by Eric Vall
My panting and racing heart were overly loud in my ears as I put my head down and ran away from the roaring Malogs like my life depended on it because it kind of really did.
There was a sudden burst of static in my ear. “Colby, where are you going?!” Omni exclaimed. “You can’t outrun those things. Together, they have ten more legs than you do!”
“I… know,” I gasped out, but I kept going. I glanced over my shoulder to see the path of crushed grass and flaring lights I left in my wake. The female Malog seemed to have forgone stealth entirely and raced down the trail I had made after me, snarling for my death. The male was still missing. I turned to face forward again and really buckled down.
The AI was right though. I couldn’t outrun the Malogs. My lungs were already about to burst. I needed a plan.
Right. Now.
“Omni,” I panted. “Is my GPS locator online?”
“Of course, Colby,” the AI instantly responded. “It always--”
“Great,” I cut him off. “What’s… the proximity range… on the reader?”
Part of our comms system was a built-in GPS for each crew member, and each crew member had a proximity reader. The reader worked kind of like sonar. Within a certain range, it could tell me if there was a living, bio-organism nearby. The technology had originally been invented so Terra-Nebula scientists could find and catalog new species on recently colonized planets. After the Corporations gained more power and more enemies, the proximity reader was adapted as a preliminary warning system for hostile situations.
I think this situation was as hostile as it could get.
“It’s typically about thirty meters,” Omni replied, “but with your distance from the ship and atmospheric interference from the wormholes in this star system, it’s drastically reduced.”
“What’s… the damn distance, O?” I panted out. “Give me… the numbers.”
I was really gasping now. My lungs were at the end of their rope. This was it.
“Five to ten meters, give or take. Colby, what are you planning?”
I didn’t bother responding to the AI. Instead, I put on one last burst of speed, just to give hopefully give me a few extra seconds, before I wheeled around and planted my feet shoulder width apart, the spear hefted high over my right shoulder. My chest heaved in and out in great gulps of air, and my hand shook slightly from the adrenaline.
“O, I’m going to need your help,” I wheezed.
“Whatever you need, Colby,” the AI promised solemnly.
The injured female still raced down the strip of flattened grass toward me, her snarling face a mask of rage and a promise of a painful, agonizing end if she caught up to me. She was closing the distance rapidly, fifty meters, forty, thirty-five…
“I need you to tell me when and where the male Malog trips my proximity reader,” I instructed Omni. “He’s most likely arcing around right now to come up behind me. I need you to be as fast and as accurate as you can, O, understand me?”
“To err is human,” the AI repeated himself from earlier, but he wasn’t teasing me this time. He was reminding me that, for all his idiosyncrasies, Omni was still an AI. Fast and accurate numbers were built into his code.
“Thanks, buddy,” I said as I took a deep breath. The female was only fifteen meters away now. I could see her gnashing teeth, could feel the reverberations as her feet struck the ground.
I closed my eyes for just an instant.
“Listen, if I don’t make it through this, tell Neka and Akela--”
“Tell them yourself,” Omni cut me off. “And get ready! You will not die here, Colby Tower.”
The surety in the AI’s voice, even if it was synthetic, gave me the confidence boost I needed.
I would not die here.
I took a deep breath, squared my shoulders, and snapped open my eyes.
The female was five meters in front of me. I could see myself reflected, small and pale, in her flat, black eyes. I could nearly feel the hot stink of her breath.
I watched as if in slow motion as she bunched her legs underneath herself, opened her jaw as if to swallow me whole, and launched herself into the air.
The air exploded out of me in a grunt of effort as I hurled my spear with all my might.
The projectile sang as it cut through the air, a piercing whistle, and between one breath and the next, the spear struck true and impaled the female Malog straight through her gaping maw.
The Malog gave a half-strangled yelp as she died, and she slammed into the ground barely two meters in front of me. The monster skidded a handful of centimeters and twitched as her brain cells turned to slush around the embedded tip of the spearhead. Finally, she gave one last jerk, one last gout of blood, and then she was still, the spear shoved halfway down her throat.
I stared wide-eyed and disbelieving at the carcass at my feet.
“Holy shit,” I gasped. “I… I did it.”
A crackle of static in my ear pulled me out of my astonishment.
“You’re not done yet, Colby,” Omni declared, and there was a sense of urgency to his artificial voice. “The male is still out there. He hasn’t appeared on my sensors but--”
Before he could finish, a ground-shaking roar split the air, and it seemed to come from every direction. It echoed with rage and pain and, seeing as I just murdered one of a mated pair, perhaps heartbreak.
None of these things boded well for me.
Heart pounding, I stooped down and tried to tug the hilt of the spear back toward me, but it stuck fast in the Malog’s body. I wrenched once, twice, but it was firmly lodged in the base of her skull or spine.
“Fuuuuuuck,” I groaned as I abandoned the futile task. I looked down at the dagger in my other hand. The dark gray X’ebril blade was stained an oily blue-black from the Malog’s blood when I had scored her snout. The weapon felt paltry in comparison to the spear and to the male’s fury that permeated the surrounding grasslands, but I had made do with worse.
