A blood curdling shriek echoed out through the night, audible even over the weather, and Daniel’s heart leapt into his mouth. The three humans went pale as ghosts, and even the Dunid was visibly shaking, eyes as wide as dinner plates. The cry suddenly cut off, leaving them in a frantic silence filled with heavy breathing. The quiet continued for a few uninterrupted moment before Daniel mustered his courage. Giving a nervous gulp, he spoke in a hoarse whisper: “That was one of our guys. We need to go help.”

  The statement provoked gasps from the men and a high-pitched hum from the Dunid. Jordan was the first to gather himself and hiss back: “Danny, are you nuts? Whatever’s out there definitely got someone, and it was probably what got Johnson as well. Check the stats.”

  Daniel did as recommend, pulling up the group number with a thought: Group Size:10/20

  Not just someone, he realized. Whatever was out there had gotten two people this time. That prompted another round of thoughts. He’d be exposing the team if he tried to lead them out there, and they could well meet the same fate as the others. On the other hand…

  “We’re the toughest fighters the group has, besides Gulliman.”, He whispered back, hardly even believing himself as he kept speaking, “If one of our own is in danger, we need to help them.”

  Two men had fallen, but they hadn’t split up into groups of two. Besides Gulliman, who was by himself, the other two pods had a group of four and a group of three. At least one of the other pods was under attack, and two dead meant that there must be at least one man still alive, possibly fighting for his life right now. Jordan was an expert hunter and the other two were his most reliable people. If they moved as a group, they might be able to bail that man out. He took a deep breath: “If we lose any more people, meeting our Quota will become next to impossible. You know what that means, don’t you?”

  Of course they did. Sanctions, fines, possibly even jailtime. But Pioneer jail wasn’t like normal imprisonment. Pioneers who were court martialed and convicted were still forced to drop into unknown planets, but their commission dropped to almost nothing. Instead, they were forced to work off their prison sentence on some of the most dangerous planets in Frontier space, usually leaving with almost nothing to show for it. If they were lucky enough to survive at all.

  Prison was the most severe punishment for failing to meet Quota, and it was usually only meted out in the most egregious of situations. But if their inventory values were low enough, there was always the possibility that the Ministry of War would investigate their Codex’s tapes and charge them with cowardice or negligence. Even a lesser charge could be brutal, however. In principle, they could be fined everything they’d gathered, making this entire trip the next best thing to a prison drop anyways. Even putting aside his morals and personal resolution, it was in his interest to do everything he could to avoid harsh punishment.

  Daniel dug up the coordinates of the closest pod from his log and set a waypoint for it that the others could see. He would bet that the screams came from there: “Our families are counting on us, and so are our friends. I’m going. Are you with me?”

  He felt a slight hesitation, but eventually got nods from both men. The Dunid gave a determined rumble, and Daniel gave the electronic command to open the pod doors.

  The Pioneers flinched at the sudden feeling of cold rain, but also with a reflexive fear of whatever was lurking in the shadows. When nothing pounced on them immediately, the Pioneers gathered themselves and moved out, Codex lights on at their brightest setting. They ran through the jungle as quickly as they could, the Dunid leading the way and cutting through the brush as the others watched his back. It was a nerve wracking fifteen minutes, everyone shaking from the cold and fear as they stumbled along, but eventually they found the pod.

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  Blue light eerily illuminated a scarred and defaced set of front doors. Deep grooves had been carved into it by a pair of six fingered claws, jagged marks crisscrossing the dull grey metal in a savage pattern. The sight of it immediately set their hearts racing into overdrive, their chests pounding away as they looked around wildly for the source of the danger. The Pioneers just about jumped out of their skin when a loud noise barked out from deeper into the jungle: “What’re you four doing here?! I thought you were in your pod!”

  The cold shock of relief washed over the group as their lights shone upon the grumpy face of Sergeant Gulliman, beard dripping with water as he trundled toward them. Daniel sighed at the release of tension, heart still going a mile a minute as he gathered himself and responded, yelling to be heard over the rain: “We heard the scream as well, sir! We came here to help.”

  Gulliman furrowed his brow, but he nodded in acceptance and gestured toward the pod doors: “You see what did that?”

