Chapter 8 #2
He shifted, and the forest seemed to groan in response, or maybe that was just the fearful sound coming from my own chest. What had Jaxin said?
Fire, aim, squeeze? Or was it aim, squeeze, fire?
Hadn’t he said something about calling him, or about missing?
I couldn’t remember a single thing, and my hand was trembling so badly on the trigger that I feared I’d set it off by accident.
Right, wasn’t there something about recoil?
The giant took another step, and now he was out from behind the trunk, a massive target.
Was he daring me to shoot at him? Testing my resolve?
If he was, he’d find that I had none. I feared shooting him as much as I feared him.
He took another step closer, and I almost tumbled backward as I jerked my hand away from the trigger.
I was convinced that if I shot the giant, I’d kill myself.
The emotional recoil across my burned-out senses would destroy the pathways forever and cause a brain bleed I could not recover from.
Then he did something that made my chest grow tight with shock: he raised his hands in the air in a universal signal of surrender.
His tail curled around his middle, as if he were showing me that it was restrained, harmless.
He wasn’t here to attack; he was here for something else, but what?
When he rumbled in a deep bass, the sound vibrated through my chest, but it did not resolve into anything that resembled words.
Impulsively, I freed my tablet from my satchel and tried to search for his language.
If I could upload that to my implants, perhaps we could communicate.
“I’m sorry,” I told him, as I frantically searched for a file that might not even exist. “I don’t know what you want, but I can assure you that we mean you no harm.
I have nothing to do with the Kertinals occupying your world.
” But did it make me any better, coming here without his permission and taking his flowers to create a cure for people he didn’t even know existed?
The giant spoke again, and, oddly enough, it sounded soothing, like he was telling me not to be scared of him.
It could just be that his big, crude features were beginning to grow on me, but he seemed less savage and kinder, too.
Interesting. I wondered if that was just a matter of changing expression, or if it was a more intriguing ability.
Listening to the drone of his low voice made me want to nod and agree, almost. It made me want to offer him the cannon lying on the cold ground next to my legs.
My fingers tightened against the metal, and the sharp edge of the grip bit into my skin.
I jerked upright, realized I’d sunk into a relaxed pose, and noticed my tablet lying discarded in my lap.
“Oh, ooooh, you’re a sneaky one,” I murmured, surprised.
He cut off his low murmur, and I swore his mouth tilted into something that could very well resemble a smile.
It wasn’t a nice smile, but it also wasn’t threatening.
It felt, just a little, like I might have just earned his respect by resisting that hypnotic drone.
“Trust me, buddy,” I told him. “If I weren’t experiencing burnout right now, this would be a whole different game.
No tricks, can you show me what you want?
We’re not here to harm you; we just want to leave.
” I flicked my hand from myself to the water, then pointed up.
Unfortunately, my current lack of empathic ability meant I couldn’t tell if he understood that or not.
The Kertinal had given some of the giant’s tribal leaders translator implants so they could negotiate a treaty.
At least, that’s what the Aderian security brief on the planet had indicated.
This guy could be one of them, but far more likely he was not.
I had to assume he understood me as much as I understood him.
He took another step out of the trees, and now he was almost standing with his massive, bare feet in the snow-white sand on the edge of the lake.
Too close. I had to lean back to even see his face, and the cannon no longer aimed directly at him.
That was no coincidence, I knew it wasn’t.
This giant was far too clever for that. What did he want?
How scared should I be? I discovered I was too tired to muster the energy for proper terror at his slow approach.
I told myself that perhaps a vestige of ability was telling me I did not need to worry, but the bigger part of me was certain I was about to be smashed.
Numb fingers shoved my tablet back into my satchel, and then my hand struggled against the cannon, but it was impossible to move it.
I tried to get my legs under me to rise, but they were cramped from the cold, wet sand—just as numb as my hands had gone.
The giant loomed over me, bending down, hand reaching, and black tail slowly unwinding from his sturdy middle.
Its barbed end rose over his shoulder, slow, sinuous, definitely threatening.
I stared into his face, mouth open, fingers at the last moment trying to find the trigger to squeeze off a shot.
He wasn’t looking at me; his huge eyes were focused on the satchel in my lap, on my tablet.
He wasn’t reaching for me, but for my research.
My fingers finally found the trigger and pulled.
The cannon hummed and roared. I flew back, tumbling head over heels over the sand until my face struck water.
Gasping, I came up for air, but my hands sank into the soft sand of the lake’s shore.
Slipping, I went under again, and this time I inhaled.
