by Brian King
“I won’t let it go,” she said, though the spider-woman looked a little unsure.
“Stick with it. We’re almost there.” It hurt to talk, but then I saw a brave raptor push his face into the hole of our wall.
Fuck these guys. Couldn’t they just leave us alone?
“Sheela, guard the slot!” I ordered.
“Yes!” she replied. I didn’t pay attention to her spear thrust, but I did hear the raptor scream when she stabbed it.
I decided that someone needed to be up with Trel to help the log over the top, so I ran and grabbed our small ladder. Once I slammed it up against the wall, I had an idea for how to use it properly.
“Trel, buy us some more space! Sheela, we are lifting!” My orders came out in a hoarse bark, but the women jumped to execute my commands.
Sheela held the tree with both hands above her head while it balanced on top of the wall. Trel continued to poke her spear down into the pack of raptors and they hissed like angry train brakes.
We were committed.
The ladder was only about six feet high, which made it difficult to get a good grasp on the tree trunk, but it was still better than being on the ground. I used both hands to test the weight of the log, and I figured Trel and I could do the next step.
“We are going to lift together,” I said to Trel as I climbed up the ladder to be next to her.
“I don’t need your help. I am stronger than you, remember?” The spider-woman shot back with a quick laugh.
“I do,” I replied, though I felt like a totally new man since we’d had that conversation about our strength attribute. “Just don’t lose your grip on the log or we’re shit out of luck.”
She gave me a grim nod.
“Here we go!” I shouted the second I was in position. “It’s got to go straight up, then we’ll drop it toward the hole.”
The log had been balanced on top of the wall, but now we let it tip over the far side. As we shoved it over, we also had to keep it as slow as possible. Trel and I bear-hugged the pole to keep the heavy end from shooting out of control.
The plan worked well until the log was low enough for the raptors to reach it and get in the way.
“Ahh, shit,” I growled through my teeth as I struggled to hold onto the log.
But Sheela was there with her spear. She shoved it through the little gap in the wall and jabbed the dino to get it to move back. Crushing a raptor would be so satisfying, but it would prevent the final log from seating properly.
Trel and I began to struggle with the pole as it became nearly vertical. I felt it give way and there was nothing I could do to slow it.
“Trel!” I shouted. “It’s going.”
But it was already gone.
The log slid through my arms and landed in the dirt near the base of the wall.
“Don’t let it go!” I yelped. The momentum of the fall yanked me halfway over the top of the wall, and one of the spikes almost impaled my stomach.
Trel was above me, also struggling to hold it from further tipping over. If we both let go, the log would end up on the ground outside the fort.
“Grab the rope, Sheela!” I gasped.
My cat-like friend yanked her spear out the gap and then grabbed the rope I’d tied on the log.
“Pull!” I shouted. I wanted Sheela to pull the rope, but I also had to hold on, so the top of the log stayed where it was.
I heard Sheela grunt as she really strained to yank the rope tied to the base of the upright log. She moved it a couple of feet toward the hole in the ground.
“That’s it. You’ve got it!” I said while looking straight down on Sheela.
A raptor made a last lunge, but the log had tightened up against the existing parts of the wall, and there wasn’t enough room to snap at Sheela’s hand.
Then the log fell into the hole with a satisfying sound.
I leaned back on the ladder, so I was no longer on the top of the wall. Trel backed away as well.
“I almost fell off,” I remarked as we went down to the ground.
“I would have caught you,” the black-haired beauty replied with a reassuring smile. “Maybe.”
“Ha. Thanks for watching my back,” I said to Trel as the three of us stood there panting.
We listened to the raptors outside the wall. I wasn’t sure if I should have been worried about the last logs we’d set. They weren’t bound together with multiple ropes yet, so there was some give to them, but the ditch and the natural strength of the rounded wall kept them from tipping over.
“We fucking did it,” I said when we’d all gathered in the middle of the fort next to Hope. “You are all amazing.”
