Shitstorm! part two

Shitstorm! Part Two

            “We are here!” Izzy stopped behind him and pulled back a large, low-lying branch. “We are almost at our home. I will take you to the elders. They will want to speak with you.” Balistor knelt and followed her through a small burrowed-out tunnel that ended in a large cavern full of Onjarwee. As he stood up, most of the Onjarwee bolted away from him. Izzy stood on her hind legs and put her paw on his arm.

            “This is the one mother, and I went to gather.” He heard Izzy’s voice in his mind, assuming the others were hearing her in their own language. “The one the elders called down from above. You need not fear him.” She led him deeper into the heart of the multilevelled cavern. A multitude of various-sized crystals grew from the floor and ceiling, glowing in as many different colours. They all seemed to emit a form of light, and as the colours mixed, the cavern illuminated as if they were standing below a sunny sky.

            The Onjarwee lived a simple life in this cavern. Balistor saw little in the way of tooling or formal structures, mostly just soft beds woven from the long grass and tree fronds found in the forest and a few loosely woven grass huts. The cavern was warm, and the crystal light gave it an almost dreamlike quality. Balistor could see a waterfall feeding into a small pond on the far side, and a few trees growing with several of the small aerial creatures he had seen flying around from tree to tree. These simple creatures did just love the land, and aside from fruits and vegetables, they left it as they saw it for the most part. No wonder the Aucks took advantage of them so easily.

            All the Onjarwee that they passed gave a good, long look at the stranger, not quite sure what to think of him. Strangers to them so far had been nothing but deadly. Izzy led him to the center of the cavern, and a lone elder came over to greet them.

            “Welcome, Stranger.” Balistor heard in his mind, but it was not Izzy’s voice.

            “He speaks the AUL as well?” Balistor asked Izzy.

            “He does now. As I have been learning, I have been in contact with the elders and teaching them. They hear and learn what I do.”

            “Wonderful!” Both Onjarwee caught the sarcasm in his tone.

            The elder led Balistor by his arm over to a more secluded part of the cavern. “I am Phrandell, and this is my pack. I must first apologize to you for the manner in which we brought you to us. We had to act most quickly. We are ill-equipped to deal with the large aliens that keep returning to our peaceful lands. I feel the weight of each death as my responsibility. When we sensed your ship in the depths of space, we sought to bring you here.”

            “How exactly did you manage that?” Balistor was still fuzzy about how he had ended up crashing his ship.

            “We clouded your mind briefly. As you tried to hit one control, you actually pressed a different one. Once your vessel made its way into our lands, we release your mind, and you set your ship down in the small swamp. We had no other choice. We need your help, as you have seen. The death of Izzomellia’s mother was tragic, and it will not be the last. Unless you help us.”

            “Look, I can save you a whole pile of talking and time. I can’t help you. Sure, I saved this one here and bought her home. That’s the best I can offer. Like I told Izzy, you have a serious Auck problem… a big one! You are in luck, though. Based on their numbers, the type of ship, and your saying they come back on the regular, that means you have a domestic hunting pack.  Aucks will keep a good hunting spot to themselves. Keep it in the family, if you will, and that means, aside from me and them, no one else knows you are on this planet. If they let the cat out of the bag, you would have a hundred ships here, and your race would be gone in a cycle. I tried to explain to the little one. You have a big problem, and one man like me is not gonna solve it. Ten of me, maybe, but one is a sure death scenario. I am here on a survey mission, not a suicide one. The three Aucks nearly killed me, as is, and I figure there to be about fourteen or so more in that hunting camp.”

            “But you have such great technology with you, and you have such a strong predisposition for violence that we do not inherently possess.” Phrandell urged him to come to their aid.

            “I can take on a lot. More than most, but there are too many of them. Right now, they hunt with spears and their bare hands. Nothing on this rock scares them. They have other weapons in that ship that match my own. Once they see someone here as a threat, they will get those weapons. I am sorry, but all I am going to do is pull my ship out of that muck and try to rig up some temporary fix to get me off this rock and out into a Hierarchy interstellar route, before the Aucks find me. Then, I hope someone can pick up on a signal and tug me back to a planet where I can get my life back on track. I am a dick, and I can live with it. I have seen some shit and been a party to things that would make the Auckleds look like daycare workers. I am not a hero. You will have to solve your own problems. Keep hiding or learn to fight back, that’s your two choices. I am not your saviour.”

            “You are the only hope we have. I see goodness in you, something that you do not see in yourself. So does Izzomellia.” Phrandell pleaded with him to intervene on their behalf.

