An HFY Tale: Drop Pod Green

The treeline exploded outwards as if a freight train had hit it, the wedge of battle plate forming out of the shade of leaf and limb like a cascading shadow of death.

Rhidi's helmet ears whizzed up in alarm as she looked around; They had not only come out into the back line of a rapidly set up artillery battery, but had come out right into the main command area.

What were clearly officers milling about with screens and data displays turned around on their booted heels, their single eyes wide with shock and honest surprise; They had assumed, much like anyone else who saw Human combat armor, that they were quite slow, and that they would have plenty of time to get settled before the arrival of any enemy infantry.

Instead, Droppers were now amongst them, bursting through the trees like an arrowhead from hell.

Rhidi, forgetting to activate her gleen-seax, whipped her arm around and smashed the blunted edge through a female soldier's head. Instead of slicing through the neck like a normal knife, Rhidi instead ripped the woman's head from her shoulders with pure blunt force trauma, the spinal bones snapping apart with the sound of a tree branch cracking. The arterial veins stretched awfully for a few breaths before shredding apart, spraying pale blue blood through the air as yellow flesh snapped back into place like taffy.

"Holy shit!" Rhidi stammered out as the head of the woman, single eye still wide in shock, tumbled through the air like a fumbled football, bouncing off a data display with a thud.

She had little time to take in what she had done before the wedge of battle armor smashed into the command center, the multiple Platoons of Heavy Onslaught Infantry flooding through the area with blazing gleen-seaxes and fists crushing through flesh. The sounds of buzzing energy edges and the crunch of bones was all Rhidi could hear for the first few moments, along with the panicked screams of whatever these one-eyed enemies were. The report of their alien artillery cannons made it hard to hear little else, and was likely why they had never heard them approaching from the woodline.

The carnage that unfolded before her caused Rhidi to stumble forward with wide, hidden eyes, looking around as the melee developed; The Lilgarans and Pwah were focussing on using their weapons to kill the enemy, shoulder checking and backhanding other weapons away when needed. The Kafya were doing their best to simply stick with it, using their gleen-seaxes to as great effect as they could while maintaining their composure.

The Humans… the Humans killed without restraint.

They were not merely wielding a weapon, they were the weapon; Rhidi stared on in horror as she watched Morris punch into the stomach of an assailant, his armor flexing as he gripped the spine of the one-eyed man. Morris turned on his gleaming edge, split another one-eyed man down the center, then ripped the spinal cord of his other victim straight out of their body.

Morris glittered with pale blue blood as one man fell apart from the middle, the two sections of his body falling away like a split log. The other man dropped with a jolt of his knees slamming to the ground, ragdolling to the side lamely.

Shorsey, despite her height, was cleaving through enemy troopers like it was nothing, punching through knees and thigh bones like drywall. When one of her victims would fall, she raised her leg and stomped down, crushing skulls down into the ground with a spray of brain matter, skull shards, and the squelch of wet soil.

Not even Avlov looked like her usual self; While she was normally silly and emotive, she was now rigid, her gleen-seax a blur of movement as she reduced her targets to mere body parts. Rhidi had never seen such clean cuts, arms and legs carved away smoothly at the joint like an animal at a butchery.

Rhidi thought that, perhaps, this was butchery in some ways, ducking to avoid the wild swing of an enemy bayonet. She ripped her own gleen-seax skyward, her arm accelerating with a blur of movement and ripping the entire front half of the woman's face away. The now no-eyed assailant stumbled backwards on uneven feet, scrabbling at her ruined visage as her eye dripped down onto her shattered teeth, her tongue lulling lamely out of the bottom of her jaw.

Rhidi grimaced and reared back, punching the ruined woman in the neck in order to sever the spine.

It was almost a relief when the woman fell to the ground, unmoving, all while Sparkle Otter hovered around above her, filming with mild interest.

The drone pivoted down as Rhidi surged forward, shoulder checking into an enemy gunner with full force; Rhidi, rapidly accelerating to forty five miles per hour, hit the one-eyed man with a clang of armor and crunch of bone. He spun away, letting out a strangled gargle due to his throat hitting her curved gardbrace.

Pale blue blood was soaking into her yellow tail by the time she caught back up to the main wedge of the Droppers, coming up next to Oin. The black furred Kafya was a mess of organs, the pale yellow, veiny ropes of intestine trailing down her armor like victory braids.

"The hell happened to you?!" Rhidi called out to her, quickly brushing off the mixture of organs.

Oin turned to look at her, her armor-clad ears perked. "I ran… through… someone."

"You… huh?" Rhidi asked, kicking a one-eyed soldier in the chest and caving in his ribs.

Oin turned, cutting down another one-eyed trooper. "I didn't know how to stop, and he… was right in front of me…"

"It was awesome!" Private Angel called out, her armor a mess of torn flesh, fabric, and sizzling metal. "That dude exploded!"

