Whatever the Threat

I asked Creature to try the food he brought back—one of those angry bird things—before I even attempted to eat it. He would have an easier time surviving minor poisoning than I would and we generally ate the same things, anyway. That being said, I still only ate a little bit and waited a good half an hour before I really ate anything in earnest.

Better safe than sorry, after all. The last thing I needed was to keel over dead because I ate a bad bird. How fucking embarrassing would that be?

At least my time on Earth had taught me a few useful things. Most of the shit I learned was for camping and from the school club, Colorado Youth Outdoors. It was coming in handy here, though I couldn't identify any plants. I could, at least, keep myself from dying due to poisoning. Try a little bit, wait to see how it tastes and feels, then go for it. If it doesn't sting your mouth or make you throw up, it's fair game.

The cooked bird didn't do either of those things, so I dug in.

Even though I wanted to just forge ahead after eating my fill, I knew that wasn't productive. I wasn't a robot . . . I needed to sleep. Even my computer at home didn't work right if I left it on several days in a row.

So, after confirming that Creature was going to be okay for a little while (he said he'd slept on the ship before we were attacked), I asked him to keep watch and passed out on the forest floor.

Tried to, anyway.

It was not an easy sleep. The past day's events kept playing over and over in my mind's eye—particularly the fight with Jackal. I had fucked that up in so many different ways right in front of Wolf. Now, with the power of hindsight, I could look at all the shit I could have done differently.

I imagined how it could have gone. No, how it should have gone if I hadn't flown off the handle and into a blind rage. Moves I could have made, attacks I might have countered or dodged, and maybe even some snappy one-liners I could have spat at him. There were so many mistakes that I had made in such a short time. All of which could have been completely avoided.

If only I was better.

All I could do was hope that I could learn from it. Be glad that I even had the opportunity to learn from it, thanks to Critter. I hadn't just failed Wolf, I'd failed him too. What were they doing to him?

Was he even still alive? I couldn't imagine they'd keep him alive, so I could only hope.

Who knew, maybe he had escaped and would come and find us. I didn't actually believe that, but I had to give my mind something so I could sleep.

When I did finally fall asleep, I was so uncomfortable that I tossed and turned, waking up intermittently through my rest. That just started the cycle of overthinking and worrying all over again until, somehow, miraculously, I settled into a real sleep.

However, all of that meant that I didn't exactly wake up feeling wide-eyed and bushy-tailed like I wanted. It was good enough, I supposed, that I was no longer exhausted and running on fumes. For the most part, I felt fresh-faced enough to continue with Operation: Save Wolf.

"Do you need to rest?" I asked Creature.

He said he didn't.

"Are you ready to go yet?"

He wasn't. I told him to take some time for himself, then, but not too much. I couldn't take advantage of him by running him like a workhorse, so I could at least suffer him this time in return for being my food guinea pig and watchdog.

While Creature took a few minutes to tend to his own needs, I sat somewhere out of the open and pulled up the map on my wrist computer. I needed an idea of where we were. I could even toggle the paths that I had taken so far, which I normally turned off because of how cluttered it made the display.

Now, though, they would be integral to knowing where I had already been. From there, I could figure out where they might be keeping Wolf in relation to our ship. I'd never really learned how to read a map thanks to GPS directions, but I was starting to get the hang of it. The interactive map took a lot of the guesswork out of it, anyway.

It worked a lot like GPS from home, anyway. It was a live map, so it updated in real time with a little dot that represented me. That little dot showed in which direction I was facing with a compass rose in the corner. There were more dots that were supposed to be the ship and Wolf.

Which . . . Wolf's dot was entirely gone. Not that I expected it to be that easy—they would have turned off or destroyed his computer first thing.

That was fine. The important part was how simple and clean the map was.

The scattered dash marks all over the map indicated the paths that I had taken during my adventure. They didn't have any indicators for direction, though, which meant it was up to me to figure out what was what.

When Creature was ready, I showed him the map.

"Can you take me here?" I pointed at the spot on the map where the dash marks were the most condensed and erratic.

