AfterMath

"We thought you were dead." Xanthiana and Cobb were overseeing the wounded with her recovered medical supplies. Xanthiana was never much one for trying to make people feel better, but she had experience sewing and that was coming in handy. The young private she was sewing up had taken a shot just below the knee, without the supplies they most likely would have had to amputate. Instead she was going to most likely make a full recovery, albeit with a very ugly scar due to Xanthiana's not so stellar sewing.

"Oh that's cute you showed concern for me Sergent."

"Yeah if you died who would I have had to do my chores for me?" Xanthiana could tell the concern was real, but men like Cobb struggled with showing sympathy or empthy, they felt it made them look weak and a soldier who was weak would get left behind, especially with the limited resources the Ereps had at their disposal.

"And there it went."

"What went?"

"Any kind of affection I might have had for you Cobb."

 "Good I'm an asshole anyway. Roeyka you deserve a nice cat boy so you can start a litter of your own." Cobb walked off, Xanthiana tried to ignore the dig, but it was difficult. It was always hard being a votan amongst humans, even worse as an Irathient since they were thought of as dirty or whores. It wasn't much better amongst her own people though Xanthiana had to admit. Xanthiana finished sewing and the private thanked her and moved on. The private really should have had at least a few days off her feet, but there was not any time for that, not with the mutants, hellbugs, and whatever else was out there.

"Sergent Cobb is misinformed, Irathients while having minimal cat features are fully humanoid, they do not have litters." Elly had been "away", that's what the AI called it when she was synching up with the other Ark Hunters and exchanging info with Von Bach Industries.  The fatally wounded Ark Hunter was apparently not as wounded as he had appeared and he too would make a full recovery, which was good news for their depleted numbers. Someone would have to save Von Bach, even if none of the Ark Hunters had a good idea how.

"He didn't mean it Elly."

"It's still insulting to your heritage."

"Its sweet of you to stick up for me, but honestly I've grown used to the looks, and jokes, humans are very predictable. Now if you really want insulting, wait till we run across a Castithan, than you'll see real pros at work with insulting Irathients." Xanthiana knew very little of the Castithan language, but what she did know were all the insults they degraded her and her fellow Irathients with.

 "Well in my case I hope we don't run across any Casithans Xan."

"Oh I hope to run across at least one, so what do we know about Von Bach and has the Captain authorized a search yet?"

"Nothing and he said we can leave whenever we felt like."

"That's nice of him considering the state they are in."

"He considers Ark Hunters resource hogs and that we are only going to attract unnecessary attention to his erep personnel, us leaving as soon as possible is a bonus."
 
"And that's more like the Ereps I know and used to shoot."

"Technically you shot Earth Military Coalition forces."

"Right of course my mistake." Xanthiana didn't of course want to admit to Elly she had recently killed erep people, the world was an ugly place post ark fall, and desperate people made for desperate decisions.

"I have coordinates triangulated from the other ark hunters for escape pods, do you wish to get the search underway?"

"Yeah lets get out of here my hands are cramping up from all the sewing." Xanthiana gave one last look around the scattered erep camp and then made for her ATV, she hoped she would be back shortly, but she knew that was not her path, and she was not wrong.