by Alex White
The clearing fell dead still as Nilah took a few silent steps into it, slinger at the ready. Tumbled boulders and soft moss carpeted the western side, and she thought she could see the opening of a cave beneath an overhang. Nilah’s anger flared as another sharp rock cut her foot.
“Orna!” she hissed, trying to keep her voice low. “Orna, damn it, don’t do this to—”
Another sharp cut on her foot interrupted her, and Nilah fell, trying to keep her weight off the dangerous rocks. At her wits’ end, she let her dermaluxes flow free, and what she saw turned them green.
They weren’t rocks. They were bones.
A sudden wind ruffled her short hair, and clawed red feet scratched the ground before her. Moist, rotting breath warmed the top of her head. She didn’t want to look up. She knew what she’d see.
Her hand holding the slinger wouldn’t move. She couldn’t raise her eyes to the attacker.
Before the beast could take Nilah’s head off with its massive jaws, Charger slammed into its side, sending both of them flailing across the pile of bones. The creature batted Charger away as though the battle armor was a simple nuisance. When the siren beat its wings, the wind bowled Nilah over. She scrambled to her feet to get back to the camp.
The siren landed opposite them, blocking Nilah’s path with a bloodcurdling screech. Charger regained its footing and scooped Nilah up, shoving her into the small cave, where it would have an easier time defending her. She went sprawling across the mossy rocks, bruised and scratched, but still alive. Nilah clambered back to the opening to see what became of Charger and found him wrestling with the siren in the moonlit clearing. The bot clawed at the leathery wings of the creature but appeared to be losing.
“On my way!” said Orna, Charger’s eyes flickering green as her words came out of his speaker.
“Hurry!” was all Nilah could say. She took careful aim at the beast but stayed her shot for fear of hitting Charger. If the bot was disabled, she’d be all alone with the creature.
The tiny cave began heating up, stinking of the same rotten breath as the siren. When she turned to look behind her, Nilah found a dozen of the creatures scratching up through the caverns, maneuvering through the tight space with their barbed foreclaws.
She screamed, strobed her dermaluxes at full blast, and bolted from the cavern.
Nilah didn’t know which way her friends were, but as sirens poured out of the earth in a writhing cloud, she found it safer to flee into the darkness of the foggy woods.
They’d parked the Capricious in a nearby valley, and Boots was glad of it—since they were apparently going to rumble with a flock of magic bats.
She ran for the cargo bay as fast as her legs would take her. Good thing she’d observed scramble protocol—when the call came in, she’d been asleep in her flight suit.
“Remember, Boots,” said Cordell, his voice tinny in her comm. “This is an atmos deployment. You’ve got to keep it tight. Hunter One, Sleepy, Spyglass, and Pensive are hunkered down in the survival tents. For now, the sirathica haven’t cracked them, but that won’t last forever.”
This time, Boots took the rocket rung much better, cleanly stepping off onto the catwalk in a practiced motion. She climbed into the cockpit and tapped her paragon crystal to the pad.
“Boots here, requesting departure,” she said, closing the canopy and strapping herself in. She flipped the ready switches in sequence, powering up all the subsystems.
“Departure acknowledges,” said Armin. “Opening the cargo bay. Get ready to drop.”
The cargo bay growled as the door opened, wind whipping through its cavernous space. Dark clouds rolled past outside, and in the distance, a rising sun began to tint the sky pink.
“Hunter One here!” shouted Orna, and Boots could hear unnatural hissing and screeching in the background. “Hurry the hell up!”
Boots mashed the full-start, and her engine roared to life. “The bay is open enough, Departure. Let me out!”
“Cleared for launch,” said Armin.
The mag-lock system ejected the Midnight Runner out of the rear of the Capricious, where the ship fell for a hundred meters before executing a hard burn and picking up enough speed to fly. Boots’s head grew light and her vision dimmed as she pulled out of the stall.
“We don’t expect the bats to be able to harm the Capricious,” Cordell began, “but we can’t take chances. Stay close. You’re my only wing.”
