FREEFALL: A LT FREYA NOVEL - CHAPTER 1

The story thus far…

The United Tangi Front, a vulpine race engaged in galactic imperialism, discovered a vein of xenon on a distant moon named Roth. Consequently Roth, a colony populated by humans, has been occupied by the United Front for decades. Roth is a six month interstellar journey from the United Front’s central command. Solid Xenon, an element which fuels the UTF plasma weapons, is crucial to the UTF’s war effort. Under the leadership of Governor Kreiger the UTF enslaved the humans to expand production.

Six weeks ago a UTF lieutenant Freya Storm killed Governor Kreiger, after losing her beloved Captain Morrison in the fray. The killing began a full scale rebellion on Roth. The Humans, who far outnumbered the UTF, quickly overthrew their former masters. What remained of the United Front gathered at the shipyard. Freya and a handful of vulpines joined the rebellion on the side of the Humans.

But after two months the two forces have reached a stalemate. With an entire UTF armada en route to retake the planet, tensions are high and hopes are low.

Chapter 1

Caught a Light Breeze

Dusk brought a light breeze, cooling Freya’s palms as she loosened her grip on the rear bag of her Mark II.  Darude shifted behind her, gently adjusting her sites to compensate for the change.

“Take your time. Remember. The only good vulp is a dead one…”

Freya’s paw jerked as her wild shot landed several meters from the target.

“Fuck.” She whispered.

“My fault.” Darude answered, “I shouldn’t have…”

Freya was already withdrawing from their nest, “Let’s head back. Daylight is burnt.”

As they receded beneath the canopy of the Horgrath forest Darude caught up to Freya, grabbing her by the wrist.

“Hey look, you’ll get the shot next time. It’s private whatsisface's lucky day is all…”

Freya snapped her wrist from his hand.

“Captain Morrison has been a good vulp for 58 days, 12 hours and 40 seconds now, Durude. You think I’m mad I missed the fucking shot?”

“I know why you’re mad.”

The two stopped beneath the shade of a looming redwood, both casting their eyes upward.

“Give it a minute.” Freya whispered.

They waited a moment for the hum of the drone, Darude watching for Freya’s ears to swivel in the general direction.

“You know I didn’t mean-”
“Shh…”

Freya’s ear twitched to the east and Darude knelt down, reloading the Mark II.

“You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

The gun clacked as Darude loaded the round and aimed upward, scanning the treeline through the scope.

“Take your damn shot. It’s right there.”

“...you can probably fucking smell the thing.”

Freya leaned against the tree and took notice of Darude’s scent on her wrist. The sweat from his palm had lingered on her fur. Something she had, the previous evening, found arousing. As the sun set, however, she rubbed his scent off on her bark-brown poncho.

Darude stopped scanning, “There she is…”

Freya scoffed beneath her breath as Darude calmly took aim at the thermal drone, and gently squeezed the Mark II’s trigger. Almost immediately the blades ceased with a crack and the drone fell to the forest floor.

“How many of those do you think they have left?” He asked.

“... And it was private Grae.”

“What?”

“You called him Whatsysfase. That’s not even a name.”

“It’s a saying. It means I don’t give a fuck what his name is.”

Darude closed the space between them, “And you shouldn’t either, Freya. The only Vulp whose name is worth knowing is the Captain’s.” he signed, “I’m sorry for what I said.”

Freya turned on her paws and headed back in the direction of the city, “You weren’t wrong.”

“What?”

“Morrison is dead. I’m dead. Kiira’s dead. All the good fucking vulps are dead. Let’s go.”

Twenty minutes later the purple lights of the former United Front barracks gleaned through the branches above them.

“You still haven’t changed those to white LEDs? There’s like… ten thousand in the store.”

“Guess we’re close? We like keeping the ultraviolet just for you.”

“I’ll never get how you humans got into space with no senses.”

Darude placed his hand on the small of Freya’s back as they climbed over an oversized root springing from the base of a collapsed tree, “I had enough sense to be gone before you woke up this morning.”

