by J G Cressey
Toker looked petrified. He opened his mouth as if to say something but failed to create any sound. Eddy, in contrast, had eyes almost as wide as her grin as she grabbed the binoculars from Cal and, for the hundredth time, peered out at the distant feast.
“I don’t get it, Cal,” Viktor said. The boy was looking anxious as Melinda stood behind him, stroking his hair. “Wouldn’t it be best to wait for all those creatures to finish eating? Then they’ll leave the plains, right? We could go across tomorrow night, when we won’t get eaten or burned.”
“It’s a good plan, Viktor, but there’re a couple of problems: First, it looks like there’s still enough meat on those Hunkar lizards to last a good few nights. Second, that storm is going to hit within the next half hour, and when it does, even the most ferocious beast is going to get freaked and run from it. And unfortunately, it’s going to push them in this direction.”
“So we could hide in the trees, right? Wait for them to run past,” Viktor said hopefully.
“That’s good thinking, kid,” Jumper said. “But there’s a problem with that too. My experience tells me that once they reach the cover of the trees, they’ll feel safe and stop running. That would leave us camped out among them. Even the best hiding place wouldn’t last long.”
“So we just go for it then, yeah?” Eddy piped up. “Hit ‘um head on, push on through.”
Still open mouthed, Toker turned to look at her as if she were the conductor of his nightmares. He was still unable to make any sound leave his lips.
“Believe it or not, yes, that’s sort of the plan,” Cal replied, still not quite believing that was the best he could come up with.
“You’re joking, right, Cal?” Viktor blurted out. “They’re too quick; we won’t be able to just run through them.”
“We won’t be going on foot,” Jumper said, reaching into his pack and pulling out a small device. “If you all back up a few paces, I’ll show you why.”
Once they’d done as he’d asked, Jumper directed the device at the area of ground on which they’d been standing and pressed a button. There was a loud, pneumatic hiss followed by a deafening whirring noise, which caused Toker to practically jump out of his skin. Suddenly, a large, square section of the dusty floor began to shift directly in front of them. The square shuddered slightly and then began to flip on a central axis. Loose rocks and gritty sand slid off the tilting section to drop down into a dark, hollow space that was slowly being revealed beneath. As the square platform continued to turn, it soon became apparent that something was attached to its underside. Within seconds, the platform had completed its rotation and had once again sealed the desert floor. Sitting on the platform were a pair of rugged, powerful looking dune buggies. Thick smart-straps, which had secured the vehicles during their inverted positioning, popped free and retracted back into the platform.
“Holy shit, you chaps have been holding out on me,” Toker said, his legs suddenly finding strength and springing him up and over to the vehicles. Cal was pleased to see that his young friend’s look of eternal horror had failed in its eternity.
Each buggy was identical with huge, knobbly tires and a thick set of roll bars. Toker ran his hand over the nearest vehicle, staring at it as if it were a holy relic. “Man, these are beautiful.”
“Are you kidding?” Viktor asked, looking and sounding disgusted. “They’re ancient…with frickin’ wheels. They should be in a museum.”
Toker ignored him and was studying the huge exhausts jutting out from behind each door. Eddy scampered over for a closer inspection too though her interest was focused on the large guns mounted on the rear of each vehicle.
“Bliss blasters,” Jumper informed her. “They can fire twenty bliss darts a second.”
“Dunno what a bliss dart is, but I reckon these things could bring down anythin’.”
“You reckon right,” Jumper replied. “We use them to bring down the huge Hunkar lizards that roam the plains. They’re the biggest land creatures ever discovered. Takes a fair amount of bliss formula to bring them down, I can tell you. We use the buggies and the blasters because the Hunkars are too big and fast to get on foot with just a rifle.”
“Why not use hover vehicles or ships?” Viktor asked.
“The Federation don’t like shelling out for ships or all terrain hover vehicles,” Jumper informed the flabbergasted boy. “And the flat lands aren’t exactly suited for hover tracks.”
