The Rask Rebellion

Korbaz broke off their embrace, their wet lips connected by a glistening rope of saliva that draped itself over the attendant's chest when it fell, her tapered tongue slithering out of her subordinate's mouth as though she wanted her to be aware of every slimy inch. The attendant's cheeks were flushed red now, her chest wobbling softly with every labored breath that she took, her eyes gazing up at her Admiral with longing from beneath heavy lids. Korbaz's hand slowly wandered down to her shoulder, her claws raking the gasping attendant's tanned skin. She didn't apply enough pressure to cut her, only enough to leave red trails as she wandered down to one of her pert breasts.

She filled her hand with it, Cooper feeling his growing erection straining against his pressure suit as he watched the delicate fat spill between her furry digits, Korbaz kneading it like putty. She kept her sharp claws clear, weighing it, pinching the firm nipple between her padded fingers. The attendant bit her lip, the sculpted muscles of her midriff flexing, Korbaz's feline eyes turning to drink in Cooper's shocked expression.

"All I have to do is whisper my command in her ear, and she'd swallow you to the hilt," she chuckled. "You'd like that, don't deny it," she added with a pointed glance at his crotch. "How about it? Give me what I want, and I'll give you what you so clearly desire."
She pushed her clawed finger into her subordinate's mouth, Cooper's member swelling involuntarily as he watched the beautiful woman slide her lips down to the knuckle, drawing on it obediently as she batted her lashes at the Admiral. She was so eager to please, was this normal behavior for the Rask?

"I know that humans tend to have preferences," Korbaz continued, the attendant swirling her tongue around her digit as she slowly withdrew it. "If you like females, then you can have your pick. Take a stroll through the crawler with me and point out any that catch your eye. If you're so certain that our way of life has nothing to offer, then I challenge you to share a bed with half a dozen Rask and see if your opinion changes come morning. I should warn you," she added, baring her sharp teeth in a grin. "My people are not as...reserved as yours when it comes to matters of passion. I do hope that you'd be able to keep up."

Cooper tried to slow the rapid beating of his heart. What she was trying to do was obvious, this was yet another tactic designed to break his resolve, but it was so hard to refuse when she was presenting the beautiful attendant to him on a platter. She was so close that he could have reached out and touched her if he wanted to, he could have delved his fingers into those heavy, perky breasts...

He tore his eyes away from the woman's exposed chest, the sight of Korbaz's expectant smirk bolstering his will to resist her.

"No sale," he said, her grin morphing into a frown.

"I can see you tenting your uniform," she replied, glancing between his legs. "That sharp tongue of yours can lie to me, but your body can't. You want this."

"Yeah," he admitted with a one-armed shrug, "but that doesn't mean I'm going to give you what you want in order to get it."

This clearly wasn't the reaction that she had anticipated, he could see the gears in the Admiral's head turning as she considered her next course of action. He had to admit, he felt a little sorry for the attendant, sitting there all hot and bothered with her boobs on display.

"Let's call this a free sample," she said, her smile returning. "A little taste of what you're turning down. You don't have to do anything for me, just sit back, and enjoy..."

She whispered something inaudible in the attendant's ear, the woman's golden eyes turning on Cooper. She began to slowly crawl across the carpet towards him, Korbaz looking on with a satisfied expression. His gaze was once again drawn to her ample chest as her hanging breasts swayed with the motion, her sun-bleached hair falling over one side of her face in a way that made his heart leap.

He pulled away from her as she loomed over him, her furry hands sinking into the cushions to either side of him, her long hair brushing his cheeks as she poised to kiss him. Her lips were so full and rosy, the memory of her winding tongue chipping away at his will to resist her. Cooper was well-acquainted with pain, it was something that he could endure, but the promise of pleasure was exposing a weakness in his defenses that he hadn't even known was there. It would be so easy just to reach up and cup her breast in his hand, to let her lower those cherry-red lips and lock them with his own...

Korbaz's teeth flashed in a grin as he reached out, but her victory was snatched from her clutches as he planted his hand on the woman's shoulder, gently easing her away as he sat up. The attendant looked confused, turning to glance at Korbaz, seeking further instructions. Either one of the women could have taken him there on the cushions if they had wanted to. He couldn't have stopped a full-grown Borealan with two arms, never mind one, but that wasn't the point. What Korbaz wanted could not be taken by force, and that fact must be driving her up the wall.

