She swung her stinger towards the nearest tendril. It missed its mark. A new arm came up and wrapped around Jen’s helmet, blinding her. She heard cracking noises as the black pulsing limb strained to separate the helmet from its suit.

Is this what it did to Carly?

She could feel the creature becoming frustrated. She had only seconds before it tried a new method of killing her; she aimed blindly, felt the stinger’s steel needle puncture something resistant, and pulled the trigger.

A horrific wailing noise rose around her, and Jen found herself plummeting to the ground. She twisted around in midair in time to see she was headed for a crop of jagged rock, which would certainly puncture her suit, but at the last second, one of the thrashing arms batted her aside. She skidded over a dusty patch of ground and rolled to a stop.

The creature had gone wild. Its limbs waved in every direction, as though it were trying to fight an invisible attacker, and the bestial wailing noise filled her head. The arms seemed able to stretch to impossible lengths, and Jen realised she wasn’t safe where she was. She began scrambling backwards, up the incline of the crater, not daring to take her eyes off the waving, slapping arms until she was over the top of the lip and running for the base.

The terrible noise followed her. The poison had hurt the lifeform, but it wasn’t dead; a single injection probably wasn’t enough for a beast that size, and there was no way Jen was going back to have another go at it—especially now that she knew for certain Carly couldn’t have survived. The creature had tried to pop Jen’s helmet off, just as it must have done to Carly. Jen’s had only stayed on because it wasn’t faulty.

Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked them back furiously. The guilt was crushing; she’d used her power as the team leader to override Alessicka when she’d tried to do her job, and now her partner was dead. This is what you get for cutting corners. This is what happens when you don’t take your job seriously.

She squinted and ran faster. All she wanted, more than anything else, was to be inside the safety of the double-walled metal station. She would never complain about how small it was again.

“Jen?” Alessicka breathed in her ear. She sounded terrified. “A-Are you t-there?”

In her rush to get away from the monster, Jen had forgotten to tell her remaining partner that she was okay. Alessicka had heard the fight, but nothing afterwards, and Jen had left her hanging in terrible suspense.

“I’m here,” Jen said, fortifying her voice. “I’m fine, and I’m coming back now. Carly… isn’t.”

“Okay,” was the only thing Alessicka managed to say. She sobbed quietly and discreetly the entire time Jen was jogging back to base. She was young, and Jen didn’t think she’d ever lost a team member before.