Listen, R'chnt…" K'Shai whispered to him softly, stirring him from his sleep in the early morning hours while the light outside was still pastel and subtly glowing over the mist of the falls.
He rumbled a deep, throaty sound and opened an eye as she glanced across his naked body barely draped in the satiny sheets.
"You know, I just...I didn't mean to get… so upset last night." She stammered through a half-attempt at an apology.
"K'Shai…." he started, but she cut him off.
"I mean, you're always right. I understand that. I just am not… I guess I don't understand. Why…." She could not come up with words.
"The Ancients offer knowledge, K'Shai. Knowledge brings understanding. And you cannot understand what you need to know until you learn you never knew it." R'chnt said softly as he lay there staring up at her hovering over him.
She pursed her lips and felt her heart beating faster suddenly. What did she need to learn that she did not know already? That somehow yet again some Yautja would find some way to make her realize she was not good enough to be amongst them? Would the Ancients try to tell her to leave? To abandon R'chnt, and give up this life? There were entirely too many variables.
"What did they teach you?"
"Many things," he said cryptically.
"R'chnt…" K'Shai groaned. "Can't you give me specifics? What did they say to you? What did they tell you about me?"
"Only that they wish to meet you themselves. It is a great honor to see the Ancients, K'Shai. It is a privilege only a few are given. The Ancients write texts, and they convey what they need through their servants, the Chu'jak. But they almost never see anyone else directly."
"You saw them…" K'Shai said with a hint of a question.
"I asked for their council and they accepted my request."
"You mentioned it was difficult to even get there?" She asked curiously. "Why?"
"The mountain is high, and must be travelled on foot. It is required. No ships, no flying, no beasts of burden to help you on the Path. It is an honor, and a challenge just to ascend to the Great Temple."
He continued.
"If you survive the journey up to the Temple, you then have learned valuable lessons along the way and continue to learn lessons of patience and humility before the Ancients will even dare allow you to enter through the Temple Gates. The Chu'jak would stop you, kill you if necessary. They are the protectors not just of the Temple and the Ancients, but… in a sense… they protect the Yautja way. The things we have lost, we find along the way to the Temple, and things we never knew we needed to know, we learn. If we are willing and sensible enough."
"Wait…" K'Shai halted him with a raise of a palm. "So, are you saying you climbed a mountain, and then had to wait outside before they let you in?"
R'chnt just nodded.
"For how long? Was it cold?"
He huffed. "That is not the point, K'Shai."
"But…" She started, intending to have her questions answered, but clearly he knew that.
"I waited for days, and yes, it was cold."
"Days?! What!" K'Shai exclaimed.
"Some wait days, some weeks, some wait an eternity, and if their intent is true and they learn needed lessons, the Ancients will see you. It is as simple as that."
K'Shai gritted her teeth. Nothing about this sounded simple at all, and yet R'chnt wanted her to do this journey too? To wait and die of starvation or hypothermia high up on some mountain hoping for a chance at answers as questions she did not have, or knowledge she did not seek.
"R'chnt… I…." She started, but stopped, not really knowing what to say.
He remained quiet, clearly waiting for her to continue, but thankfully the incredibly awkward silence in the room was broken by the sound of K'Shai's communicator going off. She hopped off the bed and sped over to her armor just simply grateful for any excuse to get herself out of that particular conversation.
"Yes?"
"K'Shai, you are needed. Meet us." L'tdi said briskly and disconnected.
She turned to R'chnt and raised her eyebrows, with a tip of her head and a small, crooked grin.
"Well, we'll have to continue this conversation later. I imagine there is another hunt on the horizon." R'chnt nodded deeply as K'Shai dressed, kissed him firmly, and left the room.
She headed into the Clan square, past the main arenas, past the housing complexes for the young males, hoping she might run into El'tude along the way, but even so, she had to remind herself that he would be busy. She thought about A'ryin'di, who by now was already whisked away to a private training complex in the vastly sprawling jungles outside of the main city. Her thoughts then veered towards S'aruch-de, who was growing up to be the most Yautja of them all, no doubt, in the mei'sa waiting for his chance to do what his big sister and big brother had already done.
