
Beryll & Osiris Brackhaus

Smashwords Edition

© 2017 by Beryll & Osiris Brackhaus, Kassel, Germany

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any

manner whatsoever without permission from the author, except as allowed

by fair use. For further information, please contact osiris@brackhaus.com.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. It contains explicit violent content and

is intended for mature readers. Also, do not take the events in this story as

proof of plausibility, legality or safety of actions described.

Editing and proof: Chantal Perez-Fournier

Layout & Book Design: Julia Schwenk

Coverart: Dávid László Tóth (Darbaras)

Cover Layout: Osiris Brackhaus | brackhaus.com

ISBN-13: 978-1533587466

www.brackhaus.com

Blurb:

Twenty years ago, the evil Packmasters used their genetically engineered bestiae in an attempt to seize control of the galaxy. The Core Worlders wiped them out, scorched their planets and kept the few surviving bestiae as trophies.

As one of those pampered pets, Cat doesn't care about old stories. But as soon as he crosses paths with Ana, she suddenly becomes his heart, his soul, the centre of his life - just like a real Packmaster of old. Together, they embark on a daunting quest to find out what really happened during the war.

Now their misfit pack must face down the darkness at the heart of Packmaster society before it can poison their bond. The truth will either destroy them or grant them the power to shape their own destiny.

Dedicated to Mila, for constant support

and inspiration in writing a cat.

Thank you to our wonderful beta readers Uhu, Talomor, Alana and Eija for catching continuity and logic errors we overlooked. All remaining errors are solely ours.

Thank you to Darbaras for totally nailing it with creating Wolf for the cover.

# Chapter 1

The steelcrete walls of the fighting pit showed cracks, the steel grille floor was rusty and crusted over with dried gore. Of the four spotlights mounted under the ceiling, only two still worked. Even for an underground arena on Darkside, it was in a sorry state.

And yet the stands were packed already, despite the fact that tonight's main events were still to come.

We didn't care about those. We were here for the fight that was about to start down in the pit.

There was no denying that the wolf was a magnificent bestia. His chains forced him to stand hunched over, but he was still easily a head taller than I was - and a good deal wider as well - with heavily muscled shoulders and arms. His fur was a shaggy mass of grey and black. Hard to tell what the actual colour would turn out to be once he was cleaned. Completely unclothed, he looked like a savage animal. Then again, that was probably exactly what he was, even though he was just as much a bestia as I. Our race had been created to be bipedal, upright-walking, intelligent servants to our masters. His eyes were the angry yellow of flame and they burned just as intensely. The teeth in his snout were bared in an angry snarl I couldn't hear over the din of the fighting pit. Ears back, but not flat against his skull in fear, he was ready to attack.

As fine a wolf as ever I had seen.

Not that I had ever seen one in the flesh before – just recordings from before and during the war that Ana and I had discovered.

He would make a fine addition to our merry little band.

If we managed to pull off the stunt I had carefully planned.

If he accepted her.

Emotions coiled in the pit of my stomach and made me silently snarl as well, my ears twitching nervously in the deep hood of the cloak which hid what I was.

Excitement, fear, anger and jealousy – a volatile mix.

I shouldn't feel jealous, of course. It was the natural way of things that Ana would add to her pack, to our strength. But I couldn't help the fierce possessiveness that stirred in me each time she took in a new one. I had been her first, after all.

But that wasn't it, really. I agreed with Ana that we needed a strong fighter, but did it have to be a wolf? Just looking at him made the fur on my neck stand up, all my instincts warning me of danger. A cat recruiting a wolf? That could only end in disaster.

Alas, bestiae were rare on the Fringe. What few there were, were owned by people who were well prepared to protect their possessions. It had taken us long enough to track down this one. We didn't have a choice.

Maybe it would not take. Maybe he was too far gone to recognise what she could be for him. A selfish hope. Stupid.

I banned it to the black pits it had emerged from and instead focused on the wolf.

Two handlers were keeping a firm grip on his chains, and under his shaggy mane I noticed the dull glint of a heavy shock collar. His owner would have the controls to that collar, but we wouldn't have to obtain them. Having Ferret in our pack had proven invaluable. We had yet to come across a lock he couldn't pick.

The wolf was currently owned by a brutish man who called himself Captain Falk, who was engaged in a lively discussion with the ringmaster. Falk wore a threadbare military officer's overcoat with too many buckles and insignia to be taken seriously. Maybe he had been Core World military once, maybe not. Now he was just another Fringe spacer. He owned a small rust bucket of a ship, which he used to travel from port to port where he earned money by putting his cheap fighters into the pits and then betting against them. He always put up his wolf last, when no one really expected him to win anymore, raking in the cash when the bestia tore his opponents to bloody shreds.

Falk and the ringmaster were joined by the owner of the man his wolf would face in just a few moments. I studied the other fighter curiously.

Maybe a veteran of the wars, fallen on hard times, judging by the grey in his hair and the multitude of scars. The way he was shifting from foot to foot, his hands clenching into fists, the muscles under his skin rolling on his naked arms, told me he was juiced on combat drugs. The way his eyes nervously tried to shift in different directions told me those drugs were anything but high grade.

The wolf would shred him.

I knew it, the two owners in the pit knew it, the ringmaster knew it. And the audience betting on the fight knew it as well. No one out here was stupid enough to fall for Falk's usual game. Everyone was just hoping for a satisfyingly gory fight. Judging from the way the wolf flexed his claws, he was inclined to oblige.

Not like he had any other way of venting his aggression.

The stink of the pit was oppressive, fear and death, sweat and greasy food.

I was caught by surprise when the wolf's nostrils suddenly flared, his eyes drifting half shut as he inhaled deeply. I realised he had caught a whiff of Ana's scent even through the cloying decay of this place. So far, his attention had been glued to his opponent, but now I could see that he was distracted, scanning the crowd. So his senses were much more acute than any humans', not unusual for a bestia.

It made me wonder if he knew what had touched him. Probably not. Just like me, he was too young to ever have belonged, to understand the nature of that vital part missing from his life.

His distraction made me worry, though. We needed him to survive this fight if we wanted to claim him.

The two owners finally concluded their negotiations and left the ring, accompanied by the jeering of the crowd, eager for the show to start. The ringmaster followed close behind. He didn't bother with any introductions. He knew his customers well enough - they wanted blood, pain and death, not pompous blather.

The handlers unclipped the wolf's chains and backed away cautiously. They needn't have bothered. Once again, the wolf's attention was focused on his opponent who was now grinning with a decidedly manic edge. The guy was so high he wouldn't even feel it when the wolf ripped into him.

Neither of the two fighters lost any time with cautious manoeuvering. I winced at the force of the impact when they slammed into each other. The human was stronger than he looked, though - augmented in some way, I guessed. At least that would explain why his owner had thought he would have any chance against the wolf.

Not that he really had. He only got a few punches in. Pure strength and madness were no match for claws and sharp teeth made to rend flesh and it didn't take long for the dull metal floor of the pit to be fed with fresh blood. The crowd howled with shared bloodlust, surged forward like a multi-bodied beast, intent on the kill. It didn't leave me unaffected. A peculiar mix of excitement and revulsion made me simultaneously lean forward and soundlessly hiss at the scent of slaughter.

I looked down at the slender, short figure next to me. Ana's reaction was much clearer. Wrapped in a cloak as concealing as my own, I couldn't make out her features, but she radiated disgust.

The wolf roared in triumph. I half expected the crunch of bones as he twisted his opponent's neck, but it was lost in the answering roar of the crowd. The body hung in the wolf's claws and any pretence of self-control was gone from him as he sank his teeth into dead meat, rending, ripping, devouring.

The crowd shrieked and screamed their approval and yet I sensed Ana's little sigh as the wolf fed.

She did not approve.

Ana turned and slipped through the crowd like a fish through water, and I followed in her wake.

***

After the racket of the crowd, the murky tunnels below the pit felt eerily quiet. The only sound was the buzzing and crackling of the failing glowballs, hanging precariously from the low ceiling, and the drip-drip-drip of water seeping through the cracked steelcrete walls.

We moved quickly and quietly. We had no business being down here, but the guards at the gate leading to the underbelly of the pits had been paid well to ignore our passing. Ferret nervously slipped ahead, scouting the way, while Bear brought up the rear. We had waited just long enough to make sure the wolf would be securely locked up in a cell down here, while his owner was still upstairs collecting his winnings. The window for an undetected escape was narrow, but it was doable if the wolf submitted.

Ferret stopped in front of one of the heavy steel doors lining the tunnel. Like the rest of us, he was wrapped in a voluminous cloak, concealing that he was a bestia, too. Still he had drawn some puzzled frowns, being mistaken for a human child due to his size. But nobody bothered to intervene – this was Darkside, after all. Nobody bothered, ever. Ferret fiddled with the lock only briefly before he stepped aside and allowed Bear to help him pull the door open.

The cell itself was unlit, but the flickering light from the corridor revealed the wolf, now securely chained to the opposite wall, his grimy fur slick with fresh blood. He bared his teeth at us, snarling, yellow eyes glowing with aggression.

Ana stepped past me. I nearly reached out to stop her from entering the cell, from getting so close to the wolf I would not be able to protect her. I caught myself just in time. It wasn't like I would have been a match for the wolf in a fight anyway. But more importantly, it wasn't my place to interfere. This was her call.

The wolf's eyes widened as he caught her scent, his pupils dilating. He drank in her scent and his snarl died away while his eyes searched the shadowed hood of her cloak.

She raised her hands and lowered her hood.

I saw it in his eyes – that flash of stabbing disappointment, the brief moment between hope and reality and truth. When her plain face, the thick lenses of her glasses, her frizzy orange hair – when none of it matched that heavenly scent, and she wasn't the glorious goddess he had dreamed of, just a not-very-pretty young woman. He breathed in her scent again, fully inhaled and I saw when his whole world snapped into place and everything that had ever been wrong suddenly righted itself. He sagged in his chains when all tension drained from his body.

Oh, how I understood. The memory of the very same thing happening to me was forever etched into my mind.

Ana stepped forward, her small hand reached out, her thumb ran along his snout and he leaned into her caress, eyes drifting shut. She leaned down to him, her scent all around him now. She gently kissed one of his scarred, furry ears and I could see her lips move, but her voice was too soft for me to catch the one word she spoke.

It wasn't for me to know. The true name she bestowed on him was a sacred thing, only between them.

All that mattered was that it was done. She had claimed him for her pack and from this day on, he would be our brother.

Whether I liked it or not.

She wrapped both arms around his thick neck, nuzzling her face into his fur. She had explained to me how this moment was as intense for her as it was for us. How it got more difficult to cope with each time it happened, as she had to rearrange her pack in her soul and it got harder the more parts there were to realign. How she was only guessing at how to do it properly, desperately hoping that she didn't damage us or our bond in the process, due to her lack of training.

Ferret shuffled restlessly, glancing down the corridor. His hood had slipped back, revealing his white snout, his twitching round ears and quick eyes. He was right. We were running out of time.

I took one step into the cell, but no more, not to threaten what Wolf had just gained. "Ana, we have to go," I said softly.

Wolf growled at me, deep and guttural, the sound carrying a threat of death, but I could not allow them to indulge. All of our freedom depended on us being quick now. His eyes burned with fury that someone would dare come between him and his new purpose in life. I felt a first, hot spark of him in the back of my mind, the place where I could constantly feel all the bonded members of our pack.

Behind me, Bear answered Wolf's challenge with a short bellow of her own. Deeper even than his, it startled him out of his dazed state. He jerked in his chains, immediately recognising a predator large enough to pose a real threat.

His movement served to wake Ana as well. She glanced back at me and gave me a tight smile to let me know that she would be alright. She took a firm grip on Wolf's mane. "Be good for me, love," she said gently, "my pack is your pack now."

For a moment it seemed he would balk, but then he lowered his snout with a soft whine of acquiescence.

Did he even know how to speak? He was the most feral bestia we had picked up so far. Not that it mattered. He would obey her, and everything else would come in time.

"Can you unlock his chains for me, Ferret?" Ana asked.

Of course he could, and she could have just ordered him. But that was Ana, kind and quiet, always asking politely.

Ferret took a step forward, but then glanced at me nervously. He was scared, he always was. He was the youngest of us, barely more than a cub, really. I nodded at him encouragingly and let him feed on my own calm, which he could feel just as easily as I could his fluttering nerves. Even in the low light, my eyes easily picked up how his ears and whiskers twitched, how he visibly had to force himself to get so close to the wolf who could have easily ripped him apart.

But then Ana reached out, her hand touching his just for a moment and Ferret's spine straightened. For her, he would be able to do anything. His hands didn't shake when he fiddled with the simple padlocks that held the chains fast. The shock collar would have to wait until he had more time and light to work with. If everything went according to plan, we would be out of range of Wolf's former owner's remote control long before he could think of using it.

Ferret moved back when Wolf stretched up to his full height. Up close, he looked even more impressive than he had in the fighting pit. Not quite as tall and by far not as massive as Bear, but lean and powerful, scarred, but without fresh wounds, none of the blood in his fur was his own.

"Come," Ana told him and led him from the cell, one hand still firmly gripping the thick fur of his mane. Physically, she could never have held him, but I knew from experience that her grip was as unbreakable to him as the strongest chains.

Still he bared his teeth when he walked past me and caught my scent. I had been prepared for that and I still couldn't stop myself from responding in kind as his scent filled my nostrils. Wolf, dog, call it what you will, it made my fur stand on end. Somehow I managed not to hiss at him.

Then he spotted Bear, who had been guarding the corridor and his step faltered as he recognised her as the one who had bellowed back at him. She was bigger, much bigger. And in her concealing cloak, he had no way of seeing how old she was or guess that in a fight, he would surely have won, his youthful strength and speed easily a match for her greater age and lack of enthusiasm. As it was, her sheer bulk served to calm him down as he accepted that he was not the top predator around. We'd have to wait and see how things would shake out once he realised that in fact he was just that.

Ferret slipped past me and I left the dank cell last with one more mournful glance at the chains which had held Wolf. I still wasn't sure this was a good idea. Ana was right, we needed the muscle, it was what our pack was sorely missing. But I would very much have preferred someone less canine to fill the slot.

With Bear's help, I closed the cell door again and clicked the lock back into place. It would give us an additional minute or two at most, but that might be exactly the minute we needed. In the meantime, Ana had accepted an additional cloak from Bear, wrapped Wolf in it and pulled her own hood back up.

I led the way down the corridor. With a little luck, the guards would also ignore the fact that there was one more member to our group now, but I wasn't counting on it. Bear was right behind me, followed by Ana with Wolf and Ferret hanging back.

There were two of them and they were still arguing about some earlier match, just like they had been when we had passed them a few minutes ago. My head still hidden inside my hood, I nodded at them, every muscle tense and ready to spring into action should they make any threatening gesture. They looked at us with the same bored expression they had worn previously. I could see that they were counting our heads, and realised there were five of us now. They glanced at each other. One reached for his gun, then the other shrugged and the first relaxed again. He gestured for us to pass through the gate that led from the holding area to the hallway outside the large, circular room that held the fighting pit.

We slipped through quickly, past the long row of betting booths, with only a few late customers left. The main events were starting in the pit and most people had already placed their bets, so as not to miss the most spectacular fights.

The hallway was only dimly lit. Plenty of high profile patrons came here and they valued their privacy – they came to see, not to be seen. There were other, cleaner arenas on Darkside, but those had rules and rarely did a fight in the pits end in death.

The urge to hurry to the exit was nearly overwhelming, but I kept my pace calm and confident. Drawing attention was our biggest worry, as always. A few heads turned as we passed, but none of them showed much interest or even made a move to stop us.

Heavy, metal stormbreaker gates marked the exit. Bear pulled one wing open and one by one, we slipped outside. I went through last and breathed in deeply. After the stench of the fighting pit and the holding cells, the heat of the air outside felt like a punch in the chest. The smell of exhaust, burned oil and an acidic note that was unique to Darkside were thick enough to cut with a knife, but it felt fresh compared to the death, hunger and despair inside.

The alley was as dark as it had been when we had arrived, but the sky was lit with the tracking beams of the spaceport and a host of cheaply flickering holographic advertisements. The only sounds were from hovercars swishing by above the roofs of the buildings. All sound from the various bars, clubs and brothels that dominated this part of Darkside were locked behind stormbreaker gates just as thick as the ones we had just passed. Patrons hurried along without wasting time, eager to get inside again without being recognised.

Everything on this planet had to be built to withstand the brutal sandstorms that could build up in a matter of minutes. None of the buildings had windows. All of them were a maximum of two storeys tall, with flat roofs, huddled close together to present a unified front. All of them also had deep underground levels. There were no ornaments to anything, nothing to make it a pretty or desirable place to be. That would probably have held true even without any storms. This part of Darkside was an ugly place, for ugly people, inside and out.

Not that the rest of it was significantly prettier.

Luckily, we were about to leave it behind. Hopefully for good.

Ferret was leading the way again, scouting ahead to make sure we wouldn't run into any trouble with Bear following him to remove any such if necessary. I brought up the rear, checking behind us for any pursuers and keeping an eye on Ana and the wolf. I knew that both of them would be dazed from the bonding. Ana would stay on her feet, she knew what was at stake. I wanted nothing more than to wrap her in a warm blanket and give her all the rest and care she deserved, but that wasn't an option. Wolf was an unknown quantity and I wasn't getting anything from him over the pack bond. I hated that. There was no room for mistakes in tonight's tight schedule. So far, he was keeping up. But that wouldn't be enough. We needed him alert and able to fight.

He wasn't the most valuable thing we were going to steal tonight.

The deafening roar of a large, landing space freighter broke the relative silence. All of us winced in pain at the noise. All but Bear. Her hearing wasn't that good anymore.

As we made our way closer to the spaceport, clubs and bars gave way to warehouses and repair shops and the streets grew a little more crowded, though all business was still conducted in the secure shelter of thick steelcrete walls.

During the day, temperatures rose so high one could only hide inside, so all social life happened at night. That had probably been the original reason why the planet had been named Darkside. Now it was also a sign for the complete lack of law enforcement. This world was located as far on the fringe of civilised space as you could get without passing into so-called 'unexplored space'. Darkside was ruled by various crime lords and gangs, each claiming their own small territory and viciously defending every inch of it. They all were accountable to the Syndicate, the criminal organisation who considered this part of the Fringe their own, but apart from taking a cut of all earnings, the Syndicate didn't exert any control.

We tried to stay in the back alleys. The last thing we needed now was to be stopped by some overeager enforcer crew.

There was no formal border to the actual spaceport. No fence or guard posts keeping anyone from just wandering in. On the downside, all individual ships were well guarded. Bright beams illuminated the freighter that had just landed and the ground crew was scurrying around the huge landing struts. They looked like ants compared to the hulking belly of the freighter. It was an additional distraction from what we were about to do. One I had not anticipated and was accordingly grateful for.

We made our way across the landing field, crossing between the ships of various sizes without ever getting close enough to one to trigger the automated or human defences. At one of the storage sheds used by the spaceport's mechanics, we stopped briefly to pick up the gear we had stored there earlier. We didn't have much, a small pack each with some extra clothes and personal items.

Our target was parked at the outer edge of the field, well away from the general hubbub of day-to-day traffic. This part of the landing field was reserved for the luxury yachts of Darkside's resident crime bosses. They rested in individual cradles which could be locked down tightly against the sandstorms. At least, that was what they had originally been build to do. They were always locked to prevent theft, nowadays.

It had taken me and Ferret almost two weeks to get our hands on the unlock codes for the Lollipop's cradle. It's owner, the self-styled 'Viscount' Tomori, head of Clan Tomori, had earned his obscene fortune by trading in human flesh, both living, as slaves, and dead, for the exquisitely perverse high society of the Core Worlds who had a taste for their own kind. Its bright red lacquered exterior made it as inconspicuous as a sledgehammer to the face, but it was the only ship that met all our needs. Namely, good armour and shields combined with decent weapons, powerful new engines and most importantly – a state-of-the-art autopilot. Bear was a good pilot, but we couldn't rely on her to always be available to fly and it would take her some time to train up the rest of us since we were starting from zero. The autopilot would be invaluable during our learning period.

The area around the ship was unlit. I knew there were three guards on patrol, but even with my superior night vision I could only make out two. They were wearing bulky infrared goggles, but luckily they were not actively scanning for approaching problems. Instead, they were standing close together, two tiny red glows giving away the fact that they were smoking on the job. A fact that could get them killed, if their boss caught them doing it. If everything went according to my plan, they would be dead by the time Tomori saw them again.

"Anyone see that third guard?" I whispered.

Ferret nodded and pointed up to the actual yacht. I took me a moment to make out the shape of the guard against the darker backdrop of the ship. He had climbed onto one the struts of the cradle close to the access hatch. It was a good place to keep watch from, which was bad for us.

"Shit," I muttered.

Ana glanced at me anxiously and adjusted her glasses, like she always did when she didn't know what to do with her hands. Her prime concern was our well-being, no matter how much she tried to be cool and professional. She loved us too much to put us at risk, so it was up to us to do it anyway so she could reach her goals. She tried to remain confident, but over our bond I sensed how nervous she really was.

"He's mine," I decided. I was best prepared to climb up there, so I had the best chances of taking him out unnoticed even though I wasn't a great fighter.

I half expected Ana to object, but instead she nodded jerkily. She didn't like it, but she accepted my word. That she trusted my judgement like that lifted me up. I would not disappoint her.

She turned to Wolf, whose mane she had been holding on to up to now. "Can you see the two men guarding that ship over there?" she asked in a low voice and pointed over to the guards.

For a moment Wolf swayed on his feet, but then visibly caught himself, shaking his head to focus on her words. Dazed but not out of action. It would have to be enough. He scanned the night and I could see his nostrils flare as he raised his snout. He nodded.

"I need you to work together with Bear here to take them out as quickly and quietly as possible," Ana explained. "You can't let them raise an alarm or call for backup. Can you do that for me?"

Once more his eyes roamed over the ship and surrounding area, now much more alert, clearly scanning for approach vectors, calculating odds. He was a fighter, after all. I had no idea whether his training went beyond slaughtering opponents in the tightly controlled environment of the pit, but for Ana, he would grow beyond whatever his training was as quickly as he needed to. Just as I had.

His head dipped down to breathe in Ana's scent again. Then he growled his assent.

"We'll circle around them," I said, almost expecting him to contradict me just to challenge me, but he listened calmly. "Give me a few minutes to climb up behind that guy. Then get behind those two. We need to kill them at the same time. Ferret will remain here with Ana. Watch for him giving the sign."

Ferret twitched nervously. He knew that there was an additional reason why he stayed back with Ana. If things went wrong, it would be his job to get her to safety. At least I hoped that she would be sensible enough to allow Ferret to do so. I had instructed him to get her back to our safehouse. If we managed to escape, we would meet back there. If not, well, it wouldn't be my problem anymore.

Ana laid her hand on Ferret's arm comfortingly and he quieted down.

We left our travelling gear in a small heap and circled around the ship in a wide arc, keeping well out of the guards' range. Only when we were out of view, the guards themselves hidden behind the cradle's struts, we closed in on the ship. I was pleasantly surprised at how silently Wolf moved. Even tired and dazed, he moved with the precision of a true predator. Not like me, who had learned the trade too late in life. I wanted to hate him for that ease, but he was pack now. All I could manage was an intense dislike of his prowess.

Bear nodded to me before she focused her attention forward to where we could hear the low murmur of the two guards on the ground talking. I scanned the struts of the cradle for a way up and was pleased to find convenient handrails. Of course ground crew had to be able to get up there for service work. I dropped the hood of my cloak and secured the rest of the billowing garment to my back.

Wolf was watching me, his ears flicking and nostrils twitching now that for the first time, he got a clear view of what I was. Not some impressive predator like a lion or a tiger. Just a bestia engineered from an ordinary domestic cat. At least the calico markings on my fur weren't visible in the dark, and my nose probably didn't look as candy pink as it actually was. Still I half expected a condescending snort. He remained silent and turned away from me, towards the two guards on the ground. So, ridicule would come later.

I climbed the strut quickly. Suddenly, I had plenty of aggression to ease the kill I needed to perform. It wouldn't be my first and certainly not my last, even now we had Wolf to do the fighting. He clearly enjoyed killing. I doubted I'd ever get to that point.

The horizontal part of the cradle's frame was much narrower, but I still walked across the beam as securely as if it was open ground. A cat's balance did have advantages. Even with my bestia feet stuck in human boots. I looked forward to shedding them and walking around bare-pawed for a while. Having a ship of our own would allow us to let our guard down, to be ourselves without constant fear of discovery. If we managed to steal it, that was.

In front of me, I spotted the figure of the third guard. He was sitting on the beam, his legs hanging down on both sides, with a sniper blaster rifle resting in front of him. In contrast to his comrades, his attention was fully on his job, diligently scanning the landing field with his infrared goggles. From his position, Ana and Ferret were in his field of view, but they were standing too far away to seem interested in the ship he was guarding and managed to look like they were deep in conversation. It made me wonder whether this guard had also noticed that there had been five of us when we arrived and that three were missing now. He seemed unworried, though, and wasn't paying any attention to what was behind him. What happened to other ships wasn't his concern.

From up here, the ship's hull was blocking my view of the spot where the other two guards were standing. So he wouldn't be able to see Wolf and Bear creep up on them. Neither would I. Not knowing what was going on made my whiskers and ears twitch. It also made me smile ruefully. I hated not being in full control of the situation. I needed to keep Ana safe.

Soundlessly, I drew my dagger from its sheath at my belt. It was slightly curved, and blackened so as not to reflect any light. Perfect for cutting someone's throat. It was one of many knives I carried. I loved and hated it at the same time. Wolf and Bear killed with their claws. Even Ferret had claws, though I couldn't imagine him killing anyone. I didn't have that option. I didn't remember my claws being removed. It had been done when I was still a kitten. I didn't remember anything of that time, actually. Not who my mother had been or whether I had any litter mates. It probably was better that way. That time and place were so far behind me now, they seemed unreal.

I was close enough behind the guard that I could smell him. The lingering scent of the greasy food he had eaten before he came on shift, a biting whiff of what had to be some drug he had taken recently, mixed in with his sweat. I crouched behind him, ready to take his life, my eyes trained on Ferret for his signal.

When Ferret raised his hand, I closed the distance. One arm wrapped around the guard's torso, the other carried the knife in a swift motion. Maybe it wasn't part of myself like claws would have been, but it was so much sharper. Hot blood poured from his throat over my arm, the sharp scent filling my nose, blocking out everything else. Judging from every text I had studied about my animal brethren, the smell should have pleasantly excited me, but instead it made my slightly nauseous. I kept the guard close against me as he gurgled and shuddered, his life flowing out of him.

I didn't feel pity or remorse. He worked for a monster, and considering the trust placed in him, there was little chance that he wasn't a monster himself. But even if he had been a kind and caring man with a wife and adorable children, I wouldn't have felt anything. He was in the way of what Ana needed.

From below, I heard a muffled shout, reminding me that my kill didn't mean that we had succeeded, yet. My guard stopped twitching, so I lowered him forward until he was resting on the beam face down. Carefully, I pulled out the sniper rifle from beneath him and hopped back to my feet. Climbing over him took only a heartbeat and then I was hurrying along the beam to find a position where I could see what was happening below.

What I did see made my heart stop. Bear was just stumbling backwards, while the guard she was supposed to kill was reaching for his head com. I would have no time to raise the rifle, aim and fire before he—

Another dark shape hurled itself at the guard, taking it down in a flash. Even from my high vantage point, I could see the arc of blood flying from where the guard was struck by claws. He didn't move, pinned to the ground by Wolf. His claws descended again, twice, in swift succession. I saw Wolf raise his snout to the sky and flinched, dreading a howl that would surely attract attention. But he remained silent. More self control than I would have expected. Much more. He had done well. His original target was down and motionless as well.

I slowly expelled the breath I hadn't even noticed I was holding.

Seeing how Bear was cradling her left arm against her body, I winced in sympathy. She definitely was too old to fight. I didn't want to, but I felt a flash of gratitude for having Wolf in our pack now.

Ana already hurried across the landing field towards Bear, with Ferret trailing behind her, leaving our small pile of travel bags behind. Too soon, but I wasn't surprised. I wanted her to stay safe and out of harm's way and she wanted to protect her pack. We'd never be able to reconcile those two desires.

For a moment, I debated just leaving the others to Ana and instead concentrating on unlocking the ship. The sooner we got in, the sooner we would be able to take off and get away. But I just couldn't. They were pack. I had to check on them first.

I quickly went down the stairs leading from the platform to the landing field. Bear was trying to fend off Ana's fussing with deep grumbles. She looked more annoyed than hurt. "Just a cracked rib," I heard her say and was immediately relieved. We needed her fit enough to get the ship off the ground.

Ferret was hovering a few steps back, shooting nervous glances in every direction. I gave him a tight smile and nodded encouragingly which calmed him a little.

Wolf was just a step behind Ana, looming over her protectively. Freshly bonded, he needed her in scenting distance.

"Are you okay?" Ana asked, turning to me. Her eyes went wide when she looked at me and it took me a moment to realise she was staring at my blood drenched sleeve.

"Not mine."

She still stepped close to me and ran her fingertips along my jaw line in a gentle scratch that made tension flow out of me and sharpened my mind at the same time. Her touch was all I needed to focus on what had to be done.

"Ferret, come on, let's get that hatch open," I said and waved him up the stairs. "We need to go."

He hurried past me. The smell of his fear was almost cloying. He hated being out in the open like this, hated fighting, hated risks. If it hadn't been for Ana, he would long ago have bolted to hide in some hole. I followed him back up.

"I know the codes," he muttered, running his clever little fingers over the locking mechanism. Once more his ears were twitching nervously. "I can do this. You just wait."

It was clear that he was talking to himself rather than me. He always did when he was trying to calm himself. I gave him room to work. It didn't take him long. Getting the codes for the hatch had been a lot easier than getting the codes for the cradle, since there were more people who knew them. The soon-to-be previous owner of the yacht, Viscount Tomori, had a whole crew of people cleaning and resupplying it regularly, even when he wasn't planning on using it for months. It was one more reason why I had picked this particular ship.

The hatch opened with a soft swooshing sound and we were hit with cool air from inside. Yet we both recoiled since that air was also heavily perfumed with some vile, sweet smell.

Ferret coughed and held both hands over his sensitive nose. "Oh please, no. What is that?!"

"Roses," Ana replied. She had come up behind us with Bear and Wolf following her, carrying our gear. "Well, fake roses. I'm sure we can turn it off somehow." She smiled at Ferret brightly. "Thank you, my dear, well done."

The simple praise was enough to make him straighten up. Even the nervous twitching of his ears subsided.

I stepped inside first. Lights came up as soon as I set foot on the thick, plush carpet that covered even the entrance airlock's floor. It was just as bright red as the yacht's outer hull. I tried not to wince when I passed the airlock and found the walls and ceiling painted in pink with the lights shaped like softly glowing white blossoms. The interior design was a nightmare, but we would have to live with that.

"Oh ... oh my ..." Ana muttered, following right on my heels.

She should have stayed outside until we had checked the ship over and declared it safe, in the best of all possible scenarios. We didn't have time for that.

Bear was already pushing past me, following the central corridor to the front of the yacht where the cockpit was located. Ferret hurried after her. He had memorised the cradle's unlock codes, just as I had. From the cockpit, he would be able to use them.

Wolf stood behind Ana, looking around with a mix of stunned wonder and disgust. For a bestia who had been fighting for his life every night in some blood soaked pit, this had to be utterly alien. I watched in silent amusement as he raised his hand with one claw extended and very cautiously poked one of the blossom shaped lights. When his claw clicked against the glass, he jerked back and immediately glanced at me. He caught me looking, of course, and bared his sharp teeth in a silent snarl.

I chose to ignore both his threat and his confusion at the new surroundings. Instead, I squeezed right past him and used the controls to close the hatch.

"Come," I heard Ana tell him gently, "let's find you a place to rest. You must be exhausted."

Not half as exhausted as I should have been, I thought. It had been more than two days since I had been able to sleep. There had been too many moving parts in this plan for me to relax and my mind and body where still humming with nervous tension. And we weren't safe yet. Ana wasn't safe yet. But she was right, of course, to get Wolf out of the way. His job was done. For now, at least.

I watched as she opened one of the doors leading off the corridor, hummed in approval and led Wolf inside. The door closed behind them and for a moment I had to fight the overwhelming urge to charge in as well. To make sure she was safe with him. It helped that she was feeling safe and deeply relieved that none of us had gotten seriously hurt, even though I got only a vague sense of her emotions since she was keeping her bond focused on Wolf.

Instead, I headed to the cockpit as well. I passed through a large lounge area and paid as little attention as possible to the various pieces of furniture, all coloured red, pink or white and in varied levels of fluffiness when they were not covered in exotic leathers.

The cockpit itself was tiny, but I managed to squeeze in behind the two control chairs. Luckily, the chairs were large enough for Bear to fit into. I felt the ship vibrate under my feet when she started up the engines. Ferret was hacking away on a small keyboard, fully concentrated on his task. Moments later, he let out a happy little yip and the cradle's clamps disengaged with a loud grating sound.

I could hardly believe it, but we were ready to go.

"Tower is hailing us," Bear said, calmly flicking switches as she talked.

That a creature as massive and strong as her was a skilled technician and could fly a space ship still amazed me to no end. It also gave me a grim feeling of satisfaction that bestiae were not necessarily bound by their species to what they could become. It all depended on what their Packmaster asked of them.

"Ignoring them," Bear added, just as calmly, while the pitch of the ship's engines changed to a higher whine. "Lifting off."

The cockpit had a narrow band of windows at the front. Through them, I could see the landing field fall away beneath us quickly.

"What if they fire at us?" Ferret asked, nibbling on one of his claws nervously.

The aerial defence cannons guarding the town were few and owned by different factions. Getting those factions to agree on firing them would have taken a real threat or a lot of time and effort.

"They won't," I reassured him, hoping that I was right.

"Tower still hailing us," Bear informed us, "orbital carrier too."

There was an ancient, almost derelict fighter carrier in orbit above Darkside. It had no functioning engines, but the life support was still working. It was used as an improvised space station to house small fighter ships that could, in theory, defend the planet.

Mobilising pilots to get into the fighters and getting them into space took about ten minutes. I had checked on that fact with several sources. They had much more time than that when they needed to defend against an incoming force. It would be much too long to stop us from escaping.

The whine of the engines calmed to a low rumble as we cleared the atmosphere.

Bear pressed another button and heavy armour plating came down to cover the cockpit's window, blocking the view outside.

"Past carrier," she said, "autopilot is calculating the jump."

Ferret kept biting down on his claw, his eyes wide and his ears flattened against his skull. The stink of his fear filled the cockpit and I felt the urge either to hit or hug him. I clenched my teeth and silently counted.

I had reached two hundred and fifteen when Bear spoke again.

"Complete. Initiating the jump."

She pushed a few more buttons and the engine quieted down to a soft, almost imperceptible purr.

Ferret and I waited for her to say anything else, but she just leaned back in her chair with a tired grunt.

"That was it?" Ferret finally squeaked. He looked and smelled like he was about to explode.

"Hmm? Yes," Bear grumbled. "Get out. I want to sleep."

I grabbed Ferret by the scruff of his neck and pulled him out of the cockpit before he could ask any more stupid questions. We had escaped. Everything else could wait.

It turned out the Lollipop had four large luxury cabins for important guests and one master cabin for the crime lord who had owned her. Ana had taken Wolf into one of the guest cabins. I put Ferret into another one. It was as horribly decorated as everything else I had seen of the ship so far. The large, round bed in the middle of the room was covered in thick white furs and fluffy, pink, heart-shaped pillows. The large mirror on the ceiling was shaped like another blossom.

Ferret didn't mind. After the constant tension of the last few days, it took him only a few moments to go from close to panic to almost asleep on his feet. I tucked him under one of the furry blankets and sat with him until he relaxed and his breathing became deep and even. He looked tiny on the huge bed. His short, honey-coloured fur, white snout with another white splotch around his left eye contrasted with the dull blue of his dungarees. Because of his lack of a waist, it was the only kind of pants he could wear comfortably and not constantly worry about them falling. Like me, he wore human shoes, stuffed to fit on his tiny feet. I pulled those off now and he sighed happily in his sleep, snuggling deeper into the atrociously pink blanket.

I contemplated staying with him. He often had nightmares and waking up in an unfamiliar and strange setting like this would scare him.

But I badly needed some rest myself. My mind was getting fuzzy and was starting to play tricks on me, trying to convince me that I had forgotten something vitally important, making me listen for dangers when I knew we were safer right now than we had ever been. Ferret would toss and turn restlessly and keep waking me up and the bed was much too soft for me to find any rest there.

