General Claude Heroud stood quietly in the one room that had been set up as his command center in a way that betrayed a great deal of rage and confusion. He was a proud French patriot who had dedicated his life to the Fifth Republic of France. He had seen the international news reports on what had happened in Fee City, both from the outbreak and the turning of the entire city into Chakats and then the investigation that followed. The outbreaks in America seemed to stop rapidly and usually with the appearance of Foxkats vaccinating the Chakats that were lust driven. Then came the revelation that the entire virus was the result of a pair of "hippies" who wanted to spread free love. It all struck him as arrogant acts from those that didn't think about the consequences of their actions. And generally, General Heroud found that behavior in a great many Americans... the country bumpkins who insisted on coming to France and then criticizing everything about French culture and when countered, the tourists then bring out the Second World War as though battles and wars fought more than 50 years ago justified insulting all that which was France now. It was that, that made General Heroud be as gruff as he was with the American Chakats when they arrived.
And now, it appeared that scientist that they had found was either the head man behind the Paris outbreak or was at least playing a major role in an outbreak that had already claimed Paris's city government and several members of the national government. The President wasn't in Paris for the outbreak, but with the fact that the outbreak had occurred, Heroud had had to forbid the President's return to keep the quarantine secure. That had left running Paris to General Heroud, his colonel, a few French policemen and policewomen that hadn't been infected yet, the scientists, and the Kats that had agreed to help, with most of them being Americans, but also including now two members of one of the minor noble families in France, one ex-American State Department employee, and three other French citizens or foreign exchange students. If any of the ones supposed to be helping him betrayed him, Heroud had expected it to be the Kats, but instead it was chief scientist who had been insistent that the American Kats be called and brought in. His colonel would get the answers he needed.
"I doubt we can charge him with treason, sir," the highest ranking police officer said to him from where he stood, "He might very well make the claim that he wanted to strengthen France through whatever he did. Conspiracy... that charge MIGHT work. The only charges we can really make work will be the related rape and murder charges that have come out of this..."
"If we can find an unchanged attorney or judge, make sure the charges would also include the Kats we had to kill to keep them quarantined," General Heroud told the police officer leader.
The policeman nodded and left. General Heroud followed him with his eyes and as the police officer left, he found himself looking to two Kats. One was a Skunkat, who he had noticed through a window experimenting with clothing ideas that morning and the other was a Chakat that was modeled after a Snow Leopard and had some portions of hir fur looking like it was dyed blue.
"Yes, Madams?" General Heroud said slowly.
"What's going on, General?" the Skunkat, Danna asked.
"An awful mess that I will eventually clean up," General Heroud answered, not untrue. Thankful that these two did know French, or at least knew it well enough to converse with him.
"Well... General," Danna spoke carefully, "Mikkie and I went on the patrol to get a look at these supposed aggressive Kats..."
"What did you find?" General Heroud asked immediately.
"Well... we think the violent ones might be influenced by certain protective... more territorial instincts," Danna said carefully, "It might mean that if they can be vaccinated, they might calm down enough for you to tell that you're not out to hurt them."
"I see," General Heroud nodded.
"We also found that our cellphones were being blocked," Mikkie spoke up, "Jess tried to call back here over a hunch on some things, and found that hir cellphone's signal was being blocked."
"Great... more complexities," General Heroud sighed, "Just WHAT was that scientist involved in...?"
Mikkie and Danna looked to each other as that question seemed more rhetorical. Eventually General Heroud turned back to them.
"Did you find where the jamming device is?" General Heroud asked.
Mikkie and Danna nodded.
"Yeah, it's in a poorer neighborhood, but was well guarded," Danna answered, "we couldn't get in, as Maurice didn't appear to speak French and the guards seemed rather aggressive."
"I can provide troops armed with the Foxkat Vaccine and the tranquilizer rifles," General Heroud answered, "Can you lead them there?"
"Well, yes, but they might need to be Kats in order to go on foot," Mikkie commented, "the "violent" ones might see the human soldiers and police officers as threats to their territory but saw us as one of them... or at least as one they'd be protecting."
"A personnel carrier will be provided," General Heroud answered.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Roughly five minutes later, Mikkie and Danna found themselves crammed into a Véhicule blindé de combat d'infanterie. The eight wheeled vehicle normally carried nine additional troops besides the crew, but given Mikkie and Danna's large taur lower halves they only five soldiers were with them, but they were all armed with the traquilizer dart guns and several darts with the vaccine.
"How did we get into this?" Mikkie asked to Danna as they rode along.
"Reporting in at the wrong time?" Danna shrugged back.
The answer created a bit of a chuckle among the French infantry with them. Mikkie only sighed sat waiting for the vehicle coming up to where they'd need to make a turn and they'd communicate with the driver via a walkie-talkie. The ride went quietly. Mikkie only talked when they came up to a turn, though with no cars on the road thanks to the quarantine, the trip went quickly. Occasionally they heard shouts from outside, but the VBCI moved along with enough speed to avoid taking any real damage. The sounds of screams or the occasional sound of a bullet ricocheting off of the armor made both Mikkie and Danna nervous, as soldiers of fortune they were not, but the others were busy with family business at the moment, so they ended up as the one being only Kat's available to help.
Eventually they came to the address where they saw the satellite dish on the roof of the building. The stop was accompanied by more shots.
