EYES IN THE DARK (REVISED 11/26/23)
Large hydraulic pistons groaned into action as the heavy steel tailgate started its slow outward decent towards the parched soil. Blinding light lasered in through the widening crack above the tailgate, forcing the unwary team to don their sunglasses as a suffocating blanket of dry heat filled the compartment. If there had been a weather channel, it would have reported an unseasonably cool day of 127° with a steady 5MPH wind out of the southwest and a humidity of less than1%.
Most of the moisture on the barren rock came up from a massive sea filling 30% of a 1,550 kilometer planet's core. The 3.5 billion year old ecosystem evolved independently of the burning suns high overhead. It's creatures- all of who lived just beneath the surface- had no need for eyes.
Long ago, raptors crawled from the deep waters, migrating upwards and outwards. Billions of years later, the moon's porous outer mantle- distorted by the gas giants constant gravitational flux- was riddled with snaking networks of cracks that stretched up through the barren surface. The naturally occurring tunnels and massive central cavern turned the inside of the planet into an enormous ant hill, teeming with life forms of all shapes and sizes. And all of them hungry. In a very short time, the raptors learned to avoid the light. But there was a cycle of darkness. A time of freedom when they could venture out.
Lockspur walked down the slanted tailgate, stopped on the ramp edge and flexed his back muscles. "Christ," he bitched, "Could they make this goddamn armor any heavier?"
"I don't think they were made to be worn by grandparents." Moss teased.
Lockspur looked over his shoulder, held up his right hand and offered an unspoken expletive. Moss laughed.
Dahl stopped on the lower lip of the tailgate, peering up at the blistering light of the only binary star system for 50 light years in any direction. She was unaware their footsteps echoed down into the tunnels 20 feet below her new boots. She cupped her hands over her forehead, shading her eyes, and scanned the sweltering horizon for signs of movement. If she could have seen through rock, she would have noticed most of movement was looking up at her. Raptors didn't see with eyes, they see with their ears.
Dammit. Anything can hide in those heatwaves, she thought. The eerie waves distorted the rocky features in the distance. She strained for a few moments, squinting eyes seeing nothing. But the tiny bristling hairs on the back of her neck disagreed. Things far closer than any of them would have believed watched them with great longing. Home planet advantage goes to the enemy, she thought.
"Stay out of the shadows." Lockspur warned, walking away from the tailgate. The arid soils crunched beneath his weight.
"There are no shadows here." Moss replied.
"There are always shadows." Dahl countered, lifting her rifle to her shoulder and looking through the scope. "And where there are shadows..."
"Death isn't far away." Lockspur said, finishing her thought as he lifted his rifle scope to his eye.
Moss was not the only one plagued by an overactive sense of paranoia. Lockspur imagined an endless supply of phantom movements running out of the eerie silence. A whole host of long dead bounties riding snarling hell beasts and all of them wanted vengeance.
Moss stepped off tailgate and walked up behind Lockspur. He shielded his face from the intense UV rays bleaching his dark brown skin to an unnatural beige. As a child, his parents had taken him to an old school photographer who had dressed him up in embarrassing outfits and posed him in front of a bunch of fake backgrounds from Earth. He had never been to Earth and didn't recognize any of the places. All he remembered of that day was that the man-made flashbulbs had hurt his eyes. As he looked up, he thought, this is far worse than that fleeting pop of brightness. Here, the pop never ends.
They had only been outside a few minutes and the sweat had already begun pouring out from beneath their heavy black armor.
Moss tapped the mic on her helmet, and said, "Keep in radio contact. There's no tellin' what's out here." The sound emanating from their headsets sounded thin and tinny.
Dahl nodded gravely and said, "Affirmative."
Lockspur made to walk away and Dahl shrieked, "Wait."
"Shit," he blared, almost dropping his weapon barrel first in the dirt. "What?"
She looked from him to Moss and said, "I was just wondering how far you would have gotten, if I hadn't done that?"
Lockspur turned to Moss, mouthed agape in disbelief and Moss roared with laughter. "Amigo, you should see your face."
