Trying To Get By Ch. 03

"We use it to call the rest of our pack to a kill, or to keep everyone a little together over a few miles if one of us has found game to run down. If there's more than one pack in the area, then we DON'T howl at all. Let them get their own dinner.

"We don't need the moon to change, either. The moon's got nothing to do with anything for us. If you're a werewolf, the first few changes just happen, but after a while, you learn to control it."

"What about biting someone?" Zhizah asked.

Rhasht smiled with an expression that might have been termed wolfish out of fun, "Only semi-bullshit. We bite gently during lovemaking, usually to hold the other one still. Sometimes there's a bit of blood. Werewolves don't run around biting anyone they don't happen to be fucking with at the time.

"You don't need to even think about that. Not saying that you guys don't look astonishingly good to me, but besides being presumptuous on my part, quads aren't at risk. You can't be infected by the virus we carry."

"So," Rhisu began, "you're saying that you'd like to what? Dine on us sometime? I don't recommend that you even think it."

He shook his head, "I'm not an idiot, Rhisu. I know that you're not ... what's the word here? Ungulates. Grass munchers.

"I'm a male, ok? It was a compliment spoken in a friendly way without being rude. At least, I hoped that it came across that way, though I guess not. Sorry if it sounded like anything else."

"Don't be," Rshisu smiled with a laugh, "I don't think any of us are in the market, you might say. But I do think that you've a very good eye, Rhasht."

She tossed him a pleased wink, "A big girl like I am takes her compliments when she can."

--

As the group spoke together, Tahnyal came near where Yonyi was leaning against Dana and was a little surprised to see another newer member of the original pirate crew already there with them. It took her a moment to remember the name, since this one - Prallah, the name was - had been one of the maintenance types. She recognised Dana and nodded hello.

"How is it?" she asked Yonyi.

"Not as bad as I feared, "Yonyi said.

Tahnyal nodded, "Then I think that all you will need is to wash that wound carefully and well. I'll do the rest to start with. Unless the new boss changes it, I'm the medic when I am not beating idiots over the head with traps."

She led them all to the medical room and began to clean and dress the wound. It took only moments and then Tahnyal left them.

Prallah looked at Yonyi, "She is different from what I thought."

Yonyi nodded, "I was surprised. I think now that the wolf people here are of two kinds, Prallah. I seem to like her kind of them now - her and the quiet male that she is often with.

"I would like to do something for her because she helped me, but I do not know what."

Prallah smiled and held up the brace of snow hares that Yonyi had been bringing back when she'd stepped into the trap, "You might think of doing something with these, Yonyi. If there is one thing that I have noticed about her and that male, it is that they have the same kind of teeth as the others - the same as us as well."

Yonyi smiled and nodded, thanking Prallah for having the presence of mind to see the hares that she'd forgotten. Prallah smiled and turned to go.

Prallah headed to the main door and walked down the ramp. The meeting or whatever it had been was breaking up. She walked down and had a word with H'Yan-Ah and Irianni who were just turning to walk inside, introducing herself a little properly and indicating what her role had been in the crew.

Ksana looked pleased to see Prallah again, since none of them had seen any others when they were prisoners on the larger Yautja ship.

Prallah was happy for the same reason, "So good to know that you are alright." She looked toward the ship for a moment, "I heard a little of what you said about ... ". She looked again toward where Sveta still sat, not having moved a hair over the time.

"Is it still bad, or is it getting worse?"

Ksana sighed, "Hard to say. If it has not changed, then it is not much worse, at least. It just feels like that to me. Sometimes, I get ... discouraged. We had so much between us once. Hard to give that up."

Prallah put her hand on Ksana's shoulder, "I am sorry. I have never had anything like you did, but ..."

"When I can get her to it," Ksana said quietly, "I must use tools. I remove some covers and then there is some of the girl that I loved in there still. But she does not want it from me much anymore. Soon, I will ask her to just tell me. I would always care about her and take care of the things that she needs done for her ... machinery, but it begins to hurt me too much to hope anymore. She says she is sad from it but ..."

Ksana wiped her eyes with a gloved hand, "It is too cold here to be dressed as I am. I just have no ... I do not want Sotyan there to die out of being stupid."

