LAIS Incarcerated, page 4
"Thirteen."
"Vancia!" Angel cried and stopped as the mass of bodies surged around her towards the outdoors. Two aliens with wings got above the crowd and flew out of the room.
"Twelve."
Angel pulled Connor towards the alien with the badly slashed legs. It was Vancia. She was gritting her teeth in pain.
"Eleven."
"Get out of here, Angel!" implored Vancia. "Get out!"
"Ten."
Angel let go of Connor's hand and moved to help Vancia.
"Nine."
"Geez, that's a Ramogran," Lais said in Connor's ear. Connor looked up from the woman on the floor beyond her where the giant rock-scaled alien stood. He was the only one not in a jumpsuit, sporting gray shorts instead. "They look bigger in person."
Angel and Connor both froze in fear. He looked a lot like the one he'd encountered in the Recruitment Center.
"Eight. Seven. Six."
"Me help," said the beast. With one long arm, he scooped Vancia up and carried her as if she were an infant.
"Five."
The last of the crowd had made it to the door and were fighting to get out. It was so dark outside that people had stopped at the bottom of the ramp, causing a mad jumble of fallen that were being trampled by those shoving from behind.
"Four."
There was no way they could get past them all in time.
"Three."
Angel slipped behind Connor and hooked her arms underneath his.
"Two."
Her wings beat frantically as she strained to lift him. She got them out the door and above the crowd before she had to angle off to the side of the ramp, unable to keep them aloft. They landed awkwardly, but upright.
"One."
The ramp-wall whined as it started to rise, and people jumped off the sides to avoid being crushed as it was closing.
Unwilling to step on others to escape, the Ramogran had remained on the ship and the turrets opened fire on him. There was a loud spattering of bullets on rock as they sprayed across his back. Squashed lumps of metal rained with a loud patter to the floor, but a few ricocheted, one zipping past Connor's ear.
The giant curled the woman he carried in front of him protectively and then stomped on the ramp with one enormous foot, causing it to stop rising. A second stomp caused it to lower again with a loud creak and a snap. He walked down the incline, stepping over anyone that had fallen. As soon as he was out of the landing craft, the turrets stopped firing.
"Have a pleasant day!" the robotic voice said in a cheery tone from inside the ship.
Jets on the bottom of the ship ignited and a dull whine escalated into a loud roar that filled the field with noise and smoke. There was a scramble of people into the darkness as they tried to avoid being incinerated.
Connor noticed Cryobot22 lean out of the broken door and wave in his direction.
"Wave back, Connor," Lais told him. "They're saying goodbye."
Connor did as he was told and waved back as the landing craft rose into the sky, leaving them in the blackness of the night and the unknown, on a world they knew nothing about.
Chapter Nine
Connor: [REDACTED] Data Scrub: Prisoner Drop Zone, Incarcerata IV, Alpha Centauri
For several seconds Connor observed the dropship ascend in its ungainly flight, the broken ramp-wall hindering its normal aerodynamics. When he looked away, it took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the feeble starlight. He heard the footsteps of people that were running off into the darkness and the odd scream in the distance, punctuating the quiet of the night. A few clusters of people had formed in the clearing, a couple individuals that were crying and were being tended to by others.
A breeze carried the smell of burned grass and something sweet. But Connor couldn't place it. At least it helped get rid of the smoke.
New world, new scents.
He felt Angel take his hand and tug on him.
"Come on," she said urgently. "I think I saw where Mogul took Vancia."
Connor allowed himself to be pulled along and focused on the ground to avoid tripping over anything. They were traversing a grassy clearing, and the terrain was relatively smooth and level.
They passed over the burned section of ground where the ship had been, and a few tiny sparks clung to life in the bits of grass and twigs. Connor could tell they were near the edge of the meadow when he heard the rustling of leaves ahead and the stars were disappearing in the bottom of his vision, darkly outlined by the shape of trees.
