Hydraulic pistons groaned into action, and the heavy steel tailgate started its slow outward descent towards the parched soil. Blinding light lasered through the widening crack above the tailgate, forcing the team to don jet-black sunglasses as a suffocating blanket of dry heat filled the compartment. If there had been a weather channel, it would have reported an unseasonably cool day of 127° with a steady 5MPH breeze out of the southwest with a humidity level of less than .01%.
Most of the moisture on the barren surface came up from a massive hidden sea filling the 1,550-kilometer planet's core. A 3.5 billion year old ecosystem evolving far beneath the burning suns overhead.
Long ago, raptors crawled from the deep waters in the core, migrating upwards and outwards. Billions of years later, the moon's porous outer mantle- distorted by the gas giant's constant gravitational flux- was riddled with snaking networks of cracks and caves. The connecting tunnels led into a massive central cavern, turning the planet into an enormous anthill, teeming with life forms of all shapes and sizes.
Lockspur walked down the slanted tailgate, stopped on the ramp's edge, and flexed his back. Even with the dark glasses, he squinted. After vomiting half his body weight in moisture on reentry, the last thing he wanted was a loaded-down slog through an inhospitable desert. "Christ, could they have made this goddamn armor any heavier?"
"Or hotter," Dahl added.
"What's wrong, Grandpa? Are you getting too old for this shit?" Moss said with a wry grin. "I could get the auto-doc to issue you a walker. Or maybe Lilith would spring for a hover-round."
Dahl snickered.
Lockspur looked over his shoulder. Held up a middle finger, offering an unspoken expletive. To which, Moss returned a chuckle of victory. They had worked together for the better part of a decade, and while they had never shown the slightest maturity; they had always had each other's backs.
Dahl stepped off the lower lip of the tailgate, boots crunching in the loose soil, and peered up at the blistering light of the only binary star system for 50 light years in any direction. She was unaware that her footsteps tunneled through the soil 20 feet below her new boots. Dahl cupped a hand over her forehead in an odd shielding salute, shading her eyes, and scanned the sweltering, shimmering horizon for signs of movement. She spun in every direction, seeing no signs of life. So, why did the bristling hairs on the back of neck tell her otherwise? If she could have seen through the rock beneath her feet, she would have noticed the movement in the pitch-black tunnels beneath. Even standing motionless, her beating heart sent a thrumming call to every creature nearby.
Eerie heatwaves distorted the rocky features on the horizon. Ghostly shapes danced in the bleached-out distance. Dahl scanned the spectres through her scope, locating nothing more than empty sand. "Dammit. Anything could be in those heatwaves," she whispered to herself. The tiny hairs on the back of her neck bristled again. And just to confirm the danger, so did the hairs on her forearms.
They had traveled for three months in stasis, faced their worst nightmares, almost burned up on reentry, and now here she was standing 3 feet off the end of the tailgate, questioning her life choices. Spectacular, she thought, home planet advantage goes to the enemy. Could it get any worse?
As Lockspur walked away from the tailgate, dust kicked up behind him. He stopped, turned to his teammates with furrowed brows, remembering the reports of this tiny moon, and said, "Stay out of the shadows."
Moss held up a sweaty hand, trying to blot out the glare of twin suns. But no matter where he positioned his hand, the light always reached your eyes. "There are no shadows here."
Dahl lifted her rifle to her shoulder again, peered through the scope, and scanned the horizon. The arid world threatening to swallow them was flat for kilometers in every direction. Nothing was out there. The only visible landmarks in any direction were giant anthills jutting up in the distance. "There are always shadows," she replied.
"And where there's shadows... Death isn't far away," Lockspur added, lifting his rifle scope to check out the undulating columns in the distance. They're out there somewhere, he thought, wiping the sweat out of his eyes.
As Moss's overactive sense of paranoia seeped into his teammates, Lockspur imagined an endless supply of phantom movements running out of the eerie silence. Long-dead bounty hunters riding snarling hell beasts circled them just out of sight, and all of them wanted blood and violence.
Moss stepped down off the tailgate, moved up behind Lockspur and watched his trepidation grow. "Hey, compadre. How big do you think those ants are?"
"Big enough to turn us into turds in two seconds."
"Tell me how you feel," Moss said, shielding his face from the intense rays bleaching his dark brown skin to an unnatural beige.
Lockspur lowered his weapon and looked back. "I feel like coming here may not have been the best idea."
"You could have said that a few months ago, when it could have done some good."
"Hindsight, amigo."
