Kiera was grateful for both the soft, warm blanket and the cadet’s decision to use the crag wolf dens for shelter. Rain attacked the ground with such intensity there had been callouts warning of flash floods. They would get the water coming from the hills above them as it passed into the river and into the hills below. Thunder boomed overhead and flashes of blue-white lightning struck freely. The ASF cadet that joined them to take refuge from the storm said that the lightning froze anything it touched. The sponge moss door kept the wind out making the caves rather comfortable.
It was a rare weather pattern that occurred on planets with colder temperatures, an abundance of spark grass or other cold and charged worlds. Being struck by it didn’t just layer someone in frost, the cold charge lighting froze the entire body solid. Killing them by frost petrification. Riley and Alyxia had snuggled up with Kiera under the blanket to make more room for the two guards; the pup remained curled up against Kiera’s stump. Alyxia had teased how comfortable Riley and Kiera looked all bundled together and Kiera told her to join them. Kinsley and Tamalyn were under the other one.
“Gotta say, Dax, you’re making me jealous!” Locke teased. A small fire near the front of the cave was making the cave bearable for the others.
“That’s life,” Riley called back, “Don’t think I’m going to swap places with you!”
Kiera couldn’t help but laugh. She had only really known him a few hours, but Kiera had taken a quick liking to Locke Mickleson. He was quick to tease with a perpetual smirk on his face, and rather easy going until it came time to work. He had a pretty great bedside manner as well, putting it on full display when he had brought Kiera dinner. She wouldn’t mind cuddling up with him.
“Yeah, yeah. Never experienced rain like this, makes it hard to sleep,” Locke commented.
“So does your yapping,” Corbin grumbled.
The conversation died after Corbin’s comment, but Locke was right. The thunder sounded like the planet was being bombed, the rain was a constant noise that instead of being soothing was irritating and the cold seeping in wasn’t helping anyone.
“It’s going to suck when this fire goes out,” Corbin complained, starting up a conversation after telling everyone to shut up.
“It’s ridiculous that you boys would rather sit by a fire than take a blanket when offered,” Kinsley said, “Or at least hang it up in front of the opening.”
“Is that an invitation to come join you?” Locke asked.
“Yes.” Kinsley said without hesitation.
“Not turning that down,” Locke replied, making his way over to her and Tamalyn. They both snuggled up with him making a Locke sandwich. Kiera couldn’t help but grin. She could feel the joy that came from all three of them when they cuddled up together.
“Damned pretty boy. Just don’t go knocking boots,” Corbin said, “Any of you cuddle bugs.”
“Not really a public activity,” Locke shot back.
The rain didn’t give up until mid-morning. They all trudged out of their dens to survey the damage that was caused, grab some breakfast, and use the latrine. The small valley in between the dens was turned into a small lake. They had all of their supplies, everything was pulled into the dens; they didn’t know what the weather was like. The signal fire was out; they would have to wait for the spark grass to dry out before they could light a new one. Many of the armors that had been propped up to make the camp seem more populated than it was were frozen solid. There were only two that were looking south, and two in the camp that had survived the night. The one that was posted outside Kiera’s den was among the victims.
“Head’s up! There are a lot of worm things crawling about! They’re not little ones, either. Speculating with to ten feet long and a foot around!” one of the power armored guards called.
“The downside of the rain,” Riley said, “The worms. Looks like the camp is intact. Not that surprising since we’re using the dens of animals that know the weather.”
“Yeah, what worries me is how our missing people fared. We have a headcount of fifty-five, our crew complement was about two hundred students in them. That leaves one hundred and twenty-five unaccounted for. Which is really worrisome considering we were all dropped in the same region,” Kiera said.
“There were two other camps. I don’t think everyone convoyed,” Riley said, “Let’s send up a flare and see who responds.”
All the flares had been gathered in the “command” den. Riley left Kiera to go back inside and fetch them. Another shout came over the hill, but Kiera couldn’t hear what was said, and she couldn’t get up to go investigate. The ground four feet in front of her began to churn, were the worms aggressive? She didn’t need to be attacked by another animal; her quota was filled. A wet nose followed by a furry black face with two long stripes running from the nose over the eyes appeared. The animal’s head was topped with two small, round ears. Sharp fangs jutted out from its lips and his beady eyes settled on Kiera.
