Vitalis Omnibus

by Jason Halstead

  “Your ship just got wrecked,” Sharp said. “That same critter that attacked you chased one of your men to the beach. He made it back to the ship but the Chickasaurus got angry and started pounding the hell out of it. Tore up a sentinel robot you had too, I guess. Then when it couldn’t get in it turned away and walked right into one of your landing struts. Kira watched the whole thing. I guess it got pissed off about that so it went after the strut and bent it just enough to make it snap. Then your ship crashed down on top of it.”

  “My ship?” Klous whispered. The news stunned him. “It can be fixed! We’ve had harder bumps in space against rocks or docking.”

  Kira shook her head, smiling viciously for the first time. “My man is watching it still. We heard internal breeches, alarms and atmospheric exchanges. Clouds are rolling in from the sea, looks like a big storm. The waves will pound it and it will be scrap metal before morning.”

  “Your man?” Klous asked, irritated that any man could claim her. The fact that concern over her had taken higher priority than concern for his ship didn’t occur to him.

  “Yes, my engineer, Eric” Sharp slipped in before she could respond. “Seems this planet doesn’t like outsiders and those that do make it here it doesn’t let go of. We should get what we can from your ship before it gets ruined.”

  “Eric?” Klous echoed. Eric was the name of the man that he’d been after for the bounty. He looked at Kira again, wondering if she had any idea about the bounty on her man’s head. Not that it mattered now, but if he could find a way off the planet and take them with him…

  “Hey! Stop staring at her like that, she’d pull your guts out with her hand before she’d think about screwing you,” Sharp snapped, pulling Klous out of another daydream. “Now answer my damn question! Are you going to cooperate?”

  Klous nodded slowly, replaying the scene in his head to piece together what he’d missed. Sharp had asked for them to play nice so they didn’t have to worry about shooting them. “If we’re really stuck here, we might as well be on the same team.”

  Kira snorted under her breath, but Klous fought hard — and won — to ignore her. “All right,” Sharp said, motioning for them to stand up. “Let’s head out.”

  “Head out?” Sasha asked.

  “To the Black Hole,” Klous answered her. “We’ll see if it’s as bad as they say and hook up with Ling and Lizzie, and whoever made it back.”

  “Then what?” Sasha asked.

  “Then we get off this rock if we can, otherwise we start salvaging.”

  “Salvaging?”

  Sharp chuckled. “Figured you’d know all about salvage operations.”

  Klous nodded and smiled wryly. “Fair enough, Captain.” He turned to Sasha and offered his hand to her. She looked up, startled. “Get that sexy ass of your moving, Sasha, we’ve got a long day ahead of us.”

  “Day?” Kira barked. “Time we get there the sun will be setting behind the clouds. It’ll be so dark you can’t see ten feet and that’s when the nighttime predators come out.”

  Sasha took a step closer to Klous. He glanced at her with his eyebrow raised but she only stared at Kira. Kira spun around, her skirt lifting enough to show a teasing glimpse of thigh, and walked quickly back down the plank.

  “One more thing,” Sharp said. “We’ve got another one of your men, guy named Cooper?”

  Klous jerked in surprise. Sasha gasped beside him. “Where is he?”

  “Tied up and under guard. We carried him back here and when he woke up he convinced us he’d work with us, then he tried to take out Jeff. He might have won too if Jeff hadn’t spent the past nine months on this place. You learn to grow eyes in the back of your head here.”

  Klous sighed. “I’ll talk to him.”

  “Later, after we get back.”

  “Sharp, don’t underestimate Cooper, later might be too late,” Klous warned. Sasha nodded beside him.

  Sharp chuckled. “I’ll take the risk. He resists again and Jeff puts him down.”

  Klous frowned but nodded. Sharp and his men still had the guns, after all. “All right, let’s get to the Hole.”

  Chapter 8

  Brand leapt over a root, convinced he could still hear the pounding feet of the beast behind him. His toe snagged against it, throwing him forward and causing him to crash face first into a mound of dirt. It sounded hollow but was resilient enough to make him bounce off of it.

  Blood ran down his face, mixing with the sweat and stinging his eyes. He groaned and rolled away, staring behind him and expecting massive jaws to clamp shut on him at any moment. Instead he found himself alone in the jungle. Alone and exhausted.

  Brand wiped the sweat and blood from his face. He gasped for air and looked for his laser rifle. He crawled over to it and picked it up, noting that it had cooled down and come back online. He felt better, even if the creature that had chased them all had proven stronger than the energy weapon. He sat there a few moments longer catching his breath, then glanced up and saw that he was in a section of the jungle that seemed less dense with trees.

  It was brighter, but that also meant hotter. He could see insects flying above, insects that he could not identify in spite of the fact that they were larger than any bug he’d ever heard of or seen. Far up in the branches he saw movement as well, a multi-limbed creature was slowly moving about, stalking some unseen prey or seeking shelter. Brand didn’t know or care, as long as it stayed away from him. On the jungle floor undergrowth sprouted upwards, reaching for the faint promise of sunlight far above.

  He jerked his hand, feeling a sudden tickle on it. Looking down he saw another insect, this one half as big as his foot. It was multi-segmented and possessed multiple legs, as well as some wicked looking mandibles. With a curse he jumped up and away from it and leveled his laser rifle at it.

  He stabbed the trigger and stared, uncomprehending, as the large bug continued unharmed. At that range and with his experience he knew he couldn’t have missed. He yanked the trigger again twice before glancing at it and noticing that the gun had gone back off line. A faint smell of burnt electronics reached his nose. He tossed the gun aside and cursed, then looked at the bug again.

  The bug that had touched him was only the first of many. A line of them approached and fanned out, coming towards him without fear or concern for their own safety. His delay while trying to work the rifle had only given them more time to approach and surround him. He swore again and turned to run, but found his ankle had been twisted by the earlier fall and wouldn’t support the sudden movement.

  Brand grunted and tried to pull himself away, flailing with his feet as he did so. One of the bugs grabbed and bit through his boot and into his foot. Brand screamed, first in fear and then in pain as some sort of burning venom entered his foot. He pushed harder to get away, smashing the bug that had bitten him in the process.

  He scrambled onto his hands and knees, then tried to rise up but a growing numbness in the bitten foot left him off balance. He rolled onto his side and into a patch of flowered grass. The pollen stunk and made his eyes water, causing a sneezing fit at first, then a swelling of his sinuses and throat as anaphylactic shock set in. He labored to breathe, forgetting momentarily about the swarm of insects that were climbing onto his legs.

  They bit him anew, drawing fresh attempts to scream for help from him. His cries were raspy, limited by his restricted air flow. He beat at them with his hands until they, too, were covered with the clinging and biting bugs. Brand continued to wheeze for help as the bugs swarmed over his body and into his open mouth, seeking the hot moisture within.

  It never occurred to him that his vow for vengeance had failed. Not only had he not killed the crew of the Rented Mule but he hadn’t even made it past the inhabitants of the planet to find them.

  Chapter 9

  After the forced march through the jungle to Treetown, Klous was surprised to find himself not only ready for more hiking, but better suited to it. A glance at Sasha showed that she
felt similarly. Further glances proved that her shirt was definitely in danger of falling off of one or both of her shoulders. He kept checking just to make sure.

  When not sneaking glances at Sasha, Klous tried to follow Kira as she floated through the jungle at the head of the group. Tarn was behind them, carrying the heaviest ordinance, and Sharp was between Klous and Kira. Sharp didn’t foil the view so much as Kira’s pace left the others behind. They would come upon her waiting for them from time to time, impatience stamped upon her face.

  In what Klous considered record time they reached the beach. He was winded but found himself recovering quickly. The recaptured breath slipped out of him when he looked down the beach to his damaged ship.

  “My ship!” He gasped.

  “I don’t think Ling and I can fix that,” Sasha muttered.

  Klous ignored her and started forward. Sharp caught his arm and stopped him. He pointed out to sea. “See those clouds coming? Bringing in a mother of a storm and the sun’s already behind ‘em about to set. We’ll need to hurry or be caught in it and trust me, you don’t want to be caught in a storm like that.”

