The quad screamed through the desert at breakneck speeds, its electric drive train humming with throaty power while a rooster tail of sand sprayed up in its wake. Just when Ike was convinced they couldn’t go any faster, Galidd applied more pressure to the throttle and proved him wrong.

“Opposition Control, this is Galidd, come in.”

“We read you, Guardian Galidd,” a tinny voice replied over the quad’s comm system. “Go ahead.”

“Preparing to scout contacts.”

“Copy that; Plugs are getting into position at north end of watercrop, per your orders. Standing by for scouting report.”

“Copy that. Galidd out.”

“Good luck. Opposition Control out.”

As Galidd clicked off his mic, wind lashed at the open-sided cockpit, and Ike tightened his grip around the repeater he had taken from the weapons rack. “So what’re we scouting,” he asked over the noise, “Eks’tohr?”

“They’re not human, so that’s the only thing they can be.”

“How do you know they’re not human?”

“The Plug said that they don’t match human biosignatures,” Holden answered. He had spoken just loudly enough to be heard, but his ashen face spoke volumes. “And when they don’t match human biosignatures, they’re Eks’tohr.”

Galidd sped across a sprawling salt plain, revved up the slope of a huge sand dune, and fishtailed to a halt at the dune’s crest. As the quad kicked up a cloud of dust from its sliding stop, Galidd killed power, and the vehicle’s electric growl became a declining whine as the drive core powered down. From their position atop the summit of the dune, Ike saw that they were next to a sun-drenched gully, a ragged, miles-long scoop out of the desert that was naturally fortified with high walls of rock and dirt. A single wrong step along its edge would mean a long, painful tumble to its dusty floor, and Ike was glad such was the case; if they did encounter enemy forces, the higher ground would give them a tactical advantage.

“Readings are coming from the other side,” the Guardian said with a glance at the quad’s main display. He unbuckled his safety harness and jumped down from the cockpit. His heavy, metallic combat boots displaced splashes of sand as he landed. “Stay here.”

With the quad now silent, a strange quietness filled the air as Galidd approached the edge of the gully. The closer he got, the slower he went, and when the edge was about two meters in front of him, Galidd dropped to his armored stomach and army-crawled the remainder of the way.

While the Guardian scouted, spirals of sand danced along the opposite bluff, and Ike watched the formations as they spun through the air, then dissolved into nothingness.

All was calm and quiet.

“Drones,” Galidd called out after a few moments.

Holden fidgeted. “Great,” he muttered, and glanced around nervously.

“Drones? What’re drones?”

“Come and see for yourself,” Galidd said. “Bring the scopes. Stay low.”

After unfastening their safety harnesses and hopping out of the quad, Ike and Holden crept toward the edge where Galidd was positioned. Ike moved more eagerly than Holden, who seemed far more hesitant and trailed behind, but once in position on Galidd’s left with Ike on the Guardian's right, Holden put the scopes to his eyes and scanned the base of the gully.

“Where are they…?”

“Bottom. Near the rocks.”

After a moment of sweeping side to side, he found the spot and hovered on it.

“Yup…I see it.”

Holden gave a concerned groan and handed the scopes to Ike, who immediately swept the valley with their enhanced vision—but other than a blue sky and a burnt landscape, he saw nothing.

“See it?”

“No—”

A hot burst of wind howled over the gully and Ike swept the area again. He scanned along the rocks Galidd had mentioned, seeing nothing but the large cluster of tan-colored boulders cresting through the sand.

Then something moved.

Ike’s heart skipped a beat, and though he wasn’t exactly sure where the movement had come from, or if he had really seen it at all, he fixed his view on the suspected area. He thought he could faintly see the outline of something, but it was nearly indistinguishable from the backdrop of boulders.

“I think I—”

As Ike strained his eyes, a grizzly face suddenly appeared against the boulders when a head turned sharply in his direction. Ike cursed in surprise and almost dropped the scopes, but tightened his grip and focused on the startling sight: seeming to stare up at him from the gully’s basin was a tan-colored, leather-skinned creature whose head was as oblong and blocky as its eyes were pea-sized and black. Its hide wrinkled and hairless, the creature snorted through an elongated snout, puffing up dust where its breath hit the ground from its flaring nostrils. Long, dagger-like claws curled from its paws and crooked, razor-sharp teeth stuck out from its mouth like those of an anglerfish. Until it had turned toward him, the creature had been perfectly camouflaged against the boulders, but now that it was moving, trotting on all fours and sniffing the air, it couldn’t be missed.

“Goddamn! What the hell is that thing?”

“That,” Galidd answered, “is a drone.”

