Part 2

Meet the Enemy

          
           For my part, I would like to have it noted that I took languages all my scholastic life. It doesn't sound like the course schedule a pilot-in-training would take, but at the time I was working to be a diplomat to the Hrasi. Everyone knew that we'd win the war with the primitive Hrasi long before people my age got out of school; they just didn't have the technology.
           Well, it turned out that the technologically-impaired Hrasi were much better at capturing and interrogating than humans were at evading capture and resisting interrogation, or at least it was rumored so. I far as I knew I was the first human to see a Hrasi, but there were rumors. In any case, by the time I'd gotten my master's in college the Hrasi were not only as technologically advanced as we were, but also had pushed humanity back into the recesses of our home system. Read that: they were in Sol.
           The military was desperate for manpower at that point; we'd lost all but our system defense fleet and the Martian defense forces. All we had were two planets (Earth and Mars), each of the planets' respective moon colonies, and a trio of shipyards around Earth, Mars, and Jupiter. Understandably, the military was drafting like crazy to find the best natural talents they could train to become ace-of-ace pilots; we had no more ships to lose.
           When I scored in the top .01% for reflex speeds, eye-hand, and resistance to shock, marines literally dragged me out of my dorm in the middle of the night at gunpoint and shuttled me up to the Tycho Flight Academy for accelerated training. I was out of TFA and fighting for real two months later, and by helping push the Hrasi all the way back to the edges of our former territory I secured myself a promising career as an up-and-coming fighter commander. But yeah, I used to be a language major. You know what? When it came right down to it, it didn't help me a bit.
          
           ---v---
          
           We spent the rest of the morning on our little language lesson. It turned out that we both had decent vocabularies in the other's language from talking over the com, but our grammars were lacking and our vocabularies were narrow in topic. With onboard mechanical translators the only things in your opponent's language worth learning were keywords that you could translate faster than the machine could relay to you. As a result we could talk starships, movements, tactics, and weapon fire all we wanted, but couldn't so much as ask one another for a drink of water.
           Also, Hrasi grammar frustrated the hell out of me. We had to be wired differently in the communications department, because my brain kept telling me Hrasi sentence structure was wrong. Here I thought Latin was confusing, with its counter-intuitive <Actor / Actee> <Action> setup that 'strained' my sensibilities. Well, Hrasi was something like <Actee> <Action conjugation> <Actor> <Action>. Or at least that's what it was the majority of the time. I got the impression that their rules of grammar and structure tended to fluctuate depending on whether or not it was Wednesday, whether or not it was raining in some wasteland corner of Africa, and god only knows what else.
           Amara was a completely different sort of puzzle. I wanted to ask her about her sudden attitude shift from earlier in the morning, but didn't have the words. She was a bit like a puppy dog; a moment's success at some new word or concept would brighten her demeanor and make her perk up like a child with a new toy, while another minute's pointed-out mistake would leave her crushed. When I couldn't help but laugh at her absurd slaughtering of the English standard, her ears practically wilted in embarrassment.
           What she thought of me she kept to herself, but if her silent shaking and muted chuffing were any indication, I was just as bad. Needless to say, she broke her obedient pose several time because she was shaking with laughter. I was just glad that she seemed agreeable to interacting with me for so long. Not once did she growl or threaten me, as I had feared she would. Apparently that only came to young pilots with excessively bad manners and no respect, not her Ahrn.
           Even lunch was a lesson in relations. I had to carry her to the river so that she could show me how to fish. I could have sworn the river was empty, but after about half an hour (and a dozen river-related vocabulary words), she pawed out a respectably sized fish-thing. Since when did fighter jocks fish?
           A simple run under my pack's bioscanner cleared all but the liver and pancreas of the corpse, so we carved out what looked appetizing and scattered the rest near some vegetation as fertilizer. Funny how the adventure vids never showed how hard cleaning and butchering one's own food was. Amara came pre-equipped with all the scaling tools she'd ever need, but I struggled with my survival knife trying to get the creature's hide off.
           After we had returned I sat reminiscing about the day by the fire. Amara had built the spit, caught the fish, and was watching the meat cook to make sure it wasn't too poorly done. So far she had done everything but made the fire, and I had gotten to use a lighter for that. Without her around I'd be rationing out bad freeze-dried stuff, assuming that I'd ever survived the first night. I was far too dependent on technology handing me everything, I thought. She was trained for this, and was obviously just keeping me around. Maybe she'd eat me when she recovered - now there was a nice thought. In the meantime, she settled for alien salmon. It was good, if a little undercooked: tasted like catfish.
          

           ---v---

          
           The rest of the day I spent traveling back and forth between our two ships and the campsite. I took every piece of equipment that wasn't welded in place and hadn't yet blown apart. I wasn't sure about what all of Amara's ship's equipment was, or what it did, but I took it all. Amara herself was far too weak to make the trips herself, nor was I likely to have a free hand while carrying all the parts. In the end, I just left her by the fire to tend to her own devices.
