The fire blazed.
The ship roared.
From the main deck, the sound of clattering counter-squares pieces rose along with Romy' screams.
Then, with streams of vapor, blue sky opened up below them. The fire died. They flew within the atmosphere of Cirona, gazing down at forests, mountains, and lakes.
Sunlight, soft and golden, fell upon them.
Riff realized he was holding his breath and exhaled in relief. He also realized he was clinging to Giga, nearly crushing her, and released her. The android walked toward the windshield and pointed down.
"The colony of Cirona City lies below us, Captain. Taking us down."
He nodded, still shaken. "Good. Any sign of the skelkrin ship?"
"My systems show them still in orbit, sir. They haven't moved."
"Keep an eye on them."
Giga frowned. "An eye, sir?" She blinked. "Cannot compute."
"Your radar, Giga."
She grinned. "Happy to comply, Captain." She turned back toward the windshield. "Cirona City coming into view, sir."
Riff stepped forward and stared down. He whistled softly. "Quite a bit nicer than Cog City back home."
Steel and Nova rose from their seats too, and they all stared down below. Cirona City was in fact barely more than a town. A hundred or so buildings of stone rose here along several streets. Back on Earth, most buildings were metal, glass, concrete, or plastic. Here the colonists used actual bricks of real stone, and smaller homes were built of wood. It reminded Riff of the old, historic pictures of Earth from thousands of years ago.
Beyond the town spread fields of crops—real fields, not just towering metal grain factories. Red barns and farmhouses rose along dirt roads. And beyond them spread the virgin forests of a new, untamed world.
Suddenly Riff understood the appeal of settling distant worlds. Gone was the smog, squalor, and soot of Earth. Here was a place of pristine beauty, of majestic wilderness, of wondrous vistas still untouched by man, of—
"It looks boring," Romy said.
Riff spun around to see the demon standing behind him. He groaned. "I thought I told you to stay in the main deck and guard your board game!"
Romy frowned, hands on hips. "I did! I guarded it while we flew in space. Then I guarded it as we crashed through the atmosphere and the pieces fell over." She gasped and pressed her face against the windshield. "Ooh, look, they have birds!" She bit her lip. "Do you think they have poodles here? I'm starving."
Nova growled and cracked her whip. "Off the bridge!"
Romy pouted, stuck out her tongue, and marched away in a huff.
The town grew closer beneath them. A gravelly lot spread between several stone buildings. A handful of starjets, smaller than the Dragon Huntress, parked there.
"Giga, bring us down. Right there." Riff pointed.
The Dragon Huntress thrummed and shook as its thruster engines belched out smoke. The dragon's wings spread wide, and it slowed its descent, gliding down toward the field. With a puff of smoke and a cloud of dust, they thumped down onto Planet Cirona.
The bobblehead bulldog finally had enough. It tilted over and rolled down to the floor.
"Good," Riff said. "Good, we didn't crash. Always nice. Still in one piece." He wiped sweat off his brow. "Main deck, everyone." He spoke into his communicator. "Piston, Twig! Main deck."
They all gathered there, careful not to step on the fallen counter-squares pieces. Twig walked back and forth, handing out "Alien Hunters" badges. Vega's golden sunlight fell through the windows.
Riff pinned his badge to his shirt and addressed the others. "All right, boys and girls. Here's the situation. We're going to be working with the colonists to find a missing pirilian woman named Midnight. For those who don't know, pirilians can be extremely dangerous. Some call them magical. They can teleport at will, reappearing behind you to stab you in the back. They can blast out energy from their hands, tearing a hole right through your flesh. We don't know if the woman we're seeking will be friendly or hostile. I want you all to be on your guard—constantly. Understood?"
They all nodded.
Riff nodded back. "Good. And . . . we might be facing a threat even worse than a pirilian. As some of you already know, we spotted a skelkrin warship in orbit around the planet. The ship was idling and did not react to us. The skelkrins themselves might be on the surface, hunting the same pirilian."
Twig gasped and covered her mouth. Piston shuddered and his eyes widened.
"Captain!" the gruffle blurted out. "Hunting a tardigrade or even a pirilian is one thing." Sweat beaded on Piston's brow. "But skelkrins, sir . . . we've got no business facing enemies like that. They're far beyond what we can handle, sir."
