Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Board.”

Price's voice pushed them forward, the team stepping into the spaceship, pulse guns at the ready.

“Clear.”

There'd been no need to breach the already gaping airlock, which was never a good sign. Like the ship's occupants had fled in a hurry. Judging from the state of said ship, that was likely the case. They were entering in a full suit, just in case it decided to completely fall apart and spit them out into space. Soap's tail twitched inside the suit's material. Despite its stretchiness, he hated it. He knew Gaz felt the same.

Door after door was opened, revealing an empty ship.

“Scanners show a concentration of shifting heat in the cargo bay under you,” Laswell's voice transmitted from their own ship that Nik was letting idle at a safe distance.

“People ?” Price asked.

“Unknown. The radiation leaks from the engine are scrambling the scanner.”

Great. That meant one or two things, neither being a palatable option. Slavers, or poachers. Both were a mess to deal with, and it didn't explain the pitiful state of the ship.

They descended into the lower level in formation, alert. An ambush was unlikely, but not impossible. It wouldn't be the first time some unlucky pirates had feigned being helpless to steal their ship, and wouldn't be the last. Soap pushed down his amusement as he stacked on the large door labeled 'Cargo', Gaz on the other side. Price nodded, and Soap pressed on the lock pad. For the first time since they boarded, it flashed orange and the door didn't budge. Every single door so far had been unlocked.

As Soap took out his tools and popped open the pad, exposing its interior conduits, Gaz and Price changed the setting of their guns to a higher level. What were the odds of this single lock being functional while the rest of the ship was falling apart ? The entire situation reeked.

“Opening,” Soap warned before cutting off the conduit keeping the door closed.

He quickly followed after his teammates, but their guns were pointing down, standing in front of rows and rows of cages.

“Poachers.”

The noise of the animals, previously blocked by the soundproofing, rose between them. Soap sighed. At first glance, he could already see two deathworld species. Releasing them was going to be a cold swim.

“Chin up,” Gaz laughed as he slapped a clawed hand on his shoulder. “Most of these won't be hard.”

Soap was still grumbling when Price's voice cut them off.

“Laswell, do you have this in your database ?”

Curious, they both turned to the cage Price was standing in front of. Soap looked at Gaz, who waved his tail in the negative. What was this ?

Ghost prepared to kick at the translucent wall of his cell when the door to their hangar started to slide open. If the stupid bugs didn't want to feed them, he'd see how they liked being turned into kibble. The dispensers, in all the other cages as far as he could see, had run out for what he assumed was a few days now. And hadn't been refilled. And since the aliens clearly hadn't abandoned ship after all, Ghost was determined to scare them a bit. They'd gotten too complacent around him, and that just wouldn't do.

He stopped his bare foot from impacting uselessly against the bluish barrier when the door opened wide and two, shortly followed by a third, fully kitted out operatives rushed the room, rifles up and clearing the space.

Alien operatives, but you didn't get that kind of movement and precision without training, he'd know. He allowed himself a scoff, the screeching of all the other animals easily covering the sound. Those guys didn't look like his captors, and their appearance suggested multiple species and possibly societies of aliens out there. Ghost filled that information for later. If later there was.

Once again cursing the lack of space in this block of glass, he made an undignified walk forward, crouched into a ball. He'd have crawled, but he didn't want to risk repositioning and losing sight of his new visitors.

They scanned the cages for a bit, which allowed Ghost to regard them without their attention on him. Finer details were hard to make out, since the aliens were wearing some sort of space suit, but the rough shapes were there.

The one closest to him was weirdly hunched over, like he had a permanent hump, a fate Ghost might just share after not being able to stand fully upright in his cube. As a result, he looked shorter than the other two, curled over his rifle held in an upper set of hands and arms, because there was another set just lower of it. Both spare hands were resting on a belt holding a multitude of equipment Ghost couldn't begin to guess, but he was sure were a potential threat. One of these things did look suspiciously like a grenade, but you never knew with aliens. The collapsible pole they'd used to prod at him folded back into an hexagon, instead of something sensible like a cylinder. Go figure.

The being's head, in what reminded Ghost of a motorcycle helmet, looked like an armadillo. There was no other way to describe it. An armadillo with brown carapace interspersed with greenish sections, and brown fur neatly trimmed under its long snout. Then came the legs. Like the alien's back, they appeared constantly bent, and Ghost idly wondered how tall the thing would be if it would only straighten to its full height. But it didn't, and that left Ghost to stare at its feet. The shoes could have passed for human shoes, if they were thicker and with less of an arch at the sole. He wondered what exactly that creature's feet looked like in there, but not for long. Armadillo stepped forward.

Ghost tensed, eyeing the rifle. He had no chance of snatching it, whatever this cube was made out of stopping anything from getting out. He knew from experience it didn't necessarily stop things from getting in.

New noises flew between the three aliens and it took Ghost a second to understand it as speech. Not any speech he could understand, of course, but it was at the very least recognisable as a language, a far cry from the horrid chittering of his previous captors. He might be able to take advantage of that.

For now, all three aliens had gathered in front of his cell. The tallest was also the least disconcerting one, in Ghost's opinion. It simply looked like someone had smashed a cat and monkey together and got it upright on its hind legs. A long tail twitched behind him, encased in the material of the suit. The helmet was bigger to accommodate large cat ears with tufts on top. The head was similarly cat-like, but that was where the similarities ended. Large eyes, too large, were fixed on him with no pupil that he could see, and it unnerved him more than he'd like to admit. The body was more slender and refined looking, but the arms were thicker and longer than looked appropriate, and Ghost pinged both of these firmly in the 'monkey' category. The legs tapered back into feline, with backward knees and paw-looking feet. He'd call it Monkat for now.

The third alien didn't actually look all that odd, beyond the large tail that reminded Ghost of a lizard. Two arms, two normal looking legs, normal looking knees and torso. The face could have even been vaguely human if it wasn't fucking blue. He dubbed him Blue. It would do.

Suddenly, all three visitors erupted in a flurry of movement, until Armadillo, who Ghost surmised was their leader barked an order. The two shut up. If he had a shot at getting out of here, he'd need to target Armadillo. Their eyes met, and he held the thing's gaze.

“Say again, Laswell ?” Price didn't dare look away from the figure crouched beyond the protective barrier. He'd never been so glad these things were rated to withstand much more force than any living being could apply.

“It's the only match, John.” Her sigh could be heard through the transmission. “This is a human.”

Price cursed. He'd never in his life wished the Urna's database to be wrong as much as he did now. Unfortunately, it had never been wrong.

“That would explain the state of the ship,” Soap stated, glum.

“Did these idiots seriously expect the ship to be in one piece after warping there. Nevermind the impossible distance, what about the asteroid belt ?!” Gaz hissed, tail weaving back and forth behind him.

“They were surprisingly lucky,” Laswell interrupted. “The warp core seemed to have held for a while before they deemed it a lost cause and jumped ship. Aside from the core, the rest is shield and hull damage.”

“Wonderful,” Soap groaned.

“Good news, Sergeant, I estimate it will hold long enough for us to transfer the cargo to our ship,” she replied with forced humour.

“All the cargo ?” Gaz asked.

Price secretly agreed. Professionally however, they didn't really have a choice.

“All the cargo,” he confirmed.

This entire time, the human hadn't moved an inch, small eyes fixed on him. They were unnerving, black in the center and white outside, where the colour should have continued.

“We could just leave it here. Who'd know ?”

“Gaz. It's secure. We're taking it with us.”

“And keep it locked in a tiny cage the rest of its life ?”

Count on Soap to feel bad for the very dangerous, very deadly human.

“We will figure something out,” Price sighed. “Transfer it to something bigger.”

“Well, you should probably stop staring right at it, sir,” Gaz piped up. “Aggression and all.”

Price didn't answer. It didn't look aggressive, but the unnatural stillness and crouch looked more than the result of its cramped living space. It was calculated. Price's fingers twitched on the guard of his pulse gun and the human's eyes immediately tracked the movement. Did it know what it was ? The poachers had probably grabbed him with something similar. It'd stand to reason the animal would be wary. And attack on sight if it could have.

“I'm lined up, Captain.” Nik broke the moment.

“Alright,” Price tore his eyes away. “Soap, get the cargo bay open. Let's do this.”

Something was happening, and Ghost hated that he couldn't tell what. You'd think after months and months in an alien spaceship, he'd be used to the unusual. He wasn't. It grated on his nerves to not know, to not be able to assess potential threats. He wished for his mask. Hell, he wouldn't care about his clothes if only he had something to cover his face, make him feel less exposed. As it was, stripped of everything but his boxers, there was nothing he could do.

He watched as one by one, the animal's cages were loaded onto the cargo bay of another ship, row after row. It looked smooth, the cages sliding on some flat rails, but he still wondered if his neighbours on his right would survive the short trip. The little balls of rock, that weren't rock at all but grey fur so dense it looked like rock, were very, very weak to any kind of impact. And loud.

When Ghost had first arrived, there were six of the small balls. There were only four now. Their high pitched whine had grated on his nerves like nothing else and he'd ended up punching the translucent barrier between them, startling them. One of them launched itself away from him so fast it impacted the other side of its cage and exploded in a green sludge.

He didn't have time to feel bad for the thing, as the laser had come on and erased every trace of viscera from existence. That had gotten his attention. And even after all this time, Ghost hadn't figured out where it came from. Somewhere in the walls, probably, but he was mostly only glad at this point he didn't have to worry too much about where he relieved himself. Any kind of organic matter not attached to a living being was atomized at the first pass of the red laser.

The little furballs huddled in a big pile when their cage started to move, much more slowly than the rest. At least the new aliens seemed to know what they were dealing with. His captors had been a lot less careful and crushed one trying to get it out of the cube. For what, Ghost had never found out. He'd broken or parried everything they'd gotten in his cube to try and move him. They'd gotten him once, and it had landed him on a fucking spaceship. So much for two weeks of leave in a quiet cabin in the forest.

The thin rails were brought to his cage and put down by the blue alien, and then his cube moved forward. Ghost couldn't see anything propelling, pushing or pulling it. He ground his teeth, irritation mounting.

Bloody hell, he hated not knowing what was going on.

The new cargo bay of the new spaceship didn't look any different from the previous one, beyond a few closed boxes in a corner and a slightly lighter shade of grey. He was slotted back next to the bundle of rocks, who still hadn't come out of their protective bundle, and it wasn't long before his other next door neighbour came along, some odd deer, if a deer had its antlers on its shoulders, a third, shorter pair of legs it kept curled under its belly, and was fucking green. He'd have wondered if all the creatures in space bled green if he hadn't managed to kill at least one of the bug aliens when they'd captured him. These ones bled orange and it had looked damn good under his foot.

Once all the cages were transferred, the three aliens left the large room. Ghost sat down, back resting against the glass-like material of the cubes in a good position to watch the door and play spot the difference between this place and the other.

His eyes were drawn back to the small rocks. They'd finally decided to scatter again, and he figured out why when the food dispenser rose to life. Ghost's stomach grumbled, against his best effort. Grey pebbles were spat out into the container under it. The texture was absolutely disgusting, neither dry nor wet but a weird inbetween that just revolting. And it had no taste at all. He shoved as much as he could into his hand and swallowed it, chewing as little as possible. As usual, no water. He had no clue how, but these things also seemed to replace liquid intake enough that despite being parched, he wasn't fully dehydrated after a few days of no food. If it had been days. Ghost wasn't sure. It was hard to tell the days apart in here. Resigned, he went about finishing his portion. He'd never thought he'd miss field ration as much as he did now.

Soap walked back into the bridge where everyone else was gathered.

“Everything alright ?” Price asked.

“It's working.” He hated feeding the synthesized pellets to the animals, but they didn't have enough fresh stuff on board for that many animals at once. And they weren't sure what the human could eat beyond these. He'd have to figure it out. “So, what did that mysterious file on humans say, Laswell ?”

Now that they weren't on a damaged ship that could explode at any time, they could finally unpack this insanity.

“Not much,” she clacked her beak, irritated. “It's the report of the first landing on their planet. A Zilo ship. It's old. The team miscalculated a warp and were stranded in the space around the planet. They decided to land and make a discovery out of their mistake. It took a while to figure out atmosphere parameters, and by the time they stepped out of the ship, they were ambushed. A group of about five humans attacked, killing one Zilo instantly. The others tried to flee back inside. Only three out of eight made it. The pilot got them back in atmosphere, where they did a more thorough scan of the planet. It was classified as a level 13 deathworld.”

“Thirteen ?” Gaz hissed, end of his tail puffed up.

Soap's own tail fin stretched out in alarm. The relief at being out of the suit and able to do so barely registered.

“How much can we trust that report ?” Price questioned. “Even the worst planet in our system is only level 9.”

“It has just about every catastrophic weather event on record, high gravity and more. It fits.” Laswell said.

Silence fell. That was...

“But.” Everyone turned to Soap. “The human doesn't look that hardy.”

It didn't have scales, or fur beyond the tuft on its head. No claws he had seen or powerful tail.

“It probably makes up for it in aggression,” Gaz mumbled.

Soap couldn't help it. “Scared of the big, bad, trapped human, Garrick ?”

He didn't have time to gloat, and Gaz to retort. A hand fell on his shoulder.

“Well then Soap, since you're so eager, you're the official caretaker of the human until we figure out what to do with it,” Price said, nose furled in amusement.

Blast. Gaz carefully lowered his tail to not betray his own mirth, the bastard.

“What can we do with it ?” Soap asked. This looked like a long-term assignment.

They couldn't just drop the human at the embassy of the planet, or release it themselves on his planet. The human's planet was just impossible to get to if you didn't have a death wish. And who knew what releasing it on another planet would do.

The look Price gave him told him it was now his job to figure out. Light save him, this was a nightmare. Laswell gave an encouraging click. At least he could ask her later if she'd managed to scrounge up more intel. For now, he turned back to the door.

“Where are you going ?” Gaz tossed at his back, barely suppressing his laugh.

“Doing my job !” Soap flared his fin wide at him, not looking back.

The door slid closed behind him and he relaxed, sighing. He could at least start with the damned pellets. No one, not even the most aggressive animal in the known galaxy deserved to eat those long term, and it looked like the human was stuck with them for a long while. Soap hated poachers and animal abusers more than he feared humans. With this in mind, he turned in the right corridor towards the cargo bay.

Chapter Text

The light had been left on in the cargo bay, and Soap had no trouble finding the human's crate in the middle of all the others. He tried to keep an eye on him as he rounded the entire row to get behind them, but there were just too many animals in the way. When he reached the back of the human's cage, it had turned around to face him, and by extension, the empty food bowl under the dispenser. Most of the other animals were still eating. Had this one malfunctioned ?

Slowly, he reached for the screen of the machine. The human didn't move, staring at him with the same intensity he had stared down the Captain. Definitely a display of dominance. Soap carefully averted his eyes, not that he would have been able to maintain eye contact while looking at the readout on the screen. It showed the feed had been processed and faithfully spat out. Could the human have been that hungry ? Tentatively, he had the machine spit out another, smaller portion, and waited.

The human came forward, but instead of eating, it stared. Soap held tightly onto the urge to step back – there was a barrier between them solid enough to hold in a crash, for star's sake – until the animal raised a hand and brought it back down. The bang it made against the barrier was impressive. Soap jumped back, fin fully extended before he could think about it.

Apparently satisfied with the response, the human grabbed the pellets out of the bowl and backed up, picking at them with his digits before bringing a few to its mouth. There were no truly sharp teeth inside that Soap could see. Soap himself had more dangerous looking teeth than this. They looked almost fully blunt, like an herbivore, but that was... odd.

Laswell's report suggested the fallen members of the unlucky ship had been eaten. Gathering his courage, he stepped forward again to read the screen of the dispenser. Sure enough, the human's pellets were a mix of water, plant and meat matter. Omnivore. With all the myths and stories about humans eating sapients flesh – the returning ship had made quite the news at the time, creating a new way to scare children into behaving – he'd have thought they were purely carnivores. Clearly, reality was different. Soap wondered what else had been lies spun out of control.

Unfortunately, there was nothing else the dispenser could tell him, like what kind of plants and meat the human could eat. He hoped the human would be able to distinguish what was edible for him on his own even if Soap selected everything carefully. He didn't want to poison the poor thing. With some luck, despite his appearance the human would be as hardy as they were rumoured to be, and a little poisoning wouldn't hurt him too badly...

The human, preoccupied by his food, wasn't watching Soap so carefully anymore. Oh, he could still see him looking from the corner of his odd, black and white eyes, but it was a lot less unsettling. Soap sat down where he was and observed. The human froze for a second, watching, and Soap wondered if he'd made a mistake. He made sure to keep his tail fin in check, hidden against his tail. The human returned to his food.

Soap's eye roved over the hunched form. He really didn't think he was made to hunch like that all the time. He'd have to see to get him transferred somewhere else. Without the code controlling the crates they couldn't change their size, and the code couldn't be recovered from the drifting poacher ship.

The lack of fur bothered Soap. Sure, Soap himself had neither scales nor fur, but he wasn't supposed to survive extreme environments like the human did. The only change to his slightly pink skin tone was black patterns. Some sort of pouch maybe, the skin seemed to have a different thickness there, covered where he assumed reproductive organs to be. At least on this, the humans followed the template of many other animals in the galaxy. Why was it black, he didn't know. Maybe it was different from the rest of the skin for better protection. But what really caught his eye were the markings on its left arm. They didn't look very clear from where he was, nor very precise, the way Soap's own tribal paint was when he applied it. But for an organic pattern, it looked odd.

But then again, everything about the human was odd. With how much Soap knew, it might very well be a natural pattern. After all, while its skin had black details, atop the human's head was short blond fur. Soap cringed the longer he examined it. Gaz would have a fit if he'd seen it, regardless of the human being, well, the human.

Its fur was horribly matted and dirty despite the cleaning laser he knew was a staple in those cages. He'd have to find a way to remedy that. Soap got up as the human finished the last of his food, movement followed by the human's eyes. They jerked when he moved instead of looking up to him in a smooth manner. Another oddity to add to the list, and no doubt something that helped track its prey in the wild. Soap suppressed a shudder. And despite this... it seemed almost docile. The idea was idiotic, reckless and everything bad that was in the book, but he could still try. Maybe, maybe this human could be tamed.

Ghost watched Blue leave. Turns out, Blue wasn't a lizard at all. Out of his suit, he was clearly some sort of fishman. His face was disconcertingly similar to a human face, with the exception of a few things, like the lack of a nose, replaced by seal-like openings there. The mouth was wider than a human's and had no lips to speak of. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what it looked like in there.

There were thin fins on its hands and gills on its neck. Much of the body was hidden in what appeared to be a shirt of some sort, and some pants with a hole for the large tail. Thick at the base, it tapered off into a thin thing at the end where two pincers were attached. Like an earwig. It was an odd thing for a clearly aquatic species to have, until it fanned out into an entire fin when separated.

But most importantly, Ghost wondered about the creature's skin. It seemed alive, swirls and patterns forever shifting slightly under the cargo bay's bright light. He could have sworn his entire body had gotten a shade darker when he startled him – no way he was going to let the new alien think he was going to be easy – before slowly bleeding back into lighter blue. The swirls on its skin, or under it, it was hard to tell, moved with the colour change.

Despite his best efforts, Ghost had found himself tracking the changes more than he'd paid attention to the threat these new aliens posed.

Absentmindedly, he scratched at his overgrown hair and winced. It itched, now that he had his fingers in it, and the layer of grease didn't do much for it. The laser was a nifty thing, but it didn't clean anything still attached to a living creature. Ghost suspected it could, and wasn't sure what would be worse : the filth that had to be causing some sort of skin issue on his scalp by now, or risking getting his entire head fried.

He'd never thought he'd one day be happy that he never managed to grow a beard. Small mercies.

Distracted, he hurriedly pulled his hand out of his hair when the door to the bay opened, smacking his hand on the “roof” of his cage when it got snagged in a mat for a second. When he finally looked at Blue, halted in the doorway, he smiled, all teeth.

Blue, a bag of something in hand, walked forward very, very carefully. Good. That confirmed something : for the aliens, and this might be standard enough for a good chunk of them, showing teeth was a sign of aggression. All the aliens he'd done it with had gotten reluctant to approach.

This one seemed to have more bravery than sense, for he continued until he was within arms reach if not for the barrier between them. Ghost kicked at it, and frowned when Blue didn't really react beyond his skin swirling a slightly darker shade. Could it get even darker ? Experimentally, Ghost rose as much as he could in this can and punched the barrier with both fists. This time, Blue did flinch, his skin going even darker. Interesting. It must be a bitch to have your emotions broadcasted like that. Ghost itched for his mask.

Blue really did seem to have more of a spine than any alien so far. His kidnappers had always stayed a healthy distance away once he'd been crated, regardless of the cube being impossible to break out of. This one was well aware of the limits of his equipment. That made him dangerous.

Ghost tensed when Blue rummaged around in his bag and pulled out something. He rolled the round thing in his palm, and extended his hand towards the barrier. He said something, a single word, and raised his hand up in emphasis. He did it a couple times, and when Ghost didn't react, he slipped the thing through the food dispenser. Ghost had no idea it could do that. Until now, the thing had seemed to produce an infinite amount of kibble, without need to top it up. None of the other aliens had gotten close enough to him as to be able to reach the machine. Ghost backed up from it as far as he could, a hand hovering close to his face, just in case. In their place, putting the unknown animal to sleep to move him, or study him, would be a fine course of action. The yellow ball rolled out of the dispenser and out of the bowl under it before stopping.

Nothing happened.

Blue repeated that word that meant nothing to Ghost, gesturing to the thing now in his cage. The laser didn't smite it out of existence, like it didn't smite the food pellets that some animals frequently scattered all over their cage. Was this...?

That word again. Slowly, Ghost bridged the gap between him and the yellow ball. He poked at it. Nothing. Blue warbled something, followed by the word, clearly separated from the rest of his sentence. Ghost's hunch grew. He took the thing in hand and sniffed it. The scent was so vague he couldn't attribute it to anything. Blue had frozen, waiting. Experimentally, Ghost picked a nail into the thing, and its flesh broke like paper. It looked like a fruit, and now, he was pretty sure, it was a fruit.

Saliva filled his mouth. After months of fucking dog kibble, he finally had food. Food ! Stopping himself from just inhaling the thing, he carefully inspected the skin for signs of tampering before he dug his nail in further. Blue made an odd, high pitched noise, but Ghost ignored it, working at severing the fruit in half. It didn't matter how ravenous he was if the thing was fucking drugged.

The inside was... empty. No pill or odd substance, not even a core or seeds. Nothing. Just flesh. He wondered how that worked. He tentatively nibbed at one halve, keeping an eye on Blue. The alien raised his tail from the ground slightly, and the halted movement reminded Ghost of a dog making an aborted wag. It stayed suspended like that as he bit properly into the fruit. It was... underwhelming. Sightly sweet but otherwise watery.

It was the best thing he'd eaten in a long time. In under a minute, the fruit was gone and Ghost cursed. He'd planned to take a bite and keep the rest for later, just in case. Blue might not want to poison him, but he doubted the aliens knew more than him what he could eat in fucking space.

Disgusted with himself and his broken control, he shook his hands of the juices on them. He wasn't going to lick them clean. Blue chirped something and rummaged through his bag again, and moved too fast for Ghost to see what he put into the dispenser. It clunked in, then out. It didn't come back out of the bowl.

“Food !” Blue said. At least, that's what Ghost thought that word meant.

In the bowl was a rectangle of... something. It looked like jelly, but the way it fell into the bowl suggested a much more solid mass than that. He took it in hand. There were fine, lighter lines into the green base. Biting into it confirmed his suspicions. This was meat. Dried alien meat, he hoped. He stopped chewing. He didn't know the first thing about aliens physiology beyond the fact exoskeletons could be cracked and the flesh underneath was easy to tear. For all he knew, what he was eating could be raw.

This time, he ate a bit and left the rest for later. Hopefully a smaller portion wouldn't get him sick.

Soap's tail flopped to the ground as the human barely touched the jerky stick. The chulu fruit he was sure had been liked – he'd never seen a creature eat so fast, not without being able to eat without chewing and that didn't seem to be the human's case – but the dirlio meat, not so much.That was odd. He'd selected it because it was so easy to chew, even dried, and one of the meats that a huge array of species could eat without issues. Apparently not the human. That was going to complicate things. Their stasis chamber might be big, but the selection was still limited and they needed to save food for themselves. Or they were going to have to make a few more stops than the long trip already planned in order to release all the animals.

In a bid to distract himself from that depressing thought, Soap returned his attention to the human, catching his eyes, and forgot for a second to keep his crest down against his skull. Thankfully, the human didn't react. A bit surprising, since most territorial animals saw the Kran's crest as a challenge. Slowly, Soap let the appendage deploy. It wasn't the most comfortable thing to keep down for so long.

The human's eyes latched onto the movement, but otherwise he didn't move. He just... blinked. A lot. Worryingly so. Was something wrong with his eyes ? Belatedly, Soap realised that even if there was, they had no way to know. Too little was known about human biology. Excessive blinking might just be normal for them. Soap himself didn't understand, he only let down his eyelids under water, and most species did a variation of the same thing adapted to their environment. Blinking so much would be a sign of injury in many other species. But the human wasn't any other species.

Another thing that had him stumped was the human's fur. He had virtually none, which made no sense since most of his planet was supposed to be much too cold to withstand without it. Maybe the humans had evolved to live mostly underground ? But something about that theory didn't seem right. The humans were clearly descended from some sort of primate, like Gaz, and that meant trees, not earth dwellers. But the human, despite nimble enough fingers and toes, lacked any kind of claws suitable for climbing.

Frustrated, Soap focused on something he was almost certain about : the pink and white marks marring the human's skin. At first glance, he'd dismissed them as stripes and skin patterns like the black ones were, but now he was convinced he was looking at scars. The sheer number was appalling, as was their shapes and variety suggesting very different wounds given at different times.

Soap ground his teeth together to avoid accidentally barring them in anger at the human, but it was a close thing. Not only had the human been stolen from his home, he'd been abused. And Soap noted glumly that most of these wounds looked too old to have happened on the poacher's ship. No injuries of the magnitude some of the damaged skin suggested could have healed fast enough.

Silently, he bumped 'getting the human into a larger enclosure' up on the list of his priorities. It was going to be a start.

A week later, Soap took out his com, very aware of the human following the movement, and called Gaz down to the cargo bay.

“What's going on ?” asked Gaz as he stepped beside him, eyeing the human.

“I want you to confirm something for me. Does the human look... thinner to you ?”

After a bit, Gaz's tail bobbed in agreement. Soap cursed. Here he was, feeding the human twice as much as the other animals, with proper fruits and meats, yet still somehow starving him. He relayed his worries to Gaz, who shook the tufts on top of his ears before answering.

“The food might not fit right but... the space he has doesn't either.”

Soap considered it. It seemed ludicrous that the two wouldn't be connected, and it was true that a lack of movement wouldn't help.

“Well, I finally have a plan for that.”

“You do ?”

“Aye. And none of you are going to like it.”

Chapter Text

Blue was planning something. He'd roped in Monkat then Armadillo into placing what seemed like portable barriers, starting from his cube to somewhere unknown in the bowels of the ship. It looked a lot like a chute meant to corral animals into.

Ghost didn't like it. There was a small gap between the top of the translucent barriers and the ceiling, but it was barely big enough for his fingers to get through, nevermind his entire body, and so far, the alien barriers had proven impossible to break or move even slightly. No chance of escape there.

He watched as Armadillo and Monkat disappeared further away as they built the chute until they turned a corner, out of Ghost's sight. Blue stayed and picked up the bag he'd abandoned when they started, a bag that Ghost was starting to recognise as his 'food bag'.

From the outside, Blue turned off part of the barrier and stepped in. Their plan became apparent immediately, and Ghost couldn't hold back a loud snort. Blue flinched at the sound, but Ghost couldn't care less. Wrestling back control, he smirked at the yellow fruit. Once the door to his cage was opened, it would be just outside of arm's reach.

He supposed it was better than to have a gun full of darts leveled at him. Alright, Ghost thought as he watched Blue scatter more fruits and meats at calculated intervals. He'd play along.

Once their set up was done, the three aliens returned to the cargo bay, an unfamiliar shape in tow. Ghost wondered how many aliens were on this ship. Clearly, the little strike team that boarded his captor's ship wasn't the entire personnel, and Ghost quickly did the math. They'd need at minimum a pilot that must be still at the controls, which left this one to be... potentially anything. Engineer and mechanic for the ship was the most likely, but the pilot might very well be that too. They'd need comms during their operation, so the new yellow bird alien might be that. Or it could be their fucking cook for all he knew. Not that it would make sense for a cook to join 'the boys' in moving the animals.

Like the rest of its companions, the new alien shared a surprising amount of similarities with Earth animals. The legs could have belonged to any long legged bird species, albeit thicker to compensate for the superior mass of a body only slightly smaller than the average person's, with talons at their ends. The body itself was covered in yellow feathers, some speckled with a touch of colour that shimmered oddly to Ghost's eyes, and he wondered if their true colour could even be seen by human eyes. Maybe not.

The wings were its arms, with long flight feathers continuing past where a taloned hand sprouted out of what was probably the equivalent of a wrist joint. Ghost was pretty sure this configuration had been shown in some dinosaurs. Well, here was a live one. Birdie's head was an odd cross between bird and human features, the long beak starting where a nose should be. The 'chin' under it tapered off smoothly into the neck, and four ear tufts, like those of an eagle-owl, were sticking out where ears should be, a pair on each side. A bit more disconcertingly was the closed lid over a third eye on Birdie's forehead. Ghost would have been less unnerved if it had been open, like the other two blue eyes fixed on him. Large, black pupils took up most of these two.

The tone that Ghost had identified as Blue's baby – or in this case, animal – talk shifted his attention. The aliens had posted themselves in pairs on each side of the constructed chute, Blue and Monkat on the left, Armadillo and Birdie on the other. Blue was clearly talking to him, but the words went right over Ghost's head. What he wouldn't give for a dictionary these days.

Blue touched something on the side of his cube, and suddenly, it was open. The door to the chute was large, the view of the food scattered on the pristine white flooring of the ship clear. Ghost hesitated. He doubted he would be given a choice, and would much rather walk of his own volition than get knocked out but...

Blue said something, walking away from his post and to the next bit of food. The first word eluded him at first, but the alien repeated it enough times Ghost hazarded a guess to its meaning. That and the webbed hand held palm upwards just under Blue's torso.

“Come, food.”

He couldn't delay eternally. Ghost stepped out, and Blue crooned something that sounded awfully cheery. He thought, a bit hysterically, that he might have gotten praised. Like a dog. Which is what he was, as far as the aliens were concerned. He wasn't sure what they would do to a proper captive instead of an innocent animal.

Ghost ignored the fruit at his feet and straightened at his full height for the first time since he'd ended up in the cube. It had been long enough he could lay down in it, but it wasn't the same thing as being able to tower over the aliens at his sides. Even behind the barrier, he caught a flash of darker skin on Blue, that he was sure by now meant fear. Good. It would give him, he hoped, a healthy dose of respect. Or darts, his mind whispered. None of the aliens had a gun that he could see, but who knew what was attached to their belts. Alien side arms might look very different, and they trusted the barriers enough that Ghost didn't think he had a chance there.

Still, he tried to push and pull at the little nodes that had been put on the ground and generated the barriers, but the things seemed welded down without a seam in sight. He kicked at it, just to be sure, but the thing didn't budge an inch.

“ -come !” Blue intoned, and Ghost supposed he had only one choice left.

He picked up the fruit and bit into it, observing Blue. He'd lightened again, but what held Ghost's attention was his tail. The pincer-like end was all but vibrating. He hadn't seen that before. While alien body language was easier to grasp than their spoken one, Ghost knew that what he had was not nearly enough, even without adding the different species into the mix.

Slowly, he made his way into the corridor, picking up the food in his arms. There was no way he was going to be able to eat as fast as he reached the 'checkpoints'. The four aliens followed, but he largely ignored them, concentrating on the ship instead. Or more accurately, the single corridor he was in.

White or light gray seemed to be the predominant colour. There was light coming off something similar enough to fluorescent tubes at the joint between wall and ceiling, yet it gave off a much less clinical hue than what Ghost was used to. It helped greatly with the overall dreary feel of the ship.

There were obvious doors at intervals, but their surface was just as smooth as the cargo bay's. No handle, no sign of any sort of locking mechanism, like every piece of technology on this ship, it was hidden. Or, Ghost suspected, obvious when you knew what to look for. He huffed and stomped past the next piece of dried meat before going back for it. Pissed or not, he couldn't let this opportunity pass. This was the most he'd been fed in one day, and it still wasn't enough to maintain a proper physique. He'd have to do something about that soon... If the aliens hadn't decided to march him to his death, or experiment on him. Honestly, he might have more chances roughing it without them if they just decided to dump him on a random planet. He'd figure it out.

In front of him, a door was open, the food leading him in. There was a big pile of it against what he could see of the far wall. Slowly, he peeked inside, making sure not to fully step in, and his heart dropped. Fuck. How had they figured out he was sapient ? They must have, because this was clearly a room, not a cage.

There was a bed – a round bed – with some blankets piled on it in the left corner, and a cube attached to the wall and floor on the far right that might be a chair. No other furniture. He looked back at the aliens, more specifically at Blue. It was hard to find any clues on his face, as it seemed he had a very limited range of movement in his face, but Ghost still thought he looked hopeful. Of course, he might be wrong, and walking into this room might sign his untimely demise. Not how he'd thought he would go.

What made him step fully inside was Blue's tail. It was still vibrating slightly, and Ghost decided this had to be excitement. That, and the coos he was still throwing at him. Maybe they hadn't figured it out after all, Ghost had been careful about that, and had decided to keep him as a pet rather than livestock.

He could work with that. He could think of a few things a lot more humiliating than this. He crossed the remaining distance to the food pile and added what he'd collected on the way. He wondered how long it took for things to rot in space. This was starting to look like more he could eat in a day or two.

The aliens couldn't follow him inside, the barriers used to guide him here taking up the full space of the doorway, but Blue did something on the wall next to it, and Ghost cursed.

Black bars fell down from the ceiling and fused to the floor. Bars. What an idiot he'd been. The sparse furniture should have clued him in, but then again, what did aliens know about room decoration ? What he'd seen of their ships was surely the most minimalist design ever made.

This, however, was clearly a prison cell.

At least the cell was huge compared to his tiny cube. He had enough space to pace, and even break two or three strides of a run to get from one side of the room to the other. It was a definitive upgrade. And he had blankets ! A single item shouldn't have made his heart gallop like this, but it was the first tangible object he'd had in his possession besides his boxers since he was taken. Maybe the pet theory still held enough water. He wouldn't let an unknown creature roam free on his ship without making sure it wouldn't be a danger.

While the rest of the aliens disassembled the barriers, Blue stepped inside the room. The bars separated the space in two, the larger being the cell, and visitors had their own thinner area to walk along the bars. Blue started to chatter at him while standing within arms' reach through them.

Ghost calculated the distance and speed he'd need to get to him. The alien was clearly some sort of underwater species despite the legs, so it was probably slower than Ghost on land. On the other hand, he was at the far wall. Even like this Blue would have plenty of time to see him coming, which was probably what emboldened him to get that close in the first place.

Ghost froze that train of thought, mentally shaking himself. He'd... have to keep himself in check. The months of captivity hadn't improved his mood, but these were the best conditions he'd been kept in so far. If he acted rashly – which wasn't like him, but at this point he wasn't sure what was – he could very well blow his only chance. What that chance was he didn't know yet and it grated at his frayed patience, but he had to hold out.

He could play nice for a while.

Soap was immensely relieved that not only had his plan worked, but the human wasn't rushing to gorge himself on the food pile. If he knew to pace himself, it was going to be a lot easier to figure out just how much he needed to eat, and for Soap to let guilt nibble at him for not feeding him enough. Which he knew wasn't really his fault, he couldn't know what nobody in the galaxy knew, but still.

It was going to linger.

He also wasn't sure what to make of the human's behavior when let out of the cage. Clearly, humans were very curious animals. This wasn't unusual, but it wasn't often paired with apex predators and aggressive tendencies, and the human had very deliberately went to investigate the new object in his environment.

Soap considered the waste disposal before taking out the rod of his com. Once the hologram appeared, he sent a request to the bridge. The laser for the whole room was already activated, but the one in the waste disposal cube was still online, and while it wasn't supposed to be harmful in any way, Soap was still afraid of the human somehow breaking it or injuring himself on the thing. He'd already locked the lid closed, but you could never take too many precautions. Whatever Price said, Soap was careful when he did stupid things.

The human now had space and hopefully, food. Next on his list had been the matted mess of fur on his head, but he doubted he could approach right now without losing a limb at the very least. It didn't seem to be actively hurting him, so that could be delayed. Next was... entertainment. This part was trickier.

Pets weren't really a thing for the Kran, as there was little to no way to keep an animal contained in an entire ocean. Just building a fence around your house wasn't going to keep anything trapped for very long, and the large mesh that was used for farm animals was impractical, not to mention ugly around a house.

So, Soap's never had a pet before. He knew you had to train them and keep them occupied, but most people already knew what they needed before getting the pet. Soap knew nothing about humans. He supposed he could try to throw a ball or two through the bars... he heavily doubted training a human was possible, but he could still give it a try.

Pets, on any given planet, were never meat eaters to reduce unnecessary risks. But then again, Soap had always wanted a pet. And Price kept reminding him to be less impulsive, and more careful. There were bars between him and the human. It might just work.

As he thought so, the human raised his forelimbs over his head, and yeah, Soap would stretch too after being stuck in a tiny cube for an unknown amount of time. He was mid chuckle when the horrifying sounds started.

The human started to crack.

Soap felt his body flush with the rush of pigments darkening his skin, but it was only an afterthought. He was pretty sure he made a rather loud noise, because Gaz and Price popped up from somewhere, guns out.

“John ?”

Fuck, Soap must be quite a shade if that was how the Captain adressed him, but he refused to look down at himself. The human had taken a step back – and blast, he was looking at the guns, the poor thing – with his face all scrunched up. This had to be a sign of pain, right ? No creature's face should be able to move so much to begin with, and the effect was disturbing.

Soap gestured the two to lower their guns – nobody was in danger here, besides the human – and tried to explain. No intelligible words made it out of his mouth. He only noticed he was whistling in distress when Price put a hand on his shoulder. Stars, this was embarrassing. He hadn't whistled like that since he was a little kid.

“What's going on ?” Price asked while Gaz found some courage to step closer to the bars.

That snapped him out of it.

“The human ! He raised his arms over his head and broke them !” Soap shrieked.

“He looks fine to me,” Gaz said, pointing his tail towards the animal.

The human's face had smoothed out again, and it wasn't wailing like he was in pain. He never had, come to think of it.

“Huh, but...”

Soap repressed a flinch at the suddenly exposed blunt teeth as the human's mouth widened and he joined his fingers together in front of his torso. For a threat display, Soap had seen more impressive. Then the sound of breaking bones started again.

“What the-”

“Oh, stars.”

Soap echoed the sentiment, but this time he was more prepared. He observed, baffled when it became clear the action was purposeful. It was horrifying. And a very effective threat display. They all ended up taking a step back, with the human standing victorious in the middle of its territory.

Maybe, just maybe, Soap thought as he exchanged a disbelieving look with the others, he was in over his head with this.

Chapter Text

Ghost's food pile had run out. As he'd expected, it had been three days where he finally ate his fill, and nothing had seemed to spoil that fast. The problem was that it hadn't been topped up like the water was.

There was no automatic dispenser in the cell as it clearly hadn't been meant to keep animals in; Blue manually filled back up a container he'd rigged to fit between two bars. It was a bit cumbersome to drink from, but it worked. What bothered Ghost was that he couldn't lift it. Simply dropping the entire contents of the “bucket” – there was no handle for it, so it probably didn't qualify as such but it was the closest word he had – on his head wasn't possible. He still desperately needed a shower. He made do by slowly pouring water with his hands, but it was far from enough with all the grime that had accumulated on his person.

Ghost got up from his bed – it was the most comfortable thing he'd ever laid down in, what kind of conditions did the aliens keep their prisoners in ? – and tried as best as he could to make it. Military corners didn't work on a round bed, with a round blanket, and this little fact irritated him to no end. It shouldn't, it was such a small thing, but it pulled at the frayed edges of his patience nonetheless.

Intellectually, Ghost knew why. Yes, he's been in the worst possible conditions in enemy territory. Yes, he was trained better than most, if not all, to withstand extended capture.

No, it didn't exactly translate to being kept as a pet by aliens. The lack of familiarity was fucking with him and getting to his head.

Abandoning the covers bunched up on the mattress, he took a deep breath and turned around. He really hoped the aliens had been monitoring how much he ate, and that he wasn't going to be made to skip breakfast. Ghost didn't doubt for a single second, with the level of technology he'd seen, that there weren't cameras somewhere in this cell.

On cue, the door slid open and Blue walked in, the food bag slung over his shoulder. Joy, he hadn't been forgotten. However, the alien seemed to have a different plan. After sitting down and opening the bag, he put a strip of that green meat a few centimeters past the bars, and then backed up. Ah. Well. Ghost had said he'd play nice.

“-come !” Blue called.

It was time to train the pet.

Begrudgingly, Ghost stepped forward while Blue stayed very, very still. But, Ghost observed, Blue was just shy of arms' range, and likely very conscious of it. He wondered how much of it was due to the natural fear the aliens seemed to have for him, and what was the influence of his little show three days before. He'd taken a vicious pleasure making them flinch every time he cracked a knuckle.

Running out of knuckles had been disappointing. The aliens had fretted behind the bars for a while before ultimately deciding to leave him alone, and Ghost realised just how bad this could have been. Yeah, he thought he figured out why the aliens had been so startled, especially Blue who had turned several shades darker than he'd ever seen him, and that could have ended up with Ghost in whatever passed for a medic station on this ship, the aliens trying to figure out what was wrong with him.

Ghost was taken out of his reverie – and wasn't that worrying – by Blue... calling his name ? Yeah, Ghost was pretty sure that whatever word was tacked on to the words without fail when he was being addressed was his name. He'd been named, and he resisted the urge to pick up the bit of food and throw it back through the bars. He knew the word was alien, and probably didn't mean what Ghost made out of it, but fucking hell it sounded an awful lot like Fido.

Fucking Fido.

He'd have laughed if he wasn't so busy trying not to feed the alien his jerky through his ass. Or whatever passed for an ass on Blue.

“Fido, come !”

There wasn't much of a choice, was there ? Realising he'd stopped, Ghost crossed the last meter to the piece of meat. One thing that was nifty with that cleaning laser was that eating off the floor was more sanitary than the barrack's mess tables.

The meat could barely be considered two bites, and was gone too fast for Ghost's liking. He probably knew what Blue had planned but that didn't mean he enjoyed the process.

Sure enough, the alien fished something out of his bag, this time a red and oval vegetable, he'd decided. It wasn't sweet, in any case. Blue telegraphed his movement, and Ghost could have grabbed his arms through the bars. He didn't, and the food was put in front of him. Ghost ate it.

This back and forth lasted for a few minutes before Blue got braver and presented a yellow fruit in his open palm. Ghost sighed. Loudly. Blue almost dropped the fruit. If the alien was going to train him to do anything, he better learn to be less skittish, Ghost thought as he took the fruit and the hand retreated a bit too fast to be casual. He'd give Blue some time to recover.

Eating the fruit slower than he normally would, he tried to examine the alien's face. There was very little facial expression, but his skin had darkened slightly. The tail fin was partially open, and the crest on Blue's head, that really, really looked like a mohawk, was up, things that he hadn't seen the first time the alien had interacted with him. Maybe Blue really was more comfortable with him.

Testing it out, Ghost held out his hand the same way the alien had, palm up, and waited. Something vaguely resembling a carrot was held towards him. Smart, giving him something longer so Blue would have more time to retreat his hand if necessary.

Not that it was, Ghost reminded himself as he chewed on the pseudo-carrot.

With every piece of food that followed, Blue let his hand linger between the bars a little longer, until it stayed there.

Ghost sure as fuck wasn't going to let the alien attempt to pet him.

However, he was curious about the swirls on his skin, visible even on the hand.

Slowly, Ghost reached a hand out. Blue didn't move. Perfect.

Ghost snatched his wrist as gently as possible and felt the alien try to pull his hand back for a millisecond before he froze. Ghost watched, close up, how the swirls on top of the hand turned a shade darker, spreading like ink mixing with water. Fascinating. He wondered if it worked like a squid does, except inside the body.

Speaking of, Ghost carefully rubbed a finger past the wrist, into the meat of the arm. It felt rubbery and smooth, but unlike anything he could compare it to. It was also slightly cold, and overall a more pleasant sensation than he'd expected.

He released Blue's wrist, and credit where credit was due, the alien took back his hand more sedately than Ghost thought he would. A second passed, then two, just staring at each other.

“Food?” Ghost asked.

He wasn't really hungry anymore, but surely he deserved a treat for not mauling him?

It was only when Blue stiffened in shock that Ghost realised his mistake.

Soap almost let the chulu fruit fall out of the cell in his haste. The human didn't react to his erratic movements as he closed the bag and left, which was good. He should have been more careful, but he was too excited to care. He rushed to the bridge where someone was sure to be behind the cell's camera.

He found Nik at his post, piloting the ship despite the presence of the autopilot the Tuncto refused to use more than strictly necessary. Soap wondered often if the stubbornness was a trait of the species. Price sure shared some of it.

Thankfully, it wasn't the old man at the camera this time, but Laswell. She clacked her beak in amusement. Laughing at his expense, no doubt. About her future report to the ship Captain relating Soap's sketchy risk assessment capabilities or Soap himself truly believing for a second he was going to lose his arm remained to be determined. At least with the current excitement traveling through his body, his slip up couldn't be seen directly on his skin.

He stifled the shakes of his tail in an effort to compose himself. No doubt he wasn't fooling anyone.

“You seem awfully happy for someone that got almost killed,” tossed Nik from his seat, lower set of hands waving cheerfully.

“The human,” he announced, ignoring further attempted jibes. “Laswell, he's intelligent! He learned the word to ask for food.”

Laswell noded, looking much too calm about this discovery.

“I'd figured. With his behavior when we transferred him to the cell, plus details on that report, however few I found, that for however aggressive humans naturally are, they aren't mindless beasts either.”

Soap deflated at the news. So much for discoveries.

“They're also pack animals,” Laswell continued. “So, congratulations Sergeant. Today we have the confirmation that humans can be trained. That should lessen the risks greatly.”

“You knew?” Soap asked, a bit put out. She hadn't told him!

“I suspected. Heavily. But I wanted you to avoid going off potentially false assumptions,” she explained very diplomatically.

Soap didn't have to like it. Still, he graciously accepted the data transfer Laswell sent him titled 'How to train your pet, tips and tricks. Galactic Edition'.

From that day on, Blue came to hand feed Ghost every day, twice a day. And Ghost had to start earning his food.

Pushing away the thought of just how humiliating the situation was, it was a good way to start learning their language. So when Blue returned later that day with the food bag, he decided to cooperate. Up to a point. He still refused to let Blue pet him.

“Fido, come!” he called as he sat down, pulling a piece of jerky – harder than the green one, and orange – out and through the bars in front of him.

Ghost walked over and sat down himself, picking up the piece. Time to dance. Blue got up, and Ghost raised an eyebrow. He didn't like having the alien tower over him, so he got up as Blue said something that he ignored. Once Ghost's eye level was over Blue's again, the alien seemed... discomfited? His tail was drooping and so was the mohawk-looking hard fin on his head. It kind of reminded him of a shark fin in thickness, and made up of sections that could collapse on themselves.

Blue sat back down – a better position for Ghost – and presented another piece, at his feet, with a clearly enunciated word. Ghost was crouching to take the food when it clicked.

He was being taught “Sit”. Surely “Stand” would follow.

He supposed, in the end, it wasn't that much different from basic training. Shut up and listen to orders. He mulled over that doing the exercise a few times, messing it up on purpose to make sure he understood the words correctly. He did, and was pretty sure he figured out the word for “No”. That one would definitely be handy. That was it for the first day, but a part of Ghost was glad for it. He wasn't sure how many words he could learn a day and still retain them correctly.

Blue's next step was to try and teach him what might be some release command before Ghost could eat his food. He refused to learn that one. If the food was in his cell, it was his and that was that. Blue gave up after a long while and dumped the contents of his bag in the cell. Apparently, they were done for today. However, there was something else in there. A ball with holes in it.

Ghost took it in hand, hearing Blue chirp next to him at that, and observed the holes. There was something inside, and easy to get out of with a well placed finger. The thing that fell in Ghost's palm was small and oblong. The texture reminded him of some sort of nut. He looked at it suspiciously. Quite a few nuts on Earth couldn't be eaten without being processed first...

“Yes! Food!” Blue perked back up and Ghost wanted to kick himself for feeling any particular way about that.

So far, nothing he'd eaten had gotten him sick. He popped the thing in his mouth and chewed. It was slightly mealy and like the rest of the alien's food, bland.

Ghost ignored him when Blue left. He'd be back anyway, in time for another meal and training session later in the day.

And he was. With slightly different instructions. Ghost regarded him dubiously when he was told to sit again. He munched on a fruit while Blue said something. Clearly a command, augmented by a hand held up between them. The sign seemed instinctual enough in species possessing hands, but Ghost was stumped as to the word to attach it. “Wait”? “Stay”? “Hold”? “Wait” might just be what Blue failed to teach him that morning. “Hold” alone wasn't usually used with that meaning outside of the military, nevermind to train pets. He dubbed the word as being told to stay. He hoped he was right, or future communications would be even shakier than that one Staff Sergeant's marriage back at base. How could one divorce and remarry the same person eight times, Ghost couldn't fathom.

