“Weird fields?” Ling asked.
“Yeah, I can’t isolate and exclude them, it’s across every spectrum. Nothing dangerous, just noise.”
“Visuals still work?”
Lizzie fed the commands into her station and a moment later the main display lit up with a segmented view of twelve different cameras, some of which pointed out to the ocean, others into the sky, and a few down to the sandy beach beneath the Black Hole. “Yeah, nothing exciting though…”
“Want to bet?” Ling stared at the display as a figure burst free from the jungle several hundred feet down the shore from where the rest of the crew had gone in. “Is that…Aran?”
“What’s…why is he…oh shit! What is that?”
Ling ignored her. He’d seen the same thing, the beast burst free of the jungle behind him, stumbling as it tried to adapt to the sandy ground. It picked itself up from the small ditch it had dug as it fell and shook its head, roared, and charged after Aran anew.
“Open the door!” Lizzie shouted. “Shit Ling, let him in! Turn JimBob on! Do something!”
“Trying,” he snapped, working furiously at the weapons station.
Lizzie stared at the screens, horrified at the size and raw ferocity of the beast that chased Aran. On the open ground it easily closed the distance between the two of them, promising a gruesome end to the man with less than a hundred yards remaining between them. Lizzie wanted to look away but couldn’t, even though she knew what she was about to see would plague her dreams for years.
“Got it!”
Lizzie jerked, surprised by Ling’s triumphant shout. She didn’t turn to look at him, disaster was too close on the screen. The beast lunged forward, opening its beaked maw and snapping it towards its next meal. Aran dove to the ground, not slowing in the least. Lizzie wondered how he knew when to duck but couldn’t voice the question before it was answered for her.
The external feeds picked up the beast roaring as tufts of its hide burst free. Smoking black marks appeared on its body, explaining how Aran had known to duck. He hadn’t been avoiding the creature; he’d been avoiding JimBob’s line of fire.
Aran was moving still. He crawled, occasionally favoring his leg and side. He picked himself up slowly and lurched towards the ship in a staggering run. The beast ignored him, realizing that the new threat was something else.
Lizzie and Ling watched the creature charge the robot down. The robot held its ground — fear emulation programming wasn’t popular on combat or security models. The skin on the creature was blistered and split open, leaking blood and fluids in places from the powerful pulse lasers, but it still came on and smashed JimBob to the side with one swipe of a heavily muscled forelimb. The sentinel tried to right itself when it came to a rest, rotating its torso in an attempt to let the heavy tracks it used for ambulation to tilt it over. Before it could find success the beak slammed into it, grabbing and tearing one of the twin barreled arms off of it. The scorching metal was spit out as it determined the taste wasn’t to its liking. Another swipe with clawed talons sent sparks and smoke leaping from JimBob, then the prehistoric behemoth picked a large foot up slammed it down, crushing the sentinel ‘bot beyond repair.
Ling swore, signaling the JB1201 was destroyed. Lizzie stared as Aran made it onto another camera view, this one beneath the ship, and then he limped up the open ramp to the cargo bay. Lizzie was about to bark for Ling to shut it when Aran apparently hit the manual controls inside, sealing the doors shut.
Just in time, the beast slammed into them and dented the thick metal of the bay doors. It roared again and smashed against it with head and arms. Its attack was senseless and violent, fueled by frustration and pain. Moments later its abuse found the camera housing and shattered the concealed unit, blacking out the image on the screen.
“That thing’s really pissed off,” Ling observed.
“What is it?” Lizzie whispered. She realized it was crazy, but she was afraid to talk too loud for fear it might hear her. She could hear the distant echoes of the abuse it was unleashing on the Black Hole both through the external speakers and the echoes from inside the ship.
“Some kind of fucking dinosaur!”
Lizzie and Ling both turned to see Aran stagger onto the bridge. He limped over to his station, clutching his side. “What happened to you? Did it hurt you?” Lizzie blurted.
“Fucker kicked me when I went down, sent me rolling,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Are you all right?”
