“You good Staunch?” Boggs asked. “Recon Elite don’t get nervous.”
“I’m sorry sir,” Staunch said as he glanced back at the laser-interlaced bay ramp.
Boggs watched as Staunch gulped his own saliva.
“A confident squad is the best squad,” Boggs said as he met eyes with the rest of his men, one by one. Boggs turned and pointed to the bay opening. The smell of pine trees wafted into the craft. “Out there, you’re going to encounter who-the-hell-knows-what. Sure, some of those animals may look like ones we’re familiar with. But don’t be fooled. They might be poisonous. Might bite. Might spit shit at you that melts your face off. Or, they could all hold hands and sing skippety-dee-doodah. You just never know. So no slacking, got it? Your partner has your back, and you have his. We go out two by two, due to the forested nature of planet Mawholla. Listen to that word, men. Mawholla. Twice the size of Earth. Two suns, Little Blaze and Big Blaze, offset by 90 degrees. According to CPB Commanders, this is numero freaking uno on the list. Let’s not let them down. Look sharp, be sharp, or have sharp things sink into you. Got it?”
“Yes sir!” the men shouted back in unison.
Bogs cupped his ear. “What’s that, I didn’t quite hear you.”
“Yes sir!”
“Good,” Boggs said. “That’s what I like to hear.”
2
Recon Elite Six stepped off the CAV-117 and into a breezy meadow. What looked to be North American pine trees swayed in the wind. To Boggs, it felt an awful lot like Montana.
“I don’t get it,” Dagger said as he adjusted his LifeForm Scanner that hung off his belt. “Where the hell are the birds?”
Boggs turned and shot Dagger a look. “Who the hell says there are birds?” he said.
Dagger glanced away. “The recon craft data indicated there might be.”
Boggs nodded once, and spat. “Key word there is MIGHT. The drone’s sensors weren’t optimal due to bad weather. But CPB was hot to get here, so here we are. Let’s not let our people back on Earth down.”
“Roger that,” Portman said, flexing his bicep as he gripped his ZR-15.
Boggs flashed his LifeForm scanner in front of him. He didn’t want his men to know that he too, had suspicions as to why there were no flying life forms such as birds. This meadow was excellent habitat. Beyond the ancient-looking pine trees, rugged mountains laced with random snowfields rose higher and higher. Boggs took a breath of the clean cool air. Not like Earth air. At all. Things had gotten too hot on the home planet. They’d fucked it up really good: oceans of plastic, the shoulder seasons disappearing, with months of long drought that killed crops and triggered widespread famine. No one was able to control it. The planet had been set on a course that was unrepairable for generations.
Boggs led the way across the meadow as moist grass dragged along his camo pants, slicking his boots. Strange insects that looked like ticks and gnats scurried along the blades of grass.
“We’ve got life,” Boggs said. “Of the insect variety.”
As expected, the hand-held LifeForm meter beeped, and gave an “all clear” indicator in the shape of a green circle. Even on other planets, green meant go.
As Boggs hiked across the meadow, clouds swirled above, clean and clear and pregnant with rain. The air here was so much different than Earth, despite similar oxygen concentrations. The difference was the absolute absence of pollution. In the modern era, this was just not something human lungs were used to. Boggs noticed he felt lighter and faster, despite a valley elevation of 3,231 feet, approximately 2,000 feet higher than his apartment in Billings back on Earth.
Mawholla’s power was having its way with him, Boggs thought. He’d been on these missions before, on planets that were quite frankly, a joke compared to Mawholla: desert planets not fit for a god damn scorpion, or planets teetering between dying out completely, and still harboring a few random life forms. There were of course the sad lot of planets near Earth, solid ice, desert, and gaseous. Useless planets, really, at this stage in their existence. And Boggs had learned in all his years from space travel that planets were a lot like people. They just existed, did their own thing, and died.
In the end, that’s all this was. And he and Recon Elite Six were the spearhead for humanity, necessary agents for the ultimate survival before Earth fried like an ant under a magnifying glass. Not only could Boggs feel the power of Mawholla, but he could feel the power of his men, too. Fit as bull elk thanks to years of weight training and cardio work. Boggs didn’t want to say they were the “best of the best”, because that was a bullshit cliché. But they were good. Real fucking good.
Boggs’ LifeForm device beeped, this time revealing a yellow icon.
Caution.
The device wasn’t entirely sure what species lay before them at forest’s edge.
Which sucked.
A red icon meant the animal was dangerous, take no risks. There was a sense of comfort in knowledge. But the unknown? Not so much.
The great thing about T-Bone was he loved trouble. He glanced at Boggs, and Boggs gave a thumbs up. T-Bone inched ahead to tree line, his ZR-15 aimed and ready.
The rest of the squad aimed their ZR-15s without hesitation, as if purely on instinct. Boggs raised his weapon, expecting whatever was behind the ferns to launch right at them.
But it did not.
Instead a large moose-like animal emerged slowly, its ears pinned back. But this was not quite a moose, with much smaller ears, and very narrow eyes.
And it wasn’t quite healthy.
A chunk had been taken out of its rear, and the animal paced and whimpered.
“Holy shit,” Emoth said, inching closer to T-Bone, who was already crouching in the grass and way too close. “Something took a hell of a bite out of this bad boy.”
Blood trickled from the animal’s rear flank, and glistened in the dim sunlight.
“Anyone hungry?” Portman asked as he raised his rifle.
Boggs stepped over to Portman and lowered the rifle barrel with the palm of his hand. “We don’t have time for this shit,” Boggs said. “We have weeks of medically-approved sustenance, and a planet to explore. We can’t play gourmet chef right now.”
“Gourmet?” the young Staunch asked.
“Never mind,” Boggs said.
The moose-like animal limped off into deeper forest, and they never saw it again.
Copyright
