Fletcher rubbed his watery eyes. He’d been staring at a computer screen for hours on end. Maybe he should take a break.

  No. He was certain he was close to figuring this error out. At the very least he would solve it through brute force if nothing else. Deities, why hadn’t he been an electrical engineering major instead of a math major? He learned how to code to model equations and analyze data, not set up a wide sensor network.

  “Lieutenant, I-I think I might have broken it,” George’s timid voice said from nearby.

  Breaktime it was.

  Fletcher closed the laptop and stood up from the makeshift desk. They were down on the lowest floor of Vesi since George refused to go to any of the other floors unless it was to get a week’s supply of rations at a time. Though he was slowly adjusting to going more frequently to drop off their harvest from the garden. That project was going well after two months of growing. They had only a few things that produced fruits and vegetables so far, but it was already a very welcome addition to the bland food the base kept on hand.

  The last shipment of supplies had come in only three days prior, marking Fletcher’s four month anniversary at Vesi Station. As much as he would like to say the time flew by, in reality each day was a trudge, marching to the hopeful end of the drudgery that was Vesi. But he liked to believe he was leaving the station in better shape than when he found it. For one thing, it was a lot cleaner thanks to his efforts. And he finally finished all his repair work too, meaning the hallways didn’t look like abandoned corridors from a horror movie.

  But with completing all the repair work, he’d once again had too much free time on his hands which was what led to this latest project, a much bigger undertaking than even the garden, which hopefully meant it would take up many more months of his time. Due to the lack of planes coming and going at Vesi Station, nobody ever got to use their leave away from the base. Fletcher had been stuck here through the holidays, and so he was working extra hard to stay busy and not think about what had been his first ever Christmas away from his father. In the end, he didn’t even celebrate. He just worked through it, and he kept the momentum up so he never had to remember what he missed back home.

  “What’s going on, George?” Fletcher asked the [Insectoid], refocusing his mind on the task at hand to keep from wallowing in the pain of spending the holidays at the miserable station.

  “I was putting it together the way you showed me, but something snapped when I pressed the cover on,” the Unhuman explained in a hesitant voice. After all these months, the [Insectoid] still sounded on the verge of tears whenever he thought he screwed up despite the fact Fletcher had never once reprimanded him or turned harsh with him for his mistakes. Then again, a few months wasn’t enough time to undue all the damage that seven years at Vesi with the likes of what Hugo and Jana did to the innocent [Insectoid].

  Fletcher took the sensor in hand. It wasn’t anything fancy, and the tech was old. During his closet organizing, he discovered several crates of sensor parts along with manuals about putting them together and integrating them into the base’s network to create an extra warning level about attacks.

  There obviously wasn’t any real need for it at a place like Vesi Station, but putting the sensors together, writing a program to manage them, and then setting each one up out in the city ruins was a great time waster for Fletcher, so he’d pressured Palacios into allowing him to do it. It wasn’t like anyone was ever going to use the sensors anyway, but it had taken three separate visits to the Major to convince him to go along with the project.

  But that was several weeks ago. So now Fletcher and George were onto the fun part of putting the sensors together. Well, mostly George did that since Fletcher had his hands full with trying to get the code working to manage the sensors and integrate the whole thing into the base’s current setup. But his program kind of, sort of worked. Enough that he’d been able to put a few test sensors out. But it turned out that debugging the code was a tedious task, the kind that made him want to yank his hair out and scream half the time.

  Yet it was something to do, and that was Fletcher’s biggest priority. Staying busy meant he couldn’t think about missing his family or wishing for his life back in Bren’it’p or the colonies. And it was a fact that all Humans felt better about themselves when they were actively working towards some kind of goal. Nobody at Vesi seemed to care about that, but everyone stationed at the base had given up hope a long time ago. Fletcher wasn’t there yet. He was determined to never get to that point. And he was confident he could do that, assuming he was stuck at Vesi only for the five years he was required to serve in the military.

