Aurora of Rainbow Fire chapter four: Reward and Punishment part c.
A Tenchi Muyo TV series lemon comedy by Nugar. Email the author at nugarthebarbarian@yahoo.com with any comments. All characters and situations copyright their creators, Hiroki Hayashi and Masaki Kajishima, and AiC and Pioneer and are used without permission. This is a nonprofit work only.
Sunlight streamed down through the cloudless sky, bringing new life and vitality to the jungle. The temperature rose steadily, evaporating much of the rain that hadn't soaked into the ground and giving everything a musky, sticky pall.
High in one of the tallest trees around, Kiyone slept soundly, both hands grasping the limb behind her and her feet crossed behind the branch that supported the other end of her makeshift hammock. Her hair was tangled and matted, full of twigs, leaves, and dirt, as well as a broad selection of the native wildlife. She could be considered a ravishing beauty, a being straight from the most precious of fantasies, but only to a trained entomologist.
Biting insects of all sizes and shapes crawled over her semi-nude form, clad only in sweat soaked panties now that she had used the rest of her clothes to make her bed. Neither the oppressive heat and humidity nor the insects disturbed her exhausted slumber.
Another, more primitive humanoid shared the hammock with her, a medium sized monkey curled up on her chest and stomach, well out of reach of any possible predators and certainly in a better sleeping area than hanging on a limb by its own muscle power. Occasionally it would scratch furtively at its mangy pelt and roll over in its sleep.
A particularly raucous scream in a nearby tree caused the monkey to jerk awake, instantly scanning for predators. It cautiously looked over the edge of Kiyone's sleeping body, looking for any sign of the leopard that had turned yesterday into such an exciting event.
Nothing. No sign of the leopard, nor could the most careful sniffing catch any except old traces. Apparently, it had gotten bored and left, probably sometime during the flash thunderstorm the previous night.
Chittering in delight, the monkey scrambled down the tree and hurried off to find its family troop.
Several minutes later, Kiyone woke as well, groaning in agony as once silent muscles made themselves known to her again. Carefully, she brushed as many bugs as possible off and scratched herself all over, paying particular attention to her tangled mass of hair on her head, which seemed a few short steps from getting up and running off of its own accord. Her thighs and crotch were also subjected to vigorous scratching, eliciting many small cries of delight as she finally stopped some of the itching.
Or, in other words, Kiyone woke up that morning just like men do every day.
Another benefit of the scratching was that it helped limber her muscles up; isomeric exercises took care of the ones she couldn't move easily, at least to the point that she was ready to attempt getting out of the hammock.
Slowly, she eased herself to a sitting position, her legs dangling over the sides and her arms holding herself steady. From here she could take more accurate stock of her situation.
A careful examination of the tree below her turned up neither the leopard nor the monkey, and she grinned in delight. She hoped to never see either of them again, or if she did she wanted to have her GP blaster in hand. Her hand and foot were still sore, but they were usable and the punctures were well scabbed over.
It wasn't easy, but by pulling and scooting, she was able to get across to the limb at her feet and take all her weight off her clothes.
Really, she was quite amazed that they were still holding together. Between her weight and being tossed around all night, she half expected to plummet to her doom at any minute. Of course, now she had to get them back.
Again, it wasn't easy. The knots had swollen with water during the night, rendering them all but impossible to untie. Several broken and bent nails later, plus climbing around to the other limb to get that side, Kiyone finally looped the clothes around her middle and tied them off with a few simple knots. The bra she left where it was, deciding that it was far too much effort to retrieve.
Scratching awkwardly, she planned her route down. This was made more difficult by the fact that she couldn't remember the path she had taken on the way up, being more concerned with the teeth and claws behind her.
A plan in mind, she started her descent. At first it was relatively easy, just worming her way through the tangles of limbs set close together. Then, about halfway down, she ran out of limbs and encountered the initial smooth, long stretch of trunk that extended from about fifty feet up to the ground.
As big as the tree was around, she couldn't just wrap herself around it. Kiyone had to spread herself out and search for all the little toeholds and fingertip holds she could find. Her lack of proper shoes had probably saved her life here, although if she'd only had her gun she could have just shot the damned cat and been done with it.
Kiyone chuckled at the difficulty. Her initial ascent had been based so much on speed she had practically skimmed up the tree, touching it only briefly before launching herself up to a new handhold. Now she'd be a bit more careful, however.
Strong fingers found little indentations in the bark, and her toes dug in and curled around every protuberance she could find. She pressed against the trunk firmly; every inch on the tree was another inch she didn't have to hold up.
It was about ten feet down, right in the middle of a particularly slick section, when she ran into another little snag.
One of the things about free climbing was that it made her very aware of her body as muscles strained and fingers slipped. Very recently she had became aware of several somethings crawling around on her head, back, ankle, and in her pubic hair. Perhaps marching would be a better word.
She started to sweat. It itched. It itched badly. And no matter how much she wanted to, she couldn't take a hand off the tree to scratch. If she did, she would surely fall.
Mustering up all her mental discipline, she resolutely ignored the sensations of her skin crawling and resumed her descent, albeit a bit faster and sloppier.
And then something bit her painfully in the armpit.
She cried out involuntarily, clamping her arm down against her side and briskly rubbing it back and forth.
One heart sickening moment later, she was falling.
Her short second scream was punctuated by several grunts and groans as she fought for grip, nearly finding purchase once but her downward momentum proved too much for it. She ended up sliding almost another ten feet before she successfully halted.
Breathing heavily and wincing from the scrapes on her front, she hung there for several minutes, resting and trying to regain her nerve.
In her mind's eye, she could see thousands of little bugs moving across her skin in military precision. Hundreds of lice foot soldiers kept in line by flea sergeants and beetle lieutenants. Mosquitoes flew formation overhead, occasionally landing to bury their proboscises in her skin and refuel.
Needless to say, her skin _crawled_.
As more and more beads of sweat dropped down Her body, she had another mental flash of gnats surfing down her thighs.
"AHHHH!" she screamed, unable to take it any longer. Her descent was a barely controlled fall now, as she dropped from suspected handhold to handhold and scratched furiously whenever she had a free hand.
Misjudging her speed and distance, she put a hand where a foot should have gone. Suddenly she was falling again, and this time there was no stopping it.
Twenty-two feet were covered in the blink of an eye, and Kiyone landed heavily on the ground with an "OOOF!"
"Owwww..." she groaned, rubbing her sore leg and bottom. "Good thing the ground broke my fall," she said in an attempt to make light of the situation. Then she started scratching.
The accursed tree now proved its worth, as she backed up to it and squirmed all over, leaving a network of red marks on her back as she rubbed against small rough spots in the otherwise smooth bark. Her hands were no less busy, tearing at her hair, diving beneath her panties, rubbing furiously wherever they could reach. When they couldn't reach she stopped and contorted like a gymnast, rolling over and over on the ground as she scratched the middle of her back and the back of her left knee.
Only when she was covered in so many red marks that she looked like she'd been beat with a freshly inked wet road map did she stop, and then it was to examine one of the insects that had been plaguing her.
She didn't know its actual species, but it did look a lot like the common louse, which she knew from school. Another one was immediately recognizable from the time Ryo-Ohki had been infested with fleas.
"EEEWW! Earth cooties!" Kiyone exclaimed upon realization, both horrified and disgusted.
She needed a bath NOW. Flea dip would be nice, too.
The poor lost GP officer immediately pulled on her clothes and started searching for a river or lake, intending to drown her pests if nothing else.
Ten minutes work, interspersed with the occasional session of franticly clawing at her bites, located what was probably a section of the very same river that had claimed her partner.
Cooing in relief, Kiyone quickly shucked off her clothes and dove into the murky waters, their slow, stagnant depths as welcome as a soak in the finest onsen she'd ever been in.
Kicking strongly, she swam out into the middle of the river and dove, staying under as long as she could before coming up for a breath. Then she did it again, and again.
The water tasted strongly of decay and mud, and was quite gritty in her mouth, but it, too was welcome after almost a day without. She drank deeply, filling her stomach as much as she felt able. Hunger pains hadn't set in yet, but she had sweated out much of her body fluids in the jungle heat.
Once back in water only about as deep as her chest, she lowered herself in the water and scrubbed hard, scraping away the filth and insects. Swamp water would never be an acceptable substitute for shampoo, but she cleaned her hair with it just the same, combing through with her fingers to remove the litter.
After a night in the trees and hours of running through the forest, the cool water felt heavenly, and Kiyone began to enjoy herself for the first time since she had wound up in the alien jungle.
"Oook ook ook."
"Eek!"
"Mmgh, grunt grunt."
She whirled as fast as she was able to spot at least a dozen monkeys of another species sitting on the bank watching her.
They were larger, and their tails didn't look like they could be used for grasping like the other one's had. Longer faces and bright, hairless bottoms further served to set them apart. One yawned hugely, displaying a fearsome set of canine teeth.
Of further interest was that one of them was draped in her shirt, two were playing tug of war with her skirt, and another was climbing a nearby tree with her panties in its mouth.
"HEY!" she yelled, startling all of them. "You bring that back! Leave those alone!" she cried, splashing toward the bank to retrieve her clothes.
They scattered, all of them swarming up the trees overhanging the water. Once they were safely in the branches they sat down to watch her again.
Kiyone climbed out onto the bank, dripping wet and naked. She shook her fist at the monkeys in anger. "Now, dammit, stealing the clothes of a Galaxy Police Officer is a crime! You give those back or I'm going to have to bring you in!"
One grunted and picked through her partner's pelt for vermin.
"Alright, you forced my hand," she grumbled, searching for a rock to throw.
Unfortunately, there were none to be had. The bank was made entirely of mud and tree roots.
Kiyone compromised by grabbing up a handful of dirt and compacting it into a hard ball, which would probably disintegrate as soon as she threw it.
When she turned back around, she noticed that her skirt was no longer with the animals. It was now floating miserably in the middle of the river, directly below the monkeys.
"All right, good," she said, satisfied. "Now give up the rest of them."
One chattered brightly at her, but didn't seem too impressed.
Shrugging, she replied, "Well, don't say I didn't warn you." Then she threw the dirt clod at the one with her blouse.
As expected, the wad broke apart immediately, peppering over half the group with small pellets of dirt. The troop screeched in alarm and scattered, running along the limbs towards trees on the other side. Fortunately, both her panties and the shirt were dropped in the confusion, landing with soft splashes close by her skirt, which was just starting to sink beneath the surface. If she hurried, she could get all of her clothes back.
Kiyone hopped into the water and started wading out, keeping an eye on her clothes. The water was up to her waist when something long, narrow, and full of teeth rose out of the water, carrying her clothes along with it. The reptilian jaws snapped closed, and Kiyone levitated out of the water in sheer fright.
She arrived on the bank in record time, but her flight didn't end there. She was crouching on the limb the monkeys had so recently vacated before she allowed herself to stop, panting.
So much for her clothes. This planet was turning out to be far more dangerous than she'd originally thought. Maybe she'd get lucky and one of the native predators would eat the thing that attacked them.
Nah. She wasn't that lucky. The way things were going, _she_ would be the one eaten by an Earth creature. That or Mihoshi, but again, she wasn't that lucky.
And for the first time that day, Kiyone had cause to wonder where her partner was.
Mihoshi twitched slightly, curled into a fetal position on her right side. The ground was damp and covered in a thin carpet of short moss, but the occasional long strand waved its spore- laden head in the air, and occasionally in her ear.
By and large, though, she was comfortable. Even more so than stretching out on a hard wooden floor or stone patio. The ground, though lumpy, was fairly soft. Given a bit of luck, she'd catch another hour's worth of sleep before she rose to tackle the day.
She was sleeping so soundly, in fact, that she completely failed to realize that something had found her. The great grey quadruped should have awakened her with its heavy footfalls, but the soft ground did much to muffle its heavy tread.
This particular animal recognized the being curled up on the ground as a human, because it had a very good memory. Its name, at one time, had been Jumbo, and many years ago it had traveled all over the world with others of its kind, other animals, and many many humans. Now, years later, it found itself free in the jungle, far from its actual habitat, and staring at the motionless form of a human.
It wasn't sure, but it suspected that something was wrong. Humans didn't belong out here.
To really understand what happened next, you'd have to understand Mihoshi's full perspective.
The universe is a vast and wondrous place. Very vast. Amazingly wonderful. It is home to a vast and wondrous population. However, it is also home to a number of, well, not so wondrous beings. Demons, Evil Overlords, disease causing organisms, Juraians, lawyers, and many many more creatures large and small that should be exterminated for the good of the whole.
Enter Mihoshi, a Galaxy Policeperson. She had personally dealt with members of all the above beings, sometimes on a daily basis, and lived to tell the tale with her sanity intact. She didn't flinch when she looked Ryoko, a demonic space pirate, in the eye. She didn't cringe when Ayeka, a Juraian princess that would one day be Queen, asked her to pass the salt. She had met them and found them to be pretty nice people at heart.
However, in all of her adventures, all of her travels, and all of her missions, Mihoshi had never met and been forced to deal with a perverted tentacle monster. They were as tall as a person and twice as heavy, made of inhumanly flexible moist grey flesh and possessed of singular intelligence. They were the stuff nightmares were made from, at least for Mihoshi.
The tentacle monsters, or 'tentakajin' as they were now called, were originally bioengineered by the Juraians from a freshwater invertebrate amphibian found on Jurai's second colony at the height of the early biotechnological revolution, in which they made the transition from dead, metallic ships to the far more powerful living space-trees found in Jurai's first colony system.
