He angled left, back toward the bank, swimming toward land. He didn’t know where the river led. There could be dangerous rapids or giant waterfalls. Every moment took him further away from the ship.
A low hanging limb was ahead. As he came to it, he reached up. His gloved hands latched on. The branch bent some with his weight and momentum, but luckily didn’t snap. He pulled himself along the length of the branch toward the bank. His feet touched the slippery rocks. He thought he’d slip under. He managed to regain his footing. He wouldn’t let go of the branch. Walking as best he could, he continued pulling himself closer to land. The mud was a good sign. The water was now only thigh deep, and he was confident he could withstand the current. He didn’t underestimate it. One wrong step on a slippery rock, and he’d fall back and be swept away again for sure. He was careful, cautious.
Looking back, he saw Candice. She was following his lead, headed his way. She swam for the branch. Her arms pinwheeled out of the water, cut downward into the water, and came back out, over and over. She was fighting the current as best she could, swimming as fast as possible for safety. He knew she was counting on him to save her.
What she didn’t know was that the enormous lizard was right behind her. Despite the beads and streaks down his mask, he saw the spiked spine clear enough. It cut through the top of the water and serpentined toward her, closing the distance far too quickly.
“Come on, Candice!” He removed his blaster from the holster. He fired shots over Candice’s head. He didn’t think a single shot struck the lizard. If his aim was true, the weapon had no effect on the thing’s raised spine. “Come on, swim!”
Braddox wasn’t giving up. He made his way back into the water. Not far, but hopefully close enough to extend a saving hand. Candice was moving toward him, fast. He shook his arm at her. “Reach for it, Candice! Reach!”
She might have smiled. He wasn’t sure. She used her arms, cutting through the water like a champ. He didn’t think she was going to make it. It wasn’t fast enough.
The lizard went under water, the spiked spine no longer visible. Maybe a shiny fish caught its attention. He hoped that was the case. Easier prey? A fast meal?
He pulled off his gloves. “You’re almost here! Come on, now! Come on!”
She threw an arm up. For just a flash of a second, Braddox didn’t think they’d reach. Her hand grabbed onto his wrist. His hand onto hers. He dug his fingernails into her arm. They were too wet, and he worried without a strong hold she’d slip away.
Relieved, he almost laughed at the craziness of the situation. “That was close,” he said.
“Too close, captain. Way to close.” Her voice was muffled through the mask. He understood her just fine.
The lizard’s head sprang up out of the water. The snout was long. Teeth lined both the top and bottom of its mouth. Its scaly flesh was green and red and orange. It sparkled under the daylight rays. Its eyes were beady and locked on both of them.
Braddox drew his blaster. The toe of his boots dug into the mud and he fired off three shots. Aiming was nearly impossible. Should have been simple. It was right in front of him. With Candice on his arm, he was fighting to remain standing against the current. His hip pressed against the creaking branch. It would not hold much longer. He worried it would break, and they’d both plunge back into the river and get pulled once again by the current.
Candice screamed.
The lizard’s mouth opened wider. Those rows of teeth dripped water and saliva. Its red tongue vibrated with the sickening sound of its roar. It lunged forward. The current had no adverse effect. It stood against the water as if standing on dry land. The thing must be all muscle.
Braddox yanked on Candice’s arm.
The lizard’s jaw slammed shut on Candice’s leg. She screamed, her eyes wide. Her eyes pleaded with him for help.
He pulled on her arm harder.
It was a tug of war.
The lizard had her leg and wasn’t letting go. Candice’s blood was swept down the river.
When its teeth chomped clear through her flesh and bone, Braddox yanked again.
He fell backwards, with Candice coming out of the water with him.
The lizard was gone; it had taken her leg as the prize.
Braddox wasn’t confident the attack was over. He scurried onto grassy land, dragging an unconscious Candice along with him. Her suit had been compromised. It was no longer protecting her from the elements.
Her leg spurted blood. That was the main concern.
He removed his belt and wrapped it around her thigh. He laced it as tight as possible. He needed to restrict blood flow, or she’d bleed out. He hoped the belt was also tight enough to seal contamination from the breach.
Thunder boomed overhead.
“Candice,” he said, gently shaking her by the shoulders. He didn’t want her sleeping. He worried she might go into shock. The greater fear he refused to acknowledge. Braddox didn’t even want to think about that thing coming back for more.
Something roared.
It wasn’t thunder, or it wasn’t thunder this time.
Behind them were tall shrubs. He scooped Candice up in his arms and hid them both under large green leaves.
Chapter 10
Aria Light was not a trained soldier. She wasn’t even military like Braddox and Candice. She had undergone basic boot camp in preparation. It had been a grueling five week program. She was in the best shape of her life. The key now was drawing on the skills taught. Survival skills. Combat skills.
They couldn’t stay in the tree forever. There had to be a way out of this mess. Getting back to the ship was the only option. Trusting the others could handle themselves, she leveled her blaster as best she could, closing one eye, and targeting the head of a Titan. “Move to your left, Martin,” she said.
