by CJ CADE
"Hatch opening," Deuce announced. "Prepare to disembark, Team Starry Night. And good luck!"
Arek moved swiftly, swinging to face the open hatch, laser weapon appearing in his hand. "Follow me," he said without looking back. "Stay behind me, and be quiet."
At any other time, Mia would have shot back a sarcastic reply. But with her heart nearly in her throat, she had nothing to say. And as she followed him out the hatch and down the short, cleated gangplank, all she could do was gaze in awe.
She was on another planet—a planet in a distant galaxy. No one she knew or had heard of had ever been to this place. And it was a place she knew she would never forget. The air was hot and damp, dropping over her shoulders like a heavy, warm blanket. It smelled of earth and vegetation, overlaid with a faint aura of decay.
The jungle floor was spongy under her feet, composed of layer upon layer of fallen leaves, what looked like moss or lichen, and low-growing plants. And overhead towered tall plants and trees, some with huge fronds of green that swayed slowly as if in an unseen breeze, some bearing heavy, waxy-looking leaves, some with pods. Lower foliage grew under this canopy, and strange vines with yellow traceries twined up the trees, their ends dangling.
The colors ranged from brown to chartreuse and every shade of green.
With a sudden clatter, the pods on the nearest plant exploded into the air, fluttering wings of brilliant purple, and emitting shrill peeps. Mia gasped and then watched in awe as the winged creatures flew about. She wasn't sure if they were small birds, or large moths.
A louder cry sounded in the distance, followed by another, farther away.
"Come on," Arek said quietly. "Let's move, navigator. Coordinates?"
Mia nodded, and forced her attention to her task. "Link to coordinates, compass reading now," she murmured, looking around warily as the strange cry echoed through the jungle again.
The navcom vibrated. She peered at the screen. "This way." She pointed through the foliage to their left.
"Stay close," Arek ordered.
Mia had no problem with that, none at all. He was her one point of safety in this strange world.
He set a fast pace through the jungle, his head turning as he continually scanned to each side and ahead. For such a big man, he moved quietly. Mia imitated him, scanning as she went, and fighting the impulse to look behind her. She was afraid once she started doing so, she wouldn't be able to stop.
They passed between two massive specimens of the frond trees, and emerged into a clearing, filled with the strangest flowers Mia had ever seen. Pale orange, the huge blossoms opened and closed in a slow, swaying dance, revealing and hiding centers with stamens of brilliant blue and black. Each flower was the size of Mia's head. They grew on knee-high plants with ugly brownish leaves.
And they stank. The powerful, cloyingly sweet scent had an undertone of something rotten, making her delicate nose quiver in disgust.
The clouds overhead were gathering more thickly. Thunder rumbled close by. "It's going to storm." Great. Like any feline, she hated rain.
Not only that, the ground under them was beginning to quiver strangely. This was more than a tropical storm. "Earthquake!" Mia spun, looking back toward the cruiser. "We need to get back to the ship."
Arek caught her arm in his powerful grasp. "No. That's not an earthquake. Something's moving... something big."
Mia followed his gaze to the south, where the jungle curved around the edge of the clearing. In the distance the trees swayed and thrashed as something moved in their direction. "The Yestrian soldiers!" she said. "Is that some kind of huge land vehicle?"
"No," Arek said, and pulled her with him in the opposite direction, through the field of flowers. "Feel how the ground shakes? Boom-boom. Boom-boom. That's a quadruped. Come on."
Her hand in his, Mia turned and ran with him, vaulting the flowers she could and smashing through others. Great, now she'd have their slime all over her clothing. "Where are we going?" she called.
"There!" He jerked his chin ahead, where the flowers fell away into a cloud and mist filled...
"Canyon," Mia moaned.
"It's either that or wait for whatever is following us," Arek reminded her, but he slowed. Probably because they were running out of flowers...and clearing.
They skidded to a stop at the edge of a precipice. Mia cast one look down, down, down into the green-black depths, and then Arek yanked her back and around. And she got a look at what might just be worse than diving into that canyon.
The creature burst out of the jungle like a nightmare made flesh.