“Do I look all right? Broke my fucking ribs and damn near dislocated my hip!”
“Hey, it stopped!” Ling interrupted, holding up his hand for added effect.
“Did it give up?” Lizzie hoped aloud.
Aran stared at the display screen, searching each camera image carefully. “Seemed smarter than that,” he said finally. “I don’t—“
He was interrupted by the sound of metal being struck then bending. The Black Hole shifted, slowly at first, then rapidly as whatever happened succumbed to the damage it had taken. All three fell from the chairs to the deck as the ship angled and slammed into the ground. Alarms went off throughout the bridge, lights flashing and klaxons sounding.
“What the fuck?” Aran shouted.
Lizzie screamed, no words, just raw terror. She curled into a ball and slid beneath her station, rocking herself and sucking on her lip piercings so hard she could taste blood.
“It knocked out a landing strut,” Ling said a moment later, breaking through Lizzie’s panic induced fugue. “Son of a bitch tore out a landing strut! We’ve got minor breeches, just enough for atmosphere loss, and all sorts of damage to electrical and hydraulic systems.”
“What about that…that thing?” Lizzie asked, pulling herself together enough to uncurl from her fetal position. She stared around, expecting a great gash in the wall of the bridge to open up and the fanged beak to reach in and snatch her out.
“I don’t know,” Ling responded. The display was out, the short distance crash having shorted out the connections to it. “But we’re okay…for now.”
Aran swore and pulled himself back into the pilot’s chair that was bolted to the floor. He swiveled in it to account for the canted angle of the ship and rubbed his hip. “Can we fix it?”
Ling glanced at Lizzie, letting her see the hopelessness in his eyes. It caused a chill to go down her spine, but she managed a weak smile in spite of it for him. Ling had always been nice to her. He’d talked to her and even helped her with one of her piercings. The least she could do was show him a little support.
“Where are the others?” Ling asked, turning back to him.
Aran grunted. “No idea. We got separated when that thing came at us. I thought maybe Cooper made it back here, he disappeared earlier.”
Lizzie felt as much as heard the breath suck through her teeth. Cooper was bad news, especially if he was unsupervised. Nobody knew exactly what was off about him but the rumors were that he either liked being rough with his women or something far, far worse.
“Without Sasha it’ll take a long time,” Ling let his concern tinge his voice. Lizzie felt her stomach twist, then she clamped down on it. Sasha was her crewmate too, she should be just as upset if something happened to her. Lizzie’s concerns unnoticed, Ling continued, “Can fix just about all the electrical shorts. Most of the hydraulics too probably. Hull breaches maybe, but not without us being in a proper dock. No way of getting in one either, not without some major equipment.”
“Couldn’t we fire the reaction thrusters or something?”
Ling glanced at Lizzie again. This time she saw a thoughtful and, maybe, even a hopeful light in his wide open eyes. “Yeah…yeah, that might work. We’ have to be real careful, then figure out how to rig up a temporary strut to have in place, and figure out how to get it there, but there’s a chance. Maybe one in a hundred, but I’ve had worse.”
“Get started!”
“You’re not Captain Hildebrand.” Lizzie saw Ling’s b
ack straighten and his shoulders rise.
“No, but I’m second in command and after what we all just saw, we have to accept that the Captain won’t be returning.”
Lizzie whimpered, then clamped her hand over her mouth. She never had been very good at dealing with death and violence. Being squeamish was bad for someone who served on a ship that specialized in forced salvage operations, but Klous liked her and made sure he kept her clear of anything that got messy.
Ling nodded after a moment. “I’ll get started because that’s what the Captain would want. I’m not trying anything that might make it worse until we know, for sure, whether he’s coming back or not.”
Aran scowled. “Fine, but if we don’t hear from him in twenty four hours you’ve got your answer.”
“Fine.”
