Exo-Hunter

by Jeremy Robinson

  “What about when the fuel cells run out of power?” Burnett asks.

  Morton rolls his eyes like he’s been at this his whole life. “We’re pirates, dummy. We’ll just take what we need.”

  I snap my fingers and point them at Morton. “I like the way you think.” I shift my fingers toward Burnett. “Let me know when you’re on your way to the surface. And make sure to bring Chuy and Hildy.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Drago grumbles. “I will just sit here, alone. Who wants to visit paradise planet anyway?”

  “You won’t be alone,” I tell him. “Porter will be with you.”

  “Fuck you,” Drago says.

  “Fuck you, too, buddy.”

  Drago chuckles, and I turn to Carter. “Hello and welcome to Dark Horse Realty. I’m your agent, Dark Horse. You can call me Mr. Dark or Mr. Horse. Would you like to see some of our choice properties?”

  Drago rolls his eyes and swivels away.

  Carter’s eyes haven’t left the view since we entered the bridge. “Yes,” she says, and she turns to me with a smile. “Please.”

  I take hold of her again, activate my PSD, and rotate down to my version of paradise.

  21

  “Is your life always like this?” Carter asks. “The running and shooting and death? It’s kind of overwhelming.”

  She’s lying in the grass beside me, eyes on the blue sky above, watching the clouds roll by. It’s a pleasant day. Spring in North Carolina. But there’s no beach in sight. Instead, we’re surrounded by snowcapped peaks. A breeze flows down the mountainside, collecting and bathing us in the scent of flowering plants. The first time I found this place, I spun around with my arms out, singing, ‘The hills are alive with the sound of music.’ Then I remembered there was no music, and that there were Nazis in that story, too, and I got depressed.

  But now…now we have all the music. Not to mention movies, TV, and the history of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Half of each, at least.

  If the entire Union wasn’t out to kill us now, I’d be feeling good.

  Honestly, I’m feeling pretty awesome anyway.

  “Umm, well, yeah. Mostly.” I turn toward her. Her hair is tied back tight. Her eyes closed in the sunlight. “The stakes are higher now, but the life of an Exo-Hunter is much more dangerous than that of a Marine.”

  She turns to me. “Exploring uninhabited planets is more dangerous than fighting the Soviets?”

  “First of all,” I say, “we never directly fought the Soviets.”

  She smiles at me. Gives a wink. Taps the side of her nose. “Good soldier.”

  “Second, it’s the unpredictable nature of exploring new worlds that makes it so dangerous. In the Rapid Reaction Force, we knew our enemy, the terrain, and the culture. We trained relentlessly. Weren’t many situations that caught us off guard—until you showed up and dragged us to Antarctica. Thanks a lot.”

  She fake-smiles at me in a way that says, ‘Suck it up.’

  “But there is no way to predict what you’ll find on a new planet. Sometimes it’s flesh-eating bacteria. Or it’s parasites with an affinity for assholes. Or it’s a horde of flying sloth-monsters that flops around in puddles. And that was just three days ago!”

  “Sometimes it’s a skyscraper-sized, turtle-faced behemoth.”

  “Totally worth it.” I full body stretch like a dog in the yard, rolling back and forth before I settle back down, hands clasped behind my head. This is the most relaxed I’ve been in a long time. Not sure why, but I’m comfortable with Carter. She puts me at ease. When we first met, I felt scrutinized and a little bit condescended to, but I guess being transported into the future and facing off against a Nazi empire is the great equalizer. Back on Earth, she had superiors to answer to and all the pressure that comes with that.

  Here and now, it’s just us.

  “I’m sure living with Beatrice wasn’t easy,” I say.

  “Or any of the other king-sized monstrosities,” she adds. “Seriously, it was like living in a Harryhausen movie.”

  “You know who Ray Harryhausen is?” I ask, and then tack on, “Was.”

  “Uh, yeah. Who doesn’t?”

  “I don’t know, maybe every woman I’ve ever dated.”

  “Good thing we’re not dating.”

