Trust

Story by RC1138 on SoFurry

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#1 of A Ranger's Tail


A Ranger's Tail

Book 1: Trust

Chapter 1 Meeting

Somewhere over LZ100 on Chyane 1402 Military Time

"God I hate this part" he thought to himself as the assault ships engines rumbled over the ground. He finally walked out of the cockpit and walked into the troop bay. As he did, he caught the eye of his XO, a young lieutenant, a fox, fresh from the academy; and in his eye he saw the same look he'd seen in the countless eyes of all the other junior officer command had placed under him in the past four years, a look of distrust.

"How can I blame him?" he thought to himself, "No ones ever gona trust me with my reputation."

At that point, as in countless other times in the past, he no longer feared the enemy, death, or even failure of the mission; he feared his duty as commander.

1.5K from a wolf base on Chyane 1443 Military Time

The smoke clears after a tank round hits the earth and the fox jumped through the air as if propelled by a rocket. She spots a cornfield and dashes to it. Normally it would be a bad idea to run headlong into any field with tall grass or stalks, the flattened stalks leave a trail, but considering how bad her pursuers wanted to kill, or worse, capture her, she didn't care. Throwing caution to the wind she dashed through the tall stocks, their sharp edges further ripping her fatigues.

"Damn!" she yelled at herself as she tripped once again. "Another spill like that and I'm fucked!" she screamed at no one as she picked herself up again.

Normally long distances tired her out, but right now she felt as though she could run across an ocean, anything to get away from the pack of wolves following her.

The fox's unit had been assigned to gain Intel on an enemy encampment that was receiving nor sending reports to the enemy high command.

"Boy did we find intel, and I bet those assholes on the command board are gona figure it was well worth letting seven soldiers di-" no, she stopped herself, she cant focus on the dead now, if she didn't get out this war was going to go from bad to worse.

She heard the rat-rat-rat of automatic fire coming from and odd direction, and for a moment she thought maybe someone else made it; then the next three feet of corn in front of her disintegrated. She kneeled and rolled forward, and stayed still, figuring her pursuers were trying to draw her out by shooting randomly.

She heard a group of footsteps going through the stalks ahead and raised her M88 rifle. The sleek weapon had every modern convenience available; telescopic sights, bullet programming and tracking, a chargeable pulse round, even the ability to shot at targets behind her, which had come in handy during her escape, but all this was useless due to the unfortunate fact she only had 8 rounds left in her magazine, and one pulse round on her now tattered belt. The fox steadied the gun and waited for the inevitable.

Four Hours Ago Outside a Briefing Room Onboard FN Endeavor Orbiting Chyane 1002 Military Time

"Sir your cleared to go in now"

He turned to meet the stair of the desk officer holding his papers. He had been put completely off step by the picture of himself on the wall, standing a battlefield, raising the Federal Flag. He cursed the artist for making that victory seem glorious, considering that the beginning of that campaign marked the beginning of the degeneration of trust for him within the ranks of the Federation.

He grabbed his papers from the desk officer and strode into the briefing room. "Captain Reynolds good to see you" said General Osing; "we have a job for you and your Rangers."

Although he said it trying to sound as sincere as possible, it was quite evident that he, as the other two officers, one being an Orange fox, were quite weary of the Captain's presence. An awkward six seconds went by.

"To get straight to the point" Colonel Brigs chimed in, "We have an assault planed on a target to the north of the wolf's lines. It's not heavily defended, but the airspace over the target is, so your LZ will be sever clicks from the target itself."

Finally the last officer, another Colonel, this one quite a bit younger than the other two, definitely younger than Reynolds, made himself known,

"This target is the enemies primary tank production plant, and seeing as our new M5A2's aren't due to arrive for another three months, this assault, if successful, should tip this campaign in our favor."

"Who are you sir?" he retorted seeming to disregard everything the young Colonel had said.

"I don't think you heard what I said son," Reynolds was taken aback by the Colonel's use of "son" but he disregarded it, "Those tanks have been making it almost impossible for any of our mechanized units from aiding an advance against the enemy strongholds. Taking out this production base will let our trucks bring food along with our troops so they can start being killed by the enemy before they die of starvation."

While the Colonel's attitude could have been in better check, Reynolds couldn't disagree with his feelings to this campaign, it was a useless fight, if high command didn't want nova reserves on the planet so much it would have been better to order a Delta-2-Zero command and just glass the planet from orbit, not waste thousands of good soldiers trying to liberate it. Reynolds forgot for the moment about the hundred of thousands of indigenous fursons, a few very large tribes of dogs, were going to have to clean up this mess when they left.

"Sir I understood you just fine," he replied carefully, "I was just interested why it wasn't just General Osing and Colonel Brigs in this briefing."

It was at this point that Reynolds finally noticed the patch on the young Colonels jumpsuit, a book with a laurel around it, the patch of an intelligence officer. The young Colonel wasn't the first intelligence officer he had seen sneaking around this campaign, but they were the run of the mill kind, the rarely ever got involved with tactical units; tending to stick to their private "spy" units. The fact that he was an Orange Fox fit his job quite well.

"Who I am and why I am here is of no concern to you Captain, you knowing who I am just puts yourself in a position of knowing information that would be," he thought for a moment and grinned, "harmful to fellow troops knowledge."

Usually Reynolds was a pretty cool character, never went above his place, and this time would be no exception, but he really wished he could reach out and rip out the Colonels throat. The young Colonel had pricked on his one weakness, his actions with his troops.

"We all know" the Colonel continued, "about your past, and your utter disregard to withhold important information from those under your command, so to make things easier on you, lets just leave you in the dark on this one, okay Captain?"

Finally seeing enough General Osing broke in, "That will be enough Hushing!"

"General!" the Colonel yelled with disregard to fact that Osing outranked him.

The general shot him a glance that could have stopped a bullet in mid air and the young colonel, defeated, sat back in his seat and decided to remain silent, lest he invite rage from the "good" General.

"I understand your feelings toward your troops, but your past actions are not what we are here to discuss," the general said glairing once more at Hushing, causing him to sit straighter, "To get back to the briefing, you are to take a company of heavy Rangers, preferably with an entire platoon armed with anti-tank equipment, and destroy the production facility and any currently made tanks on hand. As we said before there will be no air support due to the heavy concentration of AA guns in the vicinity of the target."

"What kind of heavy equipment am I allowed to use?" Reynolds asked.

"Your company will use their standard assault gear, but we're allotting you your Predator 9 Armor as usual."

Reynolds didn't like it, troops with little or no armor, armed with standard equipment. He knew the Rangers were the best, it was the main reason he had joined them, but the Wolves could metaphorically, and often, literally, rip through any troops if they didn't carry the right weapons and equipment.

"Any particular groups of Rangers you want me to bring?" Reynolds asked, hoping the General had allocated at least a squad of fast rabbits; they were always good at flanking armor.

"Yes, it's a mixed bag of furres and humans, some foxes, humans, rabbits and such."

"The rabbits are good, but I could probably do without the foxes," he thought to himself. They tended to get in the way and had a hard time working with the unit, as the young Colonel Hushing had easily displayed, but it wasn't up to him right now.

"You leave in two hours so I suggest you brief your officers and gear up." Osing finished.

The silent Colonel stood up, walked over to Reynolds and came face to muzzle with him; the fox's nose nearly touching his, "One last thing Captain, you report everything that happens on this mission, we need to gain some intel on enemy concentrations and actions and you are to report any actions directly to me. Also, you are aware of all standing orders in reference to your own troops, and I am aware you will follow all of them if needed, but lets try to keep history from repeating itself, so you just keep all your special orders to your self; is that clear Captain?"

"Yes sir," Reynolds gritted his teeth, snapped a salute and walked out the office. To him, one of the worse parts of a mission was over, but he still had to deal with his troops.

Three hours later over Chyane on board an assault craft enroot to LZ100 1312 Military Time

It was ten minutes to the drop off point and Reynolds could already see his troops getting "antsy" which was never a good thing. These were Rangers, the best of the best, and he knew what had them uptight wasn't the mission, most had seen plenty of combat; no, they were worried about him. First his actions had made him a hero, but then they made him infamous. After having had his men "disappeared" due to some shit-brained technicality, troops under his command were always weary of him and what, and who, lay in the debriefing.

"Captain, can you come back to the cockpit, we're picking up some radio traffic" called the pilot over the inter-com.

Reynolds jumped at the opportunity to leave the crowded bay, not just for his sake, but to put the troops at ease, seeing how much his presence put them on edge.

As he entered to cockpit the saw the pilot, a young black and gray rabbit, couldn't be more than 22, fumbling with the radio. Reynolds grabbed the radio and the pilot, somewhat embarrassed, reverted his attention back to flying.

The transmission was garbled, the voices completely incoherent, but there was the distinct sound of gunfire in the background, and then the transmission became clear. A gruff dog-like voice came over the intercom.

"Any FGC please respond, need immediate extraction, am under heavy fire from wolf units and most of my unit is KIA. We have important Intel and need immediate extraction, please respond! Over!"

"This is Ranger 5-8, who's this? Over."

"This is second lieutenant Klipo of intelligence recon unit 5-1, are you in position to extract Ranger? Over." the lieutenant almost yelled into the receiver.

Not to interested in dealing with an intelligence unit the Captain replied, "Sorry lieutenant, our bird if full and we are enroot to a target about 2 clicks to your north, if you can make your way there we can link up, over."

"Will do Ranger. Over and out!" the lieutenant responded and the line went dead.

Reynolds hung up the radio, and noticed that the young pilot had been paying a bit to much attention to his conversation, and was very scared when he realized that the Captain had noticed that he was listening.

"Don't worry son, just drop us off and report back to the Endeavor," Reynolds said as he pat the pilot's shoulder.

This did little to ease the already nervous pilot, but Reynolds felt it was needed.

"We're almost at the target sir, I suggest you prep the troops," the pilot said, seeming almost to want to kick Reynolds out. Without a word the Captain walked back into the troop bay, this time being met with no glances or looks.

"Good," he thought, "they're focusing on something else."

The assault craft rumbled to a stop, and the doors opened and the Rangers pilled out. Just as he had thought, there was no resistance, no welcoming party, so they grouped up, and began marching to the target.

Reynolds opened a private COM line with his platoon leaders and filled them in on the run down intelligence unit. He could tell by there responses that they had similar feelings as he did towards any intelligence units coming along with them, and that he was filling them in on that little fact, particularly with the fact that Captain Steve Reynolds was there too.

Half-an-Hour Ago Outside wolf base deep in enemy territory 1244 Military Time

"Alright, lets see what these mutts are cooking up over here," said a gruff bulldog.

Cathy mused on how her CO's mind-set went along so well with his appearance. As tough and serious as Lieutenant Kilpo could be at times, she liked him, as did the rest of her small intelligence unit. He was highly decorated and an experience leader, a former Ranger who had served in such notable campaigns as "Big K" and The Siege of Aladgard. Because of this her fellow squad mates felt at ease with him in command, and this was turning out to be the all quite, boring, mundane mission that the briefing said it would be.

The squad was lightly armed; just assault rifles and one M9D2 anti-tank launcher, only brought along since there seemed to be an infinite number of tanks being pumped out of a well-hidden production plant.

"There should be no shooting on this op anyway," Cathy thought to herself, "we're only here because there's been no communiqué with any troops in this area."

Cathy had joined about 4 years ago, what now seemed a lifetime ago, and was having a very promising career. She was plucked from her infantry unit as her intelligence scores were well above normal, and the fact she was a fox aided her quick induction into the intelligence unit of the federation.

Kilpo was looking at the enemy encampment through a pair of optics, equipped with heat and heart beat sensors, when his normally lazy jowls perked up.

At this odd site all of the members of the squad instantly were interested at what could have even surprised the lieutenant. When he pulled the optics from his face there was an all to clear sign of fear in his eyes. Without adverting his eyes he handed the optics to Cathy.

She edged her way up the embankment and peered down across the open field. "All I see is a small camp and a pile of nova?" Cathy said somewhat confused, her tail making curious circles, "that and large assault vehicle with a command flag on it."

"That flag" Kilpo stated, in a somewhat delusional state, something that now had the entire squad very worried, "is the flag of wolf General Nadine."

"With all due respects sir, the Federation has beaten General Nadine before, he's not the best the Wolves can offer." Cathy reported, trying ease the tense atmosphere.

"Yes, but its who he might be traveling with that I'm worried about, and if the rumors are true..." he trailed off, saying this to almost himself.

"Who sir?" One of the squad mates, a cat, asked, also interested.

Although frightened, they all wanted to know which rumor about the Wolves was true. At this point in the war, there were many rumors about the enemy, a concept not new to war, but these rumors were different, particularly the ones of Wolf brutality towards certain federation troops, namely the female soldiers. Cathy recalled the horrible rumors that told rapes, brutal ones at that, that the wolves would do on captured or wounded Federation soldiers, just before they would eat the now, as the horrible rumors told, crippled soldiers.

The thought chilled her to her bones and made her think back to a horrible time. This concept frightened all her squad mates, who, other than the lieutenant and one other fox, were all women.

Interrupting her, and her fellow squad mates thoughts, Kilpo came back to his normal, serious and authoritative self, "We need to get this information to command, were pulling out immediately, Jerry," he said to the other fox beside Cathy, "move them to the extraction point while I just double check something."

"Yes sir" Jerry replied in his usual worried accent. Just as the squad had geared up and started to move out when Jerry was shot in the head with a tank round.

En root to Ranger objective Alpha Nav point 1406 Military Time

"Jesus Christ!" Cathy yelled at she hammered an advancing Wolf's chest, causing him to immediately keel over.

"Comon Sergeant, we have to reach that Ranger unit, they'll be able to handle this situation and get us back to command!" Kilpo yelled as he too downed a wolf with a quick burst of automatic fire.

After the tank round took out all but Cathy; although because she didn't see Dana's body anywhere Cathy hoped that she had just be blown a few feet away, Kilpo had carried her out and covered her until she was conscious enough to run on her own. Now, in hot pursuit, seemed some rather angry, and large wolves, to many to be hunting just a scouting party, they wanted to hide something.

"Maybe there is something important here that Kilpo saw that I didn't. What is it they need to hide so well that there chasing us so far?" the fox mused to herself.

As they were running down a now half beaten trail she saw in the corner of her eye, Kilpo launched through the air, and saw him land about thirty feet ahead. Cathy ran up to him and kneeled down, he was conscious, barely, but then she saw that it didn't matter, the bottom half of his body was gone.

He reached up and pulled her in close, to make sure she would hear, "Get out, go, tell command that it's true, He is here, that Nadine is here and he really is protecting who we thought he was; and whatever you do, don't tell this to Colonel Hushing; any other command staff, but not him, and after that, don't trust anyone, no matter what."

"Not a problem," she thought to herself.

He gave a hard, deep moan and was dead.

Now Cathy was worried, she wasn't sure where she was going, and now was even more confused than before, not to mention an officer whom she had admired now lay dead at her paws. The fox heard a large rustling behind her and locked her rifle in the direction and sprinted in the opposite direction.

She watched as the heavy "smart" rounds went 30 or so feet ahead of her, arced, and turned 180 degrees and flew behind her, hopefully hitting the target area. Normally she would have stayed, killed all the targets and then moved on, but due to the fact she was alone now, she couldn't risk being captured, particularly because it seems she was on the door of proving a rumor, one she couldn't even conceive in her worst nightmares.

As she came into a once populated area of a small town, just a few hundred yards from a cornfield, Cathy was unaware of the 10-foot tall wolf walking down the path her bullets had just cleared.

Moving toward Wolf Tank Production facility 1422 Military Time

"Gunfire?" the a young trooper said as the company came to a halt, "are there any other units in the area sir?"

Reynolds wished he had told them all, but sharing information had got his troops in trouble before, and it wasn't worth furthering their already strained trust in him.

"Keep it quite Allan!" the new lieutenant snapped at him. Reynolds considered sending a squad out to meet the intelligence unit for moment, seeing as they ran into a bit of a "snag" but he figure the atmosphere was tense enough, he didn't need the rest of the company seeing him send troops into the fray to pick up some intel jockeys, that would just play into their distrust.

"Alright lieutenant, move the company to this position," Reynolds said as he highlighted a location just a short dash from the facility, "place 2nd platoon in a supporting position on their right flank, and have third follow you in with their anti-tank equipment at the ready."

"Where are you going sir?" his XO questioned with a certain air of suspicion.

"To go pick up that stranded Intel unit, seems like they're in more trouble than their CO let on. Set up the troops at this location and await my return," the Captain answered, readying his weapon.

"Yes sir" the XO replied, and immediately turned and moved the troops out.

"At least they'll be able to gain some tactical intelligence while they wait," he thought, "this intel group had better be carrying something important if I wasn't informed of their presence."

He walked in the general direction of the where the fire, had come from, it was silent now, which could be a good or bad thing. He heard a rather loud scream and quickened his pace as he heard a quick burst of fire.

A cornfield somewhere near a tank production plant 1452 Military Time

The three wolves dropped to the ground, dead, with at least 2 bullets apiece to the head. That was it, now she only had a knife and a prayer, her rifle was empty, and she had no idea where the Ranger unit was and she could hear further reinforcements coming, and she knew she needed to move.

For a moment the fox thought of trading off for a wolf rifle, but its massive size would slow her down, something that was unaffordable.

She slung her rifle, whipped out her knife just in time to catch eye of another wolf struggling through the stalks.

Cathy rolled and plunged the knife deep, removed it and kicked the stunned and now bleeding wolf to the ground. With her ears pinned back she saw two more wolves come into the forming clearing; one shot, and the other dashed. The one who shot managed to get off two rounds, before she plunged the knife into his skull, one of which struck her in the right shoulder. The other walked up to her, but before he was upon her she hefted the fallen wolfs rifle and managed to, literally, blow the last wolfs head off.

Now wounded, she began feeling very alone, but knew she must press on, to tell command what Kilpo had entrusted to her.

As she was picking herself up she noticed a rather large shadow moving through the bush, larger than a wolf, or at least any wolf she had seen. Then it stepped into the now large clearing; in one hand, to her amazement, he held a wolf assault rifle, its side glowing to show that it was fully charged, a single shot from it now could kill her and anything within eight feet of her. In his other hand he held the most freighting blade she had ever seen. It was hooked with large spikes on its leading edges. The wolf himself was the largest she had ever seen, and the most imposing. He wore standard black wolf fatigues, but on his chest he wore what appeared to be extremely heavy armor, something uncommon for the very proud wolves that would prefer to lose wounded, than win in armor.

