If looks could kill, I would have slaughtered Roys ten times over.

My glare hadn’t left the captain’s broad back—fine, I looked at his ass six times—since we left the habitat one click back. The teams made it half a click out yesterday, cutting potential pathways for our rovers to use later as well as scanning and neutralizing troublesome flora. Our first trek had been short and peaceful, thanks to that. The new land we covered, however, required patience, which I wasn’t exceptionally keen on.

The day was sweltering, so hot our exoskins had to kick it into high gear. Our lungs weighed heavily from the humid air that had sweat dripping from our lashes and squishing in our boots. As hot as we were, we couldn’t risk removing the exoskin, although I had removed my visors from time to time to wipe off my sweat, much to Roys’ chagrin.

Yesterday, his team came across a plant that oozed acid. It burned through a private's boots that were torn off before it penetrated her skin. We were careful, and thus, moving at a snail’s pace. The survey team's job would be to properly catalogue The Planet, but we needed information on what to protect them from.

Roys and Iylene cut through the growth using laser blades to create paths for the rovers. We could try flying them through the flora but they weren’t exactly the most state of the art models. Roys told us earlier about how his team tried something similar once and the rovers clunked out on them, so cutting it was.

When they tired out, Roys raised a hand, signaling to stop. “Rest for fifteen, then we keep moving.”

Lilea dropped instantly to settle her shell against a tall blue stalk covered in pink domes that bled a kind of sap that, based on scans, was entirely edible. No one worked up the nerve to try it yet. She removed her visors that had been modified to fit the curve of her beak. Erkwan’s were basically giant turtles except with slightly longer limbs that, somehow, still fit in their shells when needed.

Iylene and Zavir found a bulbous plant to sit on. Translucent with orange lights flickering inside. As of yet, they didn’t prove dangerous and made for excellent seats. Ryker and Arana tore into our food, offering packs to others while Zavir and I drank from our canteens as if we had never known the taste of water.

Somehow, we were drenched but too dry. I smacked my lips together, tasting my own sweat before chugging the last of my canteen that I easily refilled. Roys ordered me to carry the water pack, our heaviest piece of equipment. Dick.

“I can’t believe we’ll be trekking out here with those scientists all over again,” said Lilea. “Why couldn’t they have come with us so we wouldn’t have to be running around twice as much?”

“Because the last thing we want are dead scientists,” Roys replied. He finished off his canteen. Remnants of water fell from his lips to drip down his throat and disappear among the dark curls peeking out of the collar of his exoskin. “Right now, all we need to do is make sure there is nothing nearby that is a threat to the habitat. At the rate we’re going, we could finish in about ten days and have a little relaxation afterward.”

In her excitement, Lilea’s neck stretched higher. “Really?”

Roys looked directly at me. “So long as all of you pull your weight.”

“I believe I am pulling the most weight here,” I said.

“I’ll carry the water pack if it gets you to shut up about it,” said Zavir, earning himself a kick to the shin.

I settled the water pack on the ground to give my back a rest. Iylene brought a pack of rations over that tasted like shit but we needed to keep our energy up. The jungle was thick and full of unknown dangers. Roys wouldn’t let us forget that.

I fell to lay on my back, peering into the canopy. Much of the flora had caps that kept the jungle floor shaded. Some had leaves bigger than us, but each of them were beautiful as the light cascaded through them. A ray of light fell to the forest floor where my fingers curled beneath it.

The Colony had nothing like this. It was cold and dark and gray and damp. Not a good damp, nothing like this humidity, but something sick, like decay that rotted everyone from within. Everything was metal. Harsh. Cold. Rust and piping and smog. Surrounded on all sides by walls protecting us from the vacuum of space. Nothing like The Planet.

For the fifteen minute break, I laid there letting the light roll over me, thinking of all I had done to get there. Still stuck under the thumb of The Company, even if the Intergalactic Militia said otherwise. It was a known secret that The Company had their hungry claws dug into anything and everything, but at least I traveled. At least I left that forsaken asteroid in the middle of deep space and touched grass for the first time.

“Break’s over,” said Roys. “Let’s go. I want to get at least two clicks out today.”

“You’re killing us,” Arana whined, but we were up and moving in no time.

Zavir took to cataloguing plants using his commlink. He kept one arm up to survey the area. When a flora that wasn’t on record came into view, we stopped to take a full scan. That didn’t happen too often, seeing as the other groups did the same. Already our commlinks had thirty variations of flora, over double what our droids got.

The droids were exceptionally trusting and seemed to irritate many of the flora by not respecting their boundaries. Roys, on the other hand, was entirely respectful. He was always the one to step in, stealthy and low. If the flora didn’t react, he gestured for Zavir to follow.

That time, we surrounded a bulbous flora not so dissimilar from the one many of us used as seats. However, this particular one was abnormally large. The orange lights from the other were missing and there were dozens of equally translucent vines stretching out from the bottom, half buried in the soil.

We had yet to come across much animal life. A rabbit-like creature we saw in the unfortunate video detailing how some of the flora ate, a type of bird that had three eyes and a beak that resembled the surrounding flora, and a fox or coyote or something on all fours with a long tail and no eyes. Each of them were creepy and none of them were nearby, so I stood there with my flamethrower wondering if I would ever get to use it. We didn’t use the flamethrowers often, so I was feeling a little trigger happy for it.

“Keep behind me,” Roys warned Zavir. “I am guessing the ones we saw were not full grown. We have no idea what this one might do.”

Zavir stood behind Roys to scan the plant. Arana monitored our left flank. I monitored the right and the others at our back. Using the head of the flamethrower, I pushed around ferns to peer below. Nothing but green grass that I wanted to wiggle my toes in.