Then her mind started rattling away with thoughts about the Ancients, and the hunts she had been on herself. Her entire history with the Yautja flashed in her mind as she fidgeted with her tusk necklace before she found her way to where the Arbiter pair were waiting.
"You seem agitated, K'Shai. Have you already heard?" Mara'di asked immediately, catching K'Shai a little off guard.
"Agitat….? Heard what?"
"Of the hunt, of course!" L'tdi added in.
"No…" K'Shai said quietly, confused. Usually she was never actually told much of
anything, just that a disgraced criminal was in need of hunting
"Why? What's happening?"
"You don't know!" Mara'di confirmed.
"You are not going to like this, I believe, K'Shai." L'tdi said with a sneer. "If you choose not to hunt with us, we would understand."
K'Shai grimaced, not really sure if L'tdi was being genuine or demeaning, but more interested in finding out what they were going on about than worrying about details like that.
"We are hunting the former leader of the Clan D'shuke….. And his troublesome companions."
"D'shuke? I don't think I've heard of that Clan." K'Shai said, trying to hide curiosity behind a veil of fake disinterest in the subject.
"No reason you should have," Mara'di told her promptly.
L'tdi continued on.
"Quite sometime before you arrived to our world, that particular clan held onto a small piece of territory to the south of ours. It was a small Clan, only thirty or so members. They had no real power, and no real decent bloodlines. It's Leader, G'ruth-de had taken a few mates, and taught his own offspring and a handful of Kaun'te D'areen weaklings. They were of no consequence. When our Clan claimed their ground territory, they took to the air, surrendering hte land to us."
"So…" K'Shai summed up. "They're a Clan with only a ship?"
"Yes. There are only twenty or so now. They never return to the homeworld." L'tdi confirmed.
"But they did go to your homeworld, K'Shai." Mara'di informed, and now K'Shai's attention was focused.
"They hunted there like all others," Mara'di continued. "And when the hunt was done, G'ruth-de had taken on three new members to his pathetic little clan."
K'Shai looked at her quizzically, but said nothing.
"Three humans." L'tdi interjected.
K'Shai felt her heart leap. The humans R'chnt and W'rsa had once told her about long ago. She barely even remembered them mentioning only is passing that she was not the only human to join the Yautja. It seemed like so long ago.
"In the last few years, the clan," L'tdi spat with obvious detest, "has been dwindling in numbers so we've been told, and now they have decided not only to abandon the homeworld, but the Path as well."
"They are hunting anything and everything they want, without honor." Mara'di snarled.
"Oh? They've been hunting other Yautja?" K'Shai asked.
L'tdi nodded.
"Among others. They recently attacked a small Yautja settlement on a moon a few systems over. They needed a new ship, so they took it, and killed all who stood in their way. They killed the Elder in charge, they killed the four Blooded that were overseeing the building and mining there and they shot apart the entire 'aseigan barracks, too."
K'Shai's jaw gaped. Mass murder. Mass hunting of Bad Blood.
"They did most of it with the ship's weapons! But they also took some 'aseigan for who knows what purpose. They must be stopped." Mara'di added.
"So when do we leave?" K'Shai asked firmly.
"Right away, of course. We have much tracking to do. They already have weeks' head start."
It took a few hours to get the 'aseigan to the get their ship ready, fully stocked and all of their armor and weapons loaded aboard for the trip. During some of that time, they consulted each other on trying to figure out where the best place was to look for the rogue "clan", since of course they had turned off the ship's homing beacon before they ever broke atmosphere of the moon.
"It's going to take about three weeks just to even get all the way out there This is far. Farther than I've ever been with you, R'chnt." K'Shai told him as she visited their home for a brief moment just to grab some belongings and inform him of the details.
"K'Shai...There will be much you will learn on this hunt. Are you certain you are ready?"
She stared at him with the scrunched face, squinted eyes that only a displeased human female could possibly produce.
"Won't know I'm ready until I try, right?" She said, trying to joke and lighten the mood.
R'chnt shook his head.
