SUNSCREEN (REVISED 11/28/23)

"See anything?" Moss asked, staring up at Dahl who stood wide-eyed and teetering on Lockspur's shoulders. To say the duo looked comical would be an understatement, and under normal circumstances, Moss would have laughed his ass off. But as it was, he couldn't stop looking over his shoulder, thinking something was sneaking up from behind or digging up beneath him. Once the thought had entered his mind, he couldn't get the sound of digging out of his mind.

Dahl pressed her thin body against the nose cone, holding on using nothing but her weeping fingertips. The pressure on her still tender nail beds made them sting and protest. She nearly lost her grip and warbled around.

"Watch it," Lockspur complained, almost dropping her. He had two blown out discs, no cartilage in his knees and a decrepit nervous system unwilling to transmit anything other than pain. He scowled at Moss and thought, how is it, I keep ending up on the bottom of the stack?

Dahl peeked over the bottom edge of the windscreen frame, awestruck by the expansive compartment inside, trying not to give herself away. The compartment was flooded with light. She was certain nothing would be on the other side of the polycarbonate. But why take any chances. Dahl wiped a thin layer of dust off the surface, cupped her hands against the polycarbonate and pressed her face against her hands as if looking through a pair of binoculars. "Holy shit," she said, looking at Moss, "This bridge is enormous."

"Told you " Lockspur said. 

They were both right. Their entire ship could have fit in there with room to spare. For that reason alone, most of the outer colonies had banned the old galaxy class star freighters from entering their inner systems. At cruising speeds, those juggernauts could blow through most planetary defenses with ease. Their sheer mass, combined with 2 oversized nuclear power plants, turned them into unstoppable nukes. In the early heyday of space travel, several crippled freighters looking for repairs had exploded in high orbit over a few populated planets, resulting in trillions of dollars of infrastructure repairs and a loss of hundreds of thousands of lives.

Dahl had never seen a ship this size. It was a vestige of an era of shipbuilding that was no longer needed. Long before faster than light travel was conquered, huge freighters roamed the galaxy non-stop; massive starships designed to carry millions and sometimes billions of metric tons of goods from fertile worlds to the less fortunate outer colonies. It was a ghostly reminder of space travel during a time when journeys were measured in decades, not weeks or months. Some crews lived their entire lives in space, from birth to death, without ever stepping foot on solid ground. Those brave men and women dedicated their lives to the sole purpose of colonizing the galaxy.

Lockspur grimaced in pain as the hard rubber heels of Dahl's combat boots ground into the soft skin above his collarbone He cursed Moss for giving them to her. "Come on, dammit." he snapped, "Is it safe or not?" Lockspur shoved Dahl's foot towards the meaty portion of his shoulder, his back was killing him. Sweet relief, he thought as the abrasive stinging subsided.

"Hey," Dahl shrieked, warbling around in a comical belly dance gone wrong. She righted herself with a final arm flapping maneuver that left her pancaked against the poly like a bug splattered on a car's windshield. She peeled herself off the nose cone, rubbing her cheek and said, "Maybe, but the hatch is open." The jittery uncertainty in her voice did little to quell her teammates' growing concerns.

"Keep looking." Moss snapped impatiently. He gestured for his sneering, red-faced comrade to give Dahl enough time to investigate. Lockspur glare turned into an unspoken barrage of squinting expletives and Moss fought back an inco.ing smirk.

"Probably... ish." she answered, shrugging off the question. The compartment was lit up like a spotlight was on it. "It's flooded with light. No raptor could survive in there."

Dahl's unwillingness to answer his question gave birth to a momentary fantasy wherein Lockspur tossed her in the dirt and stood over her, laughing hysterically. The childish fantasy drained the attention from his eyes.

"Yo, compadre," Moss said, snapping his fingers repeatedly in front of Lockspur's vacant eyes. "Are you in there? Ground Control to Major Tom, can you hear me, Major Tom?"

The last thing any of them needed was an unfocused team surprised by a pop up raptor. Although Moss thought, it would serve you fuckers right if something did jump out. At least, it would never happen again.

