“Come on, buddy,” I say, holding out a hand to the furball. I have part of a ration bar in my hand.
It uncurls slightly. Blue eyes crack open and a black tongue darts out for the morsel. Remembering that was how the leaf bug delivered the numbing venom to my hand, I recoil from the questing appendage.
The furball gives a startled yip and retreats into itself again. I set the piece of ration bar on the edge of the exhaust port. Then step back.
“Go on. I’m not going to hurt you.”
One eye pops open again.
Chirr-up.
“Yeah, that’s right. Cheer up. The tree monster left.”
A second eye cracks open, as if it understood what I said. The furball uncurls itself and crawls toward the morsel of food. Who knows what it eats. I’m assuming it can digest a protein bar, but that might not be the case. Or maybe my food is poison to it.
But I have to coax it out of my engine somehow. Last thing I need is it crawling in deeper and doing more damage. Or even just staying there until I’m ready to leave and getting barbecued as I take off.
The black tongue lances out again. This time it hits the chunk of protein bar—
And draws it straight into the open circle of an apparently toothless black mouth. A noisy sequence of squelching sounds follows, followed by a Chirr-up! It takes a few steps toward me. The fluffy round body teetering back and forth as it walks. Like a penguin.
Chirr?
Was that a question?
I’m losing it.
“Come on. More where that came from.” I break off another piece of protein bar and hold it out, nodding to the furball.
Chirr-up!
That black tongue lances out again, snatches the food out of my hand, and sucks it into that fathomless gullet. More squelching chewing sounds. The furball’s entire torso ripples as it does so. Is it just one big mouth? Or is the stomach doing the chewing?
“That’s cheating,” I say, frowning at the thing.
Chirrr?
Is it asking for more? The little shit. He’s not coming out, but he’s content to eat all my food. Okay, two can play that game. I break off another piece of the bar. It makes a threatening twitch, getting ready to shoot out its tongue again.
“Go fetch!” I say, and toss the morsel as far as I can.
Chirrr... It sounds mad now. Grumpy at least. I back away slowly, spread my hands in a shrug. “You started it.”
It comes waddling toward the edge of the exhaust. Peers down. Then jumps and lands in a bed of stalky grass and dead leaves. One of the leaves goes skittering away. A leaf bug.
The furball snaps it up with its tongue. Crunch crunch, squelch. Another ripple through its round body. And then it goes waddling in the direction that I tossed the protein bar.
I guess it eats all kinds of crap.
Same can’t be said for me. That tree monster didn’t look very edible. And this furball would probably give me a hairball.
Here’s hoping I don’t have to find out. Becoming a cranky old hermit on this Deus-forsaken planet is not my idea of retirement.
Chapter 20
It turns out the days on this planet only last for two standard hours. It must be spinning like a top.
That fresh morning air I felt earlier turned icy real quick, and a cutting wind is only making matters worse.
Now I’m sitting huddled on a cargo crate that used to contain my survival pod, which I’ve deployed behind me. I put on a spare set of clothes and a jacket from the Vera, but it’s not enough, even with my thermal belt dialed up to the max. So I’m sitting beside the ruddy glow of a portable heater-slash-stove. I would crawl into the survival pod, but it doesn’t have windows. I’m afraid one of those tree monsters will come back and I won’t see it coming.
Plenty of life on this world, and I’ve already found out the hard way that not all of it is friendly. I can hear crooning hoots and whistles. Growls and roars. Whistling, forlorn melodies that echo back and forth.
Furball is here, too, sitting on the other side of the heater, its big, beady blue eyes awash with pulsing waves of orange light and heat. He hasn’t left me alone since I fed him. I guess I’ve found myself a pet.
A frown creases my lips. He’s probably waiting for me to throw him some more food, but I’m done eating, and he’s out of the Vera’s exhaust port, so there is no need to waste more rations on him. If it even is a him. No way to tell with all that fur—and the fact that it’s an alien creature with unknown forms of genitalia.
