Authors: Jason Halstead
Chapter 7
“Tarn, who’s this?”
The muscle bound man guarding Klous and Sasha turned his head to watch another man stride quickly and confidently across one of the rope bridges to the hollow in the tree that they sat in. The new man was thinner but still had the look of someone who was lean and dangerous.
“Said their names were Klous and Sasha. She called him Captain.”
The new arrival walked over to stare at Sasha and then Klous. He lashed out, driving his fist into Klous’s jaw and rocking the surprised man’s head back. Sasha yelped and jumped to her feet. Klous shook his head to clear it and tested with his tongue to see if anything had been knocked loose. Some blood was all he found. “What’s that for?”
“That’s for shooting up my ship! We wouldn’t be trapped here if it wasn’t for you!” He snarled.
“You must be the Captain of the
Rented Mule
.”
“Jonathon Sharp,” He said, nodding. “Except the Mule is a submersible these days. Again, thanks to you.”
“You let us go and you can join my crew,” Klous offered.
Tarn glanced at his Captain. Sharp just snorted. “Not interested in losing my title. Easier for us to just take your ship and leave you here.”
Sasha gasped beside him, but Klous ignored her. “Sasha, sit down, you’re making our new friends nervous.”
Tarn smirked but did not let the barrel of his energy rifle move a fraction of an inch from where it pointed at her. Sasha returned to the carved wooden stump with an unhappy groan. Klous stared at Sharp. “All right, let us go and we’ll take you to a port back in the rim systems. We’ve got plenty of extra chambers after your people killed several of my men.”
“Next time I’m going to have Tarn hit you,” Sharp said. “You’re here, now get used to it. Expect a high protein diet, unless I decide to have you killed.”
“You don’t strike me as the killing type,” Klous dared to say.
“I’m not, but I wouldn’t push me if I were you. I already don’t like you.”
“What was that thing?” Sasha interrupted. “It was…”
“Big? Scary? About to eat you? Right on all accounts,” Sharp said. She nodded. “We’ve killed a couple of them when we have to, but mostly we try to avoid them. Been calling them Chickasaurus because we don’t know what else to use.”
Klous snorted at the ludicrous name. “A dinosaur chicken?”
“They got beaks and feathers. Plenty of muscle but something that big on too legs that can move that fast? Even here that’s not normal. Their bones are light too, just like a bird. So yeah, a dinosaur chicken.”
“Feathers?”
“Thick hollow hair or some kind of feathers, it reflects light. Makes energy weapons less effective, keeps ‘em cool in the sun, and adds some camouflage so they can hide or hunt better,” Tarn said.
“No wings though, they can’t get up here?” Klous peered out to the rope bridge thoughtfully.
“Don’t worry, there’s plenty of nasty critters that live in the trees around here too. We got most of ‘em scared of us but we still post guards at night.” Sharp turned away from them to look out the opening of the tree. He returned a moment later. “You seen enough to know your odds of surviving out there on your own are close to zero. You going to play nice or try to kill us in our sleep?”
“Nice is my middle name,” Klous said with a smile.
Sharp sighed. “Never trust a man with a four letter name,” he said. “All right, Tarn keep em quiet, I think Kira’s back.”
“Tarn’s name is four letters,” Klous muttered.
Sharp glanced at the former Marine then returned his gaze to Klous. “Yep, best you keep that in mind.”
Klous smirked then tried to see out the opening at the approaching newcomer. Another woman always interested him. He glanced at Sasha and saw she was staring at the floor hunched over. Her shirt hung from her loosely, giving him ample amount of shadowed flesh to view from where he sat. He realized with a barely suppressed start that she had changed again. Sasha always wore loose fitting clothes but now hers were practically falling off of her.
“What is this place?” He wondered aloud, glancing at his own arm and noting the added definition he could see in it.
