Chapter 9: It Pours

Fat raindrops hammered Cal’s poncho, the glorified tarp doing little to stave off the downpour. It was about as effective as putting a band-aid on a severed limb. It was coming down so hard that he could see the fronds of the ferns bouncing when a droplet hit them, the ground beneath his boots growing slippery and muddy, making the going even tougher. Kevin was sticking close, his coarse fur soaked through, the hound pausing every few minutes to attempt a futile shake.

Poppy was following close behind, trudging through the undergrowth with her usual determination. Her antennae were drooping, and he wasn’t sure if it was because she was unhappy or because they were so weighed down by the water.

“You doing alright back there?” Cal asked, reaching up to wipe some of the moisture from the lenses of his goggles.

“I’ll be doing a lot better when we find a damned place to make camp!” she protested, having to raise her voice a little over the sound of the rain. “Where the heck is Murzka? Isn’t she supposed to be finding us a clearing?”

“You know how she is,” Cal replied, reaching out a hand to help the Worker over a fallen log. “She’ll show up when we least expect it.”

“Well, I wish she’d show up sooner,” Poppy complained as she reached up to wring out one of her antennae like it was a towel. “I’ve got water between my damned plates.”

“I’m a little worried about being at the bottom of the valley while these storms are rolling in,” Cal added, looking up at the sky as it churned ominously above them. “We could get caught in a flash flood. I’d really like to make camp on some higher ground tonight.”

“Maybe we can climb the trees like Murzka does?” Poppy suggested.

Kevin stopped suddenly, his ears rising, one of them flicking as a fat raindrop landed on it. Cal was about to ask if it was Murzka on her way back, but the dog’s hackles were raised, his black lips peeling back to show off his boar-like tusks.

Cal stopped and raised a fist to signal to Poppy, then drew his rifle, flipping off the safety. He peered into the trees, but he couldn’t see a damned thing between the downpour, the dense jungle, and the mist. Visibility was maybe forty feet at best.

“What’s wrong, Cal?” Poppy asked.

“Something has Kevin spooked.”

“Is it backstabbers?” Poppy whispered, bringing her four arms closer reflexively. “Maybe just a mossgrazer?”

“I’m not sure,” he replied. “Kevin, guard!” he barked.

The hound drew closer to the pair, facing out towards the trees, Poppy placing a hand on his wet flank to reassure herself. They waited in silence, Cal struggling to keep a vigil on their surroundings, shifting his aim at every swaying branch or rustling leaf. There was a sudden crack of thunder, the forest briefly illuminated by a flash of lightning, Poppy yelping in alarm. Cal felt one of her dainty lower hands reach out to grip his poncho.

The next flash illuminated a dark shape at the edge of the forest, and Cal wheeled around to aim at it. There was no reaction from Kevin, however, so he lowered his weapon. It was Murzka, the Araxie threading through the trees towards them.

“Murzka!” he called out, raising a hand. “Over here!”

“Briggs,” she replied breathlessly. One side of her cloak had been flung open, and she was holding her rifle in her exposed hand. “Poppy. Are you both safe?”

“Yeah – what’s going on?” Cal demanded. “Kevin is freaking out.”

“I believe I may have spotted your backstabbers,” she replied. She turned to put her back to him, raising her six-foot rifle to cover the opposite side of the forest. “It was but a shimmer in the air – like light reflecting off the surface of a lake, but I could see the raindrops hitting its body.”

“Shit,” Cal hissed. “The only reason I could see the last one was because it was casting a shadow.”

“Worse – I believe there were at minimum two,” she added. “Maybe more. It is hard to be sure in such poor conditions.”

“I really hope they don’t hunt in packs,” Cal muttered.

“Should ... should we go somewhere?” Poppy asked, her voice wavering.

“Stay still,” Cal replied. “We’ll protect you. Whatever you do – don’t run. It might set off their prey drive.”

He scanned the trees with his goggles, the mossy trunks and clusters of ferns picked out in shades of green, the mist and the pouring rain limiting his visibility even more than usual. He cursed under his breath. His options were either this mess of glowing, green artifacts, or pitch blackness. Murzka’s eyes were better than his in these conditions, but with the rain and the storm, she probably couldn’t hear a damned thing.

