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Chapter #7

As the former Steel Wolf drop-ship settled into the gantry in the spaceport turned battlefield, there was the crackle of flames from wreckage and the barking of orders from soldiers as troops moved about and took prisoners that were still alive. The crowds that had filled the streets now kept their distance from the spaceport and the hovering dreadnought that kept watch over the Wolfin forces on the ground.

The diplomats that had been in one of the secure rooms of the now damaged port would walk out together with some of their guard along with the largest quadruped wolf caught on camera that was currently covered in heavily scarred armor much like the bipedal monsters escorting the smaller humans. News reporters had cameras honed in on the group and the towering mechs that moved to help clear wreckage now where they could, others were getting video of flaming wreckage and assault machines being pulled back up into the bays of the hovering ship by cables. It was clear the ship couldn't land in the port due to its size and the gantries for drop-ships, let alone the weight of such a ship breaking the ferrocrete it would rest on.

The towering 200 ton monster that had been cable dropped from the ship to protect the spaceport's main buildings now stood near the drop-ship seeming to look around and try not to step too hard as it moved and twisted. Naval grade weapons pointed lightly toward the horizon as it watched over the diplomats and soldiers on the field like a giant hen watching over her chicks. Much like the long range cameras picked up the heavily modified Atlas and Ryoken II watching over the teams cleaning up the damaged buildings and taking prisoners.

"Attention people of this lovely world, we know that the ones who attacked us today do not speak for all of you, their dead will be buried and the wounded and prisoners will be turned over to local authorities and dealt with by your laws. Their weapons and machines will be turned over to the Highlanders, who need the help the most." This came as a wide band broadcast from the modified atlas over all bands, along with the chuckling laughter. "Now to answer the 3 most common questions asked of us on Skye."

A deep breath and sounds of cackling and laughter and shouts of Noooo from another com channel bled through the transmission as the diplomats actually stopped and listened to the transmission. "#1, No we don't eat humans and no you don't taste like chicken. #2, No we do not get Terran fleas like your canine races do. and #3 No we do not know what your dogs are saying, and yes we like cats."

The loudspeakers on the 200 ton monster kicked on and there was a loud kittenish mew and purring that made many reports just gawk and a great many soldiers burst into laughter.

"And no that is not a kitten piloting that mech....Captain Bishop." There was giggling and purring and a "Sorry Admiral, couldn't resist..." that flowed over the com before it was cut off.

News reporters and stations went over every angle and bit of the battle for the port that had gone one, bickering, debating, and trying to make sense of the last broadcast that had come over the bands. It was another hour before the mechs and vehicles were seriously drawn back up into the massive ship, the diplomats having vanished inside the drop-ship's hold long ago.

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The diplomats all stood by a bench with several human and Wolfin techs standing about and others helping Zeus and some of the others out of their damaged armor along with demanding to check over the diplomats. When the Wolf Khan complained mildly he was soon met with the eye level eyes of Zeus, and after a huff and a collar translated. "Behave pup." Toss in a dash of blushing and laughing from the techs and all went back to progress with scanners being used on each diplomat. None really complained much about it until someone saw a wolfin tech with elbow length surgical gloves on.

After a mild bit of panic showing on a few faces the tech went to checking over the armor, giving a little wink. A deep rumbling voice came over a com device. "Welcome my new human slaves!" Was a deep growl and the elemental tech turned and looked at the screen and there was a soft whine from it. "Too much?"

The ebony ginger snorted. "Don't make me tie you down again....oh for fucks....I give up!" She threw up her hands and stepped away to the delight and laughter of several techs and wolfin, and the confusion of the diplomats....aside from a snickering wolf khan.

Dark would step into the picture. "Each of you has a suit....personally sized for you, they can be adjusted to an extent before having to be remade. They're personal armors, space suits, and environmental suits in one. We did not want to waste resources on 3 types of suits and made one. They also hook into your mechs, each is personalized for it's pilot....and yes Lady Steiner, yours has an assist program to help you learn." He'd smile as she sighed and relaxed. "Now you all are going to be lifting off soon enough and moving out ahead of your respective troops and meet up with them in the morning to make the last bit of your trek in your mechs. You're going to have some time to get used to them with a few of our people moving with you, there is another drop-ship landing and leaving a mixed lance as you call it of two walkers and 3 tanks."

