Vitalis Omnibus

by Jason Halstead

  He aimed at it again, this time focusing on its face, and pulled the trigger. It felt back, hands reaching for its face as it collapsed. It jerked and thrashed on the ground, hidden behind the dead beast they’d been feasting on. The other two stared at it until one began to look around.

  Cooper ducked behind a tree before it could see him, his heart hammering in his chest. They were resistant to his laser, but not invulnerable. The face was less like a monkey and more like a baboon, with a pronounced snout and jaw. More importantly, he suspected, the face had less fur on it. The fur coat was strange; it seemed to change shades as they moved. Were they some sort of chameleon?

  He turned and risked a glance around the edge of the tree. One of them was over inspecting the now still fallen beast. The other had crossed the stream and had its nose up, sniffing the air. Cooper felt his mouth part but kept his gasp hidden. They were a hundred feet away, how could they smell him?

  “The heat,” he whispered to himself, realizing the tropical temperatures had him sweating. He’d adapted to it, forgetting about it in his excitement. Now he realized he’d forgotten everything he’d ever learned about hunting. Then again, he’d never hunted animals before, just people. Humans didn’t have the fine senses that animals did.

  He looked again and noticed the sharp looking claws on the fingers of the Vitallian monkey. No opposable thumb, but claws and strength that would turn him to shreds in no time. With a fresh surge of adrenaline making his skin tingle, Cooper raised his rifle back into firing position and sighted it in quickly. He aimed for the face this time, hoping to disable it in a single shot.

  It saw him moving and let loose a howl. An answering cry came from the other one, but Cooper focused on the more immediate threat. He fired, smelling the heat coming from the over-powered rifle as it generated another invisible beam of energy. The effect was instantaneous, striking the creature and sending it howling and screeching off to the side. He could hear it beating at its face where he’d shot it and occasionally see an arm flap as it rolled and scrambled around on the jungle floor.

  The other one was moving fast, charging at him now and closing the distance alarmingly fast. Cooper’s rifle would shoot again, but he risked overheating it and either shutting it down or, more likely, breaking it. He didn’t have time to debate the merits of short term versus long term benefits, instead he snapped off a quick shot that hit the alien baboon on the side. It threw itself to the side, hissing as it did so, and sat up to stare at him. The jaws opened wide, allowing it to scream at him and showed a mouth full of very sharp and dangerous looking teeth.

  It lowered itself back to all fours and sprang forward towards him. Cooper gasped and checked his rifle, seeing the display was powered down. It had shut down to prevent a thermal overload. He was fucked.

  Cooper looked up at the creature charging at him. The irony washed over him – he’d hunted and killed seventeen people, making them beg and plead with him as he stole the life from them. Now he was going to be ripped apart and eaten by a mere animal. He stepped back from the tree, holding his rifle like a club. He could get in at least one swing.

  The creature was knocked over onto its side, blood spraying from it as it tumbled across the soft jungle ground. Cooper knew his mouth was wide open again. What could have killed it? He looked around frantically. The other one had fled, hurt too badly by his shot he assumed. He looked left and right again, expecting either someone from the Black Hole to step out or…

  “Put your gun down and hands up.”

  Cooper felt his stomach ice over at the words. He started to turn his head when he heard the man grunt at him. He lowered his rifle slowly and stood up, hands raised. Movement ahead of him caught his eyes. A man emerged from the jungle shadows, covered in a mixture of some sort of paint and threadbare clothing that served as camouflage.

  “Survivors?” Cooper croaked. He’d found them first, but rather than hunting them they had saved him. He almost laughed.

  “Come down to finish the job?” The man behind him asked.

  “It’s the same ship, Captain.” The man approaching him from the front said. Cooper noted he had a strange looking gun, not an energy weapon, but he couldn’t identify it.

  “Let’s take him back to camp. This is a bad place to ask questions.”

  “Sir, it’s a long walk to have to keep him quiet.”

  Cooper turned slowly so he could view both men. The one referred to as Captain had the stance and body language of a man used to being in charge. The other was a little taller and more heavily muscled, but also younger. Both wore what accounted to being little more than scraps of clothing that looked to be barely held together on their very lean frames.

