Hunting Grounds

Chapter 11

Watching a section of grass hour after hour and not seeing anything was extremely boring. Rick at least was becoming concerned, wondering just how often a ship landed here. How often did they bring new people to be hunted? How often did they bring supplies? Even to the point of questioning if they were even ever going to land here again. Maybe they had moved sites and didn't need to land here any more.

The sun was starting to set if that was the correct way of thinking about it. It was starting to get dark. It forced Rick to make a decision which he kicked himself for not thinking of doing long before now.

He used his ear bud to talk to Kate. "You awake?"

"Trying to stay that way." She saw the same area of ground that he did and she didn't see anything.

"We're going to switch to two hour shifts. Try and get some catnaps since it's starting to get dark. Set your watch and call me in two hours. We'll keep this up till someone shows up or we're forced to come up with a new plan."

"Copy that." Kate looked at her dad's watch and checked the time so she could call out to him in two hours.

[_] /\ [_]

All night long each of them took turns. They slowly ate their food, drank some water, and mostly just laid there looking out their little slot onto a grassy field that held nothing. Nothing but grass and trees beyond. They also got rained on a little but thanks to the ponchos over them they stayed mostly dry. A little wet in spots but not drenched to the bone.

They were still doing just that come sunrise. Well maybe more gas giant rise since that was where they got most of their light from.

They were at it hours later. The food was gone and the rest of it was at Kate's feet where she couldn't reach. Not without breaking cover and maybe damaging her cover over her.

They did both have water and another canteen they could reach if they were slow and careful about getting it. Now drinking from it while lying on your stomach was something everyone should try. And try doing it while you were filthy.

Just as planned they had gotten into their holes after rubbing dirt, leaves, and even plants over all of their clothes. Even their hair got the treatment so after a while that was adding to their combined discomfort. It was only the need to get off this stupid planet that got them to do this. Besides Kate didn't have a better idea. They needed to hit them by surprise. They had obviously killed everyone else.

[_] /\ [_]

Kate checked her watch and saw she had just under an hour before calling Rick and trying to get him to wake up if he even was asleep. It also looked like it was trying to start to get dark soon.

She tried to do the math in her head. The daylight days around here were about 22 hours long while the nights were about half that. Now while it was bright, it wasn't really sunlight bright since they didn't get direct sunlight. Maybe if it was a different season that might change.

So 22 hours plus or minus, times 2, plus another 11 hours of darkness meant she had been lying in this hole, covered in dirt, leaves and even a live plant sitting on her ass for… Kate moaned softly. "Three fucking days! And I need to pee." This was the pits.

"Pee in your pants," Rick said. That had Kate groaning softly. He had heard her.

"I don't want to pee my pants. I want to go home. You pee in your own damn pants." She was getting cranky and she suddenly realized it. "Sorry." Kate squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't want to start a fight because she was cranky. Certainly not here and not like this.

So she kept her mouth shut and looked out her slot onto the grass field. That was when she saw something. It was too high up to see but something was happening.

"Rick!" Did he see what she thought she saw?

"Here we go. Get your weapon ready and stay quiet. Do what we planned, Kate." Rick got his weapon ready and adjusted the location of one of his spare clips.

They both watched as what was clearly a spaceship came straight down to land. It looked like a large fat delta wing with thruster pods on either side. It was mostly smooth like spaceships on Star Trek, however, this ship was a mix of grays and a little black.

It did have a few lights showing along the side, front, and on each pod. As it landed it kicked up a lot of dirt and dust till it finally landed and settled down. It was sitting on its nose and those two thruster pods. As spaceships went it looked like it was good-sized. Big enough but still small.

Rick was looking for weapons and couldn't seem to find any. He did see four round protrusions on the side far forward. Since it was a spaceship he was betting on escape pods like in the movies. If these guys even believed in escape pods.

Then a hole opened up and light poured out from inside. It had to be maybe 8 feet off the ground though from here it was hard to judge scale. This was followed by seeing a ramp shoot out from under that open space, extend far out, and down to the ground.

The first things off the spaceship were two dogs that came charging out and looked to be sniffing the air. "Dogs, just what we needed," Rick thought to himself since talking was out.

That was followed by two men or something. Based on human size, these humanoid males were big. Easily eight feet tall and they had to weigh in around 260 pounds. This had Rick picking up his binoculars to get a closer look.

They both had helmets on their heads. No real armor that he could see. Dreadlocks for hair on either side so maybe more a face plate than helmet. Shoulder pads for armor. Each arm just past the wrist had something and one of those had a tube leading from it to his back it looked like.

The male had something on each hip and his feet were encased in heavy boots. Back up to the head Rick thought he saw…teeth in a necklace around his neck? Trophies, he was guessing, for decoration showing that the male had at least killed something.

