Target

I kept one eye on the strange alien beast and the other eye on my map. Though I was going to give myself a little bit of leeway, I didn't want to venture too far away from the ship. I wasn't going to engage, either, just follow. Not only that, but I didn't want to accidentally cross paths with Wolf.

Thankfully, I had to scroll quite a while before I found the little blip that was him.

Now, that did mean he could see me, too, which was why I was trying so hard not to stray far. I could only hope he was too busy being a space detective bounty hunter guy to pay attention to my GPS location as religiously as I was.

I wasn't about to stop my own investigation just because I was afraid Wolf might not approve. Maybe if I learned enough about it, I could ask him if I could really hunt it. I'd tell him all about how I stalked it, everything I learned about it . . . Maybe he'd be so impressed that he'd let me do it by myself.

Ha, wishful thinking. Oh well. There wasn't anything wrong with having a hunting buddy, I supposed.

Still, it was fun to imagine doing it alone.

The thing—I supposed I should name it something since I didn't know what it was called—stopped to dig out more isopods from under the ground, answering the question I'd had earlier. I wondered if this thing ate the bugs as a staple since it was going out of its way to dig them up.

Those wicked claws couldn't just be for digging, right? They had to be for tearing up prey and enemies. It seemed to use its largely shovel-shaped nose for most of the digging.

It looked around at the isopods it had dug up and killed, ate more of them, then huffed and went on its way. I let it get ahead of me before tagging along in its wake.

I dropped down to the forest floor once more and paused in my pursuit long enough to examine one of those roly-poly looking fuckers up close. I hooked my fingers around one of them and picked it up with a small grunt and examined it. It was also similar to a horseshoe crab, with its many needle-like legs under its armored outer shell. It had a hideous face set just under the lip of its shell with a dozen tiny beady eyes and a woodchipper-like mouth.

Letting the bug drop, I continued after the beast. In the end, I decided to just call it David instead of coming up with a species name like I had the quillephants. I couldn't come up with anything good, anyway.

David was slowly meandering around with no true purpose, it seemed. I was going to pretend to be a narrator of those old nature documentaries, but I couldn't think of anything interesting to say. Instead, I just muttered my best Steve Irwin impression.

"What a beaut . . . I'm gonna wrastle him."

At some point, David must have started to realize that he was being stalked as his pace increased and his head swung around as he surveyed the area. I was certain he couldn't see me, but perhaps he could still sense that something was amiss. I had to assume that he wasn't at the top of the food chain if he was starting to get nervous.

For the most part, I was relying on my night vision and infrared. Since I was on a moon, I couldn't see any other moons or even the planet so it was so dark that I could barely see anything four feet in front of me without some sort of augmentation from my mask.

I'd already been following him for a few hours, and he didn't seem to be doing anything interesting, so I took a break and let him wander off. In the meantime, I checked my map; the ship was pretty far in the distance. If I wanted to keep following this thing around, I'd have to lure him back into my safety radius.

I wasn't sure how to do that without straight up making the beast chase me, but there had to be some sort of way . . . Antagonize him? Use the isopods as bait?

Then I remembered: my mask!

I stared at my computer for a moment, trying to remember the right sequence to use. Wolf had gone over all of the commands with me a couple of times before, but it was hard to remember them all.

In the end, I tried a few different ones until I found what I was looking for. Most of the other ones brought up various heads-up-displays. Starting up the recording feature, my mask played back a logged sound—the cries from the angry birds. Not quite what I wanted. I cycled through a few more until I found the cry David had made earlier.

At first, it just played softly. It took me a bit to figure out how to turn it up, then I blasted it for all to hear. It echoed through the woods before petering out into silence, disturbing a few sleeping birds. I waited so long for a response, even after playing it two more times, that I almost gave up entirely to make a camp for the night.

Finally, however, David called out from somewhere nearby. I chewed on my bottom lip as I tried to decide what to do, then I just played the distress call again. His reply came much sooner and much louder, so I posted up in a tree to wait for him to make his appearance.

Once again, I was excited. Progress! I was catching on quickly.

He showed up almost immediately after I was out of sight, bounding on his too-many legs and skidding to a stop in the ravine, sniffing and looking around. He made quieter, curious cries and when he couldn't find another one of him in distress, he slowly moved around, trying to pick up a scent trail.

Quietly, I left and headed toward the ship. When I'd moved far enough away, I made the distress call again. It took a bit, but he eventually came bounding through, growling and whipping his head around. I smiled to myself.

C'mon, you dumb mutt. This way, I thought.

After doing it a few times, I was within the range I wanted to be. If he ran out of range again, I'd just keep calling him. At some point, I figured I'd have diminishing returns as he started to realize he was being tricked, but for now, it was good enough.

