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Chapter 6: Uneasy Alliance.

Jack sat there and listened intently as Tik eleth explained their situation in that really unusual accent of hers, it wasn't until quarter of the way in to the explanation that actually clicked that Tik eleth wasn't actually human and at this point his jaw just dropped open, it hadn't even occurred to him that he might be conversing with an alien species let alone in his own language, but at least it explained why she'd started off by calling him ooman.

From what he could piece together from Tik's explanation she was stranded here by what equated to a criminal family among her people which they referred to as bad bloods, they kinda reminded Jack of things like the mafia or even the old pirate clans that roamed the seas in the 1600 and 1700s and even more recently in Somalia back on earth, criminals banding together because of a common cause.

It turned out they had been hunting her ever since they'd managed to strand her here, this place was some sort of hunting reserve which their clan used as their own personal retreat to break in new hunters to the clan or Young Bloods as they called them, in a sort of literal trial by fire or a rite of passage would be more apt.

The way she spoke about them made Jack think of a few things that had happened on earth that had become a sort of urban legend among soldiers, like an instance that he'd heard about from an American Marine that took place in one of the jungles in South America in the 1980's, but Jack knew better than to interrupt someone when they were giving you free information, so he let her finish as she explained how she'd just finished killing off their latest hunting party when they decided to change track and drop in ten of his species into the jungle which instantly got his hopes up before learning that apparently most of which were already dead, then she explained about while she was searching for more of his kind she'd witnessed his battle with the giant dino dozer in the clearing, it kinda irked him that she had seen it and had offered him no help, but he said nothing about it sort of figuring that's how her kind seem to work from what she was saying and the language she was using, in fact she seemed to more than just a little impressed by his glorious victory over the dino dozer, words like warrior, honourable and single combat were being thrown about a lot, then she brought the story up to date by telling him how she'd stalked him to this cave and relived him of his weapons to be able to open an unhostile dialogue with him in the hopes of forging an alliance with him.

"…. Together we be much stronger than alone Ack, then we might stand a chance of leaving this place and getting back to our clans, but if these terms are not acceptable to you Ack then I will leave you be, as I believe Ack to be an honourable warrior who would not interfere with my hunts as I would not interfere with his" Tik eleth said looking at Jack who was still trying to figure out what she looked like as she sat in the deep shadows,

"Ok but I agree to anything may I ask a few questions?" he asked,

instantly he heard that strange clicking noise that Tik seemed to make every so often, "Questions?" she said almost sounding annoyed that he hadn't given his answer immediately,

but she understood that a good warrior and hunter always checked every detail of their hunt,

"Firstly what do these bad bloods want with either of us? I mean why are they hunting us?" he asked,

"Strong prey" she answered flatly,

"Ok then how many of them are we likely to be facing?" he asked,

"Three, a hunt leader and two young bloods, no more no less" she replied, he nodded at this,

"Finally if I help you how do I know that you won't just leave me here when you have no more need of me?" he asked, instantly heard a rapid clicking noise coming from Tik and he figured that he'd just pissed her off a bit, he was right.

"I AM NOT AN HONORLESS BAD BLOOD PAUK!" she roared at the top of her lungs causing Jack to jump a mile,he very nearly reached for his knife but stopped himself at the last second fearing that this might escalate an already tense situation.

"I never said you were, I simply asked what guarantees I have" he said trying to sound calm while his heart hammered in his chest, this seemed to calm her down a little bit,

"I am a proud huntress of the Shadow Claw clan, our word is bond" she said still sounding irritated, Jack decided that this would have to do for now as it was obviously not wise to piss off the rather large alien huntress,

"Very well I accept that then and I can relate to that Tik eleth as my word is also my bond and once given it is never broken" he said, this seemed to calm the huntress down further, "Then Ack is honourable" she said, he nodded, finally feeling a little more confident in his position here he took a deep breath and stood up from his sitting position, the whole time he could feel her eyes on him watching both curiously and suspiciously, slowly he approached her and then stopped a few feet away and raised a hand offering it to her, she cocked her head to one side and did not move, he instantly realized that she didn't know what a handshake was so he tried to explain in terms she would understand,

"It's a human or ooman as you call us thing, it shows that two parties have made an agreement and our words have been given, this gesture is to seal the bond to each other" he said,

Tik clicked a few times then she got to her feet and suddenly he realized that she was even bigger than he'd imagined as she had to stoop under the cave ceiling, she approached him slowly and stuck out her rather large hand to him, he took it and closed his around hers shaking it, her skin felt rather rough but that the same time rather warm,

"Then it is done our bond is made and now we have an agreement" Jack said,

"Together till victory or till death" Tik eleth replied clicking happily, she was glad that she was right about this ooman, he did truly understand the ways of honour and she believed he would make a strong ally despite his obvious handicap of being ooman, though she had to admit from what she'd seen him do earlier he'd probably have made a decent Yaujta.