"Now the lot of you are to strip down and get into your suits..." The lanky wolfin tech said and snapped one of her long gloves. "I'm also giving free deep cavity searches...for mechs..." She gave a deep wolfish grin and wiggled her brows at the Duke, who'd backed up the most, some of them grumbling. "Now before we break out the shock prods...there are changing spaces over there...khans...go to the curtained area's" The female just sighed and rubbed her face as she noticed Tara Cambell and Janella Lakewood were already stripped to their underwear. Lady Trillian just blushed and grabbed her suit and ran for a changing spot when Alaric wolf revealed that a wolf Khan forwent underwear.

Tara and Janella moved to help each other into the hardened suits. "Mechwarriors usually have very little privacy and after battles are barely covered due to the heat of our machines." Janella said and grunted and then sighed as her suit fit like a glove, turning and helping Tara latch her suit properly. Even the two Khans were helping each other into their new suits, unlike the others they went ahead and put on the helmets for their suits. Jasek was attempting to help his father, who was being stubborn and fighting to get the torso piece onto himself.

“Someone lied about their measurements didn't they? You know that the systems in Wolfin designed mechs are far different. You're not able to pilot it without the suit fitting you, the cockpits are much hotter and are only lightly shielded from the heat." One of the tech's grumbled as he came over and used a tool, making the Duke sigh as the armor slipped into place and latched. “There...nobility...should've let you break a rib. Now is the young Archon dressed or do I need to send in the elemental?

There was a yelp and Trillian stumbled out holding her helmet. “Sorry, these things are tighter than I expected." She was blushing as she came over, looking at the others as each of the delegate's armors had patches on the arms showing their home's flag. Though Alaric was grumbling as his armor had a rather well detailed wolf with a crown on it's arm. “That's actually nice work..."

The decking rumbled as the refit drop-ship's engines came to life. "Attention all hands, locals are getting too nosy and too close. We are launching now to move for meeting point Alpha." The voice was synthetic but sounded almost to have a russian accent to it, which caused pause in the delegate's mild panic at being in an open mech bay. The techs just stood their places and spread their feet lightly as clicks and clanks sounded from everyone's boots, which made the Duke and Archon both end up falling on their backsides.

One of the Wolfin techs shook his head. "Humans...relax and enjoy." A grin forming on his muzzle as his collar spoke for him, the ship's systems and engines rumbling to life as the fusion drives shoved the drop-ship from it's nesting place and up into the sky. The reason the tech was smiling at them was that they were not all slammed down into the floor, Wolfin systems countered the shove of the engines on those inside the ship. "Our systems as you can now see, keep everyone from being effected by the ship's engines and also produce usable gravity while in space. This is why our ships can handle maneuvers and thrusts that yours cannot do without injuring pilot or crew. Our small craft have enough systems in them to do four times what yours can do with the same effects to the pilot as the lesser maneuvers. Without going heavily into physics, the systems all use rarer heavy metals mostly in the platinum group." He'd look around and shook his head. "You will need to walk heel to toe while the systems are on, otherwise you will be stuck in place by your boots."

The Duke stopped fighting with his latched down foot as the two Khans were already walking around and testing movements, the Countess and Paladin were helping Trillian up as Duke Gregory stared daggers at his son...who was covering his mouth "trying" not to laugh at his father. "Help me up boy...."

Once everyone was up on their feet and moving about there would be a soft alarm sound play over the intercom. "Latch down." Came before a countdown from 10 started and then there would be a mild shift of gravity as the engines cut power. "Attention all hands, there will be a two hour lack of gravatic systems while we to systems checks and wait on the planet to rotate under us. Tech crews not helping the frilled humans in the bay are to do as we've all practiced and work in pairs. You all are doing very well with the transition to mixed tech, do not worry about the frilled ones and pay them no attention. Unless they are crew of this ship or a part you're working on...it is not your problem."

