“Dramatic,” said Falconi, coming up beside her.

“It looks like a painting,” said Nielsen, joining them.

“Or something out of a game,” said Trig.

To Kira, the place felt old beyond reckoning. It seemed unlikely it had been the homeworld of the Vanished—for a sentient, technologically advanced species to evolve on a tidally locked planet would be extremely difficult—but she had little doubt the Vanished had settled there long ago, and had stayed for a long time thereafter.

The Marines rushed about, setting up auto-turrets around the shuttle, tossing drones into the air (which zoomed skyward with a nerve-scraping buzz), and posting sensors—active and passive—in a wide perimeter.

“Form up,” Koyich barked, and the Marines assembled in front of the now-closed airlock. Then he trotted over to where Kira stood watching with Falconi and the Entropists, and said, “We’ve got two hours before the Jellies make orbit.”

Kira’s heart dropped. “That’s not enough time.”

“It’s all the time we’ve got,” said Koyich. “They’re not going to risk hitting us with bombs or missiles or rods from god, so—”

“Sorry, what?”

Falconi answered: “Kinetic projectiles. Big heavy lumps of tungsten or something like that. They hit almost as hard as nukes.”

Koyich jerked his chin. “That. The Jellies aren’t going to risk destroying you or the staff. They’re going to have to come down here in person. If we can get into the buildings you spotted, we can fight a delaying action, buy you some time. Hold out long enough and the Darmstadt might be able to give us some reinforcements. This ain’t going to be a fight won in space, that’s for damn sure.”

“Guess we can forget about proper containment procedures,” said Kira.

Koyich grunted. “You could say that.”

The first officer barked a few commands, and within moments, their group set out marching at double speed across the broken stones, each step of the fourteen sets of power armor thudding like dire drums. Two of the Marines from the Darmstadt stayed behind with the shuttle. When Kira looked back, she saw them moving around the vessel, checking its heat shield for damage.

The wind provided a constant pressure against Kira’s side. After so long spent on ships and stations, the movement of air seemed strange. That and the unevenness of the ground.

She did the math in her head. It had been close to six months since she had last stood on Adrasteia. Six months of closed rooms, artificial lights, and the stink of close-pressed bodies.

Patches of black moss crunched under the soles of her boots. The moss wasn’t the only vegetation nearby; there were clusters of fleshy vines (assuming they were plants) growing upon nearby rock formations. The vines tumbled like locks of greasy hair across the face of the stone. Kira couldn’t help but note different features: leaf-like structures with veins that formed reticulated venation, similar to Earth dicots. Staggered branching, with deep ridges on the stems. No visible flowers or fruiting bodies.

Looking was one thing, but what she really wanted was to get a sample of the plant’s cells and start digging into its biochemistry. That was where the real magic was. An entirely new biome to explore, and she didn’t dare stop to learn anything about it.