Chapter 4: The Enemy of my Enemy.
Tik eleth woke up early as always, she always had to start her hunts here before dawn if she wanted to eat that day, most of the smaller easier to catch creatures were smart enough to be in hiding before any of the larger predators emerged. Tik eleth knew that she could always choose to go after some of the larger game here but it was all about risk vs reward with a good hunt, why exert all that energy to bring something down when you hardly get anything back, most of the smaller creatures made much better eating than the larger ones, who had far tougher hides which did make good clothing but not much in the way of edible meat.
Her bed was made from a variety of hides and furs of the creatures that called this place home, for something she'd knocked together herself out of necessity she found it rather comfortable, the frame was made from wood she'd harvested from the local trees and was rather large to comfortably accommodate her rather sizable frame.
Though ironically Tik eleth was considered very small by her people's standards, she had endured many an insult from her peers growing up leading to many fights, often having been referred to as the runt given that both her siblings were far taller than she, for some reason this also seemed be considered more womanly among her kind, a fact that often enraged Tik eleth, this continual insult had driven her to prove to them all that size was not as they seemed to believe the be all and end all. This had led to her becoming one of the most accomplished hunters and warriors of her clan, but it all seemed to be for naught as while her clan were more than willing to revel in and champion her accomplishments, none of the eligible males would look twice at her preferring to chase after her taller more glamourous peers, their bare faced shallowness and two facedness infuriated Tik eleth, on one hand they were more than happy to revel in her glory but then were too worried about their social status to be seen with her.
Rising from her bed Tik stretched out her tired muscles feeling her joints pop and click, it always took it out of her when a new season began and the bad bloods came after her, it had been four seasons since they'd stranded her here after forcing her ship to crash land on this planet, ever since then she'd been their plaything, coming back season after season to prove themselves by hunting her. But although she was stranded here with no way of calling her clan for help Tik eleth couldn't help but smile, she'd sent countless members of this particular blood clan to their grave as they constantly underestimated her season after season.
After a quick wash off Tik eleth put her armor and equipment on, she'd always preferred to sleep naked as it made her feel unencumbered by worries of day, also she liked the feel of the soft furs and skins of the beasts she'd harvested against her skin, but what she wouldn't give for the chance to bathe properly, it had been so long since she'd felt the warm embrace of a proper bath. Looking at the skin of her shoulder she saw the latest battle scar, the medikit had its job and had it had started healing nicely, but then the dirt that constantly matted itself in her dreadlocks and she sighed, it was just as well there were no eligible males to show this scar off to as she didn't think they'd be able to get past the smell of her, not that they'd look at her twice due to the way she looked anyways, it wasn't like she judged herself by what males thought of her anyway, as she knew that she could beat pretty much any one of them in skill and prowess hands down, but it would still be nice to find at least one that wasn't a shallow self-absorbed social whore who would actually see her for her true self and would take notice, this time her sigh echoed through the cave she called home.
Her morning hunt was pretty uneventful, she'd managed to bag herself a few shimmer lizards which were a staple in many of the beasts diets here, they were quite hard to get as they had a habit of being able to blend in perfectly with anything they touched, but at least they were good to eat even if they were quite small.
That bag she'd taken off the bad blood in the pit was coming handy already as she stuffed yet another dead shimmer lizard into it, that was her fifth which meant that she had enough to eat for today, she never liked to keep large amounts lying around as the smell would attract the large beasts back to her home, then something strange happened, as she was walking back through the forest in the direction of her home she heard the familiar buzz of engines in the distance.
Tik eleth immediately took cover to hide from the ship's sensors till she could see if it was friendly or not, it was very strange as having defeated the latest hunting party they shouldn't be back yet as it was way too early for that, no this was something else entirely.
As she watched the ship came into view from the north, it was gliding in at a high altitude and didn't seem to be descending, so it wasn't a landing party or a rescue ship, its size immediately told her that it wasn't a hunting ship as it was way too big, then as she watched it seemed to start dropping things at large intervals over a wide area, firstly seemed to be a series of large cages which descended into the forest on parachutes, then there were slightly smaller cages dropped further east, then finally the ship moved over to a new area further to the west and started dropping smaller shapes which Tik eleth could barely see even with the zoom on her mask working properly, it dropped ten of the smaller things over quite a wide area before it seemed to finish its run and headed back into orbit, at first this puzzled her but then she clicked what must be happening, they were repopulating the game in the reserve.
