Part 1

Apprehension

           "All right, status check. Everybody report in."
           Lazy metal splinters flitted around my ship as I made the hourly status check. Not exactly stringent military formation, I thought to myself. The entire wing was bored out of their skulls. I could sympathize; escort duty has a way of doing that to you. The responses came in one by one from my pilots.
           "Reporting in, boss."
           "Still here, sir."
           "All systems green, commander."
           The same as an hour ago, and the hour before that, and the one before that, ad infinitum. All 6 of my wingmen checked in, as did the supply frigate.
           "No damage. ETA to the conversion point is 4 hours, 36 minutes. Keep up the good work, Alpha wing." Somebody snorted over the comm.
           "Work? We're getting paid for this?"
           I had to smile. The proper commanding officer would have told them to cut the chatter, but they'd been flying silent for three hours, and I didn't want them too strung up. Another pilot laughed; Chen, I thought.
           "Paid? You know we're getting hazard bonuses for this? Anything 3 or more klicks past the Human/Hrasi border is considered extremely dangerous." That caused a cascade of chuckles to go around.
           "Even escorting syringes to backwater farmers?" somebody asked. A feminine voice came over the radio authoritatively.
           "Settle down," my first, Roe, commanded the pilots, "I can't hear myself think." They grumbled.
           "Yes, mother," one of them quipped. Bad move.
           "Gauss, I want to speak with you personally when we get back," she intoned. I smirked as the pilots went through a round of child-like 'uh-ohs' at the unlucky pilot. Chen made a snide suggestion at the reason Roe might want to see Gauss, and the 'uh-ohs' turned to catcalls and encouraging words for Gauss.
           "Shut the hell up!" she said, sounding appropriately vexed. I flicked my com from 'receive' to 'send' and got on Roe's private channel.
           "Something bothering you, Roe?" Her reply was uneasy.
           "Got a really funny feeling, Aaron. Don't think it's just us out here." That started me worrying; Roe had a good sense of when things were bad or about to become so. That was why she was my first. I tried to reason my way out of the premonition.
           "Don't worry about it, Roe. I'm not," I lied. "This isn't much of a system. It has one lousy star, a desert planet, and no resources to speak of. Hrasi wouldn't bother to put forces here, or even stop here. There isn't even a gas giant to siphon off fuel from."
           "Yeah, I suppose I worry too much," she said, sounding unconvinced. "I just don't feel good about this place. Maybe it's giving off bad vibes?" I couldn't tell whether or not that was a joke or not.
           "I'm going to scout ahead," I called over to the entire wing, "Roe thinks we've got company in-system." I could hear Chen sigh.
           "Come on, Boss. We get bonuses for fuel conservation. You really going to go chasing after shadows?" I ignored him, as did Roe herself.
           "Who wants to fly as backup?" The lone hero stuff was great in the vids, but I had no intention of risking my life flying solo. There was complete silence over the com.
           "Alright Mr. Gauss, you've just volunteered. The rest of you form up behind Roe." I punched in a course for the conversion point, set my engines a good clip above the rest of the wing, and settled to rest as my fighter pulled ahead of the pack. On a whim I brought up the rear view and watched the frigate shrink in the distance until it was less than a speck. Basic radar showed a clean system, so I began some more in-depth scans.
           There were the obvious gravity wells of the star and planet, and of course the dead space of the conversion point, but not much else. Distorted readings came from a dust cluster about a click above us, but nothing particularly sinister or out of place. When I looked through the scans harder I discovered nothing. The area was clear. Conversion point's only another five or ten minutes from here, I thought. I could go scout out the next system, maybe get a few hours rest at the colony. The idea didn't take long to be settled.
           "Gauss," I radioed, "Let's scout out the C-point and the colony system. Don't want to be ambushed coming out of a conversion." There was no answer. "Gauss," I radioed, "You acknowledge that?" Still no answer. I sighed irritatedly; my squadron had a very poor sense of humor and timing. "Gauss, I know you're there; the system is empty." I waited. "Gauss, report in, dammit!" He didn't reply. That man is dead, I thought. Let me near him and he's dead. I rescanned the area, looking for the telltale beacon of my wingman's ship. When the results came up I cursed. There was no Gauss.
           There were no Hrasi either, just the conversion point and a damned dust cloud. I didn't understand. Were there Hrasi with no beacons? They'd still show up on a gravity plot: nothing here to hide near. Except…
           When I finally realized the scan's implications I banked the nose of my fighter around to the dust cloud and cut off my beacon. "Dirty alien bastards," I swore at them. By then I was far out of simple radio range, and we had removed our tightbeam dishes for more fuel pods. There was no way to warn the escort group. I cursed again and again at my stupidity, as though it would help.
