by Amelia Esla
The black beast suddenly grew enormous claws out of the front of its paws and with them it ripped sizable chunks out of the Insectos body. The crystalline armor shattered like brittle glass while a shower of blood, guts and flesh sprayed everywhere. The black beast slashed its claws so fast through the air; Roy saw them only as a flashing blur.
The black beast attacked with a level of vicious brutality and power like nothing Roy had ever witnessed on a planet where nature was more vicious and brutal than anywhere else. The Psionic connection he had with the animal transmitted a feeling of pure and powerful rage.
It was over as fast as it had begun; the Insecto was nothing but a torn heap of shredded flesh and legs, barely recognizable for what it once was.
The emotions of rage ebbed away and again filled Roy’s mind with a feeling of devotion towards him.
Swarms of Vamp Flies already buzzed around, attracted by the smell of blood. Roy knew ants would not be far behind.
He jumped over a Fire Nettle and said to the beast, “We’d better get out of here, fast!”
The animal reacted instantly, and followed him, sending waves of warmth and affection to Roy. There was no sense of pain or agony to suggest the black animal had suffered any wounds.
Roy caught his breath and said, “Wow that was something! You sure did a number on that Insecto. I thought we are both done for.”
A feeling of deep pride caused by Roy’s praise emanated from the animal and a warm sensation of deep affection was the answer.
After walking beside the animal for a little while he got the mental image of him riding on the beast.
“You want me to sit on your on your back?” he asked aloud.
The image reappeared.
Roy had never sat on an animal; the very thought of it was very alien to him, but for some reason he trusted that animal with his life and felt a sense of affection for it.
Just as he realized his own affection for the animal, he was instantly rewarded with a returning swell of pride and deep satisfaction from the animal and the image reappeared, him sitting on the animal riding it.
He pulled himself up by getting a hold on the ten centimeter wide metal collar and swung himself up on the animal’s back. He kept his hold on the collar as the animal slowly moved forward.
Roy could feel the rock hard muscles moving under the soft short fur in a steady rolling rhythm and after a little while he got used to the flow of motions and felt more at ease riding the beast.
He examined the collar more closely. It was made of a dark metal and it was somewhat flexible, more like memory metal than unyielding Ultronit.
Roy speculated that the animal was perhaps a local life form after all and just got caught in some sort of snare and what he initially identified as a collar was the remnants of such a trap.
It was not unheard of that criminal Off-Worlders would come to Green Hell, trying to snatch and capture a few of the local monsters.
He had heard some of the stories the Ranger told at the dinners he shared with his best friends at their home. Green Hell beasts would bring a tidy sum of profit, sold to Death Fight Arenas of Free-space worlds. The Ranger also said that these secret raids were extremely rare and of the ones he knew about, none succeeded with the Wildlife thieves dying in the Jungles just like any other Off-Worlder who underestimated the dangers of this world.
But then there was the Rumor that some Greenies secretly snared and trapped local life forms to smuggle and sell them to Exotic Animal Dealers.
One time.
The Ranger caught a Bio Institute researcher working together with a local technician smuggling Insectos and a Stompers off planet. Both men were arrested and tried and now spent their time on a nasty Correctional Colony somewhere else, according to the Ranger.
Roy did not really understand why someone would want to buy a Stomper just to kill it.
While he was riding on the animal’s back, his thoughts circled back to the black beast itself. While it could be a local life form, he somehow doubted it. Animals on Green Hell didn’t have four legs. They had more or none, and no beast he had seen so far was as black as this one.
He shrugged as his feeling and ideas didn’t mean much. His mother estimated that less than five percent of all the estimated life forms on Green Hell had been cataloged so far and less than maybe five percent of the planet’s surface was truly surveyed and mapped in detail.
Again he cursed himself for being so preoccupied with the black animal that he missed the Decease-Dust Bush right before them, the animal waltzed right over it and the cherry sized purple pods at the tips of the plants branches exploded, dusting the black fur of the beast’s chest with the deadliest nerve toxin known to man. Even the slightest amount on unprotected skin caused most known life forms to collapse in lethal convulsions.
