Chapter 2

  3 Days before First Contact

  “Private Perez, what brings you into my office this morning?”

  Allie asked without looking up, already reaching into a drawer. Her fingers closed around a half-empty bottle of ibuprofen as the Marine slumped into the chair across from her, looking like he’d spent the night drinking his meager pay away at the colony bar.

  “Ugh,” he groaned. “I think something’s wrong with my implants. I keep seeing these… messages. And every time one pops up, it’s like someone’s driving a spike into my head.”

  Allie pursed her lips and tapped the bottle against her desk, studying him. She didn’t care for the Colonial Marines, and she didn’t have to—Private Perez was part of the last platoon scheduled to rotate off-world. The new Sheriff was here to take over civilian security operations, which meant Perez and his unit would soon be somebody else’s problem.

  She shook the thought away and reached for a diagnostic tool. “You weren’t out at the bar all night, were you?” she asked, giving him the look.

  “Oh—no, ma’am!” Perez straightened a little. “We were out on the ridge. Sarge wanted some training in before we ship out.”

  “Hm.” She scanned his vitals. “Everything looks normal. You know I’m not a cyber-doc, Perez. Best I can do is ibuprofen and tell you to get some sleep.”

  He frowned. “Yeah… figures. Guess it’s a good thing we’re rotating out in a few days.”

  She offered him a genuine smile. “You’re still lightly augmented, kid. Shipboard cyber-docs are better equipped for this sort of thing. If it gets worse, come back. I’ll do what I can.”

  “Thanks, Doc.” He stood, then froze mid-step, wincing hard.

  “There it is again,” he muttered.

  Allie recognized the look instantly—the unfocused stare of someone reading a projection only they could see. Her own optical suite rendered similar overlays dozens of times a day.

  Perez lifted a hand and swiped at empty air.

  “…Welcome to the System,” he murmured. “What the hell is a class?”

  Allie opened her mouth to stop him — something about this didn’t sit right —

  The clinic door burst open.

  “DOC! Hey—oh—shiyat!”

  Sheriff Havelock skidded to a stop, nearly bowling Perez over. “Didn’t see you there, Private. You might wanna stick around—I’ll need you to pass a message to your Sergeant.”

  Perez sidestepped out of the way, still shaken.

  Allie was already grabbing her medical bag. “What happened, Sheriff?”

  “The Applebaum kids were attacked. Some kind of wild animal. Both hurt pretty bad. Deputy’s already on-site.”

  He turned back to Perez. “Get word to Staff Sergeant Knox. He knows the terrain, knows the wildlife. Ask him to come out.”

  Perez nodded sharply, pushing past his lingering headache. “Yes, sir!”

  He was out the door at a run.

  Ten minutes later, Allie was out of the passenger side of the truck before it even came to a halt in the drive of the Applebaum homestead. The deputy was already waving them down, all wild eyes and frantic energy.

  “Thank God, Doc! Them kids was attacked by a pack of quill-cats. It looks real bad back there.”

  “Then let’s go. Take me to them.” Allie commanded, already moving, the nervous deputy glancing to the Sheriff for confirmation.

  “Go on, son. Do as she says. I got your location—I’ll catch up.”

  The Sheriff stepped to the back of the truck, retrieving the shotgun he kept there as Allie shoved the deputy into motion.

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  After a long minute of near-running through the woods, they broke through the brush and into a warzone.

  Jake Applebaum was hunched over his son and daughter, a rifle cradled in his arms as he scanned the woods opposite their approach. Blood soaked the ground around them. Where there wasn’t blood, the earth was scorched black, stripped of anything living. Animal parts were scattered across the trees and bushes ringing the clearing. The smell of burnt meat pervaded the senses.

  Allie paid no attention to any of it. Her focus was already on the children lying motionless on the ground, covered in blood—too much blood. She dropped her medical bag beside the girl and pulled out an analysis tool, already working.

  “They’re alive,” Jake said tightly. “I couldn’t wake either of them.”

  The tool beeped, and Allie let out a small breath as she moved to examine their wounds.

  “They’re stable, but…” She gestured vaguely at the clearing. “These injuries don’t match any of this.”

