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  “Are we that certain whatever did this wasn’t human?” Dustin asked as he pointed his optics at the organ bit so it was recorded.

  “Dusty, move into the garage and let me know what you think. I’ll cover the landing field. Waren make sure nothing gets in behind us.”

  “Hoo-ah,” he and Waren said and moved toward the poorly lit tent. A single LED bulb hanging on a cord from a pole at the apex of the tent swung in the ghost of a night breeze, sending shadows swinging to the left and right like a ship at sea. The strange dance of light and dark made Dusty nauseous but he swallowed it down. When the bulb drifted to the right he could see smears of deeper darkness on the lighter colored soil. On a different day Dustin would’ve concluded the spill to be oil. Perhaps fuel.

  Tonight he knew the dark patch of blood belonged to a man named Christian.

  He pressed forward into the depths of the carnage, rifle at his shoulder, broadcasting its feed to the operations center.

  He tabbed a small, smooth surface on the fore grip of his weapon. A brilliant white cone of light erupted from a tiny aperture below the rifle’s barrel, bringing out raw colors the shadows had hidden.

  Reds, purples, and blues all leapt into view. Flecked amongst the insides and all their vivid colors were the tan tatters of skin that had belonged to Stahl. Some of the bits of flesh were still stuck to the pieces of green uniform he’d been wearing when he was . . . destroyed. Dustin saw a curved piece of yellow-white bone shaped like a small bowl attached to the side of the APC. The bit of skull was glued firm by sticky dried blood and muscle.

  The worst part of all lay on the ground. Worst . . . parts of all.

  What looked like thirty meters of ropy, slimy, shit-filled intestines were strewn about in every direction. The guts were coiled like a well-sauced pasta meal served on the Devil’s dinner table. Dustin’s stomach tightened and twisted.

  Hauptman called in from outside the tent.

  “What are you seeing?” Lionel asked.

  “Uh . . . There’s a lot of blood. I see a skull fragment. Lots of organ tissues thrown about. I think I see a piece of an ear. Bit of jawbone under a table. You’re right; there’s no way he survived this. It’s a butcher shop.”

  “Holy shit,” Waren said.

  “Careful in there. Watch for anything particularly alien in nature. Spores, spines, strange fluids, egg sacs, whatever. We have no idea about the biology of whatever did this.”

  “Imagine if its blood was made of acid? How would you kill something like that?” Waren posed.

  “Shut up Waren. We’re working. Cover your sector,” Hauptman said.

  “They should make a movie about monsters with acid for blood. I bet the Pacifican film industry would eat that up,” Dustin said as his eyes pored over the macabre scene in the tent. He had to hide behind humor to push away the crazy trying to creep up the back of his neck. He looked for evidence of human hands or feet in the chaos; a fingerprint or boot outline in the blood, anything that would point at a threat from within. A carnivore he could wrap his mind around. A traitor he could not. He found nothing.

  “I’d watch that movie,” Waren said.

  A new voice cut into the feed. Major Duncan’s. “Act your age gentlemen,” the man’s resonant voice said. “Someone died tonight.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Minutes passed as Dustin worked the scene of the attack. Every step forward had a plan as did every movement of his eye. His motions and thoughts were meticulous, machine-like and very much not theoretical as he searched for clues that would tell him more about Stahl’s death, and the thing or person that perpetrated it.

  “Anything?” Hauptman asked him.

  Dustin glanced over his shoulder to where Hauptman crouched in the grass. Far beyond–past the herd of ships that had brought them across the great black void–he saw the brighter glow of the coming dawn over the ocean’s far edge.

  “No sir. No animal prints, no human prints. Nada.”

  “Speculation?”

  “Something real big and strong. I can see bits of skull bone all over the place. Whatever did him must’ve hit him in the head hard enough to smash it open. There’s a dropped wrench in the blood but it doesn’t look like it hit anything. Neither end is fouled so I think he went down holding it. What was he working on last night?”

  In Dustin’s ear Major Duncan answered him. “Belly of the tank was making noise. He would’ve been under it. Did he make any notations in the work order? Can you find it there?”

