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  Dustin adjusted his rifle so it hung between his legs as he sat. “Ping-Pong. What’s the scoop?”

  “I’m smashed like a Phoenix potato,” he said as he adjusted himself to a better sitting position in the bed. “Pain’s gone. This brace Doc Castellano put on me is working wonders, so she says, but it makes me itchy as all-hell.”

  He scratched ineffectually at the plastic case.

  “Crabs on the march?” Waren pointed at Steve’s crotch.

  “Forced march,” Ping-Pong said, making a pincer motion with his hands.

  “What’s the prognosis?” Stash asked, pointing at the white plastic cylinder attached to Steve’s lower right leg. Rows of tiny LED lights on the device flashed as it pumped microdoses of various stimulants from tiny mounted vials into his leg.

  Steve split into a grin. “Doc Castellano says with the bone growth stims and bed rest I should be up and walking in five days. Three with crutches but she says I’ll be risking a proper set of the bones if I do that.”

  “How long until this thing comes off?” Dustin asked.

  “She says she’ll print me a composite cast when I need to walk. At night I’ll come back and they’ll mount this thing on me while I sleep. Should be two weeks in a cast. I might still have a chance on the pro table tennis circuit.”

  “Not too bad,” Waren said. “Man . . . I thought you were a goner. That thing was fucking huge and had a hard-on for you bad.”

  “Yeah, right?” Steve became quiet. He took a full minute and several deep breaths before he spoke again. “I thought I was, too.”

  “But you only had a broken leg after all,” Dustin said. “Two weeks in a cast is nothing compared to getting mauled by a fucking alien rock bug.”

  “Fuck that alien rock bug,” Ping-Pong said. “What’s going on today anyway? What’d I miss?”

  The marines sat back in their white plastic chairs, waiting for one of the others to speak first. Outside in the main med bay they heard Captain Castellano shuffling about, doing doctor things.

  Dustin bit. “Well, paranoia is strong. Major Duncan has issued rifles to all the kids in the infantry platoon. That could be a soup sandwich. He has the Armadillo APCs doing perimeter patrols around the base with a squad, two at a time opposite one another, that’s good. But perhaps most important . . . He has the Bingham on the down slope of the peninsula twenty-four/seven. Main cannon aimed straight at the jungle where we engaged that thing.”

  “The Bingham main battle tank? He is actually putting it to use?” Steve said, shocked.

  “Yeah. Not just for show anymore,” Remy said as he ran his fingers through his longer hair.

  Dustin leaned in. “Get this; he issued HE rounds for the gun and the 20 mm coaxial is loaded up as well. They’ve got the 12.7 ready for loading too. For the first time in how long? A main battle tank is ready for war.”

  Steve whistled. “Wow. He means business. Are they that worried about the rock bugs? Are they that aggressive?”

  Waren jumped in. “Yeah. After Private Stahl was dragged off by one? It took the rest of us almost a hundred rail gun rounds to take that thing down. The coax or the main gun should do better by far.”

  “That’s all fine and dandy so long as there are just small numbers of them. If a crew of them come out of the jungle all at once . . . That tank can only fire so fast,” Steve said.

  “The coaxial spits over 400 rounds a minute, kid. It’ll mow them down like a scythe through wheat. What are you smoking?” Waren said, sounding almost angry.

  “Calm your tits, Waren,” Dustin said, patting his friend on the back. “The Bingham sits on over watch. We should be thankful we have a commanding officer with the balls to take decisive action and let us protect ourselves.”

  “Hoo-ah,” the marines said together.

  “Besides,” Dustin said, “Balashov is cutting up the one we took down the other day. We’ll know better how to kill them soon.”

  Lt. Lionel Hauptman stood in the corner of the science habitat with his arms crossed. He wore a synthetic surgical apron and matching facemask as he watched the biologist Balashov and two of his assistants dissect the creature. It creature lay on its back, limbs pointing up, curled tight. The room stank of foreign death and the chemicals that tried but failed to mask the stench. Lionel’s nose had almost gotten used to the smell.

