Undertow

Undertow
By Nalani
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Introductions

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Her feet wanted to move, wanted to leave. Her head even told her to. But Kates heart begged to know where Jenkins was. The Yautja crash site was untouched, even the slight evidence of her being there two months before was barely changed from the winds of the planet. And windy it was. Her hair was blowing wildly, the blonde tuffs hitting over her eye slots on her tight metal mask. Everything of this shitty Andale Prime planet was strange. From its large black trees with leaves larger than her head to the strange orange sand, everything was off. And something is still cringing up her spine, but it’s not about the planet itself. Jenkins and the crew of The Betsy would have gotten here, they have never missed a score like this. They would try until death to get here. Particularly David, the ship’s captain and pilot. His itch for finds and scavenging was greater than even Kates, something she adored in the man. While they shared an interest in moving from place to place, finding sites and scores, that’s as much as they had that matched.

She walks around the line between the ship and the burnt sand around it, looking for any marks or any sign. But even after two hours of searching, she can only see signs from herself. Inwardly kicking herself for not being as careful as she should have been, Kate stars at the wreckage because though she hates to admit it; this could be the best score of her life.

“” “” “” “”

Eceri emerges from his drop-off ship, three hunters following him slowly. Their skins shiver from the sudden change, even though it is slight and not as bad as it could have been, their skin twitches as it adjusts. Standing a full head taller than his followers, the Arbitrator initially didn’t want New Bloods, but seeming as this was an easy task set from the Patriarch to find Yautja smugglers, he merely shrugged at the request and said why not. But in more proper terms, of course.

“The Ooman is by the site, surround it but keep yourselves unseen. If it takes more, allow it to leave. Maybe it’ll take it to a different port and we can see where it leads.” He sighs at the thought of how much longer this is really going to take. Say this Ooman takes a piece of their ship and sells it, the patience it will take to track it between buyers and sellers to find out who in hunting Yautja and killing them for their products will be tedious to say the least.

“I have a sudden and rather wonderful urge to just kill this Ooman for what it has done.” One New Blood growls lowly, one of his friends nodding and smacking him on the shoulder to agree.

“This one may not be the one killing us, might be a mere scavenger. Perhaps you need to learn to watch before opening your mouth.” Eceris scathing remark shuts up all the New Bloods for the trip, he didn’t train them but sure as hell will put them in their place if need be.

Simultaneously they cloak and spread out, each one surrounding the Ooman to cover every option it has of leaving. While not their intention to harm it, they need to watch it at all times to see if it takes anything at all. Eceri takes the point closest to the Ooman and follows as it walks around the site. By his sight alone, he notes how it has rather useless armor. Black and metal, thin sheets over its chest and arms, but doesn’t cover its thighs and only its lower leg. Stupid really. Judging from the shape, hair style and flatness of the chest piece, Eceri gathers it is a male because like Yautja females, their breasts were more of a hindrance than anything. After an hour of walking, and another hour of pure boredom by all the hunters, the Ooman stops finally and gives a sigh loud enough for them all to hear. It was of course a sigh of defeat. Its friends were never on this planet and so it would never find evidence saying so. When it stops and looks towards the wreckage, Eceri hopes it takes the bait. Just a few things, things they wouldn’t miss. Anything! It flinches twice, making small movements towards the site but then suddenly it turns around and it starts for its own ship again. Damn it.

He signals his hunters to surround it, they need to capture it before it gets to its ship. Detaining another Ooman was not his hope, question and interrogating were not his strongest suits. But if it comes down to it, he will use his skills as best he can to get what information this Ooman has.

“” “” “” “”

Running a hand through her hair, Kates heart is heavy as she finally tells herself she can’t find her friend. And highly doubts anyone ever will. Her slow walk to her ship was the last line between giving up and trying, but she can’t anymore. What will she find? A ghost ship maybe? More wreckage? Fucking small chance of anything. A rustle of leaves off to her left makes the hair all over her body stand on end, this planet has no life but for plants on it. And the sound was not caused by wind. Fuck. Her body knows what to do before her head even has the chance to know it was in danger. Bolting towards the back of her ship, Kate can feel a cold sweat instantly start on her brow. But just as she puts one foot on the jumpers floor, something grabs her around the waist and pulls. And pulls fucking hard! Tossing her back, Kate rolls over and over, finally stopping as a tree stump hits her back. Without thinking, she gets up and while trying to gain back her breath and holding her back, she runs away. And doesn’t stop.

