A wonderful piece made by daelmacro DaelMacro.
When you like it, go here: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/13099823 and tell him how much you like it.

Due to me mixing up two shortstories, of which I presented him with as inspiration, this piece is now named "Caravan arriving at Bassorah", whilst actually it was meant to be a shuttle's flight rescuing somebody, like, a prequel to http://www.furaffinity.net/view/12858307/ - where you see the crew of the shuttle full center and the shuttle itself in the lower left side of the picture.

But I'm always confusing things. Too much happening in parallel in my head.
Anyway...:

"When you wag your tail even more they won't need Radar, but just their ears to hear us" Command barked good humoredly to Pilot.
Not that it would make pilot stop wagging her tail, and not that it would have worried anybody. They were still outside the athmosphere.

Half a minute went by in silence.

"ECM to Pilot: Lower our snout by 2 degrees during the next 2 minutes. They're nailing our corridor with microwave radar."
Pilot and Command sighed and Pilot dutifully nudged the shuttles gyros to slowly rotate the shuttle around it's axis.

"No need to talk like with stick in bum, da?" Pilot snickered, once the maneuver was finished.
ECM sniffed and lifted her muzzle:"Well, with me THAT would be a novelty at least, wouldn't it? You then again..."
Commando barked "Shout your snouts, both. We got humans to rescue, and we can neither afford any delays, nor can we afford to be detected too early.
For else the Reich will just Napalm the place all over where we want to go. And none of you likes roasted human."

Silence reigned for another number of minutes, whilst Command, the sheperdess sitting in the central rear seat of the cockpit, checked their flight path and was counting the time when it was time to begin their descent.

"Arf!" ECM's , the golden retriever girl, tail folded in under her chairs seating plate.
"What?" the shepperdess and Pilot, the springy dalmatian female, shouted.
"Owl 6 reported a fire in the exact area of pickup three hours ago."
The intercom clicked:
"Bushfire?" it came from Rescue, the huskette who was strapped in the cargo bay in her heavy exoskeleton space suit.
The retrievers ears folded down, slowly, and so did the ears of the others in the cockpit.

"No, Liquid fire. Owl 6 also spotted the Vultures that dropped the bombs."
The intercom crackled and an unidentifiable snarl:"I'm so going to drop a bunch of reactor-rods on their heads! They don't deserve to be called humans, or even sapient beings these freak..."

Command made good her positions title:
"Violet Polaris, shut up. You'd kill innocents, just like they do, but fire kills much faster and more merciful than radiation poisoning, so shut-the-rut-up!"
Her growl rolled menacingly through the speakers of the intercom as well as in the spacious cockpit.

Spittle dripped from her bared fangs, and it needed no visual to tell the huskette that her outburst had been in violation of the codex canidae which the canines of Asgard had accepted as their law, one article of which was:
"Never harm a human child unless it is neccessary to save the childs life."

Pilot and ECM looked over their shoulders to Command.
A soft sob came from the intercom:"He was my brother...." and the sheperdess nodded slowly: "I know. That's why we will still go in and look if anybody survived."
She looked to ECM:
"As soon as we have signal again after entry into the athmosphere, you'll contact the Owl's on wideband and get the best videos of the last 30 seconds before the bombs exploded. If anybody survived, he must've been outside the explosionradius of the bombs, else he's crisp now."
With hanging ears ECM acknowledged her orders for the logfile, as using wideband transmissions would paint them a target for anything with more than 3 tubes or 5 transistors of electronics inside.

"Pilot? Take us in, maximum speed. Let's leave a meteor trail every survivor will see, and these freaking assholes shall shit their pants in their fretwork-planes."
"Da, good thing," Pilots mood immideatly skyrocketed, her tail wagging happily as before - when do you get a chance to hammer the athmosphere at mach 20 ?

"No slow and low da?" Pilot was almost drooling, triggering the switch that pushed the synthetic molybdaenium-niob-diamond rod out of the ships nose. The air would touch it and simple explode away from the ship at those speeds, protecting the ships surfaces from the heat of the forced entry.

