Honor Above All Else chapter 3
#10 of The Great Balancing
The Whiterunner roared towards the fleet, nearly two thousand starships clustered together, in the lead a huge rectangular battleship covered in layers of light grey armor plates that sloped in sharp angles along it's hull armed with a multitude of particle cannons, laser batteries and fighter craft bays, the ship itself over three kilometers long.
"Fleet command this is Colonel Alistair." Kitt announced into the comm system.
The view screen flickered, projecting the form of a white furred broadly built wolf, with admiral's stripes on his lapels. "Colonel we received our orders, if you wish you may assume command aboard the Hun Son."
"Thank you Admiral, I will be aboard shortly." Kitt turned to Alec. "Are you going to come?"
"Kitt, there's a few things I should follow up on." Alec responded quietly.
"Uhm, okay...sure hon." Kitt replied.
Kitt watched the Whiterunner as it coasted off, entering the white swirling vortex portal to hyperspace.
"What's going on between you two?" Shar said from the pilot seat of the shuttle.
"I don't know Shar; he won't even talk with me..." Kitt sighed.
"Hope he'll be alright Kitt." Shar said as she flew the shuttle into the bay of the Hun Son housing a hundred one furred fighter space craft all of them being prepped and fueled for combat.
"Me to..." Kitt stood up, adjusting his black jacket. "Okay, let's get it on."
Shar nodded and followed Kitt out onto the deck where they were met by the admiral and his entourage of senior staff.
"So you're Kitt huh?" the Admiral said starring Kitt down.
"Yes I am, this is Shar Lyn, my sensor officer, there's no time for pleasantries right now, and Admiral inform the fleet to move out for Coscomi immediately." Kitt said completely ignoring the Admiral's attempt assert dominance over him and actually caused him to recoil a bit from the bluntness of Kitt's almost growling voice.
The mass of ships lurched forward towards their target. Kitt stood on the bridge, easily three times the size of the one on the Whiterunner. Calling a meeting of the division commanders, Kitt was in front of the officers at the control panel of the conference room's holographic computer display with Shar at his side.
"This is Coscomi, while a strategically unimportant planet, it has been determined the next target of the Dominion assaults. We as yet do not know what kind of force we will be dealing with. The one advantage we will have should we arrive before the attack begins is this..." the holographic map of the region focused in on a small portion a short distance from the planet. "...There is only one hyperspace beacon in the area. It is a quarter of a light-year from the planet so that'll give us a few moments notice. Colonel Alistair and I have organized patrol routes along this area, if any of your ships find anything out of the ordinary, report it....any questions?" Shar said without missing a beat shutting down the display both the fox and wolf looking at the room of determined and focused lupine muzzles and upon seeing no objections or questions they retired the briefing sending the officers to their ships and posts.
"We're not going to make it Kitt..." Shar said sipping the bottle of alcohol then passing it to Kitt as they sat in their quarters.
"Don't worry, everything will work out." Kitt sighed slugging back the strong booze.
The next day Kitt spent most of his time in the ship's large gymnasium, his biceps bulged and flexed as he lifted the heavy weights. Several other wolves of the crew stole glances of him as he was dead lifting with ease twice the weight that some of the much larger wolves were having trouble with but the centered Kitt simply pressed on ignoring them.
Kitt soon moved onto a ten meter round matted circle, standing in the center of it he looked to the ceiling letting out a deep breath. "Computer activate combat holograms, four opponents maximum difficulty." The computer process the request then projects four figures in different fighting stances and within a second they attacked sending Kitt into action. Kitt easily avoided the blows, not a single one landing. He growled and with four graceful moves he knocked the attacker away and came back to his original position, barely breaking a sweat. "Damn..."
Suddenly there was flash through Kitt's mind, an attack he saw hundreds of people being slaughtered. "ETA to Coscomi?" Kitt yells out as he runs onto the command deck.
"Sir we are still thirty minutes to target." the bridge communications officer responded.
"The attack is going to happen sooner than we thought, inform all ships to divert power to their engines and prepare for battle." Kitt ordered.
Ten minutes later the bridge echoed with a garbled distress call. "We are under attack, please someone help...this is Coscomi mining station. They came out of no where!" The image of a cheetah said through the static filled transmission.
"Hail them..." Kitt ordered on of the com officers. "Coscomi station, this is Colonel Alistair of the Lupine Hung Gar warriors, we are responding to your distress call, just old on."
Kitt looked to the officer as he simply shook his head. "I'm not even sure they are receiving this, there's a lot of interference."
"Alright we're going in, attack wings four and six you have the lead. As soon as we're in normal space deploy fighters. Let's do this!!!"
The fleet roared out of hyperspace, instantly offloading hundreds of the small fighter spacecraft with in mere seconds. The area around Coscomi was littered with thousands of ships ranging from fighters to massive kilometers long battleships.
"Sensors run IFF scans." Kitt said.
"Sir, IFF confirms fleet as Dominion. Count makes two thousand, four hundred large ships."
