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Days Go By: Turning Into You

By: Jenny Harlow

"I'm not how I used to be,

I'm changing cause of you

I'm screaming just to breathe

It's all that I can do

I try to be me, but I'm turning into you

Turning into you"

Offspring- Days Go By: Turning Into You

Alana stared out into the darkness of space, the pink planet beneath rotating peacefully. It would be nearly dawn at the camp, so many soldiers who had been asleep the previous night before would not wake this morning, succumbing to their wounds in the night. Alana herself had a throbbing in her leg, the bandage was almost solidly red, and it was spreading slightly onto the white sheets each time her leg brushed them. Sonia was in the bed next to her, asleep, breathing quietly and easy, her medications for pain taking what little energy she had from her. The doe walked in, a squirrel followed next to her, scribbling intently on a clipboard as the doe continued talking. "Ensign Millworth, Allen: Species squirrel, Lieutenant Moulder, Lacey: Species mouse..." The doe was listing the casualties, whose next of kin needed to be notified. She had collected their tags and ident-cards, and was packing each one into an envelope as she listed it off. She stopped into the infirmary to check with the doctors, seeing if she needed to add anymore to her list. Thankfully, there were none aboard this vessel. The frigate's medical bay housed ten beds, all full. Most were filled with the herbivorous animals, Alana mentally counting Sonia amongst them, there was only one other of her former troop, it was the rookie who vomited on the planet's surface. He had taken a large caliber bullet to the side of his abdomen, and was laying unconscious on the bed across from her, his breathing was assisted by machine, as it seemed to be quite difficult on his own. Finally the doe walked over to Alana's bed, "What is your condition?" She spoke quietly, yet there was a subtle element of command in her voice, in some ways she called to mind the lieutenant who had commanded the drop.

"I'm in pain still, but it is manageable, I do not require medical intervention."

"Good, then you're able to talk." The doe pulled the curtain around the cat, pulling a chair up beside the bed. "Name, rank, and serial number."

"Alana, Pettit, Petty Officer, APC-0891" The cat said, in the military wrap that had been drilled into her as proper response to an officer's question.

"I am Lieutenant-Commander Vayla Cane." The doe said, Alana saluted, the confused doe gathered herself quickly returning the salute. "I let you aboard this frigate with the hopes of gaining information from you, if you give this information up willingly; you shall be treated as another soldier on this ship. Provided you withhold information or attempt to provide false information; you will be treated as a prisoner and sent to the brig for imprisonment elsewhere later. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes ma'am." The cat responded stiffly.

"Good, now tell me, your ship was not in orbit when our rescue fleet arrived, where has it gone?"

"A felinid dropship does not remain in orbit after soldiers have been deployed, it moves on to its next destination. That way it frees itself and other ships to spread troops further apart."

"You willingly deprive your soldiers of aerospace support?"

"A dropship is more easily detected than an independent group of soldiers, a second ship would have arrived within two days to report on our progress and retrieve our soldiers."

The doe pondered the predatory tactics and grimaced. It seemed like they were throwing their soldiers to the enemy's mercy. It had been costly for them this time, the corvettes stationed at a nearby outpost reached the camp within hours, had there been any enemy ships left in the system the corvette would not have easily overpowered the predatory troops. The outpost was heavily guarded, so there was little fear of retribution from a single felinid dreadnought, however to be sure the doe did ask the cat another question. "How many dreadnoughts were deployed to this sector?"

"Just one, the Infernal Rain, the ship I had been stationed on. It was sent to this planet, and another five. Its next stop was the research base on Caldera."

"This information is helpful, get some rest soldier, you'll need it in the next little bit, we'll see just how much you cooperate with us and you may yet be allowed into our ranks." The doe was given one last salute as she turned to leave.

Alana was left alone again, with nothing more than her own troubled thoughts for company. Every now and again, as the four corvettes were adjusting the captured gunship between them she could see its black opalescent hull glitter slightly in the red light. It looked evil. It was small compared to the ships carrying it, and even smaller when compared to the six hundred meter long frigate, and with its ten decks. The gunship was curved forming a shape similar to a cobra's hood, it had two large engines mounted on the back which would make the light ship travel extremely fast, the hull was bristling with armaments, two laser cannons facing forward, two centerline mounted missile bays, a jamming platform mounted on its top, and three point defense turrets, two on top one on the bottom. Despite its size and meager seeming arms, the To'Shii ship was beyond dangerous, a single one of these ships could carry fast repeated blitzing runs against a corvette four times its size and do massive damage before it was shot down or gone entirely. Several herbivore dropships were returning to the corvettes now, technicians finished with their jobs preparing for the next phase in their journey. A call came down from the bridge of the frigate, and was likely being echoed in the corvettes around it, "All hands, prepare for ARC travel."

The ARC system, a travel method devised by the raccoons who had been a neutral race between the predators and prey before the first To'Shii war. ARC standing for Alternative Routing for Convoys, was a system designed to take a ship into a small pocket dimension off the side of main space, where the ship could easily accelerate to near light speeds. Originally designed for shipping cargo, hence the name, the system soon became included in most military ships as an alternate to the jump-drive technology. Naturally the To'Shii found this technology and stole it from several ships they captured, eventually they had successfully reverse engineered their own version, faster and more powerful than most other ships. To'Shii have since used this technology on their hunts, grabbing smaller ships and flying at speeds that shake them apart. The cat could feel the tell-tale shimmy of the ARC drive charging. For a moment, everything outside the window went a pale blue, as the ship accelerated through the window it had created into its pocket, the corvettes followed quickly behind. The view outside the windows became a black void, filled with ripples of blue energy, the ship now smoothing out as it hit its stride. In some ships the charging shimmy is so violent, broken teeth are a common occurrence, but this ship was clearly well built. Alana became hypnotized by the swirling outside, finding her eyes slowly closing.

