[Freezair]

If Nara had a fifth leg, she'd be kicking herself with it. Caught bluffing, she cringed. But what was there for it than to bluff some more?

"She's... a Blaze Penticorn, sir. Specifically bred for heat resistance. I'm on firewatch."

"I thought you were a policewoman? Firewatch is a civilian position."

Damn. Caught again. "Well, I--"

The Soveris thrust his sharp, eggshell-colored beak in her face. "I think you're lying to me! And you know what?" His wings encircled his face. "I think you are one of them!"

[Freezair]

"Sir, this paranoia of yours--"

But Nara didn't have time to figure out what his paranoia was.

Because a brilliant, white-hot ball of something went screaming over their heads and hit the ground behind them with an almighty his.

Nara's mouth was on her blaster before she could even think. She spun in place and aimed into the trees, desperately scanning for the source of the shot.

"A blaster!" the Soveris shrieked. "I knew it!"

"Shut up, or it'll be the last thing you ever know," Nara said.

The Soveris curled up on himself.

[Freezair]

Nara dared to flick her eyes backwards, eyeing up the impact crater of the blast. With any luck, she'd be able to figure out what kind of weapon had fired at them.

One glance told her it wasn't something she was familiar with. There was clearly a splatter on the ground behind them, glowing orange like an outdated children's television logo. Some kind of molten metal? I don't know what--

She felt her fur sizzle as a second shot roared overhead. The Soveris yelped and jumped into the tangle of her tails. She felt him quivering against her.

"Three strikes, you're out," a voice said. "You'd better de-ass the area with the quickness, or I stop sending you warnings."

[Freezair]

Nara stood her ground. And she sniffed.

Lucain had rather small noses. It was easy for a lot of alien species to take one look at them and assume their sense of smell was weak. But Nara not only had the powerful sense of smell of your typical canine, she trained it well. She drank in the air around her, seeking the trails and hints that pinpointed their attacker.

The smell of pine was everywhere. Pine and sticky, resinous soot. The escape pod smelled like burning plastic. But there was a faint trace of burning metal. From behind them and... yes... ahead of them. Up in the trees.

Something metallic and alive. Faintly reptillian. Full of adrenaline.

[Freezair]

Nara considered the wind and bit down. Her blaster fired, several feet to the right of where she judged the creature to be.

She heard a yelp.

A great gray shape moved behind the trees. Immense--as big as a Penticorn, if not bigger--and sinuous. Covered in overlapping scales, with a triangular head--she saw the flash of an eye--

No. It can't be.

A searing shot of molten metal flew by. It hit a tree and the bark crackled. Nara fired back--if he wasn't warning any more, neither was she.

The Soveris shrieked in panic.

[Freezair]

Nara's ears twitched for the rustle of branches and undergrowth. She thought she saw a bit of gray--Fire! A blob of metal answered her. She heard a sound to her left--He's low to the ground! and darted. She shot of two shots in quick succession--beeyoong, beeyoong--and was answered with--

"Yeeeow!"

And there was a massive thump.

He'd been trying to climb a tree to reach a higher perch, she thought. He's trying to snipe us. But I got him and knocked him down.

There was a scrabbling of claws, much closer than she expected, and the rich, sharp smell of bark peeling off from a pine tree--

And she pounced.

[Freezair]

She hit a body. Warm, thickly scaled. Long and skinny. And smelling very familiar.

She went for the long, wavering neck. She didn't need her blaster--in one adroit maneuver, she stowed it and put her jaws around the neck of the creature. She locked her bite in place. She wasn't tight enough to break the skin, but enough that any struggle would result in pain. And enough that she could easily incapacitate him if need be.

He lifted his head towards her. She saw it out of the corner of her eye. But there was no mistaking it--that shape, those horns. The smell.

He was a Paragon.

[Freezair]

The draconic man snarled.

"What do you want with me?!"

