Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 55551 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55551 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 278(@200wpm)___ 222(@250wpm)___ 185(@300wpm)
Wow. This is like being on a field trip to the past. I wonder if this is actually some kind of old human colony, one of the ones that got forgotten about. I wouldn’t be surprised. I’m on the very exterior final verge of the Settled Galactic Territories. Things get a little odd out here. There are planets that aren’t even on the official register. Saurmos looked like a legacy entry, though I can’t be sure because I didn’t have a chance to research it before my shuttle turned toward it and smashed itself into it.
I’m over here sneering at these old tech bikes, I think they’re called, but I bet these things don’t throw their riders into solid objects unexpectedly. Maybe I shouldn’t be so judgmental. Maybe I’m about to learn some wholesome lesson about the old ways being the best.
Having looked at the bikes, I turn my attention to the building itself. It’s made of wood, which is also very interesting to see. Pretty wild to make an entire building out of an organic substance that’s prone to catching fire and doesn’t really have much in the way of actual strength. These people are going to be backward as hell, I bet. Their clothing is probably woven from natural fibers. Probably has to be washed using water.
I’m smirking to myself, though I shouldn’t be. Because there’s one thing about all this construction that’s much more concerning than how backward it is: how large it is.
The building is made for creatures a lot bigger than I am. The door is almost twice my height. This is a real Gulliver moment, and I love it. There’s nothing like exploring new worlds, discovering new species, finding out who and what is really out there. Sometimes I even introduce myself as an explorer to new people. Usually right before I rob them, because I’m actually a pirate.
There’s a window I’d like to look in, but the lower part of the windowsill is quite a ways above my head. I reach up for the lower ledge and try jumping in the hopes I can grip the lower ledge and pull myself up enough to look in. This is a bit of a futile exercise, because I’m pretty sure I don’t have the upper body strength for that kind of pull-up. I used to. I used to be lithe and strong, and then I got good at my job and I got more than enough food and I got the body I have now. A body that bounces when I crash but doesn’t want to be yanked up a vertical incline.
Turns out my inability to scramble up the side of the building is a bit of a lifesaver, because while I scramble at the ledge, the window explodes as a massive beast is thrown directly through it. Glass shatters, wood splinters, and muscle, scale, and bone comes hurtling through the air, accompanied by a snarling yell that sounds like something between an angry bear and a furious alligator.
The creature lands heavily in the dirt, creating a depression in the relatively soft ground. He lies there for a second, and I get to stare at him. He has to be three hundred pounds at least. Maybe four hundred. Hard to say with alien species. He is wearing a green and black checked shirt that has been tailored to allow for massive bony protrusions that rise from his back.
I get the hell out of the way, diving into a brushy bush at the corner of the building. I don’t want to be seen. That would be stupid. Maybe not any more stupid than I have been these last few hours, but maybe the kind of stupid that would break my streak of survivor's luck.
The creature rises to big, clawed feet and turns toward the window it just exited. At first, he looked like a big scaled thing with a thick, long tail, complete with plates that sort of stick up from the top of it. What do they call those things… spikes? Back accoutrements? I don’t know. He has a lot of them, though. I thought he was some kind of straight-up beast, but when he turns around to glare at the same window he just departed, I see that he has a face very similar to that of a human man. Not a nice man, but a recognizable one. He has a broad face with two eyes and a nose and a mouth. The mouth is twisted in anger and rage, and the eyes are narrowed with the same emotion. Fire and fury blaze in orange-hued eyes that sport vertical slits.
Dangerous, instincts notify me.
Corduroy pants, my fashion instincts scream.
Everything about this place screams human civilization sometime around 1990, if I had to name an ancient year. Except for the actual occupants, who look like… I want to say oversized lizards, but a different word is forcing itself through my brain. A word with more significance, a word humans have always found fascinating: