9. Hunting

9 HUNTING

A llie

We set up camp on the side of the volcano, which does not appear to currently be active. Staying close to the crash site increases our chances of being found.

Cadence and Casey have done an incredible job of not only recovering the emergency supplies and structures carried on the ship, but they've repurposed some of the batteries and energy supplies so we actually have heat and light.

Shan, Lettie, and their baby have their own little shelter, Wrath and I have one, and Cadence and Casey share another. There's a ‘fire pit' in the center of the three shelters where we can cook and use the shared tech.

"I don't know what we'd do without you," I say to Casey as she fixes our wall more securely so it doesn't flap open in the wind.

"Die, probably," she laughs.

She's not wrong.

This situation is far from any that anybody here could have anticipated, but we're actually all quite well-equipped to survive. Shan and Lettie are used to living rough, Casey and Cadence can make anything out of anything, and Wrath is a born leader. As for me, I still know how to clean.

W rath

I am watching my mate clean.

Three days have passed since our fortunate escape from almost certain death, and we are waiting to be rescued. Officially, at least. Privately, I am beginning to plan as to what will happen if we are never found. It is possible we are so distant from Grave City, and so far from any civilization that we will not be found in our lifetimes. Once the horror of that realization wears off, I am able to think more logically. This is not such a bad situation. I have the love of my life with me, and the two blondes - I intermittently forget their names, engage in near constant laughter and activity, which is cheerful.

As for Allie, she finally has what she mentioned wanting in the first place — one of those human suits. The engineers recovered several from the crash, and finally my mate is dressed in a way which gives her not only status among her people, but protection from the elements. The suit is somewhat figure hugging in that it pulls tight across her rear and her chest, both of which are ample.

I like to watch her work. The way she moves is not only charming but alluring. The human body is such a simple, pretty thing, hers especially. From time to time she looks up from her self-appointed task and makes eye contact with me, checking that I am still here. I am, of course. A little shy smile on her part shows she is pleased by this.

I never imagined I could be content at a crash site having nearly lost my life, and having been flung far into uncivilized territory, but here I am. When I first banished Shan from the city, I did wonder if I could not start a new civilization, a new city of sorts, one free of the corruption of Grave City. One I would lead. Now it feels as though I might not have a choice.

Shan, Lettie, and the infant largely remain in their tent. Sometimes we can hear them arguing, though for the most part they are quiet. I feel a sense of pity for all of them. Nothing that is to come will be easy for them. It would have been better if they had been left in the wilderness in the first place. The rescue which gave Lettie access to power was probably the biggest mistake I've seen unfold in decades.

"Allie!" one of the blondes yells out. Cadence, I think.

"What?" Allie lifts her head from the machine at the fire pit which she has been scrubbing. It is not dirty.

"Does the baby have a name?"

"I don't think so."

"It should have a name."

Allie pushes her hair out of her face. "I don't think it is our job to name someone else's baby."

Cadence smirks. "I don't think it's your job to act like you're responsible for cleaning everything, but you still do it."

"It keeps me busy," Allie says. "Stops me from thinking too much."

The other blonde, Casey, pipes up. "You're supposed to think. That's why you have a brain. Ever noticed how nobody ever says, oh I put a plastic bag over my face — helps me from breathing too much?"

Cadence laughs. "Exactly. I've never understood this horror with letting our brains do what they want to do."

"That's because there's nothing in either of your brains besides goofy shenanigans," Allie says. "I have other things in mine. Like mass-murder."

"Giving or receiving?"

"Both, I think."

"Trauma," Cadence says to Casey.

"Very trauma," Casey replies. "I thought the chip being deactivated would wipe the memories of the atrocities?"

Allie's answer is surprisingly honest. "Some of them, but not all, and Raine… when she said… she reminded me."

"Raine can be a real piece of work. I'm glad she wasn't captain for long. I'm pretty sure if she had stayed captain longer we wouldn't have been pirates at all. She would have turned us into a corporate delivery service," Cadence says.

"She would have murdered someone and gotten us all fired," Allie says.

"Plus, it was Sullivan's ship."

"Was. Now it's the mountain's ship."

"That's never going back together."

