A great mass of moving purpose rose above an outcropping of what looked like rocks and kept rising, like a mind-bogglingly vast balloon. This alien creature was awe-inspiring, like some of the tallest mountains back on Titan. The sheer size and mass of the creature was not even the thing that inspired this state of awe, it was the fact that it rose over the horizon and was now floating towards them. It was somewhat reminiscent of a whale overall, only much bigger and with the obvious tonnage of weight carried within that titanic frame, it was somehow flying. There were also two long spine-like appendages floating away from its back, while underneath was a mass of moving jellyfish tentacle like appendages so intertwined as to be a single mass of moving living tissue. The image was enough to completely baffle the Titan mind with its set notions of what life supposedly looked like, and how it supposedly operated.

“It must be the higher concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere.” Dally, the plump little Beaver remarked on the thing the rest of them were all thinking, how in the universe something that large could stay in the air. He was staring and stroking his chin thoughtfully, with little regard to the very real and impending danger that was approaching.

“Dally, you can theorize about that thing later. For now…Move!” Alyarus yelled while physically shoving her companion forward.

Lupis was not frozen in fear, but a strong sense of something like it came over him. This was unlike any danger he had ever faced and was instead more akin to a hurricane, or some other force of nature. He forced his body into action, not through any conscious effort but years of practice, training and experience took over. He retrieved the Roland Assaultmaster from his back and flipped the switch to extend the barrel and stock. He hoped the rifle bullets would penetrate the thick hide of the creature if it were preparing to attack them. For all he knew, they could be completely inconsequential to something so massive, but he wasn’t about to take the chance.

The monstrous creature had a triangular head adorned with wriggling feelers with bioluminescent lights along its massive body like giant transparent lighted orbs. The feelers and tentacles underneath the body of the creature writhed gently, like something floating underwater. The tip of the triangular head opened sideways to reveal a nasty mouth, ready to devour tiny Titans that scampered around its planet’s surface.

“Run!” Lupis yelled at the pilot and her two companions. They instantly moved to do just that without question.

Lupis shouldered his rifle, thumbed the select fire switch to burst fire and began popping off three-round bursts which found their target. The creature roared so loudly that it shook the ground as Lupis continued to empty his magazine into its broad body. The floating monster picked up speed as it neared, before plummeting into a nosedive. Lupis’ magazine ran dry and the trigger dry fired just as he was looking down the looming cavernous mouth bearing down on him.

Lupis quickly switched weapons, clamping the rifle to his back while pulling out his power sword and extending it. He managed to get the sword free just as the creature swooped along the ground and the great cavernous maw swallowed him whole.

Alyarus was watching over her shoulder as she desperately pumped her strong legs to outrun the flying monstrosity. She gasped when she saw the power armored bounty hunter disappear inconsequentially into the widened mouth. The great flying alien whale was now floating low to the ground, heading towards them next. She knew as a Rabbid, she was naturally among the fastest of Titans, but even so could tell that she had no chance of outrunning the creature for long. Ahead of her was only that open plain that they had been caught while crossing, there was no cover to be found within eyesight.

Alyarus saw that she was moments from being swallowed whole like the bounty hunter, and he had been inside a power suit, what change did she have against the giant? Just when the emotion of the situation threatened to overtake her and her mind was about to snap as the shadow of the creature fell over her, blocking out the very sun, it rumbled like a terrible shriek of pain. Suddenly the belly of the beast opened and the power suit exploded from within. The terrifying creature began turning belly up and flew overhead, passing over all three of the Titans and then crashed mightily to the ground dozens of yards ahead of them.

The bounty hunter was standing before them, the normally gunmetal greyish tone of the armor he wore was now covered in blood and slimy viscera. He calmly replaced the blade, which was covered in a thick layer of dripping goop in its place on his hip and stepped forward.

“Let’s go.” The robotic speakers remarked nonchalantly.

Lupis walked past the stunned group of Titans and continued along their journey.

* * * *

The rest of the journey was long and difficult, but thankfully, devoid of any more giant carnivorous flying whales.

Lupis did several times witness evidence of the vicious spider crab creatures that he had previously encountered, but besides a few scurrying shapes that quickly disappeared, they were only bothered by them once. And the time one dared to get close, it found Lupis a much more invincible opponent inside his armor. Being out of ammo at this point, he sliced the creature neatly in two with his trusty sword that never ran low on ammo.

