Chapter 6: Uneasy Alliance.
Jack sat there and listened intently as Tik eleth explained their situation in that really unusual accent of hers, it wasn't until quarter of the way in to the explanation that actually clicked that Tik eleth wasn't actually human and at this point his jaw just dropped open, it hadn't even occurred to him that he might be conversing with an alien species let alone in his own language, but at least it explained why she'd started off by calling him ooman.
From what he could piece together from Tik's explanation she was stranded here by what equated to a criminal family among her people which they referred to as bad bloods, they kinda reminded Jack of things like the mafia or even the old pirate clans that roamed the seas in the 1600 and 1700s and even more recently in Somalia back on earth, criminals banding together because of a common cause.
It turned out they had been hunting her ever since they'd managed to strand her here, this place was some sort of hunting reserve which their clan used as their own personal retreat to break in new hunters to the clan or Young Bloods as they called them, in a sort of literal trial by fire or a rite of passage would be more apt.
The way she spoke about them made Jack think of a few things that had happened on earth that had become a sort of urban legend among soldiers, like an instance that he'd heard about from an American Marine that took place in one of the jungles in South America in the 1980's, but Jack knew better than to interrupt someone when they were giving you free information, so he let her finish as she explained how she'd just finished killing off their latest hunting party when they decided to change track and drop in ten of his species into the jungle which instantly got his hopes up before learning that apparently most of which were already dead, then she explained about while she was searching for more of his kind she'd witnessed his battle with the giant dino dozer in the clearing, it kinda irked him that she had seen it and had offered him no help, but he said nothing about it sort of figuring that's how her kind seem to work from what she was saying and the language she was using, in fact she seemed to more than just a little impressed by his glorious victory over the dino dozer, words like warrior, honourable and single combat were being thrown about a lot, then she brought the story up to date by telling him how she'd stalked him to this cave and relived him of his weapons to be able to open an unhostile dialogue with him in the hopes of forging an alliance with him.
"…. Together we be much stronger than alone Ack, then we might stand a chance of leaving this place and getting back to our clans, but if these terms are not acceptable to you Ack then I will leave you be, as I believe Ack to be an honourable warrior who would not interfere with my hunts as I would not interfere with his" Tik eleth said looking at Jack who was still trying to figure out what she looked like as she sat in the deep shadows,
"Ok but I agree to anything may I ask a few questions?" he asked,
instantly he heard that strange clicking noise that Tik seemed to make every so often, "Questions?" she said almost sounding annoyed that he hadn't given his answer immediately,
but she understood that a good warrior and hunter always checked every detail of their hunt,
"Firstly what do these bad bloods want with either of us? I mean why are they hunting us?" he asked,
"Strong prey" she answered flatly,
"Ok then how many of them are we likely to be facing?" he asked,
"Three, a hunt leader and two young bloods, no more no less" she replied, he nodded at this,
"Finally if I help you how do I know that you won't just leave me here when you have no more need of me?" he asked,
instantly heard a rapid clicking noise coming from Tik and he figured that he'd just pissed her off a bit, he was right.
"I AM NOT AN HONORLESS BAD BLOOD PAUK!" she roared at the top of her lungs causing Jack to jump a mile,
he very nearly reached for his knife but stopped himself at the last second fearing that this might escalate an already tense situation,
"I never said you were, I simply asked what guarantees I have" he said trying to sound calm while his heart hammered in his chest, this seemed to calm her down a little bit,
"I am a proud huntress of the Shadow Claw clan, our word is bond" she said still sounding irritated, Jack decided that this would have to do for now as it was obviously not wise to piss off the rather large alien huntress,
"Very well I accept that then and I can relate to that Tik eleth as my word is also my bond and once given it is never broken" he said, this seemed to calm the huntress down further, "Then Ack is honourable" she said, he nodded, finally feeling a little more confident in his position here he took a deep breath and stood up from his sitting position, the whole time he could feel her eyes on him watching both curiously and suspiciously, slowly he approached her and then stopped a few feet away and raised a hand offering it to her, she cocked her head to one side and did not move, he instantly realized that she didn't know what a handshake was so he tried to explain in terms she would understand,
"It's a human or ooman as you call us thing, it shows that two parties have made an agreement and our words have been given, this gesture is to seal the bond to each other" he said,
Tik clicked a few times then she got to her feet and suddenly he realized that she was even bigger than he'd imagined as she had to stoop under the cave ceiling, she approached him slowly and stuck out her rather large hand to him, he took it and closed his around hers shaking it, her skin felt rather rough but that the same time rather warm,
"Then it is done our bond is made and now we have an agreement" Jack said,
"Together till victory or till death" Tik eleth replied clicking happily, she was glad that she was right about this ooman, he did truly understand the ways of honour and she believed he would make a strong ally despite his obvious handicap of being ooman, though she had to admit from what she'd seen him do earlier he'd probably have made a decent Yaujta.
