Broken Earth

by S. J. Sanders

  The small being shook their head and muttered a guttural series of words in their soft, lilting voice as they dropped their arms and scrambled back. His translators worked to adjust and connect it to one of the languages his vessel had picked up and decoded as it continued to speak under its breath. He decided to refrain from killing the fragile thing for the time being. Its language could be useful if he ran into any more of the species and found himself needing to question them. He waited and allowed it to put distance between them.

  “…fuck this. No crumbling piece of shit house is worth getting myself killed for. Have at it, asshole.”

  He did not understand all the words, but he frowned all the same. He suspected the inferior creature was trying to insult him. Infuriated, he let out a bass bellow that made the alien cringe and flee. He considered giving chase, his blood ramped for the kill, but he was distracted by a series of long, mechanical bangs. Veral slipped through the shadows, heading for the source of the commotion. Sliding between the metallic remains of what he could only surmise had once been primitive land transports, Veral hissed and waited for his new prey to appear.

  When they came into view, they appeared remarkably distinct from the alien that he’d seen before. Larger, rougher, and heavier in build, several beings were clustered on the back of a dull red vessel, its coloration badly peeling. Two of them made loud noises as they lifted long weapons in the air, firing projectiles. Veral curled his lip at the wastefulness as his processors tracked the moving transport and he activated his telescopic vision in his right eye to get a closer look at his quarry. Two were wiry, and the third was of thicker girth. All three had dirty filaments sprouting from their faces which did nothing to improve their overall appearance.

  “Right! Go right, Frank!” the one leaning forward shouted at the one piloting the vessel. “I could swear I just saw her slip between those buildings over there!”

  “Shut up, Mike. I can see just fine,” the pilot retorted back, turning a circular steering device sharply.

  Another gripped a protrusion between its legs and hooted.

  “Hell yeah! We’re going to get a sweet little cunt tonight!”

  Veral wondered at the gesture as the vehicle bounced in their rapid approach. Argurma males kept their reproductive civix in that same place, but few species in the cosmos had similar reproductive systems. Even in the unlikelihood that their species shared this trait, it still didn’t lend Veral any understanding to the gesture or enlighten him as to their purpose.

  Not that it mattered. They were prey, and he was certain that they might have something of value upon them.

  As the transport closed in on his location, he could scent them clearly. All three of them reeked of sour drink, sweat, and rotten food that seemed to be splattered on their coverings. They behaved more like beasts as far as Veral was concerned, more so as their volume seemed to increase as they closed in on their prey.

  He would kill them swiftly so that he wouldn’t be forced to touch them overly much. He didn’t desire to clean their filth off of him.

  His muscles tensed, springing forward as the transport roared by him, his cybernetic-reinforced claws dragging into the metal body of the vehicle. It jerked roughly against him, jolting to the side at the heavy impact of his body, but he clung tight to the frame, his ears and vibrissae flattening against his head.

  “What in Sam Hill…?!” one of the aliens barked in surprise.

  Digging claws deeper with every move, Veral dragged himself up the side of the transport. The sound of the engine was so loud that it blocked out his hearing almost entirely, but he did not let it concern him. He drew up behind one of them, his nasal cavity closing to assuage the terrible smell, and he lifted a hand to strike. The vehicle rocked as something struck the side dangerously close to his position. He whipped his head around and rattled threateningly as another transport crested a mound of refuse beside them. Lights mounted from the top of the vehicle flashed and were responded to by several others that roared up from all sides of him.

  “Holy shit!” a gruff voice bellowed from the vehicle that fired upon him. “Frank! You’ve got a—I don’t know what it is. You have something on your truck!”

  Veral squinted as lights hit him, his pupils retracting into narrow bands. He flared his vibrissae, allowing them to rattle threateningly around him as he growled, baring his fangs and extending his sharp mandibles. The aliens on the transport with him shouted to each other and began to fire at him. A few projectiles glanced off him, but most didn’t come close to hitting his shielding technology. Irritated, he lifted one of his blasters.