           In a few aspects I think we were lucky. Power cells we had aplenty: everything from Amara's ship's backup generator (conveniently portable) to the batteries in my archaic mini-disc player. Also, her ship's survival pack was intact, and I assumed it had a rescue beacon like mine. Individually, neither would reach much past the planet's outer stratosphere levels; anyone that could hear the beacons had good odds of seeing us first. Together, however, they could reach farther, especially if I could rig them up with extra power. That was, assuming, that they could be interfaced at all.
           When I'd made my last trip the orange-red sun was swollen in the sky and the winds had gone from sweltering hot to pleasantly cool. I trudged down to the riverbank laden with equipment. Amara was sitting cross-legged by the smoldering fire, typing out something on a Hrasi datapad I had brought her earlier. When she noticed me her ears slanted forward and she smiled at me Hrasi-style, lips covering her teeth. I smiled back and sat down beside her, setting down the last parts I'd gotten from her ship.
           In my back pocket was a 'spare part' I had some qualms about giving to her: her pistol. In the end I had decided she needed to feel trusted before she'd trust me, so the pistol was a logical step. I reached back there and pulled it out, spinning it around my trigger finger just because I knew how. She saw what it was, then shrank back in fear with ears drooping down. She was apprehensive when I approached her, but didn't scramble away even when I was coming for her with a gun in my hand. I flipped the gun so that I was holding the barrel and held it out to her. Amara seemed confused.
           "[ ] what? Why [ ] [ ] me? [ ]?" She asked; I missed most of her question.
           "It's for you to hurt me with," I told her matter-of-factly. Amara was seriously disturbed by the suggestion.
           "[I'm?] not [going to?] hurt you!" I leaned over and kissed my distressed friend on the nose.
           "I know," I reassured her. She was baffled, but checked her sidearm and then slipped it into her breech's pocket.
           That night we dined on each other's military rations, neither of which turned out to be edible. Afterwards she watched intently as I set out the pieces of the ships and considered how best to fit them together. I had all the power I'd need, what I thought was a Hrasi energy distribution grid, the main sensors and communication array off my ship, both of our emergency beacons, and just about every cable I'd found. The mechanics of the thing weren't so hard; I had been through more than enough electrical engineering and computer programming courses to be able to rig some sort of beacon system. The hard part was going to be working with the Hrasi parts.
           Amara padded softly to sit next to me.
           "What are you [ ]?" She asked. I did my best to explain.
           "I want to try to amplify the carrier waves on our beacons in order to boost their distress calls deeper insystem." I got a blank stare. Maybe she'd understood 'insystem', but not much else. Small words, I reminded myself. "I want to make it so… ships can hear, can get, the…the…." I trailed off, but she had a glimmer of understanding.
           "The [signal]," she provided.
           "[Signal]," I said, "Yes, the [signal]. Here there is a lot of…sky? It makes the signal… small?" I gestured helplessly, trying to convey the words 'interference' and 'weak'. I didn't know the words, but she seemed to take the hint.
           "The [ ] in the sky makes the signal [weak?]. You are [making?] the signal big? Am I right?" she asked. I nodded the way I had seen her nod: a single bob of the head. "Can I help you?" she asked again. Once more I nodded, moving over to give her access to the Hrasi side of the junk pile. She sidled up to me in her regular pose, pressing her body up against mine. I made no complaint; sweltering heat was quickly giving way to freezing cold as dusk turned closer to night.
           We worked in silence, huddling together for warmth as we tweaked our two race's equipment into a sort of unholy matrimony their creators clearly hadn't intended for them. It was almost an hour before Amara spoke, her muzzle motions curiously lit both by the pale blood light of the dying sun and the yellow white of the rising moon. Her words were soft and cautious.
           "[ ] Ahrn, can I [ask?] a question [about?] what [we're?] doing?." She seemed a little wary.
           "Of course you can," I murmured, paying more attention to the power adapters I was configuring.
           "This signal…you [only?] want humans? You only [talk?] to them?" she questioned. Under my shirt I could still feel her breath get a little faster and shallower. Worried, she was.
           "No," I replied, considering the question as well, "We'll make it so that Hrasi and humans can hear it. We want to get away from here, right? So we have a better…uh, chance of getting away if we let anyone hear it." Amara looked downed at her work.
           "[Who?] do you [think?] will come?" she asked quietly.
           "I don't know," I confessed. She was silent. I put down the power adapters to slip an arm around her and pull her closer to me. "If humans come, you'll be safe with me, hear?" I told her. I had absolutely no idea whether or not that was true, but I'd certainly try and make it so. She turned to look at me, or more correctly, at my chest.
           "If Hrasi come, you'll be safe with me. I [ ]," She said, and I frowned.
           "What was that last word?"
           "[ ]. I say I do something, I be sure I do it. [promise]."
           We finished our work and set up the signal generator, went off to our final business for the day, then retreated to our shelter. This time I followed her in, and she closed the flap behind us. I started to feel a little guilt about being in there with her as memories from that morning resurfaced. Amara must have noticed, because she came over to pat me and smiled generously. "Please, Ahrn, [ ] it. I'm not [angry?] with you [now?]. It's [fine?]; just don't do it [again?]." Kind words like those did a lot to salve my conscience.
           "Sorry," I said, for the umpteenth time, but that got me a light cuff on the shoulder.
