At least Matt had the sense to initiate a lockdown.Even if he only did it to save his own ass.
“My ship is shaped a little bit like a magnifying lens,” he said to Norah. “The lab is the round end, two layers, the bottom has the enclosures, the second floor is a railway above it. There’s a set of doors directly above one another that leads deeper into the ship. The bottom level leads to the bridge and the top level leads to operations, living quarters and such. Everything else is located on a third level that has a hatch entrance. If we get split up, you know where to go, understand?”
“Got it,” her voice hitched.
“We’re entering the lab.” He moved to open the door.
“Stryker…” Norah grasped his arm and tugged. Her brow furrowed as her lips moved without saying anything. He pulled her into his arms and held her close, gripping her soft body against his hard one, flesh to metal, organic to artificial. “I hate this,” she squeaked into his chest. He relished her every supple curve from the toes strained upward in his embrace, the soft frame pressed to him, to the thick black hair that fell in wild coils at her shoulders.
She had become everything to him, and he could barely wait for the dust to settle so he could wrap her up within his beast and cherish her.
Norah made him soft where he was hard. She made him feel more human. He saved her to take her, to keep her, to feast on her. Not to set her free.
His heart sped up. Stryker released her before she made him too soft.
He turned toward the door and opened it, lifting his next-to-useless gun level with the scope implanted in his eye. His once beautiful, symmetrical, pristine lab came into view to reveal an explosion of glass and machinery. Stryker looked down at the mess and jerked his head, snapping at it from behind his mask.
The only containment structure that had broken was the one the Wieraptor was in. It seemed that Luck had smiled on him.
His eyes ran over the other habitats, all still intact, all functioning within the parameters given for a lockdown scenario. Some of the plants and animals were creatures he didn’t want to deal with again.
He motioned for Norah to follow him to a stairwell that led to the second level. His bare feet crunched over the debris and tore up his soles but it didn’t stop him from maneuvering between his acquisitions. He heard Norah follow steadily behind him as he went up to each sealed enclosure and checked their vitals.
The last thing he wanted to do was delay his trip home to recapture a creature.
Stryker stepped back to join Norah who was staring at the alien animals throughout the space.
“They’re fine,” he answered before she could ask.
Her curls fluttered as she shook her head, “But is it safe? For them? Are they okay?” She placed her hand against the nearest enclosure. Behind it were nesting beetles from Taggert, a prisoner planet. The inmates crushed them and used the paste as a strong numbing agent for wounds. It lasted for hours and had begun to be used to prolong fights, torture, and other recreational activities. A man’s foot could have a knife sticking out of it and he wouldn’t even notice.
“Of course they are.”
A crash of metal screeched through the lab, powerful enough to dent the closed panel that was his destination. The glass habitats could keep out nearly everything but not the sound the monster roared as it slammed into the barrier between them.
Norah covered her head and flinched away from the sound. The rubble beneath his feet vibrated with each consecutive impact. Just under the shards of plastic and glass were the long grooves of nails dragged across the floor.
“What the hell is that?” Norah asked over the barrage.
“Wieraptor, a beast at the top of its food chain on a planet the EPED is looking into for a port.”
“So, what? They wanted to bring them to Earth? I don’t want to know what’s behind that door.”
Stryker bent down and traced the claw marks with his finger.Half an inch deep. Cold.Matt couldn’t be lying about when the beast broke free. He looked around.The dust is settled.
All of this under an extra dose of tranquilizers.He frowned and felt the itch to kill the monster rather than recapture it, but as the thought formed in his head, he disregarded it.I’m low on tranqs.
“I’m not sure,” he told her, although he had an idea. “I would assume that it’s so they know what they’re up against and how they can maintain and fortify a structure against them.” He didn’t want to think about all the men and women who would die during the port’s creation if the project was green-lit.
At the rate the Wieraptor was going in destroying its habitat, damaging the ship, and fighting the narcotics, he couldn’t see anyone ever wanting to risk colonizing its world. Stryker walked over to the damaged computer system that fed all of the inhabitant’s reports to the EPED’s server, and notified Mia, his handler at the agency. His hand ran across the shredded electronics.Had to be the tail.
The tail would grow back every time it was cut off. He had seen remnants on the beast’s world, half chewed up, skeletal remains, and decayed.Territory disputes.
Unfortunately for him, ifhistail were cut off, it wouldn’t grow back. He’d have to have it rebuilt piece by piece, hoping all the while that his nanocells didn’t reject the new parts.
“Is it worth it?”
“That’s a hard question to answer, babe.” Stryker made his way to the door and the monster that roared behind it. When he was a step away, the sounds vanished and the reverberations settled. He systematically turned off the safety of his low-grade guns and, when he was done, motioned for Norah. The pounding of her heart was like thunder in his ears.
