Several nights later, she awoke in the early hours of the morning to hear a commotion in the streets, and her father rushing out of the house. Kayla dashed outside to see him, and the rest of the militia, driving off in their trucks. One of the older farmers explained to her that the Jaysons had sent a desperate call for help. Something had killed their dogs, and now it was sniffing around outside their home, clawing at the doors and windows while they cowered in the basement.

Kayla waited in her garden, not caring about the chill. She hated not knowing what was happening to her neighbors and hated not being able to do anything. Painful energy burned through her nerves while time stretched on forever.

Dawn was breaking when the vehicles returned, and Kayla raced through a gathering crowd—most of whom wore sleepy expressions—to the village square. She stopped dead when she saw her father open the back of his truck and dump a bloody carcass onto the ground.

It was like no animal she had ever seen before; four-legged, like a wolf, but larger, and covered in spikes and some kind of armor. Instead of fur, the exposed parts of its body were scaly like a snake. Not even her imagination had made anything so terrifying, and her father had gone to chase it down. Tears ran down her cheeks as she thought about what might have happened to him.

Jack jumped out of another vehicle, glanced over at Kayla, and rushed to her side.

“What happened?” Kayla asked between sobs.

“It’s okay, nobody was hurt,” Jack said as he stroked her hair.

He quickly explained as startled villagers closed in. “We lined up in our trucks a decent distance from the property and put the high beams on the farm. When this thing darted out from a shed and charged us, everyone started shooting. It got really close before it went down. All that armor does a good job of keeping it protected.”

“Did you see anything like that when you were on Misian?” asked one militiaman.

Jack smiled wryly. “Nope. All the monsters on Misian are human, unfortunately.”

“Is it some kind of shaved wolf?” the man asked.

“It’s not a wolf, it’s more like a dinosaur,” said Kayla’s father.

“What’s a dinosaur?” someone else asked.

“An old Earth animal,” Jack explained as he led Kayla towards her father. “Much bigger than this, and scaly too.”

“This has more armor than scales,” a young man pointed out. “And what’s with all the spikes? If these things mate, they must do it at a distance.”

“You mean through a monitor, Deak, like you do?” someone in the crowd said.

Everyone laughed.

Kayla grabbed her father’s hand and buried her face in his stomach. He patted her head, but moved her to one side while he closed his truck.

Kayla wiped her eyes and turned away from him to look at the carcass. She had seen many dead animals, but as she stared at the glazed eyes and ruptured flesh, she felt cold, and wrapped her arms around herself.

All around her, the villagers continued to speculate. Two old women in one corner of the square remained silent, wrapped in shawls, and peering out through messy grey hair. They carried big backpacks, and one was resting against a tall, thick staff. Kayla didn’t recognize them, and supposed they must be refugees fleeing other attacks in the nearby villages.

Sheila, the town veterinarian, examined the carcass for some time, muttering as she worked. When she finished, she said, “there is no rational use for these defensive features.” She gestured to the spines and armor. “Only a dangerous apex predator would force this kind of adaptation, and we would certainly have learned about such a species by now.”

“What do you mean. Isn’t this a predator?” Jack asked.

Sheila shook her head. “No, it should be a prey species. Predators have to be light, and fast, with a simple main weapon—usually the teeth,” she explained.

“Claws on hunters aren’t as big as these.” She lifted the long spindly digits. “Their primary function is to assist with grip and stability. And spikes are usually evolved by prey as a defense mechanism. Like the porcupine—same principle.”

“Well, it sure hunts people like a predator,” Kayla’s father said. “It was wicked fast, and very aggressive.”

“All I can tell you is that this morphology doesn’t make sense from an evolutionary perspective,” Sheila said.

“Well, this is an alien world,” Kayla’s father said. “Who says it needs to obey our rules?”

“From what I’ve seen,” Jack said, “the rules of killing are universal.”

As she listened, Kayla rubbed her hands against the mud of the square. She missed hunting, and the feeling of dirt on her hands.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Maybe it migrated from somewhere else?” her father suggested.

“Towards human settlements?” Sheila replied. “When there’s plenty of open space to roam around in? I think that’s unlikely, and some major natural event would be needed to prompt them to change location. As far as we know, this planet’s environment is stable, and the human impact on the ecosystem is still quite small.”

“You’re right, none of this makes any sense,” Jack said as he rubbed his jaw.

“The moon was full last night,” a grim-faced farmer observed, and a murmur passed through the crowd. Everyone knew to be wary of Caldera’s volcanic moon. The first settlers had named it Ran, after an ancient Goddess that personified the treachery of the sea.

“Ran is just a ball of rock,” Jack protested. “What has it got to do with anything?”

“Wouldn’t be the first animal that responds to phases of the moon,” the farmer said.

“It’s a Helvetic plot!” someone in the crowd yelled, prompting equal amounts of agreement and skepticism.

Kayla’s father shrugged in response. “Whatever the case, I think we should start training our militia full time. We need to be prepared. We’ve been getting reports of dozens of new attacks every day, so I think this is only the beginning.”

