Jen bounded along at a pace that before would have been considered breakneck. But now, thanks to the armor she had, it was a rate of speed that she could readily maintain for a long while. She followed R'ka and Kwei as the three made their way past the last of the trees. With the plains before them, and some mountains past that, the small group was able to take advantage of nearly every type of possible food sources. The cave was situated on the coast, so ocean life could be harvested. The nearby rivers meant that some types of fish could be easily obtained. There was a vast expanse of forest along the river, and above the cave for those creatures. A place that was more ideal for their needs would have been difficult, if not impossible, to find.
Jen had stopped for a short breather when she spotted it. There was no telling what it was, but ugly couldn't even come close to describing the monstrosity that appeared to be about the size of a rhino; if the long tail wasn't counted. Primarily red, with lots of grey stripes and other patterns on it, the thing appeared to be nothing short of disgusting. Then it came closer to her position, and she got a decent look at it.
Whatever it was, looked like it had already been skinned. Those grey areas that she had seen were actually the creature's skeleton. Almost every bone seemed to be outside the thing's body! The ribs and vertebra of the spine looked like they were on the outside of the creature's body, while other bones, like the legs and skull were inside where they belonged. The vertebra extended far upwards forming a series of interlocking plates along its back that rose a good three feet above the strange beast. Combined with a truly wicked set of horns that curved back and then forward at the tips, the creature looked like something out of a nightmare movie or Resident Evil video game.
Fortunately before they left the cave, Kwei had taken the short amount of time needed to link their wrist computers. Doing this meant that they would be in constant communication with each other while cloaked. Even though mere text didn't convey any emotion, they could still make plans and carry them out.
:R'ka, Kwei… we have a target to my right. Since I'm a lot smaller than you two, I'll play bait to get its attention. Before I do, I want both of you to circle around so you can hit it from behind. R'ka take its right side, Kwei take the left. Let me know when you are in position.: Jen sent to them while whispering in her mask.
:I see it. I'll be in place in just a few more steps.: R'ka replied quietly.
Both Kwei and R'ka began moving silently into the positions indicated. Even though he hadn't acknowledged Jen's transmission, he was moving into the stated position as quickly and stealthily as he could. Once he was ready he informed Jen of that fact and braced himself to attack the beast.
As soon as Jen decloaked, the beast reacted almost instantly, and moved to attack her. At nearly the same instant, R'ka stabbed the beast in the rear leg right at the hip to disable it. She had put a lot of power behind the strike to no avail. The razor sharp tip of her spear had no effect on the creature's hide. Seeing the creature turn its attention on R'ka, Kwei attempted to use his wrist blades. He managed to gain the thing's attention, but he failed to even scratch the hide.
Both the Yautja and the Great Yautja were leaping and dodging out of the creature's path. It didn't matter what weapon was used the effect was the same. There was no visible damage to the hide of the beast, and their attacks were only serving to enrage the strange thing. After several minutes of jumping from the path of the creature, R'ka was faced with a nearly blinding flash as Kwei finally used his plasma caster.
Now the creature was really angry! Until that moment, the creature had fought in near silence, with only soft hisses as it charged. Now it roared in fury. With a bellow that seemed to shake the very rocks and ground they stood on, all three of the would be attackers were surprised at the power of that sound.
That roar almost proved to be R'ka's death. She had hesitated for a brief instant upon hearing that deafening roar. She almost didn't react in time to prevent from being impaled by the horns of the beast as it charged her. Letting go of her sword, she barely had time to grab those horns and keep herself away from them. She felt her back slam into a tree, and the creature tried to force its way closer to gore her and put an end to at least one annoyance. Only the strength contained in the massive arms of the Great Yautja preserved her life, but even that vaunted strength wasn't enough to hold the beast off for long, and she knew it.
Even as she prepared herself to greet the Dark Hunter, R'ka heard a scream of primal fury accompanied by an extremely loud crack. At the same instant, the head of the beast seemed to explode towards her right. Even through her surprise, R'ka's arms never faltered, and that was something she would later commend herself on, because the beast continued to push forward for a few heartbeats before slumping lifeless to the ground.
R'ka looked to her left to see Jen holding one of her ooman weapons. The weapon was almost her height in length, and R'ka had privately thought the weapon to be too ungainly to be of any real use. Now she had seen otherwise.
"Are you okay? Did that thing hurt you? Damnit R'ka, answer me!" Jen demanded sternly as she dropped the rifle and made her way to the oversized woman.
Jennifer didn't wait for an answer; she was immediately running her hands across the woman's legs, thighs, and hips before turning her around and visually going over every inch of R'ka's physique.
R'ka was shocked into silence; her bearer might have been this domineering a few times, but then her bearer had been a much larger and more imposing female. Jen was tiny… small enough to barely reach above her knee, yet there the woman was, determinedly checking R'ka for injuries and completely unwilling to do anything but see for herself.
