SLATE

I circle the giant forelimb and slam the shield hard into the heaving earth.

It doesn’t realise it has already made the mistake that will decide the outcome — you might say, it showed its hand too early.

The creature is black ink, with glints of snow and firelight. The dark flesh absorbs the light well, and it is beautiful in the reflected red light. The work of a cruel engineer.

I don’t know the alien’s body plan but I wager on symmetry. It is a safe bet — asymmetrical body plans are rare, usually limited to creatures that inhabit aquatic or gaseous planets. They do not have the design constraint of having to make sense in gravity.

If the first limb to emerge is dominant, like a right hand, then I press down on the non-dominant forelimb — the weaker of the two. If it wasn’t weaker before, it will be after I’m done.

It isn’t guesswork. The first limb to emerge is dominant and dominance of one limb over the other is biologically necessary within a high degree of confidence. Most will favour the right, a small percent the left, and tiny fraction of freaks are ambidextrous or near enough.

It’s the same way clones must be separated to prevent one from becoming the right hand and the other the left, so to speak.

You could swap left and right in this equation, but it amounts to the same thing.

The knowledge feels innate, unlike leaky mods.

I twist the shield into place — the other limb, after all, is an excellent reference. Into place, in this case, means into the joint — the groove where bone, nerves, and vital fluids pass in a narrow passage. It’s basic plumbing if not xenobiology.

Lid becomes door. Door becomes shield. And we’re back to door again. Full circle. I slam said door shut on the aliens arm. Again and again.

It doesn’t matter that it’s an alien monster. There are design constraints of all living things that lead to common features and vulnerabilities. Land animals have skeletons, and joints — joints are always vulnerabilities.

There are exceptions but they are by definition exceptional.

Creatures armour their joints, but in order to move, they must be soft somewhere — mostly underneath.

The monster, roars hot breath and ammonia, freeing its head from the earth.

“There it is.” It can feel pain — another feature common to most aliens, whatever the planet. Pain is adaptive, it keeps the animal from harm. It could just be pissed of course — a rage-based nervous system. “That’s it, that’s it.”

So I speak to it in measured tones, calming and rhythmic — a constant stream while I stomp on the forelimb, keeping it in the dirt, making this a two-pronged attack.

As body patterns go, the alien opts for a high risk, high reward strategy. It is not a generalist — two weapon-like forelimbs with no subtlety. It is made for powerful frontal assaults.

It has no hands for careful manipulation, just massive spikes for killing in a single powerful strike.

In the trade-off, it sacrifices stability for sharp points.

You cannot gather momentum balancing your weight on a single sharp point. You can’t do much of anything, as the creature discovers.

I slam on the shield with my weight. My strategy is to keep my opponent off-balance with pain — it doesn’t work unless the pain is unpredictable. I react to the creature’s ministrations, observing the twin forelimb as an engineer would study a reference.

With each adjustment, I try to affect permanent damage and fresh sensation. But my leverage is limited by the awkward grip and the force I can generate with my body.

While I make it scream, it makes gains of its own — it extricates the right side of its body and it now has a wicked number of lateral limbs in play.

These are for movement and stability while the giant forelimbs are operated by the alien — in this case, me.

It now has movement, thrust, which means things are about to change and I can either react or I can dictate terms.

I release the forelimb. It will have to be enough.

Sensing it is loose, it breaks into explosive movement — but not fast enough.

I circle left as it circles right and slam the shield into its side, its brain function still buzzing from a nervous system set on fire.

It gains movement, I gain information — I can’t take out the forelimb but I can make an impact on the multitudinous lateral limbs along its length.

I get in a few good shots with the shield but they are good shots, further weakening what I mark is its weaker side.

I win predictability. The creature now strongly favors its right side. It must now attack with its remaining dominant limb, yet it cannot bear on the other and therefore is left to claw its way, screwwise.

But it is massive — twice as big as I am — and strong. I am new, freshly hatched, and not born to this world with wolves big as horses.

There is a limit to what clever tactics do against against a vastly superior opponent, when unarmed and within reach.