Kevin was the most attuned, turning his head and letting out a deep growl, sensing something that Cal could not. He followed the hound’s gaze, seeing something rustling the ferns at the edge of the mist. It could have just been the rain that was pounding every leaf in sight, but he could see that something was displacing the fractal fronds, the droplets impacting the shimmering air before reaching the ground.

“Murzka,” he whispered, training his rifle on the spot. “At your five o’clock.”

“What?” she muttered. Before she could ask what that meant, she turned, seeing where he was aiming. She brought her own weapon to bear over his shoulder, the coils beneath its heat shroud shining in his night vision, the leaves and mesh that were wrapped around its long barrel waving in the howling wind.

“You see that?” Cal whispered.

“May we now trophy hunt, Conservationist Briggs?” she asked as a clawed finger partially depressed her trigger.

“Let’s wait and see what it does,” he replied. “If it makes a move – blow it away.”

“I will take that as a yes,” she hissed.

They watched the animal – and it watched them back, standing almost motionless in the ferns like a stalking leopard. Cal had a tough time making out anything other than its vague, shimmering shape, but it seemed to be crouched low to the forest floor.

“Wait a minute,” Cal said in a hushed voice. There were three points of light picking up on his cameras, like the eyes of a cat seen at night. “I can see its eyes reflecting in the night vision! Those aren’t camouflaged.”

“For once, I am glad of your technology,” Murzka replied.

“Don’t thank me too soon,” he grumbled, turning his head. There were more little flecks of light surrounding the group. They might have been hard to distinguish from the firefly-like insects or simple artifacts and reflections from the cameras, but each of them had three equidistant points arranged in an inverted triangle. “I’m picking up half a dozen of the fucking things. They’ve surrounded us!”

He felt Poppy’s grip on him tighten, her hand trembling. Slowly, Murzka turned to cover their rear, swinging that massive barrel.

“The one I saw was alone,” Cal hissed. “Maybe they team up to take down larger prey?”

Kevin growled again, turning his huge head to focus on another patch of trees to their left. Cal followed, seeing a trio of glowing eyes stalking closer through the thick mist, the backstabber stopping dead when it realized it had been noticed. Another moved to their right, Cal spinning his head to see it halt, the animal having gained a good few feet on them.

“They’re trying to get closer,” Cal warned. “I count seven. How many do you think you can take?”

“Not knowing their speed or coordination, I do not know,” Murzka replied. “We shall have to find out.”

“Ah, fuck it,” Cal snarled. “We go on three. Ready?”

“On your count,” she replied, pulling her weapon tighter.

“Stay low, Poppy,” Cal added. “One, two...”

On the third count, he pulled his trigger, his rifle rocking into his shoulder as he sent a round whizzing towards the trees. His suppressor made the weapon almost inaudible, but the supersonic crack of the projectile rang out, the air that it displaced blowing the ferns as it rushed past them. It struck one of the backstabbers, the animal’s camouflage immediately losing its cohesion, returning to its mottled reds and browns as the creature thrashed around in alarm. It threw itself onto its back in a futile bid to escape, but it was already dying, its limbs no longer obeying it. It gave out a pained hiss, its three serrated jaws splaying open, then fell silent.

In the brief second that had passed, Murzka fired her XMR, a sound like a hammer hitting an anvil deafening him. Despite the Araxie’s impressive size and strength, she still had to fight the recoil, Cal feeling the impact reverberate through her as she put her back to his. Poppy seemed to hate the sound as much as the thunder, dropping down with a yelp and covering her head with her upper hands.

Cal had no time to check how Murzka was faring. The backstabbers could smell blood, and they sprang into action, all of them rushing the group at the same time. They were easier to see in motion, but Cal still tracked them by their glowing eyes, watching one burst from the undergrowth as another dropped down from the branches of a nearby tree.

He was back in the wagon fort again, but this time, there was no wall of trucks between him and the polecats. It wasn’t a pregnant cow on the line – it was the lives of his friends.

Bellowing a challenge, he lined up another shot, the next backstabber closing the distance in the time it took him to move his barrel a scant few inches. God, they were fast. Its chromatophores faded away, revealing its three serrated beaks, its cruel stabbing limb raised above its body in anticipation of a strike.

The impact from Cal’s rifle stopped it dead, the creature reacting like it had hit a solid obstacle, turning almost end over end and skidding to a stop at his feet. There was a hole between its two upper eyes, dark blood seeping from the wound.

