Desert World Savages Part 3: Hunted: A SciFi Alien Serial Romance Read Online Free PDF

grew louder and louder. Soon his angry shouts were ringing around the hall, waking up the other miners.
Everyone began to rise groggily to their feet.
    Quam turned to his fellow miners.
    "They have cheated us. These women are not real Staukub!"
    A roar of disapproval shook the cavern. Grenta, Rev, and Bris started backing away slowly. When they looked at each other, they didn't speak a word before they turned around and broke into a run.

TRACY
    She woke feeling a cooling breeze through the opening of her helmet. Tracy felt stiff and sore, but after being abducted by aliens, dodging genetic manipulation, and surviving a free fall onto a different planet, she was still alive.
    Always look on the bright side of life.
    She opened her food pouch and broke off another small brick of the food concentrate. Tracy didn't feel hungry, but she knew from long years of dieting that it helped keep her blood sugar stable if she ate before her hunger became overwhelming. She nibbled at her food, taking sips of water, letting the water expand the bites she consumed before she took another one. Tracy ate noiselessly as the grainy gel didn't provide crunch or resistance. In fact, she found sucking the food bar just as rewarding as chewing.
    The lack of sound in the cave was eerie. She heard rustling outside the cave. Tracy tried not to think about the noises because she didn't want to imagine what they meant. Noises outside the cave were scary, but they were still outside and away from her.
    When she heard a tap, tap, tap inside her little shelter, she tensed. The taps gave way into a strange screechy noise, a cross between a cricket chirping, a frog croaking, and a squeaky door hinge. The hairs on the back of her neck rose.
    A creature was in the cave with her.
    The primitive part of her brain, the part that told her fight or flight, interpreted the strange chirping as a warning and a threat. Quickly, Tracy gathered up the supplies she laid out from the catch pockets on the suit and tucked them back inside. The only thing she kept out was the long knife, which made her feel like she was not defenseless.
    Tracy didn't want to present her back as a target. She scooted backward toward the entrance on her ass, but the scraping of her butt on the ground seemed to irritate the cave dweller even more. The chirping escalated to a high trilling.
    Suddenly, a huge nightmare crab emerged from the darkness, rushing towards her.
    It scuttled on many legs and was the color of the local sand. The crab had forelegs like pinchers and they were reaching right for her. The thing didn't seem to have a head, but the underside sported a dark spot.
    Tracy figured that if this thing ate, that's where the food went. Where food entered, a sensitive digestive track followed. She hoped. If it was looking to make her a meal, she'd give this space crab something to think about by stabbing it in the stomach.
    Before she could reach its stomach, she was going to have to do something about those claws. Her heart pounding, Tracy swiped at the pinchers with the long knife. The tips of the pinchers were cut off and fell away. The creature reared up with a horrible screech. She scrambled to her knees and pushed the knife into the black spot as hard and deep as she could.
    The animal reared, several of its legs flailing, but it fell. Tracy scuttled out of the way, pulling out her knife as she did. The beast thudded to the floor of the cave.
    Tracy struggled to catch her breath. Her heart raced. As her heart beat slowed, she stared at the creature. It did bear a superficial resemblance to a crab, but by how much she didn't know. She kicked the creature, but it did not move.
    She wiped her knife. It was thick with brown ooze. Tracy wondered if any part of the crab was good to eat, but before she could form an opinion, a swarm of glistening black bugs flowed down the walls to the crab, crawling on it and covering it. Not wanting to be the next meal of the bugs, she hurriedly ran out