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Like all unblooded, Karga'te had no right for a private room and slept in the kehrite. Unlike on the ships, however, the kehrite in the pyramids had smaller rooms and space was only shared with about twenty to thirty individuals. Normally, if one had friends they were from the same room, but Karga'te was largely ignored by the local packs. In the beginning they often picked on him, but as he caught up with training, this became a very bad idea.
Strength didn't earn him favors, though. Where the others had stories of their childhood, he had nothing interesting or funny to tell. In addition, he had a luxury few others shared : Nra'tex-ne practically was a private mentor. Save for the most promising, the others were taught in classes by combat teachers. Nra'tex-ne was one of those teachers, and by all means should have taken a promising student, and not favor his pitiable family.
Karga'te did not like being reminded of this. Every morning, he was up earliest thanks to a clock Ohtremnek had installed in his helmet. He'd sneak out before the others, avoid their irritating remarks and meet his actual friends. Ghuran usually wasn't too far, but if he wanted to meet Ohtremnek and Kea'chethi he had to leave the kehrite. For the duration of Nra'tex-ne's absence he had not been granted permission to leave. He had been involved in a disobedient act, after all, which had cost him trust points. His first sign of Nra'tex-ne's return was a message from Ohtremnek, telling him his kehrite arrest was lifted and by the way, his brother had a job for him that he'd like. He didn't care that he'd been woken up, and he didn't care that it was still a cold night. He was getting out now.
In the cold outside, he could clearly see her standing at the top of the stairs. With amused self satisfaction he noted she didn't smell too aggressive. Barely was he up or she stomped him on the arm and growled, "What were you thinking, abducting me?"
He kicked her right back and rattled, "I thought it would be fun. It was."
A poor truth, but if that creepy spirit speaker was paying attention, he really didn't want it to get any reason to further brainwash Kea. The same rang true for his brother and friends. Though he had to admit, there were a number of others that he would not mind being taken down a few notches.
They continued snapping at each other as they walked into the undergrowth. Passing outside the pyramid was a detour, but neither minded avoiding the packs.
Nra'tex-ne had arranged that Kea'chethi would get some extra scouting range from Uich'ernite, and Karga'te was to accompany Nra'tex-ne again. That wasn't customary, since all they'd do was get some basic survival stuff into the human's minds. Karga'te and Nra'tex-ne would with getting the male side of the human pack accustomed to things, Kea would take charge of the females. Hanging out with humans wasn't ideal, but hey, he got to go out with his brother and meet Kea on daily base. At least for a while.
"What do you think about this whole mess? I mean that they're living here."
"For all I care, it's giving me an excuse to practice my medicine and get out more often," Kea said, a gleeful look on her face. Kea'chethi had a bizarre affection for plantlife that Karga'te found an everlasting enigma, but that had always been there. She probably wasn't being mind manipulated anymore.
She leaned against him teasingly and he nearly tumbled aside. A few by passing hunters up on a higher road glared at them, and Kea quickly increased the distance between them. She wasn't supposed to get touch with males.
There were an equal number of males and females in the tribe, but families were often unbalanced in the gender ratio. Flatly said, more females got to breed than males at any given time, and diversity was kept because those males often needed replacement due to dying in hunts. Females kept a caste system just as strict as the males, but due to their lower death rates it worked differently. Kea didn't exist on in this caste system, and she was frequently reminded of this. Her status as a hunter was sheer mockery of all the free time she'd be having, so she could hunt for herself.
It still was better than elsewhere though. Mainstream yautja society separated the genders, with the males traveling as nomads and only meeting the females for mating. In that system, there were no servants, no excessive colonies to uphold, and so no room for Kea'chethi. Living here as an outcast was better than death.
It wasn't good enough for Karga'te. He knew what his brother had gotten into, what everyone else got into. Didn't help to know that their favorite softmeat prey across the past hundred years was successfully building a transgalaxial empire just fine with a culture where sex was for free.
Though, he couldn't quite envy humanity all that much.