“So I’d better stay on this bird,” said Boots.
“I can hear her screaming out there, Boss!” said Orna, terror in her voice. “I know it’s not really her, but it sounds so real!”
“Hold tight,” said Boots. “Boss, I’m requesting permission to engage.”
“Prince here,” said Armin. “Those animals are endangered. If you shoot them, we’re in violation of intergalactic treaties.”
“I already shot three of them!” shouted Orna. “We’re the endangered ones here!”
“Boss here,” said Cordell. “Boots, you’re cleared hot.”
“Solid copy,” said Boots, throttling up to speed across the upper atmosphere. “Hunter One, give me a beacon on Hunter Two.”
“We can’t just step outside, Boots!” said Orna. “Please, just find my—just find Hunter Two.”
“Can you send out Charger?” asked Boots.
“Charger is down,” Orna replied. “One of them ripped his head off. Not irreparable, but he’s done for now.”
“Copy. Sit tight.”
Dark mountains swam out of the mist. Boots’s passive scanners picked up three dozen data signals and relayed them to the heads-up display. The survival tents, which held a transponder each, showed up as a set of green triangles, and Boots dialed them in as no-fire. As she closed the distance, her sensors illuminated the swarm of sirathica attempting to tear the tents from the ground. Boots came in low and fast, dropping flares every hundred meters over the tents.
Her proximity alarms went wild as the swarm of sirathica peeled off and gave chase. The Midnight Runner’s dispersers fired with each second, blowing apart the creatures’ crude inveigler’s marks.
“These things are fast,” said Boots, banking hard, “but they can’t keep up. This ought to be a shooting gallery, Boss.”
“Heard that,” said Cordell. “You see Hunter Two?”
“No, sir, I—” Boots paused as a strobing light illuminated a furious swarm of black shapes from the ground. “I’ve got her! Just up the ridge. Can’t see her, but she’s alive. I’m beaconing her location. Can we get some ground support in there? Did I pull off enough heat with those flares?”
“Hunter One here.” Orna’s voice was interrupted by the loud snap of slinger fire. “We’ve got breathing room. Just get me the coordinates.”
Boots lined up on Nilah’s position: a craggy outcropping with a thin crevasse. If her slinger spells struck the bluff face, she might cause a collapse and squish her friend like a bug. Boots flipped her fire selector and hit the target with a beacon spell, sending a flashing infrared flare high into the sky.
“Prince here. We see your beacon,” said Armin. “We can’t set up an LZ in that area.”
“It’s okay. I’ve got this,” breathed Boots, and she pulled the trigger, shredding the top of the sirathica swarm with bolts of fire. She pulled up at the last second, loosing another round of flares in a wild spiral as she banked away. She swiveled the keel cameras to focus on Nilah’s position, and the flashing got brighter. A few of the creatures tried to follow the Runner, but broke off as Boots sped away.
“Boots, if you slow down, more of them might follow you,” said Armin.
“I know,” Boots replied, dialing in her next run. “That’s why I’m going fast.”
“You’re safer in your ship than Nilah is out in the open,” said Cordell. “You need to run a diversion and get them to chase you.”
Boots grimaced. “What am I supposed to do, Boss? Ask nicely?”
“This is Pensive,” said
Alister. “We’ve got a dying sirathica here, and I swear I can read its mind. Just give me a chance!”
Oh, okay. I’ll just twiddle my thumbs until you figure it out. Boots lined up another strafing run, but she couldn’t aim much closer to Nilah without hitting the cliff.
“Pensive says not to shoot them and to fly directly at the moon,” said Orna. “He says they’ll all follow you if you—”
“I’m not sure my dispersers can handle all of them,” interrupted Boots.
“Just do it, Boots! My girlfriend is down there!”
She did as she was told and throttled down, popping her impulse thruster to keep her nose up. She passed over the swarm without incinerating any of them, and this time, her dispersers kicked into overdrive. The horde of sirathica gave chase, and as much as Boots wanted to throttle up, she kept her hand steady, allowing the creatures to close ranks.
