“Did I mention I don’t like being out here?” Tyger said.

            “Yes, you’ve made it quite clear,” the soldier answered as they stepped through the cool of the early morning air. Tyger accompanied the Soldier but inside he wished he was elsewhere. The systems diagnostic would take a while so he’d agreed to come and see what it was she was so eager to share with him. The surrounding jungle was perfectly still, not even the lightest of breeze. Surrounded by a tomblike silence, Tyger felt more vulnerable by the minute.

            “I guess the animals still haven’t returned,” he remarked.

            “So it seems,” replied the soldier. “Not far now.”

Tyger quickened his pace in order catch up with her. He shouldn’t have been surprised at her swiftness; physically all aspects of her were enhanced way beyond anything he could hope to match. As he drew alongside her, he looked ahead trying to see where the line of trees, vines and various other plants knotted together would finally end.

“Weren’t you going to show me this yesterday?” Tyger asked.

            “Until you opened the hangar, yes,” the soldier replied. “To be honest, I should have shown this to you before you invited me inside for a tour of the ship.”

            “Why didn’t you say anything?” Tyger said.

            “Your suggestion was more ... interesting. And we had time.” The soldier flashed a grin his way –a grin which, combined with her scent, took on several layers of meaning.

            “That it was,” Tyger said. He returned the smile, trying desperately to keep his Felyan urges in check.  Suddenly, the soldier motioned for him to stop with a raise of her fist. Her voice took on a serious tone.

            “This may frighten you.”

            “It takes a lot to frighten me,” Tyger announced with no small hint of smugness.

            “And yet you practically soiled yourself upon leaving the tree?”

            The soldier’s quip cut like a knife, and Tyger couldn’t deny its truth.

            “Okay, most things don’t frighten me,” he admitted, grateful that she hadn’t added his panicked retreat from the creatures to the list as well.

            The soldier gave an approving noise. “You have been braver than I’d have expected, my furry fighter, but this may yet unnerve you. It managed to unsettle even me when I first saw it.”

            “Now that’s something I’d like to see,” Tyger quipped.

            “Even soldiers are not invulnerable.” She somberly reminded him.

Despite everything he’d learned from his crewmates, Tyger had still maintained the impression that tanks were all conquering juggernauts that believed themselves to be without weakness. It was that perceived arrogance that initially caused him to keep his distance from them upon boarding the Shadow Star. He thought back to his crewmates and realized just how silly his notions had been. In spite of Maria’s very human demeanor during periods of downtime, in a fight she simply acted, performing her role without fear or apprehension. Tyger had always believed she was trying to prove some kind of point about her genetic superiority. But, after witnessing the soldier in action he realised that it was simply how they behaved. Combat was an almost everyday environment to a tank; why would it faze them in the slightest? They had nothing to prove, at least not in their perception.

            “Coulda fooled me,” he said, and gave up an involuntary chuckle, “especially last night.”

            The soldier playfully bumped her hip against his, and Tyger felt somewhat less apprehensive as they shuffled through a corridor lined with foliage. No sooner had his eyes adjusted, the forest abruptly ended. The trees had become like a wall of wood, vine, and leaf, surrounding a clearing that had to be a mile in diameter in every direction: a perfect circle. At first Tyger assumed it was man made and then quickly realised that the trees had been flattened in all directions as if something had exploded with great force just above the canopy.

            Then he saw it, dead center of the clearing: a black, gnarled tendril of some kind, shooting into the sky, maybe about a hundred feet. It reminded him of a lone, twisted, old comm tower from the Imperium War ruins in Siberna’s badlands. It was wretched and grotesque, an otherworldly monolith that absolutely did not belong on this world. Surrounding the barren crater from which it grew was something that Tyger could only describe as a scar: a stretch of wasted land about a hundred feet in every direction, charred black and standing out like a malignant tumor in the midst of the otherwise green foliage and brown bark. A sort of mist seemed to hang in the air with the humidity of the morning, and though it was still early, Tyger could have sworn he saw the mist turn black as it neared the tendril. The sheer wrongness of it all took the form of an almost nauseating palpability, as if nature itself had been warped around a festering carcass. Tyger half-expected the area to be swarming with flies, and in spite of all its horrid grotesqueness, there was thankfully no stench of death.

            “The fuck is it?” Tyger asked, realizing he was forcing down the urge to vomit. The soldier did not respond. Instead she stared at the thing intently.

            “You can’t see them now,” she said, gesturing towards the offensive tendril, “but watch as the light increases. They are like white flowers at first, and then pods will grow from them, forming a creature within each.”

