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Thread: The Nine Million Credit Woman

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    Open The Nine Million Credit Woman

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    Out to sea, the crashed shuttle rolled over in the water, the billowing flames finally squelched by the swallowing waves, leaving only a thick halo of black smoke in the morning sky. She washed to shore, rolling onto the beach as she coughed seawater from her lungs. Fingers traced down her torso, finding jagged shards of metal that pierced her in three places. Her white shirt was pink around the edges of each impact from blood loss. She carefully extracted each piece of shrapnel, tossing them aside.

    Warning: Low Power
    Multiple systems impacted


    Her green eyes looked around at her surroundings with a look of confusion and fear. Then her eyes closed. The waves continued to wash up and around her.

  2. #2
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    The brushstroke of black smoke piercing the dawn sky was an ill omen. A sign of evil to come, and cause for fear and distrust.

    At least that's what Li Ho Fook's elders would have said of it, though he shuddered at its sight all the same. The projectile bore not the velocity needed to be a meteorite, nor did it burn in the correct manner, and it was large. No, it was part of a ship, or an escape pod, and for his sake he hoped it not to be the latter as he watched it streak down to the sea his retreat overlooked. Many things tempted him as he set down his half-eaten breakfast. The urge to pack his things and run was first and foremost in his mind, followed quickly by the thought to be still and silent, and light no lanterns or fire through the night, to remain hidden. This was his world, and as far as he knew, his alone, and the wah wished to keep it that way.

    Over a mile away, his ship sat dormant, covered over by foliage, in total shutdown. No piece of electronic equipment operated within any detectable range, nor had he seen sight of other civilization. Perhaps it was the xenophobia of his people cutting through, or perhaps his own greed, but Fook had taken great pains to never be found on this world, which didn't even have a name, as far as he knew, and he'd made sure was classified as hazardous on the galactic survey.

    But there, floating toward shore, gleamed the hull of an escape pod, and it was not sinking. The planet would not extinguish the life which threatened his privacy, and so the wah breathed a sigh of resignation as his heart could not be so cold as to leave someone when they may need aid. Forgetting the remaining half of his breakfast, Fook stood and took up a short spear before strapping sandals to his footpaws and hiking through thick forest down toward shore. If nothing else, his crab traps needed to be checked.

    If his sandals made noise, they chose not to allow it through his trek, silently crossing terrain until at last he reached at the border of the forest and beachhead. From the treeline he could see a humanoid figure upon the sand, and his beady black eyes studied her - it appeared to be a her - for any signs of... he wasn't sure, really, while he weighed revealing himself or not. Then he saw the bloodstains on her shirt, and he knew he could not hide. To ignore the plight of someone in need was to ignore the plight of all humanity - even if Fook wasn't Human. "Dag," he whispered to himself, then took a breath and marched out across the scrubgrass and sand toward the woman in the shallows.

    It must have been quite a sight, a short, orange and black furred humanoid animal, dressed in simple linen jacked and trousers, bearing a steel-tipped spear. His orange and pale sand ringed tail bobbed behind him as he walked, nearly dragging on the sand as he went, Fook drew close, but stopped a good twenty feet away from the strange woman.

    "Are you all right?" he called out in Basic. "Where have you come from?" A nagging impulse in the deepest parts of his being told him he should have stayed at home, and let this stranger find her own way. It's what his people would have done. But Fook had stopped being one of his people long, long ago.

  3. #3
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    The woman didn't respond to the Wah's question in the slightest. Only the subtle and slow rise and fall of her chest gave any indication she was still alive.

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    Not dead. Fook's shoulders slumped in the moment's defeat. Sometimes dead is better. If she were dead, all he'd have to do is dig a grave and make a little monument, and then he could go on with his life feeling like he'd done the right thing. But no, she just had to be alive. A real way to spoil a guy's morning, he groused.

    "Dag," the word fell from his lips again, and he stepped closer, wary of a trap. When none came, he reasoned she was truly unconscious, which presented another problem: she was a giant. Most people in the galaxy were giants, he found, whereas he was a completely normal-sized figure of a man at 4'2". Giant or not, however, he couldn't leave her lying in the surf. His crab pots could wait, even for the next day, if they had to, while this woman clearly could not. She also couldn't be carried while he held his spear, so with a mighty heave, he hurled the short weapon with power well beyond what a being his size should be able to muster, sending it whistling into the distance, hoping it would land in his vegetable garden back up near his home a mile away.

    "Okay, lady, let's get you out of the drink, shall we?" Fook grunted to himself before crouching down near her head to grasp beneath her arms from behind, in order to pull her up the beach. A tug, and she remained put. Another tug, barely any movement. "Damn, homegirl, what you been eatin'?" he snorted. A pause, and he summoned up strength, not in the same burst with which he had thrown his spear, but a consistent, flowing river of strength through his body, amplified by the living Force. A third tug, and this time she moved. The wet sands providing traction, Fook dragged the strange woman further up the beach and out of the surf before getting under one arm and heaving her up onto his back in a form of fireman's carry. The trek back to his home would be long, but at least there he could tend to her wounds, and she could warm up and dry.

