by M. D. Cooper
There—arms deep in more blood and guts than she had ever wanted to see—was Winter, filleting a giant lizard. The sight of it nearly caused Nadine to lose her cookies. She swallowed, took a shaky breath and asked, “What are you doing?”
Winter did a double take. “What the hell are you doing out of bed already? I didn’t even realize you were conscious.”
“What is that?” Nadine asked incredulously, jabbing her finger toward the lizard.
“It was attacking the ship. We might be marooned, but we’ll eat like kings and queens tonight, huh?” Winter held his fist out, and when Nadine didn’t complete the fist-bump, his eyes narrowed. “What’s got your panties all bunched up?”
“You killed that thing?”
“Like I said, it was attacking the ship. I know you’re vegan but it’s no time to—”
“Winter,” Nadine nearly screeched, only barely keeping her temper in check, “that’s a baby! You can tell by its teeth. Did you see its mother? Was there a herd nearby?”
Rogers appeared at Nadine’s side, she hadn’t even heard him approach, her anger at Winter was so strong. She was about to lay into Winter when Rogers pressed the hypospray against her neck. She felt a surge of energy, and the fog in her mind began to dissipate.
Winter scratched his head. “Are you sure it’s a baby? Maybe it got lost or wandered off…”
Nadine sighed in exasperation. “I can’t believe you dragged it in here. Its scent is everywhere now, its mother is going to come right for us!”
“Oh, shit,” Winter mumbled.
“That’s what you get for always thinking with your stomach,” Rogers said.
“Me! Why I ought to—”
“Enough!” Nadine glared at them. “I don’t have the patience or willpower to deal with your usual bickering right now. We need to get its carcass away from the ship, grab some weapons and hope that—”
The ship shook, the sounds of heavy feet reverberating through the hull above them.
“Oh no,” Nadine whispered as her gaze turned upward.
“Come on!” Rogers shouted. “We have to defend the ship.”
Defend the ship? Was he crazy? Nadine grabbed the satchel full of medical supplies from Rogers and slung it over her shoulder. Her training had covered a lot, but being marooned with a couple of fools and being attacked by giant lizards while barely able to walk hadn’t been in the manual. If this didn’t push the limits of her body and the technology within, Nadine didn’t know what would.
Rogers and Winter rushed out, heading for the weapons locker, and by the time she arrived, they had pulled on their armor. Rogers clipped a string of grenades to his belt, while Winter grabbed one of the high-powered rifles.
“Pulse rifle didn’t even annoy the baby. If that’s momma out there, make sure you only take shots at its underside. Anything else will just piss it off.”
“Fine mess you got us in this time,” Rogers said as he grabbed a slug thrower and a stack of magazines.
“You weren’t saying that when you were going on about fresh burgers earlier.”
“I was hungry, okay?”
Nadine ignored their juvenile teasing—something that usually amused her—pulled on a vest and grabbed a rifle, hollow-point bullets, and some flashbang grenades. She clipped them to her belt before slamming a mag in her rifle and chambering the first round. When she looked up both Winter and Rogers were staring at her, mouths agape.
“Oh, come on, guys,” Nadine said. “You know Kylie showed me how to do things. Especially after I was kidnapped.”
“I didn’t know you had become so…proficient,” Rogers said.
A roar thundered from outside the ship, and the hull shook so much, Nadine almost lost her balance. She lurched to the side and grabbed onto a handhold to stabilize herself.
“Let’s hope you can shoot as good as you look,” Winter said. “Let’s move!”
Nadine set her jaw as she followed the boys down the passageway toward the starboard airlock. Ten meters ahead the ship’s hull appeared twisted, a shaft of sunlight beaming through a rend above them. Rogers and Winter walked past without pause, but when Nadine approached, the snapping jaws of a huge lizard came into view, and a long tail slipped through the hole, lashing violently. Nadine let out a startled gasp, pivoted on her heel and walked backward.
Rogers sighed. “I have a feeling they know we’re coming.”
