PRECIOUS CARGO @Copyright Maureen Lycaon, May 2002. Permission granted to distribute this story freely by electronic means as long as it is unaltered and there is no charge, and to make two hard copies for personal use. All other rights reserved under the Berne Convention. This series contains themes of voluntary sexual slavery, BDSM, furries and science fiction. The furries involved have signed themselves into slavery of their own free will. (But there's no sex in this chapter, just real and simulated violence.) If you shouldn't or don't want to be reading this, please don't. Feedback is welcomed: send it to maureen_lcn@yahoo.com. More of my stories, including other chapters of Precious Cargo, may be found at my Velan archive or on my FurNation site at: http://members.vclart.net/Maureen/index2.html Part 34 On the holoscreen: The red deer hart and the Team Melang leader, a tiger, fell together out of the struggling mass, locked to each other in combat, rolling on the bloodied metal before separating and leaping to their feet. They still clutched their weapons, but the hart was holding hers in her left hoof; her right arm was now a bloody stump. As they circled each other warily, the Litan hyena at last saw his opportunity and fired. His arrow streaked toward the tiger, trailing glowing white sparks, before burying itself in his neck and blazing up like a huge magnesium flare. When the white fire subsided, the tiger slumped to the deck of the platform, his head charred black. The hart leaped back into the melee without missing a beat, unperturbed by her missing arm. Moments later, a lucky shot from the chowsinga impaled the hyena's chest. The bolt exploded in a ghastly spray of blood and fur, and the hyena fell. Shevar, the nilgai bull, had lost his sword and was being menaced by a Melang wolf holding an enormous battleaxe. The jaguar and the one-armed hart were locked in combat with a massive gaur bull and couldn't help him. Meanwhile the chowsinga circled the mass of gladiators, waiting for another opportunity. The wolf swung at Shevar, but the nilgai leaped back and the stroke missed. With uncanny speed, he was inside the arc of that stroke; he kicked out with one hind hoof, catching the wolf in the belly with a solid thump. The wolf doubled over, dropping his axe. Shevar picked it up and took off his head with one blow. A moment later, the nilgai threw the huge axe, cutting the unwary chowsinga in two. Together, Shevar, the jaguar and the one-armed hart brought the guar bull down. The guar succeeded in knocking the jaguar's scythe out of his grip before going down, so the jaguar broke his neck with his bare paws. The three blood-spattered survivors of Team Litan stood triumphantly over the bodies of Team Melang and raised their weapons, roaring, bellowing and bleating their victory. The crowd before the holoscreen roared back, its accolade carried back to their ears by tachyon transmission along with those of countless other crowds in nightclub-theaters across dozens of worlds. Even through the cheers, Fodessa heard groans, catcalls and curses coming from the mob in front of one of the other holoscreens. Those would be Team Melang's fans, disappointed in their loss. Bright red letters appeared on the holoscreen above the gladiators: "Team Litan wins the first battle. Team Melang is out of the running." As the applause and the boos faded, the slain Team Litan avatars revived as if by magic, the hyena and the black bear getting up unwounded to stand grinning beside their teammates. The hart's arm stump grew and reshaped itself into a new right arm, letting her join her teammates in raising their weapons in the air triumphantly. The slain avatars of Team Melang remained where they were, unresurrected. The holoscreens would not show their return to cyberlife. The shouts of the audience dwindled, and furs began sitting down again, talking animatedly to each other or just watching the screen. As her spectator's high subsided, Fodessa resumed her seat with the others. She looked over at Windrunner. The wolf's eyes were wide, his smell one of mingled excitement and disgust. "Never seen cybercombat before?" she asked him. He shook his head. "No, I haven't. I heard of it even on New Yukon, sure, but . . ." "But what?" "I didn't know it was this . . . this *realistic*!" Fodessa stifled her amusement. Caitlin guffawed, then quickly smothered his laughter with one paw as she gave him a quick admonishing glare. "Does that hurt?" Windrunner asked her. "I mean, when they get 'killed'?" She smiled. "No, it doesn't. The software doesn't transmit pain sensations. When a player's avatar gets killed, his sensorium goes black, and he sees a message telling him what happened. That's all." "But -- what about