Reincarnation: A fight for survival

Chapter 5

The leader of the cat beings crossed his arms and motioned his troops forward, "Bring me the wounded one's head. I desire his tongue for my son's chew toy."

In a dash of fur and fury, four of the beasts leaped forward toward Galen with swords high in one hand and claws readied in the other. Gritting his teeth, Galen braced his rifle against his hip and pointed his weapon in the direction of the flying fur balls. Starting from the left he swept the muzzle sideways to the right and squeezed the trigger. A burst of 7.62 mm rounds spat from his rifle to punch clean through those breast plates of the cat creatures and drop clean them from the air.

Their leader bounced back as his four men fell to the ground, one screaming in agony as blood surged through his armor. Without hesitation, Galen brought the barrel of his rifle up to the wounded cat's head, flipped the selector to "semi," and gave one last pull of the trigger. He winced as the thirty caliber round hollowed out the cat's brain pan in a disgusting mess. His stomach shifting uncomfortably as he had to kick some of the spatter off his boots.

Fighting the feeling threatening to empty his gut out again, Galen shifted his focus back to the leader of the men that had attacked him. Only the space he had once occupied was now empty. The bipedal feline had already turned to flee back to wherever he had come from in a hurry. Swearing under his breath, the private turned to Michael with a questioning look.

"Don't let that bastard escape!" the sergeant ordered.

With a nod and a swift "yessir," Galen shouldered his rifle and lined up the shot. The weapon gave a deafening c***k as it fired, and the cat creature pirouetted as his shoulder burst open from the high powered round. It wasn't the head as he intended but at least it gave him a prisoner to interrogate and figure out what the f**k he had landed himself into.

When the cat-man hit the dirt, Galen pulled a bayonet from his belt and fixed the six and a half inch blade to the end of his rifle. Aside from the intimidation factor it would bring, he was not willing to take any chances of another of these creatures pouncing on him as he ran after his newfound foe.

................................

The Neko woman watched in total awe as the human ran after that fallen Ra'zorlich pack leader. He had, by himself, just slain four fighting men of a Ra'zorlich hunting pack. They were no mere tribesmen who trained for battle when they came of age. The Ra'zorlichs were violently reclusive, training themselves from birth to be ready to fight and die for their lands. They never left their home, and those who dared to come in rarely left alive.

The fact that the humans still drew breath -and drew it in victory- sent chills down her spine.

But this momentary reprieve in the fighting would not last long. More would come, and unless she and the humans wished to join those whose remains fertilized the Ra'zorlich victory garden, they had to leave. Her own tribe had peaceful terms with the human lands; she could bring them to safety and her people could return them to wherever they had come from.

With the swift agility allowed by her feline body, she leaped down from her tree and landed just a few feet short of the wounded Michael. In an instant, he pulled an axe from his belt and drew his arm back to throw. Only he didn't. His hand wavered slightly and his eyes drew wide when he realized he was facing down a female neko.

"I mean no harm, human. I have come to help," she stated in a low voice, defensively raising her hands while searching around for any Ra'zorlichs that may have come toward the thunder.

"Stay back, woman!" he threatened, though from the tone of his voice it was unclear whether there was any credibility to his words.

"I am not here to hurt you! I wish to bring you to safety! To help!"

Michael stared at her a moment, his weapon still ready to be thrown in an instant. While she made no hostile moves, he quickly glanced to the other five bodies around him, all of which were of the same race as her. There was no reason for her not to attack and to try and take his life yet she was keeping her distance. It left the sergeant debating with himself whether or not to throw his tomahawk and end her.

He needed help, between his equipment and his leg he knew he wasn't getting out of this alone. And something about this woman... something about her churned up his chest, softening his grip on the weapon in his hand. He couldn't put a finger on it the reason why but he couldn't suppress it either.

Emptying his lungs and returning his tomahawk to his belt, the paratrooper grabbed onto the rifle beside him and made sure the safety was off. With his weapon serving as a brace, he managed to sit himself up to properly face her.

"What's your name?" he asked, wincing from the pain in his leg.

"Mila, a tracker of the Willher tribe. What is yours?"

"Michael. You know how to dress a wound, Mila?"

To his relief, she gave an immediate nod. "I do, Michael. But I have not the herbs or wraps to help."

"Then use this." The sergeant set his rifle aside and pulled his field medical kit from his webbing to toss in her direction. When she caught the first-aid kit in her hands, he opened the holster on his hip and laid the pistol on his lap. However, Mila didn't even acknowledge the firearm as she inspected the package he gave her. Either she knew that he wouldn't kill her, or she didn't know what he had readied in his grasp.

If it was the latter, then that lack of knowledge would seriously bother Michael. If she didn't know what a g*n was, then how many creatures or men out here didn't either? Just how many would be killed going against a weapon they knew nothing about?

