Aces
Chapter 1
A gay fox and his friends battle an insane tyrant in World War Six.
I'll never forget the first time. It was in the warm, shimmering heart of a green summer, on a hill top that overlooked a forest.
Rick had a red Corvette and the wolf looked good in it. On nice, sunny days he'd put on gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses and rock it convertible. His eyes were striking, the left yellow and the right a ghostly blue that was almost silver.
I had a beat up '92 black Camaro and as foxes go I looked like some ragged cross between that post-apocalyptic human crazy Mad Max and trailer trash when I drove it. It wasn't a convertible and I didn't have Ray-Bans, just the mirrored gas station specials you can get for 11.99 if you have some luck.
I hadn't really come to terms with myself, either. I was in that dark void a lot of uncertain guys find themselves in. When I wasn't homophobic and defiant I was paranoid and ashamed after I had lost a battle with myself, pretty sure everyone just knew despite the fact that I looked about as far from a stereotypical fag as Penguins choose to nest from Mexico.
When you're insecure about yourself it's likely you have that teenage tendency shrinks call 'spotlight syndrome' well past when you're supposed to. In the company of others every step you take and every look you get has this delusional significance when you have a bad day...and when you don't have a bad day you wind up marveling that you're not worried and wind up worrying sometimes anyway.
The only way out of hell that I know of, if this is your position, is acceptance. Trust me. This brings its own challenges, though over time things get better I promise.
College Math is another type of hell, and Rick and I met not in class but cutting that class, in a hot parking lot that smelled like chrome, tar and asphalt. We bumped into each other not far outside the long shadow of the building because we had happened to have parked our cars side by side.
To this day I don't know how he knew I was gay, but he did. I didn't know he knew at first, and wrapped up as I was in my own inner war I certainly didn't know he was too. For a while we were just friends. We had more in common than just being that kind of outcast by nature.
Yes, for a while, like somewhere in an ocean hot and calm and sparkling blue the two of us were nothing but low pressure. It's the same old story, the genesis of monstrous, spinning hurricanes and big things with small beginnings.
Is that overdramatic? I suppose it is. Yet, as always, the things that mean most to us seem so earthshaking even when the humblest stone doesn't deign to shift even in the worst cataclysms of our inner Armageddons.
-
My mother tried to kill me on my eighteenth birthday. She had sown herself a mask of rotten lettuce leaves and came at me with a butcher knife like a savage out of a jungle nightmare.
I'll always remember her standing there framed by the kitchen fluorescents, always remember her sunken, yellow eyes staring into mine, the folds of her filthy bathrobe flapping in the draft of the trailer's space heater. The blade she had held in her paw was bloody from slicing raw steak and speckled with rust.
Happy Birthday!
My first day of adulthood didn't go so well. I didn't really believe she would hurt me so when she cornered me I didn't fight back.
It was a mistake. I should have died.
She stabbed me twelve times in all. Only the first few hurt. Then I got really, really cold and the trailer got really, really dark and her insane, venomous screaming seemed really, really far away.
Most of her rant was 'found that filth on your computer', 'faggot', 'hate you', and 'it's all your fault'. I don't really remember it all.
It's hard to focus when you're bleeding to death and-
He's eight and he's trapped in a crack house with bars on all the windows. The doors are always key-locked from the inside and the weed choked backyard is entombed by a towering wall of cinderblocks. His mom has been in the back rooms for days with some coyote named Pablo and their universe is a bathroom and a reeking bed and sandwich bags filled with a shattered, greasy whiteness, a universe that's watched over by ravenous gods of brown glass pipes that rule from a twisted Olympus wreathed in clouds of blue, pale smoke.
The strange living room this young fox haunts alone for a child's eternity smells like rice and beans and dust, and from time to time through the filthy barred windows and plaster walls he hears the palms of Florida whispering in sweltering breezes. He sleeps the days away on a leathery sofa, once white but now grey with time.