            “You see what you want to see. Trust me, I am no good. I look out for myself and that’s it. The only way you can make it out there is to look out for number one. Get sentimental and you end up worm food. Maybe some other ship comes by and they have more people and caring to go around. Like I said, hiding is probably your best option for now. I am sorry.” He turned to head back to the tunnel where he had entered this peaceful home.

            Izzy placed her soft, three-fingered paw on his cold, armoured arm and looked at him with her sad, deer-like eyes. “Can we not change your mind? You helped Fondor, and you did save me, so there is good in you. You could have let me die, and as you said, looked out for number one. Does my life mean nothing to you that you would offer it right back to the Auckleds?”

            “Look, little one, sure, I like you, and I feel for your current shitty predicament, there is just no way out of it. This is the way of the verse. The strong prey on the weak, always have and always will. It is not right, but it is what it is. Maybe not on this planet, maybe the rest of us out there could learn a thing or two from your kind, but this is one small rock in a vast expanse. No one will care what happens here. No one will ever even know.” Balistor pulled his arm and headed to the tunnel. Leaving a shocked Izzy standing next to the elder.  All the eyes in the cavern were on him as he passed them by and entered the tunnel. “They will be ok, if they stay hidden,” he thought to himself.

            Balistor walked slowly in yet another heavy rainfall. He was being cautious in an attempt to stay out of the Auckled’s sight. He was nearly halfway back to his ship when he heard Izzy’s voice, panicked and in pain, call out, “Balistor!” The force of her plea nearly knocked him over, and then his mind went silent. He looked back in the direction of the hidden Onjarwee. “Dam it!” he swore and, turning around, he ran back toward them.

            The large branch that covered the entrance tunnel had been snapped off and discarded. Balistor entered the tunnel, and his Mark Six compensated for the low light; he could see the deep gouge marks of many claws that had been dug into the sides of the tunnel, which had been smooth before.

            He exited the tiny tunnel and surveyed the devastation that had occurred in the safe haven. Many of the glowing crystals had been shattered, and there were still and bloodied bodies of Onjarwee all around the cavern. Most of the simple huts had been knocked down, and some were still burning.

            Balistor slowly walked to the center of the cavern. Barely able to comprehend what he saw. It had been a place of wonder, such a short time ago. He dropped his rifle and took off his Mark Six, letting it clang loudly on the ground. “What happened?” He asked, even though he already knew the answer.

            Phrandell’s voice echoed softly in Balistor’s mind. “The Auckled came here.”

            “Where is Izzy?” Balistor scanned the remaining Onjarwee as a cold sweat broke out on his neck.

            Phrandell pointed to a woven sheet covering a small body with a tiny blood-covered paw extending out from under the sheet. “When the Auckled came and started to kill, most ran, but she was brave. She tried to be like you and stop them. They killed her and then took some others as they destroyed our home.”

            Balistor doubled over as if he had been struck in the stomach by an angry Auckled. Tears welled in his eyes, and he felt sick to his stomach, as a cold sweat broke out on his neck. His mind was a frantic mess, and he wanted to run far from this place. No matter how far he would run, he would not be able to escape himself.

            “How did they find you? This place is so well hidden.” The elder pointed to Balistor’s foot. His heavy metal boots were caked in mud.

            “Fuck me,” he groaned in both anguish and anger, “it rains so much, the ground is soft. You led them right to this place. Fucking idiot!” Balistor yelled at himself. He knew that with his weight and that of his gear, he would have left a trail of deep footprints in the soft ground that the Auckleds would have followed right from his first encounter up to the Onjarwee safe haven. “This is all my fault,” he whispered.

            Balistor knelt next to the woven grass sheet. He reached out a trembling hand and held her soft paw in his. Her greenish blood had lost its lustre. It was still wet and cold against his skin. Izzy was dead because of him. Because of his inaction. Just like her mother. He could have... no… he should have done something! A bitter rage filled his heart, and unfettered anger clouded his mind. He could barely contain the pain… the anguish, and most of all… the shame. He felt like he was going to burst. Balistor had never felt so helpless and alone, nor had he ever been this angry before, and for a man who lived a very violent life, that scared him.

            He donned his Mark Six and picked up his rail rifle, then headed toward the tunnel.

            “Where are you going?” he heard Phrandell’s voice in his mind.

            “Going to kill me some Aucks!” was his only reply as he disappeared into the small dark opening.