"Hell no, it never is. I've never seen anything that broken before."

"We could try to put it back together. But I think salvaging hunting parts is the way to go. We're going to need to provide meat."

"Yes! Meat. Shan's a decent hunter according to Lettie, but he has to watch her and the baby, because who knows what she'd decide to do if she was left on her own. She's full crazy right now."

"I know."

I am impressed with these humans, well, besides Lettie. I suppose even she is impressive in her madness. They are all very effective in their own ways, and they are absolutely not waiting for anybody to fix anything for them. These are independent women who do not need any leadership. The downside of that is that they're not going to accept any either.

They are also right about the hunting. We need meat. Protein is good for the mind, and for morale.

"I am going to hunt for food," I announce. "The three of you stay here."

All three human females look at one another, clearly telegraphing the fact that they have no intention of obeying me without saying a word. I say the only thing I can think of to stop them from following me.

"If any of you three leaves this encampment, I will whip Allie."

"What!?" Allie gasps. "But I'm not… I can't stop them."

I hope that the loyalty of the crew, this silent understanding, will ensure that the other two stay in line.

"This is not safe territory. These are wild lands. There are predators everywhere. Here, you are protected by fire, and by numbers, and by the fact that no creature in these lands has ever encountered such things. Leaving this area is the same as asking to be killed."

"Okay, drama," Cadence mutters under her breath.

"I am serious. I will use Allie as a whipping girl for each of you if necessary. She will take the pain."

"That's not fair."

"Maybe not." I stand up. "I will be back with food. Do as I say, or there will be much suffering in this encampment."

A llie

Wrath gathers some of the recovered weaponry and such, and heads into the forest to try and find food for us all. It is the act of a provider, and I cannot fault him for it, but I could have done without the threat.

"Is he serious?" Cadence asks me the question once we're certain he is gone.

"I've literally never known him to tell a joke," I say. "I think he really wants us to stay here."

"And he assumes we will care if you get beaten?" Casey smirks. "That's a big assumption, and I'm sorry, Allie, but I can't let him start to think he controls all of us by merit of controlling you."

My stomach gets that very uncomfortable feeling of being stuck between two powerful forces yet again. I don't know why this keeps happening to me. Everybody seems to view me as useful, but they never ask me if I want to be used.

"Please just stay here. There's no point in leaving."

"We could hunt too. We could see if there are any resources nearby. We could scout the area. We could leave a trail for rescuers…" Cadence trails off.

"We could discover new plants. We could synthesize medicines. We could make friends with a small but cute wild animal. We could explore," Casey picks up the list.

"We're in a very dangerous situation, and splitting up is stupid," I say.

"Probably. Yes. So we should all go together. The three of us."

"Why would I defy him?"

"Why wouldn't you defy him?" Casey points out. "Are you going to let him boss you around forever? Is he your new captain? He just gave us fucking orders, and we didn't agree to that. So I'm leaving, because he gave me absolutely no choice. You cannot submit to tyranny."

As they talk, they are strapping small weapons on their bodies, clearly making plans to do precisely what they're saying. Wrath has set me up so I'm going to get punished one way or another.

"You're going to get yourselves killed just to defy him?"

"We're going to get ourselves killed to prove that we get to get ourselves killed if we want to. We're fucking pirates, Allie. What are you? A cleaner? A walking-war crime? What are you going to be when this is over?"

Cadence and Casey have an uncanny ability to be absolutely stupid and incredibly insightful at exactly the same time.

They leave me speechless as they depart the camp.

There's silence.

The baby starts crying.

"Me too, baby," I mutter. "Me too."

I t is almost dark when Wrath returns. I have spent the day hoping that Cadence and Casey will get back before he does so there's actually some chance of avoiding whatever consequence he decides should be enacted upon me.

He is holding the carcass of an animal that looks large enough to feed all of us for days, if not weeks. It is a furry thing, which is surprising as I thought pretty much all the animals on this planet were scaled.

"Shan! Come help break down this meat!" Wrath calls out as he lumbers into the clearing. He is breathing heavily, having had to climb quite an incline to make it to camp.

Shan emerges from the tent with what looks to me like relief.