Tik eleth returned Jack's weapons to him now as their bond of trust was sealed, he put his armour on and checked his weapons over as she watched, she had to admit she kind of liked that ooman custom of shaking hands to seal a bond, it kind of had an intimacy that her people lacked and she liked that, she'd been led to believe that oomans were honourless so it was refreshing to find the very first one she was forced to interact with understood the ways of honour,

"So what now Tik?" he asked, she looked at him in the darkness of the cave, the shortening of her name made her click her mandibles in annoyance,

"My name Tik eleth! Not Tik" she said with irritation,he looked at her and did something strange that caused him to move those fleshy things out of the way and show her his teeth, this caused her breath to catch in her throat as she saw the fact that he had fangs and rather large ones at that, she never knew that oomans had such sharp warrior like teeth,

"Well you shorten my name from Jack to Ack so it's only fair right, from Tik eleth to Tik" he said still showing his teeth to her, the thermal vision of her mask really didn't allow her to see much detail of his face but she still found herself studying the detail she could see, like his strong jaw and his sharp hunter's teeth, she quickly shook her head to clear it,

"If you must" she said trying to sound irritated,

"So then back to my question what next Tik" he said putting a real emphasis on her name, she clicked her mandibles in annoyance but let it slide, she was rather surprised that a mere ooman had the gall to address a blooded huntress with such boldness, he really was an enigma and rather a fascinating one at that, but she couldn't tell yet if he was going to be an asset or just a major pain in her rear,

"We return to cave for rest and food, we need strength to fight bad bloods" she said,

"Sounds like a plan to me, I assume since you've been here a while you have a strong hold?" he said, she nodded, "I have cave yes" she said, then he made a gesture with his hand,

"Lead on I'll follow you and watch your back" he said, at this Tik snapped round to face him so fast her dreadlocks whirled around her in a massive arc,

"Why you wish to watch my back ooman!?" she asked in a rather loud surprised voice that actually sounded a bit like a squeak at the end, but still nearly made Jack almost jump out of his skin.

After his heart slowed down a bit he realised that he was obviously going to have to word things a bit more carefully around her, "Err sorry it's just an ooman I mean human expression, it means you lead I follow and watch to make sure enemies don't sneak up on us from behind, so you don't have to constantly keep watching behind you to see what's sneaking up on you and visa versa" he said, this seemed to calm her down as suddenly she remembered something her father had told her when he was telling her about oomans when she was a youngling and she understood, although she knew very little about them she did know of their hunting tactics like any good hunter did, she knew that oomans usually worked in large teams and they would look out for each other.

"Ok Ack I lead you follow" she said and he nodded looking at her, as they headed for the entrance of the cave Tik found a strange thought entering her head that she immediately chased out, she actually felt a very brief and very strange flash of disappointment that Jack wasn't actually watching her back.

As they got outside Jack got his first proper look at Tik eleth and immediately he had to stop his jaw from dropping open, the first thing that caught his attention was how tall she was compared to him, she was huge at just under 7ft tall, the next thing that caught his attention was her skin, it was sort of rough looking and sort of looked like scales, in fact it reminded him of Bonzo the pet Bearded Dragon that he had as a child, so named because it was a complete clown, always falling over or off things and then trying to make it look like it had done it on purpose. A brief mental flash of Tik falling over something and nearly demolishing half the forest on the way down flashed through his head and he had to suppress a giggle as he figured she'd probably rip his head off and shit down his neck if he laughed at her.

He had to admit her skin was rather striking in its colouration, it was like a natural camouflage colours full of greens, yellows and browns all swirled together in various stripes all over her, it sort of reminded him of early forest camo before the military switched to that digital blocks stuff.

Next up was how just like a human woman she was in her shape, everything was obviously a lot bigger but it was all there, broad shoulders that led into two powerful and well-muscled arms that were toned to the max, she looked like she could rip a phonebook in half and probably eat it afterwards. Feminine curvy hips led into two long shapely and very powerful looking legs that led into large flat and clawed but still rather graceful looking feet, with thighs that made her look like she could kick a rugby player through the posts let alone the ball.

Her flat stomach was full of abs so solid looking that looked like they should have abs of their own, her stomach led up to what looked like medium sized bust that was hidden under heavy looking black metal armour that covered her entire upper torso, he also noticed that she seemed to be wearing some sort of black leather short skirt that had a belt with a large black claw on it, her legs were covered in some sort of fishnet like stockings that terminated at her ankles, two black metal armour pieces covered her calves and looked to the pieces she wore on her forearms.