I knew one thing now: whatever this creature was, it would come to the aid of others in danger.

I'd never use calls in practice before, but in my youth outdoors club in high school, we had used various calls just to learn about them—duck calls, elk mating bugle, stuff like that.

This was the first time I'd gotten to use a call with actual results and it was pretty neat!

Of course, the purpose of those other calls was to figure out where things were, not necessarily lure them to you.

Just following David around was getting kind of boring, though. I wanted to know more about him, but all he did was sniff around and sometimes dig up a bug to eat. I hadn't seen any other nocturnal creatures besides him and the isopods, so there didn't seem to be much for him to interact with.

As the night wore on and I grew more bored, I started getting closer and closer to him, pushing the limits of my stealth. He knew something was around, though, as he kept growling at nothing and clawed at the ground and trees in an agitated manner. I backed off during those times until he calmed down, then tried to get just a little closer.

Then, I decided to see what his hide was made of.

It took me a bit to work up the courage, but I eventually shot him with one of the darts loaded in my gauntlet. The arrow pinged right off his flank and he snarled in response, spinning around and around as she sought the thing that had the audacity to attack him.

So, David's scales were effectively armor. Good to know for when I convinced Wolf to let me hunt him.

Not long after that, the fatigue was really starting to set in and I couldn't help but yawn every few minutes. My vision was getting a little blurry and I was itching for a midnight snack and a nap. I supposed I had terrorized David enough for one night and decided to call it.

There was just one more thing I wanted to do.

Pet him.

Though it took a bit, I did manage to sneak up within arm's reach of David as he took a short rest by a stream of water. He seemed to be dozing off, so it was the perfect opportunity. Slowly, my hand outstretched, I inched closer and put my palm against his rising and falling side.

I enjoyed maybe three seconds of this impromptu moment where I was petting a giant alien beast. Three seconds of marveling at the power in those muscles below the hard skin—not scales like I had thought.

Three seconds before David woke up.

Arm-length fangs snapped shut on the air where I used to be standing just as I managed to tumble away. His beady yellow eyes locked onto me; I'd been had.

He lunged for me and I nimbly dodged and took off running.

I remained in stealth and hoped that if I could break his line of sight and find somewhere to hold still, he would lose me. From what I'd seen of him, though, he used his nose and ears to find things. Running through the woods, I was making a ton of noise.

And as something from out of this world, I probably had a very unique scent. I was gonna have to figure something else out. I dropped the stealth. It was difficult to do extravagant maneuvers in stealth because I couldn't properly see my extremities and it hindered my hand-eye coordination.

Though I was still largely using night vision—infrared was a bit disorienting for me still—I could still make out my surroundings and myself clearly enough to bound over obstacles and clamber up sloping tree stalks to avoid his snapping maw.

Eventually, though, we ran out of forest and I found myself in another stone ravine, toxic water trickling between the rocks and pooling in various spots. I was fighting a quite literal uphill battle and with no trees in the way, David had the upper hand and bounded in front of me, blocking my way.

I wished I could make some intimidating sounds like Wolf could, but all I had were smart remarks and screaming in my arsenal. Maybe I could scare him off if I did.

David took a few steps toward me, his head canting from side to side like a confused mutt. I did my best impression of a growl and, with a flex of muscle, had my wrist-blades extended and ready for a fight. I didn't want it to go on too long, just enough to find an escape.

After all, I wasn't supposed to be hunting. I could flee at any point without losing dignity.

But, wait . . . if I wasn't on a hunt then this would surely be self-defense, right? Wolf wouldn't blame me for that, right?

Maybe this was my chance to show him that I was going to be fine.

That I could do this on my own. That he didn't need to worry about me.

Yes, this was my shot.

I crouched low and circled around David, letting the point of my weapon drag across the rocks for an ear-splitting sound effect. The pair of tiny ears on his head rotated and flicked in irritation.

Did that mean screaming at the top of my lungs would work?

We circled each other for a few seconds that seemed to last several minutes. I was starting to get the impression that now that he could see me, he was a bit underwhelmed. He clearly didn't think that I was too big of a threat, either, because he was actually starting to leave.

Fucking rude.

That should have been the end of it. I should have let him go and took the rest of the night off as I'd planned. However, the opportunity to prove myself was slipping through my fingers. Not only to Wolf, but to myself. I hadn't had a real test of my limits yet.

Sparring with Wolf was hard, but it wasn't someone's-trying-to-kill-me hard.

How would I hold out against an opponent that was seeking my death? Surely I needed to know, then I could properly tell Wolf how I was doing instead of just trusting his judgment when it came to my own capabilities. I had to know.

