But he was close. Closer than she was. Sure, blowing off the tail was spectacular and probably painful, but she’d been aiming for the marling thing’s head, the one area that was bound to be fatal no matter how the beast was put together. Not that she’d ever admit that to Tripp—but it was why she got into a low crouch, darted over to him, and tugged on his coat. “Trade guns,” she said. “I’m going to go tend the ’bot.” Which sounded better than “I can’t manage this thing” and besides, someone did need to guide the ’bot if possible. The sooner they finished, the sooner they could go.
He glanced away from his target, opened his mouth to say something—
—the creature took a mighty leap, soaring higher than Tripp’s head—and far enough forward that it looked like it might manage to land on them. Simultaneously, they turned their weapons upward and shot.
Sarr’ma didn’t bother aiming except to make sure she wasn’t going to hit Tripp no matter how off-balance she got. She didn’t even look when a high-pitched shriek and a bloody mist told her she, Tripp, or probably both had hit their target. She tossed the laserpack aside, grabbed Tripp, and tossed him aside, twisting and leaping with the movement to follow him.
Even while they were both hitting the ground and rolling, she realized she couldn’t have been able to do that. Martial arts training was one thing, but she’d just defied physics, moving someone twice her mass from a standstill. Adrenaline or something. She was going to hurt all over later.
She’d look forward to it. It would mean she was alive.
“Only problem is,” Tripp muttered, wheezing like he’d had the wind knocked out of him, “you threw us one way and the big gun the other.”
“Complain, complain.” Granted, he had something to complain about, but she’d been busy making sure they didn’t both die.
But since nothing had started eating them yet, and since now that the adrenaline high was fading, she noticed the blood and bits of gooey greenish-black meat splattering her and Tripp, maybe it would be all right.
Gingerly, she raised herself up on one arm.
The monster sprawled on the ground, its quills limp. Laser and blaster wounds self-cauterized to some extent, so the blood and random innards splattered around it—and on her and Tripp, for that matter—were a good sign. She couldn’t tell if it was breathing, but it sure as starlight wasn’t moving.
The smart thing to do would be to get Tripp to try and blow the thing’s head off. His blaster was smaller, but at this range, and with the creature not moving, he should be able to remove a good chunk.
But all her instincts screamed something else.
Finish it. Wear its blood. Claim the kill.
Share the blood with her mate.
Engineer-Sarr’ma was screaming at Predator-Sarr’ma to stay put and deliver the killing blow from a distance like a sane person. And while she was at it, shut up about mates, which was clearly brain-candy born of endorphins.
And while she ranted, Predator-Sarr’ma rolled away from Tripp and slithered on her belly toward what even her ancestral instincts hoped was a corpse.
“What the…”
She turned, still on her belly and mouthed “Shh,” hoping he’d figure out what she meant.
Then she crawled close enough that she could have stretched out her arm and touched the thing.
Instead, she lay still, scarcely breathing, and watched.
She smelled organ meat, raw and cooked, and bile, and something that didn’t smell like any blood she’d encountered before, but must be the sticky, bright green fluid that splattered her and the ground. The creature’s lizardlike yellow eyes were open, unblinking, but not yet glassy.
It was breathing—shallow, rattling breaths that wouldn’t continue for much longer, but breaths nonetheless.
It would die on its own soon, or Tripp could finish it easily enough. Stars, she could. Her shooting needed work, but she couldn’t miss a stationery target the size of that thing’s head. She hoped, anyway. Lying down, its quills pressed close to its body, dying, it didn’t look as huge as it had in menacing motion, but it was at least three meters long and probably came up to her shoulder.
But even as she thought that, she was rolling to her feet, extending her claws.
Its eyes flicked toward her as she approached, but it didn’t move otherwise.
She had no idea how intelligent it was, but in those yellow-green eyes, she read pain and acceptance, and something less a plea for mercy than an impatient Come on, get it over with. It was a predator. It wouldn’t understand mercy, but would appreciate a clean death.
It would help if she knew where the thing’s jugular vein equivalent was.
