Chapter 1

The following characters appear in the first chapters:

Cleveland Jensen

Master Sergeant, Team Leader, 6’-5’’ tall, 240 pounds, 35 years old, blue eyes, sandy blond hair and a number of enhancements

Joel Luther

Sergeant First Class, second in command, 6’-0’’ tall, 195 pounds, 32 years of age, black hair and brown eyes, also a number of enhancements

Lucy Miranda

Sergeant First Class, handles the Magic, 5’-6’’ tall, 140 pounds, 36D-24-36, 30 years old, long black hair, gray eyes, Asian descent and also a number of enhancements

Bob

Male Siberian Tiger, 140 inches long with a 40 inch tail, 44 inches tall at the shoulder, 700 pounds

Susie

Female Siberian Tiger, 113 inches long with a 36 inch tail, 39 inches tall at the shoulder, 400 pounds

Samson

Male Bald Eagle, 40 inches body length, over 7’-6’’ wingspan and 14 pounds

I was sitting in the front row of the troop staging area of the space station above the planet Addison III. The planet was named after its discoverer and circled a G type star. I was awaiting the arrival of the rest of our Team and our Partners. I had recently finished composing the next chapter of the current story that I am working on in my mind and took out my notebook to start writing it out. Some of the troops sitting behind me noticed the pictures of cats on the cover of the notebook and started to giggle and laugh. Even though they kept their hilarity very quiet, I still heard them, as I have enhanced hearing as well as several other enhancements. I turned to look at them.

“Don’t you like cats?” I asked. The laughing and giggling stopped immediately.

“We just aren’t used to seeing Master Sergeants with pictures of cats on their stuff. None of our NCOs would have that,” a young buck Sergeant told me with a straight face.

“I have several cats. If you are fortunate, you may get to meet them,” I told those sitting there to looks of amazement and then fear as they saw the patch on the left shoulder of my uniform when I returned to my writing.

You see, I am an author in addition to the other things that I am. While you may consider writing things out by hand at the end of the 26th century very odd, allow me to explain. Of course we, that is our Team, all have standard Military Personal Data Units (PDU) and even our Partners have them. They are for official use only and the memories are downloaded to the Military Intelligence net when we finish an assignment, plus the memories are wiped so we start with fresh units for each assignment.

Others on the Team do have civilian PDUs, but they tend to not last when we go out on assignments. To counter this, I write out my stories on a special metallic paper that won’t burn and can’t be torn. I leave it in a special box when out in the field. Later, I scan it into a computer when on leave.

It was only a few minutes after speaking to the troops that my writing was interrupted again.

“Master Sergeant Jensen,” a loud voice called. I looked up to see a regular Army Major standing near me with an upset expression on his face. Since he wasn’t a Special Operations Officer, I wasn’t very worried.

“Are you looking for me sir?” I asked rising from the seat and lying the notebook on it.

The major, who was about 5’-9’’ tall and maybe 170 pounds, stared at my 6’-5’’ frame and my 240 pounds of muscles for several seconds before saying anything.

“We have a problem with ... with your ... your... !” he stumbled to a halt.

“Partners?” I injected.

“Yes, your Partners. We need you to assist us in unloading them,” he finished.

“Lead on, sir,” I told him, and he quickly led the way down a side hall to an unloading dock. I could hear my Partners as we entered the dock, and they were very unhappy.

On arriving near their cage, I could see a medic was already there treating a man and a woman who had been clawed. Susie was also in my mind as soon as she caught my scent, but she only said one word.

“Kittens!” she sent in a joyful burst of telepathy.

“Again?” I asked verbally as we drew closer.

“Yes,” Bob, her mate, growled audibly in his deep Tiger voice. Bob and Susie are genetically modified Siberian Tigers (Panthera tigris altaica). They are larger than wild Tigers and have modified larynxes and can communicate by telepathy.

Bob is 140 inches long with a 40 inch tail. He stands 44 inches tall at the shoulder, and he weighs 700 pounds.

Susie is a bit smaller at 77 inches long plus her 36 inch tail. She stands 39 inches tall at the shoulder and weighs 400 pounds.

“Why did your people attempt to open the cage without myself or one of my Team present?” I demanded, as there is a large sign on the cage indicating that the cage is NOT to be opened without a member of the Team present.

“We ... ah ... that is... , “ the major stumbled into silence again.

“You are fortunate that some of your people only got clawed. It is a court martial offense to interfere with the movement of our Partners,” I informed him.

“If I were you, I would forget that this happened, unless you are anxious to face a court-martial,” I told him following that. The major had a horrified look on his face.

