Slave foxes

Slave foxes by Daniel Davis at the Chakatheaven yahoo group

This was a fun story to read. It opened up in a way that reminded me of Doctor Who episodes, and it was well written enough to not distract me from my artwork. I awarded five kudos for the opening. Even though there was some info dumping, it was effective because it told a story instead of lecturing to the reader.
As it went on, it actually got more exciting. I liked reading about the horrible slave environment, and the cruelty of their Egyptian-esque captors. It's believable, and again reminds me of Doctor Who for some reason (except I don't think the Doctor is making an appearance). More kudos for the excellent story that carries you along the paragraphs.
Unfortunately, the story breaks down at the "present day" after the drownings. The section could have used a better transition. The previous segment transitioned with the mention of the water holes and such, but the same abrupt method of scene changing didn't work after that because there was nothing significant connecting the two paragraphs.
As I read onward, I figured out why I was reminded of Doctor Who. The characters are unusually cooperative with the slave masters. When you think about it, it kind of makes sense, really. Slaves get better treatment if they cooperate. The slave masters act nicer to them because they don't fight back. Unlike about 80% of science fiction about slavery, this one recognizes how slaves and slave masters would really behave. You don't fight back unless you want to die. People don't moan and complain and whine about the slavemasters, they plot out their day-to-day affairs to ensure that they don't get beaten as much. It seems weird, but that's probably how it was done. I awarded another five kudos for the fact they didn't spend every waking moment planning escapes and overthrows. Not everyone can afford such things without fear of corporal punishment.

A bit further into the story, it gets a bit dicey. The slavemasters are established, but not fully fleshed out, their mental observations tossed out here and there, destroying the suspension of disbelief. Also of annoyance was the soap opera-like dumping of plot details. I didn't find it believable to hear it coming out of the characters' mouths like that.
After this, the author makes me take my words back. We start reading about a sassy vixen (a slave fox) medic who fights back. I'm sure a situation like that would have led to the slavemasters withholding food or something else valuable from the slaves, thus teaching her a lesson to never fight back. I won't count off on this, though.
While I liked the idea of the kindly slavemaster that repays his debt to his slave rescuers, and how nicely behaved the slaves were due to this arrangement, I felt this plot could have been shown more dramatically through the course of the story instead of a long info dump. The overtones seemed almost biblical, but again, could have been executed better.
That being said, I awarded a kudos for the fact that the old guy is "pushing for finals." I'm guessing he wouldn't be as nice if he were younger, which seems pretty realistic.
Jeeves. Who actually names anyone Jeeves anymore? You're inevitably going to be the butt of "Ask Jeeves" jokes, and typecast as a butler. I awarded a cheese point for the unfortunate name.
Another somewhat biblical element was the name of Neal Foster's pod. "Father's Love". I wonder if this has anything to do with the grandfatherly old guy that did all those nice things for the slaves?
The story threatened to get boring as it neared Neal Foster's territory, but the author mercifully cut to the scene below decks with the slaves, where the stakes were up in the air and you weren't sure if they were going to survive or not. I awarded a couple kudos for that, but not more because I noticed Allen Fesler's creative mark draining the sense of danger and suspense out of the story paragraph by paragraph.
While my suspicions weren't confirmed in the next chapter, I did notice a decrease in writing quality consistent with the other author's style, such as overuse of Fandom Style Manual, Swifties (LY ending adverbs) and mega recaps.
I liked how these slaves didn't automatically kiss Neal's butt and make best friends with him like characters always do in these stories. I awarded a kudos for that. The incident with the skunktaur bag was the only thing that confused me. For some reason, Bear shoves the poor guy in a bag. I wasn't sure if there were a suffocation risk, or if it were something like shrink wrap or a sleeping bag. The whole thing puzzled me, but I didn't grade off on it because it's writerly to confuse the reader on some levels.
The author's idyllic concept of the slaves becoming freed by bringing them under Federation space seems like something that would happen, until you really think about it. If a slave runs away from their slave masters in Africa, escaping to America, things can still happen. Lacking a job and money and an education, they might not pass the immigration exams, and then they might get sucked into a sex trafficing scheme and end up in a worse state than they were before. Sex trafficing happens in America, but it's hidden. To be fair, I didn't give any cheese points for this, but it's still a bit pie-in-the-sky.
I didn't understand the parts about the showering. Somehow Philip stinks. I didn't know if it was a fear response from being shrink wrapped that caused him to spray himself (as in the tomato juice comment), or what happened. I also didn't understand why he ended up in a room where there are naked slaves.
The fact that they had collars like Escape from LA was kind of cool, and inconvenient to the heroes, so I awarded a kudos for that.
The characters act like it's such a bad thing to stick chemicals in the food supply to suppress sexual desire, but I actually think the world would be better off if they did that a few times, maybe in Mexico City or Tokyo for starters.
The author actually put stuff in between info dumping. Even if it's coffee drinking, it established a setting in between dumping, so it made for a better read. I awarded a kudos for that.
At the end of chapter 2, Bear is strapped down to a bed, and studied, but then he sneaks out, and we hear a scream, probably from the nurse who wanted him to stay for observation.
Chapter 3 had some interesting drama to it that made me keep reading. Kudos for that.
The part I didn't like about Chapter 3 was the fact that the "good guys" took the slaves into a holideck and asked them to do the same thing they used to do with whips at their backs. Why? If you were forced to harvest cotton by a bunch of nasty slave masters with guns, why would you volunteer to harvest cotton for free? I sure as hell wouldn't! They're no better than the slavemasters for subjecting them to such "tests" after the ordeal of their slavery. I award a cheese point for this. Even though the author doubles back and has the "good guys" say that they have a choice later, they shouldn't have set up the test at all without willing volunteers.
Adding the bit about long distance intergalactic calls was a nice touch. I awarded five kudos for that, since nobody usually thinks about that.
The bear's retelling of the story about the old man pushing for finals was a bit long for something the reader already knows about, buut I guess it worked okay.
I awarded a kudos for having characters who disliked Tess, and not having an all-powerful computer onboard. That AI computer was a little too powerful and irritating.
I didn't have many complaints about the passages that followed. The author managed to work in earlier plot elements in a way that gave them all a place, and I awarded a kudos for allowing me to work on my art without the interruption of major writing mistakes.
I didn't understand the ending, however. A Starfleet agent (or impostor) accused them of harboring slaves or something, and the story just ends right there. I guess there might be a continuation in the works?

Weird or Interesting:

"Anyone looking down the hallways would’ve quickly spotted another difference between the carriers the plantation workers and miners used, miners tended to leave the carrier doors open so they couldn’t be trapped inside, while the plantation workers closed them to keep bugs and other unwanted forms of night life out."


I can think of a great plotline that hinges on this difference (something involving trapping plantation workers inside their carriers), but I guess that's a bit too clever.

"“Sore, bottom of the peeking order now. I’m glad that is settled finally, they really are a waste of space. We still have plenty of food we are eating more than they are growing but it is making a difference.”
“None of us is an overseer so we don’t have the right to order them. If it comes down to it the glasswork will have to stop probably should do that anyways.”"


1. ...because it's always practical to determine who gets to be the primary voyeur when someone is undressing.
2. Carrying on glass blowing operations with limited energy resources? What's next, setting up an art museum? Not the brightest bunch, are they?
I award one cheese point because they didn't realize that something impractical was impractical.


"Bear sighed sure he knew what Becky was going to tell him the end result of that would be, not that she knew the truth of the situation.
“I’ll let them know that means more bored people.”
“Take your pick boredom or suffocation?” he replied emotionlessly."


Hmmm...let me think. Should they let people do a resource hogging, potentially dangerous fun activity, or cheap fun activity?
...
Haven't any of them heard of storytelling, or cards?


"“Are we all right? I probably should have found a fire extinguisher,” The rabbit said sighing “I didn’t think, we’re starting to ration water for showers and laundry and I waste it on a fire.”"


"Waste"? Hardly! I almost fell out of my seat laughing. Point.


"“I’m still breaking down the chemicals Dreamy. Something in their diet chemically made the majority of them basically sexless, the medical staff have some idea about sex but that seems to be it right now. It’s wearing off the foxes first. A few of them are pregnant. It seems the larger the person, the more the buildup of the chemical. For the larger slaves it will take most of them a week at the outside before the chemicals are completely out of their system. "


Aha! So that's why fat guys have so much difficulty getting women! All this time I thought it had to do with them being physically repulsive!


"“All right Bear, Becky, Joe, and Jo we are giving you control units. I’d like someone with a controller nearby at all times when they are let out for exercise. The cubs will not be allowed down here during those times for their own safety.”
“Here you go Blossom, they tried to hurt you, not me,” Bear said bending over and handing his controller to the cub. “Just in case. I can defend myself.”"


Putting the instruments of justice in the hands of the victim is not such a good idea.


"“We will do that much,” Dreamy said softly “Bear you must do what is best for you and your future. We would be wrong if we forced our choice on you. That applies to all of you I would gladly accommodate each and everyone of you in separate choices but that isn’t possible. I will say this based on the note you have Bear, we know who was to receive you. I am fairly certain we are doing the same thing our father would have.”"


This sounds an awful lot like Neal Foster is dead. If so, this author deserves praise for killing the crashing bore.


"“Well unless navigation indicates we are in the right place it ignores the ident. I didn’t have anything to list the slaves as so I just listed their pod as food stuffs. Got it Dreamy I’m just trying to automate a few more things that’s all.”
“You better check those pods NOW!”
“I accidentally listed their pod as cold food stuffs that’s all it is. I’ll start a manual check in a few minutes Shir,” He replied"


This is too funny!


"“Ok who changed the pattern then? No, as far as I know it’s not possible to mess up something from the replicator. Of course this might be Windy’s favorite blend all this modern technology and there are still military outposts that don’t think it’s coffee unless it can be used for ink as well. How is everyone in the pod?” Kira asked looking at Phillip. “I guess something erased the patterns on the shuttle as well.”


I'd award a hundred kudos if the guy ends up being castrated by the coffee (as described earlier with the slaves).

Cheesey Story Checklist

Each item on this list earns a story 1 Cheese Point. Earning the maximum amount of Cheese Points will earn you the Golden Wedge! (Note: Additional points can be added only when the scene changes. Also, WTF points do not count for a trophy, but may be considered criminal evidence in some states)

Award one point for parental warning plot spoiler [Click For Explanation]:
0
Award one point for Copyright Spoiler [Click For Explanation]:
0
*Award one point for Lazy Narrator Intro. [Click For Explanation]
0
*Award one point for Yagermeister Influenced Intro. [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Title Cheese. [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Joe Is In A Room. (Bonus for Afterthought) [Click For Explanation]
0
*Award one point for No Return:[Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for POV Potpourri: [Click For Explanation]
2
*One point for Quick Release: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Mister Invincible: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Mister Invincible - Category: Flawless: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Mister Invincible - Category: Flawless Beyond Logic: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Mister Invincible - Category: Invincible Ego: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Mister Invincible - Category: Villains: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Mister Invincible - Category: Law: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Award one point for Mister Invincible - Category: Canon: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Award one point for Mister Invincible - Category: Overkill: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Award one point for Mister Invincible - Category: Straw Soldiers: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Award one point for Mister Invincible - Category: Red Shirt Deaths: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Award one point for Mister Invincible - Category: Herocentric Universe: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Award one point for Mister Invincible - Category: Can't Take a Joke: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Award one point for Mister Invincible - Category: "Love Story" Tagline: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Award one point for Mister Invincible - Category: Planning For Yawns: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Award one point for Mister Invincible - Category: Magic on Demand: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Award one point for Mister Invincible - Category: Slightly Wounded Hero: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Award one point for Mister Invincible - Category: Know It All: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for "This Looks Neat". [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Fandom Style Manual. [Click For Explanation]
6
*One point for See Fandom Glossary. [Click For Explanation]
2
*One point for Redundantly Redundant. [Click For Explanation]
2
*One point for CTRL+V. [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Pretty Nice. [Click For Explanation]
1
*One point for Mega Recap. [Click For Explanation]
2
*One point for Doctor Standards. [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Info Dumptruck. [Click For Explanation]
9
*One point for "What do you mean, `Fire is hot'"? [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Fill Dirt Dumping [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Rererecap [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for MSDS Unabridged [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Conversational Sow's Ear: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Always The Right Shoulder: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Mary Sue: [Click For Explanation]
1/2
*One point for Mary Sue: Category: Wish Fulfillment: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Mary Sue: Category: Everybody Loves Me: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Mary Sue: Category: I'm So Sorry: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Mary Sue: Category: Canon: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Gee, Thanks Narrator: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for The J.K. Rowling: [Click For Explanation]
4
*One point for However, He Also Had A Gun: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Harlequin Romance: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Doctor Strangelove Dialog: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Patching: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Angry Lesbian Breasts: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Character Non-Descriptions: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Refer To Previous Description: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Refer To Movie: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for Concept Salad: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One point for It's Lucky That: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Excessive Homage: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Temporal Salad: [Click For Explanation]
0
*One Point for That's Why I Prefer Amiga: [Click For Explanation]
0
*King Trite-On: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Raping the Fourth Wall: [Click For Explanation]
0
*The Space Bus: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Surfer Novelist: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Don't Think of An Elephant: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Step 1: He Got In The Car: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Hmm, I wonder what Rosebud Is: [Click For Explanation]
0
*He Is Because I Said He Is [Click For Explanation]
0
*"Translation: Where's The Beef?" [Click For Explanation]
0
*Unsolicited Detailing [Click For Explanation]
0
*Scene Shifting Without Clutch [Click For Explanation]
1
*You Wore It Out: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Adam West Narrative: [Click For Explanation]
0
*The Rabbit's Waistcoat: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Character Disassociation: [Click For Explanation]
0
*MEANWHILE... [Click For Explanation]
0
*Michael Gondry prose: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Textbook Hero: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Cookie Monster Style Manual: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Oh, I Forgot He's Naked: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Fakedreaming: [Click For Explanation]
0
*"In English, "Tree" Means Tree": [Click For Explanation]
0
*CUT TO: CHAPTER 2, PARAGRAPH 1 [Click For Explanation]
1
*Target Audience Yo-Yo [Click For Explanation]
0
*Shirley, You Can't Be Serious: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Name Overlap Confusion: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Moviephone Prose: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Shaggy Dog Ending: [Click For Explanation]
0
*A Word From Our Sponsors: [Click For Explanation]
0
*I'm Bored: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Retief Dialog: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Pranks For Those With No Friends: [Click For Explanation]
0
*It All Depends on Jarjar: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Archie Bunker Dad: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Pancake Villain: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Present Progressive Abuse: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Attention Defecit Prose: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Peeping Tom Universe: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Mr. Tree Monkey's Ulcer: [Click For Explanation]
0
*My Little Pony's Dark Secret: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Grandpa Skywalker's Story Time: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Inappropriate Punctuation and/or Shortcut Symbols: [Click For Explanation]
4
*One point if the author describes actions with vague adverbs such as "sensually" or "brutally":
0
*Award one point for overly long uninterrupted Q&A session/info dump:
0
*Award one point if characters get into a long, drawn out argument/debate over a plot hole:
0
*One point for POV Spoiler where the disorganized POV of the story lead to the author giving away the plot:
0
Award one point for unprofessional use of numbers such as "he looked up and saw 2 men enter the room."
0
*One point for "Time (seemed to) stand still as..."
0
*One point for "As if on cue..."
0
*One point for unnecessary recap of events the reader has read.
0
*One point for over-explaining the self explanatory, or the obvious:
2
*One point for rewording an old adage to fit a new type of character/species/whatever, such as "A bird in claw is worth two in the bush."
0
*One point for trite expressions made literal, such as finding a drum, and a door nearby that is literally tighter.
0
*One point if it contains movie cliches:
0
*One point for pseudoscience Squared (The Twilight Effect):
0
*One point for excessive profanity that dulls the impact of profanity in the story:
0
*One point if the author kills a joke, pun or metaphor, or fails to understand the concept of a metaphor:
0
*One point for any bad puns:
0
*One point if there's an anticlimax:
0
*One point for a Mary Shelly ("I made my creation large so it would be easier to work on.")
0
*One point for Sex=1, Science=0:
0
*One point if alien biology is ninety to one hundred percent identical to earth biology:
0
*One point if popular song lyrics are quoted extensively:
0
*One point for character interactions and dialog in a description-less vacuum:
0
*Award one point for too many "saids".
2
*Award one point for any situation resembling the Kobiashi Muru:
0
*Award one point for American English names being used on all spaceships:
0
*Award one point for inertial dampers that don't work when the ship is attacked or hit by asteroids:
0
*Reader excluded from inside jokes:
0
*One point for the Christopher Walken (unconnected dialog):
0
*Extremely pointless mundane details:
0
*Award one point for He-Man nomenclature ("Get into the SkySled, Ram Man!):
0
*Turn based combat and/or any video game-like battle sequences:
0
*Pointless excursion into segment involving irrelevant side character or characters:
0
*A word is broken into two words when it isn't supposed to be:
0
*One point for recipe analogies. Example: "Add one part scumbag, one part moron, one part scientist, and you get Jeff."
0
*Award one point for inappropriate transition into action. Example: "He was a slim, muscular fellow, with raspberry hair and glistening white teeth, shoveling manure out of a barn with a pitchfork."
0
*First person narrative begins with something like, "You know, doctors say it's healthy for you to keep a diary..."
0
*Technobabble:
0
*Award one point for generic scenery descriptions:
0
*Award one point for narrator referencing unknown character not featured in story:
0
*Award one point for a character verbally finishing the narrator's thought, breaking the suspension of disbelief:
0
*Award one point for a Harry Potter millionaire (i.e. parents die and boy gets unlimited wealth, etc.)
0
*Award one point for characters doing exactly what is described in their elaborate plans, with no kinks in its execution:
0
*Award one point for adding a "you've got mail" to the dialog:
0
*"Dark as midnight", or anything "raven" in their description that isn't a raven:
0
*Award one point for vaguely defined setting, where you're not really sure what country or planet it is:
0
*Award one point for details about a character's employment (or lack thereof) as an afterthought:
0
*Use of the non-word "furred", or human equivalent such as "socked foot":
0
*Accidental use of popular quotes, such as "more than meets the eye" or "knowing is half the battle":
0
*"May you live in interesting times":
0
*"These aren't the droids you are looking for":
0
*"Nobody puts baby in the corner":
0
*"A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."
0
*The guy who kills the thing or person trying to kill you is always a person you can trust:
0
*Award one point for a slapped on ending that really doesn't end the story.
0
*Award one point if the characters can hear capitalization in spoken words:
0
*Award one point if a figure of speech clashes with another identical sounding part of the sentence in a way that distracts from the reading, such as, "My relatives are strange, relatively speaking" and it's not done for humorous reasons:
0
*Award one point for referencing a popular internet meme (such as "I can has cheezburger") in the prose narrative:
0
*Award one point for inappropriate capitalization:
0
*Hero looks himself in the mirror or something else and reader gets description dump:
0
*Puberty gives you magic powers:
0
*Conflict resolution via info dump (narrator says it's solved and it is):
0
*Size 14 description in size 5 shoe:
0
*Canon character recounts his/her adventures that we already saw in a movie:
0
*Award one point for Yagermeister Influenced Conclusion:
0
*The Military Has Gone Soft:
0
*"Note To Self: Remove author's notes from story":
0
*Simulations prepare you for everything:
0
*Inappropriately/untimely sexual moment:
0
*Instant Pregnancy (And they just had sex an hour ago):
0
*Plot sketching instead of actual story:
0
*Freudian slip count:
0
*Grammatical error count (a point for each one):
0
*Typo Count (a point for each glaringly obvious typo):
4
*Racial/cultural stereotypes:
0
*Saccharine tablet (gooey sweet paragraph) count:
0
Subtotal: 40&1/2
Furry Cliches (+1/2 point for each)
*Not Naked, Sorta [Click For Explanation]
0
*"Exactly Like A Bat" [Click For Explanation]
0
*Furpile [Click For Explanation]
0
*I Knew My Change Was Complete [Click For Explanation]
0
*Transformation Holiday: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Instant Sexy, Just Add Fur: [Click For Explanation]
0
*Furries get lavish descriptions. Humans get nothing: 1&1/2
*You always can identify what you've transformed into: 0
*Your doctor can always identify what you've transformed into immediately (the Health Channel doesn't exist): 0
*Protagonist knows that his transformation is done: 0
*Kinky scene involving protagonist exploring his or her transformed body (award a bonus point if it is actually sexual in some way): 0
*The transformed always knows the correct diet they're supposed to eat/what environ they're supposed to inabit: 0
*Starting immediately with a transformation without establishing the character's humanity before the change: 0
*The internet was right: 0
*Transformation is the only topic of conversation: 0
*Furries don't receive spam: 0
*Transformed people can still eat normally: 0
*Hero faces an unreal crisis that only people in the fandom care about and believe to be a crisis: 0
*Humans and/or simians are evil or otherwise cannot be trusted: 0
*"Assembled furs," "he saw a fur enter the room" and other generic animal character descriptions: 3
*Part of the story is written around commissioned art (add a bonus point if it is irrelevant to the plot): 0
*Character faces an existential crisis because they are told, or believe, that furries do not have souls. Or the church tells them they have no soul: 0
*A character "unsheaths" something on their body, and it isn't a sword: 0
*Characters named after what they look like: 0
*"The Christian church hates furries/The Christian church is evil": 0
*"Playing with nipples enough can cause an orgasm": 0
*Breastfeeding fetish (bonus point if there's some flimsy excuse for an adult feeding): 0
*Breast fetish (bonus point if overtly stated): 0
*Parents take bestiality marriage/mating unusually well: 0
*There are special classes for learning how to be the animal you've changed into: 0
*You can only get pregnant when you're in heat: 0
*Obligatory furry newscast: 0
*Obligatory magic power endowment: 0
*The Memory Warehouse/Hallway (or wall) of Furry Power: 0
*The president became a bald eagle: 0
*Using a synonym for animal features instead of actually describing the character (example: "Her feline ears perked up at the sound"):
0
*Literal bitches (female canines) literally acting like bitches:
0
*Character goes to the mall immediately after transformation. There is always a mall available for this purpose:
0
*After transforming, the hero automatically finds a new girlfriend:
0
*The news is the only thing on, or the only thing anybody watches:
0
Furry Subtotal: 4&1/2
Chakat cliches (Chakat stories only - when featured in a Chakat story, two cliches equal one to allow for fair scoring)
*Lifestyle "Shocker" [Click For Explanation]
0
*Diet Slut [Click For Explanation]
0
*I Don't Care About Nudity, Sorta [Click For Explanation]
0
*Chakat Greeting (award bonus point if it involves a hug): 0
*Chakat pronouns explained: 0
*Chakat telepathy: 0
*Bernard Doove Was Right: 0
*Chakats are always genetically superior, even in morality, wisdom, mental health, and common sense: 0
*It's all in Scientific Chakat: 0
*Chakat style imitation wedding proposal/marriage: 0
*Chakats don't care about nudity (probably because they spend most their time having sex anyway). Award bonus point if they contradict this laissez faire attitude with provisions for their own privacy or get embarrassed about their nudity: 0
*Excessive Chakat grammar, or, alternately, any usage of the uber silly non-word "shir": 2
*Milkwater: 0
*`Taur pads are the only furniture: 0
*Sexual preference such as "male phase" used as character description: 0
*"Tail high": 0
*PADD: 0
*Halter tops compose ninety percent of the clothing being worn by the protagonist(s): 0
*Humans First: 0
*Naked birthing party (add a bonus point if a naked human is involved):
0
*Births are never spontaneous, random, unwanted, uncomfortable and/or inconvenient: 0
*Nobody has a miscarriage or abortion: 0
Chakat Subtotal: 2
Unclassified Cheese Bonus (Described in review or "Weird Parts:" section): 4
Subtotal: 46&1/2
Kudos
*"Caught In A Plot Web" [Click For Explanation]
0
*Award one kudos if the character is introduced before their name is used in the story.
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*Kudos for breaking away from canon (fanfiction only):
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*Author subtly sets up plot elements that fit together in an unexpected climax:
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*Author gets away with bad writing mechanics due to captivating story:
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*Proper use of the word "its":
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*Misc Kudos: -29
Total Kudos Deduction: -32
OVERALL CHEESE SCORE: 14&1/2
WTF: 0
Sleaze-O-Meter (One for every scene and/or dialog goes beyond the pale in trashiness): 0


