Despite her plans going as well as she had hoped, the lingering cold stole away her rest.

  Miss La cracked open her eyes, the room still as dark around her as when she went to sleep, and glanced towards the digital clock display on the wall.

  She had been asleep for only a few hours, and it felt like it. She pulled the blankets around her, closing her eyes and willing herself to sleep, but slipping into the voidless realm of dreams only lasted for another hour.

  When her wolfish mind again stole away her sheep, she opened her eyes to slits once more and gave her tail an annoyed flick.

  “Only a few hours… as it always is.” Miss La muttered to herself, shrugging her shoulders back and forth until she was in a reclined position on the couch, supported by the broad pillow behind her.

  She reached behind her head and grabbed her data-slate, turning it on and casting its dim glow onto her face. She blinked her four, tired eyes and stared down at the screen, knowing that it was not her usual romance books she was after this time.

  Slowly, Miss La tapped her draconic nail along the screen, opening a particular folder that she had hidden deep within the data-slates memory.

  A folder labeled “My Family” glowed within her four eyes, and with a weary sigh Miss La opened the folder.

  Slowly, picture by chosen picture, Miss La opened the last remaining recordings and images of her family; They were all blue scales, like her, and worked the forges just like any proper Skalathir does. Her family in particular specialized in armor forging, pounding and forming seamless plate to withstand any physical force that could be placed upon it.

  It was for that very reason why their planet had been targeted in particular.

  The Ur had figured out quite quickly where the frustratingly tough armor was being made, and had swarmed her planet in force. She had been away on a delivery, as none of her family liked being away from the forges and having to deal with the chill of space, when her planet came under attack.

  To her horror, their distress signals had been ignored by the Inner Dolcir Coalition, and the Skalathir were judged to bear the weight of the assault on their own. Powerful Pwah and Kafyan warships were too busy protecting their own interests in the beginning of that war, everyone ignorant to the true power of the Ur war machine.

  The Skalathir had their own military and navy, sure, but they were all weeks away compared to the few days worth of skipping required by the other races.

  Albeit the logic and desperate pleas by her own planet, no aid came, and she was forced to watch as her planet and her family were consumed by the Ur. By the time the Skalathir warships arrived and deposited troops onto the planet’s surface, the entire planet had been wiped clean of living beings, the worst loss of the war in its entirety.

  Billions dead, consumed, and turned into feeding fodder for Ur fighters and their machines.

  If the IDC had properly reacted to the plight of her people, hundreds of millions more could have had the ability to evacuate. With little cover from Ur ships, very few made it off world.

  Mad, desperate dashes had been taken in the beginning, those with the fastest ships burning white and hot into the void, but anyone slower was rendered into flashing motes of light and scattered metal pieces.

  Miss La’s family, humble armor crafters, had no fast ships, their only ship being used to shuffle their goods off world.

  The same ship that Miss La piloted to Earth, and had stored in the docks of Station First Horizon.

  Miss La leaned her head back against the cushions as she held her data-slate above her face, rubbing a strong draconic thumb down the faces of her mother and father.

  Her father, Kandam Aum-La, had married her mother, Pashikit Our-Am, only a year after they met. He always told her that their love had burned hotter than any forge he had felt the heat of, and with their passions they had given birth to her, giving her the name Lathway.

  As their first and eldest daughter, naming Miss La after the very anvils they shaped metal upon had been a little… on the nose, as far as she thought, but she bore the name with pride.

  Kandam and Pashikit’s love continued to burn hot and true, giving birth to three more daughters and six sons, forming a massive clan of their own and filling their forges with those of their own flesh and blood.

  Miss La smiled to herself as she remembered how much she chided after her father, threatening time and again to forge a lock around his waist to keep him off of her mother. She remembered his deep, rumbling laugh and it caused her heart to spark with a soft pang, and she sniffed quietly as she tapped through the pictures.

  Her sisters, Davosso, Aslin, and Asail had been the finer of the four daughters, with Miss La being brawnier and harder headed. Aslin herself was lauded as a natural beauty, with scales that glittered brilliantly in the light of the forges, and had suitors leaving her gifts through the week when she came of age. Davosso preferred to do calculations and paperwork, bookish in nature and taking care of the forge’s finances. Asail was quiet, soft eyed, and kept to herself mostly, finding solace in working alone at the forges late into the night.