“Can I be on one of the blasters, Cal?’ Eddy pleaded, causing Cal to swallow a curse.
“Actually, Eddy, I really need you for a more difficult task,” he replied with as much conviction as he could muster. He wasn’t convinced that Eddy could man the blaster and remain calm enough not to shoot the other vehicle or indeed herself. Fortunately, the girl seemed convinced.
“Course, Cal, name it.”
“I need someone next to me proficient in close quarters combat. If anything gets past the bliss darts, they’ll need dealing with.”
The girl sniffed loudly, looking a little disappointed. “Sure, Cal. No worries.”
Cal looked at Jumper. His old friend was grinning and watching the young girl with fascination as she pulled her little scalpel out from her boot. Seeming to decide that it couldn’t hurt to boost her natural confidence little further, Jumper pulled out his gleaming survival knife, expertly flipped it in his hand, and offered it to her. “A gift,” he said, shooting Cal a swift look of apology as the girl grabbed the knife. “Just promise me to go slow, take your time.”
The girl nodded silently, but Cal suspected her expression was more than enough thanks for Jumper.
Whilst Jumper and Melinda checked that the bliss blasters were fully loaded, Cal took a moment to stretch. His lower back was still playing up, but the throbbing had now turned to a deep, constant burn that he was able to mostly ignore. He hoped the stretching would prevent him from seizing up during the mad dash.
He noticed Toker leaning against the bonnet of one of the buggies and staring out across the plains. The burst of excitement resulting from the reveal of the buggies had once again abandoned the young man’s face to be replaced by a look of distressed exhaustion. Finishing up his routine, Cal walked over and joined him in staring out over the plains. The distant storm was building fast, bringing the darkness of night early.
“Sorry we have to do this, Toker,” he said after a moment of silence.
Toker looked down at his boots with a furrowed brow and started scuffing the hard, dusty floor. “No worries, Cal… Got no choice, right?”
“Afraid not.”
“It’s a funny thing, fear…don’t you think?” the young man said quietly, still staring at his feet. “How is it that I don’t think twice about jumping from a huge spaceship that’s about to burst from Earth’s atmosphere, but throw a few pointy teeth into the equation, and my guts turn to jelly?”
“We all have different fears, I guess.”
Toker turned to him with an unconvincing hint of a smile. “I hope this isn’t where you give me the spiel about facing my fears and it’ll make ‘um go away?”
“No, that only works occasionally—when you face them enough times and get a real close look.”
“Trust me, bro, if I get through this, I don’t plan on facing this particular fear ever again, so I guess I’ll never get over it.”
Cal rubbed at his chin. “Well, never say never… Luckily for you, I might just have a short cut for getting rid of this particular fear.”
Toker looked up again, this time with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “Yeah, what’s the deal? Clue me up.”
Cal pointed up to the mounted bliss blaster on the back of the buggy. “You shoot the shit out of them.” He left Toker with a hard slap on the shoulder.
Chapter Nine
THE FLATLAND RUN
The two dune buggies tore across the desert floor, clouds of dust billowing in their wake. The combined roar of the G-shock engines was so great that it even drowned out the rumbl
ing thunder of the fast-approaching storm. Night had fallen now, but lightning periodically illuminated the landscape with the power of a thousand flares. Cal manned the driving seat of one of the buggies with Eddy sitting restlessly by his side, the blade Jumper had given her glinting as she peered into the distance.
Cal could feel his heart thudding against his ribs. Driving through the desert plains in broad daylight was challenging enough, let alone on a dark, stormy night. The buggy’s smart-glass windscreen was constructed from a pretty old version of the tech, but it still offered a half decent view of the desert before him. The problem with the flat lands was that they were far from flat. A multitude of rocks and potholes were constantly presenting themselves, some large enough to dislodge a wheel or tear through the buggy’s chassis. It was seriously dangerous driving. So much so that Cal had to keep reminding himself that he shouldn’t be grinning.