Despite his humble height, Piston was the heaviest among them. His mighty hands easily held a hammer that Riff could never lift. Yet now the burly gruffle was trembling. At his side, tiny Twig was shaking like a leaf. She scurried to hide behind her gruffle companion. The bolts and screws in the halfling's pockets jangled.
"My friends!" Riff said to the pair. "I've never seen you like this. You don't need to be frightened. You're Alien Hunters! I mean . . . all those aliens you hunted before I bought the ship. The snot-monster you tamed. The Carinian stone-beast you crushed. The Altairian fire-hopper you blasted out of space. All those aliens you told me about." Riff placed a hand on Piston's shaking shoulder. "If you defeated all of them, you can defeat some skelkrins with me."
Piston licked his lips and glanced around nervously. "Well, Captain, you see . . . the thing is . . ." The gruffle sighed. "Well, Captain, I suppose with skelkrins outside, you need to know the truth." He pulled Twig out from behind his legs. "Tell him, Twig."
The little mechanic was pale and shaking. "Those were just stories!" she blurted out.
Riff's eyes widened. Nova gasped. Steel took a step back, face darkening.
"Stories?" Riff whispered.
Piston lowered his head, and his hammer drooped. "Aye, Captain. Stories. Truth is . . ." The gruffle gulped. "Truth is, we were never really Alien Hunters."
Riff took a step back. "But Piston! What do you mean? The ship. The 'Alien Hunters Inc.' letters on the hull. The badges!"
Twig burst into tears. "All fake, Captain! All pretend." She flopped down onto the floor, crying bitterly. "Piston and I made it all up, sir."
Piston dared not raise his eyes; he could only stare at his feet. "Aye, Captain, that's the truth. See, Twig and I are no warriors. We're just two outcasts. Two souls who ended up on Earth, far from our home planets. We were homeless before we found a giant, metal dragon in a yard of weeds, and we sneaked inside. Truth be told, sir, we didn't even know the Dragon Huntress could fly." He sighed. "For a year, we lived in the used starship lot, and well, sir, we pretended. To pass the time, you know. We painted "Alien Hunters" on the hull. We made ourselves badges. We even built ourselves a cybersite. We just pretended to be heroes. We never thought we'd actually blast into space and hunt real aliens."
Riff stared in silence. For a long moment, he could only stare, breathing, too shocked for words. Finally he whispered, "But . . . the work orders that came in. All those requests from clients."
"See, that's the funny thing, sir," Piston said. "You know that cybersite Twig and I uploaded? Completely fake, but people started sending us work orders. They wanted us to really fight aliens. So we'd print out their requests, and we'd make believe, running around the old lot, pretending to fight aliens. And well, sir, now this is no game. Now we're really on a distant planet, and now there are real aliens out there, mean ones too." His shoulders stooped. "And we're not the heroes you need with you."
Riff turned away, facing the window. Trees swayed outside, and colonists were already gathering to point at the newly arrived vessel.
"I can't believe this," Riff whispered. "I . . . I can't."
Steel grumbled and clutched the hilt of his sword. "We've been betrayed."
Nova snarled and bared her teeth. "This whole
thing has been a sham." The gladiator cracked her whip, raising sparks of electricity. "Just a sham!"
Piston and Twig were staring at their feet. Romy curled up on the floor, crying silently.
"Giga, you knew?" Riff whispered, turning toward her. "Even you knew and you didn't tell me?"
The android lowered her head. She spoke in a shaky whisper. "I . . . I'm sorry, Captain, I . . ." Giga could say no more. She covered her face and fled back to the bridge.
The deck seemed to sway around Riff. His world seemed to crash around him. A skelkrin ship hovered above. A pirilian girl who could possibly just save the universe was hiding somewhere outside. The fate of the cosmos came down to here, to this planet, and the rug was pulled out from under his feet.
What do I do? Riff thought and closed his eyes. Oh, Dad, I wish you were here. What do I do now?
In his mind, he could see his father again—a kindly old magician with a white beard and sad smile.