Each of them walked down the ramp to join the dogs. That was when they heard something else. It sounded like something falling and hitting the ground maybe? That was quickly followed by the sound of something hitting the ground literally right between them.

Neither of them could see since their slot didn't allow that. Not until whatever it was walking into view. It had its back to them and was walking easily, slowly, and with heavy footsteps.

Now Rick got a look at its back side. Still no armor and the back of his head was full of dreadlocks for hair. He could also see that the cord went from his arm and up to his shoulder that traveled down his back just a little and was a little large. He clearly had a device of sometype on each arm.

Three of them and two dogs. This was going to be a challenge. Rick was thinking he could kill the target that had its back to him now. Just empty his clip into his back and kill the male. But was that what he wanted to do?

That was when Rick saw both dogs rush this male and the other two walked just as slowly toward him. The second the dogs reached him he stretched down to pet each of them and then both of the dogs rushed back to the other two.

Kate was supposed to take the target on the right and he was to take the target on the left. But of course no encounter with the enemy went as planned. Add those two dogs to the equation and things just got more complicated.

The male with his back to them was an easy target. Kill one now and deal with the others as planned. Rick made sure his weapon's safety was off and on full auto, lined up the target with his back to them, and squeezed the trigger.

Interestingly the weapon had very little kick to it so putting all 60 rounds into this target's back was easy. The integral sound suppressor killed most of the sound and Rick watched as this male danced.

Kate saw the target with his back to them and wondered if Rick was going to kill him now when suddenly she heard a long series of puff sounds and watched this male dance followed by seeing glow-in-the-dark green blood fill his back side to the point the male was nearly cut into two pieces.

That told Kate the fight was on. So she lined up the target on the right, made sure the safety was off and on full auto, and pulled the trigger.

There was nothing either of them could do about the muzzle flash so their location was now a bit compromised. However, Kate watched as her target started dancing as bright green blood showed up. Was she hitting the male with all 60 rounds? It didn't really matter; she was hitting the target and hitting it good. She did like the fact that it had so little kick to it so keeping on target was easier.

Rick ejected his empty clip, grabbed the one that was right there, slapped it in, and looked up to see what was happening.

He was just in time to see Kate's target dancing and saw more of that glow-in-the-dark green blood showing up. He also saw both dogs take off running toward them. Even more ominous, he saw the last target had a red light on one side of his head which he took to be a laser. That told him he did indeed have a weapon on him somewhere.

He also saw and even heard this pop sound. A bright flash erupted at his left shoulder and he watched a white ball of energy come flying their way. He saw it go over their heads just barely and hit something.

It wasn't really a choice between dogs and this target. This male was far more dangerous since it had a weapon though the dogs were going to be on them in seconds.

His choice made, Rick lined up the last target and pulled the trigger, making sure he was still just standing there taking the hits. Rick also saw the laser and another pop as a second glowing ball launched from the target's shoulder. This one came up just short of them and threw dirt, rocks, and grass everywhere and obscured their vision for a moment. But Rick never took his finger off the trigger or moved his weapon.

Kate saw her target fall and saw both dogs running flat out their direction when suddenly another of those glowing balls came flying their way and struck the ground just a bit out in front of Rick mostly. The ground erupted and spread dirt, dust, grass and everything else everywhere. For a moment she didn't see anything else.

When the dust finally settled enough she saw one of the dogs and it was already practically on her. Some how it had ignored the ground blowing up in front of it. Problem was her clip was empty so she ejected it, grabbed another one, and slammed it into place.

The time it took to do that gave the dog time to find her. It had a mouthful of the cover over her and was pulling the cover off of her as it easily bit the plastic and wood to pieces. That left Kate lying there totally exposed.

Rick had an empty weapon. Just as the dust began to settle so he could see something he saw one of the dogs biting his cover and ripping it to pieces as the dog pulled it off him exposing all of his body.

Rick didn't have time to reload his weapon so he reached for his sidearm, took the safety off, and while still lying on his stomach fired round after round. Unlike his new main weapon, this one had brass casings flying as he tried to make sure every round went into this thing's mouth.

Kate was up on her knees and lined up her weapon and pulled the trigger with the intent of ripping this dog to pieces. She quickly found that just like those humanoid males this dog had green blood that had a strange glow to it. This was also when she heard weapons fire that was a lot louder.

Kate's dog was down so she turned and saw Rick still on his stomach. He had his sidearm in hand and was shooting at the other dog. So she lined it up and squeezed the trigger. It dropped almost immediately.

That had Kate ejecting her clip and reaching for the last one she had out and slapped it in and looked the area over. If there was anyone still up he or it was going to get shot.

What she saw was three males down and one dog and then to one side saw the other dog was down.

