Pinwheel

"Do you ever miss your homeworld?" I inquired. Raz looked taken aback, but followed my gaze to the ceiling and considered for a moment.

"I guess not. Society on Borealis is harsh, there's a lot of pressure to succeed. I guess I'm still adjusting to the idea that on the Pinwheel we don't have to be on guard all the time, we don't have to fight over every little disagreement. Here I can have friends, maybe."

"You're really hung up on this friendship thing aren't you Raz? You know, I could be your friend, if you'd let me."

She looked conflicted, then changed the subject.

"What was life like for you on Sol?"

"On Earth you mean? Sol is the system."

She nodded.

"Well, where I lived it was very flat, not many hills or mountains, no forests, just miles and miles of farmland all the way to the horizon. Infact the only landmark in sight was my family's farm."

"Weren't there any other humans around?"

"No, not really. I went to school of course, but it was far away and outside of the classroom I was never able to see any of my friends."

"You couldn't play with your friends? Is that normal for humans? Borealans are born as a litter, we're never alone from the moment we're born."

"It's a little unusual for humans, yes. I was just unlucky I suppose. I learned a lot living on a farm though, my father always said that hard work built character, so I guess I should be thankful for that. He wasn't too happy when I dropped out of agricultural school to become a marine."

"You disobeyed your father?" Raz seemed shocked.

"We didn't fight about it or anything, but yeah, I guess I did disobey him."

"That's not something that would happen on Borealis, my father would just overpower me."

The dark green leaves of the immaculate topiary rustled as we walked by them, we were nearing the barracks now, but such a personal conversation with Raz was rare and I didn't want it to end. She was sharing invaluable insights into her strange, primal society, and I was beginning to paint a new picture of Raz, less as a dangerous, cruel alien and more as a troubled, misunderstood girl. Her culture had evolved over thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of years, it was the natural order of things on Borealis, yet the longer she stayed away from the other Borealans and the more she interacted with me, the happier she seemed to become. I was confident I was having a positive influence on her.

We rounded the corner to the barracks, and walked inside, we had lagged behind chatting and most of the other trainees had already eaten and gone to bed. Neither of us was especially hungry and we decided to retire to our dorm room for a little catch up study and then sleep.

"Remind me tomorrow Raz, I'll teach you to play some human games."

She nodded, a smile on her face, and held the door open for me. By God, she was actually learning to be polite, I felt privileged that she was using me as a guinea pig. It wasn't quite dark yet, we still had an hour or so before lights out, so we sat on the edge of her bed and used the time to go over the day's lesson, Raz was having some trouble remembering the different classifications of enemy armor, so we went over them by rote until she could repeat them from memory.

Eventually the automatic lights shut off and we were cast into gloom, the only illumination coming from fluorescent strips that lined the floor to indicate the exit. I noticed Raz's reflective eyes watching me in the glow. I put the tablet computer down on her bedside table and started to get up, but she placed a hand on my chest and gently pushed me back down.

"Wait, monkey." She murmured. The sheets next to me rustled as she leaned in closer, I felt her breath tickle my ear.

"You like me, right? I've seen the way you look at me when you think I'm not paying attention."

My face began to burn and my mind swam, I leaned away from her, but her hand was still placed firmly on my chest preventing me from getting up, the still tender scars stinging under her touch.

"We're not like the Krell, we're similar, maybe compatible, don't you want to find out? Neither of us has been with anyone since we got here." She purred, almost inaudibly. She had teased me before but she had never attempted to seduce me, this was not something I was accustomed to. She leaned in closer to me, breathing down my neck.

"Raz, don't..." I croaked, my mind was roiling, I couldn't think straight. "We can't."

"Why not? There's nobody here, nobody besides us, we'd never have to tell anyone about it."

She shuffled closer to me and leaned in, I felt her soft lips touch my skin and she lightly chewed the nape of my neck, the sensation sent a bolt of lightning down my rigid spine. "I tasted your blood, and I liked it Stanley."

This was all happening too fast, I couldn't think, my body was overpowering my brain in a surge of hormones and poorly repressed desires.

"Raz, where is this coming from? This isn't-" I flinched as I felt her pointy incisor pinch my earlobe. "This isn't what friends do."