"Okay, this is it," an army sergeant spoke, "Stay behind us and be ready. If you two can climb to the roof, we can vaccinate the others."
Danna and Mikkie nodded. The rear doors opened and the first soldiers with his tranquilizer dart gun at the ready actually darted a Wolfkat that was ready to fire into the vehicle. The dart hit the Wolfkat in the chest and it staggered back and fill onto it's haunches while the rest of the soldiers filed out. As Danna and Mikkie came out behind them, they found the Wolfkat shaking hir head, like shi was trying to figure out what shi'd done. There were a few scattered shots that the soldiers dodged and fired darts back toward, but Danna and Mikkie couldn't see whether or not they hit the Kats firing at them.
"What's going on?" the Wolfkat asked as Danna and Mikkie pulled hir over to the wall of a different building.
"You were infected with a virus," Mikkie said to the Wolfkat, "I know it doesn't look it, but we are hear to help."
"There is a jamming device that needs to be taken down," Danna added, "if only to figure out how much control whoever started the outbreak in Paris has."
"How?" the Wolfkat asked, "you won't hurt anyone?"
"I can climb up and jump over," Mikkie answered, putting together all hir bravery, "and we have no intention of hurting anyone."
Danna then pulled the dart out of the Wolfkat's fur and held it up for hir.
"All this is is the vaccine to make sure that people who don't want to be Kats don't become Kats," Danna said, "It does nothing to hurt you."
They heard a scream and suddenly one soldier began limping back to the VBCI. Mikkie then moved immediately and began to scale the side of the building shi and Danna had taken the Wolfkat to. Mikkie quickly found that her forelegs and rear legs had enough "leg span" to grip the window wells and then leap up to the next windowsill. As she climbed, she could see toward the battle going on. The Badgkat they'd seen earlier appeared to have been vaccinated as had another Wolfkat that they hadn't seen. Those that had been vaccinated seemed to be just as disoriented as the Wolfkat that had been outside and were getting their minds back under their own control. Ultimately, they'd probably spread the vaccine on their own, and eventually a message over a loudspeaker could be given.
Mikkie made it to the roof and carefully tensed the muscles in hir four legs. Then shi leaped and landed on the roof of the apartment building with the satellite dish. There, shi found the large satellite dish with a vertical spike forming from the center of the dish with what looked like red lights inside the spike. The lights were flashing. Mikkie was a bit unsure as to how to take the dish out.
"Push it off the roof!" one of the soldiers hollered and moved to take cover by the VBCI, apparently covering for the wounded man, "and quick, we're running out of darts."
Mikkie shrugged and moved closer and set hir dart gun on the roof and gripped the dish with hir hands. Shi gripped the roof tiles with all of her feet, feeling the claws on each foot extend. Shi then began to lean forward at hir waist where hir first set of hips were. Mikkie quickly found that whoever had put the dish there had done a poor job of doing so and it rapidly bent and fell to ground with a great clang and "popping" of snapping metal. Hir pushing also sent Mikkie sliding forward and shi ended up falling from the roof, her long tail going in circles behind hir.
"MIKKIE!" Danna screamed as if the world was going to end.
But it didn't end, and Mikkie actually landed as though it were nothing. It was like shi had jumped from a swing after gaining decent height in swinging. Hir forelegs hit the ground and went into a controlled collapse to cushion the landing, and hir rear legs did the same when they hit the ground. Hir landing also stopped all the shots from being fired and several Kats came to the windows to actually see the Chakat had that had fallen off the roof in front of them. Two looked like they had been vaccinated but two didn't.
"Come on! Let's go! We've done our job!" the sergeant yelled and fired his last two darts hitting one that hadn't been vaccinated yet.
The soldiers followed and darted another Kat as they all climbed into the VBCI. Danna and Mikkie were the last to enter it, and as its doors closed, the vehicle had already begun to pull away. They didn't notice the one wounded soldier tending to a wound on his right arm. Danna and Mikkie were too busy looking into each other's eyes.
"Oh dear God... I thought you were going to die!" Danna spoke quickly, "You fell off the roof!"
"It wasn't bolted in well, I suppose and I was too strong for it," Mikkie answered, "but at first... I thought I was going to die too..."
Danna leaned forward and grabbed Mikkie in a firm hug.
"Never do anything so dangerous again!" Danna demanded, "I will not have my mate get hirself killed!"
"I'll try to be careful," Mikkie answered and then blinked, "wait... you said mate... you... you love me?"
"YES!" Danna answered and kissed hir former human friend and soon to be Chakat mate, strangely feeling a great deal of joy inside hir as she said that one word.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Maurice, meanwhile, lay quietly on the floor beside the bed that was in the nursery. On the bed, Snowy was still asleep near the head of the bed, and Sally rested near the foot of bed, nursing Janice and Pinkie. Between them where Luna and Midnight who were dozing off to sleep, leaning their upper bodies against the side of Sally's taur half. Maurice looked toward the Black Panther Chakat with a bit of jealousy, one that actually went to all the others. They all got to feel the joys of motherhood, to feel babies inside them, but due to a series of unfortunate events, while Maurice had been able to impregnate Snowy, Snowy had not been able to impregnate Maurice. So, while Maurice was nursing hir newborn soughter, shi was using a bottle, and promising to hirself that when things calmed down, shi would get pregnant and give Snowflake a sibling. Until then, shi could only wait until things had quieted down.