           As I approached the dust cloud I switched off my superfluous systems and went to manual targeting. Without the sensors I had to crane my neck to see everything my cockpit could show me. I looked back at the frigate's direction for hostiles chasing back the way Gauss and I came, and was immediately rewarded by a dozen points of engine light. They were going hunting, and so was I.
           I hit my afterburners to come up half a kilometer behind them and matched their speeds, angling for a shot. The frigate had reappeared as a shining dot. Suddenly the Hrasi wing boosted their engines and formed a tight bombing-claw formation. No dust cloud, no hiding, I realized, and dumped my entire missile load into their formation before they saw me and broke it. My ship groaned protestingly as I pulled it in a 90° climb and brought my secondary systems back online. Sensors whirred to life and read me enemy damage reports.
           Lousy Hrasi engineers must not have accounted for tail hits. My fighter's 6-missile complement had wiped out a third of the twelve Hrasi pilots. The rest broke formation and sphered around the supply frigate, attacking it from all sides. They were just starting to take fire from my wingmen. "Trap!" I yelled over the intercom. "Form up against those bombers before we lose the frigate!" It was far, far too late.
           Lances of light speared out from the Hrasi bombers to embrace the supply ship, which split like an overripe fruit. Human and Hrasi alike pulled out from near the frigate, heedless of its pleas. A series of explosions ripped the ship apart as friends and foes escaped the blast. That's one of many memories I have of a ship dying. The image stuck.
           No sooner had the fighters come to a safe distance than they began to fight again. I plunged into a pair of Hrasi bombers and ripped one apart with flak cannons before the other had even started to change vector. Slow reaction times… they were rookies. It didn't give me any qualms to know that as I tailed the other bomber and shot him a new exhaust port. Chen's voice came over the radio, full of static.
           "Need assist-…." he screamed before breaking up. Christ, I thought, they're not all green. My radar showed five of them left and five of us.
           "Team on them," I called, "They're green pilots." It was Roe that responded, sounding calm and unperturbed.
           "You got it, sir."
           I had changed focus to getting a Hrasi in my sights. The little bastard wasn't much of a pilot, but it sure was scared. Give them that much, I thought; they fear death too. My quarry flit back and forth in a nervous frenzy as I tailed it. In a moment of crazed decision the fool veered away from the rest of the battle. If he ever had a chance, the idiot had just botched it. I smiled grimly and toggled through my weapon inventory to find something that could track the evasive little critter.
           Most of the missiles were spent, but I found a pair of capital ship killers. They were ridiculously excessive for taking out a fighter; that hardly stopped me. My prey dodged starboard and I twisted to match him as I waited for the missile to acquire its target. Thirty seconds, then twenty, then ten. I lined up my crosshairs on him and pressed the trigger.
           The shock of the missile firing jolted my ship backwards. I watched as the exhaust trail of the missile traced a path right up into the Hrasi's tail section. Fighter and missile joined to become one short-lived incandescent star, then quieted to an expanding ball of shrapnel. Nice try, I silently hailed him, but not good enough. I turned back to the radar and took in a sharp breath. There was one ship left: a Hrasi barreling down on me. My mind and sentimentality cried out and raced with questions: Roe? My wing? Dead? Alive?
           Thankfully, my training made up for such shortcomings. Even as the idea of being the only one left sunk in I pulled my ship into a wheeling maneuver that put me facing my opponent. Bastard, I thought, time to pay. It was almost close enough. The moment it broke into my weapons range I threw everything left in my ship's power reserves at it, firing wildly as I spun to get behind it. Surprisingly, it did the same, and the net effect was that we whirled around each other like a cat chasing her tail.
           Dully, I noticed that it was firing at me. I just forced tighter and tighter curves out of my craft, much to the distress of its frame. We tumbled through space towards the system's single planet. I was damned if I'd let the son of a bitch tail me, and he was just as adamant, so we continued flying in ever-smaller circles. Then my opponent bailed out.
           "Had enough?" I called over the radio gleefully. My opponent chose not to respond.
           I completed my curve and saw him facing the other direction. "Got you too," I growled, "Say hi to Roe for me, you son of a bitch."
           I poured cannon fire into the Hrasi's engines, but, impossibly, it managed to slither out of the way after only a few hits. Then it spun around to fire at me. I twisted away, but the few hits in my aft were all it took; my ship died and suddenly came under a pull that pressed me into my seat: the planet's gravity. It was little consolation to see my opponent coming down after me.