You were never a hero, my son. His father seemed to speak in his mind. But you can become one. So can they. The courage in your heart is true. So is the courage of your friends.
The vision vanished. Riff opened his eyes. He took a deep, shaky breath and turned back toward the others.
"Piston." Riff knelt before the gruffle and clutched his shoulder. "Piston, you might have been pretending back on Earth. But you weren't pretending when you rigged the spool and dragged out the tardigrade." He turned toward Twig. "Twig, you were perhaps only daydreaming on Earth. But you were a real heroine when you got into the space suit and let that beast nearly swallow you."
The diminutive mechanic wiped away tears. "Really? A heroine?"
Riff straightened and nodded. "Yes. You are all heroes and heroines today. I need to go out there, and I need to face the skelkrins, and I need to find the missing pirilian. And I need my friends. I need your wrench, Twig."
The halfling bit her lip, raised her wrench, and let electricity crackle on its head. "You've got it, Captain."
Riff turned toward Piston. "Piston, I need your hammer."
The gruffle blinked away tears, raised his chin, and hefted his massive hammer. "You've got it, sir."
Next Riff turned toward Romy; the demon was still curled up into a ball. "Romy, I need your pitchfork."
Sniffling, the demon rose to her feet, raised her pitchfork, and managed to snarl. "It's yours." She handed it to him.
Riff rolled his eyes. "Romy, I mean I need you to use it."
Her eyes widened and she wagged her tail. "Okay!"
Next Riff turned toward Steel. His brother stared back, eyes hard, and raised his sword.
"By my honor," Steel said, "my sword is yours."
At last, Riff turned toward Nova. The woman he loved. The woman he would always fight for. Sunlight gleamed on her golden armor and golden hair.
"And I need your whip, Nova," he whispered. "And I need you by my side."
She nodded, green eyes soft. "My whip is yours."
Riff drew his gun from his holster. He stared at them all, one by one. "I don't care who we used to be. I don't care if we were failed musicians, gladiators, outcast knights, outcast demons, refugees, or relics. Right now, here, today—we are Alien Hunters."
They nodded. They pinned on their badges.
"Alien Hunters," they whispered, one by one, and their eyes gleamed.
Giga's head appeared from around the doorway. Hesitantly, the android stepped back into the main deck. "Am . . . am I one too?"
Riff couldn't help but grin, a huge grin that hurt his cheeks. He took a badge from the table, and he pinned it to Giga's kimono. "I know that you can't leave the ship, Giga, no more than a heart can leave a body. You are the heart of this ship. And you are the heart of the hunters. You are always one of us."
He hadn't known androids could cry, but right now, tears flowed down Giga's cheeks. She saluted him.
"Happy to comply, Captain," she whispered. "Always."
The damn tears were now stinging Riff's eyes too. He turned and walked toward the airlock. "Now come on! We've got aliens to hunt."
"Yeah!" Romy shouted and whooped.
Riff opened the hatch and lowered the staircase. One by one, the Alien Hunters stepped off their ship and onto a new world.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO:
THE PURPLE ONE AND THE RED ONES
Skrum was moving through the forest, sniffing for his prey, when his communicator buzzed.
He growled and snorted. Around him, his fellow skelkrins hissed and snapped their teeth. They had been following the trail for days now, traveling from farm to farm, leaving a wake of destruction. Across the planet of Cirona, barns burned, livestock lay slaughtered, and the bones of farmers lay in heaps. And still Midnight evaded them. Still the purple-skinned vermin stayed always one step ahead, vanishing whenever Skrum caught sight of her, porting from hilltop to hilltop, fading into shadows.
The pirilians are sneaky bastards, Skurm thought and licked his chops. And this one will scream for decades, scream with a million tortured clones.
His communicator, a bulky metal box, buzzed again upon his chest. Skrum howled in frustration and slammed his fist against the red button that shone there.
"What?" he snarled.
A staticky voice came from the speaker. "My lord Skrum!"
Skrum recognized that voice. It was Kur-Ta speaking, pilot of The Crab, their warship. The fool was useless in a fight. Skrum had left him in the vessel above the planet, his eye in the dark.
"Why do you disturb my hunt, Kur-Ta?" Skrum hissed into the communicator.
