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Alrighty, here we go, the chapter in the Odds Against is finally ready for submission. I appreciate everyone being patient while I finished it. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

As always, comments are appreciated.

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Continued from Fortuitous Circumstance...

09-29-3015

*Chronological anomaly detected, time index unknown*

Fourth moon of the planet Arc

Noid system, Contested space

My eyelids hauled themselves upward slowly, forcing the dim orange light that reflected off of the ceiling of the cave into my head. My instinct was to squeeze my eyes shut, for the light seemed intolerably bright. It probably wasn't actually much brighter than starlight, but my eyes seemed incredibly sensitive to light at the moment. My head was sore, in fact, my whole body was sore. I managed to open my eyes a crack, letting them adjust to the light. And when I finally managed to open my eyes wide enough to actually see, I found that my vision was blurry. I felt drained of all energy, and all I wanted to do was remain still. But, despite all this, I actually felt pretty good. It was the same sort of feeling one got after a long, exhaustive workout.

At first, I didn't even remember my own name, much less why I was in this state. Gradually though, after a few minutes of trying to get my eyes to work correctly, my mind got into gear and I remembered who I was and where I was, but I still didn't remember what had happened. Still though, I felt very light headed. In fact, it felt like I had been drugged.

Finally, after a few more moments, my attention turned outward and I began to notice things around me. Smells were the first things that came to me. The scent of sweat, of lingering wood smoke from the dead campfire, and a peculiar musty odor that was oddly familiar. Then, I noticed a soft and warm weight against my right side. I moved my hand slightly and discovered that it was covered in fur. This was so odd that I raised my head to look. It was Katy, lying curled against me in sleep, completely naked, with a contented expression on her furry face.

"Oh yeah." I whispered to myself as it came back to me what we had done the night before. I leaned my head back onto my bedroll, staring up the granite of the ceiling.

The myriad patterns and veins within the rock drew my eyes and lent me focus as I stared at them. I had just had the most wonderful sex I had ever had, with the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, so I felt that I should have been elated. But the problem was, I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I had done it. Normally, I had a hell of a lot more self control than that. I had made love to her even knowing how very wrong of an act it had been. Despite our friendship, she belonged to the other side and she was nonhuman too. Either one of those reasons would have been enough for me to refuse to do it. But something had overwhelmed my control, and I had given in to my desires. My companion stirred slightly just then and I looked at her once more. Our relationship was getting more tangled by the day, it seemed. She was a friend, an enemy, an alien, and now, a lover. I shook my head and laid my head back, wondering just what we were going to do about this.

I had gotten about as far as confirming to myself that we certainly couldn't tell anybody about this when I felt Katy stirring herself to wakefulness. I raised my head and smiled at her, a smile she returned. While I lay back again, I stroked my fingers through the smooth red fur of her back, marveling at how soft and warm it felt, and she put her head back down against my shoulder.

She truly was a fascinating woman, with a kind of soft, sensual warmth about her, not to mention her beauty. Though it was an exotic, alien beauty, I found myself captivated by it. I was in love with her, I knew it, and somehow I knew she felt the same, though neither of us had said it. I was quite happy to be lying there with her against me, and it came as a shock when I felt a cold droplet land on my skin. I looked down at her once more and found her trembling, silent tears running down her face. It had been one of those cold drops that had landed on my shoulder. Seeing her in tears made me feel like my heart had been torn out and I touched her cheek with my hand, gently caressing her fur, wiping away the tears, but this gentle gesture only seemed to make her more upset, for she sobbed suddenly and clung more tightly to me.

"What's the matter?" I asked, putting both arms around her, but she did not answer, only crying harder. This was so contrary to what I had expected that I didn't know what to do. I just held her, providing what comfort I could while she sobbed into my shoulder and shuddered with sorrow. It was at least five minutes before she finally stopped sobbing and shaking, but she was obviously still sad. Finally, she looked up at me, a deep sorrow and strangely enough, guilt in her eyes.

"I am so sorry." She whispered, a shiver running through her. I raised my eye brows at this statement, surprised.

"Sorry?" I exclaimed. "Sorry for what?"

"For what I forced on you." She answered, and I shook my head. This only seemed to make things worse, so I spoke again.

"You didn't force me to have sex with you." I replied, still confused. "I would be lying if I said I didn't want it before yesterday."

"You don't understand." She said, shaking her head miserably. She broke into tears once more and her next words were almost unintelligible. "How can you understand what I have done to you?"

"Shhhh." I whispered, stroking her head soothingly. "Its alright. Whatever it is, it can't have been that bad." I tried to touch her mind with my own, intending to sooth whatever hurt she had suffered, but I ran up against a solid wall of will in her mind that blocked me from finding any opening.

"I have violated so many laws, so many rules." She continued, shaking once more. "I couldn't stop myself."

