Anti-nausea meds coursed through her veins alongside the pre-flight cocktail. Arai wasn’t sure if that made things worse. She didn’t throw up in her helmet, but she wanted to.

She counted her breaths.

The pod shook.

Her HUD beeped for her attention. Arai squinted one eye open enough to get a glimpse of her team. Six people hung on the outer edge of the pod, four hung on the center pillar. All of them bulky with new power armor. It shined on the edges. New car smell. Arai could touch three without unstrapping. She wasn’t sure who they were. The old armor at least had identifying damage, like boat-strike on whales. The pod vibrated, and it didn’t match the stability her eyes saw. Her stomach rolled.

She licked her lips. “Close my visor,” she whispered.

The helmet snapped shut. Arai risked another glimpse and saw only darkness behind the glow of her HUD.

She took a deeper breath.

The HUD beeped again, and she focused. Paracitica Jin’s name was listed on the left, the rest of the Hornets below him in turn. Arai saw her name in the middle of the pack, above her twin brother, Seo. He was probably grinning like a loon, enjoying every minute of this insane approach. On the right Arai had a list of bullet types and counts. They were stored in rows along her back and the armor could pull whatever she wanted on demand directly into her Armash, like a living armory. It got a little creepy if she thought about it too closely.

The alert hung in the middle of her view, amber and bright. Impact: 20 seconds.

The situation, as it tended to be when the Hornets were called, wasn’t entirely clear. Jin had played the recording for them all, the call for help that sounded breathless and terrified. The unknown caller had reported wild monsters attacking an otherwise inconsequential research outpost on a jungle-moon. How many monsters, why they were attacking now in the base’s five year history, and what could possibly be worth saving there were all a mystery. Arai didn’t like mysteries. Especially when she was being rocket-launched into the middle of them.

Impact: 10 seconds.

At least they had the layout of the research building. That allowed Paracitica Jin to come up with an attack plan, even if that plan was: crash the pod and shoot anything that moved.

Impact: 5 seconds.

It was the crashing Arai had trouble with.

Arai squeezed her eyes shut and drew her knees to her chest to make herself as small as possible. Her HUD flashed. She saw the light behind her eyelids.

Then the pod crushed into the ground, shredding as it landed, blowing whatever it hit into mist and fragments. Impact rattled through Arai’s bones. The harness dropped her to the ground automatically, and she rolled to one knee, training taking over her panicked animal brain.

Her old armor had a latch on the chest to secure her Armash. This new smart-suit tech integrated the gun into the suit itself. Arai could pull it out with a thought. But she still hadn’t broken herself of reaching toward her own chest. The suit understood her intent and in an instant, she held the Armash ready, sighting for movement. Acid-bullets loaded.

A Hornet posted next to her, their Armash ready, and the way they knocked into Arai’s shoulder, she knew it was Seo, her twin. They always fought shoulder-to-shoulder. The contact activated a private voice channel, and Arai could hear the smile in Seo’s voice. Ready to rumble?

“Born ready. Twenty minutes before you.”

Seo scoffed.

The pod had landed them in the middle of the monsters, as promised. Several meters of jungle had been cleared around the perimeter of the research outpost which stood behind Arai, meters that were now full of hulking, six-legged beasts with small glowing eyes and very long tongues. Several creatures had been crushed by the pod, more of them visibly injured as they were swept away. Their attention shifted from the building to this new threat in their midst.

The pod had cratered into the forgiving marshy ground, establishing a wet, earth berm about a meter tall in a perfect circle. Hornets in the middle. Danger outside.

Arai crouched at the edge and got a good look at the enemy. Her HUD helpfully isolated a single creature who flicked a long tongue out toward her as if it could taste her. A still image of the creature’s tongue flashed and zoomed. The underside was barbed. Fun.

The tongue slid back inside, and the creature snarled. A single jaw hinged below. Two split open on top. All three plates were lined with the same backward-facing barbs as the tongue.

Arai knew her armor could handle bullets, electricity, and acid. It could deflect a knife, even a plasma-edged one. She was about to find out if piercing needles could kill her.

Hold position, Paracitica Jin said over the coms. We defend the base first.

Saliva looks caustic, Izumi said. A short video clip she sent across the squad showed drool dripping onto a local plant and burning it to ash.

Great. Needles, armor, dangerous spit. What was so important to research here if the locals were so hostile?

Around the Hornet circle, a monster growled, and the sound was picked up by the others, low and menacing. Arai’s isolated beast stepped forward. She saw short claws, thick forward plating on the legs, and a head crest that protected the neck. Six legs made the stocky beast heavy, like a tank. Only the four glowing eyes—forward facing, predator eyes—seemed vulnerable, and they were very small, tucked under ridgy bone plates, a tricky shot at best.

A tongue shot toward Arai. Not a taste this time, but an attack. It flew six meters, nine, an impossible distance. The tip lifted, exposing rows and rows of black needle barbs. Arai shot it. The Armash spat a four-bullet burst of acid.