Tik eleth noticed Jack staring at her and turned to face him, "What you look at ooman?" she asked sounding irate, "Err sorry, I've just never seen one of your kind before and I never expected you to look….., well to look so powerful and strong" he said dodging the bullet of nearly saying womanly which he felt would have probably pissed her off mightily, it wasn't that he foresaw her having a problem with her gender, nor for that matter did he, some of the best soldiers he'd ever met in his career had been women, like this Russian Spetsnaz sniper he'd met once, all her teammates called her 'Crazy Olga' and had told him that she was a total ice queen and a frigid bitch, but Jack being Jack always tended to judge people for himself and decided he wanted to get to know her, as it turned out all her male counterparts that had given her the name were simply pissed off that not only was she not interested in their advances but also jealous of her ability while also rather intimidated by her.

It turned out to be the whole women can't possibly be stronger than men deal, which was a mentality that Jack really never got to be honest, to him it didn't matter what equipment you kept in your pants but how well you could do your job and keep your focus when the shit hit the fan, so he always put that type of mind-set down to masochistic bullshit and totally insecurity in yourself.

When he did manage to get to know her it turned out she was one of the best snipers he'd ever met and the pair of them had a great laugh getting rat arsed on super strong vodka, they'd created their own drinking game while camped out in an OP on a hill in one of the Balkan states during a training exercise, it involved shooting golf balls off tees at about nearly a mile away with and old SVD Dragunov that she'd brought with her, as it turned out it mightily pissed the golfers who were trying to play at the time off and at that range they couldn't even hear the shots thanks to the terrain so they didn't even have a clue what the hell was happening.

So rather than taking the time to get to know her, all her supposed teammates instantly dismissed and labelled her simply because she rebuffed them, that was her then pegged as an ice queen just because she didn't put up with shit or tolerate dickheads and something told him that Tik like Olga, would rather be judged on her strength, ability and skills and not just on her physical attributes.

It seemed to have worked as Tik flicked the long dreadlock like appendages on the rear of her head over her back,

"Well of course I strong ooman, I Tik eleth am proud Shadow Claw huntress" she said sounding proud, as he seemed to have said the right thing Jack decided to push it a bit further, he decided that a happy Tik would be easier to work with than pissed off Tik, God he really didn't want to see her pissed off as looking at the size on her arms she probably could tear him in half,

"Well if the rest of your kind look half as strong as you then your kind must be pretty hefty in a fight" he said, she made a clicking noise but this one sounded very different from the annoyed one he was getting used to she must have liked the compliment, pity he couldn't see her face for the large metal mask she was wearing,

"Yaujta powerful warriors, even younglings trained to kill" she said proudly,

"Noted" he said feeling that he was going to have a serious fight on his hands if he ever pissed this female alien Spartan off, he gestured with his hand for her lead the way and she nodded and headed for the edge to climb down, Jack tried to resist but he couldn't help himself, as she moved to the edge of the cliff and bent forwards to get her first hold he glanced at her and noticed that the battle skirt she wore obviously concealed a rather nice shapely rear beneath it, 'What in the flying fuck are you doing Jack?' he thought giving himself a hard mental slap to clear his head before following her down over the edge.

Tik eleth found herself smiling at Jack's words as she climbed down the side of the cliff with him above her, it seemed that this strange ooman knew a true huntress when he saw one, but she found herself puzzling at why could a mere ooman see easily what one of her own kind could not?, he'd called her powerful and strong, which told her that somehow he'd easily picked up on just how hard she'd worked to prove herself, she'd found herself feeling flattered by this but at the same time she felt extremely annoyed at it, why if it was so obvious did a male of their kind see it straight away but the ones of her own kind refused to even acknowledge it, instead preferring to belittle her in front of her peers making constant snide comments about how small she was compared to a 'normal' female, suddenly that thought worried her and she got the feeling that if Ack saw another Yaujta huntress he may change his opinion of her when he saw how much more powerful, stronger, taller and obviously more beautiful than her they were.

But at the same time she took the compliment that the strange ooman had paid her in the way it was meant, it was the first time that any male had ever complimented her strength and battle prowess and it felt good to receive some acknowledgement, especially from a battle proven warrior, because even if he was just an ooman he was still one that had brought down a giant lizard singlehandedly in a glorious hunt which she'd had the utter privilege to witness, which meant that his words despite his species would have carried much honour among her kind, but still she wished that one and even if it was only one, male of her own kind would see what this ooman had seen in her instantly.

Jack carried his AS50 readied in the shoulder as they moved through the jungle on the floor, his first trick had been luring Tik back down from the trees, as when they'd gotten down from the cliff the first thing she'd done was leapt up into the trees with all the grace of a huge and very deadly cat, so he'd had to explain to her that he couldn't operate effectively if he was having to constantly look up to see where she was so he could follow her. This had irritated her mildly but she'd finally agreed after Jack had made a demonstration of how ungraceful at tree climbing he was by jumping at one and gracefully slamming face first into it, which had made her make this hissing clicking noise which he figured was some form of laughter.

