CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
The days ticked by slowly, hour by hour, the two groups walked on towards their destination.
Slowly, people began to focus less on the destruction and vacant towns around them and more on the re-colonization of the human race.
K'Shai noticed, with some great relief, how the whispered murmurs amongst the group changed from gossip and condescending sneers about her situation to happily spoken suppositions about the city they would be arriving at soon.
"Well," Lewis said as he checked the map one more time as the group rested in the middle of an abandoned street, somewhere between a parking lot of a long-raided convenient store an over grown grassy playground.
"At this rate, we should be within the pick-up radius by…." he paused, calculating some distances as the children played and laughed nearby. "Tomorrow late in the afternoon. Maybe just before dark."
K'Shai smiled thinly as the group around her hooted and hollered their delight.
The Yautja were just returning to the group and she joined them as they sat down on a grassy spot only a few dozen meters from the human party.
R'chnt remained watchful of K'Shai, but he did as he needed as well and throughout many hours of the days as the two groups walked, and often at night, the hunters were usually gone, canvassing the surroundings, searching for straggling drones, untouched egg fields, or any signs of hives.
The Yautja army that had come to Earth to resolve the dishonor that had been cast upon the people, had been succeeding in their task.
The costs were dear and high, and while the humans gave little sympathy to the hunters for their loss of life, K'Shai knew all too well how many hunters had died to right the wrongs of just a few, and she could see, although he would deny it if ever brought into question, the exhaustion that R'chnt and the others in the group suffered from.
Without the humans following them, the hunters could easily cover three, even four times as much ground, and while they do their duty without even the slightest hint of complaint, and they heal their wounds, rest for a while and get up and do it all again, K'Shai knew the unspoken reality that the Yautja race was suffering nearly as much as the humans.
She sat quietly near R'chnt who sliced the skin off of a rabbit and put half of it over the fire, much to the chagrin of the others who preferred their meat raw.
They had gotten used to, and accepted K'Shai's oddities and differences and the group conversed lightly as they rested for a while and ate and drank.
K'Shai glanced around to the weary group of humans. Their tired faces were only just barely overridden by expressions of hope about where the future might lead.
The rest was brief, but well needed and once refreshed, the groups moved on together, though, much to K'Shai's pleasure, the hunters did not go far at all, and throughout the rest of the afternoon, R'chnt walked nearly side by side with her from a position in front of the human group.
"We should stop here, this is a good spot. Sheltered." Lewis called out bringing K'Shai to a stop just a moment before R'chnt.
It was nearly dark. The short winter days made for limited travelling.
Every day was a toss-up between walking during the darkness of the early morning and evening or pushing for a faster pace in the daylight hours, despite worsening weather. For a rare instance, everyone in the group seemed to agree with the decision to stop for the evening as the sun lowered past the horizon completely.
"Tomorrow night, we're going to be at the start of something new!" Someone announced to the group, holding a mug in the air.
"Here's to everything we've survived and the start of a better life."
His toast was echoed with cheers and hoorahs and happy smiles.
K'Shai just leaned deeper into R'chnt's chest and shut her eyes, content, not thinking on the least of what tomorrow would bring.
The night passed quickly and the human group was up and already beginning a morning meal barely before the sun had even cracked the horizon. K'Shai watched with an amused smile as the hunters, well rested from their half a day break, engaged sportingly in some jovial sparring, which to most of the awakening human group looked like an all-out fight.
R'chnt called to her as she nodded graciously. She stepped to him and took his sword as he squared off with her, weapons away.
"What about your blade?" She asked and R'chnt huffed.
"You're not going to scratch me."
K'Shai was quite sure she could feel her face flush. The sword was heavy in both her hands.
R'chnt wielded the weapon smoothly, single handedly, but K'Shai found herself having trouble adjusting to the feel of it over the plasma caster. She decided, much against his more traditional preference, that she preferred modern weapons.
She sparred with him, listening carefully to his direction and trying her best to repeat what she was shown, to the growing curiosity of the human spectators who seemed to pick up on the relaxed mood of the early morning and drew in a bit closer.
"Focus!"
R'chnt growled, although in a rather playful tone that maybe only she could recognize as she lost concentration a little when he leaned close into her and slid his hands across her body and arms as he showed her what to do.
