by Stuart Clark
PROJECT U.L.F.
PROJECT U.L.F.
by
Stuart Clark
Silver Leaf Books
Holliston, Massachusetts
PROJECT U.L.F.
Copyright © 2007 by Stuart Clark
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations or persons, living or deceased, is entirely coincidental.
Printed and bound in the United States. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system—except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine, newspaper, or on the Web—without the express written consent of Silver Leaf Books, LLC.
The Silver Leaf Books logo is a registered trademarks of Silver Leaf Books, LLC.
All Silver Leaf Books characters, character names, and the distinctive likeness thereof are trademarks of Silver Leaf Books, LLC
Cover Art by Henning Ludvigsen
First printing, February 2007
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN # 0-9787782-0-0
ISBN-13 # 9780978778200
LCCN # 2006930605
Silver Leaf Books, LLC
P.O. Box 6460
Holliston, MA 01746
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Visit our web site at www.SilverLeafBooks.com
For my Parents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are a number of people I need to thank. Firstly, the Ashford Writers Group, namely Joe, Lucy, Jane, Loz, Brian, Laurie, Terry, and Malcolm, who sadly passed away before the book was published. You all came along with Wyatt and me from the start and your insights, comments, perspectives, and stories inspired me month after month. Thanks for the encouragement. I miss you all.
Thanks also to Helen Arsicot and her father, Don Ritchie, for thoroughly going over the original manuscript and being good enough friends to point out the inconsistencies!
To all the folks at Silver Leaf Books, especially Melissa Novak who liked the original manuscript enough to give me a break, Alison Novak, my editor, and Brett Fried for answering every question under the sun and always being a pleasure to deal with. Thank you all.
I would also like to thank Henning Ludvigsen, an incredibly talented artist, for his amazing cover art. To see more examples of Henning’s stunning artwork, please visit his website at www.henningludvigsen.com.
Finally, my family, old and new, for your unwavering love and support. Thanks for all being so enthusiastic about my Project.
PROJECT U.L.F.
CHAPTER
1
The Chaddook was cornered. At least it thought it was. The small, rodent-like creature was native here and had been fleeing from an unknown alien pursuer. Faced now with a wall of thick vegetation, the Chaddook had stopped. Chaddooks were extremely partial to open spaces and unlikely to take refuge in dense foliage, even when faced with imminent danger. For this reason, Chaddooks made excellent prey.
The hunter was closer now, the sounds of moving vegetation and footfalls becoming louder. The Chaddook turned, looked back toward the forest trail that had brought it to this clearing and waited.
The alien appeared, brushing aside forest growth with a limb as it stepped into view. It was unlike anything the Chaddook had encountered before—and it was big.
* * * * *
Wyatt Dorren stepped into the clearing. He was a tall, muscular man with cropped dark hair. On his back he bore a large pack from which nets, smaller canvas bags and other unidentifiable tools of his trade spilled out. Attached to his belt at his left hip was a large sheathed knife, and on his right hip a gun fitted into a holster clipped to the belt and buckled around his leg, just above the knee.
It was not the chase that had caused Wyatt to break out in a sweat, simply the exertion of carrying his heavy load under the heat of the two suns blazing high overhead. The perspiration now covered his body in a sheen and plastered his hair to his head. Beneath his jacket, the sweat had soaked his green T-shirt, and his chest protector was clearly visible as the wet garment clung to it. His loose-fitting pants matched his thick green canvas jacket and the material of both was littered with zips and poppers. Above the left breast pocket in large white letters the jacket sported the word DORREN, and underneath, in smaller red letters, the words Project U.L.F.
Wyatt spied the Chaddook on the other side of the clearing and a knowing smile broke out on his tanned face. At the same time he felt a twinge of sadness, for he was about to rob this creature of a fundamental right: freedom. Now, the only life this creature would know would be in captivity. It would become a peculiarity for others’ enjoyment. And he would be responsible.
But this was his business, and, as his boss had told him countless times before, those who let their feelings come before their work had no right to be in a job or call themselves businessmen. Wyatt pictured him, Douglas Mannheim, a stocky man reclining in a leather seat behind his desk, spouting all this bullshit. What the hell did he know? He didn’t hear some of these creatures scream as they were trapped or see their eyes, wide and afraid. He had never experienced the sheer terror of knowing that a beast that approached a trap could easily turn and kill you.
The smile had gone from Wyatt’s lips. He shook his head to get rid of the image of Mannheim. When he looked up again his eyes met those of the Chaddook. Large. Brown. Doleful. He sighed, “You little guys don’t make this any easier.”
Instinctively he reached behind him and pulled out a small hand-held gadget. It had a narrow neck that fitted in the palm of his hand and a wider rectangular head adorned with twelve small projections, six at each side. The two sets of projections were off-set from each other at an angle of about thirty degrees, all were set on tiny cogs, some pointing slightly upward, some straight ahead and the remainder pointing toward the ground. Wyatt casually flicked the switch on top of the gadget with his thumb and there was a high-pitched whistle as the unit powered up. He continually kept one eye on the Chaddook. While incapable of doing harm, they had been known to rush attackers when cornered.
