“Evacuate Immediately. This is not a drill.” The alarm blares on the speakers, as people are hurriedly moving to get below deck. Through out the ship the crew are tumbling over each other to get into the escape pods, there is no more comradery between most brothers because everyone knows what the Praedones do to captives.
New recruits always think they can handle the pictures and the remains sent back from the Praedones but time and time again they are mistaken. The pictures are that of horribly tortured soldiers and citizens, no age or sex is off limits to them. Burned, boiled, frozen, torn apart, devoured. We always think we have seen it all, but not too long apart do we see they have found a new way to torture our kind.
Now these same Praedones are boarding our ship, moving from deck to deck slowly getting lower. Hundreds lie dead from either suicide, when they realized they would not make it to the escape pods, or from those that tried to fight the large beasts. Only a few have made it to the escape pods right now, but more are flowing in, too frightened to listen to instructions that you and the other guards are shouting. Luckily you and your three privates were positioned on the bottom deck when their fighter vessel appeared before the ship.
Overall the noise, you can hear your squad yelling. “One at a time, please! We can get more out if you just come one at a time!”
It doesn’t seem to matter what they say and what they do. Tasering the reckless did nothing but stir up more fighting and trying to separate them in lines was impossible with only four guys. You stand on a crate and peer over the crowd of people pushing and cursing. In this crowd you see some of your higher ups shoving and hitting their soldiers to try and get to an escape pod themselves. This is unbelievable to you since they should be helping not just caring about their own skin. Among the others in the crowd, you can see your guys still trying to gather and help the people into escape pods and sending them off. At this, your pride swells. Knowing your men who are still only privates are helping others knowing that they could easily hop into a pod and have a chance to escape. Suddenly, the ship tilts enough to cause many within the crowd to fall, this is followed by a horrible explosion. They are getting closer now, only a few levels left between all of you and them. You quickly speak into your mic, “Soldiers, head to my position. Now.” Right as you finish this you see three pair of eyes all look up from the crowd and nod.
Minutes go by as the crowd begins to thin, until only a few remain. You have your men positioned behind a couple crates that rest between the door and the escape pods. All four weapons are positioned facing the door. A large boom echoes down the hall towards you and behind it is an intensive wave of heat. None of you flinch and instead readjust the grip on the guns. You look behind you and see that only three pods are left, and the only people left are you and your men. You tap one of your guys and nod to the pod. He doesn’t argue and begins to run. A thundering begins getting louder and louder as the Praedones run towards the door. After what feels like hours, but has only been seconds, the first Praedones appear. Never have your men seen the Praedones and because of this you heard a gasp from one of them. Large as a gorilla with hair covering their bodies as dark as night. On their torso’s are chest plates that are colored deep red, almost like dried blood. It is their faces that spark true fear, however. Their eyes are pure white, mouths full of canine like teeth and smeared red with blood from everything and anything they can sink their fangs into. Sharp, short horns rest on their heads protruding where their ears should be. The most terrifying thing about them are their voices. Deep and gruff, as if their voices came from below the ground. Even their fighting style bewilders us. They fight with either blade like weapons or their own jagged nails. Truly a sight to see and now your soldiers are seeing it all up front and for the very first time.
Your men see them pounding down the hallway and begin shooting. Only a hundred meters separate them and you; and that gap is quickly diminishing. You turn and see your soldier gone and tap the next one. He runs as soon as you touch him. Now it is just you and one man firing, knocking down Praedones but not slowing the flood of them down. You hear a whistling and shout to get down. Both of you duck and you see a spear sail over your heads and impales the private you just sent to the escape pods. The spear gets lodged into his back and throws him several feet before pinning him to the wall. His body spasms once and then go limp. You close your eyes for a second and then quickly rise and continues firing. After a few milliseconds your remaining squad member stands and does the same. Together you fire and begin to slowly back up to the escape pod. Moments later the first of the Praedones burst into the room and slam the crates you were just at. Thankfully the doorway is just a tad small for them and they are forced to charge one at a time.
“Run! Now, get to the escape pod!” You yell this as you kneel and continue firing. Only sixty feet left for them to reach you.
“There is only one pod left, sir! You take it, I can handle them!” As your private yells this, he runs by you giving you a sad smile and leaves no chance to argue now. You curse him under your breath and sprint to the pod. You hop in and turn to see your private pull his pistol and knife. He jumps on a crate and fires a couple shots. The Praedones are only a couple feet left as he turns to you and waves goodbye. Your escape hatch shuts and you watch from the small window as he jumps and slams his knife into the first Praedone to reach the crate. The last time you ever see him, he had tumble into the horde of black-haired beast holding on to his knife and still firing his pistol before your pod launches.
