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Chapter Five - That Really, Really Hurt

(The chapter...isn't a standalone story, unless you just really like my writing for some reason. Read the other 'Field Diplomat' chapters first. As always, thanks to Squirrel for letting me use his universe.)

An otter padded down the near-deserted corridor, humming to himself. He'd just secured two hours of private time with him and his mate in the simulation room, and he'd gone ahead to set up the program. A river-setting, complete with virtual fish -not that you could eat them, obviously. But what a romantic scene for an otter, how perfect could it be? The otter smiled to himself. It was like owning a little bit of a planet you'd designed for yourself.

His smile faded a little when he reached the sim-room door. The read-out next to it stated it was still in use, with two furs detected. The otter frowned - if another couple were over-using their time in there, it would be an embarrassing ordeal to get them out. He tried the intercom.

'Hello?' silence greeted him back. 'Hello?' again, nothing. Fine, he thought. 'I'm coming in, I've got the room booked...'

His words faded to a gasp as the door slide smoothly open. A beautiful forest scene greeted him, gentle sunlight pouring like syrup over the trees and grass. And on the grass...

A lion lay spreadeagled on his back, a devastating gun wound driving up through his chin. Laid over him was a wolf, his shoulder and stomach a red, bloody mess. They were lying like lovers in a spreading pool of blood, which snaked its way through the wild strands of plant life. A pistol, looking forlorn and forgotten, had been thrown against a tree.

The otter managed to press the alert button before he too sank to the floor. He'd fainted.

(One general alarm later...)

Both furs lay side by side now, one covered in tubes and one covered by a simple sheet, drawn up over his face. The lion had died instantly, probably due to the solid-ammunition bullet that had traced a path into his brain. Lance was unconscious, his collarbone and shoulder broken. The wound in his stomach was less serious, having only torn through a few muscles. The medical bay was used to dealing with wounds like that, and technological advancements meant that they could re-grow any lost tissue fast and with minimal scarring.

'He's going to need an augmetic collarbone, though...it's shattered beyond repair. The shoulder will heal, in time.' The fox-doctor said carelessly, as if he'd seen the same thing several times already today. On the other side of the cot, a surly badger blinked owlishly back at him. It was the security chief, and he'd apparently been drinking heavily at the time of the alarm. The small of strong spirits all but crystallised on his breath as he leaned over the comatose wolf.

'...Good.' came the eventual response, the badger frowning with the effort of lining up that one syllable. Then - 'I'll 'ave a guard posted 'ere...don't let 'im run away.'

'That's not likely, given his current state.' sniped the doctor, wrinkling his nose. 'And I'd advise you to stop abusing your drink processor, before I declare you unfit for duty.'

The security chief recoiled as if he'd been slapped, then turned without a word and lurched away. The guard, a wolf with torn ears and a scarred muzzle, ripped off a perfect salute as he passed. This was totally ignored as the badger left, knocking over a trolley of syringes in his haste.

(An operation and two days of recovery after that...)

A yell ripped through the sleeping medical bay, prompting the few recovering patients to jump in fright as they woke into darkness. A nurse hurried over the cot at the far end, where a half-naked wolf was sitting bolt upright, sheets in a tangle at his feet. They stared at each other for a moment, then the wolf groaned and flopped back onto the bed, holding his shoulder with the opposite hand.

'Welcome back, Mr. Lance.' the skunk said softly, glaring the other patients into silence. 'You should try to relax, otherwise your stitches may come loose. Here...' A drip-bag of morphine was attached to his arm, and a few drops dribbled down the tube before vanishing under the fur. He stiffened, then relaxed...yawned...that stuff must have some kind of sleeping stuff in it...sleeping thing....something...sleep...

(snores)

When he woke again, it was dayshift - as far as he could gather from the overhead lights and general busyness. Blinking away the sleep from his eyes, Lance tried to sit up...and slumped down again as fresh pain blossomed from his arm. Another twinge came from his stomach as it followed suit, making a red mist dull his vision for a moment.

After a few minutes, he risked turning his head a little. The pain flared, but it wasn't so bad.

'You're awake.' came a soft voice. Again he moved his head slowly, until his eyes focused on the other wolf, sitting casually at the end of the bed...watching him. Yellow eyes bored into him from over the grey-white muzzle, criss-crossed with scars. His ears were like a torn pieces of paper, the left one missing a large chunk at the tip.

'They'd...' - Lance yawned, the end if the sound turning into an unintended yelp - '...doped me with something, last night. Didn't have much choice.'

'I heard. At least, I heard you screaming. Woke the whole bay up.'

Lance stared at him unsteadily. 'I don't remember that...' he said, trying to recall it. He hadn't yelled, had he? All he remember was waking up in the bed, staring at that nurse...

The other wolf cocked his head, the flicker of an amused grin crossing his face.

