Authors: Jason Halstead
“Still isn’t,” Elsa muttered, glowering at Klous.
“Brand,” Klous wheezed. One hand was at his throat and the other holding his side. “The skull might be Brand.”
“A brand?” Barry asked, confused.
“Brand was one of our crewmates,” Ling offered. “He was in charge of security. When we first landed he went into the jungle with everyone else, but they got scattered by a chickasaurus. Nobody ever saw him again.”
Barry turned the skull and stared into the empty sockets. “I guess you could be a Brand,” he said.
“All right, spitters to the north and the south, but they didn’t attack you?”
Elsa’d calmed down enough to speak. “Seemed to want us to stay away is all. They were giving us our land and in return they want their land.”
“We need to know more,” he muttered. He sighed and looked at the comm. gear that Gresham was standing next to. The man watched them all, looking as though he’d give the world to be anywhere but where he was. “That reminds me, the other major issue we’ve got is they sent down a shuttle. They had volunteers that understood the risks. They want to join us and help with the research.”
Elsa shrugged. That explained the thunder she’d heard – a sonic boom from a decelerating shuttle. Klous wheezed nearby, reminding her of Kira’s fate. “Why not, we could use the reinforcements. Any of them know how to fight?”
“Something happened, their shuttle lost control and missed us by a long shot. They’re somewhere to the east of us. Elsa, you and Tarn are the only ones that have been out that far that we’ve got left. I need Tarn here, especially after what you and Barry discovered. Pick somebody to go with you and see if there are any survivors.”
Elsa nodded. It might give her an excuse to swing by the ridge to the south and check on Kira. The thought of Kira being gone didn’t make sense to her. Elsa’d felt the spitter’s poison, it knocked her out for a couple of days and she’d only touched it with her hand. If Kira had been bitten multiple times. She suppressed a shudder and turned until her eyes found Eric’s.
Eric gave her a pathetic smile then said, “Kira fought like hell when I had a steel engine support jammed through my guts. She didn’t give up on me, I’m not giving up on her.”
Elsa blinked back the moisture that blurred her vision. He was right. She wouldn’t give up either. Now wasn’t the time but as soon as she found the fresh meat and delivered what was left of them, she’d go after Kira. She needed to know.
Chapter 8
“No!” Sergeant Jess Robinson insisted. “I’m not running naked through the jungle! It’s pointless.”
Elsa stiffened. “It’s not pointless. The hides have scents on them and they make noise. Maybe you don’t notice them but I do. And if I do, you bet your ass the animals out there will to!”
“It’s not going to be much different with my bag,” Jess snapped back. “If those people are hurt I’m going to need my supplies.”
Elsa frowned. Medical supplies were once a necessity for her. Not just her, but any Marine. Combat medics were the most valuable people in a Marine unit, no matter what the officers or the books tried to say. Life on Vitalis had changed that, in her mind at least. The only medical supplies she could justify was thread and needle for stitching up a bad wound.
“Then you stay behind me,” Elsa growled. “Anything smells or hears you, you can be the bait.”
“I hate it when mom and, uh, mom fight,” the shortest surviving member of FIST team three said as he walked by the stream.
“Shut it, Shorty, or I’ll see to it you get a month straight of outpost six!” Elsa knew outpost six was the worst, it was furrow dug out near a pile of boulders. It was cramped and constantly muddy, thanks to the humidity of the jungle and a natural spring somewhere in the rocks that they hadn’t been able to find yet.
Ben scowled. “That ain’t fair, sleeping with the head of security to get favors.”
Elsa sent him a wicked smile. He shook his head and chuckled, then headed off for his sentry post. She turned back to Jess and sighed. “You’ve always been a spoiled bitch.”
Jess smiled and nodded. “My agent said I don’t need to do any nudity for my role as Savage Jungle Doctor.”