Lightning briefly illuminated the grisly scene like a photograph, and he heard a crack of thunder that shook the ground, followed by another deafening report from Murzka’s railgun. The rest of the pack was getting too close, Cal realizing it too late, the world seeming to slip into slow motion as he watched a backstabber launch itself off the ground like a leaping tiger. It was coming from his right, but it wasn’t aiming for him. The alien barreled into Murzka before he could so much as open his mouth to call out a warning, its weight knocking her off her feet and sending her crashing into Poppy and Kevin.

The Araxie hissed and yowled in what might be pain or anger as she grappled with the backstabber, its upper arm pistoning, stabbing at her like an inmate in a prison fight. It was hard to make out any detail through the goggles – it was just a mass of black fur and mottled amphibian skin rolling around in the undergrowth.

Poppy climbed to her feet, seeming disoriented, scanning the ground as she searched for her lost pack. Her eyes widened when she saw Cal’s rifle pointing right at her.

“Down!” he yelled, the little Worker dropping just in time for the round to catch the backstabber that had crept up behind her. His shot hit the animal in the flank, spraying the ferns with blood and throwing it aside.

Cal switched his attention back to Murzka, hearing a growl like an angry mountain lion as she succeeded in throwing her opponent off her. The animal skidded a few feet, then sprang back to its four-footed posture, its bloodied claw raised above its head in challenge. Murzka’s rifle had fallen to the ground, so she drew her massive knife, brandishing the weapon with its serrated blade facing down. With another roar, she propelled herself forward, her muscles rippling beneath her dark fur. Using her weight to her advantage, she slammed into the much smaller animal, knocking it off its feet and driving that blade beneath its ribs. It let out a hiss, its three-jawed head snapping at her, but its lifeblood was leaving it in spurts.

Cal’s heart froze as he heard a cry from Poppy, and he spun around again, frantically searching for her in the green haze and rolling fog. She had been right there. Right there. Where the hell could she have gone?

He found her crawling on all-sixes a few feet away, almost concealed by the ferns. There was a bestial snarl as Kevin tore at the throat of a seventh backstabber, the animal’s neck locked between his massive jaws, the dog shaking it like a chew toy. The razorback severed arteries and tore flesh, the backstabber’s claw stabbing at him all the while, but there was no escape. Kevin growled as he gave the animal one last vicious shake, then he tossed the limp body aside, turning to face his master with blood dripping from his jowls.

“Clear!” Cal shouted, spinning on the spot as he frantically searched for more telltale glowing eyes. “I think we’re clear!”

He wasted no time rushing to Poppy’s side, tossing his rifle to the ground as he reached for her, those four arms grasping at him in turn. She threw herself into his embrace and buried her face in his chest, her grip almost painfully tight.

“Are you alright?” he panted, his heart racing at a thousand miles per hour.

“I-I’m f-fine,” she sobbed, her diminutive body trembling. She turned her head as Kevin trotted over to them, relinquishing her hold on Cal only when the dog was within reach. The shivering Worker cradled the hound’s head in her arms, rubbing her cheek against his coarse, wiry fur. “Good boy, Kevin,” she said as she tried to choke back her tears. “Good boy.”

The dog had taken a beating, knife wounds from the backstabber staining his fur red, but razorbacks could go through a meat grinder and come out the other side intact. If he was walking, Cal wasn’t too worried for the moment. Murzka was of greater concern.

His boots thudding in the wet mud, he ran over to the Araxie. She was crouched over her kill, standing unsteadily as he neared, her bloody knife still clutched tightly in her fist.

“Murzka!” he yelled, stopping just short of her. She had her back to him, her condition impossible to discern beneath her cloak. The towering feline turned to him, then stumbled, Cal reaching out to catch her reflexively. Her four-hundred-pound frame was more than he could support, and he dropped to a knee with a grunt. Poppy was quick to lend a hand, rushing over to take some of the load off him. Cal pulled his hand away to see dark blood staining his skin, the rain gradually washing it away.

“She’s hurt!” Poppy exclaimed.

“Murzka!” Cal pressed, reaching up to pull back her hood. Her lids were drooping, but her green eyes were still alert, the Araxie meeting his gaze.

