DATE POINT: 5Y 2M 4D AV
STARPORT THREE OF GAMLIS HOMEWORLD
Darragh
“The most important thing we need to do right now is get the feck out of this city,” Darragh decided. Looking out of the spaceport observation windows, he could see the city that mostly surrounded it, and the total lack of activity lent it a sense of great emptiness; it was hard to think of it as anything but a newly-minted tomb.
His companions didn’t argue. Askit seemed bored and uninterested, while Keffa simply raised a single eyebrow at the statement; an invitation for further explanation.
“Because of fires,” he elaborated.
She studied the city more carefully. “I don’t see any…”
“They’ll happen,” Darragh told her with certainty; the slow breakdown of infrastructure, and the fires that followed, was one of the few things he could recall from the ‘documentaries’ about the end of the world. Under other conditions he might have suggested gathering what they needed from the city, but given that Askit had somehow managed to wreck everything at the same time, and that the Hierarchy were probably already on their way, it seemed prudent to get the hell out of Dodge as soon as possible. “All it takes is a few sparks in the wrong place, and the lack of working fire controls will do the rest. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to get stuck in a burning city.”
“Can’t fault that logic,” Askit remarked unhappily. “There’s also the inevitable enemy reprisal to consider. Much as I’d prefer it to be otherwise, going rural could be the most sensible option.”
Darragh studied the Corti, wondering if the double-genocide had even affected him, or if his only concern was the sudden and inconvenient absence of working technology. Knowing what he did of the Corti psyche, it was probably the latter, but Askit was strange for his kind, and often displayed unrestrained amusement and annoyance.
“Shit,” Keffa replied. “I hadn’t even thought of that! Looks like we don’t have much of a choice, then. You’ve got some sort of plan, Darragh?”
For a moment he could only stare at her in surprise; he’d expected her to try and take the lead, as she always did, in spite of knowing nothing about what she was doing, and it had literally taken the end of the world for that to change. “Right,” he said, thinking on his feet, “like Askit said, the first thing is to get away from the city and into the sticks. This isn’t a deathworld, so it shouldn’t be too hard for the two of us…”
He spared a glance towards the little Corti, whose flat expression seemed to challenge any attempt at criticism. “It shouldn’t be too hard for the three of us,” he corrected meaningfully. “Don’t forget who you’re talking to. I can take care of myself.”
Darragh nodded, but wondered if that was really true. The Corti had already burdened himself by donning some convoluted excuse for a bandolier and stuffing it with everything he deemed useful, and Darragh didn’t doubt that he’d be the one carrying most of it by nightfall. “If you say so… and hey, maybe we’ll get lucky and find something that survived your little purge.”
“I doubt it,” Askit replied.
“He’s right,” Keffa agreed. “Even if there were, there’s no way the Hierarchy wouldn’t check on them first. Right now our best chance is to find a hole and hide in it.”
“Fair enough,” Darragh conceded, “you’re right that our focus should be on survival, so we just need the fastest way out of the city. Anyone remember the way?”
“Do I look like a map?” Askit snapped.
Keffa shrugged. “You’re the one who grew up on a Deathworld, Darragh… can’t you just use some of that experience?”
Darragh had the idea that maybe Keffa was confusing her Deathworlders; a childhood spent in Ireland had given him little in the way of survival skills. Not much could be reckoned from his current vantage point either, except to observe the sky-scrapers in every direction. Askit’s jaded commentary had given him an idea, however. “Is there any chance we could find a map?”
Askit laughed sharply. “Only if we can find a surviving datapad with a map pre-loaded. Good luck finding one, though; I believe Adrian had a saying about this sort of thing… something involving needles and dried grass.”
“Well, I guess that ideas out the window,” Darragh concluded. “But we know the starport borders the city, so if we stick to the edges we’ll eventually start getting somewhere less urban. Sound good?”
“No, but it does sound like a working plan,” Keffa replied. “Let’s head to the exit and then we’ll see if we’ve got any better options.”
Following that direction, they eventually emerged from a starport littered with broken-down robots onto a darkened street that was completely crowded with them. Some had simply stopped, some had crashed, and others were smouldering from damage and malfunctions.