  When Daniel shook his head in the negative, Gulliman continued: “You checked to see if anyone’s still alive in there?”

  Another negative. Gulliman walked briskly past their group and rapped his knuckles on the door, calling out: “Anyone in there!?”

  Faintly, Daniel heard a scared, shrill voice cry out from inside: “Sarge? I’m here!”

  “If you’re there, then open the doors!”, Gulliman growled out, but there was more exasperation than bite in his tone. The doors opened to reveal a shaking and terrified James MacNeil. The boy was white as a sheet, staring at the rest of the team in undisguised terror. Gulliman stepped inside the dry interior, motioning for the others to stay outside and keep watch. Jordan snorted in irritation, but Daniel just wryly smiled and obeyed orders. Outside or otherwise, they all heard the following conversation: “What happened here, boy?”

  “…Pierson needed to take a leak. It was really bad. Nobody wanted him to go inside the pod. We knew it would be dangerous to go outside alone, so Jobava offered to go with him. A few minutes afterward, I heard…Pierson. I heard him screaming, sir. Then, it all went silent.”

  He paused and shuddered, seemingly reluctant to go on before being prompted by Gulliman: “And then?”

  “And then I heard the noise, sir. A shrieking, scratching sound as something started tearing at the door. It came in fits and starts, off again on again, as if it were testing something. The pod’s shields kicked into full gear, but it didn’t stop. It only got worse. It started savaging the door, the noise getting louder and louder, my pod’s power reserves dipping lower and lower. I was sure I was a dead man, before it suddenly stopped. Then you all showed up.”, He gave a nervous laugh, “Thank you. Thank you so much for coming to save me.”

  Daniel could have sworn he heard a sniffle, a suspicion confirmed by Gulliman’s gruff voice: “All right, quit your crying. You’ll be fine.”

  That said, Gulliman called out, so that everyone could hear him more clearly: “Men, it’s clear now that we have an enemy on the loose and it’s not safe to split up. We’ll regroup with the others and wait out the storm with them. Watch each other’s backs. Do NOT go off on your own. Am I clear?”

  After a chorus of affirmatives, he gave the order to move out. They got themselves together and began making their way over to the fourth and final pod. They moved slowly for the sake of caution, which was bad for everyone’s nerves, but they got to the other pod without meaningful incident. Knocking insistently at the pod’s doors, the sergeant then explained the situation to the men huddling together inside. Gulliman had used the message system of the Codex to notify them ahead of time that they should stay in their pod and wait to be contacted, but he hadn’t messaged them any details. They had been too far away to hear the scream and seemed blissfully unaware and largely confused, though that changed when the sergeant told them MacNeil’s horror story.

  With everyone now terrified of their own shadow, they elected to set up a tightly constructed camp surrounding this single pod. The Pioneers couldn’t all fit inside at once, of course, so they’d take turns in groups. Some would get some shuteye on the inside, while the rest would hold a constant vigil on the outside. Gulliman would remain awake for most of the time, only catching a short sequence of twenty-minute cat naps every now and then. His advanced Psyche made staying up for days at a time quite reasonable, with the sergeant remaining alert through all hours of the following days.

  Few men mustered up the courage to make small talk as they waited out the storm in a terrible combination of stress and discomfort. Even when they did speak, it was in hushed and cautious tones that could barely be heard over the regular droning of the thunder. Their one saving grace was that they had plenty of food, and many of the men took to stress eating as the only real release valve they had. When they rested in the pod, they collapsed into exhausted slumbers, their dreams dark and fraught with anxiety. Minutes, hours, and days blurred together under the oppressive blanket of dark storm clouds, the sun a distant memory.

  It got to the point that Daniel began to dread his sleeping hours more than his waking one's. After a few rounds of nightmares, he suddenly remembered something from when he was a kid. He’d had a few bad dreams back then as well, and Grandpa Hardgrave had decided to teach him a trick to avoid them: “When you’ve got bad dreams, you’ve gotta relax before bed. Do your best to calm your mind and think happy thoughts. Happy memories from happier times, that’s the trick Danny.”

  And so, Daniel did just that.