CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
They walked a short distance from the town and found an empty parking lot of a shopping center long since void of cars and consumers. Whenever the hunters took more than a day or two to rest and recover, one of them usually returned via shuttlecraft to one of the ships looming in quiet orbit far above the Earth, for supplies.
Damaged equipment was repaired or replaced, new weapons were collected up for delivery back to the group that remained on the world, and the one elected to be the supply runner would also usually return with Yautja food and drink, at least enough to last the hunters for a few days; a taste of familiarity on an alien world.
K'Shai could always tell when the hunters ate meat and drank juices familiar to them; it put them in a far better mood over drinking alien water and hunting alien animals for food. The human race was struggling to survive, and of course, she knew their trials all too well.
It was easy, in some ways to think that the Yautja were simply "handling it" because they were only visiting for a short term, but as K'Shai grew to knew the hunters better and better, she realized the challenges they were facing were just the same as the humans – a shortage of supplies and a life and death struggle every day, in addition to being on a world that even felt alien to the natives.
R'chnt himself never left the world to get supplies for his group. He was Leader; his job was to keep the others both directed and disciplined and lead them to victory or honorable death as they worked as a small unit of a great team to eradicate the bug drones from the face of the Earth.
However, this time, he elected himself to make the supply run, and informed K'Shai she would be coming with him. She brimmed with excitement at the mere notion of venturing into outer space, but she also knew his reasoning wasn't just so she could go sight-seeing.
She stood quietly by his side as they halted near the edge of the parking lot and she scanned the sky along with him. It was late October, and the typical gray skies and bleak weather of fall prevented her from seeing any sign of the ships floating so far above the clouds.
Suddenly, a small form took shape in the sky and grew larger as it zoomed towards them. They waited patiently as a small shuttlecraft set down in the parking lot and a ramp on the back popped open. R'chnt extended his arm towards K'Shai, inviting her to go with him and simultaneously telling her walk ahead of him. She pressed her lips together and strode forward as he followed.
As she stepped onto the ramp, she suddenly felt her body surge and her heart skip several beats in a row. She filled with both eagerness and nervousness.
She wanted to see space; she wanted to learn more about R'chnt's people and their ways, but she also knew that his people wanted to know more about her.
Their unusual relationship, which up until just a few days ago, was widely considered nothing more than an oddity and curiosity amongst his people, at least according to the rest of his group from what she gathered, was now something entirely different.
They had crossed into completely new territory, and their relationship was one that made history in the entire history of both races. R'chnt had every intention of bringing K'Shai with him to the homeworld after the Earth hunt was complete, assuming either of them were still alive by then, of course.
Whether or not she could conceive an offspring was another matter entirely, and while the humans in her little group were scratching their heads and casting their glances away whenever she was near, unsure what to make of her relationship with an armored alien killer that towered seven-foot-four, K'Shai was beyond certain as she stepped aboard the shuttle in preparation of meeting more Yautja, that they would be just as perplexed.
R'chnt had discussed this day with her; she knew it would come eventually, but still, even as she sat down in a Yautja sized chair along the side of the shuttle near the front windows, it seemed rather surreal to her.
She knew she was headed to her judgement, and although R'chnt did assure her that she had done nothing to cause him any dishonor, she knew that whatever judgement was deemed upon her, would also be deemed up R'chnt for the line he crossed.
She stayed nervously silent in the course of just a few moments while her mind zoomed through thoughts of what the rest of the day was going to be like.
She envisioned a variety of scenarios of what the Yautja she would meet were going to do to her and how they would elicit their judgement. She had a momentary anxiety attack that she struggled to keep quiet, hoping R'chnt could not interpret how nervous she was, as she concerned herself over completely made up scenarios that had not even happened yet.
R'chnt had a much more, almost laid back approach to life, handling only the matters that were immediately before him and not worrying about the ten thousand other possibilities that could happen.
She had not quite adopted that mentality, she realized as she tried to toss concerns over the two of them being strung up and skinned from her mind.
He must have sensed her anxiety, because R'chnt reached for her and clamped his giant hand over her shoulder, squeezing gently. She patted his fingers and watched the sleek vessel take off.
The cabin of the shuttle was easily large enough to accommodate six Yautja comfortably, maybe even eight if they all squeezed in, but it was obvious, even for K'Shai who had never seen a space ship close up, that this was a short transit vehicle only.
She imagined that even just two Yautja in the vessel for a long enough duration would probably end up killing each other out of agitation for not being able to get out of each other's space.
The shuttle was automated; no one piloted it down to the planet to pick her and R'chnt up. K'Shai scanned across the panels in front of her, trying to decipher the alien language and symbols upon them.