Smiling, and just slightly red in the face from a little more than just exertion of sparring, K'Shai sat for a rest when her body told her to do so, and one of the men from the spectating group tiptoed near to her as though she might bite.
He was a new addition to the group, clearly still uncertain about K'Shai and her close relationship with R'chnt and the other Yautja. She was not sure what his name was. He warily looked from R'chnt, who had turned his attention to sparring with another of his group. He went to speak, but was cut off by another voice.
"Don't they ever get tired of that?" Lewis asked as he crouched down next to K'Shai.
She smiled and raised her eyebrows thoughtfully, glancing to the sparring Yautja.
"I don't know. That kind of life, you get tired, you die."
"He teaches you well. Carefully." The other man said and K'Shai nodded slowly.
"Would he spar with me?"
She shot him a sort of 'are you serious' look, but said nothing. Lewis and Carlos both glanced at him as though he was nuts for even considering it, but the man remained lock jawed and eyeing K'Shai.
"I would like to see if I can learn from him." He added after a silence.
Clearly picking up on K'Shai's uncertainty after another lingering silence in which they both looked at the hunters, sparring so forcefully it was a little hard to tell that they weren't actually trying to bring harm to one another, he added in his self-defense resume.
"I have acquired seven black-belts in my thirty-eight years. And have studied weaponry since I was three."
K'Shai nodded appreciatively. "I know. I've seen you fight." She paused. "I don't think it's a good idea."
Lewis chimed in.
"Cassy, didn't you say he's like four-hundred years old?"
She nodded and noticed the man's eyes widen a little, before he cast a downward glance, looking just a bit disappointed.
She watched R'chnt take a final few strikes against his sparring partner before he pulled to a halt and looked about, intending to gather his group together to continue the final stretch of distance to bring the human group to their safety, but K'Shai stood and approached him and whispered to him softly.
R'chnt nodded, his tusks spreading into an amused smile. K'Shai turned back and with a subtle glance she gestured for the man to prepare for a spar, smiling thinly as she imagined it would be most unlike anything he was expecting.
The man stepped forward eagerly, quickly, as if someone had just fired a gun at the back of his heels. The man drew out his own sword from its sheath and R'chnt, howling delightfully, spurred his group into a wide circle as he squared off with the man.
The two danced around each other, their weapons clanging together loudly and furiously. It was obvious the man was making a valid attempt, and no doubt seemed certain that he was impressing all the spectators.
The Yautja clamored and howled, egging the two on. R'chnt roared and made the man's face flush white several times while a few people in the group cheered him in his efforts.
"That's it. You got it!" One hollered.
"Get him down," another person called.
K'Shai watched quietly, Lewis not far from her shoulder shaking his head.
"He's being toyed with." He muttered and K'Shai cast him a wide amused grin.
Finally someone in the group called out that very fact.
"Oh dude, he's playing with you. He's barely made an effort."
"Not good! Back up! Back up!" Someone called, trying to coach from the sidelines.
The pair clashed on. The man made every effort. R'chnt continued to dance lightly on his feet, powerfully and agily moving about, striking on a few half-hearted blows.
K'Shai heard the calls of the rest of the hunters switched from only mildly amused to mostly bored within only a few minutes and R'chnt switched into a whole new gear, roaring furiously, to the heightened howls of his group.
He slammed his weapon hard and in two simple blows had disarmed his sparring partner and dropped him to the ground with a thud so hard for a moment he didn't move and K'Shai halfway wondered if he cracked his head on the pavement.
Gracefully, though, the man hopped back to his feet as R'chnt stopped and waited to see what the next move was going to be. R'chnt held his weapon ready, prepared for a second round, but the man, clearly shaking and overwhelmed by the power of the massive Yautja hunter, instead withdrew his sword to his side and bowed out.
In no time, the two groups were once again moving on, drawing ever closer to the pick-up zone as directed by the conversation Lewis had had with the safe city.
Once they were near enough, within a certain radius, armored trucks and armed escorts would retrieve any and all survivors, and those deemed parasite free would be granted admittance. No one asked what would happen to anyone who carried one of the little monsters inside their chest; they did not need to ask.