“Looks like the Hierarchy were serious about us,” Keffa observed, biting her lip.
“Fuck them,” Askit said coldly, the source of his English skills plainly obvious. “This is just me getting started.”
Darragh watched him guardedly. “You’re not thinking of repeating this shit on other worlds as well?”
The little Corti shook his head. “This lacks finesse, but clearly the virus plan has worked. Call this whole mess a proof of concept.”
That the ‘whole mess’ was a cold, grey and dead city that had so recently glimmered and glowed seemed not to matter to the Corti. The hacker had a penchant for destruction, and took great pleasure in it, which served him well in the company of pirates or Adrian Saunders, but would be no good in civilised society. For the moment they’d still need him, especially if they did somehow find some working electronics, but Darragh began to wonder if it was wise to continue keeping him aboard the habstation.
“There’s a service road over there,” Keffa pointed out, indicating a small, easily overlooked pathway. “I bet it’ll take us at least some of the way around the spaceport.”
“Good find,” said Darragh. “But what are we going to do about food? I don’t think we have enough to keep us fed for however long we’ll be stuck here.”
“There’ll be public food dispensers,” Keffa reminded him. “I guess we’ll have to break them open, though.”
Darragh nodded wearily. “I think we can manage that.”
This was one area where their backgrounds overlapped; he’d spent years working on the loading docks of a space station, while her upbringing had involved less honest work. In both cases they’d never had quite enough money to feed themselves, and had to get creative with the food dispensers. Not that the lightweight vending machines were really built to withstand a determined deathworlder in the first place.
“That’s not your only source of food,” Askit added. “This is not a deathworld, so I suspect you can eat just about everything—flora or fauna. A planet like this won’t have any real predators, so you can probably just shovel the animals into your mouths and munch away.”
Keffa made a face. “Eugh!”
“Don’t worry, we’ll cook them first,” Darragh promised her. “He’s right, though, the animals will be easy pickings. Like shooting fish in a barrel, as the saying goes.”
“I don’t really eat much meat,” Keffa reminded him. “And I’m surprised the Corti even suggested it!”
Askit shrugged. “Having lived with Adrian for such a long time… let’s say I’ve gotten used to the idea.”
The conversation dwindled as they embarked on their way along the service road, careful to give the smouldering robots a wide berth as they walked towards it.
“So about all the genocide,” Darragh ventured at last. “This… all this doesn’t bother you?”
“Which part?” Askit asked. “The Gamel were already dead—I simply sacrificed our original objective to save our own lives—and the Hierarchy can just… get fucked. But now we’re stuck on a broken-down planet that I’ve just reverted to the stone-age, and I’ve got nothing to keep my mind occupied. If I’d had more time and options, I’d have made sure to keep our own things safe before deploying the virus. That’s what bothers me.”
“Give it up,” Keffa suggested. “He’s not a human, so he’s not going to think the way we do.”
“I will be blunt,” the Corti replied, “there is no line I will not cross to protect my own. Today that’s you and Keffa—as well as myself, of course—but tomorrow it may be my entire race. I despise the Directorate, but I will not simply allow the Corti race to degenerate as the Gamel have done.”
Darragh cleared his throat, wondering just when the Corti hacker had gone from expert cyber-criminal to galactic super-villain. “That’s—”
“Nothing more than you’d do for your own race,” Askit snapped, finishing the sentence for him. “I was there when you heard about ‘San Diego’, Darragh. I saw the anger in you, and we all know it had to be the Hierarchy. They declared war on Earth, on humanity, so you can consider this to be the beginning of our response.”
Darragh was taken aback, especially by the sudden reference to San Diego, and he didn’t like that part of him was starting to think that this response was justified. Now was hardly the time to start a debate about the ethical implications of a war for survival, not when he had to think about surviving their immediate concern. More uncomfortable questions could be talked about later. “Let’s just focus on getting the hell out of this city.”
