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There are only two ways to kill a human: shoot it directly through the center of its head, or directly through the center of its heart.
It's been seven earth years since humanity was discovered by the federation, since they refused to join peacefully and declared war, and since my leaders (bless them) decided to lead the attack on the death world, and we're finally managing to capture a military base on the northern side of the "America" continent.
I'm following close behind Rhal-Di, glancing behind us every three steps looking for humans. All, or at least, most of them charged us right off the bat, but there could be more hiding inside.
Briah, two paces ahead of Rhal-Di, pushes a door open and immediately opens fire into the room. I ready my gun and flatten myself against the wall next to the door. Briah curses and shouts at us, "There's one in there! It went behind those crates."
Briah keeps firing as she enters the room, Rhal-Di and I close behind. Briah gestures to Rhal-Di to try to flank it from the edge of the pile of boxes and crates. The human starts shouting in its own tongue as Rhal-Di approaches. I brace myself for an attack, certain it's a human battle cry. Rhal-Di also freezes, but Briah keeps shooting.
"Don't give it an opening!" she yells. "We've got it cornered, it can't move!"
Rhal-Di nods and keeps inching forward, masking his footsteps with the gunshots.
Suddenly, something behind the crates moves and I see the human's hands above one of the boxes. I shoot, and graze one of them. The human squawks and whines, but doesn't pull its hands back. Briah stops shooting, puzzled.
"What is it doing?" I ask, seeing now that it's hands are open and empty.
"I don't know," admits Briah, then shouts in common at the human, "What are you doing?"
The human doesn't respond except for a few whimpers between breaths.
Rhal-Di keeps walking towards it, stalking it as he would prey in a hunt. I move so I can still see the human's hands and ready my gun in case it attacks.
And then Rhal-Di does something extremely stupid. He reaches over the crate, grabs the human by the wrists and lifts it up, stretching to his full hight as he pulls it off the ground. I aim my gun at the human, who yells and struggles for a moment before its eyes focus on me and it stills.
"What are you doing?" demands Briah, stomping up to Rhal-Di and the captive(?) human.
"I caught it!" Rhal-Di responds proudly, holding the human between himself and Briah. I scramble up to them with my gun ready - someone has to be prepared to shoot it when it attacks. "I caught it alive!" Rhal-Di continues, puffing out his fur proudly.
"I can see that," mutters Briah, glaring down at the human, who's eyes are now focused on her. "And what do you suggest we do with it?"
"We keep it," replies Rhal-Di nonchalantly.
"No way," I interject. "Our orders are specifically not to take prisoners, remember? It's too dangerous to bring back to the ship."
"It's too dangerous to keep alive at all," agrees Briah.
Rhal-Di lowers the human a bit, looking at us with concern. "It isn't right to kill someone who isn't fighting anymore," he protests. "Even a human." After staring down at it for a moment, he adds, "It surrendered. When the commander said not to take prisoners, they said it's because humans don't surrender."
The human is stretching to reach the ground with its boots, its eyes now focused downward. Its hand is bleeding where I hit it, but it can still flex its fingers. I notice now that it's vibrating slightly, struggling to breathe, and leaking some kind of fluid from its eyes.
"It might be ill," I think aloud, although I've never seen a healthy human up close like this.
"All the more reason to keep it!" insists Rhal-Di. "It's too weak to fight."
Briah takes off the pack she was carrying and rummages through it until she finds protective gloves. She slips them on and crouches to examine the human, who flinches and pulls to get away from her.
"Just scared," says Rhal-Di sympathetically.
"A scared human is the most dangerous of all," insists Briah. She steps away when her radio lights up and pauses to answer it. The commander asks for a report and she tells them about the human. The commander takes a moment to think, but orders us to bring it back to the ship.
"Are you sure?" asks Briah.
"We'll meet soon with a ship collecting samples of earth fauna. They will be able to safely contain it."
"And what about us?"
"Make sure it isn't armed and keep it restrained. You'll be fine."
