Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 55551 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55551 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
“Yes. Things did. Especially this thing.”
One of the vehicles has a metal cage on the back, expanded steel mesh allowing air to pass through. It is the sort of cage suitable for an animal.
I lightly toss her into the interior, which has been lined with hay. It’s not exactly the sort of containment one would organize for a sentient creature, but I don’t think Avel explained what they were trying to contain. Or maybe he decided a human is a beast like any other. He might be right on that front.
Suli
This tinny, shitty little cage is not going to keep me contained. I know that already. I don’t know why Thorn hasn’t had the presence of mind to take the suit off me as yet, but perhaps he is distracted. He and all his saurian underlings are standing around the remains of the Chaos Fish. One of them picks up a long stick and pokes at it, proving that no matter the world, or the life form, boys will… well.. probably try to poke something with a stick.
Meanwhile, I am digging out the smallest and most elegant of tiny thermite charges you have ever seen. It’s just a sweet little capsule with two substances in separate compartments. When they’re away from one another, they’re completely inert. But put them together and something very special happens.
Specifically, 4500° F happens. All at once, very hot and very bright, and right in the locking mechanism. It is such a small amount it doesn’t destroy me, but it absolutely decimates the lock and the cage as it drips down, and then it goes through the bed of the vehicle on its way to keep boring a hole into the dirt beneath until the reaction is over. The hay at the base of the door catches fire as the thermite glob moves past, but I stamp that out before it has a chance to really take light.
The door pops off, and I am free. I slip out of the cage, feeling very self satisfied. My plan, of course, is to take the car or whatever they’d call this large vehicle with big wheels and plenty of heavy plating. Whatever they’re using to power these things, it must be in ample supply.
This vehicle is going to be much easier to drive than the bike was, probably. I won’t be fighting the weight of it every time we come off-balance a little bit, and I’ll be protected from most of the monsters that casually roam this world.
While Thorn and his men are still occupied with the unfortunate remains of the Chaos Fish, I climb into the driver’s seat. I’m not going to be able to actually sit down to drive this thing. The distance between the pedals and the steering column is too far. One might think that alien vehicles would be hard, or perhaps even impossible to drive, but much like language has been standardized across sentient planets in a slow meme creep that took thousands of years, so too have certain other technologies become familiarly standard and familiar. There are easy ways to do things, and hard ways to do things, and once someone develops a tech that makes things easier, it spreads. Tonight, this means the alien vehicle control scheme is familiar enough for me to take control.
They left the vehicle running, which also helps. So I put my feet on the pedals and my hands on the wheel and I set off at speed, doing a big spinning circle around the Chaos Fish and the befuddled saurians, each of whose faces is a perfect mask of shock and amazement. Except for Thorn. He’s looking dead straight at me with an expression on his face that sends a chill down my spine. There’s something so terribly exciting about defying someone truly dominant, someone you know will not let the matter rest, but will pursue you to the ends of his world, and perhaps many others as well. There is a determination in his gaze that is not reflected in the eyes of the others, a certain understanding, not only of what he is up against, but who he is up against.
It’s funny. Some people can know you for a hundred years and never know you at all. And other people slash aliens can know you for an hour, hunt you down through a monster-infested jungle, and know you better than anybody else ever has.
I smile, wave, almost lose control of the vehicle, and then send it careening back toward what I figure must be civilization, given the road being much better in that direction.
They’re running now, heading toward the other two vehicles. I don’t know what the relative speed of these things is, but this is not my first high speed chase. Or low speed chase, for that matter. It’s the second one today, though I expect this will be a little more exciting.