Prallah reached to hold Ksana for a moment, "I will speak with him. Maybe I can teach him something. Ask Sveta to stand down."

Ksana looked over and there was a question in her eyes, so Prallah smiled, "Who knows? Maybe I might look a little good to him. I know that I like to look at him."

"What do you mean?" Ksana asked.

"You can't make an asshole into anything good," Prallah smiled, "But I don't think that he's all the way there yet. With the others gone now, I think that a girl can change some things in a boy, if she shows him what he might have by acting better."

Ksana smiled and spoke to Sveta over the radio.

"Sveta?"

"Sveta." The blonde replied.

"Stand down please, go inside if you wish," Ksana said.

"Sveta," came the reply as the girl on the top of the craft stood up and turned to go back inside.

"Well good luck with it then," she smiled at Prallah before turning to walk back.

-

"What do YOU want?" The Wolfen asked sullenly from where he sat.

Prallah squatted a short distance before Sotyan, "Before I get to what I want," she said, "I'm here to bargain a little."

He tilted his head, "Bargain? What about?"

She smiled, "I've often thought that you are someone who is usually overlooked ... not understood, you might say. I'll go on if you're interested and want to know."

She sighed, "Or if you have no interest, I came to say only that you can get up and be on your way.

"If you're as dim as the others say, then we have nothing to talk about. You might have learned nothing today, in which case, the issue of your poor fit in the crew will not go away and one day, either you will do something truly stupid and die for it, or you will annoy somebody enough so that it comes to the same thing, the same end.

"I don't want that. I happen to like you and I'm prepared to help if you have a desire to learn how to fit in here well.

"A partnership," she smiled, "You and I.

"You try hard to learn what I teach about manners and getting along so that you earn the respect that you can have from them - if you give it back to them in the same way for a change. You change the way that you deal with people. You'll find that after a little while, they'll notice and treat you like you're not some half-wild thing that they have no wish to even know. You'll fit in.

"You change the way that you deal with females too, since there are a lot of us in the crew here. Bulling your way just makes them think that they're right about you. You need to give them reasons to believe that you're not brainless.

"I know that you're not like that at all inside. You act the way that you learned to from the others - and the fact that they're dead should show you how unsuccessful they were ultimately."

She smiled, "Good so far? Are you interested, or should I just save my breath?"

He sighed heavily and nodded slowly, "I'm interested."

Prallah's smile widened a little, "Then I can say what I want to say - that I'm interested too. I'm interested because I've seen that you look at me a little differently than the others. You've never treated me badly. In fact, what you said to me when I walked over here were the hardest words that you've ever said to me.

"I would like to know why, if you can tell me."

Sotyan shrugged, "The simple answer is that my ass is frozen, and it tends to make me grumpy."

He sighed,"I dunno, Prallah. I've always liked you. You always say hello when you see me. You're the only really pretty girl who ever has."

He shook his head, "You're the only girl who ever has - in my life."

Prallah grinned, "That's because I've just always liked you, but I always hoped that you'd try to talk to me more than just saying hello," she said, "I think you must have been the only one of that bunch who knew what to do with a brush and you always smell so clean to me.

"I guess that I'm really out here because I want to see if we can have a chance together. We've known each other for a time. I want to know you better than only this. Look, we're different, but we both want and need somebody. I'm willing to give you a chance, if you'll try me and if you want a better life here with us.

"I know some things about your kind. I know that you need a female and for you, it gets to a thing that can be a little dangerous eventually. You're possessive by nature. Well so am I. That's why I'm here.

"I know that I can help you if you'll take my suggestions. I'm not going to tell you what or how to fit in around here. I'm only going to make suggestions so that you try them and see how it can go better for you."

She held up a single finger. When she saw that he was focused on it, she smiled and slowly moved her hand, pleased that he was following it with his eyes, until it pointed down right to her woolly little cleft, which she knew was peeking out at him past her trimmed fur.

When his eyes widened a little, she whispered, "I want a male, just like you want a girl. I think that you'll fit in really, really well."

He looked back up to her eyes and she even gave him points for that, since to her , it said that there was an active brain in there.

"But I heard that you like - "

She nodded, "I like everything.

