The House of the Reaper has opened its arms to welcome:
Novices Tyler Ray and Sabre.
Operatives EagleEyes777 and Familiar21.
Their contributions and dedication to our cause will be honored through the Net and through the Stars.
---
By the time the sun rose the next morning, the entire basin was already humming with activity. The twelve wind turbines on the western ridge spun with a rhythmic, slicing thrum, funneling raw power down into the grid. The warm-spectrum floodlights that had held back the alien night flickered off, replaced by the natural daylight.
Down in the residential sector, the S-Alloy streets were packed with people as the smell of synthesized coffee, hot metal, and overturned earth hung heavy in the humid morning air. Today was a new milestone where they would be once again pushing beyond the walls that protected them.
Near the fortified northern gates of the colony, a select group of seventy-five civilians had gathered. Aurelia had spent the last two days meticulously combing through the colony's census data, identifying men and women who had spent their past lives as former asteroid belt miners, deep-core drill operators, some structural engineers, and heavy-machinery mechanics. Today they all stood in a loose, anxious cluster. They were clad in freshly printed, heavy-duty utility jumpsuits lined with carbon-weave for basic protection, and were surrounded by pallets of automated geological scanners, plasma-cutters, and excavation tools made out of S-Alloy.
Mark walked among them, the metallic thud of his boots drawing their attention. He wasn't wearing his helmet and carried two cups of hot coffee, handing one to a nervous-looking woman who was adjusting the straps on a heavy survey pack.
"Are you nervous, Sarah?" Mark asked casually, reading the name stenciled on her jumpsuit.
"A little, sir," she admitted, taking the coffee with a shaky smile. "I spent ten years cracking ice on Europa. I know how to dig a hole, all right. But then again, Europa didn't have fourteen-foot-tall bears or anything of the other animals we've seen on this planet."
"Fair point," Mark chuckled, taking a sip from his own mug. He turned to face the rest of the gathered miners, his voice projecting easily over the hum of the idling heavy-lifter drones waiting nearby. "Listen up, everybody. I know what we're asking you to do today is a terrifying thing. You've spent the last three weeks inside these walls, living calm lives because there were people working hard to create a protected sanctuary for all of us, and now I'm asking you to march eight kilometers out in the direction of the crash site of a ship we lost while arriving on this planet."
The crowd quieted down, their eyes locked on him.
"As you all may know by now, my assistant, an AI named Marcos, could do all of this by himself," Mark continued, his tone brutally honest but earnest. "He could print a fleet of automated drones, send them to the mountains, and mine that lithium we need without a single human heartbeat ever leaving the gates. It would be safer, and it would be the wiser option."
He paused, looking around at the tired but resilient faces of his people. "But this isn't Marcos's planet. It is ours. And if we just sit inside these walls and let the machines build our lives, we're not pioneers, but rather, just pets in a very safe cage. Some of your fellow member have already started doing their parts on the plants and the factories, leaving you all with nothing to do. Well, now is your chance to put in work. We will sweat, we will bleed, and we will build that maglev line. And when we crack that mountain open and build a fusion reactor, I want you all to be able to look your future kids in the eye and say, 'I built that.' That is how we make this place a home. That is how we claim it from the wilderness."
A low murmur of agreement rippled through the crowd as backs straightened and grips tightened on equipment bags. Mark had practiced this short speech for hours yesterday, ensuring that his words would cut through the paralyzing fear and replace it with a stubborn, defiant pride.
"Aurelia will be leading the engineering oversight, and Valerius is taking two full platoons of Peacekeepers to act as your shadow," Mark finished, gesturing to the massive, black-armored Elite standing by the gates with a small army of heavily armed soldiers. "You stick to the blueprints, you follow their orders, and you watch each other's backs. Do I make myself clear?"
Murmurs spread through the crowd, but only Sarah, the woman he had handed a coffee earlier, responded with a "Yes, Sir!"
Mark looked over the group once again and raised his voice. "I said, DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?"
