Mercenary Instinct (a science fiction romance) (18 page)

An unearthly screech came from somewhere
below them. The wind? Some animal? Ankari wished she had been able
to finish reading about Sturm. For now, getting out of this shuttle
had to be the primary concern, especially if there were people out
there who had been waiting for it to land.

“Lauren? Jamie? Are you alive?”

A groan came from below her, toward the nose
of the craft.

“I’ll take that for a yes,” Ankari said. “For
at least one of you. Jamie?” She was the one who should have been
in the cockpit.

“Yeah.” Jamie groaned again.

“Lauren?”

“How can you be so calm?” Lauren demanded,
her voice somewhere between a rasp and a soft screech. She was
probably afraid someone—or something—would hear them if they
yelled. That was a possibility.

“I trembled, cried, and lost control of my
bladder while we were crashing,” Ankari said. “I’m past that now.”
Not exactly true, but she was willing to tamp down desires to
scream frantic curses if there was a chance staying calm would get
them out of here before anyone with guns found them.

“Really?” Jamie sounded less panicky than
Lauren. Good.

“More or less.” Ankari didn’t think she had
peed on herself, but only because things had happened to quickly
for her to succumb to total and utter fear. “I’m going to unstrap
myself, try to find our packs—” not to mention the pistol that she
had dropped a few eons ago, “—and see about opening that door. It
doesn’t look like we’re getting emergency power, so I’m hoping
there’s a manual override.”

“There is,” Jamie said. “I saw it when we
came in.”

“Good.”

“We’re hanging,” Lauren said. “Jostling
things around might not be a good idea.”

Another screech came from outside.

“Staying here sounds like an even worse
idea,” Ankari said.

“If we stay in here, whatever’s making those
noises won’t be able to get to us.”

“Maybe, but the bounty hunters or whoever
planned all of this will. They probably saw us crash.”

Lauren grumbled but didn’t object
further.

“Once I get the door open and we can see
around, we can judge things better.” Ankari’s feet fell toward the
nose as soon as she released the leg half of the harness. This was
going to be a challenge. How was she supposed to climb up to the
door at the back of the shuttle when they were dangling nose first
above the ground? She would worry about collecting their gear from
the bottom—nose—first.

She unfastened the rest of her harness,
though she didn’t want to let go until she had something to stand
on. She probed in the darkness with her foot and tapped
something.

“That’s my head,” Jamie said.

“Oh. Am I close to the—” The cracking of wood
came from outside, and the shuttle plummeted. It crashed to a stop
again almost as soon as it started, but that ten-foot drop and
lurch was enough to send Ankari’s heart into her throat. “I might
pee myself yet,” she whispered.

“Not when you’re above me, please.” Jamie’s
humor sound strained, but at least she was trying.

Ankari brushed the console with her foot,
found a place to stand, and let go of her harness. She wobbled but
crouched and caught her balance. She patted around, located one
pack and—yes, the laser pistol. One of them at least. “You two
still have your weapons?”

“I stuck mine in my jacket.” Clothing
rustled, and Jamie added, “Still there.”

“I don’t know where mine is. I wasn’t exactly
thinking about it when we were crashing out of space and into the
treetops.” Lauren gulped, clearly trying to control herself, but
that frantic edge to her voice worried Ankari.

Best to get out of here. Lauren would calm
down once they were standing on solid land.

Another screech sounded. Then again...

Ankari tugged a pack over her shoulders,
found another one, and pushed it toward Jamie. She found the third
and, having no idea whose was whose, strapped it over her chest.
Climbing with all of that wasn’t realistic, but she couldn’t
abandon their research without trying. It was all they had left of
the company and their mission.

Another branch snapped. Ankari grabbed
Jamie’s chair, trying to brace herself this time. The shuttle
tottered and tipped but didn’t fall straight down. The tailed
lurched sideways, smacking against something—the trunk of a tree?
The jolt nearly shook Ankari free from the chair, and she lost the
pistol again. She wished they would finish crashing already. Unless
they were dangling over a chasm, in which case, this was better
than plummeting to their deaths.

