The deck slanted beneath her, nearly pitching her sideways, to the floor. But she somehow kept her balance. And put her paws between the barely-open ready room doors, prying them, prying them apart. The sensor mechanism hadn't been fixed yet.

"They're behind us ... behind us ... "

Aria finally slipped through, onto the bridge, feeling a bit woozy. She shook it off, barking, "Report!" Her white, slender antenna-ears waggled in the air, hit with a barrage of sound and fury.

"The wasps," was Jinx's predictable response. "They came out of nowhere."

"How many?" Aria asked, making for her seat in the bridge's center. "How many ships?"

"One. Only one."

"Only," Wilco muttered under his breath, with a sharp touch of fear.

"Ensign, can you evade them?"

The flying squirrel shook his head, whiskers twitching. "No ... no, ma'am. We've got more damage than they do."

"I've never seen that configuration of wasp ship before," Jinx said, speaking up from tactical. His fingers danced over the controls. And he braced himself when a fierce shudder sent the floor rolling again. The lights flickered off, and then on, and then off. And then on. And, finally, they stayed on.

Aria stared, hard, at the viewer. The ship was a three-dimensional diamond, with a pulsing, dark middle. The whole ship was dark. Full of black angles with occasional streaks of maroon. It glowed, and the diamond skeleton seemed to rotate, with the middle staying still. And a flash!

BAM!

Sparks! And a coolant leak, which produced a hissing sound.

"Get us out of here!"

"I've been trying!" Wilco wailed. "They're faster!"

"Returning fire," said Jinx. Pressing hard on the controls. Sending purple beams of light lashing, lancing out. Smashing into the shields of the wasp ship. The shields holding. "Minimal damage. It's gonna take more than one ship to fight that thing."

"How far away is our new squadron?"

"Half an hour, still. We were almost there ... "

"Can you send a distress call? Ezri?" Aria asked, turning in her seat, meeting the squirrel's eyes.

Ezri, her bushy tail flagging behind her in a very anxious way, shook her head. Chittered. "No ... no, too much interference. They ... they don't want us to leave. Everything's blocked."

"Try tactical maneuver delta," Aria advised, a paw tapping at the small computer screen on her armrest. "Target their core. There must be a spot where their shields are weaker."

SHAKE!

A few squeaks. And a bark from Jinx.

The lights, again, flickering. This time draining with an audible hum and not coming back on. Emergency lights replaced them. Very dim, very smoky. Casting the Captain's profile in bold shadow. She tapped on her controls, shaking her head. If the wasps could simply come out of nowhere like this, how was there to be any stopping them? Surely, they had a weakness.

Shake.

Rattle.

And the snow rabbit thought of her husband. Of Ross. Wherever he was. Probably helping Barrow in sickbay. Oh, she thought of him, and the danger he was in. And how she wanted him here, in her view. So she could keep her eye on him. He was her love. The father of her child. And to be separated in battle, not knowing if you'd ever see each other again on this mortal plane, was disconcerting, to say the least.

But she was a Captain.

And a snow rabbit.

And, being both, she knew how to focus. She knew how, in moments of sudden, great stress, to put aside the personal feelings. To not let them drag you down. To not let them paralyze you.

She knew how to do her job.

CHOOM! Arctic fired.

WHIR ... whir-whir. The wasps fired back.

Arctic veering to the right, and the wasp ship, the diamond, skimming right under their belly, to their backside, pausing quickly. And lashing at the Arctic's aft sections.



A hard bank to the right, or the left. Or wherever. It was hard to tell. Only that, suddenly, the floor was not horizontal anymore. There was no sense of direction.

And Alabaster slammed into the floor, with a loud ‘oomph!" The air was knocked from his lungs, and for a moment, he couldn't see. He bent his arms, elbows coming back and paw-pads pushing off the floor, and he winced. Ow. Ow ... oh ... ouch. His wrist. He'd broken a wrist. Don't use that paw, don't use that paw, don't use that ...