"My lord, a starship approached the planet. A human starship. I did as you instructed. I did not engage the enemy in battle. I let the ship land."
Skrum's lips peeled back in a snarl. "What class human ship? A division-class destroyer? A dreadnaught? A starwolf?"
Kur-Ta hesitated. "It . . . it looks like a dragon, my lord. Not a military vessel. Barely spaceworthy, my lord. It bore Earth letters on its hull. Couldn't hold more than a dozen human vermin."
A small blue bird fluttered toward Skrum. He crushed it in his palm, watched the blood leak, and considered. A novelty ship. Human by design.
"Aminor," Skrum whispered.
The old fool was known by many names. The traveler. The wizard. Old Man Sky. To some in the galaxy he was a hero, to others just a myth.
To Skrum, he was only the human who had freed Midnight from his prison.
He spoke into his communicator. "Feed me this ship's coordinates, Kur-Ta. Inform me if it moves again. The humans are here to hunt the same prey." Skrum licked his lips. "This will be more fun than I had imagined."
"Yes, my lord."
Once the coordinates were fed through, Skrum slammed his fist against his communicator again, shutting it off.
Some predators, Skrum knew, hunted with brute strength, no cunning to them. Not him. Skrum was an apex predator, and he hunted with guile, with deception, with slow stalking before the pounce.
"It is time to stalk," he said to his fellow skelkrins. They gathered around him, tongues hanging low, eyes burning bright. "Soon the girl will be ours. And then . . . then every planet between here and Earth."
* * * * *
The Alien Hunters, toughest mercenaries in the galaxy, stormed out of their dragon starship, weapons raised, snarling and ready for battle.
A little girl gaped with wide eyes and dropped her teddy bear. A duck quacked and waddled off.
Riff cleared his throat and holstered his gun. He waved down his comrades' weapons.
So much for a skelkrin ambush, he thought.
The town was small, its roads unpaved. Several buildings rose ahead: a saloon, a barbershop, a funeral home, and a large building with a clock tower that looked like town hall. Beyond the buildings, Riff could see forests, distant mountains, and even fields—real fields where crops grew from the soil, not inside boxes. Two moons hung in the sky, one deep blue and the other pale white.
"Are you the Ali
en Hunters?" the little girl asked. She leaned down and picked up her doll.
Romy's eyes widened. She rushed forward, holding her own teddy bear. "Oh hai! You have a teddy too! Maybe they can be friends."
The girl stared at the demon, then at the others. "You're not strong enough."
Riff stepped forward and knelt by the girl. "It's all right, child. You're safe with us here. We've come to get rid of the alien."
The girl shook her head. "You came here for the purple alien. But there are other ones. Bigger. Red aliens. Aliens who will kill you. You should leave. You will die."
With that, the girl clutched her doll to her chest, spun around, and fled into a home.
"Thank goodness you're here!"
Riff turned to see a tall man with a yellow beard hurry forward. He wore fine clothes of brown and tan fabric, tall boots, and a cowboy hat.
Romy growled and raised her pitchfork. "An alien!"
Nova had to grab the demon and tug her back. "Human, Romy. Human!"
The bearded man hesitated, then turned toward Riff and shook his hand. "Name's Efrom. Mayor Efrom. I run this here town and, gosh, we're glad to have you here. Bunch of aliens come to this planet, and they've gone to killing." Efrom lowered his head. "First the purple one, then the red ones." He glanced up at the demon, gruffle, halfling, and ashai. "And now all manner of 'em come to Cirona."
Romy wagged her tail. "I'm a demon, not an alien."
Nova pulled her farther back. "Romy, shut your mouth or it's to the attic with you again."
Riff looked around him, waiting for the "red ones"—no doubt the skelkrins—to leap out at any moment.
"Efrom, you called us here for the purple one. The pirilian. Where is she?"
Efrom dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief. "Come inside. Into the shade. So hot here in the light of Vega, hotter than old Sol back on Earth. Let me pour you some cold sweet tea."
Nova slammed her palm over Romy's mouth before the demon could ask about poodles.
Alien Hunters_Discover Sci-Fi Special Edition Page 15