The young fox was so petrified with fear that she didn't notice that she was even still holding the wolf rifle, but the wolf, which in her mind must be an officer of sorts, did realize she had the rifle raised, but he was smart enough to realize she couldn't fire, and even if she could, she would miss. However, to be on the safe side, he advanced carefully, trying not to push this increasingly catatonic Fed soldier over the edge.

He managed to get within arms reach before she let out a shrill scream, and with lightning fast reflexes he reached out, broke the arm clutching the rifle, leaving the fox girl with a shot arm, and another broken.

Now lying, cowering in fear, the wolf officer grinned at what he had found. Cathy knew she was screwed, she heard the rumors, saw the officers face; she knew exactly what was going to happen. She knew that there were no POW camps, period; she knew that if she was lucky if he just killed her then and there, but she saw his grin, and saw his pants, and the now noticeable bulge, and she wanted to scream.

She had been in firefights, she had been close to death, but at those times she was able to deal with it, accept what might happen, but at that moment she wished she was back home in her secret hole under the tree, were she could be alone and away from everyone.

The wolf officer moved in; in the process he unzipped his pants, revealing his freighting large member, and she remembered back to her hometown on Foc.

16 years ago, Foc, a small farm

A young, six year old fox ran out the door, tears streaming from her eyes. If she had a gun she wouldn't kill her antagonist, she was so embarrassed she'd turn it on herself.

She ducked behind a tree just as her drunk father; with total disregard for the fact he had no pants on, stumbled out.

"Catharine get back here and finish the job!" he slurred. His mated orange hair was covered in dirt and spilled liquor.

Catharine Grey stumbled through the deep forest; normally she was a great runner, very agile on her feet, but do to her fathers actions, her legs were weak, throat was screaming, and her rear hurt worse than ever before.

She tipped again and told herself not to fall; she didn't want to be caught again. By the grace of God she made it to her hole, her one spot of peace in the world. She peered through the hole in the ground, it was no bigger than an acorn, but her attuned eyes could see a wide view while she remained safe.

Cathy saw her deranged father stumble by, holding an empty, cracked bottle that once held the liquid that was now staining his fur.

"At least the liquor will make him smell a bit better," the very small fox mused. Just the feeling of being in her safe hole made her able to crack that joke.

This had been going on far to long, and now things were escalating. At first, when her mother was killed by a wolf raid, he only made her touch him, he never did anything to her, but when he first forced her suck his member, he made the one, and only one promise he would ever keep to her, he would not ever penetrate her to take her virginity, as he said it "went against old ways," although it seemed strange to her that way-back-when it was perfectly fine for a father to do these things to his daughter.

While he would adhere to this vow, he wouldn't hesitate to sometimes near chock her to death during one of his "sessions" but today he had done something that frightened and embarrassed her.

Cathy got used to the various things he forced her to do to him, but when he tried, and succeeded in filling her rear cavity with his member she broke his grip, splashed him with the whiskey from his favorite bottle, and dashed out the door.

Catharine knew, even at this young age, that she could never be close to anyone, should they find out what happened she would be an outcaste, and she could trust no one, ever.

Edge of a cornfield 1.5K from Ranger Objective Alpha 1459 Military Time

Reynolds heard another shill scream, this one closer, followed by the sound of ripping clothing. Thanks to the enhanced sound receivers in his helmet he was able to zero in on the location, and as the scream was that of a female, and, not only knowing the rumors but having read the reports, he knew exactly what was happening. In fact, after reading the reports of the wolf's brutality he was given a "special order" from the intelligence department. He thought that this was a cruel joke; something that fate had decided to torture him with once again.

The Captain had been branded as someone no one could trust, because he had informed his platoon leaders and men in on another "special order." This order was to keep a particular piece of information about an operation quiet and if the unit was surrounded, any one with knowledge other than himself needed to be "taken care of." When he was faced with carrying it out, a specialist, was able to avoid him and caused an entire operation to fail once he was captured. Upon returning to Federation controlled space, the entire unit, minus the Captain himself, was killed, but that didn't stay a secret for long. After that no one wanted to trust Reynolds, in fear that another "special order" may be in operation.

Currently he had orders that if a female soldier he encounter was captured, or about to be, he was to "put that female soldier out of her misery" as the Intelligence officer had told him. He was lucky enough to never have had to put this into practice, but he feared this might be the unfortunate moment were he would have to.

***

Cathy was suddenly brought back from her happy few moments of being catatonic as the wolf officer ripped the remnants of her trousers off.

She screamed, she knew she did, but she couldn't hear it, she couldn't hear anything but the chuckling of the large wolf.

He ripped down her panties, bent her over and positioned her. She felt what at first she thought was the large butt of a wolf rifle spreading her well kept fur on her hind quarters, but as she managed a glance at the wolf, she realized with horror that it was his member.

This time she managed a scream that she did hear, and it was loud enough that it even bothered the wolf, and in one move, trusted his entire length, something that felt to her to be at least 14 inches, into her ass and stepped on her head, burying it in the mud, all the while grabbing her tail like it was a handle.

She was sure she was dead; she could fell and hear the muscles in hear rear being ripped and the hair being rubbed out. In the back of her mind she knew that mutt of a father she had had treated her worse, but at least he wouldn't kill her, not intentionally anyway, this wolf would degrade her like this, then ea- "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!" Cathy screamed once more as her sphincter muscle gave out and the wolf's knot was pushed inside. He pounded with such a force that she felt her teeth rattle.

He was enjoying this much; clearly he didn't capture females often. The wolf was enjoying himself so much that he lost care of checking the area and allowed his head to arc back and he stared at the sky in pleasure. He reached down and grabbed one of her breasts through her clothes. He grabbed clumsily, without care; it felt as if he would rip her in two from his yanking at her tit and the fact that he was splitting her in two with his thrusting. Cathy knew if she passed out she wont be killed, but brought back to his base to be used as a slave until she starved to death, or was killed in some perverse "game" but she could feel herself loosing conscious, from the lack of air, and the horrible pain.

She managed to push her head up above the mud and at that moment, by the grace of God, locked eyes with an armored clad Ranger, hefting an assault rifle that rivaled a wolfs in size, and he had it pointed right at her head.

***

He saw the poor fox lying on the ground, doubled over by the large wolf; large being an understatement. In his Predator Armor, Reynolds stood a bit over 7 feet tall, and the wolf dwarfed him. For a split second he wondered how the female fox was alive.

From his pleasure, the wolf wasn't aware of Reynolds standing there, so he had a second to decide what to do. He knew his orders, he knew what was happening, and knew what she may have wanted, but he couldn't do it. This would be one more reason for enlisted personal to not trust him, something he could ill affor- no, he had orders, and he would follow them.

The Captain raised his rifle, and at that moment the young fox lifted her head and looked him right in the eye. He had looked many a person and furson in the eye before pulling the trigger, but his strict sense of duty allowed him to ignore this and pull the trigger, but for some reason, he saw such pain in the face of the young she-fox, that he couldn't bring himself to do that. He felt something begin to grow within him, but he buried it, and watched the wolf.

Then, at that moment, the wolf shifted his head and looked right at Reynolds, and for that moment a rifle and one man's intentions linked the three.

Cathy felt the wolf stop and realized he must be aware of the Ranger as well; she saw the Ranger's finger tense, and she was suddenly relieved of pain.

***

The wolf flew back, minus a head leaving the now-pathetic looking fox lying arse in the air, in the mud. Reynolds had chosen, he wouldn't kill her, he couldn't; there was just too much pain in her eyes to let her die in such an undignified way.

Steve ran over to her, and on his way pumped two more rounds into the hulk, more for the fox's welfare rather than his own. He rolled her over and saw she was wounded in the arm.

"Damn" he muttered as he saw a trickle of blood trail from hear anus and asked her, "where's your CO?"

Weakly, she replied, "d-dead sir. I need to get this message to the intelligence department, He is here, someone close to General Nadine, I'm not sure what it means," she coughed, "but it's very important that my commanders learn of this." Cathy forgot to mention Col. Hushing, but figured it shouldn't be a problem.

The Captain realized there was no way she could make it back on her own power, so he shouldered his rifle, and hefted her up and began walking towards his unit. In the meantime he called up his troops and informed them of the situation.

There was an air of surprise in his XO's voice when he said, "You saved her?"

"Yes," replied the Captain, "I want you to lead the attack as by the time I reach your position we will have worn out our welcome."

Reynolds brought up the tactical map and began going over the plan with the XO. As he was doing this, the young fox passed into unconsciousness.

Cathy let the warmth of unconsciousness come over her, and had a moment to think, so to speak. She realized that she was likely dead, the pain in her arm was terrible, and she could feel the degrading pain from her ass, and blood flow down her fur.

The fox was brought out of this level of semi-comfort on his next step; she looked up at him. She knew few troops, even Rangers, wore the P9 armor. She remembered reading of a few of the lucky Company Commanders that dawned the armor, one or two being notable for their extreme dedication towards their troops and the protection of the Federation.

Cathy couldn't hear him but she knew he was talking with his fellow Rangers. What was it Kilpo had mentioned they were on? Some mission. Everything up until the moment seemed to be something she couldn't remember as hard as she tried.

His next step caused a pain inside of her worse than before, because she was thrown to the ground. The pain was too big to pass out, she was kept fully aware. The fox felt him move her behind a fallen tree just as a burst of mud covered the front of his armor, forcing him to roll down the head portion, revealing his face.

She saw his face; and to her surprise he was a human, he had fast enough reactions she was sure he was a fox or rabbit, just having his tail tucked under the armor, but she was quite surprise to see his hairless face. He had somewhat bleached black hair, sharp features, but he was definitely handsome.

It was then Cathy recognized him, Captain Reynolds. She remembered reading of his exploits. He was one of the best troopers in the history of the federation, one of the few soldiers that actually struck fear in the wolves. The fox also realized his history, his undying loyalty, and the fact that she knew the infamies Col. Hushing was the intelligence officer recently assigned to watch him. She felt a pang of fear for a second, he was noted as someone that couldn't be trusted; his loyalties lied with command and the federation, not to himself or fellow soldiers, and he will ultimately give the information to who had the authority to demand it.

Cathy suddenly wished she hadn't mentioned anything, but even now she wasn't sure she would survive the day, so its better someone knew, than have whatever information Lieutenant Kilpo died for be lost. She noticed he was particularly covering her, something odd, since Rangers were trained to ignore losses and fight for themselves, which is why they were so ruthless in battle, but she also noticed something else, a deep rooted pain that almost mirrored her own; she could see it not in his actions, but right in his eyes.

***

He knew this was a bad position, but he didn't have a lot of options, he had to engage or he ran the risk of getting shot, and being that his head was now unprotected, he needed to secure the area before moving on. He fired his rifle with pristine accuracy, managing to down six wolves with one shot to the head apiece.

He heard the distinct sounds of M9D2 rockets meeting their targets. "Good," he thought, "it may draw their attention."

Steve was right, the last wolf moved off towards the factory, but not before charging his rifle to full and rocketing a round right at the Captain.

For a moment he considered dodging, he'd have no problem, but the fox would be toast.

In the past, with other soldiers, he wouldn't have cared, her message had been given to him, and she was dead weight right now, but for some reason he jumped on top of her, and covered her just as the particle beam hit. Burning away almost everything in the area of 10 feet.

The huge weight of the Ranger on top of her was crushing her, but she understood what happened, but not why he had cared enough to make the effort. None-the-less, the enemy had left, for whatever reason, and they began moving towards his objective. She blacked out again looking at the Captains face.

Captured Enemy Tank production facility 2 hours later 1702

"Sir!" the lieutenant snapped a salute, "charges are set and we're ready to move out to the extraction point. Is that the wounded intelligence trooper?" he gestured to the wounded fox lying on the ground.

"Yes" Reynolds replied, don't worry, the medics checked her out, she's out, but stable. Set the charges for 10 minutes and move out."

The lieutenant moved to the troops. Ever since he returned with the wounded fox the troops instantly felt more at ease with the Captain, but still weary when they notice she was an intelligence soldier. Either way, a long day of fighting was over and it was time for some R&R back aboard the Endeavor.

He placed her on a stretcher and walked beside here as the two medics carried her through the woods. The lead scout, a very well trained rabbit, called back with reports of AA guns being packed up and tanks in retreat. Apparently this was a good blow to the enemy.

Just as Reynolds placed a Com system on the wounded Fox's head an explosion reverberated through the ground as the factory was engulfed by the charges.

She was semi aware now and he pursed a conversation with her about what her unit was up to.

"Are you able to speak?" he asked as gently as possible

"Yes," Cathy said weakly.

Nodding Steve asked, "Name and rank soldier."

"Sergeant Catherine Grey of the 2nd Recon Intelligence Battalion," she replied, almost regrettably; "Your Captain Reynolds, right?" she furthered.

He felt a pang of regret himself for being there but he had to find out what was going on.

"Yes," he tried to switch from this topic fast, "what was your unit doing and why would command be interested 'Him'? Who is 'Him' anyway?"

"I'm not sure," she replied, she considered not furthering, but for some reason she followed that with, "someone connected to General Nadine."

"Great, intelligence is going to have a field day with this," he said to himself aloud.

Cathy knew that he would tell Col. Hushing, and for whatever reason Kilpo didn't want him to know would be dashed. She started to cry, not sobbing, but tearing up.

"Its alright," Reynolds said, "your jobs done, you'll have the best care possible and this event will only go on record to those higher ups in the intelligence community, you don't worry about stories-" she noted he stressed that word, with a noticeable amount of regret or pain, "-wont circulate about your ordeal."

The fox continued to cry, and he broke his position as commander and wiped her face.

Reynolds had been around wounded and dying female soldiers, but he always felt very badly for them, and not that they were more emotional than men, it was just that he felt more sorry for them. They always looked so lonely at that moment. He wasn't sexist, he believed females make great soldiers, fur or human, it was just that inept, ingrained idea into his mind and that of all males, of any race, to have a higher sense of caring for females in pain. In the past he always kept it professional, but now he couldn't help himself, he didn't know why but he felt somewhat more companionate to the poor fox, something in the way she looked at him, it wasn't so much distrust, it was regret.

He wiped the dried mud, tears, and blood from her face and he noticed she was somewhat comforted, but she still was still crying. He decided not to bother her anymore; she had been through enough that day.

She was done; mentally she broke down. To begin with Cathy felt pity for herself; the events of the day finally catching up with her, she had felt a bit better from the Captains touch, but when she noticed the Captain pull away, she felt alone again.

Steve didn't realize it, but she could relate to him, he had many stories about his actions, obviously most focused on his shady past, but she too had some; albeit smaller, less notable stories, but she was known in her circles as "foxtrash."

"Damn my father," Cathy thought, "why couldn't he have been a decent and honorable man like the Captain."

The thought hurt her most of all, and felt even more alone, but hoped she began wondering what the Captain would do. She also felt bad because she knew that the Captain would follow his duty and report to Col. Hushing, yet the Captain had already shown some uncommon care for her, something few had ever gestured to her before. She could already feel as though she could trust him, regardless of the rumors that surrounded him. As she was loaded into the troop ship for the hour-long flight to the FN Endeavor, she made up her mind to beg the Captain to not tell Col. Hushing.

On board a FGC Assault ship, returning to the FN Endeavor 1721 Military Time

He made sure to watch the medics load the wounded Sergeant into the troop ship, he noticed that a few of the foxes in the unit took a stare at the Sergeant's various exposed areas. He made a note of who did to put in his report; such behavior was deplorable of a Ranger, no matter what the situation. He checked the thought; his actions to her were out of line in their own right. He wasn't, in his mind, attracted to her. Its not that she was a fox, he had grown up on a city-planet where there were plenty of human/fur relationships, and he thought it was a good thing as it showed how well the Federation worked, but he just wasn't interested in others period. For love or pleasure, even company. The utter distrust that most around him showed him had pretty much ended his interest in friends and loyalties.

Steve figured he had a moment as the ship rose in the air, so he brought up her file on his HUD. Most of her operational history was censored, which was likely due to the fact she was in the intelligence community, but he was taken aback by what he saw in her pre-career folder.

He started with the standard information. Catharine was 22, fairly light, even for a female fox. She had graduated top of her class and had seen some considerable action. She was from the small, poor planet of Foc, mother died at age 2 from a wolf attack. Her father, a former Ranger no-less was arrested when she was 12, apparently for causing serious personal injury to Sergeant Grey and for rap- He was stunned, no wonder her eyes were filled with such pain when the wolf officer was brutalizing her, she was relieving a horrid past. Reynolds suddenly felt another pang of pity for her, something also uncharacteristic of him but this time he didn't check the thought.

Because of his past exploits he could pull some strings and he made sure that if she lived, and if she stayed in the military, he would have her reassigned somewhere. He specified somewhere safe, in just those words. She had seen enough pain.

***

The drugs they shot into her made most of the physical pain go away, but she still felt exposed, not only physically, but she knew people may start to talk; her past didn't help her, and although only the medics where aware of the extent of her injuries, it was an obvious conclusion to draw from the nature of her injuries.

Cathy noticed a tall gray rabbit staring at her semi-clothed body and she felt very awkward for a moment.

To break the silence she asked, "can you had me a blanket, I feel very cold."

She noticed him come out of a "spaced out" state and he fumbled with a space blanket.

Captain Reynolds strode into the sick bay, exchange a word or two with the medic, and the rabbit left. Reynolds walked to her bedside and kneeled down so his head was right above hers. She felt herself feeling comforted again, and decided to let her bottled up emotions flow.

"Sergeant," he began.

"You can call me Cathy, that's what most people call me," she replied.

"Alright Cathy, I put in a transfer for you," he said calmly, "if you decide to stay in the military you will be promoted and put into any unit you wish, I have suggested that it be an analysis job, you've done enough field work."

For the first time, in a very long time, almost 20 years, she felt as someone cared for her for more reasons than just for sheer decency.

"Why sir?" she asked, holding back tears, "why make such and effort for me?"

"I'm going to be frank," Steve began, wanting to make her feel better, "I read your file, I realize that what happened is more than anyone needs, but particularly someone with your history."