  Almost.

  Balashov and his pair of assistants wore more robust medical garb. Unsure of the toxicity of the alien flesh or what other unknown dangers the dead creature might pose, they were clad head to toe in bulky, sealed white hazardous materials suit. Thick tubes hung from a series of swinging arms on the ceiling of the hab that fed them fresh air, water and power. The tubes made them look like odd, inflated marionettes.

  Balashov removed a shattered piece of exoskeleton from what had been the creature’s head and set it down in a plastic tray. Beneath the hard shell was a porridge of tubes, thick nerve cables and spongy internal flesh that wasn’t muscle.

  “As suspected, the brain is not located in the front of the head,” Balashov said. He turned to glare at Lionel. “Thank you so very much for leaving me so very little of the creature’s head for me to examine, Lieutenant.”

  Lionel nodded his thin head. “You’re lucky what’s left is left. We had to work that thing over with all we had to put it down.”

  “Da. Kitchen sink as well, it would seem. Classic American overkill,” the Russian said.

  Balashov turned back and dipped his gloved fingers into the open shell of the creature’s head. He scooped up bundles of the visual nerve system and instructed his assistants to cut them away one by one. Each eye went into a clear plastic tray until his hands were empty. Below his hands in the creature’s open head was a strange-looking organ.

  “Is that the brain?” Lionel asked.

  “I believe,” Balashov said.

  The scientist probed with a series of tools–some electronic, others not. The lump of tissue looked gray and pink to the eye and had a wrinkly, fissured surface that was laced with tiny blue and black veins. After minutes of moving, testing, examining the brain with a voice operated microscope and then making strange noises as he discovered more and more about the creature’s insides, he stood erect and backed away from the monster.

  “Something wrong?” Lionel asked him.

  “Da. It’s . . . strange. I’ve never seen something quite like this. I will need more time.”

  “Strange how?” Lionel asked.

  “Come look,” Balashov motioned for Lionel and the two men approached the creature’s body. “See here? And here? I first thought these might’ve been wounds from your rifles but they are not nearly uniform enough. They are still wounds. I believe they are due, perhaps, to punctures, but probably chemical burns of some kind that pierced the shell and flesh. I need to examine them more and perhaps consult Doctor Castellano.”

  “What are you saying? This thing was attacked before we fought with it?”

  “Da. And there’s more. Look inside at the remains of the brain,” Balashov said, pointing at the oddly colored, packed tubular mass.

  “I don’t get it. It’s shot to hell. Bruised. What am I supposed to see?” Lionel asked, confused.

  “That’s just it. These lighter portions of the brain here? That’s healthy tissue. These darker portions . . . that is not a bruise. It is . . . diseased. But that’s not the right word. It is uh . . . Prokloyl. No . . . Not cursed. Infected. Not just a disease like cancer. Something invasive and foreign.”

  He pointed at the wounds on the red under-carapace, then picked up the skull. Similar healed wounds were there too. “Whatever made this old wound . . . infected this creature, and the infection went to its brain. Made it mad.”

  “Like rabies,” Lionel proposed.

  “Da, yes. Like rabies. Though these wounds are not bites. Very alien, and not quite the same. This is scary. If whatever did this to this creature were to do the same to a man . . . ”

  “T
hat would be bad,” Lionel finished. “What do you think did this? What should we be looking out for?”

  “I do not know. Something large enough to spray a liter of infecting material. Something no less than half this thing’s size. This frightens me.”

  “How long until you know more about what’s going on here?”

  “It is hard to say. Days, years. Maybe not in my lifetime. This could be entirely new biology and our resources here on Selva are not what they are on the moons. I will work on this without rest.”

  “Thank you, Micah. This is good to know. I’ll report this to Major Duncan immediately.”

