First Contact

by S. J. Sanders

  “Okay, I think we start looking... here,” she said with a tap on her screen.

  Chapter 5

  Gerry pressed her lips together. “Looks like he was in the Lower Ninth Ward if these maps are lining up right. Kind of an odd place for your nephew to be. A lot of that area still hasn’t recovered from when Hurricane Katrina swept through. Nothing to attract a kid, that’s for sure.”

  “You know how to navigate us to this location?”

  She looked up at him from where he leaned over her shoulder, studying the screen behind her. She couldn’t help but notice how good he smelled, like trees after the rain. A clean smell, and the warmth radiating off him felt nice against her back in the cool air of the room. Gerry pulled her mind away from the distraction and forced herself to refocus.

  “Well, sure, but I’m not sure how much good it’ll do to go right now. It’s getting dark and the revelers are going to be out in force, drunk as hell. By the time we cut through all that mess, I don’t know if there will be enough light to pick up any clues. I don’t even own a flashlight.”

  He tapped a finger on the table beside her, the lines beneath his makeup pulling down into a heavy frown. Once again, she marveled at the work he had done. It was so convincing, right down to the delicate, pale whiskers sprouting from around his wide, flat feline nose. She jumped slightly when the whiskers appeared to move. Her imagination was really getting out of control. She needed to stay focused on the situation at hand.

  A thought occurred to her. It was a long shot, but maybe...

  “How badly damaged do you think your tracker is? Is it entirely annihilated or is the signal just weakened? Is there a chance that your tracker will pick it up if we get close enough?”

  Ehmhy tilted his head as he considered her words.

  “It is possible. I was not looking at it when it went offline. If it had become weakened, it would have been noticeable. I will try to contact my nephew; he may have been looking at it when it went offline. I will also see what his current condition is. You may be correct that it would be to our advantage to get what rest we can now and start out early in our hunt for him if he is not in any immediate danger.”

  “Good idea,” Gerry said, pushing up from the table. “While you do that, I’m gonna run to the corner market and get some supplies if we’re gonna be out late tomorrow. Better to be prepared.”

  She did not miss that Ehmhy opened his mouth to object and her heart warmed with the concern on his face, even if it was unnecessary. She laughed gently and held a hand up.

  “Now, hold on. Don’t worry. I’ve been up and down this street at all times of the day and night. I’m not going far and will be back before you know it. Just focus on getting ahold of your nephew.”

  EHMHY WATCHED GEREE loop the long strap of her small bag over her shoulder as she stepped around him and out the door. He did not feel right letting her go out alone, especially not in the dark. He suspected that humans did not have the kind of night vision Forad possessed. Still, she had a point. She was familiar with what was and was not safe in this area. He had no good reason to keep her with him. Besides, she didn’t yet know the truth about him, and he would have to do a whole lot of explaining before she saw his nephew, whose body was mostly bare and clad only in traditional garb.

  He hated allowing her to go anywhere without his protection, so it was only with great effort he was able to refrain from following her. He didn’t think she would appreciate his effort. Of course, he didn’t think she would particularly enjoy knowing that her freedom of movement was only what he allowed. Best to keep that to himself.

  Sighing, he activated the viewscreen on his unit and prepared to send a comm to Ferikal. To his surprise, as he went to touch the screen, an incoming comm from his nephew appeared.

  “Uncle!” Ferikal exclaimed in relief. “I didn’t have the opportunity to comm until now. The humans are always around. They were in here just a little while ago drinking some foul-smelling stuff that seemed to affect their balance, but I think they are sleeping now.”

  “All is well? Have they attempted to hurt you?”

  “No,” he said, shifting slightly in what appeared to be an effort to get more comfortable. “They have mostly left me alone. An elder female comes in and out all through the day bringing me food and water. I didn’t see the males again until it became dark.” He wrinkled his nose. “The males were noisy, laughing together and drinking.”

  Ehmhy released the breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding.