She said these things, and more of the same sort many times, over and over, so quietly that it seemed she was talking to herself. I held her close to me, helpless to do anything to help while she sobbed and cried into my shoulder. But gradually, she calmed down once more, and her tears dried up. She still tremored, and her voice was still heavy with sorrow, but she finally took a deep breath and rose from where she had been lying. I let her go, and followed her into a sitting position. We sat for a few moments in silence, facing each other with our legs crossed, before she began to speak.

"Starting the night before last," She began, "I have been in heat." I nodded, following her so far. That certainly explained her strange behavior. "During the heat, we Merxians produce strong pheromones that affect any sexually active male in the vicinity. These pheromones stimulate the parts of the male brain that control aggression and sexual behavior, so normally, we take suppressants to stop us from going through it. I hadn't thought that they would affect a human, so I am sorry for that." I nodded in acceptance of her apology and I started to say something, but she put a finger to my lips in a signal for me to be quiet. "Please, this is hard enough without you interrupting. The thing that I am most sorry about though is this. If we do mate during a heat, an irreversible biochemical transfer takes place between the two lovers. After the transfer, neither can have any offspring except by their partner. I had hoped that it wouldn't happen to you, since you were a human, but the moment I smelled it in your scent this morning, I knew it had happened. You are bound to me, and I to you, for as long as we live, and for that, I am truly sorry." She was crying again, the tears streaking dark against her vibrant red fur, but she ground on anyway. My pheromone slowed mind was reeling from the implications of it all, but I forced myself to focus on what she was saying. "Not only that, but we have laws in place that are supposed to stop things like this. Here, with you, I have broken the most important of those rules. The two mates both must be agreed to the bonding before becoming a mate."

She at last fell silent, looking down at her lap. I was speechless. I had never before heard of such a thing as this. It was certainly possible, theoretically, but the thing that bothered me most, at least at first, was how could it have happened between us. But then, the full implications of what she had said sank in. I could never have a family now except by Katy, and our DNA probably wasn't even compatible. And yet, if our DNA wasn't compatible, how could I have been affected by the pheromone scent she produced? Not that that mattered at the moment, it seemed I was forever locked into it whatever the case. And even worse, the way things were going, we would inevitably end up facing each other in battle again. I might be forced to watch her die under my guns, or the guns of an ally. But then, something new rose within me, a feeling that quieted the worries, stilled the writhing fears, something strangely pleasant. Despite all the worries, I didn't feel that it was such a bad fate after all.

"You probably hate me now." Katy said after a moment and raised her head once more, a silent fear in her eyes. "And I don't blame you for that."

"No." I replied and her eyes opened wide. "I don't hate you. How could I hate the woman I love?" Utter surprise radiated out from her and I continued. "I admit that you are more exotic than what I had in mind when I thought of someone that I would spend my life with. But you are already a better friend than I have had for a very long time. I loved you before last night, and, if you are willing to let me, I want to keep on loving you. I guess what I am saying is, will you accept me as your mate, my love?"

"I don't know what to say." She stated, then, after a moment, she pulled me into a warm hug, and we kissed. It wasn't the fiery, passionate kiss of lust that we had shared the day before, instead, it was the tender kiss of love and we held each other close, relishing the closeness of each other.

"Is that a yes?" I whispered as we stopped kissing and remained embraced, Katy sitting in my lap with her legs wrapped around my waist. She chuckled slightly, banishing the last of her tears.

"That's a yes." She replied. We sat there for a few moments more, then I lay back slowly, resting once more on the bedroll, allowing her to lie down next to me. We lay cuddled up in silence for a few minutes before I spoke again.

"You know what strikes me as odd?" I asked and she shook her head. "We were born on the same planet, grew up within kilometers of each other; we fought in some of the same battles, and now, after losing so much that was dear to the both of us, we end up together, on a moon orbiting our home world."

"That is strange." She replied, shifting slightly so that she was lying more comfortably against my side. "My question is why we kept dreaming about each other all these years?"

"We may never know." I answered, looking fondly into her emerald eyes. "Maybe we are just meant to be."

"Maybe." She replied and we fell silent. After a moment, I felt her trace her fingers along one of the scars on my chest. "Where did you get this?"

"Don't your dreams tell you that?" I teased and she smiled.

"The dreams I have had don't show me everything in your life, just scattered days, you know that." She replied and I nodded to her.

"I got that scar during a black op, years and years ago." I answered, thinking back to that mission. "I was just a Gunnery Sergeant then. I caught a piece of shrapnel from an exploding tank that ripped right through my armor. It very nearly hit my heart."

"What about this one?" She asked, tracing another, older scar up my left shoulder, making me shiver.

"That one is from a sword duel back on Silvermoon." I explained. "One of my best friends and I were dueling in a Master level tournament. Tournament rules at that level state that we had to use real swords, with an edge. Points are only awarded for blood drawn from non lethal points. I left myself open and he cut into my shoulder, but I got my blade up against his throat, which is an instant win."