  5. #5
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    Power systems: Critical
    Restoring active mode, power preservation protocols engaged.


    Her eyes fluttered open, and she looked at her surroundings with an expression of wariness. The last thing she remembered was the pounding surf of the ocean. Now she was somewhere completely different. It was a dwelling of some kind, one that she'd never seen before. It was a simple, but tidy place.

    She glanced down, noting that she wasn't wearing the clothes she'd had on before. The wind picked up in the open window, and she caught sight of her garments drying on a line. The pink stains on her shirt had been washed clean, and it looked like it had been mended. In their place, she had two bolts of silk or something similar to it. One cinched tight around her chest, and another had been tied around her waist like a sarong. In between, she saw a crisscrossing of bandages and dressings around her middle. Exploring hands found similar wrappings over her neck and shoulder.

    She moved to get out of bed, searching as she did for signs of who or what may have brought her here.

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    A short bamboo stick prodded against the woman's shoulder urging her to lie back down. "Woah there, don't sit up too fast, you might pop your stitches," a voice said from the other end of the stick. Whatever his plans for the day had been, Fook had found them ruined by the need to care for and monitor this injured stranger.

    As there was no way she would fit in his own small bed, he had created one for her out of whatever cushions or soft materials he had, and he had tended to her wounds as best as possible. With how little she had bled while stitching her up, Fook imagined she had already suffered great blood loss.

    "You fell from the sky," he explained. "I found you on the beach and brought you here. I've done what I can, but you need rest. Sit up slowly, and carefully, and drink this."

    A black-furred paw offered an earthenware cup of something warm and rich-smelling. Not a tea, but more of a broth of some sort.

  7. #7
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    The look of bewilderment remained on her face as she settled her green eyes on her host. Diminutive and hirsute, but obviously sentient. So he'd been the one to mend her and bring her here? She glanced away, trying to remember anything further back than the beach. There were hints and possibilities, and that was all.

    Her host gave her a steaming mug, and the girl took it with both hands, hovering her nose above the rim. Deciding that what she smelled passed muster, she sipped. It wasn't unpleasant, but it also was somehow unfulfilling. She gulped down the first sip, and looked back to the alien.

    "Naah aah ahma?"

    She halted mid-query, an expression on her face as if something was wrong. The words she'd asked him, they didn't come out as words at all.

    "Ammaa neee? Neee maa aah!"

    Worried, she touched her hands to her lips. Something was seriously wrong. She knew what she was saying weren't words, but every time she tried to speak, gibberish came out.

  8. #8
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    Fook held up his paws in what he had come to learn was the universal symbol to hold on and calm down. Who this woman was, he had no idea. What she was, even less of an idea. He'd carried human women before, as bounties, and had done many things with other human women who weren't bounties, to know that one doesn't weigh as much as this one did. At least and not still fit into a size six, at the very least.

    "Woah there, calm down," he spoke gently. "You had a bad accident. You might have hit your head." A realization dawned upon him, and his ears drooped while his tail went still.

    "I don't know what language you are speaking," he said. "Can you understand me? Just nod if you can understand me."

    In his heart, Fook prayed that this woman understood Basic, or at least one of the other few languages he could passably speak. If not, a translator would be needed, and that was the last thing he wanted to activate at the moment. Too much was at stake to risk that.

  9. #9
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    Begin system diagnostics_

    For a half second, she was in her own world, not looking at her host. Behind her eyes, billions of commands per second were executing, in an attempt to turn over every positronic stone in her digispace to discover what had gone awry.

    The girl was pulled away from her internal panic by external stimuli. Her host also knew that something was wrong, and he was just as far from the solution as she was.

    She nodded in response to him. A small motion once, but the second time more definite.

    Trying the broth again, she made a face.

    "Enuuta, enuuta!"

    Hearing the words coming out of her mouth only made her grouse in frustration. She mimed the motion of putting something into the mug, almost as if she was holding an imaginary spoon.

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    A nod. Another nod. Good, that at least meant baseline communication could be had, and communication was the cornerstone of trust and cooperation.

    That said, he crimped his brow at her motion toward the mug. A spoon? Clearly she was indicting a spoon, but why would she need one? There were no chunks in the broth, and it had emulsified well so it didn't need a stir. No, he replayed the motion in his mind - she wanted to add something to it. Likely something with better flavor.

