#zhang

Hydra, which is Greek for "sea snake," is the longest and largest constellation in the night sky. For comparison, it would take about 500 full moons stretched end to end across the sky to cover the length of Hydra!

Although set down by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in the 2nd century, the origins of this constellation can be traced back to the Babylonians. They saw this also as a hybrid of a serpent, lion, and bird. To the ancient Greeks, Hydra could be the snake that a crow served Apollo in a cup in lieu of water, or the dreaded monster Hydra that Hercules slayed as part of his twelve labors.

The named stars in Hydra are, in order of brightness:

Alphard (α Hydrae), an orange giant star about 177 light years away. Its name comes from the Arabic word al-fard meaning "the individual," since there are no other bright stars near it. Fun fact: Alphard appears on the flag of Brazil!

Naga (γ Hydrae) is a binary star system about 134 light years away. The primary star is a yellow giant. Its name comes from the Sanskrit word nāga meaning "serpent." Naga also appears on the Brazilian flag.

Ashlesha (ε Hydrae) is a quadruple star system about 129 light years away. The primary pair consists of a yellow giant and a yellow-white star. The name comes from the Sanskrit word Āśleṣā meaning "the embrace," referring to a constellation in Indian astronomy.

Ukdah (ι Hydrae) is an orange giant star about 263 light years away. Its name comes from the Arabic word uqdah meaning "knot."

Zhang (υ¹ Hydrae) is a solitary yellow giant star about 264 light years away. It has one confirmed brown dwarf orbiting it. Its name comes from Chinese astronomy, the constellation Zhāng Xiù (張宿) meaning "extended net."

Solitaire (E Hydrae) is a solitary orange giant star about 290 light years away. Its name is a reference to the obsolete constellation Turdus Solitarius, Latin for "solitary thrush." This in turn was named after the Rodrigues solitaire, an extinct flightless bird native to the island of Rodrigues, east of Madagascar. You can see this bird in the illustration above!

Minchir (σ Hydrae) is a solitary orange giant star about 370 light years away. Its name comes from the Arabic phrase minkhar ash-shujāʽ meaning "the nostril brave one."

Felis (HD 85951) is a solitary orange giant star about 570 light years away. Its name refers to the obsolete constellation Felis, Latin for cat. You can see the cat in the illustration above!

Lerna (HAT-P-42) is a solitary Sun-like star about 1,350 light years away. It has one confirmed exoplanet orbiting it, about the same mass as Jupiter, named Iolaus. Both names were given by the people of Greece: Lerna is the name of the lake where the Hydra lived, and Iolaus was the nephew of Hercules that helped him slay the beast.

I need Carl to talk to somebody about his life before all this. I know it's personal and will probably never happen but I need the world to know that his life beat him down. The people that were supposed to love him, his parents *and* girl friend, didn't. He threw himself into work. Into the military. He hates drama and has felt alone almost his entire life. And yet at the end of the world he still chose people.

He makes an active choice at every turn to *help*. He didn't abandon the elderly of Meadow Lark. He let Donut choose and train Mongo even though it wasn't what he had wanted. He's saved Princess Donut, sheilded her with his own body, more than once. He helped Katia despite how she was struggling at the beginning. He didn't abandon the people on the 3rd floor when the bomb was set to go off even though he had the chance to. He saved Bautista and Li Jun/Li Na/Zhang multiple times. He risked everything to send those trains out for stragglers.

“Ouch!”

“Sorry! I did tell you it would burn” ___ swiped the alcohol wipe across Lopez’s blue arm, cleaning the deep wound from dirt and bacteria. She grabbed a needle and thread out of the medkit on the floor and carefully stitched him up.

“Don’t be a pussy Lp” Brown stuck his tongue out, tail flicking every which way, hitting Mansk behind him who swatted at the appendage and rolled his eyes, not that anyone could see them under the shades.

“Hey! This is a crazy ass gash on my arm! Let me cry dickface” Lopez stuck up the middle finger of the hand that wasn’t getting treated and ___ slapped it, instructing him not to get into petty fights until after she’s done.

“Will you lot stop pulling each others cocks for one minute?” their colonel strolled into the med bay with Wainfleet right behind him, both ducking under the small doorway to get into the room. “How’s it looking doc?”

“He’ll be ok, it shouldn’t get infected if treated correctly, just make sure to change the bandages every once in a while” ___ finished the last of the stitches she sewed, putting away her equipment. Being a doctor on Pandora had its pros, her income was higher than any other job on Earth, she got to be the first of the human race to live on another planet, she also got to have free roam of Bridgehead since she was highly ranked which was cool.

The cons however, were that she had to be apart of Project Phoenix. Assisting the recombinant squad, ‘deja blu’ was not what she signed up for and at first she was very reluctant, until she actually spent time with them. They were sweet and gentle with her, knowing that she was physically much weaker than them, they took care of her and also each other. Somewhat, they were a family.

Also the soldiers were fucking hot.

“Good. Lopez that was some stupid shit you pulled back there. Could’ve gotten us killed” Quaritch’s heavy steps stomped over to the two and flicked the mans pointed ear, Lopez winced and ___ huffed a laugh.

“Sorry colonel, just got too excited”

“If you want to be excited again, you have the opportunity to get out once you’re done here” General Ardmore made herself known, glaring at every person in the room “I need you on the front lines, take on those big ass animals that are blocking our train lines, they haven’t moved for days so we’re gonna amp up the pressure”

Some of the squad quietly sighed, they just came back from a mission, one that almost got them eaten by a giant black cat, not to mention one of them is injured enough as is.