  The Sheriff arrived before she could explain further, shotgun propped on his shoulder as he scanned the scene. He conferred quietly with his deputy, then sent the young man running back toward the Applebaum farmstead before beginning a slow circuit of the clearing.

  “Sent the deputy back for some stretchers. They’re alive, I assume?” he asked, eyes never leaving the pattern of charred ground beneath his boots.

  “Thank you—they are. Stable, but unconscious. I don’t understand why, though. Their vitals are fine.” Allie moved her scanner over to the boy’s head, extending a pair of leads and attaching them to his temples. “Plenty of brain activity. He should be awake.”

  “I should have come with them,” Jake muttered.

  The Sheriff stepped over to the charred husk of a still-smoking quill-cat and nudged the carcass with his boot. “You said you heard thunder. Saw a flash of light?”

  Jake looked up from his children. “Yeah. Heard a gunshot first. Ran to get my rifle. When I came out, I saw the lightning right before I ran into the forest.”

  “Hmm.” Sheriff Havelock stared toward the edge of the clearing, where anything that hadn’t been cooked on the spot had been flung aside. A clear blast radius expanded outward from where the children lay unmoving.

  He glanced back at Jake. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but why aren’t they like this fella’ here?”

  Jake followed his gaze for the first time, confusion giving way to something colder as understanding crept in. “I… I don’t know.”

  His eyes returned to his children, and this time he didn’t look away.

  The Sheriff unconsciously chewed the side of his mouth, staring up into the bright blue sky.

  “Not a cloud in sight.”

  He turned as four Colonial Marines emerged nearly silently from the brush.

  The team medic moved straight to the doctor, a pair of compact stretchers tucked under her arm. She caught the Sheriff’s puzzled look before he could voice it.

  “Your deputy’s just behind us,” she said. “We’re faster.”

  “Ah. Thanks.” Havelock nodded, then extended a hand to Sergeant First Class Knox. “Sergeant. Glad you could make it.”

  Knox accepted the courtesy with a metal-clad grip, carefully moderated. With his augmented musculature, he could have crushed the man’s hand. There was no need to create another casualty.

  Knox jerked a thumb toward the Private the Sheriff had encountered earlier at the clinic.

  “Private Perez mentioned an animal attack. This—” he swept a hand across the clearing, “—does not look like an animal attack.”

  “No, Sergeant. Looks like a bomb went off.” Havelock gestured toward the trio of quill-cats closest to the Applebaums. “Though… these look cooked. Jake says he saw a bolt of lightning. I was just thinking—there isn’t a cloud in the sky.”

  Knox nodded, pulling his assault rifle from where it was magnetically locked across his back. They’d come straight from a training exercise in the hills north of the colony and hadn’t stored their gear.

  “Richards. Take Perez. Set a roving perimeter. I want eyes on every living thing within two hundred meters.”

  Richards grinned, slapped Perez on the shoulder, and turned toward the trees.

  “C’mon, boot. Let’s go rattle the bushes.”

  “If you can help load the kids onto the stretchers,” Havelock added, “we’ll carry them out once my deputy gets back.”

  The stretchers were already down beside Ginny and Zach. Jake, Allie, and PFC Krey worked together to secure them. Just as they finished, the deputy came crashing noisily through the underbrush at a trot.

  “Ah, there he is. Catch your breath,” Havelock said. “Then help Jake and the Doctor get them back to the truck.”

  Sergeant Knox completed his slow circuit of the clearing and returned to stand beside the Sheriff, both of them facing deeper into the forest.

  In a low voice, Knox said, “You notice everything’s burned and broken—except that circle of grass your people are standing on?”

  Havelock followed his gaze, then looked back at him.

  “Yeah. I was kinda hopin’ you’d have a better explanation than I do. ’Cause I’ve got nothin’.”

  Knox studied him for a long moment before shaking his head.

  “If this were a battlefield,” he said, “I’d say that boy and girl deployed a temporary energy barrier.”

  He paused briefly.

  “But two things. This isn’t a battlefield. And personal energy barriers were never on any supply manifest. Ever.”

  Knox’s eyes flicked briefly toward the treeline. The sound of bushes rustling whispered into the clearing.

  Somewhere deeper in the forest, something moved. Slow. Heavy. Intentional.

  Knox tightened his grip on the rifle.

  “You should move,” he said quietly. “Now.”