"You pervin' on me?" Dahl teased, feigning a scowl of disgust down at Lockspur looking up between her legs. She knew he would never. He had been like a dad to her. In fact, she was only as good at hand to hand because he had spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours training her. But she couldn't resist. And it wasn't the region or some residual stasis fog making her say it. It was in her nature to tease. Even if she wanted everyone to think she was a badass. She still wanted to be one of them.

Lockspur jerked Dahl around roughly, almost toppleing her for real as his reddening face forebode the impending cloud of dust in her rapidly nearing future. But, seeing Moss' warning glare, he blared, "Get off."

"You first." Dahl countered, having one last laugh at his expense.

Just as Lockspur decided to toss Dahl on her ass in the dirt, he saw Moss's mouth fall open. A split second later, Moss's eyes bulged, his weapon hit his shoulder and terror seize his face. Lockspur fought off the sudden urge to arm himself. That would leave Dahl defenseless and falling towards the ground. So, he gripped her like a vise as two words escaped his lips, "Get down."

She looked from Lockspur to Moss, saw the change in her teammates demeanors and felt the tiny hairs on the back of her neck bristle. Dahl reeled around to face the poly and came nose to snout with a giant beast staring out at her and screamed like an 9 year old girl. The raptor's 8 inch long, razor-sharp teeth dripped a sticky syrup. A frigid spasm of terror coursed up Dahl's slender frame. The raptor's head was three times wider than the last raptor they encountered. The thick poly fogged between them, momentarily masking the creature. It butted the poly and mouthed a silent scream that, if not for the thick poly, would have surely made her eardrums bleed.

It leapt forward and she screamed, "What the..." Her arms flailed helplessly as she toppled backwards into the hot, dry air.

Moss barely had a split second to react. He lunged forward and snatched her out of mid-air before Dahl landed on her back. If the situation hadn't been as dire, he would have thought the sudden, convulsive fall hilarious. As it was, he almost pissed his pants. He dropped his weapon. Wriggling out of Moss' arms, Dahl rolled over onto her feet, threw up her weapon and readied to fire. Moss grabbed his rifle and moved to her sides. The frozen trio aimed up at the sightless juggernaut, now only eight feet above them and less than two yards to their front. The chance to flee the creature had come and gone. It's here, Lockspur thought. The enemy snuck in and the battle had begun before any of them were ready.

"I thought these things couldn't tolerate direct light." Lockspur yelled. He stepped to the right, dragging Dahl off to the side with him as the vision of the creature jumping out filled his mind with panic. It was huge, and he believed if it wanted out, it could get out.

Moss and Dahl looked to one another, shock raising their brows, and said in one voice, "They can't."

"Really," Lockspur replied, gesturing at the windscreen with the business end of his rifle. He gave off a sarcastic laugh and added, "Because one of you obviously forgot to tell this fucker he's not supposed to be there."

The beast stood behind the window as if casually surveying the arid scenery outside. It seemed to have no sense of unease or urgency. It wasn't behaving as though it saw them. In fact, it didn't seem to notice anything at all. It just stood there occasionally tapping the surface of the poly with its snout. Every so often, it mouthed a muted snarl silenced by the thick windscreen. It was clear to each of them; the creature had no intention of retreating anytime soon or trying to get out to eat them. It just stood there teetering it's head as if looking at something an inch in front of its own snout.

"Oh... for fuck' sake." Moss groaned, letting his weapon fall to his side. Dahl and Lockspur looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. He shook his head and said, "windscreens are coated with UV blockers."

"Duh." Dahl replied, letting the barrel of her weapon drop as the sudden understanding of why the creature could stand unaffected in the daylight. "No eyes." Dahl said to herself. "It doesn't register light the same way we do." 

"Having eyes, we assumed it's the visible light spectrum that burns them, but it's UV rays that burn them." Moss said, voicing what he and Dahl suspected. None of them had considered the higher UV output in the binary system beyond that of how it forced them to slather themselves with a slimy sun blocker before going out.

"Put your weapons up." Lockspur shouted, taking a step back, still pointing at the creature as if it were going to burst out at any moment. "The goddamn thing's right there." He wasn't prepared to take the chance the raptor was unaware of their presence.

"It can't see us." Dahl said, swinging her weapon over her shoulder. "It doesn't have eyes, and the windscreen is obviously preventing it from seeing out."