             Balistor’s rage drove him through the woods. His adrenaline kept him going; he would not need his augments to stay on pace. Night had fallen, and he had quickly come up with a plan as he advanced on the Auckled camp. His BEV and Mark Six worked in unison, making the darkness fall away in a virtual display that made it appear as if he were fighting in broad daylight. The Auckled had good night vision, but the darkness would still impair them in comparison. Balistor was skilled with his rail rifle, but he would have to be surgical with it if he had any hopes of surviving the night. Not that he cared at this point. Vengeance clouded his thoughts. All he wanted was to make them pay for Izzy, her mother, and all the other innocent creatures they had killed. He would stop them or die in the attempt. In either eventuality, the guilt gnawing at him would be over.

            He stopped on a ridge just inside the range of his rifle and used his BEV to spot the positions of the fifteen Auckled left in the camp. Then he took aim at the farthest one he could see, planning out the next few days in successive order. “Might as well get this over with,” he said, pulling the trigger. The rifle let loose a dozen darts aimed at the Auckled’s eyes, that being the most vulnerable spot on an Auckled. If he were lucky, it would be enough to drop one. As soon as the last dart left the tip of the rail, he quickly shifted his aim to the next Auckled. Again, sending out another dozen of his deadly ammunition. He did this six times before the first of his barrages hit. They did the trick on the first Auckled as two darts sunk deep into its largest eye, and then its head exploded in a purple mist. Three more of the startled Auckleds ended up with similar fates, and one more was wounded to the point that it lay on the ground slowly dying of its wounds. The last one had time to react as it saw the others drop and move out of the way. Balistor retreated his BEV, making sure that the Auckled could see it. There were eleven left now.

            He knew what they would do next. Not all of them would come charging out; some would take up defensive positions around the camp. Six of the remaining eleven charged out after his BEV, hunting spears in hand. Balistor stopped his BEV, leaving it hovering over his position, and he waited.

            As he figured, the Auckled spread out in a line, each taking a different path, towards his shooting nest. Two spread out far to either flank as the other four cautiously moved in.  The first Auckled reached his position and brazenly leapt at the one responsible for killing its hunting pack, driven by its own rage and thirst for vengeance. It landed, teeth gnashing, on Balistor but fell right through him, coming up with a mouthful of twigs and dirt as it had led with an open-jawed attack. The startled Auckled stood, sputtering out the muck, and slashed its clawed hand at the strange creature kneeling before it. Its hand passed right through and into the tree next to it, sending shards of splintered wood into the air. When two more of its kind reached the spot, the first held out a wary hand. Balistor was not there. He had run far to the right of that position, well beyond even the far-flanking Auckled. He used his BEV to ensure that the three were close enough to the holocube he had left behind, projecting a slow-moving image of himself. Then, he pressed a button on his wrist scanner, triggering a small explosive charge he had left under the cube. Auckled cries rang out in the woods as the powerful explosive tore the three to shreds. More angry cries echoed out after that as the three remaining Auckled went hunting for whoever it was that attacked them. Eight to go.

            Balistor waited for the far flanking Auckled to pass him by, then he turned from the tree he was concealed behind, letting a full clip loose on the back of the Auckled. The mass of shots took down the angry alien, but one of the remaining two had spotted Balistor.  It charged through the woods, springing and pouncing along with its powerful multi-hinged legs, while closing the distance to him.  Balistor high-tailed it through the woods, snaking his way back and forth through the thick maze of trees, heading toward the camp as fast as he could, occasionally taking time to stop and shoot back at the Auckled, who was rapidly closing ground on him. As it got closer, Balistor stopped and took time to aim. His random shooting was proving to be ineffective. He waited for the Auckled to appear from behind one of the massive trees and sent out a few well-aimed shots. The Auckled, in turn, planted its feet, flexed a strong arm and threw its long spear. Both were on target as the Auckled fell to the ground, clutching at the remains of its stomach that had been blown to pieces. For his part, Balistor took the spear deep into his right thigh. He quickly pulled it out, ignoring the pain, and ran for the camp. He could hear the last of the six that had set out after him crashing angrily through the woods as it got closer and closer to him. Ten down, six to go.

            Balistor was less cautious as he got to the camp. Finess was not going to work on the remaining five here. He had to get in quick and hit them hard. As he burst out of the woods, he fired off two full clips of his ammunition, trying to pin down the alien hunters as he advanced upon them. One Auckled succumbed to his shooting, but the others were too well covered as his shots exploded in impressive but ineffective bursts. They had retrieved weapons from their ship, bringing out their Ghummas, small plasma globe launchers, after discarding their spears and clubs as they concluded that the timid deer-like creatures were not attacking them, but rather something far more dangerous. As he ran wildly through the camp, his heart was beginning to race, causing a beating sound to reverberate inside his Mark Six. The Auckled sent several shots his way. Balistor’s armour turned aside most of the small energy pellets. But a few hit their mark, making it past his plating, sending jolts of painful energy into his system and causing searing burns as the plasma burst and spread around the wounds. He threw the last explosive he had at two of the Auckleds that had bunched a bit too close together; it was just enough to take them out of action. It had not outright killed them, but they were no longer a threat to him.

            One Auckled had maneuvered around behind a tent to his left as the other worked its way around to his right.  As the first popped its head out to look for Balistor, he levelled his rail rifle and pulled the trigger. Sadly, he was out of ammunition as the weapon whirred to life, but nothing shot out.

            “Fuck me,” he sighed. “The old-fashioned way, then.”

            As he dropped his empty weapon and drew out his combat knife, the Auckled he had been about to shoot threw a globule of their plasma-based weaponry at him. He saw it at the last second and dove for cover. The small explosive hit the ground next to him, sending a wave of shocking energy and burning plasma, mixed with rocks and dirt from the ground, showering him in a torrent of pain.

            Before Balistor could recover, the second Auckled jumped on his back, ripping into his reflective plating. The act hurt the Auckled almost as much as it did Balistor. He rolled forward using the alien’s weight to thrust it past him. Balistor leapt quickly upon the fallen alien, using a grip on both hands and putting all of his weight behind him, he thrust the long blade of his knife deep into the Auckled’s chest. It screamed at him and used its four arms to throw him off.  Balistor flew far from the strong alien as it struggled to its feet and used its strong upper arm to pull out the dagger. It flung the knife at Balistor, striking him in his now exposed back. The knife sank in deep, puncturing his left lung. The Auckled staggered over to him as its purple blood oozed out from the gaping hole in its chest. It picked Balistor up as it was about to clamp down on his neck just below the Mark Six, when Balistor activated his wrist saw and thrust his arm up under the alien’s chin. Its bottom jaw fell off, and in pain, the Auckled reacted by tossing Balistor away from it again.

            He bounced and rolled as the force of his slamming into the ground popped the dagger out from his back.  Balistor fought back up to his feet, beaten and bleeding, and with a shaky hand, picked up the dagger just as the last of the Auckleds from the camp slammed into him, forcing him against the landing gear of their ship. The alien’s four arms pulled at Balistor’s armour, and its claws dug into his flesh. Balistor hacked back with his knife as best he could and managed to sever one of the Auckled’s smaller arms from its torso with his arm saw. They fought back and forth, fiercely for what seemed an eternity, ultimately Balistor got in a lucky strike when he sank his dagger into the Auckled’s eye. It screamed at him and flung him away.  He landed next to one of the Auckled’s discarded hunting spears.  As the alien charged him, he jammed his boot down on the end of the shaft and raised the tip, catching the Auckled in the chest. Its own weight impaled the alien on the spear, but it kept charging at him, bowling head-on into Balistor. The pair rolled to the ground and came to a rest next to the blazing cook fire the Auckleds had been using to roast part of a large Onjarwee.

            Balistor lay on his back, next to the dead Auckled, who hung with it four arms dangling down, suspended in the air by the broken spear. Balistor’s Mark Six display was cracked along with several of his ribs and bones. Even augmented, his limbs were heavy and ached. He was spent. “Thank God! That was the last of them!” He thought, just as a hand wrapped around his ankle, picking him up in the air and slamming him down next to the fire. “Oh, fuck me, forgot about that fucker in the woods,” Balistor’s arm saw snapped and skittered away. His knife was gone along with most of his reactive plating, and he was out of weapons. The last of the Auckleds from the woods had made it back to the camp, and he was in its four-armed grasp. Standing next to the roaring fire, Balistor could feel the heat on his right side. The alien used its two strong arms to hold Balistor around the waist, while the two smaller arms reached out to him, their fingers wrapped tightly around his neck. Balistor’s vision began to darken as his field of vision narrowed. All he could see was the Auckled’s ugly face. Was that fucking shit-turd overgrown lizard-bug smiling at him as it choked the life out of him?

