by Juno Wells
Satisfied that I'm a boulder, the tyg takes off again. And I draw Hoyre out of her scabbard and slice the little insect out of the air before it can land on Dakota. This is one reason I haven't insisted she take her large suit off – less area for a tyg to land on.
But hopefully this is the only tyg we'll meet. There aren't too many of them. Most of them sting rocks or sand. They're not too smart.
7
- Dakota -
Suddenly he freezes for a long time and then he suddenly lunges at me with his sword and slashes it through the air. I squeal in shock and fear and stumble backwards. Has he gone crazy?
He bends over and picks up something I can't even see. I squint as he shows it to me. Is it a mosquito of some kind? Or half a mosquito, neatly cut in half.
My jaw drops. In the space marines, we're not allowed to use guns on airless moons with low gravity because for some reason more marines die from friendly fire than from enemy action in those battles. And swords work just fine against most aliens anyway. So I have some experience with swords. And this, slicing a tiny mosquito in half using a sword that has to be eight feet long, in a single swing, should not be even remotely possible. But I'm looking at the evidence. Exactly half a mosquito rests on his fingertip.
“Tyg,” he says. “Dangerous being. Poison, murder.”
I sigh. “And probably there are swarms of these things all over the place? I'm just guessing.”
He frowns as if trying to find the right words. “No swarms. Only ... some.”
“Some swarms?” For some reason I can't let go of the idea that there have to be swarms of super deadly insects on this deadly planet.
“Some tyg,” he says and drops the dead insect to the ground. Then he walks a few steps away and stops. The suns are definitely setting, because our shadows stretch to the horizon.
He gets his swords and unscrews their hilts where it looks like he keeps a whole lot of stuff. Well, it's not like he can keep much in his kilt. Except the most interesting thing, of course.
I lift my helmet to my face and take a sip of its nutritional gel that also contains some mild pharmaceuticals that can help in combat. I'm not in combat right now, but I do feel nervous. And still horny.
“So,” I say slowly to make sure he understands, “how will I get home from here?”
He glances at me, then continues whatever he's doing with those swords. “Will get home.”
“Okay, but how? And when?”
“Will get home.”
“Uh-huh.”
He's not being generous with information, but even I can see that there's not much he can do right here and now. The ship crashed and was then eaten by that horrific gursh. And I highly doubt he's keeping a spaceship inside those swords.
But he's building something out of them. One of them lies flat on the sand, and the other stands straight up in the middle of it. Is it the skeleton of a tent or something? Probably not a bad idea.
I look around as he finishes up his project. One sun has set and the two others are right behind it. It doesn't look like there are any suns that are rising, so maybe the night will be cooler, a kind of respite from the intense heat and light of the suns. I'm soaked in sweat, and the gel in the helmet probably can't prevent some degree of dehydration. But I'm not in danger yet. Space marines can take a lot. Our informal motto is 'embrace the suck', which tells you pretty much all you need to know about the mindset most of us have.
But standing still is nice, too. Gah, Brenaxx is totally hot even putting together swords and wire. His muscles move under his spectacular skin, and he seems to be totally in control whatever he does.
The third sun sinks fast below the horizon and it suddenly gets pretty dark. I don't like being alone here, so I saunter casually over to him. “What are you making?”
He's fastening wires to the lower sword. “Signal.”
I guess those swords are more than meet the eye. Maybe the upright one is an antenna. “So they'll form some kind of radio?”
“Some kind of signal,” he says and stands back from his work. It's pretty simple. One long sword lies flat, the other is upright halfway along the length of the lower one, like an upside-down T. It doesn't look like any signal device I've ever seen. But he's a pirate. I'm sure he knows what he's doing.
He looks at me and puts his hands over his ears, as if he wants me to do that, too. I guess this signal could get loud.
He grabs the wire that he has attached to the lower sword and pulls it with one hand, while the other holds the upright sword down. Both ends of the sword lying flat on the ground are pulled up, but not very far. I can see his muscles strain. That sword has to be hard to bend at all, but he does it.
