Breeding Ground Part 9

The beast's head rose up once more, its hideous jaws gaping. Now blind in one eye, the water serpent zigzagged its head around in a series of jarring motions as if trying to locate something...or someone.

Five seconds to detonation.

Zeroing in on its prey with its remaining eye, the creature was interested in making a meal of the one who had injured it-John. John had managed to drag his injured body up to the sh.o.r.eline since he'd been thrown so near to land, but he was still too close to the water's edge. The horrific realization that the beast could think at a level advanced enough to understand vengeance became crystal clear to Alex at the precise moment it made a hissing sound and began dropping its head down toward the felled scientist.

"Nooo!" Alex raised her Laser-5 and targeted the second eye. The creature bellowed at contact, its second retina sizzled. It recoiled again, falling backwards into the waters at the precise moment the electrical bomb detonated.

The resulting boom pummeled the water from below, sending the raft and its remaining crew hurling in random directions. Alex went numb as she hit the frigid black water, gasping when she surfaced.

She wasn't above water for more than five seconds when a chunk of serpent blubber rained down on top of her, forcing her below the surface and trapping her beneath it. She tried not to panic, but didn't succeed. Her eyes bulged from beneath the frigid water as her body madly flailed about, looking for escape but finding none. She clawed at the blubber, flopping around like a fish on a boat.

Somebody help me! Somebody-

A knife shot down from the middle of the blubber, piercing and slicing it. A hand wrapped around her hair and began pulling her up through the resulting hole. The pain to her skull was searing, but welcomed.

Alex gasped for air the second she breached the surface. Wheezing, she clutched onto Peac.o.c.k for dear life as he bodily pulled her on top of the piece of carca.s.s that had d.a.m.n near killed her. "You saved," she panted out, "my life."

"And you saved all of ours," Peac.o.c.k muttered. "Let's get the h.e.l.l off this thing."

Two minutes later, Alex and Peac.o.c.k joined Vlad and John on the iron-hard metallic sh.o.r.e. Alex motioned to John who was having his arm tended to by Vlad. "Are you okay?" she rasped out, still struggling to regain her breath.

John nodded. "My left arm suffered a mild sprain, commander, but otherwise I'm in tip-top shape." He winked. "Thanks for saving my a.s.s out there."

She would have responded to that, but the sound of clanging weapons took her by surprise. Alex glanced up and, still panting, swore under her breath.

Her crew had been surrounded. This time by what appeared to be humans, or human-like beings. She hoped the former.

The primitively dressed group of ten, Alex noted, looked prepared to kill her and the crew where they stood if they warranted it as necessary. She considered going for her Laser-5 but discarded the idea. She had no idea how quick the reflexes of these fighters would prove to be and conceded that this might not be the opportune time to find out. She could always save that surprise for later. Her crew was too weak from the last skirmish to effectively fight back.

Hoping some things had managed to survive one hundred million years of evolution, Alex raised her arms in what she hoped to be the age-old sign of surrender.

Chapter Five.

The ten humans surrounding them were dressed in nothing but loincloths and boots, both of which looked to be made out of some odd type of lizard skin. They were all a bit taller than what had been considered normal in the crew's day, the males roughly six and a half feet in height and heavily muscled, the sole female roughly six feet and although not as big, just as st.u.r.dy-looking.

Alex clutched the second Laser-5 in her grasp without removing it from her belt, the first one having been lost in the waters. She didn't want to use the weapon unless necessary, and her gut instinct told her it wouldn't be necessary if she cooperated. Sometimes instinct was all a person had to go on. She offered no protest when the female walked up to her and began bodily inspecting her.

The female was dark-haired, tall, and muscular, bringing to mind a fabled Amazonian warrior. She wore a loincloth and boots like her male counterparts, but her loincloth looked to be made of a finer, less coa.r.s.e material than the males'. It was tied off on one hip in a knot and skirted to the side, the cloth concealing her b.u.t.tocks instead of her mons-whether purposefully symbolic of female authority or simply indicative of the fact that n.o.body here thought female nudity dirty or odd, Alex didn't know.

The female's b.r.e.a.s.t.s were unbound, naked for anyone to see. None of her men seemed to care, though Alex's own crew was uncomfortably s.h.i.+fting back and forth on their feet, trying not to stare at her jutting nipples and the black triangle of hair between her thighs.

Metallic obsidian bangles clasped both of the female's biceps in a distinctly Cleopatra fas.h.i.+on. She wielded an odd weapon in one hand and painfully snapped Alex's head back by the hair with the other one. The leader was strong-very strong.

Alex prepared to pull out the Laser-5, but didn't when she realized that the female was merely looking into her eyes. When the leader was satisfied with whatever it was she did or didn't see there, she released her hair and muttered something in a strange tongue to her comrades.

Alex opened her mouth to speak, but was forestalled when the female began inspecting her teeth. Wide-eyed, and uncertain what to make of the poking and prodding, she again offered the female no resistance. The woman poked at her incisors, looking around for-something-then lowered her hand. As if mesmerized by the color of Alex's hair, golden blonde being an apparent anomaly here, she ran her fingers through it, then over the blonde line of her eyebrows.