            “Guess this is it,” he thought. But he was not the quitting type, and this thing was pissing him off. As he struggled for breath, heavy rain began to fall, dripping through his broken helmet onto his face. This angered him even more than the alien choking him to death. No way was he about to die on this shitstorm planet, killed by an overgrown cockroach. He reached out to his right, grasping for anything he could, until his hand came into contact with a foot. He stretched out and wrapped his fingers around the ankle of the Onjarwee haunch that was cooking over the fire. Balistor pulled at it with all the strength he had left and smashed the Auckled in the face. The sudden attack startled the alien, and it released Balistor. He fell to the ground and grabbed a large timber from the fire. He smashed it over the Auckled’s face as the timber exploded, sending a wave of sparks that lit up the darkness, as burning embers showered down upon the Auckled. It bellowed in rage and charged at Balistor. He had no other choice, so he grabbed the haunch again and slammed it into the charging alien's chest. The force of the blow sent it, and large chunks of meat, flying back into the air. The Auckled landed on its back as Balistor leapt onto its chest with both feet. As soon as he made contact, he turned his hips while digging his boots down into the alien’s stomach. Then he dropped to his knees and began to beat that Auckled about its head with the large Onjarwee hind quarters. Every blow cleaved more of the meat from the thigh bone as Balistor repeatedly smashed the alien in the face. Over and over again, he swung until all the meat was gone, and Balistor was thrashing the Auckled with just the pelvic and thigh bone. He kept at it as his rage over Izzy’s death and his guilt that he could have saved her had he just cared a little more about another creature other than himself spilled out of control. He battered the alien with the bone until both it and the Auckled’s skull snapped in a spine-chilling crescendo of bone-crunching cracks. Balistor’s arm was numb from the repeated strikes, and his body ached. He had lost a lot of blood, and his eyes would not open even as he pleaded with them to do so. He felt cold, even though he was in the heart of a hot and humid forest and standing next to a blazing fire. He was dizzy and tired, and he could feel the blood trickling down inside his exosuit. “All gone!” he said out loud as he fell on top of the final dead Auckled.

*                *                *

            “Thank you. So… so much. I knew you could do it!” Balistor heard Izzy’s voice in his mind, but he could not see her. Did he end up in the same heavens as she did?

            “Balistor!” It was Phrandell’s voice he heard now as the elder shook him awake. “You are still with us. We were not sure you would pull through, even with our healing help and your special gifts. You have had a high fever and been asleep for five days. When you did not return and the Auckleds did not come out to hunt, I found a few brave ones, and we ventured out to look for you. We found you among all of those dead Auckleds and brought you back here. We want to thank you; you have saved us. For whatever reason, you did, we are eternally in your debt. As you stated, we should no longer fear the Auckled returning. Our future is bright again. We decided to burn their ship to the ground and buried the burnt shell of it. Then we buried the dead Auckleds with simple stones to mark their passage, lest we forget them. While you were recovering, we pulled your ship out of the mud and cleaned it. Before we burned their vessel, we took this part from the Auckled ship. I believe from what I saw in your mind that it is what you need to fix your vessel.” He held up a part that would indeed replace Balistor’s broken motivator. Balistor slowly sat up, still feeling weak. He had never been this close to his own death before.

            “Izzomellia would be proud of you.” Phrandell continued. “You saved her people. Her name and yours will be remembered with reverence for as long as our people live.”

            “Remember, Izzy, not me. I am no hero. I failed you. I failed her. She was the brave one. I just reacted.” Balistor slowly rose from the soft bed of grass and took the ship part from Phrandell that would allow him to get off this soggy planet. He donned all of his gear and silently left the Onjarwee so they could put their home back together and get over the nightmare that had been the Auckled hunters.

*                *                *

            Balistor sat before the flight console of his Vindicator as it drifted high above the stratosphere, looking at the blinking launch button. He had a job to do, and his report was ready to go. As soon as he would hit the launch button, it would send his findings to the Hierarchy and deploy a buoy that would remain in orbit and broadcast: “Spacial Quadrant Eighteen, Zone Nine, Sphere Four hundred thirty-two; status: Planet ripe with resources and environment fit for colonization. Indigenous lifeforms with high-value inherent abilities.” He stared at his finger hovering inches from the launch button. “Sorry, Izzy,” he said. “I wish I had not failed you.”

            Balistor engaged his drives, leaving the ordeal of the planet of the Onjarwee and its painful memories behind him.

            The survey buoy floated in a high orbit, with a red indicator light blinking like a warning, its radiance visible in the blackness of space. It repeated Balistor’s report over and over again in all the known languages, now reading: “Barren wasteland. No atmosphere. No monetary value. Avoid at all costs.”

            “At least this may give ‘em a chance,” he thought, as the planet disappeared from his view.