As a child, Moss's parents took him to a photographer who had dressed him in embarrassing outfits and posed him in front of several Earth backgrounds. He had never been to Earth and didn't remember any of the background photos. But he never forgot the blinding, disorienting flashbulbs that burned into the backs of his eyes. Their disorienting pops were tiny moments in this system where the pops never ended.
They had only been outside the ship for a few minutes when sweat began dripping from beneath their heavy black armor. Salty rain sank into the parched, desolate soil. Its intoxicating scent wafted away on the gentle breeze like a silent dinner bell calling to all.
Moss made eye contact with his team, tapped the comms mic on her helmet. "Keep in radio contact. There's no telling what's out here." The sound emanating from their headsets sounded thin and tinny and added to the growing sense of unease.
As Lockspur turned to walk away, Dahl shrieked, "Wait!"
"Are you fucking serious?" he blurted, heart filling his throat, hands fumbling with his weapon. He caught it just before it sank into the dirt.
Dahl looked from Lockspur to Moss wearing a grin. "I was wondering how far you think you would have made it if I hadn't stopped you?"
Lockspur's mouth fell agape, and Moss laughed. "Compadre, if you could see your face."
He reeled on Dahl, red-face signalling the approach of danger. "Foot in ass, chica. Foot.. in… ass."
"Yes, sir," she said, snapping to attention and offering a pristine salute.
Moss grinned at Dahl. "Not a good idea. You could give the old fart a coronary, and then we'll have to carry his carcass back."
"Listen, you smart asses. I thought something was digging its way up to eat me."
"Silver lining," Dahl teased. "If you became fertilizer, there's always a chance you could come back as a pretty little flower."
"And if you keep up your bullshit, there's a chance you might not come back at all."
"That hurts my feelings. I thought we were friends?"
"You don't see my boot sticking out of your ass? So… I'd say we're still friends." Lockspur reeled around before she could respond and walked off, ignoring his teammates' fading giggles.
Dahl walked up beside Moss and stopped. "Was that over the top? I can never tell," she said as they watched him walk off.
"Maybe a little. But he's tough. He can take it."
Lockspur approached a massive column. He made his way around it, pointing his weapon at it and poking it with the tip of the barrel as if it were a sleeping dragon. He stomped on the ground, testing to see what was below the surface. A split second later, a tremor of energy passed beneath them, and dust rose into the thin air. "Did you feel that?" he asked, turning to them with a dark expression.
Dahl cleared her throat, trying to draw Moss's attention. When he looked, she shook her head. "I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Lockspur heard her over the comms and continued stomping his way around. "Stow that shit." But the strange energy had passed.
"Compadre, stop it. Now."
Lockspur turned and stomped his foot down even harder. Only this time, instead of a passing tremor, he heard a hollow thump, followed by a circle of dust that rose around his feet. His typically light-brown face lost its color, and he froze as the ground vibrated beneath him. It appeared the universe was readying itself to produce a much-needed object lesson.
Moss took several tentative steps towards Lockspur, leaned forward and stretched out his hand to pull him away. "Amigo, come to me. Now."
An explosive blast came up from beneath Lockspur, surrounding him in a choking cloud of dust and sand. In a split second, where there had been firm ground, now there was a widening hole. Gravity reached up from the darkness below and grabbed Lockspur's feet. Moss leapt forward like an outstretched runner stealing home plate, grabbing at his comrade as Lockspur landed face down, air exploding from his lungs. Lockspur hung waist deep in the with Moss locked onto his armor. Dahl rushed in, grabbed Lockspur's arm, further preventing him from sinking out of sight. A terrible rending screech came from the darkness below, and the three newcomers realized they might not be alone.
Lockspur looked up, embarrassment changing his rosy red complexion to a pale shade of oh shit, I fucked up. He convulsed uncontrollably, spit flying from his mouth as he writhed in agony. Dahl and Moss tugged at him, but the combined weight of his body, armor and gear held him down. He screamed and flailed, spit flying in every direction as his comrades marshalled all their strength to wrench him from the pit. They were expecting to see a bloody stump. But there were no signs of injury. No blood. No damage. Nothing. Just Lockspur lay there, peering up from the ground, grinning like a lunatic, idiot. He jumped to his feet, leaned over them as they panted and gasped for air and retrieved his rifle. Then, to their shock, he took a bow and said, "Boom. I win. You lose. Too bad. So sad. Boo hoo for you." And he walked away, casting them an over the shoulder grin that said, never fuck with the king. "Come on," he added. "Pull the boots out of your asses and let's get moving. We're burning daylight."
