~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

We've all experienced it. The unnerving feeling that something, somewhere out there is not quite right. Perhaps some ominous fate is about to befall. You can feel it palpably throughout the new five-tracker by an Austin band that has a name for the dread: FOREBODE.

Look to the sky and you see Fire raining down, as you plea For your God to save you But you see only me

From the solemn Sabbathesque chords that open "Firebrand" you can tell a storm is in queue on the horizon. Then those deathly vocals reveal themselves and everyone within earshot is feeling the trepidation, too. A torrent of riffage -- alternately groovy and blackened -- erupts, joined by furious drumming and a bitchin' bassline.

Introducing singer TJ Lewis, guitarist Eddie Konopasek, bassist Guillermo Madrigal, and drummer Zach Donnelly. While it's hard to write in the strictest genre terms about the sound these guys are belting out, one thing is for certain: this is some seriously sludged-up, ferociously doomy metal-making with a southern stoner twist. How's that suit your fancy pants?

You will circle the earth As in death, so rebirth No more physical form As in death and so the storm

I was advised from the outset to just let 'Forebode' (2019) play out from song-to-song in one consecutive listen. I'm so glad I did, because the experience intensifies, sonically and emotionally, as the second track "Soul Trip" takes hold. This one alternates between solemn plodding and dancing rhythms, culminating in TJ's sky-filling vox directing all eyes heavenward as the end of the age is upon us.

I agree with my colleague JJ over at The Obelisk when he says that Forebode's sound is "a wide space" that's "cavernous and bleak in like proportion." The team of Matthew Alvarez (recording), Alec Rodriguez (mixing), and Kevin Butler (mastering) have done an outstanding job of capturing "massive" in a way our ears absolutely believe. It feels like we are indeed in wide open spaces, yet fully present -- a front row seat for the Apocalypse, as it were.

Forebode the coming end Hide behind The book of holy lies Forget the worlds helpless cries Don't forget you will die

Next, we enter into "Forebode PT I" and "Forebode PT II" and it feels like Judgement Day has already begun. Only there is no one there to judge us ("As above, so below. Heaven/Earth die slow"), for we have borne witness against ourselves -- and the judgement is death ("Vacant man, save us not. The world must end for what it has forgot"). Doom was born for such a time as this. Everything in our world -- past and present -- is awaiting this mighty rebuke.

I am searching for a way to breathe Pulled under in my own grief Broken dreams are all I keep Walk amongst the tombstones everyday Watch me hang from my noose again

By the time we reach "The Primitive Realm" we're grooving on a whole new level. We're dancing in our graves during the End of Days. I'm talking Bongzilla-style sway and stomp, people. This is the real deal. And with that, I leave the listening to you. Keep your eyes peeled for the June 16th release of Forebode on CD, cassette, and digital formats (pre-order here).

Give ear...

Forebode by FOREBODE

Forebode: Live 'n' Loud

June 14th - Atomic House in Houston

June 15th - Jandros in San Antonio

June 16th - Carousel Lounge in Austin

June 25th - Come and Take It Live in Austin with Sixes and Atala

July 3rd - Safehouse Sessions in Austin

Sept 1st - Come and Take it Live in Austin with Orange Goblin, Black Cobra, Mothership and The Skull

Follow The Band

How does your character feel about the culture they grew up in? Do they like its norms and traditions, or would they rather abolish them?

Captain Hindel sat in the bridge as the shuttle maneuvered in for docking. She had since muted the feeds to spare her crew the sound of Varrez’s crying, though allowed the feeds to continue playing. Protocol aside, she decided against hiding this from her officers; even if she wanted to, it was well past the point.

       She still couldn’t believe it on some level. Her first mission as captain, in charge of a new crew, and she already suffered a fatality under her watch. A gruesome one at that.

       “Someone better tell Dr. Walsh to cancel that surgery” Komev said, finally looking away.

       “I sent them in” Hindel said softly. “I told them to go inside.”

       “You didn’t know this would happen” Ellson said.

       Hindel scoffed. “Oh yes, go investigate the strange alien ruin on an unexplored moon, what could possibly go wrong?”

       “Captain” Tajmaran said. “The power surge from the structure has gone off our charts, still rising.”

       On XH-Ld’s surface, from the midst of the fossilized forest, a point of light shone and grew, flickering in a pulse that emitted a bright band of energy that spread across the moon like a ripple on a pond, racing over plains and mountains, vainly annihilating a world already dead, until it overlapped itself on the opposite end, breaking against its own wave. The pulse stopped, the readings dropped, and XH-Ld was sterilized once more.

       The bridge crew watched, though found little amazement in it. They felt like children uncovering a harsh truth hidden from them by cautious parents, stumbling blindly into it without context, all the more scarred by it.

       “Shuttle’s docked, ma’am” Ellson said.

       “Tell them to meet me in my quarters when they’re able” Hindel said. “You have the bridge, Ellson.”

 Word spread through the ship about Talgold’s death, creating an air of confusion and sadness, especially with Dr. Walsh. Hindel waited at her desk, equal parts patient and anxious, wondering how she would inform Sorenson of this, and how the company would inform his family.

       Her console chimed.

       “Captain’s quarters.”

       “Hornens reporting, ma’am. Let me start by saying I’m sorry to hear about Talgold.”

       “Thank you.”

       “I’ve got the flight recorder sorted out” Hornens said. “And the damn thing’s encrypted. Most of it, anyway. Code Three.”

       “Three?” Hindel said. “That’s company eyes only.”

       “Sure is” Hornens said. “So unless we’ve got a high-ranking CEO onboard, this has pretty much been a waste of time.”

       Hindel thought a few moments, keeping him on the line.

       “Captain, you there?”

       “Do you have any experience with such encryptions, Mr. Hornens?”

       Hornens scoffed. “What?”

       “I’ve read your file. You used to write code for Sorenson’s security division before transferring to engineering, not on the happiest of terms either.”

       “That was years ago” Hornens said. “Even if I did, accessing those files without executive approval is a felony offense. We could lose our jobs just talking about this.”

       “One of my crew has already lost his life” Hindel said. “And an entire ship was lost before that. I’d say those are circumstances warranting a peek behind the curtain, wouldn’t you?”

       “I don’t think they will.”

       “If they bring down the hammer, tell them I threatened you with insubordination and confinement; I’m a first-time captain gone hysterical who almost had you thrown out the airlock; I’ll make up the story, all you have to do is back me up on it.”

       Hornens laughed nervously. “I’d never ask you to do that.”

       “What would you do if you were in my position, Mr. Hornens?”

       Now he kept her waiting on the line. He sighed. “Give me an hour. Hornens out.”

 A few minutes later Varrez, Han and Barrens entered her quarters, their faces pale and sunken. Dr. Walsh was with them, standing to the side as an impartial listener. Their debriefing started at when they first lost contact in the structure, going methodically and painfully over the details up to the point communications were reestablished; Talgold’s activation of the structure, how its interface injured and affected him, and the creatures that attacked them. Here the debriefing lingered, having the hardest questions and the rawest emotions.

       “We can’t tell you what they were” Han said in summary. “Animals, aliens, if it was the builders of that ruin mutated by infection, or if that’s just how they naturally looked.”

       He shuddered. “I’d hate to think anything like that could be natural, though.”

       “But now what happened to the Wanderer makes more sense” Barrens said. “The growth in the lab, the blood on the walls; it must’ve infected some of them. It wasn’t a mutiny; it was an outbreak.”

       “Do we still have samples of this onboard, Dr. Han?” Hindel said.

       “Not anymore” Han said. “As soon as we returned, I vaporized all the samples. I sterilized the containers and vaporized them too, just in case.”

       “I guess procedures were less strict on the Wanderer” Varrez said flatly. “Didn’t know what they were dealing with, treated it like another benign specimen.”

       “And it was one of the infected crew that attacked you, killing Talgold?” Hindel said.

       Barrens shrugged. “As far as any of us can tell.”

       “Where is his body?”

       “In one of the pressurized rooms by the hangar. He got decontaminated with the rest of us, but I’d keep him in there just in case.”

       “Doctor” Hindel said, turning to Walsh. “Given the nature of what we’re dealing with, keeping his body for an autopsy or any other reason would be putting the crew in unnecessary danger of infection, would it not?”

       “Agreed” Walsh said. “Best to give Talgold his proper send-off, seeing as we have no way to vaporize an entire body. Sooner, rather than later.”

       “Very well” Hindel said. “If there’s nothing left to discuss, I declare this briefing, and this mission, over. I’ll notify the company, and set a course for home.”

       “Roger that” Barrens said. The others silently nodded.

       “I’ll personally see to Talgold’s remaining affairs, if you don’t mind” Walsh said. “Least I can do, being his former superior.”

       “Not at all” Hindel said. “And I’m sure it goes without saying that everything that happened on the surface, and this debriefing, is to remain classified, especially when we return to port. Understood?”

       “Yes ma’am” they said.

       “Good, I’ll inform the others as well. Dismissed.”

