by Chris Turner
“Critters. Lots of them.”
“Are you forgetting poachers? Think they’re a hell of a lot worse than a few critters out here from the looks of what went on back at that lodge.”
“Maybe.” She licked her lips, glancing at the wavering treetops then back to Yul again. “Let’s get this over with.”
On brisk feet, the two set off on the red dirt path, leaving the disabled buggy behind. Both were wrapped in their own thoughts.
Yul turned to Trixie. “How’d you end up at Banzari’s ranch anyway?”
“My ma’s family owned the big Beartop Pear Orchard, not far from here. Old grove money from way back when this planet was settled. Seemed the sensible thing for me to continue the family trade.”
“And you went for it?”
“Brother fought over the business and managed it badly. We got kicked off our plantation when it went bankrupt. Daddy’d taught me to hunt, to work a rifle. Before I was eight, I was pegging off crows and wovlars from robbing the seedlings. Scared off the crows something good from ransacking our garden. You?”
Yul shrugged. “It’s a long story. For me, kind of the opposite. I didn’t like this planet, or its rustic ways. Wanted to get off it the moment I could. Made it my wish from a young age, though in retrospect, kind of miss the country air and the lonely landscapes out here.” He looked around, sucked in a deep breath, taking in the lush greenery, the cool invigorating moisture-rich air feeling good in his lungs. I can appreciate the beauty, Trixie, the natural richness. After all the hell I’ve seen…” He winced as a mental flash of bodies charred by flamethrowers, sudden explosions, and starships bombed to shit, flitted through his brain.
“Tell me about your ventures.”
Yul twitched his shoulders. There were plenty of ventures. But he wouldn’t speak of those blood-soaked ones.
Wars, greed, corruption. Too much to recall and relate… Words came anyway. “There’s a lot of mystery out there. I met this man pretending to be an explorer. He commanded an Alpha Roamer, hoping to make it big and discover a mother lode. He was hunting for Yoruntium or some element that could power cities and starships. He went on to fly half way around the sector, ranging into The Dim Zone, I reckon. Met him in a bar in Gosgonia. Man was looking for just about anything that could make him rich. Wonder what’s happened to him…”
“You’re older than me, Yul. I don’t remember much of the Vrean family while I was going to school or growing up.”
“It was before your time.”
“Tell me more.”
He held up a hand. ““Listen. Thought I heard voices.”
She paused. Yul heard nothing more but the sough of the wind.
“You think those men are going to kill Lan?”
“They might.”
She shuddered.
“Let’s hope not. I should’ve gone in with him to town. Why do you ask?”
“They had Lan backed up against the wall of the lodge the other day. One grabbed his hair and smacked his head hard against the wood. Lan started cursing. I was tucked in the shadows by the feeder over at the electric fence. Froze. A little voice told me to stay put. I’ve learned to listen to that little voice, Yul, even if I feel like a chickenshit.”
He sighed. “Probably saved your life. How’d Lan get out of that mess?”
“Started babbling something I couldn’t quite hear. Made ’em stop or appeased them somehow. Might have even pulled out his flare gun. They said they’d be back. That was three days ago. Reckon those assholes’ll be back for more soon. Men like that don’t go away.”
Yul pursed his lips grimly. They walked along the fence line in silence. Yul set a faster pace. Trixie, for all her ranching, had trouble keeping up. She did some huffing and puffing and grousing about slowing down. At a certain point the fence was all hacked up and hastily repaired. A black control box with an electric meter hung at chest level off the wire mesh.
“We fixed it as best we could,” Trixie explained. “Lan has yet to get proper contractors out to install new wire.”
“I see. Not a great job.”
“Yeah, well none of us had time to do it properly. You want to fix it?” She scratched at her hair in annoyance. “I’ll shut down the electric fence and we’ll scoot in, take a look. The poaching was done here where the fence was hacked apart.”
She keyed open the control box and flipped a switch. Yul heard her give the okay then they ducked under a makeshift gate. Yuli sniffed burnt flesh and old gunpowder. The fence had been blown out by explosives. No animal stampede, this. His keen eye caught a bit of tattered red fibro-knit snagged on one of the fence’s barbs. He snatched the tuft and put it in his pocket.
