Cass

“We have enough food in storage to last… two weeks,” rumbled Kwei, who stood in the central room of the smoking wreckage of your ship. 

“Not as long as I’d like, but that’s two weeks longer than dying now,” you joked.

Kwei shot you an unamused look, and his upper mandibles twitched as if scowling. “We will not die now. Have some pride.”

Why would you be dying now? Oh, right, because your ship– Kwei’s, actually– was currently smashed to bits on some uninhabited ice planet.

You and Kwei had set off on a small hunting trip, just to get some exotic meats for an upcoming Yautja ceremony. Sure, the ragtag little band of strays Dek and Thia had picked up only had two Yautjas–  Dek himself and his brother Kwei– but you all still celebrated holidays like Yautja: lots of food, drink, arm-wrestling and headbutting like rams. This would be the first official holiday celebrated by your little group, so it was a big deal, and according to Kwei, a big deal required lots of fancy food. 

So, you’d tagged along with him on his hunting trip. You were a former Weland-Yutani scientist and, while having deserted for Dek’s crew because the ethics board took too many vacations, you were still a scientist and still curious to learn about Yautjas. The ship were barely beyond the atmosphere when Kwei input the wrong coordinates– by a single digit!-- and you’d ended up careening through an asteroid belt before crashing onto this frozen hellscape.

“Kwei, the ship is completely. We have no life support. We’re cooked.”

“We can still survive. The air is breathable,” he grunted. “And if we do die, we will not be cooked, we will be frozen.”

“It’s– it’s a saying.”

“Oomans… so weird.”

“But anyway! Life support is out. We’re going to freeze, Kwei.” 

“I might, but I thought oomans were good at surviving in cold?” He piled the rations on the platform in the center of the cockpit, where you’d decided to move everything of import, for it was better to try to keep just one room warm than the whole ship. 

“When we have the right tools, yeah,” you protested, but he was already out the door, letting in a blast of freezing air and snow. You hissed and curled tighter in the passenger’s seat.

Great. Juuuust great, you thought, wrapping your arms tighter around yourself. Stuck on a freezing planet in a totaled ship with only two week’s worth of rations, and my only company is…

Kwei. Handsome, brave, kind Kwei, who’d stood up to his father for Dek’s safety, who’d lost an arm for Dek’s safety. Handsome, brave, kind Kwei, who despite his upbringing, welcomed anyone into Dek’s clan. Handsome, brave, kind Kwei, who could hunt like the best of them, especially with his fancy new prosthetic arm.

You shook your head rapidly. Now was not the time to be getting all dreamy about those pretty yellow eyes of his– stop! You were probably going to die here! Now was not the goddamn time to be crushing! 

Something heavy, warm, and musky-smelling dropped on top of you, turning the world dark. You sputtered and pushed it off, only to see a smug-looking Yautja standing over you. 

“Pelt. To keep warm.” He held other pelts under his prosthetic arm, all of different colors but with the same kind of hair: thick and soft and cozy warm.

“Oh. Thank you. Did you… hunt these?”

“No. They appeared out of thin air.” 

So that’s where Dek got it. 

“What animal are they from?” You asked as he sat down (criss-cross applesauce style, something you never imagined you’d see a seven-foot-tall murder alien do) in the pilot’s chair and piled the furs on top of himself. 

“Mevrals. Like… what are they? Earth animals? Bears. Like bears,” he explained. “Big. Hairy. Mean.” His mandibles twitched a little into an expression you’d come to know as a smile. “Tasty.”

“Tasty how? What do they taste like?” Your curiosity was borne of genuine hunger, but you wouldn’t admit it– those rations had to last two weeks at the least.

Kwei paused, thinking, and his jaw opened a little, as if he was imagining mevral meat on his tongue. He had a very cute thinking face, you noted. His eyebrows (eye ridges?) would furrow and he’d tilt his head a little like a dog when it hears an interesting noise.

“Mm… gamey. Tough. A little salty.” He let out a little chuffing noise. “The part that sticks out the most right now was how warm the meat was.” 

You nodded, also wanting something hot to eat to fight off the chill sinking into your skin.

The wind kicked up a little outside and the resulting shriek made you shiver. You remembered the winds howling outside your window during winter when you were a kid. The only difference was then, you were nice and safe in your warm house and might wake up to a snow day, but now, you might not wake up at all. 

“Dek will get our distress signal,” Kwei said, barely audible over the howling winds, his gaze fixed on the little long-distance transmitter sitting on the control panel that was thankfully still working. You glanced at him, wondering if he was trying to convince you or himself.