I was almost positive my ribs were broken, each breath felt like a knife in my side. My head pounded, both from adrenaline and from my head smacking into the ground when the female tackled me. But all the same, I clenched my fist around the hilt of the dagger and prepared myself for round two.
“Colby,” Omni intoned in my ear. “I’m receiving flickers of movement on your right-hand side. However, it seems he keeps moving in and out range because I cannot get a fix on him.”
I looked off to the right. The grass stretched for kilometers in every direction, swaying gently in the breeze, unbroken save for the trampled path of chaos I had carved out to arrive here.
Nothing signaled that death stalked me from the shadows.
“What’s the plan, Colby?” Omni asked me.
I chuckled dryly, tired to the bone. “Survive, O. I just gotta survive.”
“While that sounds very poetic and noble, I was thinking more along the lines of specifics?”
I sighed and wiped the blood off the dagger on the hem of my coat, but before I could respond, a soft snarl snaked through the grass toward me from my right-hand side.
Static hissed in my ear, but before Omni could say a word, I muttered, “I got it, O.”
As I said that, I slid into a defensive crouch one last time, dagger extended perpendicular to my body, and waited for the last Malog to make his final move.
I didn’t have to wait long.
It seemed with the death of his mate, the male was finished with stealth and surprise attacks. He glided out of the grass ten meters away like a specter made of scales and teeth. When he caught sight of me, his jaw slowly opened, saliva dripping from his muzzle down onto his taloned feet. A growling hiss issued from behind his teeth and as it went on and on and on, deep from in his chest, the scales along his shoulders began to rattle, a dry, rustling sound.
As I watched, the scales started to expand. The tendril-like strands I had noted before straightened out into a framework of spines that connected the broader plat
es until the whole network flared out around his neck like a halo half a meter wide. And as the mane of scales grew, I was shocked to see lights flickering along the spines. They danced from scale to scale, sparks of blue and green and darkest purple, and I found myself just as mesmerized as Akela had been as her fingers darted in between blades of grass at the refinery.
It seemed the Malog hoarded the bioluminescent gene for themselves.
Akela would find this so fascinating.
I thought of her face again, of Neka’s.
I would not die here.
I bared my teeth in return at the Malog and brandished my meager blade. “Come on,” I snarled. “Bring that pretty face over here.”
Every part of my body had started to ache. The adrenaline was fading. This was it. I had to make this moment count.
Just like when the female had attacked, when the male finally sprung, it was like it happened in slow motion. I watched the rear vestigial legs lower and the muscles clench along his broad frame. He had learned from his mate’s death. He didn’t launch through the air like she did. Instead, he used his powerful legs to thrust himself forward along the grass.
I let out a primal scream and charged him in return.
His cone-shaped head arrowed straight toward me, his teeth looked like white daggers twice as large as the knife in my hand. When he was within reach, he lashed out with his front leg. His talon tore at my side before it caught on the edge of my hip bone. White-hot pain laced up my spine, all-consuming, almost enough to make me black out, but it didn’t matter.
Because as the Malog slashed at me, I had grabbed a hold of the edge of his mane and used my momentum to swing me up and around him. The scales sliced my palms to ribbons, but I held on until I landed forcefully on his back, the halo of flashing scales a kaleidoscope of color and light all around me. Before he had a chance to buck me off and continue to rip me to shreds, I raised my dagger high above my head and brought it down with all my strength into the now exposed and vulnerable base of his neck.
The Malog let out a choked gurgle and thrashed from side to side. I gritted my teeth and bore down harder with both hands, forcing the blade in all the way. The Malog’s black blood mixed with my own and made my fingers slide along the hilt of my blade, but I didn’t let go. I kept pushing and pushing and pushing until finally, the beast stopped fighting. He let out one last wet, hacking cough, and lights on every one of his scales flared brightly… before the breath left him in a great whoosh, the lights went out, and he collapsed to the ground, taking me with him.
My leg twisted under the Malog awkwardly as he fell, and I cried out as his weight nearly crushed my knee. I managed to flop out of the way before he tumbled over completely, but as I smacked into the ground once again, I nearly blacked out.
I lay there in the grass for a moment and tried to orient myself, tried to take stock.
I took a deep breath and let it out.
My ribs screamed in protest, my lungs felt flayed raw, but I was still breathing.
I was alive.
I did not die.
More than that, I’d fucking won.
I started to laugh, softly at first, but louder and louder until I couldn’t anymore, until I had to grab my side as I gasped with pain, and blood seeped through my fingers.
Static hissed in my ear. “I don’t see what is humorous about this situation,” Omni said. It sounded almost like he was pouting.
I grinned up at the lilac sky above me and licked the blood from my teeth, the taste of copper pennies on my tongue.
“You wouldn’t get it, O,” I rasped. “It’s a human thing.”
I couldn’t say how long I lay there in the grass. Time was meaningless when there was no concept of light and dark. After an indeterminable amount of time had passed, I managed to push myself into a seated position and scooted about a half a meter away from the Malog’s carcass. I looked down at where my hand pressed to my side and gingerly drew my fingers away.