There wasn’t much mass in the acid bullet. It was mostly a vessel for the viscous liquid inside. So when they hit the tongue, they burst, spilling acid but doing little impact damage.

The creature slurped its tongue back inside.

Arai expected it to cry out or hiss at her, something as the acid ate away at the delicates inside the mouth. Instead, it flicked its tongue like a lizard and grumbled deep in its chest. Green acid drool dripped from its lower jaw and burned the ground below. Of course. The thing’s spit was already caustic.

“Acid bullets are useless,” Arai reported. She flicked her thumb on her Armash and selected solid mass rounds instead. Lead. Dangerous to carry around in space, but oh-so-useful planet-side.

To her right, Seo did the same.

The circle of beasts tightened by centimeters. Their tongues flicked at the air.

If they weren’t about to kill us, they’d be cute, Kaya said.

Omori grunted, disbelief.

I think I’ll call them sundogs, Kaya continued. You know, because—

The beast facing Arai lunged forward without warning, a simultaneous attack by the entire pack. Every creature moved in sync; the universe’s most toothy orchestra. How had they all known?

Arai fired her Armash. Bullets pinged off thick armor plating at first, then something cracked and bluish blood exploded out of the creature’s face and shoulder. It went down hard, head crashing to the soft ground, digging a furrow as it slid to a stop only a yard from the berm Arai crouched behind. She could see the scorched impact marks of her first few bullets where they’d pinged off the creature’s—the sundog’s—thick ridge plating across its forehead.

She’d shot the eye, like she expected, and a bullet must have bounced around on the inside. Viscous blue goo oozed out of the crack in the cheek and the double eye socket.

Arai snapped her Armash up to the next sundog, firing into its open mouth: vulnerable and unarmored. It choked on bullets and blue blood, crashing to the ground like the first.

Beside her, Seo fired conservatively, punching bullets into mouths, eyes, and fleshy throats. Arai shot anything with an open mouth, determined to avoid the wicked-looking barbs even if she did wear new-and-improved combat armor.

The sundogs went down, but not easily. Their dead created a mound that dripped acid and blood, blocking Arai’s line of sight, giving the sundogs higher ground to launch from.

Seo shifted back and Arai with him, shoulder to shoulder. The Hornets closed ranks in a tight circle.

And just when Arai thought they might be in trouble, an incredible sound shrieked from the external speakers mounted on the research building. The sundogs flinched. Arai crashed to her knees, grabbing her helmet as if she could block her ears. Her HUD flickered and died, leaving her blind. The sound bounced in her head like the bullets in the sundogs, tearing her apart from the inside. She screamed.

Seo’s hand on her back felt distant. She heard nothing but her own voice echoing inside the armor and the massive, saturating noise. A songbird in a thunderstorm. Her entire body shook with sound. She couldn’t breathe.

Mercifully, she passed out.

—//—

Arai came to suddenly and with a raging headache that made her groan and regret life. She pressed the heel of her hand to the front of her forehead and cursed softly. Bright lights behind her eyelids made her entire face ache. She felt like she’d been run over by a truck. She didn’t even remember what hit her.

The Hornets had crash landed in their pod. They’d been fighting the native creatures on some swamp moon… and then… nothing.

“You’re safe.” Seo’s hand squeezed her shoulder. Her almost bare shoulder. No armor, just the skin-suit underneath. “How do you feel?”

“Like I mixed my wine and my whiskey,” she grumbled. “Can you turn off the light?”

His hand slipped away and a moment later the ice-pick light went out. The throbbing in her head remained. She sighed and dropped her hand, risking a squint into the dim room.

Seo stood over her in full armor minus the helmet, his black hair sweat-dried in spikes like he’d been running his hand through it. His eyes were drawn with stress, and he looked tired.

She wasn’t in a hospital room exactly, more like an experimental space. An array of shelves and tools were scattered around, as if a spot had been cleared in a hurry. She lay on an extra large gurney, and an array of overhead lights reminded her of a nightmare about the dentist she had once. Arai sat up, grabbing at Seo’s hand for stability.

Her corner of the lab had been sectioned off with stacks of standard one meter by two meter shipping crates. The door behind Seo, presumably to the rest of the outpost, was closed and the key panel glowed green.

Seo watched her warily, the concerned lines in his face deeper thanks to the shadows in the room only spotlit by machines with blinking LEDs. He perched awkwardly on a spinning stool. Arai touched a shallow scratch on one of his armor arm panels, knowing it would be gone in another day as the nanotech repaired the damage.

“We were fighting the… sundogs,” she said. “Acid spit, needle teeth, long tongues, tanky, little eyes.” She rattled off details as flashes of memory came back to her. Arai narrowed her eyes, but only saw the past. “Screaming?”

Seo shifted, like the reminder disturbed him. “That part was you.”

She blinked, focusing on her twin. “What the hell happened?”