“OK,” Winter said as he opened the inner airlock door. “When the lock opens, I’ll break right, Rogers, you go left. Nadine, cover the entrance, don’t let the little ones get in. We’ll move fast and try to flank them. Maybe if we hit them fast and hard, we can scare them off.”
The plan sounded good to Nadine. The short walk through the ship had set her heart pounding in her ears loud enough that she could barely hear anything else. The less moving she had to do, the better.
They stepped into the airlock, and Rogers hit the control to open the outer door. “Here goes.”
The moment it slid open, a massive beast charged toward them, its jaws snapping as it tried to push into the ship. Winter and Rogers fired on it, but the creature didn’t slow.
“Back up! Back up!” Winter cried out.
Nadine scrambled over the lip of the lock’s inner door, the two men almost climbing overtop her as the monster’s jaws filled the airlock, snapping angrily. It thrashed side to side, and Nadine realized it had become lodged in the airlock, bellowing as it simultaneously attacked while trying to get free.
“Shit!” Winter screamed and opened fire, rounds from his rifle’s slugs slamming into the thing’s mouth. Blood sprayed and it clamped its teeth together, snarling as it desperately tried to get free.
“Think you can get a grenade in its mouth?” Rogers asked.
“Are you insane?” Nadine asked. “If the lizard doesn’t get dislodged the pressure from the blast could kill us.”
“I doubt that,” Rogers said, pointing at the holes above them. “Lots of places for the blast to vent.”
As they looked up another lizard, smaller than the one in the airlock appeared in the rent above them.
“Shit!” Rogers yelled and fired at the monster.
“Some of these holes are big enough for the smaller ones to get in,” Nadine said.
“There’s more than one way off this boat. Follow me.” Winter jogged up down the passageway and across the ship to the port-side airlock. The inner door was open, and when he hit the control to open the outer door it slid a few centimeters, then screeched to a stop. Winter slung his weapon onto his shoulder, freeing both hands to grasp the door.
He grunted and his face twisted with exertion. “It’s stuck hard, damn piece of shit.”
Rogers gave him a hand while Nadine stood back in the passageway and aimed her gun at the airlock door. Stars knew what could be waiting out there when they opened it. She wasn’t going to take any chances.
The two men counted to three and gave a final heave, finally getting the door moving again. It slid half way and stopped, but that was more than enough. A roar sounded behind them, coming from deeper inside the ship.
“Oh crap!” Nadine exclaimed and closed the inner airlock door. “We need to move!” She looked out the outer door and saw tall grass and leaves shifting in the soft jungle breeze. How long would that last with those creatures out there?
“Move!” Winter pushed Rogers through the opening and gestured for Nadine to follow. It was a meter drop to the ground and Rogers reached up to help Nadine down. Winter jumped down after, and gestured to the jungle. “Run for the trees.”
“We can’t just abandon the Dauntless.” Rogers’s voice contained equal parts fear and determination.
“We wait for them to give up and go away,” Winter said. “They’re animals. How angry can they stay?”
As he spoke, one of the larger beasts appeared above them on the ship’s hull, casting a long shadow over them. The trio backpedaled as it leapt off the ship, circling around to the le
ft. Nadine gauged the thing to be almost three meters tall and over ten long—fifteen if you counted its tail. Its hide was covered in thick, knobby scales. Like the one stuck in the airlock, this creature’s teeth appeared razor sharp, and a fork tongue flicked out, as though tasting their fear.
Winter fired a burst at it and the thing only growled, its tail slashing across the clearing, scything grass and smashing the bark off a small tree. It lunged forward, driving them back and Nadine tripped, almost falling before Rogers grabbed her arm and pulled her back to her feet.
“Why the hell does anyone need to breed these things so fucking big?” Winter held his arms out and signaled for Nadine and Rogers to stay behind him. “Back up, slow. Slow. Good.”
The lizard took two quick steps forward rearing up and sounding a thundering call that made Nadine’s head feel like it would split.
