Morning came quickly. Although I could have slept for a couple more hours, I decided to make an early start. By my calculations, I’d earned between 25,000 and 35,000 credits on my first day. I wanted to match, and maybe even surpass, that score today. I came here hoping to make 50,000 to 70,000 credits through the entirety of the event. But at this current pace, I could potentially double that. What a fine haul that would be!
As soon as I got on my speeder, I fired up my wide-range scanner, thinking to head west while remaining up north. That plan changed really quickly when, to my surprise, a large number of Flayers popped up on my scanner. They appeared to be spread alongside the border of the Ordosian territory, a short distance north from here. They were spread out enough that I would be able to take them on, as long as I maintained the element of surprise. With stealth, those badass beasts were a breeze to kill. But once you lost that element of surprise, your chances of survival dropped by half.
I made haste towards the location of the first creature. To my dismay, it was a wide open plain, a short distance from the woods that marked the beginning of the forbidden territory. This could seriously complicate things if a bunch of Flayers were clustered together. But as I closed the distance with my quarry, my jaw all but dropped at the spectacle that awaited me.
A massive Flayer lay on its side, dead, unmarked, and with not a single soul in sight to claim it. I glanced around but found no one in the immediate vicinity. Not believing my luck, I approached carefully with my stealth shield still activated. I stopped next to it, still not detecting anyone nearby. I ran a quick scan over the creature, confirming the death was recent. I didn’t know how much damage the organs had sustained by now, but it was still worth a nice chunk of credits. I disembarked my speeder and crouched in front of the beast. The kill had been phenomenal. No visible marks of any other wounds but a single stab right beneath the jugular and straight through the spine. This shit was worth maximum points—assuming the decay had not been too advanced.
Without further hesitation, I grabbed my beacon gun and claimed the beast.
I hopped back on my speeder and raced to the next Flayer indicated on my scanner. The same heavenly present awaited me. I deduced then that the Ordosians had been taking out the creatures roaming a little too close to their territory, leaving the bounty for yours truly to claim. And claim I did. Sadly, I had to pass on the fifth one I saw as the wretched creature had keeled over only a couple of meters inside the Ordosian territory. Although I couldn’t see any of the locals nearby, my ass wasn’t taking any chances over greed. By the time I reached the eighth kill, a sense of unease began to seep in. Those were extremely recent kills. But there shouldn’t be this many mature—almost elder—Flayers in this area. Where the fuck were they all coming from?
As I leaned down to claim the beast, the sudden impression of being observed made me snap my head up. It took me a moment before I spotted the being observing me. My blood froze in my veins, and I reined in the instinctive panic that wanted to settle in when I recognized the imposing silhouette of an Ordosian by the tree line. Although I knew myself to still be in the authorized hunting grounds, I double checked my bracer to make sure I hadn’t broken their rule. My bracer had been steadily pulsating around my wrist as a warning that I was getting a little too close for comfort to the forbidden territories.
I looked back at the Ordosian, only to see two more had joined him. Just when I was about to freak out, the first one—who appeared to be their leader—gestured for the others to follow as they continued their way north, ignoring me. Their demeanor had not been threatening in any way, but it still made me wonder if maybe I should cut and run.
Technically, unclaimed dead Flayers are fair game.
Indeed, I wasn’t breaking any rules. If they wanted me to piss off, I didn’t doubt for a minute they would say as much. In my usual too-bold-for-my-own-good way, I decided to push on. I found and claimed three more dead Flayers before I finally came up on the warriors that had been making me rich this morning. There were six of them, the three I had encountered earlier among them. Fascinated, I remained at a safe distance to watch them battle the creature. Sadly, it had followed them inside the forbidden territory, beyond reach of my greedy claim.
To my surprise, their method couldn’t have been more different than what I had expected. I’d been so certain that, in order to achieve such clean kills, they’d been using some sort of stun gun or other means of paralysis. Instead, the Ordosians came at it with pretty much their bare hands, but especially with their tails. I had seen pictures of the Naga-like beings. With their upper bodies remarkably human—aside from their facial features and the king cobra hood around their heads—and their lower bodies consisting in the tail of a snake, they were a wonder to behold.
