Children Of Gaia

Chapter 9

"And that makes fifty six," Maddison counted like an insufferably bored child.

"I really wish you would stop that," sighed Niezen, "as long as I can still see it doesn't matter and there's no way anyone is going out there to clean bugs off the bloody spotlights while it's dark," he barked.

"Sorry, just trying to keep my mind occupied," shrugged Maddison.

"I know the feeling, don't worry we're almost there. Should be just a few hours into the daylight when we arrive," Niezen confirmed whilst checking navigation, "you should get some sleep, I'm fine here."

"You sure?" she checked in, looking closely at the redness in his eyes.

"I'm fine, do me a favour though and check the forward drone please," he requested with his gaze locked forward.

"Ok," Maddison jumped back to the next station. "What am I looking for exactly?" she asked childishly.

"Select its icon up on the top left there," he instructed still facing forward.

"The green or yellow one?" Maddison enquired, but instead of an answer Niezen gently brought the Behemoth to a full stop. He leapt from the controls to investigate.

"One just changed colour, is that bad, what does it mean?" she asked confused by his actions.

"Only just now?" he checked.

"Yes, they were both green a few seconds ago. So what does it mean?" Maddison asked again with less patience in her voice.

"Something has triggered a motion sensor. Might just be a harmless animal but I'm not taking any chances," replied Niezen as he began to finger the screen frantically. Niezen pulled the second drone from the rear and sent it forward with the first to sweep the entire area in greater detail. The screen was split into two live feeds of infrared. "There!" Niezen zoomed in on the figure, "it looks dead and half eaten," he mumbled.

"Maybe someone was having lunch and heard us coming?" guessed Maddison.

"Certainly looks that way. There doesn't seem to be anything around now. I can just make out some tracks, but they head off in another direction away from our path," noted Niezen, "let's proceed. Are you still going to bed?" Niezen chuckled.

"Ha! After this no way, I'm wide awake now," she stated in earnest though rather obnoxiously, "I think I'll count some more bugs and see where that gets me."

An alarm sounded and both drone icons turned orange, interrupting their laughter. Niezen swung back to the screen, "shit! We've got inbound, over a dozen, fifty meters and closing," he barked.

Maddison panicked grabbing Niezen by his collar, "what are they?" she shrieked.

"I'll have a visual in a few seconds, just stay calm we're in a mobile fortress here, we'll be okay." Niezen sat Maddison down and returned his focus to the infrared images, "there's one, you're the biologist, what is it?"

"Xenobiologist!" corrected Maddison raising her hand. She squinted at the screen trying to make out the chromatic image. The creatures were fast, now less than twenty meters away. "They look like some kind of dogs maybe, no wait, they look more like Hyenas. Can you tell how big they are?"

"Roughly a meter at the shoulder, definitely wouldn't want to mess with them in these numbers on foot," he admitted fearfully.

"So what now?" asked Maddison anxiously, "we are safe in here right?" she begged desperately hoping to be reassured.

"Well in all fairness I don't know what these things are capable of, what if they spit acid that's able to dissolve our armour?" he shrugged.

Maddison scowled at Niezen knowing full well he was merely trying to bait her. But then again, this was a completely unknown species, an inhabitant of an alien world. The capabilities of this new species were yet to be assessed and potentially they could be anything.