"And this?" She asked, taking my left hand and rubbing her thumb along the barely visible scar on my palm.

"Now that has an interesting story." I replied. "My friend Mingan gave that scar to me. See, after we got the news of the attack on Arc, I was pretty depressed. I felt like I didn't have anybody in the galaxy, and though my friends tried to help, it wasn't the same. So, the first free weekend we had, Mingan dragged me off to go hunting out away from the academy. But we didn't actually hunt. Instead, he told me about an old tradition passed down in his people from antiquity. He insisted that I undergo it with him. He took an ancient knife that had been carved from a bone and slit his palm, then mine. Then we pressed our hands together, letting our blood mix. He said that that made us blood brothers. He made me a member of his family that night, and I will always remember that. Mingan was always more of a brother than any of my siblings had been, so that was like sealing the deal." I fell silent as memories of my blood brother came back to me, bringing with them sorrow. Katy sensed the change in my mood and spoke.

"What happened to him?" She asked, knowing what I was thinking. "If you don't mind me asking."

"Well, about seven years ago now," I began, surprised that I found it so easy to talk about it with her. It was one of my most painful memories, but the pain was gone when I brought it to mind this time, leaving only the sorrow. "I was a recently promoted First Lieutenant, and the battalion was supposed to be being pulled off the front lines for rest and refit, and we happened to be in the Centari system when a Merxian battle group attacked. We ended up making an emergency drop onto Proxima six. Our ship was destroyed in orbit, taking a third of the battalion with it and the rest of us fought for days on the planet, defending an installation. Finally, the battalion was down to about thirty soldiers, we were out of ammunition, tired, hungry and well outnumbered. But, you know how Special Forces troops react to the notion of surrender. We decided to fight to the end. The last assault came and we fought hard. When it was over, thirteen of us were still standing. Mingan wasn't among us though." Tears trailed down my face and I closed my eyes for a moment. "I went looking for him after that assault, and the moment I saw him, I knew he was going to die. All my medical training and I couldn't help him. I just sat beside him and clasped his hand as he died. After that, I just walled off my emotions inside, because I felt that nothing was worth feeling anymore. It was after that last battle that I found that my need for revenge had faded away. I wanted to put such horrors in my past, to leave them behind, so I became a pilot."

"I am sorry." Katy said, wiping my tears away in turn with one hand. She and I were both silent while I recovered from the memory. Then she spoke again. "Speaking of medical training, how is it that you are a surgeon and a combat soldier?"

"Heh." I chuckled. "That is one of the great wastes of time in my life, I guess. See, back on Silvermoon, I finished out my bachelors degree when I was twelve. I was technically ready to graduate at that point, but no one is allowed to graduate from Silver moon until they are at least sixteen. And then, Arc was destroyed. I was angry at the Merxians, but at the time, I didn't want to be the one killing them. See, I wasn't always a killer. I guess not seeing the bodies of my family made their loss less real for me or something, but I wanted to help others so that no one would have to go through the pain I had. But then, just when I was about to graduate as a certified surgeon, Silvermoon was invaded. The cadets rallied to the defense of the academy and we held off the advancing soldiers for days until relief arrived. I lost some friends in that battle, including my last steady girlfriend. I watched them die, saw the life leave them. Something changed in me then. It was no longer enough for me to help those who needed it. I wanted to kill, to avenge my friends and my family. So, I finished out the surgeon's course, and graduated, but since I had fought so well in the battle for the academy, I was given my choice of assignment. I volunteered for Special Forces, and the rest, as they say, is history."

"What was she like?" Katy asked, trailing her claws along my arm, making goose bumps rise along it as I shivered. "Your last girlfriend."

"5'8, blonde, runner's build." I replied, then smiled at her. "Pretty, but nothing on you. How about you? Any steady relationships?"

"Not since Regulos." She replied. "He was a wolf; powerfully built, brown fur. But we separated a year before graduation. He kept telling me that he wanted me to drop out so he could play the 'conquering hero' or something when the war was over. I finally told him to leave me alone. Haven't really had time for anything serious since."

"So, what did you do before you became a pilot?" I asked, knowing it was some sort of combat duty, because she had her own collection of scars that I was gradually discovering as I ran a hand through her fur.

"Sixteenth PAI battalion." She replied and I raised my eyebrows. The Planetary Assault Infantry or PAI were some of the most hardcore troops in the galaxy. Trained as shock troops, their entrance exam was easily as hard as the Special Forces one, and only the very tough live through the invasions.

"I'm impressed." I replied, and she raised her eyebrows.

"Why?" She asked, rising up. Her tone when she continued was joking, but I smiled at her anyway. "Don't think a woman has what it takes?"

"It isn't that," I replied, shaking my head at her. "That is a hardcore unit. I am impressed by anyone who qualifies for it, and even more so when they survived more than one invasion."

