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But Insect attacks took more lives every day, ratcheted up tensions, and terrorized billions. If their squad could shed light on their mysterious enemy, they couldn’t walk away. And besides, at least they’d be operating in a city. Even a ruined urban area played to their strengths far more than the wasteland where they’d crashed.
It was an opportunity they couldn’t pass up.
“They’ve definitely come through here.” Sazahk shook his test tube and it turned a deep indigo for the hundredth time that day. “And they’re leaving quite the trail. They’re changing the local ecology.”
“How do you know?” Fal’ran frowned and the wrinkle on his forehead caused a drop of sweat from the blistering noonday sun to drip into his eye. “No one’s been here in a millennium.”
“No, but even from space, I think we would have noticed the green.” Sazahk pointed at one of the few shadows still surviving into this time of day, a dark area sheltered between two fallen walls. A patch of emerald green moss filled the hollow, its edges creeping into the sun.
“You’d have noticed some moss in the shade from space?” Fal’ran raised an eyebrow, and another drop of sweat stung his eye.
“Or the border towns would have.” Sazahk scurried over to the bit of green. “There’s been no plant life ever reported in the Dead Zone in all the years since—”
“Don’t touch it,” Patrick snapped when Sazahk knelt.
“I’m not going to touch it,” Sazahk snapped back. He set his pack down and pulled out a clear bag and some tweezers. “I’m just going to collect a little.”
“Why would the Insects clean up the Dead Zone?” Bar’in peered over Sazahk’s shoulder at the groundbreaking moss.
“They may not be doing it on purpose.” Sazahk tucked his sample into the inner pocket of his uniform jacket, close to his heart. “It may simply be a side effect of how they interact with their environment.”
“The only interacting we’ve seen them do so far is shooting.” Bar’in fell into step beside Tar as they continued along the road.
“And negotiating,” Fal’ran reminded him. They’d all equipped their fancy qeshian earpieces that morning and tested them on the strange recording Sazahk had gotten from the cartel. The one about uranium, and princesses, and new homes.
“They never actually invade. Why do you think they keep attacking?” Bar’in kicked along a rock as he walked and mused, but his eyes never strayed from the area in front of them and his finger never lay far from the trigger of his rifle.
“They're testing our defenses,” Patrick replied. “Trying to find the weak point. It’s probably why they’re hitting the Qeshian system at all. This system hasn’t seen war in centuries. They might have thought it was unprepared.”
“It was,” Sazahk muttered and, not for the first time, Fal’ran’s curiosity for what had turned Sazahk so off his own species state burned him up from the inside. He’d asked Bar’in, but Bar’in didn’t know either.
“What about the uranium?” Bar’in bounced his pebble against the side of a wall. The buildings grew closer together and more intact the farther into the city they walked.
Patrick shrugged. “Invasions need fuel.”
“I guess.” Bar’in wrinkled his nose and Fal’ran silently agreed with him. This is home now. The princess will make it work. The words didn’t sit right with him. He wished the translation module conveyed tone.
The sun had inched past its zenith and blessed them with strips of shade along the edges of tall walls when Bar’in stopped. “What is that?”
“What is what?” Patrick lifted his rifle and advanced on Bar’in’s position.
Bar’in dropped his gun to his side and pointed with his free hand, his face scrunching with disgust. “That.”
Fal’ran followed Bar’in’s finger, his gaze dragging along unremarkable rubble and yellow dust until it caught on a black smudge beside a rock. “That? The black thing?”
“Yes, that.” Bar’in aimed at it with his rifle. “It’s moving.”
“No, it’s not.” Fal’ran readied his own weapon but crept down the street, his eyes glued to the dark thing beside the rock. It was roughly circular, with a diameter of about a foot. An instinctual alarm bell went off at the base of his spine when he got closer. “Or rather, it’s not going anywhere.”
“But it’s definitely moving!” Bar’in was right. As the squad approached, Fal’ran could see rippling and pulsing.
“I think it’s organic.” Sazahk’s voice lifted, and Patrick grabbed his shoulder before he rushed past them to see it up close.
Fal’ran reached it first. It was oval, shiny, and black. Lines of bristles in three concentric circles over its surface swayed softly. It looked distinctly and disturbingly alive. He crouched, and the bristles swayed away from his movement. “It’s Insect.”
He’d only seen pictures and videos captured in the heat of battle, but there was no mistaking the glinting black armor.
“At least we know we’re going in the right direction.” Patrick kept his rifle pointed at the center of the thing. “No, Sazahk, don’t—”
