Surefoot 68: Three... Two... One...

Ashen nodded at that, still fully alert; no matter what this Ferasan had done to help Ashen and the others just now, he was still the Enemy. "So... can I assume you called me up here because you wish to formally surrender yourself to me?"

Valtiri smiled, with what seemed like genuine, good-natured appreciation. "Not today." He rested his rifle against a stubby, rusted exhaust pipe, and motioned in Ashen's direction. "May I see your sword, please?"

"Sure." You'll get my pistol first-

Before Ashen got even halfway to his sidearm, however, Valtiri moved, moved so fast Ashen never even registered it, pulling something from a black baldric crossing his huge chest and flinging it with phenomenal strength and speed.

Ashen barely had time to dodge to the left, avoiding a palm-sized, crescent-shaped steel blade as it struck the frame of the door behind him, burying itself deep into the wood as if hammered there.

He looked back to see the Hunter Prime had now drawn a pistol of his own. "Unbuckle your belt -- slowly -- and toss it between us."

Ashen complied, and Valtiri promptly shot the Caitian weapon in its holster, leaving it smouldering.

Then he threw his own pistol away, to land back near where he left his rifle.

Ashen blinked, not expecting that. His furred brow furrowed. "What's going on?"

Valtiri raised his huge paw towards the Caitian, beckoning. "The sword. Draw it out. Please. I dearly wish to see it."

The Kaetini slowly, deliberately did so, raising the black blade in the direction of the giant Ferasan.

Valtiri offered him a look of pure... adoration. "It's true... the secrets of making Arakanium alloy were lost by my ancestors, but not yours, when yours left to settle here. It's beautiful, resplendent. It looks like it could cleave a star in two." He breathed in, before speaking aloud now, as if enunciating to an audience, "'My Ebon Blade upon my thigh / To guard the Prideland's ancient fame / Its champion in this age am I / The Blood Brow Pride, Rihal-Den my name.'"

He smiled at Ashen. "From an epic Ferasan poem called The Ebon Blade; my Mentor raised me on the Classics. I never thought I would see an actual Arakanium weapon in my lifetime..." Now he sighed, as if recognising he could no longer engage in self-indulgence. "Mr Ashen, I respect you, and your strength and skills, enough to be honest with you: I was sent to your world to track down and kill Captain Esek Hrelle and his human cub Sasha, and I need two things from you to make this so. One is your thoughts as to their location."

Mention of the names made Ashen start. The Hrelles? The memories of when he last met them, last thought of them, the communications traffic on the Network about them this morning- NO NO NO DON'T THINK ABOUT THEM DON'T GIVE HIM ANYTHING-

"It is too late for that," Valtiri informed him, his own brow furrowing. "A necessary intrusion to fulfil my mission."

Ashen felt his stomach twist into knots. Mother's Cubs, what had he done? He just betrayed his fellow Kaetini to this monster!

"Feel no guilt, Mr Ashen," Valtiri tried to assure him. "This close to me, you could not keep out my mind, not by any means. I told you I need two things from you: the location of the Hrelles, which you have now provided... and now I need that sword."

Ashen tightened his grip on the hilt, forcing his alarm down inside him. "My sword? Why?"

"My Quarry have weapons like yours: indestructible, incorruptible, thinner than fur and maintaining a perpetual sharpness that lets the blades cut through almost any material as easily as if through the air. I will need such a weapon of my own if I am to fight them."

Ashen's heart triphammered now. "Fight them? But- But with that rifle- your obvious abilities- you could kill them without their ever even seeing you!"

Now Valtiri scowled, looking offended. "I would sooner leap off this roof, than show such disrespect to Quarry as worthy as they.

Or you."

Ashen stared back. Of course he was going to die today, here on this rooftop, at the paws of this behemoth.

As he entered his advanced years, Gamal Ashen had stopped thinking too much about death. He had seen plenty of it in the War, and it had rattled him to his core. But his induction into the Kaetini Order, and the philosophy and meditative practices it had taught him, helped him find a peace as well as a purpose.

And the years since then had been rewarding. Lonely, sometimes, but always rewarding. Even with the Occupation increasing his Kaetini activities and responsibilities exponentially, with an equivalent risk to his life... he was content to continue doing what he did, in the service of his people and his planet. And if he died along the way... so be it.

But he wasn't dead yet.

He raised his sword to the Ferasan. "You'll get this when you pry it from my cold, dead paws."