They continued on, Lupis pushed the others past exhaustion for he knew the longer they were out there, the more danger they were in, not only from the creatures and plants, but from the atmosphere itself. According to his Net-Comm, they were all on borrowed time and it would not be long before the effects of madness and death would follow.

“Are you sure we’re goin’ the right way lad?” The rotund Beaver huffed breathlessly.

Lupis nodded but as he turned to regard the smaller Titan, a twinge of uncharacteristic compassion fell upon his sensibilities. Trekking for miles in the Phantasm armor was effortless with the servo assisted limbs, but he saw the journey thus far had been hard on the others, specially the elder Beaver. As they had by now made their way out of the open plains and back into the weird fungoid jungle that he had first laid eyes upon once out of his enclosure, he decided to let up for a bit to let the others rest.

“This is as good a spot as any to catch a breather.” The commanding robotic voice sounded from the suit’s speakers.

The others seemed relieved and all but the proud badger collapsed to the ground. Lupis quickly shut off the power to all non-essential systems and locked the leg joints so he too could rest. His muscles did not ache, but his injured leg did, as it still required movement to operate the suit, but by now he had discerned that the fracture was likely much lower than he had originally assumed, probably in his shin bone and hence, could largely move it, just could not bear any direct load, which the armor alleviated.

Lupis left the radar and life-support on, which would scrub the environment and let in only the correct amount of oxygen in for him to breath. He checked the onboard system power which was displayed in the upper right of his HUD display. He was down to ten percent. He activated the solar panels again and hoped he could charge the suit enough to get them where they needed to go.

“We haven’t really had a chance to say much to each other, what with all the running and things trying to kill us…” The female captain looked up into the mirrored helmet. “…is it true that you really are the fabled Lupis?”

Wanting to conserve as much power as possible while not letting the dangerously low power supply show to the others, he simply nodded back.

“Hope its not too personal, but I couldn’t help wondering, what with all the stories about you…how’d you end up in that Zenith cage?”

“I was…” Lupis searched his mind for the right words. So much had happened since the day it happened, it seemed like a year ago by this point. “…tricked.”

“Tricked? You?” The pretty little Rabbid laughed. “Not that I think it’s funny, mind you. Just that I can’t picture the famous bounty hunter being tricked. Must have been some Titan who managed that.”

Lupis did not answer. But he did not forget either. Those events leading up to his capture replayed inside his mind once more.

“How long do you think we have before the atmosphere poisons us?” Kenner the Badger asked after an uncomfortable silence.

“I’d guess we are already under deleterious effects.” Dally remarked. “It’s anyone’s guess really how long before it can actually kill us, we’d probably go mad first.”

Lupis was surprised at the elder Beaver’s rationale, which must have been made based on his own scientific knowledge. It was spot on with what Gabriel had been telling him so far.

“My onboard AI estimates we could last another week or two, but more than likely not.”

“We’ve been breathing the air this whole time, not knowing…” Kenner trailed off.

“We’ll probably be right hungry when we get back to a suitable atmosphere.” Dally postulated. “We’ve been going about two weeks now on very little, which thus far, the atmosphere had made up for, but when that wear off, we will have to compensate.”

“You know…” Alyarus began thoughtfully. “The security guard said you would hunt him down, and you did. What made you save us? Are you maybe not as terrible as the stories suggest?”

“He was infected like the others.” Lupis lied. “But the answer you are looking for is yes. I am worse than you heard. I am the boogeytitan that important Titans send to kill other boogeytitans.”

“And yet for a boogeytitan you haven’t harmed any of us…actually you saved us from a pretty horrible fate.”

“You haven’t given me a reason to kill you. Would you like to?”

The charming, playful smile disappeared from the Rabbid’s mouth. She had imagined maybe somewhere within the armor laid the soul of a noble Titan. She shook her head and looked away from the armor gleaning in the hazy morning sunlight.

“Does your armor carry GPS systems? Can you tell about how far we are from the crash?” Dally finally broke the silence that had fallen for some time as he finally sat up.

“Less than a hundred miles.” Lupis said from memory, to which Gabriel happily chimed “59” into his brain, which he then repeated.

Dally yawned and stared up at the armored figure for a moment.

“Fancy we got time for a few winks before we head out again?”

Lupis looked at the others, noting their haggard expressions. He looked back to his system’s HUD, which was still reading ten percent. He looked down and nodded. The others found the most comfortable positions they could muster under the circumstances and closed their eyes. For the first time in two weeks they felt comfortable enough to let their guards down under the vigilant eye of the armored bounty hunter and his watchful eye.