           "[ ] it." She slipped her clothes off - strong enough to do it herself already - and slithered inside the sleeping bag. I took off everything but my boxers and laid beside her quietly, wrapping myself in the blanket. Amara looked at me, flicking her ears and looking more than a little put off. "You don't want to [sleep?] at my side? Something wrong with me?" I could tell she was about to be upset over something I wouldn't understand, so I shook my head quickly.
           "Nothing's wrong with you; I just didn't think you'd want me to." Her ears laid back, then popped forward.
           "You [ ] me. Why should you [ ] what I want?" she asked me incredulously. I was confused at her change of tone.
           "Because I'm your friend, of course." Amara wrinkled her nose.
           "Friend? You [ ] me, how can you be my friend?"
           Translation error, I immediately thought. Either that or I'd stumbled on some weird Hrasi concept that didn't quite make the jump from language to language. She had used a word I didn't know twice, so I decided to ask her about it.
           "What is that word you said, 'I [ ] you'?" Amara paused before answering.
           "It means….something is yours. To [ ] something is to have it, like when you get something."
           For a moment I was speechless as her words sunk in.
           "You mean you think I OWN you!? Where'd you get that idea!?" Amara shrugged, a human mannerism she must have picked up somewhere.
           "You beat me when we [fought?], but you didn't hurt me, didn't kill me." She paused. "Even if you did some [ ] things, I [forgive?] you. So, you own me. My people have done this for a long time; it's a [tradition]." Amara thought I owned her? The thought appalled me, and I was the guy that got the better part of the deal!
           "No," I said, shaking my head, "I don't own you. I didn't save you so I could have a…a…a…"
           "[slave]?" She proffered, as if she was humoring a small child. I nodded.
           "Yes, a slave. Be a Hrasi; I don't want a slave." She smiled at me condescendingly.
           "You beat me and then let me live; you own me. [tradition]. I'll leave you if you tell me to, but first [let?] me [ ] you. Besides, you helped me; I like you. Would I [choose to?] be your slave, Ahrn, if I [thought] you'd [mistreat? / kill?] me?"
           Grasping the idea of self-imposed slavery and the apparent neglect of her own wishes was hard. I couldn't help but try and put it into a human mindset, but it didn't work. Alien minds, I finally decided. Very alien. Amara nuzzled my cheek. "You worry too much," she said.
           Amara unzipped her sleeping bag and let me crawl in beside her, zipping it back behind me to lock the two of us in. Then she tossed and turned a bit until she had made a place at my side, curling up in the crescent of my stomach. She arched herself against me and buried her muzzle in the crook of my arm. So small, I thought. I could easily fall into the trap of thinking her delicate, but knew that of course she could break me in two without much effort.
           I took my left arm and curled it around her waist, letting my hand scratch the furry muscle around her thigh. There was a sharp intake of breath from her, but she settled into a rumbling purr. The vibrations traveled through both our bodies and helped ward off the chilly air that was beginning to waft through the shelter. A night even colder than the last, it seemed; I was gladder than ever to be able to lie so close to her.
           Her purrs were intense, but I could tell she was waiting for me to make the first move. It was more than obvious that she had no idea what to do. I ran my tongue once around the rim of her ear, then whispered to her.
           "How old are you, Amara?" I breathed into her. She looked up at me, her predatory eyes shining in the dim dusky light.
           "two tens and one [years]" she murmured, then edged up closer to certain parts of my anatomy, parts which definitely did not need edging up against. I wasn't surprised - that seemed about right, making our years more or less the same, and putting her three years my junior.
           "You ever slept with anyone?" I whispered, as if I didn't already know the answer.
           "Only my [best?] friend," she said a bit defensively, "never with a man." I blinked. Another cultural schism?
           "You've slept with other…ah, women?" I said unbelievingly. She flicked an ear.
           "Of course. You don't sleep with your friends? You must get [lonely?] and cold. My friend - we [grew up?] together. She came on the bigger ships with me; she was my [copilot? / gunner?]."
           "But you slept with her?" I asked. She looked at me puzzledly.
           "What's wrong with that? It's not as though we could have [mated?]. My kind usually don't sleep alone unless they're [sick?] or sad." She shivered in what I realized was a Hrasi giggle, at what I didn't know. "We just [kept?] eachother warm and safe. You've never had a friend to sleep by?" I shook my head vehemently; I didn't want her to get THAT impression of me.
           "Never. I don't want to, either." She chuffed a Hrasi laugh, then cuddled closer.
           "You want to show me?" she mock-growled, trying to sound enticing. Did a damn good job, too. I was tired, though.
           "No," I said drowsily, "I want to sleep." Amara licked my bare neck before resting her snout on it.
           "Then," she whispered, "I'll show you how much better it is to sleep with someone at your side."
          

           ---v---

          
           That night I slept more soundly than I could remember having slept in a long time. When I awoke it was late in the morning and there was a furry imprint on the sleeping bag where Amara had been. I rubbed my eyes sleepily, waiting for them to clear. There were smells of food and the faint scent of Hrasi musk wafting through the shelter; the shelter flap was open.
           I struggled out of the sleeping bag far enough to stick my head out the flap and look at the campfire. Amara was cooking over it, mixing something in a metal pan that had a spicy scent. She was dressed in her flight pants, with her firearm slung on the belt at her side. Somehow, the sight of a giant cat with a gun wasn't frightening anymore; I felt safe having her watch over me.
