The beasts were large.

So large that Lusac understood why the bodies in the System Control room had been untouched: these animals couldn’t fit in there. In fact, it was surprising they’d been able to fit into the rec room.

They stood on all fours, with wide, clawed paws beneath them while their snouts bore long, vicious fangs, and at their rear were short, stubby tails, similar to a type of bear. There were a dozen of them, white fur camouflaging them into the snow surrounding the scene. The hungry look in their yellow eyes cemented itself into Lusac’s brain.

He and Zer-Dasht were going to be bear chow unless they figured something out fast. Despite the hugeness of the animals, Lus was willing to bet those legs had more than enough power to outrun him and the Nemarian both, and it was obvious they wouldn’t stand a chance in a fire fight. There was no way the two of them could kill all twelve before the animals converged on them.

“What do we do?” Dasht muttered from beside him, clutching his rifle.

“Don’t shoot,” Lusac hissed. “We don’t stand a chance against all of them.”

“So then what do we do?” he repeated.

“I don’t know,” Lus admitted, remaining still with a single pistol in his hand.

He studied the animals, and they studied him right back. Now would have been a very convenient time for Nippy or even Hwnlr to show up. With just one of the Kremel joining the fight, the odds would be tipped in their favor. But as the Watcher would have it, the two remained alone, facing down beasts that could tear them apart in an instant, and based on the posture of the animals, they likely would if given the chance.

“Why don’t we run?” Dasht suggested.

“They’ll catch us.”

“It’s our only chance. If we make it back into the ship, we can slip into a room where they can’t reach us,” the Nemarian pressed.

“Fine. But if I die, I’m coming back to haunt you,” Lus said. Chances were that he was faster than Zer-Dasht, but he wasn’t looking forward to finding out for sure under these circumstances.

Dasht slowly spun back to where they’d just exited and then cursed.

“There’s more.”

Lus glanced over to see that three more arctic bears had appeared, standing between them and their only chance of safety. He turned the other way and bit his lip in thought.

“We can make for the other half of the ship. Then we can join Nippy and Hwnlr,” he said. “That way is clear.”

“That’s a long distance to keep ahead of these guys.”

“Do you have a better plan?”

“On the count of three?” There was a clear note of fear in Dasht’s voice.

Lusac nodded, and they counted off together.

As soon as the “three’ left his lips, Lusac sprinted towards the second piece of the wreckage, more than two hundred yards away. Dasht was just behind him, and only a second later, a series of roars informed him that the bears were coming too.

It was difficult to run at his top speed in the snow, but Lus didn’t allow himself to stop to think about it as he ran. He continually checked over his shoulder to confirm that Zer-Dasht remained close, but each time he glanced back, he discovered the bears slowly gaining ground.

“Faster,” Lusac shouted as his legs churned with new power. The huffing from behind meant that Dasht was doing his best to comply with the order.

They were about two-thirds of the way to their goal when Dasht went down with a scream.

Lusac stopped and pivoted sharply to reach down and grab his friend only to see the mouth of one of the bears clamped on the Nemarian’s leg.

Without thinking, Lus raised the pistol he’d been carrying and released several shots into the animal, not caring about enraging the others. He wasn’t going to sit by and let Dasht die so he could live. They were in this thing together.

The blaster bolt exploded the bear’s face, spraying gore onto Dasht.

“Agh,” the Nemarian said as Lusac reached down and pulled him to his feet, forcing the Nemarian to keep running despite his injury. When Dasht started to slow him down, Lusac slipped his pistol into the Nemarian’s hands and hauled him up on his shoulders, suddenly wishing he’d done more to level up sooner and get a boost to his [Strength].

“Come on.” Lusac did his best to run even with the awkward load. “Dasht, keep them off us until we get to safety.”

The Nemarian murmured something that might have been a complaint, but it was drowned out by Lus’s ragged breathing and the sound of the pistol firing. Even though he couldn’t run as fast while carrying Dasht, the death of one of their own had given the bears something to consider, and they stopped chasing so closely.

When Lusac reached the broken opening of the next section of the ship, he dropped Dasht and removed his own weapon, prepared to make their final stand. Only the animals weren’t chasing at all. What Lus had thought was the bears slowing down was actually them coming to a complete stop.