It was nearly mid-afternoon when the band of survivors had made their way through a rubble-filled town, past a vast stretch of wide open country highway and began to see some buildings of a city looming in the distance.
"Is that it?" Kelly asked eagerly, pointing along the roadway. "Is that where we are going?"
Lewis nodded. "That's it. We'll be within the pick-up radius in a couple hours."
Elated cheers filled the streets and the conversation, for just a short while, turned to excitement as people envisioned the safety that was awaiting them, and wondered if any of their loved ones or friends had made it there.
Suddenly, breaking the excited mood of the group, R'chnt growled as his armor beeped and he pressed a button. K'Shai, listened as the quick call from another hunting party echoed out, alerting anyone who would pick up the signal that they had uprooted a queen and hive and had tracked them to within just miles of the very destination the group now headed.
R'chnt led his group away quickly, with only a fleeting parting word to K'Shai and she could not help but feel her spine tingle as he left. Nerves suddenly shot up amongst the group and the rest of the walk, for two more hours, was a silent one.
As the group treaded into the wide streets of the small city, they glanced around quietly, weapons ready out of instinct. Although it was quiet, they listened for every slightest little sound, from the chirping of a bird to the flapping wings of a flock of pigeons that took off when they turned a corner, and they heard a small scraping sound which caught their attention.
All weapons aimed for the direction of the sound and the group exhaled a simultaneous sigh when a dirty looking dog strutted out.
"Just stop! Don't come any further." A voice called out, echoing in the streets.
"Hello?" Lewis called out. "Come out! Where are you?"
"Are you the pick up?" He tried again after he was greeted with silence.
Finally a small group appeared in the street, three men and two women, looking dirty and battered and weary.
"You're… you're here for the pick up?" A woman in the group questioned as she stepped forward and brushed her dark golden hair from her eyes.
"We are. I'm Lewis."
"Janelle." The woman said, reaching her arm forward and delicately shaking hands with Lewis. "We've already called them. They're coming."
K'Shai's eyes gazed from the middle aged woman to the men standing behind her. They were bloody, patched up, and looked ragged.
"We've been here for just a short while, waiting." The woman added. "We barely got away. I don't know how safe we…"
Her words were cut off when an explosion suddenly jolted everyone's attention away. The dog that was scrapping around the opposite street corner had been blown into non-existent pieces by a Yautja plasma caster and suddenly, with speed and alarm, R'chnt and the group appeared, sending the five in Janelle's group into a frenzy of panic as they shouted and readied their weapons while K'Shai, Lewis, and a few others stopped them.
"No, keep them away! Monsters! They'll kill us all."
R'chnt, ignoring the woman's screams approached K'Shai and gripped her arm tightly, pulling her slightly away from the new people as the group sprawled out and R'chnt scanned the people and the building.
"There is a swarm approaching. A queen. You have minutes it is not safe for you here." He said quickly and then rounded on the stunned looking group of ragged people.
"What did he say?" Lewis urged.
"We have to leave. Now." K'Shai said without delay.
Janelle looked stunned, and refused to budge as the group began to depart.
"We must leave," Lewis and Carlos urged. "They won't hurt…"
He began to say as R'chnt leaned in and grabbed one of the beat up looking men, raising his arm and extending his wrist blades.
Janelle screamed and turned on R'chnt, clearly in a panic, ready to simply hit at him bare fisted, but K'Shai stepped in front of her and stared her down silently, realizing the man had begun coughing as he tried to howl at R'chnt to release him.
"No. There's nothing you can do." K'Shai said lightly.
"Please don't let him hurt my James. My James!" She cried.
K'Shai looked between the woman and the man, who had clearly given up and given in. R'chnt released his grip on the man and let him stand on his own feet at K'Shai's request.
She turned back to sobbing Janelle. "I'm sorry."
"There's help coming! They'll be able to help him! Please don't do this. Don't…" Janelle pleaded for her husband's life.
R'chnt growled impatiently, and K'Shai knew all too well, there was not time to deal with the situation, and his patience was limited.
"They can't help him. Not even they," K'Shai said, nodding to R'chnt, "can remove the larvae. I'm sorry. We have to go. It's not safe."
"It's alright dear." James said with a throaty stammer. "You need to leave. Get yourself to safety."