R'ka didn't bother to answer and say that she wasn't hurt, because she could see that Jen would not be accepting of that answer! She let the tiny ooman look her over for several minutes.
"Are you hurt anywhere?" Jennifer asked after she finished checking R'ka out for injuries.
"No, I am not. I would have told you so earlier, but I don't think you would have listened to me." R'ka answered quickly.
Jen snorted derisively. "You're probably right." She said wryly. "I… I'm used to my men trying to hide what they consider to be small and therefore unimportant injuries from me. Infection can make any injury a crippling one. Do me a favor… both of you! If you are ever hurt and I ask about you, don't ever hide something from me, I don't care how small it is, or how insignificant you think it is. We only have each other to rely on here, and if one of us is crippled by a supposedly minor injury it weakens the other two, because they have to pick up the slack."
"I agree that what you say makes sense. I will hide nothing from you." Kwei told Jen seriously.
"I too will not hide anything." R'ka added.
"Good. Now… what are we going to do about Double Tough here?" Jen asked in relief.
"Double tough?" Kwei asked curiously.
"Well it was almost tougher than any weapon we've got, and if that roar wasn't heard for miles my shot was! So we either need to find a way to clean this thing here, take it back to the cave or your ship, or leave it to rot. Personally… I don't like the idea of just leaving this thing. That hide was tough enough to stop your shoulder weapon, and your blades, that means any leather we make from it, will be a very good and lightweight armor." Jen pointed out.
"Let's take it back to the ship. There we can take all the time we need to while it stays in cold storage and doesn't rot. You've just made me curious to find out just how tough that hide will be." Kwei replied.
"I think I can carry it, but I won't be able to fight while doing so." R'ka said as she looked over the beast.
"Don't worry. Kwei and I will cover you. That's how teamwork functions." Jen answered.
"Once we return to the ship, can you tell us more about this teamwork you are so familiar with? It is not a concept I recognize." Kwei asked interestedly.
"I too would like to know more about this, because it's something I haven't heard of either." R'ka chimed in.
Beneath her helmet, Jennifer gaped at the two aliens. She had seen the way they fought the Double Tough beast. Their every move was well trained, but then once she thought about it and recalled what she had seen, they had also gotten in each other's way several times. They were well trained as individuals but they could not function as a team. She could change that by teaching them, and somehow, she knew that she would.
"Teamwork is not about individual skill or ability. It is about combining the individual skills or abilities of several people, so that the group is able to benefit from a variety of skills and abilities. For example, the three of us can count on R'ka for size and strength, Kwei, your age would give you more wisdom and experience, and my comparatively small size means that I can get into places that you can't. That is where teamwork holds major advantages. Yes a group can also use those advantages, but they don't rely on those advantages the way a team does." Jen said as she watched Kwei use a knife fashioned from the tail blade of a Kainde Amedha to slowly skin the Double Tough.
"Pauk! If the skin of this thing hadn't already been pierced by Jen's weapon, I don't think this blade would cut it! How the pauk is a Warrior supposed to kill this thing?" Kwei said in a growl of disgust as he worked at the hide of the beast.
"The hide of that creature is tougher than anything I've ever encountered." R'ka whispered.
"Wait… are you saying that if I hadn't shot it, that neither of you would have been able to kill it?" Jen demanded in shock.
"That is exactly what we are saying, Jen. Even now, this blade is only cutting this hide because I am going from the inside. I don't think it will penetrate the outside going in. Once preserved, I can't think of anything that will be able to damage this hide except for maybe Hard Meat blood, which is a molecular acid that destroys almost everything." Kwei said sourly.
"So you think it will be impervious to almost any type of weapon?" Jen asked interestedly.
"Yes… not that it would do us any good if we can't use it." Kwei answered bitterly.
"If there is some way that we can use it, then we should find it. Such a hide would make excellent armor." R'ka mused aloud.
"The problem is making something out of it. Once this is made into a hide, I don't have anything able to work it." Kwei said sourly.
"You've got to be kidding me!" Jen exclaimed just as sourly. "We have the makings of impervious armor, and no way to make it into something usable? That sucks hard enough to peel the rust off the Titanic, and she's been sitting at the bottom of the ocean for more than a hundred years!"
Break
Jen was in the bathing chamber of the cave. She was nervous but highly irritated at the same time. It had been more than a week since she'd last shaved her legs, and in that time the hair on her legs had grown to nearly half an inch in length. Talk about disgusting! She was repulsed by it. So now, here she was with a Marine issue combat knife equipped with a fifteen inch blade getting ready to attempt something that she was sure was going to turn out to be one hell of a big mistake! She was about to try shaving her legs with it.
'They make most butcher knives smaller than this!' Jen thought in trepidation as she brought the large and razor sharp knife towards her right ankle.
