“Yes. We are...” What is the human word I need? Destined. Meant to be. Fated. I huff in frustration. The Rurim working with the humans on the ships have added an abundance of math and science terms to our translator, but the colloquialisms, the conversational, those have mostly fallen on me.
“Statistics.” I bring up the translator on my CommPad. “Statistically, infinitesimal chance we ever meet. The odds are functionally zero. But this planet. Antasun, your human scientists have labeled it. It pulled us. Then my mating pulse, it chose us.” The forest is extremely quiet. Have all the animals completed their migration already? I can hear my own feet shuffling through the tree needles on the ground.
“Like, fate.” Maysee says. “You guys believe in fate?”
Finally, the word I was looking for. I record it. “Humans do not?”
“Some do, some don’t. I never really thought about it. Wait, so you think the planet actually wants us here?” She scrunches up her nose. “That’s a little harder to believe.”
I hear the waves crashing in the distance already. There aren’t even any flighted creatures chirping above our heads. “Gravity did a, uh.” I hold my hand out flat and wobble it. “Impossible. But. It did.”
“Why?” She stops walking and stares straight ahead. “I won’t even ask how, because this is bonkers. But why? Assuming the whole planet has thoughts and makes decisions, why?”
I don’t truly know that answer. I have my suspicions. My crew and I have talked it over somewhat. “A theory. It seeks intelligent life. It seeks an... evolution.”
Okay, the silence is disconcerting now. I put my nose to the air. All I can smell is the bog and the moss.
The moss, like the monkeys.
I pull Maysee closer. “What is it?” she asks.
“Something.” I strain my ears. All I hear is the wind. Or is it a breath?
A massive shape bursts from the trees at our backs. Maysee shrieks and ducks behind me.
It leaps over our heads and lands on our other side. I spin, keeping Maysee at my back. It looks like a gigantic version of the bog monkeys, as the humans call them. It’s a whole head taller than me and twice as wide, and is covered in a more golden colored moss than the smaller version. Is this an adult or just a similar species?
It roars, blasting our faces with its foul, damp breath. It’s got sharp canines as long as my forearm.
I pull my blaster from the holster hidden by my kilt and fire. It falls back a step and makes a shocked grunt. “Run,” I say to Maysee. “The cave at the ocean. Go!” I step forward and fire again. It bares its teeth and jumps at me. I duck aside.
Tsek. Maysee doesn’t run. She reaches inside her jumpsuit for her feeble human weapon. Their guns are surprisingly primitive for all the other things they’ve accomplished. When she fires, the animal doesn’t even react.
“Run!” I tell her again. This time she listens. Her footsteps reach my ears as she takes off. The monkey’s eyes follow her for a moment, but I wave my arms to keep its attention. And I fire again. I’m about to run out of charges on this dinky little blaster, and it isn’t doing the damage I need it to do. Tsek it all!
Can I actually fight this thing? He’s huge. Monstrous. I’ve never seen a living thing so large!
He jumps again. This time I duck directly beneath him and fire before he lands, blasting him square in the back at close range. The moss there smokes and sizzles, and he howls. He turns and swipes at me so fast, I barely get my head out of the way. But he smacks my blaster. It goes flying out of my hands and out into the woods. I don’t even see where it lands.
Extra tsek.
It snarls at me again, and I crouch, ready to grapple it with its next jump.
But it turns away. It scents the air, and it takes off toward the sea. Toward Maysee.
He’s chasing my mate.
I roar after him. The sound comes from a buried rage inside of me that I’ve never felt before. It makes my bones ache, my muscles swell, and sends my mating pulse into an overdrive that makes my whole body vibrate.
I run. I charge after it as if I’m flying. He will not be allowed to harm a single hair on her head. She’s mine! I roar again. The trees around me shake, showering me with their pine needles. The ground rumbles with each of my footfalls.
He’s leaping from the trees onto the beach when I catch up to him. I sail onto his back and we roll, sending great sprays of sand up into the air. He doesn’t seem so huge now that I’ve got him. I push him down to the ground, take aim with my tail, and slam the vicious weapon-like tip of it downward. He writhes aside but just barely gets out of the way. I slam my mejj down again, and this time I strike, the heavy weight smashing into his shoulder. Something cracks. He throws back his head and roars.
In his flailing panic, he knocks me aside. I don’t give him another inch, though. He won’t be getting any closer to my mate. I wrap my tail around his ankle and pull, slamming him right back down to the sand.
He jumps again. Sharp teeth sink into my calf. He clamps down and tries to lift up, tries to lift me to slam down as I did to him. I roar in pain and I grab onto his head, hoping to pry him loose. No good. But no matter. This creature isn’t very bright. He’s doing a lot of damage, but he’s left himself exposed to my greatest weapon. I lift my tail, swing it high once, and slam it down on his head. His jaws loosen and he releases a high-pitched whine. One more blow and he’s trying to get away, ducking and covering his head as he rolls.
My last strike catches his jaw. He goes down in a boneless heap, kicking up more sand when he slams to the ground.