Night fell rapidly, the sky still clinging to that radiated red hue of the nuclear bomb obliterating Gunnison, Colorado, off the map forever. Branches stretched across the lightly travelled road, scraping along the sides of the SUV.
Across from A'luet P'sy was quiet, only the rhythmic rising and fall of his chest telling the young predator the Elder was still with them. He wanted to call out to him but their ooman comrades kept him silent.
The SUV braked, headlights flooding a small cabin nestled between two large fir trees. Kelly got out and opened the hatch, pausing.
"Is he alive?"
A'luet reached out shaking P'sy shoulder, the shudder worried him. "P'sy?" No answer. He sighed. "I'll get him out, just help Dallas."
She hesitated before turning away to Dallas being supported by his brother. A'luet waited until the cabin door had opened and the humans disappeared inside before sliding out the back of the truck.
"P'sy, wake up." He shook with more force, an act he knew would have alarmed the ooman woman but to a yautja was barely an action.
P'sy coughed, wet as he took a deeper breath, the chest wound sucking in and out.
"Do you need help?"
The girl was back, her dark eyes ticking from him to his mentor.
"No." P'sy straightened, though not without clear pain. Fluorescent green blood in the shape of a handprint stained the vehicle ceiling as he moved to get out.
The cabin was small, a main room with a tiny kitchen and two rooms in the back. Dust laid in layers on everything, spiders having made their homes in nearly every crevasse they could find.
"We have to clean…" Kelly gestured around awkwardly. "-Before we even attempt to fix you two up."
"Is there even time for that?" Ricky set his brother down in a seat.
"We don't have a choice. I'm not risking any worse infection than what he's already bound to experience…either of them." She began her work, systematically from one end of the cabin to the other, her effort contagious as Ricky and Jessie joined.
...
Ricky took a breath, a broom in hand, the four -foot length of safety between himself and the wolf spider rearing its legs defensively in the corner.
"You're going to squash it?"
"Do you want to be the one to catch it?"
Jessie fell silent, her expression telling that she did not want to venture closer.
"Put the-" A'luet paused as his biomask conjured up the proper word. "-broom down." He passed the two kids and bent down, the tiny arachnid jerking its legs before slowly creeping forward. Ricky leaned away as if expecting the spider to come at him. "She's more afraid of you than you are of her." A'luet shut the front door.
Jessie turned away, her features twisting as she tried to keep a straight face.
Ricky cleared his throat. "I've heard that…."
Across the way Kelly was attempting to send her daughter to bed. "What if there's more monsters? I don't like the window being next to me." Molly.
"Honey, it's okay. The monsters are gone, alright? There's no more of them."
"If there are, will the spacemen protect us?"
At the kitchen table, P'sy sat bent, his forearms resting on his knees. At the girl's question his head tilted slightly.
"We'll all protect you. Just go to sleep."
She returned, sighing; then her demeanor turned business-like. A good façade but not good enough to A'luet. "Dallas… I know that bullet really sucks at the moment-"
"It's fine." Dallas dismissed her with a hand. "Take care of him first."
"I'd rather you deal with him first." P'sy sat up.
"Too late." Kelly beat A'luet to replying. "Let's go." She led them to the second room, a small bedroom with an overly-sturdy futon.
"Did Andre the giant camp out here?" Ricky asked.
Kelly scoffed. "No, my uncle is a big man." She laid a comforter down and gestured to P'sy. "Come on."
Slowly he sunk down onto the cot and waited while she assessed the entry wound on his back. "This is nasty…can you fix this?"
"Hopefully with field surgery." A'luet didn't like what he saw. The bitch's tail had been barbed, designed for creating worse injuries than a simple, clean stab from a regular Kainde Amedha.
P'sy glanced down, black lines were spiderwebbing out along his biceps and creeping downward towards his hand. "A'luet." His student focused on him, waiting. "I have blood poisoning setting in. You can't do anything about that."
Small hands ran along his arm, flinching at the touch P'sy didn't jerk away, it was not a situation for him to tell her to fuck off. "Does human blood do anything for you?"
P'sy tsked. "We're not vampires." He growled lowly, leaning forward and retching. "Fuck." His dexterity blown, he struggled for the tiny hoses connecting to his biomask. He pulled it off in time to vomit onto the floor.
"There's got to be some-" Kelly trailed off, her eyes stuck on the Elder as she saw his face for the first time. Her gaze landed on the biomask before returning to him. "-something that can be done."
Despite the situation A'luet watched the ooman carefully for her reaction to seeing a yautja's face fully for the first time. Though she stopped in the middle of her sentence there was no disgust like he expected, not even an involuntary flicker of it.
