The Ballad of Omega Brown:
Omega and the Lizardmen of Karackas
by Tom Vaine
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3 |
part 1
The sun was sinking low over the jungle horizon when Omega turned his pterosaur back towards the roost. Above him, the moons of Krildar VII seemed nearly as big as the planet itself; one of them even shared its atmosphere. Omega squinted against the fading light to search the darkness around the moon called Karackas. It had been several cycles since the raiders’ last incursion, but he had been told that they were hiding somewhere on that moon. The logging colony that hired him was sure of it.
Peering down, Omega saw that the jungle had grown totally dark. He shuddered at the thought of being alone among the trees now. The clinging heat, rough terrain, the constant insectoid humming that stopped only just before some awful monster struck. Not a pleasant place to be.
He had begun listing to himself the many ways in which bowels could be torn out when a laser bolt drove right into his lizard’s head. The saurian gave one terrific honk before plummeting. The night sky was suddenly full of laser blasts and Omega, between bouts of g-force induced nausea, was a little baffled that his pursuers couldn’t already tell how deep his predicament had become.
The first things to go would be the saddle buckles. The left side was easy enough but, by the time he got to the right, his mount had fallen into a worsening spin. The trees were doing somersaults now, and Omega could feel his eyes trying to find shelter in the back of his skull. Right. When in doubt, go with the flow.
He relaxed into that spin and, as he felt the pressure of the remaining buckle loosen, pushed his feet against the lizard’s back. The buckle slipped off and Omega watched his pterosaur’s corpse begin free-falling away from him.
The shooting had stopped, but Omega could do little to see where it had come from, which annoyed him. He was in the habit of keeping tabs on the people who shot at him. It wasn’t fair that someone was getting a freebie, even if it likely was the raiders. Still, it was probably safer to focus on the quickly approaching forest. Surely, it would have better aim than his attackers.
Omega pulled his limbs in, making himself into a man-shaped bullet. He was hurtling downwards now, and the rush of the wind in his ears was so loud that he didn’t notice he wasn’t flying solo until the other was almost on top of him. A huge shadow, propelled by great hairy wings, shot down past him. The wind slapped at his face, but his goggled headset kept his vision clear. The beast seemed to be carrying some sort of howdah, upon which stood three or four dark-green bipedal shapes. There were guns, too. Lots of them, welded to the howdah rails. Whoever the shapes were, they seemed not to notice him.
As far as Omega was concerned, this was perfect. It would save him the trouble of searching for them later. He tried his best to angle himself into a trajectory that followed their descent. The jungle was sickeningly close now, an enormous leafy ocean that he couldn’t miss. He started his search for a safe landing but found that his speed negated every potential. It was time, he deemed, to hope for the best.
As he hurtled into the giant net of trees, Omega cannonballed, pulling his feet in beneath him. The heel rockets kicked off just as he’d intended. He knew they wouldn’t immediately stop him from falling, given the speed of his flight. The issue was that he hadn’t realized just how fast or violent that fall had become.
The first two big branches were not as painful as he had guessed, but the third and subsequent ones hurt much, much more. Omega found himself battered, spun around, and then, inexplicably, motionless. He was lying on his back without any clear memory of stopping, a sure sign of a blackout.
As his headset came back online, Omega checked his vital signs. His gear still seemed more or less intact, the sensors in his flight suit giving better than expected news. While it did mention that his body was likely to swell into one gigantic bruise sometime in a day or so, it reported no serious hemorrhaging and only one broken bone. His left leg, it seemed, was pretty thoroughly shattered below the knee. Less encouraging was the fact that his heads-up display was informing him of moving objects close by.
The pain in his leg threatened to put him back out, but Omega focused on the jungle. He had fallen pretty far, by the looks of things. The branch which had stopped him was a bit wider than a kitchen table, and much thicker than the limbs that grew near the canopy. The light from above was minimal. What little came through cast the jungle in an almost gothic tone, the branches and trunks becoming the huge pillars of some primordial church. And the insects. Great gods of Order and Chaos, the insects were everywhere! Thousands of them, in the air, on the tree trunks, even on the branches around him.
He heard a cracking, crumbling sound. Before him, a knothole in the trunk had begun vomiting out veiny, sticky-looking grubs the size of small house pets. From what he could see, the awful white invertebrates had neither a front nor a back end. Good tactic. Keep your enemy guessing until it was too late for you to pull off their face.