  “Fuck me, it’s armed! Take it out, boys! Phil, deploy the net! Don’t look at me like that! We aren’t going to catch that girl if this big bastard kills us all. Fire it!”

  A large net shot over Veral with such force that it knocked him off the back of the transport and onto the ground. It was soon followed by several others. Despite their weight, he pushed himself to his feet, determined to destroy them all when booted feet surrounded him. Veral growled threateningly, promising them a painful death in the most intimate manner of his people when sharp spikes hit him, and electric currents swept through his body. His organic mind whited out even as his circuitry went offline.

  2

  In a dark corner of a crumbling building, two walls shy of anything remotely resembling suitable shelter, Terri hissed as she dug a ricocheted bullet out of her thigh. It was painfully obvious that the Red Reaper Gang was getting worse. She’d heard rumors that many of the local boys started joining up in droves soon after they arrived in Phoenix at the promise of plenty of food, moonshine, and women.

  It was the latter that had Terri preparing to leave the city.

  The gang was rounding up every woman in sight. Phoenix was a dangerous place for anyone female. It wasn’t particularly healthy for the guys either. Not that anyone could tell any of them that with the way so many were flocking to the gang. Most of the men who had families were smart enough to leave when the rumors began. She should have left with them while she had the chance. Instead, she’d been among many of the women who had refused to be ousted from their homes.

  At the time she had reasoned (as many women had) that they had survived all their lives living in a harsh world—how much worse could the gang make it? Her father objected strenuously but she’d refused to leave him. His body had become frail since he suffered a debilitating sickness, making him dependent on her for everything. With her mother dying years ago in childbirth, along with her baby brother, all they had was each other. She had stuck by him and laughed at any threat.

  Now she had to admit that she had been very wrong.

  Not for staying with her father—she refused to regret that—but for not taking the gang seriously. The Red Reapers were not just another nuisance but a living, breathing plague, infesting everything around them. They claimed women as their right. Any woman who didn’t submit to them was hunted down like prey. It was bad enough that some women she’d known all her life, strong women as hard as standing rocks in the desert, willingly sought out the gang to be welcomed into their protection.

  Terri snorted a dismal bark of laughter. Protection? Ha!

  “Protection” meant that, instead of being hunted and passed around the members of the Reapers indiscriminately, she only had to please one master and anyone he might decide to share her with, if he shared at all. Or so she had been told by one of the women when she came across her foraging for food for the camp.

  Terri refused to be one of them. A little more scavenging for food and water and she should be able to acquire enough to get her to the next settlement. Being injured would be a setback, however, although it could have been much worse.

  She’d been lucky that catching a ricocheted bullet was all that happened. She’d come very close to being caught when that monstrous creature distracted her pursuers, prematurely pulling them from the hunt. She heard it roar and then their terrified shouts as she retreated. Alth
ough part of her wanted to go back and watch, she had beat a hasty retreat out of gratitude for her narrow escape. She would rather dig a bullet out any day.

  Her blood ran cold as she remembered the men hooting and howling like wild beasts as they chased her in their attempt to herd her. They had been close on her heels when the sounds of chaos had erupted, among them a bellow of an enraged creature. Something inhuman, born from nightmares. She’d recognized it immediately. That terrible, rattling growl like death itself. It was when she paused to listen amid that distraction that she’d caught the stray bullet.

  She clenched her jaw as the bullet slid out of her flesh, blood flowing freely as it emerged. Gritting her teeth, she doused the wound with the last bit of her alcohol, groaning with agony. Fuck, it burned!

  “Son of a bitch,” she panted as she wrapped her thigh tightly. She hoped there wouldn’t be repeat occurrences. She was now out of alcohol, and while that seemed easy enough to replenish, medical gauze was getting harder to find.

  She needed to get out of this hellhole. But she didn’t think that the other cities fared much better. Chaos had erupted when the last wars destroyed their planet. It happened when her grandparents were young, and they told her stories of how life had been before the wars. Then, just like that, it was gone. Humanity turned on itself. Those who didn’t die from airstrikes and biological weapons were picked off over the years by disease and the worst humanity had to offer: rape, murder… cannibalism.

