The upper atmosphere screamed into the cargo bay of the Seillean as the bomb doors whined open, the slightly rusted pistons grating as they pulled the mottled yellow blast shields apart. Moisture immediately settled on every surface as the artificial atmosphere inside melded with its Hydrogen heavy counterpart outside.
“No explosives” Shouted Hicks above the din of rushing air, wiping his helmet clear as he peered down into the clouds rushing beneath them. “One spark and you’ll be going home in sandwich bags!” The big Hanna next to him grinned, rows of filed sharp teeth showing through his helmets viewing plate.
“Sandwiches” the furry mass of muscle and claw growled. “I’d like a sandwich Captain.” Hicks chuckled, Tiny the Hanna really took the idiom of ‘all brawn and no brains’ to another level.
“I’ll cook you up something nice for when you get back Tiny” He shouted back through the helmet before switching to an open Vox Comm channel. “Tish, where is this bastard?”
“Not sure Captain” came the pilot’s reply “by the last reading it, should be out over to starboard slightly, but that was before it… JESUS” she shouted as the ship was suddenly pulled up into a jolting evasive manoeuvre to avoid an enormous carapcaed fin which burst through the clouds beneath them. Three of the five crew in the cargo bay were flung to the floor, including Tiny who landed awkwardly on top of Hicks’ leg. The two other Humans stood nonchalantly by the open hatch in the floor, riding the bucking ship like it was a small boat on a calm morning.
“Captain captain!” shouted the female, bouncing up and down whilst clapping her hands like an excited child.
“What?” he shouted back as he struggled to get himself to his feet from under the flailing hairball.
“I found it sir! I found the Beast! It’s just...” she rose up on one foot and leaned forward precariously over the bay doors to point at a ridged hump poking up through the cloud below “there!” she exclaimed, hopping back with a demented chuckle, her twin brother joining in. Laughter rang over the Vox comm from the pair of them.
“Yes yes you mad bastards” Hicks growled shaking his head as he finally made it to his feet. He looked over his crew as the other two joined him and the twins upright again. He nodded. “Right then, Harken go dampen the reactor, prepare it for high burn." The small birdlike Thrall grimaced before scuttling off to do as he was told "Tiny get the harpoons ready, I’ll get the cradle into position. Everyone check your suits, and Shrikes!” He looked at the twins who stared back with matching grins spreading over their faces. “Limber up, we’re going hunting.”
#
Down on the planet beneath Sorna covered her ears as she ran past the Siren tower. Her hearts were pounding out of synch, ‘not a good sign’ she thought as she tried to keep herself from tangling up with the milling screaming crowds of people running in the opposite direction to her.
‘What am I doing?’ She thought, the breath catching in her filters as she dodged past a family of wide eyed Justicers. ‘This is a bad idea, a very bad idea’ one half of her brain told her. The other half told the first half to shut up though and so she couldn’t help but keep going.
It had finally happened! A Beast had never come this far into Republic space, she’d only ever heard stories about them from the trickle of travelling traders that dropped into the dingy dive bars she hung around in at night. Even then the stories varied wildly and were almost always over-exaggerated depending on how much of her city’s specialist Verian spirit the story teller had had to drink.
But the sirens didn’t lie, there was only one reason they rang. She remembered the drills from school, filing into the public bunkers built especially for this reason, claws clasped tight with her classmates and quietly chanting the various softening litanies they had been taught. So after all this, why the hell was she running away from those bunkers now?
Why was she heading straight for the hulking drop towers at the edge of town rather than making herself safe with the rest of the populace? The answer was simple of course, and she grinned as she put on another spurt of speed. She wanted to see the Beast. She wanted to see the story for herself.
She rounded the corner to the Distillery and quickly scuttled up and over the fence as she had done a hundred times throughout her life amongst the streets of Veriathe. This time there were no guards though and she was bathed in the broad orange glow of daylight rather than shrouded in the inky black of night. She crossed the courtyard and left the screaming crowds behind her as she began to scale the closest drop tower.
As she climbed the only sound she could hear was the rising and falling of the sirens and the gentle rush of the planet’s ever present eastern wind. It was quiet here, that was usually why she came and she nearly forgot about the civilisation-ending creature that was at that point bearing down on her as she put one claw over the other in perfect muscle memory. It was strangely peaceful then, the sirens providing an almost relaxing undertone that petered away below her as she climbed the final level onto the bright white roof.
She sat for a while, watching the sky, expecting at any second to see the behemoth burst from the clouds with a roar. But there was nothing but stillness, the rushing wind, the now distant sirens and the turbulent cloud systems the only things happening above her now still city. She began to rap her claws impatiently, staring with a frown at the blanket of whirling cloud. “Come onnn” she muttered, leaning back against the cool white metal of the tower.
Just as she began to think it was a false alarm, and her disappointment was strangely at odds with her relief, she heard a soft rumble. It sounded was far off and at first she thought she had imagined it but she listened hard and sure enough, it came again. It was a gentle rippling noise, muffled and dull, but definitely there. She looked about her, it was hard to gauge the distance and direction that it was coming from. There were long pauses between each rumble, each one long enough for her to start to think that she had imagined it, but each time she began to settle back onto the tower she would hear it again and would sit bolt upright. It was getting louder.
Suddenly, after a longer pause than any of the ones preceding, there was a roar. This wasn’t a roar like the type an animal might make on a nature vid, or the kind an angry parent might bellow. This was an ear splitting, planet tearing, rending sound that burst from above her like a thousand claps of thunder. She put her hands to her ears and screamed in shock as from the broiling clouds above burst a pair of gaping jaws.
