Excerpt: Nude

Soy sauce.
“What?”
“What’s up over there, Col?”
“Did you say something?”
Venice shrugged. “I didn’t hear anything. You’d better hurry up with that gun, though, because the boys… and Bastet… are getting hungry.”
Colin sighed. It was the fifth day of camping out on this hot, dinosaur-infested planet, and Colin had again been given the assignment of catching food for the group. The first day he had gotten lucky and hit a young hadrosaur in his own panic, but today he was struggling with the same problem he had run into with the ship’s turrets. They had given him a weak handgun to use, which worked the same way but was intended only to stun its victims. Colin just couldn’t bring himself to want to stun a dinosaur if they were only going to eat it…
“Soy. Sauce. Colin…”
He knew that voice from somewhere. “What about it?” he yelled to the air, scattering a group of curious procompsognathi. Venice ignored him patiently, drawing all over her new map, and the leaves far overhead rustled deeply in the wind.
“I said it, Colin,” came the voice from behind him. He jerked around, steadied his gun as an afterthought, and found himself aiming right at a very large raptor.
“Jesus Christ!” he yelped as he recoiled.
“Well, if you prefer,” the raptor said with a shrug. “But I’m not, not around here. Here, I’m Raptor Christ of Raptors. Or, as the locals call me…” He created a shrill cry that made Colin feel highly uncomfortable. “More swear than prayer, eh? Ho ho.”