It was a fight against the exhaustion that weighed down my limbs and the flare of pain in my arms and chest. Somehow, I managed to rise again, all elbows and clumsy flailing.
When I twisted to face the danger, I was still blinking droplets from my eyes, shrouded by soaked hair and coughing water from my lungs.
Jaxin stood between me and the giant, legs wide in a stance that, from my prone position, made him seem huge.
It was a matter of perspective, but my angle even made him seem a match for the Radin giant.
They were two massive, testosterone-fueled opponents facing off.
A stare-down thick with tension that sliced through the air so sharply that even my dulled senses screamed warnings: Run.
Escape. Before these behemoths remembered I was there—and turned on me.
Jaxin’s black armor glistened with a million drops of water, reflecting like tiny stars off of him.
His fin rose sharply from his back, and his gills were sharp lines against his thick gray skin.
Seeing him like this reminded me of how powerful a predator a Rummicaron was in his own right, and Jaxin was more than most. He was trained, deadly, and his lack of emotions made him fearless.
The giant seemed to sense just how dangerous his new opponent was, even with the cannon lying in the sand behind Jaxin’s heels.
It didn’t matter when confronted with the many sharp teeth my Rummicaron displayed.
The giant lowered his head, though he did not raise his hands in surrender, and began to back away.
Very slowly but with feet moving confidently from sand to uneven jungle ground, even while backing up blindly.
We had not seen the last of him; of that, I was sure.
Jaxin did not lose the ready tension in his body until long after the giant had vanished silently and completely into the trees.
It rubbed against my wet, sand-coated skin and clothing like fine needles, prickling through the air until it felt like my hair stood on end.
That would be quite the feat, considering the long, tangled, and now-soaked mess that clung to the back of my shirt.
I needed a hairbrush, a hot shower, food, and sleep.
My body sagged when Jaxin lowered his arms to his sides.
Exhaustion swept through me so hard now that the danger had passed that I knew I wouldn’t be able to even rise.
The humid jungle air and the eternal summer warmth of Radin meant I wasn’t going to die of exposure like this, but it wasn’t comfortable—not by a long shot.
I shook; my nipples ached from the cold and pressed harshly against my snug, supportive top.
I was miserable, but I refused to say anything.
“This way,” Jaxin said at last, and he turned, his chest heaving in a way that made it seem like he’d just run forty miles.
His voice was even, subdued, but my senses—nearly non-existent—tingled.
He seemed angry, furious, and at the same time…
he looked calm, and his voice did not betray so much as a hint of the fury that seemed to tingle through the air.
Then it was gone, like it had never been there to begin with, and I wondered if I had imagined it.
A figment of my exhausted, delusional brain.
He ducked, slung his laser cannon by the strap over his shoulder, and approached me.
His gruff “this way” hadn’t been followed by an indication of direction, but I was too exhausted to follow such a command anyway.
The sand dipped by my legs when he halted at my side, and my eyes dropped to his feet.
For the first time, I noticed that something strange had happened to his boots.
The front had retracted, folded back in some advanced bit of technological magic.
His toes projected over the lip of the sole, and they’d spread so the webbing between them could be used to its fullest effect. It was very clever.
I was still staring at his weird, gray, webbed toes when he grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet.
It did not escape my notice that he’d chosen to grab me by my good arm, the one whose shoulder had not been dislocated.
“Into the water,” he said, and as my panic struggled to grasp his meaning, he pushed.
We were knee-deep before I could manage to utter a protest, my tired limbs moving slowly and sluggishly.
“Trust me,” he said over my objections, and he pulled me deeper.
Cold water soaked my bones, its pervasive fingers sapping my remaining strength.
My knees gave out when the water hit mid-chest, and I sank with a splutter beneath the surface.
Jaxin was merciless, hauling my body against his and then dragging me under.
My satchel, with my precious research, got trapped between our bodies, then slid to my hip when he turned.
Air ran out far too quickly, and the water was so dark and so cold.
I was numb to fear or panic, but some vaguely bubbled through my bloodstream, trying to warn me that I was about to drown.
Jaxin held me; I knew I wasn’t swimming, and yet I was aware that we were moving fast through the water.
My fading mind pictured the way he swam, his webbed feet and muscular thighs propelling him forward, that intriguing fin on his back cutting through the water.
The darkness in my mind threatened to swallow me any minute now, the way the dark water had already swallowed my body. Then, suddenly and confusingly, air. My face was so cold that, for a moment, I could not discern the change in atmosphere, from water to beautiful, breathable air. We’d surfaced.