           Great, I thought; so at least we die together. I wondered if the air down there was breathable while I waited for the planet's atmosphere to strip away my craft. Guess I might get to find out, I thought…
          

---v---

          
           Acrid smoke filled the cockpit. The stench of oil wafted in from above, pervading every corner of the cramped room. I coughed hard; I couldn't breath the murky soup that was filling the cockpit. All there was to see was the yellow-gray of fumes, but there was brightness piercing it to my left. My legs felt crushed under the ship's consoles, but I was able to wrench them out. I thrashed from the wreckage that was my seat and crawled towards the brightness. The smoke thinned out as I came closer. My hands groped forward, step by step, until one didn't meet the ship's hull and I fell forward. There were one, two, and then three flips before the ground came up to slam against my back. The air was sweet and smoke-clear, and I gulped greedily. What are the odds? I thought. Survive a landing in a fighter that wasn't supposed to be able to, and I get a planet that has a halfway decent atmosphere. Better than coastal Terra, anyway.
           I rolled out of the way of the smoke and staggered a few steps to be clear of it. Steppe was my first impression; there were rolling hills, deep valleys, and several mesas. The skies were a pale blue-green tinged with wispy clouds, while an orange sun beat down on yellow sands. I coughed again, trying to clear my lungs of the smoke. As I looked around, a metal glint caught my eye.
           I was at a cliff-top overlooking a river down at the bottom of a valley. Down at the bottom was the ruined wreck of another fighter-sized ship, spewing smoke. I had a sinking feeling at the sight of it. "Why won't you just die?" I grumbled. Maybe it was dead. I stared at the wreck intently, watching for movement; there was none. I wondered at the fate of the other pilot. Was he dead?
           I had a pang of doubt. Dead, maybe, but it could easily have survived. Images came of a vague shape slashing out at me in the night. I dispelled the thought, but then something else gnawed on me. What did a Hrasi look like?
           That settled it; I darted back into the fighter to grope for the survival pack, fished it out, and then started downward.
          

---v---

          
           I trudged down the valley for the better part of an hour, picking my way to the Hrasi ship. Eventually I came to the ruined heap, which lay like a carcass against the banks of the river. The bomber really was a once-magnificent beast, disfigured and torn to pieces. I had never stopped to look at Hrasi fighters, but now, even with the scars I had given it, I could appreciate the intrinsic beauty in its curves and design. The ground around the ship was blackened with scrap and melted metal ripped from the beast's once-intimidating prow.
           The sight of it brought me assurance that I was alone, that the other pilot was surely dead. It was a bit of a relief. He's dead, he couldn't have survived, I thought to myself. But then, I had. I needed to be sure he was dead.
           I picked my way to the front of the fighter and quickly recognized the cockpit. Well, there was that at least. The windows were jet black to cut back on glare and brightness. Or at least that was what I had always assumed. They could, I supposed, be blind and just have decided to make their windows that way to scare the human pilots. No one had ever seen a Hrasi, although the two races had spoken often enough. I'd gotten to know one as they'd repeatedly skirmished us during a frontline operation; almost let the bastard live as human forces swept the Hrasi ships away. I'd never seen one, though; no one had. Now there was one not six feet away from me, separated by a one-way window. Damn all.
           I didn't have to look far to find a metal bar suitable to break the window. I raised the debris above the window, ready to shatter it, then hesitated. Did Hrasi breathe Oxygen? I might be able to manage the planet's thick atmosphere, but could he? "Ah, the hell with it," I said to myself, "He'll die if I leave him, assuming he's not dead already. Besides," I grumbled, "There's no reason to lavish too much concern on the bastard that killed my entire damned wing…" I brought the bar down on the window hard. Nothing. I slammed it down several more times, and a few hairline cracks appeared. When I beat it as hard as I could two or three last times those cracks widened and a half dozen later the window simply gave out.
           I peered through the small hole I had made. There was a bipedal figure sprawled over what looked like a very large control panel. The figure, much to my disappointment, was not very revealing. It was decked in flight gear that looked a lot like an ancient American 'airforce' flight suit: a thick helmet connected to a padded bomber jacket, long black gloves, and a well-padded pair of pants going down to dull black boots. In all there wasn't a patch of Hrasi showing - he could have been a human. The chest, I suddenly realized, was pulsing faintly. He's alive! I thought.
           I mercilessly battered down the rest of the window until there was a hole big enough to crawl through, then slid into the cramped cockpit and wrestled the pilot out of his restraints. He came up to about my chin, and I felt his breath as his chest pulsated in my arms.