It was at that moment that R'ka entered the chamber. Her eyes bulged behind her mask when she saw that Jen seemed about to deliberately harm herself. She lunged forwards and quickly grabbed Jen's hand to stop the tiny female from making a single cut.
R'ka pulled the knife out of Jen's hand, and handed the small female her mask. "What are you trying to do?" She demanded angrily once Jen had it on.
"I was going to try shaving! You know… get rid of this unsightly body hair? It's disgusting, and it feels gross! Back on Earth we had razors, and creams, and waxes… all kinds of stuff to get rid of this crap! But now, I'm stuck here on this God forsaken planet without any of that stuff! Hell, right now I'd settle for a good pair of pliers to pull this hair out with." Jen replied with an irritable huff.
"You do not wish to have hair on you?" R'ka asked a bit confused.
"On my scalp, eyebrows, and lashes… yes. Anywhere else… no!" Jen stated factually. "There are some women who prefer the natural look, but I'm not one of them, and I'll be damned if I go around looking like Chewbacca's sister!"
"I don't know who this Chewbacca is, but I have a tool that is sometimes used on living creatures to permanently remove their fur so that the resulting hide is smoother once you kill the creature several years later and make leather from it. I can't tell you if it's painful or not, or what effect it might have on your rather soft skin, but you may use it if you wish." R'ka answered in concern.
"Really?" Jen asked in surprise. "You'll let me use that little doohickey?"
"Yes." R'ka answered simply before she went into the main hall of the cave to retrieve the follicle remover.
R'ka returned in just a few short seconds. She handed Jen a piece of equipment that was shaped much like an electric razor, but much bigger, with no type of blade on it that Jen could see.
R'ka explained how to use the device, and Jen tried it on a small patch of skin near her right ankle. She immediately wished she hadn't. Whatever that blue light was; it hurt a lot more than getting waxed ever had! This was even worse than pouring straight alcohol into an open wound. Jen set the thing down with shaking hands and examined her ankle.
There was a strip about two inches wide and four inches long that was completely devoid of hair. It wasn't red and didn't look irritated, but it sure as hell burned and stung. It was a good ten minutes before her ankle no longer felt like she had poured hot boiling water on it, but once the pain stopped, the area was actually almost numb.
'Well R'ka said that this is permanent and waxing hurts like hell even though that only lasts a few weeks. That's got to be why this hurts so damned much. I don't know if it'll cause a rash or not, but I might as well bite the bullet and get it over with!' Jen thought as she examined the spot closely.
Jen sucked in a deep breath, gritted her teeth against the pain that she knew was coming, and proceeded to use the device to shave her lower right leg. After shaving her shin and calf, she set the thing down with a hand that shook, she let out the breath she'd been holding in a hiss of agony.
'This is going to be absolute hell!' Jen thought almost frantically as she struggled with the pain she was in. She waited until the pain subsided before speaking to her friend.
"You know R'ka… that thing hurts like hell. I'm not sure which hurts more… this or that medical syrup of yours." Jen said heavily.
"If it is causing you pain, then why would you do this? Healing serum causes pain but it mends the injury that necessitated its use. Doing this serves no purpose that I can see." R'ka said curiously.
"Well… there are drawbacks to all forms of shaving. With a razor, you risk nicks and cuts; with a cream you get some burning and a rash for a couple of days; and waxing hurts like hell because the hair is literally yanked out by the roots! The problem is… the hair always grows back. It only takes a day or two with a razor, about a week with a cream, and about six weeks with waxing. Supposedly you get six months when they use a laser, but I've never tried that." Jen answered.
"So do all ooman females go through such pain to remove the hair from their bodies?" R'ka asked in confusion.
"Not all of us… but more than enough. This though… this takes the cake! I just hope it's as permanent as you say. If it is, then I'll never have to deal with this again… ever!" Jen finished forcefully.
"Then to be permanently hairless is really what you want?" R'ka asked to clarify things.
"My eyebrows, my eyelashes, and this…" Jen said as she pointed to each including the hair on her head. "yes! That I want to keep… everything else… I want gone! As in forever!"
"I don't think that you are finding this to be a pleasant experience." R'ka began carefully. "I also do not think that you will be able to do this, because that looks to be quite painful."
"R'ka… I'm honestly not sure which one hurts more… this thing… or when Jackass threw me the day we first met. Yeah… honestly… I don't think I can do this by myself. Would you be willing to help me with it?" Jen asked sincerely.
"How am I to do that? Exactly what are you asking me to do?" R'ka anted to know.
"I want you to use this thing on me. I'll show you the hair that I want to keep, and you'll use that thing to get rid of the rest." Jen suggested. "I promise not to hold this against you, because you'll be doing me a huge favor. Just take off your helmet before we start, that way you won't pay any attention to whatever I say. All you'll need to worry about is if I nod or shake my head. If I nod that means keep going. If I shake my head that means stop until I nod, because I need a minute." She instructed.