First, they were food. Then, it became vogue for the middle class to keep one as a pet; an exotic creature from off world always drew attention. Upper class on Jurai being what it was, the hapless squid-like creatures were engineered to be larger and more intelligent. They became the elite lapdog, and many early tapestries depicted the stereotypical Mistress accompanied by her two faithful pets, each bulbous head reaching as high as her waist.
Later, they became a symbol of male power, always a controversial thing in the Juraian culture. Some especially good male scientists, tired of being second-class citizens, started making changes in the species, making them fully intelligent, hermaphroditic, and increasing the sex drive they possessed. The target, of course, was their very own overbearing wives. This was the start of the first MenLib movement.
Illicit sex clubs ran largely by males were rumored to have these mutated strains and would set them loose on lower class women for the entertainment of the hen-pecked men. Some were even released, and soon roving packs were believed to inhabit the sewers and back alleys of many major cities. As they would never attack men, only men were able to move freely and confidently, doing wonders for their self-esteem. Tentakajin, as they were now called, were hunted exclusively by men, and these men gradually grew in political power and influence.
Alas for the men, the women finally got sick of the headache, hired outsiders armed with robots to exterminate the menace, and squished the MenLib movement like a bug.
The tentakajin, fearing for their lives, immediately left the Juraian Empire in stolen ships, spreading their light shower of terror across the rest of the universe, which immediately blamed the Juraians, as usual.
The Galaxy Police exterminated them whenever they could find them, but they had a knack for hiding in the most unlikeliest of places. Every female GP officer, excepting those who liked that sort of thing, feared that, one day, she would be the unlucky one to discover a new nest.
Knowing this, Mihoshi was unpleasantly surprised to open her eyes that morning when a cold, wet, flexible, grey tentacle nuzzled her neck and trailed down the front of her body.
Mihoshi's shrill scream and the elephant's loud trumpet split the air and sent birds flapping into the sky, and the elephant immediately turned and ran from the painfully loud human.
Mihoshi blubbered in fear for a moment, cringing as the huge beast crashed through the jungle, but quickly realized that it was not one of the loathsome tentakajin. Giving a little shrug, she rose and set off into the jungle.
Kiyone limped painfully along a jungle path, staying alert and as silent as possible, although she could swear the skin between her legs was rubbing together with the same sound and texture of two sheets of sandpaper pulled across each other.
When she got back, she was going to have words with whatever moron wrote a certain section of the GP textbook on wilderness survival. In fact, she might just let the book speak for her, as she shoved it most forcefully where the sun didn't shine.
Use leaves, it said.
Broadleaf plants work fine, it said.
Kiyone swore briefly under her breath and made mental note to gather up a few bundles of a smooth textured broad-leafed bush that grew abundantly in the area. And when she got back to GP headquarters, she was going to distribute them in lieu of toilet paper to several people who were in charge of her field training.
And to top it all off, the damned bugs were simply unreal. No planet had any right to have this many species of insects that fed on people. Those Juraian 'natural evolution' people needed to be shot. Or worse, dropped off in their little preserve and forced to live here for a few years.
"Arg," she said out loud, the first such sound she'd made in hours. Indeed, it was the second sound she'd made since her happy cry of discovery when she found the path full of human footprints. The next, of course, had been her unhappy cry upon discovery that she was highly allergic to the juices a certain smooth textured broad-leafed bush secreted on its leaves.
The sun beat down mercilessly through the canopy, sending both the temperature and the humidity into the triple digits. She hadn't found drinkable water since the river that morning, she was tired, sore, bitten, and every step was a new exercise in pain. It was time for a break.
Rather than actively search for a seat, and possibly be bitten by something in or on the other side of whatever she sat on, she simply stopped and collapsed bonelessly in her tracks.
Kiyone sat there for many minutes, breathing heavily and trying to muster the strength to go on. Never one to be discouraged easily, she nevertheless found herself taxed to the utmost; all the little problems merging together into one big headache and overloading her ability to cope.
Kiyone had always prided herself on her near endless patience. Hadn't she suffered through four years of being Mihoshi's partner? And in that time, hadn't she faced problem after problem, injury after injury, and indignity after indignity? Hadn't she managed to deal with the complete absence of a love life? The ridicule of her peers, and worse, their pity? And in that time, she hadn't killed anyone who wasn't actively trying to kill her, and had even made the morally right decision every time it _seemed_ that Mihoshi was actively trying to kill her.
However, one thing she could admit that she lacked was an ability to shrug off the annoyances of life. One or two little snags she could handle, her only outward sign of annoyance being a slightly sharper tone of voice. Even three or four wouldn't completely push her over the edge, although it started to become clear to others that they had best stay out of her way. But when something became a constant annoyance, she simply went berserk.
This mission was something else entirely.
She had no outlet for her frustrations, of which there were many, many more than normal. No gun to shoot things. No one to beat within an inch of their life. And she couldn't even leave, because that was another one of the problems she couldn't seem to solve.
She sighed, a deep, heartfelt movement. "Maybe the others were right. We really are incompetent." She glanced at the sky, wondering what time it was. "I wish Mihoshi was here."
Her resolve, once like steel, wavered. Ryo-Ohki couldn't find her in a place like this. Only Yagami's sensors were that precise, and even then only with Mihoshi controlling them. Mihoshi was in the same situation she was, if she was alive at all. The six-armed asshole that caused this mess in the first place was hunting for her, and if he didn't find her, an Earth predator would.
"To hell with it," she whispered. "I don't want to play anymore." Kiyone let all of her muscles go as limp as they could, simply flopping back onto the ground. The big monster could just come stick a fork in her, because she was done.
Many miles away, in another part of the jungle, Mihoshi cowered down behind an old, incredibly huge tree, which had fallen and now lay on its side in a thick mass of thorny vegetation. It was so thick that she had had to worm her way in on her belly; each plant fighting for the light that penetrated the large hole in the canopy.
Somewhere outside the thicket, a huge striped feline roared in anger. It wasn't hunting, but it had chased a screaming Mihoshi through the jungle, breaking it off only when she had dove into the nearly impenetrable mass of brambles.
Really, all she had wanted to do was pet the incredibly cute little kitten, the one with the _adorable_ eyes and the soft, fuzzy fur. It had even mewled at her and licked her hand, shortly before she had to run. Some mothers were just too protective.
Mihoshi sat down and listened intently, waiting for the animal to return to its baby.
Why did everything seem to want to eat her?
The heat, humidity, and her exhaustion all combined to make Kiyone really sleepy as she lay on the ground. It was soft, and much cooler than the air. It really wasn't half bad. A good nap and she'd be ready to hit the trail again.
Oh, she wasn't serious about giving up and sitting there until something ate her. Oh, no, of course not. She was just throwing a really quiet tantrum. A stress-relieving, moral boosting exercise.
That's what she told herself, anyway, and would insist upon had anyone witnessed it. Kiyone never gives up, don't you know that?
Deep inside the recesses of her mind, one tiny part added, "At least not for very long."
Stressed both mentally and physically, she soon fell into a light, troubled sleep. She did not dream, nor did she move, remaining in the same arms spread position she had assumed when she lay down.
Her nap was miraculously uninterrupted for over an hour, until the sounds of something large and clumsy moving through the trail pulled her out of her slumber.
Disoriented and groggy from her sleep, at first Kiyone didn't know why she had awakened. She sat up and rubbed fiercely at her head, trying to clear her addled mind. She also took the time to scratch vigorously.
So it was with some surprise on both parts when a large naked African man stumbled out from behind a bush and nearly stepped on her.
"Ahhh! Kiyone yelled, hopping to her feet and assuming a fighting stance.
"Yahh!" the man replied, dropping a large leafy branch he was carrying and assuming an off balance, startled stance.
"Jesus Christ, lady, you scared the shit out of me!" he yelled in an obscure dialect of Swahili.
"Stay where you are and put your hands where I can see them!" she yelled back in the Earth dialect of Juraian, which was Japanese.
"What?" he asked, not understanding. He did recognize a martial arts stance when he saw one, and that combined with her obviously untrusting nature put him firmly in place. He was careful not to make any fast or threatening
"Do you speak Japanese?" Kiyone asked, being quicker to get to the point.
"Look, lady, I don't know what you're saying. Do you speak English?" he asked, switching languages. He examined her carefully. She was obviously of Asian origin, but from where he wasn't sure. Her facial features didn't fit any established pattern. The language did, however, and he tentatively pegged her as Japanese. He wondered why she was naked in the jungle, although he supposed it was an accident or something. She looked like she'd had a bad time of it.
Kiyone looked at him in incomprehension. "I guess you don't," she muttered to herself, and sighed. He hadn't made any threatening motions, and seemed concerned about her situation, if she read his facial expressions correctly. It was hard to tell sometimes.
Physically he was impressive, over a foot taller than she was, with clean-cut muscles standing out in his arms, legs, and chest. He also had the biggest penis Kiyone had ever seen in her life, and it was still soft.
(Damn,) Kiyone thought. (If that's what they get with natural evolution, I take back everything bad I've ever said about this godforsaken planet! Juraian men aren't half that size!)
He noticed her stare, shrugging when her eyes met his again.
Kiyone blushed furiously and relaxed her stance. "Sorry, I didn't mean to stare." She guessed that he replied that it was okay, he was used to it, but wasn't sure. The language barrier was going to be a problem.
Seeing her relax her guard, he advanced slowly, with his hands held up to show he meant no harm. "Look, I'm not going to hurt you," he said as non-threateningly as possible when she tensed up. His English was very good, almost accent free, although it didn't do Kiyone any good.
At first Kiyone thought he was going to attack, his stance being similar to several open-handed styles she knew. She quickly calmed herself. It was also typical of what most people thought was a gesture of peace. "I'm Kiyone Mabiki," she said, pointing to herself. "Do you know where we are?" she asked, gesturing around and hoping he would figure it out.
(Ah, her name,) he thought. (Mabiki Kiyone? That's kind of pretty. Better call her by her last name to keep from seeming too informal.) "Miss Kiyone?" he asked hesitantly, waiting for approval.
Kiyone winced at his accent, and was a little put off by his informality, but she supposed it was okay considering the circumstances. "Yes?"
(Hai, ah, I know that one. Good.) "Dretric," he said, pointing to himself. "Are you with someone?" He pointed at her, then gestured at the surrounding jungle and made a questioning sound.
Kiyone correctly divined that he was asking if there were any others with her. Hesitating barely a second, she shook her head. "Nope, just me!" she replied brightly, pointing first at herself, then at the jungle and waving her hand dismissively.
"Just you, then, good." He turned and beaconed for her to follow.
"A way out? Great!" Kiyone replied enthusiastically, falling in behind him.
They walked in relative silence for bout half an hour, following a bewildering series of twisty trails. Dretric stayed in front, figuring that she'd feel safer if she didn't have to watch her back.
The fact that he had to lead the way to prevent them from getting lost never occurred to him.
Kiyone held up as long as she could, not wanting to appear weak, but she finally had to tell him to stop. Her rash was getting worse and worse the more she walked.
"What?" he asked, turning around to see her stop, spreading her legs far apart.
Kiyone debated showing a stranger such an intimate area, but there was always the off chance that he could help. Blushing, she put her hand on the unmarked skin of her thigh and twisted, bringing the raw, red area into view.
Dretric immediately spotted the rash when she pointed it out and nodded in sympathy. "Yeah, jungle rot's a bitch. All that heat and humidity." He motioned for her to sit on the ground, saying, "I'll be right back. Just stay here." He hoped she'd understand.
Kiyone sat gratefully, hoping that she'd understood his gestures correctly. She watched with interest as he disappeared into the bushes, then snickered as what was undoubtedly a curse floated back to her ears, along with the sounds of breaking limbs. She shook her head. Handsome, well hung, and dumb as a brick. Oh, well. It was to be expected of a civilization that hadn't figured out interstellar travel.
The big black man returned several minutes later, proudly brandishing a fat green stalk of some succulent or another. He'd already removed the leaves and roots, leaving nothing but a soft, springy stalk.
Kiyone stood expectantly, glad he'd returned. She watched as he squeezed the end of the stalk, getting a thick, gooey sap on his fingers. He gestured at her rash with them but she took the stalk from him with a "Thank you, I'll manage." The sap was cool on the raw flesh, stinging a little when it was rubbed onto places where the skin had abraded away entirely. Kiyone sighed in relief as she crushed the fibers between her fingers, not stopping until the entire supply was a sodden wad in her fingers. The remainder, at Dretric's direction, was smeared on her many bites and scratches, doing much to relieve the itching.
This done, he squatted and patted his back, indicating she should allow him to carry her. He looked at her expectantly.
"No, I'm fine, I can walk now," she said, shaking her head. "Thanks, for the offer, though."
"Don't be stupid, woman," he grumbled, patting his shoulder again in irritation. "Just get on, you can't be very heavy."
"No, really, I can manage..."
"Get on," he insisted. "We don't have time for you to be a feminist."
Kiyone reluctantly wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, allowing him to carry her. She was assisted by his strong, muscular arms grabbing her thighs, and he seemed to bear her weight with little effort. It was certainly much easier for her than walking.
The village was a small, shabby affair. Small, irregular huts were thrown up at random around a large central grass pavilion. The builders seemed to have devoted little attention to the composition of the plants they used to make the walls and roofs, so long as at least most of the outside was covered by large, broad leaves. Small fires dotted the ground beneath the central structure, which had several holes in its roof to let the smoke out.