            “Is it safe to be this close?” Tyger asked feeling suddenly exposed, despite the cluster of bushes and vines he and the soldier hid behind.

            “It won’t activate until noon,” the soldier said. “So far the cycle remains unchanged.”

            “I feel like it’s watching us.”

            “It may well be,” the soldier replied. “I’ve felt the same several times when I’ve been close to it.”

            “Why not just cut it down?” Tyger asked, venturing to rise from the foliage they hid behind. He then paused. “Can it even be cut down?”

            “You can try.”

            “What’s the catch?”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Why do I not believe you?” Tyger said after a pause.

            “You can go and try to cut it down if you want,”

            “Did you try before?”

            “Yes.”

             “I can’t tell if you’re serious or joking.”

            “You spoil my fun,” she said with a playful groan.

            “You were playing a trick on me?” Tyger said. “That’s just rude.”

            “Do you not use humor to alleviate anxiety among your crew?” The soldier gave a sly half-grin. “If we are to be fighting a hopeless battle is not better to laugh than cry?”

            Tyger frowned he felt his stomach sink. She was right, if they survived the next wave then another would simply replace it a day later.

            “In my experience, it is useless to fear the inevitable,” the soldier continued. “So why not make light of it?”

            “You know, until I met you, my crewmates notwithstanding, I didn’t think soldiers could make jokes,” Tyger said.

            “There are many things about us you apparently don’t know,” the soldier said “But the same could be said for me about you, of course.”

            “Yeah,” Tyger mused aloud. “Remind me to educate you later.” After a moment of thought, he added, “We could hole up in the ship.”

            “What?” the soldier said.

            “Just until help arrives,” Tyger continued. “I checked the pantry. There were lots of nonperishables stocked.”

            “I have a duty.” The soldier’s words had suddenly changed to a tone that was flat and cold, even chilling. “You know this.”

            “Whoa, I wasn’t suggesting we abandon the fight,” Tyger explained, hurriedly trying to cover up what he realized the soldier had taken as cowardice. “I meant that if things go from bad to worse, it can be a fallback position.”

            “A good strategy, as a last resort.” the soldier gave a nod.

            “I just wish I still had the weapons we came here with,” Tyger said, staring with growing unease at the gnarled abomination in front of him. I thought my guide was out of his damn mind when he brought so many.”

            “Weapons are a waste of time,” the soldier replied.

            “Is the brave warrior not feeling so heroic right now?” Tyger said, raising his eyebrow.

            “There is a line between bravery and foolishness,” the soldier said a sthe sun peaked across the horizon.  The morning light glinted off of the soldier’s contrasting silver and ebony hair, making it appear to sparkle.

            “The main root body-” she gestured towards the gnarled object “-is protected somehow, as if by a force field. No amount of physical effort seems to even dent it. It looks like wood, yet it is made of something completely different. It glows with patterns of light, as if it is filled with circuitry. My sisters and I tried to cut it down –several times, actually. Every attempt was useless, even before the creatures ate our guns.”

            “You used your guns on it?” Tyger asked, rising to a standing position as well.

            “It absorbed our bullets,” the soldier answered with a frown. “It is not of this world, nor any that we have discovered within the Imperium. I fear that if it is allowed to continue whatever dark purpose it has, then it will overrun this world in a matter of weeks.”

            “Doubtful,” Tyger said. “There’s only one of those things.”

            “But it is also a living organism, after a fashion. It behaves like a fungus.” The soldier gestured downward. “And like a fungus there is more beneath the surface than what is visible. But then it behaves like a plant, with deep roots absorbing nutrients from the surrounding area. Who knows how deep it goes, or how far it may travel?”

Tyger nodded, finally understanding. “And then finally it behaves like an animal, spawning creatures that are intelligent and can move independently, allowing it to scout out the surrounding area, determine threats and potential resources.”

The soldier returned a nod of approval in his direction. Tyger rubbed his chin absently playing with the hairs of his beard.

            “Well, if I can fix the astronavigation system,” he said, “We might be able to meet my friends halfway, and come up with a plan. Fuel looks okay; she can probably get us to the Shadow Star.”

            “I already told you, I will not run.” The soldier said. She sounded annoyed but also determined.

            “I know,” Said Tyger urgently. “But Paige has access to far greater resources than we have right now.”

            “Who is Paige?” The soldier asked. “The captain?”

            “Yeah,” Tyger said. “She’s pulled my ass out of the fire a few times in the past, literally once; I had a bald patch on my ass for a year. I was frightened the hair transplant wouldn’t take.”