Janelle fell silent, and stared between the people before her and the towering alien amongst them. Her eyes lowered to the shining wrist blades mounted to the alien's right arm.
R'chnt growled out a series of sounds and Janelle looked to K'Shai quizzically, obviously seeing that she could understand the alien's words.
"He said it won't hurt."
Janelle hung her head low and sobbed loudly as the rest of her group moved in to support her.
James stood tall, gritted his teeth and R'chnt at least circled around behind him. K'Shai saw the man hold a deep, quivering breath and his wife dropped to the ground and wailed as the sounds of crunching bones filled the air.
With little consideration of the situation, R'chnt removed the carcass from his blades and immediately directed K'Shai to leave the area.
"Let's go, there's no…" she started to direct the others as R'chnt moved on quickly.
The sound of hisses and shrieks, satanic wails and aggravated Yautja bellows suddenly filled the street.
"Move!" People began to call.
"Wait! There's more of us inside!" Someone yelled out, but the battle quickly upon them.
The street erupted into a blaze of blue bursts of cannon fire as two hunter packs converged against a swarm of drones that flooded onto the scene, followed in hot pursuit by their Queen.
The group scrambled inside and ran up to the third floor of the building to retrieve the rest of the waiting party still inside the building. K'Shai only just barely had a fleeting moment to glance out of a nearby window and realize she was head to head with the rampaging queen when a small smattering of her drone minions crawled quickly and easily up the building right past her.
She readied her plasma caster and took aim only to notice that the majority of the bugs were headed right past the third floor and up onto the roof. Judging by the downward projected blasts of cannon fire, K'Shai knew there were at least three Yautja on the roof.
Not every drone passed by, though. At least three that she immediately noticed before she opened fire and backed up towards the group, had burst through the windows along the hallway, blocking the only exit to the stairwell.
"Fire escape!" Someone shouted and the group ran towards the emergency exit.
Some of the group made it out, a few held their ground as back up to K'Shai, who, firing quickly with her alien weapon, clearly did not need the support.
She killed three of the drones before her. Two more quickly jumped in and the queen outside shrieked in fury as the Yautja shot at her.
She slammed her tail through the windows, dragging it along powerfully as she tore right through bricks and pulled out a gaping hole into the building, which quickly got filled with her own acid blood and several shots from the Yautja opposite rooftop. K'Shai spun on her heels and out the fire exit after the others, quickly making her way up to the roof as the queen barely missed clawing her on the open stairs by only a few inches.
R'chnt was on the roof, just above her head and had fired a well-timed blast to knock the queen off her attack. K'Shai scrambled to a stop just behind him once on the roof and Lewis was only feet away, gaping wide eyed at the both of them.
"We have to get these people out of here!" He called aloud.
"See if there's a way off over there!" K'Shai yelled to him and three other men nearby.
The men started across the roof, away from the raging battle in the street, chauffeuring the rest of their terrified group with them.
K'Shai fired out another burst and stepped inches away from R'chnt, who suddenly bellowed loudly as the queen, raging wildly and bleeding profusely, lunged upward, easily scaling the building that was just a single story taller than she.
The beast clawed out and swished her tail, hitting into two hunters lined up along the roof, grabbing R'chnt in the thigh with her long talons and simultaneously hitting Lewis with her inner set of teeth as her mighty head lunged over the rooftop.
K'Shai was hit with the hard exoskeleton ridged shield that crowned the massive animal's head and was sent toppling backwards as the two other hunters both slammed into the roof while the queen, unable to keep her grip from being heavily injured and shot by the remaining hunters on the opposite roof top, fell backwards.
Her claws pulled out of R'chnt as he roared in pain and collapsed to his knees. The queen shriek, pulling her inner set of jaws out of Lewis' calf, but as she fell back, the powerful force of the queen's attack pulled him over the side of the roof with her.
"Lewis!" K'Shai howled and lunged towards the edge of the roof, trying to grab him before he fell.
She missed.
In an instant, R'chnt was on his feet and jumping off the roof. He grabbed Lewis two floors down and the fire escape at the same time and as K'Shai stared in wild wonder between the fallen queen in the street and R'chnt, they both disappeared through shattering glass panes back into the building.