“Someone here on the base activated what they called a repressor. None of us heard it, but the sundogs backed off and ran into the jungle. They clearly didn’t like it. But you… went down hard. You were screaming, yelled something about your brain being ripped apart before the network crashed.” Seo laced and unlaced his fingers. “And then you passed out and I swear to god you were dead. You had no heartbeat we could detect, but the HUDs were all down.”

His voice shook, and Arai grabbed his hands with one of hers.

“I died?”

“I don’t know the technicals, I’m not a doctor. Your suit defibbed you. Mura carried you in single-handedly. Paracitica Jin stood over the doctors while they insisted your scans all came back normal and nothing was wrong. Eventually your heartbeat strengthened, and they decided to let you wake up on your own… just in case.” Seo glanced at his wrist where a mini HUD blinked on over the armor, casting the fear in his face in green. “That was twelve hours ago. I—“ His throat closed and his hand on hers tightened.

He didn’t need to say anymore. Arai knew her twin better than anyone else. She knew exactly how afraid he was. How terrified. How the fear took over and started conjuring possibilities out of nothing, each one more horrifying than the last. How it was impossible to stop that fear from spiraling when every second ticked by without signs of improvement.

She knew, because it happened to her when Seo had surgery out of college and didn’t wake up for two years. A small surgery. No risk, they said.

Two of the loneliest, most terrifying years of her life. If Seo hadn’t made it, Arai wouldn’t have either.

She took a deep breath to cast the memory off and squeezed Seo’s hand. “I’m here. It’s alright.”

He nodded, eyes wide and locked to hers like she might disappear at any moment.

Arai shifted off the gurney, stood with Seo’s help, and tested her range of motion and balance. Hands up, bend over to touch her toes, stand on one foot. Except for the headache, she felt normal. Arai clapped Seo’s armored shoulder. “I need a painkiller and I should probably debrief with the Paracitica. Come with me?”

He probably wasn’t willing to leave her alone, and if she were honest, Arai wasn’t ready to be alone. The mind was a scary place on its own. She didn’t understand why she was affected by this repressor, while the rest of the squad wasn’t. And if the research team had a tool to send the sundogs running, why had someone called the Hornets in at all?

Seo lead her to the door. They’d find some answers together.

—//—

They found Paracitica Jin, Mura, and Tomatsu mid-argument with a man in one of the main hallways. The outpost was thick with researchers, most in white lab coats over their clothes, but this guy wore a grey suit and was using the arm of his glasses to point at Paracitica Jin’s chest, looking down his nose and sneering.

The Hornets wore their power armor with the helmets retracted like Seo, therefore filling the considerable hallway and causing a backup of whispering observers in lab coats on either side.

“Noel Dawson,” Seo said under his breath. “Claims he runs the outpost and that the Hornets are trespassing without jurisdiction. Paracitica Jin has been tolerating him, but now that you’re on your feet…” Seo shrugged, as if to say the kid gloves were coming off shortly.

Paracitica Jin caught Arai’s eye, and he lifted a hand in silent greeting, which also had the pleasant effect of silencing Noel’s tone-deaf diatribe.

Arai and Seo approached from the arrogant suit’s side, so they had a great view when Mura suddenly snatched Noel’s minuscule collar in her armored fist and snapped him against the wall. Off-white wall composite cratered under his body, Mura’s fist knocking the wind out of him.

Arai blinked. Without her armor, and the connection it gave to the rest of her team, she hadn’t seen any signal from Paracitica Jin. To Noel, the assault must have come from nowhere.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Mura said into the silence without a hint of remorse. “I’m still getting used to the power armor.”

Mura could have crushed Noel without power armor assistance, but sure, let him think he had a chance.

“Guh,” said Noel. His glasses clattered to the floor, and he gaped like a fish. The audience of researchers cringed, and some opted to leave.

Paracitica Jin gestured Arai closer. “You’re up. Good. What can you tell me?”

“Not much, Paracitica. Seo filled me in after I passed out, but I don’t know what hit me or why. I’ve got a headache the size of an H-bomb behind my eyes.” Arai rubbed her arms as prickling goose-bumps spread down from the back of her neck. She turned with a suspicious eye back to the way she and Seo had come, but nothing in the hall looked like a threat. Just a cluster of white-coats.

She shook her head and focused on the Paracitica. “I’d like to get back into my armor and start finding answers.”

“Good.” He squeezed her shoulder, modulating the pressure in his armored hand. “I kept your gear close. Didn’t want anyone getting into it.”

His hand was warm on her shoulder. Warmer than it should have been given the forced air conditioning keeping the miserably hot swamp and the damp outside. Suddenly, the warmth spread up Arai’s shoulder and darted across her back. She looked down in alarm, only to see threaded roots of gun-metal blue surging down her fitted skin-suit and across her chest. In a breath, maybe two, her power armor grew like a tree around her, streaming out of Paracitica Jin’s own suit where he had stored it as component material.

