The One That Got Away     (c) Nik

"Tony ! Help !"
Gregory the Sanku's yell was still clear inside the crippled space-craft's battered hull. Tony Winters rolled from the hammock slung behind the small Scout's tiny Bridge. He ran aft, passing their docking port and air-lock, both too near the water-line. Tony leaped up the short ladder to 'D for Daisy's dorsal emergency hatch. He reached for the inner panel's latch. The 60 foot Scout and its bamboo raft lurched right. It flung his feet from the narrow rungs, slammed him against the bulkhead.
"Uh !"

Tony hung by one hand as the raft heeled sharply. It wasn't riding Autumn's long, slow ocean swells any more. The waves rose through the giant bamboos' grid to slap the Scout's scorched hull.
"Tony ! Hurry !"
Tony clawed his way back onto the slanted ladder. Braced, he opened the inner panel. As he climbed into day-light, the raft heeled further. Tony cautiously peered over the outer hatch rim.

Forward, the raft's simple bipod mast still straddled the Scout's hull. The clumsy square sail, a cargo net laced with long leaves, flapped like washing from its cross-beam. The corner ropes flew free in the tropical breeze. Aft, the long steering oar swung loosely in its notch. Greg clung half-way up the bipod's back-stay rope. He jabbed his sheath knife at the pursuing tip of a leg-thick, suckered white tentacle. A dozen more writhed over the Scout's scorched fins and tail. They rose from a vast, pale shape lurking off the raft's now-submerged starboard rim.

Tony shook his head, "I suppose it just followed you home?"
"That's two leg-pulls !" Greg yelled, "Get rid of it ! You know how I hate snakes !"
"On my way, Greg !"
Tony calmly closed the hatch's inner panel. He climbed out onto the curved hull, grabbed the dorsal safety line and sidled aft. A tentacle crossed his path. He drew his cordless buzz-blade, parted the squirming limb with one stroke. The severed end slid away, flailing like a cut worm. The stump snatched back, trailing a thin smear of blue-green ichor.

Questing suckers ceased their explorations, converged on him. Tony swept the power blade to and fro twice. Shortened or crippled, those tentacles withdrew. The last, the largest, still twined Greg's rope. The coarse plait creaked.

Tony saw no easy way to free the rope. He could not reach that tentacle from the hull's safety. He dared not climb down to the water's edge. He could not risk throwing their one buzz-blade to Greg.

Below, the lurking shape shifted. The raft's angle eased slightly, but more strain came onto Greg's rope. The hand-spun leaf-fibres creaked louder. A few more strands parted. Their frayed ends sprang from the coarse plait. Tony flinched.
"Any ideas?" Greg called, slowly retreating.
"Can you get up to the mast-head?"
"Sure, but that overgrown Snake-legs has just found the mast !"
Tony gauged his safety line. Cut, it would lower him to the deck, to clear the stern. Then he'd be trapped with Greg.

Tony's swinging gaze crossed the tail fins. He scowled at the brutal web of scars etched by the Aulacogen Rift's lightning storms. His eyes fell on the angles between the hull and its stub wings. Tipped to a gulley, the upper held some wriggling off-cuts.

Tony grinned. He slithered across the upper hull and landed on them. Length by length, he chopped the cuttings to fist size. Flung out to splash into Autumn's planet-girdling North Ocean, the gory chunks sank, still twitching.

"They won't be back." Greg spared a glance, "This one's climbing the mast !"
"I'll get to it." Tony promised. He edged forwards, reached the port leg of the bipod and started up, but slowly. It was a race he could not win.
"Now it's reached the top of the back-stay !" Greg warned, "It has a grip ! And the other's closing in ! Which do I poke?"
"The nearest..." Tony panted, "Keep it busy !"
Slightly built Tony was nimble, but no gymnast. He was glad of the steep angle of the raft, which eased his climb.

"My knife mostly skids off ! It learns too fast !"
"Nearly there, Greg..."
Tony climbed a few more feet. He wrapped his legs and left arm around his mast leg, leaned downwards. The buzz-blade's tip drew a green line across the other mast-leg's tentacle. It flailed outwards. It met the blade's return. An arm's length spun away. The stump drew back. Shorter tentacles promptly wrapped the lower mast and the back-stay rope.

Greg clambered to the mast-head fork, helped Tony onto the cross-beam. Their weight rolled the raft further. The starboard mast-leg swung beyond the vertical. A nest of the shorter tentacles broke surface, waved upwards. One slim tip drew a slash from the buzz-blade, jerked back. The rest waited, barely feet short.

"So, what's the plan?" Greg puzzled.
"We wait, too."
"A siege? I doubt we'd last a night."
"We've three, four hours of day-light. That should be enough."
"Oh? What for?"
"Competition !" Tony grinned savagely, "You'd better watch the sea. Your sight's keener."
"Okay..." Greg glanced around, "Uh, more of the same?"
"I hope not !" Tony stabbed a scouting tip, "Fins, spouts, bubbles-"
"HANG ON !"

Tony wrapped the cross-beam with arms and legs. The raft heaved. Something huge and black brushed its bluff bow. The lurking pale shape loosed its grip, went side-ways fast. The raft surged upright. A boat or barge would have rolled further. The giant bamboos' grid simply slapped the water, steadied in a shower of salt spray.

"What was that?" Tony wiped his face.
"Too fast-" Greg gulped, pointed, "Oh ! Look there !"
A hundred yards to starboard, a long, black back cut the surface between two swells. Four broad lateral limbs sculled almost casually. A long neck rose, then as quickly dipped. The dark-scaled head set huge teeth into its hapless prey. Their hostile cephalopod was caught squarely. Yet, half-in, half-out of jaws like a Shuttle dock, reduced by the buzz-blade, it was still fighting.

The great jaws chomped left, right. The battle was won. A leisurely tail flick took the victor and its easy meal beneath the waves.

"A Plesiosaur !" Tony whispered, "I only wanted sharks, or barracud'alikes !"
"The Inter-Planetary / Geophysical Survey will never believe us !" Greg grumbled, "Attacked by the Kraken? Saved by the Loch Ness Monster? So where's our proof? Gone ! We used it as bait !"
"But, Greg !" Tony chuckled, "Imagine the hours you'd have to spend dissecting and scanning smelly specimens ! And the paper-work ! Is naming it worth that fuss?"
"Yes !"
"Never mind, Greg !" Tony waved, "Why don't you grab a shower and make some tea? I'll set the raft back on course, then make some harpoons. Just in case !"
"Okay... Sure..." Greg sadly shinned down his side of the mast. He crossed to the Scout's hull, clambered to the dorsal hatch, stepped in. Something squidged.

"Aiiiyy !" Greg leaped out, snarling, "Tony ! That was a dirty trick !"
"Oops ! Sorry, Greg ! I lobbed a small-"
"You call that-" Greg stopped, peered into the hatch-way's shadows, half-spread a large hand, "About so big?"
"Yes ! I didn't think you'd mind..."
"Mind? Tony, it's our proof ! But, if that's yours..." Greg reached down and, with some difficulty, drew out an arm's length of still-lively, wan tentacle, "Explain this !"





1200 words
The One That Got Away     (c) Nik

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