The storm was getting close now. Cal risked a quick glance to the rear of the vehicle where Toker was wedged into the mounted bliss blaster’s swivel seat. The young man’s fingers were poised over each trigger, and a holographic targeting sight glowed red before his eyes. To Cal’s relief, the eyes were full of determination, not just fear. We might just get through this, he thought confidently. Then he turned back just in time to swerve sharply around a large boulder, almost flipping the vehicle over as he did so. Shit. “Sorry,” he called out, feeling a little of his cockiness seep out of him.
Cal very much doubted that Melinda, who was driving the other buggy a short distance to his left, was under quite the same pressure. Her reactions and eyesight were far better than that of any human. If it weren’t for the huge torrent of dust and stones being left in her wake, Cal would have been happy to follow her driving path. Viktor was at the synthetic’s side, which was undoubtedly the safest place for the boy not least because Jumper was manning the bliss blaster at the vehicle’s rear. Cal had total faith in his old friend’s marksmanship and knew from personal experience that he would risk his own life to protect the boy.
The wind was howling now. The rain, however, was yet to hit them, so the visibility was still good. A blip on the buggy’s scanner bumped Cal’s heart rate up a notch. He flicked on the comm unit. “Here they come,” he said, making sure his voice was loud enough to be heard over the roar of engines. It wasn’t long before the lone blip was accompanied by a multitude of others, and soon, a staggered line of red dots was moving fast down the scanner.
The first of the fleeing beasts became visible—a seemingly endless row of very large, ghostly white shapes lumbering towards them out of the darkness. Cal knew immediately that these particular creatures had not been in residence during his time on Mars as a boy. He knew this because such incredibly unique beasts could hardly have been missed or forgotten. Everything about them was long: six long legs, a long body and tail, all covered in long, flowing white fur. Even their heads seemed ridiculously elongated. Instinctively, Cal felt that these beasts posed no great threat other than an accidental collision. They were very large, but it was a lanky sort of large, completely lacking any of that imposing, muscular bulk. They were obviously the fastest of the bunch, but with a storm of this magnitude, the rest wouldn’t be far behind.
Gripping the steering controls hard, Cal searched for the safest route between the beasts. Picking a gap, he pumped the accelerator and, unable to resist a quick glimpse up, saw rows of sharp, cone-shaped teeth lining massive, slack maws. The pale fur about the beasts’ heads and shoulders were streaked crimson, the remnants of the great feast.
As Cal had suspected, fear of the storm overruled any aggressive tendencies, and the creatures paid them little attention. “Hold your fire with these ones, Toker.” He hoped the lack of reply was due to concentration rather than an untimely loss of consciousness. Risking a glance to his left, he saw Eddy hanging out of the side of the buggy, possibly attempting to get a better look at the fleeing beasts or possibly trying to attack them. Leaning over, he grabbed her by the belt of her combat trousers and pulled her back in. “I recommend staying in the vehicle, Eddy,” he shouted, trying to keep his cool as he swerved the vehicle away from a long, whipping tail. “Don’t worry about these ones. They’re too scared of the storm to cause us any trouble.”
“Right you are, Cal.”
Finally, the last of the lanky, white-haired aliens thundered past, and Cal relaxed his grip on the vehicle controls. For a few blessed moments, the dark plains appeared to still.
Then they came.
Beasts of all shapes and sizes erupted out of the darkness. It was as if the storm itself had collided with the desert floor and manifested into an army of kinetic flesh and bone. Some of the beasts appeared to be all teeth, flashing them viciously with each lightning strike. Others sported long, ivory horns protruding from thick-boned foreheads. Still more were armed with multitudes of spikes, huge shards of bone jutting erratically from the ends of wildly lashing tales. Many of the beasts were as different as night and day, but all had a frighteningly lethal quality. Aided by his night vision glasses, Cal could see that the fleeing hordes were spread far and wide. With no other option available, he and Melinda charged the two vehicles directly into the fray.
Seconds later, a large Utahraptor, one of the biggest Cal had ever seen, mastered its fear of the storm and set its cold eyes on the buggies.