Then he lets go and the two ends slam into the sand and make a twaaaaangggg that makes the ground shake. I gasp for air. Even with my hands over my ears, that sound knocked the wind out of me and rattled me to the core.
So it's that kind of signal. Just sound.
He does it three times. Three resounding twangs that feel like they set the whole planet in motion. I know that some African tribes used to communicate using drums in the jungle, and maybe this is a variety of that method.
“Did you call for a ride?”
He scratches his chin as if he's considering it. “Not ride. Other.”
Fine. Anything is better than this ridiculous and lethal desert.
He disassembles the signaling device he built and still keeps his swords in his hands.
“Expecting trouble?”
I can hardly see his face in this darkness. “Trouble always.”
“I know, right?” I say, happy that we seem to see things the same way. That's the way it seems to me, too. But I still worry. He's definitely expecting something.
The air is much cooler now, and I breathe more freely. The darkness is nice, too. I don't think I got a sunburn, so maybe the suns don't give off that much ultraviolet radiation. The balmy air and the after effects of the sunlight make my girly bits pretty receptive to interesting thoughts.
Or maybe it's just his presence. Even in the darkness and with my back turned to him, I can feel him. What would he say if I just stripped naked and went over and stuck my hand up his kilt? Would he slice my head off, or would he be willing to indulge? I mean, the sand is probably not the ideal place for tha-
Shit. I can hear a sound. Like a jet fighter coming in low. And fast. Fear grips me. That can only mean ...
“Gursh,” Brenaxx says, and there is satisfaction in his voice.
I get a sinking feeling in my stomach. “Gursh? That's who you were signaling?”
“Signal gursh. Seh.”
In the darkness I can barely make out that he's pointing. I follow his finger, and yep. There's a glow on the sand a couple of miles distant. A yellow glow that does seem like it's growing bigger fast. That's where the sound is coming from, too.
“You called a gursh to come here? It is some kind of suicide?”
I can feel more than see that Brenaxx is frowning. “Not suicide. Desert night is suicide for Dakota.”
Uh-huh. The night doesn't seem so bad to me. Better than the day so far.
“What the hell do we do?”
“Dakota do nothing. Dakota stay very still. Watch Brenaxx.”
That's what I was planning anyway, so it suits me fine. The glow is coming closer. It lights up the desert and I can see that it's the fin again. It cuts through the sand and there's fire at its base. I guess that makes sense. At the speed it's moving, the friction against the sand has to be tremendous.
Brenaxx pushes me gently out of the way and takes up a stance where he's holding his long swords straight out to either side. Then he starts spinning on the sand, rotating in place and looking so much like a helicopter I really think he's going to take off and fly to safety, leaving me as some kind of snack for the gursh.
To my relief I can see that he's not flying. But he's spinning like a top on the sand, and the gursh fin is getting closer fast. It's the
size of a sail on one of those big, wooden ships and it sure looks like it's melting the sand it's passing through and leaving a track of glowing glass behind it.
It's going straight for Brenaxx, and I clamp my hands over my ears again. The noise is just too much to take, like a thousand fighter jets passing over me at the same time.
There's the bulge in the sand. The gursh is preparing to surface. I take many short steps back. I've never seen anything scarier than this. Except Brenaxx himself, of course, back at the battlefield.
And suddenly the night is as bright as day as the hellish mouth comes out of the sand with its multitude of metal teeth and yellow flames and long, thin tentacles.
Brenaxx still spins in place, and the sand is shifting underneath him as the gursh comes closer. He keeps his balance and seems to accept that he's going to die.
Then the gursh just stops.
Its mouth is ten feet from Brenaxx, and the tentacles are waving around in the air in a way that looks like it's confused. The sudden silence is deafening and the smell of burning sand overwhelms my nose.
A shockwave of heat hits me, and I realize that the gursh's mouth is hotter than a furnace. And Brenaxx is almost inside it.
