The cave wasn’t easy to enter. They’d had to strip off their packs, and Benz had to take his apart, for the cargo section wouldn’t fit while the lightweight metal frame was attached.

“It’s dark.” said Magarce.

“Getting dark outside, too.” said Tres, blithely. “First we get past this twist in the rock here, then it opens out a little more, and in my pack we have a camp light. It’s really dim, but in twenty minutes you’ll be able to see by it just fine.”

Magarce had by far the easiest time with the rock passage. She barely had to twist to the side at all, and she took the camp light and went ahead uncaringly, almost to the point of leaving the others behind. It startled Tres, who’d expected some cowering and fearfulness. She decided the little Nerre was in some psychological state beyond awareness of danger, and chose not to change that- for all she knew, Magarce was familiar with cave fauna of the Ause mountain ranges.

Alternately, if some large slavering beast was going to eat them up, it could start on the mad little feline, and she and Benz would get a chance to flee.

Tres was slower through the narrow places, but not entirely because of her size. In two places she had to crouch, because the rock at chest height got too narrow and her tits got in the way. She studied the path carefully, as if trying to learn it, but what slowed her most was her tail. Tres held it to the side or even gathered it in her arm to try and prevent it from scraping moist cave walls.

Benz was an older Runge, and hadn’t been that tall even when he was younger, but he still had the hardest time, dragging his pack along beside him as he crab-walked through the narrower passages. Soon, he was swearing under his breath, shuffling along in a half-squat where the ceiling was low. He was half a head taller than Tres, who was a head taller than Magarce, and he felt the difference acutely.

“Slow her down, will you?” he said, for the light Magarce held was getting farther and farther away.

“Yeah. Hey!” called Tres. “Hey! Up ahead!”

There was no response. The light was murky, filtering back from around at least one corner, no more than wet gleams against dripping rock. There was a funny sound- like a gasp, or meow, distorted and stretched by the cave’s echoes- and then the light quickly faded.

“Hey!”

Benz moved up to join Tres, and the two stared into the blackness. There was nothing- and then, as their eyes valiantly adjusted, the murky glimmer could be seen again- and it bloomed. There was another unidentifiable sound, warped by cave echo, but the light didn’t fade again.

“Come on. Let’s see what she found.” said Tres, grimly.

“You think something got her?”

“Noise would’ve been louder…”

They inched their way through the darkened passages, and as they went, the glow increased, and also the walls seemed to close in less. Soon, they were walking normally, following the hints of light ahead, and then the passageway opened out and they were walking in a more open area, a diffuse glow coming from ahead, somewhere ahead and to the left, around a vast tilted wall that barely obscured the source of the illumination.

Tres did not gasp, but Benz couldn’t help it.

Their stray kitten stood, silhouetted against a blaze of subterranean glimmers. The camp light sat on the floor, roughly at the center of a dome of crystals that made up much of the far wall. It sparkled like a trove for pirates. It was surely worthless- but Magarce turned slowly, and even in the indirect light, her eyes gleamed a predatory green.

“Found it!” she said.

Benz, tickled by her delight, started clapping. After a glance at him, Tres joined in. Magarce took a bow, swished her tail, darted forward to hug her companions.

“It’s beautiful! We’ll stay here forever!”

“Well,” chuckled Tres, “certainly for a little while. The food will hold out for maybe a week. If we don’t burn too many calories.”

“Don’t look at me like that!” said Benz. “I’m too old to burn calories.”

“Yeah, you’re probably safe. I’m not that well behaved. I require celebration.” said Tres.

“What kind of celebration?” said Magarce, and then gasped. Tres’s hand had gone up her dress, stroking the inside of her leg.

“Wine, women and song. But we haven’t got wine, and I can’t sing. I’ll have women,” said Tres, “and you’ll do the singing. Think you can handle that?”

Magarce nodded happily, as the vixen’s hand petted and fondled beneath her dress.

“I’ll, ah… I’ll sit over here.” said Benz. “Cleaning my gun. That’s not a metaphor, either… you might not realize that if some… if guys followed us in h… oh, for fuck’s sake.”