He noticed a tear run down her red fur on her cheek, he reached out and wiped it off and he felt her move her head in a codling action toward his hand. He shot his hand back to his side. The Captain could tell this may be going a bit to far but he did truly feel sorry for her.

Finally Cathy worked up enough courage, mainly because it seemed that Reynolds cared for her more than even the various families that had taken care of her back on Foc, and he was a commanding officer, so his care was, in her eyes, to be regarded as nothing more than a soldier caring for another soldier. She did however, realize she was dwelling a bit too much for him, and was very glad he was there and comforting her.

She blurted out, through her tears, "Please, sir, don't tell Col. Hushing about this!"

"Why?" the Captain asked.

"I don't know," the fox cried, "it was Lieutenant Kilpo's orders, and I didn't realize it was you when I mentioned 'Him' and General Nadine. I know that you report to Hushing, and I realize that you are very loyal to the Federation, but please, just don't tell him of this incident or of my CO's report."

At this point she was sobbing uncontrollably, and she wouldn't stop. He turned and checked to make sure the bays door was closed and no one else was in the room. Reynolds leaned in and held her paw. To his surprise she lurched out and hugged him by his neck, crying loudly. He lowered himself farther and tried to calm and comfort her.

Cathy wasn't sure why she hugged him, she just was glad someone cared for her, she didn't care if it was a fellow soldier, the fact that to someone it mattered if she lived or died made her feel very close to the Captain.

Every instinct in his body was telling him "get up" and "this is not your place" but he knew that, deep down, he did feel somewhat connected to the young fox, they both had a deep routed pain. He decided to honor here fallen CO's wishes and would omit anything she told him from his report, something he would never had even conceived doing if not for the one fact, that was clear as the day, in the entire universe, Steve Reynolds and Catharine Grey knew that they were going to be linked forever by the mere fact that they were the only two that could trust each other.

Chapter 2 Redemption

Debriefing room aboard FN Endeavor 1919 Military Time

Captain Reynolds stood outside the same room he had earlier today, and he didn't want to be there anymore than he had before, but now he had some extra help, he had the wishes of Cath- Sergeant Grey; he corrected himself.

He hadn't mentioned anything to anyone other than the medics of her being raped by the wolf officer, and because of their oath they were not aloud to spread such information, not even under orders, so it was his and his decision alone if he would report on her.

He then realized for the first time, having not killed her he had been very compassionate, but he may have condemned her to death by her own officers. Although he wouldn't mention Him to any intelligence operators, he still would need to report on the rather large wolf he had seen, and while the intelligence department couldn't afford to have the Captain "disappeared" the young fox meant nothing to them, nothing to anyone but Reynolds it seemed.

"I see that the assault went well sir, no causalities and you managed to pull and intelligence unit out," said the desk clerk as he held out the Captain's credentials.

"Well enough," the Captain said gruffly, trying to avoid a conversation.

The clerk took the hint and went back to work as the Captain walk into the debriefing room.

Steve expected to see just Osing, as he was only going to report on the outcome of the mission itself, but he was meet with the sight of Col. Hushing by himself.

"Sir!" the Captain saluted.

The Colonel didn't return the gesture but strode over to the captain in a similar fashion to how he did this morning.

"Your XO is handling the debriefing of the assault itself, but I'm interested in this Intelligence unit, this," he looked through the COM records; the Captain was glad it was a private com he had talk to her on, "Sergeant Catharine Grey. How did she come to be in such a level of injury?"

For a long moment the Captain felt his to mental sides fighting over what to do; one his sense of duty, and one his growing level of care for the Sergeant.

"Well, do tell," said the Colonel without looking up from the COM records.

"Well," Steve began, "I was off searching for the lost unit when I came across the Sergeant being chased by a large wolf. It was about 10 or 11 feet high and was dawned in heavy, black chest armor."

"Oh," Hushing replied, uninterested, "Why did you request a transfer for the Sergeant to an analyst post? You understand the protocol, she is to be 'taken' care of to stop this information from getting out."

It was then that the Captain realized why the lieutenant didn't want this information getting to the Colonel, he apparently felt sorry for the Sergeant too and understood that the Colonel wouldn't even hesitate in having her killed to keep this information secret.

The Colonel broke Steve's thoughts; "We had heard that General Nadine was in the area, and he might be protecting someone big. We've read reports that he had brought alone some very heavy guards, those huge wolves you saw, and they have an increased sex drive. Your lucky he didn't get to her first, you may have to take her out yourself."

It's a good thing that the Colonel was very intent on reading the COM reports or he wouldn't have noticed the fear, then anger in the Captains eyes.

"Sir," Reynolds ventured, "is it necessary that you kill the Sergeant?"

The Colonel was instantly taken aback by this, "Why the hell do you care? Your not one to worry about our dealings, hell, you've been our tool on several occasions, that is how you've gained your reputation."

That was the final straw; the Captain reached out, grabbed the officer by his snout and threw him in one move against the wall. A distinct smell of fear perspired from the Colonel.

"Now you listen and you listen good," the Captain whispered, his tone so deep that it shook Hushing to the core, "I'm not being your play thing anymore, I will not follow these 'special orders' anymore, particularly those that involve me killing my own soldiers. You tell your sick-fuck friends at the intelligence department to find a new gopher, because I'm a Ranger, not a murderer."

The Colonel was no longer afraid, but his eyes glowed with fire and anger. He could tell that the Colonel wished he could have him killed, but as Reynolds already knew, some soldiers just can't be 'taken' care of.

"One other thing, on the subject of Cath- Sergeant Grey," he wished he hadn't used her nickname, "she will be put directly under my command and if you so much try and hurt her I'll break your skull in."

A long moment past and the Captain released the Colonel. He tuned and began walking out. He didn't know why he cared that much about the Sergeant, enough to commit a very illegal act, but he knew he was the only one that could, or would, protect her.

"If I didn't know your habits better I'd think you actually cared for this soldier more than you should," the angry Colonel called after him.

And then, while unnoticeable to even the Captain himself, but not to the fox, the Captain missed a step, and the Colonel decided to keep a closer eye on the both of them.

Medical Bay-Recovery Room FN Endeavor 1929 Military Time

Cathy was scared shitless, there was no way getting by it. She tried to calm herself, but nothing was helping. The fox noticed that the medics were staying away from her, but two security officers were watching her tentatively. She felt her heart beating fast, and for some reason she thought of the Captain, and she was instantly calmed.

Just as she was thinking this the Captain walked in and sent the two security officers out, and she pushed herself up in the bed to meet him.

He walked up to her bed, picked up her paw, and said, "I'm going to take care of you."

Intelligence Operations Central aboard the FN Endeavor 1934 Military Time

"So he went straight from the debriefing room to her bed side?" the now intrigued Colonel questioned.

"Yes sir, and I over heard him say that he would 'take care of her,' is it safe to assume he is going to finish the job?" said one of the security officers.

"No, he's got something else in mind, and I'm not sure what," the Colonel replied as he pondered the possibilities, "call General Osing in here."

"Sir!" the security officer saluted.

A few minutes later Osing walked in, clearly irate.

"What do you want Hushing, you know I'm busy planning the liberation of the Chyane capital city," the General said.

"I know sir, but I had an idea that may help you with clearing those dense forest to the south, so that your flank is protected," the Colonel said, with a slight sense of eagerness in his words, "I suggest that you have Captain Reynolds's Rangers handle this, they've shown that they can fight these wolves with out a problem on their home turf, and since the attack isn't set to take place for four days it will still a lot them plenty of recuperation time."

The General thought hard over this, than asked, "Is there any intelligence spook business in that forest, or do you really care for the population and want this battle to be successful?"

The General was testing him, and the colonel knew it, so to counter him he was completely honest, "Yes sir, there is some intelligence business at hand, but until we get further information, I don't even know of all the details, but rest assured that this operation will be fine, as I will be on the ground with them, making sure the good Captain and his soldiers are taken care of."

Medical Bay-Recovery Room FN Endeavor 1920 Military Time

For a moment his words scared her. She didn't think he would 'take' care of her, in the intelligence sense, she realized that they had a bond of sorts that would stay his hand, but she feared what those above him must have told him.

Because Cathy felt very comfortable with him she ventured a to see what exactly he felt, "They told you to kill me didn't they; Hushing right?"

For a long moment he stared at her with a grim look in his eye, then he became serious, and took her other paw in his hand, "You know my past, you know what I've done, but as hard is it sounds your going to have to trust me. Your going to have to trust me when I say that I wont let anyone harm you."

The fox felt very relieved by his touch, so much so that she was actually happy, something she hadn't really felt in a few years. Since the day her father was finally arre- "No" she told herself, "I'm not going to think about him ever again, I'm going to remove him from my mind and put the Captain were he was, finally someone wants my trust, and finally I can trust someone."

Then, as if taken by another force, she sat up, and without loosing eye contact, leaned in and kissed Captain Reynolds.

Steve knew he should stop this, he thought she was just delusional, but something told him it was right. He held the sides of her face, and new that, without words, without anything but pure emotion she had forgiven him of his past sins and he swore to himself that he was going to do more than protect her from others he was going to make sure she never felt pain again.

When she broke the kiss she was smiling, but more importantly he was too, and felt relieved, for she worried he did have feelings for her, but they were only professional, but his reactions told a different story. He coddled the side of her head, petting her now clean and sleek fur.

Steve whispered, "I'm going to go get cleaned up myself, but I'm going to place a Ranger at your door, I don't trust the security officers."

She found that a strange statement from him, but she could tell he was a lot happier than he had been on the ground, not in the sense of being home, but for being around her, so she said simply, "Okay."

He turned and walked into the corridor, and she felt many emotions rush over her, the most profound was love, she knew then and there she loved him, and he would protect her to the end, and she would protect him; he was hers and hers alone. She fell into the first peaceful sleep she had in almost 20 years.

Chapter 3 Foundation

Outside a medical bay aboard FN Endeavor 1922 Military Time

The Captain left the room, feeling as though he left a part of him behind.

He lay against the door for a moment, mind completely blank. He never felt this way before. He had been around plenty of women before he joined the military, but he never pursued any relationships.

From the moment he was born he was destined to be in the military, his family history held him to it, and he knew relationships between military personal and civilians usually fell apart, so he focused on things he felt were more important, but this, this was different. He never heard of something like this; this was real, he could tell already he would never leave her and he knew that the feeling was mutual.

Steve turned and walked back into the room and to his surprise, she was asleep. He walked to the bed and patted the side of her face again; she coddled his hand as she had done before.

Although they had passionately kissed before, he hadn't been able to take a good look at her. She had, admirably, a cute face; a short snout, white, which blended well with her blood red fur, she had a short-style haircut which draped down the back of her head. He could tell even with the covers she had a shapely body, her breasts, while not obscenely large, were big for a fox. Her tail, which protruded from the side of the bed, moved in small, slow circles. While he knew he had seen more "sexy" women and furres before, no one ever looked so beautiful. He felt a slight twinge in his pants but stood there anyway.

While he was definitely attracted to her now, he had at first been only emotionally attracted, but now it was spirit and body, and he prayed that the feeling was mutual.

His thoughts were interrupted by the inter-com, "Captain Reynolds, report to General Osing's stateroom immediately."

As he was walking out of the bay his two Rangers walked in.

"No one goes in there, not even doctors, without my permission, is that clear?" he ordered.

"Yes Sir!" they both replied with a crisp salute.

"Rank has its privileges," the Captain thought to himself.

General Osing's Personal Stateroom 1930 Military Time

He knew something was up, the devious Colonel never suggested Army units should work an Intel mission as a normal battle was taking place, something was up and he was going to figure it out.

Osing heard knocking at his door.

"Comon in Captain," he yelled, knowing exactly who it was.

"Good to see you sir," Reynolds said.

The Captain held out his hand and the general shook it, something very strange for the Captain to do, then the general noticed it, the Captain looked a bit happier. Whatever had his sprits up would aid him in the next few days. He decided to pursue this issue farther by finding out if his suspicions were correct.

"How's that wounded fox doing?" he said without breaking his grip with the Captain; he noticed though that the Captain did loosen his grip a bit.

"I believe she is okay sir, her injuries were mainly mental rather than physical," the Captain said coolly.

As the general sat down he asked, "Why did you first have her reassigned to a annalist unit, then to yours?"

"She told me that she didn't feel right in the intelligence game anymore, it wasn't severing her well, so she requested to be put under my command. I figure she could be a runner, she was a track star at the academy," Steve explained, starting to realize how careful he had to be with this relationship with the Sergeant.

"Oh all right," the General said, satisfied with the Captain's answer, "Because of your exemplarily actions today," the General started, "it has been decided that you will cover the advance on Chyane's capital from a southern counter-attack."

Steve nodded; glad to be off the other subject.

"In the meantime," Osing continued, "I want you and your soldiers, for the next four days, to have some well deserved rest and relaxation time."

The General was careful to watch his reactions, which spoke volumes. He no longer needed the Captain here, he understood more than the Captain did on what he was feeling, and Osing formulated his own plans.

Reynolds didn't know it, but it sure seemed like the older General was reading him like a book, but how could he cover his newfound lov- "hmmmmmm" he thought to himself.

It was true, he couldn't avoid it, he loved Cathy, and the next chance he had he would tell her so.

"Sir," he ventured, "can I ask you a question?"

A bit surprised the General replied, "Go ahead, shoot."

"Is it ever okay to ignore your duty to protect your interests?" Steve asked carefully.

The Captain wasn't sure why he asked that, but he waited for an answer.

The General sat and thought for a moment, sighed, and began, almost to himself which threw the Captain off a bit, "Yes, there is a time and a place were your interests are more important than your duty, but only you and the," he hesitated for a moment and added carefully, "person," which he said with emphasis, something that the Captain did catch, "who your choice will effect can decide if it's the right judgment."

Without a word the Captain stood up, nodded and exited, leaving the General to his thoughts, and more importantly, his plans.

The Next Day, Sick bay aboard the FN Endeavor 0948 Military Time

She awoke to the sound of yelling outside her door. One, was clearly her Captain, the other she couldn't recognize. Finally the yelling stopped and in walked Reynolds, but in front of him was a cat in a medic's coat, but Reynolds had a gun to his head. He walked the doctor to the side of the room, but he chanced a glance at Cathy, smiled, and he continued.

He sat the doctor down and the Captain removed the needle from his pocket that he had confiscated from the doctor. He placed it next to the cat's throat and ordered him to tell him what was in the needle because he was going to fill his neck with whatever was in it. The cat gave a response, but it was to quite even for Cathy to hear.

Immediately he punched the cat in the snout, causing him to fly back in the chair. He walked quickly over to her bed.

"Has anyone come in here since yesterday?" he said, sounding quite worried, which bothered her.

"No, n-no, I didn't even wake up 'till you walked in. What was that all about?" she asked, trying not to sound afraid.

He stopped, and she knew he was going to regret telling her this, but it appeared he didn't want to, nor was capable, of lying to her.

"He," Reynolds motioned toward the now out cold cat, "was trying to enter your room, and he had a needle with enough cyanide in it to kill a rabid wolf."

Cathy sank in the bed, her eyes wide with fear.

Seeing this he motioned toward the two Rangers' at the door, they walked over.

"I want you to bring the Sergeant to my room, and give her my bed, but keep it quite, in the meantime I'm going to 'chat' with the good doctor," Steve ordered, squeezing her paw a bit tighter.

They nodded and helped her out of the bed. Her legs were weak and her rear was sore, but she was more worried for Reynolds than for herself. Although he was justified in reprimanding the doctor, even withholding him, and she knew just as well as he did that they were forming a relationship, and relationships were frowned upon in the military. They were frowned upon enough so that they would both be removed from the Federation and dishonorably discharged, and with the information they both knew, it was likely they'd both be killed.

The two Rangers motioned her down the hall, and they went ahead, clearing the way so that no one would see the move.

The fox began to walk out but he grabbed her by the arm. She turned and met his eyes.

"I love you," he said simply and turned her away to go with his Ranger's, but Cathy couldn't move for a moment, her hopes had been realized and she felt the universe freeze.

She finally realized what she was doing and walked out.

Reynolds walked up to the doctor with a glass of water, and splashed it in the face of the doctor, being a cat he knew it would get him "perky" fast. Had he not be smart enough to put him in restraints, the cat may have clawed his eyes out.

"Alright," the Captain said, he couldn't hide the huge amount of anger in his voice; he viewed this not only as a terrible deed by the intelligence against everything the Federation stood for, but an attack on himself, since he loved Cathy and it appeared that someone in intelligence knew this, and they were trying to take that from him, the only person who trusted and cared for him.

Steve restarted his interrogation. "I'm only going to ask you once, you don't answer, and your going to wish I would kill you with the cyanide."

"Bite me you piece of shit!" the cat said defiantly.

He had heard enough; the Captain knew he would never speak, so he did what was right, in his mind, to send a message to whomever ordered this.

Intelligence Operations Central aboard the FN Endeavor 1001 Military Time

"Uhhh sir? You need to see what's on camera 18," said one of the deck officers said to Colonel Hushing.

"What is it no-" his thoughts blown out his mind when he saw Donavan, a trusted agent, float past camera 18 outside the ship.

It was now he realized to what extent that the Captain cared for the Sergeant, and that he was going through such extent to protect, and if this report reads right, to hide her from him, that he would throw and intelligence agent into the vacuum of space.

He swiveled his seat around and brought up the Captain's room camera, but to his surprise, the computer locked him out of the Captain's observation data. He then tried the Sergeants, and the same result. They had been locked out by a "two shots."

"Damn," Hushing whispered, "he's good, but I'm better, I've got three days and many ways of getting to this Captain and his bitch."

Captain Steve Reynolds's state room aboard the FN Endeavor 1353 Military Time

Cathy sat on the Captain's chair at his desk. His room was a mess, but that was a common thing of officers. What she found strange was that his walls were bare; no pictures, no plaques, no medals, completely blank with an exception to an ancient looking sub-machine gun.

She stood up and walked towards it. The side said "US ARMY AUTO ORDINACE THOMPSON M1A1" It had wood on it, ornaments not even found on expensive hunting rifles today. The young fox could tell it was old, but she was amazed when she saw the date, 1940. The weapon was well over 3000 years old, by far the oldest thing she had ever seen.