“I fear that ... I shall not have my trophy ... after all,” she grunted, clutching at her midriff. When Cal eased her hand away, he saw a deep wound in her belly, the blood impossible to make out against her black fur in these conditions.

“We have to get her to a safe place!” Poppy insisted, wiping the tears from her eyes with the furry cuff on her wrist. Her voice was no longer wavering – she was as solid as a rock. “We need to close this wound!”

“There are aid kits in the pack!” Cal replied.

Working together, they were able to carry the limping Araxie over to a gap between the trees large enough to be called a clearing. It was no ideal place to make camp, but they didn’t have the luxury of finding another one. They lay her down in the ferns as she clutched the bleeding wound in her belly, then Poppy hurried away to fetch the pack, Kevin sticking close to her side. She returned with the large frame strapped to her back and both of their weapons clutched in her hands, Murzka’s XMR like a flagpole compared to her. She tossed the rifles to the ground and then shrugged off the pack, Cal hurrying over to untie one of the fabric medkits. They were of UNN design – probably sourced along with the MREs as bare essentials for the UAS base.

“I dunno if we have what we need here,” Cal began, sifting through the contents. “Damn it,” he huffed, using his body to shield the kit from the rain. “It’s still coming down too fucking hard. Let’s set up the tent.”

“She won’t fit in the tent,” Poppy protested.

“Enough of her will fit that we can keep her wound dry,” Cal replied. He hurried to his feet and unfastened the tent from the pack’s resin rack, cursing to himself as he tried to clean the moisture from his goggles with his already-soaked sleeve. He lay it flat, then began to inflate it using the automatic pump, the seconds crawling by as he watched it grow.

“Help me move her,” he demanded once it was full. Cal and Poppy took an arm each, dragging Murzka through the open flap. They were able to get most of her eight-foot frame inside, though her legs were trailing out. Poppy lifted the Araxie’s torso to give Cal room to slide his bivvy bag beneath her, providing a little cushion and helping to insulate her from the ground. Kevin lay down outside, whining at them unhappily.

Poppy ran back outside and fetched both of the medkits, along with the camping lamp, the two companions kneeling to either side of the injured Araxie. Cal switched on the light, illuminating the tent in its dim, yellow glow. He tossed his goggles aside and eased Murzka’s hand away from her midriff, a wave of dread making him feel lightheaded as he saw a two-inch gash above and to the right of her navel. The fur around it was matted with dark blood, and more was pumping out with each beat of her heart. She had more cuts peppering her torso – the backstabber had done a real number on her – but this one went deep. Judging by the size of those adapted claws, it could have hit her organs. Her breathing was shallow, the rise and fall of her chest labored, her eyes closed.

“I know some first-aid,” Cal began, spreading out the contents of one of the kits on the tent’s fabric floor. “But, I ... I can’t do surgery. I don’t know what to do. Heavy bleeding ... lacerations ... that calls for medical foam,” he said as he brandished a can the size and shape of a deodorant bottle. “It’ll fill the wound, stop the bleeding, and disinfect it.”

“No – this is no flesh wound,” Poppy replied, her antennae waving as she shook her head. “This wound goes deep, and expanding foam is a stopgap measure. It might not stop all of the bleeding, and we don’t know if there’s been any organ damage.”

“What else can we do?” Cal demanded, throwing up his hands in exasperation.

“You did your part already,” Poppy replied, her four arms moving in tandem as she began to open up another kit. “Now let me do mine.”

“Poppy, do you know how to-”

“Workers are medics as much as engineers, remember?” Poppy replied as she gave him a glance. Her eyes were fierce now – filled with determination rather than tears. “To us, wetware is no different from hardware. I may need help, so I’ll need you to do exactly what I tell you. Can you handle that?”

It was asked with concern, not with criticism, Cal balling his shaking fists and giving her a nod.

“Just tell me what you need.”

“Never done maintenance on a person before,” Poppy chuckled, some nervousness creeping into her tone. “Breathe, Poppy. It’s no different from fixing a torn ligament on a Warrior, except this time, the Warrior is your friend...”

Poppy leaned over Murzka’s prone body, her four arms extending like some kind of surgical robot, her eyes scanning and her antennae waving as she collected information.

