Chapter 19: Language Barriers.
Smoke's shoulders felt like they were on fire, he'd been hanging from his wrists for what must have been hours before this little interrogation session had even begun while he was unconscious from the blow to the head via the rifle butt one of the Raptorians had delivered to him upon seeing her chance when he'd removed his helmet.
The painkillers that his suit had shot him with were starting to wear off which had started as a dull ache at first but had steadily gotten worse as time had passed, his whole head was pulsing in time with the beating of his heart and it got worse with every passing hour, ever since the little group of translator Raptorians had come into the cell they were holding him in, they'd had a long discussion with the command group while the group that had captured him looked on, their attention switching constantly between them and him, once the high-speed conversation was done the translator group moved towards him surrounding him in a circle which was despite their small stature was actually rather intimidating.
Unlike the two other groups present the translators all seemed to be the same colour and to have the same pattern, they were also smaller than the others which given how small they already were made them surprisingly obvious, they were all bright green with yellow swirls almost like tiger stripes over them, they looked like someone had painted them with a kind of light coloured camo paint, he also noticed that unlike the others their scales were not overlapping like that natural armour, thiers all seemed to be like interlocking mosaics.
Their scales also seemed to have been buffed and polished so that when they stepped under the ring of light from above him they seemed to shine, it was honestly like they were glowing and if it wasn't for his visor's light filter it would have made them difficult to look at them, he also noticed that they were absolutely covered in what looked like jewellery and charms, they had necklaces around their slender necks, what almost looked like circlets and tiara's on their small domed heads nestled between their thicker feathers which unlike the others were a rainbow of colours, in fact, each and every feather seemed to be all colours at once like they were changing and shifting constantly as they moved under the light.
Their feathers were so light and fluffy it was like they almost had no mass and that when Smoke realized the feathers didn't actually have a colour of their own, they worked like prisms, they split the light that passed through them giving them the appearance of rainbows and that's why they seemed to shift in colour as they moved under the light, they also seemed to have various shades of what appeared to be dark eyeliner around their huge eyes which looked almost bright silver in colour making them appear almost ethereal in their brightness.
Smoke tried to focus on the one directly in front of him, she was about three and a half feet tall, slender with powerful looking legs, but she didn't seem to have a uniform like the others, they were wearing a billowy flowing top and what appeared to be a skirt of some kind, their tails were also longer than the others and seemed to be decorated with little charms on the tips that reminded him of little ball like bells that jingled slightly and musically as they moved, the little creature looked at him curiously, "Can you understand me?" the Raptorian said in a soft almost musical voice in utterly perfect Serpentinus.
"Yes, I can understand you" Smoke replied and the little Raptorian cocked it's head and blinked.
"They have brought us here to talk to you," another of the group said from directly behind him.
"Who are you?" one on his right asked.
"What are you?" one on his left asked.
"Why are you here?" another on his rear left asked.
"How many of you are there?" one on his rear right asked.
"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Slow down, that's too many questions all at once" Smoke exclaimed loud enough to make the little Raptorians jump in surprise, he also saw the other group that had caught him twitch almost defensively as well as the command group.
"So who are you?" the little Raptorian directly in front of him asked in a now surprisingly nervous voice like it expected him to burst loose and start murdering them all.
"My people call me Smoke, I am a full-blooded Hunter of Clan Mason, I am a human being," Smoke said in a calm controlled voice, instantly the command group began chittering obviously asking the translators what he was saying and they chittered back answering them.
They went back and forth for a few moments before the one directly behind him spoke, "Human what is that?" it asked in an equally soft voice as the first one.
"It's my species," Smoke said and one of the others chittered away obviously translating what he was saying as he was saying it, one of the command group responded obviously setting up another question.
"You said you are a full-blooded Hunter, are you here to hunt us?" one behind him on the left asked it's voice sounding rather nervous now.
"No it's my rank in Clan Mason" he replied as another of them translated what he was saying.
"So you are military? A soldier?" the one directly on his right asked.
"Yes" Smoke said and this caused a lot of aggressive chittering ass what he said was translated.
"Why are the Scalathor and Draconis here? What do they want?" the one to his left asked.
"They are working for some kind of Dark Deity that calls itself the Dark Seed, look I don't pretend to be an expert on this kinda stuff, I'm an electronic warfare expert, I do computers and comms, one of our Seekers would be able to explain it better, all I know is they tried to kill the Serpentinus royal pack and we stopped them, now they've come after you, I think they are trying to cut the Great Tree off from its children, but that's my opinion, all I know is we came here to help you not to fight you, the Serpentinus sent us the distress call your people sent out and we responded," Smoke said as the one in front of him chittered away and now all hell broke loose among the command group.
In fact it stirred them so much that they marched forwards into the light and stood next to a translator each so they could begin firing questions at him, "What do you know of the Great Tree?" one asked.