Just then Reynolds entered the room, relieving the two guards outside his door. She was glad that as much as his soldiers distrusted him, they were quite loyal.

Cathy walked over to him, and they locked eyes for a moment, and they kissed once again, this time much more passionately than before.

While he was totally absorbed in her, he still remembered what had happened to her less than a full day ago, so he made sure not to take things to far.

When they finally broke their kiss she smiled at him, such a happy smile that all of her small teeth in her snout could be seen.

"I was looking at that gun on the wall," she began started, as if this was the most normal thing in the world, "is it really as old as the date says?"

Steve stared longingly at her eyes, but still answered, "Yes, one of my ancestors, who was in the Rangers when they were first formed, carried that in a Great War the engulfed all of the Humans home planet, earth. Long before the Federation, humans lived on the earth alone, but when we started moving away, and meeting new races, our central planet was all but abandoned. I visited it once, saw the same sight where my ancestor who carried that weapon first had fought. My family has been in the Ranger's for as long as they have existed."

"May I?" the fox asked.

Nodding the Captain replied, "Go ahead, its heavy though."

He was right Cathy thought, compared to her M88 it was double and then some in weight, and it was made of hard steal, not a composite.

"You okay, how's the arm?" he asked, trying to make small talk.

"Its fine," she said, without looking up from the weapon, "they filled the wound with blank cells, and so it's basically healed now."

She noticed him looking around, and replaced the weapon on the wall.

"What's wrong?" Cathy asked.

"I never realized how untidy this room was," he laughed, "I would have had it cleaned."

"Its alright, most officers don't keep their rooms to clean," the fox smiled.

She was right, Steve had just seen the General's today and it was a mess. She replaced Thompson on the wall. Admiring it for a moment, he stared at the gun and she walked over, and placed her head on his shoulder and caressed him.

"I don't know what to do about this, it seems that someone in intelligence knows of how we fee-" he stopped himself; he still didn't know exactly how she felt. When she noticed his hesitation she turned him and once again locked eyes.

For another long moment they stayed like that, then Cathy said, "I love you too."

This time he moved in and kissed her. He rubbed the fur on her back and the back of her head and she held on to him.

After they pulled apart she turned her head and rested it on his chest, and he stroked the fur on her cheek, something she was starting to become fond of.

He restarted his statement, "Someone, in the intelligence department knows about how we care for each other, and that has them scared, and it seems the only way they see to solve this is by killing you, or both of us."

"Do you think Hushing?" Cathy whispered, feeling strangely peaceful laying her head on his chest, "My CO was at odds with him so he may have reason to hate me, but why you? You're a great soldier of the Federation."

"Yes," Steve answered, "but I've just been informed that my- our, unit is going to be covering the Southern flank of the assault on the capital city. And as for Hushing, I doubt he's got the guts to order anything of someone else, he'd have to do it himself, and I already know I can stop him. It must be someone higher, someone we both don't know."

"I wanted to know, what did you tell him in your debriefing?" the fox asked, a chill rolling up her back along each and every hair.

"I mentioned that I saved you, and nothing else," the Captain recounted, "He already knew about the heavy wolves, so I was able to keep your secret without suspicion. I think what whoever is trying to kill you now is what your CO wanted you to avoid. I'm sorry I brought this to you."

She looked up at him and touched the side of his face. Before, on the battlefield, she had thought he was quite a bit older than her, mid-40s, but now she realized he wasn't much older than her, maybe early 30s.

"I don't hold it to you," she said, "your worth the risk."

Cathy leaned in and kissed him again.

"I'm not sure what to do, in the long run I mean," he said, "I-I... I'm getting to ahead of myself aren't I?"

The fox giggled and kissed him lightly, "Do you love me?"

"Yes," he answered, smiling at the young female.

"How much?" she asked carefully.

Steve thought for a long moment. How much did he love her? How much was he willing to do for her? What was he going to do?

Taking a deep breath he replied, "I love you enough that I don't want to every leave you."

Cathy smiled broadly and kissed him deeply. She was worried about exactly what he really felt. Things were going fast, but good things happen slowly, but great things happen right away.

Restarting from where he left off, Steve went on, "I can protect you and myself here for the next few days, eat in here and such, but as soon as we leave this ship and are on the ground, as long as we stay in the group we run the risk of an 'accident' and after that I don't know what?"

She nodded in agreement.

"I mean can we really keep this a secret? Someone in Intelligence already knows so what can we do?" he continued, thinking about what could be done.

Cathy sighed and gave him a small squeeze, trying to calm him a little, but then had a thought and was about to tell him but Steve turned around.

He stopped and thought for a moment, then quickly turned back, "I almost forgot, are you hungry? I don't know how much food we can actually get, but I took the MRE's from my guards when I dismissed them."

He walked to the desk and grabbed the meal packages, when he turned she was staring blankly.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

The fox sighed, "What if we don't stay, with the group I mean."

"You mean stay in the assault ship, they could bomb it and say it was an attack," the Captain explained, "believe me, these guys are relentless, you know that I've done many-an-opt for them."

"No, that's not what I meant," she said and shook her head, "what if we go down to Chyane, but leave the group, and disappear, but for real."

For a long moment he just stared at her, dumbfounded. His whole life had been dedicated to serving and protecting the Federation, and now, as she had said, his situation brought him to the obvious conclusion that he had to choose, his love for fighting for the federation, or his love for her.

Maybe this was what the General meant. He thought that the "choice" he would have to make would mean him asking Cathy if she concurred and act or not acting on that alone, leaving the final decision with her, but he never would have guessed that it would be his final decision to her suggestion.

She could see that he was really considering what she had said, but there was no way she would get an answer out of him right now, and she didn't want one. Cathy turned, and picked up his ancestor weapon, and walked it over to him, and placed it in his hands, and brought him over to the bed.

"Don't answer me now, I want you to hold this, think of your ancestors, and really give this some thought, I'm going to take a shower and get on some better clothes, which brings me to a question; do you uh... have anything I can wear other than these sweats?" she motioned towards the dirty pair of sweats she had put on.

"I'll have an orderly bring your things here, I'll pass the command through another officer, so it won't be lead back to me," he said, without looking up from the ancient machine gun.

"Alright," she whispered, kissed his forehead and walked into the bathroom.

Cathy stepped into the bathroom, about the only clean area of the room; clearly he wasn't in his room often enough to really need it. She took off the sweat pants and shirt.

The fox went to the mirror and looked herself over for the first time in a few days. Her right breast was a mess, that bastard of a wolf would have near ripped it off had he not been grabbing a patch of fur. What she was most worried about was her virginity. The force of the wolf's pounding had managed to cause damage to her rectum and she feared in the process he might have in advertency broken her hymen. She pushed her paw inside the warm folds of her pussy, and felt around. To her relief she was fine, and still a virgin.

She was never sure why she cared so much about that, it was likely because it was the one thing she knew that was hers and the only sexually oriented thing she was able to keep to herself. Most soldiers, male or female, human or fur, went to prostitutes and whorehouses on most of the planets they were stationed on. They did this mainly because relationships in the military would result in being removed from the Federation immediately.

She was glad that of all the soldiers to save her, it was the Reynolds. Because of his actions in the past it made their relationship possible; in that it was the best way they could bond, and the fact he had the leverage to keep they're relationship a secret and under the radar for the moment, but most importantly she was glad that it was him. Of all the men she had been around, few could fight so harshly, but then be so sweet when it counted.

Cathy realized that while she had been thinking of him she had been fumbling inside her pussy, which was very warm and sticky now. Very aroused, but somewhat embarrassed she pulled her finger out and stepped towards the shower. Just as she stepped inside, Reynolds burst into the room and grabbed her and tore her out of the shower, and she was extremely scared.

***

He had just realized that whoever was trying to kill Cathy was likely aware that she was staying in his room with him.

Steve then thought back to a certain corporal who learned that the fleet was going to conduct a Delta 2 Zero on a heavily populated planet. He was going to go to the media to try and advert this. As bad as it was, it was necessary, the enemy had guns in place that could fire at the starship within the entire system, and there was no way they could get them in a ground assault. To "silence" this trooper, they rigged his rooms shower system to overheat and spurt water out at a temperature of over 400 degrees, enough to melt skin that it came in contact with, and the steam to boil away what remained.

At that thought he jumped, with reflexes rivaling that of a fox, and burst into the bathroom.

To his great relief, she was alive, but in the shower, he grabbed her and ripped her out of the shower, quite hard and sat her on the sink. He stood there, out of breath and in a cold sweat for a moment, and then he saw the fear in her eyes and her furry black ears pinned back, something he never would have wanted her to have again, much less at his cause, but more importantly, he saw that familiar stare, a stare of distrust.

Cathy was very afraid. She had succumbed to her feeling and knew she loved him; hell, she was going to run away with him one way or another, but because of her life, what had happened in her past, and what had happened the previous day, she wasn't sure what to think.

Reynolds knew he may have been rash, but time didn't allow for subtleties. He knew the only way to make her understand, to make her trust him, was to show her what he suspected. He prayed he was right.

He carefully picked up the sweatpants, without loosing eye contact with her and tossed them into the shower. He took a broom, and carefully turned on the water, and low and behold, as the water splashed on the broom and the pants in burned through each like acid. He turned it off carefully and she suddenly looked relieved.

For a long time, 40 minutes they just sat, not talking, not loosing eye contact, just sitting.

Finally, she began to cry, the emotional trauma was building up and they both knew it.

Steve got up and held her, still not realizing she was naked.

For another half hour they stood there, she eventually stopped crying and just put her weight on him. He picked her up, brought her to his bed, and tucked her in. She looked at him and they kissed again.

After he was sure she was okay, he got up and went into bathroom.

He sat down on the toilet and began to sob. He was very relieved to know she was okay, but he hated himself for scaring her like that. The Captain never cried, he taught himself long ago that it was a sign of weakness. Even when his father died he didn't cry, but he couldn't hold it back now. The reason he was upset was that he never cared for anything or anyone like this before and he had almost lost it.

That was it, his mind was completely clear for that moment. He realized it, that all he cared about was Cathy, he loved the Federation, but the reality was, the wolves couldn't win this war, they just didn't have the capability, the Federation would be fine without him. What he really wanted was to spend his life with Cathy. If he had to choose, he would always choose her.

The Captain sat there smiling, just as Cathy walked in, smiling as well.

***

Cathy lied in the bed, thinking of exactly what happened. She had been very afraid of him for a moment, and for one, terrible moment, she hadn't trusted him. Steve showed her otherwise, that he would do anything to protect her, and she decided no matter what he did, she would trust his judgment above all else. She got out of the bed, and walked into the bathroom, smiling, and was meet by his eyes, and on his face he was a big smile that spoke volumes of unspoken words; she understood exactly what he had figured out and what his face said, it said "I choose you."

Chapter 4 On the Edge of a Knife

Captain Steve Reynolds's stateroom aboard the FN Endeavor 1605 Military Time

She walked over to him and sat on his lap. Still completely unaware she was naked she cuddled up to him and nuzzled his face. They both sat there very happily.

He started with, "I love you, and I'm going to care for you for the rest of my life."

Cathy looked up at him with loving eyes.

"And," Steve continued, "I realize I cant be with you in the Federation, but you mean more to mean than it does, so, during the mission, we are going to slip away, and go to one of the villages on the southern hemisphere of the planet, the part that was never occupied. I'll order an ATV to be dropped with us and we'll slip away, and go stay there until the Federation wins and leaves, then we'll go wherever we want."

She hugged him tightly and kissed his face.

It was then, for the first time in almost an hour and a half, that one of them realized she still wasn't clothed.

The Captain said with surprise, as his intentions were always pure, "Oh Jesus, aren't you cold?"

Cathy realized it as well, and quickly replied, "Ohhh, no I'm fine," and coddled deeper into his chest.

At first he thought she was lying, her nipples were quite perk and that tended to tell if a someone was cold or not, but he then realized he wasn't cold either, and bathrooms aboard space craft tended to not be very well heated. He realized it was a mixture of body heat and mutual love that was keeping them warm, so he mentally pursued the concept no further; but his body had other thoughts.

After a few moments he felt himself getting hard, he tried shifting himself but there was no getting past it, and he didn't want to frighten her, he wanted her to be 100% sure he loved her, not necessarily her body.

They both realized at the same time the other was aware that his rock hard member had gotten enough force to spread her luscious folds even through his pants.

Reynolds looked her in the eye and she began to giggle. He was a bit embarrassed and she was enjoying that alone, aside from the fact that the close personal contact and his spreading of her love folds, she was getting quite horny. He caressed her right breast, which in her mind she thought would hurt, but he was so gentle in petting the somewhat torn hair that it only felt good.

He shifted her off his penis, which, to her own surprised, had her somewhat disappointed; and he surprised her again by replacing the feeling with his hands.

While she had only seen them used in a violent way, to shoot his rifle, choke the doctor and such, aside from his petting of her cheek, she was very surprised at how gentle he was with her pussy. He caressed it and rubbed the now swollen and moist fur and skin around her twat, and it was the best thing she had ever felt in her life.

He had no idea why or what he was doing, in actuality and morally. He thought he was going off the deep end, molesting a freshly raped woman, but she turned her head and kissed him, and that made him feel more at ease with what he was doing, but he still didn't know what he was doing.

The fact was he had never been with a woman like this, meaning this far. One time he had been with a grateful widow whose children he had saved, and that had been a complete surprise to him, and he turned her down, feeling that it wasn't needed to show her gratitude.

Also, Steve had never pleasured a woman, but he knew he was doing something right; her breathing was faster, and she was arching her back anytime he would move his hand even near clit. Apparently she had a very sensitive pussy, a terrible fate for her in the past, but at least now someone cared about her pleasure.

Cathy had never gotten off by another's touch, and while she was eager, she wasn't sure what would happen. He began focusing his rubbing on her now erect clit, and she could feel it building, she knew it was an orgasm, although she hadn't ever had one before, and she wasn't sure what it might do to her.

His passed quickened, but he didn't move or press harder. The fox's pussy and the fur surrounding it were drenched now with her juices, which smelled like nothing he had ever smelled before. He couldn't think of it as something he smelled but something he felt, it aroused him heavily, but he knew it was her turn to feel good, not anyone else's. She was breathing hard and moaning now, and he could tell she was enjoying this allot.

As his hand moved right on her clit she grabbed the seat with both hands and arched her head back on his shoulder. Just then she stopped moaning and breathing, and a large, long stream of cum shot out her pink pussy lips and she began involuntarily grinding his cupped hand. She came for a full six seconds, the whole time with a fountain of juices squirting over the entire bathroom.

Cathy let out a high pitch moan and collapsed on his lap, out of breath, the happiest she had been in her entire life.

Another hour past before he broke the silence.

He wasn't sure what to say so he asked, "Are you hungry?"

In her mind and spirit she knew what he meant, but she couldn't help remembering that in her past that meant the beginning of something terrible, now it marked the beginning of something beautiful.

For the second time in one day he picked her up out of the bathroom, and carried her back into his room. The Captain wrapped her in his sheet, and sat her down on his chair.

Steve setup a MRE, beef stew, his favorite and handed it to her.

It smelled good and Cathy found herself surprisingly hungry and ate the entire meal in under five minutes, he ate a MRE himself and they both sat silently.

When they were done she sat on the bed, half covered, it was understood between the two of them that it really didn't matter. She turned on the television and watched her favorite show; it's the little things in life that make home, home.

She didn't realize it but he just watched her. He didn't study her body; he just looked at her eyes. He was glad that all the pain and hurt he had seen the last day was gone, completely, and she had a new sense of joy in her eyes. It was the first moment he really realized how young she was and he felt nervous for a second. He as ten years older than her, and he look twenty more than that. The fox on the other hand looked younger than 22, beautiful and vibrant, Steve worried that on top being against the law, their relationship might seem... perverted, on his part at least.

Cathy tilted her head and glanced at him, noticing a slight look of distress on his face.

"What's wrong?" she asked, worried he might be regretting something.

He bit his lower lip and replied, "Cathy... am I to old for you?"

The fox blinked and did a double take. Of all things to be worried about that was what was bothering him?

"No! Of course no not!" she said, actually amused, "Why would you think that? Your about 34 right?"

"Thirty-two," Steve corrected, and watched her furry face.

Cathy shrugged in reply, rolling over on the bed revealing one of her beautiful tits, "That's fine? There are plenty of pairs with one partner much older than that."

Still worried he continued, "But I look older right?"

"No!" she repeated, now having fun with this, "Steve..."

The fox moved her face to his and kissed him softly.

"Now, do you feel 'too old?'" she asked kindly.

The Captain smiled and kissed her back.

When they broke their kiss Cathy added, "I'm glad that's the most important thing on your mind."

He smiled and tilted his head in confusion.

"If the only worry you have about us is that you think you're too old than we're even better for each other than I thought. I would have thought you'd be more worried about the fact I'm a fox, or that we have to run away, or we only met yesterday."

Still smiling Steve nuzzled her face and whispered, "We could have met yesterday, a year ago, or just now; I'd love you just the same."

Cathy smiled happily and draped herself on the pillow before her and nodded to the TV, wanting to enjoy a quiet moment with him.

Uninterested in the show he eventually got up, and sat on the couch. In about ten minutes he was asleep.

She turned and saw him out cold on the couch. It had been a long day for him. The fox realized she was watching TV from his bed, and although he probably didn't care, she felt bad.

Picking up the remote Cathy turned off the TV, got up, and walked over to him.

He looked peaceful, and he had fallen asleep with a smile on his face. For a moment she considered waking him up and bringing him to his bed, but she figured he couldn't weigh much, so she tried to lift him.

Cathy had been wrong; the Captain must have weight 400 pounds, which surprised her. She new that although he was in peak physical condition, he wasn't very big as far as soldiers and humans in general were, maybe 6'1"; this was until she noticed the armband he wore; he hadn't removed his P9 armor. It's super dense materials could absorb any hit from projectile weapons but it weighed a ton.

When he realized she was fumbling with his armor he decided to stop the game and he opened his eyes. She smiled and he stood up, removed the armor and dropped it on the ground with a large "clunk."

"I thought it better that you sleep in your bed," Cathy told him in a cheerful voice.

"No I'm fine, and you're my guest Cathy," he smiled, "and you deserve the bed."

"Well there's no way I'm going to not let you have your own bed," she replied, tapping her foot.