He threw an arm over his head. “Don’t shoot me!”
“It’s why I told you to move,” she said. She opened both eyes. Doing so made her see double. The barrel was lined up with the Titan’s skull though. “Move!”
Martin shimmed to his left. “That’s the second time today you tried to shoot me!”
His movement stirred up the animals below.
“It’s the second time today you’ve been in my way!” she said.
Her target was out of the crosshairs. She fired, regardless.
She saw blood before she noticed the exploded head. The Titan dropped. She heard its body crash on the ground. The other animals growled, and roared. They clawed at the bark, desperate to climb the tree.
The one now on top made progress. With claws dug deep into the tree it pulled itself upward. As it removed a front paw, though, it fell. Claws plucked from it stayed wedged into the wood.
The Titan howled, clearly in pain.
Aria fired again. She wasn’t sure how many shots the blaster held. Wanting to conserve ammo, she didn’t shoot blindly, but tried to line up each blast.
She missed, though.
There were only two left.
They took turns jumping up at them. They each got close to Martin’s feet. He shrieked each time as if his foot had been chewed off. She wanted him to shut up. His crying wasn’t doing a thing to help the situation. If anything, it added to the tension. “Stop it!”
“They’re going to get me!”
Aria ignored him. She lined up another blast.
Before she could pull the trigger, trees fell over.
Martin even stopped whining.
The Titans refocused their attention.
The beast coming at them was over forty feet long. It’s swishing tail toppled trees in its wake. The snout extended out six feet and was filled with teeth. A spiked spine started mid-neck, rose along the back, and then descended before the tail. It was bowed, sharp, and appeared to grow out of the vertebra. Aria was both horrified and intrigued.
Before she could bask in the revelation of recent discoveries, the giant creature snapped its jaws closed over the head of a Titan. It
rose in the air, standing erect. The body of the Titan flailed inside the jaws, hind legs kicking out.
The remaining Titan didn’t take the opportunity to flee. Instead it lept into the air and latched claws and teeth onto the spine lizard’s neck.
The spine lizard had small front. . .arms. They almost seemed useless. The lizard attempted grabbing onto the Titan tearing at its flesh.
Martin whimpered.
Aria kicked the top of his head. “Shh!”
When the spined lizard was done eating the Titan, she hoped it would be full and go away. If it wanted, it could pick them out of the tree easily.
Too easily.
Martin was looking up at her. She pointed toward the treetop. They needed to get higher.
Her mask vibrated. Yellow lights flashed inside the mask.
She climbed slowly, carefully. The spined lizard was preoccupied. It might not notice their ascent.
There was the sickening sound of crunching bones.
She stopped and stared.
The spined lizard dropped the Titan out of its elongated jaws. Its headless body crashed onto the one she’d shot with the blaster.
The second Titan continued its attack. Viciously its claws dug into the spined lizard’s neck. Blood spilled from the gouges. The Titan’s teeth pierced the scaly skin and pulled away chunks of meat.
The spined lizard let out something like a scream; the sound was high pitched, shrill, and alarming. It made Aria want to let go of the branches and cover her ears.
The spined lizard ran. It pushed through trees, missing the one they were hiding in. The tail swung wildly, and it slammed against the base of the tree. The sensation rocked the trunk. Wood splintered.
When the spined lizard was almost gone, Aria saw their chance.
“Climb down,” she said. She knew she was yelling.
“Are you crazy,” Martin said.
“Go, go. Down! This is our best chance!” She stepped down a branch, but Martin blocked her way. “Move it!”
“We’re going to get killed.”
“We can’t stay up here! Those things will be back.”
“I can’t,” he said.
“We need to get back to the ship!”
Her mask vibrated. The flashing yellow lights returned. “We’re almost out of air. If we don’t make it back to the ship now, we’re dead either way!”
Chapter 11
Peering out between leaves, Braddox Founding wondered where all the monsters went. Candice was in bad shape, and she’d lost a lot of blood. The medical back was on the ship; even with it, he wasn’t sure how much could be done to save her life. There was no way he’d leave her body on this forsaken planet. They couldn’t remain hidden much longer, but wasn’t sure how much sunlight remained. He feared once night arrived, more beasts would come out of the jungle, hungry and ready for stalking prey. Especially wounded prey.
No. It was time to move; time to act, not react.
He stood up, Candice in his arms. She was a solid woman, muscle was heavier than fat. He wished she didn’t spend so much time working out. Carrying her was not going to be simple. Cradling her in his arms like a child wouldn’t work. He wanted his blaster drawn, and ready to fire.
Slinging her over his shoulder, he positioned her body as best he could.
She moaned.
That was a good sign, just bad timing. “I’ve got you,” he said. “Be still. It’s going to be okay.”
There was no response. She wasn’t alert, and he knew she was at risk for going into shock. He needed blankets to keep her warm.
As he stepped out of the brush, he thought about her leg. The open wound was a danger. She was exposed to alien elements. He worried about infection. He had to cauterize the stump. That would take care of the bleeding.