Ten years I trained for a mission like this and it was turning out rather drab. Weren’t that many guys I was interested in at the habitat, either. All the hot ones died quickly. Pity, really.

“Arana, stay back,” Roys said, bringing my attention to him, then Arana. She dropped her weapon. They hung at her sides from the straps. We weren’t meant to break position, and I was normally the only one to do it. However, Arana broke off and walked toward the flora.

“What are you doing?” Iylene went to follow but Roys held up a hand.

“Arana,” he half said, half asked. Still no reaction.

“Arana, stop fucking around,” I called.

Zavir held out two arms and pointed with another hand. “Her back!” he declared.

White tendrils breached the soil, so thin they were nearly invisible to the naked eye. If she hadn’t walked under a sunray, none would have seen them slipping over her exoskin, crawling up her beck to dip between the space of our visor and exoskin.

“What the fuck?” The hair on the back of my neck stood. I looked down, discovering those tendrils slithering over my ankles. “Check your feet!”

The tendrils were too thin to see where they may have taken root. Flicking on the flamethrower, I pointed and let loose. Flames scorched the grass and the tendrils with it. They fell into a withering mass of ashes. The others did the same. Roys even took the chance of sleuthing closer to Arana, all the while checking on the bulb. Roys reached out. His hand brushed her arm. Hundreds of tendrils lunged for him. He stumbled away, flame thrower up and the tendrils retracted, as if they learned what our fire did.

“I vote we list this place as uninhabitable and get out of here,” Lilea shouted from where she continued to burn the ground around her. Her limbs were half retracted into her shell.

I agreed and kept the flames burning, checking at my back. The tendrils were coming from there, too, but they stopped at about ten feet. Once I got past them, I’d be home free.

The tendrils feared the flames but when Roys blasted them, they split into many. He couldn’t get closer and Arana was moving further, toward that damned bulb. The one thing all the tendrils connected, to, so maybe I didn’t have to risk running.

I dropped my flamethrower and went for my blaster.

“Don’t shoot, Ethin. That’s an order!” Roys shouted. “We know these flora have a variety of defense mechanisms. We have no idea what is in that bulb. If it blooms, we could be in even bigger trouble. Just wait a moment!”

I wasn’t dying there. Not for her. Not for anyone.

I raised my blaster and fired. The tendrils dropped but the bulb flashed an angry red. The shots burned part way through the gelatinous substance. The holes oozed before the bulb unfurled and the liquid spewed out.

Roys cleared the space between him and Arana in a second. He grabbed her waist and pivoted. He screamed, face contorted in pain. The liquid hit the floor and burned all it touched. Smoke rose from his back, but he stumbled away with his arms tight around Arana. The tendrils on her broke.

“What the fuck!?” Arana bellowed as the bulb rose from the soil.

Beneath the flora came a contorted, strange, irritated creature constructed of those translucent tendrils thicker than my waist. The flora wiggled about, its petals now drooping and body coated in that acidic liquid. The thinner tendrils breached the soil in waves, each reaching for us.

Iylene yanked Zavir back, who had been too stunned to move. Ryker and Lilea joined them, their flamethrowers drawn and burning away. The creature didn’t make a sound, but its wild body swayed side to side, cracking apart stalks and crushing the soil.

Holstering my blaster, I turned to run and was met by thrashing tendrils. I went for the flamethrower when a tendril caught my ankle. Yanked to the ground, they dragged me toward the flora. With all its movement, the soil softened to resemble thick sludge. Its root system had become the very earth beneath us and we unsettled it. My fingers ripped through the sludge, never finding purchase.

“Ethin!” Ryker bellowed, foolishly pushing forward with the flames.

The tendrils melded together to form a giant one and slam toward them. They were forced to disperse. I looked back to find the roots rising further from a great, deep hole.

A heavy weight fell across me. My groan mixed with Roys’, whose hands snagged me under my arms. What an idiot. He dug his heels into the muck even as blood poured over his arms. I shouldn’t have fired that damn blaster. Running was the best option. Shit.

“His leg!” Roys yelled in a hoarse tone.

Arana stumbled through the muck, waving her flamethrower about. The tendrils tried snagging her. She couldn’t get closer, not with the tendrils grabbing us. They crawled over my visor, inside of it. I felt it, a calling, like a song, telling me to let go. Just let go and everything would be alright. Then a loud bang, one after the other, brought me back. Arana had whipped out a blaster and fired. She hit a few tendrils and I pulled free, unintentionally tugging Roys with me.

The blossomed petals brightened that angry red, then rose even higher. I gawked under the shadow of the towering flora, vines whipping out to slice stalks and cut soil. Beneath it was a giant hole leading far into the earth where the heart of it slept until we came along.

“Run!” Roys ordered.

Flames and blasters were useless. Nothing stopped the flora from its rampage. Roys and I stumbled out of the flora’s shadow only for the plant to move. The weight of it atop the soft soil had the ground shuddering.

Our feet sank and Roys got dragged in to his knees. His arms fell away from my waist. I moved forward without looking back, reaching for just enough distance to be free of it all. The flora rose higher, smashing into the canopy. An entire root system breached the earth and, at its center, a beating heart strangled by vines. It tore a hole in the earth and the soil bled into it, dragging us in.

My feet lost any purchase they had and I fell back, rolling over the soil back into Roys’ arms. He and I shared a fearful look, realization settling over us before he tugged me into his arms to tuck my head under his chin like the complete fool he was.

We were dragged into the shadowy depths.