Chapter Six

Intelligence reports indicated it, and scouts confirmed it. The Dominion and their Necromyan allies were marching on Whiterun. The soldiers of the Imperial Army were already inside Whiterun, gearing up to hit the enemy with anti-armor rockets, machine guns, explosives, and everything else in their vast arsenal. The Stormcloaks were also present, ready to hit the enemy hard should they make it inside the city walls. The shield generator around Whiterun was active, encasing the city in a dome of glowing energy.

The Dominion had some new toys of their own; a number of tanks riding on hovercraft chassis and a number of Necromyan artillery cannons. There were a number of races arrayed against the defenders of Whiterun; the High Elves of the Aldmeri Dominion, the bird-like Luranni, the squid-like Squarr, and the cyborg Zurrak. All of them were armed with rifles, pistols, and grenades.

"First battle?" Faasnu asked Kabier.

"First major engagement, yes," Kabier admitted.

"Nervous?" Faasnu asked.

"A little, yeah," Kabier said.

"Don't worry; I've got your back," Faasnu assured his lioness companion.

"Yeah?" Kabier queried sarcastically. "Who's got yours?"

Faasnu looked quizzically to Kabier, and his look made her chuckle. "Then it begins," she said.

The Necromyan cannons opened fire, the energy shells smacking against the shields and making the imperials cheer. After about five minutes of being bombarded, and the shields giving no sign of wavering, the cannons ceased fire, and the troops began to advance.

"MG positions, fire at will!" Faasnu commanded as the enemy troops began walking through the shields.

With an ear-splitting roar, the many heavy machine gun positions opened up on the enemy forces. Multitudes of them went down, and the others used every bit of the terrain for cover.

"Contact rear!" someone shouted over the radio. "Enemy drop ships! They're trying to flank us!"

"Take them down!" Tullius ordered.

Anti-aircraft rockets were fired, and nailed two of the four drop ships before they could unload their troops. The other two dropped troops down into Whiterun, behind the city walls. The Thalmor troops floated down on anti-gravity beams before the drop ships flew off.

"Here we go!" Faasnu exclaimed as he and Kabier headed out to engage the enemy troops. It didn't take long to spot them; they made no effort to be subtle as they made for the shield generator, defended by the Stormcloak Special Force's best troops. Oddly enough, Faasnu and Kabier appeared right on their rear flank, a fact they used to their advantage as they rolled a pair of fragmentation grenades into the enemy formation. The grenades detonated simultaneously, taking down half of the enemy troops present, and Faasnu and Kabier moved in and mopped up what was left.

"Heads up!" an Imperial solder proclaimed over the radio. "Two more drop ships! They've got two escorts!"

"Quickly, take out the escorts before they take out the shield generator!" Faasnu barked.

Missiles lashed up, and blew the escorts out of the sky. The drop ships dropped a payload of a dozen Luranni marines each, then left. With the machine guns on the walls and towers busy keeping the enemy outside the walls pinned down, it was havoc within the walls. SSF troops engaged the enemy, and Faasnu and Kabier aided them by killing any alien in sight.

After hours defending Whiterun, the enemy began to fall back. Those that could run made for the safety of their encampments; those that couldn't were picked off one after the other by Stormcloak snipers.

"We have them on the run! We did it!" someone shouted over the radio.

"They are not retreating; they are regrouping," Ulfric said. "They'll be back."

"Neither the Necromyans nor the Dominion will give up easily," Faasnu agreed. "Keep your guard up."

"Hell of a first fight," Kabier commented.

"How do you feel?" Faasnu asked.

"Strangely powerful," Kabier admitted.

"Good – but don't let it go to your head," Faasnu warned her. "That'll get you killed."

With the first battle over Whiterun over, Faasnu and Kabier headed to Breezehome to rest, preparing for the next fight...

While Kabier rested upstairs, Faasnu got water ready for a bath. It had been a few days since his last one, and he was eager to wash the smell of blood off. What Faasnu wasn't aware of was that Kabier had awakened, and was headed downstairs to take a bath herself. She had towels and a bath robe, and unwittingly walked up behind Faasnu.

"Oh! Excuse me..." She said.

At this point, Faasnu was taking off his shirt, revealing the scars on his back. "Don't worry about it," he said, "Firstly, it's just us in here – and second, I've had people do me worse before."

"Good god," Kabier said, indicating Faasnu's scars, "What did that to you?"

"What, all these?" Faasnu asked, "Got these during an op I was captured on. Spent six months in a Necromyan prison, getting ten lashes across the back every month before I escaped and blew the prison sky-high."

"Damn," Kabier commented.

"Trust me," Faasnu said as he tapped two fingers to his head, "The scars in here are much worse."

"How do you keep yourself going?" Kabier asked.

Faasnu shrugged. "Not sure I understand it myself," he said.

"I have plenty of scars, myself," Kabier stated. She pulled the sleeve of her robe and bared her right arm, revealing a scar that ran up her wrist. "Torture thing a bandit did to me before I took his ass down."

"Oh yeah?" Faasnu chuckled. "Check this out." He lifted an arm and showed a rough patch of his skin where he'd apparently been dragged. "Got caught on a car one time, and I was dragged for half a block with no shirt."

"Jeez," Kabier murmured, running her fingers along the texture of Faasnu's scar. She then pulled part of the robe down to reveal a scar where an arrow had penetrated her shoulder. "Look at this," she said. "Some idiot hunter mistook my shoulder for a bird, shot an arrow right through."

"Ouch," Faasnu said as he examined the scar. Then, he began to completely remove his shirt as he added, "Bet I can beat it."

"No, I'll... take your word for it," Kabier said, feeling blushed.

"No, come on – this is the main event!" Faasnu chuckled.

"I said no," Kabier insisted, "I'll take your word for it."

There was a pause before Faasnu said, "Hey, you started this."

"Yeah, well... I can end it," Kabier responded.

"For a lioness, you sure are a poor loser," Faasnu commented.

"I didn't lose, I conceded," Kabier corrected him.

"No, you were losing," Faasnu said with a mischievous smile.

"There's a difference between losing and conceding," Kabier chuckled, feeling Faasnu's infectious smile coming on. "I conceded."

"You conceded or you're conceited?" Faasnu asked.

"You think I'm conceited? I think-" Kabier started.

In a struggle that lasted less than a second, Faasnu unexpectedly pulled Kabier into a deep, passionate kiss, and it sparked something, an instinct, deep in Kabier's mind. When he broke the kiss, Faasnu and Kabier stared at each other, both of them unsure of what to say or do.

"Are you going to slap the shit out of me, now?" Faasnu asked quietly.

"I'll do more than that," Kabier replied. Letting her instincts take over, she put one leg behind Faasnu and forced him to the floor, her own body landing on top of his, as she kissed him as he kissed her.

So much for a bath, Faasnu thought as he wrapped his arms around Kabier...