“You drank the water?” Tarn asked with a chuckle. Klous found himself nodding his head as he looked at the big man. “I used to be FIST a lifetime ago. Got old and fat and sloppy. Nine months here and I’m in better shape than I ever was. Feel younger too. This place is a fucking meatgrinder, but you gotta be tough here to stand a chance at surviving.”
“Working out a lot to stay alive here?” Klous wasn’t sure what Tarn was saying. The environment was so hostile the former Marine had to work harder?
Tarn laughed, then turned and spit out the open door to the ground below. “No. Well, just living here is a work out. I mean there’s something in the water or the air or the food we eat here. It helps keep you strong. Wounds heal faster, fat burns off, it’s just good for you – if it don’t kill you.”
Klous frowned as he digested Tarn’s words. Not only would the planet make a wonderful resort getaway or hunter’s paradise, but if they could identify what it was that was so good for the human body, it could be bottled and sold at any price! He realized he was grinning and wiped the smile off his face before Tarn noticed it.
“You think I look good, wait till you see Kira!” The man let his grin slip before he said a little more quietly. “Walk soft around her. She’s helped keep us safe and sane and put up with being the only woman on the planet, but she’s got a special hate on for people that cause her friends a rough time.”
The sound of footsteps on the wooden planks of the bridge kept Klous quiet. He wanted to ask for more from Tarn, but knew he didn’t dare. If he had an unlikely ally in the former FIST he didn’t want to strain the relationship prematurely.
Sasha looked up as well, staring at the opening until Captain Sharp reentered and behind him came the most spectacular thing he had ever seen.
“That’s Kira,” Tarn said before he laughed at the expression on Klous’s face.
The woman named Kira stopped and stared at him, a flash of recognition and then irritation crossing her face. Klous barely caught it, he was more interested in the rest of her body.
Kira’s hair was pulled back into a single reddish brown braid that ran halfway down her back. Her outfit consisted of a loose fitting shirt that had been turned into nothing more than a halter top. It offered no support to her breasts but it didn’t need to — they stood proudly on her chest defying gravity in a way that threatened to turn into an embarrassing dream for him the next time he went to sleep. Instead of pants she wore a skirt that showed signs of being hand sewn or at least patched by hand more than a few times. It was loose as well and fell a few inches above her knees. Below that she wore footwear that was laced around and above her ankles, but otherwise made out of some animal hide. Her exposed skin, which there was a lot of, was covered in the various shades of paint the others wore to make them blend in.
What took his breath away wasn’t just Kira’s breasts, it was her entire body. Her muscle tone was clearly evident in spite of the paint, including a clear definition of her abdominal muscles beneath her makeshift halter. There was absolutely nothing soft about the woman, yet she was undeniably feminine and attractive. Even the barrel of the ballistic rifle she now pointed at him did not detract from his sudden desire to see more of her.
“Kira!” Sharp barked at her. She stayed firm for a long moment, then slowly raised her rifle and slipped it back around her shoulder. She also had a stick across her back held in place by a string that crossed her chest. Klous noted how the string slid between her boobs and fantasized about trading places with it.
“Kira’s a little upset about how we got here,” Sharp explained. “She’s had a bit of a rough ride and since a lot of this is your fault, I don’t think I need to tell you how high up you are on her shit list.”
He leaned forward and grinned. “I’m a reasonable man but Kira, well, Kira
is
the killing type.”
Klous looked at Kira again and saw her eyes held nothing but a total lack of mercy. He fought the shudder and, without thinking, muttered, “Deadly beauty.”
Sharp laughed at the words. He backed up and nodded. “Good description! Now then, things just got a little more interesting, and a lot worse off for you.”
“What? Why?” Sasha blurted out. Klous glanced at her and saw that she was thrusting her own chest out. Hers was bigger than Kira’s, and even if it was looking a lot more promising since they’d landed on Vitalis, there was no comparison between the two women.