It pulled itself out of the hole it created with a pair of large claw tipped paws and started crawling towards Kiera. A long tubular body a foot and a half around emerged from the tunnel; it only fully surfaced when the animal was a foot away. The back claws of the creature looked like the front ones. The body was covered in black and white fur, not a spec of mud or dirt on it at all. Its nose jerked as it scented the air, staring at Kiera as if trying to confirm what she was.
“Rae, I need you out here!” Kiera called.
The animal moved its front feet backwards and its back feet forwards arching its back. There was no doubt in Kiera’s mind the creature was going to attack. There were no rocks or anything that Kiera could use to fend it off, the only thing remotely in reach was the frozen form of her once loyal decoy. Kiera shoved both her hands on the frozen limb as the tunneling animal propelled itself forward. Its jaws clamped around her right arm and its claws tore at her chest.
Kiera screamed in pain. She could hear Riley scrambling out of the den. A shadow passed over her as the statue fell and crashed down onto the animal causing it to shriek in pain and release her arm. It pushed off of Kiera only to flop onto the ground, unable to right itself due to the statue pinning its body down.
A bolt of plasma took its face off; it convulsed once and was still. More shouts rose up from around the camp, screams of pain and surprise filling the air. Blaster and rifle fire joined it along with shouted orders to form units and drag the wounded away. More of the creatures surfaced in front of the dens, their noses twitching violently as they panned around obviously looking for something. Riley dropped a plasma rifle into Kiera’s lap and fired at one of the new animals, decapitating it and leaning it to flop outside the hole. Kiera’s shot went wide, she wasn’t ready for the kickback and the feet of the ice sculpture gave her an off angle. The beast rotated around in surprise and disappeared back down the hole.
“Camp! Camp! Camp!” Riley shouted, panning her weapon around.
“Dax, swap!” Kiera shouted to the Andoran woman. Riley was quick to react, taking the plasma rifle and leaving Kiera with the blaster pistol. A shout for help came from the crest of the hill, “Go help them!” Kiera ordered. Riley dashed away without hesitation. More people had retrieved their weapons and were springing into action as the black and white menaces appeared. Another one popped up from the hole Kiera’s first one had dug, and she wasted no time in firing two quick shots. The shorter range with a more familiar weapon saw both shots hitting, and the beast fell to the side, blocking the hole.
The battle was over in less than ten minutes. Shouts of “Clear” peppered the area, Kiera adding her own after confirming nothing else around her moved. There were half a dozen of the creatures near the entrance to her den, the one that had emerged closest had ignored her and attempted to sneak into it. A brown and tan shape peaked his head out from the den and then dashed over and climbed into Kiera’s lap, shaking.
“What’s wrong, little guy?” Kiera asked, running her hand over the pup’s head and back. The dirt a foot in front of her began to shake, instead of the vertical mound of the others this one rose in a long line. “Tango spotted!” Kiera shouted, raising her pistol.
The dirt exploded forward, a dark streak shot towards her. She fired her blaster only to find the energy cell was depleted. She threw herself and the pup to the side, feeling the sharp claws scrape her shoulder as it slammed into the rocks behind her, stunned. Kiera pistol whipped the beast for good measure. It was twice as big as the others, and half of it was still in the ground. A plasma bolt struck it on the back and another took it in the side. The creature snarled and began to push itself back into the hole, its nose still twitching. The pup yelped in fear causing the beast to stop and turn towards it. A pair of plasma bolts collided on its oversized head and it flopped over, dead.
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“Clear!” Both Riley and Locke shouted.
“At least as far as we can tell,” Locke mumbled, “I hate bandersnatches.”
“Bandersnatches? Kiera asked, petting the crag wolf pup to calm him down.
“Yeah, have them in Neska, in Aravkar. They’ll eat anything that they can and have a special fondness for pups. Rain likely flooded their tunnels and drove them topside. They'll go after barrow worms but if they see a den like this, they’ll go after the young ones. The worst part about them is they’re communal and a colony will strategize to lure the adults away while going after the young ones. Probably smelled the wolf scent on you from that pup and your blanket,” Locke explained.
“That big one is a duchess; if she doesn’t return after a day of forage hunting the more of the colony will convoy to go find her. Most colonies run anywhere between fifty and one hundred individuals,” Locke walked over to the nearly headless creature, “Their fur is highly coveted for its softness and how it deflects just about everything. Have a Bandersnatch dress and you’ll never need to clean it. I counted about thirty of them, and it will take a couple hours to skin them and get them drying properly.”
“Have everyone gather them up and you can show me how to do it,” Kiera said.
“Sure, after you get those wounds checked,” Locke said.
