Scot Lancer heard the foot falls of giants. Under the three moons in the clear night sky, he could see for hundreds of yards in any direction on the open rocky range. The earth still shook underfoot with the ponderous tread of titans. Off to his left side, forty yards away, a big boulder rolled aside loudly to reveal a gargantuan cave cleft.
Out of it stepped the giants known as saldars. They averaged fifteen to twenty feet tall and were lean and muscular. Their skin was black scales, like snakes. They were humanoid, but their faces were rather reptilian, with flat noses, dark snake eyes, and mouths full of pointed teeth for eating meat. They looked like a humanoid evolved version of reptiles. They wore leather clothing, with chain mail shirts, mail kilts, greaves on their boots, and helms on their heads. They carried massive iron axes, swords, spears, hammers, wood shields, bows and arrows.
They were emerging from a hidden tunnel the boulder had blocked so effectively that Scot was camping close to it. He'd thought he was able to see any enemies coming from any direction. He'd thought wrong. The giant saldars instantly saw him. They verbally rumbled excitedly in their harsh language. Scot was nothing they feared. He looked like a mouse to the monsters.
Scot only stood five and a half feet tall. He was lean waisted and possessed a muscle packed, impressive, bodybuilder's physique. He was young and good looking, with blond hair and blue eyes. Numerous scars crisscrossed his face and physique. His left hand was robotics, covered in synthetic skin that soaked up solar energy to power it. That robotic hand pulled out what looked like a foot long flashlight. A yard long, scintillating, sapphire, jet of energy, ignited from the plasma torch. His right hand pulled his scoped plasma pistol, which fired plasma and ion infused, incendiary bolts. He shifted his stance as the saldars poured out of the cave mouth, eager to attack him. They believed they were dealing with a simple human.
Scot was an Earth man, but his DNA had been altered by the bite of a rare creature called a Slypher. It made Scot's former strength and speed more than triple. He tensed for action, quickly counting over twenty saldars in sight. No words were spoken. None were necessary. Several saldars bent their behemoth bows to aim arrows over eight feet long.
Scot's pistol barrel blossomed a ruby, refulgent round that crowned a saldar's brow, beneath his helm. The plasma and ionized incendiary bolt maimed and baked its brain. Scot's sights swiveled to a second saldar that raised his shield in time to block his head and body. Scot's barrel bloomed another bolt that smote low, torching the testicles, to bring the titan tumbling down with his dead brethren. He screamed, clutching his boiled balls.
Scot's supernatural celerity served him well as he deftly darted, evading several stupendous shafts that swished past where he'd just stood. The party of giants charged with shields raised to block them from waist to face and their weapons waving. Scot's blaster screamed, reaming out a beam that lambasted a leg, high in the thigh. It cut the limb out from under him, so the saldar sprawled on the stones. He squealed, clutching his fried thigh, which continued cooking with crisp, sizzling and popping sounds, like bacon on a skillet. His mail had become molten where the beam bored through, like butter under a blowtorch.
Scot's swinging sights landed on another leg that he lanced with a blast that fractured the femur while flaming the flesh. The tumbling giant tripped up his buddies that trampled him. Scot scrambled at superhuman speed, dodging and shooting, becoming a blur for his foes. He evaded another accurate arrow whizzing his way, along with a battery of blows from weapons that skated on stone instead of him. His barrel flared a fork that strobed as it drove through a shield to charbroil the chest of a saldar and lick his lung like lava.
Scot sprang above a stamping boot. The plasma torch in his left hand was like a sparkling, sapphire sword that speared and seared through the saldar's ankle, almost entirely amputating it. He swatted aside an iron sword that stabbed at him. Then Scot was running past the lead gauntlet of giants wielding hand weapons. There was numerous archers
Scot's swinging sights landed on another leg that he lanced with a blast that fractured the femur while flaming the flesh. The tumbling giant tripped up his buddies that trampled him. Scot scrambled at superhuman speed, dodging and shooting, becoming a blur for his foes. He evaded another accurate arrow whizzing his way, along with a battery of blows from weapons that skated on stone instead of him. His barrel flared a fork that strobed as it drove through a shield to charbroil the chest of a saldar and lick his lung like lava.
There were numerous archers’ farther back at an angle ahead, aiming at him. He sidestepped a sibilant hissing shaft that nearly skewered him. His plasma pistol puffed another incendiary ray that tapered an archer's torso, liquefying part of the lung. Another arrow came too close as Scot dived aside and it tripped him. He fell and tried to rise and run, but stumbled on a stone, slowing him as he sidestepped another shaft. The gauntlet of giants wielding iron weapons and swinging wood shields swarmed over him.
Shannon appeared behind the aiming archers. She resembled a brown furred wolf, bigger than a Kodiak brown bear from Earth, but more streamlined, with muscle and no fat. But she clearly wasn't a pure wolf, because her head and mouth were more humongous than a hippo, with titanic teeth that looked like they belonged on a dinosaur. Her paws were long toed, almost like human hands, and tipped with talons she could unsheathe to reach over seven inches long. Shannon was a werebeast, made of a dark matter and dark energy, she had an alien symbiont.
Shannon's pounce jounced against a saldar's neck, and her gaping maw snapped like an immense trap, with more power than a car compactor. Her maw muscles flexed on his neck and wrecked his mail to drive his spine. The archer gasped as he went limp as a noodle, paralyzed by the bite. He flopped on his face. Shannon instantly released him and jumped from his back to tap the ground before a bound that found another archer. He glimpsed her spring in his peripheral vision and tried to spin and strike her with his bow. Shannon's big paw batted the bow, blocking the blow, as her other paw's claws sawed through his upraised arm. She coiled her hind feet against his chest. Her dark matter talons trenched in his chest, splitting mail as she kicked to rend flesh, gutting the guy. She dove from him as he stumbled, seizing his stomach, where his intestines erupted out.
An immense arrow slammed her shoulder like a crane's wrecking ball, bowling her over. Her dark matter, alien armored flesh, withstood the wallop, with only some bleeding from the shallow puncture. It hurt though, and her rage fueled her as she arced at the archer in a streak. He drew his dagger with one hand as the other used the bow in a low blow. Shannon nimbly weaved around the bludgeoning bow, and she lunged low, with a leap and claw sweep that flayed his foot through the boot leather and metal. She bolted by, evading the super-sized, daunting dagger that he slashed to scratch on stone, so close it almost spanked her flank.
Shannon had reached his back and catapulted up on the nape of his neck. Her massive mouth scarfed up his neck and scissored shut, munching and crunching through mail and meat to cleave his spine asunder. A spasmodic arcing elbow rammed her ribs and sent her spinning through space as he fell. A spear almost skewered her like a shish kabob, scraping her side as she dived. She swerved and swatted the spear aside as he tried a second thrust and cut with the immense iron blade. The spearman had a shield to block his body and head. An axe almost slashed her back from another saldar.
She leapt and swept a deft cleft of her claws, sundering mail to lacerate the leg and gore the groin of the spearman. Blood flooded the stony ground from an open artery in his lashed leg. He grasped at his tattered testicles, where her claws carved through his codpiece. Shannon ran clear of the giants raining blows and arrows at her.
Shannon's awesome attack had distracted the giants from Scot. He had time to recover and run. He still had to dance past some stabs, smashes, and slashes that clashed on stone near him as hammers, axes, and swords flailed at his freakishly fast figure. His plasma torch scorched through mail, flesh, and bone of a forearm as the monster missed its sword strike at him. The monster dropped its sword to grasp at its grievous injury. His blaster cast a lance of energy and the photonic flash dashed through a shield, to melt mail and char the heart of the hammer holder. Then Scot was clear and running for the forest a few hundred yards away.
Shannon was about fifty feet to his right, also running. They zig zagged to evade arrows zinging off strings to wing by in many near misses. The giants tried to chase them and were startlingly swift on their long legs. They couldn't match Scot and Shannon's alien enhanced speed. The man and wolf reached the trees and plunged deep into the forest. The giants were enraged and continued the search through the trees towering over them. But they had to abandon their plans of vengeance when the forest grew too thick. Scot and Shannon finally stopped fleeing.
"You okay? “He asked her.
Shannon licked the puncture where the projectile had pierced deep enough to draw blood. There was another bloody scratch along her side from an axe's kiss. She nodded a yes at him.
“You saved me, thanks." Scot had a cut through his Kevlar shirt that drew blood, raking his ribs. He had some other superficial scrapes bleeding. “They rolled a boulder aside and came out of a hidden cave in the cliff right next to me. I'm sorry. I accidentally picked the worst place to camp. Glad you came back early. Did you have a chance to hunt?"
Shannon shook her head, no, while looking bummed out.
"Yeah, I'm hungry, too. “He sighed grimly. It wasn't a promising first night on the lowlands of Tier after crossing the mountains. They'd both arrived on the primitive world together through a wormhole activated on Earth by an experimental machine in the year 2086. They survived the mountain trek and were now near the vast savanna .full of fearsome foes.
The world was a science experiment of the alien Greys that often visited Earth in flying saucer starships, which traveled through wormholes. The Greys had populated the primitive planet with massive mammals from Earth's prehistoric age and dinosaurs, along with alien creatures. That created a lot of predators after prey.
There were humanoid, sentient species of all sorts, most of which were hostile to strangers. They were limited to flintlock guns for firearms and primitive hand weapons. Scot and Shannon were stranded, they were heading towards a society of Caucasian people, where they could be in civilized surroundings, instead of in the wilds, constantly fighting and fleeing from mammal, dinosaur, and humanoid predators after them. Scot's Earth weapons had been a huge help thus far, but he was running low on ammo, and they had thousands of miles to trek among titans that considered them prey.
Titan Territory Chapter 2
Above the clearing, Scot glimpsed a glowing, silvery streak, rocket by. The flying figure did an abrupt U turn and zoomed down to float beside Scot. It was a glowing, beautiful, human woman's soul. She had long, blond hair and bright, sky blue eyes, set in a fine face. She had a fantastic figure with a busty bosom, waspish waist, and lean muscled limbs. She was dressed in a silvery pants suit. Her astral energy was translucent, allowing Scot to see through her. Her name was Sharon, and she'd been Scot's partner for years. Before that she was an FBI agent that specialized in serial killers.
"What happened?" Sharon blurted in concern. "There was a hidden tunnel behind a boulder right next to the camp. The boulder rolled aside and a bunch of saldars came out and attacked me. I'm lucky Shannon came back when she did or they would have got me." Scot answered grimly.
“I'm sorry, Scot. I came back as quickly as I could," Sharon apologized.
"It's not your fault," Scot assured her. “Do a quick fly around the area to check for predators."
"Be right back, “Sharon zoomed, flying away.
Scot sighed. When he was a 16 year old orphan in a group home, he had his cranium cracked by a baseball bat. He woke up from surgery able to see and hear earthbound human souls. He could see the tunnel of light that good souls traveled through to the other side. He could also see the dark wormhole to hell, and the demons that came through it to seize evil souls and drag them to hell. He couldn't see into heaven, or purgatory, where souls unworthy of heaven waited to reincarnate as infants on Earth again. Nor did the souls in heaven or purgatory get free passes to visit Earth for kicks often, so there was a lot Scot didn't know about the afterlife.
After becoming able to see and hear souls that remained on Earth, rather than going through the light tunnel, Scot encountered Sharon, after she'd been murdered by a serial killer. Sharon begged Scot to help save her partner that was abducted by the serial killer. Scot had helped save Sharon's partner and catch the killer. That had been the start of their relationship. From there, Scot and Sharon formed a partnership.
At the time, Scot had been a teenage runaway living on the ghetto streets of Chicago back in 2016. He looked old enough to gamble and had a fake ID. Sharon helped him cheat at playing cards in gambling casinos by telling him the cards other players had. In exchange, he reported to authorities Intel Sharon gave him about killers, rapists, terrorists, and human traffickers. Scot would only go after alpha predators. Sharon spent her time flying around spying on people, in the process, she constantly discovered killers, rapists, terrorists, human traffickers, and such. She told Scot, and he either passed the Intel on to authorities, or took a hand in the investigation to save kidnapped victims when necessary, or plant evidence of the predator's crimes to get them busted. Along the way, he kept meeting other ghosts of murdered people that remained on Earth, wanting justice against their killers.
Scot's psychic abilities led him to working with the FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, the military, and some state agencies. He'd been in the Middle East wars on assignments and lost his left hand there from a bomb. During those years, two of the women Scot loved were killed by terrorists and a serial killer. During a CIA/military mission in the early 2020's, Scot and Sharon were both sucked through a wormhole from an experimental wormhole making machine. That wormhole opened to the primitive planet named Tier, because it was a wormhole the alien Greys often used. Scot had spent over a year on the savage planet, fleeing and fighting to survive. When he began building more advanced firearms and explosives, the alien Greys, spying on their experimental world, realized he was an Earth man. They didn't want him evolving their planet's denizens with advanced weapons, so they knocked him out and took him home in their starship. They were the same little, grey skinned, humanoids, with big heads and huge eyes, often described by people claiming to have seen aliens.
Although he'd only spent about a year on the planet, Tier, over sixty years had passed on Earth, so it was 2086 when he reached Earth again. He then helped the CIA track down aliens on Earth that were like vampires, feeding on human blood and making hybrid, half human vampire creatures of attractive human women. The investigation had finally led to Scot, Sharon, and Shannon, tracking the final vampires to the Brazilian jungle, where they had just finished building a wormhole machine they were using to bring an army of their kind to Earth from their planet, Tier. They'd built the device largely through the skills of another alien species, called Levians. The Levians were helping them. When Scot blew the machine up, it triggered a final wormhole that sucked Shannon, Sharon, and him through. They were trapped on the planet.
Shannon was actually a beautiful Earth woman, with long brown hair, emerald eyes, short height, and busty figure. She had been a veterinarian and real estate entrepreneur on Earth, before she was attacked by a wolfish creature that was going around killing women. It was another rare alien creature from Tier that came through a wormhole opening. But people on Earth thought it was some kind of werewolf that bullets and buckshot couldn't kill. Since the killings were occurring in her home region, Shannon had some silver bullets reloaded for her pistol. She'd survived the creature's attack, with the help of her boyfriend, and her silver bullets made the creature spontaneously combust. Like the werewolves of legends, it was highly allergic to silver. Both Shannon and her boyfriend, Tod, became werewolf creatures. Tod had been killed by the vampire aliens, which led Shannon to hunting them. Scot had been hunting the same vampire aliens and Sharon discovered Shannon's secret. The hounds on Earth wouldn't track the vampire aliens because their scent was so hot and bitter that it was like sniffing up habanero peppers. Shannon could track them. It led to Scot and her working together hunting the aliens, which led to them being stranded on the planet. During the night, Shannon transformed into the wolfish creature. By day, she was herself.
. Shannon had been bitten by the alien wolf while it was on a killing spree in her country area. People on Earth thought it was a werewolf that bullets and buckshot couldn't kill. Since the killings were occurring in her home region, Shannon had some silver bullets reloaded for her pistol. She'd survived the creature's attack, with the help of her boyfriend, and her silver bullets made the creature spontaneously combust. Like the werewolves of legends, it was highly allergic to silver. Both Shannon and her boyfriend, Tod, became werewolf creatures. Tod had been killed by the vampire aliens, which led Shannon to hunting them. Scot had been hunting the same vampire aliens and Sharon discovered Shannon's secret. The hounds on Earth wouldn't track the vampire aliens because their scent was so hot and bitter that it was like sniffing up habanero peppers. Shannon could track them. It led to Scot and her working together hunting the aliens, which led to them being stranded on the planet. During the night, Shannon transformed into the wolfish creature. By day, she was herself. An alien parasite shared her body, composed of dark matter, dark energy, and other alien things. While in wolf form, she was incredibly strong, fast, with superb senses, and alien armored, flesh and bones, which could withstand great violence and heal swiftly. But she wasn't impervious, just difficult to kill. In human form, she also possessed heightened physical prowess and abilities, just not as well as she did in wolf form. They'd dropped on the planet in the vampire creatures' jungle. They'd narrowly survived the experience, fighting and fleeing from the jungle up into the cold mountains, where the vampires didn't go because they were cold blooded. They couldn't handle the cold temperatures in the mountains or deal with the giant humanoids that considered the mountains their territory. That kept the vampires stuck in their jungle, unable to spread out across the savage planet. They lacked the materials, tools, and knowledge to build their own wormhole machine, especially without the Levians help. Shannon and Scot had made it through the jungle and mountains, largely through Sharon's scouting and warnings of nearby predatory threats from monstrous mammals, daunting dinosaurs, and the many savage, humanoid giants that were the top predators of the mountains. Scot's backpack from Earth had contained ammo, medical kit, and other useful supplies. But both Scot's Slypher enhanced abilities, and Shannon's werewolf parasite, provided them with greatly enhanced healing and immunity to illnesses, which had been the big factor in their survival on the deadly planet.
But every day was a gamble.
Bio:
Tom Kropp’s work has appeared in Chiron Review, Churches, Children and Daddies, Down in
the Dirt, The Horror Zine, Dark Harbor, Freedom Fiction, Blood Moon Rising, Flash Phantoms,
Lowlife Lit, The Listening Eye, J Journal, Evening Street Review, Conceit, Spontaneous Spirits,
Spotlight on Recovery, Muscle and Fitness, Outdoor Life, Woodworker’s Journal and many
other magazines. His play Jailhouse Confessions was performed at the Kennedy center in
Washington, DC in 2019. You can find more of his writings at tomkropp.wordpress.com. He has
many fantasy novels published.