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It wasn’t just my body, either: there were new techniques and maneuvers that had been developed while I’d been hiding. I needed to learn them, and I needed to learn them now. Notknowing them made me a liability when hunting with other warriors.
Many of the techniques had been developed for use while working with human warriors, but they worked just as well with other hunters. I had to begrudgingly admit after seeing some of them in use that they were both efficient and effective. Well, they had to be. Humans injured easily and could not heal as we did.
Most of the hunters training today were recovering from injuries, which is why they were on the mothership. There was also a pair of new hunters going through their initial training exercises at the far end, so fresh out of the vat they probably hadn’t even chosen names yet.
Only two? That was surprising.
Motherships grew new hunters to replace those lost on a planet. To be training only two hunters was low. But therewasanother mothership in orbit aside from the one I’d arrived in. Perhaps they were training more replacements there. But if it was indeed only two per ship, then casualty rates for hunters on Earth must be equally low. Surprising, since the nests I’d seen were in no way small.
I warmed up, watching the other hunters train. One of them moved with a limp, probably the result of permanent nerve damage from the scourge’s toxin. We were engineered to heal quickly, but even so, the toxin often left its mark.
Instinctively, I opened and closed my left hand. It still felt slower than before, and I doubted I’d ever have full use of it back. The injury happened early in my stay on Earth. All it took was a single swipe of a scuttler’s claws, right before I’d removed them from its body.
If I’d had access to the mothership and gotten to a medical unit right away, I could’ve healed fully. But as it was, I’d only had my hand-held medical unit. I was lucky the nerves grew back well enough that I was able to use it without a visible handicap. I still felt it, though.
They were practicing the new maneuvers I’d seen recently. Harb’k and Lok’n had shown me a few, but there were others that were still unfamiliar. As the hunters rested, I asked them to show me the maneuvers, explaining that I’d been hiding on Earth for years and had not learned them.
They looked surprised. Apparently, there were few hunters on Earth who were not familiar with the tactics. Many hunters from my contingent had come out of hiding, as Lok’n had, and had been working in hunter groups for years. Since it wasn’t a particularly large planet, they’d assumed the rest were all dead.
They explained that they had been using a PIP model to contact the shuttles of the missing hunters. Some of these other shuttles weren’t particularly smart. Their hunters had told them not to connect with any contact from the Xarc’n system, so the PIP model had simply told the shuttles that it was from somewhere else entirely, and the shuttles had let the connection through. The PIP model had also been broadcasting a message explaining that we were welcomed here on Earth in case we were listening.
My shuttle had been too smart to take the bait. It never replied or played me the recording.
After many hours of training, we stopped to rehydrate, tired but in a good way.
“Did you hear? The shipment of ore and raw materials is finally due from the mining ship within the next planet rotation,” said Ghur’r, the hunter with the noticeable limp.
“No. But that’s good,” I said. “I am missing a communicator. I’ve been going through my shuttle.”
“You too? Mine got spat on by a spitter.” Ghur’r rubbed a hand over his braids. “It melted into goo before I could get to it.”
I didn’t want to admit that I’d lost mine when I’d been tricked out of it by a female, so I stayed silent.
“Why don’t you just use one of the human ones?” Pagav’k asked. He was here because he’d crashed his shuttle.
“I had one,” Ghur’r said. “But those things are so delicate. It didn’t survive long. Did you know you’re not supposed to dunk it in water to wash it?”
“How are you supposed to get the scourge guts off it, then?” I asked.
The hunter made a frustrated sound. “No idea. Carefully?”
Unbelievable. I couldn’t imagine a piece of technology I had to coddle. My old communicator had been dropped in a river, swallowed and retrieved from the belly of an alien beast, and lost several times under piles of burning scuttlers. It still continued to work just fine. In fact, that was how I’d found it in the ashes once when I thought it was lost: my shuttle had connected to it and made it sound an alert.
I guess human technology was just as fragile and delicate as the humans themselves.
Take Sam, for instance: she was taller than the other females at the camp, but her body was still very small and weak compared to mine. And yet that didn’t stop her from trying to tell me what to do! I recalled the way she’d felt on my lap in the shuttle, the press of her lips against mine, the taste of her on my tongue.
I hadn’t planned on that kiss, but when she’d been so close to me, it had just happened as if on instinct. I’d only discovered what a kiss was from my research on human mating practices when I first arrived on Earth. I’d thought the ritual odd and somewhat disgusting, and would still think so if it were with anyone else besides Sam. With her it was… There wasn’t anything else like it on all the planets I’d explored.
I wanted her soft and pliable body in my arms again. She was like a light in the darkness, leading me forward with the promise of wonderful treasures. I wanted to believe in it. Trust it. I wanted everything.
But I knew I couldn’t. There was nothing for me but betrayal and pain with a human female, maybe even any female. I’d never met a single compatible one in all my years of fighting.
Ghur’r clapped me hard on the back. “Don’t look so gloomy. We’ll get our communicators soon. The mining detachment should be here anytime now.”
Thirst quenched and refreshed, we returned to training. I threw myself into it, just to avoid thinking of Sam and her delicious kisses.
Chapter 7: Sam
