Rocks and Shoals Pt. 01 of 04

She found his medical kit and added the supplies to her own. She found food, didn't try it, but added that to her stash as well.

Later, after the sun had set, she was sitting next to the fire staring into the flame when her captive woke. It startled her. She reached for the rock she kept close at hand. But the alien was still weak. He said something in his alien tongue. Obviously she didn't understand.

"Sucks don't it? But better you tied up than me."

He growled something at her.

"Your welcome by the way, for saving your miserable life."

Some more low growling noises.

"You deserve to die, you know, for Welke, for Browder, for Tamir. Who knows how many others?"

Her captive glared at her.

"Do you ever think about that? About the lives you end every time you shoot down one of our fighters?"

He growled something low and soft.

"Maybe you do. I hope you do. Your species is intelligent enough for space flight. I'm sure you're enlightened enough to know empathy."

He looked at her very intently then.

"And that's why I didn't kill you by the way. Because I'm intelligent. I know that if our roles were reversed I wouldn't want you braining me with a rock just for doing my job blasting you guys out the sky."

He had nothing to say to that.

"I've killed enough too. So I know that doesn't necessarily make you evil."

He gave a low grunt then as way of agreement.

"But there is no evidence that you aren't evil either. The jury's still out on that one." Having said her peace, she sat and watched him. Eventually his injuries got the better of him and he collapsed again into whatever it was dirz dreamed about.

She got up, went over and inspected his injuries. They were bad but didn't appear to be infected. Then she inspected his binding. They were holding. At least for now.

Then she went and lay under a thermal blanket beside the fire, opposite her captive. She closed her eyes and it was a very long time before she finally fell into a shallow dreamless sleep.

*

The following morning she woke to a cold firepit. She got up and checked on her captive. He was still alive. She had mixed feelings about that. Then she ate a few bites and drank some tepid water from her canteen and set to work settling in for their stay on this world.

First, she filtered as much water as she could from the river and stored it in various pieces of the dirz fighter that were able to hold water. Then she brought the rest of her gear up the slope and stacked it next to her blanket.

Then she started the heavy work. She began hauling pieces of steel higher up the ridge away from the crash site and leaned them against a granite butte and against one another to form a simple shelter.

As she worked, her mind wandered. If she was going to be stranded here more than a couple days, her food would run out. Even now one nutrient bar was not enough for a meal. She would have to forage. There was vegetation here, but not a lot, mostly there were rocks, rocks and more rocks. Perhaps some of the vegetation near the river was edible. If not, then she'd have to leave the valley.

She took a break, wiped sweat from her face, looked up at the sun. It was smaller than she was used to. And it seemed to climb high in the sky and it was light for a long time, that meant that it was probably summer.

If the smaller sun meant that the planet was farther out and had a longer orbit, then it stood to reason that the summer would be longer. That was good news, but the thought she might be here long enough to find out made her cry a little bit.

Then she thought about her parents. They were going to miss her. They'd cry when they got the news that their daughter was missing in action. They were intelligent people, they knew that "missing in action" in a space battle meant death. She thought about her sister, married with kids, and her heart ached that she wouldn't be there for them as they grew up.

Then she thought about her girlfriend. It was a tumultuous relationship they had. The sex was phenomenal but they hadn't reached the place they were ready to move in together. She'd probably move on pretty quickly. That made Shan feel suddenly so very lonely. It was a bitter thing. Loneliness.

She stopped working, turned and looked at the unconscious dirz. Her enemy. Her captive. Her only companion on this barren world.

"I hope when you wake up, you're a good conversationalist or this is going to be real awkward."

Then she realized even if he was a good conversationalist, it wasn't going to matter. He couldn't speak English.

She finished the steel tent, then she made bedding from the seat cushions from the cockpit. It was not much, but she dragged the dirz inside and made him as comfortable as she could. She checked him again and saw that his injuries were still not infected. So she cleaned them and rebandaged them and lay down exhausted and stared at the walls.

*

After a time she woke, the sun was falling behind the far ridge and realized she had actually managed to get some real sleep. She ate another nutrient bar from her rapidly dwindling supply and realized it was time to go find food.

She went down the slope, back to the shallow river. She walked along it for a time and inspected the plants. Green. Small. Tough.

Then she noticed some seeds from a bud on one of them. That looked promising. She picked them, shelled them, and ate them. Seemed fine. So she gathered as many as she could in her flight suit pocket.

In the water she saw some little fish, like minnows but longer and pointier, swimming in a school. It wasn't hard to cup her hands under the water and catch a couple.

She grimaced. She wasn't looking forward to this. But God, she was hungry. She closed her eyes and popped one in her mouth and ate it. Nasty as shit but it was something. She'd just have to get over eating dirty raw fish. So she filled her helmet with water and caught as many of the minnows as she could.

When she got back to camp, she saw that her dirz captive was awake. He sat there very still, looking at her from the opening of their little steel wigwam. His expression was unreadable.

"I see you're feeling better."

No reaction.

"I've been doing hunter-gatherer shit." She opened her pocket and took out a handful of seeds and held them out to him. He inspected them, then cupped his hands and accepted them, then he shucked and ate one.

He gave a grunt that sounded like "uareu."

"You're welcome." Then she handed him the helmet with the minnows.

He scooped some and ate them raw as she had done. Then he looked up at her as if waiting for her to say something. Or perhaps he was considering her in a new light. Either way it was unsettling under his scrutiny.

"My name's Shan, by the way." She tapped her chest. "Shannon."

"Shan-non."

"Yep, that's me. And you?" She gestured to him.

There was a pause as if he was unsure how to answer. Then he said, "Jadhar."

"Ja-dar," she said, trying the sound of it. "Well, Jadhar, it looks like me and you are going to be stuck here for a while. I don't like it any more than you, trust me. But that's the reality. We're just going to have to deal with it."

He had no idea what she said, but his lips pulled back in what she assumed was a smile.

And that was the start of a beautiful friendship.