Chir followed the human into the alien grasslands. The winds blew with powerful gusts that sent wave-like ripples through the bluish grass that covered the local terrain and nearly knocked Chir off his feet. The human, for his part, seemed entirely unaffected by the inclemency.
“Bit windy,” the human remarked. “Nice to feel the sun for a change, though. Guess it’s a different one, but same difference, hey?”
“Same difference,” Chir repeated, aware that the phrase made absolutely no sense but he was beginning to detect that as a trend with this human. He fingered the trigger of his kinetic gun warily as his feet left the short ramp and stepped onto the land of the deathworld. A chill of fear ran up his body; this was the most dangerous thing he’d ever done.
He looked around him, hardly willing to go any further. He could feel the beat of his heart, his senses grown more alert with fear, and it almost seemed to deafen him. The human was carefree, ignorant and possibly fatally stupid, and it was up to Chir to make sure that Chir survived if nothing else.
In the blue-purple sky he could see distant shadows weaving through the low clouds. Birds of some kind, but moving so fast! There were thirty of them, maybe, flying in perfect formation in the even more powerful air currents above. It was amazing that they could survive them, but this was a Deathworld and what could you expect?
“We should go down to the river,” the human suggested. “Animals usually gather there, and if nothing else there might be some fish. Those trees might have some birds, and maybe they have fruit or nuts, too.”
“Sound advice,” Chir agreed. He was glad that the human at least seemed to know what he was doing when it came to hunting and gathering. He noticed that now that they were on task the human seemed a lot more focused, intensely surveying his surroundings for any sign of… anything. “Perhaps one of us should stand guard by the shore?”
“If I feel the need to get wet I’ll know who to have at my back,” the human replied. “I’ve watched enough movies to know that jumping into water on an alien planet is just asking for trouble, though.”
“I was not aware your people had made contact prior to the recent incident!” Chir said in surprise.
“We hadn’t,” the human admitted, “but we do like our stories. My old man had a whole collection of these black-and-white movies, real old things. Most of them total crap, mind you. The Monster from the Black Lagoon, Forbidden Planet, the whole Lost in Space series. Ironic that I never liked them much.”
“And they were about dangerous waterways on other planets?” Chir asked. It seemed an oddly specific thing to write so much about, especially given that the human had just admitted that the human species had not even made contact until just recently.
“No, that was just the occasional thing you’d see… other times it would be mutant monsters, invading aliens, or rampaging robots. Crap like that”
“I see,” Chir said, hoping to sound like he did. He was familiar with theatrical productions, of course, but the concept of using it to portray imaginary monsters from space was beyond him. Gaoian theatre tended to focus on moral lessons, as did drama in most cultures. Some few used it for comedic value, and he knew the Chehnasho were unique in dramatising their historical records with so much poetic license that it became pure fancy. The idea of stories with so much horror and violence was simply alien to him, as indeed the human was.
“Wait here,” the human said as they reached the muddy flat that ran down into the river. There was debris laying here and there, muddy logs and driftwood resting on the riverbank, only partially submerged. The river itself was brown with mud, far from refreshing and likely containing contaminants that would kill a whole clan of Gaoians.
“What are you doing?” Chir asked, as the human took aim at one of the logs. “That-“
The human fired with deadly accuracy, and the log snarled with life. Chir recoiled from the vicious reptilian creature that hissed and growled as the human shot it again with equally unimpressive results. It had looked like a log! Exactly like a decaying log, and yet it had all been a disguise. The reality had been a savage beast laying in wait for the next meal to present itself, and the human had seen straight through it!
“What the fuck is wrong with this piece of shit?!” the human yelled as he shot the beast a third time. “Is yours working or did baldy give me a lemon?”
Chir shot the creature as well, with about as much effect. The creature was clearly predatory, and increasingly pissed off. Others of its kind were also starting to move, albeit lethargically.
“It seems to be in perfect working order,” he told the human, his voice wavering. “Perhaps a retreat is in order?”
“This thing is about as useful as shit on a stick,” the human declared, and hurled the gun at the creature with all of his might. The gun struck the monster in the head with a loud crack, toppling it with the force of the blow.
Chir and the human both stood in shock as the dazed creature writhed on the ground, struggling to get to its feet.
“You’ve got to be fucking joking,” the human said, staring at the open palm of the hand he had thrown the weapon with.
“Your gun is gone,” Chir reminded him. “We can always get another, but there are another… four of them! They’re converging on us!”