True Greenies were somewhat immune to it, still feeling the burning sensation and becoming very sick for week or two but they would not die of the exposure. Being exposed to such a large amount however would have been lethal to anyone. Incredibly, the dust had no effect on the beast at all.
Dagger bush branches lashed against its flanks moments later, the sharp thorns shattering or bending but not a single one penetrated or wounded the animal.
Two arrow wasps accelerated to almost rifle bullet speed bounced off its skin as if hitting a rock.
It became apparent to Roy how this animal survived in the Jungles of Green Hell. It did not avoid the dangers like most other life forms did. It waltzed right over or through them and nothing so far that he could see had any effect on it.
Just like a Stomper, but even a Stomper would have been affected by the Five-mouth centipede that suddenly appeared from its burrow underneath a Nettle bush and snapped its five pairs of mandibles into the skin of the beasts front legs. The beast’s claws severed the centipede in pieces and stomped the rest into gore without slowing down or having any effect.
The animal responded to his mental directions like it was a part of Roy’s body. When he wanted to go left, the animal immediately went left or avoided a danger as fast as Roy could see it. Roy once again paid full attention to his surroundings. Even though his new found friend could waltz through the Jungle like a Union Marine in fully shielded Battle Armor, it did not mean that Roy sitting on top could do the same.
It didn’t take long to reach the edge of the Jungle. There was a thirty meter wide shore line beach of stone pebbles, Terror moss and Murder Grass growing between the stones.
Blister crabs were camouflaged as small shore rocks hiding among the gray and brownish pebbles and head sized boulders. This shore line edged the Great Lake all around the largest of the deep freshwater lakes of this world, or almost 5,544 kilometers.
Today the weather was especially beautiful. The sweltering jungle heat and permanent moisture did not extend over the big lake. During the cold weather seasons, strong storms would whip the lake’s surface into large, gist crested waves, but not today. The surface presented itself like a deep green mirror with the warm sun reflecting in it.
Going East and following the shoreline for about nine kilometers, one would reach Ma Swenson’s Boathouse and from there you could take a floater and fly to the big island where the City was, about 12 kilometers into the lake.
One of these days, he wanted to walk the entire shore line all around, even realizing it would take him more than a year if he ever attempted it.
When they built Ant Hill they did make survey soundings and concluded that the Large Lake was also one of the deepest with depths reaching 1,400 meters. So far no one had been down there or even begun to survey the lakes and the life forms that might lurk in them.
The water of the big lakes was fresh and always cool and it was clean and could be consumed by humans without any ill effects.
Some of the merchants at Ant Hill dreamed that this would be a good commodity to export, as fresh drinking water was always in demand on the Galactic Market.
Right here at this spot of
the Lake’s shore was a group of boulders, pushed into the lake perhaps by a long gone planetary ice age. These nine boulders were free of ants and the lichen, covering some of the spots, was one of the few life forms they knew about that was truly harmless and had no lethal abilities whatsoever.
These rocks had become their secret hang-out and it was here where he met with his friends almost every afternoon.
Roy jumped off of the back of his new friend and said to it, “Wait here, Partner. I want to surprise the others!”
He felt the answer and knew the animal had understood.
He hopped and ran in measured moves between the patches of terror Moss and Murder grass as he had done countless times before, always on the look-out for crabs, and catapulted himself in a big leap across the water and landed on the first boulder.
His friends were already here: Norm Stevenson, the son of the Major, Maria Scott, daughter of the City Engineer, Bob Solomon, his best friend and son of the Ranger and Melissa O’Malley, her family owned the Department Store and two restaurants in Town.
Bob leaned against the brown furry body of Wobbler.
