[Namor-4, Gliese 9037] – Year 2749
“What a bad fucking day to get mangled by a sabertooth tiger,” Gravel said as the creature tossed him into the air.
The mission had been simple: retrieve a data drive from an old research facility deep in the Namorian wildlands. Get in, grab the package, get out. Sure, the place was crawling with mutated creatures, thanks to some very shady, completely unethical experiments within the very same facility; but sabertooth tigers? That hadn’t been in the briefing.
Gravel barely had a moment to regret his life choices before gravity reasserted itself, yanking him back down—straight toward the tiger’s hungry jaws. He knew he wouldn’t be able to form a protective layer of inky Morkanium in time. He scrambled backward, his hand instinctively reaching for the sidearm at his belt, but the beast was faster. It lunged, its jaws snapping shut around his leg. Despite his unintentional aerial acrobatics, his wavy, well-gelled hair maintained its shape. At least I’ll look good when I die.
The beast leaped forward to deliver Gravel his final death, but then was promptly turned into a donut by the beam of a laser gun.
“Injured anywhere?” Felicia, who now went by the creative nickname Hunter, reloaded her still-sizzling gun, freckles stark against her pursed lips.
Twelve years had passed since the first time they met, not too long considering an average human could live to the age of 300. Having been partners-in-crime for twelve years—six years as the (in Gravel’s words) infamous Galaxy Grazers duo—their bickering had reached telepathic levels. If only the same could be said for their coordination. Or their ability to manage their finances.
It was one of the reasons they brought Priest into their setup six years back. They were fortunate that such a capable man was somehow in an even worse state than they were when the three met.
“You’re going to have to sell your ship for scraps in a year if you keep this up,” Priest had informed them within the first month of joining. His voice had been as detached as ever, but even he couldn’t hide the faint incredulity at their financial situation.
The numbers weren’t great. They weren’t even bad. They were catastrophic.
Which was why they had started taking on riskier and riskier jobs. This was only their third ground mission, and the last two were simple escort tasks.
“Fuck, man, this thing probably ruined my favorite jacket.” Gravel groaned, sprawled out on the dirt, staring up at the smoke curling from the tiger’s smoldering remains and the bite-mark on his synth-leather clothing. “But I’ll live.”
He sucked in a breath, sharp and shaky. His body buzzed with pain that hadn’t fully registered yet. He tried moving his fingers. Nothing. His gut twisted. Not good.
“Sit down.” Hunter’s voice cut through the ringing in his ears.
His head rolled to the side, catching her wide-eyed stare. Panic wasn’t a look that suited him. “Hey,” Gravel rasped. “Y’know, I think my spine’s on strike.” His voice was coarser than normal.
The woman exhaled, but what came out wasn’t relief. She scanned the surroundings as she yanked a medkit from the belt where her tool pouch usually was. She pulled out a syringe and drove the needle onto his back. If the damage was only tissue-deep, the stimulant should kick in in seconds. Then she spoke into her comms, to their third teammate, “Gravel’s banged up, but conscious. Tiger’s dead. No other hostiles. Yet.”
Still no response from Priest. She muttered, “I’ve told Gravel so many times why on-ground coordination sims are important,” then switched her comms to a direct line. “Priest, talk to me.”
Gravel’s eyes slip shut. He could feel the warmth of his own blood seeping into his jacket. Of course, it had to be the expensive synth-grade bioluminescent leather jacket. He forced a smirk. “Tell him if he could fix my fucking spine while he’s at it, that’d be great.”
“He said he’ll be here in—” Another sabertooth tiger, this one twice as ugly and three times as pissed, lunged from the underbrush, fangs bared at Hunter. Gravel’s smirk was gone.
She flicked her wrist and fired. The laser shot lanced through the air, but the beast twisted mid-leap, dodging it.
“Shit,” she rolled to the side. The tiger’s claws tore through where she’d been standing.
It wasn’t the first time her unnatural reflexes had saved her life. Whatever they had done to her on her home planet Haret, it stuck—turbo, instinctual, and always just enough to keep her alive.
Gravel, still half-paralyzed, groaned. “Diamond armor. Hit the flank.”
She sidestepped another swipe, firing again. This time, the shot sliced through the tiger’s unarmored flank, leaving a gaping, seared hole. The creature’s muscles rippled as it staggered. But its eyes blazed. It had a hole drilled to the side, but still wasn’t backing down.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“The shit is this thing on?” Hunter muttered. “It should’ve dropped.”
Gravel struggled to push himself up on his elbows, which sent a lightning bolt of agony down his spine. “Priest, if you don’t get your holy ass over here . . .”
A metallic voice crackled in his earpiece. “Patience, my child.”
Gravel let his head drop back onto the dirt. “I swear . . .” He couldn’t think of anything clever to say other than to grunt the pain away.
The tiger roared. Its crystalline hide shimmered, and Gravel could see distorted glimpses of two humans in its multi-faceted plates. It crouched, eyes locked on the redhead.