"You do no get a second chance to find out."
"R'chnt!" K'Shai exclaimed and patted him firmly on the chest. "Please don't act like you're never going to see me again. I've hunted and hunted Yautja bad bloods now for years. This is no different, right?"
He shook his head briefly again.
"No K'Shai, it is very different. You have never hunted down your own kind."
She pressed her lips together and diverted eye contact. She was really trying not to consider that point. Just as she was Yautja, she needed to think of the human males hunting with that entire clan of bad bloods as Yautja. It had to be that way. Neither were human and thus, laws and basic rules of Honor had been broken.
"Well… how much harder can it possibly be?" She whispered trying to feign defiance and hide nervousness.
Clearly he sensed her nerves. He put his hand gently on her face and quieted his body, as if somehow he slowed his own pulse and transmitted vibes of peace and stillness into her. She took a deep breath and relaxed a bit, and rested her head into his mighty palm.
"My K'Shai. It is very different."
She looked up at him, locking eyes with him for as long as she could tolerate staring into those deep golden eyes. They were raging with concern and felt like they were piercing right through her. She finally whipped her head away and whispered.
"I have to get this on the ship. I have to go. I will talk to you soon, R'chnt."
He bowed his head deeply and quietly saw her off.
She left his city home, knowing that he had intended to wait her out at his hunting plantation. R'chnt had told her of his plans with the clear intention of swaying her to call of her participation in this hunt and join him and the others in preparation for a coming new season of hunting. On one hand, honestly, she wanted to.
On the other, there was this hunt before her that she felt she had to do. She needed to continue to prove to the Clan, and to her fellow Bad Blood Huntresses, that she could do it and did not fear death or anything else that might come her way.
Her thoughts kept her gravely silent through the first few weeks of the ship ride to the moon above a long dead world, where they began their tracking down of the rogue ship-based clan members. There was very little that needed to be said. She had to concentrate on her sparring, nurse sore muscles and body aches in the hot pools and she savored having her own quarters in which she could inject pain killers and fall asleep each night.
Hunting was hard. Regardless of what one was hunting, or where they were doing it. In the mei'sa, in the jungles around the clan, on a familiar world, or in the most hostile unfamiliar environments. Years of torquing, flexing, jumping, falling, bleeding, breeding, and breaking bones was very much catching up to her. Everything seemed to ache.
As she stepped across her private quarters from her bathing pool to the raised bedroom, she stopped briefly in front of the floor to ceiling Yautja-size mirror.
She could recall one time, so very long ago now, long before the life she had been living
could ever have been imagined, when she saw herself in the mirror in R'chnt's chambers aboard the K'ojol. She looked thin, filthy, malnourished, bloody, hair messy and tangled, like she was some kind of rebellious farm kid who refused to bathe and brush her hair.
Then, she could recall a time looking in that mirror, seeing herself tanned, freshly tattooed with the Clan markings along her legs and arms, and she looked shiny, sleek, muscular, ready to take on the universe.
Then, the universe took her on. Now, as she surveyed herself and looked at her many scars across both arms, her thighs and abdomen, she saw a person staring back at her that she was not quite sure what to make of. There was a gray hair in her Yautja-beaded locks; well, maybe more than one she couldn't help but notice. Her muscles were not quite so finely toned but they were still there, visible under the scars and tattoos.
She was different; she was Yautja. Yautja enough to kill a human on a hunt, for it would be just as easy, she knew, as killing those Yautja had been. It simply had to be.
As it was, the hunt was long. The stolen ship kept itself well hidden and it took endless amounts of Yautja patience to even get a hint of a direction of their prey. Hunting a ship through the vastness of space was absolutely nothing like hunting down quarry on the ground.
Even in unfamiliar places, there was always ways to track one's prey, from simple things like tracks in the mud or scat on the ground, claw marks on trees, to more refined hints like scents in the wind, an awkward bend of a branch or plant stem, or any other of the many ways R'chnt had taught her. Of course, if you're really struggling you could just use active tracking in your bio helmet, but R'chnt very much preferred the much more intimate way of pursuing a target.