Then she knew or at least her body thought it did, and her claws slashed at the leathery skin of its neck.
The first strike wasn’t deep enough and the animal opened and closed its mouth, wanting to attack or roar, but lacking the strength. On the second strike, she found the spot she needed. Green blood geysered out, drenching her, drenching the sand.
She stepped back, punched her bloody hand up to the sun, and let out a roar she hadn’t known, until that moment, her vocal chords could produce.
The animal made a surprisingly small noise and the light went out it in its eyes.
She turned toward Tripp, who was on his feet, frozen halfway between the spot he’d fallen and the monster. Go to him, her instincts prodded her. It’s his kill too. Share the blood with him. Then take him as your mate.
Her whole body buzzed with endorphins. Her tail arched over her back as if she expected Tripp to take her from behind any second. She raised her bloody hand toward her lips.
“Don’t!” Tripp cried out.
Logic crashed over her. For all she knew, the blood might be toxic. They were lucky it wasn’t causing blisters on contact, and they should probably clean it off as best they could as soon as possible—without getting it in the ocean, because who knew what it might attract. Speaking of attract, they should move as far as possible away from the corpse. Scavengers could be dangerous.
Also speaking of attract, Tripp was not her mate, thankyouverymuch. And if she wanted to attract him, which, good idea or not, she did, smearing him with blood wasn’t a good plan. “Let’s get out of here,” she said, surprised by how shaky her voice sounded.
Then she dropped to her knees and barfed.
Tripp was at her side in a second, one hand on her shoulder, the other holding her hair back as if vomit might not be an improvement over what was already there. “We did it,” he murmured. “We did it. And we’ll get the compass too. Your ’bot’s great.”
His too-soothing voice crashed through the haze in her brain. Marling stars, what was she doing? Vomiting over a little blood like…like some fluffy-brained female who’d never seen it before. Someone from a species that evolved from herd animals. He couldn’t see her like this. What if he liked it? She’d watched enough romance holos to know males of other species sometimes found fragile, fluffy females appealing.
Not going to risk that. Tripp had to like the real her—all of her. She forced herself up onto her knees, pushing him away in the process, and spat. “Hairball. Happens sometimes. Nothing to worry about.” She glanced down, then over at Tripp. Great Cat Mother, she wanted to rinse her mouth and get clean, and make sure Tripp did as well. Bathing in the blood of your enemies was all very well in theory, but in practice it was disgusting, at least if your enemy was of dubious edibility and stank. “And of course the ’bot is great. I rebuilt it. Now let’s see how it’s doing. The sooner we get out of here, the sooner I can bathe—which right at the moment sounds more important than winning the marling race.” She started to stand. Good. Slightly shaky, but good overall.
Tripp grabbed her arm. “No shame. A bad hairball’s a nasty thing.”
She met his eyes, planning to make a joke.
Heat surged through her at the sight, at the crazy mixture of emotions in his dark eyes. He was bloody himself, and splashed with her
vomit in a few spots, and a chunk of some green, veiny organ was stuck in his hair. And she’d do him in a heartbeat, though she wouldn’t kiss him until she’d brushed her teeth. A girl had to have standards even when struck with that mating urge to merge and still high from the kill.
No denying it. Tripp must be her mate, for better or worse.
Probably for worse. He was human, and humans had partners, not mates. They were paired in a race and couldn’t afford the craziness and distraction of a new mating. They were from different galaxies. And to top it off, he’d seen her tear out the throat of an immense alien beast and bathe in its blood in a primal fight/mate fugue state. Might impress a guy of her own species—violence and sex were closely linked—but she didn’t imagine it worked on a human.
Especially when her inner nashbet culminated the moment by puking.
Only one thing to do then: pretend the mating urge wasn’t happening, finish the challenge, take a bath, and then figure out exactly how bad an idea it was to have a hot intergalactic fling with the man who, by rights, she should spend the rest of her life creating havoc with.
Probably bad on an epic scale, but she’d take that chance.
