---River---
---Jackson’s perspective---
I crest what feels like the 10,000th goddamn sand dune I’ve had to climb so far and see something I’ve not seen since I crashed on this planet.
Water… fresh water…
Not that I need to drink anymore but it still a sight to see after so long of nothing but bone dry sand and rock!
Although… something makes me a little uneasy about the murky waters of that wide, slow moving crick down there…
I hear the puff produced by my artificial voicebox as I decide that no goddamn gardenworld arroyo is going to scare the galaxy’s finest killer and begin skidding down the sandy slope.
I hit level ground and start stalking towards the river’s edge, warily…
I look out at the 30ft wide channel, my toeclaws about a foot from the water.
My mind is telling me to just keep walking forward but… something roots me to the spot.
Just to put myself at ease, I polarize my vision, cutting down on glare, and narrow my register to light blue through yellow, the colors water is most transparent to, cutting out the deep blue through violet and orange through red ends of the spectrum.
Immediately, a shape reveals itself.
About 15ft long, 16 inches wide and maybe a foot below the surface, there’s an object drifting lazily towards me with the current.
A log, maybe?
Seems unlikely with the total of 0 trees I’ve seen so far on this planet!
I can’t think what else it…
At that moment the shape rockets forward and breaks the surface of the water!
I get the briefest glimpse of an unholy 3 way mashup of a gator, a boa constrictor and an aquatic centipede before a pair of sturdy jaws clamp around my neck and my entire body is wrapped in the coils of the thing’s body!
I fall forward into the water and the thing quickly drags me under.
The noise its solid alligator jaws make as they grind along the outside of my durasteel armor (vainly searching for exposed flesh it’s not gonna find) is fucking ear splitting, even dampened by being underwater!
My arms are crushed into my sides by its, surprisingly strong, snakelike folds.
I try to raise them laterally and succeed in surprising the gardenworld predator by managing to pull its coils about 6 inches wider out.
It quickly intensifies its overpowering constriction, forcing my arms back into my sides.
Rylan must’ve fucked up the reinstallation somehow!… I should not be having this much trouble overpowering a goddamn gardenworld animal!
Are there limiters he forgot to disable or something?
I fight harder to free myself from this thing’s grip as we lay on the riverbed together.
Clearly not used to prey fighting back this much or being exactly this unbothered by being deprived of oxygen, the thing panics and decides to add one more coil around me.
Unfortunately for it, it chooses to put that around my shoulders… bringing its closest body segment right where my Adam’s apple used to be.
I part my old teeth, revealing the razor sharp durasteel triangles that sit behind, bringing my mouth about 8 inches wide.
I lunge forward and plunge the metal fangs through the tough armor, immediately staining the water a bright neon blue around my face.
I hear the animal vocalize for the first time as it yelps in pain.
Its body uncoils from me and it manages to thrash itself free of my jaws, knocking out two of my Human teeth when it does.
It darts for freedom but the claws of my right hand sink between the armor of two of its body segments.
“Not so fast! Don’t start shit you can’t finish!!!” I snarl as I stand up, keeping my grip on the animal that’s desperately trying to swim away but can’t overcome the sheer weight holding it back with its tail’s movement constrained by my arm.
My feet sink into the silt as I walk towards the far shore, dragging the thing along behind me, my 650lb body barely any more buoyant in water than it is in air!
My head breaks the surface and I climb the bank, still gripping the joint just above the centigator-constrictor’s vertically fluked fish tail.
Its thrashing gets more and more desperate as it feels me pulling it out of the water.
I put a good 20ft between me and the edge before I swing it around me and throw it away from the stream it just failed to drown me in, hard enough that I’m surprised I didn’t rip its tail off with the centrifugal force!
It rears up and turns to face me and I get a good look at it for the first time.
It’s a muddy brown color.
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It’s got four eyes aligned on each side of its head.
Its mouth is a bit more beaky than I thought before.
Its two dozen centipede legs are flattened into flippers.
The bitemark I left is still gushing cyan blood but it doesn’t seem too broken up about it(!)
It hisses at me as I make it very clear that, if it wants to get back to its element, its gonna have to beat me in mine!
It streaks for me with its jaws open.
My right hand wraps around its top jaw and my left around its bottom.
I swing its head down and to my left where a sturdy river rock sticks out of the sand.
Its skull does not explode from the first impact but it’s concussed enough to allow me to shift my grip and reposition my body so that I’m standing over it, able to bring my weight to bear.
I slam its head into the rock with all the force that my body’s actuators can render and, this time, I hear the *crack* of its skull fracturing.
I keep smashing it against the stone (which gets bluer and bluer with every impact) until I see its long body go limp… then about five more times… just to be sure!
I toss it to the ground and roar “YEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!!… THAT’S what HAPPENS! That’s what you get when you mess with HUMANITY!!! THAT’S what you GET when you FUCK with a DEATHWORLDER!!!… YOU. GET. DEAD!!!”
At that point, I notice the soft patch of maroon flesh under its jaws, rising and falling as it continues to breathe.
I shake an index finger at it and say “I’ll give you this, you sonuvabitch! Toughest gardenworlder I ever fought… by a mile!” I straighten the fingers of that hand and point the claws at the new weakspot I’ve identified “But a gardenworlder is still all. you. are!”
I plunge my hand into its throat, sinking it all the way to the armor at the back of the body segment and twisting to wrench the thing’s head off.
Its decapitated body curls and its flipper legs fold in on themselves.
I withdraw my hand, drenched in blindingly blue blood, and turn to begin striding up the hill at the North side of the floodplain, rockier than the dune I climbed down a few minutes ago, leaving a trail of blood and river water behind me as I go.