The wound wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. My intestines weren’t falling out or anything. In fact, it seemed like my Odrine lined coat had caught the brunt of the Malog’s talon. It had still been sharp enough to pierce the fabric and tear a gash along my side from the top of my ribcage to the ridge of my hip bone, but the injury wasn’t very deep.
Seemed like Neka’s shopping skills might have saved my life.
She’d be incredibly pleased to hear that.
I shrugged off my coat as I sat there, and I tied the arms around me to put pressure on the wound. I hissed as the torn edges of my skin burned bright with pain, but I was able to breathe through it, albeit a little slowly.
I was even slower getting to my feet. The adrenaline had nearly faded completely now, the pain pulling at my limbs and eyelids. I needed to get back to the city as soon as possible.
When I was upright, I considered the carcass of the male Malog, but quickly decided against him as my prize. His body might be slightly closer to Ka’le, but he was at least fifteen kilograms heavier. I didn’t think I could physically haul him back.
“Do you think U’eh would believe me if I just told him I killed the Malog?” I joked to Omni as I limped the few meters over to the female’s carcass.
“I do not believe so, Colby.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so,” I sighed as I winced. Breathing really stung.
Now that I didn’t have the homicidal male on my ass, I was able to pry the spear out of the female’s gullet. With the spear free, I lumbered over to one of the small, scraggly scrub brushes that dotted the plains. They were barely more than bushes and barely peeked over the tall grass, but their branches were thick enough to make poles for a litter. I painstakingly stripped the two dry branches and when they were ready, I gingerly peeled off my coat and used it to lash the two branches together haphazardly.
Blood still flowed freely from my side so I knew it was a race against time now.
It took me a few tries, but I finally managed to roll the female Malog’s body onto my makeshift litter. I don’t know if my coat would hold up the entire trip back to Ka’le, but I didn’t have anything better. When everything was situated as much as it could be, I cast one last glance at the male Malog, felt a twinge at the waste of meat, but grabbed the poles of the litter regardless and began the slow drag and hobble back to the city.
The journey back was decidedly longer than the initial leaving. I felt like I had been walking for hours already, but Ka’le looked no closer. As I shuffled along, gasping, hoping I didn’t bleed out, a thought occurred to me.
“Hey, O?”
“Yes, Colby?”
“Do the girls know I made it?” I questioned hazily. The grasslands were beginning to sway around me and not from the breeze. I focused on putting one foot in front of the other.
Static crackled in my ear, and then the AI responded, “I thought you’d like to make a grand entrance, as you always do.”
“Always looking out for my image, buddy,” I laughed drowsily.
I looked up and suddenly Ka’le loomed above me, bright and beautiful. I smiled tiredly, and then I heard the drums.
This time they welcomed me, they beckoned me toward another great fire that burned along the outskirts of the city. I followed like a moth to flame, and when I got close enough to distinguish individual Almort shapes in the crowd, two voices split the air in unison.
“CT!” Neka and Akela cried. I glanced around the growing shadows for my crew but suddenly, my legs gave out beneath me.
I fell to my knees, the litter with the dead Malog abandoned behind me somewhere in the dark, and as I slumped forward onto the ground, the last thing I saw were the lights, flickering through the grass, blues and greens and darkest purples.
Chapter 17
I came to slowly, incrementally, like I was swimming through an endless sea of molasses. I felt so heavy that I was weightless, sinking or floating or both at the same time. The dark beckoned below me, warm and safe and vas
t, but I gradually became aware of a light ahead. It was soft and purple, bright but beautiful, and a voice softly called my name from its depths. I swam toward it, centimeters at a time. It felt both an eternity and an instant before I rose to the surface of consciousness and slowly blinked open my eyes.
My vision was a mess of silver and purple. It disoriented me until my eyes came into focus, and Akela leaned back a fraction. The mechanic loomed over me and when she met my bleary gaze, I realized her eyes were the same shade of violet that had called to me from the darkness.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” Akela whispered as she smiled softly down at me. “I mean really, how much beauty sleep do you need?”
Although her words and smile were teasing, her eyes shone with nothing but relief and something… deeper. My heart fluttered in response.
“Can you blame me?” I rasped in reply. “It’s not always that I get to wake up to something so beautiful.”
My tongue felt loose and free in my mouth, uninhibited. Actually, I felt pretty good all over, and that meant I was on some pretty decent drugs. A distant part of me wondered if I should be embarrassed by what I just said to Akela, but the mechanic flushed so prettily, I couldn’t find an ounce of regret in me.
“How do you feel?” the silver-haired woman asked quietly as she changed the subject.
“Good,” I responded and then giggled. Yup, giggled. I was so high. “Real good, actually. Do you know what they gave me?”
Akela shrugged and then sat back a little farther. I craned my neck to follow her and realized I lied in an unfamiliar bed that was low to the floor, set in an unfamiliar room. Akela sat to my left on a pile of cushions, and on my right side sprawled Neka, her head tucked against my uninjured side, and her body stretched out over her own mountain of pillows.
“Neka was the one to ask about every single thing they gave you,” Akela answered my question in a whisper. “She never left your side, even for a single moment.”