The World Flying Force Rebellion in the Shadows

Sneak Peek Upcoming Sequel "Beyond Amacuro"

It was silent. The snow had a way of damping all sound around a person. The usual wind that buffeted everything in the north pole had died down. The muffled stillness was disturbing. It was almost better with the body numbing gusts pounding us from every direction. The air was frigid even with no wind. It helped that I was wearing a completely enclosed snow suit. They had made the suit special just for me and it fit me like a giant puffy glove. The cold had my body cramping. I had spent most of the day crouched in the same position.

Movement was impossible, or it would make this whole trip irrelevant. This was the spot we kept returning to because it yielded results. We were waiting for our dinner. My calcumat lit up. Finally, something was coming. A slight movement on my right told me that Krit'ts saw it too. Two jukale's had wondered over to where we had left the salt. It was the best bait we had for the sparse animals that lived at the polar region and hadn't failed yet. These jukale's were huge. If we got them, it would feed the base for weeks. They had to weigh at least 6,000 pounds. It was lucky we had brought the sled. My fist rose silently and slowly, closed inside my glove. We had to wait until it was in the perfect position. The hunting skills I had weren't great, but it had been my turn. Krit'ts was much better with the rifle, but possibly hated it more than I did. He had only volunteered to keep me company. As soon as they moved into position, I held up one finger and slowly pointed it to the jukale I would shoot. Krit'ts nodded, and I counted down with my finger. We both shot. One of the jukale's fell immediately. Krit'ts had shot well. The one I had shot was running away from us. The night vision goggles only lasted for about 100 feet and I saw it disappear beyond that. A timer alerted us we needed to return to base; the heaters inside our suits wouldn't last much longer. It was lucky we had hit this one without  much time to spare. We both got up. My whole body was stiff. I stretched for a few minutes, twisting my back and pulling on my arms to get them to loosen up. It was a difficult task in the thick snowsuit.

I heard over the comm's, "Not bad," Krit'ts was stretching too. Sitting in silence for three hours made it odd to hear a voice, no matter how familiar it was.

"Could have been better, can't believe I missed!" I told him.

"Really? Haven't you missed like nine times out of ten?"

"I guess, but I thought I was getting better!"

"You aren't," he said playfully.

"Shut up," I said as I nudged him with my shoulder. We were both walking towards the giant animal.

"This guy is huge," he told me. Huge was right. The creature was probably ten feet tall and fifteen feet long. My glove slipped off to touch the fur, to appreciate it for only a second. The thick skin and hair were still warm to the touch.

"Shall we?" he asked, handing me a shovel. I could have grabbed it under his hand, but I didn't. Our gloves touched for a moment. He knew it wasn't an accident, but pretended to ignore it, anyway.

We started to dig under the creature. Then we would shimmy the large electronic sled under, until the beast was on top of it. The sled had tracks on it to easily grab at the snow, no matter the weight. After a few minutes of odd silence, his voice startled me.

"They sure are beautiful."

"If you can get past the size, I guess so," I shrugged. He was right but telling him that too often made him impossible to deal with. Jukale's were beautiful. Their hair was very thick and bright white. Long enough to touch the ground,  the bottom half inch was covered in tangles of ice and snow. Most of the animals at the polar region had the same dense fur. This one was surprisingly fast for its size but didn't have any way of defending itself.