  “Are you the only two?” Cooper dared to ask.

  His answer was a rapidly approaching fist that crashed into his temple and knocked him senseless.

  Chapter 4

  “I can’t get over how this place smells!” Sasha’s voice carried a tint of awe as she spoke. She looked up and down the small stream they had found and were now resting at.

  “Smells fine to me,” Brand grunted.

  Klous watched his security officer — in reality his chief thug — carefully. The man’s impatience with getting revenge was becoming consuming. He’d picked him up several years back while fencing some salvaged freight. Brand had apparently screwed up something with the organized crime organization he’d been in and needed a new job and a new place to be. Klous had never found out what the crime against the crime lords had been, now he wondered if that should have been more of a priority for him.

  “No, I mean it smells so clean, so fresh, so…”

  “Alive,” Aran finished, drawing surprised attention from the others. “You don’t smell the oil and plastic and synthetic shit that every space station and terra formed world have because of the air scrubbers.”

  Klous found himself nodding thoughtfully. “Only Earth had enough natural trees and plants to keep the air breathable, at least it used to. Now this place does… oh yeah, we’re going to be set up great!”

  He turned, grinning at the others. He saw expressions that mirrored his own, hope and optimism. It was unusual for him, but it felt good. He felt good, he realized. They’d stopped at the stream to risk a drink and to cool down. Small fish and even some type of tiny shelled creatures lived in it, but they weren’t big enough to be a threat.

  “We’ve been walking for what, three or four hours?” Sasha asked. She was looking down at herself.

  “Yeah, probably,” Klous said, grateful for chance to ogle her chest without fear of discovery. Her shirt — all of their shirts really — were soaked through with sweat. The stop at the stream to drink had recharged them all.

  “I think I’ve lost some weight!”

  Brand snorted. “We all have – sweat!”

  “I’m not so sure…”

  Klous continued to look at her and realized that she was right. She did look different. A little more curve to her shape and, impossibly, a little more lift to her breasts. It would have been impossible to notice without the humidity and sweat making it stick to her.

  “Look at yourselves too!” Sasha said, her eyes going to the others and finally locking with Klouses. “Don’t just stare at my tits.”

  Klous felt fresh heat in his cheeks. He ripped his eyes away, understanding he’d been caught, and glanced down at himself. His sweat soaked clothes hung on him, revealing nothing. He shrugged off the utility vest he wore that had spare power cells and other items on it, then pulled his shirt over his head. It stuck to his back, forcing him to grunt and try to contort his arms to pull it free. A tearing sound reached his ears as it slid free.

  “Shit,” he muttered, holding the shirt and looking at a large rip in a seam across the back. He heard Sasha gasp as well, drawing his attention back to her. She was staring at his now naked torso, lips parted. Klous glanced down at himself and felt his own jaw go slack. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered. Always lean, the usua
l layer of padding between skin and muscles had diminished considerably.

  “Looking good, Captain,” Sasha said with red cheeks.

  “I took my shirt off…”

  Sasha’s eyes widened and Aran barked out a laugh. Another screech from downstream stole the humor from the moment. It was answered a moment later then silence followed. Klous tossed his shirt to the ground and slipped his vest back on. He picked up his rifle from where it lay against a tree. “Come on, too many of those things out there around us, no sense in waiting for them to find us.”

  “I think they already did,” Brand said, staring across the stream.

  Klous jerked his head up and followed Brand’s stare. The trees of the jungle were wide, most twice as thick as a man or more. The undergrowth was minimal once away from the stream, though moss seemed to grow almost anywhere. Only an occasional beam of direct sunlight broke through the canopy of leaves, but the ambient light was enough in spite of that to let them see unobstructed through the unevenly spaced out trees.

