Alyarus looked over at the former guard captain, who was wearing a smug look of self-satisfaction ever since he had been returned to the group. They were all together now, her, Dally, Serge, Kenner and Halden. This had been only the second time they had been allowed together since leaving the Triumph.

“What’s going on Halden?” Alyarus asked, careful not to bring attention upon themselves, for even though the criminals all seemed preoccupied with other things, she was certain they would not like it if they realized the crew members were speaking to each other.

Halden chuckled, as if sharing some unknown joke and sported that same uncharacteristically haughty grin, turning it her direction.

“You notice anything missing since last night?” He asked with a smirk.

“No.” She answered quickly, but then after a few seconds something struck her. “Wait, something is missing. The guy in the suit.” Her eyes and mouth then went wide with recognition, and she pointed excitedly at him. “Your suit.”

“Bingo. Only it wasn’t really my suit. I had taken it from one of the prisoners. Prisoner 168. Before we left the Triumph, I ran a search with the Triumph’s AI. Prisoner 168 had been missing from the logs since a few moments after impact.”

Alyarus’s cute little Rabbid face scrunched up, trying hard to piece together these clues that were being thrown her way.

“Okay, so there’s another prisoner still alive too? Someone else had been out there surviving all on his own this whole time? I think I’m missing something, who is prisoner 168?”

“Now that’s the question.” Halden leaned back against one of the mushroom like vegetation that served this planet with a grin. “Prisoner 168 was possibly the most dangerous prisoner Zenith Corp has ever captured. 168 was Lupis the bounty hunter.”

Alyarus’ eyes flew open and fluttered a few times. The others were now leaning forward with their full attention as well.

“Wait. Lupis the bounty hunter? I thought he was just a myth.” Kenner was the first one to reply.

“He’s no myth. He was in that container being transported to the outer colony for special duty. Alive and in the fur. I was there when he was apprehended. We tricked him.”

“You tricked…” Serge spoke every syllable slowly and distinctly. “…Lupis the bounty hunter. The bounty hunter that supposedly can bypass any security and enter any place like a ghost and that slaughters Titans by the thousands without being seen?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.” Halden pointed his finger to his nose and winked. “Make no mistake, I’m dead. He is going to kill me in some unspeakable manner, and I accept that and even deserve that. But in order to get to me…” Halden looked out around the campsite at the criminals who were rushing about making preparations. “….he is going to have to go through all of them. And he will. He is going to kill every single one of them. He got his armor back. And my horrible death will be well worth it just to know all these sonsabitches are goin’ down with me.”

* * * *

The first of the patrols went out around what Lupis considered to be noon, though the day-night cycle here was different than back on Titan. The Phantasm suit’s AI was compensating for the different Lunar phases and day cycles, and he trusted that it was as close to noon as could be guessed at any rate.

Lupis watched from a hidden position as the patrol went out, and he immediately knew that a game of cat-and mouse had begun between he and whoever was taking up the mantle of leadership among the freed criminals. This four-Titan patrol he realized at once, was just a decoy, a ruse to get him to attack them and give away his position. He recognized this and did not bite the bait, he instead remained hidden and watched them, trying to gather any information as he could on them.

The suit’s online AI, Gabriel, was able to get readings on all four of the criminals. It provided names, known family and a detailed record of their past crimes and incarceration records. Through this information, he was able to find more information on known accomplices and much more, and he eventually had a more or less complete probable list of the current prisoners that had been aboard the Triumph.

Lupis checked the computer’s HUD readout screens and found that the power reserves were dangerously low. At only about twelve percent remaining battery capacity, he turned on the solar generators and sent the suit into standby mode to repower. The only issue with this was that he was currently also using the power-intensive light bending stealth systems to remain hidden in broad daylight among a crop of jungle-like vegetation that held a good view on the entrance to the camp. The criminals had positioned themselves along the edge of the water on the tiny island, a natural crescent shaped bay. This made the area that he was watching the only other way in or out, unless they decided to swim away.

