Surefoot 69: We are Shanos Minor

Nusum-Adu kept glancing at his datapad, then up at the screens. "The... population appears in shock at what they've witnessed... the demonstrations in cities such as Deepmere, Stonebay, Illehul, Kamar-Taj and elsewhere all seem to have lost momentum..."

Melem-Adu frowned; his son appeared to be in a similar state of shock, but his father chose to embrace the news. "Excellent! The Sheep have stopped bleating, and will soon return to their fields to await slaughter!" He looked back at Welros. "This time tomorrow, we will have regained full control here..."

*

Command Bay, Kaijushima Island, Free Seas:

The assembled Caitians stared up in abject horror at the transmission provided by the Ferasans of the destruction of Shanos Minor, though the views from the various cameras were being obscured by the growing cloud of radioactive dust and debris within the basin of surrounding mountains where the city, once one of the resplendent Jewels of Cait, had once sat.

In command, Counselor Kami Hrelle swallowed down her gut-wrenching revulsion. She had just seen over three million of her people killed. She- She-

She had to take command again. She swallowed, forcing down her instinct to find her cubs and wrap them up in her arms and drink in their scent and know they were still alive, and found her voice. Somewhere. "Agent Nenjo, keep hailing the Tailless. Mr Tshal, raise our security alert. Mr H'Nille, continue to try and reach Captain Mrorr and the Deep Keep; they will have witnessed this... atrocity... like the rest of the Motherworld."

"Commander," Nenjo breathed, the jet-furred female visibly trembling. "Will you... will you be informing the rest of the facility of- of-?"

"Yes. But not yet." She raised her voice, for the benefit of the others. "Focus on your immediate tasks. We can't help the people of Shanos Minor now. But I promise you that we won't forget them... or allow their murders to go unpunished..."

*

Caitian Assault Carrier Deep Keep, Unknown location:

Commander Shen K'Row, former First Officer, sat on the bunk in the tiny Brig cell, his tail hanging over the edge, swaying slightly as he caught the scent of the visitor, having expected her long before now. He rose to his feet, prepared to be professional and gracious regardless of the passage of time since she had sent him here. "Hello again, Captain."

Captain Csara Mrorr stood behind the horizontal rows of tritanium bars filling the doorway between K'Row's cell and the rest of the ship. She was stiff, her tail twitching behind her, matching the anger he picked up in her scent, in her narrowed bronze eyes as she regarded him.

He supposed he should have anticipated this; no commanding officer could ever be expected to simply accept when their most senior officer takes action as he had. He looked up at the ceiling, as if his senses could perceive through the many layers of hull. "Based on the alerts and the pressure shifts on the hull, we've descended below the ocean surface, into one of the Mordor Trenches perhaps? I would have recommended that course of action until we organised a further attack on the Enemy."

She said nothing. Made no move to have him released.

K'Row straightened his posture just a little more. She was still angry at him, he accepted and understood that. She didn't understand; she had no living relatives out there, victims of the Ferasans, the way he and others onboard had. "Captain, I recognise that there may be difficulties in trusting me in the days to come, but I can assure you, what I did, I did for the good of the Motherworld, and all our people."

Now she was growling.

He took an involuntary step backward, though the bars still separated them. She was really going to be stubborn about this, wasn't she? "Captain... Csara... your feelings right now are understandable, but you need to put them aside. We're on our own here. No Planetary Navy, no Militia... and certainly no Starfleet, they're as useless as my nipples. You need all the help you can get."

Her breathing quickened.

"Captain, we can discuss my disposition when the Ferasans are driven from Cait. I'm wasted being kept in here. Let me do something."

That brought a reaction from her. She stopped growling... and reached into the folds of her Planetary Navy jacket, producing a slim datapad, passing it between the bars. "Okay, Commander. There is something you can do."

He accepted the datapad, holding it in his paws as he brought it to life, curious as to what she expected him to do. Then he frowned, seeing what looked like a long list of names, dates of birth and addresses, before looking up again. "What's this?"

Mrorr's face tightened. "Those are the details of all the Caitians registered to be living in Shanos Minor: 3,220,000 at the last count. There'll no doubt be more, plus those who had been elsewhere, or those didn't live there but were caught there today, but you'll have to make do with what we've got-"

He Held out the datapad, thoroughly confused. "Captain, what's going on? Why do I have a list of the residents of Shanos Minor?"