" ... the antimatter flow's being interrupted!" shouted another snow rabbit. "We're going to be dead in the water if we can't stabilize it."

Using one arm, Alabaster managed to get to a sit. And he got to his knees, and then stood. Knees bending, though, as the deck shook again. As sparks rained down from the overhead lights. "We ... we need to reroute additional power to the shields," he commanded. "Forget the engines."

"But we won't be able to ... "

" ... escape? We're not going to. We'd never be able to. Our only hope is to stay in one piece until our new squadron can arrive to reinforce us. They must be observing this battle on their sensors. I would assume they're on their way," Alabaster said. He felt the pain. The pain in his broken bone (or bones; he wasn't a doctor; he didn't know). But he pushed it aside. Snow rabbits had extreme mental control.

He could fight through the pain. The throbbing. The hot, hot, horribly sharp pain. Was there any true way to describe pain? Other than it was bad? You could write epic poems on how pleasure felt, but pain?

There was no poetry in pain.

"Are you alright?" came another voice. Olivia, his wife, coming up to him. Her icy-blue eyes darted over him. "You are hurt," she stated, her voice quiet. Almost drowned out by the shaking sounds. By the chaos.

"There is no time to ... " A wince, the arm with the broken wrist hanging useless. He couldn't use that paw. It hurt. "We must ... the shields," he said, nodding. "The shields."

"I can fetch a ... "

" ... shields," Alabaster said, swallowing. He met her eyes. Their eyes the same, pale-blue color, and they held that gaze. There were many married, paired-off furs on this ship. And, in many cases, one member of the pair outranked the other. For they were all officers. And, most of the time, it wasn't a problem. Tension never arose from it.

Except in a situation like this. In battle. In danger.

"You are hurt," Olivia said again, her emotions held back. But seeping through. Her concern was leaning more toward him. Him first. Ship second.

But Alabaster shook his head, trying to focus. "Darling ... I can hold out," he whispered. "Shields. Please."

She nodded, her whiskers twitching, and she moved off to a nearby junction.

Alabaster sighed, moving to a separate junction, unable to stop thinking about her. Engineering was not a safe place to be during an attack. To have her here, it worried him. He wanted to keep her safe.

Olivia, over her shoulder, cast a tender look in his direction.

And, Alabaster, happening to turn his head, saw that look. And returned it.

BAM!

A fierce sound, and alarm klaxons, and the deck pitched again. Yet again. And a snow rabbit on the second level gave a panicked bark, tumbling over the railing. A cry, and a slump, as the tossed rabbit hit the floor, knocked unconscious.

Alabaster tapped desperately at the computer controls. It wasn't responding. The computer wasn't responding. Perhaps the memory core had been damaged. "Repair teams," he barked.

"He's still alive," said a femme snow rabbit, checking the pulse of the tossed engineer. "He may have a concussion. We must get him to sickbay."

"Take him," Olivia said.

Alabaster did not object to that. And, again, barked, "Repair teams!"

The warp core, behind them, swirled in a lavender/azure array of light, humming, thrumming, but losing containment. Flickering, straining.



"Shields down!" Jinx went, ducking as sparks doused the air above him. He shook his head, nose sniffing the smoke. He grimaced. "Shields ... dammit." He pounded at the controls.

"They're right on top of us!" Ezri squeaked, tail flagging. She was terrified. Her rodent instincts running away with her, and she twitched helplessly, eyes watering. "They're ... "

" ... going to board us!" chittered Wilco, also a rodent, and also, therefore, panicking now. Now WAS the time to panic, wasn't it? "They're going to board us!"

"They will not," Aria assured, swallowing hard, feeling such a weight on her. A weight of darkness. "Computer ... "

The computer chirruped.

" ... initiate the self-destruct sequence."

Everyone held their breaths.

The two squirrels started crying, quietly.

