Torpedo Run Chapter 16

Story by Arlen Blacktiger on SoFurry

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#16 of Torpedo Run


This chapter has -holy crap!- gay porn in it! Enjoy!

Unless of course you're not legal to read it. In which case rawr go do whatever it is teenagers do that isn't masturbation!

Comments, critique, and so on welcome.

Chapter 16

Jared Bull sat, buckled into an observer's seat, as the Fist of the Nascent Dawn's bridge bustled with activity. In the three days since her cataclysmic battle in the asteroid belt, the Fist had been undergoing significant patching and repairs in order to make certain her space-worthiness would hold. Their new companion, the Starlit Maiden, had donated many of her own emergency repair parts, not to mention the assistance of her engineering crew and multiple automated repair drones.

One such scudded across the Fist's front view screen, still repairing armor in the vicinity of its forward-facing sensors, near where she had been struck repeatedly by heavy fire during the brutal Naval engagement.

To his left, Commander Galen Forza was sitting straight-backed and regal in the executive officer's chair, managing a dozen data streams with cool efficiency and a ready smile that seemed to have the bridge staff officers working at an easy but swift pace. His long, slightly curved black tail was swishing back and forth with a happy lupine candor. It was an odd sort of counterpoint to the professional but urgent energy Captain Leith brought to the officer staff when on bridge.

The big wolf spoke, his voice calm and full of dignity and depth of tone.

"Senator, we will be underway momentarily, and in place over Atria Prime within the hour. So far, the Atrian ground military has shown no sign of capitulation in their communications."

Bull, a tiger so old that his stripes had nearly vanished into the haze of white that fogged his fur, gave a slight nod of his elderly neck and rearranged the soft blanket covering his arthritic old legs. His voice was dry but deep, words crisp like the true orator that he was.

"I hope they reconsider. Are you prepared to do what I have asked?"

Galen Forza smiled and shrugged with something close to careless grace, as he sat back in his command chair and regarded the screen filled with stars and space.

"My personal opinion on the matter is irrelevant. Captain Leith is prepared, and has ordered me to be so as well."

Bull gave a wan smile, and turned to fix the veteran Naval commander with a quizzical raised brow, voice lightly seasoned with irony.

"Just following orders, Commander Forza?"

The wolf laughed and shook his head.

"Not the same thing, sir, as having well-earned faith in one's commanding officer."

Candace Waters had only stayed on the Starlit Maiden for six hours after the Naval battle had ended. She had only stayed that long to make sure her new friends were in good hands. That, and because leaving on a skiff in the middle of a massive military brawl of rail cannons, plasma blasts, and torpedoes was like asking to be spaced.

Two days ago, she had re-inserted, with the help of a Naval pilot and his stealth fighter, onto the Atrian surface.

Things were calm. Like the fields beneath a green-clouded sky, the streets were empty of life that had gone to hunker down, sensing on an instinctive level the coming storm. She was utterly alone, seated at a sidewalk café without so much as a waiter or even a pedestrian in sight, despite her chosen spot in one of the busiest districts of Atria's most populous surface city.

Alone, but not without entertainment. In the street's center divider, a large video screen played constant news, audible through the implant in her ear. Most Atrians in such a wealthy district would have a tiny receiver built into their clothes, attached by wireless to an ear bud. In Candy's case, the setup was purely as a cover, in case any civil authorities decided to happen by and ask for her identification. Unauthorized bearers of military-level cybernetics could end up in a lot more trouble than she needed to fight her way out of at the moment.

"Citizens of Atria Prime, please move to your designated evacuation areas. While we marshal our response to this naked act of aggression, it is possible that the USF's thugs will attempt to bombard our homes to cow us into submission!"

The repeating message kept being amusing, no matter how long she listened. Not that she intended to do so indefinitely. A motion of her jaw switched the aural device to military frequencies, where she could overhear terrified commanders trying to hide their fear under a screen of bravado.

Even the Atrian military couldn't entirely cover up the wholesale devastation of their fleet. According to their propaganda broadcasts, which were growing slowly more desperate and delusional-sounding, Atria had suffered a surprise naval attack by their 'former oppressors', 'in retaliation for peaceful protests against their tyranny.'

