Lentan awoke to the sounds of shuffling feet.  Instinctively his hand snatched at his belt for a throwing star, but there was no threat.  Five human soldiers stood about eight feet to his right, carrying pickaxes and rope.<br/><br/>"Colonel Lentan?" one of them asked.  Lentan eyed his rank badge.<br/><br/>"Yes, Corporal?" he replied.<br/><br/>"We were sent to find you, sir."<br/><br/>Lentan's brow furrowed.  "Find me?"  He thought.  "How long have I been gone?"<br/><br/>"Almost six hours, sir."<br/><br/>Lentan checked his watch, and in doing so saw his stomach.  His uniform tunic still lay open and his belly protruded ahead of him about the size of a basketball.  He'd been out for a long time.  Too long.  He knew these men hadn't really been sent to find him, but the artifacts he was carrying - the raygun and its associated documents.  Lentan was expendable, but the alien tech could not be lost under any circumstances.  "Give me a hand, fellas," he ordered.  The men helped him to his feet and he buttoned up his uniform, barely able to draw it shut over his stomach.  He then threw on the backpack.  "How are things going?"<br/><br/>"The bunker crew regrouped at headquarters, sir.  All we know is the Commander was worried about your disappearance, so we were sent to find you or at least report on what happened to you," the corporal said.<br/><br/>"I see," said Lentan.  "Let's get going, then, shall we?"<br/><br/>"Yes, sir."<br/><br/>The six men plodded along the tunnels for a few moments before Lentan's stomach peaked the curiosity of one of the other enlisted men.  "Did you bag one, Colonel, sir?"  he asked.<br/><br/>Lentan looked over at him, then down at his belly, still slightly heavy and gurgling.  "Yeah, private.  I bagged one.  Real sneaky sonofabitch."<br/><br/>The private grinned.  "The more, the better, sir," he said.  "I wish they'd give me some of that swallowing potion.  We're just a guard detail here, sir, so we didnt-"<br/><br/>"Private," interrupted the corporal, "the Colonel knows that."<br/><br/>"Right, sir.  Sorry, sir."<br/><br/>Silence reigned for the next hour.  During that time Lentan wondered why the Commander had sent simple HQ guards to find him, but had sent their most crack rescue team - Abe, Samedi, and Nermal - to save Marinus.  Marinus was of a lower rank than Lentan.  He was also less experienced.  Yet the Commander sent their best guys to free him from a high-security fur bunker.  Eric Lentan - the humans' intelligence chief and an expert on alien tech - had gone missing in the caves<span style="font-style: italic">while carrying the raygun</span>, and that only merited sending a team of green recruits like this?  It was more than insulting.  It was... intriguing.<br/><br/>"Is anyone else missing?" asked Lentan.<br/><br/>"Aside from casualties and lower-ranking personnel, no sir," replied the corporal.  "We were ordered to pick up any stragglers we found, but we haven't seen any yet."<br/><br/>"Do you know what else is going on topside?"<br/><br/>"No, sir.  We've spent the past hours exploring all these caves, looking for you."<br/><br/>"I see."<br/><br/>Curiouser and curiouser.  For all the Commander knew, these caves could be crawling with furs that were rounding up the human stragglers for dessert.  The only explanation Lentan could think of for the under-rated rescue party was that he didn't want to risk the best guys for Lentan, who for all he knew could already be dead.<br/><br/>Or maybe he was sending Lentan a signal.  Very subtle, but still there.  The Commander knew Lentan well and had picked him to be Chief of Intel and Science for his expertise.  He also knew Lentan was a very accomplished fighter and could hold his own, even in these caves.  The fact that these green recruits were sent to find him told Lentan that he wanted his best guys at HQ - with Marinus.  The Commander trusted Lentan to make it home safe.  But he didn't trust the safety of the home.<br/><br/>There was a creaking noise from behind the team - a very pronounced rumbling creak, as if earth was being shoved aside in great quantities not a mile behind them.  Lentan turned and scrutinized the semi-darkness with his powerful eyes.  At the far end of his visual range, there was movement.  Something at the far end of this tunnel was moving, wriggling free of the earth from the ceiling.  There was another rumble.  Then suddenly, the thing surged towards Lentan and the team at great speed, covering yards in milliseconds.  With it came a rushing sound of fury, like a massive rubber-band stretching while pulled by a giant growling dog.<br/><br/>Within seconds it was on them.  A great, slavering plant-beast, charred by fire and coated in loose earth.  