"I told you, monkey, I'm not your friend, I'm your pack leader." Her words were like honey dripping into my ear, sweet and sticky, I wanted to shake my head vigorously, to banish the creeping longing that threatened to rise up from inside me and take control, but I was rooted to the bed, as if in sleep paralysis, I couldn't bring myself to move.

"Back home, Borealans are expected to make themselves...available, to their superiors. I could make it feel good, I could be gentle." Her hand wandered down to my pants and her fingers brushed my swelling member, I screwed my eyes shut, as if to block out the stimulation. This was bad, I knew that if I gave in now, and oh how badly I wanted to give in, all of our progress would stop here, I would be forever trapped under the thumb of this girl. This burgeoning friendship that promised to redeem her would just become another one of her manipulations.

"Come on Stanley," she crooned, "it won't hurt, not unless you want it to..."

I wanted this on some level, I always had, it would be so easy to just lie back and let her have me, but I had to be strong, if I cared about the girl I had come to know over the last few days even a little, I had to resist her, for her own sake. Her advances grew a little more aggressive, I felt a long, rough tongue slide up my neck, its hot, moist surface forcing a low sigh from my lips. If she kissed me with that tongue I'd be finished, I had to stop this now before it went any further.

"Raz, not right now, not like this, I've never...I want my first time to be with someone I love."

I had promised myself I'd never tell her that secret, but maybe she'd back off, I didn't know how courtship worked in Borealan culture. Unfortunately it had the opposite effect. A sadistic grin spread across her face, and she pressured me down onto the bed with her hand, I winced as my scars burned under her palm.

"Oh monkey, aren't you just precious?" She groaned, "I can't stand it, you're so soft and sensitive, whenever I touch you, you flinch, you're completely different from a Borealan, there's no fight, you can't stop me..." She loomed over me now, almost drooling. This was it, it had gone too far and as her excitement mounted I felt my own resistance waning.

"Your skin is so smooth and soft..." She used her claws to tear off my shirt, and I heard the sound of ripping fabric. "Your body is...its..."

She had stopped. I looked down through a haze of arousal and saw that her eyes were fixed on my torso. Four ugly scars, pink from healing tissue, ran from my collar bone to my belly button. Raz looked momentarily horrified. She leaned back and let me up, and in the low light I could have sworn I saw a tear glint in her eye.

"Stanley, I...I did that to you. You were so smooth and soft and I..." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I defaced you."

I didn't know how to react, I sat up, my head was still spinning, and I reached up to place a hand on her shoulder.

"Hey now, it's not all that. I'm going to be a marine you know, I'll probably get all kinds of fucked up scars before my tours are over."

Raz refused to be consoled, a steady stream of tears dripped from her eyes and she tried in vain to stem then with with her fists.

"Am I really such a monster, Stanley? Am I so cruel that I would hurt you like that? Stanley, who is so kind and fragile?"

I didn't know what to say to her, yes she had been horrible to me, but she had made progress, that she even felt remorse now was a testament to that fact.

"You know how you can make it up to me?" I asked.

Raz lowered her hands for a moment and shook her head, her expression miserable.

"Make me your first friend."

She sniffed loudly, and nodded.

"We can be friends, Stanley."

I hugged her, and she buried her wet face in my hair, fat tears rolling from her eyes. We stayed like that for a minute, then I broke away from her.

"Let's get some sleep."

CHAPTER 5

The next morning, for the first time since arriving on the Pinwheel, I was awoken by my alarm, and not by Raz's loud exercising. I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes, as much as I had enjoyed a full night's sleep, strangely I missed her disruptions.

I made my way to the mess hall for breakfast and encountered Raz on the way, she was returning from the gym and sported her distracting tube top and bike shorts combo, she looked wet, she must have been swimming. The previous night's encounter had rattled me, there had always been a vague background radiation of attraction between the two of us, but I hadn't realized she felt so strongly about me until she had made her feelings so abundantly clear. Now I felt awkward, almost ashamed, as if we had been caught doing something we shouldn't. I was almost afraid of her now, no longer fearing her bullying or her abuse, but her romantic attention which might well be all the more intense.

