10,000 Years Ago...

Rho felt her body slide out of her hammock crash onto the floor as the ship slammed to a halt from lightspeed.  The small amount of food rations she had left slid off of her desk and clattered noisily, waking Xer.  "What is going on?" she mumbled, half awake.  "I think we've found a new home," Rho answered back, moving to the window, with Xer hopping out of her bed and following closely behind.  "Another one?" Xer yawned.  "What's different about this..."  Their eyes widened as they peered out and saw an enormous planet filled with blues and greens.  "It's twice the size of Xuru!  And look at those colors.  When we left Xuru, the whole planet was filled with browns and reds.  There's no dust or fires raging here."  Her face dropped at the memory, then perked back up after she took a closer look at their destination.  "I hope there aren't things there that'll try to eat us, like on the last planet," Xer said, rubbing the scars on her wrist.  "That thing took forever to blast through!  It didn't help that you science geeks left me to watch the base while you looked for water."  Rho ignored her.  "Is that...water?  I've never seen it naturally!  Every planet we've been to, all the galaxies we've searched, and we haven't found anything close to real, drinkable water."  "And we better hurry up.  We're running out of water ourselves," Xer pointed out, rather unhelpfully.  "Those clouds aren't dissipating, so the planet must have an atmosphere.  And what are the green parts?" Rho asked.  "Excellent observation, Rho," a woman's voice said from behind her, causing her and Xer to jump to their feet.  "And the rest we're going to go find out."  They saluted the woman before speaking.  "Commander Sur!  I didn't hear you come in.  Have we done it?" Rho asked.  "The scans are promising," Commander Sur replied.  "There's no sign of any technology.  No major urban centers.  There are signs of life, but we think the species currently inhabiting the planet are basic enough to not cause any problems with our plans."

"That is great news!" Rho said ecstatically.  "When do we leave?"  "As soon as possible.  So grab your things and let's get moving.  We've all been on this ship too long, and the rest of Xuru is counting on us."     "Yes, Commander."  Commander Sur exited through the sliding doors, leaving Rho and Xer to begin putting on their gear for the mission ahead.  "I've always hated these bright magenta suits," Xer complained.  "How are we supposed to camouflage ourselves in these?  The only time these things worked in our favor was in Jyt, where all the rocks were also magenta.  That planet would've been a great home.  Too bad there was no water."  "If I recall," Rho began, sliding on her helmet, "You shot at me on Jyt because I was crouched down and you thought I was a sentient rock that was attempting to sneak up on us."  Rho turned her helmet, and it sealed with a hiss.  "And I would've hit you, too, but you fell over because you passed out from dehydration."  "Don't remind me."  "Sha was there?  And he had to carry you?  Remember?  Hru was laughing?"  Rho hit her with one of her gloves, then put it on, and walked out of the room, fully suited up.  Xer followed close behind, entering the front of the ship where the team gathered around Commander Sur for their briefing.

"Recon squad, take a look."  Their eyes all gazed out past empty space and to the enormous ball of light that they would embark upon soon.  "Our scans show that this planet is vastly different from Xuru.  It is relatively young compared to the tens of billions of years that Xuru has been around.  We will begin shortly our recon mission, the purpose of which is to observe the environment, sample the environment, and report back our findings.  We have detected only small pockets of life on this planet, and we intend to go there and determine their threat level.  We are tracking their body heat as we speak, and we have a general area where we believe them to be.  We will attack only if we are provoked.  But make no mistake, they could still be very dangerous.  Just ask Xer how dangerous things can quickly become on a planet you're not welcome."  Just then, the door behind them hissed.  Sha and Hru entered the room, giggling quietly to themselves, arm in arm.  Sha went to give Hru a kiss on the forehead, but forgot he was wearing a helmet.  His helmet hit hers, and made a large clanging sound, causing them to laugh harder.  Commander Sur cleared her throat, and the giggling stopped.  "Are you finished?" she asked.  Sha sniffled, then they both straightened up and replied, "Yes, Commander."

 Commander Sur nodded, and continued.  "Currently, we do not believe the inhabitants are anything but a nuisance to us.  As long as they are not, we will return with the full force of Xuru's military, take the planet, colonize it, and establish a new Xuru far away from her many enemies.  You all know what failure means."  Rho thought back to the decade she had spent aboard the ship.  She longed desperately to have a place to call her own, one that she didn't have to share with Xer.  "I'm leaving two members of the team on board in case we run into complications.  That means Sha, Xer, Rhu, and Hru are with me.  Loz and Irt, you are to monitor communications between us and relay our findings to Xuru, whatever they may be.  If there are any complications, return to Xuru at once.  There's too few of us left.  If you lose us, return home.  Save yourselves."  Loz and Irt nodded solemnly, and went to their monitors.  "As for the rest of us, it is time to go.  Rhu and Hru, grab your sampling equipment.  Sha, Xer, grab your blasters, and hope we don't find anything that warrants a shot."  She turned, and the remaining team members grabbed their gear and followed her into the small pod that would take them to the surface. 

They strapped in to the sleek white transport pod.  The inside was purposefully undecorated, with no windows and a single door leading in or out.  There was two benches, one on either side of the ship, with straps to lock in.  All controls were done by the main ship, meaning that the occupants were entirely at the mercy of their shipmates.  This fact was not lost on Rho, who had heard many times of vengeful captains sending unruly passengers out onto planets without any intention of ever picking them back up.  To make the most of her time, and to clear those thoughts from her head, Rho positioned herself sitting across from Sha.  She stole a quick glance at him and nearly locked with his black eyes, envying his cool demeanor.  She herself was sweating, her orange hair already matting to her forehead.  The pod was detached from the ship, and Rho's heart fluttered as she felt them begin to float through space, the pod dinging lightly as it made contact with various debris.  The thrusters kicked in, causing everyone to jerk their heads back into the walls, their helmets taking the brunt of the hit.  It was always still jarring, however.  The debris hitting the ship made a louder noise the faster they went, until they reached the atmosphere of the planet.  It was a bumpy ride, and the friction was making Rho sick.  "Must have a high oxygen content if we're bouncing as hard as we are!" she called out.  Commander Sur nodded, looking as unphased on the outside as Rho was pretending to be. Luckily, it was over soon, and they felt the pod touch down softly on a foreign surface.  Rho unstrapped herself, stretched, and headed out to take in the sights with her equipment.  To her surprise, she felt a chill as she stepped out of the pod.  All around her was white, confusing her.  "What is this?  I thought this place was filled with greenery?"  She hesitantly put her boot onto the top of the white surface.  It crunched beneath her feet.  "Some sort of...soft, opaque glass?"  She took a full step onto the ground, and saw that the land held her weight.  Bending, she pushed a finger into the ground, and pulled up quickly when she realized the ground was cold and wet.  "It's...frozen.  Frozen water, all over the place.  They have so much water here they just allow it to freeze!" she laughed, scooping up some more and watching it melt on her gloves.  Sha was the next out of the pod, and his boots sank as they touched the crystals.  He gave off a little shiver.  "This place is...cold.  And wet.  Vastly different from the fire pits of Xuru.  Or the desert fires of Xuru.  Or the town square, which, as we all know, was on fire, when we left Xuru.  Xer, take a sample of this."  She did as he asked, bending down and scooping some into a small square container.  She put it back on the pod for safe keeping, and rejoined the group. 

Taking stock of their surroundings, they saw a stream through the snow covered field, leading to a mountain chain.  There were a few scattered trees, but mostly the ground was too blanketed by snow to see anything else.  The sky was an ominous shade of gray, presenting its own set of  challenges.  They would have a limited amount of sun to work with.  Commander Sur turned and spoke to the group.  "We don't have a lot of time, and we have to make it through the mountains before sundown, if at all possible, in order to reach the pocket of life-forms I want to find before we return to the pod, and then, the ship.  We've already found water.  Now our mission is to determine how dangerous those life-forms are.  If they are not a threat we cannot overcome, then we've just hand picked a planet to deliver to Xuru and our people where they can escape from the destruction wrought by our enemies."  She turned, marching quickly across the field.  They made their way first to the stream. 