If she'd opened her mouth to reply, she would have let him go. A clever ploy, but she wouldn't fall for it. There would be time to answer questions later. And she had plenty of questions--questions like, "Are you from Evelon?", and, "If so, how did you end up in space?" And possibly even, "Are you here on purpose?" If he hadn't reacted with aggression, maybe they could have discussed them calmly, over a cup of coffee. But now she had to reach for her force-cuffs with her paws, and while it was awkward, she was practiced--

But while she had his neck pinned, she had made a critical error.

She hadn't accounted for his tail.

[Freezair]

A thick, spike-encrusted tendril of pure muscle came crashing down on her back. The worst of it caught between her wingblades--serving their evolutionary purpose, perhaps--but the force of the blow rattled her body and a few cut through her skin. All the air exploded from her lungs and stars swam in her eyes. The force of the gasp threw her jaws apart, and the Paragon threw her aside.

She landed with another "whumph" in the soil, the cuts on her back stinging where they met dirt. The Paragon scurried off, long legs loping like those of a big cat, up another tree.

Gods damn it.

[Freezair]

She heard a digital click.

Gods DOUBLE damn it.

"What the heck is going on over there?" There was trepidation in the Soveris's voice. But somehow, somehow, that didn't stop him from taking pictures.

She groaned to her feet, keeping her mind on the fact that a civilian was in danger. A very, very foolish civilian whom she could not count on to have a sense of self-preservation.

There was a screeching sound and the smell of hot metal. And a very loud, very avian screech.

[Freezair]

Protect the civvies. That was the number one rule in situations like this. And from the sounds of it, the local civvy was very un-protected.

Nara sucked in air and felt her back re-inflate. She harnessed her adrenaline, forcing her legs upright, finding her balance even as her head swam. Her ears angled in the direction of the shrieking, and she darted off through the trees.

And there they were. A massive, hulking gray brute of a Paragon, tense and corded and in his physical prime, sharply serrated scales running up and down his flank and jutting from the top of his head, and a much smaller, much doughier Soveris, fluffy and cowering and, in his trembling claws, holding up a camera...

[Freezair]

"GET. OUT OF HERE!"

Both the Soveris and the Paragon turned their heads in the direction of Nara's shout. Presumably, each though the cry was meant for the other. But Nara didn't have the time to sit and dismiss their notions. She whipped her pistol out of her holster, set to the proverbial "stun," and fired directly ahead--

An erratic yellow bolt struck the Paragon square in the neck. She'd hoped for the heart, but it'd do--his body convulsed and his legs went limp beneath him, causing him to slump like a crocodile.

"I don't have time to read you the riot act!" Nara howled. "If you value your life, leave here. Now. Or he won't be the one to take it from you!"

[Freezair]

"But... my pictures... an alien life-form..."

Oh, for Yepha's sake.

"I can't guarantee how long the stun blast on him is going to last. Do you really want to stick around to find out?" He's lucky I don't stun HIM. He'd have it coming if I did.

"See how an alien reacts to Evelonian technology?" His feathers began to slick back. "Of COURSE I would! Doing this kind of research is something I've always dreamed of--"

The mound of chiseled flesh behind her moaned and shifted.

The Soveris curled back up into a ball.

[Freezair]

Nara glanced between them, mind reeling. It was critically important that she attempt communication while the extraterrestrial was stunned; with his body slack, she had an earnest opportunity to "change the channel" in his mind and calm his furor.

But there was the Soveris...

Never before had she had to deal with a civilian so reckless, so foolhardy, with such a cocksure disregard for his own safety that he still wanted to belly up a being that was actively trying to kill him.

Nara groaned around the barrel of her blaster.

[Freezair]

She wheeled on the Soveris.

"This is your last chance," she said, somewhat mumbly around her weapon. "Leave now, unharmed, away from this person who is trying to kill you, or I stun you and take you out of her in handcuffs to explain yourself to my boss."

"I-I-I... I'm not going!" he squeaked. "In the name of the truth--"

Nara groaned. "I didn't want to do this. But I gave you a chance."

She flicked the switch with her tongue to set it to its gentlest setting. He was only stupid, after all.