“Carly?” Jen called. She increased her jog to a run, moving her legs as fast as the thick suit and low gravity would let her. “What happened?”

“Damn it,” Carly said over more scuffling. “It’s got me, Jen. I dropped my stinger, and I can’t get it off—” She grunted in pain then yelled something incoherent.

Fear spiked through Jen as she raced for the weathervane. She could hear Carly panting, interspersed with snapping noises. “I’m about two minutes away, Carly. Hang on.”

Then Carly’s screams filled Jen’s helmet, drowning her in the rawness of the other woman’s terror. Jen called to her, but Carly either didn’t hear or couldn’t respond; she kept screaming and screaming. The shriek’s pitch rose…

Then there was silence.

CHAPTER TWO

“Carly?” Jen panted into the stillness. “Carly, can you hear me? Carly!”

“Her… her helmet’s disconnected—” Alessicka’s voice was thin with horror. “Audio’s g-gone completely.”

“Damn it!” Jen couldn’t move fast enough, as if she were stuck in a nightmare where no matter how hard she ran she couldn’t move any closer. Then she cleared a ridge and finally saw Carly’s monster.

Clinging to the rocks at the base of a crater was a massive mess of black tendrils with pulsing red rivulets running down them. They were probing outwards, feeling along the ground, seeking something to grip. Jen stopped well out of their reach and started sidestepping the creature, searching for the white suit that held her partner. She couldn’t see it.

“Lessi, can you tell me anything? Do you have any reading on Carly?”

“No.” She sounded as if she were hyperventilating, but her fingers were hitting the keyboard at an incredible speed. “I-it’s like her helmet has been separated from the suit. I can’t get any stats at all.”

“Okay.” Jen’s pulse pounded in her head as she weighed up her options. “I’m going to try to sting it. If anything… goes wrong, don’t come after me, but send a message to Perros immediately.”

Alessicka made a strangled sort of noise. “Don’t. Please, Jen. Please don’t—”

The creature’s limbs were tapping at the ground and seeking contact, but they seemed to be slowing their pace.

“I’ve got to try to find Carly. Under no circumstances are you to leave the base. That’s a direct order, Lessi. Do you copy?”

“C-Copy.”

“Okay.”

Jen began sliding down the incline that led to the lifeform. Two of the tendrils stretched towards her, apparently sensing the motion. Jen hoped that if she could sting it and get enough neurotoxins in it to kill it, she might still be able to find Carly. She didn’t want to think about the state the other woman would be in, though; the air on 331 was toxic. If she lost her helmet…

One of the arms shot out at an impossible speed and snagged Jen’s ankle. She gasped and tried to jump back, but the creature was too fast. Before she could understand what was happening, she was in the air, held upside down, while another tendril wrapped around her chest.