“Over here. This way,” she said.
The cleared area through which the fence ran was bounded by healthy groves of bonderol. Pushing through the trees, they came to an open space of trampled grasses. The snap of twigs and a muffled snort alerted them.
“Look, Vreckin seems to have caught up with us,” Trixie said with delight.
Yul caught sight of the telltale russet strip trailing down the bull’s hide. About eight of his fellow herd members trailed with their snouts down and their heads moving from side to side. They halted to munch on some lush grass about fifty yards away.
“Good ole Vreckin,” Trixie said with a grin. “Recognize him anywhere. Faithful to the end. That’s what happens when you feed them.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure they’ll follow you for miles.”
The sun was starting to dip behind hazy clouds on the horizon, dropping the temperature a few degrees. Dusk was falling fast—and it was a long hike back to the lodge.
Dark blotches stained the ground. Yul knelt. Dried blood. An awful reek filled the air. He looked past the dried blood to a graying clump half hidden in the grass: flesh torn from an animal. Decaying flesh.
At the edge of the clearing, Yul saw groove marks in the grassy soil. He identified them immediately. “Ship struts,” he mused. He turned to Trixie. “Look at this, a cargo hauler landed here. I bet they came in on a Daulk 246, a harrier craft. Maybe a ground team ripped through the fence down the ways, let the dengals escape into the woods. Create mischief? Steer off suspicion? They could make it look like the control box short-circuited and caught on fire or something, then the animals broke loose. Wouldn’t be implausible, a critter like Vreckin butting his trusty horns into the steel in one of his ornery moods. Wouldn’t feel the electrical surge.”
“Could be,” she mumbled, though her eyes betrayed doubt.
“Likely got a crew of poachers, hired hands to herd ’em with electric prods aboard the ship. Sell them on the black market. A few got unruly. They had to kill at least one of them, which explains the blood splattered on the grass. Probably dragged the carcasses aboard, made it look like an animal kill.” Yul squinted at her in a piercing way. “Any of you wear green-camo or red fibro-knit?”
“No, why?”
“Must have been them then. Look, back there I pulled this cloth off of the barbs of the fence and some from the brush.” He showed her some bits of red fabric. “You know, I’m thinking it might be easier for those crooks to poach animals, rather than pay a leasing fee that Lan might offer them for the family business.”
“That’s a snide way of putting it.”
“’Tis what it is, Trix. Why shouldn’t I call a spade a spade?”
“I don’t think—“
“Sh—” He put a finger to his lips.
An eerie silence permeated the clearing. The crickets had stop chirping. Something felt wrong.
“Stay alert. Stay close to me—”
A tall man stepped out of the tree line, his double barrel rifle cocked. “Hold it.” Five others stepped out of the brush, armed to the teeth, surrounding them.
Trixie reached for her sidearm. Yul shot her a warning look. He clamped a hand on her arm.
“That’s it. Real smart,” the lead thug said. “Throw your weapons over there.”
Yul and Tri
xie obeyed, tossed their rifles in the grass.
“Who are you?” the thug demanded.
“Vrean. Yul Vrean.”
The gunman shifted his rangy bulk in closer. Square face. Lean jaw. Plenty of muscle under his green-grey camo gear. His feral grey eyes sized Yul up. “Let me guess. Some bit of local muscle Banzari roused to take care of the outworld heat. Won’t do him any good. He’s in over his head. We’ve got him sewed up in a box.”
“Yeah, like you did with the gift bomb? Check the stats—one dead dengal, one live ranch owner.”
The gunman’s lip curled. He waved his gun. “Sooner or later, Banzari’ll get his desserts. We tried to be nice, but he’s as stubborn as a damned dengal.”
“And what would you do?” said Yul. “Just sit there and roll over and die if you were being cheated out of a million yols?” He crossed his arms on his chest all the while covertly thumbing the recorder switch on the hidden camera in his breast pocket. At least it would record the conversation.
“Better that than a ticket to hell. Enough gab. Hands down where we can see them. Move over there.” He nudged Yul with his boot tip, then he herded Trixie over with a rough prod of his muzzle. “Lebbie?”
“Yeah?” said the short, stocky thug to his left.