"Who are you to refuse such a gift?" she snapped, waving the attendant away. The woman retrieved her top where Korbaz had discarded it on the floor, gathering up her assets as she made a hasty exit. "I'm not even asking anything in return."

"But you are," he replied, "this is just another attempt to gain power over me. If I give you an inch, you're gonna take a mile."

"You will soon realize that this war is over for you," she snarled, glaring at him as her ears flattened against her head. "You have two choices now. Cooperate, and experience pleasures you would not have dreamed possible in your mundane little life, or rot in a cell until I hand you over to the Matriarch. She will not be as generous, nor as forgiving as I."

"You can't coerce me, you can't bribe me, and you can't tempt me," Cooper shot back. "When will you realize that I'll never cooperate?"

"Oh, I think that you can be tempted," she said as she gestured to his lingering erection with a clawed finger. "You forget, Corporal, that I served as Ambassador to the Coalition. I have learned to recognize human body language, the tells that give them away, and your body is betraying you."

Cooper's cheeks flushed a deeper shade of red, and he shifted his position on the cushions, trying to conceal the bulge in his pressure suit from view.

"How long has it been since you were last able to relieve yourself?" she asked, her tone sultry. "Cooped up in a tank for days, bunking in a crowded cabin on a ship for months before that. Humans like privacy, and you can't have had much. How long has it been since you last had a woman? Since you last felt release?"

"You're wasting your time," he insisted, the Admiral tapping her claw against her chin as she looked him up and down quizzically.

"I think that with a little more poking and prodding, I can get you to see things my way," she added. "But for now, I think sending you back to your cell while I make a few...arrangements is the best course of action."

"Whatever you're planning, it won't work," he said as she called out in her native language. After a moment, a burly guard strode into the room, hauling Cooper to his feet.

"We shall see," Korbaz replied with a shrug, watching as the guard marched him away. "Try not to let your imagination wander too much while you're sitting alone in your cage, Corporal."

***

As soon as the impudent little creature was out of earshot, Korbaz loosed a frustrated snarl. She swiped at the pile of cushions where he had been lying, her claws tearing into the fabric, sending puffs of down swirling into the air.

Borealans knew when to submit, they knew when they were beaten, but humans...they just kept going and going and going far beyond that point. If Cooper were a Rask, his clever jibes would be answered with a fresh scar to remind him of his place, but his kind were too fragile for that sort of treatment. Restraining her anger was slowly driving her mad, and worse, the impulse to mate that usually followed a violent confrontation reared its head every time he provoked her. If she couldn't get any useful information out of him, then she might as well put him to some use, take out her frustration on him. She had spent years being tormented by cocky, back-talking aliens on the station, it would be a dream come true to finally have her way with one in a setting where the only rules that applied were her own.

He reminded her of the Security Chief, in fact. They were both amputees, they were both stubborn to the core, and they both thought nothing of defying her. How she had lusted after the Chief, how she had longed to possess that which she could not have. His attractive scars, his confidence. The way that he resisted her advances as no Rask would have dared, the powerful prosthetics that actually gave him the strength to physically resist her. It had driven her wild, but it had also taught her a very valuable lesson. Status was not everything. Even an Admiral could not have everything that she wanted all of the time, no matter how great her desire might be. For someone so accustomed to being obeyed, to having her every whim indulged, it had been a hard lesson to learn...

No, she couldn't give up yet. There was still time to break him, and now, a chink in his armor had been exposed. He had a weakness for women, which didn't come as much of a surprise. Humans were prudish creatures, the idea of sharing a bed with half a dozen packmates was foreign to them, and the sexual exploits of the average Borealan were an unattainable fantasy by their standards. If she exposed him to more of their lifestyle, like teasing a hungry hound with a morsel of food, she might yet be able to turn him.

She walked over to the nearest intercom, hitting the button, putting a call through to the conning tower. There was a crackle of static, and then she heard a voice come through on the other end.

"Crewmaster here, speak."

"It's me," Korbaz began. "Fetch Vitza for me, and have him meet me in my quarters. There's something that I'd like for him to build..."

