Part 4

The Meager

          The carrier was huge. I hadn't gotten to see it from far away, but just from walking around in it I knew it had to be one of their big bruisers, the Hrasi super-carrier. We humans didn't have anything that big: too uneconomical. They were hell to fight, though. Even if I hadn't left my wing with Gauss and we'd trounced Amara's ambush, we wouldn't have stood a chance of leaving the system alive. I wondered what it was doing in an uninhabited system three jumps from any strategic human or Hrasi position.
           Then I remembered where the convoy with the medicines had been going. The colony lay just on the other side of the conversion point we'd been fighting near, which meant they'd probably sent a scout through to investigate it. I'd seen images of colonies hit by Hrasi strikes. They didn't leave much. I prayed they'd missed it.
           We walked for almost half an hour: apparently there were no working elevators between where we were and where we were going. We had over a kilometer to walk, and an additional 15 flights of stairs to go up. By the time we'd gotten up to the fifth flight my Hrasi escorts were panting, and they jogged up the stairs exhaustedly. The sedative had managed to work its way out of me by then, so I was still going strong.
           "Khos... Khos Ahrn," Amara gasped raggedly, "slow down. You're supposed to be weaker than we are... I can't go any further..." Maura stopped, sat down on the stairs, and gave her a sideways look.
           "Tired, little sister? You need to work on your [endurance?]."
           "Maura, you [hypocrite?], you're [panting?] too." Maura's ears twitched forward.
           "Yeah, but I'm not the one with a master. You said yourself you wanted to [be like?] him."
           "Khos Ahrn," Amara whined, "You don't get tired quickly enough." I walked back down and knelt beside her, offering out my hand.
           "You want me to carry you?" She just grinned, and turned to Maura.
           "Not so bad, huh? Being this guy's slave has its [perks?]."
           "Oh no you don't," Maura panted, "You're the one trying to get [better?]. If he's going to carry anybody it's going to be me."
           "How about both of you?" I suggested, wrapping an arm around each Hrasi's back and hoisting them up at the shoulders. I practically had to drag them up the remaining ten flights of stairs.
           "You're pretty strong for a human," Maura commented. It was about as close to a compliment as I'd gotten so far. I took it humbly.
           "I'm not, I just don't tire out as easily."
           "Well, you can't carry us any more. I don't think it would [go over?] very well if you [came in?] dragging us behind you. I want you to stay behind me so the pilots don't kill you before we can [explain?] our... [unique?] position. They might kill you [afterwards?] anyway, but if you walked in [man-handling?] another pilot and a mechanic they'd go after you for sure." I nodded and took the cue to let the two of them go.
           "Where is this place?" Maura just stood there, but I noticed her ears slanting over towards the left, down another corridor that the stairwell had opened up to. Both Amara and Maura strode forward confidently into what must have been intimately familiar territory for them. I followed behind meekly.
           We traveled down another colorless hallway. In this one, however, the engineers had barely bothered to install lights, using only the floor guideline lights you sometimes see on passenger ships and planes. It only reinforced my idea that they must have pretty good night vision. I, however, couldn't see worth a damn, and told Amara so.
           "Ah, I'm sorry khos Ahrn. I forgot about human vision." She made a shuffling noise, then pawed my hand. "Here, just hold my hand. The pilot's room isn't as dark."
           We wandered for another minute or two through the dark, twisting maze of the deck, but Amara and Maura knew exactly where they were going. There were a few corners I didn't expect, but Amara managed to pull me around most of them, and apologized profusely at the others. Maura just snorted. I knew we'd reach our destination when the pair stopped and I all but ran over Amara. Instead I just managed to knock her against the wall.
           "Sorry," I whispered, but Amara just laughed and patted my cheek.
           "Idiot," Maura muttered, then touched a keypad that suddenly opened up what I had assumed was a wall, streaming light straight at me. I covered my eyes with my arms reflexively, but quickly pulled them away when I realized who was probably on the other side. Didn't want to look weak in the eyes of fellow pilots, never mind huge predatory fellow pilots.
           Inside was a hauntingly familiar yet completely alien scene. On one level the place was your typical pilot's lounge. A dozen low, circular tables of dirty silver metal dotted the room, each with four seats apiece. A row of booths lined the left wall with soft yellow-toned lights pouring in from overhead bulbs, stark contrast to the cold white light of the rest of the room. They still use incandescents, I realized. How quaint.
           There was also a bar directly to our right with a clearly recognizable tap, barstools, and a bartender idly reading a data pad. At the far end was the row of flight sims synonymous with the pilot's lounge. I'd been spoiled on my last carrier assignment, having been given use of a 20-person full combat simulation environment, and had been able to train my wing against one another every day we didn't fly patrol - they'd always hated me for it. These looked beaten up: a row of 6 mock cockpits with old, discolored paint that I could see was peeling even from my 50 foot position.
           There were a pair of double doors back there, presumably leading to the barracks. As was typical for space-loving pilot's lounges, the entire right wall was a thick window with a view out to the cosmos. Exactly what I'd have expected from a veteran carrier lounge - even the quiet murmurs of conversation and strange chords from a Hrasi with a stringed instrument at the bar were perfectly in place with my conception of what pilot country felt like.
           That was where the similarities ended. Hrasi lined the place, a good thirty or forty of them. Each table had three or four Hrasi sitting at it: some playing cards, some drinking, and a few murmuring around small holograms or books. Everyone had a drink next to him or her, and a good number had plates of food as well. The bar was sparsely populated by couples and trios, as were the booths. A few Hrasi stood around the sims watching their occupants fight it out against one another. Everyone went dead silent at my arrival.
           A few Hrasi shifted nervously in their seats. There were a few hisses, some growls, and other assorted hostile or distressed noises. Maura shoved right past me to face the room, then grabbed me by the arm and tried to wave me through the crowd. I balked, wary of the crowd of predators. Amara slipped to my other side from behind me, eliciting a wave of murmurs that varied from surprise to shock. She came to rest at my side, leaning on me and laying her head on my shoulder. Those murmurs went to confusion and disgust pretty quickly, but if anything it only served to make Amara hold on closer. Maura looked back at the two of us.
