Consciousness returned to Laz like an explosion starting from his neck. He felt liquid fire underneath his skin, as if his blood had been replaced with sulfuric acid. His ears rang with a high pitch like two needles searing into his eardrums. He gasped, his entire body rebelling. When he opened his eyes, he was blinded by raw sunlight. He snapped them shut again and focused on each limb, starting with his fingers and toes. Pain became the pin-pricks of exsanguinated numbness. Slowly, cell by cell, he felt the torturous insurgency in his flesh retreat. It left him dazed and stupid. With his nerves returned to him, he was slow to understand what story they were telling. 

The sun. The air. He know the feeling of the atmosphere, of [i]this[/i] atmosphere, and how it filtered sunlight. This was Brahma. He was close to home, though he had no notion of where exactly on Brahma he was. He could feel metal rubbing raw against his wrists. He could hear moans, whimpers, and gasps. He could also hear talking. His ears still throbbed soar from his return, and he could not make out the words. They were casual, but harsh. He opened his eyes again. 

Kneeling in the dirt, he was surrounded by others like him. They had been stripped of their clothing and redressed in simple woven shifts. He could remember the battle in space. The blood, the chaos and the cacophony. The gas. After that, he couldn't remember anything. 

A man went from prisoner to prisoner, sticking their necks with the same over-sized syringe. Once jabbed, the prisoners awoke from their death-like comas. Their waker was an underfed skeleton of a man. The outline of his skull poked from beneath his skin. His hair grew lopsided on the top of his head, more like a fuzzy plant than a human mane. He wore oil-blackened leather with the geometric, scaly patterns of Brahman wildlife. Over that was a crimson sash bearing the image of a skull with bloodshot eyes and a bleeding heart placed between its teeth. He went about his business silently, paying no attention to the rest of his party. 

His confederates were dressed differently. Some shared the same brooding flamboyance, but many others wore street clothes, or unhooded spacesuits, or tattered mockeries of the armor uniform of several of the powerful Brahman factions. These were pirates, Laz reasoned. Pirate attacks were common enough, but a pirate attack on IU ships were unheard of. And the reasoning behind attacking a supply ship on its [i]return[/i] journey was something Laz couldn't work out. He stayed quiet and observed. The only other choice was to panic.

Laz had flown across the safe zone many of times. He knew it for its expansive plains, its flat patches of bubbling alien jungles, and the marshes that hid ancient predators waiting to pounce. This was not the safe zone. A vertical wall of mountains dominated the background. They were characteristically Brahman, with swollen, porous cliffsides melting into dagger-like sharkteeth or winding columns of volcanic rock. All around them, the choking thick jungle of Brahma's native foliage closed in. There were the fungal webs, and puffs that seemed to breath. Outstretched vines and slick ground-mold filled in the gaps. In some places, Brahma's "Trees" stood proud above the rest of the flora like the mountains behind them. Some species of Brahman tree fit the biological definition of the word, but botanists did not like calling them by the name. To them, trees were of Earth. There was more variation of the woody species here. Some of them, like the aspens of old Earth, were single systems spread across a long-reaching root network that sprouted hundreds of stocks. In others, these colonial stocks grew separately, but came together like columns to form trunks as thick as mountains. Their woods varied as well. Some were as tough as stone, while others where soft and weak like sponges. 

There were amongst the pirates a number of Tkrai. They were not whipped, and did they cower in the shadow of the humans. They wore no human clothing, only the vests and headdresses of their own fashion. If this was outside of the safezone, than this was their country. Only a few of them stood on the ground. Most of them stayed in the trees, or along a rocky outcrop at the edge of the forest.

Something big happened in the distance. Laz could not make out what, but it shook the ground. It felt like an artillery strike without an explosion, or like an earthquake targeting something near the horizon. The pirates and their Tkrai companions noticed, but they hardly reacted. They continued to chat as idly as if this were a safe-zone hike.

Another pirate approached them, dragging a foliage-green plastic chest. The ground shook again. 

"Hurry up." a tall man with ragged hair shouted from the crowd. "We've been chummin' for a week. Don't lose it."

In front of them was a small pile of unearthed dirt. It was freshly dug, and it was wet. Laz couldn't put the pieces together. He rubbed his wrists against his metallic binds. They were solid, and they were tight. 

"Friends!" another pirate began to speak. Laz watched the skinny man walk away, wiping the tip of the syringe against his pants. In place of him, this new man was much bigger. He wore a thick, navy blue great coat with the metallic two-headed eagle patch of the Putinate - a centuries dead Earth empire. Under that, he wore simple street clothes. Swords, knives, and hand-guns dangled from holsters across his body.