"Well, good. I was afraid for a moment that I was going to have to kick your ass." She replied, laying back down at my side.

"I would love to see that." I replied, smiling broadly and she slugged my shoulder. I laughed and we went back to cuddling in silence.

It turned out that my instincts had been right. This battle was turning out very different indeed...

***

We held each other for about an hour or so longer before we finally felt like getting up. We started getting dressed and I watched Katy wistfully as she covered up her scarlet fur with the red and orange trimmed cloth of her flight suit. I was just lacing up one of my boots when my psychic senses shot me a warning. We were being observed, somehow, even though the entrance to the cave was still securely covered by the reptile skin. I looked at Katy and found her staring around, searching for watching eyes. She looked over at me and I nodded confirmation. As one, we searched with our minds outside of the cave. And there, on a small rise a distance away from the cave, two minds waited. They were not of the raptor natives of this moon though. One was human, the other a Merxian. I gently slipped into the mind of the human, taking care not to announce my presence to him, incase he had been trained to recognize such an intrusion. I found that I needn't have bothered, for he was just as oblivious as the rocks of the cave around me. All his attention was focused on setting up a remote monitoring device, most likely an infrared scanner.

I forced myself to calmly finish lacing up my boots, then moved over to the woodpile, and picked up several logs, tossing them onto the fire. Dry as bone, they caught easily, flaring to life, but I added a few more logs as well, and the temperature within the cave began to rise, getting hotter and hotter by the moment. It was soon uncomfortably warm within the cave for me, and I was soon sweating once more. I could only imagine what it must have been like for Katy, with all that fur on her body, but a look in her direction confirmed that she knew what I doing. Moments later, I felt frustration emanate from the two watchers outside as our heat signatures were masked by the fire's heat. I quickly dug a datapad out of my survival kit and typed a message into it, a message outlining a plan I had. Then I passed it over to Katy and she read the common script quickly, then nodded. We quickly clothed ourselves in our armor and my companion lifted my carbine as well as the belt of extra ammo mags. I took my side arm and my sword, then we put our plan into action. We opened the skin door to the cave and stood side by side for a moment, before I slipped off to the east, circling around the watching pair. I had no fear that they would see me on their IR scanner because I had sealed my armor once more, which activated a special system built into my suit.

My armor was the same armor that I had worn during the year of black ops that I had completed. The armor used a special coolant system to match the heat signature of the armor to the surrounding terrain, rendering me invisible to their equipment. I moved swiftly, getting around onto the rise beside them, then I ducked into the foliage and activated the armor's active camouflage system. All Terran Special Forces body armor had such a system, but it only worked if you remained still, or moved very, very slowly. Once the system was active, I crept forward, stalking them slowly as I would any prey. Because I moved with almost glacial speed, my armor remained camouflaged and soon, I could see the pair lying just below the top of the rise, monitoring a remote sensor unit that peeked over the top of the rise. Neither wore any insignia, but they were clothed in speckled camouflage and both carried assault rifles of Terran manufacture. I clicked my mike, sending a brief blip of static over the com circuit. Katy, who had linked her com set to the same frequency, moved at this signal, walking from the cave and moving to the west, slowly circling around the two watchers. I watched them adjust the scanner to follow her, and when it became clear that she was coming directly towards them, they flipped a switch on the device and it faded from view, vanishing in an instant. Then they rose to their feet and moved quickly off to the north, away from both of us.

Katy walked easily through the underbrush and into view and I rose to my feet, my active camouflage fading as I rose. Katy nodded to me and I walked over to where the scanner had been. I reached down, and when my hand contacted something solid, I ran a hand along it, feeling for the switch on the side of the device. As soon as it was flipped, the device swam back into view.

"A cloaking field." I stated, amazed. Such technology was very rare and very expensive. Up until now, I had thought that cloaking fields were only able to be generated over large areas, such as ships and camps. But apparently not.

"Who were they?" Katy asked, looking in the direction the pair had gone.

"No one from either side." I answered, getting back up to my feet.

"Conclave?" She questioned and I nodded.

"I would say that that is a fair guess." I replied, then glanced at the power display on my armor. "I have enough of a charge left for about an hour's worth of camouflage. Lets follow them."

"Lead the way." She said and I nodded, bending low to follow their tracks through the woods. It was difficult, for they looked to have been trained not to leave any footprints, but still, I was used to hunting all manner of creatures and they left enough signs for me to follow. A broken branch here, a line of leaves shaken loose from a tree there; enough for a skilled hunter to follow. It took two hours of tracking before we caught up with them. In a clearing far away from our camp, dozens of the strangely dressed people had set up an outpost. Communications equipment sat beneath camouflaged tarps, and more of the remote monitoring devices sat scattered about the camp's perimeter, their cloaking fields not engaged. Merxians and humans alike sat around the camp, and not one of them was unarmed. We lay side by side in the underbrush, looking out on the camp below. After surveying the camp for a few moments more, Katy leaned close to me, whispering just barely loud enough to be heard. "Looks like at least fifty."

