Page 19 of Treasured By the Hunter

“It is best if we find a place to land until the flyers thin out. The ones from that nest are particularly adept at spotting cloaked vessels.”

I looked where he pointed.

The nest was a deadly white splotch marring the landscape. I couldn’t tell from here what the nest had been before the scourge had settled in, but it had been a building once. Or rather, a set of buildings. Now, white tendrils of the scourge’s symbiotic fungus extended out from it, tainting everything it touched.

“What are those?” I asked, pointing to the mountains of crap around the nest.

“Discarded carapaces from molting scourge and eggshells,” Harb’k replied. “They like to keep the inside of the nest clear,and the scuttlers bring out dead scourge or cast-off carapaces every morning.”

I shuddered.

Curious, I asked Harb’k to pull up the map. Sure enough, someone had already marked a big red X on it, and the area around it was shaded in red as well. But under the new markings was the information I was looking for. The site had been a factory farm with an attached abattoir, and the doors to the slaughterhouse had become the nest opening.

How morbidly ironic. Creepy as fuck too.

We landed in the parking lot of a strip mall at the edge of town.

“Hey, look. A bowling alley!”

“Do you wish to go inside? I can secure it.”

It was probably safer in the shuttle, but I’d just imagined crashing in it, so maybe leaving the shuttle for a bit would be a good idea to preserve my sanity.

“Yeah, let’s go bowling.”

Harb’k stood and slapped his hand on one of the wall panels. It slid open to expose a closet full of armor and weapons. He strapped on a few choice pieces of armor, and elected to use an ax this time. To my surprise, he picked up a spare blaster and inserted a cartridge before handing it to me.

“You did not take any weapons from your temporary bases.”

“I like to travel light. There’s no silencers on any of the weapons. Bluffing is one thing, but the bugs are drawn to gunshots. I didn’t see the point. My survival strategy is to be fast, lightweight, and disappear before the first sign of trouble.”

“That is a good strategy. It has served you well. But our blasters do not make loud sounds like your weapons, and are lightweight.”

I hesitated. “I don’t feel comfortable taking your weapon.”

“I cannot use them all at once. You can help me secure the building, partner.”

I doubted he needed help, but I agreed anyway.

The blaster was super simple to use. One switch functioned as a safety, but other than that, it was just point and shoot. I didn’t have any way to carry it on me, so Harb’k jerry-rigged a belt harness out of some strips of leather he had in his closet.

Then, we stepped outside. The building was mostly bug-free, except for a single dead scuttler that was stuck behind the building, a dumpster crushing half its body.

“Sucker deserved it,” I mumbled as we walked by.

Suddenly, the dead bug sprang to life, scratching and clawing as it tried to reach for me. Adrenaline speared through my system, and I felt it like a stab in my stomach. But even as I jumped back, I realized it couldn’t reach me. It was alive, but it was very much still trapped.

“Target practice,” Harb’k said.

“Good idea. Let’s put this fugly thing out of its misery.”

We stepped back close to the door. I released the safety and found my first obstacle. The blaster was sized for Xarc’n hands.

“Some at our camp use two hands, one to stabilize the weapon and the other to depress the trigger,” Harb’k suggested.

That would work. I aimed and fired. Despite being a beam of energy and not physical ammunition, the recoil still pushedme back more than I’d expected, and the shot went high. The strange way of holding it also made it harder. I adjusted my stance, then fired again. This one hit the bug and blew it to smithereens.

“Ha! That’ll teach ya to come to Earth.”

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