“You gonna take Miss Universe for a whirl? She looks just about your size and type.”
Lebbie snickered. “After you, boss.”
That earned a bevy of chuckles from the other four. They all wore green camo like their leader. Trixie gave a squawk of anger and slapped at the nearest thug, spraying obscenities in the air.
“Control that bitch!” cried the lead thug. “Enough is enough. Easiest to kill these two or make them both go missing. But Vrean, I’m judging you as a smart man. We’ll offer you a deal—you work with us and convince dumbass Banzari to sell his property to Veramax and we’ll cut you in for a slice of the profit. Let’s say 5k. Maybe hire you out for some future jobs. More money to earn with us than two bits like Banzari.”
“5k?” Yul laughed. “He’s paying me 30k to keep cretins like you off him.”
The thug sneered. “You get what you pay for. I’m thinking 30 is not nearly enough for getting both arms blown off.”
Yul scowled. He racked his brains for a way out of this mess.
“Tell the old man it’s impossible to swing it. His business is toast. Too many fingers in the pie. Tell him Ranger Rick’s animals just aren’t worth the protection costs. Use that kind of language.”
“Just turn traitor?”
“Unless you want to join those dengal carcasses over there.”
Yul licked his lips. Glancing around, he saw little way of getting out. The electric fence looked too far away, too high to jump. He hated to sell out. But dying for this? No. Not worth it. Sweat trickled down his neck. The cold beads bathed his muscled back, making his woolen spacer suit stick to his skin. Should he play along? Bluff? Maybe there was another way out of this.
Yul chose his words carefully. “It doesn’t work that way. So no deal. My reputation’d be shot to hell. Think about it. What you think I’d be worth in the street, if I turned traitor that easily?”
The thug nodded. His red-bearded cheeks bunched in amusement as he tilted his head back. “I like that. Integrity in a man. But in truth, stupid. I think it just cost you your skin, Vrean. Hell, if I were given the choice of integrity or my life, it’d be my life.” He lifted his gun. “But some folks are just plain stupider than dengal shit.”
“Wait.” Yul spoke quickly. “Maybe we can work something out. Let me get this straight. You snagged a haul of dengals to even the score and took ’em to the glue factory?”
The gangster shrugged. “Sure, why not? Had to make it worth our while. We don’t get paid enough as it is, at least until the job’s over. Nothing wrong with a man bagging a few extra yols. Keeps the boys’ morale up, and a few extra yols aren’t going to hurt anyone.”
“Except the dengals,” Trixie said with a snort.
“What do you know, Missy? Oughta gag you and stuff you in a bag for later. Teach you something about the arts of love.”
The shorter one named Lebbie jumped in. “Why not waste this Vrean fucker and call it day? What you think, Sim?”
“Ain’t a bad idea,” said the bald brute standing near Lebbie. “Though I’m thinking we could leverage this situation a bit more, if we put our heads to it, now that we got this Yul fuck.”
“How so?” said the lead thug.
“Well, for starters, we could tie—”
The rumble of pounding hooves filled the air. The earth trembled. Yul jumped and turned around. A thousand pounds of wild dengal suddenly burst from the nearby trees.
“What the—” A high horn took Sim in the ribs, lifting him high.
“Fucking reindeer—” The lead thug’s blaster roared. Charred dengal flesh smoked, but the tide had already turned. A stampede of blood-mad beasts joined the fray.
Yul head-butted the leader, smacked the rifle barrel up.
Wild shots rang out. One grazed a dengal’s back. Beasts arched heads, bellowing. Yul twisted, elbowed the killer in the teeth. He kicked him sprawling back. Caught flatfooted between two sets of foes, the gunmen faltered, as they fired wildly.
A horn took Lebbie in the thigh, scooped him up like a bag of dirt and slammed him across its back, snapping his legs. Trix dove for cover, narrowly missing trampling hooves. Yul jerked aside as a muscled animal torso whisked inches from his face. He could smell the stink of its hide, the stench of blood as men and animals died.
He snatched up a fallen weapon, began pegging the confused murderers while dodging random hooves. Trix ducked. Her hands clamped over her ears as she scrambled deeper into the brush.
