Cribbing

I was surprised we were moving downhill.

Before we’d reached the top of the ridge, I hadn’t known there was another trail that ran atop it. In terms of raw speed, I couldn’t think of a better route than to follow the ridge’s trail up toward the narrow end of the valley. It was circuitous route, but the terrain of the trail would let us move faster. It only looked like a longer distance because we couldn’t see the obstacles in the path we would have to improvise in lieu of a defined path or trail. Every boulder and tree we snaked around added to the distance we needed to travel to reach the next ridge. On top of all that, up on the spine of the ridge would also give Stalker few, if any, chances to attack us from above with gravity’s assistance.

Once I thought about it three-dimensionally, our route seemed even less ideal. Every foot we descended now was another one we would have to climb back up again to reach the mining facility. Taking the wide route would let us stay high up on the slope. We might not only be going over slower terrain, once I factored in the vertical distance, we were also taking the longer route by distance too.

But this was the route Tasser had chosen, and ultimately, they carried the gun.

It was increasingly worrying that we didn’t hear anything as we moved. The first time Stalker had given us space, we’d heard gunshots soon after that could only be from the Nai and Nemuleki.

For whatever reason, the otter wasn’t carrying a firearm. I had no way to explain that, but the alternative was that it did have a gun but wasn’t using it against us. The thought had crossed my mind that it might have been adhering to some form of ‘honorable combat’.

But I didn’t buy for one second that the otter was trying to give itself a challenge.

It was playing for keeps, tailoring its approach and strategy to best exploit our weaknesses, and worst of all, it was learning fast.

Daniel learned fast too, but he still wasn’t responding. Trouble was, I had a good idea of what he’d say. He’d be the perfectly aggravating blend of supportive and realistic that I couldn’t fend off.

Actually, now that I thought about it, there was a serious chance he was that way because he knew it would get results with me. He was inside my head after all. He knew how I thought.

He would say, ‘try and make the flashbang yourself’. It was only one thing I could do while we moved that might still surprise Stalker.

It had taken Daniel and I working in tandem to create the firework. The combined ability of both our minds had only gotten us halfway there. I just needed to do the whole job on my own now. No big deal.

I let out an internal scream and clenched my fist.

Keep moving, Caleb .

I even imagined the thought in Daniel’s voice. It wasn’t the same as actually having him here though.

We picked our way down the mountain side, and I kept scanning the woods with my mental radar. Swapping it between a tight beam and the voluminous sphere took time. I was forced to go with the sphere. It didn’t reach even half as far, but since the otter liked to attack from uphill, I couldn’t reliably catch it with the beam.

We were also quickly plunged back into near total darkness once we reentered the cover of trees. The canopy blocked most of the starlight from lighting the ground and I was quickly tripping over invisible rocks and tree roots.

Despite how hard it was to take a decent path through the woods, I was determined to try and be quieter. Stalker had adjusted its methods, so could we. It was heavier than I was. It couldn’t be easy to move about silently. Dead twigs, crunchy snow, there was plenty underfoot to make noise.

I heard some ominous creaking, but found that it was too far away as I oriented my sensor field in that direction. Rustles and a quick stir far behind us made me jump too, but again, when I checked there was nothing to sense.

Trying to focus on multiple things should have been more taxing. Or maybe it was, and I was just too tired to notice. But I felt like I was… done, in a way. Trying to imagine what changes I needed to create a flashbang on my own, I was keeping my eyes where I was stepping to make sure I didn’t step on something wrong and snap my ankle (wouldn’t that be an embarrassing way to die after all this?), and I was adjusting my mental sense to try and catch Stalker on its approach.

I felt like I had done everything I could, like I had taken in everything before me and that I couldn’t add anything to my odds. Sure, there was still effort involved in making sure all of those things panned out. But even when I was trying to puzzle out how to create a proper stunning flashbang, I didn’t feel like I had the initiative anymore. I had my goal. I had my means. When Stalker came for us again, my efforts would either pay off, or I would die.

The ball was no longer in my court.

What an odd turn of phrase for me. Tennis wasn’t my sport at all.

Then again, there weren’t really any baseball idioms that captured my feeling.

Still, the thought was a good reminder to pick up a rock to throw, just as an extra tool.

The contrast between me and Tasser was stark though. They carried a massive alien rifle capable of blasting right through… well, anything , I assumed. I, on the other hand, carried a trusty stick and a rock. There was no such thing as too small an advantage to take though. I fully intended to use them both to their fullest.

“ Cayleb. ” Tasser said, voice low.

