Closer

"We have an Idris, right?" Morgan says, head on a swivel.

"No, we have our packs, food, weapons and ammo. Nothing else." I reply, looking for a good spot to set up.

"No, Callie you headass." Morgan growls. "I mean does the Spacemoms organization have one?"

I stop and eye a good spot to rest.

"Don't really see a need for one. We have a couple of Polarises, some Perseus, and not to mention the hell of Corsairs that can erase anything."

"Well can you have somebody come pick us up then? WHY THE FUCK ARE WE EVEN DOING THIS?!" Morgan yells, voice echoing off the trees and mountain valley.

The same question I've answered three times in the past hour, now in all caps.

"Because I know you are determined to stay firmly planted in a cockpit seat, but if you get shot down with no comms you'll be glad we're doing this."

"Yeah but WHY THO?!" He whines again.

I hear a foreign sound. Heavy, twigs possibly and a foul odor rolls through.

"Callie? What's that smell?"

"Helmet on, lock and load..." I whisper while putting my helmet on.

I hear him fumbling behind me to strap mags to his chest and rack back a round in his P4. The world gets extremely quiet and still, that metallic pang in your stomach when fear is present.

I forgot what fear felt like.

"Morgan, are you clear?" I radio silently and I hear nothing before looking over my shoulder to confirm.

He stands with his helmet in his hands while staring up at the mature Boreal Stalker, roughly seventeen-feet-tall.

My nerves kick in and in a twitch I'm up at full-speed and kicking off Morgan to gain altitude while moving him out of the way. I hear him grunt when he smashes into the ground then take a handful of hair on top of the stalker's head and hold on for dear life.

It roars, my body vibrates like jello and the noise dampeners in my helmet struggle to catch up. I raise my Coda up to it's forehead as it thrashes around and dump the whole mag. Bits of blood and skull fly and spray everywhere but the big bastard keeps thrashing.

"CALLIE WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING LET GO!!!" Morgan yells over mic and I hear him finally load up a round.

Then big boy takes a swipe and part of my armor is shredded to bits as I scream in pain.

"AYYO THAT'S MY MOMMA YOU BIG GOOFY LOOKING BITCH!" He yells then vanishes.

I can't reload the Coda with one hand, so I snap-holster it and grab my P4. Then the big brute roars again with gunfire and spins around, whipping me to see Morgan mid-reload.

"M-Morgan just aim for the feet, cripple him!" I yell, torso screaming in pain.

His thrashing paired with my holding on for dear life has created a huge knot in it's fur and the gears in my head grind into motion.

I mag-dump into his face and every roar stifled by rounds hitting in the throat.

"FUCK EM' UP, MAMA!"

Empty mag, dropped the gun then plant a knife in the big bear's head causing him to thrash like hell.

And I stab him a few more times before nearly losing my grip.

"AROUND TO THE REAR! MOVE!"

"YES MA'AM!"

Morgan vanishes again to reposition and big boy is either getting tired, or it's getting cold.

Microtech pun.

Suddenly his ability to scream comes back as Morgan jumps on his back like an ape, following my lead on the stabbing.

And the thrashing slows down.

More. More.

The pain in my side is too much to ignore and my arm unconsciously drops the knife.

Then big boy stops, and starts to lurch forward while my vision starts to go out.

I'm now diagonal, more, horizontal, and fur comes down on top of me.

I think I agree with Morgan on this. It's dumb.

And lemme tell you, I've never been more happy to see him. I wake up resting against a log by a fire in my undersuit, bits of meat skewered over the flame cooking with crackles and juice dripping from them. Damn that looks...ow...

"Hey, food is cooking." Morgan says warmly. "Your robo-arm broke when big fuck landed on you so I had to use your med gun if that's alright?"

"W-where'd the meat come from? Kopion? Please don't tell me it's marok..."

I look across the fire and see a pile of fur folded up at the base of a tree.

"You...you cleaned this big fucker?! Nobody knows how to clean those!" I say through gritted teeth.

"I mean I read all the stuff that Grendel lady wrote up about surgery on people, figured it wasn't too far off from cleaning an animal." He says, sounding almost happy about himself.

The pain is too much now.

"Morgan, I-I need my pack. There's medical dressings in there. I need bandaged up." I groan through gritted teeth.

He gets up and walks over to my pack and pulls out the red box then sets it down next to me. Inside I grab the suture stuff, gauze and numbing cream.

"You're gonna have to stitch me up, it's not pretty but it will have to do. Hope you read a LOT of Grendel's stuff...fuck I miss her."

"I mean medical isn't my thing and honestly I figured you'd be teaching me so I guess this works." He says softly. "What do I do?"

We spent hours eating stalker meat, stitching up the gashes and teaching him more about the org's duties. Before long he's sitting against the log and I found myself sitting a bit closer to him than before.

"Ma'am aren't you a married woman?" He says suspiciously.

"Look, bud. I almost got disemboweled by an apex predator, got stitched up by somebody with zero medical training and right now I need a bit of aftercare.

The stars are beautiful and shining brightly, the fire is dying out but we have plenty of wood to keep it going and the shadows in the trees above dance with the flames.

He wraps an arm around me and I subconciously smile.

"Better?" He asks and I rest my head against his shoulder.

I didn't reply, couldn't because the warmth of the fire and a full belly gently carried me off the dreamland.

"llie!...ca-lie! Wak- up!"

His voice is muffled, and I weakly open my eyes to see I'm covered up by stalker pelt and the fire is gone.

Morgan stands next to a UEE patrolman who spotted the fire and came down to investigate.

"Ma'am, do you require medical assistance?" The cop says, helmet visor blacked out.

I nod while Morgan explains everything that went down, the stalker, falling on me, being the first person to ever clean and cook a whole bear and the cop seems impressed.

I weakly stand up and see a Nursa in the trees which causes my heart to melt. I almost fall over from the shakes but Morgan catches me.

"Up and at em', boss. We can make it to the truck!"

I'm getting those tingles in my belly like I did so long ago.

We hobble over to the nursa and I immediately plop down when the systems start administering drugs.

I feel GOOD.

T1 chest/T2 right arm and leg. Gonna need more than T3 triage.

The truck rolls off and before long we're greeted by a Corsair and an Apollo Medivac.

I really need one of those ships, still dunno why I don't have one yet.

Morgan talks with me even though there's a lot of junk keeping me well within my abilities to walk up the ramp.

The tingles again.

The staff get me in, treat on the T1 bed and take off after I'm back on solid ground. The cop waves us over to to Corsair for boarding and we return to Helene Memorial to debrief Athena and Arcantha.

"So what did we learn today?" Athena asks super professionally and I remind her it's okay to relax.

"I uh, learned that Callie's arm needs work and I learned how to clean and cook a Microtech bear."

Athena looks at me with confusion and Arcantha shakes her head with a smile.

"What about treating her injuries? Calliope, did he do a goo-" Athena says before I jump in.

"Relax hun, Callie is fine. I'm not out of retirement yet." I giggle. "He did a good job for his first time, I wouldn't make him a surgeon or anything but in a pinch he knows what to do."

Arcantha picked up on the tinge of smile in my voice and I could see it on her face.

"You cuddled him, didn't you?" She asks and we both straighten up.

"I uh, it was cold and I was tired from surgery!" I nervously blurt but Morgan has puffed his chest out.

"In my defense I questioned her motives, ma'am. But she said she needed aftercare so I stayed with her until she fell asleep and I covered her with the pelt. I slept near the fire."

Ivy cracked a sweet smile I have never seen in my life.

"Athena, can you leave us? We need to discuss things further." She said and Athena left without a word, just a nod.

The doors close and Morgan visibly relaxes.

"She's scary, I'm just saying."

"She means well, just not the same way you did." Arcantha says sweetly. "Where's the pelt by the way?"

"It's in storage, thing weighs a ton and smells terrible." I bug in to the convo.

"Morgan?" Arcantha asks.

"Yes'm?" He replies nearly instantly.

"You took care of my wife, and I can't thank you enough for that. This stupid little exercise could have gotten her killed. Or both of you."

His gaze meets the floor and he looks defeated.

"But you were there at her side when she needed the care. She hates surgery, even more so when she's awake."

"I'm...sorry ma'am." He says, sounding like a beaten dog.

"Don't be, and just a head's up. She could have done the procedure on her own." Arcantha says with a smirk.

His face runs pale, like he was implicated in murder.

"How about some time you and I take a little expedition for training?"

"WHAT?!" He and I say in perfect sync.