They ran in and dragged the woman with the brightly striped belt from a building fast before the fire burst out of control. She saved them from falling to their death when a support strut failed causing the scaffolding to collapse. It was the start of an interesting friendship -- Anon Guest
The thing about responding to disasters is: Nobody thinks. They just act.
Whether it's fleeing the scene of threat, or acting counter to it. The threat spurs motion and the rest is discovered after the fact. Such as a pack of Havenworlders grabbing the first person they saw and literally carrying them out of the area before the fire took hold of a very ill-thought-out food tent.
Things were chaotic when building a new colony. Especially when the people in charge opted for the lowest bidder. The Deregger corporation swore that it could be trusted. They weren't like the other ones, and they just wanted a chance.
Of flakking course they lied.
They got their chance, and now things were in motion to sue them into oblivion. But there was still a mess to unriddle in the founding of Planetary Spaceport RTH-J18-3BS IV. Which was why it had some of the toughest Humans they could get.
Frop had no idea he was rescued until the noise finished. One moment, he had been fetching a tool from under some scaffolding. The next, he was staring at the sky with a Human wrapped around him. And the scaffolding was a twisted wreck when he got up.
The same Human he and his pack had carried away from the fire had just saved him from a structural collapse. She had skinned her knee, an elbow, and was developing several bruises. Frop was a little shocked, but completely unharmed.
"All good?" said the Human, wincing as the adrenaline wore off.
"All good," Frop answered. "You is joining lawsuit, yes?"
"Signing up long time past," the Human made sure Frop could stand steadily before returning to her own feet. "You joining?"
Frop and his pack were relatively new to the Alliance, and thus communicated largely in GalSimple. "Joining now yes." The panic was starting to make him wobbly. "You helping reach office camp?"
"Of course," she had to bend so that Frop could reach her hand in comfort. She took care to walk slowly so that Frop was not hurried to the camp where more sturdy structures stood. "Self naming Bear."
"Bear," repeated Frop. "Unusual naming of feminine, self thinking."
"Self unusual feminine," smiled Bear. She helped Frop through the paperwork, and switched to the complicated GalStand to discuss details with one of the newer administrators from the greater portion of the Alliance. Frop sat under the care of Alliance Mediks and only caught small fragments.
Something to do with work... or a single task.
Bear seemed very angry about the state of things. The administrator kept indicating a timetable, much to Bear's frustration.
The repeated phrase, "Subliminal flight still takes time, darling," was repeated so often that it leaned into being parodical. Frop couldn't understand most of the words, but could glean that it was a transportation issue.
Everything here boiled down to transportation issues.
Bear was grumpy. "Self waiting two weeks," she pouted. "Then self going. Taking care, business."
"Big business?" asked Frop.
Bear tapped her belt. "Much big business." She was called away to another task to at least make the construction work safer.
Frop was left confused. The belt's stripes were colourful and reminded him of the fruit at home. He gestured for the attending Medik's attention. "Self not understanding," he said. "What being big business with Bear belt?"
"Mama Bear?" said the Medik. "Belt colours being Pax Infernus. Humans happening to bad people."
Oh. He'd befriended one of the dangerous ones.
[Photo by T I M E L O R D on Unsplash]
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