  Some part of him was worried that his mother would find a way to keep him in the service longer, but that was a problem for later in life. A lot later.

  “It’s not a big deal, George. This one has a faulty cover. Set it to the side and start on a new one,” Fletcher told the [Insectoid] after thoroughly investigating the sensor. A fair number of the sensors turned out to be defective in one way or another. Some of the defects were ones he could work around. Others were flaws that were too big to be ignored or handled, so those ones got tossed into a box to be used for parts.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to break it,” the [Insectoid] insisted.

  “You didn’t break it. It came like this. Just like that one yesterday, remember?” Fletcher reminded his friend. More of a student really, but Fletcher was happy to have whatever positive socialization he could get out at this armpit of a base.

  “Okay.” George did not sound convinced.

  “It’s alright, dude. Just move on.” Fletcher’s patience was wearing thin dealing with George right after wasting several hours on a bug in the code he still hadn’t solved. He knew he needed to take a break for both his and George’s sakes. “I’m going to go out and check out the testers. One of the ones in the city keeps going off with a weird error even after I calibrated it to recognize all the animals in the ruins.”

  “Back into the ruins… Are you sure, Lieutenant?” George’s voice was tight. He always got nervous when Fletcher mentioned going out, especially over the last couple of weeks for some reason. Fletcher had a suspicion the stories about his run in with Trevor and tooth fairy had made their way back to the [Insectoid] somehow.

  “I’ll be fine, George. I’ve gone out lots of times. It’s just to check on a sensor. Maybe I’ll grab some water while I’m at it,” he said. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Okay. Bye, Lieutenant. Be safe,” the [Insectoid] replied.

  Fletcher packed up his ancient laptop and left the closet-turned-office behind. He thought about going to his own office to keep working on the error, but then he thought about seeing Backup again, and his desire to be with his dog won out over his wish to avoid the cold. The winter was firmly set in at Vesi, though it wasn’t nearly as bad as Alcett’s winter. It got cold, but there wasn’t much by way of snow or anything. The lack of precipitation is part of what drove people away from the city after the Merger, at least according to one of the old reports he’d found while cleaning out closets. There was a ton of interesting reading material. Though none of it was of the fantasy variety, he was just glad to have something new to read.

  Thinking of reading material, his thoughts went to the drawer on his desk in his bedroom, full of unopened and unsent letters. He got another set after the last supplies shipment. Seven more. Most were from his dad, but there were also ones from his sister, Addy, his mother, and then one from his friend Tara Knox from Hotshot training. He had no idea how she got his address, but he still didn’t have the guts to open it. Or any of them. Fletcher already missed his dad, but he was certain reading the letters would only increase his homesickness, and he couldn’t afford to weaken his resolve to stay at Vesi. He had to do it. He couldn’t go to some place where he would contribute to killing Unhumans. He just couldn’t do it.

  But he still wrote to his father, at least weekly, but more often more than that. And he even wrote to Nora occasionally, and Addy, and there was one for Jeric buried in there somewhere. Not that he was going to send them. It was silly to send letters without reading the ones they sent him, so it was better to ignore the problem entirely.

  Fletcher went to the armory to grab a rifle, ammo, and a tactical vest, and then he packed his laptop in a bag alongside snacks for him and Backup. Going to the garage, he signed the jeep out, just like he was supposed to, despite the fact no one else did nor did anyone check the registry. But he always followed rules, and that wasn’t going to change just because no one around was going to enforce them.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Starting up the engine, Fletcher turned the heater to full blast despite the fact it did very little against the chill of the air. The open air jeep was bad enough when the weather wasn’t freezing, but it turned out that winter was a whole lot worse. He’d cut his patrols down to only two a week due to the cold, though he hated to miss seeing his dog. But Backup seemed to understand. The border collie liked to hide somewhere warm too, only coming out when Fletcher showed up in the city.