  “We can wait it out in the Hole,” Sasha suggested.

  Tarn laughed, drawing Klous and Sasha’s attention. He shook his head and adjusted one of the strange weapons on his back that Klous couldn’t identify. Sharp interpreted for him, “Your ship is going to be pounded by waves like you’ve never seen.”

  Tarn was quick to add, “Gotta get what we can off it while we can, shit breaks down fast here. Never know if these guns are going to work next time we try ‘em even though we field strip ‘em daily.”

  “That why you’re carrying different weapons too?” Klous asked.

  “Took some trial and error but yeah, modern day crossbows, Kira made herself a regular longbow, straight out of Robin Hood!”

  “Robin who?” Sasha asked.

  Klous waved her off. The name sounded familiar to him but it wasn’t important. He did know what a bow and arrow was, he’d just never seen a real one. For that matter, he realized, he’d never seen a lot of things. “I’ve never seen a wave,” Klous admitted, unconvinced. “How could water hurt my ship?”

  Sharp chuckled. “Fair enough. It hits harder than you’d expect. Lot of weight and power behind it, kind of like crashing into the ground every time you get hit. You’ll have to trust me, being trapped in there is the last place you want to be.”

  “There’s holes in the ship and after the beating it’s going to take, there’ll be more.”

  Klous turned to the new voice and saw a short man walking up to them from the edge of the jungle. His hair was longer and he had a few days worth of stubble growing on his face, but Klous recognized him from the pictures of the bounty he was after. “Eric?” He asked.

  Eric stopped and stared at him. His eyes went to Kira first, then Captain Sharp and Tarn. Kira stepped in, moving faster than any person had a right to, and drove her fist into his stomach. Klous doubled over, air and spittle bursting from his mouth. His face met her raised knee, snapping his head back and crunching his nose.

  Klous lay gasping on the ground, though he couldn’t remember exactly how he’d gotten there. He felt himself yanked to the side and onto his back. A bloodstained knee slammed into his chest and pinned him to the ground, then a sharp and cold edge pressed against his throat.

  “Kira!”

  Klous heard her being called off but it took a moment for the words to register. It wasn’t until he saw hands pulling her free of him that he realized he might live to see the next day. He reached up gingerly to his nose, feeling the blood that flowed from it. He spat, noting his teeth felt numb and his lips were bleeding as well, but nothing was missing.

  “Told you she was something,” Tarn said through a grin. He grabbed Klous’s hand and pulled him up.

  Klous teetered on his feet for a moment, dizzy from the trauma to his head and still winded. When he looked up he realized that Kira, Sharp, and Eric were having an intense moment of barely hushed conversation only a few feet away.

  “It was you, wasn’t it?” Klous said loud enough so he could hear himself over the ringing in his head. “I figured it was a man, but you can make the displays show just about anything.”

  Kira started forward but Sharp grabbed her arm and held her back. “What’s this?”

  “I heard tell of a rich bounty on your ship, Captain,” Klous said, turning to look Sharp in the eyes. “Deal was I got whatever salvage I wanted and half the bounty. There’d be an inside man on the ship making sure it went smooth. You’re the inside man. What happened, you didn’t figure on falling for him?”

  Klous saw Sharp’s hand clamp down hard on Kira’s arm, expecting her reaction. Instead of her pulling away Kira stared at him with murder in her eyes for a long moment, then she nodded. She turned away and yanked her arm free of Sharp’s grip. She looked at Eric for a moment then stormed past him towards the Black Hole.

  Klous saw Eric turn from staring at Kira to look at him. Klous held up his hand. “I’ve been hit enough by you people today, do it tomorrow.”

  Eric shook his head and turned away to walk after Kira. Sharp looked at him, studying him carefully much as he’d done earlier in Treetown. “You really know how to make friends,” He said finally, then turned and headed after the others.

  Tarn chuckled again, then clapped him on the back. “Don’t worry, nose’ll heal fast here. Just watch your back around Kira.”

  “She was going to kill you all!” Sasha blurted out. “Why isn’t anyone pissed at her?”

