Dragon King's Alien Queen

Chapter 2

Kiera unstrapped her harness and the pressure on her chest eased slightly. “Grab all the life packs. We are going to need all the help we can get to survive. We don’t know enough about this planet yet to be lax with supplies.” She went to the hatch, popping it open. Thanks to the air in the ship, they had floated back to the surface of the water. It wouldn’t last long. Water was pouring in now from the back. It was up to their ankles and quickly rising.

Shucking her heavy space suit, she took the two life packs that Mikhail held out for her and climbed the ladder. Once all five of them were out, they took a quick look around. Each of them were doing their own assessment of the situation.

“We don’t know what’s in the water so keep an eye out,” she ordered. They were a good two hundred yards from shore. Nothing they hadn’t done before. Weighted down with two life packs, swimming in unfamiliar waters with unfamiliar predators, though? She had made sure that her team was trained for this. Training and being in a life or death situation? This would absolutely get their blood pumping. “Give it everything you’ve got. Don’t linger in the water any more than necessary. Do your best not to drink any of the water.” She looked each of them in the eye to make sure they understood her orders. Each of them gave her a nod and a “Yes, Commander.”

Without waiting another second, Kiera gave the signal and they all dove in, hauling a.ss to shore. She could tell from the splashes that the others were right there with her. They stayed close enough to each other to help if there was need but didn’t get in each other’s way. About halfway there, she looked to make sure they were all together and no one was lagging. Fabrizio was bringing up the rear, making sure Bao didn’t fall behind. As the smallest of our group, she always had to work the hardest to keep up just because she was so short but she was right there with them. Kiera knew she would be.

Glancing back toward the pod, she saw a tentacle shoot out of the water. It was orange and huge, wrapping around the part of the pod still above the water. The suction cups on the tentacle were as large as her hand. Her eyes bulged as realization hit when several more tentacles sprung from around the sinking escape pod.

“Faster!” she ordered as they passed her. Turning back toward shore, she put on a burst of speed. Finally, they reached it, but her senses were telling her they were still in danger. “Get away from the water! Further up the beach!” Weighted down by the soaked life packs, Kiera scuttled through the sand before turning to the water again. There were a pair of huge eyes staring at them from just inside the water. There was above average intelligence for an animal in those eyes.

The creature slowly sank back into the purple depths, its tentacled arms splashing one last time as they slipped silently into the water.

The feeling of danger subsided as the creature disappeared. Kiera finally felt like she could take a breath, but the excitement didn’t subside. A new adventure had just begun. Glancing at the others, she could tell that they were feeling the same. Their bags were at their feet and they were each doing the techniques taught to them to regulate their breathing. Swimming two hundred yards normally would not have had them out of breath. But doing so under duress and with two heavy life packs would have worn anyone out. All of them were grinning with anticipation.

Taking a final deep cleansing breath, Kiera looked around her. And couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

The ocean was a deep purple but turned lavender as it came to shore. Sand covered the beach but it was a pale green with darker green flecks scattered throughout. The foliage and trees behind them were a mix of oranges and reds, all different shades. Tree trunks started out yellow and faded to green and brown as they reached for the sky. These trees were not like the ones on Earth had once been from the history books. These amazing trees were huge with an intertwined canopy. It almost looked as though there could be a walkway up there. Further out were mountains of rock. The rocks seemed to be varying shades of red and orange.

Kiera couldn’t suppress the excitement rising in her. This is what she lived for. The reason she had left everything she knew behind. Discovering new places and learning new things. The fact that this place had been discovered out of necessity and they were stranded unless someone at headquarters received her message was beside the point. They had air and some awesome skills. The rest they would figure out.

Looking over at her incredible team, they were all grinning broadly. The reason they worked so well together was that they all felt the same way. The adrenaline, mystery and danger of what they did for a living was almost euphoric.

“Alright, first things first. We need an inventory of the life packs.” Crouching down, they began pulling items from the packs. Separating and organizing. When they were done, they had enough MRE’s to last them each two months. If they rationed. They had ten of everything since they had each brought two packs. Small water filtration mugs, first aid kits along with health scanners for internal damage, one person pop-up tents, thermal survival blankets, small hygiene kits, two changes of clothes that were specially made to be durable, flare guns, hunting knives, and small laser pistols. What they didn’t have in the packs, they could make from what was around them.

"We need to split everything so that if we get separated everyone has what they need to survive. First aid and hygiene kits can be combined. Flare guns and laser pistols, you only need one of each. Just take the extra cartridges and extra loading clips. Make sure to pack the solar chargers as well. That will conserve some of the space in the packs. We only need one tent each. Two blankets each. We don’t know what the temperatures are like here. We need to at least try to be prepared. We can stash the other items in case we need to come back for them."

“Come now, Commander,” Fabrizio murmured as they reloaded their packs. “We don’t need extra blankets. We can keep each other warm. Might I suggest that we begin snuggling so that when it’s time to propagate we are more…comfortable with each other?” His sly smirk let them know that he was only half kidding.

The others all laughed as they took the items they were not going to need and found a large tree just inside the tree line that had an abundance of foliage around the base. After double checking to make sure something hadn’t made a home out of the hiding spot, the surrounding bushes were strategically used to camouflage the area. They secured the extra tents, guns and pistols, making sure they would not be easily found.

Fabrizio was a shameless flirt. Now that they were out of immediate danger, the team was relaxing a bit.

She looked at him, still laughing. “Easy, Fab. We are exploring the planet, not repopulating it.”

“When does that plan go into effect? I want some of that action,” Greg chimed in eagerly.

Mikhail punched Greg on the arm playfully. “We all know that when that begins, I get first dibs. I am the smartest and best looking of this group. It only makes sense that they choose me first.”

The three men began a good-natured debate on which would be the best choice for the first children. Each suggested qualities that they possessed that the others didn’t and the importance of those abilities.

Bao and Kiera looked at each other and rolled their eyes as they stood back with arms crossed over their chests watching the men make idiots of themselves over something that wouldn’t be their choice at all. When and if that ever happened, the two women would decide that. And only once they were ready. Not a minute sooner. The two of them went back to retrieve their packs.

“This is what we have to repopulate with?” Bao joked. “We are so screwed.”

“In more ways than one,” Fabrizio insinuated, waggling his brows as he grinned. The men had followed them to the packs, so they heard the women's conversation.

“Guys, guys,” Kiera said, trying to talk while still laughing. “Let’s stop thinking with our little heads long enough to find out if something out here can kill us before that happens. I have no interest in having kids just to have something eat them.”

“Aye, Commander,” they all rang in. It was habit more than anything. Eventually, she would get them to stop calling her by her rank. Here, rank didn’t seem to matter unless they encountered a hostile situation.

“I tried to run a quick scan of the terrain as we came into the atmosphere before we hit the water,” Fabrizio stated. “It didn’t work. As soon as we went through, the radar went crazy. We are going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

They all nodded, grinning like idiots. This was one of their favorite things to do. Live off the land, explore new places, put their well-earned skills to the ultimate test. They were in heaven.

“I’d like to take a look at the canopy first. From down here it looks like a…”

A loud screech suddenly filled the air, cutting off Kiera’s sentence. Realizing it came from the sky, they grabbed their bags and ducked deeper into the foliage for cover. It had sounded a bit far off but there was no telling how fast a creature who could give such a cry could fly. They stayed quiet, waiting to see what creature could have such a loud, spine-chilling roar.