The village was populated by twenty to thirty adults, with a little more than half that number of naked, screaming children running around chasing assorted wildlife, including, much to Kiyone's annoyance, several monkeys. No one seemed to be wearing clothes, in fact. Kiyone guessed that it had something to do with the oppressive heat and humidity. One by one, the village fell silent as its members noted Kiyone's arrival on the back of her benefactor.
"Hey, look what I found in the jungle!" Dretric boomed, getting the attention of everyone, even those too slow to realize that they had a visitor.
"An outsider," the village whispered as one, drawing together in fear.
Dretric chuckled and continued in English, "She followed me home, can I keep her?" Seeing their looks of fear and apprehension, he hastened to add, "Don't worry, it's cool. She doesn't know a word of Swahili _or_ English. You can act normal around her."
Resounding cheers caused several small animals to bolt in fright, and Kiyone broke out of Dretric's grasp and backed away in fright, once again getting into a fighting stance as the village surged toward her, arms wide.
"HOLD IT!" yelled her friend, stopping everyone in their tracks. "You're scaring her, now go away." He shook his head and chuckled at the antics of his people. They got so carried away sometimes.
Kiyone stayed quiet as the big man talked, apparently explaining what had happened. At his apparent insistence, most of them resumed their business, although they continued to watch her openly. Several of the young men stayed, as did some of the women.
"YEOW!" she yelled suddenly as someone pinched her painfully on her rear.
"Eh heh heh heh," chuckled a skinny old man, proof that some people should be required to wear clothes. "She's a cute one," he said in a quavering voice, using English for her benefit. "She'll be perfect for the gang bang and sacrifice! Eh heh heh heh!"
Kiyone glared at him for the pinch, but didn't understand what he'd said.
"You're wasting your time, she doesn't speak English," Dretric told the old man.
"Whut?"
"I said," he said, leaning in toward the old man, "SHE DOESN'T SPEAK ENGLISH! YOU'RE WASTING YOUR TIME!"
"Ahhh! My ears! Don't yell so loud!" complained the toothless old letch. "You should respect your elders, boy!"
Dretric threw up his hands in exasperation. "Whatever, just leave her alone. I wouldn't want you getting hurt." He turned to Kiyone and motioned for her to find a seat before he left to get supplies from his hut.
Kiyone watched him go, and was about to do as she was bade when she noticed the old man arguing with a large woman carrying both an air of importance and a bundle of cloth.
They argued for several moments; the old man screaming his authority and the woman giving him a disdainful look as she calmly stood her ground.
The argument increased in volume and number of participants as several of the other men joined in, as well as some of the woman. Many times they gestured wildly in her direction, possibly making some sort of important point.
The stranded GP officer stood her ground, poised and ready should the crowd turn violent and turn on her. She didn't like the idea of having to run back into the jungle, but it beat slaughtering a village full of natives.
Just barely, but it did.
Eventually the argument wound down as the participants got bored and left, leaving only the old man and the woman. He stood between her and Kiyone, putting his skinny frame, quavering voice, and white hair directly in the personal space of the much larger woman. He gave every indication that it would take an act of the gods themselves to move him.
The large woman, finally getting tired of his antics, brought one massive arm around and sent him sprawling in the dirt.
Undeterred, he jumped back up and resumed standing in her way.
She sighed, threw up her hands, and left, taking the bolt of cloth with her.
Kiyone snapped her fingers mentally. (So much for that.) She watched warily as the white haired man approached her, grinning horrendously and rubbing his hands together.
Elsewhere in the village, Dretric was hurriedly preparing several types of salves and bandages, made from plants that grew locally. He cursed the lack of proper supplies, but reasoned that the cheap variety would serve just as well.
He loaded up his materials in a large woven basket made from dried grasses and looked around, wondering what else he would need. She could stay the night in the village and rest, and then he'd escort her to the closest city and see if they couldn't get her back to her people.
A high-pitched, quavering scream interrupted his musing.
"ARG! My brittle old man hip!"
Scattered applause soon followed.
Mihoshi stumbled out of the jungle abruptly, surprised to discover a well-worn dirt road in the middle of the jungle. Tracks ran both ways, making it difficult to decide which way to go.
In the end, she did what she usually did when faced with a question of which where to go. She spun around until she got dizzy, and went in the direction she ended up facing when she finally fell down.
Kiyone sipped at a crude clay cup full of a light grey local brew and gnawed intently on a piece of shriveled and blackened meat which bore more than a passing resemblance to a monkey arm. It was tough, but strangely satisfying. Kind of like soul food. Her scrapes and cuts had been smeared with salve and the nasty bite on her ankle was covered with a leaf wrapping held in place with a few twisted vines. She'd waved him off when he'd started to do the same to her hand. Her artificially boosted immune system was more than up to the task of keeping it free from infection.
She sat on the ground in front of a small hut on the edge of the village, which she assumed belonged to Dretric, since he routinely entered and messed with this or that. Currently he was seated beside her, chewing on the last of his own meat. He had declined the fermented gruel she was drinking, choosing instead to drink water.
Kiyone sniffed, regarding that as a curiously primitive trait. She had seen what lived in the local water, and wanted no more part of it. Alcohol was much to be preferred. Still, she was glad he'd invited her to dine with him.
Dretric, on the other hand, couldn't believe she was drinking the beer, but supposed that she had never been unfortunate enough to watch it being made. He knew _he_ would never touch the stuff. He marveled at her intestinal fortitude, although not just because she was eating and drinking without complaint. She seemed happy, almost, and more or less at ease in the strange surroundings. He hadn't been nearly so at ease when he first arrived.
They sat in companionable silence, watching as some men and women dragged large branches together on top of a burnt out fire pit. More fuel was added in the form of dried grasses and twigs, forming the basis for a good-sized bonfire.
Kiyone was highly impressed when one of the men kneeled behind the pile for a few moments, then backed away quickly as the tinder burst into life. She had never been so quick at starting a fire by rubbing two sticks together, and she'd always done well in primitive survival.
She was so involved in watching the flames flicker and leap up that she didn't noticed the man throw a Bic to another guy with a word of thanks.
"Fire."
Dretric looked over at her in surprise. That was the first thing she'd said since what he assumed was 'thanks' when she'd accepted the food and drink.
"Fire," Kiyone repeated, watching the ceremonial flames introspectively. "Right up there with the pointy stick."
He shrugged, bewildered and not understanding.
"Fire and pointy sticks. Always the first two things to be invented by an evolving species." She sat thoughtfully, taking another drink of the thick, chunky brew. "Except for that fifty armed bunch that came up with the aerosol deodorant first," she amended, and frowned at the thought of extra arms. She glanced sideways, taking another big drink.
The big man was watching her curiously, seeming to understand her desire to wax poetic. He also kept an eye on the other villagers, but showed no desire to join them.
"You're different aren't you?" Kiyone asked him, knowing that he couldn't understand. "You're the sane one, the one that always knows what to do, and does it. I can tell just by watching you." She sized him up.
He returned all his attention to her when she addressed him directly, giving her a questioning look.
"You don't fit in with these people," she continued, making a wide sweep with her arm that encompassed the entire village, and perhaps the whole world, considering what she already knew of the human race. "You think too much. You don't accept things as they are. You want to know _why_." She smiled at him. "One day, if you get the right opportunities, you're going to change the world, aren't you?"
Dretric shrugged noncommittally and gave her a hesitant nod. "Yes?" he asked.
"Hah, I knew it," she laughed, smiling when he smiled back.
He idly wondered how long she had been in the jungle, and whether or not it had affected her mind. Never mind, just smile and nod, smile and nod.
Kiyone abruptly stopped and gazed intently at him, wanting to fix his image in her head.
The light was fading, and the sounds of the jungle were getting quieter and quieter even as the sounds of the village were getting louder and louder. Some sort of party or ceremony was clearly in the works, and Kiyone could only hope that she wouldn't be called upon to participate.
"You know what I like most about you?" she asked him abruptly.
His head jerked around in surprise. He'd been looking at the fire again. "No?" he hazarded. He hated not being able to understand what she was saying.
"You're not silly. Oh, you don't know what it's like living with a scatterbrain, or having one as a partner. Or having to deal with that crazy princess and the rest of the nutcases." She threw up her hands in exasperation.
"Get this. There's this princess, right? She's one of the most important beings in these galaxies. She's had all the best schools, had her own ship, and she's got a good chance of being the next Queen of the empire, finally getting rid of the man currently sitting on the throne."
She stopped and snickered. "Not that Emperor Kashi doesn't make a good Queen, but it's technically supposed to be for a woman." She shook her head. "But I digress.
"Anyway, she gets here, falls head over heels for a cute guy, and goes completely nuts. She's worse than a common schoolgirl panting after a star athlete. Her _and_ Ryoko. In fact, if anything, Ryoko is worse! I've seen prostitutes who weren't that blatant. I sometimes want to ask what she's going to charge him after they're through. There's being attracted to a guy, and then there's obsessing."
She sighed. "Not that Tenchi is that bad of a guy. For a human he's downright civilized. Serious. Smart. The kind of guy a girl could really go for." She gave her audience a wan smile. "Kind of like you, only he's a lot smaller." She glanced down before she could stop herself.
He raised an eyebrow, easily figuring out where she was looking, and chuckled when she turned away and blushed.
"Sorry, didn't mean to be rude," she apologized. "But it is rather prominent."
They sat in relative silence once more, watching the sky fill with bats as the sun sank beneath the horizon behind them. There would be some light left for a little while, and then they would have to rely solely on the fire.
"And Washu. Almost the silliest one of them all." Kiyone cursed lightly. "She's a _genius_. Supposedly the smartest being in the universe. Yet she acts like a seven year old on Sugarsmack," she continued, referring to a popular Juraian breakfast cereal blend of sucrose and heroin, noted both for its ability to get you going in the morning and the withdrawal symptoms it caused when you ran out. "She's going to accidentally destroy the universe one day, I just know it."
Dretric remained silent, worried about how her mood had went from somber, to humorous, to morose in the space of a few minutes. Then he remembered that she was a woman, as well as possibly drunk, and promptly wrote it off as 'one of those things'.
"And then there's Mihoshi, _the_ silliest one of all," Kiyone said, following her line of thought to its logical conclusion. "I guess I miss her. I wish she was here," she said wistfully.
"Hello! Do any of you speak Japanese?"
Everyone in the village just stopped, staring at the new arrival. Even Dretric looked up in surprise, startled to hear someone else speaking the same language as his charge.
Kiyone swore an oath so vile she startled herself, not bothering to look up. (I guess I should have known she'd turn out to be like that old legend of the squid-headed god. Don't say the name unless you're ready to deal with the being, girl,) she chided herself.
Dretric looked down at her. "Hey, I think one of your friends is here! Come on!" he said excitedly.
Kiyone reluctantly allowed herself to be pulled to her feet, reacting to the news of her partner's arrival with all the enthusiasm she'd give to the idea of repeating 'How to resist torture -3045'.
Mihoshi looked around at all the naked people in awe, feeling acutely overdressed in her GP uniform.
They were all _staring_ at her.
She shifted uncomfortably. "Ano, anyone?"
"Yeah, I do."
Mihoshi's heart leapt. She'd know that flat, depressed monotone anywhere. "KIYONE!" she cried, scanning the crowd for her friend.
Kiyone braced herself as Mihoshi's face lit up, knowing that she'd been spotted. Wait for it, here she comes... "OOF!" Now, try to breathe. "I'm happy to see you too, Mihoshi," Kiyone said, surprising herself with her own sincerity. Despite her overly dramatic statements earlier, she had genuinely missed her partner.
"Oh, Kiyone! I was so worried! That monster kept chasing me all through the jungle, I just knew it had already eaten you and was coming to finish me off, and there was this bug that boiled, and this big, mean cat, and I was almost raped by a tentacle monster! I don't like this place! Can we go home? I saw Ryo-Ohki pass overhead, but they didn't hear me. What should we do?" She barely gave her partner time to shrug before she was babbling again. "I see you found a native village, do any of them speak Japanese? Maybe we can call Mr. Masaki and have Sasami get in touch with Ayeka?" She looked over at the tall man standing close beside the dark haired girl. "Is this your fri- GOODNESS! That's a very large penis you have there Mr. Human!"
Dretric covered himself with both his hands, even as Kiyone slapped a hand over her face in embarrassment. Such a short time, and she'd already forgotten how much Mihoshi could embarrass her.
"And why are you naked? Am I interrupting something?" she asked, the sexual implication clear in her voice and grin. Then she looked around again. "Oh, is it because everyone else is? Should I take my clothes off, too? I guess I'd better, I'm standing out like a sore thumb..." Mihoshi giggled in both relief and mounting nervousness, then started taking off her clothes, much to the delight of the village males.
Dretric stared in shock.
Kiyone noticed this and ground her teeth in anger. "Fine. Whatever. Do whatever the hell you want, Mihoshi. Dance around, make a fool of yourself, maybe Ryo-Ohki will notice. I am tired and I'm going to bed. Don't bother me." She turned on one heel and stalked off in a huff.
Dretric looked back and forth between the two girls, caught in indecision. On one hand, he needed to take care of the newcomer, who seemed to be quite insane. On the other hand, Miss Kiyone was going to get lost or eaten if she wandered off into the jungle mad like that. In the end, he decided that he liked the other girl best, and hurried to find her. That crazy blonde would probably fit right in, anyway.