But joking about and fool making aside they were now moving together and he could see the obvious professionalism in the way she moved, she was constantly on watch the same as him, this was the mark of a trained and professional soldier or warrior, she was looking at everything and he could see that weird remote operated cannon on her shoulder tracking her every move, strangely he had to admit to himself that he was kinda glad to have her here, this environment was hostile enough so it nice to have someone watching his back, even if that someone was a huge alien amazon.

Suddenly Tik stopped dead and knelt down to inspect something on the track, Jack stopped dead and dropped to one knee scanning the forest with his weapon, "Whatcha got?" he said in a hushed voice, Tik instantly made a gesture to hush him and he obeyed it, but he moved over to her slowly and in a crouch, she pointed at a series or large and rather fresh paw prints in the mud of the forest floor, these things sort of looked like a canine paw print but much larger, suddenly Jack heard a rustling as well as twig snap to his left and he spun with his weapon readied, Tik did the same and he could see her cannon searching in his peripheral vision. For what felt like hours but what was only a few seconds both of them scanned the forest for movement, suddenly there was another noise directly behind them and both of them spun to look for it, again to be met with nothing, this was immediately followed with another noise behind them again, "Multiple targets and their circling us" Jack whispered, Tik nodded,

"Calibri wolves, pack hunters, four maybe five" she said quietly,

"Go back to back you take left I got right" Jack said, Tik clicked quietly then nodded, Jack moved behind her and they stood back to back watching the forest, suddenly there was a massive roar from the cannon on Tik's shoulder indicating she had a mark, then Jack saw a large black six legged dog like creature emerge from behind a tree in front of him, it was totally hairless with lean looking black muscles and a jaw that split open showing three rows of real nasty looking teeth, immediately he sighted and fired on it, the massive AS50 roared in his hands, not being able to lay prone meant that the weapon jumped right up off target, so it was a good thing that Jack hit his mark first time, the creature's head disappeared in a cloud of black mist and it fell over, almost immediately he saw another one burst out of the bushes to his right, it was a hundred meters and closing at a sprint, AS50 was useless at this range so he dropped it so that it swung on its harness and drew the massive Desert Eagle, the creature seemed to know what his weapon was or maybe it learned quick because it jinked left and right, from behind him he heard Tik fire that cannon of hers again, drawing a bead Jack let loose a few rounds of his own the massive handgun boomed and jumped with each shot, each of the rounds found its mark blowing chunks off the massive wolf before it did a nose dive into the mud and stopped moving as the last round hit it square in the throat.

From behind him Jack was suddenly slammed forwards which caused him to go instinctively into a roll and as he picked himself up and turned he saw why, while they'd been busy one of the wolves had slipped around the side and had tackled into Tik knocking her backwards on to the ground, "Tik!" Jack yelled and sprinted towards her as she wrestled with the massive canine, but before he reached her Tik deployed some really mean looking blades from her wrist and stabbed the wolf in the side causing it screech in pain, then she threw it off her and sprang to her feet with amazing grace for someone as big as her, she dropped into a fighting stance with her wrist blades drawn, with her other hand she drew a rather large sword from her back and flourished it with real style, it was nearly three foot long with a massive mean looking dark metal blade that curved at the tip, then as he watched in awe she charged right at the massive canine and with a single deft flick of her wrist took its ugly head clean off its shoulders with the massive sword.

Upon killing the bothersome canine Tik eleth let loose a roar of victory that echoed through the forest, she then stood up to her full height and turned to face Jack who she found staring at her, then as she watched her retracted his fleshy things again to bare his teeth at her in that rather fetching way that he did,

"You really showed that fucking wolf who's boss" he said all the time baring his teeth at her,

"Pauking wolves are no match for a blooded huntress" she spat looking down at the dead wolf at her feet, then she noticed the two dead wolves behind him, she smiled inside her mask at his share in the victory,

"The victory and the honour is shared" she said gesturing to Jack's two kills, he glanced at them and nodded, then Tik had an idea she quickly turned to her kill and knelt down, Jack watched curiously as she pulled two of the canine's massive razor sharp teeth from its severed head and then walked over to him, holding out one of the teeth to him,

"A trophy of our first joint victory" she said, Jack was a little grossed out but he realized that this had to be a cultural thing for her as she kept referring to herself as a huntress so this had to be important to her, so took it and nodded thinking quickly of something to say to show her that he respected her culture,

"A symbol of our shared honour then" he said instantly thinking that sounded cheesy as fuck, but instantly he heard those odd happy clicks or what he hoped were happy clicks coming from her again,

"Ack understands" she said sounding happy, then she turned and they continued on their way.