From where I stood, they appeared to ‘stand’ two meters tall, and their winding tail behind them measured at least another three meters. Two of the Ordosians essentially acted as bait, each one trying to lure the Flayer in a different direction, almost paralyzing it with confusion. The other four, shifting the color of their scales into a fairly effective camouflage, threw themselves at the beast, two on each side. Or so I thought. Instead of catching its legs with their hands—as I first believed they were crazily trying to do—they used their palms on the ground as pivots then whipped their tail at their prey’s legs. Not only did they knock them from under the creature, but they each held on to two legs by wrapping their tail around them.
Helplessly splayed on the ground, the beast reared its head and tried to use its long neck to snap at one of Ordosians pinning it down. But one of the two males that had been luring it—the one I presumed to be their leader—turned back and caught the Flayer’s head, wrapping his muscular arm right below its jaw and his tail around the neck before squeezing. Effectively immobilized, the beast never saw the blade their leader stabbed into the vulnerable spot right below its jugular until it reached the back of the throat. He then tilted the dagger upward to slip through the small crease of the protective bone to sever the spine. The creature shuddered then went still.
Another flawless kill.
It had taken them barely a minute from start to finish to take down the beast, their movements perfectly coordinated. The jugular kill was the best for anyone strong enough to take the creature head on. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do that with my bolts—they would simply hit the protective bone and not sever the spine. First, you needed to stab at a 30-degrees angle upward, then tilt down at a 45-degree angle downward.
But no sooner did they release the dead creature than their collective heads snapped towards me, their forked lizard tongues flicking in my direction. My blood froze, realizing they either smelled or sensed my presence. We’d been warned that stealth technology wouldn’t fool Ordosians, although they hadn’t gone into detail as to how exactly that species bypassed our camouflage.
I hesitated for a second, debating if I should hightail it or reveal myself. In the end, I chose to reveal myself and deactivated my stealth shield. There was nothing wrong with watching, and fleeing could imply nefarious intent. Swallowing hard, I moved a little closer, although remaining at a safe enough distance from them and their boundary. The way they all simultaneously tilted their heads to the side as they examined me might have been creepy had their faces shown any type of aggression. Instead, they evinced only curiosity.
They’re not the blood-thirsty savages the Federation has been hinting at.
Then again, I couldn’t blame the Federation for depicting them as hostile to keep us from messing with the locals and causing unnecessary diplomatic incidents.
“Fantastic teamwork,” I shouted in Universal. “I’m impressed.”
From their reaction, I believed they’d just snorted. I grinned sheepishly, a bit stunned by my own ballsy behavior. Four of them started north. The leader and another Ordosian stayed behind. I bowed my head in goodbye, intent on resuming my journey alongside their border to see if my lucky streak had ended. But before I could even advance by a few meters, their leader called out to me.
“Human!” he shouted, his voice powerful, with a slight throaty rattling that gave it a badass edge as well as being sexy as fuck.
I stopped and cast a curious look at him. My jaw dropped when, instead of responding, he and the other male by his side each grabbed a front leg of the Flayer and dragged him towards me, outside of the restricted zone.
“No way…” I whispered to myself.
I flew my speeder close to them, stopping a couple of meters away before disembarking. Those Ordosians were truly impressive in the flesh. With my height of 6’1, I usually didn’t feel too scrawny around other species. But these guys, especially the one I presumed to be the hunt leader, made me feel like a delicate little flower. From where his tail touched the ground to the top of the hood on his head, he towered over me by at least a foot. His broad shoulders, bulging biceps, and insanely cut abs would have had most human males dying with envy.
And every hot-blooded woman wetting her panties.
Okay, the snake tail, the forked tongue, the slit nostrils, and the lizard eyes were a little freaky, but that hood on his head was badass. He had some pretty damn sexy and incredibly human-looking lips. If he’d had legs instead of that tail, I would have been attracted to him.