  Her brothers, Breodin, Joden, Godinir, Voleyr, Muzza, and Togar may as well have been carbon copies of her father, all the same boisterous nature that made the forges sound like a rowdy bar more than a place of work.

  Not that it mattered, anymore.

  From grandparents, cousins, nephews and nieces, they were all consumed under the uncaring eye of the IDC, the only remnant of her family’s forge being the single anvil upon their ship, the Black Hammer. Everything else, made of fine metal, was consumed by the Ur, just like the flesh of their bodies and calcium of their bones.

  A cold anger began to grow in her chest as she slowly tapped through the pictures, the same anger that had propelled her all the way here to this very station.

  If the Humans had been there, her family would have likely survived the Ur incursion.

  The Humans always gave it their all, and let no cries for help go unanswered in the eternal night of the stars.

  Humans, would not have left her brothers and sisters to die.

  Humans, would have been able to save her mother and father.

  Humans… were the key to make sure no one else was left behind, ever again.

  Miss La sniffed, rubbing at her eyes with her palm as she set the data-slate down, then let out a hard exhale as she slapped her hands to her muscled thighs.

  “I may as well take some time off.” Miss La said to herself, whipping the rest of the blanket off her body. “Only have four students left after everyone else followed after Lirya and Tyllia, anyway.”

  Miss La sent out a student-wide message, letting everyone know there would be no class for the week, and started packing her bags.

  It was going to be a little warmer on Earth than on the station, so she packed appropriately; Jeans, joggers, shorts, tank tops, and t-shirts. She then changed into a piloting top, joggers, and attached a thigh bag for the smaller things like documentation and funding-slates.

  Like other Skalathir, she didn’t really bother with shoes, as on her home planets they just walked around barefoot. Skalathir feet were tough enough that they could walk on white hot coals without much pain, and tough enough to withstand clawing their way up the sides of mountains on the weekends.

  With her bags gathered and affairs in order, Miss La made her way down the station’s pathways towards the private storage hangars.

  She figured that, since she was to meet Radishow on Earth anyway, she may as well go down and poke around for a bit. They had agreed to meet in Fort Benning, more so they could peek in on Rhidi, and due to their phenomenal parking rates for private ships.

  Miss La hadn’t been to that base in particular yet, but knew it was one of the larger ones due to all the operations that happened either in or out of the base itself.

  Bags bouncing against her back and off the sides of her thighs, Miss La came before the kiosk that handled incoming and outgoing ships. The Human working the desk looked up at her and smiled, blonde hair catching the light and her teeth bright.

  “Well look who it is!” The attendant called out, already reaching for Miss La’s departure keycodes. “Been a minute since you’ve taken the ol’ Hammer out for a spin! Heading out for a weekend trip down planetside?”

  Miss La Nodded politely. “I believe it is about time I went and enjoyed the sun for a while, down on Earth. It still gets awfully chilly on this station.”

  “Drafritti engineering for you.” The attendant mused, handing over the departure keycodes once Miss La had a free hand. “Sucks the heat out of everything to keep their generators cool. When should we expect you back stationside, Aum-La?”

  “Oh, I’ll be going down for a week.” Miss La replied. “I hear the barbecue is quite nice at Fort Benning.”

  The attendant nodded, leaning forward on her elbows and resting them on the countertop. “It is! Also has one of the larger military malls and an expansive stables.”

  “You always did like your horses, didn’t you?” Miss La replied, smiling kindly at the Human woman as she resettled her bags and set off down the long gangway. “See you in a week, Amanda.”

  “Have fun down there!” Amanda called after her, waving a hand before having to turn and receive a patiently waiting Human 8-Ball space trucker.

  Miss La hummed to herself as she stepped down the walkway, a long corridor of doors that were vacuum sealed to the entry locks of ships. A few awkward moments arose when a man saw her coming and pressed his back to the wall, causing Miss La to have to also turn to the side and slide her way on by.

  Judging by his sly smile, he didn’t seem to mind the tight space much.

  Clearing her throat, Miss La continued on her way until she reached her airlock’s door, tapping the departure keycode against the reader. It trilled at her and opened the door with a gamely hiss, and Miss La stepped inside.