The commander ceases contact and Briah straightens to her full height, removing her gloves. "Laitha," she commands, handing them to me, "Check it for weapons."
Gathalra warships are equipped to carry prisoners, but humans aren't just any prisoners, so when we bring the human on board the commander has us tie its hands together behind its back before leaving it in a cell. They also insist on someone staying nearby to watch it and alert everyone if it tries to escape, and I volunteer for that because one restrained human is definitely less terrifying than the many armed humans the others are going out to face.
Still, I keep my weapon out and stay a bit away from the door while I watch it. The human stands still until the others leave, and stares at me for a bit after they do, like it's waiting for me to follow them. I sit down next to the wall on the other side of the hallway, and the human watches me for another few moments before taking some timid steps backward.
It stays facing me, reaching its arms out behind it as much as it can as it inches toward the corner of its cell, where it sits down with its legs carefully placed between its abdomen and me. After a moment like that, it ducks its head behind its legs, too.
I can hear it breathing from where I sit, and it seems even more likely to me that the human is ill. After a few minutes, it starts making quiet whimpering noises in between breaths.
It quiets down by the time Briah returns, holding two bowls of nutrition paste. She hands one to me and peers curiously into the human's cell.
"It hasn't moved from that spot since you left," I tell her, placing my bowl on the ground and standing to help. The human's eyes become visible again as it lifts its head above its legs.
Weaker species have ships with two-chambered cells or slots at the bottoms of cell doors, so they can give prisoners food without interacting with them. Gathalra have never needed something like that - the idea of an unarmed enemy being a threat to even one of us is absurd. We have the largest bodies, sharpest claws, and most teeth out of any sapient species.
I really wish we had one of those two-chambered cells right now.
Briah motions for me to open the door and quickly slides the bowl into the cell before I close it again. The human moves its legs, staring curiously at the bowl, but it doesn't come close to us while I re-lock the cell.
"Are you still alright down here?" asks Briah.
"Yeah," I tell her, grabbing my own bowl and starting to eat. "Thank you for the food. It's surprisingly docile, actually."
"You still think it's ill?"
"Yes. It sounded like it was struggling to breathe earlier."
"I see. Well, there's not much we can do before we meet up with the other ship. Let me know if its condition changes."
"Yes, Ma'am."
The human doesn't move to stand up until after she leaves, and even then hesitates some. I try to encourage it to eat by gesturing at the bowl and showing it that I'm eating from mine. The human stands up and timidly approaches it.
The human sits down next to the bowl and stares at it, and then at me.
"It's food," I tell it in common, just to fill the silence. "You eat it."
The human turns its back to me and twists its head to look at me at the same time, like it's trying to... show me its hands?
It moves again to look at me without the awkward craning of its neck, and its eyes dart again between me and the food.
"I'm not untying you," I tell it flatly, though unsure if that's what it's trying to communicate. The human seems to understand the tone of my words - or maybe it just gives up on communicating whatever it wanted to - and lowers its head, staring again at the bowl. It uses its feet to grab the edges, bracing against the wall of the cell with its back and trying to lift the bowl up. The bowl slips from its feet and nutrition paste spills all over the floor of the cell.
The human relaxes its limbs, staring unblinking at the mess it created. It looks back at me, and I instinctively reach for my gun in case this is some kind of bizarre threat display. The human exhales loudly and retreats back to the corner of its cell.
It ignores the nutrition paste and remains in its corner for a long time. I eventually decide to contact Briah to let her know that it's refusing to eat.
"It must be very ill," she responds when I tell her. "I'll see if I can contact that fauna-ship. Maybe we can treat them here."
"Thank you," I reply, noticing as I speak that the human isn't responding to movement the way it was before - its head is still hidden behind its legs, and it hasn't stirred.
I don't think too much of it until Briah returns with a small bag of supplies and taps on the door of the cell a couple times. The human still doesn't move in response, and she pushes the cell door open.