She awoke some hours later, any dreams she may have had, good or bad, not even a memory in her waking mind. She sat up in the bed, Sonia was sitting in bed, eating breakfast, a small stack of pancakes, a glass of juice, and scrambled saurian eggs. The fox still looked a little out of it, her mind slightly foggy from her morning medicines. "What time is it?" The cat asked, rising slowly.

"On what planet?" The fox said mouth half full of pancake.

"Galactic standard time." Galactic standard time, an "artificial" time which was created for space travelers to have some reference of communicating time of day for business plans and the like.

"O Eight Hundred, we slept right through reveille, but I highly doubt anyone cares." The vixen said, leaning back against her pillow.

Alana looked outside, the ship was still flying through the rippling void. She turned her attention back to the room, several of the injured were still asleep, or unconscious, she turned to the bed across from her. The curtain was pulled, but Alana could see the edges of a white sheet, pulled over the cat across from her, the bed lay flat, all the machinery was shut off. Tears formed in her eyes, she tried to fight them as her training insisted, but she could not. She rolled over, facing away from the rest of the infirmary, and began softly crying her body shaking with each sob. The vixen didn't say anything, letting her grieve as she had herself. "He was so young." Alana said, sitting up.

"All of them are," Sonia said gesturing with her hand across the infirmary, she pointed to a rabbit who had a large bandage on his face, and several bandages across his chest and abdomen. "He was barely eighteen, just old enough to sign up when we got sent here. Odds are he's not going to make it either."

The cat led her head fall, staring at her stomach on the bed. Her stomach was in ribbons, and her head was filled with the barkings of phantasmal superiors ordering her to snap out of it as they had when she was just a kitten herself. She tilted her head up to look at Sonia, she had recognized the rabbit, she had watched her own rifle shot stop him in his tracks before several pieces of debris rained down on him. "I hate this..." She said quietly, "There's too much blood, too much death, and all for the ego of one man."

Sonia stopped chewing, she met the cat's eyes. "The fact that you said that leads me to believe I was right about you. I don't think even under duress most of the zealous members of his army would denounce Rames." Sonia waved over an orderly, indicating the awoken cat. He nodded as he walked out of the room. "You'll have breakfast soon, eat something, you'll thank yourself later even if you don't feel like it now."

Alana also received pancakes, juice and eggs. She cut off a slice of the top cake, and slipped it into her mouth. It was bland, only aided by the small drizzle of syrup on top which was slightly watery. The eggs and juice were made from powder as well, yet her stomach growled loudly as the first bite went down. She found herself eating heartily, her stomach alright as long as she didn't think about the bed across from her. She cleared her plates, and downed the juice thirstily, her last meal being almost a day ago now. Sonia was still only halfway through her own food, trying her best to consume the lackluster food. An orderly walked over to the cat, his eyes looking anywhere but hers, "if you'd like more, there's more than enough in the galley." He offered.

"No thank you."

"This makes me homesick," Sonia said as the orderly walked quickly to another bed. "I miss my mom's cooking, she used to make the best pancakes, I would eat a whole stack of 'em before they even hit the table." She said giggling. "These..." The vixen struggled for words, "These are... food..." She said finally, holding one of the cakes on the end of her fork.

"These are pretty much what I grew up on." The cat said, laying her tray on the table beside her. "The motto of the mess hall was 'you'd better get used to it,' military rations were basically all I ate as a child."

"And you still have a sense of taste and smell?" The fox said, a look of faux wonder on her face.

The cat laughed softly, and Sonia's expression shifted to a small smile, it was good that the cat was momentarily forgetting her troubles. "You know," Alana started her eyes fixed on the ceiling above, "It's funny, here I am in the middle of people who were supposed to be my enemies, and what am I doing? I'm laughing at one of their stupid jokes." The cat said, laughing again.

"I know what you mean. It's odd, not even a day fully past and I feel closer to you than I have some of my own crewmates."

Alana looked out the window, hopeful that this was her chance to start again. She could never get back her stolen childhood, but at least now she could start choosing her own paths in life, without having an academy officer or unknown parents choose them for her. It was a liberating feeling to say the least. She realized already the choice that she had made, she had broken away from Kazar Rames, no longer wanting to be a toy soldier on his battle mat. After the confirmation of some deeply held suspicions, and seeing her 'enemies' also believing this war to be a futile effort on both sides, she was turning her coat. The message to brace for deceleration came over the ship's speakers, they had reached the corvettes' ARC tolerance point and had to exit back into normal space. As they slowed, the alarm klaxons sounded, the crew was told to ready for an emergency situation. "What's happening?" Sonia asked, not being able to see out the window as easily.

The cat looked out for her. Two dreadnoughts floated in space, both with their noses pointed towards one another. The felinid dreadnought was still expelling pieces of metal as sparks darted back and forth across the hull and flashed within the exposed pieces. The command bridge was gone, a massive hole down the middle of the upper part of the hull where it had been sitting. The other dreadnought, a deer built craft by the look of it, was in equally bad shape. One of its eight massive engines was missing, as was a lot of the side of the ship it had been attached to. The engineering section was clearly exposed, the ARC reactor was visible, charging and discharging itself with no one to turn it off. The cat described the scene to all in the infirmary, and there were several shocked gasps, some slung accusations that the predators were to blame. Alana looked at the ships floating dead in the starry sea, slowly shaking her head. "Felinid battle directive states that the dreadnought should maintain a broadside facing, as that's where most of their weapons are mounted, deer ships are built similarly, yet neither of them has their side facing towards the other, instead they're both facing into empty space." She looked at the damage, at least what she could see. She inhaled sharply and whispered a single word, though everyone heard it in the quieted infirmary, "To'Shii."