“Your ship just got wrecked,” Sharp said. “That same critter that attacked you chased one of your men to the beach. He made it back to the ship but the Chickasaurus got angry and started pounding the hell out of it. Tore up a sentinel robot you had too, I guess. Then when it couldn’t get in it turned away and walked right into one of your landing struts. Kira watched the whole thing. I guess it got pissed off about that so it went after the strut and bent it just enough to make it snap. Then your ship crashed down on top of it.”
“My ship?” Klous whispered. The news stunned him. “It can be fixed! We’ve had harder bumps in space against rocks or docking.”
Kira shook her head, smiling viciously for the first time. “My man is watching it still. We heard internal breeches, alarms and atmospheric exchanges. Clouds are rolling in from the sea, looks like a big storm. The waves will pound it and it will be scrap metal before morning.”
“Your man?” Klous asked, irritated that any man could claim her. The fact that concern over her had taken higher priority than concern for his ship didn’t occur to him.
“Yes, my engineer, Eric” Sharp slipped in before she could respond. “Seems this planet doesn’t like outsiders and those that do make it here it doesn’t let go of. We should get what we can from your ship before it gets ruined.”
“Eric?” Klous echoed. Eric was the name of the man that he’d been after for the bounty. He looked at Kira again, wondering if she had any idea about the bounty on her man’s head. Not that it mattered now, but if he could find a way off the planet and take them with him…
“Hey! Stop staring at her like that, she’d pull your guts out with her hand before she’d think about screwing you,” Sharp snapped, pulling Klous out of another daydream. “Now answer my damn question! Are you going to cooperate?”
Klous nodded slowly, replaying the scene in his head to piece together what he’d missed. Sharp had asked for them to play nice so they didn’t have to worry about shooting them. “If we’re really stuck here, we might as well be on the same team.”
Kira snorted under her breath, but Klous fought hard — and won — to ignore her. “All right,” Sharp said, motioning for them to stand up. “Let’s head out.”
“Head out?” Sasha asked.
“To the
Black Hole
,” Klous answered her. “We’ll see if it’s as bad as they say and hook up with Ling and Lizzie, and whoever made it back.”
“Then what?” Sasha asked.
“Then we get off this rock if we can, otherwise we start salvaging.”
“Salvaging?”
Sharp chuckled. “Figured you’d know all about salvage operations.”
Klous nodded and smiled wryly. “Fair enough, Captain.” He turned to Sasha and offered his hand to her. She looked up, startled. “Get that sexy ass of your moving, Sasha, we’ve got a long day ahead of us.”
“Day?” Kira barked. “Time we get there the sun will be setting behind the clouds. It’ll be so dark you can’t see ten feet and that’s when the nighttime predators come out.”
Sasha took a step closer to Klous. He glanced at her with his eyebrow raised but she only stared at Kira. Kira spun around, her skirt lifting enough to show a teasing glimpse of thigh, and walked quickly back down the plank.
“One more thing,” Sharp said. “We’ve got another one of your men, guy named Cooper?”
Klous jerked in surprise. Sasha gasped beside him. “Where is he?”
“Tied up and under guard. We carried him back here and when he woke up he convinced us he’d work with us, then he tried to take out Jeff. He might have won too if Jeff hadn’t spent the past nine months on this place. You learn to grow eyes in the back of your head here.”
Klous sighed. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Later, after we get back.”
“Sharp, don’t underestimate Cooper, later might be too late,” Klous warned. Sasha nodded beside him.
Sharp chuckled. “I’ll take the risk. He resists again and Jeff puts him down.”
Klous frowned but nodded. Sharp and his men still had the guns, after all. “All right, let’s get to the Hole.”
Chapter 8
Brand leapt over a root, convinced he could still hear the pounding feet of the beast behind him. His toe snagged against it, throwing him forward and causing him to crash face first into a mound of dirt. It sounded hollow but was resilient enough to make him bounce off of it.
Blood ran down his face, mixing with the sweat and stinging his eyes. He groaned and rolled away, staring behind him and expecting massive jaws to clamp shut on him at any moment. Instead he found himself alone in the jungle. Alone and exhausted.