His reward for learning a new trick, on top of the expected food, was another small puzzle that took him seconds to figure out. It made sense he supposed, these were meant for animals. But with frequent visits and things to do, the downtime in between was becoming more apparent.

Ghost was bored.

And there were only so many times he could try to rearrange his blankets into a rectangle that could hold on a round bed.

Now look. Sure, Ghost was used to boredom. Long stakeout missions were his bread and butter, sitting immobile for hours in a sniper's nest, his idea of a well spent afternoon. But that was boredom with a clear purpose. This? Ghost could clearly feel himself letting his guard down, and with that his focus suffered.

It was normally just as easy as pressing a button for him to go back to that state. Now, the button might as well have morphed into the alien surroundings. He couldn't find it anymore, like he couldn't find where the laser was coming from, or the camera that he knew was there but couldn't see.

He ended up running laps of the cell and doing push ups for the frustration to have somewhere to go.

His restlessness had been noticed, because the next day Blue came back with extra things in his bag. It started with Blue giving him another treat puzzle, saying a new word. Then another, that one not completely unfamiliar by now.

“Good!” Blue's crest stood all the way up. It looked awfully earnest.

Then he held a hand out, waiting. Without thinking, Ghost handed the now empty toy back and watched as Blue's tail vibrated, like a rattlesnake. He didn't really like the comparison. Either way, Blue looked happy.

That process continued with different puzzles of slightly increasing difficulty, until it clicked that he was being taught “Take” and “Give”. He was on his seventh puzzle. Clearly, being treated like an animal had done something to his brain for it to take so long to compute.

“Give!”

Ghost tossed the empty box back, way over Blue's shoulder. The alien still ducked and turned a shade darker. He looked behind him to where the thing landed, then back at Ghost.

“No,” Blue said, an incredulous look on his face. However little facial expressions aliens had seemed to be geared towards the negative.

The urge to talk back was strong. Very strong. He settled for a large smile. Somehow, the aliens not being able to really read his face was a better mask than anything else.

Not that he didn't wish for it now that the thought was here. Fuck. That wiped the smile right off his face.

He was distracted by Blue's hand being thrust back between the bars. Palm up, waiting. Except Ghost didn't have anything left in hand. And the word he was given wasn't “Give”. Mh. He supposed he still had the other two empty puzzles he'd hidden under the bedding, but he kept these for a purpose. He wasn't giving them back.

“Food?” he tried instead.

Blue repeated his word, moving his hand in emphasis. Well, if that was how it was going to be... Ghost put his hand in Blue's, grasping it firmly and, without letting the alien brace, shook it.

Nice to meet you too, Mr. Alien. Now that we've been introduced in a civilised manner, can you let me go?

Fat chance.

He suppressed a chuckle. Simon Riley, better known as the Ghost, fearsome SAS operator even to his own team. He didn't remember a time where he'd voluntarily given up a handshake, not even when some General or other had tried. He'd saluted back, letting them hang. Yet here he was shaking hands on his best behavior, yet he doubted he would get any praise for it.

He let go of Blue's hand and the alien took it back, unicolour eyes wide and confused. And a little scared.

Ghost couldn't help it. He laughed. He laughed and didn't stop.

Chapter Text

Soap was frazzled enough when the human finally let go of his hand, still shaking minutely on its own, but the halting barks that followed made his blood spin.

The human was hunched over himself, not even looking at Soap anymore, making those noises with worrying wheezes in between. He thought the human's face was turning darker too, and he was pretty sure that wasn't supposed to happen.

“Human?” he stammered, but was either not heard over the loud barks, or ignored.

Looking down at his hand, there was no wound. Soap hadn't been hurt despite being shaken up, literally and figuratively. He hesitated for a moment before reaching through the bars. The human's barks were slowing down and losing in volume, but the wheezes that replaced them were worse. If there was a chance the human would let him help without having to sedate him...

“What's wrong?” he asked, careful to keep his voice low and as confident as he could.

His fingers brushed against the human's bent knee. It seemed like the safest spot. His other options were the arms, or the head. He didn't think the human tolerated him that much.

The barking stopped and so did the wheezing, but the human's shoulders still shook somewhat. Soap was tempted to prod further when he was greeted by a large row of teeth. He flung himself back, tail whipping to his front and hitting hard against the bars.

“Blast!”

Finally backing up and creating much needed space from the human, who thankfully wasn't showing teeth anymore, Soap inspected the end of his tail. It hurt, but his fin hadn't been out properly and the hard edges had tanked the damage. He let out a breath. A severed fin would have been a pain to manage while taking care of the human twice a day.

A mix of hums and oddly melodious barks made him raise his head. He'd never heard the human vocalise like this before. He appeared calm, no longer wheezing and his face no longer going darker. The way the colour had come on, then receded, was a lot more homogeneous than Soap's.

“Yeah, I'm confused too buddy,” he replied to the noises of the human.

Soap stayed there for a while longer before leaving. The human seemed at ease, gaze always following him but not glaring so intensely anymore. It might be time for the next phase.

Soap wasn't surprised that Laswell was the first to follow him the next day. He wasn't when the human didn't join them at the bars right away either. Soap gave her a chulu fruit and showed her the commands he'd taught.

The human complied, albeit warily, but Soap counted it as a win. If he could follow orders from not just Soap, but the entire team, it would be a step further towards freedom. However much freedom an animal could have when confined to a spaceship, but it would still be better than a single cell.

“Sit.” Laswell's voice was firm, and she trilled slightly when the human complied.

She slipped him the last piece of jerky and turned to Soap.

“Looking good. If he can get used to us like this, keeping him long term might just be possible.”

“Aye.”

“Something on your mind ?”

He suppressed a frustrated slap against the ground with his tail. No hiding from Laswell, ever.

“I think he's bored.”

Laswell regarded the human for a bit.

“He is a particularly smart animal. Those species usually need adequate mental stimulation.”

“Aye.”

“And the problem is ?”

“...I ran out of puzzles.”

“He solved them all ?” She seemed genuinely surprised, feathers puffing up for an instant and revealing the crystals hidden under.

The human shuffled closer. They turned to him.

“Curious creature, isn't he ?” Laswell chuckled.

“We don't have many things on the ship to keep him entertained. Not in a cell away from us,” he said, letting his crest droop a bit. They couldn't speed up the process of getting the human acquaintanced with the rest of the team.

“We could stop on the way to Sherla D-7... we should actually. It's never a bad idea to restock before going there.”

Soap shuddered just thinking about it. Laswell stopped him before he could complain.

“The authorities won't risk landing there for a single animal, and we've delayed enough. It's a pack animal, and there's no other left in the bay to keep her company. We have to release her.”

“I know... I still don't like it.”

“It could be worse,” Laswell said, clacking her beak in amusement.

“How?”

“It could be monsoon season.”

“Grand. We only have the blasted electric storms to go through!” he all but shouted, but he couldn't really help it.

The human seemed used to his outbursts by now and didn't react. Neither did Laswell.

“You can get some puzzles and toys when we land at the station on the way,” she plowed on, ignoring his perfectly valid concerns.

“I already went through all the good ones!” he huffed. “What should I give him, people puzzles?!”

Laswell paused.

“You could.”

“And I thought I was the one too excited about the human,” he grumbled.

“I mean, simple children's puzzle boxes could work. And harder to eat foods ? Like the cnar.”

Soap was about to retort, but closed his mouth. This... might just work. Especially the cnar, and however many fruits and nuts he could find with a hard shell. It would hopefully occupy the human for a while.

“Thanks, Laswell.”

“Don't mention it.”

The next person to visit the human was Price. They both seemed to keep a respectful distance from each other the entire time. Soap wondered if the human somehow sensed that the Captain was in charge here. He moved slower, more carefully, eyes not leaving Price. Soap didn't think it was aggressive, but Price was definitely being weighted in the human's mind in a way that Laswell hadn't been.

This might be a problem when it came time to let the human out of the cage, but Soap didn't voice that thought. Price seemed satisfied enough, even if he didn't comment as he left. Soap collected the empty food bag and hung out with the human a bit more before returning to his work.

They landed on A-738 early the next morning. The station built on the asteroid was a good size, and there was enough space to land the ship fully. Once again, Soap was glad for the relatively small size of the ship, as it never had issues finding a place to park like the bigger ones that had to be left orbiting the small asteroid. Nik was right, mid-sized ship was where it's at.

The downside of Asteroid-738 however, was that it was small. All it had was the station and a market stretching beyond it providing essentials for the crews landing here. Soap pulled up the list he made on his com and his crest drooped.

“Already?” Gaz asked as he joined him at the ramp.

“There's no way I'm going to find what I need.”

“Let's go look before you give up.”

Gaz didn't wait and walked off, leaving Soap to catch up in the bowels of the station.

“You're just trying to avoid getting a list of parts handed to you again,” Soap grinned.

“Nik can do his own shopping! He's just going to say I didn't find good enough parts again,” Gaz defended himself, tail lashing lightly behind him.

They continued to banter until they arrived at the start of the market. The two peacekeepers barely checked who came in and out of the open gate, and the two didn't garner a glance as they passed, not even Gaz.

“So, where do we start?” asked Gaz.

“The fruit stands,” Soap decided.

It wasn't hard to find, the produce section of the open air market lively with passersby and shop owners offering samples in loud voices. Soap ignored it all, scanning the stalls for his prize.

“Aha!” At least he would come back with something.

Cnar fruits were bigger than Soap's fist in size and their red skin was much tougher than the interior. It was probably the thing that would have the most chances of keeping the human occupied for the longest time among what he could find here.

Still, Soap also bought some nuts with a shell hard to pry open barehanded. It normally required a specific tool, but he was curious what the human would come up with. Those fingers of his were very agile and precise, and Soap still remembered the way the human had held his arm in his grasp. It had been impossible to break out without risking injuring himself.

“Alright, next?” Gaz prompted as Soap closed his bag.

Soap looked around.

“Our best bet is probably the builders' streets.”

“That's bleak.”

“Yeah well, A-738 isn't exactly the pinnacle of tourism.”

Over thirty minutes later, and it was clear that Soap's concerns had been founded. There was nothing to buy here but utility, and nothing in the vein of entertainment. Grasping to his last chance, Soap approached the vendor of the only stall that seemed to sell small woodworking pieces. The craftsman stayed focused on his work, his four fingers holding a knife and chipping away at the corner of an angled piece of wood. Soap didn't recognise his species – some sort of rodent – but here on the fringes, this wasn't unusual.

Even there, Soap didn't see what he needed. The rodent was clearly specialised on small replacement pieces for various furniture aboard the ships that came through. That was, until something caught his eye.

“How much for this?”

“20 credits.”

Soap had his com out and inserted the end of the rod into the register presented under Gaz's perplexed eyes. The craftsman never fully raised his nose from his work.

Back at the ship, Gaz followed Soap to the human's room. There, he followed the same routine of getting the human to follow a few orders from the newcomer, and Soap was pleased to notice that despite Gaz's obvious hesitance, the human had less issues following his commands than he had with Price or Laswell.

Once all the soft foods were eaten, Soap handed Gaz a cnar fruit. It barely fit in the gap between the bars and landed inside with a dull thud. The human didn't let it roll far, examining it.

“Think he's going to eat it?” asked Gaz.

“He ate everything I gave him so far.”

The human poked at the fruit's skin for a bit before standing with it and letting it go.

“Wait uh-”

The fruit didn't exactly bounce off the floor, but it was a near thing.

“I mean... It's one way to get to what's inside,” Gaz chuckled.

“Mh.”

The human followed the fruit where it rolled but didn't pick it up.

“What's he doing?” asked Gaz while the human stood behind the fruit, turned away from them.

Soap didn't have time to answer. The human backed up a foot before bringing it back forward, hard. The fruit cracked before it even hit the wall where it made an impressive smear as it slid back down.

“Dear Light,” muttered Soap.

“Well, it's open.”

“Shut up, Gaz.”

The human looked back at them, and while Soap wasn't very proficient yet in his body language, he thought he looked surprised too.

“...Food?” Even his tone sounded hesitant.

“This... was food,” he pointed at the mush.

The human picked up the few somewhat intact pieces off the ground and ate them away from the mess. Soap sighed and took out his com, calling up the right hologram. Under a minute, the cleaning lasers returned the spot to its proper shine.

“Should we try another?” Gaz already had one in hand.

“After. I want to try something else first.”

He produced one of the hard nuts and tossed it inside the cell.

“Food?” the human asked, picking it up.

“Food.”

“Is 'food' the only word he mimics?” asked Gaz.

“Aye. I think he could do more, but I don't think he has any incentive to.”

Gaz cackled. “Of course, he figured out that one got him fed. Seems even humans learn how to sucker you out of treats.”

Soap grumbled. The human failed to get a finger in the small gap lining one side of the nut's shell. Soap wondered how he was going to proceed. He himself would have the tip of his tail to hook into the small gap and Gaz had his claws, but the human had no appendage thin enough for that.

His heart lurched when the human popped the nut in his mouth, shell and all.

“No! You don't eat the shell! No!”

The human ignored him and Soap watched in horror the muscles of his jaw flex and tense until a loud crack reverberated in the cell.

“Blast... think he broke a tooth ? Or two.”

Soap was too preoccupied to answer. The human spat something out. Light brown, a piece of shell landed on the floor.

“Oh, thank the stars,” Soap groaned.

“So... that's a terrifying jaw strength,” noted Gaz as they watched the human pick out the rest of the pieces out of his mouth.

Soap just watched the laser get rid of the inedible shells, wondering if he should even give him the rest.

He opted to slide another cnar fruit through the bars instead. The human chomped on it this time, ripping part of the much softer skin, and started digging inside with his fingers to get to the flesh.

“Alright. This will keep him occupied at least.”

“And what about the thing you bought at the craftsman's shop?”

“Right...”

Rummaging through his bag had the human turn away from his food. Soap gently put the cube down inside. Hopefully it would do the trick.

They just had to wait and see.

The aliens left and Ghost slowly carved into the fruit. The fruit. Not a rubber ball. It didn't matter how much he loathed using the few toys he'd been given, he was intimately aware of the effects such mental deprivation could do to the human brain. And he frankly could use the extra exercise, even if all it was was kicking at a small ball against the wall. Even his workout routine was getting monotonous and felt pointless. He was pretty sure the gravity in here was lower than Earth. That was a problem.

He looked down at the small cube left in his cell. The aliens were looking for alternatives. Something might just change soon.

Chapter Text

The deck of the cargo bay remained solid and opaque under Soap's feet, offering no view of the planet below. There was little to no shaking entering the atmosphere either, Nik – and the dampeners – made sure of that.

He couldn't see the blanket of dark grey clouds hovering right under them about now and Soap wished, not for the first time, that the cargo bay had windows. His com beeped, announcing unnecessarily the required timing to traverse the cover of cloud, hopefully void of lightning.

“Nik knows what he's doing,” Gaz piped up from where he was standing in a mirrored position to his own, a hand around a safety handle on the wall.

The female tridul in the cage between them remained silent, her head lowered to the floor, thick legs curled under her stout body. She looked peaceful. He hoped it lasted. Gaz didn't sound very convincing.

“He flung you out of the shuttle that one time,” Soap finally replied.

“And here I was trying to be friendly.”

“Your loss.”

The banter did help ease his nerves. Gaz was right. They couldn't be more prepared. Laswell had calculated at length the breaks in the electric storms constantly ravaging Sherla D-7 and found one long enough to land the ship, free the last passenger of their cargo bay, and leave. The insertion and everything after would be a quick in and out. The tridul's cage had been moved right to the opening of the bay and the animal shouldn't linger inside her cage once the last obstacle to freedom was removed. That was what Soap and Gaz were here for.

They were ready.

“Descending now,” Nik announced through the ship-wide speaker system.

Soap gripped his handle a little more tightly. Seconds ticked by, then minutes. He relaxed. They must be close to the ground now. He waited for Nik to announce the landing.

The ship shook horribly instead. Soap was slammed against the wall, the pulse gun on his back digging painfully between his shoulders. Gaz yelped, somewhere on his left. He hoped he hadn't let go of the handle and gone rolling about the empty cargo bay. There was very little left in here to catch aholds of, but Soap stayed exactly how he was, plastered to the bulkhead.

“Gaz?”

Another hit made the entire wall tremble against him, accompanied by a horrid fizzing sound.

“Blast!” Soap jumped away from the bulkhead without thinking.

Intellectually, he knew the ship was sturdier than that. The risk of him being electrocuted through the thick hull was slim to none. That didn't make his heart beat any slower.

At least his new position allowed him to see Gaz, and just like Soap, standing as far away from the wall as he could be while still hanging onto his handle. The tridul started wailing, the deep sound almost covering Nik's voice coming through the speakers.

“We're hit! Making emergency landing now. Hang tight!”

Oh Light, how badly was the ship damaged for Nik to give such a warning? Soap and Gaz exchanged a fearful glance and plastered themselves back on the bulkhead, lightning be damned. They were going to need the protection. Another big shake and the alarm for breached shields blared. The tridul screamed as she hit the sides of her cage.

The hull breach siren sounded just before Soap's feet left the ground and everything went dark and in confusing mess of sounds.

“Soap!”

His entire body hurt and his ears rang despite the alarms having quieted.

“Soap! Come on!”

Shit, that was Gaz. Was he alright? Soap got up with a groan. By some miracle, he hadn't let go of the handle. Bright light assaulted his senses, and it took him a second to realise the door to the cargo bay had been torn open, probably on impact as they hit the ground. He wondered how much more of the hull was in this state.

Gaz was standing, but stumbling a bit on his left leg. The tridul still cried out, neck raised and head high. Outside, the thick vegetation outside left no doubt. They'd crash landed on Sherla D-7. Blast.

“I'm fine,” he croaked.

Overhead, the speaker blared to life.

“Soap, Gaz! Tridul herd ahead! Release the female!” Laswell shouted with enough urgency to have them both jump to the cage.

The cage, sealed to the floor of the bay, was intact. The tridul had a few bruises forming on its elastic skin, but nothing major at first glance, thank the Light. Soap fumbled for the controls.

“Opening!”

“Go!”

The door to the cage retracted just as a herd of very startled, and very angry tridul came into view. Their own passenger's wails renewed in intensity, and she took a second to just scream. Soap hit the side of the cage.

“Come on, ye dumb animal! Go!”

With one last plaintive sound, the tridul rushed out. The torn open door offered a serviceable enough ramp and she disappeared into the mass. Soap and Gaz weren't so lucky. The cargo bay was large. Too large for them to run to any hatch or door without getting swarmed first. They had to hold the door until help came. Tridul were well known for not backing off without a fight when swarming like this. Not when one of their own was in distress. Soap thought the female tridul was still wailing, somewhere among the pack. The sound of pulse gun cartridges firing up and the relatively thin entry point was little consolation. The others better hurry. Two guns weren't going to cut it with every tridul in the vicinity still swarming the crash site. At least with the tridul out in the open, the area should be safe of lightning. The grim thought did little for him as his gun finished powering up, the first cartridge ready to fire.

Ghost had been lounging on his bed, the odd cube in his hands. If it could even be called a cube with all its edges perfectly rounded like this. Still, there were a few notches here and there, and a carved line into the circumference. It was clearly another puzzle, but he hadn't figured out how to open it in the three days he'd had it. Maybe he should work out some more instead. He'd lost enough mass as it was.

He was considering forcefully breaking it open when a huge shake almost tossed him to the floor.

“What the fuck?”

The edges of the damn bed, just like most objects he's seen, were blunted. It made for poor handles in this situation, Ghost's fingers unable to get a grip on the side of the bed. He jumped off, dragging a heavy blanket with him and rushed to the bars.

A second shake rattled the ship as his hand closed around a bar, and he brought the blanket over himself. It was a laughable cover, but better than nothing. He sat tightly, an arm and shoulder wedged between the bars. Alarms blared, someone spoke over some sort of speakers as the world continued to tear itself apart. From the corner of his eye, Part of the far wall of his cell along with its odd seat-cube got ripped away by a massive collision. Ghost grit his teeth. What in the bloody hell happened?

Dark sky and overturned foliage greeted him. Lightning arcs rumbled somewhere overhead and a brief flash tore through the canopy ahead. A white tree broken in half lay just shy of the hole in the ship. Ghost looked down to his blanket now covered in splinters and blinked at its interior spilling out onto the floor. He wasn't sure why he expected something normal, like cotton, but the red gel looking substance wasn't it. It looked an awful lot like blood and he reflectively checked himself over. No wounds. He folded the remains of the blanket over itself and left it there.

In a few steps, he was standing at the edge of the hole in his cell. It was only a small drop to the ground. The sensation of grass under his bare feet had goosebumps break out all over arms.

He was free.

Whatever happened surely had the aliens occupied. He should run. Looking around, he found himself alone on one side of the ship, a three stories monstrosity twice as long as it was high. You could fit an entire barrack building in there, and some more. It made sense, since as far as he knew the aliens lived on this thing.

The other side of the ship seemed a lot less peaceful. He couldn't parse out the sounds, but it was somewhat reassuring to know the tell-tale signs of fighting were roughly the same on an alien planet. It wasn't the pop of gunfire, but close enough. And if something out here was hostile to newly arrived guests, Ghost would be alone and unarmed.

Fuck.

Slowly, he walked around the ship. He saw the problem before he could peek around the nose of the large ship. A mass of animals – or were they – rushed forwards and flashes of lasers took them down. He made the count. Not enough laser fire for the mob. Of fucking course. Snarling under his breath, he looked around the ship's hull.

An opening large enough to let those beasts pass through three at a time was being held by Blue and Monkat, with some extra support on the floor over them from someone Ghost couldn't see, probably two people judging from the frequency of fire.

The problem remained. Ghost was still unarmed, but the wreck of the broken ship had produced enough material for a shiv. It would have to do.

He picked up a few pieces long and sharp enough, then a bigger one. Its base wasn't quite blunt enough to serve like he intended, but it would do. He was running out of time.

Ghost created some distance, disappearing into the thick, slightly off coloured foliage to his right, then started throwing his pieces of debris. He didn't even have to aim. With the animals packed together like they were he was bound to hit something regardless. A few more bodies joined the others already getting trampled into the ground by their brethren and distracted a good chunk from their initial objective.

Good.

Or it would have been if not for Blue. He thought the alien was going to rush into the mob when he spotted him flanking their position. Monkat grabbed him. Thankfully, neither stopped shooting their laser rifles while Ghost worked at thinning the herd. Still, he had to do something before Blue did something stupid like trying to come over and save him.

He pointed at the two aliens and shouted at the top of his lungs.

“No! Stay! Wait!”

Hopefully he hadn't butchered the words too much and Blue would get the message. He was too busy here to babysit.

A large portion of the group had split off and was running towards him. The animals were stout and low to the ground on their four legs, so they didn't exactly make for breakneck speed, but they were closing in fast enough Ghost had to back up to make space. He threw his last pieces of metal. One found a head and was fatal. The animals following behind their collapsed companions tripped over the body and gave Ghost an opening to take another shot, but the jagged piece simply bounced off one of the three bumps on the animal's back. Not a good target.

He threw the last small piece blindly behind him while he ran through the downed trees. The impact of the ship hitting the ground had all but cleared a huge space of forest around it, and the mess made it hard for his pursuers to follow.

From there, it was routine. The larger piece of metal still in hand, Ghost picked them off one by one. He was faster, more agile than these creatures used to charging through with brute force. And if their backs were too tough to get through, their long necks did just fine, as did the face.

He could hear the fighting dying off as he tore his shiv from the last animal's chest, a hand bracing against its back. For something that had made sharp metal bounce off, it was oddly elastic under his touch. Whatever. He had other problems to solve than alien biology.

His left hand complained when he pulled his improvised knife out all the way, and he looked down. As expected, even the blunter part still cut after manhandling it in a fight. He switched hands, grasping it only lightly. Hopefully, he wouldn't need it for what would follow.

He saw the last of the beasts flee before he broke the edge of the mangled forest into the small clearing created by the blast of the crash. He'd suspected it, but having confirmation of his new jailors' competency with their equipment didn't exactly fill him with joy.

Blue spotted him and waved him over, still looking frantic, tail fin flaring wildly behind him and highlighting his darker skin tone, and gun firmly in hand. Ghost stopped and looked around. Nothing remained in the clearing. The danger had passed.

Ghost's hair stood on end and he hiked up his shoulders a milli-second before a bolt of lightning passed through the tallest trees still standing around them, crackling between the blue leaves.

“Fido!” Blue shouted over the ringing in his ears. “Come!” He sounded positively terrified now.

Privately, Ghost shared the sentiment. Fuck the guns, he wasn't getting burned to a crisp out here. He ran to the large hole and didn't stop until he made it far inside, well past Blue and Monkat. It dawned on him too late that if that mangled ramp was still functional, he'd be trapped again.

He didn't wonder long, because lightning struck the ship and everyone hit the deck.

It passed. Arcs of current licked the ramp, but whatever the ship was made of thankfully wasn't conductive enough for it to travel far.

That was for the good news. The bad news was the hatch on the ceiling on the opposite side of Ghost that opened and let Armadillo jump down the ladder onto their floor. Ghost rushed to the nearest opening that wasn't blocked by an alien. The door to the interior of the ship remained closed, but he might be able to stall long enough to figure out how to open it. He stood in front of it, arms at his sides. Armadillo hesitated before saying something and joining the other two. The move gave Ghost more room, and he wondered if that was on purpose. He certainly wouldn't go as far as thinking of these aliens as friendly – they still had the rifles on them – but if he could play his cards right, they might not be fully hostile either.

He just had to figure out what his cards were. His arsenal was a total of ten or so words along with intimidation. They had rifles and darts and knowledge of their ship, and more importantly, of this planet. It didn't seem remotely safe outside at the moment and Ghost scowled as he looked past the three aliens whispering among themselves. He could see the leaves in the trees still burning in bright light jumping from tree to tree with blue sparks here and there.

No, outside wasn't an option, no matter how much of Ghost howled for freedom and to just run out of here. He turned to Blue and the alien jumped even as he held his gaze. The muzzle of his rifle lowered imperceptibly.

Ghost took a deep breath, locking down the impatient part of him, burying it under trained and tried patience. Hostage negotiations had never been his forte, even when he understood the language. Now, he didn't have even that and was bargaining for his own life.

Chapter Text

The tension in the cargo bay was so thick Soap could feel it on his skin. It made his blood churn, but he didn't have time to focus on that. Nobody did. They'd all seen it. They'd all heard it. The human had ordered Soap to stay where he was and had drawn half of the tridul pack to him, scattering them in the downed trees and taking them out with the ruthless violence the species was known for. Taking them down with clear understanding of tactics and languages. With intelligence far beyond what any sentient animal was capable of, and currently holding the door to the main corridor to the engineering sections. While what lay beyond it likely escaped the human's knowledge, the closed door being a path of retreat from armed people wasn't.

Humans were sapient, and they had treated this one like an animal for over three weeks.

Soap felt sick.

Slowly, he crouched, making sure the muzzle of his gun never pointed forward.

“What are you doing,” Gaz hissed over him.

Soap put the gun on the deck and kicked it lightly behind him. Thankfully, he didn't hear it clatter down the ramp.

“Soap.” Price, this time.

Hands well away from his belt, Soap took a single step forward. He couldn't remove it without risking the human misinterpreting his action.

“Good?” he asked the human.

A beat, then. “No.”

Blast. At least it confirmed that the human understood the situation. Soap was about to look at the others for help when the human pointed at them.

“No,” he repeated himself, then shifted his pointing finger to Soap's gun on the floor. “Yes.”

“Captain-” started Soap.

“Absolutely not.”

“Price,” he hissed, fin flaring. He didn't care to keep his tone respectful to his superior. “You just said we have to try to de-escalate! This is a person who's been captured, treated like an animal for Light knows how long and has every right not to trust us. An unarmed person standing well away from us, who are still going to have our side arms on our belts!”

“Shouting isn't de-escalating,” mumbled Gaz between them. At least his gun went to the floor.

After a beat, Price's followed. Soap turned back to the human.

“Good?”

He forced himself not to fidget with anything as the human scanned them head to fin, lingering on their midsections. Soap wondered just how much the human had figured out about their occupation. The way they were being sized up felt professional. He had a feeling they might have a fellow peacekeeper in front of them. A strong, trained and pissed off peacekeeper that just killed half a pack of tridul on his own with a piece of broken hull he still had in hand.

“Yes,” the human answered, but didn't rid himself of his own weapon.

Soap couldn't blame him. Still, just like them, the human hadn't moved further than necessary to convey his meaning, weapon wielding hand hanging loosely at his side. He could do this.

Holding a hand well away from his chest, he pointed a finger at himself in mimicry of the human's. “Soap.”

The pause was awkward, and getting worse as it stretched. He repeated himself. Establishing a rapport had been in every rulebook of search and rescue operations ever created. Soap couldn't do that properly here. This was the next best thing and he'd be out of ideas if that didn't work.

“Soap,” the human finally repeated, and Soap felt himself lighten.

“Yes, Soap!” he replied enthusiastically before cringing.

He hadn't sounded like he praised him as an animal again did he ? But he didn't see how he could work with so few words available to the both of them.

“Dial down the happy chirps, Sergeant,” muttered Price.

Great. He was darkening again. Ignoring his embarrassment and clearing his throat, he continued with a more sedate tone.

“Soap,” he said one last time before slowly turning his finger towards the human. “You?”

Silence. Soap held his breath. Gaz did the same behind him.

“Ghost,” rumbled the deep voice of the human.

“Ghost,” he stumbled a bit at the end of the name.

“Yes.”

Ghost seemed satisfied with that. Silence fell again before Soap realised he was expected to continue. Wishing he could teach Ghost more words wouldn't make it happen instantly, and now wasn't the time for an impromptu lesson. He still had to try. He pointed outside, to the torn ramp.

“No.” As if agreeing to his declaration, a flash of lightning tore through the sky.

Making sure his arm didn't shake with nerves, he gestured to the inside of the ship.

“Good.”

Moment of truth.

“Ghost stay with Soap?” he finished, letting his arms fall. “Soap good,” he added when the silence weighed him down.

He'd always babbled when nervous. Having so few words to do it made the urge worse. Soap felt crippled somehow. He couldn't imagine how bad it was for Ghost. The darkening of his skin drew Gaz closer, the Nefit bumping his tail lightly against Soap's back. However glad for the support, it only highlighted how alone Ghost was.

The human didn't answer directly, pointing at Gaz instead.

“Soap give?”

They all tensed. What? Price didn't need to voice his rebuttal this time. No way would they give Gaz over to Ghost. The human noticed, and raised two hands in the air, still holding the piece of metal in his right. Red liquid dripped down the other but Soap didn't have time to think about that as the human spoke up.

“No, wait.”

They did. The human pointed at himself, then Soap and Gaz in turn.

“Ghost. Soap. Give?”

Oh. Soap deflated, feeling a bit ashamed of his first assumption, and introduced Gaz and Price. The human dutifully repeated the names, then bobbed his head up and down once. Soap didn't know what to make of that.

“Soap good. Gaz good,” Ghost worked through slowly. “Price no good?”

He felt more than saw Price stiffen beside them. The human might as well have punched him. Price curled slightly back on himself, carapace shifting to accommodate the change. It made him look smaller.

“Yes. Yes good,” said the Captain firmly. “Ghost stay with Soap, Gaz and Price. All Good.”

Soap worried for a second the rather lengthy sentence, however butchered, would confuse the human. The Captain meant well, but it would be useless if not communicated clearly. Ghost had clearly picked up on Price's reluctance earlier. Observant, dangerous human.

No, Soap corrected himself. Trained and aware peacekeeper. How he hadn't seen it before now would eat at him for months to come. He'd seen it, but dismissed it as a wary animal. They all did.

Another flash of lightning, smaller and farther away this time, lit the sky for a brief instant. Ghost watched it pass.

“Ghost stay-wait Soap,” the human finally decided.

Soap's heart lurched. He didn't doubt the addition of “wait” hadn't been a mistake. He tucked that thought away and looked for the next step.

Ghost held back a sigh. Soap walked forward, carefully but with purpose, body language restrained. He gestured behind Ghost to the door.

“Come?” he asked, thumbing an imprint in the wall Ghost would have missed otherwise.

Some sort of scanner most likely. If opening all the doors on this ship needed a handprint scan, Ghost wouldn't get far on his own. With one last look outside where the sky was still heavy with dark clouds, he followed Soap. The door closed on Gaz and Price gathering the discarded rifles. Soap hadn't taken his back. It was something.

He was led upstairs through an elevator fitting with the rounded design of everything in here. It was a tube. Ghost hadn't seen stairs anywhere, but he supposed that was what the hatches and ladders replaced.

All the doors they passed were closed, and after knowing what to look for Ghost was pretty sure he knew where the scanner for each was. It was a rectangle at the side of the door, same colour as the rest of the walls only separated by a thin groove around it.

The door they stopped in front of looked the same as the others. Soap put his open palm to the scanner and it slid open. The interior reminded Ghost of his room on base. A bed, a table, a chair, a wardrobe and some shelves. He was surprised by the decor, however. It looked almost lively despite the bare light grey walls. The bed had a blue comforter, the chair a green striped cushion and a soft carpeted floor a few steps from the threshold. And Soap. Ghost didn't follow him inside.

“Ghost?”

He put his hand on the scanner in response. The door didn't budge and the rectangle flashed an angry yellow.

“Wait.” Soap walked back and around him, messing with the thing for a minute – some sort of holographic screen popped up – before retreating. “Good.”

Ghost put his hand on it again. The rectangle flashed blue and the door closed. Putting his hand back opened it, then closed it again. He tried not to think too much of the gamble he was taking. This thing could just as easily turn into another cell, but not complying might do so just as effectively, if not more.

“Good,” Ghost grunted, opening it and stepping inside.

He found the same locking mechanism on the interior wall and slapped it before Soap could follow him.

He waited.

“Ghost?” came from the other side, but the alien didn't force the door open.

He opened it himself. Soap looked bewildered.

“...Good?”

“Yes.”

Soap hesitated before asking him to follow again. Ghost closed his door behind him, no matter how pointless it probably was. All the aliens likely had access to his room.

They walked only two doors down, and Soap pointed at the closed door on the same side of the corridor as his.

“Soap.”

So he'd been put in the crew's quarter. Interesting. Maybe it was simply a lack of space and available room on a spaceship, but this wouldn't have been Ghost's first choice for a complete stranger. Then again, with all the locks on every door, Ghost doubted he could snoop anywhere.

Soap opened his door and said “Wait,” before disappearing inside. He left the door open. Ghost's heart lurched uncomfortably, anxiety fizzling for a second.

That was awfully trusting.

Awfully, awfully trusting. Was this a test? The alien had seemed sincere enough so far, but Ghost had nothing but guesswork to go off. He might be completely wrong. But this might also be a golden opportunity if the alien was that careless. Carefully, Ghost peeked inside the room.

Light blue and pops of colours everywhere made him blink. While the rest of the ship had seemed carefully sanitised of any individuality, the alien's rooms didn't follow that rule. Knick-knacks and various objects he couldn't identify filled the shelves facing the bed, and pen looking things were scattered all over the desk. It seemed to be arranged the same way as Ghost's room, with two differences. Interestingly, there was no carpet in here. More importantly, there was a door to the side leading to the space between their rooms. There was no such door in Ghost's room.

That made the hair at the back of his neck raise. Of course, he would still be under surveillance. Placing him in their quarters made sense now, with the layout here. Still, he wondered why Soap was letting him see this if that was the case.

His back turned to him, the alien was rummaging through his closet and pulling out... clothes. Ghost looked down at himself, suddenly very aware of his almost complete nudity.

“Fucking hell,” he mumbled under his breath.

Soap pulled a few articles of clothing and came back. Ghost pulled a face at the mass of colours in the alien's arms.

“Don't you have anything black?” he asked, pointing at his boxers. “Black.”

Of course, he hadn't expected anything but incomprehension from Soap. The alien slowly presented the bundle of clothes, suddenly looking less sure of his action. Ghost sighed at the darker hue taking over on the guy's skin and snatched a pair of pants. He ignored his yelp. There was a huge hole in the back for Soap's tail. Nothing he could do about that.

It was a tight fit, but he slipped it on. Barely. As expected, it was too short, the legs of the pants coming up above his ankles and a horribly bright colour, but it was pants. The fabric was odd and very stretchy. It ended up looking like leggings. Ghost just pretended he was wearing underpants. Or a wetsuit. The shirt was much of the same fit. He was glad to not have seen a single mirror on this ship yet.

But then again, he hadn't seen any bathroom either.

Soap gave him the rest of the bundle, and Ghost, making sure it was out of sight, wrapped the piece of metal inside it. He needed to keep that more than the clothes.

“Come,” said Soap as he closed his door and led him towards the end of the hallway.

Another entry of Ghost's palm print into a new scanner for a new door, and there was a bathroom. Probably. The thing on the side might be sink with no drain, and the opaque screen on the wall over it looked like a plasma TV. The room wasn't big, and Soap crossed it in two small strides to the same cubical chair that was in his cell attached to the far wall. Maybe this wasn't a bathroom after all. Entertainment center? It was awfully small for that. A small part of the ceiling in the left corner was a different colour too, slightly darker than the rest and with small grooves in cube patterns imbricated in each other. Ventilation system? There had to be one on a spaceship, but this was the first time Ghost saw something that could fit the bill. The opposite wall sported a cabinet with visible handles for the doors.

Ghost's understanding of the room toppled when Soap opened the lid of the chair. Not the chair. The hole in the middle was pretty self explanatory, as well as the need for Ghost to be allowed into this room. And why this was also a fixture in the cell.

“Yes?” asked Soap, gesturing at the toilet.

Ghost frowned at the thing. What was up with aliens and hiding all the buttons?

“Yes-no.” He hoped it conveyed what he wanted.

“...No?”

They stared at each other, Soap carefully not looking him in the eye. Fuck. It wasn't clear at all. Ghost didn't know how to ask, and Soap had no idea what the problem was. He irritably found himself thinking it would be easier if aliens were mind readers before stomping on the thought. No, that would be a nightmare.

“Yes,” he eventually said. He'd figure it out... hopefully.

Soap seemed satisfied enough to go on to the next thing. He gave the ventilation system and the sink a quick look – if these were even that, now Ghost wasn't sure of anything and Soap visibly gave up trying to explain them.

Good. Saved the headache for both of them. That was, until Soap pointed at his left hand.

“No good?”

Ghost looked down at it. The cut had mostly stopped bleeding and only oozed slightly if he messed with it. It would be fine. Soap didn't seem to agree. He opened the cabinet attached at eye level on the wall and pulled out a box. There was no red cross on it, but the lid sported some blue, round symbols. Regardless, its purpose was obvious and Ghost wanted no part of it. He'd be fine. He'd cut a strip out of his new shirts if needed, but he wasn't putting alien substances on an open wound.

“No,” he said firmly when Soap presented him an open container of some sort of cream.

It didn't deter the alien. The next item was a paste that looked more like his eye black than medicine, then a blue gel that seemed to defy the laws of physics. No, no and no.

The last item of the box was at least recognizable as bandages. He tucked the bundle of clothes with the hidden shiv inside under his left arm and extended his uninjured hand. The texture of the white bandage was wrong, like everything else, but it didn't seem coated with anything despite the slightly elastic feel to it. It would close a small cut effectively.

Taking the roll from the alien, not letting him try to help, he quickly wrapped his hand. He had to admit these things were a lot more handy than classic bandages. The roll came encased in a small transparent box with a slight protruding edge that Ghost cut the excess bandage on, all with one hand. No scissors, no knife necessary, like a tape dispenser. Why wasn't this a thing on Earth? It would have saved Ghost so much trouble patching up his wounds on his own.

Soap accepted the bandages dispenser back and put away the first aid kit. They returned to Ghost's room, and at no point did the alien make a move towards the lock. It was all Ghost.

“Good?” Soap asked from the corridor as Ghost entered.

“Good.”

The alien's crest rose fully, and Ghost supposed the guy was happy. Soap left him to it, leaving him to close the door. Ghost turned around to the room and opened the closet to put his meagre possessions inside. The shiv would have to stay there too. Alien furniture provided a distinct lack of place to hide such things between slats.

On the right side of the room, where the compartment separating him from Soap should be, the wall was completely smooth. Even his hand didn't pick up any bump that his eyes would have missed, no hint of a hidden door or one way mirror. Unless the wardrobe could move.

Which turned out to be pointless and a futile effort. All he'd managed in the last half hour was soak his new clothes with sweat. Nothing here would budge. It made sense to have furniture bolted down in a spaceship, but here there weren't even bolts for him to try and get loose. Giving it one last glare, he let himself fall on the bed.

It was much the same as the one in the cell. Annoyingly round and comfortable.

Chapter Text

Soap walked from the crew quarters to the ship's bridge in silence. He only looked up when Nik pressed a button on the console, displaying the status of the ship in more detail. It didn't look good.

“Hull breaches all over the place, but that's a given,” said the pilot. “Oxygen and water generators 2 and 3 are non-functional along with burned ventilation conduits on top. It's going to take a while to clean out the ones at the bottom too, I'm sure they're full of dirt. Half of the landing struts broke, the main ramp should be scrapped, and the shield system shorted and needs to be fixed.”

“What happened with the shields anyway?” asked Soap, eager for any distraction, even if it was about the broken ship. “And how did we crash to begin with?”

It didn't make sense for the shields to go down so fast. These things were supposed to withstand small asteroids and the occasional laser fire in combat, not wimp out at a lightning strike.

“We must have missed something in the initial calculations for landing,” said Laswell. “That, or the weather behaves more erratically than we thought.”

Nik winced. “Strike got the shield right as it was starting to come up. I didn't get the chance to deploy them fully.”

And half put up shields weren't up to anything. Rather, they offered a weakness in the defense. That explained a lot of the damage. Soap let his crest flop. As a secondary mechanic, he would have so much to do... on top of the human.

With everyone's eyes on him, Soap couldn't avoid the topic any longer.

“I set him up in the free room next to mine. He's in the system for that room and the bathroom only for now. Gave him clothes. He put those on without issues by the way,” he addressed to Laswell. “But he didn't know what to do with most of the advanced technology. He recognised a few pieces of basic furniture, but the rest is lost on him.”

“You found clothes that fit him?” Gaz interrupted.

“Barely. We will have to find better at some point, but my body type is the closest.”

“Minus the tail, the size and sheer muscles.”

“Back on track,” said Laswell. “We have more insight into human technology level. As expected, they are still very primitive, but let's not let that blind us. Some species' progress can be...” her eyes strayed to Gaz. “Atypical.”

The Nefit's tail twitched, but he didn't say anything.

“His wound is taken care of. I think,” Soap stammered. “He refused the meds but took the bandages and...”

“And?” pressed Price.

“He seemed used to it. Patching up injuries, I mean.”

Soap knew they were all remembering the patchwork of scars marring the human's skin.

“Thankfully, he seemed to be able to speak Common. We can explain everything in time,” said Laswell

“In time,” Soap agreed.

It took a long time to learn a language, let alone master it to a degree of proficiency good enough for their needs. A stray thought suddenly struck him.

“All the lower decks are sealed right?” he turned to Price.

“Yes. Everything leading outside is behind a closed door and insulated, including the cell where the human was. No tridul or current can enter the ship.”

He didn't say out loud that they were going to go out in order to fix the ship. Hopefully the triduls would be scared away for a while. They had too little manpower to deal with both the ship and the hostile wildlife... unless both Price and the human agreed to Ghost playing bodyguard, but Soap doubted the Captain would trust the human with a pulse gun so early.

“Alright, let's get this done. Soap, you're with Nik handling the main repairs,” ordered Price. “Gaz, go check on our stores. We didn't exactly plan to stay here for longer than a few minutes. Laswell and I will check on our visitor.”

Soap didn't argue. He understood, even if he didn't like it. Laswell would handle things. Senior to everyone here, she had the most experience of anyone aboard the ship when it came to contact with new species.

“What do we start with?” he turned to Nik.

Ghost was considering leaving the room and exploring when a feminine voice came from somewhere.

“Ghost?”

He jumped from the bed as someone knocked on the door much too softly. Hesitant. Alright. There was some sort of doorbell system that he hadn't been shown. Making an effort to not pick up the shiv from its hiding place on the way to the door, Ghost opened it.

Armadillo, no, Price stood next to Birdie as obvious security while a feathered wing was unfurled between them. Some sort of greeting?

“Ghost,” she said. “Laswell.”

“Laswell,” he repeated, feeling dumb about it already.

“Yes.”

She seemed a lot calmer than the rest had been at first as she extended a wing wide towards the ceiling, saying something. Ghost glanced up. He saw nothing but the ceiling. She repeated her word and gesture with a “Come?”.

Ah. He was getting a more thorough tour of the ship, maybe. He gestured to the walls around them and hoped he got that word right.

“Ship?”

Laswell seemed pleased, beak clacking twice before she answered properly. Fucking hell, was he going to have to learn their nonverbal cues on top of the language?

“Yes. --ship.”

He didn't catch everything, but he hoped the sentence structures wouldn't be too difficult to learn by ear. However, he had a question before leaving. He pointed at the lock of the door.

“Come?” he asked, wondering if that would be enough for them to decipher his intent. He’d rather know how to operate whatever doorbell system this was. “Ghost, come.”

It must have, because Laswell pressed something at the bottom of the rectangle that made a screen appear. A screen filled with little circles themselves filled with small straight lines that he had no hope of deciphering. Laswell turned back to him as they both realised the impossibility of the task. Ghost sighed. Alien writing would have to wait. He gestured around him.

“Ship?”

“Yes.” Laswell seemed to echo his defeat and killed the screen by tapping at the bottom.

Ghost followed the two, making sure to map out the layout of this floor of the ship. The room he was led to was a dining room with a small kitchen in the back. A large door to the side was open and sounds came out of it.

“Gaz?” Price called out, giving Ghost a sidelong glance before stepping away.

Laswell didn't seem concerned to be left alone with him, and Ghost wasn't sure if it was the alien's surety in her skills to fight him off or trust that he wouldn't try and hurt her. She gestured to the room, saying something. He caught only one word. It was enough.

“--food--”.

He nodded. She just stared. Fuck, right.

“Yes, good,” he clarified.

Ghost thought Laswell looked pleased as she mimicked the gesture herself. Gaz and his watchful companion came back from the side room, not looking so relaxed. Ghost was stuck listening on while not understanding anything. Instead, he toured the room. He hadn't been told to stay put. A large table was in the middle along with a few chairs and stools, probably to better accommodate the differences in body types. Soap's tail looked uncomfortable to fold onto a normal chair, as was the constantly bent position of Price.

He looked into the side room, the door having been left open, and found the fridge. Only, the room wasn't cold. A pantry? How did they keep anything from spoiling in here? Looking behind him, he figured that was what they were arguing about. He caught his name a few times in the discussion – the one they gave him, not his – and stalked towards them with a frown. They quieted.

“Good food?” he asked, pointing back.

Laswell's feathers were slightly ruffled as she answered.

“Yes-no.”

“We really need to figure out a way to teach me more words,” he said slowly in English, pointing at his mouth.

The owlish eyes in front of him didn't blink, but the sentiment was still transmitted. Ghost sighed. He didn't ask for permission before going to the more normal looking door on the other side of the room, and after some scrutiny found the locking mechanism in the same spot as the other doors.

He hadn't expected, however, for the door to open as his palm touched it. He stayed standing there dumbly for a second before turning to the aliens.

“--come yes,” Laswell gestured to the kitchen and the room beyond.

Ghost might have more freedom than he'd ever thought he'd have on this ship. The thought wasn't comforting in the slightest. Keeping the three at the corner of his eye, he stepped into the new room and quickly backed away close to the wall, out of their sight.

He stifled a curse when the floor sunk under his feet. Slapping a hand to the wall, he looked down. His bare feet were a centimeter or two into a mat that made up the entire room – a rec room if he had to guess – with an entirely unpleasant sensation. Ghost lifted a foot to shake it, feeling like part of the floor had peeled off along with it. It hadn't, but the sensation made shivers run down his spine. He needed socks. And shoes. But socks would be a start.

Sure that the aliens would follow him in eventually, he quickly looked around. On a small table next to him, a few objects littered the surface. Unfortunately, he didn't have any pockets to hide them in. He'd seen one of the pen looking things in Soap's room. He wasn't quite sure what it did, but it seemed useful if he could figure it out.

Two wooden rectangles were attached to the ceiling, two meters or so apart, but Ghost couldn’t see a bulb or hole that could help identify them. The table wasn’t directly under, so he couldn’t check easily. Moving the furniture around might not be a good move… if it was even possible, he thought back to his wardrobe.

To his left, a large couch extended almost the length of the entire room. Behind it stood a coat rack with a khaki hat on one of the pegs and some sort of blue fabric on another. The shape was so familiar compared to everything else in here that he couldn’t help but take a closer look, grimacing at each step. He kept expecting a squelching sound every time his feet left the odd surface of the floor, but there was nothing. And the hat was, truly, a boonie hat, with a string and everything.

But what truly stood out about the room was the colours. This room had been painted in pleasant pastels, greens and yellows and blues, a stark contrast to the light grey and white of the rest of the ship.

Laswell came in alone. She gestured to the long and backed couch filling the back of the room, but didn't sit herself. Ghost didn't either. She seemed to hesitate before pointing at herself.

“Laswell no sit.” She enounced the next word carefully. “--no sit. Ghost good sit.” Then another, just as clearly as the other. “--good sit.”

“--Ghost no sit,” he tried, repeating her last sentence and racking his brain for the meaning of the two new words.