Wobbler was an almost fully grown Moolax Spider, measuring about six meters across, legs included. Bob had rescued the spider from a Stomper when it was still small. Bob raised the spider and bonded with it and whenever Bob was outside, Wobbler would wait for him and follow Bob around wherever he went.
Bob was the biggest of them all and the strongest of them. Like Roy he too wore his Grav-Adjuster dialed up since his sixth birthday. Bob had thick black curled hair and he had curls hanging down to the side of his temples in the tradition of his family and an old Earth religion, called Judaism. He also expressed his faith by wearing a little round hat on the top of his head. Bob called it his Kippah. Ranger Solomon would wear one like it whenever he did not wear his helmet. Bob once explained to Roy the significance of it, but Roy had forgotten. Roy was not religious at all, the only concept that came close to him was the feeling he had when he was out in the Jungle.
Wobbler rose only a bit as he saw Roy coming, but then relaxed again. Bob grinned, “Finally, you made it! We thought you might not show up today.”
“My parents gave me another lecture and some bad news, and then I had to wait until they left.”
Melissa sat on top of the tallest rock. She was friends with Roy and the others ever since the first days of kindergarten when they all first met.
Roy only recently realized that Melissa was a girl and that she became prettier every day and perhaps already was the prettiest girl in town.
She had a mass of curly flaming red hair that surrounded her skin that had the same shine as the fine English china her parents kept in a locked glass case in their dining room. It almost looked translucent. Her long lashes framed huge green eyes, over a tiny nose and beautiful shaped lips.
Lately she had begun to use a little make up and her lips were painted in a nice shade that matched her hair.
She wore her Bio-seal suit skin tight and her body became more female-looking every day. Her suit had long dark green panels on the sides, starting at her collar and ending in her boots, the middle was white and this color scheme somehow enhanced her curves even more.
At first it looked as if she wore a beautiful cape of silver, and an odd looking head piece with a long needle sharp point. The cape suddenly moved and Silver, her Pandora Swan, lifted his sleek head and turned it on the long snake like neck to look at Roy with hostile yellow piercing eyes.
Melissa scratched the underside of his neck and the Swan lowered his head burying it in her mass of red hair and once more only his long sharp beak was visible. Silver would barely leave her shoulders and even though it had claws hard as diamond and sharp as knives, it somehow managed to never leave even one scratch on her delicate shoulders. The slightest scratch of those claws meant instant death as they were poisonous.
She gave Roy a charming smile.
Maria sat a little below Melissa and had her legs folded in the lotus position. On her lap was a partially dismantled blaster she worked on, her tool belt within reach. The big shoulder bag on her other side moved and the head of Snuggle appeared.
Snuggle was a pelted two meter long Ninja Weasel. They usually did not appear during the day and were deadly night hunters, able to adopt almost any background color they came into contact with, blending into the surrounding and becoming virtually invisible until they attacked with razor sharp claws and poisonous fangs. It had a snake like body with two little arms that ended in clawed paws that had the same dexterity and an opposing thumb just like a human hand. They could coil and catapult themselves over great distances and use their long scaled tails covered with needle sharp barbs like a bull whip shredding their opponents. Ninja Weasels were the natural enemy of Pandora Swans as they usually raided the Pandora Swan nests for the eggs and the young, but here the two animals co existed within arm’s length of each other.
Snuggle blinked into the sun and at Roy then returned into the bag, but not before getting a Gummy Bear candy from Maria who didn’t even look up from her work, doing it.
She waved at Roy. “I am almost done with Norm’s blaster.”
There was nothing Maria could not take apart, repair or improve. She loved tools and tech and working with her hands.
Maria had long straight black hair and her bangs reached down to her deep brown, almost black, eyes giving her an always brooding somewhat sinister appearance and she often, especially when interacting with teachers or other kids used her hair almost like a persona shield she hid behind. She too had begun to lose her boyish body and had developed a nice and appealing chest line. Her suit was colored black and white. Roy wondered for a short moment why he would even notice Maria’s chest and find it somehow very nice to look at, then he was distracted as Norm surfaced and climbed out of the water and onto the rocks, Zisch his Water snake, slithered out of the water a second later, and coiled up behind Norm who toweled himself dry. Zisch put its head on Norms lap, fluttered its leathery head sails and as usual was soon asleep.