"What are their plans?" another asked.
"What are their numbers?" another asked.
"How are they planning to breach the underground?" another asked.
"Whoa! We are not working with them! We are here to fight them not help them!" Smoke yelled as he realized what they were implying here.
Suddenly one rushed forwards and he recognised her as the commander who went to strike him before after he dropped his mask when she shocked herself on the release switch, she grabbed the jaw of his mask and yanked his head so that he was forced to look at her, "We don't believe you!" she yelled but the translator spoke softly but Smoke recognised angry chittering when he heard it.
"If I planned to kill you then I would have shot your soldiers when I had the chance, ask them, ask them how I had every single one of them at gun and blade point but I did not shoot them, so if my plan was to kill you then either I'm not really good at my job, or there's another reason isn't there?" Smoke said.
This little revelation seemed to make them pause and the command group turned and spoke to the group that captured him, they seemed to be confirming what he had said by their sudden shift in body language, this seemed to make the command group real curious and the one who had tried to strike him before marched back up to him again and stood next to her translator, she began chittering away, "Why should we believe you?" she asked.
This kinda stumped Smoke honestly, it was a fair point really, how exactly was he going to prove what he was saying to them, they had absolutely no reason to trust him and right now their planet was utterly under invasion by two species trying to kill them and as far as they were concerned he was no different, possibly the only reason he was still alive right now was the fact that they didn't know what he was and they were curious as to why a species they had never seen before was here also as far as they were concerned he was no different from the Scalathor or Draconis.
"There are currently twenty Scalathor and Draconis cruisers and frigates orbiting your planet, your orbital defences are destroyed, as is your fleet, they have dropped forward operating bases into your jungles and possibly other areas, they have tanks, heavy weapons and what appeared to be artillery, they are jamming the communications on the planet to make it impossible for anyone but them to communicate, that is my job, the regional jamming is coming from that FOB that your team fired mortars and rockets at, so far that is all I know," Smoke said and the commander in front of him never broke her hard gaze as the translator repeated his words in their language.
"These are things are we already know," the commander behind him said.
"How many of you are on our planet?" the one to his left asked.
"Forty-eight split into four teams of twelve, four Seekers, four Hunters and four Battle Angels per team and before you ask no I have no idea where my team are I crashed, a piece of one of the debris that was raining down in our drop zone hit my wingsuit and destroyed my wings so I had to bail out, I cannot contact them while the jamming is in place, the same as I'm guessing you cannot contact your field teams and recon teams, look I don't know how to make you believe this and I know I cannot make you trust me but we are not your enemy, we are here to help you, so either let me help you or lock-in in a fucking cell already because there is nothing more I can tell you," Smoke said.
"What are these Seekers and Battle Angels of which you speak?" the one to his right asked.
"Seekers are Clan Mason's Dream Warriors and Battle Angels are our field surgeons," Smoke said.
"How come you can speak Serpentinus?" one of them behind him asked immediately.
"I can't well I can understand it and I can write it but I can't really speak it but my suit can, it's fitted with a universal translator system, our Seekers learned the Serpentinus language when we met them, don't ask me to explain how they are a fucking mystery to me, all I know is you don't fuck with a Dream Warrior if you like being alive, or sane or both, but they programmed the language into our suits when we got back to our homeworld but they also put it into all of our heads so we'd all be able to communicate with the Serpentinus and the Ghost Slitherers we took with us back for training at the temple," Smoke said and suddenly they all froze.
"What do you know of Ghost Slithers?" one of them asked very quickly.
"Not much, that's more the Seekers thing but I know they are Serpentinus Dream Warriors and they are very powerful but untrained, our Dream Warriors are currently training them so they can return home and protect their people as ours protect us," Smoke said.
There was a lot of exciting chittering and what sounded like arguing, then one of them turned, "Remove your armour we wish to study it" she said and Smoke trie to turn his head to the left to see who spoke.
"No," he said flatly.
"You are in no position to argue with us, tell us how to remove the suit, you are asking us to trust you then help us to trust you" she replied as flatly as him, Smoke suddenly realized this tactic, it was a loyalty test.
"No I will not betray my people, we came here to help you fight the Scalathor and the Draconis, but I'm not giving you our technology, that's for either our Grand Patriarch or Matriarch to decide upon, it's useless to you anyway it is designed to be usable by one person, you cannot use my guns or my blades but I can, besides you cannot reverse engineer it because if you try it will self destruct and I will not help you to figure out how to bypass it even if I could, we came here to help you but if you'd rather reject our help so be it let me go and I'll take that new to my people if I can find them," he said.
"We could torture you you know," the one on his right said.
"You could but then you will most definitely make an enemy of Clan Mason, we do not take things like that lightly, hurt one and you hurt all of us and for someone already facing two united enemies making a third of someone trying to be your friend doesn't sound very smart to me," he said.