“Go,” Winter urged, and they turned and ran toward the tree line. Nadine looked back to see two more of the beasts leap down from the ship and face them from across the clearing. There was no way they’d make it to the forest’s edge. Nadine stumbled as she ran, looking ahead just in time to see Rogers duck into a small cluster of trees in the center of the clearing.
The group stopped within tightly packed copse of trees, gasping for breath. Beyond, the lizards slammed into the trunks, whipping their tails at the dubious wooden protection as branches snapped and leaves fell around them.
“I give these trees just a few minutes, then we’re nothing but chew toys for these things, Winter.”
Nadine had to agree. “One for each. How quaint, at least I have the pain medication.”
“Funny. What are these things called anyway?”
“Beats me. Something or other, I’m sure,” Winter replied as he fired at one of the monsters.
“Well,” Rogers began as he unhooked a flash bang grenade from his belt. “Let’s take down a somethingasaurus or two!”
“Put that away,” Nadine said, handing him one of her HE grenades.
“I guess I didn’t think we’d need anything like that,” Rogers said.
The three lizards were circling the dense cluster of trees, grouping for a moment every time they made a complete circuit.
Nadine tossed Winter one of her grenades as well, and he bounced it in his hand before saying, “OK, on three we throw where they meet, then we run like scared children and don’t look back until we get into the denser trees or we’re dead.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Nadine smirked. If fleeing was a plan. Still, she was keeping company with Winter and Rogers. As far as things went, this was far from their worst day.
“One…two…three…!”
They threw their grenades and ran from the small copse across a wide glade, toward a row of older, thicker trees. Nadine’s chest burned and her limbs felt leaden, a searing pain flared in her chest, almost as though a thread had come loose. Like something was pulling her skin back from the wound. She directed her nano to stop any bleeding and dull the pain as much as possible as she ran behind Rogers, praying she didn’t stumble and fall.
She didn’t even look back when the grenades went off, the deafening cracks of the explosives and the wails of the beasts filling the air. Clumps of dirt fell around them, and still they ran.
By some miracle, they made it across the glade and into the trees, Winter screaming in triumph. “Wooo hoo! Take that you overgrown reptiles!” He grabbed another grenade from Nadine’s belt as she doubled over, gasping for breath. “We gotta keep moving, Nadine.”
“Yeah, sure, soon as I stuff my lungs back in my chest…”
“Seriously?” Rogers asked.
Nadine cast him an appraising look. “Rogers, no…I’m still in one piece.”
A bellow sounded, and Nadine peered through the trees to see one of the lizards approaching. It looked dazed, and there was blood on its side, but it appeared to be otherwise unharmed.
Winter threw the grenade through the trees toward the thing and grabbed Nadine’s arm. “No time!”
She nodded and pulled her arm free, ignoring the pain, keeping pace with Rogers as they crashed through the underbrush, moving up a long slope. Branches slapped and clawed at Nadine and she held an arm up, protecting her head as the group careened through the forest.
The further they went, the drier and thinner the air seemed to become. Nadine felt like she had to breathe twice as much just to get enough air. Normally she could have had her nano alter her lungs to draw in more oxygen, but they were stretched thin just keeping her in one piece.
Something roared behind them. Close…too close. She pulled a grenade from her belt and threw it behind her, swearing when she heard it hit a tree. “Go!” she shrieked a moment before it went off.
The explosion propelled her forward and Nadine grunted as she slammed into a branch and then her foot caught on a root. She fell, crashing hard onto the leaf-covered forest floor. She lay there for a minute, gasping for air, trying to remember why it was so hard to breath.
“Air’s getting thin up here, trees thin out not far ahead,” Winter said as he put his arm around Nadine and helped her up.
“I can…walk…” Nadine whispered hoarsely, still gasping for breath.
“Nah, I got you,” Winter said as he pulled her up into his arms. “You rest. We can’t be losing you now, you hear me? You’re light as a feather, girl. Maybe try eating something once we find some shelter.”
“Food and water, that’s gonna be a bit hard to come by,” Rogers said, his words mirroring what Nadine had been thinking.
