Tarn dug the center out with his fingers and popped it in his mouth to prove his point. Elsa stared at it doubtfully, then shrugged. Less than a week ago she’d been eating half-cooked bugs to survive. She moved over to another rock and had to crack her fruit against it twice to figure out how hard she needed to hit it to open it. Once she had it open she dug into it and sampled the juicy fruit.
It tasted incredible. Her mouth felt like it was alive with colors and sensations. She couldn’t describe the flavor if her life depended on it, but she could say it was a mixture of sweet and bitter and altogether wonderful. When she looked up from the suddenly empty half shells in front of her Tarn was chuckling.
“Hungry?” He asked.
She nodded, then added, “Good! Everything’s good here. Even the bugs I ate after I crashed.”
Tarn nodded. “Coral said she thought it had something to do with appreciation. You know, we appreciate it more because we’re working hard for it.”
Elsa frowned. She’d worked her ass off for the right to eat something in the past and it was nothing like this. “I don’t know about that, I think it’s like everything else here. This place is deadly and unforgiving, but once you get past that the rewards are incredible.”
Tarn raised an eyebrow. “You already spent too much time with Kira. Next you’ll be babbling about the spirit of Vitalis.”
Elsa grinned, she’d had the same concerns about Kira and she’d only spent a little bit of time with her. “Hey, it beats MREs!”
Tarn laughed. “That it does. Now come on, we got work to do.”
Chapter 11
The problem with the crystal Kira found was the constant light it emitted. It wasn’t enough to shed a radiance beyond a few feet but it was bright enough to give her position away in the dark. On a whim, Kira had laid it on the ground and stepped away, then watched it.
Slowly it faded. After ten minutes it looked as dull and lifeless as when she’d first seen it. The moment she picked it up it sprang back to life, humming faintly in her hand and shedding its green and pink ambience. She glanced at the dead spitter hybrid and then the dead crustacean. The cave seemed safe enough now, though the spitter she’d been tracking had displayed an almost human level of cunning in trying to spring a trap on her. She hadn’t explored the passage it had come from yet, though she suspected it would lead up to an easier route to the jungle above than the freefalling route she’d been forced to take.
Holding the crystal at her side to keep its glow from ruining her night vision, Kira made her way back out of the cave the way she’d come. She searched about in the dark, looking in the direction where she thought the shaft of her spear had gone. After a few moments she found it trapped behind some rocks that stuck out of the side of the wall of the pit she’d fallen into. She retrieved the shattered weapon, then used the crystal to carve out a niche in the broken end of it. The crystal replaced the shaved point of the spear and was secured in place with the string she recovered from her broken bow.
She walked back into the cave. Time was of the essence, she needed to go after the other spitter and check on Fiona and Elsa— especially the new Marine since she was still new to Vitalis. Her discovery was even more important though. She needed more samples to return to Treetown. Whatever the crystal was, she knew it was incredible. It had to have uses beyond being merely a weapon.
By the time she reached the crystalline growth in the tunnel the tip of her spear was fading. She watched it, surprised, then reached up and touched it. It flared back to life immediately, making Kira gasp. She glanced sharply down the passages of the small cave. Her reaction was dangerous, even if the crystal was wondrous. She turned to behold the glowing crystals that were still embedded in the walls, ceiling, and floor of the passage. “Why are you so bright?” She wondered aloud.
She looked closely and saw more crystals laying the ground. The largest was as long as her leg and as thick around as her thigh. Others were less so, some even being no larger than her finger. Kira touched a few, even the largest one, and felt her lips raise in delight when they lit up to match the ones growing from the earth. As an experiment she touched another one with the butt end of her spear, moving it a few inches across the ground. It remained unlit. A following touch with her hand caused it to flair to life.
“So amazing,” Kira whispered. She turned, trying to decide how to recover several of the broken crystals, and her eyes fell on the body of the giant lobster.