Its glowing eyes illuminated the tunnel with hellish radiance.  It's wide maw was red and speckled with white, large enough to engulf a man in a single bite.  And this it did.  With a roar, a scream, and a snap, the private that had asked Lentan about his stomach was trapped within those jaws.  A gooey *gulp* sent a pulsating lump back down the tunnel through the plant's stem.<br/><br/>Feral reflexes and cunning had saved Lentan from the plant's ravenous grasp.  But now the recruits that had rescued him were screaming and fleeing towards headquarters, dropping their equipment along the way.  Lentan watched them flee as the plant's head pursued them.  In a moment of frenzy he pounced on the plant's writhing stem and sunk his teeth deep into it, ripping a hunk of wet matter free.  There was a howl from the plant's head and Lentan saw it stop.  Suddenly the whole stem heaved beneath him and he slammed into the ceiling of the tunnel.  With a groan he lost his grip and fell.<br/><br/>The plant's head began retracting back down the tunnel.  Lentan didn't want to meet those hellfire eyes again, and he rose.  As the head approached, he drew his dagger and leapt upon the stem again, this time jamming the dagger in.  There was a shriek and the stem shook.  Stubbornly Lentan kept his grip and hacked at the stem, sending gouts of opaque green ooze splashing all over the tunnel walls.  The stem whipped from side to side and slammed Lentan very hard into a wall.  He dropped, the wind knocked out of him and his dagger clanging on the ground.<br/><br/>The plant's head slithered into view above Lentan, its eyes bathing him in deathly light.  Desperately he tried to catch his breath and rise.  The great maw opened and he felt putridly sweet breath wash over him.  His guts churned at the smell.  He struggled to move away.<br/><br/>A pickaxe lodged in the plant's head and it howled, whirling to the right.  Lentan stood and gasped as his head filled with pain.  In the corner of his blurred vision he saw the recruits attacking the plant with their pickaxes.  The corporal was suddenly snatched up in its mouth and swallowed down, his screams leaking through the stem into Lentan's beseiged ears.  Lentan found his dagger and plunged it into the plant's stem at the base of the head.  Green ooze splattered everywhere as he sawed the head from the stem.  Within second it landed with a thud on the tunnel floor.<br/><br/>The headless stem whipped around the tunnel, slamming men into walls as it lost control.  The whipping action threw the just-eaten corporal back out into the open, where he landed on another soldier and fell unconscious.  Lentan called the troops to pick the corporal up and follow him.  They all pelted away down the tunnel to safety.<br/><br/>When Lentan returned to the HQ building, deep in the center of the human-controlled section of the city, he resolved to observe Marinus closely.  He was just supposing, but if the Commander was indeed sending a subliminal message to him, he wanted no stone left unturned.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>Above ground, on the outskirts of the furry encampment, crouched the lithe figure of a female human.  She was cloaked in black garments treated with deodorants meant to eliminate the chance of being detected by scent.  Her raven-black hair was covered in a tight headwrap, and her skin was painted black.  Her eyes were shaded by a veil.  In her hands she cradled a pair of binoculars.<br/><br/>She was a Shadow, a human elite soldier.  The Shadows had been created in the early stages of the Human Resistance to find the weakest links in fur society and exploit them.  Nowadays they were given a more straightforward task - covert surveillance and sabotage.  The existence of the Shadows was entirely unknown to the furs, as they left no tracks, scent-trails, or other evidence of their presence.  When they watched they left no atom disturbed; when they struck they left no fur alive.<br/><br/>This Shadow was Jessica Fallon, a highly experienced veteran of past actions.  She was also Eric Lentan's mate.  In this time of war neither spared each other much thought, but as Jessica watched the fat cow in the clearing ahead of her drop a helpless man into her throat, she couldn't help but think that he looked a bit like Eric.<br/><br/>Jessica's mission wasn't to strike - not this time.  But that cow was important.  She was Feldana Blotar, the princess of House Blotar, the most powerful bovine house in the furry nobility.  Feldana had to be watched for any sign of her knowledge of House Blotar's head, Baron Deral Blotar.  Once Jessica knew where Baron Blotar was and what he was doing, she would strike.  And it would decimate bovine support for the crushing of the Resistance.