“General, Lopez here needs to rest, he’s hurt enough as is” ___ intervened, holding the man’s massive hand and squeezing it in reassurance, she knew by the way his ears pointed down that he didn’t want to go out so soon, especially after almost getting his arm hacked off. Ardmore only directed her glare to the woman, making her freeze and look down.

She was one intimidating lady.

“General, we’ll be out there as soon as my guys are rested, it shouldn’t take long” Quaritch piped up, not wanting their doctor to face the older ladies rath of judgement.

Ardmore nodded sharply and sighed heavily, not liking the delay but this wasn’t her team to command… well it was…but Quaritch was a man that she didn’t want to get on the bad side of. Recom or human. She briskly turned and marched out but not before giving them three days rest to recover and gather supplies. She’d just have to send some Bulldogs instead.

Lopez sighed and squeezed ___’s hand in thanks for sticking up for him, he released it and stood up from his chair, Brown coming over and clapping him on the back “you guys wanna go to the rec room? Ja and Zhang are waiting for us”, many agreed and followed suit, Wainfleet and Quaritch sticking behind for ___.

The doctor packed her equipment away and took off her lab coat off, nodding to the two as they filed out. “So.. what exactly happened out there?” she usually was on these missions with them, but she had to tend to some paperwork with the bio scientists.

“We ran into one of those.. what are they called, thanators? Nasty fuckers” Wainfleet strolled up next to her, tail flicking and sending her hair up a little, he grinned and messed with her more, using his tail to flick more of her neatly kept hair.

___ turned and slapped his leg, smoothing her hair down and jogged a little further to get away from him. “Yeah, they’re not very nice. You must’ve been in their hunting zone - stop that!” she grinned as Lyle followed her around “just because I have hair and you don’t!”

Quaritch snorted “docs got a point corporal, but that burn runs deeper than Lp’s kitty scratches, how you gonna take that?” he was a few ways back from them, ears pointed up and grin on his face at their silliness. He could hear more of his team in one of the rooms further up laughing and chatting, Prager had a secret lover? Now that is something he’d need to find out.

“Well for one, sleep with both eyes open and a nightlight, for two-” The soldier grabbed ___ by the waist and hoisted her up over his shoulder, slapping her ass and barging into the recom’s rec room shouting “this little lady has been bullying me about my hair! We needa teach her a lesson”

Zdinarsk sharply turned at the loud noise and saw the predicament the two were in, ___ was dangling with her face barely reaching Lyle’s lower back, her tiny fists hitting the muscle as she shouted for mercy. The soldier hollered “what hair?!” and the rest followed with shouts of their own, oh the agony.

Wainfleet pointed his middle finger at every single one of them, including Quaritch behind him who was chuckling loudly. He placed the human in his arms onto one of the couches and forced her onto her back, easily pinning her with just one hand. His yellow eyes met hers and she instantly tensed up “no! NO! Lyle please don’t!” the man only grinned devilishly and raised his other hand slowly “Lyle I promise I’ll do anything!”

“Anything?”

“Yes anything! I’ll bake you those brownies you like!” Man did he love those brownies.

“Hmm, what do you think people?” Lyle glanced at everyone in the room to see their opinions.

Zhang twisted around and raised his brows “I dunno corp, she disrespected you and your lack of hair, she deserved what’s coming to her”

“Zhang!”

“Yea give it to her!” Fike pumped a fist into the air and Mansk nodded cooly.

“The people have spoken darlin’ you could still make me those sweets anyway” ___ screeched as the solder brought the hand down and tickled at her skin, going across the stomach, under the pits, under her chin. Her greatest weakness is that she’s ticklish, ever since they found that out she’s been exploited to the harsh fingers of the recombinants.

The doctor had tears going out of her eyes as she laughed at the feeling “I-I’m sorry! ahaha! I did- I didn’t mean to!” she felt Wainfleet slow down to a stop, nodding and patting her head as she breathed heavily. A flicker appeared in his eyes and she instantly put her hands up, knowing he would probably do it again.

Prager strolled by and rugby tackled Lyle to the floor, taking him down and wrestling him. All ___ could see from her position was tails swinging and legs flailing, she breathed heavily and sat up, carefully avoiding the almost ten foot men.

She strolled over to Quaritch who engaged himself in a game of cards with Ja, Zdinarsk and Fike. She examined the A4 cards he held then the ones on the table and plucked one from his fingers, placing it down. “Fuck” Zdinarsk swore, cursing whatever god was out there for this treachery, she was losing. Z-Dog never loses. “You know, I thought I liked you sweetness” ___ just stuck her tongue out in retaliation. Fike urged the doctor to help him out too, only to get a card thrown at him by Zdinarsk.

“How are you doing Lopez?” ___ strolled over to the man who was watching T.V with Zhang and Brown, he grabbed the little lady and perched her onto his lap.

“Good mami. It’s gonna take more than a fat cat to tear me down”

“Oorah!”

___ glanced over the man’s shoulder at Wainfleet who agreed and flexed his muscles, marines will be marines, she laughed.

“Don’t act like you weren’t crying earlier because of the pain” Brown chimed in, eyes glancing at the two next to him, he reached a hand over to rest it on ___’s calf, rubbing circles on it.

“I didn’t cry”

“Yes you did, whining like Prager when he got dumped by his secret lover”

‘Prager had a secret lover?’ ___ wondered. Tea is brewing, she had a feeling it was gonna be good.

“I’ll stick my tail in your ass if you don’t shut your fucking mouth”

“I’m counting on it”