Or Die Alone

Boyd bellowed a challenge and drew his knife, charging into the fray to slash at the creature's exposed back. He was rewarded with a powerful blow to the chest that lifted him off his feet, the beast swiping at him with one of its tentacles and sending him crashing into a snowdrift. It knocked the breath out of him, and he rose unsteadily to his feet before closing in for another try. As he had suspected the monster's flesh was rubbery and surprisingly fragile, it was basically a bag of goo. His cut hadn't gone deep but it had split the inky-black hide of the thing and yellow ooze that looked like pus was leaking free.

Lorza was battling it with what strength her starving body still retained, slicing at the tentacles that bound her with her wicked claws, hacking at it like a butcher trying to split a stubborn cut of meat with a cleaver. The monster seemed conflicted now, it had not expected its prey to mount such resistance, and now it had to divide its attention between the two of them rather than dragging its catch into its mouth.

Its arms flailed like loose firehoses, the glowing bioluminescent pustules that were spaced at intervals drawing colorful trails in the air, Boyd slowing as he reached the barrier of limbs. He ducked and weaved, slicing at the tentacles where he could, but his knife was too small and the thing was strong. First thing he was doing if they survived this hellhole was putting in a request for R&D to figure out a way to fit a Bowie knife into the damned survival suits.

It screeched, flinching as Lorza succeeded in hacking off one of the tentacles that had closed around her leg, the severed appendage losing its grip and falling to the snow to flop and twitch like the tail of a lizard. The monster spun on the ice and whipped at them with its arms, more yellow ichor leaking from its wound. Boyd took advantage of its confusion to dart in and stick it in the side of its bulbous torso, scurrying backwards as it reached out to grab him.

Lorza was snarling like a tiger and clawing at the appendages that still bound her, the creature losing its hold on her with every tentacle she severed, yet it never seemed to run out of replacements. Frustrated, it shuffled closer to her and shot more of its tentacles out in an attempt to further tangle her and bind her limbs, the Borealan writhing as its arms crept around her body like so many slippery ropes.

Her fur was matted with its viscous slime, its tentacles ensnaring her arms and legs as she bucked and fought, more of them tightening around her midriff and neck. It began to choke her, dragging her closer as she fought, the flesh on her thighs and chest bulging around the thing's tentacles as it squeezed her.

Diverting so much of its attention towards Lorza left it open to attack from Boyd, who dashed closer and sunk his blade into its back up to the hilt, dragging it sideways to open up a long and severe wound in its dark flesh. That hurt enough to really get its attention, and it loosed an unearthly wail, loosening its grip on the gasping Polar to bat him away. As he landed on his back, he saw that Lorza was slicing at her bonds again, the creature having freed one of her arms in its attempt to ward him off.

They couldn't win this battle through death by a thousand cuts, they were wearing it down but not quickly enough. It would overcome them unless they thought of something, and fast. Lorza neared its mouth, the beast gnashing its rows of sharp teeth, snapping at her legs as she struggled to pull away.

"Help me Boyd!"

He darted close again and harried it with slashes and jabs from his knife, painting the snow with its oozing, yellow fluids. Its insides were as dark as its rubbery hide, as if it had been coated inside and out in black paint. It bellowed in pain suddenly and recoiled, dropping Lorza who had caught some of its eyes with the claws on her paw-like feet, gouging them and popping them like blisters.

Enraged, it slapped its tentacles against the snow and screamed, an ear-splitting noise that sounded unnervingly human. It went for Lorza again who had gained some distance on it, tripping her and starting the whole process over. Despite its wounds it seemed intent on eating her, it was unrelenting, exhibiting a ravenous hunger that made Lorza look modest in comparison.

Boyd flung his pack from his shoulders, planting it on the ground and rummaging frantically as the alien regained its hold on his companion. She seemed exhausted, she had spent what little energy her body could muster and her fighting had become less ardent. She bit at the rubbery appendages with her sharp teeth, ripping at them with her claws, but it was no use.

He charged around the thing, dodging between the tentacles, trying to put himself between Lorza and its snapping teeth. It caught him in its arms and tried to drag him closer, hastening his approach as it split its maw wide open, preparing to swallow him.

