Born of Sand (Tales of a Dying Star Book 5) (26 page)

The
shade
continued her turn until she faced the stinger, fifty feet away. She gripped both knives in fists, savoring the safety they promised. She ran nearly head-on at the monster, though it still faced Mira a short distance away. Laserfire bounced off its armor like pebbles.

The stinger leaned forward as it ran, raising its hind legs.

Kari's blades whistled through the air as she pumped her arms. She felt the pulsing desire to dive directly at its face, carve into its eyes, but that would have been a rookie mistake. With her body directly in its vision its pincers would be too quick, would snap her out of the air before she got close.

The stinger began pulling back its tail.

She needed to strike at the abdomen, climb onto its back again. Cutting away the bundle of nerves at the base of the tail was the only sure way to bring it down. Anything else would take too long, give the stinger too much time to react.
If I can find it.

The stinger's tail stiffened in the air, ready to descend.

With the beast tilted forward Kari saw it, a red organ-like sack at the base of the tail. Previously concealed by its overlapping armor, but now open, vulnerable as the stinger prepared to strike. It would fall upon Mira within moments, but Kari would reach it first. She would need to scramble across its back in one quick motion, slicing away the nerves before it struck. "Run away!" Kari breathed. "Stars damn you, I have to save you!"

As before, Kari leaped at the stinger.

The stinger turned.

It had been waiting for her, she realized too late. The claw moved across its body and struck Kari in the legs, throwing her into a head-over-feet spin. She tumbled through the air like a swatted fly.

She hit the sand with a grunt.

Fire ran down her leg, and a quick glance showed she'd been cut open along the side, a dark red gash from knee to ankle. Her vision spun but she forced herself to crawl. Sand rubbed across the exposed flesh, which only made the pain worse. She needed to get to her feet, hobble away faster. The sound of laserfire rang out, her comrades desperately trying to distract. Kari pulled a round charge from her chest and tossed it behind. She did the same with a second. She could feel the vibration in the hot sand, hear the cries from Farrow and Mira.

A shadow blocked the sun.

Kari turned to see the stinger stop above her, eerily patient. It raised its claw like a hammer. There was no stopping it, now. Kari knew it was over. She thought of home, on a planet far away, and realized she couldn't remember what it looked like.

The stinger stumbled, faltering, screaming to the sky.

One of its legs collapsed to the sand, detached from the thorax. Farrow appeared, running from the dismembered part and moving to the next. He pressed his pistol in between the plates at the leg joint, one of the leg's three knees. His pistol spoke, and green insect blood exploded all around.

Gritting her teeth, Kari pushed up on her good leg. She prayed the other could bear some weight, any at all. The Emperor heard her pleas, and blessed her with enough strength to shamble away from the stinger's screams.

Geral appeared and wrapped an arm around her waist to help her along.

When they were a safe distance away they turned to watch. Farrow had incapacitated four of its eight legs--a tactic that rarely worked--before darting out of reach, where now he watched. The stinger desperately moved those that remained, attempting to burrow back to safety, a fruitless effort without all of its limbs. It shrieked at the sky, a pained, sorrowful sound.

"It can't burrow, but it might still try to follow us," Kari said. Farrow, Sandra, and Mira circled the wounded animal at a safe distance. "We need to finish it."

Geral let go of her, a determined, desiring look on his face. "Maggy'll be jealous for weeks if I fell a stinger." He began to move away.

"Don't come at it from behind," Kari said through clenched teeth. "It has hairs on its tail to sense someone coming. Hit it from the side."

He nodded and jogged away, pulling his knife free. Kari felt a bit of jealousy at not being able to make the kill herself. Something tugged at her attention, insisting she had other duties on which to focus, but with the wounded, raging monster before her she had no room for focus.

In all the chaos they never heard the second stinger.

It breached beneath Geral, a rising bubble of sand that threw him aside before bursting. Unearthed, it rose to its full size, twice as large in every direction as the other. A female. It surveyed the area with a slow gaze.

Then it roared, a deep sound that shook Kari's bones.

Farrow raised his hand to signal the retreat. "Spread out--" he stopped, locking eyes with Kari. Pain spread across his face. "Kill the male!" he commanded instead, charging forward. "Quickly!"

He knows I can't run.

Farrow and Sandra closed in on the smaller stinger. Farrow approached from the front, distracting, ducking under a sweeping claw that threw sand into the air while Sandra came at the side. It screamed as she climbed onto its back, sliding across the shell as she attempted to find the nerve bundle.

The female stinger lurched into motion toward them, roaring in response.

Mira stood some distance away, feet rooted to the ground.

Unable to simply watch, Kari groaned as she limped toward the battle. Her finger went to her left thigh, depressing a mechanical switch hidden just beneath the skin, recessed among her quadricep. A tingling feeling spread through her body as the drug seeped into her bloodstream. The initial pain of the wound dimmed, but only barely, so every step sent fire up her calf.
I am the blade.

Farrow continued distracting the smaller monster while Sandra worked on its back, trying to find the weak point. He waved at Kari and yelled something, but the words were carried away by the screeching, scraping, gurgling wails. The larger stinger was nearly there, skittering across the sand in a frenzy of tree-sized legs. To the right, Geral had gotten to his feet and charged forward too.

Without slowing, the large stinger raised its claw and slammed it down at Farrow. He rolled out of the way, but as he rose the smaller beast's pincer struck him in the chest and knocked him back twenty feet. He bounced on the sand and became still.