Candace wondered just how many Atrian civilians believed this garbage. Especially in light of how, just a few days before the battle, the news had been crowing about driving off 'a surprise USF Naval attack.' It was so ridiculous a lie that it just might have worked. If, that is, Senator Bull didn't have a way to control the news networks.

She grinned, as the Fist sent its signal to her earpiece, a quick series of clicks that would be impossible for radio scanners to properly detect. Candy sat back, letting her long slender tail wrap around the table leg as she relaxed and watched the big mid-street television, resting her chin in her paw. She tapped the device in her breast pocket, hearing it click softly a few times as it sent a signal to her intrusion device.

Sneaking into the headquarters building of the Atria Planetary News System had been easier than finding parking near the damn place. Getting into their computer system from that point had been an exercise in looking nonchalant, once she'd stolen and modified a security identification card.

The news feed cut mid-sentence, on yet another assurance that order and prosperity would return with victory and faith, and switched to an image of old Senator Bull standing on the bridge of the Fist. The camera had been cleverly angled to avoid the fact he was standing only with help of a walker, yet still show most of his upright if withered body, and the handsome Navy wolf standing behind and to his right at attention.

His face was stern, no-nonsense, beneath crew-cut headfur that gave elicited memory of his time in the Marines. Well known to the public, and well-liked for his utter distaste for congressional deadlock and roundabout politics, just the so-called 'Steel Bull' appearing in favor of this would have a telling effect on public support.

Jared Bull's voice was firm, though somewhat airy with age and infirmity. A powerful, concise, youthful mind trapped in an ancient and slowly decrepitizing body.

"I am here today to speak the truth, as I have always endeavored to do."

In the buildings around her, Candace could see furs through windows, as word of the pirate broadcast began spreading by personal communication networks. People were tuning in, on their holo-screens and public-feed computer consoles. The news had been squawking for days about the Senate being taken prisoner and executed summarily by the USF fleet. Suddenly, proof-positive that things were not what they appeared had shown up, and now the people were acutely interested.

Addressing his audience with the very confidence that had attracted her to his cause, Bull continued after his brief pause for emphasis.

"The Atrian Senate has always endeavored to serve you. Despite its foibles and scandals, occasionally losing its way amidst politics and greed, many Senators have fought hard to use the Senate as a tool in your service. You, the people, entrusted us with your authority, to take action on behalf of your will and wishes.

"Just under one week ago, your elected senators, your chosen government, were attacked and brutally killed in a cowardly bombing attack initiated, funded, and executed by General Herman Tinland, of the Atrian Army."

The image flashed from Bull's calm, coolly furious face, to a slowed-motion security feed from inside the Fist. Senators, jovial, smiling, walking with military personnel through the smooth steel halls of the battleship. Then one of them puffed up, in half a second swelling from his usual size to grotesque proportions before exploding in a catastrophic blast that left the camera blank and blessedly unable to record.

Data addresses came onto the screen immediately after, indicating addresses of heavily-fortified electronic databases. Bull had insisted, despite Candace's concerns, on putting the compiled evidence for everyone to see and judge for themselves. She'd advised him that the public, on average, weren't educated enough to piece everything together. Bull had responded by telling her to 'make it so they can.'

The vixen-ape hybrid put a bristly-furred paw over her silky-furred face for a second, at the suddenly remembered headache that had caused.

Bull continued, though no longer pictured, as the screen flitted to images of swirling battle shot from one of the Fist's dozens of reconnaissance drones. Each image, beautiful in its brightness of color and crispness of quality, showed as the Fist listed, powerless momentarily after the blast, then powering up as the ambush was sprung.

"Pursuing their coup d'etat, the mutineers jumped in their fleet, risking significant damage to the planet from close faster-than-light travel, in their attempt to capture the ambushed Fist of the Nascent Dawn. Her brave, heroic crew fought free, though at terrible cost."

The next image was of a bandage-wrapped woman, so covered she was barely identifiable as a person. Candace felt a shot of sympathy for the poor otter girl, her skin mostly fried off as a result of her heroic actions. A crackle on her earpiece signaled that her operations partner was calling from back aboard the Fist. The soft voice, slightly dreamy and detached with painkillers, spoke up.

"Is that...How bad I really look?"