Kira brushed her hand against the crystal in her spear to renew it then used it to slice the curved shell off its back. She dug out the meat, frowning at the waste of the food, then hurried out to where the dead chickasaurus had fallen. She cut away a portion of its skin, then took the tough hide back with her. With only the thin rope wrapped around her spear remaining she placed several crystals in the half shell, then wrapped the feathered hide around it. She laced it shut with her rope, then made a sash out of what remained so she could wear it over her shoulder.
She waited until the tip of her spear was dark again before she set out down the tunnel the spitter had used to ambush her. As she suspected, it led to a chimney where water dripped into a small puddle before eventually draining away into cracks in the rock wall. The chimney was large enough for her to climb, though he had to take care with the wet rock. Ten minutes later she worked her way out of a fissure in the rock wall onto a small ledge. Layers of stratified rock allowed her to climb up until she was back near the overlook where the chickasaurus had charged her.
Before plunging into the jungle she studied the clear night sky. Occasional stars were blotted out as one of the winged nocturnal hunters soared high above looking for prey, but otherwise nothing seemed amiss. A faint glow in the east promised sunrise in less than an hour. Her fight and experimentation had taken longer than she realized.
She wasn’t sure if the spitter that had attacked her was fully grown or not, but it had grown to the size of a man in half a day. It’s attacks had been clumsy and confused, but the sheer strength and speed had been considerable. She knew Fiona was more than capable, but one mistake would be all it would take.
Kira took off at a jog, setting her course not for Treetown or even where she’d left Fiona and Elsa. She ran for a streambed that she knew would have only a trickle of water in it. During heavy rains it was swollen and often flooded, but for now it would give her the fastest route to the ridge separating the jungle from the plains.
Chapter 12
Tarn stood up from the faint track in the wet ground beside the stream. “Yeah, I can track her, but that’s not the mission. We need to see what the spitters are doing. Trying to find Fiona’s going to take too long. If she wasn’t in a rush we’d never see her tracks, as it is it’ll take too long trying to figure her trail out.”
Elsa nodded. She’d suspected as much but she still suggested starting where she and Fiona had parted ways. “All right, let’s head for the plains and see what there is to see.”
Tarn grunted and set off, holding his spear at the ready as he moved through the jungle. Elsa followed with a new bow she’d retrieved. She’d done enough training with it to be a threat, but at this point she figured Tarn should be more worried than any opponents they encountered, so long as he was in front of her!
Speaking of Tarn, she admired his muscular body. Even the hide shorts he wore were growing on her. She pulled her eyes away, her team was unaccounted for. Not FIST team three but her new team, Fiona and Kira. Not to mention the Vitalian wildlife to be on the watch for.
Their voyage was anti-climactic. Nothing tried to eat them, run away from them, or even give sign of distant roar. Tarn frowned when he exited the thick vegetation that marked the edge of the jungle and the beginning of the hills and ridge.
“Awful quiet in there,” he muttered.
Elsa shrugged. She’d seen enough of the violent animal life on Vitalis to last her a life time. “You complaining?” She whispered.
He turned his head enough so she
could see his smirk. She saw his eyes travel across her mud painted body, then he started to turn away again. He stopped, the whites of his eyes growing larger in the early afternoon sunshine.
Elsa knew the look. She’d never seen it on Tarn’s face before but it was a look common to anyone being surprised by something imminently bad. She threw herself forward tucking a shoulder so she could roll and come up with the bow in front of her.
Her maneuver was arrested when something grabbed her calf with the strength of a mechanized cargo loader. She slammed into the ground, her cheek smacking the grass first and sending her bow flying. Before Elsa could make sense of the why the world wasn’t where it should be she was yanked backwards.
Tarn ran towards her, spear held overhead to thrust or throw. Elsa found herself jerked again and was soon staring at a pair of dark brown legs covered in short and bristly hair that was just as dark. The feet at the end of the legs possessed three toes on the front, each with a curved talon at the end of them, as well as shorter fourth toe on the heel of the foot. She tucked her chin into her chest and stared up the legs of the creature that held her. For a moment reason and logic failed her.