Learning to speak R'chnt's language was an extremely difficult challenge. After months of learning, she was still fumbling over words, saying the wrong things sometimes, and perhaps most embarrassingly of all, she would completely run out of words mid-sentence, because she did not know enough vocabulary to finish her thought, so R'chnt would have to interpret for her.
However, reading his language was something entirely different.
R'chnt began to teach her some of the words and symbols, but it was a painfully slow process that she had a nearly impossible time comprehending.
She stared quizzically at the panels before her as though her blank gaze might help her suddenly read the words. She had to forcibly prevent herself from randomly tapping all the buttons just to see what happens. She contented herself for the moment with clasping R'chnt's mighty hand and staring into the clouds.
"Your people have flying vessels, yes?" R'chnt questioned.
"We do," she confirmed as they sailed up into the clouds quickly. "But not to space."
R'chnt glanced to her after tapping a button on the panel before him. "Your people have been in space."
"Well, yes. But only a handful of humans have ever been in space. Even less have been to the moon. We can't travel the stars like you." K'Shai clarified.
"I've been on an airplane before, so I've been up this high."
"How long have your people been able to travel in space?" She asked after a moment.
"Many centuries. My ship itself is 1,000 of your years." R'chnt informed her non-chalantly.
"I can't wait to … see… it….I… wow." Her voice trailed off as she gasped in awe and wonder.
Once the shuttle cleared the clouds, it shot up into the upper atmosphere and suddenly, K'Shai's view of her world changed dramatically.
She was familiar with the image of Earth from space, even though she had never before seen it from beyond the clouds. Certainly every movie she had ever seen, and images from space, made the sight familiar to her without ever actually seeing it.
As she stared out the front window of the little vessel, though, she found the sights beyond her full of overpowering wonder and spectacle.
The sun lit rim of the curve of the Earth was just quite like she thought she could remember seeing in movies and photos, but she certainly did not recall the smattering of alien space vessels in those images.
From the planet's surface, K'Shai was well aware that there were dozens of vessels hovering far above, some cloaked, some visible, just floating above the planet.
Once in the edges of space with them, the sight before her was incredible. There were hundreds and hundreds of Yautja ships, of all various sizes floating idly as the world far below spun.
Many of the ships were not even perceivable with the naked eye from the ground, so K'Shai had no idea just how massive of a force of Yautja had arrived to Earth until now.
She stared between distant stars glowing like she had never before seen them and nearby ships that looked far different than she thought they would. It was an intimidating force, for sure.
The ships themselves looked like some kind of cross between mechanical marvels and angry crustaceans.
They came in a variety of sizes. While there were a few small transport shuttles buzzing out that she could see in the distance; they looked like little grains of rice compared to a coconut.
There were many larger ships hovering all around, and beyond them all loomed a single massive ship, so large it might as well been its own planet, she thought.
"The jag'd'atoll," R'chnt said as the shuttle zoomed directly for the massive vessel.
K'Shai watched the ships zoom past the window before her, and the stars beyond them, barely realizing that R'chnt was watching her instead.
She peeled her eyes away from the window for just a moment to gaze at him with a wide smile. He eyed her in silence, with a small smile across his upper tusks.
In no time, the little shuttle was being swallowed whole into a docking bay near the underside of the massive atoll ship.
K'Shai craned her neck back to watch the roof of the ship above her zoom past the window of the shuttle. A flicker of a blue light, like static electricity emanated as the nose of the shuttle entered the bay.
The docking bay was quite full.
As the shuttle zoomed itself into an available spot, K'Shai's eye's bounced around both sides of the bay, counting at least thirty-five other similarly sized shuttlecraft all lined up sitting dark and idle. She wasn't sure what to expect of the ship itself or of the people she would meet.
As R'chnt stood and headed to the back of the shuttle to exit, K'Shai followed. She eyed the docking bay with wide eyed wonder and noticed a half a dozen Yautja near an entry door into a corridor.
The docking bay of the atoll was dimly lit. It was sweltering hot, so much so that as soon the ramp of the shuttle opened, K'Shai immediately removed her jacket and two layers of long sleeve shirts.
She had been dressed for surviving in the cold of late fall without the luxuries humans had taken for granted, like heat.
The high temperatures of the atoll clashed brutally with the rather cool ambient temperature of the shuttle, which was filled with Earth air when the ramp opened on the planet. Immediately, a fog began to develop inside the shuttle and K'Shai wafted through it as she had left.
As they walked through the large docking bay, the heat in the ship was enough to make it a little hard to breathe, and K'Shai had briefly thought about removing her tank top, to walk about in her bra alone. She doubted anyone would really care.
The metal walls of the docking bay looked to have an aged Earthy red tone to them.