The shuttle caught on something again. Its
new position was nearly horizontal, and Ankari took advantage. She
groped around and found the pistol, this time stuffing it into her
jumpsuit, and clawed her way over chairs—the aisle was somewhere on
the side of the shuttle at the moment—to reach the door. She patted
all around it, trying to find an emergency release latch. If she
knew for sure she had her own pack, she would be tempted to root
around for the flashlight, but it was probably down at the bottom
anyway.

“It’s up top and to the right.” Thumps and
curses came from behind her. Jamie was making her way toward
Ankari. “Or at least that’s where it is when the shuttle is facing
the right direction.”

Ankari located it and tugged, trying to
figure out how it opened. She fell over as the latch released
abruptly. “Found it,” she said, catching herself against the wall.
Or maybe that was the floor.

The sucking hiss of a seal being broken
accompanied a draft of humid air thick with the scent of
vegetation. The door opened outward with a clank. Normally it would
land on the ground, so someone could walk down it, like a
gangplank, but in the wet dimness outside, the ground wasn’t
visible. The door simply extended out into the air, like a
plank
rather than a gangplank. They could walk off into
nothingness...

The shriek they had heard earlier rose above
the wind and rain once again. It sounded much louder without the
hull to block the noise. Much closer.

“What’s making that noise?” Jamie asked.

Ankari inched out on the door to peer over
the side. Vines, leaves, and branches crisscrossed beneath the
shuttle, and she couldn’t see much of the ground or tell how far
down it was. Strange chirps and rustles came from somewhere below
them. An answering screech came from a different direction than the
first.

“I don’t know, but there are a bunch of
them,” Ankari said. “Lauren, are you ready to go? I don’t think
staying here is a good idea.” She looked outward as well as down,
wondering how close to those mountains they were and if anything
there would offer a safe haven. Or would it be full of bounty
hunters?

“I don’t think going out
there
is a
good idea,” Lauren said. It didn’t sound like she had left her
chair, or even unfastened her harness.

“She may be right,” Jamie said. “We could
stay here until dawn. Until the storm passes. I can’t imagine
bounty hunters would be out in this anyway.”

“With two hundred thousand aurums waiting to
be plucked from the sky?” Ankari squinted into the gloom. She
thought she had seen a light out there somewhere. Maybe they were
close to an outpost. But no matter how she leaned and turned her
head, she couldn’t spot it again.

“They’ll probably figure we’ll be here in the
morning.”

A screech sounded, and foliage rattled in the
tree nearest to them. Ankari leaned back inside. The noise had come
from lower than the shuttle, but not as low as the ground. Could
the creatures making all that noise climb? Not a comforting
thought.

“Aren’t the days and nights here long,
though?” Ankari thought she remembered that factoid about Sturm.
“Something like four Novus Earth days for a complete
revolution?”

“I don’t know. I don’t suppose you have that
tablet? We could look up the world and what’s making those
noises.”

“I haven’t seen it since it went flying off
your console.”

Light glinted in the distance again.

Ankari jerked her head in that direction.
“Did you see that?”

“See what?” Jamie asked.

Ankari pointed toward the ground and out a
ways. A hundred meters? She wasn’t sure. There was so much foliage
that she couldn’t imagine any of them could see far. But the light
came into view again. No, that was another one.

“There are at least two lights,” Ankari
said.

“I see them now,” Jamie said. “They look like
flashlights. Maybe they’ll scare the animals away, so we can get
out.”

A rattling of leaves to the left was their
only warning before a shadow leaped out of the darkness. Ankari
grabbed Jamie’s arm and jumped back, jerking the pistol up with her
free hand. She had no idea what was attacking, but she didn’t
hesitate to fire.

A red laser beam sprang from the pistol, but
it cut through empty air. The creature twisted, landing on the open
door, the crimson streak illuminating it for an instant. A meter
high and two meters long, the feathered animal looked like a cross
between a bird and a reptile with a big blunt head and rows of
razor-sharp teeth.

Ankari fired again, but it seemed to
anticipate her action, leaping up to evade the shot. It landed,
then lunged into the shuttle. Ankari stumbled back, but not fast
enough. Something sharp raked her arm. Claws? Fangs? She couldn’t
tell, but it hurt.