Tik eleth couldn't help but be curious as to what unfortunate creatures had been dropped in, but given the bad bloods habit of hunting the biggest nastiest things they could find it didn't bode well for her stuck here on the ground with them. She also found it an honourless tactic to take these creatures from their home and to drop them into unfamiliar surroundings just to have an advantage when you hunted them, there was no honor in killing a being when you blatantly had all the advantages over them, the true spirit of the hunt was to pit a hunter against prey in a one on one contest of strength on the prey's terms to see if the hunter had what it took to overcome all adversity.
Curiosity overtook Tik eleth, she decided to drop her catch back at her home then go and investigate the preserves new additions, she needed to know what sort of threat they would pose to her continued existence here, for now she started a steady sprint back to her cave in the mountains.
After dropping off her catch Tik eleth had made her way to where she'd seen the cages being dropped, she'd chosen to use the trees to navigate this time as it usually helped her to remain unnoticed by various creatures on the ground, without the aid of her cloaking tech she'd had to develop a variety of ways to remain unnoticed by the creatures that now called this place home, mainly it served to keep her out of the reach of the sawtooths, which ever since their introduction two season ago had multiplied exponentially and had become a rather serious problem for anything moving around on the ground.
They were a rather large breed of canine what had multiple rows of razor sharp cutting teeth, not to mention a thick scaled hide that acted like natural armor making them difficult to take down with most weapons save for a plasma caster, they also hunted in large packs of several individuals which made them a real problem for even for a seasoned hunter.
It didn't take her long to find the first of the cages, it smashed its way through two rather large trees on the way to the ground, it was made of a black metal that was scarred in places by what looked like claw marks that were gouged deep into its surface, it was at least four meters tall by twenty wide which meant that it either housed something very large or lots of smaller things, upon closer inspection she found that it was the latter as inside it was full of much smaller cages that were completely covered into both claw and tooth marks inside, indicating that whatever they once housed wouldn't be particularly pleasant.
Over the next hour Tik eleth investigated each and every one of the cages, each was pretty much the same story, though the internal cages got bigger each time which didn't fill her with confidence, finally she went to investigate the smaller things that were dropped further out, this is where she got a shock, while moving through the trees she saw one of the small chutes hanging from a tree, the tension on it told her that was still something hanging from it, so moving closer she managed to get a better look and got a shock when she saw what was on the other end, it was an ooman.
On closer inspection she could see that the ooman was dead, impaled on one of the trees branches obviously done on impact with the tree, the branch had hit it in the abdomen and had punched straight through and out the other side taking many of its intestines with it, blood was congealed in clumps down the tree which indicated that this ooman hadn't died instantly, when she turned its head to look at its face she had her hypothesis confirmed by the look of sheer agonizing pain frozen on its dead face.
Tik eleth had obviously heard of oomans before, they were one of the species that her kind had uplifted in the past, though she had never actually seen one up close before, she inspected the dead ooman closely, it appeared to be one of the males of its species by the layout of its body, she had heard that they had been hunted by hunters in the past and had bested the hunters each time, they were considered by many to still be a prey species, from the stories that she had heard Tik eleth believed that they had earned some measure of respect having taken on both her kind and the kiande amedha and had bested both.
This male was heavily armed with a projectile weapon that although primitive by their standards were still pretty effective, his clothing indicated some sort of militaristic existence given that he was wearing a camouflage pattern designed to disguise his presence, she looked at his face again, he wasn't much to look at given their smaller size it was hard to believe that they had bested both her kind and the kiande amedha, also given that he had no mandibles and strange flashy pieces covering his teeth she wondered how these humans bared their teeth to show their displeasure or anger, but given her kind's history with them she'd have to be extra careful, pissed of heavily armed oomans running around were not going to be good for her or anything else in their path.