They’d stopped and aimed the gun forward. Ahead of us there was a shape, evocative of one of the otters, that jutted up from the ground. It sat, perfectly positioned in one of the beams of starlight that found a gap in the tree canopy.

I didn’t hesitate to shift my mental sense toward it. I’d been keeping the majority of its volume uphill and behind me because Stalker had shown a preference to attack with the assistance of gravity.

But when I pushed my mental sense over the shape, I felt nothing.

The figure looked like Stalker had, the figure was made out of something that appeared similar to its camouflaging armor. It even had the right proportions to give the appearance that the otter was underneath.

The hair on my neck stood up and I gave a shiver. This was bait. It was so visibly meant to catch our attention—I whirled behind me dragging my mental sense to check back behind us.

It was meant to lure our attention away from the way Stalker liked to attack from.

Tasser recognized this too and mimicked my movement.

But no attack came. We stood ready for too long, trying to pick out something from the darkness. What was going on?

Tasser glanced back toward the scarecrow, but it remained motionless. Even to my sixth sense, it was inert.

After waiting for an attack that wasn’t coming, we pushed forward again. We’d come close to the bottom of the valley, and I could hear the rushing river a few dozen meters past the decoy.

We got close enough to actually inspect it, and I only grew more confused. The figure was clearly artificial; several sticks propped up the hollow effigy from within. But it still closely resembled an otter-alien’s body.

Had Stalker forged armor around itself, then peeled it off piece by piece? All to make a scarecrow? I pulled the head-shaped piece off the decoy and felt the material. It reminded me of ceramic clay, only the interior was lined with long soft fibers.

I tried to imagine what the otter felt when it had created this. It was improvised work, clearly. But it had taken at least a minute or two to put this together. What was its goal here? It could move ahead of us with impunity, so what did it gain trying to slow us down like this?

That was assuming it was trying to slow us down at all. We’d halted for a minute, preparing for an attack that hadn’t come, but after we left this behind, we would continue onward.

I couldn’t figure out what was going on and it was terrifying.

Tasser beckoned for us to continue anyway. I couldn’t think of a reason not to, so I readjusted my mental sense back uphill and kept walking.

Stalker made its move the moment both Tasser and I looked away from its creation.

Something struck where my neck met my shoulder and I fell over. Stalker had thrown something solid at me. The impact pushed me off balance to one side, but the actual projectile had come from above.

Not behind us from an angle, like an attack from up the slope would, but directly above .

I’d forgotten; Stalker had already thrown stones at us before. It probably didn’t even need to pick them up since it could just peel its armor off and throw that.

I couldn’t even get a word out to warn Tasser as I went down.

Stalker fell onto Tasser with a snarl, dropping right into my awareness not unlike the Nai had up on the space station. It was obvious in hindsight. It preferred to attack from a hiding place, and it knew I could see through its camouflage.

That hadn’t been a scarecrow. Scarecrows were to scare off things. Drive them away.

We’d been cautious, but after it didn’t seem like we were under attack, we went to investigate what was going on.

It had drawn us in: Lured us a bit off our line of travel to a spot of Stalker’s choosing. Probably under a tree taller than the rest, one high enough for the otter to try and avoid being detected by me.

I heard Tasser’s rifle pop open in the struggle and the weapon clattered away to the ground.

I swung my stick and rapped Stalker on the back of its neck as hard as I could. Like a small bear, it barely flinched at the blow. But Tasser shifted under the otter, and I heard something pop .

Stalker let out a yowl and rolled. It dragged Tasser above and over itself, throwing them away, down the remainder of the slope toward the river.

Stalker rose, favoring one hand. Had Tasser bitten its fingers? I noticed it had lost its knife struggling with Tasser. I had my nice heavy stick for a weapon. I could keep it at bay for a few moments. If it didn’t have the knife, it needed to use its claws to kill me. I had a chance.

I was disabused of that notion seconds later.

So far, using my stick as a pole weapon had worked best. I could stab and prod at the alien to keep it at bay. I feinted a blow at its belly, trying instead to bash its face with the blunt end of the stick I’d worn down using it to hike the mountain.

I got one clean blow on its cheek before Stalker swatted the second blow aside with its head . Its neck was long enough it could bob out of the way of the thrust and knock my attack aside. It was so fast !

And once it was past my stick, it just tackled me down the same slope it had thrown Tasser.

It wasn’t the steepest incline on the mountain–if it had been, I’d be dead—but it still wasn’t a gentle tumble. The uneven ground and tree roots battered every inch of me. If I survived the night, I would get some nasty bruises to show for it, in addition to my other injuries.