Freya grinned despite herself as she lay the Mark II and her poncho in a locker hidden beneath the root, “You saw Davis with a black eye last week.”

“He still winces when he sees you at the bar.”

“Speaking of…”

They crossed the main courtyard, beneath the searchlights of two hovering drones, towards the slow thrum of music and conversation.

“I ever tell you about the first time I came here?” Freya asked.

“When you actually thought you were meeting Kiniro?”

“Ah, yeah. You clever fuckers…”

On cue, as they entered the bar a group of loosely dressed men shouted out what had become the rebellion’s informal greeting of Welcome Kiniro.

Darude responded, “Thank you, Kiniro.” and looked toward Freya.

“Since I can follow the rules…” he asked, “Obviously not tonight but…”

She considered him for a moment. He was handsome. He had been rough but not too rough. And most importantly, he knew better than to push his luck with the rules.

“Yeah. I think so. I’ll find you. Look I gotta-”

“Right.” He answered, looking toward the corner of the bar at the only other free Vulp in the reclaimed barracks. With that Darude joined the men who had greeted him and Freya cut through the crowd of humans toward a sullen figure in the corner.

“John. Got something for me?”

Freya managed to coax a weak grin from the pale furred figure who slid a lukewarm plate of stewed meat, “Caught it. Cooked it. We even?”

“To be seen…” She answered scooping the meat up in her paw and biting into it eagerly.

“Hey, I spent all evening slaving over a hot stove and you’re just gonna…”

She held a paw up to silence him while she chewed and swallowed.

“Fuck, John. These humans have no idea what they’re missing… You’re wasted on vegetables.”

“Please. If you really want to flatter me, use a fork.”

“I've been out all day…” she mumbled between mouthfuls of seasoned meat, “First thing I’ve eaten since breakfast… first meat in…. Gosh.”

John sighed as the meal was gone in moments, “Just like back on the ship. No one appreciates a good cook.”

Freya swallowed the last bite and licked her paws clean, “Humans eat vegetables. What do they know about food.”

“Speaking of...” John nodded towards the group amongst which Darude was now laughing and drinking, “Your latest?”

Freya shrugged, reaching into her jacket pocket, “He knows the rules at least. Better than the others.”

John reached out a paw as Freya handed him a small cardboard pack.

“Let’s see what were they? Everyone on the ship knew them. No sleepovers. Never twice in a row. No secrets and… No kissing?”

Freya shrank a bit as she answered, “I actually like kissing now.”

The thought of Captain Morrison and the first kiss they shared alone in his cabin flashed through her memory. And as fast as it came it went.

“Been making up for lost time, then?”

“Don’t be jealous, sweetie.”

“I’m not. Per se. But have you ever considered you and I just-”

John stopped speaking when Freya gripped his paw.

“Of course I have, hon. But you’re the only person who knows me here. And after Fox…”

She paused until he met her gaze.

“Look, John, I really just need a friend here. For now.”

The objection formed on his face and she waited to see if he would be foolish enough to give it a voice. But as quickly as the look came it went.

“Well how about you kiss my ass and we play.” John answered, pulling a deck of cards from the small pack, “Your winning streak can’t last forever”

They continued the game they had been playing since the rebellion began. Freya had been to this bar when it was still under UTF control. Humans had torn down the holographic strip tease booths and the wall of screens broadcasting state propaganda. The dart board now featured a crude drawing of a vulpine on the bullseye, which the humans speared with gusto.What made her fond of the bar now wasn’t what the humans had removed. It was what they had brought. The UTF on Roth had fallen back to the shipyard within the first day of fighting. The bar was one of the first liberated buildings. The celebration had begun with the former servants standing on the bar counter and proclaiming themselves the owner, calling it back pay for years of exploitation. The entire colony erupted in euphoria, with the bar at the center. The long night was finally over. One by one, humans walked through the doors and brought with them a symbol of their lives before the United Front occupation. Palms from a distant island were hung on the windows. Fabric from a local city covered the screens which had once broadcast propaganda. Artists painted the walls with indigenous art and symbols as the humans reclaimed the space. Freya had been there for all of it. Drinking alone in grief. Until one of the painters had tapped her on the shoulder and silently led her to a brightly rendered illustration in the far corner.