The pounding of her heart was so blindingly loud Kate thought her head would explode. The taste of blood is touching the back of her throat. Her muscles are crying to stop! She jumps over fallen trees like they are nothing, ducks under thick branches and tries hard not to slip on the too wet leaves on the ground. She can’t hear them but she can feel whatever they are right behind her. That feeling of dread she has had from the beginning makes more sense than she wanted, but now she can’t shake the feeling of hopelessness. It can only be one kind of person that is here and Kate knows she can’t out run them, they are Yautja. But she can try. Behind her a growl hits her ears, almost so quiet it was unnoticeable, but she heard it. Her stomach does a few turns and she charges ahead, a new vigor thrusting her legs to move faster.

A clearing startles her as the trees end, but it’s what’s just beyond her that forces her to cry out. A sudden drop off is a few meters ahead and so slowing down, Kate goes a few steps closer to see over the end, whispering ‘oh god’ as the sight of a hundred foot drop to a large lake glows up at her. Just as she is about to turn back into the thick black forest, two shimmering forms burst from the wall of leaves and she knows where she has to go. She runs for the cliff and jumps’, holding her head up to the sky as her body falls to the water. As she falls, Kate angles forwards, points to the surface with her hands and prays she doesn’t die on impact.

“” “” “” “”

Eceri couldn’t get to the New Bloods in time to stop one of them from grabbing the Ooman, and tossing him to the ground. Rather small even for the stature of a male Ooman, its flailing limbs as it rolled on the ground was to humorous not to acknowledge. What wasn’t funny was how fast it recovered and began to run. He didn’t need to order anyone to follow it, and was soon running side by side his charge of New Bloods. He wasn’t pushing his speed, he wishes to give the other Yautja a ‘chance’ to get to it first. A little passive encouragement goes a long way. Beside him, a New Blood slips on a wet patch and growls ever so slightly, but by the way the Ooman male picks up speed, without a doubt it was heard. The next moment happened too fast for Eceri to really know what had happened. One second the Ooman was by the cliff top, the next he was watching as it dove into the water. The other three Yautja and he stand right on the edge and wait, and wait longer. Growling deeply with disappointment, the New Bloods are just about to ask Eceri what to do when he nods towards the edge of the glistening lake. Floating upside down and slowly getting placed on the shore by small waves is a black form of was used to be an Ooman.

Without another thought, Eceri jumps feet first into the waters, soon followed by the other three. He swims gracefully under the surface until it was impossible, lifting his head just enough to see the body is still face down. He is startled by a crackling sound and inwardly groans as his cloak dies, flickering slightly before finally shutting off. Slowly walking up to the shore, Eceri merely picks up the body by the collar of its metal armor and drags it up the shore line, tossing it to the ground thoughtlessly. When a small cough escapes the body, Eceri twists around and clicks his mandibles together is awe. So it was alive. Interesting.

“” “” “” “”

Her eyes feel swollen, but Kate isn’t even trying to open them. She can smell blood, taste it, feel it. The ground is painful against her hurt back, but what is worse is that she knows she is still being followed. Yautja don’t stop. It isn’t in their nature. Even though everything in her body is trying to move, and while her fingers and toes wiggle in need to get up, the fact that the air still isn’t in her lungs in a rather large issue. Turning onto her belly, Kate stretches out and takes a foreboding breathe in, smiling at how warm it makes her inside. Pulling her knees under her and sitting up straight, she can’t figure how she got out of the water, but is so thankful she had. The dampness is still in her under-suit, and she swears she can feel something swimming around by her skin. But it was just thoughts, her mind is still fuzzy. Getting onto wobbly feet, Kate doesn’t have a second to know what she is looking at before she feels a fist hit her gut, and then the air is passing by her body yet again. Slamming onto the ground, she can feel the indent of metal of her chest plate against her body, and the pain is unbearable. Screaming even before she stops twisting and turning from her fall, she starts to unlatch the plate. Her fingers move so fast that she takes little time and before she knows it half the plate is off before her thoughts begin to waver. Conscience was dancing in front of her, she needs to hold on, needs to get away. Finally getting the last latch, the plate quietly falls off her and to the ground, a huge bowl in it caused by an equally large fist. Looking at it, Kate can’t even begin to think of how large the Yautja who did it is.

