The sun broke through the canopy of willowy green, revitalizing the land in its golden glow. Frost melted into dew beneath its rays, casting away shadow and softening the edges of the campsite. The pod, the vacant firepit, and the pilot asleep on his thermal blanket.
Bo groaned.
His eyes squinted against the light glaring through the trees. He didn't want to move. The warmth of Heaterin pressed up against him was comforting. Soft. Fluffy... firm. Wiry. Plump?
He shifted in the high grav.
Then the blanket moved.
Wild silver hair framed a pale face. Two wide doughy amber eyes stared up at him.
A woman?
Poking from her head were hairy ears not like that of humans but like that of an animal.
His brain short circuit.
Before the thought could fully form, she inhaled sharply and drove both feet upward into his chest.
Bo was launched.
He hitting the dirt, hard, and rolled to his knees. His HUD flickered awake as his spine hummed as LIRA reactivated.
Muscles pulsed with strength.
The woman was already standing in the light before him, silhouetted and furious, a heavy branch raised over her head.
Bo backstepped, narrowly avoiding the downswing.
[Hostile identified.]
Her outline pinged red in his vision. She circled him carefully, keeping the sun at her back, making sure the sun was in his eyes. Tactically sound, but LIRA was already adjusting the glare.
[Compensating for glare. Target visibility restored.]
[Movement analysis: 37% complete. Incoming lunge: broad arc, overhead.]
Bo ducked beneath the heavy swing. Her momentum carried her.
[Kick, right side.]
He blocked it with a raised knee, but the impact staggered him. She was stronger than she looked.
Bo winced. She didn't slow. The branch came flying at his face.
He almost raised his arm.
LIRA hijacked his reflex. His body responded, ducking under the projectile as it whistled past.
She closed the distance with a wide step, another strike, a tight hook punch. Fast.
He barely pulled back in time.
[Pattern recognition complete.]
LIRA surged through his spine. His vision shifted blue. Aflaah of projected grey image of the woman appeared—mid-motion, frame-frozen. Her next move according to LIRA.
Bo slipped the overhead punch and fired a tight counter to her jaw. She reeled back with a low growl.
[Do not hold back, pilot.]
Bo moved to follow up, reaching for her wrist.
But she slashed at him with her free hand—claws. Not nails. Actual, curved claws.
He caught the strike with his forearm. Cold pain flashed through him. Bo stepped back, the woman lept away.
His skin tore open. Silvery tendons revealed beneath the bleeding.
[Damage registered. Forearm laceration. Neuroblock engaged.]
[Updating combat profile. Recalculating.]
The woman shifted, her body low and colse to the ground. Almost like a crouch.
[Velocity spike in left leg. She's going for your neck.]
She burst forward meters in the blink of an eye.
Bo didn't blink, he moved.
She pounced, claws stretched and aimed to kill. He dodged, barely—her arm cut through empty air. Her heel dug into the ground, she twisted then followed with a wild arc.
Bo pulled back, a claw sliced his cheek.
She overreached.
He grabbed her wrist, yanked her forward, and drove his elbow into her temple. The strike connected—she staggered.
Bo didn't let go.
He pivoted, pulled her across his shoulder, and flipped her. Her back slammed into the ground. It would've been cleaner if his right arm wasn't damaged.
[Hostile destabilized.]
[Risk of panic behavior. Advise immediate control or disengagement.]
He knew he couldn't let her regain composure but he hesitated when he saw her bleed into a more human shape.
She didn't get up, the fight in her leaving he or exhaustion. LIRA was still on high-alert unsure whether to declare her as Neutralised or not.
The woman was growling, hissing and mumbling in a tone he didn't recognise.
[Analysing language phonetics.]
Bo ignored LIRA and walked around her to grab the blanket. Strolling back to her threw it over her.
She said something again throwing it off her in a grunting effort.
Bo took it and offered the blanket back, insistenting.
"It's cold. Take it." He sighed.
[You are offering your blanket to a dangerous hostile that tried to kill you. I suggest you take a different course of action—restrain it and attend to your wound before you attempt to fraternise with the xeno.]
LIRA chimed.
"She's naked." Bo observed with his arm still outstretched, eyes on hers.
[On that topic, the xeno oddly has human traits.]
"You think she's not human?" Bo said in a soft voice.
[How could it.]
The woman reached out reluctantly snatching the blanket wrapping herself it. She stared at Bo still puzzled, still cautious. She said something to him, her voice calmer this time.
"How could I not. Look at her." Bo responded, the woman looked at him with golden eyes. "Eh, honorary human xeno."
The women's pointy ears twitch, looking at him puzzled. She said something else with a confused tone in her voice he thinks.
[Dangerous thinking. The last time humans encountered xenos they tried to annihilate you. You've lost too much blood for full cognition clearly. I strongly suggest you restrain or extradite the hostile from our territory.]
"That was damn long ago... I'll think about it." Bo answered honestly.
Bo rose to his full height and limped away to the pod. His shin probably bruised beneath his pants.
[You're not thinking at all.]
Bo ignored LIRA, activating pod to spit out a first-aid kit inside its compartment. He pulled out a stem gun and injected it into his injured arm, his blood filled with Nantes working to stictch and remake muscle.
The women watched silently, curiously.
Bo wasn't sure what to do with her but one thing was clear, there are probably others like her and he'll need to interact with them to know which direction to go to the Great Crater—he decided to call it that—Where his comrades are.