Magarce had slowly, during this monologue, sagged, with her tail lashing excitedly, Tres following her down every inch of the way with eyes gleaming. When Magarce’s rump touched the ground, sheathed in the sheer blue dress fabric, Tres was already on her knees. When Magarce toppled dreamily over backwards letting her legs splay out as vulpine caresses stroked her inner thighs and feline vulva, Tres flipped up the edge of the dress- and ducked her head underneath into the musky blue darkness, there to nuzzle pert and sculpted feline crotch, silky fabric tenting over her high-perked ears.

“Ah!” Tres’s tongue had fondled her vagina, lingeringly.

“Have fun.” suggested Benz.

“Come b.. hhh! be with us!” crooned Magarce, her dainty body writhing languidly on the cave floor as Tres worked on her intimate parts.

“I… am watching for intruders. Not for you. Just for me. Thank you for the offer.” said Benz. “I do like to be invited. But don’t tell me not to watch.”

The tents of the dress, showing where Tres’s head lay between Magarce’s legs, lifted for a moment, and a voice came from under the dress. “You don’t know Benz that well. Think about the words ‘old pirate’ sometime, and what that might imply. But not right now.”

The tents lowered again, angled towards Magarce’s groin, and the cave acoustic was favored with a sound of fervent licking and a sweet little yowl, accompanied with the scrabbling of paws against rock. Magarce had arched her back so hard that her body rested on her feet and the back of her head. The licking subsided in intensity, and the small feline body sagged and came to rest against the rock again. “Nnnngh!”

“Don’t do that.” came the voice from under Magarce’s dress. “Your head will hurt later.”

“Don’t.. care nyaahhhhhh!” cried Magarce, as the vixen’s tongue got busy again. She’d have arched again, except that this time, Tres’s hands came forward and grasped her rump firmly, thumbs curling up to either side of her vagina and latching on unyieldingly. Magarce squirmed, panting, and cried out again as Tres licked into her pussy with fierce hunger and interest, holding her there for it. And then, there was a faint clunking as Tres’s thumbs reached inward and spread the little cat wide and exposed, and the vulpine tongue pointed and thrust, working itself into Magarce’s pink tautness. Magarce was banging her head against the floor.

“That what I think it is?” came the voice beneath the dress.

“Yep.” said Benz.

“What’s it gonna take, huh? Can you not damage yourself while I do this, or is it just too much to ask?”

Magarce reeled, panting and shuddering. “Oh, please, don’t stop?”

There was a little pause.

“Benz?” came the voice, again.

“Yeah?”

“Odds you’re gonna need her, tactically, for getting off this planet?”

Magarce panted. Her trim hips were trying to writhe in transports of lust, but the Estrai woman’s hands held her fast. Thumbs speculatively kneaded her inflamed mound, and through the roaring in her ears she vaguely heard the old pirate’s reply.

“Nil.”

The dress, draped over Tres’s head, flapped. Tres’s ear had flicked. Magarce sensed a predatory air in the way the hands gripped her ass more determinedly. The vixen spoke, wryly.

“Knock yourself out, then, kitten…”

And the next thing Magarce felt was two vulpine fingers elegantly thrusting deeply into her- and a fevered nibbling and licking against her clit, which by now was jutting eagerly out from the surrounding soft white fur. The ferocity of the pleasuring jolted the little Nerre unbearably. It was as if Tres wished to fling her into the void, there to explode and die, or to survive and return, and the intensity of it suggested that the Estrai didn’t mind which one happened.

A feral snarl against her vagina that sent thrills of vibration up her spine told Magarce how true that really was.

