Page 20 of Roping Her Alien Ranchers

One attempted step, and I’d fallen over. Two trainers had to help me stand; the heavy booted legs were far too bulky. My tentacles couldn’t properly conform inside, despite contorting them into “L” shapes within something the manufacturing team called “shoes”.

“You can stay right where you are,” I mumbled at the exoskeleton, then I lifted one tentacle to snag a moisturizing unit. Crescent shaped, easily curled around my neck, latching into place and immediately activating to mist out precious water from my world.

The feel of it, the scent of it, the coolness… all made me miss home.

I made my way to the weapon’s wall. I studied my options, then slipped a stunner device from its perch and notched it into the holster at my thigh.

Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to use it. If the stun setting was too high, I could kill a weaker lifeform. If the setting was too low, they’d barely feel a buzz.

Breath in. Focus. I told myself. Nothing is out there. Nothing is going to happen. Get the lay of the land and come back inside.

Power wasn’t needed to manually release the escape hatch. I almost lifted the lever, but intuition made me stop. Maybe the viewer would work while the ship was no more than a carcass of its normal self. Hearts beating sluggishly, I swiped a tentacle down the hatch surface, hoping the morph material would respond.

It did, but only for a moment.

The material seemed to vanish right in front of me, its solidness giving way to nothingness. Flexion metal was magical in that way, heat making it go transparent. But it wasn’t my gentle touch that initiated the transformation; it was the residual warmth in the temp modulator.

But that glimpse of outside was enough.

A biped with fiery fur atop its head stood too close to our vessel. It was a bizarre creature poised with a three-bladed, long handled weapon. Sudden, sharp adrenaline spiked inside me, amplifying the tensions I’d sought to suppress. My muscles tensed, one tentacle wrapping around the stunner.

Just as I had steeled myself to open the hatch and immobilize the enemy, the internal ship lights fluctuated, then steadied. The ship hummed with energy. The shields went up.

I pressed the cool metal of the hatch door again.

It shifted away, transparent once more.

The flame-haired biped had lowered the weapon, the butt of its handle pressed into the soiled ground. The creature’s forehead wrinkled deeply. One tentacle, moving with its own purpose, lifted to press the one-way comm. I could hear the outside, but the outside couldn’t hear me. Not that hearing mattered; I had no way to understand the strange words it spoke.

“Drunk. I must be totally, skunk drunk.” The biped ran one hand down its face, shoulders shaking. The sound it made next was either one of grief or joy; I couldn’t tell. Both, maybe. Its whole body vibrated now and it wiped moisture from beneath its two, small eyes. How could the being see anything with those tiny optical spheres? “The barn finally gave up. Can’t even blame it.”

The lifeform, which had seemed so fierce heartbeats ago, dropped the weapon and walked away.

I removed the moistening unit, returning it to its perch, my skin pulsing in waves of orange and scarlet—much like the creature’s vibrant skull fur—and returned to the command deck.

“There was a biped outside. It held a weapon.”

“Do you believe it will attack?” Cyro didn’t look up from the control monitor, now brought back to life, though its surface was cracked, and the icons were bisected by horizontal black lines.

“No,” I replied, moving to the curved wall closest to my station. I pressed a button, lifting the burn shield lowered to guard us when entering the atmosphere. It might save us from intense heat and radiation, but it did not protect us from major system failures.

I caught a glimpse of bright red fur, then the color was swallowed by darkness. “It dropped its weapon and walked away. It was... talking to itself.”

“What did it say?” Kalith asked, his tentacles twisting and turning inside the wall of the ship where he’d removed a protective panel. He pulled a wire out, assessing a melted section. He bent the wire into a “U” and lifted it to his beak, clipping off the damage before stripping the outer coating and twisting the gleaming, metallic pathways back together. He used his own sticky excretions as a replacement for the protective outer coating.

“I was not wearing a translator. I only know that the creature seemed unhinged.” I answered.

“So, it has a weapon and it’s possibly insane,” Cyro concluded. “If it comes back, take it down.”

For some reason, Cyro’s words caused fury to bloom in my chest. I had no idea why. There was zero reason to feel protective over a strange alien, especially not one who’d clearly approached the ship ready to attack.

Yet…

The color of its fur was beautiful.

A tiny part of me wanted to know what it felt like.

I wasn’t the curious scientist. I was the stoic defense specialist. I didn’t come to explore and engage with the natives. My only job was to protect my mission companions and get us all home safely.