"Because following your unauthorised attack on the Capitol Building -- your failed unauthorised attack, by the way -- the Ferasans retaliated by launching an atomic weapon on the city of Shanos Minor. The city and everyone and everything in it was consumed in radioactive fire."

K'Row's heart stopped. "W-What?"

She fastened up her jacket again. "And from what I've read about the effects of such weapons, there will be additional deaths in the coming weeks, months and years from radioactive fallout.

But you should have enough in front of you to keep yourself busy. Just read all those names. Look at the birthdates and see how old they are. Imagine their lives, the hopes and dreams they might have held. The families, the cubs, the infants. The scar that has been left on our people, our Motherworld.

Have a good, long think about the consequences of your actions today. And put out of your mind here and now any thought about serving on my ship again. When this madness is over, there'll be a court martial, headed by the senior surviving member of the Militia...

And Mother help you if that senior surviving member is me..."

*

First Landing Memorial Site, Zingara Province:

Nvell R'Sharin, Mistress of the Kaetini Order, sat beneath the decaying remains of what was left of one of the first Space Arks to land on Cait over a millennia ago, but now looked more like the skeletal carcass of some ancient leviathan.

When she was of clear mind, Nvelle could easily recall visiting the site as a cub with her family, hearing the stories of the Exodus, how their ancestors had fled the Ferasans and forged their own, new identity here. When she was of clear mind, she could easily recall the chill she felt through her young fur from the Sea of Garal, north of here, and watching the flocks of flitters nesting in the sectioned, sheltered areas of the archways. When she was of clear mind, she could easily recall her parents calling for her and her siblings to follow them back to the maglev train to return to their holiday cottage in Winterwane overlooking Saraya Bay.

Nvell R'Sharin was not of clear mind now. Not from the ravages of age, but from what she had witnessed moments before.

Her aide emerged from a hidden doorway leading to subsurface facilities beneath the ruins of First Landing. "Mistress?"

Three million people... snuffed out, like a candle flame... "Yes, Wserin?"

The younger male approached, his scent and voice as shaken as Nvell felt. "Mistress, we... we haven't yet reached the Syphers, but we've... we've re-established contact with Commander Kami Hrelle on the Island... apparently Captain and Lieutenant Hrelle were near Shanos Minor when... when the bomb detonated..."

Mention of the Hrelles made Nvell rise to her feet, grunting in discomfort; she was getting on in years, she should have been relaxing somewhere warm and peaceful, not caught up in a savage War with these rat-tailed fleabags. "She will need our guidance."

"Do we have any?"

She looked to him.

He was trembling. "Facing foes willing to... to do what they've just done... what can we do?"

Nvell regarded him, setting aside her own thoughts, her own shock. No, this was not how you had expected to be living your twilight years. But it is what it is. She patted him on the shoulder as she guided him through the doorway back underground. "We will do what we can. Knowing that now, none of our people can have any doubt as to the nature of the Enemy.

And, I suspect, before long the Enemy will see for themselves what they have awakened today..."

*

At that moment, in a small garden in the Sunward District of the town of Everwell, in the Northern Province of Halase, a young, amber-furred Caitian female named San M'Grala stood and stared up at the public display viewscreen, as had everyone else present, and witnessed the destruction of Shanos Minor. The images had struck her, as they had struck everyone else.

But for M'Grala, it meant far, far more. She had been living and working as a fitness therapist in Everwell for the past two years on a lucrative contract, and had been thoroughly enjoying herself, though whenever she could, she tried to go back home to visit her family... in Shanos Minor.

And now it, and her parents, her brother and sister, her grandparents and nephews and nieces and cousins... her betrothed... were all gone. Snuffed out like candles. She was the last of her family, her clan.

And the words of the Ferasan's Master Governor still rang in her ears: "Now, as you understand the price you might pay, you must ask yourselves: who are you? Are you the smart, sensible Caitians I hope you are? Or are you Shanos Minor? Choose wisely."

She stood there, unable to move or speak, as if afraid that by doing so, it would make what she had just witnessed irrevocably real.

Distantly she heard and scented the Ferasan Patrol Pack move through the park, their leader snapping, "Right, break this up! No more public assembly allowed! Return to your workplaces!"

