2234 work in progress

Ik'hi

"How loong until next ssshift arrive to relieve us?" 

Dmitri was starting to get on her nerves, this was the 3rd time he asked and Ik'hi couldn't bear his russian accent anymore.

"25 Minutes... look, I know you want to go to sleep as soon as possible, but we have to look out for Ovrians. So do me a favor and concentrate on your job for the last few minutes, or something might happen that will keep you from your precious sleep an hour longer."

Annoyed, he just tried his best to imitate a human grunting sound as a response.

During their resupply on Trinit, Dmitri volunteered for one of the empty scout positions. Given that he worked for the mercenary group Werner before he joined the space forces, he was the most qualified for this job. Unfortunately his Terranic was miserable and often contained more russian than anything else.

The night had been unusually quiet, neither the Ovrians, nor the Orions made any attempt to approach their positions. It could be a good sign, perhaps the enemy hadn't detected the Quasimodo yet.

But they could also be planning something terrible.

2 days, that's all it would take to finish the necessary repairs, 2 days left to spend hidden in the deep sea. If only the risk of being found wouldn't increase with every passing hour. For the moment they were sitting ducks.

"Sssay, девочка (girl), you ever visit-t Earth?", Dmitri was attempting small talk, probably to waste time.

"...yes, most dolphins have, why?"

"Dmitri never ssseen Earth, was born on freight-ter to Helos."

Ik'hi looked at him confused, Dmitry was already in his 50s, more than twice as old as her, and had never seen Earth. She was born on Canaria, but had been to Earth a few times.

"Never?"

"Да (Yes)."

"But everyone finishes their military training on earth, where did you finish it then?"

"Trinit, was st-tuck on planet for yearsss..."

Ik'hi wondered about that, it was traditional that all new recruits of the space forces would complete their last training days on Earth. Dmitri's training must've been inofficial.

"So I assume you used the empty position as an opportunity to get away then?"

"Да (Yes), Dmitri hopes t-to see Earth one day."

"You know, we might not-", she didn't get any further, because Dmitri suddenly held her mouth shut with his mechanic arm.

"Quiet, sssorry for inconvenience", he let go of Ik'hi's snout after receiving a not so happy look, "but we have visitor."

She lightly smacked Dmitri's snout, signaling him that he should've looked for a less rude approach. Then she looked at the direction he had pointed at. 

A small silhouette quickly swam from cover to cover, towards the Quasimodo. Whatever it was, had not noticed they were here.

"Arrow, Hammer, we got a visitor coming from the Northeast, he's alone, intentions unknown, do you copy?", she whispered into the radio.

"Copy."

"Understood."

"Just when I hoped this night would turn out good...", she sighed to herself.

Their visitor appeared to be small, which was something unusual, maybe it was only a big local fish. Yet you could never be save enough.

"Dmitri, listen up, I'll try to stop him, you come up from behind. Don't shoot unless it acts hostile!"

"Got it-t."

Dmitri swam away through the tall seagrass, Ik'hi was on her own now. The others had strict orders to stay hidden when changing their position, so they might take a while to arrive.

The silhouette was getting closer and closer, for some reason something looked similiar about it. But it's movements were off and it was too small to be a dolphin.

She positioned herself in a way she could ambush it, now all that was left was to wait for the right moment.

Right when the silhouette was about to rush over her, she swam up and blocked it's path. Whatever it was seemed to be terrified of her sudden appearance and attempted to turn around to flee. Much to the creature's dismay, Dmitri was blocking that path now, he had snuck up from behind. It looked like it was trying to look intimidating now, a desperate attempt.

Ik'hi noticed relatively big sharp teeth, even though these looked like they could harm, their visitor was getting increasingly anxious because Dmitri's expression remained unfazed.

Suddenly it quickly swam to the side, it was fleeing.

"Dammit, don't let him get away Dmitri!"

That wasn't even necessary anymore, because just in time, Dart shot out of the tall seagrass to block it's path again.

"Boo!", Dart's sense of humor fit this time, the visitor let out a shriek, most likely of fear.

It's new attempt to flee was immeadiatly interrupted by Jeffrey. With his Orca like size, he towered over the visitor like a big hunter about to go down on it's prey. 

But what came next was unexpected, it seemed to cover up it's eyes with it's fins while bending as far into a curve as possible. It was afraid, perhaps it assumed it was about to be eaten.

Now the other patrols arrived as well, they formed a circle around the visitor.

Only now they noticed what was so unusual about it. This wasn't an Ovrian or any other of the known space travelling species, it must be a species from this planet. 

"Jeffrey, back down, but don't let your guard down", Ik'hi warned him, he complied without any complains.

She carefully swam in for a closer look, luckily for her, the visitor didn't dare to move an inch now. However, the similarities were asthonishing, it's body was build almost exactly like that of a dolphin, the differences being that it's tailfin was facing vertical instead of horizontally, the snout was longer and had sharp teeth and it's pectoral fins possessed a wider range of motion, considering the fins were able to cover up the eyes. 

Dart approached it as well, even though he acted a little strange, she was about to ask him but he answered before that.

"This guy here has limited telepathic abilities."

"What? How can you tell?", Ik'hi was confused.

"Long story, I'll tell you later."

Dart positioned himself in front of the visitor, who still wasn't moving at all. She saw him pull something out of his bag, it was a sardine. This seemed to grab it's attention, there was a slight movement, perhaps it could smell the fish in some way. Dart balanced the sardine on his snout and held it right below the visitors snout. Ik'hi was starting to wonder what he was trying to do.

"Come on, I won't bite you.", he tried to reassure it in some way.

Suddenly, slowly, but surely, it unbend itself, taking a glimpse at whoever was trying to calm it down. Dart was communicating with it in a way none of the present dolphins understood. Just as slowly as before, the visitor took the sardine as carefully as a child accepting it's first gift. It's face lit up almost instantly, it seemed to accept Dart as some sorth of friend now. 

"Alright, we got ourselves a friend, he wants more", Dart chuckled a little with that.

"What even is he? I've never seen this type of species before."

"I haven't either, I say it's safe to assume we just discovered a new species, you know what that means."

Ik'hi nodded and turned to Dmitri.

"Looks like you'll get your trip to earth after all."