"Its right there." Lockspur warned, gesturing at the unfastened windscreen collar. "The poly could fall and it could get out."

"If it falls, it will get burned and run back into the darkness." Dahl said.

Moss watched the creature as if it were a specimen in a zoo exhibit. He marveled at the sheer size and savage construction of the beast. It weighed 2 500 pounds.

"What's it doing?" Lockspur asked.

"Echolocation," Dahl said to herself, waving a hand at the windscreen.After a few swipes at trying to get the creature's attention, she stopped. She jumped up and down and shouted, "Hey." The creature did nothing. It just stood there looking out dumbly.

"What are you doing?" Lockspur yelled, in a tone that clearly meant stop that right now. He grabbed her shoulder, preventing her from jumping any further and said, "Don't you remember what happened the last time you called out to one of those things?" The sudden recollection gave her a moments pause.

The beast did not respond to Dahl's efforts to provoke a reaction. It just stood there aimlessly, studying something only it saw in the poly. "The poly's smooth." Dahl said. "The sound-waves are bouncing back like a mirror reflecting light rays." 

"It seeing itself." Moss said, walking up to the nose cone and waving at it. He turned back to Lockspur and Dahl. "It can't see out."

"Great?" Lockspur said, still refusing to lower his rifle.

"Always with the negativity, grandpa." Moss said, and chuckled.

"Hey, Amigo. Fuck you." Lockspur said, gesturing at the windscreen. "There's a a ton of eating machine between us and those data drives, and all it wants to do is stand there admiring its own reflection. Our job just went from impossible to fucked beyond belief."

"It doesn't know what it's seeing," Dahl said, "we can use that."

"What's it doing?" Lockspur asked, pressing his mag latch. The twenty round clip landed in the dirt and he slammed a 30 rounder in its place. 

"Not sure," Dahl answered. "But I think its deciding if it should attack the raptor in front of it. They must feed on smaller creatures."

"And what happens when one comes up against an opponent that's the same size?"

"Guess we'll see."

"Does it matter?" Moss asked cutting in. "We need those back-up drives and its in the way."

"Well... this is just out-fucking-standing." Lockspur said. "Any ideas how to deal with our little friend in there?" The creature butted the poly hard enough to make it tip out at the top and then fall back again.

The sound caught Dahl's attention, sparking an interesting idea. "I do," she answered, taking aim at the loose fitting collar. "But no one's gonna like it." She let her rifle swing down at her side.

"Wait." Moss said, cutting in before Dahl could reveal her plan. He gestured for Lockspur to get up on the front of the ship. "Grampa says he knows these ships, he can go in and get the drives."

"What?" Lockspur said, as if he hadn't heard him clearly. "By myself."

"Finished." Dahl replied, rolling her eyes at them both as if now wasn't the best time for another juvenile male bonding ritual. Moss shrugged, and to Lockspur's relief, Dahl added, "No one's going in there."

"You're damn right no one is going in there." he said, lifting his rifle again. He was happy to hear sounds of reason coming out of someone's mouth. Going in there was just a bad idea.

"It's coming out here." she continued, looking at him with an apologetic shrug. She knew Lockspur didn't want to hear that. Hell, she didn't want to hear it. None of them did, but it was the only logical course of action. They couldn't get the screen off, and it could.

"Are you shitting me?" both Moss and Lockspur blurted in disbelieving unison. Their eyes widened, minds conjuring a horde of blood curdling scenarios splattered with guts and severed limbs.

"We need those drives." she said. "And to do that, we need to get in there." Dahl explained, gesturing to the cockpit. "And we can't do that, if that thing's in there,. It makes sense to let it come to us." 

"I don't like it," Lockspur replied.

"Lure it out here." Moss replied, no longer thinking about how the beast as an evolutionary marvel. "Of course." He stared up at the creature's dripping fangs and it suddenly became every childhood nightmare he had ever experienced, "That's our only option?"

"Bullshit," Lockspur snapped, staring up at the creature butting the windscreen with a maw big enough to swallow its victims whole. "How do you suggest we lure the fucking thing out here?" He imagined the forearm length teeth lining the raptor's enormous mouth were only there to keep its victims from crawling back out.