"We don't have to worry about that until later. You do your part and let me look over the fence once in a while. I know we're both like that. I've seen the way that you look at Rhasht when you think nobody's watching you. Maybe I can even help you in that, who knows?

"And right now, only Rhasht and sometimes Tahnyal get to play with the girls, my three helper types. Her heart's not really in it and neither is his. But the girls belong to them, since without somebody bigger and stronger; their kind just gets into trouble easier than breathing. It's why they don't usually live for very long once they get off the world they come from. They need to be protected, that's all.

"If you can show everyone; the rest of the crew, the new bosses, even Tahnyal and Rhasht, that you can be trusted, then maybe we can both have some dreamy nights with them."

She sighed, looking a little embarrassed, "And if you try to be mindful that I've come to you here today, you'll see that I'm offering more than just a partnership. I want a male who can treat me like I mean something to him. I know how you can be.

"But what I'm saying is that I want that. I want to lie with a half-wild thing, if it keeps him from being that way to everyone else so that they start to accept him.

"I want to feel a really strong, hard and furry body pounding against me. If you think about the males on my world, if you've ever seen any, you'll see that I was made for that. I want a male who can hold me when he fills me because he needs to fill me. I like how you can give it more than once every time. That's why you hold the one you mate with so tightly, so that she gets it all because you have a need to give it all - every time.

"I'm saying that I want that from you.

"I'm telling you right now that I want it everywhere that you can put it in me - as much as I can get from my fine male, once we've said that we mean it to each other."

She looked into his eyes for a moment, "Give it to me like that and I'll let you bite me, Sotyan. Just please try not to draw blood if you can. I know that you're not from one of the worlds where that virus comes from. I won't mind at all if you make me yours. I just don't want to get more than one scar that says I belong to you.

"Would that be alright?"

Sotyan nodded with a little smile, both gestures coming to his face a little slowly. He got up and walked to Prallah. He reached for her very tentatively until she put her arms around his neck. It became a better embrace then.

"I never ... " He faltered a moment with his eyes squeezed shut, "I could never even ... begin to see anything but that they didn't like me."

"I know, Sotyan," she whispered, "but I do. I like you. Together, we can make it alright. I - I've wanted you from the time I hired on. I could just never get you away from the others so you could just talk with me."

"They said that you were a ... a ..."

"A grass muncher?" she asked with a smile that he felt against his cheek. "Does this tell you anything?"

He flinched a little from her gentle bite on his ear, "I guess not," he sighed.

"That's for listening to them and not asking me yourself," She whispered, "There aren't any in the crew. Yonyi and me, we get that all the time. Where we both come from, we're the predators just the same as you."

She drew her head back and looked at Sotyan for a moment and then she kissed him.

It stopped when she reached down to run her hand over his bottom. "Alright, I want to get you inside where it's warm," she said, looking at his smile, "Come on, take my hand and let's be an item."

--

Sveta was headed for the hatch to go back inside when she stopped and looked toward the place where the larger Yautja ship had been. There was something ...

She adjusted her vision to near-infrared and in a moment, she saw heat sources against the snowy backdrop. There weren't many and what there were appeared to be small, consistent with rodent heat signatures.

Except for one slightly brighter flare of heat.

Zooming a little, she saw a brighter spot and switched back to the normal spectrum, now that she definitely had something in view. A tighter zoom ... tighter ... she saw a thin plume of smoke and a tiny flame.

She couldn't get more due to the angle.

She opened her tac channel, "Nika?"

--

Ksana's communicator was beeping from her pile of clothing.

A moment later, Ksana emerged from the shower to put the earpiece in place and answered, "Ksana."

Sveta nodded to no one where she was outside, "Sveta.

"I have small heat source in view. Bearing 078 from datum of door, range 213 meters. Some smoke visible. Nearby is refuse from former position of larger vessel. Nika is closing to investigate."

She looked down, estimating her height at 11 meters above the ground.

Sveta jumped and landed in a deep squat. She straightened up, "Moving to join Nika."

Ksana began to furiously dry herself off and force her dry clothing back onto her damp body.

--

Ksana walked back to the doorway. She saw Sveta walking and from the direction, she looked ahead and saw ... Nika on one knee with the floater motionless in the air nearby. She waited until Sveta's eyes were closer.

