Authors: Jason Halstead
Klous noted how he moved, picking his feet up and walking carefully but smoothly. He was at home on the uneven and occasionally slippery jungle floor. The muscles that stood out through the camouflaging paint on his arms showed that the man might have been strong enough to wrestle the giant creature that had chased them.
Klous considered his options. The stranger was most likely one of the survivors from the
Rented Mule
. He wondered if he was the source of military influence that Brand had suspected.
“Klous!” Sasha hissed.
He glanced at her sharply, irritated at the distraction. He saw she’d already tossed her rifle away from her. Like it mattered, she couldn’t shoot the damn thing straight. “Got a name?” Klous asked, pulling his own rifle off slowly and then tossing it to the ground.
“Yeah,” He answered without offering it. “Now move back.” He waited until both Sasha and Klous had stepped back several paces before he gathered up their rifles. He checked them over and grunted. “Yep, same sons of bitches that tried to board us. If I could fly it myself I’d shoot you dead and take your ship for myself right now, but I can’t. Come on, let’s go. You walk in front of me. Try anything and I shoot you. You run and you’re on your own. That overgrown chicken chasing you? That’s not the biggest or the baddest thing around here.”
“Klous, what about—“
“Sasha, shut it,” Klous snapped at her. “Let’s go, stay between us.”
“Good idea,” he said, then pointed off into the jungle. “Now move your ass that way!”
Klous tried to talk twice more before angry outbursts from their captor convinced him he was wasting his time and, according to the stranger, endangering them. He walked where he was told, all the while wondering how he could trick their captor into doing something stupid so he could get one of their rifles back or, better yet, get his hands on the plasma rifle the man carried.
Twice they stopped and waited, the first time Klous and Sasha exchanged confused looks. The second it was apparent when a group of two legged animals ran across their path several yards ahead of them. A moment later the fleeing animals were pursued by four beasts that Klous thought might have been related to terrestrial cats, except they possessed six legs. The pirate captain judged them to be only a little taller at their back than his hips. The way they moved and pounced, he knew he’d be hard pressed to go against one without at least a gun.
Less than an hour after the run-in with the six legged cats they were ordered to stop. “This is it, grab that rope and start climbing.”
Klous and Sasha looked at each other and then around. Finally she stepped forward and gestured at a vine hanging from a tree. Their captor grunted. Klous moved up to another one and took it. He studied it, noticing that it wasn’t a vine after all, but a bunch of fibers woven together to make a rope that looked just like a vine. Together they looked up and, together, they gasped in surprise.
Over two dozen feet up they saw rope and wood bridges connecting the trees together and offering paths between them. The trees had portions of them hollowed out, though from the ground they could see little more than shadows within the openings.
“Welcome to Treetown,” he snapped. “Now quit gawking and get your asses up there!”
Chapter 6
“Can’t believe how alive this place is,” Lizzie said, glancing up from her station to look over at Ling. “How’s JimBob coming?”
The mountainous man seemed to ignore her, so intent was he on the controls at the weapons station. Finally he grunted before looking up at her. “Standing by,” he said, his rare smile reaching his Asian eyes. “He’s unarmed, but that’s just a simple command.”
“He scares me,” Lizzie admitted, then she sucked her piercings between her teeth to nibble on.
Ling laughed. “He scares all of us! Well, maybe not Cooper…”
Lizzie gave him a look that communicated her thoughts of Cooper clearer than words. “Anyhow, there’s so much life on this planet it’s hard to get good readings. Thermal sensors are overloaded and there’s some weird fields down here distorting everything anyhow.”
“Weird fields?” Ling asked.
“Yeah, I can’t isolate and exclude them, it’s across every spectrum. Nothing dangerous, just noise.”
“Visuals still work?”
