Storm World Ch. 07

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Critical discoveries are made.
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Part 7 of the 10 part series

Updated 06/08/2023
Created 08/19/2016
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RipperFish
RipperFish
2,512 Followers

I'm not entirely satisfied with this chapter, but I don't want to delay any further. I strongly feel I need to move ahead and start knocking these chapters out on a more regular schedule or I'll give up on the story. Don't get me wrong. I'm still going to put an effort into making the story as good as I can. I just think too much time has passed since the first chapter was posted and I had thought I might be finished with the story by the end of 2016. If things continue to progress as slowly as they have, the story won't be completed by the end of 2017. I might as well just quit if that is to be the case.

I'm certain I will get messages and comments on typos and other things like that, but here is the chapter and I hope you all will enjoy it.

As I did with Chapter 6 I am including this brief description of the characters:

Commander M`peth qHo – Thahn `Den – Intelligence Branch. Leader of the survivors.

Pilot Officer (Pilot) Liat `del Qha – Pah`Tht – First officer of the Char`Noth. Second in command.

Chief Weapons Officer (Gunner) Chep `Urt vEss – dTel`Qohar – Second officer of the Char`Noth.

Ima` Nef`Tn – dTel`Qohar – Weapons technician.

TaH `Kiy mTh – Thahn`Den – Engineer.

Tem l`eth tong – dTel`Qohar – Veteran weapons specialist. (This character was injured and walks with the aid of a crutch.)

Ty`em P`tral – Thahn `Den – Engineer (This character was injured and remains unconscious.)

For additional notes please go to Literotica Discussion Board > Main Literotica Forums > Authors' Hangout > The Savage Shore Universe.

Chapter 7

"By the Armored God!" gasped M`peth qHo. Her heart thudded in her chest, her vision swam and she was panting as if she had just sprinted a tTriel.* She gulped a deep breath, forcing herself back under control. Her pulse still throbbed in her ears, but her heart rate began to return to normal.

The commander had stayed and watched the lovers, though at first she had been reluctant. Now she was glad she had done so. She would never admit it to anyone else, but she was definitely glad. After the intimate massage Liat `del Qha had given her earlier M`peth qHo had wanted release and been frustrated. Those pent up desires had raged anew upon witnessing this scene of intimate passion.

Suddenly, she was aware her hand was still down inside her wet shorts and the damp was no longer cool. She withdrew her fingers from her swollen, sensitive sex, bringing them out of her shorts. They were slick and strongly scented with her own fluids. She smiled ruefully to herself and touched her tongue to them. It had been too long since she'd made love. There just had been no time to enjoy herself lately. Now she felt tired, but in a good way.

"Thank the Forger and Builder we got so thoroughly soaked in the rain," she chuckled.

Even so, the others might smell her and know what she had done. She could not return to the group like this. While the females would understand, at least in part, it would be too embarrassing with the males around. She could not remain here, either. Ima` Nef`Tn was drowsing, but a change in the air current might alert the young dTel`Qohar to her presence. That would be difficult to explain. And if the Human became aware, the situation would certainly become complicated.

Carefully, M`peth qHo rose and on shaky legs retraced her path back to the turning of the tunnel. Here she was far enough away to remain undetected. How could she remedy the evidence of something so embarrassing as her sex dampened shorts, though? Ima` Nef`Tn had said something about a chamber below with a shower, hadn't she? Thinking quickly over the brief discussion before Chep `Urt vEss had attacked Benjamin, M`peth qHo recalled the young crewmember's words. Somewhere below the main chamber was another with a shower. If she could find it she could clean herself and at the same time have a solid reason for having been absent. It was worth a try, at least.

Quickly but carefully the commander retraced her steps back to the main chamber. She paused to have a look around before proceeding further. It would not due to draw attention. She sniffed the air seeking any clue that might betray the location of the passage leading down to the shower. Step by step she advanced towards the enclosures, keeping close to the wall on her right. A gap in the stone appeared. It was the top to a chimney in the rock. Gazing down she could see a dim light.

"More of the damned moss," she breathed.