Ignoring Kari's previous advice--or perhaps trying to distract it--Geral approached the big stinger from behind. Without turning, it flattened its tail parallel to the ground and swept horizontally across the sand, throwing Geral aside effortlessly.

Out of her stupor, Mira began firing her pistol again, the beams bouncing off the female's armor in random directions.

Kari waved while she moved. "Stop it! You're going to get yourself killed!" She didn't hear. Couldn't she see how close she was? If it so desired, the stinger could descend upon her in a long lunge.

Sandra still worked atop the smaller stinger, which now spun in circles, trying to get the passenger off its back.

Almost there
, Kari thought as she neared, readying both knives. She'd been able to jump onto the back of the smaller one, but the female was twice as tall.
And that was with two good legs.
She didn't think she could jump very far, now.

She was right. Her good leg launched her high enough to reach the stinger's armored thorax, but just barely. With all of her strength she punched her knife as she smacked into the shell. Blessedly, it stuck. Kari hung by an arm, a twenty foot climb from reaching its back.

Beams of laserfire
pinged
off the shell around her.
Stars damn you, girl, you'll kill us all!

From the side, Kari could barely see the smaller stinger. Sandra's shape worked furiously between two plates. The female stinger halfheartedly swept her claw at Sandra, obviously cautious of harming the smaller animal.

Swinging her body sideways, Kari reached up with her free hand and stabbed the second knife with a
crunch
. That allowed her wrench her right arm free and repeat the motion, swinging up and stabbing a foot higher than before.
Who needs legs?
she thought as she climbed, grateful that the stinger barely gave her any notice.

Suddenly a woman's voice cried out in victory. Sandra stuck her hand inside the stinger's shell and ripped free a tangle of green and pink. The nerve bundle!

The smaller stinger collapsed to the sand, appendages spasming randomly. Sandra threw herself from its back and rolled in the sand. She stopped to take a quick look around.

Through her knives, Kari felt the female stinger's body tremble as it raised its tail. It descended with frightening speed. Sandra barely got out of the way as it smashed into the sand.

But it was still too late.

The bulbous end of the tail burst when it hit the sand, spraying a viscous green liquid in all directions. Where the liquid struck sand it sizzled and hissed, sending steam into the air.

Where it struck Sandra it burned away cloth and skin and flesh.

She took the splash of acid in the chest, and in a puff of smoke and steam her insides were on the outside, falling to the sand in red globs. She collapsed in a scream, her legs disintegrating into mangled stubs.

The stinger moved over top of the writhing pieces of Sandra, bringing its mouth down toward the sand. There were no cries of victory, then. Only the sound of bones cracking open.

It will be distracted as it feeds
, Kari thought, returning to her climb. She couldn't see if Farrow or Geral were okay since the stinger's body blocked them, so it was safest to assume she was now alone. "Run, Mira!" she took the opportunity to yell while the stinger was occupied, the sickening noises of crunching and chewing coming from the beast's mouth. "Get away while you can! Pick a direction and go!"

The sound of someone retching came as a response.

Kari's arms were began to tire from the effort of climbing, each knife stab just a little bit weaker. The pain in her leg was returning too, and she would need to put some weight on it when she reached the top.
I won't have any time
, she thought.
All it will need to do is quickly turn sideways and I will lose my footing and fall to the sand
. And then she would end up like Sandra.

Her next knife thrust passed through air, announcing that she had reached the top. She struck downward and pulled herself onto the flat surface.

The stinger's tail had pulled back after the strike. Instead of curling above its body, it now stuck straight out, parallel to the ground. And in that position the interlocking plates of its shell were spread out, revealing a doughy red surface, soft and weak.
The nerve bundle.

It was only thirty feet away, and the stinger was still distracted by its meal. Suffering the pain in her leg, Kari crawled in that direction.

She was nearly there when the sound of laserfire resumed.

"No!" she screamed as the stinger tensed. Its tail curled back up protectively, the shell plates covering its bundle of nerves. The wind ruffled Kari's coat as the stinger whirled around. "Mira, stars damn you, stop!"

The landscape spun until Mira came into view in front of the beast. She aimed her pistol with both hands, as she'd been taught, one steady shot at a time.
I was supposed to save you
, Kari thought, pushing to her knees on the stinger's back.
Somehow I made you brave and stupid.

The stinger opened its pincer and pulled it back to strike.

Suddenly, the entire body shook, as if recoiling from a great blow. It pulled back its claws and roared, a sound like wind and rain and fire all at once. On top of the animal, Kari felt the sound as much as heard it.

The shaking continued, and then Kari realized it was not the vibrations of sound. She had the sensation of descending, then falling, like the ground were disappearing under her.
The ground
is
disappearing under me
, she realized. The stinger was burrowing, disappearing into the sand. And she was still on its back.

Kari tried to jump aside at the last moment but she lacked the strength. The sand surrounded her. She thrust her hand to the sky as the darkness closed in.

The rumbling below her grew distant as the stinger fled.

It was hardly comforting, as the weight of the sand pushed against Kari's body, making it impossible to breathe. She could feel the sun on her outstretched hand, could move it around freely.
Help me!
The sand invaded all around her, pushing into every open space. It was in her ears and nose, trying to force into her mouth. Her chest pumped in false breaths, begging her to open her mouth and inhale the sand. She held her lips tight against it.

She had no way to move, could no longer feel her legs. In all the panic, in all the fear, a thought drifted across Kari's mind:
a glorious
shade
of the Empire, suffocated by the sand.

The thought only lasted a moment. A hand clasped hers, then a second. The sand sloughed off her head and arms as they pulled her free.