       They filed out in a somber mood, returning to their stations or to their bunks, whichever seemed better. Varrez remained, sitting quietly, looking beyond where eyes could see with unbroken concentration.

       “Varrez?”

       She blinked. “Captain?”

       “Do you need anything?”

       Varrez smiled thinly.

       “No ma’am, I’m sorry, it’s just…after what happened, I never thought I’d actually look forward to a cryo-pod.”

       “I think we all are” Hindel said. “Remember, if you do need anything, I’m right here.”

       “Of course, thank you captain.”

       Varrez excused herself and left, leaving Hindel alone. One heartfelt sigh and music request from her console database later, her chime went off.

       “Captain’s quarters.”

       “Hornens reporting, ma’am. I’ve accessed the logs and have them on file. Should I send them over?”

       “Please.”

       “Transferring…”

       An icon appeared on her screen. She tapped it and opened a catalog of feeds, reports, archives and personal logs, arranged from oldest to newest.

       “I owe you one, Mr. Hornens.”

       “Let’s hope it was worth it, Hornens out.”

       The catalog began with the Wanderer’s entering of the XH system and ended, rather abruptly, after a few dozen logs, the latest dated a week after the crew’s waking. Hindel chose a written log mid-way through the list and worked her way down.

 <Log 5

 Anderson, Samuel M. manual report

 Mission time: 4,452.17.03 hours

 Northern hemisphere fully mapped. Found several promising sites for

 further exploration; schedules already made and preparations underway.

 Results should be interesting.>

 It came with a list of attachments, scans of the promising sites: basins, dry river valleys, et cetera, and one Hindel recognized. She tapped to enlarge the image, and felt immediate dread. It was the fossilized forest where the alien structure was hidden. She flipped through more logs and reports.  

 <Log 8

 Anderson, Samuel M. manual report

 Mission time: 4,467.37.11 hours

 Site 15-45 checked out today. Quite the anomaly. Samples taken and studied.

 Wanted to investigate strange readings inside, but sudden storm caused

 mission abort. Will return on better conditions. Content with samples

 until then.>

 So they didn’t find the structure? How did they encounter the creatures then? She opened an audio file from their science officer, dated a little after Anderson’s eighth entry.

         Science division, Dr. Alder recording. Following a hunch about XH-Ld’s previous climate conditions, I’ve placed some of the samples in a nutrient-rich bath inside a container of oxygen. An hour into the test, and already I’m getting signs of revitalization. If it keeps going this well, I might do similar tests with the other samples. Who knows what we could learn from this tough little son of a gun? It would be worth a lifetime’s worth of work to see what kind of flowers bloom from that forest once we get a colony going. End report.

 She read her way to the two last entries on the file. The next to last was the final audio log from Dr. Alder.

         Science division, Dr. Alder recording. A day into the test and the samples are getting too big for their containers. I had to move them to the largest ones I’ve got. Their rate of growth and regeneration is astounding; just imagine the medical applications. Also, they’ve begun to sprout fungi-like protrusions; I plan on testing those as well, as soon as I find more containers. End report.

 Then, the last entry. It was a video recording from a personal log, with no date or description. After a little hesitance, she played it.

 Through the initial static, it showed the efforts of two people soldering a pressure door shut, breathing heavily and muttering worriedly.

       “Think that’ll hold?” a man said off-camera.

       “No” a woman said, also off-camera. “None of the others did.”

       The perspective then went bobbing down a corridor, held by shaking, nerve-wracked hands.

       “Oh-kay…” the male voice said. “This is Captain Sam Anderson recording what will likely be my final log. The sample, the thing…it’s devoured most of my crew by now, turned them into, into…”

       He paused for a breath, swallowing the knot in his throat.

       “They swept through the ship so fast, it’s only me, Tanaka, Gavin and O’Keeffe left. The rest are gone. If the company sends a rescue party, if someone comes looking for us, get out of here…get the hell out of here, before it devours you too…”

       His frayed composure slipped for a second, and he began to sob. Fighting his pending breakdown, Anderson continued.

       “I’m going to crash the ship and jettison a pod with the flight recorder inside. Hopefully, that and the high-level encryptions will keep it intact until someone finds it. Please find this. For the love of God, find this. It’s too late for us. This is Captain Anderson, signing off.”

 Static, then nothing.

Heart pounding and herself on the brink of tears, Hindel jumped from her chair and ran out of her quarters, sliding down the ladder to C-deck. Pausing only to catch herself from slipping, she barged into the rec room where Barrens, his men, and doctors Han, Varrez and Walsh were gathered. Her haggard stance immediately put them on edge.

       “Barrens!” she said. “You and I are getting into pressure suits and spacing that body, right now, do you understand?”

       Barrens, flat-footed, gave a quick “Yes ma’am.”

       She ran back down the corridor, Barrens following close behind. Varrez’s fingers started to tremble. She glanced at Han and Walsh.

Hindel and Barrens ran to the excursion room, donning their environment suits and helmets. On impulse, Barrens grabbed his shock rifle and slung it over his shoulder.

       “Mind telling me what’s going on, captain?”

       Hindel synched her helmet in place, locking it for a seal.

       “The Wanderer crew” she breathed. “It infected them, made them kill each other.”

       She turned to Barrens. “It turned them into those things on the moon, and the same thing’s going to happen to us if we don’t space Talgold!”

       His eyes went wide. “And how the hell do you know that?”

       “Just trust me, and follow me!”

       Suited up, they took the lift down to the hangar. Barrens unlatched a service dolly from the wall and rolled it over.

       “Which room?” Hindel said.

       “First on the right.”

       She went to the door and hit the release, opening it with a hiss. Hindel gasped. There was no body inside. The cadaver bag was shredded to pieces, filled with shallow pools of blood and bits of flesh. Wet streaks were on the floor and walls, a particularly long, dark streak under a vent port with its cover torn away. A mangled environment suit lay discarded nearby.

       “Oh God no…”

       “Christ” Barrens said. “We better warn the crew.”

 Hindel alerted her flight officers by her personal com, who then sounded the alarm throughout the ship. Ensign Komev’s voice carried on all decks: “Attention all hands, attention all hands, class-three quarantine procedures are in effect. All crew except search and rescue are to report to their quarters immediately until quarantine is lifted. Search and rescue are to suit up and report with weapons to the hangar; repeat, search and rescue to the hangar.”

       Davis, Duvin and Farzen suited up, armed themselves without knowing why, and met Barrens by the open pressure door, seeing for themselves the mess left behind, grimacing.

       “Holy fuck” Duvin said.

       “What the hell happened here, sarge?” Farzen said. “Where’s the body?”

       “Through the vent” Barrens said.

       “I thought he was supposed to be dead” Davis said.

       “He was” Barrens said. “For a while.”

       “What do you mean ‘a while’?” Davis said. “What the hell’s going on here, sir?”

       Barrens took in a breath and sighed. “We encountered something on the surface; mutants, monsters, whatever they are. The growth we found in the wreck? The captain thinks it infected the Wanderer crew and turned them into what Talgold probably is now. If you can breathe it in or have to come in contact with it, we don’t know; that’s why everyone’s in quarantine and we’re in suits. Like it or not, it’s our job to take care of it.”

       “Of what?” Farzen said.

       Barrens paused, staring off for a brief moment before turning to his team.

       “A lot of blood, a lot of gore. I couldn’t explain’em to you if I tried, except that they’re as though as they are ugly, and they scream.”

       His men looked confused, and not really reassured. Barrens set his shock rifle to its maximum setting, implying for them to do the same.

       “I’m not gonna lie, this could become a shit show real fast, but if we can fry this son of a bitch or pin him down somewhere, there’s a chance we can kill it with no casualties.”

       “What’s the plan, sir?” Farzen said.

       Barrens glanced over the room. “Well, he’s using the ducts. If we can get the bridge to seal off the junctions after we clear them, we might be able to corner it, or funnel it towards the airlock. Good enough?”

       “Yes sir” Davis said. The rest muttered approval.

       He contacted the bridge.

       “Barrens to Captain Hindel: we’re going to search the vents, starting in the hangar and working up the decks. We need you to manually close off all junctions behind us as we go, and steer it towards the airlock.”

       “Will do” Hindel said. “Keep in touch, sergeant.”

       “Aye ma’am, Barrens out.”

       He turned to his team. “Ready?”

       They nodded, and began their methodical clearing of the hangar vents; two teams on either side of a room or hallway, one opening the vent and the other peering inside, panning their light and rifle, going slow. From the main hangar bay doors to the pressure rooms behind, they found nothing beyond Talgold’s initial bloody mess.

       “Junctions A-1 through A-10 clear” Barrens said. “Hangar bay swept.”

       “Roger that” Hindel said. “Closing off.”

       A dull locking thud echoed from the walls. The SAR team went up to C-deck, Barrens manually locking the lift in place under their feet as they stepped off. They spread out at the level’s terminus and slowly combed their way down, tense but prepared, clearing and sealing the galley, the recreation room, utilities, lavatories, showers and cryo-chamber. Again, no contact.

