Chapter 3
If looks could kill, Roys would have been slaughtered ten times over.
My glare bruised the captain’s broad back—fine, I looked at his ass six times—since we left the habitat one click back.
Our outdated rovers suffered through such thick terrain, so Corporate decided we should cut paths first while neutralizing threats and obtaining scans of the local flora for the survey team once they arrived, but we knew that was bullshit.
They didn’t want to risk the rovers breaking, but us?
Yeah, we could die and another fool would replace us.
The sweltering day had our exoskins kicking into high gear. Sweat dripped from my eyelashes and squished between my toes. As hot as we were, we couldn’t risk removing the exoskin, although I removed my visor from time to time to wipe off my sweat, much to Roys’ chagrin.
Yesterday, his team came across a plant that oozed acid.
It burned through a private’s boots that were torn off before it penetrated her skin.
We were careful, and thus, moving at a snail’s pace.
The survey team’s job would be to properly catalogue The Planet, but we needed better information on what to protect them from.
Roys and Iylene cut through the growth using laser blades. We had our shuttle, too, but it couldn’t land in such a thick jungle. The shuttle could scan, albeit not as thoroughly as our handhelds that could get up close and personal.
Roys raised a hand. “Rest for fifteen.”
Lilea dropped to settle her shell against a tall blue stalk covered in pink domes that bled sap that, based on scans, was entirely edible.
No one had worked up the nerve to try it yet.
She removed her visor that modified itself to fit the curve of her beak.
Erkwan’s were basically giant turtles, if the docuseries I found on earth creatures was correct, except with slightly longer limbs that still fit in their shells when needed.
Iylene and Zavir found a bulbous plant to sit on, translucent, with orange lights flickering inside.
As of yet, they hadn’t proved dangerous.
Ryker and Arana tore into our food, offering packs to others while Zavir and I drank from our canteens as if we had never known the taste of water.
I smacked my lips together, tasting my sweat before chugging the last of my canteen that I easily refilled.
Roys ordered me to carry the water pack, our heaviest piece of equipment. Dick.
“I can’t believe we’ll be trekking out here with those scientists all over again,” said Lilea. “Why couldn’t they have come with us so we wouldn’t have to be running around twice as much?”
“Because the last thing we want is dead scientists.” Roys finished off his canteen.
Remnants of water dripped down his throat to disappear among the dark curls peeking out of the collar of his exoskin. I stared because only fools missed a perfect opportunity to ogle.
“Right now, all we need to do is make sure there is nothing nearby that is a threat to the habitat. At the rate we’re going, we could finish in about ten days and have a little relaxation afterward,” he finished.
Lilea’s dark green neck stretched higher. “Really?”
Roys looked directly at me. “So long as all of you pull your weight.”
“I believe I am pulling the most weight here,” I said.
“I’ll carry the water pack if it gets you to shut up about it,” said Zavir, earning himself a kick to the shin.
I settled the water pack on the ground to give my back a rest. Iylene brought a pack of rations over that tasted like shit, but we needed to keep our energy up. The jungle was full of unknown dangers. Roys wouldn’t let us forget that.
I fell to lie on my back, peering into the canopy.
A ray of light fell to the forest floor, where my fingers curled beneath it.
The Colony was cold and dark and gray and damp.
Not a good damp, nothing like this humidity, but something sick, like decay that rotted everyone from within.
Everything was metal. Harsh. Cold. Rust and piping and smog.
Surrounded on all sides by walls protecting us from the vacuum of space. A cage.
For the fifteen-minute break, I let the light roll over me, thinking of all I had done to get there.
Still stuck under the thumb of The Company, even if the Intergalactic Militia said otherwise.
It was a known secret that The Company had its hungry claws dug into everything, but at least I traveled.
At least I left that forsaken asteroid in the middle of deep space.
“Break’s over,” said Roys. “Let’s go. I want to get at least two clicks out today.”
“You’re killing us,” Arana whined.
Zavir took to cataloguing plants using his commlink.
He kept one arm up to survey the area. When a flora that wasn’t on record came into view, we stopped to take a full scan.
Already our commlinks had thirty variations of flora, over double what our droids got.
The droids were exceptionally trusting and seemed to irritate much of the flora by not respecting boundaries.
Roys, on the other hand, was entirely respectful.
He was always the one to step in, stealthy and low.
That time, we surrounded a bulbous flora not so dissimilar from the one many of us used as seats. However, this one was uncommonly large. The orange lights from the other were missing, and dozens of equally translucent vines stretched from the bottom, half buried in the soil.
We had yet to come across much animal life.
A rabbit-like creature we saw in the unfortunate video detailing how some of the flora ate, a type of bird that had three eyes and a beak that resembled the surrounding flora, and an animal on all fours with a long tail and no eyes.
Each of them was creepy, and none of them were nearby.
I stood with my flamethrower wondering if I would ever get to use it.
We didn’t use them often, so I was feeling a little trigger-happy.
And it would be hilarious to see the irritated look on Roys’ stupid face if we happened to blow shit up.
He’d have me scrubbing the toilets by hand, but it would be so worth it.
“Keep behind me,” Roys warned Zavir. “The ones we saw must not have been full grown. We do not know what this one might do.”