"We will release you soon. Do not run, new friends. There are Tkrai in trees who are ready to kill anybody that tries to. If they don't get you, Brahma will." He looked down at them, a stern smile nestled beneath his wiry red beard. Somewhere nearby, the earth shook. "But do not worry, we will give you a chance to walk free! You must only complete one trial." He held up one thick sausage finger and showed it to them as if he was about to do a trick. "Brahma will try you."

Another man passed behind them, undoing their binds. Laz rubbed his wrist and watched anxiously, expecting somebody to run. Nobody did. The pirate with the chest opened it and pulled out several long chains tipped with spear-sharp hooks. 

"The Tkrai are masters of the bloodsport." the red-haired pirate spoke, "And they know a beast called the Tih-Tukrut. Its flesh feeds them, its body's oil burns in their lamps, its ivory is used in their weapons, their tools, and their ornaments." There was another shaking, fireless explosion. Laz heard dirt raining down in the forest. He felt his heart beating in his chest. A monster? Brahma's wildlife breed some horrifying monsters. They were things that kept the land wild. They had prevented the Tkrai from creating expansive empires like man had on earth, and they had prevented Humanity, with all its technology, from thriving beyond the safe zone. 

The pounding earth startled the charismatic pirate. They began to pass out the chain-hooks, handing each prisoner his own. Laz felt the weight in his hand, and wanted nothing more but to swing it at their captors and start a riot. The pirates were armed with real weapons, however. And there was something else coming. Laz squeezed the steel in his palm and watched as another set of weapons was pulled from the chest.

The shark-fin knifes sent Laz's mind tumbling back into memories of the battle in space. The pirates hurried, strapping the sharpened blades to the prisoner's shins. Even with sharpened steel on their legs, the prisoners did nothing. One swift kick and they could have ended a life. Instead they stood frozen, watching the wilderness in front of them. The ground began to shake. The pirates finished their work and scattered into the treeline. Time moved slowly. Laz felt as if he were watching this all from behind a lens. It was hard to accept that he was here. Dirt began to bubble up from the ground. Laz backed up, preparing to run at any moment. He watched as two of his comrades ran into the forest only to be slain from the trees. It gave him a sudden resolved. Whatever this was, he would stand his ground.

The ground shook violently. His teeth chattered. The front of his pants became warm, than wet. All at once, hell burst from the ground.

The creature roared out from the ground like a spout. It was a blur of brown and black. Dirt dripped from it like water. It's cry was overwhelmingly loud and cackle-like. It extended out from the ground, its intestine-like skin plated along the back. Small, clawed arms covered its belly like that of a centipede. Its mouth was an all-consuming black hole, with ivory claws pointing out from it like dagger-shovels. Laz fell back. He felt the shark fin razor-blade cut into his thigh, opening it and freeing a trickle of blood to stream down his leg. This wasn't a battle. It was sacrifice.

Two fearless Tkrai swung from the trees and landed on the beast. Their every limb had shark-fin blades strapped to them. Their blades were stone-black, and they glittered like gems when they caught the light. In their hands were rope-hooks, and the hooks were made of the same volcanic rock that their blades were.

With skin blackened by ink the color of jet and eggplant, they landed on the backs of the mole-worm that was the "Tih-Tukrut". They caught themselves with their blades, digging into the serpent and slicing it like a sausage. Blood and bile spat from its wounds.

"You bloody cowards!" Laz heard a distant shout from the forest. "If you don't fight, we'll kill ya!" A fireball exploded behind them, delivered by some hidden weapon.

The mole-worm belly flopped, smashing the ground and sinking into it as if the soil was loose quick-sand. Dirt jetted from its back-end. The Tkrai chittered, swung their rope-hooks, and caught a tree branch. They waited. Laz worried. Had they missed lost their chance to live? He remembered all the things he missed. His family. His women. The Hyperelectro clubs in the Uttar Pradesh district. He tried to recall the taste of the mongrel food they sold in stands and dive-shops in Khurama Jila, its bachelor mix of unnatural replicator feed and handmade dressings and sauces. Pork cylinder's under Pomegranate-Curry sauce, Cheese-splatters made into a soup with hand-ground spices, Beef paste mixed into a somewhat convincing Texan chili, he thought about them but all he could taste was blood and bile. 

The ground shook. Was the monster returning? Another fireball exploded behind their backs. Laz decided he would live. He hefted his hook-chain and held his breath.