When I get to the top, I allow myself a satisfied sigh at what I see in the scrubland ahead.
Vegetation…
Dry… dead vegetation but still… it shows I’m on the right track… I’m getting closer… if there are people on this planet, they’ll be this way…
---Wim’s perspective---
I’m sitting on a rock about a half hour walk from the edge of the forest.
The older Folk of Polv village say that the savannah is dangerous but, while they’re definitely right, I have to say I’ve always found it relaxing.
There’s a certain peace in having so much wide open space to wander around in that it’s difficult to explain to others… even if it means fewer hiding spots and greater chance of being spotted by predators.
That’s why I always volunteer for scouting work out here since I came of age last year.
Unless and until I find something useful I just get to meander around the wide open space.
Right now, I’m having a well earned rest and…
I hear a footfall behind me.
The right ear twitches backward before the head.
Standing on the [grasshopper antelope] trackway, not even ten Folk lengths away… is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen!
He stands nearly three times the height I am!
The body is Terran shaped but slender and armoured in black metal.
The head is like a slightly strange, fangless skull, missing two of the top teeth and the eyes glow like the embers of a fire.
The toes and fingers are clawed like a Folk but… crueller somehow…
The lower face and right hand are absolutely caked in day old, dark blue blood (animal blood I have to assume as there are no Monster villages that way) that the rest of the body is splattered in.
Though he looks like nothing less than the Spirit of Death, I recognise him.
Some of the star people brought us dead leaves with a perfect picture of him on them a few days ago and warned us that he was dangerous and mad.
If we saw him, we were not to try to fight him they said!
No matter how many of us there were, it wouldn’t be enough.
The best killer in the [galaxy] they said.
And I’m staring at him… on my own… an hour from the village… and he’s staring back at me.
I grab the spear and point it at him, jumping to my feet.
“Stay back!” I scream, not that he’ll be able to understand me.
He raises and splays his (relatively unbloodied) left hand and says “Izi theyur, gurl… Amnot gunnuh hert yuh. Ay downt hert kiyuds fer uhstart an dyuh kainda rumaind mi uv mai dahder eniwei… Oll Ay niid frum yu iz feryu tu teik mii tu yer taun andlet mii spiik tu sumwun witha tranzleidor, olrait? Wunss thei tel mii weyur tu go Al bii gaun, Ow Key?”
He places a foot closer to me and, before I’ve had a chance to consciously register the decision to do it, I’ve thrown the spear (not at him, just away from me), turned and begun bounding away on all fours.
“Shid!” I hear him shout as he begins chasing after me.
As dangerous as it is, I make for the tall grass.
Whatever might be lurking in there can’t be worse than the one who’s already chasing me!
I didn’t even know I could move this fast!
Though… as soon as I’ve broken line of sight, I have to find somewhere to hide. If I remember the details, he’s not going to get tired ever!
Hoping against hope that he won’t see or hear me, I dive into a clump of grass and do my best not to move and not to breathe!
I see him run to about 20 Folk lengths away from where I’m hiding and stop.
The skull head wheels, here and there, looking for me.
I see the eyes glow through different colours but never fix on me the way I’m terrified they will.
After what feels like an eternity of being searched for, the monstrous Stranger opens the mouth unnaturally wide to reveal that behind those flat, fangless bone teeth he has long, sharp, metal fangs.
He screams “HAWIZTHIS HAPNING TU MII!?!?!?”
---Lhamo’s perspective---
“You have a call from Polv village, Ambassador.” comes Twila’s voice over my office’s speakers.
“Thank you, Twila. Put it through.” I answer.
I hear the call being connected.
“Hello, this is Ambassador Yeshe.” I answer.
“HELLO?!” shouts the Twigg on the other end “THIS IS MLEP OF POLV… CAN… YOU… HEAR… ME?!”
“I hear you, Mlep of Polv, you do not need to shout. The communicator works just fine at a normal speaking volume.”
“OH… ALRIGHT.” he answers, still speaking a little too loudly for comfort.
“What seems to be the issue, Sir?”
“OH, YEAH… ONE OF THE GIRLS OF POLV JUST CAME BACK FROM A SCOUT ON THE SAVANNAH… SAYS SHE SAW THE METAL MAN YOU’RE LOOKING FOR!”
“Is she alright?” I ask, immediately.
“SHE’S FINE… SHAKEN UP, FOR SURE, BUT PHYSICALLY UNHARMED.”
“How certain is she that it was him?”
“ERR… SEEMS PRETTY CERTAIN!… SHE CAME BACK WITHOUT THE SPEAR SHE TOOK… HAD TO THROW IT AWAY TO RUN FROM HIM… SHE SAYS HE SPOKE TO HER… HE WAS COVERED IN ANIMAL BLOOD AND MISSING TWO TEETH!”
“Alright, Mlep of Polv, I’ll dispatch some of our security personnel to Polv immediately. Expect them within the hour. They’ll want to talk to her, if that’s possible.”
“I’LL WAIT FOR THEM.” he answers.
“Good, they’ll see you soon.”
I end the call and immediately say “Twila!”
“Already alerted Victor, Thran, Samus, Tuun and Xon of where they’re going… They’re gearing up now. Ziva, Leon and Yuán have also been alerted that they’re not to leave the compound until the others return.” she answers, having preempted all I was about to instruct.
“Thank you, Twila.”
“Will that be all?” she asks.
“That will be all.” I answer.
Silence reigns for a few moments before I groan, feeling the knot of anxiety twist and tighten in my stomach.
He’s already at Polv… less than 500km South of here, if I remember correctly.
He’s making better time than we predicted.
At this rate he could be here by tomorrow!