       “This bastard’s really good at hiding” Duvin said.

       “You’d think with all that blood, he’d leave some kind of trail” Farzen muttered.

       “Barrens to bridge, are you picking up any blockages anywhere in the ship?”

       “Negative” Tajmaran said. “Maybe he’s not in the ducts?”

       “I think we would’ve found him by now if he wasn’t” Barrens said. “Either that, or he’s up in A-deck with you guys.”

       There was a pause on the line.

       “I’ll keep scanning, and let you know if I find something” Tajmaran said. “Bridge out.”

       “I feel safer already” Davis said.

       With C-deck locked, the team went up and searched through B-deck, sweeping the ladder wells and the compartments around the elevators, checking every corner and compartment.

        “Rooms and vents around B-terminus cleared” Barrens said.

       “Closing off” Hindel said.

       “Primary and secondary cargo next” he said to his team.

       “One bay at a time, no splitting up.”

       Cautiously, quietly, they paced the curve of the main cargo wing. It was spacious by design, though the Wayfarer’s days of hauling freight were well behind her. Still, its importance meant that it had been built with secondary vent covers in case of sudden vacuum or pressure loss, adding an extra little layer of tension for the SAR team as they opened the first cover, only to have another to clear; but still, no Talgold. Even so, their readouts were steadily rising the further they went without finding him.

       “Primary cargo cleared” Barrens said.

       “Closing off” Hindel said.

       “Moving on to secondary” he rasped, motioning his men to move forward.

       The secondary cargo bay, tucked behind the primary one, was basically a compartmented room for smaller hauls, humming with vibrations from the nearby engine block. The emptiness amplified it into an ominous drone. Multi-tier racks and shelves cast shadows that hid the walls and corners, making their sweeps slower, more cautious.

       “How many hiding places does this ship possibly have?” Davis said.

       “Too many” Duvin said. “If the threat of infection’s so damn high, why don’t we just leave it and get in the escape pods?”

       “If you want to wait the year or so I’d take for a rescue ship to show up cramped up in one of those with no food or air, be my guest” Barrens said.

 As Barrens and his team swept their way through the ship, the rest of the crew sat waiting in their B-deck compartments, their gazes focused on the door or off to some far point. No one spoke at first beyond soft murmurings, but as time and nerves wore on, and no updates came from the bridge, Mason exhaled.

       “I hate this; sitting around, doing nothing, not knowing what’s going on.”

       “So does everyone else” Ausmith said. “I’m sure the captain will inform us of what’s happening when we need to be, or when our quarantine’s been lifted.”

       “Easy for you to say” Mason said. “You already have some idea of what this is all about, being the shuttle pilot.”

       He looked over to Han and Varrez. His face was drawn, and he raised his voice.

       “You do too, don’t you? What’s the captain so afraid of?”

       “That’s enough, Mason” Hornens said. “Don’t start this.”

       “Start what?” Mason said. “Look, I’m not trying to start anything, I just think it’s time we were told what’s going on. Am I the only one?”

       “No, you’re not” Ausmith said. “But the rest of us don’t know much more than you do. We may as well ask you what engineering got from the Wanderer’s flight recorder?”

       Mason shrugged. “Can’t say. Hindel ordered it sent directly to her as soon as we decoded it –but that’s what I mean; there’s way too much secrecy over what’s been going on lately.”

       Mason looked again to Han and Varrez.

       “What happened down there? How did Talgold die?”

       Varrez said nothing. She didn’t even look at him.

       “The captain insisted we keep it confidential” Han said.

       “Sure she did, sure” Mason said, getting up from his bunk, raising his voice again.

       “Why wouldn’t it be? Why not keep us in quarantine the whole way home, if that’s what’ll take? All I want is a few little answers, is that so much to ask?”

       “Calm down, Mason” Hornens said.

       “I’m not gonna calm down!” Mason said. “This is bullshit, and you know it!”

       There was a loud thump over Mason’s head, ending his ranting. A ceiling panel bulged, buckled, and gave way, collapsing at his feet. A scrambled mass of gore fell with it, shrieking and flailing wildly. Mason jumped back, and everyone else sprang away from their bunks.

       Aside the obvious bone and limb-twisting deformations, the eyes of Talgold’s corpse hung limply from their sockets, replaced by tendril-like feelers. His drooling jaw was split into mandibles, showing new rows of teeth lining his gaping throat. He shrieked again, gurgling his blood-caked spittle.

       Varrez screamed and bolted for the door. The others stumbled after, but the creature was able to corner Mason. It swung its arm and slashed him with a serrated vine-like growth, throwing him to the wall. The creature leapt at Mason and began mutilating him, slashing him with claws and spines, opening as many wounds as it could. Blood spray slapped the wall, and Mason cried desperately for help while vainly shielding himself with mangled arms.

       No one helped. They were banging on the door, prying at it, yelling for anybody to hear. Varrez in her panic kept hitting the door release, despite knowing that quarantine protocols had it firmly locked.

       Hornens smacked a com-display on the bulkhead, opening a channel to the bridge.

       “Captain, Captain! Open the door, it’s in here with us! Captain, can you hear me? Open the goddamn door!”

       “I can’t!” Hindel said. “Barrens has to override it from the outside!”

       “Get him, hurry!”

       “I’m on it, hang on!”

       Having torn Mason apart and shredded his major organs, the creature turned its attention to the screaming mass of victims it had to choose from, and closed in.

       Ausmith grabbed a fire extinguisher near the door and sprayed at it, slowing it, though not stopping it. Yelling, he attacked it with the empty bottle but was swatted to the deck, blood gushing from his mouth, his jaw hanging limply by its tendons. It was his turn to be gored, buying the others precious few seconds with his losing struggle against their infected crewmate.

       Barrens and his men rushed to the door and overrode the lockdown, standing aside as the others spilled out into the corridor a screaming tangle of hysteria. The SAR team formed up and leveled their shock rifles, firing at the abomination just as it finished mutilating Ausmith. Static rounds struck it in the torso and shoulder, making it wail and crawl away, slipping back up into the ceiling for escape, leaving blood dripping from the vent.

       “Recovery!” Barrens said.

       His men moved in, Davis standing guard under the vent while Duvin and Farzen checked their casualties.

       “Mason’s gone, real gone” Farzen said, his voice high and shaking.

       “So’s Ausmith” Duvin said. “Fuckin’ Christ.”

       “Get the rest to safety!” Barrens said. “Leave the bodies!”

       “We should check them for injuries first” Davis said.

       “Do it!”

       Davis nodded and sprinted out to the corridor. Barrens contacted Hindel.

       “Mason and Ausmith are dead. Talgold’s still on the loose, so we’re coming up to A-deck. Seal off everything behind us, and I mean everything!”

       “Will do” Hindel said. “Bring them up!”

       Barrens called for Farzen and Duvin, and they rejoined Davis in the corridor. The civilian crew were huddled and shaken, but fairly well composed considering.

       “Any of them hurt?”

       “No sir.”

       “Good. Farzen and I will take point. You and Duvin have the rear.”

       The SAR team escorted the civilian crew swiftly to B-deck’s terminus, splitting up to use both elevators; Davis and Duvin taking Han and Varrez, Barrens and Farzen taking Hornens and Walsh. The creature that was Talgold, far from being killed or satiated, crawled out from one of the ladder wells and lunged at them, screeching as it attacked. Farzen pivoted and fired, aiming wide and missing. It lashed at him and struck him across the helmet, shattering his faceplate and sending him reeling. It grabbed him and threw him over its shoulder, going for the rest trapped in the elevator; it slashed at them, tearing a jagged gash along Walsh’s arm. Barrens pulled him back and fired point-blank into its toothy throat, forcing it to retreat as the doors closed, their elevator ascending to A-deck.

       Breathing hard, Barrens shouted and banged his fist against the doors.

       “Farzen, Farzen goddamn it!”

       Walsh held his arm and hissed through his teeth as the entire sleeve turned red, and blood began dripping from his fingers. Hornens looked at him warily, leaning away.

       “That’s a pretty bad cut, doc.”

       “It’s nothing” Walsh said. “Absolutely nothing.”

       The elevators opened to A-deck, locking in place as Hindel prepared to seal them off from the rest of the ship. Junctions were closed, covers were slid over the ladder wells, and primary power was cut for good measure. Only A-deck would be allowed to function at full capacity. The engines groaned, shuddered, and faded out, leaving the Wayfarer to float listlessly in orbit over a dead world, all but dead herself.

       The survivors filed out into the terminus, stunned and scared, but glad to be alive. The elevators closed and sat motionless. Blunt thumping, followed by soft scratching and low growling, could be heard below their feet.

       “Gather them up” Barrens said to Davis, now the most senior of his men.

       “We’re moving as far from any entry below deck as we can get. Main Fore’s right behind the bridge, right?”

       “I think so” Davis said.

       “We’re moving there, then.”

       “Yes sir” Davis said, looking around. “Where’s Farzen?”

       “He…didn’t make it.”

