Kushaya and Caja

[JesterJoker]

Kushaya Rushi watched his newest starfighter as the men, women, and robots of the Trans Anthro Coalition repaired it. He gazed at the stars beyond, anxious to fly into battle against the mechanoid armies on the edge of Known Space and cruise the stars once again. Space stations did not unnerve him, but he was not the sort of weasel to appreciate an extended vacation.

"Something's on your mind," said Caja Eleri.

Kushaya turned to her for a second and shrugged. He didn't dare rest his eyes on her any more than he needed. She was also a grey weasel, but she was also a swashbuckler, and between her eyepatch, her vest, her leggings, her wild temper, and her sarcastic humor, she was one hell of a woman.

"Yes," Kushaya murmured. "Many things are."

Caja set a hand on her hip. "Care to tell me?"

"Oh, a certain spot of fur, and a certain ship."

"Kushi!" Caja said. "Are you ogling the maids?"

"Well, if they're there..."

Kushaya blinked his nonmechanical eye. The other flickered from red to blue. The women fixing his ship were dressed as maids. And not all of them French... Caja had noticed and not him? What happened for his eye for women in every shape and form? He didn't know how long Caja had been at this station, either, and took solace in that.

Caja shook her head. "I don't know why I don't shove you out an airlock, Kushi."

[JesterJoker]

"Because I'm the best wingman you know, Caja."
"Replace 'wingman' with 'wingwoman' and you have the same on my side."
"Oh, of course. You're very much my wingwoman... since you mention it, why are you here?" Kushaya motioned to the starfighter in the dock. "You can quite see why I'm here. In the expanded version, the Octopi Raiders upgraded a border patrol boss with a whip. I didn't expect it, spiralled out of control, and limped here."
"So you didn't destroy it?"
"I hit it once with my homing beam, but the whip knocked out all my weaponry. I could've taken it down with the peashooter, but I was feeling off my game."
Caja growled. "The freaking ferrets really need to work on the damage detection. I have a trip out to the research station in about half a week; I'll tell Mitsuki when I see her."
"Hey, the ferrets are cool. Though I have an eye for a certain mouse - "
Alarms rang through the station. Kushaya and Caja exchanged a glance and a shrug.
"No idea!" Caja yelled.
"Hold it a minute!" Kushaya cupped his hand around his ear. "They should be explaining it."
The radio controller spoke with the quick but unhurried voice of a feline. She also had a rough Russian accent, and Kushaya detected a hint of cold. Probably a Siberian tiger, then. Very meow.
"We are under attack by an unknown Octopi border patrol boss. We attempted to contact it, it would not reply, and we assume it is hostile. It's a Octopi anyway. I mean, come on." The Siberian practically purred her sarcasm, and Kushaya made a mental note to meet her. "Yes, yes, I hear you, Commander. Crew to the turrets. Repeat, crew to the turrets. We are under attack by a boss."
Caja turned to Kushaya and rolled her eyes.
Kushaya grinned. "What did I do?"
"We hope you didn't do anything." Caja looked at Kushaya's starfighter. "Can you fly?"
"With a wingwoman, I can fly a whole world with a peashooter."
Caja cocked her head. "I boost your confidence, Kushi?"
"Naw, it's just that you don't steal my upgrades."
"Only when I can use them... Which ones do you want? And how many lives are you at?"
"I'll take the multi-shot. It's personal, this boss. I'm at five lives. You?"
"I'll look for the homing missiles and shields. If it's as vicious as you say it is, I want to defend myself." Caja grinned wide and showed her fangs. "I had a run that lasted eight hours the other day. It wore me out but I'm at about nineteen, twenty lives. I overloaded the Accounting Grid for a while and now it's got a grudge against me."
"I hope you keep them."
Caja shrugged. "I expect to lose at least a few."
Kushaya and Caja walked into the bay, and split at the entrance. Kushaya walked into the repair bay, where the five maid mechanics, in fluffy blouses and pink skirts, startled and stepped to the side. Kushaya grinned at a vixen with pretty golden fur. She blushed and spoke in a quiet, surprised voice.
"It should be ready for you, sir."
Kushaya laughed quietly. "I'm not a 'sir'. Kushaya, if you will."
One other maid, a raccoon with all the gentle curves straight out of a Questor novel, took the scene over, "I'll wait at the entrance and see if it works. Girls, get to the gun turrets."
"Will do!" they said and skittered out.
Kushaya hoisted himself into the Cyclone Tempest. Engine controls, upgrade boosters, peashooter, missiles, all ready to fly. He waved to the girl and started the engines. The door shut, the bay opened, and he flew out to the wild black yonder.

