Page 53 of Leviathan

"I don't like this," Eun said, his voice low.

"We got this, remember?" the woman said to him as she laced her fingers with his. "Let's go see inside their ship."

The woman looked up at me.

"Do you have a ship?" she asked. "Are you leaving the system? Can we catch a ride with you back to Earth? We need to get off this planet, right now. We can pay upfront in full, or work for passage, whatever you need. Please, you're the first person I've met who even knows the name of my planet."

"I don’t want to let that Vaurelcar onboard," Lyrien said. "Not unless I know what happened to him. If he has been cutting off his own neurofilaments he is too much of a risk."

"Let's get more information before we say yes or no either way," I said on a private channel to Lyrien.

"Sure," I replied out loud. "But I need to discuss it with my partner."

"What is it saying?" one of the hyena aliens asked.

"I asked it if it could give us a ride," the woman said. "We're looking for passage off this planet."

"We'll provide you passage," said the hyena with a toothy grin and a chuckle. "To pay you for translating."

We clunked up the ramp onto the hyena alien's ship. It stank like rotten meat and piss. We had walked up the ramp straight into a large cargo hold, with stacks and stacks of boxes lined up. There were more on the landing at the bottom of the ship. The hyena alien walked over to one of the boxes and lifted off its lid. A cold plume of visible air hissed out. Inside were piles of individually wrapped chunks of meat.

"We have selections from every species you can think of," the hyena leader said to me as it walked deeper into the hold, opening several more boxes. I stayed near the open door at the rear of the ship, unwilling to go deeper.

Eun's shoulders were tight, his short neurofilaments lashing out all around him.

"Remember to stay out of range of his neurofilaments," Lyrien said. "Even short like that, they will give your armor trouble."

"This isn't a trade, this is a trap," the woman said. "My friend here isn't interested in buying what it can just take."

There was a manic lilt to the woman's voice, and though I didn't appreciate her trying to bully me into a fight, I wasn't upset at her either. From what Lyrien told me about this planet, it was a terrible place to get trapped. She was doing what she thought she needed to do to survive.

"Leija, if the robot wants to steal from them, we should stay out of its way," Eun said. "This isn't our fight. You could get hurt."

"We can just hold them here and call the cops," I said, even as I pointed my guns at the hyenas, coming to terms with what I was going to have to do. These hyenas were predators of the worst kind. Both Lyrien and the other human, Leija, had said they wouldn’t see justice here, and there was no way they were going to let her leave this ship alive.

There were some decisions that were easy to make, and even though violence wasn’t an engrained part of my nature, there were some things that were always worth fighting for.

Leija picked up one of the cargo box lids and hefted it up.

"Eun," she said. "I am carrying our child."

The hyena laughed as she swung the crate lid at him, as if he was delighted she would attack him.

His delight turned to horror as Eun's longest neurofilament burst through his chest, lifting him up in the air. The unstable Vaurelcar let out a scream like a wild animal and launched himself at the hyenas.

I stared at the sight in shock, watching as blood splattered the walls.

It didn’t look like I would need to fight after all.

"He’s gone over the edge," Lyrien said. "You need to get out of there. He's going to kill all of them and then he is going to eat everything in sight."

Leija stood there, her own manic smile spreading across her face as Eun threw himself in front of her to cut down another hyena alien. She didn't even flinch as his neurofilaments whipped around her, blood spraying into the air. She didn't look afraid of him in the slightest.

“I’m not leaving her,” I told Lyrien.

“She isn’t in any danger from him,” Lyrien replied. “If you try to grab her right now he will attack you.”

One of the hyenas bolted towards the rear hatch, and without thinking I lifted my arm and triggered my gun. I shot it; my MECH suit automatically braced against the recoil from the gun. The blast sent the hyena flying back into a stack of opened crates.