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Here's the fourth one. I'm not sure how well the pacing is doing for story now. Is it going along too quickly and lacking in enough detail? This is the one thing that I can't quite answer on my own. I already know (just about) everything, and the line between "not enough" and "too much" is a tricky one to figure out sometimes.

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"Everybody, please, calm down and let me explain!" Both of Amina's arms and paws were outstretched and waving at the crown in the cargo bay before her. "That's the other reason why I called all of you down here."

One of the Loboths standing in the front of the pack called back to the panicking wolf, "so what are we supposed to do then? The captain's gone, the ship is a wreck, and there aren't even a third of us left. Once the food's all gone in a year, everything's over."

"We're working on that problem, among others. There's hardly anyone helping Caryn re-setup the hydroponics or starting clear the woodland around us," Amina responded. "I know that most of you have all been busy trying to get the main reactor back online or cleaning up whatever you can, but don't hesitate to help out others in their respective departments too."

"I don't want anyone else messing around with my seeds and plants right now." Caryn walked through the pack and up to the trio addressing everyone. She turned to look at Rhael standing and staring at his feet next to Mirie, then back to Amina before continuing. "If things weren't this bad, I wouldn't even have Rhael outside cutting trees and pulling stumps for farmland yet. But as it stands we don't have much choice in picking an optimal grain field layout anymore."

"So what do you want us to do Caryn? Should we sit around on our tails while we wait for you to get ready?" the same loboth called back. "That luxury is gone. We've been here for almost a week now and there's been little progress anywhere."

"That's not true!" Wrena interrupted from the other side of the crowd. "We're making progress on getting the fusion reactor up again. I've spent the last few days testing and replacing dozens of electromagnetic control modules and relays. And I know Rhael and Amina and Mirie have been busy too."

The doctor cleared her throat and picked up after the engineer quickly. "Speaking of busy, I've got the final count on the number of survivors. There are currently twenty one of us fit to work at the immediate moment. Five more are either bedridden with minor injuries or stuck doing trivial tasks, and another three are stable but in long term disability. Everyone else is either dead or missing."

All eighteen in the large group looked around at each other for a moment, sizing up their apparent numbers situation. Once the chatter died down enough, the conversation started up again with more negativity.

"Hey, where are the rest of the males? I only see one the one up there with you Amina."

"I'm the only one that's left," Rhael answered, not turning his upset gaze away from the metallic paneling of the floor beneath his brown and gray feet. "All the others are gone. This is not the situation I wanted either."

"One? One? What good is one? How can we actually create a healthy and stable colony with only one father?

Amina wrapped her left around the depressed looking wolves' shoulder. Rhael turned his head to meet the lieutenant's touch, but looked no less unhappy for it. "Look, as long as there's still one, there's still a chance, right?" Amina pleaded to the uncertain loboths. "We've got to at least try. Nothing is over with yet. Mirie says that everything is still completely possible from a medical standpoint."

"Yeah! I don't want to give up so easily," Wrena cheered and jumped. "Rhael and Amina and Mirie won't let us down. They've got everything all figured out how we're going to start taking our turns."

"Actually, I don't have any kind of list or order yet. I needed to talk to everyone privately about certain things before just starting a signup sheet."

"Wait, you didn't say anything about that before Mirie. What could you need to talk to us alone for?" Wrena's expression changed to confusion in the snap of a finger, completely not expecting any more steps in the process. "I thought that we'd all just get assigned a number and day, right?"

Several others in the crowd shared the girl's expression as they thought about what else the doctor could possibly need. Hell, with only one male it should have made things easier; everyone just simply gets in line and has their turn. What else could possibly need to be done?

"Well, if you really have to know publically, then I suppose I'll just say it here" Mirie responded. "Even though we are, or are going to be one big family of sorts eventually, there are still some things that I know nobody likes to talk about in front of others. Certain medical and bodily things like when your estrus starts."

More than a few grimaces could be noticed among the women, and Mirie knew she was right about wanting to keep some things a little more private. "I don't need to know right now, but all of you do have to come down to my office in the next few days so we can have a little chat. What I mostly want is that if any of you do know when your next heat is, to tell me so I can try and get you then and not use up doses of the fertility drug when I don't have to. There may be a lot of them, but they will ultimately run out at some point and we'll be stuck doing things the old fashioned way alone."

"So when are we going to be able to get started then? Getting this kind of freedom to breed was one of the big reasons I signed up to be a colonist," someone called out.

"Me too!"

"I hope I get to go sooner rather than later. And I really hope Rhael's got enough in him to fill me good."

So is this what I've become then? Little more than a canine stud for them to simply use and discard? Its bad enough I feel like an animal up for sale here with all of these females looking over me. Rhael stared back at all of the loboths staring at him up as he stood in front of several large metal and plastic containers. The mixture of expressions he could make out ranged from apathy to anger, to curiosity, to lust. A position like his was unnerving, to say the least.

"Hey, what do you look so down for, wolf? Isn't this what every guy dreams of? Getting to mate with a bunch of women and not having any real consequences?" a somewhat irritated loboth towards the back yelled out. "You knew that this was part of the mission, we all did."

Rhael shifted his gaze to her. "I know, but I wasn't really expecting to be this big center of attention like this. Its, it's kind of embarrassing and really stressful to suddenly be expected to father everyone's pups. All I wanted was to get away from everything back home and start a new life away from all of that crap. If all I had to do was run heavy machinery and have a few litters with a couple of different females, it would've been a great easy relaxing life. I never asked for or wanted this position."

"Things are stressful for everyone," Amina tried consoling him. "I wasn't expecting to be put in charge either, but we've all got to do our parts to make the colony work. Please don't worry too much about this part, Mirie and I will let you know when all the appointments are. And I'll try to do what I can to make everybody as comfortable as possible with these arrangements too."

"I'm here for you too if you need a shoulder to lean on Rhael," Wrena reached out to him and took some steps forward, trying to offer her own support too. "I know things are bad for all of us, but at least we've made it this far. They're a lot worse for the captain and everybody who didn't, especially those in pods five and six."

"Let me just repeat myself before this meeting ends; I need all of you to come down to the medical bay at the intersection of the main corridor and cryo-pods one and two sometime between tonight and a day or two. The sooner you get down there, the sooner you'll be able to get scheduled in." Mirie made her way over to Rhael, grabbing him by the paw. "Come on, I need to run some tests on you first. Let's go get them knocked out and you can be on your way."

Rhael begrudgingly followed behind the doctor as she walked around everyone and toward the large bay doors connecting the room to the long hallway of the ship. Amina scratched her head and nervously spoke again now that she was alone. "Did anyone have any other questions or problems that we needed to bring up tonight before I just let you all go?"

Wrena raised her hand, "I did. Can I have my turn with Rhael first?"

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Well, I hope this is an enjoyable tale so far. I'm having a good time writing it. The angle I've been using for the story's theme and major plot device is pretty fun. I've got to find and think up more interesting and intriguing ideas and scenarios like this one.