Gravity seemed about the same as what they were used to, a little less maybe, but the heat and the brightness were debilitating. The armor systems could and would adapt, the crew not. They’d brought a few guns from the weapons center, but the armory was lost to them, as was most of the emergency and medical equipment. They were so far beyond the edges of civilized space that nobody would’ve found them even if they had managed to send off a distress signal. Command might be able to trace the ship’s homing beacon eventually, but that could take years. They’d have to scavenge the ship for supplies later, when they’d taken care of their wounded and secured a perimeter.

All of them were uncomfortably aware that they had no idea what was lurking beyond the edges of the impact crater. Siv, the concussed weapons technician, did his best to provide first aid in the meager shadow of the ship while the four bruised but otherwise unhurt armor hosts formed a protective half circle around the more vulnerable members of their party.

System Six tried to ignore his host’s jumbled, jittery mental recitation of military crash protocol as he gathered as much data about the alien world as possible while not fully bonded. The first thing he noticed was that it

smelled interesting. Richer than what he was used to, wilder. Younger. He found that he liked it, felt more at ease here than he had on the training grounds or the ship. The place tasted like fire and grit. It felt solid and rough. It sounded like dirt shifting, cloth sliding over stone… right…

over…

… there.

For once, Rik caught on quickly, tipped off by System Six’s alarm. He jumped and lifted his gun, prompting the others to follow suit instinctively.

Aliens, Rik thought hysterically. Aliens, there’s fucking aliens out there!

The sudden movements must’ve spooked the same aliens, because the next thing they heard was a sharp noise, and then Jas gasped as his armor system flooded his right side to parry a high-velocity projectile that would’ve taken out half his chest.

“Fuckers are shooting at us,” Jas yelped.

“Then shoot the fuck back,” the commander rasped from the ground, his grip around the tourniquet white-knuckled.

Things went downhill from there.

THREE

CAPTAIN BRENNAN had thought he’d seen it all, especially now that he’d laid eyes on a bunch of honest-to-God outta-space aliens. His brain had flashed back on a hundred different movie scenes to give him a frame of reference, but there was a difference between being wowed by special effects and watching silver pour out of every pore of the four sentry aliens’

skin to wrap them head to toe in armor. He was so distracted by the glint of sunlight on the seamless coat of what looked like metal he barely noticed them return fire until the dirt exploded at the crater edge to his right.