The Moon smelled wrong.
Jonah hadn't expected the Moon to smell like anything. It was space. A dead rock floating in a void. But as he dragged himself out of Nomad's cracked cockpit, gasping through his helmet's filters, he realized Sterling had changed that.
The air, thin as it was, carried a scent. Metallic. Sweet. Rotten. Like flowers dying in a machine shop.
"Move, move!" Vanessa grabbed his arm, hauling him clear just as something whistled overhead.
CRACK.
The ground where he'd been standing exploded. Moon dust and chunks of corrupted metal sprayed everywhere.
"Sniper!" Ariana's voice came through the comm. "Organic artillery, three o'clock!"
Jonah looked. One of those thorn structures, maybe half a mile away, was pivoting toward them. Its barrel, if you could call it that, pulsed with that same sickly green light.
"Get to cover!"