“No,” she corrected, pointing at him and tacking on the first word instead of the second at the beginning. “--no sit.”

“--no sit?”

“Yes,” she gestured back to herself. “--stand. --no sit.” Then to him, adding the second word. “--no sit?”

“I no sit. You no sit,” he replied. Maybe? Oh fucking hell, there was no way he'd keep at this bullshit long enough to get anywhere. He was half of a mind to just walk out of there, lightning and beasts outside be damned.

But Laswell brightened, maybe even literally. Ghost squinted. Did he see that right?

“Yes! Good. You stay?” she gestured to the room.

“Yes. I stay.”

He wasn't quite believing it, yet he watched as Laswell left the room, not locking the door behind her. She left along with the other two.

The door to the pantry was closed, but he now knew where the food was. A quick pass with his hand along the side of that door confirmed he had access to this one too, and he swiped a few jerky strips. At least this shouldn't spoil. He didn't dare try the fruits or vegetables until he was more certain of what was going on. Whatever was wrong with their food stock wasn't worth risking food poisoning. Worst case scenario, he knew he could always eat the fucking kibble again.

“We're not eating the blasted pellets,” Soap fumed.

“The stasis chamber broke and you're not going to get it functional in time. We won't have food in a few days,” Price argued.

Soap refused to back down. “And there's perfectly fine fruits on Sherla. The jerky will hold. We have means to get fresh food. I'm not eating pellets. Ghost isn't eating pellets again.”

“We landed on the doorstep of a tridul nest! We don't have the manpower to get through and keep our mechanics in one piece!”

Price rose to his full height, but after having a human stare him down a few times, Soap wasn't moved. He glared right back, tail fin up. Idly, he noted that like this, the Captain and the human looked roughly the same height.

“Ghost cleared them out relatively easily,” remarked Laswell from the side with all the innocence she could coat her words with.

Price knew what laid beneath, but so did Soap. He was faster than the Captain.

“Yes. I can take Ghost with me. He will listen,” he directed his last sentence at Laswell, who chirped the affirmative.

“...Are we sure of that?” asked Gaz, tail twitching nervously.

“He understood just fine when I talked to him just now,” she paused. “As long as you keep it simple and teach him a few more words, Soap.”

“Aye.”

Price was still unhappy, but had curled back in his carapace. Now all Soap had to do was get Ghost ready for an expedition in the short time they had before their perishables spoiled.

Chapter Text

Ghost couldn't find a backpack anywhere. This discovery dragged his mood down more than he let himself think about. He settled for stealing a few utensils in the kitchen along with a rock – no seriously, why was there a drawer full of rocks in there – and running back to his room to add them to the piece of metal in the bundle of clothes. He wouldn't be wearing those anytime soon like this, but he could sacrifice fabric for... whatever material alien cutlery was made off. It was hard and pokey and that's all Ghost needed to know.

When he was done, there were no aliens in sight. Looking up and down the corridor of the barracks didn't make them appear out of thin air. There was one more thing Ghost wanted to collect. It was stupid, utterly illogical, but he wanted it back.

Slowly, ears straining for footsteps, a task that turned out difficult with the ship still creaking outside from the crash, Ghost made his way to the tube they'd used as an elevator to get on this floor. Instead of trying, and most likely failing, to use it, he pivoted to the hatch he knew should be nearby. Thankfully, this one could be opened by a good old handle. No fancy alien tech, probably in case of emergency. Electronics died all the time.

The large hatch opened without a sound. Still no one in sight. Ghost climbed down the ladder and closed the thing with a dull thud. He'd expected the entire affair to creak loud enough to rival the lightning strikes, but he supposed aliens had figured out better things than WD-40.

The cargo bay stretched before him, empty. No cages, no animals. Had they all been released? Could Ghost hope for the same?

Did he even want that?

He stepped forward. The broken ramp laid in the grass. Ghost peeked out. No hostile animals in sight. No sounds beyond the crackling of leaves in the wind.

Literal crackling.

The trees' blue leaves glowed, arcs of electricity jumping from leaf to leaf. The completely white trunks gave it an eerie air. Overhead, the sky was calm despite the darkness of the cloud cover. It was now or never. He stepped out onto the bluish grass. A lot of the vegetation here had this odd colour, green but leaned towards blue like the lightning was always reflecting off of it. Crackling overhead told Ghost it might as well be the case.

He rounded the side of the sleek spaceship, careful not to step on sharp debris along the way. He really needed shoes. Grumbling, he arrived to the gutted cell and looked inside. With how barren its space was, two seconds were more than enough to see the item wasn't there. Fuck. It got flung outside.

Ghost turned to the downed trees, shrapnel and metal bits with a scowl. He really shouldn't be putting so much effort into this. He really, really shouldn't be.

Looking down and under uprooted grass, he started his search.

He was still looking when Soap called his name from somewhere. Ghost ignored it. He'd find him eventually, and Ghost only had this small space left to comb through. After this, the rest of the forest and the large track gouged into the ground by the ship was getting too far.

He spotted a rounded corner of the wooden cube under a white trunk as a window above him opened. Wait, the windows opened on this thing? That didn't seem safe... Soap leaned out of the round opening.

“Ghost! Wait!”

The alien didn't give him a chance to answer. Not that he would have, but still. Part of Ghost felt a bit slighted. The other reminded him he'd been out here for a reason. He turned back trying to dig out the cube, but the thing was well and truly stuck, dug into the ground by impact and weight of the much larger tree trunk. He could try to dig out the puzzle box from under it, but that would take time.

Soap walked towards him as he wrapped both arms around the white trunk, mindful of his injured hand.

“Ghost?”

He heaved once. Soap's arms flailed at the corner of his eye. Ghost now had a good measure of the trunk's weight and pulled it off with a groan. At least the upturned trees didn't conduct electricity anymore. He panted just from shifting the trunk a bit to the side. He let it fall with a sigh. Ghost only turned to Soap once he'd taken the cube back from the ground. The alien was standing very, very still, and darker than normal. Ghost frowned at the downed tree, the puzzle box in his right hand, then back at Soap. He saw nothing amiss.

Soap mumbled something under his breath as he finally approached, looking at the trunk like it might jump at him if he got too close.

“Soap,” Ghost grunted, losing patience by the second.

Soap snapped out from whatever it was that had him so wound up and finally looked directly at him. The alien still had his rifle slung over his shoulder. Ghost pointed at it.

“Give.”

Soap took a step back.

“No.” His tail lashed at the ground once before stilling, but the fin didn't come out.

Ghost might just be able to push this a bit more.

“I no take. You give.” The bastard of a sentence had him grit his teeth, but he pushed on, gesturing to their surroundings. “I wait.”

If Soap had eyebrows to frown with, Ghost was sure that would be his expression just then. As it was, his mouth twisted slightly.

“No give. You wait. Good?”

Good enough. Either Soap was lying, or he wouldn't be against arming Ghost once their foundations weren't so shaky. Ghost hummed in response, eyes falling to their feet. Shoes were next. He pointed there.

“Give?” He shook his hand to the debris littering the grass around them in emphasis.

Soap's eyes grew wide. Even then, Ghost couldn't see any white in them. The alien blurted out something, looking a bit frantic as he examined Ghost's feet. He hoped whatever shoes they could scrounge up didn't fit as well as the clothes currently on his back. He'd rather be barefoot.

“Come,” Soap tossed over his shoulder.

Ghost gave the surroundings one last look and followed him, cube in hand. He only had one out of three objects, but this one was the one he absolutely didn't want to lose.

The shoes were a bust. Soap looked more discomfited about that than Ghost when it was his own shoes he'd have given away. None of the other aliens had a similar enough feet shape. Soap's were close enough, but close didn't cut it. Ghost restrained a sigh and went to the next thing to do. It felt like he was doing that a lot today.

“Give?” he asked, pointing at the shoe Soap was about to take back to his room.

Soap looked confused. Ghost repeated himself and was given the shoe. Not what he wanted. Holding it between them, he tapped it with a finger.

“Give?”

Soap went to look for the second of the pair.

“No,” Ghost sighed. Fuck, this was harder than he'd imagined, because of course it would be. “I need the word for this,” he grumbled in English.

Soap turned back to him and regarded the shoe for a while. Ghost let him think. He wished he could ask about socks instead, but he hadn't seen any so far.

“Give?” Soap pointed hesitantly at the shoe.

“Give. Yes.” Come on...

Soap's crest flapped on his head before standing straight again. Huh. That's new. Ghost wondered what kind of tell that was. Understanding might be nice.

“No give.”

“Fucking hell,” he growled, louder than he'd intended, but couldn't bring himself to feel too bad about making Soap flinch back.

He did care however about the hand that slowly made its way to his belt. Fuck. They really needed to work out something. Asking for the word of an object shouldn't be so complicated. It had worked fine with Laswell earlier and...

And Ghost was an idiot. Abandoning the shoe on the floor, he gestured over his head with both hands.

“Ship!” He pointed for good measure. “Ship. Laswell give.”

Finally, he saw understanding in the way Soap took the shoe back in hand. No, you cunt, I hadn't been asking for you to give me the shoe literally, not any more than I have a fucking spaceship!

Ghost had to work on reining in the heat that threatened to spill out of his guts. Soap was trying, just like he was. He couldn't blow up on him just because he was frustrated. And angry and over it.

As usual, he could only suck it up and continue with the mission.

Letting out a deep breath, he lowered his arms and focused on the word Soap had been saying while he hadn't been paying attention. Calm, again.

“Shoe?” he tried after a few times.

“Yes. Shoe.”

Ghost looked around. He needed to seize this opportunity. Unfortunately, there weren't a whole lot of things to point at in his mostly empty room, and he wasn't opening the closet to Soap.

The next hour was productive, especially once he managed to pick out the word for “word” out of Soap's sentence. It was worth the headache that started this whole thing. At least until Soap remembered he'd been looking for Ghost for something.

The shoes went back to Soap's closet before he led Ghost towards the back of the ship. Soap opened a door at the end of the corridor and stepped in. The door closed automatically behind them, but Ghost was distracted by the lack of... anything in this new room. It was entirely white, and appeared to run the width of the ship, and that was it.

Soap made a screen appear from nowhere on the wall, pressing some near invisible buttons next to the door. The ground opened up on the other side without a sound or vibration. When it was over, two dummies – because these had to be training dummies, all blue and vaguely creature shaped – revealed the purpose of the room.

Ghost frowned. Going out into the field with bumbling allies was enough of a pain when you understood the language. Whatever this was would be worse, without a doubt. Still, he was surprised the aliens would consider this at all. Maybe the situation was more dire than he'd thought.

Illustrating his thoughts, Soap gestured to the ship around them.

“No food,” he started, then pressed another button on the screen. The walls, floor and ceiling flickered in a perfect replica of the scenery outside. “Food.”

Another press of a finger, and a few plants were highlighted and zoomed in. Damn. The alien military's power points were nothing to scoff at. And Ghost had been right thinking their fridge had malfunctioned. They needed to go forage for food out in hostile environment. The two dummies made more sense when the objects were superposed with the local creatures' holograms. Ghost wondered if they were truly going to give him a weapon to fight these things or if they were going to use him as a pack mule.

He spent another hour of lessons with Soap learning to recognise the plants edible to them on this planet. Compared to the sheer density of the vegetation, it wasn't much.

They were interrupted by a soft beep. Soap took out his communication device – it looked just like a pen – and a voice came out of it, crystal clear and without any of the usual radio distortion. Ghost didn't recognise the voice.

There was at least one more alien he hadn't met yet on this ship. He chewed on the implications as Soap answered something and pocketed the thing again before getting up. He waved Ghost out of the room, turning off the holograms of the animals that Ghost now knew were called triduls, and the room returned to its white state. Only the two dummies remained.

Not having been told anything, Ghost followed Soap. He wanted to see who this mystery alien was. Soap didn't rebuke him and let him tag along. Good.

They met with the lower half of Price standing on a floating platform, head and torso disappearing into the bowels of the ship in the ceiling. The alien's feet were right at eye level, and they were weird. They were hoofed. Hoofed in two spots, one hard hoof at the heel and one where toes should be. Not armadillo feet at all. The legs were oddly crooked too.

Why wasn't he wearing shoes? Granted, it might be redundant when you walk on hooves, but Price had always been wearing shoes so far. At least every time he'd seen him before now.

Soap called out to the man, and it definitely hadn't been Price's name. Maybe the man's rank? He was in charge after all, and it would be a useful thing to know.

The Armadillo that bent down out of the hole in the ceiling wasn't Price. Same species, yes, but where Price had green flecks in his carapace this one had blue and a much shorter beard on its muzzle.

Soap made the introduction.

“Nik,” he said to Ghost before turning to the other. “Nik! --Ghost.”

Nik offered him what was probably a greeting. Ghost observed the tool in his hand. It was nice and blunt. Might be a good idea to stay by the mechanic for a bit.

He did just that as Nik started directing Soap into helping him, and Ghost watched, silently noting that Soap seemed to know what he was doing in the bowels of the ship. Maybe he didn't need to get that close to Nik after all. That was fine by him.

The next day, after Ghost had finished eating breakfast in his room – Soap had tried to offer Ghost to eat with them, but he refused – he was brought back to the training room. The rectangular dummies were still in place.

This time, instead of messing with the control panel at the door, Soap fiddled with something on the adjacent wall. The locker was only revealed once it opened. Ghost was going to need to parse the entire ship with a magnifying glass to spot all the hidden compartments. Not that he'd thought he'd have access to them : he'd checked the day before with the training room's door and the lock only lit up yellow without budging.

Inside the locker, small objects were placed in indents in the wall. Soap picked two rods about as big as his palm before closing the compartment. Ghost squinted at it. Now that he knew it was there, he could see a slight difference in colour between the wall and locker. Slight. He wondered how different the alien's vision was. Humans might be colour blind next to them.

Soap handed him one of the rods. It was surprisingly light and hard despite having a little give under his fingers. It was entirely smooth with the exception of a little divot in the middle. Idly, Ghost ran a thumb over it.

The rod extended and smacked him in the chest. So that was what Soap was trying to warn him about by waving his arms like that. Fuck. Pulling the object away from him, Ghost now held a black staff reaching up from the ground to his shoulder and about two fingers wide.

“Good?” Soap asked, clearly worried.

“Good,” he grunted.

It hadn't really been painful. Note to self, be careful with random alien objects. Even an innocuous inspection might be dangerous. Soap readied his own staff, and Ghost tensed. Sure, everything in this room screamed of training and not of harm, but he couldn't help being wary. He wasn't sure what to make of the aliens handing him a weapon to supposedly fight the horde outside. Did they truly trust this random stranger to help them, or were they only that desperate? Would his current relative freedom be over depending on how he performed out there?

However little Soap had managed to explain didn't make it look like there was an ulterior motive, but that was easy to tell when your vocabulary counted roughly thirty words. Until he'd be handed a gun, which was nothing but a wild dream, Ghost doubted they could see each other as equals.

Soap made a show of attacking one of the dummies with the staff, the hits registering on it by the white material changing colour to a bright orange. Interesting.

Ghost put his worries aside. They wouldn't help him right now. If he was going to be thrown into hostile territory, he better learn how to handle it. This wasn't any different than any other drill.

He jabbed one end on his staff in the spot he pictured the base of the tridul's neck to be, leaving a deep indent on the dummy.

If push came to shove, he was confident enough in being able to disarm Soap.

Chapter Text

They were ready. As ready as he could get Ghost in three short days. Soap took a deep breath and looked behind him. Ghost was waiting, a bag slung over his shoulder and training pole already in hand. The bandages still wrapping the other one made something uncomfortable curl in his gut. It clearly wasn't a serious wound, but Soap still felt bad to make Ghost fight like this.

Ghost didn't seem to care. He'd barely needed any explaining when it came to fighting the simulated tridul. Clearly, he knew how to handle himself in combat. Soap wondered if he would be able to fend him off if it came down to it. He was starting to doubt his gun's effectiveness if Ghost decided not to stick with them after all. So far Ghost seemed agreeable enough, but Soap was also very aware of the human's lack of options.

“Your window starts now, be back in an hour,” interrupted Laswell's voice from his com.

She'd diligently recorded the lightning patterns these past few days, and with the new, improved system from the data harvested directly planetside, they should be able to avoid another accident. They wouldn't have the ship's hull to protect them this time.

“Let's go.”

Ghost followed him in silence, eyes stuck to the treeline. Not for the first time, Soap wondered about Ghost's experiences. Were all humans such good fighters? Sure, his throwing of the ship's mangled pieces into the tridul pack had been very effective, but even Soap could have hit something in that mass. That didn't mean much. The tactics displayed afterwards however...

That, and the scars he hadn't forgotten covered Ghost's body. Both of these things gave a rather grim picture.

A crack deeper in the forest made him flinch, and he whirled towards the sound, gun up. Ghost froze next to him, alert but not startled. Nothing came beside what Soap swore had to be a derisive snort from the human.

Soap allowed himself a frustrated flick of the tail and concentrated on their task. He needed his head in the game, not lightyears away. The human's laid back, confident attitude wasn't goading him back into it, no sir.

They met surprisingly little resistance farther into the forest. A few triduls had crossed their path, but either didn't notice them or were easily dispatched with the element of surprise. Unsurprisingly, the human was ruthlessly effective with the training staff, digging it without fail into the animal's weak points. He didn't even need more than the blunt instrument to kill, something that Soap would have thought impossible until now. His mind flashed to Ghost lifting an entire tree trunk the other day. Scary. Scarily competent, too.

Soap put down the last of this small group with a silent flash from his pulse gun, suppressing a shiver. Ghost was already picking berries off the bushes the tridul had also been here for. Soap rushed to do the same. Both of their bags were filling up and time was running out. Overhead, the cloud cover perpetually enveloping Sherla D-7 had grown darker. Their hour wasn't up yet, but Soap didn't want to cut it too close.

“Ghost,” he whispered, not wanting to attract undue attention from the neighbours. “Ship.”

The human nodded, a gesture Soap had learned meant he was in agreement. They made their way back just as methodically, the weight of their bags not slowing them down. In Soap's case, because of the gravity harness he'd attached the bag onto, and Ghost... He'd wrinkled his face at Soap when he'd shown him how to handle the gravity harness attachment and part of the belt, and instead of lowering the gravity, he'd increased it.

Soap supposed it made sense, humans were from a high gravity world, but why take the hard path when there was a perfect alternative? Still he let Ghost do as he wanted. No use getting into an argument over it. A bit hard to get into an argument without the other party understanding you, too.

Lightning flashed overhead, bright and loud.

Something big parted the bushes on their left.

Soap turned as the tridul charged. Human and beast impacted with a dull thud. The tridul didn't have particularly sharp teeth, but they had a lot of them. Ghost grabbed at its long neck before it could bite into him, bringing the fight to the ground. There was nowhere for Soap to shoot without risking hitting Ghost.

Not that Ghost needed his help. In a terrifying show of force, the human pinned both legs around the tridul's torso, freeing his second hand that joined the other wrapped around the animal's neck and twisted. The tridul slumped immediately and Ghost shoved the body off of him with a grunt while Soap stood there dumbly. Surely his own neck was too short for Ghost to pull that off on him, right? A flash of fear tinted his skin as he thought of Gaz' much more slender form.

Ghost had picked up his discarded food bag – and when had he even discarded it? – and was waiting on him by the time Soap moved.

“Are you hurt?”

“No. Ship?” answered Ghost, utterly unconcerned with his close brush with death.

Soap followed him back in silence, Ghost leading the way without a hitch. Clearly, the human wouldn't need them anymore once brought up to speed, and he was learning fast.

An odd feeling joined the guilt swirling in his mind. It was stupid. Soap knew he had no claim to Ghost. But he couldn't deny the part of him that hoped to make the human a friend, no matter the guilt it brought to the table.

It was selfish, but Soap wished for Ghost to stick around.

At least, Soap thought as he spotted Price waiting for them over the broken ramp, the Captain couldn't complain anymore about how much of a liability it was to bring Ghost along with him on this.

The next day passed by easily. Soap managed to teach Ghost a few more words when he wasn't working on repairing the ship with Nik, even convincing the man to eat with him at the table instead of alone in his room that morning. It was a good day, Soap thought as he let himself flop on his bed.

On their own, his eyes wandered to the adjacent wall where Ghost was, two rooms down. Soap knew the walls were well insulated in soundproof between individual rooms, but he felt a sliver of guilt at having extra space to accommodate his needs when they didn't even know about Ghost's needs. He'd looked into the bag Ghost had kept after their excurtion and noticed he'd kept a good amount of leaves, but why? Nesting material? Extra food?

He might need to see to at least up the gravity in Ghost's room. He seemed to prefer it that way. Soap fell asleep, churning mind somewhat placated.

The next morning was uneventful. The discussion with Ghost went better than he would have thought. Turns out, the humans' planet was at least partly similar to Sherla D-7 : it had trees, grass, large bodies of water and lightning, albeit much less frequently. He was sure there was much more if the old report was to be believed, but with Ghost's limited vocabulary, they were stuck communicating by exchanging words of things around them.

Ghost had gotten to carrying the bag he'd been given all the time. Soap didn't dare ask. Not only would Ghost unlikely have an answer he could tell him, he'd just as likely not tell him at all. That was something he'd noticed already despite the limited vocabulary the human possessed : he wasn't very chatty. If he could convey something with the bare minimum of words, he would. Maybe Ghost was less bothered than Soap would be in his place if he couldn't communicate properly on an alien planet.

No, he knew he wouldn't handle it so well. Soap needed people. Ghost didn't seem to be the type despite being – hopefully – somewhat attached to Soap.

Some hours later, Ghost interrupted his repair work on the exterior hull. With the lightning dying down and the human by his side in case of tridul, they'd all decided that Soap would be the one starting on these.

“Yes?” he asked, turning to Ghost.

“Tree,” the human pointed.

Not knowing what to say, Soap nodded before he caught himself. Huh. Looks like human mannerism were easily transmitted.

“Ship,” Ghost continued, still pointing. “Word?”

Soap was stumped. It happened regularly these days, he thought as he contemplated the ship, then the tree. Before he got very far, Ghost got up and tapped the closest trunk.

“Tree. Ship.”

There had to be something. A common point between the two. The moment he thought of that, it was immediately obvious. Just to be sure, he pointed at the leaves of the trees, then the shirt that he was sure Ghost had hopelessly stretched out. They were both blue.

“Yes. Word?” Ghost wanted colours.

Soap was happy to oblige, wondering where the human was going with this. Another thing he'd discovered was that his questions were always pointed, with a precise purpose. Sometimes he figured it out, sometimes not. Sometimes, he knew Ghost was hiding it on purpose. It didn't alarm him as much as it probably should.

“White tree. Blue leaf. Blue-green grass,” said Ghost pointing at the ground then himself. “Ghost tree brown. Leaf green. Grass green.”

Ah. He'd tried to ask for a few specifics on Ghost's planet before without much success, and while Soap worked, Ghost had thought about it some more and come up with solutions. Soap could think of one planet that fit this criteria and that they could visit relatively unimpeded. He filed that away for later. No doubt the idea would receive a few complaints.

“Soap tree-grass?”

The question made something warm curl in his gut. Ghost might only use the topic as a subject to further his conversational skills, but Soap couldn't let go of the notion that Ghost was curious about him.

“No. No trees. Water.”

“...No trees?” The idea seemed to concern him.

Soap couldn't blame him. How did he explain an almost completely submerged world? There were a few lakes on Sherla D-7, but they hadn't landed anywhere near.

“Big water,” he said, hoping Ghost remembered the words.

“No trees, no grass?”

“No.” Ah blast, he knew he hadn't taught him these ones. “Word, bush,” he hurried, pointing at the nearest, and also somewhat flattened bush.

“Bush,” Ghost repeated, pointing at another a bit farther in much better shape.

“Soap no trees, but water bush.” He didn't see how well he could explain coral. This would have to do.

Ghost must have noticed the inadequacy, because he closed the conversation.

“Soap. Ship.”

He couldn't help the small wiggle of his tail. Yes, he'd just been ordered to go back to work, in an unmistakable tone of authority.

“Yes, sir,” he replied. “I will fix the ship.”

“You fix ship.” It was still staggering how quickly Ghost could parse out words and meanings out of a sentence so fast when given some context.

Off the top of his crest, Soap couldn't remember a species with such a fast adaptability to its environment. And nowadays with translators, learning languages was a thing only left for First Contact. Soap froze.

First Contact.

...Were they breaking Inter-Galactic law right now? They hadn't, not for simply harboring the human, but First Contact with a new species had to be reported right away to the Assembly. Not that he thought Price would do anything, the old man never shied from skirting around the law when it pleased him, but First Contact was a huge thing, nevermind First Contact with Humans.

But the humans' planet was too far. They had no way to reliably access them and offer entry into any part of the Alliance. That was the point of First Contact. Scope out possibilities with the new species. Here, there was none. And technically, they weren't First Contact, not really. At least two ships they knew of landed on their homeworld, and the Alliance knew it. Other teams before them had met humans. They just hadn't thought of them as another sapient species.

He slapped his tail on the ground and huffed, sealing another small breach on the hull. He'd leave that kind of thing to Laswell. Surely nothing he'd thought of just now was new to the esteemed Urna. The species was the head of the Alliance, and all its members taking to the stars were kept up to date on events and laws before they left their home planet.

Laswell would take care of it.

When Soap looked over his shoulder, Ghost wasn't there anymore. Blast. He'd forgotten to ask Ghost to stay with him. He couldn't articulate yet that the human was here to protect Soap in the eyes of the others, just as much as Soap wanted the human's company.

Now Ghost had wandered off during his watch.

Ghost returned in the ship. Whatever had Soap in such deep and clearly terrible thoughts, Ghost wanted no part of it.

What he wanted was a shower. He hadn't seen any body of water for him to bathe outside despite scoping out every square inch within sight, and the aliens had to have something to keep clean here. None of them dragged grime and dust along with them like Ghost did. With a lack of bright ideas, he went to the bathroom. Maybe this time he could figure out what the hell the aliens used as toilet paper. He'd been lucky with the leaves he'd gathered, nothing had provoked a rash or worse so far. He'd committed the types of large leaves to memory and there seemed to be enough in the close vicinity of the ship for the time being. At least flushing was automatic once the lid closed, but again, no water here, only lasers.

On the way, he crossed paths with... a robot? The small thing was smaller than his palm, smooth metallic sheen and oval shaped. It reminded Ghost of an oversized bug. A beetle maybe? He couldn't tell how it moved, seemingly gliding along the floor. It passed him by without stopping. What was that?

The thing turned a corner and disappeared.

Shaking himself, he continued to the bathroom. There, the lock pad on the door wasn't its usual invisible self. Ghost blinked at it. The pad remained green. It surely had a meaning. He'd surely find out soon, or he'd be told. Right now he had a good excuse to play dumb and experiment. He put his hand on the pad like he normally did and was somewhat shocked that the door opened without issues.

In front of the sink, Gaz jumped and yelped before freezing. The thing in his hand kept glowing faintly at one end, pointed at the alien's fluffy neck. Ghost hadn't noticed it under the clothes he usually wore, but the brown fur was slightly longer and thicker there and apparently kept trimmed down in a V shape. One look at the sink confirmed it. It was full of cut hair.

Gaz seemed to gather his wits enough to try and chase him away, and he gesticulated towards the door, letting his razor slip from his hand. His wide round eyes looked even bigger with the pupil expanded like this. It was the first time Ghost noticed that. So far, he'd thought Gaz' pinprick pupils were fixed.

“No! Go-!”

Ghost obeyed, stealing one last look at the blocky razor on the ground. He needed to get that. Short of a shower, what he truly wanted was to get rid of the mess of mats on his head, but the aliens seemed to have made sure to hide all the truly sharp objects. His own improvised shiv was a last resort. His hand was healing and he wasn't eager to cut it open only to trim some hair, but even the remaining pieces of hull outside had been cleaned up and he'd looked into every cabinet of the bathroom in vain.

The alien scrambling to pick up the machine at his paws would be his best bet.

Chapter Text

Gaz had to carefully unwrap his tail from his leg, mindful not to scratch himself on the spikes that had sprouted at its end. That would be just as embarrassing as having been walked in on while shearing. Suddenly self conscious, he rubbed a hand in the short fur of his collar. A glance in the mirror confirmed it was as short as he usually kept it. He picked up his shears from the ground with a sigh.

The human had scared him, walking in on him at this time. But the human didn't know what the colour code of the door meant, and Gaz, like a stupid kit, had left it unlocked.

He'd gotten much too used to his crew respecting his word. He needed to be more vigilant again, and the thought wasn't a welcome one. At least Ghost didn't know.

The human was just... unnerving.

There, Gaz admitted it.

Soap had befriended him fast to no one's surprise. Laswell was naturally curious to earn new knowledge, Price was wary, held back by his sense of duty, and he doubted Nik cared much either way.

But Gaz was scared. Oh, it was fine as long as the human was safely contained behind bars. He could hide it well enough. Now, with Soap's stories of more brutality during their trip out on top of Ghost killing half a tridul pack on his own, it hadn't really gotten any better.

Logically, he knew the chances of the human wanting them dead was low. His racing heart hadn't gotten the memo. As usual, it was hard to erase years and years of ingrained knowledge. Humans were dangerous beasts, and that was that. Until they apparently weren't.

Thankfully, the human stuck close to Soap most of the time and was easy to avoid.

Cleaning the shears was an easy matter of pressing a button, the small laser lights getting rid of the particles that might be stuck on it, as was clearing the sink. Gaz stored the object in its dedicated case, ignoring the uneasy feeling that snuck up on him. He was used to it. He'd hide the case in the side of his closet he rarely opened.

Distracted, he almost jumped out of his fur when the human was just there, leaning against the bulkhead next to Soap's door. Gaz was starting to regret claiming the room right across the corridor. It left him no choice but to pass by the human. Maybe he could just turn around. No, that would look odd, even to the human. The human wasn't stupid. He was a person.

Gaz walked forward as confidently as he could muster, tail twitching slightly. Nothing he could do about that.

He got as close as he could to hugging the opposite wall without looking like it as he approached. The human was following, small eyes tracking him. A hunter and his prey. When Gaz got to his door, he couldn't tear his own eyes away. Turning his back to the threat seemed like a bad, bad idea.

“Soap's not here.”

Gaz wasn't sure why he opened his mouth. Not only would the human likely not understand – he didn't know, he hadn't kept up with all that Soap taught him – how was it supposed to help Gaz' situation?

“Soap no here,” the human responded. The speed at which he learned was terrifying. “Gaz yes here.”

The sentences weren't correct, but the meaning passed through just fine. Gaz wanted no part of it.

“Yes, but you want Soap.”

The little bands of blond fur above the human's eyes scrunched down. That couldn't be a good sign. Maybe he was just confused by the sentence, but Gaz didn't want to take any chances. Behind his back, he thumbed the lock pad.

“Just wait here for Soap, he will turn up,” he said as the door opened and he took a step back through the threshold.

The door closed in silence in front of him and Gaz hit the lock. It flashed yellow in confirmation. Before Gaz could relax however, he took his com out of a pocket and called Soap.

“Hey, the human is waiting for you at your door.”

Soap seemed confused, but replied in the affirmative and cut the call. Gaz stopped himself from tossing the shear case into a corner, shelving it instead behind a pile of clothes in the closet and climbing into his hammock. He needed to relax.

At breakfast the next day, the human joined them at the table for the first time. He sat next to Soap, naturally, but that was usually Gaz' spot. Price and Nik were already seated. Laswell wasn't here, standing guard over the bridge in the pilot's absence. That left Gaz no choice but to take her chair, right next to the human. Blast.

“Hey, Gaz!” Soap greeted him and got the others to notice and greet him in turn.

No backing out now.

“Hey,” he said, walking towards the chair.

“Hey, Gaz,” the human's voice rumbled next to him.

Soap and Laswell looked too much like proud parents for Gaz to ignore that.

“Hey, Ghost.”

If the others noticed how little Gaz contributed to the conversation as they ate, no one mentioned it. He probably wasn't the only one watching what and how the human ate. Ghost had taken one look at Gaz' plate – a mix of insects and fruits – and hadn't touched the insects. Gaz was a bit surprised. So far, the human had eaten everything they'd given him... but that also hadn't included any sort of bugs.

On the other hand, what the human did take out of the plates at the middle of the table amassed to an impressive pile. Gaz wondered just how he digested all of that... and why he even needed so much anyway, multiple times a day. It seemed incredibly inconvenient, not to mention inefficient. Most species out here only needed one “big” meal a day, then snacks during the rest of the day if necessary.

Gaz was curious.

Curious enough to gather his courage. It also helped that he wasn't alone with the human anymore. He pointed to the various insects in his own plate.

“This is bad food for you?”

The human had been keeping an eye on him somehow, because there was no doubt he knew immediately he was being addressed without even looking Gaz' way. He made a face Gaz couldn't parse.

“Maybe. I eat yes, food no good.”

Gaz looked helplessly at Soap. He seemed just as confused. Why would the human eat food that's not good for him? The human seemed to think before gesturing to the plate.

“Word?”

“Insects,” replied Soap.

The human bobbed his head up and down. “No meat no fruit, I eat insects.”

That made a little more sense, but not much. Personal preference? Cultural or religious meaning? Lack of edible bugs on his own planet? Quietly, Gaz returned to his meal. He might be starting to see why Soap was so fascinated by the human.

That was, until both piercing eyes turned fully to him, and him only. He barely got his tail under control.

“No meat?” he asked, pointing at Gaz' plate.

“No. I can't eat meat.” Mh, he probably hadn't understood that. “Meat is no good for me.”

Gaz wasn't his only victim. In turn, he asked every person present, even both Price and Nik, what they couldn't eat. It mollified Gaz and made him feel guilty instead. Here was a person trying their best to learn a new environment, and Gaz was chickening out of a much easier path.

That wasn't what he'd gone to space for. Not at all. Now, even so far away, he was still continuing the old cycle and he hated himself for it.

He just wasn't sure what he could do to fix it. Old habits were hard to beat. Even worse when thoughts got involved, as Laswell had told him in the first few weeks he'd joined the crew. However, Gaz wasn't that person anymore. He'd changed, for the better.

Ghost ambushed him at his door.

Alright, maybe he was being dramatic. But he now realised that the human truly hadn't been waiting for Soap the other day, but him. And he knew exactly which door to look for. He had half a thought to ask Price to put him somewhere else, but there were only so many places in the ship and clearly, if the human wanted to find him, he would. A tenacious hunter.

A person.

“Ghost?” he asked, taking what he hoped were confident strides forward.

He could do this. Yes, the human was big and intimidating, but not overly so either. Gaz had faced bigger beasts during his time with the 141 without issues. He knew where the problem was coming from here, and was determined to remedy it.

“Gaz,” the human hummed. Calm, non confrontational.

Then he pointed at Gaz' neck and he couldn't suppress his flinch. He barely stopped his hand from hiding the spot from view, which would have been pretty pointless, not to mention rude. Rude, because this was a person.

“Yes?” A person. “What do you need?”

The human paused, and Gaz could have kicked himself. Ghost had no way to know what he'd just said. He was about to try something, anything else, when he was interrupted.

“This,” the human waved a finger to Gaz' neck again. “Small. Good.”

What? While Ghost's neck was bigger than his, Gaz doubted there was anything to be done about it. The human barreled on even as Gaz' tail began to twitch.

“This,” he pointed to the blond fur on his head. Oh. “Big. Bad. You fix big, give small.”

For the first time, Gaz took measure of the matted mess on the human's face. He didn't think to hide his shock. It was absolutely appalling. Unthinkable. No Nefit would ever dare to show their face with fur in that state. How had he not noticed this before? Well, he knew why, he'd gone to great lengths to avoid spending any time with Ghost and...

And he really had no excuse. But he had a chance to help. If only the prospect of getting that close to the human didn't have him frozen in place.

“Um, alright.” Blast. Think of something, anything! “I will help you. Just...” He needed to get his bearings. And check in with Soap. “Not now.”

The human stared at him, face unchanging. Gaz decided it meant confusion.

“You wait?” That he knew he would understand.

“Yes. I wait Gaz.”

“Thank you,” he mumbled under his breath and took off.

He found Soap in the rec room, fiddling with the large holoscreen on the right side of the wall.

“Is that broken too?”

“No, I'm just... trying something.”

Oh stars. “Not enough tinkering for you with the ship falling apart?”

“But that's boring stuff.”

Yeah, Soap was going to get in trouble. Again. Gaz was tempted to ask what he was doing exactly, but he shook himself. He couldn't delay the inevitable.

“So...”

Soap turned. And waited. And stopped fiddling with his com linked to the screen.

“Gaz?”

“Ghost walked in on me in the bathroom. Shearing.” Blast, not how he should have started this conversation.

Soap tensed then made an effort to appear casual. It didn't work very well, with his skin darkening like that.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Gaz sighed. “It's fine, that's... not what I'm here for. Not really. It's fine,” he added when Soap looked at him suspiciously.

“But...”

“But he saw me shearing and, Oh Light, Soap, you've seen the state his fur is in!”

“Yeah. Couldn't do much about it so far, I was waiting for him to have more words to explain.”

“Well, he asked for my help. Just now.”

“Oh, that's good,” Soap perked up.

Gaz didn't respond right away. Didn't find the words.

“You can help him, it's just...” Soap trailed off. “Oh. The shears.” His crest drooped.

He couldn't tell exactly where the irritation suddenly came from, but he couldn't hold it fast enough.

“Soap, the shears are the least of my problems!” he lashed out, tail following his mood. He didn't care. “I can't do it!”

“Huh?”

“He doesn't know how to use the shears, and even if he did, I can't let him! But I also can't use them on him myself!”

“But, Gaz. It doesn't mean-”

“I know it doesn't mean it, that's not the problem!” Dear Light, he was making a scene of this and taking it out on his friend. Way to go, Gaz.

He stopped and took a breath. Soap let him. If any of them had a tendency to gag themselves on their tail like this, it was Soap. He understood, and wouldn't be mad.

“There's no way he will let me touch him enough to do it, Soap. And... You should do it.” I'm terrified to touch him went unsaid.

“Gaz.”

He waited, too amped up to trust his words. Exhibit A: the last minute or so.

“You're the only one who knows how.”

“What- no?”

“Yes. None of us have fur.”

“It's just cutting fur.”

“You know it's not.” Soap was being incredibly patient. He wasn't sure to deserve it.

In fact, he knew. Better than any other here.

“I've never done it, even on healthy fur. I don't have fur at all. Price and Nik have some beards, but it's not the same. Laswell can't apply her feather grooming to this.” Soap continued, and brought the hammer down. “If anyone can, it's you.”

Soap took his com out of the holoscreen port and put it away. The screen blinked off.

“Come on. I will go to my room and disable the sound proofing. You do the same for the bathroom, and I will be real close. You have your com on you. And an entire tool belt.”

“...Yeah.”

Gaz returned to his room. He hadn't been long and Ghost was still waiting at his door. He entered briefly, making sure to lock the door behind him while he fetched his shears and joined him back out. Soap would sneak back to his room once they made it to the bathroom so Gaz' little trip didn't look too odd. He wasn't sure the human cared much about Gaz' dignity, however.

Gaz made sure to check twice if the soundproofing was offline in the bathroom and didn't engage the lock. Gripping the shear's case firmly in hand, he turned to the human standing in front of the sink. That... wasn't going to work. Having Ghost bend over the little sink while he worked was inconceivable.

Gaz walked past him – carefully – and went to the shower. Ghost joined him in his inspection, although he doubted the human knew what he was looking at. Really, the fur needed to be washed first. But the shower needed data before it could work. He didn't want to risk burning the human or something equally horrifying. He would just have to deal with it.

Pressing the shower controls, he made the seat pull out of the wall.

“Sit?” he asked the human, unsure.

He complied. Good. Willing his hands not to shake, Gaz took the shears out of their case. The human waited, eyes never far, tracking his movements.

No time like the present.

He turned on the shears. Blue light shone quietly at the end between the two barely protruding prongs.

“Word?”

“Huh?” he startled, looking up.

“Word.” Ghost pointed at the shears.

“Oh. Shears. They're shears.”

“Shears.”

“Yeah. You good?”

“Good.”

Gaz was surprised at how uncaring the human was. Maybe he just hid his apprehension better.

“Alright, I'm starting then.”

He took the lack of rebuttal as affirmative and got started.

He didn't get very far. The mats were obviously dirty, but he hadn't realised how much until he had a few fingers in it. It was coated in some odd substance, something other than just dust and debris he'd have picked up naturally. Oil came to mind, but why would there be oil in the human's fur?

“Bad?”

Blast. “Sorry. It's fine. It's good.” He had to make a conscious effort to use words Ghost knew, and it was harder than he'd thought. Soap didn't seem to struggle so much.

Still looking at him from the corner of his eye, the human made a noise but didn't say more. Gaz started at the top of his head. He didn't want to get too close to any sensitive parts too fast.

The human didn't react when chunks of fur started falling off onto the shower floor, and Gaz relaxed. Despite what Soap seemed to believe, this wasn't hard. He just had to tinker with the shears' settings to get it to follow the curve of the human's head and cut a little above that. He doubted Ghost wanted to be completely bald.

However, as he progressed he noticed most of the mats went deep. Straight to the roots for some. When he finished his first pass, it still didn't look good.

The human, having followed what he was doing as closely as he could without having eyes anywhere else but the front of his head, passed a hand over the newly cut fur and scrunched his eyefur. He didn't look happy either.

“More,” he demanded.

“Yes.”

Now he had to be a little more careful. If he got too close to the skin he might permanently cut into the roots of the hairs, if humans had any. Once more, he was frustrated by the lack of information. Maybe Soap could convince him to get a scan now, so they could learn. Not all species could regrow their fur after such crippling. Gaz adjusted the shears' setting once more, just in case.

He turned off the shears. There was nothing more he could cut away safely, and all the mats were out. He had to restrain the urge to wipe the stray hairs all over the human's skull. It had to be itchy. He let Ghost do it himself. Gaz had the distinct feeling it would cross a line if he tried that.

“All done. Good?”

“Good.”

Ghost got up, shaking some more loose hair off of him, then stood in front of Gaz without saying anything more.

“You can leave,” he hazarded with a gesture to the door. He was sure Ghost didn't need his permission and wouldn't wait for it.

Ghost stared at him some more and bobbed his head before leaving. What was that about? Bemused, he put the shears back into their case. He'd need to clean them before using them next time. For now, he retracted the seat into the wall and engaged the shower's self cleaning routine.

He felt oddly relaxed as he watched the lasers work. Sure, shearing was always an intimate activity to some degree, but this hadn't been about that. It had been about helping Ghost.

Still, Gaz found himself a lot less apprehensive about the human. He would need to apologise to Soap and thank him, in this order. And maybe Ghost too, one day. When both of them would have the words.

Chapter Text

Ghost felt the closest thing to refreshed he'd ever been since his capture. It wasn't perfect, far from it, but he felt considerably lighter, and not just because he technically was. He raked a hand over his shorn scalp once more. Yes, that was good.

He hadn't been sure of the logistics of the laser clipper looking thing Gaz had used, but it had done a cleaner job than he ever had. Hell, he'd been ready to just hack at it with his shiv if this wouldn't work, cut up hands be damned. It was almost healed anyway. The cut was mostly superficial, but he'd kept the bandage to hide it from alien eyes.

Gaz had been a good choice for this too. Where before he only appeared nervous, the alien was clearly terrified of him when separated from the crew and unwilling to get close, or handsy. Ghost wouldn't have trusted Soap on the latter.

Walking back to his room, the little beetle robot popped out from somewhere ahead of him. Ghost intended to follow, but it stopped in front of his room. He frowned at it. Parked along the wall next to the door, its chrome plating would barely contrast with the rest of the ship if it wasn't for the shine. Everything else around here was dulled. He wondered why the difference.

He should probably open his door. He'd planned to go in. Changing his mind because of such a tiny thing seemed like a problem. But what if it was a camera or something? Not that there couldn't already be some inside and, as usual, he'd have no way to know. Sighing, he entered the room. The bot followed and passed by him, further inside.

It didn't seem to be moving with any sort of pattern. It would stop, head in a direction, stop again, then head somewhere else. It made a cringe worthy noise when its side rapped against the solid bed frame but followed the curve dutifully.

Not able to make heads or tails of it, Ghost went about his business, making sure to not lose sight of the thing even as he took off his shirt. He shook it then swept a hand on his torso. You'd think with how tight the fit was, hair wouldn't be able to fall inside the shirt. You'd be wrong. Scowling, he tossed the offending garment on the floor. He didn't have a hamper. What did the aliens do with their laundry? He was about to fetch another awfully coloured shirt when the bot slid right under his feet. Ghost stomped down. His brain only caught up with him when the bot had slipped away. This thing was fast. And it was probably a bad idea to step on it. They might not have pointy bits, but stepping on alien steel might just be on the same level as legos. Bad idea.

Undeterred, the robot continued sliding around Ghost and the fallen shirt. A crease in the cloth allowed it to slip under. A thought formed in Ghost's mind. He crouched over the shirt, following the movements under it. When it reached the middle, he snatched the edges and balled up the shirt around the bot. Jackpot.

Making sure he held it firmly through the cloth, he unwrapped his prize. It didn't move anymore, held in the air. Maybe some fancy programming made it understand it was trapped, like the roombas avoided falling off of cliffs. Was this... Turning it over, Ghost was greeted by a slightly hollowed out underside, and red lasers buzzing there. The same red that cleaned the cages.

Alien cleaning robot. Not a vacuum, but clearly they'd figured out better ways. But it still didn't eliminate other concerns. The robot's main function being cleaning didn't tell him if it had a camera. How many of these were on the ship? Ghost doubted this was the only one. The ship was too big to be cleaned efficiently by something this small. He needed something to mark it.

Holding it loosely in his palm when it was clear the thing wouldn't made a suicidal jump from it, he got his shiv. Instead of being shoved in a bundle of clothes, he now kept his stash in the bag Soap gave him to collect food. He didn't intend to give it back and Soap didn't seem to mind.

Drawing a line into the metal turned out to be impossible. Ghost cut his hand again – the left one, just in case – without achieving any success whatsoever. The shell of the robot remained pristine. So did the shiv. The aliens built their shit strong. Probably necessary if you wanted to survive in space, but that kind of armor on a cleaning robot felt overkill. Or suspicious.

He might have to draw on it if he could get his hands on a marker.

He made two rounds of the entire ship without finding anything. As expected, most of the doors flashed yellow at him when he tried them. The training room might have been a gold mine had it been open. But he was most frustrated by the rec room. Seriously, nothing to write things down in there? He glared at the empty far wall. Aliens didn't need pencils with holoscreens, apparently.

The small robot tucked into his bag seemed to mock him. Defeated, Ghost headed to the cargo bay. He'd seen Soap go down there earlier, and while he didn't have a clue what he was working on, it was always at least mildly entertaining to watch.

He found Soap messing with something inside the floor of the bay, arms disappearing inside the square hole as he crouched. He didn't try to hide his approach.

“Hey, Ghos-” Soap faltered when he laid eyes on him before becoming a flurry of movement.

A stream of incomprehensible babble followed suit. Ghost only caught Gaz being mentioned a few times. Soap caught on he was talking to a clueless audience somewhere in the middle of his tirade and gestured to his crest. Ah. Ghost was used to the close military shave on his own head, Soap was not.

“Gaz um...” He hadn't learned the word for help, had he? “...clipper good.”

Soap's tail twitched and he nodded, but his crest was up. Ghost wasn't sure what to make of it, so he ignored it.

Walking forward, he looked into the tile cut into the floor. He couldn't tell what was going on in there. Not that he had expected to understand whatever alien technology Soap was working on, but this was... truly alien. If this was connected to anything, Ghost didn't see how. It was a mass of cubes of various sizes interlocked together and carved with fine lines that vaguely reminded him of the visual representation of data going to computer processors. Soap had a detached cube in hand, the same metallic blue of the rest.

He wished to understand one day. He'd never been much of a mechanic, but he could do a few things in a pinch. You never knew when your car might get wrecked during an op, or simply malfunction. Ghost would rather not be stranded out in space because he couldn't figure out the vehicles.

Soap stopped staring at his scalp and returned to his work. Ghost was surprised by the apparent lack of tools Soap had around him. There was a small box, strands of metal that looked similar to a very thin iron wire, something that might be a crank, and that was it. For the assumed complexity of the thing before him, it didn't look like much, but what did he know? What caught his attention, however, was the iron wire.

Soap might have cut them into strands because one end of them was sharper than the other. And well, there were a bunch of them just lying there, unattended with Soap focused on his task. Ghost inched closer and didn't garner any reaction. Slowly, he separated two from the stock and slipped them under his clothes. It was surprisingly flexible. And pointy on one end, as expected. Jabbing himself in the arm hadn't been the plan to confirm it, but it worked. He'd gone slowly enough he didn't think he'd drawn any blood.

Mission accomplished, he looked at what Soap was doing. With one strand of iron wire pushed against the seam of his loose cube and the rest of the mess, he was running his little box on it. The iron wire disappeared completely and the cube stayed attached to the structure. Alien welding? It was a lot cleaner and safer, if that was the case. Soap wasn't wearing any protective gear of any kind, not even gloves. Ghost wasn't sure if that was unnecessary for aliens or if Soap was being reckless.

The seam was only visible for the fact it cut into the engravings supposed to connect the cube to the rest. Soap took another iron wire from the pile without noticing anything missing, and started carving them back in. Ghost had his pen.

Back to his room, he took out the bot from his bag. The thing hadn't moved. It didn't seem to be able to on creased fabric. That was interesting, but not what he was after. Sitting down on his bed, he took the edge of one wire to the shiny surface. With enough force, Ghost had a small dent in the metal. Jackpot.

