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  If it took Waren killing fifty marines and scientists to stop the government of Ghara from expanding and wasting resources for his family at home to have a proper life, then so be it. The senators of the Colonies of Ghara had to learn of the great costs that their citizens paid with their lives.

  He would eat his stolen rations, tucked under a shitter at the ass end of the solar system, while monsters from the worst nightmares a human could dream walked by, sharpening their claws on the wet, rotting bones of his fallen friends.

  He would deal with Dustin and Steve first, then the scientists. Maybe he could keep them alive. Smart people were useful, after all. Dangerous of course, but useful if they could be controlled.

  Days later Waren experienced a feeling somewhere between thrill and horror when he saw Dustin moving from the colony toward the jungle. The same colony named after the man Waren had killed with a wrench for taking a nap in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Waren’s overriding paranoia drove him to the outskirts of the village where he took up a shooting position under some foliage atop a small rise. Unlike the bugs crawling over everything in Stahl he could tell when a suit of expeditionary armor moved cautiously in the grass. Watching his injured friend crawl for hours showed him his friend’s strength. But it made him sad, and regretful, for killing Dustin’s wife.

  Waren knew if had any chance to survive, Dustin had to die. As dawn neared and his friend stood up to run, Waren took the shot with unsure fingers. When his round sailed high, Dustin went to the ground. He pulled his flare gun out, fired off a flare off in his sergeant’s direction, and started running before Ping-Pong or Dustin could trace it back to him. He’d hoped the monsters would follow the marker to Dustin and do the dirty work he no longer could.

  Waren didn’t know if his last-ditch plan with the flare worked for quite some time.

  Earlier that week, from the concealed depths of one of his shooting hides in a pile of garbage, Waren saw two tiny figures atop the mushroom tree. At least, he thought he saw two figures. They came and went–two small blobs of mass moving in the distance–giving him no clear shots. But he knew. Dustin was alive, and so was Steve. His flare had gotten Waren no safety. No reprise from the anxiety he felt. No reprieve from the hunt he knew would come soon. The hunt that came when Dustin figured out how to find him, and how best to kill him.

  When the sun rose again, Waren saw only a microscopic pip of light glancing off a rail gun barrel at the edge of the tree. The same profile of Steve that offered him nothing to shoot at, day after day.

  Waren knew. He cleaned his rifle in his den of shit and readied himself.

  Maybe I won’t starve to death after all. Maybe Dustin will find me first, he thought.

  And for a reason he didn’t want to admit, that thought made him feel at ease for the first time in a long time.

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Pioneer 3 mess hall in Gharian orbit

  2 November 163 GA

  Melody Cline, Dan Aribella and Andy Morris ate in one of the spacious, white mess halls aboard the space station in Gharian orbit. Side to side, the room was one of few on the rotating rings of the station large enough for the curvature of the colossal structure to be seen. The ceiling was honeycombed with a hundred porthole skylights that let in the bright sunlight, and showed the central fuselage around which the ring rotated. The LED lights recessed into the ceiling between the windows kept the large common spaces of Pioneer 3 bathed in a blue UVB light that promoted the creation of vitamin D. The space felt alien and sterile to people born on the moons.

  Melody shoveled a fork load of red carrots into her mouth and chewed them. The carrots were fresh and the rich butter real. The food on board was shipped to orbit from Phoenix for the station’s consumption. As she ate, her crewmates did too, each saying nothing as the crowd milled about.

  Andy broke their solitude. “What do you think Dustin did with the guys for his birthday?”

  “Probably drank a smuggled beer or two. Had a push-up contest and then threw the beer up. They have pretty low standards when they’re left to their own devices,” Melody said, pushing the food she no longer cared about around her plate.

  “Sorry I brought it up,” Andy said. “I didn’t mean to make you depressed or anything.”

  “Not your fault,” Melody said, putting her hand on the swell of her stomach beneath her flight suit. “We’re all depressed in one way or another. Have you talked to your family about missing your vacation?”