"I suggest," Aria said, "we all ... say our prayers." A breath. "Either the wasps take us prisoner, or we destroy the ship, taking them with us." A blank look. The baby kicked in her stomach, and she felt her heart break. And her eyes actually welled. She didn't cry. Her voice didn't break. But her eyes went so far as to well. She blinked away the moisture, her freeze keeping her level. "Being their prisoners would be a worse fate."

The coolant leak was still making a hissing sound.

The computer chirruped again, indicating that a command code and voice authorization was required to activate self-destruct.

Aria opened her muzzle, and ...

... shimmer-shimmer-shimmer. Swirls of light.

Several seconds passed before Arianna, who'd been quiet until now, spoke (with struggling snow rabbit calmness), "They beamed her away." A breath. "They wanted our shields down," she whispered, "so they could beam her away."

"What ... why ... "

Confused squeaks. Little sobs, muzzles buried in paws.

The air felt smothering, suffocating, so hot and so singed.

The wasps had their Captain.



Aria found herself standing in a ring of sickly-green light, one that went from the floor to the ceiling, like a cylinder. She reached out, carefully, a paw to touch it, and ...

... ZAP!

A mew of pain, her paw yanking back. And a huff of breath, eyes darting. Ears waggling. Snow rabbits may have had an inherent emotional control, but they were still prey. They were still prey, and her adrenaline, now, was starting to flood her body. A fight or flight response. She began looking for ways out. Began thinking of what to do. Her mind flooding. For the air, indeed, smelled of danger. Of predators.

Of ...

" ... wasps. Yes," came a silky, detached voice. "You are in a force-field, by the way. You'll pardon the rudeness of keeping you there, but ... I did rather think you would misbehave, otherwise. And I can't abide by misbehavior."

Aria glared. Fearful. Heart hammering. But she glared through the clear barrier of the force-field. And right at the Wasp Queen.

The Queen tilted her angular head. Her compound, fragmented eyes, like broken mirrors, and her mandibles, sharp, opening and closing. Her triangular features, her crusty, shell-like exoskeleton, and those dry, arid wings that, when they beat, produced a sickening rasping. Her pinched, bulbous abdomen, and that scythe-like dagger of a stinger, that hollow needle filled with poison that, when injected into the blood, would kill you in the a slow, boiling way, from the inside out.

The snow rabbit swallowed.

"I scare you."

Aria said nothing. Just breathed. Breathed.

"You are prey," the Queen stated, walking around the force-field in a slow, deliberate circle. "You are weak."

Aria stood still, not turning her head to follow the wasp's motions. Not wanting to.

"But you are special, Aria. I have been looking for someone like you," the Queen cooed, coming round the front again. In full view again. "You are quiet," the Queen whispered.

"I have nothing," Aria finally said, in a defiant, cold whisper, "to say to you."

"Come, now. Surely, you have SOMETHING to say? I am the leader of the wasps. And you have no questions? No concerns? Femme to femme, dear Captain, soul to soul ... tell me what ails you."

"I didn't know wasps had souls," Aria spat.

"Ah, ah." A rasping of her wings. And her spindly arms pointing at the captive. "Ah, that was mean. That was a temper."

"I do not have a temper."

"Of course not," the wasp said, cooly, in control. "No, you have no temper. You have no joy. You have nothing. You are made of ice. You are from the ice. You have ice water flowing through your veins." A pause. A tilting of her head, fragmented eyes shining, reflecting the eerie green lights of the room. "But we both know that the only thing keeping you that way is your little mental barrier ... that your species is born with." A nod, a nod. "I could break that barrier. I could break you," the Queen said.

Aria swallowed.

"You'd become feral. Your emotions, so raw, so harsh, would surface, and you would become a mere animal. You would lose your dignity. Lose your love. But I would not let you die. I would keep you alive in that feral state, so that the sentient part of you, in the very back of your mind, in the middle of the night ... would weep in horror."