"I count four light machine guns," I reported in a whisper, nodding in agreement to her assessment, "Twenty eight assault rifles, and the rest look like plasma weapons."

"What do you think they are doing here?" She asked, and I shook my head.

"I don't know." I answered. "But I would think that it has something to do with

us."

"I agree." She said. "What do you want to do?"

"Catch their leader and ask him a few questions." I whispered and she nodded. I could sense her smile beneath her helmet; she knew what I had in mind. "What about him?"

"Looks like their commander." Katy replied, looking at the human I was pointing at. He was dressed in the same clothing as everyone else, but he carried a light carbine and there was an insignia on his lapel. When I zoomed my optic visor in on it, I found that it was a Terran naval lieutenant's insignia, and the sight of it made a flare of anger ignite within me. He was also giving orders to several of the other people in camp. "How do you want to do this?"

"You wouldn't happen to have any grenades on you would you?" I asked, smiling at her and she returned the smile. "Lets rig some traps and make sure some of them fall into them, then hit the rest in an ambush."

"I like it, simple, quick and effective." She commented and we snuck back slowly

from the edge of the clearing.

***

About an hour later, our traps were prepared and we slipped to the edge of the camp once more. Katy had noticed that they were setting up the monitoring devices all around us in a hybrid of Merxian and Terran recon patterns. After she realized that, it was a simple matter to figure out where to plant our traps. We had tied grenades to trees with trip lines strung between them and planted the small land mines that were part of my survival kit all around the area, armed and ready. Disaster had nearly struck when we were setting up one such trap when a pair of the operatives had come into the area. We had hidden in the underbrush, then waylaid them, killing them silently. Then, we had left them hidden in the underbrush after relieving them of their weapons. Now, we lay prone across the camp from each other. I carried my carbine once more and Katy had an assault rifle that one of the two operatives had had no more use for. I was lying much closer to the camp than she was, an oddly shaped bundle of electronics components in my hands. Katy had proven herself to be something of a genius at mechanical engineering, doing something very clever with the spare power cell for her destroyed plasma carbine, which had turned it into a powerful, if unstable, weapon.

I had worked my way, moving painfully slowly, to the very edge of the camp, out of range of the nearest monitoring device. Now I was waiting, totally invisible because of my active camouflage system, mere meters away from our enemy. All we waited for was the traps to go off, giving us our distraction. And then, moments later, the traps began to trigger. Several loud explosions went off, and the operatives in the camp got up, beginning to run in the direction the explosions had come from. And then I moved, throwing the bundle into the middle of the camp. I ducked back down quickly, covering my head. Moments later, it exploded. But the bundle didn't throw out shrapnel like a conventional explosive. Instead, it emitted a blast of energy that covered the entire camp. Every person in the camp, human and merxian alike, writhed as bright red energy overcharged their nervous systems. Likewise, all the electrical equipment within the camp short circuited. Katy and I were both protected by our armor, which crackled with the energy, but it didn't reach our bodies, so we remained unharmed. Even as the blast faded away, we rose to our feet, running down the slope with weapons raised.

A few of the operatives on the edge of the blast began to shake off the effects, but we shot them before they get their weapons in hand. In moments, we were inside the camp. The commander, who had been on the very edge of the blast, was just starting to shake off its effects when I got to him. Before he could react, I injected a dose of sedative into his neck, making him unconscious. When he was out, I tied his hands and legs with cord quickly, ensuring he wouldn't move about when he came to. Once he was restrained, we made our rounds around the camp, disarming all within it. Many of the operatives were already dead, the overload of their nervous systems too much for their bodies to handle. The few that had been on the edge of the blast, and therefore only stunned, had already been shot. Then, as planned, we crouched down, shielded behind a bank of electronics equipment, which had been fried by the plasma discharge. Moments later, the last dozen or so operatives came running into view, down the slight slope to the camp. Katy and I began to fire quickly in controlled bursts, picking them off from cover. Our two person attack had been so fast that the operatives had all been killed, except their leader of course, within two minutes. After a psychic search of the surrounding area came up negative, we each took a side of the bound leader of the insurgents and carried his unconscious body back to our cave...

***

The fire had been rebuilt, so that it burned with a more normal heat than it had been and the man had been set so he was sitting in the center of the cave, away from the walls where he might free himself. His hands remained tied behind him with cord from my survival kit in a very uncomfortable position, and the heat from the fire would only add to this, which was the point. We could tell from our psychic senses that he was beginning to recover from the sedative and I prepared myself to interrogate him. Katy and I were standing against one of the walls, considering him carefully, our weapons in hand.

"How do you want to do this?" Katy asked. "I have never had to interrogate a prisoner before."

"I have. Its been a while, but I know just how to do it." I said, cracking my knuckles as I stretched out my hands. "Just follow my lead."