  The walk was rather short to the entry lock, and after inputting her code into the door’s data reader, the interior door opened the same time the outer door slid shut behind her, activating the void seals.

  The smell of the ship hit her like an old memory, still smelling of coke, steel, iron, and fire. The Black Hammer was a Type VII Skalathir shuttle-shop, a merchant ship that doubled as a small workshop in case the pilots wanted to make some easy money during an extended offloading. In all respects, it looked like a hard-angled rectangle with a pair of short, stubby wings mounted with directional atmosphere engines, the rear of the ship housing the three main thrusters.

  Windowless, the ship’s cockpit was fed information via cameras and sensors, and could be easily flown without cameras if necessary. Along the bottom of the rectangular hull was the “cargo bulge”, a long, six sided outcropping that ran the length of the ship.

  It was fairly boring, by most standards, but it was a workhorse in design, not something flashy like the Pwah or Kafya would pilot.

  Miss La set down her bags near the doors, since she didn’t need to use the onboard bedrooms for such a short flight, but did take the time to light the forge.

  While she wouldn’t be using it, it was the Skalathir way to keep the forge lit for good luck, and to remember those who came before.

  Miss La swallowed hard as she manually lit the forge, using an old fashioned tinder basket lit with stone and steel. When the airflow hummed to life and the coals were lit, a dull, purring roar emanated from the forge like the heart of a dead beast beating back to life.

  With a quiet, whispered prayer, Miss La left the forge and typed in her pilot code to the cockpit door. It slid open on well-oiled rails, then closed behind her as she stepped past the four empty co-pilot seats.

  She instead spun around the head-pilot seat and sat down, shoving her tail into the recess that allowed it to stick out comfortably behind her.

  Miss La had never been a particularly good pilot, but she knew how to pilot the old tub well enough.

  While she could choose to plow down through the atmosphere and fly around in Earth’s atmosphere, it was far cheaper to zing around through space and position herself above where she wanted to be.

  As she left the station’s storage docks and slowly made her way around the other ships, she spied one of the janitors doing another scoop run.

  Robust ships with more armor than they needed, the janitors ran around all over space collecting debris into highly specialized nets, much like one would when fishing for creatures in the water. This kept the void-space around Earth nice and clean, and kept ships from getting punctured by a spatula going twenty times the speed of sound.

  Since the Black Hammer flew about as well as a brick launched from a catapult in atmosphere, she made her long journey counter-rotation to Earth itself, her screens relaying the time until reentry and the rough estimation of her landing site.

  Fort Benning was a popular place, and had made itself able to accommodate most ships up to a certain size. No one was going to be landing a destroyer or cutter there anytime soon, but cargo ships and yachts had ample space to settle down and refuel.

  The Black Hammer was the size of a luxury yacht, minus the luxury and the yacht, but the foreign void vehicle services had her assigned a landing bay before she was barely an hour into her trip.

  Miss La found herself taxiing behind a short line of ships also making their way to Fort Benning, and decided to bring up the news as the clock slowly ticked down. She leaned back in the pilot’s chair and looked up at four screens, each of her eyes doing their fuzzy, slightly out of focus best to track a screen each, and her ears doing their best to pay attention to them all.

  “According to the Pwah King of Anduril,” a well dressed female Pwah newswoman said, her voice smooth and professional, “The royal councils of the planet are closing off any and all travelling visas from the planet to Earth, or Goldilocks. This, in part due to many of the Pwah citizens abusing their visas and not returning home, causing a minor issue with tithes and putting a small dent in the planet’s bottom line.”

  A Drafritti newsman, having practiced English to the point he sounded quite normal, was far more languid. “Today marks the fourth consecutive year of the Drafritti achieving substantial gains in the energy and robotics markets, now leading ahead of the Kafyan markets by more than ten points. This is due in large part to Kafyan technology suddenly being found in Human combat armor, something that was not seen even during the Ur war. The speculations on their technology being leaked has caused a sharp drop in their market value, and their Elder Councils are in a flurry of speculation and putting out fires where they can.”

