Elanor Lumia, a freshman Zeltron studying at Coronet University and going through Rush week for her sorority, opened the envelope taped to her dorm room door to see what her dare would be today. So far she'd had to drink three disgusting drinks and eat two foods that sent her to the refresher for one long, miserable night of seeing what was supposed to be inside come out. She was beginning to wonder if it was worth joining, social being though she was.
"We dare you to get a hug from a gand."
That was the first line of the note. She didn't get further before she looked up from the playful, glittery pink stationery. Her sponsor was a fellow zeltron who loved bright and sparkly things as much as she did. OK, so this one wasn't gross and probably wouldn't leave her regretting existing, but how was she supposed to do that? First question, just what was a gand? Second question, assuming she could find one, why was it a dare to hug them? Did they tend to be unfriendly? Usually her species's natural pheromones could work on that particular challenge, especially on other near-human species. She looked down at the note.
"Gand are a rare species, but I have it on good authority that one has been seen around the spaceport for the last couple of days assisting CorSec's local group with the crime problem that's been all over the news. It's about time someone did so, officially or, as in this case, unofficially. If one more of us has our purse snatched, there's likely to be a mass hysteria fit."
Elanor snickered at her friend/sponsor's sense of humor. She was right about that. She'd taken to leaving hers in her room. She also knew who the "good authority" was. Her sponsor's brother was a rookie on the force.
"Unfortunately I don't have a good photo of the gand. They're fully armored up and don't tend to show their features. The biggest thing you'll notice is a rebreather. This one isn't especially bulky, but fits very close to the gand's face and is almost hidden by their helmet. I suppose from the inside they must have a way to see out, but the outside is completely opaque. My brother only knows it's a gand under all the armor because he attempted an ID check yesterday and learned only that 'this gand has not yet earned a name.' Perplexing species, he said, as polite as they can be, but very cryptic.
" It's 7:27 and we know you usually leave your room for your first class at 7:45. You have 24 hours. We'll be watching! Good luck!"
That was the end of the note. It explained nothing. Was she supposed to just go around town calling 'Gand? Gand?' until someone answered, no matter how many people looked at her funny? She turned the little card in her hand and was about to stuff it back in its envelope when she saw something on the back. It was a sketch that gave her a look at the rebreather. It was drawn so that it was barely distinguishable from the surrounding helmet, but where most people who wore a rebreather didn't decorate it (she'd heard of kel dor), this particular one had what was either a delicate engraving or a line of cracks in the mask. It swirled and whorled looking almost like something she'd seen dancers do at the Mandalorian Nights ballet performance she'd had to attend for her dance class last month and one of the scenes had been a fight scene. The more she looked at the device, the more sure she was that it was an engraving. Its low profile nature meant it was the latest in tech from somewhere, rather than the old and bulky variety of rebreather she'd always seen in pictures before. OK She could work with that, she hoped anyway. She had classes all morning and a biology lab right after lunch, then she'd be free to engage. She asked herself just what she'd been thinking setting up a lab full of dissection and strange smells right after lunch, then set it aside. Before that came freshman algebra, galactic history and literature. She enjoyed none of it. Trying to find a completely cryptic being and get them to hug her might end up being the best part of the day.