"If you are what you say then you are just a soldier, the loss of one soldier would not impact a decision like that," the one directly in front of him said her eyes narrowing as she said it.
"Then you do not understand Clan Mason, there is no such thing as someone of no consequence to us, every member of the Clan stands for every other member, unified as one, to hurt one is to hurt us all, to kill one earns you the vengeance of all, kill me if you must but be prepared for the consequences because the moment one of our Soul Knights finds out what you did and trust me they will then they will not ignore it, you think you're fucked now wait till they come for you, so now the choice is yours, friend or enemy but from where I'm sitting it seems to me you guys could really use a friend, otherwise why call the Serpentinus for aid? You called and we came, I do not blame you for being suspicious of us we are strangers to you, but at the end of the day isn't the enemy of my enemy my friend?" Smoke said.
Over the next three hours they asked him the same questions about a hundred different ways but again and again and again Smoke gave them the same answers, eventually, they left him alone so they could deliberate, all Smoke could think of right now was the pain he was in, his back, his shoulders, his hips, everything hurt, everything felt like it was on fire, suddenly his suit decided to speak up, "Translation complete, current translation level basic but the database will continue to expand as you encounter more of the language" it said.
"Oh great so now I can speak Raptorian, not that it's going to do me much good as they're probably going to leave me in here till my fucking arms pop out of the sockets," he said bitterly to himself.
Suddenly there was a series of clank that sounded like bolts being undone and the door to the large chamber opened, all of them filed back in including the group that captured him, once again the translators surrounded him in a circle, a commander stood next to each of them again, "We are beginning to think that you may be telling the truth, our scouts are reporting that a covert group is attacking and harassing the Scalathor and Draconis and we believe it to be the work of your people as our people cannot explain what they saw and we are hoping you would be able to shed some light on this" the commander directly in front of him said.
"By all means, release me from these restraints and I'll be happy to answer your questions but right now I'm in a lot of pain, I'm hungry and very thirsty and where I come from we have rules for the treatment of prisoners of war," he said in the best Raptorian that his suit could manage which surprised all of them, the translators looked at their commanders for guidance and the commanders and the capture group looked stunned.
"You've learned our language in the short time you have been here?" the one behind him asked the surprise evident in her voice.
"Not me, my universal translator, honestly I wouldn't have a hope in hell of pronouncing any of these sounds, they are way too complex for my larynx," Smoke said.
"Larynx? What is a larynx?" the commander to his right asked,
"The organ my species uses to communicate, now do you want my help or not?" Smoke asked as confidently as he could but inside the pain and underlying fear were making his heart shake.
They shared a lot of glances among themselves, but finally, the commander directly in front of him spoke again, "What guarantees do we have that you won't betray us or attack us the moment your bonds are off?" she asked.
"If I were going to attack you then I would have done it when I had the chance back in the jungle, I most certainly wouldn't lower my helmet and give one of your soldiers a chance to break my fucking nose and cheekbone now would I?" Smoke said angrily as his pain and fatigue reared its head and shortened his temper and stirred his ire.
More shared glances, "Release her but I want all weapons trained on her untill we are sure she will not attack," the commander directly in front of him said and one of the capture group who seemed to be acting as a set of guards now stepped forwards and unlocked first his ankle restraints freeing his feet, another of them unhooked a chain from behind him somewhere and his arms fell forwards with enough force to make him glad he was wearing armour because he had no feeling in them and the rectangular block holding his wrists slammed into his crotch and also removed the support holding him up causing him to drop to his knees.
Another guard came forwards and with two large very ornate keys she placed into either side at once she unlocked the block freeing his hands, "Err thanks and this might just be a translator glitch but did you just call me 'she'?" Smoke asked trying in vain to wiggle his fingers.
"Yes so?" the commander said as all of them retreated to what they felt was a safe distance away from him and he also noticed that they were all holding weapons now.
"Oh nothing just checking and wrong gender is all" Smoke said trying to shake some life back into his arms which were like two pool noodles attached to his shoulders, the commander snorted and a few of the others laughed all around him.
"You honestly expect us to believe that you're kind would allow a male to go into battle?" one of them said to his right and he desperately tried to fight through the hot stabbing needles of pain shooting up and down his arms.
"Half our ground force is male, myself included and I don't exactly like the implications or aspersions your casting on my gender here," Smoke said trying to get to his feet and failing as his legs were in no better shape than his arms, in fact his entire body was not doing so well and he suddenly realized why stress positions were so effective.
The explosion of chittering that filled the chamber was so fast and aggressive that his translator couldn't keep up and an explosion of error messages began flashing into his HUD, they were all arguing about something, well all except for the translators they just seemed to be watching with their heads bowed from the area they had chose in which to stand in a close group, eventually, one of the commanders broke from the group and marched right up to him and due to the fact that he was stuck on his knees as both his legs didn't work and his arms were currently as much use as wet noodles she stood over him.