Then he heard a soft sobbing. It was Vancia, still held in the Ramogran's arms. Close up, he could make out the ribbons hanging from the calves of her torn jumpsuit. Her blood glistened in the dim light as it seeped over Mogul's massive arms.
There was a pop in the middle of the clearing and a sizzling bright flare arced up into the night and hung above them, providing a much clearer view of the area. On the ground beneath the flare was a winged dragon, the size of a small chicken, resting on its coiled tail, its scales flashing a deep sparkling purple in the light. It was reaching up with one of its small, clawed arms and was directing or watching the flare as it rose.
When Connor turned back, the huge rock-scaled ogre was backing away from Angel, who had approached the injured woman still held in his protective grip. Angel slowed her advance and reached out gently to hold Vancia's hand.
"It's okay, Mogul," she reassured. "I'm here to help her."
Angel gently touched the woman's legs and winced as she took in the pain and effort of healing.
Connor watched amazed as Vancia's torn calves grew back. After several seconds he had to step forward and catch the Valkyrie as her knees went weak in front of him; Vancia was healed, but Angel was exhausted. Her wings got in the way a little, but he managed to lay her down in a soft spot in the clearing.
Vancia looked up at Mogul and touched his face. "You can put me down, my savior, thank you." Mogul did so, gently. "Turn around for me, would you, Mogul? Turn your back towards the light."
The Ramogran complied, turning around and sitting down again.
"Oh," she said with a grimace as she gently ran her fingers down the rock-scales of his back. Many scales were broken and chipped, and there were a few short trails of blood where bullets had penetrated chinks in his armor.
Mogul looked over his shoulder to see what she was looking at and then chuckled a deep rumble. With a grunt, he strained the muscles of his back and within a few seconds, three squashed bullets popped out of the holes they had entered. The blood coagulated almost at once.
"Mogul, psst!" hissed a male voice from the forest. "Pay attention, you big oaf, come on!"
It was the red-orange haired Tigran.
"Mogul no go with Gorath," Mogul stated, turning his attention back to Vancia.
"Suit yourself, loser. At least I don't have to take care of you anymore." The Tigran stepped hesitantly out of the woods and into the light, only to see Connor, and a wide fanged smile crossed his face. "I had hoped to meet you again, Human."
"Uh, not mutual," Connor replied, standing up to put himself between the unconscious Angel and the threatening Tigran.
Curved claws crept out of Gorath's fingertips as he crouched, ready to leap. Connor took a defensive stance, preparing for what he expected to be a repeat of the fight in the Recruitment Center, but surprisingly, Gorath's face twisted into a visage of horror and he let out a piercing, high-pitched scream. Flailing his arms madly, he turned and ran into the forest, bouncing off trees and breaking through branches.
Connor's brow furrowed until he noticed that Vancia was concentrating with her left hand pressed against her temple and was facing the fleeing Tigran. When his screams disappeared into the distance, she released her focus.
"Now that's a neat trick!" Connor exclaimed. "Thank you, he got the best of me pretty easily last time. What did you do?"
"No problem," Vancia smiled. "He got the best of me too. And it was bees. Most Vesuvians can only put images in your head, but I can make you feel what you see. I made him think he was being attacked by a swarm of bees. I don't expect him to be back anytime soon."
"That was the Tigran that attacked you in the Recruitment Center?" Lais asked. Connor nodded and then realized she couldn't hear him nod.
"Yes," he whispered for her.
"Oh, stop silly. I can see through your eye when you nod your head, you don't have to tell me," she replied. "Let's hope that's the last we see of that jerk."
Mogul laid back on the ground. "Sleep," he grumbled. "Not see in dark."
Vancia lay against Mogul in the crook of his arm, and he didn't resist. Connor felt like lying there too, surely safer between those two than anywhere else, but he opted instead to lie facing Angel, careful to not catch any wing feathers beneath him.
"She looks beautiful sleeping there, doesn't she?" Lais spoke in his ear and her prone image appeared in the bottom of his vision, wearing a set of flannel pajamas with moons on them.
"Yes," he replied quietly before he closed his eyes.
