“Alright, Oscar. This is our big day, buddy.” Malik greeted the enormous alligator once it returned from its nightly walkabout. “Are you looking forward to it? I know I am. Let’s just try to not eat the funny human, alright? I humbly believe that should be our primary goal for the day.”

Mal tried to keep his voice calm and cheerful despite the disarray of his thoughts. He felt nervous as a mouse at a cat convention. There were so many ways this could go horribly, horribly wrong. And yet, despite all that, there was a tingling thrill of excitement that sharpened his eyes and honed his focus. One way or another, today would be a day to remember. Assuming he survived.

After all, it wasn’t every day you hitched your house to a prehistoric sea monster and tried to ride it off into the sunset.

*****

Ever since he’d discovered the drone’s position yesterday, his mind had been filled with a mishmash of ideas that were jumbled together like a hodgepodge of half-finished puzzles scattered across a kitchen table. The only thought that consistently rang through his mind came in varying impressions and concepts but always boiled down to one word.

Hurry.

Mal had spent a good portion of the previous night with his sharp blue eyes fixed apprehensively on the monitor displaying his drone’s camera feed. Not that it had done him, or his state of mind, any good. The dark screen only told him that the drone was in a cave, or shoved against a wall, or buried underground. In reality, it didn’t tell him much of anything at all besides that it was somewhere beyond the reach of natural light. Which was a problem on a variety of levels.

He’d deliberated for hours about whether or not to turn on the drone’s various lights. On the one hand, it could provide valuable intel concerning the drone’s current environment. On the other, it would certainly draw the attention of whatever had absconded with it. Mal had no way of knowing what the thief’s reaction would be, but he knew what he would do in their place if his shiny loot started emitting an ominous glow.

He’d break it.

Perhaps he was being overly cautious, but the thought of some dinosaur or alien bear turning his drone into so much scrap filled him with a sense of encroaching dread. The drone’s usefulness was self-evident. He wouldn’t even know the island was there if he hadn’t had access to that critical piece of equipment. At some point, preferably sooner than later, he would have to continue his exploration of Ryujin’s sea. When he did, the drone would be as crucial for finding the next island as it had been for discovering this one.

So, instead of gambling with an irreplaceable piece of gear, he’d returned the drone to standby mode to conserve what little power remained in its battery.

Restless energy and an anxious mind drove away any chance of sleep like a pair of Dachshund hounds harrying a lost rabbit across a wheat field. With no chance of catching any shut-eye, Malik had thrown himself into finalizing his preparations. In the hours before dawn he managed to complete Oscar’s harness to his satisfaction.

He also finished butchering the last coatl, a task that he'd been dreading. After some deliberation, he sourced his long discarded vac suit as a container for storing Oscar’s bloody treats. With its legs tied off and its front fastened shut, it made a serviceable sack. Of sorts.

Once that was seen to, Malik set about furiously cleaning the small corner of his pod that he’d devoted to butchery. By the end of it, he’d spent an hour of his time and used gallons of water scrubbing the filthy tritanium floor. Never before had he been so thankful for the antimicrobial properties naturally found in salt water.

When the sun rose, caressing the land with red and gold fingers of morning light, it found Malik sitting with his legs dangling over the edge of the hatch. He let his feet stir slowly through the waves lapping against the pod while he waited patiently for his partner. As the world brightened around him, Mal let his mind drift upon a sea of idle thoughts.

I wonder what they’re doing right now. Not the crew, but the colonists? Did the pods bring them all out of cryosleep safely? Have any of them managed to reconnect with one another? I bet they’re furious with the crew. I would be. Being dumped in the middle of an alien world with no information and no infrastructure was not part of the deal. I can’t imagine what a shit show it would be to try to get anything done with no leadership. Maybe Catherine linked up with one of the modules by now. And I guess there’s no reason to think that 1st crew’s captain wouldn’t have made sure to touch down as close to the first module as possible.

Man, but that’s going to make for a funky dynamic if Cat is leading one module and Donovan is in charge of another.

His train of thought was derailed by the appearance of two amber eyes rising above the water. Unbidden, a smile tugged at the corner of his lips as Mal smoothly rose to his feet. There would be time enough to worry about what could be happening on the other side of the world.

For now, it was time to get to work

*****

Malik Rosen had clearly lost his mind.