Candace judged that being found now really wouldn't matter, and was unlikely in any case. The military would be scrambling just to figure out damage control for this propaganda catastrophe. So she responded, instead of cutting the signal short.

"Sati, I can't lie to you about this, you'll never be a beauty queen. You should have worn more sunblock, silly otter."

The engineer laughed softly. Anwar was brave, to sacrifice herself as she had. Heroic for her efforts afterwards. Candace wished she could hug the girl for it, though she knew the touch would be unbearably painful.

Bull's speech was going on, processed peripherally as the two females spoke, across the vast void of space between them that both knew to be quickly narrowing.

"So," the vixen-ape segued seamlessly, "tell me about this Commander Forza of yours?"

Sati's voice, predictably, stuttered through a laughing response.

"D-don't say it like that! There's n-nothing between us, and even if there was...Look, he's my commanding officer, and..."

Candace was snickering at the blush she imagined the otter to have. Never mind that with those burns, such a blush probably couldn't exist at the moment. The otter seemed scandalized, yet was laughing all the same, nattering at the vixen to get her mind out of the gutter, when the crunch of gravel stole Candace's attention. Resolving to apologize later, a flexing of her jaw silenced the connection, and the hybrid stood politely as her handler appeared.

The fur before her was nothing more than a shadowy legend, or so she had been told over years of training and field work for the Internal Special Security Branch. ISSB, the USF's most secretive espionage service, treated him as nothing more than a myth and a figment, and was itself considered something of a half-real bogeyman by conspiracy theorists of the galaxy. For all that, he seemed normal enough to the casual eye, if an odd species.

He stood only five foot four inches tall, a sleek-lined and slender cheetah with traditional golden fur and black spotting on the few exposed areas of his body. His clothes were no more extraordinary than the male himself; simple sweat pants and a white t-shirt underneath a plain grey outdoorsman's wind-breaker zipped to mid-chest. His headfur was kept in a pony tail that hung to his shoulders, tied twice with black string, kept neat but for the most artfully 'accidental' messiness along his temples.

His smile, sudden as sunrise in the mountains, spoke of childrens' laughter and grandparents' joy, yet his eyes spoke the pleasure of a man seeing his newest sexual conquest's defenses failing before his charismatic onslaught. His paws were in the stomach pockets of his jacket, hidden from sight, elbows cocked out to the side, as he tilted his head a degree or two and raised both eyebrows mischievously, as if to ask 'what, for me?'

There were no salutes between field agents of the ISSB. Too much risk of outing one's self or accidentally breaking a cover. So she just held out a paw to shake, like any business fur, and found it taken and squeezed by that warm, soft paw, pumped with perfect grace and confidence as the male stepped up to her table. That minor formality out of the way, she reoccupied her seat, and watched him carefully as the leopard perched to her left, facing the street with his back towards a brick wall.

Candace wasn't a nervous person - She never would have become a field agent if she were. Being in the presence of someone like him, though, she felt a sudden need to be better, smarter, faster, to emulate him or even come close enough that her very presence wasn't a bore to him. Not that he had displayed any such boredom, always seeming attentive and charmingly interested in her words. Candace had to restrain the urge to stare starry-eyed at her handler, whom she'd met only twice before, each time wearing an utterly different face.

Last time, Enigma had been a stripey thylacine. The time before that, an aging arctic fox with a crippled 'dopey' ear. She had learned to identify him by his manner, and by subtle cues of posture that seemed to flow from the spymaster. Lastly, by the code phrase.

"Always a new storm, isn't it?" he queried, philosophically, as his hazelnut eyes traced a slow arc down the abandoned street. A bit of refuse, someone's discarded napkin, blew down the bone-dry street in an urgent scurry, before secreting itself in the safety of a storm gutter.

Candy nodded, and followed his eyes only a moment before making another subtle eyeballs-only sweep of the street, as her training had taught her years ago. She spoke the counter-signal, seeded with code for the current situation.

"Everything changes, even the type of storm, huh?"

Her words were counter-code, indicating she wasn't some enemy agent in clever disguise. The last bit, about the changing types of storms, was a question about ongoing events in the galaxy.