As they took a couple of steps Jack noticed something odd on the ground, it was in the space that Tik had been in when the wolf had knocked her down, stopping he leant down and picked it up and turned it over in his hands, it was some sort of small book, it looked like it had been bound in an animal skin of some kind and was fastened together with a rather large black clasp that seemed to be made from the same metal as Tik's armour, undoing the catch the book fell open to the last page and the first thing her noticed was that all the pages were made from a skin like material sort of like a crude form of vellum like they used to use back on earth hundreds of years ago, in the spine making a crude page marker was what appeared to be a black and white feather that had been sharpened to make it into some form of quill, he couldn't read the symbols written on the pages as he figured this must be Tik's native language, but he did notice that they seemed to be written in what appeared to be blood of some kind and given that the symbols stopped halfway down the page he wondered if it was some form of diary or log.

Suddenly a sense of dread filled him and he quickly closed it and resealed it, he knew how pissed most human women got if you read their diary being caught reading the diary of a massive alien amazon would probably end with being force fed his own balls followed by various other parts of his anatomy.

"Err I think you dropped this Tik" Jack called to her waving the book, she turned to glance at him and did such a vigorous double take that her dreadlocks swung out like tentacles from her head, then she charged right at him at full tilt, he held the book out quickly at arm's length and it was promptly snatched from his hand and he could feel her glaring at him even through the mask.

Tik eleth was enraged with herself that she'd dropped her precious diary, all her innermost thoughts, private moments, musings about this place and the life it had given her were all contained within, not to mention the poems she'd written about her time and her hunts here, if this ooman had read it then she would have had no choice but to have removed his skull and spinal column lest that he tells someone that she Tik eleth a blooded and powerful huntress and warrior of the Shadow claw clan, writes and enjoys poetry.

But then her stance relaxed somewhat as she realised that he had done the honourable thing of returning it to her when he could have just kept it without saying a word, but also it hit her that there was no chance that even if he had looked inside that he could have read it as it was written in her native tongue, "Thank you Ack" she said quietly looking at the book she was clutching protectively in her hands,

"Don't worry about it, thought it looked important" he said making some sort of dismissive gesture with his hand, little did the ooman know just what sort of debt she owed him here, if one of the bad blood pauks had found this book, well that didn't bear thinking about, so without saying another word she re-secured the book in its pouch in her skirt and they turned and carried on their way.

Although it was a rather long walk and it was starting to get dark by the time they got there, the rest of their walk to Tik's cave was uneventful, it was like the one he had been in himself half way up a cliff, but it was bigger than the one he had been in, Tik said nothing as they reached the entrance but merely gestured for him to enter, the first thought that entered Jack's mind was 'This has to be the first time any human has been taken home by an alien girl' it was so out of left field that he nearly laughed when he thought it, but as he stepped inside all the jokes went out of his head, the walls were decorated with various skulls of creatures she'd killed and the floor had various skins and furs thrown on it like rugs, on one side there was a makeshift tanning rack and a drying rack for meat, next to it a fire pit with a pot for cooking, on the other and this took up a huge amount of room was a massive bed that looked like it could easily hold at least four large people with no problem, it was made of huge tree limbs and covered again In rather soft looking furs,

"Love what you've done with the place" Jack said sarcastically without thinking, he could have kicked himself the second that the words left his mouth, luckily for him Tik didn't understand human sarcasm yet and took it as a compliment,

"Thank you Ack" she simply said causing him to breathe a sigh of relief,

"So now we're here now what?" he asked,

"Food and rest" Tik replied and pointed to the cooking pot, he nodded and right on queue his stomach rumbled loudly.

hapter 7: Calm Before the Storm.

Tik eleth closed the entrance to the cave off with a rather large piece of wood plunging the entire into darkness, her thermal vision gave her perfect vision in her but it was obvious to her that her new ooman ally couldn't see as he stood perfectly still in the pitch blackness as to not tip over anything. Moving past him in the dark caused him to flinch and look in her direction, she admired his reflexes as they appeared to be finely tuned, she watched him tilting his head to use his hearing to locate her rather than using his eyes which was smart, using a small plasma torch that she'd managed to salvage with one or two other things from her ship she lit the tallow candles that she'd set up around the cave, after the first one was lit he instantly locked his vision onto her and watched her as she walked around lighting the others, pretty soon the cave was more than adequately lit for them both to see properly.

Jack watched as Tik lit the homemade candles with a small plasma torch, finally she seemed happy that there was enough light for them to see, then she walked over to a small rack that he hadn't noticed initially when he'd entered, it was just to the right of her skull display, then she started removing her weapons and placing them on varying places on the rack, first was the large sword on her back, now he had time to study it a bit he could see that the hand was ornately decorated with tribal style insignias made in what appeared to be some form of ivory, the main handle itself appeared to be a gold like metal but from the way the light changed its colour as it moved he could tell that it wasn't real gold but looked like something far stronger. The sword followed by two rather long daggers from the base of her spine, these reminded him of her wrist mounted blades in shape and size but with rather well made handles made from bone, then the shoulder cannon that she had mounted on her armour was removed and set on a small stand, the only thing that she kept on her body was the set of wrist blades that she had.