So I left him alone and told myself that even if he woke and fell into one of his panic attacks, he wouldn't damage anything vital and I would deal with it when I was able to.

Next I checked on Bear. She was still sitting in the pilot's chair with her head resting against the padded back. It looked rather comfortable and she was snoring lightly. Nonetheless, I prodded her gently.

"Do you need anything?" I asked when she opened one eye to glare at me balefully.

That didn't appease her much, but she shook her head with a wordless grumble. I left her to it. She was a big girl and perfectly able to take care of herself. Dozing right in the cockpit, she would immediately be alerted should the ship need her attention.

I picked up my travelling pack from where it had been forgotten in the entrance corridor and went to explore, skipping the cabin Ana had entered with Wolf. The other two guest cabins proved just as horrifying and the master suite was even worse. Here, even the walls were covered in some sort of furry tapestry in the same disturbingly bright red. My tired mind compared it to a fur-lined womb. It made my own fur stand on end. Who could ever want to live in such a place?

There were three doors leading off the master cabin. One opened on a bathroom that was positively decadent, especially considering it was on a spaceship. A large, sunken bathtub made of some sort of sparkling, pinkish stone dominated the room. All appliances were plated with gold and there was a fine dusting of sparkling particles in everything. Even the toilet bowl glittered.

The second door led to a comparatively dull walk-in closet, but the last door held my salvation. The room was small, but while the walls were still painted red, it was blessedly void of any fluffiness or sparkles. The floor was tiled in black. There were several heavy bolts set into the floor and on a row of hooks on one wall hung different sets of chains and shackles. This had to be where Viscount Tomori kept his 'toys' when he travelled. The lights were standard glowballs in the ceiling. They were turned up glaringly bright when I entered, but I quickly found the controls to dim them to a glow so soft it was enough for my sensitive eyes to still see by, but low enough that I would be able to sleep. I took one of the less fluffy pillows and several blankets from the master bed and built a comfortable nest for myself on the floor of the 'toy storage'.

Getting out of my damn boots was relief. I took a long, blissful moment just to stretch my paws. I used the sparkly bathroom to wash the drying blood out off my sleeve and fur and then debated with myself whether it would be more disturbing to leave the door to my new den open or to close it. With the door closed, I would feel locked in, open, I'd have the dreadful feeling the fur would creep off the walls and come in to smother me. In the end, I banished that fear as best I could and left the door open a crack.

When I finally laid down, my heart immediately started racing. I thought of a thousand things I should be doing, things that could go wrong, that I had failed to prepare for. I closed my eyes tightly against the encroaching panic. I had done everything I could. There was nothing more I could do right now. I would be no use to Ana if I didn't manage some sleep.

That last thought did the trick. I only turned over several more times, rearranging my blankets and then kneading them into a more desirable shape before I calmed down sufficiently to sink into an uneasy slumber.

# Chapter 2

Ana's scent wrapped all around me like the softest of blankets. Moments later, I felt her warm body snuggle up to me and opened my eyes. Even with my mind fuzzy with sleep, I felt warmed to my core that she came to be with me after the fresh bonding with Wolf. I turned to pull up the covers over her and securely wrap her in my arms.

"Hey," she whispered, "I'm sorry. I didn't want to wake you."

The first question on the tip of my tongue was whether everything was alright. Whether she needed anything. But clearly there was no emergency when she came crawling into my nest to cuddle, and what she needed was obvious – some affection, given unconditionally. Wolf or Ferret would have needed her attention so much she wouldn't have been able to relax, and Bear simply wasn't the cuddling type.

I buried my nose in her hair and breathed in her scent deeply. It calmed my mind and invigorated me at the same time. I was feeling much clearer already than I had been when I fell asleep.

"How long have I slept?"

"A couple of hours." Immediately, as if to quench my worries before they could fully form, she added, "And yes, I have slept, too. With Wolf's head in my lap, which wasn't very comfortable. But I did sleep."

With a soft sigh, I burrowed closer to her. Knowing that, right now, she was safe helped me relax and recover more than any sleep ever could. For the moment, the galaxy could have burned down around me and I wouldn't have cared.

"Kismet," she murmured in my ear, her warm breath stirring the fine hairs there. My name. My true name. The name she had given me that night when she first curled up in my arms to sleep. The night after she had stolen me and we had run away together.

Back then, I had been an uneducated pet. The word 'Kismet' hadn't meant anything to me, but she had explained. It meant fate. I was her fate, the turning point in her life, when everything that had been true had become a lie. The moment she had to grow up in a matter of hours and take responsibility – not just for herself, but for me as well.

Neither of us had planned for it to happen.

In fact, I hadn't wanted for anything in my old life. I had been the pampered pet of a rich Core senator as long as I could think back. I was a prized possession, cared for in every possible way. There were servants who brushed my fur, servants who fed me and servants who walked me in the gardens so I didn't turn from chubby to fat. Everything was arranged so I was exactly what my owner expected from a perfectly tame calico tomcat. My markings were rather irregular, large patches of brown and orange stripes on a white coat of fur, the only symmetric part was my tail with its beautiful dark brown and golden rings. But he thought that made me special. He didn't keep me to display me in competitions, after all. I was his ultimate luxury item – utterly useless and terribly expensive.

Only very rarely were any of his guests allowed to see me, and it was even rarer that he would let anyone pet me.

It truly had been fate that brought Ana and me together.

Her parents had visited my owner. They were important people, filthy rich and influential. That was all I knew about them, then. I had learned only later that they owned Lancour InterMedia, one of the immense corporations of the Core Worlds. They also owned my senator - which was how Core World politics worked. The mightier a corporation, the more senators they owned and the more influence they wielded in the senate.

They had brought their bored daughter with them, so my owner decided that letting her play with me would be such a gracious and generous gesture it would surely score points with them.

Neither of us knew anything about bonding or Packmasters back then. What happened to us when I caught her scent, when I realised that she was the only thing in the universe that truly mattered, when she hugged me close and buried her face in the scruff of my neck to hide her tears – all of that hit us like a lightning storm.

My owner's servants had watched, but had no clue what was happening either. Since I wasn't struggling, they didn't interfere. We clung to each other, confused, dazed and in bliss from the fresh bonding.

Only when her parents and my owner finished their talks and they came back to pick her up again, did the drama start. We were unwilling to let go of each other. It took several of the servants to separate us, and in the end, they had to sedate me while Ana was dragged away, kicking and crying.

The next few days had passed in a daze for me. They kept me sedated while various very expensive doctors came to check on me. At first, I flew into a rage whenever they lowered the dose of the drugs, but as time passed by, I stopped caring. Each day, I died a little more inside. There was no point in anything without Ana. I stopped eating. They switched to intravenous feeding. I was still wasting away. My owner was furious and yet powerless to fix me.

Ana later told me how she had cried through that first night while her distraught nannies struggled to console her. Up until then, she had been the perfect child. Smart, obedient, willing to go along with whatever her parents deemed appropriate for her. They didn't understand the sudden temper tantrum, but when Ana showed up the next morning and apologised for her misbehaviour, they chalked it up to some sort of stomach bug.

Because Ana was smart. Smarter than almost anyone I knew. And now that she had found something to live for, her will had turned to steel. She didn't let anyone see how her bonding with me had changed her.

While I just wanted to die, she worked tirelessly to uncover what had happened to us and, more importantly, how to get me back.

The first thing she discovered was that her parents were not her real parents. The woman she had known as her mother all her life had been reluctant to go through the rigours of pregnancy, so they had instead gone to a high class orphanage and picked out their perfect child. She had been just a baby, but her genetic markers had shown that she would be the most intelligent of the children on offer.

Ana had smiled sadly when she told me this, and how it explained why her parents had always seemed distant. She was an investment to them, no more. They had been so disappointed when it had become obvious that her eyesight was lacking. In the files she had discovered about herself, it showed that her parents had sued the orphanage when they had found out. They had considered suing again when Ana didn't grow up to be a pretty girl, but didn't go through with it.

Instead, there was surgery already scheduled for her that would 'fix her' as soon as she was through puberty. Her eyes, her face, her body – everything would be altered to her parents' specifications to make her the perfect daughter. Before me, she wouldn't have resisted.

She dug deeper to find out who her real parents might have been, but there was nothing on record, no clue about where she had originally come from.

So her next research targeted me – or more precisely, the rare humanoid bestiae that the wealthiest Core World citizens kept as pets. The basics were common knowledge and easy enough to find once you looked. Even though the war between the Core Worlds' higher class and the Packmasters had mostly happened behind closed doors, through covert assassinations and sabotage, the public had noticed enough of it for there to be records, even with the victors trying to bury as much of it as possible.

Ana pieced together that a human faction had attacked the establishment with their highly trained groups of genetically modified and enhanced bestiae in an attempt to take over the rule of the Core Worlds – and with that, essentially the entire galaxy.

The Packmasters had lost their bid for power and had been eradicated, their remaining bestiae seized by whoever could get their hands on one.

At least, the few records she could find in the short time she had had said so. Considering that history is written by the victors, there was no telling how it had really started and what had happened during the war.

There were no notes on how the Packmasters had controlled their bestiae, but it was obvious to us, of course. They had been bonded like Ana had bonded with me. Even though we were apart, she felt me dying a little more every day.

Somehow, she had to be the orphaned child of a Packmaster and had inherited their ability to bond.

She could have stopped then. Could have let me die. Could have buried everything she had found and gone back to her comfortable, meaningless life.

Trying to steal me was madness for a teenage girl who had never done anything dangerous in her entire life. She had been groomed to take over her parents' legacy one day. Extensively trained in matters of politics, finance and everything else one needed to run a media empire that held most of the galaxy in its thrall. She put that training to good use now. Getting to me before I died was a race against time, but she faced that challenge head on. Quietly, she stole large sums of money from accounts rarely used by her parents. She made contacts with shady people, acquired fake documents and tickets off-world, bribed servants. She did all of that on her own and she did it for me.

How could I not love her and do for her anything and everything she ever needed?

When she slipped into my room on the senator's estate, when her arms once more wrapped around me and she told me that I had to get up, that I had to be strong for her, it was easy. I went from dying to more alive than I had ever been in a heartbeat.

Thanks to her careful planning, we escaped without a hitch, though it was only the first escape of many. Both her parents and my former owner sent people after us to bring us back.

But curled up together in the tiny cabin she had booked on a huge, anonymous passenger vessel, we were safe and together for the first time and we swore to each other we would keep it that way or die trying.

That had been several years ago.

"Kismet, my beautiful Kismet," she whispered in my ear now.

Objectively speaking, I wasn't beautiful. I was a very ordinary cat with slightly ridiculous markings – my fur was an asymmetrical patchwork of every colour and pattern, and my candy pink nose ruined every attempt to appear majestic. But in her eyes, I was beautiful and that would always be enough for me. Her fingers found that spot under my chin that inevitably made me purr with pleasure. I bared my throat for her to scratch and she did just that. Being together made us stronger, smarter, sharper and renewed the bond between us, each touch and each breath a rush of pleasure and strength for both of us.

Among the records, we had found plenty of speculation on the perversity of Packmasters bonding with their bestiae, but there was nothing sexual about it between us. I loved her with all my being, but I didn't desire her. The thought of Ana finding a human male to fall in love with did make me intensely jealous, but ultimately I would accept anything that made her happy.

For a while, we just cuddled, sleepy and relaxed, but the continued exchange of energy invigorated both of us to the point were neither of us felt tired anymore and we were getting twitchy. Neither of us was good at doing nothing. We had done more than enough of that in our old lives.

"How is the wolf doing? Has he spoken at all?"

She turned on her side and pillowed her head on my chest like she always did when we were discussing events of the last few days and making new plans. "No. He fell asleep the moment I got him to feel safe."

"Do you think he can even speak?"

I had been able to but seldom done so, before she stole me. There had just never been a need to.

It really was mind-boggling how much I had learned since then. To fight, to read and write, to help Ana with her research. I was even getting pretty good with computers. And still there was so much more to learn.

She shrugged. "If he can't, I will teach him, just like I did with Ferret."

I snorted. It certainly wouldn't be as easy to teach a feral creature like Wolf. Ferret had been a cub barely reaching up to Ana's hip when he tried to pickpocket her and instead ended up bonding. It had taken some very quick thinking and acting on my part to get both of them off the crowded market before anyone noticed that something strange was going on between the young lady and the dirty street kid who kept his head wrapped in a deep cowl to hide what he was.

"You don't like him," Ana stated. She sounded calm, but the mixed sense of amusement and worry came over the bond clearly.

"Of course not." I tightened my hold around her just so she understood how very possessive I felt of her. "Cats and dogs and all that. Also, he is massive and a killer and I could never take him in a fight."

Ana sighed. "There won't be any fighting. I will not let that happened. He is pack now."

"He will challenge me," I countered, "it's in his nature."

"You don't know that. And anyway, how will he do it, without speaking or fighting?" Her steady knowledge that we were all ultimately under her control was seeping into me as well, making me relax. "Kismet, there is nothing to fear. I trust you to deal fairly and competently with any challenges from him. I know you will."

And that was that. If she decided how things were, that's how things were.

"He has quite the collection of injuries, both old and new," she said, already turning back to making plans. "When he wakes up, I will do a full check up on him, see what needs treating."

That at least was something I could agree with. If I had to put up with a wolf, he better be in top condition to do what he was supposed to. "Check on Bear, too. She won't complain, but a cracked rib is not something to be ignored."

Ana nodded. "Yes, I can feel her discomfort." She chuckled softly. "She won't escape my motherly care, no matter how much she grumbles and insists that she is fine." She shifted in my embrace and sat up, her mind too active for her body to remain relaxed. "The jump to Thiala will take about three days. That should give us enough time to get everyone fit and sort out the new pack dynamics."

I had my doubt about the latter, but I would do my best to make it happen.

She ran her fingers through the short spikes of her wiry hair. It had been dyed a sunny blonde when I first met her, carefully coiffed to fall around her plain face in soft waves. She had hacked it off the first night on the passenger ship and by now, the dye had grown out to reveal her natural, unfortunate carrot colour. She loved it that way. So did I. It was a visible sign of her steel will. She had grown up as well, from a short, plump teenage girl to an equally short, plump young woman.

I noticed now that she had taken off her glasses and put them to the side. It was another sign of how safe she felt with me. Without her glasses, the world was no more than a blurry kaleidoscope of colours to her.

"I just wish we knew what's waiting for us there," she muttered under her breath.

"If we knew what's there, we wouldn't have to go and check," I answered what she knew perfectly well herself. "And whatever it is, we will deal with it when we get there. Like we always do."

After years of searching, we weren't much closer to hard facts about the Packmasters, their bestiae and the war than we had been when we had started. Every avenue of research we had tried had turned out to be a dead end.

Even Bear, who had fought in the war, hadn't been any help. She had forgotten everything, buried it too deeply to ever remember after the death of her previous Packmaster. Neither me nor Ana were able to hold it against her. We couldn't begin to imagine the pain of losing the other.

Finally out here on the Fringe, we had uncovered the location of one of the old Packmaster worlds where they had conducted their research and created their bestiae. It's existence had been erased from all official records. There was a good chance we would find nothing but a scorched wasteland, but we hoped that there was a reason, that planet was kept secret. Maybe we would find traces of the Packmasters from before the war, or even records or hints that some had survived somewhere.

Personally, I would have been perfectly content to find some place far away from any prying eyes where we could live out our lives. If Ana was there, I didn't need anything else to be happy. But that would never be enough for her. She needed to know where she had come from, what the Packmasters truly were. She tried to explain that she had to know more about how the bonding worked, to make sure she wasn't making any terrible mistakes that would cost all of us in the end. But I knew just how curious she was and that she just couldn't let it rest now that she had tasted a trace of the truth. She was constantly worrying her curiosity was putting all of us in danger, while at the same time she burned with the need to know.

If that was what she needed to be happy, I would move planets and suns to give her all the truth I could possibly find.

Ana's stomach rumbled, and she gave an embarrassed little laugh. We had been living lean the last few days, dried rations and boiled water from the tap of the dingy little motel room we had rented right next to the spaceport. Nobody asked questions there as long as you paid a little extra.

"Let's go and see if I have picked out the right ship." I rolled to my feet. "There should be lots of sinfully expensive, delicious food in the pantry. Though we should check the labels on all meats very carefully. The Viscount is know for enjoying his own products now and then."

Ana shuddered.

Eating human flesh was the height of luxury among the Core Worlds' elite. They didn't care where it came from as long as it was guaranteed to be healthy and tasty. Viscount Tomori grew his products on his very own farms – large underground warrens out in the barren lands outside of Darkside where humans were bred, raised and slaughtered like cattle.

Considering the state of the galaxy we lived in, it couldn't have gotten much worse if the Packmasters had conquered it in their bid for power. Those with money and power could do whatever they pleased. The vast majority of the population of the Core Worlds lived in relative luxury, while the Fringe worlds supplied the work, raw materials, the blood and tears to make that possible. Occasionally, there was a small-scale rebellion, but it was always swiftly put down by the Core military, maintained by the Senate and controlled by the corporations.

"I think I'll stick with a vegetarian diet until we can find safe meat," Ana commented, "just to be sure."

Though her parents were members of the highest elite of the Core Worlds, she herself held very particular views on what was morally acceptable.

I grinned at her, showing my sharp canines. "Suit yourself, more for me." I yelped very appropriately when she hit me with a pillow.

"Bad kitty!" She grinned, all her worries forgotten for the moment at least. I held out my hand and pulled her to her feet when she grabbed it. She picked her glasses back up and put them on, blinking at me owlishly for a moment as her sight readjusted.

Together, we made our way through the creepy, fuzzy master bedroom back to the main lounge of the ship. The kitchen was easy enough to locate. It was the door right next to the large dining area. The huge dining table was made from the same stone I had seen the the master bathroom, sparkling pink, another monstrosity in this ship so rich in furniture monstrosities. The plush red velvet chairs looked rather comfortable, though.

The kitchen turned out blessedly unfrilly. In fact, whoever had been responsible of interior decorations had completely skipped the room. Everything was stainless steel and very functional. The walk in pantry was as large as the girl from the cleaning crew had bragged about and stocked to the max. It felt a bit like raiding some sort of treasure room to both of us, checking labels on cans and boxes and peering into the various fridges and freezers.

I did find several boxes labelled as human meat which I discreetly moved to the bottom drawer of that freezer, making a mental note to get rid of them as soon as possible when Ana wasn't looking.

"Oh my ... look at this, there's fresh blueberries!" Ana exclaimed happily and held up a plastic box with tiny blue fruits. "Do you remember when we were on Galagri, when we had that awesome blueberry pie in that hotel café?"

I didn't recall the pie, but I vividly remembered the whipped cream that had come with it. My own belly rumbled at the memory, which sounded a bit weird, mixed with the purr it also brought about.

Ana laughed. "I wonder if I can find a recipe for blueberry pie on the ship's computer. I could try baking some. I'm sure Ferret would love that."

"With whipped cream?" The hopeful words were out of my mouth before I could even think about them.

I felt like my heart was going to melt with happiness when Ana smiled at me so warmly. To make her smile like that definitely was my greatest achievement in life.

"Of course, love. You are such a cat sometimes."

We each picked up an armful of various food items and took them to the kitchen to prepare a meal for us and whoever might wake up while we were at it. Neither of us had known anything about cooking when we ran away together. In our own way, we had each grown up ridiculously sheltered and isolated from what Ana now called 'real people problems'. But, just as with everything else, we had learned.

The simple task of preparing food together was something I particularly enjoyed. It was something that could actually be accomplished in a reasonable amount of time and had tangible results. Maybe not always stellar results, but it always left me with the feeling of having done something worthwhile.

In no time, bacon and eggs were frying in a large pan, milk was heating in a pot to be mixed with oats and honey and the bitter scent of coffee brewing wafted from the kitchen. Only the super high-tech toaster was giving us trouble.

We were both staring at it with barely veiled hostility when Bear shuffled into the room, rubbing her tiny eyes and sniffing, very obviously following her nose. She had shed her cloak and boots. Just like Ferret, her lack of waist meant the only kind of pants she could comfortably wear were a pair of dungarees. Only, hers were as large as a tent and dark grey, fitting quite well with her greying pelt. Years ago, she must have been fully black, but now her age was showing.

"Coffee?" she rumbled.

Ana turned to her with a bright, hopeful smile. "You can have as much coffee as I can make, if you figure out how that cursed thing works." She pointed at the offending toaster.

"Hrm," Bear grumbled and held out her huge hand. With the thick, greying fur on the back and the claws it looked more like a paw, but I knew that her fingers were as agile as any human's.

After she had received the promised mug of coffee with a generous helping of cream and chugged down about half of it, she tackled the machine with the same calm she used on all things technical. And just like all other technical stuff, it didn't stand a chance against her. She pushed a small button on the side of the machine that had escaped our notice and it obediently popped open to let her put in the slices of bread. "There," she commented in her usual brevity.

"Thank you so much!" Ana hugged her quickly.

I caught a short flash of pleasure from Bear over the pack bond, but she suppressed it quickly. Bear kept up her barriers almost all the time. Sometimes it felt like she wasn't there at all.

She retreated to a corner of the kitchen with her mug of coffee where she wouldn't be in the way, but she stayed close, both to the food and to Ana. She was calm and relaxed, confirming that the ship and the jump were fine louder than any words. Otherwise, she wouldn't have been comfortable with leaving the controls unattended.

"Do you want porridge or eggs and bacon?" Ana asked her when our preparations were coming to an end while I started carrying the food over to the monstrous dining table.

Bear grinned at Ana silently.

"Both it is," Ana agreed. "Should we wake Wolf and Ferret?"

Considering Ferret's overactive constitution, it was a blessing that he was still asleep at all. He definitely needed the rest. And Wolf ... He would certainly profit greatly from a good meal, but my selfish side insisted on having a quiet breakfast, just with Ana and Bear and no drama.

I glanced at Ana, feeling slightly guilty and found her smirking.

"I guess we'll let them sleep in then," she decided, taking the blame off my shoulders.

I thanked her by briefly rubbing my cheek against hers in passing.

The next few hours passed pleasantly. Ana took Bear to the small med bay to check on her ribs and after some poking and prodding proclaimed her on the mend. Next, Bear showed me how the weapon controls worked and put me through some VR trial runs. I asked her to put Ferret through the same, once he was awake and fed. Considering his sharp reflexes, he would probably be very good at it and even have fun, as long as he didn't think too much about the fact that shooting things also meant killing things.

By then, Ferret was up as well and chattered at Ana incessantly, while she fixed another helping of breakfast for him. I walked past them while he told her how much he loved his new room and whether it was okay to jump on the bed, because it was absolutely perfect for jumping on. At least one of us appreciated Viscount Tomori's design decisions.

I gathered all of our clothes and put them into the washer unit I had discovered in one of the utility rooms. Until they were done, we all now walked around in overly large and fluffy pink bathrobes, courtesy of Viscount Tomori. We looked utterly ridiculous. Bear and Ferret even more than Ana and I. On Bear, the biggest bathrobe looked more like a tight fluffy jacket, while Ferret simply disappeared in his, pulling an absurd pink train after him. Furred as we were, none of us really needed the robes, but Ana insisted the same way she insisted we had proper clothes. 'You are not animals. You are just as much entitled to have clothes to protect yourselves and make yourselves pretty as anyone else,' she had said when she had bought me my first set of clothing. At first, it had felt strange to wear something over my fur, but it did make it much easier to blend in. And I liked being pretty.

Though most of the time, I had to choose function over style. Cargo pants had plenty of pockets with straps to hold knives and useful gear, a thin shirt with bits and pieces of light armour that offered even more straps for more knives. All of it coloured in dull browns to blend in with my fur and the dirty neighbourhoods we usually hung out in.

While exploring the utility section of the ship, I also found the servants' quarters. A large, plain room with bunk beds and a communal bathroom. Much better than the 'toy storage'. I moved my nest of blankets and pillows and my backpack there and briefly rubbed my cheek on the door frame to mark the room as my territory. I would share it, of course, if Ana asked me to, but not if I could help it. I used the alone time to thoroughly clean myself. I didn't like water any more than my animal brethren, but I very much enjoyed brushing out my fur. It would have been even better if Ana had been doing it, and there would hopefully be time for that later during the jump. My fur brush was one of my most prized possessions. Ana had bought it for me after she realised how much I hated water and that I needed something to keep my fur tidy.

Returning to the lounge, I ran straight into Wolf. Before he noticed me, he looked almost lost, his snout raised, probably scenting for Ana, his shoulders hunched and his tail down. He was in an unfamiliar place among unfamiliar people, I reminded myself. He'd be wary. I would have been, too. I didn't want to be nice, but Ana had asked me to.

In the bright light of the lounge, I finally got my first good look at him. His thick fur was so matted with dirt, grease and old blood there was no way of telling what colour it was under all that grime, though my best guess was still black and grey. There were patches were his fur was shorter, presumably healed over wounds. One of his ears was missing a piece, and he wasn't wearing any clothes at all. Under his mane, the heavy shock collar was still around his neck.

The moment he smelled me his posture changed. His fur bristled, his ears pulled back and he squared his shoulders to make himself even bigger than he already was. He was baring his teeth when he turned to face me, but then stopped mid move as he caught sight of me in my ridiculous pink bathrobe. His aggressive growl turned into a stunned expression.

I felt the urge to bite it off his face. I didn't. Instead I smiled kindly. "Good morning," I told him politely. He had followed Ana's words when she talked to him, so even if he didn't speak he clearly was able to understand.

Wolf's eyes narrowed and I wished again that we knew more about the pack bond and how to use it. It would have been mighty useful now to be able to convey that I was in fact not mocking him like he clearly thought I was. A deep growl started in his throat and he flexed his claws.

"There you are, sleepy head!" It felt like Ana materialised out of nowhere next to Wolf. One of her hands was firmly buried in his mane before he could so much as twitch in my direction, while her other reached up to caress his cheek.

He tried to maintain his tension, but it was a battle he couldn't possibly win. I watched how he relaxed into her touch, how his eyes drifted half shut, how he lowered his head for her to reach his ears to scratch behind them.

I caught a spark of his pleasure at her attention over the pack bond and latched on to the sensation. To forge a connection between the two of us like I had with Bear and Ferret, I needed to build it. Sensing his moods was a first step. He felt very different from Bear and Ferret. All of Bear's feelings were muted and low, as if only seeing her through thick fog, muffling everything. Ferret was bright and loud and chaotic. With Wolf, I felt like I had gotten too close to smouldering coals that turned out way hotter than I had expected. He was strong, yes, but with the pack bond's perspective, that was a good thing. It made me feel emotionally safe, even when my mind still tried to warn me of the threat he posed.

"My, you reek, my sweetling," Ana told Wolf, and while he didn't show it, he cringed inside for having displeased her. "We'll give you a good wash, mh?" Ana kept talking to him in that low, warm voice. "See to your hurts too, yes?"

He rubbed his nose against her hand in agreement, ready to go and do whatever she asked. But then he glanced back at me and again bared his teeth in a gesture of silent victory. Of course it didn't escape Ana's notice and punishment came swiftly and caught Wolf completely off guard.

"None of that!" Ana growled, very real anger in her voice, and swatted his ear.

Physically, it didn't hurt him at all. But he cringed visibly and whined. Once more I caught his loud emotions – this time confusion, sadness and crippling fear of losing Ana. It instinctively made me wish I knew how to reassure him.

At least Ana didn't have any such problems. She tugged on his mane to pull his head down and hugged him around his thick neck. "Ssh, my love, ssh. You will learn. I promise."

He relaxed only gradually.

Ana looked over at me with a small smile, happy at how well she was handling him. I couldn't help but grin back, just as proud of her. "Cat, can you extract Ferret from the VR for me?" she asked. "I want him to get this terrible collar off. We'll be in the master bathroom."

I nodded and watched how she gently led Wolf away. However eye-bleed-inducing the master bathroom was, the huge tub would serve well to clean Wolf up.

Just like Ana had said, I found Ferret in one of the two gunner capsules located at the front of the ship under its nose. He had the VR set on and was making quite a racket. His mix of startled shrieks and howls of triumph and yelps when something went wrong made me realise once more what a pup he really was. He radiated innocent fun.

Ferret nearly jumped out of his skin when I gently tapped his shoulder. He almost strangled himself trying to rip the VR set off his head, so I quickly took a hold of him and helped him unbuckle it. As soon as he caught my scent, he surrendered into my care. Once the set was off, he grinned at me with shining eyes, impossibly cute.

"Did you see?" he exclaimed happily. "I beat your score by nearly double!"

Of course he would have. Had he been Wolf, I would have been hissing with wounded pride. As it was sweet Ferret, I didn't feel threatened at all. In fact, I felt proud of him and satisfied that I had been right in charging him with the guns.

"You did? That's awesome! Well done."

My praise made him puff out his narrow chest in pride.

"Ana asks if you can help her get the shock collar off Wolf."

"Of course!" He nodded happily, his fear of Wolf quickly suppressed since Ana had asked for him. At least, mostly suppressed. "Is he still so growly?" he asked when I led the way back to the master bedroom with a quick detour to where Ferret had left his pack of tools.

There were plenty of snarky things I wanted to say about growly wolves who should have been grateful for being rescued, but I didn't. "Give him some time to get used to us. It's hard for him. Confusing." There. Ana should be proud of me. All fair and sensible, just like she had asked me.

Ferret pondered my words for a while. "Do you think he's scared?" Of course that would seem the most likely to him. But maybe he wasn't so wrong.

"In a way? Yes, maybe. But he isn't used to being scared so it makes him angry to feel that way."

If only this explanation would provide a clue for me how to best handle him. Food, I thought. An offering of food might appease him and make him see me as less of a rival. It might also make him see me as some sort of maid, but that was a risk I was willing to take. Washing him would take time, and Ana wanted to check on his wounds as well. Plenty of time to prepare something nice.

"They are in the bathroom through the door on the left," I told Ferret.

"Aren't you coming?" His voice got squeaky, very much not thrilled with the idea of leaving my protection.

I made gentle shooing gestures. "Ana's in there. You'll be perfectly safe."

For a moment Ferret dug in his heels, resisting, but then he caught himself. He drew in a deep breath and nodded. "Okay," he muttered, "I'm sure he won't bite, eh?"

I ruffled the soft, short fur between his ears affectionately. "If he does, it will be over in a second." My joke maybe was not very reassuring, but it didn't fail to amuse him.

He stuck his tongue out at me, bravely crossed the master bedroom and disappeared inside the bathroom.

"Ah, there you are," I heard Ana's voice greet him from inside, followed by a loud splash and then her again, exclaiming, "No! Down! You stay in the water!" More splashing and yelping from Ana and then her saying, "Great. Now we are all wet. Well done, sweety, well done."

I turned away with a grin. Obviously, she had everything well in hand. I could just picture Wolf flailing in the bathtub, covered in suds and fearing for his life and dignity while simultaneously floating on a wave of bliss from all the care Ana was giving him. I had a dinner to prepare for many hungry mouths. Wolf wouldn't be the only one hungry when this ordeal was over.

Before I tackled that task, I retrieved our clothes from the dryer. Bear accepted her stuff with a grunt and gratefully handed her pink 'jacket' back to me with visible relief.

When I returned to the lounge, Ferret was curled up on one of the huge, white leather couches, thumbing through some magazine filled with glossy pictures of Core World pop stars. He must have found it lying around somewhere. He refused to part with his bathrobe, preferring to wrap and rewrap it around himself like some fluffy tent. I reminded him that Bear was in the cockpit and not busy so she would probably be willing to teach him about piloting the ship. I had hoped he would jump at the chance, but he just made small hissing noises and burrowed deeper into his bathrobe. Later then. He deserved a break. I put his clothes in his room.

Next, I returned to the kitchen. Since my cooking skills were not suited for anything complicated, I opted for safe and simple. Couldn't go wrong with grilled steaks when there were four people at the table who had been genetically engineered from carnivorous animal species. I carefully picked out non-human meat steaks from the fridge and put them out to warm up, planning to throw them into a pan once I heard Ana and Wolf relocate from the bathroom to the med bay. Knowing she would want some sort of vegetables, I picked out some green stuff at random and set it simmering in a pre-made sauce I found. In the freezer, I discovered large slabs of some sort of creamy pasta dish. Breaking of a tiny corner and tasting it made me purr in pleasure. Very nice even while still frozen. I grabbed four slabs and put them into the oven to slowly thaw, bubble and brown.

Picking a well supplied yacht definitely had been one of my better ideas.

Ana had a serious sweet tooth so I dived into the freezers again for some sort of dessert. There was nothing fancy pre-made. Probably Viscount Tomori brought his chef with him when he travelled. But I did find containers with various flavours of ice cream. Perfectly good enough for tonight.

My clue that Ana was done washing Wolf came when Ferret scurried into the kitchen.

"What's up?" I asked.

He grinned at me, showing his tiny sharp teeth. "Freshly washed Wolf looks totally awesome. He's, like, totally fluffy now. FLOOF!" He made an exploding gesture with both arms.

I chuckled. "You better not say that to his face," I reminded him and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck when he tried to take off the lid of the pot with the vegetables. "Ah, ah, not ready yet!"

For a Ferret, he had the puppy eyes down to a pat and he turned them on me now.

"It's veggies anyway," I tried to console him.

"But I like veggies, and it smells so good," he whined. "Just a taste? Pretty please?"

Saying no to that cute face was hard at the best of times. "I'll cut you a deal," I offered, "you set the table and I'll give you a small bowl to have now. Though it probably won't be done yet. Like the vegetables will still be hard, or something." Not that I knew much about cooking vegetables. Maybe it was a good idea to let him have a taste so he could tell me if they were any good at all.

"YAY! I can totally do that!" he immediately agreed.

Seeing him so relaxed and happy warmed my heart. On Darkside, he had been nervous and scared all the time, only able to sleep curled up right next to me or Ana. The lack of sleep had only made him more twitchy.

I grabbed a small bowl from a cupboard and filled it with a few spoonfuls of the veggies swimming in sauce. It was more like a soup than what Ana would have called a 'green dish', I noticed with some regret. I'd definitely have to pay more attention on how she made them.

Ferret proved an utterly useless food critic. He slurped the mix straight out of the bowl with boundless relish, ignoring the spoon I offered him. When he looked up at me again, his short snout was covered in sauce and he was grinning. He looked utterly adorable. "Thanks, that was awesome!" He took his time carefully licking his snout clean before he started rummaging through the cupboards for plates, glasses and cutlery. At least he wasn't clumsy. He cleverly stacked his load before he headed back out to the dining area to set the table, climbing onto the chairs so he could reach the tabletop.

I busied myself with grilling the steaks. That was something I was quite good at. My nose told me exactly when they needed turning and when they were done.

The aroma wafting from the kitchen eventually lured Bear out of the cockpit. She didn't say anything, but grunted approvingly, filled a large pitcher with water for us to drink and put that on the table as well.

It made me feel whole in a way that I could not compare to anything else. The sense of being pack was so much stronger when we were doing something simple and mundane like this together. It probably was there as well when we did something dangerous, like stealing a wolf or a spaceship, but in those moments the adrenaline was screaming too loudly to hear the subtle music of the connection we shared. I sensed that Ferret could feel it too. It was a shared, silent happiness.

When I heard Ana and Wolf emerge from the med bay, I was startled for a moment how very relaxed Wolf felt as well. It took me a moment to realise that our combined calm was affecting him. Even though I had no idea how to accomplish such an effect at will, it obviously was possible. I put that information on my long list of things to discuss with Ana later.

I looked out the kitchen door to get a glimpse of him. I wasn't sure what Ana had used to wash Wolf, but it had resulted in truly spectacular fluffiness. His matted fur was now mostly glossy and soft, shining in a deep black tone with dark grey highlights in his mane and on the longer fur on his forearms and shins. He truly was a magnificent beast now. Ana had even found some pants that fit him, though she had been forced to cut them short at the knees. Judging from the dark grey material, they came from the stock of servant uniforms I had seen stored in one of the utility rooms. When Ana glanced up at him, I could see the pride at having him in her pack in her eyes and even though I really wanted to, I couldn't bring up any jealousy.

When he noticed all of us watching him, he straightened up and tried to assume a more dominant posture. He even bared his teeth for a snarl, but then his nostrils flared wide open, his eyes drifted half shut and his stomach growled so audibly that all pretence of being a big bad wolf was thoroughly ruined.

"Oh, you made dinner!" Ana exclaimed happily and abandoned her close guard of Wolf to join me in the kitchen. It looked completely casual, but I had a feeling she was doing it very deliberately to see how well Wolf would behave. "Did you...?" She peered into the pot and her, I didn't stop. "You made veggies for me! You are the best!" She made a point of very visibly stroking my jaw.