"You did not just do that." He said, frowning at Dahl. He turned to Moss and said, "She did not just do that."
"Dont do that again."Moss said. "You could give the old Fart a heart attack."
"You scared the shit out of me. I thought something was going to knock me down and eat me."
"Now you know how I feel every time I go to a bar."
Lockspur's mouth fell open and Moss and Dahl roared.
Lockspur shook his head and walked off, ignoring his teammates giggles. His eyes widened in shock as his foot sank into a hole just above his boot. He screamed in agony, fell on the ground, dropped his weapon and writhed in pain. Moss and Dahl grabbed his armor, hauled him out of the hole, expecting to see a bloody stump. He looked up at their terrified expressions, jumped to his feet, retrieved his rifle and said, "I win. You lose. Too bad. So sad. Boo hoo for you." Then he walked away grinning.
Dahl and Moss got up dumbfounded. They stared at one another for a moment and then laughed hysterically. Lockspur gestured for them ti follow him in the direction of their target.
On the surface level, M6-117 looked like a barren sandy wasteland, bleached by a 22-year cycle of endless sunlight, punctuated by a dozen hours of darkness, death and blood spilling chaos. Upon much closer inspection, one might notice the sand was not sand at all, but rather, the crushed and bleached skeletal remains of countless beasts killed in an endless cycle of birth, life and death that had gone on for billions of years. Enormous skeletal remains of creatures that had forced themselves up out of the loose regulus littered the hostile landscape. This place was no stranger to death. In fact, it was a bleached monument to it. The endless cycle had transformed the once raw and rough surface of the medium sized moon into a pale, lifeless desert of the dead.
The rasping sand covering the surface of the moon ground beneath the weight of their heavy foot falls. The undulating vibrations penetrated deep into the crust like a resonating call to everything far below. The creatures heard and came by the thousands. As the team walked on, they sensed the unseen eyes moving with them and knew they were not alone. They moved along a shallow ancient river bed. A depression that led from the ship to the wreckage in the near distance. Unbeknownst the team, the dip sat above a narrow fissure just 10 feet below their sinking feet. Inside the blackened tunnel, raptors kept pace with their every step. Not seeing them, but hearing their crunching steps, their racing heartbeats and the strange sounds coming out of their mouths. It all blended together, drawing more and more creatures to them.
The intense glare drew sweat from every pore like a hot poultice draws pus from a festering wound. Their hot moisture mixed with the powdered bone kicked up beneath their feet, creating an itchy, abrasive grit that chafed at every inch of exposed skin. They scratched mindlessly, releasing tiny droplets of blood that scented the wind. The smell of body odor and blood was intoxicating and as it wafted through the air, dark things, terrible things, and hungry things raced up from somewhere deep in the bowels of the planet. The ground vibrated beneath their feet. The whole planet had taken notice of their arrival.
Moss looked out at the eerie skyline dotted with dozens of huge ant hills rising out of the not soil. It seems the inhabitants liked to dig and burrow. An enormous spinning gas giant filled a third of the tangerine sky. Its wide, colorful rings swung out and then wrapped back around the horizon. M6-117 hung in a protected orbit somewhere between the gas giant's upper atmosphere and the hundreds of rings orbiting its equator. "That's something you don't see every day." Moss said, marvelling at its beauty. The atmospheres of the other more distant gas giants swirled slowly and at their equators vast rings spiralled out for hundreds of thousands of miles.
"Ironic, isn't it?" Dahl said, looking at Moss standing there in amazement. "How someplace so beautiful can be so empty."
Lockspur did not share their sense of diverting awe. He was more interested in what he couldn't see than what he could. "What are the odds of crashing here just hours before an entire horde of monsters emerged from the planet's depths?" he asked, scanning the dry expanse in front of them. Giant meandering heat waves rose over the horizon, distorting his view as salty, burning sweat dripped into his squinted eyes. Even the sunglasses couldn't block out all the rays.
