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  More of the Vitalian termites poured out of the opening, some even leaping in her direction from the hole. She stumbled backwards, tripping on some grass, and then scrambled to regain her feet and put more distance between herself and the newest alien terror.

  A blur of action burst through the grasses to her right, flashing in front of her and then disappearing to her left. Two more followed, sweeping some of the bugs with each of them. Elsa saw just enough to know it was a sort of animal. Smaller than everything else she’d seen but fast.

  The bugs fell back to their mound, retreating from the newest threat. Elsa gathered her feet under her and rose carefully, watching carefully around her. She turned slowly, cursing the thick grasses for preventing her sensors from seeing any further than her eyes.

  Her rotation stopped when she saw one of them on the path she’d made through the grass behind her. It stood a little over half her height on four legs. Elsa thought it looked feline, but it had a long neck and a head filled with teeth. The critter in its mouth crunched with each chomp, then it straightened its long neck out as it swallowed the mouthful. It’s appetizer out of the way, it turned to stare at Elsa.

  Elsa returned the stare, although hers was down the barrel of her rifle. “There were three of you, where’s your friends?” Whether it could hear her or not it lowered its body down into a crouch, gathering itself to spring. Teeth bared it hissed at her. “Really? You’re going to try that? Is everything on this planet stupid?”

  She fired her rifle, sending it spinning around in circles as it hissed and spit at her. Smoke rose from the scorched region along its flank where the ions had cooked the meat. She tracked it and fired again, scoring a hit on the center torso of it. It jumped into the air before falling flat to the ground and convulsing. Elsa grinned, she’d guessed right and cooked off some of its important organs.

  The world turned upside down and Elsa’s rifle went flying. Her arm was yanked and crushed, then something slammed into her stomach that made the air explode from her mouth. The other two predators were trying to rend her limb from limb and only her armor was saving her.

  Claws raked across her chest, catching on a panel and yanking her up on her side. Elsa whimpered in her helmet and tried to pull herself into a ball. The creature that had her arm pulled back, threatening to dislocate it again. Desperate, she dialed up the power in her suit and jammed her left fist into the neck of the beast on her left side.

  The electricity and impact made it jump back, momentarily stunned by the punch. Elsa grabbed her knife and sliced across, scalping it as her blade glanced off its head. It hissed around its mouthful and shook its powerful head like a dog. Blood flew from the head wound even as Elsa screamed in agony. She heard a terrible ripping noise, then felt her arm yanked again before there was no feeling at all.

  Else reached down and grabbed one of her grenades. The Low Frequency concussion from it was her only chance, if she could gain the upper hand for a moment and kill the beasts she might be able to stabilize her arm and get away. She pressed the activation button and drew her hand back to toss it into the air before she rolled over.

  She pulled her arm back tight when she caught movement on her left. The stunned assailant pounced on her, trying to grab her other arm. She rolled with it, sending it flying into the other one that was worrying her arm. She tossed the grenade after them then rolled back, tucking herself into a ball and bringing her arms to her head.

  Her arms? Else pulled her head back and stared at her arm. From the elbow down it was exposed, complete with scratches and scrape marks on it. Not only was her arm still attached but it still worked!

  The concussive blast from the LF grenade sent her rolling again. Her display blinked and restarted, alarms flashing to let her know of the damage taken by the armor. She followed the indicator in her display and saw her rifle laying nearby. She scrambled over to it and grabbed it, holding it steady in her now naked hand. Lacking the external power source the rifle relied upon its internal power cells. She aimed it manually at the two surviving but disoriented creatures. One tried to rise but fell down, the other was rolling around and snapping at the air. She fired twice, killing them, then fell to her own knees.

  She stared at her arm, looking at the blood that dripped from the scratches in it. She flexed her hand a few times, not believing it was all right. It ached but she’d take an ache over the alternative. She let grateful tears fall from her eyes for a moment before she forced them back with a sniffle. She picked up her rifle again before turning to focus on the dead aliens. They were at the epicenter of a bowl in the grasses where her grenade had knocked the weeds to the ground. It measured roughly twenty feet across.