  “Ferikal, did you happen to notice anything strange with your comm unit when it malfunctioned. Did the tracker die right away?”

  The younger male shook his head. “I am not sure what you mean, but the light pulse of the tracker didn’t just die. It dimmed and then faded after they transported me away from the crash site. It hadn’t gone completely out until just before you commed me.”

  Geree had been correct. Their chances of finding Ferikal had just improved exponentially.

  “I will be approaching the crash site of the engine room when the sun comes up. From there, I will try to determine approximately where you may have been taken. Remain as quiet as possible to not attract any further attention to yourself.”

  Ferikal’s ears sagged and his whiskers drooped. “I am sorry, Uncle Ehmhy. Had I listened to you, this never would have happened. I stepped outside of the engine room only for a minute. If I had stayed inside...” he dropped off into silence.

  Scratching at one of his ears, Ehmhy was uncertain how to respond. His nephew had disobeyed his orders, true, but he paid a harsh penalty for it. He couldn’t find it within him to be cross or to reprimand the youth. This was one lesson he wouldn’t soon forget. He only hoped that Ferikal would make greater use of caution from this point forward.

  “It was a mistake, Ferikal,” he said, his voice roughened by his own discomfort. What did he know about comforting fashi? “We all make mistakes. Learn to live with them, and learn from them. I hope the next time you are confronted with a situation in which you are alone in a strange environment, you use far more caution.”

  “Yes, Uncle,” Ferikal muttered, his face crestfallen with dejection.

  Frustrated, Ehmhy puffed his fur out and relaxed, his fur smoothing once more. He was failing miserably at being a substitute father. He cleared his throat, unsure of what to say to soothe his nephew.

  “Get some rest, Ferikal. All will be well.”

  “Yes, Uncle,” he murmured just before closing the comm.

  Ehmhy sighed and threw himself back into the chair, stilling when it groaned under his weight before it settled. Although not too much taller than a human, his girth and muscle was noticeably thicker. Geree’s furniture clearly was not suitable for a male such as himself. Unfortunately, that brought to mind other males his female may have entertained in the room, and his blood heated with his ire.

  Gnashing his teeth, he was back on his feet again and pacing through the small room, his discomfort mounting as the hour grew later with no sign of his Geree. Unable to wait a second later, lest he risked going completely mad, he bit out an oath and head out the door. His nose picked up the trail of her delicate scent.

  Keeping to the darkest shadows in the falling of night, Ehmhy picked up his pace, his body filled with need to locate his female.

  GERRY SANG TO HERSELF as she rounded the corner heading toward her street. Armed with a pair of flashlights and enough batteries to sink a toy battleship, she was eager to get back home. It had nothing to do with the sexy cosplayer waiting in her room, or so she told herself. She wondered what he looked like beneath the latex, faux fur, and paint. All she could determine was that he had a broad build like a lion or a tiger and a strong, sexy jaw.

  The light of her apartment in sight, Gerry picked up the pace only to skid to a stop when a menacing shadow stepped out in front of her. They had guts, approaching her under the streetlight, but that chilled her blood far more than the typical thug who tried to
steal her purse. A guy who accosted a woman where he could be seen without any kind of disguise was either higher than a kite or confident she’d never open her mouth against him.

  Gerry tried to back away from him, but a gun came up in front of her face. Whether or not he was a junkie, he wasn’t high now. She swallowed nervously and stretched her hands at her sides. Keeping the gun trained high at her face, he snickered and drew closer to her. Sweat popped out over Gerry’s skin despite the cool temperature of the night. She did her best not to recoil with fear when he stretched out one hand toward her. Her heart hammered in her chest as he neared but then she jerked back as a low roar sounded.

  Her hair stood on end and goosebumps broke out over her arms seconds before a large body leaped from the shadows and tackled her attacker. She recognized Ehmhy by his green cape and hood as he savaged the other man. Somehow, he was carving deep rends into the guy’s arms and belly as he screamed and tried to dislodge her savior. She had no idea how he was doing it.

