“Ugh, don’t call me that. I hate it.”
“So, it’s true?” she asked, almost squeaking on the last word.
“She was my ex, and it was an accident,” he said, focusing on cutting the hide of the dragon. That seemed like a good name for it. To bad it didn’t actually breath fire. That would have been a cool ability to have.
“Wow.”
He didn’t look at her, only focused on the task at hand.
“Who’d you kill?” he asked, getting one leg free, and setting it to the side.
She straightened her back. “A rapist. In self-defense.”
“That hardly sounds worthy of a sentence here.”
“He was a four-star general,” she whispered.
He whistled softly. “You’re out of my league, at least you were.”
She was silent as he put a second leg to the side.
“I’m not a whore!” she finally sputtered.
Glancing at her, he turned back to his work. “Babe, I never said you were.”
“Don’t call me babe! My names Olivia, Olivia Nyah.”
He started chuckling and turned to look at her. “You talk about me being someone. Look at you! Ms. I’m the alien expert! No wonder a general tried to fuck you!”
She looked away. He shook his head and turned towards the fallen trees behind him. He needed to get a fire started to keep the critters away before they got brave enough to try and steal some of the meat. He could see them staring at him from the bushes all around.
“My job was supposed to keep me safe from that crap. They said to make myself famous and no one would be willing to risk touching me.”
“Who was that?” he asked, ripping a branch from the dead tree.
“My superiors. My teachers. My mom.”
“And yet it didn’t work.”
“No.”
He focused on getting the fire started. It wasn’t hard if you knew what you were doing.
Settling the first couple of legs against the fire to start cooking them, he threw some of the guts over to the foxes.
Olivia sat by the fire, watching them fight over the scraps. He didn’t see the bone foxes, only the three tailed ones.
“Are those dangerous?” she asked softly.
“Only if you’re dead, or a bug.”
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“What did you mean earlier, about not being the person who was sentenced here?”
“You’re not human, right?”
“I guess not,” she conceded, touching her PED.
“This planet is open to hunters like the Josagn.”
“Oh shit!” she exclaimed in horror.
“Exactly.”
“That means…but why would they do that…unless…”
“They want us to disappear. If we’re not humans anymore, even with a PED to prove that we may have once been one, then we’re open game to them.”
“We’ll never live a full year. They’re excellent hunters.”
“About that, what makes you think they plan to come back for us?”
“They probably won’t.”
“We need to get off this mud ball on our own, before the local citizenry convince us to stay permanently.”
She was silent, her eyes flitting back and forth as she thought.
Dustin finished pulling a third leg off the dragon and put it over the fire. That should be plenty for now. He sat down by the fire, signaling the lizards and foxes to draw closer.
“The Josagn…why couldn’t it be the Kjafng? We would have been able to barter with them. The Josagn are…difficult.”
“I’ve not heard of the Kja..ng?” He started turning the meat to keep it from burning on one side.
“The intergalactic council had only just met them. There was a debate going on whether they had anything we wanted, or if we were going to try and use them for political reasons.”
“So, what’s so difficult about the Josagn?”
“They like to kill for sport, but not just anything. They’ve been trying to get us to agree to war games for years. But we know that their idea of war games is actual life and death battles. The smarter the prey, the better the hunt to them. And they hate politics. I tried to study them for six years, starting in high school, but all they were interested in was trying to teach me how to hunt and kill things. Apparently, they’ve hunted and killed eighteen other species to extinction.”
“Sounds fun.”
“No, actually, their idea of teaching me was to actually try and hunt and kill me. If I managed to kill something, they would leave me alone that day…”
“So, you’ve killed a lot!” He looked at her with new respect. She killed something every day for six years?
“If this is a designated hunting planet for them, that means they’ve seeded this planet with the deadliest things they could find all over the galaxy.”
“Well, that explains the last few days. I just thought I was a weakling with really bad luck.”
“The government must have made a deal with them, to get rid of unwanted prisoners.” She reached up to her nose. He realized she must have once had glasses. That was an adorable habit for her, and he suddenly wanted to see her in glasses.
“So, we expose them?” he asked.
“No! That means if we do manage to escape from this planet, they’ll try even harder to kill us.”
“Well, I’m not staying here. I want to settle down and have a house full of kids someday. That is not happening on this hell hole. If I really can’t get my fortune back, then I’ll have to do something else. Either way, I’m getting off this planet.”
She looked at him, then around at the jungle. “I am having a hard time seeing you with kids, but I agree, this is no place for kids.”
“What is it with everyone saying they can’t see me with kids?” he fumed, standing up and kicking the dead dragon. That felt good, so he kicked it again. The foxes ran off, but he didn’t care. Everyone always said he would make a horrible dad. Why? Why couldn’t he be a dad? Kicking it again and again, he looked up as he heard the twang of the bow. Turning his head, the arrow flew right in front of his face, before burying itself into a tree on the other side of the clearing.
Without hesitating, he charged for the Josagn hunter. It tried to dodge and flee, but he tackled it and pinned it to the ground.
“Hold it still! We can ask it questions!” she said, jumping up and running over.
“Stupid prey, you will die!” it sputtered.
“Fat chance ass wipe!” he growled in its face, flashing his sharp teeth.
She helped him tie it up with some vines, and he relished the knowledge that it was having a reaction to the sap from the vines. Welts were raising up everywhere the vines touched.
“Keep it quiet, or it will bring others!” she hissed as it started to squawk.
Grabbing its beak, he forced it shut and got in close.
“Make that noise again, and I will start breaking things,” he threatened.
It continued to try and squawk, so he reached down and ripped off two fingers. Then ate them in front of it, slowly. It stopped. He heard Olivia swallow, but when he glanced at her, she was pulling off its PMS device.