The winds outside howled louder, and it looked a little darker than it had before. “Is the sun going down?”

Kwei sat up straighter, craning his neck, his predlocs falling over his shoulders. “...I think so.” There was a growl in his tone. Both of you were in trouble, and you knew it.

“It’s going to get a lot colder,” you mumbled. Your breath was already coming in clouds. 

“I know.”

“Maybe I should start a fire?”

Kwei looked over at you and his eye ridges raised. “In here?”

“Yeah. There’s a little hole in the ceiling.” You pointed to the sizable missing chunk above you both. “We wouldn’t suffocate.” 

“What about fuel?”

Oh, yes. The most important part of a fire. What, what what… not the pelts. Paper, did you have paper? Yes! 

You reached into your backpack and pulled out your journal. It was a new one with only a few entries, meant to symbolize the fresh start you got by leaving Weyland-Yutani, so there wasn’t a great loss, but it was still unfortunate. Before you could rip out any pages, though, Kwei stood and pulled the pelt off you.

“Hey!”

“Be calm. Stand.”

You did immediately. Your obedience shocked evene you.

Kwei, meanwhile, bent and yanked the seat from where it was anchored to the floor. You stared, dumbstruck, as he placed the seat against the wall, then did the same to the pilot’s seat, muscles rippling under his thick skin. 

“Now, there is a place for the fire.” He gestured to the open space where the chairs had once been.

“Ooh. Good idea.”

You got to work starting the fire, piling up the mostly-empty pages from your journal and then using a small flint firestarter to get a blaze going. You sat back on your haunches, satisfied with your wilderness survival skills, already warmer, then turned to go snuggle up in that pelt again. Or, you were going to.

“Kwei, is that a nest?” The Yautja had piled the furs across both the seats, along with what seemed to be a thermal emergency blanket and was curled up in the middle of it, looking far cuter than he had any right to look.

“Yes. To keep warm.”

You stared at him, wondering if he was going to shuffle aside to make room for you shivering body. He didn’t. 

Ass.

“Why do you stand there? Come. It will be warmer like this.”

What.

“Come,” he repeated, yellow eyes soft in the glow of the firelight, and raised his flesh arm as if to welcome you into the pelts. 

Well, you wouldn’t wait for him to beckon a third time. You stepped forward and were immediately pulled into his arms, laying across his muscular thighs, head on his shoulder. He was so warm. 

At least, he was until he tried to wrap his prosthetic arm around you too. You yelped. “Jeez! Cold! …Sorry! But seriously, how can you still have it on? It’s like a block of ice!”

Kwei blinked, then let out a low noise. “I did not realize it was this cold. The flesh has grown numb.”

“Oh, shit,” you said. “It must be lowering your whole body temperature. You should take it off.”

“No,” he snapped suddenly, and you jerked back. “I will be vulnerable without it.”

Oh. Right. Yautja. Yikes.

“Kwei,” you started. “The planet is uninhabited. The only person who could know where we are is Dek. No one's going to hurt us. And as of right now, your arm won’t be a help, it’s only hurting you. Please, take it off, before you get even colder.

His eyes met yours and there was an odd softness in them. His mandibles twitched, as if he wanted to argue, before– “Okay, ooman.”

You leaned back as Kwei removed his arm and tucked it under some of the furs, leaving his stump bare and displaying the knot of scars there. He caught you looking and pulled a pelt over it but did not meet your gaze. 

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to stare.” Your cheeks, already blotchy from the cold, darkened further. “But I– I thought Yautjas are proud of their scars?”

“Proud of scars we obtain on hunts,” he replied. “Honorably.”

“But you got that scar protecting Dek. Is that not honorable?”

He blinked rapidly again as if caught off guard. “Oh. Yes.”

Kwei made no move to fix the pelt when it fell off his shoulder, you noted. But you did. You pulled the pelts tight around you both and he looked down in question.

“Can’t have you getting too chilly,” you replied, snuggling into his chest. A low, rhythmic chuffing noise escaped him– a laugh– and he placed his hand around your waist. His head drooped a little, resting on top of yours, and those pretty yellow eyes drifted closed

Before long, low snores filled the small cockpit. The noise was soothing, almost, and that plus the firelight, the warmth of Kwei’s chest, and his comforting scent made you fall asleep too, no longer worried about freezing in the night.

The two of you were woken the next morning by a crackle from the transmitter. You both traded looks and you reached out to turn up the volume.

“Kwei! Kwei! Come in, brother!” Came Dek’s voice. “We have received your signal. Thia and I shall arrive in four hours!”

