Queen of Jarilo

"You done looking at plants?" Kaz asked.

"Give me a break. We're on an unexplored planet, we're seeing these species for the first time. Once we drive off the Bugs, I'm going to go around recording and naming all of this shit before anyone else gets the chance. Sequoiadendron Ambulatea, how about it?"

"Nerd," she scoffed.

"You know I was studying to be a zoologist before the war started, and spare me your whole bit about Borealan jungles, I've heard it all before."

"This place is a kitten pen compared to an Elysian jungle."

"A kitten pen?" Walker asked, raising an eyebrow as she looked down at him.

"Yeah, you never seen a Borealan kitten? Trust me, five minutes alone with one, and you'll be begging for someone to come lock it up."

"If you put dangerous kittens in pens, doesn't describing Jarilo as a kitten pen imply that it's full of dangerous creatures?"

"Shut up," she replied, reaching down and lifting him by his heavy rucksack to place him on his feet. "Let's get moving."

***

They had been walking for a few hours over the rough terrain, searching for the telltale signs of Bug tunnels and placing the seismic rods that would detect sub-surface activity as they went. Walker paused again to bring up his holographic map, the yellow glow illuminating his face in the gloom beneath the canopy.

"Another one here," he said, and Kaz sidled up behind him to rummage through his pack. She withdrew an electronic device roughly the size and shape of a large tent peg, hitting a switch on its flat top, and then she knelt to drive it into the ground. Walker tapped at his display, noting that the sensor was live and reporting, joining the growing network.

"No sign of any Bugs yet," Kaz grumbled, "I'm spoiling for a good fight."

"We might not even meet any Bugs," Walker chided. "Come on, off to the next objective."

They set off through the undergrowth, but Kaz raised her fist after a few steps, sniffing the air with her feline nose. Walker stopped, his hand moving to the rifle that was slung across his chest.

"You smell something?"

"Not Bugs, but I smell manure. Something living came through here recently."

Walker crouched and brushed the dirt with his fingers, looking for anything that might be tracks, but the ground was hard and obscured by the perpetual rain of needles and cones from the various species of flora that they had encountered thus far.

"Here," Kaz said, gesturing to a pile of dung that was nestled between the roots of a tree. Walker stooped to get a look at it.

"Small droppings," he mused. "Whatever left these wasn't much bigger than a small dog. Looks like we've got confirmation of animal life. There are seeds in it, probably from the berries. Must have been a herbivore. Keep an eye out, maybe we can eat it."

"I hear that."

They continued on their way. The going was tough, they were in the foothills of a mountain range, and the protruding roots ensured that they had to be careful where they put their feet if they wanted to avoid a broken ankle. Sometimes they had to feel their way beneath the blanket of ferns and cycads, so thick as to obscure the ground, Walker stumbling a fair few times. Kaz was more suited to this environment, prancing about on her digitigrade legs and feeling the earth beneath her padded feet, hooked claws digging into soil and wood alike for purchase.

The Bugs would have the advantage in this terrain, they could tunnel under it rather than having to pass through it. It was imperative that the scouts map any safe routes that they came across. An exhausted platoon of soldiers with broken ankles wouldn't be winning any engagements.

There were no satellites in orbit and so they had no GPS signal, relying instead on their orienteering skills and the aerial scans to find their way.

Walker was having a ball. There was fresh air in his lungs, untainted by industry, and enough space to stretch his legs now that he was out of the stifling corridors and cabins of the Thermopylae. Setting foot on that ship was always a challenge for him. He loathed being trapped within its confines, like a metal coffin where you couldn't go one step without brushing shoulders with another person. Walker was an outdoorsman, always had been, but this part of the job made it all worth it.

"No birds," Kaz commented, her round ears turned towards the canopy.

"Yeah, makes things kind of quiet."

"All the better to hear the Bugs coming."

After a while, they came across running water, a stream that flowed down into the valley that was probably fed by melting snow on the peaks of the mountains. It was so clear as to be almost invisible, the stream bed lined with smooth rocks. Kaz crouched to fill her oversized canteen, then took a long draw, wiping her mouth with her furry forearm before stowing it on her belt.