Hru bent down to take a sample.  She opened her container, a long cylinder with a cap on it, and filled it with the cool water.  "This water isn't as clear as I would've hoped, but it does seem drinkable," she announced to that group.  "I don't know what you're talking about," Sha said, a few yards away.  "In this area, you can see clear through to the bottom."  Hru took a closer look at the water in front of her, moving her helmet closer to the stream.  "Hm.  Some sort of life form must have caused a disturbance.  It would have had to be fairly large in order to cloud such a substantial area."  Sha was making his way towards Hru.  "Well, you should get away from there, before we find out what it was."  Hru was undettered.  "Wait, I think I see something..." 

Hru paused, and stood back up.  "Guess I was wrong," she said, turning to rejoin the group.  Suddenly, something broke the surface of the water.  It had slender, but muscular, arms blue from the cold water, and lengthy, sharp nails.  The nails dug into Hru's thin legs, and the creature pulled her legs out from under her and into the air, causing Hru to lose her balance.  Hru slammed into the earth, her helmet bouncing off of the ground, cracking from the force.  The creature let out a shriek as it started dragging Hru's body and itself back into the river.  Sha dove after them, and his helmet clinked lightly as it made contact, again, with Hru's.  He pushed his arm out, reaching to grab something, any part of Hru, and came up empty.  He grunted and jumped to his feet, firing his blaster where the creature had submerged with Hru, sending green bolts of energy that crackled and sizzled once they hit the water.  "Stop!  Stop!" Commander Sur yelled.  "You'll hit Hru!"  Sha turned, angrily, and then holstered his blaster into his hip.  He knelt down over the surface of the stream, looking frantic.  Everyone else was stunned into inaction.  "Where is she?  Does anyone see-"  Suddenly, he went silent as a bubble burst through the surface.  The bubble was followed by Hru's helmet, which was accompanied with a pooling of black liquid, further clouding the water. 

Sha sank to his knees.  He watched as her helmet and blood moved swiftly downstream.  Nobody spoke for a few moments until Commander Sur cleared her throat.  Quietly, she said "Hru was a great member of this team, and her work will not be in vain if we keep moving.  We have to find whatever else is at the end of this signal.  Sha, why don't you go back to the pod, and wait on us.  Xer, Rho, be on alert.  Let's go."  She started walking towards the mountains, in the opposite direction that Hru's head had floated.  Sha had yet to get to his feet.  He remained still, staring at the water, his face frozen into shock.  "How did this happen?" he whispered to himself.  Rho took a step towards the Commander and Xer, then paused, and turned back to Sha, putting her hand on his shoulder pad.  "Sha...there was nothing you could have done.  This wasn't even the area where we thought life forms would be.  One must have slipped through."  He still didn't move, so Rho shook him gently.  "It's time to go.  We have important work to do."  He turned to her, and Rho could see him crying inside his helmet.  "Her and I shared a room together, for all the time we were aboard the ship.  We escaped the conflict on Xuru, visited so many new planets together.  And now she's gone, just like that."  He sniffled and begun to cry.  Commander Sur and Xer were still trudging ahead, fighting the snow to make progress.  "We did a thermal scan, and we tracked their body heat.  This creature must have had little to no heat.  We missed it.  It happens, but there's nothing we can do about it now, and I can't be left behind.  Go to the pod, and wait for us to come back.  We can talk more then, okay?"  She walked in front of him, and offered him her hand.  He sniffled, and took it, standing up.  He took one last look at the river, and his face wrenched as he held back tears.  Then he breathed deeply, let it out, and started a somber walk back to the pod, alone. 