When he and Kea entered the tiny room below Nra'tex-ne's quarters, they almost threw Melanie off her feet by just stepping through the door. She was in the middle of running out, making a barfing motion and clutching her mouth. Humans and all their diseases, it really was pathetic. Yautja had eradicated nearly all illness by letting the strong breed only (and now they were strong, his people could ditch the system already, as far as Karga'te was concerned).
The other three humans were firmly asleep. He and Kea exchanged a mischievous glance and then they took hold of the blankets that the humans were lying on. At the same moment, they pulled.
The three humans tumbled off the beds. The room just being small enough to have them land partially in a pathetic little pile. If any yautja servants had been in this room, they'd probably take advantage of the new rugs right away, but neither Karga'te or Kea spiteful enough to step on them.
"Hairknot's going to be up first," Karga'te said.
And sure enough, Carly cursed in her language as she crawled back on her feet and gave them an unabashed glare. Kea pushed against her forehead and she staggered back, but kept her footing.
"Be wise that you don't look at an elder that way. Your head would be off," she purred. She briefly look at her wristband, muttered something angry and didn't reply.
Ayo had gotten to her feet by then and kept her eyes on the ground, doing the opposite of Carly. She was too submissive for her own good, she looked like she was apologizing before she'd even done something wrong.
The creep didn't even try to get up, she just curled into a little ball.
Kea, oblivious to how that thing wasn't as harmless as she looked, bent down to shake her softly. "Did we break anything?"
"Don't worry about it," Karga'te said. "These humans are sturdy."
Carly swore again at him, but shut her mouth when Kea picked up the child and put her back in bed. Karga'te wondered whether the thing was manipulating again to get sympathy, but didn't really notice anything odd about himself, or Kea. Though again, Kea's inclination towards fixing organisms was odd in and off itself.
Something else was more immediately wrong. The blankets they were on were slimy, and when Kea placed the girl back on the bed, the same slime covered her hands.
When he asked Kea about it, she said they'd started secreting it earlier already and it was apparently harmless. Huh. He'd heard heardmeat were slimy all the time, but then again, nobody had specifically said humans didn't have their periods of slime too. Ohtremnek would have something to explain later, no doubt.
While Kea wiped her hands on the bed curtains, he prodded Carly and Ayo in the back. Kea explained them what was about to happen, she was to teach them to gather food for themselves, and then they'd go a distance to get some herbs. They constantly looked at their wrist bands and seemed to have difficulty keeping up, and Karga'te was impatient before long.
Carly and Ayo could walk, but they left the other two as they couldn't move from one place to another without support. Good riddance, he hoped the creep had a limited range.
Across the next week, as they worked with the humans, Karga'te was doing a decent job not worrying too much about the potential brainwashing.
And then one day, that blasted spirit speaker started screaming in her silence.
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Carly was pretty sure as hell didn't exist that by no legal or medical definition she was better. Damn the yautja and their delusion that weakness was a great opportunity to show strength.
Every morning, Nra'tex-ne's brats tore them from bed for educative purposes. It involved jungle, but it also involved cleaning weaponry and dealing with chemicals and poisons. Every afternoon, they'd be putting that to work. Sometimes, they sored out and were ordered to do something they hadn't already learned.
The slime and the headaches slowly got less, and admittedly it was far easier to figure out what they could eat when not limited to kitchen scraps. Still, Carly would have given a lot for a good bed and a fat glass of ice tea.
And then, Kea just had to get the fucking fantastic idea to borrow them for the entire day. For field work. In the hot, bug invested jungle. Just when her stupid body decided it absolutely had to refurnish her internal organs now, thank you very much. Surely this was plotted by her generous mutant genes. She needed a counter conspiracy.
All she got was being stuffed into a small airship that had a dank scent to it and too much scratches to be anything but in line for the garbage heap. They were cramped in the dark back while Kea'chethi piloted. It was clearly a cargo vessel, as there were no seats here. They had to hold onto hooks on the wall to keep themselves from being thrown around every time Kea turned a corner.
"Can't she fly over the trees? This can't be good for our breakfast."