“It’s a mindless killing machine,” Holden explained, his voice reflecting raw fear. “They’re genetically engineered by the Eks’tohr and biologically programmed to hunt humans; they grow them by the thousands and let them loose all over Altearth. They can gut you with one swipe of their claws, devour a human body in less than a minute, and they don’t go down unless you shoot them in the head. They’re very hard to kill and they’re very good at not leaving survivors. They also carry a number of viruses, so even if you do somehow survive a physical attack, you’re most likely infected. We keep developing antidotes, but the Eks’tohr keep mutating the strings of viruses, so the antidotes are constantly becoming outdated.” Having nearly talked himself into a panic, Holden sucked in an audible breath and said to Galidd. “We should really get out of here, get back to the landship…”

But Galidd said nothing.

Ike lowered the scopes and watched the distant drone gallop along the gully floor. Just the mere sight of the gnarled, contorted creature sent a cold chill crawling up his spine.

“I thought there were a couple dozen…”

“They’re coming,” Galidd assured him, and a moment later Holden pointed across the way.

“Look!”

Ike looked, and as a tremble began reverberating through the ground, a torrent of rapidly moving tan-colored quadrupeds appeared over the edge of the opposite ridge. Flooding down the steep side of the gully, they kicked up sand and nipped at each other like a pack of rabid wolves as they tore their way into the ravine with an onslaught of barks and growls.

Ike flipped the repeater’s safety off and an electric frequency wound up in pitch.

“Hold your fire, Bannors.”

“I thought we were takin’ 'em out.”

“Only if they catch our scent.”

Over the yipping and yowling of the drones, Holden said, “Drones are randomly tagged—” He seemed mesmerized by the sight of the wild beasts, and spoke slowly through his fear. “When a tagged drone is killed, the tag sends an alert back to the Eks’tohr…and when that happens, Eks’tohr come to investigate in full force. So, when we can, we try to avoid killing drones.”

Ike shook his head; it was a dirty but clever strategy.

As the three men watched the drones' rampage, Galidd pressed on the comm tab integrated into his neckpiece. “Opposition Control, this is Galidd confirming multiple drone contacts at my current position. Scouting their movement, stand by.”

“Copy that, Guardian Galidd, landship still clear. Standing by.”

The drones swarmed together like a cloud of hornets.

“That’s more than a couple dozen, Galidd…that’s several dozen,” Holden observed with a shudder.

“Another confirmation that drone packs are getting bigger.”

“Do they see us?”

“No.”

“Do they smell us?”

“No. They’re coming from the north, the wind is blowing to the south. They aren’t getting our scent.”

Ike asked, “Then what’re they doing?”

“They’re deciding which way to go. If we’re lucky, the wind will keep blowing our scent away from them and they’ll go somewhere other than toward the landship. Taking them out isn't a problem, but if one of them is tagged…”

The men watched the drones intently; some of the beasts tipped back on their haunches and sniffed the air while others pawed at the ground. A select few were irritably snapping at one another when another gust of hot, stale air blew by and one of the drones whipped its head toward the three observing humans.

Ike was convinced that the creature had locked its thoughtless, instinct-driven eyes onto them.

“Galidd…”

“Don’t move.”

Ike’s jaw tightened and he held himself dead-still. Eventually, the drone looked away, and after another bout of spits and snarls, the pack collectively turned to the west and bolted down the gully.

Galidd slowly stood.“We’re in the clear.”

“How do you know?” Ike asked flatly as he and Holden got to their feet.

“Drones travel the path of least resistance. This gully goes several miles west; it’ll guide them away from the watercrop.”

Galidd turned and headed toward the quad.

“There, Bannors,” he called out. “There’s your first encounter with the Eks’tohr. Be glad it was from a distance.”

Ike peered back out over the bright, sunlit gully. With a firm grip on the repeater, he watched the pack of yipping drones disappear into the heat-warped haze of the desert.

He was very happy about the distance.

Returning to the patiently waiting quad after a few final glances over their shoulders, Ike, Holden, and Galidd buckled themselves in. Underway in a matter of seconds, Galidd was speeding down a straightaway when he keyed his comm.

“Galidd to landship, come in landship.”

“Come in, Guardian Galidd, we read you.”

“Drone contacts headed west. I repeat, drone contacts are headed west. No need for intercept.”

“Roger that, Guardian Galidd, glad to hear it. Please be advised watercrop collection is completed and landship is preparing for departure. We’ll meet you on the move.”

Galidd clicked off his comm and guided the quad down an embankment of sand, and with a burst of acceleration, twisted the steering wheel and drifted the skidding vehicle around a patch of dusty stalagmites.

“So what would’ve happened if the drones hadn’t gone west?” Ike inquired as the quad straightened out with a jerk. “What if they'd kept goin’ south?”

“Then we all would’ve had some target practice,” Galidd answered simply.

“Even if one of 'em was tagged?”

“If there’s an immediate threat to human life, yes.”

Ike frowned in consideration of the lethal balancing act and glanced up at the sun; the inferno burned incessantly. He tried to ignore its blistering heat, and let his gaze fall to the desert landscape and take in the bright, searing views. He wiped away a layer of sweat that had gathered on his forehead. Feeling short of breath in the sweltering heat, he inhaled, but coughed at the painful sensation that his lungs were being singed. He quietly cursed.