Paracitica Jin seemed to shrink by centimeters, or his armor did, until the last string of nano transferred back to Arai and her helmet snapped into place over her head. The HUD blinked on, reconnecting to the Hornets and running an automatic diagnostic. Minor head trauma, no other significant injuries. Arai called her Armash, and it thrust itself out of her hand into place. Bullets-iron, acid, and electricity at the ready. She reabsorbed the weapon just as easily.

Arai retracted the helmet and nodded at Paracitica Jin. She hadn’t quite been concerned about her armor, but having it safely stored inside another Hornet’s gear gave her a rush of relief. She trusted her team. The rest of the nerds in this building, not-so-much.

She stood at attention, feeling more confident in the armor. “Orders, Sir?”

“I’m going to interview Mister Dawson, here.” Jin said, indicating with a thumb. “The rest of the squad has verified our perimeter and shut down all exits. No one is going in or out.” He indicated Arai and Seo. “I want you two to figure out who called us and why. I’ve requested a personnel list, I’ll push it to you when I have it. The team has been allocating in the meantime”—he said over his shoulder—“Tomatsu can you request data from the others, clean it up, and re-broadcast?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“That should get you started on some names and faces around here.”

Arai gave the Paracitica an acknowledging nod and with a final glance at Noel, who waited patiently in Mura’s grip, she took Seo down the hall.

Arai called her helmet back up so she could speak to Seo on the direct band. Better the lab coats around them didn’t overhear. Tomatsu’s list of people, faces paired with shots of their nametags scrolled up on her right and she dismissed the data for now.

“Feeling better?” Seo asked. He knew her so well. So did the Paracitica. Even with the scare of a mysterious psychic attack, Arai needed to move, to take action. Figuring out why the Hornets were really here was the perfect distraction.

Arai hummed affirmative. “The suit shot me up with the good stuff. The headache is almost gone.”

“Nice.”

Arai called up an interior map of the research facility and shared it with Seo. “Tomatsu’s database is up to three hundred people, and that’s probably not everyone.”

“Housing is on the top floor,” Seo said as he marked the third floor on the map. “Standard barracks, kitchen, workout room, medical facility. Fewer comforts than I expected. They might ship people in and out on rotation.”

“I didn’t wake up in a hospital.”

“We couldn’t secure it. You were there initially but Paracitica Jin didn’t want anyone to have casual access.”

Arai spun the map. “Second floor is offices, ground floor is labs?”

“That’s what we’ve determined. Though not even Izumi has been able to say what they’re researching. I don’t think anyone is letting her near a computer.”

Arai grunted. “If she hasn’t been able to talk her way into a console, I doubt we can either.”

“Agreed.”

“Lets see if we can find some unlocked doors while our friend Noel is busy with the Paracitica.” They split the floor between them, entering any door that opened for them and knocking on the ones that didn’t. Most had some level of security lock, a key card, but the weakest point in any security system was people, and every time Arai pounded her fist on a door she couldn’t open, someone answered.

And no one tried to stop her from entering when she simply walked in as if she belonged. No one was prepared to stop a fully armored Hornet when she decided to go somewhere.

But there wasn’t anything obviously strange in any of the labs. Some equipment she couldn’t identify on sight, but all of it clearly in service of small samples. She saw petri dishes growing questionable substances, slides under microscopes, and piles of paperwork. Nothing that seemed to blast sundogs into the jungle with a brainwave only Arai could hear. Nothing that would warrant calling the Hornets.

She risked asking one friendly tech what they were working on and the Ph.D.-level academic language that came back made Arai’s head spin all over again. She wasn’t fit for the details of research, that was Izumi’s corner.

Arai hadn’t been with the Hornets long, two years now. She didn’t play politics well and tended to question orders. The GSA didn’t like to tell the right hand what the left had was doing, and that never sat well with her. Question the commander enough times and she was shunted to the troublesome kid corner. Start too many fights and she was on the fast track to an Other Than Honorable.

That was where Paracitica Jin had found her: about to be let go because she couldn’t take her orders on blind faith and with no one but Seo in her corner.

She was ready to cut free of GSA entirely. She probably would have resorted to piracy.

Seo jumped from his cushy Apocrita position in the GSA back down to a grunt under Paracitica Jin knowing Arai wouldn’t let him throw away an entire career. The Hornets were not exactly well-regarded by the rest of the GSA. Most liked to deny the Hornets were even part of the larger organization.

But Seo had been right. The Hornets took them both in, played to their strengths, and most importantly, kept the bullshit politics at arm’s length. Arai flourished under Paracitica Jin. She almost trusted him enough to run with an order without knowing the reasoning behind it.

Almost.

But never once in her two years with the Hornets had they ever been called in for a rescue and then denied at the door. Whoever Noel thought he was running this research base, he hadn’t called.

Which meant whoever did call had done so in secret.

And secrets meant politics.

Especially secrets on the edge of an empty star system with only a few hundred people on base.

Petty, small, aggravating politics.

“Excuse me?”