He had to remind himself that he had a plan no less than eleven times as he laboriously swam through the gentle waves toward a leviathan that could eat him whole. The Dyneema harness he’d cobbled together trailed behind him like the leash of a rambunctious pet. He tried to exude an air of confidence as he paddled toward the massive gator.

Mal hoped he looked more convincing than he felt.

Thankfully, Oscar seemed to find Malik’s dogged approach more amusing than appetizing. The sea monster, unperturbed by the human’s antics, continued to sedately float with its broad back hidden just beneath the ocean’s surface. It wasn’t until Mal’s path brought him past the leviathan’s snout that Oscar’s amber eye rotated to fix the human with an inquisitive stare.

“So, uh, we need to get you dressed for the trip,” Mal said, treading water as he reeled the harness in. He tried not to think about how much larger Oscar’s teeth looked up close. “I’m just gonna wind the harness around your left foreleg and then we’ll get your other one, okay?”

Malik wasn’t sure if the look in Oscar’s eye equated to ‘go ahead’ or ‘do it and die.’ Unfortunately, he’d come too far to back down now. So he stuck to the plan.

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He was at Oscar’s shoulder now, all but touching the alligator’s dark green skin. Before he could talk himself out of his mad scheme, Mal went to work. He dropped one end of the harness so that it hung below Oscar’s forelimb and then pressed his chest to the leviathan’s coarse hide. It felt like trying to wrap a ribbon around a tree trunk, but after two tries he managed to snap one of the buckles and draw the harness snuggly around Oscar’s leg. A heartbeat later he heaved the other buckle over the sea monster’s back. He heard a satisfying plop as the heavy metal struck the water.

Mal almost smiled in triumph. Almost. Oscar's smoldering gaze no longer looked amused. That one look managed to trample Malik’s enthusiasm like Godzilla stomping through a city in one of those antique holovids.

“One more arm to go, buddy, and then we’ll break out the snacks. How about that?” Mal’s smile was so strained that he could have passed for a clown at a five-year-old’s birthday. “Yeah, now that you mention it, I haven’t had any breakfast either. Can’t start the day on an empty stomach.”

Originally, Mal had planned to save himself time and swim beneath Oscar. But now, with the sea monster watching him so closely, he was reluctant to make any sudden moves or break line-of-sight. Opting to take the scenic route, Mal purposefully ignored his excellent view of Oscar’s curved teeth as he paddled up one side of his snout and then back down the other.

All the while Oscar watched him with a look of open condemnation for Malik’s premeditated animal abuse.

“It won’t hurt, I promise,” Malik muttered guiltily as he flinched away from Oscar’s orange eye. By now, the human was taking hold of the empty end of the harness to pull the Dyneema taut across Oscar’s shoulders. It wasn’t like he’d ever had the chance to measure the apparatus, so he had no idea how much slack he would end up with. If any at all.

“Now that is completely uncalled for,” Malik said as he summoned up the courage to buckle the harness around one more leg. As usual, his mouth worked overtime to keep his mind distracted. “You know I’m not going to send you off to the boot factory when you become old and frail. Frankly, I’m insulted.”

Oscar had the good grace to look properly chastised. It knew it'd gone too far.

Mal immediately made his move. The sea monster didn’t flinch at the human’s touch, allowing Malik to make quick work of fastening the harness. This time he did whoop as he moved away from the gargantuan alligator with a powerful backstroke. Relief flooded through him like the comforting warmth of hot chocolate on a cold Martian morning.

Mal reined in his celebration when Oscar’s jaw parted just enough to imply a threat.

“Right,” Mal said hastily. “Snacks. I just gotta grab a few things out of the pod. Don’t go anywhere, buddy.”

If Oscar hadn’t still been embarrassed over his inappropriate insult earlier, he’d have surely had some very choice words for the flakey human. He was offered snacks, after all, and snacks had yet to be provided.

Which, Mal could admit, was a justifiable criticism.

Moving as quickly as he could, Malik hoisted himself from the water and moved directly to his survival kit. First, he withdrew a compass that had been nothing more than a glorified paperweight up till this point. Ryujin’s magnetic field meant that the compass did not point north. What it did do was maintain a steady heading which is all Mal needed. He knew where he was going. He just needed a way to stay on track. Next, he raided the limited medical supplies for one of the three sets of rubber gloves. He hadn’t used any while butchering the coatls, but he had no intention of digging in that disgusting slop with his bare hand.