Several minutes later, he found Kiyone several hundred yards down the dirt road leading to the village. It was difficult to see this far from the light, but he was able to track her by the noise she was making. Judging by the sounds, he supposed that she was taking out her frustrations on a tree. Part of him hoped that it wasn't anything endangered.
"What do you want?"
The sudden voice startled him when it came from his right. He hadn't known she was so near. "Is something wrong?" he asked.
"Why aren't you back there, watching Mihoshi?" Kiyone asked bitterly. "Everyone else is. Everyone always is."
"Look, we can ask each other questions all night, but we can't understand each other. Why don't you tell me all about it, I'll smile and nod, and you'll feel better?" he asked, demonstrating a practical streak. He sat in the dirt and patted the ground beside him. "Come on, sit down. I doubt anything is going to mess with us."
Kiyone had excellent night vision, which, although slightly fuzzy from unshed tears and alcohol, was good enough to see shapes. She accepted his invitation, collapsing to the ground beside him and ignoring the sharp rocks digging into her skin.
"One-" She stopped and swallowed, then tried it again. "One of the things you have to understand about Mihoshi is that she's unbalanced. She squeaks by on the psychological tests every time. They're the only tests she almost fails; in everything else she's the top score. Even," she added, "above me."
Dretric nodded in a complete lack of understanding, but offering his sympathy.
Kiyone continued. "Basically, she doesn't get it. But she doesn't have to. She's the luckiest person I've ever seen, and she's always got people like me around to keep her out of trouble. Only, it's a full time job, and I'm getting tired of it. I'm tired of the embarrassment. I'm tired of the demotions, which coincidently always follow a promotion. I'm tired of being looked down by my peers. I'm just tired."
She smiled wistfully as her companion, no, her friend, made a few noises of understanding. "She has caused me more headaches in a week than all the alcohol I've ever drank in my entire life. And still I put up with it, because she's my friend and partner.
"Ever since we met in the Academy, we've been paired up. I suppose it's my fault, really. I tried to take care of her from the start. I guess I admired her spirit, her way of getting along with anyone, and her devotion. I even helped her study for exams, because she seemed so ditzy that I thought she'd flunk out immediately without my help." She chuckled ruefully. "Little did I know," she said in a singsong voice. "She did better than I. Always. Even in field tests, she always came out ahead. I, of course, was clueless. Mostly. They don't let the cadets see each other's grades.
"The instructors did notice how much I tried to help her, and as no one else wanted to, they put me as her partner. I've been stuck with her ever since. Except that time I was framed for a murder and spent six months in jail with a big woman named Bertha. Mihoshi freed me, somehow. I couldn't understand her explanation. And the time I was frozen in carbonite by a super villain and sold on the open market as a creative paperweight." Her hand clenched into a fist. "Mihoshi ended up buying me because, in her words, I reminded her of her old partner and she wanted something to remember her by. She 'dusted and waxed me everyday' for four months, because she liked the ambiance I gave her room." She shook her head in disbelief. "I doubt it. I figure she used me as a place to hang her panties, it's what she does with everything else. Still, I suppose I should feel lucky that she eventually discovered the control panel and figured out the sequence to thaw me. Somehow, though, I don't.
"And then there was this last time. Trapped aboard a derelict ship, left behind because she thought I was dead, and I finally get rescued a year later." She paused and thought for a minute. "You know, now that I think about it, I haven't really been her partner all that much." Amazed at this novel idea, she marveled in silence before resuming her exposition. "Anyway, then I had to save her this time. What happens? I get stuck here, and don't even get me started on all the crap I've put up with her since we started living on Earth. I even had to find that damned vibrator for her. She gets to have sex with a mechanical aid, and what do I get? Pfeh," she spat. "Guess."
He shrugged and leaned away from her fit of anger.
"I'll tell you. No one. Not one damned person," she finished. "Mihoshi has run off every single boyfriend I've had since I was a teenager. I haven't even had sex in five years! FIVE YEARS!" Kiyone jumped to her feet and screamed at the heavens. "WHY GOD? WHY DO YOU HATE ME SO?"
Her scream was as loud as she could make it, and hit an amazingly high pitch. Coincidently, it scared the hell out of a bat flying directly overhead, which reacted in a manner similar to that of a frightened bird. The resulting ounce of guano obeyed the laws of physics to the letter, falling about ten feet down and three to the side, landing directly on Dretric's shoulder.
"EWW! Damned bats!" he yelled in surprise, flinging it off.
Kiyone jumped and stared at him, blinking in astonishment when she realized he was scraping something dark and smelly off his shoulder.
"Guano," he said, chuckling. "You know, bat shit?"
She smiled softly to herself, realizing what that gunk probably was. She then sat down heavily, both palms flat on the ground. Several deep breaths later, she cleared her throat and began. "Sorry about that," she apologized hesitantly. "I'll calm down."
Dretric looked around nervously. Most animals had long since learned to avoid the villages, even the tigers, but they could still be attracted by a scream.
He needn't have worried. Even a hungry tiger knows better than to take on something that made a scream that full of rage.
They sat in the dirt for a while, each thinking dark, personal thoughts.
Back at the camp, Mihoshi was making friends. Unlike Kiyone, she had no problem making conversation with someone who didn't know her language. Somehow, they understood her. They smiled and nodded a lot, anyway.
Mostly, it was males at first, but more and more of the women started chatting with her as she cheerfully helped them drag large logs around into a circle around the fire.
She always seemed to have an audience, especially when she had to bend over to pick something up, a detail she missed entirely. Some of them stared openly when she performed impressive feats of strength, at one point lifting her end of a log off the ground and setting it down over a hump. It unintentionally warded off would be harassers, especially the ones that had seen Kiyone slam the old geezer into the ground.
Mihoshi sat on the logs with most of the rest of the village, choosing a seat near what she recognized as a set of primitive musical instruments. She always enjoyed watching other people play, although she preferred to sing and dance.
As she was unfamiliar with the music, she elected to sit and watch for a while. The resulting simplistic mix of tapped tin cans, large hide drums, bottles with rocks in them, and a startling variety and range of sounds made by two young males was not only amazingly pleasing to the ear, but it also sounded familiar. And when several others started singing, well, Mihoshi knew every word.
One of their recent temp jobs had been at a mall music store, a job that they had proved well suited for. Between Mihoshi's looks and Kiyone's hair color, they blended in well with the somewhat eclectic clientele. The store kept a selection of hits playing in the background, and not all of the music had been J-pop. There was quite a selection from other countries, frequently in English or French, and often in a mix of Spanish and English. The very next time they had gone to a karaoke bar, Mihoshi had astonished her partner by being able to sing perfectly all of the songs she had listened to, despite not knowing exactly what she was singing.
Delighted, Mihoshi waited for another familiar song to come around, clapping along with the rest of the audience when appropriate.
The loosely organized band had to pause after the next song while the two young men drank from nearby clay mugs. After a short delay, they resumed play. One man started tapping rapidly on a tin can dangling on a string tied to a stick, giving some rhythm. A younger boy, perhaps around twelve or thirteen, took a pair of polished sticks and started beating on a set of different sized drums, adding to the beat with astonishing precision.
Mihoshi's ears perked up. There was no mistaking that beat, especially since it had been played often enough within her hearing that she knew all the sounds, even the hard to understand ones. Her linguistics training had really came in handy there, although her skill owed more to her natural talent than any class she had taken. She also noticed several of the naked village girls getting up and parading through the center of the gathering, walking with an exaggerated gait designed to draw attention to their most prominent features, that of their large, round posteriors. It _had_ to be that song.
She quickly stood up, drawing the immediate attention of all those around her.
The villagers stood back in a loose semi-circle, waiting and watching to see what this funny foreign girl would do.
Mihoshi swallowed nervously at first, but she had never been one to be very self-conscious. With a sense of timing that had occasionally won small prizes, she seemed to cast aside her cheerful personality in favor of that of an 80's rap star. Appropriate, really.
Slapping both hands on her own bare backside, she took a wide stance, drawing everyone's eyes. "I like big butts! And I cannot lie!" she sang lustily in passable English, trying to match the original accent as much as possible.
Truly, she was right, that was exactly the song the band had started. The crowd whooped in approval even as the bass drummer started his own slow beat.
"You other brothers can't deny!" she said, sweeping her finger in an arc that pointed at various men, as she had seen the rappers do in a video. "When a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist and a round thing in your face you get sprung!" She crossed both wrists over her groin and thrust her hips.
"Wanna pull up tough, 'cause you notice that butt was stuck! Deep in the jeans she's wearin', I'm hooked and I can't stop starin'!" Gradually getting loosened up, she made a few wild gestures as she sang with the beat.
"Oh, baby! I wanna get with ya, and take your picture! My homeboys tried to warn me, but that but you got makes-" She abruptly pointed at one of the girls standing by expectantly.
"Me so horny!" she moaned on cue.
Gratified, Mihoshi grinned wildly as the audience cheered, continuing even more elaborately than before.
Kiyone looked up as the sounds of music reached her ears, along with Mihoshi's voice. She listened for a moment, then shook her head. "She's doing it again."
Dretric, who had been listening with some interest, looked over at her, being just barely able to make her out in the darkness now that his eyes had adjusted properly. "Is that your friend?"
"Mihoshi..." Kiyone growled, then realized that she was being petty and immature. "Ah, well. At least she's making friends."
Dretric was starting to get an idea of the complex nature of the relationship the two girls shared. Privately, he suspected that Kiyone had an inferiority complex. The other girl was friendlier, had managed to avoid getting lost, or at least he assumed that she wasn't lost, and had bigger breasts. So far as he knew, those were matters of competition among women.
Kiyone inhaled deeply, drinking in the heavy night air. Strange plants, strange animals, and one big stranger right beside her all perfumed the air with a musk unlike any other. Hesitantly, she reached out an arm and wrapped it around the much larger man's neck, allowing her hand to rest on his shoulder.
Dretric flinched at the touch, not having seen her move in the dark, but he forced himself to relax.
Emboldened by her success, Kiyone leaned her head against his bare shoulder, liking the way his muscles moved and bunched when he slowly reached out and put his own arm around her. Here, at last, was someone who knew what it was like to be shit on almost as much as her, and who took it in good humor. Maybe she could learn something from him.
"Oooh!" she cried as the bass drummer hit a particularly hard beat. "Rumplesmoothskin, you say you wanna get in my Benz?" she said, pointing both hands at herself, then at some of the girls. "Well use me, use me, 'cause you ain't that average groupie!"
By then most of the crowd was hip grinding or moving to the beat in some other way, although none of them ever looked away from Mihoshi, centered in the imaginary spotlight.
"I seen her dancin', t'hell with romancin'! She's sweat, wet, got it goin' like a turbo vet." She danced over to the band, then whirled and faced the crowd. "I'm tired of magazines, sayin' flat butts are the thing! Take the average black man and ask him what, she gotta pack much back." She grabbed each of her own cheeks in both hands and swayed her hips back and forth to the beat.
Following the remembered moves from the videos, Mihoshi suddenly pointed at the guys, who knew their lines were up. "So... Fellas!"
"YEAH!"
"Fellas!"
"YEAH!
"Does yo girlfriend got the butt?"
"HELL YEAH!"
"Tell'em ta shake it,"
"SHAKE IT!"
"shake it,"
"SHAKE IT!"
"shake that healthy butt!" Mihoshi cried. "Baby got back!"
The bass drummer started up again Mihoshi lapsed into momentary silence and the two young men started scatting; making various sounds with their mouth without actually singing.
Mihoshi watched them curiously; she'd been wondering how they were going to handle this part. "Baby got back!" she sang again at the right time, although she did wonder what it meant. Oops, it was her turn again.
"I like 'em round, and big! An' when I'm throwin' a gig I just can't help myself, I'm actin' like an animal. Now here's my scandal. I wanna getcha home, and UNGH!" she cried, balling her hands into fists and hip thrusting once. "Double up UNGH! UNGH!" she finished, thrusting her crotch twice more in unison.
"I ain't talkin' 'bout Playboy, 'cause silicone parts are made for toys! I want 'em real thick and juicy, so find that juicy double, Mixalot's in trouble, beggin' for a piece of that bubble." She pumped her fist several times as she'd seen others do, and the villagers loved it.
"So I'm lookin' at rock videos, none o' these bimbos walkin' like 'hos! You can keep those bimbos, I keep my women like flo jo. A word to the thick soul sistas, I wanna get with ya, I won't cuss or hit ya, but I gotta be straight when I say I wanna-" Mihoshi paused a second to let several girls moan, "till the break of dawn! Baby got it goin' on! A lota simps won't like this song, 'cause them punks like ta hit it and quit it, and I'd rather stay an' play!"
Mihoshi started dancing her way out away from the band, getting in the group, which parted before her. "'Cause I'm long! And I'm strong! And I'm gonna get the friction on!" She pointed at the girls, again following the memorized actions she'd seen two weeks previous. "So... Ladies!"
"Yeah!"
"Ladies!"
"Yeah!"
"Do ya wanna roll my Mercedes?"
"Yeah!"
"Then turn around, stick it out, even white boys got ta shout, baby got back!"
Again the bass drummer started up louder than before, covering as everyone lapsed into silence, getting their breath back. Mihoshi breathed heavily, but there was a near maniacal gleam in her eyes. She was in her element. To prove it, she shouted, "BABY GOT BACK!"