  “Be careful, Lieutenant. These stony things are dangerous–like a wild boar in the forest–but the true threat to us could be whatever made this creature mad. Beware the wolf but fear the viper most. Do you understand me?”

  “Do I detect supposed Russian concern for supposed Americans?” Lionel joked.

  “I am no more Russian or American on Selva than you are. We are about to be alone here for six months and without protecting each other in every way we can, we are sure to struggle and some might die. We will need each other, and I understand that. I hope you do, too.”

  Lionel understood perfectly.

  Chapter Twenty

  Rasima Plains landing field, planet of Selva

  26 August 163 GA

  Flight Sergeant Andy Morris sat in the cockpit of Beagle. Hazy sunlight poured in through the narrow viewports, cooking what it hit. His in-flight position on the bridge was the electronics suite placed behind the pilot and co-pilot, a meter from the baking spots of bright light. During the voyage home he would monitor all communications and data that the pilots didn’t need immediately. He would interface with satellites and keep track of the mountains of information streaming in from other ships, the ground and a multitude of other places. Right now he stared at a long-range microwave transceiver console that refused to give him what he wanted.

  “I’ve prayed. I’ve tweaked. I even swore at it, Melody. But this thing is just not working. I don’t get it,” Andy said, defeated.

  From her spot up front in the sun Melody sighed and lowered her data pad.

  “Andy, the thing isn’t broken. This planet is.”

  “You couldn’t be more right. What a beautiful mess this place is,” the smallish enlisted man replied. He lowered his head until it rested on the tiny counter in front of the wall of switches. Melody patted him on the back.

  “Almost time to go,” she said to him.

  He sat up. “Yeah, thank God. I cannot wait to get home. My two brothers set up a week’s rental on the New Antilles coast on Phoenix. Our family used to vacation there when we were growing up. There’s a wharf you can dive off of and enough wild turtles for eating. You can pick ’em up with your bare hands. Bonfires at night . . . I cannot wait for leave. I love my family.”

  “That’ll be great. Look, move on. Double check the seals on the airlocks and put in a ticket to have one of the uber-geeks look at that system. No sense wasting time trying to fix what isn’t broken.”

  “Roger that, Lieutenant Courser.”

  “It’s Lieutenant Cline now. I got married, remember?”

  Melody jabbed at him with her stylus.

  “Oh I’m sorry. It would be a lot easier for me to remember you got married if I’d gotten an invite to the wedding,” Andy jabbed back.

  “Ooh. Ouch. I’ll get you on the next one, promise.”

  “I’m gonna hold you to that. And you better hope I don’t tell Dustin you’re already planning a second wedding.”

  Melody threw the stylus at him.

  The midday sun hid above a haze of sluggish clouds, smothering the open field of ships and the nearby colony with oppressive heat.

  The flight crews of the Selvan fleet were on around-the-clock preparation duty. Both freighters were cracked open and checked stem to stern for potential maintenance issues that could create a problem during the return flight to the four moons. Each of the smaller craft was stripped bare and checked as well. Despite their griping, scraped knuckles and frustrations, the crews worked diligently to ensure their ships were ready for the flight.

  “Errors made on the ground right now turn into fatalities in space later,” Leah Kingsman said, hands on her hips. Like her crew she wore dirty maintenance overalls and had grease on most of her exposed flesh. Her red hair sat on the back of her head in a tight knot where it wouldn’t get into her eyes. All seven ships’ crews watched as she addressed them from her stage atop the flight wing of TOV Riptide.

  “We leave at zero five hundred tomorrow as per the briefing,” she continued. “As you can already see some of our finer electronics are experiencing periodic difficulties because of the flickering of the magnetic interference and we can’t wait any longer to depart.”

  “Ma’am!” a flight sergeant called out from the back of the gathered men and women in the field of ships.

  “Go ahead, sergeant.”

  “What about the thing that killed the motor pool marine? Stahl? What’s going to happen when we leave them behind here with no air support?”

  A murmur went through the crowd the moment she finished.