"With these." Moss said, holding up his rifle. He gestured up at the slobbering raptor, hissing at Its own equally threatening image. "If we fire at the windscreen, we may be able to provoke a response."

"And how is any of this a good idea?" Lockspur asked, looking at the creature still butting the poly in an increasingly more aggressive manner.

"Hey," Dahl snapped, "You asked for ideas, not a good ideas."

"There are no good ideas here." Moss said.

The raptors constant butting churned up a fine cloud of dust that wafted out from the loose windscreen's seams.

"So, do we go ahead with the plan, or do we cut and run?" Moss thought about seriously siding with Lockspur's and just walking away. Screw the money, he thought, there will be more runs. There's an entire galaxy filled with outlaws, escaped cons and easy bounties. Why invite death? But Moss was loyal. He would never run. And neither would Lockspur; it just wasn't in their natures. They were both adrenaline junkies, even if they wouldn't admit it. And Lilith knew that before she sent them. She could trust they would see it through. All three of them.

Lockspur took aim at the windscreen, fearing the increasingly hostile beast might dislodge the heavy windscreen before they prepared to defend themselves. None of them had the slightest inkling of their enemy's strengths. Shit, they hadn't even been completely right about their weaknesses. "I still say this is a terrible idea."

"Because it won't work?" Dahl asked.

"Because it might." Lockspur said, sighting in on his target. "And what if the UV doesn't put it down?"

"Shoot everything you've got; then run like hell." Dahl replied, ushering him further off to one side. She smiled weakly and lifted her weapon waist high, pointing it at the raptor's snout.

Moss stared over his sights as large beads of sweat ran down his forehead into his blurry eyes. He looked at his rifle mag accessing the number of rounds inside and did some quick math. "That poly is 6 inches thick. Even our combined efforts may not be enough to transmit the impacts through to the other side.

"Get ready." Dahl said, signaling Lockspur to get his weapon up. "The windscreen is sitting on the lower. The bullet strikes should resonate through the poly."

"And if they don't?" Lockspur thought out loud.

"Then we go back and get something that will."

Lockspur stared at the creature butting the poly with enough force to move the top out an inch or two every time it hit it. The monstrous creature had a scorpion-like lower body grafted onto the midsection of an enormous bull with the skull of a hammerhead shark. "And what if it takes every round we have in our mags just to provoke a response, and then it gets out here and we're dry?" he asked, eyes widening at the horrific thought.

"Like I said," Dahl answered, flipping her selector to fire. "Shoot first; run later."

"It might as well be a mile between us and the ship. And the tailgates closed." Lockspur warned, looking over his shoulder at the ramp in the near distance. "We don't know how fast these things can run."

"Fast." Dahl said. She envisioned it chasing them like a cheetah using its outstretched tail to balance through the sharp turns. "Hopefully the sunlight will slow it down."

"You mean, like the light should have kept it out of there?"

Dahl said nothing, but took a deep breath and aimed at a point on the windshield directly in front of the creature's snout.

"Hey, compadre. I got an idea." Moss grinned at Dahl as the click of his flipping selector filled the eerie silence. "You start running now. That way when, our little friend in there comes out, he will already have a moving target to go after."

"Dick." Lockspur replied.

"Remember," Dahl cautioned, sighting in on her target. "Aim for center mass and stay away from the front of the ship. If that windscreen hits you, you won't have to worry about the raptor getting you." She looked at them both and asked, "Ready?"

"Definitely not." Lockspur answered.

"Me neither." Dahl admitted, firing a single round into the windscreen. The round bounced off the poly, but the creature's head cocked to the side. It heard something. Not quite frightened, It moved in closer, snout touching the poly.

Lockspur and Moss joined in at the same time. Their combined efforts sent up a storm of spiky shards exploding out of the mouth of the giant raptor's reflection like an angry challenge to its twin inside. The reverberation struck the unsuspecting beast in the face. Its thick hide registered the assault. It reared up on its massive leathery hind legs, slammed the glass with its bony snout knocking the top out a foot. The poly teetered for a moment, then fell back into place as the creature ran out of sight. The upper housing collar slid down the front of the poly, hooked on the jagged edge of the nose cone, flipped in a lazy spiralling arc and broke into two pieces. One half sliced a deep cut in Dahls face; the other flopped over her; and stuck undramatically in the parched soil 10 feet behind the trio. They had failed. The beast didn't want to come to play. Dahl grabbed her face as blood poured down her armor.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Lockspur raged, yanking out a clean skull cap and pressing in against Dahl's face. When he pulled it away, the blood flow had slowed to a weeping trickle. "We need to get back to the auto doc or this is going to leave a bad scar."

