AUgust24 07 Ranch (Frye, Alexa, Yelv)

a/n: Ranches mean cowboys, and Frye's team is enjoying their mission. Eventually.

Alexa tugged the blanket over her head. "Five more minutes."

Frye gave her a good-natured nudge with his boot. "Cookie says to rise and shine."

"It's still dark." Alexa wriggled deeper into her bedroll. "Who are you calling Cookie?"

"Yelv. He's on kitchen duty and wants to be called Cookie. He's really getting into this whole cowboy thing. He wants us all to have yee-haw names and everything. I'm going to be the Lone Ranger."

"Lone gabacho, more like it."

"He says you can be the Sonora Kid."

"Call me Barstow," Alexa said sleepily.

"Sure thing. I figured you'd want to help me take care of our rides before breakfast," said Frye.

Alexa shot to her feet. "The skorses! I gotta check on them! Are they calm? Do they need water? Extra fuel? Do we have time to brush them?"

Frye caught up to her at the temporary corral. "No one is going to call them skorses."

Alexa was cooing at a two meter tall skell. It had a platform that let a pilot ride clinging to its back, almost like a saddle. "And who's my gentle boy? Need your joints oiled? Who's a good skorse?"

"They're powered down. He can't hear you." Frye gave his own ride a pat on the back. "They don't look anything like horses. Those have four legs, last I heard."

Alexa paused from inspecting the foot tread of her mech. "Bipedal motion was more familiar to the research department. If you need extra legs, talk to them. Good skorse," she added to the micro-skell.

"Still won't work as a name. How about rodeo skell?"

"I'll think about it. Names are important. How's the herd?" She winked at Frye.

He took her teasing well. "Flock," he corrected with a grin. "The ovis don't seem to be too distressed by being penned up overnight. That's good. We need them rested and ready to vamoose for the next stretch."

"Are you still worried about grex attacks today?"

"I can guarantee it's gonna happen. Those wolves won't ignore a tasty bunch of lamb chops moving through their territory."

The sound of discordant banging floated across from the campsite. "Where did Yelv find a dinner bell to whack?" asked Alexa.

"I may have organized him one. He asked real nice. Anyway, I hope you like beans and coffee for breakfast."

"Yippee-kai-yay. Let's get those feedbags on, Mr. Lone Ostrich."

"Right behind you, Barstow."

a/n: I spent more time on nicknames than I should. Once again, Yelv gets no dialogue.

Next up: Nomad. More like, Nopon.