Even though I knew she was only doing it for show, I felt a fierce stab of satisfaction when Wolf visibly winced and hunched in on himself. Bear noticed as well. Maybe it woke up long forgotten motherly instincts, but she approached him where he stood still well outside our group and gently prodded him towards the table. He didn't resist. In fact, he seemed almost grateful for having the decision taken out of his hands. She pointed him to a seat and he took it gingerly. Like the rest of us, he had probably never sat at a table before Ana took him in.

My nose informed me that the steaks were done, so I returned to the stove to take care of our dinner. Having Wolf at my back would have made me nervous, but my whole pack was here. Didn't get safer than that.

Ana grabbed the pot off the stove, brought it out to the dining area and settled next to Wolf with a little smile for him.

I carried the big pan over to the table. For once, Wolf didn't pay any attention to me at all. His eyes were focused on the sizzling meat. I had never before seen anyone look so hungry and so disbelieving at once. Like he just couldn't wrap his mind around the fact that something could smell so good, be real and be there for him. I sat the pan down on the heatproof mat Ferret had providently set up and started handing out big slabs of meat. Bear got the first slice, then came a smaller one for Ferret and another very big one for Wolf. I went back to the kitchen to get the pasta dish from the oven.

When I returned, Ana was cutting Wolf's meat into more manageable pieces. Like the rest of us, he would have to get used to eating with cutlery. She showed him how to hold the fork and even though he looked like he had no clue why he had to use this silly little tool which kept him from devouring his meal in one huge bite, he obeyed without hesitation. I watched him carefully spear a first piece of meat and shove it in his mouth greedily. He groaned in helpless pleasure as the taste filled his mouth. I had no idea what sort of gruel he had been fed with up to now, but it looked as if this steak was the best thing he had eaten in his life.

Time to get some myself. I grabbed a steak and a helping of the pasta. When I took a first bite of my own meat, I knew why he had groaned like that. It was one of the best I had ever eaten, too. Tender and juicy and just right.

Ferret was chewing loudly and making chirping sounds of pleasure around his food while Bear just dug in with a vengeance. Ana was beaming with happiness, watching us eat like a mother duck presiding over her ducklings. At least, she seemed to enjoy the weird vegetable dish I had made for her just as much as we enjoyed our meat.

It was a pleasant meal. A good first step to integrating Wolf, I thought.

Once we were finished, Ferret was almost asleep on his feet again. There was no day or night on board a spaceship, and as screwed up as our sleeping schedule had been for a long time now, none of us really paid any attention anymore anyway. We slept when we had a chance to, so the others went to sleep after dinner.

I tried to as well, but my mind just wouldn't shut up. I hated not having any idea of what we were getting into. I hated not having a plan, and two or three contingency plans for the moment something would inevitably go wrong.

So I settled in the lounge by myself, studying once more the meagre records about that hidden Packmaster planet we had managed to recover. It really was more rumours than any sort of hard facts. Tales of fabulous riches just waiting for someone to pick them up mixed with horror tales of terrible monsters roaming the planet, killing anyone who dared to set foot on it. Neither sounded very credible to me. The only thing the files agreed upon was the planet's name – Thiala. Not exactly much to go on, though. It made me wonder if the jump coordinates we had paid so much for were even correct. Maybe we would emerge in an empty system. Or inside a sun. Wasn't that a cheery thought? One I certainly wouldn't mention to Ana.

I put the records down with a deep sigh and almost jumped out of my fur when I noticed Wolf standing in the doorway to the main corridor, watching me silently. I had no idea how long he had been there. How had he managed to sneak up on me like that? His presence in the pack bond was still too new for me to pick him up as long as he didn't have strong emotions about something. A big brute like him shouldn't be allowed to move as stealthily as that.

For a long moment, we watched each other. I noticed with a bit of relief that his fur wasn't bristling, instead his ears were pointing forward curiously. He still looked threatening by his sheer mass, but I consciously forced my own ears forward and tried to stop my tail from trying to fluff up angrily.

He stepped closer very slowly and I realised that he hadn't meant to startle me. In fact he was going out of his way to appear non-threatening. He stopped close to the couch, but still far enough away that he couldn't have reached me in one lunge.

When he opened his snout I expected some grunt or growl. Instead, he spoke very haltingly, clearly not used to it. "You. Love. Ana."

I blinked in surprise and nodded slowly.

"I. Love. Ana," he said, gesturing to his furry chest to emphasise how very important this was to him.

I nodded again.

He opened his snout again, but then his ears flicked in obvious frustration and I realised that probably he was missing the words he needed to say what he wanted. I could only guess, but considering his previous words, there was one safe thing to say.

"We protect Ana," I said. "Together."

"Yes! Protect." He had trouble saying the word, but he clearly knew the meaning. His tail made a gesture that could have almost been called a happy wag.

And that was apparently all he had to say on the subject. He nodded more to himself than me, headed back to the corridor and disappeared toward his cabin.

I waited until I was sure he wouldn't come back. Then I ran my hands down my tail, smoothing down my fur. That had been easier than expected. Much easier. Too easy? Maybe he was just trying to make me feel safe so he would have surprise on his side when the attack came? I dug my fingertips into my tail until it hurt. That was a stupid thing to think. We were a pack and I would trust him, had to trust him for us to be effective together. He would never hurt me since that would make Ana unhappy.

When after several minutes, my fur was still twitching nervously, I gave up on getting anything useful done. Instead, I did what Ana had taught me to. I went to the kitchen, heated up a cup of milk and drank it very slowly.

Liking milk was one of those odds quirks in bestiae that didn't really make sense when comparing us to our animal origins. The Packmasters had to have specifically engineered it into us for some reason. On first sight, bestiae looked like tall, bipedal versions of the animal templates - but the closer one looked, the more we had come to the conclusion that bestia had been very carefully designed, not only from a technical point of view, but also from a cultural one. Of course, as long as we didn't find any original data on the subject, the 'why' of it all would remain yet another unanswered question.

Luckily, having a cup of hot milk never failed to calm my nerves. By the time I finished it, my eyes were drifting shut. I barely made it back to my new den before I fell asleep.

# Chapter 3

Considering how much thought and worry we had spent on anticipating our arrival on Thiala, it turned out to be rather unspectacular. The jump coordinates brought us out at a point well outside any sensor range of the planet itself, so we still had almost four hours of flight before we got our first glimpse of it.

Bear kicked all of us out of the cockpit, informing us with a few, very firm words that she would call when there was anything to see.

Even Ferret, who had been a diligent student to her for the last two days.

So he headed back to the weapons capsule and more VR training, which had become a quick favourite of his, along with joining Bear in the cockpit and learning how to fly a spaceship.

I settled at the dining table and cleaned and sharpened all my knives.

Wolf had spent most of the three days he had been pack so far, close to Ana. At first, I had hardly been able to suppress stabs of jealousy, but slowly his emotions started seeping through the bond more clearly. I realised he wasn't trying to monopolise her, he just needed to reassure himself that she was safe. He was guarding her, occasionally feeling intensely stupid about his own need to constantly check whether she was alright.

When he wasn't with Ana, there were moments when his emotions suddenly flared into rage, followed by a muted sense of sadness and confusion. Ana went to check on him every time and later explained to me that Wolf was suffering from flashbacks of his time with Falk and in the fighting pits and that this was to be expected. Her care and attention seemed to be a good antidote, though, as he always settled down when she went to him.

I was still waiting for him to somehow try to undermine what little authority I had, but after our initial, short conversation, he didn't seem interested in me at all. Maybe it would happen when we were actually 'in the field' and I expected him to follow my orders.

With nothing to do until we arrived on Thiala, Ana channelled her nervous energy into baking, with Wolf hovering close to her and occasionally looking confused when she asked him to help with something. A whole rack of blueberry pies was cooling in the kitchen by the time Bear finally relieved us from the building tension.

"Got scans and a first visual," she called from the cockpit.

Ana dropped her spoon into the bowl so hard that blueberry filling splattered all over the counter. She didn't pay it any attention and ran to join Bear. I very much felt the urge to do the same, but I managed to control myself and follow at a more dignified pace, together with Wolf.

When we arrived, Ana and Bear were already peering at a viewscreen that showed the planet. My first impression was that it looked very brown. Darker and lighter hues, but there was no blue at all. No open bodies of water, then. The bands of drifting clouds in the atmosphere were light brown and orange as well. It didn't look particularly welcoming.

At the side of the screen, small script was scrolling down, presumably the scan results. Too small to read from where I was standing behind Ana, but she read them for all of us.

"Atmosphere is breathable, temperature on the low end. Pockets of high radiation, surface pockmarked with impact craters, atmosphere shows residue of various toxic fallout, some ruins of large structures, no high level energy signatures. No signs of active civilisation. Looks like they were really thorough in their bombing."

"Any sign of Core World military?" I asked one of the questions we were most interested in. If they were still here in force, it might be a better idea to turn right around and get out of the system while we still could.

Bear adjusted some levers. "Hn," she grumbled, "some sort of small installation, about here."

The view screen zoomed in on a lighter brown patch that looked to me like everything else.

"Underground," Ana muttered. "Can we get any life signs?"

"No, ship's scanners aren't that good," Bear replied, somehow managing to say it without sounding judging. "No defences or cannons. Standard setup for a research station."

"Do you think they've seen us?"

Bear shrugged. "They are not doing anything. Might be no one's home at all."

We all stared at the screen like it would provide some miraculous answer to all our questions.

"So?" Bear finally broke the silence. "What do you want to do?"

Ana drew in a deep breath and visibly pulled herself together. In the cramped cockpit, nobody but me noticed how she leaned back into me, drawing strength. "We'll land. Can you put us down near one of the largest ruins? I guess there we'll have the best chance of finding anything useful. And well away from that station or whatever it is."

Bear grunted in agreement and started flipping switches.

"How long will landing take?" Ana asked.

"Twenty minutes tops," Bear answered without taking her eyes off the controls.

"Let me know the moment something down there reacts to our presence." Ana turned back and gestured for me and Wolf to come to the lounge with her. Once there, she started pacing nervously and tugging on her ragged hair.

I wanted to touch her, hold her, calm her down somehow and I saw Wolf twitch in her direction as well. Concerning her, our instincts were pretty much identical.

"Whatever is down there, we'll deal with it," I said instead.

Wolf growled in agreement.

We'd be and do whatever she needed us to.

She stopped and smiled at both of us worriedly. "I know. I trust you. I ... just ... be careful out there, okay?"

I smirked back at her. "As careful as you are."

It didn't produce the desired result. I had hoped for a chuckle, but instead she frowned.

"Yes, we will be careful," I quickly amended. "Should I go get Ferret?"

She considered for a moment and then nodded. "Please do. Though I think we'll leave him on the ship for now where he'll be safe."

Now it was my turn to frown. I didn't contradict her often, but sometimes her care for us was keeping her from seeing problems that were obvious to me. "I don't think that's a good idea," I said. "He hates being alone. He'll likely drive himself into a panic over what might happen to us. He will be safer and happier with us. With his pack."

I glanced up at Wolf in surprise when he grunted in agreement.

Ana looked just as startled at this unified front against her judgement, but it only took her a moment to change gears. "So I guess all of us are going then," she agreed with a sheepish smile.

I couldn't have loved her more.

"I'll see what we can find in warm clothing for all of us," Ana said, "wouldn't want us to freeze to death out there, of all things."

A few minutes later, Bear set down the Lollipop on a rocky field at the edge of one of the larger ruins. The yacht came with retractable landing struts so she could be parked on any mostly flat, stable ground. Another reason why I had picked her. The constant hum of the engines died down and Bear emerged from the cockpit.

We were all nervous, but eager to get started. Ana looked like she wanted to give another speech on how we should be careful. But after looking at Ferret, who was already bouncing like a nervous ball of fur, she decided against it.

Instead, she handed out some padded jackets to all of us. I didn't bother pointing out that we had fur to keep us warm. At least she didn't insist we put our annoying boots and shoes back on.

"Let's go, then," she simply said.

When we opened the outer hatch, it felt like walking into an icy wall. It also felt like a big gulp of clear water after having your lungs filled with sludge. We all inhaled deeply almost simultaneously. Somehow, we had gotten used to the horribly perfumed air inside the ship and completely forgotten to look for the switch that would turn it off. We'd definitely have to do that once we got back from this expedition.

"Wow," Ferret muttered, staring out at the vast ruins stretching out in front of us.

From the height of the hatch we had a good view. Once, this must have been a sprawling city with towering buildings. Now huge craters dotted the landscape where orbital bombardment had hit. When the Core Worlds attacked, they hadn't fooled around. They had bombed the place into the ground and then bombed it some more, just to be sure. Most of the buildings weren't even ruins, they had been ground into rubble and dust. Others had toppled over, their old shape still recognisable, lean spires in jumbled heaps like a giant's mikado game. There was rubble everywhere, former streets and plazas only suggested by gentle valleys in this sea of destruction.

It looked about as deserted as anything could possibly look.

"Radiation level is medium," Bear commented, reading off some device she had pulled from her tool belt. "Safe for a few hours, but we need to take some shots afterwards."

We all nodded.

Local time was the middle of the day, so we would have several hours of daylight to explore. Daylight in this case was tinted orange and gave everything a warm glow that felt wrong, considering how cold it was.

In the deeper crevices between the ruins, some stocky, scruffy shrubs were growing, black-red stems like corals with barely any leaves. Not even the vegetation here looked hospitable.

"Are there any life signs at all?" Ana asked.

"Small animals. Birds, insects," Bear replied.

"Any mammals?" I asked. So far, we had only found records of bestiae who had been created from mammals. Ana and I had wondered why that was, but of course it was just another question we didn't have an answer to.

"Maybe. Hard to tell." Bear shrugged her massive shoulders.

The Lollipop's access ramp was already extended. Wolf headed down first, his head raised high, all senses wide awake scanning for threats. The others followed. I went last and closed and locked the hatch behind us. Having the ship stolen from under our ass while we were exploring would have been the height of embarrassment.

"If anything survived this, it would have to have been deep underground," Ana mused.

She was probably right. We made our way closer to the first ruins. Crumbling blocks of stone were overgrown with a thin layer of a sickly yellowish creeper plant the same colour as the rocks. The silence was eerie. Not even the air was moving. It seeped into us as we passed between the rubble, killing off any desire for idle conversation. We were all alert and nervous, eyes and ears trying to dart in every direction at once.

Both me and Wolf jerked up when there was a sudden flutter of wings and three tiny birds fled from our intrusion. When we looked at each other, I saw my own thoughts mirrored in his face. A mix of feeling silly for reacting so strongly and a sense of accomplishment for being so alert.

As we headed deeper into the ruins, we passed larger pieces of fallen buildings, but also deep cracks in the ground that we had to skirt around. Most of the stone blocks were just faceless rubble, so when we passed one building where the faded remains of some sort of decoration could be guessed at, we all stopped and stared in silent curiosity. It might have been part of a gateway, but now only a piece of a beautifully carved arch remained.

I tried to imagine what the city had looked like when it was still intact. The carving had been cut into pale stone. Had all the buildings looked like that? Elegant, sweeping curves and narrow spires? The giant's mikado further into the city suggested something like this. There were almost no remains of steel beams, and if there had been glass it had been completely destroyed in the bombardment. Most cities of the Core worlds consisted of sky-raking steel, glass and concrete palaces with narrow canyons for streets where hover cars flitted back and forth. This felt different. We had walked across what seemed to be one of the major avenues and it had looked impossibly wide.

How many people had lived here, before the war? How many Packmasters, how many bestiae? How many of them had died here?

Large structures of white stone rose before my mind's eye, with wide, open windows. The streets were open and airy and there were parks and plants everywhere. In my fantasy, it was much warmer. My breath wasn't creating a small puff of white every time I exhaled and my fur didn't feel like it was slowly becoming covered in hoarfrost.

There were bestiae of all sorts of species, with their Packmasters, or on their own, running errands, the chatter of many different voices. There had to have been so much open space, else the mix of scents would have been confusing and oppressive.

I blinked rapidly, trying to clear the image from my mind. There was no telling now what it had really been like, and my focus was needed in the present. I glanced over at Wolf to see whether he had noticed me slipping, but he seemed distracted as well.

It took me a moment to figure out that he wasn't twitching nervously, but shivering. My first instinct was to point it out to Ana, but then I stopped myself. Wolf wouldn't like to look weak and though he was shivering occasionally, he didn't look more than uncomfortable.

Since we had no idea what we were actually looking for, there wasn't much sense in staying out very long on this first trip anyway.

We ventured deeper into the city, trying to navigate a path that neither forced us to climb broken buildings nor slide down the sides of the circular craters where the orbital shells had evaporated everything. Every now and then, we came across some recognisable pieces of architecture – marvellously curved arches and columns, mostly, but also remnants of façades undulating like dunes, or rather like very smooth tree bark. Considering that so far, everything we had seen had been built from the same kind of pale stone, the city must have been a sight to behold in her day.

"Getting some weird readings up ahead," Bear interrupted my thoughts.

We followed her through a narrow gap between two large mounds of rubble and stepped out into an area that had been cleaned of most of the debris. Whoever had done so hadn't been here in a while, though. A thick layer of pale dust had settled over the clearing and looked undisturbed. Was there never any wind in this place? Across from where we stood, some sort of tunnel had been cut, leading down underground at a slight angle .

"Any lifesigns?" Ana asked.

"None," Bear replied, "no energy signatures either."

We still moved cautiously as we approached the tunnel's entrance. The walls looked as smooth as glass, and when I reached out to touch one, felt as smooth too. The tunnel continued pretty much straight ahead and disappeared into darkness.

Ana and Ferret pulled torchlights from their tool packs and handed them out to all of us. Once Ana had switched it on for him, Wolf had no problem handling his, which was a relief.

He took the lead to defend us against possible danger as we started to descend, with Ferret trailing his fingertips along the wall and Bear scanning it curiously.

"How did they make this?" Ferret asked, fascinated.

"Industrial grade laser cutter," Bear answered and added with an amount of words that were stunning coming from her, "Normally used to cut mining shafts when precision trumps costs. Very expensive and a bitch to operate properly. Whatever is down there, they wanted it very badly."

"Hopefully, they left some for us," Ana muttered.

The tunnel extended until we were at least twenty metres below ground and our lights reflected on something metallic up ahead. We came up against a dull metal wall, or rather, the remaining edges of one. While that laser cutter had opened a way into the ground, it had apparently not been strong enough to cut through this wall. The ragged hole in front of us looked like it had been blown out by heavy duty explosives, ripping through at least a metre of what looked like alternating, meshed layers of different metals and ceramics. It reminded me of a nasty flesh wound in the belly of some giant cybernetic creature, but at least the hole was wide enough for someone to comfortably climb through.

Ana made a move to do just that, but Wolf's strong arm immediately barred her way and he growled at her.

For a moment, she glared up at him, but then she raised her hands in surrender. "Okay. Yes. You are right," she admitted and stepped back for him to pass through first.

Shining our lights inside revealed what appeared to be a small chamber which only held a heap of rubble brushed against a wall, probably debris from the explosion. The inner walls were made of some light-build metal, painted over in a sickly green tone. An open doorway led further into what might be the underground treasure trove we had been hoping for. There was nothing obviously dangerous in there, but that didn't mean it was safe.

Ana and I lit the way for Wolf to climb through. He stepped into the chamber gingerly, his ears pointed forward and his tail quivering nervously. We watched as he made his way to the doorway and peered through. He waved for us to follow while he guarded the door. One by one, we climbed inside.

Down here, the silence was even more oppressive. The image of the dead cyberbeast came back, and I shuddered.

The doorway opened onto a corridor leading off into darkness both left and right with more doorways at irregular intervals to each side.

"Anything?" Ana asked Bear.

She checked her scanners again. "Nope."

"Right. Then ... that way." Ana picked one direction at random.

We didn't have to go far. Already the next doorway opened onto a large, cavernous room that held an amazing amount of clutter. Broken glass and scientific equipment littered the floor. It looked like someone had tried to smash every last item to pieces. The only structures still intact were large, square fixtures in the floor that might have been the bases of larger machines once. Openings for tubing or cables were visible in the surfaces, but those had been yanked out. Everything was covered in a fine layer of dust.

"Whoever broke in here sure didn't want anyone coming after them to find anything useful," I muttered, turning over some metal scraps with the tip of my foot.

"Looters?" Ana suggested. She tiptoed through the mess, her torchlight beam sweeping here and there, looking for anything that might give us a clue as to what this place had been. Wolf trailed her like a huge shadow, constantly alert for any danger. Ana looked up at him with a smile. "Be careful you don't step into all that glass," she told him.

"Core World military or corporation," Bear remarked. "Looters wouldn't have access to an industry grade laser cutter."

I agreed with her assessment and Ana gave an unhappy little grunt of agreement.

"I guess it was some sort of lab," Ana said, shining her light onto one of the larger bases. "Maybe this is where they created your kind."

That thought made me shudder again. We had found no data at all on how the Packmasters had turned ordinary animals into highly specialised, intelligent humanoids up until now. It was one of the many questions Ana had about her people. I'd never really thought about the specifics, but standing here in this derelict place, I suddenly saw sinister, shadowy humans holding down helpless kittens and cutting them open.

Oblivious to my creepy thoughts, Ana headed back to the corridor. "Maybe we'll find some sort of records elsewhere. We could split up to cover more ground — "

I hissed and Wolf growled in perfect synchronicity.

"Or we could just all stick together," Ana immediately changed course.

We explored further, checking each room we passed. Some might have been offices, with smashed furniture littering the floor. There were some file cabinets, but they had been emptied long ago. There was a handful of smaller lab rooms, a larger one that held long banks of computer servers, all of them smashed and partially melted down by some sort of extreme heat. At the end of the corridor we had picked, we found what must have been the mess hall with sparse living quarters attached. Whatever had been next to that section had collapsed. Probably squashed flat during the orbital bombardment of Thiala.

So we turned around and followed the corridor in the other direction. This section of the complex had more of the large, cavernous lab rooms. More of the same, large, empty lab rooms.

While at first, we still commented on what we found and what it might have been, we all grew more and more silent as time wore on. Equally depressed by the lack of anything useful as we were by the bleakness of the place.

Everything was painted in the same sickly green. There were no visible decorations anywhere, not even a smashed picture frame or some pointless trinket. Even before it had been looted, it seemed to have been focused on function over comfort in every possible aspect. Particularly in contrast to the beautiful city above, it was a dismal place.

It felt wrong to me on such a scale that it made my tail fluff up more and more the longer we were there. The walls seemed to press closer, the ceiling seemed lower, as if the place was closing in around me, trying to swallow me.

Bear seemed largely unaffected, Ana was too curious and Wolf was busy with not letting her out of his sight. But Ferret was feeling it as well. While at first, he had darted here and there to look at something shiny, he now stayed glued to my side and occasionally even reached out to hold onto the sleeve of my jacket.

I was starting to seriously consider using his fear as a convenient excuse to beg Ana to leave or at least let me accompany him outside, when she looked through yet another doorway and made a startled little sound.

"That's odd," she said, "this looks like holding cells..."

We all peered inside. It was a larger chamber with a circle of small cells around it. Each of the cells was empty apart from a drain in the floor. The cells were secured by strong steel bars running from floor to ceiling, giving a clear view of the whole cell to whoever stood inside the central chamber.

"What would they need those for?" Ana asked.

"Lock up failed subjects?" Bear supplied. "Or unwilling participants in their experiments?"

There was a strangely flat tone to her clipped words, making me wonder if maybe this place had finally managed to stir her memories. Her connection to the pack bond was locked up tight, and she didn't volunteer anything. Ana didn't seem to notice at all.

I sensed how very unhappy the suggestion made Ana. She wanted to believe that the Packmasters had been valiant heroes, trying to free the galaxy from the oppression of the Core World elite. Locking up people and using them in experiments against their will didn't fit into that picture.

Bear turned away from the holding cells, instead studying something invisible in the corridor, while Ana went in to investigate further. I made a mental note to talk to Bear once we were safely back on the ship. Maybe some gentle prodding and a large mug of milk and honey would get her to open up to me.

"Oh."

My attention returned to Ana who had made another unhappy little sound.

She had stepped close to the bars of one cell and was shining her torchlight inside. It took me a moment to notice what had upset her. There were long gashes in the back wall – many of them. Claw marks, clearly. Some bestia had been so desperate to escape that it had tried to dig a way out. I wasn't sure what disturbed me more, that someone had worked himself into such a rage and panic or that no one had bothered to sedate the bestia to keep it from harming itself.

Ana turned away from the cell and quickly left the room, visibly shaken. "Maybe the Core Worlders imprisoned someone in there..." she muttered, but she didn't sound convinced. None of us believed it, either. She took off her glasses and cleaned them nervously.

Suddenly, she looked very small and lost.

"Maybe we should head back to the ship now," I suggested gently. "We're all cold and we shouldn't stay out in the radiation too long anyway. We can always come back here later and look around some more." I wanted to wrap her up in a blanket and protect her.

"Yes," she agreed without hesitation and then gave me a small, brave smile. "Let's go back."

We followed the corridor back to the breached chamber and climbed back out into the tunnel. The moment we were safely out of the facility, we all breathed easier even though it was colder out here.

In the maze of ruins, I wasn't sure I would have been able to find my way back to the yacht on first try. Everything looked the same. But Bear led us, occasionally checking her scanner to make sure we were on the right path. When we came across that carved fragment again, I allowed myself to relax slightly. Still the way back seemed much longer, particularly with Ana silently radiating her disappointment to all of us. She was trying to hide it, but with the bond there really was no way to miss it. Her hope that we would finally find some hard facts was at an all time low. We were all cold and miserable and I had no idea how to cheer her up.

When we emerged from among the ruins and the bright red of the Lollipop came into view, we all felt tired and worn out. After the devastation of the ruins and the bleakness of the underground lab complex, she didn't look so ridiculous anymore. She was a shining beacon of cheerful colour standing proudly among all the destruction around her.

All of us sped up automatically, eager to reach our home. Suddenly, the idea of fluffy carpeting, soft light and fuzzy couches was genuinely desirable. We hurried up the ramp and I unlocked the hatch. Once again we were hit with the heavily perfumed air, but this time it almost felt like a warming caress.

"We really need to do something about that fucking air freshener!" Ana grumbled and headed straight in, her helpless anger finding a convenient target. Bear followed on her heels, probably to make sure Ana didn't smash anything vital in the cockpit.

Wolf shared a look with me that I couldn't quite interpret, shrugged and followed them, apparently still considering himself on guard duty.

"Maybe we'll find something nicer on our next trip?" Ferret asked me, nervously rubbing his nimble little hands against each other while gazing back at the ruins. It felt to me like the sea of rubble was staring back at us balefully. Like it was our fault they were dead and we were alive.

I forced myself to smile for him. "I'm sure there is something useful out there. We just have to find it." I shooed him inside and followed, closing the hatch behind us and locking it from within. It was very unlikely that there was anything dangerous out there, but I wouldn't take any chances.

***

After our return to the yacht, Ana prodded Bear into searching out the air conditioning controls. It turned out there was no 'neutral' setting, but Bear found a more subtle scent we could all live with.

Next, Ana prodded all of us to the med bay to give us our shots against the radiation we had absorbed. After that, she sulked around the ship in a horrid mood oscillating between depression and growling at anyone she met.

Ferret went into hiding while Wolf ducked and tried to figure out how to please her. I, however, was slowly but surely losing patience with her slow-burn temper tantrum. Her unhappiness was affecting me just as strongly and I wanted to see her smile just as badly, but I was sure enough that none of this was our fault. So when she snapped at me because she wasn't tall enough to reach a certain plate she wanted in a kitchen cupboard, I didn't back down.

I hissed right back at her, my hackles rising. Wolf stood in the doorway, torn between protecting Ana and hoping that I would somehow manage to set her right.

"Ana, stop it! It's not your fault we didn't find anything today and its not our fault either. We will try again tomorrow. And the day after tomorrow. And as many days as it takes in as many places. We will find something eventually."

She bared her teeth at me in such an animalistic gesture I felt fierce pride in her being my Packmaster overwhelm me. And then she burst out laughing. Apparently, I had said the right thing. Or felt the right thing. Whatever it was, she hugged me close.

"Thank you, Kismet," she whispered in my ear, for only me to hear. "I'm sorry," she added more loudly and glanced over my shoulder at Wolf, who I could sense slowly relaxing as well.

"Bath, snack and then bed time for you, young lady," I told her with mock sternness.

Her answering pout was just as overemphasised. "Yes, mommy."

But she obediently left the kitchen to head for one of the smaller bathrooms. I waited until she was out of sight. Only then did I sag against the kitchen counter. That had been a lot harder than it would have been for a mere friend. She was my friend and I loved her more than anything else in the world. But she was also my Packmaster. And while I was able to contradict her in a discussion when she expected me to do so, actually standing up to her when she was angry took a lot out of me. It had seemed easy in the moment, but now that she was gone, I felt completely drained. I just wanted to curl up in a corner and cry a little. I was just as disappointed in our lack of success as Ana. It was ridiculous, but I couldn't help but feel like I had failed her somehow by not finding a planet with better ruins. I wanted her to hug me and hold me and tell me it would be alright. But right now, I had to present a strong front for all of our sakes.

I had expected Wolf to follow Ana, like he had done all the time, so I jerked up in surprise when his scent was suddenly much too close to me. Before I could make a move to fight or flee, his large hand gently touched my shoulder. Our connection was still rather unstable, but I didn't feel any threat, just genuine warmth. When I glanced up at him, he had cocked his head to the side and the expression on his face could only be called concerned.

Considering I was still waiting for his challenge to my authority or just the general attack one expects from a rabid dog, it was very confusing. He looked like he cared about me.

"Thank. You." he said in his strangely halting way and one of his ears pointed in the direction Ana had disappeared in to show what he meant.

So he was grateful that I had managed to pull Ana from her funk. That was why he was being nice. He didn't really care about me. He cared about her. That made a lot more sense.

It felt like he wanted to say something else, but once more was struggling to find the words. This time I had no idea what he wanted and couldn't supply any. In the end, he just made a frustrated little grumble, nodded at me and withdrew to the lounge. I felt relief that this strange moment between us was over, but at the same time I missed the heavy comfort of his hand on my shoulder. It was most annoying.

I buried all those feelings pulling me in different directions under work. Preparing a snack for Ana and making sure she ate it before she headed off to bed. Cleaning up the lounge which had become a clutter of various pieces of entertainment and dirty dishes since we had moved in. I washed the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen. By the time I was done, it was several hours later and Ana, Ferret and Wolf were in bed and asleep. I should have felt tired too, but I was still filled with nervous energy.

Bear had not emerged from the cockpit since our return from the ruins. I quietly padded towards the cockpit, armed with a large mug of warm milk, mixed with a generous helping of honey, to follow through on my plan of trying to talk to her. If she was asleep, I'd drink that milk myself and it would hopefully knock me out.

She wasn't asleep. She was squinting at one of the viewscreens and occasionally tapping something on the keyboard. She looked up when I entered, her eyes narrowing for a moment, but then she smelled the milk and her posture relaxed. Milk and honey were the way to go when you were trying to charm a bear. For a second, I wondered why the Packmasters of old had intentionally bred a liking for stereotypical food into us, or if it actually was a leftover from our original animal counterparts. Probably, we would never know.

I handed Bear the mug and settled in the second chair next to her, remaining silent for the time being. She clearly appreciated that as she sipped the milk and gradually relaxed more and more.

We had certainly come a long way since she had first joined the pack. While Ferret had been an accident, we had actively recruited Bear. We had been following any leads on information on Packmasters we could find after we fled the Core worlds. While in the Core, bestiae were bred and kept as rare pets by the elite, out here on the Fringe they were even more rare and owned by whoever stumbled across them, mostly guarded fiercely as prized status symbols in an attempt to emulate the Core. When we had stopped on an derelict space station to change ships, we had been delighted to learn that the station's grumpy old Head Technician owned an equally grumpy old bear bestia helping him with repairs.

With her greying ears and snout, it was obvious that she had to be old enough to have fought in the war. We were so sure she would have a wealth of information for us that Ana didn't hesitate in bonding her. But Bear wasn't the same joyous experience as bonding with me and Ferret had been. Ana later told me that it almost hurt, a piercing feeling, like she had unexpectedly cut herself on a shard or piece of paper.

Bear was damaged. She had lost her Packmaster in the war, she told us in clipped words, and it had torn something out of her when he died. She couldn't remember anything before that moment and even the years afterwards were just a blur of pain and sadness. She had found peace with her job at the station, and while she was as thoroughly bonded to Ana and seemed to slowly be growing fond of her, the bond between her and Ana was weaker than the one Ana had with me or Ferret or now Wolf. Bear's bond to the pack was weaker as well. I already had a clearer sense of Wolf than of her.

I tried to decipher a little of the display on her viewscreen, but it was mostly just numbers to me.

"What are you trying to do?" I asked after a while.

She glanced at me and then sighed deeply. "Scanning that Core Worlder installation. Energy readings are low, but present. Guess there is someone there, but not many." She poked her snout into the mug and licked out the last traces of milk. Then she put the mug on the control board and fully turned to me. "And what do you want, Cat?"

So much for subtlety. I debated with myself whether I should try to approach the subject gently or whether I should straight out ask. Bear didn't like talking about her past. She liked being asked about it even less. But if there was something she was hiding from Ana I needed to know about it.

"When we were in that ruined lab, I almost got the feeling you weren't just guessing. You seemed to remember something."

She was much harder to read than Wolf or Ferret, her ears didn't even twitch. I could barely sense her at all over the bond even though she was sitting right in front of me. Almost like she was blocking me, though that couldn't be deliberate. Probably she was just clamping down on her emotions so hard they became unreadable to me, too.

"I don't remember," she said, after a pause. "It was just ... I felt uneasy, like there was something tugging on a painful memory I couldn't grasp. I was sure of what I said, but I can't tell you why."

That was a lot of words strung together, coming from her. Whatever she had felt down there, it had deeply affected her and she wasn't happy about it. Even though I couldn't feel her emotions, it was clear enough. I reached out and put my hand over hers where it rested on her belly.

"I'm sorry," I said softly. "I didn't want to open old wounds."

Surprisingly, that brought out more of a reaction. She loudly cleared her throat and her second hand came to lie over mine. "Not your fault, Cat," she said, warmly but sad somehow, "never your fault." She smiled at me. "You are doing so well. I wish I could help more."

This conversation wasn't going at all how I had expected. Still, it was far from the complete failure I had been prepared for. Bear had never said anything even remotely encouraging to me. She was always gruff and solitary. That she thought I was doing well – that meant much to me since she had the experience to have a significant opinion. I wasn't sure how to respond to such genuine praise so I settled for the safe reply.

"Thank you."

She just nodded and we sat in silence for a little while. Only when she started to snore softly did I realise that she had fallen asleep. Milk and honey, doing its thing, I thought with a little smirk. My eyes were falling shut as well after the long day, and her snoring was trying to lull me into sleep. I carefully extracted my hand from between hers and tiptoed out of the cockpit to find my own nest.

Hopefully, tomorrow would be a more successful day.

# Chapter 4

Three days and three more trips to the ruins later, we weren't any closer to uncovering anything new about the Packmasters who had lived, worked and presumably died here. The two things we were sure of by now were that the ruins were utterly deserted and that they had been stripped of anything of value.

We had come across several recognizable pieces of architecture, though. Strewn in between the shapeless boulders and waves of rubble were more of those beautifully curving arches. Some might have been doorframes, others handrails or balconies. All of it looked organic, flowing, like pieces of giant petrified plants. Immense reliefs showing irregular patterns of leaves or scales, of clouds or the shapes sunlight occasionally paints on the bottom of a swimming pool. A pile of mangled metal that could have been a giant monument once, thousands of elongated spheres clustering together in a shape that had lost all meaning.

Despite the Core World's thorough attempt at wiping out every last trace of the Packmasters, their architecture at least came to life in our minds – a city like a well tended garden, natural and artificial at the same time, with wide plazas between houses, and a strong sense of a unified style that connected every single building. I took care to take video recordings of the ruins, paying special attention to anything that might be meaningful, but I doubted they would ever prove useful. Too much had been destroyed.

All of us had grown more frustrated each day until we were mainly communicating with annoyed growls and grunts. It strained our bond and, more and more, we were all closing ourselves off from each other. Strangely, Wolf stayed the calmest – probably because he hadn't been with us long enough to really understand what we were looking for and why it was so important. He had no personal stake in it, apart from wanting Ana to be happy.

His mournful looks whenever Ana snapped were driving me up the wall, though. If it annoyed him so bloody much, he could have said something instead of waiting for me to do it for him.

In the end, it was Ana who pulled herself, and us, back together.

When we woke up on our fifth day on Thiala, Ana was already up and had breakfast ready. It was a veritable feast including freshly baked waffles with whipped cream, thick slices of grilled ham and hot milk with honey for all of us. She was smiling, albeit a little tightly, and gestured for us to sit at the large table.