“Thank you,” I said, feeling a bit intimidated.
His tongue flicked in my direction. That unnerved the heck out of me and somewhat crashed his hotness level. What information was he gathering about me with his tongue? We knew far too little about their species. Whatever it told him, he seemed amused, and a barely-there smirk stretched his plush lips. That annoyed me for some reason.
Without a word, he lifted the head of the Flayer, turning it to the side in order to expose the wound in its neck. He slithered back, allowing me to shoot my beacon in the opening to claim the beast. The shimmering stasis dome appeared over the Flayer, and I took a step back before looking up at the Ordosian.
“Well, thanks again. That’s very generous of you,” I said with a nervous laughter, feeling utterly awkward for a reason I couldn’t explain.
He flicked his tongue a couple more times at me, the narrow slit of his pale green eyes widening slightly as he stared intently at me.
“Stay safe, human,” he finally said, before turning and slithering away with his companion.
I remained transfixed, watching the sensual swaying of their hips—well, his hips mainly—as they moved at dizzying speed, no doubt to catch up to the rest of their party. The movement more or less reminded me of those of a merengue or Latin dancer.
Yep, pretty hot other than the snake parts.
I got back on my speeder to seek my next target only to finally get the answer to the mystery behind my abnormal good luck. Just as I stopped next to the new dead beast, I looked in the distance for the other Flayer my scanner was picking up. To my shock, about 300 meters ahead, I spotted Baron luring the massive creature. He fired something in the direction of the Ordosian forbidden territory before going into stealth mode. The beast continued towards the Zamorian’s projectile. As soon as it reached it, it stomped around that location and rubbed its face on the ground.
Some sort of pheromone… The bastard! He’s luring them for the Ordosians to kill.
And he was likely moving here to come claim this beast. On instinct, I jumped off of my speeder, deactivated my stealth shield, and whipped out my beacon gun to mark the beast.
“HEY! This is MY kill!” the Zamorian shouted, coming out of stealth as his speeder raced towards me.
Holding his gaze unwaveringly, I made a show of activating my body cam, ensuring it captured him still approaching on his speeder as I shot my beacon into the creature. In the distance, the Flayer he had lured continued to mess with whatever scent had enthralled it.
“You fucking thief!” he roared, jumping off of his speeder before it had fully stopped to come towering over me.
“Control yourself, Bayrohnziyiek,” I hissed in his face, taking on a bold and cocky stance, despite my heart trying to pound its way out of my chest. That beastly alien could grab each of my limbs with his four arms and rip me apart without breaking a sweat. “You don’t want to do anything you might regret,” I added, pointing at the body cam on my shoulder.
He fisted his four hands and bared his sharp teeth at me, the tusks framing them appearing to grow even bigger in his anger. In that instant, I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he probably would have killed or maimed me without this blessed protection provided by the Federation. Once activated, the camera immediately sent live footage—both audio and video—directly to the Federation base camp. It helped in getting to the truth of any conflict, and often avoiding ‘unfortunate’ incidents. When big money prizes were on the line, in the heat of the hunt and with adrenaline pumping through their veins, people’s baser instincts easily clouded their moral compass.
“You stole from me, you kahbra !” he shouted.
“How can I steal a kill that you didn’t make and were nowhere near when I claimed it?” I asked. “Or the dozen or so that I claimed along the way here?”
His four eyes widened, their orange color turning a dark red as his head jerked up to look above my head, as if he could see the dead beasts I’d claimed in the distance. As dangerous as it was for me to further provoke his anger, I needed to out him and get things on the record now, with his reaction to my accusations.
“As per the rules, a dead Flayer is fair-game—first come, first serve. But who would have thought so many Flayers would roam this area that was deemed the safest?” I continued with fake astonishment. “Surely, no hunter would dare use pheromones to lure the beasts here so that the locals can do all the work for them and then reap the reward. That would not only be cheating, it would also be grossly unethical, and could cause a diplomatic nightmare with the Ordosians for endangering their people.”