Valtiri smiled, nodding with what seemed like sincere admiration. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

Ashen charged towards him, staying focused, waiting for his opponent to make a move. But the Ferasan was just standing there, watching-

Until Valtiri side-stepped, unfurling the canvas draped over his arm and flinging it over Ashen's sword when Ashen was almost upon him. The blade, as expected, began slicing through the thick, weatherworn material... but it still offered some resistance, and much unexpected weight, onto Ashen's sword arm. Clever.

Ashen ducked, barely avoiding Valtiri's swipe at his head, but couldn't escape the latter's kick to his shin. The older Caitian staggered back, but used the opportunity to ignore the pain in his leg, regain his balance, and return the attack, swinging his sword in a cutting arc high, at the Ferasan's neck level.

Now it was Valtiri's turn to duck, and this time, Ashen's sword nicked the tip of his left ear and some of his braided mane, sending fur and drops of blood flying. The Ferasan rolled away to recover, but Ashen couldn't pause, not for a second; his opponent had age, size, strength, speed, skill -- telepathy, for Mother's sake! -- on his side. He charged again, ready to impale the bastard-

Until Valtiri lifted up the shredded remains of the canvas and flung it at Ashen's legs like a gladiator's net, almost tripping him up.

Ashen had to keep from falling on his own sword, literally, its blade able to kill him just as easily as any opponent, but he grunted in pain as he rolled, swiping blindly to keep back the Hunter Prime while he sought options. Escape? No. He couldn't make it to the stairwell, and besides, he had to do everything he could to keep Valtiri from leaving and threatening the Hrelles.

Then he saw the Ferasans' weapons, still near the water tower.

Valtiri lunged at him again, but Ashen caught him again, more successfully this time, stabbing him in the right thigh. Ashen was ready to twist the blade to open the wound fully, maybe reach the vital arteries and leave a gaping wound that would not close up easily, but Valtiri was ready for that, pulling himself backwards with a snarl of pain.

Ashen took the opportunity to scramble to the rifle and pistol, but he cried out as another of Valtiri's crescent throwing blades struck his left forearm, and he heard the Ferasan launch himself in his direction, too quick for Ashen to bring up his sword in defence.

He lost his grip on his sword as Valtiri landed upon him, and they ended up grappling on the rooftop, claws bared, teeth bared, souls bared as tactics and thought gave way to instinct. Ashen could barely draw breath as he struggled with his opponent. This couldn't go on for much longer. But he could still win this. He could. He-

*

Some distance above it all, Valtiri's shuttle hovered silently, its sole occupant and operator, Pilot of the Umber Tail Pride, watching the scene below on a scanner, utterly mesmerised by the display. He did not expect the fight to last as long as it had; the Hunter Prime was larger, faster, more skilled and experienced, and though he had heard much about the Caitian Kaetini and their special weapons, still it seemed an obvious mismatch in favour of Valtiri.

But no, the Caitian had proved to possess fire and strength. It was a further erosion of everything he had been taught about their racial cousins: that they were weak, decadent, easily-dominated. Control here should have been easy.

There was nothing easy about being here.

Then he watched as Valtiri suddenly pounced upon the Caitian, and Pilot couldn't see what was specifically happening... but moments later, Valtiri rose to his feet, limping over to the Kaetini sword, retrieving it, holding it in one paw, testing its weight and balance. Then he activated his communicator. "Land please, Pilot."

"Yes, Sire!" The younger Ferasan quickly obeyed, eager to serve his benefactor, who had befriended him and awarded him a better Name than Runt, the horrible and humiliating one foisted upon him by his father. Closer now, he saw blood on the Hunter Prime's leg, and his head, and he had barely landed and was out from under the rising gull wing door of the shuttle. "Sire! You're injured! I'll get the medikit-"

"Thank you, Pilot, but no, not yet." He crouched beside Ashen's body, resting the Caitian's paws on his chest and closing the eyes, murmering something, before looking to his avian friend Nyx. Immediately the dragonhawk launched itself from its perch and swooped into the shuttle, not caring that Pilot almost fell in his effort to avoid the bird crashing into him.

Then Pilot saw Valtiri rise, retrieve the sword and scabbard, and then his own guns, and limp to the shuttle, announcing as he passed the other Ferasan. "We are done here."

