Chapter Nineteen:

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Stryker braced himself and sucked in a long breath filled with Norah’s fear, apprehension, and adrenaline.

He lifted the magnum to his temple and sent a prayer to his Lady Luck. His rage tempered as he threaded his way deep into his ship’s systems, seeking out the location of the beast.

It prowled back and forth between the bridge and the menagerie. He could sense the thick blood pumping through the Wieraptor’s body, its muscles tensed, and the vengeance it sought to bring down on him and his ship. It was trapped within the passage.

At least Matt had the sense to initiate a lockdown. Even if he only did it to save his own ass.

“My ship is shaped a little bit like a magnifying lens,” he said to Norah. “The lab is the round end, two layers, the bottom has the enclosures, the second floor is a railway above it. There’s a set of doors directly above one another that leads deeper into the ship. The bottom level leads to the bridge and the top level leads to operations, living quarters and such. Everything else is located on a third level that has a hatch entrance. If we get split up, you know where to go, understand?”

“Got it,” her voice hitched.

“We’re entering the lab.” He moved to open the door.

“Stryker…” Norah grasped his arm and tugged. Her brow furrowed as her lips moved without saying anything. He pulled her into his arms and held her close, gripping her soft body against his hard one, flesh to metal, organic to artificial. “I hate this,” she squeaked into his chest. He relished her every supple curve from the toes strained upward in his embrace, the soft frame pressed to him, to the thick black hair that fell in wild coils at her shoulders.

She had become everything to him, and he could barely wait for the dust to settle so he could wrap her up within his beast and cherish her.

Norah made him soft where he was hard. She made him feel more human. He saved her to take her, to keep her, to feast on her. Not to set her free.

His heart sped up. Stryker released her before she made him too soft.

He turned toward the door and opened it, lifting his next-to-useless gun level with the scope implanted in his eye. His once beautiful, symmetrical, pristine lab came into view to reveal an explosion of glass and machinery. Stryker looked down at the mess and jerked his head, snapping at it from behind his mask.

The only containment structure that had broken was the one the Wieraptor was in. It seemed that Luck had smiled on him.

His eyes ran over the other habitats, all still intact, all functioning within the parameters given for a lockdown scenario. Some of the plants and animals were creatures he didn’t want to deal with again.

He motioned for Norah to follow him to a stairwell that led to the second level. His bare feet crunched over the debris and tore up his soles but it didn’t stop him from maneuvering between his acquisitions. He heard Norah follow steadily behind him as he went up to each sealed enclosure and checked their vitals.

The last thing he wanted to do was delay his trip home to recapture a creature.

Stryker stepped back to join Norah who was staring at the alien animals throughout the space.

“They’re fine,” he answered before she could ask.

Her curls fluttered as she shook her head, “But is it safe? For them? Are they okay?” She placed her hand against the nearest enclosure. Behind it were nesting beetles from Taggert, a prisoner planet. The inmates crushed them and used the paste as a strong numbing agent for wounds. It lasted for hours and had begun to be used to prolong fights, torture, and other recreational activities. A man’s foot could have a knife sticking out of it and he wouldn’t even notice.

“Of course they are.”

A crash of metal screeched through the lab, powerful enough to dent the closed panel that was his destination. The glass habitats could keep out nearly everything but not the sound the monster roared as it slammed into the barrier between them.

Norah covered her head and flinched away from the sound. The rubble beneath his feet vibrated with each consecutive impact. Just under the shards of plastic and glass were the long grooves of nails dragged across the floor.

“What the hell is that?” Norah asked over the barrage.

“Wieraptor, a beast at the top of its food chain on a planet the EPED is looking into for a port.”

“So, what? They wanted to bring them to Earth? I don’t want to know what’s behind that door.”

Stryker bent down and traced the claw marks with his finger. Half an inch deep. Cold. Matt couldn’t be lying about when the beast broke free. He looked around. The dust is settled.

All of this under an extra dose of tranquilizers. He frowned and felt the itch to kill the monster rather than recapture it, but as the thought formed in his head, he disregarded it. I’m low on tranqs.

“I’m not sure,” he told her, although he had an idea. “I would assume that it’s so they know what they’re up against and how they can maintain and fortify a structure against them.” He didn’t want to think about all the men and women who would die during the port’s creation if the project was green-lit.

At the rate the Wieraptor was going in destroying its habitat, damaging the ship, and fighting the narcotics, he couldn’t see anyone ever wanting to risk colonizing its world. Stryker walked over to the damaged computer system that fed all of the inhabitant’s reports to the EPED’s server, and notified Mia, his handler at the agency. His hand ran across the shredded electronics. Had to be the tail.

The tail would grow back every time it was cut off. He had seen remnants on the beast’s world, half chewed up, skeletal remains, and decayed. Territory disputes.

Unfortunately for him, if his tail were cut off, it wouldn’t grow back. He’d have to have it rebuilt piece by piece, hoping all the while that his nanocells didn’t reject the new parts.

“Is it worth it?”

“That’s a hard question to answer, babe.” Stryker made his way to the door and the monster that roared behind it. When he was a step away, the sounds vanished and the reverberations settled. He systematically turned off the safety of his low-grade guns and, when he was done, motioned for Norah. The pounding of her heart was like thunder in his ears.

“I want you to stand to the side,” he gestured to a ridge of metal to the side. “Behind there. I’m going to lure it out so that when it’s through I have its full attention. I want you to run through, close the door, and head for Matt and the bridge.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Norah, you can’t fight this. It’s a demon, for lack of a better term. It won’t go down easily.”

Her fingers clasped his wrist. “I can’t leave you, love; leaving you will kill me. It can’t be worse than Axone.”

Stryker turned to her and pulled on one of her curls. “Feels right, doesn’t it?” he asked but felt the pressure of the silence to be ominous. The Wieraptor was cunning, intelligent, dangerous, and strong. His mouth tilted up. Love felt the same way.

“What does?” He heard her ready her gun.

“Saying, love.”

Norah stepped to his side and behind the metal that would cover her until the path was clear. “Don’t start, Cyborg.” She sighed. “Just get through this alive, please. I can’t think about anything, at all, right now with everything fighting to be in the forefront of my thoughts.” She pointed at him, her finger straight at his heart. “If you don’t get out of this alive, I’m going to curse you to my dying breath, I swear it.”

He chuckled, and with one long look at her he placed his hand on the panel and overrode the door’s security measures.

It slid open with a screech, slow and disjointed. It shuddered and groaned as the passageway behind slowly revealed itself to him, a chaotic vista of destruction and pounded metal, bent out of shape, with claw marks covering every square foot of the space.

Stryker caught the eyes of his would-be captive, tense and still on the other end of the hallway. His eyes flashed blue as he switched his scope sight to infrared. The Wieraptor blinked redshot eyes back at him. Steam puffed from its nostrils as it sniffed him.

He reached up and dislodged his mask. It poised to attack. He dropped the metal piece to the ground; the sound of it hitting the grated floor joined with the clatter of nails as the beast came at him.

Bloodlust rushed in his veins and electricity coursed through his systems. He lifted his gun and aimed for the eye, firing off two shots before the collision.

Norah screamed from somewhere beyond as the Wieraptor crashed into him. The crunch of teeth and metal rang amidst the continuous gunfire. It ended all too soon as the weapon clicked without ammo. Stryker slammed the gun down onto the snout of the creature, beating it with a ferocity that matched the starved howls of the beast.

The thick smell of urine invaded the lab, and the heavy wash of acidic liquid hit his legs as the Wieraptor sought to mark its claim over what was his.

Stryker dropped the gun and rolled to the side just as the mouth of the monster came snapping down at him. He unsheathed the pistol he had holstered at his side and pushed the nuzzle up against the thing’s throat, shooting off his entire clip, his metal aspect giving into the frenzy.

The Wieraptor reared up on its hind legs and the bullets he had embedded in its hide were forced out as the monster flexed its muscles.

His fangs emerged from his gums, pushing out his human teeth. Toxic venom rose up as his gut synthesized the poison. The creature struck down at him, catching him in his arm. Sword-like claws drove into the heavy metal of his biceps.

Stryker was pinned to the ground.

A series of shots rang out. They didn’t come from his gun–Norah had given him a moment as the Wieraptor whipped its head around to find the bullet’s source.

“No!” he screamed. He saw Norah run back up the stairs from the corner of his eyes.

The claw that held him lifted up but he grasped it and shifted into the reptilian horror he truly was.

“Norah, run!” he screamed as he unloaded the electric pistol into the throat of the beast. The clothes ripped off of his frame and he lost the belt with his spare weapons as his legs fused together, his skin pulled back, and his tail grew from his body.

He was dragged across the floor, the debris gouging his back as the thing went after Norah. The Wieraptor seemed to know that if it took her out it would win. The second-floor railway pushed into his back as he wrapped his tail around the beast’s back legs.

Norah’s fading footfalls were music to his ears as the creature tripped, its head snapping, teeth out, jaws pulled back, at something out of his view.

He only hoped that Norah was beyond its reach. A terrible roar filled his ears, making him recoil at the sound. He responded by withdrawing his arms into his chest and completing his transformation.

“Death comessss to thossssse who crossssss me,” he hissed, his voice low and garbled. The Wieraptor landed on its side and he felt the slight bend of several of his plates as part of him was crushed in the impact. He tangled himself amongst the monster’s limbs, expanding his body to asphyxiate it under the strength of his coils. He heard the click and snap of teeth biting near his face, its body twisting and turning to try and grab hold of his form.

Stryker bared his fangs and growled back. He knew the moment the monster realized he couldn’t reach him because it rolled onto its back and tried to crush him instead.

He slithered out of the tight and uncomfortable pressure that had been imposed on his metal skeleton. His mechanics tried to realign, but couldn’t in their newly-warped state. Stryker gritted his teeth and shot free.

The Wieraptor collided with the nearest habitat, the sound of splintering glass had him tightening his hold on the creature. He slowly maneuvered to wrapped around its neck.

Starved and wild.

He held back from sinking his teeth into its hide. The monster shook and danced around in a frenzy, trying to break his hold on its frame. Stryker felt its black claws come up to hook under his tail and throw him off.

Saliva slathered his face just as the monster closed its teeth around his head.