In a playful voice he replied, "Well there's no way I'm going to let you sleep on the couch like a dog."

The fox laughed at his joke and walked back the bed, followed by him.

He took off his paints and shirt, and laid down next to her in nothing but his skivvies, which was nothing compared to her still naked body.

They lay down side by side but she soon turned and wrapped her leg across his, and cuddled next to him. She felt him harden and giggled. He turned a little red, clearly this was new to him, but she ventured anyway.

"You've never been with anyone before, have you?" she asked, nuzzling his face softly.

"No, not really," the Captain replied, almost embarrassed.

A bit confused she further pried, "How were you able to make me cum so hard?"

Chuckling Steve answered, "I don't know, I just did what felt right."

She cooed and said, "Well your quite good at it."

He wanted to stay up, he wanted to talk and become even closer to her, but from the warmth of her body and the softness of her belly, breast, and leg fur made him feel so comfortable that he kept starting to put him to sleep.

The fox knew that he was exhausted, and to ease his mind she said, "I'm tired, lets go to sleep."

Cathy noticed him sigh happily and he stroked her cheek again, which had such and effect on both of them that they were both asleep in less than two minutes.

Chapter 5 Their First Day

Captain Steve Reynolds's stateroom aboard the FN Endeavor 0801 Military Time

The next day went by quickly, Cathy stayed in his room under guard. During the previous day he had posted guards outside both their doors, to aid in their deception, but when he had them changed out, and the two fresh guards appeared, he sent one away to fetch his XO. He ordered both of these men should the other move, or try and enter the room without provocation of Cathy asking for help, to shoot the other.

Feeling that his love was safe he went to her room with a large laundry bag.

He emptied all her draws and took all her positions and clothes. They would need it in the coming months. He did see one thing she could do without. In the bottom of her sock draw in a closed envelope was a newspaper clipping of her father's arrest. He replaced the paper and put the envelope and put it in the draw, she didn't need to ever be reminded of that.

He exited and went to the supply depot and grabbed a case of 200 MRE's, more than enough to last them the time needed to reach the southern end of the planet.

At about 1200 military time he renter the room and told both sets of guards to return to their set duties and he spent the next 5 hours planning their escape.

First he needed to plan their routes down south. To cover his tracks he wasted his time looking at directions to 19 other locations with various routes to each. On the thirteenth time he looked at exactly we're he wanted to go, a small village just 200 miles north of the "equator" of the planet. He chose it because the best route took them past a mountain range that was awe-inspiring. Steve knew her home planet of Foc had no mountains, except at its poles, and he grew up on a planet that was over 75% covered with buildings, so these mountains would be a new sight to the both of them.

Back in the Captain's room, Cathy entertained herself by watching TV most of the day, but mainly contemplated what she would do with Reynolds before they left the Federation. The fox wanted him to take her virginity, she wanted him to be the one, but more importantly, she wanted to please him the way he had pleased her in the bathroom the night before because she loved him. She still wasn't sure however if she could do it, but she thought about the possibilities.

"That was amazing," she thought to herself.

Cathy knew she would love Steve forever before that and she reaffirmed herself again in knowing she wouldn't allow anyone to hurt him again.

That night they ate dinner quietly and went to bed. Again she laid down naked, but when Reynolds got to his skivvies, she motioned with her paw and he got in bed nude as well.

The fox noticed right away that he was quite well endowed, roughly 9 inches. She was excited at the sight and her moist lips, both her mouth and pussy began to droll, both of which surprised her; she realized exactly how much he had changed her.

Steve started off without command, rubbing her whole pussy with his hand, and as he did so cupped one of her breasts.

As she began to start moaning he moved his head under the covers and gave her whole pussy a lick, from end to end.

Cathy hadn't expected this move and she suspected he had been pondering what to do all day as well.

It was much better than his hand, by far. His tongue moved around every fold, nook-and-cranny of her pussy. She heard him lapping up her juices. He moved his mouth over to her sensitive clit and rolled his tongue over it rapidly. She was suddenly filled with ecstasy and pleasure.

Ever since last night's engagements he wanted to lick her juicy pussy, the smell had affected him so. Her pussy glistened once more, and its taste only wanted him to burry his tongue as deep as he could. As he lapped at her clit he noticed her arching her back and heard her silence once again, and knew what was coming.

A long stream of cum spurted out of her pussy into his mouth. She screamed with pleasure and when her hips stopped bucking he lifted his head, now covered with her juices and kissed her. Their tongues interlocking she pushed passed his and liked the inside of his mouth, which drove his cock wild.

Reynolds lay next to her, and they both reached down and grabbed each other sex pieces.

Cathy held and rubbed her paws over his cock. She realized her paws would be very sensational and decided to go as slow as possible, lest she have him cum so early in their game.

She felt him do something different this time; instead of rubbing if clit and lips, he pressed his finger insider which was a whole new level of pleasure.

This went on for about a minute until they both felt him press his finger against her hymen.

The young fox looked Steve right in the eye and saw his pure and utter shock. He pulled out his finger and stared at her.

"What?" she asked, trying to make it seem like it was no big deal.

"H-how are you still a virgin?!" he said with amazement.

She didn't want to bring the memory up in this moment of moments, but Cathy knew he needed to know how this happened to be.

"My father," she started, with a noticeable amount of regret as she pinned her ears back, "never would penetrate me there."

Steve felt sorry for her and was glad he left the picture in her room.

"And by the grace of God, she continued, "that wolf didn't, well, you know."

"Oh well, then it's not my place to do this," he reasoned as he pulled his hand back to his side.

She understood, and had thought about this possibility and even had a line prepared, but she thought up a better one on the spot.

Cathy smiled lovingly, looked at him and said, "Who else is going to?"

Steve stopped and smiled. They both knew it was fate, every event had transpired just for this one moment.

He rolled her on her back and mounted himself on top of her. The fox reached down and placed his cock on her pussy lips; as she did so he stroked the fur on her cheek again and stroked her back as well. She left it up to him when to push it in and returned her paws and wrapped them around his neck.

Still not very confident that this was a good idea, the Captain asked one more time, to allow her to have the final decision for a change, "Are you sure?"

She pushed her head up and kissed him the same way as before, pushing her tongue into his mouth, but this time she could feel his cock twinge and grow a little, she laughed mentally at finding a secret turn-on for her soon-to-be lover.

When she placed her head on his pillow he began pushing the head of his penis into her luscious pussy lips. Lowered his head and locked lips. Although he had never had sex with anyone, and certainly not a virgin, he new how things work, and that the eventual pain would be easier to deal with if it was a full embrace.

She felt him press and stop on her hymen and she felt a small pain inside her, but she knew she couldn't show it. He would never do anything to hurt her and she could tell he was hesitant to go through with this. Being that he was kissing her, she closed her eyes and once again pushed her long tongue inside his mouth and began licking; surprising him and causing him to thrust.

Had she not tucked her snout so close to his mouth, her yelp of pain would have been auditable, but he felt the vibrations of her voices and noticed tearing of her shut eyes.

He began moving in and out; very, very slowly. He noticed that she was loosing up and that she was beginning to reopen her eyes.

Soon he had worked his way up to a good pace, enough so that she broke their kiss and began moaning very, very pleasurably.

Cathy had thought each thing he had done to her had been the greatest feeling in her life, first his rubbing, then his tongue, then his finger; his hard cock dwarfed all of these. Having dreamt in the past of what having a cock in her pussy would feel like, she never imagined that it would have felt this good, she was very glad that she had waited for him. Cathy never wanted him to leave her slick pussy again.

She felt another orgasmic wave sweeping over her and she began rocking her hips back and forth as well, which only sped up the process. Soon the fox had to clench down, and yanked his head down to her neck, nearly choking him in the process, as her pussy walls clamped down and she felt her juices once again rocket out, but this time they slammed into his cock, and surged around it and leaked in small streams down the fur of her leg which further excited her.

Reynolds picked his head up and kissed her as she finished cumming. He stopped thrusting as she was rocking her hips quite hard and he didn't want to shove his whole self down into her, which may cause unneeded pain.

But she knew him a lot better than he thought, because once she had finished, she reached down with her paws, and pressed on his ass until all 9 inches of his hard member were buried in her drenched sheath.

This feeling alone nearly brought him to orgasm as moved it out to the tip and right back in to the balls. As he did so, he realized as he passed a particular spot he could feel every muscle in her pussy contract.

"Damn" he thought, "first time and I've found her G-Spot.

He now had a plan of his own for a "big finale."

"Wait for a moment..." she whispered, nuzzling his face, "Lay with me..."

Steve nodded and let his body fall softly and rested on top of her, his cock buried inside her velvety sheath.

Not entirely sure why she requested this, Cathy was very, very happy she did. It was so great feeling filled by his cock. It was so warm and the feeling of his soft skin against her fur was just perfect.

"I like this," he whispered right into her ear, just quiet enough that it didn't even twitch.

Smiling, Cathy replied, "So do I," and added, "I love you Steve Reynolds."

"I love you Catharine Grey," he answered in turn, moving his face to her muzzle, kissing her deeply.

As he kissed her, the fox's mind thought of one thing, "Why couldn't I have met him sooner?"

Had she said it to Steve, he would have been quite taken. Cathy wished so much that she could spend the rest of her life with him and regretted that she had lost time in every moment before she met him.

Almost a half hour passed and they still remained horny and joined, but both enjoying just laying like this.

Cathy felt her pussy lips open even wider, the muscles becoming more used to his cock, and she involuntarily rocked her hips against his. Steve felt her and kissed her nose.

"You want to start?" he whispered, being happy, truthfully, with either action.

Being submissive to her lover the fox nodded softly and let herself go to him.

Steve resumed his pulsing, and as he did so he rotated his hips, which would cause her to moan loudly every time he completed a circle, but he made sure not to touch her G-Spot, to not let her know she even had one.

He was glad they had ended up in this position; he wished every inch of his body was rubbing against her soft, fluffy fur.

Between his rotations and his pulsing, not fast, but very pleasing, it was almost too much for Cathy. She wanted to scream out how much she loved him; tell the whole universe, but she knew all that mattered was that they were never going to leave each other.

It was then she realized this had been going on for quite some time, although new to the "sport" he was quite good, good enough she hadn't been able to think of anything else. She wondered if he was holding back for her, or for himself.

Being that she felt there was never going to be a more honest moment in either of their lives she said to him coolly, "I want you to cum in me, I don't care what happens, I would love to have your pups, and if nothing happens then that just means we can fuck just that more often."

In truth he had been waiting for her to say that the whole time, and he decided that was the moment, nothing else mattered now; duty, honor, reputation, nothing could equal what he felt at that moment.

He slowed down to a crawl and pressed his tip against her special spot. It had the desired effect and she arched her back so hard it actually pushed the two of them up.

Cathy could feel the pressure rising and realized he had waited for this; they were going to cum together, and very, very hard at that. She realized this pressure was greater than before, it was building up longer and harder than she thought possible. Knowing that he was cuming in less than a second so she wrapped her hind legs around his body, to give him more room to fill her with.

They both moaned in a level of ecstasy that few could ever hope to reach in their lives. Had the rooms not been soundproof the entire ship would have heard them. His cock erupted with a force of cum that she felt it as far up as her navel, and she could feel her cum filling in behind it, but she loved the way his cum felt inside her.

Between their two juices her pussy was filled up, and cum spurted out the sides of his cock with considerable force.

The pleasure was so fierce that between his squeezing on her back with his arms and her locking of hind legs that the two both lost a breath for a moment. It didn't matter, they both felt that they could die in that moment and feel forever happy. As her pussy muscle bit down hard on his cock they both loosed their grips on each other and she held his hand and he held her paw. There lips played against each other, as they were still both cumming.

The fox pinned her ears back, this time not in fear or regret, but because every muscle in her body was contracting. For a full 20 seconds they both excreted there love juices in a swirled of essence inside her womb.

During the whole time the lower part of the bed and both of their legs were completely soaked with their mixture of mutual cum.

Finally, they both stopped cumming, and the dripping cum slowed to a tickle down their legs.

From that point they locked lips and eyes for a moment and felt that their bodies had formed a glorious circle.

They broke the kiss, he placed his head on the side of hers, this time not petting her cheek with his hand but his whole face, and she wrapped her paws around his back once more.

"Cathy, I am going to protect you forever, no matter what happens, no matter what it takes, I don't care, I'm going to make sure we can be happy forever," he whispered into the fur on the side of her muzzle then added quietly, "because I love you."

The fox smiled and whispered back, "I know, and I'm going to do the same for you," and added in turn, "and I love you too."

Steve coddled deeper into her fur and felt himself starting to fall asleep. She was so soft, so warm and so happy that it was the best bed he ever slept in. At this point Cathy was already slipping into sleep and she pulled his head closer to hers, glad that she had finally found a partner in life.

Chapter 6 One Day To Go

Captain Steve Reynolds's stateroom aboard the FN Endeavor 1105 hours military time

They awoke at the same time in the same position they had fallen to sleep in, and to both of their surprise, she was still wet and he still hard.

Cathy giggled at the sight and licked his lips playfully.

They both smiled and he began to pull out, but there was quite a bit of suction, enough so that she had to press on his chest and push him out to remove him.

To aid in the surprise of how comfortable they had been sleeping, a long, think stream of cum mixture, and a little blood, drained out of her still pink pussy when his cock flopped out.

Although he knew one day they would want kids, pups in this case, but he didn't want to have her pregnant yet, he couldn't risk it. He had no idea how long it would take before he was sure she was safe, and he wouldn't want to risk anyone else he was sure to care about moving around.

He reached into his medical kit and pulled out a hormone detector. Although not its primary purpose, he had been shown how to detect, even only hours latter, the slight release of hormones that signaled a pregnancy. He held it up to her pussy, it tensing at its mere touch. Steve chuckled at this and smiled at her, but noticed she seemed concerned.

"What are you doing?" Cathy asked.

"Its not smart to have you pregnant before we are set up in a safe location," he replied, almost with a twinge of regret.

The fox smiled at this sign of care and let him continue.

To his surprise, there was no sign of even a possible child, none at all. He even double-checked, nothing.

"Nope, not this time," he said.

"One day," she said, "one day."

Cathy smiled and gave him a quick kiss, and got up and walked to the bathroom, but checked the motion.

"Ohh, uh, how are we going to clean ourselves up?" she asked.

The Captain realized himself that they both would need to be cleaned at least once before they left.

"We'll have to wait till tomorrow," he started, "I would try and put this off as long as possible."

Steve smiled, and in an oddly playful fashion she noticed, he said, "I kind of like the way your fur smells anyway," and he grinned.

She thought about this for a moment and started laughing and replied, "I wish I could say the same thing!"

He ran over, picked her up, span her around and kissed her deeply, both of them thoroughly enjoying it.

"Well," he started once again, "we still have today and tomorrow before we go, and except for the ATV's, everything has been arranged, anything you want to try?"

He wished he had worded it better, he didn't mean sexually, he meant just something between the two of them. He was relieved that she understood what she meant when she said, "Ya, actually there is, do you think I can try firing that rifle?"

Reynolds turned and looked at the submachine gun on the wall, and thought for a moment. He didn't even want her walking around the residence levels, much less on a firing range. But, he then realized, he would be able to protect her much better having a loaded rifle in his hands, and a room full of observers who undoubtedly knew him; but most importantly, it's a move no one would expect.

"That's not a bad idea, it will be safer in the range than in the halls or anywhere they can box us in. Get dressed and we'll go in an hour," the Captain replied, and gave her quick kiss.

The fox's ears went up and she dug into her bag of clothes and noticed a rather skimpy PT uniform she had. The shorts had been issued about a size and a half to small, and it looked it. Cathy figured it would be a nice trick for him so she changed into them as he sat down at his computer and set up the ATV drop. Although she knew it was dangerous, she wanted to show him off too everyone she could find, not because she wanted to look special, but because she wanted to tell everyone of her love.

They both worked in silence, and after he was done he grabbed the rifle and they walked out the door, and down toward the firing range.

A Dark corridor in the bowels of the FN Endeavor 1248 Military Time

An old officer, a major, walked up to another shadowy, officer, his face obscured by an overhead pipe. The major was a rabbit, although one of his ears was ripped and torn, the other officer was tall, slim, and ominous in the situation.

"Is the stealth ship prepared?" the shadowy officer asked.

"Yes sir, but are you sure they're going to try and run? I mean he's a hero of the Federation, and she's just some Sergeant," the major asked, apparently very surprised by the recent events.

"Yes, I heard it on the recording," the officer said, "among other things," he chuckled.

The Major knew what he was referencing too; the two of them had done this before, but never with such a high profile soldier.

"We must be careful though, my 'friend' has been watching, and waiting for any excuse to call me out," the officer warned.

"I don't think we will have to worry about him, our plan will go just as planed during the operation," the major said with confidence.

"I hope so, he deserves this."

They both exited, to continue with their respected duties for the next day and a half, so that they will be ready for the operation, both of them.

Firing range aboard FN Endeavor, 1500 hours

Reynolds had wanted to spend as little time in the endless number of corridors as possible, but when they passed the empty cafeteria, they both knew they needed a better meal. They both sat down, across form each other, and he got breakfast.

Steve had picked up some scrambled eggs, ham and such for each of them to eat, some water for himself and milk for Cathy. They ate quietly and happily. It was nice to share a meal that didn't come out of those "brown paper bags."

It didn't take long for the Captain to notice that her selected "outfit" was rather... revealing. To say the least the top alone did her figure great justice. The room was quite cold and her perk, pointy nipples attested to that; when she stood up to get another egg he noticed that he could see the fine outline of both of her beautiful ass cheeks.

She caught his stare and he was embarrassed for a moment; he wasn't sure why, but perhaps it was the fact that they were back out in the world, and his ingrained professional, aspects was still hanging on within him. She was glad he had stared and she grinned once again, showing every tooth in her short snout. Cathy liked having someone to tease.

When they had finished it would have seemed they had both forgot themselves, because they strode down the halls, her arm in his. By pure chance they had not run into anyone for an hour before they ended up at the firing range. While the coast was clear he pulled her aside.

"We have to act as if nothing is going on, we still have all day tomorrow, and in that time one small slipup could have us at a court martial on operation day, not on the ground. If anyone asks," he continued, "you had come into my room, to thank me, when you asked to see the rifle in action."