The screen would flicker to life on the table. "I am the crew training captain in charge of retraining this crew. I did not want to do our current mission without another Terran month of training for the crew, the Captain is with his crew checking over the mixed systems of the ships. I do as I am ordered and this crew is trained enough to perform this mission to task. Do not hassle them, do not verbally assault them, your ranks and titles mean nothing within the walls of this ship if you cause a problem." The Duke flushed and the smaller bodied Wolfin would turn his attention to the Duke. "I deal with nobility, navy, marines, mixed race forces, and races that would make you piss yourself at the sight of them....This is a military Vessel, and at the moment it is my military vessel, do you wish to fight me for the right to bother my crew other than the team you are with currently?"

That made every tech in the bay stop and both of the clan Khans go silent as they watched the Duke turn a darker shade. He'd finally let out a slow breath. "No, I do not." Which got a snort and a clap from the screen.

"Good, the loss of your world has taught you humility." The camera zoomed back to show that the Wolfin, who'd been having his collar speak for him...was no taller than the Countess. "I have been with the Admiral since before the expedition was started, I do not like the little pale bitch or her humans...but your world has some nice people. Many of them said you tried, but you had a temper. After these talks...I will be the one taking you home. Do not make the same pompous stubborn mistakes twice or you both will need to eat your meals through a straw for several months." That made a few of them blink and Jasek would nod. "Good, now I must help one of the crew go over calculations. There will be a one minute warning before gravity returns."

The screen cut off and Alaric Ward looked over at the Countess and Paladin. "Is it just me, or did that Wolfin just ask if we wanted a trial for the right to bother his crew?"

The elemental laughed and kicked off from the decking to soar up to a gantry. "Why do you think Anastasia Kerensky and her people joined the Admiral so easily...their military ways are much like yours. If you're in someone else's house and this is currently his house...he could challenge the Exarch to a fight rightfully if his orders were gone against." She'd look around at all of the covered bays and shook her head. "We sadly cannot risk pulling the covers loose until we are back on the ground.

Janella would shake her head softly. "So they have a very territorial way of handling things." She'd look over as Alaric and the other Khan shared a laugh. "What?"

Alaric would smile at her and pointed to the lanky canine tech and got a smile and a nod. "They are canine, not like Terran canines, but in essence they are canine. A large portion of their race resembles Terra's wolves, it is the reason they call themselves Wolfin because of this." He'd kick up into the air and yelped as he was quite literally lassoed and jerked back to the deck.

"No peaking." Came sternly from one of the techs. And then no one could keep a straight face as the lanky Wolfin sprayed Alaric in the face with a water bottle. "Bad puppy...Sit! That's what humans do, isn't it?" The collar spoke for him.

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Anastasia stood in the bay as the techs swarmed over her mech and several others, working to repair battle damage and reload ammo stores. Her red hair laying damp around her armored shoulders as she moved back further from the work, something most clan warriors didn't respect was the techs and crews that kept their machines working. Anastasia had gotten fond these last months watching the techs work on the machines, Human and Wolfin moving over the machines at times like ants to try and rapidly repair or refit a damaged machine.

She had already looked over the damage and injury reports, thankfully there had been no deaths for their combined forces, but there had been a few injuries, the worst being for one of the tank crews that would require weeks of treatments for burn wounds. Two of her people were already in surgery getting a mechanical arm and shrapnel removed after a missile strike. Thinking of horrid wounds made her look down toward Tara Bishop's machine, the beastly creation was a Terran design somehow stolen from the Republic and turned into a working machine by the Wolfin.

A smile would grace her lips as she thought of their strict policies that they tried to stick to of causing the least possible damage, that being the reason that a few of their heaviest machines had not been seen by human eyes before. She'd seen the data files for machines 100 meters tall with naval class weaponry that Pup had told her his hopes humanity would never see those machines in or out of combat. She agreed with them and found out that much of his fleet was older ships and designs, their machines and ships were well taken care of and largely backed by his family's companies. He'd also let it slip that he was part of the navy as his family had been for generations, but if his home world was in danger or his families holdings under threat...he could recall his fleet and forces to handle threats and return to active duty if he and his forces were not destroyed.