  With great care Dustin walked around the remains and approached the bench. Somehow a data pad had survived getting gore on it and he tapped the surface with his gloved left hand, turning it on. The page opened to revealed the work order for the prior night. Dustin scanned it, then pointed his rifle at it so the others could read it.

  “He made a notation. Says he found no mechanical damage, but scrapes on the bottom hull required cleaning and paint.” Dustin leaned over and looked under the tank. Sitting there he saw a plastic spray can of paint. Dustin’s brain assembled the pieces.

  “What are you seeing kid?” the major asked.

  “I see the paint he used. He wouldn’t have needed a wrench for that. If I were a betting man–and I am only when I have nothing to lose–I think he got scared, grabbed the wrench and went to confront whatever he heard.”

  “Or,” Hauptman offered, “whoever brained him used the wrench to do it then dropped it and took off.”

  “Are you saying they did it then dragged the body away too?” Waren posed.

  “Just thinking out loud,” Hauptman said.

  Major Duncan broke in again. “Alright, enough. Lionel get your boys on the trail and meet up with the other fire team near the forest’s edge. I want to go inside that tree line and see if we can find Private Stahl’s remains. The first human to die on Selva is going to get a proper funeral, damn it. And if you guys find something in that forest that looks at you sideways you bring it to Balashov with a bullet in its damn head. If it even has a head.”

  Dustin heard the faint sounds of cheering inside the command tent as Duncan cut his transmission.

  “On it, sir. Gentlemen, you heard the major.”

  With as much composure and caution he’d used to enter the motor pool tent, Dustin exited, and took up his position at the lead of his fire team as they headed south.

  All he had to do was follow the streaks of blood and gore in the growing light of dawn.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Dampier Peninsula forest, planet of Selva

  21 August 163 GA

  Like the old Earth fairy tale, Dustin followed the crumbs of blood to find his witch. In the story the blood came much later than it had here on Selva, and the brother and sister left a trail of bread crumbs as they went, but he couldn’t shake the idea that as right or wrong as he was about the fairy tale, this was very much a witch hunt.

  He, Waren and Hauptman had snaked their way through the forest made of landing gear. They headed south toward the black peninsula forest and its strange trees and enormous organic pylons. Dustin tracked the trail of blood through the grasses until the sun crested over the surface of the ocean to the east, leaving behind the blue glow and bringing a bright golden dawn. He extinguished his gun’s light and moved slower, looking for each drop and smudge of blood on the waist-high grasses. Eventually the trail of blood terminated in the beaten-down path the First Expeditionary Marines had made with their ATV trips to collect specimens.

  After that, the trail went cold heading toward the peninsula’s forest.

  It didn’t matter. Less than fifty meters from where the blood disappeared was the line of the jungle where they suspected their prey disappeared. Ten meters from that, crouched in the perimeter along the grass were Ping-Pong, Stash, and Theo. If anything came to or went from the trees one of the marines would see it, and if that happened, God help what they saw.

  Dustin left the trail and took up a crouch of his own a few meters away from Remy
. He’s not wearing his helmet. That’s fucking dangerous with a threat out here somewhere

  “Welcome to the front line,” Theo said on the FEM channel.

  “Theo, have you seen anything?” Lionel asked.

  “Nada,” Theo replied. “I saw something big move deeper inside the jungle a couple of days ago but that’s it.”

  “How big?” Dustin asked.

  “Big. Size of a bear. Maybe a little larger. Graceful, like a large cat, or maybe something with extra legs. I didn’t get a clear look at it. Thing popped out of view real quick, like it hid behind a rock, or slipped into a cave or burrow. Big enough to fuck a man up. Is it definite on the KIA?”

  “Yeah,” Dustin said. “No chance he’s still alive. Do you think whatever you saw could be intelligent? Like it hid when it knew you were looking at it?”

  “I doubt it. Unless the thing is smart enough to know what binoculars are,” Theo said.

  Hauptman took charge. “No matter, we came here to find Stahl’s remains. If we encounter anything even the tiniest bit threatening, put the fucking thing down. Intelligent or not, we are not taking risks. We can let the diplomats apologize to the aliens tomorrow.”