Any second, they’d attach to the Runner’s hull and start chewing. Surely, they would crash her. As she turned toward the full, tan moon, she couldn’t believe she was trusting her fate to Alister, the cocky rookie. Yet the blows never came.
When Boots switched her heads-up display to the rear imager, she found a gaggle of crimson-and-blue bats flying peacefully in vanguard behind her. They lazily flapped their leathery wings, riding the currents with no indication of the violence they’d shown before.
They were following her in formation.
“It’s working!” said Orna. “Keep them busy while we find Hunter Two.”
“Capricious,” said Boots, keeping an even tone. “What the hell is going on?”
“You’re at the head of a pack of ravenous freaks who can’t decide if they love you or want to bite your head off,” said Cordell. “I’d say you’re learning what it’s like to be a captain.”
The screaming died down, and the creatures vanished as quickly as they had come.
Nilah lay panting in the tiny crevasse, her eyes bulging from all of the fading charms cast on her. It’d taken every ounce of will to resist the spells, though it was a bit easier when she could see their dripping maws.
In her desperation, she’d tried punching one in the eye, but the creature had scarcely flinched. If she wanted to use her Flicker on targets larger than humans, she was going to need some kinetic amplification. Maybe she ought to build her own battle armor …
But those were thoughts for another time. As she scrambled free of the crack in the cliff face, she was scratched, half-naked, and sore. She wouldn’t be venturing far, lest she get lost again. She could only wait.
She carefully made her way down the pile of fractured shale that led up to the crack and sat down on the flattest rock she could find, which was still a bit jagged.
A rustle in the trees startled her, and she sat upright, ready to bolt. Her slinger had been lost in the cave, and she prayed the rustling wasn’t a wounded siren come to finish its horrid work. Her dermaluxes mirrored her fear with a dim purple glow.
Instead of an animal, a cloaked figure emerged, encumbered by a bulky backpack. His polybuff poncho shimmered with optical deflection, but he made no effort to hide his goggles, his pack, or his long-range slinger. He was either a poacher or a ranger, but he was too far away to identify.
He surveyed the remains of a sirathica that Boots’s ship had annihilated and laughed out loud. “Well, that’s one way to do it,” he croaked, setting down his pack. Now that she got a better look, Nilah could see the scanning head of a portable disperser peeking out of the top. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a swarm of them, but I’m no expert. Second hunt, you know.”
She crossed her arms to shield herself from the cold, raising a hand to wave with fingers only. “Hello.”
“In a lot of cultures …” His voice sounded like a frog caught in a fan belt. He lumbered closer. “They have a tale where they sacrifice the most beautiful to the awful monsters that live on the edge of the village.”
She squinted, just able to make out the jagged scars across his face. This had to be her target. She feigned nonchalance. “Usually, we start with ‘Hello,’ then say what our names are.”
He pulled off his goggles, revealing scars that confirmed Nilah’s suspicions; she wouldn’t forget Maslin Durand’s face. Rummaging around his pack, he drew out a knife and clicked it on, filling the clearing with the dull glow of a cauterizer.
“No need to introduce ourselves,” he grumbled. “I’ll have done my deed and been long gone by the time your friends get here.”
Her dermaluxes went bright white, her fingers curling into fists.
“Whoa there, my little beauty. I’m just here for this,” he said, plunging the hot knife into the skull of the sirathica, splitting it in half like an overripe melon. He dug around in its brainpan with the steaming implement before drawing out a jagged piece of bone, suffused with a slimy pink light. “From where I stand, you’ve got more than a few kills to harvest. Surely your friends won’t miss just one.”
Nilah scowled. She’d never deliberately kill a wild animal, but if she had, she’d expect claim on the carcass. “You by yourself?”
“Yeah. Wanted to face the great beast alone.” He gestured to her body with the knife and gave her a lascivious smile. “They’ll still eat you with clothes on. You don’t have to pull the whole virgin sacrifice act to lure them out.”