He was about to put it back down when the scratch disappeared. The metal around had seemed liquid for a moment, covering the dent before smoothing out again into an unmarred shell. What...

Ghost made another scratch, digging deeper this time. It disappeared the same way, only taking a second longer. Liquid mercury? Except not so liquid since it was clearly solid right now.

He should stop trying to understand alien technologies. For his own sanity. It did nothing but frustrate him. He should give up, now rather than tomorrow.

In a final act of defiance, he stabbed the wire straight into the head of the thing. It only frustrated him more that the spot was where he would put the head, not where it necessarily was. If it had one at all.

The wire drooped a bit backward, bending with its own weight with only the base supported. It stayed stuck. Ghost blinked. He'd expected it to get dislodged instantly by the weird liquid metal thing.

Looks like the thing's capability was limited after all. But this didn't work very well for his purpose. If he let the robot free right now, Ghost had no doubt the aliens would fix it when they came across it. It looked really out of place with the rest now. And lopsided. He still had one wire left.

The bot didn't look like a beetle anymore with the two long antennas on one extremity. With the way it had fled from under his foot earlier, Ghost couldn't trust it to roam his room when he wasn't there either.

He placed it on an empty shelf of his closet, where it happily made its round for non-existent dust before stopping somewhere in the middle. He wasn't sure if it was a coincidence it had lined up in front of him, antennas facing him.

He closed the door of the wardrobe. He'd let it out later. Maybe once the ship was fixed and there weren't so many tools conveniently laying around. The damage to the robot might be permanent by then.

Nik didn't know what to make of the alert. The AI had pinged him at the bridge controls for a lost cleaner bot. Not exactly surprising with the amount of damage in the ship. It would be easy for the small units to get stuck somewhere. The notification that read “Lost. High ground.” made him grumble. Did one of the boys put it on a table and forget about it? If Soap used it for his workshop again he was going to string him to the cargo ladder by the tail. He had his own bots in that room for a reason.

Begrudgingly, Nik opened the ping location. It wasn't Soap's workshop, which was good. But he didn't recognise the location. Where... He opened the ship map and the little dot appeared in the human's room. And if Nik remembered the basic room layout right – he'd changed his a long time ago, and so had Price – this would be in the middle of the wardrobe.

Did the human catch it and was now keeping it as a prize? A hunting trophy? He probably didn't know what a cleaning bot looked like. Nik himself had almost been fooled on some of the ships he'd been on. Most species ended up designing them very differently. The 141's were as small and unobtrusive as possible, but that wasn't the norm.

Nik was alone on the bridge. The loss of a cleaning bot wasn't something worth reporting. Silently, nose creased in amusement, he dismissed the AI's complaint, with instructions to report to his personal com if its status changed.

Once done, he leaned back in his chair. If the human wanted to keep it, he could. They had plenty in the compartment. And the boys weren't the only ones who enjoyed some extra chaos every once in a while.

It was a good distraction from the task he had to plan next. The screen he'd been looking at when the AI pinged him was still floating over the center console, impassive. He glared at it, hoping for a better solution to manifest. He ran the AI through the simulation again. The result was the same.

Something was happening. Ghost wasn't sure what and he couldn't ask. He grit his teeth through the flurry of activity that morning. At least it didn't seem to be about the robot that had spent the night quietly in the closet. No, this was clearly much bigger, and Ghost had no way to brace for it.

He was gathering his bag when Soap came to his door.

“Come. Outside.”

The alien gave the bag over his shoulder a glance, but didn't object. That didn't ease Ghost's concerns.

Everyone was gathered outside. Or, almost everyone. He couldn't see Nik anywhere, and by now he was sure he had an accurate headcount of the crew. They joined the rest waiting at a distance from the ship. Ghost frowned. Evacuating? But in that case, why would they be missing a person? They didn't seem overly worried, like Nik would be in danger staying on the ship. Then why...

“Soap?”

“Yes?”

“Ship more bad?”

“-- fix ship.”

He'd missed half the sentence, but Soap seemed upbeat and happy to inform him of what was going on, undeterred by how little Ghost understood. Alright then. He waited with the others at the edge of the clearing. The sky was still dark overhead. It never seemed to clear.

A loud clank came from the ship. He winced at the volume, and he wasn't the only one. The aliens muttered something among themselves, and had started to argue when the entire ship trembled.

Slowly, the nose lifted off the ground. The movement dug the back further into the dirt and the fuselage creaked unhappily, but nothing seemed to break. For now. He had a feeling the crew was also waiting for it.

Two pieces of metal now protruded from under the ship, coming out like wheels would on an airplane. Here, there were no wheels, but they seemed like they would fill a similar function if the ship hadn't crashed and instead landed normally.

Dirt, grass and sticks fell from the raised portion of the ship even after the front struts were fully deployed. Ghost waited for the ones in the back to do the same, because there had to be some there otherwise this really didn't make any sense. Nothing happened. He wondered if they had a jack big enough anywhere to hold up the rest if the struts at the back were broken. The aliens were muttering something behind him, but he tuned them out.

Maybe he shouldn't have, because the light that burst out of the bottom of the ship sent all manner of dirt and debris flying everywhere. Ghost flattened himself to the ground, arms over his head. He heard some noise and probably curses coming from behind him but he didn't dare turn around. Nothing truly heavy or hard flew far enough to land on them however, and it was over almost as soon as it started. All that was left was a massive cloud of dust in the clearing. Ghost's nose itched and his throat hurt as he got up. His mask would have been nice. Anything to hide his nose and mouth. As it was, he stretched the poor shirt he was wearing even further by flipping it over the lower part of his face to wipe it before he ate sand.

The ship was standing straight, no longer lopsided to one end. From inside the slowly settling dust, the light could still be seen. He squinted at it like it would make the shape any clearer.

“Ghost? -- you good?”

Soap's blue was muted under a layer of brown and Ghost wasn't sure if the darker appearance was due to the dirt or not.

“Good. You?” he looked at the others as he said it.

They seemed alright, if a bit ruffled. Literally, in Laswell's case. It looked like she'd used her wings as a shield instead of hitting the dirt. None of the others had seemed to do much more than duck, and Ghost frowned. He'd thought they were well trained, but there were odd holes in their training that made him think they weren't military after all.

The dust cleared, and the shape supporting the ship appeared. An inverted dome of light was propping up the entire back. A single strut was swinging with leftover momentum and gravity. The other mirroring the position of the two at the front was nowhere to be seen. The damage on the ground could have been carved with explosives.

“Why the fuck did you guys not stand further away?” he whirled on them, jabbing a finger at the ship. “Are you fucking stupid? I thought you had a handle on this shit! Not standing there with your bloody thumb up your arses while you blew the fucking ground out twenty meters out from your position!”

He realised a little he was berating them like he would the privates on base when they inevitably dropped the ball. It was a lot less effective when the language was nothing but gibberish to them, but the look of pure shock that had little to do with their fuckup was gratifying enough.

He blew out a breath and squared his shoulders. Soap and Gaz stiffened into something resembling attention and Ghost had to restrain his expression. He glared at them for a second more, just to watch them squirm. He cut in before Soap could speak.

“Go fix ship.”

“Yes,--”

Ghost would have sworn he'd just been told 'Yes, sir' as Soap did as ordered and passed by him. He watched him go only long enough to notice the shape of the light had changed from a bowl to a pillar taking less space than the initial design. Despite being fully translucent, it was solid.

Alien technology would probably have to wait. Price hadn't said anything. Gaz wisely followed Soap and got out of the crossfire. Laswell stood a bit off the side. Ghost still wasn't sure what to make of her. She seemed friendly, but also sly enough that he'd rather deal with Price. The alien didn't like him, that much was clear. Laswell's friendliness was untrustworthy, like there was something veiled behind it.

“Ghost.” Price was attempting to glare at him, but his slouched position diminished any effect it could have had.

“Price.” He wouldn't back down. “This,” he continued, waving at the back of the ship. “Big bad. Soap hurt. You hurt.”

He crossed his arms, waiting for an answer. He didn't think Price would try to attack him at this point. He was more right than he'd thought.

“Yes,” Price confirmed without even trying to argue. Or maybe he did, but Ghost didn't understand anything past the first word.

Ghost could see how they could have underestimated the effect of their little stunt. This didn't look like standard procedure, anyhow. Live and learn.

“Good,” Ghost grunted and turned around.

Soap was already tinkering with something, crouched in the meter or so of space that was made between the ground and the ship.

A fleeting thought crossed his mind, and he almost stomped it reflexively. Something had changed with Price or he was getting very good at faking to tolerate his presence. The others wouldn't object to Ghost hanging around the group a bit longer. Just until he truly got his bearing. Learning the language wouldn't be enough if he wanted to make it on his own in this world. It would be stupid to leave this prime source of intel before he'd squeezed it dry.

Chapter Text

Soap crouched under the hull without thinking. Nik said he'd send a few rovers first to determine the areas of damage before they had to go crawl under there blind, but that was a very far away thought at the moment. Much more urgent was the order Soap had been given.

If there had been any doubt Ghost had been a peacekeeper on his own planet, they had all but vanished now. Worse, he had rank. Nobody ordered people like that without an absolute certainty their orders would be followed, and Soap didn't want to risk finding out what would happen otherwise. It didn't matter that Ghost had no idea what Soap was supposed to do, it only mattered that Soap didn't want to cross the very pissed off human. And while he couldn't understand the man's tirade, the sentiment was clear enough. They'd fucked up.

They'd run an AI simulation, but there had been missing data. Not anymore, and nobody was hurt. Ghost had still reminded him of his first days of training in the peacekeeper corps. The yelling over recruits messing up had been much of the same, the language barrier here was irrelevant.

When Soap worked up the courage to glance behind him, he almost slammed his head on the hull. Ghost was walking over with a large stride, small eyes fixed on him. Blast. Soap froze. He probably shouldn't stand up. It wasn't like Ghost was his actual superior, but the urge was strong.

The man reached him before he could make a choice, crouching next to him like nothing happened, eyes scanning the hull. From here, they couldn't see much beyond the dirt stuck to it, but there were at least a few holes along with the back struts they had already known were broken.

A rover stole the human's attention. The levitating bot slipped under the hull, scanners active and laser disintegrating the dirt as it went.

“Word?” Ghost asked.

Soap had to think about it for a minute. Should he give him the general or broader term?

“It's a robot,” he settled on. They could always correct him if needed.

“Robot. Robot fix ship?”

“No, um- the robot clean ship,” he waved at the dirt over their heads. “No floor-grass on ship.”

“...floor-grass?”

Yeah, alright, it sounded stupid like that, but he was already committed to the sentence before he realised he hadn't given Ghost the word for dirt. Time to fix that.

“The word for this is dirt,” he pointed at it.

Ghost made a sound that Soap was starting to think was either thoughtful or acknowledgment, because the human had clearly understood when he next spoke.

“Robot clean dirt. Soap fix ship.”

“Yes.” Or close enough.

On cue, the rover sent its diagnostic to Soap's com. He fiddled with the display to get a proper idea of the damage. Beyond the two struts, it could have been worse. It was mostly hull damage and clogged ventilation, the latter already being cleared away by smaller rovers able to fit in the vents and pipes.

Fixing the struts however had to be done manually, and Soap was overjoyed at the prospect of spending all day crawling in the dirt to do it. They'd debated digging under the ship to get more room to work, but Price and Nik had squashed the idea pretty quickly. The soil would likely be too unstable to risk taking some away and not get crushed by the ship when it would fall on their heads and kill them.

He was surprised by Ghost's willingness to follow him under this deathtrap despite his obvious rebuttal of their reckless actions earlier. He didn't think Ghost understood the risk quite as well as Soap was, and maybe that was the case. But he had an inkling that it was something else.

Ghost wasn't easily thrown off. During this entire time, this was the first true outburst he'd seen from the man, and it was still incredibly controlled. Soap was sure he'd have snapped about twenty times by now in his place. Maybe more. Surely more, if he was being honest. He'd probably have gotten himself killed doing something stupid. And Ghost hadn't. The obvious lethality he'd shown was controlled, not a shred of instinct bleeding through.

It was terrifying.

Soap wasn't sure what was worse. That humans could train out their instincts in such a way, or that this might have been their instinct. His eye caught on the bag Ghost had taken with him before going out, still hanging from his shoulder. The territoriality didn't surprise him as much.

“You fix ship?” Ghost startled him, the hair over one of his eyes raised and clearly berating Soap on his daydreaming.

“Yes, sir,” he huffed, amused.

If Ghost ended up formally joining the crew, it wouldn't be as a lowly guard, that was for sure, and Soap doubted he would defer to Price as easily as everyone else did.

Mood uplifted, he started on the repairs of the closest strut.

Repairing both struts took all day, not only because they had to crawl in the dirt to get to things, but they had to interrupt themselves every hour or so because of the lightning storms that rolled in. Soap would have taken the break to keep teaching Ghost some new words, but Nik had him help with the internal repairs in the belly of the ship. The impact that had dragged and broken the struts had bent quite a few things down there too, and they had to get this done before patching up the big holes.

When the last test run of both struts were finished, Soap would have jumped for joy if not for the risk of killing himself by hitting his head on the hull he was still crouched under. Ghost had stuck close, observing in silence in that unnerving way of his, and now he crawled out from under the hull with him.

They were both filthy, dirt caked all over their clothes and skin. They needed a shower. Ghost needed a shower, and Soap needed a way to explain the process to him. His crest flattened and the human gave him a look. Ghost picked up his body language a lot faster than Soap deciphered his, and that was another depressing thought.

“Come,” he told Ghost, and shuffled up the ramp Nik had roughly repaired once the ship was off the ground.

Ghost's strides ate up the new incline like it was nothing. Soap wondered how he balanced himself so easily with no tail. He didn't slouch either like Price or Nik did to compensate. Sure, this wasn't a huge incline, but it was getting big enough for Soap to have to be careful about how he put his feet down.

Laswell was waiting for them on the upper floor.

“Ready?” she asked, eyes going over their dirt caked forms.

“I haven't quite figured it out yet,” he admitted.

“One thing at a time I suppose.”

He ignored her attempt at a joke and started towards the med bay. Nestled between the crew quarters and workrooms, this was one of many they hadn't given Ghost access to.

The clinical look of the room and the instant step back the human took at the sight of it made Soap's discomfort grow. They didn't know what kind of experiences Ghost had before this, but newly captured species were often treated with more curiosity than care.

“Ghost? It's okay. All good.” If his tone bordered on pleading, there was little audience to care.

Soap was glad Laswell had fiddled with the scanner's setting beforehands. Ghost already looked ready to bolt and Soap didn't want to imagine how it would have been if the machine had been rearranging itself still.

In an attempt to diminish the intimidating spread of data on the various screens around the room, they had been looped to still images of the walls. Only the data screen of the scanner was still active, and even that had been reduced in scale. The small window display was lit with a blue light to the side of the scanner. The lights of the scanner themselves had been adjusted to a light wave outside of most species' perceived vision. They only hoped it was outside the human's visible spectrum too.

Ghost stayed at the threshold. Wanting to lead from example, Soap opened the door of the tube and stepped inside the transparent walls of the scanner. He forced himself to breathe slow and keep his twitchiness in check. This wouldn't work if Ghost thought there was reason to be nervous.

Not closing the door right away, Soap gestured to the tube around him.

“This will clean the dirt. For you too. Less dirt.”

It wouldn't be perfect with their clothes still on, but they needed data on human physiology more than anything. The shower wouldn't work otherwise, and they risked burning something important on Ghost in the process if they didn't understand his body. In the early days of the technology, there were horror stories of showers stripping half molted scales and feathers straight out of their owners, and the results had been gnarly.

Ghost made a noise close to a hum, but didn't move.

“We should just show him,” Soap said to Laswell. He didn't see how to get through otherwise.

Soap didn't need to be scanned, the Kran species was well known and spread to every database in the galaxy, but he could still use the shower part of the medical tube.

“Close the door, Soap.”

Soap closed himself inside the tube, crest up and tail loose. Nothing to be worried about, he tried to project to the human still watching them suspiciously.

As the psion shower worked however, Ghost leaned inside the room. The dirt slowly disintegrated from Soap's clothes and skin. It wouldn't do anything for the bits that had slipped between the two, but it didn't need to. The demonstration had drawn Ghost closer, and by the time Soap stepped out of the scanner, the human was well inside the room and regarding the machinery, if not with less suspicion, at least with not so much hostility.

“I'm clean. No dirt.” Soap made a show of his clean hands, spreading his fingers between them.

“...I clean?” Ghost asked, pointing at the scanner.

“Yes, you will get clean. It's nothing bad.”

Soap couldn't help but shrink a bit under Ghost's gaze.

“...No bad?”

“No bad. Just clean,” he confirmed. Right, he didn't think 'nothing' was part of Ghost's vocabulary yet. It might be after this.

Soap couldn't help the twinge of guilt when Ghost took a measured step into the scanner. He was lying to him. But there was no way to convey what they were doing without sounding insane or hostile. It was clear by now humans hadn't reached such level of technology.

He had to stop himself from reminding Laswell at the console of the scanner to make it as quick as possible. Ghost was already suspicious enough without his shower taking much longer than Soap's had. They would have to look over the results of the scan later. For now, the AI would sort the information and get rid of the dirt elements only.

“We're done,” Laswell announced, pressing the control to open the scanner.

Ghost stepped out immediately and went around the bed in the center of the room, effectively putting a barrier between him and them. It likely was no coincidence that it was also a direct path to the door.

It happened in a blur of movement, and it took Soap a second to notice just how much dirt had been stuck to the human this entire time, today notwithstanding. Ghost's skin was a lot lighter, as was the shorn fur. He also couldn't smell him anymore. Not that it had been that bad, but there had been a definite smell that Soap had associated to the human. Looks like it hadn't been exactly normal.

Soap wasn't sure how long he stood there gaping, but long enough for Ghost to grow impatient.

“Soap?”

“Sorry, um. All good? You're clean now.” In a flash of inspiration, he gestured to the scanner. “The word is 'shower'”.

He thought for a moment Ghost was going to refuse the impromptu lesson. Soap wouldn't blame him, but it would help greatly if he didn't. This was the perfect opportunity to explain it.

“This is shower,” Ghost repeated, albeit reluctantly. “Shower clean I.”

“Yes. Come with me?”

Ghost didn't need to be asked twice and left the room without waiting for him. Laswell waved him out and he followed.

Soap led him to the bathroom, Ghost hanging a step or two back like he wasn't sure if he wanted to follow or not. Soap mostly tried to ignore it. It wasn't like he had any chance at forcing Ghost into anything. He'd seen him toss a tridul to the ground with little effort. Soap knew his chances.

He went to the left corner at the back of the bathroom and gestured to the psion lines on the ceiling.

“This is the shower.”

Ghost looked unimpressed.

“I know, it doesn't look like the other one. I hope I will be able to explain it to you at some point. Hang on.”

He didn't wait for an answer and turned to the shower's control panel on the wall. Ghost shuffled behind him as he checked the newly gathered data now in the shower system. This shower could now be used safely by humans, and a thrill ran through him at the thought. They were officially the very first ship with accommodations for a human. How amazing was that? Of course, most people would disagree, but they didn't know Ghost.

“The shower is good for you now.” He mimed putting his hand on the control pad. “This is to take a shower, same as the doors. Good?”

“Good,” Ghost grunted a beat before peeling his shirt over his head and Soap floundered.

Sure, he'd been used to the human wearing no such clothes, but by now he'd gotten the impression this wasn't his preferred state. Ghost had worn the ill fitting clothing over going without after all, so the sudden stripping caught him off guard. He couldn't help but stare.

Ghost had clearly filled out since he'd been given access to the reserves in the stasis chamber. So much so that while he'd always been slightly larger than Soap, he was now absolutely monstrous, muscles clearly rippling under the pale skin. Such rapid growth was unheard of among sapient species. It would take Soap years to reach a similar level, and even then, he didn't doubt he would be much more limited by his own biology. He'd never met a Kran that muscular, and Soap himself was among the higher tier of the species in that aspect. He was no slouch and prided himself in it. Ghost had him beat in mere weeks.

His daydreaming was rudely interrupted.

“Outside.”

Which, fair enough.

On the way to the med bay, he wondered if humans naturally wore clothes. He suspected so, but had been thrown off by how readily Ghost took off his shirt. There had been no hesitation whatsoever, and while Soap would love to attribute that to Ghost's trust in him, he was also aware this was far from likely.

Maybe humans were more similar to the Kran than Soap had thought? There were many species out here that rarely if ever wore clothes, and Soap himself was among those. At least, on his home planet. In a spaceship, it was usually regarded as polite to wear something if you could. That meant the entire crew of the 141, minus Laswell. Urna feathers and physiology made it too much of a pain, and Laswell rarely needed to wear a suit to begin with.

Soap hurried through the corridor. Maybe she would have answers to his questions now that he'd had some time to sort through the information collected by the scanner. While he enjoyed the discoveries, he would also appreciate not feeling like a bumbling fool every step of the way.

Ghost took off the last of his article of clothing, pants and underwear falling to the floor. He'd wished to banish his boxers at the bottom of his bag and while going commando on an alien planet with hostile fauna was probably not the smart thing, he couldn't stand wearing the things anymore. They desperately needed a wash, but Ghost hadn't found anything that dispensed enough water for that. Drinking water came in small containers barely big enough than a can. But he also didn't fancy walking around with his arse hanging out of the tail hole of Soap's pants, so he was stuck.

And apparently, the showers were also a no-go. As far as he could see, they functioned the same way as the red cleaning laser of his cells, except invisible. Ghost wished for the feeling of water running over him. Not even the toilet had water. He'd found out the first time that simply closing the lid activated the smiting lasers inside and that was that.

He looked at the ceiling and now saw what he'd first taken as a ventilation system as the place where the shower lasers would come out. Unless he was wrong.

Standing under the interlocked cubes, he put a hand on the control pad. It flashed blue. And so did he.

He threw himself out of the shower stall. The middle of the room was free of blue light. Ghost took a deep breath, trying to quell the feeling of ants crawling under his skin. He'd had it earlier too, in the shower tube, but not this strong. He'd just waved it off as his imagination.

Now, he could clearly see the laser forming an empty rectangle the shape of the ceiling grooves, slowly descending to the floor with a slight humming sound. Whatever system controlling it must have noticed he wasn't there anymore, because the control pad flashed yellow and the blue laser disappeared.

What the fuck?

Soap had closed the door when he left, and hadn't locked it. Ghost wasn't trapped here with some nefarious intentions. He was clearly meant to take a shower, whatever weird thing an alien shower entailed. But this thing wasn't the same as the earlier tube. Not only did it not have any wall or separation of any kind, the tube hadn't spouted cubic lasers at him.

Alright. Logically, it would make sense for the tube in the medical bay to have a few more functionalities, be more cutting edge than a simple shower in a bathroom. It was fine.

Ghost made sure only his arm stuck out under the range of the lasers when he pressed the controls next. The lasers passed over his arm without disintegrating it, only coating it with a blue light that faded as it went past. He passed a hand over it. All the dirt was gone to the last grain that had stayed stubbornly stuck to his skin and the ridges of a few scars. As a matter of fact, his skin was close to uncomfortably dry now. Can't have everything. He'd take the dry skin if it meant being clean again.

Ghost felt dumb for doing it, but when he put the rest of his body under the not-spray of the shower, he left his now clean arm sticking out. Once more, he wished for the capacity to communicate things properly. Especially questions. His vocabulary wasn't growing fast enough to meet his needs.

Chapter Text

Something about the set of Laswell's feathers froze Soap at the doorway of the med room. She'd turned all of the holoscreens back on, different diagrams and simulations displayed that Soap couldn't parse at a glance. The one in the middle, however, was clearly Ghost's body.

“Laswell?”

She turned slowly and Soap had ample time to see the horror etched in her posture. Blast, was Ghost sick? Dying?

“What's going on?”

He stepped closer. That seemed to shake her, and she gestured to the main screen with a talon.

“I don't know.”

He'd never heard such utter disbelief in Laswell's voice. He was used to her being close to all-knowing, her long years and experience attributing to insight he would never have. This was...

“Something wrong?”

She gave him an odd look. If he didn't know any better, he'd have said she looked lost.

“That's the problem. I can't tell.”

“...Nothing?” There had to be similarities to known species. There were just too many for the contrary.

“Well, for starters, the scan identified over a thousand types of bacteria on the skin alone.”

“A thousand?!” His shrill voice barely registered. “But that's...” How did anyone live like this?

“And as far as I can tell, this could be completely normal.”

“No way.”

The feathers of her shoulders were still slightly raised, revealing the crystals beneath.

“This is...” she paused before continuing. “...a lot of it is known phenomenons. But the scale is simply unbelievable. Some harmless bacteria on the body, yes, but so many? It shouldn't be...”

Be what? Able to work? Survivable? It seemed insane that such a state wouldn't be harmful, and a thought made him jolt.

“They're not transferable right? The bacterias?” he stammered.

“No, they're tailored to the species they reside on.” The thought didn't seem to reassure them as much as it should have.

And that was just one thing.

“What else?”

“His weight is more than I thought it would be for his size, even for a creature born on a deathworld. Probably extremely dense bones, denser muscles too.”

“Explains how strong he is.” That one wasn't exactly surprising.

“I didn't have the time to do a deep scan, so this is all just surface level. But the one thing I'm sure about...” she seemed to get a spark back in her eye as she looked at him. Uh oh.

“Is...?”

“What you took for a pouch protecting the reproductive organ isn't natural. It's clothes. Unknown materials, so I'm assuming fabricated back on his planet.”

Out of all the things she could have said. What? Soap felt himself darken when his eyes skittered over the offending area. As much as he wanted to respect Ghost's privacy, this was weird. With the bulge he could see behind the cloth, did that that mean its natural state was just... hanging there?

“Is there any other species that has...this?” He couldn't remember.

“No.” He hated how professional Laswell managed to sound. “All recorded sapient species evolved some sort of biological cache to protect that area, for the ones that reproduce sexually.”

Dear Light, Soap didn't want to discuss Ghost's reproductive capabilities with Laswell. It wasn't important. Why would she even bring it up?

“You're going to use these measurements to get him clothes back at A-738 right?”

“Yes?” he answered too fast, too eager for a change of subject, but he didn't care.

“I'm sure he'd appreciate an extra or two of these,” she gestured at the black garment rendered on the image.

“Ah. Yes,” he glared at her. Did she have to torment him like this?

She was clearly unapologetic as she returned to her scan.

“Aside from the thick amount of grime sticking to him, there were also parasites. Lots of them, microscopic. They've all been removed.”

“He's sick?” And potentially infested with deadly parasites. Blast.

“Was. I think. They were mostly on his face for some reason. If he gets any more they will be destroyed again, so I don't think it's something worth worrying about for now.”

Soap wasn't sure he liked that answer, but he kept his mouth shut.

“I'm a little more worried about the fur on his body.”

“Fur? He barely has any.”

“Yes, that might be a problem. He actually has a lot more than we can see, they're just really thin and small hairs all over his body. I'm not sure if he lost his coat or if that's normal, and that's not something we can help with if it isn't.”

Soap imagined Gaz losing all his fur save for a few spots and felt his heart pick up speed. That was...

“Well, the results are ridiculous, but until proven otherwise, I'm going to have to treat the rest of these vitals as normal. There's only one thing that concerns me.”

There was worse? She moved the focus of the screen to Ghost's left arm, revealing in more details the shapes there. Soap couldn't tear his eyes away. He didn't understand everything represented, but the general theme seemed clear. Violence. Ghost had violence painted on his skin. Skulls, weapons, flames and who knew what fought for space on the man's skin.

Soap had crafted designs for various battle paints in his life, but this was simply horrible. There was no subtlety, nothing left to imagination.

“It's not the design I'm worried about,” Laswell said, as if reading his mind, voice suddenly much more serious.

What?

She raised her head to him, and Soap's heart lurched at the terror he read there.

“This is under the skin, Soap.” And because this could get even worse, she continued. “And there's traces of metal in there.”

The only reason the whistle wasn't heard was that neither of them had the hearing for it above the water. Soap only knew he'd done it because he felt his gills vibrate over his darkened skin.

If there was one thing that all discovered species so far seemed to share, both sapient and sentient, it was steel madness. It was a basic law of the universe. Organic bodies rejected foreign bodies. Prosthetics had made leaps and bounds along with other technologies, but even those exterior attachments were known to still cause steel madness, regardless of the materials used. Something to do with the brain unable to accept the new limb as an extension of one's self. It eventually drove the wearer insane. Not even Laswell was exempt from that rule, and Urna's bodies weren't fully organic.

Ghost had metal under his skin.

“But that's...” he couldn't finish the thought.

It wasn't violence that Ghost had painted on him, but death. The skulls there seemed to mock them for their ignorance. Why? Soap couldn't understand why someone, anyone, would do such a thing.

Why Ghost would do such a thing. The design was intricate and foreign enough Soap had no doubt this had been done by a human hand, and willingly so.

“There's no signs.” He was grasping at weeds and he knew it.

Laswell let him. Soap didn't want to know if that was because she wanted to believe the same.

“It takes months and years to fully develop,” she answered.

They'd have time to expand Ghost's vocabulary. Enough to explain what would be necessary by then. If he could survive that. Humans were tough creatures, that much was clear, and Soap hoped that for once, the stories lived up to their reputations. Otherwise, they'd lose Ghost, one way or the other.

All his excitement dashed and washed away, Soap didn't glance back to the still lit screens when he left the med bay. Laswell turned back to her data in silence and for the first time since they'd been working together, Soap didn't put any trust into her figuring out something else. Not even she could break through such an immutable fact.

Soap was still brooding when Price called the team onto the bridge the next morning. It felt like his skin had taken a permanently darker shade than normal. It was greatly muted since the discovery in the med bay, and hadn't gotten quite back to normal. Evidently, Laswell had relayed the rest of her findings to the others, as the mood was decidedly down, and not just because of Soap.

“The last of the dirt was cleaned out of the bottom ventilation during the night, and Nik already checked it over. Everything is back in order.”

Oh stars, they could finally get off this light-forsaken planet. Even as he thought that, he could hear the but in Price's voice.

“But what food we have left won't be enough to get us back to A-738.”

Blast. That meant...

“Soap, I'm sending you back out to collect,” he hesitated, then, “with Ghost. Gaz and I will follow with our own bags.”

He didn't say if the extra security was in case of tridul, or Ghost snapping and attacking Soap. Before yesterday, he'd have berated the Captain for still considering Ghost such a major threat. Now, he wasn't so sure himself.

There are no signs, he repeated to himself. It was fine. For now.

“Aye.” Nobody harped on his half assed reply.

Silence hung on the bridge before Price dismissed them. Soap was glad they hadn't discussed the subject. It hung like a cloud over their heads, but so long as everyone had a job, they could ignore it well enough. That was fine by Soap. He had to find Ghost and move out.

Two hours later, they stepped off the ship and into the forest. They had a slightly shorter window than last time to avoid getting burned to a crisp by lightning, but with Price and Gaz also on gathering duty they would get enough between all of them. Their reserves didn't have to last long, only until they could land at the closest station, but they'd had to revise a lot of things since Ghost came along, and food stock was one of them.

Soap was too busy shooting down tridul and watching Ghost break them down to dwell too much on the situation, until crackling overhead made him flinch. He looked up just in time to see a flash of lightning tear the clouds.

He thumbed his com to get Price.

“Where are you guys?”

“On the way back, like you should be, Sergeant.”

Blast. He'd lost track of time. He bit off his immediate remark. Yes, Price could have checked in when the time was up, but he wasn't at fault for Soap wandering off on his own. Well, as on his own as he was with Ghost trailing him.

He checked the timer, wondering how he'd missed the timer beep. They'd calculated some leeway for them to get back, but the storm was back even earlier than that. Swearing, he started turning back the way they came, only for Ghost to yank him back.

“What?” he snapped at a nonplussed Ghost.

Soap was dragged behind a thick bush. From there, he saw the triduls who were also retreating from the lightning. Right towards them.

“Come,” Ghost whispered, taking off the other way.

This time, Soap didn't argue. He hadn't gotten an accurate count, but it had looked like too many. And if the triduls were starting to retreat, they themselves wouldn't have time to get back to the ship. They had to find shelter before the storm struck in full. Already, the leaves overhead were starting to buzz with static.

“Soap, what's your status?” Price asked, and he realised he hadn't answered him.

He pulled up the holo on his com with a map of their position relative to the ship. Too far, and getting farther. Still he sent his coordinates along with a message. They wouldn't be able to use the coms once the storm had set in with all the interference.

“We're looking to hunker down somewhere,” he started just as Ghost pointed to their left. Soap slowed and spotted the entry to a cave. Perfect. “Found a cave. We will wait it out.”

Message sent, Soap didn't have to urge Ghost towards the opening. He was running out of breath trying to keep up with the breakneck pace instead. Soap was no slouch, but there was only so much running a Kran could do when put against land based species. The disadvantage was a matter of course, but even then, Ghost didn't look slightly winded. And Soap had to remind himself that on top of Sherla D-7's higher gravity, the human still refused to use the gravity belt to lighten his bag filled with fruits and roots. That kind of stamina was simply unfair.

Soap almost ran into Ghost's back when he suddenly slowed at the edge of the small clearing. Beyond it, the cave had spat out two triduls. Soap wasn't sure who was most surprised, him or the animals, but Ghost wasn't. He rushed forward, training pole in hand.

Ghost targeted the closest specimen, digging the blunt end of the pole under the tridul's chin. The move gave him good leverage due to the animal's long neck, and he flipped it over, crushing what he thought were windpipes under his foot. It might struggle for some time, but it was out of the fight and not calling out for help. Soap took down the other with a well placed shot. Behind them, Ghost was sure the pack of triduls that had cut them off earlier was still following, as was the static electricity in the air. If Ghost had had any length of hair left, it would be standing straight to the sky. As it was, he felt the buzz down to his bones. They didn't have time.

He walked inside the cave. Shuffling came from deeper inside, but Ghost couldn't see. He wondered if Soap had better night vision, because the alien didn't break stride and overtook him, rifle at the ready. A few shots illuminated the interior and two triduls fell on the rocky ground. Helpless until his eyes adjusted, Ghost hung back. He hadn't seen more than these two during Soap's shots, but he wouldn't count on it.

Soap said something and relaxed. Apparently there had only been these two. Maybe not so surprising if the rest of them were on their way.

“Soap,” he mumbled as the bushes in front shook.

It wasn't the wind, even if that was also ramping up. Soap swiveled and cursed. Three triduls broke the into the clearing as he put the first one down, and Ghost wished he'd been handed a rifle. The alien tech might be odd and unneccessarily flashy, but he'd have taken that over the stick he was wielding.

Soap let a few through and Ghost stepped forward. Raindrops fell on his scalp as he pushed one beast away, kicked another and stabbed a third. Soap shot one in the arse trying to get it off him, but all it did was cause the animal to swivel on his smoking hind end towards the offender, teeth bared. He got knuckles down his throat for his trouble and went down, but Ghost barely glanced at it. The rain was coming down harder now, the triduls growing frantic with it, throwing themselves not so much at them but at the cave entrance. Right arm smarting something fierce, Ghost took a deep breath before colliding with the next beast. The impact jarred him, but he'd dug his pole into a neighboring tridul for leverage and toppled them both. A tail whipped him in the shin and left a trail of fire and the one he bodied got his long neck over his shoulder to bite into it. Soap put the one behind him down while he broke the neck of the biter.

He wished he had more than his own body to deny them access to the cave. After a few more, a new gash had joined the other on his back, his right hand barely functioned and he was breathing hard. But the crackling overhead made his heart pump blood with renewed vigor.

“Soap, inside.” He backed away when a small window opened, trusting the alien to cover him while he retreated.

Soap followed him a second later, a tridul on his tail. Ghost's pole stopped it before Soap's rifle could get a shot. Grunting with the effort, the pole almost slipped out of his hands. The shaft was coated in blood and he used his chest to push for leverage. The tridul fell and was about to get back up when the sky lit up.

Ghost hugged the hard ground, not sure how he got there. All he knew was to stay down while the world fell apart. His ears were ringing and his eyes saw nothing but white. He'd been danger close to many things, and his mind flashed to spotty air support or inaccurate artillery, all sorts of friendly fire incidents his mind could cook up.

He blinked, trying to get his vision to clear, but all he got was tears and extra spots. A burning smell wafted over and despite the pain and stiffness of his body, he didn't think it was coming from him. Shit, Soap! Soap was with him! He tried to call out but coughed instead. The buzzing in his ears hadn't abatted and he knew that even if Soap were to call for him, it would be unlikely he'd hear it.

It was forever until his vision cleared. Rationally he knew it hadn't been that long, but bloody hell his brain was fuzzy enough that he couldn't be sure. His heart galloped unsteadily in his chest and he took a deep breath that did nothing to abate the headache and nausea. Some distant part of his brain registered the symptoms of electrocution, along with the roasted forms of the triduls outside.

Oh, he could see again.

With a groan, he pushed himself to his knees, teeth clenched against the pain. Soap was getting up a few meters behind him, looking a lot better than Ghost felt, and the reason came back to him. He'd managed to push him away from the cave entrance before the lightning struck their neighbours and burned them to a crisp.

Barbecue sounded nice.

“Ghost?”

Soap reached out like he was going to help him up, but Ghost pushed himself to his feet before he could get close. He only swayed for a second or two before he found his feet while Soap hovered.

“You hurt?” Ghost asked because he wasn't sure what he was seeing.

Soap's skin had taken the dark hue it did when shaken up, which he was expecting, but his eyes were... glowing, illuminating what might be a small cut on the alien's cheek.

“-I hurt?!” Soap all but shrieked, waving his arms at Ghost. He already knew he was hurt, no need to point out the obvious. Soap kept going and Ghost lost half the words. “-- you -- you---hurt!” was all he could make out.

Sure, his injuries were worse, but nothing that couldn't be patched up. The torn skin of his right arm was going to be a bitch, as was the bite on his shoulder, but the rest should be easily closed with some stitches. He patted his thigh for his med kit and froze. Fuck. Right. No med kit. Alien planet.

Or rather, alien med kit, he thought as Soap pulled out his own from his bag. It looked more extensive than the one from the bathroom, which made sense, but might not be of any help for him. And he didn't have a bead on what was wrong with Soap. For such a small cut, it sure was bleeding a lot. The somewhat dark blue and translucent liquid was now running down his neck and wetting his shirt. Hell, it seemed to bleed even more than head wounds on a human, with a more runny quality to it.

Soap lined up a few tools that Ghost couldn't guess the purpose of and braced himself for what was coming. He'd take the bandages. Maybe try to weasel some thread for sutures too.

No way was he letting Soap put whatever weird ointment he pulled out on his wounds. He drew the line of first aid at unknown alien material entering open flesh. He just hoped his immune system could beat whatever bacteria a tridul bite carried.

Chapter Text

Soap almost let the small box clatter to the floor of the cave and took a deep breath, willing his hands to steady. He wasn't the one with multiple open wounds. He wasn't the one that had been electrocuted.

And yet, Ghost only looked mildly annoyed. Annoyed at Soap for some reason. Maybe he was right to be. Soap had no idea if anything in his med kit would be remotely useful to the human. People just didn't survive being hit by lightning. Soap was lucky that Ghost's shove and bulk had protected him. Otherwise, slicing his cheek on the uneven cave ground would have been the least of his problems.

Rather, he wouldn't have had problems anymore.

He finally got his shaking hands to cooperate and opened the lid to the cream box. Ghost took a step back.

“Hey, no, stay inside! Not that close to the entrance,” he hissed before stepping back himself.

The deeper he went, the less likely Ghost would be to get close to the mouth of the cave. He took the opportunity of Ghost slowly shuffling after him to put some ointment over his own cut. At least he wouldn't be leaking fluid everywhere anymore. Now, what could he use on Ghost?

The bandages he knew, but this was more than a small cut that would be closed off and be done with it. Especially the right arm and hand. It hung limply at Ghost's side, dripping red. Even from here, Soap could see that skin was awfully torn where the tridul's teeth had snagged.

He looked back into his kit and prompted his com for answers. Unfortunately, the AI hadn't gathered enough data from the short scan to give him a list of things that could work on Ghost. That, or the lightning steadily growing outside was jamming the coms. He already knew it would cut them off from communicating with the ship, but he'd expected the personal coms to still work properly at least. He'd been too optimistic on that one.

Soap got the general antiseptic out. He had no way to know if this would work for humans, but he had to do something. Ghost was looking at the application tube with obvious suspicion.

“This is to clean your wounds.” Did Ghost have the words to understand that? “I clean your hurt.”

Ghost's eyes flitted to his cheek.

“You clean?”

“Aye, I'm all cleaned up. Now you.” Please, please...

“No.”

He tried to hold Ghost's gaze. It lasted all but two seconds.

“Alright.” He needed to do something. “How about this. I give this to you.” Soap held the open box to him. “And you help yourself?”

Ghost took it like it might jump and bite him in the face. He took the bandages out. There was a small amount of antibacterial help in the weaves, but it normally wasn't to be used on bigger wounds.

Soap watched as Ghost skillfully wrapped his right hand, wrist and forearm. The roll was almost empty and it would take time for it to regenerate. But if he accepted the bandages, maybe...

“Wait, let me,” he interrupted and looked into the kit.

He never used these himself as they didn't adhere to his skin well at all, but it might just work for the human. The rolls he pulled looked similar enough to the bandages he thought he could pull it off.

“There's more bandages,” he explained, making sure to point to the ones already on Ghost's hand so he would make the connection.

He needed him to not be suspicious. Once they were applied, they hopefully wouldn't come off until the wounds were healed. He'd deal with Ghost being pissed off rather than dead. Hopefully.

“Bandages,” Ghost repeated with those scrunched eyefurs.

Not very engaging, but Soap had to make the leap. He gestured to Ghost's shoulder and back.

“I need your shirt off so I can fix you.”

He thought he wasn't going to comply, but Ghost relented. Soap held his breath. Now was the moment he couldn't fail.

No matter how much Ghost craned his neck, he couldn't see what Soap was doing behind him. It allowed Soap to unroll the pad and expose the thick layer of cream. The moment he applied it to the mangled wound of Ghost's shoulder, the human shot up to his feet. Soap held onto him as he quickly swiped a hand over the pad a millisecond before Ghost grabbed his wrist.

Soap didn't have time to apologise as he was slammed to the cave floor. His back hurt and his head hit the ground hard. He couldn't mistake Ghost's expression for anything but anger.

“Sorry,” he croaked.

“This is no bandages,” Ghost growled over him, trying to rip it away. It held.

“It is.” He didn't dare move to get off the ground. “It's good bandages. It will fix more than the others. It's good, I promise.”

There was nothing else he could offer, no explanation possible for the betrayal Ghost clearly felt. Even these few sentences were more likely lost than understood.

Soap hated it.

But the worse looking injuries were cared for. Ghost stalked away from him and Soap had to hold back the want to follow him. He was so embroiled in his conflicting emotions he hadn't noticed right away that Ghost had taken the med kit with him.

“You wait there.” Ghost ordered.

Soap didn't move while Ghost rummaged in the box, but eventually, his tail twinged, protesting at the weird angle it was folded at under his body.

“Can I sit?”

Ghost looked up. Soap breathed slowly. One, two, three...

“Yes.”

This time he allowed himself the sigh. Sitting felt wonderful for his abused tail.

Ghost didn't find what he wanted in the box and Soap wondered just how humans treated their wounds. Finally he took the packet of strips out and glared at them for a long time before showing them to Soap.

“This close hurt?”

“Yes.”

So humans did have strips. Maybe they didn't look exactly the same, but they had to be close enough for Ghost to recognise the small field strips. They might have to reevaluate the humans' technological advances if that was the case, especially as he figured out the activation method very quickly. Snapping the first strip, he then put it horizontally over the gash on his leg.

He was also going to need help to put them on the wound still dripping blood on his back. It was starting to worry Soap, the amount of blood flowing out of his body. If he'd lost that much, Soap himself wouldn't be critical, but close enough.

Ghost closed the gash on his leg first. He didn't use as many strips as Soap would have, and he slapped his tail nervously to the floor, earning himself a glare. But this wasn't enough! Blood was still dribbling between the gaps.

“Stay.” Ghost ordered as he picked up the pack of strips.

He sat down before Soap, back to him, and handed him a few unactivated strips. Again, not enough.

“I need more,” he said as he accepted them.

Ghost was looking at him over his shoulder. He didn't budge.

“More small bandages,” he tried again, waving the strips between them.

“No more. This good. Same this,” he pointed at his leg. “Go.” Ghost grunted before looking back to the wall of the cave.

Fine, then. Resisting the habit of covering the whole wound, he spaced the strips similarly to the ones on Ghost's leg. The bottom of the wound was slick with blood and he wiped some away before putting the last strips, hands coming back red. Blast. He hoped humans didn't have poisonous blood or something. That was smart, MacTavish. He activated the special glue on the last strip and stuck it to the pale skin.

“I'm done.”

He wasn't sure if Ghost understood him or if he just knew, but he got up without looking back and settled against a cave wall, straps of his bag hung over his good arm.

Soap followed his example, sitting against the opposite wall. The rocks dug into his back and he settled as best he could. They had a long wait in front of them. Laswell had stressed that if they missed the window, she'd forecasted the weather would only get worse over the next hours, and she wasn't sure how long it would last. It could be a couple hours, or it could be a day.

He realised too late that Ghost hadn't given the med kit back and Soap was all alone with someone who had more reasons to be pissed at him than anything else. Gun or not, Soap was sure dispatching him would be child's play for the human and no one would be the wiser.

Sleep. He needed sleep. It wouldn't do for him to think such things anyway, and he was pretty sure Ghost wouldn't do that.

Ghost picked at the patch covering his shoulder. Whatever was on that thing was cold and while that worked well to dull the pain, he'd rather be hurting than poisoned directly through his bloodstream. Unfortunately, whatever glue the aliens used to hold these things down held.

Soap had slumped against the opposite wall and was studiously avoiding his eye. Good. Ghost flexed his injured hand, balling shaking fingers into a fist. He knew Soap didn't mean anything bad, but the gesture was still hard to swallow. Ghost chafed against the implication that he was too dumb to know what to do with himself, and Soap had to intervene. For his own good.

He suppressed a scoff.

Like a dumb animal.

Enough time had passed that his eyes had adjusted to the darkness of the cave and Ghost was careful to put his back to the entrance where the lightning lit the sky. The tendrils snaking over the rocks there were enough to fuck his night vision for a while if he got careless.

Instead, he set his sights on the mass of leaves and twigs there. Ghost's first instinct was to gather more leaves from the animals' bedding, but he stopped himself. He was now able to operate the shower, and while a bit cumbersome a solution, it beat having to gather leaves to wipe. He'd gotten unlucky once and he'd rather not repeat the rash. Trial and error had its flaws.

Against his wall, Soap didn't move, head on his knees and tail resting on the ground next to him. His chest squeezed for a second, anxiety fluttering before it faded. He hadn't seemed badly hurt, but what did Ghost know? And if concussions were as bad for aliens as they were for humans...

He was still mad at Soap. He didn't think he could let it slide and be done with it. His actions had touched too many nerves, too many raw wounds that hadn't even had the time to scab over. However aware of it Ghost was, he couldn't curb his feelings.

“Soap, you good?” he tossed his way.

He wouldn't move unless there were obvious signs the alien was about to keel over. Soap raised his head and seemed to have forgotten his misgivings about eye contact. The lightning outside shone an odd blue light in them.

“Good.” His tail twitched once before stilling, and Soap said something that was completely lost on Ghost.

He frowned. Soap stared. He seemed sluggish.

“Bed,” he said, finding words Ghost actually understood. “I --.” Well, almost.

But he thought he'd gotten the message. He repeated the unknown word a couple times, getting corrected on his pronunciation, and let Soap fall asleep.

He didn't relinquish the med kit tucked under legs.

An hour in, hunger made itself known. The weather hadn't abated and Ghost was loath to start eating from their stash. These were obvious provisions for the rest of the team over the next few days.

The carcasses of the triduls inside the cave had drained of their blood, most that had trickled in a gully to the side, leaving the nest dry. It was worth a shot. And Ghost was tired of jerky.

Soap stirred when sparks finally ate at the dry wood. Ghost was surprised he managed to stay asleep through the ruckus he made trying to get the fire going. Nothing in this cave had been an ideal fire starter, so he had to make do. The rock he'd taken from the kitchen turned out decent enough and made him question its presence anew. He doubted it was used for what Ghost just had. At least the ceiling here was high enough the smoke wouldn't be a problem.

Soap shot up to his feet with a yell.

“No, no! ----! --no here!” he continued while backing up as far away from the fire as he could.

It also meant getting closer to the mouth of the cave.

“Soap. Wait.” Did he think the fire hadn't been started on purpose? “I good. I stay.” He added another bundle of leaves to the fire.

Soap looked at him like he'd grown another head.

“No!” he insisted.

What was wrong with him? The fire was contained on the rocky ground and not going anywhere, much less engulfing them into flames. Trying to understand, he pointed at it. Soap flinched back.

“Give word?”

Soap let out a string of words that Ghost didn't need to understand to get the gist of it, likely cursing Ghost for asking for a lesson in the middle of whatever crisis the alien was having.

“Word?”

Soap eventually gave it, tail fin flaring.

“Fire. Bad Fire, hurt fire,” he gesticulated like it was going to give his words any more coherence.

“Fire good. Fire fix meat I eat,” he countered and pointed at the cleaned carcass of a tridul left to the side.

The sight didn't seem to reassure Soap. If anything, he darkened another shade. Ghost was out of sticks to add to the fire and carefully tossed in some moss. The resulting smoke wasn't as bad as he'd thought it would be.

