Three
Night fell quickly. One minute the suns were tracking downwards, the next it was dark. The pinkish gleam of dusk, if it could be called that, lasted mere minutes.
There were no moons, which was weird. But that didn’t mean the planet descended into blackness. Quite the opposite. The night sky was scattered with abnormally bright stars, undoubtedly the effect of reflecting two suns instead of one. The impact was double-edged – the stars cast a pale glow over the landscape but made the shadows darker and more menacing.
Kara lay on her back and stared into the sky, wondering how far away the E.S.V. Idaho was. She’d been based on the Earth Space Vessel for thirty six months now, stationed in a sector far from Earth. Technically she was allowed to decline combat duty after two years on the front line but when she was offered the choice, she’d thought what the hell . It wasn’t as if she had anything better to do.
She didn’t have many skills but she was a damn good fighter pilot. It was probably the only reason Koenig hadn’t thrown her out of the military. She had graduated top of her training class, one of the youngest to earn her wings. And with her mother being who she was… well, staying home wasn’t an option.
Not when the only thing that stood between her beloved home planet and domination by the Vraxian Empire was the Space Defense Force. The brave men and women who patrolled the farthest reaches of the galaxy and kept the alien aggressors at bay.
The war had been going on for nearly twenty years, long enough that neither side bothered with planetary incursions anymore. They simply maintained the status quo – long periods of uneasy quiet punctuated by bloody skirmishes along the notional border in the blackness of space.
Like today.
Kara tried to get comfortable. She’d reached the copse and taken shelter under a tree in the last few moments of daylight. The temperature had dropped at sunset, enough that she had put on her jacket again. She gathered some rocks and fired on them with her blaster until they were cherry red.
The terrain had become decidedly rockier the further she got from her pod. At least the walk had loosened up her joints and muscles. She was still a little sore, but definitely a whole lot better than a couple of hours ago.
Using the backpack as a pillow, she lay next to the glowing rocks and studied the stars. There wasn’t a single constellation she recognized.
Wonder if mother is missing me? She snorted to herself. Unlikely. Her mother was probably cursing her, her immaculate eyebrows drawn into an elegant frown.
“ Kara Singh, I’m deeply disappointed in you. The SDF is having to waste precious time and resources looking for you. How do you think that reflects on me?”
Yeah, that was more like it.
Let’s face it, avoiding that constant stream of criticism was another reason she flew mission after mission. She liked the adrenaline, sure. But it was also a good way to get out from under her mother’s shadow.
Her mother, the President of the United States of Earth, Commander in Chief of the Allied Militaries, Grand Admiral of the Space Defense Force, and Leader of the Free World.
Hard to believe she was the same person who’d read her bedtime stories and kissed her knees better when she fell off her hover-bike. But of course her father had been alive then, a mild and patient presence who had smoothed away his wife’s sharp edges.
He’d been a pilot himself, one of the first to test-fly the prototype S-7 Eagle Space Fighter which had eventually morphed into the jet she herself flew – the fusion-powered S-23 Merlin.
Her mother had also started out in the military but found she preferred the cut and thrust of politics. After her father had died in that first landmark battle with the Vraxians, there’d been no stopping her.
Earth had been at war with the Vraxian Empire for most of Kara’s twenty-five years of existence. And for the last five of them, her mother had been the President.
She was hell-bent on winning. As far as she was concerned, there was no room for peace in this conflict. Only victory.
Always negotiate from a position of strength, she’d told Kara. Even when you’re at your weakest, you always have something the enemy wants.
She closed her eyes, tiredness overtaking her. The soft nocturnal noises around her were comforting; the gentle rustle of branches, the chirrup of insects calling to each other, and the faint squeaks and snuffles of whatever small animals lived in the undergrowth. She began to drift off.
Something touched her leg.
Instantly she sat bolt upright, her hand automatically grabbing her weapon and training it in front of her.
There was nothing there.
She scanned the dark outline of the trees, trying to see if something lurked.
Nothing.
She started to get to her feet and found her leg was caught, as if it were pinned. Glancing down, she saw something lying across her shin. A wispy thread, pale and luminescent in the starlight. It seemed to have stuck the material of her trousers to the ground.