Pablo's own mom is old, and she's dying in one of the rooms. From that cloying, candlelit hell comes coughing, dry and cutting. It's the kind of coughing that makes the hackles rise, the kind of coughing one makes in the stench of death's breath, the kind of coughing that makes a kit curl up with his eyes shut on an old sofa with his paws to his ears and his mind faraway, in places of imaginary sunlight and green trees and calm seas.
He remembers an episode of Winnie the Pooh, when the friends had been reduced to a very small size, and voyaging across a silvery bedspread blanket whose folds made sparkling hills and mountain ranges they battled soldiers made of crayons.
Yes, it was that kind of insanity, and as he drifts-
She wound up calling 911 when she came down. Her story was that a burglar had broken in and that I had tried to stop him, tried to protect her.
I didn't contradict her.
After a two month hospital stay I went home, such as it was, and threw out everything that was mine except for some clothes and the keys to the Camaro my dad had given me. I said goodbye to her.
"Stay," she said sadly, her lip quivering. "I'm sorry Lanter. I won't..."
For a split second I saw my mom, the real one, the one that loved me. I saw her and it broke my heart.
Then she was gone and I was alone again, alone with an insane, murderous shell, the monster's eyes flat and cold like that of a lizard.
"It's okay," I said softly. Strange as it sounds, I meant it. I'll always love her. Gemini. You can't have one without the other. Beauty and the beast, roses and thorns, snow and ice.
I walked out the door and I didn't look back.
-
"Wake the fuck up Corporal," someone snarled. A combat boot kicked my ribs and the last slivers of my dream shattered. I'm back in the hangar, on my cot, and around me is chaos. My squadron is scrambling.
I rolled out of bed and started putting my uniform on, was done buckling my belt before I was even fully conscious. I donned my flight jacket and aviator sunglasses, started straightening the sheets out of habit. A panther sergeant came by and stopped me. He looked scared.
"Never mind that shit," he snarled hurriedly, eyes wide. "Assembly's on the tarmac. Get going."
I did as I was told.
I joined the other pilots on the runway. Snow drifted down from a gunmetal sky and I put my collar up. The winter wind had claws, made me shiver in its cold caress.
It was then that I saw what had frightened the sergeant. To the north, like a god of fire, a mushroom cloud rose impossibly tall over the radioactive cinder that used to be the city of Rune. The world began to glow orange in a demon light that gave liquid life to long shadows and a hellish gleam to the ranks of jet fighters that lined the runway.
I caught a few flakes of what I had thought was snow in my paw, realized it was ash.
-
We called the day Jackal Mask used the first H-Bomb H-Day, and the swarm of Z-wings with their cyborg pilots killed almost everyone in my squadron. Our jet fighters went down one by one, until only I and seven others were left when the command finally came to withdraw to an orbiting carrier.
The High Nine had ordered Earth abandoned. It seemed Jackal Mask had won.
Five of the seven fighters that survived the engagement were space worthy. Luck alone found me in one of those five, and as my F-26 cleared the atmosphere, as the blue of Terran's heavens became the luxuriant purple of stratosphere then the depthless black of space lit by countless sharp stars, I promised myself I'd have vengeance.
My comms came to life. Taylor was hailing me.
Taylor's a husky I've always tried to avoid. He's a better fighter pilot than I am, an ace, and while I look up to him, hope to be as good as he is someday, there's something in his eyes that scares me. It's the same look I used to see in Rick's eyes, the same disastrous magnetism that could screw us both.
Figuratively and literally.
There are no fags in the air force. Outed is expelled.
I knew he was gunning for a fox. It just wouldn't be me.
"Lanter you read?"
I waited a few seconds. The ghost of my reflection in the cockpit glass looked grim, glowed a ghastly red in the lights of the fighter's dashboard. I forced myself to relax. "Copy. You okay?"
The screen to my right flickered, his face sharpening out of the static. He looked haunted but managed a crooked smile. "Still wearing your sunglasses?"
I realized I was, was instantly glad I was even though I felt like a rookie. SOP was to take them off because they could mess up your perceptions of the fighter's weapon guidance systems. "Guess so. That was a fucked up fight, huh?"