The crackling of the fire was covered by lightning for an instant.

“I, you, here more?” he asked, hoping to distract Soap.

It took some time for him to respond.

“Here?”

“Here,” he gestured to the cave around them. “Give word?” Might as well get more vocabulary while he could.

“Here is cave. --- cave wait more --, yes.”

“I wait more, I eat.”

“This is food. No fire,” Soap pointed at his bag.

“Food for ship. No I, no you.”

He didn't seem to know what to retort. Eventually, he settled back down, as far away from the fire as he could while out of reach of the lightning periodically snaking inside the cave.

Ghost hoped the tridul meat, if not good, would at least be edible. Soap hadn't said anything about that, so it was probably fine. He picked the big stick he'd separated from the nest and speared a thin slice of meat on it, easy to overcook. He'd rather risk it getting burnt than undercooked.

Chapter Text

Soap jumped at the same time as the sparks of the fire. The fire. Surely eating some of their provisions now didn't have the same risk as them catching on fire and burning to death! He couldn't figure out what Ghost was thinking. This was insanity. No sapient being worth their spaceship would do such a thing.

But then again, humans didn't have spaceships. Still, they shouldn't be using such dangerous and primitive methods. Ghost had recognised guns for Light's sake! Surely they were past risking burning things down just to eat.

Back in the civilised galaxy, fire was only allowed under stricts rules, and nowadays that was always in secured and controlled environments, meaning labs. And no lab had worked with fire in centuries.

Yet here the human was, cooking a piece of tridul meat over an open flame like the heat and smoke was nothing, like the sparks shooting up were harmless. Maybe that was how humans lived in the hottest parts of their planet. They were impervious to fire.

Not to mention the meat. Tridul meat. Who in their right mind would eat such a dangerous creature? Food they were most definitely not. And now that he thought about it, he didn't even know if the meat was edible. Blast.

It sure smelled good for something poisonous.

Giving the fire a wide berth, Soap inched closer to Ghost under the human's watchful gaze. It was eerie how long he could sustain that without saying a word. Soap sure couldn't.

“I need you to give me the box,” he gestured to the med kit behind Ghost. “...Please?”

“Please?”

“Yes, please.” Soap didn't think he'd ever stop being amazed at how quickly Ghost picked up new words without truly being taught.

Ghost took the bandage roll out of the kit before handing it back. That was okay. Soap only needed the portable test kit.

He powered up the multifaceted cube while Ghost turned the meat on its stick without looking. Soap hoped he wouldn't burn it or the test would be meaningless, but he couldn't chastise Ghost for paying attention to what Soap was doing.

The small tube had deployed for some time, waiting, when Ghost took the meat off the fire and brought it to his mouth.

“Wait!”

Ghost glowered at him and Soap fought not to shrink back. Price's authoritative glare would never have any effect on him after this.

“It's maybe not good food.”

“Yes.”

So he knew but still wanted to eat it? Dear Light, was human resistance to poison so high they could just try unknown things and not fear potential death? Was his sense of smell so developed he could just tell? It was rare, but some species were capable of it, evolved from the most poisonous environments. Why did every discovery about the human had to have horrifying implications?

Stilling his hand around the test kit, he pushed on.

“I um...” Blast, Ghost didn't have the vocabulary. “...fix eating the meat?”

The confusion was palpable. As vast as The Deep, even. Soap was about to turn around and leave him to it when Ghost tore a piece off the cooked meat.

“Ah. Thanks.”

Ghost waited while Soap put the mouth of the tube to the meat. A piece was sampled and taken inside the hexagon for testing. One by one, lights at the junctions of each facet lit blue and Soap let out a breath. No yellow assaulted his view and the few non-blue lights were green. A few relatively benign elements wouldn't be very digestible to Soap, but he could live with that. And with how Ghost had been eating all sorts of things without issue so far, it should be fine for him too. More importantly, he didn't want to test Ghost further by not listening to him.

“Good?” Ghost was looking intensely at the test kit and pointing at the few green lights.

“Good enough. You can eat.”

Ghost ate the piece in two bites and put a bigger chunk of meat at the end of his stick while he chewed. The branch bent slightly under the weight and for a second Soap had a vision of it breaking and falling into the fire, showering them in sparks.

He flinched violently when fat dripped from the piece, the horrible crackling making his fin flare. The displaced air from the swinging, fully deployed tail fin made the flames leer and threaten. Ghost hadn't budged at all. For some inexplicable reason, Soap felt shame flowing up his skin. His reaction was appropriate. This was very, very dangerous. But at the same time, he was a proud member of Price's task force, handpicked to be thrown into treacherous territory. Boarding pirates armed to the teeth, exploring suspected smuggling locations on the Fringe and rescuing Alliance members held for ransom couldn't be done with cowards. And here was Ghost, whom he knew nothing about but suspected of being another fellow peacekeeper, taking everything in as if it was normal.

But he was human. Soap wasn't.

The excuse felt feeble. He forced himself forward and sat down a bit off to the side from Ghost's back. Not fully exposed, but still somewhat protected by the man's bulk.

“You no eat?” Ghost asked, looking over his shoulder.

Soap lightened the grip he had on the now pitiful strip of meat crunched under his fist. He couldn't eat as fast as Ghost, so he settled for tearing little pieces behind his lips, careful not to expose his teeth.

Thankfully, Ghost turned his attention back to the meat still making the fire jump erratically. Soap forced himself not to move as he waited. He couldn't deny the thrill that ran through him at the thought of narrating his adventures to Gaz once they were back on the ship.

Soap woke up to his com buzzing and Ghost's eyes boring into him. He straightened, leaves shifting under him from the makeshift nest and dark ceiling of the cave overhead. He wasn't sure if Ghost had slept. Soap would have thought the leaves would be a good incentive for the human, seeing as he'd gathered leaves almost every time he'd been out. He felt a pang of guilt at the idea that Ghost's accommodations didn't fit, but pushed it away. Early morning didn't give much light inside the cave, and his com lit up harshly as the buzz continued. He opened the connection.

“Are you okay?” came Laswell's voice, the transmission still a little choppy.

Outside, the rain had let up.

“We're fine. Took shelter in a cave.”

“No triduls?”

He could hear her surprise even through the static. Ghost was sitting on another leaf-cushioned area, leaning against the hard rock of the wall.

“A few. Ghost is injured- not too bad,” he quickly added. He didn't see any bleeding seeping through. “He bandaged the worst and one is under a pad. Strips for the rest. Seems like it's enough for him? I don't know.”

“Think we can convince him to get a check-up?”

“I had to trick him to put on the pad.”

Silence. Soap tried to gauge how much of the conversation Ghost could have understood but got nothing. The man was wooden in his body language, more so even than some sapient plant species. It looked wrong and Soap averted his eyes.

“Alright, well... another time then.” Laswell was a lot more optimistic than Soap. “The sensors are marking the end of the storm in another hour or so, I will ping you when it's time.”

“Aye, waiting for ping.”

“See you soon.”

She cut the connection without letting him reply. She was probably being badgered by the team waiting for an update. He hadn't had the time when they escaped to warn Price and Gaz of their status, and Soap squirmed a bit. If he'd been paying attention to the time, he wouldn't be feeling guilty about more than a few things right now.

He was about to explain to Ghost how soon they'd be out of here but came up short. Time keeping was too abstract a concept and he hadn't tried to teach him.

If Ghost noticed his sullen mood until Laswell's ping, he didn't comment. He'd killed what remained of the fire that had been slowly running out of fuel with practiced ease, smothering the few embers left in the ash that now coated the ground. His hand getting that close made Soap tense, and further so when Ghost raised a bare foot like he was going to stomp on it. Stepping on fire! Barefoot! What was he thinking! Why was stomping on fire something that anyone would think to do?

Thankfully Ghost caught himself before he actually did it, but still. It raised some questions – and alarms – for Soap.

“Let's go,” he sighed as he attached his bag back on its gravstraps.

Ghost picked up his own bag and Soap's tail twitched at the rigidity that the human moved with. It was jarring after the predatory ease he'd gotten used to seeing from him.

“Does it hurt?” Stupid question, but he needed a way to convey his worries.

“I good.”

Fine then. He'd probably refuse any painkiller anyway, and if his wounds had been fatal he wouldn't be standing by now.

Still, he hated to leave Ghost in pain because of their own ignorance.

Ghost still had no idea how long a day lasted for the aliens. It had been hard to get a measure of anything aboard the ship and sometimes he felt like his count had been right yet the ship's light would dim for the night earlier than he'd thought. Being outside was slightly better, but not with the storm roaring overhead and hiding much of the sun and moon. As a matter of fact, Ghost had seen neither since they'd crashed on this planet. The rolling clouds were always too thick.

For the moment the crisis seemed to have passed and he followed Soap out of the cave, pole in hand. Soap had his rifle firmly in hand.

No tridul ambushed them on the way back. Maybe the ones causing them trouble had been all from this nest and they'd stayed long enough in the area to eradicate the last of them yesterday. That was fine with Ghost. His dominant hand was fucked for the near future and his wounded leg protested every step he took. At least the meat had tasted good, better than anything else he'd been given to eat so far. The flavor had been rich in a way the mostly bland alien food wasn't. He could have almost fooled himself into thinking he was eating a cow instead of some weird space animal.

He'd never thought he'd be so glad to see the ship coming into view between the trees. The cargo bay was closed, but a smaller door next to it that he hadn't seen before was. He wondered if the aliens had taken the damage as a chance for some upgrades. The ramp led them up to the left of the cargo bay without having the ship wide open to attacks.

If anybody attempted to talk to him on the way, he didn't pay attention. He just wanted off his feet and in his bed. He wouldn't risk a painkiller, but laying down on something soft sounded amazing after the harsh ground of the cave. He offloaded his share of the foraging expedition into the now fixed fridge, and hesitated before putting in half of the tridul meat too. He'd eat the rest later.

He was dozing with a full belly when the lock on the inside of his room lit up a second before Soap's voice came through.

“Ghost?”

Fuck. He contemplated not responding but the alien would probably barge in instead, worried out of his mind that he'd suddenly dropped dead while he wasn't paying attention. The aliens treating him like he was made of glass was getting old.

He got up with a grumble, stretching out his back to get rid of the stiffness. It only served to send a stab of fresh pain in his shoulder. Fine, then. He yanked the door open and revealed a startled Soap on the other side.

“What?” he asked, not bothering with the alien language. His tone did the trick just fine.

Soap opened his mouth, then closed it. Multiple times. Rushing ahead without a plan seemed to be SOP for this one.

“Get on with it.” Still in English, his tone had Soap turn a shade darker and Ghost found vicious enjoyment in the reaction.

He couldn't find it in him to give a fuck right now.

Soap finally found his words and it didn't make a lick of sense.

“--go outside -- no here.”

They'd just gotten back to the ship.

“Outside?”

“No here,” Soap gesticulated around him.

“No.”

“...No?”

“No.” He stood his ground at the door threshold, a hand curled around the frame. He didn't close the other into a fist because of the pain. “I stay here.” He pointed aggressively at the room instead.

And to think that not even a minute ago he thought they were worried for his well being. Now here Soap was needing him for something else like there weren't people with guns on this ship. Uninjured people.

Comprehension flashed in Soap's face and his stance relaxed. Good. Ghost was going to be able to go back to doing nothing for a while.

“No outside ship,” Soap still doubled down for some reason. “Outside more. Big outside.”

What?

Ghost stood there dumbly trying to decipher what the hell that was supposed to mean while Soap had gotten back his eager puppy look.

The ship appeared fixed and they had food. They should have no reason to leave the safety of the hull.

Unless the ship itself was leaving.

“I stay here, ship go outside?” he asked.

“Yes!”

He lost the rest of the sentence, but he didn't need it. They were leaving this death trap of a planet. It was good news. Ghost let Soap blather on for a little bit before resolutely sending him on his way and closing the door.

This was a good thing. So why was his stomach twitching uncomfortably at the thought? He slid open the hard cover on the window of his room – he'd discovered that thing was covering a window a few days before – and looked out to the white trees and their blue leaves still collecting lightning.

The pang in his chest solidified.

Where was he going now?

Chapter Text

The four days of transit back to A-738 were uneventful, bar Price grouching about the tridul meat in the stasis room before Soap explained what had happened. Ghost didn't seem too bothered by his injuries, another fact that baffled everyone. Only Laswell seemed more curious than horrified.

Soap continued to expand Ghost's vocabulary – within reason, however good the human was, he still got things confused if he threw too much at him at once – and tried to lure him into the common room more often when they were all there.

In the end what had done it was the sight of Gaz lounging in his hammock, deployed and suspended to the ceiling by the installed fixtures. He'd stared long enough Gaz had lowered it at seat level and got off, offering Ghost to climb in. Ghost had stared at the extending cords holding the hammock at the designated distance from the floor with less confusion than Soap would have thought, but he'd never managed to figure out what exactly the problem was. Ghost had sat on the couch instead without a word.

“No?” Gaz had tried, pointing at the hammock.

“No.”

The response had been curt enough Gaz had climbed back in and got the hammock as far up as it would go. Soap hid his amusement. Surely Ghost could jump that high if he wanted to. It wasn't like the ceilings on the ship were that tall.

It was a relaxing time. No ship to repair inbetween lightning strikes and tridul sighting, just hanging out with the team and Ghost.

“The station is in sight, we're docking in an hour,” Nik's voice came over the speakers and Soap jolted from where he'd been lounging on his bed.

He shut down the holoscreen of his tablet and tossed it with the pens back on the table. Already? He'd lost track of the time. Ghost was a completely new subject to draw and unexpectedly tricky to do from memory, but Soap didn't think he would let him do it live.

Now he needed to find him. They'd planned to buy the man proper clothes at A-738, but Ghost didn't know it yet. Soap didn't want to get his hopes up. They'd decided to keep the human on the ship for this short stop. There was no need to expose him – and others – in such a busy place. Who knew what could happen. Plus, Ghost was injured. He needed to rest.

Soap tried to squash the guilty feeling that they were keeping Ghost prisoner again, but this was for his own good. He ignored the fact his guilt mostly stemmed from being glad Ghost couldn't run off on them like this.

Not before he was sure what that choice entailed for him. For a human.

Soap shook off the thought as he rang at Ghost's door. He didn't have to wait long.

“Soap.”

Ghost didn't move aside to let him in.

“Hey, we're going to get you more clothes.”

Ghost slopped slouching against the frame of the door, intent.

“Black clothes.”

“Black clothes?” Soap repeated, taken aback. Just black? Did it have some sort of social or cultural meaning to Ghost? He wanted to know. “No blue or-”

“Black.”

“Alright, only black then.”

“Shoes,” Ghost's eyefurs furrowed. “...clothes-shoes.”

Soap was used by now to the mix of words they sometimes used when Ghost didn't have the right one, but this one didn't make a lot of sense.

“Not shoes?”

“Yes shoes. Yes.” He paused again, clearly thinking of an explanation. Soap was also used to waiting him out. “Shoes is feet carapace. Clothes-shoes is less shoe... small shoes?”

Soap had no idea what he wanted.

“Sorry, I don't know what you mean.”

He didn't think Ghost understood his words, but he sure got his tone.

“Head-hat,” he said, switching to something else just as incomprehensible.

For some reason, Ghost had been fascinated by Price's hat. It was too small for Ghost's head, but the general shape of it could have fit. No ear holes or extra space to fit a crest under. Did Ghost want a hat? But then why add head in front?

“A hat? Price's hat?”

“No, no hat. Head-hat,” he gestured to his face.

They did have a few spare helmets for spacewalks but they were too delicate and expensive a piece of equipment to hand the human.

“Okay. Head-hat. I will see what I can find.”

That seemed to satisfy him.

“Anything else?”

Ghost showed his teeth, lips parting widely. Soap recoiled but managed not to take a step back.

“Nothing you give me.”

A shiver made his tail tremble. Hand it to the human to use his little vocabulary to be as unsettling as possible. Maybe it would be a good thing if he left the ship early after all?

Soap should have expected that Ghost would try to follow him to the cargo bay when they landed at the station. They'd locked all the windows down when they'd entered the gravitational pull of the asteroid for safety while they landed, but now it was to avoid temptation. It didn't seem to matter. Ghost was not stupid and knew something was up.

“No, Ghost. You can't go. Nik, Gaz and I go.” Soap rushed to add more when Ghost was about to argue. “It's not good outside. Not safe for you.” It wasn't a complete lie.

Ghost wasn't pleased, but his point wasn't the one Soap expected him to make.

“You go, Nik go. Gaz no.”

The others had been silently following the conversation. Now, Price spoke up.

“Why?”

Ghost didn't answer, either because he didn't understand the question or something else. He held Price's stare.

“Laswell?” the Captain asked without looking away.

“I don't see why not. Soap, Nik, do you need the extra hands?”

“No.”

“Not really.” Soap would have liked the moral support if anything else, but he'd do without.

Nik would take the hovercart to stash his heavier parts.

“Alright.” Price deflated and lowered his gaze.

Ghost nodded, like it had been a foregone conclusion the Captain would relent. Soap wondered once more just how much he understood of the team's dynamic. Clearly enough to play Price like a fiddle already.

Ghost was ushered out of the cargo bay by Laswell and a wary looking Gaz while Price stayed behind to exchange a few more words with Soap and Nik. He was under no illusion that it was because they didn't want him to look outside. Why, he didn't know, but it didn't bode well.

In no mood to socialize, he went back to his room. He didn't have the training pole with him. He had to return it after their outings where it remained locked in the room's large weapon locker. The sharp piece of hull and a rock were all he had if things turned south.

Ghost didn't really need Gaz to stay on the ship. He just wanted to make a point. Now, he reviewed his mealsy possessions and readied his bag. On the higher shelf, the little cleaning bot hadn't moved. He supposed he could allow it to stretch its legs. And the room hadn't been cleaned since he caught it.

He gently put it down on the floor and it zipped away in a clear pattern, seeking out all the dust that had been brought in since it was last allowed some freedom. Too bad it was only a single room.

The bot had long been put back on its shelf when Soap came back, a bag in hand and another slung over his shoulder.

“I -- you clothes,” he announced, opening the first bag to reveal black fabric.

Ghost let him in.

Inside the bag were a good number of shirts and pants, and even a few decent replicas of boxers. Did the aliens have a print-out machine for clothes or something? This looked too close to his own to be a coincidence. He stashed them aside, not wanting to try – and possibly fail – to slip in and out of a shirt right now. His injuries rendered this less than graceful.

Soap opened the second bag and squirmed before getting the things out. A pair of shoes appeared and Ghost wasted no time trying them on. The soles were soft on his feet. In fact, they were soft everywhere. There was no pinching or extra pressure on jutting bone, like the shoes were custom made. How could someone do this in so little time he had no idea, but it sure worked well. And it was the most comfortable thing Ghost had ever put his feet in, even without socks.

No wonder Soap hadn't understood. With shoes like that, socks didn't need to be a thing. Still, he wanted some. Another day.

“Good?”

“Good,” Ghost grunted, pacing a few more times in the small room.

In his peripheral, Soap took the last thing out of the bag. Bulky and hard looking, Ghost wasn't sure what he was looking at at first. Then it dawned on him.

“Head-hat?” Soap tried, handing the helmet between them.

“No, no head-hat.” Good try. He supposed it fit the barebone description, but Ghost had been missing the word for 'face'.

Soap deflated and started retracting his arms.

“Wait. Give.” It would have to do.

Confused, Soap complied. The helmet was black just like the rest of the gear, even the visor. Nothing see-through. It would hide his face. Putting it on like he would a motorcycle helmet, it sat snuggly around his head. The visor had ridden up and he reached a hand to lower it back down, only for his hand to be blocked midway. He saw the tip of his fingers turn white right in front of him, pressing on the very much still lowered visor. Damn. Ghost couldn't see a single difference between the visor and his unimpeded vision. There wasn't even a smudge when he took his hand back.

He raised it and the visor only became visible to his naked eye once almost fully retracted. He suspected its exterior aspect hadn't changed at all, keeping the fully black colour.

Soap's tail twitched nervously.

“Give me word?” Ghost asked, taking the helmet off.

That seemed to galvanise Soap and he readily complied. Ghost turned the sentence he wanted over and over until he was sure he was as close to its intended meaning as it could be.

“The helmet is good. No same head-hat maybe, helmet is nothing bad.”

He desperately needed to learn some connector words. This was a mess and even he lost the thread at the end, but Soap didn't look bothered.

“Good.”

He supposed that was the crux of it. It was a good helmet.

Soap quickly tossed the now empty bags in his room before making his way to the bridge, tail fin half unfurled in his excitement. He didn't care. That had gone so much better than he'd hoped. Not only had Ghost seemed to like the clothes, he'd kept the helmet. It was a bit of a last minute decision, but now he was glad he'd taken it. It didn't have many functionalities besides the darkening visor and a closed coms system, so there was little worry for Ghost to misuse it.

Nik was also done buying the replacement parts they needed and was back in the pilot's seat. Soap's mood took a nosedive however at the tension in the room. Price in particular seemed unhappy, facing down Laswell with a steely glare.

“You both need the time off, John.” Oh blast, she was calling him by his first name. “You can't drag it on any further. We will find a place to set ourselves up and will manage without you two, like we've always done.”

“But-”

“No, the situation isn't that different. Ghost will be fine. We will be fine. We have it handled. Soap?”

“Yes?” he startled. Suddenly, he was the center of attention.

“Do you think it will be a problem for Price and Nik to step out for their hibernation?”

Ah, that was what this was about. Just as well, Soap had a proposition of his own.

“We will be fine, Captain. Laswell, Gaz and me. We don't need everyone to keep an eye on him... Have we decided where to go this time?”

The silence was telling.

“So, I was thinking,” he glanced at Gaz. “We could go to Elnilil.”

“Why Elnilil?” Laswell asked while Gaz squirmed from foot to foot.

“Apparently the environment should be the closest to the human's planet, so he should be fine staying there for now. Plus, people generally mind their own business and won't investigate even if they see Ghost wandering around. And Gaz' house is big enough for us all,” he added with a flap of his crest.

Gaz' tail lashed out lazily towards him. Soap could see his apprehension, but this really was the best choice right now. Evidently, Laswell agreed.

“Not bad. We will do that.”

“And my opinion matters because...” Price grouched.

“You will be asleep, and I am your co-captain. We will drop you off before making for Elnilil. It won't even be a detour, with the space to travel free of debris we can jump without issues. The entire trip won't take a day. Gaz?”

“It's fine, I guess. We will be on the outskirts of the city, so there shouldn't be any problems.”

“That settles it. Nik?”

“On it, ma'am.”

Soap couldn't hide his excitement as Nik maneuvered the ship back into space. He hoped Ghost would like the planet.

Chapter Text

Something was happening. Price and Nik had left the ship a few hours ago and were left there while the rest of them stayed aboard the ship. Where 'there' was, Ghost hadn't been told. Without Nik at the helm, it was apparently Laswell's job to pilot the ship. Soap seemed excited and Gaz less so, but Ghost was starting to think of that as the normal state of affairs.

It was evening when he felt a slight rumble pass through the ship, sign they had docked somewhere again. Picking up the other two? But there would be little sense in that, unless there was such a thing as time-limited parking spots in space.

He didn't bother to move from his room this time, not after being gently but firmly shown the door twice now, so it came as a surprise when Soap came to fetch him. Ghost hastily grabbed his bag, thankfully still packed minus the cleaning robot he left on its shelf. The little antennas he'd jabbed into it had held and he was loath to take the thing out in front of the others.

They didn't open the large ramp to the cargo bay, Gaz instead opened the small door to the right, not letting Ghost get a good look outside before he was through the threshold.

They were docked inside a shipyard, the walls of the station just as bleak and uninspired as the inside of the ship itself. Looks like aliens cared more about efficiency than luxury. Ghost could get behind that.

Stretching out in a wide arc beyond his field of view, the large space appeared desolate. Besides their ship, there were only a few others parked in their slots, giving the space an eerie feel to it. The station wasn't abandoned, there were a few aliens walking about quickly from places to places, but other than that, there was nothing.

Interestingly, most of the aliens he's seen so far were of the same species as Gaz. They apparently came with different fur colours. Brown, black and grey, some with white spots and black marks, some not. Gaz led their group but they gathered no more than a cursory glance and Ghost made an effort to relax slightly. Whatever this place was, his minders didn't seem concerned as they continued into a large space that reminded Ghost of an airport terminal. Just like the docks of the station, it was similarly devoid of the buzz of people you'd expect in this kind of place.

Gaz marched straight to a gate to the side and its attendant behind the glass. This alien was slightly smaller than Gaz, but what drew Ghost's attention was the bundle of fur at his neck, much more lush and prominent, raised by some sort of scarf under it. Ghost sneaked a look at Gaz's collar. The neck fur was barely discernible under his tight fitting work uniform.

Chirps and similar noises rose from somewhere and Ghost started looking around for a lost bird inside the station before he realised the chatter was coming from Gaz and the attendant. Unlike what they'd been teaching him so far, Gaz' native language wasn't something anybody else here could hope to reproduce, except maybe Laswell.

The exchange was curt and Gaz came back to them quickly.

“ -- go. We -- -- four.”

Ghost stopped trying to follow the conversation between Gaz and Laswell. It was moving too fast for his piss poor comprehension. Soap brought up the rear, feigning to walk casually and failing at looking like he wasn't expecting Ghost to bolt at the first chance.

Should he? The space seemed to be a fully closed circle and if the layout of the dock outside continued all the way around, there would be nothing but ships or empty docking space behind any of the doors he could see. There were no windows whatsoever and the ceiling of the dome they were in was opaque. No way to know what was on the other side. It might very well be the vacuum of space.

Ghost had clipped his helmet to his belt but he had no idea if that thing was space worthy. And the helmet alone wouldn't save him out there. Soap's concerns were unwarranted. For now.

Gaz led them through a gate where he scanned some sort of pass. The system flashed blue and let them through. Beyond it was a small ship. Ghost couldn't see a cockpit or a pilot inside the limited space. Just enough seats for ten people. Space bus? He sat next to Soap and looked for a seatbelt. Nothing.

The shuttle shuddered slightly as it departed. There were still no windows to see out of. It made sense, windows seemed like a structurally unsound idea on a spaceship. Yet, the team's ship had a few in every other room, however small and often closed by another layer of bulkhead as they were.

The trip was short and without issues that Ghost could see, but his alien companions were oddly silent, even Soap. Gaz most of all. If he'd been human, he'd said his expression was brooding. As it was, there weren't many facial muscles to emulate it, but his body language seemed downtrodden enough.

The shuttle ramp opened and Ghost froze. When had they landed?

He vaguely registered the others getting off ahead of him, but all his attention was captured by the sight in front of him. He blinked, trying in vain to adjust his eyes. There were already painful spots growing in his vision and he was forced to look at the thankfully plain ground. This was another white space, only this time, it wasn't made of smooth metal but what looked like a cross between shining crystals and stained glass rising in a spire higher than he could see over their heads. The brightness was an assault after the relatively dim lights of the ship.

“Ghost?”

He grunted something at Soap but didn't move.

Squinting, he fumbled with his helmet and slipped it on. The visor didn't dim the brightness so much as it seemingly eliminated the harshness of it. He could see more than blotted shapes moving about, faster than if he'd waited for his eyes to adjust on their own. That helmet was a blessing in disguise.

They were in another terminal, but this one had all the exquisite details the previous one had lacked. Plants climbed up diamond shaped cracks in the glass wall. Corridors were marked with artistic paintings of swirls and animals around the door frames leading to other smaller spires rising to the sides of the main atrium. Right overhead, catwalks after catwalks crisscrossed far enough that Ghost wasn't sure if he was seeing the ceiling above or just an intermediate floor. Stairs and lifts blended into the decor and followed the lines of the glass panes making up the walls. Through the visor, he could now see beyond it and to the dense vegetation outside. The building was entirely transparent and what gave it colour on the inside was the greenery that seemed to swallow it.

The others were waiting on him. Laswell with unflappable calm while Soap and Gaz had some measure of concern in their stance. He joined them, still looking around. There were a lot more people here than on the smaller station, which made sense, but here the majority didn't lean so heavily towards Gaz' species.

Their little group walked to a booth to their right, Soap not even trying to hide the hesitant looks he was throwing his way with every step. Ghost rolled his shoulders and ground his teeth. It wouldn't do to make a scene here just to tell him off. Not important.

Gaz was handed strips of... something from the black furred alien manning the booth and turned back to them. Soap took a blue band and clasped it around his wrist, the strip morphing to the right size. Laswell, probably not wanting to pinch flight feathers under hers, looped it around her neck. Ghost grimaced. Sure enough, Soap took the remaining one to Ghost. Gaz didn't seem to need one and Ghost frowned at that.

Reluctantly, he wrapped his band around his left wrist. It didn't seem to be anything else but some odd mix of cloth and rubber that adjusted its shape once the clasp closed. Still, it made Ghost's hackles rise. He only tolerated it because of the seemingly routine way the others had put theirs on.

Once this was done, they didn't leave the building. Instead, they climbed into a lift. There were no buttons with floors but a blank screen awaiting instructions. Gaz obliged, typing something into it in that weird round script.

Ghost hadn't felt the lift move in the slightest, but it must have as the doors opened to another floor entirely. Here, the design was reminiscent of the donut shaped dock where they'd left the ship, only made out of that shining glass material, even the floor. Looking down however, it was slightly more matte than the rest and he couldn't see through it. The size of the room was much smaller than the base of the spire and he wondered how high they were. The lift had somehow spat them out in the middle of the circle despite being positioned to the side of the atrium. All around them, ships even smaller than the shuttle they'd taken here were lined up and Gaz walked to one. It wasn't much bigger than a large car.

Ghost found himself sitting in the back seats with Soap while Gaz was behind the wheel – or rather, the sticks and console – with Laswell riding shotgun. A hangar door opened behind them and Gaz reversed the vehicle. What looked to be the middle of the tall spire left his field of view as they turned around and Ghost's stomach flopped for a second. There was no rumbling sound of an engine or the violent displacement of air from rotor blades. Yet through the window the green canopy of what Ghost could only attribute to a jungle flew by at least two hundred meters under them.

He tentatively raised the visor of his helmet. No barrage of noise assaulted him. Nobody had grabbed anything resembling a noise cancelling device either.

Alright then. Not that Ghost needed more proof that whatever alien civilisation he'd landed in was a lot more advanced than humanity might ever be, but this for some reason absolutely floored him. He was used to strapping into choppers, the weight of his gear around him and ears flooded with sound. Not sitting leisurely in comfortable silence. Come to think of it, he still couldn't see a single seatbelt or anything. That seemed terribly unsafe. But then again, wouldn't advanced aliens have figured out a better life saving measure than a strip of polyester?

Resigned to feeling on edge for the entire trip, he settled against the fuselage and slapped the visor of his helmet back down before closing his eyes. He wouldn't fall asleep, but he could at least pretend he was in anything but this unsecure deathtrap. He couldn't even feel the aircraft moving through the air. He'd gotten used to that in the ship in space, but that was space. Not in atmosphere. Things weren't supposed to work like that.

The only indication Ghost had that they had touched down was a slight tremble that lasted less than a second. He got up and left his helmet visor down as Soap opened their side of the vehicle door.

It was dark. The ceiling was low and the few lights were barely enough to illuminate the small space just big enough for the vehicle and maybe another of the same size. The shift from the bright tower up in the air to whatever underground bunker they were in was jarring. The tension remained firmly in place. He forced a few deep breaths into his lungs. There was only a single exit that he could see and Gaz was already heading that way. No windows.

Large doors opened with a faint shower of dirt that Gaz stepped back to avoid.

Ghost's breath caught at how familiar the surroundings looked. Under the large canopy, the light was soft. Green grass, dense foliage and large leaves typical of the jungles he'd crawled in many times during training. Chirps and buzz from birds and insects, a small breeze making the leaves rustle and the shadows shift.

He didn't recognise the bug in the middle of the bright pink flower to his left. The chirping had an odd singsong quality he couldn't attribute to any bird he knew of. And the tree rising into the canopy in front of them was large enough in width to pass for a high rise building in the center of Manchester. Nearly all of the trees had that size. A few might be smaller, but some were definitely bigger. Eyes up, he wondered where they'd come down into the canopy. With how thick it was, it was a mystery where the vehicle had squeezed through.

The door behind him closed with a faint rumble and he snapped back to the ground where Laswell and Soap were waiting. Gaz was nowhere to be seen until he reappeared a few meters above their heads on a raised platform stuck to the side of the tree. It came down and Ghost saw the rail attached to the trunk. Open air elevator then. He climbed onto the wooden structure and found himself with his nose in the air again. Overhead, he could see some sort of structures, huts and bridges between branches, partially hidden in the first thick layer of leaves. The air wasn't the muggy swarm he'd come to expect from jungles but a cool breeze that felt nice as they went up.

And up close, the structures were far from huts. More like luxurious cabins that would have been on the first page of one of these expensive vacations brochures boasting a return to nature. None of the small houses built into the trees looked shabby in any way.

The elevator stopped at a wooden balcony blending into the branches of the large tree. There were no straight lines beyond the floors. The railings were curved to follow the branches that supported them and the walls of the buildings snaked along the large trunks in odd shapes. One of the houses a few meters to the side, propped on another tree, was shaped vaguely like an hourglass. Ghost wondered what it looked like inside.

He followed the others onto the balcony. The wood under their feet didn't creak like he'd expected. They didn't let him linger and they left the baffling view on the balcony for the interior of the cabin. Inside, the entire side of the tree trunk made up the far wall. Shelves were carved into it as well as a hole Ghost didn't see the use of. Various trinkets and small potted plants lined the carved shelves. More were suspended from the ceiling and he had a feeling the large vine snaking along the wood side on their left had never been planted but came directly from outside. Nobody had seen fit to cut it and its drooping leaves obscured the windows. A small transparent tube ran along the seam between walls and ceiling where small dots of light were moving inside. Getting closer, he thought he discerned an insect under the light. Were the alien fireflies trapped in here to provide the room its warm feel? Ghost wasn't sure how he felt about that.

Laswell exchanged a few words with Gaz and she perched herself on the balcony railing. What was she doing? Ghost was half a step closer when she extended her wings and jumped. He ran to the balcony just in time to see her disappear between two large branches, into an opening to another cabin he'd missed before, just overhead. Made of the same wood as the surroundings, it blended in amazingly well. Laswell didn't come back out. Were every single one of these cabins single rooms? It seemed to be so, as the one he found himself in looked like some sort of living room.

He didn't see stairs or any other access to Laswell's cabin than straight up flying there. Maybe he could use the many vines and branches in between to climb in a pinch, but it didn't seem practical. Shaking his head, he went back inside.

Gaz was... talking to the hole in the trunk in that odd chirpy voice. Alright. Aliens in their natural habitats are weirder than on ships. Noted. He was about to help himself to one of the tastefully twisted chairs when a squirrel popped out of the hole. Or a chipmunk. Or something. It chittered back at Gaz like the animal could hold a conversation.

Actually, the more he watched the more he thought they were holding a conversation. The squirrel returned into the hole for a second and came back with a backpack on its back. This wasn't an animal at all, was it? This was another alien. They exchanged a few more words and the little guy scurried out onto the balcony and out of view.

He stood there dumbly long enough Soap had to call him to get his attention.

“Ghost? Come --.” he gestured to a part of the wall particularly covered in vines.

It was only when Soap's hand disappeared into it that Ghost realised there was no wall there. He followed, passing through the curtain of vegetation and on a small wooden bridge linking this cabin to another.

Gaz on his heels, they passed through three more cabins – a kitchen, another living room, a bathroom and a bedroom – before they stopped.

“This is -- room,” Gaz announced.

It was decorated much the same as the rest, with carvings on the wooden furniture and colorful plants filling the space. The bed was a hollowed out section inside the large trunk that propped up this cabin. He hadn't really been paying attention, but he supposed this trunk was large enough that taking out such a large chunk didn't impact it much. He wondered how these trees lived with being turned into furniture. He couldn't think of an Earth tree that wouldn't crumble after a few years after getting cut into like that.

Gaz wasn't done. He pointed to the hourglass shaped cabin now below them, the room barely visible between the leaves.

“This is -- room. Soap is here,” he gestured through the window to the next cabin on the same level as his. They were linked by another small bridge. From here, he saw another one going down to the hourglass cabin, and this bridge was made entirely of thick vines. Despite the thinner vines being woven into netting to the sides it didn't look like a stable or safe way to cross the space. For Gaz maybe, but not for Soap. Was he going to need to backtrack into Ghost's room every time he needed to go somewhere? He frowned at that. There was a distinct lack of doors to close and lock in this place.

“Good?” Soap asked.

“No door here?” There were two points of entry and no way to block any of them.

Ghost watched his crest droop. He'd clearly expected another reaction, and surprisingly Gaz was the one to answer, no trace of fear in his body.

“No, -- we -- give you one.”

“Two.”

Gaz seemed taken aback for a second but he recovered fast.

“--. Two doors. Good?”

He grunted something that passed as a yes. Soap walked out onto the bridge to his own room while Gaz jumped down from branch to vine to branch to the hourglass cabin where he disappeared under the cover of thick leaves.

Ghost scrutinised his new space. There was another spot on the wall where the vines fell from the curved ceiling to fall against part of the wall, covering it entirely. He parted them expecting another window but found the closet. Alright. He dumped his bag there. It was bulging with all his new clothes but he refused to leave anything on the ship. The only thing left behind in that metal closet was the cleaning bot.

He sat down on the bed, having to duck to fit in the hole. There would be bumps in his close future. He scowled at the pretty room. Picture perfect for a cover magazine of nature oriented designs, it wasn't a step up from his room on the ship. Far from it. And the bed, this time due to the shape of the trunk, was once again round.

Chapter Text

There wasn't anybody in the small common room when Soap entered. Three days since parking the ship on the orbital station of Elnilil O-1 and everyone had found their routine, even Ghost. Soap felt lighter every time he caught the human clearly appreciating the view from the various bridges and balconies that made up the collection of rooms on this parcel.

Gaz had doors installed in Ghost's bedroom complete with biolocks and the wiring that came with it. The Nefit called for the job hadn't looked pleased but had done it without taking any shortcuts. Soap hadn't found a single thing to reproach him. Honestly, he'd have gladly installed everything himself if not for the restrictive rules applied to them as visitors. Nefits worked on Nefit builds and Soap wasn't allowed to tinker with anything. Not even as a joke. The consequences weren't worth it.

He'd taken out his drawing tablet today to quell idle hands. Separating the two case halves, the opaque hologram buzzed to life between them, blank and ready to be used. Next, he took the pens from their casing. He probably wouldn't need the slimmer ones today. Battle paints were meant to be seen from afar.

Soap propped the casings against his folded knees as he reclined on the couch. For once, he didn't have to debate the colours. His first stroke was thick and black even as he thumbed the sensors to slowly thin the line.

Ghost strode in with only the faint shuffling of the vines at the entrance to announce his presence. They'd taken to trying to chat before the others arrived in lieu of their usual vocabulary lesson and Ghost seemed satisfied with just that. Maybe he wanted a break. It sure seemed like it. Today however he hovered over the back of the couch and Soap's shoulder.

Soap allowed his tail to twitch once before he got a hold of himself.

“What?” he asked, looking up. He might not finish this today.

True to his thought, Ghost barrelled on.

“Give me this,” he gestured at his tablet.”Word?” he tacked on as an afterthought.

“Tablet. Drawing tablet. And this is a pen. Pen.”

Soap used the time Ghost took to familiarise with the new words to contemplate his next action. He could give Ghost the tablet after opening a new, blank file and locking everything down but the most basic functions. Not that there were a lot on this to begin with since Soap used his com for everything else. He just needed something with a bigger and more tangible screen to draw on.

But so far, Ghost hadn't given anything back if he had a use for it, and this was something Soap would rather not lose. Still... Ghost was waiting. He could transfer all the data from the pad to his com. He had a spare tablet. It would be quick.

“Alright. Wait one,” Soap let his crest droop slightly as he connected his com to the port on one of the casings.

The transfer done, he handed Ghost the tablet and a pen, not sure what he was expecting. Ghost trying to draw like he'd seen him do? He sure scribbled something over Soap's head. An uncomfortable feeling came and didn't leave when Ghost flipped the tablet so Soap could see what he'd done.

“This is word,” he tapped the scribble with the pen. “Give me you word.”

Soap was speechless. He stared at the writing without moving a muscle, that feeling now in full force.

“You good?” Ghost wrinkled his eyefur.

Soap had done it again. Not only did he overlook a much easier way to pass on information – drawing some of the things he'd tried to communicate would have worked just fine – he'd underestimated Ghost. And he knew why.

“Soap?” Ghost tapped more insistently on the tablet. “The word.”

“Um, yes. Sorry. Here?”

Ghost handed the tablet back. Soap had already purged everything from the device besides the drawing app. He needed more. Ghost let him plug his com into the tablet again and kept his position hovering over his shoulder as Soap downloaded a Common alphabet manual and the most updated dictionary of the language while silently berating himself. Of course humans knew how to write! Just because they didn't have their level of technology, he'd put Ghost way too low on that scale. He could have at least tried to figure it out before writing this off. Ha.

The data transfer took seconds yet it felt a lot longer.

“Come, sit here,” Soap waved Ghost to the couch. “I will show you how to use it.”

There went Soap's easy morning, and he had nobody to blame but himself even as a part of him was wondering why Laswell hadn't intervened. Surely she'd have had an inkling way before Soap had to be rudely shaken by the truth. He'd tunnel visioned, hard. Focused only on the one solution they'd found to work. Great. Not only was he doubting Laswell, he'd most likely disappointed Price when the man wasn't even there.

Ghost tried his best to commit to memory the alien alphabet Soap was explaining. It was easy enough in theory, being entirely phonetical, but his own attention was chipped away by his Soap's mood. There seemed to be a cloud hanging over Soap and where he normally took every chance to show Ghost new things, he was subdued. Not that Ghost needed a lot of explaining, but it took him a few tries to understand how to switch tabs and register his own notes to the device. Another thing he was quickly grateful for being the images illustrating every word he selected in the dictionary. This was going to speed things up considerably and without needing help for every single thing.

His teacher's mood was so obvious that Gaz took over the impromptu lesson when he came in and Soap disappeared somewhere.

Not Ghost's problem.

He put his nose back to the tablet. On the screen, circles with various lines drawn into them blended together. A circle with more or less lines was a different sound, but it was a struggle to differentiate them. He wondered briefly if that was how it felt to be dyslexic. Endless letters that all looked the same except for tiny differences. One more line than the rest, the same amount of lines crossing each other but on opposite sides of the circle... This was going to take a while.

Numbers weren't any better. Same problems, only with semi-circles instead of full ones. Oh, and individual letters when they were needed were semi-circles, but facing the other way. It seems like a huge oversight. If someone wrote them too close together, you had a full circle again and a completely different sound or meaning to your words. It just seemed needlessly complicated.

Once he had the writing system down, he lost himself into absorbing as much vocabulary as he could. Ghost kept notes on everything in the drawing app, writing down every word's equivalent in English, along with a count of the days. This morning, he'd hit thirty. A month, but he couldn't be sure of how long that was exactly. On this planet, the days seemed longer.

Soap, Gaz and Laswell helped him practice when he asked, but otherwise were content to leave him alone, something rendered easier with the addition of the locked doors. Added mats provided gravity to the room and Ghost had cranked it high. Maybe even higher than Earth with the feeling of heaviness that had dragged him down the first week, and the aliens avoided going in here as much as possible. Gaz had built a second bridge to Soap's room bypassing Ghost's.

The morning mist had yet to clear fully when Ghost walked out onto the balcony. It didn't seem to rain on this planet, but the humidity at night was enough to have water drip down the roof in the morning and hang in the air until the sun pierced the canopy.

Price and Nik hadn't come. He'd tried to ask but wasn't sure he'd understood the answer. “Sleeping at home” didn't seem right. Not for so long. Vacation maybe? He hadn't pushed.

While the routine of expanding his linguistic ability and the training regiment he never skipped on settled his need for stability, he also itched to move. Away from here, away from this small room that was starting to feel constricting.

Overhead, the sun continued its slow climb. Maybe Ghost could do that too. The trees and large vines were rarely far apart, always one within reach if you were willing to make the jump. Ghost rolled his shoulders. Balcony railing, branch on the left, two vines long enough to climb like a rope for at least ten meters, swing to the next branch. He couldn't see farther up, the thick leaves blocking the way, but he was sure he'd find something. Gaz was climbing and jumping all over the trees rather than using the bridges most of the time.

He took a few minutes to warm up and grabbed the first branch.

Ghost didn't know how tall these trees were, but he was sweating enough he couldn't use the vines anymore. Up here, they were slimmer anyway. No risk of snapping or slipping if he stuck to the branches.

The size of the branches he climbed had slowly slimmed yet they remained thick enough to hold his weight. The trees were simply that enormous. He shifted his feet and grabbed the next hold, palms stinging on the bark. He hauled himself up with a grunt, muscles straining. His hand twinged, reminding him the healed limb was still tender. He ignored it. If anything, this was the best workout he's had since getting kidnapped.

A big leaf blocked the view over him and he shook it slowly. He'd been surprised by critters lounging on these and would rather not get another faceful of squeaky, furry limbs. At least it hadn't been some poisonous bug, or a snake.

He paused to catch his breath – he needed to work on his cardio more – and looked down. The view was a mass of green leaves. The further he could see was maybe twenty meters down through a convenient gap. No proper sense of the distance he'd just climbed from looking at the ground and he had to rely on his rusty internal clock. An hour, maybe. At this speed he should have covered close to 200 meters.

Taller than any tree on Earth, that was for sure. And the specimen he was climbing wasn't standing out among its peers in any way. Just a tree. He shifted the big leaf away and squinted at the brightness. He hauled himself up as soon as his eyes adjusted.

In seconds, his head broke through the canopy. Endless sky and a proper horizon greeted him for the first time in months without some sort of barrier in between.

He lingered there for a while.

Eventually, he had to move. He'd gone up here for a reason. Making sure his perch was solid, he turned, scanning the canopy. Any hole into it might reveal what he was looking for, but really he was hoping for a river.

He found no such thing. His eyes fell on a behemoth of a tree instead. It stood easily twice as tall as the others and its leaves, even from such a distance, appeared different. Darker, more brown than green in spots. And if he wasn't wrong, he thought he'd seen something move in there... Animals? More aliens?

He would have been tempted to get closer if he could have made that distance in half a day, but in the thick jungle it would no doubt take much longer. Shame. He might ask Gaz about it. A tree so big looked like something important. At landmark at the very least.

Ghost found new handholds to turn completely around. Nothing creaked and he didn't fall. The swaying he could deal with.

He sucked in a deep breath when his eyes fell on a hole in the canopy. Finally? It wasn't a river but... He couldn't see any reflection, even from a relatively short distance. Pretty small then. But if it was what he was hoping for, it would do just fine. He made sure he had the right direction in mind when he scrambled down, a new wind in his sails. This one he could reach easily on foot. He couldn't believe there might have been one so close this entire time.

Gaz called to him when Soap came out of his room. Had he been waiting for him? What was he doing perched on a branch and looking up into the canopy?

“Soap, come on!”

“I'm coming, I'm coming.”

He hurried slightly. Gaz sounded concerned.

“Look up.”

Was there some animal that had breached the perimeter? He'd thought the only predator species on this planet was well under control...
Soap's heart skipped a beat. That was a predator alright, just not the one he expected. What in the twelve galaxies was Ghost doing?

“Wha-”

“I think he's fine, he's coming down but... did you know he could climb like that?”

“No.”

“Mh.”

“Say it if you have something to say.”

“He keeps getting more and more terrifying. I thought I was safe if I climbed high enough.”

Soap bumped his tail into the back of Gaz's legs. Gaz slapped his own back but Soap had the space to dodge that Gaz didn't, perched like he was on a single branch.

“You don't think he's that bad anymore, do ye?”

His friend had relaxed a lot around Ghost. Soap had thought everything was going well.

“He's not. Doesn't make him less scary.”

“You're not making any sense.”

“He's not making any sense,” Gaz waved at Ghost.

The human was almost at their level, only a few branches up. Soap backed away, giving him ample space to land on the balcony. Gaz jumped from his perch to the railing.

Contrary to Gaz' graceful maneuver, Ghost all but let himself fall onto the wooden deck. Soap felt the dull thud into his throat, and Gaz jumped slightly. Ghost didn't waver for a second.

“Hey-” Soap started. He could have been a little more delicate.

Ghost turned his back to him. Soap spluttered and Gaz was only amused for the time it took him to realise Ghost had whirled on him.

“Um, yes?” To his credit, Gaz stood his ground.

“Water is this way?” Ghost pointed to their left.

“Water?” Gaz's tail twitched. “You know where to get water if you're thirsty. In the kitchen.”

“No. Big water this way. I walk to the water. Not to drink.”

Gaz was about to answer when he looked back at Soap.

“Did you tell him about the pond?”

“No, I didn't.”

“Laswell must have then.”

Ghost furrowed the fur over his eyes. They'd learned that meant he was generally unhappy with something.

“No, why Laswell? Laswell is not here,” Ghost interrupted.

“How do you know there's... big water over there?” Gaz asked.

“I climb,” he pointed a finger to the trees overhead.

“But...”

Even Soap didn't have to be an expert to know there was no way to see the pond unless he climbed to the very top. Alright. Gaz had a point. Ghost was still terrifying.

“Can we go to the pond? Pond is big water,” he pushed.

“I- I'm gonna get the bands.”

He left Gaz to deal with Ghost and fetched their bands. Soap had his in a pocket most of the time, but Ghost left his in his room and never wore it. He would have to if they wanted to leave the premises of the property.