When I came to a halt, I was only a few feet from Tasser. Stalker rolled a bit further and actually slipped into the river for a second with a plop .

My heart was pounding, and I stumbled upright and went over to Tasser. I saw the reason why Stalker had lost its knife: the blade was currently sunken into Tasser’s shoulder.

The Casti picked themselves up and looked a few feet away where Stalker was pulling itself out of the water. Its claws dug into the bark of an isolated tree growing close to the river’s edge, its roots even dipping into the water.

The tree was alone though. The river carved a gap in the canopy above to let in enough starlight for me to get my first good look at Stalker.

Without the cuttlefish armor, it was sleeker than I’d expected, a little thinner than its fellows from the space station. The water matted down the caramel-colored fur on its face, and it stared at us coldly.

The otters on the space station had been nearly inscrutable, but here I had another reminder.

I couldn’t make out any emotion on its face. It didn’t look intelligent, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I’d tried to imagine what it was thinking earlier, but looking at it now I knew bone deep, I had no idea what it was thinking.

I brandished the remains of my stick. It had snapped in half when Stalker tackled me, but I could still use it for a weapon.

We didn’t have Tasser’s gun anymore. It was up the slope where it had first fallen.

We didn’t have a trump card. Unless you counted the flashbang I probably couldn’t make.

… No . That was the wrong attitude. It wasn’t that our remaining option wouldn’t work, it was better to think that we still had one card left that still had a slim chance.

Neither side had its weapons and advantages anymore. I couldn’t say which of us was batter and pitcher, but so far there’d been two strikes fouled off. I was too exhausted not to smile. There had been a baseball metaphor after all.

But Stalker couldn’t even retreat. Up against the river like this, if it gave us even a few seconds to run back up the slope, we could get Tasser’s rifle, and it would lose the advantage.

It all came down to now. Strike three.

We didn’t even need to beat Stalker, just repel it one more time. If we managed to last just a little longer, we would reconnect with the Nai.

And as terrifying as Stalker was, lurking in the shadows ready to gut me? The Nai was scarier by far . Once we regrouped, the otter would have no chance one against four.

Stalker flexed its injured hand and muttered something. “ Rathisti. ”

Tasser didn’t respond, wordlessly taking a stance ready to fight the otter.

I wanted to run. My life was on the line and every instinct I had to run away from wild animals was screaming at me. Because this animal wasn’t wild, and that made it even more dangerous. If I stayed, I might die. An alien otter might tear my throat out with its teeth. Then the best I could hope for was that my blood would poison it somehow.

But if I ran, I would certainly die.

I’d made Daniel a promise.

Stalker moved first, leaping up the tree a few feet in order to gain some height to jump right at me.

Without their rifle, Tasser no longer presented the larger threat. I took a half step back, but I couldn’t move out of the way fast enough to avoid its claws, and they raked over my shoulder.

I took a wide swing with the remains of my stick, it was even more baseball bat shaped now that it had lost a foot and a half, but struck air. Stalker switched targets, charging at Tasser on all fours like it would headbutt them into the river.

Tasser was more adroit than I managed to be in the moment, and once again Casti athleticism caught me off guard. Tasser spun on one foot, letting Stalker blow past on its own momentum. They even swayed their torso away from a claw that swiped toward Tasser’s chin—no, not their chin, the knife .

Tasser had left the knife in the wound, presumably to prevent bleeding, and Stalker had ruthlessly tried to snatch it. If the otter reclaimed even that weapon, we would probably die.

It didn’t go into the drink a second time. Instead, it twisted over its own body, reversing its direction, and leapt at me again.

It was trying to keep swapping attacks between us, keeping us from attacking it together. It was trying to switch between two single opponents at once rather than two versus one.

Tasser had other plans though. Their shoulder rammed into the otter the same second it leapt. Despite Tasser’s lighter body, I was shocked at how much impact it made. The Casti didn’t make fists, instead it chopped at Stalker with its long thick fingers.

It put its forearms up like a boxing guard and plates of color shifting armor crystalized across the surface. Tasser immediately backed off and I swung at the otter’s guard with my club.

To my satisfaction, the otter took the full impact and toppled backward. Even delivering the blow was enough to put me off balance. I was used to swinging bats under Earth gravity, and in this case muscle memory had clashed with the environment.

I fell over too, and Stalker didn’t miss the opportunity. With that same bewildering speed, it twisted its body, even as it fell, righting itself and springing back into action all in one motion.

It clawed Tasser’s face badly, and I heard the Casti let out a cry when Stalker ripped the knife back out of the wound.

Stalker whirled on me and everything else fell away.

If I let it get close, I was going to be cut.

When I imagined the knife going into me again, it didn’t remind me much of getting stabbed earlier. It reminded me of the needles the otters had stuck into me on the space station. Recalling the sensation of cold metal sliding into my flesh, that was what tipped me over the edge and made my mind up.

I knew what I never wanted to live through again, and I was ready to prevent it.

Countless flashing pinpricks came to life in my mind, and I closed my hand around something that didn’t exist yet.

It was a matter of imagining the right things. I knew what kind of material I needed. I just needed it to burn . Fast, bright, and loud.

The plethora of infinitesimal stars sprang to life in my hand, but they pushed against my image. I fought to force what I imagined onto them. The process resisted me as the material formed. It wanted to form itself into what I’d made before. The newer process was new, untreaded, ground.

Not a chance , I thought. I had no interest in the path of least resistance, so these powers wouldn’t follow it either.

I imagined the searing flash of the otter’s stun bomb for inspiration—the first time we’d realized I hadn’t imagined these impossible things. That was what I wanted. It was an actual weapon.

Mimicry was easier than novelty.

Focusing on what I’d already been exposed to lessened the resistance. Just for an instant, it felt like a well-fitting glove for my mind. The next moment the feeling was gone, and the in-progress pattern shifted toward what I envisioned.

The brilliant points of thought-turned matter coalesced in my hand, and I could feel it would ignite the moment it settled into reality. The very structure of my creation was still vivid in my mind. It was just a lump of combustible dust. It burned on contact with oxygen. It needed no ignition. There would be just a moment where it wouldn’t go off in my hand—it had been built from the inside out, so it would only be exposed to air when the outermost layer fully materialized.

Stalker approached, brandishing its reclaimed knife, and I flung the marble-sized chunk at our enemy.

It understood instantly what my creation was and twisted its head and torso away, hoping to shield its face from the blast. But it was just one heartbeat too slow.

The stun-marble let out a sharp crack, more bark than bite, but it did its job. The sound was merely loud, instead of deafening, but it did let out a blinding flash just like I’d hoped.

Daniel would be proud; I’d planned for success and been ready for my trick. I shut my eyes, and kept my hand up to block the flash. My ears were ringing, but I could see just fine. I caught a glimpse of Stalker’s lime eyes; its pupils were constricted to a razor thin three-point star.

It lashed out blindly, but its knife only swept through air. I hefted my club and jabbed it in the belly as hard as I could. I doubted it would break the skin even, but I needed to keep it off balance. Every second would count.

Tasser picked itself up and gave Stalker a wide berth too. I was glad to see it had avoided the blinding light from my stun grenade. Tasser frantically looked for a weapon, but its rifle was still where it had fallen, up the slope almost a hundred feet away.

Tasser wouldn’t reach the weapon in time.

But Stalker was no longer the only empowered alien I was sensing with my mind right now. The otter had been able to track the noise we made so far, but I didn’t think it realized just how much noise we’d made.

Tasser had fired their rifle five times, and each one was like a peel of thunder. Every time they pulled the trigger, it gave the Nai and Nemuleki a check on our progress. The nominal plan had been to rendezvous at the mining facility, but if the other two aliens had a sense of our pace, say from a very loud gun we kept firing along our path, then they might adjust their course to meet up earlier.

It was why we hadn’t heard any sign of Stalker attacking the Nai and Nemuleki after the first time we drove it off. The darkness worked against Stalker as much as it did us— it hadn’t been able to find them a second time.

Stalker did not have a monopoly on stealth.

Maybe the Nai had another ability that had helped them evade it, but for whatever the reason, the otter had redoubled its focus on us.

I hadn’t understood Tasser’s decision to go through the valley instead of staying on the ridge. Tasser wanted to keep the possibility of reinforcements open.

The otter’s eye twitched when I tried to step away—it had already regained some of its sight—but it failed to see the critical attack. As it reached a claw toward me, a very loud gunshot thundered, and a four-inch bolt of glossy black alien metal speared through Stalker’s forearm, pinning the otter to the tree at the water’s edge.

Up the hill where Tasser had been attacked, Nemuleki was holding the bolt-rifle. The Nai emerged from the woods and strode toward Stalker.