Lizzie fed the commands into her station and a moment later the main display lit up with a segmented view of twelve different cameras, some of which pointed out to the ocean, others into the sky, and a few down to the sandy beach beneath the
Black Hole
. “Yeah, nothing exciting though…”
“Want to bet?” Ling stared at the display as a figure burst free from the jungle several hundred feet down the shore from where the rest of the crew had gone in. “Is that…Aran?”
“What’s…why is he…oh shit! What is that?”
Ling ignored her. He’d seen the same thing, the beast burst free of the jungle behind him, stumbling as it tried to adapt to the sandy ground. It picked itself up from the small ditch it had dug as it fell and shook its head, roared, and charged after Aran anew.
“Open the door!” Lizzie shouted. “Shit Ling, let him in! Turn JimBob on! Do something!”
“Trying,” he snapped, working furiously at the weapons station.
Lizzie stared at the screens, horrified at the size and raw ferocity of the beast that chased Aran. On the open ground it easily closed the distance between the two of them, promising a gruesome end to the man with less than a hundred yards remaining between them. Lizzie wanted to look away but couldn’t, even though she knew what she was about to see would plague her dreams for years.
“Got it!”
Lizzie jerked, surprised by Ling’s triumphant shout. She didn’t turn to look at him, disaster was too close on the screen. The beast lunged forward, opening its beaked maw and snapping it towards its next meal. Aran dove to the ground, not slowing in the least. Lizzie wondered how he knew when to duck but couldn’t voice the question before it was answered for her.
The external feeds picked up the beast roaring as tufts of its hide burst free. Smoking black marks appeared on its body, explaining how Aran had known to duck. He hadn’t been avoiding the creature; he’d been avoiding JimBob’s line of fire.
Aran was moving still. He crawled, occasionally favoring his leg and side. He picked himself up slowly and lurched towards the ship in a staggering run. The beast ignored him, realizing that the new threat was something else.
Lizzie and Ling watched the creature charge the robot down. The robot held its ground — fear emulation programming wasn’t popular on combat or security models. The skin on the creature was blistered and split open, leaking blood and fluids in places from the powerful pulse lasers, but it still came on and smashed JimBob to the side with one swipe of a heavily muscled forelimb. The sentinel tried to right itself when it came to a rest, rotating its torso in an attempt to let the heavy tracks it used for ambulation to tilt it over. Before it could find success the beak slammed into it, grabbing and tearing one of the twin barreled arms off of it. The scorching metal was spit out as it determined the taste wasn’t to its liking. Another swipe with clawed talons sent sparks and smoke leaping from JimBob, then the prehistoric behemoth picked a large foot up slammed it down, crushing the sentinel ‘bot beyond repair.
Ling swore, signaling the JB1201 was destroyed. Lizzie stared as Aran made it onto another camera view, this one beneath the ship, and then he limped up the open ramp to the cargo bay. Lizzie was about to bark for Ling to shut it when Aran apparently hit the manual controls inside, sealing the doors shut.
Just in time, the beast slammed into them and dented the thick metal of the bay doors. It roared again and smashed against it with head and arms. Its attack was senseless and violent, fueled by frustration and pain. Moments later its abuse found the camera housing and shattered the concealed unit, blacking out the image on the screen.
“That thing’s really pissed off,” Ling observed.
“What is it?” Lizzie whispered. She realized it was crazy, but she was afraid to talk too loud for fear it might hear her. She could hear the distant echoes of the abuse it was unleashing on the
Black Hole
both through the external speakers and the echoes from inside the ship.
“Some kind of fucking dinosaur!”
Lizzie and Ling both turned to see Aran stagger onto the bridge. He limped over to his station, clutching his side. “What happened to you? Did it hurt you?” Lizzie blurted.
“Fucker kicked me when I went down, sent me rolling,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Are you all right?”
“Do I look all right? Broke my fucking ribs and damn near dislocated my hip!”
“Hey, it stopped!” Ling interrupted, holding up his hand for added effect.
“Did it give up?” Lizzie hoped aloud.
