Tarsha
I had been a Master Strategist, ready to fight.
Look at me now.
A soggy zero.
I tilted my face up and swallowed a mouthful of rain.
It had a funny taste, but it was better than nothing.
It prevented dehydration but not starvation.
I pushed my shoulders back trying to ignore the soggy weight of my wings buried beneath their concealing skin flaps and my jumpsuit.
I knew those little stabby pains were the possible start of infections from the wet.
Alya, I hated it here.
What a dismal place to meet my end.
Infection and starvation were placing wagers on which would send me to Alya first.
I hadn’t found any vacant building where I could strip and spread out my wings to dry from this accursed rain.
I was beginning to believe this city had none.
What benefit would drying my wings have when I would just walk back out into this constant wet.
My back slits were meant to protect the feathers from tight spaces and crowds not against constant rain and dirt.
My kind did not live out in the open or at least hadn’t for thousands of years.
Why had the ship chosen this site to drop me?
Dako and I had fought side-by-side for nigh a decade but at last, Command had declared the besieged planet lost.
Dako had intended tossing me on one of the last escaping ships as an expression of his devotion.
It had become a curse.
First, came the news that we were Jumping to a class 8 planet.
This planet had no ships capable of making a Jump.
We would never leave it.
The humans here knew nothing of the war we were escaping against the Dokalfer, nothing of much of our technology, and nothing of my species.
I’m sure Command had thought they rewarded our long fight with this retirement.
I found it a sentence to hell.
I would rather be fighting.
We had been forced to destroy our armor and weapons, even the blade I had received from my first honor killing as a youngling on Home World.
It had been in the multi-colored Hajerkira metal and easily identified on sight as alien to this world.
Fortunately, no one suggested coming at me with surgery on their minds to alter my appearance or I would have destroyed the ship and everyone on it.
In hindsight, the mods would have been a good course of action.
Following what I guessed was protocol the ship dropped us all over the planet separating us.
So, I lost my human brothers and sisters in arms and Dako with whom I had shared many a bed.
And now, I trudged through this rain with no destination.
There was no real point in going anywhere.
The idents the ship had provided had proven to be invalid, at least for me at this location.
The implanted language was functionally correct, but I did not know how to navigate in this culture.
The credits they had furnished had gone only a little way in gaining me sustenance and nothing towards shelter.
With no ident, there was no way to acquire more.
I would not resort to thievery or worse to survive.
I had only been trained in the art of warfare.
That I knew very well and had pursued with honor for hundreds of years.
It was hardly of benefit on this planet.
My enemy had not reached here.
My existence had no purpose.
I stopped moving, staring off into the distance past the towering buildings.
There were mountains at the far reaches of my enhanced eyesight.
If I could use my wings, I would be there in days.
If my wings were even still usable.
But I couldn’t fly here.
I might be seen.
I was ground-bound.
I’m sure it would be against some protocol for a class 8 planet to discover evidence of my species.
Maybe I could find a deep cave or a thermal spring in the mountains before setting my claws to my throat.
That should suffice to at least create confusion over any remains the locals found that were atypical.