* * * *

Lupis found himself nodding off with the rest of the Triumph’s crew but awoke much earlier than any of the others. The sun was still out, but judging by the position of the sun in the sky, it was well passed what served as high noon on this planet. He let the others sleep for close to another hour before he finally roused them. His suit was now only at eighteen percent, but he had awoken to a much-diminished sun with the cloudy haze of condensation fallen around them, like being inside a cloud.

Once the others got moving again, they began making good time. They hiked the alien terrain uneventfully for the rest of the day, set up a small camp and rested for the night, though actual sleeping for all of them was fitful. Lupis kept thinking about whatever intelligence he had linked with back in that cave and how it seemed to see him across the gulfs of time and space. Finally, when the sun rose once more, they were once again on their way.

The second day also passed without any of the local wildlife trying to kill them, though Dally had awoken to a disturbing discovery. Some worm-like creature with moth-like antennae and strange plant-like bristles had burrowed under his skin during the night. It had become a high priority for the captain to dig it out with her multi-tool. It took almost an hour for them to check each other to make sure there were no more before they were satisfied and could move on. Lupis briefly remembered being trapped in that cargo container and the strange insect like creatures that had visited him, some of which he had eaten in his desperation. Would something similar have been his fate had he been less observant? He was thankful to have his armor back.

The group trekked for most of the rest of the day before Lupis’ navigation system led them back to the original crash site. Finally he came upon the large rut in the ground where the ship had crashed and they soon laid eyes upon the towering mass of steel, just in time for another gentle rain to descend upon the planet. Lupis used his armor’s Spectroscope scanner, and it detected one Titan lifeform, the Canid had made it back alive.

At first there was no signs of life outside his armor’s readings. The personal transportation vehicle was nowhere to be seen. But from a good distance away, his armor’s optical zoom saw little round builder drones buzzing around the ship, no doubt working hard to fix the damage.

They eventually came to the ship itself, and the bounty hunter immediately noticed that the large hull breach that he had originally gained access through was now closed and solid once more. To this he defaulted to the captain’s lead, for he had no idea how to get inside now. She led them along the side of the craft to just behind the cabin, and a streamlined door whooshed open for her. The others followed her into the gallery where she stopped. A familiar voice called out almost immediately.

“Captain! You made it!”

Captain Alyarus turned towards the hallway leading to the back of the ship, the crew quarters, and the large compartment that housed the engineering bay, where she knew the voice was coming from.

“Serge! We made it!” She seemed on the verge of tears suddenly, as if the realization had finally hit her and she was able to let down the guard she had been under emotionally for the past few weeks for the first time. “We’re alive!”

In fact, at that point, she collapsed on the threshold of the large circular room in the middle of the ship that converged into all other areas. She began sobbing uncontrollably as the emotions from her ordeal and the fact that it now seemed to finally be over flooded over her.

The gruff Canid came running in and picked her up in a strong embrace. He too seemed overwhelmed by emotions, but was too proud to show them overmuch. His eyes fell upon the grim sentinel in the mirrored helmet standing watch behind the rest and he nodded silently.

“I have the radiation scrubbed to 100 percent and the breaches in the hull are almost completely repaired. The life support system is working again, so we should be safe now against the effects of the atmosphere.” Serge announced to everyone gathered. “I thank you my friend for saving us. I don’t care about who you were in the past….I thank you for what you did.”

“We aren’t off world just yet.” Lupis’ speakers responded. “How long until the ship is operational?”

“Probably another few days. But with the replicator working at full capacity now off the ship’s power, the only thing slowing down the process is lack of materials to break down into usable parts for the replicator. But now that you are all back, maybe you can go out and retrieve some basic carbon? Any plant life should do.”

Lupis looked down at the captain before replying to the engineer’s request.

“I require a private locking quarters with access to a power cell charger and several hours to recharge my suit. Then I will deal with your problem.”

Captain Alyarus nodded and led him down the hall to the crew cabins. She sighed heavily when she passed Bradlus’ cabin, the pain and regret for his untimely death washed across her otherwise delicate features. She led him to the cabin just passed it and opened the door for him.

“All yours.” She happily complied before nodding to him and turning to leave.

Lupis waited some time to make sure she had left before locking the door and stepping out of his armor. He minimized the armor, which folded down into itself after taking out the two large power cells. He found a fold-out charger bay built into the wall and he placed them inside the slots that had folded out. He then found a spot on the bed and folded his hands behind his head, closed his eyes and waited.