She hears a crunch behind her, gentle yet definitely there. Closing her eyes, she slowly grasps the chest plate at the bottom and with as much force as she can muster, she stands up and swings it. And by god if she didn’t cause damage to it, something in this universe hates her. The sound of the impact was louder than she had thought possible, but the force was so great on her hands she instantly drops her makeshift weapon. Opening her eyes, Kates mouth drops and her fingers go numb. A Yautja well beyond her height is just at an arm’s length, holding its bleeding arm and roaring out into the air. Menacingly it turns back to her, and she can feel her knees begin to shake. The Yautja lifts its arm to hit her and she closes her eyes, knowing that if it hits her right in the head she will die. But when it doesn’t come, she squints through her mask and gawks as an even larger one holds back the offending arm.

“” “” “” “”

The fact that his judgment was so wrong didn’t phase Eceri one bit, mistaking the Ooman for a male due to its stature, shape and style didn’t make him doubt his abilities at all. It did, however, make his plans very difficult. The moment the chest plate was off and the true form of the Ooman was visible, his gut turned in knowing that he had hit a female, and so hard. And with this new information, he didn’t want to think about the future. About what he will have to do. Watching the female smack a New Blood on the arm hard enough to bleed, smiling slightly, Eceri is fast to grab the hand the New Blood was about to use to hit the female back. He didn’t need to explain himself or his actions, and he sure as hell didn’t want to explain to the Patriarch about the abuse of an Ooman female beyond the reach of gaining information. There has to be some limits to torture, no?

Moving quickly, Eceri bolts towards the thing and grabs a hold of its neck. He squeezes just enough to cut off its air supply and waits, dealing with its flailing and kicking limbs with a large hint of humility. Little less than two minutes later, he tosses the unconscious body over his shoulder and without another word he and his charges got to the dropship. This was going to be very interesting.

“” “” “” “”

The pain didn’t wake Kate up. Nor did the cold. It is the last remaining image of a nightmare, of a dark planet and a fear so deep and strong she can still feel it. Her eyes are still closed but Kates mind is wide awake. She doesn’t want to move, she doesn’t want to remember if her dream was real or not. Her muscles ache to stretch out and she reluctantly moves her legs so they are straight, but she doesn’t feel the familiar warmth of her bed. Snapping her eyes open, Kate screams in pure unadulterated horror. Laying naked on a black floor, she instantly curls back up to hide her most intimate parts while tears begin to start up. The room she is in was nothing but a box, the walls a thick grey with only a black door on the far end, a lone table and two chairs in the middle. A sudden, searing pain jolts her forwards, a deathly heat radiates from behind her neck. But reaching there was a bad mistake. Kate weeps at the sight of her own blood as she takes back her hand, feeling a small but still fresh incision just at the base of her neck. She wipes her hand on her thigh, her hands shaking as she does so.

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“But you say the last batch of Oomans were all male?” The Patriarchs voice echoes in Eceris room, even though they are an inch away from whispering.

“They were all male, I don’t understand why this female is by herself.” He says back. After tossing the female into the holding cell, stripped of her suit designed by Yautja product, the Arbitrator instantly went into his room for a private conversation with his leader. “Even Yautja females do not hunt alone, yet this one was the first Ooman to find the bait. And came back looking for the second batch of smugglers.”

“Oomans are a strange race, Eceri. They don’t do what is necessary to protect their peoples. This Ooman female is alone because she hasn’t any other option. That is the only reason I can think of. We know their planet is a moment away from being blown up by war. No one will go back there. They have only our space to occupy now.” The Patriarch sighs loudly and rest back on his large, comfy chair. “Get what you can from her. But don’t kill her like the others.”

“I hadn’t planned on killing her, Gede. The moment I saw it was a female I knew I wouldn’t. Couldn’t”

“Eceri, the Elders of your clan will be told of your interrogation of Oomans, including the female. It is of very bad taste, yes, but a needed discomfort for you.”