In space, nothing like that was remotely possible. The ship could have taken off in any direction and with weeks and weeks of a headstart, it was highly possible they could be anywhere. A target was on the rogue vessel however, and Arbiters of every clan on the planet would be on the lookout for them, or actively hunting them.
It never made a good impression for any Clan to have another Clan's arbiters hunt down your own rogue bad bloods, so it was an intense hunt, one that the three huntresses would not give up quickly nor easily. Much of the time spent hunting mostly any prey, is spent tracking that prey. K'Shai thought about her time so long ago hunting deer back on her own home world; how much of that time was spent simply sitting, crouched, holding, slowly tracking and quietly stalking. Hunting any prey, for trophy or food, was no different than that.
Hunts were long, often because it was predominantly spent just looking for something to actually hunt. Hunting for food at least, offered a little more opportunity, because once you have spotted something edible, you can finally hunt it and kill it; an effort that takes seconds after spending hours or days hunting the thing down in the first place.
Hunting for trophy was a quite different experience, of course, because after days or weeks of tracking prey, the hunter must assess if it is truly even trophy worthy after all that, or should they simply disregard that prey and continue looking for something better. Is the prey truly fearsome enough to make a proud trophy, an honorable hunt, a story to tell, and offer up a rewarding enough prize to tempt a mate? If not, the hunt begins all over again, stalk, assess, attack or ignore.
Though there was not such a luxury with hunting bad bloods. The rules of the hunt were quite different. The prey must be found, dead or alive, and returned to the clan either dead or alive as the hunting situation could allow. There was no luxury of just looking for something else; something better. And the hunt would only end when either the prey or the hunters were dead.
To that end, L'tdi commanded the ship and Mara'di and K'Shai continued to track and debate little hints or clues, of which there were very few, in an attempt to track down the ship full of rogues. Weeks passed. So many of them, it was difficult, not to mention pointless, to keep track of them all. It was hard being away from R'chnt for so long, or for so far anyway. They were months and months away from the homeworld even at fastest speeds once the hunt was finally complete. She had never been away from him such a distance and the thought of being gone indefinitely made it all the worse.
She tried to focus on the hunt at hand, but there was very little to focus on, besides the stars beyond her chamber windows. Other than scanning, tracking, sifting through little hints and clues, and stare at the stars and wonder how R'chnt, A'ryin'di, and El'tude were doing, and think about little S'aruch-de who would not be so little at all by the time she returned, K'Shai tried her best to keep her mind from breaking by soaking in her hot tub, almost obsessively scrubbing her skin and hair clean with each soak.
"No, we've searched there," K'Shai pointed out to Mara'di as they scanned yet another star system.
"True, but they could have doubled back."
"To what end? Are they going to just return to Yaut and hand themselves in? Aren't they trying to get as far away as they can?" K'Shai retorted sarcastically, not even trying to hide the fact that all the time aboard ship with the others was making her mind go mad.
"We have tracked the last four worlds down based on your calculations, and yet…"
"I know we're on the right course." She protested, cutting Mara'di off.
It did not take long before the heat on the ship and the boredom in her mind combined like gasoline and fire, and ignited K'Shai. Mara'di and K'Shai argued, while L'tdi simply sat in the command chair looking at the two of them as if she was spectating a sporting event she did not particularly care for. With no desire to stop the bickering females, she simply watched, wondering where the argument would escalate to.
Then, suddenly, the ship was throttled hard.
"What was that!?" K'Shai exclaimed, spinning back to her computer console and forgetting entirely about the argument.
"We're being fired at!" She confirmed aloud before anyone else really had a chance to clarify what just happened.
Yautja ships, in general, including R'chnt's somewhat out-of-date huntship, the K'ojol, only had small weapons arrays, used mostly to shoot back large prey that might threaten the ship when grounded, hone in an kill a kainde amehda, or generally just be threatening enough to keep someone or something from thinking twice before approaching it.