She darted back down the fire escape, only barely bother to notice that the queen had charged across the street, trying to strike down the hunters that were torn between shooting her and shooting the attacking horde that came with her.
K'Shai ran into the building and eyed both R'chnt and Lewis. R'chnt was bleeding heavily, but standing. Lewis, grunting in pain, was beginning to get up.
"Are you OK?!"
She called out, although to Lewis it was unclear exactly who she was talking to. She ran forward, placing a gentle hand on R'chnt's abdomen and glancing him over at the same time as reaching out for Lewis to help him up.
Lewis knocked off some dirt and dust and quickly swiped at his injuries, smearing blood across his jeans and onto the sleeve of his shirt, but his eyes were, gratefully, locked onto R'chnt.
"Thank you." He said in a whisper and extended his hand towards the mighty alien.
R'chnt, having learned the human gesture of goodwill from K'Shai, paused only for a moment and slowly reached his right hand forward, gripping Lewis firmly, maybe just a little tighter than K'Shai had showed him, and nodded to Lewis without a word.
Outside, the battle raged on. K'Shai could hear the echoing voices of shouting people still up on the roof. Perhaps they had run back to the edge to see what was going on, she couldn't be sure but suddenly, the building shook.
The queen fell backwards into the building, crashing through acid and super-heated plasma damaged walls, already. She took out an entire corner and the building lurched forward with a groan.
R'chnt, K'Shai and Lewis all nearly fell over as the weak floor in the long-abandoned building cracked and rippled. The angry queen and her drone children surged and as the queen pulled away and regained her foot, charging forward again at the attacking Yautja before her, pieces of the building, clearly being supported by her, collapsed.
With a mighty quake, the roof fell in to the floor below and the debris punched through the floor R'chnt, K'Shai and Lewis stood on.
Under the weight of the rubble, that floor broke through with a mighty crunch, and unable to outrun the rift, all three were pulled down to the ground level along with nearly a dozen others who had tried, and failed, to flee.
Coughing and gagging and trembling in pain, the stunned people pulled themselves to their feet and tried to look through the heavy flume of dust and concrete ash to gauge the situation. R'chnt clasped onto K'Shai's arm and helped her up, looking her over.
"I'll be fine." She said to him quickly.
Her eyes lowered to the deep punctures along the side of his thigh to his knee. His skin was ripped apart and hanging, and though he clearly stepped lightly on the wound now covered in dirt and rubble, he started to turn to head back to the battle.
"Get out of here," he said quickly to her.
"Help!" One of the men called as he collapsed to the ground, digging feverishly under a pile of rubber being compressed by a support column.
"There's people trapped under there!" He yelled.
"Here! Help! Please!" One man called, having found four people who had been trapped by the collapse of the second and third floors onto the ground floor.
Three men tried desperately to move rubble, including a large stone column that was blocking a potential exit, but the beam would not budge. The group tried to dig out under it to no avail, hurriedly pulling broken slabs of stone and planks of wood while listening to the roar of the hunters, the hiss of the drone army and the rumble of the heavy vehicles that rolled in.
"It's not going to budge. We can't get them out!" One of the men said exasperatedly.
"Cassandra…." Lewis groaned, trying with all his might with three other men to move the beam.
He didn't need to finish the sentence. His eyes were glancing to R'chnt, who was nearly already to the gaping hole in the street. She called to him and spoke quickly.
R'chnt, grumbling with only a half interest, glanced out into the street and flagged down two hunters who were charging past on the heels of the queen who had lunged back into the street only a moment before.
The men looked about curiously, doubtlessly wondering exactly what was going on when the three Yautja approached the collapsed beam.
"Whoa! Whoa! Wait!" Two of the men howled almost simultaneously.
"It's alright. They're here to help. We have to get moving." K'Shai said quickly.
R'chnt quickly evaluated what she had asked him to do, and immediately gave directions which K'Shai quickly translated, directing all seven men to one side of the beam while the three Yautja took the other as K'Shai and Janelle did little more than watch for the moment.
On the cue given, the efforts of both groups together provided enough force to lift the beam enough to allow the trapped people slide out. K'Shai and Janelle knelt down and as quickly as possible pulled them free as both teams groaned and struggled to hold the beam up long enough to allow them to do so.