Tik eleth returned Jack's weapons to him now as their bond of trust was sealed, he put his armour on and checked his weapons over as she watched, she had to admit she kind of liked that ooman custom of shaking hands to seal a bond, it kind of had an intimacy that her people lacked and she liked that, she'd been led to believe that oomans were honourless so it was refreshing to find the very first one she was forced to interact with understood the ways of honour,
"So what now Tik?" he asked, she looked at him in the darkness of the cave, the shortening of her name made her click her mandibles in annoyance,
"My name Tik eleth! Not Tik" she said with irritation,
he looked at her and did something strange that caused him to move those fleshy things out of the way and show her his teeth, this caused her breath to catch in her throat as she saw the fact that he had fangs and rather large ones at that, she never knew that oomans had such sharp warrior like teeth,
"Well you shorten my name from Jack to Ack so it's only fair right, from Tik eleth to Tik" he said still showing his teeth to her, the thermal vision of her mask really didn't allow her to see much detail of his face but she still found herself studying the detail she could see, like his strong jaw and his sharp hunter's teeth, she quickly shook her head to clear it,
"If you must" she said trying to sound irritated,
"So then back to my question what next Tik" he said putting a real emphasis on her name, she clicked her mandibles in annoyance but let it slide, she was rather surprised that a mere ooman had the gall to address a blooded huntress with such boldness, he really was an enigma and rather a fascinating one at that, but she couldn't tell yet if he was going to be an asset or just a major pain in her rear,
"We return to cave for rest and food, we need strength to fight bad bloods" she said,
"Sounds like a plan to me, I assume since you've been here a while you have a strong hold?" he said, she nodded, "I have cave yes" she said, then he made a gesture with his hand,
"Lead on I'll follow you and watch your back" he said, at this Tik snapped round to face him so fast her dreadlocks whirled around her in a massive arc,
"Why you wish to watch my back ooman!?" she asked in a rather loud surprised voice that actually sounded a bit like a squeak at the end, but still nearly made Jack almost jump out of his skin.
After his heart slowed down a bit he realised that he was obviously going to have to word things a bit more carefully around her, "Err sorry it's just an ooman I mean human expression, it means you lead I follow and watch to make sure enemies don't sneak up on us from behind, so you don't have to constantly keep watching behind you to see what's sneaking up on you and visa versa" he said, this seemed to calm her down as suddenly she remembered something her father had told her when he was telling her about oomans when she was a youngling and she understood, although she knew very little about them she did know of their hunting tactics like any good hunter did, she knew that oomans usually worked in large teams and they would look out for each other.
"Ok Ack I lead you follow" she said and he nodded looking at her, as they headed for the entrance of the cave Tik found a strange thought entering her head that she immediately chased out, she actually felt a very brief and very strange flash of disappointment that Jack wasn't actually watching her back.
As they got outside Jack got his first proper look at Tik eleth and immediately he had to stop his jaw from dropping open, the first thing that caught his attention was how tall she was compared to him, she was huge at just under 7ft tall, the next thing that caught his attention was her skin, it was sort of rough looking and sort of looked like scales, in fact it reminded him of Bonzo the pet Bearded Dragon that he had as a child, so named because it was a complete clown, always falling over or off things and then trying to make it look like it had done it on purpose. A brief mental flash of Tik falling over something and nearly demolishing half the forest on the way down flashed through his head and he had to suppress a giggle as he figured she'd probably rip his head off and shit down his neck if he laughed at her.
He had to admit her skin was rather striking in its colouration, it was like a natural camouflage colours full of greens, yellows and browns all swirled together in various stripes all over her, it sort of reminded him of early forest camo before the military switched to that digital blocks stuff.
Next up was how just like a human woman she was in her shape, everything was obviously a lot bigger but it was all there, broad shoulders that led into two powerful and well-muscled arms that were toned to the max, she looked like she could rip a phonebook in half and probably eat it afterwards. Feminine curvy hips led into two long shapely and very powerful looking legs that led into large flat and clawed but still rather graceful looking feet, with thighs that made her look like she could kick a rugby player through the posts let alone the ball.
