“Thanks,” Jeremy whispered when Fiona knelt next to him.
“Did you kill her?” Fiona asked.
Jeremy blinked back the blurring in his vision. “No! I…we tried to get away. They got her. My gun was broken, I couldn’t save her! I had to get away or we’d both have died.”
Fiona nodded. “I like you, Sinclair, don’t make me regret this, okay?”
Jeremy’s smile felt pretty weak, but at least Fiona nodded before looking away from his face to the rest of his body. “Can you move?”
“I think so, I feel funny, but at least I can feel everything.”
“I don’t think he should be moving, they way he looked when he fell? And the sounds we heard? I was sure she’d broken a dozen bones,” Wes said.
“If I stay here I’m dead, one way or another,” Jeremy said. He moved slowly, testing his body as he rolled onto his side. Fiona was there a moment later, helping him up without pulling or twisting him. He paused once he was sitting, then gingerly tested his neck. It felt thick and swollen, as though it wouldn’t turn very well. Rather than test it he decided to take it easy. He climbed the rest of his way to his feet then let Fiona hold him steady through a wave of dizziness. “Okay,” he said a few moments later. “I’m as good as I’m going to get.”
Jeremy looked over and saw Kira staring at him. Something flashed in her eyes before she turned away from him. “He’s up, let’s go!” She called out to the group. “Keep up, I don’t plan on waiting for stragglers. There’s something back there I haven’t seen before and I need to warn the others.”
“Think you can do this?” Fiona asked him.
“Think I’ve got a choice? I’m not waiting here!”
“Those bugs that came out of the megasaur, is that what she’s talking about?”
“Yeah.”
“You said the big one that came out was a queen? How do you know that?”
“Wait a minute, bugs crawled out of that Megasaur after it died? Was it some kind of symbiotic relationship?” Wesley asked.
“I don’t know, maybe.” The truth was Jeremy hadn’t put much of any thought to the four legged terrors that had killed Dr. Rice and nearly had him as an after-dinner mint. “Big as that thing was, I don’t think so. There were too many of them. Kira said the bugs, or whatever they are, were what killed the megasaur.”
“What, you don’t think they’re bugs? They looked liked four legged ants or cockroaches or something.” Fiona opined.
“I saw some up close, they were breathing and they expanded with each breath. I don’t think it’s a shell or an exoskeleton…”
“Lungs?” Wesley gasped. “So then what’s the hard shell on them, armored plates?”
“Why not, Terran dinosaurs had bony plates for defense.”
“So why a queen? Animals don’t need a queen.”
“It’s the Vitallian way.” The new voice surprised them all. Jeremy twisted at the waist, turning to see Kira walking up to them. Somehow she’d done a quick circuit around the group and was returning to it. “The females of any species are larger and stronger. They stay back tending the young while the males hunt for food. Some stay in a herd or hive, some gather in smaller groups or even remain almost solitary until they mate.”
“Reminds of what they used to say about Earth having a Mother Nature,” Wesley said.
“Except Mother Vitalis is a crotchety bitch that does not like her planet being messed with,” Kira said. “We’re leaving. I meant everything I said before. Marine, what’s your name?”
“Lance Corporal Fiona Kate.”
“Come with me, Kate, I want to talk with you.”
Jeremy saw the distrust in Fiona’s eyes when she sought out his gaze. He gave her a smile, holding back the sudden flip flops his stomach wanted to do. Was Kira trying to poison Fiona against him? Wes seemed to like him and he’d talked to the other Marines a few times as well, but it was always with Fiona or because of Fiona. In a pinch he knew they’d side with her. He swallowed down his nerves as Fiona and Kira walked off to stand behind another clump of bushes and converse too quietly to be overheard.
“What’s that all about?” Wesley asked.
“I have no idea.”
“Relax, if there’s a human population of almost nothing here, each one of us is too valuable to risk leaving behind.”
Jeremy found himself hoping that Wesley was right. Kira’s behavior and steely gaze made him believe otherwise though. Before his mind could wander too far Fiona came back through the grasses and winked at him. He felt his heart slow in his chest even as a headache was building in the back of his head.
“I thought she was hitting on me for a minute there!” Fiona said in a hushed voice. “She started out talking about how impressed she was that I stood up and how everyone was looking up to me to see what I did. It was kind of creepy!”
Wesley chuckled. “Are you kidding? She’s got the body of a goddess! A little scary maybe, but I like a good scare.”
“Trust me, she’s stronger than she looks. She whipped me around like I was a rag doll. Anybody else and I could have gotten out of that hold. Her body is like liquid steel!”
Jeremy watched Kira heading back towards the far side of the clearing. Even at a distance he could see the muscles rippling with each step she took. She’d made him hit the ground faster than gravity should allow, he had no doubt Fiona knew what she was talking about. “So what did she want?”
“She kind of apologized for roughing me up,” Fiona said with a shrug. “She said she needed to establish who was in charge though, and that meant putting me in my place. Now she wants me to take up the rear guard and make sure nobody follows us and that everybody keeps up. Everybody, even you.”
“Told you!” Wes said, grinning at the former lab assistant.
“Lucky me,” Jeremy said. He did feel lucky though. Anything to get him away from the doomed research settlement was lucky as far as he was concerned, even if it did require his neck to eventually be fused together.
“Let’s go!” Kira called out loud enough for everyone to hear. Jeremy turned his body to look at the ruined base, worried her voice might carry. He saw no sign of pursuit, but the waste high grasses would have hidden the passage of the smaller predators. He turned and took the first of many steps forward. The thought of waiting any longer sent a shiver down his spine.
Whatever came next he was sure he could handle it, as long as he never had to go back and face those bug-like carnivores again.