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All characters are over the age of eighteen
Chapter Two
(Decker)
Decker was woken when a perimeter alert sounded, a small beeping noise. He looked at his watch. Red lines flashed. The briken pen. Falling back, he sighed. "You big fucker," he muttered, rolling and getting to his feet. He walked to stand over the ranch security page on his console. Calling up the schematic, he frowned, enhancing the image. There was nothing wrong with the fences. The alert still beeped.
Something could have gotten into the pen from outside. Something that could climb a fence. Maybe it was a briken rustler. He huffed a laugh, deep in the room, and reached for his jeans. He was awake now anyway. He had the sat-reader. He'd know if Bane and the herd were close. But just to be safe, because it was Bane he'd have to deal with if he had to go into the enclosure, he squatted and got the locker from under his bed.
There wasn't too much energy one could put toward one's own survival. Taking risks should be strategic and planned. It was how he'd stayed alive, the life he'd lived. Putting in the combination, he grabbed a percussion grenade. The colonists had wiped out most of the brikens of Sur with these, disorienting them so they could slaughter them with cannon fire. He'd swear Bane remembered all of it and held it against Decker personally.
The horse tossed his head, not happy about being woken up. Decker looked down at his sat-reader. The briken herd wasn't far. The reader began giving him more clear information as he approached the briken enclosure, a jolt going through him when he saw the figure on the readout.
There was actually a person in the briken enclosure. It wasn't Coby. Decker knew that. A hot ball began to grow in Decker's chest. If some bastard messed with his brikens, Decker would bury him. He'd feed him to Bane alive.
Everything was quiet. He swept the field. Sure enough, a person was in the distance, a figure coming toward the gate, low and walking fast, the image rendered on his screen as blurred green light.
Tension rolled across Decker's shoulders. He was going to kill this space turd. His eyes shifted from the sat-reader to the enclosure. There was a silhouette against the dawn horizon on the ridge behind the figure. Bane was vigilant. He had other brikens with him this time, how he usually ran, a hunting party of five. It looked like that big fucker was going to take care of Decker's problem for him.
On the screen, the figure looked behind himself and then straightened, abandoning stealth and breaking for the gate, running. The brikens immediately chased, being predators. On the screen, Decker measured the distance from the figure to the gate and then the distance from the brikens to the figure. On foot, he wouldn't make it. Not even close. That was fine with Decker. Sometimes natural consequences just worked. Decker watched the show, a half-smile on his mouth.
The figure cried out somewhere in front of him in the real world and Decker's grin vanished. Dropping his sat-reader, he ran for the gate, pulling it open and returning to throw himself onto the horse's back. The gate would close slowly. Before it had a chance to do so, his horse was through it, carrying Decker. They came through the opening to the enclosure at a dead run, the horse blowing. Decker got low and urged Cote faster.
That had been a woman. The brikens had surged at her fear-cry, their feet across the field a distant thunder, their hunting cries floating over.
One of them screamed. Bane had seen Decker.
She was still ahead, a shadow against the lightening sky. Decker was finally to her. A woman, yes. No mistaking the tits as she ran. He blew past her and got Cote turned around. His horse agreed with this idea, running fast as Decker arrived at her side and leaned. She was still fleeing, looking back at him. He lowered his hand as she sensibly reached up for his, given what was not far behind them. Grasping her forearm, he pulled a very naked wiggling woman with wild hair and a beautiful ass onto the horse across his lap.
Behind them, the five broke into their charging gait, a briken attack. Bane was coming for him. In no time, the horse was lathered and panting. Decker was a large man and Cote was carrying two people. The briken were fast once they got going. Decker looked back. They'd make it, sure, but he didn't want to be dodging Bane while he was trying to get the gate open and the woman through. Time to change tactics.
Slowing the horse, who didn't want to slow, the animal tossing his head, Decker turned him in a tight circle and dropped her. She lost her balance and sat down under his horse's feet.
"No," she cried like he was going to leave her there to get eaten while he escaped.
He wasn't going to do that. Well, not while he still had other options. Decker landed on his feet beside her, grabbing her arm and hauling her up. "Hold still."
But she was as bad as his horse, her eyes fixed on the charging briken and her flight response sending her in the other direction regardless if she could escape or not. She began struggling as he tried to catch the horse's reins. He kept hold of her, but the fucking horse evaded him, backing up and then bolting for the closed gate, voicing a brief trumpet of fear.
There went their ride. "Stop fighting me, dammit," he spat at her.
