Cold Fire

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

    Chapter 6

Aster let out a prolonged sigh. "Why are you dragging me
along on this idiocy?"

I turned from where I had been sitting to look at him. "Fox
has some kind of plan and if it works he's going to need an
engineer."

He rolled his eyes, "Rachel, I doubt he can find the type of
ship we'll need."

"Somehow I think he has already."

He snorted through his nose, and scoffed. "You are not
exactly the most unbiased person to decided that."

I leaned forward. "Implying?"

"It's not a secret that you two are fucking each other," he
said with a smirk.

I resisted to urge to slap him across his nose. "What we do
together does not affect my judgment of his abilities."

He scoffed again, "You just keep believing that."

I shook my head. "He does have a plan."

Aster growled softly, "He's got a hole in his fucking head,
that's what he's got! And this whole body swap is just
making it worse."

I ignored him, turning around in my seat and looking back
out of the window that was next to me, and into space. We
would be at Fox's ship in a few more minutes and I was
strongly regretting my decision to bring this boy along. His
tail was in so much of knot that I doubted he would be any
help at all.

Fox, though, he did have a plan. I just wished I knew what
it was and how he meant to achieve it. I also wished I could
shake the deep chill that had settled over me right after he
left the Council ship.

The rest of the short trip was uneventful, the _Phoenix's_
computer guiding us in for a smooth landing in one of its
cargo bays.

Opening the hatch out of the shuttle I was almost surprised
to see Fox waiting for me a few feet away. She was dressed
slightly better than before, but this time her eyes had a
look of deathly seriousness.

"Fox?" I asked, starting to step out of the shuttle.

"Wait," she said, raising one paw. "I want to make something
perfectly clear first."

Oh-oh, this wasn't a good sign. I set my foot back down
inside the lip of the hatch.

She took a step forward. "As soon as you step from that
shuttle until you return to it you no longer represent the
Council in any fashion. You are going to be involved in this
as a private citizen, officially representing no one other
than yourself. Do you understand?"

"Is it that serious?"

She nodded slowly, her tail twitching quickly behind her.

I took a deep breath; this had the potential to become very
serious. Then slowly letting it out, I stepped into the
cargo bay. "I agree, then."

Leaning sideways, she looked past me. "How about your
company?"

"He's going with you. I thought you could use an engineer."

She sighed. "Yes, I could. Come on, then, we need to talk
someplace a bit more private."

Aster grumbled something under his breath and stepped onto
the deck. Fox smiled slightly when she saw him. "Well, this
is a surprise."

He was the same wolf with whom Fox had the near argument
with a few hours before at the briefing. He just sneered at
her, his ears flat.

"So, what do you have planned, Fox?" I asked, clasping my
paws behind my back.

She walked over to me, her face falling into a worried look.
"As you might have guessed, I do know where we can get a
ship to get into the base."

Aster harrumphed.

Fox looked at him and shook her head. "Oh ye of little
intellect." She looked back at me. "We've been using a type
of them for about twenty years now."

I hoped I hadn't just heard what I thought I had just heard.
"We?" I prompted.

She nodded. "Humans, Earth, my home. We."

I swore softly.

Shaking her head, she rubbed her forehead. "I'm not planning
on trying to bring them into the Council in any fashion. I'm
just planning to liberate one of their space shuttles."

I glared at her. "Fox, do you have any idea what we'll be
doing! The *least* that can happen if you do this is that
the Council will have you and everyone on this ship
summarily executed!"

"I know that, but if we do pull this off and get down to the
base, people will be more interested in the fact that we did
it than with how. If we can retrieve the shuttle fast enough
and get it the hell out of the system before anyone starts
looking, you can classify the whole of it and we can all go
home happy."

I shook my head. "That's a lot of 'ifs'."

"That's too many," Aster commented from where he still
stood.

She nodded. "I know, I really do know. I've already talked
to the others, they're all going to try and help, at least.
I just wanted you to know what we're preparing to do."