“They stopped chasing us? Why didn’t you say something,” Lus said between breaths, glancing at Zer-Dasht as he leaned against a nearby wall, his leg bleeding profusely.

“I tried. You didn’t listen,” the Nemarian explained. “They started after us, but I laid down cover fire, and that stopped them in their tracks.”

“What are they doing to that dead one?” He motioned to where the bears all huddled around the bleeding body they left behind.

“Beats me. But let’s not waste time.” Dasht turned towards the dark corridor leading into the engine section.

“Wait a second. Look.” Lus grabbed his arm. He pointed to where the bear-creatures were howling, a type of mourning ceremony he didn’t know animals could be capable of. His wonder turned to horror though as they began eating their dead friend.

“Better him than us.” Dasht motioned Lusac forward into the new section of ship.

“Let’s find Nippy first.” Lus pressed the button on his comm unit. “Nippy, come in. Dasht and I ran into some of those animals that ate the crew, and they pushed us over to your section of the wreck. Where are you?”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

There was only static in response.

“Nippy?” Zer-Dasht tried on his unit.

Still no response.

“Maybe it’s the radiation,” Lusac said, trying to remain hopeful.

“Radiation that didn’t affect their comms ten minutes ago?”

He shrugged. It was a happier explanation than thinking about their friends being eaten by the bears.

“Let’s go. I’m sure we’ll find them somewhere in here,” Dasht said, limping along the wall for support.

“Okay. But we should try to find a safe place to rest so we can take care of that leg,” Lusac pointed out.

Dasht muttered his agreement, and together they set off through the unfamiliar ship, the hallways in better repair than the section they’d just come from. They passed several rooms that Lus thought would be perfect for a break, but Zer-Dasht insisted on moving deep into the wreckage, his mind still set on finding Nippy and Hwnlr.

Twenty minutes passed before Lus finally convinced his friend of the need to sit down and take care of the wound on his leg. They settled into a small room that had two beams blocking direct access, making it difficult to get in or out of. Based on the style, it must have been an office of some kind before the wreck.

Lusac left Dasht leaning against a wall, the visible scales on the Nemarian’s face looking less orange than Lus thought they should, as he went about setting up a comfortable medical station. He righted two of the chairs in the room and managed to get some pieces of the desk to hold the shape of a small table for his work.

Dasht limped over to the set up and took a seat in the larger, more comfortable looking of the two chairs while Lus dug in his pack for the medical kit. It wasn’t anything special, and Lus was no medical tech, but he’d learned well enough how to care for injuries.

He sat in the other chair and pulled Dasht’s leg up onto the makeshift table so he could examine the injury. Two rows of deep wounds were in the Nemarian’s calf, all of them still bleeding.

“I’m going to put some antibiotic cream on these and then pack them to try and stop the bleeding,” Lus explained.

“Thanks, Doc,” Zer-Dasht huffed. “Just wrap it so we can get out of here. We need to find Nippy and the parts and then get off this rock.”

“More like a snowball,” Lus mused as he prepared the cream. Dasht winced plenty as he applied, often trying to jerk his leg away from Lusac’s hands, but that was minor compared to his reaction when Lus began packing the individual wounds with bandages designed to work as full stops to bleeding injuries.

“Ow. Suns kill me! Enough Lus!” Dasht shouted as he repeatedly tried to pull his leg back.

“I’m not done yet. Hold still. This isn’t going to kill you.” Lus firmly held his foot down with one hand as the other stuffed the wounds.

Several curses and insults later, Lus finished and Dasht had a nice, plump bandage around his lower leg.

“There you go.” Lusac patted his work.

Zer-Dasht growled as he ripped his leg free. “You’re a horrible doctor.”

“I’m the best available,” Lus reminded him. “I’m going to try Nippy again. We’re never going to find those two if we just keep aimlessly wandering around this joint.”

Dasht kept murmuring insults about Lusac to himself as Lus tried his comm unit again.

This time, they got a response, though it was broken and hard to make out everything.

“Lus–good to—your voice—-trouble—-engine room—-hurt,” Nippy’s choppy voice said to them.

“Nippy, repeat. We didn’t catch that,” Lusac said urgently. If Nippy or Hwnlr were hurt, that was going to make things a lot harder. Finding the parts would take ages with half the team out, not to mention worrying about the bears which could be coming in at any time.