           "Don't make a damned scene," she whispered, pulling on me more insistently. I was busy searching through the Hrasi swarm, drinking in their faces and individual variations, and pulled away from her. "Hey! Moron! Wake up!" Maura was hissing with fury quietly at me. "Come on, fool. Let's go before somebody decides to fight." Amara nudged me in the back with her paw, and I took the hint. If Maura said go that was one thing, but if Amara said go it was safe for sure. I gave in to Maura, who immediately started weaving through the tables towards the double doors in the back. As Amara and I more cautiously picked our way through the crowd behind her a furred hand glided out from one of the tables and caught me on the hip.
           "Hrrnn... What're you doing here, human?" The last word was sneered contemptuously. I turned to see a huge, grizzled old Hrasi with notched ears and scars lining its face. It was looking at me with a mixed look of disgust and incredulance. "You don't come up here. I don't care if Maura's your owner, or anyone else. Get back to wherever you came from." I gave it a cold glance.
           "The hell with you, cat." Across the table, a single light-colored Hrasi shifted uncomfortably and bristled at the reference, but neither my assailant nor anyone else seemed to notice. "I'd love to go back where I came from, but I can't. But I'll damn well go where I please." The Hrasi growled indignantly.
           "You've got a problem, boy. You don't talk to Hrasi like that if you want to live. I don't care who you are." It looked me up and down. "What kind of human is it that [questions?] and insults Hrasi? Did they take your [maleness? - an odd conjugation on 'man'] away from you? Are you a [eunuch?]? And why can't you speak [ ]?" It barraged me with its infuriated questions. I was only too happy to oblige her.
           "I'm a soldier. I kill ugly bastards like you. And I don't have a master." By this time Maura had turned around and was coming back to rescue me, but Amara stepped away from my side and stopped her, redirecting the two of them towards the bar. What the hell did that mean? That I was safe? That I was too stupid to take care of anymore? My antagonist was tightly strung and appeared furious. Behind it, another Hrasi pulled itself up from a pile of empty glasses, radiating a stench of cheap booze.
           "Pilots only, kid," It slurred, "This's the pilot's room. If you can't fly, then get out."
           "I can fly," I responded, "I'm a pilot." The drunk growled at me noncommittally.
           "Fine then. You better stay here: it's not safe on the other [parts? / decks?] of the ship." I nodded curtly, smirking as recognition worked its way through the grizzled Hrasi.
           "Damn," It cursed, "You're a real damn human. A real damned [true-bred?] human. No Hrasi selection at all? An enemy damn pilot... The hell are you doing on a Hrasi deck? I should kill you!" A few others in the crowd murmured agreement, but the drunk didn't notice its colleague's animosity.
           "Sit down," the drunk hissed. Another dark-brown Hrasi at the table gave me one good look and fled with a snarl. I slipped into its vacated seat and leaned back into it, then turned to look at Amara.
           "Amara," I called, but she was all the way over at the corner of the bar, ordering a drink with Maura.
           "Forget them," the drunk rumbled, "Drink." It proffered a metal canister from below the table, which I uncapped and sniffed dubiously. The canister was something like beer, but I wasn't sure. It was probably safe, but I didn't know for sure. That consideration was enough hesitation to provoke the drunk. "Drink, damn you. Or are you too good to drink with me?" Mentally I shrugged, then took a sip to placate the drunkard. The stuff went down like fire and refused to settle in my stomach. Must have been two-thirds alcohol, or at least it seemed like that by the taste. I handed it back before I was encouraged to drink any more. "Better," the Hrasi grumbled.
           "It's a damn human," the older Hrasi hissed, "Don't [offer?] it a drink! Somebody throw it out, it [offends?] me!" the four Hrasi at the table in front of us rose and ambled towards me, but the drunk stopped them.
           "Hey, calm down. This is the pilot's [lounge?]; we're all pilots here. You going to throw out one of your [own? / kin?]? Let him alone. Don't [we?] pilots have to look out for each other?"
           "He's not part of '[we?]', Jaurn. He's human. Doesn't [matter] if he's a pilot." (That from the grizzled one). The drunk 'Jaurn' shook her head.
           "No, you got it wrong. It doesn't matter that he's human. He's a pilot. You know I'm right. Look, he's [sitting?] with us. He just [drank?] with us: he's alright. Just let him alone." The grizzled Hrasi didn't look happy, but waved down the four bruisers back to their tables.
           "I think you have a [reason? / motive?], Jaurn..."
           "No, just [morals? / conscience?]." Jaurn looked at me. "Hai, human. We'll let you live for now. Let's [hear?] why you're here." I blinked.
           "It's not a short... uh..."
           "[Story?]?" the light colored one offered. "We have time; we're not going [anywhere?] any [time?]."
           "I don't have the words yet."
           "I do," it responded. I nodded slowly, then did a double take. It'd spoken in English. Perfect, unaccented English. When it saw my surprise it smiled. "I'm fluent. Or at least I can speak human better than you can speak Hrasi. You have a name?"
           "Aaron. Aaron Sykes."
           "Aaron Sykes," she repeated in a clipped voice. Another dull shock.
           "You can actually pronounce my name? I thought your mouths..."
           "Practice fixes everything." Jaurn looked at the two of us suspiciously.
           "Speak Hrasi. I don't understand." The fluent cat switched back to Hrasi.
           "Of course you can't. He said he wanted to hear our stories first."
           "Don't tell me what to do," the scarred old one grumbled, but Jaurn nudged her and she shut up.
           This Jaurn was an oaken-brown Hrasi, with deep brown eyes and white fluff inside its ears. Wide stripes of darker fur ran across its belly, and were speckled with black spots. Draped around Jaurn was a thick chocolate-shaded tail: another tailed Hrasi.
           "Sounds fair," Jaurn hicced. "[Trade?] stories... alright. But you get me a drink."
           "I don't have money." Jaurn sneezed laughter.