that red deer losing her arm? Didn't *that* hurt?" "Even that didn't hurt," she said. "The software didn't let her use her arm in cyberspace until the fight was over, though." Windrunner's expression showed his relief, though he still smelled appalled. Caitlin smirked. *I'll have to get that smirk off his face when we get back to the ship*, Fodessa decided, smiling to herself at the thought. On the holoscreen, the reformed Team Litan descended through the platform doorway and bounded down a flight of metal stairs, searching for another team to do battle with -- perhaps even Team Savaeti. Mya couldn't have put a hoof on it if you'd paid him a Yongshi corporate head's ransom for the answer . . . but he was starting to feel uneasy. More uneasy than the grisly "entertainment" accounted for. He started to risk looking backward and to either side now and then, no longer trusting just his ears and his side vision. He mentally cursed the holoscreens' obstruction of his view. Some of Team Melang's supporters were leaving their seats and walking up the aisles to the main floor, quietly cursing their luck or looking subdued (doubtless the ones who had bet heavily), or simply discussing the action with each other. He strained to filter out the distraction they created. The kangbai guards strolled by as usual, and nothing about their behavior had changed. Mya couldn't spot anyone acting suspiciously, but he still had that nagging feeling that something was wrong. He was a professional, so he took his hunches seriously. He continued scanning the club, hoping to perceive whatever it was that was triggering his intuitive alarms. Team Litan still hadn't found a new opponent. They raced through the maze, searching, popping in and out of hyperspace. Fodessa felt Windrunner's warmth against her, and she realized that the wolf was cautiously letting his flank touch hers as they sat side by side on the bench. She let herself react cat- fashion, pressing against him a little, enjoying the heat. He returned the pressure. Already, he was recovering. She'd make a cybercombat fan out of him yet. Caitlin, staring raptly at the holoscreen as Team Litan turned a corner and passed through another tesseract, didn't notice. The cybergladiators emerged onto a skyscraper's vast rooftop under a cloudless blue sky. As they did so, there was movement nearby, and another team appeared, running straight toward them, weapons already lifted. In moments, battle was joined once again. With sudden, crystalline clarity, Mya's attention focused on one fur -- a raccoon dog, standing casually near the betting window, a glass in his paw. He was dressed in the purple faux-leather and oddly shaved fur of a dulat youth. At a closer look, he was rather old for a dulat, but that alone wasn't what had set off Mya's mental triggers. Every so often he would use his side vision to glance in Fodessa's direction; it was well concealed, but the stag had finally noticed it. It said volumes about the bastard's skill that it had taken Mya that long. As the bodyguard watched, his neck mane beginning to bristle despite his best efforts at keeping it relaxed, he saw the raccoon dog turn his head slightly as if glancing at someone else. Mya followed his glance -- and spotted a blackbuck, also in a purple leather jacket, walking into the room from another direction. He had apparently just come from the rest room, but his casual stroll was leading him toward the seats, gradually closer to Mya -- and to Captain Fodessa's party. Mya quickly turned his gaze away from both of them, but he felt sure he hadn't been quick enough. He made a conscious effort to keep his ears from going back flat as he flicked his tongue against the little transmitter in the palate of his upper jaw and subvocalized his strongest warning signal to Soungmai. On the rooftop, the Team Litan jaguar wrestled savagely with an argali ram in copper-colored battle armor; both had lost their own weapons during the fight. As Fodessa stood up on the bench with the rest of the crowd, shouting encouragement at the jaguar, a sudden twist of his arms and torso sent the argali pinwheeling over the edge of the roof to fall who knew how many stories to the ground below. Her attention was distracted by a big paw on her shoulder, claws prickling into her skin through the fur. Caught up in the fervor of vicarious battle fury, she looked down to snarl at the intruder, but it was Soungmai. "-- leave! Now!" he was hissing urgently, his yellow eyes blazing. A chill ran down her spine beneath the fur. The haze of bloodlust and excitement vanished, leaving icy clarity in its wake. As she looked at the others, she saw Caitlin just turning away from Mya toward her, his eyes wide, his tail lashing. Windrunner