"What are you doing?!" Lorza wailed. "Boyd, no!"

He plunged his right arm into its mouth, and its jaws snapped closed like a bear trap, Lorza screaming as his forearm vanished into its maw. Something was wrong though, and the monster bit down again, confused as its teeth met resistance. Boyd's mesh cast had weathered the blow, the protective casing as hard as concrete, and he dropped the grenade he had been holding into its gullet. The creature paused, then began to shake violently, releasing Lorza from its tentacles and flinging Boyd away as it began to writhe. They watched as it rolled on the ground, like some kind of beached deep-sea horror, its many tentacles flailing without purpose as its screeching was muffled.

Flame retardant foam poured from its mouth, solidifying as it dripped to the snow, the thing's bulbous body convulsing and bloating as its insides filled with hardening froth. Its many limbs tensed, the creature loosing one last, sputtering gurgle before it collapsed to lie motionless on the ground.

Lorza picked herself up off the snow, shivering, perhaps from fear or cold, or maybe both.

"You ok? You injured?" Boyd asked.

"No...no I'm ok." She took a moment to catch her breath, rubbing her neck with her hand where the alien had choked her. "You used the fire suppressant grenade, clever." Boyd walked over to the creature, its massive body now limp and sagging, giving it a good kick in the side to be sure that it was out of commission.

"Yep, this thing is fucking dead," he called back to Lorza. He spat on it, giving it another hard kick to its spongy body. His blood was still coursing with adrenaline, the euphoria that followed a fight overcoming him, he was more proud of the kill than would be professional to admit. This wretched thing had haunted them for days, and now it was dead, bested. "I'm not afraid of you," he muttered to himself, crouching to examine it. It had a dozen tentacles, a handful damaged or severed by Lorza, the eyes down one side of its 'face' gouged by her clawed feet. Its mouth was packed with foam, the grenade must have released the expanding suppressant all the way through its digestive system, rupturing all of its organs. He checked his arm brace, the rigid material was scratched where its teeth had found their mark, but it wasn't damaged. It had been strong enough to resist whatever bite pressure this alien could muster.

Boyd leapt out the way as Lorza descended on their kill, not wasting a second as she tore into one of the tentacles with her claws and began to strip off a hunk of meat. He tried to pull her away by the shoulder without much luck.

"Hey, hey! Wait a minute! You don't know if it's edible or not, at least let me scan it first!"

Her forearms already sodden with its yellow blood, she turned her head to look at him.

"You can do that?"

"Yes! I have a food scanner, hang on, it will literally take a few seconds."

Lorza relented, watching curiously as he retrieved his medkit from its pocket in his suit and set it on the ground. He cut off a tissue sample from one of the tentacles with his knife, placing the sliver of rubbery meat carefully into a glass vial and then inserting it into the same recess that had analyzed Lorza's blood. He plugged the cable from the kit into his oh-bis, and after a moment they got the results, Boyd reading them off to Lorza as she waited impatiently.

"Mercury content is a little higher than I'd like, but overall it's edible, we should be able to-"

He watched with a mixture of awe and disgust as Lorza carefully cut away a foot-long, three inch thick strip of meat from the tentacle using her hooked claws, opening her jaws as wide as they would go and dropping it into her mouth. She wolfed it down, barely chewing, like some giant strand of black spaghetti.

"What the hell Lorza!? At least cook it first!"

He watched her choke it down, the thick strip of meat bulging her throat before vanishing into her stomach. She immediately started on a second, stripping more rubbery flesh from the tentacle, using the claw on her index finger like a scalpel. Boyd set about cutting some smaller strips for himself, genuinely worried that she might not leave any for him, despite the size of the beast.

"Well I'm going to cook mine, how are we going to store it?"

She swallowed her second strip before answering, already having eaten enough meat to last a human for two or three days.

"Why do you need to store it? Just eat it now, then you won't have to carry it."

He gave her a shocked look.

"What do you mean, 'eat it now'? Oh lord, is that what you're doing? You're going to eat as much as you can in one sitting?"

"Yeah, why are you looking at me that way? I know humans don't eat as much as we do, but you can't stock up on food in an emergency?"

"No! Why would you ever assume that? Humans can't do that! We need to eat every day, we can't just eat two hundred pounds of food in one meal. Surely that can't be healthy?"