           "You can [pay?] me [later]. You want to let me go first?" Everyone at the table nodded, so it continued. "This is not a long story. My brother wanted to be an engineer on a carrier, so he [joined up?] with the military. I [followed?] him, and they made me a pilot. Our first and only [assignment?] was on this ship. That was six years ago. He died in our first altercation with ICA forces, but I managed to survive. I've been stuck here since. I've been trying to get into a leadership position since then, but apparently being separated from my brother makes me unstable. There's solace in this stuff, though," it said, waving a bottle. "I should get some respect if they're going to force me to stay here." It looked at me bitterly. "You understand respect? Nobody cares about me, dammit, and I risk my life every day. Not out of duty, but because if I don't my own people will shoot-"
           "Enough," the grizzled one growled, "You're saying too much." Jaurn scowled, but bowed his/her head in deference. I felt incredibly sorry for Jaurn and taken aback at the Hrasi command system, but then I flashed back to what my entrance to military life had been like. It was a little too familiar. Jaurn nodded at the lightly colored Hrasi who spoke English so well, and it leaned forward in its seat. I coughed politely, trying to get their attention, but succeeded only with the older one.
           "What?"
           "May I... ask you all a question?" The older Hrasi cocked her head to the side.
           "What do you want?"
           "Ah... Can you tell me what your... genders are?" Jaurn chuffed wildly, drawing the notice of Hrasi across the room.
           "You can't tell? It's not obvious to you? I'm blind drunk and I can tell you're male by that awful [musk?] you're giving off."
           "I'm not a Hrasi..." I protested, but that got all three of the cats chuffing at me.
           "No, you're not," Jaurn sneezed between chuffs. "I suppose you couldn't smell much with a nose like that. But you're [serious?]? You can't tell?"
           "He can't tell by scent," the fluent one promised, "I've only met a few humans that could. You have to [train] them to smell for it." Jaurn looked at me with a wide grin.
           "I'll point the differences out later - later tonight, with some wine and a rented cabin." She grinned as I swallowed and blushed. "For the moment, though, everyone here is female except the musician and the one behind the bar."
           "Everyone? Where're the men pilots?"
           "Those two are it," The fluent provided. "Most Hrasi men don't make it. They get excited in battle: they can't control themselves. Fighting and flying are female things. A few men are good enough, but most aren't. You have a lot of male pilots?"
           "We don't have differences like that. We put the best where they do the best."
           "So do we," she countered, "It's just that women are most of the best." Jaurn set back her ears at the two of us.
           "Hurry it up, Naia." The fluent one bobbed her head.
           She was by far the choice of the lot. Probably would've been the choice of the room, if not for Amara: this Naia was gorgeous. Her body was the shade of cream, a pure silky pearl color. Her eyes were turquoise-green and made her look clever with their devious glint. Bright white guard hairs hung off her shoulders, arms, and mane like a snowy cape. Naia's chest on the other hand - she wore only a pair of loosely fitting breeches - was covered with short, wispy strands that looked like feathery down. A thin white tail lay lazily between her legs. Her pads, nose, and inner ear were all white, which made me think she was an albino. Her fur was bleached white and gray-striped around her hands, feet, and throat, which gave her a 'socks' look. All of that combined with her lithe shape and small statue made her a bombshell of a cat. She could just waltz through a human blockade, maybe show off a little, and there wouldn't be any more war.
           "I'm Naia," she began in English, but the older one broke in.
           "No. In Hrasi," she commanded. Naia nodded and resumed again in Hrasi.
           "I'm Naia. Naia aoh Khas'schti."
           "You're beautiful," I breathed almost reverently. Jaurn snorted and Naia looked down shyly.
           "Thanks... I'm glad you think so." She stared at me with more friendliness than seductiveness.
           "So, tell me how you learned English." She bobbed her head shyly.
           "Story of my life," Naia admitted.
           "Oh, that one," the grizzled Hrasi pilot growled, "Then go ahead and [recite? / tell?] it in human. None of us want to hear it again." I reserved my feeling towards such outbursts, actually grateful that Naia was going to talk to me in plain English. I needed to hear some human sound, even if it was coming from a Hrasi.
           "Khas'schti has always been a militant family. We've bred countless admirals and generals that have led ships, squadrons, and fleets. My father was such a man; he captained the cruiser Rhaga early in the war. Because our family was based on the homeworld he'd never return from his duties, so he took my mother - a neighboring family's gift - with him for companionship. I was born shortly after the tour of duty began and grew up during the Rhaga's 15-year patrol mission.
           "When I was about two or three we intercepted a damaged human merchant ship that had limped out of a conversion point in an area we were patrolling. Our crew boarded their ship, confiscated their cargo, and ripped their hull to pieces. This was, of course, well before the large warships and true battles, so there was a different custom for captured terrans. We imprisoned human crews and sent them back to homeworld or colonies for hard labor or to improve our genetic breeding stock; we'd just started selective breeding programs to make better servants. These days we usually just shoot captured personnel, unless of course they obviously have a superior genetic trait." I looked at her nervously.
           "Do I have a 'superior genetic trait'? Or are you all going to shoot me when you're done with story time?" Naia smiled warmly in an all too human manner. She knew exactly which buttons to push on us terrans...
           "Maura walked you in with Amara and you took a drink with Jaurn; you've managed to secure yourself a safe haven here. As for the superior genes? You survived Amara and her wing, so I'm sure you'd make excellent breeding stock if someone wanted to mate you off to get a human super-pilot. Too bad there isn't much demand for those. Oh, and you're probably too combative to produce good, submissive offspring. I doubt you'd meet the personality standards to be allowed to reproduce."
           "I wouldn't be allowed to reproduce. Hey, thanks. That makes me feel great."
           "Do want to hear the story or not?" I backed off, leaning in my seat, which she took as a sign to continue. "As I was saying, we imprisoned them in the brig. Unfortunately, there was a bad lock on one of their cells, and some of the crew got out. They overpowered the guards, freed their fellows, and tried to seize the habitation decks. That crew shot most of ours in their sleep, was poised to take the entire ship, and then came upon my family's cabin. Maybe it was chance, or maybe fate, but they burst into the room and found mother playing with me.
