She turned to look the way they were headed, and as she did, caught a flash of movement out in the water. Her heart skipped a beat. Something broke the surface, moving like an uncoiling muscle, a darker green-black than the lake. It slipped beneath the waves.
“Did you see that?” she said in a low, tight voice.
“I did not,” Leonidas said.
“Nor did I,” added Temur. They both stopped paddling
“I did!” moaned Screechy. The mafia goon said nothing.
“I can’t tell if there’s a creature below the water,” Abelardus said aloud. His voice was weak.
“Nor can I,” Young-Hee added.
Alisa swallowed. “Better keep paddling. I have a feeling we aren’t alone.”
Both men began paddling again. Thirty meters away, a slender head with a mouth of sharp teeth rose out of the water on a long, curving neck.
Alisa’s eyes widened and she drew her blazer. Screechy yelled.
Leonidas and Temur lifted their oars. “Don’t stop,” she shouted, and fired, but the thing had already slipped beneath the waves. A form, huge and dark, moved beneath the raft.
“A sea serpent,” she whispered.
“It certainly looks like one,” agreed Leonidas, continuing to row. “However, we are in a fresh water lake.” The tail moved beneath them, rocking the raft as it broke water.
“Lake serpent doesn’t have the same ring,” Alisa replied. She fired her blazer again. There was a hiss of exploding steam as the energy bolt hit the water, followed by a high-pitched squeal. The conical head rose from the water, long neck writhing and snapped at them with rows of knife-sized teeth. Alisa fired a third time, striking the thing in the mouth, and it disappeared beneath the waves. The backsplash from its movements nearly capsized the little raft. Leonidas and Temur fought to keep rowing while remaining in the raft.
Alisa shuddered, and looked at Leonidas. “Okay, it’s a lake dragon.”
“Doesn’t matter what it is,” Screechy said, voice quavering, “I want to be out of the water.” The goon’s eyes were wide.
“And you call yourself a pirate,” Alisa said.
“I’m a space pirate,” Screechy retorted, her voice cracking.
“Not a very good one.”
“I get caught one time. One time!”
The men paddled hard for the shore. Sweat beaded off both men. Temur was silent, working his oar. Leonidas put his back into his paddling, but also looked over at Alisa as he rowed. "Good shooting," he told her.
"I missed more than I hit," she said. The thing had been devilishly hard to hit, in fact. She glanced back. No sign of it.
The shore was still too far away for comfort.
The water erupted behind them. A blue spray filled the air, and the water churned and thrashed as two huge creatures fought.
"Great, there are more of them," Alisa said. At least they were fighting each other.
“I wish there was another paddle,” she said to Leonidas.
“Best to stay on watch."
Even under the stress of the situation, he remained calm and collected. Probably hadn't even raised his heart rate beyond a brisk cardio workout. The same was probably true for Temur, who wasn’t even breathing hard, whereas Alisa’s heart pounded. She glanced at their two captives. Screechy was huddled in a ball, while the goon had hunkered down as far as he could in the raft.
Abelardus and Young-Hee were quiet, but watchful.
There was sudden movement off to the left, out in the lake. Something even larger moved toward them.
“Hang on!" She shouted, and then mentally hit herself for uttering such a stupid comment. They were in a raft after all.
She turned sidewise, aiming past Leonidas. He bent to his work.
The shore was still too far away. Tantalizingly not quite close enough.
Alisa braced her gun in a two-handed grip, and started firing ahead of the thing. Again, the steam flashed from the lake water. The thing moving toward them had to be fifty meters in length. Her beam struck the creature’s neck. Abelardus and Young-Hee fired their blazer pistols, but shot wide.
Alisa managed to keep her pistol’s beam on the monster as it erupted from the water, jaws slashing. She scrambled backwards, screaming Leonidas's name. She fired into its mouth, as a stench of ammonia filled the air. They all gagged. The creature roared its defiance and then plunged back into the lake. The raft rocked in the wake of the huge splash, and they struggled to stay on board.