"He knows it's always burning daylight here?" Dahl asked, lying on her back beside Moss.
"Let's go before the old fart gets too far ahead again."
On the surface, M6-117 looked like a barren, sand-covered wasteland, bleached by a 22-year cycle of endless sunlight, punctuated by a dozen hours of darkness, death and blood spilling chaos. But upon closer scrutiny, it became clear the sand was not sand at all. It was the crushed and bleached skeletal remains of countless beasts killed in an endless cycle of birth, life and death. A cycle that had repeated over billions of years. What looked that a flat, barren wasteland was in fact an enormous graveyard. The skeletal remains of giant, long-dead creatures littered the hostile landscape. M6-117 was an unforgiving moon that was no stranger to death.
They moved along an ancient riverbed. A shallow depression led from behind the ship to the massive wreckage in the distance, and unbeknownst to the team, the dip sat above a narrow fissure just 10 feet below their sinking feet. Inside the cool, dark tunnel, raptors kept pace with their every step. Not seeing them, but hearing their crunching steps, honing in on the sound of racing heartbeats and the strange sounds coming out of their mouths, drawing more and more creatures to them. A queer, salivating parade of ravenous admirers.
The intense solar glare drew sweat from every pore of their soggy bodies like a hot poultice draws pus from a festering wound. Their slippery sweat mixed with the powdered bone kicked up from beneath their feet, creating an itchy, abrasive grit that chafed at every inch of exposed skin. The trio scratched relentlessly, releasing tiny droplets of blood that scented the wind and sank into the soil. The stench of body odor mixed with blood was intoxicating as it wafted through the air. Dark things, terrible things, hungry things raced up from somewhere deep in the bowels of the planet. Ground vibrating beneath their feet. The entire planet had taken notice of their arrival. And so, too, had Lockspur's contact.
Moss looked out at the eerie skyline dotted with dozens of huge anthills rising out of the not soil. The inhabitants liked to dig and burrow. An enormous spinning gas giant filled a third of the tangerine sky. Its wide, colorful rings swung out and then wrapped back around the horizon. M6-117 hung in a protected orbit somewhere between the gas giant's upper atmosphere and the hundreds of rings orbiting its equator. "That's something you don't see every day." Moss said, marvelling at the distant gas giants swirling around their equators. Vast rings spiralled out for hundreds of thousands of miles.
Dahl and Moss stood gazing up in amazement, and she pointed up. "Ironic how someplace so beautiful is so deadly?"
Lockspur did not share their sense of awe. He was more interested in what he couldn't see than what he could. "What are the odds of crashing hours before an entire horde of monsters emerges from the planet's depths?"
Giant meandering heat waves rose over the horizon, distorting Lockspur's view. Salty sweat dripped into his squinted eyes. Even the sunglasses couldn't block out the blurring rays.
Moss tugged at the heavy collar of his body armor. He had moved 50 yards away from the ship when the bone dust mixed with sweat to create an exfoliating paste that chafed his sensitive neckline. Relentless heat weighed him down, stirred his discomfort and provoked his growing sense of dread. "Shit luck."
Lockspur turned away from Moss, studying the enormous sun-bleached rib bones waving on the horizon. The creature must have been the size of an elephant, and the bones lying a ¼ mile beyond those must have belonged to a creature larger than a blue whale. "Luck... my ass. This place is fucking cursed."
Moss dug at his neck as if a million ants were crawling under his collar. "Now who's being paranoid?"
"Me."
Every so often, the blazing suns crossed his line of sight, blurring out the horizon, and every time it subsided, he was certain he saw movement out there. His mind was playing tricks on him. "Am I the only one who feels like we're being watched?"
Dahl and Moss turned to one another, realizing Lockspur may be right. They were not alone. It was as if their own fears attacked them, unseen spectres circling the empty landscape around them.
The heat and glare had taken on a life of its own. There was no cloud cover, no vegetation to blot out the relentless rays, no water to satiate drying mouths or cool wind to soothe crisping flesh. There was only daylight; endless, eye-squinting daylight of a binary star system.
Lockspur stopped, tore off his helmet, reeled towards the ship and hurled it at the lowered tailgate. It hit the ground, kicked up a pale cloud, bounced a half dozen times, and rolled to a filthy stop. He held his rifle out to Moss.
"Feel better, little buckaroo?"
Lockspur glared, but nodded.
Moss reached out, took Lockspur's rifle and looked towards the helmet. "Are you going to clean that?"