           "I was young at the time, and all the humans I had ever seen were hard-laboring slaves with rippling muscles, the kind my mother had told me to stay clear of. Needless to say, a whole room full of them was terrifying. I hid under the bed while I watched those bastards beat and torture my mother to death. It was traumatizing for a child: would've been traumatizing for anyone.
           "They ignored her pleas when they beat in her ribcage, sliced through her muscles so she couldn't move, ripped out her claws, cut off her ears, and finally bashed her head into a pulp. I think she was conscious all the way until they actually mashed her brains with the pipe: at least she was screaming or whimpering all the way until then. I didn't understand what kind of hatred could make someone do that to another person. I was just a child... I didn't know what our crew or our people had done to them. In retrospect I'm not surprised, although it was still horrible."
           "Thanks for the details. I wasn't sure that I was quite enough desensitized to violence." She flattened her ears at me, but then perked them up and shrugged - human-style, at the shoulders. Yeah, she definitely knew who she was dealing with.
           "I'm doing my best to justify my father's actions, alright? Anyway, it took them a good five minutes to kill mother. I like to think she was trying to save me: fighting to stay conscious, finding the effort to scream and plea and bleed one more time, drawing out her own torture session to buy me time. It almost worked. When those enraged humans finally killed her, they immediately went for me. I was so scared that I actually made a break for it, and of course they caught me."
           Naia nudged her chair over to mine and pulled her left breech's leg up, showing me her inner thigh and her thin white underwear above it. So what that I noticed? I was still a man, even if somewhat attached to another woman. Besides, Naia was a late-teens or early-twenties knockout. "This is the one place they got me," she said, pointing at her thigh. There was a thin scar there that ran up her leg and out of sight. "One of the men pinned me down and slashed me there, but a young human woman knocked him off me and stopped the rest of them. I remember she curled around me so I'd be shielded from the rest of the humans and started begging to the men for my life. They hadn't quite pulled her off when the rest of the Rhaga's security force burst in, led by father. They didn't have to fire a shot: the humans knew they couldn't win, so they surrendered.
           "Father was heartbroken and enraged. The humans that had fought or had weapons he simply let the crew loose on, and I remember him walking in that night soaked in blood. The rest he mercifully spared, throwing them back into the brig. He also came to me and told me to take one of the remaining human crew to do with as I saw fit.
           "I wasted no time in freeing my human savior, one Sarah Brooks, and brought her to father to tell him what she'd done. When I'd finished talking he was about as grateful as you'd expect. Father made Sarah my new guardian. She was technically enslaved as his concubine - nanny was not an acceptable position for a human at the time - but she always slept with me.
           "My biological mother had almost no education. She'd been raised knowing full well that her body was her only asset to the family, so she never really bothered to make much of herself. When she died she was just becoming literate so that she could teach me. She was always completely submissive to father, so to me she never became 'mother'. My surrogate, Sarah, was 'mother' from day one. Sarah was the most intelligent, knowledgeable person on that ship. She was a former pilot, and pushed me in that direction as soon as she learned that I had a decent reflex. Most of my piloting skills, all of my language skills, and quite a lot else I learned from her. Wouldn't take anything less than perfection, which is how I got to be as good as I am at the things I do."
           "So where is she now?" Naia waved out the windows.
           "Out there somewhere. She died shortly after I started flying. There was an… altercation, and the doctors didn't know what to do with the resulting internal injuries and bleeding. I asked her who was responsible before she died, but she said it wasn't someone worth ruining if she was going to die anyway, just a friend with a little too much zeal and not enough control. Father denied it when I confronted him, so we finally decided it'd be better for both of us if I was somewhere else." She hung her head in silence, having conjured up such memories.
           "Sounds harsh. Did you ever find out?" She shook her head.
           "Never. Cold as it might seem, there wasn't enough of a reason to break the crew's bonds with an inquiry." She snuffled in an almost-chuff. "Mother's why I'm such a bad fighter, you know. I don't associate human with enemy, and I've rarely shot to kill. Mostly I just let my targets run away if they have the good sense to, and aim for non-critical systems when they don't.
           "I was demoted to junior-most and thrown in the brig for firing down friendly missiles when we attacked a carrier group that turned out to be a human colony convoy. I don't care now and I didn't care then: Those human com officers were all either speechless or in tears when I told them I'd escort them back to the conversion point they'd come from. I hope they kick me out some day. I'd rather be working on the human breeding program." Naia gave me a wink. Yet another human mannerism, I noticed. "Maybe find me a dozen healthy females, a half-dozen promising males, maybe breed them so a few errant genes showed up... I could create my own clan to wait on me and protect me in my old age... would Amara sell you? I bet you'd breed me great pilots if I could find you an especially submissive mate with some decent reflexes..." She winked again to reinforce the jest.
           "I don't think she'd sell me, unless slaves can sell their masters. It goes the other way around."
           "She's not your slave," she chuffed. "Humans don't have Hrasi slaves. A few humans on the high council back on the homeworld might have one or two, but that's only because they're indispensable. You can't have Amara as a slave."
           "That's not what she says. According to her, she's all mine." Naia frowned at me, puzzled.
           "Huh. Not slave: she couldn't become that… She ever call you khos Aaron? The word you use for master: is it [master] or hithtr'si?"
           "She's always called me khos Aaron. What does that mean?" Naia relaxed, her fluffed fur settling down as she leaned back in her chair.
           "That is at least plausible. [Master] actually translates as lord, or... Hrnn, something else besides master: it's not as absolute a relationship. I'm amazed that she'd decide to have you for a lord, but it is possible. For you and her to be master and slave is not.
           "The word you used for slave - [slave] - doesn't translate that way either. It means something like knight, something like servant, and something like student. I guess squire would be the best way to put it, except that she's more an indentured servant than a human squire would be. I prefer to think of it as knight; it's more noble that way." Naia gazed at me more respectfully knowing that I'd gotten Amara as a knight, or whatever it was. I shrugged the matter aside both literally and conversationally.
