Page 66 of Fathom

"You can't just buy me, asshole!" I snapped. "I'm a person!"

Eun just growled, his hair standing up from his head like abed of angry snakes. For a brief moment, I marveled at how long they had grown in the time I had known him, from a short cut close to his skull to long locks of Medusa hair.

"Everything is for sale," one of them said.

"Just tell us how much you want for her!" the first one barked.

"Say hello to my little friends," a voice boomed, deep and aggressive, followed by the sound of clunking metal. The MECH was standing there, cylindrical weapons dropping down out of its arms to point at the hyenas.

It took me several heartbeats to realize that the MECH hadn't spoken in the local language.

It said that sentence in English.

"You're from Earth?" I asked.

"Yes, I have a translator so I can understand their language," it said. "Are these guys bothering you?"

The MECH raised its gun arms, the mechanisms whirring menacingly as it pointed them at the hyena aliens. The spaces between them widened as they backed away from the MECH, creating an opening. I stepped around Eun, grabbing his hand as I pulled him in my wake towards the MECH, the only sense of familiarity I had so far. It didn't matter that I'd never seen anything like that MECH suit on Earth other than in scifi shows; I could figure out the details later.

One of the hyena aliens reached for me, and Eun lashed out at him with his tail, knocking him down to the ground. The hyena aliens looked at one another, like their courage as a group was failing, like they were waiting for one of them to make the decision to walk away or attack, and the rest would follow.

We could just walk away from this. If we moved back towards the crowds, the hyena aliens wouldn't attack. Eun was strong enough to take them on his own, but with the guns on ourside, he wouldn't have to put himself at risk. This was easy to walk away from.

But if we did, these hyena aliens would continue to hunt, kill, and eat sentient beings.

Eun would fight to protect me, but right now, protecting me was better served by not fighting and finding a ship. I didn't know the person operating the MECH suit at all, other than the fact that they would step in to help a human in need. Would it help if there were more humans in need?

"They know where other humans are," I said to the MECH, grasping at straws. Maybe it would deal with the aliens if it knew other humans were in danger. "They bought me from a human woman, they said."

"What did she look like?" the MECH demanded, its voice booming with imminent threat. It took a clunking step towards the group, and the hyena aliens all tensed, focused on it, but they didn't respond. They couldn't understand it. "When did they buy you?"

None of them had any form of translators, and no one on this planet spoke any language but the dominant one, so they couldn't understand the mech at all.

"My friend wants to know what the woman you bought me from looked like and when the sale took place," I said.

"Your friend?" Eun asked. "You can understand it?"

"It speaks my language," I said to him. "It's from my planet."

"Taller than this one," said the hyena spokesperson, brightening up as he gestured at me. "Darker hue, thicker mane. Traded for laboratory supplies and food."

Judging by his sudden eagerness, he must have thought that the MECH's questions acknowledged his ownership over me.

"What was her name?" the MECH demanded.

"It wants to know her name," I translated.

"Sounded like lettuce," said the hyena alien. "Stupid name."

The word in their language for the leafy green plant he was talking about sounded like Angelica to my ears.

"Evangelia?" the MECH said, catching the sound of the word.

"This one is ours," the hyena pointed at me again. "Her kind is a delicacy. We ate the other two before we realized how much her meat would sell for. Do you have more to sell? We'll buy all of them."

"Fuckers," the MECH spat out. "Is there any way we can get these guys arrested? I don't want to leave them running around."

"Just tell us what the price is," the hyena alien demanded. "If you keep translating for us so we can get more of your kind, we won’t eat you, we promise."