  When he darted to the side to evade a punch, the hood fell back, revealing his full face and head to her scrutiny for the first time. Gerry choked back a startled scream as the long cat ears lifted and cocked in her direction. His lips pulled back to reveal needle-sharp teeth and fangs nearly as long as her forefinger, and he sank them deep into the asshole’s throat. With a savage twist of his head, he ripped out the guy’s throat, blood splashing everywhere as ribbons of clawed-out flesh scattered all over the ground around them. Gerry felt a wave of nausea as the body trembled and finally became still.

  She was going to be sick.

  Ehmhy didn’t bother pulling his hood back up as he stood in front of her. His entire posture was wary as he held his hands out toward her, palms up as if imploring her understanding. All she could see was the blood everywhere, and her brain replayed the moment his teeth ripped through her attacker’s throat on repeat. Everything grew hazy and began to spin around her before the entire world was snatched away into darkness.

  Gerry woke in her own bed, the room dark except a single lamp by her bedside. She wondered if the whole thing had been a nightmare, but then a rustle beside her drew her attention as Ehmhy stepped into the light. He wore no hooded cape, just a strange draping cloth wrapped around his hips and some sort of decorative belt that hung down the front of him.

  Everything else was muscle and fur. Two large cat ears tilted toward her.

  Unable to believe her eyes, she reached up and gripped the edge of the warm ear between two fingers. She felt it twitch and let go as though it had burned her, her breath slamming into her with alarm.

  It was real.

  She scrambled backward on the bed until she was pressed against the headboard.

  “Geree—”

  “No. No. No. What the fuck, man? What the fuck are you?”

  His delicate whiskers pressed against the soft fur of his face and his ears angled to the corners of the room in a distinct feline expression of misery. His fur was still damp, but he had at least cleaned off all the blood.

  “Geree, please do not be afraid of me. I am as I told you, a visitor who is lost and looking for my nephew.”

  “You aren’t human,” Gerry pointed out.

  She couldn’t believe she was even having this conversation. Never in a million years would she have ever thought she’d be having this conversation! Fight or flight instincts warred with what she’d come to know of him over the short time they’d been together that day. The fact that he was giving her space to process this information and his non-threatening body language were all that kept her from fleeing in terror, despite her love of monsters and the strange and unusual. She also couldn’t ignore that he’d saved her. A part of her observed that in reality he’d done no worse in protecting her than a faithful German Shepherd would do. In fact, he’d probably done it more cleanly.

  “I am not,” he agreed slowly. “My starship was damaged when we were pulled into a celestial river—an anomaly in space that brought us here from our part of the universe. It was too much for my ship to handle. Your planet was the nearest habitable one we could survive on until help comes.”

  She swallowed. “And when, exactly, is help coming?”

  “I do not know,” he sighed. “The beacon is in the engine room. My nephew was supposed to stay with it so he would always be near the beacon. On impact, it should have already begun the initial broadcasting to alert my kin of our coordinates.”

  “And now he’s kidnapped... uh, taken.”

  “Indeed,” he said with such weariness that Gerry couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, despite how unnerving the situation was.

  It wasn’t that she found his features alarming. She’d gotten used to them when she assumed that they were nothing more than stage makeup. If nothing else, knowing that his features were real made them all the more fascinating to her. Gradually, her pulse slowed from its frantic gallop and she found herself able to think clearly once more.

  Really, he was just a big man-cat. Like a Thundercat. Yes, he was Lion-O. Her eyes swept down over the broad chest exposed from where the cape had fallen aside. Her eyes took in the corded muscle of his torso under a soft brush of fur and she admired the garnet color of his pelt striated with deep red stripes, so dark they looked almost black.

  No, not Lion-O. A red version of Tygra, with ears and a tail. She licked her lips at the thought. She always liked Tygra much more than Lion-O, anyway. Now that she had him designated to a familiar reference, she felt herself relax.

  “What species are you?” She was going to laugh if Thundera was a real planet.

