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  Her rifle throbbed against her palm, letting her know the coils were ready. She stroked the trigger, making the contact that generated the magnetic pulse along the rails. This time the round struck where she intended it, at a direct angle on the side of its head. It crashed to the ground, falling on its side and jerking its powerful legs several times before lying still.

  Kira rose up, stumbling as she did so. Fresh pain lanced through the leg she’d wrenched. Gritting her teeth, she limped over to the fallen monster and stared at it in the darkness. The fires on its hide had been put out by the rain but she could see well enough in the darkness to see it was covered with a thick layer of short feathers. Tarn and Sharp joined her a moment later, swearing as they drew close enough to see it.

  “Where the hell are we?” Tarn asked.

  “I wonder if it tastes like chicken?” Sharp offered.

  Kira turned away from it. “Doesn’t matter. It came hunting and we got in its way. We need to find a safe place as soon as we can and hole up. If we can eat the fish, we can eat the animals, too. We need a source of fresh water and good hunting. Fruits, too, or whatever this place has. We’ve got to give Eric a chance to get better, and then we’ll be stronger and better able to find a permanent place to stay.”

  “Permanent?” Jeff asked. They were close enough to the shelter for him and Eric to hear her.

  “We have to assume permanent,” Kira said, looking everywhere but at her wounded lover. “If help comes that’s great, but until it does we have to figure otherwise. We’ve got rechargers for the energy packs and Eric made plenty of ammunition for my rifle before we landed. Means sleeping in shifts and everything.”

  “Ah… paradise,” Eric muttered, and then he grimaced and covered his side with his hand.

  Kira bit her lip and looked away. “I’ll take first watch.” When — if — Eric died from his injuries, it would take some time. They had a day or two at least, she figured. A day or two before she’d need strength she didn’t know if she had. A day or two before she’d need to see just how truly gone Emily really was.

  ####

  Part 2: The Colony

  Chapter 1

  “They had a transport ship — No way they could land that on a planet!” The brown haired man talking was soft spoken in spite of his derisive tone. The woman at the radar station looked at the speaker and chewed on the piercing in her lip. It was one of many piercings adorning her face and shaven scalp.

  “Something you want to add, Lizzie?”

  She jerked and spun to look at the new speaker, the captain of the Black Hole. She nodded. “Klous…yes, I mean, yes Sir, that is. I found the Rented Mule, it crashed. In the water, but less than a couple hundred feet deep.”

  “Is that all?” Klous snorted. He ran his fingers through his spiked blond hair and stared at Lizzie until she turned away. “The Hole isn’t much better than that transport was for planetary operations.”

  “I can set us down nearby. Lizzie’s coordinates are just off a shore.” The speaker was Aran Black, the pilot of the Black Hole.

  “It’d be a shame to come all this way and go with nothing.” The unassuming man’s eyes were wide with what the Captain knew to be excitement. He’d known the man far too long to misjudge it, and far too long to repress the shudder at what it meant.

  “Don’t go freaking out, Cooper, I’ll have your ass confined,” Klous growled at him.

  “Any survivors?”

  Klous craned his neck to see the only survivor from the failed boarding attempt of the Rented Mule standing there. The Captain’s eyes narrowed dangerously but before he could rebuke the man for his uninvited interruption Lizzie spoke up.

  “I think so.” She still stared at the display in front of her while her hands were pressed firmly against the data induction pad on her station. She nodded a moment later, the rings in her ears jangling against one another. “Yes, I’ve got more wreckage on the shore.”

  “More wreckage?”

  “Not a crash site, but it looks like they used a smaller craft to evacuate the transport.”

  “No signs of life though?”

  “Oh, lots! The entire planet is alive,” Lizzie paused to look at them. She shrugged, causing more jangles. “I’ve never seen readings like this. I think maybe Earth would have looked like this thousands of years ago. Huge forests, warm temperatures, and incredible numbers of animals or other life forms moving.”

  “Humans? Or….”