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Sector Six, Crash Zone
Aladyn
Only a handful of hunters and elders had been present when the true extent of Adrian Saunders’ prowess had been revealed. The strange creature had appeared swiftly on the heels of the Change when the people were still recovering from the rolling thunder that shook the ground, and the burning of the sky. Dispossessed and homeless, they had been hunted by strange, hideous creatures with claws and fangs and blades that burned, and as the world grew larger and angrier it had seemed reasonable to assume the small, pale-skinned biped was just one more horror to be fought. Given his small stature and lack of obvious natural weapons, nobody would have ever imagined the creature to be a serious danger, but the Agwarens had grown cautious and no longer took such things for granted. He had spoken in their tongue when he had arrived, that much was true, but that had only disturbed the Elders further, and the hunters had been ordered to deal with the matter as only they could do. Aladyn and Dalon had been there, and each had loosed a bolt that should have taken the creature’s life, but it had been faster and wilier than anything else they’d ever hunted. Getting stabbed by those same bolts had proven to be an extremely chastening experience, and while none of the wounds had been serious they had been very demotivating. They had come away convinced that if Adrian Saunders actually wanted them dead, then dead they would have been, and a hesitant but mutually beneficial relationship had slowly developed.
Truth be told, Aladyn had barely caught sight of the human at the time—once when he’d taken the shot, and again when the bolt was thrust into his leg—and had always marvelled at how easily he had been overcome. Aladyn was much larger than Adrian, and considerably stronger in matters of pure strength, but now that he walked with him he could see that they had been poorly matched. An Agwaren hunted with patience, finding a hiding place and settling in to wait for unsuspecting prey; their size and weight precluded anything else. Adrian, by contrast, seemed unusually comfortable in the jungle, passing nearly silently across noisy ground with his attention seemingly on everything. He seemed formidable even when compared to the snapping, clawing and crawling things that had come before, and it was strangely comforting that this particular monster was on their side.
“Dangerous,” Dalon murmured, with a nod towards the creature ahead of them.
“Pointy-end towards enemy,” Aladyn murmured back, and shared a grin with his companion. Their fighting instructor had quoted that maxim daily as they went through their drills; at the time he’d been speaking of spears, but the phrase could be applied to any situation where lack of care could prove harmful, and seemed to neatly fit their dealings with the human.
“There is still no sign of the lizards, though,” Dalon returned, “and there may never be. We know where they make their home, Aladyn, so it is hard to see why we waste our time in this manner, and each moment brings us closer to Kalen breaking his peace.”
Aladyn spared a glance towards the third of their number, who’d trailed them by several strides throughout their journey in an ongoing sulk. His attention was obviously focused inward, rather than keeping an eye on his surroundings as he should have been, but he had not been trained as a soldier. Deteriorating under the weight of his grief, it was only a matter of time before Kalen did something unpredictable and dangerous, and Aladyn wondered if it might have been better to send him to his family. Not that he had it in him to burn another body so soon, and even Dalon had balked at the idea.
“Agreed,” he said quietly, “I don’t think he—”
Aladyn stopped as he noticed the blade in Dalon’s hand, which had appeared as if by magic, and his gaze focused on the human’s back. There was no aggression, as there might have been if Dalon planned something, but rather a tension that turned Aladyn’s eyes in the same direction. As a soldier, he could see that something had changed, and as a hunter he could see the universal tells that marked an elevated alertness. Adrian had slowed his pace, had shifted his stance, and focused his attention, and Aladyn found himself doing likewise. He stopped walking altogether when a thin strip of metal appeared in the human’s hand.
Not daring to speak, Aladyn strained his ears to hear something against the busy sounds of the forest, but there was nothing that shouldn’t be there. He glanced askance at Dalon, who shook his head slowly, and neither of them said a word. It was unfortunate that Kalen was less prepared.
“What are you do—” he began, cut short as a Crawler exploded from the undergrowth with its magic blade already hissing into life. The deadly thing whirled up towards Kalen as he stumbled back, far too slowly to evade even one of the creatures, let alone the half-dozen others that launched themselves from hiding a heartbeat later.