M'Grala felt him approach her from behind, reaching out to grasp her by the shoulder. "You too, bitch-"

She spun in place, leaping up onto him and sending him to the ground, demonstrating the fitness and limberness required in her job as she clawed at the Ferasan's eyes and screamed at him, "I AM SHANOS MINOR! I AM SHANOS MINOR!"

She never saw the Caitians around her, recording her attack on their comms and transmitting them to friends and family at other points on the planet.

She never heard the other Ferasans racing up to her.

She never felt the disruptor bolt from one of the Pack Leader's associates strike the side of her head, killing her instantly.

And she would never know that her outburst, and the phrase that had seemingly driven her to take this action, would not be an isolated incident.

That indeed, it was only the first.

*

Mithrim Valley, Nashea Province:

Hrelle shivered, cocooned by snow and ice, his body feeling frozen but his head feeling like it was on fire from the pain of his injuries. He had to move, had to begin trying to dig his way towards Sasha, and then the Tailless, tend to their injuries and look for Lt Mori and let the Island know they were alive and get the Seven Hells out of there.

But he couldn't even move.

And the air he had trapped in his self-created cocoon would quickly run out.

It couldn't end like this. He had to survive. His family and his people and his world had to survive. Come on, Esek, you old fat bastard, you've survived far worse than this.

Damned if he could remember when, but he knew he must have-

His fur stood on end as he felt a change in temperature to his left, as the ice and snow began to crack and melt, streaming down over him... and he could swear on his cubs' lives that he could hear the whine of a Starfleet phaser! Yes, yes! It's true! Sasha, or maybe Lt Mori, had located him, and they were cutting their way to get to him now!

The snow and ice overhead him began to shift and crack, and he twisted as much as he could to brace himself further, not wanting to get crushed by the weight above him. His eyes pierced the darkness to see a crimson red glow, growing larger, stronger, as the beam cut relentlessly towards him, the melting water pooling beneath him.

Umm, I hope his rescuer knows to turn off the phaser beam before it reaches him...

Then, as if on cue, it ended, and a furred fist smashed through the remaining millimetres of ice and snow... as Valtiri announced hoarsely from the other side, "Captain..."

Hrelle extended his claws and tried to strike out within his confined space at his opponent -- until the Ferasan pointed the phaser in his direction. "Captain, stop! We don't have time! Your daughter, we have to get to her!"

Hrelle peered at him with his one good eye, the tiny status lights on the phaser illuminating the two felinoids as the Caitian lay in a wet icy cocoon, and the Ferasan lay in a tunnel he had obviously carved out with the phaser. Hrelle remained fixed, alert, not even taking some selfish satisfaction in seeing that his opponent had taken just as brutal a beating as Hrelle had. He bared his teeth, to keep from letting them chatter as much as a display of aggression. "Go on, then, kill me. Fulfil your pathetic little assignment."

Valtiri looked to him, wincing in pain. "Captain... that time has passed... things have changed, irrevocably... I am no longer on that path... and Sasha needs your help..." He pointed past Hrelle and slightly down and to the left. "I sense her thoughts, she's awake but beginning to panic... I'm trying to reach her mind but... but it's difficult now. I... I was overwhelmed by the deaths of everyone in Shanos Minor."

Hrelle started at the mention of the name. That flash, that shockwave... it couldn't have been anything else but the destruction of the city by some horrible weapon. But this Ferasan, who had been trying to kill Sasha and he only minutes ago, had already killed two of their Kaetini allies- why- why would he now-

Then Valtiri handed the phaser over. "I surrender to you, as a demonstration of my genuine intentions."

Hrelle immediately grasped it and aimed it at him, checking the power levels, expecting some trick-

"No trick, Captain," Valtiri assured him, coughing but pointing again past Hrelle. "She's- She's trying to stay calm, reciting her Kaetini Oath in her head and conserving her oxygen. Please hurry, Captain, I'll guide you, tell you when you're close enough."

Hrelle stared back... but could find no deception, no reason for the Ferasan to be tricking him in any way.

He turned and began phasering a tunnel through the ice and snow, the steam of the evaporating debris warming and drying him, even as the residual moisture compensated by soaking his uniform and fur.

*

Jhess moved his fingers over the comm panel in the cockpit, trying to reach the Island, or Esek and Sasha's combadges, failing on every count; a quick diagnostic check confirmed the subspace interference from the nuclear blast. Mother's Cubs, he couldn't believe what just happened-

"Jhess?"