  “Kira ain’t what you think she is,” Tarn said with a shrug. “Ain’t my story to tell, but she’s a special girl. I didn’t give her credit for a while neither, but she showed me up plenty of times. Don’t underestimate her. She was a lot happier and nicer before you guys showed up. I’d appreciate it if you got along with her and made her happy again.”

  Klous released the pinch grip on his nose. He sniffed a few times to make sure the bleeding had stopped before saying, “What, you don’t want her going off on you?”

  “Hell no I don’t!” Tarn chuckled. He shook his head and turned towards the crashed pirate ship. He turned back, a grin on his face. “Hey! How bad did my plasma cannons fuck your ship up? I almost forgot about that, you guys hit our sensors.”

  “Fucked up a bank of attitude thrusters and overloaded our weapons system,” Klous spat out more blood before he started walking after the others. He was grateful for the distracting conversation Tarn provided. Dealing with the confusing dynamic between the crew of the Rented Mule promised to make the ringing in his head worse than ever.

  They fell silent as they closed on the broken ship. Klous could see damage to the hull that would take weeks in a shipyard to fix. Just lifting it back off the beach to repair the ruined strut alone was an impossible task without an army of machinery and people. He swallowed the bitterness in his throat, tasting blood as much as bile.

  Tarn barked out a laugh as they walked around the edge of the ruined spaceship, one of the legs of the chickasaurus was sticking out from beneath the hull. Klous stared at it then he, too, felt something slip loose inside of him. He chuckled and said, “Wait till I get another starship, I’ll come back for the rest of your family!”

  Chapter 10

  “Where’s Cooper?” Klous said after they’d fought through what was turning into a monsoon to return to Treetown. He’d forced himself to move on after seeing the damages to the Black Hole. Aran and Ling’s plan to fire the reaction thrusters to make the ship hover while a new strut was put in place had been a neat idea, but impractical. The back-blast from the thrusters would roast anyone standing under the ship even if they did have time to repair the ship enough to try it. Already the waves were breaking and lapping at the edge of the ship. Eric had mentioned something about high tide coming in as well, whatever a tide was.

  All that remained for Klous was finding out how his younger brother was doing. Or whether or not Cooper
had managed the impossible yet again and turned the tables on his captor. Brand was still an unknown factor, but as more time passed the certainty that he’d met an untimely end grew greater as well.

  “Come on, let’s get this over with,” Sharp sat the large bag full of miscellaneous plunder from the Black Hole down in the hollow of a tree. Klous saw him catch Tarn’s eye and glance at the others. Tarn nodded.

  “We’re stuck here too,” Klous said. “We’re not going to do anything stupid.”

  “You’ve got a history of stupid,” Sharp pointed out. “First attacking us then coming here. You try being less stupid for a while and maybe I’ll start believing you.”

  Klous fought the urge to lash out. He wasn’t in charge anymore and it bugged him. He nodded shortly and turned to the four remaining members of his crew. “Stay together and don’t do anything—”

  “Stupid?” Sasha rolled her eyes at him. Klous fought the bitter urge to chuckle. Lizzie tried, and failed, to smile. Aran and Ling grunted and nodded, respectively, and started going through the equipment they’d returned with.

  Klous followed Sharp across the slippery wooden bridge. Rainwater fell almost as heavily as though they weren’t sheltered by a thick jungle canopy overhead. Even breezes whipped through the trees, a testimony to the ferocity of the storm that had come upon them as they were leaving the Black Hole behind. He glanced back at one point and saw Kira following them, her pace determined and quicker than their own.

  “You going to break my nose again?” Klous had to almost shout to be heard over the loud cadence of wind and water.

  “I’m going to make sure you don’t try anything,” She answered.

  Klous watched her for a moment, then felt his heart lurch as his foot slipped on the wooden planks. The treacherous foot scraped against the edge of the board, stinging as the skin on his ankle was torn, then hung suspended in space while his other foot shot out the other direction. Expecting to hit the boards and then fall to the jungle floor below, Klous found his breath jerked from him as he stopped abruptly. He scrambled to get his feet back under him and his arms on the rope handrails so he could stand up again. Once he was standing Kira let go of him and shook her head.