He caught Angel cracking one eye open and smiling a moment before she closed it and faded back to sleep.
Chapter Ten
Angel: Prisoner Drop Zone, Incarcerata IV, Alpha Centauri
Angel woke during the night. A predator had captured its prey nearby, and she heard the death cry in her head. The winged dragon was hunting the small two-tailed mice in the grass. She picked up on his focus, his mind peacefully silent until he pounced on a grass-mouse and it squeaked. In her head, it was a loud screech. Angel concentrated for a moment so she could tune it out and then let herself drift off again, ignoring the mixed sleep-thoughts of those in the area.
As it approached morning, Mogul, Connor, and Vancia started having dreams. Angel instinctively overheard them and had no difficulty following all three at the same time.
Mogul's mind was foreign but friendly. He felt protective and dreamed more of dark shapes and comforting feelings than anything else.
Vancia was having a nightmare and was reliving having her calves slashed by the Tigran. She kept projecting bees into his mind and enjoyed the revenge of him running away screaming.
Connor dreamed of Angel herself, but it wasn't lewd, like the thoughts of many men that viewed her, it was intimate. His caresses were thoughtful and more concerned with pleasing her than himself, but this excited him.
It excited her too as she let it wash over her, but she resisted succumbing to the feelings. This wasn't her homeworld. People couldn't read each other's thoughts. Sometimes they were violent when they discovered she had invaded their privacy. Privacy. Such a foreign word. When you came from a world where everyone knew each other's thoughts, privacy didn't exist.
She resigned herself to go slow and wait for more signs from him. It was comforting; his thoughts were straight-forward and honest. Like being home.
The winged dragon flew up to her and landed at her feet.
Up close she could see his scales were crystalline and slightly translucent, and she could make out an almost imperceptible orange glow emanating from his core. The scales on his body were larger and well defined, but they grew smaller toward the wings until they weren't individually visible at all. Just points of reflection that created a sparkling purple pattern when they caught the light.
"Drak," he offered. "The name is Drak."
"Angel." She smiled. "And those two sleeping are Vancia and Mogul, and that lump over there is Connor. You should note, Connor has his friend, Lais, living in bionic implants in his head, so when he's staring into space or talking to himself, he's likely not."
"Okay, that's new," replied Drak. "I've heard of AI talking through a speaker in someone's ear before, but actually living in their head? Not much surprises me anymore, but that does a little. Very interesting..."
Angel heard in Drak's mind he was going to ask if they all wanted to travel together. The rest of his mind was unusually inaccessible, perhaps too alien to be read. She had never encountered a creature like him before, but she did know they existed on Earth. Just rare.
"I agree, Drak," Angel said aloud. "We should travel together."
Drak smiled. "I know you can read surface thoughts, I've met your kind before. Nice folk," he said as he preened himself, which sounded like crystals being scraped together.
Vancia and Mogul both heard them talking and woke, Vancia subliminally a little jealous of Angel, followed by genuine regret and then friendship. The Vesuvian went through the same thing every time she saw Angel. Mogul was just happy and feeling protective.
Chapter Eleven
Connor: Prisoner Drop Zone, Incarcerata IV, Alpha Centauri
When Connor woke, he found that Angel was no longer beside him. She was across the camp, talking with Vancia, Mogul, and the little dragon that had made the flare last night. They were all in a small meadow of ankle-high, yellow grass surrounded by red and orange, broad-leafed trees and bright green bushes with turquoise veins throughout the leaves. A glance around showed the others from the dropship had already left the clearing to forge their own paths.
Connor breathed in the clean, warm air and looked up at a vivid blue, cloudless sky with a single white sun and an orange moon.
"Well, this isn't so bad for a prison," he said to himself. Angel walked back to him, so he offered her his arm. She smiled and accepted, then reached behind him and brushed the dirt off the back of his jumpsuit.