stared back at both of them, looking and smelling worried. She leaned over to speak into the wolf's ear. "We're leaving, but don't panic or let yourself look scared." It was all she needed to say. His ears went back flat for a moment, but then he braced himself, his scent shifting to one of controlled fear and tension as he stepped down from the bench. She stepped down also and began following Mya and Soungmai into the central aisle. Windrunner fell in behind her, and Caitlin brought up the rear. The bodyguards closed in to flank her protectively. They walked slowly up the aisle in a tight group, heading for the main floor, and the bodyguards' scents were sharp with tension. Fodessa felt her tail desperately trying to lash, and her nerves seemed ready to leap out of her skin into one big burning ball at the back of her neck. Once they reached the top, they'd have to make their way across the vast main room and the lobby to the front door. The furs milling around would offer some cover, but a single good shot could so easily take her out, or one of her crew . . . She didn't dare try any of the unmarked exits to the nightclub that she knew about. There might be snipers outside as well. She slipped her paw into a trouser pocket, wrapping it around her PW. At the very top of the aisle, as they reached the main floor, she hesitated. Where were the assassins? And how did they expect to do their task with the kangbai guards on duty? Her answer to that came from a red-furred dhole who appeared from behind a blocking holoscreen, halfway across the room, dressed in embroidered trousers like an ordinary Halcyon businessfur. He turned smoothly and quickly, drawing a silvery tube out of his pocket -- a tube that almost looked like a PW but was longer. *Disrupter*, she realized, her ears going flat. The canid pointed it at a nearby guard, and there was a sudden burst of white light. Those furs who saw the burst screamed, others looked to see the corpse on the floor -- and the panic began. Fodessa tensed to run. She didn't see a jackal, coming up on their other side, pull out another disrupter, but with her peripheral vision she glimpsed Mya suddenly turning to confront someone. Another gout of cold white flame sent glaring spots across her vision, half-blinding her, as the stag was flung off his hooves and back down the aisle by the impact. She reacted on pure instinct, firing one hasty shot from her PW as she hurled herself back down the aisle and dove behind a bench's scanty cover. "Get down!" she screamed at the others. A moment later, she was half-crushed under the weight of Soungmai, as the big tiger covered her with his own body. Beyond him, Caitlin crouched, PW at the ready, peering over the top of the bench, looking for a target. Windrunner lay belly- flat on the floor between the panther and Fodessa, his tense muscles and the lack of any blood or pain-smell telling her he hadn't been hit yet. A panicked blackbuck doe nearly trampled them as she hurtled over the bench, the whites of her eyes showing in a ring around the pupils. An attack by disguised rival kangbai members. That's what this was supposed to look like. And "innocent bystanders" would get killed in the confusion -- bystanders like her and her crew. The assassins must hope they'd either get her with the first few shots or that they could kill her in the confusion. As the last of the crowd was clearing the pit, she growled at Soungmai, "Get off me." "My orders are to protect you, Captain Fodessa," he answered, and even under the circumstances she managed to marvel that he could sound so pompous and clich‚d. "You can't do that if you get shot and your dead body is pinning me down," she snapped. "Get *off* of me!" Reluctantly, he rose a little and crawled off her. She, Caitlin and Soungmai bobbed their heads up and down from behind the bench, trying to get a glimpse of the attackers. Windrunner simply lay flat. There was another white flash on the main floor a dozen yards away, and a blackbuck kangbai guard was knocked off his hooves and went down, his immaculate white shirt and trousers splattered with blood. Beyond the guard, she saw the raccoon dog in the purple jacket, disrupter out, looking directly at her. She ducked quickly, and there was a sudden thrilling in her skin as the disrupter burst passed just overhead. Caitlin was faster than she was. The black panther bobbed up again, firing his PW, but she didn't see whether he hit his target. Then, from a different direction, another disrupter burst struck him, and he shrieked as he fell to the floor with a thud. The main mass of the crowd was running toward the lobby now, and panicky screams, bellows, snarls, squeals and curses filled the air. Here and there, surviving guards had