Years of combat training had been drilled into Aladyn and Dalon, and it was this that saved them from confusion. They stepped back into formation, shoulder to shoulder with their mundane blades raised against the star-magic of the enemy, knowing that survival demanded they struck true and without delay. Strides away Kalen was screaming as a fiery blade carved a sizzling path through his flesh, missing his vitals only by a fingerspan, though the pain was clearly beyond mere words. The blade jerked back suddenly as its bearer fell away, pushed back by the sudden onslaught of a human in possession of a very sharp blade and an equally bad mood, and it quickly became apparent that nothing could disrupt an ambush like this bipedal explosion of fury and death. What had started off as fast, coordinated, and precise turned into a mad scramble to try and fend off this new threat that carved a bloody path through one only because it was the shortest distance to the next. Aladyn felt a cold knot in his belly as he realised that this was the creature they’d nearly made their enemy.
“Get it together, Aladyn!” Dalon hissed as he took advantage of the situation and thrust his own steel into the throat of one of the monsters. The head came free as he twisted it sharply in a motion that brought it to bear against the next. Aladyn was quick to follow, using the creature’s broken attention to cut into its gut as it floundered between Adrian and Dalon, letting the putrid contents pour out onto the jungle floor.
“God of Strife!” the remainder screeched in unison, no doubt a battle cry to honour their evil god, even as they wilted and fell under Adrian’s relentless attacks. Little wonder that they’d make that shout as they faced such a dire foe, but to Aladyn’s eye they seemed to lose the will to fight.
The same could not be said of Adrian Saunders, whose flurry of attacks grew even angrier, slashing away arms and legs and conceivably more important bits as he pressed the matter. If they planned a surrender it was clear he was having none of it, but was set upon their absolute destruction.
“Eat a dick, motherfucker!” he growled to the last, thrusting once more to end the encounter. It fell to the ground, thrashing what limbs remained until he drove the last breath from it with a crunch of his boot, and with the exception of Kalen’s agonised keening the quiet of the jungle was restored.
Adrian withdrew his blade and wiped the bloodied length of steel against his leg. “We must be near their lair,” he declared, far calmer than he had any right to be. “One of them anyway, since I think they’re living in small groups here and there.”
Once more Kalen reminded them he was there. He gurgled, pressing his hands tightly against the scorched flesh of his side, but otherwise didn’t move.
“Can you help him?” Aladyn asked.
Adrian shook his head. “I can barely patch up my own kind, I’m not about to try it with yours.”
Aladyn didn’t think that either he or Dalon could be any better, since their entire education had been in combat, tactics, and broad strategy, and he was therefore more familiar with the art of ending lives than saving them. Nevertheless he crouched down beside the fallen hunter and inspected the extent of the injury.
“I don’t think he’ll die from this,” he announced after a brief examination. “It’s shallow, and I think the burns make it hurt more than you’d otherwise expect.”
“At least he won’t bleed out,” mused Dalon.
“Plenty of pain, though,” Aladyn replied. “But pain alone won’t kill a man.”
“Great,” Kalen grunted through clenched teeth. He gestured over towards Adrian. “What’s he doing, now!?”
Aladyn looked over to where the human was hovering over the corpses of the Crawlers, just in time to see him crack open a skull to inspect the insides. What it revealed was the usual sickening mush, along with some unexpected glints of metal, and Aladyn realised that the human must be searching for the previously described body-stealers. “I’d wager he’s trying to figure out what’s going on.”
“I thought he already knew!” Kalen hissed.
“He knows more than us,” Aladyn replied, “but that doesn’t mean he knows everything. You find anything interesting in there, Adrian Saunders?”
“Yeah, I did,” the human replied, sounding greatly troubled. “Don’t really know what to make of it, though I definitely have my guesses.”
With a meaningful glance towards Dalon, Aladyn traded places at Kalen’s side so he could take a look at whatever Adrian was talking about. As much as he might claim to be on their side, the human wasn’t dispensing information as Aladyn would have liked, and in such uncertain times it was vitally important to know what was going on. As he’d seen from a distance, the skull had been broken away to reveal a brain filled with metal and grey ooze, which was more than Aladyn wanted to see and less than he found helpful. “What exactly do you mean?”
Adrian looked up at him thoughtfully. “Remember what I told you about the ‘Change’?”
Aladyn nodded, recalling his explanation to the Elders. “That it’s caused by something too small to see, like what causes a sickness. In you it makes you heal, but for our world it makes everything grow instead. That’s why we boil all our water, and cook all our food.”