Inside, Valtiri set down the weapons and slumped into his seat, as Pilot collected the medikit. "Here, Sire, I'll help-"

"No need, my squire." He took the medikit, rested it on an adjacent seat and opened it, selecting fabric cutters, disinfectants and autosutures. "I will deal with it. Every wound we collect in life is a lesson to us, Pilot, and an opportunity to reflect on what we can learn from them, and then perhaps in future we will not receive similar wounds."

He exposed his furred, bloodied thigh, and began cleaning it, pressing the flesh together to keep it from bleeding more. "These wounds have taught me that I must compensate more for this world's gravity, because it threw me off my more practised moves. And they have also taught me that the respect the Caitians display for their Kaetini is well-deserved. I have no doubt that the rest of that stalwart Order is as brave and skilled as the one I slew."

Now he looked up at the younger Ferasan. "At this moment, my quarry are travelling to a place called the Mithram Valley, in the Nashea Province, near a city called Shanos Minor. They are assisting the Kaetini Resistance in smuggling Caitians out of the city... and weapons and supplies in."

Pilot started at that. "Should- Should we alert the Master Governor at our Headquarters about it?"

"No." He began re-stitching the thigh wound.

"B-But- he could order a strike on the Valley now, wipe everything out within it in seconds!"

"Yes, he could. But the Hrelles deserve a better fate than what that ambitious mountebank would offer."

Pilot frowned in confusion at Valtiri's attitude, working up the courage to express his feelings. "Sire -- and with the greatest of respect to you -- there is more at stake here than your personal mission, and your feelings about the Enemy."

Valtiri never looked up. "Indeed? Pray, tell."

Pilot paused, wondering if he had gone too far in protesting. Maybe I should just shut up-

"And maybe you should just continue," Valtiri prompted aloud, having read his thoughts, his gaze fixed, his voice and words cordial... but the threat behind them unignorable. "Artifice ill-suits you, my squire. Speak."

Pilot swallowed... well, if you're going to be killed, at least be killed for what you really are. "Sire... our race's very survival is at stake. Without the Caitians, we'll be dead in five generations! The Patriarch has commanded all the Prides to forget past and present rivalries, and work together for our mutual survival!"

Now Valtiri sighed wearily, looking up. "The Patriarch is as much a victim of our race's genetic decrepitude as the rest of us; he hasn't issued a command on his own initiative in years. Not a coherent one, at any rate."

"What?"

Valtiri reached up to the tip of his ear, which had only stopped bleeding, as he cleaned and sterilised the wound. "Decisions are now made by an unseen cabal of his Pride's senior males; any official speeches or communications from the Patriarch are provided by computer-generated holograms." His expression and scent was mournful. "The Patriarch is no longer the sagacious, formidable male I knew when I was first appointed Hunter Prime. He is now a husk, his mind submerged, inhumed, as petrified as a fossil."

Pilot stepped back, numbed. The Patriarch, no longer of sound mind? This truth, hidden from the Ferasan people? "B-But- our race is still in jeopardy... we may die-"

"Everything dies, Pilot." Valtiri returned the instruments to the medikit. "Everything and everyone. Persons, Prides, Empires. Planets, stars, galaxies. The Universe itself will collapse upon itself someday, perhaps to begin again in another form. Perhaps not. That we will die is as indisputable, and inconsequential, as it is inescapable, and it is beyond any notions of fairness or unfairness.

True meaning lies in how we choose to spend the time we are allotted. I choose to spend my time hunting and fighting worthy Quarry. I set my own standards for excellence." Now he reached for a water bottle from a nearby dispenser. "Take us to the Mithram Valley, Pilot, and don't spare the engines. The Hunt is Still Afoot."

Pilot stared back for a moment, still stunned by the revelations imparted to him by Valtiri. Their Patriarch, enfeebled? Their people, doomed?

He wanted cubs of his own, someday. Cubs he could raise, support, be a better father to them than his own had been, set a better example for.

That was how he would choose to spend the time he was allotted.

What if Valtiri's selfish obsessions jeopardised those dreams?

He returned to the cockpit, plotted a course for the Mithram Valley, in the Northern Hemisphere of Cait. As they ascended once more, he kept glancing at the communications board. He could secretly send a message back to First City, to warn them of the Caitian activity outside of Shanos Minor. He could.

He could betray the male who had Named him, befriended and supported him. The male he had sworn to himself to serve and protect.

He focused on the journey, choosing to spend his time maintaining his own sense of honour. Hoping he was making the right decision.