When she could make sense of what she saw she was no less dismayed for it. The legs joined at a humanoid waste, and emerging from that waste was something else that was entirely too humanoid. A penis jutted out, complete with large and anatomically correct testicles in a fur covered sack beneath it. She pulled her head back as glistening drops of liquid fell from the male member. She fought the urge to gag at the implications.
The spitter hybrid held her by one leg, holding her as a meat shield against Tarn. She tried to struggle but the creature’s strong grip made her efforts futile. She tried to use her free leg to kick the creature in the head, but without line of sight to her target her flailing was blind. The evolved spitter grabbed her free leg and held both legs fast.
“Elsa, I got no shot!” Tarn hissed.
Elsa risked a look up again. The creature was vulnerable, even if the thought of what she had to do sickened her. Her spear had fallen off when the creature had yanked her into the air, but it lay beneath her. She reached down, stretching her arm and even thrashing a little to force her attacker to lower her or risk losing her. She made up the necessary inches and grabbed the primitive weapon.
“Elsa!” Tarn cried out in warning.
Elsa’s legs were yanked up and spread out, displaying her lewdly and threatening to dislocate one or both hips. She swung the spear, afraid she’d have her legs ripped off if she took time to aim and strike correctly. Her swing was true, smashing the blunt end of her spear into the hybrid’s scrotum.
It howled and dropped her. Elsa hit head first, her vision instantly dazzled with colors and then blackness. When she blinked the chaotic designs away she found Tarn standing above her, his chest heaving. He had splatters of blood on his chest, arms, hands, and legs. Elsa craned her neck to search for the spitter, then nearly passed out again from a burst of fire that shot from her neck down to her left hip.
“You get it?” She asked through clenched teeth.
“Yeah, good thinking,” he said. “Thought we was going to have to rename this things ‘splitters’ after it was about to make a wish and rip you apart.”
Elsa groaned and rolled over enough to stare at the corpse of the spitter. Blood and disturbingly human looking organs were gathered under and around the creature. Tarn’s spear was coated in the same colors. She sat up slowly, stretching her neck to relieve the pressure. She twisted it back to the right and felt something pop back into place. The burning faded immediately.
“That sucked,” she muttered.
“From the looks of him, that’s what he wanted.”
Elsa stared at the corpse, not understanding Tarn’s comment. When her eyes settled on his still tumescent organ she felt the bile rose in her throat again. “That’s disgusting,” she said a moment later.
Tarn’s grin was short lived. “Ain’t never seen one try to take someone alive before. It even used you as a shield. Whatever these fuckers are, they’re smarter than the four legged ones.”
“Great,” Elsa muttered. “And if this one came after us, that means Fiona, Kira, or maybe both are already dead.”
Tarn frowned. “Not Kira. Nothing gets the drop on her.”
“For not getting along with her you sure do seem to think highly of her,” Elsa observed. She rubbed her shoulder and neck some more then took Tarn’s offered hand and stood up.
“She’s the top of the food chain for us. Respecting her don’t mean I have to like her.” Tarn picked up Elsa’s spear and handed it to her, then watched the Gunnery Sergeant retrieve her dropped bow.
Elsa turned back to him and nodded. “I like that, I can work with it.”
“What do you mean?” Tarn’s eyes narrowed as Elsa walked up to him.
“Means I’d have a hard time working for somebody like her if you couldn’t handle her.”
“Why?”
“Because then this would be really awkward.” Elsa grabbed the back of Tarn’s neck and pulled him in to meet her lips for a crushing kiss. She backed away and let him go, then smiled. “Thanks for helping me out.”
Tarn shook his head and spoke around his grin, “Anytime. You want to try wrestling with a megasaur next? Tough fight but I’m willing to risk it for the reward.”
