A Breed Apart - Chapter 2

Mal and the crew headed back to the ship and waited for Khei to round up her team. It wasn’t long before Khei and four others like her finally came up to the ship. Khei looked over the ship and nodded, “Nice. Not too big, not cramped.” “Well nice of ya to approve.” Mal wasn’t sure if the anthro’s comment was a compliment or not but he wasn’t going to worry about it. It was just a simple trip to the bunker planet where he could be rid of these weirdos.

Simon came down from his quarters and was startled to see the fur covered passengers. He hastily walked up to Mal and tapped him on the shoulder. ‘What is this?” “Just a job. Don’t worry your pretty lil face about it.” Simon fidgeted as the anthros entered the cargo bay. One particular one seemed to give him the heebie jeebies. He was a largish creature, a good foot taller than Khei. His fur was jet black with thin greyish markings and his eyes were a piercing golden color. He said nothing though he unnerved Simon.

Two of the other kittora were tawny in color with brown markings much like Khei’s. They both had green eyes and seemed to admire the ship inside and out. The last one was solid white in color with ice blue eyes. He had no markings and seemed withdrawn. He looked at noone and kept his head hung low. All four Kittora stood at attention when Khei barked commands at them in a language foreign to the crew. She then introduced her team to everyone.

“I won’t bother ya with particulars but you may as well know what our names are in case it’s necessary to communicate with us.” She pointed to the white furred one and smiled. “This is Aethis He’s our quiet one.. He’s not much for talking but he knows damned near anything you could need him to know.. How he knows is beyond any of us..” Aethis nodded and raised a hand in a gesture before slumping again.

Khei moved on to the two Tawny colored ones. “This is Jur’tei and Mar’tis. They are our communications technicians. They’ll both talk yer ear off and tend to finish each other’s sentences. You’d think they were twins.. Avoid conversation with them unless you’ve got a lot of time to kill and are bored out of your mind.” They both nodded and waved and began chittering to each other.

Khei then moved to the last on, the black furred one. “And this.. This is Jurakai. He’s our brawn. He’s not much for talking and tends to intimidate folks but don’t sweat him he’s just a bitter cuss.” He chuffed and looked over the crew. He didn’t nod or wave or even smile. He just stood there.

Khei turned away and addressed everyone. “I’m Khei. I’m the brains of the group and Let me be the first to say as uncomfortable it must be for you humans to be stuck with a bunch of “Furries” as you seem to like to call us, We’re no less uncomfortable. First experience our kind had with humans was several ships full of reavers who massacred nine townships before we could gather enough troops to kill them.”

Up to this point nobody had noticed River had entered the bay with Book and was looking over the strangers. She walked up to Khei and looked very curiously at her. “Walking talking dogs.. Not right. Won’t arrive where they’re going.. Needed elsewhere.” Simon retreived his sister while Khei watched, perplexed. She looked around at the crew and jerked a thumb toward River. “Eh somethin’ wrong wit’ her?” Mal smirked and shrugged. “She’s always weird like that.” Khei shook her head and shrugged herself. ‘Right oookay..”

Jayne had finally reached the end of his control, what little he had, and blurted out his own question. “So iffin ya all walk an’ talk like us ya use a john right?”

“JAYNE! What kind of stupid question is that!?” Zoe yelled as she smacked him in the back of his head. He rubbed his head and grumbled back. ‘Well I jus’ dun wanna havta clean up after em.”

Khei was a bit shocked but shook her head. “Yes. We use every facility in the same fashion you do we just happen to have fur.. Look It’s not that I mind playing twenty questions but could we get going now?”

“An excellent idea if I ever heard one.. Let’s go Wash.” “Right Captain..”

“Shepard.. Please show them to the passenger rooms.” “I will.”

Book motioned for the strangers to follow him as he headed toward the rooms. Without further conversation they did as instructed and followed.

“So what’s the story Captain.. I mean what’s the deal with these.. Things that were transporting to this bunker..” Mal shrugged, flipping through the pages of the file Riley gave him. “Well if these files are accurate their planet was discovered early into the war.. The Independence intended to train and utilize members of this newly discovered race of humanoid animals in our troops for their superior senses and stealth.. Seems they make excellent spies and assassins. There’s a report in here claiming they’ve already been responsible for several unexplained assassinations within the Alliance. According to this the war ended before they were able to be sent into the field.. Seems too many people were uncomfortable with them and argued that humans should be responsible for fighting and winning wars not these “Dogs”."

Wash sat there thinking then shook his head. “So you guys lost when you might have been able to win using those guys back there..” “Well I s’pose that’s the notion. Wash. Seem they’ve got some plan involving these critters but they wanna keep it under wraps. Seems they wanna make sure the Alliance never finds out about them.” “So... that’s why they hired us..” “I’d say so.” “Oh right.. So.. Back to work..”