That seemed to have done it, and what erupted was a chorus of "Sir, yes, Sir!" throughout the group as a strange sense of excitement spread throughout them.
"Alright," Mark clapped his hands once. "Now let's go carve out a piece of this rock."
As the miners began to load up onto the newly printed heavy cargo transports with renewed, energized chatter, Mark slipped away from the staging area since he had his own job to do.
While the mining expedition prepared to push North, Mark made his way toward the expanding military compound located on the edge of the Timgad grid. The installation had rapidly taken shape, housing a brutalist complex of reinforced S-Alloy walls, live-fire ranges, and massive munitions bunkers. But there were still things to improve.
Mark found his inner circle gathered around a digitized tactical table under a large, open-air command canopy. Juan, the grizzled leader of the Vanguard mercenaries, was leaning over the table, tracing lines with a thick finger. Beside him stood Cassius and Titus, along with four of the newly appointed Peacekeeper captains.
"Morning, Mark," Juan grunted as Mark approached. The mercenary leader looked tired, but the good kind of tired. "We were just going over the overlap vectors for the new perimeter turrets."
"Talk to me, Juan," Mark said, leaning against the edge of the table. "Do we have blind spots?"
"Not anymore," Juan replied, tapping the holographic display. "Marcos finished extruding the secondary mounting brackets last night. We've got overlapping fields of fire covering the entire three-hundred-and-sixty-degree perimeter. Beam width is scaled down, exactly like you wanted. If anything bigger than a stray dog steps within five hundred meters of the fence, it gets instantly perforated by a half-dozen continuous Megawatt lasers, with the exception of those wolves or any unaggressive species, as you asked."
"Good," Mark nodded. "What about the maglev line? As the tracks push north, our supply lines are going to be dangerously stretched."
Titus stepped forward, his massive, armored arms crossed. "Marcos has provided the schematics for the automated maglev haulers. We are integrating weapon mounts directly onto the cargo chassis. As the track layers advance, the train itself will act as a mobile fortress. Furthermore, I am assigning rolling patrols of Vanguard mercenaries to sweep the jungle canopy parallel to the tracks."
"It's going to be a meat-grinder out there, Mark," Juan added, his voice low. "The noise from those subterranean boring machines when they hit the foothills is going to echo for miles. It's going to draw every predator on this continent straight to our front door."
"Then we make sure our front door is ready to give a really, really warm welcome to any uninvited guests," Mark said flatly. "I want the armories running triple shifts. Pull whatever raw materials you need from inventory, but make sure every single Peacekeeper and Vanguard has one of the new magnetic rifles, three backup sidearms, and enough explosives to level a city block."
Before Juan could reply, a sudden, piercing scream echoed from the main avenue just a few streets over.
Mark's head snapped, recognizing the scream of sheer, paralyzed terror.
"We have contacts!" one of the Peacekeeper captains shouted, instinctively reaching for his sidearm.
"Calm the fuck down!" Mark barked. His augmented hearing strained, but he heard almost nothing. There was only the unnaturally quiet, incredibly soft snick-snick of claws against the S-Alloy streets, betrayed entirely by the panicked, scrambling gasps of civilians scattering in all directions.
Mark drew his own magnetic rail-pistol, stepping out from under the command canopy and into the open street, the Elites fanning out behind him in a tight, disciplined combat wedge.
Down the main avenue, completely ignoring the terrified, frozen colonists pressing themselves against the walls of their housing modules, was the giant wolf.
It was the same familiar, massive beast that had been watching and claiming them for weeks, its dark burgundy fur looking like a sea of shifting wine in the bloody morning light. Being massive in size and having incredibly thick musculature with quite the considerable weight, the creature usually moved with a ghost-like stealth, its padded paws absorbing nearly all impact and vibration.
But today, it was acting entirely out of character for a stealthy apex predator. It was frantic.