their own weapons out and were firing at the attackers. Attackers they thought were rival kangbai. Well, she couldn't tell them differently just now. She stayed behind the bench, lying flat, not daring to put her head up for fully a minute as white flares and electronic discharges from the guards' weapons burst here and there. She couldn't turn her head far enough to see Windrunner behind her and know how he was doing; she didn't know whether Caitlin, lying motionless on the floor, was alive or dead. It was only a matter of time before one of the assassins circled the pit and had her group in plain sight. They had to move -- even though it meant leaving the black panther behind. She looked beside her at Soungmai, crouched against her, and made two crude signals: lifting her paw up, then toward the aisle and the club's main room beyond. He nodded, showing he understood her: they would rise together, firing to clear the way, and run out into the main room. For once the crippled PW's would be an advantage; any club-goers or kangbai would only be stunned, not killed by their fire. She felt some part of Windrunner against her hind foot; she moved her foot, getting his attention. "Follow me!" she hissed at the wolf. Then she and Soungmai leaped to their feet, firing ahead of them and to either side. She lunged into action, running side by side with Soungmai up the aisle, leaping over Mya's corpse, to the main floor of the arena, with Windrunner close behind them. They passed the unconscious raccoon dog lying on the floor; she snarled and wished she had time to kick him, but ran on by. Windrunner's voice shouted behind her, "What about Caitlin?" "We can't help him! Do you want to get killed?" If there were a worse time for a canid's notions of loyalty to surface, she couldn't imagine it at the moment. Mercifully, the wolf shut up. They ran together across the main floor, firing their PW's and jumping over the bodies of the furs knocked unconscious by them. Panicked furs rushed by, giving them a little cover. And they needed that cover. Another white flare burst close by, catching a running chital stag, knocking him spinning to the floor. Soungmai half-turned as he ran and fired back. There were two more flashes a few feet away, but this time she didn't see who they hit instead of her, or if Soungmai's return fire scored. Then the bursts stopped. A few yards further on, she leaped over another body, this one a vixen. Even as she did, she had time to see the vixen's staring eyes and the great chunk missing out of her side. Miraculously, they reached the wall without any of them being hit. They ran along it toward the exit to the lobby, trying to keep up with the crowd, dodging around a firing kangbai guard, avoiding a wild shot from one of several bodyguards clustered around a businessfur. They had nearly reached the exit to the lobby, where panicked club-goers were still struggling to get through. It would have been a lethal stampede if the entire crowd had gone that way, but a lot of furs had dashed for the side doors instead. And then Soungmai fired again, just before his left shoulder exploded in a blaze of light. He went down with a roar of agony. The dhole jumped in front of them, his disrupter raised for another shot, his eyes flat and deadly. Fodessa leveled her PW and shot him between the eyes. He fell to the floor with a satisfying thud. Unbelievably, Soungmai managed to pull himself up to his feet and began to run with them again. "Keep going!" she yelled at Windrunner, as they ran with the last of the crowd across the lobby. Despite having to dodge other running furs, they crossed it in less time than Fodessa would have believed possible. There was a terrifying wait for the outer door to clear enough for them to get through, while Soungmai watched their backs, PW out. His paw was shaking, his entire left side drenched in blood; it was obvious that he was about to pass out from blood loss and shock. There was a good-sized ragged hole in his left shoulder, literally gushing blood. Finally they managed to get through, running outside into the crowded street. Fodessa yanked Windrunner to a halt, gasping, filling her lungs with cool night air. The street was a blinding blur of flashing lights from landed police vehicles; another one touched down even as she watched, and officers with drawn PW's were running into the nightclub even as escaping furs were still streaming out of it. Two of the officers, seeing the bloodied tiger with Fodessa's group, headed toward him. As they reached him, Soungmai folded to the sidewalk almost gracefully. Address comments and criticism to: maureen_lcn@yahoo.com . The URL for my archive of stories is at http://members.vclart.net/Maureen/ like I said up above.:-)