"We only scared it away." Moss said, examining her injury. None of them had considered the behemoth might run away. Great, he thought, from bad to worse. He quickly became aware that every step of their mission ended the same way. In failure. And now Dahl was hurt bad.

"Who knew it would go for help." Dahl said, holding her face and stifling a nervous laugh. She moved forward, but the closer she moved toward the nose cone, the less she could see inside.

"Can't see shit," Lockspur said, turning back to Dahl and Lockspur with a grimace.

The trio inched closer, holding their weapons at the ready trying to get a better view inside. But the bottom of the windshield was 8 feet above the ground and the closer they came, the less they could see. After a few tense moments, the trio stood with their backs against the ship's nose cone. They stared at one another wide-eyed and ashen faced with no idea of what to do next.

"What now?" Moss asked no one in particular. Nothing had gone to plan, if you could say they had actually had a plan. He thought the recon had turned into a fiasco of epic proportions. Every time they tried to get inside the ship, the beasts were already in there and ready to stop them. It was as if something was trying to keep them out.

Moss stared at their ship in the distance and thought, if it took 10 minutes to walk here, and the average person can run 4 to 5 times faster than they can walk, it should only take them 2 minutes to run back to the ship. But if they were being chased by one of those things, 2 minutes might as well have been 2 hours. Trying to out run a raptor was sheer folly. The thought of how much could go wrong in such a short amount of time led him to another thought. How fast are these things, really? He let his head lay back against the hot nose cone, peering up at the gas giants in the sky, barely aware they were there. "

"What did we get ourselves into this time?" Lockspur asked . He wanted to be anywhere but here. "This shit used to be fun." he said and laughed. He pulled his skull cap off, used it to wipe the caked-on dirt off the back of his neck and stared at Dahl. "Someone's gonna have to look inside." he said, with a raised brow.

"Me." she said, holding her face. She couldn't lift anyone in her condition.

"Your plan." Moss said, pressing his back into the nose cone to present as small a target as possible. He longed to move away, certain the heavy poly would topple out at any second and crush them into a bloody pulp that drained into the parched landscape. He wanted to lob a grenade through the fist sized hole in the windscreen. "You check."

"What about not wanting to tell Johns I'm dead?" Dahl asked, eyes squinting into a beam of laser-like expletives.

Lockspur leaned forward, looked around her to Moss and said, "At least we'd still be alive to tell him."

"You dicks."

Moss laughed and said, "Definitely."

"Oh... for fuck' sake." Lockspur said, getting up and leaning his rifle against the nose cone. "Young lady, I may love you like a daughter, but you should realize, you are very high maintenance."

She gasped and Moss laughed. "Like you didn't know."

Take a knee." Lockspur said.

"What?" she replied, in a near whisper.

"Get down on one knee. I need a ladder." he commanded, jerking her upright and then shoving her on the ground. "Put your right foot forward."

"I'm no ladder."

"No. You're a pain in the ass." He snapped, remembering the sting of her boots on his neck and shoulders. "Now put your damn leg out, unless you'd like to get up there and check?" She did as he asked and Lockspur carefully stepped on her thigh, using it as a step stool to shimmy up the nose cone. He jammed his fingertips in the thin seam beneath the windscreen, placed his right foot on her shoulder and peered down with a tenuous smile, preparing to peek over the edge.

Moss stared at Dahl, trying to avoid the crotch jammed in her face, and laughed.

"If you tell anyone about this, I'll..."

"Yeah. Yeah." Moss said with a giant grin. "You'll braid my testicles."

"Shut the fuck up," Lockspur interrupted in an exaggerated whisper. He lifted his head slowly, peering over the edge into the murky cockpit inside. "Not so funny now, is it?" he asked, staring down at Dahl with a how-do-you-like-it sneer that made her wish she hadn't teased him.