It was huge, twice as tall as Arek, and judging by the body she could see, much longer. Grayish-green, it thundered on thick, jointed limbs with huge, clawed feet. It's head was that of a prehistoric beast such as Earth I's dinosaurs, with one notable difference. It had ears, small and pointy compared to its massive body, and whiskers quivering at each side of its long snout. Small, beady eyes peered out before the smooth head widened into the armor-plated body.
The creature looked ferocious. And worse, beneath the snout, the mouth opened, revealing wicked, yellowed teeth, and two long, curving incisors.
"Oh, goddess," Mia whispered. "I think that—that thing is our 'mouse'." How could Octiron do this to them? Sic this enormous, deadly beast on them? It didn't even have to bite them, all it would have to do was tread on them!
"That thing is no mouse," Arek gritted. "It's a leviathan. Stay still—it won't see us if we don't move."
As they watched, the creature lifted its head and cast from side to side, snout quivering as if scenting them. As it did so, Mia saw a flash of bright silver. She squinted. "There's something hanging off of its ear... like a giant earring or something."
"Quark, no wonder its in a bad mood," Arek said. "That's our ball. They've pierced its ear and hung the token on it."
"Then there's only one question."
"What's that?" he muttered, turning to scan the canyon behind Mia.
"How in the universe are we supposed to get that bauble off of it?" She turned to him, quivering with the urge to flee. "Arek, we have to run! It's coming!"
He motioned sharply to her to stay there. "What was that rhyme again?"
"Uh—okay." Mia brought up the rhyme again, and they both listened.
'Find The Mouse, 'fore the Mouse finds you.
Stop him or through your defenses he'll chew.
Bring him a bloom, take away his ball.
Bring down the skies or with him you'll fall.'
Mia looked around them frantically. "Okay, we can't stop it—him. And he looks like he could definitely chew us up!"
Her claws ripped through the ends of her fingers, painful and then comforting. She flexed her hands, crouching slightly, ready to do battle if necessary. Ready to rip the creature's eyes out and spray its blood across the ghastly bed of flowers. "We'll have to fight," she said, her voice trembling.
"Well, you can always rearrange his face," Arek said.
"Then I—I will." They might die doing so, but she was a Tygress, and if she must die on a lonely planet far from all she held dear, then so be it. She'd give the creature some scars to remember her by. She just wished she didn't feel quite so much like vomiting.
"Hey, fierce feline, sh-shhh." Arek's hand squeezed her shoulder through the body armor, warm and strong. "Calm yourself. Look at him."
Mia looked, and caught her breath in shock. The huge creature had paused partway into the clearing. It lowered its huge head and began to snuffle at the malodorous flowers.
"'Bring him a bloom'," she mumbled. "It—he likes the flowers! But 'take away his ball'? How in the goddess name are we supposed to do that?"
And the 'mouse' might be interested in the flowers, but they clearly had some sort of defense mechanism. As he neared each one, it snapped closed, curling into a tight bud which then sank into the mass of thick, brown leaves and stems.
The mouse let out a high skree of frustration. One Mia recognized—it was
the call they'd heard echoing through the jungle earlier. "Oh, goddess. He's hungry—and if he can't eat the flowers, he'll come after us."
"Yes, I suppose so..." Arek turned again and looked toward the canyon. Then his eyes lit with a fierce fire. He beckoned Mia toward the edge of the cliff. "Come on, Tygress, follow me! I know what to do."
"I'm with you!" She turned and ran beside him. "What's your plan?"
"You're not going to like it," he warned, his teeth flashing white in a feral grin.
"Tell me!" If he didn't talk soon, it would be too late.
"We offer him blooms." The Aurelian skidded to a halt and bent to grasp one of the open blooms. Before the thing could close, he yanked the stem from the plant. The cloying scent became a stench as viscous green sap dripped over his sleeve.
With a hiss of distaste, Mia grabbed another bloom and yanked it free. Success—it came free with a snap. Trying to breathe through her mouth and ignore the slimy sap running down her arm, she followed Arek to the lip of the canyon, where the jungle straggled around the clearing, trees growing on the brink.
"Grab a vine!" Arek turned to look behind them, and his face tightened. "Move, Tygress!"