With all nonessential systems powered down, the solar generators were slowly repowering the suit, but with the stealth mode activated, this would do little more than keep up with the demand, and maybe not that. As soon as the patrol had passed by out of sight to scour the island, he turned the power to this off as well. Even with the suit completely powered down, the solar chargers would take hours to restore a moderate amount of power back to the power cells. The problem with this Lupis knew was that he did not have that kind of time. He would eventually need food, water, sleep…and the island was not large enough to find a hiding place that the others could not find him eventually.

Over an hour went by before the four Titan patrol came back to the camp. He turned the stealth mode on and waited. He wished he could have seen their leader’s reaction when he heard that the bounty hunter did not fall for their trap. Once they were out of sight, he turned the stealth mode off again, and left on the onboard radar system, which would turn on by motion sensors and not drain the batteries until they sensed movement and began working. This would alert him if any more patrols came out. In the meantime, he used the opportunity to get some sleep. Even though he was still strangely not tired, he knew his body needed it. On a whim, he decided to run a scan.

“Gabriel, scan the atmosphere.” Lupis thought into the system.

Lupis found his answer a moment later when Gabriel answered him.

“Scan complete.”

Lupis curiously studied the readout that displayed on the holographic heads-up display inside the mirrored helmet. He was pleased to note that there were no poisonous elements to the air that he had been breathing in for weeks now, and was comparable to Titan’s general atmosphere, but with one major anomaly. The oxygen content was much higher. Lupis shut down most of the systems again, leaving on only the system’s massive twenty zettabytes hard drive. Included with it was a vast library of information. Some time later, after sifting through the information for some time, he was amazed to find that the higher oxygen content explained much about his stay on this planet.

For one, it explained the lack of his need to sleep. Also, his body was producing more energy simply from the oxygen, which also explained his reduced need for food and water. In this atmosphere he was experiencing an increase to his energy level, strength and even his mind’s processing power might have been increased. But all of this came with a downside he saw, as it would eventually poison his blood, and if he did not get off this planet eventually, it would in fact kill him. He set the suit’s CPU to computing some figures based on the information stored within the hard drive. It was not exact, but he found that madness could already be setting in and death could be as soon as two weeks away.

When Lupis awoke from his nap, the sun was once again setting. Another patrol was leaving the campsite, this one was serious he found, and there were six members, all armed within the ranks. It looked like they would not fall for his favorite trap and send all their resources out at once, so he decided that he would have to do this a little differently. Lupis put in a thought command to turn the systems back on as he saw the patrol go passed his position. The system readout display showed the suit currently with twenty-eight percent. A disappointing number, but still not as bad as it could have been. The sky had been somewhat overcast and a drizzle continued into the evening. He decided the time was right to strike.

* * * *

Alyarus managed to take a small nap sometime in the afternoon when there was a brief respite in the irritating rain. She was now looking ahead at another long, lonely night, wide awake and with nothing at all to do. She turned to see that Kenner and Halden were still with her, the two engineers were once again gone off tending to their experiments.

“Kenner.” She whispered to her security officer. “Are you awake?”

“Yeah. I’ve been watching them. They’re up to something, they’ve been plotting all day.”

“What are they plotting?”

“I’m not sure, I can’t hear them. I only get bits and pieces here and there.”

“Bits and pieces hmm. That doesn’t help.” Alyarus remarked.

“I can tell you what’s been going on.” Halden spoke up just then. “Sometime around noon they sent out a decoy search party. They had a few Titans up on the hill watching to see where the attack would come from. But Lupis didn’t bite. He must have seen through it. Now they just sent out another search party. We’ll have to see what he does. Sooner or later, Titans are going to start ending up dead. It’s just a matter now of who outsmarts who.”

They did not have to wait long to find out what Lupis would do. About an hour later under the cover of darkness, several of the criminals raised an alarm and the rest quickly gathered to investigate. The bounty hunter had apparently snuck into the camp and left their spotter on the hill dead. And then, maybe just to prove he was playing with them, as they were gathered to witness their dead member, another one that had been guarding the path into their camp had simply vanished into the night. There were no indications that he had been taken against his will, no blood trails and no evidence left behind to suggest which direction they had gone.

