Alien Freak - Calista Skye Page 0,22

Some get through, before my instincts can turn the scales to deflect them.

The smell of fear is much stronger here, still fresh. She’s can’t be far away.

I turn down the power of the antimatter gun, aiming a little to the side of where I think she’s being kept. Burning a tall portal in the Fentrat’s mass, I go for less depth and more coverage.

I almost miss her as I march past. Only the faint and sweet scent of her fear makes me stop in my tracks and look around with heat vision.

Ah. There’s a cocoon. It’s warmer than everything else around here, except from my own crotch. The outline inside it is human-shaped.

I burn the foliage all around it and walk over to the big, rolled-up leaf that hangs enticingly from a long twig. All around are beautiful, red flowers, fragrant and peaceful.

I stop. It’s obviously a trap. The moment I get too close, a thousand thin, pointed seeds will shoot from the centers of the flowers with great force, each making a hole in me. I can see the tips poking out, sharp and deadly. The scent of organic explosives is thick around them. It’s a good trap that will kill me on the spot.

“Two can play that game,” I mutter. “Grandmother, are you in touch with the ship?”

“I am,” she responds immediately, clearly realizing that this is not the time for her sarcasm.

“When I tell you, fire six of its Grax-9 missiles straight up into the air, then aim them at a spot on the ground seven hundred paces away from the exact point where we are right now, in a perfect circle. Sixty degrees between each impact. Set them to armor-pierce for one pace of depth and then explode with as much force as possible.”

“There are only four missiles left.”

“Then fire those,” I grunt.

“Settings confirmed.”

I take a step back, let the antimatter gun hang by its strap, and prepare the other, smaller weapon. “Fire the missiles.”

The red flowers all turn a fraction to keep me in their aim.

“Missiles away,” Grandmother confirms. “Again, I really hope you know what you’re doing. This is going to seriously damage the Fentrat. But it will be nowhere near enough to disable it.”

“I don’t want to disable it,” I inform her as the sound of screaming rocket engines comes closer very fast. “Just confuse it.”

One heartbeat goes by.

“Grandson: duck.”

“No.”

The missiles explode as one all around me. I can only see the flashes, then feel the shockwave in the air as they converge right on top of me and almost knock me over.

But that’s not what I’m waiting for.

The Fentrat may be powerful, but it’s also pretty slow. Its nervous system appears to transmit pain at about a quarter of the rate of most sentient beings.

I can hear it now as an insane rustling of leaves closing in from all sides, the closest the planet-size plant gets to howling with pain.

At the very moment waves of pain from all sides converge on the cocoon, I leap up, vibroblade stretched out, and cut through the stalk.

The cocoon falls to the ground and the flowers fire their seeds, but the Fentrat is shaking violently from pain and anger and they’re not aimed right. Some of them hit me, and my own pain takes no time to hit my brain. But I can’t take any note of it.

I cut the cocoon open so Averie’s head is free of it. Her eyes are closed, but she breathes.

I place her over my shoulder and run back through the tunnel burned by the antimatter.

“Ship scanners show Gurandu ships close by,” Grandmother informs me. “The dense foliage precludes more details.”

Of course. They will have seen those explosions in glorious multi-spectrum.

I keep running.

The Fentrat is still groggy with pain, and even though it’s plainly doing everything it can to stop me, it’s not coordinated enough to be a major problem. Seeds are shot at me, vines whip me, some of them try to trip me up, corrosive fluids are dropped on me from above, sticky sap is shot at me to slow me down, poisoned leaves stroke along my legs, thorny branches lash out at me.

But Averie should be safe. The cocoon still covers most of her, and it’s thick.

Finally, I see the ship in front of me. Just a hundred more paces and we’re there. It’s still free from the Fentrat, so I’ll be able to take off right away.

I’m so close, I can taste the relief.

And then the hope