He stops spinning and rams both swords into the sand in front of the gursh, then calmly walks over to me. His eyes are sparkling again.
“Dakota safe.”
I look past him at the gursh. It's just a huge mouth of all kinds of nastiness. “Um ... are you sure?”
He takes my hand, and I like the touch. It's our first skin-on-skin that has not been me punching him or him holding me tight, and his hand is warm and callused and dry.
“Brenaxx sure.” He leads me closer to the gursh, and I reluctantly follow, making sure to keep him between me and it. I had no idea sand would smell like this when it burns. There's still a wide track of glowing glass where it came from. The fin stands straight up from the sand further back, and I don't even want to guess how long this gursh really is. It sure looks a lot like a giant snake. It has no eyes, though, and the skin doesn't appear to consist of scales. It's smooth and dark and metallic, and it has that colorful swirling pattern that adorns Brenaxx' skin, too.
As we get closer, I realize that its mouth isn't radiating heat that much anymore. If it did, I'd be fried on the spot. It has cooled down a lot, seems like. The mouth part of it is still lying on the sand, and the tentacles aren't moving that much anymore.
I resist getting any closer. “What are you planning here?”
Brenaxx lets me keep my distance to the gursh. “Dakota will see. Must be kept safe.”
"Uh-huh?" I nod eagerly. I absolutely agree, but safety and getting close to an alien snake the size of a 747 seem to me to be exactly opposite things.
Brenaxx lets go of my hand and walks closer to the gursh. If it were pretty much any other male, I'd think it was just posturing, as in saying 'check out how brave I am'. But with him, I don't get that vibe. It's like he's doing something he's done many times before. He's matter-of-fact about it, not look-at-me. He's as excited about this as if he were just tying his shoelaces. Maybe it really is safe.
Then he walks right into the gursh's mouth.
8
- Dakota -
I put my hand in front of my mouth to stifle a shocked yelp. He's walking into the huge snake's mouth as if he's just strolling down the street. Inside the mouth the flames have gone out, but there's still a pulsating glow in there. The giant mass of sharp teeth is nowhere to be seen, I now realize. The tentacles are gone, too. The gursh's mouth looks most of all like a cave.
A pretty cozy cave, I have to admit. It smells nice, too. Spicy and fresh, somehow. It's actually pretty inviting. If you ignore the fact that it's a giant snake and nothing else.
Brenaxx is clearly ignoring it. He sits down inside the gursh's mouth and calmly leans his back at one wall of the gursh's mouth.
I'd like to sit down myself, actually. I haven't noticed how tired I am before now. It's been a long day, with battles and being kidnapped and crashing and gursh. But it seems to me that making yourself at home inside the mouth of a creature that ate your whole spaceship just a couple of hours ago is pretty far down the list of things you want to try if you enjoy being alive.
Well, I kind enjoy being alive. As far as I remember, anyway. So I sit down on the sand with my legs crossed, a respectful distance away from the gursh and behind the swords that Brenaxx has left standing in the sand.
It's absolutely getting colder. My fingers feel stiff and my ears are stinging. Well, that can be remedied. It's my battle suit's time to shine. It can cope with empty space, so a little cold shouldn't be a problem.
I put the helmet and gloves back on and activate some of the systems. This thing will run a long time on its battery.
I take a sip from the built-on straw to make the experience complete. Ah. That's better.
The visor displays some environmental data to my eyes. Air, fine. Pressure, fine. Temperature – ah. Sixty below and falling fast. I shrug. The suit can handle absolute zero. Radiation level -
"Fuck!"
Before I know it I'm back on my feet, and panic is tugging at my mind. That reading can't be right. It's right at the limit for what strength of radiation the suit can protect me from, and it's rising very fast.
It's showing me the direction the radiation is coming from. Right behind me.
I whirl around. "Oh, you've gotta be kidding me."