  I roll onto my side, elbow on the soft earth, hand propping up my head.

  “Which one?” I ask.

  “Which one what?”

  “Harryhausen movie.”

  She thinks on it for a moment. Grins. “Clash of the Titans, 20 Million Miles to Earth, Mysterious Island… Pretty much all of them. Seriously. That place… I don’t know how I survived for three years.”

  “Five.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Agree to disagree.”

  “Ugh, I hate that saying. Facts are facts. One of us is right and the other is…” I sit up. For some reason, my brain works a little better when I’m upright. “Unless we’re both right.”

  “Already thought of that, genius.” She sits up beside me. “Time in space is relative. The rotation of my temporary home was four hours faster than Earth, and the time it took to circumvent its start was fifty days less. So, your years and my years were different.”

  “Well, yeah, that’s obvious and entry level Exo-Hunter knowledge.” I wait for the stink-eye to find my smile, then I continue. “But I’m talking about something…bigger. And less tangible.” I turn my whole body toward her, start to tip over because we’re on a hill, and turn myself back. “What if we actually arrived in different years?”

  “You five years ago. Me three years ago.” A shrug. “We’re talking about theoretical time-travel physics, a subject neither one of us is an expert in—”

  “Or anyone else.”

  “—so, sure. Why not? It also means that some of your people could have arrived before you.”

  “And that some haven’t arrived yet.”

  “No way to prove that, though.”

  “We’ll keep looking,” I say.

  “Going to be a little harder now,” she points out.

  “We’ll see.” She’s right. I know she’s right. But I can’t just give up on my team, even if the whole Union is hunting us down.

  “Have you considered they might be better off wherever they ended up?”

  “Were you?” I ask.

  “I was…lonely, but honestly a lot safer. Like you said, predictability. I knew how to kill what I could. How to survive. How to stay off Beatrice’s radar, and I had a cave to hide in during mating season. I would have gotten by just fine until I was too old and feeble to hunt. Now? Well, it’s just a matter of time before the Union finds us and does what Nazis do best.”

  “Grill sausages and sauerkraut?” I say. “Oh! Oktoberfest!”

  “The Nazis did not have Oktoberfest.”

  “Blitzkriegenfest?”

  She huffs a reluctant laugh and stands. When her hair is caught in the downhill wind, she turns to face it.

  I climb to my feet and brush off my pants. Stand beside her, enjoying the breeze and the uphill view. The mountain behind us is staggering.

  “What’s the wildlife like here?” she asks.

  “Not trying to eat us,” I say.

  “There must be some alpha predators,” she says.

  “I’ve seen a few, but they don’t look at a person and think, ‘Hey, that looks like food.’ They just kind of watch and go on their merry way. I’m sure one of them will try to take a bite eventually, but we’re cautious.”

  “So, that’s not a problem?” She points to the mountain’s base, where forest turns to field. A brown ball of fur warbles as it runs…or is it rolling…down the hill toward us. It’s still a mile off. But I can already tell it’s big. Evolution on Elysium followed a similar path to Earth’s. It’s entirely possible the creature headed toward us is like a grizzly bear. Which means we don’t want to be here when it arrives.

  “Not really.” I pat the Slew Drive on my waist. “A
nd if I felt like standing my ground...” I nudge the rifle lying in the grass. “But I don’t want to kill anything unless I’m going to eat it. And that’s more hair than I want to deal with.”

  “Could be tasty,” she says. “And now I’ve got a hankering for some meat.”

  “Still have that wackadoodle steak you brought along for the ride.”

  That makes her happy. “Good. You’ll like it.”

  Our eyes meet and linger. I want to break the sexual tension with a quip, but I just kind of choke on the words before they escape my mouth. She finds that funny, laughs at my expense, and then leans in to kiss me.

  “Hola, pendejo,” Chuy says in our comms. We flinch apart. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

  She knows she is.

  “What’s up?” I ask.

  “You wanted to know when Hildy was on her way to the surface. Well, now you know.”

  “LZ?” I ask.