           He may have been small, but the pilot was damned heavy. Somehow I managed to get the two of us out of that hellishly dark cockpit and into the evening light. I carried him the hundred meters or so to the river and laid him down by the riverbank. Well, I thought, here's the moment of truth: he's still got his suit on, so he could still be breathing methane or something. I sat down beside him and, after much fiddling with the connections of the jacket, pried off his helmet.
           I reared back in shock, then shook my head to make sure my eyes were working correctly. The pilot's face, though covered in blood, was unmistakably feline.
           A short muzzle began in a black, leathery nose and traveled upwards to a pair of amber-green eyes. The face was completed with a pair of tufted ears - one with a single silver ring - and a set of glistening white teeth. He reminded me of a cougar or cheetah. A cougar or cheetah on acid, a cougar or cheetah who flew starships and wore archaic jumpsuits.
           The pilot was limp, his eyes glazed and unseeing, his nostrils occasionally flaring. His features were delicate, even beautiful, if very predatory. The prey in me would be more intimidated if he wasn't bleeding everywhere, I thought to myself. I did this to him. But damn, he hadn't been going easy on me either! Still, that wasn't much to appease my guilt; it was a lot harder actually seeing the poor bloke I'd torn to pieces than just shooting some hostile pile of junk.
           I knew the pilot was bleeding too much to live for long if I didn't help him. I considered leaving him to die for a moment, but the idea was quickly crushed by a wave of conscience. He wasn't in a position to hurt me, so why hurt him? You're one of the good guys, I reminded myself. I took the medical kit from my survival pack and did my best to plasm and / or bandage the cuts on his face, then wrestled with his flight jacket until it acquiesced and came off with his gloves.
           The man's hands were relatively untouched, but had fearsome retractable claws at the end of each digit. His torso, on the other hand, was a burned mess of gashes that ran from just under the neck to the stomach. I touched him, ran my hand down his blood-caked fur. Even in his sorry state I could feel pure muscle under that hide, like liquid steel. He certainly had the brawn advantage over me; I definitely had to be careful with him. This wasn't someone I could fight down on my own.
           I plasmed the pilot's chest and dressed his wounds as best I could. By the time I had finished, though, his breath had become fainter than ever, and his pants were soaked red. No choice: I sighed, shook my head, and took those off too. Better not wake up now, I thought to him as I worked on sliding his pants off, I don't want to give you the wrong impression. When I looked again I felt my face turning red; he was rather definitively a she.
           I got to work bandaging her thighs and legs, which were smeared liberally with blood, and hoped more fervently than ever that she didn't wake up before I was done. After I'd finished I drew a standard issue survival blanket from the pack and wrapped her up in it. Leaving her unrestrained gave me serious qualms, but I didn't have anything to tie her with, and she'd probably be able to rip, bite, or slash through it anyway. I rinsed the blood from her clothes in the stream, stopping to wonder afterwards if it was safe to drink, and then scavenged the local greenery until I had a decent-sized fire going to dry them off. By the time all of this had been accomplished the skies had dimmed, it was much cooler, and my Hrasi had begun to breath more deeply.
           I was tending to the fire when I heard a rustle from her spot behind me. She was tossing and turning spastically in her blanket-bed. I came over to put a hand against her cheek. Bad move: her eyes opened and her entire body went rigid. She stammered something more like a noise than a word and promptly collapsed. I considered this for a moment, then turned back to the fire. This reoccurred several times as the day grew on. She'd always wake up to my visage and faint back again, but I was determined to be there when she regained consciousness. It happened late in the day, at dusk.
           As per the norm, she announced herself with a quiet rustle, but this time when I turned to her I saw the pilot sitting up and looking around dazedly. When her eyes settled on me they bulged, but she didn't faint on me. Her ears flattened as she spat and growled at me.
           "Neths ahght kera imatah! Ssethi arath jothi Rroatha!"
           She tried to rise to her feet, but slipped under her own weight and landed back on her rump with an audible thump. Her eyes darted back and forth in desperation as she drew the blanket around herself and tried to crawl away. So much for the muscular build. Too weak to stand; this was my enemy?
           "Shh," I cooed gently, "Don't be afraid of me. I'm not about to hurt you." The Hrasi gave no sign of comprehension; without the ship's mechanical translators there was little hope of us understanding one another. All the sound of my voice served to do was to agitate her further.