Lockspur ignored him. "Who's bright idea was it to set us up with this goddamn heavy black armor and then send us to the desert of a thousand suns?" He yanked an old skullcap from his pants pocket, tied it over his jet black hair, tore off his bulletproof jacket and chucked it to the ground in a heap at Moss's feet.
Moss rolled his eyes, and he sighed. "Do you know how much that costs?"
"Fucking bill me." Lockspur said, grabbing his canteen and pouring it over the skullcap. The droplets hitting the ground reverberated into the depths, and things that should have gone unaware of their presence took notice. The piss-warm water did little to soothe his irritated temper.
"Next time, I'll bring a set of lightweight geriatric armor."
"There will not be a next time, amigo," Lockspur wiped the grit from his face. "Because I'm never coming back to this shithole again."
"That depends?" Moss said, winking at Dahl.
"On what?"
"On whether we get out of here alive this time," Dahl said, and winked at Moss.
"Funny," Lockspur replied, taking back his rifle and checking it to make sure a round was chambered. Unlike Moss, his mission paranoia didn't kick in until he was outside the ship. "Are you dropping anything?"
"No," Moss answered, not willing to remove any of his protective gear. Moss noticed a large red welt on the underside of Lockspur's right forearm. It blazed like an infected red warning. "What the hell did you do to yourself?" he asked, gesturing at the injury.
"It's fine," Lockspur replied, looking at the sore. He rolled the rough, dirty fabric sleeve down, and it grated against the bulge. He almost cried out in pain. "You sure you don't want to dump some weight?" he asked, trying to change the subject.
Moss looked at Dahl, glanced at Lockspur's arm, and Dahl shrugged. He turned back to Lockspur. "Just check in with the auto-doc when we get back to the ship. It looks awful."
"Sure you're not dropping anything here?" Lockspur asked, ignoring his concern.
"Not likely," he replied. Moss knew the value of a helmet. Faulty Intel had led him and his entire team into a raptor nest on Torphan 3. His entire team had died, and he ended up on life-support. He would never let that happen again. Not that wearing gear guaranteed he would not get hurt.
"Suit yourself," Dahl said, dropping her helmet and thick black vest at her feet. Unlike the others, she wore a much lighter and whiter threat level 2 Kevlar vest between her camo blouse and bra. She removed her shirt, tore the sleeves off, used them to wipe her face, and then tossed the sleeves on the pile. "At least the light will keep us safe," she said, raising her weapon to continue towards the destination.
"Will it?" Moss asked himself. Just then, a foreboding dust devil swirled out of the west, spun around them twice before meandering away towards the skeleton graveyard. It dropped to the ground as if the marionette holding its strings lost interest.
Lockspur laughed. "Yeah… 'cause that wasn't creepy." He spun in a slow, purposeful circle, peering through his scope, coming to the spot where the dust devil fell away and saw a large opening where a massive anthill had toppled onto its side. "You know those mounds lead somewhere," he said, more to himself than the others.
"If I had to guess, I'd say it's hell."
Moss gestured between himself and Lockspur, then off to the right. Then he gestured for Dahl to check out the back of the wreckage. As she moved off to the left, making her way around the rear of the giant aft compartment, they veered right, heading towards the front of the Hunter Gratzner wreckage. They were looking for access points. "Dahl," Moss called out over the comms channel. "Stay out in the open. And radio if you see anything."
"This thing is immense," Dahl said, tilting her head back, trying to see the top. "The report said the Hunter Gratzner was a standard cargo carrier?"
"It did," Lockspur answered. "The company changed its original nomenclature 50 years ago. Back then, it was an oil refinery/fuel hauler, and during the outer colonies' war, they repurposed it as a troop transport. For its first 35 years, it was the biggest ship ever built."
No matter how far away they moved from one another, their steps betrayed any attempt at stealth. Even with their inefficient human ears, they could pinpoint the others' positions with little trouble.
"There's not much damage at this end." Moss said, approaching the nose of the giant vessel. Its thick hull held fast to the structure. He knelt on the ground, running a hand along the point where the ship met the soil, and said, "The lower hull ground off during the impact. But the upper hull is in good shape. There aren't even any scorch marks from reentry."
"That's not possible," Lockspur said, the sound of worry in his voice catching his teammates' attention.