I enter behind her, weapon drawn, and try to figure out what it is the human is trying to accomplish with this - just, sitting there, not moving. When we get closer I see that its eyes are closed and its head is limp against the wall. Is it dead? Briah gestures for me to restrain it and with some hesitation, I get close enough to hold it down. When I grab it, the human makes a small, confused noise and opens its eyes.
And screams.
I startle back and land on the floor next to it and the human stands up before I reach my gun and aim at the human's head, who's eyes change when it sees me and it backs up into its corner again.
I stand up slowly, keeping my weapon on the human, and Briah motions again for me to restrain it, looking annoyed. Still pointing my weapon, I push the human against the wall of the cell and hold it there. I can hear it breathing this close - faster than it was before, and its eyes are leaking again. I try not to touch the strange clear fluid coming out of them. Briah pulls a written list of instructions out of her bag and starts examining the human and taking notes. It yelps and tries to pull away whenever she touches it, but its too weak to actually get anywhere with me holding it. I can feel it shaking.
After a few minutes of this, the humans breathing slows down a bit and its eyes stop leaking. It stares at Briah, who doesn't acknowledge it and continues writing her notes. It isn't much longer before she pulls out her radio and speaks to someone who I guess is on the fauna ship. She tells them she's sending her notes through and after they read it over, they tell her to untie the human's hands, wrap its wound in clean fabric, and make sure it has plenty of water to drink.
I'd forgotten about water - apparently humans need a lot of the stuff, from the amounts the Fauna ship gives us. Briah thanks them and ends the connection, but doesn't move to do what they said.
"Do you think it's safe to untie it?" I ask. I don't know if that's what she was thinking, but it's what I was thinking.
Briah thinks for a long time, scrutinizing the human, who stares back at her without blinking. "It's unarmed," she concludes, "and too weak to fight. We'll be fine. Hold it still while I untie it."
I have mixed feelings about this, but there's no refusing orders, so I pull the human a few steps away from the wall and hold it still, weapon still pointed at it, while Briah takes the restraints off its hands.
The human doesn't resist when Briah pulls its wounded hand in front of it and I take the other one (just in case.) Briah takes a scrap of fabric from her bag and wraps the human's hand in it before packing up and moving to leave. I let her get out the door before releasing the human and following her, but it doesn't move to attack.
Instead, it rubs its hands against each other, staring back at us through the cell door. Briah tells me to watch it while she finds water, and I settle back onto the floor.
The human stands where I left it, watching me, and stops rubbing its hands but keeps them together in front of it. It inches closer to the door of the cell and I instinctively reach for my weapon, but it isn't watching me anymore - it's eyeing the nutrition paste it spilled earlier. It crouches to pick up the bowl and scrapes some of the paste back inside (though it leaves a sizable chunk of it on the floor - anything that touched the ground stays there.)
It brings the bowl back to its corner and sits back down, using its good hand to scoop paste out of the bowl and eat it.
It eats slowly, and gets through less than half of it before Briah returns with the water.
She stops to stare at it when she reaches the cell door. "It's eating."
"It is," I confirm. The human stops eating and looks back up at us. It places the bowl back on the ground and sits back in the corner, returning to its guarded pose with its legs in front of it, peering at us over the top of its knees.
Briah quickly opens the door, plops the water into the cell, and closes it again before the human has a chance to stand up. It doesn't move, instead staring back up at her.
"That's... good, right?" I ask. Briah agrees.
"Let me know if its condition changes," she tells me before leaving again. I sit back against the wall and watch the human, who watches me for a while before it stands and walks cautiously over to the water. Upon reaching it, the human tries to pick up the jug but seems to struggle with the weight of it and instead drags it in small bursts across the cell. I wonder why it's bringing everything back to that corner with it before using anything, but it's probably for the best that it isn't near the door.
Once it gets the cap off the jug, the human unties the cloth Briah wrapped around its wound. I stand, confused and ready to intervene, but before I can decide what to do the human carefully tips the jug and pours a small stream of water over the wound.
