And again.
Again.
Again.
The alien veered sideways, staggering and thrashing.
Elle chanced a worried look at Court and was relieved to see Bear with one arm around Kane’s neck and the other hammering on his side. Kane’s hands were scratching at Bear’s head but the big man wasn’t yielding.
Remarkably, Court still had Kane’s gun in his hand, which was visibly shaking even from thirty feet away.
Elle tried to shout at him to help Bear but all that came from her mouth was a scream. Unthinkable pain surged through her body, and she looked to where the alien’s sharp tentacle had sunk deep into her upper leg.
“You are an irritation, human L37.”
“Court,” she shouted. “Court, you need to go. You need to get on the pod. I can’t, not now.”
The alien leaned forward, pressing more of its weight into her leg and she screamed as the stabber slid through to the ground beneath her.
“Please, Court. Go.”
“She’s right,” Bear said. He released Kane’s twitching body and took the gun from Court. “Hurry.”
Elle fired several more stun rounds into the body armor, causing the alien to thrash and wail.
“Go!”
Court stared at her for what felt like much too long and then he ran, moving at an angle away from the Qyntarak. She fired another stun round before the other stabber sunk into her upper chest. She heard something snap.
Collarbone? First rib?
The pain didn’t seem to register. She felt surprisingly clear-headed.
The alien turned, dragging her body along the ground as it did. It was searching for Court. She tried to raise the stun gun but her arm was no longer working.
The alien turned its thermal-optical organ in her direction. The protective covering of its body armor was scuffed where the stun rounds had landed.
“Such irritation. I look forward to eating you, human.”
CHAPTER 57: KANE
Kane sucked in air in short gasps as the world came back into focus. Kantarka-Ta had L37 pinned to the ground. The kid was running away. Next to him, his gun hung from the big man’s hand.
Kantarka-Ta said that it looked forward to eating L37.
No. No, it wouldn’t…
He forced his head off the ground and saw Kantarka-Ta removing the body armor from around its feeding slit.
Out in the open like this?
The air on Earth was uncomfortable for Qyntarak, which is why they stayed in the controlled atmosphere of their bunkers and ships. It was why Kane had spent so many hours of his life trapped in a suit to protect him from the air mixture native to their home world. For a Qyntarak to expose its sensitive feeding slit this way was unprecedented in Kane’s experience.
“Give me the gun.”
Kane’s voice was almost nonexistent after his near strangulation and Bear didn’t react. He pushed himself to his knees and pulled the gun from Bear’s hand. That snapped the big man out of his terrified stupor. Kane had the gun pointed at him before he could react.
“Back up.”
Bear raised his hands and took several steps back.
Kantarka-Ta’s mandibles had stretched its feeding slit wide and it swayed over L37, who was clawing pointlessly at the tentacle embedded in her chest.
Kane raised the gun and fired three shots into Kantarka-Ta’s feeding slit, top, middle, and bottom. The alien made a painfully loud screeching sound. Its mandibles snapped shut and it yanked its stabbing tentacles from L37. Kane saw the damaged plating on its back leg and fired at it. The first shot was a couple inches high and bounced off the body armor. His second shot went straight in and Kantarka-Ta’s back end collapsed to the ground.
Bear jumped forward and dragged L37 away. The alien swung a wild tentacle at them but missed.
Kane aimed at the spot where the covering over a tentacle met the plating of the central body armor and fired. The Qyntarak screeched again.
Seven shots fired. Three left.
The Qyntarak only let humans use projectile weapons, saving the powerful and versatile gravity-based weapons for themselves. Modern bullets couldn’t pierce Qyntarak body armor, let alone the exterior of their facilities and ships, and the aliens didn’t care much about how much humans shot each other up, as long as it wasn’t cutting into their profits.
The rules might change after this.
Kane charged at the writhing alien, dodging its tentacles, and threw all of his weight against it, sending the much larger creature tumbling back, unable to brace itself without the use of its damaged leg.
Kane slid his hand into the outer opening of the feeding slit and grabbed a mandible. Its tiny teeth-like ridges tore at his hand as he pulled. Several surrounding mandibles opened partway sympathetically and Kane shoved his gun into the opening. He fired toward the end where the Qyntarak’s internal organs connected to its emotive antennae. The bullet would bounce off the inside of the body armor, magnifying the damage.
Kantarka-Ta spasmed and its tentacles collapsed into limp piles.
His arm still covered in Qyntarak digestive fluids, Kane unfastened the body armor and slid off the covering to expose the thermal-optical organ and antennae fronds.
“You were always such a son of a bitch.”
He pressed the gun against the thermal-optical organ and the Qyntarak twitched, a single tentacle flying into the air and straight through Kane’s stomach. Kane made a gagging noise and felt the world around him start to spin.
He pulled the trigger and dropped the gun. He wrapped both hands around the tentacle and tried to push it out but his hands slipped on the blood that was coating the outside.
My blood.
He closed his eyes, it was too hard to keep them open, and let himself slide to the ground beside his impaler.
CHAPTER 58: COURT
The inside of the pod went dark as the door closed. The only challenge to the blackness was the faint light from the heads-up display of the EVA suit. As his eyes adjusted, he saw the outlines of cargo boxes.
The heads-up display announced, “Establishing intravenous connection.”
He felt pressure and then the sting of a needle pricking his arm inside the suit.
The status box in the helmet display showed LAUNCH -0:05.
Court tightened his grip on the little white box. The transponder’s green light flashed momentarily, reminding him that it was on and ready to respond to the Willow Wisp’s locator signal.
LAUNCH -0:03.
Deep breath, Court.
LAUNCH -0:01.
He didn’t feel anything and then without warning it felt like the weight of the world was pressing down on him. The outlines of the cargo boxes grew blurry and everything went black.
EPILOGUE: ELLE
Elle watched the water ripple in her glass in response to Bear’s bouncing leg. Their advocate seemed indifferent to their distress as he read on his tablet.
He looked up when someone knocked on the door. A woman stuck her head in and asked if she could have a minute with his clients.
“Of course.” He left them alone in the room with the woman without asking for their opinion on the matter.
“How are you two holding up?”
“Do we know you?” Bear asked.
“That’s right, you haven’t seen me since my alterations. It’s Ursula.”
Elle leaned forward and studied the woman. Her hair color was different, the nose and cheekbones were wrong, and contact lenses obscured her eyes. Her voice sounded familiar but not right. Elle didn’t believe she would misremember Ursula that much even though it had been weeks since they’d seen her.