Aria breathed, closing her eyes. Refusing to be baited. Despite being prey, and despite, beneath her logical surface, being deathly afraid. "What do you want?" she whispered. "What are you doing to my ship? Why have you brought me here?"

"Questions. So, you DO have questions, after all? And I thought you said you had nothing to say to me?" Her mandibles opened and closed, as if crushing the very air in the room. "I did not know snow rabbits were capable of lying."

Aria said nothing.

"You are a very complicated creature," the Queen continued, making another slow circle around the force-field. "For a fur." A buzzing sound. Was that laughter? "Of course, I've no high opinion of furs. You're dirty things. All that fur you shed, all those fleas that sneak into your pelts. All that sex. All those instincts you have to follow. You're so primitive. So basic." The words were spoken as insults.

"At least we're not monsters."

"Monsters." A pause. "A very harsh word. Did not God create us, too? All that God creates is beauty."

"God creates beauty. And sin distorts it. The Devil runs through your heart. If you even have a heart. Do wasps have hearts?" Aria pressed.

The Queen's turn to stay quiet. To give no response.

"You won't win this war," Aria whispered, defiantly.

"And why is that ... bunny?"

Aria fumed at the derogatory term. "I am a rabbit," she whispered. "A snow rabbit."

"Are you?" A buzzing. "There are so many species of furs that I have a hard time keeping track ... and that is part of the problem. You are too many. You are too diverse. It is chaos."

"It is life."

"No ... " Her mandibles made a clacking sound, now. Click-click. Clack. "You said we would not win this war? Why do you think that?"

"Because evil never wins. In the end, it never wins ... "

"And we are evil? Isn't that a subjective opinion? Were you one of us, you would take offense to that."

"I'm not one of you. Nor would I wish to be."

"You would be better off," the Queen whispered, "as a wasp." There was something in her tone when she said that ...

"I know that it's popular, nowadays," Aria whispered, "in today's universe ... to say that everything is shaded grey. That there are no definite rights or wrongs. That nothing is a sin unless it visibly hurts someone. No truths. Only things in between. To say that there is no true, real evil, and there is no Hell." A devout shake of the head. "But I am not so deluded. I am not so blind. I know there ARE rights and wrongs, and there are truths. And sins. You would claim that God is so loving that He would harm nothing. That, if He was truly loving, He would not send anyone to Hell." A breath. "But He is righteous. And He destroys evil. And YOU," she said, "are evil. And you will be destroyed."

"Is that so?" A dangerous whisper.

"Yes." A breath. And adding, "And God doesn't send anyone to Hell." Another breath. "We send ourselves." The rabbit's eyes burned. "I hope you enjoy your Hell."

The wasp made a vibrating sound, her wings flaring. "You have a poisonous tongue about you. I did not expect that. But ... that can be tamed. In time," the Queen said, pacing a bit, and then coming back to stand in front of Aria, right in front of the force-field. And she whispered, "You have a child in your belly. A living thing. A baby."

Aria swallowed, the prey-like fear clamoring beneath her cool exterior. She had never felt such fear. Not even when she'd been raped by the Arctic foxes. She hadn't been pregnant then. Hadn't been married then. She hadn't had love then. She didn't have as much to lose back then. But, now, she had such blessings.

"You want to know," the Queen rasped, "why I have brought you here?"

Aria's heart pounded. Her antennae-ears waggled, standing tall, and her bobtail flickered uncontrollably. Her strong foot-paws, her legs, they felt the urge to bolt. But she couldn't run. She was trapped. And had to listen.

"Months ago, as my species was making inroads into the perimeter of this quadrant, I reached my mind out. I have very strong feelers. I have strong telepathy. I wanted to know my enemy. I found bats. They are telepathic, too. But I found one bat. Your doctor. I entered his mind. I watched him. I watched your ship. I watched YOU, Aria."

The snow rabbit swallowed, her paw-pads sweating. It was hot in here. It was really hot in here, and suddenly, her throat was dry.