“Move your people back out of the way while I remove them from the cage,” I told him next to another horrified look.

“You’re going to allow them out, here on the station?” he stammered.

“Certainly. They’re housebroken,” I told him with a grin before turning back to the Tigers.

“Potty time,” I sent to them mentally, and they both went over to their individual scat boxes and did their thing. The major had moved his people well back away from the cage in the meantime.

Bob and Susie moved out of the cage and over to me after I pressed the button that unlocked and rolled back the cage door. They both rubbed up against me, but separately, as they are each heavier than I am. They also gave the major and his crew a teeth filled look.

“Snack,” Bob growled after brushing up against me.

“Deer!” Susie sent after she had done the same. I went to the rear of the cage where the controls were and emptied their scat boxes before dialing up a snack of deer meat for them. I tossed each of them a chunk of the meat that the storage unit dispensed. They each snagged one of them and set to eating.

The major was staring at the cats eating and the blood from the fresh meat on his deck.

“How much meat is that?” he finally managed to ask.

“I only gave them twenty pounds each for a snack,” I told him.

“Snack!?”

“Yes, they can put away 50 to 75 pounds of meat at a time if they are hungry. Of course that will last them several days,” I told him before turning serious.

“I expect this cage to be delivered to where we are stationed within six hours of our reaching the planet. That is also in the regulations governing the shipment of Partners,” I told him. He appeared to be upset by this also.

“But ... but that will require scheduling a special delivery!” he said looking at the cage and its built-in ancillary equipment.

“It’s made to fit into a shuttle without any disassembly,” I reminded him before turning away.

“Let’s go, kids,” I said to the Tigers following that, as they had finished their snack by now and had even licked up the blood on the deck. Bob came over to my right side while Susie took her place on my left, and we walked toward the exit of the unloading dock.

“You aren’t going to leash them?” the major demanded in a horrified voice.

“Why?” I asked. “They both weigh more than twice what I do. What good would a leash do?” I asked. He didn’t reply, and we continued on our way to the troop area.

Luther was sitting in the chair next to my things with his Partner, Samson, a modified Bald Eagle (Haliaeatus Ieucocephalus), also an enhanced creature. Samson always traveled with Luther, as he doesn’t do well in a cage.

As we approached the troop area, none of them were looking at Luther and Samson any longer. Instead they were staring in shock at me and the Tigers. Luther was grinning as we reached him.

“Always the grand entrance, boss?” he asked.

“I needed to remind a major that he wasn’t to open the cage,” I told him. Samson was watching my hands as I said that, and I tossed the large fish that I had also gotten from the cage storage unit toward him. He snatched it out of the air before gliding down to the floor to consume it. Luther always wears a reinforced shoulder pad for Samson to ride on and a long thick leather arm sleeve for him to land on.

Samson is also genetically modified. He is larger than regular Bald Eagles in the wild having a body length of almost 40 inches and a wingspan over 7’-6’’ and weighing 14 pounds. He can communicate telepathically.

As Samson consumed the fish, the final regular member of our team arrived. Miranda handles the Magic for the Team. She is a very beautiful, sexy woman, and she arrived on the arm of a regular Army Captain with a Senior Lieutenant on her other side. Both men seemed to be mesmerized by her.

“Thank you so much for escorting me to the correct area, Captain,” she told the one before turning to the other. “And thank you, Lieutenant, for seeing that my baggage will be delivered to our shuttle,” she told him, before turning to the rest of us.

“Everyone is here, I see,” she said, and that was when both officers seemed to become aware of just how close both of them were to the Tigers and the Eagle in addition to the two of us. Both men jumped back in shock and frowned.

“Is this your Team?” the Captain asked in amazement.

“Yes, this is the rest of my Team,” Miranda told him with a smile, as she reached out to scratch Susie behind her ears and under her chin. However, she quickly withdrew her hand to look at Susie carefully.

“You’re pregnant!” she said in a surprised voice. Susie just smiled at her in response. Now a tiger’s smile is mostly in their eyes, but it also includes showing their teeth. All of those not on our Team instantly moved back away from us and the animals.

“How many kittens?” Susie sent.

“I detected three. Two females and a male,” Miranda told her.

I guess that I should explain who we are now that you have met everyone. We are Team Tiger, a Special Operations Team, and we are a part of Military Special Operations which is a part of the Unity Military. There are also Special Operations Teams on the civilian side of the Unity Government, but they deal with government problems such as corruption of various types, and yes, there is still corruption in government. We deal with Military problems such as guerrilla conflicts between planetary governments and separatists or activist organizations opposed to them. We do not deal with full-fledged wars, as that is the job of the Unity Army.