"It's clean," she said, "freshest water I've tasted since I left the homeworld. None of that metallic aftertaste you get from the filtered stuff. I swear I can taste every inch of pipe in that damned carrier."

She froze suddenly, gesturing downstream, her ears swiveling like radar dishes to track something. Walker spun his head, already shouldering his rifle as he dropped to one knee. He lowered the barrel, seeing that it was just some native animal. It looked like a fat tortoise with no shell, somehow more mammalian than reptilian despite its rough hide, leaning down on four stumpy legs that were spread apart like those of a lizard to drink from the stream with its beaked mouth. It was about a meter long, off-brown in color, with a short tail and long whiskers protruding from its face like those of a cat. It had two eyes that faced outwards, indicating that it was likely a prey animal. They were about two hundred meters downwind of it, and it hadn't noticed them yet.

"Think that was the guy who left those droppings?" Walker whispered, Kaz's eyes locked onto it as her feline pupils dilated into dark circles.

"Shall we kill it?"

"Nah, leave it. It's too soon to stop and eat, and I don't want to lug the extra weight around until we make camp."

Its appearance reminded Walker of an anapsid, a Permian-era group of animals that pre-dated the dinosaurs. They were archaic reptiles with mammalian traits. This planet was like a time capsule, as if he was looking back into ancient Earth's past. It was a naturalist's wet dream.

Walker spoke quietly into his computer so as not to startle the beast, recording a log of everything that he saw. Knowing that there was complex animal life on Jarilo would stop the Marines from getting jumpy and giving away their position when they heard a twig snap or when they glimpsed movement in the corner of their eye.

They continued on, keeping a careful lookout for more animals as they went, not to mention the roving parties of Bugs that might well be lurking between the trees.

Kaz and Walker didn't chat much when they were out in the field, not only could it alert the enemy to their presence, but there was something to be said for peace and quiet. They knew each other well enough that small talk wasn't necessary, able to spend time together in silence without it becoming awkward or uncomfortable.

Walker stopped to take a break, sitting on a rock that was lodged between two protruding roots. Kaz halted nearby, taking another drink from her canteen, watching as her human companion dug into one of his pockets and withdrew a protein bar. He unwrapped it and took a bite, then sprang to his feet in alarm. The rock had moved, and as he scampered away to turn his weapon on the thing, he saw that it had sprouted a dozen legs. It was an arthropod about the size and shape of a coconut crab, but lacking the grasping claws. It had natural camouflage it seemed, disguising itself as a rock until Walker had disturbed it. The thing rose up on its segmented legs and plodded away to a new hiding spot. Kaz stifled her laughter, patting him on the shoulder with her heavy hand.

"Guess your dream of a Bug-free planet has been shattered."

"It's the size of a goddamned dog," he complained, making no attempt to mask the disgust in his voice. "Watch where you step, Kaz. Those things could be everywhere."

"He doesn't look dangerous, he's more scared of you than you are of him. Look at him go," she said as she gestured towards the crab-like creature, hauling its considerable mass over a root as it made its sluggish escape.

"That thing looks like a crustacean," Walker mused, "I bet the high oxygen content on Jarilo lets arthropods grow bigger than they do on Earth. Back in our ancient history, we had giant insects, but as the oxygen content in the atmosphere dropped it limited their size."

"Well I want to eat one," Kaz replied, wetting her lips. "We could cook it like a lobster, crack the shell open with a bayonet to get at the meat inside. Can't be thick enough to withstand that."

"Gross, Kaz. For all you know it's a bottom feeder, what if its ecological niche is eating dung and carrion?"

"You worry too much," she said, turning to set off again. Walker followed behind her, glancing back at the creature as it dug a small furrow in the earth with its front legs, settling in and tucking its limbs beneath its round body to once again take on the shape of a rock.

***

The system's star was starting to get low in the sky, the planet's days only lasted thirteen standard hours. It wasn't quite dark enough to make camp yet, but the forest canopy contributed to the pervading gloom. Walker strapped his helmet back on, lowering the full-face visor and activating the night vision function, the forest illuminated in ghostly shades of green. Kaz didn't need night vision, she had her own natural variant. Her feline eyes were able to make use of what little light was available to them.

As they traipsed through the dense undergrowth, Walker felt Kaz's hand on his shoulder, turning his head to see her shushing him.