Katy nodded and I crouched before the prisoner, my back to the fire. The prisoner was stirring, so I schooled my features to be emotionless, and menacing. Katy followed suit a moment later, sitting just out of sight to his side, her assault rifle in hand, the safety switched off. When he at last opened his eyes, he jumped, for the only thing he saw at first was my outline, framed by the bright flames. As his eyes adjusted to the light, what he saw was a picture of pure hatred and menace. I had lowered my chin a little so my eyes were cast in shadow, but I did not move or speak, just staring at him instead. While he struggled against the knotted cord and looked around, finally spotting Katy, I tapped my psychic powers.

The moment he turned back and looked at me, he was snared. I stared in his eyes, and they opened wide when he realized he couldn't look away. He began to twitch as he struggled to free himself, but his will wasn't strong enough to throw a class four psychic out of his mind; few people in the galaxy had such a will. It was one of the most rare and often denounced use of psychic powers that I was employing; a psychic skill akin to hypnosis, only there was little defense against it. With my eyes open, not blinking, I forced my way into his mind, past the feeble defenses he put up and he began to shudder, half out of fear, half out hopelessness, for he was helpless before me and he knew it. I projected into his mind all the horrible images that I could come up with, dredging the darkest corners of my mind for the most terrible things I had seen, the things I had most wanted to forget. His untrained mind couldn't deal with the endless parade of nightmares I forced into his brain. Most Black ops operatives were trained to resist this kind of assault, at least for while, but he was no trained operative. It was like a tidal wave smashing through drywall. He gave a straggled gasp as his mind was demolished.

I had once heard this technique compared to being immersed in liquid fear, and I knew it was more terrible than any form of torture, save only one. And then, with his mind wide open to me, undefended, I began to play on his fears. Everything he feared, great and small alike, I unleashed onto his consciousness, one after another. His face grew pale, his eyes as wide as possible and the shuddering and shaking grew worse. Finally, after only about a minute, I withdrew from his mind, letting him return to control, but maintaining the link between us.

"Now then," I began, still staring at him, but blinking once or twice. "Was that terrible?"

"Yes." Was the strangled reply.

"If you do not tell us what we want to know, I will make you go through it again, and that was only the beginning." I said, then leaned forward a bit, my voice low and threatening. "It can be made to be so much worse. Do you understand?" I gave him a brief glimpse of an image of what I could do and he gulped. The captive nodded and I smiled a smile that was so malicious and evil looking that I must have looked like a demon from old earth mythology. The effect was perfect; and the bound prisoner whimpered. "Who do you work for?"

"The Conclave." He whispered, the terror of my mental attack clear within his eyes.

"What is the Conclave?" I asked, and he swallowed nervously before speaking.

"It is an organization of civilians and high ranking officers on both sides of the war." He said, his voice gaining strength once more as he recovered some of his strength.

"What is their purpose?" I asked and he shook his head.

"I don't know." He said. I let a trickle of fear loose into his mind, and that was enough of a reminder for him to continue. "I swear!! I don't know, I just follow the orders I was given!!"

"Alright then, what are you doing here on this moon?" I asked him and he spoke.

"We were supposed to spy on you, to find out why you weren't killing each other." he said and I nodded. That made sense.

"Now, tell me all you know about the Conclave." I ordered but he shook his head again.

"No." he replied, then hurried to continue before I got angry, pleading hard. "Please!! Don't do it again!! They will kill me if I tell!!"

"There are worse things than death." I commented and he shook his head once more. "Would you like to experience one?"

"I won't tell you." He replied, defiance flaring within his mind. I had worried about that. If his masters were smart, they would have instilled a deep seated psychic suggestion within his mind, one that would activate if he thought of betraying them. That fear would stand up to the mental assault I had been using. I looked over at Katy and gave a slight shake of my head before getting up and walking to her. When I got to her, I spoke quietly so our prisoner wouldn't likely hear.

"He won't tell us what we want to know willingly." I sighed before continuing. "I can get the information from his mind, but it will not be pleasant. You don't have to stay."

"I will stay with you." She replied, but I put a hand on her shoulder.

"I have seen iron stomached operatives sickened by what I will have to do." I said. "I don't want you to see me do this. If you must, you can stay, but I really think you should wait outside." She looked surprised and then nodded, hefting the rifle and leaving the cave to sit outside. When she was gone, I came back and knelt before the prisoner. "Now, you are going to tell me what you know, whether you want to," I locked eyes with him once more, linking my hands before me. "or not..."

***

Katy sat outside on a stone, with her back to the cave, keeping an eye out for threats. She had seen many horrors in the war, and had done many things that she had hated. Her love knew all that, and yet, he had asked her to step outside. It must truly have been a horrible thing he was about to do. She had heard of psychic tortures before, but had never seen them being used. They were something of a taboo topic all over the galaxy, regardless of race. All she knew about them was that it would start with a contest of wills, and if the psychic intruder won, then the mind was his playground. And an experienced torturer could do many horrible things once they were in control of the other mind.

