The Aboriginal holy man had said Shadow had a calling, and suggested he consider spending more time with him. Of course, he couldn’t. Their age was part of the problem. Shadow and his siblings were only 14 years old; adult for Zuul, according to GalNet, but barely teenage for Humans. They were citizens of Australia, thanks to the Porters’ multi-year legal fight when Shadow was young, but that didn’t change that the age of majority was 18 on Earth. If Shadow took off, the Porters could and would have him hauled back.
He moved again and nailed more of the stringers. In another hour Shadow had reached the end of the roofline and stopped to take another drink. He was around 10 meters off the ground and glad his people didn’t suffer from vertigo or fear of heights, like so many Humans tended to. He didn’t mind the job much. Truth be told, he felt guilty for taking the money for his trip, and this would set him right.
A rumble announced the arrival of another shuttle. Shadow looked up to see a spidery-looking craft swinging in to use the short runway. At least this one didn’t fly over him, adding a red-hot blast of jet exhaust to the already blazing day. By the time he’d run down the other ridge line, the spindly shuttle was gone and another was coming down.
“Mother and Father must be happy with the plan,” he said.
“The shuttle service deal?” one of the men working below him asked.
“Yup,” Shadow replied. “Fair dinkum idea.” He grinned, tail twitching, and looked up at the sky. Evening was approaching. He could already see three stars.
Three stars…
“Shadow!” someone yelled. He couldn’t answer, because he was falling through space.
* * *
Rex was in ecstasy. The thin canopy before his eyes flashed with streaks of plasma as his drop pod plummeted through the thin atmosphere. He was a meteor, plummeting at 2,200 kilometers per hour.
They called the sport Hóngsè Niu. Rex had no idea why. Strap on an orbital drop shield, climb in a shuttle, and jump out at 100 kilometers. You decide where, but you had to be the first to arrive at the target. You got points just for surviving. More points for how fast you got down. Still more for being closest to the target. The point totals scaled, with on target being the most.
Rex had wanted to play Hóngsè Niu since he’d first seen it on Tri-V around age 10. Father said he’d gone troppo for even thinking about it. Drake’s thing was surfing. Rex liked surfing, too. In fact, he’d won enough money off the local shark biscuits to afford his drop shield and entrance into the Hóngsè Niu tournament.
“Number 98B, you are officially in the drop zone,” his radio crackled. The high gain signal barely penetrated the ionic disturbance caused by his drop. In another few seconds, he’d be LOS, or loss of signal. He took a final sighting with the simple radar beacon before it blacked out.
The drop pods were steered by flexing your body, and in turn, the shape of the pod. It took serious strength to do it, something he had in spades. Zuul were usually about 25% stronger than a Human. Rex had spent a thousand hours in Silent Night’s gymnasium working out, and twice that swimming, running, and surfing. He was 125 kilograms of raw muscle and sinew; from what he’d read, that was the upper 1% for his species and sex.
The pod slowly grew hotter; the heat dissipation system was barely sufficient. It was designed that way. Sweat began to soak his fur. Rex didn’t care, his heart was pounding, and his breath came in great gulps. It was the most exciting thing he’d ever done in his 14 years of life.
The plasma discharge began to clear, and he could finally see the ground. The radar beacon wouldn’t work now—from this point on, it was a visual game. Zuuls’ visual acuity was on par with Humans’, though less precise at long-range, detailed observations.
Rex made corrections based on nothing more than a tiny glimmer, more perceived than seen. The ground was coming up fast; the simple altimeter was scrolling down at a dizzying speed. His right hand itched with the need to pull the chute, but the second he did, he would have minimal control of his destination. The parachute was slow and hard to control compared to the pod’s quasi-aerodynamic shape. The ground was only seconds away. He’d never been more alive.
The altimeter read just 2,500 meters over ground. He took one last look down and spotted the landing zone, a massive white circle with a stylized red herd animal in the center. It was a kilometer to the northeast.
Rex contorted his body, and the wind of his more than 300 kph velocity buffeted him though the shield, deflecting his course. When he looked at the altimeter again, it was under 1,000 meters. He jerked the chute release, riding an adrenaline rush more powerful than the time he’d almost been crushed by a monster wave into a reef.
The chute blew out the back of the shield and reefed, slowing its expansion for a gut-wrenching quarter second. Bang! It jerked him so hard, his muzzle slapped into the inactive radar. He tasted blood. Worse, less than a second later, he smashed into the ground and blacked out.
“He’s alive! Bloody alien doggo is alive!”
“Yeah, I’m alive,” Rex growled and moved. He hurt from head to tail, but he was alive.
“Guy’s totally an idiot.”
Rex was finally able to focus, and could see three Humans, all standing around him. He was lying on a field of grass painted white. “How close?” he managed to ask.
“Twenty bloody meters,” one of them said. “The only one to hit the white.”
Rex cocked his head back and howled.
Two