She shrieked, kicked, arched her back- barely controllable, but Tres wasn’t trying to control her any more, and moaned against her pussy as the fingers inside scissored and wiggled goadingly. Magarce shrieked again, glimpsing Benz to the side of them with his ears laid back, and she banged her head against the rock again- but she hit the same place she’d banged before, and this time it sent stars of pain through her head. The mad erotic vixen-devouring continued, with little nips at her vulva and clit followed by passionate, crooning licking, and Magarce hesitated, shook with a desperate need to flip out or fight back against the overwhelming intimacy, and then suddenly the little feline gave in completely. She sagged limply against the rock, emitting breathless screams, and melted- as if she’d become one feverish catpussy existing only to be plumbed and sated through total possession and consumption- and in the riot of Magarce’s lust-crazed mind, she no longer cared even if Tres bit her, ate her up on the spot. She was a quivering nothing of sensation, being galloped full tilt off a cliff and embracing that void with all her soul.

Tres did not bite her- not to draw blood, anyhow. The vixen simply kept up her savage suckling and fingering, while her other hand slipped away from the ass of the shuddering, wailing feline and quickly unbuttoned her own pants, to slip inside and get just as busy against the slick, ooze-soaked contours of her own foxy vagina. She didn’t bother penetrating herself with a finger- the angle was awkward, and Estrai were more like Runge and less like Nerre, did not demand deep penetrations. She just fondled the sides of her vulva, tracing down the juicy center to anoint her fingers, and got right to work circling and then slickly rubbing directly across her clit, with a hypnotic, insistent rhythm that went faster and faster.

It took less than five seconds of this before the explosion came. Tres stiffened, and yelped sharply, twice- Magarce’s screams were getting ragged and hoarse, but then her voice blew out in a wild screech, for Tres had sharply bit her vulva and her own tongue in a spasm of release- the little Nerre in the blue dress thrashed briefly, and then went limp, knocked out by her own orgiastic climax, and Tres sagged as well, nearly as limp, head still making two tents of dress fabric. After a second, the voice came, shakily.

“-ammit. ot my dungue.”

In the distance, some rocks fell, loosened by Magarce’s final shriek.

“You finished?” said Benz acidly.

“Hey, you were invited. You heard her. Kitty likes being teamed up on. Actually I need to ask about that…”

“I don’t know shit about that.” he said. “As you know.”

“Don’t be bitter.” said Tres. “It’s your own stinking fault you won’t fuck. You’ve got some kind of complex about it. Is it that worth it to be on guard every second? Is it that important?”

“You…”

“Don’t give me that. I’m tired of your cautiousness…”

“You might ask Angs that question.” said Benz, not loudly, but the words were a slap anyhow.

Tres snarled, but did not speak.

“I’m sorry.” said Benz, with what seemed like sincerity.

“Fuck you. You’re not. This is you making sure I don’t kill you in your sleep.”

“You’ll need me to get out of here.”

“If I didn’t, you wouldn’t have left me alive this long. Would you?”

“Nope.” said the old pirate, gently.

Tres had no more words. She curled up against the comatose Magarce, and lay for a long time, her eyes open and staring into the darkness. Eventually, she slept.

When she woke into the timeless darkness of the cave, Benz was already awake. His eyes glinted softly from the rays of the camp light. “Feeling better?”

“Splendid.” said Tres.

Magarce stirred and yawned, paws kicking out in a languourous stretch.

“Well, look who survived!” said the vixen. “How’s your head?”

“Mmmmm.”

“Look, Benz, she’s lost the power of speech. What shall we do?”

Benz sighed. “Easy, now, Tres. We’re in this together.”

“I didn’t lose the power of anything.” said Magarce, with another yawn. “I got all the power I want.”

“Really?” said Tres. “You do? What do you have? Fill me in.”

The little feline sat up, and blinked at the challenging tone of the vixen. “Uh…”

“As much as your confidence inspires us all…” added Tres. The sarcasm dripped.

“Take it easy, Tres. Please?” said Benz.

Magarce rallied. “I will tell you. I’ve got me still being alive even on this horrible planet…”

Tres wasn’t impressed. “This is your planet, kitty, lest you forget.”

“No, it isn’t. I hate it. It hates me. They just want to kill me. And their dicks suck compared to Runge.”

Benz barked a quick laugh, and added, “She has a point. The guy was ready to let us go in exchange for our kitty. Probably was telling the truth, too.”