“Mate,” the human said, looking up with the most predatory grin Chir had ever seen on a sentient being. “Have you ever heard of the Crocodile Hunter?”
Adrian ran towards the next of the monsters, feeling more alive than he’d done in years. Adrenaline surged through his body and he could feel everything. But this wasn’t an adrenaline surge borne of fear – oh no – this was borne of the ecstasy of the fight.
The monsters were reptilian creatures with long legs, some way between dogs and crocodiles, but heavily favouring the latter. He’d considered calling them ‘dogodiles’, but decided that that was fucking stupid and ‘Wolfigators’ was much better.
The Wolfigator he’d approached leapt at him with a sudden ferocity and speed their normal movement belied. Adrian was no stranger to ambush predators, however – how many months had he spent training in the outback? – and old infighter reflexes took over. He dodged to the side and delivered a slamming blow to the side of its head.
The Wolfigator went down in a sprawling mess, and Adrian could have sworn he’d felt the skull fracture under his blow, but it was still getting up again. They were tougher than he’d thought, but not quite as tough as he’d hoped. He leapt onto its back, wrapping his newly-muscle-bound arms around its neck, his legs around its legs, and squeezed.
++++++++++
“Die you motherfucker!” the human screamed at the troubled alien monster. He slammed its head down onto the ground repeatedly as its body spasmed in an attempt to get free.
Chir watched on in horrified excitement. The monsters had all been attracted to the current threat, the human, and he was putting on quite the show. When he’d determined that strangulation wasn’t going to do the job, he’d simply resumed punching it in the head until it stopped moving, and then rolling off the corpse before the remaining three could lunge at him.
“Punching them takes too much effort,” he shouted, presumably to Chir. “I need something a bit harder. Find me a good sized rock while I keep them distracted.”
Chir looked around, glad at finally having something to do. He was, after all, an armed Gaoian warrior, and it was shameful for him to sit by and allow an unarmed man to do all the fighting. The human seemed to have gained some humility now, since he’d restrained himself to just punching the ones that made a lunge at him.
Finally Chir found one! It was a good sized rock, although Chir doubted it would be much use against creatures from a Deathworld. But as the human was also from a Deathworld, maybe he could make it work! He threw it to the human with all his might. “Catch!”
+++++++++
Adrian caught the large pebble by reflex, and found the ridiculous uselessness of it so ludicrous that for a moment he forgot what he was doing and almost earned a mouthful of sharp teeth for the privilege.
“What the fuck is this supposed to be, fuck knuckle?!” he shouted. “I asked you for a rock!”
“That’s the biggest one that could find!” Chir protested.
“What about all those fucking things sticking out of the mud?” Adrian demanded. He could clearly see a dozen fist-sized rocks jutting out of the mud, up near where the grass grew and where Chir was standing, all there for the taking.
“Those are far too heavy to lift!” Chir replied, as if the very concept of pulling them out was entirely absurd.
“Give me strength!” Adrian snarled as he punched the next Wofligator in the side of the head. This time he grabbed its upper jaw and put his boot into the lower. With a moment of effort there was a sick, wet rending sound and the lower jaw was torn away revealing bone and gore. The Wolfigator shuddered in his arms and fell still.
Adrian picked up the jawbone.
+++++++++++++++
Chir could not believe what he had just seen. The human had ripped apart the monster’s skull and killed it in one horrific move. It had been far more violent than anything he had done so far, even the punching, and he felt sick from having watched it.
But only two of the monsters now remained, and they seemed to have at least the awareness to try to encircle their prey. If they decided to strike at the same time, Chir wondered if the human would get out unscathed.
The rock, the largest that Chir had been able to lift, had been derided by the human as being so inadequate that he had merely tossed it aside. The human was now reduced to using the jaw as a primitive weapon, swinging it so as to ward the monsters off. He was backing off, though… the human seemed like he was in trouble!
If nothing else I can distract one, Chir thought. It might give the human a chance to get away, or to gain better ground.
He took aim at the nearest of the monsters, and then fired.
A kinetic blast hit the Wolfigator to his left in the head, stunning it long enough for Adrian to belt it in the other side of its head with its old friend’s jawbone. The jawbone broke when it struck the skull, but the skull itself exploded in gore.
He leapt the corpse before it could fall, putting it between himself and the other Wolfigator, and giving him time to come up with another plan.
Right now he knew three things. First, his hands hurt like hell from all the punching he was doing, and he suspected he’d got at least some hairline fractures in his bones; second, he had no weapons other than his aching hands; and third, there was probably only this one Wolfigator left to hunt on this particular river bank.