I watch dumbfounded as it dampens both sides of its hand before inspecting the cloth and wrapping it again around the wound. Its cell is becoming quite the mess, between the nutrition paste it spilled earlier and the bloody water it just poured onto the floor. Satisfied, it sits in its corner again and, though it still struggles with the weight of the jug, begins drinking from it.
Only after drinking for a good ten seconds does it return its attention to the nutrition paste it had brought back to the corner with it. It eats slowly, pausing occasionally to watch me, and I sit down to watch it back.
Rhal-Di comes by after a few hours, carrying a small blanket I guess must have come from his nest. I wave in greeting, and ask what he's doing here.
He gestures to the blanket and answers. "Briah said the human is sick, so I brought this for it!" He holds out the blanket proudly.
"Are you sure you wanna do that?" I ask him. "You'll never get it back."
"I have lots of them," replies Rhal-Di nonchalantly. He then looks into the human's cell and asks, "Why is there a big mess?"
I get him up to date on what the human's been doing, and as I talk it stirs for the first time in a while and starts to stare back up at us.
Rhal-Di, once I'm done updating him, looks back to the human and the two of them stare at each other for a while. Then he turns back to me and asks, "Can you open the door for me?"
I'm more than a little nervous about letting Rhal-Di into the cell after what he did back in the human base. "Promise you won't go near it?" I ask.
Rhal-Di glares at me despondently. "Fine," he says, and steps back so I have room to unlock the door. The human stands up in its corner, hands in front of it and impossibly still, watching us. Rhal-Di steps into the cell and holds out the blanket he brought.
"Just drop it and come back out," I hiss at him.
"It's just scared," he responds.
"That makes it MORE dangerous, Rhal-Di, not less."
Rhal-Di sighs and waits a second more for the human to move. It doesn't - eyes darting between him, the blanket, and me. Finally, he crouches and places the blanket on one of the dryer parts of the floor, then steps out and lets me shut and lock the door. He stays by the cell door, watching the human excitedly. "You think it'll like it?" he asks.
"I guess we'll find out," I tell him, watching as the human stares at the blanket, eyes occasionally darting back up to us. I back up toward the wall and tell Rhal-Di, "Maybe back up a bit? I don't think it likes getting close to us."
Rhal-Di grumbles a bit, but comes back to the opposite wall with me and we sit together. The human hesitates a while longer, but carefully steps closer to the blanket and crouches, stretching its arm out to touch it.
After poking it a couple of times, it looks back up at us and stares for a minute. Finally it pinches a piece of the cloth between its fingers and stands, stretching the blanket out to its full length and examining it closely. It relaxes then, folding it once before wrapping it around itself.
It looks back at Rhal-Di and says something in its own tongue before returning to its corner. Rhal-Di coos excitedly next to me.
When Briah decides it's time to clean up the mess in the human's cell, she comes down with a few other people and goes in with me first so we can restrain it. The human stands up when it sees us enter, but keeps the blanket wrapped loosely around its shoulders.
"Did Rhal-Di give it that?" asks Briah.
"Yes," I tell her, before clarifying, "I made sure he didn't go near it."
The human backs up as far as it can as we approach, clinging the blanket with both hands. "It's not gonna get protective of that thing, is it?" Briah thinks aloud, before gesturing at me to restrain it.
The human jolts backward a bit when I touch it, but doesn't resist when I grab its arm through the blanket and pull it away from the wall. Briah grabs a corner of the blanket and starts to pull it off, and the human, startled, moves to grab her. I grab its wrist before it can, and it pulls against me for a second before seeming to reconsider. It mutters something in its own tongue, and lets go of the blanket with its other hand.
I turn the human around and hold its hands still behind it so Briah can tie them, and it lets us lead it out of the cell into the hallway. Briah signals for the others to start cleaning. "Is it just me," she asks, "or is it acting different this time?"
"I think you're right," I reply, noticing now that it isn't vibrating or struggling to breathe like it was the last time I got this close. Its eyes aren't leaking anymore, either. "Maybe it's feeling better?" I suggest.