This time, Soap had left his in the common room, in easy reach for everyone. Ghost's however, was behind a locked door. Soap considered using his override of the lock, but turned around instead. Besides, Ghost had cranked the gravity mats inside so high that getting anything in here was a slog. Literally.

Convincing Ghost to get the band wasted more time and Soap could see the human was getting agitated. Or was it frustration? Either way, it tugged at the worry he did his best to ignore. Ghost seemed fine. Healthy. The fur on his head was growing back, and he learned new words just as fast as before. There were no signs his mind was degrading. Until now. Who knew what else might be wrong where they couldn't see.

When Ghost came back, band attached to his belt instead of on his body, Soap didn't push. Ghost did.

“We go?”

“Yes, we're going,” Soap replied, glancing at Gaz.

The Nefit started walking towards the pond. It wasn't far, but in the thick vegetation of the jungle it would take some time. Gaz had detached his spear from his belt and extended the rod to its maximum length, using it to part leaves and vines just as much as protection. The Nefit's home planet was paradise compared to their previous stop, but it wasn't completely safe either.

It shouldn't have surprised Soap that Ghost noticed.

“There is dangerous animals here?”

“Yes, they're...” How was he going to explain this? “long animals with no legs. They look like vines. Same colour.”

Ghost looked around them, and if Soap hadn't seen him be nothing but a rock so far, he'd have thought him nervous. It didn't help his doubts.

“What name?”

“They're called silus.”

“Silus?”

“Aye. But they're rarely seen nowadays.”

“...seen?”

Ah, blast. He'd gotten used to Ghost understanding a lot more and used way too complex words.

“Not seen much.”

That got him a nod. Ghost fell back to the end of their three person line cutting a path through the jungle, and Soap had to work to keep his tail in check. If this continued, he was going to be too wound up to enjoy a swim.

Chapter Text

The moment Gaz parted the last leaves blocking the view of the pond, Ghost darted ahead of them. Soap was about to call him back on reflex but held back the urge. There was no reason. Projecting his own nervousness wouldn't help matters.

Gaz gave him a pointed look. Come to think of it, Gaz was more at ease than Soap right now, and he knew the only reason his mood hadn't been questioned by his friend was Ghost's presence.

The human was crouched at the edge of the pond, a hand in the water, frown all but gone from his face. Soap didn't have the time to think what that could mean. Ghost started pulling his clothes off save for the garment at his waist.

His wounds had healed well, no infection or complication they could see. Not that Ghost allowed them to. He'd kept them at arm's length the entire month. Now, Soap could see the extent of the scarring. The skin was still heavily red in places, scar tissue tight and raised where the worst of the damage had been. The clean cuts were barely visible, but the mess on Ghost's right arm and shoulder was impossible to miss.

Soap didn't understand how Ghost had still been able to keep to his routine in this state instead of resting until it healed.

He was so distracted the human's intent didn't register until he entered the water. Soap knew this pond well, and the shallow area was short. So short, Ghost's next step wasn't going to land on solid soil.

Gaz's warning trill was nothing but noise as Soap rushed to the edge of the water and threw off his shoes, freeing the fins at his feet. He was going to need all the advantage he could get to keep Ghost from sinking to the bottom of the pond. He remembered the weight given by the scanner with rising dread.

“What you do, Soap?” Ghost grumbled.

Soap froze, water up to his legs. Ghost wasn't sinking, nor barely treading water with panicked cries. Instead, he swam away from him with a wave of his arms and a stare that looked a lot like judgment.

“He's fine...” Gaz's voice echoed his disbelief.

Soap slunk further into the water, skin darkening further. Of course Ghost knew what he was doing, it was Soap acting the fool. Again.

“Stars... Climbing, swimming, what's next, flying?”

Soap ignored Gaz' cursing behind him and swam around Ghost. The feeling of his tight, wet land clothes wasn't great in the water, but it was too late now. Really, he should have been clued in when Ghost started taking off his.

He dove underwater, muffling the sounds of the surface. It didn't do anything for the feelings bubbling up inside him. Soap was good, very good on the field. He was well trained, as were all the members of the 141. Yet these days he felt like he was coming up short. There was no training for this, sure, but he should still be doing a better job, no? He refused to entertain the idea that Ghost had purposefully put distance between them since landing on Elnilil. It didn't make sense.

Except...

Soap didn't have time to form the thought. Water displaced heavily behind him and he turned around with a push of his tail. He almost clipped Ghost's head.

Ghost's head.

Underwater.

Blast!

Ghost barely avoided getting slapped in the face by Soap's large tail fin. Bloody hell, he was fast. Ghost was a decent swimmer, and he'd rarely felt as clumsy as he did now trying to follow Soap. The alien glided underwater with seemingly no effort, that powerful tail pushing him along. He'd stopped in the middle of the pond and Ghost decided to follow the gliding shape a little more closely. He'd dove after him, not expecting him to whip around like that. He wondered if there was enough tension in those fins to cut someone.

He'd lost some air during the unexpected flailing, but nothing critical, so he stayed where he was. The water was so clear he could see the gills on Soap's neck, wide open, sucking in water and a few particles. They must be getting filtered somehow, because Ghost was sure he saw the same one get sucked in then spat out on from the one on the other side.

Soap shot forward and he flinched back, but there wasn't anything he could do to stop him. Soap grabbed him by the arm. Ghost tried to roll, bringing his feet up for a kick. His head broke the water before he could do anything and Soap let go.

“What the bloody hell was that?” he spat, literally.

He wasn't sure what he was most angry at. Soap's actions or his own inability to keep his mouth shut against the unexpected movement. His nose burned too much for him to feel bad when he glared at Soap, the alien's skin swirling darker by the second.

Not too much, anyway. He could at least have enough compassion to curse him out in a language he understood.

“You -- ---!” Soap yelled.

Or maybe not. Ghost scowled, then took a deep breath. Throttling Soap wouldn't help.

“Why take me up?” he managed, voice calm.

Gaz had inched as close to them as he could while still standing on the shore, too far to listen in. Soap didn't notice, his back to him, and continued talking half nonsense, half gibberish. He needed to do something.

“Shush. No talk,” he explained when Soap looked confused. “I good, not hurt. Why you fear? I do not understand.”

“Not hurt? You head -- -- the water!”

Under the water? If Soap thought he was drowning, then this entire thing might have some sense. Still, Ghost had to put a stop to the aliens doing what they believed to be good for him without consulting him first. Especially if it involved moving him anywhere by force.

“Look,” he gestured to himself, the movement making him bob in the water. “I explain to you, no fear, yes? Good. I show this,” he raised a hand, fingers making the 'ok' sign. “I good. Yes?”

Soap mumbled something that could have been agreement.

“Yes? Show me with you hand,” he insisted.

The gesture was a bit awkward with the webs between Soap's fingers, but it worked. Good enough.

“Come with me. No fear, no take me, understand?”

“Yes.” He didn't look convinced, but he didn't argue.

Ghost turned around and kicked off. He put some distance between them and dove. He was once again surprised by just how clear the water was. The pond wasn't very deep so it took Ghost only seconds to touch the bottom. Bright coloured fish fled from where they'd been hiding under the plants, kicking up some dirt. He used a rock for purchase to spin around. Soap was hovering behind him, still looking concerned, but observing instead of interfering. Maybe he'd understood Ghost's point. Time to drive it home.

He swam away, staying close to the bottom. He was close to the minute mark, but he wasn't sure how long he could stay. Probably not as long as he used to. He felt the seconds tick as he relaxed his body that was starting to scream for air. Definitely out of practice.

He waited a bit more before calmly going back to the surface. His head broke the water and he wished he'd had something to time himself with. No matter.

Soap followed and stayed silent. By the time Ghost caught his breath, the alien still hadn't talked.

“You understand? I know what I do... I hurt or not good, I say.”

Maybe that was the problem. He'd been keeping the aliens at arm's length, learning the language on his own time and staying as little as necessary in their presence. His studies didn't really get him far, as evidenced by his broken speech. He'd expanded his vocabulary, but he realised now it wasn't necessarily useful in his day to day life. He needed to get more involved.

Maybe some part of him still thought he could get rid of it all, turn the situation back to something he understood. Survival in hostile environment was as natural as breathing, and this planet seemed much easier to survive on than the previous one. He'd have no issue giving the aliens the slip and disappearing.

And then what?

It was a depressing thought.

“Yes,” Soap finally replied.

He joined Gaz at the edge of the pond while Ghost stayed where he was, treading water. He tuned the aliens out and floated. The water lapping at his skin was heavenly. For the first time in months, he felt truly clean. He'd taken to using the shower only once every few days. The dry skin it caused had been starting to cause problems. Yes, he was hurting himself by not making an effort to integrate with his new companions.

He would treat this like any other transfer to a new team. Gaz and Soap were subordinates. Nik didn't seem involved in much beyond flying the ship. Price was in charge and he would need to deal with that. Laswell... He wasn't sure what to make of her. An advisor? Intelligence? The more he thought about it, the more his rescuers' organisation looked like some sort of special military division.

Once they went back to their current base, he would start truly putting in the effort. He hadn't until now, not truly. But right now he just wanted to relax.

The water lapped at him and he lazily kicked his feet just to feel it glide against his skin. He was just missing soap, but beggars can't be choosers. And his Soap was still talking with Gaz as he drifted away.

He tuned them out. Floating on his back, it was odd to not be able to see the sky. He felt trapped, like he was swimming in an underwater cave and not a forest. The slight breeze passing through the leaves only revealed more greenery.

To the sides, the vegetation formed thick walls encasing this small pocket of water. Ferns, flowers and vines battled for space until it dipped into the pond in places. The jungle was a maze and Ghost wondered how the aliens found their way. Maybe they didn't, not often. All the houses were suspended over the carpet of vegetation on the ground and they'd come here in a flying saucer. This might just be their only mode of transportation if they needed to cover any sort of distance. Walking to places wasn't practical and he hadn't seen any roads.

Ghost sighed. He missed the sky and wide open spaces. He might have been knee deep in enemy territory most of the time on Earth, but there had never been any doubt as to where he was and why.

He'd lost track of his drifting and looked just in time to stop himself from hitting his head on one side of the pond. Sinking a hand into the muck wasn't particularly pleasant, and he cursed his inattention. There were three vines falling into the water right next to him, attached to a large bush over his head that would have worked just as well to stop himself. The middle one looked thick enough to hold his weight if he stuck his hand between the multiple leaves falling off of it.

It looked different than the other two. Maybe he should borrow a botany book from Gaz if he was to continue his excursions into the jungle. Poisoned to death by unknown flora was a bad way to go, and he really should have thought of that before climbing the canopy earlier.

He really needed to get back into a proper, military routine. His awareness was suffering.

His splashing in the water made the three vines undulate with the slight waves. The middle, thicker one moved, bringing the other two along with it, tangling them around it. Ghost frowned. It was moving a lot for how little he was disturbing the water. Maybe it wasn't that sturdy after all. Hollow vines?

He'd drifted within arms' reach when the thick vine detached from its bush and fell in the water with a loud splash. Ghost's stomach dropped with it.

He didn't get out of the water in time. The snake whipped around, floating above the water and coming straight at him. Fuck, fuck. Mouth wide open, the snake launched itself at him. Ghost brought up an arm to block it and its toothless maw latched onto his bicep. Wait, toothless? Had he seen that right?

A hiss escaped him as his skin started to burn. Fuck. He didn't think, just acted, grabbed the snake behind its head and yanked. It didn't hurt as much as he'd thought. With no teeth to keep it stuck there, it slipped off easily. Keeping his burning arm under the water, Ghost slammed the head of the alien snake on the ground of the pond's shore until it stopped moving.

Breathing hard, he slowly let go. No movement. The leaves coming from the body had drooped. Were these limbs?

A splash behind him told him Soap was on his way. Ghost slowly swam away from the snake without taking his eyes off of it. He was pretty sure it was dead. Or dying.

“Ghost! -- you good?”

He lifted his arm. Getting it out of the water was painful but manageable. Some sort of acid. Maybe the thing didn't need teeth with its entire mouth coated in this. Soap turned a shade darker when he saw the red skin of his arm and the body of the snake-vine halfway out of the water.

“I think the animal dead,” Ghost mumbled as he examined his arm.

It didn't seem like it was spreading. Keeping it in the water for a while might just do the trick.

“Silus. This is a silus,” Soap replied distractedly as he examined his arm.

Ah. So that's what they meant by it being an animal with no legs. The thing was easily two meters long. Maybe more.

“The arm stay down the water. Less hurt,” he explained before Soap dragged him out.

He sure looked ready to, but he nodded instead.

Gaz had found his way to them by climbing the branches around the pond, but he didn't come down from his perch. Instead, he stabbed the snake with his spear. Like this, limp and getting dragged away, it really looked like a vine. How many had he missed this morning during his climb? He was lucky he didn't try to grab one. The tells weren't obvious, even now when he knew what they were. The thing was good at hiding its head until it struck.

“I want a rifle to go outside,” he mumbled as Gaz disappeared between the bushes with the body.

“No,” Soap answered reflexively.

“What Gaz have? Give me name?” He didn't think a gun would fly, but this was a reasonable downgrade.

Soap looked in the direction Gaz had left in. Ghost had him.

“Spear. What about the training pole?”

“No. A spear.” He would rather not take his chances. “I hurt because of the silus.”

Was he laying it on too thick? If they started to think of him as fragile again, he would have to correct it. Too late to take it back now. Really, the burn was minor compared to the state he was in after fighting the triduls, but Soap looked appropriately guilty with his crest drooping all the way down on his skull.

“-- outside. And with me, or Gaz, or Laswell.”

Jackpot. He could always sneak away without his minders. The prospect of having a proper weapon, even one he wasn't familiar with, was uplifting.

They stayed here for a while. Ghost wanted to say an hour, but it was hard to tell. He just knew he was starting to get cold and his fingers were heavily wrinkled. Soap eyed them for a long time, but didn't ask. Good man.

Sadly, the snake had crashed the party and Ghost hadn't been quite able to keep his eyes off the vegetation. Stealthily, anyway. He couldn't have Soap notice.

Getting back into his dry clothes while still wet wasn't the most pleasant thing, and he would have to figure out something to let his clothes dry once back in his room, but the dip in the pond was well worth it. Even with the threat of alien snakes.

Gaz and Soap chatted the entire way back and Ghost ignored them after a few minutes. He had no context clues to figure out their discussion. He just enjoyed the walk. He considered running back – most of the PT he managed in his hut was stationary – but the aliens would probably freak if he just took off running, so he stayed behind them. He would do it during another pond excursion. Solo.

Back in his room, Ghost wasted no time getting rid of his wet clothes. With the ambient humidity of the jungle, they had barely dried. He might manage to hang them to the branches of the tree making up one side of a wall, but the leaves would be a pain.

There were hangers in the right side of the wardrobe. He hadn't needed them so far, but opening the door revealed enough space for all his clothes to dry. That would work. The clothes weren't wet enough to drip on the bottom.

The hangers were designed for different styles of clothing and adapting them was, for once, simple. No invisible button to press, just clamps that could be moved manually from one spot to another. Satisfied, he closed the door with a click.

A click? He frowned. All of the alien doors, be it to a room or the wardrobes had been so utterly silent Ghost reflexively checked if they were properly closed sometimes. They'd never made any sort of noise unless he truly tried and even then, there was some sort of mechanism catching the door before it could slam home.

Ghost tried to open it. It didn't open. Did it just lock? Why? He hadn't done anything different. He pulled harder and a screen popped up with some writing he couldn't read and a green rectangle. The door to the bathroom was green when in use. What use was the wardrobe in?

Pulling on the door didn't help, so he crossed his arms and waited slightly off to the side. Just in case it swung open when whatever this was was done.

The green light disappeared and the door clicked, but didn't open. Carefully, Ghost tugged. It opened without resistance. Inside, his clothes appeared unharmed. And dry, he realised as he took his shirt in hand. Dry without a hint of a smell signaling it had been outside and in contact with pond water.

Looked like he found the drier. Or the washing machine. Or both.

Properly engaging with the aliens was long overdue.

Chapter Text

Soap knew where to find Ghost at this time of day. After another month on Elnilil, Ghost looked genuinely settled. It was such a stark contrast with how he was before. He would have never helped himself to the kitchen like he was doing now.

“What are you doing?”

Ghost scowled, but he wasn't sure if it was directed at him. The human's eyes remained firmly on the pot of boiling water on the stove.

“--. Leaves in water.”

As usual he didn't know what that meant. Ghost seemed to have given up explaining. Soap wished he'd push it a bit more, but he could understand the sentiment. They'd spent the last month explaining a lot of concepts, more abstract words and a little grammar. Very little. Soap didn't want to overwhelm him. Helping him learn made all the difference. Soap felt a little guilty when he realised he'd leaned too much on Ghost's ability to understand things on his own. It just couldn't compare to being properly taught. Well, maybe not so properly. Soap was no teacher.

Ghost didn't come out of his shell slowly. No, it was like he'd suddenly decided he'd interact more and went as far as pulling Soap from his drawing tablet to make it happen. Or using the coms system in his helmet to ask directly, interrupting him sometimes ten times in a row. Soap had started to regret showing him how to use that function. Slightly. Why he didn't go find Gaz or Laswell instead, he didn't know.

The collection of leaves Ghost had gathered this time on their way back from the pond was nothing Soap recognised. Ghost had asked for the testing kit he'd used to check the tridul meat and trusted that the human now knew how to use it.

Ghost asking for help also came with its hazards. He had Soap paint the bottom of a skull, what he suspected was a human skull referenced from the horrid pictures on his arm. He hadn't gathered the courage to ask about that one yet, so he drew instead. Ghost seemed satisfied with the result. Soap couldn't have left the common room earlier that day. He wasn't exactly squeamish, but the entire thing creeped him out.

He absolutely understood how humans came to have such an awful reputation in the galaxy.

Unfortunately for him, he had to repeat the process when Ghost got enough words to ask for the material to make a mask. A mask. That was what he wanted when he'd asked Soap for a 'head-hat'.

Soap painted that one too and wasn't sure how Ghost keeping his gruesome artwork on his person made him feel. He tried not to think about it.

Just like he tried to not think too hard about why Ghost had asked him to detail the words for all the weapons they'd shown him, their verbs and damage they did. Once that was done, he worked his way up to asking Soap to spar. He politely refused. At least Soap hoped it was polite. What if it was a huge slight for humans in their culture? He was starting to think the rumours were onto something. Humans were violent, even if maybe more controlled than initially thought.

Soap settled near the counter. Ghost moved with familiarity as he fetched a cup and turned off the stove. He suppressed a twitch of his tail. He still had no idea what Ghost was trying to accomplish, but the steps were engraved in Soap's mind. However, he would wait more time than Ghost did before pouring the water into the cup.

The water slowly coloured, but that didn't seem to be what Ghost was after. Soap had offered him some juice, and while Ghost drank it, he kept trying to put leaves in much too hot water. The leaves weren't vegetables. They weren't supposed to taste good and probably didn't if he had to try so many types.

Ghost blew on the hot liquid and took a sip that Soap was sure would have seared his own mouth. And tongue. And throat. And stomach. Ghost swallowed and took another one.

A tense moment of silence hung in the air while the human stared at his cup.

“It's not good, is it?” Soap asked, crest drooping.

“No, it is good. I have it,” Ghost mumbled, taking another sip.

“Really? Have what?”

“Tee.”

“What's that?” Not a word in their language, that was for sure.

“Leaves in hot water.”

“You mean boiling water.”

Ghost's eyes rolled in their sockets. It was a jarring thing to see and Soap had no idea what it meant. There was always a meaning with Ghost. He just wasn't as good as him at putting it together. He much preferred to figure out machinery and technology than people.

“Not important. What is is the leaf.” Ghost picked up the remaining one he hadn't dried and ground to pieces.

Soap didn't recognise it. There were many, many plant species on Elnilil. It didn't look special in any way, just another green leaf among others.

“And that leaf in water tastes good?”

“Yes.”

He didn't elaborate, just continued to sip at his steaming water. Everything he said had a meaning and so did his silences. That was harder to grasp for Soap.

“Could I try it?”

“Try?” Ghost frowned in that way he did when he didn't understand a word.

“Um, drinking some of the... leaf water.”

Ghost whipped his head around so fast Soap took a step back.

“No.”

“Why? And why are you mad at me?”

He needed to know if he'd made some sort of human faux-pas. This sure felt like one.

“You cannot drink this,” was all the explanation he got.

Fine. Sometimes being proactive was also the only reason he figured things out. Ghost had left the test kit on the counter. Soap cut a small piece of the leaf remaining into the testing tube.

He almost dropped it when two thirds of the lights turned yellow.

“Ghost!” He'd been so sure Ghost had understood how to use the kit. “This is poison!”

The human took a step back as if guarding his deadly beverage from him, eyefurs furrowed.

“It is tee.”

“Well, tee is poison.”

“No, tea, not tee.”

And of course the human wouldn't let it go until he got the pronuciation right before they got back on track.

“For you it is, not for me,” Ghost argued.

Soap hesitated. He'd promised to trust him more when it came to his biology, but this was...

Tapping on the button for the kit's display, Soap pulled up the exact ingredients in the leaf. His fingers, and his entire body, no doubt, had turned so dark they barely contrasted against the black of the kit. Sure, Ghost clearly had a sturdier stomach, but there had to be a limit, and Soap wasn't sure he truly understood what he was drinking.

The display didn't share his anxiety and the most dangerous element jumped at the top of the list. Soap felt his heart slam in his chest despite not having ingested any of the substance. He looked up. Ghost just stood there instead of dying of a heart attack, or having tremors so severe they could only come from neurological damage.

“Please don't drink any more,” Soap pleaded, feeling faint. “This is deadly poison! Not just getting you sick, it will kill you.”

Where was Laswell when he needed her? At least she'd explain calmly instead of panicking. He should probably send her a quick message to warn her and get the med suite ready if it wasn't already too late, but he didn't think Ghost would let him.

“No, it won't.” Ghost huffed like Soap was the one being unreasonable. “Look. I am different. Everyone here eats different things, right?”

“No...?” They all shared their meals. Mostly.

Ghost said something in his own language that might be a curse, because he accompagnied it with a look to the ceiling for some reason. He couldn't escape through there.

“You do not eat meat, or bugs. Gaz does not eat meat, or fish. Price and Nik eat plants and that's it.” He made an odd sound. “What does Laswell eat?”

Like that was important right now? Ghost didn't let him voice the thought.

“And I eat more than you, more than everybody on the ship. I'm fine. I know what I eat.”

“Do you?” Soap pointed at the test kit. “Because caffeine is deadly.”

Evidently, Ghost recognised the word.

“Again, that is an effect for you, not me. You say I am strong, but so is my...” he gestured to his belly.

“Stomach,” Soap filled in the word reflexively.

“It is a stimulant. You need very little to be dead. I do not. This,” he made a show to take a big gulp from the cup. “Is fine. I can drink more than one cup and be fine.”

Soap found it hard to believe, yet hated how much sense this was making. And how Ghost could have done it. He held the test kit between them.

“You tested things one by one? And still ate them?”

“Work my way up, start with blue, green, and yellow. Yellow is fine for me.” He accented his words with a jump of his shoulders, something Soap hadn't figured out yet.

Ghost had been methodical about this and Soap was running out of arguments.

“And how would you know if something is really bad?”

“I get sick.” He didn't seem concerned by the prospect. “I do not die easily.”

“...Can you tell me if you do? So I can change the settings of the kit. Get a new colour for you so you don't eat some of that again?”

“Yes. I will. And red is good.”

Soap had expected Ghost to want black yet again. Red was new.

“Red? Why red?” There were so many questions he was afraid to ask. This one seemed safe enough.

Ghost thought about it for some time.

“Red is the colour of... life juice. Danger. And you do not use it,” Ghost said, showing teeth. “Word for life juice?”

Oh blast. Not a safe question at all. Why did everything return to violence?

“Blood. It's blood you want.” He suppressed a shudder. Barely.

It made sense, in a morbid sort of way. Human blood was indeed red and seeing it could never be a good thing. Did humans avoid the colour red entirely? But Ghost had eaten a few fruits now with that colour and didn't seem bothered at all. Soap didn't know what to think of that.

“Alright then. You know what you're doing. I'm sorry.”

Ghost grunted in response and went back to his drink. Soap would need to warn the others away from Ghost's stash in the kitchen. The leaves weren't the only thing he was experimenting with and Soap was glad Ghost had kept it in a completely separate compartment of the stasis room. He hadn't looked too closely at what Ghost had brought in there out of respect for his territorial instinct and now he was extremely glad he hadn't. To his knowledge there were no plants poisonous enough on this planet to affect someone just by skin contact, but who knew what the human had unearthed. Soap wouldn't be surprised if he'd discovered a completely new species by now. The human was ridiculous like that.

Just like being able to hold one's breath on command. Soap had no idea how Ghost did it. It wasn't like he himself stopped breathing when he went underwater, he just changed the way he got oxygen. To be able to block oxygen from coming in for up to two minutes was absolute insanity. Any species but humans would be dead.

Just another nugget of information he could share with Gaz and not feel like he was the one being unreasonable.

Thinking of Gaz, he landed on the small bridge leading to the living room, a bag attached to his straps.

“Going somewhere?” Soap tossed his way, his mood lifting at the sight of his friend.

It quickly dropped when Gaz approached them.

“Unfortunately,” Gaz hissed, tossing the empty bag on the counter and opening a cupboard with his tail.

“Ah.”

He knew as Gaz filled his bag with fruits prized on the planet as perfect offering when visiting someone.

“Everytime I think they might leave me alone, and everytime they don't. I don't know why I'm still surprised,” he ranted.

“You could just... not go.”

Gaz stopped his frenetic packing of fruits and looked up. Soap recognised that look well.

“You know I can't do that.”

“Do what?” Ghost interrupted, oblivious.

Gaz squirmed.

“Gaz needs to go. I can explain?” he directed at his friend, who gratefully took the out.

“I will see you two soon. Soap, Ghost.”

He disappeared over the balcony's edge and into the leaves. Soap wished he could too, pinned under Ghost's inquisitive gaze.

“So... The city is not too far from here-”

“The city? Explain the word,” Ghost already cut him off. This was going to take a while.

Soap wasn't sure how much time had passed once he thought Ghost had successfully understood the gist of the situation. Gaz' parents had found he was back on the planet and since the city where they lived was close, he had to go. At least, in Gaz' mind. Soap disagreed. Ghost seemed to disagree too.

“How did his parents find him if he did not tell them?”

“Stikik takes care of the house while Gaz isn't here. With Stikik back with his own, it's easy to figure out where Gaz is.”

“Stikik...?”

“You saw Stikik the first day we came here.” He had, right?

Ghost thought for a while.

“The small animal that was in the hole?”

Soap stopped himself from snapping at the human. He just didn't know any better.

“Stikik isn't an animal,” he said, maybe a bit harsher than he'd intended. “He's a person. As is his entire species. They live on this planet with the Nefit.”

Ghost nodded.

“So... The family of Stikik call the parents of Gaz?”

“Not exactly. But word travels.”

“Travels?”

Oh, how was he going to explain that one...

“People talk to each other and talk to other people about it. It took two months for the words to get to Gaz' family.”

“And Gaz does not like his family.”

“That's the short answer,” Soap conceded.

Ghost's eyefurs furrowed and he looked out the window towards where Gaz had gone.

“Something smells bad.”

Soap couldn't cut off the trill in time. Thankfully Ghost didn't seem offended by the laugh.

“That's one way to put it. Original.”

But it didn't look like the human was listening anymore, focused intensely towards the canopy.

Chapter Text

Gaz made sure the fruits were secure in the bag before he made the jump to the next branch. They hadn't moved since he'd left. He was stalling, he knew, yet he did it anyway. Not that coming later would do anything for his mother, on the contrary.

Much too soon, he reached the city limits, and from there, his family's parcel wasn't far. He had no doubt his mother would be home, and his father wouldn't.

The main cabin came into view and he forced himself to go on. From here, she could have seen him from a window. And she had, because she was out on the balcony when he dropped on the roof.

“Kyle! How delightful it is to see you again,” she said, wrapping her orange tail around his.

Gaz let go as soon as he could slip it out of her grasp.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Oh, you got me some fruits? You shouldn't have.” Yet every time he didn't she added it to the list of his failings. “Come on in, let your old mother know what you've been up to.”

He'd hoped for a moment of peace when depositing the fruits in the stasis room, but no such luck. She followed him.

“You haven't changed since I last saw you,” she prattled on, messing with the green scarf raising the white fur of her neck in a deliberately casual gesture.

Gaz couldn't help but let his eyes slip over it, and she didn't miss it. The disapproving swishing of her tail had him tense.

“I know what you do is for... practical reasons,” she spat the word like it was particularly heinous. “But you're not getting any younger. Did you know your cousin found a mate? She's a wonderful lady with beautiful fur.”

They went back to the living room while she continued letting him know what the family had been up to for the last year. His cousin had a kit on the way and how wonderful that was, and how his sister had gotten a promotion at the laboratory.

While he was still gallivanting the galaxy instead of staying home. He'd learned not to say anything and just let her go on. Nothing he could say would change her mind.

He was only listening with one ear when the subject circled back to his cousin.

“You should join the ceremonial guard once you're done with...” she gestured in his general direction. “It would be similar to what you're doing now.”

He'd also given up on explaining that no, the two were in no way comparable. But there was an out here.

“Maybe I should see him now. You said he's on duty right now? There is no better information than at the source.”

“Of course. I'm sure he will be pleased to see you!”

They both ignored the lies. At least Gaz did. He hoped his mother didn't truly believe a trip to the Life Tree would change his mind. Or maybe, he too was willing to let her believe that lie so long as it would allow him to leave early.

“It was good to see you,” he lied.

“Yes, it's a shame your father missed your visit, but he's been very busy at work these days.”

“I understand.”

He slipped out of reach from her tail before she could grab his.

“Until next time.”

“Don't be too long.”

As long as he could make it, he thought as he started in the direction of the Life Tree.

Rising much taller than any other on Elnilil, the Life Trees were the center of the settlements and kept in view of the city center by the only trimming allowed by the Council. The health of the Life Trees had to be preserved, even at the detriment of the surrounding vegetation. The normally invisible protective barrier surrounding the area let him through, shimmering slightly but offering no resistance.

It allowed Gaz to spot the guard at the bottom south of the large trunk. Brown fur at first, then white neck marking, the black ears and tail tip barely standing out against his dark fur.

By then, he was close enough to be recognised.

“Kyle,” Ajan greeted him, shifting the spear to a more relaxed position.

They touched tails briefly, the movement making Ajan's armor clank.

“Not getting tired of those yet?” Gaz bumped his pauldrons with his tail, the light material giving a nice ringing sound.

It was a highly impractical piece of equipment, as was the chest plate. They'd stop a silus bite, but nothing more. How would it stand up against Ghost...

“Not yet,” Ajan replied, an ear flicking in amusement. “What about you? It's dangerous business out here, you could join me and help.”

“Out here?” Gaz gestured around them. “Protected by the barrier, where all you do all day is stand here?” he teased, the words familiar and lacking a bitter tinge.

Ajan suddenly sobered.

“The barrier came down about a week ago. We're not sure how long it stayed that way until we noticed.”

“A malfunction?” Gaz' tail twitched. He might not be around much, but that didn't mean he didn't care. Especially when it came to the Life Tree.

“Most likely.” Ajan's ears couldn't drop all the way back surrounded by the helmet, but they tried. “They didn't find a cause.”

Blast, this could have been a good question to ask his father, but there was no way Gaz would go back to his parents' parcel.

“No damage right?” he asked, looking over their heads like he would have been able to see anything.

“No, thank the Light.” Ajan's shoulders sagged. “We brought all the guards to comb the area. Nothing sneaked in.”

“That's good.” Not wanting the silence to get any heavier, he redirected the subject. “I guess your position isn't so ceremonial after all?”

He made a pass like he tried to steal the spear with a swish of his tail and Ajan's mood lightened.

“Of course, it's nothing compared to Mister Peacekeeper, roaming the Fringe and arresting the worst criminals the galaxy has to offer. No no, I'm just protecting the next generation of Nefits. Nothing important, really.”

They looked at each other, ears flickering and tails loose. Unfortunately their play would never go further, not anymore. They wouldn't get back their childhoods where Gaz dreamed of going to the shining Tower built even higher than the Life Tree, that would lift him to the stars, while Ajan followed him every step of the way asking questions he would do his best to answer with the little knowledge he had.

In the end, Gaz had left and Ajan stayed.

Ajan opened his mouth to speak, but Gaz was distracted. Overhead, animals gathered, cries and noise growing. Ajan followed his gaze, straightening his spear.

“What's going on?”

“Not sure.”

Did he expect him to know just because he was better trained? Gaz swallowed the bitter feeling. It wasn't Ajan's fault Gaz was moody.

A bird broke through the leaves, followed by an entire flock and disappeared into the bigger leaves of the Life Tree. The barrier didn't shimmer at their passage.

“Oh, no... Not again,” Ajan hissed, fumbling with his com.

Someone had picked up his call when the noise grew and what seemed like half the animals of the surrounding jungle followed the first flock, a burning smell following them.

“Fire,” Gaz mumbled.

Whoever was on the line had to wait, because Ajan was too shocked to answer, eyes stuck on the wave of fear and death passing overhead.

“What...”

Ajan shook himself as Gaz was about to take the call. “The barrier! The barrier is down and animals are being chased towards us by...” he looked at Gaz for confirmation, hope, rebuttal, he wasn't sure, but Gaz could only confirm. “By fire! Oh dear Light... The city has to be burning.”

His horrified look struck Gaz and he shivered in sympathy, yet he couldn't help but note that he himself wasn't panicking, not really. The next step presented itself like an evidence.

“Gather the Guard and evacuate everyone, everything you can. The Tower will bring extra shuttles to help.”

Ajan seemed relieved to have orders. This was way out of the ceremonial guard's duties.

“I have to go.” This time, Gaz ignored the flash of panic on his cousin's face. “I have to get my team.”

He was already climbing as fast as he could when he took his com.

“Soap?”

“No, something smells bad. Really,” Ghost insisted.

Soap didn't smell anything, but the human's senses were sharper than his.

“What do you smell?”

“Um... Fire.”

“Fire doesn't have a smell.”

“The thing that fire burn does. And that is the smell.”

“...Nobody uses fire here.” Except Ghost, but that didn't seem smart to mention.

“There,” Ghost pointed somewhere to the right. “There is less light, and it comes this way.”

Soap focused. Indeed this part of the canopy seemed darker than the rest. There were never enough clouds on Elnilil for such a thing to happen.

“Blast! Smoke!”

Next time he would listen to Ghost first thing.

“What?” Ghost asked, but Soap didn't have the time to explain words right now.

“Go get your things, we're going to the shuttle and picking up Gaz,” he instructed as he fumbled with his com.

Laswell answered right away.

It took some time to gather everyone's belongings. Or rather, everyone but Ghost's. The human seemed always ready for things to go bad at all times. They piled in the shuttle, Laswell taking place behind the controls. They couldn't just input coordinates and let the AI do the flying when they didn't know where Gaz was exactly. Right now, they just needed to get themselves out of here.

“Look for the fire,” Ghost told Laswell.

“Why?” Soap asked. They needed to get away, not closer.

“To see where it comes from and why.”

That made sense. Still, it struck him as unnecessarily dangerous. Laswell didn't say anything and turned the shuttle the other way, in the direction of the now obvious black smoke choking the canopy.

“This thing is rated for vacuum right?” He was just a little nervous. Just a little.

“Yes, Sergeant,” Laswell replied. “You know that all the shuttles coming from the Tower are. I already have everything closed to the outside. Smoke won't be an issue.”

“Right.”

The shuttle broke the canopy, grey tendrils sticking to the hull, and Soap froze.

The sight below was incomprehensible. As far as the eye could see, black smoke rose from the trees, flames jumping from leaves to leaves and leaving behind burnt ruins. It spread across the vines, lighting everything else they came across. In that direction there was no more lush jungle.

“Dear Light...”

How did that even happen?

“How come no one call, um...” Ghost looked unflappable. “The people that fight fire?”

“What?”

“I do not have the word.”

“...There is no word. Nobody fights fire. We don't use fire.”

“Fire can start in a forest, no?”

“No. It's neither dry nor hot enough for that here. It never happens.”

The only fires he knew of were deep in labs. And Elnilil's labs were even deeper underground. No way it could have started there and jumped to the canopy without burning the ground. The fire seemed concentrated in the high branches and Soap didn't understand how.

“Soap?” his com lit automatically with the emergency line.

“Gaz, where are you? We're coming to pick you up.”

“Sending coordinates. What's going on?”

“Fire. A huge fire is coming this way.”

“This makes no sense.”

“Agreed.”

“Ghost thinks we should fight the fire,” he told him, more conversionally than anything.

“What?”

“People that work to save others by fight the fire,” Ghost said like that clarified anything.

Laswell tilted her head towards them. “You mean, people whose job it is to put out fires?”

“Yes.”

“...You have so many fires that it's a job for you?” Soap croaked.

“You do not have people for that?”

“No! Why would we? Fires don't happen!”

Ghost pointed outside. They were leaving the area, yet the smoke and flames followed them, barely any slower.

“Well, yes, but... This isn't normal?” Soap turned to Laswell.

“Fire is an extremely controlled thing in the Alliance. For one to start like that...” She pinched her beak.

“Sabotage,” Soap grumbled.

“Most likely. But I don't see what they earn from this, whoever they are. Elnilil isn't exactly positioned well in the Alliance, nor does it have many resources.

“Hey now,” Gaz grouched and Soap had forgotten he was still patched in.

“We're right over you Gaz,” Laswell announced. “Fire is coming in fast, I will have to get down in the branches.”

“Do it. Everything's going to be burned anyway.”

Laswell had the shuttle break through the canopy, branches hitting the undercarriage of the vehicle and snapping them under its weight, but they reached Gaz. He'd taken cover behind a large tree to avoid the debris raining down.

“We got all your stuff, I think,” Soap motioned to their bags in a corner.

“Thanks,” Gaz replied, but he was looking at the fire, coming closer and closer. And behind them stood the Life Tree.

“Blast.”

Grim didn't even begin to describe Gaz' mood. Everyone's mood, really, save maybe Ghost who was hard to read. Soap envied him. They were watching a disaster on a planetary scale that hadn't he couldn't remember hearing of on any planet of the Alliance.

On a deathworld, maybe, but nobody lived there. Except humans.

Maybe Ghost understood just fine.

Chapter Text

Ghost couldn't wrap his head around what was happening. Nothing seemed organized. They passed by a few shuttles in the airspace to the tall glass tower, but nothing coming out of it to evacuate the population. The sky was fully grey now, and the fire had to have spread over thousands of kilometers already.

Ghost had to agree with Laswell. Even without knowing exactly the composition of the air on this planet, a fire of this magnitude starting spontaneously in the jungle of all places seemed impossible.

But he couldn't fathom that the aliens never developed any sort of firefighting measure.

“A starship is coming down,” Laswell announced. “The -- can -- there.”

Ghost was about to ask for a clarification when a large ship, much larger than the one he'd been spending his time in space in, broke the cover of smoke. Shuttles landed in its bays before leaving again towards the jungle. Ghost hoped that meant people were being evacuated at the very least.

“We have to stop this,” he told the others, because nothing seemed to be getting done.

To his surprise, Gaz was the one to answer.

“How? This is too big to contain.” He looked miserable.

“Do you not have people who work in... dangerous situations on this planet?”

Soap and Gaz looked at each other.

“The --- --. They're --- people as we speak. But the fire...”

“What is their work?” Nevermind that he had no clue what he'd just meant.

“They fight the silus and -- the Life Tree,” Soap came to his rescue.

Shit. Definitely not firefighters.

“What about you?”

“...Us?”

“Yes, you,” Ghost gestured to the three of them, including Laswell. “What are you? Military does not help people and fight danger?”

They looked at each other dumbly. Well, fuck. He'd thrown them a curveball and they had no idea what to do with it.

“Bloody hell, you guys are hopeless,” he grumbled in English.

The confused looks didn't change, only got deeper. Ghost refrained from cussing them out. He didn't need them any more confused. He himself was no firefighter and he fucking hoped they could come up with something too.

“What do we do?” Laswell finally asked.

They'd reached the glass tower and were hovering close, ready to leave on a dime. Laswell knew her shit.

“To stop a fire that big, you need to make a big hole the fire cannot jump to. Here, it is not on the ground, but in the trees. Cut down the trees far from the fire and it will stop there.” Hopefully. There was little to no wind.

“We can't cut down the trees!” Gaz cried out, shrill enough it made Ghost frown.

“And have the fire burn down the jungle completely?”

Gaz' tail swished behind him.

“And then?” Laswell asked.

“Water. Is there a big body of water somewhere? We need to transport water on... vehicles that fly to let it go over the fire. Or close to the holes to help the fire stop there.”

Did the aliens even have planes or helicopters? He hadn't seen any other aircraft besides the spaceships and smaller shuttles.

He didn't hear Laswell turn on the radio, but she must have as she started blathering a load of terms Ghost didn't have any hope to follow. He tuned them out and watched instead. They flew to orbit and broke it, the small shuttle holding surprisingly well. Were all vehicles rated for space? Laswell docked it into the space station and they all rushed to their ship. Ghost hoped they weren't just tailing out of here. He'd have words if that was the case.

But Laswell flew the ship right back into atmosphere at what looked like breakneck speed. Ghost still couldn't feel anything, not even the slightest rumble of engines while he didn't doubt there was a big fireball licking the sides of the ship descending towards the planet.

It didn't look good. He could only have a quick peek before the window shutters had to be closed for entry, but whatever side of the planet they were facing had a visible burnt mark in the middle of all the green. And thankfully, he spotted a large river that would be a natural firebreak. They could start there.

“How do we cut the trees?” Gaz asked, tail still twitching nervously.

They all turned to Ghost. Oh, Hell no.

“I do not know! You know what you own that could work. Think with your own head!”

Gaz and Laswell started getting on the ball, thank fuck. Even if he could, he wasn't interested in spoon feeding them everything. How had they gotten to be spacefaring species like that? He'd only seen Laswell truly strive to find answers and act on it so far.

And during the rush it seemed they'd forgotten the fact they hadn't allowed Ghost on the bridge until now. At least, Ghost assumed that was the function of the room. Laswell was sitting at a console with several screens in front of her, including one that displayed a view beyond the ship. Ghost didn't think there was an actual window here he hadn't seen before.

It wasn't expansive like what most science fiction movies showed. No separate stations all over the bridge, just Laswell in the pilot seat apparently directing everything. There were two more chairs on either side of her, but nobody used them. Backups? Maybe in case things became too much for Laswell to deal with on her own. It seemed weird to Ghost to not have any visible contingency, someone already in one of those seats.

By the time they reached the river, there were multiple ships already departing the area.

“How are we getting the water?” Ghost asked dumbly, because he hadn't thought of that.

The ship wasn't exactly a tanker. Soap grinned, in that way of his not showing any teeth.

“The cargo bay can be fully sealed.”

He'd barely finished the sentence that Laswell lowered the ship towards the water and pulled up a schematic of the ship. The big cargo bay door opened and the ship was slowly lowered under the water.

Waves lapped at the banks and Ghost hoped they didn't lose too much water doing that. He didn't know how deep the planet's water reserves were, but the fire was spreading so fast drying up the river didn't look outside of the realm of possibilities.

“Go to the holes they are making,” he instructed Laswell once the cargo bay was full. “To get water there. I do not think other places will work.”

She nodded at him and Ghost thought the gesture looked grim. She understood. Gaz looked stricken and was huddled next to Soap. His planet was burning, and they couldn't do more than damage control.

In the distance, the large, most imposing tree Ghost had used as a landmark was burning. Gaz made a long, mourning sound.

For the first time, Ghost felt for the man as they closed on the smoke in the distance.

“Where is your family?”

“Huh?”

“Your family, Gaz. Where do they live?” Ghost waved to the outside of the ship.

The implication clicked and the alien pointed at a spot of the jungle still untouched by the flames.

“Let's drop the water close by and pick them up.”

Ghost wasn't sure why he'd expected them to disagree, but Laswell turned the ship.

When they dumped the water on the forming fire break – the aliens were using the ship's shields as giant cutters – the fire was close. Much too close. Ghost knew wildfires could travel fast, especially uphill, but this was extreme. Even with the high oxygen content of this planet, it didn't add up.

“I'm putting us right over the main cabin,” Laswell announced.

“Can you not call them?” Ghost frowned.

Gaz looked slightly embarrassed. “They don't have coms.”

Bloody Hell. But surely...

“That is not the norm for your people, right? No comm?”

“It is. Only guards and a few specific -- have them.”

The long faces of the others told him all he needed to know. How hard was it going to be to evacuate a population that remained largely uninformed? This disaster just took a turn for the worse.

“We're over them,” Laswell announced.

The greenery below was starting to get obscured by the smoke. They had to move, fast. Ghost put his helmet on. He wasn't sure how it would fare against the heat, but it was better than nothing. Gaz did the same and Soap was about to when Laswell stopped him.

“Soap, I need you here to -- with the shields.”

Reluctantly, Soap stayed on when Laswell deposited them on the balcony of the main cabin, breaking a few pieces of the roof on her descent. Gaz cringed behind his visor.

Ghost left the tint of his in place. He didn't need people seeing his ugly mug and fleeing before he could try to save them.

They'd barely taken two steps when an orange-furred Nefit barreled through the threshold, tail all puffed up. Were those spikes?

“--! What's going on?”

“Get your things, we're evacuating. There's a -- fire catching up.”

She looked and they followed. Smoke was starting to make it through the trees. By the time she gathered a few bags, flames were licking the farthest leaves.

“Your father got back a few minutes ago, but I couldn't find him. He's probably in the work--.”

Gaz said something that was definitely a curse. And it looked like the mom look was universal.

“Where's the workthing?” Ghost asked, getting himself an odd look from her. Sue him, he hadn't understood that last word fully.

She didn't answer, forcing Gaz to.

“Hidden from view,” he said, securing the bags to the straps of his harness with quick movements, only interrupting them to point in the right direction, somewhere in the lower branches. Out of reach of the big ship.

His mother still had two bags in hand. She must have gotten her husband's packed too. Loaded like they were, even Gaz wouldn't get there in time. Not to mention potentially carrying an injured person. Or worse. Ghost tried to not think that.

“You two get on the ship. I will get him.”

Gaz regarded him for two long seconds, big eyes and small slit pupil intense in a way Ghost hadn't seen before. When they turned to the ship, he had to relax his fist, flexing his fingers a few times. The movement finished around a thick vine, hauling him down. Overhead, the fire's glow was spreading.

For a fire that was staying largely contained to the higher level of the jungle, it sure was starting to spread down. Ghost was glad to check the filter on the helmet was working properly, but a full suit would have been nice. He didn't remember the last time he'd sweated like that.

Actually, he did. Running, flames coming out of the front door. Dead bodies inside, big and small.

A charred Christmast tree barely standing in the corner.

Ghost blinked at the still intact wooden hut at the end of a thin bridge.

The cabin wasn't large, but the sheer amount of objects strewn around it slowed him down. Debris from the upper level of the canopy had fallen through the roof, adding to the mess, and Ghost cursed. Just his luck.

A black tail stuck out from under fallen furniture. No movement. Fuck. Rushing to him, Ghost flung the wood pieces with little concern for the rest of the room. He could hear crackling on the roof.

The Nefit under him was almost fully black. For a beat, Ghost thought he was charred. But no, the white puff of fur on his neck was clear, if a little dirty. He wouldn't be bringing Gaz a body if he could help it. Unconscious, he could work with.

The roof gave an ear splitting crack. No time to check on injuries. Heaving him over his shoulder, Ghost rushed out, flames lapping at his helmet, heat burning at his back. The lack of smell was disconcerting. It hurt. Was he burning? Was his charge burning? Looking over his shoulder while running on the narrow bridge wasn't ideal, but he was glad he'd checked. The end of the Nefit's tail had caught on fire, and it was spreading. To Ghost's clothes, further up the tail. Bloody fucking hell was that fur flammable.

He didn't have gloves. He'd forgotten. Reaching the next platform, Ghost turned his charge around, took off his helmet, put the burning tail in it, and closed the throat latch. The Nefit made a sound as it closed rather hard around the tail, but Ghost didn't have time to consider the damage this might make. He vented the air out of the helmet.

Immediately, the flames went out. Against his best judgment, he relaxed. Just for a second.

The work cabin collapsed, taking the bridge down with it. Flaming debris fell down.

They needed to move. He slipped his helmet back on, and this time the smell of smoke and burnt flesh smacked him over the head.

“Laswell?” Ghost called, keying the radio.

“Get up one level, we're right over you.”

Did they have some sort of tracker in this thing? He'd need to disable it. When off-duty anyway. It was saving their asses right now.

“Roger.”

“What?”

He ignored her and started climbing, making sure his charge was secure. Tying a vine around them did the trick.

Soap was standing at the open door of the cargo bay, peering into the leaves. Gaz' mom had been persuaded to go up into one of the empty rooms to wait. Gaz' tail was latched onto one of Soap's legs. He hated how little comfort that was. To both of them.

Ghost burst out of the leaves, Gaz' father hauled on his shoulder like he weighed nothing. They pulled them inside, Gaz immediately taking hold of his father and making a wounded sound.

“He is fine,” Ghost grunted.

Gaz' eyes were locked onto his father's tail. His burned tail.

“Oh, Stars.” Soap squeezed his hand, still holding onto Ghost's arm.

Laswell had been monitoring through the bay's camera. “There's an extra med station already set up at the Tower.”

“If the heat didn't kill him,” Soap mumbled once out of ear shot from Gaz maneuvering a stretcher upstairs.