"Morning Raz, thanks for not waking me up today."

She nodded, and joined me as I walked to the mess, she selected her usual cut of meat and I got some cereal, then we made our way to the tables. I figured I owed Raz a favor for going to the gym to exercise, and I motioned to the taller Borealan table, which for now was empty. I climbed up on the exaggerated bench and felt like a toddler in a highchair, my feet dangled off the floor to Raz's amusement. We ate in silence, but it was not an awkward one, we seemed to have reached a new equilibrium, a mutual understanding that could be left unspoken.

We ate for a few minutes, and then I saw Raz's eyes turn to the door and dilate as the Borealan pack entered the room. Immediately they looked to the table and grouped together, moving over to us almost in formation. As they drew closer Raz's orange hair began to frizz, almost like an angry house cat, her eyes remained firmly fixed on what I assumed must be the pack leader who had succeeded her, while not as physically imposing as Raz, she was bigger than any human could hope to be. She stopped near the table, and glanced back and forth between the two of us, perhaps unsure of who she should address. Unlike Raz who was getting the hang of alien social interaction, the other Borealans were still stuck firmly in their native pack mentality. Eventually the tall Borealan addressed me in the same vaguely Russian accent that Raz used.

"This is our table, human, please leave."

I stopped chewing and put down my spoon.

"Excuse me?"

"This is our table, leave."

Even when Raz had been the head of the pack, she had not been this confrontational or this dismissive of the social norms of the other species, it made me guess that perhaps this one was overcompensating, either because she was new to the whole pack leader job, or because she was still afraid of Raz.

"I'm sorry but we were here first, you're welcome to eat with us though."

The Borealan pack bristled, and the lower ranking members looked to their leader, uncertainty etched in their faces. The leader looked to Raz and hissed something in their native tongue, the look of displeasure on her face gave me the impression that she did not even deem Raz worth talking to.

"He said no, Xhe." Reiterated Raz, in English.

The leader, or Xhe as Raz had referred to her, seemed to take this as an affront. Based on my ever expanding knowledge of Borealan customs Raz had challenged her by addressing a higher ranking pack member in such a flippant manner. She slammed her fists down on the table, making me jump in surprise, the milk from my cereal sloshed around in the bowl. Raz remained motionless, it could be a sign of either submission or defiance, I couldn't know.

"You submit to humans now, Raz?" Spat Xhe, contempt in her eyes.

"I submit to nobody." Replied Raz.

You could cut the tension in the air with a knife, the few trainees who were eating their breakfast had either quietly filed out of the room or were watching with concern, a couple of Krell were half way out of their seats and looked about ready to intervene.

Xhe didn't seem to know how to respond, she looked to her pack for reassurance but they could not give it to her. She turned back to Raz.

"How can you function in a pack if you do not submit? Have you gone completely rogue?"

Raz stood up, a clear head taller than most of the pack, her orange mane flowing out behind her, the dramatic display sent a flutter through my chest and caused the Borealans to take a step back.

"I no longer require submission, I have made friends."

"You've gone rogue!" Countered Xhe, her hackles raised. Whatever signal the Borealans had been waiting for, it had been given, and they began to encircle the table, claws raised into an aggressive posture. This was getting dangerous, I didn't fancy being in the middle of a Borealan cat fight and I didn't fancy the odds of Raz taking on the whole pack and winning, if it was that simple she would have done it in the first place. She could probably take two, or maybe three, but the pack was nine strong, with Raz making the tenth Borealan on the Pinwheel. Nobody knew why they had elected to send such a small contingent compared to the other species, perhaps it was the probationary nature of the Borealan allegiance to the Coalition.

Raz became a demon, her hair fluffed up almost into an afro, her eyes grew wide and dilated until they were black saucers in her head, she bared her fangs like a wolf and her tail whipped through the air with an almost audible crack. The pack was afraid of her, but Xhe barked orders in Borealan and they held their ground. I didn't know what to do, if the claws started flying I would be torn to shreds, but I wasn't about to let my hard won friend get dogpiled. If there was a serious fight, the M.Ps would show up and drag everyone off to lockup, but would they get here in time to prevent serious injury, and would a group of human M.Ps armed with batons even be able to take down nine pissed off Borealans?