“I understand, Patriarch, and I thank you for your choice of me to do this task.” Eceri bows his head to Gede, holding it until his communication screen goes black. He rubs his chin absently as he thinks about what to do next. He doesn’t anticipate he’ll need to do much to get information from the female, he didn’t need to try very hard with the males.

Once washed and changed, Eceri takes a leisurely walk towards the holding cells. Before, he had almost run towards the bay to start his interrogations. But now, now there is a rather unwelcome taste in his mouth. Getting closer to his destination, he can’t help but notice how all on his ship seem to be heading in the same direction. Hearing parts of one conversation and parts of another, he is instantly put off by the fact that this poor female is the subject of many bad thoughts. He knows she personally has not killed any of his kind, she could barely run from them let alone have enough strength to hurt one. But who is he to correct New Bloods and their false words?

“She is awake, aware and very, very afraid.” Tog says as Eceri walks into the hallway in front of the interrogation room. Surrounding the halls with him, and most likely around this whole deck, he knows there are too many hunters waiting to get a sniff of Ooman blood. So he tells his right hand and assistant Tog to get rid of them all. His task wasn’t glorious, it wasn’t something to look up to. And he doesn’t want to make a spectacle of the poor female. Not at all. The main interrogation room was nothing but a large four walled room with a table and two chairs in it, comfort is last on a long list needed to do this kind of job. The door into the room makes him stop, it seems ominous suddenly. A poor being so scared and frightened is on the other side, not knowing what it going on, what is going to happen. If it were a Yautja, Eceri can imagine how crazy it would get. Stepping forwards a little more, the door silently slides open and he walks in without looking around, he knows where the female is. He can smell her. Smell her sweat. Her blood. Her tears.

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He seems a giant of beasts to Kates eyes, his head to large she can’t stop staring. It was even broader than she thought a Yautja could be, its skin lighter. Of all the images she has ever seen, its skin was always dark and bland. But this one was lighter, with skin almost as light as hers. But all over it are areas of dark browns and blacks, all melding together like that of a lizard. Its tusked mandibles have clear and rather intricate and colored carvings, of what she can’t see. And she sure as fuck doesn’t want to ever get close enough to know. Its deep set eyes haven’t looked up at her, thankfully. If they had Kate is sure she would cry. Beg. Plead to be let go. Without warning her breathing starts to hitch, becoming harder and harder to take in. She grabs her knees and brings them to her chest, placing her forehead against them and takes deep, calming breaths. Panic attacks are too common to her, they plagued her for the better part of her life. She had thought them defeated, but she is proven wrong today.

“Calm down Ooman.” Its words were clear, deep and so abrupt she screams, but only a little. The table in front of the Yautja barely makes it to his thighs, and Kate can only guess he was beyond seven feet tall. “My name, is Eceri. Son of Md’Khi, ninth in a line of Arbitrators. Now, I don’t expect you to remember such things, your mind is not in a state to do such tasks.” His words are straight, clear and by all means quite understandable. But how they were, that is a question, now isn’t it?

“Wha…” Her lips decide not to work. Fuck.

“Ooman, you are under apprehension by my Clan and those of The Patriarch Gede for crimes against the Yautja and all we are.”

“Crimes?” She repeats back. It is now that Eceri looks at her and his dead eyes give Kate a cold fever from head to toe.

“Yes, crimes, you little Ooman. That suit you were wearing, all from our technology.” Eceri clatters his mandibles in annoyance, like she didn’t know. Kate ears tickle at the new sound, but something inside her tells her it wasn’t a good sound. She scratches her hands through her hair, grabbing at the back of her head painfully. This can’t be real, this can’t be happening. “Watch for the incision, you’ve a Yautja translator implanted at the junctions of your ear drums, the Ooman tongue is too stupid to bother learning.” He huffs. Kate once again touches her cut, the blood on her fingers still dripping when she looks at them.

“Wh…why?” She whispers. Like Eceri was going to answer.

“Ooman, tell me why you were at the crash site of a Yautja ship?” Taking one step at a time, slowly and manically deliberate to get around the table, he stares at the poor female. Waiting for an answer. But it doesn’t come. So he asks again. And again. Her eyes are suddenly over dilated, her body begins to rock back and forth while her lips move wordlessly. Fuck, she is in shock.