           "I'm glad to meet you, Naia," I garbled, having switched back to Hrasi. She just looked at me wryly and offered to help me with my Hrasi and answer my questions, which I quickly accepted.
           That left the old grizzled one, who sighed and grumbled annoyedly.
           "Hate talking," she muttered, but the rest of us leaned toward her expectantly. "Alright, then," she huffed, "But this is going to be [ ]. I don't think the two of you were just talking about Naia's life. I don't [ramble?].
           "Name's Tenuran. I joined as a mechanic on this ship when it [began?] its first [voyage?]. When we started to lose pilots the captains would [search?] the crew for people to [replace?] them, and once they threw me in here I never got back out. So I stayed to be senior-most pilot. That's my story.
           "Everyone reports to me, including you. I do what the officers tell me to do, and you what I tell you to do. [Simple?] enough, huh? Just remember that. The rest of these fools judge and think too much."
           Tenuran was different from the other two. It was hard to place, but the other two seemed more... alive. Tenuran's personality seemed to have sort of retreated into the shelter of a malcontent. Perhaps I was asking too much, but I'd thought that she'd have more of a personality since she had originally been so outspoken against me. This Tenuran had just sat and stared at me impassively while she'd spoken.
           "Don't worry about her," Naia assured me, "She's not as bad as she sounds. Once you get to know her, she's really-"
           "As bad as she sounds," Jaurn interrupted. Tenuran shrugged in a palms-out gesture.
           "Perhaps, but I don't [protect?] enemy ships, and I follow orders." Naia shrank in her chair under Tenuran's cool gaze.
           "You're too cold..." Jaurn studied both of them, then hissed, slumping back into her seat to look at me through the yellow-brown glass she had in front of her.
           "So now you're here. What do you plan on doing? Our rooms are not [free?]: you will have to [rent?] one. You need a [job?]."
           "I was beginning to think you could help me with that. Knowing that if I leave this place I'm a dead man," I reminded her, and she bobbed her head.
           "We might be able to find something... [paid?] jobs only in the barracks... uh, can you [mix? / make?] a decent drink?" Naia grinned and switched over to human.
           "She only ever thinks of one thing. Jaurn means the man behind the bar: the bartender. It's only quarter-pay, but you don't need to be part of the crew to do it. If you did that all day you could maybe afford a cabin. There isn't much else here you could do without a crew license, and I doubt you'd get one."
           "Bartender, huh? Isn't there somewhere I can go where I won't have to work?"
           "You're going to have to if you want to stay alive," she snorted.
           "Where do I sign up?" Naia smiled.
           "We take shifts, but you can probably talk almost everyone out of it; nobody enjoys bartending. Why don't we worry about that later? I think that right now we'd probably all rather hear your story."
           So I tried to retell my story in Hrasi, starting with being assigned to my last mission. I was still missing a lot of words, but what I lacked in Hrasi Naia made up for me. I must have gained thirty or forty words for my vocabulary in the ten minutes it took me to tell my story. Whenever there was a word I needed or a phrase I couldn't put together I'd just run it off to Naia in English and she translated it for me.
           There were endless questions from each Hrasi, of course, but Tenuran in particular grilled me with what felt like a thinly veiled interrogation. I was fairly sure that I'd surprised her when I walked in, but she could have had orders beforehand. Or perhaps it was simple ambition: there were fairly clear-cut patterns between each Hrasi's questions.
           Naia was mostly interested in hearing about my meeting Amara and how I felt about my wing, and Jaurn's questions were about how I felt about the Hrasi crew I'd met. I tried to be honest, but quietly skipped over the part where Amara and Kjistha had dealt and bartered for my fate. Jaurn was still quick to denounce him as a fool. Tenuran's questions were not nearly as low-key or personable. She was frank and direct with her questions, and didn't bother to mask their military applications. Her grilling was rapid fire.
           "How long was it before you [noticed?] Amara's fighters? How quickly did you catch up to them? Did you see them on your [radar?] first? How many of them did you [shoot down?], and how long did it take you? How do you fight a Hrasi ship? Who do you go for first?" I shrugged at her caustic inquiries.
           "I can't tell you: you'd use that information against my people."
           "If you don't you'll be sentencing these people around you to die."
           "I'm sorry, sir, but I won't make that decision. I'll be happy to show you and your comrades how to defend yourselves, but I refuse to help you fight."
           "You're here on our [graciousness?] and my [ ]! You've no [right?] to [withhold?] that from us!" Tenuran was fuming, but Naia intervened on my behalf.
           "You won't get it, Tenuran. He's too loyal to his people to betray them, no matter how much we owe him. We can trust Aaron and his word, though, even if he won't go off to die for us. Trust me, I know his kind."
           "You're a traitor. He could [escape? / survive?] and betray us if we let him. I don't trust you or your word," Tenuran reminded her. Naia's ears slid back and she slunk in her chair as if slapped.
           "You're a fool," I told Tenuran pointedly, "No commander should attack his men." She just glared at me. We all sat awkwardly for while, but Jaurn eventually prodded me into picking my story up again. Somehow my newly found sense of belonging and acceptance had drained away, leaving me feeling unsettled and nervous.
          

---v---

           When I'd told my story they asked more questions and then we began rambling off topic. I learned and talked about our flight histories, finding that even with only a few years of pilot experience I'd seen more action than any of them by far. It was great to be able to talk about piloting; I could actually understand everything being said. Jaurn and Tenuran might have spent decades flying aboard these carriers, but they'd spent most of it sitting around and fearing for their lives in the pilot's barracks, whereas I'd spent my four years of drafted military duty constantly logging combat time.
           There were more pilots to meet, too many to remember and far too many to count. They pulled up chairs in ones and twos, traded names and shortly conversed with me, then vacated their seats for more pilots to replace.