“This, Miss Freya, is you. I thought you’d want to see it.”

She stared at a vulpine among humans. Streaks of red. And a dark flame beneath it all.

“I don’t understand. Why is this me…”

The artist took her paw and placed it on the image, “This is you.” She dragged Freya’s

paw over to the streaks of red, “This is you killing the butcher…” and finally she let go and gestured to the black flame, “And this is your Captain Morrison. Who was the first to die and who died for us.”

Freya sniffed back her tears as she looked to her side at the pictogram. She had sat

besides it every night for six weeks. Playing cards with John and staring into that dark flame in the hopes it might flicker to life. But it never did.

“I still don’t get it, Freya. What are you all going to do when the fleet gets here?”

She rolled her eyes. They were almost evenly matched players. Even with Freya’s augmentations, John had been playing his whole life. So when she was winning, and he had bet himself into a hole, he tried to fry her nerves by talking about the rebellion.

“Dunno. Win. Make your bet, John. It’s almost dawn and the pot includes your rifle. I want your rifle.”

“You rebels have the planetary defense grid, right?”

“You know we do… are you going to deal?”

“And the UTF has a low orbit destroyer?”

Freya clawed the table, “Which they can’t launch because we have a fucking canon pointed at it.”

“Right. So what happens when the fleet gets here?”

Freya leaned back and let her paws toy casually with a necklace which dangled just above her cleavage. It had been the last gift Captain Morrison had given her before his death. A small wooden charm on a titanium chain. If John was going to try and rattle her, she could certainly return the favor. She feigned deep thought, her paw gliding over her neckline.

“Ah. I know…” she finally said.

Freya leaned across the table and watched John’s eyes drop to her cleavage. As he took in the sight she lifted her muzzle to his, cupped his cheek and softly bit his lip.

“If the fleet shows up and we haven’t taken the destroyer? I find you and get on my knees so we can both die doing what we love.”

For a moment they locked eyes and Freya’s HUD tracked his heart rate and vascular dilation. The HUD displayed a positive indicator for distress. Her work was done.

John threw his cards on the table and cursed.

“Dirty trick. But I fold…”

Freya leaned back, arms behind her head and lifted her boots onto the table, “You play dirty. I get dirtier. Tell you what. One more hand. Double or nothing. You win and you keep your gun and maybe… Well. Maybe we will go somewhere and watch the sunrise together, yanno?”

John stood and yanked back the curtains at the window, peering into the budding light of dawn. He cursed and started packing up his belongings.

“Shit, I didn’t know it was so late… Look Freya, I gotta go. How about we meet up in an hour and I’ll pay up.”

“Or how about I follow you back to your cabin and we work something out.”

He rubbed his forehead with an exasperated sigh, “Look you won. You don’t gotta mess with me when you know I can’t blow this off.”

Freya sat up in the booth, “Wait, where do you have to go?”

“The shipyard.”

“Over my dead body. You’d really defect over-”

“Look. I have my orders.”

“I’m coming with you, then.”

“You don’t trust me, Freya, after all these years? You know that really makes me sad.”

Freya gathered her bag and headed towards the exit, “Zip it. I’ll drive.”

“I know how to drive, Freya.”

She turned to him with a suspicious gaze, “Have you even been to the shipyard since the fighting started, John? I’ve been there every day. Now follow me.”

After a short walk to the motor pool Freya piloted one of the lev-carts along the well worn path to the shipyard. John sat beside her studying a sheet of paper.

“It’s a prisoner exchange, yanno. They wanted a Vulp to oversee. Only way the Front would agree.”

Freya answered him with a dull stare. She had not been advised of any prisoner exchanges. John was, ostensibly, part of the resistance. But mostly in spirit. Freya had taken point on all dealings with the UTF. She had killed for the resistance. She had taken orders. She had given up for more than John. She wondered out loud why no one had told her about it.

“Maybe they wanted you to take a day off… “ He answered.