  “Six new Human stations are set to arrive within a month inside Kojynn space.” A Kojynn newswoman said serenely, her mask marked with jaunty carvings and etchings of cameras, data-reels, and microphones. “These new stations, boasting highly advanced medical facilities, will alleviate stressors that have been plaguing the outer rim of Kojynn space. Still struggling to rebuild since the ending of the Ur war, Humans are also being allowed to create small settlements down onto the planet themselves, starting as military bases and growing from there on.”

  “Where are they all coming from?!” A Kafyan newsman barked out, slamming his pawed fist onto the desk shared by three other male Kafya and a singular female. “Are they producing litters now?! How can Humans be in such number, even after the Ur war?”

  The purple female, struggling to not roll her eyes, instead tilted her head forward an inch and stared at the ranting male. “As I have told you, the Humans have an extremely advanced birthing regimen. They pay females purely to breed and give them pampered lives, as long as they keep up their quotas. This is due in part by their favored genetics, and can pick their choice of ma-”

  “It’s barbaric!” The male Kafya shouted, spinning back up into a fervor. “How can they get away with such a practice?! Paying a female just to keep popping out babies every nine months?! A female Human could have up to thirty children in one lifetime! Thirty! And that’s just one woman!”

  The purple female let out an annoyed sigh. “Yes, and that is before considering the odds of twins or triplets, but that is not the point. These are simply their normal way of doing it, and it is not like they have these women shackled to mounting racks or something. They live in suites, have around the clock care, and are healthier than most women of the other races within the IDC. But that is not why they are able to populate colonies so quickly.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “You speak of the Resurrection Directive.” A more calm, yellow furred male said, pushing his snout-glasses back up into place with a thumb. “The harvesting and application of wombs taken from the dead.”

  She nodded. “Yes, I believe that when needs must, they have to be reactivating their-”

  “Using the body parts of the dead?!” The boisterous male screamed, soon being interrupted by all the Kafya at the table.

  “He’s trying to spin it.” Miss La murmured to herself, finding the louder male Kafya rather annoying. “Even now the Elder Councils are trying to make the Humans out to be monsters, playing with the bodies of the dead.”

  “In other news,” The Drafritti newsman said, catching Miss La’s attention, “The IDC councils are once again deadlocked due to Kafyan interferences, as having the largest portion of the council under their control, the Kafya are causing a gridlock on anything pro-Human, still doing their best to keep their furry paws well in control of the IDC. This includes blocking access of four Human stations to Kafya space, as well as issuing threats to any and all Human smugglers still attempting to sell their Human merchandise on the outer rim planets of Kafyan space. With the four stations being denied their main destination, despite being given permission in the beginning, they will instead be placed around the Drafritti moon, Oipl, the Pwah planet of Sessenra, the Kojynn planet Hischeck, and the Lilgaran planet Tisssthek, a major trade hub for our forked tongued friends.”

  The Kojynn newswoman seemed to be on the same track. “Kafyan Elder Councils have suddenly turned tail on their word and rejected four Human stations that were set to arrive in Kafyan space, after similarly being denied by the Skalathir, despite the wishes of their citizens and their love of Human clothing. Instead, the stations are being moved to other destinations, primarily Sessenra of the Pwah, Tisssthek of the Lilgara, Oipl of the Pwah, and the trade planet of Hischeck. Citizens of Hischeck have yet to regain their senses after throwing a large party, celebrating the winning of the bid to have the station orbit their planet. To those who are wondering, yes, the station is already being filled with stocks of jeans, sweaters, and hundreds of tons of peanut butter cup candies, as the station acknowledges their popularity and is trying to make sure everyone gets a fair chance at obtaining those goods.”

  “Oipl, a smaller moon with a similarly small population, is experiencing a housing boom as Pwah race to gain a foothold there before a Human station arrives.” The well dressed female Pwah newswoman said, smiling as a screen behind her showed Pwah children racing about with signs reading ‘please send more sneakers’ and ‘let the taffy flow’. “As any Pwah will know, Human food products are finding a fast and formidable market in Pwah space, especially butter, chocolate, and comfortable footwear. The Duke of Oipl, Shandin LaRay, was pleased that his bid to host the station was approved, and is already forecasting the moon becoming a major trade hub between Human and Pwah merchants. I myself cannot wait to get my hands on a pair of the newly released Jackson Deltaray high-top sneakers, and I know Michek back there has been waiting months for a pair of 1993 retros!”