"Blood's on the air," she whispered.

Her hand was on the wicked combat knife that was sheathed in a leather holster on her hip. It had a fifteen-inch blade that made it practically a machete by human standards, serrated towards the hilt and sporting a cruel gut hook. She had claws that would have done the job just as well, but Borealans liked their blades.

The hypersonic crack of a railgun projectile breaking the sound barrier was impossible to silence, as suppressors worked by redirecting propellant gasses. Railguns used electricity in place of gunpowder, and so there were no gasses to redirect. Although the slug would kill the target long before the sound reached them, it could still alert enemies in the neighborhood to their presence. Better to avoid using them wherever possible.

He drew his pistol from its holster on his thigh as they made their way forward, screwing on its fat suppressor. It was a Heckler & Koch MK-23 chambered in .45 caliber. It would put Bugs down at close range, and it would do so relatively quietly. Unlike the XMRs, it was a conventional weapon that could be equipped with a silencer. He scanned the trees for movement, his onboard computer projecting a digital laser sight from his handgun as he waved it about. It lagged a little as the computer calculated the pointer's position, but it was a safer solution than using a physical one that might be detected by an enemy. While Walker had to make an effort to tread quietly, Kaz was a ghost. Despite her size, she moved silently on her padded paws.

"There," she said, pointing a clawed finger between two trees that had trunks with the circumference of a dining table. "It's not Bugs, something native."

There was a dead anapsid lying on its side, like the one that they had seen drinking from the stream, the rotund body jerking as something chewed at it.

"Predator," Walker whispered, "be ready."

A twig snapped, and the creature raised its head above the carcass, its reflective eyes glowing white through Walker's night vision. It was similarly built, obviously from the same evolutionary tree, with a head that was enormous and heavy in comparison to its body. Its snout was long and wide, two nostrils flaring as it sniffed the air, blood-stained jaws opening to reveal incisors rivaling those of a saber-toothed cat. Its maw was full of knife-like teeth, the muscles on its neck and jaw developed and prominent, reminding Walker of a pit bull. He could tell at a glance that this thing was evolved to bite and hold, using those wicked teeth and its muscular neck to tear flesh from bone like pulled pork.

It stepped over its kill, blood mingling with its saliva to hang in strings from its jaws. It had seen them. He noted that its legs were not splayed like those of a reptile, they were below its body to lift it off the ground and to give it more maneuverability, more like a mammal. It was big, two meters long from its nose to its stumpy tail, if not a little more. It was stocky, heavy, it might weigh almost as much as Kaz did. He couldn't see the color of its hide through the green glare of his night vision equipment, but it almost seemed to be covered in a layer of thin fur that failed to completely obscure the underlying roughness of its reptilian skin.

It loosed a pulsing, resonating call as it hopped over the dead anapsid and advanced towards them, Walker feeling it in his bones. A threat display, it was saying this is my kill, stranger. Fuck off. He took a few steps back, his handgun trained on the creature, but Kaz stepped forward.

She drew her long knife, brandishing it and baring her teeth, facing off with the thing.

Walker sighed, lowering his weapon and moving his finger off the trigger, walking backwards a little further to get clear of the brawl. She was insatiable, as if she had to prove that she was the biggest and baddest creature in the Galaxy. He wouldn't be able to call her off now that she had been challenged.

The alien lost its patience, charging towards them, its jaws open wide. It covered the difficult terrain between them with remarkable speed and ease, barreling past her as she dodged to one side and jabbed at it with her blade. It glanced off the creature's ribs, leaving an ugly tear in its side none the less, the beast coming about and readying itself for another go. It wasn't going to run then, it would stand its ground and fight, very territorial. That implied that there wasn't much territory to go around. There must be more of them, or perhaps other predators who occupied the same ecological niche.

Kaz circled it, readying herself for another attack, and again it lunged at her. This time it caught her, locking its teeth around her forearm like a bear trap and drawing dark blood, Kaz snarling as she tried to shake it off. As Walker had theorized, it held onto her, with a bite strength that would probably have crushed bones that were not those of a Borealan.

Walker made no move to intervene, she didn't need saving, a bite wound like that was little more than a scratch by her standards.