A moment later, the raft was pushed up from below and Alisa tumbled backwards into the warm water along with Screechy and the goon. Leonidas hurled past them. She couldn't see Temur, Abelardus or Young-Hee.
The creature reared up, snapping at the raft, which popped and then deflated.
Alisa had lost her gun. She swung her fists wildly around her, futilely hoping to fend the creature off. A moment later, Leonidas appeared alongside the creature, hanging from the knife he had buried in the monster’s neck. The giant serpent whipsawed its head, in obvious pain, but he would not let go.
Temur swam past her, a machete in his hand, and began hacking at the base of the thing’s massive neck. It was all she could do to keep her head above the churning water. Blue-colored ichor sprayed off the thing. Leonidas was suddenly thrown clear as it bucked furiously. It finally came down—a huge hammer of a creature—smashing into the water, right where Temur was.
The spray blinded Alisa for a moment. She slipped beneath the water, swam back up, and then Leonidas was beside her, helping her swim.
Screechy and the goon broke water, coughing. Abelardus surfaced, and a moment later, Young-He emerged from the water.
“Please untie my hands,” Screechy coughed.
“Me, too,” the goon said.
Leonidas still had his combat knife. He slashed their bonds and the group began swimming for the shore.
“Can you swim?” Alisa asked the two Starseers.
“We’ll have to,” Abelardus said. He wasn’t using telepathy, which told Alisa that perhaps he was even more exhausted than he looked. Neither was Young-Hee, but she’d always been far less prone to speak mentally to Alisa, preferring to vocalize instead.
There was no sign of Temur.
The group finally reached the point where they could stagger ashore. Alisa flopped down on the sandy beach, breathing hard. Leonidas turned and scanned the lake’s surface. Back the way they had come, the water churned and turned dark from the giant serpents’ battle.
Something moved in the water, and stood up. Temur.
He nodded at Leonidas and Alisa and joined them on the beach.
"This day definitely hasn't gone the way I would have imagined it yesterday," Alisa said.
The jungle was eerily quiet after the tumultuous lake. Alisa hadn't seen any bird-like creatures. The undergrowth was flowering plants and vines. In fact, vines were everywhere, twining around tree trunks and hanging from branches in thick, ropy curtains.
Leonidas led the way, hacking at the vines, while Temur brought up the rear. He maintained guard on Screechy and the goon, who stumbled ahead of him, behind Abelardus and Young-Hee. More than once Abelardus stopped to catch his breath, and Young-Hee kept slowing down. Alisa was worried. Everyone was tired, but the two Starseers especially so, even given that they were bruised and Abelardus still not fully recovered from his wound.
Leonidas had given Alisa his tracking device
"I don't know if we'll make the ship's position by nightfall," she said, looking at the display on the tracking device.
Leonidas drove harder in hacking a path through the undergrowth. The light had begun to dim when he stopped abruptly. Alisa nearly stumbled into his massive back.
He held up a hand.
They listened.
"I can't hear anything," she whispered.
Leonidas cocked his head, concentrating.
"There's an encampment ahead of us," he murmured.
“Thank goodness for your cybernetic hearin
g,” Alisa said. She glanced at the tracker's screen. It showed that the cargo's transponder was still nearly a kilometer away from their position. Alisa faced their two captives, who still looked like proverbial drowned rats. "All right, which of you knows what's ahead?”
They both shrugged. It had to be one of their groups, Alisa decided. She turned to the Starseers. “Can either of you detect any minds in that direction?”
Abelardus and Young-Hee both shook their heads no.
Alisa pulled a spare destroyer from the bag she had found aboard the Hercules, a replacement for the blazer she had lost in the lake. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t fit in the blazer’s holster. She waved the destroyer pistol at Screechy and the goon.
“How about you tell me what you know, or I shoot something important.”
Screechy stared at her, remaining silent.
“We know you aren’t going to do that,” the Goon said.
Alisa smiled grimly. “I could.”
“You aren’t the type,” Screechy said.
Alisa glanced at Leonidas.
He shrugged. “You aren’t.”
"Fine,” Alisa said. “We have a choice. We can camp out here, or we can sneak past whoever’s encampment that is.” That last idea was a dumb idea, but it was an idea.
"Why not go to the camp?" The mafia goon asked. Alisa gave him a hard look and he shrugged. "Look, I mean, nobody has to get hurt here."
"Why do I think you know who’s in the camp?”
"It just seems like the best solution," he pointed out.
Leonidas loomed over him. "For you, perhaps."
"I agree with the Captain," Temur said.
Screechy kept her mouth shut.
"Well, then, sounds like we go around,” Alisa said.
“Hey! Hey, hey!” the goon shouted at the top of his lungs. "Over—"
There was a loud thump as Leonidas whacked the goon’s head with the butt of his destroyer pistol. The goon toppled over.
Screechy looked like she wanted to run, but thought better of it.
Alisa nodded. Screechy had turned out to be smarter than Alisa thought.
Leonidas hefted the man over his shoulders like a bag of trash.
"Be better if we just slit his throat," Temur said. Young-Hee paled at this, but Abelardus nodded.
Alisa didn't disagree, but killing for no reason didn’t sit well. "He might come in handy.”
Temur didn’t argue. “Let me scout ahead,” he said to Leonidas.
A look passed between the men, the sort that Alisa felt tough men exchanged and the rest of humanity needed a special pass to understand.
Leonidas nodded. Temur slipped into the undergrowth and disappeared from sight.
Alisa wrinkled her nose. The jungle definitely stank. “It stinks,” she complained to Leonidas.
He shifted the goon’s body so that the unconscious thug was draped across both huge shoulders. Leonidas’s battered sculpted shirt was plastered against his chest, nicely outlining his oh-so-attractive muscles.
“It is a jungle,” he said.
“So, I haven’t been in too many jungles.”
“Starships can stink.”
“Hey, the Nomad resembles that remark,” she shot back. She grinned. “You know, I’ll have to have you strut around in a sculpted shirt more often.”
He raised an eyebrow. “So, that gift was not because it is a comfortable piece of clothing, but because you like how I look in it?”
“Both, but yes, in this case, looks do count, and that shirt looks great on you. Even now.” She paused. Especially now. “I should get it wet more often.”
The vines in front of them parted and Temur reappeared.
“There’s a log-construct building with a shuttle beside it, and a perimeter set up for a force field, but it’s not turned on. Looks like three of the stanchions are damaged from corrosion.
“What are they having for dinner?” Alisa asked, attempting to lighten the mood.
“Smelled like a chicken dish, but I wasn’t close enough, with the various environmental odors interfering, to tell for sure.”
“Touché,” she said. His deadpan expression never wavered.
“Remind me never to play any betting game with you,” she said. “So, can we go around?”
“The problem is that I believe there is a large predator watching the encampment.
Alisa looked around. “I don’t get it, we haven’t seen any creatures.” So far, the jungle had been empty.
“Keeping their distance from the encampment,” Temur said. “I’ve seen some big grub-like creatures, and there are bigger insectoid ones in the trees above us.”
Alisa flinched and looked up at the triple-canopy jungle above them. She had kept her eyes on the ground. She swallowed. “Maybe I was better off not knowing about them,” she said.
Leonidas shifted his position to get closer to the path Temur had made. “We should get going. Please take point,” he said to Temur. He glanced at Alisa. “I’ll bring up the rear.”
She swallowed. “Oh, no you don’t, mister hulking brute who is lugging a goon around. I will.” She pointed to Screechy. “You walk in front of me. Hands at your sides. I’d hate to have my destroyer leave a hole in your back because you decided to get twitchy.” Screechy’s face paled and she nodded.
Leonidas was still standing at the rear.
“I mean it, you need to be in front of her and me.” Leonidas’s cybernetic- hearing would detect any sudden moves. He was a difficult man to sneak up on. She also wanted the still-unconscious goon in front of her.