The chimney was narrow and her heart beat a little faster at the thought of descending into such a confining space, but to avoid the embarrassment she forced herself to climb down. Here the scent of Ima` Nef`Tn's desire was not as strong as it had been in the tunnel. Still, it was strong enough to convince the commander she was on the right track. Looking around she discovered a low opening she would have to crawl through. There was no other way out unless she wanted to climb back up. With a shudder she squatted down and crawled. She emerged into a tunnel large enough to stand upright in. Darkness lay in one direction and light in the other.

"Just like in the Teachings," she grumbled uneasily.

M`peth qHo was not religious, but the ironic symbolism did not escape her. She laughed thinly and crept towards the lighted chamber. Stones and loose dirt were scattered around the floor, but on one wall were pegs and a locker. Fastened to the roof was a tank of some kind. She examined the tank and discovered a lever. It was just out of reach of her extended hand. One of the larger stones remedied this. She slid the stone below the lever and stepped up. Now the lever was within reach, but before she opened the valve M`peth qHo reconsidered. Only a moment was needed to strip out of her gun belt and under clothes and then she remounted the stone and opened the valve.

Water poured off of a flat rock above her head, splashing across the already wet floor. It was warm and clean and she reveled in it. This is what bathing was supposed to be like. She scrubbed away the slickness between her thighs and ran her fingers through her mane. So good! With her personal cleanliness attended she took up her shorts, smelling strongly of her sex. These she held under the flowing water and scrubbed. A Taq`a** later she shut off the water and wrung out the shorts, twisting them so tightly they were no more wet than her undershirt. Finding the Human's towel she wiped at her fur and mane until the towel was too sodden to do more. She longed for a dryer, but there was no help for it.

"Or is there?" she purred speculatively.

The locker came open with a flick of a latch. M`peth qHo was pleasantly surprised to discover the mirror on the inside of the door and took a moment to examine herself.

"I look like a half drowned... cat." Her face spread into a wan smile at the thought, remembering the small Earth animal's aversion to water. Briefly she wondered what had become of the little creature in the lab and then shrugged it aside. Most likely it was some politician's exotic pet these days. Now, though, she needed a proper grooming.

A brief search of the locker yielded a simple comb, a brush and... Great and Powerful Makers of All Things! She held up what could only be a hand held dryer. Characters next to a switch meant nothing to her. They were strange symbols she had never seen in her studies. But really, how dangerous could this thing be? She moved the switch and instantly warm air began to stream from the nozzle.

"Heaven," M`peth qHo purred as she played it over her fur and mane. She used the brush in combination with the dryer and it did not take long before she felt warm and comfortable once more. Drying her wet clothes was another matter. Though she hung them on pegs it still required more time than she would have preferred. Nonetheless, the task was done and she felt more like her usual self. It was time to return to the main chamber and see how things were going. It pleased her, too, that she could now send Liat `del Qha down here to attend herself.

Exiting the shower room M`peth qHo was confronted with the dark end of the tunnel. She had wanted to completely explore the cave and all of its extensions, but when the quake had occurred that task had been interrupted. This dark tunnel appeared to have remained unused for whatever reason, though. No moss grew on its walls to light the way. Why?

"It wouldn't hurt to have a look around while I am down here," she said thoughtfully.

From its little case on her gun belt she drew the hand lamp, shining its beam down the unlighted stone passage. Nothing was revealed save more stone. Cautiously she proceeded into the unlit tunnel. There was no distinct smell. The floor was uneven and rough. The walls were the same. The tunnel narrowed and then widened, but not dramatically. The light from her lamp was suddenly cast back at her by a skim of water on the floor.

"As far down as I am, I must be near sea level," she mused and played her light back and forth over the floor. Doing this she discovered near a heavy boulder a large, whitish object that clearly was not stone. Though she did not wish to get her feet wet again so soon after finally getting dry, M`peth qHo felt compelled to investigate. She edged around the water until there was no choice and then with a grimace of distaste, stepped on the shallowest spot she could find.

"Loose fang," she hissed at the feel of the cool liquid seeping up between her toes. She was sure she would get the pad rot or perhaps some alien fungus would lodge between her toes and then what would she do? Nothing for it but to deal with the situation if it arose.