Rick ejected his clip and reached for a new one and slapped it into place. He put a round in the chamber, looked around, and saw Kate totally exposed like he was. She was on her knees looking the field over. That had him putting his sidearm in his holster; he picked up his main weapon and ejected the clip. He got up on his knees, reached for his last clip and slapped it into place and did what Kate was doing: looking around for something to shoot at.

Three humanoid males down and two dogs down. "Can we not do that again?" Kate asked him.

"I second the motion," Rick agreed. Now he had a choice, wait to see if the ship held more than three males and two dogs or go to the ship now?

Then he turned to look behind him and saw a tree was missing. It had been blown to pieces at the base and the rest of the tree had thankfully not fallen on them.

"Get your backpack and vest and let's check out this ship. I'm ready to put Rosie to use and get the fuck out of here," Rick said.

Moments later with vests back on and backpacks on their backs, each had a weapon at the ready and Rick was carrying the third backpack as they left the dead dogs behind and went past the dead male. Rick stopped to put four rounds in the male's head just to make sure but he didn't stop to search any of them. What could possibly be inside the ship was much more important.

[_] /\ [_]

Thankfully it looked to be just those three and their two dogs so the ship was clean.

"Here, take Rosie, take her out and turn her on and point her at everything so she can start the translation. I have work to do outside." Rick handed over his backpack that held Rosie. He took the backpack with weapons and other things with him back outside.

Kate opened the backpack, took out Rosie, and turned her on. "Are you okay, Rosie?" They desperately needed her for this to work or they were as good as dead.

"I am operational."

"Good, let's look around, shall we? We need you to translate for us if you can." Kate needed to use both hands to hold all three modules and still point Rosie at the stations all the way around the room so she could see and record what she saw.

Rick meanwhile was looking over one of the dead males. He found the male was mostly covered in what seemed to be fish netting, at least that he could tell. Even his upper arms had this stuff. Playing with it Rick realized it didn't feel like any fish netting he was familiar with. Worse, it looked to be connected to one of the items on his left arm.

His right arm held what looked like a two bladed knife that was about a foot long but it wasn't extended. Then there was what looked like a weapon attached to a shoulder harness on his left shoulder.

Fearing that he would make it misfire and get himself killed Rick wisely left it alone. He took out one of his mines, activated it and placed it under the dead body, and backed away slowly and carefully.

The next mine went next to another dead body while the third got partially buried just at the bottom of the ramp. If they didn't step close to a dead body to check him out, maybe they would roll him over. Then there was the one at the bottom of the ramp for if or when anyone tried to come up it.

Now the male that didn't have a mine got another complete search. His helmet turned out to be more face mask and it looked to have three different lines routed to it . Each of these three lines were routed to the thing on the male's left shoulder that in turn was connected to the object on the male's left arm.

"Combat mask, I'm betting. If these males are as advanced as I'm thinking I'm betting the mask acts as night vision if not keeping gasses out. So what's with the mesh?" The mesh was almost literally everywhere right down to his boots.

He had two discs at his hip that came off his belt easily so Rick kept both of those and put them in his backpack.

His hands looked to be wearing open finger gloves and his fingers looked more like claws to him. Long and razor sharp looking.

His arm was thicker than his own arm and he was taller and bigger. His skin was maybe sort of beige in color but it was this green glow in the dark blood that really had his attention. He didn't seem to really be bleeding out like Rick was expecting and yet the blood was everywhere.

Rick pulled out his combat knife so he could slice him open a little for a look. But he soon discovered that cutting through this mesh was nearly impossible. "The mesh is his armor?" Rick stopped to think about that. "Maybe it's powered somehow using this thing." Rick looked at the object on his left arm.

Fearing he had been out here too long already he left this male, bypassed his mine, and jumped up onto the ramp. Then he went inside where he was surprised to see Kate with her weapon pointed at him.

"DON'T DO THAT! You scared the hell out of me." Kate was ready to shoot him.

"Sorry." Rick turned his back to her and looked to see how they could close this door. They couldn't travel through space with an open door. Pressing another panel with marks on it, he was able to watch the ramp retract as the door closed. That solved that problem.

Rick joined Kate. "How's Rosie?"

"I've shown her every station I can find save for opening doors and going through them. She's busy. How much time do you think we've got?" Kate asked.

"Good question. Let's just hope Rosie's smarter than the average bear." That had Kate grinning since while he was handsome, a hunk, and good in bed, he was also a bit funny in addition to being an occasional Jackass. She liked him.

"We need to search these doors and what's with these things?" He noted that there were four on either side of the room and they looked like pimples that had been popped. Each was big enough to hold a man. Looking in the first one revealed that it held literally nothing inside it. It was perfectly smooth. Plus the interior of this ship looked a lot like the exterior. Sort of a gun metal gray everywhere. Though in this case all the lettering was in red. If it was lettering.