And I have pissed it off.

The biggest problem: no endgame.

I couldn’t kill it if it rolled over and gave me its soft underbelly.

I leap back as it lunges.

It discovers what I already know. At full strength, I would be skewered on its long forelimb — a meatstick at an alien wet market.

Instead it folds over its weakened forelimb, falling short. Dirt sprays at my feet.

But pain is an effective teacher; it learns. I will not be so lucky again.

It favors right, so I circle left.

It must pivot on its strong forelimb, taking its best weapon out of the fight.

It roars. Its recessed mouth is all the more terrifying because of its mystery, hidden somewhere beneath a featureless head.

The wolf doesn’t like this. She growls louder, more guttural than before, and circles right behind me.

For all its size and the fact that it remains — the wolf has not been of much.

It waits to see the outcome before choosing its meal.

The creature feigns a lunge. I dance backward, escaping easily.

It collapses at the last moment, giving the appearance of failure.

Instead, it stores momentum in its forelimbs like springs, using them to arc its entire bulk and pile driving with its stinger.

I dive, rolling into hard roots, surprising myself with the speed of reaction.

By instinct I leave the shield behind, giving the strike a hard target.

I scramble sideways, finding myself imitating its style of movement, with a handful of dirt flung back at it.

Frag. I guessed a stinger based on the scorpion-like body plan but I didn’t predict the way it flipped over.

The stinger waves cobra-like, as though it has an independent operating system. Enlarged front limbs, smaller lateral limbs, and a wicked curved stinger.

The move leaves it inverted and it rolls to right itself, whirling to sight on me.

A powerful attack that leaves it vulnerable, but I am unable to capitalize on its moment of weakness. Instead, I use the split seconds to search the clearing for a weapon.

Everything is a weapon.

Everything is a weapon and everything is a war.

Those that fail to realize they are in a war, are those who fight badly, and those who lose.

I catch a glint of metal buried in the ravine.

The wolf has natural weapons, which it uses to underwhelming effect.

She darts and nips at the creature's flank, coming away with one of the small lateral limbs. The attack does little damage, but it gets the alien’s attention.

The flesh scorpion veers to confront the new threat. The massive wolf is by far the greater threat, in theory. In practice, she is an oversized canine, lupine to be technic, with a shiny new chew toy.

The mods flood my brain with spurts of behavioural data scraped from defunct video platforms. A surprising amount of information is extracted from short snips of people compulsively barking at their own dogs.

They dressed dogs as people and people as dogs. The mods make strange connections; it can’t all be true. But that’s earth for you. There’s a reason we left them behind.

Fragging mods.

She drops the limb and cocks her head, in what could be mistaken for a play response, but makes no move otherwise.

Meanwhile, I can’t believe my luck.

I have mixed feelings about my luck at any rate.

I am inconceivably lucky to have survived the crash, less lucky to be ejected into the wild planet.

Lucky not to be eaten by a giant wolf, unlucky in fighting an angry flesh scorpion.

It is inconceivably lucky that I should find the red fire suppressor buried in the soft earth of the ravine. Contra, I would have felt luckier if it been a trusty justicar, rather than an unwieldy blunt instrument with no real reach.

But the creature’s back is to me for the moment, and my improvised trap is a success.

I take credit for the spit-second gambit.

A mad laugh escapes my lips. I drop the supressor. My advantage will not be long-lived.

The creature’s powerful heels-over-head attack pierces the shield I leave behind and lodges into the earth beneath.

It whips in an attempt to get free and would have succeeded if I didn’t dive onto it at that moment and bear it to the ground with my weight.

The stinger is not as strong as the rest of its body, just quick, and my weight proves adequate to hold it to the ground, if not in one place.

The movement works to my advantage, for as the body moves, so do I — in the opposite direction. The sport is some variation of body surfing.

The sport is to surf the black dirt without crashing or being dislodged. I grab the stinger with both hands, preventing its withdrawal from the trap and gain a steering handle.

The alien is not pleased, appearing more frantic than before.

Pain protects important parts of the anatomy, such as a thin stinger, in a vulnerable position at its back.