Chirr?
“No. No more food.”
Chirr?
A black tongue darts out to my survival pack, questing around.
“Hey!”
The tongue snaps back into Furball’s mouth.
Chirr?
I glare at the little monster, then up at a dazzling dome of stars. A giant, full red moon lights the sky between two massive curving arcs of the Priors’ old habitat rings. The remains of ancient mega-structures that encircle the planet from orbit.
Glowing alien creatures are rising from the jungle like hot air balloons. Big, luminous red air sacs at the back pull them up. Trailing tentacles make me think of jellyfish. One of them is drifting up from the trees just below my landing site, barely thirty feet away.
Swoop. A big, black shadow whooshes by close overhead. My pistol snaps up, tracking it. But it’s not after me. It’s heading for the gas bag. As near as I can tell in the dark, it has four wings, and it’s about as big as a pterodactyl from those museums I used to frequent back on Earth.
A sharp, whistling cry catches my ear just as the big black shadow and the glowing red gas bag collide. The cry was from the flying creature, not the gas bag. The air sac explodes with a muted popping sound and rains glowing red specks all across the dark jungle canopy. The light is quickly fading from those specks, like embers thrown from a fire.
Curiosity creases my brow. In the distance I see more shadows swooping over the trees, whistling merrily as they pop the gas bags with bursts of glowing red dust.
Seeds. That’s what I’m seeing. The gas bags might not be animals at all, but some type of seed pods.
The light attracts the night gliders as they float up into the sky, and those animals help them spread their seeds far and wide. I watch as some of the higher-flying seed pods explode, throwing a glittering rain of ruby dust to the wind.
Chirr!
My gaze comes back down to find Furball right next to me, peering up at me with those big eyes.
“I’m all out. No more. I ate everything, okay?”
Chirr?
It’s going to be a long night.
Well, technically it’ll be a short one with how fast this planet is spinning, but you never know with relativity. And just like that, my mind is spinning with possibilities, and a spike of fear that Mohinari might actually be the least of my worries.
Some FTL rifts have temporal qualities. Not the backward-traveling paradox-inducing kind. Rather, the relativistic kind. They can slow time for the traveler, or even speed it up—and that’s a real magic trick.
Slowing time down for yourself, that’s easy. You just fly somewhere really fast or get too close to a black hole. The closer you get to the speed of light or a massive gravity field, the slower that clock will tick for you in comparison to the clocks of stationary observers. But how do you do the opposite? Make your clock tick fast and everyone else’s move slow? You’d have to speed up the whole universe while you remain stationary. Relativistically speaking, anyway.
And that’s just dumb. The last thing anyone wants to do is age super fast while everyone else stays the same.
I’m really hoping I didn’t experience any temporal effects to go along with the spatial ones that brought me here. It’s bad enough to accidentally jump to some distant corner of the galaxy. Far worse to jump to some distant future. Or to experience a few decades of time while only a few seconds pass for everyone else.
Of course, if that happened, I’d sti
ll be inside the rift, wondering how the hell I’m going to get out before I run out of air, water, and food in the cramped confines of my interceptor.
But damn it if it wouldn’t just be the cherry on top that the opposite happened and I’m now sitting twenty years in the future. My contract on Mohinari would have expired. His contract on me the same. My membership with the Syndicate defunct. For all anyone would know, the Ghost would have vanished just like he should.
Nobody knows how the hell the rifts work, or what they are. One theory is that the Priors created them, that they’re the leftover equivalent of our jump gates. The difference being that they’re much faster to travel by.
I guess that would explain how I ended up jumping to one of the Priors’ Ring Worlds after just ten seconds in FTL.
Not all rifts lead to uncharted worlds with crashed alien mega-structures. I’m just lucky, I guess.
Chirr?