  “They’ll be marines. They’re as heavily armed as can be and they’re as well trained a force as the moons can offer. I don’t expect the creature is part of a malicious attack force. If it’s a predator and more of its kind come for an easy meal they’ll find themselves going proper fucking hungry. They’ll trim ’em down to size and soon enough whatever the rock things are will go off and go back to hunting what they’ve been hunting before we got here.”

  The crowd half-laughed, half-cheered.

  “Look I know, it sucks. We have to focus on our job right now. We have to get our seven vessels back through the Maine trough and to the moons so we can bring the next wave of settlers. Like it or not our greater duty is to the people of the moons and the future of Selva. Do your job and the men and women we are leaving here will do theirs. Have your shit ready fifteen minutes before fifteen minutes before. Be squared away and take care of each other. No mistakes. We’re going to have plenty of challenges on our twenty-five-day trip back. Any other questions?”

  No one raised their hands.

  “Good. I, for one, am happy to get off this rock. It’s too damn big and too damn hot. Give me my freighter and a field of stars any day.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Rasima Plains colony medical facility, planet of Selva

  26 August 163 GA

  Dr. Anna Castellano smiled at Dustin and Melody. He sat next to his wife in the small examination room in the back of the medical facility. Melody had undone the zipper on her flight suit and lay reclined on the crinkly paper surface of the bed. Her bra and stomach were exposed. A tiny rise could be seen below her belly button where her womb grew. Anna picked up the fetal heart monitor.

  “Now it might be a little difficult to find the heartbeat, so be patient. Don’t freak out if it takes me a few minutes. All is well.”

  “Roger that,” Dustin said. Melody remained silent.

  Dustin knew that nothing Anna said would quell the anxiety Melody felt. Only their baby’s heartbeat could.

  “This will be chilly,” Anna said as she squeezed conductive gel out of a tube and onto the small sensor at the end of the cord connected to the monitor. She placed the tiny microphone on the bump at the bottom of Melody’s belly and searched. The speaker on the electronic device broadcast strange sounds emanating from her insides. Whoosh noises and gurgles, then a slow and steady thrum.

  “Is that the kid? Is that our baby?” Dustin asked.

  “No, that’s Melody,” the doctor said, continuing her search. “We want a much faster heartbeat. Twice as fast at least.”

  A new sound came then. Rhythmic and strong, pulsing at a faster rate. Dustin’s heart sped up to match. The pulsating noise somehow sounded powerful and innocent all at the same time. He knew then, without a doubt, that this was the s
ound of his child. Melody’s child. Proof of love. Proof of life. He looked down to Melody and his eyes welled over with tears of happiness. Their hands found each other and they listened together.

  Anna said nothing. She let them have their moment and did her best to be invisible.

  That night Melody and Dustin made love in the dark, and said their see-you-soons. More tears came after, though those weren’t all from happiness.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Town of Stahl and Dampier Peninsula, Rasima plains, planet of Selva

  27 August 163 GA

  Dustin stood outside the command tent at the center of the newly-christened town. The politicians floating in space aboard Pioneer 3 received a scratchy request from Major Duncan to name the colony Stahl, and it took three requests from a very motivated major for the senators to capitulate. The first human settlement on Selva inherited the name of the first man who died there.

  Dustin watched the fleet of vessels take off from the field outside of the small town, as they began the month-long return to Ghara and her moons. Each ship rose flat into the sky, then moved upward and tilted forward as their vertical engines rotated horizontal. To his right, sitting in a wheelchair, was Ping-Pong. Remy stood behind with his hands on the wheelchair’s grips. Lionel and Theo were not too far away being social with the expedition’s brass.

  “Anyone seen Waren?” Dustin asked as he watched Beagle lift up into the sky and begin the month-long return to Ghara and her moons.

  “No,” Remy said. He was distracted by the enormity of the fleet’s departure. A kilometer away the ships filled the sky and shook their ears. Inside their souls they felt like they were being abandoned.