"This is our graduation.. that it must be so hard for Violet.. Was not planned. It seems like Georg didn't manage to stop them from advertising their find. Maybe he managed to get away in time, as he must've know what was to come," Command thought out loud, fastening her seatbelts for the expected rough reentry.

ECM shook her head, her ears drooping down low and her tail still tried to slip between her legs:"There were only minutes between the broadcast and the bombardment. No chance he got away in time."

From the cargobay Violets voice came, and one didn't need to see her to know her ears were plastered against her head and she was crying:"Georg had selected the spot. We had told him about the old subaquatic bunker just a month ago. He was sure they would only report it's find after they opened it and report it early on the next morning, but these idiots did it right away in the early afternoon..."
First lances of fire danced around the wingtips.

"Brace for Entry!" the sheperdess stopped all talks and closed her spacesuits helmet whilst the mesh case to prevent loose objects hitting her folded up from the floor around her, and the hardshells closed over Pilot and ECM.
The synthetic saphire of the cupola darkened as the fully extended rod hit more and more airmolecules, and the four fiery lines of the brake-thrusters lanced out into the blackness of space.

"Radar intensifies. The array of New Cologne is tickling our flank. Forward I can't scent, but we're producing already enough plasma to look like the Titanic on any radar out there," ECM's voice came through the intercom, warm and soft as always.
"Joan, you hold tight. If they send Vultures, Commando will bite their chuj, da?" Pilot gleefully gave the thrusters a kick that made the entire shuttle buckle and rapidly loose speed and altitude.
"Brick falling slower than us."
Nadya was in her element, using her ears, head, tail, legs and arms to control the shuttle like her own body.
That her body didn'd weight 100 metric tons was something she happily ignored, same as the fact that she herself would never reach a speed of mach 12 in about 10km altitude.
Noises from the intercom made Nadya shout gleefully :"Violet made Borshtsh?" with a weakly returned "I'm so going to kick your ass when I survive this" from the cargobay.

The canopy cleared as the speed dropped far enough that they no longer looked like a meteorite.
A fine hiss indicated the broadband conenction to the owl satellites coming up.
5 seconds,
10 seconds.
"I have the Data. We got pinpointed by radar."
20 seconds.
"They are launching a wing of interceptors, but they'll need an hour to get to us. "
"Time to target?"
"On your ass!" Nadya howled in glee
"2 minutes."

Command looked out of the canopy. The plasma-lance rod , originally a boom of almost 4 meters length, was a bare stick of about one meter. Normally they lasted several re-entires.
"Whatever drugs you're on, Nadya.. I want the same."
"Is just lots of good lovemaking," Nadya hesitated, "with kind humans."

Command released the safety net and opened her helmet, ECM and Pilot remained in their hardshells, tilted forward so that they rested like feral canines on the cushioned control consoles.
AS-05 was a shuttle build purely for canine pilots, both feral and anthro ones.
ECM - Joan - acted as the backup-pilot in case something would happen to Nadya.
The shuttle was still more in ballistic flight than actual aerodynamic mode, and Nadya was brutally slowing the shuttle down by alternatively flying curves and firing the retro rockets so hard that Command was happy that her helmet was tightly affixed to the seats back and her arms hung in the restrainers of her seats armrests.

Finally Command could see the blackened, once grassy plain where they had intended to pick up 8 humans, one of them Violets older brother.
"Joan, any info on potential survivors?" her eyes scanned the area, an area of 500 square meters at he foothill of the cliffs to the east was sooty from the rapeseed oil based pseudo-Napalm the Reich proudly called "Hellfire". It was a sticky substance , rich in phosphor and acacia-resines, sticking, burning with a suffocating fume, and hot and long enough to incinerate most things not explicitely fireproof.

"One potential survivor, he fled into the the old airlock, and the door closed before the bombs detonated. And, Valerie? It wasn't George."
"Thank you, Joan."

Command - Valerie - nodded to herself, then switched Violet into the loop whom she had muted out of the circuit before, addressing all:
"We go in. Violet? There is a survivor in the old airlock. He'll be scared, maybe wounded.
You'll fetch him whilst I.. get the others."

A soft "Thank you, Valerie," came from the cargobay.

