Casey Lockhart's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

The green giant's voice cut out. A second later the shuttle rocked. Something heavy slammed into the hull. Casey's console lit red. The bounty hunter's ship had caught them, and a grapple line reeled the shuttle down toward the ridge below. The engines screamed and lost. They fell. They crashed hard beside the old shack. Casey and Yuri crawled out and dragged two canisters into the grey shelter. The rest stayed pinned in the wreck. Casey slammed the shack door and pressed her back to the wall. Outside, the red rock stretched up in jagged slopes. A laser bolt punched through the metal above her head. Then another. Casey knew who fired. The armored bounty hunter had chased them from the planet's surface. He wore a black gas mask and green skin showed above it. His crime lord wanted the goo, and he would kill them to take it. "He'll cut us apart," Yuri said. He didn't move. He held the vodka bottle he'd carried since orbit. Casey checked her scanner. It caught new movement in the crevices. The crash had cracked the two canisters. Slime seeped out across the floor. The small octopus creatures pulled free. Their beady eyes glowed. They spread toward the wall where the crevices ran deep into the rock. "Casey." Yuri's voice went flat and strange. A creature climbed his boot. Another wrapped his neck. His eyes fixed on nothing. He raised the bottle and drank, long and steady, like something else moved his hand. Casey grabbed for him. A creature caught her wrist. Cold pressure spread up her arm. Her thoughts blurred. She saw the ridge through beady eyes for one sick second. The colony wanted the shipment stopped. It wanted the hull opened. It wanted the shooting to end. Yuri lowered the empty bottle. His free hand moved to his suit pocket. He pulled out a small grey detonator. Casey didn't know he carried it. He didn't look at it. He pressed the button. Outside, the sky flashed white. A charge dropped from the wrecked shuttle's belly and struck the ridge. The blast threw the bounty hunter off his feet. It scattered his rover in pieces of dark grey metal. The shack shook. Dust rained from the ceiling. The creatures let go. Light poured through the blown wall. Not sunlight, but bright enough. They shrank back into the crevices and vanished. Casey's mind cleared. She gasped and dropped to her knees. Yuri blinked. He stared at the detonator in his hand. "I didn't decide that," he said. Casey looked through the hole in the wall. The bounty hunter lay still in the rubble. His rifle lay ten feet from his glove. But the two canisters were empty now. The colony had used them to reach her, and it had used Yuri's hand to save them both. She pulled Yuri up. "Grab whatever's left in the wreck," she said. "They're not done with us."