She shifted on her seat slightly to a more comfortable position, but just as she stopped moving, there came an ear splitting scream from within the cave. It was the voice of the captive and it drove like a knife into her, for it was the scream of a man in pain from which there was no escape. The scream made her start to imagine what was happening to him, and the thought of it made her sick to her stomach. Another scream echoed from inside the cave and still another. Each scream was worse than the last, and then, another, inhuman scream came that was louder and far more shrill then the others had been, though she had not thought it was possible. She had never heard a scream like it before and she clamped both hands over her ears to keep it out, but that did nothing, for the scream came also from the man's mind and she could still hear it, echoing endlessly, over and over. It was the cry of utmost suffering, of terror, pain, loss and helplessness all rolled into one.

The screaming went on for at least two more minutes, and then finally, there came a scream that trailed off into a strangled, choking gasp. And then there was silence. It was a silence so complete that she felt like any sound she made would be swallowed completely before it even left her throat. Every creature within ear shot of the cave was silent, and only the breeze stirring the leaves of the trees around her made any sound. But, in the wake of the screaming, even that sound sounded like a moan of pain. Katy sat for a few moments more, her ears aching in the aftermath of the screaming, then got up and walked back to the cave opening.

There, she paused for a moment, afraid of what she would find when she entered, but then she pushed on in, sweeping back the hide door. The prisoner was lying on his back, his limbs splayed into awkward positions, the cord snapped by painful convulsions. His chest was stilled, and blood covered his speckled camouflage jacket from an open wound over his heart. Her love's battle sword lay a short distance away, its blade soaked with blood. The man was quite clearly dead, but the look on his face was one she would never forget. It would be forever frozen in her mind, in the dark corner where nightmares lived. It was a look of absolute fear and pain and it chilled to the bone. Twin trails of blood had leaked from both nostrils and from the corners of his eyes and mouth, staining his neck and face dark red. For a moment, she couldn't see where her love had gone, until she looked towards the back of the cave.

There he sat, his back to her, his head lowered to his knees, which were drawn up to his chest. She came closer to him and found to her surprise that he was sobbing quietly, tears flowing down his cheeks. She sat down beside him and put an arm around him, surprised to find that he was trembling. He remained tucked into a ball, crying, and she held him gently. His skin was pale, paler than she had ever seen. Finally, after a few more moments, he began to calm, and slowly he uncurled from the ball, huddling close to her. She had never seen him like this before. It was as if he had lost all the emotional armor that he maintained, lost all his composure. She knew that at this moment, he was wholly vulnerable. As she held him, she thought that though she had seen him without his clothes, she had never thought she would see him this naked. Suddenly, she heard his voice whispering to her from where he had tucked his head against her.

"I hate doing that." He whispered, shuddering. "I hate it."

"Did you find what we wanted to know?" She asked and he nodded slowly, his pale face buried against her furry neck. She fell silent, just holding him to her, until he seemed to have recovered somewhat, for the sobs died down at last, but he still was trembling. She could only imagine what he could have possibly have done to leave him in this state, and finally, her curiosity got the better of her. "What did you do to him?"

"I made him live through every horrible thing that has ever happened to me, then every horrible thing that he had ever experienced." His voice weakly replied. "Then, I made him feel pains that got worse and worse until the mental block holding me from the information was broken."

"That doesn't sound too horrible." She commented and he shook his head.

"You don't understand." He replied. "When the body feels enough pain, it knocks you out so you don't feel it. I stopped him from passing out. I made him feel the kind of pain that no one is suppose to feel. Every kind of pain that can be imagined, and all of it at once. And I made sure he knew that he couldn't escape from it. Can you imagine what its like to know that much pain, and know that you can't do anything about it? And I had to relive every moment of every horrible thing I had done while I did it, and I had watch him while I tortured him, knowing what I was doing to him. Knowing what I was doing was wrong and evil even as I forced the pain on him."

"It is probably for the best that he tried to escape." Katy replied, shuddering as she tried to image what that must have been like. But her love shook his head.

"He didn't." He whispered bitterly. "He couldn't escape, even when the cord that was holding him broke. I killed him when I had gotten what I needed from him. It was the most merciful thing I could do after what I had done to him. His mind was broken; the life he would have lived would have been little more than just existing, every moment an agony because of what I had done to him." Katy could think of nothing to say to this and he fell silent while he finished recovering. Finally, when the tears had stopped totally, she thought of something to ask, "Have you done that before?"

"Twice." He replied, sitting up at last and leaning forward slightly, breathing in deep breaths of air. "I hate it more than anything, but I am also very good at it because I have experienced too many horrible things already. And for that, I hate myself." She patted his back sympathetically, and then he spoke again. "But, I did get what we needed. The Conclave is responsible for the war carrying on so long, and they are responsible for almost every escalation. They might even have been the cause of the war in the first place. What we need to do is recover the information on their computers. They have all the files that we will need to confirm the information I got."