"I didn't think humans healed that quickly," Briah responds quietly, sounding concerned.
The human watches until they're done - it doesn't take long, these cells are designed to be easy to clean - and Briah and the others take the empty bowl when they leave. Briah stays for a minute while I untie the human and quickly retreat to the hallway, locking the door behind me, and she hasn't even left when it grabs the blanket off the floor and wraps it back around its shoulders.
After a while, the human approaches the door to its cell, staring at me as it moves. I instinctively reach for my weapon, just in case, but it just sits at the edge of its cell, still wrapped in the blanket Rhal-Di gave it. It seems to think for a second before gesturing with an extended finger, pointing at its own chest, and saying something in its own tongue.
"...What?" I say, even though it can't understand me, and it repeats what it said, more slowly this time. At my blank stare, it repeats itself a third time.
"August."
Unsure what else to do, I mimic the word as best I can. "Agast?"
The human's demeanor shifts, and its posture straightens. "August!" it repeats, tone different - maybe to indicate a confirmation?
"What is 'August'?" I find myself asking it.
The human repeats its gesture from before, saying the word again. Is 'August' its word for 'chest?' Or 'body?'
Before I can think about it too hard, the human gestures at me with the same extended hand, only silently, with its head cocked slightly to the side.
At my hesitation, it gestures at itself again, repeats "August," and gestures back at me.
"Is August your name?" I think aloud.
"Isaugustyourname," repeats the human. I startle backward, reaching again for my weapon, and the human pushes itself back a bit in response. After a moment, though, it mutters to itself, "Isaugustyourname... is... yourname..." and looks back up at me, gesturing again, and says "Is yourname..."
Still a bit confused, I tell it, "Laitha. My name is Laitha."
"Laithamynameislaitha," repeats the human.
"No, no," I say on instinct, and pause for a second to figure out what to do before mimicking the gesture it was making earlier. "Laitha," I tell it, pointing at myself, and then point to it and back to me. "August, Laitha."
"Laitha," the human repeats.
"Yes," I tell it. "My name is Laitha."
"Yesmynameis Laitha," repeats the human, before reconsidering and saying instead, "Mynameis Laitha."
"No, my name is..." I start, but reconsider partway through and mimic the human's gestures again. "My name is Laitha," I tell it, pointing at myself. "Your name," I add, pointing to it, "is August."
"Yournameis," repeats the human. After a second of contemplation, it says, "Your name is Laitha, my name is August."
To say that I teach the human any Gythryll feels... dishonest. It's more that I demonstrate Gythryll to it, whether I really mean to or not. It only occurs to me after it's figured out 'yes,' 'no,' 'name,' 'water,' and 'blanket' that I realize I should probably try to teach it some commands.
"Stand up," I tell it, and demonstrate by standing up myself. The human cautiously follows suit, and I try to encourage it by saying "yes" before adding "sit down" and lowering myself back onto the floor. The human sits, and repeats softly, "Standup, sitdown."
When Briah comes back with more nutrition paste, the human is back in its corner, having been repeating phrases and words to itself, occasionally getting my attention to ask for a reminder on the meaning of one word or another. It goes quiet again when it hears Briah coming and stares up at her while she asks me for updates.
It takes me a second to decide that yes, I should tell her. "It's... learning Gythryll," I say plainly.
"It's what?!"
I take the bowl of nutrition paste she handed me and stand up. "It approached me a few hours ago and started talking and repeating whatever I said back to it. I think its name is August?"
The human's posture shifts as it recognizes the word.
"You're kidding," says Briah flatly.
I unlock the door and the human stands up, and I take a breath and tell Briah, "No, watch this," before turning to the human and saying as clearly as I can, "August, sit down, don't move."
The human obediently sits in its corner, and remains frozen in place while Briah places the bowl of nutrition paste in its cell and retreats into the hallway.
"You've been teaching it," observes Briah.