That had to be where Wolf and I fought that beast.

I was at least mostly confident that I could get there myself, but I wanted Creature to carry me there so he was going to have to do all of the leg work. If he couldn't, then I'd have to work extra hard on navigating.

Creature stared at it for a while, his antennae quivering, then clacked his claws together to tell me that he could do it.

Normally, I would just walk, but he was much faster than me and wouldn't tire as quickly. I, on the other hand . . . Well, I would get exhausted much easier in comparison. It would only slow us down to go at my pace and time was of the essence.

It was imperative that I saved as much energy and strength as possible during these next few days. That meant letting Creature carry me and set aside my pride for the time being. This was about survival and rescue, not my ego, so I was going to do whatever it took to get my man back and make those assholes pay.

"Are you ready to go now?" I asked Creature.

He was, so I let him pick me up and he started running. Since we weren't fleeing for our lives, he didn't go as fast as he had before, but it was still a hell of a lot faster than anything I could do on my own, so I didn't regret choosing this path.

As Creature sped through the forest, we left behind startled flocks of those angry avians. They screeched at us as we went, but that was it for the wildlife. Most everything went by way too fast, and anything that saw us coming just hid away as we came by. When we stopped a couple times to let Creature catch his breath and check the map, I caught a few curious eyes staring at us but everything left us alone.

Whenever I checked the map, though, Creature still had the right heading despite only looking at it once. Even back home I had to check the GPS directions like eight times before making any turns. Who knew he was a pretty handy navigator.

Though, I never did spend enough time on the bridge to know that about him. The giant window in there was just too much of a source of anxiety for me, so I barely knew anything about Creature. Critter was the one who took care of housekeeping and food, Creature did maintenance and navigation.

Once we reached the ravine, I didn't even need to check the map. The signs of our fight were everywhere-scores across the rocks where David slashed, splatters of our blood all over the place. Creature set me down and I stared at the empty scene, feeling nothing but regret.

What better place to start tracking than the scene of the crime?

Only a little bit of searching was needed to find the dried splotch of blood Wolf left behind. Creature followed silently along after me, hovering like a giant cryptid monster. Even after so much time had passed, Wolf's blood had only faded in vibrancy by a small amount. Its green hue stood out against the gray rock like a beacon.

My heart ached when I saw it, but I couldn't dwell. We would be there all day if I was left to reflect on the fact that this was all my fault.

Had they treated his wound? Was he still bleeding?

I shook my head. There I went, dwelling.

Forcing myself to focus, I cycled through some of the vision modes to begin tracking, only to remember that I could log Wolf's bio signature. I would be able to track him specifically—all I needed was his blood.

However, I hesitated a moment. Not because I was feeling squeamish, but because it didn't feel right. This was supposed to make tracking prey easier, so it seemed a little perverse to use it to find someone I cared about. But, a tool is a tool. I had to find him. So, I scraped some of his blood off the rock with my fingers and smeared it on my computer scanner.

Despite it all, I couldn't help but feel forlorn about Creature's silence as I worked. If it was Critter with me instead, he would have been asking a million questions and fussing over me. Creature just stood behind me, still as a statue.

The scanner finished logging Wolf's biometrics and I felt a little better about everything. This would be a more reliable way to track Wolf, if a little roundabout. Even if he had appeared on my map, there was no way I would have been able to trust it while he was with the enemy. They could easily remove his positioning device and lay a trap for me.

This was a better alternative.

Standing up, I finalized the settings and a faint smile tugged at my face. Wolf had only shown me a couple of times how to do that and I was proud of myself for remembering. I wondered if he would be, too.

I activated the overlay and made sure his trail was visible: any and all traces he left before were highlighted in bright green no matter what vision mode I used. There was a toggle in case I needed to focus on something else.

"Okay, Creature. Let's start—"

A heavy weight slammed into me, sending me sprawling and knocking the wind out of my lungs. A split second later, the rock I had been standing on detonated, losing a chunk out of its surface.

Had Creature just saved me?

