The Galactic Bride

After they ate an early breakfast the two of them should have gone back into the cave to get some sleep. But it was too soon after the pheroline attack and they were both weary of being alone together like that. So they decided they'd go through with their plan they had come up with days ago, which was poisoning the food of the camp below.

As the General readied the ropes, Aki took the Tarfulles canteen and went into the jungle to the spot where he spotted the poisoned melons. They were yellow, ripe, and actually looked delicious. If he didn't know better, he could have taken a bite of them on sight. He picked the biggest melons he could find then squeezed as much juice he could into a makeshift bamboo-like funnel. The funnel led into the canteen. Once the canteen was filled. He returned to camp.

General Anura was ready to go. He tried to avoid her eyes, so he focused on the bruise on her side, which was still there after the first day's attack. She seemed to be in the same mindset and was looking at the canteen over looking at him. She walked in silence along the rock face to the cliff then stopped. After securing one end to a steady looking tree, the General made herself a harness out of the rope and slipped into it.

"This might take some time." She told him. "I might have to hide for a long time. So don't worry about me. If you feel the rope jerk four times, that means I'm ready."

"Okay."

General Anura took the canteen strap and sent it around her shoulder, then gave him one final look before going over the edge. Their eyes connected for one moment. He didn't know what they read, it was difficult to tell as the light was barely morning. But he was sure there was some embarrassment there. He didn't have time to think about it as her pony-tail flopped over the edge and was gone.

Aki fed her rope, gave her slack when she needed it and tightened it when she did. But there wasn't much he could do for the descent. When her weight left the rope, he was in for a long wait. He sat still near the anchor tree keeping the rope touching him so he knew when she'd be back. He was tired. After nights of cold, no sleep, and sexual romping around, he was starting to regret immediately going through with their plan. But when he started to question the logic of doing the plan now, as opposed to later, all he could think of was the General laying next to him.

His thoughts returned to Hana and Lani, wondering what they thought of him now. Not only did he murder those Tarfulles, but he slept with the General. Perhaps Lani wouldn't be so affected by it, but then again, maybe she would. The General did make her give up one of her seeds after all. Lani was working her way into his life and wanted him to love her. Doing stuff like that with the General obviously wasn't helping that goal. Still, Lani was in the mindset that people could love more than one person, as she knew how he felt about Hana and accepted it. So maybe he was safe with her on that end. He didn't want to lose his friend and protector because of some chemical attack.

But Hana? There was no way for her to know what was going on. If she were watching she couldn't be told there were a poison gas influencing him. All she would have saw was them going at it. What a horrible sight for her. He had no idea how he could explain it to her if he lived. Part of him wish he won't live. Not only did he betray her love in him, but he did so in front of billions of people on alien worlds. What a sick pervert he must look like.

The rope juked the four times and Aki's mind broke from his self-loathing. He waited until he was sure her full weight was on the rope, stood up, dug his feet in, and began pulling the rope up. His hands burned doing it, and his arms and back were starting to rebel against it. But he wanted to feel pain after what he did. He was feeling pumped so he continued to pull up

The General was crawling over the edge in a few minutes. She was breathing heavy from the climb, so she rolled over on her back and took a breather. Aki himself plopped on the ground next to her, his arms feeling like spaghetti noodles and his hands humming from a small rope burn. The Generals legs were still dangling over the edge of the cliff, she he pulled her up more secure, letting her head rest on his lap. She looked up at him, with heavy eyes, then darted her look away. She was still embarrassed.

"That was quicker than I thought it would be." Aki admitted to her, trying to think of anything but the General's naked body.

"Everyone was asleep. There were three Wahconese girls below. It looks like they also were gassed. None of them had their suits on and they were huddled together. I didn't have to be as careful as I did, they were so out of it they wouldn't have heard me."

"I see." Aki looked at her head on his lap, then glanced away.

There was a moment of awkward silence between them. Then General Anura said. "I'm sleepy. Let's go."

She slowly got up, grunting as she did so, then started recoiling the rope. He watched her for a moment before standing up himself. Her body was shaking and sweating because she was dead tired. After she slung the rope around her shoulders the followed the rock-face that led back to camp.

Aki was just thinking of a way of gauging the General on taking a bath in the stream before going to sleep when he saw it. They had arrived at the camp site only to see they had a visitor, and it wasn't one of the other competitors. Standing by the remains of a fish, licking it, was a living version of that dead bear-type animal that he and the General had pulled to the waterfall face. The non-rotting version was as big as he imagined a grizzly bear would be. Now that he saw the real life version, it looked more like a grizzly furred hippopotamus, like a hybrid of the two animals. But none of that mattered now. The bear had spotted them.

It turned to the pair, roared, then started towards them. Both Aki and General Anura stepped back. This was crazy. All they had on them was the General's ax and that would do nothing to this big creature.

"Lead it to our big trap." The General whispered, though she didn't need to. The bear wouldn't be able to understand. "And if you find a bamboo stick, pick it up and use it as a spear."

That would be better than nothing. So as they moved slowly towards the trap trigger, Aki was using his feet to feel if he was stepping on any large bamboo poles. The jungle was littered with them, except when he needed one of course.

"Almost… come on you stupid animal…" The General was whispered as they kept stepping back, leading the advancing bear towards them.

Aki felt it. The bamboo pole. But they were too close to the trap now to pick it up. He mentally noted where he felt it and kept going back. The bear was starting to get impatient and was walking fast. They might have to run the last part of it. The General seemed to be thinking the same thing, as she grabbed his arm and tugged.