As your pod clears the ship you gaze out the small window and see the beauty of space. Galaxies spread out before you, blotches of purple and red. You also see the horror of space, the darkness and emptiness, but the worst is seeing many of the pods being captured or that were blown to pieces. By now you feel the pull of gravity as you begin hurling towards that large planet beneath you. It is called Satera, found not too long ago. We were the team to examine and learn more about this planet. It is lush with huge forest that line around the planet’s equator. At the poles lie barren, hot, and deserts that are devoid of any life at all. This is due to the two suns that cause a strange rotation of the planet. It is never dark on this planet so time is hard to track but it can support life and that is important. You hope you land near the forest, if not, you would only survive a couple hours before the heat killed you.
Your pod jerks as it is nearing the lower atmosphere and you pass out from the force of gravity on your body. Moments later a hiss brings you into consciousness. The pod door pops off and topples over. You shake your head as you step from the pod and look up. You barely see your ship, but you do see that the Praedones have launched their own landing ships and are heading towards the planet. Quickly you head to the back of the pod and drop the latch down. Inside your grab a bag and fill it with the MREs and water packs. After this, you attach the small axe into a loop on your pants. Lastly, you fill your vest pouches with the ammo provided and a new rifle. You round the pod and slice off the parachute and the harness from the seat and pack as well. Satisfied that you are ready to go, you begin walking towards the nearest pod beacon on your watch. Only a couple miles. “You can do this.”
You would enjoy the hike through the peaceful forest, listening to the sounds of bird songs and a spring nearby, if not for the impeding doom that is heading to the planet or the fact that you are stranded here without a way back home. It is still warm and muggy, though, which doesn’t improve your mood. Only one more mile left. 2500 feet. 1250 feet. 500 feet. 100 feet left. Now you are standing right where the beacon is, well, should be.
You look around a moment and then hear a small, young, woman’s voice. “Hel..Help me, please.”
You look up and see the pod and inside a young woman only being held in place by the harness attached to the seat.
“Hang on, I’ll get you down. Don’t worry.” You shout this up and hear the branches above creak and her slight yelp.
The pod shifts a little and a couple twigs fall. You know the branches can’t hold forever and begin looking at the trees around you. You don’t see any way to climb the trees to get to her, so you must prepare a landing pad for her. Rapidly, you begin to try and move the leaves into a pile. Once you feel you have as much as you can gather you begin to tie the parachute to three of the trees using the chopped-up harness from your pod. You set the parachute a couple feet from the ground to act like a net with the leaves cushioning her fall. The woman has been watching you and whimpers after the pod shifts a couple for inches again. You ignore her as you keep moving knowing her time is limited. At last your little landing pad is ready and you look up at her and yell.
“Okay this should stop your fall; it won’t be the most comfortable landing, but it will keep you alive. Just release your harness and fall.”
“Are…are you sure that it will hold? I won’t fall through it?”
“Ma’am you don’t have much time to argue, I am an engineer, hired and trained by Earth’s Space Corps. Now drop.”
The woman unlatches her harness and falls. She hits the parachute and the leaves with a thud. A moment goes by as you stand near one of the trees, waiting.
“YES! Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
You crack a smile as she pops up on all fours bouncing slightly on the parachute. Without warning, a loud crack booms and the launch pod falls as it becomes too heavy for the branches. Your head snapped up at the sound and suddenly your eyes go to the woman after you saw what was happening. You notice her smile is still there, she hasn’t connected what just happened and just like that she is gone. In her place is her pod. The only evidence that she was there was the blood that splatters the parachute and the rim of the pod. You stand there in disbelief at what just happened. You focused so much on the way she was getting down and didn’t warn her to get off it as soon as she could. You didn’t thing the pod would come down almost right after her. You didn’t see it or think of it and now she is gone.
You don’t bother getting what you can of the parachute or the harness straps. You don’t even bother gathering her pods inventory from the hatch. You just turn and walk. You don’t look at what direction you are walking, you don’t care, you just want to be away from there. After a couple hours of walking you hear a waterfall and begin to follow it. It takes only half an hour for you to make it to a beautiful crystal blue waterfall that forms a clear pool. You stand and admire the beauty of the water and the pure white sand around the pool. Tiredly you drop you bag and rifle. You begin stripping down and walk into the water. Once you are covered up to your neck you plunge your head under. The water is calm and cool, so very cool. You come up for air and do a lap of the pool. You wash the sweat and dirt that covers your body and finally climb out of the water. You sit on the beach watching the two suns and looking in the sky for ships. You see none which a is not a good sign, now you know that they have landed and will be hunting all of us that escaped them. You slow your breathing down and get up and get dressed again.
“This is a good place as any to camp, or die I guess.”
You start gathering branches and lobbing off limbs to build a fire. You position the small fire under the trees in hopes the smoke will not make it out and inform the Praedones of your location. Once the fire is burning steady, you open an MRE and slowly drink water. Once you are finished eating and drinking, you open your bag and pull a small, thin blanket out. You lay on top of it and rest. Before your eyes shut, you gaze at the pure water, the perfect sand, the deep orange of the dying fire and your wet clothes drying on a limp above.