Several hours later, Elanor's brain felt soggy and perhaps soaked in formaldehyde, itself. She'd turned in one research paper only to be given two more assignments, and that didn't count her math homework. Nor did it count the three hours she'd been forced to spend with her gloved hands inside a dead dog. Why, oh why did she choose biology for her core science? Geology would have probably been much less disgusting. She didn't want to eat, but she knew if she didn't, she'd be starving by bedtime, and by then, the cafeteria would be closed for the night. She'd eaten her last canned meal three days before and really needed to go to the grocery store soon. It could wait till tomorrow, though. It'd been waiting till tomorrow for the last three days, until she finished her milk, which she expected to do in the morning, along with her last bagel. Good thing she had first period free and that the store wasn't far from her dorm room. That was another day, though. Step one: go eat some of that meatloaf and hope it wasn't mystery meat. At least it smelled good. Step 2: try to find the gand. Step 3: figure out how the hell to get a hug from the gand. She'd asked her T.A. what a gand was and been told that not much was even known about them, but they were insectoids who came in one variety that didn't respire at all and another that required ammonia to breathe. She'd learned that it'd be impossible to tell which kind she was dealing with because gand of both kinds wore rebreathers off-world for anonymity even if they didn't require them to survive. Her T.A. offered her extra credit if she'd write up her encounter because, she said, the gand refused to be medically studied. How she was supposed to write a biology paper, even a single page, on an armor-covered being perplexed Elanor, but she'd give it a try. Even a look at the carapace would be nice. She was good at describing things. She could stretch it out and speculate wildly with the best.
After dinner, which had smelled better than it tasted, she headed out around the university's neighborhood. There were two apartment complexes nearby and the library was huge, so it was a good walk and purse snatchings had happened. She was hoping to find the gand there. No such luck, so, sighing tiredly, she headed for the long north-south road that was loaded up with galactic embassies just past campus. If she decided to study politics, she, like her sponsor, would spend a lot of time here.
It wasn't long before she heard the sound of blaster fire. Someone was getting the business, for sure. She followed the sound into the park that took a chunk out of the city's south end and saw an armored figure and some criminal fully engaged. She saw a small child watching from behind a tree and tucked in next to him.
"Isn't this cool?" he asked, eyes wide.
Elanor didn't think so. She could feel her heart pounding. She saw the thug's knife go flying, but he didn't stop attacking the armored figure until it made him stop. When he'd gone still, and Elanor couldn't tell whether he was dead or simply stunned, the armored figure muttered something and started to walk away even as an officer was coming around with cuffs. Elanor followed. She'd been unable to get a glimpse of the rebreather from her angle and hoped she wasn't following some trandoshan with a bad attitude.
She followed the being all the way up to the north end of the embassy collection and into the blue district, a seedier part of town with bars, brothels and spice dens, and lots of glitz and flash. It was actually one of Elanor's favorite parts of town and she came here more than she should. Her grades suffered accordingly. She found herself in a short side alley, with barely room to maneuver, and suddenly face to face with the armored being. Yep, she could see now, when she had no easy way out through the press of people moving through the larger street behind her, this was the gand. She could tell from the engravings on the rebreather, light enough not to damage the material, but noticeable up close.
"Why do you follow this gand? It is dangerous to follow someone unprepared, and doubly so to follow them into an alley."
The gand's repeater suddenly seemed very large and powerful to Elanor, who was unarmed. It wasn't pointed at her, but the gand had it out and ready for any threat. Elanor gulped.
"Uh- I - um - well I don't mean you any harm," she found herself stammering. She smiled as warmly as she could at the gand and hoped her pheromones worked on whatever was under that suit. It didn't seem they did, though it was hard to tell through the full armor. The being simply stood there, silent, staring, waiting.
"I'm not one of the thugs you've been chasing down." Elanor was speaking very rapidly lest the gand decide she was a threat. "See - my name's Elanor Lumia. I'm a freshman at the university and it's rush week, you know - where all the fraternities and sororities try to recruit people for their clubs."
The armored figure continued to just stand there, staring at her. Nope! The pheromones were definitely not working. The being wasn't doing anything threatening, but nonetheless Elanor thought she might wet herself in terror. She'd never been this close to someone with a weapon out and ready.
"Could you put the repeater away? Please?" her fright was real, and it made her voice tiny. She was trembling as well, she realized. "Can we just go to a bar or something and talk?"
"Uncle Reggie's is not far," came the raspy voice from behind the rebreather. "They have private booths. Will that do?" The repeater was slid into its holster with a slight slithering sound and a click, the movement as unsettlingly casual as the repeater's presence had been. This gand seemed to Elanor's admittedly sheltered mindset to be dangerous, yet Elanor was glad to get this much of a peaceable response. Perhaps violence was something they did of necessity, not choice?