He felt a connection in this action as he even when he was at home never slept without his knife nearby, he felt totally naked without at least one weapon in arms reach, it was a reflex born of years of sleeping in hostile territory and in the field, then much to his surprise she unclipped two valves to the left of her mask and slowly pulled it from her face.

Jack had been trying to imagine what she looked like underneath that thing but the reality was far more surprising that he'd imagined, she had four mandibles tucked into the side of her jaw which he guessed doubled as some sort of cheeks, he could instantly tell now where the clicking noise she made came from as there were four small teeth or tusks if you could call them that at the end of each mandible, her jaw itself was quite narrow and rather feminine in its shape, she didn't appear to have a visible nose above the mandibles but a long sloping piece that led up between her eyes and what eyes she had. They were large and bright purple that shone with an almost inner light but screamed with a deep intelligence, a rather large brow over hung her eyes that led to a large broad forehead that was almost like a crest with ridges crossing over it that almost looked like small smooth and shiny abdominal muscles, she had some sort of tattoo in the centre of her cranial ridges that he guessed was some sort of clan mark, her long dread locks were connected to the edges of the cranial ridge and hung down over her broad shoulders and her strong back, to many humans if not all of them she would have been considered a monster, they'd have taken one look at her and screamed in fear but Jack didn't see that at all, what he saw was a strong, very proud and exotically beautiful woman brimming with confidence and untold skills and the more he saw the more he found himself wanting to see, he found himself almost desperate to know everything about her.

Before he could stop himself Jack let out two words under his breath but it was a powerful pair, "So Beautiful" he breathed without thinking.

Tik eleth froze solid as she was placing her new mask down, had she just heard that correctly? her hearing was pin sharp from years of honing and training but she could have just sworn that she'd heard Ack say the word beautiful under his breath, he couldn't have been referring to her surely?

She quickly finished placing the hunting mask down and turned to face Ack who she found to be looking right at her, immediately he changed skin colour for some reason, his entire face seemed to go bright red in colour and it flowed from his face down his neck, this instantly surprised Tik eleth as she didn't know that oomans could change their skin colour at will like that and it intrigued her, for the first time she studied Ack's facial features with her own eyes, his jaw was strong and square, then those unusual but rather fetching fleshy things keep his sharp warriors teeth hidden from her view, which made her a little disappointed as she kinda like the way they looked as they were sharp and fierce looking, he also had a flattened nose in the centre of his face that looked like it had been broken more than once, this was sat between the sharpest and most piercing blue eyes that she'd ever seen in her life, over his right eye and was a deep scar that led from his cheek upwards over the eye and onto a rather smooth and small forehead, the rest of his head was covered in a thick layer of light brown fur with swirls of blonde thrown in here and there, all in all he was no-where near as repulsive as she was led to believe oomans were, now that she had chance to examine him a bit she actually thought that his looks were rather exotic but no-where near repulsive, she found herself admiring the scar on his eye and wondering how he got it, also she found herself wondering if he had anymore, in her culture scars were a symbol of a victory in a battle hard fought and she already knew that he was battle worn.

They stared at each other for a few moments when Jack decided to break the awkward silence,

"Err so what's to eat? I'm kinda starved" he said fidgeting awkwardly on his feet like a naughty schoolboy, what the hell was going on with him, he'd never been like felt like this ever, he was known as iceberg among his fellow soldiers for his impeccable ability to keep his cool regardless of what was facing him down and yet here this strange alien huntress had him all hot under the collar and as flustered as hell just by looking at him with those amazing bright purple eyes of hers.

His words seemed to snap Tik out of her trance and suddenly she was the one looking all flustered and it turned into a flurry of movement which confused the hell out of Jack, she rapidly turned and headed for the drying rack and she snatched up some small animals that looked like some sort of rather large lizards that had unusually colourful hides,

"Shimmer lizard" she said holding them up for him to see, he nodded,

"Great, right now I could literally eat a horse" he said as his stomach growled again as if to make his point, just before she turned to start preparing the food he could have sworn he saw Tik draw her mandibles up into a smile,

"No horse only shimmer lizard" she said with an amused tone or what he hoped was an amused tone to her voice, Jack chuckled softly to himself,

"Sorry, human expression, it means that I am very hungry" he said, Tik clicked her mandibles together and appeared to shake her head,

"Oomans confusing" he could have sworn he heard her mumble under her breath, he decided that since he was going to be spending some time here he might as well get comfortable,

"I'm just going to check my weapons over ok?" he asked as he didn't want his actions to miscued as an act of hostility, she simply turned her head and nodded, so removing the large sniper rifle Jack decided to sit on the floor next to the massive bed on one of the massive fur rugs, weapon checks always calmed his mind and he was hoping it would work here, so he dropped himself down and removed both his weapons as well as his armour.