He glanced over his shoulder at Mreia, standing at the doorway. "Is Shau alright?"

"He's lying back there, resting." She nodded to the cockpit windows, covered in snow that only let some light shine through. "Jhess, what's happened?"

He swallowed. How can he tell her that their city, the place where they lived, where Shau was born and raised, was now a radioactive heap? That everyone they knew there as now most likely dead? He turned and drew up to her. "Shanos Minor... it's gone..."

She blinked, frowning. "What?"

"It's- It's gone. Just seconds after I beamed us out of the Plaza sewers to the Tailless, the Ferasans... destroyed it... with a nuclear device..."

His ex-wife stared at him, and he could see the same emotions on her that he had felt when he first learned of the truth. She shook her head numbly. "N-No... my colleagues in the firm... our neighbours... Shau's friends, his teachers, his girlfriend and her family... you're wrong... you're wrong, Jhess..."

He drew closer to her, reaching out tentatively, taking her in his arms. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry..."

Suddenly both were startled at the sound of the hatchway to the outside opening up, Jhess pulling Mreia behind him as he saw Hrelle, badly injured but cradling Sasha in his arms, enter. "Esek! You're alive! You're both alive-"

Then he saw the huge, tan-furred Ferasan enter from behind.

Mreia cried out in alarm, and Jhess immediately reached for a plasma pistol on the adjacent weapons rack in the cockpit, aiming it. "STOP!"

The Ferasan complied, making no moves. Hrelle looked to Jhess. "Lower it, he's no threat. Not at the moment."

Behind him, Mreia began panicking. Jhess couldn't blame her, after the trauma she and their son had undergone in Shanos Minor from the Rat-tails, and kept his weapon raised on the intruder as he continued to shield his wife.

"Jhess," Hrelle repeated hoarsely, sounding exhausted, in pain... "Sasha needs your help, and we need to locate Lt Mori and get out of here before the fallout reaches us-"

"My Pilot," the Ferasan interrupted. "We need to collect him as well." As Hrelle glared at him, he clarified calmly, "He is young, guileless, and has never raised his voice let alone a weapon against your people... but if you need a more pragmatic reason to include him: you'll not want him free to report back our status."

Hrelle nodded curtly, moving to Jhess, holding out Sasha. "Take her to the back, and your wife, too. Stay back there, I'll take care of things here."

"Esek... Shanos Minor... they destroyed it. Three million of our people-"

"I know. But we can't help them. We have to focus on us for the moment. Go. Now. We need to get away. The radiation..."

The other Caitian male regarded him warily, noting his injuries, and still glancing at the Ferasan, before accepting Sasha's unconscious body and looking to his wife. "Help me, Mreia. And trust in Captain Hrelle, he'll watch over this... individual."

*

Hrelle watched as Valtiri made an effort to appear non-aggressive and keep back from the Caitians as they departed for the aft of the flyer, before looking to Hrelle, who was moving to the pilot's seat, pointing to the one beside him as he looked over the readings of the surrounding area. "Sit there. Touch nothing, make no sudden moves. My left eye still works... and I'm keeping my phaser on my lap." Shanos Minor... all those people...

Valtiri obeyed, keeping his paws on his lap. "I didn't know they were going to do that to the city, Captain-"

"Shut up. Stay out of my head."

"I'm not in your head, Captain. Your thoughts are obvious."

"I said shut up." He tried the comlinks, still finding residual interference, and focused on lifting the ship out of the avalanche, and then locating and beaming onboard Lt Mori... and Valtiri's pilot. There had been enough needless deaths today.

*

Mroara-Lnee Industrial Compound, Mrestir Province:

The Ferasan Pack beamed back onto the grounds, weapons drawn as they looked up at the smouldering top of the main building here, while the fire suppression trucks sat around, their crews, along with the workers, stood together in a crowd, watching the repeated broadcast of the destruction of Shanos Minor on a giant viewscreen set up for corporate announcements.

The Pack Leader had watched it, of course, along with everyone else, when it was a live broadcast an hour ago, and as far as he was concerned, the Caitians had gotten off lightly.

But now he had other, more pressing duties. He drew out his blaster, aimed it upwards and fired a shot.