She nodded gratefully and turned around, the armored being now at her side rather than facing her. They made it to the bar, but before the figure would sit down, another of the thugs had to be dispatched. This one had been caught red handed with several ident chips and chit cards that had not belonged to her. Then the publican pointed them to one of the private booths.
The gand bought Elanor a drink, but took nothing.
"They do not serve water or have straws to stick in their intoxicants. This gand cannot remove her rebreather."
Elanor felt even more awkward, if that were possible. The entire purpose of a bar was to relax, to let your hair down, eat, drink and be merry. And this gand, evidently female as some part of her dimly noted for the as-yet unwritten biology paper, could do none of it. It rather defeated the purpose of bringing her here. Blast. Yet if the gand felt awkward, she hid it well, aided certainly by her fully armored and masked form. You couldn't even get a read on body language with someone dressed like this. Elanor realized she was way, way out of her league tonight. If she succeeded at all, it would be wholly because the gand allowed it, and she could do nothing to encourage that. Her pheromones were useless. Her smile seemed to have no effect. She couldn't buy the gand a drink or three to lower inhibitions, either. Spice was also out of the question, too expensive for a freshman's budget, and honestly she didn't know if the gand could use that, either. This was like trying to nail something down with nothing but your pinky finger. Worse still, the gand was fine with silence. Elanor realized with a flush of embarrassment that she'd been staring at this perplexing being for a solid minute without saying a word and lowered her gaze to the table. The gand let her off the hook gracefully.
"Explain this rush week, fraternity and sorority situation you were speaking of?" The tone made it a question.
"It's a social thing. Fraternities are men-only and sororities are women. It's groups that get together to party and sometimes do some community service, too. It's a club that'll stay with you the rest of your life," Elanor explained breathlessly. "Good for networking once you're out of school, or so it's said."
"And you are chasing this gand during the recruitment process because?"
"Part of the process of choosing applicants is - well, to see how badly you want it, I guess. I've had to do a lot of weird things this week and today's dare was to -" she hesitated and took a big gulp of her drink before continuing. "-to get a hug from you."
"This gand does not have any hugs." came the soft answer across the table. Elanor blinked in bafflement at the answer, then something that felt almost like pity for the gand welled within her, along with another spike of anxiety for herself. Out of her league tonight was an understatement. She might even be in the wrong star system if this gand didn't even know what a hug was.
"A hug isn't something you slip in your pocket," Elanor tried to explain. "It's something you give - or hopefully exchange with someone else, a way of showing affection. You -" She pointed across the bar, where a man and woman had their arms around each other and were currently lip-locked as well. "Well - er - it doesn't include the kissing on the lips like that. A hug is just the arms and how they're pressed close together like that. that's a romantic couple, so not everyone presses that close, either - by the force this is getting awkward. I think I'm gonna need another drink." She reached for her chit card, but the gand simply motioned to the nearest waiter for another. Elanor continued to try to explain while they waited for her refill.
"It's for comfort, warmth and affection. Families do it, friends, and lovers. You put your arms around the other person and pull them close against you. Very kind strangers might do it sometimes, too, if they see someone who's really falling apart, crying and what not. Well the best ones use both arms anyway - you technically can do it with one arm across the shoulder even - sheesh I didn't realize how complicated it was until I started trying to explain it to someone who's never had one. It's like trying to describe the blue of the sky to a blind person or the feel of water to someone who's never been wet, isn't it?"
"This would appear to be the case," came the quiet, raspy voice across the table as the drink arrived.
Elanor drank her second drink in mortified silence as she tried and failed to figure out how to proceed with her mission. When it was done, the gand bought her a third. Elanor tried to figure out how to read the gand. She was buying her drinks, but otherwise was completely silent and giving her nothing. Desperate for any kind of communication she could understand, Elanor tried a different question.