  Miss La snorted out a laugh as the camera swung around, showing a male Pwah with a headset holding his hands together in a praying motion while giving the camera a stern look.

  She had no idea what was going on in the Kafyan filled screen, as they were screaming back and forth in Kafya-Hi so rapidly that Miss La could barely make out any words. It devolved further when a fist was thrown, and the broadcast suddenly switched off.

  “Got a little heated with the furballs…” Miss La tittered, then turned on a Skalathir broadcast instead.

  Nothing much came from that broadcast, just that the Skalathir were still holding strong in their deals with the Humans. Since the Ur war, the Skalathir had been so crippled that they relied on Human military support completely now, but kept their sovereignty by not allowing any Humans to live on Skalathir planets, or Skalathir to legally live on Human planets.

  That of course didn’t stop thousands of Skalathir making a break for it anyway, with many of them working in the UAA Army and Void Navy as technicians.

  The Humans themselves operated out of garrison stations, stations that behaved the same way a military base does to keep Skalathir space protected. The stations themselves were huge, ugly things that catered death to anyone not allowed to be too near, and were experts at rapid responses to threats within Skalathir space.

  As Miss La continued to relax and watch the news, there was one apparent constant: The Kafya were not happy with Humans, while the Pwah and Skalathir were a more mixed bag of negative and positive.

  This was not a huge surprise to Miss La, as the Kafya felt threatened by the popularity of Humanity, while the Pwah understood the game was more than just a popularity contest. Humans were new, and exciting, which meant they had the means to wrangle, pin, and tie the planetary markets like they did their cattle.

  Her mind wandered, slowly going through the last two years of news that had slowly led to all of this.

  It was all quite impressive, as the Humans had products and animals that none of the other races had seen before. From plush-furred animal hides, food products, clothing, fashions, technology, ideas, the Human assault upon the stars with their creations was nearly as ferocious as their pathways in war.

  Some Humans had gotten creative enough to have travelling, interstellar dairies, creameries, hatcheries, factories, and other notable Human production centers that travelled either in huge space caravans, or as roving “long stations” that shadowed the trade routes.

  Generating an odd need, many planets made good money ferrying hay, fresh water, batteries, generators, filtering machines, or sod up to the long stations or their caravans, allowing the “floating prairies” to restock their soil and grass seed levels. More than once these long stations had found desolate planets or moons, scoured clean by the Ur war but not truly marred beyond recognition, like many planets still suffered. Those laid barren by the war floated in space like great burnt rocks, life unable to continue on the desolate, dust-swept surface that bore the bones of life-once-was. Others, however, were able to come back to life, slowly but surely growing green again with rolling grasslands, and short, stubby forests.

  Many caravans or long stations had parked themselves above these areas, putting down roots and using the long-dead planets as forage for their cattle, horses, goats, or sheep. If a planet was unclaimed by anyone, and they were approved for toil on said planet, colonies were set up to feed and generate more livestock by free range grazing and breeding. There had been a worry that the foreign grass or foliage would be deadly to Human livestock, but it was soon understood that rarely any vegetation was safe from a herbivore born and bred upon the iron lands of Earth.

  Not to mention the Earthen goat was something to be both reckoned with and feared, as they had been discovered eating oramanchen, a plant that spat poisonous barbs at any mammal that got too close to the plant or its cluster of sweet-nectared bulbs.

  Several times the Humans and the farmers who now inhabited the land researched who used to live there, or if there were any of their race still running around the stars. If found, they were invited back by the thousands and given parcels of land already set up for rearing livestock, and handed multiple herds in order to help them rebuild both their wealth, their lives, and their people.

  This was, sadly, quite rare, with only a quarter of the refounded planets having anyone of their original founding race still left alive to rebuild.

  When the farmers, ranchers, space cowboys, and cottage industry professionals could find no survivors, normally on planets that had been too slow to react to the Ur, or when no one came to save them, the Humans instead created monuments.

  Cast from bronze and stainless steel if the planet could provide, the Humans honored the long dead populations with statues in their likeness. Anytime the Humans created one of these statues, news crews from the Pwah, Lilgara, Skalathir, Kojynn, and Drafritti weren’t too far behind.