The Zamorian’s face closed off. “I have witnessed no such behavior,” he ground out between his teeth.
“I’m sure you haven’t,” I replied in a syrupy sweet voice. “But I do wonder what is causing that Flayer over there to be so fascinated with the ground,” I added, leaning to the side so that my camera could capture the beast in the distance. “You’d think it stumbled on its version of catnip.”
“Maybe it did,” Baron snapped.
“Maybe. I guess we’ll never know,” I replied, matter-of-factly, before my tone and expression hardened. “But as much as I enjoy this little chat, I need to get back to the hunt. We’ve been brought here to help thin the herd of Flayers. Should they mysteriously continue to threaten the safety of the Ordosians at their border, I dare hope the Federation will take radical measures to eradicate the problem. Good hunting to you.”
Without waiting for his response, I got back on my speeder. Movement at the edge of my vision startled me. To my dismay, I noticed a few of the Ordosians warriors I’d seen earlier standing by the forest, looking at us. Fuck me sideways! I hoped to God they didn’t think me in on it with that idiot. Glaring at Baron, I took off. After turning off my body cam, I activated my stealth shield and continued the journey north.
I didn’t expect to find any other unclaimed dead Flayers. In truth, even if I did, I doubted I would have wanted to claim them anymore. What had initially been my ‘lucky’ streak now left a bad taste in my mouth. Were the Ordosians aware that Baron had been using them as grunts for easy points? Were they pissed?
The ones I’d met hadn’t seemed angry… at least not with me.
This could still cause a really bad diplomatic conflict that could make the locals kick us off their planet. I wasn’t ready to leave. I wanted to get the job done and then take a few days to explore all the authorized areas of this gorgeous world before the departure of the last transport ship off of this rock.
For now, I wanted to get to the Bayagi River, refill my water bottles, and have a quick lunch. Then, I would head west where more scattered clusters of Flayers had been reported. My anger flared again as I flew past far too many claimed dead beasts and spotted a few more living ones wandering near the border. I stopped to kill a couple along the way but didn’t stick around to claim the ones the Ordosian patrols were already engaging.
However, as I closed the distance with the river, it wasn’t its mesmerizing aqua color that held my attention, but the two large Flayers getting dangerously close to the Ordosian border. For the past ten minutes, I hadn’t seen a single dead beast or Ordosian patrol. Even if I wanted to take them out, I would have a hard time surviving two at once. I could only presume the wind had blown the pheromones this far north. The real problem was that my scanner was also picking up a heck of a lot of lifeforms nearby, in and around the river within the Ordosian territory. Were they animals or…?
I never got to finish that thought. One of the Flayers roared, his companion echoing him seconds later, and then countless voices in the distance responded with panicked screams. By their high pitch, it didn’t sound like the warriors I had encountered earlier, but their females. I reached the edge of the Ordosian territory only to see the beast charging deeper into the forest in the direction of the dots scattering on my scanner. My stomach knotted painfully as I sat on my speeder, still camouflaged, fighting the urge to go assist them.
Surely, they have some warriors with them to handle the beasts, right?
But my brain froze at the sound of a high-pitched voice calling out a name, and then an older voice calling out another. Time appeared to slow as one of the Flayers switched direction to chase after a four-legged, smaller creature that charged it before veering off, away from the fleeing females.
A pet, trying to protect its masters.
Behind it, a young Ordosian, maybe five or six-year-old, was running after it while his mother—I presumed—shouted for him to come back. I turned on my body cam, already knowing what I would do. The Flayer swiped its scythe-like arm, striking the rump of the pet with the back of its ‘hand.’ The force of the blow sent the poor creature flying a short distance before it smashed against the thick trunk of a tree. From this distance, I couldn’t hear what sound it made, but the way it flopped to the ground and remained still indicated it had either been killed or sustained some serious injuries.
Both Flayers turned their attention to the child. They charged the little Ordosian, who finally realized what danger his concern for his pet had put him in. He shouted in fear, turning back towards his mother, who was also running towards him.
