“Grivus, what’s the population of this planet?” Yacha’s talons tapped cooly on his console while Naua huffed behind him. The Grokt male fluffed his fur with smugness, nostrils flaring like he was savoring the scent of a kill. Their Vai communications officer curled her lip at the smell of his triumphant musk.
“What does that have to do with anything,” Naua snapped at the beast, her antennae twitching with her own irritation at the gunner’s sudden deflection from the topic at hand, a debate tactic made all the more grating by his pungent display of ego. “This job is immoral, entirely below our standards, and above all else illegal.” Her wings shuffled and rearranged into a more comfortable position. “I can't imagine the cost if we get caught at a checkpoint with one of these in the back.”
Grivus sighed, his large manipulators moving across the panels in front of him with practiced dexterity, while his four smaller arms cradled a cube controller for the finer instrumentation. He did not want to get involved with this debate. Naua and Yacha were getting into this kind of thing on a daily basis… well, as much as a “day” meant something aboard a ship. “Based on the most recent scans… about 7 billion sentients.” His helmet masked the normal grinding, crunching noise of his speech with a more intelligible dialect of Galactic Standard delivered in a monotonous drone. It was still possible to hear him speaking underneath, like a strange static on the line. “Our sensors are estimating closer to 8 billion based on biomass, accounting for likely livestock.”
Yacha grinned, his many teeth bared from between hairy lips. “See? 7, maybe 8 billion sentients on this planet and you’re getting all worked up because we’re kidnapping one.”
Michael took a deep breath of chilled, dry air. Zion’s National Park was at its most beautiful in late October and early November, in his opinion. The aspen trees were just barely turning from green to gold, nestled in among the evergreen pines and vast red cliffs. His backpack jostled heavily on his back and his bandana was beginning to fail at keeping his sweat out of his eyes. A Northern Shrike flitted by him as a streak of gray and black. It carried in its hook-ended beak a small locust, some scrawny leftover from summer. It landed on a thorny stretch of leafless shrub and set about its grim work of impaling its victim upon the branch. A long time ago people believed that this was “wanton killing.” Shrikes were just impaling other animals onto things for the fun of it. The kind of bird a certain ruler named Vlad might have an unusual appreciation for, if he knew of them. Mike made sure to note to himself the need to check and see if Vlad the Impaler knew about Shrikes. Google would help, right? Mike was snapped out of his thoughts by the Shrike’s sudden decision to begin calling, its feathers ruffled and its chest somewhat puffed with what seemed to be pride. “Look at me,” the shrike seemed to be declaring, “I have impaled this locust and I am a big scary bird who is not to be messed with!” It's calls sounded something like a tiny old gypsy cackling in a steady rhythm, as if to an unheard beat. Mike decided at that point to take the little bird’s word for it and headed further up the trail. The sun was setting, and the trail was technically closed, but Mike had heard that Angel’s Landing at night was the place to be, so there he headed. It was a very short hike, but it was far from the first he had done that day, or that week.
Mike had gotten to Zion’s with a group of kind asian tourists who had only spoken just enough english to pick him up off the side of the road, indicate they had always wanted to pick up an american hitchhiker, and to indicate that they wanted some selfies with him. They were good people. Hitchhiking usually led you to meet good people. Or murderers. Not a lot if in between, when it came to hitchhiking. Though as the rhythmic gypsy-laugh calls of the Shrike gave way to the rustling of aspen leaves, Mike remembered the time when he was picked up by a well-meaning and very insistent Heroin addict in a blue Chevy Nova from the 1980’s who really believed Mike would benefit from “a quick hit.” He didn’t ride with her for long.
The trick, he had learned, was to stay pretty close to stopping places. Stop signs, gas stations, roadside attractions, those kinds of places. So long as he took a regular shower and had no problem being out in the sun for a while he had no real problems getting around.
Mike looked up the trail, seeing that the path he was taking was now looking to become a steep, ungodly drop-off and he would need to hold onto the chains bolted into red cliff face to make it the rest of the way up. Soon enough he was far above the quaking trees, the sun was setting low in the horizon, and the orange and purple light of its descent painted the valley in a vibrant mixture of deep crimsons, shadowy violets, mossy greens, and midnight blues. As he crested the summit of Angel’s Landing, Mike was treated to the sight of the stars unfolded in the sky, gleaming jewels pressed into a fabric of deep blue. And as he stared, dumbfounded, he noticed a shooting star. He'd begun to make a wish, wishing for a safe journey back to his college and to not get picked up by a Park Ranger for being out here at night. Hif friend, Chase Parker, had once been picked up by some park rangers for relieving himself off the side of a cliff. It hadn't ended well for Chase. Now he was a registered sex offender in his state for “indecent exposure” on public lands. Of all the things to ruin your life by doing, peeing off the side of a cliff had to be the stupidest Mike had ever--wait. The shooting star he'd been admiring turned a sharp 90 degrees in midair and was now shooting straight for him. Mike swore loudly and dove for the best cover he could: a small dip in the rock. The shooting star sounded nothing like what Mike imagined a shooting star going overhead ought to sound like. There was no great roar of burning air, there was no whoosh of wind. The sound it did make was strange, almost organic. Like the sound of hundreds dogs barking out of sync, but sped up several times. And under it all, a rhythmic, clicking whine like crickets make but deeper. The air suddenly smelled of ozone and dust, and the sounds hovered directly overhead. There was an oppressive downward wind pushing him towards the ground, pinning him in place. He struggled to stand, to see what on earth was happening just above him. There was no bright light, there was no triumphant fanfare. Just this barking, clicking, whining sound drowning out all else, and the wind so hard and so oppressive that it was hard to breathe. And then, as suddenly as he'd been pinned, he was hauled upwards with a violent jerk around his chest. Someone or something had grabbed his backpack and was now using it to pluck him from the rock. The dark stone pulled violently away from his body, leaving his hands scraped and bloody from his struggle to hold on.
Mike felt his breath leave him as he was hoisted, then felt the barest relief and panic intertwined as his rise gave way to the zero-g sensation that immediately preceded a long drop. For an instant, Mike was certain he was going to die. Instead, he thudded onto a hard metal floor only two or so feet beneath him that was not there before. Mike stared, rendered quiet from the sudden pain and dumbfounded into simple awe of the little sparks of light swirling in his vision. The most profound and meaningful thing Mike could think to say, was “ouch.”
----
Grivus gave an affirmative signal, holding one of his opposed digits and one of his grasping digits upwards into the air. “Target successfully captured. That's another job as good as done.” With his digitized voice, it was hard to tell if he was actually enthusiastic about this. The strange, grinding swells of his natural speech did nothing to help. “Holding area 1.”
Yacha slapped his chest in celebration, grinning his shark-like grin at Naua. “There you go. Easy as stealing a blind man’s coins.” He stood and pivoted, bounding down the hallway on all fours. Naua followed closely behind him, almost needing to run to keep up. The halls of The Sudden Departure were currently set to low-power mode, illuminated only by dark red lights in the ceiling. Naua’s golden robes took on a more blood-orange hue in this light, and Yacha’s beige fur seemed almost grayish. Within moments, they arrived at the holding cell to view their prize. It was a standard-anatomy species, pale skin and green eyes. Two of them. One nose, one mouth, two ears. Fairly common shape, overall. And some hair growing from the top of his skull. Naua, despite her revulsion at the act being done, could not help but admire the being with fascination.
The little earth-sentient, in return, looked at them for several seconds. And then it started to scream.
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