  “Sending the coordinates to your Slew.”

  “Wait, you can do that?” It’s news to me.

  “According to Porter. Part of the firmware update.”

  “Rad,” I say.

  Carter cringes. “‘Rad?’ You’re not a teenager.”

  “Just trying to keep the 80s alive,” I say.

  “She’s not wrong, boss,” Chuy says.

  “Ugh.” I toggle my comms off.

  “Even in the past, you’d be three years out of the 80s. Time to move on.”

  “You know how many ways people in the future have for saying ‘good?’ One. ‘Good.’ That’s it. Nothing is great, or cool, or bodacious.”

  She twists her lips.

  “Okay, bodacious is too far. But seriously. Some things are just…rad.”

  “Like Hildy coming to the surface?”

  My smile widens as I shake my head. “Like Hildy seeing the natural world, on any world, for the first time in her life.”

  That clicks. Carter gives an approving nod and then says, “Hey, Dark Horse…”

  “Yeah?”

  I think she’s going to plant that kiss on me, but instead she hitches her thumb to the side. I glance to the left, uphill, and I’m greeted by a ball of raging fur, complete with a Cheshire grin of big, flat teeth and four red eyes bearing down on us.

  I pull her close, activate the Slew, and rotate away just as the creature lunges.

  We emerge by a crystalline lake at the base of the valley. The mountains tower around us, ominous and majestic. Above, Lil’ Bitch’n swings in for a landing. She’s battle-scarred and patched up, but still more than capable of getting the job done. When the hatch opens, I hustle over.

  Chuy exits first, dragging a long tube we’ll use to refill our fresh water supply. Hildy is not with her. “Kid is scared.”

  I head up the ramp and find Hildy still seated.

  “I’ve seen it before,” she says, wringing her hands together. “In movies. I don’t know why I’m nervous.”

  “Because that was on a little screen, and this…this is going to blow your mind.”

  “Is that a good thing?” she asks.

  “I think you know it is.’ I offer her my hand. “C’mon.”

  She takes my hand and trusts me again. I lead her to the open hatch. “Close your eyes, so you can see it all at once.”

  She does, and she lets me lead her to the bottom.

  “Okay…” I say. “This is as close to Earth 1.0 that you’re going to find in the galaxy. Have a look.”

  Hildy opens her eyes, gasps, falls to her knees—

  —and vomits all over my feet.

  22

  “I’m sorry,” Hildy says, head to the ground, eyes clenched shut. “I don’t know what happened.”

  I shake the puke off my feet. “Don’t sweat it, kid. Happens to everyone.” Then I mouth to Carter, “What just happened?”

  She crouches down beside Hildy. Puts her hand on her back. “You got overwhelmed. It’s okay.”

  “But why?” Hildy’s almost in tears.

  “You’ve spent your whole life living in a colorless, dystopian nightmare with recycled air and water. And this is big, and vivid. The air is fresh, and that means it’s full of things that are new to your brain. Smells. Particles. All of that is hitting you all at once. I’m not surprised it’s triggering a psychological and physiological response.”

  “Like I said,” I say. “Totally normal.”’

  “Just take it slow,” Carter says. “Start with what’s beneath you.”

  “Not the puke,” I say. “You might want to shift to the side a little or something.”

  Hildy takes my advice, shuffling away from the vomit. Then she stares at the ground. Her fingers curl through the fine grit, warmed by the sun. “Is…this sand?”

  “You’re on a beach,” Carter says. “To your right is a lake, but don’t look yet. Hear it first.”

  Our whole crew goes silent. Even Chuy stands still, water hose in hand. I close my eyes and hear it for myself. The gentle lapping of waves, almost like a bird’s wings.

  “I hear it,” Hildy says, sounding happy again. “And a kind of…whooshing.”

  “Wind,” Morton says.

  Hildy tilts her head to the side. “And…a song. Is that music?”

  “Animals,” I say, and I don’t bother trying to explain what they are. This planet has winged creatures, but they’re not like birds. The singing comes from monkey-like creatures that live in the tree-tops.