  What he saw confused him. It took several seconds to make sense of it and even then he doubted his eyes. A creature of some sort, taller than a man, but covered in some sort of an iridescent sheen. It stood on two legs, but not like a man. It reminded him of a wingless bird. Instead of wings it had arms —arms that ended in three long claws designed for tearing. The head was the worst. A cross between a bird and an animal, it had a beak that opened and closed, a long tongue sticking out each time as though to taste the air. He could see glints of white inside the beak, no doubt proof of teeth just as dangerous as the claws.

  “What the hell is that?” Klous muttered aloud.

  “Welcoming committee?” Aran hissed.

  Sasha could only curse as she stared at it. Repeatedly.

  “Don’t move!” Brand barked, trying to keep his voice low. “I saw something once about animals like this. They don’t see so well unless their prey is moving.”

  “When’d you see animals like this?” Klous challenged.

  “Well, not like this, but hunters. History chips from Earth.”

  “I don’t think Earth ever had anything like this!” Klous muttered.

  “Dinosaurs,” Aran said.

  “Great. Okay, what do we do? It’s big but we’re all armed.”

  Brand raised his rifle up slowly. The monster lowered its head slightly, turning it so that both its cold eyes stared at him. “Shoot it or run like hell. Remember you only got to be faster than the slowest person.”

  Klous swore at the macabre humor and hefted his gun up. The beast roared, convinced by their sudden movement that they were worth eating. Their guns discharged, each announced only by the near silent hum of the capacitors as they released and recharged. One beam struck a tree near the monster, blackening the trunk and making smoke and steam curl off of it. Three others hit it, causing explosions of fur or feathers or whatever the shimmering material was the beast had. It roared again and charged forward, rocketing at them and bouncing off the trees as it struggled to get to them.

  “Plan B!” Klous shouted. He fired again and turned to run. Brand was already running, following his own advice. Aran fired twice more, then cursed as his rifle shutdown on him to prevent overheating. Sasha scrambled and tripped on the bank of the stream.

  “Come on!” Klous snarled t her, reaching down and grabbing her arm. He hauled her up easily, adrenaline coursing through him and overriding the slippery grip the sweat on her arm caused. Sasha hissed in pain but remained silent.

  Each thudding step of the creature behind them sounded louder and closer. Klous dared not look back. Still he pulled at Sasha, forcing her to keep up with him. A shout from behind him made him stumble but he caught himself. It was Aran’s voice he heard. Not a shout of pain but a primal scream. The beast returned the roar. Klous could smell the fetid breath from the creature.

  Chapter 5

  Sasha whimpered beside him before he realized how hard he was panting as well. He risked a glance behind him and saw nothing was behind them. All signs of the beast were gone. He slowed and pulled up short, forcing Sasha to slow with him. They looked around, breathing hard.

  “Where is it?” Sasha finally gasped.

  “Aran drew it away,” Klous said. “Or it got him.”

  Sasha’s mouth gaped open, no words coming out. She trembled and fell to her knees, hugging her arms around herself. Klous noticed how the pose boosted her chest up and, being below him, he could easily see down her shirt. He ripped his focus away. The last thing they needed right now was him worrying about screwing her.

  “Where are we?” Sasha asked a few moments later.

  Klous looked around, realizing that in their mad dash he’d lost all track of where they were. Not that he’d had much of an idea before, but with all of them together he assumed they could backtrack themselves at least. Now the thought of trying to follow their trail back seemed suicidal. There was a massive beast waiting for them, something that treated an overcharged laser rifle blast as though it was sunburn.

  “You’re in a pot of boiling water, one step away from being called shit stew.”

  Klous swung around while Sasha cried out in surprise. A man stood there, a worn plasma rifle held in his hand and some other weapon slung across his back. He was wearing a mixture of some sort of body paint, some animal fur or hide, and boots that had seen better days.

  “Who’re you, old man?” Klous asked.

  “Funny, since I been here I been feeling younger and better every day,” The man said. “Now you shut the hell up unless I ask you something.”

  Klous glanced at Sasha, then shrugged. “Two of us, you think you can take us?”

  “Shit, I don’t even need my guns,” he said, stepping forward. “You toss yours down and maybe you’ll get out of this alive.”

  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 t
o 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.”