In fields of magenta plants, made pink by the lead-white face of the looming moon, I saw the Scyphons for the first time.

Petty had explained the nomenclature during basic. Reference to the taxonomy Scyphozoans, in turn derived from the Greek skyphos. A bowl, or cup, or something, used to describe a class of ‘true’ jellyfish. Original term used on Kenya to describe the peculiar wildlife found in the northern regions that caused havoc on human settlers. Later compared (more accurately) to Siphorophons in the Sobel Analysis, their being composed of colonies of interconnected organisms. Even though Siphorophon was the more accurate descriptor, the name Scyphon stuck.

Petty outlined the salient points during one of our classes with him. “This is Chrysoara Colorata - purple striped jellyfish. Here is a typical Scyphon, of the Kenyan variety, of average size. Note the similarities in colouring, the tendrils. Here is a Breezehome Scyhphon. Note the slightly different colouring, greater number of appendages, much like the Lion’s Mane jelly. The similarities end at appearances. Scyphon capabilities and makeup much more closely resemble this — the Physalia Physalis, a type of Siphonophore. Better known as a Man ‘O War. Not a true jellyfish, but a colony of organisms. We believe Scyphons to be similar. Of greater interest is the Man ‘O War’s toxicity. You will find the Scyphons to be dangerous in far greater measure.”

Someone asked, “Sarg, why didn’t they just call the damn things Physalians?”

“They did, on Olympia. Scyphons there have an uncanny resemblance to true Man ‘O Wars. But if your main concern is for correct taxonomy, then I’d suggest you become a xenobiologist. Our main concern is killing them.” I remember Petty leaning over his lecture podium, clicking through pictures behind him showing the varieties of Scyphons found all across the colonial worlds, to make sure we were paying attention. “When you see them, you will want to fall apart. You’ll be trained for this. It will not make things easier.”

Petty hadn’t lied about that.

The training holos did them no justice: not to their delicate trailing filaments, to their enfolded architectures of soft organic material, to the way the moonlight entered their bodies and scattered in their spongy opalescence. They drifted above the moonlit landscape, like oblivious self-aware blimps making a casual flight.

It was their patience that was most unnerving. What were minutes, or hours to them? Nobody had a clue. We knew they’d be watching us on seventeen different wavelengths, transmitting our information to their hidden counterparts in real time through a process we couldn’t understand. Meanwhile, the ionizing radiation they emitted prevented us from doing much more than hand or smoke signals.

You’d think, for all the talk of the war, you’d be squaring off against vicious, predatory things, all fang and limb and claw. Like a pack of wild wolves, seven or eight at a time. I’d rather have that than one Scyphon — just waiting, watching, calmly staring, plotting your death.

A smack on the side of my helmet. My eyeballs wobbled. I took a big breath of cool Kenyan air, the Earth-like mix carrying with it a weird melange of scents my brain couldn’t make sense of.

“Hey, Rip van Winkle,” said Sgt. Blondie. “Pay the fuck attention, Vinny, ‘fore you get us pasted. Weapon check. Green?”

Curie chimed in. “Green.”

“Green,” said Wang.

Rodriguez said, “Ready to puree.”

“Green,” Xu said.

“Jimmy Blender?”

I did a quick check. “Blender’s good.”

We hunkered down at the edge of a treeline, watching as a roll of white flashes exploded on the hilltop at the other edge of the clearing, thunder following a few seconds later. The bombs were smart all the way up to their entering the Scyphon EM field, then they just dropped. The magenta jungle above and around us rustled with a gust of wind, dripping sap and droplets of freshly fallen water. A large green blob landed right on Rodriguez’s visor in the moment he looked up.

“Almighty Christ,” he said, wiping it off.

The squad had nestled in a ditch to check gear and ammo before heading out into the field. The clearing had already been demolished by GAF-9 — here and there the plants had been torn apart, big red leafy stalks the size of a man tipping over as though bowing at our arrival. B-squad was about fifty yards away, preparing to move out. Our job was deceptively simple: claim the ridgetop as part of the effort to plug a breach in the Green Zone the jellies had created about a week earlier.

Cake walk.

Curie rolled over and nudged me. She’d been in the mash three times before, which was three times more than me. “Try not to look so excited, greenhorn,” she said.

“Can’t help it,” I said, honestly. The anxiety of imminent death had been numbed by the cocktail of pre-battle pills.

“That’s the drugs, buddy. You get adjusted to them fast. Or, worse, they get adjusted to you. You think any of us took them this morning?”

“You didn’t?”

“I’d rather stay alive, not giddy,” said Rodriguez.

“Knock off the chatter,” said Blondie.

I didn’t especially want to kill anything, even though I didn’t have much compunction about killing a Scyphon. They were others, after all. But all that advanced combat training did have to be put toward something.

“O-P is the ridgeline two klicks southeast,” Blondie was saying. “Stay low and fast until you’re 400 meters in, regroup. Calibrate TAGs to GAF-9 - we have low-yields coming in behind us so we can’t afford to be here when it happens. Curie, blackboards green, aff?”

“Green, Aff,” said Curie, putting a hand on the flat-black box containing the blackboard system.

“We go on my mark.”

Blondie never got further than that.