"Just drag it then, the snow is pure and clean, nothing lives on the surface. At home, we store meat out on raised platforms in the winter so the scavengers can't get at it, the weather is too cold for it to spoil."

As he watched she started to strip away a third piece, how much could she possibly eat in one sitting? He retrieved his pack and rummaged through it, finding the zip ties, maybe he could fashion something using those. Yeah, if he cut the straps on the rucksack and tied them together, he could drag the meat along the ground behind him and secure it with the zip ties. That way it wouldn't be near the small aura of heat that his suit gave off and so it wouldn't thaw and go bad. He could transfer the contents of his pack into Lorza's, they didn't need two of them to carry toothpaste and tape.

"Hey Lorza, when you ate the MREs you kept the flammable gel packets, right? And the little metal cooking stands?"

She turned her head to him and nodded, a massive strip of meat lodged half-way down her throat. She swallowed with some difficulty, her muscles really working hard to drag the flesh down into her belly, and gestured to her rucksack.

"In my pack, the big pocket."

"Good, I'll need them later. We can bring some food for you too, you know. You don't have to eat this much in one..." She ignored his suggestion, setting upon a fresh tentacle. "Never mind then."

Over the next half hour, Boyd cut away enough meat to last him for the next few days, as much as he could reasonably carry. He cut off the shoulder straps on his pack and tied them together, using a zip tie to attach them to the back of his belt, leaving a makeshift rope a few feet long that he could use to pull his haul behind him like a sled. He packed the meat up into a rough block using the zip ties, securing it at the end of the line, and was ready to set off.

Lorza had eaten so much meat that her belly was actually distended, it looked as if she had swallowed a couple of beach balls, she was relaxing on the snow beside the dead monster with a hand on her stomach She looked about ready to pass out.

"You good to go?" Boyd asked, and she opened her eyes sluggishly.

"Yeah, let's find shelter soon, I need to sleep this meal off."

"That wasn't a meal, you gorged yourself, I'd be surprised if we can even find a cave that you'll fit in now."

"It's efficient, this food will last me for days."

"It's disgusting, and it wasn't necessary. You're not having any of mine by the way, you can bring your own if you want to eat with me."

She just grinned, exposing her carnivore teeth, and rose to her feet with some difficulty.

"Mush, Balto."

He scowled at her, knowing that she would try to pressure him into sharing his meat when she got hungry again, but if she passed up the opportunity to store some of the food for later then she could go hungry for all he cared.

She followed after him as he checked his compass, then set off over a snow drift, dragging his haul behind him. She looked almost pregnant, it was obscene, and she smirked at him as she caught his disapproving look.

"What's the matter? Worried you'll end up in here too if we can't get off this moon?"

"Y-You wouldn't do it!"

She just grinned at him, she was probably joking, but he couldn't be sure. He decided to turn his attention forward instead, pulling his makeshift meat sled off into the snow.

As the sun began to set they came across another one of the caves that dotted the planet, the mouth of this one just large enough to allow the grossly distended Polar to squeeze through. This one had a short tunnel that led to an expansive ice cave, large enough for Lorza to stand erect without her furry ears brushing the ceiling. She set about unfolding her sleeping bag and laying it out on the floor as Boyd dragged his meat over into a corner and set it on the ice. Their body heat would never warm this space enough to thaw it, it would be fine here. He selected a steak-sized portion and cut away the zip-tie with his knife, bringing it back over to the sleeping bag where Lorza was already getting comfortable.

"It's going to get cold soon," she said, her head poking out of the top of the bag. "You should join me."

"I need to eat first," he replied as he zipped open the large pocket on her rucksack to rummage for the cooking tools. He withdrew one of the gel packets and a box of matches, along with a flat piece of metal cut into odd shapes. Lorza watched with mild interest as he bent the metal disk to form three legs and a support for cooking, a miniature stove. He tore open the gel packet and squeezed the flammable substance onto the ice beneath it, then struck one of the matches and set it alight. A blue flame spread across the gel, immediately beginning to heat the stove. He took the black, gelatinous meat in his hands and placed it gingerly atop the apparatus to sag over the sides, the MRE components would each have had their own container in which they could be reheated but he would have to wing it with the meat. It should work out ok.