  Elsa stood and went to the torn armor. She picked it up, wondering if it could be repaired. The soft material at the joints were shredded and torn. Even the harder armored plates in it showed gouges, cracks, and breaks in a few places. She sighed and let it drop to the ground. The cuts on her arm had stopped bleeding, the rest of it she was going to have to do on her own.

  “Keep your head on straight, Gunny,” she admonished herself. If she’d have seen one of her men get ambushed like she had, she’d have ripped their head off. She popped her visor, taking a few deep breaths of unfiltered air, then wiped the sweat and tears off her face. Exposed to the fresh air again she felt the shakes that had threatened to set in recede. She took a fresh drink of water and reluctantly lowered her visor before skirting the insect mound and heading off in the direction of the ridge.

  “FIST Team three, Dark Angel reporting in!”

  “…Angel….FIST….Ov—“

  Elsa gasped. The response was broken and she couldn’t understand them, she had a signal and a heading. Her instincts had been close, she was heading in the right direction. With a new indicator on her display for the signal, she felt her spirits buoyed once again.

  Chapter 10

  A small herd of four legged behemoths moved across the plain. Elsa watched from the top of one of the foothills that turned into the ridge she’d been moving towards. Two slightly smaller predators stalked the herd, moving back and forth as they sought to find a stray.

  Elsa smirked. Light years from Earth but animals still acted like animals. They were predictable but no less dangerous for it. Especially since they had both the size and the lack of familiarity with humans to not be afraid. She watched a moment longer as one of the two legged predators seized on a chance and lunged forward, running at the pack with a speed that surprised her.

  The aggressors reminded Elsa of the overgrown chicken that had come at her, except these were larger. They ran on two legs and were covered in a shimmering coat of iridescent scales or feathers, from her range she couldn’t tell. The biggest difference was that their fore limbs were spaced further apart, closer to where a proper birds wings would be.

  She shook her head and turned away, not wanting to know if the hunting tactic was going to work or not. She raised her rifle in her naked hand and checked it for the thousandth time. The energy pack remained nearly full, allowing her close to sixty shots in primary fire mode. If she needed to generate a laser it would drain faster, depending upon the intensity of the beam.

  Of her arm the cuts had stopped bleeding and the wounds had begun to crust and scab over. Elsa almost understood the desire for the planet that the preliminary data reports had incited. She suspected if any of the people that wanted to experience the miracles of Vitalis spent a weekend in the jungle they’d change theirminds

  “FIST Team, Dark Angel enroute. ETA four hours.”

  “Roger Dark An—“ Elsa sighed. The interference was reduced the closer she got but enough remained to interfere with communications. “—Party wait—“

  Party? She could handle a party. Elsa popped her visor to let the sun and wind caress her face a few moments before she headed out, leaving the grassy plain behind and heading towards what looked like a gap in the ridge. It was only a few degrees off from the signal direction and given her
options she’d rather rough it through a mountain pass then try to climb the peak of one then slide on her ass down the other side.

  As she walked Elsa wondered if everyone had made it. Usually uncontested drops went without casualties. Accidents still took place, she could remember losing a corporal several years back on her first drop with FIST team three. It had been barely more than a training drop but his pod had plowed straight into a dam and ended up imbedded in the bottom of the reservoir behind it. The capsule was unable to deploy and by the time the others had reached him his oxygen had ran out.

  There were some special people in her platoon as well, not that she liked to admit it. Jess Robinson, the teams medic, for example. Jess and Elsa had bonded quickly, being the two female FIST members with the most seniority. Jess was only a Sergeant but that was because she had a tendency to let her mouth get her into trouble. There were two other women, but one had only been with FIST three for a few drops and the other had been assigned specifically for this mission.

