“You aren’t the only ones, are you?” Noguchi asked.
“There are three of us, actually,” Lara said. “There may be others, but … I guess we have a long story of our own.”
Noguchi nodded, scanning the trees behind them with the practiced ease of someone used to battle while Lara spoke. “And I’m interested in hearing it, but we’re going to need more weapons,” she said. “Stay here.”
Without waiting for a response, she turned and walked quickly back around the mammoth nose of the alien ship, disappearing through the dancing, smoking shadows that twined through the broken trees.
” ‘Hunters?’ ” Lara said quietly. “What are they hunting?”
Jess shook his head. “Us. I don’t know. Maybe she can help us find Ellis, at least . . .”
He trailed off, wondering if Lara had considered the possibility that the kid wasn’t lying in the dirt somewhere, knocked out. The way he’d acted just before the platform crashed, guilt-ridden and near hysteria— maybe he’d run off, his fragile emotional state finally hitting overload.
Or could be he got killed by one of these alien friends of Ms. Noguchi’s . . . The sudden appearance of the woman didn’t seem real, even though the proof was right in front of them, twenty-plus meters high. Jess tried to think of something to say to Lara about the newest addition to their little party, feeling like they should have some exchange before she returned.
What’s to say? She’s here, and we’re not in a position to turn away help, no matter how strange the helper.
“You think she’s okay? Trustworthy?” Jess asked finally.
Lara hesitated for a second, then nodded. “Yeah. My gut says yeah.”
Jess nodded, glad they agreed on her basic intentions if nothing else. Noguchi might be certifiable, but she obviously meant well.
Before they could talk any more, the woman reappeared, striding through the long grasses of the partial clearing. She held two riflelike weapons in addition to the one strapped to her back. They looked something like old-style machine guns with oversize grips.
“These are, uh, burners,” she said, handing Jess one of the heavy weapons, the other to Lara. She un-shouldered her own, holding it up for them to see the long, flat button on the front grip.
“Trigger. There’s no safety, so be careful. No kick, either, but they ride high. They’re kind of—they shoot a semiliquid pulse of … explosive particles, I guess. I’ve—I’m not much of a scientist, you’ll have to forgive my lack of knowledge here …”
Jess held the ungainly “burner,” remembering how big the creature that had attacked him had been; Noguchi handled hers easily, obviously comfortable with the overlong barrel and thick grips. Jess was suddenly extremely glad that she’d decided to show up; she was something else . . .
Noguchi cleared her throat, looking between the two of them, smiling nervously again. “I’m sorry, I haven’t even asked your names.”
Amazing. She crashes a ship, shows up talking about traveling with a pack of aliens, and still blushes when she talks.
Lara gripped the burner tightly, speaking calmly to the anxious woman. “I’m Katherine Lara, this is Martin Jess. The third member of our group is Brian Ellis; when the platform crashed, we lost track of him. As for any others … a private shuttle and I think a couple of transports got away before the station went down, so maybe they’re already safe.”
Jess nodded, realizing that .Noguchi would need some background for their little saga to make sense. He picked the story up, trying to keep it short. “There are these creatures—aliens—that have been discovered all over the colonies. They’re extremely dangerous, they can adapt to any environment, and they breed like
nothing you’ve ever seen. Lara, Ellis, and I were part of an extermination team that was sent to a space station a little over a week ago, to wipe out a nest of them. What we didn’t know was that the station had been deliberately infested . . .”
Jess hesitated, feeling the same old rage rising up. “. . . by the company we work for. They wanted to see how long it would take the aliens to kill four hundred people. Families.”
He suddenly wished desperately that Briggs was still on Bunda, the rush of anger blocking out all other concerns. Lara touched his shoulder gently, taking over. “We lost two members of our ground team, and ended up here. They sent a suit—an executive—to see if we had the information about the nest spread, but we don’t, it got blown up along with the station and about a thousand aliens. Bugs, we call them—”
Noguchi had listened to them without expression, but now she nodded, apparently unsurprised by their story—and what she said next was a shock that reminded Jess of his earlier idiotic assumption, that meeting this woman was the strangest thing that had happened, that could happen.
“I call them that, too. We have more in common than you know. To the Clan, they are kainde amedha, the Hard Meat. They are what the Hunters usually Hunt—and this world has been seeded with them.”
Lara and Jess wore twin expressions of astonishment. Noguchi found herself marveling at the look of them both, at the intricate, telling lines and planes of their faces. If yautja faces were capable of subtlety, she’d never seen it.
Finish talking, there can’t be much time left.
“There was even a bug mother on our ship,” she said, nodding toward the grounded Shell. “Probably dead now. The Hunters seed entire planets with eggs and Hunt drones for sport. It’s—their entire culture is
built around the Hunt, it’s very much like a religion for them.”
Noguchi sighed, shaking her head. “I thought they had rules against Hunting intelligent life. Against Hunting humans. It seems I was wrong.”
Lara stared at her. “You mean they hunt bugs for fun?”
Noguchi nodded. “Apparently they started their Hunt in another part of Bunda, but it’s still early. They’ll be heading this way very soon. You haven’t seen any bugs yet?”
They both shook their heads, and she was glad to note that both immediately started watching the dark walls of jungle, alert to new danger. That they had been part of an extermination crew was good, they wouldn’t be entirely helpless against the drones, at least . . .
“What about your friend, Ellis?” Noguchi asked. “You say you lost him?”
Lara nodded, but Jess shifted uncomfortably, his bruised face set unhappily.
“He may have lost us,” he said softly. Noguchi noticed that Lara didn’t seem surprised by the differing opinion, even though it was obvious they hadn’t discussed it.
“Another long story, but let’s just say that he was injured on that space station, got kinda fucked up,” Jess went on. “I think maybe he took off after the platform went down. He thought it was his fault.”
Noguchi wasn’t sure what to make of that. She hoped that they found him before any of the Hunters did—
—except that it was already too late. The tiniest whiff of yautja musk was in the burnt air, she caught it even as she heard the soft snap of a branch underfoot, some twenty meters away, a slight rustling of leaves not far from it.
Novices, and they won’t be alone.
“Get behind me, now,” she said, putting the mask
on, wondering how many had come. It was a Blooding Hunt, only a few should have burners—except it had been a human Hunt, too, no way to know how heavily they’d armed themselves, she hadn’t checked the weapon stock . . .
. . . and it doesn’t matter, I have to protect them, get them out of harm’s way . . .
Noguchi backed away from the line of trees, back toward the ship, Jess and Lara flanking her, covering either side. The Hunters wouldn’t attack from a distance—although she couldn’t be positive, not knowing what rules they followed for Hunting ooman—
—no, human. Human beings. Kate Lara and Martin Jess.
After so long with the Hunters, she was astounded at how quickly she’d warmed to these two, and how easily they’d accepted her. These weren’t the simpering colonists or corporate flunkies she’d expected; she would have fought for them either way, but the fact that they hunted bugs, that they were warriors of a sort, more than made up for the fact that she was risking her life to save only two people. These were her people.
Noguchi knew that she was as swift and sure as any one of the Hunters, not as strong but undoubtedly smarter—because she wasn’t so arrogant as to believe she would always prevail.
And I might lose . . . but I’ll be damned if I die without taking some of them with me.
She’d get these people to safety, and then finish her business with the Hunters. As soon as they made it into the deep shadow of the broken ship, Noguchi turned and ran, Lara and Ellis close behind as they plunged into the night jungle.