  At first the statues had been merely representations of the beings who came before, standing proud with their kin and looking to the stars with large bronze plaques detailing their history… but Humans rarely kept anything so simple. Artists and sculptors of Human birth were a class in and of themselves when it came to their creativity, and the Human love for history knew no bounds.

  Many times a news crew would arrive to see entire sections of villages or towns constructed, reverently recreated by hand with the materials they were historically known to be built with. Humans, on break or on their days off, would be dusting, cleaning, or further preserving the buildings, all while walking around the bronze statues of the people who once lived there.

  Members of the IDC who recorded these towns or villages, along with their bronze statues, shared them amongst their corresponding planets, and they had a tendency to shock, awe, or cause the races to come to a standstill.

  While the Kafya called them “macabre”, others considered them “hauntingly beautiful”, a snapshot of normalcy before the Ur had tore the life from the land and left them as empty grand prairies, and forests.

  In some ways, the Humans did these tasks bitterly, knowing they fed their cattle on land that had been nurtured on the blood and flesh of an entire race. Ennui and bitterness fed many of the agricultural colonies, which further translated back to Earth and Goldilocks and instilled that Human, righteous anger that fueled all who were born of iron and grit.

  Despite their offerings, only the Humans laid roots down onto the dead planets, as very few had the mental willpower to sustain themselves on the bones of the dead, building the mystique around Humans as a whole. The Drafritti, despite being close to the Humans, also found themselves reluctant to really stay for good on these planets, despite the lovely celebrations and microcultures that were growing where death once reigned in still silence.

  A beep on her piloting dashboard broke Miss La from her revelry, and she had to start active piloting again.

  The trip down to Fort Benning was eventful, pausing and redirecting to avoid newly constructed frigates and gunboats going through their first power cycles and testing their systems.

  She had to pause a second time as Kojynn military ships, along with Drafritti drone boats, quickly cut across the traffic lanes towards the orbital docks, seeking to be outfitted with updated Human targeting systems.

  Landing went smoothly, despite burning far more fuel than Miss La would have liked due to how much of a fucking tugboat her family’s ship was, but thankfully she had more than enough money to have more fuel put onboard after her trip.

  It felt good landing while the sun was up, warming her scales with its glow as she stepped out of the lock’s door, and it was one of the few times Miss La wished she had hair. She gave her scaly head tendrils a flex, chuckling to herself as she hefted her bags and made her way to the shuttle bay. The ride to her hotel was quick, and to her amusement they had given her a room with thick carpet so her feet stayed warm.

  Still not feeling tired, and wanting to savor the feeling of actual ground under her draconic feet, Miss La decided to go for an evening walk around Fort Benning.

  Her hotel was relatively close to a set of infantry barracks, so she decided to walk around them as a bit of exercise.

  She always found Human barracks rather amusing, as they were either star or circle shaped, surrounding a little grassy area where they trained. There were multiple training companies active and running around, and Miss La paid them close attention.

  While they were perhaps eighty percent Human, she did spy Pwah, Kafya, Lilgara, and the occasional Kojynn and Drafriti running around amongst their ranks. Making her way down Vibbert Avenue, Miss La’s ears picked up a noise that caused her to pause mid step.

  It was faint, but her forger’s soul could not mistake the distant, singing ring of an anvil. It was a ring she only knew a Skalathir to coax from a forging surface, and the thought made her tail sway behind her.

  Curious of the Skalathir that would be forging on this side of a Human military base, she made her way across a parking lot behind a DFAC, the smells of a late dinner lingering in the air. The ringing grew in volume as she traced the source… and oddly enough, she smelled horses.

  She had smelled the odd beasts before from her first days down on Earth, a musky smell that clung at the nose like a heavy, earthy perfume. Interfused with the smell of horses was leather, fire, smoke, and hot iron, and those smells she knew well.

  “Who is forging all the way back here?” Miss La muttered to herself, stepping down a small rolling berm towards the main barn.

  A tendril of black smoke curled out of a small chimney stack near the rear of the stables, the area made of stone and brick instead of the warm pine wood and tiles of the stables.

  Leaning past the open, rolling stable door, Miss La looked around and came nose to nose with an easy-going percheron. The gray, dappled horse knickered at her politely, then looked pointedly at a nearby packet of horse treats.