       Hearing that from the sergeant was a shock to him, but Davis’ training quickly suppressed it. Any words he had were stuck in his throat, and swallowed back down.

       “I’ll go get Duvin” he said.

       Hindel ran out from the bridge to meet them, sweat dotting her brow, her environment suit disheveled.

       “Is this everyone?”

       “Most” Barrens said. “Farzen was killed by the elevators.”

       “I’m sorry to hear that” Hindel said.

       Barrens nodded. “Dr. Walsh is wounded. I recommend isolated treatment in sickbay.”

       “Of course” Hindel said. “In the meantime…we’ll think of something we can do.”

 While most of the surviving crew were taken to the forward compartment by the bridge, Walsh was confined to sickbay and left to the care of Dr. Han. Wearing a hazmat suit, he cleaned and bandaged Walsh’s arm, after taking blood and tissue samples for study.

       “Think that’s a good idea?” Walsh said.

       “Given our situation, or yours rather” Han said. “It couldn’t hurt to figure out the infection’s rate of spread, growth, or consumption of living tissue. Don’t worry, I’ll have my eyes on it.”

       “I’m sure that’s what the science officer on the Wanderer thought” Walsh said.

       “They didn’t know what they were dealing with” Han said.

       Walsh chuckled. “Neither do we.”

       Han didn’t respond as he finished cleaning and wrapping the wound. “If you need anything, you have mine and the captain’s coms.”

       “Don’t worry about me” Walsh said. “Quarantine’s actually pretty comfy, once you get used to it.”

       “Oh? Then I’ll just take my samples and be on my way.”

       Han got up to leave, but Walsh stopped him.

       “There is one more thing, if you don’t mind.”

       He lowered his voice, and sighed. “If it seems I’ve started to…turn, as it were, and I’m beyond help or saving…could you talk to Sergeant Barrens about, well, you know?”

       “It won’t come to that” Han said. “But I’ll pass it on.”

       “Thank you.”

       “Don’t mention it.”

“When it’s down to just dishing it all up...”

Twenty minutes passed. The second away team of Varrez, Han, Talgold and Barrens sat in the shuttle suited up and harnessed in. Clearance was asked for and given, the hangar was vented, and the shuttle made another run for the moon’s surface, performing an overfly of the area before landing in a clearing south of the valley by the dune sea, creating a cloud of fine red dust.

       “See you kids later” Ausmith said. “Remember your emergency channels.”

       They stepped out onto a plain of sand and rocky outcroppings, and a soft, whispering wind. The terrain rose gradually ahead of them, building up to the near mountains. XH-Lambda loomed over the western skyline, waxing to a quarter-phase. Several other moons were also out, rising and falling in their separate arcs, ghostly pale in the haze. Varrez in particular was taken by the sight.

       “It’s so primordial, like how Mars must have looked before it was terraformed –minus the gas giant, of course.”

       “Yeah, imagine that” Barrens said. “Let’s roll out the rover and get going, the sooner the better.”

       “What’s your hurry, sergeant?” Varrez said. “We can take a few minutes for sample gathering, can’t we?”

       “I’m not saying you can’t play around in the dirt, doc” Barrens said. “But we’ve got a job to do, and we shouldn’t stay down here any longer than we have to.”

       “It’ll only take a second” Varrez said, kneeling to collect some quick sand and mineral samples, and tucking them away in containers.

       “See? A second.”

       “Maybe we should get going” Talgold said. “The daylight’s looking a little dull, and the rover’s electric.”

       “Actually” Varrez said. “Because XH is a twin-sun system true night is very seldom here, even less so with a gas giant hanging overhead. There’s probably no such thing as true night on this moon, for all we know.”

       Dr. Han, not caring for the conversation, cranked the rover and backed it out from the shuttle, down the ramp, and skidded it to a halt. He set it in drive and revved it twice.

       “There’s a possible alien anomaly just a few kilometers away from us, and you people are talking about rocks and sunlight? Let’s go!”

       Barrens grinned. “Han, my man.”

 The flatness of the lowlands went by quickly as the rover sped across the wastes toward the mountain valley, kicking up dust and pebbles with its ample treads. As they neared the valley, they noticed odd silhouettes in the hanging mist, tall and thin but otherwise unclear; they became steadily revealed as the team drove closer, and the mists passed further downrange.

       It was a forest of sharp, angular pinnacles, hundreds of feet high, filling the entirety of the valley and climbing to its lower slopes; skeletal forms bleached and bone-dry, tree-like in structure yet also unsettlingly alien.

       “Christ” Barrens said. “Captain, I hope you’re seeing this.”

       “I am” Hindel said from the bridge. “And I don’t believe it.”

       “What do you think it is?” Talgold said.

       In the awestruck silence, Varrez spoke quietly.

       “It’s beautiful, grotesquely beautiful.”

       They drove to the outermost eaves of the forest, boneyard, whatever it was, and parked the rover under its shadows. The ‘trees’ were smooth with odd indentations along sections of their trunks, like bamboo stalks; they rose vertical and robust, tapering into fragile tufts of tendrils like cotton canopies seven to eight hundred feet over them. The air within was still, the soft wind dying outside the outer staggered groves.  Varrez walked up to a trunk and touched it, feeling it scrape along her gauntlet.

       “It’s very stony; looks organic enough, though.”

       “Almost like that growth we found in the lab” Barrens said. “Maybe this is what it grows into?”

       “Perhaps we can cross-analyze” Han said. “Varrez, do you have a scraper?”

       “Several” Varrez said, opening a small kit and handing him one.  

       “Every good geologist does.”

       “Thank you” he said, taking it with a curt bow.

       Holding a container underneath, Han scraped off trace amounts of the ‘tree’ for further study, snapped the lid shut, and gave Varrez her tool back.

       “How deep is the marker into this thing, captain?” Barrens said.

       “Almost six hundred meters in” Hindel said. “Follow your HUDs, and you’ll get there.”

       “Alright.” Barrens grabbed a large backpack from the rover’s bed and slung it over his shoulders, synching it firmly across his chest, patting down the locks.

       “I’m taking point. No one leaves sight of anyone else, got it?”

       “Yessir sergeant!” Varrez and Talgold said, saluting flippantly.

       “Right behind you” Han said with a thumbs-up.

       Not quite the responses he wanted, but Barrens expected as much from a bunch of civilians.

       At his lead, they entered the forest. The ground was almost completely covered by slithering and overlapping roots, tripping them up somewhat, though progress was steady; they weren’t in any hurry, mostly for safety, but also for being in the midst of a giant environmental wonderland, once the shock of its foreignness became a wonder for it.

       The meter count on their HUDs counted down. Light coming through the canopies was the color of a rich late sunset, if sunset it was, filtered by the cotton puffs into shifting beams touched with wafting motes in the dead air, blurring to a deep ruby hue in the darker parts of the forest that slowly enveloped them.

       “You almost expect a deer or something to come leaping out at any moment” Varrez said aloud, to herself.

       “What, like a space-deer?” Talgold said.

       “I got bad news for you, Varrez; space-deer probably eat people.”

       “Oh? how do you figure that?” Varrez said.

       “We’re in uncharted space, the rules are inverted here. It’s basic physics.”

       Varrez chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

       “Well if we do run into something” Barrens said. “It’ll be running straight into this.”

       He patted a side pocket on his backpack, indicating the folded shock rifle he was carrying with him.

       “Fully charged and ready to go.  I’ve got a pistol on my leg as well.”

       “You really think you’ll need those?” Varrez said.

       “I didn’t think we’d be strolling through a giant petrified forest in the middle of a desert moon” Barrens said. “Who knows what else we’ll run into here that we haven’t seen yet?”

       “Let’s just hope you won’t have to use them” Han said, keeping on the periphery of conversation as he glanced up and around at the overbearing stalks, himself almost expecting to see some alien creature scurrying in the ruby half-light.

 Thirty minutes passed on their mission clocks. The trees grew largest and thickest where the marker indicated the metallic presence, now only a few meters away.

       “Something’s flickering” Barrens said. “Right ahead of us.”

       A wall glinted in front of them through the stalks and roots of the forest, faintly iridescent. It was scratched by the gripping trees, partly subsumed by them, but there were still patches of it that shone like silver, if tinted by a ruddy hue.

       “Ensign Komev?” Varrez said. “I think you owe Ellson a beer. I might too.”

       The team tentatively approached, and discovered more than a simple wall. Rising with, and above many, of the trunks and eaves, angular and yet organic, smooth as polished stone and gray as steel, was a single spire tapered like an icicle, monolithic and austere, the wall surrounding it only one part of a greater monument.

       “You’ve gotta be kidding me” Barrens said.

       “Incredible” Han said. “Something this far out can’t be manmade.”

       “Then who built it?” Talgold said. “And would they consider this trespassing?”

       “Doesn’t look like anyone’s been home in a while” Varrez said. “Unless this is a typical aesthetic for them, whoever they are.”

       “What, the whole ‘abandoned’ look?” Barrens said. “Always a crowd favorite.”

