Raven Tide

“What is it?!” Chyani ran into the bridge as I flew us through a series of sharp evasive loop-de-loops.

“Venom Heart,” I opened up the navigation system.

Gar’mol’s horribly burned visage popped up on the side of my viewscreen. I muted him before he could start spouting off more fanatical nonsense.

“Holy crap, he’s not dead!” Chyani strapped into the Beta’s helm chair while waving her palm at the visual of Gar’mol. “Can he see us? How do we change the channel?”

“No, and sorry, this is the best I can do,” I chittered with a shrug. “Technically, this is still his ship.”

“Too bad Venom Heart doesn’t have a remote ejection seat you can trigger from your wristcomm,” Chyani smirked. “Tell me you’ve got a contingency plan.”

“Already on it,” I keyed in a new flight course. “I can’t outrun him. This ship’s too outdated. On the bright side, he must still want us alive. Venom Heart’s got more than enough gun power to vaporize us in seconds.”

“Silver linings,” Chyani commiserated in my lack of enthusiasm.

“But he can leave us dead in the water if I’m not careful,” I steered Storm Hound up and around to avoid taking direct plasma fire and enabled the overdrive thrusters. They wouldn’t last for long but it got us within visual range of our new objective.

“What’s this place?” Chyani leaned over at the orange planet hovering on my viewscreen.

“Vesh Killian,” I pushed the image over to her smaller screen. “Before locking in our flight path, I made sure to keep our main course within range of backup options, just in case.”

“And why wasn’t this planet our intended destination?” Chyani sharpened one eyebrow.

“Because it’s a Nexus reservation planet,” I pulled the ship into a steep nose dive toward the planet’s surface.

“I thought you said there weren’t any other yautja facilities in this sector.”

“There isn’t,” I struggled to mitigate the turbulence as we entered the atmosphere. “It’s Clan Skine operated. They’re not the largest or the most influential clan but they love off-world group expeditions and oversee the most reservation planets in all of the Nexus. Nearly every sector has at least one Skine reserve. But this one is tucked away in the boonies for a reason.”

“I’m hesitant to ask,” Chyani eyed me warily.

“It’s restricted to only Ancients and especially inhospitable,” I explained while opening up a local coms channel on my gauntlet. “No tech, no respite outposts, you’re not even allowed to land a ship on or near the surface.”

“What lives there?” Chyani cringed her teeth.

“Dunno,” I typed in my Jahaa serial number. “But whatever’s down there will be more than happy to kill that psycho.

“And us as well...?”

I shrugged reluctantly, “One thing’s for sure, I’m no match for him out here. Venom Heart will obliterate our engines if he secures a lock.”

Chyani took a long exasperated breath and then nodded.

“Ok,” she continued. “So I get Gar’mol is long past giving a damn about the rules but I can’t help but notice we’re about to land on a planet that specifically forbids it. Is your plan to draw the attention of the Clan Skine cops and hope they only punish him?”

“Nope,” I smiled big and hit confirm to access the orbiting Vesh Killian’s access beacon. “Bad Blood encounters grant us special emergency clearance. We could land this rusty jalopy right smack in the middle of a supreme matriarch’s hygiene chamber while she’s soaking. The only requirement is that we kill him and retain a trophy.”

“Oh,” Chyani rolled her head with heavy sarcasm. “Is that all?”

I spoke into the comlink to alert Skine’s Enforcers of our intrusion and our reason. No one would hear the message until the next scheduled data collection but I had performed my due diligence of leaving an official record.

We landed on the outskirts of an orange prairie congested with swaying tall grass and decided to depart Storm Hound together. Gar’mol would be able to locate the craft easily but we left it locked and cloaked so as not to draw attention from any passing wildlife.

I outfitted Chyani with a trimmed-down thermo-veil that she chose to wear under a white t-shirt and a pair of military green cargo pants. Unlike yautja and razkurs, she found the sensation of the open air blowing on her skin unnerving.