"Prove it," she said in a commanding voice and Smoke lifted his head to look at her questioningly.
"Prove what?" he asked.
"That you are male! Prove to us that you are male!" she exclaimed her voice sounding exasperated and almost worried.
This utterly took Smoke aback and he looked at her questioningly finding himself looking into a pair of bright red eyes which given the white scale all around them really made them glow, "Excuse me?" he said his voice wavering as the implications of what she'd just asked began to rampage through his head.
She immediately turned to her comrades, "See? What did I tell you? She was faking it so that we would take pity on her nothing more, she must somehow know our laws and she is using her alien status to confuse us nothing more, what's more, I told you she was lying, I do not know what she wants here but it is not to be our ally, we should bind her and take her equipment from her" the white scaled commander said triumphantly.
A flash of white-hot anger pulsed through the back of Smoke's mind, "Hey! I am not lying!" he yelled and the white scaled commander spun around and got right in his face this time, so close that not only could he count the overlapping scales on her snout but the sharp pointy little teeth that utterly filled her mouth, hell it almost looked from here that she had two rows of them, like a shark or something, her bright red eyes were boring into him and her nostrils flared in visible anger sending a rush of fog over his visor eyepieces.
"Then prove it lier!" she snarled and Smoke felt a rush of blood to his face as the embarrassment hit him again.
"Let me get this straight, you want me to humiliate myself in front of all of you just to prove to you that I am not female?" he exclaimed and now she looked confused.
"Humiliate yourself? What are you talking about?" she asked.
"Well for my money there is only one way that I can prove to you that I am male and that involves public nudity in front of a bunch of complete strangers just to prove what reproductive organs I have and I can tell you now lady that is not going to fucking happen," Smoke said trying to sound brave but his voice wavered badly.
The commander looked utterly confused, "What are you talking about? There is no way we would ever force a male to disrobe publicly and humiliate themselves! What kind of animal are you to think such a thing!?" she exclaimed with very audible anger in her voice at the implication which utterly confused Smoke.
"Then how...?" he began till she pointed at his throat.
"The apple! Show us your apple! Everyone knows that only males carry the apple, the gift of the Great Tree herself, that combined with your pheromonal scent will reveal the truth of what you are!" she said and that's when he noticed everyone seemed to be glancing at the translators and that's when he saw it, a rather prominent Adam's apple right in the centre of their throats that had jewellery around it kinda highlighting it.
"Oh! Oh right! Ok yeah, goddess that's a relief, sure that I can do" he said making the commander's face freeze up like a computer stuck in a boot cycle.
"W-What?" she exclaimed in confusion.
"Shit can't tell you how relieved I am, Paya I thought you wanted me to get fucking naked for a moment there, huh you know I honestly didn't know that other species had these things, I always thought that only Human's had Adam's apples, I can't ever remember seeing a Xeno or a Yautja with one, but then I have never really got close enough to another dude to look so yeah maybe," he said pressing the release under his chin.
His helmet split apart and began to shift as it slid down into his collar he suddenly realized that he couldn't see out of his right eye again and the surprising heat of the air around him hit him like a slap instantly causing his sinuses to clog like an instant cold hitting him, boy these Raptorians sure liked things warm, suddenly he was rather glad he didn't have a mirror because if his face looked half as bad as it felt it probably looked like he'd tried to use it to stop a charging Xeno queen.
The commander move like lightning and she shot forwards and grabbed his jaw which sent white-hot needles of pain firing off throughout his face, "OWWW! Fuck! Easy!" he yelled in pain.
She lifted his head and he felt he freeze up again, "N-N-No, N-N-Not possible, it has to be a trick, a deception!" she stammered before she suddenly grabbed a handful of his hair and jammed her snout in against his neck taking a huge lungful of his scent laden air, she actually began sniffing him like a fucking fire tiger, taking deep huffing breaths of his neck, his face, his hair, everything.
Then just as suddenly as she grabbed him she let go and staggered backwards away from him, "M-M-Male, h-h-h-he's male, I-I-I-I don't understand, what kind of monsters would send their precious males out to fight!?" she stammered her face looking like her whole world was becoming unravelled, her eyes were huge and filled with confusion.
The other commanders rushed forwards and one grabbed hold of her steadying her, the other rushed forwards and surrounded him pawing at him each examining him in the same way that the white scaled one had, that's when they all got the same look of utter shock, confusion and utter non-understanding written all over their faces.