"You don't like that, do you? The heat? You dehydrate more quickly than other species, don't you?"

The snow rabbit licked her lips, swallowing.

The wasp just buzzed. An amused buzz. "You will not get your water. We will see how long you can last without it."

The snow rabbit's eyes darted, and the panic grew.

And the Queen kept talking. "But I watched you. Through the mind of Barrow, I spied on you. He knew it. And he told you. But he couldn't stop me. And, soon, I discovered ... you'd been sown. You had a root growing inside you. You were pregnant."

Aria was breathing a bit faster.

"Half-mouse, half-snow rabbit. Very rare. I do not know that there is another living creature in this universe ... that is a mixture of those two species. Snow rabbits rarely breed outside their own species. They rarely marry."

"We do now ... we are ... "

" ... changing. Adapting. Perhaps. It doesn't matter. The moral and social structures are irrelevant. What matters is the offspring. It is perfect." A buzzing. An excited buzzing. "My drones are good, but they are ... not good enough." The Queen turned her angular head. Wasp drones were lining the walls, buzzing, busying, resting. Doing whatever she told them to do. And she looked back to Aria. "They are a liability. I need stronger drones. I need for our species," she declared, "to be stronger. Better. Our aim is perfection. We assimilate and absorb others ... to increase ourselves."

"You annihilate."

"We take. Because we can. Because that is what superior creatures do. We are hunters. We are predators. And you are prey. It is the law of creation ... that we harvest you as we wish." A breath. "Furs are prey. You are here for our service."

Aria shook her head, opening her muzzle to say something.

But the Queen kept talking. "Mice are submissive. Very submissive. Those would be excellent qualities in a drone. As it is, I have to give some wasps increased freedoms ... I need generals. I need others who can THINK. But, sometimes, they think too much, and they rebel. They resent that I'm the Queen. They want to run the hive." A buzzing. "And snow rabbits. Emotionally frozen. Controlled. Logical." A nod. "Those are qualities needed ... prized, even, by us. Highly intelligent ... for furs," she said, with a scoff, "and highly-resistant to stresses. Very durable. Very hardy. Very capable." More buzzing, more buzzing, getting to the point. "Your child is the best of both worlds. And, when I cut it from your body and put it in one of our incubation chambers ... it can finish growing. With us. Fed injections of our genetics. We have the technology to manipulate bodies. Think of it: a new GENERATION of wasps, with all the characteristics wasps already have ... new drones. A whole new WAVE of drones, but with the submissiveness of mice and the icy, emotional calm of snow rabbits."

Aria's throat was completely dry, now. She felt sick. Just hearing this. Just being here. She felt violently ill. She could only think of Ross. Desperately think of Ross.

"Your child will service us. Will be the first in a NEW generation of wasps," the Queen said, sounding like a megalomaniac.

Aria mentioned as much, breathing, "You're insane."

"No. No, my dear bunny. I am simply ambitious. And that's what it takes to win a war. And that's what it takes to achieve perfection: ambition." She walked away, a bit, spindly legs clacking. She walked to a console. "I will not sedate you as I remove your child. I would like you to watch. I would like you to see it. To see the future of wasps."

Aria's eyes welled. She nearly passed out.

And the Queen just buzzed.



Ross had been sobbing hysterically, squeaking incoherently in sickbay. Until Bic had pushed a hypo against his neck. Keeping him awake, but giving him a heavy sedative. Leaving the meadow mouse to curl up on a bio-bed, on his side, sniffling, eyes red and raw, his tail all limp.

Arabella, who'd been bringing injured furs to sickbay, sat and stroked the mouse's fur, making shushing sounds. "It'll be okay ... it'll be okay ... "

Whimper-squeak.

"We'll pray about it, okay? It'll be okay," the kangaroo rat repeated. Being a rodent, she knew his panic. But she couldn't imagine, all the same, what it must be like: his wife and unborn child at the mercy of the enemy's stinger.