           I rose to my feet and saw her tense. When I walked the few feet to her she fled the dignity of the blanket and scrambled back as far as she could. She crawled her way to a boulder and curled up in a ball at the base, muttering and moaning. My patient buried her head between her furry golden knees, but I could still see the glint of an eye watching me fearfully.
           I went and picked up the blanket, then slowly came to her side. I knelt beside her. "You want this?" I asked softly, "It's yours if you do." She didn't say anything, but simply sat there and shuddered. I draped the blanket around her and gently wrapped it in place, covering her legs and back. She raised her head, drew the blanket closer, and pressed herself against the boulder. She eyed me in terror, ears plastered to her skull. I raised out a hand to her face, which she averted.
           "I won't hurt you," I whispered, arm outstretched. She turned her head slowly to face mine, touching my hand in the process. I felt her muscles tense as her cheek brushed against my hand. A second time I felt her tawny gold fur, but this time she was wide awake. I drew the back of my hand down her neck, where I could feel her pulse racing, and let it continue down her chest until it rested on her blanketed knee.
           "Mah haro an, mah haro an, mah haro an," she murmured repeatedly. A plea, I realized. 'Don't hurt me, don't hurt me', or something of that ilk. I took my hand off her knee and picked up her paw lightly. She'll kill me in the night if she thinks I'm dangerous, I thought. I slowly brought her hand to rest on my neck about an inch from the jugular vein. She looked scared and confused. Her claws flexed in and out, as if undecided.
           "I'm your friend," I said evenly, "you have nothing to fear from me." My Hrasi stared at me dazedly for a minute, then dug in her claws lightly. The tips of her claws broke my skin almost imperceptibly, but I felt the points of blood well up. I sat perfectly still and let her watch my neck bleed as she debated whether or not to rip my throat out. Stupid, stupid, a voice in my head called out. You're a fool to let someone who tried to kill you at your throat.
           Finally a light died in her eyes, her claws pulled back, and she slumped to the ground beside me. I picked the exhausted Hrasi up haphazardly, cradling her into my arms. She looked at me warily, but slipped her arms around my neck and held herself there. "Kah'gf sha," She murmured. I carried her nearer the fire and laid her down on the ground.
           The survival pack had a small hazardous environment shelter that I took out and snapped together in smooth, well-practiced movements. My Hrasi was still eyeing me uncertainly, but there was a flicker of interest at the shelter. I smiled at her and spoke quietly. "A tent," I said. "It'll probably get fairly cold at night. No worries."
           When I had it set up I secured it on the ground with a few rocks and unzipped the flap. A single sleeping bed lay inside. I slid in and turned to look back outside, beckoning her to follow from her spot next to the fire. "Come on," I urged, "You'll freeze out there." She looked at me with ears waggling at half height, then crawled in with me, clutching protectively at the blanket. I opened up the sleeping blanket and waved an arm from her down to it. Then I rolled to the other side of the tent and watched her. She looked at me and wrinkled her nose, then pulled herself in. The leftover blanket she took and held out to me, proffering it. I took it and wrapped it around me. "Thanks," I murmured.
           I could see her ears flick upwards. She stretched partway out of the sleeping bag and rolled up towards me, ending on her stomach. I tentatively laid an arm across her back, hugging slightly. She growled at me and shuddered, so I loosened my grip until the arm just lay across her. We let it be; truce.
          

---v---

          
           The night froze our world. I was woken several times by the howling of the wind, as was my companion. Even through the protective covering of our tent the winds swept away the heat from my body. The ground was rough and lumpy, and I rolled back and forth as I tried finding a comfortable position. A few times my Hrasi woke me up in her own shuffling, which usually took her closer to me; I did the same.
           Once I was roused to find a paw rubbing at my cheek. Initially I had thought she wanted to wake me, but upon closer inspection I found that the paw's owner was simply twitching in her sleep. Being careful not to wake her, I drew her hand away from my face and around to my back, in case of being clawed. Then I was content to return to my sleep as my companion dreamt of hunting mice, or whatever she had been thinking of. Perhaps she'd been shooting down human ships.
           When I awoke the next morning I could feel trickles of light and heat seeping through the tent. The morning winds blew softly, making the shelter's walls billow. The blanket I had been so generously loaned from my Hrasi's 'wardrobe' had been crumpled into a ball up against me at the side of the tent. My lack of linens hadn't been missed; I had had a much warmer covering.