"Is there anything?" If Ricky had any reservations about them, he didn't show it as he stood in the doorway, Jessie by his side. She studied the elder with polite curiosity before glancing at him, obviously wondering at his countenance, and was quick to look away when she saw he was watching her.
A'luet opened a compartment on the caster tank, hoping the large dent didn't destroy the contents inside. He paused. "Kainde Amedha venom usually congeals where the entry site right?"
"Usually." P'sy answered listless. "Unless you're me apparently."
"God, this needle's big." A'luet rounded the bed to face the predator. P'sy watched him quietly.
"You ever deal with blood poisoning before?"
A'luet didn't give into the elder's response, the tone meant for him to look up at him; instead he carefully prodded the exit wound. "You know the answer to that, why are you asking me?"
"To make the point that no offense, you're pulling this act of medical help out of your ass."
"If it keeps you alive for another three-hundred years who gives a shit. Now shut up."
Nearby someone gave a noise of disbelief at the mention of age.
"How old are you now?" Ricky asked, awed.
"Lost count." P'sy answered, wincing. "Five-hundred and something currently."
"Holy shit."
"If it's that fascinating to you, you can know A'luet's only been alive two years longer than you."
A'luet blinked hard as he commanded his biomask to magnify the image of his mentor's chest, the sudden zeroing in gave him an instant eye-strain headache. Inside the wound he could see the congealed venom. "Do you have a tray and fabric of any kind?"
Kelly left the room and quickly returned a glass baking bowl and wash clothes. "It's all I could find." She said apologetically.
"That's fine, thanks. Don't. Move."
The metal support of the futon crunched and bent as A'luet inched a small knife into the wound; forcing himself P'sy let go of the bed before he broke it.
"You can't give him something, a local, anything? Do you drink?"
"Do I drink…" P'sy repeated. "If I had the ability to drink, I'd be the perfect candidate for your AA groups you oomans have. The world pisses me off I'd need a escape."
Black sludge slowly oozed out, plopping into the bowl. "Here." Kelly took it from him, holding it so he had two hands instead of one.
"Thanks." He muttered. "Stop breathing so hard. You're sucking the shit back in."
The elder's only response was an eye roll.
"How much more is there?"
"Until it's only green."
Kelly bit her lip, glancing up to see how P'sy was taking it. Despite inhuman, clearly out-of-this-world, features, she was surprised at how human his expressions were. He was good at being stoic but not quite good enough to hide the agony he had to be in. Admiration swelled for him, she knew other men, human men, who would be the biggest whiners and drama-kings. Except maybe Dallas. He hadn't complained once about the bullet lodged in his thigh, though that was a superficial scratch compared to this.
Green flowed into the bowl. A'luet was quick to grab the wash cloths and press them to the wound. "Can you hold that? P'sy?"
Eyes rolled as P'sy lost consciousness, falling back onto the futon.
"Oh shit." Kelly uttered. "Get his legs above his heart…Is your heart close to where ours is? It's not like in your legs or something is it?"
The questions barely made sense to him. "No?"
"Good." She grabbed a pillow. "Straighten him out. Ricky, Jessie, one of you get me another pillow and water." For a moment she was glad the kids moved instead of freezing like idiots. She could hear Dallas asking what was wrong. They returned quickly enough. "Good." She took the second pillow, propping it under the yautja's legs. "Hold this." She pushed Jessie forward with the washcloth, pressing it to the wound. The girl's eyes widened slightly as her hand became immersed in green blood, her gaze darted to the predator's ashen features.
"Is he going to be okay?"
"Don't know yet. What do you want us to do?" She asked A'luet who had backed into a corner, mixing something. He stood with a glowing purplish-blue substance, like paste.
"Have to stop the bleeding." He moved next to the girl. "Help me turn him slightly." The elder was moved just enough so he could see the entry wound. Hoping against hope he wasn't about to be alone on an alien planet he pushed the paste into the wound, smoke sizzling as it made contact with organic matter. "Lay him down." The washcloth positioned to cover his impromptu medical care. "You can take the cloth off."
Jessie hesitated before removing her hand, exposing the nasty gash. She looked away as the young predator carefully slid a finger inside the wound, trying to assess if only muscle was affected. It seemed the elder was lucky.
"Is fishing line too weak to close that?" Kelly.
A'luet paused. "Fishing line?" The term foreign to him. For half a second he wished P'sy was coherent, he would have known.
"It's like string." Jessie explained. "But stronger."
Kelly disappeared again before returning with a spool. "Thank god no one fucked it up, it can get really tangled." She paused. "All I have is a J-hook, but its thin."
"It'll work." He pushed the medicinal paste into the second wound and waited for the ooman woman as she threaded the hook.