“Borealans are built for much higher gravity than this, and their blood pressure is through the roof,” she began. “We need to stop the bleeding, and fast. She’s already lost too much.”

“But we can’t use the foam?” Cal asked.

“I’m going to have to go in,” Poppy replied, flexing her dainty lower fingers.

“What do you mean, go in?”

“Hit her with the morphine shot,” Poppy added. “Uh, maybe two.”

“Maybe two?” Cal repeated. “This isn’t aspirin, Poppy. Too much could kill her.”

“She weighs about twice what you do, and these shots are formulated for a human. Hit her with two – she’ll need it.”

Cal did as Poppy asked, trusting that she knew more than he did. He pressed one of the hypodermic injectors against Murzka’s neck and hit the button, the little needle shooting into her vein and administering the painkiller. She winced, exposing her teeth. He gave her a second, and after a few moments, her body appeared to relax.

“No local anesthetic, but she’s tough,” Poppy muttered. “Give me the suture kit.”

Cal fished inside his medkit and handed her the fabric pouch. When she lay it open on the floor beside her, he saw that it was filled with needles, scissors, and spools of sterile thread. Some of those scissors seemed to be clamps, and there was also a surgical stapler.

“You can’t just sew her back up,” Cal began, but Poppy preempted him.

“I need more visibility – there’s too much blood. Cal, I’m going to need you to wash out the wound with your canteen. The water is filtered, and it’s the cleanest we have. Infection is going to have to be something we deal with later. This isn’t exactly a sterile operating theater.”

He did as she asked, pouring water onto and into the wound and washing away alarming quantities of blood. It just kept filling up again, so he kept pouring, his stomach tightening as he saw the telltale yellow color of exposed fat. He had to stay strong, because if he lost his nerve, Poppy would have to do this on her own.

The Worker took a needle and thread in her dexterous lower hands, tying a knot with a finesse that made Cal balk. Holding some extra tools in her larger upper hands, she plunged the lower into Murzka’s wound, Cal’s head feeling light again as her fingers vanished. Murzka stirred, but she was riding a morphine high, and she wouldn’t be coming down for a while.

“Keep washing the blood away,” Poppy demanded. “Your flashlight, too. I’m mostly going by feel, but I need more light.”

“What are you doing?” he murmured as he watched her fingers dance inside the wound. He couldn’t see what she was doing, but her hands were moving with inhuman speed and precision.

“Finding severed blood vessels and closing them,” she explained, her eyes staying fixed on her task. She reached for one of the scissor-like clamps, using an upper hand to pass it to a lower, sliding it into the laceration and snipping something closed. “The large ones, I can suture. The small ones will need foam.” She passed herself the stapler, a bloody hand emerging briefly before disappearing again with the new tool. More clamps followed, half a dozen of them jutting out of the wound.

Cal kept washing with his canteen, holding up his flashlight and using a roll of gauze to wipe away the blood that made it out of the cut. It wasn’t ideal, but Poppy seemed to have the visibility she required.

“Damn it,” she grumbled to herself.

“What is it?” Cal asked, his heart skipping a beat.

“The backstabber hit her intestine. Scalpel.”

“What are you going to do?” Cal asked as he handed her a shining blade that was encased inside its own little sterile packet.

“I’m not taking any chances,” she replied, opening it up. “I’m going to cut out the damaged section of intestine and suture the intact parts together. She’ll lose an inch of gut, but she’ll be fine – assuming that we can deal with any infection. Thank goodness it didn’t hit a kidney. A little more to the right...”

Cal wanted to ask if Poppy could really do something like that – if she knew enough about surgery and Araxie anatomy to be certain, but what other choice did they have? They couldn’t call for help. Even if a dropship could reach them in time, there was nowhere for it to land, and anyone making the journey on foot would take days to arrive. All he could do now was trust Poppy.

Time went by sluggishly, and Cal wasn’t sure how long they were in the tent. It felt like hours had passed by the time Poppy was washing her hands with what water remained in his canteen. She had performed the surgery to bridge Murzka’s damaged intestine, then she had filled the wound with antiseptic medical foam, closing off the smaller blood vessels and packing the cavity. Instead of using sutures to close the laceration, Poppy had used her Worker saliva, the substance creating a translucent seal like glue. The tent looked like a crime scene. There was blood and bloody strips of gauze scattered everywhere, discarded tools and wrappers piled beside the Araxie. Her long legs were still sticking through the flap, but Cal had covered them with his tarp in an attempt to protect them from the elements. The storm had passed, and the rain had stopped, but everything was still soaking wet.