The nose of the exhumed ship was still intact. It was plain to see that the company investigators had done a thorough job. They had dug out the massive front section, removed every bolt-on service panel they could remove from the ship's skin, housing critical systems components, and even made a few hasty repairs. For what purpose? The ship would never fly again. Why had company crews gone to such labor and expense to half rebuild a hopeless pile of immovable junk?
"Wait," Lockspur said, donning a confused expression, as he turned his full attention to the front of the vessel. "The windscreen is still intact."
"Standard operating procedure," Dahl said, "On site investigators put all the little bits and pieces back together to get a better understanding of what went wrong."
"That's not what I mean. There's no benefit to the company in this investigation. There were no high-priority passengers aboard, no precious cargo, and the ship was a worthless relic. A sub-light juggernaut no one wanted. Why spend millions of credits getting all the way out here? It makes no sense."
"That seems like a waste." Dahl said, shaking her head at the idea of the effort it must have taken to get 100 people and their equipment out there.
"Amigo, it's just a procedure." Moss said.
"How many times has the company ignored procedure to save credits? And now you want me to believe the company forked over millions for what? No, this is something else."
Moss gestured from Lockspur to his handheld scanner, and then towards the horizon. Lockspur nodded and took it out. Moss couldn't shake the feeling they weren't alone. But he didn't want Dahl to hear him say that.
Lockspur saw him following her with his eyes, covered his mic and said, "She'll be fine as long as she stays in the light."
"As long as she stays in the light," Moss repeated, turning towards the horizon, scanning the wreckage with his handheld instrument pack.
"Anything?" Lockspur asked, frustrated by the inconclusive readings popping up on his unit. "I'm not getting anything." The harsh UV radiation was interfering with his scanner's delicate, inexpensive sensors. "Fuckin' piece of junk." Moss grumbled. He had asked Johns to buy the better shielded units, but, oh no, Johns said he could get cheaper units through another distributor. "Cheaper isn't better. It's just cheap." Moss had told him.
"I can't pick up shit," Lockspur said, stopping on a shadowy outcropping over the entrance into a gigantic cavern in the far distance.
"Do you need glasses, Grandpa?"
"About as much as you need a swift kick in the nuts."
The deep cavern snaked into the hillside. From his vantage point, he saw movement, but it could have been a product of an overactive imagination playing off the heat waves in the distance. "If something is out there, it's not making its presence known," he said, rubbing his eyes as if they were tired.
Moss covered the microphone on his glasses and whispered in an unsure tone, "Do you need glasses?"
Lockspur held out his sunglasses for Moss to take.
Moss put them on and blurted, "They're prescription."
Lockspur shrugged.
"It happens."
"I'm sorry." Moss said.
"For what?"
"Being an asshole."
"I'm old, amigo. Not dead. So don't start being a little dipshit now."
Moss let his scanner fall to the side and took a drink from his piss-warm canteen. When his thirst dissipated, he poured water over his face and wiped the dusty sludge away with a rag. He held the canteen out and offered Lockspur a drink.
"Not likely," he replied. "Since our arrival, I haven't been able to hold my pee for days. The fucking catheter messed me up."
Lockspur extended the canteen closer. "Drink it. We can't have you dropping from dehydration."
"One sip and we'll be stopping every hundred yards for the rest of the mission."
"Just drink it."
"If you two have finished bonding over aging prostates," Dahl said, cutting in. "You could use the thermal scanner." She stopped beside the back corner to get a better view of the area Lockspur was talking about.
Lockspur switched the setting on his optics to thermal. He surveyed the distant terrain, searching between the 25-foot-high anthills, looking for signs of movement in a sea of red and orange tones. The images waved from behind the heat waves. A thousand mirages caught his eye. After five minutes, he said, "Nada." He switched his scope back to normal and added, "But that doesn't mean much."
"Why?" Moss asked, looking at the horizon through his useless infrared scanner. He held it up, slammed the side of the unit against the butt of his hand, and considered tossing it in the dirt and stomping on it.
"Because our enemies are cold-blooded." Lockspur explained, stopping on a single movement about 250 yards away.
"So?"
"So..." he repeated, rolling his eyes and scowling. "They won't register on the display if they are the same temperature as the surrounding terrain."
"Great," Moss complained, looking at Lockspur through the infrared scanner. "Monsters that are invisible to all forms of detection."
"Only for thermal scans." Lockspur clarified.
"We can still see them out in the open." Dahl replied as if Moss were being unreasonable. "They're not invisible."
"If we can see them with the naked eye..." he stressed, realizing his heavy black body armor was great for stopping bullets, but not worth shit for stopping claws or crushing teeth. "They're too fucking close."