Aran stared at the display screen, searching each camera image carefully. “Seemed smarter than that,” he said finally. “I don’t—“
He was interrupted by the sound of metal being struck then bending. The
Black Hole
shifted, slowly at first, then rapidly as whatever happened succumbed to the damage it had taken. All three fell from the chairs to the deck as the ship angled and slammed into the ground. Alarms went off throughout the bridge, lights flashing and klaxons sounding.
“What the fuck?” Aran shouted.
Lizzie screamed, no words, just raw terror. She curled into a ball and slid beneath her station, rocking herself and sucking on her lip piercings so hard she could taste blood.
“It knocked out a landing strut,” Ling said a moment later, breaking through Lizzie’s panic induced fugue. “Son of a bitch tore out a landing strut! We’ve got minor breeches, just enough for atmosphere loss, and all sorts of damage to electrical and hydraulic systems.”
“What about that…that thing?” Lizzie asked, pulling herself together enough to uncurl from her fetal position. She stared around, expecting a great gash in the wall of the bridge to open up and the fanged beak to reach in and snatch her out.
“I don’t know,” Ling responded. The display was out, the short distance crash having shorted out the connections to it. “But we’re okay…for now.”
Aran swore and pulled himself back into the pilot’s chair that was bolted to the floor. He swiveled in it to account for the canted angle of the ship and rubbed his hip. “Can we fix it?”
Ling glanced at Lizzie, letting her see the hopelessness in his eyes. It caused a chill to go down her spine, but she managed a weak smile in spite of it for him. Ling had always been nice to her. He’d talked to her and even helped her with one of her piercings. The least she could do was show him a little support.
“Where are the others?” Ling asked, turning back to him.
Aran grunted. “No idea. We got separated when that thing came at us. I thought maybe Cooper made it back here, he disappeared earlier.”
Lizzie felt as much as heard the breath suck through her teeth. Cooper was bad news, especially if he was unsupervised. Nobody knew exactly what was off about him but the rumors were that he either liked being rough with his women or something far, far worse.
“Without Sasha it’ll take a long time,” Ling let his concern tinge his voice. Lizzie felt her stomach twist, then she clamped down on it. Sasha was her crewmate too, she should be just as upset if something happened to her. Lizzie’s concerns unnoticed, Ling continued, “Can fix just about all the electrical shorts. Most of the hydraulics too probably. Hull breaches maybe, but not without us being in a proper dock. No way of getting in one either, not without some major equipment.”
“Couldn’t we fire the reaction thrusters or something?”
Ling glanced at Lizzie again. This time she saw a thoughtful and, maybe, even a hopeful light in his wide open eyes. “Yeah…yeah, that might work. We’ have to be real careful, then figure out how to rig up a temporary strut to have in place, and figure out how to get it there, but there’s a chance. Maybe one in a hundred, but I’ve had worse.”
“Get started!”
“You’re not Captain Hildebrand.” Lizzie saw Ling’s back straighten and his shoulders rise.
“No, but I’m second in command and after what we all just saw, we have to accept that the Captain won’t be returning.”
Lizzie whimpered, then clamped her hand over her mouth. She never had been very good at dealing with death and violence. Being squeamish was bad for someone who served on a ship that specialized in forced salvage operations, but Klous liked her and made sure he kept her clear of anything that got messy.
Ling nodded after a moment. “I’ll get started because that’s what the Captain would want. I’m not trying anything that might make it worse until we know, for sure, whether he’s coming back or not.”
Aran scowled. “Fine, but if we don’t hear from him in twenty four hours you’ve got your answer.”
“Fine.”
Lizzie looked back and forth between them. She thought about crawling back under her desk but decided instead to suck a lip piercing between her teeth. Ling looked at her and offered a weak smile. She tried, and failed to return it. He nodded towards her station and she nodded in return. She was no engineer but she knew enough about emergency electronics that she could help. She keyed in some quick tests to run on the system and frowned at how quick the results came back. They had a lot of work to do, if what her diagnostics and what Ling said were even halfway accurate.