Enigma waved a paw in a vaguely dismissive gesture, and laughed knowingly, giving her a look that sent shivers up her spine. She wasn't entirely sure if they were shivers of trepidation or of arousal. The fact that she preferred women had little enough to do with it - She was fairly certain he could convince her to try anything, with that silver tongue of his. When his paw moved to his coat pocket, she followed it with her eyes, wondering just what was in there of such great importance.

The answer came as a third person approached from inside the café. A human, wearing a long hoodie to cover his features so they wouldn't be seen from afar by the primatophobic Atria Internal Police. As the human male stood just inside the door, silent and with his hands in his pockets to conceal them, Enigma withdrew a closed paw from his jacket and flowed to his feet.

"Join me inside? It's likely to get a bit rainy out here soon."

The code word made her gut clench. "Rain" was barely a code word. It was more a euphemism.

In the background, she heard the storm-crux, the butterfly wing flap that would turn this all into a hurricane.

"Therefore, on behalf of you the people and with the authority vested in me by the planetary constitution's article twelve, I, Senator Jared Bull, am assuming the emergency powers of President of the Senate, and declaring a state of emergency and military law until such time as a new and legitimate government can be restored."

Heart thudding in her chest, the vixen-ape gestured decorously for her boss, her idol, to precede her. He didn't stop to demonstrate chivalry, padding past her in a graceful slide of motion, which she followed feeling like a clumsy ugly duck. He spoke again, the moment the heavy glass door was shut behind them, his back to all windows so there was no chance of his lips being read by some faraway observer.

"So far seven of the ten Shadows of Eva have become involved. Our faction has my support and that of Shadow Six. For now, we are calling ourselves the ISSB Faction."

Candy nodded, and swallowed against the lump in her throat. Even knowing that the Shadows of Eva numbered ten was new information that could easily get her killed. Such information was well beyond Top Secret clearance, and she was being entrusted with it, drawn into the inner circle of those In The Know.

The human, meanwhile, turned quietly and stalked toward the long bar-counter, where coffee was percolating in two large pots. Quick glances showed her the building was utterly empty, the owners likely locked up tight in their homes or simply staying out of sight if they were Enigma's people.

Corporal Kerr, the human, moved like a predator, she noticed, and as he lifted the coffee pot, she spotted the sniper rifle that lay disassembled and in process of being cleaned on one of the shelves behind the bar. When he returned with the pot, all three sat at a table in the back corner of the brick and glass building, as Enigma continued.

"The Galatea Faction has the USF Galactic Senate held hostage, and has allied itself with a faction of admirals and generals that are trying to establish military rule. They have yet to give themselves a name, but for now we're calling them the Junta. Most of the ISSB faction's military assets are engaged in skirmishes with their forces, and one major battle is already going at the Titan Shipyards.

"Our only real allies are the Ix'kat Hives. Many planetary governments have done something similar to what Atria is doing - Declaring independence and trying to stay out of the fighting. Sensible, in some cases. Galactic wars are...Dirty endeavors."

His eyes met hers again, filled with meaning and inscrutability in equal measure. Candace wasn't surprised that she had no idea how he really felt about this. She could guess, of course, but such a guess would be fraught with what-ifs and doubts, and thus wasn't worthwhile for the moment. When she finally spoke, after a few seconds of quiet coffee-pouring, she felt as if she were talking during a sermon at church.

"What are the hives doing?"

Enigma smiled slightly, and gave the slightest shake of his head.

"For now, that's need-to-know."

His paw moved with slow grace, and finally revealed what he'd been palming - A thumb drive, small and matte grey, utterly unremarkable in appearance. Yet it was likely the most dangerous and valuable item within thousands of miles, if her guess was right. Enigma didn't stop to explain, as her paw came up and took it, in the process brushing against his soft golden fur with an involuntary and mostly pleasant shiver.

"Without their leading generals, the Atrian military should fold fairly rapidly."

The finality of that statement was shocking, and Candy sat up straighter, mind whirling with the implied events. Finally, Corporal Kerr's reason for being here was becoming more clear, and as she looked towards the human, he favored her with a half-shrug and half-grin, as if he'd been caught stealing cookies in his mother's home.

His voice was a rough tenor, and sounded somewhat apologetic.

