Hunting Grounds
Chapter 2
Mostly all they both saw was plants and trees. Some really big and extremely old trees while others were much smaller. It was even starting to restrict where they could and couldn't walk. Neither of them had a machete to cut through some of this stuff so it meant going around it.
"Is it always so hot?" Kate tried to open the collar of her shirt around her neck a little more.
"It must be the company." Rick grinned while he walked since he was playing with her.
Kate wasn't amused. "I didn't know a Navy SEAL could be such a jackass."
"At least I'm living up to my nickname." Rick was used to it and it didn't faze him in the least.
"Your nickname is Jackass?" She was taken aback. That was a terrible nickname.
"Long story. Basically when I was training for the program I had a mouth. Didn't always serve me all that well. I was always coming up with snappy remarks. Always had a snappy comeback when I was insulted.
"My training sergeant started calling me Jackass. Then suddenly as far as he was concerned, my name was Jackass. It stuck. Anyone who knows me calls me Jackass. It doesn't really mean what you might think it does any longer.
"At first all it did was get me to keep using my mouth. If I was going to be called Jackass I was going to earn the name. Now it isn't the insult you might think it is. It's my nickname. But when someone who doesn't know me calls me Jackass, they're trying to start a fight. Get under my skin. Get me to throw the first punch and end up in trouble. Not realizing that I've learned to live with it as my nickname. It doesn't get to me.
"So Detective, call me Rick, call me Rodgers, call me Jackass. Your choice." It was all the same to him.
"I'm Kate." She preferred that to being called Detective. Somehow coming from him being called Detective was an insult.
Suddenly she saw him stop and look behind them. Then she heard it too. "Stampede?" Not that they had seen much in the way of wildlife so far.
"Pick a tree and get behind it." Rick did what he had just said. In fact he even got down on one knee, raised his rifle, and aimed. "Stay behind your tree. Don't run. If you see a soft spot shoot for it." He wasn't sure what it was but whatever it was it sounded big. The fact that whatever it was didn't care about the amount of noise it was making told him it didn't care. That it was the predator around here and would do what it pleased.
Then it burst into view, stood there, and smelled the air. Kate really wanted to cry out something like, "What the hell is that!" But even she knew a predator hunter when she saw one. To her it vaguely resembled a hairless dog. It stood on all fours. It had a long hairless tail. Except it had these long sharp spines across its back and head. She couldn't begin to describe that. It looked as though it had fangs like a saber-toothed cat she had seen in pictures but different.
Then it turned toward them and charged them at a dead run. Kate needed to wait till it was in good range for her weapon.
Rick was the first one to take a shot. Just one single shot and it didn't even slow it down. And the speed of this thing! Damn it was fast. Then it roared as it jumped for Rick since he had taken the shot.
Rick used his thumb to switch modes on his weapon and as it roared and jumped at him he pulled the trigger and emptied his clip straight into its mouth. It looked to be the softest spot he could find.
Kate watched as he quickly pivoted and put his back to the tree he was using as cover. And this thing, whatever it was, landed badly and skidded across the ground where it just laid there after it went past him.
"DAMN!" She had just gotten a glimpse of what a Navy SEAL was capable of and she was impressed. There were body parts and blood everywhere so it was clearly dead. Thank God!
But a new roar had her looking; there was another one just like this one! It was standing where that one had been a moment ago. Kate watched it look her way or their way, it was hard to tell. The two of them weren't that far apart with a dead whatever it was between them and past them.
Kate watched as it came charging in.
Rick ejected his clip and with practiced ease opened a pocket. He pulled out a spare clip, slapped it into place and chambered a round, and used his thumb to put it back on single shot.
This one, so far as Rick could tell, appeared to be going for Kate since she clearly wasn't behind her tree like he presently was.
Kate lined up a shot. It was just feet from her and she fired three quick rounds. She could hear three other shots being fired since they sounded different. This one slammed into the tree she was trying to hide behind and crashed to the ground after making her tree shake and branches, leaves, and whatever else fall from it onto her head and around her.
Rick was up, walked to hers, and gave it a kick to make sure it was dead.
Kate had faced down the barrel of a gun before. This was a little different. This thing clearly wanted to rip them to pieces and maybe eat them. "What is it?" She couldn't place just what it was.
"Never seen anything like it before." Rick suddenly looked where these two had come from. "RUN! NOW!" He took off and hoped Kate listened, that she got up and ran.
Kate was used to running in her high heel boots. But that was over concrete or blacktop. This ground was neither of those. She did jump up and chase after him. She was finding out that he knew how to run and run fast. She was losing ground to him.