Unlike a crocodile, it was not a completely unintelligent beast. It had clearly been trying to work with the others in some sort of pack, and that meant some form of intellect no matter how rudimentary. It also meant that there was something bigger out there that they’d have to work together to take down. Adrian wondered what that was, and if it would taste any good. He reckoned Wolfigator at least would taste kind of like Croc.
His eyes fell on a pair of rocks – proper rocks – nearby. One stone, the other a mud-smeared piece of quartz. “Hey, Chir,” he shouted, “think you could distract this bastard for me?”
Chir responded by taking aim and pulling the trigger on his kinetic gun repeatedly, knocking the beast around a greatly infuriating it in the process. It looked as though the weapon hurt the creature, at least somewhat, but that the most it could cause would be severe bruising. That didn’t matter, though, because a proper weapon would soon be in hand.
++++++++++
Chir watched the human move while keeping the monster under sustained fire. He tried to hit it in such a way that would deter it from following the human, who was clearly trying to escape at this point, but all it seemed to be doing was enraging the creature into greater savagery. He hoped the human would make it to the grass in time, and that together they could escape this bloody nightmare and flee back to their shared enslavement.
Stars above, he thought to himself, did I really just think of enslavement as the better option?
After the seventh shot, the monster was no longer responding to the kinetic blasts, having achieved the point of total rage, and was now chasing after the human who had a mercifully good head start.
Chir’s sigh of relief was cut short as the human fell to the ground, heaving an enormous rock from the ground and bringing it down against another. It shattered on impact, and the human cried out in equal parts jubilation and pain.
“What are you doing?!” Chir cried out. “Run for it you psychopath!”
The human just looked at him, caked with mud and blood and gore, with the same predatory grin from before. In his hand was a sharp and clean white stone with a wicked edge.
++++++++++
“Take this motherfucker!” Adrian cried as he drove the makeshift axe-blade into the Wolfigator’s neck. The flesh there tore apart like tissue paper under the keen edge, and blood gouted out in a brief torrent as the important arteries were slashed open.
Blood was everywhere, and the blade was slick with it in his hand as he brought it down again, jamming it in behind the creature’s neck where its spine was supposed to go. It stopped moving after that, and Adrian allowed himself to sit back and rest as the adrenaline drained from his body.
He looked over to Chir. “Now that,” he said, “was a rock.”
++++++++++
Chir sat quietly in the ship as the human – Adrian, as he preferred to be called – carried in packaged meat and stowed them in the food preservers. He had taken his time about it, cutting off the thick skin with the declared intention of turning it into clothing.
Chir growled to himself. Wearing the flesh of animals? The human was a true savage.
And yet, Chir was forced to consider, that same savagery had been enough to annihilate five extremely dangerous predators with marginal help from the Gaoian warrior who should have been at the forefront of any battle. Chir burned with shame at that fact, and he almost resented the human for making him feel that way.
“Remind me to get a metal spear made for my next trip down here,” Adrian said to him as he stowed the last of the meat that would fit in the preservers. The skins he had lain out tidily on the floor next to them, and it had taken Chir all his willpower to avoid retching at the stink and sight of them.
“You intend to come down again?” Chir asked, incredulous that anyone might want to repeat this experience. “Why would you possibly need to do that? You’ve got enough meat here for… I don’t even know how long!”
“Maybe two weeks,” Adrian replied. “We eat more than you, remember?”
Chir stared at the preservers. He had heard of ‘Shoo’s’ extreme dietary requirements, but next to this colossal quantity of food she seemed entirely reserved.
“I haven’t been able to fit it all in, though,” Adrian continued. “There’s a fair bit I couldn’t get together for it, I think two entire legs, and then some.”
“A pity that your bloodbath will not have all the results you desired,” Chir replied sarcastically. Then he sniffed the air – something was burning!
“I smell fire!” he said sharply. “If there’s a grassfire here, we’re likely to be caught in the conflagration if we do not depart immediately.”
“Easy there, big fella!” Adrian said, starting to smile again. “Since you eat meat, I figured I might put together a little something we have on Earth.”
“You’re cooking?” Chir asked, surprised more than anything that the savage would actually cook its meat. He knew from the reports that ‘Shoo’ would eat many meats entirely raw, and she was far from the savage that this human represented.
“Yeah, mate,” Adrian continued. “We call it ‘barbecue’.”