Page 25 of Feral Tamed

It was Luka, the Doc that responded, “Well. Now that you mention it, that does make sense, his digestive track is very different from the average…” his voice trailed away and I found myself grinning. Hina was sticking up for me, and the Doc sounded downright apologetic. It wasn’t their fault though, I hadn’t wanted to seem ungrateful to Tori when I didn’t eat her food. Besides, Tori knew, she’d caught on, and she often made sure I had food earlier, In turn, I watched Novalee while she cooked.

“I can eat some,” I offered, while I hauled a chunk of raw meat out of the freezer and placed it in the defroster. I couldn’t read the buttons but Tori had shown me the sequence enough times by now that I had it memorized. “I just don’t like it,” I said.

Normally I just dug in with my bare hands, but as everyone was watching I tried cutting the meat into smaller strips before eating those. Of course, Snarl had no such compunctions and was noisily digging into his barely thawed hunk.

“Okay, I’ll be honest,” Jakar said, “That looks kinda tasty too.” He smiled widely as he said it, making me think it was a joke, but it was a peace offering too. So I smirked at him and flicked a cube of meat at him. He caught it and looked at it as if he was thinking: yikes now I have to eat it.

Hina was chuckling at my side, but it was Fluffy that saved my poor brother from eating meat raw when his stomach couldn’t handle it. She stuck her head out of my bag, sniffed at the air, and then darted across the table to snatch it right out of his hand. There was some surprised laughter, and then cooing from Camila as she urged Fluffy over for some petting. The Riho happily obliged, taking the spotlight off of me.

“Silence! We need to get this business sorted so we can all get some rest,” Ziame announced. My brothers immediately settled down, and Camila did her best to shush the squeaks and purrs coming from tiny Fluffy, smothering laughter as she did so. “Luka, go ahead, tell us what you found,” Ziame added, indicating the Doc had the floor.

Luka flung his long hair over his shoulder and appraised each of us at the table with his eerie black eyes. He wasn’t a gladiator, but he’d been conscripted into service by Drameil’s henchmen, forced to heal us. As a result, I knew his family had ostracized him, refusing to allow an Aderian back into the fold who’d participated in something as heinous as the gladiator fights.

“I talked with Thorin about the possible locations the pirates could have gotten hold of a rare Riho to trade. We had Akri search the ship’s database and came up with a few possible locations.” They had looked for more Riho? I couldn’t believe that Thorin and Luka had done that, that they’d cared enough about the animals to try and find the source. “We think we’ve located the place where they likely bred these Riho, it’s on an Aderian outpost not too far from here.”

Ah, that explained why it was the Doc heading this. He was an empath, sensitive to many feelings, both the physical and the emotional kinds; I tended to avoid him for exactly that reason. If the Riho had been bred on an Aderian planet, the Doc must be feeling a kind of responsibility to make things right.

Akri spoke for the first time that evening, “I have calculated a 67% chance that the people breeding these animals are still there. There is subsequently an 85 % chance that we can raid and disable their operation successfully.” Those were good odds, but the fact that all my brothers were here, meant we were about to take a vote on it.

Thorin butted in to explain some more of the details, helped by Akri as he described the base and the intel we had. With Kitan they discussed te length of the journey which depended on the amount of FTL jumps we’d take, that was always his call as he made sure never to let us tax Chloe too much.

Ziame was the one who called for the vote, “Are we stepping in to stop this? Or do we feel it’s not our business and we shouldn’t waste resources? Those in favor say aye.” Surprising no one, Camila was the first to eagerly shout “Aye!” But then she had Fluffy curled up in her lap, that probably had something to do with it.

Luka voted in favor and then so did Thorin. I knew what I wanted, but I was sure that everyone here knew that already. Hina raised her hand, “Do I get a vote?” she asked. Ziame immediately nodded, “Everyone on the ship gets a vote. Well, everyone except the baby.” That caused some laughter but Hina immediately used her vote in favor, which was followed by one brother after another doing the same.

Da’vi eyed me with his vivid purple eyes, a frown wrinkling his forehead beneath his two black horns. Then he planted his fist on the table and said, “Aye, I think I have a few ideas to help us breach that facility.”