  The drive to the city went fast, mainly because Fletcher drove fast. He felt a lot more comfortable with his driving skills after all the practice of going out on patrol alone. He supposed he could count that as a positive of being at Vesi alongside the few other pros.

  Fletcher went straight to his usual meeting place with Backup, near where the dog liked to shelter. Backup came out of the ruined house he slept in and did a big stretch.

  “Have a good nap, boy?” he asked as he patted the passenger seat.

  Backup trotted up to the car with sleepy eyes and hopped in. He nuzzled Fletcher’s arm, insisting on pets before he would allow Fletcher to drive again.

  After giving the dog due attention, Fletcher put the jeep in gear and took the most direct route to the faulty test sensor. He thought he’d done a good job accounting for every animal that it might run into, but somehow it was still going off, even after he calibrated it for everything from tooth fairies and cycats to nocturne slime.

  As he arrived at the mostly intact tower, he climbed up to the second story where the sensor faced out one of the few remaining sturdy windows. At this height, it was able to catch both ground animals and birds, but he was certain he’d accounted for everything that it could see, so why was it throwing up another error?

  Fletcher pulled his laptop out and plugged into the sensor, pulling the full data stream from the device to look through. Before he could get too far into it, however, Backup whined.

  “Oh, fine. I’ll give you a snack now,” he said, setting his computer to the side. He dug in his back for another can of mystery meat which was Backup’s favorite treat. Spreading half the contents on the floor for the dog, he put a lid on the can and put it back in his bag.

  “Don’t give me that. I’ll give you the rest later. You gotta pace yourself,” Fletcher told the dog.

  Backup continued to stare at him with big, puppy-dog eyes.

  “No. Backup, no. We’re saving it for later,” Fletcher insisted.

  He stared at Backup, and Backup stared at him.

  Sighing, he rolled his eyes. “Alright, fine. Have it all now, but don’t come whining when you get hungry later. This might take a while.” He reached back into his backpack and retrieved the can, dumping the last of the meat substance out for the dog.

  Backup yelped in delight and dug into his meal as Fletcher shook his head.

  “I just can’t say no to you, can I?” He rubbed his hand through Backup’s fur. It was rather dirty, which meant next time he came out he’d have to bring a set of towels and portable heater so he could safely bathe the dog without worrying about him freezing to death in the cold after. Yeah, Backup was going to hate that.

  Fletcher smiled as Backup licked up his food, and once he was sure the dog was going to be satisfied for a while, he got back out his laptop to check the data he downloaded from the faulty sensor.

  “Huh,” he said aloud. He always talked to Backup since talking aloud helped him solve problems and made him feel less lonely when he was out in the ruined city. “This doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen before on the sensor. It definitely wasn’t caused by a cycat or tooth fairy. Or even nocturne slime. Maybe a mangie could have caused it, but I thought those guys hibernated in the winter. And I’ve never seen them in anything but large groups.”

  Mangie were the Unhuman equivalent of mountain goats, though these ones had two sets of teeth and enough jaw strength to break bone in one go. While they were herbivores, they seemed to enjoy chasing things down to headbutt with their horns. Fletcher had bruises for weeks after his first run in with the herd that lived in the city. But he hadn’t seen them in well over a month, and from what he remembered of his biology class, they did hibernate for five months of the year. But then what else could have caused this? It was too heavy of a signature to be any of the rodents that lived in the city, and it wasn’t heavy enough for the large animals. Well, maybe a baby one, but those were accounted for as well by his count.

  “Maybe this sensor really is just broken,” Fletcher concluded. “Or maybe it’s having a problem in the cold. Let me check the other ones.”

  One of the bugs he’d been working on was figuring out how to hook all the sensors into the network at the same time. Right now, all he was able to do was hook them into one central sensor which reported back, but that meant he had to go to the central sensor to get the data. It was one of those things that wouldn’t be a problem for someone with experience in this kind of area, but that was not Fletcher. He was doing what he could using his prior coding knowledge and the very poorly written manual that came with the sensors.