Laughing quietly to herself, she started walking a slow circle around the gathered crowd, paying special attention to the few that seemed especially shy, singling them out for the others to see. "Yeah, baby. When it comes to females... Cosmo ain't got nothing to do with my selection. Thirty-six twenty-four thirty-six... Heh heh, only if she's five-three."
"So your girlfriend rolls a Honda, playin' workout tapes by Fonda, but Fonda ain't gotta motor in the back of her Honda. My anaconda don't want none unless you got buns, hon. You can do side bends or situps, but please don't lose that butt! Some brothas wanna play that hard roll, an' tellya that the butt ain't gold, so they toss it, and leave it, and I pull up quick to retrieve it. So Cosmo says you're fat. Well I ain't down with that!"
"'Cause your waist is small and your curves are kickin', an' I'm thinkin' 'bout stickin'..." Mihoshi paused, giving everyone a wide grin. "To the beat," she continued as the bass drummer hit another hard lick, "all things in the magazines, you ain't in this thing. Gimme a sister I can't resist her. Red beans and rice didn't miss her. Some knucklehead tried to dis, 'cause his girls are on my list. He had game but he chose to hit 'em, and I pulled up quick to get with 'em."
Mihoshi gathered her strength and stamina for the final part. "So ladies if the butt is round, and you wanna triple-X throw down, dial one nine-hundred Mix-A-Lot, and kick them nasty thoughts. Baby got back!"
Mihoshi fell into silence again, breathing hard but flushed with excitement, allowing the scatting pair to take up the unusual sounds again.
"Baby got back," she said again, watching the villagers dance. Suddenly, she paused abruptly to look directly up, tracking some thing only she could see.
The scatting pair also stopped immediately, as did the young drummer and the man with the tin cans. Soon the entire village was copying Mihoshi, looking up in what they guessed was either a religious vision or a new dance. Either way, they wanted in on it.
Except for the bass drummer, who was lost in the rhythm of the moment.
Everyone jumped back, startled as the new girl started jumping up and down, screaming and running back and forth waving her hands.
"HEY! RYOKO! AYEKA! TENCHIIII! DOWN HERE! DOWN HERE!" Mihoshi screamed, hopping up and down.
The villagers were delighted! It _was_ a new song and dance! They joyfully took up the chant as well, screaming and laughing and dancing around in their best imitation of the wild gyrations the blonde outsider was performing.
The silent musicians soon got the feel of it, and took up the beat again. The rest of the villagers, after listening to Mihoshi repeat herself, figured out the loud bits and mumbled their way through the rest of it, in effect remixing Mihoshi's chant.
"AIE! RO-KO! AIE-KA! TENSHIIEE! KOKO! RO-KO!" they yelled, each person with his own slightly different version according to what each heard. After a few repetitions the rough spots were smoothed out and they got into the groove.
"What to do, what to do?" Mihoshi mumbled frantically to herself, trying to think of a way to get the other's attention before they left. "I know!" she exclaimed. "My uniform!" She lost a few seconds precious time as she ducked and wove between the madly waving villagers, running to the disorderly pile she had left her clothes in. On arrival, she snatched up her one- piece uniform by its legs and started waving it madly in the air.
GP uniforms were made out of a material Earth hadn't invented, and hopefully Ryo-Ohki would be looking for something like that.
She ran around the edges of the crowd, occasionally leaping into the air in her enthusiasm.
Soon the rest of the tribe, conditioned to watching Mihoshi for direction, was grabbing pieces of cloth from the huts and in some cases the hammocks strung up here and there, adding their own efforts to the screaming, flapping mob.
High in the sky, Ryoko, Tenchi, and Ayeka all clustered around the video screen, watching the commotion below. Ryo-Ohki had originally been attracted by the light and commotion, and when they got close one figure had leaped out at her like no other.
"Miyah! Miyah!" The screen shifted, zooming in on Mihoshi's face, then rapidly expanding outward to encompass the entire village.
"Look! It's Mihoshi!" Ryoko exclaimed unnecessarily.
"Oh, my! What is she doing?" Ayeka murmured in shock.
"Dancing?" Tenchi ventured. "I think?"
"Look at the natives! Look at the natives!" Ayeka hissed suddenly, as they all started mimicking Mihoshi again.
"They're acting like she does!" Tenchi's voice was tinged in horror.
"Ryo-Ohki!" Ryoko barked, eminently practical. "Prepare to fire! The madness must be stopped!"
"Miyah!" replied the cabbit in denial.
"Just do it! The fate of the universe is at stake!"
"Now, now, I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for this," Ayeka consoled. "They probably just think she's a mad god and are trying to appease her."
The other two turned and gave her a strange look.
"It happens," she replied defensively.
"No! We have to kill them all! Sterilize the area!" Ryoko insisted.
"Don't do it, Ryo-Ohki! Mihoshi is a friend!"
Tenchi backed away as the two girls argued, whispering to the cabbit out of the corner of his mouth. "Can you set us down close to the village without being seen?"
"Miyah, yah," replied the ship, just as quietly.
Ryoko and Ayeka's argument cut off abruptly as they found themselves and Tenchi dropped unceremoniously on the edge of the village.
All three winced at the din, heat, and smell of forty unwashed people and a large fire, and Tenchi was the first to recover and yell Mihoshi's name.
"Tenchi? TENCHI!" Mihoshi yelled in delight, quickly echoed by the crowd, as she picked his voice out of the multitude and bounded his way, dropping her uniform in the process. She ignored the crowd hot on her heels, concentrating only on that one special person.
She would have glomped him, too, but for Ayeka's force shield, which covered all three of them.
"Nice job," whispered Ryoko behind Tenchi's back. "I'd have never thought of that."
Ayeka blushed and nodded. "Yes, well, one does what one must."
"Mihoshi!" Tenchi exclaimed running forward to save the fallen police officer. He ran right through the space previously occupied by Ayeka's shield, which had been turned off to avoid hurting him.
"Ouch."
"Mihoshi! Mihoshi! Are you alright?" Tenchi asked anxiously, crouching beside her.
"OH, TENCHI!"
"Ack!" he replied as he was enveloped in a full body Mihoshi hug.
"Forget the tearful reunions," Ryoko growled, pulling the girl off. "Did you get the trespasser? And where's Kiyone?"
"Um, Kiyone is off out there somewhere," Mihoshi said nervously, waving in her partner's general direction. "Don't worry about her." She just knew Kiyone was in a romantic clinch, and didn't want her friend's private time interrupted.
"Out there? You mean she's lost in the jungle?" Tenchi asked, concerned. "What happened? Is she alright?"
Mihoshi was just about to reply when Ayeka interrupted her.
"Mihoshi, why are you naked?" She paused. "And why are all these people naked as well?"
In that same instant Tenchi found himself blind as both Ayeka and Ryoko covered up one of his eyes with a hand. "Ano, what?" he asked, confused.
"Don't worry, my pet," Ayeka assured him.
"Nothing to concern yourself with, Tenchi." Ryoko did likewise from the other side.
"They were," Mihoshi said, and shrugged, pointing at the villagers behind her, who had stopped their dancing and were watching the new arrivals with interest.
One, annoyed at the interruption, snuck up and grabbed Mihoshi's wrist before dragging her back toward the designated dance floor.
"What the-Hey!" she protested, although not very hard. "Well, I guess I could do _one_ more. But only one, okay?"
The crowd cheered, and the party was soon back in full swing. Rescues could wait.
"She never quits."
"What?" Ryoko asked, blinking in surprise as Kiyone walked up.
"Oh, my, you too, Kiyone?" Ayeka asked.
"Huh? What's going on?" Tenchi asked, exasperatedly pulling the two girls' hands down. Upon realization that Kiyone was standing near them, naked, he choked and quickly replaced the hands over his eyes. Assuming a wide stance, he crossed his arms and waited patiently for it all to be over.
Kiyone shrugged. "In a way, I suppose I started it. Nice to see you three here. Did you find the monster?"
"No, we were too busy looking for you two. What happened?" Ryoko asked.
Kiyone sighed. "It's a long story. Basically, we got attacked, separated, and we lost all our gear. Help?"
Ryoko laughed once, a short, harsh sound. "You really messed up, didn't you? Why didn't you call for Yagami?"
Kiyone turned her head sideways and put her hand behind her ear, holding her long hair back to show them the place where her earring used to be. "When I say we lost our gear, I mean all of our gear. I think it ate my gun. By the way, have any of you ever seen or heard of a being with four arms, two legs, and a nasty attitude?"
The other two gave her level stares.
Kiyone bowed her head in submission. "Right, right, be more specific. It's hard to, though. Ah. It's about three meters tall, very fast, very muscular, skin color is white and green, possibly mutable, claws about this big," she said, holding her fingers apart. "It didn't speak, but that doesn't mean it can't. It tried to get into Yagami, but Mihoshi stopped it." She noticed the confused looks she was getting and stopped. "Let me guess, no, right?"
They both nodded. "The only beings I know that big with four arms and two legs are the Fruntonians. And none of them would be caught dead in a jungle," Ryoko supplied. In fact, no one had ever seen the race of power executives out of their offices in several hundred years. It was assumed they mated through an office memo system, somehow. "Oh, and by the way," Ryoko added, "it didn't eat your gun. I found it." She passed the blaster back to its registered owner.
Kiyone's eyes lit up as she took it. "Hey, great! There were several times I could have used this. Thanks!" She glanced down at herself, shrugged, and tied the gun securely in her hair.
Everyone looked over as Dretric walked up and stood behind Kiyone.
Ayeka raised one delicate eyebrow as she gauged the newcomer. "Damn he's big," she stated crudely.
Ryoko, who had been about to whistle appreciatively, turned and glared at her. "Are naked people _all_ you think about?"
Ayeka turned away, her nose in the air. "Quiet, you."
"I don't want to know, I just don't want to know." Tenchi was tired. It was entirely the wrong time of day for him.
Kiyone shook her head and looked at the ground. "I do not want to deal with this right now." She looked up. "Guys, please, do me a favor. Take Mihoshi up to Yagami and send her back to our apartment to get my uniform. Wait!" she said quickly as they were about to ask why it was there. "I don't want to talk about it. Just tell her to get my uniform, get a good night's sleep, and meet me back here in the morning. Be sure she gets a fix on this position, please. We don't need to waste half a day waiting for her to find me. If you'd be so kind, I'd like it if all of you would come with her in the morning and help us capture or neutralize the perpetrator. It's a danger to the native wildlife and population." She finished and waited for their response.
"That's fine, I suppose," Ayeka replied. "But why don't you come back with us?" Her eyes flicked involuntarily to the side where the huge dark-skinned man was standing and smiling at them innocently. Ryoko was smirking outright.
"Right now, I want a little time to myself." Kiyone's hard glare dared them to disagree.
"Fine... Fine..."
"Good. Now kindly take the bubblehead, and her clothes, and get lost. It's dark, no one will see you. That's great. Bye bye now." Giving them a combination of rapid chatter and a few good shoves, she hustled everyone back out of her life for just one more night.
Ryo-Ohki dropped from the sky like a stone, only faster. The three girls and one boy on board felt nothing of this, however, although they did watch with interest as the ground rushed up to meet them.
"Are we going to be seen?" Tenchi asked no one in particular. Dark circles hung under his eyes, and he had an unkempt look to him that showed how long he'd been without sleep. After the events of the night before, he'd had just enough time to get home, shower, and go to school. Now that school was over, they had come back to get Kiyone.
Ryoko shook her head. "Nah." She was wearing essentially the same outfit she'd been wearing throughout the search, a one- piece fighting uniform she liked.
"Possibly," Ayeka replied. She had prepared for the probable upcoming battle by changing into something she rarely wore, a Juraian battle outfit complete with what Tenchi thought was war paint. She had merely shrugged at their surprise, dismissing it as something no princess should be without.
"Huh?" Mihoshi had been watching the screen pensively. She had on her GP field uniform, and had Kiyone's in her arms.
"Oh, well that sure clears up everything," Tenchi said in exasperation. Alone among the crew, he was not dressed for battle, having just gotten out of school before they left.
"Get ready everyone," Ryoko announced, tensing her body. "Ryo-Ohki's going to set us down just out of sight of the village, and she's going to do it fast. Right about... Now."
Less than a second later they found themselves standing on a wide dirt road facing in the direction that would take them to the village. Ryo-Ohki changed to her cabbit form and landed in Ryoko's hair a few moments later.
The sun was already over a third of the way across the sky, bathing the jungle in its light. After spending the day in the relative coolness of springtime Japan, the heat of the jungle seemed that much worse, especially since they now had to walk through it.
"Oh, my," Ayeka said, fanning herself with her hand. "It's very hot out here, isn't it?"
"Un huh," Tenchi agreed, sweating profusely.
"Hot?" both Ryoko and Mihoshi asked before turning to look at each other and shrugging.
They soon arrived at the village, drawing even more stares and the odd hostile glance from the people who had wondered where they had disappeared to the night before. It had generally been assumed that dealing with the newcomers could wait until after the party, and then they had just grabbed the hot dancing mamma and ran off. Few people were amused, although everyone did wave happily to Mihoshi and offer a greeting, which she responded to warmly.
Ryo-Ohki, naturally curious, immediately hopped off Ryoko's head and scampered around, exploring the village.
Kiyone met them within a minute of their arrival, having been waiting patiently. The big black man was conspicuously absent.