Arai started, then realized she’d stalled out in a doorway, one hand on the jam and the other crushing the handle of the door. The voice belonged to a petite woman who barely reached Arai’s shoulder, looking up with wide and somewhat fearful eyes. Her short black hair tickled her chin and the tight set of her jaw said she was determined despite the hulking armor before her.

It was a good thing she couldn’t see the deep scowl on Arai’s face.

Arai shifted out of the way and held the door open. “Sorry.”

The woman glanced inside, then shook her head, looking up at Arai instead and doing an admiral job of eyeing the blank and deliberately unnerving faceplate.

Arai saw her face scroll up in Tomatsu’s database, the name Zhen Yu, Ph.D., Ph.D. beside the photo.

“Can I help you Doctor… er… I have your name as Zhen Yu. It’s Doctor Zhen?”

She blinked. Then nodded once. The uncertainty eased out of her expression. “You want to come with me.” Doctor Zhen turned and walked down the hall leaving Arai to stare after her. Her straight, black hair bobbed with every rapid step.

A second later Arai jerked into motion. “Wait, why am I coming with you?” Despite the doctor being nearly half Arai’s size, Arai still had to work at catching up.

“Because I called you,” Doctor Zhen said. “And you don’t seem to understand the problem.”

“Ok, that’s… that’s accurate,” Arai conceded. “We thought the problem was the sundogs attacking the base, but you seem to have that under control. By the way, what is that repulser thing? It hurt a lot.”

“Repressor,” Doctor Zhen corrected. “It’s meant to interfere with the creature’s psychic communications. You must be sensitive to the wavelength which is interesting but unfortunately not on topic. In here, please.” Doctor Zhen keyed a door open—all the doors in this place looked identical, how did anyone keep track?—and held it open.

Arai squeezed through.

The office did not look identical to the others Arai had seen. This one was littered with children’s drawings pinned to the walls and had an entire bookshelf dedicated to organized binders and books. Four holoscreens were stacked on the desktop, casting a gentle blue light on the back wall on which a massive bar graph dominated.

Doctor Zhen keyed the light and closed the door behind her. She crossed her arms. “I didn’t call you to handle the beasts outside. I called you to get me off this rock and back to civilization.”

Arai blinked. “I’m sorry? You… called us for a taxi ride?”

Doctor Zhen’s eyes narrowed at Arai’s diminished phrasing. “There is some shit going on here. Shit I didn’t sign up for when I took this assignment. And I didn’t cycle out when I could have because I couldn’t believe—“ she interrupted herself with a wave of her hand and a forced sigh. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I want out.”

“It does matter.” Arai shook her head. “We figured out pretty quick that Neil didn’t call us and that someone must have done so around the chain of command. Tell me what’s going on at this base.”

“Will the Hornets take me offworld?”

“Not without evidence.”

Doctor Zhen stared at Arai for a long beat. Perhaps she felt more confident in the seclusion of her own office. Arai was thankful for the blank face of her helmet as she composed a short message for Seo and gave him access to her video feed. She wanted backup. A green dot appeared beside his name on the left, indicating he had her view live on his own HUD.

“Fine,” Doctor Zhen said. “Can you track me without looking like you’re following?”

Oh, brought me in for the good stuff. Seo said over the com.

Arai indicated Doctor Zhen’s lab coat. “I can leave a marker on your cuff and come find you in twenty minutes.”

“Good.” Doctor Zhen held her hand out in a loose fist. Arai pinched the cuff of her coat like she was feeling the fabric and embedded a single nano fragment between the fibers.

Doctor Zhen peered at the spot closely, as if she could see the down the sub-atomic level with only her eyes, and finally decided the tracker wasn’t obvious. “Twenty minutes,” she said. And she turned the lights off as she let herself out, leaving Arai with the blue glow of the holo-screens and a wall full of children’s drawings. They had been printed.

Weird, Seo said. Want me to follow?

“Give her a minute. We canvased most of this floor. I’m curious where she thinks we haven’t been.”

On their shared interior map, Arai zoomed in on the dot indicating one Doctor Zhen, Ph.D., Ph.D. and they watched her march down the hall, take the long way around a conference room block, and eventually pause at a section of empty hallway.

Then her dot walked through the wall and started descending into a basement that didn’t exist on the map.

Seo gasped with delight. Secret basement level in the research building!

Arai marked the map. It was time to get Paracitica Jin involved.

—//—

In the allotted twenty minutes, Paracitica Jin gave Arai a small team consisting of Izumi, tech expert and Mura, personal relations. He also gave her a key card he promised would open any door in the building. She suspected it was Noel’s. Since she and Seo had discovered the secret entrance, she and Seo were in charge of exploring it, though the rash of green dots on Arai’s team list indicated every single Hornet watched her feed closely. All nine of them.

No pressure.

Arai led the team down the mostly empty hallway where her map indicated Doctor Zhen disappeared. The door wasn’t obvious. It sat flush with the wall and lined up with a natural join in the construction. But Arai was looking for it.

She scanned the wall with high-hertz sonar and located the card sensor mounted just behind the wallboard. She pressed Noel’s key card there, and the wall smoothly swung inward to reveal a lit stairwell.