They looked old, but not all that dissimilar to any riveted metal one would expect to see, K'Shai thought; rather like the hull of a battleship. They were not exactly what she had expected, then again, she did not really know what to expect.
R'chnt's own body, apart from his many dangling bones and medallions of his conquests over the centuries, was like a subtle monument to the battles he had seen.
Faded scars of old battles etched his skin, along with piercings and tattoos that told of his position in the clan and hunts he had survived. Somehow, K'Shai just assumed that the inside of the Yautja ship would look more ceremonial. Then again, it was just a docking bay.
She walked past the group of hunters with only a vague passing glance. Whatever conversation they were having amongst them came to a sudden halt and K'Shai could feel her skin tingling along the nape of her neck as she walked towards the stunned hunters who stared in flared-mandible bewilderment.
She knew already from dealing with R'chnt's small group, that it was best to focus on her destination or desires and pursue them, essentially ignoring everyone else as she went about her business.
Although she did not know why, she did at least perceive that male Yautja seemed to naturally avoid a female that strutted along with disregard to anyone else.
K'Shai felt her gut churn and her heart speed up as she walked boldly past the hunters. She knew R'chnt was keenly aware of what she was feeling, but she wasn't sure if the other Yautja could pick up on her nervousness, too.
She tried on a confident façade, but she felt completely out of place amongst R'chnt's world, wearing ooman attire and staring at everything with wide eyes, striding along next to R'chnt, who walked towards his destination coolly and composed.
As K'Shai walked along the metal-hulled corridors next to R'chnt, and drew gaze upon gaze from awe-struck hunters, young, old, male and female, she tried to focus on her strong front and not falter amongst the mighty Yautja.
She began to wonder what was going to happen when she met the people she was brought there to meet. She envisioned scenarios of being tested for strength and courage as the Yautja tried to determine if she had enough ferocity in her to become part of R'chnt's clan.
She could not imagine what challenges lay ahead for her, and as she walked through amber illuminated corridors past dozens of pairs of silent eyes, she only hoped she would succeed and not let R'chnt down.
They turned down an adjacent corridor and immediately made a left through a set of heavily etched doorways. K'Shai glanced up at the etchings and caught a few familiar words R'chnt had been teaching her, but that was about it. His language was difficult enough to speak; reading and writing it was proving to be a slow challenge for her.
They entered a room that was entirely more ceremonial than K'Shai could have ever imagined.
It was a large, oval room with a raised floor along one wall, like a low stage, almost, just a foot or so higher than the rest of the floor. The entire bottom of the risen section was lined with a variety of bones and skulls, all ornately etched with symbols that made up single words and entire sentences.
There were pillars throughout the room, all of which combined together, K'Shai at least knew enough to know, would tell the story of the clan's origins, but she could not read them.
Besides this, the room itself appeared something more like a museum; with trophies on display of every size covering nearly every wall surface available.
Weapons, some clearly ancient, some broken, some still bloodstained, lined the spaces and moldings above, below, and between the skulls. Her eyes caught three human-like skulls proudly displayed in a triangular fashion on a far wall.
It was possible that the skulls were of a similarly structured alien, but K'Shai somehow felt that they were human. The variety of species whose bones were displayed upon the walls, K'Shai could not even begin to imagine.
Some of the skulls were massive; bigger than any Queen she had encountered and K'Shai immediately gravitated away from R'chnt, towards a nearby wall, the entire middle section of which was adorned with a massive serpent like skull.
The elongated skull was easily twenty feet long. It looked almost similar to some kind of eel, K'Shai presumed, not that she had ever seen an eel with a twenty foot head.
The creature's triple set of canines on the upper jaws dropped down like a saber toothed tiger, and inside the skull's gaping mouth were shark-like rows of razor sharp teeth.
K'Shai tried to imagine the animal fully intact- whether it was a sea creature or a land animal, she could not be certain, but she tried to envision the rest of the body; perhaps it was a giant snake, or something with wings like a dragon.
Any which way she imagined, she knew there was no question that it was truly a worthy kill; enough to elevate any Yautja to a new level in the clan, and there was simply no doubt why the animal was so prominently displayed.
In contrast to what was easily the biggest trophy in the room, doubtless on the whole ship, there were other skulls in the room that were so tiny, they seemed likely from a domestic house cat and she had a bit of a hard time processing why anything so small could be trophy worthy.
Suddenly, just as K'Shai was trying to image a horde of rampaging cats charging angrily towards a Yautja on the defense, nine Clan members entered the room from an adjacent doorway.
Three males, all elders, but none appeared quite as aged R'chnt, followed at the end of group. Before them led six females, each one, though not in typical awu'asa, the hunting armor K'Shai had become so accustomed to seeing, were spine-tingling intimidating anyway and K'Shai immediately felt her body tense as she locked her jaw and watched them enter.