"I figured, if it's going to be learning, it may as well learn something useful," I tell her while I lock the cell door again. "Oh," I add, turning back to the human, "August, okay move."
The human hesitates, but walks slowly over to the nutrition paste and brings it back to its corner.
"That's just creepy," mutters Briah. "Are you sure it's a good idea to be talking to it?"
"If you want me to stop, I will," I tell her. I'm stating the obvious - she does outrank me - but I needed something to say while I thought. "To be honest," I continue hesitantly, "I think it wants to cooperate. Rhal-Di was right when he said it was scared of us - I think we'll be safer if we can communicate with it."
Briah doesn't really look like she agrees with me, but after a minute she says, "We'd better stop talking about it where it can hear, just to be safe," before thinking for a minute longer. "But I'm trusting your judgement on this," she decides finally. "If you want to keep teaching it Gythryll, I won't stop you."
I end up learning a couple of phrases in the human's tongue over the course of teaching it Gythryll. It repeats one thing a lot that I'm pretty sure means 'thank you,' and it doesn't take long for me to figure out that it has a particular way of marking a phrase that it means as a question - changing the pitch right at the end. There's another word it says whenever it learns that it does something wrong, which I start to suspect is an apology.
Assuming humans even have a way to apologize in their language.
Rhal-Di comes by again like clockwork as soon as he has some time off. "Briah says it's learning Gythryll!" he tells me excitedly.
"Alarmingly quickly, yes," I tell him.
The human, recognizing Rhal-Di, comes closer to the door of its cell.
"Human!" he says to it, and it startles backward a bit.
"I think its name is August," I tell him, and he repeats the name back to the human, who inches back towards us again.
"August," it repeats, correcting Rhal-Di's pronunciation. "My name is August. Your name is...?"
"Rhal-Di!"
"Rhadi?"
It takes a few iterations before the human can pronounce Rhal-Di's name correctly, but he's more than happy to repeat it. After a minute, he turns to me and asks, "Can I go in and talk to it?"
"Absolutely not," I tell him forcefully. "You can talk to it just fine out here."
Rhal-Di pouts back at me. "It's being friendly!"
"Yes, and I know you'll do something stupid because of it. It's still human."
"Human?" repeats the human timidly, gesturing at itself the way it did when it gave me its name.
"Yes," I tell it, more on instinct than anything else at this point. I try to mimic the gesture it's been using, first at it - "Human" - and then at both me and Rhal-Di - "Gathalra."
When it's figured out how to pronounce "Gathalra" correctly, it switches gears by saying Rhal-Di's name again to get his attention. After some consideration, it gestures to the blanket it still has wrapped around its shoulders and says, "Rhal-Di, you blanket." It then hesitantly says a phrase in its own language that I'm now becoming sure of the meaning of.
"Thank you?" I say, then, trying to mimic the way it poses questions, and the human repeats the phrase back to me.
"Thank you. Rhal-Di, blanket, thank you!"
The human gets my attention to ask for water after a while, and Briah comes down with another large jug, which she silently plops into the cell before stepping back so I can lock the door again.
"Thank you," it says to Briah, and she pauses to stare at it for a minute.
The human waits for my "okay move" before standing up to grab the jug, hauling it back to its corner with some difficulty, just like before.
To my surprise, Briah sits down by the cell door and begins talking to it. "Your name is August?" she asks.
"Yes," replies the human. It hesitates longer than it did with Rhal-Di, but does ask, "Your name is...?"
"Briah."
"Bri... ah. Briah."
"August..." Briah repeats, and takes a second to decide on her words. "Why are you cooperating with us?"
The human stares blankly at her for a second before looking at me. "Whyareyou...?"
I cautiously sit down next to Briah and try to rephrase using words they know. I point to myself. "I say 'stand up,'" I say, and point at them, "you stand up. I say 'sit down,' you sit down. Why?"
It hasn't learned 'say' or 'why,' but I'm thinking it might figure out from context what I mean. After a second, it approaches us, sits down, and points at Briah's weapon.