           Amara turned over to me and twitched her ears in a smile. "[morning?]," she said, "My [turn?] to make the food." She poured whatever she had cooking into my old cup and picked up a saucer, which she filled from the cooking pan. Then, to my amazement, she stood and strode to my side, sitting to lay the food in front of me. I stared upwards into her face.
           "Feeling better, are we? You can walk today. You get better fast," I commented in my thick, mangled Hrasi/English pidgin. She gave me a decidedly human wink. "I'll [keep?] you for now," she said, "I'm not going to kill you until you [bore? / anger?] me." Amara's ears were striving forward in the Hrasi equivalent of a gleeful grin. I chuckled, shaking my head, and took a sip of whatever was in the cup. It tasted like a tea: bitter, hot, and reeking of alien spice.
           I took a few more sips, then went for the saucer. It was enriched rations-bread with oil poured over it. A familiar, fishy oil. The ration's bread on its own tasted a lot like leather, and was only slightly more filling, but ration-bread covered with the day old bodily fluids of a fish? I tried very hard not to think about it as I took a few bites, but it tasted like vomit smelled. After the first couple of samples I had to push it away, covering fact by grinning broadly.
           "You don't like it?" Amara asked worriedly. I drank a lot of the tea to wash out the taste. "Not quite to my liking," I admitted, and she looked crushed, staring at it dejectedly. "I'm sorry," she said, "I wanted to make it better. I [thought?] it was okay…" I sat up and kissed her. "Thanks. I'm not so hungry anyway." And if I was, that stuff sure cured me, I thought.
           I finished my tea and then handed her shirt to her, but she waved it aside.
           "Too warm," she explained. "Actually," she said, pointing at her pants, "It's too warm for these [too?], but I [thought?] you'd [rather?] I had them." I blushed lightly, then nodded. She chuffed at me.
           The fish had just made an already obvious problem worse; the stench. It had been three days for me since I'd had a bath, and at least as many days for her. Oddly, I didn't mind Amara's musk scent, but the fish scent with mine combined to something overpowering.
           I knocked her ears. "You smell like fish, and so does your breath." Amara snorted.
           "You smell like fish too." She cuffed me too, and we degenerated into a wrestling match, and then a fishy tangle. I grinned at Amara's prone Hrasi form below me.
           "You'd be a lot more exciting if you didn't smell like fish," I told her wickedly. In response she opened her mouth and exhaled. "That's it: you're going to have a bath," I threatened, rising and pulling her to her feet. I grabbed all of our clothes, handing half the fishy, bloody pile to Amara, who wrinkled her nose at them.
           "River?" she questioned.
           "River," I confirmed, already on my way. She limped after me on two legs, for once.
           The river was freezing and had a swift current that morning. I stripped and stood naked on the banks, starting to wash my pile. Amara followed suit, sitting and washing next to me. I blushed deeply, hoping to god that she wouldn't decide to look down at me. She noticed the blush, though, and made it a point to leer down between my legs.
           "Odd," she noted, "It didn't feel that big [against?] my stomach."
           "Amara," I warned, but she was shivering in her Hrasi giggle.
           "Sorry, khos Ahrn. I didn't mean to [offend?] you. I'm sorry."
           "Like hell you are," I muttered, but she had already cracked up again. I snatched her boxers out of her hands so they wouldn't be washed away as she neglected to hold them, then forcefully shoved Amara in. She gasped, then came up with a mouthful of water that she sputtered indignantly. I smiled, then lent out a hand to her. Amara took it gratefully, then without warning pulled me in.
           The water was freezing. I came out of it coughing and looking for a certain Hrasi to kill. She had conveniently disappeared; I slowly made a 360-degree spin to check the river for her. She found herself by ramming my legs with painful force from below. My hands plunged downward into the river and pulled up a soaked Hrasi torso. Amara grinned at me, throwing her thick arms around my neck and hanging there, then nestling her head in my chest. I kicked my way to the river shallows and started to rub Amara's back.
           Too bad the eggheads that considered every possibility when they made the standard survival pack hadn't considered putting in soap. Still, it was enjoyable to run my fingers through her water-immersed fur. I massaged and scratched at her back, then her chest, making her rumble. We stayed like that for a good half an hour, washing each other off and watching the moon sink in the growing daylight.
           When we were both thoroughly cleaned and freezing from the river water, we struggled back to our clothes piles, restarting our laundry duties. I dipped my shirt into the river and watched the brown of dried blood wash away. Amara moved herself closer to me, letting me share the warmth of her hide.
           "You [ ] get cold," she said quietly, "I can't [ ] what it [ ] be like to not have [fur?]." Idly, I rinsed my clothes in the river, looking at her. She was staring up at the sky.
           "Not so bad," I countered, "I have clothes, and you." She shuffled uneasily. There was a pause.
           "You do have me," she agreed reluctantly, then sighed. "If we were good [soldiers?], one of us would be dead. I thought I would die when I [crashed?], but I didn't. Then I saw you over me;I thought you'd kill me. When you helped me you [ ] a big [ ]."