He laughed humorlessly. "Yeah. We lived though. Who knows what the future holds?"
I experienced a moment that seemed an eternity, a span of time when I thought I had no future at all. For a split second I forgot I was talking to a guy that made me so nervous. I saw lasers and snarling missiles and spinning atomic horizons in my mind's eye, the sleek glint of my jet's nose and the molten orange specter of my gun sights, felt the echoes of adrenaline riptides like thunderclaps after lightning strikes.
I fought the impulse to close my eyes.
We talked awhile longer but it was all hedges, the conversation never really getting to the garden of true purpose hidden in the maze. I was tired as hell and honestly I hardly remember it.
Forty one hours later the five fighter pilots who had fought in one of the final battles for Earth docked on the carrier Freestar, myself included. I managed maybe five hours of sleep during that epic journey. F-26's aren't designed to take naps in, and veterans of dogfights tend to have more than their normal share of nightmares when their subconscious minds still recognize the fact that they're flying them.
I was awake for the final approach to the carrier. Freestar is Nova class, like most of its kind, literally a space-borne city six miles long and one wide. The titanium plating that armored it was fifty feet thick and polished to the shine of a mirror, loaning the colossal warship the glittery sleekness of obsidian.
Part of that gargantuan hull boasted a spherical phantom blue streak. Reflected Earth glow.
I wondered if I would ever see that again after today. The Nine would be on the defensive now and the closest bastion our forces held was Mars.
We landed in a cavernous bay stacked high with black metal boxes whose faces glinted frostily in countless banks of vaunted fluorescents, were greeted by the captain and a couple of his adjutants as the engines of our jets creaked and cooled. Taylor fell in beside me, standing just a little closer than protocol.
I was too tired for his games. His persistence, especially now, put me off. He was handsome as hell but so fucking reckless, and insensitive on top of that. We had just lost an entire world, most of our comrades. I should have been the last thing on his mind.
To my surprise the captain, one Adrian Blacke, had medals in his paw. The wolf gripped my shoulder gently and pinned one to my chest, his eyes searching mine. "Congratulations, ace," he said softly, saluting me.
I glanced down. It was the Bronze Cross.
I'd always wanted one. Ironic. Now that I had finally earned it I was too numb to care.
Captain Blacke had a lot to say to us, though I heard less than half of it. Distinction and valor, service and bravery, those sorts of things. I believe in all of them but actions are the fangs, words just the bark. If everyone who spoke of peace and good intentions practiced their preaching the solar system wouldn't be torn asunder by war. I'd be in college, sitting under a tree with a good book, not standing uniformed in the cold, armored hull of a planet killer listening to the military extoll my combat virtues.
What was of real interest to me was the replay of the battle I had just fought in the skies above Rune. Most of what I watched myself do through the recordings of the other jets I hadn't even known I'd done. My flying had been fantastic.
Thinking back it was all a blur of target locks and targeted locks, defensive and evasive maneuvers. To see it all standing there calm and safe was surreal.
Somehow I had saved Taylor's tail twice, and he had returned the favor three times.
I suddenly got why Taylor stood so close, why he had hailed me after the fight. Turns out I was the one fixed on shit I shouldn't be so soon. I felt ashamed. If I had been human I would have been red-faced. It was an effort to keep my ears up and my brush at ease.
Actions, I reminded myself.
After awhile we were all given schematic updates to our PDAs and dismissed. I said goodbye to the other survivors of my squadron and followed the glow of my map through frigid, deserted decks ribbed with massive bulkheads that were filmed in sparkling ice and plated in steel, made my way to the Steam Rooms. Lights snapped on at my approach, flickered and died soon after I had passed. Ahead and behind the way was as dark as a tomb.
Power was at a premium this close to the Earth Defense Net, or EDN. The shields of Freestar were always kept at full strength and the cloak kept up. Jackal Mask had his finger on the triggers of thousands of pulse cannons, would use them if even the shadow of a specter showed up on sensors.