I rushed forward and forced him to pay attention to me. He took my advance as the challenge that it was and made a little hop to face me before he let out a grating bellow that bounced around inside my skull. It was enough to stagger me.

Taking sufficient exception to my challenge, David sprung and swiped at me with his double-clawed talons. I had just enough wherewithal to retreat, but his claws still scraped across my chest plate, sending out a spatter of sparks.

I reacted in kind, lashing out with my wrist blades, but only managed to swipe the air between us. He leaned forward and struck with his other claw, forcing me back even farther.

Finally, I found enough flat space to dive-roll out of the way of a third strike and maneuver around to his flank.

All the while, I was scanning and reading the reports on my HUD, trying to figure out where I should strike. The whole thing was extremely disorienting, though, and I wound up taking a paw to the shoulder while I was trying to pay attention to everything at once.

Fine.

I was going to do this my way. As much as I wanted to take advantage of all that Wolf had to offer, this was just one of those limits I had to accept.

I turned off all my displays and scans while regrouping and checking my shoulder. When I rotated it, it still worked, so that was all that mattered. The bruise would heal eventually. No skin was broken.

Without anything extra impeding my vision, I ran at David again. He bounded toward me and I planted my feet, coiling my leg muscles. The mechanisms in my braces whirred, then I jumped. Using his face as a spring-board, I leapfrogged over him and landed behind his first set of shoulders, closest to his head.

Too late, I remembered the odd crease between his second set of shoulders and his waist.

His body twisted like some sort of macabre marionette. I had to hold on for dear life as he spun his entire upper body around as if it was completely separate from his lower half. I wasn't able to stay mounted and was unceremoniously dumped on the rocky floor, jarring my spine and leaving me stunned.

David stopped his thrashing and his body returned to normal, snapping back into place.

I grit my teeth and rolled to my stomach. If I'd seen him do that before, I might not have considered antagonizing him the way I had.

If I wasn't so deep in the shit, I might have retreated strategically. By this time, though, I feared it was too late.

David crept toward me, his shovel-shaped head held low to the ground and I crouched where I was, preparing myself for whatever attack he had coming my way.

The double set of claws on his front feet flexed out like a set of spike traps, and then he reared up on his hind legs, both sets of forelimbs raised and ready to rend my skin. He snarled and took a few heavy upright steps toward me before he came slamming down with a powerful flurry of strikes.

I raised my wrist blades to fend off the first set, but the second set ran down my arm, breaking the netting and scoring deep lacerations into my flesh. A pained shriek tore from my throat and I twisted around, kicking out with my leg.

My braces flexed and the blow landed on the underside of his jaw, sending him reeling with a shrill whimper. I thought maybe one of his fangs went flying through the air, but I was blinded by agony.

With a swift movement, I gathered up a handful of dirt and rocks. When David turned to look at me, I hurled it at his face. He let out a horrid yowl and bucked away, pawing at his eyes.

Bought me some time, at least.

Clutching my flayed arm, I staggered as far away as I could and shimmied into a hole beneath two overlapping boulders, fighting to catch my breath. David was still whimpering and whining, so I knew I still had a few moments. Enough to assess the damage.

Immediately, I knew I had to stop the bleeding. It was pouring down my arm, dripping in long, watery ribbons. The way it was already pooling and soaking my side was alarming and I had to tamp down the panic that threatened to overwhelm me.

Already, the faint sounds of David rooting around in the background reached my ears. He was looking for me.

And getting closer—following the scent of my fresh blood.

How was I gonna treat this? Did I have enough time to take my medkit out? If I lost any more blood, I was going to have a really fucking hard time. It wouldn't stop, though, and the wound didn't even look that deep to begin with, so where was all this blood coming from!

With my left arm out of commission, I couldn't even check my map to see how far he'd chased me or in which direction. I had no way of knowing how close I was to the ship.

I should have left David well enough alone—I didn't observe him for long enough—I didn't think this through—I didn't—

Something big blocked out the stars that had been twinkling above my head. I froze stiff, then had to wiggle my way out of an even tighter hole to escape the scraping claws trying to shred me from outside. I popped out on the other side, but that gave David free reign to pounce.

A familiar roar lifted my rapidly sinking spirits. He appeared from nowhere, delivering a huge haymaker to David's head, sending him flailing head over paws like a truck that came to a sudden and violent stop. David's back slammed down, and then he tumbled farther down the ravine, letting out a wrenching yelp.

His blow had the giant alien beast writhing on the ground in agony at the bottom of the ravine, whimpering and kicking his many legs. For now, it looked like David was unable to get up.

Wolf turned toward me.

"Why are you here?" I demanded, more shocked than anything else.

He ignored my question and asked his own. "What is going on?" The coldness of his voice made my heart stutter.

No doubt, he was mad.