The cat-man makes a catch.

Lanus had been crouching prone throughout the entire debacle, from the Captain's initial hesitation to her ill-fated departure, waiting to see what would happen. Now, motivated either by benevolence or simply reflex, he was perfectly poised to leap into the air, wrapping his arms around the flying damsel in distress and tucking into a roll with her in the sand. He took the brunt of the beating until he came to a stop; all things considered, however, he still looked in pretty good shape for the stunt he pulled.

In the end, the demon came to a stop with his arms still wrapped around the Captain, who remained with her eyes screwed shut and her teeth clenched a moment. Slowly, she opened them... They fell upon a handsome, curly-haired young man beneath her on a tropical beach. He looked like... a human. "Or an angel... I died, didn't I? I must have died, and this is heaven..."

Lanus cocked his head at her. "You okay? I survived a fall like that a few times, but... I'm a cat. Hehe."

"I'm... Ah..." Rebecca responded slowly, her face beginning to cycle between emotions as she came to terms with the fact that her guardian angel had cat ears, and, furthermore, they were both very much alive... And, most importantly, that between the two of them, Lanus's shorts was the single article of clothing between them. She became aware that the foreign feeling on the tips of her breasts was the chest of the young man she had them smashed against. "Oh no. Oh geez. Aaauuaaaah!!" she yelped, springing back and covering herself with her hands. "Wh-wh-what are you- You're a human!!"

"No... I'm a cat... and a demon," Lanus answered slowly, as if one of the two of them would get confused if he spoke too fast. "See?" He curled his tail around his waist and held it with one hand for her to see. That part about being a demon probably should have been a bombshell, but Rebecca seemed a bit too flustered to process his answer.

"Captain, I am okay," Haruka spoke up from the sidelines, covering herself chastely as well. "Also, I have begun recording. Please present yourself in a way that will bring pride to humanity and the Squadron... as best you can."

"Wait, stop, hold on! D-don't record anything! This isn't what the new code was about, right?! This is clearly a very advanced, very humanoid species of cat-person! He's basically a human! Turn your eyes to get him, s-stop looking at me, Haruka...!"

"Definitely a cat, though." The cat-man waved good-naturedly at Haruka, whose irises dilated and expanded as she adjusted her zoom.

The captain lowered herself to her knees in the sand, covering her bare, fair-skinned body as best she could while feeling the crunch of the sand beneath her. With a swimsuit on, this would feel like a paradise... With nothing on at all, meeting a very human alien (who, frankly, looked like her type) was more like a waking nightmare. As she blushed from ear to ear, her lip trembling, she worked to regain her composure.

Haruka was not impervious to that same embarrassment, but she could tell she was the more ready of the two. "Greetings, inhabitant of this planet. I believe we speak your language, so allow us to introduce ourselves. We are members of the Human Survival Mechanized Squadron of Earth. We come in peace. I'm Ensign Haruka Goshin. This is Captain Rebecca Astara."

"Well, okay, but why are you naked, though?" Lanus cut straight to the point. "Oh, I"m Lanus. Why are you naked?" he pressed again, beginning to prowl around the Ensign curiously.

"Lanus..." Haruka tried to keep her eyes on his as she rotated in place to stop him from getting his eyes on her well-built bare bottom. "Our regulations require us to make this meeting in the nude. I apologize... Your civilization has clearly advanced to the point of protecting your nudity. It shames me to appear this way..."

"You two aren't comfortable? But it's such a nice day!"

"Yes... it's simply the clothing situation."

"Ooh, okay. You two are embarassed because I'm wearing clothes and you're not. But that's no problem!"

"... It is a problem for the Captain," Haruka reiterated.

"I'll fix it," Lanus declared, quickly pulling down his own shorts to leave himself completely exposed. "See? Now everybody's comfortable!"

Haruka's eyes widened as they locked onto the impressive anatomy Lanus had just revealed, the cameras in her eyes dilating with her focus. Rebecca gasped and peeked through her fingers, though she didn't look away. "M-M-Mr. Lanus, is your species normally so... I mean, that is... What I'm trying to ask is, um, does your species get, um... erect? From arousal?"

"Well, sure." Lanus flashed her a fang-tipped grin, not bothering to hide the object of discussion. "I got that way about when you ran into me! Pretty ladies with big boobs do that to me." Saying that as though it were no big deal, the man scratched at an itch behind one of his large ears.

"Big... boobs...?" the Captain asked incredulously, unable to believe she was having this kind of madcap erotic encounter so far from Earth. She thought about telling the cat-man speaking like that wasn't polite in her culture... For some reason, she decided not to.

"Ignoring those for now..." Haruka interrupted pointedly, addressing her superior. "Captain, we've received an updated list of sub-tasks command would like us to complete, having discovered a humanoid life-form so far from Earth. I'll start from with the first."

"You're... really recording this huh...?" Rebecca reminded herself. "Whatever perv in command came up with this is gonna get one hell of a report when we're done here... But fine. The two of us are the most capable crew in the fleet, whatever the task. What do they want?"