Speaking of disgusting slop, the vac suit bag came next. The chunks of coatl inside were beginning to smell even more rank than usual, but there wasn’t any helping it. When life gives you flying snakes, make serpent steaks.

The last thing he did was throw on his utility belt. He’d considered bringing the rifle as well, but if he and Oscar couldn’t defend themselves with this load out, then the rifle probably wouldn’t be that helpful. Besides, he had his hands full and still needed to bring the pod’s tow cable with him. His decision made, Mal checked the vibroblade and his pistol before he moved to the hatch and stepped off into the water.

Thankfully, the vac suit was just buoyant enough to float. Otherwise, it would have been a challenge to open the cable’s housing beneath the hatch. The cables were industry standard since all lifepods were designed to be towed during search and rescue missions. Generally, the expectation was that they would be towed through space by parasite craft. While the cable wasn't expressly made with Mal's plan in mind, he was fairly certain that the specs took prehistoric alligators into account when considering their stress tests. Hooking the cable into his belt, Malik began to make his way toward his reptilian ride.

Heavily laden with gear, the second trip across the water was even more challenging than the first. Not only was one hand full, but the further he stretched the cable the more of its weight he had to support. In fact, Malik was struggling so much that he didn’t notice the way Oscar’s eyes fastened onto the ‘treat bag’ that Mal was hauling across the waves. Silent as a heart attack and just as deadly, Oscar approached with hunger in his eyes and snacks on his mind.

A sudden undertow tugging at his body made Mal look up. His deep blue eyes grew wide as saucers when he saw Oscar’s open mouth. All the color drained from his face as he watched the hypnotic sway of the leviathan’s eager tongue.

Thankfully, Oscar barely had to open his jaw for a human-sized morsel. That gave Mal the chance to reach up out of the water and bring his fist down on the tip of Oscar’s snout.

“No,” Mal said sternly.

Malik flailed desperately to avoid getting sucked forward as Oscar recoiled. The waves closed over him as he scrambled in the water, refusing to unhitch the cable weighing him down. As he slipped further and further beneath the surface, his grasping fingers finally caught on to something solid. Without thinking, he grabbed the unexpected handhold and levered himself to the surface. Malik’s head burst from the water, coughing and spluttering as he hung on for dear life.

Only after he’d caught his breath did he realize that Oscar was staring at him while he held tight to one of the alligator’s teeth.

“Oh. Uh, excuse me,” Malik said sheepishly as he coughed.

With no other choice, Mal clambered his way down Oscar’s jaw while he tried to ignore the sea monster’s withering gaze. Once he reached the alligator’s shoulder, Mal hurriedly hitched the cable to the harness and hoisted himself up onto the leviathan’s back, hauling the treat bag with him.

Mal wanted nothing more than to sprawl out and catch his breath, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop before he crossed the proverbial finish line. He’d taught Oscar one other trick besides ‘roll over.’ It was time to find out if it would pay dividends.

He quickly pulled the glove from his utility belt and stretched it over his wet hand before checking their heading on his compass. Next, he took a deep breath and opened the 'bag'. Before the smell could deter him, his gloved hand plunged inside. It felt like stirring around in someone’s stomach after a heavy meal. Mal didn’t let that stop him from withdrawing the first hefty chunk of raw coatl he could close his fingers around.

“Hup!,” Mal yelled as he launched the treat in the general direction of their destination.

Oscar’s surge forward nearly sent Mal spilling into the ocean. At the last second, he grabbed the harness like a cowboy taking hold of a horse's reins. Once he’d recaptured his balance, he cast a furtive glance over his shoulder.

There, at the end of the cable, was Malik’s lifepod dutifully following behind Oscar’s lashing tail.

If the prehistoric sea monster felt any strain from towing the pod, it showed no signs of it. Oscar seemed to be singularly focused on retrieving its snack. True to form, it soon sucked the tiny chunk of meat into its cavernous mouth.

Now was the moment of truth.

“Hup!,” Mal called out.

Recognizing the command, Oscar plowed forward across the water.

Onward they went, to a new and exciting chapter of their adventure.