Hunted
We had been paid to locate the last remaining member of an endangered species. Sums of money exchanged, contracts were in short supply these days. Work was hazardous but immensely fulfilling. Lives as mercenaries and poachers, this had brought us together. Our orders had been clear: Find it and kill it. Lyrans were like locusts if you didn't cut off the head they would breed and spread. The jungle world of Hudorus was just another backwater, a place where hundreds of insects thrived, each feeding off the next. Dark purple forests of swaying trees fluttered in the wind. Unknown creatures chirped and howled at night. Vicious predators roamed below the canopies and vibrant, exotic, flying mammals ruled the tree tops. Our team of four had been deposited on the planet one solar day ago. Luckily for us gravity and oxygen levels were similar to earth, respirators were stowed away not to be used.
At first the mission had seemed simple, but usually things were never ideal. I didn't expect a cakewalk but what trapped and slaughtered my partners that day went beyond even our considerable talents. Michaels had been the first to die, bisected at the waist, scream echoing through the canopy disturbed flying creatures making them chitter, and chirp. Jokes, his byword, a man addicted to money and the thrill of the hunt, Michaels had not exactly been liked, his presence tolerated at best. Not any longer. We couldn't even see what killed him the foliage was so dense. There had not even been time for a decent burial, orders were orders. Michaels' share was obviously forfeit. The take had to be distributed among us if we made it off this damn rock alive. Hunters had become the hunted.
I was the leader of our little band, name's Tiran Morel. My service in the outer rim campaigns had not been sufficient for me. Military life hadn't paid well enough. Freelance paid in spades, lucrative, but dangerous. Scars, cuts, and streaks, black eyes, and a vicious plasma rifle, I stood out in a crowd. Annetta Charon was our scout and tracker, once lovers, not anymore, old wounds still healed. Preferring the company of mercenaries and cutthroats to the royal ladies of the court, she had been disowned by her family and cast out, but not before she had stolen a significant portion of her family's wealth. Trained by freelances and gangsters, she craved adventure like a drunk craves booze. Raven haired and extravagant she couldn't be tamed by the wilds. Probably never would be. I had certainly tried but failed.
Cornelius Vicus had been a smuggler before joining us. The miserable bastard had gutted two Aurelian peacekeepers and had escaped justice, disappearing into the belt of planets known as the outer rim. A cheeky rogue who loved knives, and worshipped money, Vicus was a survivor first and foremost. Bright yellow eyes, handsome features, but only one eye, scavenger and trickster were his proud epithets. Oddly enough he was loyal to his friends. A heavy clipped accent betrayed his origins as low born. He tagged behind, double pistols up and ready, always scanning for movement.
Our trail ran cold, Annetta crouching over the tracks, looking pensive, dark eyes flashing. "I don't understand, it's as if it just disappeared." I could see her tense up like a cat about to spring on its prey. My plasma rifle hummed with a crackling, blue, translucent energy. We were poised as if on a knife's edge. Would the thing strike at us?
Something flashed in the underbrush, rippling muscles and grey scales. Before we could react something ripped Vicus' head from his shoulders. Arteries spilling blood, the body dropped like a stone. I lit up the brush with my plasma rifle, ionized globs of plasma set fire to the purple growth. Flames spilled out and lit the night sky. The mass came out of the flames and shot a pair of barbed spines right into Annetta's chest, killing her instantly. My heart lurched and I screamed in rage. It came for me a blur of spines, claws, and teeth; I fired my plasma rifle catching it right in the chest, burning a hole clean through the tough sinew.
Even as it was dying it fired a last barbed spine, the projectile punched through my shoulder plate and went straight through my shoulder. Eyes blurry with pain, I gave the coup de grace to the damned thing, blasting its skull to melted sludge. My communicator beeped, a garbled voice came through, "Is the job done?" Static popped and fizzed impairing my hearing. I could still make him out, "Yes, but at great cost, I'm the only one left." Coldness came over the line, "Such a pity." Anger contorted my features, "Just get me off this damned planet!" I snarled. The line went dead. In the sky edged by twilight lights danced, closer and closer. Collapsing on the ground, shaking hands cradled my head. This place would be just an awful memory of a job that had gone horrifically wrong. We had been hunted.