Magarce wasn’t done. “I have you, Tres. I don’t know if I’ve ever come so hard. I wasn’t paying attention, did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Did you come? I mean, real hard? You were really getting into it…”

Tres’s eyes were watchful. Her posture gave nothing away. “Might have.”

“Oh yeah she did.” said Benz. “She bit her tongue, even. How’s that doing this morning?”

Tres stuck it out at him, by way of an answer.

“And then there’s you!” said Magarce, to Benz. “You’re my secret weapon!”

“You want to run that by me again?” said Benz mildly. “I’ve never been called that before.”

“You are, you totally are. I saw what you did. You know what I think?”

A little smile played around Benz’s graying muzzle. “I’m sure you’ll tell me.”

“We, uh… we might not have Angs any more,” said Magarce, glancing nervously at Tres, “but… before he died… I think he’s been teaching you to shoot.”

This time it was Tres barking with laughter- or perhaps it was just a ‘Ha!’, with a lot of pressure behind it. Magarce looked hectically back and forth between her and Benz. It was hard to work out Tres’s expression, which had bits of amusement, outrage, and contempt in it. Benz just looked pitying, in a gentle way.

“No, dear.” said Benz. “I taught him…”

Tres didn’t give her much time to stare. “Why do the other Nerre hate you? What happened?”

“Aw, Tres!”

“We found you alone on a ship.” said Tres. “You’ve never talked about it. We’re on Ause again, the planet you apparently fled. I think it’s time you filled us in. What did you do?”

Magarce’s ears went back. “What difference does it make? We should just get out of here.”

“It might tell me whether we can camp out for a while, or whether we’ve got to get out of here before they blow up the mountain we’re in.”

Benz objected, “They don’t have that kind of armament. Well… I don’t think so, anyway.”

“How sure are you?” said Tres.

“Don’t try to get me off balance that way. I just don’t think so. I’m not gonna grill kitty out of fears they’re going to bomb us.”

“But they can hunt us other ways. They could be tracking us right now. We need to know.”

“…you were right about them sneaking up.” said Benz. “Okay. I guess it couldn’t hurt.”

Magarce looked back and forth between them hectically. “What if I don’t want to answer?”

Benz looked at her very calmly, and it scared her to the tip of her tail. He wasn’t smiling, even his muzzle- now that she thought of it, his eyes never smiled, ever. Before she could speak, Tres chimed in. “No sex, for starters. You need to get real and talk to us. Do it now.”

Magarce tried to comply with Tres’s demand, but she couldn’t stop looking into Benz’s chilly eyes, and she stammered and fumbled her words. “They, uh, I, I mean, it, when…”

“Come on. Don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense, just start talking. Did you kill somebody important?”

“No, they killed me. I mean, they were supposed to kill me. They killed the guys I was with, and M… mom…”

“They killed your mom?”

“Not exactly.” said Magarce miserably. “Can we stop? They just want to kill everything.”

“Did YOU kill your mom?” demanded Tres. Benz began to look uncomfortable.

“No!” screamed Magarce, and burst into tears. She was trying to talk, but the words were too garbled to make out. Mom had been a perfect cover story, until she had slashed her own throat and all hell had broken loose.

“I think you blew it, Tres.” said Benz softly. “You keep forgetting she’s like a kid…”

“Dammit. She doesn’t kill like a kid. That’s what you keep forgetting.”

“Well, you still scared her with your third degree there.” he said.

“No, you scared her.”

“What?”

“I don’t blame her.” said Tres. “I know you. She’s still learning. Didn’t you see how she couldn’t look away from you? Read you a little too deeply, if you ask me.”

Their voices were loud. Benz remarked, “You think you can shut her up?”, for the little feline was still wailing her distress and incapable of coherent speech, and her cries were making both the wolf and the vixen lay their ears back.

“Why should it be my job?” snapped Tres. “You’re going all fatherly on her, why don’t you give her a hug or something? Half of this is her figuring you’re about to pop her between the eyes. Your move.”