The Tih-Tukrut burst from the ground, clods of dirt fleeing from it. Purple blood bubbled and seethed in the mud that now caked its wounds. Laz sprung toward it. He felt his thigh sting, and felt the air bite at the edge of the wound. Paying it little mind, he swung the hook above his head like a lasso. It was just like the mountain climbing hook-chains he had been trained to use in IU service. Only this time, the mountain was moving.

He swung and caught it on armor plating. Thrusting from the earth, the monster's momentum tossed Laz toward it. He watched from the corner of his eye as another prisoner wrapped the chain around his arm and prepared to throw. Laz hit the Tih-Tukrut with a thud. It knocked the air out of him. He could feel its flesh wriggling beneath the stone-like plate of its back armor. He held onto a knob in the plate and swung his left shin over to its naked flesh. A quick kick backward and it was cut. Purple blood stained his blade. Below him, he watched as the second prisoner swung the hook and caught the animal's plate. Others tried, some less successfully. Above them all, the Tkrai warriors chanted as they caught the Tih-Tukrut's back. They took to this work naturally. This was their sport. 

Laz stabbed his second shin-blade into the creature. Carefully holding onto the chain, he let himself fall. Two cuts of flesh fell perfectly behind him. Without warning, the earth below him shifted and he was looking down at the sky. Laz held on to the chain for all his life as he tried to reorient himself. He was swinging like a pendulum, and fountains of dirt were coming at him. When he saw the ground beneath him again, he realized that it was rushing at him.

He jumped and hit the ground rolling. His arm scraped against a growth of woody peg-like grass. Before he could think to stand, something heavy wooshed over his head. His chain wrapped itself around the trunk of a coral growth. His bones ached. Pushing himself up, he struggled to look behind. 

The creature had disappeared into the ground again. A prisoner had fallen to his knees, screaming and holding onto the bloody crater in his shoulder where his arm had once been. He was not the only casualty. They were not the same number they had been when the pirates woke them up. Gritting his teeth, Laz reclaimed his chain and prepared for another round. 

In the trees above, the Tkrai chanted. It was in the harsh, trachean tones of their native language. The ground screamed beneath. Laz held on for all life.

Through a rain of dirt clods and bloodied mud, the monster stormed out of the ground. In places, its flesh was bloodied, purpled strips. Its scream was weakened. On its head, Laz saw the gory pulp remains of a prisoner who's hook-chain had twisted around him and bound him to the Tih-Tukrut. 

The prisoners charged, the Tkrai swinging through the air above them. They hit the creature like a pack of insects bringing down a dying dragon. Laz swung high and caught its back. The Tih-Tukrut shifted away, and its pull lifted him up to its side. Laz went to work quickly, kicking at its flesh until he created a seeping purple hole. Above him, the Tkrai were slicing open the monster's eyes. It was howling in pain, and Laz could feel each desperate shriek shuttering under the flesh of the beast. He climbed up, high enough that he could straddle its back. He took a length of chain in his hands and created a tight coil. Holding it in his hands, he began to bash. Its stone-like back plates gave way in small chips. Surely, Laz reasoned, what lay beneath was vital. He felt the creature turn and prepare to go back into the dirt. He had to do this quickly. Like iron striking iron, he worked. Sparks flew up with every other hit. In front of him, he watched as the Tkrai disappeared under the creatures head. 

The Tih-Tukrut let out another cry. This one was long and sad, like a eulogy for its self being delivered to the wild. Laz felt the life go out of it. The tense flesh beneath him loosened, the shakes and shivers of its body melted away, and it fell like a stone. He held on tight as it landed flat against the ground beneath it.

Every muscle in Laz's body ached, but he was alive. He climbed down slowly, minding the painful sting of he thigh wound. A pool of purple blood soaked the unearthed dirt beneath the Tih-Tukrut's body and created a stinking mud. 

Its neck had been slit so cleanly that a glob of wet, purple viscera had fell out of the wound. Rows of eyes along its neck had went cloudy in death, and some had been popped in the violence. The Tkrai warriors were peeling the smashed body of the prisoner that had became tangled to its neck. To Laz, his body was the most sickening part of the scene. Utterly crushed, bits of bone stuck out. His lower jaw had folded over the rest of his face, and there was more signs of flesh than there was of skin.

The ring of a ballistic shot rang out and broke the silence. Laz looked behind himself to see a prisoner fall to the ground dead from a shot to the temple. In the hand of the red-beared pirate, a smoking gun.

"He didn't try." the pirate said. "The rest of you did. On your feet, we have a job for you."

Laz wondered that they did not take away their weapons.