one of the mountain peaks.

Kneeling over slightly, he panted hard for nearly half a minute while the other two waited for him to recover.

Feeling slightly embarrassed he stood back up and looked over his shoulder down the mountain. “Bit weird there's none of those creatures around out here.” He said aloud, trying to distract them from his sorry state.

He wasn't actually expecting an answer but the lieutenant gave him one.

“They're around, they just aren't going for us.”

To prove his point the lieutenant pointed out towards a distant boulder and after a few seconds of peering expectantly at it, Thomel saw what their ‘leader’ had spotted.

A bone-head was lying prone on top of the large rock, its antlers blending in with the grey, bland background.

He half expected that the lieutenant had been lying to him, so his tired eyes widened in surprise at the strange sight.

And now that he saw one of them, he was able to notice a couple more. All of them were crouching down, deathly still, or lying prone on the tasteless grey rocks like corpses.

He was already firmly clutching onto his beamer just in case it had been a trick, so he had no issue swiftly getting into a firing stance.

Before he could open fire and eradicate one of the bone-heads however, the lieutenant yelled at him. “Are you stupid?!”

“Isn't it better to kill them now rather than risk them attacking us once we get to the station?” Thomel replied, perplexed.

They were on one of the mountain peaks with a clear view of everything around them. It would be better to take care of the threats now rather than later on in less adventurous terrain.

“Look, the listening post is only fifty yards away. We get there and then we get out, I only need a couple of minutes at most to get the data. Don’t you mess this up for me!”

“Alright.” Thomel said after some momentary hesitation, lowering his beamer and resuming his position a dozen feet behind the other hunter.

The mountain was obnoxiously steep but through effort and perseverance, the trio continued to hike up it.

Thomel made sure he was routinely looking over his shoulder, now that he knew they were out there even his mild sleep deprivation and exhaustion couldn’t stop him from seeing them scurrying everywhere.

At complete odds with how they’d been bipedally moving in the monitoring station, these bone-heads were crawling up the steep mountain slope like beetles.

They also tried their hardest to stay hidden, ducking behind rocks and leering up at Thomel and his cohort from decayed bushes.

It was such a shift from their earlier mindless hunger that he wondered if they were a different species.

Every step he took sent a puff of irradiated dust up into the air, swirling around before floating back down onto the ground, like gentle snow.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

His and everyone else’s suits had long since turned grey, if he didn’t know nuclear weapons had been used he would have just thought they were in some strange tundra.

He’d gone from feeling like his legs were burning to not feeling them at all by the time they at last reached the listening post.

The slope turned into an unsteady small clearing, like someone had just sliced off part of the mountain lopsidedly, still it was semi-flat ground and Thomel was endlessly grateful for that.

The listening post was snuggled neatly right inside a giant collection of boulders. Large metal beams extended out of it, penetrating into the large rocks as a form of extra support.

Despite it being called a listening post though, Thomel couldn’t see any arrays on it or other such apparatus.

It was just a slab of concrete, the only reason he even knew it was the listening post was because of the bright yellow stripes decorating its sides, otherwise, he’d have just assumed it was another giant rock.

Despite his protesting muscles, he did a light stretch as his two team members began to argue.

“We’re here, there’s not too much space but there’s enough room for all three of us. It’ll just be a bit of a tight squeeze.”

“Then you can go in alone, drop the disc and when you come back out we’ll use it all together.”

“Are you joking? If you want to stay out here and risk dying then be my guest but I’m keeping the disc.”

“No, you’re not.” The hunter answered, voice as cold as ice even through the tone-altering mask.

“I’ve been tolerating your disobedience for long enough, we’re minutes away from getting the data and leaving this pathetic world and you want to delay us? Might I remind you those wretched wendigo-like creatures aren’t the only things hunting us?”

“Then give me the disc and get your data so we can leave.”

With the argument getting more tense, he stopped stretching and instead paid closer attention to the lieutenant, subtly lifting up his beamer into a more easy-to-shoot position.

“If you’re so concerned why not come inside with me? There’s two of you after all and only one of me.”

“And only one of us is wearing power armour, I’m not getting in an enclosed space with you and I’m not letting you keep that disc.”

Thomel’s finger was on the trigger now. He was straining his already exhausted mind trying to keep a close eye on the lieutenant’s clenching and unclenching fists.

“Not shooting you¬” The lieutenant suddenly cried out, lifting his beamer and firing it right at Thomel.

Even though he was prepared for such an attack he was still taken by complete suprise, by the time he fully realised what had just happened it would have been too late had the lieutenant actually being aiming at him.

Instead the invisible beam shot past his head and vaporised the top half of a bone-head which had been creeping up on him.

Turning around he brought his own beamer up and swept it left and right, blindly firing and driving back the sudden small swarm.

Only two managed to scamper back down the mountain, the others got melted into goop, smouldering limbs connecting loosely to a burnt puddle of organs and sinew.

It really was just like roasting marshmallow Thomel thought to himself. Turning back around he saw the other hunter slowly lowering his beamer from the lieutenant’s head.

“Fine, take it!” Grunted their leader, grabbing into one of the belt pouches and throwing a metallic circular shape onto the ground.

As he stormed off towards the building, the hunter slowly and carefully knelt down to grab it, keeping their eyes firmly on the retreating lieutenant’s back.

While they were busy doing that, Thomel slowly backed up towards them, making sure to keep his head on a swivel.

He was out of his league here, neither of his two team members seemed to be fatigued and both were likely very high-level individuals judging by how they acted and handled everything.

Still, he was alive and kicking. “Only a few more steps.” He mumbled to himself.

“Pardon?” Came an energetic voice behind him.

“Ah nothing, so-” Thomel’s words were cut short, it wasn’t the hunter who’d spoken, nor was it the lieutenant who’d just walked inside.