The Token by Kevin Bird (the little red hen ebook .TXT) 📖

out here?” A tall man ran out on hearing the uproar and grabbed the shouting man by his shoulders and shook him. “Calm down, Gil. What’s happened?”
The other man did as he was told and took a deep breath to calm himself. “About half of the animals are dead on the floor of the pen! I’ve no idea what did it, but they didn’t die pretty. It looks like something tore them to shreds.” The two men ran towards the nearest pen, followed by others attracted by all the shouting.
True to his description, the man showed those who came in after him that indeed many of the greens and blues were now just bloody messes on the dirt floor. The remaining living beasts were huddled together shaking in the farthest corner from where the majority of corpses were.
“What the hell did this?” The tall man, Kell, was in nominal command when Drake and the other pirates were off-world. “I’ve never seen any kind of creature here that could do this to an animal of this size. Anyone got any ideas?” This was too much for him to figure out. No one spoke up.
“Gil, take as many people as you need and clear out the dead ones, salvage any of the meat that you can, then check the paddock walls to see if there are any breaches. I’ll get a group with weapons to patrol the perimeter.”

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At last, freedom! Each member of our two separated groups felt the lust for life our mutual forebears had also experienced after successful hunts. And, as our forebears before us, we communed silently together in triumph before hiding in darkness at the first sign of daylight. Connected in our images, even over distance, we felt each other’s kinship and rejoiced. Some of us were in trouble with no where to go to escape a world of many small suns overhead. Some of us had experienced better fortune, as after breaking out and feeding, we had found shelter away from the coming sunlight and were now settling into our new home. However, in both groups we found the traditionally powerful need to survive, and this we would do at all costs.


Thirty One


“Jacob! Oh, darling, is that really you?” Bella was in tears as she held the radio up to her ear. Bettine had here ear pressed up to the phone trying to listen in and tears streamed down her face too.
“Yes, Bella, and I’m OK for now, but you have to help me.” Jacob had explained his position and asked about Marshall’s ship. On hearing it had arrived he had sent the two women to talk with its captain.
Once the radio had been passed on to Blake he didn’t waste time chatting to his friend. Instead, he realized that time was everything right now, and he handed the radio to the man who had come to pick up Clayton. Blake could only hear half of the conversation but it sounded promising.
“Let me speak to Clayton. Tell me where you are now, Lieutenant. What is your course and speed? How long before your fuel and life-support are out?” He was making notes on a small computer screen as he asked questions and received his answers. “Who else is with you, and what am I supposed to do with them? Very well, since I can’t talk with Marshall right now I’ll take your word for it. If we have any chance at all of getting to you in time I’ll need to leave now. I’ll pass the radio back to these farmers; they seem to be keen to talk to you.” Bella was waving madly at him not to break the radio connection.
The two men walked briskly back to their ship, and telling the others to move away, they entered and closed the door behind them. In a few seconds the engines blasted into life and the ship lifted off in a cloud of dirt, shooting into the sky. In a minute it was out of sight.
“Jacob, they’re on their way. You’ll be OK. Here’s Bettine, darling.” She handed the radio to her daughter.
“Dad, are you alright?”
“I’m doing fine little lady. You want to do me a favor? Can you run over to Sean’s family’s farm and tell them he’s with me. If all goes well we should be back home in the next five or six hours. Tell them they can come and get him at our house. How’re you doing champ?”
Bettine couldn’t keep the relief from her voice, “I’m doing fine now I know you’ll be coming back soon. I didn’t like the idea of having to grow up so fast to help mum. I wanna be a kid for a little while longer at least. Hurry back, OK?”
“I’ll be home before you know it. How’re the animals doing?”
“They’re all out in the pens eating lots and they look healthy. They should breed well, I think. Here’s mum.” Bella had become impatient at the way the conversation seemed to be turning to apparently mundane topics. After all, her husband was floating around lost in space, and might not necessarily make it back.
“I love you, Jacob, and I need you come back safely. Understand? Don’t do anything silly, just get back here.” She realized she was treating him like a child, but she couldn’t help herself.
“Bella, I have to get off the line now. We need to save the batteries so we can signal the men who’re coming out to get us. We’ll be a pretty tiny blip on their sensors so we’ll have to let them home in on this signal. I love you, too and I’ll be there before you know it.” The radio went silent.