They were larger than the males, taller, not necessarily more muscled, but there was little doubt in her mind that any one of the female Yautja she saw before her could easily take on, and most likely kill, any male, even R'chnt, probably with her bare hands.
K'Shai suddenly had no questions at all why the males seemed keen to stay out of even her way when she walked forward with a purpose as she went about her business. Yautja males were clearly possessed of a healthy intimidation of females; of any species apparently.
K'Shai swallowed as she turned to face her judgement.
The looming female, the tallest, eldest, and clearly the most critical of her, stared her down like she was little more than a bug as she approached R'chnt's side, halfway tempted to hide behind him. The female took to the center of the raised platform while the others filed in neatly next to her on both sides.
Her garments were heavily adorned with polished bone and alien jewels, intricately laced into alien leather, metal, and rope-weaved trim. She flared her mandibles and clicked loudly as she eyed K'Shai from head to toe and back again.
"Do you who I am?"
The tallest female asked K'Shai flatly, with a tone that suggested boredom, perhaps combined with a hint of dismissiveness.
K'Shai briefly wondered if the female had halfway suspected that she wouldn't even understand the Yautja language, but R'chnt had been teaching her well; so well in fact, that K'Shai knew exactly who the female before her was.
"You are Neh'rti, the Clan Leader," K'Shai factually, careful to watch her tone and her eye contact.
Neh'rti clicked her tusks together in consideration of K'Shai, while continuing to stare her down, dominating over her with just a glance as she strode towards her smoothly.
"What do you think of these trophies, K'Shai?" The Leader questioned.
That was not quite the question that K'Shai had expected, but she promptly answered.
"They're incredible."
Neh'rti drew in close to K'Shai and eyed her, tucking her own tusks into her clavicle as she looked down nearly a full meter to the top of K'Shai's head alone.
"And does one appeal to you more than the others?"
K'Shai immediately felt her eyes shift towards the massive serpent on the wall just to her left. She did not respond, but it was clear Neh'rti saw her eyes cast that direction.
Neh'rti ticked her upper tusks together and glanced at R'chnt before turning to stride around K'Shai, circling her where she stood planted to the ground.
"R'chnt is an honored and wise elder in our Clan. I would go so far as to say that he is the most dominant male in the Clan. He has hunted for centuries and proven his mettle against incredible prey and over females alike." Neh'rti spoke loudly, her deep voice resounding around the room.
"This entire situation on your world has been unusual in every way. And now, R'chnt appears before me with….." she paused almost as though she was consciously trying to keep her words in check. "… an unusual request."
She turned and stared at K'Shai and a lingering silence filled the room. There wasn't really a question there, so K'Shai kept her pressed her lips tightly closed, not sure if she was supposed to respond in some way.
Neh'rti's cold, hard, golden eyes surveyed K'Shai's scarred body. A deep bite was visible on her upper arm as bruises from a week before still flushed her skin.
"And you and R'chnt have mated." She added in curiously in a tone that only vaguely hinted at a question.
"Yes." K'Shai confirmed.
"Tell me, K'Shai," Neh'rti invited as she returned to the rest of the Clan, who did not speak or move.
"Are you prepared to endure the repercussions of your actions on both you and R'chnt? Should I choose against this … unnatural mating… not only will we kill you of course, but R'chnt's honor will be destroyed.
If you care for him, as I assume you do, are you willing to risk the honor of this hunter who this clan reveres as a mighty Leader? Are you willing to see him humiliated, his bloodlines rejected, and his body torn to pieces?"
She could feel her heart pounding in an instant, while she stood there shoulder to elbow with R'chnt. He did not so much as move even the slightest flicker of a tusk. He gave no indication that he was concerned in the least.
K'Shai thought quickly before she answered – a flood of emotions and "what if" scenarios that did not even exist as of yet rushed into her mind in one swoop, making her heart jump wildly and her throat tighten. She tried not to delay her response so much as to appear as if she was hesitating.
Within the splittest of a micro fraction of a second, all the thoughts and concerns that flooded into her were washed away by something R'chnt had told her. There was nothing she would do that would cause him such dishonor.
"I am." She said smoothly, confident, certain that Neh'rti was trying to test her faith in R'chnt.
Neh'rti clenched her mandibles tightly and spoke to R'chnt with little more than a fleeting interest.
"You may leave us."
Without a word, or even a glance towards K'Shai, he vacated the room quickly, almost as if he was eager to do so.
K'Shai's nerves flared up as Neh'rti stepped towards her while R'chnt headed out. She did not notice him look back into the room before the great doors slammed closed.
Neh'rti circled her again, rather like a lion that might be waiting for its prey to die miserably. K'Shai could feel her bones rattling, but hoped somehow that Neh'rti could not sense it.