  “No,” Andy said. “I don’t want them to know what the plan is. I told them I was held in a rotation I couldn’t break away from. They’re going to rent the house and go without me. They’re disappointed, but you know how that goes.”

  A private wearing the forest green communications uniform of Pioneer 3 wandered about nearby, looking lost, walking from table to table looking at name tags.

  “Hey Private. Get over here.”

  The private trotted over, paperwork in hand, looking more flustered than before. He saluted.

  “Sorry, Lieutenant. I’m looking for people I can’t find.”

  “There’s no reason to apologize to me. You’ve done me no wrong. Who are you looking for?”

  “I just came all the way from the hangar ring looking for a flight crew. Someone there said they were at lunch here.”

  “Who is ‘they?’ Who are you looking for?”

  The private looked at the sheaf of paper in his hands and read off the names aloud. “Captain Aribella, Lieutnant Cline, and Flight Sergeant Morris. Crew of the Beagle.”

  “It’s just Beagle. Not ‘the’ Beagle. I’m not ‘the’ Melody. And as luck you would have it, you’ve found us. Give it here.”

  “I’m sorry Lieutenant Cline. I meant no offense. Here you go.”

  The relieved private handed the forms to her, saluted once more, and disappeared into the crowd before his embarrassment killed him.

  Melody handed the sheet with Dan’s name on it to Dan and Andy’s to Andy.

  “Oh, no. Not now, they can’t do this to us.”

  She looked to Dan and Andy and saw they, too had similar letters. “Change of station transport order. Flight status change. Those pricks!”

  “Let’s find Captain Kingsman,” Dan said and stood. “Maybe she can help.”

  Melody pushed her tray of food away and joined her friends.

  The food sat on the white wooden table under the cold blue lights until a cafeteria cleaner took it away.

  The top echelon of the plot to return to Selva gathered in their sequestered work space. Their slumped bodies and hung heads radiated a sense of defeat in the dark room.

  “They can’t do this, Leah. Not on such short notice. Are they on to us?”

  “Well, they can do this. I’m shocked it’s on such short notice. I doubt they’re on to us. They would’ve done something more drastic than this. We’d be in cuffs by now.”

  “Then why are they reassigning Beagle to inter-moon transport again? We did our time on that. We should be staying on the Selva fleet assignment.”

  Dan threw a wrench on the table. The steel tool slid across the worn wood and fell to the deck with a loud clang. Some recoiled from the noise.

  “And I’m being grounded. I’m to go with you guys to Sota then detach to base duty at White Bay. It’s due to ‘medical reasons,’ Fuckers. I don’t want to give birth alone on Sota. I’m from Ares. I want to have my baby at home, with family.” She put her hand to her belly again.

  “Come on now. You knew this was coming, Melody. Likely this whole move is some form of punishment for you making the trip knocked up. It’s a subtle fuck you that you can’t fight, that won’t make the news either.”

  Leah tossed the papers down on the workbench at the center of the room. She picked the fallen wrench up and sat roughly on a round seat after putting the tool on the table. She rested her head in her hands.

  “Like it or not, you played them, and now they’ve played you.”

  “Now
what?” Andy posed. “We can’t exactly go AWOL and hide here until the trip back to Selva launches. We need to depart from here on Titan on schedule. Absent until then isn’t an option.”

  “We’re supposed to be on Sota the first of December according to this order,” Melody said, thinking. “That means they want us to depart here no later than the twenty-fifth to allow for transit and securing our housing in White Bay, right?”

  “Twenty-fifth at the latest,” Dan replied. “We should probably file a change of station and flight plan to depart on the twenty-third. Twenty-fifth would be pushing it. If they really want to string any of us up, delaying Beagle’s departure would give them fuel to launch that ship.”

  “I have an idea. I think we’ll be all right.”

  “What is it?” Leah asked.

  “Better I not say. Andy, you and me. I need your brain.”

