Arafura

Adrian hated flying, but the pay was worth it. The terror welled up in him as the small porthole to his left revealed the world he was hurtling towards. A lush and verdant forest full of magenta-violet trees and rolling copper-coloured hills was spread out before him. How bizarre. Nausea rose up and he turned back to right, throwing up in his mouth a little. He had no choice but to swallow it back down during a descent. Hadrian looked across at him with a smirk. He, on the other hand, preferred the descent. Adrian couldn’t fathom how his twin brother could stand it. He was shaken from his line of though as the drop ship began to shake more violently. He felt the G-forces on him increase as the large vessel engaged its brakes. Adrian shut his eyes and grimaced as the drop ship touched – or, rather, crashed – down on the alien world.

Adrian opened his eyes. Arafura.

The troopers disembarked after equipping their rebreathers and stepped onto the planet.
“Doesn’t look like much,” laughed Lendrax, looking around. He was right. It looked like nothing special.

“I don’t understand why they had to send us here to go looking for some dumb colonists,” said Hadrian, voicing Adrian’s own thoughts. There was nothing to suggest that the world was terribly dangerous from the readings they had received and from their view of it. But then again…

“The world was depth-scanned before colonisation. Nothing was found that could pose a threat to a well-supplied, ten-thousand strong colony expedition,” said Adrian, frowning at his brother.
“Exactly, so what was the point of us coming here then eh?”
“I think the point is that the scan didn’t register everything so…”
“And that’s the goal of our expedition;” said Kaddic, the lieutenant, talking over Adrian and stepping forward, “To find out what could swallow up ten thousand colonists in just three days.”

“Right then troops you heard the man, let’s get moving eh?” Sergeant Lofun moved up and signalled to the rest of the platoon to form a marching order. The drop ship remained with its crew as the marines marched away.

Adrian was on point with his multi-purpose tracking device, the small brick sending out ultrasounds and infrared to scan the area for any ‘surprises.’ They began entering some woodland as they headed towards the last point of contact of the expedition. The eerie purple-shade leaves created dancing refraction patterns from the red sunlight as the acidic wind blew through them. Adrian was grateful for the combat encounter suit the marines had access to. Without it, he probably would have had all his skin flayed off as he had stepped from the lander. He pictured that with a shudder but was distracted from his thoughts by a large blip appearing on the tracker that caused him to stop.

“Hm.” He signalled back to the marines to be halt. He moved back to the lieutenant, keeping an eye on the blip has he went, then showing it to his commanding officer. It was likely some sort of beast, but its size could be problematic for a platoon. The lieutenant signalled some quick orders and Adrian found himself moving forward with three marines to investigate. They moved up slowly and silently, but whatever it was remained still. They moved through a thick patch of foliage and there it was. A lone geyser sizzled away in front of them. They looked up and realised they were at the lower slopes of a mountain, or probably a volcano. Sighs of relief sounded all round. Adrian made no sound, but stared at
the tracker with his mouth open. A second, larger dot had appeared.

It was moving. Fast.

Adrian turned tail and ran. The others followed suit and he didn't blame them. Four marines couldn't take down something that large no matter what it was. He pushed the button on his bracer that issued a battle-warning to the rest of his squad, which his sergeant could relay to the platoon. Adrian heard a thudding sound behind him and one of the men tripped. He turned as the man fell but couldn't save him. A huge arachnid creature jumped at the marine and swallowed his head. Just like that. Titanium-lined suit be damned. The furry eight-legged creature leered at him with four blood-soaked fangs. Adrian found himself running again to get away from the creature but knew there was likely no chance he could outrun it.

He heard the thudding cease suddenly and impulsively jumped to the side. The arachnid landed where he had just been, and now he was lying on the ground. In a matter of seconds it turned round and drew back to pounce again, murderous intent in its many eyes. It leaped and he shut his own eyes, knowing his death was certain. A roar and explosion caused him to open his eyes again. The creature lay on the ground slightly to his left. Adrian blinked. Thick dark yellow matter gushed out of a gaping wound in its side. He looked left. A smoking missile launcher was being packed away and the rest of the platoon was marching towards him through the trees. Hadrian was smirking at him again, ignoring the fact his twin had nearly been killed.

“Thought we'd forgotten about you eh?” Some of the other marines chuckled. Adrian ignored him.
“Jethro is dead,” he stated bluntly, “Bloody thing tore his head right off.” The smiles went away from all their faces at once and Hadrian glared at the creature's lifeless body.
“And swallowed it?”
“I'd presume so.”

Lofun moved forward, his eyes locked on the carcass and his jaw locked in a grimace of disgust. “Right then!” He drew his combat axe and sliced into the creature. Many turned away as he cut about the creature's body. As the sergeant of Jethro's squad, he was responsible for the recovery of the full body if possible. Adrian watched as he sliced open a section and a hissing mess poured out, along with a putrid stench.

And Jethro's head.

Lofun took out a body bag and carefully placed it in. The troop then continued on ahead, stopping to retrieve the rest of the body. Poor Jethro's body lay precisely where his head had left it, in a dirty red pool, mixed as it was with the copper oxides of the alien soil.
As they were gathered around in a circle, Lieutenant Kaddic spoke up. As he did so however, Adrian could read unease in his features. He was after all, only human like the rest of them. It was difficult to come to terms with the horror they had just witnessed.
"There's nothing else for it men. I know that...thing was dangerous, but not even a pack of those could wipe out an entire colony expedition. Whatever we're looking for is still out there. Let's get moving again. We'll take... We'll take him back.” The rest of the day was spent taking the body of Jethro back, before they could all move on ahead and it was sunset on the strange world of Arafura as they began to start making ground past their previous point again.

They were sullen now, a melancholy cloud hovering over the entire platoon. Many of the marines looked around themselves, almost expecting a hundred unspeakable horrors to leap out at them at any given moment. The reality of service in the military always failed to make it through to the soldiers until one of them ended up dead. It was unfortunate that it had happened sooner rather than later. Even Hadrian no longer wore his usual mischievous smirk. They were all thinking the same thing. Adrian trudged along staring at his feet.

“It could have been me.”