Hunter flicked a glance at the space behind her. Their help was on the way.
A streak of blinding blue light emerged, followed by a rumble. A column of energy slammed into the ground ten feet from them, scattering dust, debris, and the remnants of the first tiger. The force sent the second beast skidding back, disoriented.
From the fading glow, a figure emerged.
Draped in a long, weathered coat, his mechanical arms gleaming under the twin moons, and a near-transparent, hovering visor-shaped holo-screen covering his face, Priest stepped forward. His cybernetic limbs whirred as he stretched his fingers, scanning the scene with his glowing eyes. His skin was chalky grey and his irises were silver, telling signs he wasn’t fully human, if one couldn’t tell from the mechanical limbs and a metallic plate covering the left side of his chest. A fresh bruise darkened his jaw, and scratch marks ran along the plating of his left arm.
He was lanky, unnervingly so, with a presence that could only be described as clean and clinical, almost intimidating in its precision. His new and deliberate side-parted hairstyle gave him an entirely different air. Gone was the slightly frizzy look that had once softened his features; now, he looked like a man meticulously put together, as if every strand of hair and every inch of his cyborg body had been calibrated for effect.
Gravel rolled his eyes. “Oh, good. You made an entrance. Fantastic. Now fix my damn back—argh!”
“He’s just screamed, Priest. This isn’t good,” Hunter stepped in front of Gravel, shielding him from a potential jump from mutated beasts.
“Excuse my lateness,” Priest replied. “I was held back.”
The tiger shook off its disorientation with a growl, its diamond-plated hide gleaming with residual energy from Priest’s blast. It wasn’t dead. It was angry.
Arcs of blue light blazed between Priest’s fingers as he raised a hand. The tiger scrunched its nose, let out a deafening snarl, and lunged—right as Priest snapped his fingers.
The air rippled.
The tiger froze mid-leap, its eyes widened as a layer of ice formed between the gaps of its plating and seized its limbs.
But then it twitched. A single claw jerked, then another. The ice cracked as fractures raced across its armored hide.
Priest stretched his hand forward as fast as he could.
A claw shot forward, muscles seizing as its cracked joints moved.
Then the creature slammed into a tree with bone-rattling force. Its body shattered.
Only then did Priest heave a sigh.
Gravel whistled. “Alright, fine. That. Was cool.”
Hunter snickered before stopping, seeing Gravel didn’t laugh along. She said, “You realize he just froze a tiger, right?”
Gravel blinked. “Oh, shit, I did a pun.”
The effect itself was supposed to be gravity manipulation, and the freezing was unintentional; a side effect, as Priest often said. Gravel told him it was more a feature than a bug.
Priest stayed silent as he scanned the area with his visor. He nodded to Hunter, signaling that he didn’t detect any other hostile, but she held her weapon close to her instead. If Priest was to heal Gravel, she needed to be on guard.
Priest dropped to one knee behind Gravel. His cybernetic fingers sparked with bioelectric energy, sending controlled pulses into Gravel’s spinal column.
“Wow. Can you switch to the normal fingers, Priest?” Gravel whispered. “That kinda creeps me out.”
His robotic arms looked, well, robotic, and not an uncommon sight, but what was uncommon was the unsettling sharpness of the contours of his fingers. Priest could accidentally turn Gravel’s back into a public display of organs and spines while trying to give it a scratch. Fortunately, the pointed fingers were retractable, easily swapped out for normal, human-looking ones.
Of course, Priest gave him no such luxury.
At first, the pain sharpened, and a fresh wave of fire coursed straight down his nerves. Gravel gritted his teeth, his fingers twitching in the dirt.
“Still feeling that?” Priest asked as he adjusted the current.
“Like you’re welding my bones back together,” Gravel muttered, voice tight.
Priest pressed down on Gravel’s shoulder when the latter instinctively tried to shift his weight. “It is just nerve trauma. Your spine wasn’t broken. Just a deep tissue shock. You will heal fully.”
Hunter’s posture relaxed. “Damn it, Priest, lead with that next time.”
Priest didn’t reply. The sharp burn dulled into an almost pleasant numbness. Sensation slowly crawled its way back to Gravel’s legs, and he let out a slow sigh.
“Fixed,” Priest muttered. “Now stop whining, child.”
Gravel flexed his fingers, then pushed himself onto his elbows. “Thanks. Old man saves the day again.”
Priest gave a slight nod—his version of you’re welcome. “That is all I can do for now. Do not get hit again.” He gave Gravel support as the latter pulled himself up. “The research facility is half a kilometer west. We should move.”
Hunter finally holstered her gun. “About time. Lead the way, oh holy one.”
With a last glance at the bodies behind them, the trio moved deeper into the jungle.
If you had to pick a weapon to fight a sabertooth tiger (or just survive a mission with these crazies), what would it be?