"Shit luck." Moss answered, tugging at the heavy collar of his body armor. They had barely moved 50 yards away from the ship and the bone dust and sweat had already mixed into an exfoliating paste that chafed his sensitive neckline. The heat slowly provoked his growing sense of dread and anger. The constant discomfort was influencing them all.
"Luck... my ass." Lockspur countered, looking through his scope at the enormous sun bleached rib bones waving upward on the horizon. The creature must have been the size of a an enormous elephant. The bones laying a ¼ mile beyond those must have belonged to a creature the size of a blue whale. "This place is fuck'n' cursed." Lockspur said. The rasping grit drew out the after effects of his long stay in stasis. It drove him mad, and he considered going back to the ship, and just leaving this shit mission far behind. Fuck the pay, he thought, and stopped. They can stick the bonus up their asses. What was he thinking, coming here? "
"Now who's being paranoid?" Moss asked, digging at his neck like a crazed madman.
"Me." Lockspur admitted, still peering through his scope. Now and then one of the blazing suns would cross his line of sight, blurring out the horizon and every time it returned, he thought he saw movement. Of course there was nothing there to see. "I know I'm not the only one who feels like we're being watched, right?" he asked, trying to find the eyes he could feel moving over them. The dry heat had become as unbearable as the eerie silence circled the empty landscape around them was.
Dahl and Moss turned to one another, realizing Lockspur was right. They were not alone. It was as if their own fears had begun attacking them from all sides.
The heat and glare had quickly become unbearable. There was no vegetation to blot out the relentless rays. No water to satiate drying mouths or cool wind to soothe crisping flesh. There was only daylight; endless, eye-squinting daylight.
Lockspur stopped suddenly. Reeled around and pegged his helmet at the lowered tailgate. It hit the ground, kicked up a large pale cloud, bounced a half dozen times, and then rolled to a stop.
"Better," Moss said.
"Who's bright fucking idea was it to set us up with this goddamn heavy black armor and then send us to the desert of a thousand suns?" Lockspur raged, jamming his rifle in Moss' hands and pulling out an old skull cap from his pants pocket. He angrily tied it over his jet black hair and then tore off his bullet proof jacket and chucked it to the ground in a heap.
"You know how much that cost." Moss asked.
"Fucking bill me." Lockspur blared, grabbing his canteen and pouring water over his own head. The droplets hitting the ground reverberated into the darkness below. Things in the dark took notice. The piss warm water wouldn't last long in the blistering sunlight, but it soothed his irritated temper for the moment.
"Next time I'll make sure Lilith sends a suit of geriatric armor for you."
"There isnt going to be a next time. Im done with this shit."
"Amigo " Moss said, obviously surprised. "You're not gonna leave me out here alone?"
"What the hell am I?" Dahl blurted.
"Green," he answered.
"What are you tossing?" Lockspur asked, taking back his rifle and checking it to make sure a round was chambered. Unlike Moss, his mission paranoia didn't kick in until he was outside the ship.
"Nothing." Moss answered, not willing to remove any of his protective armor. Moss noticed a large red welt on the underside of Lockspur's right forearm. It blazed an infected red warning. "What the hell did you do to yourself?"
"Nothing." Lockspur replied, looking at the soar spotwe. The rough, dirty fabric grated against the bulge and his almost cried out in pain. "You sure you don't want to dump some weight?" Lockspur asked, trying to change the subject. He didn't want to have to lie about the lump on his arm.
Moss shook his head, still eyeing his now covered forearm. "Check in with the auto-doc when we get back to the ship. It looks awful."
"Sure you're not dropping anything?" Lockspur asked, ignoring his concern.
Moss would gladly fight off the chafing sweat if it meant not losing his only protection from the God awful creatures praying on the unsuspecting. "Not likely." he said, having fought off Raptors before. Moss knew the value of a helmet. Faulty Intel had led him and his entire team into a raptor nest on Torphan 3. All 12 of his men died and he was hospitalized and court martialled.