CHAPTER 12: CULTURAL EXCHANGE

"There it is again," Ben said, tapping at one of his monitors.

"The earthquake?" Lozka asked, turning from her turret view to glance at him.

"Something is causing seismic activity, not a lot of it, but enough to trip the sensors. I swear, it's like the suite is picking up Bugs tunneling beneath the ground, but there's no way there can be any Bugs on Borealis. It's impossible. Either way, it freaks me out, I don't like seeing readings like this..."

"You said it was growing stronger?" Mizi added, turning her wheel as she weaved through the dunes.

"The further West we go, the stronger it gets," he replied. "I'm starting to think that it isn't geological in nature, it just doesn't match any patterns that I'm aware of. What's weird about it is that it's pretty much constant, while seismic activity usually comes in waves."

"Could the Rask be digging tunnels beneath the desert like Bugs?" Mizi suggested.

"I doubt it," Ben muttered, scratching his head.

"In my territory," Lozka began, "we hunt large herbivores that dwell deep in the jungle. They are furtive, but we can locate their herds by the sound of their heavy footsteps, even from afar. Our hunters put an ear to the ground and listen for the vibrations that they create."

"I get what you're saying," Ben said with a nod. "If the Rask really are somehow responsible for these readings, then we can track them by following them to their source. It's not like we have anything else to go on right now." He turned back to his monitors, starting to type in values. "Mizi, I'm going to extrapolate coordinates based on the strength of the readings. Just keep driving straight for now, and I'll feed them to your console as soon as I have something concrete."

"Got it, Commander."

"Good idea, Lozka," he added. "Who would have thought having an Araxie tracker around would be so useful?"

"We shall either find Rask," she replied, gripping the turret's joystick. "Or a very, very large herd..."

***

"Bearing one-nine-five," Ben said, poring over his map. "I don't see any noteworthy landmarks in that direction, but that's definitely where the readings are strongest. I think that if we keep going this way, we'll eventually come across whatever is making all these vibrations."

"I wish we could see further in this storm," Mizi muttered. "I don't like the idea of having to drive within a hundred meters or so of an enemy position before we can get eyes on them."

"As with the hot spring, I can leave the vehicle and scout the area on foot," Lozka suggested.

"That could work," Ben replied. "Let's wait until we can get a better idea of what we're dealing with first."

It wasn't long before night fell, and the creeping cold started to set in. They went about their usual routine, parking the Timberwolf between two dunes and covering it with its camouflaged tarp. Once that was done, Ben went outside and set up a one hundred meter perimeter around the vehicle with proximity sensors. It was nice, in a way, not have to be on lookout. There was nothing to see in the storm, and so they were all able to hang out without one of them having to monitor the cameras.

Ben cooked them another round of MREs and warmed up some drinks, the three of them chatting as they ate together. They had been on good terms before their night in the hot spring, but something had changed since then, they seemed even friendlier than usual. Mizi especially always seemed to want to be near him, sitting beside him on the mattress and leaning her head on his shoulder as she fished out pieces of meat from her ration packet with a plastic fork.

"It was strange for me to see so many males when I first started serving with humans," she said, gesturing with her fork as she ate. "On Val'ba'ra, males don't serve in the military at all."

"Why is that?" Ben asked, taking a sip of his hot cocoa. "We don't have a lot of female humans in combat roles, but the Navy is full of them."

"They're smaller and weaker than the females," she explained. "Males on Val'ba'ra usually live with their parent flock until they come of age, then they seek out a flock of females to join. Traditionally, they're homemakers. They maintain the flock's dwelling and raise their children. These days, males have a lot more independence. They sometimes get their own jobs, or they travel to a few different cities before settling down. I've even seen a few who have made their way to the Pinwheel."

"Weird," Ben muttered, raising an eyebrow. "Sounds like human society a few hundred years ago, but reversed. Could they join the military if they wanted to?"

"I doubt that most could meet the requirements if they tried," she replied.

"I guess that anything much smaller than you would be pushing it," Ben joked, Mizi giving him a playful whip on the leg with her tail.