“Let’s go.” Good, she managed to sound both perky and decisive, even if she was feeling neither. “My ’bot’s good, but it’s been alone way too long.”
Tripp cleared his throat. Looking away, a sheepish expression on his face, he muttered, “There’s a little problem with the ’bot.”
She glared. “There’s a problem with my ’bot and you didn’t tell me?” At least having something else to worry about snapped her out of all kinds of inappropriate thoughts.
A sheepish smile. “Your ’bot’s fine. I got it to stop before the minefield.” He pulled the com from his jacket pocket. “Thank goodness, Sparky’s mapped the minefield for us.”
She grabbed the device from his hand. The AI had indeed drawn a map displaying the mines. “Easy-peasy bloxfruit squeezy! Thank you, Sparky!”
Assuming Sparky and the ’bot had found all the mines, and that they didn’t run into any other surprises underwater or vicious beasts on land, that was.
But that made it interesting. Otherwise it would be too much like one of those boring holo games.
*
As Sarr’ma predicted, getting the ’bot through the minefield was easy-peasy bloxfruit squeezy. (What the stars was a bloxfruit anyway?) Then the ’bot reached the ship and it stopped being easy-peasy any-kind-of-fruit squeezy.
For one thing, the wrecked vessel was cruiser size and half buried in sand and silt. No idea where to start looking. “I guess we have to begin at the top and work our way down,” he said with a sigh, guiding the ’bot into place.
“Sparky, pull up a schematic of the vessel!” Sarr’ma demanded. She was still scanning the perimeter—and occasionally the sky—for threats, but she was helping on the theory two brains were better than one, and the ’bot was her baby.
“Negative,” Sparky replied without hesitation. “If such a thing existed, it would not be accessible to contestants or to me. I can tell that if it does exist, it has not been made available on the public Universenet. My programming prevents me from accessing the file, but not searching for it.”
Sarr’ma must be rubbing off on the AI. He’d not only bent the rules, he’d done so on his own initiative. This was great in a way he’d take time to appreciate later. “Then how do we know the marling compass thing is even there?”
“A few similar vessels have been explored. They had such devices. There is an eighty percent chance this one does as well.
“On the bridge!” she exclaimed.”
Tripp glared at her, since she’d been the one urging quiet. “Sorry,” continued in a much softer voice, “but it has to be on the bridge. A compass is a navigation instrument. It’s part of the nav-sys these days, but there’s still a function called compass on groundbound vehicles and in-atmo flyers. Not much use in space because…” She put a hand almost but not quite over her mouth. She’d scrubbed them with sand and part of the water ration, but they weren’t exactly what you’d call clean. “Sorry. I’m such a nashbet sometimes. Anyway, it has to be on the bridge.”
“So, where do I start looking?”
“The bridge should be on the top level of the ship, in the front. These ships may be weird.”
“The configuration you describe is virtually universal in both ocean-going and space vessels,” Sparky said. “The spherical spaceships of Taulinar are an exception…”
“Thanks, Sparky but this isn’t spherical or a spaceship.” Tripp felt himself smiling. “I’m guessing the front of the vessel is the part that’s half buried, Luckily, the top isn’t.”
And a big enough hole had been blasted in appropriate spot to allow the ’bot entry without any drama.
He expected the interior to be pitch-dark and was adjusting the ’bot’s vid-settings as it slipped inside.
“It’s glowing,” Sarr’ma breathed reverently. “Like a memorial to the people who died aboard it.” She shrugged. “Or bioluminescent algae, which is more likely, if less romantic.”
By the ’bot’s own light and the algae’s patchy, eerie glow, Tripp guided the little machine upward and forward, or what he hoped damn well was upward and forward. At first he couldn’t identify the piles of debris that the ’bot was climbing over or going around. Then he got a good look at something long and white. “Bones,” he said. “Bones in uniform. That’s all that’s left of the crew.”
Sarr’ma squinted at the screen. “The way they’re scattered, something ate some of the bodies.” She glanced down at her blood-covered front and added quickly, “I’m sure it was scavengers. They must have been dead already.”