“Maybe later,” Elsa said with a chuckle. “Right now we’ve got to see what’s going on. If this asshole took out one of my friends then he hasn’t made it back to the mound. We might still have a chance of protecting Treetown.”
Tarn grunted. “Yeah, you’re right. Lousy timing.”
Elsa winked at him. “There’ll be time enough later, I promise. We just need to stay alive.”
Tarn nodded. “Come on, let’s get going. Any more time with you in the bush and my pants won’t fit me.”
“What bush?” Elsa asked, her eyes daring his to drop. One of the many benefits of modern technology that she’d never have the opportunity to use again if she changed her mind: local genetic depilation.
Tarn’s eyes fell as predicted, then rose back up to meet her. He tried to scowl but failed. “No grass on a playground,” he offered.
Elsa had to use her hand to muffle her laugh.
Chapter 13
Kira slipped across the top of the ridge, moving over the rocks like a shadow cast from a cloud. The sky was pure blue but those beneath her were oblivious to her passage. They’d come down from the apex of the pass over the ravine to the first wide spot they could use as a reconnaissance post. Kira’d spotted the two humans earlier and trailed after, making sure nothing else was tracking them.
“They’re not searching for us anymore,” Tarn said in the lowest tone his voice would go.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Elsa whispered back. “Unless we beat the new breeds here. Even then, why would they just give up?”
“They’re animals. They ain’t known for doing much more than eating and shitting, even if Kira thinks there queen’s got some smarts.”
Elsa frowned. The spitters that she’d run into, the four legged kind, had shown some cunning and animal intelligence but that was it. The hybrids, on the other hand, seemed like a different species. They looked different and they appeared to think for themselves. “They just gave up?”
Tarn shrugged. “Why not? Just like hunting one of the grass eaters on that plateau you crossed. When they know we’re there they run but a minute or two after they don’t see us they forget all about us. These things took longer, that’s all.”
“Maybe,” Elsa admitted, watching the distant movement and occasional activity as the spitters patrolled the plains looking for food. “Doesn’t mean they won’t remember us if their scouts make it back.”
“Yeah, and what about Fiona and Kira?” Tarn shifted to give himself a better vantage point over the rocks they crouched behind. Elsa opened her mouth to respond but stopped. She lifted her head and sniffed the air,
flaring her nostrils. “One of them’s near us,” Elsa said. “I can feel them.”
“You can feel them?” Tarn turned his scowl on her. “You drink the same—”
Elsa turned around, not surprised in the least that Tarn had stopped. Kira stood there, a spear in her hand that looked nothing like any of the other spears she’d seen before. The woman was streaked with dirt naturally, rather than an intentional painting of dye and mud to camouflage her skin. She also had a sack peeking out from where it was tied to her back.
“You smell better,” Kira observed.
“Tarn made me take a bath.”
Kira’s eyes narrowed briefly, then she glanced beyond them towards the plains below. “They’re oblivious to what’s happened.”
“What’s happened?” Tarn asked her.
“The new breed. They’re intelligent. The one I went after laid a trap for me. What of Fiona, have you seen her?”
“No idea. It got dark so Fiona sent me back to warn the others to be ready to evacuate. I ran into some problems and it took me until the next morning to deliver my message.”
Tarn snorted, then glanced down the ravine. They were at least a quarter mile away from the edge of the plains and nothing moved in the pass below them. “She had a spider-monkey tear a hole in her gut then she wrestled a big prowler and reached down its mouth to tear out its throat!”
Kira walked closer to Elsa, her nostrils flaring when she came close and knelt before her so they were the same height. She reached out, her fingers brushing over the crusty skin on Elsa’s stomach. Her hand slid up to the another rippled section of skin over Kira’s ribs before she looked at Elsa’s shoulder, where only a pink scar remained.
“It’s mostly healed, I pulled the stitches out on our way here. There are stitches on the inside but they’ll be absorbed.”
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