The Chronicles of Riddick: Ghosts of Furya

1

Furya’s jungle acted like a moist sponge under First Sergeant Jade Waters’ combat boots as she and her squad hiked towards the nearest native community hours away. The jungle could pass for the Amazon rainforest. It flaunted massive trees, fog drifting along the chattering canopy, vibrant birdlife flashing among the vines and branches, and poisonous and sharp obstacles hindering their every step. Frogs, spiders, snakes, ants--all of that. And some plants might as well have had daggers for leaves, as her squad member Sergeant Pond found out the hard way. He now had a forearm bandaged just from brushing up against a plant that had fronds splayed like an Asian fan, pink flowers on the end, their petals also sharp. Thankfully the plant wasn’t poisonous but now Pond had the nickname “Flower Boy” slapped on him. Making fun of him for getting owned by a little pink flower would get old one year. Maybe...

Joking aside, Waters and the four others on her team, including Pond, had their sleeves unrolled, safety glasses on, and rifles in hand. They had a more pressing issue than sharp flora, and more imminently pressing than finding out if rumors were true that something strange had occurred when the Necromongers had assaulted Furya.

Something big was stomping towards them from behind. Something really big--bigger-than-an-elephant big. The ground rumbled with the beasts loping strides. Four feet or paws, or hooves, or whatever. Impossible to tell with the soft jungle floor. To be quite honest, she wasn’t eager to satisfy her curiosity. Sadly, the more she didn’t want to know, the closer its tromping sounded and felt.

“Waters,” Pond, her team’s point, said, “There’s a clearing up ahead. Should we chance it?”

She spied the extra sunlight lancing to the jungle floor. It had to be a gap sizable to a two-lane road. Maybe it was a road. Her gut didn’t like the sight of it this many miles from the nearest Furyan civilization, which they’d purposely landed far from for safety’s sake. Still, being on an alien planet, how much could she rely on gut reactions? Everything about Furya felt like a threat, especially after hearing the rumors. “Let’s see what kind of clearing it is. If it’s manmade, we take it. If not, we keep away. We still don’t know if Stompy back there is hunting us or not.”

“Yes, ma’am.” His close-cropped black hair ducked under an arch of vines and leaves. Markham, the team’s tech specialist, ducked excessively low. Spark, the squad’s sharpest shooter and shortest member, walked upright under the arch. Kenner, the tallest and bulkiest Marine Waters had ever met, ducked low and twisted so one massive shoulder led the way.

Waters ducked her head, then checked behind her from the other side of the arch. The thundering beast was still nowhere in sight, however she could make out distant trees and branches swaying and jerking to make room for it. The clearing seemed like a great idea so they could move faster, but a horrible one in the name of too much exposure. Fire or frying pan... tough call. The squad plodded forward.

The clearing turned out to be a wide animal path full of tracks of varying shapes and sizes. One set of four-toed tracks was big enough for three people to stand in the central imprint, and each rounded toe had a claw hole in front of it. The five Marines halted in a line parallel to the path, their rifles angled towards the ground.

“Well damn,” Spark said unhappily.

“At least they’re not t-rex tracks,” Markham said with a wry smile. He glanced up and down the path, then at the canopy, which was mercifully high up. The rest of the jungle felt so claustrophobic. Ample sun sparkled between the leaves a hundred feet in the air, which shone in patches on the tracks. “Feline? Canine? Something else?”

“Something we don’t have back on Earth,” Pond said.

“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Markham said dryly.