  Then there was Darren Hilton, a pain in the ass kid who was both the youngest and the most junior in rank on FIST team three. He was a private first class and the fact that he’d been able to try out for a FIST team in the first place was surrounded with controversy. He’d petitioned straight out of boot camp and been denied, but then he kept trying over and over until somebody decided to shut him up and give him a chance. The results of his tests were indisputable, the kid was gifted.

  Elsa had taken a special interest in him when he’d been appointed to her platoon. She was the Gunnery Sergeant, it was her job to make sure everybody knew what they were doing. That young and inexperienced, she knew he was going to be trouble. It turned out aside from being naively arrogant, the kid didn’t have a flaw she could find. She searched hard too, or at least that was the excuse she’d used the first time she’d slept with him. She didn’t have the luxury of an excuse the other times, it was just that he was as good in the sack as he was at everything else.

  She sighed and cleared the wistful smile from her face. Only thoughts of Darren on his back beneath her could distract her from the deadly perils Vitalis had thrown at her. She glanced at her arm to remind herself of the dangers of distraction. She moved on, focusing on the scenery and looking for threats. She considered deploying a solar recharger for her suit, it was down to just under three quarter full chare, but she figured with the missing arm it would use less power. Besides, it put a large collector on her back that could get in her way if she needed sudden mobility. Elsa trudged on, climbing over rocks and vegetation that was growing less awe-inspiring to her by the minute.

  She spooked several smaller life forms. Smaller as in not as big as a house, but still often her size or larger. She figured they weren’t meat eaters, they were on four or six legs and seemed more interested in getting away from her than investigating or chewing on her.

  Inside of ninety minutes she approached the entrance to the ravine. She studied it carefully from a concealed position between trees before hopping down to walk into it. Bones, both large and small, littered the ground. She began to question the wisdom of her route but figured her options were limited. Besides, she was so close to her unit — her family — that turning back would have made her want to run and jump off the cliff she’d climbed.

  Elsa slipped through the rocky canyon floor as quietly as possible, gluing herself the shadows of one rocky wall. Occasional alien vegetation managed to eke on an existence by finding a chink in the rock wall or surviving amongst the dirty puddles and patches of dirt the broke up the rocks. She was glad her visor was down and her air recirculated, the piles of bones promised that she was in a very stinky place. She passed through clouds of large insects, doing her best to avoid them. Strange birds, some looking more like lizards with wings, hopped from rock to rock or rib cage to rib cage.

  The ravine widened and the skeletons were mostly left behind. Scattered bones still dotted the trampled earth. A glance to her right helped explain why. A large creature lay on its side, parts of it torn away to leave exposed meat and other less than savory looking parts. Insects and birds flocked above it, trying to get their piece of the feast. Strange yodeling cries kept the birds at bay, as well as the occasional snap of jaws that came too close.

  Elsa stared in horror at the five creatures that gorged themselves on the beast. They were babies, she realized, but they were each nearly as large as she was. Two legged and featherless, they were nevertheless predators like the ones she’d seen stalking the herd of grass grazers on the plain. And where there were babies, she knew there had to be a momma.

  Chapter 11

  Elsa turned quickly, expecting to stare into the open fanged maw of her imminent demise. Nothing awaited her. She glanced back at the macabre feeding, noting the range at one hundred forty feet. There was room enough for her to pass them by and continue down the pass, but for all she knew this pass was a breeding ground. Or perhaps mama was ahead of her, looking for the next meal.

  Elsa swallowed down the fear in her throat, noting that it tasted a little like bile. So close, she was so damn close! One hundred forty feet, but if she tried to sneak past them it would narrow to less than sixty. They’d be sure to see her and come after her. Even if they weren’t hungry she’d make a great plaything. Then again, judging from the way they were eating she suspected hunger was a constant for them.

  Maybe they’d fall asleep after gorging themselves? That’s what a Marine does when they’re safe and able to enjoy a good meal. What more dangerous predator was there than a Marine? Elsa frowned, suspecting she might have just found the answer to that question.