Barrow paced back and forth, back and forth, frantic. The more pressing injuries already attended to, and Bic attending to the lesser ones. The periwinkle-furred bat was trying, desperately, to use his telepathy to interfere with the Wasp Queen. To mess her up. To get information. Anything. Anything! And it wasn't working. "It's not working," Barrow chittered, spreading his winged arms, and then letting them fall to his sides. He licked his fangs nervously.

"I feel sick," Ross whispered, still curled up.

"Shh," Arabella went, softly, massaging his fur. "Shh ... "

A sniffle. "Where is she? What's ... " His voice choked up. "I love her. Where'd she go ... Aria ... "

"I'm gonna need another sedative over here," Arabella said, worriedly. "We may have to knock him out. It might be better for him."

"The Queen has me blocked," Barrow chittered, panicking. "I can't do anything ... I ... we don't have much time. I can't do anything."

Bic, her brushy chipmunk tail waving, said, "Uh, well ... " Think, think. "Look, if you can't mess with the Queen, maybe ... mess with the drones, right? Can you do that?"

"I don't ... are the drones telepathic?"

"They must be," Bic said. She was one of the ship's science officers. And Barrow was the doctor, so they should be able to properly guess, right? "I mean, if they send their thoughts TO the Queen ... as well as receiving her own."

The bat's eyes darted. And he swallowed. Stammering, "It's worth a try ... "



The force-field shimmered. And dropped.

"Go ahead," the Queen whispered, daringly. Seductively, even. "Run," she whispered.

Aria hesitated.

"I know you would like to. Hop away. Run away. Your prey instincts tell you to bolt." And the Queen spread her spindly legs. "Go ahead. I won't stop from you trying." A buzzing sound. "I want you to try ... "

But Aria knew that, if she so much as moved, some laser would hit her, cut into her, drop her down. Or the Queen would launch forward and do it herself. In a paw-to-leg fight with a wasp, Aria doubted she could win. Even if she wasn't pregnant.

"Paralyzed, are you? With fear? Well ... " Mechanical sounds. And more lights.

And Aria turned her head. Seeing a table. Seeing equipment.

"We must hurry. I do believe in expediency."

The drones started to move away from the wall. The lesser, menial wasps, they moved in, moved in.

And Aria said a prayer in her head.

Dear God, dear God ... please, dear Jesus, please ...

The Queen gave a buzz of victory ...

... which turned into a buzz of surprise.

The wasp drones weren't going for Aria, as they'd been ordered.

They were going for their Queen!

And the Queen, buzzing, flaring, spinning, rasped, "The bat! The bat ... he ... " But she hadn't time to finish the sentence. Hadn't time to reverse Barrow's control over her nearest drones. For they were already slashing at her with their legs, and stabbing at her with their stingers, and she hissed, writhing, and she kicked them off.

The Queen was much, much stronger, and she was bleeding now, enraged, and her head spun to Aria in between dodging stinger-swipes.

The snow rabbit was frantically at a console, trying to work the transporter mechanism.

"Oh, no you ... don't," the wasp rasped, as another drone got in the way. Blocking the way.

And Aria, in a shimmer-shimmer, vanished, leaving the Queen to drown in what she most detested: chaos.



"She's back!"

"Shields!" commanded Jinx.

"Shield back ... shields raised," said Arianna, who was operating tactical, Jinx having moved to the command chair.

"Jinx," said Ezri, to her husband, from the comm. "Jinx, the new ... the new squadron," she stammered excitedly. "They're here!"

"Tell them to destroy the diamond ship."

"Aye!"

And Aria entered the bridge, exiting the lift just in time to see snow rabbit vessels, graceful and light, swoop in. And launch their barrages. Making the diamond ship to quiver, to shake, and soon enough, a flash, a flare, and spinning metal, outward, everywhere. The ship being destroyed. All drones with it. The Queen, too, with it. If the Queen hadn't already died from the multiple wounds she'd been inflicted with by the Barrow-influenced drones.