    Gently, the wah shook his head. "Listen, I know it doesn't taste great, but it's good for you," he explained. "It'll help you heal, and might clear your head a bit." To demonstrate its safety, he ladled a smaller cupful from the cooking pot near the hearth, and took a swig. "See? It's safe," he encouraged her, though the look on her face appeared far from encouraged. His fuzzy ears drooping, the wah resorted to bribery.

    "If you drink it all, I'll let you have a sweet." It wasn't the wisest offer. The woman had a belly wound, which he did not know the extent of. Medicinal broth would be fine, tea was out of the question, but a sweetened ricecake with bits of candied persimmon? That should be fine, shouldn't it?

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    The words were barely out of the Wah's mouth before she immediately changed her stance on the mug of broth. The girl took sips, accelerating into gulps, steadily tilting the mug up until the contents were spent. She returned the mug to her lap, then suddenly remembered the drink was pretty hot. She stuck out her tongue, waving halfheartedly with one hand as if to fan cool air.

    "Ahh."

    But it didn't blunt the reason why she'd done it. She looked at Fook with expectant eyes.

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    Fook smiled as she began to drink, but that smile quickly faded to wide-eyed worry as sips turned into straight chugging. Blinking, he looked her over again, wondering what sort of strange person he had rescued. Still, a promise was a promise, and he nodded slowly, reaching out to take the cup back from her.

    "Okay, didn't expect you to go that fast, but it should help," he said. His bushy, ringed tail bobbed behind him, only gently brushing the floor as he walked to his pantry cupboard, and the lid of a ceramic jar clinked as he removed a special treat. A two inch by two inch square of pounded rice cake, sweetened with honey, nutmeg, and bits of pistachio, topped by glittering nuggets of candied persimmon. Holding it delicately between two claws, he returned to his guest, and politely placed the sweet into her outstretched hand.

    "Here you go. Just... don't inhale that like you did the broth, okay? Don't need you choking on me," he chuckled.

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    Sugarplums practically danced in her eyes as the girl took the sweetmeat from Fook's paws. She turned it over in her hand, then held it under her nose to smell it deeply. Within, the gas chromatograph quickly turned aroma into data, finding precisely the thing she wanted most right now.

    Fructose identified_

    She took a little bite, which elicited her eyes to flutter closed as a muffled "mmmmm" hummed through closed lips. Another bite. Another bite. She exercised as much self control as she could to maintain decorum, but wasted little time taking in the most efficient fuel source to power her critically-depleted power cells.

    Moments later, the sweet was gone, leaving the girl sucking the residual honey off her fingers.

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    The wooden chair Fook sat upon creaked as he leaned back, studying his new guest, and mulling over the consequences of her even being there. If she had crashed, that meant there had been trouble somewhere, and no one should even be near the planet they found themselves on. Fook knew this because he'd had it classified as gravitationally unstable, with emanations of dangerous magnetic pulses. Of course there were none, but as long as it was listed as such in the main navicomputer databases, no one would come near it.

    So why was she here? Had she followed him? Had his precautions not been effective enough? Or was it all some strange accident? The questions ran through the wah's head as his black eyes looked Eluna up and down once more, then glanced to the line her clothing hung from, now dry. Answers would be needed, but their priority would have to be carefully sorted.

    "My name is Li," he said. "This is my home, and I'll do my best to care for you until you've recovered. But I need to set some rules. First, don't go running off. There's nothing out there, and you're in no condition to be on your own. Second, if someone may be looking for you, I need to know how to contact them. Third, if you're on the run from the law, don't tell me, I don't want to be involved in that. Fourth, bathroom is out back." He jerked his thumb toward the back door.

    "Other than that, you're free to get up, and get dressed, if you want, though I will be wanting to check your bandages twice a day, to make sure you're not developing an infection," he continued, then one of his fuzzy ears perked. "Do you even know where you are, by the way? Or how you got here?"

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    Memory search [krz454cc998] Unknown parameter link error.

    Her eyes looked away slightly, fixated on nothing as she thought. A moment later her brows knit and she shook her head. Nothing. As if today was the first day of her life. She didn't even know her...

    A gasp. The girl touched her fingers to her lips.

    "Aman kera shalala eekta."

    Again, the sounds coming from her mouth didn't at all match the words in her head. She thought about that for a second. With an index finger, she tapped to her head, then to her chest, then shook her head.
    Last edited by Eluna Thals; Jun 5th, 2019 at 09:16:12 PM.

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    A sigh of frustration - more at himself than at his new guest - whistled through Fook's nostrils, his fuzzy lips pursed as he contemplated the new information. She could understand his language just fine, that was clear enough, but she couldn't speak it back? What manner of injury would have caused that? And more importantly, would it be able to heal, or would he have to get her somewhere for treatment? Those questions were pushed gently to the background of his mind as he attempted to make sense of her nonverbal communication. The combination of gestures triggered no immediate recognition, and his head tilted as he sought clarity.