To snap her out, Eceri does one of the only things he knows that can snap someone from this state. Hurt them. He grabs the female by the neck once more, but not so hard this time. He lifts her up so her feet are just off the ground and using his feet hand, he grabs hers and slams it against the wall. But still its eyes are more than blank. Growling deeply, Eceri begins to push his thumb into her palm, his claw digging into her delicate skin. The smothering scent of blood doesn’t faze him anymore, but it did her. She snaps her head towards the offending pain, her legs begin to kick at him in vain.

“Please. Please stop oh god.” She begs, her whisper so pathetic. But he doesn’t relent.

“Tell me why you were there, Ooman.” Kate looks back to her attacker and stares into his golden eyes. For a split second she wants to spit in them, and it translates into her own. Before she even has a moment to collect the proper and thickest possible mucus, Eceri tosses her to the other side of the room. Her scream is gut-wrenching even to him, it was so pitiable. Her body slumps where it had landed, and once again the salty fragrance of tears hits his nose. Ooman always cry. Taking a moment, Eceri decides he has to approach this one differently. The males had fought, diligently and ruthlessly until the bitter end. But in the end, they sang like a bird. “Being female, an Ooman female, how do you think that’ll improve your current situation?” It looks up to him with giant worried eyes and it stops Eceri dead. He has to admit, begrudgingly, that the lowly blue color of them was enhanced by the blood shot white around it. “Or..” He continues, but it merely blinks at him. “Or how it’ll worsen it?” Kate couldn’t break her stare, she didn’t want to. But a coolness breezes over her body and she suddenly remembers her nakedness. She sits up and covers her breasts, crosses her legs hard and moves away from the standing Yautja, backing yet again into a corner.

“I don’t…” Her thoughts are broken by a loud hiss, the Yautja showing his full and complete irritation with her.

“Why were you at the Yautja crash? That is the last time I am asking before your other hand gets a matching wound.” He hisses, and she looks to her hurting palm.

“I found it with a random scan for metals, one in a fucking million shot.” Eceri leans away from her, letting her train of thought take her away. “I didn’t take much, just a shoulder cannon, that’s all I swear!” She looks up to him again with pleading eyes, and as much as he would like to believe her, this might not be her only find of Yautja items.

“What else have you taken from the Yautja?” He asks. But she tells again, nothing more. “It’s a damn shame I don’t believe you, isn’t it?” He asks, laughing as she begins to tell him over and over, becoming frantic. Kates breathing begins to quicken again and she knows what will happen soon, her panic attacks, she thought, have been long gone but all it takes is a Yautja fighting her to bring one on. Her lungs beg for air and it seeps through a closed throat. In a moment her head falls to the ground, unconscious and out cold. Odd. Eceri clatters his mandibles at her, expecting her to look at him like before. But it doesn’t move. Slowly, thinking it a trap, he walks to her side, kneels down and moves her onto her back. But at her blue eyes are rolled back, but breathing back to normal, Eceri resorts to checking her pulse to ensure she is not near death. He hasn’t really started! Leaning closer to her face, he notes how Oomans too have little spots like Yautja, though theirs are smaller, lighter. This Oomans are all over her body, with large grouping on her face. Charming.

“” “” “” “”

Kate wakes up with a start, her body jolting upwards but as she attempts to stand, her legs give out and she falls to her knees.

“Careful Kate, I don’t know what happened to you but they brought you here at least two hours ago.” The voice is familiar, human. Her instincts kick in and she looks around her, finding herself in what can only be called a jail cell with one side being thick bars. But it is who is across the way that makes her cry out.

“David!” Her heart sings at finding her friend, but his state breaks her heart. Rushing to the bars, she can see his body has been degrading for the entire length of time that he has been here. “David what happened? We are all looking for The Betsy, for Jenkins.”

“You won’t find him Kate. No way.” He laughs, but it changes into coughing quickly. “Has the big one talked to you yet?” He asks and all Kate has to do it lift her palm to him, showing her wound. “Be afraid of him Kate, he can do horrible, horrible things. I saw,” He stops and shuts his eyes closed, hard. “I saw him rip the head off of my weapons guy, right fucking off.”