  “Too big for people. No signs of cities or buildings either.”

  Klous grunted. “I don’t like it. We were supposed to board the damn ship in space! We get the cargo and split the bounty on the target. This is a pile of rat shit is what it is!”

  “Klous, this system isn’t on any charts. This planet – it don’t exist.”

  “What’s that mean?” The Captain growled back at Aran.

  “Means this place hasn’t been discovered yet. We’re outside the core worlds. Shit, we’re outside the rim systems by light years! Salvage in space is claimed by whoever finds it…”

  “This is a planet, not salvage.”

  “All the other planets humans have settled and terraformed they knew about beforehand. Settlers and engineers were sent with that in mind. This place is ready!”

  “No shipping lanes this far out and I don’t like a few years of cold sleep between our hideout and civilized space!”

  “Klous, not a hideout – we can run this world! That much green down there, it’s a fucking paradise! People will flock to it and pay whatever we demand.”

  Klous stared at the excited pilot. His suspicious eyes widened as he digested the words and realized what the man meant.

  “One problem,” Brand interrupted – again – from behind the Captain. “People that discover it first are the ones that got the rights to it.”

  Klous chuckled. “What problem? It’s just another salvage run. Sometimes the salvage needs a little help.”

  Brand nodded. “You might still split that bounty.”

  “Two point five million in core script is nothing compared to this!”

  Cooper leaned forward, his teeth emerging in a smile. “We going hunting?”

  Klous stared at him, shaking his head in mild disapproval. “One of these days your hobby is going to get you killed.”

  Cooper shrugged, clearly unconcerned. “So?”

  Klous sighed. “Aran, take us down. Lizzie, find the best spot and see if you can get anything on where the survivors went.”

  “It’s been nine months, there’s no telling how far they got or if they’re even still alive,” her final words sounded almost hopeful.

  Klous shrugged. “Easier for us then.”

  “Do you want me to send out a salvage beacon marking this as our find?” Lizzie asked.

  Klous ran his hand through his hair again, then nodded. “Yeah, let’s make this official.”

  She focused on her display again as diagrams and words flashed across it. A few moments later she said, “The beacon’s ready. Instead of a derelict ship name we need a name for the planet.”

  Klous glanced at the others on the bridge. The returned his stare, each openly curious but offering nothing. Finally he grinned. “Vitalis. Let’s call it Vitalis.”

  Chapter 2

  “You sure it’s only been nine months?” Ling Soon, the Black Hole’s engineer, asked. He stood up, stretching to his full towering height, and shook his head. “This thing’s been gutted and the rust on it has it falling apart. I don’t know much about air and water wearing metal down, but I’d say this has been here for years.”

  Aran shook his head. “Lizzie and I checked and checked again, they’ve been here nine months, give or take a few days.”

  Ling whistled, then wiped the sweat off his forehead back into his short dark hair. “Breeze is nice but it sure is hot.”

  “Wait until you get in the jungle,” Cooper said. The others glanced at him but looked away. The excitement was evident in his vo
ice. “No wind,” he continued, unaware of their discomfort, “just the heat making you sweat and the insects and predators smelling you and wanting to taste—”

  “Cooper!” Klous snarled, stopping him. Cooper looked at the Captain and shrugged, then turned to stare back into the forest. Klous glared at him a minute longer then shook his head and turned to the others. “Lizzie, Ling, stay with the Hole. Last thing we need is them circling back and stealing our ship while we’re looking for them.”

  “Go inside and lock it down,” Brand advised. “These aren’t just drifters running a transport, they had military experience.”

  Klous grunted. The last run-in with the Rented Mule had cost him several of his crew. Nobody important to him, other than how a couple of the girls had been trying to impress him and earn a better share. He did miss Talya’s lips…

  “Captain?”

  Klous glanced over and up at Ling. Everyone was staring at him and he realized he’d been daydreaming about Talya. Or rather the last time she’d spent some quality time in his cabin. He pushed it aside and grunted, “Yeah.”