"This vessel probably does not produce enough thrust to get higher," Ayo said with a shaky voice, eyes fixed ahead to keep from going nauseous. That was about as much emotion as the teen would give. Carly missed Jarrod, who would at least have vocally agreed and then they could whine together.
Kea stopped sooner than expected, though not as soon as hoped, and for the wrong reason. This was just a short break because she wanted to show them something.
There was a plateau to the south of the city which they had to cross to get to their were at the top of it now, right at the steep edge. Forest covered most of this edge, but there was an open ridge guarded by two massive statues. From here, they could see the five pyramids from about equal height to their peaks. Opposite of this panorama was a solar temple in the form of a relatively smaller pyramid. The sun was rising, casting light through the ashen clouds. Carly supposed it was an impressive sight.
"Upon arrival, the clan used their last bombs to carve out the land. This plateau used to stretch far out where now our pyramids are," Kea explained without invitation.
"It's beautiful," Ayo said, sounding like she meant it.
Carly raised a brow. "You can afford to be a romantic? Kea, how do you even see anything? Does heat not get lost in the distance? Doesn't heat always look the same?"
"I can see in color by default," Kea said. "But not how you could call it beautiful."
"Not beauty as in physically fit or beautiful in an honor gaining way like a trophy," Ayo said. "I don't think your language has a word for it."
Kea'chethi seemed annoyed with the unwanted angle of the conversation, maybe she wanted to talk about history some more. Now she just turned away like they'd insulted her.
Kea was unapproachable in a different way than Ayo, which confused Carly to no end. She was one of the few yautja who put some effort into keeping them alive, but at the same time she didn't seem to care beyond doing a good job. Perhaps she did it out of duty, or boredom, or pride in her work, or to spite the people who treated her as dirt? Maybe she even had sympathy, but that did not have to mean she liked them personally.
She gave them some quick orders to gather local plants while she visited the temple to pray.
Ah well, solitude was preferably anyway.
The site they were at did not look all that different than the immediate vicinity of the pyramids : thick, impenetrable jungle crawling with bugs. Okay, perhaps more bugs than where the kids could get.
Carly tried to chat with Ayo, but was met with sparse responses. They didn't have an awful lot to talk about anyway. While they worked their hands sore in gathering the tough plants, she noticed Ayo flinched at small sounds. Curious, she didn't seem to have this closer towards the pyramids. This made no sense, she'd think that being away from the murderous aliens with a temper was safer. As far as she knew, they were pretty strict about who hunted where and nobody should be around here at the time. Otherwise, Kea wouldn't be allowed to even enter that temple.
When Kea suddenly stood behind them, Ayo squeaked and dropped the bundle she'd been holding, prompting an involuntary laugh from Carly. Ayo glared at her.
In silence, they loaded everything in the airship and were on to their next stop. Kea kept a small valley between hills further to the south west, which she had more or less turned into a wild garden. It was a small paradise of paths through plants from across the galaxy. Not only were the plants roughly ordered by type (low ones up front, taller ones further from the paths) but there was a hint of color coordination as well. Green fanned out into yellow and then red down to a purple core. All plants were tropical, but ranged beyond what Carly had thought possible for plants.
In the center of the valley was one massive tree, which Kea claimed was still young and would grow to implausible heights. In a ring around this tree, there were small shacks and gardening tools were scattered around. Kea parked on a sandy spot and got out, leading them to one of those had a table in the center with all sorts of tools, and the walls were lined with shelves full of pots, jars and glass aquariums. The ceiling was rounded up and some sort of insect hive housed there.
She was a lot more talkative here, though she still only spoke about plants. It was not only boring to follow, but also tedious. Jormungandr did bother to translate, but had to filter through the old transport vessel and avoid being noticed by those maintaining the ship, so translations arrived slowly. Carly was almost happy when she finally let them do something, even if it was just something as tedious as taking a jarred bug and letting it selectively into certain aquariums, which held special plants. Once she was satisfied with how they performed, she left.
Somewhere a tedious half hour into the work, Carly got a sudden and inexplicit sense of danger that was absurdly wasted on the bugs she was handling. Ayo's meticulous concentration was broken when she dropped the jar she'd been holding, eyes going wide.