“They are Yautja David, they can do anything.”

Standing against the wall, leaning rather lightly, Eceri listens intently to the conversation, hoping for any details worth investigating. The Ooman female, seemingly named Kate, had passed out on her own accord and as patient as he is, he didn’t really want to sit and wait. It was Togs idea to put the Oomans together, remembering how the male group had talked as such when they were waiting to be interrogated. And it seems to be working famously.

“They are all dead Kate, Jenkins first. Then the rest. We didn’t tell them anything, at least nothing that will cause any repercussions.”


‘Interesting,’ Eceri thinks. ‘Seems the Oomans didn’t sing true. Pity.’

“Why did you tell them anything?” Kate nearly screams back, David pleads with her to be quieter, so not to bring Yautja. “What if your information leads them to Padua? Ever think of that?” She begs.

‘Padua. Planet perhaps?’ Eceri inputs the name into his wrist computer and it quickly comes up with nothing. No planets have that name by any species, including the Oomans. ‘Even more interesting.’

“We thought of it all Kate, don’t worry. They dragged us in but before our ship shut down completely we wiped the memory banks clean. Like a new ship. No maps, no history. Nothing. They don’t know anything.” David begins to weep, and tells Kate about the family he left behind. “I’ll never make it back to them, I know it.”

“No David, don’t think like that.” Kate reaches beyond the bars, holding out her hand to her friend. And without another thought David reaches out and their hands join in a simple gesture of comfort. “Don’t eat the food Kate, I can’t eat it. I’m dying of hunger and I know it won’t be long.” His eyes are hollow, his cheeks sunken, she knows it too. His hand tightens around hers and she does the same for him. “I’ve always had respect for you, you know that? The fact that you stood by yourself as a scavenger, rather than joining a crew, it was admirable.”

“It was necessary.” Kate laughs. “Your crew was too manly, all the others boring. I can do much better on my own.” She smiles to him.

“And so you did.”

“” “” “” “”

In the morning Kate wakes up with a cold, dead hand in hers. She screams so loud her lungs hurt. Eceri had been just down the hallway and the sound made something inside of him twist. Hearing a female in such distress was blinding, especially since he was the cause of it, and soon much more. He takes his time in walking to her cell, but the sight is too sad to comprehend. Her small, frail body is laying on its side, back towards him, and the sobs are causing it to twitch. He could plainly see bruising happening on her back already, and he can’t begin to think of the bruise on her stomach from his punch from early on, or on her neck.

“Kate.” He speaks her name for the first time, the sound foreign to his tongue but it felt smooth. Like it fit his voice. Strange.

“What.” It didn’t even come out as a question.

“Follow me.” He opens the bars simply by pushing them, they were never locked. Kate turns over and Eceri looks away as a single breast shows over her shoulder. If she had been a Yautja, laying in that position, he would have instantly decided it to be erotic. Her legs are twisted tightly and her hips cause a rather abrupt curve between her pelvic bone and ribs, something Ooman must consider as beautiful as he would. But the fact that her skin is such a pale color of white, even if colored with spots of light brown, and so weak, he couldn’t think of it as anything but useless. He didn’t need to ask her to follow him again as Kate slowly gets up, having to use the walls as support to move. If she had been paying attention, she would have noticed that the cell she slept in and the room she was to be questioned in are barely fifty feet apart, but she doesn’t really care to know at this point. The room is still gray, table still there. Her blood still on the walls and floor. “Sit.” And again, she sits without any force. Eceri moves the other chair so they are looking at one another, and slowly he sits down too.

“Eceri.” She says suddenly, and quietly. “You killed my friend.” She says accusingly.

“Yes, yes I did.” He smugly returns. “All of them in fact.” Kate breaths out a listless laugh, her eyes not focused on anything. She fidgets slowly, covering her breasts with her arms and crossing her legs tightly yet again. “Tell me why you were at the Yautja ship.”