I was also able to rig up a small active camouflage harness for her from parts scavenged from the crew’s quarters. The stability wasn’t the greatest but it would keep her hidden while she was stationary. Unlike mine, she and Gar’mol were stuck with pre-razkur tech and lacked the upgraded sound dampening.

The Bad Blood’s old camouflage was useless against my keen razkur ears.

We continued using the earbud comlinks but I spent a little time during our journey retrofitting a lightweight bio-mask that Chyani could wear and monitor me while I was cloaked. However, without a gauntlet or mandibles to access the internal hud, she couldn’t switch the scanner between spectrums.

The bucolic plains were eerily serene. I didn’t detect any movement, save a flock of stingray-like birds flying overhead.

“Is this what your hunts are like?” Chyani spoke to me through our comlink while adjusting a sheathed machete tucked into her belt.

“Yes and no,” I led the way as we crouched through the tall grass. “We prefer areas of conflict. War Zones, urban combat zones, territorial migrations, and so on. Anywhere there’s likely to be a convergence of challenging prey. But wilderness hunts often begin like this.”

“Do you think he’ll land nearby?”

“I wouldn’t, if I was chasing us,” I waved the all-clear to cross a small creek in our path and pointed for Chyani to tread on the stones and avoid leaving tracks. “But he’s more experienced and currently out of his mind, so we can’t rule out bold tactics.”

“Is that thunder?” Chyani froze momentarily, knowing it wasn’t.

“He’s entering the atmosphere,” I paused for a moment and raised my long ears to calculate the distance of the sound then pointed. “North, less than twenty miles.”

I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad sign.

“Maybe we should just wait for him to exit Venom Heart and hightail it out of here?”

“Not a bad idea,” I bobbed my head to the side. “But he might set up traps and the Graven could be with him.”

“Damn,” Chyani hissed and clenched her fist. “I didn’t even think of that.”

“Neither did I, until just now,” I turned to her and rubbed her shoulder. “But one problem at a time. First, let’s get a better lay of the land then assess our options.”

“Is that hill too exposed to climb?” Chyani nodded at a little outcropping with a speckling of trees poking out.

“For me, it should be fine,” I took point in the direction of the hill. “Just to be safe, you should stay low at the bottom.”

I made one final assessment of the area before leaving Chyani unattended in between a patch of boulders then darted up the hill and climbed the tallest tree.

This whole planet sounded odd, hollow and gurgly. Even the trees had a weird sheen and texture. We had yet to encounter any transplanted wildlife but I already hated this place.

Hopefully, Gar’mol was enduring a harsher greeting.

I scanned the terrain around us and then the approximate location where the Bad Blood landed. The area to the north was fortified with massive yellow conifer trees.

A good area with plenty of nooks and crannies to keep Chyani hidden but undoubtedly a fine habitat for other more hostile residents.

I muted my comlink, “Hide, fight, or run, we’re fucked.”

Of all our miserable options, evasion was by far the most tactically sound, especially when it came to the Graven. Whether it was already here or incoming.

“However...” I zoomed in on the trees. “It’s a good sign the entire forest isn’t already on fire.”

My thoughts drifted back to when I woke up on that Iddril exam table and was greeted by Chyani standing above me alone with hardly any weapons.

“Yautja don’t cower,” I growled to myself. “Neither do razkurs, abura, or Chyani.”

That lunatic dies today!

I clenched my tucks and unmuted my com.

Fighting that psycho while escorting Chyani was already a logistics nightmare. I gave her my Graven shield but that wouldn’t do squat if I wound up dead or infected. Plus, I was minus my shoulder cannon that could shut Gar’mol down.

A sinking nausea slithered in my gut. Gar’mol was on us in a matter of days. He had to be tracking us. All the more imperative to ditch the Bad Blood’s ship.

I recalled a small altar to Paya in Gar’mol’s quarters but I vented it out the airlock first thing. Aside from that, I never found anything else religious inside Storm Hound. The tracking method had to be hidden in the hardware.

I climbed down the trunk and hopped on the ground then suddenly lost my footing.

CROAK

“What the?!” I tumbled across the grass.

The entire hill rumbled and started moving.

“Raven Tide!” Chyani called out from below as a dozen behemoth green tentacles stretched out across the orange prairie.

“Oh shit!” I scrambled down the hill before rolling the second half and landing flat in the grass.

“It’s alive!” Chyani ran from the truck-sized tentacles as fast as her little human legs could scamper.

I bounded over and under the massive undulating limbs and narrowly dodged an incoming slam that rattled the entire prairie.

“Hurry!” I scooped Chyani onto my back and sprinted full speed toward the treeline.

“It’s a snail,” Chyani glanced back as the towering invertebrate groaned and lifted off of the ground. “But with a bunch of eyes at the bottom and obviously a lot of arms.”

“It’s avacuna,” I kept my eyes on the forest edge. “They went extinct on their homeworld some centuries ago. We’re lucky that was only a juvenile.”

I ran into a tall forest of yellow conifer trees. The vacuna’s massive green tentacles pounded for entry but the beast was too large to cross the tree line.

“Your people hunt things like that for fun?” Chyani clung to my neck panting heavily. “Do me a favor, don’t ever invite me to one of your birthday parti-.”

Her mouth was cut silent and her voice muffled.

“Chyan-” Something wet and mushy shot across my mouth.

I ripped it off only to have a line of mesh coiled around my throat.

“Mmmmm!!!” Chyani thrashed on my back.

All of a sudden, white spider silk zipped around our bodies and pulled Chyani off and away.

I jumped to catch her but was caught midair and quickly mummified in place.

A dark shadow skittered overhead.

I released my wrist blades but my arm was extended and I couldn’t bend my elbow.

Soft murmurs scuttled around us then I was lifted into the air and flipped upside down.

The pressure of hands on my torso carried me for a while then I was attached horizontally to a flat structure.

To my side, came the tremors of Chyani’s whimpers and wriggling.

My ears were wrapped but I could make out a distorted visual of a single creature twice my size covered in an exoskeleton and walking on eight spindly legs with a partial humanoid torso sprouting from the front end.

It clicked and hissed in a language I couldn’t understand.

I racked my brain over what manner of intelligent creature it was but ultimately decided it didn’t matter. We were trapped and if we failed to break we were going to wind up its next meal.

A small campfire crackled nearby along with the sound and smell of one of those stingray birds roasting on a small makeshift spit.

I whistled to increase my range of echolocation. It was muted by the webbing but I was able to make out that the creature was alone except for a human head-sized egg sac pulsing between me and Chyani.

A few minutes later, the creature finished its meal and then crawled away beyond my scope of hearing.

“Chyani,” I whispered. “It’s gone for now. Are you alright?”

She only squirmed.

Her mouth must still be covered.

I tried wiggling as well but my cocoon wouldn’t budge.

Suddenly, I heard a soft thump of rubber boots on wood.

Something touched my extended arm and then pulled. It was Chyani’s fingers tugging a hole in the web. She stepped back the second I had space to move and let me cut myself free while yanking off the sticky glob of spider-silk covering her lips.

I stared at her wide-eyed and then saw the gap in her webbing. She’d used her little vibro-blade to slice sideways and split her cocoon horizontally along the web-grain.

This human and an impressive knack for keeping her cool in a life-or-death crisis despite crumbling apart in the aftermath of social interactions.

We found ourselves standing inside a tall wonky tree house with webbed tunnels leading off into who-knows-where but before we had time to slice a peephole to the outside, a loud hiss descended on us from above.

“Watch out,” I shielded Chyani from the spider-person, this time ready to slice through the incoming webbing.

The spider-person was an androgynous white and yellow arachnoid with six glistening black eyes, no hair, and thick masticating pincers instead of a mouth.

I spread my arms wide and roared, anything to keep its ire focused on me.

It spat several lines of thread at my head and legs but I snipped them out of the air before they could make contact.

Then it snipped a string on the floor with its leg and dropped a wide net from the ceiling.

“Move!” Chyani shouted.

I dodged the net and then turned to find Chyani holding the big pulsing egg in her one good arm.

The spider-person screeched and quaked at the human’s audacity.