“Kill him?” Ghost repeated.

Soap suddenly became aware of the fact he was still holding onto him and let go.

“That kind of heat is deadly. Too hot.”

He couldn't see Ghost's face through the tinted visor, but he could feel the confusion. “Deadly? It is not that hot.”

Ghost... Ghost looked absolutely fine. Even after being at the edge of such a massive fire. Crazy. Soap let his crest flop. He didn't have the energy to explain.

It took a week for the last of the fire to be extinguished. Soap hadn't been so tired before in his entire life, not even after they'd tracked down and captured a vicious criminal named Makarov aiming to take control of the planets on the Fringe. There was enough lawlessness there without such an abject person taking control. The current heads there were corrupt, but they knew to mind their own business and not engage with the Alliance at large.

He hadn't been able to sleep properly, only dropping out of sheer exhaustion. He wasn't sure if Ghost was in the same situation, but he often kept him company through a big part of the night, asking him to teach him more Common. Soap gratefully threw himself into the distraction. They'd worked most on conjugation.

The last survivors extracted from the burned zones had left the Tower or joined the remaining communities of Nefit on the planet. The Tower had been built with non flammable material and had survived in its entirety. Or close enough. The jungle planet however...

Seventy percent of it was burned beyond recognition. The loss of life, both people and animal, was tremendous. Soap hadn't looked at the count yet, but he knew that much. Most of the injured rescued succumbed from their injuries. More died even later from smoke that had been slowly poisoning them. There hadn't been enough medical professionals for everyone.

Soap found Gaz among the throng of people still running about. He was sitting on a bench, tail wrapped around another Nefit. His cousin Ajan had mustered the local ceremonial guard to help the evacuations around the globe. He'd been thanked profusely by countless people, but the man had never looked so low. With the chaos dying down, the losses came in with more certainty.

Losses that included his mate and his unborn child along with the Life Tree it had been in.

Ghost stepped next to him and Soap had to raise his head to take in his full expression. He was staring at Ajan. The two had been very quickly introduced, and to Soap's relief, Ajan hadn't recognised Ghost as a human. In fact, nobody on the station had. He'd have inquired further if it wasn't for the disaster unfolding. At least they'd gotten word that the rest of Gaz' family had been evacuated along with his parents.

“Ajan looks... more sad than he should?” Ghost asked. “It is more than the planet, no?”

That was... rude. Even knowing Ghost often didn't have the right words to voice his thoughts. And was it truly Soap's place to explain? But Gaz or Ajan wouldn't do it, and they all knew. It was just Ghost who didn't.

“Ajan's mate was in the city and he couldn't get to her fast enough. Their unborn kit...” his eyes sought the burned down Life Tree. “Didn't make it either.”

A lot of people had lost so many. And Ajan likely felt responsible for the ones he couldn't help as a guard. Soap knew he did himself.

“The... unborn kit was not with mom?”

Soap had to hold back a scathing comment. That was what he took out of that? He wanted to lash out, ask him how dare he be so insensitive. But he just couldn't. Maybe that was normal. Maybe humans were used to losing people like that, with how dangerous their planet was. And Soap knew by now Ghost needed to understand what was going on. He wasn't asking to be mean. He hoped.

“Well, no, he was in the Life Tree,” Soap started before realising that of course, Ghost wasn't going to know what that meant.

Ghost waited.

“Um... Well it is called Life Tree because that's what it does. Giving life. Nefits don't carry their unborn kits themselves. Instead they take their essence from the small pouch on their neck and mix it into the rounded leaves of the Life Tree. The kits grow in there.”

“That is...”

“Is?”

“Not normal.”

Soap let his crest flap. Maybe for humans, but the galaxy was wide and so were the methods of reproduction.

“It is for Nefits. I'd probably find human reproduction weird.” Now he was truly amused.

Ghost made a face he hadn't seen before and didn't provide the information.

“So, the Nefit have fur on their necks to hide the pouch.”

“It's called a gland more specifically, but yes. And it has a finite amount of liquid. Most Nefits can only have one, maybe two kits in their lives if they're lucky.”

Ghost hummed, turning back to the two Nefits. He definitely understood the gravity of the situation.

“Gaz does not have much fur there,” he noted after a while.

“It's easier if he shortens it for our line of work. Nothing sticking out and getting caught between the uniform and helmet of the spacesuits.” Should he say it? “And the gland risks getting damaged. Permanently.”

“It is his choice,” Ghost grunted.

Oh, he gets it. Ghost didn't avert his eyes from the scene in front of them, but Soap couldn't help himself. Every layer of the human he uncovered revealed a depth he hadn't expected. They were getting farther and farther from the mindless creature they first thought him as.

And so did the personnel on the station. Not a single person looked twice at him. Not from understanding, but ignorance. Nobody seemed to know what a human looked like, their appearance distorted by time and legends. Laswell had to check the Urna library to figure it out, and only the Urnas and some specially selected people had access to that.

Introducing Ghost to the society at large might just go smoother than he'd thought. Unknown species weren't that rare.

Laswell approached, Ghost turning around before Soap even heard her coming.

“So?” he asked.

“I called Price and Nik, we will pick them up on the way. The analysis has come in. There were traces of a highly flammable chemical when in contact with air.”

“Sabotage,” Soap summed it up. It was a possibility that had been brought up by Ghost. Soap didn't want to believe it. What would anyone gain doing this? But the facts were clear. Someone had set fire to the jungle. “Do we have a lead?”

“We do. That's our next stop. A young Nefit came forward and turned himself in. He is... confused.”

“Confused?”

“He believes the vines climbing all over the jungle were an infestation that had to be rid of, or it would eventually suffocate everything. Nevermind that this vine had been one of the first plant species to be catalogued on this planet and its growth neither abnormal nor out of control.”

“That dinnae make any sense,” he cursed, accent slipping out.

“Someone convinced him of it.” Her feathers flattened a little. “There are old records of such a vine, growing so much it choked entire planets, but these were only on deathworlds to begin with. With some remnants of civilisations too destroyed to make sense of. Anyway, he gave us coordinates where he was supposed to meet with someone afterwards.”

“And why didn't he do it? He could have left on any of the ships evacuating the people.”

“That chemical solution was a lot more potent than he'd thought. Or was told. Maybe whoever put him to this didn't want him to survive, but he did. Came in with severe burns and has been confined to the med station since. Well, a more secure med station now. There was no shortage of guards that volunteered to keep him away from the rest of their people.”

“I see. How's Price?”

“Angry. And sleep deprived, no matter what he says.”

“Aye. Two months isn't enough.”

But having Ghost might just make up for any shortcomings Price might have.

Gaz hugged his cousin, saying goodbye. The Nefit was going to stay, even after so much loss. Ghost turned away, making an effort to breathe slowly. He didn't think the others had noticed. Soap and Laswell were busy planning their departure. He didn't understand everything, but enough to figure out they were going to get to the bottom of this. Or try to, anyway. He didn't know how effective the alien law enforcement was.

But it finally looked like things were swinging to be right up his alley. If he could figure out more of their tech. Maybe now Soap would allow him one of those rifles now?

Chapter Text

Ghost felt better and better about this. He'd needled Soap with questions the entire trip to pick up Price and Nik and got more answers than he'd expected. The Captain's absence might have played a part.

But he learned more about this group. Task Force 141 was a group of elite soldiers operating mostly on their own accord under Price and Laswell, but if needed did have a superior officer of some kind. He hadn't cleared up who that was yet, but it didn't seem the most pressing thing right now.

Now, Price was back on board and he needed to plead his case for one of those rifles. Or maybe not. Soap looked convinced enough but hadn't made the decision himself. Ghost could respect that. The chain of command had to be respected here. Gaz and Nik were staying out of it, but Laswell... he couldn't read her. Damn bird.

“Ghost?” Price finally addressed him. “You said you know the rifles?”

“I have used many types of rifles. I am sure this one will be no different, if someone would simply teach me. I was part of my own military back home. I believe I have shown that I...” Shit, he didn't have the word for trustworthy did he? “...am a good person.” He had to try really hard not to cringe.

The aliens not being able to decipher subtle expressions yet were probably his only saving grace. Price seemed to seriously consider it for the first time.

The silence stretched. Ghost could have sworn Soap had stopped breathing for a moment, despite his claims of impossibility.

“It's -- a try,” Laswell finally cut in.

If Price was trying to intimidate him with that look, he was out of luck.

“Fine,” the Captain stepped towards him. “But I make the decisions, you -- the plan, understood?”

“Understood.” The gist of it anyway. They couldn't blame him for deviating on the details.

Rifle familiarisation couldn't come soon enough. When Soap led him to the training room, Ghost felt giddy. He had to stick his hands inside the waistband of his pants to not fidget. Why didn't the aliens have pockets in their everyday clothes?

The alien rifle was surprisingly light for its size. The scope was... big, for a lack of better word. It was clearly linked to some sort of targeting computer, the reticle staying locked on if he moved slightly. He would love to take it apart and see just how it did that. The barrel must shift accordingly or the shots would never land. The grip and trigger were adjustable, probably for the differences in species and being able to fit it just right in his hands was a rare treat. It wasn't the same feel as his favorite rifle, but close enough. Another fascinating thing was the complete lack of any recoil.

The novelty lasted about two minutes.

Whatever computer was in charge of analysing what was in front of him just wasn't fast enough. He kept shooting at moving targets faster than the computer adjusted the aim and Soap was looking at him with badly hidden pity on his face. He was about to launch into another explanation of the aiming system and Ghost couldn't hear it one more time.

“No, stop,” he sighed, letting the rifle hang from the harness. “I am not the problem. The aiming is slower than me at locking on a target.”

“What? That's...”

“If you tell me not possible I am taking apart this rifle and finding out why myself.”

Soap wisely kept his mouth shut. He'd gotten a lot better at just following his lead.

“So, when I shoot, the laser follows the direction of the aiming reticle, not where I think I am aiming. Can you turn that thing off? Change the scope?”

“I can.”

Soap looked unconvinced but dutifully took the rifle and fiddled with it. He'd have to get Soap to teach him that, but he doubted they would have the time right now.

When he got the rifle back, the little dot at the center of the scope wasn't moving anymore, no matter where he went with the muzzle. Good.

Squeezing the trigger produced a shot of that odd light blue laser that wasn't really a laser but he hadn't understood that explanation, but all that mattered was that it hit all three targets moving about at the end of the range. Good.

Soap was frozen, eyes wide. How did these people learn how to shoot? Did they rely fully on the computer to do the fine tuning after roughly aiming in the right direction? What kind of hand-eye coordination did these people have?

He might be just as baffled as Soap.

He wasn't sure about the damage these things could inflict either. The bluish laser had worked just fine on the triduls, but it was being absorbed by whatever material the targets were made off. If the aliens they were facing used it, or anything similar, as body armor, they were fucked.

Done with assessing the weapon, he went to examine one of the slight dents in the material that was slowly bending back to its initial shape. It was thick. Really thick. Maybe it was too cumbersome for body armor.

He turned to Soap, interrupting his reenacting of a beached fish.

“And what do you use to...” Shit, he didn't have the word for protecting. “...cover your body against this?”

“Against this?”

“If you get shot at.” There we go, that was a better explanation.

“We have body --” Soap's tail twitched. Ghost sensed a but. “It's in the -- where we keep all the weapons.”

Most likely the famous armory he wasn't allowed in. And by Soap's look, he also didn't want to leave him here unattended with the rifle.

“It is fine,” Ghost sighed. He couldn't push all the time. “Another time.”

Soap visibly relaxed, skin lightening slightly. Ghost returned the rifle with the promise he would get it back once they landed, and to follow their lead. And listen to Price.

Yes, Mum.

Soap was still a bit frazzled when he returned the rifle to the armory. He wasn't wasting time by looking if they could adapt one of their body armor to Ghost or delaying his report to the Captain. No, sir. If Ghost was to join them, he should be better equipped, that was all. It wasn't unfortunate that the adjustments were easily corrected and only a matter of lengthening some parts and straps.

Eventually, he had to go.

Price was waiting on the bridge as planned. Soap really shouldn't have been surprised to see the rest, nor for Gaz to immediately tense where he came in. Yeah, he wasn't fooling anyone.

“Soap?” Price asked, all Captain mode.

“He's good... better than good.” Here we go.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, he broke every accuracy and speed record once I adjusted the rifle to his preference. He's definitely experienced with guns. Nothing to teach him there.”

“And how...”

“Well, after I completely turned off the assist AI.”

Utter silence.

Then:

“But-”

“How?”

“That's...”

Only Laswell remained focused on Soap.

“And how did you figure this out?” she asked.

“Ghost asked for it. I thought at first he didn't know how to aim. Didn't hit anything. But no, it turned out the aim assist was lagging behind.”

Price gathered his wits. “Can we fine-tune it to make it faster?”

“I don't think so?” Soap wasn't sure where he was going with this. “And it's not like he needs it. His aim is impeccable without it. The scope is already too big, increasing the power output would just make it more bulky.”

He'd see to it anyway. Maybe he could fiddle with something elsewhere on the gun. They simply hadn't needed to upgrade them in a long time.

“Alright,” Price cut off his train of thought. “We're landing in three hours. I want everyone ready by then.” A pointed look at Soap. “The target should be holed up in a safehouse bordering the edge of the local market. You've all seen the files and know who to look for. There has been no indication of them working with anyone else. A quick in and out to grab them should do it.”

The young Nefit hadn't been able to give them a very accurate description of their target, but Soap had seen one of the rodent species not that long ago. Brown and white fur with no visible tail under his clothes, they were so new to the Alliance the respective governments had barely gotten in contact. Meanwhile, non-citizens of the Alliance trickled in, like the woodworker on A-738. Or the criminal they were now after.

With an incident of this magnitude, no doubt that peace talks would be shaky. It was depressing how the actions of a single individual could have repercussions on its species at large. Normally, the Council treated everything fairly and without their judgment being clouded by such things, but normally 70% of a planet didn't get burned to a crisp by a member of a prospecting species either.

It was their job to make sure it didn't go any further. He'd leave the politics to the Council.

Ghost didn't ask the name of the place they landed at. It didn't seem important. Crossing the length of an entire galaxy gave distances an odd feel. And they hadn't let him back on the bridge since that first time.

Now, they were all kitted up, the body armor surprisingly light on him. Too light maybe. He wondered just how effective they were, but everyone had the same. His helmet was on, rifle ready.

He kept checking for pockets that weren't there, kits he didn't have. Even with the all the gear, he felt naked, and not even the knife he stole from the kitchen changed that. The others seemed to have more on them, and Ghost had to force himself not to grumble about it. Carrying a bunch of shit he probably didn't need nor know how to use wouldn't be useful, however comforting the added weight would be.

What worried him more was the possibility of himself not recognising their target. It looked like an odd mix between a mouse and a hamster, and according to Soap, reaching roughly his chest when upright on both legs. And if this planet was their homeworld, how was he going to distinguish between one alien and the other?

He might have to follow Price's lead whether he liked it or not.

The ramp of the ship came down and Ghost hadn't even stepped on the red dirt ground when something already felt wrong. It wasn't the fact they'd landed in a no-man's land. It wasn't the fact he was using unfamiliar gear, working with people whose capabilities he didn't know. Nor even the air shimmering slightly on the horizon despite the heat not being very high.

It felt like something was buzzing at the back of his skull. Turning around in place, he saw nothing amiss. Nik left the ship where it was and Ghost thought he would do better to take flight and provide air support, but who was he to tell the aliens how to run their mission.

If not for the lack of any true heat, Ghost might have thought they'd landed in a desert. Red soil as far as the eye could see and a few sparse palm trees that dotted the place were about it for natural structures. Palm trees whose leaves were blade shaped, looking wicked sharp and gleaming in the light. Pressing a finger against it gave him something blunt despite the shape. Odd.

The building their target should be in wasn't far, and their short run brought them to the back of it. In the shimmering distance, the start of a village felt distorted. Wrong. A little off-kilted like the buildings had been built on a slope and not leveled.

Their building had two floors, windows slightly rounded and roof sticking out beyond the wall enough they could all huddle under it and still have room to maneuver. Something dripped from it, red like the soil, but when Ghost followed the drops to the ground they disappeared without leaving a mark.

Price trying the back door brought him back to the present. He needed to focus, not admire the view.

The door didn't open, and Soap stepped forward. How did aliens breach a door? They took out what looked like a roll of thick tape and applied it to the frame.

“Ghost, get back,” Soap whispered, motioning him away.

They didn't get anywhere far enough for them to be safe from even the smallest blast. Ghost was about to ask what the fuck they were doing when Soap pressed the button of a remote. The tape flashed for a millisecond.

And that was it. No explosion. Nothing. This mission started out well. A dud.

Soap took point, Ghost placing himself right behind him much to Price's displeasure but the alien didn't say anything. Gaz brought up the rear.

Soap pushed the door slightly and moved the now cut metal out of the way, a perfect rectangle where the tape had been. Shit, that was handy. Their entry was perfectly silent, and they all slipped inside. Ghost was the only one to truly stack. The others followed a certain order, but the general formation was nothing he could make sense of. He placed himself to cover a part he thought was lacking in rifles pointed at it. Price gave him a look he didn't bother to decipher. He was a lot more focused on whatever ringing noise he'd been hearing since stepping inside.

“Do you hear that?”

He got three confused looks. Great. Not that having a better hearing than them all wasn't a good thing, but at this moment it would have simplified things greatly.

“Where from?” Price asked, and Ghost hadn't expected that.

“...I am not sure.”

If he was being honest, it would have come from everywhere at once. If he'd been prone to tinnitus, he'd have chalked it up to that. It sounded similar to what other soldiers had recounted it being like.

Price looked disappointed and motioned Soap forward. Ghost followed. They didn't encounter any resistance until they got to the first intersection. The corridors separated one side towards an even longer corridor, while the other was shorter but had two aliens in it. Not their target's species. These aliens were stocky, walking on four legs with tentacle-like appendages waving around. They didn't stop waving until Soap and Price shot them on sight.

Huh.

Guess they weren't taking prisoners besides their target, and those rifles looked very lethal on unarmored people. The aliens' equivalent to cartels? Ghost hadn't understood the entire explanation of this group during the briefing besides the fact they were criminals of some sort.

Passing next to them, Ghost looked down at the bodies. The aliens had small firearms on them, but that was all. Very little clothing covered their orange, scaly skin. A few scales around the wounds had been chipped off and scattered on the floor. Ghost could have sworn they were vibrating as they passed.

Ignoring Soap's puppy look as he changed places in their line to move forward, Gaz now right behind him, looked around quickly but didn't seem to find anything. Ghost focused on the door coming up head. Dread trickled in the closer they got and he couldn't help but gently stroke the trigger of his rifle. Another door to breach. They were getting closer to the source of that sound.

Chapter Text

The door they came upon wasn't even locked. Soap slipped in first and Ghost cursed himself for being distracted. Now Price went in second, Ghost almost pushing him in with how close he was.

The room, however, was empty. Of people, that was. Large aquariums lined the walls, filled with things Ghost couldn't make sense of. Especially the eels. Or eel looking things. They looked too close to snakes for comfort. Passing between the chairs and tables in the middle of the room, Ghost couldn't wrench his eyes away from the creatures. They seemed to follow them, follow him as far as they could in their bassins, not breaking eye contact.

Thankfully, the door on the right wall opened easily again and Ghost slipped out right in front of the loose stack. Ghost went left and shot someone. He only truly registered the species as it fell to the ground. Not their target, and it had a gun on his belt. Price didn't say anything as he passed.

The next door spat them back out into a corridor with pipes running along the ceiling. This was the first time Ghost had seen any sort of recognisable engineering device, and even then, they looked... weird. Vibrating slightly and dripping the same red drops that the roof did. Ghost made sure to step to the side. Soap gave him an odd look.

“What is it?”

“These things are leaking,” he gestured upward.

They all looked, then at each other. An odd feeling slithered in Ghost's gut.

“Not, they're not,” Soap said as a drop fell right on top of him.

Maybe he should drop it.

They cleared the rest of the floor in silence, and while their formation was unusual, it wasn't that hard for Ghost to adapt. A gun was a gun, and it needed to cover all avenues an enemy could be.

The pipes overhead continued to buzz, the sound making his teeth grind. At some point, he thought he saw one of the eels slither from inside. Not sure how, since they were opaque. Right? He asked, at the risk of another odd look. Just to be sure.

They were.

Yet the eels, who looked suspiciously more and more like snakes continued to appear, slithering within. Ghost tried not to look.

He had the team to observe. At least they were competent. At ease with room clearing, it was clearly something well rehearsed, not only during training but on the field while getting shot at. Not that the enemy put up much of an opposition. Only one alien managed to draw his weapon in time, only to be cut down before he could take a shot.

The entire thing had been silent in a way he could appreciate. Besides the ringing he was doing his best to tune out. It hadn't raised or lowered in volume anymore.

“Up,” Price unnecessarily said upon reaching stairs.

Where else were they going to go? The entire floor was cleared.

Soap climbed up, Ghost on his heels. He was glad to see the pipes stayed downstairs.

The place was oddly empty, and when Ghost called the second to last room of the floor clear, they stacked to a larger door. Soap had to use his handy tape to cut it down and instead of gently placing the door to the side, he applied a little box that kicked it inside the room, flattening an alien under it.

It didn't stop the rest of them from opening up on them. Taking cover behind the walls, they took potshots to the inside of the room. Ghost heard a few screams and suppressed a smile. It had been too long since he'd been in a proper firefight and his heart rate rose with his adrenaline. One more shot at an angle through the doorway, another scream. The fire coming from the other side slacked and Ghost made a decision.

Rushing inside, he downed another and counted five bodies on the ground, two more alive. A large desk in the middle of the room obscured part of it and the distraction was enough. Pain radiated from his chest where the shot hit the armor – not the plate, these things had no plates – making him stumble back. Didn't stop him from pulling the trigger and the orange scaled alien dropped. Soap had followed him in, much to Price's discontent and taken care of the remaining guy much smoother than Ghost had. Really, it was because the guy was distracted by his entry and wasn't paying attention to the door, giving Soap the perfect window of entry.

Ghost huffed, taking a deep breath. It didn't hurt that much. Nothing broken. Soap was about to launch on him and either kill him or strip him down to his pants to check for wounds and Ghost gestured him to stop. Despite all this, he was still the first to reach the other side of the desk.

“Check fire!” he yelled reflexively as their target launched at him, knife between a small hand.

He didn't have the time to switch his rifle to non-lethal. Instead, he bashed the alien's shoulder with the stock. The crack was loud enough to cover the squeak of the HVT who let the knife clatter to the ground.

Gaz came around and secured him carefully. The arm was bent at an odd angle and Ghost didn't think he'd hit him that hard.

But he was breathing hard, fingers tight on the grip of the rifle so they wouldn't start trembling and his chest couldn't expand properly.

The ringing was still there.

Windows lined the top floor and Ghost stepped towards one. The roof drooped in view, just over the shimmering horizon. Soap came up to him when a snake dangled from it. Before he had time to react, the roof was covered in them, a writhing, dripping mass. It grew until it rained down the roof.

Ghost almost bowled over Soap trying to get away.

“Ghost?”

They were all looking at him. He gestured to the window. All the windows, really. He had to stop himself from emptying the rifle into the swarm.

“What is it?” Soap asked.

Ghost really should have enquired in advance about what the hell kind of fucking planet this was.

Soap came towards him like he was a wild animal about to bolt. Or attack. Ghost wasn't sure himself. He was wired in a way he hadn't been in a long time. Probably since he'd dug a knife into Roba and drilled him with bullet holes.

Gaz came around the desk, their target restrained and... hovering over the ground with a single clawed hand on his restraints. Ghost gestured at the captive, words stuck in his throat.

“We're bringing him back to the ship for interrogation,” Price unhelpfully said.

“Back to the ship,” Ghost managed to grit out.

“Yes.”

He didn't wait for any of them to rush out. Out of the room, out from under the pipes, out from the snakes, out of this bloody planet. Outside, the palm trees' dripped with blood freshly off the blades.

They must have radioed the ship, because Nik and Laswell were waiting at the top of the ramp. Ghost didn't slow, strides eating up ground. Even in here, the air was heavy. The blank walls of the ship stretched impossibly far, at angles they never did before. Scaling them was an effort. He couldn't find his fucking room and the faint light of the locking mechanism was reflecting on every flat surface. He ended up opening his room more by accident than design. The colors were wrong, too. His carpet was gone, leaching its beige color onto the walls. The bed was a deep purple that was frankly an assault to his eyes. Not that the rest of the room wasn't with how much things moved and spun away from him. The place was a mess. He pawed at the wardrobe but didn't find the little Roach inside. Damn it, did it escape? Ghost wondered why he was even rooting in here. He didn't have the mind to clean anything right now.

The bed was inviting despite its blanket color and the distortion almost made it appear rectangular. Almost. The shape changed when he tripped into it, sprawling face first and bloody hell, his neck hurt, cranked at an angle like that.

He couldn't get comfortable. Adjusting his head with his hands didn't help, especially before he found the latch of the helmet. Right. The helmet. It was making it harder to breathe. He fumbled with it until cold air hit his skin. Bliss.

Soap rushed past Nik at the ramp, then Laswell further into the ship opening up the med bay. He'd thrown his gear in the armory for Gaz to sort out while Price would escort their charge to the cell. No time to wait on them.

He almost missed him. The door to Soap's room was open and now wasn't the time for a malfunction. Until he saw a dark shape on the bed.

“Ghost?”

They'd gotten used to the human staying so still it was a wonder he was still breathing. But the stillness came with an alertness that had Soap's skin darken just so, the tint barely visible.

This one made his blood churn much, much darker pigments.

Ghost was laying face down on the bed, gear still strapped to his body. The clasps of the armor were familiar under Soap's hands, yet he fumbled, the quick release sticking for seconds. It felt like an eternity before he managed to dismantle enough of the armor to start pulling parts off.

With Ghost's back released, he could see it rise and fall. Fast. Faster than he'd ever seen the human breathe. The back of his neck and what he could see of his face mashed in the cover was a red hue. This couldn't be good.

“Ghost.” Shaking him bore no fruit. At all.

Wanting to turn him around, his hand brushed Ghost's skin. Soap froze. It was... wet? So wet the fur on his head was slightly matted. Why was the human covered in water and from where? This made no sense.

Putting him on his back – Blast was he heavy – Soap made sure to avoid touching the slippery skin further. The rest of the body armor dangled away and he pushed it, letting it land next to the discarded helmet.

He was so distracted he didn't hear Laswell coming in, a stretcher floating behind her. She took one look at Soap's face and manoeuvered it against the bed.

“You rolled him over?”

“Aye.”

“Alright, let's put him on then... He doesn't look injured.”

“I don't think he is.” Which made it all the most puzzling.

An inkling of guilt slithered in when they strapped him tight to the stretcher, but they couldn't risk him waking up and falling off.

He didn't. Not when they arrived at the med bay, not when they put him down into the scanner Laswell had reconfigured to wrap around the bed. His eyes fluttered briefly when all the lights turned on for the full scan they couldn't do last time. Now, it'd become a necessity. And might be too late.

Waiting for the scan to finish left Soap twitchy. The various screens along the walls lit up around them, slowly filling with information Soap he didn't understand. Quite frankly, it looked like a mess.

“That's... his stomach, right?”

“I think so.”

“Then what's... under it?”

“Intestines, most likely.”

“How long are they?”

“... Seven meters.”

“Se- there's no way!”

How does it even fit in there? Sure, it looked all bunched up but... Time to look elsewhere.

Not that it was much better.

“The joints look weird.”

Laswell made a sound, focusing on the scanner's tablet.

Soap went on. “The shoulder? It's not articulated. Not properly? It looks like it would just... roll in almost any direction if it wasn't for tendons and... stuff holding it in place.”

“There's something in his thigh.”

“Huh? There's no articulation in the middle of the thigh.”

Laswell raised her beak from the screen, feathers ruffled, and tweeted her disapproval.

“No, there's a foreign body in his thigh.” The scanner beeped. “Metal.”

Soap had to put a hand to the rigid bubble encasing Ghost to stop himself from crashing into the equipment. The layer of the scan Laswell had pulled on the tablet showed it clear as day. A piece of... something was embedded in Ghost's leg.

“And there was an entry wound. The scar is right there.”

The scar wasn't big compared to others on the human's body, of wounds that shouldn't have been survivable. This one was easily overlooked, easily patched up, if slightly oddly shaped, with dots in a steady line around it.

“Why wasn't it removed when the wound was still open?”

Soap had to steady himself with his tail against the foot of the bed. Every time he thought he'd underestimated the level of civilisation of humans, they went and did something like not removing shrapnel before closing a wound.

“It's a different type of metal than the one in his arm,” Laswell broke the silence.

Soap made a sound. Two different types of metal? No wonder he was...

“Brain scan?”

They wouldn't be able to do anything about it, but Soap needed to know.

“I haven't pulled it up yet. The rest is-”

“Aye. Brain scan.”

She didn't rebuff him.

The human's brain, like every organ so far, looked odd. All wrinkled and loosely held in the skull. But what made Soap's blood churn was the almost complete lack of brain waves.

“Wha-”

“Wait, wait.”

Laswell's voice barely cut through the panic. He sagged against the protective shell of the scanner where Ghost still had his eyes closed. Twitches here and there only made Soap's heart beat faster. What if this was what a dying human looked like? If Ghost had hidden earlier symptoms from them so well they hadn't noticed how bad he'd gotten?

They knew it would come. Steel Madness had no cure. Still, Soap had held on to the foolish hope Ghost would be different. He was Human.

Suddenly, the image in front of him changed. Brain waves appeared, recognisable despite their erratic behavior. And there were a lot. Too many. How did someone function with so much input? The waves trembled for a second as the scanner tried to sort out what part of the brain did what, and Ghost groaned. His arm hit the inside of the protective bubble and before he knew it, Soap had hit the power button of the machine.

Lights turned off. Ghost stilled. Laswell's talons still hovered over the screen.

“What was that?!” Soap whirled on her.

“There's... a lot.”

He was about fed up with her non answers. Not that he expected her to know everything, but his patience had limits.

“Explain it then.” He made no effort to stop his raised tail fin from expanding behind him.

“His brain is a lot more complex than any of ours. The number of waves shouldn't be an anomaly, their behavior might be. And... he reacted to the scan like he felt it.”

“But...”

“Impossible?” Laswell regained her countenance, growing surer as she spoke. “We have the proof in front of us. I've never heard of a species suddenly creating new brain waves, but them altering...”

Altering of brain waves was rare. Outside of conditions like Steel Madness, that was. The screen rebooted and Laswell pointed at a spot where the activity was particularly erratic. She didn't turn the scanner back on, thank the Light.

“These should stop when not conscious. But they aren't. The sensitivity of the human brain is unheard of. It's making me think his current state might have been caused by something else.”

Soap sucked in a breath. He couldn't. Hope was treacherous.

“What are you saying?”

“There's no sign the metal in his body is what's affecting him. It's harder to tell since I don't have a baseline to compare it to, but with time, some fluctuations might give us a clue.”

“So, we wait and see?” It didn't sit right with him.

Lasweel hesitated.

“And what about the water on him? He's all red.” Slightly less red now, actually.

“It's mostly water, secreted from pores in the skin.” The feathers of her neck ruffled. “A distress reaction maybe? To keep a predator away when in a vulnerable state? It's slightly salty.”

So, once again, they didn't know.

“We will keep him here if we can.” Laswell concluded.

Right. Blast. How agreeable was Ghost going to be about all this when he woke up?

Chapter Text

Ghost opened his eyes, a sense of dread clinging to him. It hovered at the back of his mind, a familiar devil on his shoulder. He hadn't seen him in a long time. Or maybe it was just the headache splitting his skull in half.

“Nice to see you too,” he mumbled, squinting at the bright white walls.

Where was he? The walls were much too white for anything good, but it didn't smell that nose curling disinfectant all hospitals had.

“Ghost?”

The distinctly non human voice jarred him back down to Earth. Or the spaceship. That saying really didn't work anymore.

He hauled himself up, sitting on the bed of the med bay, Soap hovering at his side. His spotty memory of the events leading to this situation didn't bode well. And he had a headache.

“How do you feel?”

“Fine.”

The twitch of Soap's tail was distracting. When the alien didn't blather on, Ghost looked back up.

He hadn't thought the aliens could get such a pinched look with how little their facial muscles moved, but Soap managed.

“Where is my mask?” he asked instead.

“You keep getting hurt.”

“Answer the question.”

“We need to know why.”

“Because I need it?”

“And you're not helping!”

What the fuck was he talking about?

“You're never giving us information until it becomes -- and then it's too late! We can't keep trying to -- out everything on our own!” Soap faltered for only an instant. “You could have died.”

Too bad his head was hurting too much to roll his eyes. Fucking aliens.

“No, I would not have. Move,” he ground out, swinging his legs to the side of the bed.

He wasn't as shaky getting up as he thought he might, so that was good. He might not know what exactly happened, but he knew those symptoms well. Soap needed to mind his own bloody business.

Shouldering the alien out of the way, he made his way back to his room. The ringing was completely gone, so completely that Ghost wondered if he'd hallucinated that too. But the buzzing sensation in his head had felt too real, like the rattling in his skull after standing too close to an explosion. There was something.

He ignored the nagging voice – whatever was left of his conscience – urging him to turn around and ask for answers.

As soon as the lock engaged, Ghost threw his clothes to the floor, stepping over them on his way to the closet. Opening it, he stopped. The little Roach was still on his shelf. Sighing, Ghost put it on the floor where it immediately zipped away.

He wasn't sure how long he stood there watching it silently glide across the room, but it was long enough a horrifiyng laugh trickled in at the edges of his awareness. Ignoring the trembling of his fingers, he dressed in fresh clothes.

The distraction wasn't nearly enough. Resigned, he picked up Soap's puzzle box. Damn thing still resisted any attempts at solving it. It would occupy him a while.

Ghost didn't come out to eat with them. Soap was ignored when he rang at the door, mask in hand. He tucked it back against him and left.

He didn't appear the next day, or the one after that. Food in the stasis room kept going down, so he was at least eating. Gaz had crossed his path on his way to the bathroom but was ignored beyond a fleeting glance. Soap didn't know what to do.

Laswell however, hadn't been idle. The simulations she ran based on the scan of Ghost's body were unbelievable. It had always been known that Sarodani, the Fringe planet where they got their target – and home to many criminals, as things were on the Fringe – had a different composition to the air than any other discovered planet. These elements, completely harmless, resonated with the blade-like shape of the trees, multiplying them and in turn increasing the growth rate in those plants.

As it turned out, the human brain was so complex it picked up a lot more things than any species, and could potentially be affected by a lot more things. This element was directly linked to a lowered production of some sort of hormone.

Soap couldn't fathom how a completely exterior element could directly affect someone's mood. And yet.

At least if Laswell was right, it should even out since he would no longer be in contact with it on the ship. Or any future planet they might land to. Nik built a new program that would analyse the composition of the air automatically upon entry.

Now, he just needed Ghost back.

Ghost looked out into the corridor. No Soap. Gently, he closed the door behind him. The nightmares made sure he wasn't getting two hours of uninterrupted sleep, if any. He welcomed the sleep deprivation like an old friend. Embraced it. Got up and worked out. Walked the length of the ship at hours he knew nobody would come. Tried a few doors that remained locked.

It would pass. He knew that, but the circumstances had him on edge. And distracted. He almost knocked Gaz over at the corner of the corridor.

“Sorry,” he mumbled when Gaz didn't continue on his way.

“Ghost.”

He hummed in response. What did he want? He didn't seem sure himself with the way he was being looked over.

“How are you holding up?” The question surprised even Ghost, and it came out of his own mouth.

Gaz stuttered for a second.

“What do you mean?” His tail swished behind him.

“With all that happened on your planet.”

It was underhanded, Ghost knew that. But for some reason, he genuinely wanted to know the answer.

Gaz deflated and a sliver of guilt poked its head up before Ghost could squash it down.

“Come on.”

Ghost was too deeply involved to back out now. He followed him to the rec room of the ship, thankfully empty. Gaz engaging the lock on the door made his hackles rise before he rationalized it. This was good. Nobody to barge in on them, even at this hour of the night. Whatever 'night' meant on a spaceship.

Them sitting on either end of the couch still felt too close.

“I haven't seen or heard from them --, but the planet we're going to right now is the -- of the -- and where all the -- are housed for now. I guess... I'm nervous. They've never taken well to me leaving, would have never thought of leaving themselves.”

Stubborn people being thrust into a situation they never wanted, on a planetary level. Ghost hoped whatever planet they were on had the resources to deal with it.

“And they're not completely wrong.”

Now that had Ghost's brows crease.

“Why?”

“There has never been a -- growth of a Life Tree outside of Elnilil. I don't see what would change now to -- it. Even recreating the exact same -- doesn't work.”

It took Ghost a second to parse through the sentence, and even then, it didn't make sense.

“Same dirt, same air, same water, it doesn't work?”

“It doesn't.”

This basically spelled extinction for the species outside of their home planet. Fuck. That didn't give Gaz' parents a complete pass for their behavior, but the source of it was plain to see.

“They're not going to -- well.”

“To...what?”

“Mh, to get used to it?”

Ghost nodded, motioning him to continue. He hated to interrupt him when it was already difficult for him to speak, but there was a limit to how much he understood through context clues. Or dismissed entirely as unimportant.

“I'm -- I will have to stay.”

“So you don't want it? Staying with them?”

“No.” Gaz curled his tail into his lap and Ghost had to fight the urge to scratch behind cat-like ears.

He just looked so beaten down and Ghost needed to do something.

“They have um... help from...” He gestured vaguely around them, not even sure himself what he meant.

But surely if the entire population of refugees were housed on the same planet, there was some sort of help provided?

“The -- is giving them all they need until they return to Elnilil or enter the Intergalactic society. They won't need anything.”

Nothing material but a chance for a mother to get her son back into her clutches.

“She cannot force you to do anything.”

Gaz looked at his feet. Ghost sighed.

Leaning back into the couch, he refrained from wiping a hand over his face. Ghost knew his opinion might be skewed, but he couldn't shake his knee jerk reaction of telling Gaz not to go, period. Silence stretched as he chewed on his next question.

“She talks you down.”

Gaz looked back at him, hesitant. He nodded.

“Hit you?”

Gaz startled so badly he almost fell off the couch.

“No!” He looked genuinely horrified. “Why would she do that!”

It was Ghost's turn to study the floor. The material was only slightly more comfortable to walk on with shoes. He still wanted socks.

“I can come with when you see her. If you want?”

Gaz stayed silent for so long he'd thought the subject dropped.

“You're not hitting my mother,” Gaz' tail swishes behind him, spikes out.

“No,” Ghost groaned. Why was this the conclusion he took from this? Bloody aliens. “Just... to be there.”

He absentmindedly rubbed the bruise on his chest. It hurt, but it looked a lot better than a bullet mark did under a plate carrier. In fact, it was starting to fade already.

“Alright.”

Ghost looked up, blinking at him. He hadn't expected the alien to take him up on it. No words came, so he closed his mouth and just nodded.

They stayed there in companionable silence until Gaz turned on the big screen. Neither asked what the other was doing up at this time of night.

They landed on Arlon early in the morning, planet time. For the ship, over ten hours had passed since the night. Night that Price begrudgingly spent in their room, asleep. However grating he found the General to be, he was always better dealt with without extra tiredness.

And not because Nik had practically dragged him there while Laswell kept an eye on the bridge.

Now, while he stood at the ramp slowly revealing the Peacekeeper base of the Capital planet, he was glad for it. Not only did he have Shepherd to deal with, but Graves also. Gaz wanting to take Ghost along with him had been surprising, but removed another problem out of the equation. Problem that Graves seemed happy to fill, his bright scales quivering slightly in greeting.

“Captain Price! It's been too long.”

Too long indeed. The slight lilt in his voice was already annoying him. As were the four Shadows Graves had brought along. The man seemed incapable of going anywhere alone, even considering the strict Follower rules of the Sourns.

The Shadows never seemed to mind following their commander around, but Price had to wonder.

“The prisoner will be escorted out shortly.”

“Straight to business as usual. I like that.”

Price was saved from making further small talk by Laswell taking out of the gurney with the restrained prisoner.

“Trouble with the apprehension, Captain?” Graves' smug tilt of his head tested his nerves.

“He resisted and we had to escalate our use of force.”

“Well, no matter. He's in good hands now.”

Price resisted a retort. He didn't need to bring further scrutiny to the state of their captive. Ghost needed to stay out of sight from the Reptilian. Graves wouldn't have any compulsion about reporting an anomaly to Shepherd.

A darker scaled Shadow took over the gurney from Laswell while Graves still blabbered on.

“We will update you when we know more. Shepherd wants you on standby in orbit for the duration of the interrogation.”

He nodded. Graves stared back dumbly before Price caught his mistake.

“Alright. Tell Shepherd to contact us then.”

“Until next time, Captain.”

Price couldn't decipher the look on Graves' face as he left. One more thing to worry about.

Chapter Text

While Ghost understood the point of not showing up in the middle of what was, if he'd understood Gaz right, the middle of the Peacekeeper Corps' headquarters, being yet again relegated to the bowels of the ship made his teeth grind.

He forced himself to relax when Gaz strayed another look his way. The alien was nervous enough without him adding to it. He sighed and rolled his shoulders. Gaz flinched slightly.

“I thought we were past that.”

“That?” Gaz echoed him.

“You being scared of me.”

“I'm... not scared.”

Ghost hummed.

“Just... nervous. They won't take well to this.”

“Have they taken well to anything you wanted to do?”

Silence.

“Am I the problem?” Ghost finally put out there.

“Anybody would be for them.” Gaz' ears went back.

The ship rumbled slightly as it took off. They weren't in the air for long, and Gaz visibly steeled himself when they touched down.

“Alright, let's go.”

Ghost trailed after him, ignoring Soap's puppy look. They'd both refused him joining them. He didn't think Gaz had even told him why they were going out. The thought stayed lodged in his mind and Gaz must have been thinking something along those lines as they exited inside the courtyard of a small station.

“Did Soap tell you we think we know the reason why you --?”

Ghost turned the unknown word over in his head before answering. He could infer the meaning, but he didn't like it.

“How do you know?”

Gaz' tail twitched uncomfortably. Ghost stopped walking. He wasn't having this conversation out there, beyond the tall walls of the station. The area they were in had an opaque glass ceiling with large doors opening and closing when ships landed. Who knew what lay beyond it.

“You should talk to Soap.”

“Why not you?”

“He knows more than me. And he -- about you.”

He... cares? Maybe. In that case, he could start by not sticking his nose in places it didn't belong.

Ghost's knee jerk reaction was accompanied by a sliver of guilt. He did need to know what happened. But Soap was just...

Grumbling something unintellible to Gaz, he lowered the visor of his helmet. His mask was still missing. And he was sure Soap knew where it was.

Gaz didn't push, and Ghost was reminded again why he'd rather be in his company right now.

All thoughts of the confrontation to come fled his mind as they passed the station door and spilled on the street. Or was it a boulevard? Four lanes stretched farther than the eye could see, heavy with traffic. Separated in the middle by a large pavement lined with poles, and holding a transparent tube suspended over it. Inside, water sloshed and creatures crossed each other's path in just a rehearsed manner as the shuttles and pedestrians on the ground did. Despite the high flow, there was no sign of a traffic jam. Or traffic signs.

The pavement in the middle of the roads stopped where they now stood, at the main door of the station while the roads split, circling around the large building. And despite its size, the station still paled in comparison to what lined the street.

Ghost had seen some imposing skyscrapers in his lifetime. These ones made them look like crudely assembled toys. Every building seemed to be a different colour than its neighbour yet everything blended well together. A few water tubes rose from the street into the windows. Balconies stretched out to make bridges, linking both sides, that shuttles flew around without a hitch. All Ghost could see was the disaster this would be with the average civilian behind the wheel. There were no signs of any sort of signalisation, yet everything was flowing smooth as butter.

Out in the distance, sticking out even higher than the buildings, was a much bigger version of the tower in Elnilil.

“Ghost?”

Gaz was waiting for him at the beginning of the path. A strange mix of an upright deer with wings for arms walked around him. Fuck, they were blocking the way because of Ghost's gawking. Shaking himself, he followed him through the metal columns holding the water passageway over their heads. Creatures of all sorts were swimming through, and Ghost thought he saw something that was truly just a blob of jelly floating between the water and the small air pocket at the top, being moved by the currents. He avoided looking at it further.

There was plenty to look at elsewhere. As they walked down the street, Ghost had more alien species cross his path than he could keep track of. A few more of those deer with wings passed by hurriedly, crossing the road on the left without even looking and disappeared in an orange building. More and more, he observed aliens of all species doing the same. No lights, no pedestrian crossing on the road. They just crossed seemingly wherever they pleased and not a single shuttle was surprised by the maneuver, stopping gently. In a particularly busy area, most shuttles took flight to avoid the road packed with pedestrians entering a blue building with large neon signs on the front.

“What's going on here?” Ghost asked, pointing at the congestion.

Gaz answered something he didn't understand, and didn't elaborate. He clearly had other things on his mind now, gaze fixed towards the end of the boulevard where a squat building sat. It reminded Ghost of the station they landed the ship in, minus the coming and going of big spaceships.

With everything buzzing around them, Ghost struggled to relax. The sensation was familiar, and not entirely unwelcome. Something was up, and he couldn't exactly put his finger on what. That was until three bigger shuttles flew past, not making a single noise except for the displacement of air reverberating slightly on the buildings on either side.

This was a big city. A huge one even, if the buildings rising further away were any indication. Yet for all the hussle and bustle of a big city, things were quiet. Vehicles barely made any noise passing by. Pedestrians chatting between themselves were doing just that. Talking. No shouts, cries or laughs rose any higher in pitch than a normal conversation. The loudest things had to be hooves-having aliens whose steps covered most of the sound of the others. Despite looking like a big city, it didn't feel like one.

He didn't have time to solve that particular problem. They arrived at the end of the street and to the squat building where small shuttles parked all around, and further up on racks climbing up the facade.

The alien equivalent to Earth's taxi stations were a lot bigger than even a bus depot. While Gaz told one of the drivers idling in its parking space where they needed to go, at least a dozen shuttles had come and gone. Only the ones on the street level had windows the drivers left rolled down when waiting for passengers. The ones coming and going on the racks above them had no windows at all. They might not even be manned at all. The thought made Ghost shudder as he entered a shuttle big enough for four people in the back and a driver in front. He didn't get the time to examine him as Gaz pulled a partition down between them, and they were off.

Price didn't have to wait long for Shepherd to call. The ship was waiting at the Peacekeeper orbital station, engines idling. Normally, they would dock at the station and try to get some sort of rest at base, but he didn't want to have any excuse to bring Ghost in there.

“Price speaking,” he opened the line.

Shepherd's shiny head appeared in the holoprojection over the com. They rarely used this function with the team, but the General insisted on “face to face” communication whenever possible. However face to face you could be with a being living its entire life out of his home planet in an environmental bubble.

“Captain. What kind of trouble did you run into during this apprehension?”

Of course, Graves had tattled right away. He'd been hoping for a little more time. They weren't going to be able to hide Ghost's existence forever.

“I'm trying a new recruit. He's not up to speed on everything just yet, but the target would have injured or killed someone on the team had he not been stopped... fast enough.”

“You mean violently enough,” Shepherd grumbled, a tentacle appearing on the screen with a dismissive gesture, displacing the water around it. “I won't tell you how to run your team, Captain, but either kick him out or instruct him properly. That broken shoulder will take time to fix, and in the meantime, our charge cannot be interrogated properly.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don't think recruiting from the Fringe, or whatever backward planet you picked this one up from, makes for very good peacekeepers.”

“Yes, sir.”

Shepherd turned away from the screen, tentacles manipulating something out of view.

“Well, since our only source of information is in the medical bay for the foreseeable future, there's little use for you here. I see you haven't gotten the required three months of downtime in a while. You probably won't have the full month, but I will let you go until we have the intel we need.”

Or, in Shepherd speak, kindly leave my sight while I have to deal with the problem you caused.

“We will be in touch, General.” Price didn't wait for a response to cut the connection.

They couldn't stay at base like they normally did when docking on Arlon H-0. The question was, where to?

He pushed the ship-wide com button of the bridge. Maybe the others would have an idea.

The hastily constructed village housing the refugees of Elnilil looked nothing like something actually rushed. While the houses lacked the individuality of each building that seemed to color the rest of the city, this was a far cry from Tent City that would have been erected on Earth.

Nothing like the legitimate city block standing in front of them. There were visible construction marks where prefabricated walls were joined and their white colour was still brand new. Houses, if he could call them that, were more of apartment complexes than anything else with at least five or six stories each.

“Over here.” Gaz pointed in a random direction in the sea of lookalike buildings.

He seemed to know where he was going, because he stopped at the foot of a building on their right. Ghost slowed for a second when Gaz simply pushed the door open. No knock on the door, no doorbell. Hell, the door wasn't even locked.

Then again, these aliens were used to living in the jungle with rooms wide open, not in a bustling city. Maybe someone should teach them some basic caution. Unless everyone on this rock did the same.

A tube-like lift like the one they had on the ship sat at the back of the lobby. At least he supposed it was a lobby. It was furnished more like a functional living room, but everything was spotless, like nobody had ever set foot in here before them.

The lift whisked them to the fourth floor without a noise except for the rustle of Gaz's clothes.

Gaz pushed the door to his parent's temporary lodging, not sure what he was expecting. His mother was nowhere in sight. His father was sitting in the recliner, watching the news on the hastily rigged holoscreen. All around, the room was maybe half the size of the smallest of their cabins back home.