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

A few days later, when you were back with Dek and the others on their ship, you exited your shower in a bathrobe to see something laying on your bed. You picked it up, turning it over in your hands.

It was a journal. The cover was leather, the pages handmade, all stitched together with perfectly prepared sinew. On the first page was a note in Yuatja:

You are a very nice ooman. Nice to cuddle and to talk with. 

Your stylus hastily scribbled away on your data pad. Your feet scrunched against dead leaves and brittle branches. Your head was down, your focus elsewhere as you traced the path, marked down trees, wildlife, and among other things as you made a 3-D model of the landscape that you were traversing. You, in small terms, were a map maker and a navigator. When the company went to a new world, they would send you too, your main job being to create accurate maps for the team to use and safely navigate the terrain. Your second job was to identify wildlife. And that included both plants and animals – minerals too at times. Your third job, to live and be able to serve out your contract.

It was a sick game, you had concluded once. You had a long allotted time you needed to serve out to the company, and you would be lucky if you didn’t die during an assignment. You found your steps slowing at the thought. Your hand holding your stylus rising slightly to brush your mouth with your knuckles. You felt a shiver run along your spine.

You’ve been lucky. Lucky enough, but being sent to so many planets, it was only a matter of time before you lost your footing. Not that the company would care if you died on one of these assignments. If you died right now, they would see your death as a momentary pause in progress before sending another to replace you and hopefully recover the data you did collect before your death. Oh, and they would be mad that you hadn’t served your full contract, but, of course, what could they do to a dead man? Make your relatives (both close and distant) suffer, you suppose, but it wasn’t like you could do much about that. However, you had heard that the company made someone’s grandpa serve out the rest of a person’s contract when said person ran away and went into hiding. You pressed your lips together. The only living relative you had was your older sister, and she had served out her contract a while ago. Right now, you reckon; she is probably living on a beach with her fiancé. While you remained out of sight and out of mind.

And even though she is free from responsibilities, you wouldn’t want to put your time onto her. So you grit your teeth, and lived.

Even though living was proving harder than previously thought. You wiped a stray bead of sweat off your face as you went to sit down on a rock. As of now, the company, also known as the Weyland Yutani Corporation, had sent you to a planet covered with rainforests. It was so humid here that you had already drenched three sets of clothes with sweat alone, and getting your clothes to properly dry after washing them was a nightmare and a half.

Now, usually when someone hears of your position and mission details, they expect you to be a synth. I mean, why send a human to do such a dangerous job? The answer was a multitude of things. For one, it was cheaper, you were easy to replace, didn’t cost as much as a synth, and you had a contract to serve out. And you were terribly good at your job. You accidentally became important and good enough that you were sent to the harder planets to map out – but not important enough that the corporation cared about your wellbeing, of course.

You stretched your legs out as you continued to sit on the rock, rolled your shoulders, cracked your neck a bit. It could be worse-

You heard a branch snap, and you felt the hairs on your arms stand up – your skin erupting in goosebumps as you looked around. You stood up, took off your backpack, carefully slid your stylus and data pad into your zipper pouch before closing it back up and slinging it over your shoulders again. Another twig snapped, leaves rustled, the wind stilled. For fuck’s sake-

You turned on your heel and broke out into a dead sprint down the path you came from. Behind you was a noise, erratic breathing, with more branches snapping underweight. You didn’t dare you look back as your sole covered feet squished and sunk against barely dry mud, dirt and grime. Low hanging branches smacked you in the face, twisted vines that you previously navigated through grappled with you – threatening to entangle you, but you pulled hard as you continued running. Behind you, you could hear something grotesque and loud. Like a jaw was unhinging and getting closer to swallow you whole.

Then, your foot got caught in an uprooted old tree, the hard wood of the root catching your laces as you fell face first to the ground, the wind getting knocked right out of you as you felt the fabric of your clothes give you nasty burns on your knees and elbows.

You heard something snarl above you and you pushed yourself to roll and lie on your back, your upper body being propped up by your elbows. The thing that was chasing you was large, disgusting to look at and even worse to smell.

It’s tongue ran along it’s sharp teeth as it lunged for you. You shut your eyes tight. You did say that your luck would run out eventually, after all, you just didn’t think it would be today. Though, as soon as the thought flashed behind your eyelids, you heard another sound. One as grotesque as what the monster had made. The sound itself was hard to describe, but it was like a loud squelch. Like something sharp puncturing something squishy and wet. You flinched, your eyes still closed as something landed near your feet. Almost shakily, you opened your eyes. The monster that was chasing you was lying on the forest floor, a spear of some sort sticking through its chest as a orange liquid spilled from its mouth. You scrunched your nose up when a putrid smell hit your nose. You coughed as you covered your nose with your sleeve, “that smell is so gross,” you muttered as you went to stand up. Your eyes still on the beast that was dead on the ground – but something was off. The space in front of you looked … distorted?