            “Then let us hope this captain and computational tank friend of yours can figure out something that works to our advantage,” the soldier said, taking Tyger by the tail. “Come. There’s little else we can do here for now.” 

            “Ah, about what you’re doing to my tail,” Tyger said, “That’s a little ... well ... personal.”

            “What is?” The soldier asked the question in a way that was almost as innocent-sounding as when she waltzed into the shower the previous night.

            Tyger gestured to her hand that gripped the brown, striped end of his tail. “Only mothers do that to their kids when they’re misbehaving ... or mates do it when they ... ah, want it.”

            “Who said I didn’t?” The soldier asked, allowing her voice to slip into a blatantly seductive tone. “Maybe you’ve been a bad boy?”

            Tyger suppressed the urge to laugh, even though he was absolutely receptive to her scent and voice.

            “I still have to finish the diagnostic,” Tyger said, in spite of his baser inclinations.

            “I’m familiar with ship system diagnostics,” she said. “Depending on range, ships have a large database of star systems to go through. What kind of diagnostic are you doing?”

            “A full scan,” Tyger said, trying to keep his voice from cracking as she stroked her hand across the length of his sensitive tail.

“That is a lot of data for the system to check. It will take hours.” She said,

             Tyger swallowed, wishing he could put up more of a resistance to her smell. But his legs moved of their own accord as he followed her back into the woods, tail still in her hands, towards the hangar.

            “You know, we’re going to need our strength later,” he said, making another halfhearted attempt to distract her. 

            “Don’t worry, my furry fighter,” she answered, sounding amused at his pathetic efforts. “I won’t tire you out this time.”

***

            Despite the fact that the interior of the El Tigre was about as private a location as one could get on any planet, Tyger wished that he and the very amorous soldier could have mated under better circumstances. Of course, under any other circumstances, he would be considered her enemy. The Alliance and the Second Imperium were not technically at war, but the latter’s aggressive expansion in recent years indicated otherwise. And in spite of how she seduced him and her enthusiasm in bed, his mate was still a soldier of that regime.

            Leaving her sleeping form in the bed Tyger headed for the galley and prepared a large mug of coffee. He took a sip as he headed for the cockpit and breathed deep its aroma. It was expensive stuff. Cole clearly had good taste in coffee. Tyger was also pretty sure this brand had been out of production for at least ten years so it was now even more expensive due to its rarity.

            Taking another deep swig of the coffee, he sat down in the pilot’s seat. There wasn’t much time left before the pods matured and the next wave of horrors would be unleashed. He began looking over the main systems again and finished up with the astronav unit. The words “SCAN COMPLETE. ERROR DETECTED #616265” flashed on the greenish-blue screen of the analytics unit.

            “Well, at least we can get something done now,” Tyger murmured as he touched the red glowing sigil that indicated a system error under the flashing announcement. The screen went blank for a moment and a stream of codes and symbols scrolled by quickly. Letting out a quiet growl of annoyance Tyger lay down beneath the console and set about removing the access panel.

***
 

            “I gather you found the problem?” the soldier asked, coming up beside the pilot’s chair.

            Tyger shifted around and sat himself up. It was a tight fit between the chair and the console and he felt very uncomfortable. He looked up at the soldier and winced, he had lost track of how long he’d been down there and his body chose this moment to remind him. He saw that she was again fully dressed, vajra weapon in one of the many long-empty holsters on her person, and eyeing the mess of wires, relay couplings, and circuit boards that Tyger had dislodged from their moorings.

            “Geez, what time is it?” he asked with alarm. “How much time do we have left?”

            “About half an hour,” the soldier answered calmly. “Is a piece damaged?”

            “No,” Tyger said, picking himself up from his work. He placed the scanner tool on the pilot’s seat beside him. “I’m looking for a distribution node that the scan told me was infected with a virus. On board antivirus can’t do anything to fix it; Pip might have more modern software to install on the Shadow Star, but right now, I’m shit outta luck.”

            ‘I brought your gear for when you’re ready,” the soldier said, “In case you decided against fighting in your underwear.” She gestured towards the co-pilot’s seat where his clothes now sat, folded as neatly as they had been when he woke up in the soldier’s lean-to. His machete lay next to them in its scabbard and now-empty bandoliers.

            “God, I could kiss you,” Tyger breathed, feeling his grin of utter relief break out clear across his face. Getting up stiffly and stretching, he reached across and dressed himself with a speed he hadn’t mustered since the time he was nearly spotted in the concubines’ quarters by a Zadian harem’s overseer. Paige had a few choice words for him that day.