Furball is even closer now, looking like he’s about to crawl into my lap. Those big eyes are periodically blinking with translucent white membranes. The creature is too small and cute to make me feel threatened. Its mouth opens. That black tongue comes questing out, snaking toward me. I slap it away gently.
“No! No food.”
Chirr...
A long night indeed.
Chapter 21
Twelve Hours Later...
It’s night again. Night gliders whistle their forlorn songs as they swoop and dive, popping the glowing red seed pods sailing up from the jungle.
The novelty of the alien sights and sounds on this world wore off after the first few day/night cycles. Boredom set in quickly after that. And an acute sense of dread.
The longer I spend here, listening to the whistling melodies of the night gliders as they devour their evening meals, the more convinced I become that I’m listening to my very own swansong.
Stranded.
Cold.
Alone.
Chirr?
Scratch that last one. Furball is still here. He left a few times, waddling off into the forest for hours at a stretch. But each time the red sun fell below the distant mountains and draped the jungle in shadows, Furball always came trundling back to warm himself by my heater at night.
And to pester me for another protein bar.
He soon learned that I was lying about not having any more rations, and I’ve been sharing them with him ever since.
I break off another piece of the chocolate-flavored one I’m currently munching on and toss the morsel as far as I possibly can.
Furball goes hopping off toward the forest, yipping excitedly as if it’s a game.
What is he going to do when I leave?
That’s probably going to break his furry little heart.
Everything is repaired except for the main thrusters that I need to reach orbit.
I bite off another chunk of protein bar and watch absently as the seed pods sail into the dark sky. The night gliders flock to them like moths to a flame, popping the pods and sending their glowing seeds raining over the jungle.
As I’m watching, one of the night gliders flies too low, and a giant, knobbly arm reaches up and snatches it out of the sky. It dies with a piercing shriek.
The whole jungle seems to take a breath and hold it.
Booming footsteps echo into the silence.
Even I’ve stopped breathing.
It’s one of those tree monsters again.
Furball comes scurrying back, chirring and yipping. He hides behind my legs, peeking out at the shadowy wall of trees below my camp.
I sit listening to the steady booming of footfalls and the cracking of trees, trying to figure out which way the monster is going.
It doesn’t take more than a few seconds to figure out that it’s coming toward me.
Great. That’s all I need. Get eaten by a tree before I can leave.
I twist around to glance at the Vera. I could take off now using the grav lifts and hover up out of reach, wait for the monster to pass.
Or crawl into my survival pod and hope it doesn’t find me.
Boom.
Running out of time to make that call.
My furry friend is tucked into a ball, shivering steadily. One of those leaf bugs is crawling by right in front of him, but not even that is enough to bring him out of his shell. Poor guy.
“Come on, let’s get out of here.”
Furball peeks up between my knees with one eye as I stand up.
He chirrs quietly, refusing to budge. I figure he’ll follow me when I head for the Vera.
BOOM. That sounded close. I glance at the trees in time to see them shiver, glossy leaves gleaming red with reflected light from the moon and the rising seed pods.
Is that tree monster hunting us or just lumbering along in our direction?
I decide on the latter. I reach my cockpit, use my holoband to trigger it open. Rungs fold out from the side, making it easy to climb up. I start up the ladder and glance back to look for Furball.
He’s still tucked into a ball by the heater. Shivering away.
Boom.
The tree monster parts the jungle like a curtain and steps into my clearing. Those giant black eyes swivel my way. The silver pinpricks at their centers look like lasers scanning the terrain for targets.
If I take off now, I know I’ll get clear.
The eyes swivel away from me and land on my furry friend. It lets out a roar, then goes loping toward it.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Come on! I think to myself. Get out of there!
But he won’t budge. I jump down from the cockpit ladder.
I can’t believe I’m about to do this.
“Hey!” I cry at the top of my lungs, but the sound is muffled by my filter mask. I draw my DX-22 and flick off the safety.
Lining up a shot on the monster’s head, I squeeze off two cracking shots. Ruby red light flashes out.