Everyone held their breath and watched the scene.

And, finally, Ezri turned her head. "Captain!" she breathed.

And Aria, despite everything that had just happened, and despite still being full of adrenaline, could not help but eye-smile. "Yes, Lieutenant. I am back ... " And she sighed, and immediately said, "Ross?"

"He's in sickbay," said Jinx, softly. "He, uh ... they had to sedate him. He was very, very worried." A pause. "We all were ... what ... what did she want with you?"

Aria said nothing for a moment. And, then, "It is a long story. I shall detail it to you later. In the meantime ... "

A beeping from the comm. And Ezri's paws danced over the controls. The bridge, all around her, in disarray. In some kind of shambles. "We're getting a signal from our satellite relays ... from ... the wasps. They're pulling back! All their forces are changing course ... they're moving back beyond the perimeter. Out of the quadrant." A deep breath. "They're going back where they came from!"

Squeaks and barks of approval, like cheers.

"Without their Queen, they can't function. Like a snake," Jinx realized. "Chop off the head, and the body will die."

"Not quite," Aria whispered, hanging out near the back of the bridge. Not moving yet. "The wasps are too devious. They must have back-up Queens in stasis somewhere distant." A pause. "But, if they try this again ... we will know what to expect. We will be ready for them."

More beeps from the comm. "It's the squadron leader ... he's saying if we need assistance? And saying that he's to turn squadron control over to us."

"Tell him," Aria whispered, "that we are going to stay here for a few days. Keep on patrol. Make sure things are what they seem to be, and ... if it is all clear, we are going to head back home," she whispered. "To the snow rabbit Home-world." A breath. "We have repairs to make. We need to mend. We need to rest." And she looked down at her belly. And then back up at the viewer, at all those stars. "We need to live."

Jinx smiled a bit. "You, uh, gonna go to sickbay? You really should."

"I am," Aria said. That was the next thing she was doing, and she was already halfway into the lift. "You have the bridge, commander."

Swish, went the doors, whisking her away.

And she swallowed, realizing she was dehydrated. She really needed water. And Barrow should probably give her a complete scan-over, to make sure she was okay, and this, and that, and she found it hard to control her thoughts as she walked the way to sickbay, and reached the doors, and went inside, and ...

... squeaks! And a scurrying, scrabbling Ross, literally bounding into her. Arms flinging around her. His knees wobbly from his sedative. "Oh ... oh, darling." Kisses planted all over her cheek, and tears flowing freely.

The snow rabbit swallowed, keeping her emotions in check. But, all the same, feeling stirred. Her eyes closed. And she leaned her forehead against his. "I love you, too," was her whisper.

"Are you okay?!"

A quiet nod. "Yes, I ... just need water, and ... "

Ross already scrabbling away for water, tail trailing behind him.

And Aria looked around sickbay. Many of the bio-beds were in use. Many crew-furs injured. She twitched. And turned, and saw Barrow, on the floor, back against the wall, looking winded. "I have you to thank for the turn of events?" she asked him.

A weak, weary nod. It had taken all his energy to manipulate the drones. "Yeah," he managed.

"Thank you," was the sincere response.

A weak, genuine smile from the periwinkle-furred bat, and a little nod. "Uh ... Bic can, uh, scan you and stuff, and ... " The bat trailed, taking slow, slow breaths.

And Ross came back, with a glass of water, waiting as the snow rabbit downed all of it, setting the glass aside. And leaning against her husband. Her love.

His arms around her, their feelings ever-present, and their intentions ever-pure. Their lives going forward, ever onward, still, to an unknown, future point. Their souls in God's good paws. And there was a great relief. It seemed to flood the room. They seemed to breathe it in. Safe and secure, they beamed, brightly, like flowers.

Flowering furs in full, full boom, never to wilt.