Before I could even finish that thought, Creature heaved me up and leaped about 60 feet away, using his wings to send us gliding well out of danger. Another blast from an unknown point destroyed the ground where we used to be.

We hit the safety of the treeline where the dense tree stalks could block some of the shots being fired. Small explosions had continued to follow Creature's mad dash and it was a shock to my system, creating a loud chaos in my mind. Creature was still holding onto me, so at least I didn't have to worry about taking care of myself.

It wasn't hard to figure out what was going on, though.

One of those fuckers was attacking us.

I didn't know originally where the blasts were coming from, but we were leaving them behind now. Part of me wanted Creature to turn the fuck around so I could go kick someone's ass, but it was better this way. They were shooting to kill, and I wasn't confident in my ability to take on someone trying with all their heart to end me.

Fine, he could carry me away to safety again.

However, one last shot cut us off at the pass and Creature had to stop short, screeching to a halt and jumping back.

The familiar sound of camouflage being shed reached my ears and I spun to face it, catching an imposing figure standing in the canopy above us. He was holding onto the stalk of a tall tree with one hand, both of his feet planted against it.

"I was not aware that the in'qua were such a sensitive race. I thought for sure that we could have killed the both of you before you even knew what happened," he said.

Ah, fuck. He said "we".

I didn't dignify him with a response and merely wriggled until Creature put me down.

He didn't look familiar, so he likely wasn't one of the three we had met before. All that did was make me wonder how many of these fuckers were out there trying to keep me from Wolf. The guy was about Wolf's size and his mask was remarkably plain. Almost like it was the base mold without any customizations.

A cut-and-paste NPC.

As if to confirm my suspicions from earlier, I once again heard another yautja shedding their camouflage behind us. I turned to face that threat while Creature kept his eyes on the stranger that had shown up.

"See? Humans are so predictable."

That wheedling voice I recognized, as well as the mask with the metal mandible. He was also in a tree, peering down at us with a posture that oozed contempt.

Lockjaw had come hunting for me.

I would have preferred it was Jackal so we could settle our score.

"I thought it was dumb that he made us post here and wait, but it seems like I was a fool to doubt him," the stranger said, sliding down the stalk and landing safely on the ground.

"I told you so." Lockjaw leaped down and I pressed closer to Creature.

I didn't have to ask who 'he' was. Clearly it was Titan.

"What did you do with Critter?" I demanded, addressing Lockjaw.

"Who?"

Creature took offense to that and hissed, turning away from Stranger for a few seconds to express himself.

"Ah, the other one . . . That reminds me, I have to go and finish that. Y'know he gave Who'ghar a lot of trouble and I had to step in! Do you think you can handle her?" Lockjaw sniggered, speaking to Stranger.

I struggled to remember who Who'ghar was, but it had to be Jackal. Titan's name was longer, like Wolf's was.

Stranger made a derisive sound. "Of course. It is but one human girl. How hard could it be? I'm not even that worried about the bug, no matter what you say."

"Fine, you'll just have to see for yourself. I'll be off! Don't play with them too long."

My anger flared but I wrestled it under control. I wasn't going to make the same mistakes over and over again anymore. It pissed me off that we were talking about me like I wasn't there, but I had to get a thick skin. I shouldn't give a fuck what they thought about me, anyway. They were nothing but obstacles that I needed to squash.

Lockjaw disappeared from view and I desperately changed vision modes so I could see his pulse retreat. The last thing I wanted was a surprise attack, but I'd stay vigilant even though it seemed like he really was leaving.

He was heading toward the ship. Critter must still be there. My first instinct was to chase, but Stranger was ready to fire if I did—I could see the sighting target waiting on a tree trunk.

Begrudgingly, I faced him and stood by Creature. "Be ready to fight. He is here to kill us."

"Can run," he said to me.

I didn't deny it, but I wanted to avoid it. If we could kill Stranger here, first, then it would be one less obstacle in my way when it came to saving Wolf. If we just ran without even trying to put up a fight, then it was only delaying the inevitable. I wanted to finish this now.

"As if I would let you go!" Stranger howled, lunging toward us.