Lizzie looked back and forth between them. She thought about crawling back under her desk but decided instead to suck a lip piercing between her teeth. Ling looked at her and offered a weak smile. She tried, and failed to return it. He nodded towards her station and she nodded in return. She was no engineer but she knew enough about emergency electronics that she could help. She keyed in some quick tests to run on the system and frowned at how quick the results came back. They had a lot of work to do, if what her diagnostics and what Ling said were even halfway accurate.
Chapter 7
“Tarn, who’s this?”
The muscle bound man guarding Klous and Sasha turned his head to watch another man stride quickly and confidently across one of the rope bridges to the hollow in the tree that they sat in. The new man was thinner but still had the look of someone who was lean and dangerous.
“Said their names were Klous and Sasha. She called him Captain.”
The new arrival walked over to stare at Sasha and then Klous. He lashed out, driving his fist into Klous’s jaw and rocking the surprised man’s head back. Sasha yelped and jumped to her feet. Klous shook his head to clear it and tested with his tongue to see if anything had been knocked loose. Some blood was all he found. “What’s that for?”
“That’s for shooting up my ship! We wouldn’t be trapped here if it wasn’t for you!” He snarled.
“You must be the Captain of the Rented Mule.”
“Jonathon Sharp,” He said, nodding. “Except the Mule is a submersible these days. Again, thanks to you.”
“You let us go and you can join my crew,” Klous offered.
Tarn glanced at his Captain. Sharp just snorted. “Not interested in losing my title. Easier for us to just take your ship and leave you here.”
Sasha gasped beside him, but Klous ignored her. “Sasha, sit down, you’re making our new friends nervous.”
Tarn smirked but did not let the barrel of his energy rifle move a fraction of an inch from where it pointed at her. Sasha returned to the carved wooden stump with an unhappy groan. Klous stared at Sharp. “All right, let us go and we’ll take you to a port back in the rim systems. We’ve got plenty of extra chambers after your people killed several of my men.”
“Next time I’m going to have Tarn hit you,” Sharp said. “You’re here, now get used to it. Expect a high protein diet, unless I decide to have you killed.”
“You don’t strike me as the killing type,” Klous dared to say.
“I’m not, but I wouldn’t push me if I were you. I already don’t like you.”
“What was that thing?” Sasha interrupted. “It was…”
“Big? Scary? About to eat you? Right on all accounts,” Sharp said. She nodded. “We’ve killed a couple of them when we have to, but mostly we try to avoid them. Been calling them Chickasaurus because we don’t know what else to use.”
Klous snorted at the ludicrous name. “A dinosaur chicken?”
“They got beaks and feathers. Plenty of muscle but something that big on too legs that can move that fast? Even here that’s not normal. Their bones are light too, just like a bird. So yeah, a dinosaur chicken.”
“Feathers?”
“Thick hollow hair or some kind of feathers, it reflects light. Makes energy weapons less effective, keeps ‘em cool in the sun, and adds some camouflage so they can hide or hunt better,” Tarn said.
“No wings though, they can’t get up here?” Klous peered out to the rope bridge thoughtfully.
“Don’t worry, there’s plenty of nasty critters that live in the trees around here too. We got most of ‘em scared of us but we still post guards at night.” Sharp turned away from them to look out the opening of the tree. He returned a moment later. “You seen enough to know your odds of surviving out there on your own are close to zero. You going to play nice or try to kill us in our sleep?”
“Nice is my middle name,” Klous said with a smile.
Sharp sighed. “Never trust a man with a four letter name,” he said. “All right, Tarn keep em quiet, I think Kira’s back.”
“Tarn’s name is four letters,” Klous muttered.
Sharp glanced at the former Marine then returned his gaze to Klous. “Yep, best you keep that in mind.”
Klous smirked then tried to see out the opening at the approaching newcomer. Another woman always interested him. He glanced at Sasha and saw she was staring at the floor hunched over. Her shirt hung from her loosely, giving him ample amount of shadowed flesh to view from where he sat. He realized with a barely suppressed start that she had changed again. Sasha always wore loose fitting clothes but now hers were practically falling off of her.