“Right. It makes these guys heal as well,” Adrian replied. “You can see it on their bodies—these blades’ll fucking fall off once these limbs start regrowing properly—but why are their brains all falling to bits? Look at all this fucking ooze shit! I don’t make a habit of looking inside skulls, but I’m pretty sure this is all wrong.”
That meant nothing to Aladyn. “I don’t understand how—”
“They were moving, thinking and talking,” Adrian interrupted. “Hard to do if your brain is all fucked up. Unless you’re not the one calling the shots anymore.”
“Body stealing,” Dalon concluded, listening in from Kalen’s side. “Am I right?”
Adrian nodded. “I’d bet you are, mate. Just a different type than what I was expecting. Jesus, this shit really is all kinds of fucked up, and here I am in the middle of it. Again.”
“Does this change things?” Aladyn asked, getting to the point.
Adrian considered it for a moment and then shook his head. “No, I don’t think it does. Just one more thing to think about.”
“It changes nothing,” Kalen replied sharply, speaking in spite of his pain. “It doesn’t matter how many creatures have their bodies stolen, we will have our revenge!”
Adrian regarded him impassively, keeping his true thoughts to himself. “Good to know. Right now we’re going to grab these weapons, I’ll show you how to use them, and then we’re going to push on towards the next settlement. Sound good?”
Aladyn shared a glance with Dalon, who gave a barely perceptible nod. “Yeah,” he agreed, “it sounds good.”
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Sector Six, Crash Zone
Kama
The comm-disc whined gently as it quickly spun up to create the gyroscopic effect that aided the lifting motion. It was little more than a silver disc with a hole in the middle, and there was little room for the more advanced technology that was found in the other drones, so it relied on the more basic forces of physics to aid what little could be built in. There was a flash of silver as it rose from the paper-thin pocket that normally housed it and met the beams of sunlight that pierced the canopy, and the reflective gleam made it easy to see and track from a distance. Out here that provided as much help as harm, as anyone could see them, target them, and take them out, yet the Dastasji had never been intended for this type of mission and lacked a sufficient supply of the less conspicuous variety; this type was never intended to be used in hostile territory. Not that there was any choice, of course, the atmosphere was hot with all kinds of weird radiation, and even short distance communications were strained. It was under these conditions that the comm-discs had been quickly replicated for use in the Expeditionary forces, and were now set above the jungle canopy every [two kilometres] so that continuous contact could be maintained with the starship. It was simply unfortunate that their design parameters accounted for neither strong weather nor inquisitive beasts, either of which could cut the connection and leave a team unmonitored until communications could be restored.
Skizer stepped back to allow the disc to float upwards, slowly accelerating until it passed through the jungle’s verdant ceiling and into the blue sky beyond. Then, under the watchful eye of Kama and Squad Leader Razen, he tapped away at his datapad as diagnostics reported the connection was sound. “Unit confirmed functional.”
“Good,” Razen replied flatly, as if he’d expected nothing less. “Push on, everyone, and remain vigilant; we are about to enter Sector Six.”
Had this been Kama’s first foray into the sector, he might have been as calm and steady as the rest of the Expeditionary force. There was no doubt that tensions had ratcheted up a notch, or that there’d been an equivalent increase in the attention paid to their surroundings, but they were still filled with confidence born of ignorance. This sector had its reputation, and they had all been briefed on the dangers they might encounter, but only Kama understood what actually lurked in the seemingly peaceful jungle. Not willing to take chances, he quietly repositioned himself to a more central part of the marching formation.
At least Razen wasn’t taking unnecessary chances. While most V’Straki favoured action, he tended towards caution and strategy—traits that had seen him progress along a leadership path—and he ordered another scanner drone to be launched as an eye in the sky.
Skizer was quick to comply, launching the fourth of their five allocated scanner drones into the lazy patrol overhead. They were considerably larger than the comm-discs, and were painted a dark green that neared black. Featuring a suite of basic sensor technology, they were a staple on the battlefield where their recordings provided both strike teams and Oversight with tactical options they would not otherwise have. Here they served much the same purpose, spying out ambushes, dangerous beasts, and challenging terrain from a comfortable distance; they’d saved more than one Expeditionary force from the A.I.’s bio-drones.