       Captain Hindel chimed in. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. We’re potentially talking about one of the greatest discoveries in human history; it’s worth taking a moment to plan out our next move.”

       “Next move?” Talgold said. “I thought that was finding a way inside, past the wall.”

       “Even if there was a way in” Barrens said. “I wouldn’t be so eager trying to find one in something so dilapidated, nor would I advise it for this team.”

       “You wouldn’t have to” Talgold said. “This is an exploratory survey, not a military foray. You can wait out here, if you want.”

       Barrens shifted his stance. “The captain put me in charge of everyone’s safety out here, whether you like it or not, and I strongly advise waiting for a properly equipped excavation team to assume the risk of checking this thing out before we do anything.”

       “It’ll take a full year for anyone else to get here” Talgold said. “Are you seriously prepared to wait that long? Besides, I don’t think the captain meant for run-of-the-mill safety concerns to interfere with scientific research of this magnitude, do you?”

       “We’re talking about strolling our way into a bunch of alien ruins that could be dangerously unstable” Barrens said. “My concerns aren’t ‘run-of-the-mill’, doc.”

       “It doesn’t look unstable” Varrez said. She approached the wall and ran her gauntlet along its dirty yet refractive surface like she did the tree trunk, wiping away centuries of dust.

       “I can’t find a crack in it, despite its condition.”

       “With all respect, this is not a democracy” Barrens said.

       “You’re right, it isn’t” Han said. “Thoughts, captain?”

       Their channel to the bridge was silent for a moment. Hindel sat back in her chair and weighed her options, wanting the ruins to be explored, but fearing for any unseen hazard they may walk into –and how bad it would look on a report after her first time in command. Yet credentials and commendations, as well as the thrill of exploration, leaned heaviest on her and tipped the scales away from overt concern.

       “Exploring the anomaly was your primary mission, though I understand the sergeant’s caution; I share it, too. However, this opportunity we have to touch, to study and record something other than human, even superficially, can’t be passed up while we have it all to ourselves. I give permission to search for a way inside the wall, provided the danger is minimal.”

       “We can look out for ourselves, captain” Talgold said, smiling at Barrens.

       “We’ll be careful” Varrez said.

       “I have complete faith in the sergeant’s abilities to keep us safe” Han said.

       Barrens shook his head, muttering to himself.

       “You may proceed” Hindel said.

The team began walking the perimeter of what proved to be a very formidable old wall: sixty feet high and a third in width, topped with geometric parapets laced with interweaving patterns; whether purely for decoration, or perhaps for defense, couldn’t be guessed. After much scouting and slipping over roots, following the curve south and east, they found an archway-shaped opening in the wall.

       “Captain, we found a way in” Talgold said, rushing forward. “Can you see it?”

       “I can” Hindel said. “Be careful.”

       Barrens grabbed him and made him wait for the other two lagging behind. Together, the team passed the entrance into the interior space, estimated by their HUDs to be over one thousand feet across, and choked with twisting, calcified saplings clinging to the inner wall. The ‘plain’ within the wall was covered in the same dull burnished metal of the spire and complex, overrun by thick vine patches and other nodules resembling fungi and molds; some of them were smaller versions of the larger stalks that made up the forest, as tall or taller than the team, already sprouting their thin, dandelion-like tendrils. Talgold wandered in awe, muttering excitedly while recording everything in detail, while Varrez gingerly collected more samples.

       There was an open doorway at the base of the spire, resembling a gaping mouth with inverted teeth; inside was pitch black except the first dozen or so feet, where a red haze filtered through, giving the impression of a large waiting throat.

       “Is this where this whole forest came from?” Talgold said. “Plant nursery gone wrong?”

       “It’s the Wanderer all over again” Barrens said to himself, subconsciously patting his suit to make sure his weapons were still on him.

       Not sharing his concern, Talgold stepped up to the doorway of the spire and slowly panned his helmet, letting his light shine within; the first artificial light in who knew how long.

       It was a hallway, or a cathedral, leading into a dark his light couldn’t penetrate. Vines continued along the floor and walls, covering over intricate murals of hieroglyphics mixed with geometric symbols. There were rows of chambers on either side.

       He laughed from giddiness. “You guys have gotta see this!”

       The others rushed up and peered in, stunned by what they saw.

       “We have to check this out” Talgold said. “We have to.”

       “Is it safe?” Varrez said.

       “Seems intact” Talgold said. “Hasn’t fallen over yet, anyway.”

       “We’ve gone this far” Han said. “We should be okay if we stick together.”

       “You’re out of your damn mind” Barrens said. “There’s no way we’re going inside this.”

       “Captain?” Talgold said. “Just a quick foray, please?”

       Barrens sighed. Another silent moment passed on Hindel’s end.

       “Stay within each other’s sight.”

       They entered the black of the hallway, filing in behind the sergeant as he took point again, grumbling as he did. The outside world subsided into the background, taking all reddish daylight with it. Their visors adjusted accordingly, though only by so much. They switched to infrared, seeing that the way was straight, and that the ceiling was high and vaulted. It also reverberated with the slightest noise, carrying the echo of their footsteps, every scrape of their suits, to an uncomfortable degree. Though not pristine there was no speck of dust, no obvious decay, as if the spire and what happened here were frozen in instance, eternally preserved without resolve.

       Seems to be a theme on this planet, Barrens thought.

       Nerves aside, they passed by the hieroglyphic murals with fascination, a desire to touch and study them, but that all-too-human dread kept them from lingering, and no one wanted to fall behind even a few steps of the others.

       “Oh, I wish we could understand these” Varrez said. “It’s so beautiful how they interflow with each other, scene into scene, like they’re all one long unbroken conversation.”

       “I think you missed your calling, Varrez” Talgold said. “You should have been a writer.”

       “By their reflective gleam” Han said. “I’m tempted to say that these pictograms are lined in gold, or a similar alloy. An interesting use.”

       “Guess human beings aren’t the only species who enjoy decorating” Varrez said.

       Barrens scoffed. “What I’d like to know is where the damn lights are. What’s the point of writing on the walls if you can’t see it?”

       “Maybe they could see it just fine” Talgold said.

       “Fine nothing” Barrens said. “No lights, a skeleton forest, a bunch of weird voodoo-shit on the walls…it’s as if this whole place was designed to scare the hell out of you.”

       He decided to check in with the Wayfarer.

       “Still with us, captain?”

       “There’s a little interference, but I read you” Hindel said. “I’m sending your feeds directly to archive. The company will definitely want records of this.”

       “Hear that, guys?” Talgold said. “Once we get home, we’re set for life!”

       Talgold’s voice carried down the hall ahead of them, penetrating the dark and reverberating in an uncomfortable closeness despite the size of the complex. Barrens glared back at him, and he shrugged.

       “How far in are you?” Hindel said.

       “About fifty meters” Barrens said. “I’m not sure how far it goes, but we haven’t had any trouble yet.”

       “I’ve got Ausmith on an open channel in case” Hindel said.

       A few more meters of echoing darkness, and the team came to the edge of a vast spherical chamber that was the heart of the structure. Their HUDs showed it to be at least five hundred feet in circumference. The hallway split off along the sides, skirting the void, meeting on the other side to continue as another hallway. On both sides, however, were long thin platforms with what appeared to be daises perched out overlooking the bowl.

       “Quite the room” Han said. “Wonder what it was for?”

       “You’re the alien expert” Barrens said. “You tell us.”

       “Xeno-biology, not xeno-archeology” Han said. “No such field has ever needed to exist, until now.”

        The team began to spread out as they stepped into the chamber, Barrens and Han going left, Varrez and Talgold right, staying close to the walls. Unlike the hallway, the chamber had no murals of complex hieroglyphs or geometric signatures; it was bare, almost utilitarian, yet even here arms of fossilized vines slithered along the floor, to the edge of the pit where they seemed to stop abruptly, almost as if they were severed from it.

       Talgold dared to step in for a closer look, crouching by the lip of the bowl, when a noise broke his concentration; a hum, very subtle, so much so that he almost didn’t catch it. He tapped the side of his helmet.

       “Anyone else hear that?”

       “Hear what?” Varrez said.

       “That humming sound, kind of like a ship engine, only softer.”

       “I don’t hear anything” Varrez said. “Could be interference.”

       “Are you getting any?”

       She did a quick check. “No.”

       “Then I don’t think it’s that.”

       Talgold kept crouched and listened. The sound remained.

       “Get down, and keep still.”

       Varrez complied, waiting a moment.

       “I hear it, barely.”

       “But where’s it coming from?” Talgold said.

       “Don’t ask me” Varrez said. “I would’ve missed it completely if you hadn’t pointed it out.”

       Talgold stood up again, and the noise faded.

       “It’s low level, like it’s coming from the floor.”

       Varrez looked down, shifting her feet.

       “You can’t be serious; this place is a ruin, how could anything still be running, assuming it even has a power source?”

       “Don’t ask me.”