“Your agent doesn’t know what she’s missing,” Elsa said, stripping off her loincloth and shoving it into the cache. She moved to the stream and began the process of applying her native camo. Jess looked away, shaking her head. Elsa stopped, her arm raised with a handful of dripping mud in it. She bit her lip and shook her head, then smeared it on herself instead of flinging it at Jess.
“You’re lucky,” she muttered. “I’m turning into no fun at all with all these new responsibilities.”
“You’re the right woman for the job,” Jess reassured her.
Elsa smiled but looked away. She could do the job, she knew that, but she wasn’t the best at it. Kira was the best, but Kira was missing. She wouldn’t accept that she was dead, even though she had to be. Nobody could stand up to a swarm of spitters. The fact that she and
Tarn had managed to walk through the spitter’s backyard and lived to tell about it was something of a local legend. Or a joke illustrating how stupid she was. It worked both ways.
“Come on,” Elsa grumbled, picking up her weapons and stepping away from the stream. Jess followed, a crystal-bladed knife at her side and her bow in her hand.
They walked for hours, Elsa leading them through the jungle with a skill she was surprised she possessed. The further east they went the more undergrowth they encountered, which also meant the more potential for wildlife. The humidity faded and the ground grew drier. They were climbing higher, slowly but steadily. The jungle was coming to life with the sounds of insects and animals.
“It’s noisy,” Jess hissed when they stopped at the side of a river for a break.
Elsa nodded. “It used to be like this near Treetown until the hybrids showed up. Well, maybe not this bad.”
“I don’t want to get my bag wet,” Jess frowned, staring at the thirty foot expanse of water.
Elsa studied it, remembering her first attempted river crossing. She’d been new to the planet and her FIST armor had still worked. She waded across, walking along the bottom and being attacked by the vicious aquatic wildlife. Her state of the art armor had even been breached. “Trust me,” Elsa said, “you don’t want any part of you getting wet in this river.”
“So how do we get across?”
Elsa turned around slowly, head craned to look up at the trees around them. Grinning, she slipped her spear onto her back to join her bow and began climbing one of the trees. The lowest limbs were over a dozen feet up, forcing her to wrap her arms and legs around the tree and scale it by compressing her limbs around it and inching up one hold point at a time. Elsa heard Jess let out her breath when she finally reached the first limb. She swung up on it and proceeded to climb higher.
Jess yelped when a vine crashed to the ground near her. The vine stretched back up into the tree, still clinging to it with the end that Elsa hadn’t severed. A moment later something crashed onto the ground behind Jess, making her jump again. She turned and saw an arrow sticking out of a large simur.
The simur looked like oversized squirrels and had a fondness for eggs, nuts, fruits, and anything else they could scavenge. The name simur had been given to them when Lizzie and Ling’s daughter, Balia, tried to convince them she could have one as a pet. She’d named it Simur until it tried to eat her toes.
Two more simur followed, then the end of another vine. Elsa smirked when she heard Jess muttering to herself below. It was quiet but the combat medic had been sheltered, she had no idea how her words carried. Then again, all of Elsa’s senses had improved to near superhuman limits. Vitalis was good for everyone, but for people like Elsa, Kira,
Tarn, and Fiona, it had been nothing short of spectacular.
Thinking of Kira and Fiona soured Elsa’s mood. She yanked the first vine back up and pulled it free of where it clung to the tree. She climbed back down, using the second vine to rappel the final distance from the bottom branch.
“Now you’ve got some vines and a bunch of dead simurs,” Jess said. “But we’re still over here.”
Elsa claimed the carcasses, salvaging two of the four arrows she’d used, and tore gashes along their stomachs so their entrails spilled out. Jess’s face took on a pinched expression. Elsa tossed all four of the animals downstream at varying points, then tied the longer of the two vines around her body and shoulder.
“You said we didn’t want to get wet!”
“Let’s hope I’m a fast swimmer.”
“Elsa!”
Elsa turned and ran, ignoring the medic. Her powerful leg muscles were clearly defined as her feet pounded into the ground. She leapt from the bank, certain she’d set a new Olympic long jump record before her hands parted the swift flowing water. Elsa wasted no time in considering the warmth of the water or how quick the current flowed. She knew she had seconds to cross before something with a lot of teeth came to investigate the noise she’d made.
