Erin looked up. The rescue ship appeared out of the blue. Literally, since this planet's atmosphere was, in fact, blue. She rubbed the wet from her eyes and rose to her feet, brushing the hair out of her face. She had kept her vigil for Patches, and now it was time to continue the mission. "Alright-" he voice cracked, "Alright, kiddies, playtime 's over! Gather the rest of the supplies, we're going back into space!" She said, motioning to the approaching spacecraft, then to the supplies that lay strewn around the fire pit.
The smell of fire lingered on all of them, a strange sensation to the alien group. She had overheard one of the initiate humans saying they
loved the smell of wood smoke. She shook her head as she scooped up her unused sleeping bag. Didn't love mean you would lay down your life for something? How could you do that for a nasal sensation? Humans were weird.
Of course, she was one of them, but Earth humans behaved...
different. The way they held themselves, the way they spoke, their loose mannerisms. No matter where you went on Earth.
The shuffling of feet brought Erin out of her thoughts. Star. Erin grunted the Huronian word for 'imbecile' as she picked up another fruit bar wrapper. Star, however, seemed to take the slight as an invitation to speak.
"I want to come." She said, tipping her chin up. Erin deciphered this as projected confidence.
She snorted, "Why?"
***
Star blinked. What was her next line? She had practiced this all night! C'mon, Star, think. "I-I want to go with my sister." She said. She glanced to the girl she had called scar-face in her head so many times. She had called her by her secret identity, and she wasn't about to just let that go. "She seems to think you guys are the best, so I wanted to see what all the fuss was about."
It was a complete lie, of course. She really just wanted to get the kids out of their hands. They had obviously brainwashed some of them, including River, who wholeheartedly believed their story about justice and stuff. What a bunch of baloney. Hadn't one of them mentioned
slavery? Now that she knew what was going on, she had to rescue all the other people that this idiot and her alien friends had captured since who-knows-when. Her head swam. She had never been so afraid. She had been on plenty of reconnaissance missions, but never one
hundreds of lightyears away! How many planets would she have to comb through? How would she get the people back to Earth? And how many was she even looking for?
The dark-headed girl looked up from her fruit-bar collecting. "I'm sorry, but earlier you were
shouting that River was
not your sister. Besides, we don't take heroes," she said, making that funny grunting noise again at the end. "Let me tell you how this works. We take the misused, the abused, and the unwanteds, and we give them a life.
You," she poked a finger at Star, "are on the cover of every magazine, billboard, and soda can. Just because you 'want to see what all the fuss is about' doesn't mean that you can stick your nose into my business.
Erin turned back to picking up. "This has been going on long before you were hatched, and will continue long after you are dead. Oh, and by the way," She pulled something out of her boot, and threw on a pair of dark sunglasses, "Say cheese."
A bright flash, and Star forgot everything that had happened that night.
***
Ryan was getting tired of these kids. They whined constantly, not to mention one of them had almost
shot another simply because he wanted to carry the big phaser. He couldn't wait to get this over with. He glanced back to Nhashi. At least he was keeping quiet. Perhaps he would be useful later on. At last he saw it. A mound of earth disguised the tiny spacecraft. Ryan reached into his pocket and thumbed the 'unlock' button. "I guess we can rest for a bit," he said, as nonchalantly as possible.
He slowed to a stop just 50 feet away from the craft. He knew they would find it on their own. "Stay here, I'm going to scope out ahead. I'm leaving this kid in charge." He said, motioning to Nhashi. "And don't move from this spot. This place is crawling with 'lions." He said.
"But," one kid piped up, "Lions live in Africa."
Ryan glared back at the kid. "
Mountain lions, dummy." He said, "Their sign is all over. So
don't. Go. Anywhere. I'll be back."
He handed the phaser to Nhashi, and whispered in his ear, "If any of them leave, shoot them." He said.
Ryan trotted off, ducked behind a boulder, and found where he had stashed the extra clothes. He shed his tiny ones, and shifted. growing taller, his facial features pulled around, bones cracking as they grew. At last, he unfolded his new clothes; a three-piece suit. At last minute, he remembered his keys in his tiny pants pocket, and moved them into his adult slacks. Now this was better. When he strode, he actually covered some ground, now.
The last thing on his checklist was to find some important people. Those scientists were around here somewhere, the Rayne girls they were called, and the crash was sure to have drawn some reporters that he could snatch. He pulled the human phone out of his pocket and dialed. "Hello, governor? Yes, I believe there is something you might want to see."
(Okay, catch me up: what is the deal with the dragon, where is Donnella Rayne, and did I mess up on anything? And yes, Ryan is Feral. I had this in mind all along, so I'm not just screwing around. I mentioned that something was "....off about him" in his char sheet. But no one else know this, so his char sheet will remain under the humans for now.)
