Dark Energy Supernova - An Anthology of SF SD Shorts

Part 4 Bumps in the Night

A practical being, K'arnor quickly took her surprise and elation at winning over the J'ref and transformed it into a determination to make her fields bloom with fertility.  And work she did, the weeks passing by until at the end of another long day, she found herself looking at her greening fields with a smile of satisfaction on her weary face.

She was preparing dinner a little later when something loudly struck her door.  Instantly K'arnor had the marshal's pistol aimed and ready.

But before she could demand identification, she heard a low, pain-filled moan.

"Wo'tanese," the low, pain-filled voice rasped with a Jre'f's roughness.  Her vow of shelter forcing her to drop her gun and yank open the door, K'arnor grunted as a bleeding and broken body fell into her arms.

Eyes wide in shock, the wo'tanese stared at the badly injured native for a moment.  Had it run afoul of KR's garrison?  No, those were energy weapon burn marks.  The garrison used slug throwers like the gun momentarily forgotten in her hand.  After doing what she could to make the wounded native comfortable, her next action was to fish out Milly's communicator.

"Milly, it's K'arnor.  You out there?" she whispered into the small device.  And she sagged with relief when it crackled to life.

"Right here, greenhorn," the human's voice answered.  "Is there something wrong?"

"A badly wounded J'ref hunter has come to the house.  He's been shot."

"Oh?  I didn't hear anything about the garrison out tonight," the human began to reply.

"With energy weapons," K'arnor interrupted Milly to report.

"Energy,..?"  There was a slight pause.  "I'm on my way!"

The wo'tanese looked up with a start as the door banged open only to sigh with relief when she saw it was Milly.  The blond human looked grimmer than usual, a double holster now strapped around her waist.  Then K'arnor was looking down at the hunter, whose head she cradled in her lap.

"He's dead," she quietly announced.  "Just a few minutes ago."

The human snarled something in her language.  Then she was hooking a gloved hand into K'arnor's elbow and pulling her to her feet.

"What are you doing?" K'arnor stammered, staring into the human's hard face.  "We have to bury him."

"Later," Milly fired back.  "We've got shit to do and little time to do it.  C'mon!"

Pulled along by an irresistible strength, K'arnor was forced to follow Milly outside where two massive, sand and brown cat-like creatures waited.  They rumbled in greeting when they saw Milly even as K'arnor pulled up in shock and fear.

"What are those?" she hoarsely whispered.

"Mirage cats," was Milly's terse answer.  Then she was climbing up onto the roof of K'arnor's small house where she pulled out distance viewers to scan down along the river.

Again the human swore in her language when her scanning abruptly stopped.

"They're at Big Curve, on the plain and digging into the cliff face," she tautly reported before she was stepping off the roof to drop onto the ground, landing with incredible grace before she began striding towards the big cats.  As she walked, she spoke rapidly in the human language into her communicator.

Staring at the house, then back over at Milly, K'arnor's head spun.  That drop should've broken an ankle or even a leg.  Yet the human had traversed the distance without even noticing it.