  Now that his face was no longer obscured by the shadow of his hood, she could make out the cat-like pupil blown out in his pale blue eyes. His gaze was steady on her every move. He was focused like a predator, and yet there was nothing threatening about the way he looked at her.

  “I am a Forad, from the planet Forashual, sister planet of the Forad homeworld Felisiat.”

  “Do all Forad look like you?”

  He looked down at himself with what seemed to be careful analysis. Gerry bit the inside of her cheek at how seriously he took her question.

  “Yes, for the most part. I am about average in height and build for my species, although my fur pattern is on the darker spectrum. My nephew has a more brilliant red hue to his coat. Our pelts run from reds to orange and brown.”

  “Seems a bit late to ask since I brought you home, a stranger, without knowing anything about you, which was a total too-stupid-to-live moment from me, but you aren’t going to kill me in my sleep and eat me, are you?”

  He looked so appalled at the idea that Gerry snorted a small laugh. Then, a wicked grin spread across that feline face, baring his fangs in way that had her body sitting up and taking notice.

  “I would never kill you, Geree,” he purred. The man literally purred. “But as for eating you—only if you ask.”

  Her stomach immediately plummeted and sexual interest, of the like she hadn’t felt in a couple of years at least, pooled within her. She barked out a laugh.

  “All right, Casanova. I’m still down with the craziness.” She laughed and shook her head. “Alien cat men, who’d have thunk it?”

  Her boss was going to kill her—and probably fire her—for not showing up tomorrow but how often could a human say that they got to help a real live alien? This was a once in a lifetime experience and she wasn’t going to waste it. If she got fired, she’d live with it. It was worth it.

  DISCOVERING HUMAN TELEVISION was the most enjoyable part of being stranded on Earth, aside from Geree, Ehmhy decided. His female had introduced him to the concept of what she called channel surfing, and he spent an enjoyable hour flicking through channels until an adventure in the stars caught his attention. Although Geree had groaned and professed herself to not be a fan, she’d supplied him with a buttery treat called popcorn while they lay across her bed. He enjoyed it up until a hard, sharp fragment got lodged between his fangs. Ten minutes of prodding
finally knocked it loose, but he firmly avoided eating more. He didn’t desire any repeat performances of that uncomfortable extraction.

  The movie, however, was a good distraction. Without it, Ehmhy had no doubt he would have been kept awake in sleepless worry over his nephew. Although he found Luke to be an annoying upstart, he enjoyed the Han Solo character and his friend Chewy. Down on their luck for sure, they were a clever pair of space traders. Geree had grown more comfortable with him as the night progressed, enough so he’d caught her absently stroking his fur. He leaned into her hand, enjoying her touch as he watched Jedi knights fight with particle swords, or lightsabers, as she corrected him.

  “This thing you call a movie is amusing,” he said after watching another harrowing battle and escape. “There are many inaccuracies, but the Jedi in principle remind me much of Moshavalee Warriors.”

  “Who are they?”

  Ehmhy stretched and sighed as her fingers dug into his fur and scratched in a spot between his shoulder blades that was difficult to reach. She laughed as a loud, deep purr rumbled out from his chest.

  “The Moshavalee are a warrior people often employed by the Intergalactic Union as their military arm. They are incredibly disciplined and live apart from the females and children of their society to avoid all distraction. I believe there is also a female order that lives in their own conclave. Among the males, which are better known, they go once a year to the breeding gathering, where they pair with fertile females. Once they perform their duty, they return to their conclave, where they will train or be sent abroad for the rest of the year.”

  “Wait,” Geree laughed. “Are you telling me these poor suckers only have sex one day a year?”

  Ehmhy cocked his head in confusion. “I am not sure what is so humorous, but for the most part... yes. Although there are rumors that suggest they occasionally seek sexual relief without breeding, I am not sure how accurate they are. The few I’ve met have been quite serious about refraining from sexual activity except when fulfilling their annual duty. Regardless, there are no pair bonds permitted to form that would distract them.”