"Relax, this is probably Oihana sending us a warning for something. Nothing here yet," Carly muttered.
Something exploded outside.
"At least not here with us," Carly added, unable to restrain a ridiculous glee. Something was happening.
They peered out of the window and saw a small but very scorched bit in the garden, close by Kea'chethi in combat pose. She was fixed on the destroyed part of her garden, then looked at a certain direction and roared. It was almost comical, if the reason behind it wasn't the very probable case of some rookies taking advantage of the one female they could mess with. Carly couldn't actually see them anywhere, off course. They'd stay out of sight so she couldn't identify them, but nobody would bother finding out if she complained about unseen attackers.
Ayo tugged her arm and lowered her head. "This isn't a prank."
Carly let herself be dragged to a crouch by Ayo's shaking hand. Outside, another blast sounded and this time Kea roared even louder. The sound ebbed away in a sharp thrill. Carly thought she'd heard it before, when she'd seen a group of yautja kids gang up on a servant.
Ayo's eyes were wide open and fixed on the wood of the wall. "They've got scanners, they'll know we're here."
"I think I saw one of them," Ayo said. "A few days ago, when we were out of scan range of the pyramids first. They've got different skin, brighter colors and more scales. Different armor too."
Another blast outside, and the sound of Kea'chethi running for cover.
"Rival tribe?" Carly whispered.
Sourceless knowledge pushed into her mind.
Criminals.
Also, surprise.
Why would Oihana notice only now when Ayo had done so earlier? How did telepathy work anyway?
Run.
Carly peaked out of the window and saw four hunters in distinctly different armor emerge from the treeline. Only two were relatively visible as they waded through the garden, but Ayo was right. Definitely a different race. They closed in on a particular spot to the left, presumably where Kea was taking cover near the giant tree. Then, one of them looked in the direction of the shack.
Carly grabbed Ayo by the arm, dragged her out of the door and beelined for the nearest undergrowth. At the very least, the thick shrubbery would stall the sight of the enemy a bit. The vessel they had come in wasn't too far, they made it there without being blasted. Carly cast a glance over her shoulder and saw that only one was moving in their direction, the rest pursued Kea'chethi, who had crept between the roots of the tree.
Carly rammed the control to close the door after pulled Ayo in, then they crouched into the cockpit. There was no way they'd fly this on their own, as they were unable to even read the language. Besides, it felt kinda foul to leave Kea.
"We have to do something! Don't you have any fighting skills?" Ayo said.
"Well, I like to jump people from behind and strangle them, but all these bastards wear neck rings," Carly said.
"Can't you slip the wire above the rings? They serve to prevent hands, there should be enough room for hooking a wire under their chin, right?"
"Yeah, but assuming I actually get that far, they can just grab me and throw me off. I can't exactly hold these guys steady with my weight. You seriously overestimate our mutant status, cause I can assure you, I have no regenerative abilities, let alone can I grow a shell."
"How about their fingers? Cut those off?"
"Not gonna help. Let's be realistic. We're too small."
Ayo leaned over the panel and looked both at her wristband and the screen. "Jor can get in if I rig—"
The panel before the pilot seat lit up and a familiar yautja voice came through, Nra'tex-ne. Jor translated his question for whether Kea was alright. Apparently, Karga'te had gotten a sudden ominous feeling and refused to go anywhere, so just say she's fine so they could get this over with.
"We're under attack by four badbloods," Ayo said.
On the other end of the line, Karga'te nearly exploded. Nra'tex-ne hissed at him to be quiet and said, "We are a five miles to the north from you, we'll come to meet you."
And he helpfully cut the lines.
There was a loud thud at the door in the back. Their newly appointed attacker was apparently working the door with metal, not wanting to blast a hole in it. Carly was reminded of her own low rate criminal activities : you don't damage the door of the car you want to steal too badly, cause you wanna use it. At the very least, that would give them some time.
Speaking of using the car ...
"Hey, Ayo, I just figured out what we can do. We're standing in our weapon."
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