“Found something,” Skizer reported a moment later, and shared the display with Razen and Kama. Shape recognition algorithms had been configured to detect probable fauna, and had now focused in on several deceased creatures some [thirty meters] off their route. “Large fauna, multiple corpses identified. Analyse further?”
Razen nodded; most of the time it was just the local wildlife feeding on each other, but the bio-drones were known carnivores and this sort of thing could help them close in on a cluster of the accursed creatures. Whatever else was on the planet, the A.I. appeared to use these beastly things exclusively, meaning that each cluster destroyed was an incremental step towards its ultimate defeat.
Kama’s visor lit up with a navigation layer, indicating their best route through the overgrown terrain, and the group moved carefully towards the destination. Eyes were sharp, guns were up, and ears were alert for the slightest sound as they reached a trampled area where the dead beasts lay.
The scene was much as Kama had expected, although the sound of gagging told him that he was mostly alone in this, but it had taken him by surprise the first time as well. Each body was swarmed by fat white grubs that filled the wounds and moved beneath the skin so that the dead looked remarkably animated, and he knew that if he removed his environmental gear the stench would be overwhelming.
“Activating deep scan,” Skizer reported as he selected the corpses for additional data gathering. This information would be fed back to the Dastasji where trained operatives would help identify cause of death. It was easy enough to see that something had carved the creatures open, but it was important to know exactly what had done the carving.
“Oversight reports the wounds are caused by incisors and claws that match our target,” Skizer relayed after [several minutes]. “Eighty-six percent match to known samples. Given the environment, there is far less confidence about actual time of death, but it has not been long.”
“Given our location, that is as good as certain,” Razen reckoned. “We must take this as evidence that the Artificial Intelligence has bio-drones actively moving through this area.”
“Wonderful,” Kama muttered, keeping a suspicious eye on their surroundings. The bio-drones were hideous, multi-legged abominations that looked like an Igraen gone badly wrong. Basic genetic tests had proven the link almost as soon as a sample had been delivered back to the Dastasji, and it had been an odd bit of gossip that they were as carnivorous as could be. Evidence pointed to heavy genetic tailoring, so the consensus was that they were some kind of weapon that the Artificial Intelligence had hijacked for its own purpose. It was lucky that they were so frail, or this little war would be expecting a much different outcome.
Razen was busy instructing Skizer on what needed to be done next. “Scan the area for indicators of their movements; I want to give pursuit if we can.”
The scanner drones began circling in expanding circles as the Comms Tech considered his scan data, relaying back and forth with Oversight as information came in. “We can provide a general direction, but I cannot say how far the trail will remain viable. If the Squad Leader permits, I shall continue analysing the trail as we travel.”
“Good enough,” Razen replied, and relayed his updates back to Oversight as the Expeditionary force moved along the path Skizer had set for them. The good news was that the trail became more definite as they made progress, but the loudening rush of flowing water did not bode well for continued pursuit. The sound turned into a spectacle as they reached a river of rapidly flowing water that was more froth and foam than visible fluid. The Comms Tech was forced to admit an end to the trail as they reached the water’s edge.
“This is where we will make camp,” their Squad Leader finally decided, plainly irritated that the hunt had ended in failure, but with the shadows growing longer and deeper, it was the right time to start thinking about their sleeping situation. Not that Kama would be getting any while the Predator could be out there.
His fellow Expeditionaries quickly established a perimeter that included the water’s edge and a semi-circle that extended some distance out from it, making use of a stony outcrop to limit access from that particular direction. Area lights were hung from overhead branches to flood the encampment with light, something that would have been banned in most combat zones, but had here a great utility in warding off nocturnal wildlife; previous expeditions had found such encounters to be extremely educational, and the standard procedures had been sensibly updated to avoid any further incidents. Skizer made sure to launch the scanner drones onto their patrol path before bunking down, giving them a route that ran along the river and to the very edge of the lighted area. Oversight would alert them if anything important was sighted, as would the alarm that triggered whenever the communications went down. They were as safe as they could hope to get, and most of the Expeditionaries would sleep, even if they only slept lightly.