           I didn't get most of the last part of what she said, but got the gist of it. "I didn't want to be the only one here," I murmured, "And I was afraid you might come out and kill me." Amara nodded.
           "I [almost?] killed you, but you took a [risk?] with me. I thought that if you were [willing?] to [risk] me, I had to [risk] you. Then, when I found you [ ] me, I didn't [realize] you were the man who'd saved me; I [hadn't been thinking? / wasn't thinking?]." I wrung the water out of the rinsed shirt, thinking a bit myself.
           "So why'd you go from angry to afraid so quickly?" She flinched.
           "I'm sorry, I didn't know it was you. I hurt you, almost killed you because I was so [enraged?]. When you showed me that blanket I [remembered] who you were. I [remembered] that we fought, that you had beaten and then [spared] me, and that I had just hit and clawed at my [master?]. I was sure that you'd kill me." She smiled. "Instead I got bad food."
           I washed at another article of clothing, thinking. Had a point, she did; if I was a decent trooper I'd have just shot her and not given her a second thought. Shoot the bitch; that was the military way. Except these days I didn't think bitch, I thought Amara. The thought of shooting Amara was much less appealing. When your enemy has a face it's harder to justify butchering her. Even if she'd killed all my friends, even though she'd shot my faithful, dependable Roe, I couldn't work up a decent hatred for her.
           "Thinking?" Amara asked. I nodded silently.
           "You killed all of my friends; I should hate you. So why don't I?"
           "Maybe because you understand I was [under orders?]. I don't hate humans like most of you hate Hrasi, but I don't think you hate Hrasi so much either. You killed my friends too; we're supposed to do that to each other. It's what our people tell us to do; we don't have to hate [one another?] for it." I smirked.
           "You're much wiser than I am if you honestly believe that." She didn't get that, I was sure, but didn't seem to care either; she just moved to rest her head on my shoulder.
           "Ahrn, you think too much."
           She's being pretty compassionate for the enemy, I thought. Since I had met her she'd been overly fair and generous, not the heartless bug-eyed monster popular culture had made the Hrasi out to be. Well, to be fair to the popular culture, the real culprit was probably the military's propaganda / recruitment campaign. For some reason, kids were more willing to go out and fight the Hrasi evil space aliens than to go out and fight other kids.
           Amara was looking at me while I was entranced. "Hey, you," she cried, "No more thinking!" I smiled appreciatively and obliged her, allowing such depressive thoughts to flit back into the ether they came from. She grinned and smacked me upside the head with claws pulled. "Hurry up!" As if there was any hurry whatsoever.
           So I sat and washed. There was blood on most of our clothes, both hers and mine. Then there was sand and dust everywhere. I refused to take sandy clothes, so I had to build a shelter of sorts out of the local vegetation to block the sand-bearing winds. Amara, of course, found the whole idea and scheme to be hilarious, and wasted no time in breaking out laughing. I tried ignoring her, then went ahead and gave her a little rub under the knee.
           You have no idea how ticklish Hrasi can be. Maybe it's their increased hunter's sensitivity, or the added effect of their fur, but somewhere down the evolutionary path they developed a serious Achilles heel. Or perhaps it's more of an Achilles stomach, underarm, foot sole, and neck. In any case, I had Amara squirming and mewling under me, her muscles all gone to jelly as she spasmed helplessly.
           "Laughing at me, huh? Well, we can fix that, you overgrown tabby. Oh, you're still laughing," I growled evilly, "aren't you? Well, I guess I'll have to keep doing this." I tickled her feet to press the point.
           Amara gasped and sputtered between mewling and chuffing.
           "Stop! Stop! Kho-… khos Ahr-… khos Ahrn! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Let me-… let-… Ah, stop!" I relented with one hand long enough to waggle my pointer finger in what was surely and very blurry face.
           "Uh uh. You've been a bad slave, teasing me like that." She gasped for air in between laughing, then tried to moan out.
           "I thought you said you didn't want a slave!"
           "I don't. So? You brought it on yourself, and now you're going to pay the price."
           "No more jokes! Stop! Please!" I stopped, and she rolled away to curl in a ball. "[ ]," she pouted at me. Probably meant bastard.
           "What? You want more?" She crawled backwards as fast as possible in that position. I chuckled. "Just kidding."
           We retired to the campsite to check the beacon. Before we got anywhere near it Amara's ears had picked up. When I asked her she made quieting gestures.
           "Something's there," She whispered. I nodded and went for my sidearm, then noticed I didn't even have pants on, much less a holster and pistol. Feeling rather foolish, we ran back to the river with to get our clothes. Amara had her gun lying atop her newly washed shorts, but I had not taken mine.
           Her firearm was definitely museum material; it sported the same basic design as the more effective western pistols, but was an 8-shot in a clip as opposed to the human's 6. It had no safety, needed to be re-cocked after shot, and was unwieldy as hell. Monster of a gun, though; she probably could've shot through the armor plating on some parts of my ship. Amara checked that the ammo clip was seated properly, then followed me to the campsite.