“We ran—trouble—in the engine—-Hwnlr—” Nippy repeated.

“Engine room. We’ll meet you there,” Lusac said.

“We’re on our way, Nippy,” Dasht confirmed with his own unit. Dropping the button, he looked to Lus. “Some mission this is turning out to be.”

“No kidding. Still not as bad as the mine though,” he responded as he stood up and held a hand out. “Come on. Let’s get down to the engine room and see what’s going on with all this.”

Dasht accepted the help up, grimacing with every step.

“Are you sure you’ll be able to make it there, or do I need to carry you?” Lusac asked with a smirk.

“Knock it off. You didn’t get your leg half eaten by a bear just now,” the Nemarian replied sourly.

“I wouldn’t say it was ‘eaten’ given that the majority of your leg was intact.” Lus took Dasht’s pack off, adding it over the top of his own. “At least let me take that off your back. I’ll handle the bags, you worry about getting yourself around.”

“You may not be entirely worthless after all, Loser.”

“What happened to me being a talented mechanic?” Lusac reminded him of his earlier compliment.

“That was before you led me to almost becoming a bear’s dinner.”

Lus crossed through the blocked entrance first and then turned to help Dasht through, but the Nemarian dismissed his hands.

“I’m not an invalid. I can do this myself.”

Holding his hands up, Lusac backed away and watched as the Nemarian struggled his way through the small hole that served as the door. Once he was safely through, Lus took the lead in their trek through the ship, finding it easy to navigate to a target as large as the ship’s engines.

It wasn’t long before they came to a dead end at the far side. Lus put his hand on the wall and found it warm to the touch.

“The engines are just on the other side of this so the engine room has to be around here. Should we go left or right first?”

“Left,” Dasht said. Lusac tried to ignore the strain in his voice and the sweat on his brow. Once they regrouped with the rest of the team, they could worry about taking a proper break for Zer-Dasht.

Going in the direction his friend suggested, they wandered through a more-or-less intact corridor full of doors, but without power, none of the doors they passed would open.

Once they reached another dead end, Lus took them in the other direction.

“You notice how there aren’t any bodies?” Dasht said.

“The other section didn’t have many laying around either,” he replied.

“But Nippy said they found bones here. Shouldn’t we have run into something by now?”

Lusac shook his head. “Nah. I’m sure the bones were closer to the outer part. Don’t think too much about it. Animals have weird habits.”

Nothing else was said as they retraced their steps and then continued past where the original corridor to go to the right side of the shipwreck. They hadn’t made it very far when Dasht shouted out a warning.

“Behind us,” he said.

Lus spun around to see a mound of white fur. The bears had come for them after all it seemed. As he reached for his blaster, he found himself slowing and questioning his own sanity.

“Dasht, do you see–”

“Yeah. That’s freaky. We need to go,” the Nemarian cut him as he backed away from the animal.

No, monster. While it was recognizable as having once been one of the bears like those they faced before, this one was different. Its eyes had changed from yellow to a murky purple, and its fur was patchy, revealing swatches of black skin, much of which held discolored pockets of pus. The fur it did have actually emitted its own light, but worst of all were the additional legs it carried in its midsection, giving it a total of six, though the two new ones held misshapen claws. All of it together made the beast some type of glowing freak.

“Good idea.” Lusac started to back away as well. The bear-thing roared as it leaned down to crouch, and Lus wasted no time pulling Dasht’s arm around him and sprinting away. The sound of claws against metal came from behind, warning that the beast was giving chase.

Lus used his free hand to turn on his comm unit. “Nippy, we need you. There’s something in here.”

He had no idea if the Kremel could hear him, especially this close to the engines giving off their radiation, but it was their only chance.

A new sound joined the fray, that of a door sliding open, and Lus looked ahead to see an opening. Urging Zer-Dasht onward, he continued to half drag his friend until they reached the safety of the room. He dove inside, taking Dasht down to the floor with him just as the bear-monster reached them, but something cleaved at it, and Lus felt blood spray across him. He glanced back to see the door slide closed, cutting off the view of the monster covered in blood as its corpse started to bubble.

Lusac sat up with a groan, his chest aching from his fall and discovered Hwnlr leaning against one wall, bandages along his abdomen and a determined Nippy standing at the door with his sword.

“Glad you found us,” the Kremel said with a smile.