Mila stared at the object that had been tossed to her, wondering what exactly it was until she felt something move inside. Figuring it to be a container of sorts, she extended her claws and tore open one end and barely caught the contents that spilled out. Half the items that she now fumbled with in one hand were completely alien to her. A white packet, soft padding, green wraps, a metal needle attached to a glass bulb.

Her tribe had extensive medical knowledge but some of these things she had never seen before aside from the obvious white wrapping. No matter, it would all serve a purpose in bandaging his wound. She knelt down beside the soldier and tore away the remnants of the pant leg to get a better idea of what she was dealing with. Seeing how everything was covered in dried blood, she knew she would have to clean him up first.

"Have you any water, Michael?" she asked.

"I do," he answered, pulling a canteen off his hip. He twisted the lid to open it up and took a quick swig before passing it off to her. Utilizing what was left of his pant leg, she washed off the open gash that ran deep into his muscle and wiped away what blood she could before more started to fill the wound. From the fact that he was still alive and wasn't gushing, it appeared that nothing important had been damaged.

Picking up the white packet that came with the first-aid kit, Michael ordered, "Dump this stuff into there, it helps."

The neko took what appeared to be a pack of white parchment and fumbled with her wet hands to tear it open. Finally using her claws, she sliced off one side and dumped the contents into the wound before covering it up with the soft padding. From there she started wrapping it all up with enough pressure to seal it without cutting off the blood supply like his tourniquet had.

"What the kinda creatures are you?" Michael asked as he winced at the tightness with which she wound his bandage.

"I am a neko," she answered.

"Neko?"

"Yes. Cat people, as you humans simplify."

The sergeant frowned, his lips tightening up as he examined her features. Her fur, her ears, her tail, all the features that differed between her kind and homo-sapiens. Which given from what he could see before him now, wasn't a whole lot. She had hands with opposable thumbs, two arms, two legs, and two rather attractive breasts on her chest. Height-wise, she couldn't have been much taller than him but from his sitting position, trying to accurately guess her height wouldn't be possible.

Her face had a few somewhat cat-like features to it, with the carnivorous fangs that lined her mouth and a coat of fur covering her body. But unlike a true feline, she had no whiskers, and her nose and lips were very much human. As her hands moved around his thigh, Michael could feel how incredibly soft her fur was. Kind of like a young kitten, and yet she had that long, flowing grace of beautiful, reddish brown hair just like that of a human.

Michael was pulled from his moment of admiration as Mila tugged on the bandage to tighten up the knot. He grimaced and after checking over her work, his impromptu nurse gave a nod and used a claw to slice off his tourniquet. The blood rushed back into his leg and he gritted his teeth to keep himself from howling. But to the Neko's credit, he didn't feel too light-headed or start bleeding through his bandage.

"That will do," she said, lifting her head to face him. "We must collect your friend and leave this area, quickly."

Rubbing his thigh, the sergeant wondered, "Yeah... where is Galen?"

.........................

The Ra'zorlich warrior was lying back against a tree with the blade fixed to the end of the thundering stick of death prodding at his throat. Thoughts of grabbing the weapon and simply impaling himself crossed his mind at that point, as it would certainly end the suffering of his obliterated shoulder. It would also end the shame of him falling to a single, pathetic human. What respect would his warriors hold for him if they knew their leader had been beaten by an inferior parasite such as this?

Then again, his shoulder told a different tale, as did the rest of his pack whose corpses lay not too far away.

"Why'd you attack me?" the human demanded, the tip of his weapon poking the underside of his chin.

Grimacing as he shifted his position, his wounded side going numb as his arm still refused to move, the Ra'zorlich growled with what ferocity he could manage with his blood-loss. "You are in our land, human. A hundred years, we told your kind that these woods are f*******n to you. A hundred years, we have slain the trespassers. Now, you dare ask me why I strike?"

He frowned as he looked to the trees around him, uncertainty crossing his face before he shook his head. Firming up his grip on the thunder-stick, he said, "Listen Cat, I don't got any idea where the Hell I am, or who the Hell you people are. I just came here for my friend, next thing I know, you an' your kind are pickin' a fight and tryin' to kill us. Now if you can just point me to the nearest radio, I'll be happy to get out of here, and never come back."

"What on Necela's moon is a radio?" the warrior asked before he quirked his head at the human's reaction.

Galen's brow raised with a worried look drawing upon his face. After all this time he spent wondering if he was still in Vietnam, he finally has his first contact and it turns out to be a non-human enemy. If that hadn't been bad enough, the creature did in fact speak his language, but it didn't know what a radio was. And worse yet, he didn't even seem to know what the US army was. This whole situation was going from bad to worse in a hurry.