“We’re not here to hunt you,” Chyani spoke firmly. “But there’s someone else skulking around here who will.

The creature’s six glossy eyes flicked back and forth between Chyani’s mouth and the egg sac.

“You want your babies,” Chyani knelt and placed the white ball on the treehouse floor. “We want to leave and let you care for them. Deal?”

The creature hissed again then nodded and backed away.

“Raven Tide,” Chyani gestured for us to exit through the nearest tunnel.

We sidled together and backed away slowly as the creature leaped at its babies. Then it cradled the sac and shrieked in rage.

“Go, go, go!” Chynai grabbed my hand and we dashed away.

I didn’t hear the spider following us but that didn’t mean there weren’t more of those creatures lurking around. After all, it typically took more than one to fertilize an egg.

“How did you know it would listen?” I huffed as I ran beside her.

“I didn’t,” Chyani threw her half-formed arm out at my chest to slow me down then she pushed on a soft patch in the curved wall of webbing. “But she had little empty hammocks hanging from the ceiling, stacks of pre-woven diapers, and an open toy chest full of carved pine cone dinosaur toys. She may have been a killer but she wasn’t mindless. Just a mom doing her best. Figured, even if she didn’t understand me, at the very least, she’d rather hold them tight than leave them alone and chase us.”

I didn’t notice any of that.

“Cut here, the mesh is thin,” Chyani pointed at the curved white wall.

I complied and a burst of fresh air washed over our face. Were fifty feet off the ground.

Chyani mounted my back and we leaned out, then I jumped to a nearby tree and climbed us down.

“You’re bleeding,” I turned Chyani around.

“Oh,” she glanced over her shoulder. There was a thin gash running up her newly formed tricep. “It’s nothing, I got knocked into a branch when it first caught me.”

“Predators will smell this.”

Chyani pinched her lips, “Got a first aid kit?”

“Nothing that’s safe for you,” I opened a leather pouch on my belt. “But I have bandages.”

She removed her shirt and I laid it flat on the dirt then sliced off the red soak sleeve and used my med hit’s cauterizer to burn the soiled fabric.

Chyani turned around and raised her arm. Fortunately, her bra was still clean.

“Actually,” I crooked my head at an angle.

“What are y-”

She went silent when my hand touched her wound.

I slathered a fair portion of her blood and smeared it across my chest, and arms.

“Here, let me help,” Chyani arched backward, smiling, and smudged a few red streaks over my face.

“That should be enough,” I chittered, then handed her an antiseptic cloth to wipe the residual organics from her hand.

I bandaged her up and rubbed the outside of her shirt in the dirt before she put it back on.

“It’ll have to do until we can find something stronger to mask your scent.”

A deep caustic roar bellowed in the distance.

“Gar’mol?” Chyani flinched.

“No...” I raised my ears and closed my eyes to focus. “Something bigger, but he’s there too.”

“It’s best if we move through the trees,” I crouched for Chyani to climb onto my back.

“Maybe you should install handles and a seatbelt to your shoulder harness,” Chyani snickered as she settled in and grabbed on.

“I’ll see what I can do if we manage to get off this planet,” I chuckled and lifted her off the ground. “For now, hold on!”

I shimmied up the wide tree trunk and sprang through the branches with ample pauses to allow Chyani time to bear the brunt of the landings and reestablish her grip on my shoulders.

It was slower than I would normally move but Gar’mol was a target I wanted to approach with caution.

“Why are we stopping?” Chyani poked her head up over my shoulder when I landed on an evergreen branch high above the canopy before letting her dismount.

“You should remain here,” I explained. “There’s a chance the scent of your blood will draw attention. It’s safer if I scout ahead.”

“And if he smells you?” Chyani angled her eyebrow at me. “Or some other monster swallows you whole? How am I supposed to get down and have a remote chance at defending myself?”

She had a point.

My ears flared out and I spotted a safer spot below.

“How far do you think we are from Venom Heart?” Chyani stared off into the horizon.

“Dunno exactly,” I shrugged and hugged her tight in one arm. “But if I spot her I’ll return immediately to get you.”