The males of the clan treated Alex's crew to the same inspection of eyes and teeth. When all four of them had apparently checked out okay, the female-who Alex had rightly a.s.sumed to be the leader-inclined her head. It was not lost on the commander that this leader didn't so much as deign to speak to any of the males in Alex's party. Only to the other female...herself.

"Mali zynoot Fija," the serious-faced woman said. "K'yat zynoot?" She lowered her hand from Alex's face and waited for a response.

Alex glanced back at her crew and then to the leader of this band of humans. She shrugged her shoulders, hoping the alpha female understood the meaning of the gesture. "I do not understand what you are saying," Alex said slowly, over-enunciating each word.

The leader frowned. She looked Alex over as if trying to figure her out. Eventually she rumbled out an order to the males of her little band then walked away, dismissing Alex and her crew.

When the survivors of the Methuselah were roughly grabbed by the backs of their necks and forced to follow behind the female leader, Alex could only a.s.sume the males of the guard had been ordered to round the strangers up.

Alex shared a meaningful glance with Peac.o.c.k, a look that clearly said-one false move by these people and we kill them all.

They were steered into the metallic mountains, a three-hour trek that was exhausting in the extreme to a group of people who had just finished crash-landing on Earth only to follow that experience up by fighting off a gargantuan-sized water predator. Nevertheless, the surviving crew of the Methuselah remained alert, their eyes trained on their captors, their hands ready to draw their weapons.

Alex hoped it didn't come to that. She had spent the last three hours studying the female leader and liked what she saw. Although the Amazon had a pompous air of superiority about her, she genuinely seemed to care for the welfare of those under her in rank. Even her prisoners. She stopped without complaint and allowed everyone to take a breather when needed. She slowed down her gait for the tired crew rather than using physical threats to cajole them into moving faster to keep up with her. All signs of an honorable leader to Alex's way of thinking.

By the time the group was led through a small break in the metallic mountainside and shuffled down a dimly lit path, hunger pangs were knotting in Alex's belly. Her crew was led into a small cavern that resembled a medieval torture chamber with its shackles, iron pokers, and prods-not to mention the noticeable bloodstains on the walls.

She could only a.s.sume this was where she and her crew would be interrogated before being taken further into the belly of the metallic mountain-or wherever it was this tribe's people called home.

For reasons unknown, probably instinct, the impending interrogation didn't worry Alex. She only prayed her intuition was dead-on where the female leader was concerned.

If not, she thought, her hand on her Laser-5, the interrogation would turn ugly.

Peac.o.c.k bellowed in pain and outrage as the men subduing him forcibly opened his mouth and shoved some horrid looking needle-like mechanism between two of his teeth. When they detonated the object, he began to convulse. The Amazon, apparently aware of the fact that Alex was about to draw a weapon, lifted a negligent hand and shook her head as if to say, this is not harming your male, just watch.

Alex's nostrils flared as she regarded the woman. Holding her stare in a show of challenge, she eventually inclined her head, relenting.

When the men let go of Peac.o.c.k, they didn't back up in time. With a growl, he kicked two of them squarely in the jaw, his nostrils flaring, his eyes narrowed. When he surged up to his feet, he cold-c.o.c.ked a third male with his fist, causing the fighter to plummet to the hard metallic ground.

The Amazon found Peac.o.c.k's show of brute strength funny-or maybe appealing. The leader threw back her head and laughed, inducing the males of her band to stare at her strangely. This only made the Amazon laugh harder. Alex sighed, shaking her head.

"What the f.u.c.k was that for?" Lt. Williams-Peac.o.c.k-bellowed to the Amazon. She answered him back, causing him to frown. "And just why am I not worthy of questioning you? Because I have a d.i.c.k! Now wait a minute, sister-" Peac.o.c.k stopped mid-tirade. His eyes widened in comprehension at the same time Alex's did.

"They injected some sort of translation device into you," Alex whispered. She shared an excited glance with John and Vlad. "Go on," she prodded, "your turns."

"No way," Vlad said, his hand slas.h.i.+ng definitively through the air. "How do we know what effect this mechanism will have in a year, or even in an hour? For all we know the injection could cause us to grow scales. Or b.r.e.a.s.t.s!"

John visibly shuddered.

"Oh my G.o.d," Peac.o.c.k moaned as he clamped a hand to his forehead. Thinking that statement over, he grabbed his very masculine pecs, his face clearly relieved when he failed to find anything new and noteworthy there.

Alex frowned. Farfetched as it sounded, Vlad had a point. d.a.m.n it! How could she have been stupid enough to allow Peac.o.c.k to undergo that procedure without proof that it wasn't deadly? Her nostrils flaring, mostly at her own stupidity, she drew her Laser-5...and trained it on the Amazon. "You. Now. Show me it won't hurt my men. Now."

Peac.o.c.k spoke to the Amazon, translating Alex's words to her. With a martyr's sigh and a slight shake to her head, the leader stoically sat down on the lizard-skin chair and offered no resistance as the same injection was then doled out to her. Peac.o.c.k frowned when she failed to elicit even a tiny whimper in response to the painful procedure. Alex hid a smile.

Turning to face Vlad and John, Alex lifted an eyebrow. "Convinced?"

They muttered their yeas and took their turns being injected.