       Then, Talgold noticed another oddity. The beam of his helmet light faded out as he looked across the pit, but it too was subtle, something that also almost slipped by him. On a hunch, he reached out his hand and held it over the pit. A thin blue outline gave way, creating faint ripples in the air. He pulled back, and the air corrected itself.

       “Holy shit.”

       “Dr. Han, Sergeant Barrens!” Verrez said. “Come here, quick!”

       The two ran over, expecting to be shown some artifact or tool, a little disappointed to find their teammates seemingly milling about.

       “What’s with all the ruckus?” Barrens said.

       “Show them!” Varrez said, smiling widely.

       Talgold reached out again and withdrew, creating the same disturbance as before.

       “It has an effect on light too” he said. “Try it.”

       They shone their lights across the void, and saw the beams distort and fade away before they could reach the other side.

       “Well I’ll be” Han said.

       “There’s a hum coming from the ground as well” Talgold said. “I bet the two are corollary.”

       “A power source?” Han said.

       “Maybe.”

       Talgold glanced over to the platform and, without a word, walked towards it. He stepped onto the platform, approached the dais, and examined its smooth metallic surface. It had patterns similar to the hieroglyphs, arranged in sections separated by grooves and contained in blocks. Talgold studied them, his heartrate rising on his display.

       “What are you doing?” Varrez said.

       “What if this is some kind of control surface?” Talgold said.

       “So what if it is?” Barrens said. “This place is ancient, kid. It’s not gonna work, and even if it did, I wouldn’t go messing with it.”

       “I’m not” Talgold said. “I just want a visual record of it, for the archive.”

       “Make it quick” Barrens said. “Then we’re leaving. I think we’ve explored enough for one day.”

       “Sure, sure.” Talgold brushed his fingers on the dais, adjusting the brightness of his light.

       “How’s that look, captain?”

       “Like one for the history books” Hindel said. “Great job everyone. Tie up any loose ends and report back to the shuttle.”

 A sudden deep groan went through the chamber, reverberating the hallways like they were hollow instruments. The team jumped, looking up and around nervously. All readouts rose sharply; Barrens hissed a sharp curse. A low rumbling continued, coming from the walls and vibrating them. The dais began to glow, illuminating the glyphs in a neon blue light. The force field over the pit shifted into visibility, humming ambiently as power fed into it once more.

       “What happened? What’s going on?” Hindel said.

       “There was a bit of a tremor, ma’am” Barrens said. “We’re getting out now, alert the shuttle.”

       A pulse flashed from the dais, and the rumblings ceased. A small holographic sphere appeared from the glyph console, flickering and spinning serenely. Talgold watched it nervously.

       “What the hell?”

       The sphere stopped, registering his presence, and scanned his faceplate with a wide beam.

       “Get down from there, Talgold!” Barrens said. “That’s an order!”

       Before Talgold could comply, the hologram concentrated its beam into his eyes, holding him unmoving at first. Then he began to fidget, and tremble, and scream.

       Barrens sprinted to the platform, leapt up the dais, and yanked Talgold free of the hologram, still screaming. His pupils were dilated, the sclera red from ruptured blood vessels. Tears streaked his face, and blood streamed from his nose. The sphere, interrupted from its attempted link, winked out and turned the console red, beginning a new wave of tremors.

       Unseen doors closed, sealing off the chamber and hallways. A chill of dread gripped their spines. Varrez laughed nervously.

       “Hey kid, kid, look at me!” Barrens said, cradling Talgold in his lap. He was still shaking, his eyes fixed on some far point, muttering incoherently.

       “Shit!”

       Barrens unslung his backpack and rummaged quickly through his med-kit, prepping a syringe and injecting it through a special port in Talgold’s suit. He gasped, shuddered, and lay still. A good sign, hopefully.

       “Sergeant!” Hindel said, her voice cutting out. “Situation report, now!”

       “Things got real FUBAR real fast, ma’am, I’ll get back to you.”

       There was no way to know if any of what he said got through before static overwhelmed his connection, cutting them off from the Wayfarer.

       “I’m not picking them up anymore” Varrez said. “What do we do now?”

       “Hindel knows were still inside the structure” Han said. “I’m sure she’ll get us out somehow.”

       “What about Talgold?”

       “One problem at a time!” Barrens said, trying to rouse Talgold from his shock. He dared to take another syringe, a stimulant, and inject a minute amount into the port. Talgold gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, fighting for speech that was slow to return, muttering frustrated strings of incomprehension.

       “Sh-sa-sarge…w-we…”

       He grimaced between breaths, trying to force out the words.

       “Slow down, take your time” Barrens said. “We’ve got plenty of it.”

       “N-no, we d-don’t” Talgold spat.

       “D-dangerous…have to…”

       Talgold bolted up, heaved himself to his feet, and leaned over the console. Barrens moved to restrain him, but Talgold pushed him away, screaming.

       “Get away from m-me!”

       “I know you’re not feeling right, kid” Barrens said. “But you need to calm down.”

       “I n-need to s-save us!” Talgold said. “Save us!”

       “That’s it” Barrens said. “Got no other choice.”

       Barrens gripped Talgold in a pin, struggling to bring him to the floor as Talgold fought against it; he quickly swiped the shock pistol from the sergeant’s holster and shot a low-setting bolt into his leg, making Barrens drop as pain and numbness spread throughout his calf.

       Talgold waved at the icons, bringing up and manipulating holograms as if he were suddenly an expert on them. Varrez and Han watched on in stunned silence.

       “This p-place is a research facility” Talgold said. “They abandoned it, q-quarantined it…had to destroy it.”

       Images flashed and faded. The force field shifted hue, and the chamber walls shuddered.

       “It knows w-we’re intruders” Talgold said. “Can’t risk infection, g-gonna wipe this place c-clean again, and everyone s-stuck inside it.”

       Tears welled in Varrez’s eyes as the weight of the moment, of Talgold’s words, sank in. Han clapped her shoulder in consolation, fighting his own rising panic.

       “If I c-can convince it to override p-protocol, I c-can save us.”

       “How are you going to do that?” Barrens said. Talgold didn’t answer.

       A shadow moved down the chamber walls, ambling like a large spider, noiseless in its descent. As Talgold tapped and swiped away in madness, its skulking outline caught Varrez’s attention. Her heart skipped a beat; she pulled on Han’s arm.

       “What is that?”

       It crouched on all fours, keeping as low and hidden as possible, stalking its way to the platform. Her eyes widened.

       “Talgold, watch out!”

       The creature sprinted, bounding its way up to the console; alerted by Varrez, Barrens snatched his pistol from under Talgold’s gaze and aimed, leading his shot, and fired into the creature’s chest. It recoiled and shrieked; an awful, ear-splitting wail of pain not only from the static bolt, but from the agony of its own existence.

       Its full horridness was caught in their intersecting lights. Despite its animal-like demeanor it was bipedal, a mangled mess of carnage and physiology, unsettlingly humanoid; its bones were bent and dislocated, stained by dried gore, adorned with long sharp protrusions on its arms and backside. What was once a head was yanked back, the throat open and exposed; a mass of slithering feelers poked their way through the trachea as bare vocal cords screeched such an inhuman pitch of suffering, it froze the blood in their veins.

       Barrens switched his pistol to its highest setting and fired again, then again. The creature stumbled, then redoubled to attack them. A fourth shot sent it over the platform and into the pit, landing with a sickening splat.

       Varrez was sobbing as Han struggled to lead her to the chamber doors. Barrens grabbed Talgold and followed behind, stopping only to retrieve the rifle from his pack as more shadows moved around them.

       “Han!” he said, tossing him his pistol. “Point and shoot, make’em count!”

       Han nodded, though felt little assurance.

       “The doors” Talgold said. “Get me to the d-doors.”

       Barrens dragged him over as fast as he could, the creatures screaming as they closed in, punctuated by gagging and warbling noises.

       “Hold him!” Barrens said to Varrez, handing Talgold off to her.

       “Let’em do whatever he needs to do, we’ll cover you!”

       Braced against Varrez’s shoulder, Talgold waved his hand beside the doors and activated a holographic pad.

       “I can override the d-doors” he said. “It’s still g-gonna wipe the facility. We need to get out before it does.”

       Barrens and Han started firing, and he hurried his fingers over the icons.

       “Please, Talgold” Varrez said. “Please, oh God, please.”

      “Almost, I t-think I…”

       The icons faded. The doors groaned and slid apart, opening to the hallway.

       “We’re through!” Varrez said.

       Without waiting she hurried herself and Talgold out of the chamber. Barrens and Han shuffled after, laying down a suppressive fire as the doors slowly closed again, sealing in whatever it was that attacked them.

       “What the fuck?” Barrens said.

       “Let’s try and get reception” Han said, panting. “Maybe we can get Ausmith to meet us outside the forest.”

       They carried on as swiftly as they could go with Talgold in tow, continuing to talk under his breath.

       “Used to be green, used to have water…they brought it here, studied it, wanted to understand its resilience, adaptability…outbreak, there was an outbreak, growing and growing, whole hemisphere compromised; planet cleansed, only way to be sure.”