"Great, attack wings start your approach. Open channel to the Dominion fleet." Kitt barked. "Attacking fleet this is Fleet Colonel Kitt Alistair, you are here by ordered to cease your assault and stand down."
There was no response.
"Let's see if this gets there attention; battleship guns, open fire on their carriers, all other ships engage at will." Kitt growled, sending his ships raging into combat. A flurry of orange particle beams blast out from the battleship's massive guns, the faster gunboats, cruisers and fighter ships locked into a tight pyrotechnic melee.
The bridge of the Hun Son shook as the ship took a few hits. Kitt steadied himself, stretching out his senses locking onto the Dominion landing craft. "Tactical, lock batteries on sector 47 by 5 x 14, they are trying to put troops down.
"Locked on sir, five craft located." the wolf responded. The HunSon's missile launchers and rapid fire guns burst to life, firing down on the oval shaped ships, sending three of them hurtling out of control as they explode, the last two however continue ond, the weapons fire bouncing off before they can hit. Kitt's senses went off quickly. "Fuck! Admiral, ready a shuttle, I've got to get down there!" Kitt shouted over the organized chaos of the bridge.
"Sir?! You'll never make it." the admiral responded from the tactical station.
"Don't worry about that, just do as I order. Shar, stay here." Kitt growled and rushed off the bridge.
On the surface Kitt saw the main city erupting in explosions. Kitt launched into the air flying down the tall rock cliff into the valley that housed the city, soon catching a glimpse of two Hyenas in black cloaks, launching bolts of energy from their paws, blasting buildings and people to dust. Kitt growled fiercely casting a barrage of his energy at the Hyena, clocking one of them clean thru the side of an empty bus parked on a road, the other dodging the attack.
Kitt set himself down in the middle of a road, thrusting up cars and dumpsters into the air from the sheer concussion of his landing; the two Hyena step out about twenty meters in front of Kitt, starring him down neither of them scathed.
"So you're the two bitches doing this..." Kitt snarled.
"And you're the ascended Lupine Kitt Alistair. We have been waiting along time to for this moment." One of the Hyenas called out.
Kitt blinked not sure what they meant but not having the time to mull it over he inhaled sharply igniting his translucent fiery aura cracking the asphalt he stood on.
The Hyena grinned and howled out as their energy levels skyrocketed. Kitt's jaw dropped at the shear power of the pair.
Near instantly Kitt was assaulted, sending him into a dizzying amount of blocks and dodges, the dark brown with black stripped furred Hyena with the advantage.
Kitt vaulted into the air away from the pair then grunted firing a thick stream of energy down to the street; the blast forged out a large crater enveloping the Hyena leaving Kitt panting softly.
"Where did they go?" Kitt said to himself, then locking in on a signature, twisting his body around locking the leg of one of them between his strong paws. Kitt growled and threw him towards a sky rise building only having to block several punches from the other one.
"Our information told us you'd be more of a challenge..." The Hyena said tauntingly.
"You haven't seen anything yet." Kitt growled and flipped his body around kicking the Hyena in the jaw knocking him higher into the air and without skipping a beat swings his leg out behind himself connecting with the chest of the other Hyena as he tried to tackle Kitt form behind.
Kitt and the Hyena exchanged blows for about ten minutes when Kitt's senses honed in onto the fleet dueling high above them in orbit. He looked at the pair and sighed somewhat disappointed. "Wish I could stay and play longer but you gotta go!" Kitt clenched his fists and closed his eyes, his hair thickening and becoming a fiery red color, his fur shifted slowly at first then like a flash of lighting warped into a shiny golden color. Kitt's eyes shoot open in a turquoise color, his yellow aura launched out from his massively toned body; the shockwave of this shattered the glass in the adjacent buildings. Kitt narrowed his stare on the Hyena above him, obviously terrified at the site.
"Wait!" he yelped but too late, Kitt popped up behind him and nailed him across the back of the neck, snapping his spine as if it were a toothpick. The limp body fell to the concrete, landing with a dull thud.
The remaining Hyena growled angrily and desperately threw himself at Kitt, launching a flurry of energy blasts, all of them pinging off an invisible shield around the wolf's body.
Kitt inhaled sharply putting his palm out catching the last bolt and adds in his own energy, blasting it back into the Hyena's face, sending him bouncing across the pavement slamming into a brick wall.
Kitt floated down over the crumpled Hyena. "Was that enough of a challenge for you?" he chuckled.
"There are more of us...you won't be able to win next time." The Hyena coughed out, spurting blood from his muzzle.
"We'll see about that..." Kitt responded coldly, opening his palm towards the Hyena, vaporizing him in a large golden blast that explodes out the back of the building.
Kitt dropped back into his grey blue furred normal form standing over the gouge in the ground where the Hyena used to be, his communicator going off.
"Colonel the Dominion fleet is in full retreat we've won!?" Shar exclaimed over the cheers of the bridge staff.
"We won this battle but this is far from over." Kitt said sternly and worried.