"How?" She asked, assisting me to my feet. "The blast from the plasma cell would have fried the data storage."

"According to him," I said, jerking my head in the direction of the corpse. "They have a shielded data backup that should have withstood the blast. If we can find it, we can get the data. The problem will be reading it. I don't carry around a mobile computer in my kit."

"I have an idea." Katy said, smiling. "How are you at jury rigging equipment?"

I chuckled, realizing what she had in mind...

***

09-30-3015

*Chronological anomaly detected, time index unknown*

Fourth moon of the planet Arc

Noid system, Contested space

I rubbed my eyes with my fingertips, giving an expansive yawn. It had taken us four hours at least to deal with the bodies of the Conclave operatives that we had killed, and then it had been a long and hard few hours while we had collected the components we needed to cobble together a working computer from our crashed fighters. But it had been worth it. Now, we were sitting up late, staring at the computer screen that was once the status display of my scorpion interceptor. Crawling across it was the oddly pretty letters of the Merxian language, which Katy was scanning quickly. The computer was a hybrid system, made from parts of both Merxian and Terran manufacture. They were close enough in construction to work together, but it had taken some creative rewiring on the part of my mate to make them fully compatible. Now, we were sifting through eight different back up drives, separating files into two categories. The first were those that were written in English, the second, those that were in Merxian. It had been a very hard day already, and I was getting very sleepy. Luckily the work was nearly done.

"There, finished." Katy said, typing a command into the keyboard. For a moment, the internal components hummed, then the computer beeped. Katy reached down and disconnected the two memory crystals that had been attached to a rigged programming module. One of these she handed to me, the other she tipped into her equipment pack. Normally, I would have been more than happy to lay down for sleep, but, while I held that crystal in my hand, I felt a sharp instinct to search for a specific file that I knew would be there. Guided by my psychic powers, I reattached the crystal to the computer and brought up the improvised command prompt. I let my fingers drift over the keyboard, typing in a series of numbers and letters that looked like gibberish and then hit the execute command. The computer hummed for a moment, then displayed the file I had requested. Katy and I both leaned in, finding the file to be written in galactic common. What we read instantly lit a fire within my heart and I felt my anger beginning to simmer. Looking at my love, I knew she felt the same.

The file looked like a record of Conclave operations within the last fifteen years. From the quality of the information displayed, I could tell that the file had been deleted, retrieved and then partially over written, as if it had been on the data backup system before they had been used. But near the top, was a heading that made us both begin to tremble with rage. It was entitled Operation Scorpion, and it had only two lines beneath the heading, but they were enough. 'Target; Planet Arc, Noid system' and 'Status: destroyed'. The Conclave had destroyed our home, slaughtered our families and started a war. Just how they had had enough resources to completely destroy Arc was still a mystery, but we didn't need to know right then. And, with growing rage, we scrolled down the list, finding all the proof we needed to know that the Conclave had been the puppet master behind almost everything. But one entry caught my eye especially and I stopped scrolling, looking closer.

"What is it?" Katy questioned, watching me closely as I leaned in closer to the screen a little.

"Project Leviathan." I read, then leaned back slowly, searching back through my memory. After a moment, I recalled what it reminded me of.

"What's Project Leviathan?" She asked and I took a moment before answering.

"Project Leviathan was a special project that consisted of three Black Ops teams, each of twenty operatives." I told her, turning my attention from the screen and looking at her. "Their mission was to assassinate members of the Terran Military who had turned traitor and the Merxians they were working for."

"How do you know that?" She asked skeptically, and with good reason. Black ops were missions of utmost secrecy, carried out without the knowledge of most of the government or military.

"I know about it because I was the commander of Leviathan Team Two." I answered. "The teams were disbanded after a year and all the operatives were returned to their original units. We weren't ever given a reason for it, but we never did ask."

"That must be why." Katy replied, pointing to the line beneath the heading. "The project was nearly uncovered, so all the evidence was dealt with." We spent the next few moments in silence, reading through the file. From the looks of things, we were on the edge of a massive conspiracy that spanned both sides and penetrated almost every branch of both militaries.

"What are we going to do?" I asked, sitting back and running my gloved fingers through my hair.

"Well, I for one will not let them manipulate our two sides into an endless war." My lover stated defiantly, crossing her arms across her chest.

"Neither will I." I confirmed, "What do you think we should do?"

"Bring this information into the open." She said, "Make our commanders listen to reason." But I shook my head.

"We don't know how far this conspiracy has spread." I replied, putting up a cautioning hand. "We can't trust anyone."

"Then what do you suggest?" She asked and I shook my head.

"I don't know yet." I replied, sitting back once more. "I just don't know...