“General Densmore, a kinder, gentler leader, eh?”

“Point taken.”

As the sun peaked above the horizon they came to the edge of the forest where Freya saw the remains of the drone Darude had taken out the previous evening. The sun poked through the dense canopy above them. Morning mists caught the first rays of light. Freya allowed herself a moment to appreciate the moment and the beauty. It reminded her of what the humans had been fighting for.

“Look, Freya. Why don’t you hang back for a bit at first?”

Pulled from her reverie, Freya met his eyes and nodded. They were both thinking the same thing. That the resistance had tagged John and not Freya for this mission was unusual. And there was probably a reason. Freya reached for John’s cheek and held his attention as she admired him.

“You look a lot like Fox, sometimes, John. That’s why I keep my distance. It’s just too much right now.”

“Hon. I’ll be back. I promise.”

With that, Freya hopped out of the lev-cart and John sped off from the treeline, eventually meeting a small unit of humans with several Vulpine prisoners in tow. Freya’s visual HUD overlay scanned the prisoner’s. None had any augmentations which meant no transponder signals. However, several were former crewmates from the Explosivo and standard facial recognition provided name, rank and a social history. As prisoners, none had shown any sympathy or remorse for the United Front’s exploitation of the human workers. Others had shown pride in the human’s subjugation. She questioned the wisdom of sending them back to what remained of the UTF occupation on Roth. Surely the rebellion should want to reduce the number of UTF able to defend the destroyer at the dock. The UTF must have offered an exchange the humans couldn’t turn down. That thought worried her.

The rebel unit leader flashed a laser in pattern at a guard post. It was answered with the sound of the hydraulic doors of the shipyard terminal opening. A sea of red uniforms and orange fur surrounded a small and sickly group of humans. Freya was all too familiar with The Front’s interrogation tactics and treatment of enemy combatants. She tried to zoom in, looking for a familiar face among either the Front or their human prisoners, but they were too far off for a positive match. However, amid the crowd she thought she saw a flash of a familiar shade of gray fur amid the red and orange horde.

“Can’t be her. The Explosivo crashed on the first day. No one survives a fall from orbit.” she sighed.

Each of the two forces, vulpine and human, lined up so that everyone had 150 yards in every direction, and an unobstructed eyeline. She counted at least two UTF snipers that she could see and assumed the rebels had as many in the treeline. With that thought she receded slightly, so as not to be seen and mistaken for… she wasn’t sure, but she knew it could end badly.

A series of hand gestures followed from the leaders of each group. After a brief security sweep the prisoners on both sides left the custody of their captors. One representative from each group walked with the prisoners, a Mark II plasma bolt rifle trained on the enemy combatants in their care. The two groups met exactly half way, and the guards each held back to receive their own kind into care.

“I dunno, look pretty smooth…” Freya said to herself, wondering why such a mundane exchange would warrant such secrecy. As the Vulpine soldiers met their compatriots she saw one fall to his knees. Likely, Freya thought, he was weak from lack of meat. The vulpines were obligate carnivorous, and the humans refused to go hunting to feed their POWs. Meanwhile, the humans could survive on ruffage and grain indefinitely. As the soldier, a former tactical officer named Bradley, fell she saw another flash of gray fur.

Freya gasped before covering her muzzle with her paws. There was no mistake.

“...Kiira?” She whispered through her fingers.

With maximum zoom on her HUD she found the face of Kiira Lang, former Executive Assistant to Captain Fox Morrison. Alive and well and seemingly promoted to corporal. Freya’s claws dug into the bark of the tree around her as she stifled the urge to shout out to her friend and lover. The questions raced through her mind as she snapped photos of Kiira to inspect later and stored them on her augmented solid state storage.

Freya turned her head toward the rebellion unit as a strange sound piqued. It reminded her of the disturbance of a plasma mortar, but without the impact. With the image of Kiira overlaid on her visual display she zoomed in on her own unit. Three black clad Vulpines with reflective helmets and neon visors were inexplicably in the middle of the rebels. They surrounded John, ignoring the humans, who fired at them point blank. None of the shots impacted. John was bent over and they pulled his hair up and inspected the back of his neck. Instinctively Freya reached for her own, feeling the outline of her implant’s access port. Before she could understand what was happening the same curious disturbance sounded again. This time the sound came from the UTF unit. Again, three helmeted vulpines grabbed hold of Kiira and doubled her over to inspect her neck.