Over the next three hours she found six more oomans all dead, some had been killed on impact with the trees like the first one she'd found others had been mauled by the local wildlife, by her count from the drop that left three of them still left out there, right now she was in a tree overlooking a clearing in the forest, she was trying to figure out where the next chute was in relation to the last one she found, they'd all been roughly two miles apart which in this environment might as well have been ten, then suddenly she heard something which made her blood run cold, it was the sound of breaking trees which could only signal one of two things and neither was pleasant.
There were only two things that she'd encountered in her time here that were strong enough to break the trees here, one was a monstrous primate with six legs and fire red fur that could literally tear the trees out of the ground and throw them at you if they saw you, the other well that thing was the stuff of nightmares even for a blooded huntress like her, a giant armored lizard with hide so thick that not even her plasma caster couldn't even dent it and a seriously vicious temper, if one of these things got wind of you they were relentless in their pursuit they would literally tear half the forest down to get to you.
Just as she was deciding which way to run something caught her eye, it was an ooman, it came sprinting out of the forest at top speed and stopped in the clearing, suddenly Tik eleth knew what was being pursued now all she needed to know what was doing the pursuing.
As she watched the ooman sprinted straight for a large rocky outcrop on the far side of the clearing and began to scale it, she was surprised at the speed at which he could move as she'd always been led to believe that oomans were slow and very ungraceful, but this one sprinted across the clearing and scaled the rock in no time, he seemed to be carrying some form of long barrelled projectile weapon which he was now setting up on a small stand on top of the rocks, suddenly the pursuer was revealed as one of the huge armored lizards smashed its way into the clearing, The lizard sniffed the air for any sign of its quarry and instantly picked out the oomans scent, it looked right at the rock where he was hiding with a look of pure murder, Tik eleth figured that this was soon going to be one less ooman to worry about, the creature roared at the top of its lungs and then to her surprise the ooman fired, the weapon he had made a huge boom as it discharged and she saw the shell bounce right off the creature's head, it turned its body and instantly began to charge.
The ooman fired again this time taking a chunk out of one of its horns, he then fired two more shots and achieved two more bounces, this ooman was done for, amazingly brave for standing his ground like this against a creature like this, these things had been the end of countless hunters that had taken them on unprepared, Tik eleth admired his bravery for this, he was standing his ground despite this being certain death at least he would die honorably, then curiously the ooman went as still as a stone as she watched him, he had closed his eyes and seemed to be trying to focus, or maybe he was praying to whatever deity they believed in for salvation, but then to her complete shock and utter surprise he opened his eyes and fired one last time.
As Tik eleth watched in total and utter amazement the creature did a nose dive into the ground and flipped over on its huge back before slamming down hard into the ground and sliding into the rock, her mandibles dropped open in shock, this couldn't be, surely a mere ooman couldn't have killed one of the most dangerous creatures in this galaxy single handedly, to bring down these things it usually took a team of at least four or five heavily armed hunters working together and even then injuries were an almost certainty, but he'd just done it on his own armed only with a projectile weapon, she watched now as he climbed down the rock and checked the body over she guessed to make sure it was dead, then as she watched with still open mandibles rather than taking a trophy from such a monumentally glorious kill he simply began to walk away, any of her kind would have been beating their chest in triumph after such a glorious battle in fact that sort of kill would have brought a hunter the sort of honor that few could only dream about, quickly she scrambled down and being careful to stay out of sight she quickly headed over to the fallen body of the giant lizard, she just had to see how he'd brought it down like that, upon inspection she could plainly see that he'd managed to get one of those projectiles that this weapon fired through its eye, she looked back at where it had come from and looked at its path and could the see the part where it had been hit nearly a hundred meters away and the fact that it had been traveling at such a pace that it had slid for a hundred meters on its back before coming to a rest was not lost on her, the fact that he'd been able to make such a shot on such a fast moving target while it was bearing down on him with a enough power and force to able to have totally obliterated that rock was nothing short of incredible, she got the feeling that paying close attention to this ooman was advisable and he may prove actually useful to her, as given that he like her had been stranded here by the bad bloods he undoubtedly shared her feelings of malice towards them, he may even prove to a be a useful ally in any future fights, but how to approach him without him attacking her on sight?, she was going to have to further observe him and bide her time, so with that in mind she set off in hot pursuit of the ooman.