Alien- Instant Kill

  So I line up my shot, and I breathe out, and when the rolling of the two terrible beasts brings them into the right alignment, I pull the trigger.

  The recoil is immense, slamming me against the seat and nearly ripping the gun out of my hand. It doesn’t dislocate my shoulder—quite—but it feels as though it might as well have done so. The impact vibrates all the way down to my bones. I don’t want to do that again.

  I won’t have to. The entire front of the creature’s long, curving skull has been blown away, sending chunks of chitin and sprays of terrible fluids in all directions. The hippo bellows—but not in triumph, as I would have expected. It’s bellowing in pain.

Echo, Chapter 18