Once the last child was cleared out, the beam crashed back down.
"Thank you. Thank you!" One man turned to both R'chnt and K'Shai before he ran out of the building.
"Do you hear that?" Lewis said, stopping K'Shai for a moment.
She stopped and listened, straining to hear over the tremendous roar of the battle in the streets beyond.
"Tanks. That sounds like tanks." She said, hearing a rumble approaching.
Lewis watched her as R'chnt clamped a hand on her shoulder and spoke quickly.
She turned to him.
"K'Shai, go now."
"Let's go!" She urged to the others.
They cleared the building and immediately, R'chnt and the others disappeared around an adjacent corner through the haze of ash, acid, and weapons fire.
K'Shai and Lewis and the others ran the opposite direction, towards the sounds of the vehicles, which they found only two blocks away hurriedly loading up the survivors as the gun emplacements whirred to life and maintained an almost steady stream of fire.
A uniformed officer jumped down and greeted Lewis, introducing himself as a Major. Most of his words were drowned out by the fire, but it was obvious he was trying to hustle Carlos, Lewis, and K'Shai into the back of the one of the transport vehicles. Lewis stopped, and turned to K'Shai, whose attention was focused down the street.
The giant black form appeared through the thick haze, barely even visible for a moment. Her black body clashed dramatically with the white ash of destruction that covered nearly everything, and the whizzing blue flames bursting from the Yautja weapons every few seconds.
"Son of a bitch! Look at that crazy bastard!" The Major said, his attention now focused on the queen of the bugs.
All eyes diverted and there was R'chnt, holding onto the back of the massive satanic creature with one hand, spear in the other.
"I like his style!" The Major said with a snarky tone. "Come on, let's get you all safe."
For a moment, no one moved.
K'Shai stepped lightly forward, closer to Lewis and whispered. Her voice was weak, shaky, but Lewis and Carlos heard her clear enough. The scene on the whole just finally became so clear and apparent to her, and she suddenly felt a little as though she was watching the event unfold from somewhere else; somewhere far away.
"Smoke….."
She eyed them both widely, a look of fear and realization etched into her face as she turned back to the battle between the queen and R'chnt. The other hunters were moving in, clearly ready to strike from the ground.
It was hard to see them all, and see the events unfold properly as they weaved in and out of thick plumes of smoke and ash, but K'Shai did see the terrible queen rear up with a shriek. Her head swung backwards and met harshly with R'chnt's spear. The sound of the crushing bone was audible even more than a block away.
The queen dropped to the ground, writhing and R'chnt held still waiting until he appeared sure the animal was dead below him before he slid off.
"We really need to get a move on here, people!" The Major urged and again no one responded.
K'Shai stepped forward, feeling a sense of relief sweet over her as she released a breath she didn't even realize she was holding.
The thick smoke, the stench of acid, and the heat from numerous weapons burned her eyes, made it hard to focus, and hard to see down the distance, but she could hear, by the quiet that was falling over the street, that the battle was at an end.
"What now, Cassy?" Lewis prompted, glancing from the battle back to the truck behind them.
K'Shai glanced at the three men staring at her and turned again towards the smoky road when the roar filled her ears. The high pitched shriek had preceded it, but it was the roar that shot through K'Shai and made her heart miss several beats.
She just barely saw the queen moving quickly, a dying spasm or a last stand, she did not know, but the monstrous creature lunged forward, grabbing a tight hold on the hunter that had crossed her path in front of her face. She saw the hunter lift off the ground, blood pouring from his midsection as the powerful jaws of the massive animal cleaved him almost in two.
She barely perceived what was happening for only a fraction of a second. It all happened so fast and yet somehow so eerily slow at the same time. One second, she was watching R'chnt slide off the back of the beast as other hunters closed in. The next second came the terrible roar. The queen was moving and the scene turned glowing green in a moment.
K'Shai howled at the top of her lungs, wailing out a deathly sob as her eyes settled through the clearing smoke and ash on R'chnt, suspended easily fifteen feet off the ground, the queen's tail sticking through him. His blood was pouring down onto the street by the gallon as the other hunters shot and speared the animal.