"I have heard much about this ooman who walks with the Yautja." She said. "Are you surprised by this?"
"No, I had expected that R'chnt would…" K'Shai started, but the strong Yautja cut off her words.
"Much of what I have heard has not come from him."
K'Shai eyed the Clan's Leader.
"He has told me he has been teaching you. He has brought me to you because he wants you to have a place in the Clan. With us. With him."
She spoke slowly, surveying K'Shai as she encircled her. Neh'rti never took her eyes off of her.
K'Shai felt like nothing more than a child being silently scolded by her domineering mother for something she wasn't even sure she had done, but would accept the punishment anyway because she was too intimidated not to.
"I know you have mated with him, because I can smell him on you. And you on him."
K'Shai stood still, and only briefly cast her eyes towards the other Yautja, who had not moved or said a word the entire time. Neh'rti glanced to them, and another female stepped forward, but Neh'rti continued speaking.
"Much of what we have heard has come from others in R'chnt's group. This is a most unusual situation, K'Shai. I would never have expected this from a Leader such as R'chnt. Not another Yautja that has come to your world has taken such a keen interest in your people. Certainly not taken a mate."
Neh'rti's words sounded abrasive, confused, and even just a little more than disgusted.
"Tell me, do you find mating with R'chnt pleasurable?"
K'Shai pressed her lips together, quite sure her cheeks flushed.
"Yes I do." She said simply.
"Come with me, K'Shai."
Neh'rti directed and the female that stepped forward followed behind her as she walked in Neh'rti's tracks. Two more females joined them and the rest of the group dismissed themselves as K'Shai was taken through an open archway along the far wall, and down a lengthy, amber lit corridor.
There were no other Yautja in the corridor, but K'Shai could hear echoing voices as she walked.
"The trophy on the wall you so admired," Neh'rti started again. "Was R'chnt's kill. He hunted that before he became Leader himself. Three hundred years ago."
K'Shai smiled and Neh'rti stopped and turned towards her, reaching towards her head delicately, lifting her chin up as her long fingers slid under her jaw.
"You and R'chnt have a connection I have never seen before."
K'Shai smiled softly and Neh'rti released her touch and strode into the room she had stopped before.
It was a large, oval room, like the trophy room she had just come from, but this room had something more of an intimate, feminine, feel to it.
The walls were richly ornate, carved with symbols, words, and scripts and lightly adorned with trophy bones and jewels. Only the female Yautja accompanied her, and several more females in the room cast glances her way. K'Shai could feel her spine tingling as she became very aware of the scoffing looks she was receiving.
She followed Neh'rti through an antechamber and down a lift to a lower level, where she remained in the company of a dozen females for several hours before she made her way back through the hallways and rooms and chambers and levels she had been taken through and found her way back to R'chnt.
He was sitting around a long table not all that unlike a giant picnic bench, in one of the eating halls in the massive ship. K'Shai had seen only a tiny section of the giant city-sized vessel, but found her way back to R'chnt without any problems.
He was in the company of more than a dozen other males; most were elders, although a few appeared younger. They all fell silent and alert as K'Shai approached.
She smiled widely and R'chnt reached for as he rose to greet her, immediately directing his company with him.
"It is time." He said.
K'Shai smiled thinly as she gripped her hand around his upper arm and stared at him.
"You knew, didn't you?" She asked suspiciously, with a sleek smile.
"That she would accept you?" R'chnt questioned with gently spread upper tusks. "Of course."
"I just spent the last seven hours thinking…"
He cut her off as the group of males walked ahead of them silently.
"She wanted to see you first, that was all. There was a never a question K'Shai."
She lowered her head graciously and followed R'chnt and the other males through a series of corridors.
Everywhere she went, Yautja of every caste simply stopped and gaped at her. She naturally shifted herself as close
to R'chnt as possible without looking like she was trying to hide behind him. She amused herself with the vague idea of wearing a shirt with a giant arrow on it that said "I'm with him" in Yautja, and wondered if that might help the situation.
Soon, the group before her turned into another oval room with walls so heavily etched with Yautja scripture, it very well immediately struck K'Shai as some kind of temple.
She discerned a few familiar words and situations in the scripts; the Path of the Gods and the Soul of the Hunter, two of the most familiar R'chnt had provided her. She thought she saw a few more familiar symbols, but her attention was more focused on the crowd in the room.
Neh'rti and a dozen other females loomed on one side of the large room while the rest of the chamber was packed, quite to the point of overflowing with males.
K'Shai noticed two of the females that she had not met earlier were quite clearly with child. She glanced around the rest of the room and saw that besides the group of mostly elders that R'chnt kept with, the majority of the Yautja in the room, all blooded hunters, appeared younger and clearly aboard ship to have a variety of injuries tended to.
