Minutes to Burn

Tucker was vulnerable from three sides, shadows all around him. He sensed a presence right beside him, the darkness shaping itself into something rudimentary and lifelike. Panic flickered through his eyes as he slowly turned his head to get his bearings. He tightened his grip on the stick.

"Tucker?" Szabla's voice crackled through the transmitter. "You there?"

The connection was breaking up with the rain, and Tucker prayed it would go dead. He'd have to speak to deactivate the transmitter, but he knew not to make a sound. Lips trembling, he tried to shush Szabla, but the air seemed to stick in his throat.

He hadn't moved an inch, not since Savage had spoken. His foot was raised mid-step, poised about four inches above the ground. A roll of thunder filled the air. Sweat beaded across his forehead.

"Not an inch," Savage hissed. "Don't even exhale."

Because it was supporting all his weight, Tucker's left leg started to quiver, ever so slightly, in the thigh. He flexed it and it stilled. More rain swept to his face and he blinked against it, fighting the water out of his eyes. His hand was white-knuckled around the branch. Some mud slid from the bottom of his raised boot and slopped to the ground.

A flash of lightning lit the air, and he saw dangling beside and above him the enormous creature, not more than an arm's length to his right. She swayed upside down from the branch of a tree, blending in almost perfectly with the fluctuating foliage all around her. Her forelegs were folded, as if in prayer, her wide wings pulled in tight across her back. If she weren't right next to him, he wouldn't have even seen her among the branches, twigs, and leaves.

Normally a greenish-tan, the creature's eyes had turned black for the night. Set in a triangle between them were the ocelli, three smaller eyes used only to distinguish the degree of light. They glimmered like pearls beneath the arc of her antennae. The hooks on the ends of her legs were clamped shut around a wide Scalesia branch about fifteen feet above the ground; it creaked when she swayed.

Tucker turned his head with excruciating slowness and looked into her face. Her front antennae vibrated in the breeze, her mouthparts quivering, and for an instant, Tucker caught his own frightened reflection in her black eyes.

Szabla's voice cut back in sharply. "-next in command. I'm thinking we could use a little leadership-" Tucker jerked ever so slightly, and the creature's antennae snapped erect at the movement. His nostrils flared, his chest jerked with a quick intake of air.

The strike was so quick Savage couldn't even see it. The raptorial legs flashed out, folding over themselves and crushing Tucker within them. Tucker screamed as the spikes dug through his flesh, almost scissoring him in two. His arm was pinned to his side. The strike took three hun-dredths of a second.

Tucker's stick tumbled to the ground.

The creature dropped from the branch, landing expertly on her legs while not relinquishing her hold on Tucker. Her frightful head lowered to the back of Tucker's neck, the mouth spreading wide, a collection of living tools.

Savage charged the creature, swinging his knife at the prothorax. The blade glanced off the hard waxy exoskeleton, unable to dig into the smooth surface. Though the blow didn't puncture her cuticle, the crea-ture swayed back with its force. Tucker's free arm flailed, his hand fisting the air as he screamed. Savage grabbed his arm and pulled, though he knew the thing had him wrapped up too tight. Blood spurted from Tucker's mouth, spilling over his chin.

The creature would have struck Savage were her raptorial legs not wrapped around Tucker's body. She flung Tucker to the ground and low-ered herself swiftly, standing territorially over his body.

Savage staggered back. Beneath the creature's abdomen, Tucker squirmed in the leaves. The creature spread her mouth, though no sound issued forth. Then air hissed from her spiracles, forcing Savage back another step.

A stream of blood ran down one of Tucker's arms, stark red against his white flesh. Savage could hear him rasping through a punctured lung. He was lost. There was no way he was going to pull through.

But it was in Savage's blood to stand ground when there was a com-rade down. He stepped back farther out of the creature's range and reverse-gripped the knife with the blade running down along his fore-arm, sharp edge out, ready to punch. The creature tilted her head, watching him curiously. It was night all around them, but in the lightning he could see the rain running off her sides. Her mouth opened in another silent roar, a maw of mandibles, maxillae, and labrum, and she drew her-self up to her full nine feet. Behind her, her abdomen and wings stretched back, thick and firm, like a horse's body. Though Savage was across the clearing from her, she seemed to tower over him.