  “We brought diplomats?” Waren asked.

  “I brought some hand grenades. That’s the same thing really,” Ping-Pong said.

  “Enough,” Lionel said. “Form a search line. Three meter spread centered on Dustin and me. Move slowly and look for the body or threats. Watch for trip wires, bombs, or anything fishy. Call out contact if you see it.”

  The marines did as they were told.

  The first step into the dense vegetation of the forest put more hairs on end than the first step on Selva did. The cost of lost innocence.

  Dustin walked with Hauptman three meters to his left and Waren three meters to his right. Beyond them the other marines were arrayed roughly in a straight line, guns raised, eyes searching.

  The alien forest sloped upwards as they walked south. The central piles of slate at the core of the land mass covered in forest grew in width and height as they progressed. Gently at first, but more abrupt elevations could be seen beyond the stout trees and the gargantuan bases of the skyscraping fungal trunks.

  “Those fungus things have to be twenty meters across at the base,” Steve said. He was closest to the first one they approached. “And they’re secreting some kind of sap. That’s the green we’re seeing. The body of it is light gray.”

  “Scope it for Balashov and Ford. They’ll want to see it. Remember what we’re here for. Tree research will come later,” Hauptman reminded the sergeant. “Stay focused.”

  Dustin listened to the conversation but never took his eye off the slope of the hill hidden inside the forest’s foliage ahead.

  Something large moved just off the center of his eyesight. “Contact forward. Fifty meters,” he said in a firm voice.

  The body language of the expeditionary marines changed. Already tense and alert, they coiled lower into the ferns and bushes on the ground, bringing up their weapons to align with Dustin’s crosshairs on their view plates. Without his helmet Remy had to guess at where his allies aimed and they saw his uninformed bouncing asterisk as clear as could be.

  “What is it?” Hauptman asked as the men moved forward at an even more deliberate pace.

  “Gray skin very similar to the stone. Rounded back about the size of a brown bear. I saw it behind the ledge I’m aiming at, then it dipped behind it. I think it moved pretty quick,” Dustin informed.

  “Alright. Swing right and approach. Fire at first sight,” Hauptman said.

  The line of warriors slid sideways, forming into a crescent and sliding around the slate hillock. Moving at their right tip was Theo followed by Ping-Pong. The two moved with robotic precision, their rifle crosshairs bobbing only slightly in the two units’ shared views.

  The stony rise in the dark green forest spilled down the length of the peninsula into the distance as they moved to its side. A hundred meters away, the ocean waves lapping against the rocky shore and exposed roots of the trees It was the sound of paradise and relaxation, and this moment was anything but. The men moved with sweat running down their foreheads and cheeks, stinging their eyes inside their armor. Back at the operations tent dozens of men and women watched through video feeds streamed from the men’s gun sights. They, too, sweated.

  Something that should’ve been a stone on the side of the hill moved.

  Theo coughed out contact, and fired at the boulder as it continued to move. To his left Steve joined him, firing twice.

  The laser-accurate fléchette rounds pierced the hide of an alien beast and continued through its flesh until the marines heard the darts ricochet off the rocks beyond its body with a series of rattling pings. The monster’s slow movement then exploded, as it reared itself up on two pairs of giant legs. In unison, two more pairs of arms raised up from its sides. The foremost pair of segmented arms measured at least a meter in length and were tipped with enormous serrated pincers that pivoted off a massive knuckled fist. They looked large enough to snap a tree in half.

  The beast raised up from its sanctuary of the rocks—threatened, now in pain and angry about it. Its underbelly beneath the carapace-hide was a bright striped red that looked like the shell of a cooked lobster. As the creature leapt from the hiding spot they watched as a head appeared at its foremost end just beneath its shell.

  Half a dozen eyes clustered tight to the cone shape of its head, each the size of a man’s fist. The oily orbs glared at them with inhuman malice. Perhaps the men were no more than food to it; perhaps the men were a mere threat to be destroyed. No matter, it wanted them dead, and it charged. The boulder with claws cocked back its two front arms to strike as it bounded at tremendous speed through the undergrowth at Steve Ziu.