Her people were built like tanks, with bones as hard as steel that were almost impossible to break unless exposed to forces that would likely kill them outright, and they could heal wounds practically overnight that would put a human down for weeks. They had a high tolerance for pain, their fights for dominance invariably devolving into short and violent bouts that left the loser with a set of fresh scars, intercourse usually following. Borealans had an odd reproductive method. The loser of a fight was usually subjected to a brief and violent copulation, whereby the dominant genes of the victor were passed on. It obviously worked, just looking at a Borealan was proof enough of that, a result of tens of thousands of years of natural and artificial selection that had favored the toughest and most aggressive traits. They didn't mind, of course. They were glad to submit to their superiors, the all-encompassing pack hierarchy ruled every facet of their society.

It was part of why they were so hard to get along with, having to undergo integration training to weed out those who couldn't manage their instincts, and to teach the rest how to interact with humans. It was a widely known secret that the barracks on the Pinwheel were a hotbed of fraternization, and surviving a night of passion with a Borealan had become somewhat of a rite of passage for recruits. Overall it was good for morale and good for their integration, so the brass never came down on personnel too hard when they were caught doing the walk of shame.

When Kaz had been assigned to Walker their relationship had started off much the same way, the alien seemingly slighted by everything that he did and wasting no opportunity to try to establish her dominance over him. Over time he had earned her respect, then her friendship, eventually resulting in a truce that few Marines who worked alongside the Mad Cats enjoyed.

He watched as Kaz plunged her blade into the creature's thick neck, failing to mortally wound it despite the knife's exaggerated length, the beast finally releasing its hold on her and hopping backwards to prepare another strike. Its jaws dripped with her dark blood, the blonde fur on her forearm stained crimson, deep cuts from its serrated teeth visible beneath.

Far from being discouraged, she seemed invigorated by the injury, smiling as she took up a defensive stance. Blood poured from the creature's neck wounds, it wasn't spurting so she hadn't hit an artery, but it was losing claret. She waited for the next strike, the creature throwing all of its weight into her as it charged forward, knocking her off-balance as she fell backwards onto the dirt. It was on top of her in an instant, jaws snapping an inch from her face, and now Walker raised his handgun in alarm.

"You shoot this thing, and you aren't getting laid for a week," she huffed as she struggled against it. Walker lowered his weapon, rolling his eyes behind his visor.

Its feet scrabbled at the earth to either side of her prone body as it tried to find purchase, but she sank her claws into its throat and lifted it with her injured arm. She gritted her teeth against the pain, holding it at arm's length as she brought her knife up to plunge into its soft belly. It struggled, its spine weaving back and forth like a lizard, its clawed feet treading air as it tried to flee. Again and again, she stabbed it, burying the long blade to the hilt as blood rained down on her. She was relentless, harrying it with blows, the alien predator slowing its struggling and loosing a drawn-out wheeze as it finally fell limp.

Kaz rolled the heavy body off her, climbing to her feet and wiping her knife on her camouflaged pants, giving the creature a prod with her foot to make sure that it was dead. She leaned forward, hands on her knees, taking a moment to catch her breath.

"We're eatin' this," she declared, sheathing her weapon and rolling her shoulders to loosen her muscles.

"Well at least let me get a look at it before you carve it up for dinner," he said, "and make sure that you use the scanner on it so we know if we can even digest it. I don't want a repeat of what happened with the mud crab on Kruger. I didn't know a person could even hold that much vomit inside of them."

Kaz laughed as she recalled the memory, and Walker hoped that the lesson had stuck. Don't eat alien lifeforms before you know what they're made of, that's why they carried the damned scanners.

"I swear, one of these days you're going to come face to face with something that's meaner than you are. Then what will you do?"

"Probably shoot it with a railgun," she laughed.

CHAPTER 3: BENEATH UNFAMILIAR STARS

"Gorgonopsia Jarilae," Walker said, chewing on a skewered piece of meat as they sat between two huge roots. The beast was tough, but it tasted pretty good. Kaz was a wizard when it came to preparing food in the field. They couldn't start fires while they were on patrol, that would give away their position to the enemy, and thus their MREs used mostly chemical heating methods. They did come with little flammable gel packets, however, and those were safe to light. They could use them to boil meat in the little portable stoves just fine.