Mia gathered herself, sprang a few meters into the air and grasped the coiled end of a long vine. Then she gritted her teeth to hold back a shriek as her momentum swung her out over thin air... and back again.
"Keep swinging," Arek yelled. He appeared at her side, one arm wrapped in the vine, noxious bloom in the other. Kicking his legs out, he rappelled off the trunk of the tree bearing the vines, and swung back toward the clearing, then out.
"With me," he ordered as the ground thundered and shook, the brown plants thrashing.
Mia whirled on her vine and let out a shriek, for Arek's plan had worked. The hungry leviathan creature was upon them—or maybe it was simply furious at their invasion of its flower patch. In any case, snorting and shaking its mighty head, it stamped at the verge of the cliff. A chunk of earth fell away, tearing plants and rock with it. As it fell, Mia's tree lurched as if to follow.
With a cry, she dropped the slimy bloom and clung to the vine, all that held her up from plummeting to death far below. Her feet found purchase on a limb of the tree, and she scrambled back toward the trunk, pulling her laser from her belt.
The 'mouse' let out another cry, this one blasting her and Arek with fetid breath. It looked from Mia to Arek, stomping its front feet in rage.
"Here!" Arek bellowed to the creature, shaking his bloom in its face. "Here, you quarking bastard! Come and get it."
The 'mouse' charged.
CHAPTER TEN
For an instant the massive beast seemed to hang in midair, face to face with Arek, who was small and slender against its bulk. Then the mouth with all the horrid teeth snapped on the bloom he held. Arek dropped with the power of the strike, the vine stretching in his grasp, and Mia screamed his name.
"Arek! No—hang on, hang on!"
Then, jack-knifing his powerful legs, Arek kicked out, using the creature's head for leverage. At the same time he jacknifed, leaning to grasp the ball-and-chain hanging from the creature's ear.
As if he had made it happen, the 'mouse' dropped, crashing out of sight, scraping and thudding against the canyon wall as it fell. Its passage echoed the thunder coming from the storm overhead.
Arek swung far out over the canyon, and just when Mia was about to give up hope, he twirled around and came swinging back. He landed on the ground, and dropped to his knees, head down, shoulders heaving with his panting breaths. The ball fell with a jangle to the earth beside him, the silver spangled with raindrops.
Mia slipped to the ground beside him, her eyes filling with tears, sharp and bitter with guilt, and threw her arms around his neck. "Oh, goddess. You're alive. You made it."
He lifted his head and nodded. "I made it."
"I'm sorry," she told him. "I—"
He held up a hand, palm out. "Save it. We need to get back to the ship."
Mia blinked her tears away, and sniffled. "But we—I mean, you killed it. We've finished the challenge."
Her partner lifted his head and tilted it to look at her, still panting. His face was streaked with sweat and a string of slimy sap, his eyes still full of the fury of battle. "You think that was the only creature out there? Think again. Gotta be more of those, not to mention whatever it usually feeds on. It didn't grow those teeth to live on plants. These blooms are just an appetizer."
Mia shot to her feet, and reached down to offer him a hand up. He ignored it, pushing to his feet, already moving. "Let's go."
At that moment, the storm broke, and rain began to pelt down in earnest. Squinting into the warm deluge, Mia followed Arek back through the clearing, and the jungle. And although she slipped several times falling once, and her side ached with her panting breaths, she gritted her teeth and kept up with him.
She staggered up the gangplank after him, and collapsed against the bulkhead, her breaths sobbing in and out. They'd made it back onto the ship alive. But at the price of her self-respect. She'd been nothing but a useless bystander in this challenge.
"Welcome back, Team Starry Night!" Deuce crowed, his voice accompanied by a startling burst of loud, incredibly peppy music. "You have completed your first challenge and won all the points possible!"
"A wave to our audience, Team Starry Night!" the AI encouraged, spybots zinging close to Mia and Arek.
The music played on as Arek gave a haphazard salute, then wiped off his hands with a wet-wipe, and tossed the small pac to Mia. She caught it, and fumbled a wipe out as he took the controls and powered up the ship. Fighting not to pout as the spybots zoomed in on her, Mia managed to stretch her lips in a smile and waggled her fingers for the cameras.