You took a step forward. Your hand reaching out slowly until your fingers pressed against something solid until your whole palm was flat. Whatever invisible thing was in front of you was cold, and metal. It made you laugh, but that was impossible. The only things that you knew could be invisible and killed big beasts were-

You froze in place, your hand basically groping a hard patch of pure muscle. Uh oh.

You yanked your hand away like whatever was in front of you had burned your skin, and just as you turned on your heel to run again, your face smacked right into a spider web. You screeched loudly as you danced about. Your arms waving erratically around you as you tried to get the webbing out of your face.

“Get it off, get it off, get it off, get it off-!”

Behind you, the yautja disabled his cloak. He watched you for a moment. His scanner not picking up any sort of weapon on your person. And watching you prance around like that made his mandibles click as a sound erupted from his throat – a chuckle of sorts. The new sound itself made you pause as you hastily pulled over the silk strings from your hair and face – eyes flicking back as you saw the yautja in full view now. And when you finally got the last bits of webbing off of you, your full attention was finally back on him. Though, when he took a step forward, you took a step back.

As a navigator for the Weyland Yutani Corporation, it was your job not to cause trouble or hinder the mission in any way, and that included not dying. Especially not dying to a species you could actually communicate with. The corporation basically hammered various alien species’ languages into your head. And that included yautja.

You cleared your throat as you tried to calm your racing heart and steady your shaking hands, “thank you,” you managed to say in yautja tongue, “I hope I didn’t hinder your hunt in any way.”

You watched, with baited breath, as the yautja hunter tilted his head at you as if studying you (and maybe being a little surprised that you could speak his language). After a moment of looking you over, it huffed, another odd sound, “Not a hinder,” he ended up saying, “you were good bait.”

“Bait?!”

You didn’t mean to come off as offended, but you were, in fact, offended.

He jutted his head back to the dead thing behind him, “it had been following you for a while, waiting for you to take a rest and show exhaustion.”

“And how long have you been following it,” you dared to ask.

“Not following, tracking. I noticed you first, then it.”

You made an ‘oh’ sound as you suddenly felt stupid. You knew the planets you visited were in no way, shape, or form “safe,” but you didn’t think you would run into something like this. You jumped a little when your wrist band pinged and you brought your arm up to see a holographic message pop up.

MU/TH/UR – Status?

A message from mother… if the company finds out about the yautja here… You quickly typed out a ‘fine. Status normal.’

MU/TH/UR – Recent records show elevated heart rate and adrenaline spike.

You looked at the yautja who was still carefully watching you. ‘Ran into a spider web.’

MU/TH/UR – is that all?

‘Yes.’

MU/TH/UR – continue with navigation and map modeling.

‘Understood.’

It was probably a mistake not to tell your boss that there was a yautja on the planet, however, he did save you even if you were just bait to him.

“You are probably already aware of the others that are here,” you said as you looked back at him, staring up into his mask, “but I didn’t tell them about you… consider it as repayment for saving me, even though you weren’t actually trying to save me.”

You watched him nod before looking you over one more time and turning his back to you. His body crouched down as he examined his prey that was still twitching on the forest floor. You stood there awkwardly for a moment. He wasn’t attacking you, nor was he trying to engage in anymore conversation. Do you walk away? Continue mapping out the terrain? You thought back to your assignment and the message you got. Best continue on then. You took off your backpack once more to get your stylus and data pad out. And once you shouldered your pack again, you opened up the 3-d map you had modeled so far. If you go back up the path, you could continue where you left off.

You glanced to the crouched yautja. His back was still to you. Carefully, you moved around him. Your lips pressed into a firm line as you went to leave.

“You have a map?”

The question caught you off guard as you found yourself frozen again. Your lips pressed into a tight, thin line as the yautja stood back up. He grabbed a hold of your arm and turned you back to face him, his mask tilted down, and you reckoned he was looking at the holographic map. The details looked realistic, as if a synth had scanned the area and inputted the visuals into the data pad itself.

“One that I’m still working on, but yes.”

You could tell he was studying you again while a heavy silence hung in the air before you heard a clicking sound come from him. He turned his back to you again as he went back to tending to his kill and you released a breath you didn’t even know you were holding.