I dug my claws into the bark and hopped down to the bottom. Then I guided her to a large hole in the base of a nearby tree trunk.

“How ’bout this?” My ears sprang up as I inspected the burrow for residents.

“Much better,” Chyani crawled in and watched her legs disappear as she settled in and sat still.

“I linked our bio-masks so you can monitor everything I’m seeing,” I removed the helmet and pointed to the hud on the monitor. “This will let you toggle between the two visual feeds.”

“Man, that’s so cool.” Chyani fiddled with the tiny virtual buttons. “I want mandibles of my own!”

“Hmmm,” I thrummed and stroked her cheek. “And here I thought you were already stunning.”

Chyani blushed and shoved me out of the hole. “Go. Be fast. Get us off this planet.”

Then she yanked me close one last time, tossed back my bio-mask, and kissed me hard on the mouth.

I growled and backed away.

Fuck, my little bird knew exactly how to get my blood flowing.

I returned to the trees and confirmed Chyani’s life sign beacon was blinking on the edge of my bio-mask screen.

The thumping intensified as I approached a small clearing and discovered a large ruckus playing out below. It was Gar’mol, frothing and riding on the back of a red bucking dinosaur

“Looks like a Tie-rex,” I whispered into the comm.

“Ceratosaurus,” Chyani corrected over the comm. “Similar to aT-rexbut with little bull horns.”

The corrupted Bad Blood was covered in open wounds and freshly sealed bite marks, many I was certain were delivered by creatures he encountered before battling the giant lizard.

“What’s his rank?” Chyani breathed over the com.

“Huh?” I quirked my head to the side. “Oh, I’m not sure. I’d say Corrupted Slayer but the Graven is still alive. Maybe a Guardian. We don’t really know how those are created.”

“Venom Heart must be nearby.”

“Agreed,” I whispered back as I crept through the branches to circumvent the scuffle below.

SCREEE

A flock of those stingray birds exploded from the bushes when the ceratosaurus lost its footing and tumbled to the ground.

I tried to take cover but one of the birds smacked into me and fell from the air.

Gar’mol slashed open the lizard’s throat and then his eyes went wide in my direction.

I bolted behind a tree trunk and then exercised my last few seconds of stealth to close the gap before leaping out at Gar’mol from his exposed right side.

The corrupted Bad Blood evaded my wrist blades but went down hard when I spun and kicked him with both of my legs.

“Arrogant little mutt!” Gar’mol snarled and rolled to his feet. “Did you honestly think you stood a chance in this paradise cultivated solely for Ancients?”

He tackled me but I held my ground.

Careful, Raven Tide... don’t lose your mask. He’s prone to spitting!

In a true yautja duel, we would fight exposed and as equals. We would prove our power through our skill and perseverance. Not by the blast radius of our weapons.

Instead, we wrestled for dominance in the dirt and kicked up dust. I deactivated my cloak because I was still bound to the rules of honorable combat even though Gar’mol was not.

Had I not been born with razkur ears capable of tracking his movements Gar’mol would’ve happily exploited the advantage.

“It is Paya’s will that you submit to me,” Gar’mol spun in an attempt to throw me over his shoulder but I took the opportunity to snap it off his cannon and smashed it to pieces against a large rock.

Gar’mol growled and lunged in retaliation, thrusting both pairs of his wrist blades at my head.

He missed and tucked in low then I plunged my own blades up through his thigh.

The Bad Blood yowled and threw me back, and then he pounced again, this time tossing a dead stingray bird at my face.

I slashed it aside only the carcass didn’t fall. The damn thing’s orange innards were stuck to my blades.

“Hahaha! Looks like your mentor failed to teach you the basics,” Gar’mol guffawed as he stalked around me. The old asshole delighted in my flailing.

No matter how hard I shook the little bugger wouldn’t let go of my gauntlet.

“Lack of knowledge of the flora and fauna is the difference between death and victory,” he gloated. “And today a single scaled-buokka bird will initiate your doom.”

The sticky intestines tangled and twisted the more I jostled. My blades were useless to me in this gummed-up state.