"You aren't the only ISSB asset around. It'll be my job to watch your back, as we put together a special operations group."

We're putting together a SOG unit?

Candy's mind raced with excitement and trepidation. She was no stranger to being in lethal situations, taking risks, sleeping with one eye open so to speak. Operating a secret military unit, though, was well beyond her experience if not her training. Enigma seamlessly continued, as if there had been no interruption.

"We expect the pacification of Atria Prime to take no more than five days, now that General Tinland and his staff are dead. When the military has capitulated, you will have one week for R&R. Then I want you to hand-pick a seven man team to work under you. Their numbers should include two skilled pilots for transportation and a Corpsman. You have the authorization codes, on that thumb drive, to get whoever you want and what materials are available. Corporal Kerr will be your eighth man."

She swallowed a nauseous sense of importance, of impending authority beyond her means to understand yet, and sat up straight in her chair to meet Enigma's infinitely deep eyes.

"In order to form a SOG unit, I need to know what they'll be used for."

Enigma laughed, and the sound sent warmth flushing through her body.

"Shadow Four is your first target. His name is Tenh Kandal, one of Mother Eva's first children. We have reason to believe Private First Class Darryl Blake, of your acquaintance, knows him personally. It's imperative that the Weapons Master either join us or be evacuated to keep him out of the fight.

Candace felt a sense of dread for a moment. She had almost thought Enigma, Shadow Seven, was asking her to attempt killing one of the mythic Shadows. She wasn't even entirely sure that was possible, though logic stated that enough fusion bombs would destroy any amount of nano-machines and people.

"He's somewhere on Centauri VII, which is currently being assaulted by a Junta naval battle group. Shadow Ten and Shadow Two most likely are using that attack as a screen for their own actions to neutralize the old mountain. I need you and your group to slip in there and get him out, one way or the other.

"The Fist of the Nascent Dawn will be ordered to Centauri to reinforce local fleet elements and lend her Marines to defending the hab-dome colonies there. You'll use that as your cover and insert your team using stealth transports."

Candace, always prepared for eventualities, withdrew a small pad of plastic paper from her pocket and began writing on it as Enigma spoke. With some commanders, she would have been worried they would take offense at such a sign of inattention, but Enigma knew she could easily do two things at once, split her attention however needed. Besides that, she was certain he was mature enough not to feel the need to be center of attention. A brief pause, and she spoke, still writing out names and ideas.

"Will the Weapons Master be able to hold out that long?"

Enigma stared at her for a second, then started to laugh, as if she'd told a very funny joke he'd heard once or twice before.

"Trust me, Ms. Waters. Right now, Shadows Ten and Two are likely wondering where they are going to find replacements for all the spec ops people he's already killed. The more serious threat to Tenh are their ground forces and orbital bombardments that will come with them."

The vixen-ape brought up her pen and chewed it, looking at Enigma's eyes again, as if to steal as much chance to gaze into them as she could. He seemed amused with that, or pleased perhaps, or maybe was considered the dozen best ways to kill her without having to get up. Impossible to know, those eyes.

He smiled wider before speaking again, and shifting to stand from the seat while stretching long, muscular arms over his head.

"Five days to secure the planet. One week R&R. Two days' travel time to Centauri VII. Get it done, Candy, and do whatever is necessary."

Olliver's day had been too damn long, and the exhausted otter barely so much as grumbled when he was unceremoniously lifted out of the debriefing room's chair by the now-familiar arms of what had become his personal Corpsman over the last two days. Commander Forza, who the normally-ascerbic otter had come to respect for his poise and dignity, stood and offered a paw to the now-prone warrior.

Olly looked down at that potent, groomed appendage, still a bit bewildered at what was happening. Two days ago, his beloved Walker, Lady Luck, had been blasted out from under him by angry Marines participating in what he had been told was a blatant invasion of aggression. Now, he was made aware that his damnable bastard government had been using him, and others like him, to cover their speciesist pogroms and death squad tactics. All as a cover for genetic experiments that were at the very best completely unethical and at the very worst utterly perverse..

He took the warm, strong paw, and shook it, as his light green-blue eyes slid upward to meet Forza's handsome silver-greys. The big lupine officer's smile was charming, practiced, and yet honest and open, as he spoke.