           A large, muscular, and very furry Hrasi lay half in and half out of her sleeping bag on top of me. Her exposed chest and head were resting up near my neck; I could feel her breath on my neck and the occasional ear spasming on my chin. She faintly pulsated as her chest expanded and deflated with each passing breath. Her lower chest disappeared past the third row of nipples into the sleeping bag and out of sight. From my position I could feel, but not see, the rest of her. Her thighs were spread around my right leg, one of her legs sliding down between mine and the other following the outside of my right leg. To top it all, she had a rumbling purr that vibrated through me at every exhalation.
           I could feel her claws at my shoulders and back, I realized belatedly. It had been a risky move to bed down in the same tent as her, especially this soon. What if she had taken offense? I asked myself. She'd have ripped my throat out in the night; she still had the chance when she woke up. I pulled away my arms, which had been slipped in her bag and down her back to rest on her furry buttocks.
           She looked so content that I was loathe to wake her, but I could hardly have just denied my responsibilities and slept in there forever with her. Her face was the image of restfulness; both eyes were drooped shut, her ears lay forward, and her face muscles were slack. I brought my freed hands up to caress her face, tugging slightly on her whiskers and running my fingers up and down the inner rim of her ear.
           She purred a luxurious, resonating sound as her face reacted to the touch. I stroked her face to stronger and stronger purrs, never waking her, until her rumbling was something akin to a thunderstorm. Feeling brave, I decided to move on, and planted a light kiss on her nose. No response but purrs. I kissed her cheek up to her mouth and then ran my tongue tentatively through her open muzzle to glide over her canines. Still, she made no sound but her background purrs.
           A decent person would have stopped there. No, a decent person wouldn't have come to my situation in the first place. Unfortunately, at the time I was acting far from the reasonable and decent norm. I stroked down to the ruff behind her neck, and then moved my hand up to right below her ears, scratching them softly. She purred deeply as I moved my face to hers. I pressed my lips against her and kissed her deeply, cutting off her purrs at the throat.
           My companion moaned softly into me, and then twitched an ear as her eyes slid open groggily. She looked confusedly at me, then, becoming more aware of what she was engaged in, went tense. I broke off my kiss and dropped my hand even as she pulled away from me. She hissed, spat, and sputtered at me, ears flattening, muzzle wrinkling. I tried to hold myself as close to the ground as possible, but she was lying right on top of me. She was enraged, shivering violently and cursing me in her unintelligible speech. Claws wrapped around my face, threatening to rip at me.
           I didn't make a sound, staring at her in terror. Her muscles spasmed in her arms; I could feel the vibrations on my sweating forehead. I nearly flipped when her claws came out, but she didn't use them. Instead she dropped her arms away from my face to instead grab a handful of my hair and yank my head forward until I was staring down her muzzle as if it was the barrel of a gun. The pain of it shot through my head and I winced, crying out. She twisted my hair around her hand mercilessly and brought a single claw up to my throat. Then she snarled lowly at me.
           "Ko ska har tamath lla, khe shka ohsko shi. Khahma?"
           The last word sounded like a question. "Yeah," I gasped, "I understand. No more of that. Will you stop yanking on my hair already?" She stared at me for a moment, hissed, then bounced my head off the floor painfully and rolled in her sleeping bag to the other side of the shelter to glare at me.
           I came up to a crouch, and picked up the blanket. When I crawled to her she growled at me again, once more threatening in a guttural rumble. "Sorry," I mumbled, "I shouldn't have done that." She simply stared. I offered the blanket a second time to her lamely. There was a little bit of her blood on it from the previous evening, and she did a double take at the sight of it.
           "Lla? Lla hamin auf sh'uah?" She stammered. I raised an eyebrow exaggeratedly.
           "What was that?" I questioned. My companion gaped, then began waving her arms and pointing wildly. I caught one of those arms to interrupt her. "Calm down," I soothed, "go slowly." She pointed first at the blanket's blood, then at the dressings on her wounds, then at me, giving me a questioning look all the while. When I didn't show signs of comprehension she took my hand and put it on her neck as I had done for her. I nodded. "Yeah, that was me that saved you. But I didn't save you so I could…you know."
           She flinched at the sound of my voice, looked fearfully at me, and curled to fetal position. Scared of me? I thought. The same person who was about to kill me a minute ago? Was she a schitz? I ventured to pat her bare shoulder in what I hoped she would find a comforting manner. The Hrasi wouldn't meet my gaze, but trembled at my touch and growled quietly.
           I grasped at one of her hands and gave it a tug towards the shelter's entrance, then dropped it and went outside to peer back at her. "Hungry?" I asked. She wasn't moving. I patted my stomach for clarification. "Tell you what: If it'll make you feel better, I'll make you breakfast. Come out of there; I swear I won't hurt you again. Please?"