Mura put her hand on Arai’s shoulder and Arai allowed her to pass first. They didn’t expect resistance from the researchers, but it paid to be cautious.

The stairwell was wide enough to fit Mura twice across. Two signs on the wall at the threshold warned about entering a controlled section and the penalty for doing so without authorization. A poster just after listed the legal rights of employees.

They descended.

The stairs landed at a door labeled B1 and turned to continue downward. Arai zoomed her cameras down the stairwell and spotted a door labeled B2. And more stairs.

How deep does this place go? Seo muttered.

Multiple secret basement levels did not bode well.

Arai’s nano tracker on Doctor Zhen’s sleeve located her forward on B1, several meters and to the left. Arai used the key card and Mura entered first, scanning for anything out of the ordinary.

What were they hiding on the basement levels?

The halls here looked just like the ones upstairs, plain off-white composite fitted together, unpainted. There were far fewer researchers, only one passed them with a curious look as he ascended the stairs.

Mura led them toward Doctor Zhen’s marker on the map. The door opened under Noel’s key.

This office looked nothing like Doctor Zhen’s upstairs. It stretched long, the opposite wall a clear polyglass that overlooked some deeper room. Glowing holo screens dotted the shelf desk below the window, and shelving stuffed full of binders dominated the remaining perimeter. No printed children’s drawings. No personal effects.

Doctor Zhen stood alone, her arms crossed as she observed the overlooked room. When the Hornets entered, she looked up, flicking attention from one blank faceplate to the next. “Which one of you did I speak with?”

Arai put her hand on Mura’s arm and spoke only through the coms. “I’ll take care of this. Izumi, see what you can learn from the computers here. Seo and Mura, map the rest of this floor. We’ll move down as a unit.”

The team broke and Arai stepped toward Doctor Zhen, broadcasting her mic externally. “You met with me.”

The doctor nodded, then indicated the observation window with one hand. “This is the work we’re doing here.”

Arai hesitated, imagining sundogs with extra jaws and tusks and radioactive spit. Reality was a bit of a letdown. There were beasts isolated in massive cages, but they seemed smaller than the sundogs. Diminished. Their tongues didn’t lash for meters, they didn’t seem to have acid spit, and they were far more vocal than the psychic creatures outside.

Arai watched two animals pace their cages, six legs, no tail to speak of, bulky but not over-armored like the sundogs. She shook her head, confused. “You’re modifying the natives into this?”

“No,” said the Doctor, “These are the natives.”

Izumi hissed over the com as she found something in the computers. These creatures are endemic. The research is outside.

Arai blinked. “The sundogs are the research.”

Doctor Zhen nodded.

“And the research is loose.”

The doctor nodded again.

And it didn’t take long for Arai to put the final puzzle piece in place. “And someone let them out on purpose.”

Doctor Zhen called up a screen on the computer in front of her. “The first set was released two months ago, local, the second set a month later. Two weeks ago was the first attack, and they came every nine hours or so until we developed the repressor. Now the attacks are every two days.”

Arai broadcast a question to the Hornets on coms. “Does anyone have a good count of how many sundogs we fought outside?”

At least two dozen, Paracitica Jin replied. Tomatsu?

Reviewing, they said.

“Paracitica, what’s the elapsed time since the repressor knocked me out?”

Fifteen hours. If they’re consistent, we can expect the next wave in thirty two and change. A countdown appeared at the top of her HUD, pushed from the Paracitica to the entire team.

“Izumi, is she telling the truth?”

So far.

Tomatsu grunted. I have at least fifty three sundogs on camera, likely more in the jungle we didn’t have good sight on.

“Fifty three?” Arai scanned the lab below and shook her head. “There are only four cages down here. Eight creatures max if they’re doubled up.” She scanned through Seo and Mura’s additions on the map and found no additional labs with overlooks like this one. Not yet. There were more levels to this mystery building.

“Doctor, how many sundogs were released?”

“Three in the first wave. Seven in the second.”

“Ten total. We fought over fifty outside. They’ve only been released for two months?”

Doctor Zhen finally turned to Arai, her hands open. “And now you understand the problem.”

So they’re breeding? Paracitica Jin asked.

I don’t think so, sir. Izumi pushed a screen to them all. The video showed a mostly native creature laying on its side in the jungle, sides heaving as it gasped for breath. Its body jerked as legs thickened and needles sprouted from its tongue. Its eyes rolled in its head, yellow one second, then eerie blue the next. I think they’re converting the natives. Possibly through bites. Like cancers on wolverines.

Werewolf sundogs, Seo chirped. Lovely.

Oh, added Izumi. This is useful.

The growing map flashed and updated, suddenly complete down to B4, every room detailed with a number and assignment. There were many, many labs, but only this room held live animals.

Arai called Mura and Seo back.

“Paracitica?”