In the months she'd worked with him and shared his bed she'd found out a great deal about their language gaps, many of the words they used didn't translate and instead they'd had to find words near enough to the proper meaning to use instead. Calling themselves Wolfin had actually started as an Admiral's joke, which had run wild until they actually introduced themselves as the Wolfin race. He'd grumbled at her and gotten her drunk enough to get tattooed after word reached him that "Pup" her nickname for him...had reached back home. Apparently his siblings had given him a good bit of hell, so much that she now usually wore pants at the very least most of the time. She didn't trust what he'd said the tattoo's meant nothing bad, leaving her with the feeling she had something akin to "Slippery when wet" on her crotch and "Steel puppy butt" on her ass. The written language was a good bit like Terran Mandarin, meaning she could ask anyone she wanted of the Wolfin and she'd get several answers and not a single straight face.

She'd also started to get along quite well with Zeus, who like his person liked his ears scratched around the base...when no one was around to see. She lost herself in a fond memory until she heard cursing, her implants tried to translate it but the distance was too great to make it out. Warning alarms sounded in the bay as techs started to leap off of Dark's Feral Atlas. Coolant exploded out from cracks in the armor as the bay grew bright. It was going critical in the damn bay! In one of the rarest moments of her life, Anastasia feared she might die.

The Feral suddenly lurched and fell from it's cradle, a gaping hole in it's chest where the reactor had been and then a blinding flash as the holed reactor went critical inside of a magnetic field that pulled several loose tools and armor plates to it. The mech itself laid on the heavy decking, ruined for all but the deepest rebuild if that could save the wrecked machine. Anastasia's eyes hurt as she pushed herself up from the floor and coughed at the hot air, looking around as medical teams filled the bay. Her eyes found him clutching his arm, shooting to her feet as she saw it was missing most of it's length. The medics beat her to him, unable to see them sealing the stump of his arm or the shots going into his neck. She never made it to his side, a medic catching her and jamming an injector into her neck.

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It was late in the evening when Anastasia woke from her medic induced nap and groaned finally feeling the roughness of her throat and feeling the stitches in her side from where something had pierced her armor. She tried to sit up and found a note smacking her in the face, yanking it it down to read it. “He is alive and stable, he's had surgery and will need his rest. We had to replace his arm completely with a cybernetic unit."

She heard clanging in the in the next room and growling along with medical staff scrambling to contain someone. Then she heard a growl and moved from the bed, holding her side and ignoring coverings as she stumbled around and into the mess that was Dark's room. His new armed wasn't covered yet, mechanicals crushing the railing of the bed as his eyes were large and almost wild. He snarled in his native tongue as he fought the medical staff to get loose, leaving her an opening to crawl onto the bed and grab his head in her hands. “Easy....easy...its safe....you're hurt, if you don't calm you'll hurt yourself more." He whined and she smiled, leaning in to kiss his nose as he fought less and less. “That's it, deep breaths...ease your beast..." She spoke softly and sighed as she felt his good hand on her hip and then around her back gently pulling her to lay with him.

“That's good mate, now rest. You have to heal you big idiot..."

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The showing of mechs had been postponed after word reached the drop-ship of the Admiral's mech going critical in the bay, the techs had been scrambling since the drop-ship had landed at a secondary landing site. The sight of the now ruined command mech shook quite a few people, the worst was Zeus. The giant wolf roared and howled and nearly lost himself in frenzy before he seemed to suddenly calm down and fall asleep.

It would be after dinner when the delegates were called back down into the bay fully suited, though none arrived with their helmet on. Alice stood with a timber colored Wolfin woman and smiled grimly as they all arrived. She held a data pad in her mechanical hand and would sigh. “Let me first say that the Admiral will be fine, he lost much of his left arm and has had surgery to install a mechanical one. He's also had bone reinforcements and a few other things I'm not yet allowed to mention because of tech differences." She'd shrug. “It seems that during the battle at the port a specialized round made it through a hole in his armor. When his reactor was powered down for repairs the round triggered and sent the reactor from near full shutdown to critical."