Suddenly one of the capture group slumped to the ground and the other around her grabbed her and tried to steady her, "M-M-Male? I-I-I-I h-h-h-hurt a male? Great Tree forgive me" she stammered looking like she was going into shock, meanwhile, all the translators were looking at him in utter shock and what he saw was awe, it was really fucking unsettling because he was beginning to realise that the face they were all wearing was the same face he'd worn the first time he'd seen Jack Mason and Tik eleth up close and boy it must have made him look dumb.
Feeling was starting to come back to his legs and with a fair bit of effort, he managed to stagger himself back onto his feet, "Seize her" the white commander said pointing at the member of the hunting group that was on her knees.
"No! Please commanders! She didn't know! None of us knew! How could we have known! Even you thought it was a lie!" one of the others with blood-red scales and orange stripes said in desperation said as suddenly more guard flooded the room these one's all wearing helmets so Smoke couldn't see their faces.
"Doesn't matter, right now we have evidence of your guilt actually staring us right in the face, guards take her to a cell and get medics up here right away" one of the other commanders said in a dark voice.
"Umm excuse me hate to interject but what happening here?" Smoke asked, the white scaled commander turned and looked at him her expression softening as she did.
"She's being charged with grievous bodily harm against a male, its an incredibly serious charge but given your obvious injuries and their prior statements as to how she subdued you by hitting you in the face with a rifle butt its a clear cut case, its a pretty clear that she is guilty and I don't know how your people treat such things given the utterly unfathomable and monstrous act of your females sending their males out to fight, but we Raptorians take such things incredibly seriously, male abuse is not tolerated in the slightest, mistake or not the facts are clear, through her willful actions she injured a male through violent means" she said as the guard pulled the obviously very distressed female to her feet and proceeded to cuff her hands behind her back after reliving her of her weapon.
"Hey don't I get a say in all this?" Smoke exclaimed loud enough for them to all look at him in surprise, including the female being cuffed, "Well I am the injured party right? So surely I should get an actual say on whether or not I want to press charges or something?" he said moving over towards her on his rubbery legs which were slowly regaining their solidness.
He stopped right in front of the cuffed woman and she looked up at him with surprise and what could be hope in her golden eyes, he turned and looked at the white scaled commander who looked utterly surprised by this and she looked at the other commanders and they quickly huddled up and began conversing so fast that his translator broke again, then she turned back to him.
"Well yes as the victim of this heinous crime it would only be right and fair that you have an input on it, so please speak and say your piece," she said and Smoke nodded.
"Good well I'd like all charges dropped please," he said and all of the commanders mouths dropped open like someone had flipped a switch.
"I-I-I beg your pardon?" another of the commanders this one with jet black scales stammered.
"Well the way I see it she was as clueless as you as to my gender which obviously seems to matter a great deal to you, so she didn't assault a male as you put it, she simply attacked what she perceived to be a threat to your people, when she hit me she really didn't know who or what she was hitting, all she saw was a threat, she didn't know I wasn't hunting them to attack them but was trying to catch up with them to try and introduce myself, I mean you were just invaded by both the Scalathor and the Draconis who with all intent and purpose are here to either kill your leadership and enslave your people or just kill you all if you don't bow down and worship their bat shit crazy Dark Seed, so as far as I see no crime was committed only a misunderstanding, granted a fucking painful misunderstanding granted, but given that I was the recipient of said undue pain i should get to decide if punishment is due and given that she was acting in what she believed was defence of her people after risking her life to go out there and attack the invaders while risking getting eaten alive by all the utterly crazy shit you got wandering around out there, yeah I don;t want her punished" Smoke said trying to gestured but given his arms had no feeling it really didn't have more flair than waving a limp pool noodle at her.
"But our law on male abuse is very very clear and this is a proven case not a disputed one, you are indeed a male which is both equally very surprising and distressing to us, alien or not you are a male and she assaulted you causing grievous harm to you, she must be punished for this, it is one of our most grievous crimes, surely you should know this? Are the males of your species not protected by your females?" the white scaled commander said.
"Our laws do not make exceptions based on gender and before we get into a whole gender debate here I am not judging you and equally I do not wish you to judge me and mine, you know nothing of my species just like you know nothing of mine, maybe these laws are utterly justified, but I am not of this world and male or not if she is being judged by your laws for a total misunderstanding then let the punishment fit that, not the crime you believe it to be until you saw my Adam's apple and smelt what I guess and hope are my pheromones and that you are not a species with a hair smelling fetish, how was she to know? It was a misunderstanding nothing more, I'm sure as a proud Raptorian if she had known in advance she would have never struck me, true or not?" Smoke said aiming the question at the female in cuffs.
"Of course I would not have! No proud Raptorian would stoop something as grievous and heinous as male abuse! Only a pathetic weak female would ever dare to lift her hand to a male" the cuffed female said and Smoke nodded.
