The Saga of Orion’s Hunt

Story 1

A small black pod lay half buried in the jungle soil of planet Securian 1A. The denizens of the jungle had long ago grown used to its presence, continuing their chaotic chorus of calls and mating rituals in the surrounding area as if it were not there. 

The pod had been sitting there for weeks. Its original impact crater had since filled up with rainwater, dirt and vines. With half of its sleek form already buried in the jungle soil, only a small portion was exposed to the open air. Its surface was no longer smooth, like a black pearl, but rather caked with thick, rich mud. It had nearly completed incubation. The rainy climate had helped speed the process along nicely. The spore within it began to stir, sending small bits of dried mud tumbling to the ground.

Then the moment had arrived. The previously smooth surface bubbled, exposing thousands of pores, and the infection instantly began to seep out. It seeped through the earth, pooling across the top of the soil and vines - a black liquid which greedily gobbled up any light cast on it. 

Then, it began its hunt. Its only stimuli being the vibrations passing through the earth. That was no issue. Its kind had hunted successfully for millennia. It threw ropey tendrils out from its surface and pulled itself forward, toward the largest source of vibration. 

It made slow progress as it slipped through the brush and into the shadows of the jungle. In the surrounding area, the denizens of the jungle continued their chaotic chant, completely oblivious to what had transpired. 

Orion watched the forest canopy flit by below him as he looked for a place to set down his craft. This world was completely enveloped by jungle, so opportunities to land safely were few and far between. He glanced at his generator and decided that staying aloft would shortly become the bigger risk, judging by the amount of fuel he had left. 

He sat there for a while longer, dangling his feet out of the bay door, feeling the current of the wind as it rushed past the hull of his small craft. A mountain crept closer on the horizon. That would likely be its destination. He was tempted to head there himself, even though he already knew better. The infection could spread without a mountain, and there was only one of him.

The thought made him reach to the handle of his starfire blade.  He found the smooth handle reassuring. He drew the dagger and quickly ran through a couple simple swipes, the motions had become second nature to him over thousands of practice sessions. But this time it was different. He was no longer in the training yard of the monastery.  This was his first real hunt. He placed the dagger back in its sheath and turned back to his vessel. 

The craft was small, so all he had to do was lean over and grab the hoist keeping the stellar sail in place and angle it downwards, and the craft immediately began its descent. With just a few feet to go before crashing into the thick foliage below, he cut thrust altogether and threw the sail heavenward. The sail caught a blast of the planet’s thick atmosphere and slowed the craft’s descent even further, allowing it to drift lightly and nestle itself in the dense carpet of greenery.

Branches scraped against the wooden hull of the intruding craft, registering protest as they were brushed aside. Orion braced himself as the craft settled on its precarious perch. Orion opened the hatch and crawled out of the vehicle and into the surrounding branches. A quick survey of the landing confirmed what he had feared. Judging by the state of the stellar sail, tattered and torn, this would be the last landing this craft would make. 

He felt a pang of guilt. His sensibilities bristled at the notion of abandoning the friend that had brought him so far. He had built this vessel with his own hands and, as was customary for a first hunt, had used it to travel to this lush planet. However, he had done so alone, which was not customary at all. 

The thought, and its accompanying wave of anxiety, brought him once again to grip the dagger at his side as he surveyed the treetops surrounding him. This hunt was supposed to be a vote of confidence from the Alpha himself, who up to that point had seemed indifferent, at best, to the promising young hunter. For the millionth time, the conversations from the council chamber returned to his thoughts:

“He goes alone”, the Alpha had said.

“But this is his first hunt!” Protested Duheim.

“Are you questioning the writings of the Halas?” The Alpha’s eyebrow shot up.

“No sir.” 

“Then it is settled.”

It was at that point the excitement of his first hunt had contracted into a hard little knot in his stomach and that knot had accompanied him so far on his weeks-long journey to this world.  What right did they have to expect him to fulfill the words of the Halas? So what if he had shown promise in training? A hunt of this nature would be a dangerous proposition for anyone, even the most experienced hunter. But he had heard the call, and it could not be ignored. He didn’t have to be reminded of the stakes. He himself was the product of a failed hunt. One of the few to survive the Infection of his home planet, Amor, or so they told him. He had been adopted by the Veiori as a babe. Even though he had excelled under their tutelage, the burden of preventing the same sort of catastrophe weighed heavily on his young shoulders. 

He forced those thoughts from his mind and turned back to the matter at hand. He surveyed his ship one last time. He knew that although the sacrifice was unfortunate, the elders would approve. 

He retrieved his satchel from the cabin and set out once more, picking his way through the branches. He fell in a few places, but only a few feet. As he made progress to the jungle floor, he stopped for a moment to give his eyes time to adjust. 