Her flat stomach was full of abs so solid looking that looked like they should have abs of their own, her stomach led up to what looked like medium sized bust that was hidden under heavy looking black metal armour that covered her entire upper torso, he also noticed that she seemed to be wearing some sort of black leather short skirt that had a belt with a large black claw on it, her legs were covered in some sort of fishnet like stockings that terminated at her ankles, two black metal armour pieces covered her calves and looked to the pieces she wore on her forearms.
Tik eleth noticed Jack staring at her and turned to face him, "What you look at ooman?" she asked sounding irate, "Err sorry, I've just never seen one of your kind before and I never expected you to look….., well to look so powerful and strong" he said dodging the bullet of nearly saying womanly which he felt would have probably pissed her off mightily, it wasn't that he foresaw her having a problem with her gender, nor for that matter did he, some of the best soldiers he'd ever met in his career had been women, like this Russian Spetsnaz sniper he'd met once, all her teammates called her 'Crazy Olga' and had told him that she was a total ice queen and a frigid bitch, but Jack being Jack always tended to judge people for himself and decided he wanted to get to know her, as it turned out all her male counterparts that had given her the name were simply pissed off that not only was she not interested in their advances but also jealous of her ability while also rather intimidated by her.
It turned out to be the whole women can't possibly be stronger than men deal, which was a mentality that Jack really never got to be honest, to him it didn't matter what equipment you kept in your pants but how well you could do your job and keep your focus when the shit hit the fan, so he always put that type of mind-set down to masochistic bullshit and totally insecurity in yourself.
When he did manage to get to know her it turned out she was one of the best snipers he'd ever met and the pair of them had a great laugh getting rat arsed on super strong vodka, they'd created their own drinking game while camped out in an OP on a hill in one of the Balkan states during a training exercise, it involved shooting golf balls off tees at about nearly a mile away with and old SVD Dragunov that she'd brought with her, as it turned out it mightily pissed the golfers who were trying to play at the time off and at that range they couldn't even hear the shots thanks to the terrain so they didn't even have a clue what the hell was happening.
So rather than taking the time to get to know her, all her supposed teammates instantly dismissed and labelled her simply because she rebuffed them, that was her then pegged as an ice queen just because she didn't put up with shit or tolerate dickheads and something told him that Tik like Olga, would rather be judged on her strength, ability and skills and not just on her physical attributes.
It seemed to have worked as Tik flicked the long dreadlock like appendages on the rear of her head over her back,
"Well of course I strong ooman, I Tik eleth am proud Shadow Claw huntress" she said sounding proud, as he seemed to have said the right thing Jack decided to push it a bit further, he decided that a happy Tik would be easier to work with than pissed off Tik, God he really didn't want to see her pissed off as looking at the size on her arms she probably could tear him in half,
"Well if the rest of your kind look half as strong as you then your kind must be pretty hefty in a fight" he said, she made a clicking noise but this one sounded very different from the annoyed one he was getting used to she must have liked the compliment, pity he couldn't see her face for the large metal mask she was wearing,
"Yaujta powerful warriors, even younglings trained to kill" she said proudly,
"Noted" he said feeling that he was going to have a serious fight on his hands if he ever pissed this female alien Spartan off, he gestured with his hand for her lead the way and she nodded and headed for the edge to climb down, Jack tried to resist but he couldn't help himself, as she moved to the edge of the cliff and bent forwards to get her first hold he glanced at her and noticed that the battle skirt she wore obviously concealed a rather nice shapely rear beneath it, 'What in the flying fuck are you doing Jack?' he thought giving himself a hard mental slap to clear his head before following her down over the edge.
Tik eleth found herself smiling at Jack's words as she climbed down the side of the cliff with him above her, it seemed that this strange ooman knew a true huntress when he saw one, but she found herself puzzling at why could a mere ooman see easily what one of her own kind could not?, he'd called her powerful and strong, which told her that somehow he'd easily picked up on just how hard she'd worked to prove herself, she'd found herself feeling flattered by this but at the same time she felt extremely annoyed at it, why if it was so obvious did a male of their kind see it straight away but the ones of her own kind refused to even acknowledge it, instead preferring to belittle her in front of her peers making constant snide comments about how small she was compared to a 'normal' female, suddenly that thought worried her and she got the feeling that if Ack saw another Yaujta huntress he may change his opinion of her when he saw how much more powerful, stronger, taller and obviously more beautiful than her they were.