  Andy flashed a grin, and the two of them left the secret mission HQ to plot yet another bit of intrigue that could end their careers.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  The ruins of Stahl, planet of Selva

  5 November 163 GA

  Waren shifted his sore body in the cramped space beneath the storage habitat. He lay on his stomach behind bags of refuse with a good view down the longest ‘street’ of Selva. He could see from one side of the colony to the other without anyone seeing him, or being able to sneak up behind him. If someone were to switch to thermal however . . .

  His suit told him the heat underneath the building had reached thirty-six degrees Celsius. In the bare sun the temps had to be near forty. He chuckled as the semi-humans roasting alive. The human parts of their flesh had baked to a flogged red, and their lips, cheeks, and shoulders cracked, blistered and peeled. Most sat with mouths agape, taking turns wandering to the nearby stream where they drank their fill of cooling water. They always returned to the colony though, following some alien instinct to stay where they had ceased to be human.

  Waren looked through his rifle’s scope at the face of his friend J.B. A handsome man by any standard before coming to Selva, J.B. stood tall, had an athletic build, kept himself manicured, and sported a smile paired with bright blue eyes that made women want to be in his presence whenever they could.

  Not anymore. Fucking guy has three tongues hanging out of the hole where his mouth used to be, and two of them are hollow and leak blue shit all over his chest. I suppose skin cancer and keeping his uniform starched and pressed are low priorities for old J.B. now.

  J.B. stumbled about and fell hard to the ground. He rolled onto his back and lay there, unwilling or unable to get up.

  Just a few days ago, the feel of the place had changed. The insects of all sizes still hulked around with their mutating humans in tow, but they acted different. Waren watched as they slowed their shifty gaits, and looked in each direction before moving into open spaces. Where once they had moved with impunity, they now moved with caution.

  He saw a gutted, destroyed slaver during one of his late night patrols of the center of Stahl, and he knew then why the insects were afraid. Another player had entered the game.

  The massive slaver–the biggest he’d seen–had been ripped open by some bizarre chemical burn. Its shell had been demolished by fire, or acid, and then hacked at by something sharp and powerful. When he saw the creature’s own blood and guts on its claws, he knew the monster had tried to rip whatever killed it off of its body, and probably hastened its own demise.

  Growing in the wound was a knot of organic material. The color of walnut with streaks of watery green, the patches of moldy tubes looked like a forest of tiny fungi. Waren examined the wound with his knife, but couldn’t tell if the fungus had done the damage, or if it was the natural way of rot on Selva. Human bodies hadn’t reacted like this in death here, but that didn’t mean anything. Humans weren’t from around here. It made sense that the indigenous life on Selva would take time to figure the humans out the same way the humans were returning the favor.

  It didn’t matter. Whatever killed the slaver in Stahl had changed the board, and the bugs were as scared of it.

  Waren skulked around a little slower after finding the dead slaver, and he kept to the shadows more than before. Hence his burrow under a storage unit, hidden behind a pile of garbage like a feral alley cat.

  Something glossy and tall moved in the distance.

  Waren put his eye back to the scope and zeroed his crosshairs on a disappearing piece of the blackness as it slid behind a distant structure. It was FEM armor. He’d know it in his sleep.

  Whoever that was had a limp. Has to be Dustin. Has to be. Waren drew a mental map of the town and visualized where Dustin might have been heading. The maintenance tents. Does he need tools? Parts? He’ll be exposed. Moving slow. There’s no cover for at least fifty meters. Waren’s throat plugged with anxiety. He swallowed it and ran down his mental checklist to see if trying to move and take his shot at Dustin was worth the risk. With the slavers and their battalion of monsters hiding and afraid to move, he felt the risk was worth it.

  Double or nothing, Dustin, double or nothing. Seize the initiative.

  Waren checked his gear, and after a pair of the skitterers passed his trash wall, he crawled out into the day, and jogged out of the colony to flank and circle the path where Dustin headed.

  Waren came to a stop a hundred meters from where he saw his friend stagger. Dustin headed toward the hangar-sized tent that served as the Armadillo garage. The same tent Waren had killed Private Stahl in. Waren climbed up a ladder to the roof of a large cargo container and laid flat behind the base of an antenna array. He leaned around the hard cover of the electronics housing and put his rifle to his shoulder.