A new sun has risen in the sky, and it's not too bright. But I can see that it's sending out two giant jet streams of light and radiation into space from both its poles, and that can't be good news. That's a total monster star.
And then Brenaxx is there beside me. Again he effortlessly lifts me onto his shoulder and carries me towards the gursh. I pound his back with my fists, but it's more a pride thing than that I want him to put me down. Because if I have to choose between two monsters, I'll pick the one that isn't showering me with hard x-rays.
He puts me down on my feet, so gently I hardly notice. Inside the gursh's mouth, the radiation level settles to normal. The temperature too. And the air.
I take my helmet off again now that I'm inside.
Inside the gursh.
“Dakota lives life of danger,” Brenaxx growls. “Enjoys star that kills.”
“You could have told me,” I protest. “How should I know this planet has a damn black hole as its neighbor?”
“Now Dakota safe.” He sits down again.
I look around. For a mouth of a huge desert snake that leaves a band of molten glass in its wake, this is pretty nice. The tissue I'm walking on feels supportive, and the teeth and flames and tentacles are gone. I prod the side of the mouth, which looks like smooth rock but has a little give. It pulsates calmly in orange. Across from the mouth is a glowing tunnel that's probably the monster's esophagus and I don't want to think any more about that.
“So is this thing dead?”
“Not dead,” Brenaxx says. “Stunned.”
I sit down too. There's only one good place, and it's beside him. That's fine with me. I feel safer when he's right there.
I take some deep breaths, just calming down. So much insane stuff has happened today. And it can all be summed up with me being this pirate's booty.
I glance up at him. He's looking absentmindedly out of the gursh's mouth. He has the strongest jaw I think I've seen.
Shit. He made this enormous monster just stop in its tracks. Like he commanded it. Just by swirling around with his huge swords. And now he's sitting here, inside it, not making a big production out of it. I've known guys that would make more of a spectacle out of just successfully going to the bathroom.
He looks down at me and smiles, just calmly. “Dakota safe,” he repeat and pats my knee.
But I'm not worried about that right now. Actually, I'm not worried about anything. I probably should be. But it's as if this huge alien warrior slash pirate radiates safety like that black hole in the sky radia
tes stuff that would have killed me stone dead if I'd stayed out there for thirty seconds more.
He saved my life.
When I think about it, he probably saved my life when we crashed too. He held me so tightly I didn't tumble around inside that spaceship. And, putting my space marine pride aside for the moment, probably I'd be dead now if he hadn't abducted me in the first place. I'm pretty sure he was going to kill me, and then he changed his mind when I used the taser on him. Did that turn him on, somehow?
I scratch my head. My hair is drying after being a sweaty mess outside in the desert, and I wish I had somewhere to go to do something about it. I want to be pretty for him.
Damn it. Did I just think that? Like a star-struck teen? But it's true. I may be a space marine. But I'm also a girl in my early twenties, and this guy appeals to that part of me so much I have trouble thinking straight. Now that I'm safe – stars, the space marine in me wants to laugh out loud at that idea – I can allow more impulses to come to the forefront than just fear and survival. And one impulse stands out high above all the other ones.
This guy saved me. Several times. He's the toughest guy I've seen. He's totally hot. He smells divine. He's so alien and mysterious my head is spinning. I saw what he's packing. That telt he kept pitching in his kilt was huge. I can't stop thinking about it.
And he's right here beside me.
This might be my last chance. Tomorrow I may die on this lethal planet.
I unclasp the front of the space suit and shimmy out of it until I'm sitting there in my sports bra and non-matching granny panties. I would have worn lace if I knew this would happen, and I'm trusting him to get that.
He's not staring at me, but I can tell he's paying attention.
I arch my back to make my boobs stand out, place my hand on one massive forearm and look straight into his luminous eyes. “I want to fuck.”
Hey, space marines are known for their poor impulse control.
9
- Dakota -
So I guess now I'm just throwing myself at alien abductors. I'm half shocked at my own actions and half excited.