“Toker, we’ve got an incoming—” Cal’s warning was drowned out by his young companion’s battle cry and the sound of the bliss blaster hammering out twenty darts per second. The raptor thundered into the ground before it even got close. Unfortunately, the sight of the toppled beast did little to deter others whose fleeing lines also began to gravitate towards the buggies. Cal risked a quick turn of the head to see Jumper sat atop his mounted blaster, entirely more composed than Toker as he shot his weapon. Both men were doing an impressive job at dropping any beasts that came too close, but for every one that hit the ground, another leapt instantly into its place.
Rain began to lash down mercilessly, drenching clothes and stinging exposed skin. Cal continued forward as fast as he dared, Melinda keeping pace all the way. With the core of the storm directly overhead, the beasts had begun running in all directions in a mass instinctual panic. To Cal, the next ten minutes felt more like ten hours. The world had become a nightmarish blur of teeth and claws, all glimpsed through sheets of sweeping rain, bright white under the relentless lightning. He swerved the buggy with sometimes little more to go on than a nearby roar to his left or a blast of foul carnivorous breath to his right. Glancing at Eddy, he couldn’t quite believe they both still possessed all their limbs. The continuous pumping of the bliss blaster suggested that Toker was also still in one piece. Even more unbelievable was the fact that the two buggies had remained in relatively close proximity. Somehow, he and Melinda had managed to blindly snake the vehicles through the deadly barrage without a single collision. Even Melinda, with her synthetic skills, must have been relying heavily on luck.
Finally, the number of oncoming beasts thinned, and the plains became more desert-like. Rocks and grit gave way to smooth sand. The rain had also eased. Realizing this, Cal risked a little extra pressure on the accelerator. At the rate Toker was expelling bliss darts, he feared they’d be left defenseless on the home stretch.
Even with their increased speed, it seemed an age before the buggies arrived at the huge, dark forms of the dead Hunkar lizards, the blameless cause of all the chaos. Only a small handful of carnivorous feasters had found it within themselves to brave the storm and continue feeding. The rain had stopped completely now, and the wind had diminished to a gentle breeze. Cal and Melinda slowed the vehicles in order to navigate the massive torn lumps of flesh and shards of chewed bones that protruded like splintered remains of bleached trees.
Apart from the low growl of the buggy engines and the distant rumbling of thunder, the night had become eerily quiet. Even Eddy and Toker remained silent due in no small part to the covering of their mouths to shield
from the sickening stench. Indeed, the only sound of note was the occasional crunch of bone as the few remaining carnivores continued their feast.
There were sighs of relief all around as the two buggies finally exited the labyrinth of foul-smelling gore. Cal peered ahead across the dark plains. The visibility was now good enough to make out the tall, distant form of the Big Game Headquarters. There was a glow emanating from the central tower that he took as an encouraging sign.
As he fixed his eyes on their target, he found himself grinning again. They’d just swept through the jaws of death with little more than a scratch on any of them. Such a miracle deserved a grin.
Chapter Ten
PALE MENACE
Cal stared at the dead comm unit feeling that knot of anxiety once again tighten in his gut. What the fuck was up with all this tech? Taking a step back, he craned his neck and looked to the top edge of the huge barriers¸ which stretched vertically before them like a flawlessly smooth cliff. In the darkness of the night, he could just about make out the glow emanating from the headquarters nestled within. It seemed there was power, and at the very least, some lights were working within the compound. He looked back down at the firmly closed gates. They wouldn’t be prying those open any time soon. They were built to defend against animals of immense power and size. Even the small, man-size entrance at which they stood was crafted from ten inches of the most frustratingly durable metal.
Shit.
“Not much of a welcome party,” Toker pointed out.
Cal agreed with a shake of the head and shared a concerned look with Jumper. Malfunctioning tech was bad enough, but this ominous lack of humans turned the situation from a worrying puzzle to a potential panic. What the hell could explain it? If it had been a pirate attack, then the place would be swarming with troops by now. Maybe there was an outbreak? Some sort of disease? But where were the assessment and med teams?