The fox smiled and shook her head, "you forget, I served years as a very professional soldier, I can be just as dignified as you can."

She smoothed out her PT uniform, stood at attention, and snapped a crisp salute. As he was about to return the gesture she moved in quickly and kissed him deeply, to his surprise.

He gave a quirk smile and they walked in.

The firing range was rather empty, but it was still extremely load. The sound of automatic fire reverberated off the hard metal walls.

The Captain walked over to the ammunition desk and grabbed a box of .45 ACP rounds. It seemed with all the advancement in bullet tracking, nothing still could beat the stopping power of the ancient round. He loaded several magazines, for a total of 300 rounds, 30 rounds appease.

He walked back over to her just as she was loading and aiming a M88 rifle. He didn't interrupt and wanted to watch. The Captain noticed she turned the bullet tracking and programming off, something not very common of a Federation soldier. Although it had been roughly a thousand years since a soldier was required to use the iron sights on a rifle, thanks to the trackable and programmable rounds, the iron sights had never been phased out, but few troopers would be able to even hit a target without the bullet programming, much less control the gun on automatic.

Without taking a breath she squeezed off a controlled burst of 6 rounds; all of which impacted the head region of the wolf-silhouette target. She turned and looked him in the eye, both of which surprised him yet again, and she knew it. He had forgotten for a moment that being a fox she could hear a pin drop in a sandstorm, he could never "sneak" up on her by himself, he would need the assistance of his P9 armor to even attempt it.

"I was able to kill quite a few wolves on my own before you came along," she joked.

"No I know, I was just surprised you used the iron sights," Steve replied, pointing to her rifle.

"Ohh, I think it's a bit more impressive," Cathy nodded to the trooper at the end of the line, using the bullet tracking to shoot the targets to his back.

"Well then your going to love this," he said as he handed her the ancient rifle.

Reynolds was glad his grandfather had made custom replacement parts for the gun, and made permanent preservations to it. The Captain could leave it in water for years and it would never rust.

The fox hefted the rifle, and looked down the barrel, lined up a shot, and was confused when she pulled the trigger and nothing happened. She looked for the magazine, and couldn't figure out where it was.

He realized what was going on, and handed her a full clip, smiling that he finally managed to pull a fast one on her. She gave him a friendly shove in the shoulder and loaded the weapon, but to no avail, it still didn't fire.

"Alright," she smiled, "what are you going to pull out now?"

"This time it wasn't a joke, way back in the early days of firearms, you had to cock the weapon to fire it. Here, let me show you the whole operation," the Captain said as he took the SMG from her.

He shouldered the weapon and had a deep sense of familiarity; he could operate it with his eyes closed, having actually done so. He yanked the cocking lever, with a loud click and a round was chambered. His finger tensed on the trigger, and pulled it.

Although he fired it every weekend as a child, he had forgotten exactly how loud it was, and he hadn't counted on the fact that, as far as firing ranges went, this was a bad one. The walls would echo the sound quite deafeningly.

The sound was tremendous, but Reynolds didn't hesitate. He had always been an excellent shot, even on automatic, and even without the aid of added strength of his P9 armor. He let out a long burst, 15 rounds, every one hit the board, almost obliterating the silhouette target.

Steve turned and saw that the other three shooters in the room, the range officer, and Cathy were staring wide-eyed at him and the strange weapon. He did admit, it was very odd, a type of weapon, few even knew existed. And, to boot, few were used to hearing such a sound. Most weapons were now equipped with units that would "catch and diffuse" the sound of the bullet leaving the gun, making all modern weapons quite silent, obviously the Thompson did not have such equipment.

The rest of the soldiers in the room returned to their tasks, but Cathy still stared at the weapon.

"I forgot how loud it was," he laughed.

Shaking her head Cathy commented, "I've never heard such a thing, even the wolf's rifles are quiet compared to that."

He handed her the weapon and went through its operation, he was surprised at how quickly she came to working the weapon, and when he took a step back, he realized why he liked her; she was just like him, a soldier at heart.

As Captain Reynolds was looking at his Sergeant sight the weapon, a fox Colonel walked in, unescorted, unarmed, and he took up position behind them. He was smart, he walked carefully because he knew that the young Sergeant would hear him if he wasn't careful.

The Captain felt the Colonel's eyes, and turned, and was horrified with what he saw, Colonel Hushing grinning at him and his lover. She was busy with her task, so Reynolds, carefully, strode over to the Colonel.

"Fancy seeing you two here, hmm Captain?" he said, rather cheerful considering the events of their last conversation.

"The Sergeant wanted to see how my Thompson worked," he replied.

Huffing, the Colonel replied, "I didn't ask what you were doing."

"Damn," the Captain thought. He took a moment to put himself in combat "mode."

Trying to cover his fumble, Steve added, "I thought you wanted to know why we were here."

"Not particularly, but how did she come to see your weapon?" Hushing asked coolly.

Equally coolly he replied, "She came to my room to thank me for saving her, and, as always, it turns into a conversation piece."

"All in good fun eh?" the sly colonel replied.

This was starting to bother Reynolds. The previous times he had talked to the Colonel he had been direct, and brutal; now he was acting, badly at that, but the Captain couldn't figure out what he knew and didn't know.

As they were engrossed in this mind battle, she finally got around to firing, but there was something she hadn't counted on, the weapons considerable recoil. All modern weapons had recoil reducers that would stop the firer from feeling anything at all, and hence all firers never needed to steady themselves and brace for recoil.

The force of the weapon firing pushed her backwards, in the process firing in the air, which further pushed her down, and she landed flat on her rear, which caused a severe pain in her healing, yet raw, rectum.

Cathy yelped as she came to rest on the ground, in terrible pain.

Almost as soon as she had stumbled back the Captain was in motion, and he rolled her on her side, knowing exactly what was causing her such pain. In reality she wasn't so much upset as startled, and she grabbed onto his hand with her paw.

"I wasn't expecting that," she said through a winch of pain.

"Its alright," Steve said, and brought her close to his chest.

Unbeknownst to them, the Colonel, having seen this, walked up right behind Reynolds and watched what was taking place, so did everyone in the room.

"Well, well, well, what's all this?" the Colonel said, mocking the two.

Both of there eyes turned to meet his, fear in both.

"If I didn't know better," the fox started to quote himself, "I'd think you cared more for this soldier than you should?"

A smile crossed his snout, not one of pleasure, not one of happiness, but one with blood dripping from every tooth.

For the second time in less than a week, the Captain felt very frightened, for the both himself, but mainly Cathy. In one motion he slipped on the strap of the Thompson, and scooped her light body up and walked, quickly, but carefully, out of the room and back to his, they were going to spend the last day in his room, it was to dangerous anywhere else.

Captain Steve Reynolds's stateroom aboard the FN Endeavor 1800 Hours Military Time

He burst through the doors of his room; stopping to tell the two guards to not allow anyone, not matter what their rank, in.

Cathy was set down on the Captain's bed and Steve sat down on his desk chair across from her.

"Are you all right?" he asked, taking a deep breath.

"Yes... no, Hushing knows, doesn't he?" she asked, a sense of fear in her voice.

Sighing Steve replied, "He must, damn, and that's not good, he already wanted to kill you, but now he may try it just to get at me."

Although what he was saying was freighting, Cathy felt no fear. She knew that no matter what, to his dying breath, he would protect her, and if it came to that, she wouldn't want to be alive anyway.

The fox moved in and kissed her rescuer, quite lovingly, and he leaned her back. Reynolds moved his head back and she saw all the fear leave his eyes.

"I think we've had enough excitement for the day," he commented.

She shrugged with a sly look in her eye, and he got up and replaced the Thompson on the wall.

"I think I'm going to let you use the Thompson in a bad situation," she joked, to further lighten the mood.

He smiled, "what happened back there?"

They were back to normal.

Rubbing her soar rear end she replied, "I wasn't expecting any back blow."

"Oh ya, another modern convince, there's no recoil compensators on the weapon, you have to steady yourself first," Reynolds answered, a bit angry with himself that he forgot to mention that.

There was something he wanted to plan, but he needed to leave for a moment.

"I'm going to talk to my neighbor for a moment, you need anything," he handed her a personal com-card, "you call me right away."

He patted he cheek, instantly causing her to sink into his hand. Cathy watched him step out and for the first time in a day, she was alone. She didn't like it, his presence made her feel complete.

The fox figured since she was alone, not that it mattered in her heart, she could check her rear. As fun as it was teasing the Captain, her plan had backfired. The tight crotch and ass portion of the shorts had dug into her rectum, causing a minor tear in the fresh scar tissue. She wiped the fur on her rear with water, to clean away the small trace of blood.

Cathy felt the fur on her cheek. She wondered why that spot caused such a reaction out of her, it was almost as comforting as when he had filled her pussy with himself. She felt herself reaching down to her already wet pussy lips, and she began rubbing, something she had never really done.

It wasn't the same, the fox had grown to accustomed to the Captain's touch, she couldn't do what he did so she pulled her hand away and changed out of her clothes.

Just as she had just removed all her clothes and was about to put on a tee shirt, Reynolds walked in.

"We really need to stop meeting like this," she said jokingly, gesturing to her naked body, in fact she was completely comfortable around him.

Steve smiled and held her body next to his and tilted her head with his hands, kissing her as deeply as their first true embracement.

She wanted him now so she retested her trick; she pushed her tongue in and licked the inside of his mouth, and at the same time put her paw down his pants and stroked his quickly hardening cock.

He wasn't stupid, Steve knew that her tongue action in his mouth drove him wild, and he had sunk into pleasure the moment and with one hand he reached down and rubbed her pussy, pressing her swollen lips between his fingers. With his other hand he pet her cheek, something he had realized she loved and brought her much comfort.

After a few minutes of making out he realized he didn't want to start the night in this order, it didn't fit in with his plan for their last two days in the Federation.

He broke the kiss and looked her lovingly in the eye.

"Why'd you stop?" Cathy asked, with a slight moan in her voice.

"I have other ideas for now, I know you must be hungry, we've had less in the past two days than some have in one meal," he commented brought both his hands to her furry sides.

Steve was right, she had been hungry, but at the moment it didn't matter, she just wanted to coddle his body. But, since it appeared he had some ideas in store for her, the fox decided to go along, she wanted to let him be in control for the night.

He walked over to a sack he had brought in during the day, and pulled out two fairly large plastic containers.

"Here, open it," he said as he handed her the box.

As far as military foodstuffs, this put the MRE's to shame, not a terribly hard feat, but this was over the top considering what they each had been living off of for the past few days, not counting this morning's breakfast.

Cathy stopped for a moment; she had almost forgotten that she had already been in the field for about two days before they had run into each other.

Inside the box there was a small pile of mashed potatoes, a beer, muffin, and a large sirloin steak, one of her favorite foods. Her acute nose could tell his was the same.

"I love sirloin!" Cathy almost yelled as she hugged him, "But what on earth are these?"

"They're usually reserved to tank crews, deep in enemy territory, so that they have a decent meal. My XO commandeered them us," Reynolds answered, proud of himself that he made her so happy.

"He's helped us a lot," she commented, being serious for a moment, "have you told him?"

"No, but I think anyone that sees us together realizes pretty fast what's going on. From what I understand most personal dislike the relationship ban, particularly some of the career officers. I don't think anyone ever expect me to be the first in awhile to break it though," he chuckled.

Cathy was right, his XO had been helping them a lot; he made a mental note for the coming days. Steve turned and brought up his XO's file and she got up and put on a robe.

Finished with what he needed to do he turned back to her.

"Well shall we?" he said.

Steve looked up and she already had a hunk of steak in her mouth. He made a note of that too, he'd make sure he could find fine meats on important occasions.

They ate their meals in silence. They were quite good, especially against normal army MRE-like foodstuffs. He noticed that she had a hard time drinking the beer from the bottle, and he grabbed a cup and handed it to her, she looked a bit embarrassed, causing him to smile.

When they were done she laid down on the bed and turned on the TV, and he walked over to his computer. Reynolds made sure to dump all of his information from his computer into his personal data pad. Family history, pictures, service records; all may one day come in handy one day should they try and renter a Federation planet, even posing as refugees. He also dumped all of the routes to the village he had selected, but made sure that the route that took them past the mountains was in the first position. He thought of how nice it would be to make camp with them in the background.

The Captain realized he still had 8 Thompson magazines in his ammunition belt.

"These will come in handy," he thought to himself.

He had realized before that they would have to dump their rifles, the tracking chips in them would act as a signal to their whereabouts, but before their event with the Colonel he hadn't figured they'd need a weapon anyway.

Reynolds still thought like a soldier, as did his fox. Although they loved each other more than anything else, they wouldn't be blinded in combat, they both knew that if needed they could fight as strongly as possible, but not without risking the other.

It was at that moment he realized, she was going to need some kind of armor, and luckily he had a spare Predator 9 in his closet.

The Captain got up and got the advance armor out of the closet. It was stored in a gauntlet styled case that the user wore. Upon activation it would encase the individual in hundreds of seemingly separate pieces of plate armor, but they formed a shell that could survive almost anything that a soldier would likely come up against. When he walked over to her Steve pat from her head to the base of her tail, something he could tell she liked as her tail stood up on end.

Cathy looked over her shoulder and saw the gauntlet in his hand.

"Your armor?" she asked, tilting her head inquisitively, her tail make similar curious circles.

"No," he answered, "yours; take off the robe and stand at a parade rest."

He had never given her commands like this, it sounded more like an officer commanding his troops than one lover addressing another.

The fox did as she was told, seeing that it was still engrained in her to listen to superior officers, even one she had fallen in love with. He placed it on her furry wrist, and he turned on its sensors.

Cathy felt her arm began to tingle, and then it moved along to her body, across he chest, down to her legs, but not to her tail. Then it began to jut out the indistinguishable silver plates.

For a moment she was a bit frightened but Steve placed his hand on her cheek, which calmed her; he knew that it was unnerving the first time anyone dawned the armor.

The pieces began separating and covering every inch of her body, but stayed uniform to her form. She had never actually seen the process, and it was somewhat freighting, but it was an... interesting experience nonetheless in her mind.

It stopped and formed rings around her paws, neck, and tail.

"Alright," he whispered, looking her encased body over, "do some stretching, you have to let the armor know how far it needs to allow for movement."

The Captain stared at the curves of her body. The armor, which pressed her fur down, allowed her beautiful figure to become more pronounced. She had a very thin stomach, very much like an hour glass, her rump was very sexy in the tight, form fitting armor and the fact that it allowed her tail to be free just made him wonder why all men didn't fall for foxes. Just the mere sight of the furry mane that ran down her back from the top of her head was starting to make him horny. But he didn't want her to catch on; an increase in blood pressure would cause the suit to go haywire.

"Now," he said, once she appeared done with her stretching, "you press this button to deactivate the armor, this one to form the helmet, and this one to cover your paws. I'm not sure about how it will effect the tail, so don't turn on that feature unless its really necessary, like if we have to eject into a vacuum.

She pressed the button for the helmet and he reached out and held her still. It felt strange as the metal plates moved quickly up her back and formed around her face; but when it came to her snout it didn't acknowledge she had a longer nose and mouth than a human, and it tried to go straight down, and a plate tried to dig into her nose and she yelled in pain.

He saw right away and hit the cancel button and the armor retracted back to her neck.

"Ow," she said, rather nonchalant, "I guess these weren't designed for foxes."

he lowered her head, feeling a bit embarrassed again.

"I've been meaning to ask," Cathy went on, "does it feel at all, you know, strange to you to have sex with a fox? I mean do you ever feel like you wished I was a human instead?"

Steve smiled and lifted her head up with a finger, "To be honest, I was just thinking of how glad that you were a fox, your by far more beautiful than any woman I've seen, in any species."

The fox smiled, "Your sure?"

"Of course," in a very sure voice he followed up with, "I feel in love with you; your love and trust for me is what matters, not what species you belong to."

She hugged him, which hurt him a lot since the armor increased the users strength a bit, but he let her; he knew she needed it.

"I was worried I was the only one who thought that," she grinned.

He kissed her and pressed the "remove" button, and the armor sheathed itself back into the gauntlet.

It was late and they were both tired, so she laid down in bed, the third time she had done so in the nude, she wondered if he was doing this on purpose, but realized it was fate, because each time she went to bed this way, she awoke the next day happier to have known him.

Almost hearing her thoughts, he striped down and crawled in bed along side her. The room lowered the lights and they lay there for some time.

Eventually he turned her on her side and spooned her from behind, which they both enjoyed immensely. Cathy's fur was very warm, as was Steve's skin, and he wrapped his arms up and under hers.

"I love you my little fox..." he whispered quietly into her ear.

It twitched a little from his hot breath and her tail made sensual circles between their legs.

"So you like me being a fox?" she whispered back, playfully.

He pat her fur even softer and replied, "I love that you're a fox. Now the real question is do you like that I'm a human?"

Cathy stopped and thought for a second, she hadn't thought about him like that. It was a similar feeling that Steve had, neither saw the other as part of a species, just their lover.

"As long as you stay this nice and loving I don't care what you are..." she whispered, "And I do like that you're a human, your species is so different from everyone else."

Smiling, he reached around her thigh and began fingering her cunt. She was brought right away out of her thoughts to a level of pleasure.

As he was doing this she turned her head and air kissed him, their tongues swirling around each other in mid air. This excited them both; her more so than him even, as she let out a deep moan.

As Reynolds began fingering her faster than before and her fur rubbed against his whole body. Her tail was twisting between his legs, and would touch his cock every now and again causing his whole body to stiffen.

He ventured a reach and stuck in two more fingers, and she gave out a high-pitched moan, arching her back once again against his chest. She began vigorously grinding his hand and her legs started to shake.

She quieted her moaning and a long stream of cum shot out her cunt.

The smell of her juices further aroused Reynolds and he rolled her on top of him and lined up his dick with her pussy.

She cooed as his penis pushed into her. Surprisingly enough to him, her pussy felt fresh and as tight as it had the previous night.

He set his hands on her hips and started to push her up and down, and at the same time thrusting his hips in and out as well.

The fox bounced up and down on his cock, arching her back and moaning each time he trusted his full length into her cunt.

With one paw she steadied herself, and with the other she rubbed her soft furry breasts; she hadn't thought to do it, she just instinctively began doing so as they bounced up and down on her chest at the same speed as his lifting of her hips.