Focusing on the task at hand, M`peth qHo shone her light on the whitish object and discovered a series of smaller whitish things near it. Squatting down she examined the collection. The large object looked like a very strange skull with detached jaws lined with many sharp, needle-like teeth. The skull was bulbous, lacked any evidence of eyes and was nearly as large as her head. There was no sign of ribs and only a dozen vertebrae, one of which was crushed under the boulder.

"Some legless horror, I'm sure," she said with a disgusted scowl. "Probably here for years."

Movement caught her attention and she shone her light on it. Instantly the small creature that had drawn her eye curled into an armor-plated, greenish-blue ball the size of her fist. For just a Taq` she had the urge to pick it up, but sense prevailed. There was no telling what sort of danger something so innocent-looking might conceal. Instead, she scratched a pebble loose from the floor and flicked it at the balled thing. The pebble clacked against its shell and skittered away. The thing hardly moved, merely drawing tighter into itself. She tossed another pebble, a little harder this time, intending to provoke the creature. Again it hardly moved. Small legs fidgeted between the plates and went still. With her knife she reached out and prodded the thing. It rolled a bit, but did not open up.

"Well, you're boring," she told it. And then she had another thought. "I wonder how you would taste."

She did not have her medical kit which was still in her pack up in the main chamber and she could think of no way to carry the thing. Even if she had a bag of some kind the recollection of an experience her brother had had as a youth while hunting with their father would have stopped her. Li`ath Kul had shot some sort of small, arboreal game animal. He hunted so many different things she couldn't recall which kind. He'd stuffed the animal into his game sack and continued hunting. A short time later, though, it had awakened and fought fiercely to escape, tearing patches of fur and clawing deeply into his hip before he had been able to get the sack off and slam it on the ground several times to finish the creature off.

"You may look docile," she said to the little crustacean, "but I will not chance it. I don't suppose you are going far, anyway."

She rose up again and played her light deeper into the tunnel. Stepping around the boulder she discovered the rest of the skeleton. A jumbled ruin of armor plates and what looked like fin bones lay along the stone for several Jiq`a***. A long, boney tail with a wide fan of fin bones at its distal end stretched as long as the rest of the skeleton.

"How did you get in here?" she wondered aloud.

There was no smell of rot or decay, so the dead creature could not have been killed very recently. Perhaps it had been here long before Benjamin and his expedition had arrived on the planet. Amongst the bones more of the small armored crustaceans crawled, playing antennae over the floor and the bones, occasionally pausing to sample something before moving on.

Not much farther down, the tunnel ended with a large stone that appeared to have slid from the roof. Shining her light up revealed a cavity, but she felt no urgency to explore further. She had already been away from the others too long.

"I will be back," she told the little creatures as she strode towards the shower room and the chimney. "And if you are safe to eat, you will like me less."

*****

"We should kill the Human," TaH `Kiy mTh grumbled sulkily as he and Chep `Urt vEss examined the large slab of stone in the passage. "He is dangerous."

"You have changed your opinion," observed Chep `Urt vEss evenly, rubbing the sore place at the back of his head.

"I did not realize his madness could make him unmanageable," replied the smaller JZav`Etch.

"Humans are unconquered," Chep `Urt vEss said, as if that explained everything. He looked back down the passage to the place the block was to be moved and shook his head ruefully.

"This must weigh a Dol`zEa****," TaH `Kiy mTh muttered. He pushed on the block of stone with his foot and bared his teeth and extended his tongue as if he smelled something bad.

"Very nearly," Chep `Urt vEss agreed.

"How are we to move it, then?" demanded the smaller jZav`Etch.

"That is why we brought these," replied the gunner, holding up a pair of long, thick pieces of firewood.

"And what are these for, Gunner?" asked TaH `Kiy mTh, holding out four much shorter pieces.

"I thought you were an engineer," the gunner growled. He took one of the shorter pieces and laid it on the floor near the end of the block.

"A systems engineer. Not mechanical."

Chep `Urt vEss frowned disapprovingly at that.

"Systems engineer? Women's work," he said dismissively, running his eyes over the smaller male.

"My mother was a systems engineer," TaH `Kiy mTh admitted. "She taught me from a young age."