Gar’mol picked another dead scaled-buokka bird and flopped it maliciously up and down in his palm.

I released my fist and put away my blades. At least the spring retraction was still functioning.

Gar’mol charged again so I punched him square in the jaw and forced him to stagger backward.

Blades or no blades this was a battle I refused to let him win then I twirled and extended my combistick to block his incoming attacks.

He was fast and strong but that was all. Cycles of training under my youngest father had prepared me for foolish opponents relying on brute power over tactics.

I thwarted his every strike, kept his footwork unbalanced, cracked him upside the head, and even parried him twice for good measure.

Gar’mol was shut out and he knew it. That’s when he started throwing explosives.

“Formidable prey doesn’t honor the code,” Gar’mol set the charge on another grenade and tossed it in my direction. “Restrict yourself to a path of weakness and see how quickly yautja might withers away.”

I took cover but remained in motion.

Shit...

My combistick was wet with Gar’mol’s acidic saliva and melted down the middle. Another weapon rendered fucking ineffective. I compressed it down and returned what was left onto my back harness.

Gar’mol took to the trees, bombarding me with another dozen small explosives until I tossed a well-aimed dagger and triggered one of the bombs early. The dishonored Elder dropped to the ground and then rose up with his upper and lower right mandibles missing.

He snarled and coughed up blood then I pelted him in the face with a large stone.

Gar’mol roared and showed me his few remaining fangs.

“Face me mutt,” his eyes were black and putrid. “Paya flies in all her glory to us and will soon bless this planet with her presence. Your head will make a worthy offering.”

I hurled a sharp broken long branch at his torso then jumped in from above but that old psycho managed to dodge me and kick my legs out sideways.

I got up but his claws caught my long quills then he jabbed his knee at my head and kicked me down. Dirt clumped all over the sticky residue glued to my gauntlet and I couldn’t get that gnarly yautja off of me.

“Praise be to Paya!” Gar’mol howled.

I scratched at his face and eyes but I was pinned with his forearm under my neck.

“You are unworthy of her grace,” Gar’mol head-butted me and made me see sparks. “But that little worm of yours will be baptized in fire!”

An unsavory mixture of green blood and black drool oozed from his mouth and sizzled over my bio-mask. I tried to push him off but my vision was spinning and going dark.

I wheezed for air and clenched my fist to release my blade but nothing responded. My only comfort was that Chyani’s life sign beacon continued blinking at the edge of my view screen.

You will not claim her!

I tapped the emergency code into my bio-mask hud to unlock the remote self-detonation sequence.

“You will never know Paya’s ligh-” Gar’mol’s eyes went wide.

A black serrated blade burst from his chest and tugged him up.

Not wasting time to question, I shoved him off and kicked him away hard in the groin.

The black knife slipped out from his sternum and then a soft sweet hissing sound sang out from the surrounding tree trunks.

I roared and called Gar’mol to face me once again. No grenades, no cannons, just him and me and the kiande amedha passing judgment down upon us from up the trees.

Gar’mol regained his footing easily but the black slime flowing out of his chest shorted out his camouflage. He chittered and flexed his claws and presented his blades.

I closed my eyes and breathed, perching my ears back and sharp while letting the air and earth permeate my skin. All was silent within me and he was the only thing I perceived.

“See me Gar’mol,” I stretched my arms at my sides.

Gar’mol roared and charged and then in a blink of a second, I ripped off his head.

His body flumped to the ground and I expelled everything from my lungs with my half-rotten trophy held high in my hand.

Most of Gar’mol’s organs began melting along with some of his smaller bones but his skull lingered and that was plenty to prove my kill.

“Where did you come from?” I welcomed the kiande amedha to my side. “Wait? I know you...”

It was the alpha serpent from Venom Heart’s stasis pod.

I knelt to it and stroked the beast’s smooth head.

“How did you...?” My ears craned up anxiously. Awakening the kiande amedha from stasis would have released the Beta and the queen eggs as well. “Where’s Chyani?!”

.

.

TRANSLATIONS:

kiande amedha- xenomophs/Abura