Rho rejoined the group, lightly jogging to make up the distance, and they continued on, reaching the mountains.  The opening to the path was marked by razor sharp icicles hanging menacingly on the sides of the rock face.  When they could walk, the path was slick.  Some areas were frozen, and large rocks were precariously placed all along the path.  In a few instances they found themselves having to double back whenever they reached an area they couldn't cross or when their path led to a dead end.  The going was slow, and they were attempting to traverse the area with a quickly dwindling amount of light.  "Where are we going, again?" Xer asked.  "The signal was found to be coming from an area near the stream on the opposite side of these mountains.  We traced it the best we could from the ship, and placed ourselves as close as we could to the area, but we encountered interference from the mountains." "What kind of day-night cycle does this planet have?  We seem to be getting dangerously close to darkness." Xer pointed out.  "The night and day seem to be roughly the same period of time," Commander Sur replied.  "Which is disadvantageous to us, coming from the land of the light without end."  "It is equally poor for our enemies, who come from the land without light.  A near perfect battlefield!" Xer cried triumphantly.   "Quiet now," Commander Sur ordered, "We're almost to the end of this pass, and I've spotted something in the field ahead."  Commander Sur stopped abruptly, and Rho almost bumped into her.  "What is it?" Rho asked, pushing her way to the front. 

The field in front of them was cleared of snow, leaving it covered in green instead of white.  Smaller boulders that had fallen off of the mountain littered the clearing, and a thick forest was visible past the clearing.  But Rho's eyes were fixed on what was in front of her.  She walked slowly and carefully towards an enormous four legged animal covered in thick brown hair.  The creature had a thick snout that was almost the length of half its body, and razor sharp ebony tusks protruding from its mouth.  The creature was still, lying on its side.  It hadn't moved the entire time Rho approached it, and then she saw why.  The beast wasn't together; it had been separated into two halves.  Horrified, she took a few steps back, and she let out a gasp.  She saw Commander Sur close to her, and she whispered without meaning to.  "What could have done this?  Did the scans show anything larger than this, capable of doing..." she gestured towards carcass, which had been torn in two at the middle.  "No," Commander Sur said quietly.  "We saw a thermal reading of a life form this large, but nothing larger.  Whatever did this could only be smaller than it.  Which means it is...amazingly strong.  Stronger than anything on Xuru."

Rho took a closer look at the animal, dropping to a knee.  She brushed away some hair that was covering where the beast had been separated.  She noticed that the halves were uneven.  Looking even more deeply at the skin, she saw bruising in identical spots on beast's halves.  "It must have been...ripped in two.  But by what?"  Rho shook her head, standing back up.  "I think we can accurately say that we're going to need the full force of Xuru to deal with whatever life forms live here, technology or no."  Commander Sur nodded.  "I'd like to see what has done this, but that can be done from afar.  We've already lost Hru, I can't afford to lose anyone else."  Xer nodded, and started walking away from the beasts and back towards the mountains where they came.  "Sha," the Commander said, radioing in on the comms, "We're headed back to you.  We found something...dangerous.  We'll be back before it's too dark to see."  "Understood," Sha radioed back.

Rho and the Commander took one last look at the beast.  "The insides had been cleared out, like the life forms used them for something.  We're dealing with a semi-intelligent race here."  She lifted a flap of skin, moving her helmet closer so the flashlight attached to it gave her a better image.  "Picked clean, all the way through."  They started to follow Xer, walking back towards the mountain, when Commander Sur abruptly stopped.  "Do you hear that?  In the forest."  They turned, and Rho listened intently.  There was a shushing sound, along with an occasional cracking noise.  The noise was moving ever closer, causing Commander Sur to unholster her blaster.  "Run for the pod, and tell Xer to do the same."  Rho did as she was told, then relayed the message to Xer, who refused to leave.  "You head back," she told Rho.  "I'm going to fight with the commander if she needs me."  Rho sighed frustratedly, but that was not unexpected.  She stayed behind Xer, and waited for whatever was in the forest to come out.  She didn't have to wait long until a shadowy figure appeared from the bowels of the forest.  As it approached the Commander, the flashlight on the Commander's helmet illuminated the creature.  It was naked and hairy, but not all over.  Lean, with dirt covering its body, it was hunched over and walking silently through the field towards the Commander.  It wasn't particularly muscular, or menacing, in fact, it looked old and frail.  Nonetheless, it confidently strode towards Sur.  Commander Sur, taking no chances, fired a direct hit into the life form's head, exploding it and causing the body to fall to the ground, stiff.  The shot rung out, the sound echoing off the mountain and back into the forest.  Commander Sur began to walk back to the pair.