           Eshera, Khali, Hahren, Ghist, Pauru, Rhihin... on and on and on. Some regarded me icily at best, but most of them were at least amiable and didn't show me any open hostility. I was surprised at that, seeing as they'd also boast to me their kill scores, and most could remember what type of ship each kill was. Then again, most of them had four or five kills each. The 'élites' had seven or eight, so everyone was shocked when I claimed I'd racked up just over six hundred kills. Most of them were simply impressed at my record as opposed to bitter that I had killed so many of their comrades; loyalty to the military seemed scarce among the pilots. Fine with me: I didn't need any more enemies. We all talked long into the shift, and I became so engrossed as to not notice Amara slip out the door.
           As the night wore on the various pilots began shuffling back to the end of the room and going through the double doors there, presumably to their rooms. The dark honey-gold Eshera stayed with Naia, sleeping on her shoulder, and she in turn stayed with me. I got the impression that the two were good friends.
           Jaurn eventually just passed out at the table, slumping in her seat. Unflappable Tenuran had to pick Jaurn up by the neck and drag her off to bed. Neither returned, so I assumed I'd found another pair of sleeping partners. While having made such observations might sound nosy or inappropriate, by then I'd noticed Amara had left me hanging, and I needed a place to sleep. One by one the pilots left until only Naia, Eshera, and I sat in the room. Maura kept herself hunched over a drink at the bar, the one person left there.
           "You'll be alright out here by yourself," Naia yawned. I nodded. "Then I'll think we'll retire for the night. I'm exhausted... never stay up this late. Listen, if you ever need or want me, my cabin is the last door on the right." She nosed Eshera in the ear until there were some mumbles of protest, then picked her up and stumbled over through the back doors, leaving me alone.
           I waited for a while; Amara didn't show. Maura was still brooding over by the bar, but otherwise the place was empty. I began to worry about her. 'Where is she?' was a question I asked myself out of denial, but I had a fairly good idea. There were real questions, though, and they gnawed on my mind. How long had she promised that rat Kjistha? Would he hurt her? What if someone caught her on the way there or back again? They all scared me. Small comfort that Maura didn't look too concerned about it from where I was. I rose and walked over to her.
           Maura was sitting on the very last stool in the corner, slumped over the bar. She'd propped her chin up with one arm and was quietly rotating her glass around a diagonal axis, watching the liquid inside change shape as the ship's artificial gravity kept the drink's surface level. As I came up behind her Maura's reverie broke and she set her glass down. She didn't turn around to face me, but a flick of her ears showed that she'd acknowledged me well enough. In a way I was glad that she didn't look at me, because by the set of her ears I could tell that I didn't want to see the expression on her face.
           "So," she began, "Amara told me about the deal." Oh-boy... "It's three [ ] into the night shift. You know where your knight is? Can you guess?" Her words were soft but deadly; Maura wouldn't raise her voice at me, but then, she didn't need to. "I think I may have [ ] you. [ ] I thought you might have been [able?] to protect her. You didn't look so [ ] when I first met you. I [wonder?] if you even know where she is."
           "I know. She didn't tell me she was going to leave. She just left. I would have stopped her."
           "Would have? Would have... but you didn't, did you? You told me that you could protect her. Obviously you can't."
           "I said I'd do my best to protect her-"
           "How, by having a drink with the pilots? Your best isn't good enough. I will kill you if you don't fix this: that'd at least [solve?] the problem." She swiveled in her chair to stare at me with a penetrating glare of hardly reserved loathing. "I hate people like you, who say more and do less. Do you know what you've done? She's [ ]! That bastard will [ ] her! This is Amara, you know how [ ] she can be! I can't [believe?] you'd let her do something like this!" Her growls gained intensity with each new sentence, and I stiffened out of animal instinct. The feeling that ran through me was fight / flight syndrome, I knew, but the rational understanding of the thing didn't help me a lick. Maura's style of confrontation always brought that out, but she kept using it for the eternity it took me to admit that it unnerved me so much.
           "I didn't let her, she sneaked away! I told her not to take his deal, but she wouldn't listen to me. She told me to shut up about it. What was I supposed to do? If she'd gotten angry with me she could've left me alone-"
           "You don't matter," she outright yelled at me, "she's the only one that does to me! If keeping her safe means [the end of?] you, then that's what has to [happen?]; I'd do the same. Of course she'd try to [silence?] you when you wanted to stop her - that's Amara. You didn't have to let her do it, though. Now she's promised one of the [highest? / biggest?] security officers her body, and is probably being [ ] right now! Right now, while we're talking!"
           "I can't do anythin- uphf!" She punched me. The bitch actually punched me: one solid hit straight to the gut. It was more of a disemboweling swipe, really, but she had the self-control to keep her claws pulled. It still winded me and sent me reeling backwards into a fighting stance - most people would've been floored.
           "You'll do something, bastard, or I'll kill you. Don't tell me that you can't [act?]. You just don't want to get hurt. Well, it's simple enough: I'll hurt you if you don't do anything, so do something." She glared at me coldly. "You don't hurt my sister," she growled.
           "I don't want to hurt her. I like her a hell of a lot more than I'm liking you. But what am I supposed to do?"
           "Fix it! Keep her away from that [expletive I didn't recognize]!"
           "How?" Maura paused for a moment, her ears sliding back and her brow furrowing.
           "I don't care how," she snarled, "just do it."
           "You don't have any idea of what I could do, do you? I don't know how; I'm not Hrasi. If you can't tell me what to do, then how am I going to know?" For once she didn't have anything to say. "I didn't want to get Amara hurt. I'm sorry if I did, but what am I supposed to do? I can't just 'fix' everything back to normal. I wish I could."
           "I wish you could too," she muttered. "You should be able to fix it, you're the one that [made? / caused?] it. If you can't... then why'd you let her do it in the first place? Don't [answer?] that, I don't [care?]. It'd be better for everybody if you hadn't come here."
           "Not better for Naia. She seemed like she needed a human face."
           "I don't care about Naia. She's not important."
           "Not better for Amara," I whispered, "if I hadn't come here she'd be dead." Maura sighed tiredly.