The monster bellows with pain as those lasers light miniature fires on its lumpy hide. It stops right where it is, and the head turns my way. Big eyes glaring.
Another roar splits the night.
Furball snaps out of it and comes skittering toward me. Hopping and running as fast as his stubby legs will take him.
The monster behind him swipes the ground with a giant hand, sending dead leaves, stalky grass, and clods of dirt flying. Furball jumps into the air, and the monster narrowly misses its target.
I fire again, and again, drawing its attention back to me. Each time it roars and bellows with pain. The lasers don’t seem to be doing much other than pissing it off.
And then it comes running my way. Heading for the Vera with enough momentum to send the ship rolling down the hill.
“Shit!” I cry and fly up the rungs to my cockpit.
A white blur zips through my peripheral vision and lands behind my seat with a terrified yip.
I push the throttle for the grav lifts up as fast as I dare, not even taking the time to shut the cockpit first.
The Vera leaps into the air, adding to the weighty hand of gravity already pressing me down.
And then a massive hand comes sweeping through the darkness. It hits the side of the interceptor, sends it rolling toward the ground. The grav lifts keep it airborne, but do nothing to hold me in my seat. A giant silver-gleaming eye catches mine just as I feel my stomach drop with the sickening lurch of free fall. I go tumbling out, sailing down forty feet to the waiting embrace of the shadowy ground below.
Chapter 22
A massive hand catches me before the ground can. I feel myself being lifted up, rising to the same height as the Vera once more. Furball is peeking over the rim of the open cockpit, watching with giant eyes.
I scramble to my knees in the creature’s palm, feeling rough hide scrape against my hands. Drawing my sidearm, I hurriedly search for a vulnerable place to shoot this creature, but I can’t see one. I’m at eye level with it now. It’s watching me. Twin silver pinpricks gleaming from eyes that must be as big a
s me. I’m watching it, subtly aiming from the hip at the nearest of those two eyes. We’re two alpha predators from very different worlds, sizing each other up.
Meanwhile, I’m busy giving orders to the Vera from my neuralink, just in case. The ship drifts away and turns on the spot to face the monster holding me.
I see the gaping mouth. Fathomless depths inside. I’m not wearing one of my various suits of armor. I lost them all on the Hammer. If I were wearing such a suit, maybe I’d survive a trip down this creature’s throat and be able to resist its digestive juices long enough to blast my way out. Maybe.
I mentally order the Vera to target the monster with its railgun, but not to shoot just yet. If it drops me from this height, with this planet’s gravity, I’ll break every bone in my body. Being swallowed whole wouldn’t be any better. I take a deep breath to steady my aim.
The tree monster is taking deep, ragged breaths of its own. Steam billows periodically from the single nostril above its mouth.
Come on, I think. Make your move.
A loud snort erupts from the nostril, almost startling me enough to pull the trigger and shoot that giant eyeball.
Furball yips sharply.
Tree monster’s head turns with another snort and a bubbling growl.
It doesn’t think I’m food, but it definitely likes the taste of those little guys. The monster takes another swipe at my ship with its free arm. Hits the Vera, and sends it careening down. My ship slams into the ground with a booming crash, and the grav lifts show no sign of boosting it back up.
A brief jet of flames bursts from the nose of the Vera, followed by a dark black curl of smoke. That can’t be good.
Furball hops out and makes a run for it.
Another roar, and I start to fall. I drop my pistol as I wrap both arms and legs around one of the monster’s fingers, hugging it like a tree.
The giant doesn’t seem to notice. It’s taking long, booming strides to catch up with the scurrying, waddling, hopping ball of fur.
I ride the alien hand down as close to the ground as I can and then let go—
The ground hits me like a hovertruck. I lie there dazed and stunned with the wind knocked out of me, listening through the ringing in my ears as booming footsteps recede.
The Bounty Hunter (Cade Korbin Chronicles Book 1) Page 9