Over the sound of shouting and plasma bolts she heard them shout, “Take this one!”

Freya was out of the tree line screaming Kiira’s name before the three mysterious figures re-cloaked and took Corporal Kiira Lang into the abyss with them.

“Kiira, no!”

A high pitched squeal whizzed by her ears and landed with a dull squelch just a few feet behind her. She whirled around in time to catch a spray of hot blood in her face. A black suited vulpine had decloaked behind her and immediately been shot directly through his neon visor. Looking over her shoulder she saw John aiming a modified Mark II rifle in her general direction.

“What the fuck…” she mouthed as he beckoned her toward the unit.

All hell broke loose and the two units, assuming the other was behind the sneak attack, opened fire. Grass and dirt exploded between Freya’s feet as she sprinted for the safety of the rebel transport. Looking over her shoulder she saw the UTF dragging their wounded and prisoner’s back behind the hydraulic door.

Freya slid to a halt behind the lev-carts and crouched down with the other rebels.

One of the prisoners, a young bare scalped woman with a bruised jaw, cursed at her.

“What the fuck is Storm doing here? I told you to keep her out of this…”

Freya cut in, “Two snipers at least.”

John reloaded his Mark II, “Where?”

“One in the north tower. The other just above the customs checkpoint.”

“Someone get her a fucking gun, or we’re not leaving…”

John crawled beneath the hovering lev-cart and readied his shot, aiming north.

One of the security detail slid freya his Mark I, “Loaded… do you have-”

Freya pulled a thick cable from her pocket and plugged it into the base of the rifle as a human grabbed the other end and connected it to her access port. Immediately upon connecting, her HUD displayed a software overlay. Wind. Distance. And the sinusoidal pattern of the projectile all displayed. Freya snaked beneath one of the lev-carts and zoomed in on the roof above the customs checkpoint. A small glint of light, the sniper’s ultraviolet targeting laser, betrayed his position. Freya eased her rifle into position, followed the targeting program’s instructions, searching for a lock. A green dot lit above the crosshair and the software indicated a 98% chance of success. Calmly, she squeezed the trigger and absorbed the recoil. The enemy’s targeting light went dim and she detected zero movement from his nest.

“Got him. John?”

The muted sound of a Mark II discharge answered her question.

“...let’s hope that’s all of them and get the fuck out of here.”

The units piled into the lev-carts with John and Freya covering the rear. Freya scanned the treeline while John focused on the shipyard.

“Clear…” John answered as the cart powered over the grass toward the safety of the forest canopy.

A single point of light caught Freya’s attention among a small copse of trees closest to where Kiira had vanished. She zoomed in and saw what looked like the glint of metal amid the folds of dark fabric.

“What the fu-”

A hooded figure turned toward her, making eye contact over the hundreds of meters between them. As the figure pulled back it’s hood to reveal a rictus grin Freya just barely made out the facial features and elongated ears of a chimorphic face. The sleek muzzle and furless flesh was poorly suited for a foliage laden moon like Roth, but would have been perfect for a more aquatic setting like Selachi. The figure seemingly winked at her before vanishing into the void of trees via the same cloak the helmeted vulpines had worn.

“Sharks…? On Roth?”

John shot her a glare before looking around at the unit. They had been too absorbed in offering medical care to their wounded and prisoners to listen to the mumblings of the vulpines in the midst.

John mouthed a single word to Freya.

“Later.”

With that she settled into her seat, pulling the gun inside the lev-cart and pulling the blast shield down over the window. As she sighed deeply and brought up the photos of Kiira she had taken, and fixed them as an overlay on her HUD, the young hairless woman shoved the medical team off her and stumbled over to Freya.

“Why did you come here? This is all your fault.”