  He aimed the scope’s thin black crosshairs at his friend’s chest, and

  Helmet’s fucked up. Seals aren’t right. His leg is covered in blood where I shot him. Blood’s fresh too. Why is he dragging his rifle behind him like that? Strap’s busted? Probably attacked and sprayed with that shit. Poor bastard. I won’t feel nearly as bad about shooting him now. That’s good. Waren watched his friend stumble several steps further through the thigh high grass and pulled the trigger. His rifle kicked. A hundred meters and change away Dustin took the round just behind his left armpit. The sound of the fléchette cracking through the armor made more noise than the rifle’s thrumming discharge. Waren watched as Dustin staggered one step, then two, before dropping to his knees. He reached up to his chest and covered the hole with a pained hand.

  Waren fired again, striking his friend just below the collar of his helmet. This time, Dustin went face down in the grass, lifeless. He moved no more.

  I’m glad that’s done. Now let’s see how long it takes Steve to come try a rescue. Maybe I can get a two-fer and clip Ping-Pong’s balls.

  Waren set in for the long haul. The murderer laid still at his shooting place until the sun crept up and over the horizon until darkness dominated the world. He took his scope off the black armored body of Dustin Cline only to search for Steve’s approach, and he never put his weapon back on safe. Had his former friend’s body moved even a finger, he would’ve shot him again. Had Steve come to Dustin’s aid, he would’ve shot him, too.

  But Ping-Pong never came.

  Under the green and amber glow of the Selvan clouds, he climbed down from his perch and moved toward the body of his dead friend. He had to be sure this time.

  Waren slinked through the tall grass, his weapon at his shoulder, ready to fire. He stole glances at the southern jungle and the top of the mushroom tree where Steve should have been. The signal beacon of fire was now lit, telling Waren that Ping-Pong was there, and that all he had to worry about was a very improbable shot.

  Steve’s a good shot, but this is an impossible shot. Dustin maybe, but not him. I wonder how flammable those mushrooms are? Can I just burn that tall bitch down to get him? It’d take me a month to chop that tree down. Hm.

  Waren looked at the void in the grass where Dustin’s body fell. He cr
ouched lower and paused, doubly ensuring that nothing had changed during his approach. Nothing had. He rose up a few centimeters and approached, his weapon pointed at his friend’s bloody back.

  “Dustin, I wish I could say I was sorry, buddy. But it was always going to be you or me. Though in the end it’ll be both of us. I don’t know how I’ll make this go away when the fleet arrives. If I even live that long.”

  Waren walked up to Dustin’s body. between the boots of his friend. He saw the original exit wound his first shot made in the thigh armor and saw the crusted gleam of old, dried blood running down to the calf. Dustin had bled badly. Waren went to a knee, picked up the rifle on the ground, and gave it a quick check. It had a full magazine, and the battery carried a full charge.

  Waren surveyed the world around him again to ensure nothing approached. Safe, he grabbed Dustin’s shoulder and pulled him over until his body flopped onto its back. His chest was covered in blood.

  “Dumb bastard,” Waren said.

  Suddenly, a loud cracking noise split the night, and Waren lost his balance. He grabbed Dustin’s body to steady himself and looked around.

  Another loud snapping noise came and his body shook sideways as if someone pushed on his shoulder with a firm hand. Waren felt a pressure building in his chest, and his breath became thick and heavy. He reached to his left forearm and powered-up his armor. He needed data. He got it.

  A message flashed as a black veil slid in the fringes of his eyesight: SUIT COMPROMISED. TORSO (LEFT) BREACHED.

  Alarmed, he reached to his side and felt around as his vision failed him. The tips of his armored fingers found two tiny holes just beneath the bottom of his ribcage. Fléchette entry points.

  Waren fell backwards onto his ass, his legs crossed. He looked around as a worm of pain wriggled its way around his stomach and chest, finding soft things to harass and devour. Finding wet red blood to drink. His breathing became ragged and shallow and he dropped his rifle to get his helmet off.