The queen whipped her tail violently as she collapsed to the ground again and R'chnt was flung thirty feet across the road like a rag, slamming into a building where he disappeared completely out of sight as K'Shai howled and darted forward, moving in past stunned silent Yautja as Lewis and Carlos closed in at a dead run behind her.
K'Shai wailed and called for R'chnt, seeing him just barely through the fog, the outline of his body highlighted by the neon glow of his blood.
He was conscious and halfway propped upright against the building as though he just decided to sit down for a rest. He reached for her, coughing, gagging, weak, but calling her name. She cried for him and reached out to him, sobbing as she pressed her hands against the gaping wound on his lower right side as though she might stop the bleeding and put his intestines back in.
R'chnt, head lolling on his shoulders as though it was barely attached, growled a mournful moan filled with pain. He began to speak a slur of words that made little sense and K'Shai, through her tears urged him to be silent.
The hunters, W'rsa in the forefront, watched in silence as Carlos slammed to a kneeling halt next to R'chnt and cursed softly under his breath, looking at the seriously wounded alien.
"Do they have a doctor?" Carlos asked sharply.
K'Shai shook her head. The only one of the group with more advanced medical training than basic field wound care had been crushed between the teeth of the queen a fraction of a second before R'chnt was impaled.
"What about that shuttle of theirs?" Lewis asked quickly. "Can he be transported to a ship?"
Barely in a whisper, K'Shai told them it would take at least ten minutes to get a shuttle to them. Maybe fifteen.
"And double that for the return trip. He doesn't have that kind of time." Carlos said urgently.
"Let's get him inside. I'll see what I can do." Immediately, he looked to the stunned Major questioning what supplies that they might have in the trucks.
K'Shai, dazed, barely focused on anything but R'chnt struggling to breathe, did not move.
Carlos urged again.
"Why aren't they doing anything?"
Through her sobs, trying to both comfort and plead with R'chnt to hold on, she glanced from Carlos to W'rsa. She cried to him to help with something that was simply not the Yautja way, but it was the human way.
"Please. W'rsa! We have to try to help him. I can't just let him die."
W'rsa quickly, although somewhat reluctantly, signaled for three others to join him and together they lifted R'chnt carefully and moved him as fast as they could into a building where K'Shai and Lewis cleared off a table as Carlos began calling out orders to the Major and half a dozen other people who had appeared on scene to help.
Everything was happening in a flash and K'Shai lost all focus. She held R'chnt's hand, watched him struggle to breathe and strain to stay awake. She leaned him, whispered in his ear. He reached with his other hand to remove his helmet and she tried twice to stop him.
"It will help you breathe. Don't take it off. R'chnt… please…"
He tried again although weakly and K'Shai, squeezing her eyes shut as a flood of continued tears poured down her cheek, removed the helmet shakily.
She kissed him repeatedly and sobbed as she leaned against him, barely aware of what was going on around her as scrambling people gathered supplies and Carlos started to evaluate the massive injury.
"Hey! K'Shai! K'Shai!" Carlos called, clearly having been trying for some time to get her attention.
"I need this armor out of the way," he said calmly, trying to refocus her, as he nodded towards the armor on R'chnt's chest and thighs.
"I'll do it!" A uniformed nurse grumbled as she moved in to remove R'chnt's armor and Lewis, Carlos, and K'Shai all simulatenously snapped at her.
"No!"
W'rsa growled, looking on from a close distance. K'Shai removed the armor as Lewis covered R'chnt with a blanket and Carlos evaluated the wounds out loud, giving instructions to the nurses as R'chnt started to move. Everyone available moved in to hold him down and K'Shai whispered in his ear, trying hard to get R'chnt to relax and lay still. He started speaking and K'Shai shook her head, looking around quizzically.
"What's he saying?" Lewis asked, seeing the concerned look on K'Shai's face.
"He's not making any sense. He doesn't know where he is." She barely managed to whisper.
She lowered her face to his, squeezing her eyes shut as she tried to quell her sobbing and continue to whisper in his ear.
"R'chnt, you cannot leave. You don't have my permission. Take what you need from me. My heart, my soul. I'll give you all that I am. Please do not dare die."
She shook and sobbed and R'chnt suddenly held quite still.