Benz glared at her, but got awkwardly to his feet, grumbling at his arthritic hips. He padded over to Magarce, his tail almost tucked between his legs- as if being calmly ready to kill was the height of normal, but offering comfort was alien to him. He settled down into a crouch next to her. Magarce was quieting down a little, wiping her eyes with the backs of her paws, as Benz reached an arm out and awkwardly said, “C’mere. Uh. If you don’t…”

With that, the little Nerre was in his arms, sobbing pitifully, and he was holding her. She was warmer than he expected, and bonier, beneath the sheer dress and her dense, soft fur. Her chin poked his chest uncomfortably, her elbow jabbed his ribs and then ended up not aimed at him, for he was wrapped in her embrace as well. Her claws dug in, but his jacket was tough enough to resist them, as she wasn’t trying to claw him. Her hard little head tucked under her chin, and he petted her head and neck.

It had been fifteen years since he had been touched in so emotional a way.

Tres eyed him. He eyed her back. “Guess you were right… it was my job.”

“Get her to talk.”

“Wait.” said Benz.

He petted and stroked her body, feeling a little detached from reality, his mind rapidly running over scenarios where, if a gunman should burst out of hiding somewhere in the cave, he would toss the kitty one way or another to get a clear shot. No gunman appeared. There was just Tres, impatiently waiting, and the little Nerre girl- not all that little, of course- no telling, really, how little. She had that thing some pirates had, where they switched off at some point and became like violent children, slaves to impulse, easily trapped by emotion. It was a thing he felt superior to, but in the little grey-pointed feline, it caused him to feel protective, even knowing some of the things she had done. And that was something he would have to watch.

“Get her to talk.”

“Give me a minute.”

Benz wondered if it was her hatred for her kind, or if it was the succession of Runge lovers she’d taken, that caused her to melt against him. He could pet anywhere on her body, anywhere. He’d stroked her ass, curled his hand around her leg so his fingers and their rough little pads went right up the inside of her thigh, and she only held him closer. It was outside his experience, and it was a serious weakness- she’d get herself killed being that trusting. Of course, she’d known him for months and months, and then been alarmed by his coolness and deadliness, and then been offered a hug, so perhaps it was underst

“Get her to talk.”

“Will you lay off, Tres? For crying out loud!”

“No, you got her to stop crying out loud. Very good. You can have her purring, or probably fucking you, or you can get her to talk.”

Benz realized with a start that Tres, predictably, was way ahead of everybody. He knew perfectly well that kitty spent her time with male Runge by preference. She’d been with Tres, but he was technically a male Runge, even if he almost forgot that part most days. Hell, he’d even been feeling stirrings, which he thought he was well past. Tres had a point.

“Okay, okay. You let me handle it? Be quiet and listen, you’re good at that.”

Tres’s eyes narrowed, but she did exactly as requested. Benz thought for a minute, caressing Magarce’s back, and then he spoke quietly. “All right. …what really happened?”

The little feline gave a very big sigh against him, drawing his attention to the pressure of her pert breasts against his body in a distracting way. However, she did speak, in a childish voice that belied the story she told.

“I… just always wanted to do stuff. I got away with a lot. I knew it was against the rules but I got around them and Mom helped… and when I got old enough, I started to get these feelings and I figured out that was what they called fucking, and I got some and I wanted more and more. It was really good. And getting away with it was really good… and then one day cops came, what we call Hse-Nerre. They caught me with… it seems so long ago… Morc and Daure…”

“Who are they?” said Benz.

“They’re dead.”

“I’m sorry.” said Benz.

“The Hse-Nerre killed them.” said Magarce. She did not say that she had cried the protocol phrase for ‘help, being raped by a gang of males’, but she looked away to the side. Benz couldn’t see it. Tres did.

“Is that why you hate them?” she said carefully.