           Perhaps she understood me, perhaps not. In any case, my Hrasi obediently slithered out of her sleeping bag and crawled out of the shelter, completely nude, to sit on her feet Japanese-style beside me. My face felt hot as I blushed, opening my mouth to protest. Then I shut it, feeling excessively foolish. The morning had already become warm; with that fur coat there was absolutely no way a sane being would want extra clothing; it would literally be suicide. I tried not to think ungentlemanly things about my companion, especially considering what had happened a minute earlier.
           When I found the campfire it wasn't dead, just resting. Under all the coverings of white ash were a few telltale wisps of smoke that I fed and stirred, rousing the flame back to it's former glory. My Hrasi friend, much to my surprise, seemed to want to stay with me. Whenever I got up to get firewood or stoke the flame from a different angle she'd crawl behind, sitting down beside me in that same posture every time. I examined her pose as I was fishing through the survival pack for food and cooking tools.
           She sat with her rump on the soles of her feet, knees close together and back tilted forward. Her head was downcast, but with ears pricked forward, her eyes averted from mine to stare at the wrists she had bared upwards as she rested her arms on her legs. A vulnerable, subservient pose, I thought. Perhaps she thought she was a slave, or perhaps she wanted me to think so. I put my free hand on her neck as I rummaged through the pack, scratching idly. She arched her back higher almost imperceptibly; not wanting to change her pose but not particularly interested in being rubbed in that spot either. I smiled and tried to accommodate her, moving my hand down her back as her subtle shifts guided me. I seemed to hit the spot for her when she began to purr faintly, then abruptly stopped. Embarrassed? I wondered.
           A search for breakfast managed to turn up something I thought might appeal to my Hrasi: canned sausage and freeze-dried scrambled egg mix. Those came out along with some coffee packets and a few metal bowls to cook them all in. When I rose to walk to the river to get some water to purify so I could fix breakfast, my companion tried to follow.
           "No, stay here," I told her, "I'll be right back." She still crawled after me, of course, so I turned to her and crouched down. I held my hand palm-out to her and pushed lightly on her nose until she stopped hesitatingly. "Just stay here," I told her. She started crawling to me even as I was turning back to the river. I wheeled back on her, making her lay on her back, splayed out fearfully. The sight was sad, but given the past few exchanges I found it ironically funny. I could restrain my first few giggles, but gave up trying after a minute and just chuckled at her. She wouldn't look at me directly, but watched my feet with confused nervousness, which only made me laugh harder.
           When I was done I bent down and put the pots on her stomach. She clutched at them, then almost dropped them when I picked her up. I heard a small 'uroww' of startled fear from her as I hoisted her up and carried her to the river. Just for fun, I held her out past the shore and over the water. She flailed about and mewled protest for a minute, but calmed down after she noticed that I wasn't about to drop her in.
           We collected our water and went back to the campsite. My Hrasi spilled most of it all over her lower stomach and chest on the way back; I would have had quite a few lewd comments for her if she could've understood me. As it was she snarled in frustration whenever she spilled a drop.
           When we returned I boiled the water and tossed the eggs and coffee into their respective bowls, then turned to my friend, who had since resumed her posture. I reached my hand into her chest fur and tickled. She growled ever so softly, but didn't move to stop me. There was that warning, though, so I removed the hand and put both on her shoulders.
           "Relax," I said, whispering into her ears, "I'm your friend. Trust me." She didn't respond, intent on keeping position, but the soothing sounds that I had tried to use must have some effect; her growl petered out to nervous breathing. I shook my head ruefully. "Don't trust me? I guess I don't have a very good track record with you. I'll make it up to you." I knew full well that she couldn't understand a single word I was saying, but it felt better to be able to talk to someone.
           "Here," I said, pulling back on her shoulders, "let me see how your wounds are doing." All she knew was that I wanted her to lie down, so she started growling again. "No," I said firmly, "Not that. Just checking your wounds." She fought, but was blood-loss weakened enough for me to take her down.
           I had her in my lap, on her back. Her head was laying across my right knee, baring her throat at me, while her chest and thighs sank into the folds of my cross-legged posture, her legs hanging out over the other side of my left knee. She said something in her sibilant, rumbling tongue, but all I heard were frightened noises.
           I laid a hand on her neck to feel her pulse, causing her to gasp in. She went rigid and I could feel the life-beat in her neck racing. When my hand didn't choke, stab, or slash at her for an entire minute she calmed down to shallow breaths. Her eyes still couldn't meet mine, but that hardly mattered.