I didn’t hesitate.
The previous vibration of my bracer—warning me of my much too close proximity with the Ordosian border—went into overdrive, and an alarm sound went off as soon as I crossed it. I silenced it.
Racing forward, I reached for one of the three bolas hanging below my weapons pouch under my speeder’s handle for easy access. As I would never get into throwing range of the beasts before they caught their prey, I blew my horn, emitting a painfully strident sound that bothered even me. The Flayers jerked their long necks around to look behind for the source of the noise. While the eyes along their necks granted them a 360-degree view, the ones on their forehead had a better ‘long-range’ vision. However, as I was still in stealth mode, they saw nothing.
Still, that slowed them down a little, giving me a chance to make up some ground as they turned back to focus on their quarry. I spun the bola above my head, taking aim at the biggest of the two beasts before letting it fly. For the creatures, the weapon would have appeared to have come out of thin air. The bola found its mark, wrapping around two of the Flayer’s back legs, making it stumble and fall.
It cried out, first in surprise, second in agony as the weapon—set to lethal instead of capture—began to tighten, the nanites of the cable reshaping it to sharp edges that cut through scales, flesh and bones. With his prey almost within range, the other Flayer didn’t stop to look at its injured companion. But I already had another bola spinning just for it.
With less than ten meters between them and the beast, the mother reached her son and picked him up. At the same time, the second bola worked its magic, knocking the Flayer flat on its belly. The female appeared to freeze in terror as, carried by its momentum, it slid on the ground over a few more meters towards her.
“RUN!” I shouted to the female in Universal. Her head jerked up, and I realized she couldn’t see me. I deactivated my stealth shield. “GO! RUN AWAY!”
Her eyes widened as she saw me, hand raised, holding a grenade, rounding up at high speed near the first Flayer that was already scrambling back up on its remaining legs. She turned around and dashed away, her speed slightly impeded by the weight of her child, but still moving much faster than the child on his own would have managed.
I threw the flash grenade on the ground, right in front of the first beast, blinding it. It screeched in pain, shaking its head, completely disoriented. Circling back, I zipped past the second Flayer, also getting back on its remaining legs. I blared my horn to get its attention and picked up my last bola and flung it at the still-roaring, blinded beast. It easily wrapped around its neck, and immediately went to work, sawing right through it. The Flayer fell to the ground, thrashing, while the wire of the bola slowly beheaded it. My stomach churned. This was not the way of the Hunter. You made a quick, clean, as-painless-as-possible kill. But this was survival.
Despite its two missing legs, the remaining Flayer was quickly gaining on me. I barely managed to avoid the lethal swipe of its scythed limb before throwing a flash grenade in front of it. Circling back around, navigation made more challenging by the thick trees surrounding us, I grabbed the crossbow hanging on my back. I took aim, blocking out the deafening sound of the beast’s shrieks. His screams choked when my bolt perfectly struck the vulnerable spot under its uvula. It flopped to the ground. I jumped off my speeder and ran towards it to grant it a swift death.
While this had been a much cleaner kill than the first one, I had no intentions of claiming either. Heart pounding, I ran back to my speeder. But now that the growling and screeching of the beasts had gone silent, the sound of hooves pounding the ground resonated loudly above the blood roaring in my ears. I’d no sooner begun speeding away than my bracer blinked, indicating a dozen quickly approaching dots.
My blood turned to ice as I spotted the first silhouettes of Ordosians riding on top of Drayshans. Those mounts were insanely fast. For a split second, I considered going into stealth and making a run for it. However, even if I managed to outrun them, the Ordosians had previously seen my face, my scent was all over the place, and if they confronted the Federation about the trespasser, Master Hunter Bron would be forced to give me away.
I saved two of theirs. Surely, that will justify my trespass.
Reining in the fear twisting my insides, I stopped my speeder, turned around, and waited for the dozen Ordosians to surround me. Their faces held none of the previous curiosity. All of their eyes containing nothing but a murderous glimmer.