But at the same time she took the compliment that the strange ooman had paid her in the way it was meant, it was the first time that any male had ever complimented her strength and battle prowess and it felt good to receive some acknowledgement, especially from a battle proven warrior, because even if he was just an ooman he was still one that had brought down a giant lizard singlehandedly in a glorious hunt which she'd had the utter privilege to witness, which meant that his words despite his species would have carried much honour among her kind, but still she wished that one and even if it was only one, male of her own kind would see what this ooman had seen in her instantly.
Jack carried his AS50 readied in the shoulder as they moved through the jungle on the floor, his first trick had been luring Tik back down from the trees, as when they'd gotten down from the cliff the first thing she'd done was leapt up into the trees with all the grace of a huge and very deadly cat, so he'd had to explain to her that he couldn't operate effectively if he was having to constantly look up to see where she was so he could follow her. This had irritated her mildly but she'd finally agreed after Jack had made a demonstration of how ungraceful at tree climbing he was by jumping at one and gracefully slamming face first into it, which had made her make this hissing clicking noise which he figured was some form of laughter.
But joking about and fool making aside they were now moving together and he could see the obvious professionalism in the way she moved, she was constantly on watch the same as him, this was the mark of a trained and professional soldier or warrior, she was looking at everything and he could see that weird remote operated cannon on her shoulder tracking her every move, strangely he had to admit to himself that he was kinda glad to have her here, this environment was hostile enough so it nice to have someone watching his back, even if that someone was a huge alien amazon.
Suddenly Tik stopped dead and knelt down to inspect something on the track, Jack stopped dead and dropped to one knee scanning the forest with his weapon, "Whatcha got?" he said in a hushed voice, Tik instantly made a gesture to hush him and he obeyed it, but he moved over to her slowly and in a crouch, she pointed at a series or large and rather fresh paw prints in the mud of the forest floor, these things sort of looked like a canine paw print but much larger, suddenly Jack heard a rustling as well as twig snap to his left and he spun with his weapon readied, Tik did the same and he could see her cannon searching in his peripheral vision. For what felt like hours but what was only a few seconds both of them scanned the forest for movement, suddenly there was another noise directly behind them and both of them spun to look for it, again to be met with nothing, this was immediately followed with another noise behind them again, "Multiple targets and their circling us" Jack whispered, Tik nodded,
"Calibri wolves, pack hunters, four maybe five" she said quietly,
"Go back to back you take left I got right" Jack said, Tik clicked quietly then nodded, Jack moved behind her and they stood back to back watching the forest, suddenly there was a massive roar from the cannon on Tik's shoulder indicating she had a mark, then Jack saw a large black six legged dog like creature emerge from behind a tree in front of him, it was totally hairless with lean looking black muscles and a jaw that split open showing three rows of real nasty looking teeth, immediately he sighted and fired on it, the massive AS50 roared in his hands, not being able to lay prone meant that the weapon jumped right up off target, so it was a good thing that Jack hit his mark first time, the creature's head disappeared in a cloud of black mist and it fell over, almost immediately he saw another one burst out of the bushes to his right, it was a hundred meters and closing at a sprint, AS50 was useless at this range so he dropped it so that it swung on its harness and drew the massive Desert Eagle, the creature seemed to know what his weapon was or maybe it learned quick because it jinked left and right, from behind him he heard Tik fire that cannon of hers again, drawing a bead Jack let loose a few rounds of his own the massive handgun boomed and jumped with each shot, each of the rounds found its mark blowing chunks off the massive wolf before it did a nose dive into the mud and stopped moving as the last round hit it square in the throat.
From behind him Jack was suddenly slammed forwards which caused him to go instinctively into a roll and as he picked himself up and turned he saw why, while they'd been busy one of the wolves had slipped around the side and had tackled into Tik knocking her backwards on to the ground, "Tik!" Jack yelled and sprinted towards her as she wrestled with the massive canine, but before he reached her Tik deployed some really mean looking blades from her wrist and stabbed the wolf in the side causing it screech in pain, then she threw it off her and sprang to her feet with amazing grace for someone as big as her, she dropped into a fighting stance with her wrist blades drawn, with her other hand she drew a rather large sword from her back and flourished it with real style, it was nearly three foot long with a massive mean looking dark metal blade that curved at the tip, then as he watched in awe she charged right at the massive canine and with a single deft flick of her wrist took its ugly head clean off its shoulders with the massive sword.