In the back of my head, I was astounded the shot hadn’t gone straight through Stalker’s arm and continued all the way through the tree behind it. Stalker’s camouflaging armor was far tougher than I’d guessed.

But even so, the Nai’s tricks scared me more. The only comfort I had in watching the alien’s approach was that it wasn’t looking directly at me.

I could tell the Nai was still in no condition to fight for long, but this wouldn’t take long either. Crackling teal plasma erupted from their hands and they swung the flow around like a child swinging a spraying hose. The Nai swung the stream of plasma toward the otter; it would bisect the alien right through its torso.

It had only one choice to avoid the Nai’s attack. Stalker let out a yowl and hoisted all its weight onto its pinned forearm, contorting its whole body upward above where the bolt pinned it.

The Nai’s plasma burnt through the tree in a flash, leaving a scorched stump behind.

Stalker, still pinned to the log, held on for dear life as the severed tree tumbled backward down the slope into the river. I saw its armor shift to large red scales, and it dug its claws into the wood, holding on while the current swept it away.

It had been able to quickly swim out before, but now it was pinned to a log that weighed more than it did.

Nemuleki tried to find another shot on the pinned otter, but didn’t have a clean opportunity.

I hadn’t seen any plummeting waterfalls, but I couldn’t imagine the otter could survive an involuntary trip down the river like that. Pinned to a tree three times its size, it would be battered against the rocks the whole way. Both the log and the otter would be ground to a pulp before they were separated.

I collapsed to the ground, breath heaving.

I didn’t believe my eyes for the next couple minutes. Because, it seemed like we’d managed to kill, or at least dispose of, the only otter enemy we had for a hundred miles.

Tasser wasn’t in great shape either. Starlight glinted off the bright orange blood smearing the front of their poncho. I almost glared at the Nai when it seemed ready to pass out again too. Its attack hadn’t lasted more than ten seconds, but…

Agh , I didn’t have the spare energy to complain.

Nemuleki came down the slope, hefting Tasser’s bolt-rifle. It was the only one of us remotely fresh, and that was a relative term. We all smelled like mud, dust, and blood. We’d all been traipsing over a mountain for the better part of five hours now.

Even in victory, we still didn’t sit still long. The temperature continued to plummet, and I suspected the blood clinging to Tasser’s poncho wasn’t drying or coagulating, but freezing instead.

Thankfully there was a trail not too far down stream where a small bridge was erected across the river. We trudged up the trail toward the mining facility.

It was a steep climb, but with the trail and Stalker’s absence, it was the easiest leg of the journey we’d had since first ditching the vehicle.

The trail ran right up to a gate in the fence surrounding the mine. Nemuleki tugged on the lock bar before stepping aside for the Nai.

It held a tiny crackle of teal plasma up to the bar and sliced right through, leaving glowing metal for a second afterward.

We entered the closest building, eager to get out of the cold. Though it was hardly warm inside, shelter was shelter. We worked our way through the building’s dark hallways before climbing a flight of stairs to the second floor. The Nai melted our way through a thick steel door, and we wound up in an oddly cozy room. It had carpet and several long tables.

Nemuleki fiddled with a dial on the wall near the door, but nothing changed.

It said something to Tasser and the Nai who exchanged an acknowledgement. Nemuleki exited the room, leaving me with Tasser and the Nai who both immediately crumpled to the ground in exhaustion.

I followed suit and plopped down against the wall.

We just sat wordlessly, struggling to stay conscious while Nemuleki was absent. One of us probably needed to stay awake.

A few minutes later there was a powerful hum from somewhere below us in the building and the lights flickered on a moment later.

Nemuleki had gotten the power on.

I saw why the aliens had bothered to find this room in particular, instead of just crashing once we were indoors. This room had water taps on one wall, and several cabinets.

Compensating for the alien architecture, I got the impression this was some kind of break room, or maybe a rec room. Water and a few easy spots to sit down. Nemuleki pried open one of the cabinets and pulled out a few bottles of cloudy white liquid and a roll of dark blue gauze.

I sensed the Nai disappear from my radar as it fell unconscious and I wasn’t far behind it. It seemed Nemuleki was stuck being the one to keep watch and clean Tasser’s wounds.

I took a swill of water and coughed on the first sip. How long had my throat been that dry? Every joint in my body ached. My left arm was getting numb from how tightly I’d bound my wound with the socks. I had some bad otter-alien scratches. I might still die of an infection, or an allergy. Or a million other things.

But for now, I allowed myself to let the tension out of my body. We had made it.

Seconds later, I fell asleep, utterly spent.