  Terri leaned back, her head falling against the wall, and stared at what had once been a family’s living room. A faded portrait hung over a broken TV screen coated with dust, a smiling couple with two smiling kids and a baby. Infant toys still littered the living room from the family’s final moments in their house. A broken Tonka truck was tilted on its side, forgotten by the little one who once loved it. A baby doll stared sightlessly nearby, its cheerful face broken, now a home for the insects that were skittering in and out of its cheek. Like many houses, it was a home of ghosts. The sooner she could get out of there, the better.

  Her thoughts turned to the massive creature she’d encountered earlier. It most certainly had not been human and, given the technology it seemed to possess, she had little doubt as to what it must be even if her brain had difficulty accepting it.

  An alien.

  An actual, living, breathing alien had come to Earth when it was nothing more than a cesspit.

  Terri closed her eyes at the irony of the situation. Humans had been so interested in contact with alien lifeforms when there had been something left of humanity to share. Then again, this alien didn’t appear as if it were looking to communicate peacefully or share anything.

  No, it had arrived among them like a jackal in the night, hunting for bones.

  She shivered as her mind conjured its image. It was huge and sleek, every line of its body powerfully built with muscle like that of the jaguars that were occasionally seen on the outskirts of the city. There had been no empathy or pity in its glowing gaze, only raw, predatory interest. She’d been terrified and then thankful that its attention had been redirected to the gang members hunting her. She had no doubt that after her reactive assault, driven by her instinct to attack anyone who intruded uninvited on her hiding place, the alien would have happily torn her apart piece by piece for her daring. Certainly, it had sought to intimidate her.

  What was there not to be intimidated by? The alien easily stood taller than seven feet, its entire body covered in dark silver scales. Large spikes curved out from the hip joints, shoulders, wrists, and elbows like some sort of natural armor, and the claws on its three fingers and thumb were terrifying. She hadn’t gotten a good look at its face—the whip-like, rattling coils framing its head absorbing most of her attention—but she was surprised that what she had seen hadn’t made her piss herself. Yet, other than intentionally scaring her, the alien hadn’t made a move to hurt her. That had been kinder than anything her pursuers would have done.

  Who was the true monster in that scenario?

  Resting her cheek on her dirty jean-clad knee, she sighed, wondering what happened to the creature. The sounds of pain and anger rang through her mind. What had the gang done to it? She felt certain that they would find someone to torture it just for shits and giggles if nothing else. She’d watched in horror, helpless to intervene when several of the men set an elderly man on fire. They’d laughed when he ran terrified and in pain through the city center. They would have no trouble tearing apart an alien to satisfy some perverse amusement.

  Shaking her head, she leaned over and pulled a dusty can out of her scavenging bag. She held it up to the light and sighed. The label had fallen off long before she found it but given the size of the can, it was unlikely to be fruit or vegetables. Those had been exhausted some time ago.

  Oh well. Mystery meat was still food, and Terri wasn’t one to turn her nose up at what scraps she could find.

  Popping the pull tab, she peeled the tin lid off and sniffed the contents. Chicken. Plucking a bland chunk out of the can, she popped it in her mouth. She was grimacing at the rubbery taste when the sound of a plaintive whine made her halt mid-chew and glance around.

  Was that a dog? She hadn’t seen a dog in three years. As food became scarce, man’s best friend moved to the top of the menu for many people. Terri squinted at the deep shadows of a wall that opened out into the street. Her breath caught and her belly twisted with nerves when nothing appeared. Was it a trick or a trap of some kind meant to lure someone out? She didn’t move as she strained to listen. Her skin prickled when, again, she heard the loud whine.

