Better to see you with
     Boomer and I sat on a rooftop, looking out over the city as the system's star (EB-6221 or "the sun" as they called it) sank below the horizon. I quickly learned that his eyesight wasn't just bad in low light, it was downright terrible. I'm not sure how a species that couldn't see a thing once the sun went down has survived this long.
      It meant that while I preferred our work at night, when we were harder to see, Boomer preferred to "sneak" around in broad daylight. We quickly made a compromise: We would go out in the late afternoon and do reconnaissance. He was observant, and often picked up details I missed completely, while at night he had to rely on his terrible hearing and smelling, often oblivious to the enemy until we were practically on top of them.
     After a month and a half, though, we had worked ourselves into a team. After we finished scouting things out we would go to one of the many rendezvous points and wait for Crunch to join us before heading out. When Crunch wasn't with us during the day she was usually working on ways to improve the security of the place we now called "home", as well as trying to find a way to make more of what they called "antibiotics". I think she was enjoying finally putting her bio-chemistry degree to use.
     Communication is still tough, but we were quickly learning what was being said around us. With the exception of Boomer, though, progress the other way was slow. Our mouths couldn't make many of the sounds they used, and so we were relegated to pantomiming and drawing.
     Did I mention Crunch was running the place? Despite them being painfully slow at picking up what we said she had a way of making her intentions perfectly clear. They were really disturbed at first, but they're getting used to the angry perthu slowly transforming things from a chaos-that-works into an organized unit of people. She's also made an effort to mellow when dealing with these civilians. I applaud the effort, but as to her success, well...
      Crunch had made it clear early on that Boomer was not to let them catch on that he knew what were saying beyond the very, very basics, and that he will hold nothing back in translating what was said that we didn't understand. He immediately let us know that "Terrifying Shark-Cat" ("Terrifying Shark-Cat-Lady" after genders were understood... sort of) was Crunch's name among the humans. Apparently I was just "Shark-Cat" and then "Shark-Cat-Man". I won't lie, I'm a little jealous and a little hurt.
     After that I tried to tell him Lieutenant Kispund's name, he had trouble pronouncing the rank, let alone her name without chewing it up, and so I explained what a callsign was. He had another word for it, but it still meant the same: an "other" name that wasn't a name. I nodded.
     "Yes, but more than that. It is official." I said.
     He nodded and tugged on my suit.
     "I know. You fly. Our [pilots?] use them too. Short names. Informal."
     Crunch gave me a look and I didn't need a cypher to know what it said- I was thinking the same thing. What else had he picked up on? Did he know why we had come in the first place? We still didn't know, and were too afraid of putting the questions into his head if they weren't there to try and find out.
     So he called her Crunch, which was fine by her. Eventually he nailed down her rank, and I saw her actually smile the first time he called her "Lieutenant Crunch", her 'name' in his language. That was a picture for the commander's log. Oh for the want of a camera.
     
     Now we were waiting for Crunch to come up. We had completed our scouting about half an hour before we were to meet, and so we had been lounging around on a roof of an office building about twenty floors up. It was only recently that our language skills (mostly his language skills) had grown to the point of asking about the details of what was going on, what had happened, etc. For some reason, though, we both avoided the topic.
     "I'll bet you I can hit that bottle by the bus stop," he said, pointing down the street.
     "Bottle? Bus stop?"
     I followed his finger. The bus stop below us was windswept and had nothing but a rain soaked paper bag caught around one corner of it. I look further down the street to...
     I brought my cannon up and looked through its sights. What poor vision Boomer had at night he made up for in spades during the day. He could see detail at distances were all I could make out were tiny blobs. Sure enough though, about a hundred and fifty yards down and across the street was a bus stop with a small glass bottle below the bench. Boomer didn't even have a lens sight, what he called a 'scope', on his weapon (which I now knew was called a 'rifle').
     To hit a target like that, at that range, with metal sights that were nothing but a metal tab and a hole? Hah. Even with his good eyesight the concept was laughable.
     "If you can hit that bottle, I'll let you shoot my cannon," I said.
     Which was technically illegal, but I wasn't worried about having to cash it out. Boomer rested his rifle against the edge of the building and settled in behind the sights.
     "Get it ready for me."
     I watched the bottle through my sights. There was the crack and thunder of his rifle, and the bottle exploded into a cloud of broken glass.
     It was gone. On the first shot. With mechanical sights.
     "That was luck," I said.
     He motioned for my weapon.
     "I'll show you luck then."
     We traded. I showed him how to adjust the sights. He already knew where the safety was, which was slightly disconcerting, and tried different positions until he found one that was comfortable for his body. He looked though the sights for a moment, then looked up and off the roof into the distance. He passed the cannon back to me, pointing to the sights, and then off the roof.
     "Yellow fuel tank, left of the yellow and black {something}, six roofs away."
     "Yellow and black what?"
     "'Generator.' A machine that burns fuel to make electricity."
     "Oh."
     I learned that last word when I almost stepped on train tracks that had a third rail. Boomer had given Crunch and me a very frantic explanation, and for once Crunch didn't take offense to it. I looked though the sights. Sure enough, way off in the distance I could make out a yellow box-ish object about the size of a small dumpster and a much larger yellow and black box-ish object. I went to zoom the sights in and found they were already at the farthest distance. They were tiny. This would be like shooting at an ant next to the bottle before. I couldn't dream of hitting a target that size that far way. I handed the cannon back to him.
     "One shot. I don't waste power like you waste ammunition."
     He took the weapon and nodded, smiling.
     "One shot then. I hit it, you pour cold water on Crunch."
     "I can't. She's my officer. You miss, you have to pour water on Crunch."
     He was laying against the roof edge, settling in behind the sights. He turned and grinned at me. Showing teeth for happiness. What a weird species.
     "Deal," he said.
     "Your luck is about to run out."
     He folded the sight screen down, leaving only the mechanical back-up sights, much like the primitive
     sights on his own weapon. Hah. I could see her face now, dripping with water.
     "We'll see about that."
     He relaxed, like I had seen him do so many times before. It always seemed counter intuitive to me: relax while fighting, but it worked well for him. His breath was slowing. He usually didn't take this long, but I wasn't about to rush him. He could take all the time in the world: watching him dump water on Crunch was going to be worth it.
     There were soft footsteps behind me. Speaking of Crunch...
     "Corporal, why the hell does a civilian have your cannon?!"
     "I lost a bet, ma'am. I said he could have one shot at a fuel tank on a roof over-"
     Foo!
     An explosion erupted in the distance, a cloud of thick, black smoke rising into the air, quickly followed by a loud thud as the sound caught up to us.
     I stared at him. There was no way he could have done that. No way in hell. Not with open sights. Not at that distance. I couldn't even see the building, let alone the target without the primary sight and screen turned all the way in. I turned to Crunch.
     Her jaw hung open. She glanced at me and her normal iron expression returned. Boomer had the cannon on safe, checked it, and handed it back to me with an air of boredom.
     "Not bad," Boomer said.
     He shrugged his shoulders, as if he were unimpressed.
     "Pants." Crunch said.
     "Yes ma'am?"
     "How far was that tank?"
     "I'd guess about 700 yards, ma'am. Range finder couldn't pick it up."
     "Boomer," she said.
     "Yes ma'am?"
     "You did that?"
     "I hit the fuel tank ma'am, yes."
     "With open sights."
     "Yes ma'am."
     She sighed to her self, her browed furrowed and her ears sweeping forward in frustration.
     "Regulations be damned, we need to get him one of these."
     "Yes ma'am," I said.
     Yes ma'am in deed. 'Holy shit' as Boomer would say.

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