The massive beast was practically sprinting down the street. It was sliding to a silent halt near clusters of frozen civilians, shoving its massive snout into the air, taking deep, desperate sniffs of their scent before letting out a frustrated huff and sprinting further down the avenue.
"What the hell is it doing?" Juan muttered, his assault rifle raised but his finger strictly off the trigger. "It's like it's looking for something."
The dark burgundy wolf suddenly skidded to a halt in the middle of an intersection. Its ears swiveled like radar dishes, and its massive, wet nose twitched as it pulled in the air currents, locking onto a scent. The wolf's head snapped sharply to the left, its glowing eyes locking directly onto Mark standing outside the military base.
The moment it saw him, the beast moved.
It sprinted directly at Mark with terrifying, explosive speed, making almost no sound until the very last second. The sheer mass of the animal moving that fast was enough to make the Peacekeeper captains take a subconscious step backward, their weapons trembling.
"Don't shoot it!" Mark yelled over his shoulder, his eyes locked on the approaching beast. He may not be some animal specialist, but most people were able to tell when a canine didn't mean any harm. For once, its ears weren't pinned back, nor were its lips curled.
The wolf closed the distance in seconds, hitting the brakes at the last possible moment. Its massive paws tearing up the dirt just off the edge of the S-Alloy street, kicking a cloud of dust over Mark's boots as it came to a sliding, frantic halt mere inches from Mark's chest. The sudden deceleration almost knocked Mark off balance, forcing him to plant a foot back to steady himself.
The beast immediately dropped its massive head, bowing its front shoulders low to the ground, and let out a series of high-pitched, incredibly soft whines that vibrated deeply in its massive chest.
Mark stood frozen for a second, looking down at the colossal killing machine that was currently acting like a distressed golden retriever. He blinked, his practical New York brain from his past life overriding the surreal absurdity of the situation.
'Dog is dog,' Mark thought to himself as he slowly holstered his rail-pistol and reached his armored hand out and gently rested it on the thick, coarse fur of the wolf's massive head. He gave it a firm, reassuring pet behind the ears.
To the absolute shock of Juan and the Elites standing behind him, the giant wolf actually allowed it, leaning into the touch for a fraction of a second and letting out a heavy, shuddering exhale. But the comfort was only momentary as the wolf immediately jerked its head up, pulling away from Mark's hand.
It turned around, sprinting about thirty yards back the way it came, heading toward the eastern perimeter wall. It then stopped abruptly, digging its claws into the dirt, and spun around to look back at Mark. It let out a sharp, urgent bark, staring at him expectantly.
Mark just stood there, his hand still half-raised from petting it, a look of profound confusion on his face. He glanced back at Juan. "Did... did it just ask me to play fetch?"
Juan slowly lowered his rifle, shaking his head. "I have no fucking idea. I don't speak giant space wolf."
Mark turned back to his tactical discussion. "Right. Well, as long as it isn't eating anyone. Cassius, I want you to coordinate with Valerius on the-"
Before Mark could finish his sentence, a silent blur of dark burgundy fur slammed into his side.
Mark stumbled, letting out a surprised grunt as the wolf returned. But this time, it didn't just whine. The massive beast opened its jaws, exposing rows of teeth capable of snapping a man in half, and incredibly gently closed its mouth over Mark's armored forearm, ensuring it didn't bite down. It didn't even scratch the black plating. It just clamped its jaws softly around his arm and gave a firm, insistent tug toward the east, a tug that almost sent Mark to the ground.
He stumbled a step forward, looking down at the massive head attached to his arm. The wolf let go, took three silent steps east, and looked back at him, letting out another desperate whine.
"Commander," Titus said slowly from behind him, his voice carrying a note of realization. "I believe it wants us to follow it."
"Yeah, Titus. I'm picking up on that," Mark said, rubbing his forearm. He looked at the wolf, then out toward the eastern expanse of the jungle, miles away from their current construction efforts.
Whatever this was, it wasn't a random animal encounter. This creature possessed an intelligence and a social complexity that bordered on the uncanny. And it seemed like it was asking for help.