           "Look, I don't want to argue with you. I can see why Amara likes you, fool that she is. I want to like you too, but she [means? / is?] more to me than anything. Just do something, think of something... Maybe ask Naia. She knows a lot about the law, especially [concerning?] humans. I don't know... If you need my [power? / influence? / authority? / something else?] to fix this mess, you tell me. But my [ultimatum? / threat?] stands: fix it."
           "Alright. I promise." Her ear muscles relaxed along with her body and she sagged as her ears flit back to their normal positions. She shook her head and brushed past me, drink in hand, moping off towards the cabins. "Oh, and Maura?" She stopped and perked her ears, but didn't turn around. "You can trust me. She's the most important thing I have now too." Maura looked down for a minute, then spoke three words ever so softly.
           "I hope so."
          

---v---

           The hours went by at a crawl as I waited. Maura had left disappointed in me, but damned if she knew how well I took care of my friends. Amara might've slipped past me, but I'd catch her on her return trip. After what Maura'd told me I felt like shit. I wanted - needed - to redeem myself. If that was even possible…
           Another hour, and no Amara. I went behind the bar and found something to pour myself. It was stiff. Normally I wouldn't touch alcohol, but I was off my head and knew it. Being taken out of what you've almost made a comfortable, recognizable environment and being thrown into an unfamiliar, dangerous situation on low sleep can do that to you. So it was no surprise to me when, two hours and almost a full pint of vodka-equivalent later, boredom drove me past madness and into sheer stupidity.
           I sat down at one of the training sims and looked it over. The human influences were unmistakable, even in my bombed state. Same controls in the same places, same type of dials and switches. There were minor differences in placement and design and a few unfamiliar controls, but by and large the biggest difference was the control labeling. There was a seatbelt system and built-in jackets and helmets there, as well as a single conspicuous red button on the cockpit side. Too damned drunken to think better, I strapped myself in, sloughed on the jacket, forced the helmet to fit my human contours, and settled in. Help pass the time, it would. I pressed the red button and the machine jolted to life.
           There was a shake and a hum as the simulator brought up a set of missions on the cockpit screen. Even the mission type selection used the same pictures - they hadn't bothered to change them. I chose the gauntlet: a fight against forever-increasing odds. There was a jarring shock as the simulator dumped me straight into a dogfight. Had I been sober I might have realized the sim was a full-environment shell - the kind with lethal g-forces included.
           A Hrasi super-carrier loomed at starboard, but read friendly. Of course it would, I thought, it was a Hrasi sim. Hrasi fighter / interceptors screamed past me, beginning to engage a swarm of hostile human targets. A single human Icarus-class fighter came up on my targeting sensor, banking around to come up on a firing line with me. My reaction times were drug-slowed, maybe only in the top first percentile of all pilots. It was still a simple matter to get behind the AI and shred him through his engines.
           Adrenaline rushed through my system as I took down fighters: one, two, four, six, ten, twelve, sixteen… On and on with no rest or repair to my ship. Computer-generated foes went down like flies and I lost track of the time. Twenty, twenty-four, twenty-eight, thirty-two, thirty-six, forty… It got harder. Sheer numbers of enemies started to clog up my senses. Dodge fire from twenty fighters, get knocked by two. I stopped being the predator in the dogfight and started being the prey. Didn't even notice when a puncture through my shields sent my knee bashing against the pilot's console.
           My computer allies were all dead - shot down somewhere between the fifty and sixty enemy mark. Shields started to buckle, then collapsed. I knocked up my arms, legs, head, but the alcohol / adrenaline cocktail running through my veins blurred it out. The composite radar had a shifting blob of red mass on it, the convergence of eighty enemy blips. All firing at me.
           Attack, parry, riposte - another enemy fighter down. Attack, parry, riposte. Attack, parry, riposte. Attack counter-attack! Enemy fire ripped at my hull and red spattered the viewscreen. On some level I realized it was blood - my blood - but the rest of the mind overruled that. I hyper-focused on survival, trying to stay away from the next bolt of superheated plasma, stranded from the protective fire of the super-carrier.
           I dodged, corkscrewed, banked hard to port and starboard, flipped again and again. Nothing worked for very long, but I kept at it doggedly. The radar lit up the whole cockpit in its garish red light as the computerized humans surrounded me in a loose sphere and shot inward. I threw my ship around for all that it was worth, but eventually a stray shot clipped my engines. The resulting hiccup in my ship's engines gave AI's time enough to track me and spear me with full barrages of their lethal light.
           The cockpit bucked wildly, shuddering protest to the simulated onslaught I was taking. My ill-fitting helmet popped off, and my sheer mass and size ripped through the flight jacket. Without the restraints I was flung around the cockpit, bouncing off jagged metal edges and consoles with a plethora of wet crunching sounds. A final explosion forcefully ejected me out of the cockpit to roll on the floor face up beside the blood-smeared simulator. I couldn't move, but just watched as the simulator changes screens to something that wasn't a mission, but something else…
           Damn. It was a high scores list, calmly awaiting my initials for the first-place icon. I coughed a hoarse, soft laugh even as the adrenaline began to wear off and intense pain started to cloud my thoughts. For some reason it was inanely funny to me that they'd kept the same format for the high scores. I didn't stop giggling until I passed out.
          

---v---

           Rough, wet strokes drew across my cheek. Dull pain was everywhere. Blood was in my mouth, and I was soaked. I opened my eyes to find Amara over me, licking my face. She looked worried and weary at the same time. When my eyelids slid back her face slowly changed to a needy look.
           "Khos Ahrn…" She breathed. "I was scared you were gone, that you'd [left] me. Please be okay." The painkillers were out of my system, adrenaline and alcohol having long since given way to soreness and ache. For the first time in a while I was able to have a coherent pattern of thoughts.
           "What… time…?" I croaked.
           "Three hours before [day? / main?] shift starts. Do you feel alright?" I ignored her question.