"Hold on." She took a bottle and doused the stitching. "Make it somewhat sterile…" She muttered. "Here."
With careful precision A'luet pushed the needle through muscle, closing the gaping hole. A second round of stitching closed the skin on his front and back. "Go deal with Dallas."
With a jerked nod, Kelly went to Dallas, the teenagers following her.
….
For a fourth time A'luet tensed, seeing black shapes dart across the walls of the room, but it was only a trick of his brain, exhaustion screwing with him. He looked back at P'sy, his fingers twitching. At least some sign that he wasn't alone and stranded on an alien planet. They still had to get their ship back somehow. Who knew where the fuck it was at that point.
"Hey." Kelly was in the doorway. "I can take watch if you want. You've been up all night, that's not good for anyone."
He stretched his jaw without thinking, apprehension following quickly at what the ooman would think. She must have deduced his thoughts.
He wrestled with whether to put his biomask back on so he could use the translator. With it off, she had no hope of knowing anything he said to her. And she to him. He resorted to universal gestures, a dismissive hand jerk.
"I'm not taking no for an answer." She came forward. "Go." She pointed to the door, a clear indication of what she wanted.
Too tired to fight he stood, only a head and a half taller than her. Damn, the elders on Prime were right to say he was short. Apparently all the Roan'keh -T'Jierk males were smaller and lithe. He gave an understanding nod.
…
There was haze, a wooden ceiling blurred and sharpened several times, it was enough to bring on a headache. He didn't try to move, his limbs like cement as he laid on his back. Where the hell was he? He dragged his head to the right, an ooman woman sat reading a book, the act brought pain and nausea. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Earth was not the place to be incapacitated on. He forced his arm up, wishing he didn't, and closed his hand around his biomask. His movement startled her, she reached out, speaking but it sounded like gibberish. As long as his mask was close enough to his gauntlet they'd be able to communicate. He paused, his left arm strangely naked. He turned his head, seeing only the scars left by the gauntlet's micro-small teeth every time it closed around his wrist. Fuck. He let go of the mask, annoyance flaring. Now he'd have to sit and listen to her babble at him. As quick as it came, the irritation deflated, this ooman risked her life to move him and A'luet to a place in the woods, far from civilization he hoped. She wasn't obligated to do that, yet she did. All four of them, minus the young one who was along for the ride. He couldn't be too mad at her.
A paper appeared in his line of vision, a rather crappy sketch of a stick figure with what looked like food. Had their communication really come down to that? He wished his gauntlet was within his reach, but there it was across the room on the dresser. Yes, his body could metabolize ooman food. But what would it be? Oomans had strange eating habits. There were the carnivores like yautja, then the plant eaters P'sy liked to call them where they shunned meat, and lastly the ones he wondered why they bothered eating at all, shunning almost everything except strict regimented diets.
She was waiting.
He jerked his head, hoping she was smart enough to know that meant yes.
She smiled and left the room.
The haze was back, filling his head like cotton. He hoped it was only due to the extensive damage he took from the U'darahje, and not something more serious like infection and death. Where was A'luet? Maybe camped out at the foot of the bed? He didn't hear any breathing. She returned, her thin face taking on a foreign expression. Regret? Sympathy? He didn't need it. She held a small bowl out, strange stringy contents inside.
He understood. The cabin hadn't been occupied in who knows how long, food choices were scarce at best.
He slowly dragged himself upright, the injury flaring its disproval and put his hand out in acceptance of the food.
"It's all we have at the moment. I'll go out there's a convenient store nearby." He gave her his undivided attention but she knew he didn't have any clue what she was saying. There was an urge to treat him as an equal despite the language barrier.
"Isn't that a little dangerous?" Dallas appeared.
"We have to eat something, anything at this point. Are you going to go hunting, do you know how?"
"I hunted when I was kid." He answered, slightly indignant.
"Then by all means-" She gestured to the door. "You're really going to shoot a deer with my daughter here who loves animals and frankly wouldn't understand the reasoning behind hauling in animal corpse?"
He opened his mouth to argue but stopped, seeing her point. "Okay, no hunting… but you shouldn't go alone. I'll go with you, except the government license plates are going to be awfully suspicious to people."
"So we take the current year stickers off them and them on those." She pointed to two license plates hanging above the door.
Dallas turned back to her incredulous. "Do you know how illegal that is?"
"Didn't you just get out of prison before our world went to shit?"
"Yeah, and I'd like to stay out of prison."
"So, this should be a walk in the park for you." She passed him. "You guys stay here." She said to Ricky and Jessie at the kitchen table. She paused. "If A'luet wakes up, unfortunately make him the same shit food I gave P'sy. He needs to eat too."