       “Can this wait until we’re back on the ship, Talgold?” Varrez said. “Kinda not in the mood for it right now.”

       “The ship?” Talgold said, his voice clearer, stronger.

       “Yes, get back to the ship, and leave. It’ll start here, but it’ll spread, cleanse everything.”

       “Don’t have to say that twice” Barrens said.

       They returned to the entrance, but found that it had closed itself off like the inner chamber. Again, Barrens and Han took defensive positions as Varrez steadied Talgold to work another holo-pad, now glowing by the door frame.

       “So, uh, how much time do you think we have left?” she said.

       “I’m assuming not much” Talgold said, cracking the locks and opening the doors; that familiar dull, dirty orange light spilled in, a sight the team couldn’t have found more beautiful or uplifting.

       “Fuck this moon” Barrens said. “Let it get cleansed, whatever the hell that means.”

       A creeping form clinging to the outer door frame swung down and jumped them. It swiped its arm at them, lashing with its sharp whip-like growths, slashing Talgold across his chest and tearing open his suit. Trails of blood seeped through before the underlayer of bio-foam could close it.

       Varrez screamed and fell backwards with him, barely saving them from another vicious slash. Barrens and Han unloaded on it, firing until its flesh and exposed organs were literally burning. The creature hissed and writhed, shriveling into a heap, mercifully dying with a rasping wail.

       Catching his breath, Barrens tried contacting the bridge again.

       “Captain Hindel, come in. This is Sergeant Barrens; can you hear me?”

       “I can now” she said. “What happened? We got cut off by some kind of power flux. Some of your readouts are still on the fritz, are you alright?”

       “Talgold’s in critical condition” Barrens said. “If you could get Ausmith to swing by the forest, we’d appreciate it.”

       “Done” Hindel said. “Alerting Dr. Walsh to prep for immediate surgery.”

       “Prepare yourself for a hell of a briefing, ma’am” Barrens said. “And captain? It’s good to hear your voice again.”

       “Likewise, sergeant. Hindel out.”

       Talgold gasped for air as Varrez and Han carried him over their shoulders, stumbling in their haste but refusing to slow down. Barrens sprinted beside them, leveling his rifle at the forest’s crimson shadows and scanning for any sign of movement. They seemed to be alone, for what little comfort that offered. The forest was sinister thing again, now that they knew what dwelt within, or perhaps was itself; a parasite, a rampant fungus that gave birth to monstrosities no nightmare could fathom.

       They hurried under its brooding canopy, not only for Talgold’s sake or his premonitions, but for their own pounding fears, distilled to their most primal essence, fears far worse than simply being hunted like prey; fears of mutilation, being hacked to pieces by an abomination far from home or help, your friends having no choice other than to leave you behind, because saving you would kill them too.

 They reached the end of the forest with no further attacks. The rover sat untouched. Ausmith had the shuttle parked and ready, standing by the ramp as the engines idled. He ran over when he saw them dragging Talgold.

       “Christ, what happened to him?”

       “Get us back to the ship, lieutenant” Barrens said. “Now!”

       Varrez and Han hurried Talgold into the cabin and lay him down, trying to keep him prone. The bio-foam seal was holding, though he had since relapsed into shock.

       “He’s bleeding internally” Han said. “If he makes it, it’ll be close.”

       “What about the rover?” Ausmith said.

       “Fuck the rover!” Varrez screamed, spitting on her visor. “Take off!”

       He gave a curt nod and darted for the cockpit, closing the ramp, throttling the engines, and lumbering them skyward in a cloud of dust, leaving XH-Ld behind in a jolting ascent.

       Han grabbed a med-kit from the shuttle’s bulkhead and did every meager thing he could do, to no avail. Talgold slipped further and further away, his vitals dropping to their faintest ebbs.

       “He’s not going to make it.”

       Talgold coughed, shuddering, flexing his fingers.

       “Varrez, please; I don’t want to die with my helmet on.”

       Varrez nodded while shaking, unlocking his helmet and gently removing it, setting it aside; he took a deep breath of the cabin’s pressurized oxygen, coughing again.

       “Thanks, much better.”

       “Hold on, Talgold” Varrez said, taking his hand.

       “A few more minutes, okay? Please?”

       Talgold said nothing. His eyes glazed over in a blank stare and his head turned away, rocked by the shuttle’s motion. His readout flatlined.

       Varrez sobbed. Han bowed his head. Barrens sighed and looked down at his boots.

The shuttle entered the Wayfarer’s hangar bay and set down. The outer doors closed, and atmosphere displaced the vacuum. After undergoing decontamination, Barrens handed the flight recorder to Hornens in engineering, and Farzen gave his xenological sample to Dr. Han for study, glad to get rid of it.

       After a well-earned shower and food ration, Barrens went to C-deck’s rec room to relax, where Varrez and Talgold were also blowing off steam.

       “Welcome back” Varrez said.

       “Yup” Barrens said. “Pass me a beer, would ya?”

       Varrez nodded, handing him a bottle from a dispenser.

       “Much appreciated.”

       He popped the top and took a swig.

       “So, how was it down there?” Talgold said. “The moon, I mean.”

       “Cold, barren, lifeless” Barrens said. “A regular graveyard.”

       “That bad?” Talgold said. “I only ask because I wanted to go with the next away team, when Captain Hindel schedules it.”

       “It’s your typical dirtball, kid. What do you expect it to be?” Barrens said. “And that wreck? Jesus.”

       “We heard some of the crew talking about it” Varrez said. “Must’ve been worse actually being in it, though.”

       Barrens sighed, then took another swig. “Either of you two done any salvage before?”

       Varrez and Talgold shook their heads.

       “Well, when I’m not ordering part-time colonials around” he said. “I’m supervising recovery missions for the company. My first salvage was a medium-sized freighter that went missing in the Orion Traverse a few years ago. There was a crack in its radioactive shielding, so the crew abandoned it. By the time we got there, it’d been free-floating for a month; no power, not even auxiliary; the whole ship was pitch-black, and it was only me and two other guys to scout the whole ship, level by level.”

       He took a third swig.

       “Of course, you don’t really expect anything to happen to you. Not usually. Just a quick check for hull integrity, personal affects, logs, whatever else the company wants, and you’re out before the tugs haul it off; but there’s always something about being alone in a corridor, surrounded by the blackest darkness you’ll ever see, in the middle of space, with only one tiny little light.”

       He finished his beer and lobbed it in the trash, the noise surprisingly jarring.

       “This was different, though.”

       “How so?” Varrez said.

       “Has the captain told you guys anything yet?”

       “We’ve heard things in passing from the bridge” Talgold said. “But they’ve been pretty hush-hush about it.”

       “Without saying too much, then” Barrens said. “Things looked like they took a very bad turn before the end, especially in the lab. There was a…growth, or something, completely calcified, probably since the crash.”

       “A growth?” Talgold said.

       “If that’s what it was. Dr. Han’s got a little piece of it to play with, so maybe he’ll figure out whatever the hell it is.”

       Varrez and Talgold exchanged glances.

       “Is it—?”

       “Before you ask” Barrens said. “I don’t know anything about it. You got questions? Save’em for the captain or wait for the results.”

       “But what if there’s—?”

       “Go. Ask. The. Captain. I’ve probably said too much as it is. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna grab another beer, then I’m gonna go to bed. Later.”

       Barrens swiped another beer and promptly left, turning a sharp right at the bulkhead for the terminus, his boots thudding on the grating. Varrez and Talgold stared at the door as it closed, feeling suddenly uneasy.

       “What was that all about?” Varrez said.

       Talgold shrugged, and the two of them sat there for a long time without a word before returning, in uneasy thought, to their stations.

Up in A-deck, Dr. Han was performing several tests on his specimen from the Wanderer when Dr. Walsh entered, standing by the door frame.

       “Afternoon.”

       “Is it already?” Han said, not breaking his focus.

       “That’s what the clock says. Hard to tell otherwise.”

       “No kidding.”

       Han tapped at a few icons on his tablet, transferring them to his main console.

       “What brings you by?”

       “Hindel informed me we have a foreign specimen onboard” Walsh said. “As senior medical officer, I thought it prudent to stop in and see it for myself.”

       “Can’t admit it’s for your own curiosity, can you?” Han said, his attention now on the console itself.

       Walsh stepped forward, approaching the work area to glimpse, at a respectful distance, over the shoulder of his colleague, seeing the many tiny fragments sealed off in pressurized containers, others undergoing a variety of testing.

       “Is this it?”

       “That’s it” Han said. “Not much to look at really.”

       “Anything interesting?”

       Han turned his eyes to his tablet again.

       “Aside from being organic and carbon-based, most of the other tests are still too early for anything conclusive.”

       “Is there a chance of contagion?”

       “I don’t think so, considering XH-Ld’s environment, but better safe than sorry.”

       “The cornerstone of our professions” Walsh said, looking on, then furrowing his brow.

       “Where was this found, exactly?”

       “I’m not sure” Han said. “Near the crash, I think. Why?”