So we had a full vote, everyone was in favor. I couldn’t believe it. I’d been so worried about bringing on one animal after another and here they were wholeheartedly agreeing to rescue some more. I grinned hugely as I cast my vote, the last one, kept grinning as Akri, Thorin, and Kitan discussed the FTL jumps ahead. And I was still grinning when Hina led me after my brothers to the corridor with our quarters.

When she brought me to a halt in front of my own door, I jolted out of my happy mood and looked down at her in shock. “We’re sleeping here?” I asked. She nodded empathically, “You said you couldn’t stand sleeping alone. Well you’re not, you’ve got me, Snarl, Fluffy, and Fellow with you. You can do it.”

For her, I’d try. We had three days before the raid, I could try to adjust to sleeping in a normal bed, in a normal room, in that time. I’d have to if I wanted Hina to stay with me, I couldn’t ask her to sleep in the brig with me, the thought alone made me cringe.

So I squared my shoulders and followed her inside.

Chapter 16

Hina

We got a call through my com, alerting us to head for the mess hall for a final briefing. We’d arrived at the Aderian outpost where our ship’s computer indicated the pirates had picked up Riho to sell on the black market.

Chloe and Kitan had worked hard to get us to the location in both a timely and a stealthy fashion. I’d discovered only on day three that Chloe was technically blind, though apparently she had a strange kind of vision when she was plugged into the nav console. The young woman went about the ship on her own unaided, though sometimes I’d heard her ask for direction from the ship’s AI.

I’d dared to ask, hoping I wouldn’t offend, last night over dinner and Chloe had answered with a beaming smile. “I had brain damage from a faulty nav implant, but my new one is much better and with regular treatments from the Doc, my brain seems to be recovering. I’m starting to see shadowy shapes again, so I might eventually regain my sight completely.” It was clear she was both a very optimistic and a strong person, to deal with such a blow so gracefully.

The mess hall meeting had been very short and to the point, outlining our previously made plan one more time. Now with added sensor data. We knew that the outpost itself was located on a barren, volcano-rich planet. Aderians had a research center here and on the calmer side of the planet there was some kind of resort, Luka hadn’t wanted to talk about just what kind of resort it was, though he seemed to know.

What we were looking for, was a tiny base on one of the moons. It was tucked away in a crater and camouflaged as one of the many sensor arrays stationed on the moon’s surface. Supposedly the sensors were there for readings of the rather unusual violet sun at the center of this solar system. But there were so many that they’d hidden this little base right among them. Time your approach to the moon just right and as a ship, you’d be hidden for the two posts on the opposite side of the planet, which is probably what these pirates and unscrupulous Riho breeders did.

I was nervous about going along with Fierce to that base to help raid it. I didn’t have any fighting skills, I might very well just be a liability. But Fluffy was needed. Riho were apparently a suspicious, scared of strangers type of creature. The fact that when young they tended to bond with a single person was the only reason they made good pets.

Fierce insisted that if there were adult Riho present, which was likely, Fluffy would help us earn their trust. Fluffy had settled herself around my neck and she was refusing to go anywhere without me, which was why I now had to come with them. Fierce had tried to cajole her to come with him instead, but the little critter had refused to budge.

So there I was, in the shuttle with Camila while she checked over my spacesuit with a critical eye. Instead of a normal, human-shaped helmet, they’d put me in one big enough to accommodate a Kertinal’s set of horns. That way, Fluffy fit inside the helmet with me. This did not seem to me like the safest solution, but it was the only one we had. Fluffy herself at least seemed perfectly content with this arrangement.

Before we’d all packed into this shuttle and flown to the tiny, hidden base, Fierce had brought Fellow to Chloe and Abby. With a precise list of instructions on how to care for him that he and I had compiled together and I’d written it down. I’d made sure to run it by the Doc, as I really didn’t want to cause the little one issues should he eat something he shouldn’t. He seemed to be thriving though, already used to his cast and scampering around our quarters in pursuit of Fluffy, who seemed to enjoy their version of tag.

It had been heart-melting to see Fierce gently say goodbye to the fluffy half porcupine/half badger. He might be tough, he might be dangerous, but he loved with all his heart. Animals especially seemed to earn a special place in Fierce’s, and it shocked me just how easily this wild little critter had bonded to him. Just like Fluffy and Snarl had. Huh, just like me too, come to think of it. Fluffy had good taste in men.