"Suit yourself," Dahl said, dropping her helmet and thick black vest at her feet. Like the others, she wore a much lighter and whiter threat level 2 Kevlar vest between her bra and camo blouse. She removed her shirt, wiped the sweat from her face and then tore off the sleeves and tossed them on the pile. "At least, the light will keep us safe." She said, raising her weapon to continue on.
"Will it?" Moss thought aloud. A foreboding dust devil swirled out the West, spun lazily around them twice and then meandered away towards the skeleton graveyard. It dropped to the ground as if the marionette pulling its strings lost interest.
Lockspur laughed coarsely and said, "Yeah… 'cause that wasn't creepy." He spun in a slowly purposeful circle, peering through his scope coming to the spot where the dust devil fell away and saw a large opening where an ant hill had toppled over. "You know those pits lead somewhere." He said more to himself than the others.
"'I'm pretty sure it's probably fucking hell."
Moss gestured between himself and Lockspur, then off to the right. Lockspur nodded and they veered off towards the front of the wreckage. He gestured for Dahl to check out the back of the wreckage and she moved off to the left, making her way around the rear of the giant compartment. They were looking for access points. "Dahl. Stay out in the open. And radio if you see anything."
"This thing is immense," she said, tilting her head back, trying to see the top. "I thought the report said the Hunter Gratzner was a standard cargo carrier?"
"It did," Lockspur answered. "The company changed its original nomenclature 50 years ago. Back then, it was registered as an oil refinery/fuel hauler and during the outer colonies' war, they repurposed it as a troop transport. For its first 35 years, it was the biggest ships ever built."
No matter how far away they moved from one another, their steps betrayed any attempt at stealth. Even with their inefficient human ears, they could pinpoint the others' positions with little trouble.
"There's not much damage at this end." Moss said, approaching the nose of the giant vessel. It was dented and battered, but its thick hide held fast to the hull. He knelt down, ran a hand along the point where the ship met the ground and said, "The lower hull ground off during the impact."
The nose of the recently exhumed ship was still mostly intact. It was plain to see the company investigators had done a thorough job. They had dug out the massive front section, removed several bolt-on service panels from the ship's skin, presumably areas housing critical systems, and even made a few hasty repairs. For what purpose, he couldn't understand, the ship would never fly again. It had been built in an enormous spaceport around Saturn's moon IO.
"Wait." Lockspur said, donning a confused expression, as he turned his full attention to the front of the vessel. "The windscreen is still intact."
"Standard operating procedure," Dahl said, "On site investigators put all the little bits and pieces back together to get a better understanding of the big picture."
"What a fucking waste." Lockspur said, shaking his head at the idea of the effort it must have taken just to prop it up there.
"Amigo, it's just procedure." Moss said.
"And a lot of stupid shit has been done in the name if procedure. That doesn't mean it' makes sense."
Moss shook his head, then gestured from Lockspur to his own eyes, and then towards the horizon. He couldn't shake the feeling they weren't alone. But he didn't want Dahl to know he thought that. He watched her walk away.
Lockspur saw him watching her, covered his mic and said, "Shell be fine as long as she stays in the light."
"As long as she stays in the light." Moss repeated, turning towards the horizon and scanning the wreckage with a handheld instrument pack. "Anything?" Moss asked, frustrated by the inconclusive readings popping up on his hand unit. The harsh UV radiation was interfering with his scanner's delicate, if not, inexpensive sensors. "Fuckin' piece a junk." Moss grumbled. He had asked Johns to buy the better shielded units, but, oh no, Johns said he could get cheaper units through another distributor. "Cheaper isn't better. It's just cheap."
"Can't get a clear picture," Lockspur said, stopping on a shadowy outcropping over the entrance into a gigantic cavern in the far distance.
"Do you need glasses, grandpa?"
"About as much as you need a swift kick in the nuts."
The deep cavern snaked into the hillside. From his vantage point, he thought he saw movement, but it could have been a product of an overactive imagination playing off the heat waves in the distance. "If something is out there, it's not making its presence known." he said, rubbing his eyes as if they wear tired.