"No..." it says, looking down at its legs as it speaks.
Briah hesitates for a minute before thinking aloud, "You... really are scared of us."
The human looks cautiously between me and Briah, but I'm not sure if it's worth trying to translate. "Yes," I say to her instead.
The human learns 'come here' as fast as anything else, but it hates doing it. The first time I use it when Briah is with me, I have to repeat it three times before the human finally shuffles over. While she removes the cloth on the wound on its hand - the fauna ship sent some new information on how to properly treat it - I decide to teach it some new words, in an attempt to calm it down a little.
"Hurt," I tell it, pointing at the wound on its hand.
The human repeats the word, watching as Briah pulls some supplies out of the bag she took with her. When she opens a bottle, I recognize the scent.
"Wait," I find myself saying, "is that the isopropyl? You can't mean to use it on the wound-"
"That's what the fauna ship said to do," she replies, pouring some of it onto a clean cloth.
The human seems to recognize the scent, too, because it abruptly pulls its hand back when Briah reaches for it. "Stop," it says - a word I'd only just taught it - and Briah tenses, instinctively angry, but the human continues, "Stop, please, I..."
"You taught it 'please?'" mutters Briah, but I don't have a chance to respond before the human speaks again.
"Give?" it says tentatively, holding its other hand out to Briah. She hesitates, but when the human says "please" again she shrugs and places the cloth in its hand. The human cautiously sniffs it, before carefully applying it to the wound.
"I guess it wanted to do it itself?" I suggest, and Briah makes a little sound of agreement. "Is that actually safe? Using isopropyl to clean a wound?"
"It is for a human."
At that point the human hands the cloth back to her, apparently satisfied with the state of its wound, and makes no further objections while she wraps it again. "Thank you," it says when she stands to leave.
I'm trying to teach it 'back up' when the alarm sounds. The human startles back into its corner while I grab my weapon, listening closely for movement coming from either direction down the hallway. My radio hisses with orders - most straight from the commander - and I listen for my name. The realization dawns on me slowly what this means. We've been boarded.
I don't have time to think about it before I hear gunshots to my right. I dart for cover - the corner on my left - and realize in hindsight that I've left the human unattended. I hear voices coming from its cell and move around the corner just long enough to fire into the hallway. There's yelling while I reload, more gunshots, and then-
"Laitha," says the human - August, presumably. "No... no hurt. You no hurt, I no hurt."
I'm not stupid enough to trust a human - even this human - and its voice is getting closer as it speaks, so I finish reloading and get ready to shoot again-
August grabs my weapon before I have a chance to aim. I hold on, grasping for the trigger, but a well-timed yank has it out of my hands, and it's pointed back at me before I can react.
"Don't move," says August.
Humans taking prisoners isn't exactly a first, but there's never been a successful negotiation to have them returned. I'm not sure why I cooperate rather than fight while I still can, but it's a relief to find that I'm not the only one - half a dozen other prisoners are taken back to the surface of Earth with me, Rhal-Di among them. He greets me nervously when he sees me, and starts to greet August in a similar fashion before he glances back at me and reconsiders.
August speaks with the other humans quickly and quietly, but I hear them say my name more than once on the way down. They don't look at me.
The humans leave us in a cell together and Rhal-Di quickly finds his way over to me. In hushed tones we exchange our versions of what happened. The other four Gathalra - I learn their names are Fythiri, Gyantel, Ydarha, and Dalrhia - ask us about August, and were they really learning Gythryll, and did they somehow call the other humans? And I don't know, and Rhal-Di doesn't know, and maybe Briah would know but she's not here, and maybe I could figure out how to ask August but even Rhal-Di isn't quite stupid enough to trust them right now, and it wouldn't even matter because none of us see them again for three days after we're captured.
But when the humans separate me from the others, and lead me to a room on the other side of their camp, I find August there. The others force me onto the floor - I could fight them, but I know better - and one of them speaks to August for a minute.