His cock spread her pussy lips farther than it had the night before, due to their chosen position, but her pussy muscles squeezed and pressed on his cock, trying, as it seemed to her, release the pressure of his cum and fill her up in extreme pleasure.

Their sweat was putting a smell in the air that just added to the delight. Her moaning increased, each longer and filled with more pleasure.

Steve watched as she rubbed he beautiful tits and he moved his head up to suck one.

As he took one in his lips she moaned deeply, and he noticed her eyes roll back in pure ecstasy.

This new manipulation was all she could take, and she began to notice the still unfamiliar pressure build up deep in her dripping cunt.

"I'm-I'm cumming! Cumming! Cumming!" she repeated, and as she did he increased his rate.

She felt his cock begin to throb and grow and she knew he was about to cum. Feeling his release coming, Steve let go of her hips and held onto her slim, furry stomach. Cathy didn't want to loose the rate of his thrusts so she humped him, moving herself up and down on her legs, bringing them both to climax.

She leaned back, so far his cock almost slipped out of her, but as she fell on her back he moved with her and laid on top, but he still only allowed the head of his throbbing dick to remain in her pussy, allowing him to fill her up entirely.

His cream filled her up, and combined with her own cum she felt as though her pulsating cunt would explode, and she freighted herself with how much she enjoyed it.

"Oh God! Oh Fuck! Steve-ev-ve-ev!" she yelled out over her cum.

Her pussy convulsed and sucked on his cock, drawing every ounce of cum from him.

Steve moaned as well, and let his weight go onto her body, feeling her hot, very hot fur cradle his body.

It was an eternity before the brunt of their orgasms died down and it left them both drowsy and somewhat lifeless, but immensely happy.

Once again in two days he collapsed on top of her and they fell asleep, both knowing that no one else in the universe was as happy as they were.

Chapter 6 Anxiety

Captain Steve Reynolds's stateroom aboard the FN Endeavor 614 hours military time

The two lovers awoke together again, but this time at the normal military time. They both knew that they needed to get back into a more "befitting" routine of two soldiers of the Federation. Although they knew that hiding their love would be impossible, they knew that they could at least draw less attention if they both appeared "professional" for the next day and a half.

Reynolds had worked out with his neighbor that they would both be aloud to use his shower after lights out, after he checked the water of course. He had also made some "secret" arrangements for the night, but that would have to wait for now.

"We'll have to stay in for most of the day, with Hushing lurking about he may take a shot at us, and I don't think it's worth the risk," Steve told his fox, his urge to protect her was in the forefront of his mind.

It was then that he remembered the P9 armor, and before she put her clothes back on he softly grabbed her wrist and slipped the gauntlet on.

"You should spend at least half the day stretching that armor," he gestured to her wrist, "with all the fighting going on tomorrow, it's going to be invaluable, and it wouldn't be safe to have it stiffing it up."

Cathy nodded her head in agreement and activated the armor, its plates covered her body again, but it didn't seem to over confine her fur as it had before, but she could tell it still gave here body... noticeable definition.

"Oh, one more thing," he grabbed her new combat BDU's, "you should also practice with these on, the armor will acknowledge and adhere to the clothing and gear, even your weapons, but its going to feel strange at first, like having a sweater on top of a sweater."

"All right sir," she said, neither of them catching on to this, a good thing; they would need to act this way if they were to survive the coming hours.

She did stretching and normal exercise from 600 to 1200 hours, and was surprised that it barely affected her. Although she was in good shape, she, as most foxes, did not have very good stamina.

"The armor's increase in strength must also reduce the affects of assertion," she thought.

When Cathy was done she walked up behind Reynolds and wrapped her arms around his neck, she was dying to have some contact with him.

He smiled and turned to meet her eyes.

"What's up?" he asked in an upbeat tone.

"Nothing, I'm about as flexible as I can get, want to see?" she said in a sensual voice.

He laughed and shook his head, "Maybe latter, I remembered one last thing I need to get."

"What's that?" she replied.

"Some more ammo for my Thompson," he explained, "I remembered yesterday that we cant take Federation weapons with us, I don't know how to deactivate the tracking chip without permanently destroying the rifle, so we'll need the Thompson, I just wish we had two."

He was right; she hadn't remembered the tracking chip. It was rarely used, it was mainly there to coordinate Para drops with soldiers already on the ground or for S&R, both of which they didn't want nor need.

"Alright, but be careful," the fox whispered, nuzzling his face, "We're so close."

He stood up, and saluted her; she returned it and he leaned in and kissed her. They embraced for about a minute and he walked out.

Quarter Master's office Aboard FN Endeavor 1229 Military Time

The room was busy; soldier running around, using this time to get the grade A gear.

The Captain walked up to the quartermaster and saluted. The old rabbit hesitantly returned the gesture.

"Sir, may I have a private word please?" the Captain asked in a stern voice.

"One moment son, I have to file this ATV delivery report, hold on," the major replied, with a slight smile on his face.

He walked over to a cabinet and stuck the file inside. As observant as the Captain was, he missed one detail in the major's motion, he stuck the ATV delivery file into a folder marked Captain Reynolds. S.

"So what's the damage son?" he asked, seeming uninterested.

"Well I wanted to have permission to bring along my M1A1 with me on tomorrow's offensive," replied carefully.

The old quartermaster tilted his head and pinned back his ear, his other was almost gone, "You don't need my permission for that Captain, Ranger's can use whatever they see fit if it will get the job done."

"Well," the Captain said cautiously, "I need some more magazines, I only have ten right now."

"Ten, that's 300 rounds? I thought the Ranger's were on South guard duty, you expecting to fight a war by yourself?" the rabbit chuckled.

Not wanting to lie, knowing Rabbits tended to sense such things he replied, "I just wanted to make sure I would have enough to last me, in a worst case scenario."

The rabbit didn't appear to be listing intently, "Apparently he had more important things to tend too," Reynolds thought.

"Well, I can make some if you have an empty one with you," the Rabbit answered, looking away from the Captain to grab an envelop from under the desk, "they will be unpainted steel, but I don't think it will matter to you."

The Captain held out an empty magazine and the Major took it from him and handed it to his orderly.

"How many do you want?" the quartermaster asked.

"Ten more," Reynolds replied.

The orderly stepped out and the quartermaster sat back down.

"It will take an hour or two, you want me to deliver them to your room?" he asked.

Reynolds thought for a moment and replied, "That would be fine sir."

He got up and walked to the door, but before he exited the Major chimed in once more, "I wanted to ask, what's with the two armed guards outside your room for the past three days, it's been the talk of the ship."

The Captain without missing a beat replied, "You'd have to ask General Osing about that, it was his idea."

Unfortunately for Reynolds the Rabbit caught his lie, which was evident in the way he frowned and lowered his ear once more.

For a long moment Steve stood there in silence, hoping, praying that the Major wouldn't call him on it.

"Alright Captain, seeing as I won't see you before the mission I wish you luck," the Major said carefully and ushered him out of his office.

"Thank you sir," and Reynolds walked out as coolly as possible.

***

"So everything is arranged for tonight," Reynolds asked.

His XO stood there, his ears at attention just as the rest of his body.

"Yes sir, it was very hard to explain why I needed these," the young lieutenant searched for the right word, "items."

"I know, you've been quite invaluable to me and Sergeant Grey, if you want anything I can give I won't hesitate." Reynolds said, very uncharacteristically toward an officer of lower rank, but the fact was, without the aid of the XO he and Cathy were dead.

"There is one thing," the lieutenant said, the fox's eyes becoming curious for a moment, "I wanted to know, what stories are true about you, and which ones aren't."

For a moment he stopped, it had been three glorious days since someone had so directly brought up his past.

"That, is a good question lieutenant," he began, "and it would be nice to know somebody with honor will know the truth. Well, the story that because of me an entire company's staff officers and specialist were murdered is true."

Steve noticed the lieutenant shift slightly.

"It was my fault," the Captain went on, "and because when I was ordered to send them right into the hands of the intelligence officers, I lost the trust of my men, but gained the trust of the intelligence murders. From then on they had me do their errands, I needn't get into each story, but most of the stories are true."

He could tell the junior officer, who had all along been very much like he was as a young officer, direct, astute, and hardcore military, was taken off step. He lowered his shoulders and seemed to be at ease for the first time in a while.

The Captain put his hand on the fox's shoulder and turned and walked to his room. Now there were two people on board who trusted him.

Captain Reynolds and Sergeant Grey's room aboard FN Endeavor 1500 hours military time

As he walked in she was already on the move. Before he could see what was happing she was upon him and hugging him. He shut the door behind him and gave her a good squeeze.

"You took so long I was worried," the fox said, with some worry in her voice.

"You needn't worry Cathy, you'll hear gunfire before you'll even need to worried about me," he whispered, reassuring his lover.

He tried to lighten the mood, but it was tense, they both knew it every minute that passed brought them closer to running, but also brought thoughts of failure to them as well.

"If there's anything you want to bring with you, I suggest you pack in now, we have a busy night tonight and no time in the morning," he said.

She tilted her head inquisitively but smiled, turned and began packing.

They were really made for each other, because eventually while they were both packing, they slipped onto the computer and hooked up their data pads. Although sex had, up until a few days ago, not been in good favor with either of them, now it was something they where both experimenting with more and more. While just being with each other was enough, they felt the safest on board the hostile boat when they were joined as one, so they both, in turn, and unbeknownst to the other, searched for various sexual concepts to pleasure the other.

Steve found various things a man could do when he was perfectly aware of where his lover's special spot was; he also found a list of various pleasure spots, some he was unaware of, that if massaged would be very pleasurable to a female partner. He even found a guide to inter-species relations; it was called, "Tails of All Kinds." He was surprised there wasn't more works on this, but he soon saw why. There were many things that neither of them knew they could do, and he memorized each thing, to await the perfect moment to use them.

When she looked she found many ways to stave off or quicken his ejaculation, ways to quicken hers as well. She also found that she was among a lucky few. Most women didn't cum as quickly as she did, usually not having such sensitive pussies, and even fewer would squirt the fountain of cum which had acted as an aphrodisiac to both of them. She also found things that less than a week ago would have conjured terrible memories and thoughts, but now they excited her and filled her with ideas. She noted that there was a lot of anal sex suggestions, she was still hesitant about that; she knew he would never do anything to hurt her, he had been hesitant to cause her the pain of breaking her hymen, but he knew what had happened just four days ago, she doubt either of them could deal with the complications of approaching this. She was interested though, so she dumped the files into her Data Pad and found one last article, a listing of ways a "Foxxy Fox" the title read, could pleasure her partner, which to her surprise, applied to female foxes with human companions.

"What luck!" she thought and saved it as well.

The day continued this way, packing and various tasks to keep their minds occupied, they read the newly added files to their respected data pads, learning things to try on the other.

At about 1900 hours he got up and walked over to her.

"I have a surprise for you," he said.

Cathy had been waiting all day to find this out, and she could barely wait, but she kept up a militant attitude and stood up at attention.

Steve put his hand out romantically, and she took it with her paw, giggling at the gesture.

He walked her to the door; she could tell he was enjoying this by the broad smile on his face. He opened it and she noticed the guards were gone.

Reynolds pulled her out into the hall, and led her to his neighbor's door; she followed more interested than before. He placed her in front of it and opened the door, from the side, allowing her to have a full view.

To her surprised there was relatively nothing in the room; no bed, no TV, nor computer, the lights were toned down but she could see just a couch to the side and in the middle she saw...

Cathy gasped loudly and she turned to him with a smile, her eyes tearing. He was gleaming as she hugged him tightly around his neck.

In the room sat a small round table, with a white tablecloth on top. A candle sat in the middle and a plate one each side of the table. He took her paw again and walked her in, she was completely caught off guard by this, and she had never seen anyone go through so much for her.

He knew he was doing well; she was speechless. He knew no one had ever done something like this for her, she probably had never even been on a "date" of sorts; neither had he, but he knew what to do. He realized that the vixen...

"Wow," he thought, "he hadn't ever thought of her like that before, she truly defined the term, both parts, particularly now, gleaming with love and anticipation. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, as well as the only female fox he had ever gotten to know on a personal level.

The Captain walked his lover over to her seat and pulled out the chair for her to sit down. On the table she saw a bottle of wine, and a great steak dinner in front of each place. He rounded the table and sat down, poured her some of the wine, and they began eating.

Cathy couldn't believe it, she was actually glad for the bad things that had happened to he because they had given her this, they had given her this moment and most importantly, Steve.

They made small talk, about the village he had seen on the maps, it being left alone and likely to never see anything of the fighting, he even showed her pictures from her data pad, but she was to engrossed with all of what was happening, she felt as if nothing could go wrong ever again.

When he was done she reached out and grabbed his hand with her paws and said, "No one, ever, has done something like this for me."

"I figure since its our last night in Federation we might as well have the best we can get for now, and I think we should go on at least one date," Steve replied, smiling broadly.

They finished the meal, it being the best they had both ever eaten. Although Reynolds had come from a well to do family, and had eaten at state dinners with leaders all his life, he had never so much enjoyed a meal, and for her, it was "over the top." Being she had grown up in literal poverty, not even including the fact her father had often brutalized her, she hadn't ever had such a great meal, let alone one of the most romantic moments of her life.

Once they had finished off the wine the Captain got up and walked her to the couch. He asked Cathy to tell him everything she wanted too, when they were sure they were safe. The vixen talked for at least an hour, telling memories and thoughts that once spoken, the good ones being mutually stored, and the bad being forgotten. By the end she was in tears, a mixture of happiness and sadness, because she felt very close to him at this moment and sad that she hadn't met him sooner.

Steve patted the fur on the side of her face, and she moved her head into his pet, and laid her head on his lap. He kissed the other side of her head and carefully pushed her back upright.

"Comon," he started as he got up, "you can take a shower now."

"We need a shower," she said, with a happy, yet sly look in her eyes.

He smiled and they walked into the bathroom, also very clean.

"I'm almost afraid to ask but what did you do to have this all set up?" Cathy asked.

"Although most people don't trust me," the Captain explained, "I have saved many lives and I called in a few final favorers. After I told them the situation between us, and our plans, they seemed to warm up a bit to me, one even said 'you deserve it, you've never seemed happy since I knew you, but for the first time for the first time you look very content with life.'"

Cathy smiled and rubbed his back. As they were undressing she caught him staring at her slender figure. When he realized he'd been caught he adverted his eyes; she was amused that he was still not used to being in female company.

He tested the water with a long metal prong, it was fine, but to be sure he let it run for a full two minutes, still fine. She stepped in and awaited him, he was hesitant at first, just standing there, until she grabbed him by the sides and yanked him into the shower.

She rubbed his body with hers, her fur rubbing and against and tickling his body. He rubbed her stomach as she did so, and then moved his hands up to her perk tits, rubbing and rotating them.

The vixen giggled and turned the water on him, putting a damper on what he was doing. He playfully growled and pushed her against the wall, kissing her. Their tongues rolled around within their mouths, she preformed her trick again, and licked the inside of his mouth, brining a slight surge in size to his forming hard on.

They broke the kiss and began washing each other. The one thing he hadn't prepared for was actually washing his vixen. In fact he wasn't exactly sure what to do, and she could tell.

Cathy laughed as he looked at her matted fur and thought of what to do. She picked up a bar of soap and soaping up her paw the vixen handed it to Steve, then grabbed his hand and pressed her rear to his body and moved his hand in her paw in soft circles all around her body. She moved the lathered hand all over; her breasts, her back and stomach, all playing havoc with his sex, which had pressed its way between her legs and, due to their similar height, sat right underneath her equally aroused pussy.

She continued using his hand to lather up her body, and when he had gotten the idea of it she played with his cock between her legs as the Captain continued soaping her up. He reached down and washed her pussy, which was dripping wet, but not necessarily with water. The fur had been somewhat more matted than the rest of her coat, understandable considering neither of them had been able to shower for close to four days, yet they had still both equally came on each other.

Steve lathered up the fur around her cunt well and did so as well with her legs. He then, with as much care as he could muster, lathered up her tight ass, being even more careful around her even tighter ass hole. He felt her shudder slightly as he came in contact with the still healing scar tissue, so he kissed the side of her head to calm her, which it did.

All the time she had been still playing with his dick, rubbing it with her wet paws, but while he had been cleaning her ass she stopped, not so much worried that he would hurt her; his touch was as light as possible, but rather that she didn't want to let on she was actually somewhat interested in having sex there with someone who would finally care for her, rather than just that of themselves. Cathy felt him pressure the side of her head and she was at ease and knew she could wait, for the time when he would be okay with performing the possibly painful, but tempting act on her.

Now he moved to her head with his lathered hand, and began washing her hair. Although she would have preferred some other soap like an actual shampoo, she was loving this most personal of acts, almost as much as fucking him, although she knew it would lead to that soon enough, if not by his suggestion, but hers.

Now done with her head he soaped up his other hand, which had been holding one of her breasts, and slipped it into her pussy. He felt around, in a mixture of pleasing her and cleaning her. She moaned and cocked her head back on his shoulder; he felt her weight shift onto his chest. Reynolds moved his fingers up, deeper and deeper into her very tight pussy, and felt for her special spot. She moaned highly, almost a yelp as he pressed on it.

He began rubbing it, and she eventually came, quite hard due to her already being horny prior to being in the shower. Steve kissed her quickly and continued finishing his exploration and cleaning.

Once she was completely soaped up; her blood red fur now having a slightly pink hue, she took the bar of soap from him and turned to begin washing him. She stopped and looked at her own body, and threw the soap to the floor of the shower, which was now very warm from the constant hot water. The fog in the shower gave them the feel of being somewhere, as if floating, not in any form of existence, just in their own right.

He watched the soap tumble to floor, and looked at her, and although he had a suspicion, he didn't imagine what she did next.

She pushed him against the far wall of the shower, and began rubbing herself, as if she were a giant brush, all over his body. Cathy rubbed her back from his chest, down to his knees. She slipped between his legs; his legs tensed as his cock rubbed across the top of her head, and she rubbed up his back, hugging him and using her paws to further lather and play with, his very hard and protruding cock.