       “Curious” Walsh said. “I’ll let you get back to your work then.”

       Han nodded. “Drop in anytime.”

 Captain Hindel was sitting at her desk in her quarters when the door chime rang.

       “Enter.”

       Dr. Walsh stepped in, hands pressed at his back.

       “I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”

       “Just making arrangements for the next away team” Hindel said. “What can I do for you, doctor?”

       “I would like to ask you something” Walsh said. “The, um, specimen; was it found on or near the ship?”

       “It was found onboard” Hindel said.

       “Where?”

       “In the laboratory, covering up a chunk of it, too. We think they had it contained as a sample, until it broke out and grew after the crash.”

       “So, it grows and then…just fossilizes? In supposedly its native atmosphere?”

       Hindel shrugged. “I don’t know why you’re asking me. Dr. Han’s the go-to guy for anything xeno-related.”

       “I was already with him” Walsh said. “He says his tests are still too early to prove anything definitive.”

       “Then I don’t know what to tell you” Hindel said. “How about you tell me what it is you’re really concerned with?”

       “That’s just it, I don’t know what my concern is” Walsh said. “Only that I have it, and that I feel somewhat foolish for it being based solely on a feeling I can’t shake.”

       Hindel smiled. “Join the club. We’ve all been a little jittery since we got here; I’m sure nerves are most of it. We’re a new crew, and this is a first assignment for most of us. Hell, this ship is my first command. When you say you’ve got the jitters on a hunch, I know what you mean –none better.”

       “Yes, well, I appreciate your confidence” Walsh said.

       “Do you think we need stricter quarantine protocols?” Hindel said.

       “No, I’m sure the ones we have are fine” Walsh said. “I guess I just needed to have my vague premonitions noted, is all.”

       “Consider them noted” Hindel said. “Anything else on your mind?”

       “No, captain, not at the moment. But thank you for lending me your ear.”

       Walsh turned to leave.

       “Dr. Walsh?”

       He stopped and turned.

       “I like it when my medical officers come to me with their concerns, no matter how vague. If you have any more, please let me know.”

       “Of course, captain, and again, thank you.”

       Walsh left, and the doors closed. Hindel returned to her away team roster and a few of her more mundane tasks, including writing another log for her superiors:

 < Log 2

  Hindel, Laura A. manual report

  Mission time: 4,504 .15.07 hours

  USC Wanderer discovered on XH-Ld at 15 degrees lt., 45 degrees lg. of north

  hemisphere. Ship destroyed beyond short-term salvage. No surviving crew found;

  one body identified, buried. Flight recorder recovered. Found xeno-morphic anomaly

  onboard, see attachment 1. HUD feeds from SAR team attachment 2. Until further

  notified, proceeding with secondary mission objectives.

  (attachment 1)

  (attachment 2) >

 Another chime rang, this time on her console. She tapped on the icon.

       “Captain’s quarters.”

       “It’s Hornens, ma’am. I’m calling to update you about the recorder.”

       “Go ahead.”

       “Yeah, here’s the thing about putting it in an escape pod” Hornens said. “By removing it from the ship, it survives the crash. However, it still got knocked around a bit on landing. Now, because it was kept airtight it was spared corrosion, but a lot of data got corrupted anyway, and it’s gonna take a little while to clean up.”

       “How long?”

       “Hours, maybe” Hornens said. “And that’s with me and Mason working at it around the clock.”

       “If you don’t have anything more important to do, I request that you make this a top priority.”

       “Can do” Hornens said. “I’ll give you another update when we’ve got something, Hornens out.”

       The icon clicked off.

       Hindel went back to her away team roster and stared at it, not overthinking, but not blanking out; her mind was in a hazy area between, where intuition was allowed to creep in and make suggestions of its own. After a moment of hesitating on it, she opened a com-link to Sergeant Barrens.

       “Barrens reporting.”

       “Sergeant, I want you going down with the next away team.”

       “Understood” he said. “You expecting trouble? I thought this one was science only.”

       “Not your whole team, just you” Hindel said.

       “This is an unknown, unexplored world; I don’t anticipate trouble, but if something does happen, I want someone down there who knows what to do in a survival situation.”

       “I hear you, ma’am.”

       “Good, Hindel out.”

 The captain had her next team signed up and ready: geologist Dr. Varrez, xeno-specialist Dr. Han, and junior medial officer Dr. Talgold were selected. Attaching the sergeant to them as a contingency, she formalized the roster and returned to the bridge to help select the next landing site on XH-Ld. Ellson and Tajmaran already had the Wayfarer making topographical scans of the northern hemisphere. Varrez was also there, watching the images unfold across the main display.

       “I think it’s safe to say from these readings that the whole crust is mostly a silica-quartzite compound” Varrez said. She then pointed to a specific part of the scan.

       “And look here: limestone deposits, lots of them. Maybe it had water on it at some point, at least in these depressions.”

       “You know what they say” Hindel said. “Where there’s water, there’s life.”

       “And where there’s not, there’s fossils” Ellson said.

       “Very funny” Varrez said. “Though not strictly accurate. Actually, several species of bacteria and fungi can live without water for decades, even centuries, or even—”

       “Hey, biology nerd” Ellson said. “Another wave of scans coming in.”

       “Oh, these look promising.”

       Banter and small talk continued through the shift. Hindel caught snippets of it though sat mostly in her own thoughts again, mulling the same tired questions, wondering about the same missing pieces and returning to the same dead ends for answers, nowhere nearer to a sense of closure; where was the Wanderer’s crew? What happened to them? Why did they use one of their escape pods for their flight recorder and not personnel? Was there a mutiny? There was evidence for it, but what was the cause of the crash? Maybe the growth in the lab did have something to do with it. If so, was it a mistake allowing a piece of it onboard her own ship? She sank deeper in, losing track of both time and site results.

       “Captain?” Ellson said, breaking her concentration.

       “Yes, ensign?”

       “We’re getting strange readings not far from the Wanderer, near the highlands by the dune sea.”

       Hindel sat up from her slouching posture. “Bring it up on display.”

       Scans of the area in question pinpointed a location where metallic signatures were pinged; a wide, deep valley currently obscured by dust blowing down from the mountains.

       “Analysis shows traces of titanium-like composites and other unidentified metals” Tajmaran said, overlooking the same stats and furrowing his brow.

       “Very dense, highly structured. They don’t match anything on file.”

       “Any guesses, Dr. Varrez?” Hindel said.

       “Yours are as good as mine” Varrez said. “I’ve never seen anything close to this composition. It looks almost artificial.”

       “Artificial?” Hindel said, catching everyone’s attention. A charge of electricity swept the bridge crew, and they spun around in their chairs.

       “Wait, really?” Komev said.

       “Are you serious?” Ellson said.

       Tajmaran stared at her, intrigued.

       “I can’t make a definite statement either way without having a physical sample to study first, of course” Varrez said, immediately distancing herself from her words.

       “All I meant to say was that these types of atomic structures are rare to find in nature –not unheard of, but rare, and surprising.”

       “Or” Ellson said. “We could be dealing with something intelligently made.”

       “I’d rather rule out all other possibilities before jumping to that conclusion” Varrez said, almost defensively.

       Ellson shrugged.

       “I’m just saying, why beat around the bush like this, when it could be?”

       “Because you’re not the one with a science background?” Komev said.

       “Like I need a degree to tell the difference between a rock and a hunk of stainless steel.”

       “Some people do.”

       Ellson smirked.

       “If I needed one for example, I’d just pull out the lump of coal in your chest where your heart should’ve been, Komev.”

       “Stow it you two” Hindel said. “You’re both flight officers, now act like it.”

       “Yes ma’am” they said, turning to face their stations. Tajmaran shook his head, feeling the mood effectively killed. Varrez wondered if she should have even made the remark at all.

       “That being said” she said at length. “The possibility of it is worth checking out. Are any of the other sites as promising to you, captain?”

       “Well, let’s see” Hindel said, scrolling quickly through the candidates to familiarize herself, unwilling to admit she spent most of their shift staring off.

       “Many of these are geologically promising, but since this one has proved so controversial, it’s probably best to get it out of the way first.”

       “Agreed” Varrez said. “When will the shuttle be ready?”

       “It’s currently on standby” Hindel said. “I’ll give you and your team twenty minutes to prepare. Will that be enough time, doctor?”

       “Plenty” Varrez said. “I’ll get ready right now.”

       Varrez left with an air of excitement, moving swiftly past the pressure doors. Hindel got up and made to leave as well.

       “Ensign Tajmaran, you have the bridge.”

       “Uh, me, ma’am?” he said.

       “That’s what I said.”

       Ellson spun to face her.

       “With all due respect ma’am, I’m the senior flight officer.”

       “You are” Hindel said. “But neither you or Komev were becoming of your ranks, and that pissed me off; ergo, Ensign Tajmaran has the bridge.”

       Ellson and Komev glanced at each other. Tajmaran let out a low sigh, drumming his fingers on his console.

       “Oh boy.”