    Only when he considered the entire encounter did it make sense. He had asked her name, and she apparently realized she did not know herself. Head, know. Chest, herself. Possibly a bit of a stretch, but closer than any other theory his mental gears could grind out at a moment's notice.

    Easing back up off his chair, the Wah returned to her side, dropping to one knee for a better look at her head, and any injury he may have overlooked. No, nothing else, and the Wah remained there, stumped.

    "So, you don't know who you are," he said. If he was right, she would agree. "Well, I'll need to call you something. How about... Ana? Short for anonymous. It means identity unknown." He attempted a smile. "Yeah, so maybe I'm not the most creative, but it beats calling you Stranger."

    Standing again, he glanced out the window over the bed. Mid-afternoon, he would get nothing done today, other than watch over his new charge. She looked pathetic. Despite a strong build, and dense musculature - lifting her had been no easy task - she appeared lost and afraid. Fook knew little else to do but pity her. And pity often came with a side of sweets. Relenting his better judgment, he smiled and procured another sweet rice cake, and handed it to her. "Here. I'd say you'd be spoiling your dinner, but, you've had a rough day," he winked, grinning.

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    She liked the name, and the corners of her mouth turned up into a smile peeking through ambivalence. She played back audio of him saying it. Watched his lips form the words again and again.

    "A.aaa naaa. Aaanaa."

    Her mood lifted again with a second offered treat. This time her smile showed teeth, and met her eyes. She took a bite, trying not to be over-eager about it.

    "Aanaa." she spoke again after swallowing, pointing to herself. Then she pointed to her rescuer with an expecting expression on her face.

  18. #18
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    The Wah smiled as well, his own little fangs showing as his face brightened, beady black eyes gleaming. Bi-directional communication established! The first step toward figuring out who this woman was so he could get her off his planet!

    "Li," he spoke clearly, his paw pointing to his own chest. "I am Li. Ana, Li." The paw pointed at the correct person for each, as his tail bobbed with enthusiasm.

    It was a tempered enthusiasm, however, as names would only get them so far. He wished he could run a medical scan on her, to see where her injuries truly were, and if he could even treat her here, or if she would need services beyond his limited abilities. But to go to his ship and fetch his scanner would be to reveal that there was tech on this world, and he possessed it. A dead giveaway that there was more to him than met the eye, and a violation of the facade he'd so deliberately built upon his retreat world. Perhaps when she slept, though. That would be safe, Fook imagined. Give her something to help her sleep, so she wouldn't wake as he scanned her. It was his only compromise.

    He then pointed to the half-eaten sweet rice cake in her hand. "Lian gao," he said. "That is called lian gao. I made it."

    In the back of his mind, Fook wondered what he was even doing. He knew what he should do, now that she was stable: he should gas her, get her loaded on his ship, and drop her off at a medical station. It's what would be best for her, and for his privacy, but it would not solve the most vexing of his problems; where had she come from? He'd gone to great lengths to have the surveys for this planet falsified, and listed as toxic, uninhabitable and lifeless. He was far enough in the outer rim that no one should simply be passing by, so why had her ship been close enough to eject an escape pod which would get trapped in the planet's gravity well? And were there others who landed elsewhere he did not know of? Did they have communication equipment?

    The sudden fear of being discovered shot through his heart like a lance of ice, and he asked, "Are you alone, Ana? Did you have friends, up there?" he pointed up.

  19. #19
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    "Ana. Li. Lian gao."

    Ana went through the paces of using the words he'd provided reference for. She grinned.

    "Ana sipa lian gao tenopi!" She smiled, which reluctantly faded when she realized the sentence still came out of her mouth half-baked. She sighed, shrugging.

    Then Li asked her a question. She followed his finger to the roof of the ceiling, then looked back at him, raising an eyebrow as she stood up. She got on her tip-toes, peering at the rafters of the simple lodging. There wasn't anything or anyone up there.

  20. #20
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    A black-furred paw rubbed the bridge of Fook's muzzle as he watched his strange guest become even stranger. "No," he muttered. "Not there. Outside," he attempted to clarify.

    One wall of his home was made of sliding wooden panels, currently open to face his garden, where Eluna's clothing flapped on a line in the breeze, drying after having been washed, and the sky could be seen over treetops beyond. But Fook pointed out the window beside them, instead, up to the blue sky above.

    "You fell from there," he explained, his paws mimicking an object falling to the sea, complete with splash. "Were you with others, up there? More like you? Friends?" With each word, he looked for hopeful recognition in her eyes, all the while knowing what he'd have to do if he couldn't break through to her. She shouldn't be there, and he knew it, yet some part of him found it was enjoying having company, strange as this Ana was.

    "Were you on a starship?" the Wah then asked, a word no low-tech, backwater primitive should know.

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