“And then,” said Magarce, clinging even tighter to Benz, “Mom died. She did it to herself. She wouldn’t help me. Everybody was so upset that they couldn’t move, and I’m just standing there with Mom on the floor between me and them, and Morc and Daure behind me, except Daure’s head was kind of to the side, you know?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen that.” said Benz. “No wonder you ended up with us…”

“And I jumped out the window and ran off while they were still being shocked. I can still see the Hse-Nerre with Daure and Morc’s blood all over him. Except he had black fur so it didn’t really show but it showed on his claws, because there’s a metal part, you know? It shines. Except it was all red and dripping…”

“How old were you?”

“I don’t like all that stuff. I don’t think I ever recited the thing. You know, the thing you recite, it goes on and on, and then you count as a grown-up and have to be good?”

“I think I’ve heard of that.” said Tres. “We don’t do that. Estrai become adults at eighteen, when you get driving and pilot’s licenses. And then you pass your levels and get to use them…”

“Yeah, and Runge have different rules for every major city, it seems. Usually it’s sixteen, though in some places there are different rules for if you actually tie, versus just fooling around. And of course outside the cities anything can happen. For that matter, some places in Verss are just as bad.” said Benz.

“Well, we have all this protocol and a long thing to recite and I never bothered to pay any attention- even back when I was like fourteen and so was Morc and we were playing. If you can get away with it, it doesn’t count, right?”

“I think most of us here would agree with that.” said Benz. “Right, Tres? Of course as you get older you get more picky about what getting away with, means.”

“Yes.” said Tres.

“I think that’s all the information we need, right, Tres?” said Benz, hugging Magarce. “I do know enough about the Nerre to know what upset them. Our kitten likes gangbanging and the Nerre can’t bear the idea. She got caught at it.”

Tres nodded, thoughtfully. “Yes. Yes, they’d do anything to bring her to justice. Which means death, basically. They have to destroy her, they won’t forget. They’ll do anything…”

“Stop it.” said Magarce.

“Cheer up, you’ve got us!” said Benz. “We’re more than a match for them. Tres can out-think any six Nerre, and you’ve seen me shoot, and we’re goddamn space pirates, okay? We have you covered.”

Magarce hugged Benz, nuzzling his chin and purring. “Now let’s get out of here!”

“What, no sex?” twinkled Tres.

“Well… yes. Always. You don’t want to get out of here? We should go to the spaceport and steal a ship.”

“We should let any search die down.” said Tres determinedly. “Another night. I can entertain you another night, can’t I?”

“I thought you said they wouldn’t forget.” said Benz.

“Yes, but we’d probably have noticed by now if they’d found this cave. They didn’t. The search has to expand. It’ll spread out forming a circle where we’re actually inside the circle, though they have to assume we’re outside of it. Understand? At all costs we have to lay low, be quiet another night, let the search get well away from here. Let’s have lunch. Or breakfast, or whatever it is. Come on, I’ll even fix us something.”

Benz studied her, hard. “It does make sense.”

“Of course it does. That’s what’s happening out there. You know I’m right.”

“Yeah- you usually are. Okay.”

The food was terrible, but Tres did her best with it, dressing it up and combining the meager rations in appealing ways, claiming her Estrai blood gave her the capacity for culinary magic even with the impossible.

The conversation was all over the place, comparative cultures and culinary specialties and piratical tendencies as expressed by various space-traveling species.

Much later, the sex was less savage, more awkward, but strangely uplifting. Magarce wanted to cuddle with Benz while being pleasured. It seemed like she actually wanted Benz, but he wasn’t having any of it. He’d gone nervous and wary, constantly staring at dark areas of the cave and the entrance, the high curved wall around which they’d come. In the end, he’d sat next to Magarce, holding her paw, holding his gun in the other paw and staring into the darkness while the little feline squealed and clutched his hand as Tres worked on her dainty vagina.

It had taken longer. Tres seemed distracted, perhaps by Benz’s high alertness, and couldn’t fling herself into the task like she had the previous night. But in the end, she’d managed to reduce Magarce to a quivering, feverish heap of fur, and cuddled up with Magarce between herself and Benz, who’d finally been persuaded to lay down.

In the morning- Tres was gone.