Mark made a split-second decision. "Juan, keep the miners on schedule and make sure the perimeter stays locked down."
"You're going out there?" Juan asked, his brow furrowing. "Following a wild animal into the deep bush? Mark, that's how people end up as a meal."
"I've got a feeling," Mark replied, tapping his comms. "Severus, Octavia, Valerius, Lucius, Titus. With me. Cassius, Aurelia, you two stay behind and manage the colony oversight while I'm gone. Keep Marcos busy."
"Understood, Commander," Aurelia's voice crackled over the radio. "We will maintain operational stability. Be careful out there."
Mark gave the mental order to his pendant, and with a soft, mechanical hiss, his helmet materialized, sealing around his neck and bringing his HUD to life, no longer bearing the crack it once had on the visor, having self-repaired over the course of time from the time he had fought with the raptors. Behind him, the five chosen Elites mirrored his actions, their faceplates snapping shut, their own weapons drawn and pointing towards the ground.
"Alright, big guy," Mark said, his voice carrying through his external speakers as he looked at the dark burgundy wolf. "Lead the way."
The wolf didn't need to be told twice. The moment Mark took a step forward, the beast spun around and took off at a rapid, stealthy glide toward the eastern perimeter wall.
"Marcos, open the eastern gate," Mark ordered as they broke into a heavy jog, their muscles engaging to match the predator's pace.
The heavy S-Alloy doors hissed open just long enough for the wolf and the six armored super-soldiers to slip through, sealing tightly behind them with a resounding thud.
The moment they crossed the threshold into the dense, untamed jungle, the environment swallowed them whole. The temperature spiked, the humid air thick with the scent of alien pollen and decaying vegetation. The violet foliage was incredibly dense, towering ferns and twisted, bioluminescent roots creating a chaotic, nearly impassable labyrinth.
But the wolf navigated it with terrifying ease, moving with a calculated and urgent efficiency, carving a path through the brush and pausing every few minutes to look back and ensure the metal-clad humans were still behind it.
"Keep your spacing," Mark ordered over the private squad channel, his boots crushing through thick vines as he jogged steadily. "We don't know what we're walking into."
"Commander, the biometric readings on the subject indicate severe physiological distress," Octavia's calm, analytical voice chimed in. As the squad's primary medical and scientific specialist, she was constantly scanning their surroundings. "Its heart rate is dangerously elevated from the last time we encountered it. I doubt that this is a hunting pattern, meaning that it's most likely a panic response."
"So, someone's in trouble," Mark muttered, ducking under a massive, low-hanging branch.
"Or it is leading us into an ambush," Severus countered dryly, effortlessly vaulting over a fallen, moss-covered log. "It would be an exceptional tactical maneuver. Lure the apex protectors away from the herd, isolate them in disadvantageous terrain, and eliminate them."
"If they wanted to ambush us, Severus, they wouldn't have brought the guy who just printed an entire city out of thin air," Lucius chuckled, his heavy boots thudding rhythmically against the dirt. "Give the dog some credit."
"I do not trust anything on this planet that does not have a pulse I can stop with my bare hands, especially not after being sent for the ride of my life by a damn prehistoric creature," Severus replied darkly.
They jogged for over an hour as the terrain grew increasingly treacherous. They crossed rushing, waist-deep streams filled with serpentine amphibians, scaled steep, muddy embankments, and hacked their way through thickets of thorny, rust-colored vines that scraped uselessly against their armor. The physical exertion was immense, and even with the mechanical assistance of their suits, Mark could feel the sweat beading on his forehead, his breath coming in steady, measured pulls. But even then, they could barely keep up with the wolf, who practically glided over the uneven terrain, making barely a whisper of sound as it went.
They had covered approximately thirteen kilometers of sketchy, punishing terrain when the dense canopy finally began to break.