Something moved in the distance, and Lockspur said, "Me, amigos, we have movement off to the right."
"Where?" Dahl asked, scanning the rocky, bleached-out horizon through her own scope.
"I can't get a lock on. But whatever is out there, it's not heat waves. I'm certain I saw movement." Lockspur answered, pushing his sunglasses to the top of his head, rubbing the sweat and bone powder from the corners of his eyes to get a clearer look. "Shit," he said, putting his glasses back on. "I've got a crap line of sight from this position."
"We need eyes on target." Dahl complained, wishing she had brought a long-range rifle with better optics. "This scope sucks."
"Here, longshot," Lockspur said, turning on the laser sight on the front of his rifle. "I'll paint the area above the target, and you tell us what you can make out from your vantage point."
Dahl leaned against the side of the ship, steadied her weapon and located Lockspur's laser reflecting off an outcropping of rocks above an enormous cavern 500 meters out. Light reached deep into the mouth of the massive cavern, but it couldn't chase the shadows away from the back of its deep, constricting throat. Peering into the darkness, she strained to separate fact from fantasy. "Gotcha," she said to herself with a half-sneer, half-grin.
"What is it?" Lockspur asked, turning his laser off to save battery life.
"Multiple targets moving in the back of the cavern." Dahl replied, lowering her rifle to her side. "I can't say how many. But we're not alone. And they know we're here. They're watching us."
"Why do you think that?"
"Because they wouldn't risk the light if they didn't know something was out here."
Moss lowered his scanner, letting it hang at his side. He studied the 6-inch thick polycarbonate windscreen, wondering how much it weighed. "There's no easy way in from this side. The windscreen has to weigh 3 tons."
"It weighs 7,327 lbs," Lockspur replied.
"Really?"
"I had a life before becoming a mercenary."
"Hey, guys. Head this way." Dahl said. "I see an access hatch. I can get open."
"No," Moss replied, gesturing for Lockspur to stop what he was doing and follow him to the aft end of the 250 yard long compartment right now.
Lockspur turned to Moss and gestured for him to head out. If she does something stupid, I'll tan her ass myself, he thought. The two men reeled and took off on a fast walk.
"Dahl," he called out. "Wait until we get there before you do anything." There was no response. The channel was empty, and Moss' heart missed a beat. I knew I should have gone with her. "Dahl," he called out again. "Wait until we get there. Do you hear me?" Again; no answer. Their pace doubled to a quick trot. "I said, wait. Goddammit!" he screamed, envisioning her already in a raptor's clutches. "Don't touch that fucking hatch!"
Moss turned to Lockspur with a grimace that meant to get to her now. She's about to do something stupid, and the trot became a full-out sprint. Hot, salty sweat ran into Moss's eyes, and with every next step, his mind created an ever-expanding scenario of blood and terror. The monsters had come; the violence was here at last. Their blazing boots pounded the arid soil as the sound of a Damascus blade scraping against metal filled the silence.
She was at the hatch trying to get it open. But what was on the other side? Had she even considered that? Was she prepared for what awaited in the darkness? Rounding the back of the compartment, they found her hunkered down on one knee, jamming her priceless tanto between the door frame and hatch.
"WAIT!" he raged, firing his rifle in the air, trying to ward her off her current path of lunacy.
Dahl screamed in terror and dropped the knife in the dirt as she landed on her ass. Her anger returned with a fury. Time slowed to a crawl. Moss and Lockspur panted as adrenaline coursed through overheated veins.
"What the fuck are you doing?" she blared, jumping to her feet with a wild-eyed, dark intent. She was deep in the grip of shock as the sound of the rifle's report still rang in her ears like a shrill siren. She wanted to pick up the knife, but not to use it to open a hatch. Her heart pounded in her chest as if it were going to explode. "I'm not a goddamn kid."
"I ordered you to wait," Moss warned as the sweat poured down his face, washing away long lines of greyish dust that looked like brown rivers. He looked as though he were crying. Perhaps in that moment, when the dead faces of his fallen comrades had come back to haunt him, maybe he was.
"You don't know what's in there." Lockspur warned, throwing up his rifle and taking aim at the hatch. He wasn't taking any chances. It would be dark behind that hatch. And where it's dark, he thought. "Re-think yourself," he snapped, gesturing with the end of his barrel for her to get back. She didn't move.