Never realising that, with Valtiri secretly monitoring his troubled thoughts, he had just saved his own life.

*

ONE HOUR, TWENTY-NINE MINUTES, FORTY-ONE SECONDS... FORTY... THIRTY-NINE...

Mithram Valley, Nashea Province:

The black and gold Caitian flyer Tailless had landed on a flat, grassy clearing, at the foot of a high, steep wall of mountains, capped with pristine snow glazed with a cold mist that was burning away slowly with the rising sun.

Captain Hrelle took a moment as he stepped outside, the cool air ghosting from his snout, to admire the beauty, a stark, open contrast to the teeming, stifling jungles on Kaijushima Island. As per the Caitian calendar, they were deep in the month of Frostmoot, and though the planet was mostly tropical and temperate, this far up north, wintery conditions were persistent.

He was told that on the other side of these mountains, where Shanos Minor sat facing the Sea of C'Mau, with its winds and waters coming up straight from the Equator, things were much more pleasant. He looked forward to someday visiting the Radiance, as the city was nicknamed, because of the reflections from its many glass-fronted buildings.

It was peaceful here. He could do with some peace... when all this madness was over.

Sounds from the flyer drew him back, as Sasha and Lt Mori helped carry out crates of weapons, rations and communications and security equipment, to meet members of the Kaetini, who were descending from an upper slope near a half-hidden tunnel leading deep into the nearest mountain.

Then he saw his cubs' nanny and friend Jhess Furore emerge, dressed in an approximation of his dark Militia field uniform, with a plasma rifle slung over one shoulder, and a sober expression on his spotted face.

Hrelle breathed out again. It had been a tense journey here; the normally lively and affable male had become intense and anxious since he had lost contact with his ex-wife and son in Shanos Minor, before finally retiring to one of the guest cabins on the Tailless to await their arrival. Now he was marching up the slope, ignoring everyone.

Hrelle caught up with him. "Jhess, wait- are you sure you want to go in uniform? Wouldn't it be better to get into the city in civilian clothes? In case you're spotted?"

Jhess never stopped or slowed down. "I'm already spotted, Captain. I thought you would have noticed that by now."

"You know what I mean, Jhess!"

"Yes I do, Captain. And I'll remind you of my Sabrecat training. Once I leave these tunnels, I'll make my way into the city via the sewer system, and the only people who'll see me are fellow Caitians... and any unlucky Ferasans-"

"Hey, Jhess, wait up!"

Both males turned as Sasha rushed up the slope towards them, Jhess tensing, and Hrelle sensing it; Jhess' anxieties over the fate of his missing family had seemed to become directed at Sasha and her recent relationship with Lt Mori, though little of that showed during their flight here. Now, however, the spotted male made an impatient sound. "Sash, I have a long way to go-"

"I know, I know!" She stopped before them, reaching into an inner pocket of her jacket. "And you've already got the transponder frequency of the communicator I gave your wife, but-" She paused, before finally producing a small, thin black device. "Here, something more."

He frowned at it without accepting it. "What is it?"

"A short-range tracker, one of Grandma's gifts from the Mother's Claws. With it you can pinpoint them both directly, rather than just via the communicator. It's only good if you're within about two hundred metres of them, but if you need to find them in a building or a crowd-"

He took it, examining the controls, still looking confused. "How can it track them?"

Now the human's skin flushed from more than the cold or the exertion. "When I last met them I, ah, might have secretly infected them with nanoprobes carrying viridium tracking cores. The nanoprobes were, ah, programmed to work their way under skin without being detected or causing any damage, and remain dormant but active for up to twelve weeks."

Jhess exchanged an incredulous glance with Hrelle, before focusing on Sasha again. "Let me get this straight: you infected my wife and son with illegal spy tracking technology without their knowledge? Or mine?"

"Pretty much, yes."

He frowned some more... but then pocketed the nanoprobe tracker. "Good work. Thank you, Sasha." Something of the more jocular Jhess returned to his expression, and looked between father and daughter. "As soon as I have them, I'll send the signal for transport. I'll be as quick as I can."

Hrelle nodded back to him; unspoken in this agreement was: if the Enemy discovered the flyer here and had to leave, Jhess and his family were on their own. He clasped him by the shoulder. "Good luck, Brother."

"Thanks, Esek. For everything." Then he turned without further ado and ascended to the tunnel, moving with an enviable speed.