The dark burgundy wolf suddenly slowed its pace, dropping from a frantic sprint to a low, cautious trot. It let out a soft whine, looking back at Mark before slipping through a thick curtain of hanging, glowing blue moss.
Mark signaled his squad to halt, holding up a clenched fist as he tapped his helmet, enhancing his optical sensors, and slowly pushed through the moss.
They had arrived in a massive, natural clearing. The trees here were colossal and ancient, their roots twisting out of the ground to form deep, cavernous hollows. The sunlight filtered down in soft beams, illuminating a scene that instantly made Mark's blood run cold.
It was a den. A massive, sprawling wolf pack's den.
Tumbling and playing in the center of the clearing were seventeen wolf pups of varying ages and sizes. Some were no bigger than golden retrievers, while others were already the size of horses, their fur wildly diverse, shifting from deep burgundy to stark white, to mottled grey, and finally jet black.
But they weren't alone.
Lying in the shadows of the massive roots, or standing guard around the perimeter of the clearing, were multiple other giant wolves. They were slightly shorter and less thickly muscled than the dark burgundy male that had led them here, and they seemed to operate in pairs, keeping watchful eyes on the pups.
The moment Mark and the five black-armored Elites stepped into the clearing, the entire dynamic of the den shattered.
The pups scrambled backward, yipping in alarm and hiding behind the massive, twisting tree roots. The beta wolves instantly rose to their feet, the fur on their spines standing straight up, their ears pinning flat against their skulls as a chorus of deep, resonant, chest-rattling growls echoed through the clearing. There were at least ten fully grown adults, their lips peeled back to reveal bone-crushing jaws, their bodies lowering into aggressive, defensive postures.
"Weapons down," Mark ordered, his heart hammering against his ribs. If the pack decided to charge, it would be an absolute bloodbath. "Do not aim at them."
The dark burgundy wolf that had guided them suddenly stepped into the center of the clearing, positioning itself directly between the armored humans and the defensive pack.
It let out a single, deafening bark that sounded like a gunshot, causing an immediate effect as the beta wolves instantly snapped their jaws shut, their growls cutting off as if a switch had been flipped. But they didn't relax, their eyes still burning with distrust as they stared at the humans. However, they lowered their heads in subservience to what was clearly the alpha male.
The burgundy wolf didn't linger, turning away from the pack and trotting urgently toward the back of the clearing, disappearing behind the thickest, most massive tree root in the den.
Mark took a slow breath, gesturing for his squad to follow. They moved cautiously, their boots making no sound against the soft earth, feeling the intense, burning gaze of a dozen giant predators tracking their every movement.
As they rounded the massive tree root, the source of the dark burgundy wolf's panic finally became clear.
Lying on her side in a shallow depression in the dirt was a colossal female wolf. Her fur was completely, blindingly white, as pure as the snow on the mountain peaks. But that pristine white coat was ruined. Her entire lower back and hindquarters were matted with thick, dark, drying blood.
She was breathing heavily, her massive sides heaving with shallow, labored gasps. As Mark and the Elites approached, she weakly lifted her head, letting out a pathetic, wet growl of warning.
The Alpha immediately stepped forward, whining softly as he lowered his massive head and gently licked the female's face and snout, nuzzling her neck in a desperate, deeply emotional attempt to comfort her and let her know that the metal-clad beings were not a threat.
"Ensure none of these wolves get the jump on us," Mark ordered quietly.
Valerius and Titus immediately fanned out, their weapons held across their chests as they put their backs to the massive tree root, keeping their visors locked on the rest of the pack in the clearing. Lucius and Severus flanked Mark and Octavia as they all stepped closer to the downed animal. The metallic tang of blood was thick enough that Mark could smell it even through his suit's atmospheric scrubbers.
"Severus," Mark said, his voice low. "You're up. See what you can do."
"Understood, my lord," Severus murmured. The Elite stepped forward, entirely ignoring the massive jaws of the alpha male standing just inches away, and knelt in the blood-soaked dirt beside the injured female.