"Eat," she told us, once we were all settled, "and once we are all sated and feel more at peace, we will put the past few days behind us and start discussing what we can do next and what we will do. I will not have this damn, empty field of ruins tear our pack apart."

She was entirely right, of course, and it had to be her who initiated a change. Food was the perfect opening to accomplish it. Especially such nice food. I didn't care that Ana was manipulating all of us as long as she was doing it well. It was her job to do exactly that, after all. She had made our favourite dishes for each of us. Maybe it was her way of apologising for being difficult.

I'll never understand how something as simple as whipped cream can be so utterly delicious. Maybe it had been bred into us intentionally, but that didn't make it any less good. It never failed to make me purr with pleasure, and this time was no exception.

Finally, only Ferret was still licking grease off his fingers while the rest of us were leaning back to give Ana our full attention. She was turning a mug of coffee back and forth in her fingers, staring into it thoughtfully while it steamed up her glasses.

"All right," she said, "I think we all agree that there is nothing left in those ruins that will help us. I also think we agree that the other ruins on this planet will be much the same. If they went through the trouble of stripping away every last scrap in this one, they won't leave a treasure trove in another. They may have missed something, but we could spend years searching and still find nothing. So what do we do now?" She looked up at us, opening the table to any suggestions.

"We could go away?" Ferret immediately piped up hopefully. "I really don't like it here. It's scary."

A valid concern, but not exactly helpful. "What about that research station?" I offered. "If they haven't shipped everything off world, that would be the place where they'd store it." I glanced at Bear to see if she had made any progress in her scans of the place, but she was looking at Ana.

"We have no idea who or what is in there," Ana said, "considering our pack is not exactly heavy on the fighters, I think the risk of trying to break in there is too high."

"Did you get anything new on your scans, Bear?" I asked her directly.

She shrugged. "For its size, the energy output is very low. Probably using only a small part of it. Only two people have left the installation since we arrived, patrolling the perimeter. Armoured, but not in military issue. Private security maybe."

That made sense. "The war was nearly twenty years ago," I said, "even if they initially had plenty of funding, that has probably dried up by now. The Core doesn't see the Packmasters as a threat anymore. Just as an amusing anecdote."

"We don't know that for sure," Ana interrupted me, "we can only guess from what is in the open. They may still be waging a secret war against fully intact Packmaster forces somewhere out there for all we know."

"But we can't act on what might be," I countered, "if it looks like there are only two guards and some scientists at the station, we should go for it. Two guards we can take."

"What if they call for help?" Ana asked.

Bear answered that question. "Even if they have a working hyper-transmitter, any help would have to get here first. Closest Core World military base is a nine hour jump out from here. Few to no patrols they might reach on chance."

"So we have a good window of attack," I concluded.

Once more it was Wolf who agreed with me with a deep growl. It was disturbing how much he seemed to be on my side of any conflict. I didn't know what to make of it. As long as it was general issues and he was doing it to make Ana happy, I could find an explanation for his odd behaviour. But now he was an inch away from contradicting Ana to agree with me. He had no reason to do that. I hated things that I couldn't predict. Especially when those things were huge and had claws and teeth that could rip me to shreds.

Ana was oblivious to my uneasy thoughts. She took off her glasses to polish them slowly. "If we don't go for the station, what are our alternatives?" she asked sensibly.

"We could just go away?" Ferret suggested again. "We have a ship now. We could go far away, find a planet of our own, never come back."

His words made me wince inside. It was what I would have preferred as well. I didn't need to know about Packmasters or their secret lore as long as I had Ana and my pack. But for Ana, it just wasn't an option.

She shook her head. "Maybe one day we will be able to do that," she told Ferret gently, "but first I must know more about how this whole pack and bonding thing works. I need to make sure I'm not doing something wrong that will hurt you in the long run."

Ferret visibly slumped in his seat. "But you are smart and everything. Can't you figure it out on your own?" he made a last effort.

"I'm trying." She reached out to stroke the short fur on top of his head. "But I just ... I feel like I am missing something important."

I had no idea if that was true or if she was just using it as an excuse to allow herself to go on with our search. We could have at least partially followed Ferret's idea and laid low for a while, trying to refine our pack bond and figure out things on our own without the constant pressure of being on the run. At least for a little while. Thinking about it I realised that I would probably grow bored with 'doing nothing much'. But it wasn't what Ana wanted, so it didn't really matter.

"We could go back to the Core and follow the lead on that Fringe World underground network thing. They may have all sorts of secret information we could use," I brought up the other option we had discussed when we had still been looking for Thiala's coordinates. We had come across rumours that there was some sort of secret organisation of Fringe World agents who were plotting secession to be free of the Core corporations' exploitation. It had been my favourite course of action. I liked having lots of options to come up with plans and the Core Worlds provided options in abundance. "They may have all sorts of contacts we can use, too."

"Won't be free, though," Bear commented.

Ana looked doubtful. "It would also be a lot of effort for very uncertain results. I'm pretty sure their goals are not our goals, and they would expect us to take risks for something we don't care about."

"More. Pack?"

We all looked at Wolf in surprise. None of us had expected him to contribute anything to the discussion.

"It's difficult. Bestiae are rare out on the Fringe," Ana explained, "and in the Core Worlds they are well guarded. Plus, I can't bond many more. We have to pick very carefully what kind of talent we need to add to the pack."

I knew all of that. We had discussed it plenty of times. When we added Bear. Again when Ana decided to add Wolf. But it was news to Wolf and he listened to her very carefully and then leaned back to think about what she had said. Odd, odd wolf. Seeing him in the arena had made me expect a violent animal that would only be held in check by Ana's control over him, but by now I had to grudgingly admit that he was much more than that.

"You could contact your parents," I brought up the one thing Ana absolutely didn't want to hear. She forcefully put her glasses back on to glare at me balefully. "They are still looking for you. They are incredibly rich and influential. You are their only child," I listed all the points in favour of the suggestion.

She ticked off her counter arguments on her fingers. "They are only looking for me because they want to reclaim their investment. They will lock all of us into some research lab to find out what makes us tick, including cutting us open. And I would bet my ass they have bought a new kid to take my place by now."

I smiled at her sweetly. "You could have just said 'fuck off!', you know?"

That broke her glare and the tension around the table as she chuckled. "Fuck off, kitty," she told me amiably and then turned back to everyone else. "Any more suggestions?"

"Look for another Packmaster planet?" Bear said, but she didn't sound too thrilled at the idea herself.

Finding Thiala and getting its coordinates had taken us months, and now it looked like it had been a complete waste of time. Not something any of us wanted to repeat.

"As far as I can see it's either go back to the Core or hit that research station," I summed up our options. Everything else was just idle hopes and dreams.

We all looked at Ana for a decision, but she surprised us. "Let's put it to a vote," she said, "it's too important for me to decide on my own." She nodded at me to go first.

"Research station," I said without hesitation. "It would suck if we had to leave empty handed after all the trouble we went through to get here."

"Station," Wolf agreed with me yet again.

This time I wasn't even surprised anymore.

"Run away?" Ferret asked in a small, hopeless voice. When Ana shook her head he hid his face behind his hands. "Then I don't want to vote." He was trembling. Once more Ana reached out and stroked his shoulder.

I wanted to tell him that it would be okay. That he wouldn't have to fight. That no one would get hurt. But I didn't know if that was true. It was a high risk. I just couldn't bring myself to lie to him and apparently Ana couldn't either.

"Bear?" she asked for the last opinion in her pack.

Bear huffed unhappily. "Doesn't matter. Would say Core, but can see how this will shake out."

Ana didn't look much happier. She looked first at me and then at Wolf. "Are you sure we can do this?"

Wolf answered her before I got the chance. "No. But will try."

That he said much the same thing I would have said almost amused me. I nodded when Ana looked at me.

She didn't waste any more time. "Research station it is. Let's make a plan."

***

Surprisingly, nights on Thiala were not that much colder than the days. Bear could probably have explained the physics behind it, but I didn't really want to know and she didn't like explaining things.

We had only ventured out into the ruins in broad daylight, and they had been sufficiently creepy then. None of us wanted to find out what kind of sad, angry ghosts haunted them at night.

But now that we had left the ruins behind, the cover of night would hopefully help us approach the research station unnoticed. Considering they had not reacted to our presence on the planet so far, it was likely their scanners were not that good. Parking the Lollipop far out and then approaching on foot would have been the stealthiest option, but it would also have meant that the way back to the ship would be just as long – and there was a good chance we would have to make a quick escape.

So Bear had carefully manoeuvred the ship in at the lowest possible speed, hugging the ground, and parked her behind a rocky outcropping. She really was a great pilot when she had to be. Hopefully, Ferret was picking up on it by being her constant companion in the cockpit, learning by watching her.

Now, we were lying on top of that outcropping, looking down at the base.

Only a small, flat building and a dusty landing strip were above ground. Both looked deserted with no lights on and no space or air crafts sitting on the landing field. In fact, it looked to be in some disrepair, with a few long cracks running smack through the middle of the tarmac.

If they had noticed us, there was no sign of it.

Next to me, Ana adjusted the night-vision binoculars she had to use. The rest of us could see plenty well in the dark. Apart from Bear of course, but that was a matter of not seeing well anymore in any case and she was back on the ship.

I frowned at Ana in silent displeasure. Once more Wolf and I had been in complete agreement – she should stay on the ship with Bear, while we took Ferret along to break into the base. Naturally, Ana had flat-out refused. If we were going into danger on her behalf, so would she. That her being here would just make things more difficult since we'd constantly keep an eye on her, whether we wanted to or not, didn't change her mind. She could be terribly stubborn and this was such a time. She didn't even bother coming up with any arguments. It was on occasions like this that I wished I was capable of just saying no to her.

At least, she had agreed to stay in the background and she was even carrying a small blaster gun, even though she wasn't very good at using them. None of us were, which definitely was a gap in our pack composition. If we added another bestia, it should really be someone skilled with firearms. Preferably someone who could teach the rest of us, too.

Ana readjusted the binoculars some more and then cursed under her breath when she knocked them against her regular glasses. I wasn't sure what she was looking for. There was nothing to see.

"Go?" Wolf growled from her other side.

Was he starting to read my thoughts now? For a moment, I felt the irrational urge to suggest something completely stupid just to hear him disagree. I didn't, of course. Instead I forced myself to calm down and tune into the pack bond more. By now, Wolf had become a steady part of it and I was able to sense him much better. What I sensed now was a reflection of my own emotions of curiosity and eagerness to get started.

Ana grumbled something too low to understand. I clearly sensed how worried she was and that it was her worries keeping her immobile. But we wouldn't accomplish anything by lying here and watching all night. She hadn't really said no, either, so I made the decision for her.

"Yes." I rose into a crouch and moved forward before Ana could voice any objections. Thiala didn't have any moons, so starlight was the only illumination. Plenty for me to see by, but not enough to reflect on my lighter fur.

I sensed Wolf follow me just as stealthily. It felt good. More than good – I felt a rush of pleasant excitement run through my veins, turning the night from a place of incalculable danger to a playground. It took me a moment to understand what I was feeling, but then I bared my teeth in a hungry smile. I was hunting. Hunting with my pack. For the first time, there was someone behind me that I could trust to have my back in a fight. It was exhilarating. A feeling of strength I hadn't known I could experience.

When I glanced back at Wolf, I wasn't surprised to see my own feelings mirrored in his eyes. He looked as hungry and powerful as I felt, and it was a good thing. He gave me the same toothy smile, a shared secret, just between the two of us.

Maybe I would go back to not trusting him after this mission was completed. For now, I allowed myself to fully fall into our bond.

We reached the small building without any reaction from inside. Everything remained dark. Was it really possible that they hadn't noticed us at all? Or were they preparing some sort of ambush inside?

The building itself was made of sturdy steelcrete, the standard building material used by Core World military. There were no windows, just an equally sturdy metal gate, high and wide enough for larger pieces of equipment. It was secured with a rather old fashioned keypad lock. According to Bear's scans, the inside was just as bare with only an elevator bank connecting to the underground levels.

We waited next to the door for a moment before I waved for Ferret to join us. Locks were his field of expertise. Hopefully, he'd get it open without raising any alarms. Ferret quickly scurried over to our position, tripping only once, while Ana for once behaved and stayed back, like I had asked her to.

I gently reached out and steadied Ferret when he reached us. Poor kid was trembling all over. He really, really didn't want to be here and I felt bad for making him do it, but we had no other option. We needed his skills.

"You can do this," I told him and stroked his fur like Ana always did to calm him down.

Ferret ran his hands over his whiskers repeatedly, smoothing them back. It was his way of relieving tension. "I can do this," he muttered, "I can totally do this. It's just a lock." He peered at the lock and visibly relaxed. "Oh, that's easy," he said and grinned up at me, switching his mood as quickly as a blink. He rummaged in his tool bag for a second, then hooked some sort of needle on a wire into the lock and started tapping away on the small device the wire connected to. "Easy as stealing candy," he whispered, "easy as stealing apples, easy as stealing cheese, easy as stealing..."

The lock beeped open obediently before we could learn what else was easy to steal. Ferret jumped back with a squeak.

Wolf stepped in, pushed open one wing of the gate and we peered inside.

Inside, glow-panels under the ceiling flickered to life. A few of them stayed dark, though, probably broken. This place really was in bad shape when they didn't even bother changing glow-panels. The elevator bank was opposite the door. One was clearly used for personnel, while the other had much larger doors so you could fit large cargo containers through. Neither of the elevators seemed to be secured in any way. There was a camera mounted over the elevators, but it was hanging down, pointed at the floor and looking very dead. Most of the room was covered in dust. Only a path leading to the personnel elevator was cleared by regular traffic.

I was tempted to just go in, step into the elevator and go down while conveniently forgetting to call Ana over. The knowledge that she would be safe was almost worth the fact that she would never forgive me. I didn't, of course. Instead I let Wolf enter first and take up a position that would allow him to attack anything that came out of one of the elevators. Then I waved to Ana.

It took her painfully long to climb down from the rocks and make her way over to the building. She wasn't made for this. She was just a human, after all. When she stood next to me, she gave me a sheepish smile, fully aware of how clumsy she must have looked. But she hadn't turned back either. Terribly stubborn, indeed.

I went inside as well and joined Wolf. Ferret made sure he stayed outside and out of sight, but Ana peeked through the door. When she noticed me frowning at her, though, she withdrew as well. Both elevators had simple call buttons. I pressed the one for the personnel version.

"Too. Easy?" Wolf asked in a rumble low enough that only I could hear him.

He was right. My fur felt like I had touched a live wire and I couldn't stop my tail from swishing nervously. Was it really possible that whoever was down there was paying so little attention that they hadn't noticed us at all? My mind was displaying plenty of horror scenarios from us getting shot as soon as we stepped out of the elevator to said elevator simply filling with sleeping gas while we were inside of it to a squad of heavily armed Core military jumping out as soon as it finally arrived. Now we could still turn back and run. But as soon as we went down, we would be trapped. My instincts screamed at me to run.

At the same time, I was intensely curious what kind of treasures and mysteries they might have hoarded down below. Most of what they had taken from the ruins had probably been removed offworld to the Core. But something must remain or this station wouldn't be here at all. At least so I hoped.

"I don't know," I answered honestly. Wolf wasn't questioning my decision and he wasn't asking for reassurance either. He was sharing his thoughts with a pack mate, a fellow hunter. If there was an ambush down there, I felt much more confident facing it with him.

After what seemed like an eternity, the elevator door opened with the agonised whine of metal on metal. It needed oiling. Badly. But there was no sleeping gas, and no Core military. Apart from a crumpled up beer can, the elevator was empty. This place really was a dump. At least, all the glow-panels inside worked.

I shared another long look with Wolf, silently debating whether to get in, but once more we arrived at the same conclusion. If we turned back now, we would always regret it. Looking over my shoulder I found both Ana and Ferret peeking through the door and both immediately put on the same adorably innocent smiles. Too curious for their own good.

"Oh, come on then," I grumbled and stepped into the elevator.

Wolf and I stood by the door with Ana and Ferret behind us. I pressed the single down button. The doors closed with the same whine and I felt Ferret wince behind me. The elevator rumbled to life and started a tortuously slow descent. I started silently counting in my head and got to twelve before the elevator stopped again.

The doors opened onto a dimly lit corridor with walls cut straight from the orange bedrock. At some point, many years ago, someone had gone through the trouble of painting them grey. Now most of the paint had flaked off, making it look as though there was grey mould clinging to the walls. Just as above, not all of the glow-panels worked and they were all set to low light, probably to conserve energy.

There were doors leading off the corridor, and up ahead it led into what appeared to be a larger, brightly lit room. Music was playing there, some recording of Core World pop music that had gone out of style years ago. We all jerked when a deep, rough voice joined in the refrain, singing along. He had lots of practise with the words, but he couldn't sing to save his life, I thought. This was either the most brilliant set up for a trap I had ever seen or they really had no idea we were coming.

Wolf and I crept forward, staying close to the corridor's walls, with Ana and Ferret hanging back near the elevator. Each door we passed made my back itch harder, but we really didn't have the time to check every one of them. Taking out that awful singer before he could notice us was our priority now. When we reached the end of the corridor, we both peered through the open doorway, trying to stay hidden as much as possible.

Once it must have been a guardroom. There were monitor banks on one wall, but all of them were turned off. The command console at the centre of the room had been covered with a large wooden board and converted into a table. It was stacked high with beer cans and empty, standard-issue frozen meal boxes. A large and very dirty sofa had been moved into the room and was currently occupied by two men and a blaring portable music box. The smaller one, a thin guy with stringy black hair and a scruffy beard, was drinking beer. The larger one was ruddy-faced and bald, covered in cheap tattoos and singing at the top of his lungs. Both wore armoured camo pants and tank tops of decidedly non-military quality. Their equally armoured jackets lay discarded on the floor together with their weapons belts, holding their blaster guns and knives.

Wolf and I were quite capable of recognising prey at a severe disadvantage. For a brief moment, it crossed my mind that these two men were just doing a job, that maybe they were good men with family somewhere who depended on them. I discarded that thought. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time and they were in Ana's way.

We nodded at each other, quickly agreeing on who would target which of the two guards.

Wolf stormed forward like a runaway train, just going in a straight line, in for the kill. It was so far away from my own method that I actually lost a second just staring at him from the corner of my eye. But his single-minded focus pulled me back on target immediately. For the first time in my life, two of my knives were out in my hands without me thinking about them.

Unlike Wolf, I didn't charge directly, but a little to the right at first. I used an old crate as a stepping stone and vaulted myself over the sofa, coming down on the skinny guy before he even had any chance to realise I was above him. Unfortunately, he had noticed Wolf charging in half a second earlier and reacted to him – by rising up from his comfy dent in the couch to get a better look at what was happening. Which meant that he bumped into me halfway in the descent intended to kill him.

Hissing in anger, I managed to correct my fall at least a little so I didn't just crash into the guy. Having a fluffy tail sometimes does come in really handy when trying to manoeuver midfall. But instead of neatly cutting his throat, I only managed to cut two deep gouges into the man's back. My left dagger must have snagged on a rib or something, because it got wrenched out of my hand and fell somewhere between the grimy pillows.

I landed on the backrest of the couch, wobbly but still a lot more gracefully than a human would have ever been able to. Wolf had pulled his target down to the floor, and judging by sound alone, he was busy ripping his throat out. In a way, I was glad I didn't have to see it in detail. I only hoped Ferret was smart enough to look away, too.

My target was slowly turning around, confused and in pain. His eyes widened when he finally comprehended that there was a cat bestia crouching on his sofa, quite clearly intent on killing him. Maybe it was bloodlust spilling over from Wolf, but instead of jumping and finishing him right there, I grinned at him, teeth bared.

He took a step back and began to raise his hands, but I didn't really care. Taking my dagger in both hands now, I jumped at him again. This time, I didn't miss. His eyes, wide with horror, locked with mine. My dagger found the exact place I had been aiming for, right between his throat and collarbone, and I felt the metal bite deep into flesh and scrape along bone and cartilage.

For a heartbeat, we just stood there, as if we were embracing and not just waiting for one of us to die. But then movement at the far end of the room caught my attention. The door in the rear had opened, and a tiny old lady in a white lab coat stood in the doorway, brandishing the biggest blaster gun I had ever seen. She aimed the damned thing right at me, it's muzzle glowing deep blue from within.

Entangled as I still was with my prey, I had little chance of just jumping away. I didn't have the strength to push his body off me, so I allowed gravity to take over. We both went down like sacks of potatoes, and I even managed to turn and place him between me and gunslinger granny.

It saved my life. She didn't waste one second, but fired as soon as she possibly could. A bright blue flare the size of a fist left the muzzle of her gun, crossing the room fast enough to hit my meatshield even before the two of us had hit the ground. The impact felt like getting kicked by a giant, and left dark red afterimages dancing in front of my eyes.

A dark shadow flew over me and tackled the old woman. Wolf swiped away her weapon so the second shot only took out a few more glow-panels. His next move ripped out her throat, long arcs of blood and viscera flying through the air as if in slow motion.

Only then a nagging sensation in my left arm managed to get my attention. I looked down only to realise that the corpse of the skinny guard hadn't protected me as well as I had hoped – on my left shoulder, a piece of flesh the size of my palm was missing, with charred red flesh surrounded by singed fur, a bit of scorched bone was visible as well.

I stared down at my shoulder in mute shock. Seeing and smelling the burned flesh was just unreal. It didn't even hurt that much. Not yet at least, probably my body was still trying to comprehend what had just happened to it. I had never been shot before. The worst wound I had ever sustained was a deep cut to my forearm from a would-be robber in a dark alley when I had defended Ana. I even had time to wonder whether my fur would grow back in the same colours when it healed before the pain set in. Then I yowled in agony as every nerve in my arm and torso seemed to catch fire at once. Ridiculously, I felt the urge to claw at it and rip off whatever it was that was hurting me so badly.

Suddenly Wolf was above me, holding me down with his sheer weight as he sat on top of me. He said something, but I couldn't understand and just hissed at him in mindless rage and panic. I wanted to fight him off, but he was simply too heavy, even though he was using only one hand to keep me down.

Desperately, I tried to focus through the pain and panic. He was my brother, my friend, he was trying to help me – I was completely sure of that and gradually realised that I knew this because our bond was still wide open.

As was my bond with Ana. She was standing in the doorway of the corridor, both hands clasped before her mouth, her eyes impossibly wide behind her glasses. It was her panic that was overwhelming me, I suddenly understood. She thought I was dying.

Wolf was shouting something at her, but with his emotions high and muffling his speech even more than usual, and her in shock, he wasn't getting through to her at all.

I tried to breathe, tried to force down the pain, tried to close myself off from Ana. But it wasn't really working and I lashed out against Wolf again, my body acting on its own.

Then Ferret darted next to Ana, ripped the bag she had slung over one shoulder from her and frantically started rummaging through its contents. I felt like two people at once – the hissing and struggling thing on the floor and myself, calmly observing. Ferret extracted a red and white box from the bag and dashed over to Wolf, already opening it. A first aid kit, I realised. That was what Wolf had been shouting for.

Details stood out starkly to me. Like how Ferret was biting the tip of his tongue so hard was he concentrating on what he was doing. Like the fact that I had seen the spray can he was taking from the kit before in advertisements on TV when I had still been someone's harmless pet. 'Miracle Mend' it said on the label. That single can was worth a small fortune. Where had Ana gotten it?

The world snapped back into focus as Ferret generously sprayed the large burn on my shoulder. The pain was gone instantly as the potent healing agent numbed the wound and I watched as it seeped in and built a protective film. It wasn't technically a magic potion, but to my uneducated mind its effect seemed magical. It would heal me in a couple of hours, regrowing flesh and skin.

Ferret was still merrily spraying away.

"Stop," I coughed at him. My throat felt raw from screaming, but I wouldn't let him waste the precious stuff.

He blinked at me in confusion, he probably hadn't even understood what I said and if he did he would think I was still delirious with pain.

Wolf's big hand closed over Ferret's much smaller one and took the spray can from him. "Enough," he told Ferret gently. He was still sitting on top of me and while I was very grateful for how he had not only saved my life but also acted with a lot of sense, it was getting hard to breathe.

I pushed at him clumsily, but with much less violence than before. Once more he immediately caught on and moved off me.

"Is he...? Will he...?" Ferret muttered, glancing back and forth between me and Wolf.

"Fine," I groaned and sat up, "I'm ... uh..."

The ground did a wild dance beneath my butt, trying to shake me off. Wolf's big hand steadied me. He was grinning now, and over our bond I felt a rush of his happiness at seeing me alive and of his pride in me, which I couldn't quite understand. Why would he be proud of me?

"Kis-," Ana's whisper stopped just before she could speak my true name in front of everyone, "Cat?" she instead asked. She rushed to my side, finally free from her shocked stupor. Tears were streaming down her face and she was trying to speak, but only meaningless sounds came out when she knelt next to me. Her arms were fluttering helplessly as she clearly wanted to hug me close and never let me go, but didn't want to hurt me. I slung one arm around her awkwardly and she melted against me, sobbing.

The priceless stuff Ferret had sprayed on me so generously was doing marvellous things to me. Even though I could hardly move my arm, nothing hurt, my mind felt sharp and clear and I was full of energy and zest. When I looked down at my shoulder again, I could see tissue slowly knit under the protective film. It looked just as amazing and creepy as it had in that TV spot and I didn't feel a thing. Ferret was watching with just as much fascination, I noticed.

Wolf was stuffing the spray can back into the first aid kit and then got up. My mind snapped back into working mode and to the fact that we were in hostile territory. Sitting on the ground between the corpses of two guards and one elderly bitch who had almost killed me wasn't the most defensible position. High time to get moving.

I gently peeled Ana off my side. There was no way to shake her with one arm hanging at my side uselessly. But she was slowly calming down and blinking at me. "Ana, I'm alive," I told her and nudged her nose with mine. Time to distract her with something. "Where the fuck did you get that Miracle Mend? Why didn't you tell me you had it?"

She blinked at me in owlish confusion. She obviously had no idea what I was talking about. Ferret came to her rescue. "I got it from the medbay safe and put it in the kit," he confessed and ducked his head like he was expecting punishment. "Ana didn't know it was there."

"You broke into the medbay safe?" He nodded and opened his mouth to apologise, but I didn't let him. Now it was his turn for an one-armed hug. "Well done!"

Ferret instantly relaxed and giggled happily. "I read the label and thought it might come in handy," he babbled, "and when you were, you know ... and ... well ... I thought now would be the time..."

"You did great." Ana wrapped her arms around both of us, forming a big, awkward huddle. "You saved Cat."

An extended cuddle session hadn't really been my plan. I glanced over at Wolf for help. He was busy searching one of the guards for weapons and valuables, but when he sensed my attention on him he grinned at me, clearly amused and relieved that I was okay at the same time.

With the application of some not so gentle force I managed to extricate myself from Ana and Ferret. "We can snuggle if and when we make it back to the ship," I told both of them as sternly as I could, which sounded quite convincing with the rasp my voice had gained from screaming.

Ferret jumped to his feet immediately. "Okay, what do you need me to do?" The fact that he had helped heal me and been commended for it apparently did wonders for his confidence. For the moment, his normal, timid, trembling self was forgotten.

"Help." Wolf answered for me and gestured at the other guard.

Ana remained sitting on the floor. Her hands were shaking when she took off her glasses to wipe away her tears. She needed a moment to get herself back under control so I didn't object when she started cleaning her glasses.

I got to my feet and moved over to the scientist lady who would probably have killed me if her aim had been a little better. While my shoulder didn't hurt anymore, my left arm hung numb and useless at my side, so I tugged my left hand into the waistband of my trousers and ignored it for the time being. What or whoever else was down here, Wolf would have to deal with it. I was in no condition to fight. That no one else had shown up yet could mean that there was no one else or that they had holed up somewhere when they heard the noise of fighting.

From up close, the scientist looked humiliatingly unthreatening. She was quite old and rather frail. Her white hair had been pulled back into a bun, but it had come undone when Wolf slashed her throat and now it lay fanned out in a pool of blood around her head nearly severed head. It looked quite grizzly, like a scene of some horror movie. Like someone had murdered a harmless grandmother. Even though she had tried to kill me, the thought made me feel a stab of guilt. The blaster gun she had used to shoot at me lay further away, flung from her hands. It looked much too big for her and she didn't look like someone who had ever wielded a gun. She had probably picked it so she would have an easier time hitting anything at all with the wider shots.

Her white lab coat was drenched in blood as well. I crouched down next to her and gingerly checked her pockets. After smelling my own burned flesh, the overpowering scent of blood was even more nauseating. A slim, silver case with expensive looking cigarettes, several pens, a small notebook – its pages bloodied now as well – and a keycard. I pocketed everything and carefully wiped the card clean. The name printed on it was 'Dr. S. Meyers'. Hers? Maybe her notes would tell me later.

When I got up again, Wolf stepped next to me. He held out my knives to me, both of them cleaned. I took them and carefully put them back in their sheaths. Only after he had already turned away again to pick up the large blaster gun, did I realise I hadn't even thanked him and he obviously hadn't expected it either. It felt just natural.

"Right," I said to all of them, "let's check the doors we have already passed and then we'll move on."

Wolf handed the gun he had picked up to Ana, who had just been starting to get up. She held it like it would turn on her, so he gently adjusted her grip and pointed the gun at the door the scientist had come through. "You. Guard." he told her.

She glanced at me pleadingly, but Wolf was absolutely right. She was best suited for keeping an eye on that door with that huge gun while we checked behind us. So I nodded and then went back into the corridor.

Maybe there was no need for Wolf to challenge me when we agreed anyway. Maybe we could just do this together.

It didn't take us long. Most of the rooms were empty storage. It made sense to have them close to the cargo elevator. Once they had probably been filled with all sorts of supplies, but now all they held was a few boxes that had not been touched in years and lots of dust. One room must have been the armoury, with racks for guns, rifles and armour, but it was emptied completely.

Ana had moved onto the couch, away from the corpses of the guards, when we returned. She had also mostly calmed down and was holding the gun steadily pointed at the open doorway. She gave us a tight little smile. "Nothing to report."

I felt irrationally proud of her.

With Wolf in the lead, we, one by one, stepped over the scientist lady's corpse and started exploring the rest of the complex. Beyond the guardroom, it was a warren of labs, offices, private and group quarters and meeting rooms. Most looked abandoned, but a few were still in use and in the labs we at last found what we had been looking for.

Various pieces of arcane looking tech held in secure crates or hooked up to analysis equipment, containers holding heaps of data chips, and boxes with printed files and lots and lots of photos and holo recordings showing various bestiae, both alive and dead. After not finding anything for so long, it was overwhelming. Both Ana and I were trying to look at everything at once. It was the motherlode of information and it was so hard not to get stuck on any one piece of fascinating data. It would be even harder to decide what to take with us.

What we did not find, though, were any more scientists or guards. Apparently, the old lady had been the only one left here and had hired the two mercenaries after the Core military had abandoned the project.

Most of the doors to the various offices and labs were unlocked and the few that weren't easily yielded to the keycard I had taken off the scientist. But at the back end of the complex, we found a set of heavy security doors that refused to open, with a keypad next to them and some sort of scanner. Ferret got to work on it with his needled tool again. This time it took him a lot longer than with the entrance lock topside.

Wolf used the time to go up to the surface and let Bear know that we were still alive and looting the base. When he returned and Ferret still wasn't finished, he patrolled the corridors, looking for threats. I started picking out the most portable stuff like the data chips and packing it up. Ana found a booted up computer in the lab that looked like it was being used the most, judging from the many mugs filled with different amounts of cold coffee, half-eaten frozen meals and overflowing ashtrays. Science lady had obviously not taken very good care of herself.

There was also a stack of paper notebooks, filled with a tight, barely legible scrawl, all marked as the property of Dr. S. Meyers. So that really had been her name. Journals, Ana and I guessed. I thumbed through one, but when I didn't find anything interesting on first glance, I just packed the whole stack into a crate for easy transport.

The first thing Ana noticed was that Dr. Meyers had indeed sent out a distress signal before she had grabbed that huge gun to shoot me. Suddenly, gathering as much as possible as quickly as possible became a priority. By Bear's reckoning, we only had a few hours until Core World military would show up to check. If they showed up at all at this forsaken place, but that wasn't a risk we could take.

I didn't even notice the time passing, so intent was I on my work. Only when Ferret appeared in the doorway of the room I was filching currently, did I look up.

"Cat?" he said. His eyes were huge and round with a mix of wonder and fear and he was nervously chewing on his lower lip. "You need to come look at this."

He led me to the door he had now unlocked. It opened to another lab, only this one was meticulously clean. It was split in two halves by a wall of security glass. Our side of the glass was dominated by control consoles with view screens and displays of various sizes, all of them up and displaying a steady stream of unchanging data, as far as I could tell. The other half held only a single item – a huge cryo cylinder, standing upright, with lots of tubes and cables attached to it.

"That lock hadn't been opened in over fifteen years," Ferret told me in a hushed voice. "It was gene-locked. I don't think anyone here had the codes to get in."

I didn't even bother asking how he had managed to crack it. We all had our special talents.

"What is that?" he asked, pointing at the cryo cylinder.

Only one way to find out. I went over to the consoles and started studying the displays. Maybe they had a special bestia in stasis in there? All the displays referred to it as 'Subject 4', but when I opened a few files I realised what was really trapped in there.

"Get Ana," I told Ferret, feeling breathless with excitement.

Another Packmaster. One who had been in stasis for over nineteen years. One who had fought in the war. One who had been alive before the war. None of the data could possibly be as valuable as someone we could actually ask questions. They had apparently studied him, trying to figure out how he ticked. There was lots of raw data and some preliminary conclusions from what I could skim quickly. Something about modifications to his genes, resulting in a different set of pheromones and indecipherable changes to his brain.

Ana rushed in with Ferret.

"Ferret has found a frozen Packmaster for you," I said and grinned at her triumphantly.

She stared at me in mute astonishment, then at the cryo tank and back at me.

"Packmaster popsicle?" Ferret asked, giggling.

That jerked Ana out of her shock and she whacked Ferret companionably. She stepped next to me to peer at the displays. "Are you sure it's safe?" she asked. "I mean, how long has he been in there? Can we just wake him up?"

She didn't wait for me to reply, but instead started tapping buttons.

"I have no idea," I answered her honestly, "but considering that we don't have much time I think it's a risk we have to take."

"According to this, the safe wake up routine will take five hours," Ana muttered unhappily.

"Too long," I said and she nodded.

"Emergency wake up takes two hours but may, I quote, 'inflict nerve damage, inflict brain damage, will result in severe nausea and subject will be confused and dazed for hours or days'," she read aloud. She glanced at me and then back at the display. "Here we go." She stabbed her finger at the execute button like piercing a foe with a dagger.

The room came to life with additional lights switching on, displays now showing a countdown, the control data on the screen was changing and an annoying squawking sound playing from hidden speakers. Behind the glass wall, control lamps on the cryo cylinder blinked in warning lights.

"How do we get in there?" Ana asked belatedly. It took her a little while to figure out that the glass wall actually had a seamless door that could be activated from the control console. She opened it and all three of us stepped through to take a closer look.

I had never seen a cryo tank from up close. They were rare, used by ultra rich Core Worlders who, for whatever reason, decided to skip a few decades, or to imprison and store people the Core considered very dangerous and at the same time very useful to keep them fresh.

It was made from a dull, dark grey metal, with a few displays and control lights. There was no window to peer inside at the Packmaster who had been trapped in it for nearly two decades. According to the data about 'Subject 4', he was a little over forty years old and had been captured during the clean up on the planet's surface after the bombing.

How would he react when he realised that he had missed almost twenty years? How would he react to the fact that his people had been wiped out, that he and Ana might well be the last Packmasters alive? How would he cope with losing his entire pack? I couldn't begin to imagine what it would do to Ana if she lost all of us when the mere thought of my death had sent her into shock. How would we react to him? We had never been exposed to another Packmaster but Ana. Would we feel bonded with him as well? I could imagine that even less. Ana was everything to me.

"Right," Ana said, visibly pulling herself away from the cryo cylinder. "We're wasting time standing here staring at the countdown tick by. Let's pack up everything we can carry and put it in the cargo elevator. Once he wakes up, we get him and then we go back up and get out of here. If Core military shows up here, I want to be safely jumped out when they arrive."

It was good to see her cope with her shocks and surprises so well. She was taking command again and I was happy to obey, now that the direct threat of combat was dealt with. I went back to packing data chips into crates and Wolf carried them back to the cargo lift, while Ferret helped Ana download even more data from various computers.

We were working well together until I started getting dizzy. Whatever drugs the Miracle Mend had added to my system, they were clearly wearing off. My shoulder was still numb and, while I hadn't been paying attention, it had already healed quite a bit. But now the artificial sharpness of my mind was dimming and I was getting clumsy. I would probably just have carried on anyway, but Wolf caught me nearly falling out of my chair when I dropped a chip and tried to reach down for it. He could have told Ana and gotten her to deal with me, but he didn't. Instead he gently pressed me back into the chair.

"No." he told me. "Rest."

It should have made me bristle and hiss at him, that he thought he knew what was best for me, but his genuine care was so obvious and I felt so tired. I just knew that he would be there to catch me, and I couldn't bring myself to care. I leaned back my head, determined to take only a short break. I expected Wolf to carry on, but when he remained standing next to me I looked up at him questioningly. He seemed to be searching for words.

"Need you. Strong." he said. "Here." He pointed at my heart. "Here." He pointed at my brow.

He probably meant smart and able to deal with emotional messes that might arise from having a second Packmaster on board of the Lollipop. It was the most words he had strung together yet and he looked proud that he had managed to do it.

I smiled up at him tiredly. "I will be," I promised, hoping that I would be able to keep that promise. Once more I had no idea what we were getting into and no plan on how to deal with it. But that was starting to feel normal.

He still didn't leave. "I help." he offered and for the first time, I just took that at face value. Not as a threat to my authority or him mocking me somehow. There was only one appropriate answer.

"Thank you."

He nodded and picked up two more crates and carried them away. Apparently, we would be friends and brothers whether I wanted to or not. And all things considered, I wanted to.

It felt like I had just closed my eyes when Ferret scurried in and shook me awake. But at least half an hour had passed since he had excitedly announced: "Popsicle is almost ready to wake up!"

"Please don't call him that when he can hear it," I muttered, rubbing sleep from my eyes. "Ever."

He made a rude sound, smacking his lips. "Of course not."

I heaved myself up from the chair I had been dozing in. I was still feeling sluggish and slightly dizzy, but the little nap had done a world of good for my mind and cleared it of that annoying fog that made me stupid. My shoulder was tingling and itching and when I looked down at it, I saw that new skin was already starting to grow at the edge of the wound. The protective film was starting to crack around the new skin and the urge to start picking at it was nearly overwhelming. Somehow, I managed not to stare at it and instead focused on Ferret and followed him back to the cryo chamber.

Ana and Wolf were there already, watching the last few seconds on the countdown tick by. Both smiled at me with equal measures of fondness when we walked in. It was still an eerie expression on Wolf, but I was getting used to it.

"Readouts say that there is no brain damage," Ana said hopefully.

Wouldn't that be fun? We finally found a Packmaster old enough to have all the information we so desperately wanted and then we managed to fry his brains defrosting him. Of course I didn't say that out loud since it was clearly what all of us were thinking anyway.

I half expected the cryo unit to announce the completion of the wake up process with the same beep a microwave would use to tell you your pizza was done, but instead it just did an extra loud squawk and then stopped. The cryo cylinder hissed loudly as it started to open and cold fell from it in a white cloud. The front split into two halves, which pulled back soundlessly.

The man revealed inside wasn't what I had expected. For some reason I had expected some sort of larger-than-life hero. Some sort of great soldier maybe. Or a sharp faced general type with greying temples. But it turned out to be a very average looking guy in a baggy grey jumpsuit. Dark blond hair buzzed close to the skull, a large nose, overall looking to be slightly on the flabby side.

I inhaled deeply, curious whether his scent would have any effect on me. He smelled of antiseptics and faintly of man. There was nothing pleasant about his smell, nothing that triggered any sort of reaction at all. Just an ordinary man. It made me wonder whether he really was a Packmaster after all. I glanced at the others and found Wolf and Ferret looking just as puzzled as I felt.

Ana however was staring at the man in obvious awe. Her eyes were wide behind her glasses and while I watched she started blinking rapidly and raised her hand to her temple like she was feeling for something only she could sense. Maybe we couldn't sense anything because we were already bonded to her.

"Ana?" I asked softly. She didn't react so I touched her shoulder to get her attention.

She turned to me with a radiant smile. "This is amazing! It's like ... can you feel it? Like a whole new ... something..." she babbled excitedly.

"No, we're not getting anything from him." I and the other two nodded. "It's a Packmaster then?"

"Oh, yes! Definitely!"

A groggy moan from the cryo tank interrupted her and we all turned to look at the man slowly opening his eyes, staring right past us, unfocused and confused. His arms made a jerky motion forward, but they were secured inside the cylinder with metal straps as were his torso, neck and legs. He was conscious, but just like the emergency wake up program had predicted, he seemed too confused to even speak.

"Alright," I said, "let's get him and us out of here. Everything else can wait until we are safely back aboard the Lollipop."

We found the controls to unlock the holding straps and Wolf carefully caught the man when he collapsed forward out of the cryo tank. He couldn't stand and much less walk, so Wolf simply picked him up like he didn't weigh any more than a child. He groaned and thrashed feebly, but that quickly subsided, his meagre strength spent.

I had one more quick look around the cryo chamber whether there was something important we had missed and should be taking with us, but didn't find anything. We headed back to the cargo elevator where the others had packed everything we were going to steal while I had taken my nap.

The ride back up was just as agonisingly slow as the one down.

It felt like we had spent a small eternity underground, so much had happened, but when we stepped out of the building, the night was still as dark as it had been when we went down. Only a few short hours had passed. Which was a good thing, considering there might be Core military on its way to find out what had gone wrong on this forsaken ball of rock.

It reminded me of those movies where brave explorers or soldiers are sent out exactly on such a mission, to follow a distress signal from some lonely base. When they arrive, everything seems creepily quiet and they find the dismembered bodies of the station's crew. And then, while they are trying to figure out what happened, they get picked off one by one by some monster or virus and die off. Whoever came here would find the deserted station and dismembered crew, only we wouldn't still be here to pick them off and murder them.

How odd to be on the other side of the movie, in a way.

I was pleasantly surprised when I found that Bear had moved the ship onto the base's landing strip, so we didn't have to walk far. While Wolf was carrying our greatest prize, Ana and Ferret picked up the first from the stack of crates. I tried to do the same, but pain lanced through my arm the moment I tried to use it. I tried to hide it by swallowing my yelp, but that was a silly idea of course. All three of them were looking at me with deep reproach when I glanced up. They'd felt my pain over the pack bond.

"Ship. Now." Wolf ordered me calmly and strode away with his burden without another glance back, giving me no chance to argue.

I bared my teeth at his back, but I followed him meekly. Even though the Lollipop was so much closer, it felt like a long way to walk. My body had used up the last of the stimulating drugs and now only the painkillers remained. The energy I had drawn from my short nap was used up as well. I wanted to help, but much more than that I wanted to lie down and just sleep for a few years. So I stumbled along.

Bear was waiting for us at the hatch. An expression of horror passed over her face and flashed through the bond when she caught sight of us. I had to look even worse than I felt.

"I'm fine," I told her when I had managed to climb up the ramp. "Really, it's already healing, see? I just need some rest. No need to worry."

She grumbled something unintelligible. Luckily, Ana distracted her by asking her to help with getting all the crates from the cargo lift and allowed me to slip past her. I had no idea where Wolf had gone with the defrosted Packmaster and really couldn't bring myself to care. I just needed to sit down for a few minutes to catch my breath. I wasn't even sure how I reached the lounge, but the huge soft couches were a gift from heaven. Perfect to curl up on and just close my eyes for a little bit.

# Chapter 5

Waking up was deeply confusing. I was wrapped in Ana's scent, but I didn't sense her anywhere near me. I snapped awake instantly and tried to sit up. Something clung to me, impeding my movement. I wrestled with it blindly for a moment, until I realised that it was one of the thick fur blankets that decorated the beds in the guest cabins. It smelled of Ana all over. It must have been the one she had been sleeping under since we stole the Lollipop.

I was still lying on the huge couch in the lounge I had fallen asleep on. Probably Ana herself had covered me with her blanket precisely so I would wake to a comforting scent. I felt rather stupid for my little scare, but luckily no one had witnessed it.

The lounge was empty apart from me. From the kitchen, I heard a hushed voice - Ferret's familiar chirping. The familiar rumble of the ship's engines was back, so I had slept through our take-off and probably through the beginning of our jump as well. Considering how well rested I felt, I must have slept several hours.

I glanced down at my shoulder to gauge how much time had passed. The wound itself was largely healed now, but at some point the Miracle Mend must have run out of steam. The centre of the formerly gaping hole was covered by a scab under the remains of the protective film. And the whole newly grown skin around it was pink and naked as a human's. It looked quite gross. I poked at it with a finger. It was tender, but it didn't hurt.

Hopefully my fur would grow back. The thought that my shoulder might remain so ugly made me shudder with revulsion. My shirt was now missing one sleeve, so I needed to find a new one that would cover the embarrassing bald spot. When I had explored the utility rooms, I had found a supply of servant tunics, but I also had a long-sleeved shirt in my pack so I even had several options to pick from.

Obviously, I also needed to find out what I had missed while I was asleep, I belatedly added it to my to-do list. And find some food, my stomach announced with an angry growl.

I disentangled myself from the clingy blanket – more successfully now that I was fully awake – and padded over to the kitchen. Ferret was multitasking. He was cutting very thin slices from a huge, expensive-looking ham on the bone with a wickedly sharp knife while telling Wolf the story of how we had stolen the key codes for the Lollipop. Wolf was leaning against the kitchen counter, nibbling at one of the slices, clearly taking his time to savour it and listening. Seeing such a huge, hulking beast eat so daintily was simply endearing.

Both of them turned to me when I came in.

"Oh," Ferret's ears drooped like he had committed some major crime and been caught by Ana at it. "Did we wake you? I'm so sorry. Ana told us not to wake you."

I smiled at him and then snagged a slice of ham. "You didn't wake me. How long have I been asleep anyway? Feels like hours." I sniffed the ham and purred. That was some divine stuff. I bit into it just as reverently as Wolf was eating his and once more I found myself completely agreeing with him. There was no proper way to eat something as delicious as this other than very, very slowly.

Ferret glanced at the small clock embedded in the oven. "About five hours," he answered my question.

That was a really long nap in one stretch for me. Obviously my body had needed the time to regenerate. "What did I miss?"

"Not much. We moved everything to the ship," Ferret explained, taking up his cutting again. "Most of it is still sitting in the corridor waiting for you or Ana to decide where to put it. Bear has been extra grumpy. She helped load up the stuff but since then she hasn't left the cockpit. I brought her some sandwiches."

He glanced at me, looking for praise of him taking over while I was asleep and I nodded approvingly. He puffed out his chest in a pose that would have looked heroic on a creature a little larger and not engaged in such a domestic activity. Wolf picked out two more slices of ham and I hurried to get two more as well. I briefly wondered how I had missed this delicacy. Leave it to Ferret to sniff out the best food in any place. He'd even managed to find a tiny little corner shop selling dried honey waffles on Darkside. They had kept Bear in a bearable mood while we had been there. I snorted when I realised my own pun.

"What?" Ferret asked curiously.

"Nothing, go on," I told him. It really wouldn't be funny when I explained it. Way to kill a joke.

Ferret pouted, but obediently carried on with his report. "Ana has been keeping vigil on the pop-" He caught himself before I could even open my mouth. "The Packmaster guy person. He fell asleep as soon as Wolf put him on a bed. Would have thought nineteen years of sleep should be enough..."

Wolf snorted. It was the first time I saw him do something close to laughing. In fact, he was more relaxed than I had seen him before, too. He looked happy. Now that I paid attention to it, I realised that I sensed him over the pack bond as clearly as I felt Ferret. The three of us felt in perfect balance to me. It was a pleasant feeling of unity. Only Bear was missing from it. I tried to reach out to her, but she was even more withdrawn than usual. Something had seriously upset her. I would have to investigate that, but not right now.

"Where are we heading?"

"Vandal," Ferret answered. "Ana thought it would be a good place to lay low, get more supplies and make plans on what to do next. We'll be there in a day or so."

It was a good choice. Vandal was a large space station run by the Syndicate. They basically owned this part of the Fringe. Everyone was welcome on the station as long they they were willing and able to pay and the Syndicate could afford to bribe the Core military to be left alone. We had been on Vandal once before very briefly, changing from one passenger ship to another.

"Arm?" Wolf asked, pointing at my shoulder and Ferret perked up as well, peering at my ugly bald spot.

"Much better," I replied and resisted the urge to rub or scratch the spot. Them looking at it made it itch like mad. Instead I made a show of stretching, arching my back. "I'll go clean up and then see how Ana is doing with our guest." I glanced at the rapidly dwindling heap of cut ham. "Leave some for me, eh?" I told them and then left the kitchen through the door leading to the utility rooms.

I found the room I had claimed as my own and the scent mark on the door frame undisturbed. I rummaged through my pack and pulled out the shirt from the bottom. It was old and smelled a little grimy. It was also rather thick since I had worn it when we had been on a planet in the icy grip of winter. There was also a woollen scarf and a matching cap even further down in my pack. Ana had knitted those for me and though they were quite ugly, I had worn them with pride. I put the shirt on one of the beds to air and went in search of the servant uniform storage.

The tunics turned out surprisingly nice. Dark grey wasn't really my favourite colour, but at least it didn't clash with the various colours of my fur. Also, they were made of good quality material, soft and firm to the touch. What decided it was the enticing scent of freshly washed laundry that clung to them. I rubbed my face in my new tunic before I put it on to mix my own scent in as well. The short sleeve covered my shoulder nicely without being long enough to annoy me by getting in the way.

When I got back to the kitchen, both Ferret and Wolf were gone, but they had left a small plate with a heap of cut ham for me. Surprisingly, they had even cleaned up the kitchen. Neither the ham nor the cutting board or knife were anywhere in sight. Through the bond, I sensed Wolf only dimly. Probably he was dozing somewhere. Ferret on the other hand was sparkling brightly with the excitement I had come to associate with him using the VR set in the weapons capsule.

Knowing Ana, she wouldn't have eaten and instead stayed at our guest's side. She always took care of others before she thought of herself. I curbed my curiosity enough to make some quick sandwiches for her and ate the rest of the ham. Only then did I go to find her.

The guest cabins were as oppressively pink, red and fluffy as I remembered them, but it was barely bothering me any longer. There were plenty of things much worse in the galaxy. I found Ana sitting in a plush pink armchair with her feet tucked under her and wrapped in another one of the furry blankets. She was reading a notepad, probably fed with one of the data chips we had stolen, judging by her single-minded concentration. She had that special little frown on her brow, too. The Packmaster was asleep on the bed, covered with more furry blankets.

Ana didn't notice me coming in and didn't react to my soft coughing to get her attention either, completely absorbed in her reading. With a little smile, I went over to her and gently moved the plate with her sandwiches into her field of view. She blinked first at the plate and then at me like emerging from a dream. Her face lit up with a bright smile. "Cat, I love you so much!" She dropped the notepad in her lap to grab the plate instead. I settled on the armrest of the chair and enjoyed the view of her biting into her first sandwich with obvious relish. After a few bites, I managed to also put the glass of juice I had been holding into her hand. The warmth of her gratitude radiated through the bond.

"I'm trying to read up on some of his medical reports," she explained with her mouth full, but clearly too excited to wait, "but I have to admit most of it is just gibberish to me. I really don't know much about brains. From what I do understand there are significant differences between the brain of a Packmaster and that of an ordinary human. I wonder how they missed that on me. Maybe I'm some sort of halfbreed and that's how I ended up in that orphanage?"

"Maybe they just didn't look for it?" I suggested. "Or is it really obvious?"

"Hm... let me look." She kept eating with one hand while she tried to scroll around on her note pad with the other, leaving some grease stains and then trying to wipe them off with her sleeve.

"Give me that," I said and took the pad from her. "What am I looking for?"

Ana grinned sheepishly, but that didn't keep her from biting into her sandwich again. "There is a folder labelled 'brain scans'. I haven't looked into it, but I think that will be pictures."

It didn't take me long to find the folder and open it. Like Ana expected, it held various pictures of brain scans and even some transparent holo projections. I called up the ones that compared the brain of 'Subject 4' to a 'normal' brain. We both peered at them for a while trying to figure out what exactly we were looking at.

"Okay," Ana said, licking her fingers clean and immediately picking up sandwich number two, "I'm not seeing any difference. Do you?"

I shook my head. "No, but I'm not a brain expert, either. But I guess some random doctor who didn't know what they were looking for might miss the fact that they are looking at a Packmaster brain. Have they ever even done any scans on you?"

She chewed thoughtfully. "Actually, I'm not sure. I know they did the standard gene test program. That's why my parents picked me out, since the result said I would be smart, which obviously they need in a heir to their corporate empire. Makes me wonder why they didn't find any hint of me being a Packmaster in that." She chuckled. "I can think of several really cool conspiracy theories here. Like maybe they knew all along what I am and got me precisely for that reason. Would explain why they came after us so hard when we ran away."

"Then why didn't they react when you bonded with me?" I asked.

"Didn't want to spook me, maybe?" Ana suggested, "And when I didn't show any more signs of bonding after that first night, maybe they weren't sure it had worked. Or here's another one – maybe all my medical records were faked by a secret Packmaster coven who places Packmaster children with the super rich and influential, so they will some day inherit the Core World corporations and take over without a fight."

My ears twitched at that idea. It was fascinating and cool and I liked it. "So we really should head back to the Core sooner or later and investigate your parents and maybe that orphanage."

Ana sighed long-sufferingly. "Yeah, we probably should."

I thumbed through some more of the brain scans while Ana kept eating. I was about to suggest she should get some sleep when she suddenly perked up and looked at the bed.

"He's waking up," she said softly.

We exchanged a nervous glance. Ana looked like she had as little idea what to say to him as I had. He groaned and opened his eyes. His gaze was unfocused and he blinked a few times, making me wonder if maybe he needed glasses, just like Ana did, and if maybe all Packmasters needed glasses to see properly. But then his gaze sharpened and his face showed a mix of startled disgust and utter confusion as he took in the decor of the cabin.

"Uhm, hello," Ana said.

Maybe not the most eloquent opening, but it was enough to get him to focus on her. I had seen many humans look at Ana and their first reaction was always the same, dismissive of her looks and youth. This one proved himself not Human, but Packmaster by his surprised and pleased smile.

"Hello, Sundina," he said.

His voice was pleasantly mellow and smooth. Apparently nineteen years in cryo sleep hadn't done any damage. I had no idea what he had just called her, but it sounded nice.

"I'm ... my name is Ana. And this is Cat."

He glanced at me only briefly, clearly much more interested in Ana. Which wasn't very surprising. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Sundina Ana," he said, "I take it your Ishtarin has rescued me from my unfortunate predicament?"

So Sundina was some sort of title. As was Ishtarin, probably. Ana quickly came to the same conclusion.

"I'm afraid I don't know what a Sundina or an Ishtarin is," she said. She got up from her spot in the chair and moved over to the bedside to be closer to him. "You have been in cryo stasis for nearly twenty years. Much has happened in that time."

Breaking the news to him gently was not on the table, apparently. I had no idea how I would have reacted, but I probably wouldn't have remained as calm. I had no way of picking up on his emotions, but from his little frown I guessed that he was thinking rapidly. He didn't take him very long before he spoke again.

"If I have been imprisoned for that long, we must have lost the war," he concluded calmly.

Ana nodded. "Yes, you did. The Core World military wiped out all Packmaster forces. As far as we know, all Packmaster planets were scorched." She really wasn't pulling any punches.

"But still you have rescued me." He studied her even more curiously. "I am in your debt. I'm Ishtarin Markus Reander." He smiled quite charmingly. "I look forward to hearing more."

That certainly was going better than I would have expected and Ana had things well in hand. "You must be hungry after your long cryo sleep. I'll go and make some more sandwiches," I said and rose from my perch on the armrest. I really didn't need to hear another recap of everything that had happened since the war and I'd only be a thought away, if she needed my help.

He gave me a strange look, like he had forgotten I was there and only now remembered, but Ana nodded with a grateful smile.

I went back to the kitchen and started preparing more food. It felt like a million questions were buzzing through my head, each demanding that I go back and ask them immediately. Now that answers were so tantalisingly close I could hardly wait. So the sandwiches turned out a little sloppy and I managed to nearly cut off one of my fingers.

Despite how much I had hurried, it still seemed I had been too slow and missed something interesting already when I returned.

"Of course I will teach you, my dear," Markus was just saying, holding one of Ana's hands in his and smiling at her. "It will be my honour to be your Ishtarin and help you develop your skills as a Packmaster."

So Ishtarin was the title for an older Packmaster teaching a student, apparently. Hopefully he could also show the rest of us how to be a better pack to Ana.

I handed the plate I had brought to Ana and she thanked me. This time, Markus looked up at me and studied me curiously. I resisted the urge to stand up straighter to impress him.

"Housecat breed," he commented, nodding approvingly, "I always thought the mixed bloods were superior to the pure ones. Much smarter and hardier. A good choice."

Yeah, that was me, smart and hardy. "Thanks," I said, which once again seemed to startle him.

He glanced at Ana like he was expecting some sort of reaction and then back at me. "Well, I'm sure it will be interesting working with you," he said. I wasn't sure if he was talking to me, to Ana or to both of us. He picked up one of the sandwiches and started eating slowly.

The questions were still trying to break free from me, but I somehow managed to keep myself in check and settled on the armrest of the chair again.

"We have tried to find out as much as possible about how to be a Packmaster," Ana said, almost apologetically, "but with the Core keeping everything under wraps, it was hard. I only bonded with Cat by accident. I didn't even know I could before it happened."

Markus smiled at her sadly. "That must have been very confusing. Our children were groomed in their talents almost from birth. The first bonding was an important ceremony, conducted at the age of five." He looked pained by whatever memories that brought up in him and a tremor ran through him. "You never forget your first bestia."

Ana reached out immediately and patted his arm comfortingly. "I'm sorry. I can't begin to imagine what it must be like to lose your whole pack."

He closed his eyes, clearly wrestling with his emotions. "They died protecting me," he finally said in a flat voice, "I will always honour their memory." He looked at Ana, forcing himself to smile, though it did not reach his eyes. "How many bestiae have you bonded?"

"Four. Cat here, Ferret, Bear and Wolf."

"Interesting choice in names. Though I suppose they don't really need anything more specific since only so few bestiae are still around and they can't be confused with others of their species."

"Well, I have given them other names," Ana said, frowning a little like she always did when she wasn't sure about something she had done or was going to do. "But those are private, just between them and me. I ... I'm not even really sure why..."

She was interrupted by Markus, smiling brightly now. "Oh, child, that is wonderful. I had no idea that the coding would be so powerful you would know what to do even with no one telling you. Well done."

"Oh."

I somehow managed not to chuckle when Ana blushed shyly. Getting praise from another Packmaster was something she sorely needed. She was doing so well despite our bad situation. No matter how much I told her how awesome she was, she never quite believed it since she knew how biased I was. Hearing it from a teacher would do her a world of good.

"A bestia's true name is a powerful thing," Markus continued earnestly. "It needs to be handled with care, but I can see you have been doing that already. I will teach you all about it."

The question of what else you might be able to do with a true name burned on my tongue, but I kept quiet. He was talking and interrupting him might make him close up.

"Four is a lot for a young, untrained Sundina," he said thoughtfully, "At least it is an all carnivore pack. It can be hard to juggle different needs and personalities."

I'd never met a herbivore bestia, so I had no idea how they differed, but Ana was definitely not having any trouble taking care of the four of us. In fact, we were doing quite well taking care of ourselves with her providing the centre. It probably just felt like he was questioning her ability to handle such a big pack, but I still was ready to jump to her defence.

"We have been doing fine," Ana said cautiously. "Cat is helping me a lot."

Of course she would share credit like that.

Markus smiled benevolently. "Yes, I do not doubt that. But he shouldn't have to, dear. It is terrible that you have been forced to manage without even the most basic of techniques. We will remedy that as soon as possible." He rubbed his face, once more looking pained. "You are lucky to have a strong pack. I wish... I understand bestiae are rare, but do you think we will find any where we are heading now? I miss..."

He'd had a bond with some bestia almost all of his life. It had to feel terrible to him, now, empty and lonely.

"I understand. I have no idea if there will be any on the space station we are heading to, but we will look," Ana said immediately. "I can sense your pain. Is that normal, that I can sense you like that?"

"Yes, Packmasters are aware of each other." He was obviously grateful to be distracted by questions. "An Ishtarin has several Sundina, who he teaches. They are a clan. A group of Ishtarin with similar views and interests forms a tribe." He shook his head. "But I guess that is all in the past now, if the two of us are all that is left."

"If Ana survived, I'm sure there must be other Packmaster children out there," I said, "We just need to find them somehow."

He looked at me with a stern frown, easily making me feel like I had just said something really stupid. I had no idea how we could find any such other Packmaster children. I'd really just said it to lighten the mood by saying something hopeful. He knew so much more than Ana or I that under his judging gaze, I felt quite inadequate suddenly. Like a child intruding on an adult conversation maybe. For a moment, my curiosity warred against my feeling of embarrassment. I wanted to hear everything he had to say. But I was also feeling intensely uncomfortable being there when he was looking at me like that and the moment seemed to stretch into eternity.

Ana came to my rescue, sensing my emotions. "Why don't you go and check on Bear for me," she suggested calmly. "She seems upset over something."

It was awkward and obviously an excuse for me to leave, but I took it gratefully. "Sure," I said and tried to send my gratitude to her, "just call if you need anything."

I quickly made my escape. Once I was safely outside the cabin, I stopped to smooth down my tail, which had fluffed up. I hated when it did that. It was a visible sign that something had bothered me. Now out of his sight, I wondered if maybe I had done something to offend Markus. If I wanted him to help us, help Ana, I'd have to work harder on him approving of me.

In the meantime, I would do what Ana had asked me to. I tried once again to get a feeling of Bear over the pack bond, but all I got was the diffuse feeling that she was still there. I briefly contemplated getting another mug of milk with honey for her, but decided against it. Bribing her with food every time she was upset over something was getting old. So I just headed to the cockpit with empty hands. I found her slumped in the pilot seat. She had probably been dozing, but she looked up when I came in and greeted me with a grunt. When I settled in the second chair next to her, she studied me with a frown.

"Yes, I'm okay, thanks for asking," I said. Probably not the friendly, conciliatory opening one should use when trying to find out why someone else was upset, but I was still feeling too much on edge myself. Maybe I would better have waited until I was more calm, but now that I was here I could just as well forge ahead. "And how are you doing?" Grumpy, obviously, but I managed not to say that out loud.

She turned away from me and instead leaned her head back against the headrest. "That Packmaster wake up yet?" she asked instead of answering my question.

I nodded.

"What's he saying?"

I shrugged. "Ana is talking to him. I listened in a bit. He knows lots of stuff. About Packmaster traditions and history and how bonds work. He has agreed to teach Ana. We'll finally make some progress."

Bear grumbled something under her breath that I didn't quite get. Apparently, she was unhappy with the fact that we had brought Markus on board. I had no idea why. "Problem?" I asked, falling into her clipped way of speaking without really meaning to.

She glanced at me from the corner of her eye and for the second time in under an hour I felt judged and found lacking. "No," she lied.

I felt my tail start to fluff up again in annoyance. "Don't be ridiculous," I hissed at her, now getting angry myself. "You don't like him or something about him and you haven't even met him. Don't you want Ana to find some answers?"

Once more she evaded my question. "Do you like him?"

It was something I hadn't even thought about yet and I really didn't see the point either. "It doesn't matter if I like him. I don't have to like him for him to be useful. He can help Ana!"

She sighed deeply and slumped in her chair even more, looking like she was deflating somehow. "Yeah, he can," she admitted, still not sounding happy. "Just ... got a bad feeling about him."

I wanted to snort at that and tell her to suck it up, but I had promised Ana I would take care of whatever Bear was upset about this time, so I took a deep breath and tried to calm my own ruffled nerves.

"Can you just give him a chance please?" I asked her gently. I was relieved when she didn't just immediately agree to appease me, but carefully considered first.

"I guess," she finally agreed reluctantly.

I decided to consider that a victory. "Thank you." I got up again, feeling the need to do something productive. I should probably have gone back to Ana and told her that Bear was okay, but somehow I felt like I would be intruding if I did. "Do you need anything?" I asked, trying to be nice.

She didn't take the bait. "No. Gonna nap a bit."

I left her to it and wandered back to the lounge. Cleaning up the few things lying around there took me only a few minutes. Doing the dishes killed another few. Next I stopped in the medbay to do a scan of my shoulder to check whether it was healing as nicely as it seemed. The scanner assured me that indeed it was and didn't require any action from me. Apart from not scratching. Then I moved the crates that had been left in the corridor to one of the empty cargo holds below the living deck.

Before I could completely run out of things to do to distract myself from the fact that I was waiting, Ana finally appeared like a rescuing angel.

She leaned against the doorway of the cargo hold where I was sorting the crates by contents and frowned at me. "Are you okay?" she asked. "You are radiating anxiety like a kicked puppy."

That was about the meanest comparison she could have used and before I could stop myself, I hissed at her angrily. Instantly mortified at my outburst, I put both hands over my mouth and tried to think of some appropriate apology.

Ana was quicker than me. "Oh no, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have said that!" she exclaimed and left her post at the door to come to me and take my hands in hers. "Kismet? I'm sorry?" She was without a doubt the sweetest and most caring creature in the galaxy.

I leaned forward to bury my nose against her neck and deeply inhaled her scent. It calmed me immensely and made me understand what had gotten under my fur so badly. "I'm sorry," I murmured against her skin. "I don't know what's wrong with me. I should be happy for you, for all of us. I just feel so useless suddenly."

She stroked my ears comfortingly. "Kismet, you can't possibly be useless. Without you I would be completely lost. You're the most important thing in my life."

Hearing her speak my name that gently and reverently was like watching a sun come up after a cold night, like feeling the first warming rays caress your fur.

"Whatever made you think such terrible things?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. It felt like I had annoyed Markus somehow. I don't..."

"Oh that," she interrupted me. "Don't worry about that. I asked him why he was being so brusque the moment you were out the door. In fact, I came looking for you to explain it. Apparently customs among Packmasters were quite strict, and it was considered incredibly impolite for a bestia to speak up when an Ishtarin was giving lessons. In fact, bestiae were only present at such lessons when they were needed to practise something. He actually was a lot more annoyed at me than at you, cause he thought it was my fault that I hadn't taught you proper manners. I explained that we simply didn't know these things and had made up our own rules." She chuckled softly. "He didn't really like that at all. I guess we'll have to give the poor man a little time to get used to the new world he has woken up to. He's a bit stuffy."

So I had offended him after all. Well, we had. But it really wasn't our fault. Of course Packmasters would have had rules on how to deal with each other, hierarchies, social norms. One thing I didn't understand, though. "Why would they exclude bestiae from teaching?" I asked. "How can I best help you when I don't know things?"

"I asked him that too," Ana agreed, "from what I understand it was considered the job of a Packmaster to deal with all sorts of trouble, so bestiae had a life as free of worries as possible. When I said that you are helping me a lot that was a red flag to him that I wasn't doing my job properly."

"Bah," I grumbled, "I love helping you. I don't want or need a 'life free of worries'."

She took my face in both of her hands and rubbed her nose against mine. "I know that, Kismet. We do things differently. I won't ever change that. I wouldn't ever want to change that. I love what we have. He will have to understand that the old times are gone. Eventually."

"Okay." It was all I needed to hear. Time to get back to work. "I talked to Bear. She 'has a bad feeling' about Markus." I used air-quotes to tell her that had been her exact words. "Maybe he reminds her of someone she knew before or during the war. I've talked her into giving the man a chance. I'll be doing the same," I added with a little smirk to let Ana know that I was fine again.

"That is so generous of you!" She kissed my nose and then took my hand to draw me from the cargo hold. "He's asleep now. I think it will take him some time to recover fully from the cryo sleep, but he has promised to show me a few things I can do with the bond when he wakes up. Hopefully before we get to Vandal." She yawned. "I should try to catch some sleep too. Will you tuck me in?"

I followed her, smiling at her sleepy eagerness. "Of course."

***

After another cat nap of a few hours, I was sitting in the lounge, studying the documents we had taken from the station.

At first, I had been reading a lengthy report from one of the data chips we had stolen. It was speculating on why only mammals had been used by the Packmasters to genetically engineer their bestiae from. It was mostly rather fantastic theories with little scientific base and lots of propaganda and what could really only be called mysticism. The the author's favourite theory was that the Packmasters 'gods' had commanded them to do so and he backed it up with pictures of statues of bestiae that had been found in Packmaster homes. He proposed that these had been used in shrines. I thought it was a lot more likely that they depicted favourite bestiae, like one would put a picture of a favourite relative on a desk.

But I had to admit that it was a clever way to malign Packmasters. Religion in general was considered a foolish and archaic weakness of people too stupid to realise that humanity was the pinnacle of evolution and that they had achieved everything they now had on their own. Core corporations wanted their minions to accept them and only them as the one authority in their lives. Gods would just have gotten in the way. There were a few Fringe World settlements who had left the Core to pray to their respective gods, but even the general Fringe population thought they were odd.

It still was rather fascinating to see how little these Core World scientists knew about the Packmasters. Maybe it wasn't that the Core was keeping their intelligence secret, maybe they just didn't have a clue. Which was a little weird considering how much time they'd had to study their foes. Then again, this report dated back to the end of the war. Who could say what a more current one would look like.

Bored, I had instead picked up the handwritten journals to figure out what the old lady, who had nearly killed me, had been doing all alone on Thiala. It turned out that she had originally come there as an assistant to a Core World historian who in turn had been just one member of a whole team of scientists. They had been tasked with sorting through all the stuff collected from the ruins to decide what should be shipped off to the Core.

After that task was done, the scientists headed back home. Apparently, there had been a falling out between the old lady and her boss and she had been the one saddled with staying behind for clean up. By the time she had received her recall home, she had been so pissed off at her boss and engrossed in her studies of what material remained, that she had resigned from her official position and stayed on Thiala for good. Her journals from back then were filled with a mix of self-pity, hatred, accusations and wild threats of 'how she would show all of them'.

Back then, she had been all alone. Over the years she had grown more and more paranoid, though, and finally hired her bodyguards.

What I didn't find was any mention of the cryo vault that had held Markus. How she could have lived right next to it for nearly twenty years either ignoring it or not knowing it existed was beyond me, but I would never get a chance to ask her about it and ultimately, it probably didn't matter.

Her ramblings were doing a decent job at keeping my mind occupied and off the things that would have interested me a lot more.

Neither Markus nor Ana had slept very long, and they had both been eager to get started with Ana's training. We still were a few hours out from coming out of our jump to Vandal, so Markus had suggested doing a first session on how to use the bond correctly. I would have loved to take part in that, but Markus had suggested to start with Ferret, since he was the youngest and apparently therefore easier to reach. This time I had kept my mouth shut, not to offend him again and make him doubt Ana's competence.

So now the three of them were holed up in Markus' cabin doing – something. Ana had asked me and Wolf to close ourselves off to the bond as much as possible so she could fully concentrate on Ferret. That made sense, of course, but it also meant I had no way of listening in. Not knowing what was going on and not being allowed to investigate while at the same time being murderously curious about it was a very aggravating mix.

At least, Wolf had stopped pacing. I wasn't entirely sure whether he was as curious as me or whether it simply bothered him not to feel Ana as strongly since he was so freshly bonded. Silent rage had been building inside of him until he had snapped and I'd felt him punch a wall as clearly as if I had done so myself. After that he'd gone down to one of the empty cargo holds and was doing some sort of training of his own. Trying to work himself to exhaustion, more precisely. It was calming him down and despite his emotional instability, I still drew comfort from the the strong bond between us.

I leaned my head back against the plush upholstery of the couch I was lying on and stared up at the ceiling. At first, the glossy black with the tiny dots of lights here in the lounge had looked completely weird, but now that I was getting used to it, it really did remind me of a star filled sky, as it was supposed to. The couch was still a hulking monstrosity of white leather, but it was also soft and cosy and the innumerable pillows ensured that one could always get comfortable. I was starting to feel at home on our Lollipop. I hadn't felt at home anywhere since Ana and I had run away. We had never stayed in one place long enough. I hadn't consciously missed it either, there had never been enough time for that – always some more pressing matter to worry about.

But now that I thought about it, I realised that already I felt fiercely possessive of our stolen ship. I liked having my own den. In fact, I was very much looking forward to skimming the shops on Vandal looking for some items to make it more personal. A nice, scratchy carpet to rub my back against would be pure luxury and probably not too expensive. We didn't have much cash, but there were plenty of ornaments made of precious metals and gems on the Lollipop that we could pawn.

There were plenty of things we could and should do once we reached Vandal. I closed the text file and opened a blank one to compile a list. Buy supplies and some personal niceties, sell off excess precious junk, find someone who would forge proper ownership documents and install matching codes for the ship so we could more or less legally travel to Core Worlds. Getting a less provocative paint job for the hull would have been nice too, but that would probably be well above our budget. Also, the ship was very well maintained, so as long as we didn't get into any scraps with her, we wouldn't have to worry about repair costs any time soon.

That didn't mean we shouldn't try to get more funds. Maybe we could do some minor shipping with those empty cargo holds or even take on a passenger or two. If we came across any we felt comfortable having on board. Which, on second thought, was rather unlikely. I erased that entry and instead added looking for clues about bestiae that might become a new pack for Markus.

I was chewing on the end of my writing stylus, trying to think of what I might have missed, when I heard the door to Markus' cabin open. I hadn't even realised how much I had still been listening for that sound. Now I froze, my ears turning towards the corridor like some furry radar dish, trying to pick up what was going on. Markus said something, but it was too muffled for me to understand. Somehow I managed not to get up and sneak closer.

Luckily, I didn't have to. Moments later, the door swished closed again and Ana came bouncing into the lounge, radiating such exuberant joy that I automatically grinned back at her. She threw herself on my couch and hugged me.

"Oh Cat, that was the most amazing thing ever! I ... I don't even know how to ... it was so amazing!"

She was laughing and beaming at me and now that I was allowed to open the bond again, I was overwhelmed with how happy she was. I hugged her back, floating on that wave of excitement with her, but my curiosity about what exactly she had done wouldn't shut up. I was about to ask when I noticed Ferret quietly padding along the edge of the lounge on his way to the kitchen. In stark contrast to Ana, he looked a little hunched and not happy at all. With Ana so loudly broadcasting her bliss, I didn't get anything from him. I watched him pass through the doorway with a small frown of concern and then extracted myself from Ana's hug a bit.

"So what was it that Markus showed you?" I asked.

"It really was just a first exercise, apparently there is a lot of stuff you can do with the bond we had now idea about," she explained eagerly. "That we can sense each other is just the basics. Today he showed me how I can use the bond to see through my bestia's eyes. It felt so amazing!" She flailed her arms out, trying to put her emotions into gestures as much as words. "Everything looked so different from Ferret's point-of-view and felt different, too. And it just felt so good, so right. I felt so much closer to him. I can't really explain it. I'm so much looking forward to trying it with you. It'll be amazing."

I decided that now wasn't a good time to mention that Ferret had looked a lot less amazed to me. I'd go and find him to talk to him in private as soon as Ana had calmed down a little. And I definitely agreed on me being the next to try this exercise with.

"Markus says that it was just the first step. I will be able to fully become one with my bestiae, seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling. I'll even be able to completely share your body with you and help you complete tasks," Ana kept talking. "There is so much to learn."

"It's great we are finally getting some facts," I agreed. "Do you think Markus will agree to me doing the next session with you?"

She laughed and kissed my nose. "I'll make him! I want to share this with you so much!" Then she hopped off the couch again, bouncing with happy energy. "I want to go take a shower and clean up a little before we reach Vandal," she said. "How far out are we still?"

I glanced at the ridiculous pink grandfather clock that dominated one corner of the lounge. "Little less than an hour until we come out of the jump and then half an hour or so for docking. Depends on how heavy traffic is."

"Alright, I'll be ready then. Markus still feels rather weak and doesn't want to leave the ship, but I'm really looking forward to getting out and among people after Thiala. Oh and he has asked about us finding a bestia for him again. It must really be quite horrible for him to see me with all of you. I hope we can help him," Ana said and bounced out to find her shower.

After the desolation of the ruins and scorched emptiness of the former Packmaster planet, we all needed some life around us. Even if it meant wrapping in cloaks to hide our true nature. Vandal was one of the few spots where so many strange people came together to trade that we might even be able to walk about a little less cautiously than that. It made me wonder what it must have been like to live on a planet like Thiala, before the war. Not to be wary all the time, to proudly show who and what you were. A little sadly, I realised I couldn't even imagine it.

With a sigh, I picked up my notepad, clipped it to my belt and then headed to the kitchen to look for Ferret. He wasn't hard to find. He was sitting on one of the counters, nibbling on a piece of cheese. He still didn't look very happy and now that Ana's happiness wasn't overpowering our bond anymore, I could sense that he felt deeply troubled.

"Hey," I greeted him softly, not to startle him. "Are you alright?"

Ferret looked at me over his piece of cheese and sniffled a little. "I think I did it all wrong," he declared mournfully.

I pulled myself up so I sat next to him on the counter. "What makes you think that? Ana seemed very happy with how it worked out."

He shrugged. He was radiating unhappiness almost as loudly as Ana had been happy and I didn't like the fact that she had completely missed that. It really wasn't like her.

"I didn't like it," he muttered, as if he didn't dare say it out loud.

"Okay," I said and nodded encouragingly, "what didn't you like?"

Again he shrugged and glanced at me furtively. "It felt wrong. Like something slimy was slithering into my head. It didn't feel like Ana at all. It was scary."

That certainly sounded very different from how Ana had described it. "Maybe it felt like that because it was so new?" I suggested, trying to reassure Ferret somehow. "Maybe you need to get used to it. Or Ana needs more practise."

He sighed and leaned against me, clearly needing comfort. I put an arm around his narrow shoulders and pulled him against me.

"I want to do it right, I really do," he said earnestly. "But at the same time, I never want to do that again. But I don't want to disappoint Ana."

"Of course you don't. She knows that." I gently rubbed my nose against his round ears. "Sometimes things don't work out on the first try. It's not your fault. It's just how things are. You don't get to try again next time anyway. My turn now."

"Oh." He glanced up at me, at the same time looking relieved and worried. "I'm sure you'll do much better than me."

I chuckled. "Maybe. Maybe not. We'll all need practise. But we'll figure it out. I mean, look at us and at what we've accomplished already. We can do this, too. But I promise you won't have to try again until I figure out how to do it properly and then I can tell you how. Sounds good?"

"Very."

# Chapter 6

Vandal was still as impressive as I remembered it.

Space stations in general were nothing special. Core military had lots of them in orbit around Core planets, and there were plenty of commercial ones as well. They ranged in size from tiny to huge, but Vandal was in a league of its own.

The planet it orbited had been rich in minerals and precious metals. Some Core World corporation had bought the entire planet to strip mine it. Only problem with that endeavour had been the violently acidic atmosphere paired with equally violent storms. Any permanent structures on the planet's surface simply weren't viable. While mining equipment was cheap enough to replace regularly, the same wasn't true for actual facilities dirtside. So instead, they had invested in having Vandal constructed to house storage, accommodations, workshops, management and the entire ore refinement facilities and blast furnaces. With the factories clumping together in a mile-long lump and several docking arms reaching out into space for over two miles each, it looked like a giant, hulking kraken. Not that any Core corporation would ever have enough humour to have it built like that intentionally, but the image was an apt one. All Vandal was missing was a pair of giant, malevolently glowing eyes.

Once the planet's riches had been depleted, the corporation could have just left the station behind, having earned a fortune already. But of course, their greed wouldn't let them ignore a chance to make more profit. With the station too huge to be transported elsewhere, they had gone looking for a buyer and found one in the Syndicate, who ran the sector even back then. At that time, Jerome Vandal had been a member of the Syndicate's ruling triumvirate. He had jumped on the chance to immortalise himself by renaming the station after himself. He had been assassinated a short time later by two of his lieutenants who took objection at the ridiculous expense, but the Syndicate kept the station nonetheless.

It had been a wise decision. Vandal made the Syndicate a good part of its income these days, if rumour was to be believed. They got a share of all legal and illegal trade conducted here, but they also offered a safe place to stop over and neutral grounds for meetings, all for a fee of course. Nowadays, there even was a lively traffic of cruise liners from the Core stopping by to give rich tourists a chance to gawk at the 'rough and dangerous Fringe experience'.

When we had been here last time, it had just been Ana, me and Ferret and we had come off just such a cruise liner and left with a much smaller passenger ship, heading deeper into Fringe space. We had stayed for only two days. This time, we would definitely stay longer and I was looking forward to it.

I glanced at Bear next to me, but her attention was focused on manoeuvring the Lollipop into the docking bay we had been assigned. The cockpit was the only place that had windows, and Bear had been kind enough to open the blast shields for me so I could watch our approach of the station. The lack of windows had been yet another reason why I had picked the Lollipop. Having no built-in breaking points in a ship's armour was a clear plus in my book.

We entered the bay and the huge docking clamps closed around us with a clank that reverberated through the whole ship.

"I hope they don't scratch the finish," I said in an attempt at humour.

I didn't expect Bear to react to it at all so I was pleasantly surprised when she chuckled. "We can complain on the Viscount's behalf," she suggested.

"Maybe we better mention him as little as possible," I replied with a little laugh of my own. "Will you come join us on our trip aboard Vandal?"

She shook her head. "No, I'll stay behind, keep an eye on Ferret and our guest. Wouldn't feel comfortable with leaving the ship to those two."

I couldn't argue with that. Ferret had curled up for a nap after I had talked to him in the kitchen. I had tucked him in myself and stayed with him until he was safely asleep. The idea of leaving him alone with Markus made me feel uneasy myself, but I didn't mention that to Bear.

"Anything you want from the shops?" I offered.

For a moment she looked like she would just grumble, but then she sighed deeply. "Honey waffles?" She really didn't like asking for something so it had to be a serious craving.

"Of course," I agreed. "The dry ones, right?"

She nodded. "I'll take care of paperwork."

Which meant she would pay all the necessary bribes so no one would ask any questions about the fact that we were showing up with Viscount Tomori's prized yacht but no Viscount anywhere in sight.

I got up and left her to the task of powering down the Lollipop. Ana and Wolf were already waiting for me in the lounge. Both were wearing cloaks and while it looked perfectly fine on Ana, it didn't really work for Wolf. The cloak had worked decently in the dimness of Darkside, but now in bright light, it looked plain silly. He was taller than most humans and his long snout didn't hide well under the hood of the cloak. Worse, the cloak was too short and revealed his very inhuman hind paws. On top, he looked distinctly uncomfortable, probably because the cloak would hinder his movements. He gave me a pleading glance.

"Does it make sense to dress him up at all?" I asked Ana, while putting on my own cloak. "He just looks like a badly camouflaged wolf."

Both me and Ana looked at him and he looked down at us, annoyed and hopeful at the same time.

"I mean, no one is going to argue about him being your bodyguard when he is your bodyguard," I added with a smirk that made Ana chuckle.

"Alright, no cloak for you," she agreed and reached up to briefly scratch under Wolf's chin.

He growled happily, shrugged out of the cloak and stretched, rolling his shoulders. He really was an impressive beast. I smiled as I realised it was the first time I thought so without a hint of jealousy or fear. I only felt pride to have him in our pack, and secure in the knowledge that he would have my back. He grinned back at me with much the same expression.

We left the ship through the main hatch, which was securely docked to the station now. Even our cargo hatch had it's own docking port here on Vandal which would make deliveries of whatever we bought that much easier. Since we had opted for one of the cheaper, more remote docking bays at the end of one of the 'tentacles', the corridor on the other side of the main hatch was empty of people. And why should there be? Bear paid our fees via transfer and there were no customs officers on this station who might enquire about our cargo. After all, everything was legal here.

I took a moment to note the number and section of our docking bay on my note pad so we would be able to find it again. I also downloaded the 'tourist map' of the station that showed all relevant points of interest and offered a detailed map of the commercial hub.

The Core World cruiser docking bays had automated shuttle transfers to the centre of the station, but out here, I had expected we would have to walk. I was pleasantly surprised when we walked onto the first intersection and found two grimy looking guys leaning against equally grimy looking small electric carts. Both immediately smiled at us more or less winningly and offered to drive us anywhere for a pittance. A smart business idea on such a large station and very useful to us. Neither of them even blinked at Wolf's presence, which I took as a good sign.

After a bit of haggling, we agreed on a fee with one of the drivers. We hopped onto the back of his vehicle, securing Ana between me and Wolf and we were off. It took us nearly ten minutes to reach the station's centre. Considering the break neck speed of our driver, it would have been a long walk indeed.

I was reasonably sure the man didn't take any scenic detours since we had agreed on the price beforehand, though he might have anyway. We passed through sections that looked nearly deserted, in obvious disrepair and with piles of garbage in dark corners, but we also drove through very busy corridors and large open halls where mechanics were working on huge machines, looking like ants crawling over metal giants. I had no idea what they were doing and nearly exploded with curiosity.

Last time we had been to the station, we had only been to the commercial hub, and even there, we had mostly stayed inside the cheap motel room we had rented for our stay. Back then, we had been a lot more afraid than we were now and with good reason. I had been pretty useless in a fight, then, and we didn't have anyone with us like Wolf, now. I glanced over my shoulder at him, sitting in the rear, looking just as relaxed and curious as all of us.

It turned out our driver was quite talkative and happy to tell us everything about anything that caught my attention. Probably not very truthfully, considering he insisted the Syndicate was building a secret army of giant robot warriors to invade the Core Worlds with. But at least his tales were colourful and entertaining.

The commercial hub was just like I remembered it. Basically, it looked like one of the huge, sparkling shopping malls of the Core Worlds after it had been left to rot for a few centuries and then been cleaned up superficially and decorated with tons of colourful fabrics to cover the worst of the grime. It was probably a carefully cultivated look to make the criminal clientèle feel at home and at the same time provide an 'authentic', not too threatening atmosphere for the tourists.

Vandal boasted there was nothing that couldn't be bought and sold here. Looking at the staggering multitude of shops and stalls, I was willing to believe it.

Our driver dropped us off at what he called the Taxi Hub. A large, wobbly circle painted on the floor in fluorescent neon yellow where more of the same small electric vehicles waited for customers. I marked the spot on my map and we dove in among the crowd.

Wolf and I kept Ana between us so she wouldn't get lost or get trampled by some careless tourist horde in a shopping frenzy. Tourism seemed to have boomed since our last visit. There were even tours with local guides wearing rather ridiculous 'space rogue' outfits with a big 'Vandal' logo on the backs of their banged-up leather jackets.

At first, we just drifted about, taking in the sights. And the sounds. And smells. We bought some fascinatingly gooey, fried things that were supposedly squids and Wolf and I ate the whole bag of them. Ana gorged herself on the disgustingly sweet, fizzy energy drink she had loved as a kid and which she hadn't found anywhere since she had run away. We bought Bear's favourite honey waffles and some sugar-crusted beetles for Ferret.

After that, we started shopping more responsibly. We found a large, reasonably respectable-looking pawn shop, where I sold two gold faucets and a small, jewel-encrusted alarm clock for a good price. The guy behind the desk agreed to buy more of the faucets in bulk and give us regular ones in exchange for a reduced price too. Next, we visited a large store which supplied docked ships with frozen food in bulk. While the delicacies that had come with the Lollipop were nice, in the long run, we would need cheaper food. Frozen pizza and boxed meals had kept space-faring folk alive for centuries, so it would be good enough for us as well.

By then, we had left the touristy, glitzy parts of the commercial hub behind and were walking in less crowded back corridors. Here, the customers were more of the less law-abiding variety and I realised with dry amusement that I felt much more at home among them.

Our next stop was a shop that sold all sorts of second-hand clothing. Ana needed a few things and she insisted that Wolf should get a shirt or two and another pair of pants. At least, she didn't even try to find shoes or boots for his huge, clawed feet. For a little while, I watched them, but when I grew bored, I chatted up the matronly owner of the shop instead. She looked like the kind of tough elderly lady who secretly liked cats and my instincts didn't disappoint me.

Apparently, no one took the time to just share gossip with her as much as she would have liked. When I looked at her with my big, green, curious eyes and she realised that I would be there for a while and was quite interested in listening, she turned into a veritable fountain of useful information. She even recommended a skilled hacker who might be able to help with the Lollipop's Owner ID Codes for a fair price.

I also used the chance to inquire about other bestiae on the station.

"Maybe one of the tourists has a pet with them," she mused, "though I rarely see them bring any pets aboard the station. They keep them safely back on the cruisers and just buy toys or treats for them. You could also check the fighting pits. Just head down the corridor until you get to the ammo shop. Take the lift after that and go two levels down. Oh, and of course there is Ten."

"Ten?" I asked.

The shop owner nodded. "Yeah, she's one like you, a bestia. She has her office in the back of the Old Teahouse. Well out of sight from any Core Worlder."

"She has an office of her own? What's she doing?" This was getting quite interesting. Seeing bestiae was rare enough. I'd never heard of one who didn't belong to a human in one way or another.

"She calls it a private investigation service, but as far as I can tell she is more of a bodyguard and occasional assassin. If she wasn't a bestia, she'd probably get lots of offers for even more personal services, if you know what I mean. She's a really pretty thing." The store owner winked at me and gave me a crooked grin, showing her yellowing teeth. "Come to think of it, she probably gets those offers anyway. Plenty of perverts around here. Though she probably breaks their arms. If they are lucky."

"Doesn't anyone mind a bestia living on her own like that?"

She shrugged. "She pays her fees like the rest of us. That's all the Syndicate cares about."

Good to know. So they wouldn't care about our pack either. Maybe they wouldn't even care if they knew Ana was a Packmaster. Not that we would advertise it.

"Cat! Look, it's a summer dress!" Ana appeared from among the heaps and racks of clothes as if my thinking of her had conjured her. She was holding up a flimsy, light-green dress with sunflowers printed on it. It looked quite pretty and entirely out of place. She was smiling at me so hopefully, it melted my heart. She didn't ask, but she was silently begging me to approve it.

It really didn't have any sort of practical use. But neither did honey waffles or a scratchy carpet. Some expenses were necessary to keep up morale, I thought with a little smile.

"Okay," I told her and smiled wider when she held it against herself and danced away with it, disappearing to the darker parts of the shop again.

"She's quite the handful, eh?" the shop owner asked me with a fond smile of her own.

I agreed with a nod. "The best."

Half an hour later, we were on our way down to the fighting pits. Ana carried the bags with the shopping so Wolf and I had our hands free in case we needed to defend her. Not helping with her load was hard, even though it was completely sensible. Not to mention that she would have hissed at us for implying she needed any help.

The fighting pits of Vandal turned out to be much the same as on Darkside. Only here, there were several of them clustered together in the area around the lift's exit, each advertising their own brand of gruesome entertainment. The stench was quite familiar, and I watched Wolf carefully both with my eyes and over the pack bond. I would have expected anger or fear, but instead I sensed excitement and hunger. He liked fighting, I reminded myself.

Ana, on the other hand, was less than thrilled. She frowned a lot while I asked some discrete questions accompanied by some minor bribes. The results were disappointing. There were no bestiae currently scheduled to fight and no one knew of any on the station.

When we turned back towards the lift, Wolf tugged on my sleeve. He pointed back at one of the pits that had large posters hanging outside, showing their current 'reigning champion' – a hairless pile of human muscles with cheap tattoos and a crooked grin.

"Could. Fight."

Ana's frown deepened. "No," she growled before I could say anything.

"You don't have to do that anymore," I told Wolf, trying for an explanation.

"Good money. Easy fight."

He was probably right. Since he was a complete nobody here, betting on him would net us some nice cash. I didn't doubt that he would be able to win either. I had seen him fight, both in the pit and outside. But Ana didn't look like she would budge. She opened her mouth, but this time, I was faster.

"Yes, an easy fight. But we don't want to draw attention and we don't need money desperately enough to even risk a chance of you getting injured."

Now Ana glared at me, too. 'And he's not going back to the pits, period!' was written all over her face, but somehow I managed to convey that she should leave it to me.

"Want. Help. You."

I knew that it was the real reason he had offered. Like all of us, he felt like he wasn't doing enough. Only for him, it was worse, since fighting was the only thing he was good at. I nodded. "I know. But you are helping. And there is more you can help with. Show me and Ferret how to fight better. Maybe even show Ana. There are other things you can do, too. You are more than a dumb killer."

Who'd have thought I'd ever say anything like this and mean it from the bottom of my heart. Even Ana looked startled, but she nodded nonetheless. Wolf himself looked a little doubtful, but I chose to ignore that.

"Let's go find that 'Ten' I told you about," I suggested instead to curb any further arguments. Besides, I was intensely curious about a bestia living on her own and running her own business, so it was an added bonus to getting out of the stench of death and despair that hung around the pits.

While we took the lift back up, I checked my map for the location of the Old Teahouse. After some looking around, I had to resort to the search function to find it. It turned out that it wasn't located in the commercial hub at all, but in a neighbouring residential area, where it seemed to serve as a social hotspot. The teahouse itself was marked as a cafe, but there were several extra markers for offices in the back of it, offering various services. 'Ten's Private Investigations' was one of them.

Getting there was surprisingly quick once I figured out how to find all those shortcuts the map conveniently forgot to mention. Probably so visitors to the station would have to walk past as many shops as possible.

The Old Teahouse was easy to spot. While the residential area consisted of long, intersecting corridors with lots of doors, the teahouse was a partially open space where the walls had been removed to create a sort of town square. There were proper tables with chairs as well as low tables with large pillows set around them. Basically no tourists came this far out, so the people sitting there, sipping tea and eating pastries were almost exclusively locals. Most of them didn't even look like thugs and criminals. They were just ordinary folk who happened to live on a space station.

"How about you get a table and order some tea while I inquire about that bestia," I suggested. Ana opened her mouth, but I had a very good argument to shut her up. "Wouldn't want you to accidentally run right into her and bond with her. I'm sure Markus would consider that rather greedy."

She grudgingly agreed with me, settled at one of the low tables and started studying the menu. I headed inside. There was a long counter, displaying various rather tasty-looking pastries. Two teenage girls were manning the counter, putting pastries on plates for the waiters, but they also sold directly to customers. I got in line and when it was my turn I picked out some honey cakes and something filled with apples, decorated with pink icing. Would go really well with the Lollipop's look.

"Do you know if Ten is in?" I asked innocently, while the girl wrapped up my pastries.

Her answer wasn't what I had hoped for. "Ah, no," she said, "sorry, she's out on a job off the station. She said she'd be back in a week or two. If you're not staying that long, I can take a message for her."

We really were out of luck in finding any bestiae for Markus, it seemed. "I don't know yet how long we'll be here," I told the girl, smiling pleasantly. "Maybe if we have to go before she gets back."

"Alright." She handed over my package and smiled back just as cutely. "Always a pleasure meeting one of her friends."

That she thought I was Ten's friend just because I was a bestia too, was an easy mistake to make, but maybe it would come in handy later. I headed back to Ana and Wolf and found both of them fully concentrated on the task of showing Wolf how to hold a rather delicate teacup with his large claws. Ana had ordered some sort of perfumed green tea that smelled quite nice and a stack of golden cream puffs sat on a large plate.

Ana looked up when I joined them at the table. "Thought you'd like some," she said and gestured at the pastries.

Of course I did. They had whipped cream in them.

We ended up staying almost an hour at the teahouse, drinking the excellent tea and eating pastries, while Ana taught Wolf the finer points of eating etiquette and practised the pronunciation of some new words. It was a wonderful moment of quiet happiness that none of us wanted to end, but eventually we had to leave and get back to the Lollipop.

***

"Just relax. Empty your mind. Try to think as little as possible." Markus' voice was a soft, hypnotic sing song. "Do not focus on Ana or the bond. Let go of everything."

It didn't help. The more he talked, the more wound up I got. How could I not focus on Ana or the bond, when that was what we were supposed to train? When Ana was so close to me, her smell all around me?

"You don't have to do anything," Markus said softly, as if he was reading my mind somehow. "Ana is doing what needs to be done. Ana is in control."

I really didn't like him much, I realised with sudden clarity. I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was, but something about him just rubbed me the wrong way.

"Oh," Ana muttered.

Then I felt it. The strange feeling of pressure in the bond disappeared. But not just that, the feeling of my bond with Ana seemed to dissolve and slip through my fingers altogether. Where Ana had been a clear beacon in my mind for such a long time, suddenly there was nothing, and instead something slithered inside my head. Alien and slimy, it dripped through cracks I hadn't even known were there, into parts of my mind that should never be touched.

"That's it, Sundina, you are in." Markus voice was muffled and distorted, like I was hearing it from under water.

It couldn't be true. This couldn't be my beloved, warm Ana. This cold, gooey thing invading me. I refused to believe that. It had to be me. I was doing something wrong. I tried to relax, just like Markus had told me to. Tried to think of nothing, but I couldn't. All my senses were hyperalert and still only bringing in strangely dimmed information.

"Imagine yourself being liquid," Markus voice droned on, "imagine pouring into every nook and cranny."

That was exactly what it felt like. Only it was the most revolting thing I had ever experienced. I wanted to claw at my own head. Wanted to rip myself open just to get at that creeping thing inside of me.

"Very good, Sundina, very good. Keep your grip gentle but tight."

No, get out, I screamed in my mind, but either Ana didn't hear me or didn't care. I felt covered in a film made up of nausea and dread. I was trying to plead with her to stop, trying to make my voice work, but I couldn't even really sense my own body. I was paralysed and trapped inside with that terrible thing that was Ana taking over.

"Now, when you feel secure in your grip of him, try moving his hand."

That wasn't something Markus or Ana had mentioned. They'd just told me that Ana would try to use my senses via the bond. That she could use it to control my body completely – I wasn't sure I would have agreed to that – the mere thought was so alien and wrong. But then, had I ever been able to say no to her?

I felt the slime's grip on my body tighten, piercing me with icy thorns. It hurt and I wanted to scream, but still nothing came out.

"Harder," Markus edged Ana on.

No, I cried silently. I pleaded and begged her to stop, but the cold thorns bit deeper into me. My fingers twitched. They felt like icy spiders, attached to me, but not my own. It was so wrong, and there was nothing at all I could do about it.

"There you go."

Markus' praise felt like a mockery in my ears. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to watch his hot blood dripping off my knives. I wanted to bury my teeth in his throat and rip. I wanted to hear him try to scream and just gurgle wetly as he died. He was a monster and he was turning Ana into a monster, too.

"Now ease back, slowly."

Yes, please, please, please! But nothing happened. Those icy needles remained buried deep.

"Ana, I know you don't want to, I know how good it feels, that rush of sweet, sweet power. But you have to let go now." Markus' voice was stern and firm. "Do it."

It should have been a relief, but those thorns tearing free of me hurt just as much as they had going in. The slow crawl of that slime receding was just as disgusting and nauseating until my own sensations rushed back into my limbs and senses. I opened my eyes to the sight of Markus proudly patting Ana's arm and her beaming at him, her eyes alight with the same bliss I had seen when she had practised on Ferret.

Her smile stabbed through me like a serrated blade. Had it felt like this for Ferret as well? Had Ana done this to him? The thought that he had suffered this was unbearable. It easily overwhelmed my own nausea and horror. How could she not have noticed? How could she not notice how I was feeling right now? At the edge of my senses, I could feel the bond again. It would have been easy to reach for it, to try and feel what she felt, but I recoiled from the lightest touch. Right then, Ana was the very last thing I ever wanted to touch again.

I loved Ana, I reminded myself forcefully, but it wouldn't stick. I desperately wanted to be away from her.

Then she turned to me, smiling at me like everything was perfect. "Wasn't that absolutely amazing?" she asked me.

I should probably have tried to smile and be nice. Maybe it really was my fault, maybe we really did need more practise. But I also saw Markus behind her shoulder and there was a strange expression on his face. Not quite a smirk, but it could just as well have been.

"No," I blurted out, "no, it wasn't amazing! It was vile. The most horrible thing I have ever felt!"

Whatever I had expected Ana's reaction to be, it wasn't what I got now. Her face fell for just a moment, but then anger sparked in her eyes. "Why would you say that? That is so mean!"

It took me completely by surprise. How could she accuse me of being mean after she had just hurt me so badly? I didn't even know what to say. Now I reached for the bond, but her anger isolated her from me. I wanted to show her what it had felt like and couldn't. That only left words.

"It was ... terrible, Ana, really disgusting," I tried to explain.

She shook her head like she didn't want to hear what I was saying. "Don't be silly," she admonished. "You probably just didn't relax like Markus told you to. Don't be such a drama queen. You just need more practise."

She wasn't listening to me at all. No, that wasn't quite right. She didn't want to listen. "Ana," I tried again, "it hurt. You hurt me." I was trying to stay calm, but the last one came out as a sad whine.

That at last caught her attention. A shadow of uncertainty passed over her face and she glanced back at Markus. I looked at him as well and found him frowning deeply.

"Sundina!" he said sharply. "Your bestia is beyond insolent. You must be firm with him if you ever expect to have full control over him."

What? No! Earlier my urge to kill him had been pure instinct, but now cold hatred formed inside my heart.

Ana winced under his reproach and her expression hardened. "You embarrass me in front of my Ishtarin, Cat," she all but growled. "I would have expected more of you."

Why was she like that? This wasn't the Ana I knew and loved. Again, I tried to reach out to her via the bond, but it remained firmly closed on her side.

Markus gave a suffering sigh. "I told you this would be a problem," he told Ana, like I wasn't even there. "You cannot treat your bestiae like they are your friends. They are not. They are tools to be used. You cannot allow them to emotionally compromise you."

I wanted Ana to tell him he was wrong. I needed to hear her say it. Instead she nodded, looking chagrined.

"Yes, Ishtarin," she agreed meekly. She turned back to me and I cringed under her hard gaze. "We will continue practising, and you will try harder."

Her words sunk into me like cold stones, nailing me down. She had never used the power she held over me, but she was doing it now. She knew I couldn't say no when she issued a clear order.

"Now get out of my sight. We will talk about this later."

I fled the cabin as quickly as my feet would carry me. I ran blindly, trying to find some place to curl up. I couldn't tell what hurt more, her words or what she had done to me.

When I collided with a solid, furry obstacle, I at first assumed I had run into one of the ship's walls, but then strong arms wrapped around me and drew me into a protective hug. It was accompanied by the overwhelming feeling of safety and warmth, flooding around me. Wolf was there, Wolf would guard me, Wolf would be my fortress. I had never been more sure of anything in my life. I surrendered to his care. When he pulled me somewhere, I didn't even look.

Up to now it had always been me who took care of the others, who offered comfort when needed, who reassured and listened. I didn't even know what it felt like to receive that. Hadn't known how badly I needed it. I didn't cry. Even now, I was stronger than that. But I kept my face buried in Wolf's thick fur for a long, long time.

He didn't ask questions. Even if he wanted to, he probably wouldn't have had the words. But I felt the need to explain. He had taken me to his cabin and I found that just like me, he shunned the much too soft bed. He had moved all the blankets and pillows to the corner hidden behind the bed and build himself a comfortable nest much like my own.

"It feels so wrong," I told Wolf, still lying half on top of him, his arms still around me, giving me that sense of safety I needed. "When Ana uses the bond like Markus shows her to, it's wrong. It feels like something slithers inside you..." My words were as inadequate at conveying what it really was like as Ferret's had been when he tried to explain it to me. That I had so carelessly dismissed what he said back then now made me wince. I should have believed him. I should have done something to prevent this from happening. I had promised to protect him and now I couldn't even protect myself.

Wolf pulled me out of the chaos my thoughts were descending into by poking me gently. "Heard," he said and put his hand over his heart. "Listened. Agree."

It took me a moment to understand what he was trying to say, but then it dawned on me. He had left his bond to me open during our practise session. Ana hadn't told him to block his bond this time because she hadn't expected he would listen in, so he had been free to do as he liked. The sneaky bastard. He knew exactly how it had felt. I couldn't have been more grateful. That was why he had been in the corridor to catch me before I could completely fall apart.

"Thank you," I muttered and hugged him back as hard as I could.

I still had no idea how to deal with this situation, with my Ana suddenly turning into something terrible, someone I feared, but at least I wasn't alone. Maybe I didn't even have to find a way out of this, find a way to rescue Ana from herself all on my own. Wolf had proven to be quite capable of some smart thinking. I was about to ask him for his advice when the door to the cabin opened.

"Wolf?" Ana asked, coming in. "Have you seen..." Then she was far enough around the bed to see the two of us. "Oh," she muttered and stopped in her tracks.

We both looked up at her. The girl standing in front of us, unsure, chewing on her lower lip – she looked like my Ana. She looked like she needed a hug herself. But for the first time since I knew her, I didn't trust her. I didn't move. I sensed her touch via the bond, tentative and shy, like she was afraid to hurt me. Or maybe just afraid I would reject her. A well-founded fear. I defiantly closed myself off to her as much as I could. If she wanted in she would have to push, she would have to force her way. She didn't.

Instead she looked away. "I'm sorry," she said unhappily, "I'm ... I didn't mean any of that ... you must know ... I wouldn't."

Ana was clearly hoping and waiting for me to relent. To tell her it was alright. To tell her I wasn't angry. But I wasn't angry. I was hurt and scared and I didn't know what to think anymore, so I remained silent.

"Cat, please." She looked at me pleadingly. "I'm sorry. I only said all that so Markus wouldn't think me weak. So he wouldn't get angry and stop teaching me."

From her point of view, it probably made perfect sense. From mine, it didn't help at all in understanding. "You hurt me." I didn't even try to speak gently. It was almost a growl. "What you did, it hurt me. Why would you even want to learn something like that?"

She took a step forward and knelt at the edge of Wolf's nest, but she touched neither of us. "I never wanted to hurt you. You have to believe that. I don't know why it hurts you. I'm sure it shouldn't. I must be doing something wrong. But don't you see how useful this can be for us? To be able to use the bond for all sorts of things? Just try to imagine all the ways we could use this. And it's just the first step. There is so much more we can learn from Markus. We just have to make sure he is willing to teach me."

Her words weren't what I wanted to hear, but the gentle tone of her voice soothed me. She cared about me, she didn't want to hurt me – those were the things my bruised mind picked out to concentrate on. And I wanted to forgive her so badly. "I ... don't know..." I muttered, "I guess ... if you say so..."

Once more she tried to reach out to me over our bond, and this time I couldn't deny her any longer. The warmth of her love washed over me and I basked in it. I needed her to be happy more than anything else. Wasn't a little pain and discomfort worth that? I didn't even notice how she pulled me into her arms, but I purred when she stroked my ears and jaw. Everything would be okay, I told myself. Or maybe she told me. We'd get through this like we had gotten through everything else. We were strong together. Wolf couldn't purr, but the rumble in his throat was almost good enough.

"Please give me another chance to try," Ana pleaded with me, her voice like silk and honey, so soft and seductive. "I promise I will be more careful. We'll make it work."

Saying no was impossible. I didn't want to, but she needed me. And there was that nasty voice in the back of my head that told me agreeing would be easier than saying no and finding out she would do it anyway. That I was protecting the others. I couldn't possibly put Ferret or Wolf or Bear through such a horror. I would do it. I would make it work.

"Okay," I whispered.

"Thank you." Ana hugged me tightly. "It will be okay. I promise."

# Chapter 7

I trudged behind Bear without paying much attention to where we were going. I didn't care much, either. I knew that Wolf was behind me, making sure that I didn't get lost. At least there was one person who cared about what I wanted and what was good for me. Why Bear had insisted I accompany her on this trip, I had no idea. I certainly wouldn't be any use in negotiating prices. Not that any prices needed to be negotiated. We were just going to pick up the newly-forged ownership papers for the Lollipop.

Bear had grumbled something about me needing to get out and see something different. I didn't agree. All I wanted was to curl up in my nest and be miserable, just like I had done the last few days anytime I wasn't in any training sessions with Ana.

A shudder ran down my spine and made my tail twitch. I tried to force my thoughts away from the subject of Ana and training, but I could just as well have tried to move Vandal with my bare hands. At first, I had been able to face training head on. I kept telling myself that everything would be fine, that Ana just needed more practise; that at some point I would grow used to it or maybe just get numb. I forced myself to forget how terrible it felt, each time she invaded my mind and body, each time she took away all control and made me a helpless spectator to the horror I felt.

But it didn't get better. It got worse every time. It was wearing me out to the point where even Markus commented that maybe Ana should practise with another member of her pack. Which I wouldn't allow to happen. I would die before I let her do to my pack what she did to me.

I was growing weaker with each passing day, but that didn't worry me anymore. I had even stopped worrying about the fact that I loved Ana less with each of those days.

She didn't talk to me anymore, either. Didn't talk to any of us. She spent most of her time with Markus. What they were speaking about, I didn't know and I didn't want to know.

Any curiosity I had ever felt about the past and what Packmasters had been like was dead. Markus was a relic of that past and I fervently wished we had never found him.

The one thing my thoughts kept circling around was why. Why did Ana do it? She had to see what she was doing to me. I would have bet my life that she would never hurt me. And yet she did so every day on her quest for knowledge that only she still wanted.

All I wanted was to be left alone. Why were we even going on foot to wherever we were meeting Bear's contact? We could have used one of those handy electric carts and maybe I could have been back in my nest again by now already.

When Bear stopped, I nearly ran into her. We were standing in what would have been a warehouse district in a ground based city. Here it was large halls, interconnected by short corridors. Around us, metal crates and containers were stacked high.