Maintaining the corridors at a wintry temperature and lit even dimly was a luxury in and of itself, so I counted my blessings. I'd heard horror stories of deep space operations where the internal conditions of ships were that of the vacuum, their crews literally living in environmental suits for months at a time.
I was sick of being cold and though I was weary I still had the ash of a blasted city in my fur. All I wanted to do was scrub myself clean then get to my new quarters and sleep away the rest of Six.
-
The Steam Rooms were a world of slick white marble and glowing turquoise wreathed in a hot mist. An entry chamber with wall to wall mirrors and metal towel racks beaded with wetness greeted me as I stepped inside.
The cold of the carrier's corridors couldn't find this place. Tiled teal mosaics formed palm trees and dolphins and puffer fish, gave the creamy walls a strange tropical life, while floors of smooth pebbled glass reflected countless rainbows and seemed almost soft on the paws.
"Welcome, Lieutenant," said a voice from above, pleasant, female and faintly robotic. "Please specify special parameters."
I smiled tiredly as I took off my foggy sunglasses, set them gently on one of the racks. I started shrugging out of my jacket. "None, ship. Thank you."
"You're welcome."
After I had stripped I stepped beyond the threshold of the entry chamber into the mist, found a fall of warm water as clear as crystal in the marble labyrinth. I held my paws up to it, relishing its heat, then eased myself in.
Standing there, soaked and soothed, I really wanted to close my eyes for a while. I couldn't though. Wouldn't, because it was too soon. Too many memories, too many deaths and explosions and vertical horizons, too little time to call that then and this now.
I briefly reconsidered the ship's offer. It could immerse me in a reality of my choosing, even force me to forget what I had been through on Terran for an hour or so.
Despite being bathed in heat I shivered. No. Never.
I submitted to the pain, powerless against it without the technology I had denied, powerless like the long dead people who had watched the dark towers of tall ships sail towards their shores on waves infinite and glittering and blue, who had seen men in skins of iron with salt rimed beards and bright, cunning eyes step down onto the sands of ancient coasts with metal boots and hearts of stone.
It hurt, but giving up a piece of myself spooked me, even if it was for an hour...or a second. It was death of a sort. That was what I believed.
Resting my head against the cool tiles, ears flat, I took a breath.
"You look like you could use some company Lanter," Taylor said quietly behind me.
Suddenly I could hear my heartbeat.
No, we weren't both there in that place wet and naked, I was imagining things. I found a fascinating mosaic to study. "Didn't think I could sleep yet," I said, surprised at how calm I sounded.
He smiled sadly as he sidled into the stream and picked up a bar of soap, glanced at me sidelong. "First real dogfight?"
My eyes unfocused. "Yeah," I replied softly. "I've done simulations, of course, but nothing could prepare me for that."
He arched an eyebrow. "Oh? You're standing here, aren't you?"
I couldn't help but laugh. "Guess I am."
He held his head up to the stream and his ears went back. God he was sleek, perfection. I tried not to watch the water course down his body, used every trick I knew to murder my attraction. The last thing I needed right now was a throbbing erection.
"You're not very good at hiding it," he said suddenly, closing his eyes. "You can't fight it forever."
"It?" I ask, hoping to buy a second or two even though I know damn well what he means.
This time he's the one who laughs. "Lanter...life is short. You can lie to all of them, be the slyest fox in all the stars. When your time comes though...when you look back..." he pauses, shakes his head. "Fuck it. Forget I said anything, ace."
Before I really know what I'm doing I've put a paw on the husky's shoulder, recognize I've crossed a line and thrown caution to the winds. Part of me wonders why. Another part knows the answer. "I don't want to die like that," I hear myself say.
Things happened fast after that.
He takes the soap bar and traces a line of lather down my chest. We're both hard, inches apart in the hot rain, my brush around his leg and his paw on my ass. There's this split second of vertigo for me, the notion that this isn't really happening even though I know it is, the fear that if we're caught like this it's all over for both of us, yet I don't seem to care and neither does he.