He brought his hand up into his line of vision so that when the unit was armed and ready for use he would see the red light on its back illuminate. The Chaddook remained motionless, watching Wyatt just as intensely.
The red light suddenly winked on and Wyatt pointed the head of the unit toward the Chaddook. He pressed the engage button and the twelve spikes on the unit now each emitted two bright red lines of laser light, all slightly displaced from each other vertically. Each small projection on the unit rotated on its cog, moving up and down and causing the beams to cross each other at regular intervals, producing a dynamic net of laser light. The Chaddook was now caught in a corridor of light, the boundaries of which would decrease as Wyatt approached. It was a visual trap, and one that only worked on dumb animals like the Chaddook.
Wyatt stepped further into the clearing, his large booted feet now falling soundlessly. As he left the shade afforded by the thick canopy of foliage, he was struck by the heat of the suns and took a brief look at his surroundings.
The trees towered some two hundred feet high all around him, silent sentinels which guarded the earth where they stood, their sinuous forms snaking ever upward like the fingers of huge outstretched hands, their tops merging to form an almost confluent layer of green and brown broken only by brief glimpses of the sky. Leaves whispered as a cool wind blew through the higher reaches of the forest, causing the trees to sway and caress each other like lovers, their sweet nothings audible for all present to hear. Other sounds could be
heard too, the whoops and squawks of countless forest animals, hunting, dying, playing or attracting a mate. Despite the noise, Wyatt thought it was incredibly peaceful.
It seemed odd to him that he stood in an area completely devoid of vegetation, save for the carpet of debris of plants long since dead and the fungi and weeds that thrived among it. It was almost as if a giant foot had fallen here and the owner of the leviathan limb had then moved on leaving the rest of the forest untouched.
He focused his attention once more on the Chaddook. The animal had begun to whimper and its eyes now darted from side to side, watching the lasers as they swept one way and then the other. “Easy, little fella,” Wyatt said, “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
The plants behind the Chaddook swayed, rustling in objection to the movement, and Wyatt assumed that they had been caught by one of the all too infrequent breezes that gave a brief respite from the pressing heat. The Chaddook turned toward the noise—and froze.
He had never seen this kind of behavior before. Usually Chaddooks watched their attacker the whole time, looking for a flaw in their approach, escape always a possibility. He was even more amazed when the animal began to back towards him; and then the penny dropped. There was a more pressing concern here. Another threat.
Wyatt cursed himself for not sensing the presence earlier but now every nerve in his body told him it was there. His skin prickled, a strange sensation somewhere between fear and anticipation. His nose immediately identified the scent on the air as foreign, the smell of another living thing made uncharacteristically pungent by the humidity. It was as if someone had exhaled directly into his face. It was there and yet he couldn’t see it.
The Chaddook attempted to flee, turning clumsily on its large flat rear feet. Wyatt’s eyes again met with those of the animal and this time he found a new fear there.
It started straight toward him, something he might have expected earlier, but now? Wyatt’s instincts screamed at him that the whole situation was wrong, that the Chaddook’s behavior was driven not by defiance, but by sheer terror. It had covered perhaps two of the ten feet between Wyatt and itself when something smashed into its back.
The creature yelped and squealed, its feet scrambling furiously in a desperate attempt to get some purchase on the forest floor when suddenly it was lifted from the ground. Wyatt could not explain the obscenity occurring in front of him. The Chaddook, now hanging in mid-air, was being violently shaken from side to side, like a glove puppet on a frantically waving hand. Then, just when he thought he could stand no more of the panic-stricken yelping, the Chaddook fell silent and was unceremoniously dumped to the ground.
From where he stood Wyatt could see that a large mass of flesh had been taken from the rear flank and back of the animal. “Jesus,” he said under his breath. It was only when the malefactor materialized before him that he feared for his own safety.
It appeared slowly at first. Just an outline, a bizarre glass ornament beautiful in the sunlight and a stark contrast to the forest backdrop. Then it seemed to swell as color began to fill the form.
Wyatt was stupefied. This thing was the most terrifying creature he had ever laid eyes on. There could be no doubt that it was predatory, its whole body structure and posture imparted stealth, cunning and a raw intelligence based solely on survival instincts.
It stood on two hind legs. Huge, powerful legs in which every sinew and tendon could be seen to writhe at the creature’s slightest movement. They ended in large feet from which three claws protruded, hooked and uncharacteristically silver in color, glinting like polished metal. Behind it, a huge tail some seven feet in length waved restlessly, skimming the higher grasses and leaving a rustle in its wake. The sound was the only other thing Wyatt was aware of over the pounding of blood in his head.
The forelimbs were long and slender, but their narrowness seemed only to exaggerate the size of the muscles that rippled under the skin. Each limb terminated in a crude three fingered hand, each finger playing host to another silver claw slightly longer and more curved than those on the feet. Its belly was a dirty off-yellow color and its back so dark a brown that it could easily have been mistaken for black.
