Once I was going at a decent speed, and not worried about falling off or hitting a cliffside, I started to look at my surroundings. A large moon hung in the sky, light from the close star showcasing the lines and craters of the celestial body. The area looked much the same as I remembered the planet: mossy, warm, and lined with the large trees we’d seen before.
The map showed us making good time, and though it was on a different time system than we understood, I estimated another two hours before we arrived. An hour in, and the scenery was getting repetitive; I already wished the journey was over. My mind wandered to the task at hand. A lot of pieces needed to come into place in order for us to defeat the Bhlat, but did we need to defeat them? I set the goal in my head to work with them, to show them we were strong and not someone to be walked over, but that we also had compassion. Would a malevolent race understand the concept of compassion and empathy, or was war so engrained in them from birth that they were well past negotiation?
The base we’d arrived at almost a year ago had shown me a different side of the Bhlat. We didn’t know much about them, and the details we’d downloaded from their base were mostly military. But there were children, women, and scientists on the base, telling me not everyone was a warrior. That was a good sign. The downside to that whole scenario was…I’d killed them all. I could still see them when I closed my eyes some nights, mixing together with the image of the Kraski puking out green bile, and the Deltra becoming all but extinct as we blew up the Kraski mothership.
Every one of them wanted to take our world, so I had to let it go. It still hung over my head like a dark cloud most days. As if on cue, real clouds rolled in as the wind picked up.
“Hang on,” Mary said.
The wind blew from the west, pushing us to the right as we generally headed north. The speed was picking up, and rain began to fall on us: light drops at first, then fat heavy drops that made our visibility near nothing.
“What should we do?” I asked, fighting to stay upright.
From a few yards away, Mary fiddled with her map. “When I zoom, I see hills a couple miles to the east. Let’s head there and hunt for some reprieve from the storm. If this is anything like a tropical storm, it may only last a short time.”
I agreed and followed her lead, the wind pushing hard at our backs now.
The ground changed from swampy moss to something a little firmer-looking as it became unlevel, small hills protruding from the surface. Moments later, we stopped on the far side of a large hill, with a flat cliff on the east side. We were protected from the wind and most of the rain as we stepped off the scooters and leaned our backs on the soft wall of the knoll.
“I guess we wait it out,” I said, wiping my face mask with a gloved hand. The night vision was on, and it gave me a basic view of the dark swamp that stood before us. It went on as far as my eyes could see, and I tried to step farther away from it, remembering the creature that had pulled me under the last time we were on this planet. I didn’t want a duplication of that, especially at night in a storm.
Mary got off her scooter and started to walk along the hillside, looking for a spot for reprieve from the onslaught of rain. I joined her, jogging to catch up.
“Doesn’t look like much… wait, what’s that?” She pointed to a crevice where two hills met up. They were pushed close together, but there was enough room to walk between them, and trees grew from both sides at angles, creating a makeshift canopy.
“Looks good to me. Better than standing beside this swamp.”
We grabbed our supplies and brought them over to our new resting spot. My stomach rumbled as we settled along the wall of the opening, small splashes of water dripping down from the trees above, giving way to the torrential downpour.
Unclasping my helmet, I set it to the side and reached for my pack, when I heard howling. Mary was moving around, and I raised a finger to my lips. She stopped, and the howl rang through the night air again, this time closer.
“Can’t we find a liveable world with no deadly animals on it? Just once?” I joked, grabbing my pulse rifle.
“Let’s just hope they stay away, and the rain subsides sooner rather than later so we can keep going.” She passed me an energy bar. “Here, take this. We may need it.”
We sat back to back, watching each end of the opening we sat in, guns in our laps, and chewed on our bars.
“Just once, I want something to be hassle free. Remember our old lives? We used to complain about having to get up in the morning to go to work. But at the end of the day, we could just relax and watch the game on TV with a cold one. I guess those times are gone.”
“I never felt that way. I was in the Air Force and loved doing it. What’s that old saying? ‘If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life’? That’s how I felt,” Mary said.
“I was an accountant, so working on small business ledgers wasn’t something I could classify as loving. Though there was something calming about going through the sheets and balancing on the first try. It acted like a meditation for me at times. There were worse careers I could have chosen.” I shifted closer to Mary, moving away from a drip from the rain above. “Do you miss it?”
“I do. I miss the schedule of it all. Waking up at five in the morning, working out before breakfast. But even though we’re in a crazy situation, I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I met you. I needed to meet you.”
“Do you think our first marriages even count?” I asked.
“How do you mean?”
“The way I see it, we were duped: married to aliens. That can’t really count.”
Mary laughed and leaned her head on my shoulder. “I suppose you’re right. I like that idea. How about you? Could you go back to pushing paper and doing someone’s books?”
“No way. All of those years of practice, and now I don’t need the skill.”
“Every skill makes up who you are. You think a certain way because of it, and that’s proven to be valuable. I won’t be flying F-16s any longer, but that training allows me to succeed in our new universe. One that’s rapidly expanding.” Mary stretched her legs out.
“At least you can still fly ships. That’s one skill that’s transferable.” The wind was decreasing; the pools of water outside rippled less and less as we talked. “I think the storm’s dying down.”
We sat there chatting, waiting to hear another howl, but we didn’t. It was a half hour before we got up, seeing the rain was nothing more than a light patter now. Mary made for her scooter, her rifle on her back, her pack in her hand. As she strapped it to her seat, I walked out, looking at the sky to see if the clouds were still moving on. To the west, I saw amnesty coming in the still-dark night.
Mary was almost done and had fired up her ride when something jumped into my view.
“Dean, look out!” Mary called, but it was too late. The thick creature hurled itself off the canopy above the hillside and landed with a squishing sound right in front of me. It sank a couple feet into the soft ground, giving me just enough time to roll out of the way before its large paw wiped my face from my head. I felt the swing just clip me as I rolled to the wet ground, my rifle all but forgotten as I scrambled to evade the second swipe.
The thing reminded me of a bear, but its face was smaller, more human, making the whole attack that much more terrifying. It released a long howl as it came at me. I fought to back away from it, but my hands sank into the mossy ground, handcuffing any movement. This was it for me. There would be no saving Earth from the Bhlat, and after everything that had happened in the past two years, I was going to die by the paw of a monster on a planet I didn’t even know the name of.
The creature stood on two legs, an angry scowl on its tortured face, and it growled as its right arm came flying toward me.