“ I’m not so sure…”
Klous continued to look at her and realized that she was right. She did look different. A little more curve to her shape and, impossibly, a little more lift to her breasts. It would have been impossible to notice without the humidity and sweat making it stick to her.
“ Look at yourselves too!” Sasha said, her eyes going to the others and finally locking with Klouses. “Don’t just stare at my tits.”
Klous felt fresh heat in his cheeks. He ripped his eyes away, understanding he’d been caught, and glanced down at himself. His sweat soaked clothes hung on him, revealing nothing. He shrugged off the utility vest he wore that had spare power cells and other items on it, then pulled his shirt over his head. It stuck to his back, forcing him to grunt and try to contort his arms to pull it free. A tearing sound reached his ears as it slid free.
“ Shit,” he muttered, holding the shirt and looking at a large rip in a seam across the back. He heard Sasha gasp as well, drawing his attention back to her. She was staring at his now naked torso, lips parted. Klous glanced down at himself and felt his own jaw go slack. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered. Always lean, the usual layer of padding between skin and muscles had diminished considerably.
“ Looking good, Captain,” Sasha said with red cheeks.
“ I took my shirt off…”
Sasha’s eyes widened and Aran barked out a laugh. Another screech from downstream stole the humor from the moment. It was answered a moment later then silence followed. Klous tossed his shirt to the ground and slipped his vest back on. He picked up his rifle from where it lay against a tree. “Come on, too many of those things out there around us, no sense in waiting for them to find us.”
“ I think they already did,” Brand said, staring across the stream.
Klous jerked his head up and followed Brand’s stare. The trees of the jungle were wide, most twice as thick as a man or more. The undergrowth was minimal once away from the stream, though moss seemed to grow almost anywhere. Only an occasional beam of direct sunlight broke through the canopy of leaves, but the ambient light was enough in spite of that to let them see unobstructed through the unevenly spaced out trees.
What he saw confused him. It took several seconds to make sense of it and even then he doubted his eyes. A creature of some sort, taller than a man, but covered in some sort of an iridescent sheen. It stood on two legs, but not like a man. It reminded him of a wingless bird. Instead of wings it had arms — arms that ended in three long claws designed for tearing. The head was the worst. A cross between a bird and an animal, it had a beak that opened and closed, a long tongue sticking out each time as though to taste the air. He could see glints of white inside the beak, no doubt proof of teeth just as dangerous as the claws.
“ What the hell is that?” Klous muttered aloud.
“ Welcoming committee?” Aran hissed.
Sasha could only curse as she stared at it. Repeatedly.
“ Don’t move!” Brand barked, trying to keep his voice low. “I saw something once about animals like this. They don’t see so well unless their prey is moving.”
“ When’d you see animals like this?” Klous challenged.
“ Well, not like this, but hunters. History chips from Earth.”
“ I don’t think Earth ever had anything like this!” Klous muttered.
“ Dinosaurs,” Aran said.
“ Great. Okay, what do we do? It’s big but we’re all armed.”
Brand raised his rifle up slowly. The monster lowered its head slightly, turning it so that both its cold eyes stared at him. “Shoot it or run like hell. Remember you only got to be faster than the slowest person.”
Klous swore at the macabre humor and hefted his gun up. The beast roared, convinced by their sudden movement that they were worth eating. Their guns discharged, each announced only by the near silent hum of the capacitors as they released and recharged. One beam struck a tree near the monster, blackening the trunk and making smoke and steam curl off of it. Three others hit it, causing explosions of fur or feathers or whatever the shimmering material was the beast had. It roared again and charged forward, rocketing at them and bouncing off the trees as it struggled to get to them.
“ Plan B!” Klous shouted. He fired again and turned to run. Brand was already running, following his own advice. Aran fired twice more, then cursed as his rifle shutdown on him to prevent overheating. Sasha scrambled and tripped on the bank of the stream.
“ Come on!” Klous snarled t her, reaching down and grabbing her arm. He hauled her up easily, adrenaline coursing through him and overriding the slippery grip the sweat on her arm caused. Sasha hissed in pain but remained silent.
Each thudding step of the creature behind them sounded louder and closer. Klous dared not look back. Still he pulled at Sasha, forcing her to keep up with him. A shout from behind him made him stumble but he caught himself. It was Aran’s voice he heard. Not a shout of pain but a primal scream. The beast returned the roar. Klous could smell the fetid breath from the creature.
Chapter 5
Sasha whimpered beside him before he realized how hard he was panting as well. He risked a glance behind him and saw nothing was behind them. All signs of the beast were gone. He slowed and pulled up short, forcing Sasha to slow with him. They looked around, breathing hard.
“ Where is it?” Sasha finally gasped.
“ Aran drew it away,” Klous said. “Or it got him.”
Sasha’s mouth gaped open, no words coming out. She trembled and fell to her knees, hugging her arms around herself. Klous noticed how the pose boosted her chest up and, being below him, he could easily see down her shirt. He ripped his focus away. The last thing they needed right now was him worrying about screwing her.
“ Where are we?” Sasha asked a few moments later.
Klous looked around, realizing that in their mad dash he’d lost all track of where they were. Not that he’d had much of an idea before, but with all of them together he assumed they could backtrack themselves at least. Now the thought of trying to follow their trail back seemed suicidal. There was a massive beast waiting for them, something that treated an overcharged laser rifle blast as though it was sunburn.
“ You’re in a pot of boiling water, one step away from being called shit stew.”
Klous swung around while Sasha cried out in surprise. A man stood there, a worn plasma rifle held in his hand and some other weapon slung across his back. He was wearing a mixture of some sort of body paint, some animal fur or hide, and boots that had seen better days.
“ Who’re you, old man?” Klous asked.
“ Funny, since I been here I been feeling younger and better every day,” The man said. “Now you shut the hell up unless I ask you something.”
Klous glanced at Sasha, then shrugged. “Two of us, you think you can take us?”
“ Shit, I don’t even need my guns,” he said, stepping forward. “You toss yours down and maybe you’ll get out of this alive.”
Klous noted how he moved, picking his feet up and walking carefully but smoothly. He was at home on the uneven and occasionally slippery jungle floor. The muscles that stood out through the camouflaging paint on his arms showed that the man might have been strong enough to wrestle the giant creature that had chased them.
Klous considered his options. The stranger was most likely one of the survivors from the Rented Mule. He wondered if he was the source of military influence that Brand had suspected.
“ Klous!” Sasha hissed.
He glanced at her sharply, irritated at the distraction. He saw she’d already tossed her rifle away from her. Like it mattered, she couldn’t shoot the damn thing straight. “Got a name?” Klous asked, pulling his own rifle off slowly and then tossing it to the ground.
“ Yeah,” He answered without offering it. “Now move back.” He waited until both Sasha and Klous had