"Thank you, Olliver, for talking to me. Your information will help us bring this conflict to a meaningful close with vastly reduced bloodshed. I want you to know how much Captain Leith and I appreciate that fact."

Olly nodded, feeling somewhat numb. All of his personal bluster and high-class arrogance had been laid bare before him in the reflection of this male, and it made him feel an illogical anger towards him, yet also a strong sense of kinship. Here was a good, honest, even heroic officer, competent and charismatic, athletic and powerful in both mind and body, everything Olliver wished he himself could be. Yet the wolf had none of his bitterness, not a jot of his anger at the world, or sense of entitlement that he only recently had become so cognizant of.

"As of this moment, I am recommending to Captain Leith that you be released without charges once the conflict is over. Until then, I'm assigning Corpsman Derkin to stay in close proximity to you as liason."

Derkin nodded, and gave the slightest imperceptible squeeze that Olly could feel only in his shoulders and side. Over the last two days, the big affable armadillo had become his only friend, shrugging off Olliver's verbal abuse and acidity with remarkable aplomb, often returning it in witty kind. He could appreciate that. Which was why he didn't elbow the armadillo in the chest and tell him to stop patronizing him with hugs like that.

Not that it would stop the Corpsman. He always paid attention to what Olliver said, but rarely actually listened. More likely, he would hug him again and more obviously, just to nettle the excitable mech pilot.

"Corpsman, please see to Mr. Tense's needs. I've asked Chief Karnen to send someone up later to build new braces, so hopefully that will ameliorate the discomfort of our rather Spartan vessel."

Olly snorted slightly, and used an arm around Derkin's shoulder to pull himself a bit more upright. Mostly so he would feel like less of a damsel in distress.

"Spartan? Commander, your ship has been nothing but hospitable."

The wolf laughed merrily, as he stood up and straightened his flat-fronted uniform jacket.

"Well, with that said, I will see you both later. For now, I have a meeting to attend."

Three minutes later, Derkin was carrying him through the last door before Olliver's personal cabin. The long steel hallway was featureless, empty of people like a mausoleum, and the otter felt vaguely annoyed that the only thing keeping the place from feeling so sepulchral was the annoying pain-in-the-unfeeling-ass Corpsman carrying him.

Then he looked down to rest his neck, and saw that his loose, blousy blue medical patient pants bore a straining taint over his crotch.

"God damnit...Was I like this through the whole meeting? Fuck...Tell me I wasn't pointing at Commander Forza the whole time!"

The armadillo snorted, which quickly spilled into chuckles as he shouldered the door to Olliver's cabin open and carried him towards the bed.

"I wasn't going to say anything. Pretty sure the Commander wasn't going to take offense at it. He's a good guy, for an officer. Besides, he was probably just flattered anyway."

Olliver felt like he was going to burst with embarrassment. Instead, he lashed out verbally, as was his habit.

"Well thank you very fucking much for telling me!"

Derkin's amusement didn't abate as he laid the otter down, careful paw sliding behind his unresisting neck to guide him, before moving back to close and dog the hatch once Olly was down. The otter had little to do but stare at what would have been an aching boner with contempt and accusation in his eyes. Then Derkin was back, pulling a rolling chair along with him so he could sit at Olly's midline, and put an unexpected paw on his stomach.

They met eyes for the briefest of seconds, before Olly looked away with a flush. Even knowing the male was a Corpsman, and had not only seen him naked but had his fingers in Olly's anus, he was burningly embarrassed about the fact that his boner had seeped and left a nice wet spot on his crotch.

The most annoying part was that he couldn't even feel the enjoyment of it. His cock utterly failed to register with his brain, just like everything below the middle of his chest. His ears were working just fine, though, and twisted forward as his head snapped back around upon hearing the sound of his elastic waist band being pulled down.

Olly stared in surprise and indignation as the hospital breeches were pulled smoothly down to his ankles, freeing his straining, springy shaft with a squirt of male juices. Then he was meeting eyes with the big armadillo, staring into his strange golden ones as the male grinned.

"That looked uncomfortable."

Olliver struggled to regain his tongue, forcing a scowl that he didn't really feel.

"Uncomfortable? I can't feel my dick, idiot."

