Danita Henries awoke at the helm of her Star Sprinter, grimacing as pain roared through her head like a tornado. She leaned back in her chair, massaging the ache out of her skull until the worst of the storm subsided. Reaching up to an overhead compartment, she pulled out a first aid container, opened it, took out a thin blue tube, and popped a pain tab. She placed the tab on the tip of her tongue and felt it dissolve in her mouth. The pain vanished in seconds, enabling Danita to focus on her current predicament.
The last thing she remembered was eluding a raider ambush by entering a nebula. There was a reason why those raiders didn’t follow her into the cloud. Raider anti-ship missiles degraded her shield, increasing the Sprinter’s vulnerability to the nebula’s harsh radiation. When her instruments went haywire and her screens turned fuzzy, thoughts of frying pans and fire flashed through her mind.
She undid her restraint harness and stood, stretching out kinks, making sure the rest of her was whole and fully functional. Then she checked her panel, tapping buttons to get her instruments active. Her electronics were quiet as a graveyard.
She hit the panel in frustration, but in so doing the forward monitor sparked to life.
A surface of silvery grass popped on the screen, stretching to a treeline in the near distance. Beyond the treeline loomed a cluster of ivory colored buildings.
Danita’s felt relieved that she at least crashlanded on a world appearing to harbor higher life, judging by the structures. Apprehension poured a damper on that relief, though. What if the higher life was hostile?
She mulled over the possibility as she removed a console access panel and fiddled with a few relays. Additional screens came on.
Danita checked the diagnostic readout. Most of the Sprinter’s drive capacitors were damaged in the landing…such as it was. Five thrusters were down along with a series of burnt out optics.
No worries. Well…mostly. She was a good enough mechanic where she could effect necessary repairs. But she needed parts. They didn’t have to be perfect, just compatible.
Danita eyed the buildings on the screen, rubbing a hand through the woolen thickness of her jet-black hair. It was time to find out how friendly and generous the locals were.
Ten minutes later, Danita departed the Sprinter, wearing a nanotube-lined flak vest and a mirror tinted sun visor. She carried a Nova-Cell carbine, with a Durex 12 assault pistol holstered on her right hip. The weapons belt around her waist accommodated a combat blade, solid munitions clips, a brace of grenades, and a first aid pouch.
Preparation is the first rule of self preservation. She always harkened back to those words prior to a new venture. Words of wisdom from a revered combat trainer.
Danita’s mood brightened in recollection as she tread cautiously through stiff, chafing knee high grass.
The sky twirled with every color in the spectrum. The same blaze of colors as the nebula, except the rays of a bright sun ameliorated its visual intensity.
According to the Sprinter’s computer, this world didn’t have much of an ozone layer.
Before stepping outside, Danita slathered a special sunblock on exposed parts of her ebon skin to protect against the environment’s heightened radiation. Her well-toned arms gleamed with the gel based application.
As Danita neared the stand of towering red-leaf trees she slowed.
There were bodies tied to the trunks of five trees. She paused, easing her carbine to firing position before resuming her approach. She spotted additional bodies, counting up to thirty. The corpses had been gutted and from their obvious dessication, drained of their life fluids.
A low keen graced Danita’s ears.
She shifted to the sound’s source and saw that one of the victims was alive.
The local stood about her height, bearing a slender build topped by a large, oval head embedded with tiny facial features. Its head lolled unsteadily, its distended eyes half lidded.
Thin chains coiled around the victim, pressing it securely to the tree.
Danita approached the local, took out her blade and hacked.
Solid metal links gave way to her blade’s carbon edge. The chains dropped.
Danita clutched the local, easing it gently to the ground.
The local’s eyes fell on her and widened, revealing dark, green pupil less orbs.
“Don’t worry,” Danita soothed. “You’re alright now.”
The local’s gaze traveled past her.
A sound of engines reached her ears. Danita twisted about to see inbound creatures riding grayish, sloped, open top hover vehicles resembling ancient Earth snow sleds.
Up to a dozen sleds zeroed in on her.
The local tried to clamber away as Danita rose, her carbine leveled upon the intruders.
She deliberated on whether she should hold fire until the arrivals’ intentions were determined.
The foremost sled decelerated in front of her.
The pilots’ purplish body was a formless, undulating blob, layered with a network of overlapping, pulsating veins. Six spindly arms, ending in clawed three fingered hands, sprouted from its body, giving the thing an insect-like appearance. A pair of glistening nubs that may have been eyes poked from the top of its body.
Bending its forelegs, the creature leapt from its sled toward Danita.
While airborne, black, suction-covered, tentacles slithered from an orifice in its torso, grasping Danita’s left arm.
At that point, the creatures’ intentions were clear enough.
Danita wasted no time dousing her opponent’s center mass in an incandescent riptide of carbine fire.
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