Joyride Chapter 1
The beautiful creature paced back and forth in her steel cage as she kicked the snow piled up at her paws. The beast snarled, then growled, bearing her fangs. Her white and brown-spotted fur stood up on the back of her neck as she let out a deafening roar. The first rays of sunlight peaked over the mountain tops in the distance and illuminated a thin flurry of snowflakes dancing in the air. Rugged peaks lined the horizon in all directions from the clearing where the creature was held captive.
Around the beast’s enclosure were three smaller cages, each holding one of her cubs. A gloved hand brushed the snow off one of the smaller cages and opened it from the top. The poacher, dressed head to toe in black thermal gear reached in, lifted the cub from the cage and held his captive up to the light. The cub whimpered and its mother slammed up against the side of her cage nearly toppling it. She let out another deafening roar and swiped a massive paw at him. A finger-length claw snagged the sleeve of his coat and tore a hole in it.
“Bitch!” he yelled, and dropped the cub back into its cage, slamming the lid down. He grabbed the rifle slung across his back and aimed it at the enraged mother.
“Don’t even think about it. That beast is worth more than you are.”
The poacher lowered his weapon when his leader, also dressed head to toe in black, pulled down his scarf, reveailing an ugly, dark green face with slight fangs protruding from his lower jaw and a stout, pig like nose. “We’re to bring it back alive” he said.
“I thought we only wanted it for the fur,” the henchman protested.
“Boss wants to hunt it for sport. Now stop playing with the cubs and get back to work before I throw you in the cage with it.”
High above, on a cliff’s edge overlooking the clearing, Luna watched.
She had tracked the poachers since they entered the planet’s solar system, twelve local days ago. Her mission was to make sure they did not succeed in taking the creatures off world – by any means necessary.
This planet, like most habitable worlds, teemed with life. Diverse biomes from deserts to forests to frigid alpines covered its surface. Yet for all the creatures that lived here, there was no “civilization” to be found. Luna’s people, the Spira, protected worlds like this from the poachers and marauder gangs that sought only to plunder and destroy.
She lay prone at the edge of the tree line, as the poachers tormented their captives. A directional antenna situated next to her fed their conversation into her earpiece while she peered at them through binoculars. When the man had raised his gun at the captive mother, she felt the urge to take her own weapon and end his miserable existence – which she was authorized to do. Luna wanted to kill these poachers where they stood. She wanted to open the cages herself and free these magnificent creatures. She thought of playing with the cubs and stroking their soft, spotted fur. She focused on her breath, and decided no good would come from any of that.
The sound of the poachers’ spacecraft approaching snapped Luna’s focus back to the present. The ship’s tube-shaped fuselage and triangular wings cast a shadow over the cliff on which Luna was perched. She remained as still as she could underneath her camouflage blanket, as any movement could alert the pilot to her presence. After the ship passed overhead, she trained her binoculars on it and activated an infrared laser to track its position, which she relayed back to Spira Command.
“Target Located,” she whispered.
“Maintain infrared tracking and stand by for further instructions,” a voice said in her earpiece.
Luna kept her binoculars trained on the spacecraft as it rotated its two massive rear engines vertically and descended into the clearing below. Black smoke belched from the engines and a ramp lowered from the front of the spacecraft. Three landing gear extended from the bottom of the ship’s hull just before it touched down for a rough landing. Poachers were nothing, if not reckless.
“The vehicle has landed,” Luna reported. “They’re loading the animals on board.”
“Confirmed. Stand by,” said the voice in her earpiece.
She watched tensely as the poachers picked up the cubs’ cages and walked them up the ramp into the ship. Next, a crane rolled down the ramp and the poachers latched it to the top of the mother’s cage. Luna winced as she heard the roar through her earpiece. The crane struggled to lift the cage and nearly toppled over, but the weight of three poachers jumping onto the back side was enough to keep it upright. Luna took a few more deep breaths as the crane brought the massive cage swinging precariously into the ship.
“They’re about to leave,” she said as the ramp closed. This time there was no response in her earpiece.
The whine of the engines grew louder and clouds of snow swirled around beneath them as the ship prepared to take off.
“I should have killed them when I had the chance” Luna whispered to herself.Now they will escape and more will come back to this world. More innocent creatures will die.She took a few deep breaths to maintain her focus and reported back to Spira Command.
“The ship is taking off,” she said.
“Intercepting.” The voice replied.
Just as the ship seemed about to take off, the engines let out a loud pop and another belch of black smoke. The whining noise faded and the ship settled back down. The lights on the exterior of the ship flickered, then went dark and the ramp once again lowered.
“Vehicle disabled. Neutralize the threats, but keep them alive if possible” said the voice in Luna’s ear.
“Confirmed.” Luna replied. She picked up the weapon laying next to her, flipped its switch to select the “tranquilize” setting, and peered through the scope at the ramp. She knew there were at least three poachers on board, and all would be armed. Luckily, they seemed to think this was an ordinary mechanical failure. It was a wonder these thugs ever made it into space at all. Two poachers descended the ramp and took off towards opposite sides of the ship, each apparently going to inspect one of the malfunctioning engines. Luna waited until they were both fully preoccupied before launching a tranquilizer dart into the neck of one, then quickly, the other.
“Two neutralized. They are still alive.” said Luna. “How many more are on board?”
“There are five life forms still on board the ship,” her counterpart replied.
With the mother and the three cubs, that left just one poacher. Luna considered coming down from the cliff and boarding the ship, to put a quick end to this. She was skilled in close combat, but she once again took a few deep breaths and decided this would not be her best course of action. It would be much cleaner to lure the remaining crew member out of the ship and put him to sleep from a safe distance.
“Command, can you broadcast a message through the ships comms? There’s one more threat on the ship, I need him to come out.” Luna said.
“Do you have any recordings of them speaking?” her counterpart asked. “We’ll need to make it sound like it’s one of them.”
“Yes. I am transmitting them now.” Luna said. She tapped a few buttons on the directional antenna next to her and uploaded the recordings of the poachers arguing from earlier. A few minutes later Luna heard the voice of the lead poacher say “Get out here. I need your help with the exhaust valves.” Soon the ship’s pilot walked down the ramp and froze for a moment when he saw his comrade face down in the snow. Before he could react, a tranquilizer dart hit him the neck and he stumbled a few steps before falling to the ground.
Luna threw off the camouflage blanket and packed her gear away before descending into the clearing, where she physically restrained the unconscious poachers and then waited for a team to relieve her. The team would set the animals free – safely – and confiscate any weapons and contraband on the ship. They would then interrogate the poachers to find out which backwater marauder gang they worked for, override the ship’s controls, and send the poachers home empty handed. Likely as not, this was as good as a death sentence.