I slam into the bank and use the momentum to savagely yank the stinger, cutting it against the jagged edges of the cracked shield.

Like the wolf, I come away with my prize.

The fleshy stinger still jerks in my hand as though it is trying to escape or rejoin the body.

I hold my prizes in both hands as I drink the creature’s pain.

Tearing off the stinger may cause its death in the wild, but it is far from dead.

The spurting black blood invigorates me as it spurts onto my hands and body. I feed on its pain, absorbing it.

Its recessed head lets out an anguished scream of pain that is visible as hot steam in the cold night. The sound hits like a physical punch and must be audible for miles around.

It is a wasted display.

A threat display is intended to intimidate and its main purpose is to avoid costly violence, such as having vital parts of your anatomy torn off in chunks. It is a ritual where members of the species gauge strength and commitment.

In this case, the display is triggered by instinct. Pain overcomes whatever intelligence it is capable of.

It has lost a vital tool of survival, a tool protected by a high concentration of sensitive nerve endings, and its loss will mean it will likely not survive long either way.

The display is terrifying. The natural strength of the animal is on full display.

As intimidating as it is, it will not usually be interrupted.

That is the last thing an apex predator expects and so it is the first thing I do.

Against every instinct, I rush into its billowing breath. So doing, I exploit another weakness in its design. Besides powerful powerful frontal attacks, it invests in powerful forelimbs to protect its vulnerable head. The weakness is that the oversized limbs are ineffectual at close range.

And I have a weapon now, and an endgame.

I slam the stinger directly into the domed featureless brain.

Kinetic energy focuses on a single sharp point, piercing the soft tissue beneath. It has no visible eyes, so its domed meathead must house some equivalent sense organ.

Call it what you will. I think I’ve just jammed its dick in its brain.

Scream becomes howl. Howl becomes a high whine and it displays yet another behavior.

Soon, it will play dead.

It withdraws, drawing its forelimbs protectively over its head. It skitters backward. Raising its severed tail instinctively.

In this position, the stinger would be its offensive option but that option is currently lodged in its brain.

It will die now if I leave it.

It will expire or die of starvation or by another creature or creatures.

I might pretend killing it is an act of mercy.

I might say that I did not want to see it suffer. It would be more convincing, if I did not enjoy its pain.

Dumb beast or not, it should not have moved against me.

I retrieve the blunt weapon with bad reach.

An effective weapon it is not — but I no longer require an effective weapon.

I smash the suppressor on the joint of the forelimbs paying special attention to the dominant forelimb as the only remaining threat. Once the joints are pulpy, I peel them away, slipping inside its weak embrace.

I hit until the only limiting factor is lifting my tired arms.

I hammer the stinger deeper into its brain.

I repeat, pushing its limbs gently and as hard as my remaining strength allows.

Each blow feels electric. I feel I am not imagining it. Splattering blood and brain matter heighten the feeling of energy flowing into me. It gives new strength even as the suppressor begins to slip from my hands.

The more brutal the strike, the stronger the feeling.

The wolf raises its head and howls.

Naked I raise my head and howl, announcing my presence — my own threat display.

When it is over I am on my knees and there is nothing remaining of the creature but a smear.

I pant in the falling snow, feeling more alive than I have ever been.

The wolf is turned away.

Then something happens.

Something I cannot explain in terms of natural phenomena. A sphere of energy forms in the air above my enemy.

Thin, at first, and lost in the heat of the open flesh scorpion. The energy increases, rising from the body in wisps.

The first explorers of a world are trained to relinquish their expectations and assumptions. The mind must be supple and ready to adapt. Nature breaks all rules.

Accept the new rules, do not cling to old beliefs.

I’m not sure whether they had anything like this in mind.

But the principle is the same. Doubting what you see is stupid. Finding explanations can be useful but in the meantime — flow.

So I accept what happens without question. This is reality and rules of what is possible shift.

There is a burst of energy that fills the sphere like a camera flash. When my eyes adjust, there is something inside the sphere.

A black hand turns slowly.