The Yautja themselves, of course, preferred to do things by hand. Some Yautja, even R'chnt, would only use plasma based shoulder-mounted weapons or handheld guns sparingly if at all. The ship the rogue hunters had stolen, however, was more modern than K'ojol, and fully equipped with a heavy weapon systems, since it was used to defend the moon's colony against any sort of enemy, including attacks in the air.
The blast directed at the arbiter ship the Ma'jol had managed to pierce right through the back half of the vessel.
"We've got a hole six meters wide in the outer hull. Shielding up and holding, and the pauks cloaked! They're either running or planning for a second attack."
"Well, let us uncloak them and not give them the chance for either! Fire a wide spread!" L'tdi shouted.
Mara'di jumped into action, tapping the weapons console and bringing the systems online in an instant. The Ma'jol was not the most modern of ships, and perhaps it was a little outmatched by the ship it hunted, but it was still far more modern than the K'ojol, and handled the tear in its side like a champion, came about, and fired.
The shot of plasma criss crossed from the four mounted turrets above and below the vessel, firing in all directions, creating a patchwork of superheated plasma, specifically designed to detect and damage cloaked ships, and it worked perfectly.
All heads turned as the vessel just off the side of the ship began to crackle and glow as its cloaking system failed. Very quickly, it highlighted a dull orange, a symptom of overheated engines from the grid of plasma they were momentarily stuck in from all directions. Suddenly, there was a bright burst.
"Ha! They lost an engine!"
"Don't get too excited, K'Shai." L'tdi warned. "We have a hole in our side and sooner or later one of us will have to end up landed. Plot out coordinates to that habitable moon we passed."
"Mara'di, fire full cannons."
Foom foom foom foom foom foom
A barrage of whipping sounds echoed through the ship, filling the corridors as the guns all fired simultaneously. K'Shai had never heard the plasma cannons fire. It was quite a sound.
"They're bolting!"
She noticed right out the front floor-to-ceiling windows of the ship that the limping, still faintly glowing orange vessel, lit up its one and only remaining engine and the four small orbital thrusters on the back and fled, trying to avoid all that cannon fire coming right at them.
"Of course they are…" K'Shai muttered with a bit of disappointment.
A big ship explosion would have made things easier… less… hunty. Somehow, that would have been more ideal. But the prey ran, however it was not as successful as they clearly wanted it to be. One big bolt of blue lightning slammed right into them, sending the ship whirring dizzyingly clear out of view of the windows.
"They are out of control. Spinning towards that moon." Lt'di announced with a bit of pride in her tone, as if somehow the battle was over.
"They've rotated back into control." K'Shai announced, reminding the others that this little hunt was far from done.
"Looks like they're making a run for the moon. That engine is on fire. They're just running off the thrusters." She continued.
"After them!" L'tdi growled harshly.
It was hardly necessary, the chase was on, and instinct took over. K'Shai was already piloting the ship towards the rapidly descending vessel. It did not matter who was on that ship or why they were being hunted. It was now a chase, and a rather thrilling one if she dared admit. The prey was trying their very best to escape at higher speeds than they probably should have been going due to the damage and flaming engine, meanwhile, she was piloting the ship faster than she probably should have too, and definitely faster than R'chnt preferred she fly the K'ojol.
With the gaping hole in the exterior hull being held together with a forcefield, the high
speed chase was not the most appropriate thing to be doing, but nonetheless, the chase was on. The moon was a little over two hours flight time even at these speeds, and the prey made every effort to give themselves more of a head start on their hunters. It was just a matter of which ship, if either, would make it there before exploding.
There was no time for thought, no time to think about R'chnt or the offspring, or the inevitable first hunt of both El'tude and A'ryin'di. Nothing but the ship in front of them, the damage to their own ship, and eluding the prey's attempts at further destroying them flickered across K'Shai's mind.
They were being barraged with plasma bursts. Like a sudden rainstorm above them in spurts, falling fireworks of super heated plasma was being chucked their way from the prey ship. It was definitely an effective tool for making a woul-be attacker think twice. The bursts could take out aerial assaulters while it was landed, and in space, given the speeds they were all moving, the plasma shot out like cannons and exploded, raining down on the huntresses.