The faint whine of the gears got audible and the shuttle straightened it flight, now barely 20m above ground, then 10, 5... then a dustcloud appeared behind them and the shuttle started to vibrate. Its large tires and long, stilted legs ate the worst bumbs with ease. Shuttles were at home on uneven terrain. Nadya mercilessly burnt another kilogram of hydrogen in the retro-rockets, bringign the shuttle to a standstill at the rim of the burnt area. The shuttle's trapdoor opened, lowering itself to barely a handspan over the floor, and the loud steps of Violet drummed over it, seconds later the huskette appeared in her quarter ton spacesuit, her movements of a slow, unhurried grace, yet she was only a bit slower than normal human running, as the suit made her steps much longer.

Valerie got up and closed her helmet. She didn't need to scent burnt flesh. Not even of the horse the scouts of the Reich had along with them.
Moving out Joan's voice came over the intercom:
"They started ballistic missles, V7 type. They'll need roughly 6 minutes. Please hurry."
"Don't you gnaw you leg. Nadya? turn the shuttle around for the start. It'll be in a hurry."
Outdoors Violet was ripping the ancient airlock open.
Valerie was out and unrolling the first bodybag pulling it over the charcoal stump that had once been a hopeful human being.
'No, we won't nuke their cities. But we are going to get every single of those that believe that's the way to treat humans... anybody... and give them some of their own medicine,' Valerie thought.
A shot rang, then the hiss of the stun-gun Violet had on her armor.
"Wasn't me," Violet half murmured over the radio, then:"he's almost still a boy..."
"5 minutes"
"He's okay?" Nadya asked curiously.
"He'll be. Better than George."
Valerie was already wrapping the third corpse in:
"George did at least know what he was risking. Plus, he has ... 12 kids?"
Violet appeared, gently carrying a limp human body on her arms.
"Yes, but only one boy."
"4 minutes. Hurry, pelase."
Valerie wrapped the 5th corpse when Violet appeared at her side, and Violet stopped, hooking the bodybags into one of the hooks on Violets armor, then the sixth whilst Violet was gently caressing the knocked out human in her arms with her helmets smooth snout.
"3 Minutes. Somethings fishy. These things behave differently than V7's. Better make it real fast..."
Valerie slapped Violets armored back and the suit went into motion, pulling the inflated bodybags behind her like so many balloons.
'This is maybe undignifying. But we'll give them a proper burial," Valerie thought, wrapping the last human corpse, looking at the horses corpse and then took a small grenade from her suits beltpouch, setting it to 1 minute delay and then placed it on the horses corpse.
The small grenade would pulverize the corpse to mere dust.

The Reich would not even find a dead horses corpse for medial exploitation.
Then she lifted the bodybag and hurried with it in her arms to the shuttle which had already turned around using it's auxiliary ground motors.

"Girls? One minute, but I'd rather say 30 seconds. You really better get your tails in here!"
Valerie was glad that her native Gladius Habitat had reconfigured to a higher 1.2g virtual gravity right from the start of it's settlement. It meant little exertion for her carrying the humans remains on her arms whilst bounding in long strides to the shuttle where Violet had already boarded and placed the bodybags like valuable posessions in the walls cabinets.
"Crew, get ready for immideate launch as soon as the trapdoor is locked."
"Aye Captain! Got 5 tons of rubber in my bum that I want to light up like tree at christmas!" Nadya was all happy again.
Valerie jumped into the shuttle and Violet hit the emergency lock button, whilst Joans voice came from both intercom and radio:
"Hold on and make yourself flat, we have to get away now!"
"Da. Goldie is right."
Violet's armor clamped its anchors to the ground and wall whilst she placed the human with incredible gentleness into the prepared acceleration bench, 7 of which would remain empty.
Outside a distant whine became audible. and instead of the main engines engaging, Violet heard the frontal maneuverign thrusters go live, lifting the shuttles nose, permitting Valerie to just lock the door over the last bodybag and then grabbing some of the cargowebbing from the wall and wrapping herself into it.
"What the knot are you DOING you spotted bitch?!" Valerie shouted as the shuttle suddenly bumped unceremoniously onto its rear end and a painful groan went through the structure of the vessel as the large rear fins stabilized it in a nose-up position for which it never had been intended.
The whine outside had gotten louder- it had been only 10 second since the last warning.