Judging by the severity of some of their wounds, K'Shai imagined some of them had managed to both etch their way up in caste and be, probably permanently, removed from the hunt at the same time.
It was not, as she had learned, a dishonor not to die in a hunt. Although quite separated in the way they lived their lives, both male and female Yautja wore their scars with pride.
She knew that R'chnt, as both an elder and a Leader surprisingly was a little more than modest about actually being injured, though he was proud of his scars, he did not wish to appear weak from injury.
The room filled with silence as K'Shai moved into the center and R'chnt turned to face her. She watched him certainly, with her lips pressed thinly together.
Her skin gleamed with sweat and she felt more than just a little out of place with so many garments upon her body.
R'chnt retrieved a bowl from one of the elder males that had been filled with a pearly blue luminescent liquid. He inserted a tool into the liquid, something that looked quite similar to an ice pick and she could hear a soft sizzle hiss up from the heavy bronze and bone bowl in his hands.
Without a word, he pulled the tool from the liquid, passed the bowl back off, and gripped K'Shai's chin firmly with his free hand before he laid its sizzling end upon her forehead and carved into her skin.
She took a deep breath and held it, trying with all her force not to whine, grimace, or tremble as the mighty Leader carefully, but quickly carved the Clan symbol into her forehead. Four separate lines, two horizontal, two vertical were etched permanently into her skin; the mark of her acceptance into his Clan.
The ritual was short, but Neh'rti announced her into the clan aloud to the room, which K'Shai soon learned afterwards while she, R'chnt, and more than a dozen other Blooded of both genders talked, that this was unusual for a Clan Leader to really have anything to say during a blooding ritual.
The Leader that had trained the unblooded carved the mark, recognized their accomplishment and confirmed that they now had a place in the Clan.
Most of the time, the Clan Leader was not even present for blooding, but K'Shai knew her situation was unique in every way. Having Neh'rti's direct, vocal approval of her acceptance into the Clan, she knew, secured her position.
While some may question R'chnt's choices, but few would dare challenge him, K'Shai knew no one was going to question Neh'rti and certainly not challenge her. Because of her gender, K'Shai was assured acceptance and even safety both from R'chnt and some familiar males and from the females alike.
The day breezed by quickly, and while K'Shai and R'chnt remained mostly surrounded by curious Yautja who wished only to see and perhaps even talk to K'Shai, the shuttle was loaded with supplies.
"Are we leaving already? I suppose we do have to go back, don't we?"
K'Shai said with a gracious smile as R'chnt stood after a short conversation with a few other elders on the far end of the long table at which they all sat around on the floor.
"Not quite, K'Shai. There is one thing yet we will do. Come with me."
Once again, the pair navigated corridors and K'Shai and R'chnt soon entered a small, but ornate room. She learned after going into enough rooms on the ship over the first few hours, that the Yautja seemed to prefer oval rooms. Nearly every room had no corners.
She thought perhaps it prevented an unlucky fighter from being quite literally backed into a corner. The rooms flowed. They flowed together as one, they flowed within themselves, and the small oval room they entered was equally as ornate, if not even more so, than the first chamber she was taken to when she arrived.
Once again R'chnt and K'Shai sat on the floor along with just a small gathering of elder males and two presiding elder females.
A chalice was prepared with some syrupy nectar called a'gya, that K'Shai had come to learn was a surprising favorite amongst the Yautja.
The sweet a'gya fruit was something she could only compare to a cross between a kiwi and an apple. It was hearty and meaty with a tough external shell that Yautja tusks were more than adept at cracking.
The fruit ate like a full meal and was so powerfully packed with nutrition it was easy to imagine living purely off it. The Yautja drank a'gya juice in mass quantities when they needed energy and a clear head that alcoholic drinks could not provide.
One of the elders emptied some pinkish liquid from another flask into the chalice with the juice and set it down in the center of the circle of Yautja.
"K'Shai," he said. "Your Path before you is the Path chosen by the Gods. Together with R'chnt your Paths are One.
The elder motioned with his hand, gesturing to K'Shai to retrieve the chalice which she promptly did.
R'chnt withdrew a small dagger from his belt. Only a few inches long; it was barely a paring knife. Its bone handle was intricately carved and he used it to cut his own skin slightly, piercing a hole into his finger tip just enough to let a few drops of blood drip freely into the chalice.
"Our Paths have been chosen by the Gods, K'Shai, and we will walk it together. My blood is yours as yours will be mine." He announced.
He handed her the knife and she stabbed her own finger, bleeding just a few drops into the chalice, repeating the words he had just said.
R'chnt reached for the vessel and whirred it together, the blood droplets mixing with the pink liquid, creating a rainbow hew across the milky white juice before he drank exactly half and handed her the chalice.