Thirty Two

“Sir, we left all the lights on so we could see what was happening inside the holds, and for some reason they seem to stay in the shadows. I don’t think they like the lights.” One of the cargo stewards was talking to the ship’s second officer as they walked side by side towards the main door into the hold containing the shipment of livestock.
“What do you mean, ‘they’?” Laith felt his stomach turning in apprehension.
“I’m sorry sir, but everything seems to have happened so fast. A short time ago one of my men thought he heard an unusual amount of noise coming from in there,” he pointed at the door they had just reached. “He went in to check and never came out. The lead steward was on duty at the time and went in to check on the man. We thought he might have been kicked by an excitable blue but nothing more sinister than that. When the lead staggered back out he was mortally wounded by something that jumped back inside.”
The man pointed at a blood stain on the floor, still wet and shiny under the artificial lights. “The lead’s neck was all bloody and he was dead before we had time to even try to help him. We increased the lights and from the doorway we could see dozens of the blues and greens on the floor dead, and we saw a lot of small black shapes up on the ceiling between the rafters which was the only place with any shadows left.”
While he’d been talking, a group of ten heavily armed men arrived and stood in front of the officer waiting for their orders.
“How did they get into the rafters? It must be twice the height of an adult blue in there!”
“Amazing as it sounds, Mr. Laith, it looked like they just jumped up there. How, I don’t know,” the steward replied, clearly as mystified as the officer sounded.
“Security, what do you think would be the best way to deal with these things, whatever they are?”
“Sir, we’d need to do a recon before I could intelligently answer that. With your permission I’ll arrange one.” After a nod of approval from the officer, he spoke quietly to his men and then asked the steward to open the door.
Leaving two men to guard the door so it could be kept ajar, the other eight men moved into the room. Four went left along the wall and the others to the right.
“I can see at least twenty dark shapes on the rafters above us, sir,” he spoke into a small headset tuned to a handset he had given the officer for communication. “They don’t seem to be moving, sir. Maybe now would be a good time to take care of them. If we use non-armor-piercing rounds there’ll be no risk of causing damage to the ship. Permission to open fire.”
“Granted,” came the reply.
The men in the room began firing at the creatures above, but before the first had fallen to the ground the remaining black shapes launched themselves at the security team.

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Night was falling as the images of pain and fear shot into our minds. The messages from our distant brethren spurred us on to do something; but knowing we were separated by great distances, the only way to attack the emotions bubbling inside was to go on a hunt. Our bellies were calling for us to feed anyway so the decision was made for us, and instinct took over. We had found a large cave close to where our food was, and as soon as the dark was full we would be out feeding. If we could not help the others then we certainly would help ourselves.

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Kell and the other pirates, few though they were, felt comfortable that they had taken all the precautions necessary to make sure that whatever had killed the animals the night before would not do so again. He had contained the remaining animals in a smaller pen that he could guard easily. Two men were posted at each corner; two by the gate and the rest of the people from the village, numbering about fifteen, were resting around a fire ready to spell the guards throughout the night.
“Drake should be back tomorrow so we only have to lose one night’s sleep taking care of the remaining animals. When he gets back we’ll have enough firepower to finish this, if we don’t do it ourselves tonight.” He was talking to the group around the fire while eating a chunk of roasted green.
Everyone was actually in a jovial mood. It was like some kind of an adventure to them since only animals had been killed, and with each man carrying a weapon they feared nothing. Of course, Kell thought, large amounts of wine didn’t create cowards; on the contrary. He had tried to stop any drinking tonight, but these were pirates and that was next to impossible. Drake could have done it, but not Kell.
“We’ll spell those on duty in two hours so relax but keep your eyes open for anything unusual. Remember, we still don’t know what we’re really looking for or if it will even come back tonight.” He grabbed a flaming torch from the fire’s edge and walked off to check that those on guard were all in their allotted positions. The last of the daylight had slipped over the horizon and the stars were trying their best to shine through the cloudy night sky.
As he passed from the guarded door of the pen towards the first corner he heard a scream. It was hard to be sure, but it seemed to be coming from the opposite side of the pen. That was the side farthest from the village and the firelight and closest to the huge looming shadow that was Cargo 1.

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