The jungle was thick. The trees tall. The forest floor riddled with vines and fallen branches. He didn’t think about the creatures underfoot he couldn’t see. He heard them though. They scurried away, mostly. Perhaps they considered him a threat, a larger predator. That was fine. He wanted it that way. There’d been enough confrontation already.
Running would have been ideal. It just wasn’t possible. Sweat dripped from his hairline, it ran into his eyes. The salt burned. He gave up trying to wipe away the beads. He pushed through the discomfort.
Every time a branch snapped under his weight, he cringed. The sound seemed to echo around him. At first he’d stop and listen. If anything was following him, stalking them, he was making their task easier. Eventually he gave up on listening. It didn’t matter.
He was dangerously low on air.
The hum inside his helmet was constant. The yellow warning lights were at the end. Soon red lights would display, and he’d be out of air.
He couldn’t regulate his breathing, not with Candice on his shoulder. The combined weight, and heat, and fear—he knew he was breathing too hard, too fast. He wasn’t lost, but wasn’t sure how far away they were from the ship. The river had carried them quite a distance. He knew he needed to head north and eventually east. Although everything looked the same, he was confident he’d recognize areas he’d passed. While running. While being chased by a giant lizard.
The mission wasn’t a failure. One lizard didn’t cancel out a chance for immigration. The lizard was an issue, but back home they had animals that were deadly. They also studied those animals and put many of them in zoos for the population to visit and gawk at. It was how things were done.
He knew, though, that doing the same thing here that was done back home would end with similar results. Something needed to change.
The concept of change was beyond his pay grade. He was one person.
A pilot.
He had his mission, and nothing else.
Part of that mission was getting everyone safely to this planet, and more importantly, getting them all back home. Alive.
He hoped the crews en route to scope out other planets were going better.
There was a small clearing ahead. He could see it through low hanging leaves. The small stretch of field looked familiar.
When he reached the edge of the trees, he stopped. He rested his shoulder against the tree, and finally wiped away sweat.
He blinked twice, just to ensure he wasn’t hallucinating.
Not forty yards away was Liberation.
People were blessed with different talents. Braddox loved his awesome sense of direction. It was a little thing, but when needed, like now, it came in handy.
He scanned the clearing. There were no visible lizards. It didn’t mean the coast was clear, it meant he couldn’t see an immediate threat. Big difference.
Raising his blaster, he stepped away from the tree, and using what he had left, he ran.
Candice’s body bounced on his shoulder.
His one arm was wrapped around the back of her legs. He didn’t want to drop her. There was no way he would slow down or stop until he reached the ship.
He was halfway there when another lizard crashed through the trees on his right.
The lizard was twice as large as the one they’d already been attacked by.
This one had a bowed spine that fanned across its back. The long tail wagged left and right, knocking down trees around it. Its feet pounded the ground, and the ground actually shook. The reverberation from its weight as it ran felt like tremors, as if the ground were about to crack open and swallow them down to the planet’s core.
Chapter 12
Out of the tree, Aria spun around. “Which way to the ship?”
Martin shifted his bag full of rocks from one shoulder to the other. “I’m not sure.”
They were lost. If they started in the wrong direction, they’d waste time and air. They couldn’t stand there confused. Waiting for Martin to decide was pointless. He was all scientist and little help outside of textbook smarts. Problem was, right now she didn’t trust herself. The spined lizard had destroyed so much of the jungle nothing looked familiar.
“I think we came from over there, that way.” Martin pointed.
He was trying.
He was also wrong. “That doesn’t look right,” she said.
They were killing too much time with indecision.
“Fine. Let’s try it,” she said. “Where’s your blaster?”
“I didn’t bring one,” he said, and pursed his lips.
She hadn’t been excited about wearing a weapon. She was a scientist. Understanding they were in a foreign world helped her decide though. She was thankful she had the blaster. “Stay close. Keep quiet. We don’t want to draw any attention.”
Both masks began shuttering.
Martin looked like he was being eaten alive. His hands went to his face, and he took several steps backwards. He stumbled over a log and fell. His hands flew behind him, breaking the fall.
Aria breathed in three breaths. The mask was now being sucked in against her face. The air was gone.
She realized her hands were at her face, too.
They were going to suffocate.
Her fingers tentatively touched the corners of the facemask.
There was no more air.
She was sucking on nothing.
Her fingertips unfastened the helmet.
Martin reached an arm out toward her as if warning her to stop.
There was no stopping. They would die with the masks on. The air on the planet was similar to home, just too clean. The irony. She’d trusted her lungs were blackened enough, hardened enough, they could handle some clean air.
She pulled off her mask, and inhaled a deep breath.
Holding it, she waited for a moment. There was no telling what would happen next. Part of her expected a burning sensation in her chest, unbearable heat growing more intense until her lungs imploded.
It didn’t happen.
Martin rolled onto all fours, ripping his mask off his face.
Extinction Page 4
