Human Excellence 5 - or 'In a world of acting, falsities, and space furries, a Human tries to survive as the Employee of the Month' (Rishan Galaxy Furry, Human!SI)
A new morning, more hours to explore and a lot of headaches as I had to contemplate how to ration food not only for myself but also my new charge.
I had no name for the wolf-girl (at least, not her proper one). I decided to name her 'Friday' since it was such a Robinson Crusoe situation that I kind of rolled with that nickname. Still, food was a priority, and I wasted roughly two hours of the early morning getting us two chickens. In this dimension, poultry was poultry, and chickens were fairly common in Denali as a source of nourishment.
Catching two was troubling since I had to use my handgun to get clean headshots to not ruin the rest of the meat. Luckily for me I got some easy positions to get the job done and the silencer attached to the plasma handgun made the noise basically nonexisting.
Cutting off the dead chickens' heads was followed by removing feathers, wash up the naked flesh and cook it up a bit. Friday watched with intrigue, perhaps aware with part of the process, but confused at the notion of washing up the meal and then cooking it rather than eating it raw.
The thing is, I wanted to get sick the least possible from this experience. I was already unsure if my belly would handle chicken for breakfast, but I could make sure it was clean enough to limit how much bacteria I was chugging down my tummy.
Friday had no issues. The girl took a sniff at her chicken, gave it a look and then she literally wolfed down the meal. It was a sight for sure, but at least put her on the list of 'I am not going to turn you into my meal since my tummy is full' for the time being.
I was done eating the chicken at a reasonably slow time. I knew I was on a timer before things escalated, but I couldn't overexert myself beyond what I could. And I knew that too rushed of a mindset would only worsen the current companionship I have running.
Speaking of companions, it was right after breakfast that I learned of Friday's real name. I decided to finally test her intelligence and introduce myself. So, with a finger pointing at my chest, I let out a single word.
"John."
The lupine female gave me a perplexed look, her tongue twitching as she seemed to be getting the mental word impressed in mind before delivering a proper verbal response. I repeated my name, waited again and-
"J-Jooon?"
Close enough.
I nodded, and she looked delighted to hear this and, mimicking my attempt, she aimed a claw at her furry chest and spoke up.
"Tala!"
Hm, that's a simple enough name.
"Tala?" I repeated, a bit uncertain as I wasn't utterly sold on the pronunciation, but Tala nodded and beamed.
"Tala!"
Well, that solved this dilemma, and confirmed we were dealing with a language barrier, as she spoke some more, but I got none of what she said. Had the suit been active, then I would have gotten subtitles and shit, and the automatic translator would have handed out a verbal response following my input.
Right now, I was dealing with some basic culture shock kind of shit. And her previous giddy delight turned into a stale acceptance that 'you win some, and you lose some'. Beyond these interactions, the trip resumed with a somewhat peaceful mindset.
I had a feeling we could get some results when compared to the previous day, and I was quite optimistic over the chance of finding new clues on where my teammates or anyone else in the dropships were. After all, I hadn't found any of the other dropships either.
While it was true that we got spread out before losing contact, we shouldn't have been far enough from one another to cause this much of a distance between us now. And as we were taking a while to find a way down the mountain, we paused as we heard loud noises.
Gunshots.
I took a more tense stance before picking up the pace. Tala skipped behind me, her posture showing some unease as we got closer to the source of the noises. And we found a small shack atop the upward road getting targeted by feral locals. And I don't mean going full doggos or cat, the kind of stuff you can domesticate- I am talking about someone going angry werewolves or pittbulls. It was scary shit.
What wasn't scary? The fact that none of those seemed to give a shit that I was directly behind them, plasma rifle at ready and having a perfect position to start claiming lives. It was a bit of a gamble to kill the locals, I already stressed enough the reasons why, but I could tell that they started the fight first with someone that was affiliated to the Sevneka so...
Fire at will!
The first strafe struck two of the unlucky bastards. But it took three more deaths to make the survivors realize they were not in a good position. Some rushed at me, but were quickly gunned down and, those that kept their distance... played it smart and bailed on the unsavory development.
I waited a while before trying to approach the hut, and I thought that I would get into some tense situations but-
"Photor Bukharin?"
I perked up instantly as I looked at the familiar face that peeked from the hut's main window and I was stunned at the sight.
"S-Sentry Ristovski!"
Sentry Janko 'Jan' Ristovski. German Shepherd Dog Anthro guy andt he squad leader I was assigned to this mission; also the guy I had been looking for for more than half a day now.
"Bukharin, I thought you died in the crash," My superior argued, appearing surprised by my appearance and... Tala. "I suppose you weren't found or something."
"I wasn't. And that's odd."
"But also good for them. Had you been there, then maybe..." He appeared suddenly somber, and I already could tell that he was keeping some bad news inside his chest before forcing a smile. "Still, get inside. The owner has graciously allowed us to stay here fore a while."
I slowly nodded at this, and I led Tala inside to be introduced to... more locals. One was a tall goat man with white fur that went by the name of 'Massak'. Considering the disposition of Denali, buff prey species were rare and I bet it was going to throw some locals off their mind even more to know that Massak was a scholar despite the body-builder fit he got going.
The other individual was-
"Bailey!" Tala squeaked, suddenly pulled in a bear hug by a... bear woman.
Bailey was someone that knew Tala. Turns out they had been together during the trip to reach the 'top of the mountain' for some rite of adulthood thing. Tala bailed on Bailey the moment her instincts went 'it is game time' and kind of zoomed to reach me for the hungys and... well, then things went as yesterday went.
The only reason I knew this shit was because Massak could speak Katrician to some extent and... well, Jan was fluent in Denalian. So, my boss gave me the summarized version of the story, and pretty much helped with the divide between cultures and languages.
Massak would offer us to stay for the day but he asked us to leave before the night as we had a 'mission' to deal with.
Jan ultimately told me the truth: the rest of the squad got killed off. They had been captured, brought to one of these feral bastards' camps and Jan was the only one that managed to get out. One of my teammates died while still unconscious, while another died in the escape. Jan was the only survivor together with me but...
We had a goal.
"There is a potential jamming location. The moment we destroy the array, we should be able to send messages to the Sevneka and request an evacuation."
That sounded respectable and... yet there was an issue in all of this. While the language barrier between me and Tala was gone and this should have allowed for a proper 'departure', she was stubbornly trying to stick by my side. And while it was clear there was some sort of 'biological' reason to it, I made it clear through my superior that I wasn't going to whine and keep her around.
Did that work?
Partially.
While it was just Jan and I that left Massak's hut at once, it didn't take too long for my superior to take notice of the issue at hand as we were on our way to the jamming system.
"She's following us," He hummed, glancing at me as he fixed his rifle. "You know, I think Kavkor Ramenskaya wouldn't say no to claim a new operator in the ship-"
"She would live a better life her than with us. It would be too much of a pain in the butt and... sir?"
"Yes?"
"I prefer to date first before fucking unlike most in the ship."
That comment drew a snort out of the dog guy, especially since it became clear by the hut that the previous night had been one of 'intense passion' in an unplanned threesome between him, Massak and Bailey.
Of course, I had no clue on what to really do with Tala and... I hoped she wasn't up to do some stupid shit to latch onto me.
AN
So many questions: what is causing the locals of Denali to turn into feral monsters? How did a jamming device found its way to Denali? And, most important of them all, will Tala gets a chance to get mated?