           We stopped on the other side of a hill at the rear of the campsite. All I could hear was static. When I looked to Amara she shrugged. "You want me to go first, khos Ahrn?" she whispered. I signed a negative, then crawled up the hill on my belly until I could see down at the campsite. The damned thing was empty. The shelter was obviously unoccupied, the firesite was deserted, and there was not a trace of inspection or tampering with the beacon. It was the beacon, in fact, making the noise.
           "All clear," I yelled back to Amara, then rose to my feet. She bobbed her head once, then pocketed the sidearm and ran up to stand beside me. When she got to the top, however, I was down to the bottom and hovering over the beacon. She arrived behind me after what sounded like a short sprint to look over my shoulder. "The beacon is going nuts," I provided. Her nose wrinkled in thought.
           "No, it has [picked up?] something for sure; a signal. We just forgot to add in something to tell us when it did." I looked doubtfully at it.
           "After one night of operation?"
           "Well," she countered, "there were surely search [parties? / teams?] sent for us, or maybe a passing civilian. You did make the beacon so that it had to be [heard], though; what did you [expect]?"
           "I expected to have some time before we got picked up." Amara looked at me with a single raised eyebrow.
           "So now what, khos Ahrn? You're the master here." I glared at her.
           "You'd better stop with that nonsense when people arrive to get us." Amara only smiled.
           "Yes, khos Ahrn," she dutifully intoned. Actually, there was a bit of humor in her voice.
           "You're not much of a slave, you know."
           "You're not much of a master, you know." She gave me her humblest, most innocent look, in response to which I boxed her ears. They bounced right back up to their former positions. I smiled at her and ruffled the back of her mane.
           "Seriously, though," I told her, "No slave act."
           "Well, I am your slave, so I could [lie] if you wanted me to…" She acquiesced. It was probably the most I could expect out of her. Amara twitched her nose. "So who's coming for us?" I stared down at the beacon.
           We had rigged both systems so that they were running in sync with one another. I had 'slaved' Amara's beacon to mine, so the constructed beacon was running under human programming, but I couldn't tell which of the beacon's receivers had gotten the signal.
           "Umm…," I mumbled, stalling for time, "I'm not exactly sure, but…uh…" Amara stared at me in disbelief.
           "You don't have the smallest idea of how to find out, do you?" she said; it wasn't even a question, really.
           "Of course I know how," I said defensively, "I just need to think about it." She dipped her ears in what was probably the Hrasi version of an eye roll.
           "Let me do it, you helpless fool." I raised my eyebrows as she bent over to disconnect the Hrasi beacon part.
           "Is that any way to speak to your master?" I inquired in mock anger. She grinned as she worked.
           "I'm sorry, khos Ahrn. I'll make it up to you tonight." She chuffed, turning her head to watch me blush for a moment before returning to work.
           A minute later she had the Hrasi beacon disconnected. The whole assembly died, but the Hrasi beacon continued to bleep. "Interesting," Amara mused, "either the signal is Hrasi or I [botched? / screwed?] the power connections through the grid." She fit the assembly back together, then disconnected the human beacon component. It went dead, but the rest of the assembly wailed right on. Her ears flattened down. "Well, then," she said quietly, much of her mirth lost, "That is that; no question that we found a Hrasi. I'm sorry." She looked down. "Never should've put in the Hrasi beacon." I frowned.
           "Shouldn't you be happy? You get to go home." She stared up at me with a pained expression.
           "Is that what you think of me? You don't get to go home. No, I'm not happy, my master is going to be a damn [prisoner?] in war."
           "Not what- err, that's not what I meant!" I protested. She took that to chew on, and turned away from me with a sour look on her face.
           "I know that," she growled, purposefully giving me the back, "But that was still a [cold? / low?] [blow?]. Sorry I shouted. It's just that… you're going to be [taken prisoner?]! Maybe even shot. I really don't want that to [happen?]. Better if I get captured."
           "Look, it has to be one of us or the other. Frankly, I'd rather it be me. My people haven't seen a real Hrasi yet. They'd probably cut you up to try and figure out how you worked the moment they laid hands on you. At least your kind have already figured that stuff out." She growled at that.
           "Just because we know how you [work?], they could [still?] kill you. This is a war. After 3 days, have you already [forgotten]? I could be killed [as well?] if they think I have been helping the enemy. The enemy is you, khos Ahrn. That could make me a [traitor]. You understand [traitor]? Traitor means we could [both?] die for not killing each other." I flinched involuntarily at her last sentence; paranoia run amok.
           "So you could get out of this," I said quietly. "Just kill me." I watched her shoulders tense up and her claws flex. "Considering it?" I asked, and she balled up her muscles even more.
           "I will not [sink?] so low," She said acidly, "but I might kill you if you don't stop [insulting] me."
           "Sorry if I can't seem to put my life in your hands, but now we're traitors."
           "I'm [loyal?]. I won't hurt you if it kills me," She spat. Quite the mild-mannered, subservient little slave, I thought, then leaned over to whisper in her ear.
           "Don't say that," I warned, "It might kill you yet. Traitor."
          

           ---v---

          
           When Amara went back to check the details of the Hrasi beacon she pronounced the rescue ship to be a few hours away, estimating that it would arrive midday. We spent the precious time given to us packing up and preparing for the arrival; the shelter came down, the fire was doused, and the utensils went away. The two of us worked in haste, anxious to be done before the rescue ship arrived.