"You'd get along well with our Yautja girls, they believe as you do, so you see commanders a mistake, nothing more, if she must be punished then let it be for a mistake nothing more, personally I do not wish her punished and as you say I am the victim so surely that should count for something here, you claim to be honourable and surely honourable beings would take the plea of the so-called victim in such a matter?" Smoke said eyeing them all.
The commanders huddled up and spoke fast enough to break his translator again, but this time they were much faster in their decision and when they broke the commander that approached was red and yellow, "You surprise us yet again male Smoke of the humans, you have made a most convincing argument, so yes we will defer to your plea on her behalf, but we cannot ignore what is a most heinous crime to our people, so we have decided that Surface Stalker Vippy here and her Surface Stalker pride will be assigned as your permanent guardians and if so much as a single hair on your head is harmed here then they will all suffer the consequences" she said then she turned to cuffed female and her group.
"Do you accept the terms Surface Stalker Vippy?" she asked and the female in cuffs turned to look at her comrades of which one of them stepped forwards this one had odd blue and green patterning on her scales and orange eyes.
"We do, we will protect the male and ensure no harm comes to him," she said and Vippy nodded in agreement.
"Very well then, guards release her, your first order of business will be to take him to the medics and ensure his injuries are treated and he is properly cared for then you will come to the command bunker for debriefing, there is much we have to discuss with him, I cannot wait to find out what possible justification his people could have for using males as warriors, to even think of such a thing, utterly shameful" the commander nearest him said looking at him with a look that wasn't angry but almost pitiful, which in a way made him feel angry but he held his tongue trying to remember his diplomatic training, he was just glad he prescribed to the Jack Mason school of diplomacy rather than the Tik eleth one, otherwise right now he'd be trying to pull a golden boot out of her tail hole all while trying to put her burning feathers out.
The guards unlocked the Raptorian called Vippy's cuffs and released her, she rubbed her wrists as her friends embraced her and quickly checked her over, both the guards, commanders and the translators filed out of the room leaving Smoke alone with his new guardians who were checking on the one called Vippy, she shrugged them off and then they turned their attention to him, they moved really quickly their movements were jerky and quick almost like birds but at the same time smoke felt like he was being surrounded by forest wolves or fire tigers, their eyes were both expressive and intense as they seemed to be appraising him, they tightened ranks closing into a tight circle around him and the one called Vippy that he'd just saved from whatever punishment they'd had in-store for her moved in and took told of his frontal armor so with surprising strength for one so small she pulled him down to her, instantly six sets of two fingered hands and large thumbs began to lift his hair and head and they exposed his throat again before instantly releasing him and moving back.
The same look of surprise was etched into all their faces, "Y-Y-You really are male, by the Great Tree how can this be, I hoped that the commanders had made a mistake, but you carry the apple, there can be no doubt" Vippy said her voice high pitched and surprised her feathers ruffling and pulsing as she spoke and a shimmer of colour passed through her scales making her briefly translucent.
"We must take him to the medics, he is injured," one of them with green and brown scales said a flicker of colour passing through hers as well and Vippy nodded and before Smoke could utter a word they seized him from all sides and ushered him out of the same door that the commanders had left by and before his brain even had the chance to really catch up and comprehend what he was seeing he was being led through tunnels carved into the black rock that was shiny and smooth like volcanic glass and suddenly Smoke realized that these weren't just tunnels they were another form of defence, the meagre lights that lit them caused reflections upon reflections that made it look like there were thousands of tunnels branching off in all directions like a house of mirrors.
The Raptorians didn't let go of him for a single second as they steered him through the maze of tunnels, two of them had hold of his hands and the other had just found things to grab onto of his armour though the were all avoiding his weaponry, obviously having learned their lesson around that, as many questions as were firing through his mind the pain in his face was kinda preventing him for asking them, he decided to keep quiet for the time being, he could hear chitters of Raptorian being spoken from the various tunnels around them but the distance was too great and sound too quiet for his translator to lock on and translate it, his new chaperones didn't speak the entire way but they kept shooting glances at him that was a mixture of both curiosity and worry.
But eventually, they reached a chamber that was brightly lit and to his surprise carved utterly out of volcanic glass, it was a field hospital, the various beds were carved right out of the rock with mattress laid upon them along with blankets as well as machines to monitor the patients laid upon them, most of them were empty but a few were occupied and each of the occupied beds was surrounded by other Raptorians, obviously their comrades.
Suddenly a group of Raptorians dressed in all blue scrubs with white lab coats appeared directly in their path and all of them looked both shocked and curious, "What is this?" one of them asked in a high pitched whistling voice.
"Alien male, he calls his kind human, facial injuries caused by myself, possible concussion and maybe worse," Vippy said and instantly each and every one of the doctor group looked at Smoke in shock and then they utterly glared with pure venom at Vippy.
"A male? You injured a male?" one of them spat her feather bristling and her teeth beared as her anger was obvious.