He knew where they were from orbital but he'd need to restock so he can't live off the supplies, he'll run out and starve probably. .
Bo went to his combat armour, and put it on. A sigh leaving as the strength and certainty of steel aid relieved his muscles.
Once he was done he looked up to observe the xeno on the hill of the grass lands, where he first saw Heaterin.
Then the thought crossed his mind.
"What happened to Heaterin, did she get teleported in place of this woman or something?" He asked slipping the armour around his head.
[Right in front of you.]
"Please tell me you're lying..." Bo groaned.
LIRA toned in with a hint of exasperation.
[Nope, you heard well and true. Not only did you pet an unidentified xeno beast, but you also slept with a naked xeno humanoid "woman".]
"Nooo... don't put it like that." Bo wanted to crawl in on himself and despair.
[You have a two-in-one deal. Pilot, I know I said you need a partner but I believe it had the word 'human' in it as well.]
LIRA teased.
"Shut up..." He sighed looking up at the woman when she fishes out stretched clothes and sleek grey blades.
Right where Hesterin was.
"You tried disiphering her language. What's your verdict?" Bo wondered, going back to his drop pod to fish put his guns.
[Inconclusive. I'll make sure to run manual translations once I get sufficient data.]
Bo nodded to himself attaching the guns to his hips and back.
"I'll try and get her to lead me to a settlement or something. Maybe then you can get enough samples to get the translations working."
He took a ration pack and put it into his mechanical backpack that opened up from him at the thought. It potruded like a geometric turtle shell. "And we can work from there."
He looked towards the woman, or Heaterin. She was still here, just like Heaterin. So does that mean she remembered the day they bonded together. Granted he treated her like a dog but she acted like it, Bo reasoned.
Prehaps she simply just panicked when she attacked him and needed to be snapped out of it.
She was struggling to put on her stretched out pants and frayed cloths on under the blanket.
LIRA chimed.
[Bo I sense humanoid figures aproaching.]
His head immediately snapped away looking towards to trees turning on his thermals.
"Where." He said when LIRA pinged his HUD.
The 12 pinged appeared in the tree line and hoE close they. It was 120 meters then 100, then 80.
They were fast and eating up the distance ls sailing throught the tree line.
60, 40 meters.
Heaterin also sensed it, her stretched amd ripped cloths were wraped around barely covering her. She had bindings and gauntlets that she still put on using left over scrap to make, similarly so her cape was in tatters.
She took out her absurdly curved blade and looked at me a bit too long before barking something and growling to the tree line.
27 meters up in the tree line just at the border of the grasslands. They were watching only for a moment, only to jump down and slowly approacg when they we already know heir presence.
They spoke in that strange language too each other and Rinocco joined the conversation too.
They didn't go without eying me Bo with confusion and probably asking aboit him.
"LIRA..." Bo mumbled unsure of the situation.
[57% with the language analysis.]
Bo could not think to do anything else but watch helplessly unsure what they were talking about or if they were hostile or not.
All he could do was observe and wait for the translation analysis to go through and hopefully be enough to communicate.
They were humanoid, similar to Heaterin, of course the same species.
They wore tight blackened leather, sleevless brown tunics and wrapped themselves in a short cloak. A curved sword and skull sun sigil of some kind embroidered into it.Their sandals looked more like roman sandals, thankfully they spared Bo's eyes from lookig at their toes as the sandals only covered that much.
A few also carried the same curved sword Heaterin did, sheathed at their rear. One of them even had two.
They all looked at me and the pod again still talking, probably about Bo now or they were already on that topic.
Then situation was annoying him now.
"LIRA come on it can't be talking that long." Bo grumbled in his helmet.
[Would you like to try deciphering an entire xeno language in under a day, pilot.] LIRA retorted, [No? Then don't question the process, I'm almost done.]
They looked towards the direction of the bodies Bo had killed. Still obscured by the tall grass but the scent of decay had probably was enough to alert them.
Bo was planning to burn them but the problem with the wood stopped him.
The conversation seemed like it was escalating when 4 started slowly aproached Heaterin and the rest to Bo.
All were reaching out for their swords.
Heaterin backed up preparing hers, shrugging off the thermal blanket. She barked something to Bo and his muscles tensed.
[Basic language model complete 100%.]
LIRA chimed.
The gutteral voices were replaced with voices he could understand.
"This day just keeps getting more intresting by the second." One yawned aproaching Bo expertly unsheathing his sword.
"Lady, come with us right now. We don't need to make this hard." Another said stalking Heaterin down trying to reach for her.
Bo needed to act and fast, he yanked his auto pistol from his side and raised it up in the air in one motion and fired three shots.
Everyone around him recoiled back clutching their pointed ears.
Bo increased the volume in his helmet and boomed, "Stop, or you will die."
What? I didn't say that. I meant, "Stop where you are, any more hostility will be met with equal force."
"LIRA what was that?" He asked already muting his microphone in his helmet.
[I said BASIC language model was complete. While I can redirect your speach pattern to mimic that of the xenos, it's not like you'll be fluent. For now. Like a toddler.]
When they finally recovered they all looked to Bo now with faces of shocked, cautious and prehaps even fear.
"It talks!" One growled.
"He talks!" One corrected, "The great being talks!"
Bo cursed under his helmet, his grip tightening on his handgun. Dreading whatever he got dropped into.