I was about to reassure her, tell her everything would be fine, when an eerie howl echoed through the frozen city around us, asound to send a shiver down anyone’s spine. Howls like that kept my prehistoric ancestors huddling around a fire at night.
Another howl answered it, and I cursed. Not a lone survivor, then. This creature was enormous, hungry, and worst of all, social. A pack hunter.
In this frozen wasteland, we were the best prey available. I gunned the engines, accepting the increased risk of showing up on the Hive’s scanners. I’d rather the Collectors spot us than become a meal for whatever predators survived in this desolation of ice and snow.
Penny stayed silent too, turning her attention outward and looking around with slow, careful, practiced movements. Despite the danger, I smiled. My human knew what she was doing.
She proved it a moment later, with a shout of “Left!” I swerved the skiff without hesitating, and thank the Void, because a giant, white-furredthingappeared as if from nowhere, its claws tearing into the ice where we would have been.
A glance told me everything I needed to know. The thing was huge, bulky with muscle and white fur, red eyes gleaming out from its snarling face. Its teeth were the size of daggers, and its claws bit into the ice with ease. Six limbs propelled it forward at blinding speed, and I gave up on subtlety. The engine roared to full power, and we shot forward, escaping its vicious claws by the narrowest of margins.
“Fuck.” Penny breathed the word, almost in awe, staring back. I understood her reaction. The creature had the harsh beauty of a predator or a weapon, and it moved with speed and silent grace. A magnificent, terrible combination to be hunted by.
Clever, too. Once the skiff got up to speed, it didn’t waste time or energy chasing us. Nor did it give up—it howled again,and answering cries came from ahead of us while it loped on after us.
“We should slow down,” Penny suggested as we raced up the winding road to the mountaintop spaceport. “No point escaping a monster only to die in a car-crash, right?”
I swerved around one abandoned hovercar and almost hit the next, half-hidden in the snow. “We need to reach my ship before the Collectors catch up with us. I’d prefer stealth, but they’ll have seen the engine flare, so that option’s out. Now it’s a race to reach my ship before they can respond. We should have just enough time?—”
Of course, that was when the forcefield flickered into existence ahead of us. I slammed on the reverse thrusters, pulled to the side, and still clipped the shimmering veil of energy between us and the spaceport. We scraped along it, leaving a trail of sparks until the skiff came to a stop.
“You jinxed it,” Penny said. “You just had to jinx it.”
This was a nightmare.A disaster. I’d messed this up, and now we’d both pay the price. I cursed the uncaring Void, my fingers clenching tight on the controls.
“Hey, hey, easy there, big guy.” Penny put her small, chilly hand on mine. “We kind of need that.”
I looked down to see the throttle crushed in my grip, metal bending and warping. With a deep breath, I forced myself to relax and released the controls. Letting go of my bitterness wasn’t as easy. “I don’t see why. We have nowhere to go.”
“Perhaps you’re right, but I’d still rather be able to get away if those six-legged polar bears come for us again.” She shudderedat the thought. I didn’t much like it either, though our fate if the Collectors captured us wouldn’t be much different.
No. I will not accept that. I refuse to. Penny won’t be a predator’s lunch, in the arena or out of it.
If only the passion gripping my heart came with a plan. All it left me was an unwavering certainty that I had to protect her, clashing with the equal certainty that the monsters had us trapped between them and the shield.
“I’m sorry,” Penny said. “I shouldn’t have hijacked your plan. You’d be safely on your way off-world, and I’d be back in the warm.”
I wrapped her in my arms, trying to offer some comfort and warmth. Her small body shivered against me, stirring interesting and futile reactions in my body. “Foolishness. This was my plan, and it went wrong. I could have left you behind. Should have.”
She drew in a breath, ready to argue, then chuckled and pressed her icy body against me.For heat, nothing more,I told myself.She needs all she can get.
Muffled by my shirt, her voice was weary. “Let’s not use our last moments arguing about whose fault it is, okay? That’s too depressing to bear.”
“I’d rather not die at all,” I said, looking down the winding road at the city below. Well-camouflaged against the snow, visible only as occasional shadows, the predators stalked closer. Uphill, the red shimmer of the forcefield blocked access to the port. Our only other option was going off-road, down a steep and rocky slope. The pack of hunters was our best bet, and that was still suicide. “But I am out of plans. This was my backup.”
In my arms, Penny tensed. Slowly, carefully, she spoke as though her idea was a skittish animal she might scare off if she moved too suddenly. “I might have one. Maybe. It’s the same trick you used to get us down from the Hive.”
I snorted, looking over the edge at the steep, rough rock-face. “Back there, I’d prepared a soft landing. Here? We’ll eat a boulder before we get halfway down.”
“No. If we overload the engine on this thing, its anti-grav will lift us higher than most of the rocks. You’ll have power to spare for steering, too. Right?”
“We’re more likely to explode the battery or burn out the engine completely.” I grimaced but, lacking any other plan, I turned hers over in my mind. “It might be worth the risk, except the Collectors will see another energy spike, and I doubt we’d lose them again. Even if we get off the mountain, they’ll find us wherever we run.”
Despite my words, I pulled open the engine compartment and set to work removing the safeties. The task was quick, easy, and stupid, leaving us with a death trap thatmightsurvive the trip down the mountain without exploding.
Then…the Collectors would find us. Even if they didn’t, Penny would freeze to death. I snarled at myself.Why do I care about this human? She’s right; without her, I’d be safe on my ship and on my way to show off The End to my brothers.
Irrelevant. How we landed in this mess doesn’t matter, only how we get out of it.I cast about for a better idea than hers. It didn’t need to begood.
