Page 53 of Alien Prince's Fake Bride
I slowly raise my arm. “Do you have IR vision?”
“Yes. I spot six living creatures in my field of view. Not counting you, Umbra. One of them is big. It moves slowly, but evenly. It could be a predator. Cold-blooded, but it registers slightly above the ambient temperature. My recommendation now is to get back into the pod and close the hatch.”
On knees that feel a little wobbly, I step back into the pod. I grab the handle and try to pull the hatch shut, but it won’t move. “Damn it!”
“The hinges appear to have been knocked out of alignment during the crash,”Vera explains. “I’m surprised you were able to open it in the first place.”
I use my full weight to try to pull the hatch shut. It’s not budging.
“You may have to push it closed from the outside.”
“Thatmightdefeat the purpose,” I hiss as I try again, leaning back and stemming my boots against the wall. “I want to be onthisside.”
“Ah. Yes, that makes sense. Do you want updates about the predator?”
“Sure, if you— oh, fuck!”
I see the creature now. It’s a vivid pink, the color jarringly wrong in this green and brown world. It moves with a terrifying grace, its two massive hind legs carrying it swiftly and silently through the undergrowth. Its head is all brown teeth in uneven rows, ahorrifying display of jagged points. Dead, yellow eyes stare right at me as the thing comes closer, its head close to the ground, sniffing the air.
“That looks like a dinosaur,”I seethe between clenched teeth as I pull harder at the hatch. “A raptor.”
“Its basic configuration does resemble the velociraptor from Earth’s prehistoric past,”Vera agrees. “Although this one is bigger than any velociraptor fossils. Indeed I would compare it to adeinonychus, or even to adakotaraptorfrom the late Cretaceous, judging from the sheer size of it. It must be more than five meters long.”
I pull harder at the hatch, panic tugging at the edges of my mind, threatening to overwhelm me. “Comeonnn!”
The alien raptor comes closer on its two legs, waddling from side to side with each step. Its short forelimbs are tipped with big, ugly claws that look like carving knives, serrated and stained with dried blood, hinting at carnage it has inflicted. In its pink hue it should look like a ridiculously mis-shapen flamingo, but instead the cheerful color helps make it blood-chillingly scary, as if its real skin has been flayed off, exposing raw muscle beneath.
I pull at the door, trying to yank it loose. My breath is going ragged with the effort and the fear. “Comeon,damn it!”
The raptor snaps its jaws with hard, moistclicks, spraying greenish slime as it approaches. I can see every blemish in its thick hide, every wrinkle and scar. And there’s a lot of them.
“Pull back,”Vera says sharply. “If he pounces, he can reach.”
I let go of the open hatch and stumble backwards into the pod, my heart hammering against my ribs. Desperately lookingaround for a weapon of any kind, I find a light, ten-feet rod that must have some mysterious purpose, possibly as an antenna. It feels flexible and flimsy in my hands, not much good as a weapon.
The raptor fills the whole view outside the hatch. It lowers its head further and peers into the pod with a small, yellow eye.
I take a step back and hold the rod out in front of me, pushing it at the raptor in a way that I hope is threatening. “Shoo! Go away!”
The raptor pushes its upper body inside, through the hatch. Then it seems to get stuck at the hips, where its massive legs flare out to the sides.
I have to retch as the smell hits me. It’s rotting meat, sulfur, and some alien stench I don’t want to identify. It’s the smell of death and decay.
“Go!” I yell, making the inside of the pod resonate. “Get lost! Beat it!”
On an impulse I scream as loudly as I can, straining my voice to make a high, piercing pitch that makes my own ears ring.
The raptor snaps at me, three times in a row, green slime flying.
At least it looks like it can’t get in?—
The predator pulls back, then charges at the round opening, terrible gape first. It gets to a point where its thickest part gets stuck, but it’s slowly sliding past the jammed hatch, its rough skin making a grating sound against the metal.
“No!” I scream, jabbing the rod at its eyes. “Get out!”
It slowly slides past the hatch until the whole raptor is in the pod with me, towering over me with its terrible gape.
Tears of panic burn in my eyes as I stumble backwards to the other end of the pod. But there’s no hatch there. The little window is closed with a metal plate on the outside.