Upon killing the bothersome canine Tik eleth let loose a roar of victory that echoed through the forest, she then stood up to her full height and turned to face Jack who she found staring at her, then as she watched her retracted his fleshy things again to bare his teeth at her in that rather fetching way that he did,
"You really showed that fucking wolf who's boss" he said all the time baring his teeth at her,
"Pauking wolves are no match for a blooded huntress" she spat looking down at the dead wolf at her feet, then she noticed the two dead wolves behind him, she smiled inside her mask at his share in the victory,
"The victory and the honour is shared" she said gesturing to Jack's two kills, he glanced at them and nodded, then Tik had an idea she quickly turned to her kill and knelt down, Jack watched curiously as she pulled two of the canine's massive razor sharp teeth from its severed head and then walked over to him, holding out one of the teeth to him,
"A trophy of our first joint victory" she said, Jack was a little grossed out but he realized that this had to be a cultural thing for her as she kept referring to herself as a huntress so this had to be important to her, so took it and nodded thinking quickly of something to say to show her that he respected her culture,
"A symbol of our shared honour then" he said instantly thinking that sounded cheesy as fuck, but instantly he heard those odd happy clicks or what he hoped were happy clicks coming from her again,
"Ack understands" she said sounding happy, then she turned and they continued on their way.
As they took a couple of steps Jack noticed something odd on the ground, it was in the space that Tik had been in when the wolf had knocked her down, stopping he leant down and picked it up and turned it over in his hands, it was some sort of small book, it looked like it had been bound in an animal skin of some kind and was fastened together with a rather large black clasp that seemed to be made from the same metal as Tik's armour, undoing the catch the book fell open to the last page and the first thing her noticed was that all the pages were made from a skin like material sort of like a crude form of vellum like they used to use back on earth hundreds of years ago, in the spine making a crude page marker was what appeared to be a black and white feather that had been sharpened to make it into some form of quill, he couldn't read the symbols written on the pages as he figured this must be Tik's native language, but he did notice that they seemed to be written in what appeared to be blood of some kind and given that the symbols stopped halfway down the page he wondered if it was some form of diary or log.
Suddenly a sense of dread filled him and he quickly closed it and resealed it, he knew how pissed most human women got if you read their diary being caught reading the diary of a massive alien amazon would probably end with being force fed his own balls followed by various other parts of his anatomy.
"Err I think you dropped this Tik" Jack called to her waving the book, she turned to glance at him and did such a vigorous double take that her dreadlocks swung out like tentacles from her head, then she charged right at him at full tilt, he held the book out quickly at arm's length and it was promptly snatched from his hand and he could feel her glaring at him even through the mask.
Tik eleth was enraged with herself that she'd dropped her precious diary, all her innermost thoughts, private moments, musings about this place and the life it had given her were all contained within, not to mention the poems she'd written about her time and her hunts here, if this ooman had read it then she would have had no choice but to have removed his skull and spinal column lest that he tells someone that she Tik eleth a blooded and powerful huntress and warrior of the Shadow claw clan, writes and enjoys poetry.
But then her stance relaxed somewhat as she realised that he had done the honourable thing of returning it to her when he could have just kept it without saying a word, but also it hit her that there was no chance that even if he had looked inside that he could have read it as it was written in her native tongue, "Thank you Ack" she said quietly looking at the book she was clutching protectively in her hands,
"Don't worry about it, thought it looked important" he said making some sort of dismissive gesture with his hand, little did the ooman know just what sort of debt she owed him here, if one of the bad blood pauks had found this book, well that didn't bear thinking about, so without saying another word she re-secured the book in its pouch in her skirt and they turned and carried on their way.
Although it was a rather long walk and it was starting to get dark by the time they got there, the rest of their walk to Tik's cave was uneventful, it was like the one he had been in himself half way up a cliff, but it was bigger than the one he had been in, Tik said nothing as they reached the entrance but merely gestured for him to enter, the first thought that entered Jack's mind was 'This has to be the first time any human has been taken home by an alien girl' it was so out of left field that he nearly laughed when he thought it, but as he stepped inside all the jokes went out of his head, the walls were decorated with various skulls of creatures she'd killed and the floor had various skins and furs thrown on it like rugs, on one side there was a makeshift tanning rack and a drying rack for meat, next to it a fire pit with a pot for cooking, on the other and this took up a huge amount of room was a massive bed that looked like it could easily hold at least four large people with no problem, it was made of huge tree limbs and covered again In rather soft looking furs,
"Love what you've done with the place" Jack said sarcastically without thinking, he could have kicked himself the second that the words left his mouth, luckily for him Tik didn't understand human sarcasm yet and took it as a compliment,
"Thank you Ack" she simply said causing him to breathe a sigh of relief,
"So now we're here now what?" he asked,
"Food and rest" Tik replied and pointed to the cooking pot, he nodded and right on queue his stomach rumbled loudly.