Moss covered the microphone on his glasses and whispered in an unsure tone, " Do you actually need glasses?"
Lockspur held out his sunglasses for Moss to take.
Moss put them on and blurted, "They're prescription."
Lockspur shrugged.
"Im sorry." Moss said.
"For what?"
"Being an asshole."
"I'm old, Amigo. Not dead. So don't start being a little dip shit now."
Moss let his scanner fall to the side and took a drink from his piss warm canteen. When his thirst dissipated, he poured water over his face and wiped the dusty sludge away with a rag. He held the canteen out and offered Lockspur a drink.
"Not likely." he replied."I haven't been able to hold my piss for the last 15 years. One sip and we'll be stopping every hundred yards for the rest of the mission."
"If you're done bonding." Dahl said, walking around the back of the compartment. "What about thermal scans?" She stopped beside the back cornert to get a better view of the area Lockspur was focused on.
Lockspur switched the setting on his optics to thermal. He surveyed the distant terrain, searching between the 25 foot high ant hills, looking for signs of movement in a sea of red and orange tones. The images waved from behind the heat waves. A thousand mirages catching his eye. After five minutes, he said, "Nada," He switched his scope back to normal and added, "But that doesn't mean much."
"Why?" Moss asked, looking at the horizon through his equally useless infrared scanner. He held it up, slammed the side of the unit against the butt of his hand, and thought about tossing it in the dirt and stomping on it.
"Because our enemies are cold-blooded." Lockspur explained, stopping on a single movement about 250 yards away.
"So?"
"So..." he repeated, rolling his eyes and scowling angrily. "They won't register on the display if they are the same temperature as the surrounding terrain."
"Great." Moss complained, looking at Lockspur through the infrared scanner. "Monsters that are Invisible to all forms of detection."
"Only to thermal scans." Lockspur clarified.
"We can still see them out in the open." Dahl replied, as if Moss was being unreasonable. "They're not invisible."
"If we can see them with the naked eye..." he stressed, thinking about how his heavy black body armor was great against bullets, but probably not worth shit for stopping sharp objects; like claws or crushing teeth. "They're too fucking close."
Something moved in the distance and Lockspur said, "Me, Amigos, I believe we have movement off to the right."
"Which is it? Believe or know?" Dahl asked, scanning the rocky bleached out horizon through her own scope.
"Can't get a lock on. But whatever is out there, it's not heat waves. I'm certain I saw movement." Lockspur answered, pushing his sunglasses to the top of his head, rubbing the sweat and bone powder from the corners of his eyes to get a clearer look. "Shit," he said, putting his glasses back on. "I've got a crap line of sight from here."
"We need eyes on target." Dahl complained, wishing she had brought a long-range rifle with better optics. "This scope sucks."
"Here, long-shot," Lockspur said, turning on the laser sight on the front of his rifle. "I'll paint the area above the target and you tell us what you can make out from your vantage point."
Dahl leaned against the side of the ship, steadied her aim and located Lockspur's laser reflecting off an outcropping of rocks above an enormous cavern nearly 500 meters out. Light reached deep into the mouth of the massive cavern, but it couldn't chase the shadows away from the back of its deep, constricting throat. Peering into the darkness, she strained to separate fact from fantasy. "Gotcha." she said to herself with a half sneer, half grin.
"What is it?" Lockspur asked, turning his laser off to save battery life.
"Multiple targets moving in the back of the cavern." Dahl replied, lowering her rifle to her side. "I can't say how many. But we're definitely not alone. And they know we're here."
"Why do you think they know we're here?"
"They wouldn't risk the light if they didnt know we were out here."
Moss lowered his scanner, letting it hang at his side. He studied the 6" thick polycarbonate windscreen, wondering how much it weighed and said, "There's no easy way in from this side. The windscreen has to weigh at least 3 and a half tons."
"It's 7,327 lbs." Lockspur replied.
"Really?"
"I had a life before becoming a mercenary."
"Hey, guys. Head this way." Dahl said. "I see an access hatch I might be able to get open."
