Austin winced as he poked the clumsily placed bandage on his brow.
Even through the rather muddied side mirror of his truck he could tell he'd have to get stitches. The gauze had stopped the bleeding, but only after a large red blotch had dyed through the material. A scar was basically inevitable.
For starters, a scar over the brow wasn't all that noticeable. If it had been a big one over his lip or nose then maybe, but as it was a tiny clip on the brow was unlikely to raise a comment.
Even if it did there were numerous explanation he could come up with. He could have tripped and fell cutting his face on a sharp rock. He could have had some kind of freak accident involving a knife. He could come up with some terrifying story of confronting a mugger.
Hell, even the truth could be passed off as some kind of drunken joke.
When he thought about it, Austin figured he had the right face for a scar. He wasn't self conscious or vain or anything, but he had to admit that a scar in this particular position made him feel a little badass.
No, the graze on his brow didn't worry him any, but the person who put it there on the other hand… Austin glanced over at the ship.
Kalthara had ordered him, actually ordered him, to stay with the truck as she inspected the wreckage of her ship. Austin wasn't sure how he felt about being ordered around by an alien woman. A GIANT alien woman at that.
It surprised him how he hadn't managed to notice how large she was. He supposed the adrenaline from the attack had been fueling him at that point, hence why he had failed to notice that he was loading a seven-foot tall alien into the bed of his truck. The dark of the night had likely obscured things as well.
Still, he should have caught on sooner. The way her head and legs hung off his couch was one sign. Then there was the way the tips of her ears just barely avoided touching the ceiling. And the way he always had to look up when speaking to her when they were both standing.
Instead Austin only noticed when it became apparent that Kalthara simply could not fit into the driver's seat of his truck. It wasn't even simply a matter of height. Her arms and legs were so gangly there was just nowhere for them to go.
In the end she had had to ride in the back as Austin drew them both back to where the ship had crashed the night before. It was a longer drive than he remembered, but there had been so much on his mind that the time had flown past.
The second they'd arrived, Kalthara had complained about the "primitive vehicle", how it was "practically falling apart", and how she had "almost lost my head!"
Austin had felt the need to defend the worn out old truck. Sure, he hadn't liked it much himself, but he now felt an odd kinship with the thing. At least in the face of the overly critical Kalthara.
The worst of it was how obviously she was trying, and failing, to be pleasant. His presence clearly irritated her. Austin was willing to bet that if he hadn't been the only available assistance she had then he'd very likely be dead and buried in the desert. Assuming aliens even bothered with that kind of thing.
For all he knew being left out for the buzzards was the height ceremonial burial practices where she came from.
He yawned and unwisely allowed his thoughts to wander.
It should not have been possible to be bored while being parked next to a spaceship but here he was. Austin wanted to equate this experience to being the getaway driver fro a bank heist and maybe make things more exciting, but one glance at the empty desert crushed that notion. Even if there had been a bank to rob out here it would be manned by shifty-eyed lizards hoarding flies like they were gold bars.
Besides if Kalthara had half a mind to rob a bank Austin doubted she would actually need a getaway driver. She'd probably just walk out the front door. There really wasn't much cops could do against an alien woman with the strength of ten gorillas.
He sat in the rather limited shade his truck provided and tried to occupy himself with figuring out the time.
It had been night when he'd found Kalthara and carried her back to his house. He couldn't say how long it had taken him to build that - admittedly ridiculous- fort but it couldn't have taken more than half an hour. Then Kalthara had woken up sometime after sunrise and they'd talked.
A lot.
Well… maybe not A LOT but more than Austin was used to.
After all the initial awkwardness the two had come to something vaguely resembling an understanding. Things had developed way too quickly for Austin to back out. His best chance at coming out of this experience relatively unscathed was to play along and avoid any gruff patches until the alien was GONE. Once she was gone Austin could spend the rest of his expectantly short life pretending Kalthara had never existed.
But before then he'd have to make sure she COULD leave. From the looks of things her ship was heavily damaged. Practically a scrap heap. At least that's what he surmised from the way Kalthara was kicking it.
Some gestures were universal.
Austin hoped she was just overreacting Now that he was looking at the ship in the daylight the sheer alienness of it hit him with full force. He really didn't have the proper words to describe it.
The color, the way the light hit it, the shape, everything could only be described as alien.
Leave fixing it until later, hiding it was the critical point right now.
All it would take was on random hiker or wayward plane for the whole military or garrison or whatever to come bearing down on them. With quarantine tents, muffled up scientists, armed guards, the whole nine yards.
The hard part would be convincing Kalthara to go along with it. He doubted she'd object to the idea itself for her own sake, but she might fight the idea simply because it had come from Austin. Besides she might take it as him trying to tell her what to do and he somehow doubted she'd take that well.
Course if he could somehow convince her it was her idea….
His eyes wandered across the rocky outcropping as he thought hard about how to breach the subject to his new roommate without getting stabbed in the face again when he spotted something.
Something metal.
Some metal that refracted light the same way the alien ship did.
Something that was, in fact, a number of yards AWAY from the alien ship.
Something that, currently, was not part of the alien ship.
But it could be.
He checked to see what Kalthara was doing and was satisfied to see her messing around with the cockpit. Lucky. Chances were she was checking the damage to the inner system and wouldn't notice him wandering off a bit. With a wry grin, Austin stood and made his way towards where he'd seen the refracting light.
If it WAS a part of the ship, finding it would be one hell of an ice breaker.
Things were worse than she had thought.
It wasn't just that the navigational and communication systems were down, the inner working of the craft itself had been dislodged or otherwise damaged. The force of the impact must have been much greater than she remembered.
Kalthara kicked the side of the ship in frustration.