The coms were silent for several minutes. My most urgent question is if the release is part of some mission plan we’re not aware of or if these people have gone off the rails. I need to reach out to GSA and that will take time. Mura, please stay with Izumi while she continues her work. Seo and Arai, back to ground floor. I want you both in the rest rotation while I figure out next steps. We’ve got thirty hours.

A chorus of yes, sirs echoed over the com and one by one, the green lights observing Arai’s feed winked out. All except Seo’s.

She turned to leave when Doctor Zhen grabbed her arm. “I’ve told you what I know. Take me offworld.”

Arai hesitated too long and Doctor Zhen’s face twisted, grief held back by pride and no small amount of anger. “I’m not above begging. I have a wife and daughter out there. I’m not going to be here when those things overrun this facility.”

Arai shook her head. “I don’t make the decision.”

Doctor Zhen let go for Arai’s arm. “Who does?”

“My Paracitica.”

“And which one of you is that? How am I supposed to tell you apart?”

Arai closed her eyes, pressing her lips together hard so she wouldn’t say anything stupid. She rejected four or five explanations before realizing that wasn’t what the doctor needed either. After a beat she said flatly, “You’re not meant to.”

She left the office before Doctor Zhen could think up some other way to get under Arai’s skin, found Seo waiting for her just outside the door, and together they headed for the stairs in crisp silence.

—//—

Arai jerked away from a dead sleep to an alarm blaring in her head. The dream where her brain split under the sound of the repressor bled into reality where the alarm abruptly muted. She shook. Had she lost her hearing the first time? She couldn’t remember.

It took Arai several seconds to breathe through her panic and realize she wasn’t dying again. The alarm wasn’t the repressor, it was internal to the research facility and her armor had turned down the volume in response to her terror.

Someone grabbed her shoulder and shoved her onto her feet. Arai scanned her HUD to catch up. All Hornets awake, seven hours left on the countdown to another sundog attack. Paracitica Jin hadn’t heard back from GSA last Arai checked, but the leader of the facility, Noel, had been put under house arrest while the Hornets figured things out.

So why was an alarm sounding?

A rally marker popped up. Arai’s training made her move before her brain caught up. Out of the mess hall where the Hornets had set up, down the stairs, around the conference block. She ran after Izumi, with Seo hot on her heels, the three of them last to arrive thanks to being on rest during the cycle.

Researchers streamed away from them, a river flowing against their salmon run. Some of them mid-project, carrying paperwork or samples or pushing entire carts worth of work. All of them vacating the ground floor.

Video started streaming from Paracitica Jin. He stood at the front entrance, looking out across the cleared yards of jungle where sundogs had lined up. Dozens of them. A hundred. All blue eyes and acid drool and tank-like forward legs and shoulders.

They waited.

“I thought we had more time before the next attack?” Arai said.

Don’t ask me, Seo said, And I’m no expert, but they don’t look like they’re attacking.

Seo was right. In the minute or so it took the three of them to run through the halls, the sundogs hadn’t moved. Their line seemed bolstered from behind and a few of the forward dogs were crouched low, but no one moved forward.

Izumi came to a stop at the rally point, the front door with its small atrium, and thumped the Hornet in back to tell them she was there. Arai and Seo each put a fist on Izumi’s shoulders, alert and ready.

A standoff between a hundred sundogs with acid spit and ten Hornets with nano-tech. Place your bets.

The line of creatures shuffled, a few more of the forward line crouched low.

Mura muttered across the com, Are they building… a shield wall?

Arai didn’t see it until Mura sketched over the Paracitica’s video, pointing out how the thick armor along the shoulders and foreleg fit perfectly against the heavy plating of their faces. And with each nose lowered to the ground, the tall crest that usually protected the neck, stood up like a wall, each sundog closely fitted to the next.

Linked up like chain.

That probably wasn’t good.

A shield wall is a defensive formation. To hold ground, Tomatsu said.

Are we attributing advanced battle tactics to these things? Izumi asked.

Paracitica Jin hummed. I don’t want to underestimate them. Tomatsu, if you were going to attack a group with a superior weapon, why would you shield wall?

The Hornets all stood in silence for several breaths, watching the dogs watch them back.

Finally Tomatsu said, If I had a second group flanking, the shield wall would limit my enemy’s movements. I could squeeze them.

“Can they have that many dogs already?” Arai asked.

Werewolves, I swear, muttered Seo.

Omori and Takata, check the back doors and do a sweep of the lower basement levels.

Two yes, sirs in stereo, and two Hornets worked themselves out of the group.

What else, Tomatsu? Why shield like this in advance where we can see them. We know what they’re doing. What’s the advantage?

To draw the enemy out. If they’re overconfident, they attack a defensive position. If they’re not… There was a quiet breath as something occurred to them. If they’re not, we send a small force, a precise lance in order to grab someone. Kidnap someone and take them behind the shield wall so my enemy can’t follow.

We don’t know this jungle at all, Mura said, the gravity of her voice indicating her unease. Without the armor’s network, I’d have to box-sweep to find this place again.

