The NAR had hardened into what was basically an ‘industrialized-military' state, in which almost all things were devoted to the continuation of the war. For the more economically classical south, however, the new drain on resources, the pull of necessity, was becoming increasingly painful, devastating even. The economy of the Southern Empire was looser, it was just as industrialized as the north â€" when the war had begun at least â€" but its industries were spread throughout the vast domain, business had always been a slower affair in the south, when compared to the concentrated industriousness of the North. This lax economic state was being reformed, slowly, ineffectively, and the empire was facing something akin to withdrawal. Besides this, the population of the empire was finally coming to feel the strain, able bodied young females were in ever decreasing supply, and the draft was always struggling to fill its quota. Males had come to play an important role economically... militarily, for the first time, with all the women on the front, males faced their own drafts... required to work at munitions, arms factories, even at shipyards. The problems facing the Empire were endless... supplies, food, personnel, even morale... it gave Sable a damn good reason not to think about this anymore...

_ Damn..._ Sable always had thought she was too smart for her own good, she could always see the gaping holes in the propaganda, even when others couldn't. She was always painfully aware of the shortcoming of her empire... she saw the trend, but was determined to stop it. She didn't care how bad it was â€" not another city lost.

_ _ Eventually she heard the telltale whistling shriek of the transport hover closing in from the south, her ears pivoted to track the sound, coming from behind and to her left. She didn't bother standing and turning to watch it. It would come when it did, and her ass was finally numb enough that she didn't mind the hard ground. So... in more formal terms, she was comfortable and would be damned if she moved before necessity.

---

_ _ Thirty minutes later found Sable sitting in an intensely uncomfortable folding seat in the hover, military air travel was almost always uncomfortable, as the seats folded against the wall there was little or no room for ones tail. No opening like on civilian airliners, which forced her to wrap her tail around to her front... which can really strain the muscles if left in that position for an elongated period of time.

_ _ Her human prisoner was also on the hover, but instead of seated had been strapped to a medical board on the floor, between the two facing walls of seating. The air-crew had not wanted to waste their time on the human, as he was just an infantryman there was little chance he knew anything of use, but she had been firm. She had barely escaped being vaporized, unlike her unfortunate squad, and was determined to have something for her troubles.

_ _ Despite their grumblings and objections Sable figured that there still might be some worth to the human, even if he didn't know anything of use and command decided not to waste their time trying to find out, the pitiful fleshy thing could be of some use. In one week she would have normally been scheduled her leave, three weeks back home, but she figured that she could get off early if she played her cards right. Cards like ‘Boo-hoo I am traumatized after witnessing the untimely deaths of my close friends'... Sable felt guilty, yes. Fine, but she knew they would want her to have the extra time off...

_ _ That's where the human came in, if he was turned down for interrogation â€" which, the more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed â€" then the unfortunate human would be sent to a disposal camp, to be forced to work until death â€" usually by starvation â€" freed him. There was another choice though, another way out which meant life â€" not that she cared whether or not he lived or died â€" for the human.

_ _ She could technically claim him as a slave, her rightful property, as she had captured him... alone, and without assistance. Old laws, forgotten ones maybe, but hell... shed heard about it and was curious enough to look it up, and as it turned out; it was true! A remnant from a time long past, but still verifiably legal.

_ _ She very much intended to do so, if possible, because she figured it would be a satisfying, refreshing change from the norm. Who wouldn't want their own slave, waiting on her every want and need, however and whenever she wanted. Absolute power over his life... or death, it was an exhilarating idea, truly. It made her return to the tiny, dim flat she owned back in Affen, a coastal city much further to the south, seem almost worthwhile.

_ _ Of course, she'd have to train her new slave, she was already thinking of him as her property... but that shouldn't be too difficult, really, how hard could it be? A firm, commanding voice â€" which as a sergeant she excelled at â€" and some well timed beatings to drive the nail home. She would stop by the local IMIS office for some advice and an informative pamphlet or something, and be on her way to blissful foot rubs and sparklingly clean floors in no time. She'd purr if she was up to it.

_ _ With those happy thoughts her eyes fell to her new slave, unconscious on the floor, before finally drifting off into an exhausted slumber.

_ Rrrrrr... Foot rubs..._

---

**[I.M.I.S. = Imperial Ministry of Indentured Servitude]

Ok, sorry for taking so long, hard week at school, etc... This chapter is a bit short, and not that much happens as you have seen, but what little has happened is somehwat important to the rest of the story. Also - i hope this is the last cahpter ill have this sorta history lesson thing which i know doesnt really flow to well, but it seems important to the story line in my opinion... anyway, ill try and not put so muchof it anymore. I was - and still am - tired when i wrote this chapter so it might be a bit off, your opinion really, hell - i cant tell im tired. So, you might as well think of it as bieng more of a chapter 2.5 than a full 3.0! :D

Please comment, criticisms are fine... in fact they are welcome! this isnt N. Korea, i wont shoot you for criticizing me, i need criticism to improve. and i VERY much want to improve. So comment and criticize at you leasure.

There is still a wonderful weekend ahead of us, so i should be able to write another chapter at least... so thanks for reading, and i hope you liked it. BTW - there will be slavery, but it wont be the major focus of the story, i will try and make it more of an action and political intrigue sort of story,while the slavery is more of a plot device.