            “I actually prefer when you lick me,” the soldier replied.

            Slinging the sheathed machetes in their scabbards over his shoulders, he then spun around and knelt by the open panel where he had been working a moment before. “Oh! I think I got it! This was the node the readout said was corrupt-holy shit!”

            Tyger stumbled back, scrambling backwards on his backside, as if a swarm of cockroaches had poured out of the wiring. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

            “What is it?” the Soldier asked tensely. Tyger shifted his gaze towards his mate, who had taken a battle-ready stance even more quickly than he had dressed, her vajra fully extended.

            “I don’t think you’re going to be able to do anything about this problem,” Tyger said, taking a deep breath to compose himself. With trembling hand, he gingerly reached towards the open panel. The node was a cube-shaped device with a high voltage symbol on it, below a series of intake slits where the miniature fan kept the processors cool. Growing into it was a tendril sprouting a spiderlike mass of what appeared to be wood, but laced with gelatinous green veins. A tangle of circuitry solidified out of the nauseating green substance. It appeared to flash in geometric patterns as energy from the ship pulsed through it in tiny ripples.

            “It can’t be!” the soldier murmured slowly, and knelt down for a closer look. Tyger watched as she retracted her vajra, the blade shortening to a length similar to that of his machete, and pushed it into the alcove, turning it downward towards the jelly-like veins.

            It suddenly dawned on Tyger what she intended to do. In spite of his initial disgust, he reached out toward the soldier. “Wait! I don’t think that’s a good-”

            It was as if she’d touched a bolt of lightning. Several bluish arcs crackled across the cockpit, with a series of deafening popping noises. Tyger dived out of the way as one arc hit the soldier, and sent her flying across the cockpit, slamming into the opposite side.

            The discharges died down, and the reek of ozone filled the air as Tyger crawled over to his mate, pulse pounding in his ears as he feared the worst. “Are you alright?” He said, feeling at her wrist, then throat for a pulse. Relief flooded through him as he found what he was looking for, and he heard her groan.

            “Happened to me ... before ...” she whispered, and let out a loud, hacking cough, “and to my sisters ... when we tried to cut down the main body.”

            “Dammit, why didn’t you tell me that?” he asked.

            The soldier shook her head and let out a soft laugh. Even now, she seemed to have recovered in a way that was most likely quicker than any normal human could. “We’re made strong. It will take a little more than a shock to kill me.”

            “Thank the Creator for that,” Tyger breathed as the soldier clasped his offered hand and stood up, though ungainly at first. She used his shoulders to steady herself, her expression changing from unsure to more confident as she regained her balance. “Electricity can be deadly even to those who are made strong you know.”

             “The main body repels with an electrical surge similar to that,” the soldier said, “though this time it felt stronger.”

            “Oh, great.” Tyger groaned as he felt the pit that threatened to develop in his stomach give way to a chasm. With a leap, he landed in the pilot’s seat, and frantically flew over the sigils that brought up the ship’s schematics.

            “What are you doing?” The soldier asked, leaning over the seat.

            “Making sure the power cells are in the same spot,” Tyger replied. “I discovered that dad did a lot of mods to this ship over the years. Some interior systems don’t match what’s on the manual.”

            “Your father shifted the position of the power cells?” The soldier sounded disbelieving, “That would be awfully difficult given how Malletheads are constructed.”

            Tyger scanned his finger over the grid-like schematics of the ship. “Okay, he didn’t go that far, but ...” He brought up a cursory diagnostic mode and fed a command into the console, murmuring a prayer to the Creator ... which apparently went unanswered. “Dammit.”

            “What?” The soldier asked as Tyger swung out of the pilot’s seat and landed catlike beside his mate. “What happened?”

            “We’ve got a big problem,” he said.

            “What did it say?” The soldier asked with slightly less patience as before. Tyger studied the various panels on the back wall of the cockpit before reaching up and tapping twice on the corner of one near his eye level. The panel lowered with a gentle hum and a small tray containing a pair of MAG pistols and clips slid forward. He handed one of each to the soldier, who stared at them, bewildered. “How did you know about these?”

Tyger smiled and pointed to a seemingly innocuous rivet next to the top right corner of the panel. “It’s an old smugglers trick.  Most boarding parties aren’t concerned with every small detail of the ship they’re trying to take. It wasn’t a stretch to assume dad might’ve done the same thing.”

            The soldier placed the spare clip into an empty belt pouch. “There isn’t any more ammo?”