The only people who didn’t suffer some sort of bandersnatch scratch or bite were the armored guards. The tunneling beasts attacked and then backed off trying to draw the others away from the den. Tamalyn insisted on saving the poultices and wore herself out tending to each of the wounds, making sure they healed properly.
“Your father is going to lock you away in the MidSummer Palace when he learns what happened here,” Tamalyn said, sitting down next to Kiera.
“I’ll insist on recruiting my own personal security team, you can come live there with me as my Doctor.” Kiera said, “I am in need of a bath.”
“We all are, that stream is too cold and shallow. We could try to build a tub and heat the water up, but then we’d have to lug all the water to the tub and dump it after each person uses it. It's unhygienic otherwise,” Tamalyn said, going from consideration to abandonment.
“That died pretty quickly in conception,” Kiera teased, “How are you holding up?” She could see the fatigue on Tamalyn’s face, feel her stress from tending to all the wounds, the worry whenever she looked at Kiera.
“I’m alright, people were injured but it’s not something that was anywhere near fatal, it could have been,” she looked at Kiera’s arm and then the large bandersnatch, “This planet is dangerous. It looks like it might be a preserve. A lot of these animals have something that is worth thousands of credits. The diceros horns, bandersnatch fur, razorfur mammoth meat is considered a delicacy because it’s so dangerous to hunt them.”
“You know what, I just had a seriously crazy thought,” Kiera said after a few minutes, “What if someone set us up to hunt down some dangerous creatures with natural treasures on them? They could have deployed the ASF, who are in infantry gear to a specific place, give them, say, a week and a half to establish a camp and hunt down the animals in the area to survive, and then come rescue them while confiscating all the horns and pelts, and either ordering silence or threatening blackmail.”
Tamalyn just stared at Kiera with disbelief on her face. She opened her mouth to refute the idea a few times but couldn’t get the words out. A plume of purple smoke shot into the air followed by a black one from the west. A green plume followed by a yellow one came from the south. Yellow meant danger. Whoever shot off the green plume was in need of aid and was in danger.
“Wasn’t there a camp that way?” Kiera asked.
“Yeah, I thought most of the people from the south came here….” Tamalyn said.
“Take eight armors, another medic and half a dozen volunteers and head south. They’re going to need you. The other four armors, the other medic, and a dozen volunteers will go west,” Kiera ordered.
"That will leave this place defenseless. We'll take four south, four west, and leave four here." Tamalyn countered.
"Do it."
Within ten minutes both groups were heading out moving as fast as they could. Those who were left gathered up the bandersnatch bodies and delivered them to Kiera; Alyxia led the squad to the west and Riley went south with Tamalyn. A watch was posted without Kiera having to give the order, her classmates and ASF cadets were considered elites for a reason. The flares had sent waves of fear and worry through the camp. Many of their weapons had run out of powerpacks and there weren’t any more. The bandersnatches could return and in greater numbers and it would be a lot harder to fend them off. The sky was still dark threatening another storm. There was also the beast in the forest, no one knew what it was or if it would leave. It screamed every night. No one had seen any animals in the forest. Kiera released her radiance, calming down those still in the camp.
Locke sat with Kiera and showed her how to skin the bandersnatches with a knife that he fashioned out of the crag wolf tooth. She was glad that he had stayed behind to ensure their new resources were put to good use and to coordinate the teams. Both of them had orange flares to announce when they reached their destinations. Corbin had gone with Tamalyn and Kinsley was already heading towards the beacon with Yarin Donolly. All she could do now was wait.
=+=
The hole punched into the canopy of the forest made a miserable night even more miserable. Instead of silence and darkness there was the non stop sound of rain, now striking them as well as rattling on the canopy. Flashes of pale blue light struck the top and one even passed through the hole and struck a tree, instantly freezing it and causing it to crack and fall, sending a plume of water up all around it. They climbed around the side of the tree which saved them from being struck by the rain, at least by the deluge. The two cadets were huddled together trying to keep warm, they were wet and miserable by the time the rain finally stopped.
