Daniel Coldstar #1 by Stel Pavlou

Author:Stel Pavlou
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-09-12T04:00:00+00:00

26

LEECHERS!

In the palm of the leecher’s free hand, a glistening, slime-covered parasite slithered toward Daniel’s neck, its razor-sharp teeth whirring away.

Daniel grabbed the leecher’s wrist with everything he had, trying to push it away.

Down below, a muffled tirade of angry clicks and hisses erupted from under a blanket emerging from one of the shafts. It translated roughly as: “I told you, don’t open that hatch!” but Daniel was pretty sure if his Mendese vocabulary had been bigger, it would have been far more colorful.

Hex threw the blanket aside and ran up Daniel’s leg.

“I thought I could smell food!” Daniel explained, barely able to breathe.

“From an air duct? How have you not died from stupidity before now? It could have come from anywhere!” Hex scolded, scrambling over Daniel’s back and perching on his shoulder.

“So I discovered!” Daniel yelped, rapidly losing his struggle with the leecher. “Are you going to help or just sit there?”

Hex shivered, watching the slithering parasite edge closer. “Ugh, I hate these things.” And with that he leapt over onto the leecher’s hand, biting down on the parasite and flinging it away before jumping back to relative safety, using Daniel as a springboard and somersaulting up to the control panel, hitting the switch with a click.

The hatch slammed shut on the leecher’s arm, forcing it to loosen its grip.

Daniel landed in a heap, Hex running circles around him, opening up all the access panels to the shafts. “We have to find somewhere to hide.”

“It’s no use, they’ll hunt us down,” Daniel explained, coughing for air. “We’ve been sold out. Your captain told them not to leave any survivors.”

“I knew he was no good the moment they hired him,” Hex replied, climbing up to survey the tunnel closest to the deck, ducking out of the way of the leecher’s hand.

Shaped like a trench, this shaft ran along the deck, separated from the surface by grates every few paces, flight-deck lights shining down through the mesh. “A front-row seat, but we don’t have a choice. Come on, human.”

Hex didn’t wait around to see if Daniel would follow. Pressing flat to the shadows, the anatom ducked down onto all fours and scurried beneath the lowest pipes, following their length down the access trench.

Daniel tried to keep up, but it was hopeless. With a human body shape, he just couldn’t do the things a rat could do. Hex could push his bones together to squeeze through holes as small as his head—all Daniel could do was get stuck.

Hex tossed an impatient look over his shoulder. “Try going around, genius.”

High above their heads, a wailing siren erupted with an earsplitting screech. Weapons fire shot back and forth across the flight deck, lighting up the smoke rolling in from all sides—

Slam!

A WaKeenee crewman landed on the grate, his clothes ripped and bloodied, a leecher bearing down on him, looking like rotten flesh encased in jelly.

Daniel held his breath, watching in horror as the leecher gripped the man’s head, pressing his face tight against the grille—slapping a parasite on the back of his neck.

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