“I think she’s through the worst of it,” Poppy said as she emerged from the tent. “She’s sleeping. It will take time for her to recover, but Borealans are said to heal quickly, and she’s already on immune boosters. Now that the wound isn’t bleeding, I think the low gravity may actually help take the strain off her circulatory system. We have no saline and no way to replace what she lost, so we’ll just have to trust her body to repair itself.”

Cal was sitting just outside, tending to Kevin’s injuries now that Murzka was stable. The dog had taken a lot of hits from the backstabber during their tussle, but his wiry muscles, coarse fur, and fatty padding had prevented any of them from going too deep. He still looked a mess, and he’d have a lot of new scars to wear, but razorbacks were as tough as leather.

“How’s Kevin doing?” Poppy asked. Even after walking for miles while carrying that heavy pack, Cal had never known her to run out of steam, but she looked exhausted now.

“He’ll be fine,” Cal replied, the dog whining as he applied some white paste to one of the cuts. “It’s mostly superficial.”

“What’s that you’re using?” Poppy asked, glancing at the little pot that was sitting on the ground beside him. “Is that...”

“We’re low on supplies, so I thought I’d use one of Murzka’s recipes,” Cal replied. “These are the angel blossoms that she showed me – they’re not hard to find. I made a poultice like she said.”

“Kevin saved my life today,” Poppy added, walking over to scratch the hound’s head. Kevin began to lick her, his massive, flat tongue lapping at her forearm. His mouth was still soaked with blood, but none of it was his own. “When he saw that I was in danger, he fought like a Drone. You told me that he would protect us, but I didn’t understand what that meant until now. He hasn’t left the tent this whole time, even with all that fresh meat for the taking.”

“You’re part of his pack,” Cal replied, applying another smear of white paste. “Besides, I think he likes you.”

“You saved my life,” Poppy added. “One was right behind me, and you just ... shot it right over my head. I don’t know how you can be so calm in a situation like that. I couldn’t move – I couldn’t even think.”

“We’re a team,” Cal added, reaching out to place a reassuring hand on her armored shoulder. “We look out for each other. Hell, maybe we really are a pack like Murzka seems to think. I dare say that she’s going to be especially grateful when she wakes up. What you did in that tent was incredible. If you hadn’t been here, and it was just me and Murzka...”

“I did what any Worker would do,” she replied.

“You’re not any Worker, though. You’re our sherpa.”

“Thanks, Cal,” she said, her face plates doing a remarkable job of conveying the warmth in her smile. She lowered herself to the ground, sitting beside Cal amidst the roots of a nearby tree, leaning back against the mossy trunk. It was damp and dirty, but so was everything else.

“Did you try contacting the UAS?” she asked.

“Several times,” he replied, giving Kevin a pat to send him on his way now that the wounds were treated. The dog lay down nearby, clearly tired but still alert. “No joy – couldn’t get through. We knew in advance that comms would be spotty, but we’re deeper inside the valley now, and the EM interference from the storm is still wreaking havoc. I’ll have to try again when it clears. Even if we do get through to the survey ship, we’ll probably still be on our own,” he added with a sigh. “There’s no vehicle that can reach us here, and any rescue parties moving on foot will take as long to reach us as we would take to walk back.”

“So ... what do we do?” Poppy asked.

“We’re not in any danger of running out of food or water,” Cal replied. “We have plenty of ammo, too. I think the best thing we can do is stay put and give Murzka time to heal. Once she’s good to move, we walk out of here the same way we walked in.”

“You don’t think they’ll come back?” Poppy asked, glancing around at the forest warily. Her meaning was clear, the worried Worker shuffling a little closer to him.

“They’re just animals, not enemy soldiers,” Cal replied. “There’s no way their population is dense enough to pull off more ambushes like that. We’ll stay alert, but I doubt we’ll see more than one or two from now on. You look really fucking tired, by the way,” he added as he glanced down at her.

“Several hours of surgery will do that to you,” she replied with a weary laugh. “I don’t really want to be alone in a burrow right now, though. I think I’ll just sit here for a while.”