  “We won’t activate it unless it’s absolutely necessary.” Ling said, taking Klous’s terse statement to be agreement.

  He dug deep and realized Ling was talking about JimBob, the modified sentinel robot he’d picked up a few years back. Relative years, considering the amount of time spent in hibernation units while traveling outside of the jump stations. The JB-1203 unit had been decommissioned and little more than scrap, but he’d picked it up off a fence who had salvaged it and had it retrofitted with pulse lasers. The radioactive isotope that powered the robot still had a half life of nearly 11,000 years. The robot’s programming on the other hand, had always been a little quirky.

  “Don’t suppose they left a trail for us?” Ling’s assistant asked. She was the Black Hole’s handywoman, capable of fixing just about anything short of the complicated ship’s engine. Now she just looked uncomfortable and hot, with sweat stains under her large breasts and running down her displayed cleavage.

  Klous looked away from her before he let himself be distracted again. The sudden intense interest he was finding in sex alarmed him. Sasha was okay looking, he supposed, but she was a little big for his tastes. None of his crew was obese by any means, but Sasha had always been a little thicker than he preferred.

  The pirate Captain scowled at his thoughts. Even fighting against it he was still distracted. “Brand, take the lead.”

  Brand grunted and hefted his laser rifle. He’d put on a reinforced vest, muttering to the others how the Mule’s people had shot back with ballistic weapons. Klous doubted the vest would do the man any good but said nothing to stop him. A few minutes out of the wind from the ocean and he knew Brand would be less worried about it too.

  Klous fell in behind Brand and glanced back to make sure the others followed him. Sasha came next, then Aran and finally Cooper. He thought it odd that Cooper would be in the rear – usually when it came to sniffing out fresh prey Cooper liked first dibs. Or at least he knew that’s what Cooper thought of it as.

  Klous suppressed the shudder and refocused on Brand as the man pushed aside some fern-like vegetation and entered the jungle. Klous followed a few feet behind him and gasped as the wall of humidity and heat pressed against him. He kept moving, refusing to show weakness, and heard similar grunts, curses, and explosions from behind him as his crew followed.

  Somewhere ahead something screeched. A bird or an animal, the sound pulled Klous’s attention from the fresh sweat beading his forehead to the tropical rainforest ahead. He glanced at the others and saw them staring into the distance as well. His eyes lingered on Sasha as a large bead of sweat ran between her breasts and out of sight.

  Klous swore and ripped his gaze away from her. Brand had kept moving and had opened up several additional feet between them. He hurried to catch up, slipping on some moss that covered a rock as he did so. He grunted as he fell, but managed to catch himself with one hand while he held his laser rifle free of the ground with the other.

  “You all right?” Brand asked, offering him a hand.

  Klous took it and pulled himself up. He tested his leg and back and nodded. “Fuckin’ garden here,” he grunted. Brand smirked, then turned away to head deeper into the jungle.

  “Look!”

  Klous turned and stared at Sasha’s breasts, which had already become more pronounced as the sweat made her tank top not only cling to them, but mold itself around them.

  “Something’s over there!”

  He followed her arm, where she pointed down a path in the jungle. Klous saw nothing, aside from some swaying leaves. He looked down, noting that the mixture of dirt and sand was moist but held tracks that were decidedly not human. “What’d you see?” He asked, not looking at her for fear he’d be unable to stare her in the eyes.

  “Something moved. It was there then it was gone. Kind of brown I guess, but I didn’t see it well. Like a big cat or something, maybe?”

  Klous grunted. He knew nothing about tracking or footprints and staring at them wasn’t educating him. He looked up and forced himself to ignore Sasha, who’d stepped closer to him. He could even smell her, she was so close. It wasn’t an ugly or unpleasant smell; it was something appealing and earthy. His nostrils flared as he tried to draw in more of it.

  “Aran! Get up here,” Klous groaned. “Take her place.”