Tripp suppressed a shudder. Nothing was likely to eat the metal ’bot, but he kept expecting something to swim out of the shadows and devour it.
Nothing like that happened. Except for the creepy factor, guiding the ’bot through the ship reminded him of an interactive holo game, only less colorful. Boring in a tense way until the ’bot—and by extension, he and Sarr’ma—reached what had to be the bridge.
Here the skeletons were more intact, still draped in rags of uniforms, a few sitting at their stations, their bony hands still on instrument panels. Talk about upping the creepy factor.
He decided to guide the ’bot in circles, looking for something he wasn’t sure he could identify.
Luckily Sarr’ma and Sparky exclaimed “There!” at the same time.
“That’s the compass, mounted on the arm of the big chair…” Sarr’ma elaborated.
They had found their prize.
The next steps were excruciatingly fussy: examining the mounted instrument, instructing the ’bot to reconfigure itself with the appropriate tools, and finally guiding it to remove the compass from its mount. The mount was straightforward, thank the stars, but it had been underwater long enough for fasteners to be frozen in place and in some cases encrusted with small things that looked like a cross between seashells and teeth. Sparky identified them as barnacles, the carapaces of tiny colony-forming creatures that would grow on anything underwater, given time. They were, the AI added, generally harmless, but this species was unidentifiable, perhaps new to science.
At least if they did sting or secrete contact poison, they couldn’t do much to a ’bot.
Sarr’ma had thought to include grease and solvent in the ’bot’s tool kit, but that only helped so much underwater. Even Sparky couldn’t offer suggestions for dealing with barnacles other than prying them off and hoping not to pull anything important off with them.
By the time the compass was free and stowed inside the bot’s storage compartment—thank the stars it fit—dusk was falling. One moon, in crescent phase, was barely visible in the south. The other must still be below the horizon.
“Looks like we’ll get a great sunset.” Tripp pointed over the water, where the sun was sinking toward the horizon, already tinting the water spectacular colors.
“If things go right, we won’t be here to see it. A lot of nasty predators are nocturnal.” Sarr’ma, who’d been sitting next to Tripp to view the almost anticlimactic moment the compass came free from its mount, sprang to her feet. “Increase the ’bot’s speed. I’ll get an electro-torch out and keep watch.”
Tripp’s side felt colder now that she was on the move. He’d liked her sitting there, making intelligent, snarky suggestions. Somehow, she smelled tempting even under the odor of slaughter. He kept resisting the urge to put his arm around her and pull her closer. Right now, they were teammates. Had to act like teammates and nothing more because the whole crazy day had been captured on holo, including Sarr’ma making sure the beast was dead by slashing its throat, and wasn’t that going to provoke a few content warnings? No use added blood-smeared, primal sex to the show.
Wait until they were on the ship, clean, and in private. He had a job to do anyway, and fast.
He didn’t have Sarr’ma’s senses. He smelled salt water and a little sweet rot already rising from the carcass, heard what he thought were birds calling from the forest and a faint buzz from his com indicating the channel to Sparky was still open, saw…
Well, basically the display screen, the water, and when he couldn’t resist, Sarr’ma.
Finally—it seemed like hours and the sun was mostly below the horizon—the ’bot crawled out of the water on its crablike legs. Sarr’ma ran over to it. “You’re back, baby!” she cooed, bouncing in place and looking more cute and less feral despite the blood-stiffened hair. “You did great! In a few minutes you’ll go back in your box and we’ll all head home. But meanwhile, let’s take a look at this thing that you helped us find.” She went to open the storage compartment.
A howl split the night, echoed by another. And another. And still more. A pack of…something must be gathered at the edge of the jungle.
Something alarmingly big flew overhead. The howling intensified.
“On second thought—Tripp, get the ’bot in the crate! Sparky, we’re going to need a quick transport!”
As lean, shadowy, howling shapes fell upon the carcass and the giant flying whatever-it-was circled back to check them out again, Sparky sent the most welcome signal ever. “Prepare for transport in three.”
Explode: Team Supernova (The Great Space Race) Page 12