  “Who’s there?” She whispered into the gaping darkness deep within the recesses of the falling-down building. Something large moved within the shadows at the sound of her voice and it took all her self-control not to bolt to her feet. The thudding of her heart echoed in her ears as she stared, her breath coming out in shaky gasps. The clear silhouette of a massive canine moved in the shadows. It darted by her, turning nervously before lying on its belly just out of sight. She slowly set her can down and leaned forward. Swallowing, she reminded herself that it was just a dog… Nothing to necessarily be afraid of. She liked dogs.

  “Hey, baby. Come here,” she called out, patting her leg. The dog turned its head toward her, and she could feel it watching her as it whined once more. Poor thing was probably afraid. She air-kissed and wiggled her fingers in encouragement. Its long ears tilted toward her and it bobbed its head in response, creeping forward on its belly as she continued to make kissy noises at it. She smiled with relief as it neared the sunlit room. A small thrill shot through her at the thought of finally having a companion again. She’d been alone for far longer than what was probably healthy. She was tired of it.

  “Good baby,” she crooned with excitement. She leaned forward as she attempted to get a good look at the breed. It was large—as in alarmingly, excessively large. She wondered if it was a Great Dane. She remembered the breed from books she had loved as a child. Her lips split into a wide smile as she scooted forward eagerly.

  All good feelings fled from her when inky tendrils seemed to move around it in an eerie serpentine fashion. She could feel the blood receding from her face as she dropped her hand and began to scoot back. That… was not anatomically possible for a dog. As it stepped out of the shadows, she recoiled, flattening against the wall. Her heart pounded so violently in her chest that her entire world was filled with nothing but the sound of its furious beat.

  That—that was definitely not a dog!

  The shape of the creature was so similar to a canine that if she blurred her vision, she could almost retain the illusion and pretend that she wasn’t looking at a creature that didn’t belong anywhere on Earth. A shame that she’d never been good at self-deception. She wanted to know what was coming at her so kept her gaze focused on the animal approaching on—holy fuck!—six legs! Its paws scraped the ground as it continued to wiggle forward on its belly, sending small pebbles rolling with
its forward momentum. It whimpered pitifully as she saw a face that had ridges and planes like a reptile and shiny black scales instead of fur. It had the same whip-like extensions around its head that the alien had. Though possessing some similarities, she suspected that it was some kind of companion or pet.

  She exhaled in an attempt to ease her nerves. Two very long, pointed ears immediately tipped toward her and flattened as it whined again and crept forward at a quicker rate on its six legs. Terri would have backed up more if she’d had the room, but when its hindquarters came into view, she saw the double tail tucked nervously against its body. It was afraid and in pain. Down the sides of its flanks and haunches, the animal was streaked with blood.

  She ached with sympathy. Poor, miserable thing.

  “Nice pooch, good pup,” she whispered.

  The animal suddenly sprang up, scrambling the last several feet to her side so quickly that for a second time it nearly gave her heart failure. She drew back and yet she felt her fear drain away when it buried its flattened muzzle against the crook of her arm with a pitiful whine. Her fingers twitched as she looked down at it. It wasn’t attacking her or even trying to grip her arm within its dangerously wide jaws. Instead, it let out a gusty sigh and settled into the comfort of her arms. Hesitantly, she lifted her hand. It really was ugly, like some sort of nightmarish hellhound. She wasn’t sure if she even wanted to touch it. It lifted its strange pearl-colored eyes and stared up at her. That was pretty creepy, but she melted a little bit as it stared up at her wistfully.

  “You poor, ugly thing,” Terri whispered with a small smile as she proceeded to stroke the animal’s head and neck. She flinched when its “hair” wrapped briefly around her fingers and wrist, though the wet glide of its tongue on her opposite hand eased her anxiety. Both of its tails thumped with pleasure, and a giggle burst out of her. The animal jerked its head up nervously as it eyed her. She kept her smile firmly fixed on her face as she flattened her hand gently against the side of its neck. Finally, it sighed and dropped its head into her lap once more. She moved her hand to stroke more of its neck and peculiarly rough ears. The textures were wrong but the happy rumble from the animal had her doubling her efforts as she scratched its scales.