Mark, Octavia, and Lucius leaned in, their helmet optics scanning the horrific damage. The sheer volume of blood loss was staggering. A pool of dark, coagulating blood had soaked deep into the earth beneath the beast, matting the pristine white fur in a sticky, grim halo.
Severus engaged the specialized medical scanners built into his armor's gauntlet. A soft, grid-like green light projected from his wrist, washing over the female wolf's spine and backside.
"Respiration is shallow and rapid. Heart rate is thready," Severus reported, his voice clinical and detached as his eyes tracked the medical data streaming across his HUD. "She has entered class-three hypovolemic shock. If she doesn't receive a massive infusion of synthesized plasma and cellular stimulation within the next two hours, her organs will begin to systematically fail."
"What did this?" Lucius asked, leaning over Severus's shoulder. He pointed a gauntleted finger at a heavily matted patch of fur near the wolf's lower spine. "Looks like a puncture wound. Maybe she got into it with one of those armored bears we saw by the river? A stray claw strike to the back?"
"No," Severus said firmly, shaking his head as his visor panned over the scene. "A bear strike would present with massive lateral lacerations. The force of a swipe from a fourteen-foot predator would have broken ribs and torn the musculature away from the bone in strips. This trauma is localized."
"Could be a horn," Mark suggested, thinking back to the space-buffalo they had hauled out of the mud just days ago. "Something caught her in the flank, drove deep, and she managed to tear herself off."
Severus gently parted the matted, blood-soaked white fur with his armored hands to fully expose the entry point. The clearing was dead silent, save for the ragged breathing of the dying wolf. Mark watched as Severus's helmet tilted slightly, running a secondary sub-dermal scan.
"The surrounding tissue wasn't torn by organic means," Severus explained, his brow furrowing behind his faceplate. "It's completely pulverized, and the immediate capillary vessels are cauterized by extreme, localized kinetic friction. Commander... this is some sort of gunshot wound."
Hearing this, Octavia immediately stepped forward, her forensic and tactical expertise surging to the forefront. "Let me look at that," she said, kneeling beside Severus.
"Look closely," Octavia instructed, projecting a magnified feed from her visor directly to the squad's internal HUDs.
Mark blinked as the image overlaid on his vision. The entry wound was incredibly clean. It was a perfectly circular hole, measuring exactly twelve millimeters in diameter.
She stood up slightly, stepping carefully over the wolf's massive hind legs to examine the opposite side of her flank. She knelt again, clearing away the dirt and blood to reveal the exit wound.
Severus let out a low hiss over the comms.
Unlike the neat, twelve-millimeter entry point, the exit wound was catastrophic. It was a massive, ragged hole roughly five inches in diameter. Shards of shattered pelvic bone protruded through the shredded muscle, and the surrounding tissue looked like it had been violently turned inside out.
"Commander," Octavia said, her voice dropping into a deadly serious register. "This is a textbook hydrostatic cavitation cavity. The projectile entered at twelve millimeters, struck the beast's pelvic girdle, and the resulting kinetic transfer shattered the bone. Because the slug was moving at hyper-sonic velocities, the bone fragments essentially became secondary shrapnel, expanding outward in a cone and blowing a five-inch hole through the exit trajectory."
Lucius tightened his grip on his rifle. "That's a lot of words to just say she was shot."
"I am saying Severus is right. This is not an animal attack," Octavia confirmed, looking up at Mark, the digital glow of her visor illuminating her faceplate in the heavy shadows of the root structure. "This trauma was caused by some sort of engineered projectile. Given the lack of explosive residue and the damage, I'm guessing it was some sort of magnetic-accelerated solid slug. Probably from a low-velocity railgun."
The words hung in the humid jungle air like a physical weight.
Mark stared at the five-inch exit wound, his mind racing through the implications at lightspeed. They had spent almost a month thinking they were the only intelligent life on a continent ruled by prehistoric monsters. They had built walls to keep out teeth and claws, not other sentient beings.