"Nice shot, Commander.  You decommissioned the life form." Xer said smiling.  The Commander nodded.  "I thought I told you two to run?  Never mind that now.  The noise is sure to draw more of...whatever that was.  That couldn't have been what killed the beast, that creature was barely a threat."  "We could take on a hundred of those, single handedly!" Xer boasted proudly.  Rho blocked them out, and turned her head to look towards the forest.  She heard it before she saw it, that same noise shushing noise of a creature moving through the brush.  More figures than she could count began pouring out of the forest in every direction.  Her eyes widened and she felt her jaw sink as she saw the creature the Commander had just shot rise to its knees, then to its feet, with a newly reformed head.  "Commander..." She pointed towards the forest.  The creatures had all stopped moving, dozens of faces dimly illuminated by light staring in their direction.  Then, the newly reformed creature, their apparent leader, uttered a groan and pointed towards the three of them.  Two creatures, tinier in stature than the leader, but more muscular, began walking, then running, towards the three of them.  "We've got to get out of here, now!" Commander Sur yelled, pushing Xer and Rho into the mountain pass.  Over the comms, Sha could be heard yelling frantically, but Rho paid him no mind, running as fast as she could back through the path. 

They heard a sizzling noise, like the air itself was on fire, and a bright light lit up the passageway.  They heard Commander Sur cry out as she was hit with something from behind, her body being blasted off her feet, landing clumsily on the ground.  Rho sneaked a peek behind her as she ran and and saw one of the creatures running with his hand out, full of a bright blue light.  "They have something!" Rho yelled breathlessly to Xer.  "One of them has a blaster in his hand!"  "That's impossible!" Xer yelled back.  "Our scans showed no technology on the planet!  Whatever they're doing, they must be doing it naturally."  Another quick peek showed the two creatures gaining on them, the suits slowing down Rho and Xer.  They rounded a corner, and a beam of light , this time a pale red, shattered a wall of rocks just behind them, sending stones flying in every direction, bouncing off of their helmets.  The noise startled Rho, who slipped and went flying to the hard rock floor.  She slid on the frozen surface and knocked into Xer, who tumbled on top of her.  The two of them glided over the ground, and reached where they had first entered the mountain path.  The lights of the pod were in sight, a few football fields ahead of them.  "We can make it!" Rho yelled.

Suddenly there was a loud snapping noise above them, and they saw a volley of icicles swoop overhead, moving supernaturally.  Rho took one last look behind her and saw the other creature holding its pointer finger up.  Rho and the creature locked eyes, silent for a moment.  "Please," Rho whispered.  The creature's face hardened, and it brought its pointer finger swiftly down.  The icicles moved far faster than gravity could propel them, straight down, into Rho and Xer, cutting through their suits and helmets, a torrent of knives passing through their bodies, exploding when they hit the ground around them.  Their blood mixed with the water, creating an unnatural yellow ooze around the site where their bodies lay.  Satisfied, the creatures turned and walked back through the mountain pass.

Sha found himself screaming at Loz.  "Take me to them, now!  Now!"  There was no response.  Sha exited the pod, and looked up at where the ship was.  Instead of finding it hovering over the planet, he only found stars.  He sank to his knees, defeated, and let out a long scream, aimed at everything.