“Very well.” He was reluctant, but did as she asked.
“Hold on.” Alisa checked the goon draped over Leonidas’s massive shoulders. The man’s breathing was beginning to vary and his eyelids were stuttering.
“Waking up?” Leonidas whispered.
She nodded, motioned at the ground. Leonidas laid the man down and she drew her stun gun and gave the goon a round. “There, that should hold him for a few minutes.”
“You can only do that so many times,” Temur said. “Then the subject’s heart will give out.”
“You sound like you are quoting someone.”
He shrugged which, coming from him, spoke volumes.
“I can bring up the rear,” Abelardus said. He sounded even weaker. Alisa worried that he had suffered internal injuries. Young-Hee didn’t look much better. “No, you walk ahead of Leonidas,” she told them. “That way, you can detect any mafia up ahead of us.” She wasn’t sure either of them had the strength, but she didn’t think they should be bringing up the rear, either.
They plunged back into the jungle, Temur taking them on a winding path. Now that she was aware of it, Alisa caught glimpses of movement overhead, but in the fading light she couldn’t tell for sure.
Temur stopped a few hundred meters in. He motioned off to Alisa’s right. She peered into the gathering gloom. Artificial light shone through the jungle, from the camp ahead.
Alisa shook her head. Idiots. Then she heard a low-pitched electric hum. Temur slipped back to huddle with her and Leonidas.
“The mafia are trying to keep away the local lifeforms,” Temur said. “It’s not working on the big predator, which is close to this position.”
She raised an eyebrow. “So, the camp must have something ‘the predator’ wants, is that it?”
He nodded.
She smiled. “I think I see where you’re going with this.”
Leonidas watched the exchange. “Food stores?”
“Yes,” Temur said. “And very likely local life forms being held for shipment elsewhere in the system.”
Alisa unkinked her neck. “City boys shouldn’t play in the jungle.” The mafia had apparently decided on a side business here on Waro, but it sounded like they didn’t have experienced jungle-survival-types in their ranks, from what she could infer from Temur.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to move around them, though?” she asked.
“The
predator or predators might notice the movement and come looking for us,” Temur replied.
The back of her neck prickled. “Plural? Great. Any idea what sort of predator?”
Temur considered her question. “What little intel I have on Waro Moon indicates a land version of the creatures we encountered in the lake.”
That meant some kind of big snake.
“As well as the large arboreal insects, or perhaps arachnid-like creatures, or both,” he added.
She ducked down, looking up at the trees. “Giant spiders. Yikes. Okay, what’s the plan?”
“If we could disable their noise generator and lights, the predators would attack and we could slip by."
"In the dark?"
"Leonidas could lead us, with his low-light vision."
"But the creatures in the jungle, and at night. Giant grubs. Things in the trees." The more Alisa ticked off from her mental list, the more dangerous the whole idea sounded. But, how much longer would the Nomad be there? She took a lungful of stinky jungle air. "Fine."
She peered through the vines, trying to see the camp, but all she could see was thin slivers of light. Idiots. She shook her head.
"How are we going to shoot out their lights?" She asked.
"We're not going to shoot out the encampment's lights," Leonidas said, tilting his head, a faint smile playing around the edges of his mouth.
"What?"
His faint smile widened. "Temur will disable the lights."
She blinked. "By himself?" She thought about it. The Imperial Scouts must have done a lot of raiding and Temur said he was a security agent after the war. Before too, if she recalled correctly.
"Okay. What do you want us to do?" She asked Temur.
"Move back fifty meters to that trail juncture, and then move down the trail away from the camp. The trail runs another twenty or thirty meters. I'll follow you once I've disrupted the lighting and sonic barriers."
That trail had been more like a crack between trees, in her opinion.
She looked at Leonidas. "Are you sure you'll even fit on the trail?"
"I can turn sideways," he replied, sounding vaguely affronted that she doubted his agility.
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