"What do you see?"
"Lots of humanoids drinking past what is wise, especially if they must work or attend class tomorrow. They will not thank themselves later."
Elanor snorted her drink, trying and failing to laugh and swallow at the same time. She was still doing so as she tried to blow the stinging alcohol out her nose and into a napkin. She knew that feeling for sure, and had miserably failed an algebra exam earlier in the week for that exact reason. She wiped her eyes and was still laughing helplessly as she stared across at the gand. Still impossible to read - damn it.
She finally got herself under control and finished her drink, going slowly now as she tried and failed to come up with a way past the gand's reserve. They seemed to have nothing in common, yet the gand stayed with her. She checked her chrono. 22:00. She had to be up early to meet her would-be sisters at the mall for a car wash fundraiser in the morning. She doubted she'd be accepted now, though, having failed so miserably with this last dare. She sighed quietly.
"Well, gand, thank you for the drinks. I'd better get back to the dorm," she said, and didn't care that the gand could, if she were at all conversant with standard basic humanoid intonation, hear her sadness.
"This gand will see you safely to your dorm," came the surprising offer. Then again, Elanor told herself, it shouldn't be a surprise. The gand was fighting crime, and there wasn't an easier mark in the room than a tipsy, unarmed college student.
Gand proved the wisdom of her presence twice on the way home, stopping a robber and a would-be murderer who was menacing some poor homeless elderly woman, and Elanor hoped the leaders of this nonsense would be found soon and packed off to the jailhouse. Coronet City wasn't supposed to be Nal Hutta. Elanor was surprised to hear the gand coughing for a moment after the fight with the murderer, which had been a stiff one. It stopped quickly and the gand straightened and walked on like nothing had happened. Finally they were at the entrance and Elanor fumbled for her keypass. When she had it in her hand, she turned back to the gand, looking at her in the light coming from the bulb over the door.
"Thank you for the walk home. What do I owe you for the escort?"
"You owe this gand no payment, of course. She is just glad to see you safely home - or is it home away from home?"
Elanor laughed at the dry humor. It was true, Corellia was never going to be Zeltros to her. Finally she just drew a deep breath and asked for what she'd been trying to do all night.
"Can I hug you?"
The helmeted head tilted to one side and she sensed that she had, for the first time all night, truly gotten a reaction from the gand. She really wished she didn't have the mask to hide behind now.
"This gand will accept your embrace."
Elanor took half a step forward and wrapped her arms around the gand. They were nearly of a height, so it was comfortable without a lot of bending, or would have been except for the damn armor. She lowered her head onto the gand's shoulder. The gand just stood there. Elanor closed her eyes in concentration after a few seconds of this stalemate.
"Come on. Come on," she whispered, almost subconsciously trying to coax some sort of reply, giving a few guiding squeezes with her arms and deliberately slowing her breathing. She felt a slight shift of the being in her arms and suddenly both of the arms were around her, one around the middle of her back, the other around her neck. The reason for the placement of the second quickly became obvious, as alien fingers began to gently comb through her hair. Suddenly the armor wasn't such an impediment, Elanor felt. Gand was giving her what she'd asked for, twice over. There was still a slight stiffness that told her this wasn't a practiced gesture, and yet somehow, she also felt there was real tenderness in it. She found herself feeling like she was going from the giver of the embrace to the one who couldn't reply deeply enough. She couldn't stroke the gand's hair in return - did gand even have hair? She couldn't stroke her carapace, either, since it was 100% covered. So she just sighed and let her relaxing body tell the gand how well she was doing. It could have been one minute or one hour for all Elanor knew, but finally she felt the gand beginning to withdraw her arms from around her. she blinked back to the present and let her own hug drop.
"Wow. Thank you," she said. "Where did you learn to do that?" Elanor asked.
"This gand modeled something she saw a female do to a crying small child earlier today."
"You're very comforting," Elanor smiled. The gand bowed deeply, wished her a good and safe night, and was gone.