“I am a scavenger.” She starts. Her heart is broken at the knowledge of her friends’ death. She doesn’t really care for anything at this point. “I go to places that have been abandoned or where there have been fights looking for scraps to sell. It’s how I survive.” It sounds pathetic even to her now. “My scanners caught a deposit of metal on a planet so I went, found the site but when I saw it was from you guys, I didn’t want to take anything.”

“But you did.” Eceri says softly. He didn’t notice until that point, but he has been staring at her lips. They are more voluptuous than the males of her species, probably for a reason. Hers are reddened from fright, her skin flush as well. Probably from embarrassment.

“I figured you wouldn’t miss a shoulder weapon, something small. The profit from that little gem is going to keep me alive for years.” Kate bursts laughing at her own statement, taking that cannon has shortened her life by years. Fucking idiot.

“Did it ever occur to you that the site is still there? And, that the site itself has no bodies?” The realization comes to Kate like a bolt of lightning.

“It was fake.” She breaths out, aghast.

“More than fake. We’d been waiting a while until you came along, scavenging. We figured that was your intention as our inventory showed only a shoulder canon was missing. So we expected more, and we got them. However they came from a place where we cannot go, as it seems.” This next little bit of acting on Eceris part should have been recorded, a little playful lying to get the real information doesn’t really do any harm now, does it? “We expected them to come from an Ooman settlement, a place where we could investigate where our goods are really going to. But seeing as David,” He smiles as he says the name, but Kate doesn’t seem to notice. “And his associates worked only out of their ship, you as a contact, we have no other leads than that. The ship was cleaned of memory, sadly.” He could see the light blink behind her eyes, that little glimmer of hope he planted there coming to life. Perfect.

As he expects, Kate tells him ‘the same story’ as the other Oomans, but of course leaving out those details that would make her story completely false. Every so often he could see the small hairs along her body stick up, the bits of skin attached to them as well. Having skin that moved as such was so radical an idea that he catches himself, way too often, staring at different parts of her. He was glad that when he caught himself doing so, Kate was never looking away from the table top. Her hair was so fine, so blonde and he remarkably wants to know how soft it is. If at all. The only thing close to hair on his person was thick and not soft at all. He couldn’t begin to imagine what it was like to have fir on this body, no matter how thin a layer.

“They didn’t need to die.” Kate says out of the blue, her eyes still rimming with tears.

“Didn’t they?” He asks back, interested in her argument. A little.

“If they told you everything, you didn’t need to starve David to death.”

“I didn’t do so myself, it was his choice. He didn’t want to eat. Didn’t want to live evidently.” He gives a small chuckle, gaining a vicious and sudden stare back.

“You didn’t need to kill the others, rip heads off and who the fuck knows what else.” She is getting jumpy. Eceri can instantly smell a change, adrenalin begins to course into her blood and it is seeping out of sweat that is suddenly on her brow. “You don’t need to be evil.” Strange word to choose, but Eceri none the less thought it befitting. “They have family, a life. They didn’t need to die. You didn’t have to kill them.”

“No, they didn’t need to die.” He agrees, Kate so shocked her head jerks back and again her eyes look to his. “But I wanted them to die.” She moves to quickly that he honestly didn’t have time to block the oncoming hand. Kate jumps onto the table and uses the palm of her unhurt hand to smash one of his mandibles to the side, an audible snap making her heart sing. Eceri is instantly up and roaring in pain, his face pulsing and bleeding from a cracked bone on his lower right cheek. But before she has another chance to move, he twists and backhands her harder than needed, and he knows that instantly. Her small body, so frail, contorts from the force and smashes against the far wall. In his mind as he stalks towards her, Eceri is telling himself to hold back, to be careful. In anger, he can do many horrid things, and has in the past. But he can’t do such things to her. Doesn’t want to. Hissing loudly, searing her ear drums, he grabs her again from the neck and holds her against the wall. It is then that he is hit with that glorious scent, that sweet coppery aroma that would drive a less inclined hunter into frenzy. Her nose is cracked to the side, blood near pouring out. He hadn’t intended to break anything. Yet. But it is her eyes that make his mind go blank. Still brutal. Holding a deep seeded fierceness he can’t help but acknowledge. Can’t help but admire. “You are going to deeply regret that.” He says.

She already does.

“” “” “” “”

Authors note: Thanks for the reviews! They really do mean a whole bunches. E.M.