“Screeeee,” it wailed as her claws tore through its two front limbs, sending it onto its behind.
SWISH-SWIPE!
Jelly darted through the limbs of the others. In the furor they swung their arms out and hit one another in a desperate bid to stop her from reaching the ship.
She planted her hind legs on the ground and lifted herself off her heels.
A vicious swipe to another Shanta’s slit. The claws tore out its lip, forcing it to gargle and choke. She hit the ground and sliced at its standing limbs, sending its vast body crashing to the ground.
“Yuck,” Jelly flung the goo from her claws and raced toward the ship.
Jaycee’s K-SPARK turret oscillated back and forth, firing at the Shanta. The crew had done a good job of keeping them out of Botanix – but still they came.
“There’s another,” Tripp pointed at the ceiling and shot a crawling creature in its center. The carcass extended its talons and dropped onto a bunch of beasts, below.
SCREEE-SCHLAMM-SCHPLATT!
“Where did they go?” Jaycee asked over the firing bullets.
“I dunno,” Tor took aim at a particularly aggressive creature. Standing a clear ten feet tall, it held out all twelve limbs and formed a spider web at the hole in the wall.
It’s slit opened up to reveal a disgusting, black tongue.
SCHWIPP-LASH!
“Ugh, that’s one ugly beast,” Tor aimed his D-REZ at its mid-section, “Eat this.”
THRAA-AA-TAT-A-TAT!
Tor emptied his clip at the creature’s mouth. The slit exploded in a hail of pink gloop and pinged the limbs away from its center section. The mass of ungodly monster shunted down the sides of the walls and gasped its last.
Jelly ran between its legs and jumped inside Botanix.
“Jelly,” Tripp shouted, relieved that she was still alive, “Get in, quick. Against the back wall.”
“What do we do now?” Wool asked, taking potshots at the creatures with her Rez-9.
“The sun is coming,” Jelly said. “It’s going to kill us all.”
Jaycee knocked the side of the turret and swung his secondary K-SPARK from his shoulders, “I’m out. Turret is down.”
Tripp grew impatient and snapped his fingers, “Keep firing.”
A rectangle of holographic light formed in the middle of Botanix, creating the outline of a book – Manuel.
“Did someone ask for me?”
“What? No,” Tripp emptied his magazine and palmed a fresh one into his Rez-9, “We’re out of ammo. This is my last magazine.”
“In that case, do you mind if I step out of the line of fire and let you perish alone?”
“That would be very helpful, Manuel. Thank you.”
The book flapped over to the door to Botanix as the others kept shooting at the Shanta.
Jelly raced after Manuel, suddenly fascinated by his contours. She jumped in the air and tried to catch him, “Miew.”
“Miss Anderson?” Manuel pressed his pages against the wall by the door, “What are you doing?”
“I want to touch you.”
“In the middle of a gunfight?”
“Yes,” she spread her claws out and swiped at him, “Meow.”
“Uh, Tripp?” Manuel tried to avoid making eye contact with Wool, who looked at him suspiciously.
“Not now, Manuel,” Tripp yelled, “Later.”
“The cosmic event taking place in the sky isn’t technically a sun,” Manuel said. “It does not contain the gaseous properties of what we consider to be a heavenly body.”
Jaycee stomped over to Manuel and raised his eyebrows, “What is it?”
“Some kind of portal is my best guess. If we seal off Botanix and get you into the hyper-sleep pods I’d say you all have a twenty percent chance of surviving whatever is about to happen.”
“Twenty?” Tripp took his eyes off the Shanta for a second longer than he should have.
“Screeeee!”
Tripp pointed his gun at the noise whilst looking at Manuel, “I’ll take those odds.”
BLAM-SCHPLAT!
He yanked the trigger and throated the creature with his nozzle, blasting its innards across the dead plants.
“Quick,” Manuel scanned the panel on the wall and opened the door, “Get to the hyper-sleep chamber. Follow me.”
Wool, Jelly, Jaycee, and Tripp took one, final look at the sky. It wasn’t pink, anymore. Instead, a huge gulf of white lamped the entire horizon.
SCHTAAAMMMM!
The black root of the tree stomped down, crushing all the Shanta in front of Botanix.
GROOWWLLL…
“Oh dear,” Wool said. “Let’s do what Manuel said. Run, run.”
Jelly ran through the opened door. Tripp and Wool followed after her, leaving Jaycee to open his thigh compartment and grab five dumb bombs. He pulled each pin from them and clutched them in his hand, “Come get some.”
He bent his elbow out from his chest and threw them among the plants.
“Screeeeeee!” The Shanta squealed in unison, thumping their talons to the tiled ground.
“Adios, amigos,” Jaycee kicked the door shut, sealing them inside.
“Jaycee, quick. Let’s go!” Wool yelled over her shoulder as she raced down the walkway with the others.
“Yeah, just gimme a minute,” he turned to the wall panel and lifted his right boot, “Just sealing the bastards in.”
He smashed the panel with all his might and disabled the door mechanism. The Shanta slapped their limbs against the window in a wild, screeching frenzy.
Jaycee rubbed his gloved hands together and held up his middle finger to the window, “Time to go sleepy-byes…”
He turned around and stormed up the walkway.
KA-BOOOOM!
The walkway shuddered as the other side of the window splattered with dark, pink gore. The bombs eviscerated everything that turned oxygen into carbon dioxide within the room.
“I know the feeling, my friends,” Jaycee finished as he turned the corner, “Rest in pieces, Botanix.”
Manuel shuffled into the room and bent out his pages, “Hyper-sleep. Engage. Pods one through five, please.”
The glass on the first five of the nine available pods slid open.
Tripp entered the chamber with the others in hot pursuit.
“Five?” Tripp asked. “There’s six of us.”
“I only count five, Tripp?” Manuel offered. “You, Jaycee, Wool, Tor, and Jelly. I strongly advise you disrobe, now, and enter the pods as quickly as you can.”
Tripp looked around the pod and watched Jelly hop into the room, “Jelly, where did Bonnie go?”
She arched her back and stood on her two hind feet. Tripp’s eyes grew with wonder. She matched his height.
“She fell off the edge of the universe.”
“What?” Wool slipped off her inner-suit top and folded it in her arms, “What do you mean?”
Jelly looked down at her jeans. She’d grown into them so much that they’d torn.
“She turned into a star.”
“What are you talking about?” Tripp said.
“She’s dead.”
The crew knew it already, but Jelly’s innocent delivery of those last two words sucker punched them in their collective gut.
“I knew it,” Jaycee removed his exo-suit. His muscled body glinted in the fluorescent light, catching everyone’s attention.
Tor looked away and bit his lip. He flung his inner-suit into the slider on the wall, feeling extremely inferior – both mentally and physically, “I can’t do this anymore. Whatever that sun thing is out there, I hope it kills us,” he climbed into a pod and exhaled. It felt comfortable inside.