'Really? Still...I've got questions to ask you. Questions like why we pulled you off a dead lion, and things like that.' He took a cigar out from where it was wedged in his phaser-holster and, in blatant disregard of safety guidelines, lit it. Puffing heavily on it a few times, he coughed and turned back to business. 'You see, that lion was a fellow security officer like me. A bloody suspicious one, true...joined very recently, with a perfect commendation and a inclination to work near the Operations centre...a spy if I've ever seen one. Still, we normally like to talk to that kind of person before shooting their brains out.'

'He shot me first - and he'd have killed me if I hadn't done it to him first. He'd already shot me twice by the time I'd jumped on him...managed to wrestle the gun away, then killed him before he could snap my neck.'

Yellow eyes glinted at him through the cigar smoke.

'We have a recording of it transpiring, as it happens. You're lucky to still be alive.' He leaned forward. 'Slater's fair game now, you see. They're assembling an operation as we speak to eliminate him, based on the final evidence of that footage. Commencing in three weeks. However, this chart at the bottom of your bed says you'll be fit for active duty in...two months.' There was a pause. Then... 'Do you want to go after him?'

'With a broken arm, refabricated muscles and a new collarbone? Sure, I'd love to.' growled Lance, yet he was unable to hide the light of revenge in his eyes. It wasn't a noble thing to think of, sure...but something like Slater deserved it.

'You'd be working as a regular member of the insertion team, not your more...usual post. And you might not even get to take the shot.'

Lance thought about it - then his eyes narrowed, regarding this calm and smoke-wreathed figure with suspicion. Why was that face vaguely familiar?

'How can you authorize that? You're only a security personnel guard...and an old one, at that.'

'My names' Enfield, Lance.' Said the wolf, sighing and standing up. 'I'm sure a well-traveled fur like you has heard of that name. Everyone else has, it seems.' With that, he stubbed his cigar out in a metal kidney-tray and turned to leave, ragged tail swishing. Without a further word, he was gone.

Enfield. The wolf who had been captured by pirating raiders, escaped with a shuttle pod into empty space only to be picked up and tortured by a passing wasp scouting vessel. He'd killed every one of them and piloted the ship directly back home, nearly dying again when friendly defenses opened up on him. Who had been the only surviving member of the security personnel on the ship Knife Edge, when some crew had mutinied and pushed most of the loyal furs out of airlocks. Who had attacked, sworn at, destroyed and run away from pretty much every dangerous entity it was possible to meet.

The offer was probably genuine, then.

(a few days of tortuous recovery later...)

'A...a giraffe!' squeaked the mouse in the bed next to him, eyes dancing with excitement.

Lance shook his head mysteriously, and spread his paws out further, arms held high with minor difficulty.

'Oh...oh! They're horns! Horns...a deer? No, bigger. A stag?'

Lance nodded furiously, then let out a breath and clapped a few times.

'Well done, it only took you twenty or so guesses.' He grinned. He'd found the mouse hyperventilating in the bed next to him, a couple of nights back - apparently he suffered badly from the panic attacks common in mice, triggered by fear, pain...or bad memories.

'Well, you looked like a dolphin.' Said the mouse, giggling. His name was Tas, he'd confided. After Lance had helped give the relaxing injection, easily holding the mouse down with his good arm to allow the nurse to administer it, they'd become friends - or as close as you could get between a mouse and a wolf. It had become a boredom defeating duty for Lance to calm the mouse down, and distract him. Left by himself, the smaller fur's mind wandered back to whatever triggered the attacks - his charts said he was a dropship pilot, but Lance had carefully avoided the subject. Maybe he'd messed up a drop-off, or had to pick up some bad casualties...it wasn't worth knowing. Things like that happened all the time.

'Okay, your turn.' he said, and the mouse nodded. Tail flicking out behind him and arms pressed tightly to his sides, he began to weave backwards and forwards, looking for all the galaxy like an undernourished belly-dancer.

'I think...an otter?' said the wolf, trying not to laugh. 'No? Not even a water-fur, then. Wait!' he snapped his fingers theatrically. 'A snake! It must be, huh?'

Tas deflated, face solemn.

'You're better at this than me.' He said, sighing resignedly and sitting back into his pillows.

'Or maybe I'm just really, really bad at miming.' Lance suggested, raising a smile from the mouse. 'Anyway, I-'

He stopped, joining in the sudden silence of the ward as three more security personnel approached his bed. These didn't share the lax demeanour of Enfield, and instead surrounded his bed with an almost military precision.

'Lance.' Said the one on his right, the word almost coming out at a bark. 'We have an order for your immediate detainment. We are to escort to you to the brigs, bed-bound if necessary.'