All the scrambling people stopped and for a moment, a terrible silence filled the room before Carlos urged a nurse to listen again for his heart beat.
She did and nodded.
"He's passed out. It's better that way. He'll stay still." Carlos said, glancing from K'Shai and Lewis back to the gaping wound.
K'Shai stood trembling with a pale face and glazed eyes, white knuckles clenched to the bare tops of R'chnt's shoulders as he lay on a conference table under a flood light consisting of hurriedly duct taped together flashlights.
W'rsa stood only feet away, both perplexed and even slightly annoyed by the unusual situation as the humans worked to tend to the injuries R'chnt had endured. Carlos began to reach his hand into the blood filled cavity and remove dirt and debris as he whispered aloud to anyone who would listen.
"This is some part of … an internal organ. A kidney, maybe, if he's built anything like a human."
He commented as a chunk of tissue fell off in his hand. "Well, shit. I have no idea what it is, but I hope he can live without it."
A nurse, following Carlos's direction began to cut into the other side of R'chnt's abdomen with a surgical knife and run a flush tube into him. W'rsa shifted unhappily and growled.
"K'Shai, the Gods call to him. Let him go to Cetanu with honor."
She turned and glared at W'rsa ferociously.
"I'm calling louder." She said. "I won't let him die."
W'rsa stepped to K'Shai and attempted to clamp a supportive hand on her shoulder as he spoke and the humans glanced between them nervously, most certainly having a fairly good idea what the conversation was about even if they did not understand the words.
"This is not the Yautja…" he started, but K'Shai turned to him, shouting.
"This is my way!" She howled and lunged forward, thumping into W'rsa with her fists several times as she sobbed.
The mighty hunter stepped back away from K'Shai, and Carlos looked up at the commotion.
"All right! Clear the room. Everyone who doesn't need to be here, out!"
With that, several people in the room jumped out with a start, clearly eager to deem themselves part of the 'don't need to be here' category and a few of the hunters lingering along the wall near the doorway took the hint and departed.
W'rsa huffed and clicked his tusks loudly in aggravation and glanced between R'chnt and K'Shai who slung her head low and turned back to the table.
"Just…" she said softly, sighing deeply. "Just stay."
W'rsa kept quiet but stood nearby as Carlos and two others worked diligently trying to stop the massive bleeding and close up the injuries.
"Well. I've done all I can do." Carlos said finally, pulling off a pair of neon green blood soaked gloves. "He's still alive, but he's lost a ton of blood, and I don't know if he'll pull through."
K'Shai had lost all track of time, and was not sure how long R'chnt had been unconscious, but she had intently listened to him breath raspily and slowly the entire time.
Under Carlos's direction three people and W'rsa moved R'chnt carefully to a waiting pile of blankets on the floor. Without a word, K'Shai leaned into R'chnt, stretched her arm carefully around him and pressed her head into his shoulder, shutting her eyes.
"Psst!"
"K'Shai!"
Whispering voices stirred her.
She opened her eyes and immediately held her breath, looking at R'chnt, for a fleeting moment hoping it was him waking her and all was right and back to the normal hell she knew.
Instead, he was unconscious, slumped over although she could see that he was breathing. She looked about and saw Lewis and Carlos staring at her with a look of dread and alarm on their faces and she turned her head sideways.
She jumped to her feet with a start as though the floor suddenly electrocuted her.
"Neh'rti!"
The female elder Leader of the Clan was standing towering over her just a few feet away with a small entourage behind her, including W'rsa. She glared quietly and ticked her mandibles together.
"Most unusual." She growled as she evaluated K'Shai and the fallen elder at her feet.
Neh'rti glanced to the hunters behind her and turned around towards the door.
"Bring him!"
Four hunters collected R'chnt up carefully on a stretcher and K'Shai remained positioned near his head, clutching his shoulder firmly. W'rsa walked just behind her and she glanced at Lewis and Carlos with a thin, weary, and dazed smile.
"I really hope he lives, K'Shai." Lewis whispered.
It was the first time he had called her by the Yautja name R'chnt had given her. She just barely managed a thin, weak and exhausted smile and a quick whisper before she turned to leave with the Yautja party, never releasing her grip on R'chnt.
"Good luck to you."