“So are you,” Galmine replied. It said a lot that she was now smiling and happy. “I really wanted to help you guys, but I felt it was best to be with Hope.”
“You were key, Galmine,” I answered. “You kept the back door shut while we got the front squared away. We couldn’t have done it without you.”
“We were lucky, but Victor guided us true,” Sheela said while she leaned on her spear.
“I agree with the warrior woman. For a male, he did pretty well.” Trel laughed and I knew she wasn’t insulting me.
“Can we rest, now, Victor?” Galmine said. “I have some ideas--”
“No. Not yet. Sorry, Galmine. The gate is fucked up, so we need to fix that lock right away. I also want to tie off those last few logs so they can’t budge. I know it’s almost dark, but if we get that done, I think we might actually be able to sleep in peace tonight.”
Galmine made a sound like purring.
My headache had slipped away during the fight, but my exhaustion was quick to return now that death was off the table. I took a few deep breaths and planned to forge ahead with the last items on today’s checklist.
Before I could do anything, the forest filled with color as beams of light punched through the sky in many locations. For a minute the lights dropped far away, and in places obscured by the trees of the surrounding pines.
But then one touched down super close to our fort. A blue shimmer sparked into existence a few hundred yards toward the stream with a sound like thunder. The spark became a glow that grew in brightness until it was a solid blue tower of light that seemed to go up into space.
The raptors noticed it, too, because they immediately stopped pawing at the door. I don’t know where the thought came from, but it all fell into place why the green dinosaurs were all over us at that beach when I first arrived on this world.
They knew the lights brought easy prey.
“That pillar of light was really damn close,” I observed, and Trel instantly climbed up the side of the wall with her spider-legs.
“It’s a woman!” my friend shouted as soon as she peaked over the side of our fort wall. “She’s right at the edge of the forest, and two dinosaurs are running toward her!”
Chapter 16
“Shit,” I groaned as I pushed my exhausted legs into a sprint. I was at the ladder a second later, and I used it to climb up to the edge of our fort wall.
The majority of raptors were still at the base of our wall, and they hissed at me when they saw my head pop over. I ignored them and turned my eyes toward where Trel pointed.
A woman with long pink hair stumbled forward out of the blue teleporter glow some two-hundred yards from our fort. As soon as she exited the beam, the light shut off like someone snapped their fingers. A final clap of thunder echoed out into the clearing, and the woman jumped in fright.
The woman looked human. She was wearing what looked like tight blue jeans and a white silk blouse. My eyes shot to her feet when she tried to take a step, and I saw that she was wearing six-inch platform heels. She was dressed like a rich socialite who’d been plucked from a Catalina wine mixer, and I was struck by how beautiful her face was. Her neon-pink hair was a color I’d often seen on women from Earth, and I wondered if she was actually from my world.
My eyes strayed from her brightly co
lored hair, and I saw the pair of green feathered raptors racing toward her.
“Hey!” I screamed to get her attention, and the raptors on the wall below me hissed as they clawed at the wall.
“Hey! You!” Trel screamed along with me, and I saw Sheela grapple to the top of the wall beside me.
“Hey!” the three of us screamed together, and the pink-haired woman finally turned toward us.
“Run! Run! They are coming for you!” I shouted as I pointed at the two raptors racing toward her. They were about halfway there now, and I guessed that the woman had only a few dozen seconds to try and escape.
I doubted she’d be able to make it.
“Damn it! Run, you idiot!” Trel screamed as she waved her arms along with Sheela and me.
The distant woman seemed to come out of her confused haze, and I saw her head turn toward the raptors.
Then she screamed, stepped backward, and fell on her ass.
“Fuck!” I hissed as I tried to figure out a way to help her. I knew Hope was faster than these raptors, but there was no way I could get out of the door when there were twenty down below. They’d rip us to pieces in an instant.
The poor woman was about to get eaten.