  This was it then. All or nothing, just like everything else had been on this miserable planet. “Eat this,” she muttered, aiming down her rifle and triggering the first shot.

  It took three shots to drop the first of the four babies. Using the primary fire mode the X109 recycled almost as quickly as she could pull the trigger. In that second of time the first baby carnivore had time to screech in agony. Its brothers spotted her instantly, two of them running around their dinner while the third hopped up on it to come straight at her.

  It was on her fifth shot that the gun let loose a burst of flame from the energy pack. Acrid smoke smelling of burnt electronics curled out of it. Elsa let if fall to the ground and pulled her last grenade. She thumbed the grenade to the proximity burst mode as she was throwing it. The wounded baby Marine-eating monster was limping towards her, screeching with its high pitched voice. It was overtaken and passed a moment later by the one that had climbed over the dead animal.

  The third thundered towards her, toothy beak opened wide and dripping blood from its prior feast. The grenade went off, sending a pulse of low frequency sound across the narrow ravine. Elsa and the baby dino closest to her were outside the effective range, though her suit still registered the shockwave. The other two mini-dinosaurs were sent tumbling from the concussive effects of the blast.

  Elsa spun away from the charging creature, drawing her combat knife as she did so. One of its arms clipped her shoulder, sending her stumbling away as she spun. By the time she recovered it had stopped and turned to face her again. It was on her almost before she could plant her feet.

  Elsa’s knife dug into it, glancing off a rib before it slid between them and into the tissues beneath. She ducked her head aside to avoid the snapping beak then was knocked to the ground by its powerful haunch. Through it all Elsa retained her grip on her knife, twisting it as it tore free.

  She tasted blood from where she’d bitten her cheek. She rolled onto her knees and lunged forward, the powered armor driving her legs with greater force. She hit the beast in the side, wrapping her unarmored arm around its thick neck to hold on. It staggered from the impact, then tried to twist and throw her when her knife stabbed into its neck.

  Elsa held on, not realizing until it was too late that it was throwing itself onto the ground. She squeaked, unable to generate any more air from her lungs, when it l
anded half on top of her. The impact also drove the knife in deep enough to cause a burst of scalding blood to spray onto Elsa’s arm. The beast convulsed on top of her, pounding her deeper into the ground before it went limp and lay still.

  Elsa pulled herself out, pushing and rolling the dead creature off of her. She started to stand up in time to see the unwounded monster shriek at her from less than an arms width away. She raised her armored arm in time to intercept that snapping beak, but the force of the snapping maw caused fresh alarms to go off in her helmet. She didn’t need the alarms to feel and hear the form fitting armored plates breaking under the force and driving jagged edges into her flesh.

  She barked out the command to release a burst of energy into the damaged armor before all the circuits were broken. Her command turned into a grunt that ended as quickly as it had begun. The electricity locked her jaw and stiffened her muscles from the brief but powerful jolt.

  The baby dinosaur let her go, stumbling back and snapping its beak as it tried to spit out the painful burn. Elsa’s arm was broken, she could feel it even without looking to see the unnatural bend in her forearm. She grabbed up her knife in her other arm and staggered to her feet. She tasted fresh blood, this time from where she’d nipped her tongue.

  It stared at her, still clacking its beak together. Like a bird it tilted its head to stare at her with first one eye, then the other. It was sizing her up, she realized. Re-evaluating her as a threat. It tilted its head back and let loose the loudest cry yet, this time a shriek that varied in pitch and tone. With a tightening in her gut she realized it was calling for reinforcements. Or in its case, crying for momma.

  “I. Hate. This. Fucking. Planet!” Elsa screamed. She jumped at it, noticing that her suit didn’t help her this time. It reared back and she fell short. She cried out as her broken arm hit the ground and gave out, causing her to smash her shoulder and helmeted face into the rocky ground.