Tenchi blushed terribly and spun around when he realized that Kiyone was naked, staring studiously at the sky. Even the other naked villagers were easier to look at than the longhaired woman. For crying out loud, he _knew_ Kiyone.
"Sorry, Tenchi," she apologized, taking her much missed uniform from Mihoshi. "I'd all but forgotten." Despite the apology, she made no move to cover herself more than simply holding her clothes already did. "I'm going to go change, I'll be right back." She disappeared into one of the huts, leaving the others to stand around uncomfortably.
The village was a fascinating place to Ryo-Ohki. Strange beings, even stranger animals, a plethora of new smells, the only thing the village lacked was the variety of electronic signals she was used to from any habitation. There were a few, magnets, radio receivers, primitive batteries and solar collectors, all concealed in the mass of dry plant matter that made up the homes. Ryo-Ohki was used to that, however, as it seemed to be a characteristic that all Earth homes shared.
She scampered around the village unopposed, although several people stared at her in astonishment. She miyahed a greeting at them and hopped on, wanting to see as much of this new place as possible before she left.
Many of the humans were laying on sheets of cloth tied between support poles of a large central structure, and this seemed to be the most interesting area of the camp. Ryo-Ohki knew better than to invade the private huts. She eyed several large birds warily, deciding that they weren't mean when they simply scattered at her cautious approach.
Suddenly, there was a sharp tug on her short bob of a tail. Ryo-Ohki shrieked in alarm as she jumped and whirled on her attacker.
There was nothing behind her.
Confused, she glanced around warily, backing around in a slow circle to see better. Her ears pricked up alertly, scanning for more than just sound.
There! There it was! A soft scrabbling above caught the cabbit's attention. Although completely concealed by the poles and leaves that made up the roof, in the infrared she could make out a small humanoid animal, clinging to the other side of a nearby pole. As she watched, it peeked cautiously around the pole, quickly ducking back when it realized she was looking at it.
Ryo-Ohki was intrigued. This was a creature about her size. Maybe it would be friends with her? She tested the composition of the wooden pole with one forepaw, circling to keep the creature in sight. Now that it knew it had been spotted, it made far less effort to remain concealed.
Ryo-Ohki wasn't that great of a climber. She had sharp claws, but they were of far more use when she was tearing into her favorite prey item, a domesticated carrot. Still, she wanted to meet this strange creature, and as it was above her, she had to climb. Or fly, but Ryoko had told her not to fly in public.
It was actually a combination of the two that allowed her to scale the pole. Her claws dug into the pole and pulled her upward, but it was by manipulating gravity that she was able to climb quickly and with little effort, much like the way she climbed around on her friends and sat lightly on their heads.
The little monkey climbed just as quickly as she, though, jumping into the web of roof supports and then up through a small hole in the thatch roof. Ryo-Ohki knew that it had stopped on top, however, and lost little time joining it, although some of the jumps she was forced to make defied the laws of physics.
The monkey chittered in alarm and jumped backwards when she suddenly popped up from the hole, landing several feet away. This time, though, it hesitated, cheeping at her and baring its teeth in warning. It knew she was different, somehow.
Ryo-Ohki projected waves of calm and friendship, trying to reassure the Earth creature that she was a friend. She extended one ear toward it in offering, moving slowly but steadily forward.
It backed up steadily and rose the volume and intensity of its chattering with every step. It clearly did not want to be friends. Then, for some reason, it stopped backing up and began to advance. The note of fear was gone from its voice, replaced by an angry confidence that it could deal with this intruder.
Ryo-Ohki halted instantly, suddenly very aware of the presences now surrounding her. The monkey's friends had arrived, and they didn't sound like they wanted to be friends with her either.
Kiyone emerged from the hut, fully dressed and ready to rock. "You guys ready?"
They nodded.
"Hey," Ryoko said slyly. "Isn't there anyone you want to say goodbye to?" She eased over and nudged Kiyone in the ribs. "You know, someone _special_."
Kiyone simply looked her in the eye. "I already have."
Ryoko backed away in confusion, glancing at the others for moral support. This just wasn't like the Kiyone she had grown used to. The other Kiyone would have blushed and stammered, or maybe have gotten angry. This Kiyone didn't seem to want to talk, and when she did, she didn't feel a need to explain herself.
Even Mihoshi noted her partner's new attitude in dismay. Kiyone must have had a truly rough time in the jungle to be so standoffish now. She resolved to talk to her partner about it as soon as they were alone. Mihoshi couldn't help but feel that she was somehow responsible, and one thing she couldn't stand was having her partner mad at her. It made her want to cry and beg for forgiveness.
"Mihoshi. Mihoshi. Hey, Mihoshi."
Mihoshi's head jerked around from where she had been staring at her best friend to see Tenchi looking at her in concern.
"Are you all right, Mihoshi? You've got tears in your eyes."
Mihoshi dug the heel of her palm into each eye, forcing the tears away. "No, I'm fine, really. Are we ready?"
Everyone nodded.
"Wait," Ayeka said suddenly. "Where's Ryo-Ohki?"
"MIYAAAH!" screeched the cabbit, racing away from the village with a dozen monkeys hot on her trail.
"She's ready to go, too," Ryoko assured her.
Soon they all found themselves on the bridge of Yagami, watching as Mihoshi told the computer to find the alien being again.
To tell the truth, as Mihoshi always did, she couldn't have said what it was exactly that set the six-limbed alien apart from the rest of the organic life in the area. Some quirk of its metabolism, perhaps, or a different composition of elements in its cell walls. Regardless, Yagami's tuned sensors quickly picked out the alien's unique energy signature and displayed the coordinates on screen.
"Found it!" Mihoshi chirped happily. It's about three miles north northwest from the village, sitting very still.
Kiyone winced. "That's a little closer to the village than I'd like. If we start shooting, someone is bound to notice."
"Can't you lure it away?"
Kiyone turned to look at Ryoko quizzically.
"Well, as Mihoshi said before, it tried to get inside the Yagami when it knew you were there," Ryoko explained. "Just drop down a few miles farther, open the airlock doors, and wait for it. There's no way that it can get past all of us, and Tenchi could stay onboard to close and open the doors if they need it."
Tenchi wasn't quite able to keep his opinion of that idea from showing in his expression, but fortunately no one was looking at him.
"Mihoshi as well, perhaps," Ayeka suggested. "If we three await it on the ground and in the trees, we would have little difficulty subduing it quietly once it tried for the door."
Kiyone nodded. "Not a bad idea, but it already knows that we can keep it from entering Yagami. It may come for us, but not take the bait. I think it can sense our equipment, or maybe our energy. It seemed to know that the ship was there long before we were in sight." She turned to Tenchi. "Tenchi, I want you and Ryoko to stand in the airlock with the door open. If you see it coming for you, close the door immediately. Remember, this thing is far faster than you might would think. If it even gets within a hundred feet, close the door."
Tenchi nodded.
"Ryoko, I want you to stay in there with him, at least until I engage. Ayeka and I will stay on the ground, and with Ayeka's powers and my equipment we should shine like a beacon to this thing. When it tries to hit us, drop down from above. Mihoshi," she said, looking at the blonde, "I want you on the bridge in case we have to move. Keep an eye on the scanners and keep us informed." She tapped her newly replaced earring. "Any questions?"
"Yes," Tenchi replied. "Do you have anything I could use if it gets too close?"
"_Don't_ let it get too close," Ryoko told him. "If it does, we're already screwed."
"Please, Tenchi, do be careful. Don't take any unnecessary risks." Ayeka lay one hand on his shoulder.
"Well, he should have something," Kiyone admitted. "Come on, Tenchi. I think we've got a riot stick in the armory."
A riot stick turned out to be a sword length rod with a prominent round guard and several strips running the length of the 'blade'. When a button was tapped and the handle was squeezed lightly, as if being held in one hand, the blade could be electrified like a tazer. A dial controlled the power, which could be set anywhere from a nasty shock to near-instant death for anything not protected or immune.
Kiyone showed him how to use it, then set the dial for a level that would stop just short of death for a human. Just in case he hit himself, as they didn't have the insulated armor usually worn when wielding the riot sticks.
Tenchi performed a simple waza with the switch off, bringing the blade on a downward slice, then in a side block, getting used to the unfamiliar weight. He glanced up at Kiyone and said, "Do you think this can stop it?"
Kiyone caught a meaningful look from the other two girls and shrugged. "I doubt it. Nothing seems to have fazed it yet."
Disappointed, Tenchi held it in a low stance, pointed at the floor.
"So, are we ready?" the dark haired woman asked.
Mute nods all around.
"Let's do it and be back in time for dinner," Kiyone said encouragingly.
Although hardly the most adrenaline-charged battle cry in galactic history, they soon found their positions and mentally prepared themselves.
Kiyone stood in the middle of a newly created clearing, thoughtfully provided by a few quick slashes of Ryoko's energy sword. She pointed her new blaster straight up and held it in both hands, listening intently to her new communicator, which was now held on by a dab of hypoallergenic superglue.
Ayeka stood right beside her, seemingly armed with nothing but a serene smile. Dozens of little logs floated throughout the clearing, however, and multihued sparks danced between them, gobbling up the occasional insect or falling leaf. Her power hummed and filled the entire area, an unmistakable, primal challenge.
Yagami hovered thirty feet overhead behind them, the airlock very visibly open. Ryoko and Tenchi's faces looked out at the pair below, searching the trees as well.
Mihoshi was the most active one, watching her screens as the little white blip moved steadily closer, although much slower than it had before. "It's being very cautious," she informed Kiyone. "It's covered the first three thousand feet in a flash, but it's skulking through the trees this last two. Right now it's about twelve hundred feet away directly in front of you, moving to your left."
"Twelve hundred feet, that way," Kiyone informed the princess, pointing one finger.
Ayeka sighed and relaxed her power, allowing the leaves to fall unimpeded. Abruptly she sucked in her breath, then tugged at Kiyone's elbow. "I can feel it," she hissed. "Like Ryoko, only weaker."
"Mihoshi, Ayeka says she can feel it. She knows where it is. Keep me informed, though."
Above, in the airlock, Ryoko nodded to herself. She could feel it as well, using the same sense she used to know where she was teleporting to.
Kiyone watched anxiously, listening carefully to Mihoshi's reports as she did. It was Ayeka that slowly stretched out one slender hand and pointed, directing Kiyone's gaze to a large white head emerging from a tangle of brush. Her blaster leveled out, tracking the beast's movements as it stepped into a gap in the trees, boldly showing itself.
It was the first time that Kiyone had gotten a good look at it. Four long, muscular arms attached to an elongated torso, two legs that were slightly longer but at least as dexterous, a bullet-shaped head with a mouth full of teeth, two staring, yellow eyes, and the whole package wrapped up in three meters of white and green patchwork skin.
"Ugly thing, isn't he?" Ayeka commented softly. "And arrogant."
The alien tore a handful of dirt out of the ground with one taloned hand, crumbled it slightly, and used another finger to flick some in her direction with a snort. In a wonderful example of wordless communication, it had indicated that it thought exactly the same of the princess.
Ayeka's serene composure twisted into a snarl. "That's it," she said, striding forward and pushing up her sleeves, "it dies."
Kiyone's communicator shrieked with Mihoshi's voice even as Ryoko called a warning out from above.
"Huh?" Ayeka said, immediately backpedaling and shielding Kiyone as well.
They hit from the sides and back, three equally large monsters running hell bent for blood, tearing through the trees like guided cruise missiles. Thousands of feet were covered in seconds, and they dove through the circle of logs and slammed into the invisible shield Ayeka had immediately raised.
Ayeka actually staggered forward, the mere physical impacts backed up by something more, and then the original hit from the front, knocking her off her feet.
Kiyone, however, was not affected in the slightest by the violent impacts. She was, however, startled by the sudden appearance of three more, and not nearly so fast as to be able to draw a bead on any of them, much less fire through Ayeka's shield.
Ryoko had no such problems, and immediately teleported down, aiming for one that was incomprehensively trying to claw its way through Ayeka's shield, and nearly succeeding.
Claws of psychic power pried and tore at the shield, flailing away furiously as the beasts growled. With three of them pushing with all their might, Ayeka didn't dare relax the shield, and Kiyone could not get a shot. In fact, Ayeka was a little worried about keeping up the shield period, as it actually gave a little under the combined push.
Ryoko's blade materialized out of thin air with the rest of her right behind it, dropping like a meteor through one muscled torso and slamming into the ground hard enough to make a crater.
Four hands from two beasts slashed at her, too late to stop her from cleaving the alien in half, but trying hard to get revenge.
Just as quick she made herself insubstantial and dropped into the ground, surprised to feel a brief tugging at her hair. Not only were they as fast or faster than she could be, they could even hit her when she was immaterial.
Ayeka's confidence returned in a rush. She knew she was invulnerable. They were just big ugly monsters, nothing to worry about. And with one, now two of them gone, there was almost no pressure on her mind. She stood back up and summoned her logs.
The original alien had darted backwards on all six limbs when the first one died, its inhuman eyes darting around. It knew that the flying one was underground, the other was just getting up, and none of the others seemed to be much of a threat. Even the green-haired one had done little, and now it just stood there, moving so slowly. It looked up.
The airlock was open and so, so close.
Very close, actually. Tenchi, caught up in the excitement of the moment, had forgotten to close it. He stood in the doorway, brandishing his riot stick, and watching the fight anxiously. He spotted the creature just as it jumped.
