Bestial Planet

Chapter 18: What's the Plan

Lancieta thought it was weird. Now that she had seen Panzer for the first time in months, finally, a sense of relief washed over her. She'd been in countless stressful situations before; Commanding troops into battle against the Halgred was tough. There was always a high chance that someone under her command wouldn't be going home with their platoon. She wasn't cold to other people but she rarely, if ever, allowed herself to become so manic. This reunion was different. Here on this planet, relatively removed from the chaos of an active war-zone, she felt a stress lift from her when she saw Panzer was ok.

"Are you ok? Did you get hurt? Did you eat anything poisonous?"

"I'm fine mom but Catty got hurt. We were attacked by some impossibly fast reptile-dog-thing. It tore into her pretty bad."

Catty shifted to show her scar as the 10 foot long Komodo Dragon to Panzers left grumbled, scaring a few of the people in conference.

"Oh right." Panzer felt sheepish about not introducing them first."Guys, this is Lancieta. The one who looked after me and got me to go out and find you both" Then he turned to Lancieta. "Apparently, they... we knew each other before the crash. The Tigress is Catty and the Komodo Dragon is Nik. Nik was the 'pull' I felt. Catty felt it too."

Lancieta stood up and she put a hand over her heart and bowed, Catty and Nik bowed back as best they could. Lancieta looked off to the side, tears still forming in her eyes, and spoke seemingly to no one. The group of people started talking amongst themselves again as Lancieta got reacquainted with the grey Panther.

"Yora. Do we have any translators left?"

"I'd say so Captain, I'll bring some out."

"Just two, Panzer's back. He found some of his family. You might have to recalibrate his though."

Catty mewed at Panzer and put a paw on his head.

"You told her we were family? You're adorable."

"Shut up Catty..."

"I guess we figured out if cats can blush Catty."

"Hah!"

Nik and Catty started to laugh, which to everyone else seemed odd since they only heard Panzer speaking. Had this been any other time in history everyone would have assumed they were crazy but now they just looked weird. After a few more seconds of laughing the trio noticed everyone staring at them and they stopped. Yora passed the open doors of Section 6, taking notice of the translators on the table in the lobby. Lancieta helped him put them on Nik and Catty. Since Nik has no fur, the clip simply attaches to the collar but as with the other fur-less humans, Yora spent a little more time calibrating. Then he helped Panzer fit a new translator, copying over the settings from the old one.

Mei-lin noticed they had finished getting situated and turned the congregation's attention back to them. Lancieta noticed all eyes were on her and wiped the tears from hers.

"I'm sorry. I... it's just been so long since I've seen Panzer, please forgive me."

Mei-lin nodded and caught the attention of Panzer and his reacquainted family.
"How long have you three been awake for? So far the 'oldest' one here is about 5 months."

The Gorilla raised his hand and stepped forward awkwardly as everyone looked to him with a sense of respect.

"I'm not sure really. Maybe like... 2 months ago? Just before I ran into Panzer."

"Maybe one and a half months for me if I had to guess. I was focused on staying warm and not freezing to death, not time keeping."

Panzer looked to Lancieta in thought before answering. "7 months, give or take a week."