           After much argument and a general lack of consensus we decided that Amara would probably be better received in uniform. She bitched and moaned at having to wear clothes in such an unbearable climate, but I managed to convince her that it was a necessary evil. Actually, it was a quick matter. Simply suggesting that she was being less than womanly was enough to stop her dead in her tracks. Amara was always self-conscious about such things.
           It was also decided that I should definitely not be in uniform. Ideally, I would have been a civilian worker on the ship I had been guarding, but there was the small matter of there being a human fighter wreck nearby, as well the absence of the transport's wreckage. So instead I wouldn't admit to being the fighter pilot if asked, an omission that might have worked on some of the lower level security if they were feeling particularly brain-dead that day. Or so Amara said. Hey, it was the best plan we could come up with.
           The two of us were becoming more and more high-strung as the hours progressed. In myself it manifested as jumpiness; whenever Amara moved, spoke, or touched me unexpectedly, I flinched. She was always apologetic, of course, but it wasn't her fault in the first place. I kept expecting to find a hulking Hrasi death trooper behind me, or something equivalently nasty.
           In Amara's case she became progressively more and more dependant on me, or perhaps more possessive. At any sign of danger or something that startled her, she would duck down, flatten her ears, and turn to me. Once, a pair of falling metal pans caused such a clamor that she lost her footing and collapsed in a writhing heap at my feet. She had been horribly embarrassed, but refused to explain what she had been doing curled around my ankles. Whether her motive was to hide under me or to protect me I didn't know.
           When the time for the Hrasi rescuers to arrive came near, we retreated up towards the wreck of my ship. It was located near a great vantage point, one which looked down on just about everything within a kilometer or two. When we got there we staked out the place and watched Amara's old ship from below. It seemed a logical place for a rescue team to begin their search. They made their appearance within the hour.
           There was never the thunderous sound or the brilliant flash of light one usually thinks of when talking about landing starships. Instead there was silence, and we saw a tiny speck lengthen into a claw-shaped transport above us. The stealthy thing careened past us, pulled a few laps around Amara's fighter, then settled down a few hundred meters upstream from where we had been camping.
           "I'd better go down," Amara muttered, getting up to leave. A lone figure had appeared in the airlock of the new ship, all dressed in black. From the view I had I couldn't pick out any more details.
           "Be careful," I reminded her. She looked at me and forced a grin.
           "I'll be fine. They're not going to hurt me; they came here to rescue me. I'm not worried."
           "You're a horrible liar," I admonished her, then reached out a hand to pat her on the back. She caught my hand and nuzzled it, inhaling deeply.
           "Friendly scents calm the [nerves?]," She explained, smiling. Amara raised a hand to touch my cheek, then turned and was gone.
           "Good luck," I whispered to her back.
           The rescue team was hard at work searching for Amara. They ran around like little black-clad ants for a few minutes, then converged on Amara's fighter. I could see what was obviously predator instinct at work; they came at it cautiously from several angles, rifles raised. It would be another few minutes until Amara got down there, unless she was running at a break-neck pace. The search party went through Amara's ship, but found nothing, obviously becoming more and more agitated. Perhaps it was because they couldn't find a corpse, but there was plenty of dried blood.
           They went from her fighter to the place where we'd set up the beacon, rushing down to it in a pack. I watched them puzzle over it; half-Hrasi and half-human. About five of them crouched down next to it and examined it carefully, disassembling the Hrasi components and inspecting the human parts. They seemed to consult one another, then all turned to gaze up at me.
           I scrambled back and out of sight. Shit! I berated myself. Of course they'd recognized just where those human parts had come from. It didn't take a genius to figure out who would've been able to patch the two systems together, especially if you had a nose that could probably scent individual people off days-old objects. I wished Amara would hurry up and tell them not to shoot me on sight. That was if they didn't shoot her on sight.
           There wasn't much for me to do - hiding would be almost impossible from people that had noses like that. Fighting was a prospect I relished almost as little. Amara was seriously wounded, but she had overpowered me more than once without too much of a struggle, so I could only imagine how strong the search and rescue team would be. Not to mention that they all had fangs and claws. I drew my pistol and checked it over once to make sure it was properly loaded and ready, then flipped off the safety and settled into my right hand. The weight of it was a psychological reassurance, never mind that I wouldn't get to use it.
           I crawled my way back to my wrecked fighter and worked my way behind it, where I was sure they wouldn't be able to aim at me. Finding Amara was the only viable option that left me alive and not stuck on this godforsaken desert. Reluctantly, I ran down the path from my fighter to Amara's wreck. As soon as I reached the valley's floor, I ducked down and found a boulder to hide behind. From there, I took a moment to survey my surroundings, risking a few bobs around the boulder's edges to see if there was anyone around.
           The valley was silent. It was too silent, in fact. Noon's shadows played across the dune in the. boulder-covered valley, casting darkness in sheer defiance of the day's light. I was in such a shadow, hoping to be obscured by it. From where I was sitting I couldn't see anyone, and hoped they in turn couldn't see me. There was still a tangible tension in the air, though. Ridiculous as it may have seemed, I could have sworn that I smelled Hrasi, and I knew for damned sure that I wasn't alone. As intently as I listened, there was nothing. All I could hear was the sound of my own breath, shallow and quick. Hell, I thought, I'm going to grow old like this. I might as well make the first move; at least that way I'll know what hit me.