To his credit, he fought back the initial impulse to take a stance and meet it with his blade, instead jabbing his finger on the close button and THEN taking a stance. He saw right away that the door wouldn't close in time.
Eight hundred pounds of muscle hit the rapidly closing door hard enough to dent it, and four strong hands wedged themselves into the crack. With a scream of tortured machinery, the door was forced backwards in its tracks.
"HAH!" Tenchi yelled, bringing the charged riot stick down on the monster's head.
Enough electricity to knock out an elephant coursed through its body, not fazing it in the slightest.
Undaunted, Tenchi did what Kiyone told him not to do. He turned up the dial, then hit the monster very very hard on the shoulder.
The smell of scorched flesh filled the air, and then it brought its legs in through the door and kicked him.
Ryoko was just about to dart up through the ground and go for another when she felt a familiar tingle in the back of her mind. The clearing was about to get nasty.
Little logs floated about in a seemingly random pattern, not actually existing but simply a manifestation of the Jurai power. The princess sent a surge of power through them all at once, trapping the two remaining aliens and frying them on an atomic level.
No hapless moth or unfortunate gnat was ever fried so thoroughly between the wire mesh of a bug zapper. The two monsters jerked several times, swinging their claws blindly, then simply ceased to be.
"Tenchi!" Kiyone yelled.
Mihoshi ran as fast as she could down the long corridors of the spaceship, wishing she was on her own long destroyed cruiser. It had been much smaller, and it didn't take a minute to get to the airlock. Her new blaster was out, ready, and pointed in front of her as she ran, just as it had been when she first got the sensor report that an intruder had made it aboard.
Bulkhead doors slammed closed behind her as she ran. The monster would make it no farther than it already had.
Tenchi slumped against the wall where he had hit, dazed by the blow but still clutching his weapon. He shook his head and looked up, then ducked quickly to avoid the foot that slammed into the wall where his head had been.
Fortunately for him, the alien didn't stick around to finish the job, choosing instead to bounce off of that wall and run up the corridor towards the front of the ship.
Mihoshi heard it before she saw it and wisely prepared to fire, stopping and bracing herself where she would be able to jump to the side if she had to.
The corridor had a slight curve to it, just enough that she couldn't see the end where the alien was. She waited until it heaved into view, making sure Tenchi wasn't in front of it or being carried, then opened fire.
Three, four, five shots in all spanged down the corridor, each hitting the muscled torso with devastating force. The first three stopped it and knocked it back, and the next two actually pushed it back, bleeding a thin, clear fluid, which splattered the corridor.
Wounded fiercely, it skittered backwards out of sight.
Mihoshi followed, gun at the ready.
Tenchi stood up as he heard the shots, then had a brief flash of Ryoko and found himself standing in the clearing below. The bisected halves of one of the beasts lay nearby, and there was a faint aroma of burnt flesh in the air.
Ryoko dumped him unceremoniously beside Ayeka and Kiyone, then flew back to the ship, phasing through the hull with ease. She emerged right in front of Mihoshi, already facing the airlock.
"Tenchi?" Mihoshi asked quickly.
Ryoko glanced backwards over her shoulder. "He's fine. Did you get it?"
"Not enough," Mihoshi replied concisely. "We need to get it out of the ship."
Ryoko nodded. "Right, will do." She lifted into the air, then flew at top speed down the corridor, making herself completely solid as she did.
Her speed reached that of the creature's themselves as she went, both fists stretched out in front of her body. It hadn't had time to claw through bulkheads to the rear of the ship, and was probably between her and the airlock. With any luck, she would hit it and keep right on going, carrying the both of them out the door.
Sure enough, there it was standing to one side of the hall in the lee of a corner, one hand gingerly clasped over a particularly well-placed shot and the other three spread and ready for action. It had only backed up about twenty feet.
Corners were nothing for Ryoko, even when she actually had to go around them. She hit it squarely between the lower two arms, picking the surprised monster up and flying down the hall as fast as before.
Luckily, she didn't have far to go before she exited the ship. Unluckily, it was just barely fast enough to throw all six limbs out and sink its talons into the metal walls of airlock as she attempted to fly through it.
Great rents were left in the metal as it slid backwards, stopping right at the edge of the ruined door with its butt hanging over the edge.
Undaunted by her sudden stop, Ryoko drew back one fist and punched it.
Inhuman ribs cracked from the blow, and a growl of pain and anger flew from its mouth. Not counting the time spent in cryogenic sleep, it wasn't very old, but it had never experienced pain like this before. It wanted to _hurt_ this one.
It let go all at once, allowing itself to be catapulted back in mid-air, but also allowing it to slam two massive hands on each side of Ryoko's head and two more on each shoulder.
The first blow was so strong that despite her natural toughness, Ryoko was knocked instantly unconscious, and thus did not feel it when it brought both feet up and kicked her viciously in the stomach.
Ryoko flew higher into the air, and the alien was given a boost of speed toward the ground.
It needed it, too, as Ayeka was already revving up her power, preparing to vaporize it just as she had the others.
It hit the trees running, and despite her quick extension was too fast for her, quickly disappearing into the jungle even as shots from Kiyone's blaster hit limbs around it.
Which still left the problem of Ryoko's ascent and descent.
Ayeka glanced upwards but allowed her to fall, a serious look on her face. "Tenchi!" she barked. "Catch Ryoko!"
Tenchi was running as soon as he saw, doing his best to try and get her before she hit the ground. He needn't have worried.
Ayeka's power, already spread through the area, was in the perfect position to intercept and slow Ryoko's descent, guiding her gently into Tenchi's waiting arms.
Mihoshi's worried face looked down from the airlock. "Is she all right?" she called, voicing everyone's concern.
"Ouch," Ryoko replied, bringing both hands up to gently massage her head. "Did anyone get the number of that cruiser?"
"You're okay!" Tenchi exclaimed, breathing a sigh of relief.
"Did we get him?" she asked, sitting up and allowing Tenchi to set her down on her feet as Ayeka and Kiyone ran up.
"I'm afraid not," Kiyone replied quickly. "It got away. We need to track it, fast." "Mihoshi!" she yelled suddenly.
"Yes?" The reply floated back down from above.
"Beam us up! We've got to find that thing!"
A few minutes later the Yagami had rose once again into the sky, out of sight of anything on the ground as it ran a search once again. The outer door of the airlock was ruined, but the inner door was more than sufficient to maintain ship atmosphere, and the next two inner bulkheads had been closed as a precaution.
"How did you miss those others?" Kiyone gave Mihoshi a hard look from where she sat at the pilot's controls.
"I don't know," she replied distractedly, typing away.
"They couldn't have come from the pod," Kiyone said aloud. "It was too small. I think it's been reproducing, probably asexually."
Mihoshi nodded. "If so, they might have more of the local minerals and compounds in them. That might be why Yagami missed them on the last pass. I'll have to redefine the search. But right now, we've got trouble."
"Uh oh." The screen showed a little white blip circling erratically towards a greenscale shaded picture of a cluster of huts, and afterward none of them were sure who had said it.
"We hit it hard and fast," Kiyone announced, tilting the controls forward and giving the ship a goose of power. "Save the Earthlings."
"Tenchi," Ayeka said hesitantly.
He drooped his shoulders and nodded. "Yeah, I'll stay here."
"Thanks," she said, and gave him a warm smile. "I don't want to worry about you."
"You did good, though," Ryoko added from his other side. "It's just that this guy is really tough." To the others she said, "I'll take Ayeka in from above. Or would you rather go?"
Kiyone glanced at her partner, who blinked, and shook her head. "No, I don't think that's a very good idea. We've been messing around here too much."
"I've got a great idea!" Mihoshi said suddenly. "Kiyone, get us directly over the village, fast!"
Kiyone had already brought the ship down in a silent arc towards the area, and quickly did as she was bade. "What are you going to do, Mihoshi?"
"Kidnap them!" the blonde replied gleefully, tapping a particular key with great relish as soon as the ship was within range.
Yagami was a higher class of ship than the average GP cruiser, both in size and firepower, thanks to a few lucky breaks and an out of court settlement on a sexual harassment suit Kiyone had almost filed on one of the top brass. She had then tried to have her killed and had subsequently been arrested, but Kiyone had gotten to keep the ship.
One of the things that the Yagami boasted was a very sophisticated teleporter system, which could almost instantly make pickup on a full platoon of field operatives, provided that they were all gathered in one place.
A village as small as the one in question counted as 'one place'.
In the span of a three second pass, Yagami's spacious cargo hold was full of startled African villagers, most still staring upwards at where the giant red ship had flew into their field of vision.
"So you see," Mihoshi explained to a perfectly horrified Kiyone, "now we can go down, arrest the bad guy however it takes, and not worry about native casualties."
Kiyone stared at her mutely for a moment. "...MIHOSHI! Do you know what kind of Contact Code Break that is!?"
"The third kind, obviously," Mihoshi replied as if she'd asked 'What is the best brand of pocky?' or 'What do you do when you get bitten by a Crepusculian flying shrew?'.
"We could be executed by the Juraian Environmental Protection Agency!"
The nearby Royal Princess of Jurai cleared her throat politely. "Um, I approve?"
Mihoshi smiled brightly in triumph. "And it's also within our acting duties as resident officers. Any action that protects this planet's native inhabitants from off planet trespassers falls under article 458-13b, section three exemptions and is therefore legal."
"Oh." Kiyone looked faintly embarrassed. "I didn't remember that."
"I looked it up last night," Mihoshi admitted.
"Enough already!" Ryoko protested. "Can we go kill Mr. Four-arms now?"
"Right," Kiyone agreed. "Mihoshi and I will beam down to the village proper and try to take it out from a distance. Ayeka, I want you to stay close to Mihoshi and I and make sure it doesn't rush us. Ryoko..." Kiyone paused blinking, realizing that Ryoko was no longer visible. "Ryoko? Where'd she go?"
Everyone looked around, as if expecting her to suddenly heave into view out of thin air.
Coincidently enough, Ryoko did exactly that twenty seconds later, a six-limbed green and white alien space monster slung over her shoulders like a sack of carrots.
Everyone screamed and jumped back, expecting it to suddenly start swinging, but it was completely motionless with a certain air of finality about it.
"Found it laying in the dirt at the edge of the village in a puddle of clear stuff," Ryoko explained. "Looks like Mihoshi's shots did more damage than we thought."
"Are you sure it's dead?" Kiyone asked warily. "The last thing we need is it suddenly coming back to life in _here_."
"Did you poke it with a stick?" inquired Mihoshi, ever practical. "My Grandfather said always poke them with a long pointy stick, then shoot them again if they wiggle."
"I stuck it with an energy sword," the notorious space pirate replied blandly, indicating a number of scorched holes in the torso and limbs. "It works better."
Ayeka snorted quietly into her hand, suppressing a laugh.
Kiyone sagged in her seat. "Whew. I'm glad that's over. This has been one hell of a mission."
"But what if there's more?" Tenchi asked. "I mean, those others had to have came from somewhere."
Kiyone nodded. "Good point, Tenchi. Mihoshi, see if you can find any more. I'll take this thing down to the freezer for transport back to headquarters. The sooner we find the rest, the sooner we start convincing the natives that we're just a case of bad beer."
Mihoshi redefined and expanded her parameters, covering the entire planet in a few minutes, and finally concluded that yes, there were several dozen more, but they were all clustered in a ravine fifteen miles from the village.
Ryoko looked at the cluster of blips and groaned. "Oh, man... I sure don't want to try to take on that many at once."
Ayeka nodded in agreement. "Indeed, that would be quite dangerous. What will we do?"
Kiyone grinned a wild, devious grin. "Easy. We simply position Yagami above it, like so..." she said, piloting the ship to hover ten thousand feet overhead. "And tell the computer to target that area, like so..."
"Wait," Ayeka protested. "If you use the ships cannons on that ravine, you'll kill untold numbers of the native wildlife!"
"Kiyone, I don't think the Environmentalists are going to like this very much," Mihoshi cautioned in an unknowing parody of Booboo, Yogi Bear's little sidekick.
Kiyone actually hesitated. Ordinarily, she would have followed the regulations to the letter, and this action was very expressly forbidden, even in a situation like this.
And then, unbidden, images of big cats and monkeys sprang to mind. Swarms of blood-sucking insects, broad-leafed succulents with stinging juices, huge trees, and thousands of little crawling things that bit you in private places all warred for position of the dominant irritant in her mind. Crudely, reminded of her little lice problem, Kiyone scratched her crotch. Un unh, no. This Galaxy Policewoman had just been pushed too far.
And Kiyone finally had call to voice a statement that had been running through her mind since the first hour she'd been lost in the jungle. And, also in an unwitting parody, albeit a little more different, of a certain large cartoon bear, she said, "Bah... FUCK the Environmentalists, Mihoshi."
Ten thousand feet below, a plume of ionized air, pulverized earth, and vaporized animal matter a thousand feet across leaped from the jungle floor and raced across two square kilometers of pristine jungle faster than the eye could follow. Every living thing within that area, including the bacteria and viruses down to a level of a hundred feet below ground, was utterly destroyed, especially the four nests built by the four-armed aliens and all the younglings within.
Unfortunately, while this huge missing chunk of the jungle would later fascinate Earth scientists, now no one would ever discover the cluster of little blue flowers at the base of a towering jungle giant that contained the most remarkable chemical compound that, if it had been synthesized and marketed, could have finally cured cancer.
But hey, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.