As the grubs poured out, they began moving in every direction. Several tumbled off the side of the branch, and a few even seemed to be heading back the way they’d come. Most, though, had begun to writhe in his direction. Whichever end was facing him, it had two or three nail-shaped prongs that the critters used to drag themselves along. Omega wasn’t rightly sure what they were going to do with him, but now, at least, he knew which end to aim for.
He unhooked the clasp that held his ray gun in its holster and proceeded to nearly drop the thing as he tried to roll over. It was good, he thought, that his leg was still cracked. If this got too easy now, he’d likely start to lose his edge. Trying the maneuver again with a little less speed, Omega got himself around just in time for a grub to move within swatting range. The little creep actually reared half of its body in the air as a threat.
“Good move,” Omega acknowledged, through gritted teeth. “My turn then?”
The ray gun whined as it fired, superheating the already humid air, exploding the grub. Guts spattered against his face and hands, and oozed across the tree limb. The others seemed not to take any notice, though, and, as each of them continued wriggling forward, Omega realized that he was likely to become literal worms’ meat if he didn’t do something quickly.
Unfortunately, doing anything quickly at this point was a very difficult venture. Jaw clenched, ray gun blazing, Omega swallowed the pain shooting up his leg and began forcing himself farther out on the limb.
The branch began to shake as he moved. Omega tried to steady it by stopping, but nothing changed. Soon it began vibrating like a diving board, flinging the grubs in every direction. The pain in his leg made his vision swim. Despite this, he could hear a scraping sound.
As the last of the monstrosities fell over the edge, he could just make out what looked like a handful of curved sticks poking out from the knothole that had spewed them. The shaking subsided, but the sticks in the knothole were moving frantically now. Like tiny grappling hooks, they were pulling away bits of the tree. As it eroded, Omega could make out what looked to be a set of bulbous eyes surrounded by chitinous armour plates.
With one fantastic rip, the thing tore through the tree trunk. It had countless legs and awful, spiny hairs across it back. Delicate feelers feeding sharp, clacking mandibles. Cold, dead eyes staring out from an insectoid head.
“This is not better,” Omega said. No wonder the little grubs had been so frantic. The thing that had crawled from the tree hissed and then surged forward.
It didn’t come within a foot of him.
Just as Omega leveled his gun, a hulking green figure crashed down through the branches above. The monstrous centipede barely had time to register its assailant before it was struck down, a massive sword pinning it through the head. As the creature’s body stopped spasming, Omega examined his rescuer.
The creature was dappled green and brown. When it crouched over its trophy, he could see taught biceps bulging beneath scaly skin and a broad set of shoulders. Its head was distinctly reptilian. Omega could see a boxy snout and glittering amber eyes. His headset scanners could only interpret some of its vital organs, but found enough to identify it as female.
She was watching him in return now, standing on thick, tridactyl legs, her waist and right shoulder covered by a toga of animal hides. A sprawling length of tail uncoiled behind her. The humanoid reptile yanked its sword free and tilted her head to the side, forked tongue shooting in and out of her mouth as she considered him. She hefted her sword across one shoulder.
Omega grimaced as he tried his best charming smile and repositioned his ray gun as he did so. Sensing that this meeting was coming to a close, he was making ready to fire when his headset informed him of a large incoming body. The foliage above began to shake vigorously and a massive woolly shape descended the trunk.
This new creature looked something like a rodent with wings, and Omega recognized it as the beast that had flown past him during his fall. The howdah on its back held three more reptilian aliens. He could see now that the whole thing was covered in rails and handholds that the reptiles used to keep from falling out.
His rescuer began to communicate with the others in the howdah. Well, that was what he assumed. While it was impossible to tell what the stream of hisses and clicks happening between them actually meant, their vigorous gestures certainly implied they were speaking about him. One of the reptiles reached into a compartment Omega couldn’t see and threw two small objects to his saviour. The alien applied one of the devices to the side of her head, then held the other mechanism up for Omega to see.
“Right. I get it.” Omega pointed at his ear and motioned for the device. He found it was too cumbersome for him to put on as the alien did, especially with his own headset attached, but he clipped it haphazardly to his own headgear nonetheless. “Will it calibrate to my language if it hears me speak?”
“Yes, exactly,” she affirmed as the machine changed her reptilian sounds into Basic.
“What does it say?” asked one of her male comrades from the howdah.
“It displays basic intelligence despite its obviously primitive biology. See how quickly I’ve trained it to use our translators?”
“No special training required actually,” Omega cut in. “The concept is pretty obvious. Not that I’m not grateful bu—” He winced as the throbbing in his leg reasserted itself.