After a few minutes, she saw Sveta stop next to Nika and look down.

"Sveta?"

Sveta stood staring down in horror, but she answered, "Sveta."

"What are you looking at?" Ksana asked.

"Ksana, there is ... a person here. A casualty, on the other side of where ramp was, 38 meters away.

"Cyborg female, heavy damage.

Some little fire from plastic burning. Damage is from Yautja shooter. Looks like five hits.

She cradled her weapon with one hand and extending the other one; she activated her personal charge of CO2 to extinguish the small fire.

"Subject is alive, breathing is shallow. No fire now. Please get help."

Ksana was running to find somebody. She keyed her mike to acknowledge, "Ksana."

--

Sveta knelt next to Nika in the snow, trying to see if the person in front of them would ... or even could respond.

"Hello?

"Hello, can you hear me?"

After a few tries, the eyes opened. Brown eyes. Soft brown eyes in slightly dark skin.

Then they opened wide, registering the dark armour that Nika wore and the strangely featured face with a single lamp shining down a little into her eyes. Nika tore off her helmet and pulled her long, dark hair free of it in one motion.

"I cannot run faster. Please ... PLEASE! NO-"

Sveta tried again, "It's alright. The fire is out. We have help coming for you."

The eyes looked up at her, moving a bit to see better. "Who?"

She looked at Nika and seemed to recognise her. "Nishta?

"Nishta, help m- "

The eyes rolled back and closed.

--

Ksana came with Rhasht, Tahnyal, and Lelly, all of them staring.

Sveta walked with her weapon slung over her shoulder, clutching pieces of wreckage with her hands. Nika walked slowly, carefully carrying the torso of a torn person in her arms as gently as she could.

"Please follow our footprints," she said, her voice sounding hollow coming from her tear-streaked face, "See what pieces we might have missed.

Sveta almost whispered, "She must have been shot even before we were released ... or while they were making noise getting ready to go."

Nika groaned, "Either way ... she has been lying like this for a long time."

--

The med bay was full. The stranger was on the operating table on life support. Around her were Tahnyal, H'Yan-Ah, Sveta and Ksana. They spoke in low tones and were doing their best.

Ksana touched her earpiece, "Nika?"

Outside in the speeding floater, Nika kept up her orbit at a kilometer from the ship, surveying the surrounding landscape, assessing and watchful for movement.

"Nika."

"Ksana," the woman said, announcing herself, "Stay on tac 1, but monitor tac 4. I've tied it to the med bay so you can listen. Are you alright?"

Nika blinked and shook her head to be rid of the tear in her eye, "Affirmative. She seemed to think that she knew me. She mistook me for someone she knew, I guess.

"She - she reminded me of ... of my Mila. She would be that big by now. Looks different, but her eyes ... "

Ksana sighed, "Nika, I've set up the scanners on this ship to monitor the area. Why don't you bring the floater aboard? You can stay on tac 4 to listen wherever you go then."

"Yes," Nika replied, "Yes, thank you, Ksana."

Ksana clicked twice and got off the channel.

"What's going on?" H'Yan-Ah asked.

Ksana looked over, "Since this girl was spotted in the snow, that is the most that I have heard Nika speak in maybe a month."

H'Yan-Ah saw Sveta nodding from the other side of the table.

--

The assessment was still going on as Nika walked up to stand in the wide doorway of the room. She spoke very quietly to Prallah, who was walking out to bring something.

Some of them didn't know her and she realized that she probably looked pretty foreboding as she was, so the pulled off her helmet again and tried to fix her long hair a little.

Sveta was speaking as she assessed, "Low-power broadcast connectivity not possible. Her short wavelength radio is dead. Her SHF one is gone ... looks like it was blown right off her. Accessing bio and event log via cable instead. I found only one port but it works, so that is something."

"'Chen-Ya Tsu' is the only personal identifier I have found. The serial of the modification is scrambled, probably not valid. By the date, she was illegal for modifications for another almost two weeks, her eighteenth birthday."

She looked up, "That was seven years ago now. There is some data corruption due to CMOS damage. She may have better records as memories."