He could take it no longer, and he turned and grabbed her hips, and carried her under the water. The Captain held her up on the wall of the shower, the water pouring over them. As he slipped his very hard cock into her velvety pussy the vixen moaned deeply. She absolutely loved this sudden impression of pleasure on her. He filled her up and supported her on his groin, resting her legs on his shoulders.

Feeling safer and knowing she could take it, he trusted a bit harder than before, and to his contempt she moaned louder and faster, almost loosing her breath at times. The soap was almost completely washed off, but they hardly noticed, her pussy was so moist from her own juices he was tempted to stop and try and suck out as much as possible, but he knew that nothing beat, for either of them, what they were doing now. He sped up even more and she enjoyed to the point of almost passing out, not from pain as all others had done to her, but from the ecstasy from his now pounding of her pussy.

An arousing slapping sound came every time he trusted into her. Her moans were no longer coming as he trusted, but was now one high pitch, pleasured scream. Between her tight pussy and her tits right in his face, and her erotic moaning, he was sure he would cum right then and there, but he couldn't, and he even tried, knowing that it may cause her to cum as well.

It hit him, he came the first time as she did, and it seemed they were destined to do so always, so he began further pressuring her special spot, which didn't take much force, and it seemed to always be ready in her pussy.

Cathy felt him move over her special spot and, and as hard as she tried she steadied herself and prepared for the massive orgasm building deep in her cunt.

Her pussy clamped down on his dick, and he was about to cum himself, but he stopped, deciding to make her cum a few more times. He didn't know if tomorrow they would be successful, and he wanted her to have one night, totally dedicated to her happiness.

Her moans disappeared and her muzzle was left agape as she came hard, a steam of very hot cum shot out her pussy and dripped down their legs into the water. She was expecting to feel the glorious sensation of being filled with his seed, but to her surprise he neither came nor slowed down his thrusting in her pussy. She was worried; she thought maybe he would be angry that she came before he did.

"What's," Cathy huffed, "wrong?" she said through he resumed moans.

"Nothing," he replied, pausing and patting her face softly, "I want you to cum a few times before we're through."

Cathy wasn't sure, she hadn't cum more than once during sex and the thought excided her, but she had almost passed out from his previous thrusting, she wasn't sure she could take "a few more times."

Nonetheless, he continued. His constant thrusting deeper and deeper into her pussy was enough to make her cum mere seconds after the first. This time the spray was so hard that it managed to splash as far as his face, into his open mouth.

She leaned in licked his mouth with her long tongue and tasted her own juices, they were sweet and salty at the same time, and it further excited her.

The vixen wanted her lover to cum, no she needed him to cum, and she tried her hardest now to make him do so. She tried, although somewhat out of breath from her uncontrollable moaning, to rock her hips back and forth, but all that did, that she noticed,

was increase the once again building pressure that was even deeper in her sex hole. She kept rocking her hips though, trying for a few minutes, but she came yet again, this time she actually felt herself start to faint a little, for only half a second, but it did worry her. If she did faint, while it would be a testament to how great he was at making her cum, it would likely destroy him mentally, for she knew that he couldn't hurt her sexually, he would die first.

"I want you to cum!" she screamed, as new pressure was sensed at the back of her pussy, "Please cum, fill me with your cum!" she further screamed, not in pain, but in pure pleasure, yet with a slight hint of fearful anticipation, because she felt his cock swelling size, enough so that it strained her very tight cunt.

He didn't need any more suggestion; he could tell she was ready, so he moved his cock to her special spot and pressed hard on it. She started to moan even louder, to his surprise. It was so load that she could very well have been by someone eves dropping outside the door. He could barely hold it in when he felt the soft folds of her clit clamp down once again on his rod, and he let go.

Steve had never cum so hard, not any of the other nights, not on his own, few times, but he felt as though every ounce of semen left his body and went into hers.

She felt as though the showerhead had been placed inside her pussy. His cum shot so far up into her she could feel it move into her womb and fill like a gas tank.

They both screamed in orgasmic glory, once again, as the first night, they came for so long it felt as though it was forever.

Finally she stopped cumming juices, but the feeling remained, her "tanks" were literally empty, yet her body was so eager for his cum that it wanted to orgasm forever.

Finally, after what very well could have been a minute they both stopped, both almost numb from the waist down.

She collapse on him and he lowered her to the floor of the shower, both laying in a spooning position, still facing each other, for a half hour with the water running over them, and his cock and her pussy still tensing.

Very faintly, Cathy licked his face, she was very weak from the fucking, she felt like she was flying, from the temporary intoxication caused by the throws of passion, and from the sensation of laying in water.

Reynolds moved closer, causing his still hard cock to go deeper once again, but she was so worn out that it had little effect, or if it did she didn't notice, and wrapped his legs around hers and they laid on the floor of the shower for another half hour, both shifting from a "high-like" state and loving comfort. Finally they both go up, and rewashed under the water.

Once they were done they exited together, and started drying themselves. Before this foray had started, Reynolds had read some of the ideas in the "guide" he had saved to his data pad, and one of the first things it said was to study and learn about his partner's body. It said this was needed for a relationship to start, but he already knew that part was wrong, he had loved her from the moment he saved her; he didn't need to know every nook and cranny of her furson to love her. Nonetheless, he also knew he hadn't ever really "studied" her; he was always to focused on Cathy, not Cathy's body.

The fact of the matter was he was still somewhat embarrassed to have a nude woman aware he was admiring her.

They went back to their room, only wearing towels, which surprised the guards, causing her to laugh almost uncontrollably upon reentering the room.

The vixen dropped her towel and went to pick up her clothes, but she again felt his eyes looking at her, and she quickly looked at him, and as she suspected he was looking, and somewhat studying, her body. She was also right in that she knew, as he did, once she "caught" him, he quickly turned red. This time however, she felt that he needed to be taught to not be afraid of her body.

"The great Courageous Captain Steve Reynolds can't even look at a naked fox?" she said with a cocked eye. "Why do you get so embarrassed when I see you looking at me? Don't be ashamed, I like how your body looks, and I'm not afraid of you watching; I'm glad you like mine enough to stare."

He was stunned. Steve wanted to be brave about it; being brave was almost his job, but for some reason he couldn't look her in the eye when he was admiring her sexy, sleek body.

"I just don't want you to think I love you because of your body or having sex with you, I want you to know that I love you, no matter what," he reasoned, his eyes still fixed in a direction away from her nude body.

"I know, I never had a doubt, but I think we need to fix this once and for all," she said and walked over to him, "I want you to look me in the eye, and look me over," he went to touch her face, but she swiftly moved away, "but no touching, you just take a good look at me my love."

She draped herself on their bed, and he still didn't look up.

"I can wait sir," she giggled.

It was a calculated move, she knew if she made it seem more like a military situation, than that of lovers, he wouldn't be able to resist, he wasn't ready to lose that part of himself.

At that he looked up, he wasn't sure why, and he caught Cathy's glance. He almost looked away once again, but saw that she was completely amused by the whole situation.

They locked eyes for a moment, and to her relief, she noticed his stare shift down her body.

"Good," she thought, "he'll be much more comfortable now."

For the first time since they met, he gave her beautiful vixen body a good look, from head to toe while she watched.

Her face was the only the only part he had studied, back in the med-bay, which seemed like a lifetime ago. Her head was covered dark red fur with pointed ears, black tips. Her snout was short for a fox, and the white fur under her neck blended well with her red fur. A mane of hair went down her head and stopped at about her shoulders. Her belly was white as well, and formed a V on her groin muscle, with her pretty, pink, and seemingly constantly wet pussy set in the middle.

He drooled at the sight of it for a moment, and she laughed a bit at the sight, and rubbed her hand down her thigh.

Steve was eager to touch her, just to feel her paws, but was enjoying taking a good look at her, memorizing each and every bit of her features.

Her feet and paws were black with pink pads, both, as he knew, were very soft.

Her tail, which was fairly large compared to the rest of her body, was red on top, white underneath, and the tip came to a soft point that was also pure white.

She noticed, by following his eyes, he was done and had finished on her tail, so she moved it up to her face and she used her fingers in a come hither motion.

He walked over and laid down beside her, this time looking at her body without problem. She smiled with a sense of "mission accomplished."

"Now isn't that better?" she asked, very playfully.

He replied, very at ease, "Yes."

Cathy noticed, for the past few days, all the gruffness of his voice had somewhat disappeared, and he now talked much more coolly and with an air of happiness. She was glad for him; he deserved to have some peace.

Because they were both still worn out for their acts in the shower they didn't venture any sex or serious touching, instead they spooned and feel asleep, having their last few hours of peace in the Federation.

Chapter 7 End Game

Captain Steve Reynolds's stateroom aboard the FN Endeavor 601 hours military time

They awoke and were dressed in their military uniforms in about ten minutes. They both had their armor on underneath their fatigues and vests, and she wore a separate helmet, to look less conspicuous.

They also loaded their packs, but instead of having specialty gear like computers and such, each carried food, water, he had a sleeping tent, and each brought three pairs of clothes, one of which was civilian grade.

Also, instead of his M88 rifle, he carried his ancestors M1A1, and for the second time in its very long life it would see combat.

He stared at it for a long while, Cathy noticing this.

"If your still not sure..." she started.

"No... no this is what I want, I want you, I want peace, and I know that this is right," he looked up and smiled.

She stood at attention and saluted.

"Well, awaiting orders sir," Sergeant Grey said, very seriously.

He stood, returned a crisp salute, and kissed her, very passionately, one last time before the battle.

Loading Bay aboard FN Endeavor 825 hours military time

There were easily thousands of troops in the crowed bay, getting into assault craft and such. The Cargo Droppers had already left and were in the process of dropping their various cargos in designated drop zones. In the back of the bay the Ranger's assault craft lay, awaiting the go ahead.

Although he hated it, Cathy needed to stay at the far side of the assault crafts troop bay. Steve was still seen with a certain amount of distrust from some of the troopers, but when he and Cathy had walked up to the craft, being greeted by his XO who had an uncharacteristic smile on his face, apparently aware of the true fact they were both deeply in love.

They had all boarded the craft and were all, particularly Cathy, antsy; but the Captain, as always, was very at ease and seemed to lighten the mood with his newfound light touch.

"All assault craft disembark for air drop!" said a voice over the intercom.

The ships engines rumbled to life and it took off.

The trip through the atmosphere was bouncy as usual, and the Captain walked into the cockpit, as he always had. He was greeted by the same young pilot of the previous mission, still very nervous. Reynolds watched the planet come closer, features becoming more discernable.

The ground around and within the city was alive with fire; he could see the flashes of heavy weapons, of both sides, firing into the air. Below gunships raced by leveling parts of the forest, and wolf aircraft attempting to outmaneuver the assault ship's escorts, a true battle.

He looked at the rear camera and saw the Endeavor disappear above the clouds. He would miss her; it had been his home for about three years

What he didn't notice, was about half a mile behind the column of assault craft, a stealth ship, using its light bending technology, sneaked its way down and put itself about 100 yards from the drop zone of the Ranger's and the location of the lover's ATVs.

Reynolds walked back into the troop bay, and was confronted by his XO.

"Sir, on our head count we have an extra person, including Sergeant Grey," he said, somewhat perplex, yet very serious.

"May I?" Reynolds grabbed the list. No one was missing from the list, "One of the squad leaders must have counted one of the crew chiefs, besides, the more the merrier."

The XO took back the list and returned to his duties.

The Captain managed a look in Cathy's direction, and they locked eyes, both anxious to be together.

"One minute to drop sir," the pilot called out to him from the cockpit.

Ranger Drop Zone Chyane 1021 hours military time

The troops piled out of the assault craft, and secured the area, no wolves to be seen, yet.

The Captain and his XO walked out of the assault craft and it flew back to the Endeavor.

As if drawn to her Reynolds spotted the Sergeant out of the crowd. She too saw him and ran over to him.

The other troops wouldn't talk nor bother with her, she was wearing the P9 armor, and that always brought on a level or respect.

"Alright, set up and dig in on the edge of the tree line lieutenant," the Captain ordered.

He nodded and walked off and the Captain turned to Cathy.

"When he comes back we'll make our break for it, the ATV is only a few hundred yards that way," he gestured west.

The lieutenant came back as the troops moved out.

"Their moving sir," the fox looked around and sighed deeply, "when will you be going?"

"Right now son," replied the Captain.

For a long moment they were all silent.

"Thank you lieutenant, we couldn't have done this without you, your one of the most honorable soldiers I've ever met," and Reynolds put out his hand.

The lieutenant shook his hand and smiled.

Cathy walked over to him and kissed his cheek, and said, "When we have pups, I'll be sure to name one for you, thank you."

He smiled and replied, "Hmmm, Sean Reynolds, it works. Take care of him," he gestured to the Captain, surprising him, "I can tell he loves you, and I know you will both be safe with each other."

Cathy started to tear up and Reynolds rested his hand on her soldier, locking eyes with the lieutenant.

"Take care of the Ranger's their the most important troops in the Federation, always remember that," Steve said, as if letting a child go.

Cathy and Reynolds turned and walk away, not looking back.

The lieutenant just smiled, locking this moment away in his mind, knowing someday he will see them both again, but under better circumstances. He turned as well and walked to his troops.

***

They both walked to the drop zone. After a few minutes they saw the lone ATV on the ground, but the transport had landed, and the pilots lay dead on the ground.

Reynolds readied his rifle and carefully made his way to the transports docking bay. He cleared it, with Cathy in toe, right to the cockpit, nothing.

They went back out and set up the ATV, loaded all of their gear on it and made it ready. Cathy walked back into the supply ship and left her rifle inside, the finders would figure she and the Captain had been lost.

He walked in after her and they stood in the cargo bay for a moment, both in disbelief this moment had finally come.

Just then they heard footsteps outside the bay and Reynolds turned to see Colonel Hushing, gun pointed at both of him and Cathy, smiling the same blood filled smile he saw at the firing range.

"You thought you were going to get away huh? You thought I wouldn't figure it out? I knew from the first day that you and your bitch would try to get away; you were doomed from the start," the fox said, almost proud of himself.

The Captain was stunned, he couldn't believe it, he looked at Cathy, sitting on the ground equally as stunned and already had tears in her eyes; Reynolds's temper flared.

Hushing saw this and said, "Don't even think about it, your armor may deflect a bullet, but your head won't, and I can shot faster than it can deploy. You should have let her die, at least you wouldn't have had her 'love and lost' and cost you your own life. But you were never that bright, you didn't think far enough ahead, and look where it landed you."

"Hushing, please, you don't need to do this, we're going away, far away, we just want to live in peace," the Captain said, not begging, but trying his best to not let his anger show through his speech.

"You're going somewhere, but I don't know about 'living in peace.'" Hushing laughed.

"Why are you doing this!?" Cathy yelled out, almost sobbing now.

"Because my Vixen, you both know to much, and God forbid you poison the Captain's mind further and you may get him to start telling things to the enemy," the Colonel replied, steadying his trigger finger, "First its leave the Federation, then its helping its enemies."

"Hushing, you're being a complete fool, don't do this!" the Captain said, now fear in his voice. He thought of the mountains, and realized that he won't ever see them again, but he had to try and make sure she could still survive.

"Kill me Hushing," Steve yelled out, causing to Cathy shutter, "but don't hurt her, she's an innocent, she has nothing to do with this."

"Alls fair in love and war Captain Reynolds," said Hushing said as he lowered the gun a bit to further gloat, "Be glad if I don't tie her to a rock and leave her for the wolves to take a second crack at her. Oh ya, I know, those doctors could only take so much before they cracked. Of all the woman you could have picked I can say you did pick a good looking one, I might take a go with her once you're out of the picture."

Reynolds stepped in front of her, knowing that he might be serious.

"Well, I've degraded you long enough," Hushing said, with an air of excitement, "good-by Captain Reynolds."

A gun was raised, and two shots rang out.

Description of various items

(in no particular order)

Predator 9 Armor (shortened to P9 sometimes)- No, its not like the MC's from halo, I picture it as something more like that wore by Maj. Don West (Matt Leblanc) in Lost in Space. It's a mixture of old armor and new technology. It's a series of interlocking plates that are worn below the clothing and cover every inch of the user, look online or see the movie for a picture of the movie prop.

Federation- A lot of people accuse me of copying Starship troopers (a great movie) use of a "federation" but the fact is in an "universe" with 1000s of planets, you need a central government to control all of these areas, not separate factions. Also some people accuse me of copying Gundam Wing, again, had a few good series, but I wasn't' a true fan, not to the point where I'd take ideas.

Captain Reynolds- Again, often is associated with the MC of Halo, and again is incorrect. The true inspiration for this character is again Maj. Don West (Matt Leblanc) and myself. The name is a psuedo name and alias I use for myself. At times, and the personality mimics mine to the letter, as I am a rather demanding and patriotic person, but the back-story is that of Maj. Don West.

M9D2- This is the only think I picture as being similar to the Halo version, as it's a very good design for a launcher.

FGC- Federal Ground Command

FN- Federal Navy, modeled after the Starship Troopers kind of navy, very separate from the ground forces.

M5A2- I imagine this looking like a German Leopard tank with two guns on its turret.

Wolf Rifle- In this piece I never really describe the gun, other than its quite large, but I see it as being similar in size to a M82A1 Barrett (light fifty) but looking like a SA-80.

FN Endeavor- I imagine this looking somewhat like the cruisers in the movie Starship troopers.

Assault Craft- This acts as the APC and transport helo of the future. I imagine it being something like a large Higgins boat with wings and the door reversed.

Madison "Captain" Mintz- First of all, I'm a dude, and I realize I have a shitty name, blame my parents. The common nickname between Reynolds and me is one that I've had for awhile, as I tend to lead and act as a captain in most situations.

M1A1 Thompson- Alright, AT LEAST one of these is in all of my stories, it again plays into my real life, as everyone in my family, meaning my grandfather, father and such, has, at one point or another, owned a Thompson. My grandfather carried an original one in WWII, my father owned a Semi-Auto version, and I, so far, own only an airsoft version, but will likely buy the same thing my father has.

Delta 2 Zero- This is a star wars thing, it is a reference to when an imperial fleet would bombard a planet to the point the crust would crack, and the planet would destroy itself in time. This was never in acted, but I like the term and it's a lot easier to use than the whole description above.

.45 ACP- This really doesn't matter, but since most people don't know what the "ACP" stands for I feel the need to fill you in... ACP=Automatic Colt Pistol.