  Fletcher downloaded the data from the other sensors and frowned. “This is really weird. Two others are showing the same kind of error. I guess these things weren’t made for the cold. Or maybe something new moved into town. Something that likes the cold.”

  Glancing at Backup, Fletcher discovered the dog had finished his meal and curled up next to his legs for another nap.

  “Sorry, Backup. No time to sleep yet. I need to go check these other sensors.” Fletcher unhooked his laptop and put it away.

  Backup gave him that same pleading stare, but Fletcher shook his head. “No. I have to go. But I’ll tell you what. After I check these sensors, we can just play and hang out the rest of the day, alright?”

  That appeased the dog well enough, and he stood up and followed Fletcher from the building. Back in the jeep, Fletcher got the engine going and heater blasting as he drove to the next sensor location. This one was on the edge of the city where it ran into less things that triggered it, but it still had the same calibrations as the other ones. If there really was something causing this error, it was moving all through the city which was unusual. The animals were rather territorial, so they typically stayed in their sections. He’d been marking his map with what parts of the ruins belonged to what animals. Trevor and her cubs had the biggest area, though the tooth fairies were a close second.

  The more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that the error was some bug either caused by hardware problems or an error in the code. He’d been going out on patrol enough that he was certain he would have noticed some new animal breed moving in.

  Fletcher stopped the jeep and opened the door as they arrived at the fallen section of wall where he placed the sensor. As he went to step out, Backup growled.

  “What is it, boy?” He turned back to see the dog with teeth bared and his ears all the way back. This was an even stronger response than what Fletcher had seen when they nearly crossed paths with Trevor again. Backup really didn’t like whatever this was.

  “Okay, so something new is moving in,” Fletcher muttered. Something that was probably really dangerous and going to make his life more complicated. But that was fine. More complicated meant more things to do, and more things to do meant he was too busy to be miserable.

  Holding his gun, Fletcher quietly stepped out of the vehicle and remained low to the ground as he snuck up to the pile of rubble that provided cover. Backup jumped out and followed him, still offering low growls towards whatever was out there.

  Carefully, Fletcher glanced around the edge of the fallen stonework to see what was causing Backup to freak out so much. What if it was something extra deadly, like a wislow. Yeah. That would be really bad. One alone had enough venom to kill a dozen people, but they always traveled in packs so he’d really have to watch out. Not to mention they were considered invasive in most areas, killing off everything it came in contact with from cycats to nocturne slime. If it was wislow, Fletcher would have to make sure to kill them before they took over the ruins and destroyed the happy ecosystem he helped maintain.

  Fletcher didn’t see anything at first as he scanned the other rubble littering the area near the broken wall. Wait, there was a flash over there. He focused on the movement he noticed, looking for any sign of wislow.

  A shaky breath left his mouth. That was no wislow.

  It was a [Vanara], an Unhuman. But not just any Unhuman. A soldier. He recognized the uniform from his time in Bren’it’p as well as his trip to observe the conversion facility raid before he joined the Mixed military.

  Another head popped up near the [Vanara]. This one was a [Yeti]. Multiple soldiers were here, but why?

  Well, at least that explained why the sensors were having all these errors. Fletcher didn’t bother calibrating them for the various Unhuman types since there hadn’t been Unhumans in this area for decades.

  But they were here now, and based on what he saw, they weren’t here for any kind of peaceful mission. Even if they hadn’t originally come here because of the base, they would find Vesi, no doubt about it. The station was far from being hidden.

  It shouldn’t be possible. He came to this hole to avoid the war, but somehow it found him anyway. After spending its entire service lifetime as nothing more than a punishment posting, Vesi Station was about to join the frontlines and face a true battle with the Unhumans.

  The problem was that they weren’t ready for it. Not by a longshot. This might very well be the end of Vesi Station and everyone in it.

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