"A railgun slug," Mark repeated quietly, his eyes hardening. "Are you absolutely certain? Could it be a piece of shrapnel from some geological explosion?"
"Forensic ballistics do not lie, sir," Octavia replied. "But I can confirm it. I'm running a localized metallurgical sweep on the wound track now to identify the slug's composition. As you should know, most railguns use depleted uranium or tungsten-carbide encased in a synthetic polymer."
Octavia raised her gauntlet again, a thin, focused blue laser painting the pulverized tissue of the entry wound. For a few seconds, there was only the sound of the jungle canopy rustling in the wind and the soft whimpering of the dark burgundy alpha male.
Then, Octavia frowned. She tapped the side of her helmet, recalibrating her sensors, and ran the beam over the wound a second time.
"That... that cannot be right," Octavia murmured, her voice tight with confusion.
"Talk to me," Mark said, stepping closer. "What is it?"
Octavia looked up at Mark with wide eyes behind her visor. "Sir, my scanner is throwing an anomaly code. It's failing to match the elemental signature to anything in our database."
"What do you mean?" Severus questioned, his posture stiffening.
"There's no lead, tungsten, or depleted uranium, and absolutely no trace of standard polymer casing," Octavia explained, her armored fingers hovering over the holographic readout on her wrist. "The particulate residue left behind by the slug's friction... it's an unmapped isotope. It doesn't exist on the periodic table, or at least, not in any configuration known to humans or that we know of. It is incredibly dense, highly conductive, and most definitely alien in nature."
Lucius shifted his weight, his magnetic rifle suddenly feeling very heavy in his hands. "You're telling me some local sapient life shot her? A native with a railgun?"
"The scout drones mapped ancient, submerged ruins in the deep jungle," Severus recalled, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "We had simply assumed the architects of such structures were long dead and that the jungle had reclaimed them."
"Yeah, well, it looks like we assumed wrong," Mark said, the grim reality settling over him like a shroud. Whatever native intelligence existed on Rubrion Prime wasn't extinct. It was active, armed, and hunting just thirteen kilometers from their front door.
Mark tapped his comms, bridging a direct, encrypted connection back to the city's central mainframe. "Marcos. Do you hear me?"
"Loud and clear, Mark," Marcos's synthesized voice responded smoothly. "I note you have deviated thirteen kilometers from the perimeter. Have you discovered the source of the canine's distress?"
"Yeah, we found it. But we have a massive problem," Mark said. "Octavia, feed your metallurgical telemetry directly to Marcos."
"No need, I've already accessed her armor's systems," Marcos stated. There was a fraction of a second of silence, which was an eternity for an AI of his processing power. "This is... fascinating. The isotopic structure of the particulate residue in the wound track is a ninety-nine percent match to the geological signature of the unknown, hyper-dense alien metal the drones detected buried deep beneath the northern mountain range."
"That means they're mining it," Mark realized, the puzzle pieces slamming together. "The natives. They're extracting that dense metal from the mountains, machining it into conductive slugs, and firing it out of some sort of railgun."
"That is the most logical deduction," Marcos agreed.
"Marcos, I need you to dispatch a couple of heavy-lifter drones with a cargo flatbed to my exact coordinates immediately," Mark ordered. "We have a critically injured wolf, and if she survives, she's our only proof of hostile intelligent life near us."
"Already on it. ETA is approximately twenty-two minutes," Marcos said. Then, his casual demeanor vanished. "I am immediately upgrading the city's perimeter defense posture from Condition Yellow to Condition Red. All automated laser turrets are now operating on autonomous free-fire protocols for any unrecognized heat or metallic signatures. I am sealing the heavy blast doors on the Shepherd and shielding the reactor output to minimize our thermal bloom."
"Wait," Mark said, his eyes widening behind his visor as another realization hit him. "The northern expansion."
"The miners," Valerius stated, his deep voice carrying a sudden, sharp edge of alarm. He looked at Mark. "Commander, seventy-five civilians just marched out the front gates to clear a path to the northern foothills. The exact same foothills where this alien metal is located."