K'Shai dipped, spun, and swerved the ship, belly rolling it once to the chagrin of both L'tdi and Mara'di.
"Yes, well, I can't outrun all of these!" She announced.
"We're hit!" K'Shai howled as the unmistakable sound of charged plasma crackling against the metal hull echoed, quickly followed by a second one.
"We've been hit again!" Mara'di added.
"K'Shai!" L'tdi started to howl, no doubt about to scorn her for an inability to avoid all the bursts, but K'Shai glared at her and she decided perhaps it was not the best decision to make at the moment, so L'tdi changed her eye contact to the console on her right chair-arm, suddenly busying herself looking for a route of the mess the were in.
"I see a hole! Hang on!" K'Shai yelled, and punched the ship faster, getting it through a momentary break in the attack.
"Mara'di, fire!" L'tdi commanded. "Blow these pauk-de-chtuk's out of the sky!"
Foom! Foom! Foom!
The sound whipped passed K'Shai's head and she watched blue bursts of cannon fire rush past the windows and towards the ever-descending ship. One connected with the prey vessel, sending a huge glowing burst of white and orange flame into the vacuum of space for a moment, then it disappeared, to be replaced with a pinkish glow, the leftover remnant of a now completely gone engine; blown completely off the ship.
K'Shai burst out in a whoop of delight as the enemy ship was very clearly thrown into what appeared to be an uncontrollable spiral towards their inevitable death on the surface of the moon below. The delight was short lived.
Debris from the ship, including most of the engine, slammed right into the huntresses' vessel, causing more damage than they had already suffered.
"It took out one of the dorsal plasma cannons! We're on fire. Big fire!" K'Shai accounted, ust to be clear in case the other females somehow did not know by the glowing aura quickly filling the corridor outside the control room.
At the speeds they were going, they might as well just been hit by a missile. The clunky remnants of the engine from the other ship had whipped into them with all the velocity and power of one, and they were now paying the price.
"The fire just ignited the plasma fuel in the reserve tank! By the Paya's, we're going down!" K'Shai once again shouted out, narrating what was happening as if the others did not realize it, or cared to hear it expressed in words.
She engaged a blast door, which helped to dissipate some of the plasma fire around the cannon and at least cut off, or delay, some access to the engine fuel running right through the walls of the ship, which was already being diverted around the hole in the other side.
"Stop the engines, K'Shai. Let us drift down towards the moon," L'tdi directed, on her feet, but calm.
K'Shai was shaking, excited with both tremendous invigoration and also fear, trying not to let too much of either take over. It was oddly exhilarating chasing the prey down through the stars and shooting at them, even feeling the ship rock from the jolt of weapon fire that was punching holes through it. It was like being in some kind of science fiction adventure movie, only it was very real.
While actually experiencing it all in real-time left nothing but instinctual reaction and adrenaline to run on, now that it was slowing down a bit and the reality of the fact that they were free falling towards a moon, with half the ship on fire, and the other half with a massive hole in it, K'Shai had time to absorb what was happening, and begin to shake. She tried to hide it as best she could.
How could L'tdi and Mara'di simply look so calm and at ease while this was all happening? Was that just a Yautja facade, too, or did they really just not care if they died?
She held her breath as the ship hurdled towards the planet and she tried to fire the landing thrusters to help slow the ship down. The other ship was spiraling even worse, occasionally coming into view before their own twisting main window. Though K'Shai kept an eye on the ship using sensors, they did not give the full effect of both ships spinning and speeding towards the mountain surface of the moon.
The thrusters helped some to break the speed and support the ship a bit. Six little engines spitting out plasma from underneath all of a sudden helped to force the ship into a slower, straighter trajectory.
"Hang on! This is going to be rough!" K'Shai announced, knowing that even though the ship slowed, steering it down safely was going to be next to impossible. Just land in one piece… she said to herself over and over.
"Oh! Hmph!"
For a moment, there was silence and darkness. K'Shai groaned, and pulled herself together, opening her eyes to look around. There was L'tdi, slung limply over the command chair, but moving, and coming into her own as well. Mara'di was next to K'Shai, far closer than she was a few moments before, growling angrily, but still aware.