She emerged on the far side, yanking herself out of the water with her hands as much as her feet kicked against the water and muddy bottom. She rolled onto the grassy bank and took a moment to look her body over. The mud had washed clean but in it is place fresh red streaks began to drip down her body.
She grabbed the vine about her waist and pulled on it, raising it out of the water but pulling so hard more of it slid off the opposite shore and into the river. She cursed and pulled more gently, standing at the same time so the vine hung above the surface of the water by a few inches. She glanced around to find the nearest tree, then started climbing it.
The vine was yanked tight a few minutes later, then the remaining length on Elsa’s end dropped to the ground. “Come on,” Elsa urged. “Climb that one then cross over.”
“What is this, alien boot camp?” Jess called back.
Elsa gestured towards the hanging vine. The more noise they made the sooner something would hear them and come investigate. Jess pulled herself up slowly, making Elsa shake her head. She expected better from her fellow Marine.
“I’m out of shape,” Jess wheezed once she’d crossed the river on the vine. Even taut as Elsa could make it the vine had sagged several feet towards the river as the medic hung suspended by her hands and knees from it and pulled herself along.
“I noticed. You need to pick up some duties other than kissing skinned knees and cooking.”
Jess frowned, then nodded. “You’re right. I’m stronger than I was before we got here, but that still kicked my ass. I don’t know how you do it.”
“There’s nothing else for me to do.” Elsa’s statement explained everything for her. As a Marine she’d learn they were expected to reach for the impossible. Since she arrived on Vitalis, the impossible wasn’t a goal, it was a common occurrence. “Now let’s move out, the longer they’re stuck the shorter their lives are going to be.”
“You’re bleeding from a dozen spots!”
“More,” Elsa said, shrugging. “Little bites, most have stopped bleeding already. I’m fine.”
“You’re something else,” Jess muttered.
Elsa flashed her a smile. “I know. If I weren’t already, I’d want to be me too.”
Chapter 9
Colors flashed and shapes burst in her vision. She knew what she saw didn’t make sense but that didn’t help her know what would. There was pressure on her face and she tasted something she couldn’t identify. Whatever pressed against her smelled damp and musky. The pressure was eased at the same time a blur of light streaked across her vision. Now the pressure was on her back and the blurred lights slowly swam into focus. Fuzzy shapes on the floor were glowing.
A shape blocked the lights, drawing her attention. She looked up and saw a giant creature above her. She knew what it was without knowing how or why. It was an enormous spitter. The queen.
The matriarch towered above her. The smell intensified, drawing a mental gasp if not a physical one. The musky smell reminded managed to pierce through the strobing images. It smelled like sex.
The queen brought her mouth low, spittle dripping from her mandibles and jaws. She stared back at the massive creature, sensing she should be afraid but feeling too detached to understand why. The queen sniffed, then raised her head and jerked it violently to the side once. The matriarch let loose a throaty growl then stomped forward, missing her by inches with her taloned feet.
The queen settled above her, shifting back and forth a little to properly position herself. Was it going to set on her and squash her? She glanced around, her head turning with great effort to try and find a way out. Other spitters watched, lurking in the tunnels and passages that connected to the underground room.
She saw something else too, something that stole her breath. Between the queen’s legs she saw an appendage that challenged what shred of sanity she had left. She thought the queen might be a king, then she noted the fleshy tube flexing back and forth enough to seem almost prehensile. Even worse were the jagged tips at the end of it. They reminded her of teeth.
The tube struck once the queen had found the right place. It jammed into her stomach, driving the breath from her and making her jerk upwards. Her head smashed into the chitinous plate on the queen’s belly, then bounced back to the ground beneath her. With the blunt trauma fresh colors danced in her eyes. Warmth spread from her belly, enveloping her in a cocoon of detachment and sweeping her consciousness away.