The creature lunged toward Jamie next, and
she hollered in pain. Ankari couldn’t fire again, lest she hit her
friend. She kicked out, trying to strike a moving shadow. She
caught something, but it was more solid than it looked, heavier
than a bird. The blow barely moved it. Something bit into her shin,
and she cried out, scurrying back and looking for cover. In the
dark, she slammed against a chair instead.

For a moment, the creature’s strange
silhouette was visible against the rainy night outside the door.
Its head darted in, fangs striking for Jamie, who’d turned her
backpack toward it as a shield. Ankari wrapped both hands around
the pistol grip and took a long second to aim this time.

She squeezed the trigger, holding it down for
an extended blast. She struck the creature full in the side. It
staggered back, its screech turning into a squeal of pain. It spun
toward her, but she kept firing until it crumpled to the floor.

Before Ankari could blow out a relieved
breath, the leaves shook, and two more of the creatures leaped out
of the trees and onto the shuttle door.

“Find the other guns,” Ankari ordered, though
she didn’t know if Jamie was fit to fight or if Lauren had taken
off her harness yet. “I need help.”

“—hear something,” came a voice from the
jungle floor. “...crashed over there.
Up
there.”

Whoever the speaker was, Ankari didn’t
recognize him.

The creatures spun toward her, and she had
something more pressing to worry about. She flexed her finger to
shoot the closest one, but the shuttle tilted in that direction.
Too much weight on the door? Ankari clutched at the wall, searching
for a handhold. The shuttled kept tipping, slowly, groaning as it
went. Branches cracked outside, and leaves rained down along with
the water.

The creatures cried out in their high-pitched
shrieks, and their claws scrabbled on the metal. One leaped off the
door, choosing the nearest tree instead. Ankari shot the other. It
was a glancing blow off the thing’s tail, but the creature squawked
and leaped away.

The floor continued to tilt, and Ankari lost
her footing. She might have slid right outside, but someone caught
her arm.

“You can’t leave,” Jamie whispered. “You’re
the only one with a gun.”

“I thought yours was in your shirt.” Ankari
braced her foot on the side of the door to keep herself from
falling out. The craft wobbled and groaned, but stabilized again,
albeit with a thirty-degree tilt to the floor now. Maybe that would
keep the fanged birds out.

“It was. I tried to get it out, and that
winged freak slapped it out of my hand. I’m bleeding from a dozen
spots. Can you take me home now?”

Beams of light streaked up from the jungle
floor, probing the foliage. Searching.

“I don’t think so,” Ankari murmured. “Lauren?
We’ve got to get out of here, or we’re going to be captured.”

“I’d rather be captured by humans than eaten
by those dinosaurs,” Lauren said.

“Dinosaurs? Is that what they are?” Ankari
asked.

“Not exactly, but they were similar enough to
the velociraptors from Old Earth that someone called them that. I
remember reading about them once. In a tourism brochure.” Her voice
was squeaky with disbelief, or maybe that same panic that had been
wrapped around her since they crashed.

“I guess it’s better to be mauled by a
velociraptor than a bird,” Jamie whispered.

Twigs snapped outside. The lights were
getting closer. At least six beams. Maybe eight. There was a whole
squad of people striding up to the ground beneath the shuttle.
Laser rifles fired down there, and the screeches of the creatures
intensified. They sounded more angry than afraid.

“Stay or go?” Jamie whispered.

Lauren had a point, and Ankari hesitated.
Even if these people were bounty hunters, as long as the team was
wanted alive, they shouldn’t be in danger of being killed. But if
they wandered out into the jungle, they would have to deal with
those raptors and whatever other predators made this side of the
moon their home.

Still...

“I can’t stand here and let them capture me,”
Ankari said. “I’ve got a gun and food in my pack. I want to take my
chances with the jungle.”

“I’ll come,” Jamie said.

“Lauren?” Ankari could leave her, but the
business was nothing without their microbiologist, and she hated
the idea of splitting up anyway. Surely they were stronger
together.