“It is injured. Look at the heat rising from its lower leg,” assessed the reptile in the howdah.
“Yes, I can see that.” The translator did little to convey tone, but Omega could tell his rescuer was irritated. “Your comments are not helpful. Throw me a brace.” Another piece of equipment was tossed to his rescuer. This time she approached him.
“Do not fear. This will help.” She crouched above him. Omega could feel her gently attaching the equipment to his leg, just below the knee. When she had finished, she pressed a button. Omega stifled a scream as the device clamped down. “The brace will hold the bones steady while the radiation pack speeds the healing process. Lie still for a few moments, my pet, and you will soon walk with less pain.
“I am called Hoonra” — this was the best Omega could make from the sounds the translator made in his ear — “but you will refer to me as Master.”
Before Omega could say anything, Hoonra turned to her companions on the howdah. “The karnax is slain, and the hunt is successful. I leave its carcass to the jungle; instead, I claim this creature as my trophy.”
Omega’s mouth went a little dry. In the howdah, Hoonra’s companions spoke quietly to each other.
“You are not yet old enough to train a mammal, Hoonra. They require much work and attention.”
“I am nobody’s pet,” said Omega.
“Be silent, pet,” said Hoonra. “I am well within my rights, Rokan.” More guttural buzzing from the translator. “The mammal is mine.”
“This is very unorthodox. You are still in the process of completing your coming of age ceremony. It shall not be.”
“It shall,” argued Hoonra, stamping her foot.
“Stars save me, I’m being adopted by a teenager!” Omega groaned.
“Hush, pet. I name you Hairy, because you are.” Without eyebrows or lips it was hard to read anything on her face, but Omega got the distinct impression that Hoonra was pleased with herself. Rokan, alternatively, was not.
“Mammals are not toys, Hoonra. This discussion is not over. We will take him back with us and decide what should be done with him on Karakas.” Two more of the lizard-like aliens jumped out of the howdah and approached, sweeping past Hoonra even as she protested.
Omega scurried backwards on the branch. When he realized his leg was, in fact, healing as Hoonra said it would, he stood up, edging himself away from the lizard folk and out towards the canopy.
“Stop it. You’re scaring him,” Hoonra pleaded.
The two aliens stalked forward, and Omega could see them considering the ray gun in his hand. He waved it back and forth a little. “You’re wondering what this is, I guess. Glad you noticed.”
Without taking his eyes from them, he angled the weapon above their heads. As he fired, he flicked his wrist, cutting a small swatch of foliage which promptly fell on the encroaching aliens. The whine of the ray gun arrested their attention, and they leapt back in surprise as the branches and leaves fell down around them. Hoonra and Rokan ceased bickering, and all of them were now staring at Omega. He gave them a showman’s grin.
“I know, right? I find a little controlled gunfire to be a fantastic way of getting people’s attention. You shouldn’t be that surprised, though. Maybe you haven’t seen this particular model before, but you definitely brought your own.” He motioned towards the armaments hanging from the howdah.
“You see, Hoonra, the mammal’s ignorance is dangerous.” Rokan turned to address Omega for the first time. “Such weapons are a coward’s tool. I see the blade on your back. Have you no honour, mammal? We hunt with sword and strength. Beam weaponry is only a last defense.”
“Sure, last defense. Like when you shot my bird out of the sky on your way here?”
But Rokan shook his head. “Impossible. We shot only at the scavenger vessel, who attacked us first.”
Ah, thought Omega, now we’re getting somewhere. “Tell me about these scavengers.”
“What is there to say?” Rokan shrugged, “They are like you: mammals, ignorant and violent. They hide in orbit around our home and profit by stealing the wealth of others. They have no honour.”
“And what have they stolen from you?”
“Little enough, Hairy,” Hoonra chimed in. “Our settlements are well defended, and the scavengers flee at the first sign of organized resistance. Their shots at us earlier were meant to cover a retreat.”
That made sense, given how wild the barrage of fire had been. Omega nodded, holstering his weapon. Time, it seemed to try making friends instead.
“I’m going to have to be honest with you, Hoonra. I’m really not all that interested in becoming your pet. But this leaves you with a problem, right? Without me, you have no prize for your hunt.”
Before Hoonra could answer, Rokan snorted, “It’s not a problem for us, mammal. Hoonra could complete her trial just as easily by hunting you.”
Omega waited for some hint of sarcasm to register in his voice. There was nothing. Still, no going back now. “Oddly enough, Rokan, I’ve got an idea about that.”
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Copyright © 2019 by Tom Vaine