Zisch was a real Water Snake, a very young one still but it visibly grew bigger every time Roy saw the animal. Zisch was about twelve meters long now and about as thick as a human torso. Norm had pulled Zisch out of an Ant attack, and washed and nursed the badly wounded baby snake to health again.
Norm was almost obnoxiously proud of his Water snake.
Norm was about as tall as Roy and just like Roy very athletic, but not as strong. He never had a Grav Adjuster.
“Ah there is Roy!” he greeted, “the water is wonderful!”
Roy looked across the surface and saw the half submerged head of a huge Water snake not too far from the rocks. It was Zisch’s mother or perhaps its father and ever since Norm bonded with the young snake the big snake was never far from the rocks to keep watch.
Norm followed Roy’s gaze and nodded, “Yes Zisch’s mother is out there again, she makes sure nothing is harming me or Zisch. Of course I am a real Greenie and I would not suggest you try to go swimming! They simply don’t like Off-Worlders or pretenders.”
At another time Roy would have been offended as Norm had lately begun to tease Roy in a not too friendly way about the fact that Roy was not a real Greenie in his eyes, due to the fact that his parents were Off-Worlders.
Roy said calmly, “So having a local life form as a pet makes one a real Greenie then?”
Norm nodded, “We are all seventh to tenth generation Greenies and now we are the first generation bonding with what others like you for example think are mindless, killing beasts. It is as if the planet and all our glorious life forms have formed a bond that cannot be understood by those who still have Off World dirt in their veins.”
Melissa got angry and defended Roy with a sharp tone, “He is a Greenie just like us. Not even you would dare to go through into the actual Jungle as he does all the time.”
Bob agreed, “Fourteen Kilometers every day. If you are so confident in your Greenie h
eritage why don’t you visit Roy on foot one day?”
Maria snapped the last piece of the blaster she was working on in place and said, “Besides our animals don’t harm him and accept him too. He petted Wobbler and Snuggle doesn’t mind him, even Zisch isn’t attacking him.”
Norm sneered, “Don’t get me wrong, I am impressed by how Roy, an Off-Worlder, can navigate through our Jungles but no one ever saw him really doing it. He could hide an armor suit or something; he is just not one of us.”
Bob got up and flexed his muscles, “Do you want me to pound your face in? What is it with you today? Roy is one of us and has always been! We all know Roy doesn’t have an Armor suit.”
Roy shrugged, “If you want to see me go home, why don’t you come along sometime?”
Melissa nodded, “Good idea, I’ll call the Major and tell him his son won’t be home for dinner.”
Roy turned and called out loudly, “Partner!”
At first nothing happened and Roy feared he had left his new friend alone for too long. Then the big black beast broke through the foliage, like a tracked Marine explorer tank it plowed through the dangerous foliage, crushed a few attacking crabs and neither the knife like steel blades of the Murder-Grass tuffs nor the squirting acid of the terror moss patches had any effect on it.
Partner splashed through the water and jumped right next to Roy then sat down on his hind legs and licked Roy across the shoulders.
The others were quite shocked and surprised by the stormy approach of the black beast.
Silver flapped his wings and hissed at Partner. Wobbler had gone into attack stance. Zisch reared up and was about to spew fire.
Even the big Water Snake in the water rose and slowly came closer. It took them a moment to calm their animals and then Melissa said, “Well, it looks like Roy is a Greenie after all. I have no idea what he found in the Jungles but it sure looks like an animal to me, a very big one too!”
Bob scratched his head, “I’ve never seen anything like it either, but whatever it is it seems pretty tough. The Terror Moss didn’t do shit to it! And not even Zisch would slither across that!”