A branch breaking startles you awake, and you immediately grab your rifle. You tilt your head listening for anything else as you kneel and look left and right. There! On your left, another twig popping. You slowly creep to a small mass of stones. Still kneeling behind it, you peer down your sight and see it. Not a Praedone but a deer like creature with only a few differences. Its fur shines like gold and instead of two pairs legs it has three. When we analyzed it, we saw that the third pair is to help use it to bounce off the trees. It is only able to do this due to the lower bone mass of the animal but with more muscle residing in the third pair of legs.
You remember all of this as you carefully take aim at the animal. As you breathe out, you pull the trigger. One solid shot downs the animal with only a slight pop echoing faintly. You drop the rifle and let it just hang on your side by the strap. You slowly jog over to the animal and toss it over your shoulder. As you head back you begin talking to yourself again.
“Sorry buddy, but this seems to be the only thing I am good at…killing. First, I got my squad killed or at least most of them, then the woman, and now you bud.”
You start your fire again and slide chucks of the meat on sticks and leave them over the fire. You watch as the meat sizzles and pops, as the juices run down and drop into the fire. After a few minutes, you decide it is cooked enough and take a huge bite. Your eyes roll back, and you give a slight hum as you chew. Even without seasoning it taste amazing. Once you finished, you begin cooking the rest of the chucks and go take a small swim to cool off.
After a short swim you head back to the camp as you get closer you see something over your fire. Whatever it is didn’t see you coming, and you squat down and pull your pistol and knife out. You watch it for a moment as it devours your cooked meat trying to figure out what animal it is.
“Its large, dark, and very hungry it seems.” You whisper to yourself.
Instantly as you said this the creature looked up. It is at this moment you knew you messed up. The creature was no creature it was a Praedone. You didn’t notice it at first because it was hunched over on all fours, but now that its face is turned to you, it is obvious. The beast utters something as it stands up, but sadly, we were never able to understand them. You stand up with it knowing you cannot outrun it but would have to stand and fight or outsmart it. You analyze the situation.
There is only fifty feet from you and it.
There only seems to be one.
You have seven shots in your pistol and a knife out.
You do not have time to swing your rifle around or reach for your axe.
You begin to raise your arm with the pistol but as soon as you do this the Praedone launches, bounding half the distance at once. You get shoot once and it wizzes by the Praedones head. It lands and does another leap and you know this is your last chance. You squeeze the trigger and see it smack into the shoulder. You hear the angry cry of pain from the Praedone before it slams into you. Luckily, the shot that connected turned him enough that you dodged he claws hand and instead received a shoulder to the chest. The pure weight of the Praedone threw you twentyish feet from where you were. You sit up still gripping your knife, but your rifle busted, and your pistol flew off to who knows where. You get up on your feet and pull your axe out. The Praedone stands up and turns toward you. It reaches up to its chest plate and clicks a small button. You see a slight red glow behind it start pulsating in and out almost like a beacon itself. The two of you stare at each other and you take a slight step back only to be matched by the Praedone. The white eyes are getting to you and making you nervous, nothing should have such blank eyes. You slowly raise your axe and knife and take a step forward, then two, then started running at it. The Praedone doesn’t move or even acknowledge you running towards it. Right as you get close enough you jump and swing your small axe. The Praedone quickly grabs your arm and without looking grabs your other arm before it could do anything. You hang there looking at this beast. It twists your hand, snapping the wrist and making you drop the axe. You scream and desperately kick its chest. You catch it by surprise and tear out of its grasp. You know you didn’t hurt it just dented the chest plate a little. The Praedone takes a step back to regain its balance and before it can do anything else, you flick your hand and throw the knife. Everything is silent a moment, as you look at the knife now deeply embedded in the center of its chest, centered where the red glow was. The Praedone looks shocked at the weapon lodged in it. It utters a low growl and takes a step forward. Now it is you who doesn’t move or flinch. You just stand there holding your wrist. The Praedone takes one more step before it collapses, and the knife goes completely though its body and lets one last sigh out. You slowly lean back and lay down, trying to calm down and control your breathing.
You count to five and then sit up and retrieve your knife, looking over its body it has nothing else of value. You walk over to your axe and pick it up. After a couple minutes you find your pistol and it is still functioning, you thank the gods above. You slowly walk to your campsite and find that the Praedone did leave a short, black, ragged blade. It is time to finally pack up camp and move on, you knew this wasn’t going to be safe forever. It doesn’t take you long to gather your bag and food. Before you leave you pull out your med kit and start making a sling and cover your wrist with a quick response healing paste. You must be ready, you killed one of their own and now you will be hunted and will not be stopped until they finish you off. With that in mind you begin a long journey to the looming mountains in the distance.
“They are coming for me. I know it and they know it.”