The Wolfin tech sighed and opened her mouth to speak before touching the collar on her neck so it would speak for her. “This is stolen tech, when we first landed as you know our people used weapons we try not to use in battles against enemies we aren't in a...." She whined. “Trying to think of the proper english words. But there are two enemies we do not take prisoners with, nor do they. We also cannot capture their machines or they ours. For now that is all I can say, proper talks about them will enclose talks about our enemies and threats to humanity."

“So we weren't able to get all of the Falcons off planet after all...." Janella grumbled softly and shook her head as Tara's hand touched her arm.

Tara would pat her arm and sighed. “So your commander is injured, his mech is ruined, and how did that blast not severely damage the ship." She paused and like the other got to watch a slow motion video of people running as a section of wall opened revealing a device that ripped the core of the Feral out and wrapped it in layers of gravity fields. It paused as the core exploded and stopped.

“The Nautilus is over 250 years old, refit several times over those years. It has also lost most of its crew and required a complete rebuild once. The device you witnessed is a fail safe originally meant for our super heavy fighters and bombers. Two generations ago the Nautilus was pulled back from the front lines when we met the harshest enemies our race has ever faced. The armor and weapons that cripple your ships and fend off your weapons so well is too light." The Wolfin woman smiled as she was stared at. “The tech has been upgraded, but the ship was sold to the Admiral's family and used as their flagship. A frigate has already left with the Admiral's Feral, it will be taken back and totally rebuilt."

“What is he going to pilot, he and his....mate? I'm sorry I'm still having trouble with that term." Trillian said and then there were sounds that made all of the delegates stop and turn, the clamps had released and the tarps were rapidly pulling back away from the machines in the bay. Each of them looked around at all of the machines. Her mech was lovely to her, no doubt designed after the Fafnir due to its massive cannons, but it had two heavy arms that hung at it's sides and visible gear for coms and support.

The khans were already moving around the two quadruped mechs with weapons and heavy armors and weapons befitting their styles. Janella stared at the two towering beasts before her and Tara Cambell, one bore heavy plates that hung like a kilt in tartan colors. Its weapons all based to bring the mech in close for its towering ax to come into play. The mech beside it looked much like an ancient Terran knight, bristling with armor and heavy weapons that made the Paladin smile and run for the gantry.

Jasek stared up at what looked much like a 100 ton rebuild of the Templar, its heavy arms had hands much like the Paladin and Countesses mechs. He heard booted feet on steps on the gantries and then blinked as his eyes fell on his father's machine. It wasn't a mech. “Is that...."

“100 and 50 tons of heavily armored tracked defender. This unit is a modification of one of the Admiral's families primary units. Based on the Howler Siege tank, it will use a three man crew, with the primary control being the pilot's. One com officer and one tactical, this like the Archon's Fist is a command and control machine." Alice said as she pat the Duke on the shoulder. “All of you check out your machines, the power and controls are locked to test modes at the moment. And Duke Gregory...your crew will be down, survivors from the resistance on Skye."

Alice and Jeska left a few younger techs to help out the delegates run simulations in their new machines, heading up to an upper room to sit down with some of the crew working the various stations. A com officer came over with a data pad and handed it to Jeska, making the two tech's blink. “This thing...they're sending this. He's going to be beyond pissed off when they drop it off tomorrow." Jeska's collar said as no one disagreed with her.

Alice smiled. “He can't have all Terran toys, I believe his father sent it almost a year ago." She brought up something on her pad to show Jeska. “I went over it with my team and got tips from you to refit Cerberus for Blade."

Jeska snorted as she looked over the mech's specks. “We've gone over the design and updated a few things. It will fit him well enough, even if he doesn't like using it. A class five frontal unit, anything higher class would require it's own personal class of transport to use." A grin crossed her muzzle as she looked over the design. “If we move a few things around and while he's unconscious we clear the Nautilus single class 5 bay...it can fit.

“I've already gotten a message and several ones the translators can only pick curses from that the bay is being cleared as we speak. Much of the storage is being shifted to the other ships or used for repairs...we also cannot change it's name on it's systems either."

Jeska yipped and smacked the table. “Well then the prototype keeps it's name...trading a feral Terran Atlas for an Alpha Titan."