The world below him slowly came into focus. The branches below him forked out to reveal smaller trees poking out from behind curtains of thick vines. Various animals’ calls greeted him in a harmonious cacophony, and although Orion was unable to see any members of this choir, he knew that they could not be far. He dropped down to a nearby branch and reached for the nearest vine, 

The Infected clawed its way out of its burrow, using its mandibles to loosen the dirt while shoveling it out of the way with its pincers. The den, and its entrance, had originally been more than big enough to accommodate its girth, even that of its pack, but now, after the transformation wrought by the infection seeping further and further into its brain, it would have been trapped had it been weaker. 

Having clawed out an opening big enough, it pushed its bulk through, stretching its spider-like legs out through the nearby foliage. Bits of rock and chunks of dirt fell from its carapace. The den, having been pushed to the limit by its former inhabitant, collapsed behind it, burying the mangled remains of the creature’s pack. 

The surrounding wildlife fled as the monstrosity emerged, exotic birds squawking in shrill panic and other creatures hooting and howling warnings to their clans. The Infected took no notice of them. Its beady eyes scanned the junglescape to establish its bearings. The left eye still bore the scars from the Infection’s entry and now that oxygen was in more plentiful supply, the other effects of its presence began to manifest themselves. 

The creature in its natural form had never been given a name by a sentient being, as the nearest colony on the planet was hundreds of miles away and the miners stationed there took little interest in the local flora and fauna. It had always been a formidable beast, with two forepaws ending in razor claws and a stinger with deadly poison poised at the end of a whip-like tail. It still moved upon six spider-like legs. Earlier it had stood at about 1 meter tall, but that was before the massive changes wrought by the Infection.

It now would tower over the tallest of men, and its carapace had been reinforced, leaving it impervious to everything save the strongest of weapons. It had not been able to express its pain to its family during the initial stages of its transformation, save for a few rudimentary clicks of its mandibles, and what it had been able to communicate had only left them confused. They were only more confused a few moments later when their sick comrade began convulsing and finally went mad, plunging its now sharpened claws through their measly defenses.

The monster, having gained its bearings, lunged forward through the foliage ahead, sending small animals fleeing in terror. The creature operated completely by instinct, or rather, those signals sent to it by its new master, the Infection. Thought was superfluous to its mission.  

After a couple hundred yards it met its first challenger. Rather than run in fear, the ape-like beast howled and beat its chest, protecting its young a few yards away. The poor beast did not recognize the monster it now confronted. In the past it would have been one of the few denizens of the jungle able to prey on what the infected had once been. But now the infection had transformed it to such an extent that the defensive mother could only hoot and beat its chest in a hopeless show of intimidation.

The creature did not hesitate before this challenger. The being which had become the Infected had earlier relied on its poison to defeat predator and prey alike, but it no longer needed this crutch. With a click of its mandibles, it raked its opponent across its chest with its pincer. The animal started to roar back in answer, but the sound died in its throat and the infected plunged one of its stingers deep through its eye and into its brain. The ape-like animal’s arms went limp at its sides and it tumbled to the earth as the Infected withdrew its stinger. 

The infected paid the creature no further mind, not  even bothering to shake the chunks of brain clinging to its deadly appendage. It simply stepped over the body of its challenger and stalked further off into the jungle. 

The defeated challenger’s young peered out from its den in fright, not yet understanding that their mother would never rise again. As the sounds of the monster faded into the distance, the darkness of the jungle closed in. 

Orion quietly peered through the thicket before him, trying to acclimate himself to this foreign realm. His hand gripped the handle of his starfire blade strapped to his side. It wouldn’t protect him as well from the other creatures of this planet as it would when he found his quarry, but it still gave him comfort. 

He began to creep through the underbrush, careful to evaluate his surroundings. He had heard of the dangers of other worlds from the elders, and from what he remembered such jungle planets were the most dangerous of all. No threats seemed forthcoming, but the biggest threats rarely announce themselves. 

Flashes of the dream came back to him then, calling him to take one path and not the other. This was his first hunt, and therefore his first experience with the gift of the Veiori, but this seemed similar to how Elder Duheim had described, although truthfully Elder Duheim had also confided that it often seemed more of a curse than a gift.

Soon he began to see obvious signs of his quarry, lessening the need to rely on the gift. Broken limbs and crushed bushes clearly marked the way. He studied the creature’s tracks. He had trained long for this, his first hunt. Even as inexperienced as he was, it was a simple matter to divine the general nature of the beast. 

It was at this point where he found reason to reason a little easier. While the odds of the Infection  finding a human host on a world such as this were small, they were not zero. But now he knew for sure that the tracks before him were clearly not human and that made a world of difference. Beasts only served to spread the Infection, while humans were its true target. 

The tracks were a line of horizontal impressions, set on top of one another very closely, similar to the giant crab creatures found in subterranean  environments underneath the monastery. Except the right set was several feet away from the left, showing that the creature was several times larger than even the largest specimen Orion had stalked. As Orion continued down the trail, he noticed that the calls of the various denizens of the jungle were more distant and quiet, replaced in large measure by foreboding silence.

Orion continued forward, gripping the handle of his starfire blade. Within a short while he found the corpse of a large ape-like creature lying  between a few large-leafed plants. Although Orion was inexperienced and unfamiliar with this environment,  it was easy to tell that this kill was fresh, and judging by the precise nature of the wound, easy for its opponent. 

Having gleaned what little he could from the surrounding area, he moved forward once again. He would have to pick up the pace. If he didn’t catch the beast before it reached its destination, it would be too late.

The Infected crashed through the edge of the forest and into the clearing beyond. Before it a small field of grass led into the foothills of the largest mountain in the region. If one of the colonists of the region were to refer to it while reviewing their maps of the reason they would refer to it only by the  designation Peak- X3Y1-C. 

It was not built for climbing, and its new mutations only made the job more difficult, but that did not deter it as it approached the steeper climbs. One of the more recent adaptations actually did aid it as it climbed. Its head had quadrupled in size, balancing its weight. This was just a fortunate side effect however.

Its skull had thickened for a very singular purpose, a purpose that would be fulfilled once the Infected reached the peak. Not only was it thick, but it had mutated in a specific way to withstand tremendous pressures, not external pressures, but internal, and that pressure had already begun to build. 

The climb proved to be easy, the Infected’s newly-strengthened limbs tore into the stone easily and found sure purchase. It scrambled up the side of the mountain, sending chunks of stone and clods of dirt tumbling behind it. 

It had already made it one third of the way up the mountain when a young man spotted it from the forest’s edge down below. 

Orion’s first view of the Infected did not surprise him, The Elder’s description of common features of the Infection added with Orion’s own findings while tracking the beast had given him a fairly accurate idea of what awaited him. What he did not expect was the terror the sight invoked.

He recalled the stories of the Elders, epic battles fought against all manner of Infected, but those had always seemed somehow surreal. Their outcomes were foregone conclusions when the victor was standing before you. But as Orion stared up at the behemoth clambering up the side of the mountain, one thought came to his mind. At any other time it would seem cliche, but the slabs of stone raining down the side of the mountain made it more poignant than ever. The dead tell no tales.

He only allowed himself a moment’s hesitation. No story at all would be better than one of disgrace. He rushed forward, holding the handle of his starfire blade tightly in his left hand. Judging by the progress the Infected was making to the top of the mountain, there was no time to waste. Fortunately the behemoth, led by blind instinct, was traversing one of the more steep inclines to the peak and Orion was able to run up a less difficult approach a considerable distance, closing the gap between him and his quarry. 

Orion scrambled up one rocky outcropping to catch the monster a few dozen feet from the peak. It had almost lifted itself out of reach when Orion rushed in, Starfire blade clenched in his teeth. Orion caught hold of one of the Infected’s limbs. Only to be immediately slammed against the cliff face, nearly knocking the wind from his lungs. 

The Infected had either been completely unaware of him, or had completely ignored him up until this point, but now that he was attempting to interfere with its instinctual prerogative, he had its full attention. The behemoth stepped back down onto the ledge to confront this new foe. Orion slid back down to the ledge and was barely able to dodge razor talons as his opponent stamped about above him.

He threw his feet up into the air, rolling backwards to his feet and pulled the blade from between his teeth. The creature immediately attacked, stabbing one of its stingers forward toward Orion’s face. 

Even though this was his first hunt, his years at the monastery had honed his reflexes to a fine edge. At the first hint of the attack, he reflexively dove to the side, avoiding the killing blow by the smallest of margins. The movement cost him however. He slammed into the cliff face next to him and dropped his blade to the floor. One of the creature’s pincer appendages caught it by the edge and sent it spinning away. It came to rest a few feet from the edge of the cliff.

Orion stared at the blade, his heart in his throat. It was his only chance. He darted forward in an attempt to recover it, but the monster reacted,  taking a step back and knocking the blade even further toward the cliff edge, coming to rest at a precarious tilt just over the precipice. 

There lay the blade, precariously at the cliff’s edge. Time seemed to stand still as Orion watched as it tilted further and further, and then slipped over the edge, tumbling down the cliff face into the ravine below.

Orion’s heart stopped for a second, that second seemed to stretch into an eternity. Without that blade the mission is as good as failed. He was as good as dead. This distraction cost him, as the Infected scored a glancing blow with its pincer to his side, sending him tumbling several feet towards the edge himself. 

He saw his opportunity, gripped the cliff edge firmly, and pulled himself over the edge entirely. He let go of the edge with one arm and sent it, along with both legs, on a frantic search for a grip on the cliff face. His panic proved unnecessary however, as, after he had managed to climb a short distance down from the ledge, he saw that the creature did not join in pursuit. Its primal directive seemingly had re-asserted itself and Orion could hear the sounds of it climbing further up the mountain, accompanied by small chunks of stone cascading down on him from above. 

He had to act fast. The Infected drew closer to victory with each second, and even now Orion could only hope that he wasn’t too late. 

Orion gripped the handhold fiercely. The sounds of the Infected continuing its climb echoed from up above. He inched his way closer to his blade, which lay a few feet away. Luckily for him it had fallen just a dozen feet to land precariously in a small bush, half torn from the cliff face by the monster’s earlier ascent. 

Orion reached out toward his weapon. The bush shook at his touch, and the blade slid down further, being held now by only a thin branch looped around the handle. He re-examined his grip and found a handhold a few feet closer to his target. He moved to this new vantage point, and he breathed easier as his hand wrapped around the handle of his beloved blade and he slid it back into its sheath. But he did not have time to waste.

He scrambled up the cliff face. After a few moments he once again stood on the ledge, searching for the path further ahead. He found that the gouges left by the creature made excellent handholds, and soon he too approached the summit. 

As he pulled himself over the final ledge, he spotted the monster a dozen yards ahead, at the very tallest point. What little was left of the original creature must have been protesting fiercely, as it swayed and convulsed in pain. Its already bulbous cranium distended even further.

Orion pulled his weapon from its sheath and rushed forward. He covered the broken ground like a mad man, fearing that even now he may be too late. He closed the last few feet as the Infected let out one last pained chitter, and he plunged his weapon hilt deep, just underneath the base of the creature’s skull. Blue fire licked at the flesh surrounding the wound as the blade began its work, and Orion stood back to catch his breath. The blow was not perfectly placed, but it was good enough, or so he hoped.

Orion watched the Infected convulse further, cautiously optimistic that he had gotten there in time. His hopes were dashed, and his heart sank as black smoke began to issue from the wound and the creature drew itself erect. The Infected thrust its malformed head to the sky and then, as it emitted a minor chitter of protest, the last remnants of resistance to the building pressure began to give way. Cracks began to form, arcing across the creature’s face and down its neck. Then with an ear-splitting crack, the Infected’s skull erupted, sending several small black objects hurtling skywards. 

Bone shrapnel flew in every direction, one of them catching Orion in the shoulder as the force of the blast blew him from his feet. He landed several feet away, small shards of skull and debris showing the rocks around him. The world around was chaos, his head spinning and his ears ringing from the explosion, and then... darkness.

Orion came to, his shoulder aching and his ears still ringing. He struggled to his feet and stumbled, reaching out to a nearby stone to steady himself. It took him a split second to remember what had transpired and then...

He looked up in horror to see the trail of several objects, spores, leaving the atmosphere. He rushed forward to the corpse of the monster screaming.

“Nooooo!” He kicked the lifeless mass. Each blow landing with a sickening thud and sending droplets of fluids flying. After a few moments, he slipped in the ooze and fell to his side. He didn’t bother getting back up. Instead he further slumped to the ground, lying in the filth of his failure. He watched the last remnants of the spores disappear as they left the atmosphere. 

His eyes narrowed. From what he could tell, only a few spores had launched during the eruption, at least by what he could see. He could hardly dare hope, but he pulled himself up and approached the shattered remnant of the creature’s head. 

Nothing was left of what had been a massive skull. Only such a skull could withstand the pressures necessary to launch something into orbit which is how this ancient enemy of his people pro-created. What was left was the fungal structures that produced the spore, and after Orion had finished the grisly task of closely examining it, he could confirm that his initial blow had been more effective than he had thought. Of the twelve spores produced by the structure, only 5 had survived to crown. 

If it had been a complete failure, the whole order would have to mobilize to cover up for his weakness. But if only five were released…. Well he might be able to deal with five himself and avoid exile. It wouldn’t be easy, significantly harder in fact than this had been, but it was the only way. 

He stopped himself. Could he really do it? No one had ever handled all the fruits of one seeding before. At least, no one ever spoke of attempting something like that. If he failed.. After withholding information from the order… He hesitated to even think of the consequences. 

He located his blade several feet away, still ensconced in a shard of skull. He pried it free and wiped it clean. He then gazed into the distance, locating a pillar of black smoke on the horizon. A human colony.

He sheathed his weapon and began his descent. It would take him a few weeks to reach the mining settlement and bargain his way onto a freighter. Until then he would have plenty of time to ponder the journey ahead. 

The End