Here she was. Marooned on some dreary dry desert planet that was seemingly populated only by one barely evolved ape and, from the looks of it, tiny lizards while her brother was missing, captured, or dead.
(It was more than likely that her brother had escaped, she knew, but Kalthara's current situation made her feel particularly pessimistic.)
With no tools or parts there was no way she could fix her ship properly. Her engineering skills weren't terrible. Definitely not as bad as her navigating, piloting, or aiming skills. But she wasn't an engineer.
Sure she could do basic repairs and recognize what was wrong but she wasn't sure she could fix it. There was a vague idea in the back of her mind for how to go about fixing some of it.
Kalthara ignored it. She couldn't base her thoughts on things she couldn't place words on.
Climbing up into the cockpit and activating the console, she initiated a diagnostics check before checking to see if her transmitter was still intact.
The Blades had been forced to design and build special transmitters that would emit a one of a kind frequency that only their ships could pick up. Anything else risked drawing attention from all the wrong people. They worked for the most part, thought Kalthara wasn't sure she could rely on any of her comrades just so happening to pass by the planet she was conveniently stranded on.
She turned it on anyway. Just in case.
After that she just sat in the cockpit chair watching the diagnostics load as everything finally started to sink in. She was stranded. There was nothing she could do about it but try and fix her ship while hoping someone would pick up on her signal before she died and was buried in an unmarked grave on some outback planet in the middle of nowhere space.
Attaining a temporary (ally? comrade? cohort? associate?) convenient companion had been easy enough. It seemed that for some reason this human feared the others of his kind discovering his association with her, and had agreed to assist her in any way that would fit his definition of 'reasonable.' This appeared to include shelter, transportation, and food; as well as general information on the planet's culture and level of technological advance. All Kalthara had to do in return was simply remain out of sight of other humans and avoid any sort of detection until her ship was up and running and she could leave.
Once the deal was struck, she had actually been feeling a bit better about the whole situation though she did not let it show. No reason to allow the human to get too comfortable in the knowledge that he was essential for her continued survival here.
But then she'd actually critically evaluated the ship and all positive feelings had flown out the window.
Even if the systems programming was intact, it would take her much longer to repair her vessel than she had originally assumed. If at all. She wasn't even sure she knew how to fix some of it.
A familiar sound alerted her that the diagnostics scan had been completed and Kalthara immediately opened it and scanned the report. Looking out for anything that would be the final nail in her coffin.
This was it. If all of the critical systems were completely shot to hell then there was no getting this craft off the ground and her only means of escape would be irreversibly destroyed.
After what seemed like a grueling amount of time, Kalthara closed the screen and sat back in her chair with a sigh.
"Marmora's grace." She muttered as relief washed over her mind.
Everything was still intact program wise. The diagnostics had only managed to find physical damage to the craft. Which in itself was still worrying, but it was easier to deal with than trying to reprogram an entire spacecraft from scratch. Once she had managed to fix all connections and inner workings on the ship it should be space worthy and she'd be able to leave this rock.
There remained just one small issue.
Kalthara shut down the system and crawled out of the cockpit. Carefully maneuvering herself so that there was no undue stress placed on her injured arm.
The moment her feet touched the ground her search began.
The exact details of what had occurred directly after the crash were still fuzzy. She could recall awakening. Osteen had been there as well, having stumbled across her ship during an excursion, and Kalthara could remember the site of the strange creature standing over her through the opening in the cockpit.
Beyond that the details were muddied and confusing.
Which didn't help in her search for her blade.
Had she had in on her when she had awoken? Had it been thrown from her body when she crashed? Or had the blade fallen from her hip sometime while the human had moved her?
Every time she checked behind a rock only to find that her blade was not there, Kalthara's sense of dread deepened. This was not a question of need but necessity. It was necessary that she found her blade at all costs.
The lack of weight on her hip almost made her feel naked and unprotected. Without her blade at her side, Kalthara could only feel more alone and helpless. Almost like a lost child.
The fact that the blade was made of Luxite, a unique and priceless material, did not help matters. If someone else had come along after they had left and found the blade, there wasn't a guarantee she would be able to retrieve it.
But she had to.
No other blade would do. It had to be that blade. The one she had earned in her trial.
Otherwise she might as well just give up and never bothering going home. The shame of returning without her blade would be too much to bear. Her pride wouldn't be able to take it.
After several minutes of clumsily trying to search through the dirt Kalthara reluctantly gave up. She glared down at her arm in the sling. If she had full use of both of her arms then the search would have been much easier. Kicking at the dirt one last time, she walked away from the ship and back towards the vehicle.
If she took it easy the injury should heal in around two to three spicolian movements. In that time she'd have to rely on the human for assistance in fixing her ship. She entertained the idea of asking him to help her find her blade but quickly tossed the thought aside.
There was no way she could trust him with information on such a valuable item. The only reason he was even helping her was because he wanted to avoid trouble with his fellow humans. If he discovered that she had something as valuable as Luxite, he may just change his stance.
Once she got back to the truck she would just play dumb. If he had noticed her digging around she could just make up some story about looking for some inconsequential part to her ship. Or something similarly vague.
Honestly she could probably claim she was looking for one of the Voltron Lions and the fool would believe her. Just by looking at the man, it was clear he probably wasn't the best his species had to offer. Still he seemed harmless enough. Or rather weak enough that Kalthara could snap him even with a broken arm therefore neutralizing any possible threat.
Stopping in front of the truck, she stared at the empty space where the human man had previously been.
"Of course," she sighed. "He wanders off right when I want to leave."
Narrowing her eyes she glanced around until she spotted him, atop some rock formation, messing around.
Immediately, Kalthara headed into that direction. Silently reminding herself that it was in her best interest to NOT destroy the only ally she had on this planet.