This was what what they had shown us. Petty had told us the vids wouldn’t prepare us — to their credit he hadn’t lied about that.

We didn’t see Blondie die. Only registered that he had stopped being there, and was now all over us. Souped was accurate. I don’t know if his Ce-Pod suit crumpled or exploded, but the end result was we were covered in Blondie jam. That should’ve been the moment I scrambled up and out of the ditch to avoid getting caught in the crossfire in the midst of the squad’s panic. Scyphons have a habit of getting you to do that.

I froze, the shock a physical weight on my shoulders. Then I felt hands on me, pulling me out of the hole. Heard the squad open fire. I looked down at my feet. I was covered in Blondie, remnants of where the Scyphon — come from the trees, come from below?! — had heat catalyzed him in a half second flat.

“They souped him,” I said analytically, getting to my feet.

“Vinny, fucking fire your weapon!” shouted Curie.

Like a robot executing pre-programmed commands, I leveled the blender and held the trigger, feeling each solid-steel canister thump out of the close-quarters shotgun. I thought of the story of why they called it a Jimmy Blender, not a Jelly Blender. Poor Jimmy. Then thought about why I was thinking about that. I felt better with every blast of flechette tearing its way through the seemingly-frail Scyphon form. Three seconds and ten rounds later there wasn’t much of anything left to shoot at.

The lone jelly had become a fine paste, joining Blondie’s shoes at the bottom of the ditch.

I let out what must’ve been a ten second exhale.

“Good shot,” said Curie.

“Uh . . . uh-huh. . .”

“You need to snap together,” she said.

I felt myself nod as if in a dream.

“This is why we don’t take those pills.”

Rodriguez shouted “Incoming!” then fell over dead.

I froze again. Shit. I was supposed to do something here. Petty had told us there was something very important we had to remember. Shit.

I watched as Curie tugged a cord on her jacket. Streams of smoke poured from the seams, plunging us into a dense fog.

Petty’s voice drifted into and out of my mind: “. . . won’t see the death rays, of course, unless it’s hitting something denser than air. Luckily for your eyes, the output of the Scyphon’s deuterium-flouride reaction produces a beam with a wavelength at the upper range of the visible spectrum. So, you see someone drop dead for no good reason, you’ve got beams on you — pull here on the cord. . .”

Right.

We dropped prone. Curie pulled me by the shoulder and rolled us back into the ditch, pushed my head down. The others remaining in our squad did the same. It was only me, Curie, Xu, and Wang left. We waited in silence as the artificial fog swirled around us.

“The fuck we doin?” hissed Wang.

“Shh! Shut up,” said Curie.

I twisted my head to see, immediately wished I hadn’t. Two, maybe three dozen deep blue beams pierced the fog, probing flashes lasting just a moment each. No sound, not from the beams at least. But you could hear in the distance the sound of the Scyphons working up their internal systems to fire, a dull hum rising to a piercing screech. The only warning you get.

The flashes stopped. Smoke began to dissipate. Curie gave a hand signal to Xu. Eyes up and over the ditch. Xu nodded and crawled up the edge of the ditch to take a peak. Just as her head crested the rim of the ditch, she was yanked right out. Her scream cut through the night, then stopped abruptly, boot heels leaving tracks in the dirt.

Curie grabbed me, mouthed stay still! She readied her weapon, pointing it up from her prone position. Wang and I did the same.

Because the Scyphons don’t communicate verbally, and generally don’t make contact with the ground, it’s sometimes impossible to hear them coming. But listen close enough, and you can just make out the sound of the jet puffs exuded by their flight components. I cupped a hand to my ear, strained to hear the little air squirts over the top of the ditch. Pffft. Pffft. Pffft. Curie held up her index finger — one? — rolled herself up into a kneeling position, and began counting down.

“Three . . .”

I popped up.

Four jellies bearing down on us. Bigger than the one that got Blondie. The closest was maybe seven, eight feet away. Something in me wanted to stop, take a moment to observe them, really get close to examine the detailed architecture in their bodies.

Realizing that was probably the drugs talking, I jammed my finger on the trigger.

The first one turned into paste as the flechette rounds exploded out and through it. I wondered if Scyphons could feel surprise. Or any kind of feeling. Not like humans had any idea. I kept on firing as the second one moved into my sights, mowed it down too.

Somewhere, a low-frequency hum became loud and shrill.

Another of Petty’s nuggets of wisdom popped into my head. “. . . but the Ce-Pod suit isn’t designed to save all of you. Just the important bits. Not reflective, so don’t pretend that it’ll act like a mirror. The actual damage from any laser is heat and kinetic. The ceramo-laminate in your suit might stop a direct hit, but don’t count on it. 90% of the protection in your suit is centered on your vital organs, because they are the only thing we have a really hard time growing back. If worst comes to worst, give them your leg if you can.”

I didn’t get much choice.

You smell it first. Don’t see it. Not like a bullet, tracers firing at you. It’s an instantaneous burn. First comes the chemical stench of the laminate layers boiling off, trying their damnedest to keep safe the pesky flesh underneath. Once it’s all gone, the smell of burning skin and fat. Your own.

I clenched my teeth, kept my finger on the trigger until my clip ran dry and I lost consciousness.