"Incredible kill!" he congratulates Wrath.

"Thank you," Wrath says, looking around. I hope he notices that I have been busy making myself useful. I have prepared part of the fuselage as a sort of prep area, and made sure it is scrubbed clean. I've also assembled some large leaves which we can wrap meat in, both to cook and store.

"Where are the other two?"

"They left about five minutes after you told them they weren't supposed to leave. They didn't care what was going to happen to me as a result."

Wrath grunts. "Strange."

"It's really not. We're pirates. Telling us what not to do is a pretty surefire way of ensuring that we do that thing as fast as possible."

"Humans can't be controlled," Shan says.

"Thorn and Avel don't seem to have any problem controlling their mates, and they have the two captains," Wrath says, lowering his kill to the ground.

Shan shrugs his armored shoulders. "Maybe they do. Maybe they don't. Maybe they just make it look like they have them under control. Maybe those two have plans to get free on their own accord and are just playing along."

"If they did, your mate put paid to all of that."

Lettie appears at the tent curtain, the baby on her hip. "Are you talking about me? Complaining again because of one little crash that we all survived?"

"So far," Wrath growls.

He and Shan are now taking the beast apart. It looks as though he gutted it out in the wilds, so now it is just a matter of skinning the creature and cutting it up. They are working together even though I know they're furious with one another, each of them blaming the other for recent events. I wish we humans could be a bit more like the saurians, but we're not. The second Lettie opens her mouth, I want to slap her so hard she never speaks again.

"I don't know what you're complaining about," Lettie says to Wrath. "This is better than what you did to Shan and me when you abandoned me pregnant in the wilderness."

Wrath pauses for a moment, blade in hand. He wipes a streak of prey blood off his cheek with the back of his arm.

"This is an argument we could have forever."

"And we will," Lettie says. "We will."

W rath

I should have known the two others would disappear as soon as I told them not to. Being obnoxious seems to be a human trait. I want to worry about one human, my human, but I do feel responsible for everybody in this little group.

"Can you shut up?" Allie snaps at Lettie. "Just get over it, you psycho."

There's a brief moment of silence, in which Lettie and Allie size one another up. Shan and I are both holding knives and covered in blood. Lettie holding the infant means that nothing is going to happen physically, though I do have to wonder if Allie isn't starting to reach the end of some invisible tether.

"What's your problem?" Lettie asks. "Is it because you're fucking the evil bastard? You want me to forget what he did to me?"

"I was a soldier, Allie says. "I committed atrocities for corporate interests, and I was good enough at it to earn my retirement. I've been trying to keep a low profile. I've been trying to avoid trouble. But after what you did to me, I don't want to hear you ever complain again. If I do, you're going to regret it, and there won't be anything any saurian can do about it, you absolute bitch."

There's a shocked silence as Allie asserts herself in a way she probably never has before.

"Babswowute bitch!"

The baby repeats Allie's words with glee. The first word is somewhat butchered, but the second is incredibly clear.

Lettie's eyes widen. She looks at her baby, and then at Shan. Shan is also staring, quite astonished. I get the sense this is a more momentous occasion than it seems.

"Those were her first words. I hope you're happy." Lettie's voice is replete with bitterness.

"I'm absolutely thrilled," Allie replies.

"Bwosute bitch!" The baby giggles, very pleased with itself.

"Maybe you should take the baby back into the shelter," Shan suggests.

"Maybe we should move out on our own," Lettie says. "Maybe everybody here is a bad influence. Maybe…"

"Go back inside, Lettie. Now."

Shan's voice lowers to a tone of authority that I haven't heard him use with her before. It's effective. She pauses, looking at him with a querying lifted brow.

"Now!" he repeats.

She scuttles back into the tent with the baby.

"Good work," I congratulate him.

"I've been careful with her since she had the baby," he says. "But I'm starting to think she never needed much in the way of gentle handling. She dared drug me. She dared attack my city. She dared… how did the ship crash?"

"She dropped a loaded weapon and it discharged, hit the control panel, and caused the ship to malfunction."

Shan growls. "Could you and Allie please look after the baby tonight? Lettie and I need a reckoning."

"Nothing would give me more pleasure."