High above, everyone gazed at the barren landscape in a mixture of awe and triumph, with Kiyone enjoying most of the triumph.
She breathed in deeply, savoring the feeling. "No," she said quietly, "it's not better than sex. But the feeling lasts longer."
Mihoshi patted her on the back. "We did it."
The dark haired woman nodded. "Yes, yes we did."
"Of course, now we have to put the villagers back. Unless you'd rather keep them?" Mihoshi prompted.
"One of them, anyway, eh? Heh heh," Ryoko added, giving Kiyone a good-natured jab in the ribs.
"Unfortunately, we're not allowed to keep any pets," Mihoshi said reluctantly. "It's a shame, too."
"No, no, we're carrying them back. It's the least we can do."
Yagami darted west, where high-speed teleporters and computer memory put them all right back where they had been nabbed from.
The frightened villagers immediately huddled together in the center of the village, staring up at the huge red ship they had begun to realize had picked them up briefly.
On board, Kiyone manipulated the settings and database on a pair of BinAural Bio-ELectric Feedback Impulse Separator Headsets, which was a fancy term for a set of translator devices. They instantly allowed the wearer the ability to understand anything said to him or her in another language, but did not do a thing about speaking it. Thus, the need for two.
The reason she rarely wore one was that they were bulky and very visible, and also the pair of thin tubes that had to be inserted up the ear canal for the device to work properly. They were usually useless in alien confrontations, too, because it was hard to convince anyone else to wear one, but this time she was confident that she knew one that would try it at her behest.
After a few moments, she gave Mihoshi a thumbs up. "I'm ready, put me down at the edge of the village."
The heat, humidity, and clamor of anxious villagers nearly made her faint after the climate-controlled interior of Yagami.
First a few villagers stopped and stared, then the rest as they gradually grew aware that their visitor from last night had returned.
In a certain state of undress, no less.
Kiyone tapped her red earring with one finger. "Very FUNNY, Mihoshi, now beam down my clothes."
"Sorry! I thought you'd want to be naked like them again."
A momentary flash of red light later, Kiyone was again dressed in her fighting outfit. Forcing a friendly smile onto her face, Kiyone called out, "Dretric! Hey, Dretric!"
The large black man in question stepped forward, gently prying his way through the dense crowd and gawking at her in astonishment. "Yes?"
"I know you can't understand me yet, but you will soon. Just put this on, please?" She offered the bulky headset to him.
"Well, I guess you don't mean any harm..." he murmured cautiously.
"No, I'm here to help," she said encouragingly, smiling when he looked up in alarm.
He accepted the headset with all the enthusiasm of someone accepting a dead mouse, turning it over gently in his big hands.
"Here, you put it on your head," she explained, pantomiming putting it on."
"I know that," he replied testily, flicking one of the flexible tubes pointing inwards from the earpieces.
"Stick it in your ear," she offered politely. When he looked up, she pulled hers back a little way so that he could see the tube enter her ear, then slowly set it back, wincing at the tube sliding so close to her eardrum.
Breathing deeply to gather his courage, he bravely risked a brain fry and possible metal control, placing the headset on his head and sliding the thin, flexible tubes in his ears. He squirmed and clenched his eyes shut, not liking it at all, but resisted the urge to fling the alien device away.
If it had been anyone but this woman, he would have never even took the thing out of her hands. As a rule, fear the unknown. But, well, he had to admit, after last night he definitely knew her. Even in the biblical sense, and in some ways that would have gotten him excommunicated by the catholic church.
"Sorry about that," Kiyone apologized. "It's the only thing we've got that can translate. I can understand you when I'm wearing it, but you can't understand me unless you have one too. Your people can still understand you, but they can't understand me. I need you to translate."
Dretric jerked, surprised to find that her former gibberish was now easily understood, accentless English. "Wow," he said after a moment, marveling at the device. "This really is an alien translator, huh?"
Kiyone nodded.
"And you're an alien, right?"
She nodded again.
He scratched his head. "So why is it that it's translating from English to Japanese, and not from English to whatever the hell language you speak? I recognize Japanese when I hear it."
Kiyone shrugged, as if it didn't matter. "Just one of those things, I guess. I speak Japanese, you speak English, neither of us can understand the other." She shrugged again.
Oddly, he began to laugh, whooping in extreme amusement. He laughed for several moments, greatly putting the crowd at ease, which had grown nervous at the one-sided conversation. He slowly brought himself back under control, wiping tears from his eyes. "Heh, that's funny. You bring in all this sophisticated technology, and it just translates from one Earth language to another."
Kiyone shrugged helplessly, not sure what to say to that.
He looked up. "So, I've got a million questions for you, but what I really want to know right now is why you kidnapped us and brought us back. Are we all the same, or do we now have alien parasites in us or something?"
Kiyone smiled. She had known he was smart, that was part of her attraction. That and the fact that he was ridiculously well hung, but that went without saying. "No, no alien parasites. You're actually a protected species."
Dretric wasn't sure he liked the sound of that.
"We had to pick you up for a moment because there was a dangerous criminal in the area, heading for your village," Kiyone continued unawares. "In order to prevent any injuries, we teleported you up while we subdued it. Don't worry, we got him. In fact, you can thank my partner for that, she may well have save the lives of many of your people. We're very sorry to have scared you like that, normally we would never interfere with a developing people."
He blinked. "Your partner? The blonde?"
She nodded proudly. "Mihoshi. It was her idea to pick you all up before the fugitive got here. It really was a dangerous being."
He whooped and turned to the villagers. "Hey, everyone. The blonde girl saved our lives from a badass alien monster when they picked us up just then. They say we're under protection, and they're sorry to have scared us."
Most of the villagers cheered at the news, except for a few paranoids who were promptly beat down for the crime of being different and having a different opinion. "Bring her down!" suggested on, and the cry was quickly taken up by the rest. "Bring her down! Bring her down! Bring her down!"
Dretric turned to relay this request, but Kiyone stopped him with a wave of her hand.
"Don't worry, I understand them." She tapped on her earring again. "Mihoshi? They want you to come down so they can thank you."
"Thank me? Really?" she transmitted into Kiyone's ear. "I'll be right there!"
Kiyone nodded, then suddenly something occurred to her. "With your clothes ON!" she barked.
Dretric laughed and turned to the chanting crowd. "She'll be right here!" he bellowed. He looked back at Kiyone. "What about those other people that came last night? I'd wondered where they and your partner ran off to."
Kiyone nodded. "Ryoko? Tenchi? Ayeka?" she sent. "Do you want to come down so the villagers can thank you, too?"
There was a brief pause, interrupted by Mihoshi suddenly appearing and being swept away by the crowd, before Ayeka's voice replied in her ear. "With all of those naked Earthlings? We don't wish to appear rude, but I don't think Tenchi should be a part of such proceedings. If we may, I think we'd all do best to go back to Tenchi's house and rest. Poor Tenchi is already asleep; he's had a hard day."
Kiyone nodded and chuckled. "That's fine, you guys go on back."
"Have fun, Kiyone!" Ryoko's voice encouraged. "Yeah, lots of fun, if you know what I mean. Heh heh heh ouch! What was that for?" Her voice cut off abruptly.
Kiyone chuckled good-naturedly, feeling remarkably good about herself.
Dretric was watching the crowd mob the blonde, and quickly deduced that they were far happier about the return of their 'hot singing mama' than any excitement over the first contact with an alien race. Of course, if their legends were true, this wasn't their first contact.
Oh, yes. That reminded him. "Say," he said, getting her attention.
"Yes?" she replied, mentally cataloging all the things she'd have to tell them to insure secrecy, among other things.
"Does Sirius B really have an orbital period of fifty years around Sirius?"
"What?" she asked, confused. This wasn't a usual question.
"Sirius, you know, the dog star?" he repeated. "Oh, yes, you'd probably have a different name for it. It's the brightest star in our sky, at night you can see it over there," he added, pointing at the sky.
"Brightest... Hmm." She frowned, thinking hard. "OH! _That_ sun. By 'B', you mean that little blue dwarf circling it, right? Yes, I think it does have an orbital period of fifty years." She looked at him oddly. "How did you know?"
He smiled. "_I_ didn't." He pointed at the villagers. "_They_ did."
"Oh."
"Heey Kiiyone!" Mihoshi called from across the village. "Can we stay the night? I mean, since we're probably already fired and all! They keep wanting me to sing!"
Kiyone opened her mouth to say no, then glanced at her big friend and reconsidered. Perhaps, they did deserve a little time off. "Sure, why not?" she called back. "Have a blast, Mihoshi!"
"Thanks Kiyone!"
Kiyone gave Dretric a full force Look, demanding attention and obedience. "There are a few things I need to tell you. First, you must never tell anyone else what has happened today. You or the villagers."
"No problem!" he lied. "They don't talk much to outsiders anyway." That, at least, was the honest truth.
"Second, you must continue to act just like you always did. No graven images of the ship, no radical cultural changes, or anything like that."
"Oookay..." he agreed, a little put off, idly scratching himself.
"Okay?" she asked.
He shrugged, bewildered. "Anything else?"
"That'll do, at any rate. We don't have the equipment to do anything else. Budget cuts, you know." She looked apologetic.
"Some things are universal," he agreed.
She cocked her head at him expectantly. "So, ask whatever questions you want, if I can, I'll answer them."
Without hesitation, he replied, "Well, I hate to ask, but it begs the question. So tell me, did you or did you not abduct Elvis?"
"What?"
"I thought so."
Kiyone shook her head. These Earthlings asked some strange questions. They weren't like the ones she had been around in Japan. "Anything else?"
He thought for a moment, then shook his head. "None I can think of at the moment. I'm sure I'll come up with something, though. You are spending the night, right?"
She nodded, and a slow smile crept onto her face as her eyes traveled rudely up and down his body. "That's okay, it's not your mind I'm interested in anyway. Yes, as a matter of fact, I _was_ wondering if your hut was still open."
He gulped, but showed enthusiasm despite himself. "Umm... Sure!"
"Lead the way, then," she prodded, aggressively nudging him along."
Dretric laughed suddenly. "You know, finding out that you're an alien sure makes this strange. I mean, I've heard the stories and seen the movies, but I never in my wildest dreams thought that if I met an alien, _I_, the human, would be the one to do what we did to you, the alien." He paused. "What is it with you aliens and sticking things up the-"
"Not another word," she hissed, clapping a hand over his mouth. "Can't you let a girl have her peccadilloes?"
Somewhere else in the village, Mihoshi started a well- received rendition of 'Can't touch this.' to thunderous cheers.
****************
"Bye!" he called, trusting his manner to get the message across, as none of them wore the translator helmets now.
Birds flew across the sky, adding their voices to the morning chorus, and Yagami hung motionless overhead, back from its night in high orbit. The heat was far less than it should have been, and even the usual hum of mosquitoes seemed muted. It was truly looking to be a beautiful day.
"Sayonara!" Kiyone called back, waving her hand at the assembled villagers and him in particular before vanishing in a flash of red light.
"Bai bai!" Mihoshi called, waving to her fans, that is, the assembled villagers. Then she, too, disappeared.
Yagami twisted the laws of physics until they broke, then reformed them in some highly improbable fashion, launching itself at ridiculous speeds into space. It was out of sight in seconds.
One by one the crowd dispersed, returning to the daily business of feeding the mosquitoes and eating the monkeys.
Soon only Dretric was left standing in the dusty village clearing, staring upward at something only he could see, and occasionally covertly scratching himself.
"All that, and she was an alien," he murmured after a while. "The boys back at Harvard are never gonna believe this. Not only did I make first contact with an alien race, I even slept with her." He shook his head at the improbability of it all, then scratched his crotch again, this time a little more forcefully.
He looked down suddenly. He'd been doing that a lot more often lately. Something tiny moved slightly, catching his eye. He knew what that was.
"Aww, Christ. And she gave me crabs, too."
OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE OMAKE
Unfortunately, that wasn't all she gave him. Three months later, a mysterious sexually transmitted disease, harmless to alien races but virilent in a human host, swept the tiny, amaxingly promiscuous village, devouring each of the villagers from within and sending them to their painful deaths.
Alas, but not before Dretric left the village, returning to Harvard with his numerous handwritten reports. Thanks to a number of friendly encounters in airport bars, several old flings, and a stop at a New Amsterdam brothel, the disease found itself spread over a wide range of prolific partners and in the perfect position to sweep the planet. Dretric infected over a dozen people before he finally choked to death on his own fluids in a New York hospital, and they, in turn, infected far more.
With so many people having been exposed, it soon spread to the rest of the world, turning into a planetary epidemic that doctors were powerless to stop.
All told, the disease eventually claimed over three million people before mutating into a less harmful form that later caused the extinction of the last remaining goldfinches.
But hey, these things happen far more often than you'd think.
The moral of this story?
Use protection, especially when in Africa.
Mihoshi: Next time in Aurora of Rainbow Fire, spring vacation finally arrives. Tenchi, Ryoko, and Ayeka all leave for planet Jurai, leaving Sasami on Earth.
Kiyone: Tenchi's father and Grandfather promise to take care of her while she's on a little vacation, and Mihoshi and I will be doing our part as well.
Sasami: We're going to the beach! Yay!
Kiyone: But when Sasami finds a cursed glass bubble containing the spirit of a little girl, can even a young Juraian princess bring herself to free her?
Mihoshi: So, um, stick with us for A Prison of Glass, okay?
Sasami: It's completely pure and innocent.