She didn't even glance at him, crying out again as the brikens came at full speed, their grunts and hoots. Decker put her in front of him where he could see her. Brikens liked to snatch, and he wanted to bring her home if he could. She was a prize. He reached into his duster and pulled out the percussive grenade. Brikens really didn't like these. It messed with their ears. He would pull the pin and toss it and they would scatter and keep going, giving him and the woman enough time to get to the gate and through it safely. Hopefully, since he didn't have a horse anymore.
"Get ready to run," he yelled at her, the thudding hooves of the brikens becoming impossibly loud, the ground shaking. He waited and then put his hand on the pin, releasing his breath and timing it as two brikens reached them and parted.
The smell of them, like incense, alien and compelling, rolled over him. Their great sides were heaving, and if he had stretched out his hands, he could have touched them on either side. A third went by, being Bane, and then a fourth, and a fifth on the other side.
His fingers were still on the pin, un-pulled. They had nothing in front of them. Decker turned them around, both of them in the same position. The brikens were now between them and the gate. He realized Bane wasn't taking any chances. He was an intelligent animal and Decker had escaped him too many times.
Five brikens turned in a tight arc and came back toward them. They slowed to their awkward swaying walk and then they stopped not far, going still, a solid line. Quiet descended except for their blowing, the animals winded.
One briken stepped toward them, the third from the left. He came at a slow amble, his tail and his head high. Bane. They were going to meet up close, evidently.
Pulling the woman against himself, noting absently that she had really pretty tits and was plump in nice places, he put his arm across her shoulders. He had the percussion grenade in his hand, feeling her heart pounding as Bane came closer.
Decker had never been this close to a briken before. He hadn't ever anticipated doing so, since that was pretty much where people tended to die. Somehow, he'd underestimated the heft of the animal, that head as long as a man's leg, with thick, overlapping scales that ran under his horns. Textured and thick skin covered his cheeks. Bane's breathing got deep and he chuffed, entirely hostile. Behind it was a note of malicious satisfaction. He was enjoying the moment, savoring it, the big fucker.
.
Arriving over them, lowering his head to Decker's height, Bane met his eyes and drooled. A long thick line took time to reach the ground and slowly separated. He stared straight at Decker over the woman, a predator, his small red eyes with all sorts of intelligence in them. Decker stared back and slowly smiled. The massive male made a deep and loud stuttering sound and opened his mouth, panting, a tongue that emerged past those teeth, rolling and writhing. He clacked his teeth once, a sharp sound and then chuffed, an explosive release of air, blowing Decker's hat off.
Decker kept his finger on the pin of the grenade. He and the woman weren't as close to the gate as he'd like, but they'd make it, provided he could keep his wits and hold of her. It was going to be loud.
In the meantime, his mind was taking in all sorts of details. The briken's horns were gold at the base and white at the tips, a translucent quality in the center, lines of wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. Another line of scales ran down the edge of his short and thick neck, his shoulder blades prominent, bony there for all his muscled heft. More drool flowed, another exhale sending it waggling under Bane's chin. The briken could simply lean forward and pluck Decker's head from his shoulders, killing him that way. Decker had seen records of a briken doing that to a man. Time to pull the pin.
The woman in front of him began humming like a crazy person. It was a pretty melody. Distracting, a little. He blinked. Decker did think it was an odd time to sing.
But if a briken could have expression on his face, Bane looked surprised. His mouth closed and he threw his head back and stood tall, staring down at her. Slowly, his nose came down again, over her head. He inhaled a series of times, his huge chest expanding, her hair actually rising off her head. Decker fingered the pin. That nose went down her body and stopped, snuffling between her legs.
Decker understood the impulse. Her body was soft under his hands. Bane took a big step back and his huge face waggled side-to-side, exactly like a person shaking his head, a strange, repetitive movement. His lips pulled back from his teeth and he leaned forward and crooned at her, singing back to her, a full and open sound. Decker's brows shot up.
Breathing in, the huge briken crooned again, gooey. Then he coughed on her. It was a friendly gesture from a briken, practically affable. He sprayed her all over her naked body with ropes of briken snot-slobber, always abundant, her hair soaked with it. She made a strangled sound, her humming stopping.
Decker stared. He'd never seen a briken behave like that. She was humming again. Bane brought his head up, shifting his angle, ponderous, and began walking past them like he'd forgotten they were there.
Watching the knobby joints of his muscled legs and then his great muscled rump pass like a ship, taller than a man, Decker shook his head. He was struggling to believe it. A briken wouldn't attack a woman?
Then again, if you thought about it, it wasn't exactly anything anyone on Sur would have been willing to put to the test. He went real still as the tips of the spikes on Bane's great tail, each one as long as his hand, brushed through his hair, ruffling it, almost a caress.