Jack expertly stripped the AS50 down to its bare components and began checking each part, fortunately one of the things he'd found in his pouches of many things was weapon cleaning kit, these were essential to every real soldier but were usually under appreciated by either wanna-be's or part timers, proper weapon maintenance was especially important with something as finely tuned as the AS50 as it could fire over such a long range that even a light compromise to it could cause it to miss by yards.

So as Tik worked diligently in preparing their meal he cleaned each and every component of the massive rifle before reassembling and checking the weapon, the he did the same to the Desert Eagle all the time completely unaware of Tik watching him fascinated by his diligence to the maintenance of his weapons, this fascinated her as it was something that was expected of all Yaujta hunters and huntresses, but she never expected this sort of behaviour from an ooman and she found herself rather impressed, in fact he'd done nothing but impress her since she'd set eyes on him and he'd taken down the giant lizard, it was like nearly everything she'd been taught about his kind was untrue, she'd been led to believe that they were an uneducated prey species that had little or no potential and no understanding of honour, but seemed to have rather good luck, but what she'd seen him do was not luck, it was diligence to one's craft and a deep level of intensive training just like she herself had received, now she couldn't speak for others of his kind but this one certainly understood honour as he had conducted himself with honour both towards her and towards his prey, as she watched his skilled hands working over his weapons some rather strange thoughts about other things he could do with those dexterous graceful hands entered her head and instantly startled the hell out of her, 'No he's not Yaujta! Be gone foul thoughts stop clouding my head, I will not dishonour my clan or myself in such a way!' she screamed at herself in her head giving herself a mental slapping, she instantly put the brief transgression down to her hunger and to her tiredness which had caught up her since she'd had to stay awake the entire night while watching for Ack to move from his sleep, instantly she threw herself back into her work.

Jack finished up his weapon checks by doing an ammo count, as a sniper he didn't believe in solving a problem with vigorous expenditure of ammunition, one shot worked wonders and he still had plenty for now.

"Right that's done, is it ok if I store my weapons over on that rack with yours?" he asked Tik who had her back to him while vigorously skinning and cooking the lizards, it seemed that Yaujta threw themselves completely into whatever they did if Tik was anything to go by, she glanced at him and gave him a gesture that he took as an ok, so he carried his guns over and placed them on the rack next to hers, then he couldn't help but stop and admire the craftsmanship of Tik's weapons, it was obvious that he herself took pride in her weapons as he could see that they too were perfectly maintained, her long daggers were perfectly oiled and looked like they were sharp enough to cut a passing fly in half if it so much as glanced at the edge of the blade, he was going to say something about it but he could see that Tik was busy and decided to pass on it and returned to his seat silently, but as he sat there he kept finding his eyes drawn to her strong broad back, he loved the way the light from the candles seemed to be absorbed by her natural camouflage coloured skin and the way it seemed to create and almost shadow like aura around her, he found himself wondering if that was why they were called the Shadow Claw clan? Because the shadows clung to her like a shroud making his eyes have to work even harder to truly see her, his eyes wandered down from her large shoulders over her broad back to her shapely feminine hips and her feminine rear before he suddenly realised what he was doing and was forced to give himself yet another mental slap, what the hell had gotten into him? He truly didn't have a clue but he was going to have to reign it in before it wound up getting him into a world of very painful shit, because he really didn't think that Tik was going to really appreciate being stared at like that by him.

It wasn't long before Tik was done with her cooking and presented Jack with a rather sizable plate full of cut and boiled roots and lizard meat, he thanked her politely for the meal and accepted it, he instantly found himself fascinated in how she was going to eat without cheeks to hold the food in, but he knew that staring at her while she ate would be a death sentence, so he picked up the utensils that'd she provided him and noticed that they were handmade, they were expertly carved from bone and had been polished with something so much that they actually shone. He started to eat quietly and made sure that he intently stared at his plate the entire time, blissfully unaware of the fact that the very same curiosity was eating at a certain female Yaujta on how he would eat without mandibles to control the food, but she was a being of honour and staring at one's guests while they ate was not an honourable thing to do so she too stared at her plate while she ate.

Much to his surprise the food was actually rather delicious, Tik had spiced the meat with some sort of concoction that really burst with flavour as he ate, he just hoped it wasn't going to kill him in the long run, as he finished he looked at Tik and when she caught his eye he smiled at her flashing her his best smile which caused her brows to go up, then much to his own surprise something incredibly cheesy came out of his mouth,

"That was delicious my compliments to the chef and huntress who provided for us" he said having no fucking idea where that came from, but it seemed to strike a chord because Tik clicked her mandibles together making the happy click, "Ack is well mannered" she said simply then she stood up and took his empty plate to wash them up for some reason she couldn't understand smiling the entire time.