           The medkit was at the top of my pack. I grabbed it with my free hand, flipped it open, and waved the contents over her head. "See?" I told her, "I'm your friend. I'm going to help you. Help, hear?" I set it down beside me and began to inspect her body. With both hands I started at her face and ran my hands over every part of her, looking for painful areas. I poked her wounds softly, looking for sensitive, poorly set plasm and bandage jobs. There were none, much to my relief.
           I rubbed more insistently at the patches of her fur I thought had bruises under them. Whenever I found one I'd take a bit of topical anesthetic and rub it in. She winced and twisted a little bit, but overall did an excellent job of bearing the assault on her person. It probably helped that the anaesthetic was killing off all the pain from her bruised muscles.
           When I was done I helped her back to her knees, and was rising up when her hand tugged at my pants leg. I crouched back down and she rose her face just enough to nip at the stubble on my unshaven chin, then gave it a cursory lick. "Huran shke" she murred up to my ear. I supposed it meant 'thank you', so I scratched her cheek. "Any time," I replied. It was the first time she'd tried to interact with me since almost killing me earlier that morning. I decided that I liked the second encounter better.
           There was a matter I thought I should attend to: her clothes. I walked past the campfire to the spot where I'd left them the previous day and brought them to her. She tossed most of the clothes aside, but chose to keep her pair of soft, blue briefs. I watched her amusedly while she tried to put them on in her weakened state. To her credit, she got one leg on, albeit the wrong one. I knelt down to her and helped her to finish the job. When we were done she was sitting upright in my lap again, ears wilted in embarrassment. I put an arm around her back and twisted her so she was sitting on top of my legs and facing me. When her eyes wouldn't come up I drew my hand up to her muzzle and angled her head until she couldn't help but look at me.
           "You have a name?" I asked, "because I do." When there was no response I touched my chest, tapping it several times. "I'm Aaron," I said. "Aaron. Aa-ron." My Hrasi gulped.
           "An. Arn. Ay-rhun. Ahrn. Khos Ahrn." She finally mangled my name to a single sound. I nodded, then put a hand on her chest.
           "You have a name?" I asked. She said something like a snarl and growl blurred together.
           "Say that again?"
           "Amara."
           "Amara," I said, rolling the name around my mouth. I rubbed her muzzle, then down to her shoulders. They were tensed, but not as tense as when she was panicked. There was more muscle there than I had; her injuries and goodwill could have been the only things keeping me alive. "Amara. You're safe with me. Promise." She stared at me uncomprehendingly, but it didn't matter.
           Cradling her was certainly not a task to be neglected, but there was a more important job at hand: breakfast. I gently indicated that she should get off me, which she immediately did with undue haste. Probably thinks I'll shoot her if she displeases me, I thought. The coffee was beginning to smell distinctly done, while the eggs were giving off a burnt scent. I rescued both from the fire and laid them on the ground, fishing the one cup, spoon, and fork set from the survival kit. I dunked the cup in the coffee to draw out a decent amount, then set the rest between Amara's knees. The eggs I placed directly between us, the fork on my side and the spoon on hers.
           She broke posture long enough to lie on her stomach and lap at the coffee bowl. The heat of the coffee made her yank her head back in pain. "It's a little hot," I said belatedly, then frowned at her posture. "Why are you laying down?" I asked, then pulled her back to her kneel and put the bowl in her hands. Amara lapped tentatively again, and then used more powerful strokes to down all the coffee she could. I shook my head in wonderment at that, then took a sip of my own. When she was done with the bowl she raised it inquiringly.
           "Maru erh khe ra, khos Ahrn?" All I picked up was my name, but I had a general idea of what she wanted.
           "You want more, Amara?" I asked, mocking incredulity. She visibly sank at the tone of my voice, and I had to stifle a giggle. I took my half-empty cup and gave it to her. Amara stared at it for a moment, tried to lap up the contents unsuccessfully, and then simply dumped the whole thing into her bowl.
           The eggs and sausage we shared. I've never liked military rations, particularly not the freeze-dried ones, but I have to say that they were a lot better with someone to share them with. Amara wasn't used to a spoon meant for human mouths, but she adapted. We spent the morning eating in silence.
           Out of a random thought I speared a bit of egg and held it up to Amara. "Egg," I said, then devoured it. She scooped up some, pondered it for a bit, then held it out to me. "Ausu," she declared it, then ate hers as well. I pointed at the eggs. "Ausu," I said. Her ears flicked and she pointed as well. "Ehgg."
          
           End Part 1