'What the hell is this?' growled Lance, trying to stand up and regretting it. Behind the impassive jaguar on the other side of him he could see the nurse, a pained expression on her face as she tried to get a handle on the situation. 'You're going to have to wait until the doctors have finished with me, alright? And what happened to Enfield?'

'We have orders.' echoed the canine, frowning at the nurse, who was now trying to squeeze past the circle of guards around the bed.

'You can't take him, he's absolutely right.' she said, eventually pushing forcefully at the jaguar in her anger. 'You'll have to wait until doctor-'

Thump. The jaguar had elbowed the side of her head, hard enough to send her crashing into Tas's bed, where the mouse squeaked shrilly and buried himself under the covers...crawling so far underneath them that he emerged at the other side and hit the floor as he rolled off the bed in a quivering lump. The nurse hadn't even flopped to the floor before Lance had leapt from the bed, swinging a punch with his good arm that cracked satisfyingly on the feline's muzzle, making the larger cat hiss as blood poured over his uniform. It wasn't a planned move, because now the wolf had to grab around his opponent's neck to avoid falling to the ground - stomach muscles proving unwilling to let him stand upright.

The buzz of two stunners lit the room starkly for a moment as the other two opened fire. It hit both of the clinging males, and even as the jaguar reached up to rake his adversary with claws extended they both started a slow-motion dance to the ground, slumping against each other as muscles blanked out unwillingly. Calm descended once more, broken only by the scrabbling of small claws as Tas tried to bury through the solid steel of the deck floor before giving up and shivering.

'Bloody hell.' Said the so-far silent guard, quietly. He lowered his stunner and looked at the sprawl of furs surrounding the cot. 'No wonder they wanted three of us.'

(Shifting, blurry images that a phaser-induced unconsciousness notoriously produced, fragments of dreams and memories distorting together like a melted painting...)

Heavy weapons fire hit the balcony above him, cutting through his squad mates that had been unlucky enough to take positions there. A pintle-mounted twin cannon was firing from somewhere over the garden wall of the deserted stately home, knocking ornate candlesticks and vases to the floor with every thumping explosion. Smaller gunfire seemed tame in comparison as it stitched across the redbrick walls, riddling the sprawling bodies of soldiers already fallen.

'The beacon grenade!' Bailey screamed in his ear, and even in this vague dream-state Lance remembered how composed and graceful she looked, despite being covered in dust. An earlier mortar shell had reduced his hearing to a bell-like drone, and she resorted to slamming a glove-covered paw into his chest armour. He looked down to see a pocket with...yes, with the beacon grenade sticking out. So that's what she'd been saying. Trying to shake the gathering concussion from his head and palming the grenade, he ran from behind the barbeque set they were covering behind and sprinted oddly across the lawn, the badly shaken fluids in his ears trying to tell him to readjust his balance to their constantly swirling motion. He reached, or more accurately fell, into the garden wall and lightly tossed the inert cylinder over it. The journey back was even more eventful, and he had to dodge like a dancer as a burst of machinegun fire ripped up the manicured lawn around his feet. Then...

The air-to-ground rocket came deceptively slowly, internal systems guiding it to the infra-red signal that no sentient eye could see. There was a half-hearted effort to reverse the hulking vehicle that carried the cannons, but by that time it was far, far too late...

Half the lawn disintegrated into flying chunks of earth and bricks, picking the wolf up and slamming him into the once-pristine wall. He stirred once, then gave up and let the blackness well up over his eyes...

(the sudden coldness of reality, the stink of an often-swabbed medical bay floor...)

Enfield was leaning over him, looking faintly surprised. Blinking slowly, Lance looked around. Tas watched him from the next bed, eyes wide and his paws kneading the blanket in front of him nervously.

'I'm sorry about that, Lance. That damned security chief didn't want to hear it when I mentioned pulling you out early. He was intent on having a murder trial, military court. Would've taken weeks longer.'

'And you've...overruled him?' muttered Lance back, sitting upright. It didn't feel right, being in a position of weakness every time Enfield spoke to him. He fought down the urge to raise his hackles and rested his head against the metal backing of the bed.

'I have now. You're on the official documents for Operation...well, I'll tell you later. It was either sign you up now or let you stand a pointless trial.' Now the news of the day had apparently been shared, the older wolf leaned back and lit another cigar from nowhere, coughing once or twice. As an afterthought he looked back at Lance. 'You don't mind, right? I was thinking I'd be your choice anyway.'

You don't mind, right? The words ran through Lance's head a couple of times, chased by feeling of doubt, uncertainty and vague mistrust. He had no idea what the mission particulars would be, where they'd be going, what would happen afterwards. He'd just been volunteered for a high-risk assassination that only had Enfield's word of it's authenticy, and for all he knew that little drama with the guards could have been a set-up.

Silence for a few seconds, then...

'Full access to the mission information, Enfield. And you're going to tell me why I'm so important for you. Then...I'm in.'