"No," Moss replied, excitedly gesturing for Lockspur to stop what he was doing and follow him to the aft end of the 250 yard long compartment, right now.
Lockspur realized what Moss was thinking and angrily nodded for him to head out. If she does something stupid, I'll tan her ass good, he thought. The two men reeled and took off on a fast walk.
"Dahl," he called out, " Wait 'til we get there before you do anything." There was no response. The channel was empty and Moss' heart missed a beat. Shit, he thought, I knew I should have gone with her. "Dahl. " he called out again, "Wait until we get there. Do you hear me?" Again; no answer. Their pace doubled to a quick trot. "I said wait. God dammit!" he screamed, envisioning her already in a raptor's clutches.
Moss turned to Lockspur with a grimace that clearly meant run, she's about to do something stupid and the trot became a full out sprint. Hot, salty sweat ran into Moss's eyes and with every subsequent step, his mind created an ever-expanding scenario of blood and terror. The monsters had come; the violence was here at last. Their blazing boots barely touched the arid soil as the sounds of metal scrapping metal filled the silence. She was at the hatch trying to get it open. But what was on the other side? Had she even considered that? Was she prepared for what could be waiting in the darkness? What was she thinking? Rounding the back of the compartment, they found her hunkered down on one knee, jamming her priceless tanto between the door frame and hatch.
"WAIT!" he raged, firing his rifle in the air, trying to ward her off her current path of lunacy.
She screamed in terror, thinking he had fired his weapon at her and dropped the knife as she fell on her ass in the dirt. Her anger returned with a fury. Time slowed to a crawl. Moss and Lockspur panted wildly as adrenaline coursed through overheated veins.
"What the fuck are you doing?" she blared, jumping to her feet with a wild-eyed dark intent. She was deep in the grip of shock as the sound of the rifle's report still rang in her ears like a shrill siren. She wanted to pick up the knife, but not to use it to open a hatch. Her heart pounded in her chest as if it were going to explode. "I'm not a goddamn kid."
"I ordered you to wait." Moss warned as the sweat poured down his face, washing away long lines of greyish dust that looked like brown rivers. She thought he looked as though he were crying. Perhaps, in that moment, when the dead faces of his fallen comrades had come back to haunt him, maybe he was.
"You don't know what's in there." Lockspur warned, throwing up his rifle and taking aim st the hatch. He wasn't taking any chances. It would undoubtedly be dark behind that hatch. And where it's dark, he thought. "Re-think yourself." he snapped, gesturing with the end of his barrel for her to get back. She didn't move.
"Or not," she said, as a fog of ill will contorted her thin face into an unmistakable sneer that clearly gave life to an unspoken expletive. She stepped back, and both men thought she had given up, but they were wrong. Dahl lifted her weapon high overhead and drove it down butt first against the uncooperative access handle, and to their horror, they watched the handle drop into the open position. The hatch remained closed, but a single whisp of dust emanated from around the hatch seams. It was unlocked. "We didn't come all this way just to let a few shadows turn us away this close to our destination." she said with a triumphant smile. "Come on. You know those things can't cross the distance from there to here." She gestured from the cavern to the hatch. "There's nothing in there."
"We can go in through the windscreen. It's not fixed in place. It's just sitting there." Lockspur said, grimacing at Moss as if he wanted him to make her stop what she was doing. He was so frightened, he actually considered shooting her in the leg just to get her away from the hatch.
"And how would we get it off?" Dahl snapped, staring at the handle. All she had to fo to be inside was ysnk it open. But before she could reach out, the hatch popped open a fraction of an inch. They all saw it and the much larger jet of dry dusty air that struck Dahl in the face.
"Get back." Lockspur shouted.
Dahl covered her eyes, but it was already too late. The dust prevented her from seeing. The hatch creaked open another half an inch, sending out a rusty screech that reverberated down through the dark labyrinths beneath the wreckage. Dahl missed it. Hands still over her blinking eyes. If something was in there, it surely knew they were outside.