She felt nothing but awe as she watched, and for the longest time couldn't begin to form a cohesive thought. 'Fuck that thing's big' she finally managed beneath the pain in her ears. The giant creature was dropping beneath the clouds, skimming their underside as she watched, it's roar rolling over the buildings below as it petered out.
It was incomparably large for someone like her who had never left her city, let alone gone to space where large things roamed. The head was vast, its huge jaws hanging open to reveal teeth the size of houses, rows upon rows sprouting seemingly randomly of various shapes and sizes. She could not see any eyes to speak of on its massive serpentine head, though there were numerous pits and holes that could have hidden any number of sensory organs, the complexity of which she didn’t even begin to consider.
The body of the creature spread back, similar to an eel, but thicker and lined with an assortment of different sized fins like those on a dolphin or shark. It was heavily armoured, carapace layers visible all over its underside and even thicker on top and as it moved the plates seemed to slide over and under one another in an intricately connecting pattern.
The thing moved gracefully, as graceful as a creature the size of a small town could move anyway. Sorna found herself mesmerized as it wove below the clouds.
The movements were not random however, and as she watched she saw something else drop out of the cloud bank above and fly hard and fast past the Beast’s head. The thing let out another colossal roar and it turned sharply towards the yellow speck, which sped by, narrowly dodging the huge snapping jaws as they closed with a rumbling crash of teeth.
She stared at the yellow speck as the two made their way closer, weaving back and forth below the clouds, the Beast turning, hunting the speeding dot, always just out of reach. As they approached she saw that the quarry was in fact a ship. It was painted a gaudy yellow and was oddly shaped, surprisingly squat with two enormous propulsion systems swivelling frantically back and forward on two arms as it dove back and forth to avoid the roaring layers of angry teeth. A cockpit leered forward on a long neck and as they approached she could see a kind of basket hanging below the ship, swinging dangerously back and forth with each dramatic turn.
Sorna held her hand to her mouth suddenly and let out an involuntary whimper. She realised what was happening and she felt a cold rush of elation mixed with deep fear. She was watching the first Beast to have entered her homeworld’s space and she was watching a Shrike team.
#
“FUUUUUUUUUUUU...” came the scream through the Vox comm. Hicks gritted his teeth again.
“Harken shut your beak you blithering twat, I’m trying not to die out here” he shouted back as the cradle swung wildly out, coming close enough to the Beast for him to be able to see the man-sized skin parasites clicking their jaws at him. He narrowed his eyes as he took aim with the harpoon again. He checked the locking system as the ship spun back in a bone melting arc before bursting forward to avoid the Beast’s swinging head. He felt his suit tighten and mould to his body to try and dampen the G forces so that he wouldn’t pass out. His eyes still tried to jump out of his skull though.
Gritting his teeth against the blood rushing in his ears he locked in the large bolt, took several breaths and waited for the perfect spot. “Come on Tish” he muttered to himself and as if in answer he felt the cradle swing out in a loop, curling in towards what would be the nose of the Beast if it were a normal animal. He squinted, pulled on the prep lever, spat once then fired.
The black harpoon sliced out through the air, the fine nanofiber cable attached to the ship above him spun out fast as it uncoiled through the air. It seemed to take an age but finally it stuck home, burying itself between two plates on the Beast’s hard outer layer. “Now!” he shouted through the open channel and somewhere above him the bird Harken threw a lever.
The harpoon strike itself was not enough for the Beast to even notice, but a sudden high burn of the fusion reactor being channelled down a conductive nanofiber cable into its primary sensory cluster was more than enough to sting a little.
It roared, louder than it had before and Hicks grimaced. “Come on you bastard, come on” he muttered again. Suddenly it shook, the cable whipping back and forth alarmingly. Then it began to roll. “Bollocks! Disconnect!” He shouted, “Disconnect now Harken, NOW”
“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU...” came the Thralls loud scream again as the ship was suddenly jerked down, the cable running taught as the monstrous Beast tried to tow them down.
“HARKEN!” Hicks roared through the Vox channel as his cradle swung closer and closer to the surface of its back. The ship bounced back with a stomach dropping jolt as the panicked Thrall managed to stop screaming long enough to detach the nanotube cable.
“I’m a goddamn medic, not some Beast hunting maniac, why do you bastards drag me out on these things, I just want to go home, I just want to feel grass on my claws, I don’t like…” Hicks cut the blubbering Thrall’s Vox channel off.
Beneath them the creature did a full barrel roll, several parasites and symbiotes visibly falling down to die on the planet below. “Steady her for a second Tish, I think one more and we’re in business” he said, surprising even himself with how calm he sounded, despite the true insanity of the situation and the wild swinging of the cradle he hung in. He grinned to himself, he was calm because he lived for this. He loved this. He let out a bark of laughter and heard the two twins whoop back at him from the bomb bay above.
“With respect captain, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You humans are fucking mad” Tish said breathlessly through the Vox. Hicks grinned and the twins howled like wolves out of the bomb bay doors.
The ship hovered gently above the rolling Beast, his cradle coming to a gentle rock beneath the main body of the Seillean above. He watched as the Beast settled again, swinging its great head back and forth, searching for him in his ship. It was more frantic now, if things that large had emotions he reckoned it was probably royally pissed off. He smiled to himself, one more shot.