"They could be marching right into their territory," Lucius swore, his rifle coming up to his shoulder. "They're sitting ducks."
Mark switched channels instantly, dialing directly to the engineering oversight frequency. "Aurelia. Come in, Aurelia."
Static hissed in his ear for a long, agonizing moment before the Elite engineer's voice cut through. "I am here, Commander. We are currently four kilometers north of the gates. The automated logging crawlers have commenced clear-cutting operations, and the civilians are making excellent progress."
"Aurelia, listen to me very carefully," Mark ordered, his voice echoing with absolute, uncompromising urgency. "I need you to abort the mission right now. Turn the civilians around and divert back to the city as fast as physically possible. Double-time it."
"Sir?" Aurelia asked, genuine confusion bleeding into her usually calm demeanor. "Is there another one of those predator swarms we encountered early on?"
"Worse," Mark said, his eyes locked on the dark jungle canopy surrounding the wolf's den. "We've got confirmed alien ballistics east of the city's location. A local apex predator was engaged with some sort of railgun using unmapped indigenous metals. We do not know who, where, or what the shooter is, their numbers, or the shit they are able to achieve, let alone if they want to make friends with the neighbors who fell from the sky. But we know where they get their ammo, and you are heading straight for it."
"Are you saying there are hostile indigenous forces?" Aurelia asked, more to herself than to Mark. "Understood. We are abandoning the heavy crawlers and executing an immediate tactical withdrawal. The Peacekeepers will be forming a rearguard, and we'll be moving the civilians south at a full sprint."
"Do not stop for anything until those gates close behind you," Mark instructed. "Juan, are you hearing this?"
"I'm too old for this shit, ain't gotta tell me twice," the mercenary leader's rough voice barked over the comms. Mark could hear the distinct, heavy clack of a magnetic rifle charging in the background, followed by the roar of heavy transport engines spinning up. "I'm spinning up the QRF right now. Taking three heavily armored transports and fifty Vanguards north to meet them halfway and cover their six. If anything out there takes a potshot at our people, we're going to level the entire damn forest."
"Move fast, Juan. Marcos, keep your optics on them... and get ready to use the Shepherd's railguns if you have to," Mark said, cutting the channel.
He looked back down at the white wolf. She was still bleeding, her breathing growing shallower by the minute. The dark burgundy alpha looked up at him, a low, desperate whine escaping its throat as it nudged its mate's motionless head.
"Hold on, big guy," Mark murmured, checking the countdown timer on his HUD for the incoming drone swarm. "The cavalry is coming."
"Commander," Lucius said quietly, his rifle tracking the dense, bioluminescent ferns at the edge of the clearing. "If an indigenous hunting party out there is tracking these wolves... and this female managed to escape..."
"They might be following her blood trail," Severus finished the thought, his combat blade sliding silently from its sheath, the dark metal gleaming in the red sunlight. "They might be coming right here to finish the job."
Mark summoned a handheld railgun he had printed from his inventory, its barrel much longer and its weight almost double that of Octavia's. The illusion of safety they had built over the last weeks was entirely gone. The walls of their city were a comfort, but they were exposed out here in the wilderness, and they weren't just fighting the mindless, brutal beasts of the planet anymore. They were fighting something that could aim.
"Valerius, Titus, Lucius, Severus," Mark ordered, his voice cold, precise, and echoing with the absolute certainty of a veteran commander. "Establish a hard perimeter. Do not let anything enter this clearing. We will hold this ground until the lifters arrive."
The four black-armored Elites moved in perfect unison, fanning out to the four corners of the massive tree root, their weapons raised, their thermal optics piercing the shadows, transforming the wolf's den into a makeshift strongpoint.
Mark stood beside Octavia and the dying white wolf, their railguns leveled at the tree line. They had wanted to conquer a piece of this world. It seemed someone else was already willing to kill to keep it.