"What does this stuff even taste like?" Boyd asked, Lorza shrugging beneath the sleeping bag.

"Slimy, salty, it's fine I suppose. I was too hungry to care much about the taste."

They waited in silence for a while as the meat cooked, Boyd occasionally flipping it over with his knife, until finally it seemed ready to eat. He sliced off a piece with his ceramic blade and popped it into his mouth, blowing and huffing as he tried to dispel the heat, before starting to chew it. It was rubbery and had a displeasing texture, like shellfish or oysters, despite being lean and made up entirely of muscle. It tasted strange, like unpleasantly salty bass or trout. He was so famished that it mattered little to him, and before long he had downed the rest of the alien steak.

"That's all you're going to eat?" Lorza marveled. "You've not eaten for days and all you're going to have is that one tiny portion?"

"That's enough to fill me for now, in a few hours I'll have some more."

Lorza shook her head in disbelief and chuckled.

"How did a species ever evolve that way? I knew that humans didn't eat much, I've lived around them long enough, but I assumed that you'd be capable of eating larger quantities in a survival situation. What if you couldn't store the meat? Would you just eat one meal and then let the rest go to waste, even if you'd die later as a result?"

"I'd have no choice, my stomach can't expand like yours seems to be able to."

"Some of you live in cold environments and yet you have no fur, you were apex predators on your home planet but you can't eat more than a few morsels in one sitting, how did creatures like you ever survive prehistory?"

"What do you mean, 'were' apex predators?" Boyd asked suspiciously.

"Well, we're there now," she grinned.

"You aren't apex predators, you're squatters."

"If we're bigger than you, and can eat you, then that makes us apex predators by definition."

"Well you're not taking into account the fact that we could glass your entire planet in an afternoon."

He felt her shiver, and she unzipped the sleeping bag.

"Get in already, I'm getting cold, don't make me grab you again."

"Fine, fine."

He turned and tried to climb inside, there was usually enough room to spare but now her belly was so inflated that he could barely get a leg in.

"Move over a little, I can't get past your gut."

She shifted, trying to give him more room, but it was just too awkward and he couldn't worm his way into the sleeping bag. She unzipped the whole bag, opening it up like a clam and gestured for him to get closer. He reluctantly lay beside her, and she put an arm around him to squash him against her body. He found his face full of white fluff, and struggled as her powerful arm held him.

"What are you doing?" he complained, spitting a stray hair out of his mouth.

"Keep still, I'm closing the bag around us, or would you rather we both died of exposure?"

With some difficulty she zipped the bag back up around them both, Boyd finding himself crudely sandwiched between the insulated lining and her fat body, his face buried in the nape of her neck.

"This is very uncomfortable," he complained, his voice somewhat muffled by her fur. There was that musky smell again, familiar to him now, calming. He must have started to associate it with sleep and warmth. His torso was pressed up against her expanded belly, oddly firm beneath the layer of soft fat that she still retained, her mammoth breasts were squashed up against his chest and his face was practically buried in the furry cleavage that spilled out of her overalls. Her arm was still wrapped around him, and he shifted and wriggled in an attempt to get it out from under him.

"Move your damned arm!"

"I can't, there's no room."

It felt as if the zipper might just pop under the pressure and disgorge him onto the cold ice, they were positively pressurized, there wasn't even enough room to turn away from her as he usually did when they were forced to share the sleeping bag. Now her boobs were in his face and he couldn't roll away to safety. Her warm breath ruffled his hair from above, her chin practically resting on his head, and he squirmed with discomfort. The sound of her heavy breathing annoyed him, as did the way the rise and fall of her ample chest pushed his face further into her fat breasts, the beating of her massive heart was like a drum to his ears in the eerie silence of the ice cave.

"Stop breathing on me," he grumbled, frustrated. Lorza laughed, the motion wobbling the meat of her bust and tickling his nose with her delicate fur.

"You're such a child, just keep still and relax, go to sleep."

"I can't sleep with your fat in my face!"

"No? I would have thought having something so soft to lay your head on would be a bonus. You know, usually when someone has me in such a compromising position, the last thing on their mind is complaining about it."