"Get back." Lockspur raged at her.
"Calm Down," she said, lifting her face to the heavens hastily and pouring warm water in her eyes. Then, to Moss and Lockspur's horror, Dahl lost her balance, pitched forward, grabbed the hatch handle to steady herself. "See," she said, "There's nothing in there." She pulled the hatch open. It swung out, slammed the outer hull and swung back, half open. Light streamed into the darkness, illuminating the murky interior.
"The fucking hatch didn't open itself." Lockspur warned, peering through his scope and taking two steps closer. Both he and Moss were pointing their weapons at the open hatch. Neither paid attention to Dahl.
She took a half step backwards, looking over her shoulder at Lockspur. "See. Nothing there."
"Get you weapon up!" he demanded, realizing she was unarmed.
"Damn, Carlos." she blurted, scared by the darkness lurking a few short feet from the tip of her nose. Something in the gloom stood up. Her mouth dropped open. It looked like a tall barrel chested man standing with his side to her. "There's someone in there." She called out.
"Get back," Lockspur raged, taking a few steps towards the hatch and flicking the selector to full auto.
Dahk pointed a slender finger into the darkness and said, "Look. Its a man."
Moss and Lockspur moved forward, one on each side of her, peering into the darkness. She was indeed right, the black silhouette of a motionless man stood 30 yards away. She took one step forward, passing through the veil between light and dark and called out, "Hey, mister. Over here."
The macabre figure twisted toward he. It's human form morphed into the shape of a standing hammerhead shark. It screamed, in rage fell on all fours and ran towards the at a frightening speed. Dahl leapt back, passing into the world of light and slammed the hatch between them. The dirty handle failed to lock. The creature jumped into the air, struck the hatch mid way up, crashed through it. The hatch struck her, sending her flying backwards and the raptor snatched her out of midair. As it slammed her back first on the ground, breath exploding from her lungs, Moss and Lockspur spun around to answer the attack. Sunlight seared its thin bubbling grayish hide. It reared up, ready to strike a fatal blow and a hail of bullets pierced its slimy grey abdomen spraying the air with blood and agony. A shower of rancid blue effluent struck Dahl in the chest and face. She gagged and screamed in terror.
Dahl lay on her back, air knocked from her deflated lungs gasping for breath and helplessly wriggling beneath the four hundred pound behemoth. She grasped feebly at the weapon lying just inches away. Terror drew the color from her ash white skin as she struggled and screamed.
Lockspur walked over, stood glaring down in a mixture of rage and disbelief. "That's not my idea of being careful, princess." His words hit her like bullets. He kicked the beast wildly, spattering her with another explosion of blue blood and guts. "Stupid. Stupid. Stupid."he raged.
Dahl wiggled and squirmed, still trying to extricate herself from beneath the twitching cadaver. She had no idea if It was dead or not. It dripped blue bile all over her. "Get it off me!" she shrieked in terror. Soggy hands slipping over its clammy skin.
Before Lockspur could roll it off, Moss walked over beside him, stepped on the creature, preventing him from freeing her. "Listen peaches, if you get your pretty ass killed out here, we're the ones who have to answer to Uncle Johns and Auntie Lilith. So, in the future, curb your fucking need to prove yourself."
Lockspur rolled it off and Dahl jumped to her feet screaming, "If either of you ever call me peaches again. I'll... I'll.."
"You'll what?"Lockspur said, waving a hand in front if his face. Dahl looked and smelled like a portable toilet had exploded blue goo all over her. He backed away, covering his face and said, "You stink."
"I'll braid your nuts." she said, jabbing him in the chest with a smelly blue finger.
He grabbed her finger as if contemplating snapping it like a twig. "Well… I guess it's lucky for me, I called you princess. And it's lucky for you, Im not still under the influence of our trip here." He shoved her hand away and wiped the stinking mung on the last clean spot on her shirt.
"Cut the shit." Moss ordered, grabbing her by the arm and reeling her around to face him.
"And just what are you gonna do if I don't?" she said, pushing him away.
It was his turn to wave his hand in front of her face. He knew she hated that. "To you," he said and laughed. "Nothing." Moss stuffed a cloth in her hand and said, "Wipe the shit off your face. You look ridiculous
"Listen," he said, glaring at her. "I gave you a pass on the Commander's seat fiasco. But you're girl boss bullshit is starting to wear on my last nerve."
Lockspur turned with a grin and said, "We could tell Johns she was stupid and careless, and that she not only almost got herself fucking killed, but she nearly got us killed, too."
"You wouldn't."
Moss laughed at her and added, "Then I'll tell him you botched the mission, and we had to leave."
"You wouldn't dare."
"You have no idea what we would do to keep you from killing yourself." Lockspur replied, picking her rifle off the ground.
"Or keep you from killing us," Moss added.
Lockspur shook the dirt off her rifle and said.
"When we get back, we're gonna sit back and watch Johns throw you over his knee and spanks your ass like the three year old brat you are."
"Fuck you," she raged, plucking the long stringy entrails off her shirt and pants. They snickered at her as she picked dripping chunks of flesh out of her hair. It made her madder than she could ever remember being. "I can handle myself." She blared in a voice near crying.
"Listen, newbie," Lockspur said, approaching Dahl with her rifle outstretched. "We've stayed alive out here because we've always have each other's backs. That's the way it's supposed to be, not this lone stranger bullshit."
Before Dahl could say anything, Moss added, "You're not thinking about anybody, but yourself. What was that shit?" he demanded, pointing at the open hatch. "Are you trying to kill yourself?"
Dahl reached out, grabbed the rifle, trying to yank it out of Lockspur's hand. But he tightened his steely grip and wrenched her closer. He may be old; but that didn't mean he was weak. "Now, here you come threatening to fuck it all up because you need to prove your what… you're equal to a man."
"Or better," Moss added.
"I am as good as any of you." Dahl said.
"Not like this, you're not." Moss replied, jamming a finger into her chest. It hurt, but she took it without flinching. "You don't see us running around acting like Goddamn fools, trying to prove we're as good as anyone else. We're not good because anyone says we're good."
"We're good because we fucking earned it." Lockspur added.
Moss moved in close enough to make her want to shove him away again, and he said, "Being on a team isn't about measuring up."
"It's about taking care of each other's asses when it counts." Lockspur added, loosening his grip slightly. "And you just fucking failed at that. You could have killed yourself, us, and blown our mission. So, great job."
"I just wanted to show you I can handle myself." Dahl said, turning to Lockspur.
"If we didn't think you could handle yourself, you fucking wouldn't be here, no matter what Lilith or Johns said." Moss said.
"How about you focus on proving you're a team player first," Lockspur said, letting go of the rifle. "And the little shit will take care of itself. Because we already know you earned the right to be here."
"We should," Moss said, "We trained you."
"And we assured Lilith and Johns you were ready." Lockspur added.
Dahl gestured towards the hatch and said, "What about the mission? We can still go in through the front."
"No one's going in there with you smelling like the ass end of a filthy chum bucket. Everything for a hundred miles in any direction can smell you. " Moss said.
Lockspur waved a hand in front of her and said, "And everything in a hundred feet can smell you, too."
Moss gestured down at the raptor and said, "Look," He nudged the carcass lying at her feet with the toe of his boot. "No eyes. They're blind. That means they have heightened senses of hearing and smell. He looked up at the blazing suns and said, "Out here they're blind and we have the advantage." Then he gestured to the partially open hatch and said, "But in there. Where it's dark. We're blind; and that makes us the prey. We just have to keep to the light."
"Let's head back to the ship." Lockspur said in an almost inaudible whisper. He nodded to the still open doors with his chin and added, "Before something else comes out to play. Besides, I'm spent."
"Fine." Dahl said, walking around the carcass, "Let's go."
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Dark_Multiverse4U
Dark_Multiverse4U Have a story idea? Comment it and let me know.
Like it ? Add to library!
Rate and share!
Thanks!
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone