Free Alien Velocity by Robert Appleton Page A

one. I left her right—”
    The plateau below was desolate, the only distinct features being five or six narrow but deep fissures a mile or so from the caldera. Halfway there, Christina was stumbling about in the open dust, looking lost, as though her circuits had completely malfunctioned.
    Marley couldn’t explain how the link between them had become severed. The corborilium perhaps?
    Charlie tore down the slope before she had chance to ruminate.
    Beyond the fissures, another figure was approaching. He didn’t know who or what it was or what it wanted. All he knew was it was running for Christina, and she was his responsibility. Each leap hiked his adrenaline. He didn’t know if he could reach her in time. As soon as he set foot on the plateau and kicked into a full sprint, his first since being inverted in the Bluebird, he felt a drive in his legs he’d never felt before, not even in the Tonne. For the next half a mile, he ran faster than any human had ever run.
    “Son of a bitch is quick,” he said, two-thirds of the way there. Could he reach Christina before the brown runner? It would be a close call, even with his newfound agility. Charlie was by far the quicker of the two, but his opponent had had such a massive head start.
    He called out to Christina, “Run toward me, run to my voice.”
    No use. Had something interfered with her hearing as well as her communal link and navigation? The brown figure kept low, dipped as though it were finishing a sprint race. A biped with short legs and six flailing arms, it moved clumsily yet powerfully, and with frightening urgency. Charlie could hear its loud wheezing from a hundred yards away. For a split second he considered giving up. The creature sounded insane, looked a hard bastard and was probably going to get there first. The thought of little Christina so lost and helpless, being snatched from his care after personally asking for his help, drove him on. The thing was almost upon her. He made ready to leap…
    “Drop-kick him in the head, Charlie,” the voice in his ear said.
    The timing proved superb. He sprinted a few more seconds, went ahead with his leap, and needed only a slight adjustment to meet the creature feet-first. Thud! His left trainer caught the side of its bowed head, while his right planted firmly on its shoulder.
    The fleshy brute spun backward through the air. It gave off an unearthly screech before holding its shoulder with all six tentacles. Two of them had a set of three fingers. Charlie also noticed three dark, sunken eyes in the creature’s turtle-like head. Its wide mouth quivered but didn’t open. He got to his feet and squared up against it, protecting Christina.
    Closer to, the thing appeared gangly, less powerful. He yelled, “Get away from her!”
    It stepped back on wrinkled legs with cross-shaped feet, but still seemed determined to claim its quarry. Taut with adrenaline, Charlie wished he had a weapon of some kind. The brute was bigger than him by at least twelve inches. His dropkick had hurt it but, strength-wise, how would he fare in a fight? It circled, every few seconds nodding into a lunge that didn’t come. Behind him, Christina didn’t make a sound. The standoff was all twitches and steel, and alien dick-measuring, neither willing to attack first nor back down. The orange sand kicked up by the race now settled about them. An extraordinary smell of liquorice stung Charlie’s flared nostrils.
    He sneezed.
    The brute seized the opportunity and leapt at Christina. Charlie caught one of its rear tentacles and spun it away. Incensed, it bowed its head and rammed him shoulder-first. He took the impact on his right arm, and it hurt.
    “Son of a—”
    He saw red and opened with a flurry of hard fists to the brute’s head. It felt like hitting a big prune—there was some give, then a goddamn rock under the flesh. Tentacles grabbed his arms, lessening the force of his blows. The creature rammed him with its other shoulder. He