"Well?" I growled at Bear.

She shrugged. "Said he'd meet us here."

I glanced around. The hall was only dimly lit. From further away, I heard the regular clank and whine of machinery used to stack the larger containers. Apart from that, everything was quiet and deserted.

Bear leaned against a container, looking bored. Her bond was as closed to me as it had been since Ana had started with her training. I had assumed that she just didn't want to hear or see what was happening to me, but now another thought crossed my mind. She had been there during the war. She had known the Packmasters of old. Her own Packmaster must have used their bond the same way Markus was teaching Ana to use hers. Did Bear really not remember any of that? Or didn't she want to remember? I had loved Ana with all my heart, and still now I wasn't sure anymore I would miss her if she died.

I was about to open my mouth to straight out ask Bear when Wolf perked up. I didn't so much see it as I felt it through our bond. Something wasn't right. He felt it and so I knew as well.

Suddenly, the dimly lit hall didn't just look like some remote meeting place anymore. It also looked like an excellent spot for an ambush. By Wolf's soft growl, I could tell he was thinking the same thing.

We were both tensing up for an attack, but we were too late. Humans stepped out from behind crates and appeared on walkways above us, all of them pointing blaster guns and rifles at us. None of them wore the Syndicate's insignia. It was a motley crew of thugs and mercenaries. Wolf immediately fell into a lower crouch, his claws out and teeth bared, ready to attack.

Bear looked around, just as startled as we were.

"Well, we meet in person at last," an unfamiliar voice said from behind us.

A man walked up the aisle we had come through. Though I didn't recognise the voice, I knew him. I had watched him carefully from afar for long enough.

Viscount Tomori.

He was a short, wiry man with pale skin and a thin, long beard on his chin and equally black hair, held back in a thin, long ponytail. On Darkside, he had favoured black, flowing silk robes, but apparently, he had adapted to travelling without the luxury of his yacht. He was dressed in a more practical but still sinfully expensive-looking tailored dark silk suit.

A step behind him was a second man, this one brutish, with a scar running down one cheek, wearing a hodgepodge of armour made up of cheap fringe parts and modified Core military issue. I didn't recognise him without his officer's overcoat until Wolf's growl next to me turned from warning to deepest rage and his emotions started to boil. It was his former owner, Captain Falk. The one we had stolen Wolf from, in the pits of Darkside.

Two ruthless men looking to reclaim their property.

I had thought Tomori was addressing me, but he was looking at Bear.

She had pushed away from her container and glared at him. "What the fuck are you doing here?" she growled. "We had a deal. You were to take out the girl and the man."

A deal? Bear had a deal with the Viscount? I didn't want to believe it, even though it was happening right in front of my eyes.

Tomori shrugged nonchalantly. "Of course I'm going to take out the fighters first before I take care of the girl."

"You fucking moron!" Bear loomed large suddenly, displaying her impressive mass. "She will know! She will be warned – she feels when her pack is attacked!"

"Bah!" Tomori made a dismissive gesture. "I don't believe in that mumbo jumbo."

"But I give you back your ship!" Bear was moving towards him now. "We had a deal. You get the ship back and the one who stole it and you let the rest of us go."

My head was spinning. Bear had betrayed us. No. She had betrayed Ana.

The Viscount chuckled and Captain Falk next to him snorted as well. "And what makes you think I would honour a deal with a bestia? Silly creature."

I hadn't known Bear could still move as fast as she did, and I definitely hadn't known how loudly she could bellow. She flung herself at Tomori.

A few of the guards with Falk and Tomori managed to get unaimed shots out of their blasters, but none of them were fast enough to take her down before she slammed into the Viscount like a freight train. The man barely managed a pitiable yelp before he went down like a sack of grain.

More shots rang out all across the warehouse, and even before my own mind started working again, I threw myself to the side, trying to get at least a modicum of cover.

I could feel Wolf getting ready to tackle his former owner, rage almost blotting out every other thought in his mind.

"Hold your fire!" Captain Falk yelled, slightly more high-pitched than he had probably planned for. "Hold fire!"

A quick glance around the crate I was hiding behind confirmed that at least one of the wild shots of the mercenaries had singed his armour. Next to him, three of the thugs were kicking at Bear, trying to get her off Tomori before she could do any real damage. Between their legs, I could see her trying to bite Tomori's face off, with the faint blue shimmer and static buzz of an energy shield explaining why he was still alive. Another ridiculously expensive Core World trinket he must have spent a fortune on acquiring. He was probably very grateful he had done so right now, staring into Bear's maw, his eyes wide with sheer terror.

Desperately, I tried to focus. We were at a severe disadvantage here, with mercenaries all around and up in the walkways. At least a dozen of them I could see, with probably more somewhere out of sight. We needed to—

Wolf charged.

Filled with burning rage, he ran directly at his former owner, not caring about his cover or any chance of surviving his attack. I could feel that he didn't care if he survived. The only thing that mattered to him was that his pack survived, and that he took down as many opponents with him as possible.

One particularly heroic mercenary tried to step in his way, but Wolf didn't slow down. Instead, he just ran faster, passing the mercenary on his left. For a heartbeat, I thought Wolf had just ignored the man, but then I saw the blood gushing from his throat where a blink of an eye ago his voicebox had been. I hadn't even noticed Wolf's claws moving. Damn, he was fast.

A sound behind me almost made me jump out of my fur. Between watching Wolf and trying hard to gather a sane thought, I had totally overlooked that I was just as much a part of this fight as everyone else. Two mercenaries were sneaking up on me, trying to take me down while the action was elsewhere. One was holding a heavy slug gun, the other one carried some sort of crude blade as long as his forearm.

With a hiss of anger, I pushed myself towards them, half jumping, half-falling. The movement was too unexpected and too fast for them to react properly, and instead of shooting at me, they just followed my body with their eyes. The guy with the gun started to aim at me when I was at their feet, but still too slow. I was back on my feet already and grabbing his wrist before he realised what was happening. The one shot he managed to fire went right into his shin, a red cloud of mist spraying out of his calf before he collapsed with a startled yell. Shocked as he was, he let go of his gun, and I used it to put two more shots into him. At least at this short range, even a miserable shot like me could hardly miss. The mercenary with the makeshift machete wasted a precious second to stare at his dead comrade, then at me, then at his comrade again.

I put another bullet between his eyes. Well, into his head at least.

Before I could get any sense of my surroundings or even the rest of the combat, a tiny sun swished through the air in front of me, singeing my whiskers and impacting on one of the crates. The resulting explosion threw me off my feet and hurled me through the air. A heavy blaster, I thought while airborne. Some idiot was seriously using a heavy blaster in closed quarters, and on a space station no less!

I crashed back to the ground between some more crates. Luckily, I ended up with my feet underneath me – something I had never really understood how I kept doing, but then again, I really was just grateful about it right then. But seriously, a heavy blaster? My whiskers would need months to grow back properly.

"What the FUCK DID I SAY?" I heard Falk yell over my ringing ears. "HOLD THE FUCKING FIRE! We need them alive!"

Quickly, hoping to use some of the explosion's smoke to conceal my movements, I slipped around a few more containers, mostly allowing my ears to guide me. Bear was growling to my right, and through the bond I could feel Wolf ahead of me. Why was Falk even still alive?

I came to a stop right underneath one of the walkways. Hopefully that would give me a bit of time before they would start shooting at me again from above. I climbed the stack of crates in front of me and tried to figure out what was happening.

It didn't look good.

Wolf was surrounded by a whole gaggle of mercenaries, snarling and hissing. Bear was bleeding heavily from a large cut across her chest, her movements jerky and slow. There were only two thugs left with her, beating her with clubs from a safe distance, basically waiting until she would pass out on her own. At least I couldn't feel her pain as even now her bond was still closed-off to me.

On one of the walkways, I caught a glimpse of Captain Falk, pressing a bandage to the side of his face and yelling orders. I really wished Wolf had bitten his head off.

Only the adrenaline coursing through my body allowed me to suppress rising panic. The situation was clear, I had to get those thugs off Bear and then help Wolf with his. I had no idea how we would manage, but this really was no time to think like that. I slid off the crates and was just reaching for my daggers when another sound made me look around.

This time, I was the fraction of a second too late – the last thing I saw was the sole of a heavy boot coming right at my face. Before the lights went out, my last thought was that at least Bear had been right. Ana would have felt the attack on us. She would have plenty of time to save herself.

***

I was rudely ripped from the pleasantly soft darkness by a piercing pain that radiated from my neck down my spine and up into my skull. Barely conscious, I tried to claw at the pain and found first my movement restricted by something tying my wrists together and then a thick metal collar around my neck.

"Wakey, wakey, kitty!" a rough voice shouted before someone kicked me in the back.

The pain from what I now realised was a shock collar continued for another moment and then stopped abruptly. I blinked open bleary eyes and tried to get my bearings. The black tiled floor and cherry red walls gave it away quickly – I was back on the Lollipop in the room I had dubbed the 'toy storage'. Only this time, there were no fluffy blankets and pillows and I was shackled around both ankles and chained to a bolt in the floor I was lying on, with an additional pair of shackles around my wrists.

Bear lay behind me, a huge heap of bloody, unmoving fur, equally chained. The only indicator that she was still alive was her slow, rattling breath.

"Here, kitty, kitty," another voice crowed cheerfully.

I looked up at our captors. One man stood in the room, another in the doorway. They were wearing the same cut of suit as Tomori, only a lot cheaper. I remembered from Darkside that these were the Viscount's personal guards. So Tomori had brought some men of his own and hired extra muscle once he got to Vandal. They had probably been at the ambush too, I just hadn't noticed them in the chaos.

Behind them, safely out of reach, stood Viscount Tomori himself. The part of his jaw that Bear had gotten her claws on was covered in a thick bandage. He didn't look as cheerful as his men. In fact, he looked ready to spit venom.

"Where is she?" he hissed, the moment our eyes met and he was sure I was awake. "Where is that little bitch and what has she done with my Miracle Mend?"

For a moment I had no idea what he was talking about, but when I realised it, I couldn't help but laugh. Of course Ana would have taken her bag when she fled. And the can of Miracle Mend Ferret had liberated from the medbay. And of course Viscount Tomori very much wanted and needed that can for his poor face now. He must have paid a fortune for the single can.

"You think this is funny?" He looked like he was about to explode, his face white with fury. He pressed a button on the remote control he was holding and once more pain shot through me. "I will show you funny, you mangy piece of shit!"

It hurt. A lot. Pure, plain pain. Clear and bright and simple. It felt marvellous. Right. I laughed louder.

The two thugs were exchanging confused glances while Tomori just stared at me with his mouth hanging open. He furiously adjusted something on his remote. The pain grew worse and my laugh turned to a choked scream as my fingers rigidly held on to the collar. It felt like fire running through my veins.

When it stopped, my eyes were watering and I coughed weakly.

"There," Tomori grunted, satisfied, "you won't laugh at me. Nobody laughs at me! Tell me where she is!"

I looked up at him again and once more felt the almost hysterical need to laugh rise inside of me. "I don't know," I answered truthfully. She'd been smart enough to abandon the ship and could be anywhere on Vandal right now. "I have no fucking clue."

He shocked me again. This time, even the higher setting of pain couldn't keep choked laughs from mixing with my screams.

It hurt so good. It was perfectly proper, physical pain. And I could scream and claw at the collar and writhe to my heart's content. It was the blissful opposite from all those training sessions with Ana and when it suddenly stopped, I wondered why I hadn't tried this earlier. It was so cleansing and surely I could have found a shock collar on a ship as well equipped as the Lollipop.

I lay on the floor, panting, feeling quite happy. There was nothing whatsoever that Tomori could do to me that would be worse than what Ana had done.

"Man! What is wrong with that freak?" one of Tomori's thugs muttered, clearly disturbed by my lack of proper reaction to their master's attempts at torture.

"Fuck!" Tomori threw the remote at a wall of the master bedroom where it harmlessly bounced off the furry tapestry, frustrating him further. He stared at me for a moment longer, clearly at a loss of how to proceed. His mouth opened and closed a few times while he tried to come up with any threat. Finally, he turned on his heel and strode out.

"Oh wow. He's pissed," the other thug commented. "You're in so much trouble now, kitty."

I grinned at him, showing him all my sharp teeth. "He can make a fluffy pillow from my hide for all I care," I told him amiably.

He stared at me like I had completely lost my mind, which maybe wasn't so far from the truth.

"Let's get out of here," his companion said and pulled him from the room by his arm. The door slammed shut behind them.

For a long, blissful moment I thought of nothing and just enjoyed the cold, hard floor pressing against my back. But the various scrapes I had sustained in the fight made themselves known. Lots of tiny pains telling me I was still alive. I closed my eyes and consciously opened the pack bond. Even though Bear was right next to me, her presence was even dimmer than usual. Like there wasn't much left of her. Wolf was further out, a steady flame of red hot rage that warmed me to the core. I reached for Ferret and found him close to panicked. I tried to send him reassurance, but before I could truly touch him, a flood of dread drowned everything. The incessant trickle of Ana forcing her way inside my mind.

My mouth opened, but I had already lost control, and this time, no scream would come. She was getting better. But it only meant that she was so much quicker in invading me. Once more I was trapped inside myself, helpless. Why was she doing this to me even now? My head turned left and right without me willing it, the slimy grip on me unbreakable.

A heartbeat later, she was gone again and I retched as a wave nausea roller over me. The thought that she was able to do this even without being anywhere near me was chilling. I couldn't escape her.

A sudden, gurgling breath from behind me reminded me that I wasn't alone in my misery. It was accompanied by a flicker of Bear's presence in the pack bond. She didn't have long. With a groan I rolled over and forced myself up onto hands and knees so I could crawl over to her, as best as I could, tied up like I was. Thankfully, the chain that tied me to the floor was long enough to reach her.

Bear was lying on her back. She looked terrible. There were small wounds all over her, but it was the huge slash over her chest and abdomen that would kill her. Her fur was matted with fresh blood. They hadn't bothered treating her in any way. She was too old to be worth anything.

I managed to pull her head into my lap. Almost automatically, I started stroking her small round ears and her massive jaw. She had betrayed us. Betrayed Ana. I still couldn't wrap my head around that. I had an inkling why she had done it, but what I couldn't understand was how. As much as I feared Ana now for what she was doing to me, betraying her was inconceivable.

When had she done it? It was clear that she had sent Tomori some sort of message. Probably right after we had found Markus. That would have given him just enough time to get to Vandal from Darkside.

"Cat."

I hadn't even noticed that Bear had opened her eyes. Her voice was little more than a pained whisper. She was looking up at me, blinking like she wasn't quite able to see me clearly.

"I'm here," I said, laying my hand against her nose so she could at least smell me. I should have hated her for betraying us, but I couldn't. Not when she had probably done it for us. Not when she was in pain and dying.

"Am ... sorry," she groaned. "Wasn't to be like this. Tried to protect you. All of you. Pack."

I tried to put the questions in my mind into words, but in the end I just got out one word. "Why?" I had to know. Had to hear it from her.

She shuddered. Whether in current pain or from some memory, I wasn't sure. "Remembered," she answered, "always remembered. Packmaster ... they are vile. Always were. Using us for ... their sick pleasure. Knew ... Ana would be ... would turn ... at some point. All do."

I didn't want to believe her, but the facts favoured her. I leaned forward, laying my brow against hers. "Why didn't you tell me?" I asked. "Warn me? I could have tried to stop it. Do something..." I had no idea what that could have been. I tried to tell myself that I would never have let Ana anywhere near Markus, but cold reason told me that I wouldn't have been able to tell her no if she insisted.

Bear laughed weakly and then groaned in pain. "Wouldn't have believed me. Never would believe Ana would do ... Never even asked me if I wanted to be there. Be in your pack."

She was right. I had never questioned that being with Ana, having a pack was the most wonderful thing. The thought hadn't even crossed my mind that maybe Bear would have rather stayed in her life as a simple mechanic belonging to some ordinary human. A human who maybe didn't treat her like an equal, but who certainly would never rape her mind and soul.

"You couldn't deny her," Bear wheezed. "You love her. I don't. I had to ... do it. No matter how hard, you would have been better ... without her."

I didn't even realise I was crying until I saw the tears drip onto her face. Maybe she didn't love Ana, but she loved us, her pack. I could feel it through the bond clearly, could feel her more clearly than I had ever been able to before. She wasn't damaged at all, she had just guarded herself closely the whole time, not to fall victim to another Packmaster again. Not to fall victim to Ana. I had led Ana to her. It had been my suggestion to bond her. I had done this to her.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to her, "I'm so sorry."

She forced herself to smile, her teeth red with blood. "Don't. You gave me pack. You are ... good. I failed..."

She broke off, squeezed her eyes closed in pain, and then she was gone. Her presence was gone from the bond. A part of me was ripped away with her loss. The sudden emptiness seemed to swallow me, and the knowledge that it could never be filled again threatened to tear me apart. I screamed out my anguish, uncaring who might hear it.

It wasn't her who had failed. I had. I had failed to protect my pack. Failed to protect Ana. Failed in every conceivable way. I wept for her and for myself and for everything we had lost. I cried for a long time until I felt completely drained. Until there was nothing I had left to give. I sat on the floor, numb, my mind empty. Nothing mattered anymore.

The door's lock opened with a soft click and it swung open to reveal Ferret, Ana and Markus.

Ferret looked ready to bolt, his eyes huge and his face a rigid mask of fear and sorrow. He had felt Bear die just as clearly as I had. He didn't look like anyone had bothered comforting him. Seeing Bear, dead, still held in my arms, made him hide his eyes behind his hands.

Markus gave an arrogant sneer, maybe at the stench of blood and death, maybe at some perceived insult. I wanted to rip that sneer off his face and the face off his skull.

But the look on Ana's face stopped me. Cold, calculating, concentrating on the task at hand. I didn't know her. Now it made sense why she had reached into my mind as soon as I had regained consciousness. She had checked where I was, so she could retrieve me. I shuddered at my own choice of words, even if I had only thought them. Retrieve me. Not rescue. I closed my eyes, refusing to look at any of them. I was right where I wanted to be.

"Cat."

Her voice dragged me up from my lethargy, burying sharp hooks in my attention. Bear had been right, I could not deny her. I looked up at her tiredly.

"Ferret, unlock those chains," Ana commanded calmly, "we don't have much time." She didn't even seem to notice that Ferret was too distressed to even look at me. She only turned to him when he failed to obey immediately. "Ferret. Do it now."

Her voice propelled him as sharply as a blow and Ferret stumbled into the room blindly. He was shaking so badly he couldn't have unlocked anything, let alone the sophisticated locks on the shackles that bound me.

Markus watched, but he stayed back. Let Ana do his dirty work, I thought. He was doing a fine job at corrupting her. Bear had been right in that as well. Ana had become what she wanted to be. A real Packmaster. A monster. And I had helped to create it.

"I'm not coming." My voice was rough from crying and screaming, but it didn't shake as much as I would have expected it to.

"What?" Ana glared at me like I had lost my mind, but it felt like I had found it again to me. "Don't be silly, of course you are."

Dangerously close to a direct order. I grit my teeth. This was my one chance to say no. Even if I would cave eventually, with all that fresh pain and grief giving me strength I was able to tell her to her face, unswayed by sweet words and clear commands.

"No." It felt marvellous, saying it and looking into her eyes. "Bear has told me what Packmasters were like. They were cruel, brutal monsters and you are becoming just like them. I loved you. I trusted you. You used all that against me. I will not serve you anymore. Not willingly."

Finally, the cold mask cracked. Finally, there was emotion in her eyes. First shock, then pain, then grief of her own. Her mouth moved soundlessly. I could read my true name from her lips, but she didn't speak it loudly.

"Sundina." Markus voice cut like a whip. "We have no time for this nonsense. You know what to do."

She glanced at him, and then back at me.

"Ana. Do it now." The same words she had just used to command Ferret, and like Ferret, she jerked as if she had been hit.

I saw how the mask slammed down again. How her eyes turned hard and cold. I had nothing to fight her with. She would force me to obey, snuffing that tiny little flame of hope I had kept that my Ana was still alive somewhere in there.

I looked away, unwilling to face her.

"Ana! No!" Markus exclaimed, suddenly all arrogance gone from his voice and replaced by panic. "NO!"

I turned my head back just in time to see Markus' head explode in a cloud of hot plasma.

Ana had placed the barrel of her blaster gun right under his chin before she pulled the trigger. Some gore splattered onto the fluffy carpet he was standing on, but most evaporated into an oily black cloud stinking of burned meat. His body crumbled in slow motion, pulling tendrils of black smoke after it. Only when he hit the ground time snapped back into its proper speed.

The gun dropped from Ana's fingers and landed on the ground with a soft thump. I couldn't see her face, but I didn't have to. The bond she had kept so closely guarded the whole time was blown wide open for me and Ferret to see what she felt.

Confusion, fear, grief, pain, anger – all of that was there. But overwhelming was the sense of utter revulsion she felt at herself. Even that was too weak a word. Hatred. She hated what she had become. She hated what she had done. She hated herself.

With a little cry she fell to her knees and buried her face in her hands.

All my instincts screamed at me to comfort her. To rush to her side, to hold her, to tell her everything would be alright. To tell her that I still loved her. That I would forgive everything.

I didn't. I breathed in deeply, forced myself to look away from Ana and at Ferret instead, who was frozen in complete shock.

First I extricated myself from under Bear's heavy corpse. "Ferret." I spoke softly, but I reached out to him over the bond as well, drawing him to me. "Help me, please."

He turned to look at me instead of Markus' smoking corpse and Ana crying in bitter despair. I held out my shackled hands to him.

He blinked rapidly. He started moving like a puppet on a string, jerkily kneeling next to me. His hands still shook when he drew one of his tools from his bag. I stopped him and took both of his hands in mine. His breath was coming in short, hard gasps as if he had just run a race.

"Look at me," I told him, still speaking softly. He obeyed.

Everything he had known and understood was crumbling away around him. He needed something solid to hang on to. I had to be that something. I had failed my pack, but I wouldn't continue to do so. I would fix this. I drew him close to me and hugged him awkwardly.

"I'm here. I will always be here. You're safe."

I had no way of knowing if that was the truth. But it was what Ferret needed to hear and I would make it so. Or die trying.

It took a while for Ferret to slowly relax, his tension drained away by the feeling of safety he found in my arms. The whole time I kept an eye on Ana, but she didn't move but for an occasional tremble of her shoulders. I sensed her thoughts running in endless circles of self-loathing. I wanted to believe that the act of killing Markus, of rejecting his teachings, meant that my Ana was winning over the Packmaster Ana, but I couldn't allow myself the luxury of naïveté. As much as it pained me, she couldn't be trusted right now.

Though I did trust her enough to stop feeling sorry for myself and start taking care of my pack again. I had a yacht to steal. And a wolf.

Again.

I cast myself out along the pack bond. Wolf's rage was still burning as brightly as before. He was alive, in pain, and furious beyond words. I'm coming for you, brother. I'm coming. I tried to shout it at him as loudly as I could. I didn't believe I could make myself heard so I blinked in surprise when I sensed his response. Fierce joy and an overwhelming sense of pack.

"I'm okay," Ferret muttered, muffled by where he still pressed his face against my chest. "I'm okay, I can do this. I can be strong. I can do this for Cat. For Wolf. I can do this."

His courage made my heart beat faster with pride. "Yes, you can."

He breathed deeply and looked up at me with a small smile. He tried to glance at Ana, but I didn't let him. I needed him focused on the task at hand not on Ana's distress and possible threat. Once again I held out my shackled hands.

"Oh, yes, yes, easy lock," he muttered and got to work. Moments later, I was free of all my chains. The shock collar followed quickly.

"Thank you." I stretched, arching my back, to get a feeling for how badly I was really hurt. Various scrapes, but as far as I could tell, nothing was broken. I granted myself one more moment to close my eyes, draw a deep breath and gather my strength, before I rolled to my feet and padded over to where Ana was still kneeling next to Markus' corpse.

I fought down the urge to hug and comfort her like I had done with Ferret. "Ana, get up," I told her in that same calm command tone she had used on us only minutes ago. She didn't react. Now that I was finally taking charge again, my mind was working overtime, sorting through all the things we needed to do. Getting more information about the enemy was first on the list.

"Ferret, what happened while I was out?"

"What? Oh, I..." he took a deep breath and focussed. "When Ana sensed the attack on you, she wanted to look for you, but Markus didn't let her. Said it would be stupid to rush into danger when she had just lost her fighters. So they were arguing what to do and then I saw Tomori show up at our doorstep with a techie in tow who started fiddling with our new locking codes. Ana figured we didn't have very long so we escaped through the cargo hatch. Real lucky Tomori overlooked that we had docked that too. Then we waited for things to calm down and Ana did that thing to find you. So we crept back on board to get you out."

"Do you know how many men Tomori has with him?"

Ferret shrugged. "There's two guards outside the main hatch. Don't know how many are on the ship. We stuck to the utility rooms to get in here. But I can check for you. There's a hidden command console right here in the master bedroom."

Of course there would be. Viscount Tomori was paranoid. He'd want to have full control over his precious yacht from the comfort of his bed.

"Please do so."

I looked around the room and chuckled darkly. However many guards there were, they wouldn't have heard Ana's shot. The master bedroom and adjacent toy storage were soundproof. Maybe we had used up all our bad luck after all.

Ferret scurried over to the gargantuan bed and poked at the nightstand, quickly extracting a sleek keyboard with a state-of-the-art holo display. Giving him something to do was doing a world of good for his mental state. He didn't even ask any curious question about how Tomori had found us.

I turned back to Ana, who was still motionless. I crouched down next to her and gently pulled her hands from her face. "Ana, listen to me. I know you are sorry..."

"You can't forgive," she interrupted me, staring at me with wide, anguish filled eyes. "You can't ever forgive me. You mustn't."

We would have to talk about this. At length, in detail and probably repeatedly. But not now. Just like Ferret, she needed a task to focus on. "Ana, we need to find Wolf. Do you have any idea where he is being held?"

It took a little while until my words penetrated, but then she shook her head.

"Can you find him? Like you found me?"

"No! No, I'm never doing it again. I swear."

As reassuring as it was to hear that, it wasn't very helpful. "We must find him," I repeated more forcefully. "If you can..."

"I can't. Even if I wanted to I couldn't. I could only do it with you because I ... so often..."

She squeezed her eyes shut and I felt her fight down a near overwhelming hunger. Now that she was finally allowing our bond to remain open, I started to understand why she hadn't stopped. It was like a drug to her, that sense of control over a bestia, the intense pleasure it brought her. That was why she had always looked so dazed after our sessions.

It wasn't an excuse, but at least it was an explanation I could work with. Markus had shown it to her on full purpose. Once he got her properly hooked, she would have been his willing accomplice in acquiring new bestiae for him to form a pack of his own. A pack to feed on like Ana would have continued to feed on us. Watching Ana practise on me must have been driving him crazy with hunger. No wonder he had kept pushing for us to find him a bestia to bond with.

Focus, I told myself. Falk had been there. He had likely reclaimed his wolf.

"Ferret, can you check whether Captain Falk is docked at Vandal?"

"Of course." His fingers flew across the keyboard and moments later he spoke up again. "Found him." He looked up and grinned at me. The old sparkle had returned to his eyes. "I sent an inquiry to Vandal's dock controls. With a nice bribe. Viscount Tomori arrived with Captain Falk this morning. He hired a bunch of thugs. I would bet my furry ass that Tomori roped Falk into helping him with transportation by promising he'd return his missing bestia to him in the process."

I nodded. It was the obvious conclusion to Falk's presence here. Making the connection between the ripped up guard's around the Lollipop's parking spot on Darkside and the stolen wolf wasn't too hard for Tomori to make. He'd needed a ship to follow us and fast, once he received Bear's message. While Falk would normally have been beneath Tomori's notice, he had been the simplest solution to his problem.

"Where's Tomori now?"

Ferret shrugged. "Not on board. There's the two guards outside the hatch, the tech guy is in the cockpit, fiddling with the coding, and one more guard is in the pantry. Considering how small Captain Falk's ship is, he couldn't have taken too many."

"Can you find out where exactly Falk's ship is docked?"

Ferret's grin grew even wider. "Already have, boss. He originally was docked in the upper sector, but has since transferred to a spot close to here. Docking dude's still pissed about the hassle."

I rolled my shoulders. "Alright. Here's what we'll do. First we retake our ship. Then we pay Falk a visit and get our Wolf back. And then, we kill Tomori."

It sounded pretty cool and it worked on Ferret, even though I only had a vague plan on how to accomplish all of that.

Ana remained completely useless, battling against her inner demons and her hunger. I ended up shoving Markus' corpse in with Bear's, even though she would have deserved better. I put it on the long list of things to deal with later. Then I bundled Ana onto the bed, put a bottle of booze into her hands and considered her taken care of until we left the ship.

By then, I expected the guy in the pantry to have moved, but Ferret assured me that he was still there. Either he was doing an inventory of what we had taken while we were in possession of the Lollipop, or he was liberating some delicacies for himself while Tomori wasn't looking. Both options seemed equally likely and time consuming. Either way, he would hopefully still be there long enough for me to quietly kill the less dangerous techie in the cockpit.

Ferret had so far adamantly resisted any of my efforts to put a gun into his hands, but now he picked up Ana's dropped blaster without me prompting him. It looked huge in his tiny hands, and he was as likely to shoot the ship or me as he was likely to kill any of Tomori's men, but I didn't point that out. If he was willing to fight for his pack, it wasn't my place to keep him from doing so.

We left the master bedroom as stealthily as possible, which was greatly aided by the soft carpet. The lounge looked exactly like we had left it earlier, only there were several pieces of expensive looking luggage stacked in a corner. Apparently, Tomori didn't travel without some luxury, even if he had to do it on a crappy rust bucket like Falk's ship. On the coffee table, I found my knives, the various sheaths thrown down in a pile. I didn't waste time putting them back on, just picked up the two long curved daggers. There were at least two throats that needed slitting.

From the cockpit, I heard muttered curses. Whoever the Viscount had left to bring the Lollipop fully back under his control was having a hard time. We had really merely changed all the access codes, so maybe Tomori's techie wasn't all that skilled. There was no sound from the kitchen or pantry. I gestured for Ferret to cover the doorway to the kitchen with the blaster.

I moved down the short corridor from the lounge to the cockpit. Only the bald head of the man in the pilot chair was visible. He probably was some poor programmer caught in a bad situation. I didn't care. My feet didn't make a sound on the floor as I crept up behind him. He only noticed me when the cold steel of my dagger bit into his throat, and by then, it was too late to scream. All he managed was a wet gurgle. I held him back against the pilot chair tightly until he stopped moving. Once more, my arms were covered in blood, and this time, I felt the thrill of it deep inside my heart. Maybe, with a little more practise, I would find pleasure in hunting and killing after all. I was sure Wolf would approve.

A look at the screen showed me that the techie had actually been reading results on some betting site. I quickly checked and found our codes broken, but not yet changed to something new. Not something I had time to deal with now. I shut down the console and let my fingers linger briefly on the keys. Who would fly the ship, now that Bear was gone? Yet another thing to put on the list.

Ferret was still where I had left him. "Hasn't moved," he mouthed at me soundlessly. His ears were twitching nervously, but apart from that, he was surprisingly calm. Whether it was shock or necessity, I couldn't tell. As long as it held, I'd enjoy the good fortune.

I moved into the kitchen and used the counter as cover to sneak a look into the pantry. This thug wasn't dressed as well as Tomori's personal guards, but still better than a random Darkside brawler. He was studying the contents of one of the large standing freezers while munching ice cream directly out of the tub. A notepad lay discarded in a shelf. So it was inventory and stealing food at the same time. Luckily for him, the Viscount wouldn't get a chance to find out and punish him.

Again, I tried to creep up on him quietly, hoping for a chance to kill him quickly. Though this time, my luck didn't hold. Just when I entered the pantry, he closed the door of the freezer with a sigh and turned around.

The guy yelped in surprise, but his reaction was swifter than most other humans'. Instead of trying to dodge my attack, he threw the only weapon at me he had at his disposal – the tub of ice-cream. Of course he missed me by a mile and a half, but by dodging the ice-cream, I had overlooked the spoon he had thrown together with it. The tiny thing hit me right in the face above my eye and made me flinch away, just for half a second. That little moment was enough time for the thug to grab two big tins of fish from the shelf next to him and throw those at me. They hit me on the shoulder and head, respectively. I dodged lower and charged at him, snarling as the hit on my head caused pain like purple tendrils to run through my body. I had already been kicked unconscious and generously tortured with a shock collar, today. My head was sore, inside and out.

I rammed my shoulder into his belly, and we both slammed against the large freezer he had just closed. He gave a choked sound, but apparently had expected something like this. While I was still trying to regain my footing, he grabbed one of my wrists and slammed it against the corner of one of the shelves. Addled as I felt, I lost the grip on the dagger and it clattered to the ground. The freezer we had slammed against wobbled precariously, its door snapped open and several large pieces of frozen meat and bits of ice spilled onto the floor, skittering around and getting underfoot.

The thug kicked against my ankle, forcing me to go down on one knee. Instantly, he jumped over my back, smacking my head on his way over me and was half-way out of the pantry before I could look around. Damn, that guy was fast.

But I was fast, too, and threw my other dagger after him as swiftly as I could. If I hadn't stepped on some bit of ice on the floor, I'd probably have landed a killing blow. But as things were, I merely caught the guy in the ass, causing him to yelp in pain, wobble and stop, holding on to a shelf for support.

Frantically searching for a weapon, I picked up the first thing that came into my hands. Which turned out to be a massive ham roast, bone in, that I had grabbed by the femur like a heavy club. For a heartbeat, I envied Wolf for still having his claws. But then I caught my own reflection in the eyes of the thug I was about to club down, and saw them widen in sheer terror. Maybe the weapons I had were good enough.

Swinging the ham roast like a club, I hit the thug right across the face, bowling him into the shelves of the pantry. He went down, his face a bloody mess. But I didn't stop there. With a heavy kick, I pushed him onto the ground, ignoring his faint whimpers and pleas. My whole body hurt, but this had to be finished properly.

I heaved the ham roast over my head as well as the low ceiling allowed, and brought it down on the thug's head. He still twitched. It took me two more swings with my makeshift club before his head burst open, spilling brains and blood and gore all over the place. At least he was definitely dead, now.

I poked the corpse with a toe, feeling sudden disgust. There was blood and gore all over the floor and some had splattered onto the shelves. The formerly delicious looking, frozen ham roast was equally covered in blood. There was even a shard of bone from the thug's skull sticking out of it.

I really had more pressing matters to attend to, but I found myself incapable of leaving the body in our pantry. This was our food, and I fully intended to eat it at some point. I briefly contemplated calling Ferret for help, but decided against it. The fewer bodies he had to see, the better for all of us. With some grunting, I dragged the corpse out of the pantry and into one of the other storage rooms. I dropped the ruined ham roast on top of him and closed the door behind me.

Looking down at myself, I shuddered. I didn't look any better than the pantry. Since I really didn't have the time to clean myself, I at least pulled off the blood soaked tunic. Going into battle bare chested. Yes, Wolf would definitely approve.

Now we only needed to get rid of the two guards at the hatch. If they were anything like Tomori's other thugs, they would be rather bored with their jobs and hopefully only pay attention to the corridor, not to what was happening behind them. Of course, they would notice when the hatch opened, but they wouldn't expect an immediate attack. That gave us a narrow window in which to shoot them. I would need Ferret's help with that, though. Asking him to actually fire that blaster at someone wasn't something I liked doing, but there was no other way.

Finding another blaster for myself wasn't too hard now that I could move through the Lollipop freely again. The weapons we had taken from the bodyguards on Thiala were still in their storage crate.

I returned to the lounge. Ferret waited for me, hopping from one foot to the other. He already sensed that I was going to ask him to do something hard. I didn't waste any time and explained what I needed him to do.

He agreed with a small, unhappy nod and together, we went to the main hatch.

I was ready to open it, but stopped when Ferret reached out to me and put his small hand on my arm.

"Cat?" he asked softly, "You'll fix Ana, won't you? She'll be okay again?"

He looked so hopefully and trusting, I just wanted to tell him what I too wanted to believe. But I forced myself not to lie. "I will try. I will. But I don't know if I can."

A sunny little smile showed his teeth. "You will," he told me with complete trust. "I know you can." He gripped his blaster tighter and pointed it firmly at the hatch, ready for anything.

I don't think Ferret ever realised how much his courage and strength actually inspired me. Without a second thought, I flicked the switch and the hatch hummed open. Just like I had expected, the two guards turned around with unconcerned, mild curiosity. We shot them before they really understood what was happening.

Exactly like I had told him to, Ferret fired three shots at his target, to make absolutely sure he was dead. One at his head, two at his chest. His arms shook, but he didn't lower his blaster and kept his eyes firmly on the corpse until I gently put my hand over his and took the gun from his rigid fingers.