“We’ll figure it out. Rogers, keep up.”
“Sorry. Was just trying to see her…the Dauntless. That explosion…”
“Wasn’t enough to hurt her, so let’s keep moving. If we’re going to get out of this pit we’re going to need the best pilot to ever drop out of the SSF academy before he joined up, now come on!” Winter ordered as he pushed forward. A moment later the crunch of Rogers boots on the forest floor sounded behind them.
Nadine smirked at Winter. “People may have a lot of negative things to say about you but you’re quite the motivational speaker.”
Winter scowled. “What people? Someone talking shit about me?”
The trees grew shorter and thinned out as they continued up the valley’s slope. Winter stopped to catch his breath, and Nadine cycled her vision through several modes, looking for anything that could help when a regular, repeating pattern caught her attention.
“Winter, over there. Stairs!”
“Well I’ll be damned.”
The stairs led up toward a narrow cut in the valley wall. Winter called back to Rogers to follow and trudged slowly toward the stone steps. As they climbed them, a multi-story structure came into view.
It must have been built long ago; almost appearing to be a part of the landscape. Trees and bushes grew through the windows and the paving stones leading toward the structure were cracked with grass and tall weeds growing through the snaking gaps. Nadine wondered what the structure had once been used for and how long it had stood vacant.
As Winter reached the top of the steps, Nadine slapped his hand so he’d put her down. She wanted to walk on her own. Once on her feet, she swapped her vision to an IR/UV blend to get a read on the place. “No heat signatures. I can make out something that looks like shipping crates inside. Maybe someone’s stashed something here.”
“Such as?” Rogers asked as he reached her side.
“Given what’s down in the valley, I hope its heavy artillery. It’s possible smugglers who have fallen out of favor with Maverick have been using this place as a base of operations,” Nadine said.
“I’d always thought places like this were just rumors,” Rogers said. “Course, I thought that about giant lizards in the valleys too.”
“Let’s hope they’re good smugglers. I want their gear,” Winter said as he walked toward the building. Nadine followed, keeping back as Winter pushed the door open with his foot and peered inside.
“Are you nuts? Why would you want them to be good smugglers?” Rogers asked. “Good smugglers have defenses, guards, lots of pew pew!”
“Because they might just have a ship nearby,” Winter replied
“A ship,” Nadine smirked. “Winter, have I ever told you how positively devious you are?”
He snorted. “Maybe once or twice. Let’s get inside. Rest up before we figure out our next move.”
“If they have a ship…” Rogers thoughts trailed off as he followed them inside and shut the door.
Winter nudged him with his elbow. “The girl’s special to you. I know. Me too; but man, she’s a twisted mess. And we gotta get off this rock. Fast. Kylie needs us.”
Nadine put her arm around Rogers shoulder and sucked in a breath. “Kylie won’t care that we wrecked her ship. She’ll only care that the three of us are all right.”
“Somehow you’re not instilling a lot of confidence in me.”
“Sorry, gaping chest wound has me at a disadvantage. Surely you can appreciate that.”
Rogers nodded as they followed Winter into what appeared to be an old lab turned storage room. “Jackpot!” Winter said and grabbed a can from the counter. “Canned baked beans, canned brown bread.”
Nadine’s nose crinkled. “Canned bread? Eww!”
“Any spam?” Rogers asked. “Because I could really go for some spam right about now.”
“No, but peaches.”
“A meal fit for a princess,” Nadine said with a smile. She was anxious to get some food in her and shut her eyes. Just for a bit, though. She had sent Kylie to her father, and it was all for nothing if she couldn’t follow. Petra was going to kill her—if the lizards didn’t first.
NO REST FOR THE WEARY
STELLAR DATE: 09.25.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Tanis’s Cabin, ISF I2
REGION: Alexandria, Bosporus, Scipio Empire
Tanis Richards settled into the sofa in her living room and leant her head back into the cushions, closing her eyes for a moment’s reprieve from the pressures of the day.
A fire roared before her, and its comforting glow bathed her in much needed soothing warmth.