"He exploded…" Oin confirmed in a hushed, horrified tone, taking a quick glance at her armor. "Just.. to pieces…"

The wedge was slowing down here, knuckling in as they fought their way to the still firing artillery cannons of the enemy. The one-eyed army knew that the artillery was the only thing keeping their assault alive on the base, happening just five hundred yards away, and they were putting up a vicious defense.

The batteries continued to thunder and crack as the Droppers surged forward, quite literally ripping their way towards their objective, but they had begun to take casualties. Fighting in the melee allowed the more fervent enemy soldiers a chance to grab explosives and make a mad dash, electing to trade one trooper for one of the metal reapers trying to eradicate them.

Such tactics, all in order to keep their cannons firing, had spelled the doom for seven members of the Heavy Onslaught Infantry. Several others were currently fighting with a single, or shredded arm, their IB suits pumping them with pain killers and other agents to stop the bleeding, all while the suit tightened down around the limb.

Rhidi had one close enough call that made her rather wary; Shaksho had been close enough to spot one such suicide bomber and threw a metal crate, knocking the one-eyed man out of the way and saving Rhidi from the fatal hug.

After that, Rhidi had pulled her MG-111 around from her back and was laying down short bursts of fire, gaining an angle on the batteries themselves and suppressing their crews.

With a calm trigger, Rhidi tracked her weapon back and forth, the bright star of the barrel brake lighting up her armor as she opened a pathway for her fellow Droppers. The application of a single MG-111 and a keen eye was enough to rip open a gap in the hardy defense, a gap the armored suits of the Droppers exploited with rapid efficiency.

No matter how hard they fought, or how many threw themselves into the Heavy Onslaught Infantry with explosives, the Human warriors leading the wedge were a near unstoppable force.

Propelling themselves forward, the batteries soon fell quiet one by one, their crews cleaned away by the tide of drop pod green.

Rhidi, laying down fire where she could, finally let her shoulders sag as the last battery went silent. She turned, casting her eyes across the once bustling artillery command; Sixteen guns were dry, over four hundred enemy soldiers killed to the man, all to the loss of ten Droppers killed in action.

Despite what a medic could do, there was little to be done when a Dropper was in multiple pieces. Not even Aloe-8 could bring someone back from such a brink.

Rhidi casted her eyes over towards where they had first come out of the tree line, where they had made contact with the command area. Nearly half of the personnel had been there, the wedge blowing through them in a gore laden sprint, most of which were officers. With the officers cut off at the head, orders going out had been slow, crippling their efforts to react.

Rhidi turned her eyes towards the now recovering Droppers, standing in the batteries and setting up demolition charges; There were two missing male Kafya, four missing Pwah, three missing Lilgara, and a single Human had fallen, one she did not know well, at least.

Their rest, however, would be short as the alien artillery was destroyed, an order coming down to push in and crush the remaining enemy elements between the FOB and the position of the Droppers.

The fallen were geo-tagged, laid square upon the ground with their rifle beside them, and a small detail was set so that the bodies had no chance of being disturbed.

Rhidi and the rest of the Platoons were then set out, even though Shaksho had a hard time pulling himself away from the bodies of his fallen males. He was only pulled away by his duty to the current living male Kafya, and set out with Rhidi after she gave him a light tug on one of his armored pauldrons.

"We can see to them later." Rhidi reminded him, setting off at a light jog as Shaksho sped up next to her. "We have the living to keep mind of, now."

She couldn't see Shaksho's face, but she could feel his anger in the movements of his tail and head.

The rapid second advance of the Droppers, this time with rifles out and spread out in their tactical spacing, caught the one-eyed soldiers nearly as off guard as their artillery; Their command structure was in a visible panic as the heavy suits of armored infantry came crashing into their rear, pinning them between rear-flanking fire and the heavy weapons of the FOB.

Caught in their second slaughter, they could not sustain their shielding bubbles used to deter the Human mortars; Rhidi had saw the odd glimmer in the air on the way in, and knew it was a standoff shield of one sort or another, designed to push away incoming ordinance with whatever method they were using. Some races experimented with magnetic fields, plasma waves, subatomic particles, or whatever else they had drummed up from the depths of their greatest minds.

Amusingly, Humans preferred to just shoot things out of the air with multi-barreled cannons, which was surprisingly effective… except for anything caught in the splash range of the extra rounds.

The Humans called the problem a "them problem", as in "it was a problem for them and not for us".

The enemy shield bubbles, having that same shimmery yellow aura as their personal shields, could not sustain their coverage with the fire from two open fronts, and quickly shattered with ear-splitting cracks. This in turn allowed the medium and large caliber mortar rounds to finally land amongst the enemy ranks, and their personal shields were certainly not tuned to deal with shrapnel.

Rhidi, delighted, found that there were no flashes of light coming in to save the enemy soldiers, and realized that this body of enemy troopers were going to die just as violently as the first.