“Kyle,” his father got up, ears perking up. “It's good to see you.”

They started to exchange the customary greeting, but froze when his dad's tail came in view between them. What was left of it had a big section fully bandaged, followed by a pitifully small tuft of black fur towards the base.

It quickly disappeared behind his legs and when Gaz raised his head, he was shocked by what he saw. Never had his father looked so glum. Indifferent, yes. But not this.

“Dad...”

“It's okay. I'm lucky enough to have escaped with my life.” His eyes went over Gaz' shoulder, to the person standing there. “Is this your... colleague? That pulled me out the fire?”

“Yes, this is Ghost,” Gaz said, stepping out from between them.

Amazingly, his father didn't seem intimidated by the helmeted figure looming in his living room. He stepped forward. Robbed of half his tail, his attempt at the customary greeting looked worse than the first try of a kit. Gaz was suddenly very glad that Ghost had no idea about such conventions.

“I cannot thank you enough-”

“Just doing my work,” Ghost mumbled.

“I- Yes. You were.”

Ghost wasn't going to pick up the conversation, and his father seemed to have gotten stopped in his momentum, now unsure on what to do.

“Where's Mom?” Gaz intervened.

His father's ears drooped a little further.

“In the bedroom. She's not taking it well.”

“I don't imagine so, no.”

“Kyle.”

Gaz refrained from another remark, but barely. It wasn't like his father had done anything to support him either.

“After this... she might come around,” his father glanced at Ghost. “What you're doing is important. Not just to you. Give your mother some time.”

How grand of him to come to that conclusion only now. Gaz held back the words, but not the agitated twitch of his tail.

“Alright. Do you need anything?”

“No, son. We're cared for here. They announced a list of planets we can go to if we don't want to stay here, but we will take more time to decide. They're giving us more than enough to... start again somewhere.”

“Let me know when you decide.”

“I will.”

After one last look towards the bedroom door, Gaz started towards the door, Ghost on his heels.

“And Kyle?”

Gaz stopped, hand on the doorknob.

“Be careful, alright?”

He nodded and stepped out.

Gaz didn't want to take a shuttle back to the ship right away, so he walked. Ghost stayed at his side for a while before breaking the silence.

“Kyle?”

Gaz couldn't hide his amusement.

“That's it? After that, that's all you have to ask about?”

Ghost raised his shoulders and dropped them right away.

“It wasn't that bad.”

“No, I suppose it wasn't.” And it might only be because his mother wasn't here to poison the conversation.

Still, Gaz couldn't squash the hope that one day, things might smooth out between them. And it only took the loss of over half their home planet.

“So, Kyle?” Ghost interrupted his glum thoughts. “Is Gaz not your name?”

“Is it, but it's... different?” How was he supposed to explain the concept of a nickname? “It's a name not given by your parents, but others. Sometimes yourself. Does that make sense?”

“Yes. We have them.”

That made things easier.

“Do you have one?”

“...No.”

They reached the outer ring of the temporary city erected to house the refugees.

“Do the others have one?” Ghost asked

“Just Soap.”

He couldn't see Ghost's face through the tinted visor of the helmet, but Gaz knew he was being intently stared at regardless.

“His real name is John.”

“John?” Ghost tried the word.

“Yes, John.”

Ghost nodded. As they made their way back to the ship, Gaz wondered if he should have given that information.

Chapter Text

With the ship back at base, they needed to inventory everything and replenish their stock. Soap was sorting their gear in the armory when he noticed Ghost's armor wasn't on its rack. He looked for a while before remembering he'd left it in his room, locked in his closet after relieving Ghost of it, just to get it out of the way.

He'd stashed it in the mostly unused part of his closet and hadn't seen it since. Pulling it out of there, he felt a little guilty for not taking care of it earlier. With Ghost still not having access to the armory, gathering his gear fell on Soap.

Turning the back part around, he thought he might take a short trip to base for another size. This one really wasn't ideal, but he could maybe make better modifications on an armor meant for a different species to begin with.

His blood churned when he pulled out the front part and turned it around. Right in the middle of it, the protective layer was shredded by a pulse hit. Not only had he missed the damaged armor, but they'd also missed an injury during their scan. And of course, Ghost hadn't told anyone.

Ghost and Gaz were walking up the corridor of the ship's living quarters when Soap rushed out of his room, something large in his hand. They froze when he brandished the damaged armor.

“Ghost!”

“....Soap.”

Gaz stilled and, amazingly, glared at him.

“Ghost,” he hissed. “Did you get shot?”

“This is bad enough to break bones!” Soap gesticulated at the holes in the resistant fabric, his arm progressively going darker.

Soap flinched back when Ghost sighed and cut him off before he could say more.

“What happened to me knowing what I can take or not?”

“Well, do you know exactly what happened and why on that planet?”

“...”

“No, you don't. And you could have died for all we know. For all you know.”

Ghost chewed on his answer before speaking.

“And how do you know?” he settled on, trying to keep his anger out of his tone.

With how Soap suddenly turned a shade darker, he wasn't going to like the answer.

“We did a scan in medical when you were out,” Soap waved away his response with a swish of his tail. “You didn't give us a choice, Ghost.”

It hit him like a ton of bricks. He wanted to lash out, deny, call him a liar.

But his avoidance had landed him squarely in this hole, and he had nobody to blame but himself.

Soap deflated slightly.

“If you want to join the team, stay with us, this can't go on.”

“...Yes.”

Soap almost jumped in surprise.

“Yes? You... decided to do it?”

“Yes,” he sighed. “It... wasn't right.” He'd had enough time to wallow in self pity these past few days.

Both aliens looked at each other like he'd said he'd fly to the nearest moon in nothing but his pants. Gaz at least had the decency to cover it up quickly and nodded at him. It felt weirdly patronizing, but Ghost just sat with the discomfort. It was his own fault.

He was immediately whisked away to the rec room, like the aliens feared he'd change his mind in the minute it took to get there.

The language barrier became very quickly the worst obstacle. Ghost didn't have the medical vocabulary to explain much, and what he did manage only got him incredulous looks. He must have been really butchering the few words he did know, so they relegated the biology lessons to vocabulary ones for the rest of the week. As tedious as it was, Ghost was glad for it when they moved their sessions to the med bay. The ship was underway again, but Ghost doubted there was anything he could do about the destination, so he hadn't asked. There was too much he was trying to cram into his brain already.

Soap pulled up the scan they did of Ghost's body, and he was taken aback by the details. There were multiple layers that could be subtracted or added depending on what they wanted to look at. Skeleton, muscles, nerves, bloodvessels, organs... Everything could be singled out and separated from the rest and with no need to climb into a thousand different machines for it.

In attendance was Soap and Gaz. Ghost had expected Laswell to be here too.

“So... where do we start?” Gaz looked awed, staring at the screens showing various layers of his body.

Ghost didn't see anything abnormal besides the small bruise on his chest.

“Can we compare?” he proposed. “With one of you? Might be easier for me to know what you think is... weird.”

“I don't think mine will be the most useful,” Soap said, looking at Gaz.

“Let's do mine then.”

Gaz fiddled with the console, and the same type of rendition of his body popped up on the other half of the available screens.

“Where are all your organs?” Ghost blurted out.

“Why do you have so many for?”

“I was wondering why you didn't have a word for liver. You don't have one.”

“Li..ver? What does it do?” Soap asked, examining the screens.

Ghost pointed at the organ.

“Right there. It gets rid of... poison. Among other things.”

“That's why you can eat poison!”

“Well, no. Tea isn't poison,” Ghost suppressed the urge to sigh. “Do you just... die if you eat something wrong?”

“If there's no hospital or med bay close by... yeah. You don't?”

“Not right away at least.” That explained a lot. Mainly why Soap kept freaking out when he tested new ingredients. “Your bones are thinner than ours too. More breakable?”

“Aye, high gravity world will do that. You broke the target's shoulder the other day.”

“I didn't hit that hard,” Ghost grumbled. He really hadn't, but that explained the sound it made upon impact. “I thought it... jumped out of the socket.”

“...Jumped?”

“I don't have the word.” Come to think of it, why didn't he? “The word for a bone coming out of the joint socket?”

“That's a broken bone.”

“I- no.”

Ghost frowned as he examined Gaz' skeleton. There wasn't the ball joint he expected to see there. Instead, it was a lot more closed, in a way that restricted mobility. And all the other joints followed that pattern. But the shoulder and hip...

“Can you not... put your arm behind you?”

“Behind- no, why would we do that?”

Ghost made a show of crossing his arms behind his back and received appalled looks. Then he sat down and crossed his legs with as much stretch as he could get. Flexibility had never been his forte, but when Soap followed the movement, his skin turned a visible shade darker.

“Why?”

Getting back up with a grunt, Ghost found he really didn't know the answer. He shrugged.

“I have never, in my entire life, needed to do that.” Soap ogled his crotch with fear in his eyes for a second before turning back to the screens. “Alright. So, different skeleton. Extra organs. I have a question. Why are your intestines so long?”

“They need to be for the food to be properly digested as it moves through it. Why are yours so short? And thin?”

“Food is digested in the stomach. Intestines are for waste.”

“Just waste?”

“Yes. And only if we eat something wrong, and it doesn't get digested properly.”

“That's only used if you get sick?”

“Yes.”

“And the rest of the time everything you eat gets digested?”

“Yes.” Soap's tail lazily twitched back and forth. “Yours is... --.”

“You mean it doesn't work as well,” Ghost clarified.

Soap looked at the screens all around them.

“No wonder you eat so much if a lot of it just ends up wasted. Maybe your species isn't always the stronger one.”

“No?” he frowned. “Why would we be? We have predators too.”

The two aliens looked at each for a while before reporting their attention to the screens.

“What else?”

Bloody hell. Ghost stopped a smile from forming even behind the helmet.

“The eyes? Unless the locking pads on the doors are supposed to be hard to see.”

“You can't see them?”

“Barely. Better when they light up, and I know where the ones I need to use are.”

Soap manipulated one of the screens, zooming in to show one eye from each scan. Gaz' had two more cones.

“Well that's...” Gaz started.

“Aye. I will have to see with Nik. We have a few things to change.”

“Am I seriously the first species you meet in this whole galaxy that cannot see whatever these extra colours are?” Ghost grumbled.

“Well, yes. It's needed to discover spaceflight.”

“What?”

“Yes?”

“No, it's not? We have spaceflight. Not... good compared to yours, but we have it.”

“It's needed to map the stars properly, prior to sending a ship. So many can't be seen otherwise. Do you just send your ships into the unknown?”

Ghost was no astronaut, but he was pretty sure that was exactly what they did. Maybe not with people, but cameras. There were limits to telescopes, right?

“We have space stations that do it? Look, I'm not a space person, but I'm pretty sure our maps are, or were, incomplete at some point. It still works.”

He wasn't sure if it was his tone or his scowl, but they backed off, giving Ghost some space to study the screens further. A detail caught his eye and he hummed.

“You have separate paths for air and food.”

“Yes...?”

“Look at mine,” he grunted, pointing with his chin.

“But... food doesn't go in the lungs?” Soap recoiled, bumping into Gaz.

“There's a part that blocks the airway when you swallow so it doesn't go down the wrong pipe.”

“Ah.” He relaxed slightly.

“But sometimes it fails. People have died like that.”

The silence that followed was so heavy Ghost could have cut it with a knife.

“How is your species...”

“Still alive? I know, I ask that myself sometimes.”

“...No!” Soap gave him the most put upon look. “I was going to say badly put together, but since you brought up the subject... how are you still alive?”

Ghost searched both alien's faces for a clue, but they looked utterly serious. “We've been over this. I'm fine.”

“Your arm.”

Neither had anything wrong with it. Ghost rolled his sleeves up.

“What?”

“This one!” Soap gestured to the tattooed arm.

“Did nobody ever paint things on themselves before?”

“Yes! Paint! Not putting metal under your skin! That is how people die.”

“Some metals, with different quantities. But this is safe. Can you really not do that with any metal?”

“Adding non-biological objects to your body, no. It drives people insane...”

Insane like randomly hallucinating during an op. Bloody hell.

“Not how that works for us,” he grumbled. “Again, that's your own problem.”

If Soap had been human, he'd be crossing his arms right now. Ghost was. Instead, his tail slapped the ground.

“So, explain.”

“I'm not sure what there is to say. It's safe. What does it do to you exactly? I can't be the only one needing to share things.”

“We wanted to,” Gaz interjected.

Ghost raised an eyebrow.

“But we were scared to,” he admitted. Soap hesitantly nodded along.

Ghost had the sudden impression the distance between them increased despite everyone being carefully still.

“Alright.” He ground his teeth together, frustration mounting. “Now answer the question.”

Ghost wasn't sure why, but when Gaz elected to answer, he relaxed slightly.

“If we were to put anything non organic, like metal or wood to our bodies and leave it there, the brain can't handle it. It's abnormal.” His ears twitched back for a second. “For example, my father can't replace what he lost of his tail. It would push him to madness. We call it -- Madness.”

He would need to look that word up later, but he got the gist of it. And it was madness. Literally.

“No replacing a limb? Ever?”

How could a civilisation so advanced not be able to make any sort of prosthetic? They have the brain for everything else, but not this?

“Very, very temporarily. Never for long. Too much risk,” Gaz's tail swished. “And it's worse when it can't be taken out,” he gestured vaguely to his arm.

And the big, scary human might lose his mind at any moment if provoqued. Fucking hell.

“Well, I'm here to tell you it's fine. We replace limbs all the time. With metal. Or wood. Or anything else we need.”

He sighed. All this time in the military trying to be a team player and sharing key information for the mission, and he'd failed spectacularly here. He wasn't sure what was more tiresome right now. The endless explanations or the lack of them.

“This small trace of metal in the skin is not a problem. Our blood naturally has metal in it.”

Soap rushed to pull up some charts on the screen. He looked at it for a long time before closing it, like he couldn't believe this was true.

“You have an entire piece of metal in your leg too. That can't be intentional,” Soap said when he found his tongue again.

Ghost hummed. He could already tell they weren't going to like that one.

“That's also not causing problems. It could, but it's not,” he made sure to emphasise. “It's old. I got hurt, something uh... threw pieces of metal all over the place. And in my leg. I didn't have time to get it out, and it didn't hit anything important, so I closed the wound. It healed perfectly fine.”

“The wound healed? With an object in it?” Soap asked.

“Yes. It happens.”

“It happens? So it's not... normal?”

“Not really. Like I said, I didn't have time. I was behind enemy lines.”

“So you risked dying instead of caring for your wound properly?” Soap's tone made it clear he thought he was insane.

“It wasn't that much of a risk,” Ghost mumbled. “Question. How would you deal with it if the metal couldn't be removed? Take off the fucking limb?” He let the English curse slip.

The silence was telling.

“You planned to cut off my arm? And leg?”

“We wouldn't have done it without telling you,” Soap stammered.

Ghost cursed his inability to facepalm with a full helmet. Thank fuck they didn't. But if he hadn't told them anything today...

They were starting to look as weary as he felt.

“Enough for today, yes?” he tossed out. “We can start another time.”

Gaz was quick to take the cue and shut down the screens.

“I have one more thing,” Soap said. “Come on. You need it before we get there.”

Ghost followed him out. He still hadn't asked where they were going, but the lack of urgency and any sort of military preparation had lulled him into a false sense of security.

Time to find out.

Chapter Text

In the rec room, Soap palmed a spot on the wall, revealing another hidden compartment. Ghost didn't hide his scowl in time and Soap made what he thought was an apologetic grimace, lower lip curled just enough to not reveal any teeth.

“I had to change -- a few things, so it took me a while to do after we got the scans. And why I can only show you now,” Soap explained as he took a small black box out of a drawer.

Opening it revealed a decent imitation of an earpiece he'd have in his own kit, back on Earth. It felt like a lifetime ago. He would need to figure out the proper timeline at some point.

“What is it?” he asked, taking off his helmet and putting it down on the table.

“It will let you understand others even if they don't speak the same tongue.”

Ghost had scoffed at people for describing their shock as 'bluescreened'. It made little sense to him. Even with the most blank head, there was always some level of thought remaining.

Not anymore.

“Ghost?”

“You had a fucking translator the entire bloody time?” He hoped that thing was turned on and rendering every word.

“...You need to put it on your ear,” Soap held out the earpiece.

It would have been too good. Reluctantly, he did as told.

“Now what?”

“Do you understand me?”

“Yes. You're speaking the same thing as earlier.”

Soap stood a little taller, a little more confident. And smug.

“I'm not. Here, I will show you how to turn it off.”

The button was well hidden visually, but obvious once he got his thumb on it.

What came out of the alien's mouth next could only be described as a dolphin on steroids. What the fuck was that? Soap stopped making clicky sounds and spoke properly.

“So?”

“Alright, alright,” he scowled. “But why couldn't I hear both at separate times?”

“It's just that fast.”

Hard to believe, but Ghost didn't have a choice, did he? Alien technology. He might not manage to understand it all in his lifetime.

What a thought.

Shaking himself, he turned it back on and repeated his first question in a much more diplomatic manner, and with a hunch, in the proper alien language.

“We need to put in new languages manually. Too many mistakes otherwise.”

And that was it. Ghost slung the bag he always carried with him to the ground and took out his tablet. Soap watched curiously as he booted it up and pulled up the entirety of his ad-hock english-alien dictionary. He saw the moment recognition passed on the Soap's face. His crest flared.

“You...”

“Yes, I've had it this entire time,” he said, making an effort to speak with a level tone.

Soap reached for it and Ghost relinquished it.

“I will send it to my own, and have it -- so it changes in real time.”

“You can see what I do?” Ghost frowned.

“No, just this one file. It will upload it to the -- after I've looked it over.”

Ghost tapped the earpiece and repeated the word, just to be sure he'd deduced right.

“Translator? Lets people understand different languages?”

“Yes.” Soap handed the tablet back and Ghost checked it quickly. “So you can understand my family.”

Ghost froze.

“... Your family?”

“We're going to my homeworld.” Soap's tail twitched. “Most people of the Alliance don't speak Common or have translators on their homeworld.”

“Common?”

“The language you're learning.”

Why did he learn that only now? Their language learning methodology sucked. Did so few people ever bother with doing so that such a thing wasn't mainstream? He held back a sigh and wiped a hand over his face instead. He could have used his mask right about now.

“So I will keep learning and translating until we have a full dictionary.” Ghost crossed his arms. “What about the planet we're going to?”

“Ottewal,” Soap replied, oblivious. “It's an ocean planet with some bits of land, most of them that have a building related to the galactic market on it. The ship will land there, right over my hometown.”

“And I stay topside again?” he grumbled.

Soap looked almost shy when he continued.

“The others are staying up, but I was hoping to find a way to get you down.”

“Underwater?”

“Underwater.”

“Do you have specialized gear?”

“No. We have people for that,” he gestured at himself.

So, nothing they could just adapt like they did the body armor for the ground op. Unless...

“What about the space clothes?” he asked.

Soap's crest flapped and Ghost had the unbidden image of a lightbulb lighting up over the alien's head along with the movement.

They were moving towards an unexplored part of the ship when Ghost almost stopped them in their tracks.

“And Soap?”

“Yes?”

“I'd like my mask back.”

Soap's skin darkened so slightly the change was nearly invisible, but Ghost had been waiting for it.

“Aye. I have it. After this?” Soap gestured towards the airlock.

“After this,” Ghost nodded.

He was a lot more comfortable in the space ship's airlock with his helmet sealed over his head anyway.

The next two days were a rush to complete the closest thing they could to diving gear. Ghost sketched oxygen bottles and anything else he could from memory. The fins in particular seemed to fascinate Soap. Turns out you didn't need such things in a galaxy where you could easily find a specialised species for your specialised task.

Ghost was suiting up when Soap came to fetch him. They were going to land. He tucked the fins under his arm and followed. The end result was mercifully less cumbersome than he'd expected, but he wasn't going to bother with the fins until he was about to get in the water.

He stalled at the door of the training room. Why here? Weren't they leaving the ship? Soap didn't seem to notice. Back to him, he turned on the screen spanning the entire far wall. An ocean appeared, broken up by small, black islands. Rocks? One of them had a bubble-like structure on the far end of it.

Ghost stepped into the room. The screen slowly zoomed in and he realised this must be the view outside the ship. Yes, they were landing, on what appeared to be a dry dock built on a natural platform. At least he supposed it was natural.

The ship touched down and Soap turned off the screen.

“Come on, we're not going far. The town is right under.”

Nobody else disembarked. They found themselves crossing the empty landing pad to the water. They were apparently going to just jump off from here? Where were customs? A help desk? Security? Anything, really? He looked towards the bubble that was likely the station itself.

“We don't need to go there right now,” Soap waved him away with a flick of his tail.

Bemused, Ghost sat down at the edge of the rock to put on his fins. His helmet was already fully sealed and he'd checked the oxygen before stepping foot on the planet. The meter read 70 hours of autonomy, and that wasn't including the suit's function to collect oxygen from the water. The rations – if he could call the stock of vaguely flavored paste only used by the aliens in emergencies that – would run out before his air.

Soap jumped in the water with no hesitation, making a hole in the small plants floating on the surface. Ghost was securing his second fin when he reappeared.

“Is the water cold?” he asked.

He couldn't feel it with the suit. He supposed it made sense with the temperatures it should be able to endure out in space.

“Cold? No,” Soap seemed amused. “It's hot.”

“Hot?”

The ocean? Ghost looked under him, at the solid rock. Part of it was polished to make the landing pad, glinting under the sun.

Were they sitting over a volcano? He unstrapped a glove from the suit and put a finger in the water. Soap was right. He wouldn't call the temperature hot, but it was a lot hotter than any ocean he'd ever gone in. It didn't smell salty either. He raised his helmet visor to be sure.

“What are you doing?” Soap asked, hanging halfway in the water with his arms on the rock.

“It doesn't smell like uh... ocean.”

Come to think of it, while they'd taught him the names for all the foods they'd eaten, they hadn't dug further into describing the taste. Ghost hadn't asked either. Once more, it came back to bite him in the arse.

“What's the taste of fruit?”

“...Your ocean smells like fruit?” Soap's tail stopped splashing in the water.

“No. Just answer the question.”

“They taste sweet.”

“Sweet.” Ghost repeated the word. “What's the opposite of sweet?”

“Salty.” Soap startled, his skin turning a shade darker. The swirls on his skin were distracting, reflecting over the small waves rolling around him. “Your ocean has so much salt in it you can smell it?”

“Yes? Clearly you don't.”

“No!” He looked truly horrified now. “Breathing in that much salt would kill me. Why are your oceans like that?”

He didn't remember, not exactly. Was it even covered in school? Either way, it was too long ago to think too deeply about it.

“Something about rain and rocks getting stuck in there,” he shrugged, putting his visor back down and checking the seal of his gloves.

“Alright... let's go.”

Soap pushed off into the water. Ghost jumped from his perch after him and was immediately engulfed into a vaguely blue tinted world. Behind them, blue moss climbed up the rocky island, covering the entire base of it until it joined the ocean floor, which was surprisingly close. Instead of a steep drop off, the black rocks dove further into the water in a gentle slope. It reminded him of a giant staircase. This one might just drop you off into the abyss.

Soap swam down leisurely, tail barely active and pointing at various coral formations along the way. Ghost thought they might be glowing slightly when he passed by. Various fish-like creatures parted from their path, most he couldn't assign a noun besides 'odd'. Extra fins, body shapes only vaguely recognizable as a fish, bright colours everywhere. Some curious critter that was almost drowned in its own fins came to peck at Ghost's. Soap laughed, the trill startling the creature.

They went deeper, dropping down another ledge. Ghost almost didn't see the town right below. Krans came in and out of holes in the coral reef, through sliding doors and windows hidden in the natural formation. As they got closer, he could discern artificial structures linking the natural material together and forming separate buildings. It was an eclectic mix.

A larger door opened, and a Kran holding onto the handlebars of something that looked too much like a motorcycle to not think of it as one, diving edition, came out. Ghost wondered if they had the equivalent to the military underwater scooter. He needed that to keep up with Soap. The garage door closed behind the Kran and it disappeared behind a jutting rock with his vehicle.

He got some odd looks when they entered the town proper, but Ghost just stared back with the same curiosity. Most of them were wearing some sort of long skirt covering their legs, fastened around their tail. Some had bows, others belts and he even saw suspenders here and there. Whether they wore any tops seems to be entirely up to the individual.

All the buildings followed the natural formation of the reef, and the complete lack of any structured street was disorienting, but he supposed there was no real need for it when you could just swim above every structure to find your way. What would Soap think of corn mazes or other similar entertainment?

“The house is right over there,” Soap said, falling back next to him. His tail twitch made his entire body squirm. “I do have to tell you... my family. They mean well, but they can be... a bit much. And they're going to be happy to see me. I haven't been home in a while.”

Great. Ghost grunted something in response and it must have been satisfying enough, because Soap turned back towards the block of coral, a mix of green, blues and red. The door to the house was partially hidden under a jutting branch with that same moss growing over it. It looked oddly stylised.

Soap put his hand next to the door and the familiar rectangle lit up. The inside of the house was surprisingly spacious, carved out space inside the coral reef. Ghost supposed it made sense if it needed to accommodate multiple people swimming about. There was also a distinct lack of furniture on the floor. Instead, large benches and cupboards were bolted to walls that had been smoothed down, their natural texture nowhere to be seen. How did that work? Was the coral reef not alive anymore?

He was distracted by Soap opening a door to the side and sticking his head through the threshold, yelling something that didn't translate. Great.

The Kran that appeared, some sort of giant, round tea infuser in hand, lacked a crest. Instead, some sort of flowy fin drapped the top and back of her head, reminding Ghost of a veil. Her long skirt was just as flowy.

“John!” she hugged Soap in the fashion of overbearing mothers everywhere. “It's been so long.”

“Hey, Mum.” Soap returned the hug, seeming genuinely happy about it.

“Who's this?” she gestured to him.

“This is Ghost, he's a --.”

How he would like a functional dictionary. Soap could be saying anything.

His train of thought was interrupted when the woman effortlessly slid to him, and Ghost struggled to go backward without flailing and hitting someone with a fin. At least Soap stopped her before she could attempt to do anything. He took the chance of Soap explaining that it might be culturally innappropriate for random people to touch him like that and that his translator wasn't doing a very good job at translating things yet, to which he got a pitying look for some reason. It might have been the parts of the conversation he didn't catch.

She introduced herself more sedately – her name was Elayne – and they relocated to the kitchen where she had been cooking. He only half paid attention to the conversation as he watched her work. The tea infuser lookalike was used to hold a cut up fish into some sort of oven whose lid closed around it before expelling the water that had gotten inside when opened. She then pressed a button, presumably to start heating it up. It was... ingenuous.

Ghost looked around with a more critical eye. How many of the things attached to the walls all over the house had a specific purpose tailored for underwater use he would never figure out on his own? The prospect was daunting. How many other species had their own specialised equipment? No matter how hospitable Soap's family was, the gap would be huge.

Soap looked happy. Really, happy. Was his skin lighter? Ghost hadn't seen it do anything but get darker when upset.

“We won't be staying tonight. I want to -- Ghost -- --,” Soap was saying.

“Of --.” His mom didn't seem to mind. “Just let me know when you come --, everyone will be happy to see you. The -- have been asking about you lately. How long are you staying?”

“We should be here for a month.”

“Oh, that's --! Then go out and --! We have all the time we need to catch up -- day.”

Ghost had barely had time to try and decipher everything that they were practically shoved out the door by an energetic mother. He floated there for a second, baffled.

“Ghost? You okay?”

“Yeah,” he shook himself, swimming slowly after him.

He might just swim back to the surface. However curious he was, however much he tried to make an effort to integrate with the others, this might just be too much, he thought as he trailed after Soap, swimming over the coral houses likely sheltering another happy family.

Chapter Text

Ghost followed Soap at a sedated pace as he swam after him. After the third explanation of the city network, he started to tune out and observe things for himself. Ghost didn't see what knowing the exact street names, if you could call streets the maze of gaps between buildings, would get him. He would just forget them just as fast. He did, however, note which parts of the reef were the hospital and guard station respectively.

“A guard station?” he asked when they swam over it. He was starting to wonder if he wasn't mistranslating their word for cops. “What are they guarding against?”

Whatever Soap said didn't translate, but he gestured towards the deeper part of the ocean floor, beyond the city. That far, Ghost couldn't see anything but dark water. They moved on.

The next structure that caught his eye was fully separated from the rest of the coral reef, which he found odd in itself even before Soap explained its purpose. Or tried to. Some sort of training center, but not just for the guards? Yet not for the military either – turns out, the military wasn't a planetary institution but a galaxy wide one, centralised for the most part on the planet they'd just left – as it was normal for everyone who wanted to be able to go. It looked more like the description of gym to Ghost, if said gym was set up, for some reason, in a myriad of caves.

Unfortunately, they couldn't go in. Or more precisely, Ghost couldn't. The explanation didn't make much sense, halfway between a coming of age story and some sort of trial for... something. That Soap had done himself, at one point. Ghost could always ask later.

The tour finished, Soap took out his tablet. Of course this thing would be waterproof. Was it? He asked, and Soap, distracted, answered with a look that said it was obvious. Ghost refrained from sighing.

“Alright, my sister is off work, we will see her in the station,” Soap said, gesturing up.

“She doesn't work down here?”

“No, she works with -- and their --.”

At least now he would hopefully have the time to enter words in their makeshift alien-english dictionary instead of Ghost having to learn them one by one.

He was expecting to follow Soap to the landing pad. Instead, he led the way a little further, down an open mouth cave softly illuminated by that blue moss. He wondered how effective that was at night as he let it engulf them.

Thankfully, the passage wasn't long and they broke the surface. Ghost blinked. White walls reflected the ripples of the pool they'd emerged in, giving the impression of still being underwater. Soap led him to a ramp coming out of the water and on an empty level over them. The completely empty room didn't inspire any confidence. Ghost frowned, looking at the ceiling. Nothing stood out, not even the light fixtures.

“What's this?” he asked.

“The drying room.”

Soap simply stood there, waiting for something. Or someone? If someone was supposed to dry them, Ghost would go back in the water.

A beep cut through the silence and Soap's tail twitched. A screen appeared on a wall next to them and Soap fiddled with it for a second before grumbling and taking out his tablet. Ghost took his helmet off and started peeling off the suit.

“What are you doing?” Soap turned to him.

“Taking off the wet suit? Then I won't be wet.”

It hadn't occurred to the alien, had it? It definitely hadn't.

“Right.” Soap pointed at the door on the other side. “Just wait for me outside when you're done. Leave the suit here.”

He did. He wasn't sure why he expected the door not to open for him, but it did. And he was immediately thrown into chaos. The door closed behind him with a soft sound, but it might as well have been a gunshot. All sorts of species shared the multi-leveled space, weaving in and out of half open rooms with colourful trinkets hanging from ceilings and walls. A few Krans looked at him when passing by, and Ghost put his helmet back on. He could stand his shoulders getting a bit wet. He wished he'd taken his bag with him so he could just slip on the mask instead of the bulky helmet. But that one wasn't waterproof. His sigh was loud inside the constricted space.

A large hatch opened on the only side devoid of any decoration, and the reason was clear. A boat – or something resembling a boat – was grappled by mechanical arms and attached to the side of the building. Multiple people got on, a few got off. The lobby he was standing in was suddenly a lot less crowded.

Soap came out of the room and handed him a small, rectangular item. Ghost turned it over in his hand. It looked like an USB key.

“Your suit is in the locker over there,” Soap pointed to thin lines in the wall Ghost had thought were decoration. “This is the key.”

Ghost nodded, carefully stowing it in his shirt pocket. The only pocket he had, might he had. He really needed to see about sewing some more into the pants.

“Come on.”

Soap crossed the lobby, Ghost at his heels, and called for a lift. He couldn't see where the shaft went under all the clutter despite some offices having nothing but a glass pane separating them from a fall to the lobby floor.

Inside, Ghost searched for the floor number display as Soap pressed a button on the holographic screen.

“Ghost?”

“Where's the... number screen?”

Soap's tail twitched, and he gestured to the screen.

“No, I mean, where the floor number is shown? So you know when you get to yours?”

Again, that same screen. Soap looked confused.

“Why would you have a different screen for it when there's one right here?” he asked.

The lift door opened – it went fully down instead of parting in the middle – and they stepped out. Ghost shrugged.

“Everyone sees it if it's over the door.”

Soap didn't look convinced. Didn't the lifts here just never get that crowded?

Ghost was distracted by this line of thought when he saw they were in the middle of an office floor. Cubicles and rooms lined the sides of the corridor and Soap confidently started forward. Ghost didn't say anything, and while it felt wrong to just be able to stroll in like that in these people's workplace, he couldn't argue the opportunity to gather more information.

Nobody gave them more than a glance when they passed by open doors.

Soap led him to a bigger room. A cafeteria? There was no counter, and Ghost couldn't make sense of the contraptions on one side of the wall. But there were tables and chairs. Good enough.

A Kran wearing loose fitting pants waved at them, and Soap brightened, his crest rising briefly.

“Iza!”

“Sit down, sit down,” she said, her tail twitching slightly behind her. “It's good to see you, even if it's just because you need something.”

Apparently, the translator gave proper tones, because Soap groaned, not looking very apologetic as they sat down. Ghost didn't interrupt the banter. He was glad for the helmet.

Until they addressed him directly. He'd missed a good part of the conversation.

“Ghost, can you give Iza your translator? She can modify it better than we do.”

“...What modifications?”

“The -- we have in it right now is very basic and not made to learn a new language. This one will try to give an approximation of the meaning with the database it has instead of just not translating that word.”

That would be useful. Still, he was reluctant. He'd had this thing for all of two days and yet it became such a powerful crutch.

“How long will it take?” he asked.

“A day or two at most,” Iza answered. “But if you're here for a month, we will have time to do it whenever.”

And Ghost unlatched his helmet, taking out the translator. Soap's badly concealed surprise had him clench a fist under the table. Handing it over to Iza, her eyes lingered on his face longer than warranted. Ghost frowned. She didn't react.

Soap might have told her off. He couldn't understand anymore. Their attention quickly shifted away from the translator that Iza stowed in a small bag at her feet, from him. He scowled at Soap when one too many look was aimed his way. Soap's crest withered. Iza looked clueless. This whole 'meeting the family' might be just as hard as he'd thought.

Back on the ship, he enlisted Gaz to help him translate more words and look over the audio files he'd put in the tablet. They would be used as his “voice” for the translator. Soap had decided to stay home with his family, no doubt to try and prepare them better for his arrival. Ghost couldn't tell if he found that grating or thoughtful.

He had the niggling suspicion Soap hadn't told them what he actually was. It was interesting how nobody had enquired further than 'new species'. He tentatively labelled it an unspoken social norm and moved on. He didn't know how much of that miraculous new AI would actually work, and he would rather not leave it to chance. When Gaz slipped away, he found Nik.

Ghost hadn't really interacted with the pilot until now.

“Need something?” Nik asked, no hint of anything negative in his body language.

But then again, Ghost hadn't spent that much time with Price either, so he couldn't be sure he was reading him right. Time to change that, he supposed. Biting down on the want to just figure things out alone, he asked. And Nik agreed.

That was how he spent the last day working on the translator and listening to stories of Nik and Price before they formed this team. He wasn't sure if most of them were true at all, but at least Nik had a sense of humour. They might just get along.

Soap came back with the updated translator in hand three days later. Something about the AI struggling to parse through some of the audio files at first. Ghost wanted it to work. The tests were... conclusive, he supposed. It would take some getting used to the guessing of some words, as these took the robotic accent of the AI instead of the voice assigned to whomever was speaking.

Soon, that would be the least of his worries.

They dove again later that morning. Soap had assured him everyone would be home. Ghost hadn't asked how many people that everyone was. Instead, he gave the layout of the town a second look. While the top was open to anybody who could swim, the lower end of it had thick coral taking roots on a lower level and climbing up to form a disjointed wall. He really had to ask Soap about it.

But Soap was already opening the door to the house. He followed.

The first room was empty. They took the door opposite from the kitchen, and Ghost held on to the doorframe to avoid colliding with a pile of limbs. A tail flailed inches from his nose, quickly followed by a leg he ducked under and lost his grip on the doorframe. Fuck. Someone shouted, but he was too preoccupied by the armful of Soap and the children that fell on him. Or rather, pushed him back. His grumbling must have translated, because suddenly, two small pairs of eyes seemed to notice him over Soap's shoulders. They blinked at each other. Somehow, after passing by so many Krans in a few days, seeing two with no crest of any kind looked wrong. And bloody hell, he was scaring the kids.

Soap easily wrangled the now stunned kids away, his crest vibrating with amusement while the children backed away, their skin a shade darker. Someone out of Ghost's view berated them.

“What did we say?”

The taller of the two turned towards the voice. “That uncle John has a guest.”

“And?”

“...and to be careful.”

Ghost wasn't sure what to think. Soap had the decency to look mildly embarrassed, but his family would no doubt attribute it to the fact the kids had misbehaved the second they entered the room. Ghost hoped it wasn't that.

Pouting kids were wrangled by the oldest of Soap's sister, Kaitlyn, who introduced herself at the same time. His answer must have been polite enough, because the conversation quickly moved on. Or rather, around him. Oh, they included him, directing some things his way, but nothing of consequence. Nothing that could be constituted as prying. Ghost ground his teeth and checked out of whatever story Soap's mum was sharing. In the far corner of the room, alternating between hiding behind the couch and playing around the various furniture, were the kids.

Freeing himself from the curvy chair he'd been in – they seemed to have a slightly wrapped over armrest where the Kran tucked their tail under to sit – he slowly swam over. Nobody objected, even if he could feel multiple pairs of eyes on his back.

Grabbing an armrest of the couch, he lowered himself to the floor. What he assumed was the oldest of the two kids joined him, conveniently making him crouch behind the furniture and away from the adults' scrutiny.

Ghost almost jumped when her crest flapped up. Fully transparent when folded against her skull, it was now glowing faintly. The shape was somewhere in between male and female of the species. She must have noticed him staring, because her amusement doubled.

“You look like you've never seen a Kran before,” she giggled, the sound airy and shrill at the same time.

“I- No. I haven't. Not a child,” he said, keeping his voice down.

“Just Uncle John?”

“Just him.”

“Mum said you're a [person from world of death] so you don't know a lot of things yet.”

Person from what? Was the translator failing him already?

“I'm new to...” he gestured around them, “all this, that's true.”

From the corner of his eye, he saw the second kid coming out from her hiding spot behind a chair.

“What's your name?”

“I'm Lucy! And this is Alice,” she flung her tail in her sister's direction, almost ramming her body into Ghost.

He wasn't even sure she noticed him steadying her as she prattled on. Ghost wondered if the names were getting translated into understandable syllables for him on purpose. Those names sounded awfully human.

“I can show you then. My mum says I'm good at teaching people, and that's her job, so she knows.”

“She's a teacher?”

“[Sound of agreement]. At the school here. She teaches the younger kids. I've already graduated that grade.” She froze, staring intensely. “I don't know your face,” she said, leaning forward. “But that doesn't look like you believe me.”

He hummed, debating. In the end, he would kill for a chance to get out of here.

“Well, if you can show me a few things around here, maybe it will change my mind.”

“Around?”

“You have a backyard?”

He wasn't sure how it translated, but after a pause, she pushed herself off the floor.

“Mum! We're going outside!”

All conversation stopped at the adults' table. Soap exchanged a few words with his sister that he didn't catch from that far, but Ghost didn't miss the nervous twitch of his tail.

“Don't go past the [community boundary] alright?” Kaitlyn eventually replied.

As the kids led him out without waiting for more cautionary speech that was sure to follow, he replayed the interaction as they manoeuvred through the house. How much of all the odd attitude was because of that 'person from a world of death' bit?

It would be worth investigating, he thought as they came out in the wide ocean. Lucy needed to teach him afterall, he thought with a small twitch of his lips.

Chapter Text

Ghost was led to the back of the house. Or rather, the back of the entire block of houses. The large open space between the rows of buildings created a plaza of sorts where creatures startled at their arrival. Besides the now fleeing school of iridescent fish, they were alone. Some braver specimens lingered around rocks at the edges of the space.

They sat down, or settled as best as they could in Ghost's case. This entire thing was brushing up some diving skills he'd rarely needed to use. He ended up grabbing a rock with a hand to save himself some trouble. The kid clocked it immediately. Smart, that one.

“Can't you swim?”

“I can. But not as well as you. And it's been a long time since I did any deep diving.”

She looked over their heads, disapproving.

“We're not very deep.”

Interesting.

“Well, it is, for me. My species aren't aquatic.”

“So how are you breathing?” she gasped, eyes widening.

He pointed at the oxygen tank strapped to his back.

“This. That's why I wear the suit, so my air doesn't escape.”

“That's not your skin?” she asked, palming the suit.

“No,” he held back a laugh. “That's a spacesuit.”

“We're not in space.”

“No, we're not. But you don't normally get visitors that aren't made to live underwater either.”

She regarded him with a serious expression for so long her little sister inched closer from where she'd been hiding behind her rock.

“You're weird, mister,” Lucy concluded.

Ghost laughed. He couldn't help it.

“That I am,” he chuckled. “So, think you can teach this weird one new tricks?”

“Of course!” She rose to the challenge immediately, any misgivings she might have had seemingly evaporated. “Um, what first...”

“What about the deep end of this ocean then?”

“That's where the [creatures] live!”

“The...” Ghot frowned, mulling over the translator's word choice. “Are they dangerous?”

“Yes! But they're very, very far from us right now. They travel up once or twice a year. Uncle John fought them too, that's why he's the best peacekeeper now.”

“The best, huh?” he prodded gently, wondering just what kind of beasts lurked in those waters.

Maybe it had something to do with the maze-like training building. He'd ask.

“The best!” Lucy echoed. “He [graduated] with the highest honours after the Hunt.”

“And these creatures, when do they go up?”

She quickly raised her fingers, including the webbing between them in her count.

“Three months now, so you don't have to worry, you're safe! And they never go up to the city, the highest they go to is the Pit way under us. Only the [gatherers] really have to worry about them.”

“Gatherers? What are they gathering in a place so dangerous?”

“All sorts of things, but the [lava rocks] are the most important! They make the best ceremonial paints!”

Ghost nodded like this made complete sense. “Ceremonies?”

There was the first hint of hesitation in her reply.

“Those are adult things, so I don't know about them,” her enthusiasm waned.

“Did your uncle have some?”

“He did! The warrior ceremony! But I wasn't born yet, and if I had, I wouldn't be allowed there,” she pouted, her thin lips forming a familiar expression.

“What about the... 'world of death' you mentioned earlier?” he redirected.

“You don't know?”

“Well, I wouldn't ask if I did, no?”

“Yes,” she answered with all the seriousness of a child being given an important task. “A deathworld is a very, very dangerous planet. 'You will die' kind of planet.”

Ghost blinked. That... wasn't what he was expecting. At all.

“My species live on one? And we're not all dead?” Albeit not for lack of effort on our parts.

“There's uh... more than one level of them. From six to ten. Under that, it's a normal world. Ten is the highest it can get, and the worst.”

“How do they decide that?”

She splayed her fingers, counting with her other hand as she went down the list, clearly learned by heart.

“Weather, food, predators and land. If there's no food, bad weather, predators to the native species and little space to build, it's one of the worst.”

Earth... definitely fit the bill. Ghost frowned. It seemed a little arbitrary.

“What about yours?”

“Mine?”

“Your planet.”

“Oh! It's level four. One for predators, one for little habitable land, one for the volcanoes, and one for floods,” she raised four fingers proudly.

“Volcanoes and floods? And it's not a deathworld? You mean, not active volcanoes?”

“No? Why would volcanoes stop working?” She tilted her head sideways. “They go off once a year. But we're safe here, you don't have to worry.”

Baffling. Utterly baffling. And he somehow doubted his incomprehension came from having a child explain this. Behind her rock, he saw Alice's eyes widen slightly. How dangerous did they think Earth – or deathworlds – were?

He must have lingered on her too long, and the little kid went back to hiding, the top of her head peeking out just enough to see. Something stirred in his chest, and he held back a sigh. He didn't want to scare the kid further. Delving deeper into the topic might not be a good idea. And Lucy was getting restless. It reminded him of Soap's fidgeting when he had to stay still for too long.

“I guess that was a good lesson,” he grumbled.

Lucy beamed, standing – floating? – straighter.

“I'm a great teacher. And every great teacher gives their students breaks! Time to play!”

She swam away, fetching her little sister.

“What do you want to play?”

Ghost was almost surprised to hear the kid reply.

“The rock race.”

She left them, swimming quickly to one of the protruding rocks at one corner of the plaza. Were the three identical ones serving this explicit purpose or had the children repurposed them into a makeshift racing track? Was the 'community boundary' a playground? Ghost doubted the translator had fucked up that badly, but then again, what did he know. Not enough, clearly.

“Come on, Ghost!” Lucy called from the same rock.

“I can't play that with you,” Ghost replied, frowning. He couldn't even hope to match the youngest of the sisters. “But I can be the referee,” he added when both little faces fell.

To their visible confusion, he explained what a referee was, and they explained the rules of their game in return.

Soap and Kaitlyn had relocated to his bedroom. From here, they had a view outside, and more importantly, on Ghost and the kids. His mother had joined them for a bit, looking out for all of two minutes and declaring all this fuss unnecessary.

Soap was inclined to agree. Still, he couldn't tear himself from that window. Unlike Kaitlyn, it wasn't the kids holding his attention. It was the ease with which Ghost interacted with them, like he'd done this before. This wasn't the awkward and slightly menacing behavior he'd gotten used to. The behavior he'd thought of as default, because it made sense for such a deathworlder. Yet here he was, bending to the whims of children he just met with more familiarity than he'd ever had interacting with Soap. With anyone.

The thought was jarring, and there was only one explanation.

Ghost must have had a kid of his own. Oh, no.

His sister turned to him. “What's wrong?”

His skin was slowly darkening. Sometimes he hated how impossible it was to hide your feelings when it was literally etched on your skin. His thoughts strayed to Ghost again. Impassible, stoic Ghost.

“It's nothing,” he replied anyway.

“The kids?”

“No, no,” he waved the thought away with a flick of his tail. “I just... realized something.”

“Seems bad,” she said, looking back towards the children.

That helped him settle. “Aye.”

“But?”

“Not my place,” he said through clenched teeth.

Ghost hadn't even alluded to it. Not even to any sort of family in general, and clearly, humans weren't the type to let their kids fend for themselves at a young age.

Distracted, Soap had missed when the kid's game changed yet again. His sister blowing water in alarm had him raise his head.

“What?” he asked, catching her arm before she rushed outside. “I don't see anything.”

“He's... he's...” she stammered, unable to free herself from his grip. “Look! Again!”

Ghost rushed to Alice, tapping lightly on her small back while she tried to escape. Or was she? Immediately, she turned around, a hand flailing to catch one of Ghost's legs he raised just in time. Only for Alice to twist her tail and grab the other one. The kid's happy trill reached them as she fled in the opposite direction.

“What...” Soap let go of Kaitlyn's arm.

She didn't move.

“Is it... is it some sort of deathworlder game? Hunting each other?” she asked, leaning forward like it was going to help her figure it out.

Soap was sure there were rules, at least.

Their mother chose this moment to enter the room, a sealed jar in hand.

“Soap, will you- what's wrong?” she stopped, taking in the both of them.

“Um-”

Their mother looked outside, unruffled.

“Well, they're having fun. I was saying, I know Ghost can't eat with us, but I still made him a little something.” She handed him the jar.

“Aye... I will give it to him.”

She left. They both stood there for a minute, a jar of freshly picked pink coral between them. Kaitlyn laughed first.

“I guess... I guess that means we need to get a move on,” Soap finally said between whistles.

“I'm sorry,” Kaitlyn said as they calmed down. “I was just...”

“Surprised? Aye, me too.”

Outside, Ghost failed yet again to get away from the kids in time. For some reason, they were both ganging up on him now, despite the man's obvious lack of grace underwater. Soap might need to be more careful with what he had planned next...

Ghost slowly followed the kids back into the house. His muscles ached, unused to this kind of exercise. The children didn't look winded in the slightest. That would teach him, trying to compete with a species made to swim underwater.

Soap looked weirdly down when he came to get him, shoving a sealed jar with something atrociously pink floating in it. He barely caught Soap's mumbling as he turned around. Something to eat? Ghost frowned down at the jar.

They left, exchanging half hearted goodbyes and promises to see each other soon, and Ghost followed Soap back to the ship. The jar wasn't big, but still cumbersome to swim with. He needed Soap to give him a waterproof bag. Just not today it seemed, as his chaperone disappeared without a word. Ghost had half a mind to follow him. Did his family give him trouble? He wouldn't stand for that.

He stopped himself before he gave chase. What would he even ask? Ghost himself wouldn't have liked anybody sticking their noses into his mess. At worst, he'd alienate Soap. At best... the best outcome seemed like wishful thinking. He needed more intel before he made a move, he thought as he entered his room. He stashed the jar in the closet and let out Roach. At least the little guy was always happy to zip around the room and never gave him grief.

Soap found Gaz in the common room. His friend looked up when Soap locked the door.

“What's wrong?”

“Ghost came with you to see your family, aye?”

“Yes.” Gaz put down his tablet.

“And?”

“And what?” Gaz' tail twitched.

“Did he... do anything? Say anything?”

“What are you asking Soap?” Gaz' cold response didn't help Soap's mood any.

“Has he talked about his family?”

“...No.”

Soap wasn't sure what bothered him more at this instant. The potential of a child being ripped from Ghost, or Gaz lying to his face.

“Alright,” he hissed, turning back.

Unlocking the door took entirely too long with Gaz' disapproving gaze following him.