           I leaned back on the boulder, braced my foot against it, and then solidly pushed myself off. The push sent me tumbling in a long, fast roll that must have taken me forty feet in a few seconds. Before I slowed enough to present a decent target I flipped up and twisted around to train my gun on any targets.
           Being a spacer, particularly a fighter pilot, has always forced me to stay in shape, and from day one my exercises of preference have been the various martial arts. Such things help. I've tried the various 'ball' sports, weight lifting, gymnastics, etc, but for a spacer most sports either require facilities that just aren't practical to have on a starship or are too hazardous in space. Besides, martial arts hone your fighting instinct and reduce reaction times like crazy.
           Most fighter jocks treat the almighty reaction times with the respect they're due, and will do just about anything to lower theirs, but I've found that physical combat works the best. As a result, by the time I was doing rolls and flips on that desert planet I had gained triple black belts from three separate ryus in karate, jujitsu, and ninjitsu, a 'B' rating in fencing saber, an 'A' in fencing epée, a 'C' in foil, and numerous boxing trophies. To be honest, they didn't help much.
           As I came out of my flip and started training my gun I saw a pair of Hrasi in black looking very surprised on either side of the boulder I'd just pushed off. Both had been advancing on me stealthily and had been only a few feet away when I had moved. Both went for their guns simultaneously, but I already had mine in hand. I put a pair of bullets through the wrist of the Hrasi to my left as he drew his sidearm. He went down howling, clutching at his arm as it bled profusely.
           The other Hrasi was faster. He had his gun out before I could re-aim at him, and fired at me with two earth-shattering shots. I tried to twist out of the way when I saw his gun, but I was much too slow. The bullets punched through me, one in the gun-arm shoulder and another through the lower abdomen. In my euphoric state, however, the bullet wounds merely itched, adrenaline conveniently shunting the rest of the pain away. I tossed my gun from my ruined right arm to the left in a last-ditch effort to get the bastard when I came out my twist.
           I landed hard on my rear, probably fracturing my tailbone in the process - I couldn't feel anything except excitement at the time - and brought my gun up to aim at my remaining opponent. He simply shot the gun out of my hand. For what seemed like an eternity in my hyper-aware state I watched my gun spin to the ground, then bounce up and down as it clattered to rest a few feet away. The Hrasi was lining up for a clean shot to my head, but I refused to give it to him.
           I threw myself to the right, getting up onto my feet in the process. A single bullet whistled past my ear as I ran at my attacker in a confusing zigzag pattern. He shot at me unsuccessfully another four or five times, then threw his gun down in disgust to brace himself for a physical assault. I was only too happy to oblige it to him.
           He bared his claws out at me and took a horizontal swipe as I came into range. I ducked neatly and lit into him with an uppercut straight to the chin. It knocked his jaws together loudly, and he staggered back dazedly. This entire affair was conducted in silence, but I intended to break that. I launched at him again with a percussive shout and went for a hit to the neck, but he managed to catch my arm and twist his around it in a restraining grip. The yell didn't even slow him down.
           My opponent hissed menacingly, then brought his free hand across me in a sideways slash down my middle. My flight jacket was reinforced artificial kevlar, and had I had it on those claws wouldn't have so much as scratched me. As it was, they ripped my shirt in two and carved centimeter-thick grooves into my chest. This time the pain did come across, and combined with the gunshot wounds were too much for me to take.
           I sagged in his grip, and took another rake across the cheek. Blood flew past my vision, but there was nothing I could do about it except gasp. My aggressor growled something at me, but my grasp on the Hrasi language had long since been washed away by the adrenaline high. I could see him in my blurring vision bringing up his hand to rip out m throat as I dangled helplessly.
           A familiar Hrasi voice cried out somewhere in the background. The blow I knew was inevitable seemed late in coming; I waited, but instead of being hit I was dropped. There were yells, hissing, spitting, and growls around me, each one angry and irrational. The prey inside me went off, and I curled up into a ball. I lay there leaking copious amounts blood, with hunters/killers/predators surrounding me, with no strength even to run or try and hide, or even to defend myself.
           The yowling died down and I could feel presences hovering around me. God, I thought, I'm going to die here. Twenty-four years old, a hell of a career ahead of me, and I'm actually going to die. And here I'd thought you didn't become mortal 'till you reached thirty. A furred hand touched my good shoulder and pulled me apart, opening all my soft spots up to the world.
           The touches were gentle though, and the face I stared up at was kind. Familiar, too; it was somebody I intrinsically just wanted to trust. The big cat growled something at me and bent over to pick me up, which it managed easily. My senses were fading, my grip on reality shrinking, and my tether-hold to consciousness becoming thinner and thinner. That cat kept murmuring to me, though, working in a rhythmic, purring rumble that droned away most of the pain. What struggling I could manage I spent in snuggling in closer to her chest fur. I was sure it was a her, for some reason.
          
           Somewhere along the line the blood loss just proved to be too much, and I blacked out.
          
           End Part 2