“I learned some tactics back when I was fighting the cartels on Misian,” Jack said. “I can start training them what I know. But Rolf, there are very few families who can spare a farmhand.”

“Sure, the farmers might complain, but just show them that picture of that lady from Zula, the one that got torn up the other day.”

Jack grimaced.

Kayla listened eagerly. Frightened as she was for her father’s safety, she nevertheless burned with curiosity. How were they going to rid themselves of these monsters?

A few days later, in the early morning, Kayla surprised her father alone in the kitchen. She had begun to wake up at dawn so she could enjoy the peace of the garden, before her mother called her for the day’s chores.

“Are you going somewhere?” she asked as he hurriedly ate a bacon sandwich at the table.

“To Zula,” he said. “I need to buy ammunition for the militia.”

Kayla pulled out a chair across from him and sat down. “Can I come?” A truck ride would be much more interesting than doing housework while her mother sipped on a wine glass and scolded her for fidgeting.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a long drive, and I’ll have to work fast. You’ll slow me down.”

Some of the other girls in the village bragged about how they brought up tears to get their way. That probably wouldn’t work. Her father always saw straight through her, and he might get angry.

“I promise to be good, and to keep up,” she said. “And I can carry things, and I’ll stay next to you the whole time.”

Kayla picked at loose threads on her clothes as she talked. The thought of being left behind was suddenly painful, though she couldn’t show it.

Rolf sighed and gave her a worried look.

“The house is so boring. And…” Kayla swallowed. “Everyone does things that might get them hurt except me. It’s not fair.”

Her father reached out and stroked her hair. “That’s because it’s my job to protect you, little gem. I don’t ever want you to get hurt.”

Kayla stomped her foot. “It’s not fair.”

“I tell you what, why don’t I teach you to shoot when I get back?”

Kayla held a pleading gaze as her father watched her with a doubtful expression. But she could be just as stubborn as he was.

“Oh alright,” he said eventually. “You promise to stay next to me? I don’t want to have to hold your hand.”

Kayla’s face lit up in a grin, and she crossed her heart. “I double promise.”

Before they left, Jack dropped by. His normally good-natured smile was replaced with a frown. “Seems some patrols are reporting larger creatures now,” he said.

Kayla’s father shook his head. “Great.”

“Listen, we’re planning an operation tonight to trap one of them. I… uh… called in a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

Jack’s eyes flickered to Kayla. “A once in a lifetime kind.”

“Well, I’ll be back before dark with more ammunition. I guess you can read me in then?”

Kayla followed her father through the streets of Zula as he pushed through crowds into dingy back street shops, where he haggled for small but heavy boxes. Kayla volunteered to carry some, but they were heavy, and as the day wore on her excitement subsided, and she grew tired. At least she’d gotten to spend the day with her father. That had been more than worth the ache in her muscles.

They stopped at a merchant’s cart and her father bought her a small rainbow-colored crystal.

“It’s called a bilrust,” he explained. “There’s a climber who finds them in the Sentry mountains. Soon, people from all over the galaxy will want to buy them.”

“A jewel of Caldera, for a jewel of Caldera,” the merchant said with a warm smile.

Kayla grinned.

Soon, the sky darkened, and Kayla caught sight of Ran rising into the sky. She tugged at her father’s sleeve. “It’s getting dark Dad.”

He sighed as he carried the last load of boxes back to the truck. “We only got about half of what I had hoped to get,” he said. “The merchants are low on stock.”

“Why can’t they buy more?” Kayla asked, as they got in the vehicle. The shadows were lengthening, and she kept an eye on them. At least the strong, heavy build of her father’s truck would keep them safe.

“The local businesses try to,” he said, as he drove them onto the main road back to their village. “But the Helvetic League punishes anyone who trades with Caldera.”

“Why?” Kayla had heard the explanation many times, but wanted the comfort of her father’s voice.

“Because we didn’t join the League. They say that everyone has to join, or else all the planets would break down into chaos, with everyone fighting and stealing from each other. If a colony refused, but was still able to make their planet rich and happy, it would show people how useless the Helvets are. Nobody would have any reason to listen to them, and they’d lose all their power. But, when the first settlers arrived on Caldera, they agreed to go it alone, and never, no matter what it took, give into the Helvet’s bullying. What do we say about bullies, Kayla?”

“If you don’t stop them dead, they just keep coming back,” she recited.

“Exactly right. When things get hard here, it might tempt us to make compromises, give into them a little; agree to just one of their trade rules, then another. Before you know it, the League would have us in their grip and make Caldera a part of their empire. The Central Committee tyrants would be our rulers. The Adjudicate priests would make us all carry a tracking device that watches everything you do, and tells you if you’re a good citizen.”

“But we’ll never let that happen,” Kayla said sternly.

Her father laughed. “That’s right, my little huntress.”

She swelled with pride.

“But the Helvets still creep in, little by little,” he continued. “Rackeye—that’s the biggest city on Caldera—is practically overrun with them. They want to set up a ‘special trade zone’ so they can claim the city as their own.”

“What will they do—”

Something smashed into the side of the truck and the world went black.