  Hildy turns her head to the side. Takes in the lake. “Whoa.” Her arms are shaky for a moment, but then she pushes herself up, eyes still locked on the water. “Everything is moving.”

  “Nature has a hard time staying still,” I say.

  She shifts around onto her backside. Pulls her knees up. Lifts her head a little higher, expanding her view to the lake, the sky above, the massive clouds and the breathtaking mountains framing it all. She looks about to puke again, but then she lets out a sob and starts crying.

  I plant myself beside her in the sand. “Hey.”

  She wipes her arm across her nose. “Hey.”

  She leans her poofy head on my shoulder. Her unexpected affection nearly chokes me up. I’m not sure how a former Marine-turned-pirate could also be such a sap. I suppose you have to care about things to fight for them. As long as Chuy doesn’t—

  I glance up. Chuy is knee deep in the lake, with the hose, sucking up water. She’s watching us with what looks like a genuine smile, but she transforms it into a sarcastic ‘aww’ face. She shakes her head at me, but before she turns away, the smile returns.

  Is it just me, I think to myself, or are people getting weird now that we’re pirates?

  Could be that we’ve added two new crew members and the dynamic is changing.

  Or that we might all die horribly in battle at any moment now.

  That has an impact.

  Or, maybe, Hildy is exactly what we’re fighting for, and should have been fighting for, all along.

  “Thank you,” she says, and she motions to the view. “For this. And for everything else.”

  “Right back at you,” I say.

  She lifts her head to look me in the eyes. “You’re thanking me? For what?”

  “Most things in the universe are both good and bad. The sun provides life, unless you get too close. Then it’s roasty-toasty death time. Water nourishes, unless you’re fifty feet down and don’t have gills. Nature is staggeringly beautiful. It makes human beings feel alive. But, sometimes, it wants to eat you. Or zap you with lightning. Or melt your face off with acid rain, and I don’t mean the man-made pollution variety. Like actual acid.

  “The human race is the same. Both good and bad. There have been glimmers of good since I arrived in this time—mostly from my crew—but the Union is a product of what happens when humanity is steeped in darkness for hundreds of years. I had trouble finding anything positive about it.

  “Until a few hours ago.”

  “What happened a few hours ago?”r />
  I nudge her with my elbow.

  “Shut-up,” she says. “Whatever.”

  “Seriously.”

  “You’re talking about the music and movies and shit, aren’t you?”

  “That’s part of it,” I say. “I’ll never be able to repay you for that. But also, just you. Because you’re different than everyone else in this twisted future. You absorbed and now reflect human culture from a time when we were still, by and large, good. We had our share of dictators, despots, and evil regimes—including the assholes who inspired the Union—but most of the world stood against those things. You stand out, like a lighthouse, and not just because of this insane hair.” I shake my hand in her hair until she leans away and swats me. “You’re realigning our path toward what is good and right. You gave me music back, but you also gave me hope.

  “And I can fight for that. Hell, I can die for it.”

  She nods. Takes a deep breath and holds her chin up against the overwhelming world. “Me too.”

  “Not while I’m around,” I say. “So…have you ever been swimming? The water here is warmer than the—”

  She’s up and peeling off her BCS, right down to her Union-gray bra and underwear. There are scars on her back. Long streaks of burned flesh.

  “What the hell happened to your back?”

  She twists around like she can see the scars. “I…don’t remember it, but corporal punishment is part of training to be a Predictor. I must have made a mistake or two. But it’s not up here…” She taps her head. “So…” She shrugs and then bolts for the water.

  Chuy winces when Hildy freight-trains through the shallows, laughing it up. She shoots me a ‘Don’t you dare’ look when I shed my clothing down to my skivvies.

  “I ain’t afraid of you!” I shout, and then I follow Hildy’s path over the sand and into the water. Chuy leans away, as my flailing body kicks up a spray of water. But it’s not nearly enough. “Whoo hoo!” I shout, and I leap into the air, plummeting back down into the water like a breaching whale.