Breathing in the desert was like breathing in an oven.

With a burst of speed, the quad went airborne over the top of a sand dune and was landing softly on the downslope when Holden pointed and called out, “There it is!”

Ike looked forward and saw the landship in the hazy distance, its massive bulk visible behind a range of dune mountains like a colossus as it lumbered along. Galidd steered toward it, and the quad rocketed across the cracked salt plains, past the watercrop, and through a jagged opening between two bluffs. Now in plain sight, the landship grew closer, and the quad screamed across the desert as it approached its rear left corner.

Galidd touched his comm toggle.

“Come in, Opposition Control, this is Galidd, over.”

“Guardian Galidd, we read you. Go ahead.”

“Making quad approach from the north, requesting clearance to board.”

“Guardian Galidd, you are clear for approach on vehicle platform five.” The scratchy voice over the comm then added, “Welcome back.”

Considering its mammoth size, the landship moved with surprising speed and had covered a considerable distance since departing the watercrop—but the mobile fortress’s speed was no match for the quad, and the spry four-wheeler closed the gap within seconds. One moment the landship seemed to be on the edge of the horizon, and the next it was gargantuan, towering over the quad like a skyscraper. Through the deafening roar of its massive treads, Ike looked up at the landship’s monstrous side and saw several enormous turret guns and cannon pods aimed down at them. Slowly swiveling, they tracked the quad’s movement, and Ike suddenly felt all too mortal within their lethal sights.

Ahead of the quad, a ramp began to lower from an elevated platform at the corner of the landship, and Ike watched as it hinged down and locked into place mere inches above the desert floor. Galidd applied more throttle, and with a snarl and a burst of speed, the quad charged up the incline and onto the platform where numerous other vehicles were parked in neat, organized rows. Ike surveyed the ranks of machines as they passed by him in a blur; he saw vehicles that could be described as tanks, others that looked like armored personnel carriers and reconnaissance units—some, however, were so foreign-looking that they defied categorization, but all seemed to have descended from the same family of design that had spawned the quad.

While Ike kept his focus on the quad’s fellow fleet vehicles, Galidd steered into an empty space and let the tires settle into four concave notches in the deck. The notches, Ike saw as the off-roader rocked to a standstill, prevented the quad from rolling, and a second layer of prevention was added when clamps folded up from the deck and locked onto the wheels with a snap.

Ike glanced up and noted that all of the other vehicles on the platform were secured in the same fashion.

With the quad’s electric innards whirring into silence as Galidd completed the power-down sequence, they unfastened their harnesses and stepped out of the cockpit. Nearby deck workers eagerly attended to the returned off-road machine and began a routine inspection of the vehicle, thoroughly checking everything from the wheel clamps to the water-electric engine and a wide array of other key operating components.

“So apparently the landship doesn’t wait around for people,” Ike remarked while additional deck workers joined the inspection effort.

“No,” said Galidd.

Holden offered a more elaborate explanation.

“The landship has to keep to its timetables. If we take too long at a watercrop, the landship falls behind schedule and we could miss the up-time of our assigned broadcast belt…and if that happens,” Holden continued with a new breath, “it causes all sorts of coordination issues, most importantly with sandtrain rendezvous that replenish critical supplies and food rations.”

“There’re supply vessels out here?”

“It’s the only way to get food to people in landship territory.”

“Galidd on board, quad secured,” Galidd reported into his comm. Promptly following his words, an announcement blared out over the landship’s speaker system.

“Landship 22283 is now G active.”

Cheers broke out among the platform and bay workers, but Galidd paid no attention and turned his attention to the Newcomers.

“The drone sighting was yet another confirmation that drone activity is increasing and packs are getting bigger,” he said in a grave tone. He eyed Ike and Holden intently. “Bannors, I understand you were a soldier, so I assume you know how to fight, but you and Holden are both at risk out here. Unless you’re with me, neither of you are to step foot off this landship.” He shifted his focus to Holden. “That means no more off-ship excursions looking for the Klo’rhi machine. Understood?”

“But what if—?”

“Is that understood?”

Holden frowned, but forced a frustrated nod.

“Understood.”

Offering nothing further, Galidd turned, and with the crowds happily getting out of his way, strode out of sight.

Ike stared after the Guardian as he marched into the platform’s adjacent vehicle bay.

“What’s it mean?” Ike soberly asked after a moment.

“The drones?” Holden shook his head and gazed down at the deck with glazed-over eyes. “I don’t know,” he said distantly. “It could just be a huge coincidence and doesn’t mean anything…or maybe they’re making some kind of a move.”

“Maybe it means they know we’re here,” Ike suggested grimly. He raised his eyebrows as Holden looked up at him with icy-cold fear in his eyes. The look told Ike that Holden was thinking the same thing, and Ike hoped to hell they were both wrong.