K'Shai's ears were pinging with a high pitched noise she wasn't sure if it was coming from the ship, or her ears. She assessed herself and everything seemed to work but she definitely felt light headed. She decided the noise was actually coming from her ears and did her best just to stand up and figure out what was next.
The ship was fairly well in shambles. While the command room was relatively intact, save for a burn along one wall, the back part of the two-section bug-shaped ship was far more worse for wear.
Well, so much for my quarters, she thought as she walked the corridor with the others and noted all the damage from the now-dissipated fire. Doesn't matter anyway, this ship is not flying off this moon.
The huntresses made their way through the charred wreckage, past the gaping hole in the hull, down the lightless corridors, and jumped down to the ground from the loading dock platform ramp, which conveniently enough had actually dropped down, but because of the angle at which the ship was embedded into the crevice of mountain rock, was also about four meters up.
When K'Shai thudded to the ground, her back shot with pain and she groaned, taking a long, slow moment to recover while trying not to make it look too obvious to the Yautja alongside her. She diverted her attention to her armor, as if suddenly she had urgent need to assess it, while managing to keep her back curved because it was too painful to straighten up.
Once they were all walking again, K'Shai felt a little better, but welcomed the opportunity to rest when L'tdi called for it.
"Let us heal our injuries, set up a camp and figure out where the prey have gone!" She announced, and the others obliged without a word.
Soon, a fire was going, the moon was in darkness, but the nearby planets were visible in the atmosphere and the sun eventually slowly crept up over the horizon as well. K'Shai had time to get her scrapes and bruises nursed with a little bit of ointment, but the pain in her back lingered so she injected herself with a quarter dose of a painkiller. A full dose would make her sleep for the next few days, she knew from experience.
"Are you injured badly?" Mara'di asked of her.
"No, I'm fine." K'Shai responded dismissively and then immediately began scanning for other life signs or the other ship just to change the topic of conversation.
"Whoa! Wait a minute…" she suddenly exclaimed, catching the attention of the other two instantly.
"What is it?" L'tdi asked in a sharp tone.
"The other ship! I've found it. It's less than five k'jul away. It's just over that ridge!"
The ship was very close. The group would easily be able to walk there in less than an hour. They were all up in a moment, forgetting about any further camping and figuring out what to do next; they were back on the hunt and would likely be to the ship before the sun was even partially peeking over the horizon.
The moon was lush with thick jungle. Its twisted trunk trees, giant leaves, and variety of creatures making all sorts of chirps and howls made the whole place feel quite homey. It was natural and familiar and the travelling was easy, though K'Shai maintained a slower than normal pace, even for her. The others did not seem to notice or care in the least as they continued forward ultimately getting out of immediate sight of K'Shai all together.
They all regrouped at the peak of the crest above the wreckage and stared down at it as the sky began to blaze red and orange with a deep colored sunrise.
"It's in even worse shape than ours." K'Shai blurted out as if it was necessary to do so.
"I had hoped we would fly back with that ship," Mara'di added with disappointment.
K'Shai couldn't help but to grin under her helmet and after a moment, chuckle loudly. The others turned sharply at her, silent for a moment, and then they too joined in the chuckle, making a gutteral laughing sound. K'Shai shook her head and took a deep breath, then scanned the area around them and instantly composed herself.
The three of them headed down to get a closer inspection. While some of the ship was hot and smoldering, too difficult to go near, the stern of the vessel was fairly intact and allowed them to at least have some ability to come into contact with it and explore inside.
"Two dead, there," Mara'di pointed out, noting some fallen hunters of the former clan that were charred beyond any recognition, toppled upon one another in a corridor very near to the last approachable area.
"No others anywhere?" L'tdi questioned once they had regrouped in the back end of the ship.
K'Shai shook her head.
"Just the two," Mara'di confirmed.
"I've got readings!" K'Shai suddenly announced after her active scanner alerted her.
"They're all off in different directions, moving away."
With that, the hunt was on and the females set off, each tracking different trajectories to try to catch whatever prey was out there for them.