The entire ship vibrated as if caught in an earthquake and Lockspur fell backwards, knocking Dahl to the ground with him. An enormous crash filled the deafening silenceand the 2 ton windscreen flew outward, landeing in the dirt 20 yards away, with the enormous beast sliding on it like a surfer riding a huge dirt wave. It jumped off 50 yards ahead of them, spun around and screamed in agony as the UV rays seared its thick, slimy gray hide. The famished beast roared in excruciating pain, still focusing on its newly gained targets. Gone was the mirror image. In its place were three tasty morsels ripe for harvest.

"Shit." Moss bellowed, yanking Dahl to her feet. "Shoot."

They threw up their rifles as Lockspur vaulted from the ground, racing back towards the nose cone. Click. The sound of 2 hammers striking empty chambers filled the quiet. Their weapons were empty, and the ship was a hundred yards on the other side of the ravenous beast. The 2 to 3 minutes it would take to get there was no longer an issue. They were defenseless as Lockspur stood between them and the screaming creature. He pointed his rifle at the bellowing raptor, pulled his trigger, and heard nothing but the sound of empty doom. His worst fear was realized. The time it would take them to reload would be all the time the beast needed to be on them.

The beast heard Lockspur's hammer strike nothing, locked in on its closest target and dropped its snarling head low to the ground. It was twice the size of a prize bull and three times more deadly.

"Run." Lockspur blurted.

"Wait!" Dahl screamed, grabbing his arm as the beast scratched at the dirt and snorted wildly. "Stand to the sides." she ordered, gesturing for Lockspur and Moss to go to opposite corners of the nose cone.

"Are you nuts?"

"Do it!" she demanded, shoving him towards the port side nose cone. "This is personal. "

As they moved off, the beast watched them carefully, choosing its prey. Dahl screamed and waved her hands wildly, "Here."

The creature locked in on the waving target, reared up on his hindquarters, kicked at the sky with its front legs, and then slammed back down. It had chosen its target, locked the meal in its sights. Time to feed.

It took off at a full charge, gained speed at an alarming rate faster than any of them would have believed possible. Dahl dropped to one knee, dug at the dirt, and screamed in rage. Her teammates stared at each other, thinking she had lost her mind. The beast's speed increased. Its focus pinpointed its prey. Attack and devour.

"Come get me!" she hollered, waving wildly like a matador in-sighting an angry foe. 

Dahl's weapon of choice cast little reflection, its narrow razor-sharp surface casting no discernable shadow. The creature lowered its 8 foot wide head like a plow skimming the soil. The beast screamed out in rage. Its head rammed the jagged metal collar sticking out of the dirt, puncturing its thick skull directly above its snout. It fell to the ground, skidding to a writhing stop at Lockspur's feet as it ran in a twitching circle with the steel protruding from its bony shull. The three terrified comrades stared at one another in utter disbelief as blue blood splattered the beige soil. It was dead.

"Please tell me I'm not the only one who just shit his pants." Lockspur said, as his almond skin tone faded to an ashy dismay.

Moss and Dahl stared at Lockspur for a quick moment and then, flooded by adrenaline, laughed hysterically. The unbridled relief coursing through their shaking bodies washed away the fears of earlier events. The giant beast lay dead at their feet. They were safe.

Lockspur didn't say another word. He just snatched up the loose 20 round mag he dropped earlier, reloaded his weapon and walked back towards the ship in silence. Moss looked from Dahl to his shrinking comrade with a grin and yelled, "Bring back a power supply when you're finished wiping your..." Moss stopped mid-sentence, breaking into uncontrolled laughter again and slid into a seated position against the nose cone wiping tears frombhis eyes. Dahl stood beside Moss, looking the steel stiking out of the dead raptor and thought, how do you like it. Her face had stopped bleeding, but the pain of the cut remained, and would for quite a while.

Lockspur didn't turn around; he didn't reply; he just threw up his middle finger and kept walking away, adjusting his pants as Dahl struggled not to join in the laughter, filling the dead silence.

Moss looked at her seriously and said," Okay. Now that he's gone. Just to be clear, you pissed your pants, too, right?" A second later they broke into redoubled hysteria that lasted until they were hoarse.