Slave Foxes chapter 1
By: Daniel Davis
Chakat Universe copyright Bernard Doove
Father’s Love, Folly, and associated figures copyright of Allen Fessler
The tall figure moaned in his sleep. His back still burnt from the whipping he had taken instead of those the overseer held to blame.
“Is he all right?” A small voice asked gulping at the sight of larger fox’s back. Dozens of bloody welts stood out like firey lines on his sandy colored pelt, crossing his back were hundreds more lines of faded fur. The faded lines were where the fur had grown back in covering scars from other beatings he had received over the years.
“Bad day at the glass works, he took the brunt of the beatings. The overseer tried to kill a few of us again before he intervened, as usual the overseer didn’t care who he took his frustrations out upon,” Another sighed bringing out a first aid kit.
“What happened?”
“We lost three weeks production of the medical wares and they were all special orders. The overseers didn’t get them moved into storage like they were supposed to at the end of the day. We aren’t allowed to do that unescorted anymore, we might use it to try and escape again,” One stated his voice flat.
“Ouch we better get back to our cubbies. The master will not be happy about that in the least,” The other one said as she finished treating the larger fox’s back without waking him.
“Like anyone will check till the morning, we’ve been sealed in for the night.”
The larger fox shuttered as nightmares claimed him, thankfully they had faded over the years. He wasn’t the oldest just the largest and the others looked up to him even when he failed as he had so many times before. They had tried escaping probably ten times before they had been collared. The collars helped keep track of them and could be used to punish them as well. The overseers had abused that till the master had taken the control away from them. That was only temporary as the controllers were adjusted preventing the use full powered shocks multiple times that had already killed a couple of slaves and maimed almost a dozen more.
Finally a couple of years ago they were put into an old cargo pod with modified carriers as sleeping quarters. It rested on a thick tarmac they couldn’t dig through as they had done before. At first they had cut air holes into the pod, which had been a disaster when the monsoons struck later that year.
**** Five years ago
“Look at it come down, the ground is already saturated and it looks like a few places have flooded, at least when it lets up for a moment or two,” Someone said looking out one of the many air holes in the pod along the top and in roof. The bottom and sides of the pod were still water tight when the door was sealed to protect them from ground flooding.
“We’ve already got water pooling on floor,” Melinda commented sighing, looking at the dirty grey metal walls that surrounded them. The area was lit by glow strips and weak yellow overhead lights, generally the glow strips were more than enough for everyone to find their way around. “At least the rain should stop soon enough after dumping a foot or two of water on us. We need to watch getting chilled so no one gets sick. The overseers will be furious if we can’t make quota for any reason.”
“I think we’d better close the vents in the roof and stop the worst of it,” Becky suggested. “That’s good if you’re seeing breaks in the rain it should stop soon. We can get back to work once it dries out a little and make up the wasted time like they’ll insist upon.”
“Lets get to it then, at least what’s on the floor will drain out in the morning when they open the pod,” Doug commented. “I’m calling lights out, lets get some sleep while we can. Bear, you might want to consider dry bedding and sleeping on one of the catwalks, it looks like your bedding is already taking a swim.”
“Are all the carriers draining all right?” another voice replied sounding more than slightly annoyed.
“Appears to be, I’m not so certain connecting the vents they put into the carriers directly to the air holes was such a good idea. There is at least a foot of water on the floor already,” Melinda stated. “We are getting water inside the carriers.”
“The carriers are air tight if it wasn’t for those vents you’d never be able to survive with the doors closed. At least they put drains in the carriers as well, granted they only run into the center of the pod. Scott, we’ve got spare cubbies on the fourth level, lets get those in the lowest cubbies on the first level up here their drains will backup first. Scratch that, move all of level one up there is over a foot and half of water down there.”
“Already handled so... what I looked less than 30 minutes ago, how can you tell?”
“Some of the youngsters are having problems keeping their heads above water,” Bear stated vaulting over the second floor railing to assist. People dashed for the stairs in the attempt to assist they could hear the youngsters gasping and sputtering for breath as water occasionally filled their mouths.
“We got everyone out just in time, some of doors were almost impossible to open from the water pressure. I believe I said something about lights out.”
“You really want it right now?” Bear asked drying off.
“No, five minutes?”
“Five minutes.”
***
“What in the world?” someone exclaimed hearing rushing water.
“No, no, no this can’t be happening!” another voice stammered in shock.
Water was pouring into the pod from the top and sides apparently the covers sealing the air vents on the roof had failed. The water was already half way up the carriers on the second level and getting visibly deeper by the minute.
They tried and tried to get everyone out of their carriers. The water pressure on the doors made them impossible to open. Those trying to rescue the others finally had to give up as the water lapped at the bottom of the carriers on the third level. The foxes could still hear those still trapped in their carriers pleading begging for help that would never come, regardless of how they attempted to tune it out. Bear and several others had to be dragged from the water more than half drowned themselves from their repeated attempts.
All night long they gathered together on the third and fourth level watching the water rise till even the glow strips failed, and still the rain didn’t stop. The foxes had opened all the remaining carrier doors so no one else could get trapped if the water didn’t stop rising. They had tried to knock drain holes into the sides of the pod with little success. As suddenly as the rain had started it stopped and the pod doors burst open, letting the water escape.
The master was furious at the loss of life in the pod. He had made the overseers take care of all the bodies before firing them, it had been their responsibility to prevent things like that from happening. Some of the slaves that died had suffocated when their air ran out, they had sealed the air vents to prevent the water from getting in. Others had drown when their carriers filled with water from the vents. The drains had been fitted with valves to prevent them from backing up and with the pod flooded there was no place for the water to go.
It seemed like the same day they had been moved into a new pod. The new pod had its own life support allowing it to be sealed completely during the rainy season. It appeared nothing from the old pod had been used in the new one from the carriers on each level modified into unisex bathroom facilities more commonly referred to as a hygiene and the carriers they used as dormitories along the left side of the pod. Bear wished he could forget as did all of them that had survived those days, at least over time it had faded into an imperfect nightmare that only plagued them intermittently.

*** PRESENT DAY ***

“What is going on?” someone asked as they approached their pod at the end of the day.
“It’s only a temporary change while we do some necessary repairs on their quarters so don’t worry about it. Get in there and get to your cubbies!” The overseer snapped at them brandishing his whip till the older human standing nearby coughed.
“They are only in here temporarily, till we get another pod ready. I also closed down another mine and some glassworks temporarily,” The master said softly. “Don’t worry Bear I made sure the life support is ready to support the extra slaves. We moved you into a carrier on the top level you won’t have any issues with the cubbie. I do expect you to keep the mobs in control and monitor the life support. That hasn’t changed. We had to double up in a few areas it’s only for a couple of days.”
“Yes sir,” The large fox replied going into the pod as the doors were sealed behind him. Their pod was still an older smaller model but much better shape than the old one. Their sleeping quarters were made out of converted cargo carriers, each one was divided into little sleeping spaces designed to hold one fox stacked on the wall that everyone just called cubbies. None of the foxes were sure if the carriers were new or well cleaned either way other than fresh paint there wasn’t any odors in the pod at all, when they had been moved in. Wide metal stairs and what the master had called a ‘firemans pole’ allowed access to all four levels.
“Why did you do that? We should’ve removed those carriers and the stairs and added six more carriers, then again why waste carriers they don’t need so much space.”
“No, less trouble this way. They would know something more was up than what we are telling them.”
“There are a couple of plantation workers that will show them who is the boss,” Another sneered, looking at the old pod full of worthless slaves in his opinion. They also were further proof of his father’s senility and willingness to squander the money that was his inheritance.
“Don’t bet on that son, I certainly wouldn’t. Those foxes are survivors and they aren’t about to let someone walk all over them, not when they know whose in charge. We have over 1800 foxes from the mines and glassworks, and an additional thousand furs from the plantations. Why you don’t want them I don’t know.”
“They keep trying to escape and you let them get too smart, too smart for their own good. I still we should just kill the lot and be done with it. It’s a whole lot cheaper than giving them lobotomies or shipping them to off world markets.”
“You don’t think law enforcement wouldn’t find out. They are still mine so we’ll ship them off to the off world markets. I’ll handle the gas later I catch either of you messing with this carrier and you won’t see a credit when I’m gone now go, I can still make sure of that,” He replied shaking his head. One of the most valuable items the plantation sold was jewelry and hand blown glass the slaves made, items the master doubted less intelligent slaves could’ve or would’ve done on their own. It certainly would’ve lacked the spark of originality that made it so desirable and valuable. He had seen that with the glasswork made by less intelligent slaves, it was boring to say the least. His son was going to blow all that in one move not that he’d be around to see it happen or his son’s realization of that fact. The ancient human realized he had pushed matters to the limit odds were he wasn’t going to live out the week and the only one who knew the truth was his doctor.
“What ever I still think it’s a big waste of money and resources,” The younger man snarled stalking off, unsure if his father hadn’t already changed his will.
“He’ll never understand, it was your job and his orders to you, I’d like to believe that at least he claimed and none of you contradicted him. You dug straight and true, saving me from that cave in, faster than the professionals said they could’ve done it in. I’m still called a fool for trusting you that much at least by those that know and believe the truth. I was a fool, all of you said it was unsafe. My wife might have made sure things were done right after that, but I reaped the profits from happier workers. I won’t get the best profit out of this deal, but I have done my best to make sure you get a good master, as I promised her since I can’t trust my children to do so, the old man grinned looking at his watch. The pod was packed tighter than he liked but give them a few hours and everything would or should settle down.
“Sir the painters will be here in two hours. The new gas cylinders in about ten minutes but why, surely its not necessary.”
“Good, keep an eye on the power meters Jeeves. They should drop to almost zero soon enough with lights out.”
“You really don’t think they’d be stupid enough to try and get away with anything, like replacing the sleeping gas with something that would kill the slaves.”
“Not going to give them that chance. They are just greedy and anything I spend that they think is a waste will be questioned of course. Better a couple hundred credits to get rid of them, then the thousands I’m paying for this.”
“I see sir,” Jeeves replied. “I gather he doesn’t realize just the disposal fees if he gets caught will exceed that several times not counting the fines they will impose.”
“My son believes he will be one of the people that will get away with it. I think he’s done it before but no one can prove anything,” the old man said smiling mysteriously.
***
“Who thinks they are in charge around here,” A cat snarled blocking the walkway between the two rows of carriers. There was a stark difference between the new additions and the older ones, the newer ones were dirty and dented without glow strips stuck on the outside to help illuminate the way, both sets of carriers had shuttered air vents cut into the side the recently added carriers had hoods on their air vents to keep out the rain as well. The carriers used for the plantation workers had been interspaced around the estate near the fields they had worked.
“Talk to Bear,” The fox said struggling to get free, the cat was holding him by the neck against the carrier walls, unable to move or catch his breath. His conditioning prevented him from fighting back.
“Where is he?”
“I think the hygiene on level four,” The fox gulped finally able to breath properly, as he was dropped to the floor.
***
“You mind getting out of the way?” a vixen asked attempting to exit the hygiene.
“No, you look prefect,” Another cat said smiling positioning himself to further block her egress.
“I don’t think so. My name is Melinda you might want to remember that. I handle first aid, which if you try this again you will need!” She said snarling, as she hooked her claws into the floor grating. The cat didn’t even have a chance to scream as he was tossed into the hygiene over the vixen’s head. “Anyone else want to be annoying tonight?”
“No ma’am,” several voices replied getting out of her way quickly.
“Ya but first things first, I’m not finished with you. The name is Gerry resist me again and that will be the last time,” A dull black cat with white stripes running down its back snarled getting to its paws inside the hygiene.
“Let me guess you going to take over. Ok, I better get the medical kit from my locker,” She smirked ducking into her carrier “Boy are we packed in here.”
***
“I’m looking for Bear.”
“Yes,” A figure sitting on the hygiene floor said softly. He looked at all the slaves using the combined shower bathroom with a sigh undoubtedly he was going to have to clean the furtraps soon, far sooner than he wanted too. The furtraps were filters that prevented lose fur from clogging the system downside was if they weren’t cleaned regularly the drains would backup flooding the hygiene. Bear wasn’t sure which annoyed people more a flooded hygiene or his closing it to pull up the mesh flooring to clean the furtraps.
“Another wimpy neuter, well I’m taking charge in here.”
“Really so you’re the master now. I’m Bear by the way.”
“I’m the top supervisor the master put me in charge of his plantation.”
“Under an overseer no doubt.”
“I was directly under his son.”
“Wow. I’m impressed,” The fox commented standing up to tower almost a foot and a half taller than the cat, his towel laying on the floor forgotten. Bear easily picked the cat off the ground carrying him out to the walkway unable to move. “Actually I’m not impressed, the master himself said to keep everything under control not more than thirty minutes ago.”
“Where you taking me? Let go, I said let go!” Gerry snarled unable to move his paws, which felt like, they were being held by steel vises.
“Excuse me coming through. Here we go your carrier and cubbie. Please don’t make this anymore nasty than it has to be, it’s only temporary.”
“I am in charge and don’t you forget it,” He snarled still struggling to get free “I’ll sleep where I want, not crowded in this metal can, I bet you got a nice bed.”
“Just another cubbie this is your assigned space at least that is marked on your shorts there. I don’t know if anything is free; please just tone it down before someone gets seriously hurt. Now I don’t know about you, but I had a very hard day in the mines so good night, the individual carriers can be locked.”
“That won’t be necessary sir,” A large piebald colored pony said softly. “We’ll sit on him till he calms down. I know the master addressed all of us and told him none of his games.”
“We’ll get you for this, both of you Joe,” The cat snarled holding up his paws like he was going tear a few stripes out of someone.
“I really don’t want to do this, but OK,” Bear stated his fur standing on end, his voice almost a snarl itself.
“Got it boss,” A small figure said puffing her cheeks momentarily, seconds later Gerry fell over, the only thing stopping him from hitting the floor was Joe. “He’ll sleep for an about an hour or so.”
“Ok please everyone to your carriers and try to get some sleep at least in the morning we can get some room when we go to work,” The tall fox said sighing as he gently slid the unconscious cat into a cubbie and closed the curtain, before leaving the carrier. Once in the walkway Bear raised his voice slightly hoping everyone could hear him or at least pass the message along. “The lights will be turned off in about thirty minutes.”
“Thank goodness for that,” Several said agreeing as the walkways were rapidly cleared.
***
“Where are you going Bear?” Melinda asked.
“I want to do one last check of life support before lights out. I might sleep down there.”
“No you don’t, no, no, no. The last time you did that the master had a fit and a half. If I don’t see you in twenty minutes I’m coming down there, with as much help as necessary.” She snapped backing the much larger fox into the corner. “I saw your cubbie it’s big enough and they even put in a monitor for the life support systems.”
“All right I’ll note the settings and reading and make sure the two match,” He sighed, while he could lock himself into the life support areas, that wouldn’t stop Melinda and as many others as needed from pounding on the door and walls till he came out. Bear grabbed the pole at the end of the hallway and slid to the bottom level right outside life support.
Bear quickly ducked inside almost kicking himself he should’ve came down here and locked the door before getting a shower. None of the crew he was in charge of would think of entering the room let alone tampering with anything, but after the incidents upstairs he had serious doubts about the rest of them. The fox sighed beyond size there wasn’t really a good reason for anyone to look up to him and plenty of bad ones, too many bad decisions to count anymore. The only thing he was good at was maintenance, whether it was the mining equipment, glassworks or their own life support that he could keep running. The other thing he noted more than slightly worried the larders under the stairs hadn’t been restocked, that might just be a minor delay, which wasn’t a major issue it happened on a regular basis anymore. Looking round the room, the fox was slightly confused all the controls were active to his touch, the settings themselves he couldn’t change without getting a password prompt. Testing, the fox entered his maintenance code happy the setting changed properly. Satisfied everything was working properly, Bear exited the room locking the security door, the magnetic latches let go slamming the deadbolts into place something that still caused him to jump from the noise.
***
“Everything all right Bear?” someone asked as he stared at the panel mounted to the roof of his first cubbie in years. The fox had been too tall to use the standard cubbies the foxes used, since he was twelve, so he had a sleeping pad on top of the life support area.
“Just fine, just fine the readings match perfectly. Call lights out in five minutes.” He replied locking the panel so he didn’t accidently change it in his sleep either. During his examination of the panel Bear was surprised to learn not only could he monitor life support from the panel he could make changes without using the main panels downstairs.
“You got it everyone?” another fox called out.
“He said lights out five minutes,” a vixen replied with affirmative responses coming from the various carriers around them. Anyone looking down the hallways would’ve quickly spotted another difference between the carriers the plantation workers and miners used, miners tended to leave the carrier doors open so they couldn’t be trapped inside, while the plantation workers closed them to keep bugs and other unwanted forms of night life out.
“Beth you are no fun just because your head miner doesn’t mean you can speak for him.” Another fox quipped good naturedly.
“No more than you can as chief glassblower Doug,” She sneered.
“All right both of you everyone, the timer is set.” Bear sighed attempting to get comfortable.
“Bear what’s to stop someone from tampering with those controls.”
“They automatically lock Beth not my choice someone even set them that way in life support I still have access,” He commented closing the curtain for the first privacy he had had in almost ten years.
***
“Sir the power intake has dropped.”
“Lights out good, start pumping in the hibernation gas. What is all this stuff?” the master asked pointing to several piles of boxes sitting out of sight behind the pod.
“Food and other supplies we were told not to load on the pod.”
“Who told you my son? Something might go wrong they need to be able to support themselves for at least a month.”
“Sir the ship will pick them up in six hours, they’ll be at the auction off world in less than a week, right before the hibernation gas wears off. Your son figured it out.”
“Something could still go wrong.”
“Why are you doing this, they won’t be stressed at all. You’re exceeding all the requirements for shipping them.”
“You remember the cave in about nine years ago?” the master asked looking at the critically. “I would’ve had them load it but that too would’ve raised more questions.”
“Sure the mining rescue teams broke several records getting you out.”
“I never saw any of them.” He stated softly remembering those days fair better than he remembered many things anymore.
“Sure you did, you had to how else did you get out of there then.” Jeeves stated
“Everyone on the crew said the tunnel was unsafe. They were so adamant about it the overseers almost took a whip to them. They were physically blocking the path.” He responded looking up at the stars not that anyone was paying attention as he looked towards the border saying a silent prayer hoping Murphy wouldn’t curse this venture till they were safely away.
“Why did you go in then, seriously you’ve had outstanding years for a long time. They knew what they were doing.”
“I wanted to check something and the overseer said it was fine. I had covered maybe two hundred yards when falling debris started hitting me. The next thing I knew there was no going forward or back.”
“That’s when your son was alerted by the overseers and called mine rescue who arrived within minutes.” Jeeves commented knowing that was at least the official story.
“That’s the story, and beyond the fact there is no record of a call, no one is disputing they rescued me. I know better though. It seemed like an eternity down there. I’ve never been claustrophobic in my life, but this time as the minutes passed it seemed like days. I even started to hearing things scratching in the soil all around me. I had a lot of time to think, and I made a few decisions that I might have never had a chance to implement. My light was crushed. Right when it seemed I’d never get out, a hole opened in the wall.” The master stated still looking towards the stars.
“The mining rescue team, they respond immediately to all cave-ins.”
“No, Bear and several of the others, he was putting in supports as they dug a tunnel to me without a care in the world for their safety. They weren’t following a single safety regulation, not counting Bear’s age at the time. Sure mine rescue responds to all reported cave-ins, though by law its not supposed to make a difference who is involved it does.” He replied feeling it was time and past it the truth was told.
“I know that isn’t what the overseers or your son claimed officially.”
“I know, my wife knew. I made several promises to them, and vowed to my wife on her deathbed to keep them. I want all these supplies loaded. I doubt they gave it another thought.”
“I got a few spare batteries and oxygen tanks that just came back from servicing. We also got more food than will fit in the larders it should all fit into the empty life support lockers and the empty spots in there.”
“Do it, thanks. I locked the carriers and the gas should’ve only been fed into them.”
“We’ll take precautions. How they fixed for maintenance tools?” Jeeves inquired
“Should be fine, they’ve done a lot of their own work for years.”
“A final gift might be in order I confiscated these from your son. He does more damage with it than he fixes anything.” Jeeves said removing his tool belt.
“Where did he get that tools from the Federation are illegal.”
“You can get almost anything for the right price from the smugglers,” He replied grinning knowing the old man knew that as well if not better than most even if no one wanted to admit it.
“You sure you want to part with them like that.”
“I told your son I’d rather launch them into space before I let him have them back. Now I am launching them into space.”
“Good for you those crews going to get everything loaded all right? Give the life support door a three fingered salute.”
“Of course here they come, no problem. Honestly most of us expect to be fired once your son takes over and there is nothing any of us can do to stop it.”
“I know and there is a severance for each of you in my will. He would’ve had me committed years ago if he could’ve,” The older man said smiling. If the truth of what he was doing became know his son wouldn’t have to worry about committing him the planetary authorities would take of that.
***
“You sure you want this old thing repainted?” the worker with his crew of slaves asked.
“You sure it will dry as fast as you said?” The master stated, looking at the almost lifeless eyes of the slaves carrying the paint and equipment.
“Of course mi’ lord absolutely two coats anti-radiation coating as you asked for.”
“Get to it I’ll be watching this is the new pod number.” The elderly man said handing the painter a number.
“Got it we’ll be done within the hour guaranteed.”
“Sir how soon you coming in?” Jeeves asked worried about the old man his father had worked for decades for the old man much as he had. He had never seen the old man so worried odds were no one would bother the pod till it was well away from the planet so seeing it off made absolutely no then again giving they tools and supplies they would never need made absolutely no sense either.
“Once the ship leaves orbit, there it goes. They are on their way I’ve kept my word dear. Now hopefully he got my message. Godspeed, I’m sure most of you will not only be an asset where ever you go but make me proud as well.”
***
Bear found himself dreaming about all the bones they had found while mining. It had only been a month before the monsoon season, a short and accident free month before the monsoon that had killed so many of them, far too many.
“What broke this time Beth?” Bear asked he hadn’t been to bed in almost 24 hours repairing vital equipment in the mine and glassworks.
“Nothing we found a bunch of bones, old bones.” She replied hoping he would go to bed, not that she had a choice about answering the question maintenance was his domain.
“Rebury them, I’ll help.”
“We’ll lose the vein, the overseer wants that bonus.”
“We’ll fill in the shaft and tell her we lost the vein, she’ll have to deal with it. Our Master is happy that is the important thing. I told him yesterday about all the equipment being destroyed getting that vein, he didn’t seem overly happy about that. He had me called up to the house to ask about it,” Bear stated very firmly
“The overseer mentioned that she was getting mad about the cost of equipment.” She commented softly knowing the constant demands of the overseer and equipment repair is what had kept Bear up for so long.
“Oh well lets get this done, it’s not like she’ll get her hands dirty digging out the tunnel to prove us right or wrong,” He stated firmly.
“All right I wish you’d go to bed instead you’ve been up too long already.” Becky stated knowing there was almost nothing she could do that would get Bear to go sleep without getting them all into trouble.
“Once this is done I promise.”
“Thanks, I’ll hold you to that promise.”
***
“I just received a communication captain,” A heavyset, scarred Caitian said out loud. This route was risky for him, being so close to the unaligned worlds especially as a fur, but he no longer had a choice. His family had long ago disowned him for smuggling anything and everything including slaves. Starfleet had multiple warrants out for him, but that applied to everyone on the ship, and if someone turned them all in they could easily buy a new freighter. It just meant that you didn’t call attention to yourself while in port, and they tried to stay out of those ports where Starfleet maintained a strong presence. There were several other groups that wouldn’t bother with locking him or most of the crew in a cell, they’d just chuck them out of the airlock as is.
“Well give it to me Jonesy,” The wolf in the captain’s seat replied. Who sat there depended on what looked the best whether it was a human or a fur. It was his ship and he made all the decisions. Like everyone else on the ship moralistic decisions about selling illegal technology or transporting slaves didn’t matter, just the paycheck.
“Looks like the old man paying for this croaked. We get paid upfront?”
“Every credit, well that is good news. How close are we to Wayward 5? Don’t want anyone to get suspicious or nosey when we alter course.”
“What are you up to captain? We’re about an hour out, Wayward 5 control will have us on their screens in about fifteen minutes unless they are running at high alert.”
“Simple, we’re going to resell the cargo,” He stated, turning to face Jonesy. “I don’t know what we’re shipping but as much as that old man paid to get it into the Federation, it must be valuable. He made his fortune mining in the last few years jewelry and glass crafts have made him even richer, much richer. I never guessed he was trading with the Federation though.”
“Why don’t we make a new deal with whoever is to pick it up. They’d never know the deal was changed.”
“Mark you’re a fool, all they have to do is call Starfleet ahead of time and pocket the reward money,” The wolf replied snarling as he rounded on the tall human manning navigation.
“Sorry captain that idea slipped my mind. I mean we aren’t taking this to any standard ports just an out of the way asteroid belt.”
“That’s not odd for a deal like this, all we know is where they were expecting the cargo.”
“CAPTIAN, Buster in engineering reports the warp engines just went offline.”
“Dave tell him to get those engines running right now!” the wolf snarled cornering the rabbit manning engineering on the bridge.
“Right away sir,” He gulped backing into the wall.
“Sir navigation just went off line we are stuck on our present course,” The Voxxian at the helm exclaimed.
“I thought you were the best navigator in Starfleet, well till they court-martialed you for selling equipment to the LNAW through several dummy companies,” The wolf snarled, knowing he had one of the best smuggler crews he could get. There wasn’t a member of the crew that wasn’t wanted by at least four different groups not counting Star Fleet. Things like this shouldn’t be happening, the ship was maintained before anyone including himself received their cut.
“We can change speed and stop it appears but that’s all.”
“I guess we stop at Wayward, scan the cargo and jettison anything that will get us a deep scan.”
“I already scanned most of our cargo it all registers as food stuffs and innocent cargo, we have all the necessary papers accounting for it. Get the human crew up here?”
“Yes we’ll be running the trade route between LNAW planets. Turn off all federation equipment and bring up the LNAW backups.”
“We’ll be underway in four minutes. It’s still going to take us at least five hours to reach Wayward under maxim impulse.”
***
“Commander, we have a trader asking docking permission for repairs. I took the liberty of scanning the registry and ship nothing undeclared on the basic scans. They’ve been through before without problem.”
“Let them dock,” The Rakshani commander sighed looking at the human crewman monitoring the scanner.
“Yes sir,” She replied unsure about his decision.
“It’s not like we can check their registry properly. As long as they aren’t carrying slaves or contraband I can’t deny them a docking spot at the least and it’s an open trade route by treaty. Keep guards and sensors on it till it leaves, Mr. Marx.”
“I’ll let the next shift know sir,” She replied, “Sir I think I recognized that captain.”
“Really, probably saw him before on that ship.”
Starfleet with approval from the council had built several stations along the LNAW boarder and trading routes through federation space. It was hoped a permanent presence would do more to discourage smugglers and pirates, especially those that had recently taken to selling captured furs as slaves. They also served as refueling and resupply points for the starships that patrolled the vast majority of the Gosper fringe. As always the pirates and smugglers knew where they were and took pains to avoid the area even before the station was fully on line, this resulted in only five stations being built instead of the originally contracted dozen. It seemed every year there was a call for further cuts in funding for the stations if not to decommission them as a waste of funding and time, after all none of them had ever captured a single smuggler or pirate.
***
“It’s the control matrix in engineering boss,” Buster reported over the intercom, “We are going to have to detach some of the cargo pods to get at it.”
“How long is it going to take?” the tall wolf sneered looking around the bridge including the good looking man at in the captain’s chair. Redfox who claimed to be part American Indian usually worked as one of the engineers when they didn’t need a human crew on the bridge. “Carefully everyone we don’t want them to get too nosey so low profile.”
“I don’t know, Doug and I might be able to get it patch together long enough to get into more proper federation space. We call for parts and they’ll be all over us Federations parts on a LNAW vessel treaty or no, not good,” Buster stated.
“Darn, we wouldn’t have a reason to be out here as a Federation vessel though.”
“No we don’t and we can’t switch equipment this late in the game either,” Redfox commented. “Darn this shouldn’t of happened sir. We have full redundancy on both systems.”
“It did happen that’s all that matters till we get out of here with our hides intact,” The wolf snarled “I’ll skin anyone that gives us away alive, we are in the enemy’s backyard and they’d like nothing better than to sting us up.”
***
“Do we have to do this run?” Philip asked.
“We accepted taking the contract from Dad, in and out,” Paul replied grinning “Personally I like a little change from routine without us having to fight for our lives and their almost always glad for some company at these outposts in the middle of nowhere.”
“But an empty cargo pod of all things,” The skunk retorted
“They might of put something in it, we got that pod from the Folly to drop off anyways.”
“Right I’ll feel better once we are back in the Federation proper.”
“Same here, but we should be safe enough. Dreamy put the Zulus out on sentry so we are seeing as much as the station on active scan if not more,” Paul said activating the communications console. “Wayward 5 this is Father’s Love awaiting approach approval with supply delivery. We’d like to get in and out as soon as possible.”
“Father’s Love we were expecting the Folly in a few weeks with supplies please advise,” came the slightly nervous reply. “There are no other supply deliveries expected sir.”
“Chill rookie they are all right. Clear them for approach, Father’s Love is run by furs that Neal Foster of the Folly trained they’ve delivered here before. We’ll just scan the pod extra well not that I expect any problems since we can see their bridge,” a voice could be heard over the still open channel. “Hello Paul, Phillip you left the audio channel open and didn’t turn on our camera.”
“Yes sir. Father’s Love you are cleared for approach,” the rabbit that suddenly appeared on the screen said still looking nervous. “Sorry we got unexpected visitors. I take it you got a pod for us.”
“We sure do,” Paul stated “Sorry for the confusion Neal needed to free up some space in his schedule so we swapped a few deliveries. I hope we didn’t make a wasted trip the contract didn’t say we couldn’t deliver early.”
“No your fine,” she replied hoping for some fresh un-replicated vegetables. “Great supplies the commander doesn’t want you to dock this trip. We have to hold the remaining docking ports and launch bay open. Our engineer will bring the empty pod up to you.”
“All right we’ll help him hook up the fresh one, then you sure positive you don’t want us to drop the pod in the yard?” Phillip asked
“Absolutely sure Father’s Love. WE have all the pods in the yard we can handle which is more than we like, we shouldn’t even have the empty for that matter.”
“Underway again that was certainly in and out fast enough wasn’t it?” Paul teased Phillip
“This time, this time I really don’t like being so close to the Gosper Fringe.”
“The Zulus are patrolling properly and there is nothing on the scanner why don’t you go to bed I’ve got the con,” Paul commented grinning.
“All right, all right,” Phillip stated rapidly exiting the bridge.
***
“Sir I did a detailed scan of that ship, they’ve got Federation equipment on board. A lot of equipment enough to run the ship the engines are Federation made!” Mr. Marx exclaimed. “I also rescanned Father’s Love to test the scanners nothing unexpected there.”
“Why did you scan it again?”
“I knew I recognized their captain, he was a Starfleet engineer. I also detected furs on board they aren’t working nor are they in cages.”
“Did you run the visuals against the Federation databanks?”
“Of course, they are all wanted Sir.”
“Well, alert the nearest starship Mr. Marx. It’s time we did an inspection tour of that ship, run the design against the federation registry while you’re at it.” Commander Karloston replied keying the PA system “All Marines alert this is not a drill we may have our first smuggler, scramble the fighters I don’t want them to try taking off on us.”
“I’ll alert engineering to deep scan their pods. Lets see what they are really carrying.”
***
“Bear, Bear wake up. The clock indicates the door should’ve been unsealed hours ago.”
“Beth you are more than a little off,” He replied, looking at his computer display. “Anyone else awake, we probably need to eat something as soon as possible. Melinda are there any after effects prolonged exposure to sleep gas?”
“We aren’t experiencing them why?”
“According to the display it’s been a month. I need to check the filters personally.”
“I better start checking the carriers.” Melinda sighed.
“Well, be careful.”
“Bear you got company!” Beth exclaimed finding the doorway blocked.
“Well at least a few others are awake,” Bear sighed. “Well you apparently want something.”
“Control of life support.” The cat in the doorway snarled advancing on the fox.
“In your dreams maybe,” Bear stated shaking his head.
“You are going to give it to me gladly.”
“BEAR! Someone’s locked most of the other pods they’re jammed shut physically.” Someone shouted after slipping out the pod.
“What are you up to?” he asked before responding to the other issue “Cut them open if you have to.”
“Bear you’re the only one with access to tools like that,” Someone pointed out
“Getting rid of dead weight I’ve seen the food stores,” Gerry snarled
“All right enough of this. See if you can get any of them open and we’ll deal with the rest once I deal with this other issue,” Bear snarled rapidly springing to his feet and subduing the cat so he could only move his tail. The few furs standing outside their carriers in the walkway scurried out of the way as Bear carrying the spitting and hissing cat stalked past entering the nearest hygiene snarling his teeth barred. “There might be one less cat before the end of the day but we all survive together or die together pure and simple.”
“I’m taking control.” Gerry snarled struggling to get lose.
“Really? Control this,” The fox retorted snarling himself, holding the cat’s head under the water in a toilet bowl. “Don’t try it. I can hear you approaching, look at your friend over there. Now someone call for first aid.”
Several of the cats that had followed them into the room backed off. One of them had tried attacking the kneeling fox. The slightly built fox had lightly backhanded him as if he was trying to swat a fly, and sent the cat flying across the room where the wall finally stopped him.
“OUT of the way, let me in here. Bear let him go, let him go you’ll regret it if you kill him. I think he might be smart enough to get the message, besides we’re all slightly cranky after not eating for so long,” A small voice urged.
“Jason, what are you doing here? I know we had the group from mine 2 onboard not mine 3. That means they closed all the mines,” He replied pulling the gasping cat out of the toilet, who raised his tail causing a number of people to back away worried. “Don’t try it, empty threat I know they de-scented and de-clawed your hands years ago.”
“Apparently all 3 glassworks as well, Becky is here as well.”
“Why? Never mind its not important right now.” Bear stated keeping a firm grip on Gerry
“WHAT? He was de-scented?” Someone bellowed.
“Sure, like they were going to leave a civet cat with a weapon he could use again a human,” Jo said holding up her patient’s paw and pressing slightly “No claws here. Bear don’t forget we need tools to open the rest of the carriers.
“Excuse me I’ve got things to take care of. I haven’t forgotten,” Bear commented cocking his head for a second before exiting the room.
“I wonder what that was about?”
The fox entered the life support room surprised all three racks of batteries were full; the supply lockers had been fully restocked. Almost all the open spaces were filled with food, or spare oxygen tanks marked to indicate they were full without hindering access to the equipment. He quickly checked the controls and readouts. Apparently they had used only a day or two of life support during the last month, all the supply tanks were still full.
“What in the world?” Bear exclaimed as Melinda climbed into the room shutting the door behind her. Bear quickly opened the door for a few minutes and handed out tools to finish opening the remaining pods.
“Where are the manuals Bear?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” He replied, staring blankly at the bookshelf filled with boxes of sweet tea a treat they rarely got and all loved. “It says concentrated, I wonder how much is here?”
“Well I insist you share that. I don’t know,” Melinda said blankly looking at the boxes. “I don’t like this I know all the manuals are on the computer, but still. Our new master won’t like how much some of us know in the least.”
“There is a message here. Melinda can you get the team leads and medicals down here, I don’t know if there is anyone in those positions from the plantation though.”
“You just wiped out their pecking order dead. I came down here to see if you needed any treatment. Other than an ear to listen to, he was talking mass murder. You let him off lightly, the rest of the plantation crews aren’t taking any lip off them but for the moment they seem happy to leave them alone.”
“As long as they don’t try anything else we’ll have to keep it that way,” Bear stated firmly
“Right.”
***
The note had caused worry and excitement. They had slowly gained more room as they used the supplies from the larger pod inside of which their pod was now riding. There had been a few arguments over which carriers to empty first, not that they lasted, only a few people could access the computerized map to find out which carriers were which. It contained more facilities allowing everyone to spread out, the downside was none of the carriers were heated and the further from the central pod you went the colder it was. The medical team had a pair of carriers stocked as an infirmary, there was a proper kitchen making feeding everyone easier. There was even a couple of carriers allowing for the glass workers and miners to work on glass wares and jewelry. The plantation workers at least those willing to work without the direct orders of a master were growing food stuffs in a few carriers hydroponically.
***
“Bear you all right?” Becky asked softly
“Sure I’m saving the batteries in our pod for later as much as possible. Wondering when we’ll meet our new master Neal. How is everyone doing?”
“Bored for the most part, and dealing with new sensations. That wasn’t unexpected honestly. Some of the other diversions we found are helping but they’re beyond some and not enough for others,” She responded holding up her paws in defeat.
“No time for that, we are down to the last of the water and air filters I just put them in. We have a little over a week before the air starts to get bad.”
“What about growing areas? I thought you said we had enough for a month.”
“Not enough, I think they figured we’d be there or miscalculated. Becky don’t say a word. I’ll give it a few days then I’ll sneak out and try find something to fill the gap. How the cats doing?”
“Sore, bottom of the peeking order now. I’m glad that is settled finally, they really are a waste of space. We still have plenty of food we are eating more than they are growing but it is making a difference.”
“None of us is an overseer so we don’t have the right to order them. If it comes down to it the glasswork will have to stop probably should do that anyways.” Bear sighed sure he knew what Becky was going to tell him the end result of that would be, not that she knew the truth of the situation.
“I’ll let them know that means more bored people.”
“Take your pick boredom or suffocation?” he replied emotionlessly.
“Right I’ll tell them right now. Can they resume if you get replacements?”
“The less bored people the better I really don’t know how much longer we’ll be in here. Do you smell smoke?” Bear asked getting worried.
“Yes, but why? We aren’t using any open fires it must be our imagination. A fire might feel good as cold as parts of this pod are.”
“FIRE! Fire those idiots set a fire in their carrier.” Someone shouted grabbing a water hose as Bear dashed out of life support.
**
“HEY we were just trying to cook something to eat and keep warm,” Gerry snarled dripping filthy water all over the place. “Come on let’s blow.”
“I guess some of us can’t read even pictures,” Becky commented pointing to a sign saying no fires with picture of the same as well.
“This carrier is totaled I sealed the vent. We’ll seal it up the filters can’t handle this we are still going to be smelling smoke for days beyond that.” Bear snapped sealing the carrier the cats had vacated.
“Are we all right? I probably should have found a fire extinguisher,” The rabbit said sighing “I didn’t think, we’re starting to ration water for showers and laundry and I waste it on a fire.”
“It’s not a complete waste, getting that fire out was important. I’ll turn up the power and try to squeeze a little more water through the filters.”
“We aren’t used to living like this, in the mines or on the plantation you did what any of us would,”
Jason commented with a sour look “I don’t think your going to get much more water or air through the filters.”
“Not another fire!” Becky exclaimed.
“The cleanup from this one. The cats demanded showers, then they used the air dryers instead of towels. You know where all that wet soot went, into the water supply or into the ventilation system.”
“Can I get enough of a shower to wash out this smoke? Maybe the filters right inside the vent caught most of it,” Bear offered hopefully.
“I think so. I wouldn’t bet on the filters, some of what they burnt was paper.”
“All right I reactivated the life support filters in the central pod they can’t support all this for very long, limit everyone to drinking water only. I’ve got to find some filters. How I’ll ever purge the air and water systems out here I don’t know. Actually if I had a stockpile filters I know how to do it, little by little, but I don’t. If we don’t screw up again we can possibly survive in the central pod,” the fox stated, the look on his face making it plain without new filters they wouldn’t have any choice in the matter for better or worse.
“Trust me someone is going to sitting on those cats from now on, they were spitting the whole way but we locked them in a carrier after making sure there was nothing they could try burning. Beth also made sure they completely stripped beforehand.”
“Good, we can’t afford another disaster like that.”
~~~~~~~~~
Slave Foxes chapter 2
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bear had prepared as carefully as possible, there wasn’t a lot of time to spare right now with all their filters only days from failing. The fox sighed putting his shorts back on they they were the cleanest clothes he had and even they smelled of smoked and were covered with soot and grease spots. Bear hoped to complete his mission without getting caught but he wasn’t about to risk offending anyone by running around in the nude. The fox wasn’t sure which offended people more a slave having the nerve to wear clothes, like they were the equal of a human or a slave with nothing at all on. He completed his preparations be putting on the shoulder bag with several used filters in it to compare with possible any possible replacements he found, without replacements they would suffocate long before they died of thirst.
The tall fox carefully opened the only door that didn’t indicate it was exposed a vacuum with red telltales, after shorting the door alarm. He hoped no one would ever realize any of them had left the pod without permission. Right in front of him was another door forming an airlock to the pod. Bear gulped; he had never seen anything like the room he was in exiting the airlock. He found himself standing on of several catwalks in a large carrier filled room that could’ve held the master’s mansion several times over. His sharp hearing easily picked up what he hoped was the hum of the engines as he headed for the rear of the ship.
“OK none of this looks familiar,” Bear commented to himself looking at the confusing maze of engineering controls and readouts through the locked engineering door. It took him several minutes to find a storage room, the rest of it had excited him and he could’ve spent hours standing there trying to figure things out, but other concerns demanded his immediate attention.
Nothing in the lockers matched what he knew, some of it he was figuring out. There was little hope of using anything here to fix their systems. More amazing there wasn’t any storage lockers of filters or canisters of oxygen sitting around, which seemed impossible to believe. Tentatively Bear touched the nearest screen hoping it was similar enough to what they used in the pods so he could find the necessary information without getting caught.
“EXCUSE me who the heck are you?” a loud voice asked transfixing Bear in place. Shi had watched him long enough both here and on the bridge to know this wasn’t quite ordinary, even for a stowaway. The fox had a purpose and apparently understood at least some of what he was looking at. He was wearing a collar and filthy shorts with the largest ears of any fox shi had seen. Dream Weaver carefully picked up the folded paper off the floor and opened it. Hir sensitive nose easily confirming part of what their sensors on the bridge had already told them, he also smelled of oil and ozone.
“ME sorry master me failed you,” he replied, unwilling to face hir.
“Can the act, how do you know Neal and Tess?” Shi snarled, claws trying to dig into the deck. There was little doubt who the letter was intended for and it was annoying as anything. Neal hadn’t said anything about picking up passengers, let alone someone acting like a slave this run. The letter addressed to simply Neal had said ‘I know you and Tess will take good care of my furs’ with a single name signature at the bottom.
“Neal is our new master sir.”
“What do you mean your new master? I meant it, can the act. You are looking for something specific.”
“Me no know anything else.”
“I said cut that out!” The annoyed chakat said, hir annoyance growing when the long-eared fox hunched down in front of hir, his tail tucked up between his legs. He wasn’t lying, but there was something unsaid in his reply. There was no way Neal would accept a slave much less the number they knew was waiting in the pod, unless it was to set them free. Then again, Neal couldn’t or wouldn’t just set them free without making sure they could at least fend for themselves.
“What are you?” he stammered finally looking up at the figure from his kneeling position on the floor. He suddenly realized there were two other furs standing behind the one that had spoken to him. They were holding odd looking guns that were pointed at him. Those were at least recognizable, a skunk and fox unlike any he had seen before with red fur and tiny ears of all things. The odd looking fur looked like someone had melded the torso of a feral animal with torso and head of a normal fur. The strange fur was wearing a halter top and a pouch at her waist but nothing else, while the other two were wearing shorts and t-shirts.
“All right Dreamy, stop intimidating him,” The skunk said, handing his gun to her as he passed, then pulled the confused fox to his feet. Phillip pulled the filters out of the shoulder pouch the fox was wearing. “What do you have here? Mark 1 Himalaya water and air scrubber filters. I haven’t seen anything like this since I was a cub and they were old then.”
“Oh!” Bear exclaimed looking worried and more than slightly crestfallen.
“I think we can still assist. I’m Philip, over there looking ready spit nails is Dream Weaver shi is a chakat. Over there is Scarlet,” the skunk said examining the filters closely. “Well these are certainly beyond repair or reuse.”
*****
“What did you find?” Dreamy asked, “We let him go with a bunch of new filters once you sounded the all clear. He made a beeline for the pod.”
“Someone certainly intended it as living quarters, long term except for the life support. Once they realized we weren’t part of their group we only saw what you’d expect slaves sitting in carriers doing nothing looking lifeless and dull. That is a lie by the way they pegged us way too fast for anyone without some intelligence,” Sunny reported. “Where’s Philip? Did you pickup anything?”
“Nothing that didn’t indicate he wasn’t telling us the truth at least as he sees it, this whole situation is so frustrating, it didn’t even cross my mind. How did they figure that out?” shi asked tapped hir com badge “Philip where are you?”
“Checking on something Dreamy, be patient.” A voice replied from the com badge.
“All right I gather there is a fur named Bear in the pod who’s in charge. We couldn’t find him.”
“Roger that. I’ll keep you posted.” Phillip replied over the com badge.
“Because we didn’t know who was in charge, and well to be blunt we don’t look like any furs they’ve seen before. If I had to classify them based on their behavior I’d say we have a load of laborers. I don’t think any of them are sex slaves; at least they don’t have the rumored appetite. They have an infirmary and it’s manned. They know at least a little first aid or at least some of them do,” Fred said grinning sheepishly holding up a bandaged paw. “My own stupid fault and they treated it quite professionally. They also have a kitchen which is good for the numbers they have to feed.”
“Apparently we’ve got miners, glassworkers and plantation workers in there. The glassworkers were blowing artworks until they were told to stop. As someone put it, your choice is boredom or suffocation they chose boredom logically enough. I borrowed this for a moment,” Sunny stated with a grin putting a glass fox on the table.
“They made this?”
“We watched them stow the equipment, and polish this up before closing the carrier. There isn’t the supplies or room for all of them to work even if they wanted to. Some of the miners do a little metal working as well mainly jewelry. I can’t say for sure how much metallurgy they know but they certainly know how to shape it,” Morning Glory said looking at hir partner in crime as shi placed a herringbone gold chain on the table. The chain was three links wide with the center links appearing to be white gold.
“They are also growing some of their own food, both with hydroponics and some soil trays. I gathered most of the plantation workers are taking turns tending them. They even put some small trays in some of the carriers to help with the air. Otherwise they seem to have plenty of food stocks all it appears most of the carriers in the outer pod are still filled with food.”
“What are you leaving out?” Dreamy asked critically, most of it seemed too good to be true something had to spoil it. Shi was sitting on a highly illegal load of what no one had ever found or reported if not smart slaves, slaves with far more intelligence then had been thought possible.
“We have a carrier of plantation stupid-visors. Apparently stupid-visors is very accurate,” Sunset gulped “They refuse to help out, and they were behind the fire, even though there are signs all over both inside and out of the carriers with words and picture ‘no fires’. Once they figured out we were intruders they didn’t do anything that broke the idea of them being what we expected of slaves.”
“Are we sure they aren’t going to try that again?” Dreamy asked plainly worried.
“Reasonably they are stripped and locked in a carrier their fellow slaves aren’t taking any chances. They had a guard on the door even after they figured out we were there,” Faststream stated. “If we hadn’t already figured out what was going on it would looked like they were sitting outside the carrier.”
******
“Great! How did anyone get in here? The door is still locked,” Bear muttered to himself, rapidly sitting the necessary filters on the counter. He would’ve changed them but that appeared to be a waste of time at the moment as all their life support equipment had been dismantled. He looked critically at the small box that the water and air systems were now connected to, unsure of its purpose. The carriers that made up life support in the larger pod seemed warmer than it had been, but Bear decided part of that was from how badly his heart was still racing after what had happened.
“This isn’t possible, both rooms!” the fox exclaimed, entering life support in the smaller pod. The equipment had all been disconnected and connected to another small box.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Philip said grinning, as the fox started to move things around and almost dropping an oxygen cylinder on his foot in shock as he turned to face the skunk. “You never gave us you name.”
“Bear excuse me I have work to get done,” He replied still moving things around the carriers
“I can help.”
“I got it,” Bear snapped moving several heavy pieces of life support equipment back into place before consulting the wall console for some directions.
Philip sat there watching for several minutes before really noticing what the fox was doing. The fox apparently knew what he was doing and would rapidly have the old system working once more.
“So your Bear. You want to stop a moment?”
“Can’t we need life support working now. Someone dismantled life support in the larger pod as well.”
“I’m sure you have equipment to check the air quality.”
“Sure why, we got some fresh air when I left the pod.” The fox stated knowing there would be some exchange of air when he went in and out.
“I’ll accept that statement but enough to filter all the way in here.” Phillip asked challenging the fox.
“I wouldn’t think so,” Bear replied checking the readout before rebooting the entire system to try again. “Wonderful it’s not working either there is a marked improvement in air quality, increase of temperature through out both pods.”
“According to my scanner the readings are right well at least in the other life support area,” The skunk said holding up a small screen in front of him. “I can help seriously. The new units are able to clean up that mess for you here and in the outer pod. The lingering smoke won’t clog these units. Now that we know you are here, we brought up the heat in the outer pod for you. It’s mainly intended to keep cargo from freezing if necessary. That certainly includes all of you, not as cargo but things that we need to protect from freezing.”
“How are you getting these figures, they match the readings from the outer pod,” Bear stated looking between the two screens several times not sure what to make of it.
“Well the environmental units telemeter data about how they are working back to the ship,” Philip said grinning, till he saw the slightly confused look on the fox’s face “They send it wirelessly.”
“Like how I get readings from the other pod,” He replied looking at his work with a sigh. “Well that was a waste of time and energy.”
“We could splice it back into the main lines and if something goes wrong you could turn it back on. I’ll help you.”
*****
“That was impressive, setting the controls to automatically turn on your systems like that. I still think the set points are too low for my comfort,” Philip said as they finished hooking the larger life support unit in.
“Those levels will work. Where are we?” Bear asked entering a shower in the room to clean up
“In the Federation.”
“Oh!” Bear sighed.
“What’s wrong, you seem upset suddenly,” Philip asked concerned. “I didn’t notice this before these tools came from the Federation, either that or they are extremely well made knockoffs.”
“I found them in my locker, they weren’t there before this. Sorry all I really know about the Federation is you can get anything for a price there.”
“Not legally, looks like the same applies where you come from. Do you know the name of the planet you came from?”
“No, we lived on a plantation with several mines,” Bear replied unsure why he felt at ease talking to the strange skunk. “I’m really worried about meeting our new master. Our old master’s son hated the fact we were so intelligent. I’m worried they might do something to make us less intelligent.”
“No Bear, no we would never do that,” Philip said shuttering a little himself as the fox came out of the shower and quickly dried off.
“Either way the shower is yours, you stink after working so hard,” Bear said grinning as he slipped out the door for few moments without any apparent concern for the fact he wasn’t wearing anything at all.
“That’s done I told Beth people can start working in the glassworks and laundry again. You going to shower or what, I can leave if you want stinky.”
“You want to see stinky do you?” Philip asked grinning evilly at the fox as he decided to see how the fox would react to being pushed a little. “Oh yes this room might smell for a while but the new filters will handle this as well.”
“Hold that thought for a moment,” The fox replied rapidly turning to the softly beeping console. “What are they trying this time? Well let’s see them try shorting out the glow strips.”
“Dang, something shorted out there. I guess we better go check it out,” Philip said looking at the reading on the now silent console. It was easy to see the graphed energy spike on the display. He quickly decided not to trouble the fox with the condition of their generators right now there wasn’t much they could do about it or really needed to with the pod connected to external power. He doubted that would stop Bear from trying though.
“The medical team is more important right now,” Bear said scratching his neck. “I try and deal with them right now and I might do something drastic. Someone shorted the lights in the carrier the cats are in, I just cut all the power except for ventilation and very low voltage glow strips.”
“TWO to beam out please,” Philip called out, more than slightly shocked. All he had heard was some rustling of heavy plastic, before Bear had him stuffed up to the shoulders in a slick large plastic sack of some sort. It hadn’t hurt him in the least beyond his pride, which would easily recover, but the fox had moved faster than the skunk had thought possible. Bear had finished by picking up the shocked skunk bag and all off the floor singled pawed before the transporter kicked in.
“Beam out?” Bear commented looking slightly cockeyed at the situation.
******
“Hello Windy, how can I help you?” Dreamy asked hir sister standing in front of the desk, there were times when shi wished shi was empathically deaf.
“Are you nuts we don’t have any idea what diseases or parasites they are carrying? I hereby demand as a medical order we put the ship under quarantine for the next month,” Windy snarled slamming hir paws onto the desk.
“Denied without proof they are carrying something identified or otherwise. We have a little over two weeks till our next stop.”
“I can’t do anything within that time frame. I insist,” Shi snarled refusing to back down, sure that Dreamy would relent regardless of their contractual obligations.
“I said DENIED without proof. They have people trained in first aid at least maybe they can help it’s in their own interest as well. I’ll send Paul down to help you as soon as possible.”
“You have an obligation to the rest of the Federation,” Windy snarled.
“I have an obligation to the customers we agreed to take from dad as well as our own,” Dreamy snarled back slamming his paws onto the desktop “Prove they are a medical risk I’ll put this ship under quarantine then for as long as necessary. We will advise who ever necessary as well, but we will not do that without proof. You have been a sourpuss ever since we met Neal and agreed to this run, GET OVER it. I want those collars gone as soon as possible as well.”
“Excuse me I have work to do,” Shi replied rapidly stalking out the door
“You ok Dreamy?” Sunny asked from the open doorway.
“I hate fighting with hir like that. I assume everyone on the bridge heard us. Thank goodness shi is just being a nervous nelly right now without any proof.”
“Plainly we really need to upgrade the sound proofing around here,” Shi grinned
“What and lose the speed advantage we have to extra weight never. I won’t hear of it, any word from Philip?” Dreamy retorted happy Windy and hir anger were out of range.
“No then again who knows what he’s into, just hope we don’t find him stuck in an access shaft again with only his tail sticking out,” Sunny commented
“As he said who ever designed it must never considered people would actually have to get in there to work on parts of it,” Shi stated. “All right get back to work Sunny before I dock your pay and I’ll see if I can find out what mischief Phillip has gotten himself into this time.”
****
Phillip was shocked as the point to point transport deposited them in the captain’s day room. He knew that sooner or later Dreamy would want to know what he was upto.
“Well this is certainly interesting,” Dreamy commented grabbing Bear who almost fell over to help support him, as the transporter beam wore off. “I can safely assume you are from outside the Federation and have never been through a transporter before. Bagged skunk, well that is a solution to possible problems. You ok Philip? Might we finally have your name?”
“Sure Dreamy except for my pride. I’ll have to figure this out, humane way of keeping people contained with the top loosely closed around my shoulders,” Phillip replied unsuccessfully attempting to get free.
“Bear,” The fox stated blinking his eyes as he attempted to figure out how he had gotten here.
“Well no wonder everyone figured if we didn’t know who you were we were outsiders. First off we are going to have to leave you in those pods for now. I’m not sure if Philip told you this is the Federation, slavery is illegal here so all of you are free. We’ll talk more about that later, I hope till we get things figured out you will help keep things under control in the pod.”
“Sure that is my job, beyond maintenance,” Bear stated unemotionally.
“Well any idea what happened with that massive power drain a few minutes ago?” Dreamy asked pointing to a read out on hir screen.
“No I turned off everything but the glow strips though.”
“I see we’ll talk later. Beam him back to where he came from if possible,” Shi stated softly looking critically at the fox who faded away as the transporter took effect.
“He really doesn’t know what happened. Someone shorted something in the pod where they are keeping the cats Dreamy. I saw the warning screens and he did what he said and left checking them to the medical teams,” Philip commented giving hir the facts as he knew them. “We are both in the same boat, they don’t know us and we really don’t know them. If this is a trap they are as clueless about it as we are or did you pick up something from him? You probably saw a few other spikes.”
“I was going to ask about those but I wasn’t sure he was going to tell me the truth,” shi stated “This whole situation has me irritated, I’m not getting any indication that he is lying continue Phillip. I get the feeling you have more to say.”
“If there is any truth about the cats, he doesn’t want to have to deal with them. Bear is afraid he’ll do something drastic, though that is probably what they really need. I really don’t think he wants to be in charge, it was the duty he was given. They really aren’t sure of what is going on and at least Bear is afraid their next master will give them all lobotomies. From the others reports probably some of the others are afraid of that as well.”
“All right, you smell like you worked a double shift in engineering Philip. I am reasonably sure that won’t be happening here by any means though some education might be in order,” Dreamy sighed as shi shuttered thinking about that worry before starting to laugh as shi watched hir brother’s fruitless attempts to escape from the sack. “Why were you sacked literally not figuratively.”
“Bear reassembled both of their original systems they are fully functional and reconnected to the system as backups. I hinted I was going to make a big stink not that I would actually do that,” He grinned at his sister.
“That shouldn’t be possible. Sunny and the others reported there wasn’t any lifting equipment in there,” Dreamy grinned. “I can understand his reaction considering the potential outcomes, didn’t dad teach us to never make threats we aren’t prepared to carry through on.”
“Didn’t need it Bear moved it by himself. What was too large to move he broke down into smaller parts and re-assembled. He is stronger than he looks Dreamy,” Phillip sighed “Yes I pushed it wanting to see how he reacted not the wisest thing to do in retrospect.”
“You willing to go back in?” shi asked
“Sure I want to look over their equipment and make sure it’s working properly I have the feeling I’ll have at least one pair of paws helping. You mind helping this plastic is slippery as anything and I can’t get a clawtip through it either.”
“After I get a few pictures, I’m sure father if no one else will like seeing bagged skunk. It isn’t like you weren’t asking for it. Get a shower first stinky and that’s an order.”
****
“Hey Becky what’s up?” Bear asked
“I checked out the pod the cats were using. They tried to set another fire using the electrical system this time. Did you shut off power to that carrier? I can’t find any reason for the glow strips to be the only things working.”
“I did, the ventilation system should be working as well.”
“Can I use your shower?” Becky inquired thinking for a moment. “The fans are working I was more worried about things they could access and maybe start another fire.”
“Sure, I’m just looking up something. We have any tomato juice in the kitchen?”
“I don’t know why would you want tomato juice. You have access to the encyclopedia oh man!” She exclaimed jumping on Bear’s lap. “Lucky you my overseer refused, he gave me what he thought I needed nothing more. He also had contractors maintain our sleeping quarters.”
“He didn’t like it when they had me working outside of the mine 1 area either,” Bear stated otherwise ignoring her for the information on the screen. “There are some books in what the map calls the reading room. You are of course welcome to look at the copy here or in the main pod.”
“I forgot about that not used to having so much free time,” She replied dashing to the shower.
******
“Whoops I’m sorry BE….” Philip started to say his muzzle being held shut as he suddenly appeared in the room.
“Whose this Bear?” Becky asked dripping water as she dried off.
“Philip is apparently a part of the ship’s crew, I’m not sure what he was thinking but it might have something to do with your state of attire or lack there of I guess.”
“What is wrong with my attire thank you very much?” The vixen asked scrambling onto the desk to look the skunk in the eyes. “Let go Bear.”
“Nothing, nothing at all I just thought I was intruding on something of umm, umm a personal nature,” The skunk replied gulping repeatedly noting Bear wasn’t wearing anything anymore than the little vixen was.
“I have no idea of what you are talking about, but I don’t like what you seem to be implying for some reason. Bad skunk,” She replied grabbing a stack of papers which she promptly rolled up and swatted him on the nose with. “You sure it’s safe to let him in here like this.”
“Like I can keep him out the door is still locked. I changed the access code too. He didn’t open the door we would’ve heard that.”
“Hey that hurt. So whose this?” Phillip asked, shocked he couldn’t remember ever being swatted like that before. Phillip wondered if like Bear the little vixen was stronger than she looked there had been far more force than he expected behind that swat and she hadn’t put a lot of effort into it.
“I believe that was the point Philip,” He responded ignoring his question for the moment as he pondered what Phillip was talking about when he appeared. “So what did they try this time Becky?”
“Shorting the electrical system to burn their covers, didn’t work. They lit themselves on fire more than anything else. Melinda says they’ll be fine the rest of the medical team had hoped it would jump start their brains rather unsuccessfully. Why they tried is beyond us the pod and carrier they are in is warm and they are getting hot meals,” Becky sighed, heading for the door. “I’m Becky mine site 3 maintenance really nothing more than a glorified light bulb changer. So I’ll get out of your hair.”
“STOP right there!” Bear snapped. “I might get in trouble for this but oh well, just because your overseer was a sexist ninny doesn’t mean I accept that decision. He didn’t like it when the master insisted I check on something. I know who fixed most of the stuff the repairmen billed for, they were his friends after all.”
“No one was to know about that!”
“A few people did why do you think the overseer was flatly told all reassignments could only come for the master directly. We were to have a third and maybe a fourth person on the maintenance team never happened.”
“Fourth person for what?”
“One for each of the mines and one for the plantation itself would make sense to me,” Philip commented grinning. “I was planning on checking over everything in your pods. If your willing Becky you can get into a few areas we can’t without tearing them completely apart, how old are you by the way? What happened to the maintenance person from mine 2 then and who took care of the glassworks.”
“WE did though most of the time I was confined to the mine,” The vixen sighed deeply making a half hearted attempt to swat Philip again, before sitting on the edge of the desk. “I’ve felt like doing that for years, I’m eighteen years old which I did hear someone say was almost a month longer than a planet called Earth. Bear doesn’t like to talk about it, his sister who was my size she was working on the lighting when someone hit a pocket of pressurized gas suddenly, they dug a new shaft for mine 2 after that. That was about four years ago Bear...”
“Closer to five, there was nothing bury the entire shaft collapsed on them,” Bear stated flatly
“Sorry to bring it up Bear,” Becky said looking at floor.
“That’s…” he started to say as they were transported out of the room.
“All right all three of you get.. never mind that apparently isn’t necessary,” a new voice said almost snarling as they appeared in a new location. “You too Philip strip NOW, and no lip. I thought you were going over engineering systems not other matters.”
They were being addressed by another one of the creatures that looked like someone had put two creatures together. Most of her pelt was the color of white sand with patches of darker sand mixed in, in a random pattern. Philip quickly undressed catching the confused looks on the two foxes’s faces.
“Stick a sox in it Windy,” Philip snarled. “My sister has the manners of a bull moose at times, which probably isn’t a reference either of you understand so I’ll explain later. Becky, Bear this is Desertwind Windy for short, shi’s our ship’s doctor. I take neither of you have seen a chakat before probably any type of taur. Simply put a taur is person with four legs. Chakats need a little more explanation.”
“It’s all right Philip you want to make sure we don’t have anything that could make you ill,” Becky said softly
“No it’s not all right. Also we want to make sure the reverse isn’t true either.”
“That’s enough I have a job to do that doesn’t require you jabbering,” Shi snarled sitting to work, attempted to scan Bear first as shi drew a blood sample. “Danged collars they are interfering with my equipment all over the place.”
Bear grimaced slightly as Windy quickly cut the collar off his neck and moved to do the same with Becky. Windy snarled as Bear stuck his paw under Becky’s collar interfering with hir work. Shi started to pull the cutter out when another paw gripped hirs and forced hir to finish the job quickly.
“Either do it or don’t do it partially won’t work,” Bear grimaced holding his paw tightly as the collar dropped to the floor.
“Well I am not a vet thank you very much,” Windy snarled jabbing Bear with a needle.
“What did you do to him?” Becky exclaimed as the fox started to fall over his eyes rapidly glazing over as the rest of his body went limp.
“Just a sedative I want to run a few more tests on him,” Shi replied catching the skinny fox and putting him into one of the beds. Becky watched as the chakat pulled up rails on either side of the bed before attaching something to his skin and covering Bear with a blanket.
“What in world happened to his paw and neck?” Philip exclaimed finally noticing smell of burnt fur and burnt marks on Bear’s neck and paw.
“Excuse me a moment,” Dreamy said softly entering the room “I’d like to see you outside Desertwind. Have you considered what I talked to you about?”
“The collars are used for punishment,” Becky whispered. “They are designed to shock us if we try to cut them off. I never heard about a partial cut, it must keep shocking till we get it repaired or cut it all the way off.”
“You should’ve told us that. It would only slow me down, they aren’t qualified,” Windy snapped looking at the monitors next to the beds the two foxes were in.
“The hallway now Windy, NOW!” Dreamy snarled finally raising hir voice. “Philip once Windy is done with you see if you can figure out how to remove the collars without cooking anyone or any part of them. Someone turn up the air in here burnt fur and flesh two of my least favorite smells.”
****
“You ok sis we think have at least two possible solutions.”
“Good, shi just tore a few stripes out of me. I deserved it I guess. None of you had a choice in ending up on this ship Becky. I have no right to treat you like slaves without any concerns for your feelings on the issue. You were slaves that is no longer the case. We can’t just turn you lose none of you are prepared for what you would find,” Windy said softly “He’ll be fine I seriously do want to run a few more tests, and I need to treat his wounds.”
“I think shi wants to say we could’ve avoided that. Among other things chakats are able to read emotions and some thoughts. It’s considered very bad manners to read someone’s thoughts without asking whether they would’ve noticed or not. Though if they are touching the other person it becomes very hard not to pick up those emotions or thoughts especially those right on the surface or that are very strong,” Phillip offered “I gather where you came from doctors that treated furs were called vets.”
“Yes they could only treat us if the master let them,” Becky replied
“Ok this is interesting, well that might explain a few things then it might not. Once I get more of a baseline I can tell more, but for the most part beyond a few vitamins and fleas your fine so is the big lug. We can send you back to the pod now,” Windy sighed. “I do need help, just like Philip is going to go over all the systems in the pods I want, I need to check all of you medically. Dreamy suggested I get your medical people to assist.”
“I can get them all into life support if you like? They won’t be hurt will they?” Becky inquired sounding nervous though Bear hadn’t argued with their examination. It appeared from the technology these furs had they didn’t have a choice in the matter.
“We didn’t hurt you did we?” Phillip asked smiling.
“No but I really don’t know you.”
“Fair enough Jackie one to beam back,” Windy called out muttering under her breath.
“I heard that Windy. Chill out!” A female voice responded as the vixen vanished. “What did Neal ever do to you?”
“You know darn well what he did!” shi snarled
“You weren’t the one that was kidnapped. Shi was glad to wake up back on the Folly and not as somebody’s newest pet,” Philip firmly said, as he headed to the door. “You are done with me, right?”
“For now, for now,” Shi grumbled tossing his clothes at the skunk with a grin. “Phillip till I get done checking all of them you will report here once a day for a scan, especially if you’ve been in their pod.”
“I don’t see why unless you find something, but in the interest of keeping the peace all right Desertwind,” He muttered exiting the room. “If you need me I’ll be in engineering for a little while then I’m going to get started in their pod.”
*****
Windy snarled as the six foxes rapidly checked Bear over totally ignoring hir once they had seen him laying on the table still sleeping. Shi was shocked there was almost no way they couldn’t of heard hir and yet they ignored her completely.
“He’ll be fine just unconscious,” Melinda said finally turning to look at the chakat “We weren’t ignoring you our patient comes first.”
“My patient,” Windy snarled.
“Their patient, he is a member of their community Windy. You’d do the same thing if your positions were reversed and you know it,” Paul said from the doorway. “All right for our safety and your own we want to give all of you complete checkups. I am given to understand you have at least some medical training. We would like to if possible to have you assist us with a little training if necessary.”
“Sure, what happened to Bear? I’m Jason though most people think we all look alike.” Jason asked, noting the curious looks on the pair’s faces he was sure he knew what they were wondering. “Yes we are all adults, no one has successfully figured out why Bear is so tall, he used to have a sister she was about our height. Melinda and Mike were mine 1 medical, Jon and Jo mine 2 medical, Mic, and myself mine 3 medical we also helped with the glassworks when needed. The plantation had a few people that did basic first aid, then we assisted and finally they called in the vet, a doctor that dealt with only slaves.”
“Windy you want to start the scans while I explain a few things. I have the tools from Philip to remove the collars.”
“Becky explained about vets to me already, here I’m a doctor regardless of who I treat. After you remove the collar Paul, it screws up my equipment. We know about their abilities probably in more detail than I ever would want to,” Windy said firmly looking toward Bear still unconscious on the bed. “I’m not sure if it was entirely my misjudging his weight so badly or it doesn’t work on you guys or maybe its just him anyways its not having the same effect on him as it does most people. There is nothing to indicate he is in any distress or that he won’t wake up within a day or so.”
“I guess I’ll go first,” Melinda said nervously baring her neck to Paul.
“You are now in the Federation, and slavery is illegal here. I know you’ve heard anything is possible for the right price, and to some extent that is true. We don’t support the black market, which is the only place you can get slaves here. They catch you owning or marketing slaves the penalties are very stiff as well they should be. The person you were being sent to is our father, and he would skin us alive - well not literally, if he found out we even thought about selling you on the black market,” Paul said cutting off Melinda’s collar. He quickly made sure she hadn’t been shocked by the collar before rapidly removing the collars of the other five. “Yes that worked perfectly!”
“Neal is a human that adopted most of this crew as his children,” Windy stated unemotionally. “Lets get this show on the road, we still have almost 3000 furs to check and I want it done before we hit port. Dreamy wants to have all these collars long gone too before that point as well.”
****
“How’s it going?” Dreamy asked
“Fine, the six of them have a few gaps in their training, which will be easy to fix. They could be full-fledged EMTs in a very short time. Considering their size and training, they would a credit to anyone out there for first responders doing mine rescue. We’re now processing almost fifty an hour, we won’t have the results of some of the tests for little while though,” Paul reported taking a quick break. “Windy thinks it will go faster as they get used to our procedures.”
“Good I take you still want to make sure they have all their shots.” Dreamy said softly
“Of course, malnutrition and fleas seems to be most of the issues right now. I have also received a few cases of ingrown collars, which are being treated as we find them. Those are the ones we are having issues getting rid of without shocking them sadly but we make it as painless as possible still,” Windy quipped entering the room. “Everyone is taking a break I insisted after working for eight hours nonstop. Beyond the collars they are also identified with a chip under the skin it only works at extremely close range. The chips don’t affect my equipment so for the moment I’m leaving them in place. They are also going to need some education on the birds and the bees.”
“Huh?”
“I’m still breaking down the chemicals Dreamy. Something in their diet chemically made the majority of them basically sexless, the medical staff have some idea about sex but that seems to be it right now. It’s wearing off the foxes first. A few of them are pregnant. It seems the larger the person, the more the buildup of the chemical. For the larger slaves it will take most of them a week at the outside before the chemicals are completely out of their system. Apparently there is a certain concentration below which things start working again,” Windy said looking at hir coffee. “Someone played with the replicator pattern again.”
“I know you aren’t finished but you seem nervous Windy, its not you fault. I’m guessing there is some variances your figures,” Dreamy comforted hir sister. “Remember none of this is your fault this situation was dropped on us.”
“You are correct some of the larger slaves it has already worn off not many just acceptable percentage of users. Some of them have been permanently nullified that percentage is running about one percent,” Windy sighed. “Its not unexpected but how to tell them you will never have children once they understand the concept, hopefully they’ll accept it as calmly as they accepting the testing and removal of their collars. How to make sure they understand some of them that don’t think they are, are related and forming couples would be very bad. I’m running a genetic scan on all of them mind you its very basic but it should pickup any serious defects.
“What else, what about Bear for one?” Paul offered. “I’d try explaining it to their medical staff first once they understand it they can help explain it to the others. How closely are they related? Of course someone edited the pattern someone erased all the other coffee patterns from the replicator and it was undrinkable to say the least. According to Phillip not all the replicator patterns are backed up due to space concerns.”
“There’s only a few that don’t know that they are related, and thankfully there is only one couple so far we found that shouldn’t mix it up,” Windy said softly sipping hir coffee. “Well we’ll just have to recreate those patterns when we can. All the couples are recently formed anyways that might help. We won’t know the complete picture for at least 2 weeks maybe a little less as we pick up speed. Bear, ironically I have an answer to why he is so tall and we found a sister, although I doubt either of them knows about it.”
“I thought he only had one sibling that died in a mine collapse,” Paul stated
“The only one he knew about. From what I understand and experienced in Starfleet, telling slaves anything other than what to do is pretty uncommon. It appears there is an unusual concentration of one of the chemicals in Bear’s thyroid gland it was working twice as much as it should have. Beyond fleas and being what I’d consider seriously underweight he is in great shape. I have monitors hooked up to him, if anything changes we’ll know about it,” Windy reported
“What about his sister?” Dreamy inquired.
“I’m still looking into that. Of the 300 or so processed in the last eight hours since we started ages are running from twelve to twenty five or so. We have about fifteen foxes that weren’t with the rest of the group. Philip found them and paged me. They are all around four years old,” Paul stated
“Did the scan pick them up?”
“No their carrier came from the federation heavily shielded. We transported out fur samples instead of playing with the locks right now. Philip can assure you father is who these slaves were being sent too, without a doubt now. I’m not sure of the door codes but they referred to Neal all right,” Paul replied adding more cream to his coffee. “It’s still too strong.”
“OK, forget about the tie to Neal Windy. They didn’t ask for it nor do they deserve you taking your frustration with father out on them. We all know dad hasn’t been in that part of space in years.”
“The fifteen are in stasis with even more locks to turn off the field. Philip had the carrier moved into central carrier storage with redundant power feeds. One last thing, Dreamy they need room to exercise. We aren’t at any risk letting those processed into the cargo bay at least,” Windy stated firmly. “Phillip has locked down all the hatches so they shouldn’t be able to get into any trouble and we can monitor the cargo bay.”
*****
“Are you going to let him go or not?” Phillip asked.
“I’m still not happy about the way he is been out of it for the last two days,” Windy said firmly.
“OK, but can you find anything wrong?”
“No, but I’m still keeping him under observation for the next twelve hours, and that is not subject for debate. After that, no working on their equipment at least for him for the next day, and Phillip I mean it,” Shi snapped glaring at the skunk who was stopping hir from working with his constant questions.
“Don’t I have a say in the matter? I mean… where is Becky?” Bear said confused
“NO, you do not. I’m still debating on your intelligence, or lack there of for that stunt with the collars two days ago,” Dreamy snapped turning to face him.
“Two days! I have to get back to the pod!” Bear exclaimed as he attempted to figure out how to lower the bed rails,
“You have to stay right there, otherwise I’ll make sure you do so,” Shi replied holding up a hypodermic.
“Umm… You stay away from me with that, I’m not sleeping another 2 days,” Bear said firmly.
“I’ve learned a few things in the last two days, so I doubt it will be that long. I still want twelve hours of monitoring with you awake, or at least not under the influence of drugs and I will get it one way or the other. Now Phillip, get out of here!” Windy barked at the skunk. “I’ve got things to do. We’ve been working overtime processing people and I finally got everyone to take a break.” Shi then turned back to face Bear, who again was moving to get out of bed. “You stay there! I will not hesitate to restrain you.”
“All right Windy, chill. I’m leaving,” Phillip said striding out of the room while muttering under his breath. Shi had demanded that the stupid visors, once processed be given the same amount of freedom to roam in the cargo bay as the others. And yet instead of using remote monitoring equipment, shi was keeping Bear pinned up worse than the cats.
****
“What’s the latest Phillip, you know Dreamy excused you from bridge duty,” Fred said grinning “Farsight was filling me in on the latest with Fangs.”
“Bear is awake which you knew. They still don’t know what happened for sure, so Windy is keeping him under observation for at least twelve more hours in sickbay. Right now I’d like his assistance as well as Becky’s. She’s a dream at getting into tight places,” Phillip replied looking at the chair quickly before sitting down, only to find he had sat on whoopee cushion. Farsight had a thing for practical jokes, which had long ago earned her the nickname Loopy. “Thanks Loopy!, well at least is wasn’t a crème pie this time why dad ever taught you that trick I don’t know.”
“Well someone forgot to tell Bear that or he isn’t the greatest at listening like a few others I know,” Shi said grinning at a monitor that showed the tall fox was on the move. “Well should we go round him up, or let him wonder around? You looked a bit stressed out Phillip. I knew that joke long before I met Neal, he just reminded me of it.”
“Let him wander,” Fred said grinning. “I imagine he is attempting to get back to the cargo bay. Yes, it seems he is not a problem with Windy we are in trouble either way. We should’ve prevented him from leaving the infirmary.”
“No problem wait till Windy catches him, shi’ll tie him into bed for sure,” Paul quipped. “We should’ve stopped him as soon as we saw him attempting to get out of bed.”
“Maybe not, besides those cats have been getting more bossy the longer Bear has been out of the picture. I’m not sure I trust them,” Phillip sighed “They won’t listen to anyone either.”
“I’m not sure how far I trust any of that lot,” Fred stated firmly
“Most of them are all right. Confused as anything, but that is completely understandable. Dreamy defined the areas for them to stay in, and they haven’t caused a lick of trouble,” Loopy stated looking at the security monitors. “Now the cats are another story all together I don’t think there is a hatch they haven’t tried daily attempting to get out of there.”
“I agree with Phillip. I know one or two has gone out of bounds, but they’re just curious. Like little kids, finally being allowed to explore the world around them,” Scarlet chimed in looking at the view screen. “Dreamy has accepted that as well. I think that shi’s thinking of opening up more areas to them - nothing critical or where they can hurt anything of course. They are more nervous than we are about touching something they shouldn’t.”
“Maybe I’m being too critical or Windy’s attitude is rubbing off on me,” Fred sighed. “My dad certainly gave me plenty of room within his limits. Windy certainly chilled about the level of help they can provide I believe it must be a first shi actually got Paul to make sure their infirmary was well stocked.”
“Well, we could always let Windy know hir patient escaped. Of course shi’ll scream at us too for letting him get that far,” Loopy said grinning. “We could always use more help on Catch-A-Lot, and the other colonies. From what I’ve seen, they’re likely to be an asset to whomever gets them.”
“Well for the right price you can have the lot,” Phillip laughed.
“That’s not funny and you know it. I wouldn’t take them without their consent,” Shi replied playfully smacking the skunk repeatedly.
“That would be the ‘right price’ Loopy,” he said with a grin. “Them wanting to go, and you helping look after them until they can make it on their own.”
****
Bear waited for what seemed an eternity, before unplugging the monitors. Again he waited after removing all the wires attached to his body making sure the alarms wouldn’t go off calling in more attention than he wanted. Two days out cold were more than enough, another day and half of doing nothing wasn’t acceptable in the least.
Slowly he found his way to the cargo bay, from there he was certain he could find the right pod. The size of ship still amazed him; it felt like it should almost be a city in space or something. The idea of moving people from point to point like they did was almost too much to accept, not to mention very un-nerving. The fox laughed at himself, it might be un-nerving but it also provided an extra level of security and made moving things about quick and easy.
Bear was shocked entering the easy to find cargo bay once he had noticed the wall signs pointing to different points on the ship. The pod was easy find a level or two down on the other side of the room with a couple of its doors standing wide open. The floor was three levels down and more shocking was everyone here and there on the floor in between crates and in little groups engaged in various activities. Their collars had been removed as well, and it didn’t look like anyone had gotten burnt during the process either. There was two small chakats playing with several of the foxes as well in and around the carriers that dotted the floor. They were well strapped down and several people had used those and were sitting on top of the carriers as well.
*****
“Bear, when did Windy let you out of sick bay?” Melinda asked critically.
“I feel fine, thank you very much. She thinks I’m going to sit around for another day and half no way.”
“Shi, I’ll explain it later. Bear come on let’s get you back up there, we still don’t know why you reacted like that. I’ll call hir if I have too.”
“Melinda don’t…” he started to replied as a loud scream filled the air. “Hold that thought.”
~~~
Slave Foxes chapter 3
~~~
“Sound the alarm dang it the cats have grabbed Blossom. Transporters?” Loopy exclaimed hitting the alarm button hirself, which sounded through out the ship. On the screen Blossom finally grabbed hir com badge and ripped it off. Sprinter was also attacking the cat as well with hir teeth and claws.
“We can’t transport down there,” Phillip stated firmly “No one is standing by in the transporter room to do a point to point transfer, and the transporter rigged for computer controlled point to point needs to be recalibrated. Fred, I’ll standby in the transporter room.”
“Murphy’s law in action for you,” Fred sighed. “Lets move it. I’ve got the bridge.”
“What’s going on?” Windy called from hir room, as did several others.
“The cats have taken Blossom captive. Sprinter is trying to free hir.”
Windy’s only response was a loud roar that echoed in hir room drowning out the intercom channel. That was followed by the sound of a door closing once the channel cleared. Phillip gulped that wasn’t a good sign at all. Fred looked pale as he looked at the forward screen.
*****
“Let go of hir they won’t like this and who knows what they’ll do to us for attacking their cubs,” Jason snarled as part of group as foxes and other slaves pressed close.
“No way,” Gerry snarled in reply as several other cats placed themselves in between Gerry and those pressing closer. He kicked out repeatedly at the other cub and foxes that were attempting to bring him down and get the cub released. The cat let out of bellow of pain before shaking Blossom repeatedly as hir teeth and claws sunk into the tender flesh. “If you don’t cut that out I’ll kill you.”
“LET GO of her,” Bear barked wading into the fray.
“No we’re taking over,” He replied teeth barred
“What are you waiting for take them down!” Bear snarled tossing the first cat he reached out of the way. The cat landed with a resounding thud against a carrier. “You are insane Gerry you were a plantation worker, it would years if ever before we understand this ship.”
“All right then, if that’s the way it’s going to be,” Joe said plowing through the crowd to grab Gerry by the neck. The pony was grabbing cats and tossing them out of the fray as quickly as he could get his paws on them and like Bear he wasn’t particularly interested in where they ended up as long as they were out of the action and stayed there.
“What do you think the crew is going to do we’ve taken their children prisoner,” Bear snarled grabbing Blossom out of Gerry’s hand preventing any of the other cats from grabbing her. As he turned to get the cub out of the fray he could feel a claw scratch his arm. Joe had restrained Gerry as several others bound the cat up.
The rest of the slaves were rapidly overwhelming the remaining cats. They weren’t taking any chances binding even those had been removed from the fray by force already. Bear grimaced as sharp teeth bit into his ankle and hand repeatedly.
“Stop that I’m trying to help!” the fox exclaimed loudly, fighting the urge to shake his arm and leg to get rid himself of the biting and clawing kittens, as he attempted to get them out of the middle of all the fighting. Blossom had stopped biting him and was now licking his paw. “All right you’re safe now.”
Bear gulped as several loud roars instantly filled the cargo bay. Almost everyone dropped to their knees, tails tucked up between their legs in submission. He quickly tried turning the cub lose, shi wrapped her tail and legs around his arm tightly refusing to let go. Sprinter had also placed hirself in between the slaves and the three enraged chakats.
“NO! We are fine!” Sprinter snarled as hir parents rapidly calmed down picking up the cub it was easy to see Blossom was holding onto Bear not the other way around. Hir tail was wrapped around his arm along with hir legs. Shi was also licking his paw.
“LET GO OF HIR!” Windy snarled attempting to launch hirself at the fox. Blossom’s parents gently restrained the still enraged chakat, before noticing there wasn’t a single slave that wasn’t on their knees tails tucked between their legs being completely submissive and ignoring their own injuries.
“NO Bleeding,” Blossom said firmly
“I said let go of hir.”
“NO!” Blossom replied
“SNAP oUT of it now!” Dreamy snarled slapping Windy, as shi quickly took in the situation having just arrived on the scene from the engine room where shi had been looking for Phillip. The cats weren’t a problem any longer as they had been bound up with little regard for any possible injuries. The cubs were safe and sound without apparent injury. Right now the only people in danger were the slaves and that was from enraged chakats more than anything else. “They were injured rescuing our cubs. Melinda, Jason, Jon, Jo, Jason, and Mike all of you snap out of it there are injured people that need treatment. You are no longer slaves.”
“All right Blossom let go we aren’t going to hurt Bear,” Faststream said softly attempting remove the cub once shi had pulled the fox to his feet.
“No bleeding,” Shi repeated firmly gripping his arm even tighter with hir legs and tail
“Come on Blossom we’ll take care of him,” Windy said snapping out of it as shi noticed the red bit of cloth under Blossom. “Transporter, I need immediate transfer to sick bay for three!”
“Roger transporting now,” Phillip replied from hir combadge even as the transporter beam took effect.
“What’s going on?” Dreamy asked as Windy, Blossom and Bear vanished. Shaking hir head, shi said, “All right everyone lets get this mess cleaned up.”
******
“All right Blossom let go so I can treat which ever of you needs it,” Windy said putting the fox on a diagnostic bed as Blossom finally released hir hold hir belly fur matted with blood. Shi quickly sighed in relief Blossom needed a good bath but was otherwise unhurt. Windy carefully removed the bloody cloth injecting the fox with something for the pain he was sure to be feeling shortly. The fox’s arm was cut from the elbow to the wrist with the bone visible in several places. “He’ll be all right trust me.”
“What’s…” Dreamy asked dashing into sickbay and seeing Bear “Is he going to be alright?”
“Sure might have a nasty scar, shock and blood loss is the biggest issue right now. What came over me I was ready to tear him apart. Blossom might have saved his life by keeping pressure on the wound hir tail possibly acted as tourniquet.”
“The same thing that comes over a lot of us when our children are in danger,” Dreamy sighed “Thankfully we didn’t hurt any bystanders. Phillip is tossing the cats into a carrier for now, well once their injuries are treated. Several of them aren’t going anywhere for a while they left an impression on some of the carriers.”
“Like I care after what they tried. I have a solution for them - the nearest airlock!” Windy snarled
“Tried, they didn’t succeed Windy remember that,” Dreamy said leaving something unsaid.
“Philip isn’t going to be happy. I’m not releasing him for work for at least a couple of days,” Windy said attaching a small anklet to the fox. “Remote monitoring, I put him out for a couple of hours I think that’s all, while I make sure it’s clean and well stitched up. Thanks for not saying it I have a better understanding of what dad went through.”
“Philip is working on another project right now, that and getting the one set of transporters recalibrated for remote point to point transfers. Well I’ll leave you to it. If there isn’t a risk to his health, I’d prefer we put him back in the pod.”
“Sure. Besides, I can use the extra space for processing more of them, we are still long way from done.”
“You’re not?” Dreamy asked with a grin.
“Just get out of here. We have almost 3000 right now with more on the way, and there are eight of us working flat out on it. NOW get out of here and let me work. Thankfully, they are mostly normal and healthy. Most of the slaves I saw in Starfleet were sex slaves and few grunts, not a group of what from all appearances is a group of perfectly normal furs.”
*******
“Hello, you are?” Jason asked the chakat that was standing on the cargo bay floor.
“Farsight. I was wondering if I could get a few of you with training in plantation work and a few more of you trained in mining to help me with a little project,” Shi replied grinning
“Sure, I guess. Hey Joe, you free?”
“What’s up? Hello ma’am,” He replied approaching.
“She wants to get together a couple of small teams one trained in the mines the other trained in plantation work. I was going to get together several of us from mine 3. How many you want on each team?”
“I’d think six or seven would do nicely. Don’t bother Becky, I’ll take care of any maintenance for both teams.” Loopy said seeing the vixen approach the group looking concerned. “I know Phillip has been working you hard.”
“No he hasn’t most of the work is what we’d normally as a part of monthly maintenance,” Becky stated feeling slightly ashamed to admit how worthless she felt. The only reason she could help Phillip at all was it was familiar tech,
“Wait a moment, aren’t you the one they call Loopy?” Joe asked stopping for a moment.
“I’ll admit to that, but this isn’t a joke let me assure you of that. I want to try something, and it won’t hurt any of you. I personally guarantee it.”
“All right I’ll get four others that are bored and not working with the hydroponics.” He replied grinning at hir.
“This time you can trust me. I’m curious about something. It took some doing, but I got the needed space reserved for a few hours.”
***
“All right this is a holodeck,” Loopy said leading them into a large empty room “We can use it to simulate many things. Flying ships in space to just floating in space without hurting anyone, whereas trying it for real would be deadly. Computer start Catch-A-Lot farming simulation level 1.”
“What in the heck?” Joe exclaimed as they were suddenly under a large glass covered area almost completely surrounded by what appeared to be pods, and walking on grass-covered dirt.
“Well I want to see what you know so I’m putting you to the test. I want you to prepare the soil and plant it. Is that marked out space too much for you to prep and plant within an hour or so?”
“Looks good Joe,” Another pony said grinning.
“Mark’s right, the tools are a little different, but I think we can deal with that. So what are we planting?” a goat asked
“Various plants to make up a small garden. Corn, melons, pickles and the like food that is one of the most important things a colony can produce,” Loopy said grinning. “If the tools are too much an issue, we can make changes when I get back.”
“It looks like we have almost everything we need except for water.”
“I’ll take care of that,” Loopy said grinning. “Water isn’t hard to find here. All right your turn Jason and crew. Door.”
*****
“Nice soil hope the plants grow as well as it looks,” Mark said rapidly turning over the soil.
“We got more plants than we need to fill the plot,” Karen said grinning
“We’ll expand the plot then if the soil is as easy to turn as it appears that shouldn’t be a problem should it?” Joe asked
“Not at all, I’m just surprised they aren’t growing more cash crops,” Dave a rabbit said grinning “Carrot seeds been a long time since we grew those.”
“Maybe food is more important to them than cotton or tobacco. I did like working with grapes and fruit trees, more than those,” Kim said grinning. “Of course it’s been a long time since we grew carrots the profit on them stinks and they weren’t going to grow them just to feed us.”
“Well food is more important to me than tobacco it stinks and you certainly can’t eat it,” Lisa snorted. “I doubt water is a problem, as she said they’ve got lights overhead but anyone else notice it hasn’t stopped raining outside the whole time we’ve been in here. I can hear it on the glass, sounds like it’s really coming down at times.”
“Shi not she Lisa I noticed that as well I wonder if they have enough rainfall to make growing rice practical.I noticed the profit margin on food stuff in general stunk compared to the other stuff we grew so they cut down the amount of land for growing food yearly. I think the master said they couldn’t cut any more last year,” Joe said grinning.
***
“We’re about ten feet underground,” Loopy said as they suddenly walked into a short tunnel before the doorway vanished. “I hope this isn’t too much of a challenge, we can’t go much deeper in a lot of places, due to the water table.”
“It sounds like rain,” Jason commented cocking his head his ears twitching like most of those in the group. “Does that all the time?”
“In some places it sure does. All I want you to do is extend this tunnel safely. Here’s a map. We think there are some iron deposits, but that is for the next team to get to. I’ll check on you in an hour or so. Right now I want to check on the other team. Door.”
“How’s the digging?” Jason asked once the door vanished.
“Soft and moist. Shi wasn’t kidding, the water table probably isn’t that far below us there is a slight dip in the tunnel just ahead of you and the soil is almost mud,” Larry replied
“If it wasn’t for the pile of shoring posts that keep replacing themselves, I’d swear we were in a real mine,” Curly said grinning. “I know, treat this as real, we don’t want have to be rescued from a cave-in. Move it Moe lets make tracks.”
“If the tunneling is this good, then lets see if we can’t really make serious tracks. I was getting bored back in the carrier,” A vixen said attacking the tunnel wall with relish. “Which direction to the iron deposits, why waste time using two teams to get it if possible or is there a reason to avoid the direct route?”
“Looks like we need to go off to the left slightly Sandy,” Moe replied grinning as he consulted the map. “Doesn’t appear to be anything above us either, otherwise water table or no water table I’d want to go much deeper.”
“No kidding who wants company dropping in unannounced like that anyways.”
*****
“Loopy, where is Jason? Windy would like his presence in the medical bay.” Dreamy said stopping hir from entering the holodeck. “The last anyone saw him and several others, they were talking with you.”
“I gather then that Bear is all patched up?” Loopy commented matter of factly.
“Yes, that still doesn’t answer my question though.”
“Well, they are helping me run a small experiment.” Shi said, ducking into the holodeck followed quickly by Dreamy.
***
“I don’t see him.”
“I guess the tools weren’t a problem,” Loopy said blinking her eyes at the large plot that was all prepared. It was over twice the size that shi had originally marked out. “Ready for some water I assume. I’m going to let the simulation run fast in here for a few minutes.”
“Run fast why?” Kim commented, taking a few steps back as water started to fall gently on their garden.
“Well, if we were really growing plants like this, it’d take months before harvest silly,” Karen giggled as the plants suddenly started growing rapidly.
“Impressive not so silly I know none of you have encountered this type of technology before,” Dreamy commented softly as shi projected reassurance into the room. “Are you going to give them a chance to weed it? They are growing like everything else.”
“I better, otherwise this becomes slightly unfair doesn’t it? Well it looks like a few spots don’t need weeding, they used the soil bags I left in the simulation as weed barrier,” Farsight said working a panel on the wall as a soft rain started falling just on their plot. Dreamy grinned, Loopy wasn’t really giving them a challenge, and shi was willing to bet that more than one set of eyes had followed hir every movement on the control panel.
“Impressive, you wanted to... They are mining in another holodeck aren’t they?”
“Of course, we should check on them,” Loopy said, working with the computer interface. “All right it’s going to give you ten minutes real time for every month of simulated time till its time to harvest.”
“That should work, will the faster time effect us?” Joe asked slightly worried.
“No, not in the least,” Dreamy said grinning. “Your actions or inactions will affect it, but the passage of time in the simulation won’t affect you. We’ll check on you a little later, now if you don’t want to take part in this, say the word you can leave.”
“Why? This is what we were trained for, and frankly we were getting bored with so little to do. Thank you for letting us stretch out in your cargo bay.”
“I want to make it plain that none of you are slaves anymore. If you want to do this, that’s fine, if you don’t, no one has the right to force you to do so. If you can help out around the pod that will be to everyone’s advantage.” Dreamy stated firmly picking up hir next statement was completely un-necessary though shi felt compelled to make it. “I will not hold it against anyone that wants to leave.”
“Bear’s in charge in the pod. We might not be slaves anymore, but it’s easier to have one person in charge. It’s not like he screams or demands we do things all the time, just suggests,” Joe said grinning
“He hates being in charge. He’s got enough to deal with, running life support and general maintenance,” Kim added.
“Right then. Door.”
*****
“Well Loopy, where are they? You forgot the mining lights too,” Dreamy said, blinking hir eyes in the dark tunnel.
“I only left them an hour ago, so they couldn’t have gotten too far,” Loopy said, turning on a head light and handing another one to Dreamy. “That’s odd, they went off at an angle. Hmmm. I gave them a map with a possible iron deposit marked on it. I told them a second team would go after the iron deposits.”
“Off that way I take it, or did they misread your map?” Dreamy commented grinning. “I think you made this too easy for both teams if I don’t miss my guess.”
“They went in the right direction, but the soil isn’t that stable,” Shi replied grimacing. “Lets go softly, I don’t want to get buried in a cave in. Who would believe it! They don’t fit the normal stories about slaves in the least Dreamy. I’ll have to do this again, if they’re willing.”
“Well, I’m not seeing anything on the floor in here. I get the impression at least some of them will be willing, why not use the replicator to give them something to find or real vegetables?”
“Impressive, they’ve covered more ground than I expected. Honestly I thought we’d need someone watching them constantly. Maybe we do until they learn a few things, I don’t know.”
“Well it helps that we don’t have to deal with the tailings, and have an endless supply of supports,” Jason stated, startling the pair as he stood in water up to his ankles. Three of the foxes were working on a ledge allowing them to dig out the top of the tunnel while the other three trailing behind covered the bottom half.
“We haven’t found anything yet, a few rocks but otherwise soft soggy soil. Seems stable enough although if someone were to walk across upstairs both of us might get a surprise or two.” Sandy said grinning “It’s quicker using our paws instead of the tools right now.”
“Shame on you Loopy, leaving out such a vital part of the simulation. Jason? Windy was looking for you. So why are you moving the tools then?” Dreamy asked quickly guessing one answer they were responsible for the tools and expected to be held accountable.
“The overseers made sure we turned everything back in at the end of the day and accounted for any damage.” Larry offered looking worried.
“Oh!” he said looking crestfallen.
“Its probably not a bad habit overall and they are close by in case you need them but we aren’t going to punish anyone for damaged equipment caused in the course of your work. Good thing I’m not a miner then isn’t it,” Shi grimaced “All right lets get out of here. What’s wrong Jason, Bear will be fine.”
I shouldn’t call myself a medical, we couldn’t of saved him.”
“Ha! Windy wouldn’t waste the time hunting you down if you were a waste of time. Shi wants your help,” Dreamy said picking up the small fox and gave him a lick kiss. “I will admit that it might have taken a little longer for him to heal under your care. Windy is a fully trained doctor and keeps that training up to date. So instead of several months it’ll only take days.”
“All right climb down from there. Door, computer add four foot ladder to simulation then end saving changes,” Loopy said offering to help them down. All three foxes quickly leaped off the edge to the floor and all the foxes were looking at Loopy with a confused expression on their faces. “Look there is no need to make anything harder than it needs to be, and if I insulted anyone by my offer I’m sorry.”
“They aren’t used to help Farsight pure and simple. Those that can’t work well lets not go there.” Dreamy said. “Now I’m sure you’d leap up and down with your tools if necessary. It might be next to impossible to get hurt in here but please no starting bad habits.”
“Huh not possible to get hurt how’s that possible?” Larry asked more confused than before. “We always hand the tools up and down as necessary ladders slow us down more than the overseers would accept.”
“I think this is something we can explain better when you get used to us. As it stands there is controls in place to limit risk or potential injury.” Shi replied grinning unsure of how much training about Federation tech they wanted to give everyone at this stage.
***
“So what were you guys up to?” Kim asked grinning
“Like you can’t guess they’re filthy,” Mark retorted. “They’ve been mining.”
“Like we’re much better,” Joe stated. “The harvest is in, not that it will stick around once this is over if I understand it correctly.”
“Hey Phillip replicate me a dozen watermelons size based what they grew in the simulation.” Dreamy said over her communicator softly to keep it a secret.
“Got it boss, your other toys are ready whenever you are. I’ve put your melons in the patch.”
“I think you missed something.”
“I swear we picked all the melons,” Karen said confused.
“Can’t let you work without some reward,” Dreamy said grinning. “All right computer terminate simulation. Those melons are yours. Jason, I’d suggest a shower before Windy finds you.”
“Umm is there anyway we can get a cart to move these?” Sandy asked attempted to pick up a melon that was almost as large as she was. Dreamy quickly guessed it was the size that was more of the issue than the weight for the little fox.
“Sure thing. Windy is setting up hir equipment to do as much testing as possible in the cargo bay. First thing I have a little demonstration I’d like you to watch.”
“Can we get showers first?”
“If you were members of the crew that would be an order, but I’ll make it a suggestion.”
***
“Did you have to replicate real dirt Loopy?” Dreamy asked once they had separated from the foxes.
“It added to the realism,” Shi retorted
“Great, that part of being realistic you worried about. I wonder what they will say when they figure out beyond getting sweaty only two of them are really dirty. I’ll have Kira help you tweak your simulations. At least they are willing to do that again. I get the impression a number of them will be willing as well.”
“They might never figure it out.”
“Just remember those suites aren’t just for testing. I think you’re underestimating them, the only reason they didn’t notice today is they aren’t used to a holodeck and how it works.”
“I haven’t forgotten that.”
***
“How you feeling Bear?” Dreamy asked
“I’m still not sure what happened down there. I know I got scratched and bitten but otherwise..”
“Well that isn’t surprising, how long is this going to take Dreamy? I have work to do, and I want him in bed resting, even with our medical technology that was a serious injury.”
“Only a few minutes at most. We are re-collaring the cats, they are pretty much like the ones we removed, though Phillip has arranged a special demonstration for them.”
****
“Sorry to bother you, this is part of a captain’s duty I hate. The cats have broken the peace and quiet of this ship, far beyond what I can forgive. As the captain of this ship their punishment is up to me. They broke several very serious laws, cubnapping, and attempted hijacking both of those would merit long terms in jail or worse. A part of being free is that you are responsible for your own actions. Bear is here to assure you he is fine nothing more,” Dreamy said to the gathered slaves in the cargo bay. “I have decided to re-collar the cats for their actions, the demonstration is just that. The most the collars will do is stun them. We are giving you several controllers but for the most part they will be confined to a carrier that Phillip has setup for them here in the cargo bay. We will be keeping a closer eye on it and them.”
“All right,” Someone said nervously.
“Let me assure you, I have seen or know of nothing else that requires punishment. Well, actually there is whoever helped Blossom and Sprinter paint each other. When I find you, you will help give them their baths,” Dreamy said grinning. “All right, bring out the guilty. One last thing, I have a good idea of who wasn’t involved as they were busy elsewhere.”
******
“Bear, I still think you should sit down,” Windy said firmly.
“I’m fine,” He replied almost snarling, as he watched the cats being re-collared.
“These collars can only be removed with the control unit that Dreamy has. You grab a controller or stand within three feet, you will get a warning shock that will get worse the longer you stand there,” Phillip said walking in front of the cats, whose paws were still bound. “There are 3 shock levels jolt, stun, and then cook. What you just felt is level one.”
Most everyone in the room gulped. Phillip had placed a piece of meat with a collar on it on a stand. As he described the final option there wasn’t a person in the room who couldn’t smell the cooking meat, which rapidly progressed to charcoal.
“All right Bear, Becky, Joe, and Jo we are giving you control units. I’d like someone with a controller nearby at all times when they are let out for exercise. The cubs will not be allowed down here during those times for their own safety.”
“Here you go Blossom, they tried to hurt you, not me,” Bear said bending over and handing his controller to the cub. “Just in case. I can defend myself.”
“I’m not sure about that right now,” Windy said grimacing as the fox bent over shakily for a few seconds before toppling over, till shi and several others stopped him. “Four, three, two, one timber. He’s just weak from blood loss and his own stubbornness. Lets get him back to bed. Get those cats put away and someone untie them before they fall and make me more work. Excuse me Dreamy I believe that is your call to make. Personally I’m going to round up all my assistants other than Paul, and see if we can knock out a few more people, figuratively that is.”
“After you get Bear tucked away. I’m sure he’s comfortable using your breasts as a pillow but it will make working hard.”
“He might enjoy it if he remembered it,” Melinda snickered. “I’ve got my scissors we’ll unwrap them out here. One less thing they can cause trouble with in their carrier.”
***
“Don’t tell me he got out of bed again,” Windy asked
“No the straps are holding,” Melinda said noticing Bear’s eyes were finally open “You going to listen to the doctor now?”
“I have no idea what you are talking about,” He retorted attempting to get out of bed, shocked find the only thing he could move was his head. “All right, I know she threatened to tie me down but come on.”
“Shi, slightly different pronoun. Chakats are hermaphadites they are both male and female. Windy can either produce a child or sire one.”
“OK, now why am I tied down? I don’t remember a thing after giving the controller to Blossom.”
“That was almost a day ago. You kept rolling out of bed, even though I told you to stay there. We put cushions on the floor to prevent further injury before tying you down,” Windy said looking at the fox sternly. “I’m impressed actually I can’t remember the last time I had to use this much restraint on a patient that wasn’t drugged out of their skull and you were sleeping the whole time.”
“Huh? I don’t remember any of that.”
“Of course not, you were unconscious at the time. Not that I’m accepting that excuse, that would be reasonable and no one said I had to be,” Shi stated with a evil looking grin as shi removed the straps holding him in bed.
***
“FIRE in the HOLE,” Bear heard someone call out as he entered the shaft. The fox rapidly dashed outside once more. This seemed impossible he hadn’t left the ship, and yet he had walked into what appeared to be a fully working mine shaft, complete with elevator that had dropped him here.
“Funky isn’t it,” Becky said grinning looking up at Bear his eyes still wide in shock. “Their blasting today, I assume that is why you left in such a hurry. It’s a holographic simulation of a mine. We’ve had teams in here mining under almost every survivable condition they can think up.”
“This is a simulation? I just felt the ground move!”
“Very realistic isn’t it?”
“Maybe too realistic, what are they mining for?”
“Well at home coal or something close enough to it not to matter. Here they don’t want it so we’ve been dumping it. Haven’t found anything else yet maybe we’ll just tunnel through this mountain. Door please. Come on let me show you next door, Windy did let you out of the infirmary right?”
“Of course I did, though I’m wondering what just happened to cause his heart rate to suddenly spike,” The chakat said grinning, panting slightly as shi dashed to the scene to see what was going on. “We had him restrained.”
“Their blasting in the mine and someone walked in right before setting it off. He beat a hasty retreat.”
“Computer I want access to the holodeck denied for a three minute window around blasting in there,” Windy called out “That way if something happens to the holodeck’s safeties no one will get blown up accidentally. If everything is working right, you could stand in the middle of the blast without getting as much as a scratch.”
“New perimeters confirmed,” The computer responded in a flat sexless voice
“No thank you I’m not going to try it, I’m not that curios to experience an explosion up close and personal.”
****
“Another holodeck?” Bear queried as they entered another room only to find themselves in a large orange grove.
“Of course,” Joe said grinning “I’m not sure this is what Loopy had in mind. Shi only said grow something orange.”
“It works for me,” Windy replied. “We’re not interested in what some people call cash crops. To me it’s much more important if you can feed yourselves first and without much off planet trade there isn’t a place to sell those so called cash crops anyways. After that comes something that Bear here is a failure at...”
“Oh I guess we won’t succeed at whatever you have planned for us.”
“No idea of what if anything is being planned truthfully. Bear’s failure isn’t yours, he just can’t seem to take care of himself without help,” Windy said laughing.
“Thanks a lot.” The fox sighed
*****
“So what are we going to do with them?” Dreamy asked those gathered in hir ready room. “The first person to suggest selling them on the black market gets shipped out the nearest airlock to check the hull for damage by hand. The entire hull.”
“We still aren’t half finished with the medical testing. We are removing the collars as we go. If we have to, there is always Starfleet,” Windy offered.
“We’ve had them too long for that,” Paul replied. “What has Loopy been up to with the holodecks?”
“Not really too long, it was a mistake at the port. We can safely assume that the smugglers reported that pod as empty, either that or someone made a huge mistake,” Kira said firmly “That wouldn’t be our fault. We’ve only known they were there for about a week.”
“Okay, I’ll keep that in mind. Loopy has been letting them ply their skills, testing them,” Dreamy sighed. “We have to consider it intended as a trap for Neal. There is the possibility that he was supposed to be compromised by this. What ever else we decide, I’d love to drop those cats on Starfleet.”
“Doubtful with the stasis field in the pod. A basic scan wouldn’t tell the difference between a load of slaves in that state and a load of food stuffs. Add in all the food stuffs packed around them I would assume it was more food stuffs.” Phillip added, “We are working our way through their systems. Bear isn’t happy being a stupid-visor since Windy won’t let him remove the sling yet. I’m not sure of how or why but they were barely using any life support till shortly after we picked them up. Bear confirmed that with the maintenance records for their life support systems. They are eager to learn, and even more eager to put it into practice.”
“Starfleet is all or nothing option. They will ask questions if they find out about the other slaves,” Windy added firmly. “I doubt the smugglers had any idea what they were carrying, otherwise they would hightailed it for more profitable points. They would’ve never gone to Wayward 5, smuggling slaves carries a minim mandatory sentence of five years hard labor per slave. I’ve analyzed a few chemicals in their blood that are unfamiliar to me. I’m still trying to completely break it down, but once exposed they enter a basically a coma with their heart rate and breathing slowing to less than one thirtieth of normal if my simulations are correct.”
“At that rate, a detailed scan still would’ve had problems picking them up as anything other than oddly packed food stuffs. Of course with Murphy’s Law in effect they would’ve done a scan over thirty minutes or got really lucky and picked up a heart beat,” Phillip said grinning.
“Well that doesn’t help answer what we are going to do with them,” Paul sighed. “Maybe Starfleet is the best solution.”
“Not without talking to Neal first. That note is cryptic enough that very few people would realize it was meant for father,” Dreamy said firmly.
“I agree, unless we can come up with a solution that leaves his options open. Starfleet will want to know everything. Bear and the others referring to Neal as their new master will not help matters. Add in a secret meeting point with smugglers to make the transfer. I doubt it was intended to go down the way it did. Neal was probably directed to a secret meeting, out of the view of prying eyes. I’d bet something happened to that message, since we are where he would have been right now. It really doesn’t look good for him if them they figure it out. There are a lot of people that would love to take advantage of something like this.”
“Not to mention they are likely to drag us and everyone he deals with into it. That’s not good, so what are our other options? That’s what we need.”
“That pretty much leaves the colonies,” Phillip said.
“Sure, but the only one that won’t totally blow our schedule and call unwanted attention to us is Catch-A-Lot,” Paul added.
“The question is can or will they take them?” Kira stated
“We also have to accept as free people we can’t make this decision without their input. I feel it gives both us and them options. We also need to explain why if they choose to be turned over to Starfleet calling Neal their master wouldn’t be a good thing?” Dreamy said sighing
“They want to be busy and for the most part they are happy plying the trades they’ve learned. On the positive side they have their own quarters and the foxes from reports can easily help bury it for the long term,” Windy commented looking out the window. “There are things that were easier when I was in Star Fleet not always better though.”
“Point taken I’ll have Loopy talk this over with Fangs if shi hasn’t already.”
***
“Hey Love what’s up something wrong?” the wolftaur asked from the screen looking concerned. He was reasonably sure shi was safe, but the fact shi was making an expensive real time call over subspace was a real concern.
“I was wondering if we had the space to take on some more colonists.”
“How many aren’t you a little early love?”
“Something came up is there space or not? They are trained in farming, and mining basically.”
“How many Loopy, how many? Those skills certainly would be extremely handy with what we are doing right now.”
“About 3000.”
“What! How many did you say this is an expensive joke you know that Loopy?” Fangs sighed deeply with both sets of lungs, “I think you also forgot to check the local time zones as well.”
“I said 3000 Dreamy is sure we can get converted pods for them. I thought calling late night costs less, and for the moment I want to keep this in the family. Did I forget the schedule, I wanted to be sure of who was on duty right now,” Farsight replied. “I’ll forward you all the testing data I’ve done and a few other things. Can we take them or not?”
“If you can get converted pods for them sure. Send me the data Love, if their training pans out then we can easily keep to the schedule if not get ahead of it.”
“Thanks love I’ll send the data shortly. See you later,” Farsight said cutting the connection.
****
“All right Dreamy, I think this is representative of all of us. Well not counting the cats.” Bear said taking a seat in the captain’s ready room
“I’ve heard people wondering what we are going to do with you. What do you want us to do with you? There are several options we will not do, pure and simple. Sell you as slaves, cause you to lose your intelligence or anything that would alter you medically without there being a very sound reason for it. We will not ditch you somewhere without your consent, nor will we kill you.”
“No lobotomies, no sterilization, no de-clawing or de-scenting. I will treat anything I find during my testing that would harm you or the ship and it’s crew. And that only after discussing the matter with you, unless it is life threatening,” Windy said firmly.
“So what are you going to do with us then?” Lisa asked.
“That is up to you. Due to the nature of some of the choices, we can probably only accommodate one such choice. We will lay them out in front of you, and from there, it is up to you. There are probably advantages and disadvantages to all of them.”
“Which one would you prefer we take?” Bear said softly. “I’m sure you’ve already discussed this, probably several times.”
“Some of the choices could backfire on us. They won’t hurt you in the least, so don’t worry about that.”
“I have to consider that we aren’t where we are supposed to be. You have opened your ship to us. It would be wrong of us to consider a possibly that gets you into trouble.”
“He’s right,” Joe stated firmly. “Can you give us the pros and cons of each of them?”
“We will do that much,” Dreamy said softly “Bear you must do what is best for you and your future. We would be wrong if we forced our choice on you. That applies to all of you I would gladly accommodate each and everyone of you in separate choices but that isn’t possible. I will say this based on the note you have Bear, we know who was to receive you. I am fairly certain we are doing the same thing our father would have.”
***
“You didn’t say much Bear,” Dreamy said, finally cornering the fox as he sat in a quiet corner. “You do know this area is off limits.”
“Sorry, I didn’t know that, I’ll leave.”
“Actually, walk with me for a few minutes if you will.”
“Sure, sorry for breaking the rules. I just needed to think by myself for a few moments.”
“It’s not really a dangerous area, just one the crew favors for certain reasons,” Shi replied
“There wasn’t anyone here. I would’ve heard them long before this.”
“I had forgotten about that.” Dreamy laughed, as she directed him into a room.
“Whoaaa!” Bear exclaimed as they suddenly found themselves floating in the middle of space.
“Just another holodeck. We can really simulate almost anything safely. What did you think of the meeting?”
“A lot of things that were left out seems to me,” He commented looking at the ship floating by as he reached out to touch it.
“Oh no they are going to be lost in space forever.” Dreamy giggled, pointing towards another ship far off in the distance. “Actually that is just a representation of the Folly Neal’s ship. That’s where we think they are. We are over here, this really puts everything in perspective. I think you are the one that will have to make the final decision.”
“I’m not qualified. I’ve made too many bad decisions. I’m defective especially as a leader.”
“I sometimes feel that way too. So few choices, and none of them look like the right one, I know.”
“Unless there is something you are not saying, it didn’t seem we are stuck with any of them forever.” Bear sighed looking around the seemingly endless space he was in with little stars, planets, ships and other things he could even begin to indentify let alone imagined really existed moving around slowly “You never answered which choice you would prefer we take.”
“And I won’t. All the choices can have nasty endings if things go badly Bear. I would be kidding you to say otherwise. Those have no effect on you. All of you are the innocents in this mess as far as we can tell and there is nothing indicating otherwise. I have no idea really why they were sending you to Neal. I mean, anyone that knew him well enough to know what your master did had to know Neal didn’t believe in keeping slaves, maybe he had something against Neal and considering what rumors I’ve heard say slaves go for on the black market it would be one very expensive trap to say the least. That really doesn’t make sense to send so many, one or two would have caused Neal serious problems. The note also seems to be overly simple, that can either be part of a trap or to ensure the only the right person understands it. The only thing we can figure out is for some reason he intended to set you free. What was Becky saying about a promise?”
“I’m the last one left that that even applied to, it happened nine years ago. The others were transferred to other mines and never arrived, they never found out what happened to the missing transfers. I was the youngest and the hardest to make vanish for certain reasons. The promise was just the ramblings of a scared and tired old man. No one expected anything to come of it,” Bear said softly “Over the years we lost all the elders, in time they would’ve transferred me too. Not that any of the transfers arrived at their destination. I lost my parents that way well at least the older foxes who took care of me, before I could care for myself. I guess I was lucky in that way I was one of the last ones born on the plantation.”
“Explain the promise to me and why was it made. Windy told me one thing, it’s funny in a way. We can’t accurately determine your chronological age but physically all of you seem to be a year or two younger than you claim to be. Why and where did the younger ones come from then?” Dreamy asked fairly certain shi already knew that answer.
“I guess I’ll take the last questions first,” Bear sighed. “His son had taken over a few things and convinced him it made more sense economically and genetically to get slaves that didn’t have to completely grow up from babies and were made completely to his specifications. The son wanted us far less intelligent, more docile and completely obedient regardless of the situation. The first part the son got the secondary part the master pre-empted for reason he never explained to anyone. The master made sure that he was the only one allowed to make changes in our design that was made absolutely clear, as far as I can see it really didn’t change much. As to the promise our master insisted upon checking out a tunnel several people claimed was played out and unsafe. We - they had hit a huge vein of gold that played out rapidly. The shaft caved in on him, they let the overseer know, who was furious. His son wasn’t bothered in the least I seem to remember. We started digging him out while waiting for the mine rescue teams to arrive. I was helping with the supports…”
“You were on the team that dug him out after advising him it wasn’t safe, weren’t you? Did the mine rescue teams arrive?”
“Sure at some point during this I was busy at the time. They started digging in another area. He promised we would never have a bad master and we were properly taken care of. The mine rescue team took credit for it and the records back that up. That’s all it was Dreamy the promises of a tired old man who thought he was going to die buried alive, we wouldn’t let it happen no one deserves that fate,” Bear sighed. “So we can go to a colony world or be turned over to the Federation through Starfleet.”
“There are many of colony worlds out there. I can’t speak for all of them, and few of the companies that run them treat their colonists like slaves. Catch-A-Lot isn’t necessarily a permanent stop, but we can be reasonably sure you will be well treated there. The same applies to the Federation though I doubt they will keep all of you together if that is a concern.”
“That isn’t a concern we could’ve been sold at anytime and we knew it. Those colonies that are out of the question, would Neal take us there?”
“Only if you insisted, but he will tell you want you’re in for. I doubt that if your master intended for you to be set free, that he wanted you to go back into that type of situation.”
“I’ll have to see what everyone thinks,” Bear said, looking around for the door.
“Door. All right let me know as soon as possible.”
“Sure thing.”
***
“Except for one group everyone left the decision up to me. Though several talked to me about what they thought was best,” Bear said without preamble as he exited the turbolift, before spotting the station on screen.
“Hold that thought Bear.”
“This is mining station delta five good to see you Father’s Love. Tell Phillip his attempts at automation seem to be working. We didn’t need the complete manifest by any means. The boss would like to see if some of that stuff is for sale, beyond our contracted shipment. We have a trainee that gave you a basic scan just now, you might tell Phillip to check a couple of those pods listed as food stuff, they seem a little warm for their listed contents.”
“Yes it worked finally worked!” Phillip exclaimed. “I’ll check those pods right away.”
“Right your clear to approach, we have people clamoring for those supplies. Sorry for making you a surprise victim of our trainee. We’re not expecting anyone else so you’re clear to dock.”
“No problem, no problem all trainees need a good victim or two I still remember a few of the people we surprised when dad was training us. I think this was one of those places so turn about is fair play,” Dreamy addressed the screen before turning to stare at Phillip was a confused look. “Paul take the con. Phillip what was that about?”
“Yes shir,” He replied throwing hir a salute good naturedly, as Dreamy tried to swat him with hir tail.
“I was working on automating a few things, once we get the ident codes from one of our stops it sends back our manifest incase they need it much faster this way.”
“What if someone duplicates that code? No trying to turn our computer into another Tess I don’t know if I could deal with that you got me Phillip.”
“Well unless navigation indicates we are in the right place it ignores the ident. I didn’t have anything to list the slaves as so I just listed their pod as food stuffs. Got it Dreamy I’m just trying to automate a few more things that’s all.”
“You better check those pods NOW!”
“I accidentally listed their pod as cold food stuffs that’s all it is. I’ll start a manual check in a few minutes Shir,” He replied
“Why the complete manifest Phillip? I don’t mind the extra business seriously but some of that stuff is earmarked for other places.”
“This is the first time its worked Dreamy. I’ve only been letting it run in with stations we know well. Out of a dozen tries in the last two years it’s never worked once. Now I can tweak it provided the dang thing keeps working properly. I plan for it to only list the stuff we are brining them and what we have for sale.”
“Your forgetting the first engineering rule Phillip keep it simple stupid. Just send them what we have for sale or trade. The items we are bringing them they expect and will inspect anyways.” Paul commented, “Why can’t I meet an engineer that doesn’t forget that sooner or later?”
“I see, Bear how did… Bear, Bear? Great I think he’s mesmerized. Someone help me get him into the ready room. Phillip automating things is fine but I will not having you turn our computer into another Tess if that is even possible got it?” Dreamy almost snarled. “I don’t hate Tess we just don’t need her or one like her here.”
“Got it shir? I better get started on those pod inspections there is a few things down there we really don’t want to lose,” He replied
“Kira, Jackie and Fred I’d like you to help Phillip manually check all the critical carriers. We aren’t getting any warnings but the station’s scan picked up a few abnormalities,” Dreamy ordered hitting the call button on the nearest console.
“We’ll met him in the cargo bay in ten minutes,” Jackie replied over hir com badge “Fred and I are in the mess hall just finishing up the after breakfast cleanup.”
“I’ll be there at that time as well Dreamy,” Kira replied, “I was raiding the farming simulation for oranges till they caught me.”
“Were they upset?”
“No though I need to wash the juice off my paws. I wasn’t grabbing the right ones they weren’t quite ready to be picked I guess. What a difference!”
“Get those paws washed before I have to explain to Phillip what is all over his gauges, though it could be much worse I guess.”
“Yes Shir.”
***
“You back with us, how did you get on the bridge?”
“Loopy opened the lift door and told the computer the bridge before getting back out. I told her we had made a decision. What was that, I take it another place off limits to us,” The fox sighed deeply.
“For the moment I’m afraid so, you know you can explore one in the holodeck. I’ll have Phillip set it up for you, that one you’ll be able to go everywhere and see everything without getting hurt maybe you’ll learn a few things as well. This is a small mining station there are larger ones as well. Bear, we still don’t know what type of fox all of you are, but I’ve never seen any like you in all my travels. I think I would remember if I had to be honest.”
“Well that is better than nothing. Sorry why I came up here other than to get into trouble for breaking the rules. We will go to Catch-A-Lot, the only group that really doesn’t like that option is the cats, they want to dropped on Starfleet. You seem reasonably sure we’ll be well treated but beyond that,” Bear said softly. “We want to do what we were trained for even if we aren’t as good as you are or at least try.”
“Whoa, while I can’t speak for Starfleet or the rest of the Federation, but odds are they will put you in positions where you can be happy doing what you were trained for,” Dreamy said grinning. “As not being as good that remains to be seen you don’t have our training. You are already good at what you do. Loopy and the others have proven that in simulations and real life actions.”
“Maybe I should’ve said everyone prefers going where we know we can be useful doing what we know and maybe learn some new things,” Bear replied handing a large box to Dreamy. “I haven’t proven anything except I know how to be an idiot.”
“What? Because you got hurt rescuing our cubs? Oh I wish I knew what to say, but you certainly aren’t an idiot. As to the bridge, that was not all that unexpected, you are curious,” Dreamy said opening the box and almost dropping it, before pulling out a glass figurine mounted on an ornate base. “It’s me!” shi whispered in wonder.
“I think so I made the base for the glass workers. They made figurines for everyone. The jewelers made a few of the touches. Well I think they are almost done. I made all the bases for them to their specifications.”
“Do you have any idea…” Dreamy started to respond trailing off “No none of you do. What did Windy say about your arm, it’s been in that sling for a long time.”
“Shi’s being extra cautious. Last I heard, as long as I don’t take it off I get rid of it today. Shi was ticked off that I had taken it off to make the bases, even though I swore otherwise.”
“Did you take it off for that?”
“Of course not, they would’ve waited if necessary for the bases. Everyone insisted till I proved I didn’t need both paws just a little more assistance than normal.”
“Thank you. I’ll be sure to thank everyone later. I’ll treasure it always. Now as to the cats well they sacrificed their right of choice. Personally I’d love to drop them on Star Fleet but that isn’t a good solution without dropping all of you on Starfleet.”
*****
“I think that is all of it Phillip,” Bear reported “All the environmental equipment is like it was originally. Our power source is shot the air is already smelling horrible I’m not going to try the water, any word on the cats?”
“Not a peep and we have to leave. Everything pulled off that you want to keep?”
“Is the ship taken care of is my question?” Bear asked in return. “From what everyone said they are still going to know it was a slave carrier. It doesn’t feel right giving up all that equipment, it’s still usable.”
“I swept the ship more thoroughly than they are likely to since it was their mistake. We made the new pod as comfortable as possible and food isn’t a problem,” He replied. “I know but it’s junk really I wouldn’t want my life dependant on those controls. Starfleet wants to check the pod we received at Wayward 5, it was reported as empty and we didn’t need it so that is that. I’m just glad we got the message in time to get everything done. Thank you all of you for making it possible.”
“We’re clear,” Becky stated firmly over the intercom. “Everything we were given permission for has been transferred isn’t it going to look odd without any terminals in there? We already sealed the pod.”
“Life support was provided by connection to the host ship. The other stuff is old and probably only used as an emergency backup. Those trashed filters and wasted power supply won’t look that out of place honestly,” Phillip commented as Kira joined them
“Besides as slaves no one would believe you’d be intelligent enough to run even a simple computer. We know better though. All right Phillip Dreamy says we have to go now. The six cats we found are locked in a carrier in the new pod. Paul ran another scan for the other cats nothing even outside of the ship. I’m shocked we didn’t find them when we found Gerry.” Kira commented, “Their old pod is sealed and there isn’t a trace of their presence beyond some pieces of glass on board.”
“Right then we better get out of here.” Phillip commented quickly completing his preflight on the shuttle.
*****
Well that is one thing you’re a failure at making a decent cup of coffee Bear.” Phillip said grinning as he monitored the controls on the shuttle.
“I didn’t know it was possible to screw up the something from the replicator.”
“Ok who changed the pattern then? No, as far as I know it’s not possible to mess up something from the replicator. Of course this might be Windy’s favorite blend all this modern technology and there are still military outposts that don’t think it’s coffee unless it can be used for ink as well. How is everyone in the pod?” Kira asked looking at Phillip. “I guess something erased the patterns on the shuttle as well.”
“Everything is going good a few people were ill till they got gravity back.” The fox replied holding a cup of tea. “So how long is this trip?”
“Great! Another cub with are we there yet, are we there yet. Either till we get there about three weeks or till they pick us up on their way out,” Phillip giggled catching the look on Bear’s face, as stared at the cup in his paws it was easy to tell what he was thinking. “That is my fault more than likely as synchronize the replicator patterns so our favorites are readily available we’ll have to remember to resync everything. I guess we’ll be drinking tea this trip, that is your cup of tea Bear enjoy it.”
“We really don’t need anyone to wait on us, enjoy the trip,” Kira added getting a cup of tea. “I can’t drink that swill how anyone does I have no idea.”
“Hello Tango, Hello Tango where are you off to?” a voice came over the speaker.
“I think we have a problem, think its something to do with the missing cats?”
“We only left Father’s Love three hours ago, they won’t even dock yet for at least another day and then security to deal with and they’ll probably impound the one pod first. I’d say we have at least twenty five hours minim before security starts their questioning.”
“Maybe this was a mistake, I certainly don’t want to get you in trouble.”
“There are traces of you guys in that pod, but nothing that will show up on Father’s Love. We swept it more thoroughly then they are likely to do when it was their own mistake. The only thing that will cause us issues, is if the cats turn up and start yammering.”
“This is Starfleet fighter 125, respond long range shuttle Tango. Reply or we can go back to the station and have a little chat.”
“Aren’t you a little far from the station fighter 125?” Phillip replied, shocked the call wasn’t on the normal communication frequencies rather the same frequency the Folly used for its com badges.
“I’m where I’m supposed to be. You on the other hand dear brother are not. Now how is captain Dreamweaver going to explain a couple of missing crewmembers, not to mention a missing pod?”
“What pod? You mean this pod of food stuffs? We’re behind schedule, so I’m attempting to make up time.”
“Your cargo is a little lively for food stuff Phillip, according to my co-pilot. Your co-pilot is also being very quiet.”
“All right Chase I guess the jig is up,” He replied cutting off the mike. “Sorry Bear.”
“Not your fault. How could you have known he was here?”
“Please follow me Phillip, maybe we should chat face to face.”
“Wait a minute! the station isn’t this way.”
“Just follow me and hush up.”
“Older sibling huh?” Bear asked.
“Older sibling, wouldn’t think you’d have much experience with that.” Phillip commented
“I saw a few things as a cub that’s all.”