"I did not know he was a he when I stuck him, I thought he was with the Scalathor and Draconis and I thought he was a she," Vippy said her voice sounding full of shame and embarrassment, her eyes looking down at her three toes feet as she shuffled nervously.
"All true, they thought I was attacking them to be fair, I tried to show them that I was neither Scalathor nor Draconis when she struck, it was pure instinct and given I'd been hunting them through the jungle it's understandable," Smoke said and he suddenly had six very shocked sets of eyes upon him.
"A m-m-m-male warrior!? And he speaks our language?" one of them exclaimed in utter shock, Smoke tapped his throat where the suit helmet was retracted.
"Universal translator, it's translating what I'm saying and visa versa," Smoke said and suddenly in the blink of an eye, they were all around him examining him with both their eyes, hands and a verity of instruments.
"I cannot get any readings?" one of them said looking at another who confirmed it with her own devices.
"That's my armour deflecting your scans and please be careful what you touch it's fitted with anti-tamper and anti-theft security, it will shock you," Smoke said tapping his chest plate making it ring slightly.
"It's true please be careful honoured lifesavers, it bloody hurts," Vippy said rubbing her hand in memory of the shock of it.
"Then please remove it so we may examine you," one of them said and the others nodded in unison, Smoke looked around at all the curious set of eyes on him.
"Err if you don't mind I would rather not have an audience my kind are very private about that sort of thing, modesty and privacy are big deals for us," Smoke said softly and the doctors glanced around at all the other Raptorians in the room and instantly they surrounded him like his guardians had and began to manoeuvre him towards a side room.
"Hey, we must accompany him! He is under our protection!" Vippy exclaimed her voice angry and defensive and as one of the doctors glared at her.
"Not in our medical chambers he is not and as is obvious by his facial injuries you have done enough damage to this poor male, he has requested privacy for his examination so shall it be, you will wait here until we are satisfied that he is treated," one of the doctors said and with that Smoke was swept into a side room and the door closed behind them leaving Vippy and her group in the main room.
They appeared to have led him into a private examination room complete with a bed, instantly the doctors spread out grabbing little instruments and tools, "Ok please disrobe, err sorry we did not get your name or species?" one of the doctors said, she had rather pretty yellow and blue scales.
"My name is Smoke and I am a human" he replied suddenly feeling nervous, it wasn't like he hadn't been through a medical before, hell he'd had female Xeno Battle Angels poking and prodding him before now as he'd been through medicals or for the injuries he'd picked up during Hunter training, so taking a deep breath he took his rifle off and placed it on the bed before pressing the release catches which made his armour unlock and retract before he began to remove it in sections leaving him in his undersuit.
"No scales! He has skin and it changes colour! And look no feathers but fur! Incredible!" one of them said and suddenly they were all around him as he peeled his undersuit down to his waist, that was as far as he was willing to go letting it hang down so they could examine him.
"Please sit down you are surprisingly large for a male if you are this large I cannot even imagine how large your females are," a doctor with orange and green scale said pointing to the bed.
"Err they're actually for the most part smaller than we are, humans are evolved primates, or mammals if you prefer so for the most part we males are larger, for the most part, its not a huge difference but there are extremes," Smoke said sitting down on the bed and all of the doctors looked utterly amazed at this.
"Umm if I may ask where is your pride? Did you get separated from them?' one of the doctors asked as she began to run a small disc-like device over his chest before looking at the results in surprise and showing it to her colleague.
"Ummm I'm not sure what a pride is so if you could explain it to me I could possibly explain," Smoke said and all the doctors glanced at each other questioningly.
"Possibly a language issue," one of them said and the others nodded.
"Umm a pride is our word for your group, Raptorian prides are usually made up of six to eight females and one male when they find one, so where is your pride?" another of the doctors asked and Smoke shook his head.
"Ahh ok I understand now, the Serpentinus are simular I understand they call their groups packs and they're usually small than yours by the sound of it, humans, Yautja and Xenos don't really work like this, humans are solitary creatures, we live with a single set of parents until we come of age and then we are on our own, I guess your race kinda like Serpentinus have differences in your birth rates in the favor of female to male ratio correct?" Smoke said and they all glanced at each other in utter amazement and nodded.
"Yeah humans aren't like that, our birth rates are about fifty fifty male to female, so our social demographic is one to one and are very different to yours," Smoke said and this utterly amazed the Raptorian doctors.
"One male to one female? So every female gets one male e-e-e-each?" one of them exclaimed ina a stammer and Smoke nodded.
"Can you imagine? One male each? Oh the possibilities" one of them said and suddenly they all looked dreamy and their scales shimmered and actually seemed to rattle like they were being adjusted.
Then they seemed to get a hold of themselves and quickly went back to examining him, "Err could you remove the lower half of the suit please?" one of them asked looking up at him with bright purple eyes.