"Or not," she said, as ill will contorted her thin face into an unmistakable sneer that gave life to an unspoken expletive. She stepped back, and both men sighed, thinking she had given up. But they were wrong. Dahl lifted her weapon high overhead and drove it butt first against the uncooperative access handle. To their horror, they watched the handle drop into the open position and a single wisp of dust emanated from around the hatch seams. It was open. "We didn't come all this way just to let a few shadows turn us away this close to our destination," she said with a triumphant smile. "Come on. You know, those things can't cross the distance from there to here." She gestured from the cavern to the hatch. "There's nothing in there."
"We can go in through the windscreen. It's not fixed in place. It's just sitting there." Lockspur said, grimacing at Moss as if he wanted him to make her stop. He was terrified they wouldn't make it to her in time, and considered shooting her in the leg just to get her away from the hatch.
"How would we get it off?" Dahl protested, staring at the handle. All she had to do to get inside was pull it open. But before she could reach out, the hatch popped open a fraction of an inch. They all saw it, and a jet of dusty air struck Dahl in the face.
"Get back." Lockspur shouted, taking another step forward. Moss followed his lead.
Dahl wiped her eyes. But it was already too late. The dust prevented her from opening her eyes. The hatch creaked open several inches, sending out a rusty screech that reverberated down through the dark labyrinths beneath the wreckage. Dahl missed it. Hands still over her burning, blinking eyes. If something was in there, it knew they were outside.
"Get back." Lockspur raged at her.
"Calm down," she said, lifting her face to the heavens and pouring warm water in her eyes. Then, to Moss and Lockspur's horror, Dahl lost her balance, pitched forward, grabbed the hatch handle to steady herself. "See," she said. "There is nothing there." She pulled the hatch open. It swung out, slammed against the outer hull and swung back, half open. Light streamed into the darkness, illuminating the murky interior.
"The fucking hatch didn't open itself." Lockspur warned, peering through his scope and taking two steps closer. Both he and Moss were pointing their weapons at the open hatch. Neither paid attention to Dahl.
She took a half step backwards, looking over her shoulder at Lockspur. "See. Nothing is there."
"Get your weapon up!" he demanded, realizing she was unarmed.
"Damn, Carlos," she blurted, scared by the darkness lurking a few scant feet from the tip of her nose. Something in the gloom stood up. Her mouth dropped open. It looked like a tall, barrel-chested man standing with his side to her. "There's someone in there." She called out.
"Get back," Lockspur raged, taking another few steps towards the hatch and flicking the selector to full auto.
Dahl pointed a slender finger into the darkness and said, "Look. It's a man."
Moss and Lockspur moved forward, one on each side of her, all three peering into the darkness. She was indeed right. The black silhouette of a motionless man stood 20 meters away. She took one step forward, passing through the veil between light and dark, and called out, "Hey, mister. Over here."
The macabre figure twisted toward her. Its human form morphing into the shape of a standing hammerhead shark. It screamed in rage, fell on all fours, and rampaged towards them at a frightening speed. Dahl leapt back, slammed the hatch closed and twisted the dirty handle down. It failed to lock. The creature struck the hatch, driving it outward and sending her flying away. The raptor snatched her out of midair and slammed her on the ground, breath exploding from her lungs. Sunlight seared its thin, bubbling grayish hide. It reared up, ready to strike a fatal blow, and a hail of bullets pierced its slimy grey abdomen, filling the air with blood and agony. A shower of rancid blue effluent covered Dahl from head to toe. She gagged and screamed in terror.
Dahl lay on her back, air knocked from her deflated lungs, gasping for breath and wriggling beneath the four hundred pound behemoth. She grasped at the weapon lying just inches away. Terror drew the color from her ash-white skin as she struggled and screamed.
Lockspur walked over and stood above her, glaring down in disbelief. "That's not my idea of being careful, princess." His words hit her like bullets. He kicked the beast, spattering Dahl with another explosion of blue guts. "Stupid. Stupid, stupid," he raged.
Dahl wiggled and squirmed, still trying to extricate herself from beneath the twitching cadaver. She did not know if it was dead or not. It dripped blue bile into her mouth. "Get it off me!" she shrieked in terror. Her soggy hands slipped over its clammy skin, trying to push it away.
Before Lockspur could roll it off, Moss walked over beside him, stepped on the creature, preventing him from freeing her. "Listen, peaches, if you get your pretty ass killed out here, we're the ones who have to answer to Uncle John and Auntie Lilith. So, in the future, curb your fucking need to prove yourself."
Lockspur rolled it off, and Dahl jumped to her feet, screaming, "If either of you ever call me peaches again. I'll... I'll.."