"Oh sure, but it sure makes you react." The armadillo was grinning, as he rolled his chair further down the bed and began to lift Olly's knees. The otter immediately relaxed, realizing this joking was just precursor to being cleaned out. He was lucky the ship had the right equipment, though the device looked dramatically different from the sleek high-class home model back at his post.

"You know," the dillo continued, "some paraplegics can still feel orgasm." Olliver's lifeless lower body shifted slightly from the Corpsman's movements, slightly out of sight unless he wanted to raise his head uncomfortably high. Which really seemed useless, given he didn't particularly enjoy watching someone attach what was effectively a vacuum cleaner to the inside of his colon.

The otter just grunted noncommittally, to hide his embarrassment as the Armadillo affixed the device, smearing strong-smelling antiseptic before and after sliding the lubricated, sterile plastic tube into his anus.

"Orgasm is triggered by nerves that don't need your brain to function. So long as your brain is able to keep the body producing hormones, your penis will still work. Testicles, too. Orgasm itself happens in both places. The nerves in your genitals and anus trigger, sure, but the brain also pumps out a ton of oxytocin and endorphins in response to the release of other chemicals in your bloodstream."

Olliver listened to the droning, helpful lecture, as the quiet vacuum suctioned at his ilio-anal colostomy, removing the stored contents of his bowel without so much as leaving the slightest stain on his pink anal ring. Luckily, some smart fellow had thought to make the tubing opaque, so nobody had to see the contents on their way out. On the other paw, there was no way to design around the fact that the tube pressed on his prostate and made his leaking erection twitch in time with his pulse.

Finally having heard enough, the otter grunted, craned his neck up with his paws pulling on the bed rails so he could glare at the armadillo.

"Fine, fuck! Do whatever you like, just stop lecturing me! I'm not a fucking child, I have researched my condition a bit, you know."

"My point is," he said, fixing the otter with a frank, caring look that had Olliver blushing and his erection twitching, "orgasm helps calm your nerves, and if you keep flipping out all the time, you'll end up with hypertension. Especially since you can't exercise your lower body for cardio."

Olliver squeezed his eyes shut, and covered both eyes with balled-up paws, growling unconvincingly in aggravation.

"Just...Just do it, and stop lecturing all right?"

The sound of a latex glove made him peek under his paws. Derkin had produced the tube of lubricant used earlier for the colostomy, setting it aside as he gently removed the tube and gave something out of sight a swabbing with sanitary wipes. Then he moved into position, between Olly's legs. A few seconds of fiddling later, and the otter was being raised up by the electronic bed to a sitting position.

"Stirrups? What is this, an OB/GYN?"

"Yeah, actually. That's what this cabin is used for when there isn't a sarcastic pent-up paraplegic otter farting around in it."

Gently pulled by the armadillo, then grudgingly with the help of his own muscular arms, Olliver sat, blushing and mortified but swallowing deep breaths of arousal, with his feet in the stirrups and his anus pointed towards Derkin's chest where he sat in his rolling chair. Between them, as they met eyes, Olliver's six inch erection was reddened to the point of nearly purpling, wet on the crown with his own seepings. When Derkin's careful fingers wrapped around his scrotum, Olliver watched his tip leak a clear droplet to join the flow that had embarrassed him earlier.

He wanted to feel the pulse of pleasure that came with it, but all he could perceive was a vague sense of tightness in his chest, an urge to clench his jaw a bit, and a hitch in his breathing as lubricant was trailed down his shaft in the first stroke of a gentle paw. Slow, careful application seemed the order of the day, and far more lubricant than Olliver had ever used on himself was applied with multiple strokes and a few switchings of paws from balls to lube tube.

Finally, after smearing liberal amounts of the stuff on his gloved paws, Derkin looked up, meeting Olliver's eyes with a grin that looked more interested than doctorly. Something about the look in his odd eyes seemed heated more than detached. Maybe it was the fact that he licked his lip once, unconsciously, that got Olly raising both eyebrows. The next question, as the stroking began with slow smooth up and down motions, nearly made the brows climb off his furry head.

"Were you a fan of prostate play?"

Olliver couldn't really answer with much coherence. He was too busy staring at the paw slowly working his stiff, achey-looking prick, slowly turning on its way up and down in a way that made his heart race.

