THE RELIANT: DARK HORIZONS

FOOD FOR THE VAMPIRE

"What's the matter, Captain?" Lisa asked John after he came back onto the bridge. "You seem troubled."

John let out a heavy sigh before he said to his first officer, "I just got a message from Admiral Renjay with our next assignment."

"Which is?"

"We're going to be escorting someone."

"Who? Is it another ambassador?"

"Not exactly."

"Then who is it we're going to be escorting?"

John paused. "It's a Lurzon."

"A Luzon?"

"Yep."

"I've never heard of them."

"I've heard of them," Tamala remarked as she turned around in her chair. "I always thought they were a myth."

"Oh, trust me, Lieutenant, they're no myth."

"Just who are the Lurzons?" Lisa asked. "How do you know about them, Captain?" John let out a long and didn't bother to answer her at first.: "Captain?"

"It was during the Karnin war. My ship The Pretorious and another ship The Guardian had gotten into a firefight with a couple of Karnin battle cruisers. One of the ships was destroyed while the other one tried to flee. We chased their ship all the way to the Nitan nebula."

"The Nitan nebula," Lisa quipped. "That's pretty far out there."

"Yes, it was." John nodded. "Anyway, we followed the ship into the nebula where they tried to ambush us. But their ship was already heavily damaged from our first fight, and we ended up destroying their ship. But, before their ship exploded, an escape pod flew out of the ship and landed on a nearby planet."

"So what did you do next?" asked Lisa.

"I transported down to the planet with a landing party. I remember it was the darkest planet I'd ever been on. We found the escape pod and went looking for the survivors. We traced their footsteps all the way to this cave."

John paused, which caused Lisa to ask him. "What happened next? Did you find the Karnins?"

"Yes, we found the Karnins," John replied, pausing again.

"Captain?" said Lisa.

"They were being attacked by these . . . creatures."

"Creatures, Captain?"

"Yeah, that's the best way I can describe them. Not only were they being attacked, these creatures were . . . feeding on them."

Lisa raised her eyebrows at him. "Feeding on them?"

"Yes, eaten." John let out another deep sigh. "I can still remember how those Karnins screamed as they were being eaten alive by these . . . things. I'd never heard Karnins scream like that before. Then one of the creatures looked up and saw us standing there watching them. Blood was dripping down its chin. It hissed at us, and then the others gazed up and hissed at us."

"That sounds hideous," Tamala said.

"It was," John said, nodding in agreement.

"So what happened next?" Lisa asked.

"Those creatures started chasing after us. They were fast. Real fast. We tried transporting out of there, but there was something in the cave that prevented us from using our transporter bands. They ended up catching one of the members of the landing party. We fired at the creatures to try to make them let go of him, but our weapons were having no effect on them." John let out another sigh. "I can still hear him screaming as they drug him away."