"Yeah, but no WiFi," chimed in Lais, who was sweeping up dust with a straw broom in a maid's outfit. "Pretty empty in this here skull of yours." Which echoed hollowly. She looked confused and shouted, "Is there anyone in there?" and it echoed back "... in there... there..." She winked at him.
"I dare you to come out here and say that to my face," Connor replied.
"Ooh, Touché, maybe it's not so empty."
"I like her," Angel giggled.
"I like her too," Lais replied.
"Quit talking through my head, you two!" Connor barked, albeit without any bite.
"Like that's gonna happen," and Lais stuck out her tongue then turned away, pretending to wipe the inside of his eyeball, the cloth making squeaking noises as if cleaning a window.
Connor tried to focus on something else. The forest around the clearing was full of unfamiliar but comforting chirps and warbles, and though he couldn't see any inhabitants directly, he saw their movements by the leaves of the trees briefly shaking as the tiny creatures flitted between them. When he closed his eyes, he enjoyed listening to them. He could even drown out the girls chatting through him. Suddenly the chirping and warbling stopped, but his companions were still talking.
"Shh, quiet for one sec," Connor said loud enough for them all to hear.
"What do you hear, kid?" the miniature dragon asked.
"Nothing," Connor replied. "Everything has gone silent."
They stood mute for a moment. There were light, almost imperceptible, vibrations in the surrounding earth. Many small creatures flew from the trees nearby into the safety of the sky, as the dirt started convulsing in circular waves centered on the group.
"Beneath you!" Angel yelled, but it was too late. Angel and Drak took to the air as the earth erupted so suddenly and violently that Connor pitched backward in a full lengthwise flip, the world spinning, only to land painfully on his stomach. Mogul and Vancia landed a distance away from each other.
Extending out of the enormous hole where they had been standing was a giant segmented worm with five long tentacles ringing its mouth that whipped and writhed momentarily before it drove them into the soil surrounding it.
The quickest to respond was Vancia. She stood and turned to face the creature, closed her eyes, and extended her hand towards it.
Which did nothing.
A tentacle whipped out of the earth and speared her, immediately dragging her into a maw ringed with rows of sharp downward-hooked fangs where she screamed and disappeared, falling into the darkness. Its body undulated once and there was a crushing sound. Vancia's screams stopped instantly. The bloody tentacle slid out of the creature's maw and stuck back into the dirt again.
There was an ear-splitting howl from Mogul and three tentacles at once converged on his movement, but their barbed tips cracked against his scales and fell back harmlessly. The Ramogran grabbed one, and then another, and pulled himself towards the giant worm. The creature backed away into the hole, stabbing at the rock-ogre with its free tentacles to no avail.
Mogul allowed himself to be dragged into the pit. Shortly after, there was a loud ripping and tearing sound. The tentacles shuddered and went limp. With a repetitive thumping, Mogul reappeared, jabbing his fingers into the walls of the pit, one hand after the other to climb out. Slime covered him, but he took no notice.
"No Vancia!" he yelled and then pounded the ground with both fists in anger, finally holding them aloft and shaking his hands at the sky as he let out a mournful howl.
"Holy shit," Connor stated. It had happened so fast.
"Where there's one, there could be more," Lais warned in his head. She was now wearing green-camo battle fatigues.
"We need to get to solid ground where that can't happen again," added Angel. She had tears streaking her cheeks as she turned to the small dragon. "Drak, would you mind checking around us, see if there are any mountains or rocky terrain that would be more difficult to burrow through, or bodies of water, a river maybe?"
"No problem, missy," he replied, flying up high to scout above them.
Connor walked over to the pit and noticed two of the worm's tentacles were still hooked on the brink within his reach. He crouched and examined one more closely. The end of the tentacle was a black-metallic blade, two hands long, with a barb on one side. Connor tested the edge with a finger and at once drew it back. It was razor-sharp.
"Noob," Lais chastised playfully in his ear. "Hope that doesn't get infected."
"Too soon for levity..." he whispered so Lais could hear him and he glanced meaningfully at Angel, who had tears streaming down her face as she stared into the pit where her friend had just been lost.
"Vancia!" Angel cried and stopped as the mass of bodies surged around her towards the outdoors. Two aliens with wings got above the crowd and flew out of the room.
"Twelve."
Angel pulled Connor towards the alien with the badly slashed legs. It was Vancia. She was gritting her teeth in pain.
"Eleven."
"Get out of here, Angel!" implored Vancia. "Get out!"
"Ten."
Angel let go of Connor's hand and moved to help Vancia.
"Nine."
"Geez, that's a Ramogran," Lais said in Connor's ear. Connor looked up from the woman on the floor beyond her where the giant rock-scaled alien stood. He was the only one not in a jumpsuit, sporting gray shorts instead. "They look bigger in person."
Angel and Connor both froze in fear. He looked a lot like the one he'd encountered in the Recruitment Center.
"Eight. Seven. Six."
"Me help," said the beast. With one long arm, he scooped Vancia up and carried her as if she were an infant.
"Five."
The last of the crowd had made it to the door and were fighting to get out. It was so dark outside that people had stopped at the bottom of the ramp, causing a mad jumble of fallen that were being trampled by those shoving from behind.
"Four."
There was no way they could get past them all in time.
"Three."
Angel slipped behind Connor and hooked her arms underneath his.
"Two."
Her wings beat frantically as she strained to lift him. She got them out the door and above the crowd before she had to angle off to the side of the ramp, unable to keep them aloft. They landed awkwardly, but upright.
"One."
The ramp-wall whined as it started to rise, and people jumped off the sides to avoid being crushed as it was closing.
Unwilling to step on others to escape, the Ramogran had remained on the ship and the turrets opened fire on him. There was a loud spattering of bullets on rock as they sprayed across his back. Squashed lumps of metal rained with a loud patter to the floor, but a few ricocheted, one zipping past Connor's ear.
The giant curled the woman he carried in front of him protectively and then stomped on the ramp with one enormous foot, causing it to stop rising. A second stomp caused it to lower again with a loud creak and a snap. He walked down the incline, stepping over anyone that had fallen. As soon as he was out of the landing craft, the turrets stopped firing.
"Have a pleasant day!" the robotic voice said in a cheery tone from inside the ship.
Jets on the bottom of the ship ignited and a dull whine escalated into a loud roar that filled the field with noise and smoke. There was a scramble of people into the darkness as they tried to avoid being incinerated.
Connor noticed Cryobot22 lean out of the broken door and wave in his direction.
"Wave back, Connor," Lais told him. "They're saying goodbye."
Connor did as he was told and waved back as the landing craft rose into the sky, leaving them in the blackness of the night and the unknown, on a world they knew nothing about.
Chapter Nine
Connor: [REDACTED] Data Scrub: Prisoner Drop Zone, Incarcerata IV, Alpha Centauri
For several seconds Connor observed the dropship ascend in its ungainly flight, the broken ramp-wall hindering its normal aerodynamics. When he looked away, it took a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the feeble starlight. He heard the footsteps of people that were running off into the darkness and the odd scream in the distance, punctuating the quiet of the night. A few clusters of people had formed in the clearing, a couple individuals that were crying and were being tended to by others.
A breeze carried the smell of burned grass and something sweet. But Connor couldn't place it. At least it helped get rid of the smoke.
New world, new scents.
He felt Angel take his hand and tug on him.
"Come on," she said urgently. "I think I saw where Mogul took Vancia."
Connor allowed himself to be pulled along and focused on the ground to avoid tripping over anything. They were traversing a grassy clearing, and the terrain was relatively smooth and level.
They passed over the burned section of ground where the ship had been, and a few tiny sparks clung to life in the bits of grass and twigs. Connor could tell they were near the edge of the meadow when he heard the rustling of leaves ahead and the stars were disappearing in the bottom of his vision, darkly outlined by the shape of trees.
Then he heard a soft sobbing. It was Vancia, still held in the Ramogran's arms. Close up, he could make out the ribbons hanging from the calves of her torn jumpsuit. Her blood glistened in the dim light as it seeped over Mogul's massive arms.