The sponge moss was swelled with water, many of them bursting and sending their own miniature storms into the forest leaving over two feet of water on the ground. At the bottom of the tree was the monstrosity that had haunted them. It looked like a hairless dog the size of a bear with the face of a mandril. long, boar-like tusks jutted from its mouth. Its front limbs looked like double jointed monkey arms with serrated claws capping its fingers, while the back legs were twisted backwards like a cricket. Gargax struck his head twice with his kalashtar tail club for good measure. They didn’t waste any time getting out of the area
Issac started to lag behind, his body was shivering and he was starting to cough. The sponge moss was too damp to eat and they didn’t have anything else. After an hour the water level had gone down, the sponge moss contributing as much as it could. After two Isaac collapsed. He tried to assure Gargax that he had just tripped. They made a quick meal out of the non-saturated sponge moss and took a quick break. After another hour Isaac collapsed again and coughed hard enough to empty his stomach, gasping for breath afterwards.
“Leave me,” he wheezed, “I can’t feel my fingers or my toes anymore. I can’t keep going.”
“No,” Gargax said. He wasn’t going to leave a clanmate behind, he’d lost too many of them. He lifted Isaac across his shoulders and pushed himself into a moderate jog going as fast as he dared. He didn’t know how far it would be to reach Tamalyn, how dense this forest was. All he knew was he was going in the right direction. His helmet scanner would lead him to her, that’s just how it worked.
=+=
Koda slammed his fist into another karg hand, stunning it before wrapping his arms around its neck and squeezing as hard as he could, snapping it. He threw it aside and turned to the rest of the pack. The gray skinned, four eyed hounds growled, two of their pack already lay dead at Koda’s feet, he was bleeding from his arms and chest from where he’d been bitten. He hated karg hounds, they were opportunistic scavengers that always went for injured prey. They were stupid enough to ignore the scent of a kalashtar, or maybe the storm has washed it all away.
The pack had pounced on him while he was moving Jin and Hailey onto the kalashtar hide, it was the only dry thing around and the only thing that had kept them alive through the night. Barely alive. One of the kargs darted past him, the third one to attempt it and went after Hailey. Koda interposed, suffering a bite as two more of the kargs darted in, their packleader keeping back. Koda roared and threw the karg he was fighting into one of the others. He dove on the remaining hound just as it bit Hailey’s leg. He snapped its neck and then let out an ursine roar. The two attacking karg hounds scrambled backwards. A plasma bolt struck the packleader, dazing it and another sent it to the ground. The last two kargs ran off.
“Forget how to use a plasma rifle?” Jin asked, coughing so hard his body shook.
“Keeping you two safe was more important than trying to find out where that thing had gone,” Koda replied.
“Is there a reason why we’re all naked?” Jin asked.
“Warmth,” Koda said, “our suits weren’t going to do anything. I stripped us all down and had a snuggle party under the kalashtar hide. Just lucky it’s a damn tough beast and their fur is insulated. Probably the only thing that saved us.” He started dressing Hailey in their only intact flight suit.
“How is she?”
“Bad. Both of you are. I don’t think her wound is infected, but she lost a lot of blood, you both did. It’s cold out here, I’m going to build a fire.”
The spark grass wouldn’t light, Koda growled as Jin coughed and passed out again, snuggled into Hailey and covered with two parts of the parachutes, carefully torn from their flight suits. Digging a den wouldn’t help them, the ground was too cold. Koda hadn’t tried to go to one of the other outcroppings, since the kargs had appeared now he wouldn’t. They had no fur, but maybe their hides could at least trap some heat inside of them. If the damn things were bigger he’d cut them open and put his friends inside them.
The ground moved and a black and white face emerged, looking around. Koda groaned, just what he needed. Bandersnatches. More of the tube creatures popped up, some of them grabbed the karg corpses and started to drag them away. Koda picked up the plasma rifle, took careful aim and shot the closest bandersnatch, then a second, and a third. He ignored the ones that were still trying to pull the kargs into their holes; it would be a good exchange. Three bandersnatches for three karg hounds. By the time he had dragged the three tube moles to his little nest only a single karg hound remained. He laid them on top of Hailey and Jin, their fading body heat might help.
A snarl proceeded the attack of a bandersnatch twice as large as the other two. It launched itself out of a tunnel, going for Koda’s neck. With a roar, Koda struck it with his claws, throwing off its attack. Its teeth ripped into his shoulder, its claws ripped into his chest. Koda roared and grabbed the bandersnatch in his claws. He ripped it off of his shoulder and slammed its head against the rocks and then hit it with his claws, and then tore into his throat with his teeth, enduring its claws until it lay still, its windpipe crushed. Koda spit out blood.
“Anything else want to mess with me this morning?!” He roared, breathing heavily, “No? Good. I gotta save my friends,” he looked over at them, “Astria help me, I gotta save them.”