She rolled her eyes. “They attacked our survival tents … but I found their nest. If you want to help us get home, I’m sure the captain will cut you in on a share.”
He grunted and stood up, wiping his hands on the slick polybuff poncho. “No thanks. I wanted the souvenir and I got it.” He winked and turned to leave. “I’m just here for the adventure.”
If he turned and vanished into the woods, they could chase after him, but they might never catch up before he made it offworld.
“Wait!”
“No dice, gorgeous,” he croaked, taking a few more steps toward the woods. “They might come back, and there’s no way in hell I’m going to be here—”
He’d almost disappeared into the tree line when she finally figured out how to stop him in his tracks.
“Enjoy it while you can,” she shouted. “We’re going to kill every last sirathica on Blix. Our trophies will be worth a fortune on the black market. You saw how many we could lure out.”
“What are you talking about?”
“In a lot of cultures,” she said, parroting his phrase, “rich patrons would destroy the works of great artists, or even the artists themselves, to raise the value of what remained. Think of how much that bone will be worth when all of them are extinct.”
Maslin eyed her.
“Now imagine owning two or three of them. Ten of them. Twenty of them. It’d be enough to buy anything your heart desired.”
“I don’t think you know how rich I am,” he replied. “I’m only here for the sport.”
She put her hands on her hips and craned her neck to look down at him. “And you got rich by passing on brilliant opportunities? This will be a tale for the ages. After all, isn’t that why you hunt? For the stories you can tell the other hunters?”
He chewed the remains of his lip and held the severed bone to his eye, peering into the depths of its arcane energies. After a long moment, he pulled aside his poncho and tucked the trophy into a bag at his waistband. “I don’t think so, dearie. Good luck getting home.”
Orna crashed through the tree line, leveling her slinger on the unprepared Maslin. The twins followed, both keeping their weapons trained on the poacher.
Orna smiled. “Looks like luck was on our side today. Tell us everything you know about the Children of the Singularity, and I don’t melt what remains of your face.”
“I don’t think you understand who you’re—” Maslin began, but a purple ball of light splashed against his back, and his eyes rolled back in his head. He fell forward onto his face, erupting in loud snores.
Malik emerged from the shadows at the edge of the trees, dusting the violet sm
oke of the sleep spell from his hands. “If he’s going to threaten us, he can do it back on the ship. Let’s go home.”
Chapter Three
Melody
Boots here,” came the radio call in Nilah’s ear. “Ditched my flock with the afterburners before any of them could mate with the ship. Returning to home.”
“Nice work,” Nilah replied, already grateful to have the pilot back on the crew. Without the Midnight Runner, she’d have lost her mind—and her head.
Halfway back to the ship, Maslin Durand awoke to threaten Nilah, and she made sure to tighten his restraints. In response, Durand delivered every clichéd line in the criminal handbook. They had no idea who they were messing with. They would be sorry. He’d kill all their loved ones. His men would come for him. On and on he went until Nilah and the others loaded him into the cargo bay of the Capricious.
Extraction had been a bit of a trick, since the marauder-class vessel wasn’t designed to land in mountainous terrain. It was made to touch down in battlefield conditions, but with cleared, mostly level landing zones. Getting Maslin up to the Capricious without repeatedly knocking him unconscious at the end of a wench line meant a forced march through the mountains during the hottest part of the day.
The Ferrier twins hated him and wanted to put him back to sleep. Nilah was solidly in favor, but Malik wanted to rest his cardioid for any coming interrogations. There was only so hard he could work the organ before he’d be exhausted.
With so many sirathica dead and the large party of humans clumped together, the creatures didn’t mount another attack. That didn’t stop Nilah from flinching every time the trees rustled. It didn’t unglue her eyes from every cave they walked past. She’d have nightmares about those snapping jaws for days to come.
When they were finally back on board the Capricious with the cargo ramp closed, she breathed a sigh of relief. Cordell and the others escorted Maslin to the reconverted brig, and Nilah fell into Orna’s arms for a deep kiss.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Orna, dodging away. “You stink of the woods.”