Then Rick burst through the trees and came to a dead stop. Kate could see him stop but kept running to join him. She stopped right next to him and looked where he was looking.
It turned out they were at the edge of a cliff which explained why the trees suddenly ended. But it was the view that had them both looking. Below them was a lush green valley but that wasn't what either of them were looking at.
"WHAT THE HELL!" Kate gaped at the view with her mouth hanging open. "What the hell is that!?" She was a little winded but not bad. She could keep running if she had to. She liked running. In running shoes, down city streets, and through parks. But not this.
"I'm not an astronomer, mind you, but that looks like a gas giant. So is the one in the distance," Rick said. It didn't make sense to either of them but that was a planet. It wasn't the moon and it was really close.
Rick looked behind them. "See if you can see a way down. Even just a little," he asked her and kept looking. "DETECTIVE!" She wasn't moving.
"Down… Right." Kate stepped carefully to the edge and looked down. It was a rocky cliff face with no easy way down to the bottom. It was either go along the edge or go back the way they had come. Except...
"Over here, I think." Kate walked close to the edge and looked. "How badly do we want to go down?"
"You want to live or do you want to die where you stand?" Rick needed for her to choose and choose correctly.
"Right." Kate holstered her weapon and got on her knees and moved down while looking for footholds and handholds. "I've got a ledge with an overhang and maybe a cave."
"Good, go there. I'll be right behind you." Rick kept watching and listening. Mostly he heard Kate on rocks as some of the rocks gave way.
"Okay." Kate had reached where she wanted to go.
That had Rick shouldering his weapon and working his way down to her till he finally reached her. It turned out not to be a real cave but at least it was a place to hide.
They both heard something. Like someone suddenly landed on the ground right where they had been. Rick used his arm to push Kate up against the wall and hold her there. Then he used that hand to signal that he wanted her to keep quiet.
They could hear whoever it was moving above them. Then what looked like a big rock went flying past them down to the valley far below. Once again Rick signaled for Kate to not make a sound.
That left both of them standing there looking out since looking up meant maybe allowing whoever it was to see them. They still had a perfect view. The valley was below them. There was a green covered mountain range beyond and in the sky was a very close gas giant.
They stayed that way and Rick kept looking at his watch, getting Kate to do the same.
It wasn't until an hour had passed that Rick finally said something. "I think he's gone."
"What the hell is going on?" Kate didn't understand any of this. This was just plain nuts.
Rick chose to start with the dog-like animals. "What do you know about hunting foxes? Think Bugs Bunny cartoons if that helps."
Once again Rick had thrown her a curve she wasn't ready for. It made Kate change her thinking. "The fox runs, the dogs chase him and..." She thought she got it now. "Those two were the dogs?"
"And we're the fox. You send out the dogs to flush out the fox and then the dogs' owners show up and kill the fox." Rick's opinion fit what he knew.
"I think I hate this place even more now," Kate told him. "And that?" She pointed at the gas giant.
"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto." Granted he was using historical remarks from a movie but it fit.
That had Kate looking at him. She was thinking he was living up to his nickname of Jackass.
"That, my dear Kate, is a gas giant as is the one beyond that one. It does help explain why there's never a sun in the sky. We get most of our light from that guy." Rick indicated the gas giant.
"Earth has a moon. Not a gas giant," Kate said; there was a flaw in his thinking.
"Tell me something I don't know," he retorted. "But we're looking right at it. The sun hits it and bounces the light off of it or adds its own light. We spin and spin around the gas giant."
"Don't say it. Don't even think it." Kate didn't want to hear it.
"This isn't Earth." What else was Rick going to say?
Damn it! She'd asked him not to say it. "You're suggesting we're not on Earth any longer. That we're on some other planet. I happen to remember learning in school that none of the moons around our gas giants can sustain life." She knew there was a flaw in his thinking.
"No, they can't," Rick agreed and kept staring at the view.
"I really hate this place." Kate leaned backwards against the wall. "Aliens don't exist, you know. We can barely get off our own planet let alone reach another one."
"Well unless you have a better idea. And can explain why we're both standing here looking at a gas giant, I'm all ears. Can explain what those two animals were or whoever sent them and was standing above us looking to hunt us down and kill us. I might actually kiss you," Rick told her since if she could he would be more than willing to kiss her. It didn't hurt that she was easy on the eyes.
That had Kate looking at him instead of the gas giant. Suddenly he had taken this to a whole new level. He was talking about kissing.
"Do you have an answer?" Kate asked him.
Rick was still stuck looking at the view. "I was on an air force base. People just don't walk onto the base and take people. I didn't even see him or know he was there. I was sitting on a toilet one second after finishing up and now I'm here. Things like that don't just happen.
"But we're on a different planet, probably a moon orbiting a gas giant somewhere. I don't recognize some of these trees. I've been places and some of these trees have had me questioning them." Rick kept looking out at everything.
Kate knew where she'd been and couldn't explain how she came to be here. "Drugged and brought wherever here is." She was thinking that was possible. "So why us and why here?"
"Captured and brought to a different solar system. On a habitable moon around a gas giant. Remember those men we found? The ones with their heads cut off?" He watched her nod.
"Now we're foxes being flushed out by the dogs. The owner followed his dogs to hunt us down and I don't like where I'm going with this." Rick really hated what he was thinking.
"SHIT!" Kate wasn't stupid even if it was really hard to believe. "Those guys lost and I didn't see any other dead bodies."
"No," Rick agreed. "I'm a Navy SEAL and it's my job to hunt people down. Rescue someone. Capture someone. Kill someone if that's the job. Steal something. Whatever my orders tell me to do.
"I'm thinking this place is a Hunting Ground. Whoever is in charge brought us here so they could hunt us. Maybe test themselves against us. They have the skill to take us, keep us and move us here, and dump us here. Followed by hunting us down and killing us." He thought he had it worked out.
"We're foxes." Kate was following him and hated all of it. "So how do we get out of here and go home?" She really wanted to leave.
"Depends. If we kill them does someone take us home? Or are the hunters simply replaced with new hunters and we stay the hunted till they kill us?"
"There has to be a way. I'm not dying here," Kate insisted.
"Good! Keep thinking like that and maybe I'll make a Navy SEAL out of you yet. We got here so there has to be a way to get out of here. We just need to find it.
"But there is one last thing that bothers me." Rick thought of something else that he didn't like.
Kate groaned. "I know I'm going to hate myself for asking but what now?"
"Those six that were dead were brought here first. So how many others are here? It can't be just us. So who else is here and where are they?"
Kate stared at him. "How big do you think this place is?"
"I'm not sure it matters. Say it's the same size as the moon. It would take weeks, months to walk it and we're looking at a valley and another mountain ridge right over there." Rick pointed at it.
"We need to be down there." Rick gestured to the valley in front of them. "We need water and food. All life needs water so we can hunt for food if needed. Maybe there's a lake up here that leads to a waterfall that flows into a river down there. But we have a problem we need to solve first." Rick could think of a problem.
"All this green means it rains a lot here. I don't have a poncho and neither did those six and I doubt you have one either," he said. "So if we're not careful we're going to get soaked to the bone and get sick."
All Kate saw was trouble, on top of trouble, on top of still more trouble. "So what do we do first?" She looked at him for leadership. He was a Navy SEAL after all.
"We rest." Rick looked at their space. It wasn't large and there wasn't enough room to lie down anywhere. "Have a seat, we're staying here for now. We can watch from here and maybe stay dry when it rains."
He waited for her to sit down and get comfortable and he followed. He would like to take his vest off but if he did and it fell over the side he'd be so screwed so he needed to keep it on.
Since he had the time he ejected his clip and pulled out one of the ones meant for an AR-16. He emptied the clip to fill his and thought about throwing it over the side. Instead he put it down behind him.
He was satisfied as he watched Kate do the same with her 9mm. Next she took one of her two canteens and drank some of the water which reminded Rick to do the same.
"Tell me about Homicide Detective Kate Beckett. It looks like we're going to be together for a while so tell me who you are. What makes Kate Beckett tick," Rick asked her but kept looking at the view.
Kate looked him over. He always wore that helmet so she didn't see too much of him. That vest he wore made him look big. Not fat necessarily, but big. Besides he had to be fit to be a Navy SEAL. He was definitely easy on the eyes.
She told him the basics. "Let's see…. Born and raised in New York City. No brothers or sisters. I told you about Lanie who's my best friend. I'm lead homicide detective for the 12th Precinct. I'm not married and I presently don't have a significant other."
"So why homicide detective? Forgive me but if I knew of a homicide detective as pretty as you I might've been tempted to kill someone or not join the Navy and join the police department instead."
Kate grinned at that. "Thanks." She took it as a compliment. "I had a life changing event so I left Stanford, stopped studying pre-law, and joined the Police Academy instead. Paid my dues in a patrol car. Vice came next till I finally became a homicide detective and began working my way up the ranks to where I am today."
"We'll get out of here, Kate. I didn't live this long only to end up dead on some moon in a different system. We do need to figure out who took us, though. But we do have a disadvantage. If they have enough technology to bring us here what else do they have?
"They beat a guy walking around with a mini-gun." Rick didn't understand how that guy lost. He had enough firepower to cut a car in half lengthwise.