Jaeger und Orc

Jaeger und Orc

>The rocket hadn't even hit her directly: it was the fragments of her partner's armor that had been the instrument of her ruination.
>Nothing on the scanners, no enemy contacts, not even a muzzle flash: just the explosion of the micromissile and the momentary agony as shards of blue metal impacted her core.
>Darkness took her for a few blissful moments.
>Dire holographic warnings danced in front of her one remaining good eye as it stared, half-lidded, up at the emerald-green canopy.
>She didn’t need them. She knew she was already dead.
>/Damnit, Hans...I always said your thick skull would get us killed...but I didn't...mean it./ she thought.
>The Orc trooper was shocked to taste salt: hot tears running down smoke charred cheeks. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. And now...now what?
> At best, she would die truly, and join her brother and mother in the Everlasting Glory. Madre de Dios, grant her this.
>At worst, she her Cube would be recovered, consigned to the great sterile Cube Bank and the dreams that may come as she awaited Resurreccion.
>No...that was not the worst. She could imagine that, too. She had seen the propaganda holos of those turned by the touch of the devils of the Combined. Betrayed by their Cubes, their means of salvation. Those lost souls. That Yu Jing woman. That inhuman look in her eyes
>/Virgin Mother, have mercy on this poor sinner and let her leave behind her mortal form in peace and join you...wait...maybe not/
>Though her ears felt stuffed with gauze, a sound reaches her. The rapid descent of a trooper on an airborne deployment line. Saints preserve her, a Crusader Brother!
>Her lungs struggle to breathe a sigh of relief, but there was something she couldn’t feel holding her tightly, barely giving her room to sustain the barest airflow. Her eye focuses on the warning holo. Her armor had crumpled in on her. /Mierda./
>Boots crunch on the shattered remains of the Orc duo’s equipment that lay strewn about in a wide radius. A trooper doing a routine sweep of the area. Surely the invisible spectre that had slain them would be gone by now, right? Searching for more victims? She tries to scream,but can’t even manage a gurgle.
>The sudden odor of spices and flowers hits her nose. Then, she hears a mechanical voice coming from over where Hans’ corpse must be.
> [Got yourself proper fucked up, eh? Welcome to the war against the Ur, and goodbye. Not even I can bring rescue your memories now, human. Good thing your lieutenant will pay for your brainbox anyway]
>An auto translator. She had heard such a thing only once, when an ambassador visited. A Tohaa heathen.
>More sounds. Pieces of metal hitting the ground. Hans’ armor falling to pieces as something was salvaged. Funny, she couldn’t hear the cutting torch. Something is quickly placed into a vacuum canister, then the bootsteps move towards her.
>A brief pause.
>[Fuck me with four cocks] the autotranslator swore, as the dark shape of the alien leaned into view, still speaking in the pheromonic tongue. [This one might yet live. Just my bad luck.]. There was a slight masculine tone to the translator’s voice.
>The alien’s dark form left her view as...it...he...crouched down. A gloved hand dives into her chest cavity, and only then does she realize she can’t really feel anything below her neck.
>"Hold still. Heh. That's a joke, you're paralyzed" he explained, speaking in her own language and looming back over her face to gauge her reaction. His heathen face was masked.
 >She could barely catch a glimpse as he pulled out a knife that looked like it was made of vibrating air.
>He went to work deep in her abdomen, carving at nodes of embedded shrapnel and liberally applying a green slime he pulled from a pouch.
>”Is it wasteful to use the good stuff on you? Maybe. But I am a slave to my professional pride.” he confesses.
>Air rushes into her lungs by reflex as he slices away a staved in armor plate with his monofilament edge. The Orc chokes back another rush of tears. God had sent an unlikely angel to her. She knew not even the best of her force’s paramedics would not have attempted to do half of what -
>The green slime suddenly connected some of her severed spinal pathways. Numbness gave way to pain gave way to agony in an instant, and her muscles contract in a spasm.
>Something severs against a sharp shard of armor, and her lifeblood gushes up onto the alien’s jacket.
>[Fucking human!]
>Blackness took her once more.
>/Oh, God!/


Part Deux

>[Red...I'll never get used to such an obscene color for your race’s blood.] the autotranslator rattles, the Tohaa unwilling or unable to mask his pheromones in the middle of a tricky biomechanical suture.
>The Orc Trooper breathed deeply. She’s awake. She’s alive!
>Aromatics of every type swirled around her, the Tohaa rambling to himself about this and that. Pleasant but overwhelming pheromones. Nausea struck. She passed out again.

>[They sure grow them big on Neoterra] The Tohaa was still talking to himself when next she awoke.
>His hands slid across her body, one unwaveringly using the deadly knife to strip off her useless armor, the other sensing her pulse and breath so he can slice millimeters from her skin.
>Slice after slice, strip after strip of heavy armor fell away like she had been clad in a suit of paper.
>The Orc sucked in air. Her head swam with the rush of sensations filtered through the patchwork nervous system. Wet grass, tight bandages...a light breeze across her bare legs and chest.
>”Easy now. One slip and all of my artistry is wasted” he chided her in the human tongue.
>As he reached up to work on her ruined helmet, she slipped once more into peaceful unconsciousness, her heart thumping fast, and the trooper trying to put the image of a disapproving Virgin Mother from her head.

>[What do you mean half price?!?... I don't care what you think the medical costs will be, a pulse is worth more than a Cube!! Don't pour piss on my hair and tell he it's raining!].
>A heated comms call was the next thing to wake her. The Tohaa must be pacing back and forth. His emitted pheromones were strong and spicy as he cursed out her Lieutenant.
> [You'd rather I cut her head off right now and save you the trouble?] he shouted
> Her heart stopped, two working, bruised eyes blinked and an image of the white hell of a Cube Bank took over the panorama of the Paradisan sky above her. She convulsed, crying out a ragged protest to the sky. Not now. Not after...this!
>[Damn! Call you back, human!]

>"You are going to be alright" he said, in a chipper, slow voice. She was jostled awake by being hefted into the air.
>The ‘human’ accent was all wrong.
>He was a man who smelled like wildflowers.
>He had thoughtlessly desecrated her beautiful armor and corpus inviolatus.
>But...his arms were strong around her as he hefted her onto the Mulbot. She was wrapped in his gore-soaked jacket.
>"Remember, we Tohaa cannot lie." he said, and looking into his face for the first time clearly, she thought she could see a weary smile behind the mask.
>"Bullshit..." she spits out. "Your kind lies every time they open their mouths.” Each word felt like a mistake to her swollen jaw. “Tell me again with your…”
>A single accusing finger pointed at his autotranslator box.
>Her knowledge of how his people went about their deceptions shocked him as much as her ability to still speak.
>[Damn.] He swore, then the translator had a hard time communicating what he did next, but she knew it was laughter. [You got me. Let's say...I'll see if I can't take half of my pay from your family when they see you.]
>The Mulbot began to speed off, seeking the jungle road. It was already night: he must have stayed with her for hours. At any time, a Combined patrol could have come and…
 >[And you, personally, owe me a drink] the translator rattles, and the Tohaa turns towards the jungle, [I’ll be in your camp for a few months. It’s not there’s any shortage of humans getting ambushed. So...I’ll see you around.]
>The Orc relaxed into the embrace of the baggage drone. She was already asleep.

TO BE CONTINUED??