"There is little difference in physical prowess between our genders," Lozka added, pausing to chew on a strip of meat from a foil packet that she was holding in her hand. "Males and females are equally capable, and we have no tasks that favor one gender over another. Save perhaps that females can produce milk to feed the kittens, but that task is a communal one regardless, so it matters little."

"Yeah," Ben replied, taking another sip from his mug. "All of the female Borealans that I've seen have been pretty...large."

"Do you produce milk?" Mizi asked, her question directed at Ben.

"Are we on the nipples thing again?" he asked, feigning indignation. "I told you, they're vestigial!"

Mizi's headdress flashed yellow as she laughed, Lozka letting slip a rare chuckle as her companions squabbled.

"I still don't get how males and flocks work," Ben continued. "So, males don't have their own flocks? Only females have flocks, and when males are mature, they have to find a flock of females to join? Then, it's like they're having a relationship with...all of its members?"

"It has always been that way," Mizi replied with a shrug. "There are roughly six females born for every male, it's part of our biology."

"What happens if only five of the six females like him?" Ben asked. "Does the sixth just have to deal with it?"

"Flocks reach consensus," Mizi explained, "decisions are made as a group. Finding someone who's compatible with five, six, or even seven people isn't as hard as you might imagine. I know that humans date, and we do the same. We spend time with them, try to figure out if they're a good match before making a commitment."

"Does your flock have a male?" he asked.

"Gosh, no," she replied with a flutter of pink. "We're not nearly old enough to settle down and start populating incubators." She turned her violet eyes to Lozka, who was fishing in her foil packet for another oversized strip of jerky. "What about you, Lozka? How do Araxie packs choose a mate?"

"The way that we court is somewhat less structured," she replied, tearing off a piece of meat with her sharp teeth. "Packs usually have what you might call a job. There is a pack of hunters in the village, a pack of farmers, a pack of butchers. Araxie might move between packs based on their abilities and desires, but the Alpha of that pack is always the most accomplished and competent Araxie among them. We are drawn to competence. Skill and knowledge are of great value to us. An Alpha must also be charismatic and responsible if they are to be loved, they must care for their pack, provide for them."

"See, that makes sense to me," Ben said as he gestured to his feline crewmate. "It's a meritocracy, you put the smartest, most experienced people in charge."

"There is no real concern for how many males or females are in a pack," she continued, "we do not have the same preferences that your kind do. Mating is recreational, all pack members participate as they please, and any children that result are raised by the community."

"That sounds kind of idyllic," Ben chuckled. "I feel like I should tell you guys that humans are monogamous and that we mate with one person for life, but it doesn't often turn out that way. We usually have a series of relationships that might last months or years, then we settle down with someone and have kids. Even then, the relationship might not last. It's a pretty complicated subject," he added, finishing off his drink. "I won't bore you with the minutia."

"So, are you in any kind of relationship?" Mizi asked.

"I travel all over the Galaxy," he chuckled, "there's not a lot of time for pursuing relationships. I guess I'd want to, eventually, but that's what everybody says."

"Don't you get lonely?" she asked, wrapping her little arms around his bicep as she drew closer. "No flock, no pack, no mate."

"I have friends, comrades," he replied with a shrug. "I have a crew now, I have you guys, right?"

Mizi hugged his arm a little tighter, Lozka nodding her head in agreement.

"I have said before that you would make a good Alpha, Commander," Lozka said. That title had a new implication now, and he was suddenly aware of the rapid beating of his heart as he met her gaze across the troop bay. Her green eyes glittered like emeralds, her feline pupils contracted to narrow slits beneath the light strips in the ceiling. He glanced down at Mizi, seeing that her pink feathers were standing erect.

"Well," he began. "Now that I know a little more about what that entails, I appreciate the compliment. For what it's worth, you guys have been a fine crew. Or flock, pack, whatever you want to call it."

They finished up their meal, then started preparing for bed. There was no longer a question as to whether Ben was going to share a sleeping bag with his companions. It was just what they did now. Ever since their trip to the hot spring, it was like all of the barriers had been torn down, like all of his human hangups had been stripped away. The idea that distance had to be maintained between people who were so friendly, that physical contact was somehow impolite, now seemed as alien to him as it did to his crew. It was like he had lived his life up to this point surrounded by an invisible force field that warded away anyone who came too close, preventing any genuine expressions of affection.