There was a pop in the middle of the clearing and a sizzling bright flare arced up into the night and hung above them, providing a much clearer view of the area. On the ground beneath the flare was a winged dragon, the size of a small chicken, resting on its coiled tail, its scales flashing a deep sparkling purple in the light. It was reaching up with one of its small, clawed arms and was directing or watching the flare as it rose.
When Connor turned back, the huge rock-scaled ogre was backing away from Angel, who had approached the injured woman still held in his protective grip. Angel slowed her advance and reached out gently to hold Vancia's hand.
"It's okay, Mogul," she reassured. "I'm here to help her."
Angel gently touched the woman's legs and winced as she took in the pain and effort of healing.
Connor watched amazed as Vancia's torn calves grew back. After several seconds he had to step forward and catch the Valkyrie as her knees went weak in front of him; Vancia was healed, but Angel was exhausted. Her wings got in the way a little, but he managed to lay her down in a soft spot in the clearing.
Vancia looked up at Mogul and touched his face. "You can put me down, my savior, thank you." Mogul did so, gently. "Turn around for me, would you, Mogul? Turn your back towards the light."
The Ramogran complied, turning around and sitting down again.
"Oh," she said with a grimace as she gently ran her fingers down the rock-scales of his back. Many scales were broken and chipped, and there were a few short trails of blood where bullets had penetrated chinks in his armor.
Mogul looked over his shoulder to see what she was looking at and then chuckled a deep rumble. With a grunt, he strained the muscles of his back and within a few seconds, three squashed bullets popped out of the holes they had entered. The blood coagulated almost at once.
"Mogul, psst!" hissed a male voice from the forest. "Pay attention, you big oaf, come on!"
It was the red-orange haired Tigran.
"Mogul no go with Gorath," Mogul stated, turning his attention back to Vancia.
"Suit yourself, loser. At least I don't have to take care of you anymore." The Tigran stepped hesitantly out of the woods and into the light, only to see Connor, and a wide fanged smile crossed his face. "I had hoped to meet you again, Human."
"Uh, not mutual," Connor replied, standing up to put himself between the unconscious Angel and the threatening Tigran.
Curved claws crept out of Gorath's fingertips as he crouched, ready to leap. Connor took a defensive stance, preparing for what he expected to be a repeat of the fight in the Recruitment Center, but surprisingly, Gorath's face twisted into a visage of horror and he let out a piercing, high-pitched scream. Flailing his arms madly, he turned and ran into the forest, bouncing off trees and breaking through branches.
Connor's brow furrowed until he noticed that Vancia was concentrating with her left hand pressed against her temple and was facing the fleeing Tigran. When his screams disappeared into the distance, she released her focus.
"Now that's a neat trick!" Connor exclaimed. "Thank you, he got the best of me pretty easily last time. What did you do?"
"No problem," Vancia smiled. "He got the best of me too. And it was bees. Most Vesuvians can only put images in your head, but I can make you feel what you see. I made him think he was being attacked by a swarm of bees. I don't expect him to be back anytime soon."
"That was the Tigran that attacked you in the Recruitment Center?" Lais asked. Connor nodded and then realized she couldn't hear him nod.
"Yes," he whispered for her.
"Oh, stop silly. I can see through your eye when you nod your head, you don't have to tell me," she replied. "Let's hope that's the last we see of that jerk."
Mogul laid back on the ground. "Sleep," he grumbled. "Not see in dark."
Vancia lay against Mogul in the crook of his arm, and he didn't resist. Connor felt like lying there too, surely safer between those two than anywhere else, but he opted instead to lie facing Angel, careful to not catch any wing feathers beneath him.
"She looks beautiful sleeping there, doesn't she?" Lais spoke in his ear and her prone image appeared in the bottom of his vision, wearing a set of flannel pajamas with moons on them.
"Yes," he replied quietly before he closed his eyes.