"And your father?" Chep `Urt vEss inquired.

"Taught me to hunt and ride and a number of other sports," said TaH `Kiy mTh with no hint of resentment.

And failed to teach you the use of tools, thought the gunner. He recalled what M`peth qHo had said about the ratio of males to females aboard the Char`Noth and wondered why a male would be permitted to assume a strictly technical position aboard a ship. Would TaH `Kiy mTh not have served better on a fighter or even one of the tanks in the army? He dismissed this line of musing and said, "When I lever the stone up, slip one of the short lengths under it as far back as you can."

"If the wood is strong enough," the smaller jZav`Etch said doubtfully, moving into position.

Chep `Urt vEss jammed his pole under the block and put all his weight on the free end. He strained until his feet nearly came free of the ground, but the block lifted. TaH `Kiy mTh quickly inserted the short piece of wood and none too soon. The end of Chep `Urt vEss's pole cracked and snapped off, sending him sprawling.

Impressed, TaH `Kiy mTh asked, "And now what, Gunner?"

In answer, Chep `Urt vEss got to his feet and climbed over the stone, just able to squeeze through the narrow opening. He slammed his pole under the edge of the block again and then grinned at his companion.

"When I move the block, wait until the first piece is nearly half way along and then set another under the stone," he said and threw all his strength into the lever. He strained and heaved, finally breaking the block loose. It slid along the rough floor, the piece of firewood rolling under it. TaH `Kiy mTh did not hesitate when he judged the distance about right and soon the block rested on two rollers.

"Now," panted Chep `Urt vEss with a slack, pleased smile. "We need only repeat until the block is where we want it."

TaH `Kiy mTh grinned back and climbed over the stone to add his strength to the effort until they deemed another roller needed to be added. And so, with much toil, the males moved the stone. When it was done they sat upon it, catching their breath.

"Gunner," TaH `Kiy mTh said, looking down the tunnel where it opened onto the main chamber. "What shall we do about the Human?"

"We will wait," Chep `Urt vEss said seriously.

"After what he has done? I thought you would wish revenge."

"We will wait," the larger jZav`Etch growled in a warning tone. "You were not wrong in your assessment of him as a resource. For now, the commander's orders stand. Wait and watch. We strike only if he becomes a danger."

"And when will that be?" asked TaH `Kiy mTh slyly, thinking the gunner had a plan.

"When he acts against us!" snapped Chep `Urt vEss, lunging to his feet and scowling down on the engineer. "Not before. Understand?"

"I understand, Gunner," replied the smaller cat meekly with bowed head.

Chep `Urt vEss stalked down the tunnel, his hackles raised and his fists clenching and unclenching. TaH `Kiy mTh watched him go, wondering what had come over the gunner. Perhaps his pain was greater than estimated. Perhaps being humbled in front of the females sat less well with him than he let on.

"Or perhaps he feels he was in the wrong, after all," mused the Thahn`Den engineer.

Once the gunner was out of sight TaH `Kiy mTh rose and stretched. He longed for a proper shower. It had been more than a day since last he had bathed. It struck him suddenly that a very short time had passed and yet so much in his life had changed. Drastically changed. He had never been meant for this kind of life and he could see the gunner knew it. That bothered him only slightly. He shrugged it off. Time would prove all things. Briefly TaH `Kiy mTh considered climbing to the upper end of the tunnel to stand in the rain and scrub away the dirt collected in his fur. Instead, he returned to the main chamber for new orders.

*****

"Bennnjaminnn..." a soft voice crooned.

"Angela?" Benjamin said, lifting his head from the air mattress and looking around blearily. He was still in the small chamber where he and Ima` Nef`Tn had made love. Angela stood a pace away, smiling down on him. He blinked and smiled back. A movement at his side brought his predicament into sharp focus and Benjamin snapped into a sitting position. "I can explain!"

"Benjamin," chided Angela. "You don't need to explain anything."

"But..." he trailed off, seeing his position was indefensible. "I'm sorry. I... I'm sorry."

"You shouldn't be," she said gently and crouched next to him. "We talked about this sort of thing a long time ago."

RipperFish
RipperFish
2,512 Followers