Then two things happened:
The fine whine of the landing gear retracting became audible...
And then all hell broke loose.
Shuttles use solid rubber rods as orbital stage fuel, and nitrous oxide as oxidizer.
As that way the solid fuel can be burnt in a controlled way, shuttles have 3 main thrusters, one larger carrying a 3ton rubberstick, and two smaller, each carrying a 1ton stick each.
Takeoff is usually done using the 1ton rods and the orbital boos is achieved using the 3ton stick. Each loadout normally is sufficient for a safe travel from Asgard to Midgard, and back again.

The V8 rockets had fired their "dispersal" warhead ahead of their trajectory, spraying a fine mist of oil ahead of them and over the target area, whilst they themselves spewed their oily load with a charge after impact, and then in a second explosion detonated the, this way widespread, fuel-air mixture.

When Nadya ignited all "rubbersticks" - or "Dildoes" as she called them lovingly - the shuttle went off skywards like an explosion. The fiery blast of the shuttle glassified a few squaremeters underneath it.
The pressure-cushions in Nadya's seat squeezed her entire lower body like a vise to keep her blood in her brain, so that she didn't go unconscious.
Joan went out from shock when one of the V8 rockets almost scraped the shuttles hull.
But Valerie and Violet went out cold.
And the human? Well, he was out anyways, heavily sedated from Violets stunner.

The fiery blossom lifting the shuttle up to the skies kissed the vaporous trail of the dispersal heads, and the fine mist started to burm to explode right under the shuttles rear, the fire of the explosion overtaking the shuttle, eating outward , pressed away from the bowwave of the shuttle, whilst below the rockets hit ground and detonated their integrated dispersal stage.
The mists spread out, touching the already running explosion of the upper layer of fuel-air mists, igniting before the actual incendendary charge of the rockets went up.
out of the billowing orange and yellow clouds of liquid fire , came the silver shimmering shuttle, it's rear now all sooty black, riding on its own hundred meter long smoking spire of hellfire, lifting the gleaming silver bird to the safety of orbital escape velocity.

"Central Command? AS-05 here. Pilot Nadya Moskva speaking."

"Here Central Command, flight controller Peter speaking. AS-05 acknowledged. What can I do for you, m'lady?"

"Two things: My landinggear is on Midgard - so need docking on Fenris orbital dock."

"Noted. I won't ask how you lost it, m'lady. Updating your clearance. Manual docking on derrick 5. Your color markings will be green circles."

"Derrick 5 I know where is!"

"You lost your landing gear, m'lady. What is your second request?"

"You're human?"

"Yes, why?"

"I want you at the Tropicana Disco 8pm fix." Joan groaned and looked at Valerie.

"That, is.. uh... "

"8pm today." Nadya's tail wagged happily.

"Yyyyyy-yes, m'lady..."

"Good. AS-05 out."

Valerie and Violet looked at Nadya, stared at her until she looked over her shoulder:
"8pm is time plenty to unload shuttle, organize funeral tomorrow and welcome Prince Charming amongst the living. "

"Nadya.. why can't you wait with making a date at least ... after we are finished?"
Valeries ears were tilted sideways.. she really didn't understand Nadya at times.

"I have big heart. Needs lots of love. No kisses makes Nadya boring girl!"

Joan grumbled:"Rather three days without sex make you desperately horny... You don't even know what his scent is like!"

"But I girl of big heart.. I love every human... Except politicos of Reich. Crap in their face. After removal of throat. But everybody else I love! Really!" She looked from one to the other.

"A. Sport spoilers. I know Peter. Is he customer of me. Regular. Is me educating him to become proper human."

All of the other canine girls growled in unison "The spotted Domina has her new toy of month..."

"Da! You understand! Is good to know friends..."

Then, however, as the Fenris dock appeared, and Nadya was the next half hour rather silent, trying to maneuver the shuttle , of which the last meter was mostly molten slag, onto the derrick....