           "Amara… don't go… not do what you did. I not want. I told you-"
           "Not now," She growled, annoyed. "That's not as important as how you're feeling. Kjistha can have me as much as he likes, but there's only one of you." I tried to sigh but ended up coughing blood up to Amara's face. She brushed it away. "Do I need to call a doctor? I can if you need one."
           "Don't. Just fix up again. I'll live." She looked at me, then the liberal amount of blood that was probably pooled around my body. "I'm going to wake up our [house?] doctor," she decided. I wasn't about to argue as she padded off. Amara returned shortly with a familiar face.
           "Ayo," the woman supplied to my questioning look as she briskly walked up and sat beside me. "We met this evening. What the hell happened to you?" I grimaced.
           " The flight [simulator?]," Amara growled, "The computer says he took a [gauntlet?] up to a hundred enemies without rest. When he lost he got hurt."
           "I can see that he got hurt. Tell me Ahrn, what hurts?"
           "Everything," I managed to cough out. "A lot." She peered over me and did what I figured was a cursory examination of my person.
           "I can see why… You got hurt bad. If there was more [blood?] I'd send you to the [medical bay?], but you've [retained?] enough that it's probably not [fatal?]." Ayo poked at me, presumably studying my injuries, then spent a long time working on me. She plasmed me up with a pocket bottle, re-set countless bones, and even sew up a few of my wounds with wire. "Just stop the [bleeding] now and get some sleep," she ordered, then got up and backed away. "You'll be fine if you don't move much for a while," she decided, then walked away, leaving the two of us together.
           Amara hoisted me up from behind and started dragging me. I didn't know where, just that it was she, which was enough to satisfy me. I struggled to get my feet under me and carry some of my weight. Amara didn't begrudge me that much, though, and nearly force-carried me. She and I stumbled and wove through the double doors to search the catacomb of rooms. I had no idea where we were going, but really didn't care.
           She brought the two of us to a door at the end of a hallway that had branched off from the main one. We got there only after a harrowing collection of twists and turns - I didn't think I'd be able to find my way back. The door slid open to reveal an unlived in, nondescript room of gray metal and green walls. It had the basic amenities: a chair, a desk, and a bed, but nothing personal. It didn't strike me as the sort of room Amara would have.
           I was gently deposited on the bed, then she limped over to a small set of drawers recessed in the opposite wall to retrieve a medical kit, which she returned with. The antiseptic cream that she massaged into my wounds felt as great as it hurt, so there were few complaints from me. Her bandage job was equally pleasurable, the cloth cool against my tender skin. Amara didn't say a word, just treated me in silence.
           "Sorry," I murmured, "I didn't want to make it harder for you, just couldn't stop before it hurt me. Forgive me again… please?" She exhaled lightly and looked at me with a forced, shallow smile.
           "I'll [always?] forgive you, khos Ahrn. It's alright. I think I understand, even if I don't [ ]. I'm just glad that you're going to [recover?]. I'm tired, though…"
           She finished with the bandages, replaced the medical kit back in its drawer, and shuffled back. From my place on the bed I could see her out of the corner of my eye, shifting back and forth uncomfortably. She wouldn't approach me. Amara stood at the edge of the bed with ears halfway down, looking at me nervously and fidgeting.
           "Amara," I called out, "you alright?" No answer: she just looked at me with growing uncertainty. "Amara? Here, lay down next to me. What's wrong?" She almost balked at my request - I could see the hesitation in the set of her ears - but she padded over to lie down beside me, shrugging off her shorts and exposing herself. It explained a lot about her attitude towards lying next to me.
           Claw marks were etched all along her thighs and crotch. One set of scratches went down the length of her vagina, the path of the middle claw having obviously lacerated her insides. Her rump had more scratches, longer and deeper. Amara began to reek of her fear-stink as I looked her up and down.
           "I'm sorry too," she coughed, "I got caught on the way back by a pair of [ ]. I said I'd let them if they promised to leave me [ ]. They wanted me forever… were rough." She looked away for a moment in sheer humiliation. "I'm sorry, khos Ahrn. I'm still [ ] for you to be my [ ], if not true [ ]. Please still accept me…" She rolled on her belly, ears down in shame. I was ashamed too: I'd promised to protect her. Amara was crying her tearless shudder. "I won't [blame?] you if you don't want me anymore - most lords insist on being their knight's [ ], but please don't. I'll do anything…"
           "Shhh…" I cooed, which meant nothing to her. I reached out and touched one of those flat ears, rubbing it through my fingers and marveling at the softness in her tufts. "Don't make those sounds," I gently reprimanded her, "I'll love you whatever happens." She rolled over onto her back and I spotted dried spatters on her nipples, her chin, her neck, and her head. She saw my eyes wandering about her torso.
           "Places I couldn't reach to lap up," she explained quietly. I looked at her wordlessly for a moment, then shifted directly atop her. Her face went wild and she struggled, lashing out at me ineffectively with her pinned arms and legs. With my left hand I caught her head and steadied it towards me. "No! Please…. No more…" she gasped. I let go of her head, bent down, and kissed her nose. She snapped her jaws shut and looked at me with a pained expression. "Why? I thought you loved me…"
           "I do," I murmured. "That's why I let you go. I'm not ever going to hurt you like that, so stop trying to throw me off." Amara stared at me with an untranslatable expression, then pulled me tighter upon her.
           I took a gamble and caught her mouth with mine. Again I saw her eyes go wide, but she didn't press away. Her warm, thin black lips pressed back even as she looked at me with fear. I pushed open her jaws and tongued the inside of her mouth lightly, then retreated.
           She was terrified at first, but seemed to calm down after I stopped invading her. After another try at her Amara took the cue and in turn slipped her long rough tongue over my canines. We held the kiss out for a few minutes until she'd completely stopped fighting me and was moving wholly with me. As our kiss broke I ran my hands up her sides and scratched her torso, making her arch against me out of reflex.
           "Thank you," she whispered, then nuzzled down into my chest. I rubbed the top of her muzzle affectionately and cheeked her face in response. We continued in said fashion until she fell asleep, a purring buzzsaw in my embrace. I wasn't long in following.
          
           End Part 4