She smiled confidently at him, and drank the remaining blood-mixed liquids without a word.
K'Shai returned the chalice R'chnt who spoke with certainty.
"So we are bonded by blood, by the Clan, before the Gods, K'Shai, and our Paths are forever intertwined."
The ritual was brief and words were short, but the significance of what took place was clear.
K'Shai leaned forward, close to R'chnt and reached for him. She lightly touched his hand so as to move in to kiss him more easily when she felt an intense burning jolt shock her body; rather like she had been electrocuted.
Suddenly, she saw R'chnt before her, but he was not the same.
He seemed to be cloaked in a fog, the world around him was lost; it was only him. She could just see him, barely outlined in the thick fog by a glowing aura around him.
She could hear a sound, like a powerful beat that filled her ears yet seemed somehow distant. It was loud, but so distant she could not tell where it was coming from.
She looked closer and extended her arm towards R'chnt, and suddenly noticed that he too was reaching out for her.
The fog dissipated briefly and for only a fraction of a moment, K'Shai saw R'chnt before her, laid out covered in blood. A voice spoke, but she was not sure whose it was.
"It is your strong heart, K'Shai."
"What happened?"
"What was that?"
"K'Shai? R'chnt? Do you hear? Can you see?"
Voices filled her ears and she glanced around, seeing four alarmed looking elders a foot away from both of them. She turned wide eyes to R'chnt and glanced him over from head to toe for any signs of blood.
"What..?" She muttered quizzically.
"K'Shai?" R'chnt said to her as he gazed at her with an equally puzzled look.
"There was a burst of energy when you touched just now," one of the presiding elders explained as it quickly became clear that K'Shai and R'chnt both were unaware of what had just transpired.
"For a few seconds, you both… left."
"Left?" R'chnt questioned and glanced between the elders and K'Shai.
"I saw you. You were reaching to me."
K'Shai gritted her teeth, trying to understand if she could how it was that R'chnt had experienced the same thing as she.
"I saw you. You were reaching for me. Did you hear that sound?"
R'chnt shook his head. "Sound? No. No sound. What did you hear?"
"I don't know. It was like… like a heartbeat or something. Did you see anything?"
"No." R'chnt said quietly and K'Shai fell silent.
After a short while of puzzled contemplations over what they had experienced, K'Shai and R'chnt soon found their way back to the shuttle loaded with supplies, with a full day behind them, they left the jag'd'atoll.
The shuttle lifted off from the metal grate floor smoothly and quietly zoomed out through a forcefield and a massive set of open doors into space.
K'Shai eyed R'chnt, quietly processing the experience of her vision, and how it differed from what he had seen. She lightly touched the burning mark on her forehead and then cast her eyes back out the front of the shuttle.
"It's incredible out here, R'chnt. To travel the stars like this. All the worlds you've seen."
"I will take you to them, K'Shai."
He responded quietly, pressing controls at the helm and veering the shuttle on an arcing path away from the great blue globe of Earth.
"Don't we have to get back to the hunt?" She said with a light laugh.
He chuckled lightly and pointed out the window again, and her eyes followed his cue. K'Shai rose from the seat, gape jawed as she stared at a massive colorful cloud of space dust some distance away from the ship, and larger than a planet. As the shuttle punched through the glowing mist, she eyed a massive glowing orb of oranges, yellows, and white.
"It's Jupiter." She said in whispered amazement.
She watched the planet as the shuttle passed it by and zipped around the other side, sailing on for a short while at speeds so fast the stars in the distance blurred before the windows until the rings of Saturn appeared before her.
R'chnt pressed controls and K'Shai watched his actions intently, beginning to absorb what buttons to press to fly the shuttle, even if she had a hard time deciphering the difficult written Yautja language.
"We will have more time, after the hunt is complete. You will see the worlds I have told you of." R'chnt said after a brief tour around Saturn, right through its rings.
She turned to him and her smile widened as he entered another series of controls on the panel before him. She reached for his arm and gently stroked his forearm, just past the gauntlet on his left arm, her hand moving up to his bicep and brushing aside several of his long, gray locks and bead adornments.
"I can't wait to see them," she whispered slowly as she leaned him to him and moved her other hand to his chest, taking in the texture of her skin as she moved her hand across his muscles.
R'chnt clicked with delight and K'Shai pulled the corners of her mouth into an excited smile as she moved in and fully straddled him in the oversized command chair.
He leaned back and stretched his body, arching his back, and tipping his head back as she kissed his chest and moved her tongue over him and up to his chin and jaw and fondled the beard-like quills back to his ear.
R'chnt groaned with arousal and laughed deeply in pure delight as K'Shai snapped off his belts and exposed him to her pulsating thighs and eager hands.
As R'chnt throbbed and growled with pleasure, she slid off him and removed her clothing and invited him to stand up, which he did obediently and quickly.
She climbed on her knees into the chair, it was so massive it could have easily fitted two people next to each other and another two on each of the arms. The hard metal seat was covered only barely in some padded leather.
She gripped the back of the chair as R'chnt moved in close behind her with a deep growl and fondled the back of her neck and shoulders with his tusks, making her moan with arousal and anticipation.
She could feel her own body throb and moisten as R'chnt rubbed himself against her and rounded his back over her as he slid his hands along her hips, under her abdomen and up to her chest.
He took a firm hold of her breasts in his massive and powerful hands, clicking delightfully with a soft growl that quickly turned into a resounding moan that she echoed as he slid his thick, massive erection into her.
R'chnt was careful and attentive towards K'Shai. They shared in rambunctious pleasure, but he knew he could easily overpower her and damage her, as fragile as small as she was.
He pushed himself slowly into her, feeling her body throb and tense as he did as K'Shai howled with a combination of ecstasy and discomfort.
R'chnt pushed himself into her as far as he could, until his abdomen was pressing fully and completely into her rounded and bent over buttocks and K'Shai, groaning with delight and begging for more, gripped the back of the chair so tightly she thought she might dent the metal.
He withdrew from her slowly, allowing every thickly textured fold of skin on his powerful shaft to drag completely through the inside of K'Shai, lubricating himself with her wetness and stimulating every inch of her sensitive inner flesh until his lobed shaft head was nearly fully out of her before he growled loudly and pressed himself back into her.
K'Shai groaned ever louder on the second thrust and R'chnt echoed her delight, pushing himself fully into her and stopping for a moment to allow her body to adjust before he pulled out to the head, allowing the ridged lobes to tickle her outer skin folds before he pressed himself into her again, more firmly.
He felt her body relax slightly and as K'Shai gasped and groaned out for him to push faster and harder, he had already sensed that she was ready to fully accept him.
He growled loudly and began to pump himself into her, faster with each thrust, and harder as she beckoned him. Their bodies heated up together in seconds.
The ambient temperature in the ship alone was hot enough to keep K'Shai's body coated slightly in sweat anyway, but as they were consumed for several minutes with furious passion, R'chnt dripped saliva and sweat onto her back as she screamed.
She shut her eyes and pressed her lips together as her body filled with R'chnt's warm juices that erupted from his hardened shaft to the sounds of his completely satisfied growls.
Their combined fluids oozed out of her body and onto the grated floor below them. She only vaguely wondered who exactly cleaned a hunter's ship and shuttle after R'chnt slowly extracted himself from her after several long moments of holding his position so as to allow a thorough emptying of himself into her and give her swollen and throbbing body time to ease its grip on his penis.
K'Shai groaned as R'chnt pulled his full self out of her.
He took a quick, deep breath, and leaned over her as she spun around in the chair and smiled, biting her lower lip in a sultry, pleased manner as she gazed upon him.
She reached to him and he pulled her up into his arms, supporting her fully against him as she kissed him again and again.
"Oh," she said between still panting breaths. "I guess we're back."
Her eyes shifted to the windows of the shuttle as she saw the familiar sites of Earth coming into view around her. As the cloud cover broke, she was quite certain she saw Africa zooming by the window and in a few more minutes, as K'Shai and R'chnt both dressed again, the unlit buildings of the very parking lot they had taken off from came into view as the shuttle set down.
R'chnt stepped towards the back of the shuttle and opened up several compartments, like lockers that lined the side walls and out popped a variety of supplies for the hunters.
There were fresh weapons, recharged plasma casters, replacement bio helmets and wrist computers as needed, and even satchels of meat and flasks of drink for the hunters.
While the edibles would not last long, they provided both a needed boost of nutrition and a taste of home for the battle-weary hunters.
As soon as the shuttle's loading ramp back hatch dropped to the ground, K'Shai was startled slightly to see a dozen uncloaking bodies appear moving into the vessel.
W'rsa at the front of the group as was his place when the Leader was not present, walked in ahead of the others towards the supplies. R'chnt and W'rsa discussed their next plans briefly as they and K'Shai walked out of the vessel while the rest of the group exchanged what they needed and loaded up for more hunting.
In only a few minutes, all hunters were clear of the shuttle and it took off quickly and quietly under its own guidance, back through the clouds, and back up to the mother ship so far above the planet.
It did not take long before K'Shai returned to the human group and parted company with R'chnt and the rest of the Yautja.
The hunt was on, and she knew that it would be days before she saw him again. She couldn't help but to feel a flush of sadness and concern as she watched his cloaking back disappear.