[JesterJoker]

The space station loomed gray and large at his back and its scattered gun turrets small gold dots all across it. He counted five of them before it turned around again. They were short half of the typical station, if the other side had the same. They had been attacked recently, but by whom?
The Siberian answered his question. "Cyclone and Stiletto, you are largely on your own. We will help as we are able, but a pirate fleet attacked us only a week ago."
"Wow. People like you."
"Ve don't try to attract them."
"You're looking for pilots?"
"Ve're looking for friendly visitors. Though you seem almost too friendly, *veasel*."
"I said, what, a few sentences?"
"I know your kind, veasel. You're a sneaky, sneaky bastard."
"I may very well be."
In his mind, Kushaya could see the Siberian's eyebrows raise. "What does that mean?"
"I... oh hell, I'll outright say it. Can I meet you after the battle?"
Caja snickered.
"You're an interesting man, Cyclone. Yes."
"The name's Kushaya."
"Kushaya," the tiger purred. "Is that Indian?"
"British India. I was raised on the outpost of London Chakra."
"It sounds interesting. You vill have to tell me about it. Meet me in the lounge."
"I don't know your name!"
"Do you really need it? Oh!" The tiger's voice boomed through the comm systems, calm, controlled, and cold again. "The boss is about to arrive."
Kushaya contacted Caja on a separate channel. "What's that?"
"You are a sneaky, sneaky bastard, Kushi."
"Every once in a while. I was successful on you, once."
"But I know you now, weasel."
The boss showed up on Kushaya's radar, a red sphere twice the size of the space station, and it was not yet fully on the screen. "Then let's do it to it.
"It's a doozy," Caja murmured.
Kushaya nodded. She moved to flank one side of the space station and the Octopi boss, and Kushaya took the other. "Multi-guns, me. Homing missiles and shields, you. Good luck and good shooting, Caja"
"Rock it till it explodes, Kushi."
Bosses rarely change, and the Octopi boss held to the tradition. The only change had been external, a tentacle Kushaya had destroyed. It would allow Caja and him only a tiny trace of help, because its seven counsins were still intact. They spun around and around the core, and that speed formed an energy shield around it.
"We'll need about 8 or 9D to get through that shield right now," Kushaya said. "To hit it with anything real, we need to get it to two or three tentacles."
One of the tentacles lashed in front of his cockpit and he veered off to the side to avoid it. It peppered the area with pixels but he was already well beyond their reach.
"Two or three," Caja said. "Got a shield."
Kushaya saw an opening through the pixels and moved into it. It closed up almost on his engines. He spotted the base of a tentacle near him and angled his ship toward it. Suddenly, his walls went black. When it showed the scenery all around him again, he was a few yards to the side of the boss and nowhere near the core.
"Minus one life."
"Geez, Kushi. I already took down a tentacle."
"I'm still on the peashooter."
"*What*?"
One scout ship flew toward Kushaya in a kamikaze and he destroyed it with a single hit from the Cyclone's peashooter. He spotted a golden box where it had been, flew around its pixels, almost hit one and claimed the upgrade.
"There we go. Multishot, Caja."
Kushaya focused the two beams on a tentacle.
"Caja?"
"Lost a life. I had four homing missiles!"
He focused his multi-shot on a tentacle. He dodged to the side to avoid a pixel and forward as another tentacle tried to attack his rear, but the distractions were not so much and the tentacle exploded in bright red and orange.
"Two down."
"But it's circulating faster."
"Damn. It's one of those kind."
"I can see the tentacles," said the Siberian in the comm systems. "One hit vould destroy the station's shields."
"Caja?"
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
Kushaya nodded. "Around the world?"
"I'll go around the world," said Caja, "you equate and in."
"You have more lives. You go in."
"Alright."
Kushaya veered to one of the polar directions of the spherical boss.