"Huh?"

"Prostate pl...Nevermind."

He saw the hand leave his balls, and noticed distractedly as his groin shifted slightly with reflexive muscle flutters as a finger carefully slid its way into his ass. A few slight adjustments, and the armadillo was leaning in, his paw palm-up. The evidence his finger had hit its target came as a spurt of clear fluid from his already-leaking, twitching shaft, and in the sudden pleasant thudding of his heart.

"Shit...Making my heart race," he said shakily, trying to keep the shudder from his voice without success. Both paws were clutched on the bed's side rails, feeling twitchier than they had since he'd stroked off as a teenager.

The armadillo laughed lightly, somehow maintaining the professional tone in his voice. Meanwhile, his fingers were stroking at the otter's rectum, probing at the bundle of nerves inside that kept his groin twitching and shivering, paw slowly milking more lubricating liquid from the otter's insensate cock.

"Ask me out to dinner sometime, and I'll even suck it for you."

How that sounded professional, Olliver had no idea. The tone, maybe, he mused through a haze of focus on something he couldn't even feel. He imagined it, the sensation of a warm muzzle locked on his cock, the wonderful sensation of filling someone's muzzle with hot cum and having it drunk down like a precious liquor. His heart was racing and his lungs straining as little noises of exertion stole from his throat, muffled by embarrassment as his flush deepened.

His nipples were hard, he realized, like pebbles, as the Corpsman's stroking paw twisted its way back down, and he slipped a second finger in to the otter's ass. He was grinning, the scaly-skinned bastard, and Olliver tried to glare at him through eyes that were watering as his body prepared itself for what it sensed was coming.

"Or, if you want, I'll fuck you next time. Y'know, for science's sake, to see if you can still orgasm from it. Dinner'll be on me."

The armadillo's long, pink tongue flicked out, just barely touching his straining prick's swollen glans.

Since the accident, Olliver had never felt a thing from his lower body or any point below his sternum for that matter. He'd broken bones down there, had someone accidentally drop hot coffee on his feet, even had a young nephew throw a temper tantrum and hit his testicles so hard he'd needed surgery for torsion, and felt nothing. He wasn't expecting to feel anything but a sense of relief, of vanished pressure, followed by the awkwardness of asking his Corpsman just how much of that he'd meant and how much was just joking about.

When his cock exploded, launching a rope of cum into the air to come down on Derkin's crew cut and muzzle, Olly's chest spasmed hard, blowing breath out of him like he'd been punched as orgasm exploded out from his arms and up into his head. His face went into a twitching paroxysm of eye-rolling pleasure as his balls surged and surged and his cock kept right on shooting white streams in messy arcs all over the laughing medic.

With his paws clenched hard as if he were a woman giving birth, sucking hard for breath, eyes wide and body twitching with muscle spasms of orgasm, he stared at the armadillo, as Derkin had pulled back to avoid getting staining semen all over his uniform. Luckily for him, he'd managed to be hit only in the hair and face, and had his muzzle shoved forward to let the dripping whiteness fall to the floor instead of his shirt or pants.

Finally, his straining shaft pulsed itself to a stop, dribbling over the corpsman's wrist as it finally landed with a soft splat. Derkin grinned at him, around the forest of cummy fur on the otter's crotch, and licked at the spatter across his lips.

"How do you feel?"

Olliver was having trouble catching his breath, but he felt like his skin was glowing with golden light, pleasure, and a sudden sense of looseness he hadn't had in years. The otter snorted out a laugh with his snout scrunched up, and managed to point a shaking finger at the armadillo.

"You son of a bitch. You just wanted to get your cock in me! Shameless seduction!"

The medic laughed and leaned in, lavishing his tongue over the white-frosted tip that had drooped down on his paw. Olliver couldn't help a growl at the sight, though it did nothing for him physically, the orgasm's blood chemistry already well in effect.

"Did it work?"

"I don't...Uh...M-maybe. Is that even safe? I mean..."

Derkin smirked and sat up, finally withdrawing his paws to go for the trash can, stripping off his gloves and clearly considering the handy wipes again.

"With the abdomen brace on, I'm sure we can work out some positions for you. I like getting creative."