  “What? Why!” Sasha protested. She glanced back and hissed, “Captain, I don’t want to be next to — hey, where’s Cooper?”

  The Captain followed her gaze that went all the way back to the line of undergrowth at the edge of the beach and the jungle. They’d barely moved twenty feet in, yet Cooper was gone. He turned to stare at where Sasha had seen the animal. Even the leaves had stopped moving.

  “Cooper!” He hissed once, then again more loudly. He was met with only silence and the buzzing of strange, and large, insects. Another screech from the forest, not as far away this time, sounded. Three answering screeches followed.

  “Captain?” Sasha asked, worry evident in her tone.

  “You think they survived?” Aran asked.

  “They’re out there,” Brand growled, staring into the depths of the jungle. He wiped his brow with the back of his arm before tugging on the vest to let some air in. “I can feel it!”

  “You’re fucking crazy,” Sasha hissed at him.

  “Better than being a fat coward!” Brand spat back at her.

  Klous watched Sasha’s eyes widen. She started past him, hands already coming up. Klous grabbed her, reaching for her shoulder but finding his hand slid down her sweat-slicked skin too easily and fondled her boob even as she tried to slip away from him. His hand was tangled in the strap of her tank top, yanking it enough to let her boob slip free. She struggled for a moment then stopped and glared at him. She yanked her shirt free and tucked herself in, then glared at Brand.

  “I’m not fat!” She spat at him.

  “Shut up!” Klous yelled loud enough to silence the jungle around them for a moment. “We don’t know what the fuck’s out there. We lost one guy already – if you two don’t cut the shit I’ll burn the next one of you that steps outta line and leave you for whatever rats this place has got. Got it?”

  Sasha glared at Brand a minute longer, even though he was ignoring her and staring into the jungle. She nodded and adjusted her shirt again, peeling the soaked fabric free of her ample breasts just enough to give Klous a glimpse that burned an image into his mind. She turned and stalked past him, but refused to follow behind Aran.

  “All right, let’s go. Keep your shit together. Nothing got Cooper. He’s just hoping we’ll be a distraction so he can do what he does.”

  “He’s fucking sick,” Sasha muttered.

  Klous made sure his face didn’t show that he couldn’t have agreed more.

  Chapter 3

  Cooper slipped through the trees silently. He’d expected it to take a while before he had a chance to slip a
way but chance favored his prepared mind. Klous couldn’t keep his eyes off the chubby girl’s chest and the others had their own preoccupations. Only Aran was alert, but he’d never paid much attention to Cooper.

  Cooper smirked at his brother’s actions. Klous had always appreciated the ladies a little too much. He didn’t know how to keep a proper distance between himself and them. Not like Cooper had, at least. Klous thought what Cooper did was disgusting but the truth was it kept him safe and sane. It always helped remind him of what was important.

  Cooper pulled up short, alerted by a sound ahead of him. It wasn’t the distant screeching that he also heard; it was a sound he recognized more intimately – the sound of a bone snapping and of flesh tearing. Unable to fight back the grin that found its way to his face, he moved forward carefully and stepped around a plant with large red tipped thorns.

  Ahead of him he saw a small stream that cut across the jungle floor. On the far side of it was the source of the noise. Three creatures were tearing at the body of a forth. He raised his laser rifle slowly and sighted them in, noting that they reminded him a little bit of monkeys that he’d seen pictures of. The dead thing he couldn’t identify, it was torn apart too badly.

  He put the reticule in his digital scope on each creature, trying to determine which one to shoot first. Pity they weren’t human, but this would tide him over. He settled for the one furthest away and waited until he had a perfect shot at the alien creatures head.

  It fell back, swatting and beating at the smoking mark on its head. The Vitallian ape howled in pain, causing the other two to look up from their feast. Cooper frowned. All of the rifles on the ship had been modified for maximum burn. He’d even checked to make sure his was set at full power, yet he hadn’t burned through the creatures head and into its brain.