Setting up positions around the rear of the enemy line, the Droppers of the 1st Wild Hunt had effectively cut off the escape route of their quarry, forcing them to either run wide or try and break through.

To say the latter option failed miserably would be an understatement.

With zero cover, zero air cover, and zero artillery, the infantry were caught in a crushing killbox, fighting to survive against odds that were not in their favor.

Rhidi had expended all of the ammunition for her MG-111 and stored it, instead pulling out her rifle properly for the first time since she had arrived planetside. Pulling on the trigger she cut down whatever infantry was foolish enough to make a break for safety, Alias by her side along with Marides and Acici.

"You almost feel bad for them." Rhidi muttered out, wincing as she observed a small Squad get caught square by a mortar round, the green dirt laced with blue and yellow.

Alias shook his head, bringing his rifle down just to observe. "They had been quite clever, catching multiple patrols and isolating them to attack the base. They did not, however, expect us to be as fast as we were."

"They are going to lose an entire Division here." Marides said with a sigh. "How the hell can they keep up with these kinds of losses?"

Alias turned his helmet to her. "I have been thinking about that."

"Your planet hypothesis?" Marides replied, pulling out her empty magazine.

Alias nodded. "Entire planets emptied as an armed wing of a greater military. Think about that flash-tech they have, do you think these goobers were able to figure that out?"

"They were scooping up the locals." Rhidi replied, looking down her sights and pinning some form of NCO in place as they tried to rally their Squad. "This may be an entire race in service to something… bigger."

Saffi, green tail swishing behind her, came running up beside Rhidi, pointing a finger to the sky. "AC-230s are coming! They just dropped from one of the carriers!"

"Gunships? Are they that confident that they control the skies?" Marides asked, tilting her helmet up.

Saffi shrugged. "The Starcats have been tearing up anything that emits even a whiff of a signature, their fighters are just too light to contend with ours!"

Rhidi drifted her eyes skyward, looking back and forth with flicks of her pale irises; The Humans, ever stubborn, still used the AC-130 airframes, producing them even now, but the craft had gotten quite a few upgrades since their inception.

The AC-230 was a space capable craft that still retained the outline of its predecessor, much like the Starcats, and was lovingly called the "Space Spook". When entering atmo, the wings would sweep backwards, bearing two large multi-aspect jet engines per wing. When it was finally in air, the wings swept forward once the heat shields had cooled and the slam engines had powered down.

From there, it flew as a normal craft with a lot more updates to its armament; Two 30mm autocannons, two 105mm cannons, and enough missiles to make a fighter squadron flinch.

As Rhidi kept her eyes skyward, the yellow fur of her tail catching the wind, she watched seven black dots slowly grow in size.

"Were firing ship cannons not as much fun anymore?" Rhidi asked quietly as more Droppers were now looking upward.

Private Muidi walked up slowly next to Alias, also looking skywards as his red furred tail poofed out in awe. "Amazing… they could have made anything, yet all they did was give an old favorite a facelift."

"I think we'll see soon enough why the Humans kept the old girl around." Rhidi said, pointing a finger as the AC-230s began to push their wings forward. "They do know the enemy has ground-to-air ordinance, right?"

As if on cue, the enemy rapidly fired three anti-air missiles, the trails of golden smoke hissing up into the sky. To the surprise of everyone but the Humans, a laser hummed out of the lead AC-230s, bright as sunlight.

The missiles exploded one by one, uselessly leaving trails of smoke and raining scrap metal to the ground.

"They used a laser…." Marides said in obvious surprise. "They didn't just… a laser? Really?"

Alias chuckled. "The power draw to use a laser that size defensively… the Drafritti may as well have given the boogyman a cheat code."

"No wonder the council is so pissed the Humans have absolute control over them…" Saffi murmured, though her tail tucked slightly. "To have such power, and then use it just to shoot a missile out of the sky…"

The bone-shuddering thrum of the AC-230s engines filled the air like the bass notes of a metal concert, and Rhidi couldn't help but smile; The engines, massive beasts that sucked in air greedily, were tilting slightly, just enough to allow the AC-230s to loiter and slow down above the battlefield.

"Humans are fucking monsters…" Rhidi whispered, then grinned as the 30mm rotary cannons began to crank to life.

Spitting streams of tracers, the gunners within the cannon blisters slowly raked their weapons from side to side, churning the ground as fourteen 30mm rotary cannons fell upon their foes mercilessly. Forming a languid line of aircraft, the AC-230s slowly circled overhead like vultures, looking down onto the field of meat on which their gunners feasted.

The 105mm cannons fired lazily; Their targets had no where to hide, no where to run, no cover that could save them. Explosive shells streaked down from the sky and impacted precisely where the laser designator told it to, reducing Squads, Platoons, and Companies to nothing more than gouts of torn earth and metal shrapnel.

Rhidi placed her SR-113 rifle on safe, then sat back against a nearby ruined tree trunk, just watching the aircraft circle and fire. Saffi sat down next to her, leaning back against Rhidi's leg.

"Wow." Saffi murmured, watching as thousands of men and women were turned to statistics.

Rhidi nodded, then reached down and tapped the knuckle of her gauntlet to Saffi's helmet. "I think these guys realize that they may have made an oopsie."

A flight of Starcats streaked overhead, wings brought back for speed, and roared over the top of the AC-230s, one of the more cheeky pilots doing a barrel roll and deploying anti-tracking flares.

The AC-230s answered in kind, launching hundreds of flares as they turned and re-angled their engines, preparing to punch out of the combat zone and make their way back to their carriers.

Shasta, finally finding Alias and Rhidi, sidled up between the two, his launching tubes blackened from all the missiles he had been firing.

"Almossst makes you wish you were a pilot." Shasta said with a chuckle, though his head gave a twitch as he saw movement out in the field. "Survivor?"

"Looks like they missed one." Alias said, tilting his head. "Lucky bastard."

Shasta slowly bent forward, bringing up his targeting reticle. "Not for long."

"Shasta, you can't waste a whole missile on one mono-eye." Rhidi laughed out, watching as both the FOB and Droppers took notice of the one remaining enemy NCO.

He was standing amongst the ruins of who knew how many combat elements, his face ragged with blue blood shining upon his gray skin. His uniform was in ruins, his rifle held low by his waist, and he just… turned and looked around him, looking at the waves of bodies and torn earth that had once been a part of his race's army.

The one-eyed, bald headed man threw down his rifle angrily, then pulled off his field cap and threw it towards the FOB, cursing out in his language as he gestured around him.

Shasta turned to look at Rhidi, then twitched his tail as the missile launched, streaking up into the sky.

"Oopsss." Shasta said, his voice clearly lacking any kind of actual remorse and obviously said through smiling lips.

Rhidi rolled her head backwards as Alias and Shasta laughed, though the laughter grew from all the Droppers through the open communications as a muffled "cra-thump!" erupted from the field.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Hole in one." Someone said over the communication line, and even Rhidi had to let out a belly laugh.

—

Having made their bid to cripple the FOB, the enemy lost three Divisions in a single day, chalking up a crippling, decisive loss for their forces. The FOB was marred and smoking, to be sure, but their overall objective was a complete and utter failure. Losses were light compared to the enemy dead, and no flashes of light came to supply more troopers for the push.

Both of the Human 16th and 72nd Divisions had smartly routed their opposition and sent them scattering back to their own bases, highly constructed citadels of concrete and other unknown alien materials.

This faltering step of the enemy allowed the Humans to dig in, properly fortifying their forward operating bases. The lull in combat allowed the scientists to crack the local language code, as well as allow the newly dead to be properly buried; Coming to an agreement with the local royalty, the moth-like upper-class of the world requested that the "honored dead be laid to rest in the soil they bled upon", in which the Humans agreed to with humility.

Wearing their now battle tested and battle worn armor, Rhidi and the other Droppers laid their dead to rest, armorless but bearing their rifles to the grave.

The Pwah laid their four dead to rest in the ways of their people, their eyes bound by white cloth and hands tied into place around their weapon, the rifle across their chests.

The Lilgara laid their three down into the ground in their own traditional ways, their wide hoods tied around their faces, fingers laced together, and their legs crossed at the ankles.

The Kafya… to Rhidi's annoyance, the Kafya did not have any traditional ways to bury the dead. Dead Kafya were burned, purified to ash and then turned into fertilizer once the grieving time had passed. Even now, as she stood before the grave detail that were slowly lowering the bodies into the ground to lay beside the dead Human, she had no idea what she could do to honor their passing, to make it known that they were going to be missed in the brotherhood of war.

Rhidi heard Saffi sniff, as all of their helmets were off and under their left arms, when she saw Saffi's green braids wiggle in the warm sunlight.

She had an idea, something that was better than doing nothing at all.

"Saffi." Rhidi whispered, reaching out with her free right hand to the green Kafya.

Saffi turned to Rhidi, her bright yellow eyes filled with tears, sniffed and took Rhidi's hand. "Yeah?"

"Come here." Rhidi said quickly, rapidly stepping towards Shaksho from behind, who was standing rigidly before the grave site, watching his men get lowered down with an emotionless face.

Rhidi clicked her helmet into place on her belt, Saffi following suit, then placed a hand on Shaksho's armored shoulder. "Shak, don't move."

Shaksho nodded once, still glumly looking down at the closed-eye faces of his fallen males.

Rhidi fluffed out Shaksho's tail, something that made his cheek twitch and ears to pin back, but she looked to Saffi. "Two braids, quickly."

"O-Okay." Saffi stammered, her agile fingers quickly gathering three strands of Shakosho's tail fur and braiding them with expert movements.

When two braids were done and tied off with the same hair, Rhidi pulled out her gleen-seax, using the activated blade to snip the two braids away. She walked around to the front of Shaksho, then softly placed the two green braids of tail-hair into his pawed hands.

"Place them where it feels natural to, I think." Rhidi said quietly, pointing down to the two fallen male Kafya. "For them to remember you by."

Shaksho looked down at the two long pieces of braided hair, then slowly nodded. "Yes… right. I think…"

The Humans paused their duties, having seen something going on, and slowly raised the two fallen Kafya back up.

Shaksho knelt down in his armor, fingers lightly trembling, but he steeled himself with a sharp inhale. His sisters had shown him how to do this a long time ago, and he slowly wove the hair of the dead into the braid of his own, letting it rest down along their right eye and drape down their cheek.

"To remember us by." Shaksho said quietly, then stood, sniffing as he tucked his helmet back under his left arm.

The Humans nodded, expressing through their eyes that they respected the gestures, then re-lowered the fallen.

The two Kafya, the green braids of their Hohrlihl laying across their cheeks, came down to rest beside the fallen Human, the red cross draped down his shoulder and beads of bone wrapped along his arm.

Around the many graves walked the Odinic and Templar priests, giving the final rites to those being laid under if they had not been attended to. It took a while, due to all the bodies, but once the dirt was smoothed over the top of the graves and native grass seed sprinkled on top, the marker stones were then put into place.

Dozens of units, whose dead marked the ground, were formed up in front of said graves, all at attention with helmets under their left arms. A UAA flag of gathered stars and red and white bars was raised, slowly, pull by measured pull up a marked pole, and the flag slowly fluttered out in the even breeze.

Rhidi's ears perked, along with all the other Kafya, as the Human song of military mourning crept into the air.

A single Human horn bearer, standing in the middle of the graves, played alone, his notes resoundingly loud amidst the sudden quiet.

Rhidi nearly found the sound… suffocating. One man, one instrument to break the silence, the final notes of song heard by the dead. To her, the living, the one horn player was almost too much, too much emotion set into such simple notes of music.

The stillness they left, when the horn went silent, hit her right in the chest.

"Corps!" A Lieutenant General called out to the gathered formations, his older face set and hard. "Present, arms!"

Rhidi's right hand snapped to her brow along with all the others, a sound unified in grief. Saffi and Imridit, to both of their credit, cried silently, tears trickling down their cheeks as their hands held firm.

On time, the ships in orbit sent their regards, replacing the gun salute with three massive airburst rounds that shook the sky above them like the thunder of titans.

"Order, arms!" The Lieutenant General bellowed, and Rhidi bought her arm back down to her side.

There in that field was where the bones of warriors and the steel of their rifles would lay, catching the shadows of the flag that fluttered upon the tall pole. Odinic and Templar priests were already lighting up the incense holders to scent the graves, both Rhidi and all the other troopers marching past in step.

Sleep came easy for Rhidi, leaving her armor in formation with the others and showering to wipe the grime from her fur. The next morning the relief fleets came in force, skipping hard and hot in order to arrive as quickly as possible.

Their landing marked the arrival of more enemy ships as well, both fleets growing in ship count. It had become quite clear to both commanding entities that this planet was about to turn into a show of force, and one side in particular did not appreciate being on the backfoot.

Landing quickly, Drafritti engineers came bearing repair kits and tools, descending upon the combat armor of the 1st Wild Hunt with the same ferocity as angry mothers to their children's rooms.

Rhidi, along with Alias and a lot of the other Heavy Onslaught Infantry, got a furious, accented tongue-lashing by the Drafritti engineers; Their armor had been overstressed by the running, requiring a lot of components to be either repaired or completely replaced, and over half of the Platoon was out of action.

Rhidi and Wheeler's armor in particular were requiring an overhaul, as their added weight and the unlocked limiter had caused their suits to either fry or bind nearly all of their components required for movement after being powered down.

Drop Officer Duluth and First Sergeant Lower were gutted by the news, but there was little they could do; The 2nd Calcifer and 3rd Stargate Companies were already planetside helping the other Division, so all they could do is hope that the bat-eared engineers could work quickly.

The rain cloud for their command turned into sunshine for their troopers; Both Rhidi and everyone else were out of service for nearly a week, while tons of new supplies were coming down into a heavily fortified FOB.

Their field units turned into proper barracks rooms, dropped in large square units from ferrying ships and fully outfitted with racks, lockers, bathrooms, and showers that fed off of the base's water supply.

For the first time in a while, the members of the 1st Wild Hunt could properly shower and dry, fully cleaning all the muck that the field showers could not do with their meagre water pressure. In the matter of a few days the forward operating base transformed from a tent city into a place of proper buildings, roadways and avenues quickly marked out along with shops being set into place with practiced ease.

The locals, moth and mantis alike, stared in open-mouthed awe as a capital city, to their eyes, was erected damn near instantly. Both of the local races were now able to communicate via little translation pads that they were given if they entered the base, with the outfitted shepherds being the chosen bearers of said pads most of the time. There was very little they could actually do for the Human forces, but they still did their best in helping with whatever labor they could.

Their military units were just as unhelpful, which frustrated the locals something fierce. They had the fire to help, to assist in the conflict that was currently consuming parts of their world, but there was very little they could actually do, not unless they had a huge amount of training.

Training that the Humans were not keen on spending resources on.

Despite all the bad news, Rhidi found herself nearly glowing; She now knew, with confirmation, that Morris wanted to take her on a date, and they now had plenty of time to do… whatever it is they could think of on the FOB.

Rhidi's glow dulled after a couple hours of thinking; There was very little to actually do on the FOB.

The walks were nice and all, and she always enjoyed spending time with Morris… but they had walked the same path multiple times. Rhidi knew that the little moth and mantis city was an option, but she had gotten within smelling distance of the place and she wanted nothing else to do with it.

Plus it was full of those insectoid animals, didn't have running water, and she was very certain that she saw someone tossing a pot of their own excrement out of a window… so Rhidi was certain she was going to pass on a local trudge through the hovel collection these people called a city.

That still left her with the problem of nothing to actually do with Morris.

Now that she thought about it… she didn't really have any hobbies to share with him. She was either struggling in the Kafya military, learning advanced sciences, or being dressed up like a living mannequin.

She was actually a rather… boring person, now that Rhidi really let her mind linger on it.

Rhidi walked out to the front porch area of their newer barracks and stood there, sliding her hands into the pockets of her uniform bottoms; What was it that Morris liked to do?

He was a mechanic or something before he had joined, but that was his job, not something he did for fun or to relax. She closed her eyes and remembered back to their walks, trying to pull out some form of information; She remembered he liked camping, but they were already doing that in some form, she would be damned if she was going to go on a hike in those insectoid infested woods around them.

Rhidi had seen some of the sports the Humans played, but those were all team sports, she would rather have Morris alone and intimately close… rather than whacking tennis balls at her or risking her eating shit in front of him.

She remembered something that had to do with flour, but it wasn't baking. Morris had been talking about some kind of thing he had in his old house…

"Plants!" Rhidi said aloud, slapping her pawed hands together. "He likes flowers, that's what it is. All Humans love that dirt… churning bullshit and growing things…."

Rhidi paused; They had been throwing seeds onto the freshly dug graves of the fallen, grass and flower seeds.

"Where the hell did they get those…" Rhidi murmured, turning left and right to see where the supply building was.

After chasing down the funeral detail building and then sniffing their trail back to supply, she found that the supply units had already bartered with the locals for sack upon sack of wild flower and grassland seed, allegedly harvested by some kind of trained nectar insect.

It took a bit of haggling, but Rhidi was able to get her hands on a small, one pound bag of wildflower seeds. She had become so overwhelmed with victory that she had gone and found Morris, still clutching the bag of seeds.

"Morris, look!" Rhidi called out, jogging up to the Human as he was polishing his boots out of boredom.

Morris blinked at Rhidi, then to the bag of seeds, waiting for her to explain herself, but got nothing as Rhidi happily sat down next to him, wiggling her little sack of seeds.

"I'm sure at some point you're going to tell me what's in the bag…" Morris murmured with a smile, closing his little round tin of boot polish. "That or you are going to make me guess the entire time, as I slowly lose my grip on sanity…"

Rhidi giggled, then opened the bag and tilted it towards Morris. "Look, they're seeds! Flower seeds."

"Flower seeds?" Morris asked with a quirk of his lips, reaching in and pinching a small number of the seeds. He looked at them with a curious eye. "Why on earth did you go and grab a bunch of flower seeds?"

Rhidi shrugged. "I dunno', you said you liked the flowers at your old home, and we have a lot of time to waste, so… I thought we'd plant some."

"You want to plant flowers?" Morris asked her, setting down his boots with a look of surprise. "You know that involves getting your fingers into the dirt and getting muddy, right?"

Rhidi's spine gave a twinge of disgust; She hated being muddy, she had hated it the entire time during basic training, and only put up with it because she had to. Voluntarily putting her hands into the dirt, getting mud under her fingernails, pushing aside worms and whatever else may be lurking under the grass was not usually on her to do list.

"I mean yeah, but that's all the fun about it, right?" Rhidi replied, her eye only giving a slight twitch.

Morris chuckled, took the seeds from her, then looked around while gently tossing the bag in his palm. "Well, I'd reckon this place could do with a little color. Why don't you grab a pair of shovels and a pick, I'll show you how to get some dirt ready."

"Okay!" Rhidi replied happily, though she was torn between 'I get to hang out with Morris' and 'Why can't we just be able to watch a movie'. She really hoped they would allow them all access to the data-streams here soon, but it was finicky and reserved for command at the current time.

Finding the shovels and picks wasn't difficult, and after setting their uniform tops on the ground, they both started digging.

To Rhidi's absolute lack of surprise, she did a lot more getting in the way than actually helping, to the point Morris had to stop and show her how a pick was actually used. She not only managed to thwap herself in the head with the pick, but also plunked it straight down onto her paw boot.

Rhidi had been in enough pain to let out a screech and hop around, then caught her other foot on the loose soil and face planted straight into the churned dirt that Morris had been working on.

Despite her plans, she somehow still ended up eating shit in front of Morris, something that stung her pride quite heavily.

Ever helpful and doting, Morris had helped Rhidi get her boot off and checked over her foot, making sure she hadn't crunched any of her toe bones with the blade of the pick. Rhidi then sat on the grass, tail wagging as Morris checked over the small gash she had put in her own forehead.

To get her hair and fur out of the way, Morris had to run his fingers through her hair and use his thumb to part her face fur, something that made Rhidi's heart squirm with joy. She always liked these moments, where she got to just look at his face without feeling weird and stare into his eyes as long as she wanted.

They were still their forest moss green, catching the light of an unknown sun like cut stones. His brown hair made them stand out even more, like two emeralds hiding amongst old tree roots.

"Unfortunately" she had only managed to give herself a very small cut, and she had to get back up and help him with the rest of the soil.

After an hour of churning away at the ground and getting a passing bulldozer to score the ground a bit with his bucket, Morris and Rhidi had made a strip of garden space along the long side of their barracks.

"This area is good, you know." Morris said, wiping at his cheek with his sleeve and smearing a small smudge of dirt in the process. "They'll get constant sun here, right in the path of sunrise to sunset."

Rhidi nodded, as that much made sense to her quite easily. "So how do we plant them?"

"Just throw 'em." Morris said, gesturing to the long rectangle of dirt. "Take a handful of those seeds and cast them where you want them."

Rhidi looked down at the seeds in the bag, scoop out a pawful, then looked at Morris. "Just… throw them?"

"Yeah."

"... Alright."

Rhidi reared her arm back, then did a full body rotation with her throw, shot-putting seeds through the air like a broken water sprinkler.

Morris, at a loss for words, just looked at Rhidi, doing his best to fight down the laugh that tried to bubble up out of his body as if Rhidi had summoned it with magic.

"... That's…. That's good!" Morris said, reaching over and taking a handful of seeds from the now brightly smiling Rhidi.

"I got them really far, did you see?" Rhidi called out, gesturing with a padded finger to the spray pattern of seeds she had issued forth. "I got them all over the rectangle."

Morris nodded patiently. "Yep, I saw. But I was thinking more of a… more like this, Rhidi."

Rhidi turned and found Morris gently shaking out his handful of seeds into a far smaller area, making sure to saturate the ground with solid coverage.

Embarrassment hit Rhidi so hard her ears burned, having to clear her throat before scooping up more seeds into her pawed hand. "O-oh… like, you mean like this."

Gently shaking the seeds out, she mimicked the movements of Morris.

"Yeah, there you go." Morris said, pinching Rhidi's cheek playfully and pulling a giggle from her. "More sprinkle, less fast pitch."

That small pinch of the cheek kept Rhidi's ears tall and perked the entire time they finished spreading the rest of the flower seed. While Rhidi was holding a waterhose and directing it where Morris pointed, Pobilo and Uppil had come along from a trip to the little PX.

"Is she seriously making a garden with that Human?" Pobilo asked with a snort, pointing a padded finger at the happily swishing tail of Rhidi.

Uppil grinned. "Watch this, stay close to my side in case she makes a grab for me."

"If she makes a grab for you, I'm stepping back." Pobilo murmured, stepping alongside the red furred female Kafya. "I saw what she did to Inthur, I'm… how did the Humans say it…" She looked up for a moment, then clicked her tongue, "Ah. I don't want that smoke."

Uppil rolled her eyes. "Ever brave, you blues."

They came to a stop a few feet behind Rhidi and Morris, Pobilo keeping her distance as she idly swung her small bag of candy bars and energy drinks while Uppil put on a more aloof air.

"Well, Rhidi, when I heard you were after Morris's seed, this isn't what I had pictured." Uppil said, her voice curling with both innuendo and tease.

The sudden cessation of Rhidi's tail, and a hunch of her shoulders, let Uppil know that Rhidi had heard every one of her words. The bemused smile on Morris's face, as he looked over his shoulder, was more of a warning.

Morris, after all, saw Rhidi's eye's narrow and her fluffy eyebrow twitch.

As Rhidi spun around with a whirl of her yellow tail, Uppil had already tossed her bag to Pobilo and taken off at a dead sprint, knowing full well what the spitfire yellow Kafya would do to her.

"Uppil!" Rhidi yowled, taking off at such speed she marred the edge of her little flower plot that she and Morris had just finished. "Get your ass back here!"

As Rhidi took off after the red fur, Morris just chuckled and fixed the edge of the garden with the side of his boot. "How's it going, Pobilo?"

"Well enough." Pobilo sighed out, setting her bag down next to Uppils which she had not bothered to catch in the slightest. "Everyone is getting bored too quickly, not enough data, no streams, leads to things like this."

Morris turned and watched as Uppil, now in a blind panic, was parkouring over a bench to get away from the raging Rhidi. He chuckled. "Well, I figured it would be a little less chaotic than this. It hasn't been that long since we last saw combat."

"Yes, well, the females are a little more feral than the males." Pobilo murmured, turning and watching as Uppil skittered up the side of a barracks ladder while Rhidi hit the brakes, sliding past the bottom rung and turning to chase. "It is natural for female Kafya to poke and prod at their Kholihl, but I wish they wouldn't use you to do it… it gets her in such a mood."

As Uppil leapt from the roof of the barracks onto a nearby cargo connex, tucking and rolling as Rhidi popped up from the top of the ladder, Enflia stepped out of the barracks, fluffing her orange hair and smoothing down her fur.

"What is all the noise about?" Enflia asked, clearly groggy and having woken up from a nap. "Why is the Kholihl chasing Uppil?"

Pobilo looked over her shoulder, then pointed to Morris.

"Oh." Enflia grumbled, rubbing at an eye with a knuckle. "Boredome, got'chu."

"See?" Pobilo mused, nudging Morris in the arm with her elbow.

Morris raised a brow. "I guess. Why can't you guys just play checkers or something?"

"Not how it works, big man." Enflia said, sleepily stepping down the barracks porch steps to stand beside Pobilo, watching as Rhidi landed on the connex but rolled off of it, coming down onto her pawed hands and feet to once again sprint after Uppil. "It may not be a major one, but micro-challenges are just the way of it, poking and prodding for weaknesses, keeping the leader on her toes, not letting her get too comfortable."

Pobilo nodded. "That means both in physical and emotional means, we can't go letting our Kholihl get distracted by constantly making goo-goo eyes at you."

"Goo-goo eyes huh?" Morris said, puffing out an amused breath from his nose. "You guys keep digging deeper and deeper into the Human language, don't you?"

Enflia giggled. "It is a fun language, you have so many words for things that we Kafya did not. Honestly, you could just say 'attractive', but you have 'charming', 'pretty', 'beautiful', 'gorgeous', the words go on and on."

"She has me!" Uppil screamed, having been rolling-tackled by a speeding Rhidi and finally coming to a stop in the grass. "Pobilo, help!"

As Rhidi began rubbing Uppil's crimson furred head along the grass, the red Kafya screeching due to the grass stains, Morris looked over to the blue furred Kafya that stood beside him.

"You gonna go help her?" He asked, pointing a finger at Rhidi who had hawked up a good portion of spit into her maw.

Pobilo looked to Enflia, who looked back at her, and the two shook their heads.

"I'm good." Pobilo said.

"Me too." Enflia followed.

Morris chuckled. "That's rough."

"Why is Rhidi dangling spit above Uppil's eyes?" Anfilid asked, the brown furred Kafya wandering around the corner with her own shopping bags.

Enflia and Pobilo just pointed at Morris, who also pointed at himself.

"Oh, boredom." Anfilid said, coming to the conclusion as Uppil began to fully scream.

"Don't you do it Rhidi!" Uppil howled, jerking her head back and forth as Rhidi narrowed her eyes down at her, the wad of thick spit dangling from her lips. "Get that shit away from meee!"

Rhidi had her legs and arms pinned, trapped.

The yellow furred Kafya said nothing, glaring down at Uppil as she lowered her head, the wad of spit a mere inch away from Uppil's nose.

Doing her best to kick her legs, Uppil screamed out in revulsion and horror as Rhidi gave a soft "ptew!", splacking her long, dangling tendril of spit right across Uppil's eyes.

The blood curdling scream that echoed through the base brought a medic running, though he started laughing as soon as he saw Uppil desperately trying to scrape Rhidi's spit from her face.

"Yeah, that'll learn you, you little shit." Rhidi said triumphantly, then laughed and tackled Uppil to the ground, grappling for her hands as the red furred Kafya screeched and still tried to clean off her face.

"What kind of yellow fur does that?!" Uppil screamed, fighting against Rhidi to try and clean her eyes.

Imridit, having heard all the noise and laughing, finally poked her head out of the barracks and stepped out onto the porch, looking over at Rhidi wrestling with Uppil.

"What the hell did I miss?" Imridit asked, her pink furred ears perked up in alarm.

Anfilid looked over at the pink Kafya, smiling. "Rhidi dangled spit above Uppil, then let it drop on her."

"Hah, nice." Imridit replied with a grin. "I taught her that."