"Err why? My face and head are injured not my legs, arse or reproductive organs" Smoke said questioningly causing them to look at one another.
"You are the first of your species that we have ever met and we would rather like to study you," the one with purple eyes said and Smoke shook his head.
"Sorry doctors I'm not comfortable with being a lab rat, I don't mind some preliminary examinations but I didn't come here to have my anatomy examined, so if you don't mind I'd rather just have my face fixed and my head sorted, when the rest of my people get here and we've sorted this mess with the Scalathor and Draconis out I'm sure our Battle Angels who are our field surgeons and they can give you all the anatomical data you could ever wish to study, just not mine," he said flatly but curiously.
The doctors looked a little deflated but they nodded and Smoke was very glad to see that consent was a big part of their medical ethics as well as those of Clan Mason, they produced a perfect X-ray like scan on a 3D holographic imager showing a perfect rendering of Smoke's head and boy it was creepy, "There is some bruising and swelling to this part of your prefrontal cortex, this will have resulted in a mild concussion which will cause slight blurred vision, headaches and a few other symptoms, this we can sort with a nanite injection which will repair the damage, but we will require a blood and DNA sample, the nanites are basically capable of repairing the damaged tissue, once done there they will then move on to the damage to your nasal bone and cheek bones, we will have to reset your nasal bones manually though and don't worry the nanites won't remain in your body, they will infuse themselves into your bones to repair the damage and any that aren't used will simply self destruct" one of the doctors said pointing to the injury sites on the 3D Smoke head.
Smoke nodded his consent for this and they took a couple of vials of blood from him and they utterly marvelled at the fact that it was red and based on iron and it appeared they had truly incredible DNA sequencing skills as Smoke had imagined the process taking hours not minutes, then they walked over to a machine that looked like a kind of vending machine filled with glowing silver tubes, they extracted one from the bottom and applied it to another machine which they told him that was encoding the nanites and once done they placed it into a rather nasty looking gun and Smoke braced himself.
They injected it into his neck and with utter surprise painted on his face he felt utterly nothing, then with a swift movement one of them reached up and gripped his face gently and another stepped in and with a sickening crunch she set his nose and he yelped more in surprise than pain, this must-have triggered some kind of instinct in them because suddenly he found himself surrounded by them all, they had both of his hands and were stoking them and others were patting his arms and shoulders reassuringly, "There there its ok, you'll be ok now, I'm sorry if that hurt I didn't mean it to, I'm so sorry" the doctor who had set his nose said softly and apologetically.
"Err it's ok it didn't really hurt it was more of a surprise than anything," Smoke said.
"It's going to be ok now, you poor thing you must have been through so much, you are so brave to walk around like a Surface Stalker all on your own with no pride to protect you, how utterly horrible, but it's ok now you're safe now," another of them said in a soft almost cooing voice.
"Umm thank you for all your help, is my treatment complete now?" Smoke asked starting to feel a little weird now and they all nodded.
"Yup good as new I'm sure your female will be happy with our handy work when she finally gets her male back," one of them said sounding proud and Smoke nodded before getting dressed in his armour again before he chuckled softly which confused them.
'Oh sorry I'm not laughing at you, just at what you said is all, I'm not mated to anyone, when I hit eighteen I signed a no consent to hunt given form, so I'm single until I lift that" he said with a smile knowing that they probably didn't have a clue what he was talking about but instead of a little laughter and embarrassment at their wrong assumption like he expected they looked utterly horrified and instantly one of them rushed out of the room and dragged Vippy and the other into the room which suddenly felt rather cramped with 12 Raptorians and one very confused human in it but suddenly all of the doctors were pointing at him.
They spoke so fast his translator began failing again but he did catch 'single' and 'unattached male' in what they said and suddenly Vippy and her group looked utterly horrified and Vippy looked utterly distraught, "Umm not sure what's going on guys but I'm fine honestly so shall we get moving so that we can speak to the commanders and get this debrief underway?" Smoke asked.
Instantly Vippy and her group nodded and surrounded Smoke, "Thank you honoured doctors and you have our words that he will be properly guarded and protected and I swear it to you that we had no idea he was without Pride, we will ensure that he gets not even a paper cut" Vippy said and one of the doctors snorted and glared.
"See that you don't we have the records of the damage to his face now, we will be calling for him to return soon and if we find anything...well you know as well as we do the punishment for harming an un-prided male," she said and they all nodded, suddenly Smoke was surrounded again and they were off, with Vippy's group glaring daggers at anyone who so much as looked at him, they were suddenly like a group of very overprotective bodyguards, the way they were grabbing, directing, guiding and directing him made him realise that they were twice as protective of unattached males as they were of attached males, Smoke sighed very heavily, he got the feeling that this was going to be a very long debriefing, thank Paya for painkillers and apparently nanites.