  “Stud muffins, huh?” Miss La said with a smile, pulling out a muffin-shaped treat that had a green, gummy frog on top of it. “I assume you are the stud for which these muffins were purchased."

  The horse nodded, which clued Miss La into what generation of horse this was.

  “Here you go, big man.” Miss La said with a chuckle, offering the large draft horse the treat with an open palm.

  While the horse chewed happily, Miss La leaned to the side and saw the register markings just along the bottom of the horse’s main, cold branded by the company where the horse was born.

  When affordable, Humans who wanted their animals with a bit more intelligence would purchase the beasts from closely controlled cognitive manipulation science breeders, which normally involved a little bit of gene splicing and a microchip here or there along the brain.

  The fellow in front of her had the intelligence of a Human teenager, which while a major upgrade from a normal horse, had its own problems. Moodiness and an affinity for wanting to watch television were two of the major ones, but reinforcement training dampened that particular drawback to some degree.

  Still smelling the fire of a forge and the constant ringing of a hammer upon steel, Miss La quietly stepped her way through the stables, finding the source of the sounds and smells through another sliding barn door.

  Poking her head into the open portal, she quickly sucked in a breath and jerked her head back around into cover; A man was in the forge.

  A Human man.

  A large Human man.

  “This is just like… just like ‘To Love The Fire’!” Miss La whispered to herself breathlessly, placing a hand to her breast to try and still the fluttering in her chest.

  She poked her head back around the edge, this time only exposing two of her eyes instead of all four, and took in the pale skinned man.

  He was a larger specimen, wearing only a pair of heavily stained cargo pants, a leather belt, a leather smithing apron, and heavy brown boots. This left his back bare and open to Miss La, who slowly tilted her head a little more as she took in the ridges and valleys of his muscles.

  His hair was black, shortly groomed, so Miss La assumed he was military, and his scars spoke of a hard life, likely participating in the Ur war for some time if she had to guess. If not, he had a rough run in with something else that left him those scars, a few looking fresher than the others.

  Humming to himself, he held the steel he was working up into the air, and Miss La felt the words leave her mouth before her brain could tell her not to.

  “Oh, you’re making a claymore!” Miss La called out happily, then jerked her head back around the door when the man spun around, hammer held out before him and still ripping-hot steel held in the air in a warning posture.

  “Who’s there? Identify yourself!” Sergeant First Class Bloodmourne bellowed, leaning to the side to try and peek around the frame of the sliding barn door.

  Miss La swallowed, though her heart was beating harder for another reason.

  He sounds just like how I imagined he’d sound… Miss La thought to herself, though she held out a cautioning hand past the door.

  “Um, just a Skalathir that heard an anvil is all! Nothing to fear, sir.” Miss La called out, then slowly stepped out into the portal to the smithy. “Hi there!”

  Bloodmourne, blinking at the sudden appearance of a blue scaled Skalathir, tossed both the hammer and his partially forged claymore backwards into the forge, quickly dusting off his hands on his pants.

  “Oh! Well, hey there! Sorry about that, still uh… bit twitchy after deployment.” Bloodmourne apologized with a smile, setting his hands on his hips. “So!... What brings you… around these parts?”

  Miss La laced her fingers near her waist, her four eyes rapidly taking in the man’s brown eyes and bearish face. “Just a uh… visit.” She then pointed upwards, smile wide and tail swaying behind her. “I teach! Up on the station, decided to come to Earth for a bit and enjoy the sun and grass… and such.”

  “Well that’s nice.” Bloodmourne replied, taking a few steps forward to take the Skalathir woman in.

  She was wearing what he assumed to be a mix of her station clothing and what she wore to pilot her ship; A pair of snuggly fitting joggers, a thigh bag, and a piloting top.

  Piloting tops were a favorite of pilots and those who spent a lot of time in cockpits, a thickly woven cotton tank top with external pockets along the side of the ribcage. This gave them the freedom of their arms, some warmth and comfort along their chest, and pockets for snacks of course.

  This Skalathir left little to the imagination in her piloting top, and it was a struggle for Bloodmourne to keep eye contact.