I nip his neck, high on the scent of his arousal, my mouth as dry as a cotton ball and my pulse racing. "We shouldn't," I whisper, though I don't really mean it.
He doesn't say anything, he just kisses me, the soap slipping from his paw and landing in the steaming waters with a splash. He presses forward, traps me against the cool tiles of a puffer fish mosaic. The last of my doubts vanish.
A forever later he pulls back and our gazes lock. I glance down at the husky's huge cock, stare at his swollen knot and bite my lip. This is all okay, because for the first time in my life I've found peace. It's all okay, because I know what I am.
I'm gay and I can't change that.
I feel rushing streams as I get on my knees. His dick is pulsing, slick with precum. It's like hot, living iron in my paw. Whimpering I take him in my mouth, feel the warmth of his touch on my neck as I go so low I almost choke.
"Slow," he breathes as I start blowing him, holding me still, starting to thrust almost lazily. The taste drives me crazy.
I whine, try to say 'fuck'. It comes out as 'fmmff' and my erection is torture, electric.
"Keep sucking, ace," he says, panting. For the first time his smile is real, not sad or distant or broken. It's real. And it's for me.
Later I feel him tense, feel his stiffness in my muzzle harden like a rock and I know it's time. I don't stop. Even if he would have let me I wouldn't have wanted to.
I'm pretty sure he howled. I know I swallowed, lapped at his glistening length.
I face the wall, taste marble and minerals on my lolling tongue as he lifts my brush. I bare my teeth as I feel his dick slide in and he grips my hips, look back at him. His sky blue eyes meet the forest green of mine.
Yeah. This is all more than okay. It's better than that. It's great, and fuck the judge, his shiny gavel and the whole court too.
-
The jackal with glowing eyes sits on a throne atop a thousand-story tower and far below him his megacity is burning. His grin is a broken thing, madness, and the earth rumbles and shakes. His guards are all dead, their bodies twisted torches on a floor where shards of shattered glass bubble and marble tiles boil. For some reason he can't still his twitching paw.
Steel screams in his ears, screams like car crashes or saw blades spinning in sparking vain. The tower shivers and from his seat he feels an ominous shifting, gravity's great claw readying to rip the wreckage of his palace from the world's face.
I lost, he thinks, giggling like an idiot as he watches the enormous mushroom cloud turn the eastern sky into fire.
The cyborg soldiers land then. There are a hundred or more, warping into existence in shimmering curtains that make the air writhe and twist. Their white armor is red like fresh blood in the glow of the inferno and their visors are black and glassy masks.
He rises slowly from his throne, the remnants of his rich robe ragged and restless in the blistering wind, the crown on his head a corona of heat made soft and scorching in the furnace air. Streams of liquid gold trace hot, wet lines down his face, molten tears that glint with the shards of shattered gems.
Ashes swirl between the jackal and the soldiers. As the soldiers raise their guns his eyes glow brighter.
He strikes first, his gaze twin beams of power. The ruins of the throne room rock and boom. The sickening scents of burned fur, cooked flesh and melted plastic wash over him as bodies and pieces of bodies fly everywhere.
The soldiers open fire behind shields of smoking corpses, wildly and desperately as the dread lasers from the jackal's eyes carve through their ranks. A blizzard of plasma bolts wracks the space between the survivors and the tyrant, a sizzling stream of death that overwhelms his defenses.
There's a sound like a thunderclap as the jackal's telekinetic shield collapses.
The mess of the tyrant's demise is horrific. In the aftermath there's not much left.
A cheetah with the shakes stares at the glowing barrel of his rifle, its bore bright and shimmering like a candle from hell, whispers to it in a voice tight with fear. "Is it over?"
A wolf sergeant, a veteran of Four and now Five, puts a paw gently on his shoulder. "We did it, son."
The soldiers start to cheer, all but one. That one stares at the throne of Valric as it collapses to smoldering cinders, his paw dancing spastically like a dying spider.
-