"You'll what?" Lockspur said, waving a hand in front of his face. Dahl looked and stunk like a portable toilet had exploded blue goo all over her. He backed away, covering his face, and said, "You reek."
"I'll braid your nuts," she said, jabbing him in the chest with a smelly blue finger.
He grabbed her finger as if contemplating snapping it like a twig. "Well… I guess it's lucky for me. I called you princess. And it's lucky for you, I'm not still under the influence of the region." He shoved her hand away and wiped the stinking mung on the last clean spot on her shirt.
"Cut the shit." Moss ordered, grabbing her by the arm and reeling her around to face him.
"And just what are you gonna do if I don't?" she said, pushing him away.
It was his turn to wave his hand in front of her face. He knew she hated that. "To you," he said and laughed. "Nothing." Moss stuffed a cloth in her hand and said, "Wipe the shit off your face. You look fucking ridiculous."
She grabbed the rag out of his hand.
"Listen," he said, glaring at her. "I gave you a pass on the Commander's seat fiasco. But your girl-boss bullshit is wearing on my last nerve."
Lockspur turned with a grin and said, "We could tell Johns she almost got herself fucking killed, and us too."
"You wouldn't."
Moss laughed at her and added, "No? But I will tell him you botched the mission, and we had to leave?"
"You wouldn't dare."
"You don't know what we would do to keep you from killing yourself." Lockspur replied, picking her rifle off the ground.
"Or keep you from killing us," Moss added.
Lockspur shook the dirt off her rifle and said.
"When we get back, we're gonna sit back and watch Johns throw you over his knee and spank your ass like the three-year-old brat you are."
"Fuck you." She plucked a long, stringy entrail off her shirt and flicked it in the air. It boomeranged out in a large arcing circle and returned, making her duck. Her teammates snickered at her as she picked dripping chunks of flesh out of her hair. It made her madder than she could ever remember being. "I can handle myself."
"Not from where I'm standing," Lockspur said, approaching Dahl with her rifle outstretched. "We've stayed alive out here because we've had each other's backs. That's the way it's supposed to be, not this lone stranger bullshit."
Before Dahl could say anything, Moss added, "What was that shit?" He pointed at the open hatch. "Are you trying to kill yourself?"
Dahl reached out, grabbed the rifle, and tried to yank it out of Lockspur's hand. But he tightened his steely grip and wrenched her closer. He may be old; but that didn't mean weak. "Now, here you come threatening to fuck it all up because you need to prove your what… you're equal to a man."
"Or better."
"I am as good as any of you."
"Not like this, you're not." Moss replied, jamming a finger into her chest. It hurt, but she took it without flinching. "You don't see us running around acting like goddamn fools, trying to prove we're as good as anyone else. We're not good because anyone says we're good. We're good because we are part of a team."
"And we're good because we fucking earned it."
Moss moved in close enough to make her want to shove him away again. "Being on a team isn't about measuring up; it's about adding your strengths to the team."
"And it's about taking care of each other's asses when it counts." Lockspur added, loosening his grip. "And you just fucking failed. You could have killed yourself, us, and blown our mission. So, great job."
"I just wanted to show you I can handle myself." Dahl said, turning to Lockspur.
"If we didn't already know you could handle yourself, you fucking wouldn't be here, no matter what Lilith or Johns said." Moss said.
"How about you focus on proving you're a team player first," Lockspur said, letting go of the rifle. "And the little shit will take care of itself. Because you earned the right to be here."
"Because we trained you."
"And we assured Lilith and Johns that you were ready." Lockspur added.
Dahl gestured towards the hatch. "What about the mission? We can still go in through the front."
"No one's going in there with you reeking like the ass-end of a filthy chum bucket. Everything for a hundred miles in any direction can smell you."
Lockspur sniffed the air and grimaced. "You wouldn't last 10 seconds in there like this."
Moss gestured at the twitching raptor. "Look." He nudged the carcass lying at her feet with the toe of his boot. "No eyes. They're blind. That means their other senses are heightened. He gestured to the blazing suns. "Out here, they're blind. Out here, we have the advantage." Then he gestured to the open hatch. "But there. We're blind; we're the prey. So, keep to the light. And keep your eyes and ears open."
"Let's head back." Lockspur said in an almost inaudible whisper. He nodded with his chin to the still-open doors. "Before something else comes out to play. Besides, I'm spent."
"Fine," Dahl said, walking around the carcass. "Let's go."
"And get behind us. I want you downwind."
"Hilarious."