Alyarus could tell now that the Ursid Haze was visibly shaken by this new game. It had all been fun times while it was their ranks playing deadly games assaulting and torturing and causing her crew to fight to the death. But now that the tables had been turned on them, suddenly there was a major problem.

The rest of the night passed without much incident, though none of the remaining criminals slept or even rested until the morning came once more. Even then the vibe of the camp was tense, they were all on guard, and she noticed that nearly all their captors were on the edges of the camp, straining their eyes toward the alien jungle to catch a glimpse of their new assailant.

Haze sent another patrol out shortly after dawn and was distraught when this patrol never returned. Their numbers were quickly dwindling, Alyarus realized with a soaring heart. Soon her and the rest of her crew might have a chance at escape, especially if their captors’ attention was focused out towards the rest of the island and not inside the camp where they were. A few hours later Serge managed to come back and tell her to get ready. She wasn’t sure what she was getting ready for, but knowing Serge, whatever he had been planning with the replicators was almost ready for execution.

Haze was barking orders at everyone suddenly, and moments later the entire group was gathering everything up like they were getting ready to relocate. As the pair of Canids that were now serving as Haze’s right-hand Titans came over and pulled her to her feet, Alyarus realized that was in fact exactly what was happening. Alyarus, Dally and Halden were placed into one of the boats they had made several days ago, and several of the Titan criminals piled in with them. One of the Canids pushed the boat off from the shore as they were piling everyone inside the other boat. As they were leaving, she heard gunshots ring out from land behind them, echoing out over the open waters. She craned her neck to try and catch a glimpse of what was happening with the other group, which included Kenner and Serge, but she could not see over the taller criminals that were piled into her boat.

What came next were several hours drifting on the open currents. She was worried about the other group. Had this Lupis character slaughtered them all? Would he be after them to do the same any moment? She was about to whisper to Dally or Halden who were both smooshed in behind her to see if they had seen anything from their vantage, but one of the criminals aboard spoke first.

“Can anyone see anything?” It was a small Mongoose, who was answered by the Canid who was standing and trying hard to keep his balance.

“Yeah, I can see them. They’re pretty far behind but I can see them.”

Eventually just before the sun went down in the evening, they came upon land once again. Alyarus could not tell if this was the same land from whence they had come from or if this was another island. In either case, the criminals used their makeshift paddles to steer towards the piece of land in the distance. They overshot the original landing spot and instead found the wide mouth of a river that was dumping out into the open waters. They began headed down this new river, which was shrouded in a heavy fog.

The rickety makeshift boat traveled down the river for a time, until they got to an area where strange vegetation began growing up out of the water. This vegetation grew thicker the farther they traveled and was soon making navigation nearly impossible. There were wriggling vine-like appendages traveling from the tops of these fungal trees, and they made her nervous as the boat traveled under them. At some point, one of the criminals nearly fell in the murky waters, startled by something moving in the water. After this they began to move to steer the boat towards the shore of the river.

But then they saw something along the shore in the distance, something that simultaneously caught their attention and somewhat terrified the group. There was the outline of a tall, dark building shrouded in the fog, rising up from the shore. It was at once clear that this was no Titanian structure built on the fringes of the galaxy on Planet DC-444. That only left one explanation, one that the Mongoose was the first to vocalize.

“That is no natural rock formation. Who in the hell built that?”

“Let’s just hope they ain’t home.” Came the reply from a fat Rodentia from the front of the boat.

As they docked along the shores of the river and evacuated the boat. Several of the stronger Titans picked it up and brought it onto land. Alyarus began to grow nervous. Something within her Herbivore instincts were screaming out that dangers was near, though she could not see any.

Alyarus did not know it at the time, but her instinct was correct. Numerous dark shapes were moving even then among the fungal forests along the coast of the river. These roughly Titanoid shapes moved in a practiced, coordinated effort, surrounding the unaware group. And then without warning, the attack began.