He allowed his eyes to follow the contour of the creature’s back from the tip of the tail up to the head. It was still eating part of the Chaddook. Gobs of bloody saliva dripped from its mouth and he could see row upon row of razor-sharp teeth, each row moving independently from its neighbors, set in a different jawbone.
The huge jaws made the base of the head exceptionally broad and as if to compensate for this, two circular horns, brilliant white in color, sprouted from the top of the head and curled down, lying almost flat against the side of the animal’s face. The front of the head sloped backward save for a small projection that Wyatt assumed to be the nose.
But where were its eyes? If he had learned one thing in all his years as a trapper, it was to watch an animal’s eyes. Eyes imparted so much information about an animal’s mood and, more importantly, any change of mood, from frightened to aggressive, passive to calculating. This thing did not have eyes, as such, and Wyatt, already in awe of the animal’s physique, now felt himself to be at more of a disadvantage.
Just above the “nose”, a strip of red material, almost like fluid trapped behind a membrane of skin—a blister—ran from one side of the head to the other and Wyatt guessed this was its visual sensory organ.
He had not moved since the animal had appeared except for the fact that the hand holding the laser trap had fallen to his side. He was oblivious to the noise it was making.
He exhaled and the sound, like the slow escape of air from a pressurized container, was incredibly loud in his ears. It was as if in his terror, his lungs had ceased to function, and now the body’s need for oxygen had forced them against their will to expel the spent air.
He was unsure if the animal was even aware of his presence, but any sound would definitely give him away. His wonder was almost instantly replaced with a desire to be out of the presence of the beast, to escape, to survive.
The red beams of the trap scythed to and fro across the ground. They would attract attention unless he shut it off. He swallowed nervously.
His thumb browsed across the top of the trap searching for the switch that would silence it. He would not look down for fear of signaling his presence. He would not look away out of fear alone. The roles were reversed now and he smiled inwardly as he thought: watch the aggressor the whole time; escape is always a possibility. It struck him as rather odd that at his most terrified, his sardonic sense of humor should manifest itself. How bizarre. How human.
For an instant Wyatt had thought he had found the switch and then, perhaps due to his blind fumbling or the clamminess of his hands, the gadget slipped out of his grasp. He looked down then, some insane urge prompting him to follow it, to attempt to catch it as it tumbled, almost in slow motion toward the earth but still he dare not move.
The trap pitched into the ground with a dull thud and Wyatt winced at the noise. He looked up again at the creature, crouched over the Chaddook, still intent on its meal, and for a moment he thought that it had not heard it. It was a false hope but he clung to it desperately. It was all he had.
The creature turned swiftly, practically pivoting on one leg with surprising speed considering its bulkiness. The tail cut a wide arc behind it. It cocked its head like a bird, a sharp, jerky movement. Wyatt couldn’t tell if it was looking at the trap or listening, waiting for another sound that would give away whatever had intruded on its feast. It remained motionless in that position.
The urgency of the situation had numbed all of Wyatt’s senses. His world was silent and he felt like he was watching a slow-motion movie through another person’s eyes, from another body. The trap whirred continuously from where it had fallen, quiet but certainly audible. He knew he had to move. The realization horrified him, but he had to get away from the trap. Trying to retrieve it would be a dangerous and pointless exercise.
He inhaled deeply in a vain attempt to strengthen his resolve. A bead of sweat rolled off the corner of his eyebrow and ran a frantic, tickling line down his cheek. By some huge act of will he drove the fear out of his body and managed to raise his right foot. The mental toll almost made him cry out, but the breath that would have carried the sound escaped as a quivering stutter. He slowly placed his right foot directly behind his left and then, with his left foot, repeated the whole agonizing procedure. Slowly, noiselessly, Wyatt backed away. The creature remained completely still.
After what seemed hours Wyatt stood about twenty-five feet away from where the trap had fallen. He could still hear it, buzzing like an angry insect in the short grass. He realized then that he had not thought about what he would do when he reached the cover and safety of the trees.
Safety? He had no idea of what this creature was capable of or if, indeed, the forest offered any safety at all.
The creature was moving again. Turning its head slowly from one side to the other, the movement deliberate and disturbing. It was obvious that the animal perceived no danger here. Suddenly it moved to where the trap lay. Covering the distance in two strides with a comical strutting gait. It paused there for a moment, head bowed as if in mourning, scrutinizing the object, the irritation, on the ground.
The trap had fallen head-first into a small depression, the laser beams stretching two to three inches before being abruptly terminated as the earth absorbed them. The creature craned its head forward and watched the flicking rays of light as they danced across the tiny pit. Suddenly, its posture changed and Wyatt could tell that for some reason, it had become afraid. Perhaps nothing so small had ever dared to stand its ground. The trap seemed to move but yet it did not flee, and this unfamiliar scenario demanded caution from the animal. Experience had taught this creature not to attack such simple offerings without proper investigation. A mouthful of acid or a face full of stinging cells was lessons that required teaching only once. Whatever it was, Wyatt surmised that it possessed a reasonable amount of intelligence.