"You are sure you want to do this?" R'ka asked uncertainly.
Jen caught the emphasis on that third word, but only because R'ka had said that one a bit louder than she had the rest of her question. "Yes! I am absolutely sure, and I don't think Kwei would be able to help me with this… because guys are usually pretty useless at shaving a woman… especially when she does her genitals."
"So you want all of the hair gone! You realize that this is going to hurt?" R'ka stated in surprise.
"Oh I know! That's why I want you to take off that helmet when we get started, so you won't understand what I say, and can't take it personally." Jen said wryly.
"I'm thinking I should record it so I can learn some new insults from you." R'ka told her.
"If you want to learn some new insults, this would not be a good time to do it!" Jen said firmly.
"I will take your word on that." R'ka said simply before removing her mask.
Jen took off her helmet, pinned her hair beneath her head wrap, stood up and pointed at her right leg before nodding. R'ka knelt down and began to use the follicle remover as fast as it was possible to use it. Even so, she could hear the hisses, and growled words coming from Jen within seconds of starting. She did the front of Jen's right thigh and knee, before starting on the front of Jen's left leg. She figured that she might as well do the front while Jen was facing her.
She had spent perhaps three minutes doing the front of Jen's left leg when the woman shook her head to stop. R'ka had been keeping an eye on her for exactly this signal. She watched in silence as Jen shook for a few moments, while a stream of what she was sure was some type of profane language spewed forth in obvious anger. R'ka could tell that Jen was getting angry, because she could easily smell the little female's rage. Therefore R'ka was truly surprised when Jen nodded her head to continue. She finished up doing the front of Jen's legs when the ooman gestured to her crotch.
R'ka's mandibles fell open in shock. She understood that Jen wanted to be rid of most of her hair, but she's had no idea about this! R'ka knew how sensitive that particular area was, and she knew that Jen was not going to be happy with the results. R'ka shook her head slightly, growled low in her throat, and pressed on.
While treating Jen's crotch, R'ka kept a sharp eye on the little female for any sign of impending violence. Jen shook, she cried, she ground her teeth, moaned, hissed, and clenched her fists… but never once did she make any kind of threatening move towards R'ka. She had to admit, that Jen's self discipline was astounding. Doing this just had to be excruciating, but Jen was persisting anyway.
When R'ka finished doing Jen's crotch the woman was breathing shakily and heavily. In fact, she was almost sobbing from the pain. R'ka held off for a moment to allow Jen to begin breathing regularly again. Once that finally happened, Jen gestured to her stomach, breasts, arm pits, sides, arms, and even her neck. R'ka nodded slowly, once more thoroughly impressed with Jen's determination.
R'ka wasn't sure how many times they stopped so Jen could recover, but she knew that they were half done when Jen pointed at her shoulders and then towards the ground before turning her back to R'ka. Perhaps the female's back wasn't as sensitive, or perhaps she was simply in so much agony that she didn't notice it as much, but things got a little easier for R'ka to deal with. It was when Jen spread her legs, bent all the way over, and pointed at the crack of her butt that R'ka nearly had a fit.
'If all ooman females go through this much discomfort to remove their body hair, then they must all be insane!' R'ka thought in dismay.
Almost as soon as she started on Jen's crack, R'ka could tell that the ooman woman was trying very hard not to scream! In fact, Jen's reaction to this was such that R'ka also began shaking from the sheer stress of watching Jen put herself through such torment. Finally, that part was past, and R'ka moved as quickly as she could to do the back and insides of Jen's legs.
When R'ka was finally finished, Jen slipped into the bathing pool to rinse her body down. The water was somewhat hot since she'd spent a while preparing to shave. She sat there for a while as R'ka watched her, and she was sure that her friend was concerned about her. Jen pointed at her helmet, and at R'ka's as well.
"Put your helmet on."
R'ka donned her mask and handed Jen's to her.
"Thank you." Jen said sincerely. "I really mean that. I know that wasn't easy for you, but you did it anyway… so thank you."
"I hope that I do not have to do such a thing again. That was not enjoyable! A Bad blood might have taken pleasure from it, but certainly didn't." R'ka said angrily.
"I know… I know. You didn't like doing that to me anymore than I liked going through it. But if that little doohickey is as permanent as you say, then I'll never have to worry about unsightly hair again. That's the only thing that will make this worth it!" Jen replied shakily.
Once the last of the pain finally passed and most of her body had become somewhat numb, Jen ran her hands across her now perfectly smooth body. No stubble, no razor bumps, no occasional hair that had broken while getting waxed, and now there wasn't even any irritation. She would just have to wait and see what she would look like tomorrow.