And here's the thrid and final for now bit of Ken Pick art, again for the story by Michigan Wildman.

This is Kazak, the adopted child of a Thalendri merchant family. He's not a chakat, just your standard custom engineered combat-class quaddie cloud leopard intended for a life of gladitorial combat before the ship he was being delivered on got nailed by the WebFed cops and he was decanted and (ultimately) taken in by his vulpine relatives. He spends most of his time working for the family, courting the local "merry widow", pothunting, and dodging the human daughter of a local corporate diplomat who wants to keep the big kitty on a leash as her pet.

He also goes online as himself, mostly, where he meets and falls for this lovely and graceful 'virtual vixen'. Then he gets sent off to take care of some family businss at N'kree, the Skreeln homeworld, where he meets a shy and eccentric young she-Skreeln who seems oddly familiar...

And then his life gets far too interesting.