  He would be trampled or pierced by the alien beast in moments.

  “Fire!” Lionel shouted.

  Each rail gun coughed out a flurry of rounds in a staccato burst of electronic thumps. The magnetically fired projectiles sliced into the hide of the alien beast and pierced the soft tissues beneath, releasing streams of sticky yellow goo into the air. The pus-like blood issued like hellish custard and it ran down the hard, gray substance of the creature’s back. The monster bellowed an elephantine roar as it lowered its body and charged harder and faster at Steve. The ground underfoot vibrated.

  Without pause the marines fired again and again in the chaos. Steve dove to the side.

  He disappeared into the thick leaves of the ferns and the tightly spun branches of the low bushes. The creature turned with tremendous effort as it trampled forward and stomped furiously on the ground with heavy insectoid feet in the area where Steve landed.

  Oh holy mother of God.

  Dustin watched the beast bull itself around the ground while the sergeant tried to evade. The men had to hold fire. They didn’t know where Steve fell and their weapons couldn’t penetrate the foliage to find his armor. A red alarm of text flashed at the top of Dustin’s view plate and told him the marine’s armor had been compromised by “Blunt force trauma to the lower extremities.”

  Enraged now, Dustin ran to the side to find a clearer view. Ten strides to the south, he passed the enormous plant that had blocked his vision and saw Steve on the ground, the monster preparing its massive insect-feet to stomp him apart in a killing blow.

  Steve clutched at his leg, and struggled to get out of the way.

  “Fire on me!” Dustin said and tapped the trigger of his rail gun over and over, aiming for the tiny cone shaped head with the black eyes arrayed around it. He watched as his firing icon–a green X–pulsed with each round fired and watched as one black eye after another erupted. His comrades aimed at his fire locator and joined in the assault. Thick jelly fell out on the ground as the beast’s two mid-limbs reached up, covering its wounded face. It made an agonized buzzing trill and it spun in circles, lost to the pain of its injuries.

  The five men ripped into the wounde
d monster with a fusillade of rapid fire. The thing staggered away from where Steve had gone down and tried to make its way back toward some kind of shelter or safety on the slate hillside.

  “No! Fuck that!” Dustin screamed.

  Dustin fired until the thing stumbled down to what might be its knees. It heaved up and as the men swapped out magazines in their rifles. They had to kill it before it escaped. Dustin slapped a new mag in and brought his rifle up, but when he went to fire, the thing had gone still in the tall forest undergrowth.

  Other than the streams of congealing blood running down its back and side, the corpse of the monster seemed to be no more than a large, rounded rock.

  “Guys I could use some help here,” Ping-Pong said through a wall of pain. “My leg is fucked.”

  Hauptman took control. “Waren, get on Steve. Everyone else reload and prepare to retreat. We are not going to be able to take on another one of those things right now.”

  The lieutenant dropped his spent magazine into a pouch and fished out a full one from his bandolier.

  Theo and Remy obeyed the order and dropped to their knees, covering the hillside the beast came from. Dustin turned to cover the forest, which had gone silent and still.

  “L.T. we walked by at least three stones that look like that dead fucking thing to get here. We are balls deep in a nest of whatever that was,” Dustin said.

  “Waren, on the double,” Hauptman said.

  Dustin heard fear in his lieutenant’s voice, and felt some of the same.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rasima Plains colony, planet of Selva

  23 August 163 GA

  Dustin hadn’t slept properly since he and the other expeditionary marines had carried the injured Steve out of the southern peninsula forest. Between wanting to spend all his spare time with Melody before the expedition fleet’s departure in four days and wanting to be at his friend’s bedside, he left little time for himself.

  At present he, Remy, and Waren were in the medical habitat. The day’s heat outside abated as the sun set and the men were grateful for the air conditioning in the medical pod. They’d stolen all the plastic chairs from the empty medical bays in the central corridor and dragged them into Steve’s room. Black armor and equipment belts were piled high in the hall outside. With Steve’s bed and the various diagnostic equipment, everyone was shoulder to shoulder.