They dashed. As they did, the bear ran after them. But it ran exactly where they wanted it too. It's huge furry legs tripped the trap. Swinging from the trees with huge force, a huge limb covered in spikes slammed hard into the bear. The bear yelped, but didn't fall off it's feet. Blood poured on the ground as the tree limb continued to stick in it's side. It roared furiously at them, but didn't move.

"He's stuck… find a stick to stab it with." The General said, and was looking on the floor for her own spear.

They both had one in moments. They weren't that sharp, but it was better than nothing. The General too a few jabs at the creature, but it was only superficial wounds. Even if they were to cause more damage, the bear was still swatting at them with his massive claws. It might not be able to move that much, but it still cold lunge and attack.

"Make it mad. I'll be right back." The General said and left without any explanation.

Make it mad? Was she nuts? But doing as he was told, he kept hitting it over the head with his stick. Growling and fuming at the mouth it kept swinging at him, fury in it's eyes. It felt like an eternity by the time the General came back. She had the knife sticking in her bottoms and a sharpened spear now, this time with a harden tip from the fire.

"Okay… when I give the word, really make it angry so it lunges up, then I'll stick this spear into something soft. When it lands it'll impale itself."

Her body was still shaking from the climb. There was no way she'd have any strength behind her plan. Ignoring her, he exchanged spears. Without any words it was apparent their roles were reversed. She didn't argue with him. She must have known her own limitations at this point.

So she antagonized it. Slapping it, screaming at it, sticking it. But the bear was growing tired of their pestering and just lazily swatted at them. It wasn't until the General got a lucky poke in the eye, did the bear get really angry and lunged forward. It was too quick that Aki missed this change. But he got another one after the General whacked it's ear.

The bear nearly stood up on his hind legs to make a lunge at General Anura. Now was Aki's chance. Slipping below the creature, he raised the spear just below the neck, braced the end of the stick to the closest tree then waited to be landed on by hundreds of pounds of bear flesh.

The bears roar choked, then gargled body as it impaled it's own self going down on the spear. It was dead. As predicted, it slumped over in pain, but didn't fall completely on Aki like he thought as it still was being held up by the trap's spikes. But now that it held it's full weight, the spikes cracked and the bear fall to the ground. Aki had enough time to get most his his body from under the bear before it fell on him. His legs were trapped under it's massive fury coat, but other than that he was fine.

"Is it dead?" Aki asked unable to move and slightly panicked that it would burst to life and slash him to bits.

"Yes." The General said, breathing in. "Let me help you out."

It was a process, the bear was huge, but somehow they managed it. The General looked at Aki and laughed a bit, surprised at their victory. Aki didn't find it funny at all. His heart was still racing. Then he saw her take out the knife and head towards it.

"Wait, what are you doing?"

"Butchering it." General Anura told him casually. "There is so much meat here we should be fine for the rest of the competition if we smoke it. Plus I plan to skin the fur off this and make a proper blanket. Luckily for us the Tarfulles had quick acting tanning solution."

"But you're exhausted."

"Do you know how do do any of this?"

"No."

"Then move out of the way."

And so he did. He stuck around to help move things when they needed to be, place the bloody meat hunks in piles and help hold bear parts where she was cutting. The process took about two hours, and by the end of it, they both looked like slasher horror victims, covered in guts and blood.

"I'll get the fire raging, and you get rid of the guts. We don't want another animal coming along." General Anura was breathing heavy now.

He didn't argue, even though he felt like passing out as well. She definitely had worked harder than the two of them today and deserved the fire duty over the gross gut disposal task. He didn't want to drag the pieces along the jungle floor, leaving a scent so he had to wrap the whole thing in a bundle of sticks and leaves, and then pick it up. It was so heavy that he had to take it in trips. He returned to the cliff edge and disposed of the guts there. Then he went back, used the ax to hack up the remaining flesh and bones into smaller bits, and did the same trail as the guts. The only things he left was the bear skull and it's claws. He thought they at least deserved a trophy for all of that hard work.

The ground where the bear had died was still blood covered, and he decided that he'd just have to go to the stream and bring water back to wash out the area. But as he started to go, he noticed puddles all around him from the previous night's rain. Working smarter than harder, he used some cracked bamboo as a bowl. He'd fill it up with water and go back and splash the area clean. Well as clean as it could get.

But that still left him. He decided the stream trip would be better than multiple puddle splashing. Taking the bear trophies and the ax with him, he did just that. The water was cold, but he put up with it. He washed first, took off the swimsuit they Hatha the referee gave him and washed that as well, then rewashed again before he changed back into the suit. It was stained red but was as clean as it could get.

When he returned to camp, somewhere along the line the General had done the same thing he had She had the meat on a rack so it cooked more from the smoke than the heat, and had another stand holding the bear hide on it. An empty bottle of that tanning solution lay on the ground next to it. As for the General, she was leaning against the rock-wall, passed out.

He wondered how she managed to do all that on her own, then he realized the cleaning and the disposal of the bear on his own must have taken most of the day. He thought it was morning light in the sky when he reached camp, but realized it was later afternoon.

He slumped down next to her, feeling exhausted. She didn't even budge. He said her chest move slowly up and down. He wasn't looking at it like he did the night before, he was looking at it because she was still breathing heavy even in her sleep. She must had taken herself to the limits. He felt he was in the same mindset. He'd never want to gut a bear in the jungle again.

Just as he was about to fall asleep himself, the evening horn blared. General Anura woke up with a start from it, and looked at him with a surprised look, clearly having no clue he was there. But all that went away as they listened to the horn. Five left. So they weren't the only ones moving around today. Someone else was hunting.