Sap of some kind, she thought. Must have drifted down from one of the trees. She yanked her leg firmly and the strand fell away.
Dusting herself off, she lay down and tried to get comfortable again. The tree above her was a big one, its wide branches stretched out like a canopy. She stared up at it, wondering what kind of fruits would release sap like that and whether they might be edible. Anything was better than SDF rations.
In fact, were those berries? Nestled in the branches straight above her? She focused on the small spheres hanging close together, visible in the starlight. Funny that she hadn’t noticed them earlier. From this angle, they gleamed with a ruby tint.
A bad feeling came over her.
Trying not to make any sudden movements, she reached for her blaster again. There was a soft, spitting sound and several luminescent strands fell towards her. They landed on her wrist, glueing it to the ground. Shocked, she looked up as the red spheres started to descend and realized what they were.
Not fruit. Eyes.
The bright red eyes of a nightmarish creature that was scuttling down the tree trunk towards her.
“Shit!”
She wrenched her wrist free and seized her gun, firing rapidly at the oncoming horror. But panic skewed her aim and she only succeeded in knocking it out of the tree.
It landed on its side and for the first time she got a good look at it. It was about the size of a pony but far less friendly. Eight legs skittered wildly, all tipped with razor sharp claws. Its bulbous body was covered in a gleaming black carapace made up of jointed plates, rather like an armadillo. And its jaw was wet with mucous-covered fangs.
It scrabbled upright, its claws making repellant clicking noises on the ground. Kara grabbed her backpack and moved away, still pointing her gun.
She wasn’t an entomologist. But she’d bet her last dime this thing was a carnivore.
With a hiss, the spider-creature spat more viscous filaments towards her, expelling them from glands where she figured its nasal passages should be. She threw herself to one side and pressed the trigger.
There was a muted click.
“No, you piece of shit, don’t do this to me!”
Her finger jabbed the firing mechanism three, four times but there was no response. The blaster was jammed.
Well, that’s just fucking brilliant .
Kara turned and ran. She pelted through the trees towards the sand, hoping against hope the creature would be reluctant to leave the shelter of the copse.
As she burst out into the open, it seemed she was proved right. The arachnid slowed to a stop at the edge of the trees and relief surged through her.
But of course, it didn’t need to catch her. It only needed to get close enough to hit her with its excretion.
Something landed on the back of her legs and instantly they were stuck together. Kara shrieked as she fell, throwing her hands forward. It was a hard landing. Her face hit the dirt and the blaster flew from her hand. Her head glanced off a half-buried rock.
Grimly, she battled to hold on to her consciousness. She thrashed her legs, trying to free them from the strands but to no avail.
There was a tug on her ankles and her body began to slide across the sand. Horrified, she realized she was being dragged back towards the waiting beast. It squatted patiently, its crimson gaze unblinking as it reeled her in.
“You’re making a big mistake, ugly,” she snarled, knowing false bravado was the only thing stopping her from weeping with terror. “I taste like shit.”
As if disagreeing, the thing opened its drooling maw. The decaying stench of its breath drifted over her and its dripping fangs filled her vision. She waited till she was close enough and then smacked it in one of its glowing eyes, knowing it wouldn’t do any good but determined not to go quietly.
The thing reared up on its hind legs, screeching in pain. Kara was nonplussed. Surely she hadn’t hit it hard enough? She watched, confused, as the arachnid began spasming. Its whole body twitched and jumped until with one last frenzied jerk, it toppled over and was still.
Kara raised her head, trying to make sense of what had happened. The creature was lying partially on its side, limbs akimbo. It took her a moment to register it hadn’t been felled by her punch.
Something long and silver was protruding from the gap between the armoured plates on its head and neck. It was a weapon – one she was able to identify from countless SDF images.
A laser-blade, she thought muzzily. But how…?
Something walked into her vision. Something seven foot tall and blue of skin. Something which didn’t just have arms and legs but two additional limbs attached to its torso. Slim, powerful, vaguely cobra-shaped, they moved sinuously as if with a mind of their own and confirmed her worst fears.
It was a Vraxian warrior.