hide rippled over thick muscle, and impossibly long teeth jutted down on either side of his jaws. Max crouched, clawed forelimbs twitching, while his hind legs tensed. A long tail swayed back and forth behind him.
Max appeared ready to pounce.
“I’ll never know if ol’ Max had any brains up in that bigass skull o’ his,” Cobb would say to many a traveler years later, “but I swear on my ma’s Godrested soul that the sumbitch was sizin’ us up. Never been so sceerd in my life.”
A few moments of silence dripped by.
Max lunged forward, impossibly fast, and Grey squeezed the trigger. A burst of flechette needles peppered the face of the monster, tiny pinpricks of blood dotting and dripping from the wound. Unfazed, Max continued his charge.
Grey tried to duck as the creature twisted its neck and opened massive jaws. In an instant, the smallish man was hoisted into the air, caught within Max’s mouth. Grey’s eyes widened behind the clear visor of his helmet, but he gave no cry of fear or pain.
Wretched cracking noises filled the nest, and Cobb gawked in terror as Max worked his powerful jaws up and down. Brain-dead from fear and years of alcoholism, it took Cobb a few moments to realize that the sounds were not the snap and crunch of flesh and bones but of the hard ballistic armor.
Grey made no sound as his body was mashed inside the dense armor. While none of Max’s arm-length teeth pierced the protective gear, the compression was enough to crack and break ribs. Max continued to ignore the man who issued the challenge and woke him up.
The captive in Max’s jaws regained enough composure to yank an energy pistol from his belt and squeeze the trigger. A flash of weak light spewed out of Max’s mouth, and the beast roared in surprise and anger. Max snapped his head upward, and Grey tumbled out of the creature’s mouth, falling with a heavy thud onto the ground. Facedown, the hunter didn’t move. Recovering, with a trail of smoke billowing out of his mouth, Max glared downward and made as if to snatch Grey again.
“Come, my monstrous friend!” Ivan shouted, taking aim. “Olga would like to give you a kiss!”
Cobb dropped to the ground as a deafening explosion sounded, thinking that the cannon Ivan carried had exploded. Covering his head, he feared the shrapnel from it would tear him to pieces or wound him enough for Max to finish him off once Grey was safely down his gullet.
“I thought it were the end fer me,” he’d shake his head, “but goddamned if I didn’t look up and see that Ivan fella with a bigass grin.”
Looking over at Max, Cobb noted the beast’s almost surprised expression accompanied by a gaping red hole in his chest. Max lurched back and forth, unsteady.
The wound gushed blood, spilling down the thick hide, and wheezing sounds escaped the creature’s throat. After a moment, Max fell, narrowly missing the fallen form of Grey. After twitching a few times, the beast lay still.
With a cry of triumph, Ivan raised the cannon over his head. “A worthy foe!”
Cobb whimpered on the ground, passing a terrified glance at the fallen Grey, who still didn’t move.
A heavy hand fell upon him, hauling Cobb to a standing position. Ivan grinned down at him. “My Olga always aims for the heart, but let us see to our friend before we signal for the pickup, yes?”
Cobb nodded, struck silent. He and Ivan moved towards their comrade, who stirred weakly.
“Mister Grey! It is good that you are not dead!” Ivan said, gently prodding the downed man.
Grunting in pain, Grey rolled over. “Cut it out, you oaf,” he rasped, his open mouth revealing blood-rimmed teeth from internal bleeding. “My ribs are broken.”
“Much more than that, I suspect,” Ivan grinned, “but we will ensure you live long enough to get paid. Your role in diversion was quite helpful, after all.”
Grey scowled and didn’t respond. His head laid back, and he glared skyward as though insulted to be reduced to such.
“Contacting the extraction would be good, yes?” Ivan asked Cobb, who stared dumbly back. “Yes?” he repeated after a moment without response.
Still unable to process much, Cobb nodded and got on the radio. He called in the biggest extraction vessel they had available. One of the perks of the rare success was that management helped drag the critters back. Once there, the person had to handle taking the kill off world, including any planetary customs issues that might come up from hauling in a large, dead alien creature.
Stuffing the radio back into his pocket, Cobb said, “The transport’ll be on it’s way soon.”
“Good, good.” Ivan nodded as he walked over to his kill. He stooped down, staring into the lifeless carcass of the enormous beast. “Almost too easy,” he murmured. Max’s eye remained open and vacant, easily as big as the large man’s head. With a savage kick, Ivan dislodged one of Max’s smaller fangs, still the length of his hand. He picked it up and placed it in his pack.
“Olga would like me to keep a souvenir, as our large friend here will be gracing the hall of my employer.” Ivan swept a gesture at the large beast, and Cobb merely nodded. He checked his watch, wishing he had something to drink to pass the time before the transport arrived. He contemplated hiking back to the secondary base, but he decided it violated policy too much. Cobb sat down next to a tree.
Ivan continued to pick over the fallen creature, noting its wicked claws and tapping against its hide. Examining the entry wound, he patted the cannon lovingly and said something Cobb didn’t catch.
Watching, Cobb noticed Ivan cock his head. The large hunter set down his weapon and climbed over the mountainous body, moving towards the interior of the muddy nest. Stooping down, Ivan scraped aside and dug into the mud.
“Find somethin’?” Cobb called out.
Standing, Ivan nodded. “Indeed I have.” He hefted a large spherical object, as big as his own torso. Cobb stared dumbly, his brain identifying it after a few sluggish moments.
“Oh…” Cobb said, “Does that mean…?”
Ivan grinned. “Perhaps Maxine would be more a more accurate title, yes?”
“Uhhh… I guess.”
Something moved nearby: a rustle in the underbrush. A jolt of fear and adrenaline coursed into Cobb, and he jumped to his feet. “Didja hear that?” he hissed.
Ivan held up a hand, setting down the egg. Hopping back over to where Olga lay, he knelt and placed a hand on the weapon.
Another soft rustle occurred, this time on the opposite side of the nest.
Cobb shot a look over at Grey, whose eyes darted back and forth. “The rifle,” he said to Cobb, “bring it here, now!”
Shaking with fear, Cobb shuffled over to the dropped flechette rifle. It was covered in mud, but he brought it back to the fallen Grey, who painfully leaned up on an elbow. He took the weapon in one arm and scanned the underbrush.
“Something comes,” Ivan said.
Bipedal lizard-creatures burst out of the jungle on all sides, a deafening cacophony of screeching noises accompanying their charge.
Cobb’s life flashed before his eyes when he saw what appeared to be smaller, man-sized versions of Max, or Maxine. They ran on two legs but were brandishing longer forelimbs tipped with vicious claws. Their own scaly hides shimmered in the mid-day sun.
Grey didn’t hesitate. With the soft
Glancing over, Cobb’s jaw dropped to see Ivan engaged in melee combat with the vicious creatures. The large man swung the cannon in wide arcs, smashing the heavy weapon into the heads and bodies of the beasts. A wild grin stood out on his face as he worked his way towards his comrades, the cannon whipping back and forth and keeping the creatures at bay.
Grey’s face contorted in a snarl as he fired upon the monsters that continued to spill from the jungle. Cobb cowered between the two men as they defended the weak position. After running dry on ammo, Grey cast aside the rifle and yanked two energy pistols from holsters. Weak flashes, nowhere near the full potential of the deadly light,
