Aw! I totally love you guys! I wasn't going to update, but you were all just so traumatized by the last chapter and I don't want you feeling bad over the weekend.

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A month of petitioning for a few warriors to help me hunt Hurg'rok has passed unsuccessfully. Alex, though still depressed, is muttering dangerously to herself. I watch her closely and make sure she doesn't hurt herself.

We have not mated again. She said it took six months before her body was ready for conception again. She has, however, shown me the glories of her tongue gliding up my length, so I'm not in desperate need.

My request is denied again, and I can understand; trouble is brewing on the edge of clan territory.

There is a paper stuck in the door when I trudge onto the porch.

Gone hunting. Be back in a few days.

The words are simple, and it's understandable that she needs something to vent on; she's been as frustrated as I am about Hurg'rok's continued rampancy. I step inside the house and pause.

She made me lunch before she left.

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Four days later and still no sign of Alex. I worry a little, but I know she is capable. I scratch my chin. I wonder where she learned her skills. I shall have to ask. I hear something in the front yard. I walk through the house and stand in awe on the front porch.

There's Alex, thumping a stake in the dirt of the yard, a head with limp dreadlocks impaled on the top. I don't have to go look to know that it is Hurg'rok. She turns and smiles at me.

"What'd you make for lunch? I'm starved."

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I have been summoned to the council. Women are allowed as long as they stay silent, and I have let Alex come along after extracting a vow that she will not speak. She walks calmly behind me, and I see her eyes drinking in the sights. I do not let her out often. Perhaps I should.

Inside the council chamber, she does not have to be told where to stand when I sit. She calmly takes up an aware stance on my left side and watches with curiosity as the others settle into their chairs around the table.

Ji'kra starts speaking, and as he does, holograms slide up to visualize what he is saying. Alex can understand little of it, but she watches with intensity. Ji'kra notices her attention, but does not comment on it.

Alex gives a soft tug on one of my dreadlocks. I glance down. The look in her eyes is unmistakable. She wishes to speak. I tilt my head to the side slightly to let her know that she cannot. She nods.

"What is it Kri'za? What does she want?" Ji'kra asks me.

"She wishes to speak."

Discontented murmurings come from around the table. Women barely have tolerance to even be in the war council, but to speak might not go over so well. Ji'kra drags a claw over his brow in thought.

"I must admit, there have been times when my wife has given me the best advice for a course of action. Your slave has paid rapt attention. Let us see what she has to say."

He gestures at Alex, who looks at me for confirmation. I nod. She steps up to the table.

"Looks like these guys have something you want." She says. Seems she understands more than I give her credit.

"Your plan is to launch a full scale invasion just for this one item. I have two propositions to counter this, because this particular plan means numerous casualties."

The warriors' grumbling ceases. They listen now.

"Instead of a full scale invasion, my first proposition is that you put a sniper team here," she zooms in on a ridge a mile south of the village, "then quietly insert a small team here to retrieve the item."

She highlights a spot just outside the walls on the northeast side and I can see what she means. There is a drain for water to flow from the sewers out of the village. Easily accessed and it's near the building where the item is located, a powerful relic that belonged to the clan leader before Ji'kra, before he died in war with this very same opposing clan.

"Might still have a few casualties, but nothing on the scale that you had in mind. My second proposition will have no casualties whatsoever, but it might not be the easiest to obtain."

"And what is this proposition? How can you promise no casualties?"

This comes from an old general who has leaned in to listen to Alex speak. His eyes are alight with curiosity.

"That's easy; you just send me to retrieve the item."

There is a beat of silence while that is absorbed.

I open my mouth to refuse her, but Ji'kra raises his hand for my silence.

"Why would we send a woman to do a warrior's job?" asks a younger warrior, closer to my own age.

"Because I am a spy, and this is what I do. On Earth I lived with my uncle. He was with the CIA. He put a word in and pulled a few strings and got me in when I was eighteen. I am trained in hand-to-hand combat, and I can take out a dozen men with only a knife without any of them knowing I'm there. I've been infiltrating buildings on lock-down for the last six years. I am fully capable of retrieving this item."

Yet more silence, and I am stunned to learn this piece of Alex's past.

A throat clears, but I don't look to see who it is. "And if you fail?"

"Then you revert to my first proposition. Upon failure of that, you may use the plan you came up with earlier."

"What is to say you won't just run off with the relic?"

She taps her collar. "Then you just track me by satellite, shoot me, and take it from my corpse."

Silence abounds. She is correct. I wasn't aware that she knew about the tracker in the collar.

"Kri'za," Ji'kra says, "will you allow your slave to do this for us?"

Ji'kra can order me to let her go. But he is asking me instead. I sigh.

"Yes."

Ji'kra turns to Alex. "How long to you need before we revert to a different plan?"

"Give me two weeks. Four days to get there, four days to scout, two days to steal the relic, and four days to get back."

I have to admit, she is quick. Upon dismissal, I tell her, "Be careful."

She squeezes my fingers.