I sighed, thinking this over. There were too many problems,
more than I thought he could easily solve by himself. "Do
you think this is necessary?"

She nodded, "With Grasion, yes. The only chance we will have
of stopping him will be to force him into the end game
before he's ready."

"Why not just wait!" Aster said, stepping forward. "He's
trading one hostage every other day. If we wait long enough
he'll be out."

Fox growled, taking three quick steps to stand right in
front of him. She looked down her muzzle into his eyes, the
points of her teeth showing. "Because the last hostage, or
two, or maybe even five, will pay their lives for a ship. I
can guarantee they will be the most important people of the
whole group down there, and that they most likely will not
get out alive!"

He held his ground, looking back at Fox. "Are you sure? How
do we know he won't just give up!"

Her neck started to tense under the fur. "Because he wants
something and giving up will not get it. Did you hear
nothing of what I told you before? He will not just sit
around with his thumbs up his ass! If he didn't have a plan
of what to do with no getaway before, he does now, and you
can bet your life that he'll be able to pull it off, leaving
with what ever he wants, and whatever lives he decides to
take! The _ONLY_ chance we have of stopping him is to do
something he could not have planned on!"

He growled. "You are so far out of your fucking mind--" he
stared to yell, but was cut short when I slammed my clenched
fist into the side of his muzzle, sending him stumbling
backwards then falling onto the decking with a resounding
thump.

"And you," I intoned, glaring down at him, "are about three
seconds away from being spaced if you don't reel in your
attitude."

He glared up at me, rubbing the side of his face, but did
shut up.

I looked back at Fox with a sigh. "Sorry to leave you with
him, but he knows the most about the base's defense systems
and also how to get around the base."

"Won't you need him, then?"

I smiled. "No, we have Sebe on the planet. He was just
working as an adviser."

She nodded, "He'll have to do then."

"Now that he's been settled, how long will this take?"

Fox paused, her eyes bouncing softly as she thought. "We're
taking the long way around. Three days to the mega-fold,
then two days to Earth. One day for the pickup then the same
time back."

That was puzzling. "Two days? But the distance isn't that
far."

She nodded again, "Four point two light years, but we can't
use the hypo-drive. It's too damn noisy, and noisy in a
frequency that's commonly used. The hyper-drive isn't
exactly high quality in and of itself. It was only intended
to be a secondary system, made to use extremely low power,
not for speed."

"Still though, isn't eleven days a bit long? Grasion could
be done and gone by then."

She shook her head with a slight smile. "Not at all. He's
asking for a lot more than he actually wants, trying to
cover it all up. He's not going to be asking for it all at
once. He'll still be there, just a little more dug in."

I nodded, thinking of a thousand more questions to ask, but
realizing that she might not have the time to answer them.
"Then I need to go so you can start this."

"There is one more thing." she said, taking a step forward.

"What?"

She sighed softly. "I'm going to need Page's computer
skills. Can you have her meet us on a small shuttle this
side of the mega-fold?"

I nodded. "That should not be a problem."

"I'm also going to need Terminus as well."

This came as a slight shock, but I had been expecting
something like it since I had arrived on the ship. "He's not
allowed off Prid!" I protested, the words sounded slightly
hollow.

Fox nodded. "I know, but I need him. At the end of this
we're all going to be going down to the base. We'll need
more than what we have. He used to be a knight and will be
able to handle himself."

"Why not Kalie?" I halfheartedly suggested, "she's usually
who you take on your adventures."

She nodded, "and she also has a life. Last time we talked
she told me she was getting involved in some war games for
her government and wasn't going to be able to get together
for a few more months."

I sighed. "Anything else?"

"Pray?" she suggested.

I smiled. "I'm already doing that."

   To Be Continued...

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This story is (c) 1998 by Fox Cutter, hardcopy reprints
limited to one a person, all other rights reserved. This
story may not be distributed for a fee except by permission
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