“Fuck, fuck fuck,” I sighed as the green raptors raced closer to the woman. “We can’t help her.” I thought about what her life might have been like before she got here. I wondered what she was doing before the aliens grabbed her. I prayed that her end would be swift and painless.
But I remembered the men on the beach when I first arrived, and I knew that this poor woman would probably not have a clean and painless death. She was going to die screaming as the raptors tore her limbs off her torso.
“There is nothing we can do,” Sheela said as if she read my mind. “It is unfortunate, but--”
A blast of light came from the direction of the woman and raptors, and I felt my jaw drop. A bright pulse of pure laser-like energy had left one of the beautiful woman’s hands and streaked toward a raptor. Three quarters of the feathered dinosaur’s body was now made of burnt smoke, and the bottom half of its body tumbled through the ferns.
“Holy--” I started to shout with surprise, but the woman raised her other hand toward the single approaching raptor, and a second beam of energy shot from her palm. It was too bright to tell what color it was, but the other raptor instantly vaporized as if it had been hit by some sort of futuristic weapon. There hadn’t even been a sound. Just the flash of light and a half-disintegrated dinosaur.
“--Shit!” I finished as the pink-haired woman collapsed on the grass. She was on all fours and I could see her back move with dramatic breaths. It looked like her hand-laser-beam-cannons had taken a lot out of her, but I couldn’t argue with the results.
“Run!” Trel screamed at the woman, and I saw her try to get up from all fours. It looked like she was exhausted, but she managed to stand on wobbly legs.
Then she fell down again.
Fuck it all. She looked really tired. Could she blast another set of raptors? Could she get up and run? I had no idea what her real powers were, but the way she was bent over made me think someone had just kicked her in the stomach.
“I need to go out there,” I said as I glanced down at the raptors on the other side of the wall. None of the horde had decided to run toward the woman, but a few of them were glancing toward where the flash of light had come from.
The raptors seemed really distracted by our screams, and they were throwing themselves against the wall with insane fervor.
“What? Go out there? You are crazy!” Trel grabbed my arm with her long bone-fingers so that she could get my attention.
“You saw what she can do!” I said. “We need her. It’s just two-hundred yards. I’ll take Hope and--”
“Victor, no,” Trel interrupted me. “We did it. This is our home now. We’re safe. You can’t go out with that mob of beasts running around.”
“I agree with Trel,” Sheela said as she stabbed her spear down into a raptor that had jumped halfway up the wall. The monster screamed when her weapon hit it, and it fell down.
“Look at her ability!” I argued. “She killed the two raptors with some sort of power. She could help defend and protect all of us, and she’s right over there. It isn’t far for Hope to run.”
“They will eat you and Hope as soon as you get out the door!” Trel argued, and it looked like her black eyes were on fire.
“Look! They are all stuck right here because we are screaming!” I gestured down at the twenty-something dinos. “If you make a lot of noise to distract the raptors, Hope and I can slip out, and then we’ll be back in a flash with one more person who can help us survive.”
“Victor, this is the stupidest thing you’ve--”
“Trel, just fucking do it!” I shouted at her as I jumped down the ladder and ran toward Hope.
I thought about Heracula as I ran across our small camp. I wished the shark-man had made it off that beach with me. He had seemed like a good dude, and he would have been a huge asset to our construction team and an even bigger part of our defense. This woman killed two raptors without even touching them. If I could bring her back to the camp, our little tribe would have a better chance of surviving.
“Victor, I agree with Trel and Sheela,” Galmine said as I ran past her. “This isn’t safe. Please stay here.”
“Please untie the ropes on the gate when I’m ready,” I said as I stepped to Hope’s side. The flock of orange birds almost seemed happy as they clucked away by our cave, but the claw-happy raptors provided a terrible undercurrent of chirps and scratching right outside our wooden barricade.