“What is this place?” He wondered aloud, glancing at his own arm and noting the added definition he could see in it.
“You drank the water?” Tarn asked with a chuckle. Klous found himself nodding his head as he looked at the big man. “I used to be FIST a lifetime ago. Got old and fat and sloppy. Nine months here and I’m in better shape than I ever was. Feel younger too. This place is a fucking meatgrinder, but you gotta be tough here to stand a chance at surviving.”
“Working out a lot to stay alive here?” Klous wasn’t sure what Tarn was saying. The environment was so hostile the former Marine had to work harder?
Tarn laughed, then turned and spit out the open door to the ground below. “No. Well, just living here is a work out. I mean there’s something in the water or the air or the food we eat here. It helps keep you strong. Wounds heal faster, fat burns off, it’s just good for you – if it don’t kill you.”
Klous frowned as he digested Tarn’s words. Not only would the planet make a wonderful resort getaway or hunter’s paradise, but if they could identify what it was that was so good for the human body, it could be bottled and sold at any price! He realized he was grinning and wiped the smile off his face before Tarn noticed it.
“You think I look good, wait till you see Kira!” The man let his grin slip before he said a little more quietly. “Walk soft around her. She’s helped keep us safe and sane and put up with being the only woman on the planet, but she’s got a special hate on for people that cause her friends a rough time.”
The sound of footsteps on the wooden planks of the bridge kept Klous quiet. He wanted to ask for more from Tarn, but knew he didn’t dare. If he had an unlikely ally in the former FIST he didn’t want to strain the relationship prematurely.
Sasha looked up as well, staring at the opening until Captain Sharp reentered and behind him came the most spectacular thing he had ever seen.
“That’s Kira,” Tarn said before he laughed at the expression on Klous’s face.
The woman named Kira stopped and stared at him, a flash of recognition and then irritation crossing her face. Klous barely caught it, he was more interested in the rest of her body.
Kira’s hair was pulled back into a single reddish brown braid that ran halfway down her back. Her outfit consisted of a loose fitting shirt that had been turned into nothing more than a halter top. It offered no support to her breasts but it didn’t need to — they stood proudly on her chest defying gravity in a way that threatened to turn into an embarrassing dream for him the next time he w
ent to sleep. Instead of pants she wore a skirt that showed signs of being hand sewn or at least patched by hand more than a few times. It was loose as well and fell a few inches above her knees. Below that she wore footwear that was laced around and above her ankles, but otherwise made out of some animal hide. Her exposed skin, which there was a lot of, was covered in the various shades of paint the others wore to make them blend in.
What took his breath away wasn’t just Kira’s breasts, it was her entire body. Her muscle tone was clearly evident in spite of the paint, including a clear definition of her abdominal muscles beneath her makeshift halter. There was absolutely nothing soft about the woman, yet she was undeniably feminine and attractive. Even the barrel of the ballistic rifle she now pointed at him did not detract from his sudden desire to see more of her.
“Kira!” Sharp barked at her. She stayed firm for a long moment, then slowly raised her rifle and slipped it back around her shoulder. She also had a stick across her back held in place by a string that crossed her chest. Klous noted how the string slid between her boobs and fantasized about trading places with it.
“Kira’s a little upset about how we got here,” Sharp explained. “She’s had a bit of a rough ride and since a lot of this is your fault, I don’t think I need to tell you how high up you are on her shit list.”
He leaned forward and grinned. “I’m a reasonable man but Kira, well, Kira is the killing type.”
Klous looked at Kira again and saw her eyes held nothing but a total lack of mercy. He fought the shudder and, without thinking, muttered, “Deadly beauty.”
Sharp laughed at the words. He backed up and nodded. “Good description! Now then, things just got a little more interesting, and a lot worse off for you.”
“What? Why?” Sasha blurted out. Klous glanced at her and saw that she was thrusting her own chest out. Hers was bigger than Kira’s, and even if it was looking a lot more promising since they’d landed on Vitalis, there was no comparison between the two women.
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