August says nothing back to them, but steps forward and sits in front of me. The way they move reminds me of how they followed orders back on the ship - slow and hesitant. "Laitha," they say to me.
"August," I reply.
To call what follows a 'conversation' would be... generous, at best. August is clearly trying to ask me questions, dictated to them by the other human that stands behind them, but their Gythryll vocabulary is still only a dozen words and a handful of phrases. Eventually they manage to get across that they want to know why they were captured and not killed, but I'm not sure how to answer that question even without limiting myself to the Gythryll August knows, and I don't think it would be a good idea if I could.
So I tell them "no," and August starts to say something else but is interrupted by the other human, who must ask them a question because August replies with a couple words in their own tongue, and suddenly there's a sharp pain on the back of my head.
I cry out on instinct, and I see August flinch. In response to the other human's words, they repeat the question.
Rather than dignify that with a response, I look August in the eyes and say, "You say no hurt." August freezes for a second, and I repeat their words from the ship back to them. "You no hurt, I no hurt."
Something in their demeanor changes, and when the other human talks again, August remains silent. The other human repeats itself, louder, and August looks down at the floor and replies in their own tongue.
There are no other questions before the humans bring me back to the cell, but I hear shouting behind me as we leave.
They take Rhal-Di next. He barely has time to notice my wound and ask me what happened before the humans drag him out of the cell and bring him back where I just came from.
"What did they want?" one of the others - Gyantel, I think - asks me.
I sit by the wall, nursing my head - it's not serious, I don't think, but it hurts and I'm having trouble thinking because of it. "Information of some sort," I tell him. "Looks like August is the closest they have to a translator, though."
It's easy enough to guess what they want with Rhal-Di - information, right? Same as me. Except he's gone for hours, and we don't even see another human until they bring food at dusk, and it's not August and it doesn't have Rhal-Di with it.
I know better, but when the human slides a tray of food under the door I go up to it and ask, "Where is Rhal-Di?"
The human says something in its own tongue and leaves before I have a chance to respond.
When it gets dark, and the activity around us settles down, it occurs to me that maybe Rhal-Di isn't coming back.
I wish I could assume that even humans wouldn't kill a prisoner - not if they could help it, not if they weren't fighting back, and I know Rhal-Di wasn't fighting back - and I want to think that even if some would, August wouldn't, but I know better. Back on our ship, without orders or backup, they were focused on survival. Of course they'll behave differently now - of course they'll follow orders now that they have them. I would've done the same - any of us would've.
Any of us... except, maybe, Rhal-Di.
Dalrhia gets my attention the next morning and points outside the cell. "Is that August?" she asks, and I look over to see the human approaching our cell.
"August?" I hear myself say, before standing and pushing myself to the door. "August, where is Rhal-Di?"
August doesn't answer, but now that I see them up close it's obvious there's something wrong with them. The skin on half of their face is discolored and puffs out from where it should be, and one arm hangs uselessly at their side, while the other clutches at their chest.
"Rhal-Di," I repeat. "Where is he?"
August says a phrase in their own tongue that I recognize from the ship - an apology.
I growl back at them - I can't help it - but another human shows up before I can say anything else, and grabs August's shoulder and pulls them away from the cell, yelling, and-
The other human suddenly stops and takes a few cautious steps backward. August speaks, slowly and evenly, their weapon pointed squarely at the other's heart.
"What..." says Dalrhia behind me, but she can't finish her question before the other human starts speaking again and is interrupted when August pulls the trigger.
The other human's body collapses on the floor. August approaches it and crouches, searching its clothing until they find what they're looking for and approach our cell again. I back up on instinct, shoving Dalrhia and Fythiri back in the process, while August unlocks and opens the door.
"Come here," they say, taking a step backward. At our collective hesitation, they step forward instead, grab my arms, and place a weapon in my hands.
"What?" I reply dumbly.
"Come here," August repeats, and walks out of the cell, and keeps going.
Against all of our better judgements, we follow them.