Yul turned his head at the grisly sounds of mastication on human flesh as the dengals’ sharp teeth chopped into gristle and tendon. He’d no idea the dengals were carnivores.
The poachers’ demise was not pretty.
Two were left alive, stumbling into the brush. Did they have a ship parked nearby? They must have landed somewhere.
Yul quashed the urge to chase them. No chance of hunting them down in this mist-coiled dark. Suicide if they had armed backup. Ambush and slaughter.
Vreckin lay twitching in the grass. Rifle shells had ripped into his belly and exposed the ribs. The slobbering horse mouth sucked wheezing gasps of air.
Trix ran and knelt beside her dying pet, a shaky hand on its mane. She whispered, “Vreckin risked his hide to save us.”
“Come on, Trixie. If those cretins come back with reinforcements…” More than ever they needed to get back to the lodge, report the evidence to the law.
She nodded, tears in her eyes. She did what any rancher would do. Scooping up her rifle, she put Vreckin out of his misery with one well-placed shot.
Staggering back to the edge of the glade, Yul stopped and crouched at the lead thug’s side. The man pulled shallow breaths, his square bulk lying gored out and half trampled.
“Who gave the order?” Yul gripped the man’s throat. “Give me a name!” The man lolled, unresponsive. Yul shook him. “Your mail-order courier send the package bomb?”
The man’s eyes glazed over. Weakly, he shook his head.
Yul swore and turned away. Finger on his blaster, a big part of him toyed with wasting this asshole. It’d be murder in the eyes of the local law. Veramax probably had this poor fool so wrapped up in their pocket, he wouldn’t dare squeal and get his family executed. Yul mastered his impulse and left the semi-comatose man lying there, bleeding out. He turned deaf ears to the ghastly chawing and tearing as the rest of the herd made short work of the corpses. Yul got out of there in a hell of a hurry.
He and Trixie moved on swift feet through the darkness. For a long time they traded no words as they stumbled their way along, keeping to the grass inside the fence so the thugs couldn’t track them on the dirt trail. Night insects thrummed. Crickets crik-crikked through the deep mossy spaces.
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A blood moon rose, permeating the gathering mist and lighting the way. A dampness gathered in the humid air. The odd leaf rustled to the prowl of a forest animal and the agitated flap of a nightjar competed with the plaintive chirrup-chirrup of a wood gull, all forming an eerie backdrop.
Trix’s short breath reached Yul’s ears in a faint gasp. “I can’t get those men out of my mind.” She gripped his arm. “Dead faces staring up. The dengals chewing on them like feed. Vreckin all twitchy, eyes glazed.”
“Must have been the drugs they put in the animal’s water supply,” Yul murmured with a sigh.
“That and the Iboron plants turned them into monsters. I had no idea they were so vicious.”
“It’s amazing what animals will do. Humans will do worse when their lives and habitat are threatened.”
A blue light winked through the trees. Yul stiffened. The glow issued from a spot where the dengal path veered far from the fence. He dropped to a crouch. Crab-walking with hunched back, he lifted his blaster and moved closer. Trixie stumbled at his heels, panting with the effort.
In a clearing, he could make out the outline of a hulking shape. The mass rose over their heads. A ship. Flush to the tangle of forest wall, shadowy vines and creepers wound up the trunks. The ground team had landed. Yul waited. Night insects chirped and buzzed. “Call the police,” he muttered.
Trixie tugged at her waist where her pocket communicator lay tucked in a belt pouch. “Faceplate’s smashed, Yul. Must have been when I fell back there. We’re out of range too.”
He sighed and shook his head. “Doesn’t look as if anybody’s aboard that ship.”
“Why don’t we break in and fly it back to the lodge?”
“Normally that’d be my impulse,” Yul mused. “But they’ve probably booby trapped the hatch. Which means we’d be dengal fodder.” He chewed on his lip. How he’d love a free ship right now. Fly away, call it a day. He needed this nightmare like he needed a blow to the head. But somewhere he balked at such an idea. He was many things but no coward. To be embroiled in this illicit racket sickened him. He turned his head and blasted out the rear thrusters in a blaze of sparks and crackles. His lips peeled back in a shit-eating grin as the ship began to smoke. “That should keep those bastards grounded long enough for the law to nab them.”