He caught Angel cracking one eye open and smiling a moment before she closed it and faded back to sleep.
Chapter Ten
Angel: Prisoner Drop Zone, Incarcerata IV, Alpha Centauri
Angel woke during the night. A predator had captured its prey nearby, and she heard the death cry in her head. The winged dragon was hunting the small two-tailed mice in the grass. She picked up on his focus, his mind peacefully silent until he pounced on a grass-mouse and it squeaked. In her head, it was a loud screech. Angel concentrated for a moment so she could tune it out and then let herself drift off again, ignoring the mixed sleep-thoughts of those in the area.
As it approached morning, Mogul, Connor, and Vancia started having dreams. Angel instinctively overheard them and had no difficulty following all three at the same time.
Mogul's mind was foreign but friendly. He felt protective and dreamed more of dark shapes and comforting feelings than anything else.
Vancia was having a nightmare and was reliving having her calves slashed by the Tigran. She kept projecting bees into his mind and enjoyed the revenge of him running away screaming.
Connor dreamed of Angel herself, but it wasn't lewd, like the thoughts of many men that viewed her, it was intimate. His caresses were thoughtful and more concerned with pleasing her than himself, but this excited him.
It excited her too as she let it wash over her, but she resisted succumbing to the feelings. This wasn't her homeworld. People couldn't read each other's thoughts. Sometimes they were violent when they discovered she had invaded their privacy. Privacy. Such a foreign word. When you came from a world where everyone knew each other's thoughts, privacy didn't exist.
She resigned herself to go slow and wait for more signs from him. It was comforting; his thoughts were straight-forward and honest. Like being home.
The winged dragon flew up to her and landed at her feet.
Up close she could see his scales were crystalline and slightly translucent, and she could make out an almost imperceptible orange glow emanating from his core. The scales on his body were larger and well defined, but they grew smaller toward the wings until they weren't individually visible at all. Just points of reflection that created a sparkling purple pattern when they caught the light.
"Drak," he offered. "The name is Drak."
"Angel." She smiled. "And those two sleeping are Vancia and Mogul, and that lump over there is Connor. You should note, Connor has his friend, Lais, living in bionic implants in his head, so when he's staring into space or talking to himself, he's likely not."
"Okay, that's new," replied Drak. "I've heard of AI talking through a speaker in someone's ear before, but actually living in their head? Not much surprises me anymore, but that does a little. Very interesting..."
Angel heard in Drak's mind he was going to ask if they all wanted to travel together. The rest of his mind was unusually inaccessible, perhaps too alien to be read. She had never encountered a creature like him before, but she did know they existed on Earth. Just rare.
"I agree, Drak," Angel said aloud. "We should travel together."
Drak smiled. "I know you can read surface thoughts, I've met your kind before. Nice folk," he said as he preened himself, which sounded like crystals being scraped together.
Vancia and Mogul both heard them talking and woke, Vancia subliminally a little jealous of Angel, followed by genuine regret and then friendship. The Vesuvian went through the same thing every time she saw Angel. Mogul was just happy and feeling protective.
Chapter Eleven
Connor: Prisoner Drop Zone, Incarcerata IV, Alpha Centauri
When Connor woke, he found that Angel was no longer beside him. She was across the camp, talking with Vancia, Mogul, and the little dragon that had made the flare last night. They were all in a small meadow of ankle-high, yellow grass surrounded by red and orange, broad-leafed trees and bright green bushes with turquoise veins throughout the leaves. A glance around showed the others from the dropship had already left the clearing to forge their own paths.
Connor breathed in the clean, warm air and looked up at a vivid blue, cloudless sky with a single white sun and an orange moon.
"Well, this isn't so bad for a prison," he said to himself. Angel walked back to him, so he offered her his arm. She smiled and accepted, then reached behind him and brushed the dirt off the back of his jumpsuit.
"Yeah, but no WiFi," chimed in Lais, who was sweeping up dust with a straw broom in a maid's outfit. "Pretty empty in this here skull of yours." Which echoed hollowly. She looked confused and shouted, "Is there anyone in there?" and it echoed back "... in there... there..." She winked at him.