Oh well, it was partly my fault Raz was in this situation to begin with. I guess we were doing this. I climbed up on the table to confused glares from the angry aliens.

"Alright you fuckers, who's first?"

I kicked a half-full bowl of cereal at one Borealan who ducked out of the way, but was splashed with milk. Xhe snarled, and two of the aliens lunged at Raz, before I could so much as blink Raz slammed her open palm into the chest of one advancing Borealan and it dropped as if it had been hit by a bus, lying wheezing on the floor. She took out the second with a roundhouse kick to the side of the head that sent it careening sideways, dazed. Xhe spat another order and the rest of the pack piled in, I tried to kick one in the head but it brushed me off the table, it was a high fall and I hit hard, cracking a rib. Raz turned to help me, but in her distraction she took a swipe to the back and yowled, spinning back around to deliver a brutal uppercut to her assailant that lifted it clear off the ground. Red blood dripped from her wound, leaving round splotches on the white floor, I couldn't tell how bad it was from my prone angle. One of the other Borealans advanced on me, claws raised and I winced in pain as I tried to scrabble backwards. From my right a Krell barreled into the Borealan, smashing it up against the edge of the bench, there was a sickening crunch and the alien howled in pain and confusion, behind them a second Krell charged into the fray, letting loose a bone chilling roar and swinging its thick, heavy tail into Xhe's legs. They were swept out from under her and she crashed to the ground, she scrambled to get back on her feet but the Krell brought down a massive, scaly fist on her head and she went limp. A plucky human snuck up behind one Borealan that was distracted by the newly arrived Krell and broke a chair over it's back. More humans and Krell filed into the mess hall, the word of a fight must have spread and the braver humans had come to defend their own.

The Borealans that were still on their feet looked conflicted, their leader was down, lying motionless on the tile, a trickle of dark blood leaking from her nose, and half of the pack was incapacitated. The one that had been steamrolled by the Krell was making a racket, hissing and spitting in either pain or anger, I couldn't tell.

Now a dozen humans and half a dozen Krell marched toward the beleaguered Borealans, they were hopelessly outnumbered and began to back away in panic, their yellow eyes wild. Before the brawl could go any further, two dozen M.Ps in white helmets wielding batons streamed into the room and began hitting everything in sight. The humans were battered with strikes and forced to the walls of the room while the Krell, shrugging off the blows with little concern, plodded away peacefully to join them. Only the injured and the Borealans remained in the middle of the room, and the M.Ps rounded up those who could walk and called for stretchers for the more seriously injured. I was helped up by a medic and escorted to the infirmary, as I left the room I saw Xhe's limp body being dragged onto a stretcher, and the two Krell who had participated in the fight were conscripted to carry her. After some brief attention from a human medic Raz was taken away with the other Borealans.

Later that afternoon I was discharged, my broken rib was bandaged and I had to make up a story about the scars on my chest to dissuade a curious nurse, the M.Ps took a statement about the fight, but did not take me to lockup. Vasiliev was waiting for me outside the infirmary, I attempted a salute, then grimaced in pain and thought better of it.

"Stanley, how is your injury?" He asked, returning my salute.

"I'll be fine Sir, how is Raz?"

"Don't worry about Raz, the medics told me she was pretty much 50% scar tissue to begin with. Two of the others sustained some pretty serious injuries though, even for Borealans, the Krell really worked them over. One broke a vertebrae and fractured an arm, and the other sustained a pretty serious concussion. Since they were the aggressors in this scenario no formal charges will be filed, but when those lizards throw their weight around people tend to get hurt."

I nodded, and we began to walk back towards the barracks.

"Stanley, this station is technically an active service naval vessel, I hope you understand that participating in a fight, even as a defensive measure, and I don't doubt that was the case, carries serious consequences. We can't have marines running around getting into mass brawls in an enclosed space."

"I'm sorry Sir, I understand. I assume the M.Ps gave you our statements?"

"Yes all of the accounts corroborate yours, but there will still be a disciplinary citation on your record, I take no pleasure in it, but we can't make exceptions for anyone."