"What are you doing?" Ricky leaned forward.
"Pictionary." Kelly replied. She went back to P'sy who studied her drawing. Another stick figure with a strange symbol separating it from what looked like a vehicle and then a haphazard building with an arrow drawn back to the cabin.
It was a terrible drawing but he had to give her credit for trying, it was good enough for him to know what she meant. He nodded.
The food texture was strange but he had eaten worse. Soon after the adult oomans' departure he was eyeing his gauntlet again. He felt naked and exposed without it, rarely taking it off though they say you shouldn't do that. Maybe that was why the scars on his arm were a little more pronounced than other yautja.
He sat upright, grunting to himself as he waited for the pain to subside.
"What are you doing?"
The ooman girl was in the doorway. He let out a soft groan at being caught, she wasn't stupid.
"You can't get out of bed." She eyed the gauntlet on the dresser. "Is that what you want?" She picked it up, her reaction almost comical to him when she realized the weight of it. "God, is this like a computer or something, like a super smart watch?"
She held it out to him and watched in rapt interest as he closed it around his wrist; he picked up the biomask but didn't put it on.
"It can't be lost and it is like a computer."
She gave a small laugh. "So you can understand us."
"No." He settled. "But I figured from your expression and tone that's what you said."
"What-?" She paused, clearly uneased. "What are you?"
He grew amused. "The question you all ask when you aren't running in terror away."
She shrugged and sat at the foot of the bed. "I don't think you're scary."
"You would if I was hunting you."
"But you're not hunting us." She shifted. "Not to be creepy or anything but I actually kind of find you two-" She trailed off, stuck on what word to use. She changed tactics. "Do the color patterns mean anything? You know male birds have brighter feathers than females."
"More like what clan we're related to."
"Shouldn't they be back by now?" Ricky appeared, and noticed the proximity of them. "Oh, sorry…"
"It's fine Ricky. I'm just asking extremely personal questions about him, and he hasn't told me to shove off yet."
"Ah." He itched his head nervously.
"Well, I am going to tell you shove off."
Heat spread across her cheeks at the thought of her insulting him somehow. "Oh. Sure…Sorry." She made to get up.
"You don't have to leave, it's just divulging too much information to you is dishonorable in my culture."
"Oh."
"Feeling any better?" A'luet appeared.
"Feeling like my insides got rearranged. Too bad your father isn't here, I would have asked him if he felt as shitty as I do when he got shot."
A'luet snorted. "You can ask him when we return to Prime."
P'sy growled lowly. "About that. I have no idea where that ship is and stupid me, I didn't have you connect your gauntlet to it, so we can't track it. Mine was damaged by the bitch U'darahje."
"Kind of dumb but… I mean we live in Colorado, would they take it to Area 51?" Ricky asked.
Jessie tsked. "Really?"
"I'm being serious…wouldn't that make sense? It's entirely isolated and no one really knows jack shit what goes on there. It's where I'd take it if I was a government official."
"Area 51." P'sy murmured. "Now there's a fucking place."
"You know it?"
"Yeah I know it. It's speculated a few of us have disappeared into that place, we're still waiting for them to return."
"And its big enough for the ship?"
"Yeah."
The front door opened, startling the oomans but it was only Kelly and Dallas returning.
"Hey, everything alright?"
"Yeah." Ricky answered too fast.
Kelly narrowed her eyes, picking up on the tension in the air. "What's up?"
"We're discussing where their ship might have been taken." Jessie answered.
"You can't track it?" Dallas asked. "I mean your technology obviously way better than ours."
"No. My gauntlet is damaged and-" Rising irritation clouded the elder predator's features. "-I didn't think connect his… fucking idiot."
"How would you have known your situation would turn out this way?" Jessie asked.
Scorched orange eyes, one bright the other filmed from an old injury flickered A'luet's way. "It wasn't supposed to. When I accepted the distress beacon it was understood to be most likely a suicide mission coming here." He sighed. "Of course that changed when you insisted on coming." He added to A'luet.
"I already lost Kainde, roughly two years ago. Excuse me if I'm not in a hurry to have you die on me too."
Silence.
"Well, we can camp out here for a while. You and Dallas heal and when you're a hundred per cent again, we'll find that ship."
"We?" P'sy repeated skeptically.
"Yeah, we. You saved us when you didn't have to. You didn't expect or ask us to sacrifice any of the weaker links, my daughter. And you came back after the fact when we unexpectedly needed you most. It's repayment, a debt we need to fulfill."
P'sy was quiet for a moment.
"You in or are you content with being stranded here?"
The elder straightened, his eyes meeting hers. "We're in."