That didn’t extend to Kama. A plethora of technology and a lifetime of training were not sufficient to calm his nerves. The native sapients had proven themselves dangerous enough with their primitive bolt-shooters—and Kama suspected his enviro-suit was not likely to withstand such bolts—and the Artificial Intelligence was a cunning enemy with dangerous creatures at its disposal. Worst of all was the Predator, whose ability to speak V’Straki marked it as a creature of higher intelligence, and who Kama rightly feared more than the entire Igraen armada. At least he knew what the Igraens were all about, even if it was an abomination; the Predator was just a bundle of terrifying mysteries.
With the intention that he would at least be one of the first to see any alarms, he set down his mobile hut next to the Comms Tech and struck up conversation. “Nothing interesting out there, Skizer?”
“No,” he answered, his eyes stuck to the video feed being transmitted by the scanner drones. “Some mid-sized fauna is keeping its distance, as expected, but nothing else.”
Nothing that wanted to kill them, Kama translated. That was good to know, but he didn’t entirely trust that the scanners were good enough to detect absolutely everything in the area, especially things that were smart enough to control starships. Last time he’d been out here, it’d been the drones that went offline first, followed swiftly by the Comms Tech and Squad Leader, leaving the rest of the force blind and confused.
“This jungle, though,” Skizer continued, “is certainly worthy of Ekkel’s name for it. I was studying the maps, and there are crashed starships everywhere in this region, most of them recent in spite of the jungle-growth.”
“It is the whole planet that is named Strife,” Kama corrected him, although he otherwise agreed with Skizer’s assessment. When Kama’s first Expedition had entered the jungle, he’d been astounded by just how wild the place truly was, but there was already a notable difference in the jungle. Everything was bigger, angrier, and more desperate—and that was just the plants—and he hoped that Oversight was planning to deploy a management strategy sooner rather than later, because he couldn’t imagine what it’d be like in another local year. At least three times as dangerous, he reckoned. Maybe more.
He was close enough to hear the datapad beep a notification, and studied Skizer’s face as the Comms Tech went through the information it provided. “An unusual clustering of fauna has been detected—” he began to explain, before another beep interrupted him and he rose to his feet in alarm. “Organic with technological indicators! Bio-drones!”
“Send a single scanner drone for more information,” Razen ordered, his attention now fixed on his Comms Tech. “Maintain maximum functional distance, I do not want to lose a drone to these things.”
Skizer did as he was told, and a single drone broke from the formation to venture further into the darkness. The camp was filled with a pensive silence—everyone had the sense that something was about to happen, and every hand was on a gun—and it seemed an eternity until Skizer finally gave his report. “Target scan complete… they are all dead.”
Kama shared a look with Razen, but he didn’t speak; they both knew that there wasn’t much out here could take down a group of the enemy.
“Cause of death?” Razen pressed.
“More detailed scans will be necessary for Oversight to ascertain that,” Skizer replied. “Shall I send more drones?”
Razen gave the order, and the remaining drones departed in the direction of the first. More time passed as Skizer directed their work, and the camp quickly transformed into a new state of readiness.
“Tactical assessment suggests that they were completely overwhelmed,” said Skizer, relaying the information returned by Oversight. “There are signs of fusion weaponry, as we can expect, in addition to the augmented variety, but the standard weapons are all missing. Medical assessment suggests stabbing and slashing wounds as cause of death, and one corpse has had the skull sliced open with greater care than one would expect from combat.”
“I think we should assume the primitives are adapting,” Kama suggested, hoping it was true. He knew it was unlikely; though obviously intelligent, the natives lacked the speed and coordination necessary to overcome the bio-drones, and even if they could manage a victory, there would have been a lot more bodies.
“Yes,” Razen replied, though he shared a meaningful look with Kama, “that would seem likely. We shall have to be more wary of them from now on.”
“Oversight suggests there may be a lair nearby,” Skizer relayed. “Our orders are to conduct a search in case there is intelligence to be gathered. The nearest primitive settlement may also confirm what happened here, but it will take us a half-day to reach it from here.”
The Squad Leader took a moment to confirm the orders on his own datapad, stared at it a while, and then nodded. “It is as you say,” he said, though Kama strongly suspected that it wasn’t. “Tomorrow would seem to be a very busy day for us,” he continued more loudly for the benefit of the whole group. “Rest well, because we will all rise early.”
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