"I dare you to come out here and say that to my face," Connor replied.
"Ooh, Touché, maybe it's not so empty."
"I like her," Angel giggled.
"I like her too," Lais replied.
"Quit talking through my head, you two!" Connor barked, albeit without any bite.
"Like that's gonna happen," and Lais stuck out her tongue then turned away, pretending to wipe the inside of his eyeball, the cloth making squeaking noises as if cleaning a window.
Connor tried to focus on something else. The forest around the clearing was full of unfamiliar but comforting chirps and warbles, and though he couldn't see any inhabitants directly, he saw their movements by the leaves of the trees briefly shaking as the tiny creatures flitted between them. When he closed his eyes, he enjoyed listening to them. He could even drown out the girls chatting through him. Suddenly the chirping and warbling stopped, but his companions were still talking.
"Shh, quiet for one sec," Connor said loud enough for them all to hear.
"What do you hear, kid?" the miniature dragon asked.
"Nothing," Connor replied. "Everything has gone silent."
They stood mute for a moment. There were light, almost imperceptible, vibrations in the surrounding earth. Many small creatures flew from the trees nearby into the safety of the sky, as the dirt started convulsing in circular waves centered on the group.
"Beneath you!" Angel yelled, but it was too late. Angel and Drak took to the air as the earth erupted so suddenly and violently that Connor pitched backward in a full lengthwise flip, the world spinning, only to land painfully on his stomach. Mogul and Vancia landed a distance away from each other.
Extending out of the enormous hole where they had been standing was a giant segmented worm with five long tentacles ringing its mouth that whipped and writhed momentarily before it drove them into the soil surrounding it.
The quickest to respond was Vancia. She stood and turned to face the creature, closed her eyes, and extended her hand towards it.
Which did nothing.
A tentacle whipped out of the earth and speared her, immediately dragging her into a maw ringed with rows of sharp downward-hooked fangs where she screamed and disappeared, falling into the darkness. Its body undulated once and there was a crushing sound. Vancia's screams stopped instantly. The bloody tentacle slid out of the creature's maw and stuck back into the dirt again.
There was an ear-splitting howl from Mogul and three tentacles at once converged on his movement, but their barbed tips cracked against his scales and fell back harmlessly. The Ramogran grabbed one, and then another, and pulled himself towards the giant worm. The creature backed away into the hole, stabbing at the rock-ogre with its free tentacles to no avail.
Mogul allowed himself to be dragged into the pit. Shortly after, there was a loud ripping and tearing sound. The tentacles shuddered and went limp. With a repetitive thumping, Mogul reappeared, jabbing his fingers into the walls of the pit, one hand after the other to climb out. Slime covered him, but he took no notice.
"No Vancia!" he yelled and then pounded the ground with both fists in anger, finally holding them aloft and shaking his hands at the sky as he let out a mournful howl.
"Holy shit," Connor stated. It had happened so fast.
"Where there's one, there could be more," Lais warned in his head. She was now wearing green-camo battle fatigues.
"We need to get to solid ground where that can't happen again," added Angel. She had tears streaking her cheeks as she turned to the small dragon. "Drak, would you mind checking around us, see if there are any mountains or rocky terrain that would be more difficult to burrow through, or bodies of water, a river maybe?"
"No problem, missy," he replied, flying up high to scout above them.
Connor walked over to the pit and noticed two of the worm's tentacles were still hooked on the brink within his reach. He crouched and examined one more closely. The end of the tentacle was a black-metallic blade, two hands long, with a barb on one side. Connor tested the edge with a finger and at once drew it back. It was razor-sharp.
"Noob," Lais chastised playfully in his ear. "Hope that doesn't get infected."
"Too soon for levity..." he whispered so Lais could hear him and he glanced meaningfully at Angel, who had tears streaming down her face as she stared into the pit where her friend had just been lost.
