Page 3 of Hunter’s Harvest

I screamed. Panicked, I grabbed the harness overhead and slammed it down over my body.

When I looked down, the floor was gone. Through the gap where the wall used to be, the ground was turning over and over, green and brown and green, and it was coming up, up and up.

And then… there was nothing.

Chapter 2: Var’n

I peered through the trees at the hostile humans as they stared up at the sky. This group had arrived in my hunting territory yesterday, and I wanted them gone now. I looked up at the sky, trying to see what they were looking at, but found nothing.

What were they seeing that I couldn’t?

I hated that instead of hunting the scourge, I was wasting my time tracking these assholes.

I wasn’t even supposed to be on this planet.

My contingent had been assigned to fight the scourge in another solar system, but when they found mating-compatible females on Earth, we changed course and came here instead.

The scourge annihilation program, dictated by our makers, assigned ships to infested planets automatically. If a world had scourge, the next available ship was sent. No hunter unit had ever questioned their objective before. My contingent did.

We were supposed to go to a planet already mostly consumed by the scourge. It would’ve been a waste of time and hunters’ lives. So we’d overridden the ship’s systems and came to Earth instead. Once we arrived, we’d disbanded, leaving our mothership in orbit. Worried that others would round us up and force us back to our original planet, we hid.

I’d been hiding for a long time. Years. I’d seen others from my contingent be accepted by other hunter groups, but I was different. I didn’t have friends among other contingents; I’d never fought with other hunters except those on my ship. I wasn’t so sure other groups would accept me.

Over the many seasons I’d been here on Earth, I’d reconnected with a few hunters from my contingent. We’d meet cautiously, checking up on each other every so often. The last time we gathered, one of them played a recording on his modified Earth device. The message was in Xarc’n, clear and direct: it encouraged any remaining hidden hunters to join established groups, assuring us that Earth’s hunters welcomed all warriors and needed every available fighter. The message had been circulating for a while, but we were still debating what to do.

Avoiding other warriors meant we had to find potential mates within Xarc’n-hostile human groups. This was proving far more difficult than I’d initially imagined. For one thing, these humans protected their own with remarkable efficiency. They’d rebuilt their settlements, established functioning communities, and developed sophisticated defenses. And then there was the NEM, the New Earth Militia.

They hated aliens of all kinds, often fighting Xarc’n warriors more aggressively than they fought the scourge. It was illogical. We were here to help destroy the scourge. They were the true enemy that would consume every living thing on this planet if given the chance. The scourge didn’t discriminate; it would devour them all without hesitation. Yet the NEM persisted in their hostility, wasting resources and lives attacking those who were trying to save them.

The group of humans I was currently tracking surprised me by launching two missiles into the sky. At first, I didn’t understand what they were targeting. There were no flyers. But then the missiles struck, and the outline of a Xarc’n shuttle materialized in the sky. It wasn’t a standard hunter vessel either. This was one of the larger, slower-moving delivery shuttles.

The shuttle’s cloak failed completely when the second missile hit, tearing the vessel into two distinct sections. The destruction was immediate and violent, and I tracked both falling segments. The NEM group moved toward the front section, likely drawn by the possibility of salvage or prisoners. Not equipped to face the group head-on, I headed toward the other portion, curious about what I might find.

I found the rear of the shuttle mostly intact, though badly damaged from its impact with the ground. But it was the brightly colored fruits scattered across the landscape that first caught my attention.

How strange.

This wasn’t a standard Xarc’n delivery. The cargo suggested this was one of the trading groups working with human settlements. I knew there were two such groups operating in the southeastern peninsula of what the humans called America.

The shuttle’s rear section had gouged a deep trench through the dirt as it skidded to a stop.

It hit me the moment I stepped into the wreckage. Not the bright, fresh aroma of the fruit scattered all around, but something far more complex and intriguing. The scent drew me in with an intensity I’d never experienced before. It was warm, subtle, and impossibly alluring.

I needed it.

I saw her bright orange-red hair first, and my heart reacted with a sudden, inexplicable surge. I rushed toward her, my instincts screaming at me to… I didn’t quite know.

The human female was unconscious and secured in a seat that had clearly been modified for human use. And the intoxicating scent was coming from her.

It took every drop of my self-discipline not to bury my face in the curve of her neck. The urge was overwhelming, calling to something primal within me. Her flame-colored hair had fallen across her face. I carefully brushed it back, my fingers lingering on the soft strands. She was breathing steadily, her chest rising and falling, reassuring me that she was alive.

“Female, wake,” I said, hoping she had one of our translators since she lived with our kind.

She didn’t respond. Worried, I searched her for injuries. Externally, I found only minor contusions, bruises along her arms, and a shallow scratch from the wooden crate next to her. But I couldn’t determine if she had internal injuries without proper equipment.

I had a handheld medical unit at my main hideout. I needed to get her back there.

Before releasing her harness, I searched what was left of the shuttle and found two fully charged blasters. Good. They’d be useful. I also found a stash of Xarc’n nutrition bars. Not the horrible-tasting ones from the previous planet, but ones made here on Earth from bovine raised on the food production islands. The good stuff.