Now it was time for them to get some sleep and this led to a bit of a dilemma, as not only where was Ack going to sleep, a momentary thought about allowing him to share her bed was vigorously chased from her mind by reason wielding a big stick, but also Tik eleth liked to sleep naked and there was no way she would strip off completely in the presence of a male who was not her mate, in her culture it wasn't frowned upon in fact rather the opposite, but it was more of a personal comfort thing with her, she didn't feel it was right to expose yourself in such a way to someone that you didn't have a truly intimate relationship with, as at least then you wouldn't be exposing yourself to mockery, with her hang ups about the way her body looked she really didn't feel like having an ooman start mocking her for how short she was, how small her limbs were, how unfeminine her hips were and how so obviously unattractive she was compared to her much taller and far more attractive peers, but much to her surprise Ack solved both her dilemmas himself.

"Right well, I guess it's about time we get some rest and I don't know about you but I feel like I could sleep for a thousand years, so I'll take the floor with those rather comfortable looking rugs of yours, oh and would you like me to step out for a moment do that you can get yourself changed for sleep as I'm only guessing here and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but I doubt Yaujta sleep in their battle armour" he said looking at her right in the eyes, his honourable conduct yet again surprised Tik eleth,

"Ack is willing to step out while I change?" she asked curiously, he nodded,

"Of course, it's not right for a man to spy on a lady while she changes for bed, especially so being a guest in her home, I'm a gentleman I'll have you know" he said flashing his sharp teeth at her again, she was really starting to like when he did that,

"Entleman?" she asked sounding confused,

"Oh right sorry human term, it's used to describe a man who conducts himself properly, honourably and with respect in the presence of a woman" he said,

Tik eleth clicked her mandibles in thought of this, the Yaujta had nothing like that be she had to admit she liked the concept of it and Ack had already proven himself to be honourable, she was beginning to believe that the males of her kind could learn a lot from this ooman, she nodded and gave him a gesture of thanks, he nodded and got up and left the cave simply saying

"Call me when you are ready" as he left.

The more she learned the more she liked this ooman, he was a special breed and she knew that with his help she would finally leave this foul rock of a planet and return to her clan, she also vowed to herself that she would honour her word to return him to his clan also, she began to strip off her armour as she thought about home, she left on the bare essentials just enough to cover her modesty as she readied herself for bed, then she blew out all but two of the candles before calling for Jack to return, she was in her bed under the furs as he entered, he gave her a flash of his teeth that made her heart jump, again that thought of inviting him to the bed ran through her mind before being chased back out, he turned and blew out the final two candles plunging the cave into darkness, she could see him moving over to the part of the floor he'd chosen to sleep, then she heard him settle himself on the floor and rearrange the furs to get comfortable, "Good night Tik sleep well" he said from the shadows, this confused her but she figured that it must be a ooman thing so she decided to return it,

"Goodnight Ack" she said then she settled herself down a bit, it wasn't long before she could hear the pitch of Ack's breathing change and she knew that he was asleep, but for some reason sleep refused to claim her as well, it felt like there was something that was left undone then she remembered what she hadn't done that day, so silently she slid out of the bed being careful not to disturb the sleeping ooman on her floor, silently she retrieved her mask and clipped it to her face and instantly the night vision kicked in and the room lit up, then she sat back on the bed and pulled out her diary and quill before retrieving a small vial of shimmer lizard blood from behind the bed, she took out her quill and dipped it and began to write.

She kept find herself stuck on what to really say about the last day or two hitting something the scribes she'd known often referred to as writers wall or was it block?

So she decided to do something that she often did when she found herself stuck and just to let her subconscious mind do the work, she would place her quill to the page and let her mind go blank, she would go into a self-induced mediatory trance by slowing her breathing and her heart and at some point her sub conscious mind would realise that it suddenly had free reign to express itself and the quill would begin to move on its own.

After about half an hour she brought herself out of the self-induced mediatory trance and she looked down at the diary and discovered to her surprise that she had written four full pages, she flipped back and began to read what she had written and her eyes went as large as dinner plates as she realised that she had written three complete pages about her new ooman ally and also a poem about his valiant victory over the giant lizard, she placed her quill into its place as a page break and closed the book with her hands shaking slightly, she placed the diary and the vial back into its place behind her bed and laid down under her covers while she stared at the ceiling, these couldn't be her most inner thoughts surly? The words on the pages confused her deeply but as she thought more on them sleep crept in and clubbed her over the head and dragged her down into the realm of dreams where her sub conscious mind had some more surprises waiting for her.