  “Do you have anyone to show you around the base?” Bloodmourne asked, gesturing with both hands towards the open bay doors that faced the base, the towers barely visible in the distance. “If you don’t, I would be more than happy to do so! I could show you around the training areas, and uh… anywhere else you would like to go.”

  The idea made Miss La’s face a little warm, her scaled tendrils giving a happy quiver as she placed the tips of her fingers together in front of her chest. “That would be lovely! Perhaps tomorrow, though? You’ll likely want to finish your forging.”

  Bloodmourne looked over his shoulder at the hammer, which was now on fire, and the partially forged claymore which had speared into the coke bank. “Right… well. I can work on that anytime! I’d be more than happy to show you around now… but I guess it is getting dark… and I am only wearing a leather apron… and look like I went skidding face first down a chimney.”

  Miss La giggled, a noise that made Bloodmourne’s battle hardened heart spark like a teenage boy’s.

  He had been using this forge for weeks in the hopes that a Skalathir would eventually find her way to the barn, but the only ones that had shown up so far were males that just wanted to talk about iron, and how fussy some steels were.

  Now he not only had a female standing before him, but one that ticked every checkbox he had made in his head.

  “I don’t mind that, but I do think your command would be a little annoyed if you were showing around the head teacher of Station First Horizon in such a state.” Miss La said pleasantly, though she would have preferred to see just how far those soot lines went underneath that apron he wore. “Perhaps tomorrow morning? My friend is not due to be in for some time now, and I have plenty of time to spend.”

  Bloodmourne grinned widely, slowly reaching behind himself with a pair of tongs to try and knock the flaming blacksmithing hammer away from the guttering flame of the forge. “That sounds like a date!”

  A date. Miss La thought to herself, her mind already concocting rather intriguing narratives that revolved around the plots of the many romance books she read. “Shall I meet you, or you meet me?”

  “Oh, please, I’ll meet you.” Bloodmourne replied with a wave of the hand, slapping the flaming hammer away with a rattle of charred wooden handle. “Are you at the hotel just East of here?”

  “I am.” Miss La replied, her eyes narrowing in on how the man’s shoulders looked when he had stretched back to get the burning hammer away from the flame. “If you ask for Aum-La, I’m sure they will know which room to call.”

  “Aum-La…” Bloodmourne said with an odd amount of fascination, something that made odder places of Miss La’s mind and body tingle. “I don’t think I’ll be able to forget the name even if I tried.”

  Miss La’s nose scales and the plates just below her eyes turned a deep hue of blue, nearly purple, as she blushed, and she shoved her hands into her pockets so she would stop fidgeting them. “Excellent. Well… I should be going.”

  “Of course, you must have had a long trip here.” Bloodmourne agreed, running over to the door and opening it further so she could pass. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, around nine?”

  Miss La walked slowly out the door, nodding to the man with a pleased smile. “I shall await you then. I’ll see you tomorrow, mister…?”

  “Bloodmourne.” The soot-dusted man replied.

  “Bloodmourne.” Miss La confirmed, the word warm on her tongue. “Good day.”

  Bloodmourne, now that she had turned, let his eyes wander down her back and along her legs, giving a mental whistle in his head. “Good day.”

  He let out a happy chuckle, turned, then startled as he saw the thin lick of flames flicker in the air, the hammer evidently setting the tinderbox on fire.

  “Shit!” Bloodmourne blurted out, running over to a filled water bucket and jogging back over to the growing fire. “Shit, shit, fuck! Fucking hammer!”

  Despite the fact that Miss La should have heard his shouting, she was actually already fifty yards away in a dead sprint, hauling ass back to her hotel room.

  “I’ve got to brush my scales!” She huffed to herself, her rapid retreat causing multiple recruits on rock-arranging duty to pause and watch her. “Brush my scales, then condition them, and I have to pick out an outfit!”

  A Kojynn, his mask adorned with etchings of starship engines and dancing novas, turned to the Human beside him. “What’s her deal?”

  The male Human shrugged, the late day sun making his brown hair seem red. “Who fucking knows dude. What I do know is that us having to make a daisy out of these rocks is fucking bullshit.”

  “Fu’king bool’shit.” A goldenrod female Drafritti agreed, angrily spiking a rock onto a pile of its fellows.