            “Sorry.” Tyger shrugged and made his way towards the ladder. Sliding down he paused to wait for the soldier to catch up and made his way towards the starboard personnel door release and activating it. “What you said about them burrowing in. Perhaps it wasn’t as dumb as I thought.”

“Dumb?” The soldier arched an eyebrow at him, throwing him a look that would have likely withered even one of those creatures.

            Tyger turned to explain, when he felt a massive blow to his stomach. For a moment everything was a blur and, after regaining his senses he realised he was on the other side of the cargo hold. Clutching his stomach Tyger attempted to stand emitting a sound somewhere between a retch and a groan. There was a loud shriek and suddenly the soldier’s Vajra slammed into the deck plates piercing another creature and pinning it to the floor. Its weapon: a black set of what appeared to be bolas, rather than a saw blade thrashed about, whilst its legs flailed spinning its spherical wheels impotently. It began emitting sounds somewhere between a dog whining and nails scraping across a chalkboard.

            “Shit ...” he grunted, holding his stomach, and gritting against the pain in his gut as he struggled to his feet. The soldier strode over to retrieve her weapon. Placing her heel near the open wound on the creature she pushed with her foot as she worked the blade back and forth. There was a wet tearing sound as the creature tore in half trembling and thrashing in a pool of noxious fluid.

            Making his way back to the open door Tyger picked up the dropped pistol and drew his machete as the soldier came to his side.

            “Are you okay?” she asked.

            “It only winded me,” Tyger said with another grunt at the lingering pain. “But I should’ve seen that coming.”

            The Soldier yanked her vajra from the floor. The fetid mulch stench filled the air as she kicked one half of the creature a short distance away. Eager to get away from it, but not stupid, Tyger signaled for the soldier to descend down the extended steps with him. She moved ahead of him, taking point. The hangar doors were shut tight, the nanoweave of its outside walls as strong as ever. Yet the creatures were here with them, just as he suspected.

            “This makes no sense,” the soldier remarked, clearly unsettled by the monsters’ premature arrival, and in what should have been a sealed building.

            “Like a fungus you said? More under the surface than above,” Tyger spoke in a low voice. He watched as the soldier moved in a crouching position, waving her vajra slowly from left to right. “I think you were right before; it burrowed in through the concrete.”

            Spying a sudden movement in the corner of his eye Tyger buried his machete directly into the center of the creature that had lunged his way: a sickly green and pink maw that resembled a Venus’ flytrap with steel teeth, half the size of his head. The machete wedged itself into the exact point where the hinges grew out of the plant matter, and the soldier finished it off with a slash of her weapon.

            “We make an effective team, it appears,” she said with a confidence that was both inspiring and yet unsettling. This fight was a surprise that he certainly wasn’t happy about. And he was looking forward to the battle that lay ahead even less.

            “Tell me that if we get out of this day alive,” he said, motioning for her to head towards the rear of the ship.

            “These lights cast some really stark shadows,” the Soldier commented, scanning the El Tigre’s hull as they approached the location of the power cells. And for the first time, he heard the soldier gasp.

            It was like a web of black, slithering away from a tiny rupture in the hull. Green light pulsed through it, creating a visible path leading to a shadow at the rear of the hangar. There sat the horrifying presence of the main body, glowing with the power it siphoned, passing through its patchwork body, down into a massive crack in the floor. On the branching projections of its body were two open flower-like objects: the pods that the soldier had mentioned, having birthed their abominations, which he and his mate had just dispatched.

            “They came in from underground all right, but not the way we thought,” Tyger said.

            “They’re getting much smarter than I figured they could,” the soldier observed in a voice that Tyger could have sworn showed vestiges of fear.

            “Smart enough to hack a computer?” He said, disbelieving, “and siphon power from the ship while doing it?”

            Tyger decided to take a risk. Judging that he and his mate were out of range, he aimed his pistol and fired a round into the ugly treelike thing. The same as aboard the ship, electrical surges arced wildly outwards and across the floor of the hangar, just missing them.

            “Well, I guess that changes things.” Tyger said.

            “You appear to have a fight for this vessel on your hands,” the soldier said.

            “Yeah,” Tyger said, reluctantly weighing his options, which seemed to be diminishing with every passing moment.  At last he came to a conclusion.  “I guess we can’t stay here tonight.”

            “It will not be safe anywhere if we cannot find a way to defeat it,” the soldier said, turning to face him.  Her expression was stone-faced and determined.

            Tyger wordlessly nodded and the pair slowly withdrew from the rear of the El Tigre. He hit the controls releasing the nanofibers and the hangar doors slid open.  The pair then made their way outside in search of a secure place where they could rethink their strategy.