"Go and look after Ana," I told him. We needed to put the corpses somewhere out of sight so it wouldn't be obvious we had retaken the ship straight away, but I didn't need Ferret for that.

"I'm ... fine."

Ferret and I both jerked around, startled by Ana's voice. I had mostly closed myself off to her, as her intense misery distracted me too much from acting. I hadn't thought her capable of moving any time soon, but I had clearly underestimated her. She was swaying only a little and she had found another blaster gun to arm herself with.

"You're not fine," I told her. I wanted to say it gently, but I was loaded with too many conflicting emotions and came out more of a snarl.

She looked at me with eyes still full of pain and grief.

"No, I'm not," she agreed. "But I'm not letting you go on your own. If you die trying to save Wolf, I'm going to die with you. I owe you. All of you."

She did say 'owe'. For a moment my mind had tried to trick me into believing she had said 'own'. But she hadn't. I felt it over the bond as I opened it back up. The need to make amends was what she used to keep the hunger suppressed.

We looked at each other in silence. She didn't beg or order me, using my love for her against me. But she didn't back down either. She knew full well I didn't have the luxury of being able to turn away her help.

I agreed with a short nod, turned back to the two dead guards and started dragging the first one inside. Ana and Ferret grabbed the second one and did the same. We left them lying just inside the hatch and I closed it from outside.

Wolf's pain and rage blazed undiminished in the pack bond. Soon, brother, very soon, I thought, hoping that he could still hear me.

# Chapter 8

The main hatch of Captain Falk's ship looked quite different than that of our Lollipop. Instead of cherry red and glossy, it was dull metal with dents and traces of rust.

While we had been planning to steal Wolf the first time, I had checked whether we might do so while stealing Falk's ship at the same time. The idea had been discarded quickly as it was a minor miracle the thing was still flying. Repair costs would have been unsustainable. And I hadn't even checked what the inside looked like after I had seen the hull. If we were stealing a ship, it wouldn't be a flying dump. Despite her questionable choices in interior design, the Lollipop had yet to prove me wrong in picking her.

Also unlike the Lollipop's hatch, this one was unguarded. As rusted as it was, it also looked like it would screech infernally when opened.

"Do they have a cargo hatch we could use to sneak in?" I asked without much hope.

Ferret shook his head. "Ship's too small to need one."

I looked at my amazing combat unit consisting of Ferret and Ana, both of them looking very determined and at the same time distinctly uncomfortable with the guns in their hands. Just walking in through the front door made my fur stand on edge, but we really didn't have any other options. There was no telling how long Falk would stay, now he had his wolf back. He might check out Vandal's fighting pits or he might take off for easier pickings elsewhere.

Maybe it would have been smarter to leave Wolf in his hands until we got a safer opportunity to steal him back, but it simply wasn't an option. Even though there was the thick hull of Falk's ship between us, I could practically smell Wolf. He was in there and the need to free him could not be denied, no matter how much I would have liked him by my side and Ferret and Ana in there to be saved.

No time like the present.

Without giving myself more time to consider how foolhardy my complete lack of any plan really was, I grabbed the handle of the hatch and tried to pull it open slowly. It did screech, but far less than I had feared. I still winced and opened it only wide enough to peer inside. The airlock was deserted. They hadn't even bothered to close the other side, which opened onto a short corridor, dimly lit by glowballs, crudely bolted to the walls. From further inside, I heard loud music, voices shouting and laughter. No wonder they didn't hear their own door trying to warn them of intruders.

The stench inside was overpowering – fear, blood, sweat, piss, stale sex, burned food and lots of alcohol. I couldn't imagine how Wolf had survived on this ship for such a long time while still retaining most of his sanity. Being back here had to be his worst nightmare, but all I sensed from him was rage, pain and eager anticipation. He knew how close we were.

I was still wavering on the threshold when the general din was drowned out by a roar of pain from Wolf, accompanied by the flash of it over the bond. It killed any sort of hesitation I had still harboured. I slipped inside, quickly and quietly, my blaster drawn.

The short corridor terminated in an open space that apparently served as den and sleeping quarters for the ship's crew. Tables, couches and bedrolls had been shoved against the wall to form a wide circle in the middle.

Wolf was bound with heavy shackles on his wrists and with a short chain to a heavy bolt in the floor, forcing him to crouch low. His fur was matted with blood and scorch marks littered his shoulders and back.

The two brutish handlers Captain Falk employed were circling around him, laughing and brandishing heavy duty electrical cattle prods, while more goons where standing on the sidelines. Falk himself, now back in his officer's coat, was sitting on the armrest of a beat up sofa, cheering them on and drinking from a bottle of cheap booze. The sofa itself was occupied by Viscount Tomori, who, in his expensive suit, looked completely out of place in such dingy surroundings. From the expression on his face though, he was finding his own sick pleasure in the proceedings. It wasn't quite a smile, but a cruel little smirk. Wolf definitely was providing him the kind of entertainment I had been lacking in by laughing at him. And apparently, the Viscount had found some adequate medical assistance here on the station – the remains of the wounds Bear had given him as a parting gift were only faintly visible on his cheek.

Tomori's two personal guards stood behind the couch. The same two who had been there when I had woken up. Since they were out of his sight, they had abandoned their cool, professionally threatening bodyguard look and leaned forward, eagerly grinning each time one of the handlers jabbed Wolf with their prods.

Wolf didn't react to those prods with more than angry snarls so I only noticed the metal collar around his neck when Tomori used the remote control in his lap to shock him. Once more Wolf roared, falling down to one knee.

Me, Ana and Ferret against several thugs, Falk and Tomori himself. Impossible odds. Unless I managed to free Wolf before this battle even started. Unlocking his chains and collar was out of the question so only one option remained – shooting them off. I wasn't nearly a good enough shot to manage that from a distance. Dashing in there and managing to free him before I was killed was insane, but it was exactly what I was going to do.

"Shoot at Tomori as soon as I run in, that should distract them," I whispered to Ana and Ferret who had followed me inside.

Ana opened her mouth to object or maybe just to ask what exactly I was going to do, but I didn't give her time to do so.

I ran into the room before I could think better of it, blaster in one hand, dagger in the other, just straight ahead until I reached the free space around Wolf. I dropped to the ground and rolled to the left, hoping the sudden change of direction would at least give me a few seconds before someone managed to shoot me. Through the pack bond, I could feel Wolf's pain melt underneath an overwhelming feeling of pride, of pack and bloodlust. More than just bolstering my frazzled spirits, it helped me to land facing in the right direction after my wild tumble on the floor. I looked right at Wolf, the bolt his chain was fastened to right between us. His feral, toothy grin matched mine as he pulled up his shackles to tighten the chain and give me a clear shot.

No one had taken a shot at me yet, so I took a heartbeat to lean in and take aim – this one shot was the most important. There were surprised shouts, and everyone was moving and drawing their weapons, but I used my connection to Wolf to ignore all that.

Two shots rang out from the doorway I had come through, hitting the rough area of the couch Tomori was sitting on. Immediately, more shots followed, drawing the attention away from me.

Calm as rarely ever before, I shot at the bolt in the floor. Sparks flew and molten metal splattered in all directions, and even though I could not look directly at the impact, I knew I had managed to shoot off the chain on my first try. Wolf lurched forward, ignoring the fact that he was still shackled. Like a gorilla running on all fours, he crossed the space between us and jumped over me – crashing into someone standing right behind me, only seconds away from bashing in my skull.

Well, I thought, that's what a pack was for.

Ana and Ferret apparently had found some good cover near the doorway and were shooting wildly all over the place. They missed most shots, but they nicely kept the chaos up. I felt Ferret grow a few inches with pride as he felt I thought he was doing a good job.

Suddenly, a shadow loomed in from the right, and I barely managed to dodge a heavy axe that swung for my head. One of the thugs had crept up on me in the chaos, brandishing a large, double-bladed axe that until then, I had only thought possible in some silly B-movie about muscled barbarians saving skinny women in fluttering, skimpy dresses. Though right now, it seemed very real, and very well able to kill me.

Lying on the floor as I was, I gave a badly aimed shot with my blaster at the axe guy and hurled myself to yet another side, hoping to evade his next blow. In the cramped place, I rolled over several small items and ended up lying crumbled at the feet of some metal table they had pushed up against the wall. Axe guy took his next swing at me, but aimed too far and instead dented the table I was lying in front of. The confused moment he needed to absorb the shock of his heavy blow being stopped unexpectedly was all I needed. I whirled around on the floor and lashed out with my dagger, cutting the calf muscle on his left leg, right above his stupid, dirty sneakers. He took a surprised step, tumbled and fell down like a tree, taking another thug with him. This close, I managed to shoot him in the chest, killing him instantly. I jumped to my feet, shot the other thug on the floor in the back of his head and wondered if one day I would actually have a chance to become a good shot with a blaster.

I took a second to have a look around.

Most thugs were to my left, including Falk, trying to take down Wolf who was just choking one of them with the chain between his hands, biting at his face mostly for the sheer horrifying effect it had on his opponents. He was blazing with unbridled rage.

To my right, towards the doorway Ana and Ferret were hiding behind, only a few thugs remained, all in deep cover, hoping to get a good shot at the attackers in the hallway. Also, hiding between the couch and a stack of ammo crates was Tomori, looking as if he was plotting something equally sinister and cowardly.

For the time being, I decided that Wolf needed my help more urgently. Not even wasting half a thought for the general madness of our attack, I hurled myself over the various furnishings to my left. The thug I was coming down on barely had time to turn around before I cut open the side of his neck and a good portion of his back until some armour plates in his jacket stopped my knife.

Kneeling on the ground behind my screaming victim, I used the momentary confusion to shoot the legs of the thugs standing to my left. Why do people only pay attention to their face and torso, I wondered for a moment. The guys I had shot stumbled and dropped, falling into others and creating a pile of bodies on the floor.

I peppered the ground with wild shots from my blaster, silently hoping I managed to kill most of them instantly. The memory of the mess I had created in the pantry was still lingering in the back of my throat, constantly reminding me that if I survived this, I would still have to clean up our food supply.

Someone to my right took a shot at me, with a slug gun this time. The shot grazed my left arm right underneath the spot where I had been hit on Thiala. Dammit. I would never get a decent fur back on the arm if people continued to rip it apart!

And yet, the pain barely registered.

Instead, I rose to my feet and leapt up towards the attacker, hoping to get a good cut at his arms. But this one was a little smarter and stepped back, shooting again. This time, his shot grazed my right thigh, cutting deeper, making me hiss with pain. I really had to get this one down before he could land a proper shot, I wouldn't survive if he—

Out of nowhere, a large armchair flew in from the left and slammed into the thug shooting at me. Wolf's bloody satisfaction at the hit told me who had sent it. Desperate to keep his balance, the thug raised his arms, but that was all the opening I needed. I struck forward with all the speed I had, going for his throat. He noticed what I was going to do, but too late. Even though the thug still managed to fire a shot deafeningly close to my ear, I cut his throat good and deep, hot blood spurting all over both of us.

He crumbled to the floor, coughing up more blood.

Before I could regain my bearings, something grabbed me from behind, heavy arms around me, holding me tight. I realised it was Wolf holding me, but even with the pack bond it took me a moment to understand what he wanted. He was standing behind me, his shackled arms on my sides, the chain between them stretched out right in front of me.

Oh, he was a smart one.

Setting the muzzle of my blaster right into one of the chainlinks, I turned my head to the side and fired. Immediately, his arms let go of me, already running towards his next prey. With faint regret, I noticed the fine tendrils of smoke rise from my wrists and belly – some drops of molten metal had singed my fur, the pain barely registering. Alas, more bald spots.

I looked around, searching for my next opponent.

But there seemed to be none.

To my left, Wolf had Captain Falk and two more of his thugs cornered quite effectively, to my right, at the far end of the room, only Tomori remained.

Did we really have a chance of getting out of this alive?

I was already half-way around to face the remaining thugs together with Wolf when the Viscount tried to make a move. Apparently, he had come to the conclusion that this battle was lost, and it was time for a last, desperate gamble.

With a determined expression, he fiddled at his belt and rose, swiftly walking over to the doorway where Ana and Ferret were holed up – towards the exit.

Naturally, they opened fire as soon as they could see him properly, but once again, Tomori had technology on his side. Whatever he had done to his energy shield, it seemed to be working. Each shot that managed to hit him was repelled by the faint blue glimmer around his person, some of the shots even reflecting off of him like water from a hot pan.

It took me an entire heartbeat to realise that if his shield was able to sustain this kind of protection for more than a few seconds, he might walk out on us. Just like that.

I took a few steps in his direction, but stopped immediately. Ana and Ferret were still firing, and I would hopelessly get caught in their crossfire if I came any closer. But we couldn't just let him walk away like this!

Suddenly a tiny figure came running out of the darkness of the hallway and I watched with cold dread as it tackled Tomori. I could feel Ferret's grim determination, but in this case, it was not encouraging, it was horrifying. The viscount wasn't a heavy man, but he still had to have double the weight on Ferret. At least Ana stopped shooting immediately.

Their struggle took only seconds. With an annoyed gesture, the Viscount pulled Ferret off himself and hurled him away like a small child, not deeming him relevant enough to actually knock him out. His face a sneering mask of disgust, he even took the time to straighten his hair and moustache before he turned around, chin up, to regally walk out of this mess.

Only, Ferret didn't stay down. Neither did I sense any feeling of defeat coming from him. Quite the contrary, actually.

I must have been standing there, slack-jawed and staring as Ferret struggled back up to his feet, drew his blaster, deliberately aimed at Tomori and shot him in the centre of his back from merely a few metres away. This time, there was no energy shield – the shot connected and exploded in his back, leaving a scorched hole the size of a fist.

Tomori went down without a sound.

Ferret must have felt my confusion through the bond, for he wriggled something in his left hand at me as if this would explain everything. And it did, actually – for it was Tomori's shield projector he was showing me, having taken the tiny device off the Viscount's belt during their brief struggle. I threw him a proud smile and a thumbs-up through the room. Oh, what a cunning little Ferret!

And then, someone stepped on my tail.

Howling with pain, I hurled around, only to realise that my tail was actually pinned down and I was hurting myself even more in the process.

There was a whole cluster of furniture standing behind me. Apparently, while I had been watching Ferret take out the Viscount in one of the coolest manoeuvres I had ever seen, one of the remaining thugs had decided that this was the time to make a run for it. And instead of running right through my field of vision, he decided that sneaking over the furniture at my back was the better choice.

It might have even worked. Only he hadn't counted on my wildly wagging tail getting in the way and him stepping right onto one of the most sensitive parts of my anatomy. Honestly, even I hadn't figured that.

Completely startled, the guy tried to dodge away from me. Not a good idea when standing on a wobbly sofa. He needed all his attention to keep himself from falling down. With the pain and indignation still reverberating through my entire body, I didn't even think of letting him go. I grabbed the poor guy by the front of his shirt, pulled him from the low couch he was standing on, slammed him down to the floor and rammed my dagger into his chest. Twice, just to make sure he was staying down. Well, maybe even a few more times.

Only when I was really sure he was dead I turned around to see how Wolf was faring.

He had taken the other thug down, and now it was only him and the Captain left. Somehow, Wolf had gotten hold of one of the cattle prods they had used to torture him only minutes ago. He was brandishing it in his hand, ominous and threatening, smiling with all the teeth he had. And fuck, that was a lot of teeth.

In his corner, Captain Falk was pressing the button of Wolf's shocker collar like a madman. But maybe the batteries on the infernal thing were running low by now or Wolf was getting used to the pain at a frightening rate. Whatever it was, it only produced a slightly annoyed twitch from Wolf. He growled.

Falk gulped in fear, his eyes growing impossibly wide. In a faint attempt, he tried to escape on Wolf's right, but we all knew it was too late for him. Even Falk knew that.

Wolf raised the cattleprod in front of the Captain's eyes, allowing the sparks to jump between the prongs just for show. I could see the cold light reflect in Falk's face, his skin sickly white and shining with sweat.

"You. Remember?" Wolf rasped.

Apparently, Falk had never before heard Wolf speak, and it was clear that only now he realised that he hadn't been torturing a mere animal all this time.

"I. Remember."

Calmly, almost delicately, Wolf grabbed Falk's head and pinned him against the wall. He let the cattle prod hover in front of his eyes for a moment longer, then Wolf rammed the thing into Falk's head, one prong into each eye. I could hear the muted buzz of the cattle prod even from where I was standing.

When I realised that there were tiny wisps of steam rising from Falk's empty eye sockets, I turned away. The man definitely had deserved everything that was happening to him, but I still didn't need to see his liquefied brains run out of his nose or something similarly disgusting.

My own harsh, panting breath sounded impossibly loud in my ears in the sudden silence. It was over. It was over, and against all odds, we were still alive. I yanked my knife out of the corpse I was crouched over. I fully intended to get up and keep moving, but I ended up just sitting down flat on my ass as the floor seemed to tilt sharply underneath me and dark blotches appeared in my vision. The smell of blood and spilled guts was overwhelming. Luckily, there was nothing in my stomach to come up when I retched. I'd never make a good predator.

I tried to blink my vision clear again. Across the room I saw Ana hugging Ferret tightly, trying to comfort him, even though he didn't really look like he needed it. In fact he looked exceptionally pleased with himself. It seemed his first kills hadn't done him any harm.

It was hard to believe that we had won, but apparently it was true. The list of things that needed taking care of in my mind seemed endless, but none of them were pressing enough not to sit here for a little while and just breathe.

A large shadow loomed above me and next thing Wolf dropped down beside me. He was breathing hard as well and he looked and smelled like he had rolled in a heap of offal. Which wasn't that far from the truth. But deep satisfaction and quiet happiness rolled off of him in steady waves. He was doing it right. We had won and we deserved a moment to enjoy that victory. Blood and gore and stench included. I didn't quite manage a grin, but it showed some teeth and he answered the same.

Brother. I felt it from him so strongly it was almost a spoken word. I felt the same.

Sadly, our moment didn't last long.

"Cat?" Ana asked tentatively. "Uh ... maybe ... we should get out of here...?"

It would be a while until I heard anything even remotely like a command from her again, I thought, not entirely sure yet whether that was a good thing. She was right, of course. Now that we had killed both Tomori and Falk, his thugs didn't have a reason to come after us anymore and probably die in the process since no one was paying them to do so.

Still the thought of getting back to the Lollipop to, well, not lick our wounds, but tend to them was enticing. With the stench around us, eating felt like something I didn't want to do again in the near future. But hopefully my appetite would return once my body caught up to the fact that I hadn't eaten properly in a long time. Ana's training sessions had very thoroughly killed any desire for food.

"Yeah, we should," I agreed, but didn't quite manage to find the energy to move.

The list wasn't getting shorter by just sitting around either. We needed to put in a complaint with Vandal's security as soon as possible. If we claimed that we had been attacked first and had merely defended ourselves we stood a chance of getting out of this bloodbath with just some hefty bribes.

That gave me an idea. I looked around the room critically. While Falk's ship was a rust bucket, it still was a mostly functional space ship that currently didn't have an owner. We had killed said owner so by the crude laws of Vandal, we were allowed to claim it as spoils. And since we didn't need it, it would make a fine bribe.

With a groan, I heaved myself back to my feet, swaying only a little bit, and made my way over to were Wolf had dismembered the good Captain. He'd definitely never need a ship again, I thought with dry humour. I wasn't entirely sure, but I thought I'd never seen anyone else so thoroughly dead before. Guys like Falk didn't trust anyone, especially not their own thugs. I sifted through his coat and pants pockets, trying not to get even more gore on myself. Just like I had expected, a found a small personal code card.

"Cat?" Ana asked again, now stepping up next to me.

"Just a second." I plucked the card into my pad and grinned. It was cheaply encrypted. I was certain it would contain his ownership documents and maybe even codes to his accounts, if he had any.

When I turned around I noticed that Ferret was busy searching Tomori's corpse. Of course our little thief had caught on to what I was looking for.

"Let's give this dump a quick search and then we head home," I decided. No sense in leaving anything valuable behind when we had fought so hard to remove the former owners from life.

Wolf tried to get back to his feet, and we all felt the sharp pain shoot up his leg. He hissed angrily and was ready to try again anyway, but Ana was already next to him. "Don't. It might be broken. Let me see." Even after everything she had done, her instinct to protect us was still there. It was reassuring. Wolf held still, leaning down a little to sniff her hair.

I didn't stay to watch. Ferret and I didn't find much of value, but even the cash sticks hidden in bedrolls might come in useful at some point. We picked up those weapons that looked like they were of decent quality. By the time we were ready to leave, Wolf was standing again as well, though he walked with a limp and a grim set to his jaw.

The short walk back to our own Lollipop was free of incidents, but only after I had closed the hatch behind us did I allow myself a sigh of relief. I was ready to keel over and not move for a few weeks, but there was one more thing I needed to do. I dragged myself to the cockpit, leaving it to my pack to take care of themselves.

Vandal security were just as much paid thugs as any other enforcement outfit for the Syndicate, but their officers were of a different breed. It was their job to make sure the station stayed just safe enough to ensure that the lucrative stream of tourists didn't stop. The laws of the Syndicate were pretty simple – Vandal was neutral territory. Any conflict had to be resolved elsewhere or through official channels with the Syndicate supervising. Those who didn't adhere to those rules were punished ruthlessly.

I would have expected even the hardened criminals who came here to at least try to stick to those rules, but apparently exceptions were a regular occurrence, judging from the bored response I got from the woman answering, when I called in my complaint about being attacked by Viscount Tomori. She gave me a process identification number, told me the matter would be investigated and then congratulated me rather sarcastically for still being alive before she hung up on me.

At least, I had now filed the necessary paperwork, and could get back to keeling over and sleeping for a few days.

I found my pack waiting for me back in the lounge.

Wolf was slumped on one of the large couches, uncaring that he got blood all over the expensive leather. He looked as exhausted as I felt and was cradling a large mug in his big hands. From the smell of it, hot milk. Over the packbond, I got a sense of unconditional welcome and tired strength from him.

Ana sat in an armchair, feet drawn up, her arms slung tightly around her knees, making herself as small as possible. She was nervous, but determined to be there. She knew as well as we did that for better or for worse, we were stuck with each other, and that she would have to deal with what she had done. That she was choosing to do so sooner rather than later was heartening.

Ferret had been leaning in the doorway, but ducked back into the kitchen when I appeared. Moments later, he came back with another steaming mug. He smiled at me with a mix of shyness and adorable care and pressed the mug into my hands. He was coping with the terror of the past few days with growing up and growing strong, it seemed to me. It made me proud and sad at the same time. I would have wished for him not to be faced with such misery, but that he was dealing with it so well made me want to put some sort of medal on him for going above and beyond the call of duty.

As it was, I just said "Thank you," and settled on the same couch as Wolf. He made room for me readily enough and I slumped against his solid mass with a tired sigh. My various scrapes and cuts were smarting, but the moment I took a first sip of my milk, all of that faded into the mellowness of having a pack. The emptiness where Bear's grumpy presence had been was the only thing marring that, but I refused to let it pull me down. She had died for what she believed in, and her death had not been as meaningless as she had feared.

I wasn't surprised when Ana spoke up. I had felt her gather courage to do so.

"I knew it was wrong. I knew it the whole time and I still just kept going." She looked small and miserable and at the same time we all felt her quiet resolve. "It felt so good, I just kept wanting more. I kept telling myself that I would find a way of doing it without hurting you if I just tried one more time."

She could have blamed Markus. Even I very much wanted to put all the blame on him. I wanted to tell her that it wasn't her fault, that I still loved her, that everything was forgiven. But that would have been a lie and it wasn't what she wanted or needed either.

"There is no way I can ask you to forgive me," Ana continued. "The only right thing to do would be to go away and never get near another bestia again. But I can't. You are my pack and if there is a way to dissolve a pack bond, I don't know about it. Markus might have, but I doubt he'd have told me about it." She sighed deeply. "He told me so many things and it felt so awesome to finally be learning of the past. Now I wonder if any of the things he said were true. How can he claim Packmaster society was this shining example of glorious civilisation when it was built on torturing bestiae? I wanted to believe that the Packmasters were the good guys in that war. Now ... now I fear there were no good guys involved on either side."

I silently agreed with her. "So what do we do now?" I asked the obvious question.

Ana shrugged. "I don't know. All the things I wanted have turned out to hurt you, all the things I wanted to know I'd now rather forget again. I can't set you free from me, but I will never ask you to do anything for me again. I don't deserve it."

That was just too much. "Ana, no..." I started and was already moving to get up, but Ferret was faster than me.

He had only perched on another armchair's armrest. Now he quickly moved to hug her. "Don't say such a terrible thing," he muttered unhappily, "we still love you. We don't want you to go away."

"You made a mistake," I added, "a terrible mistake, yes, but what you deserve is a chance to prove that you won't repeat it."

There were tears shining in Ana's eyes as she looked at me over Ferret's furry shoulder, clinging to him. She was silently begging for me to forgive her, but didn't dare say it.

Somehow I managed a lopsided grin. "I'm sure I can forgive you, eventually, if you keep up a steady supply of whipped cream."

It was much too light-hearted for the severity of what we both felt, but it was the best I could come up with. It wasn't perfect, but it was enough for Ana. She buried her face in Ferret's fur, even though she wasn't really crying. There was a glimmer of hope in her now; hope that we would somehow be able to fix what she had broken.

Wolf moved behind me and sat up a little straighter. I sensed that he was going to say something important, but I was in no way prepared for the impact it had.

"Aegis," he said.

The word slammed through me. I had thought I had been close to him before, our bond strong and wide open, but it was nothing compared to what I felt now. He stood in my mind as solid and real as my own body and I knew all that was him. It was his name, his true name, the one that Ana had given him and he entrusted it to me and Ferret. I had thought it was something that had to be kept secret, that I would never share with anyone but Ana, but knowing his name felt so right I didn't hesitate even for a moment.

"Kismet," I said.

It felt like I had touched a life wire connecting me to both Wolf and Ferret. Before I had time to even comprehend what was happening, Ferret added his name.

"Charis."

A wave of warm bliss swept over all three of us as we all became truly aware of each other. We had been pack before. Now? I wasn't sure what we were now, but it was unshakable and glorious. Suddenly, the pain from physical and mental wounds was insignificant compared to the strength we had to face it with the three of us combined.

Ana's giggle reverberated to the bond. She was feeling what we were feeling, and it was lifting her up as well, but I sensed that it wasn't the reason for her sudden mirth. She in turn sensed my unspoken question.

"Sharing your names," she answered. "Markus told me I could never let that happen. That it would damage the bond."

"But..." Ferret started to object.

"Yeah," Ana agreed, "it doesn't. It makes you stronger. It will make it much harder for me to control you." She smiled at all of us and it was my Ana, my real Ana, smiling, a hint of curiosity back in her eyes. "I should have trusted us to figure things out on our own. I will try to do better from now on."

"Good. Plan." Wolf agreed.

I didn't have anything meaningful to add, so I let myself sink back against him and closed my eyes to enjoy my hot milk and my pack's presence in silent bliss.

END OF BOOK ONE.

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Excerpt of Chapter 1

"We, the Tribunal of Vandal, have, after careful consideration of all evidence presented by involved parties, come to a verdict on Process M794-P7-13."

The woman speaking held herself like a Core Military admiral straight out of a Core World soap opera. She even wore some sort of fantasy uniform. Not the dark blue and silver of Core Military, of course, but red and gold with lots of tassels and shiny buckles. Her buzz-cut gray hair and the rimless reading glasses just added to her aura of authority.

Personally, I though she looked ridiculous, and I would have bet my furry tail that half of the people present in Vandal's court room thought the same. But just like me, they kept their mouth shut and their faces straight. Even though it was called a tribunal and officially had five members, it was Judge Velasin who made the decisions. The other four were just decoration. For decades, she had been a member of the ruling triumvirate of the Syndicate. She had retired to Vandal and commandeered the tribunal as her entertainment. And even though her stern face held no hint of being entertained, there was no doubt in anyone present that she was enjoying herself tremendously.

Whether that meant she would rule in our favor or stomp us into the ground, I had no clue. Against all customs on a criminal hub like Vandal, we had been completely honest in our report on what had happened. I had decided that we had to be, since the chance that the truth would come out anyway was simply too great. Hopefully, she would find that amusing instead of inappropriate.

Her court room wasn't quite as impressive as Judge Velasin herself, but considering it was located on a former mining station, ruled by the Syndicate who were ruling this sector of the Fringe, it was keeping up well. The large, angular room held a podium for the judges' bench, faced by a stand for witnesses to be heard, a large metal cage to put defendants into and plenty of cheap plastic chairs for spectators. Naturally, there was no room for lawyers, since nobody would have been interested in their babble anyway.

"Before we declare our verdict we will add some personal comments to the matter at hand," Judge Velasin continued, her voice ringing with steely disdain.

I nervously rubbed my hands along the seams of my pants. After everything that had gone wrong, we simply deserved a break.

"We are deeply disappointed that an educated and respected member of our society like Viscount Tomori would display such blatant disregard and willful ignorance towards our beautiful station's laws."

I breathed a soundless sigh of relief.

"He was fully aware of the correct course of action to reclaim his stolen property. Filing a complaint with Vandal's security would have been a matter of a few minutes. Instead, he chose to go after the thieves personally, potentially endangering the peace and prosperity of this station. There is no excuse for his actions and therefore he and his family and organization will be punished by this tribunal and the Syndicate we stand for without mercy until a time we believe they have redeemed themselves in our eyes."

That was more than I had hoped for. A lot more. Apparently, the Syndicate was using this incident to set an example for anyone who dared disrupt the careful balance they had achieved here on Vandal. Though I had no idea how exactly they planned to punish Tomori himself since he was still very dead. Thankfully.

"So, this is our verdict: From this day forward, the Syndicate considers all of Viscount Tomori's possessions to have passed to Miss Ana -"

She glanced down at her notepad briefly, frowned, stabbed at it with her finger, clearly looking for something and then peered at Ana over her glasses with a even deeper frown. Ana stood next to me, outwardly looking stoically calm, while I clearly sensed her tremble in her boots.

Judge Velasin glared at her for a long moment, then a smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth. "Well, just Miss Ana, apparently."

Maybe it was the fact that they were both wearing glasses, I thought, trying to come up with some reason how a hardened, brutal old hag like Judge Velasin would see something in Ana to make her smirk. Her expression would have been very different had she known Ana's last name was Lancour. Though even then, she probably wouldn't have made the connection between this unassuming small time criminal girl and her motley crew of bestiae and Lancour InterMedia, the Core world corporation controlling most of the galaxy's entertainment industry. I very much preferred nobody knowing her name at all.

"The tribunal confiscates the late Captain Falk's possessions in their entirety as compensation for court proceedings. Explicitly excluded from these possessions is one wolf bestia which Miss Ana has successfully stolen and which she is therefore considered to be the rightful owner of."

Her gaze swept through the court room, pinning down various people who apparently held some sort of significance. "Let this be a warning and an example to any and all who dare cross the Syndicate!" She finished in style by banging her gloved fist onto her table so hard the polished wood groaned under the impact. "Dismissed."

There were some murmurs and sour looks in Ana's direction, but none of them were loud enough to attract Judge Velasin's attention. There were plenty who looked at Ana with curiosity or even respect.

Ana herself somehow managed to not slump forward with relief. We had worked hard on her look for the tribunal, trying to present her as an authentic Fringe spacer, with cargo pants, a grungy shirt and an equally grungy looking jacket. Her thick glasses didn't quite fit with the image, but they couldn't be helped. Without them, the world turned into a fuzzy haze for her. She even wore a blaster belt for the occasion, though of course she had been forced to leave the blaster at the door, like everyone else.

Her bestiae were of course ignored. It was amazing how people ignored that we were a lot more dangerous than any blaster, and not just in combat. No one present would have considered it possible that everything Ana had said in her defense statement had been carefully drummed into her head by me. While she was smart as a whip, she still was working on understanding how the warped justice system of Vandal worked. It didn't help that she currently was also a recovering addict.

She held herself straight and alert and graciously accepted the various data chips and code cards from a thug who apparently had drawn the short straw and been drafted as an assistant to the tribunal.

Ferret tugged on my sleeve. I leaned down to him so he could whisper in my ear.

"So we get to keep the Lollipop?"

I nodded with a smile. We didn't just get to keep the Lollipop, it now officially belonged to us. As officially as anything ever belonged to anyone out here on the Fringe, anyway. I looked at the retreating back of Judge Velasin, wondering whether the fact that no one had been present to say anything in Tomori's favor had aided our case, or if the Judge would have been even more vexed by someone from Tomori's family arguing with her. Probably the latter. I put her on my list of people never to cross.

Even though Ana was still presenting a credibly strong front, I sensed that she was rapidly losing both patience and her nerve. Her extended use of her control abilities over me had been a font of pleasure and invigorating energy for her, leaving me constantly tired and cranky. Now that she had vowed to never exercise those powers again, she was getting her own dose of misery. At first she had just been irritable, but now she was complaining about migraines and her very bones feeling sore. Typical symptoms of someone going through withdrawal from a potent drug.

While some vengeful part of me thought she quite deserved to suffer a little, I mostly just felt the urge to cuddle and protect her. Offering comfort via our bond was a two edged sword, though, since it put the very thing she craved so tantalizingly close.

Basically, Ana had been locking herself in her cabin alone for the last few days, unless she was called upon by Vandal's security. Like a wounded animal, she holed up and snarled at her pack when we tried to offer companionship. At least, she readily accepted treats. If she had refused to eat too, I would have had to do something, though I had no idea what that would have been.

Before any of the spectators who had gathered to watch Judge Velasin dispense her own special brand of justice could start bugging Ana with unwelcome congratulations or propositions, Wolf moved in, becoming a massive bulwark of fur, muscle and claws between her and the world.

Most of the wounds he and I had sustained during the whole 'Tomori incident', as it was called in gossip across the station, had healed by now. Wolf had gained a new scar, crossing his snout, giving him an even more grizzled and fearsome look. I sported a little nick in my left ear that marred the perfect symmetry of them, but also gave me a rakish look I kind of liked.

After picking up Ana's blaster front the front desk, we moved away from the courtroom and grabbed one of the little electric taxi carts right outside to ferry us back to the Lollipop. Whoever thought they had business with Ana would have to make the trek out there to hear from me that she wasn't receiving any visitors but that they could talk to me and I would take notes for her.

Only once we had closed the main hatch behind us, did Ana finally slump forward to hug herself with a tremble running through her entire body.

"I can't believe we made it," she whispered, as if saying it out too loud would wake her from this happy dream.

Packmasters #2, 'Raid on Sullin', will be published in autumn 2017.

Ain't nothing wrong with playing human – it's the other humans that ruin the fun.

After too many weeks as a New Mexico farm hand, werecat Roan desperately needs to get out of town or he'll start eating idiots instead of ignoring them.

But he discovers an abused werewolf in the pen of a travelling circus, and even though he can't stand the "dogs", he decides to rescue his fellow werecreature. He is unaware that Betsy, the idealistic daughter of the local Sheriff, plans to do exactly the same.

Together, they manage to fuck up a perfectly good rescue operation and Roan catches a chest full of lead. Which isn't enough to kill a werecat, but now Roan is on the run to Mexico with overeager Betsy and their crippled werewolf charge in tow.

They will have to overcome their prejudices and grow into a family if they are to outrun the police, angry parents, jealous fiancees and vengeful circus fey hot on their heels.

Sunchaser is a non-romantic road-movie about a werecat drifter, a wide-eyed human girl and a defective werewolf learning that sometimes, family really is the ones you didn't pick.

Tags: Urban Fantasy – Adventure – Non Romance – Shifters – Roadmovie – Family – Friendship – USA – New Mexico – Mexico

Fighting with your back to the wall is all well and good—as long as you've chosen the right wall.

When the local authorities ask Kyle Juenger to hunt a shape-shifting Glyrinny spy, he can't refuse. After all, he can use the reward to replace his paralyzed legs with cyberware, and maybe even to return to his home planet. Besides, he hates the morphs—those invasive, brain-eating monstrosities whose weapons cost him his legs.

Kyle's best lead is the Scorpion, a mercenary ship armed to the teeth. Grimm, the Scorpion's pilot and captain, fascinates Kyle. He's everything Kyle lost with his legs, and he's from the same home world. He's also of the warrior caste—half priest, half savior. But Grimm's been twisted by life as a merc, and Kyle's stuck undercover as a criminal on the run.

That doesn't stop Grimm from coming on to Kyle, or from insisting he's more than the sum of his past and his useless legs. But Kyle has other concerns—like tracking a dangerous morph who could be wearing anyone's face. And as if things weren't complicated enough, Kyle can't tell if Grimm is part of the solution ... or part of the problem.