Zavir obeyed while Arana monitored our left flank. I monitored the right and the others at our back.
“Arana, stay back,” Roys said.
Arana dropped her weapon. It hung at her sides from the straps. The group held their breath when she advanced wordlessly.
“What are you doing?” Iylene went to follow, but Roys held up a hand.
“Arana,” he half said, half asked.
Still no reaction.
“Arana, stop fucking around,” I called, expecting her to poke fun at us for worrying, but nothing changed.
Zavir held out two arms and pointed with another hand. “Her back!”
White tendrils breached the soil, so thin they were nearly invisible to the naked eye. If she hadn’t walked under a sunray, none would have noticed them crawling up her back to dip between the space of our visor and exoskin.
“What the fuck?” The hair on the back of my neck stood. I looked down, discovering tendrils slithering over my ankles. “Check your feet!”
The tendrils were too thin to see where they might have taken root.
Flicking on the flamethrower, I pointed and let loose.
The tendrils fell into a withering mass of ashes.
The others did the same. Roys took the chance of sleuthing closer to Arana, all the while checking on the bulb.
His hand brushed her arm. Hundreds of tendrils lunged.
He stumbled away, flamethrower up, and the tendrils retracted.
Were they sentient enough to realize what our fire did?
“I vote we list this place as uninhabitable and get out of here,” Lilea shouted from where she continued to burn the surrounding ground. Her limbs were half retracted into her shell.
I agreed and kept the flames burning, checking behind me. The tendrils came from there, too, but they stopped at about ten feet. Once I got past them, I’d be home free.
The tendrils feared the flames, but when Roys blasted them, they split into many. He couldn’t get closer, and Arana moved toward that damned bulb. The one thing all the tendrils connected to, so maybe I didn’t have to risk running.
I dropped my flamethrower and went for my blaster.
“Don’t shoot, Ethin. That’s an order!” Roys shouted. “We know these flora have a variety of defense mechanisms. We do not know what is in that bulb. If it blooms, we could be in even bigger trouble. Just wait a moment!”
I wasn’t dying. Not for her. Not for anyone.
I raised my blaster and fired. The tendrils dropped, but the bulb flashed an indignant red. The shots burned partway through the gelatinous substance. The holes oozed before the bulb unfurled and the liquid spewed out.
Roys cleared the space between him and Arana in a second. He grabbed her waist and pivoted. The liquid fell to the forest floor, burning all it touched. Roys screamed, face contorted in pain. Smoke rose from his back, but he stumbled away with his arms tight around Arana. The tendrils on her broke.
“What the fuck!?” Arana bellowed.
The bulb rose from the soil. Beneath the flora came a contorted, strange, irritated creature constructed of translucent tendrils thicker than my waist. The flora wiggled about, its petals drooping and body coated in acidic liquid.
The thinner tendrils breached the soil in waves, each reaching for us.
Iylene yanked Zavir back, who had been too stunned to move. Ryker and Lilea joined them, their flamethrowers drawn and burning away. The creature didn’t make a sound, but its wild body swayed from side to side, cracking apart stalks and crushing the soil.
Holstering my blaster, I turned to run and was met by thrashing tendrils.
I went for the flamethrower when a tendril caught my ankle.
Yanked to the ground, they dragged me toward the flora.
With all its movement, the soil softened to simulate thick sludge.
Its root system became the very earth beneath us, and we unsettled it.
My fingers ripped through the muck, never finding purchase.
“Ethin!” Roys bellowed, foolishly pushing forward with the flames.
The tendrils melded together to form a giant one and slammed toward our group.
They were forced to disperse. I looked back to find the roots rising further from a great, deep hole.
A heavyweight fell across me. My groan mixed with Roys’, whose hands snagged me under my arms. He dug his heels into the muck even as blood poured over his arms.
What a selfless idiot.
“His leg!” Roys yelled in a hoarse tone.
Arana stumbled through the muck, waving her flamethrower about. The tendrils tried snagging her. She couldn’t get closer, not with the tendrils grabbing us. They crawled over my visor and squeezed through somehow. I felt it, a calling, like a song.
Just let go, and everything would be alright. Let go. Let go. Let go…
Then a loud zap, one after the other, brought me back.
Arana had whipped out a blaster and fired.
She hit a few tendrils, and I pulled free, unintentionally tugging Roys with me.
The blossomed petals brightened that angry red, then rose higher.
I gawked under the shadow of the towering flora, vines whipping out to slice stalks and cut soil.
Beneath it, a hole led further into the earth, where the heart of the beast slept until we came along.
“Run!” Roys ordered.
Flames and blasters were useless. Nothing stopped the flora from its rampage. Roys and I lumbered out of the flora’s shadow only for the plant to move. The weight atop the soft soil had the ground shuddering. Our feet sank, and Roys got dragged in up to his knees. His arms fell from my waist.
I moved forward without looking back. The flora rose, smashing into the canopy.
An entire root system breached the earth and, at its center, was a beating heart strangled by vines.
It tore a hole in the earth, and the soil dragged us in.
My feet lost any purchase they had, and I rolled back into Roys’ arms. He and I shared a fearful look, realization settling over us before he tugged me into his arms to tuck my head under his chin like the self-righteous dumbass he was.
We were dragged into the shadowy depths.