"Take your seat," Arek ordered. "We're getting off-planet while we can."
Relieved to get away from the spycams, Mia sat. Arek powered up the ship, and they lifted off.
Above the cloud cover of the planet, they found themselves facing a phalanx of yellow and black fighters. Squat, ugly craft, they resembled stinging insects, especially with weapons trained on the Starry Night.
Mia wanted to mrrowl in despair. "Steady," Arek said. "They're just making sure we leave."
"How can you tell?"
"They're not firing those massive weapons at us. Deuce?"
"Yes, Captain?"
"We are clear to leave, right?"
"Yes, Captain. As you deduced, the Yestrian warriors are merely here to escort you out of their airspace."
"Great. Initiating take-off sequence now."
Mia worked silently, bringing up the coordinates for a safe takeoff through the single moon and a narrow asteroid belt.
"Where are we headed next, Deuce?" Arek asked.
"Team Starry Night, set your coordinates for another action-packed visit... this one to planet Altaria!" The AI gave the coordinates, and Mia fed them in to the nav system.
"Course set," she reported. "Twenty galactic standard hours from here at full speed."
"Very well. We'll ask for challenge details in a bit."
Mia nodded. When they were out in space again, she smacked the release on her safety restraints and pushed herself from her seat, feeling like an old woman.
"Don't you want to hear the points we gained?" he asked.
"No," she said quietly. "They're yours. You earned them, not me."
All she wanted was to wash away the stench of the last few hours, and then curl in a ball and forget.
The shower-dry was warm, fragrant with the scent of her favorite body wash. But it was also salty with tears that dripped down Mia's cheeks as she washed the sweat and remnants of the horrid blooms. She felt both exhausted and jittery, her shoulders heavy with an invisible burden.
What was she doing here?
She wished that she was home in her bright, airy apartment on her parents' property in the suburbs of Lyonsgate City. That she'd never heard of the Race, and that she'd never believed tha
t she was fit to enter such a contest.
By the time her hair and skin were dry, her tears had dried as well. But in the holomirror, her eyes were puffy and tinged with pink. She finger-combed her layers of hair forward so a heavy bang partially shielded her eyes, and opened the cryo-cleanser to take out her undies and GSR flight-suit.
She dressed, then dropped the borrowed gaaulites into the cleaning unit, shuddering at the lingering stench on them. Then she washed her hands again. If only she could scrub away the memories of the last few hours the same way.
It was easy to avoid the other occupant of a small cruiser when he disappeared into the lav immediately after she came out.
But when he came back into the cabin, there was nowhere to go.
He joined her in the galley, exuding the fresh odor of a clean, healthy male in his prime. He wore his flightsuit pants, but only a short-sleeved tee over them. It was the color of golden cured grains, and brought out the red highlights in his damp hair. Which waved back from his forehead in a way that emphasized the clean, strong lines of his face, and the masculine beauty of his eyes.
After one look, Mia returned to studying the contents of her bottle of berry cider.
Arek took a long drink of his ale, set his bottle down and sat silently for a long moment before speaking. "We survived an encounter with a deadly wild beast on a strange planet, with minimal weapons and no intel," he said. "Other than being angry as all hells at the idiots who set us up for death by trampling, I think we have reason to celebrate."
"You have reason," she said, moving her bottle in a tight circle on the table. "I was no help at all." He'd been right about her—she was a liability. He should ask for another partner.
"Hey, hey," he said. "Mia, you act as if you failed. You did everything I asked—and more importantly, you stayed alive."
She looked up, shocked by his acceptance of her behavior. "But you had to stop the beast, all on your own! That's not teamwork."
His gaze holding hers, he shook his head. "Listen—I've been through battles of many kinds, against all kinds of enemies. When I set out with my platoon, I have a plan. But things never go quite according to that plan. We still have to think on the fly. At times, it works out perfectly, but sometimes the whole plan goes to skrog shit. You think I've reacted well every time?" He snorted. "Hells, no. And I've learned not to expect it of myself, or of my warriors. So why a civilian like yourself would expect that of yourself, I don't get."