My stomach dropped when I thought again about what I was about to do. Maybe it was idiotic, but the woman was so close to our camp, and I didn’t want to risk losing someone who could blast the living fuck out of dinosaurs.
Especially when we were stuck on a world filled with dinosaurs.
I could do this. I could save one more person and make our little tribe stronger.
“Listen to us!” Trel was suddenly at my side, and her long fingers closed around my bicep. “You are going to get killed out there! Stop being an idiot male. We know you are strong, you don’t need to prove anything!”
“Get back on the wall and distract the raptors!” I shouted at Trel as I climbed onto Hope’s back. Sheela was following my orders and shouting at the raptors from her spot on the wall, but I could see her stealing glances at me, and I could read her body language well enough to know she wasn’t happy with my decision.
“No!” Trel growled as she grabbed onto my thigh. “You can’t go out there. I don’t care if she has the power to kill them. It isn’t worth risking you.”
“Trel,” I replied. “There’s no more time, we need her.”
“You’ve been so nice to me these past days! No one has been that nice to me in my entire life! I joked with you about being a dumb male, but I can’t deny my own feelings. I’ve tried to tell you since that day you held me in your arms, but my expression of love only involves procreation--”
“I’m not dying--” I growled, but she raised a hand to stop me.
“Argh! Please let me finish. This is the first time I’ve ever done this.” Trel’s eyebrows were furrowed, and her voice trembled. “I have learned from Galmine and Sheela that love can be expressed in ways I never imagined. If you stay with us, I will love you and be loved by you without any conditions. I only want to be yours. Please don’t go. Let her die, we don’t need her. I can’t risk losing you. I love you. Please stay here with me.” Trel looked up with tears in her stormy black eyes.
“I, uh, don’t know what to say.” As I spoke the words, my Eye-Q flashed a message that I almost ignored, though I took a quick peek to see if it was super important. I expertly flipped to the flashing Assets tab to find all the numbers blinking.
Structures: 2
Creatures: 2
Women: 2
I clicked the 2 after women and discovered: W
oman added: Trel-Idil-Iria.
“Say you’ll stay and not go out,” Trel pleaded.
“Holy shit,” I blurted. “You--” I started to share the Eye-Q’s report, but I held my tongue. The computer somehow understood Trel’s words as worthy of adding her to my inventory of women, but if I shared that knowledge with her, she might use that as proof I shouldn’t ever go.
And I might be tempted to let her stop me.
“You are amazing, Trel,” I said while in the saddle she’d made for me, “but I have to save her. We need her powers, and we need help surviving. You need to help me by distracting the raptors.”
“Fine,” she spat. “Idiot!” Her spider legs drummed on the ground in an obvious temper tantrum.
“Don’t be like that. Will you keep this safe for me?” I took off my outback hat and offered it to her. Her black eyes opened wide, and she snatched it from my hands before I could set it on her head.
“I want you! Not your damn hat!” Her shoulders slumped, and tears poured down her cheeks.
But then she put the hat on her head.
“Sheela! Let’s get their attention!” the spider-woman barked, and then she ran over toward my other friend’s spot on the wall. Trel made a single leap on her spider legs, stuck to the wall, and then climbed across the vertical surface with ease. She started screaming at the raptors when she made it to the top, and then she moved so that the group would go further away from the gate.
“Hey you ugly idiots, over here!” Trel screamed.
“Here! Here! Here!” Sheela shouted as she grabbed the top of the wall and climbed across the points so that she could follow Trel.
“Galmine, untie the gate,” I ordered as I turned Hope toward the door.
“I don’t want you to go. Not one bit.” The silver-haired beauty walked between Hope and the gate.
“That woman needs my help, and we need hers,” I said as I gestured for her to get started.
“I understand,” Galmine replied with a teary smile. “I will never approve of sending you into danger, but that’s all there is on this planet. You would risk your life to save her, even if she didn’t have powers. That is the kind of wonderful man you are.”