And the repressor knocks the armor network offline, Izumi said.

But that’s temporary, said Kaya.

Long enough to get an individual away from the group? The network is near field only, the Paracitica said.

Why would they want to kidnap someone? Tomatsu asked.

Because, Izumi said, as if it were obvious, one of us is sensitive to their psychic wavelength.

She turned under Arai’s fist to look back and in a slow wave the rest of the Hornets turned as well. Blank face-plates all staring at Arai. She took an involuntary step back, feeling a bit like an interesting fish in an aquarium.

There was a brief, terrifying moment where Arai felt like she was falling. She saw the Hornets move away from her as if she were diseased, she knew they would abandon her—

Squad form up around Arai, the Paracitica said, his voice hard. They’ll take her over our dead bodies.

The Hornets shifted as a unit, enclosing Arai in a ring of armor and weaponry. Every hand held an Armash at ready, the guns manifesting from the armor itself.

Relief swept Arai’s fear away, followed quickly by pride in her squad. She summoned her own Armash, confident with the weight of it in her hand. Someone thumped her shoulder. Someone else. Another. She had all the backup she could ever need.

Just in time.

A voice crackled over the coms with heavy interference crackling.

Para—if you can hear me we have sundogs——peat, sundogs loose on B3, damn this—radio never works—Paracit—Hornets, do you copy?

Pinch attack, Tomatso said with resignation. They didn’t sound pleased to be right.

We copy, Takata. You’re intermittent. Fall back to the stairwell, we’ll meet you there. Paracitica Jin jerked his hand down the hallway and the squad turned.

Arai watched on the video feed as the Paracitica closed the front doors and barred them. Closed doors hadn’t stopped the sundogs from attacking before, but the metal composite would slow them down at least.

Tao, Izumi, stay here to keep eyes on the door. I want to know about any movement. Two Hornets stepped out of formation and Paracitica Jin stepped in to take their place behind Arai. If they move and coms are down, activate the repressor. Jin dropped a flag on their maps, indicating a room on the ground floor. Arai hoped it didn’t come to that. Once was enough.

She’d rather go down shooting.

The squad moved forward, Armash up, Arai in the center of a deadly tootsie pop. The Hornets were going to war.

This she understood. The team shoulder-to-shoulder, a clear enemy.

They met Takata and Omori in the stairwell between B2 and B3 where the two soldiers took turns firing through the doorway propped open by two sundog bodies. The network strengthened with so many members in proximity and Omori gave them the short version: a cave or tunnel system dug through solid rock terminated at the live-specimen lab on B1. The native dogs were missing, their cages destroyed, but no evidence they escaped into the base itself.

We suspect the sundogs liberated the natives and converted them. Omori said. He nodded at Seo as they swapped places. Tomatsu relieved Takata. We found a second breach in B3, but their behavior is strange—

They’re looking for something, Takata interrupted. We’re not in the way here in the stairwell, so we’re not a threat, but they’re canvasing the floor. They find us at the doorway and back off.

Paracitica Jin hummed. Not a pinch, then. The front door was a distraction from this search.

Searching for what? Mura asked, then added thoughtfully, We’re sure the sundogs are the only live experiment, right?

Seo snorted. I will not deal with werewolves and godzilla at the same time. Pick a theme.

Arai turned her attention to the interior map that Izumi had flushed out with such detail from the computer. Most of the rooms on B3 were labeled as labs. B4 had a sprinkling of offices, two large lab rooms, and a storage corner. She wished she had an inventory to scan through.

“Do we have time to ask Doctor Zhen?” she asked.

Uh… sir? Seo threw his stream to the squad. They’re forming up.

The hallways down here could hold three sundogs abreast and Seo’s video showed them lining up at the end of the hall at the edge of firing range, heads down, shoulder-to-shoulder. A shield wall just like those on the surface. Seo and Tomatsu stopped firing, conserving the bullets for imminent threat.

Then they started humming.

Arai flinched at the sound, startled by it, and Omori reached out to grab her shoulder.

What happened, he asked.

“The sound surprised me. Seo do you have any idea what they’re doing?”

Not a clue.

What sound, the Paracitica asked. Is it like the repressor?

“No, that was aggressive. You don’t hear this? It’s like humming.” Arai moved down the stairs and put her hand on Seo’s shoulder as she came up behind him. The humming grew stronger. Arai felt it down in her chest. Flashes of memory flickered across her thoughts, or perhaps they were impressions. “It’s almost… language.”

I don’t hear anything, said Mura.

Arai hummed, trying to match the tone, and realized immediately it wasn’t a sound at all, but more like a vibration directly in her mind.

Are they trying to communicate? Omori asked.

Not the strangest thing we’ve ever seen, Mura conceded.

Arai turned to the Paracitica. “Should I try to make contact?”

Could be a trick, Seo said.

Tomatsu grunted their agreement. What if Arai’s what they’re looking for?

They didn’t hum at the front door? asked Takata.

“No,” said Arai. “But maybe they can’t tell us apart.”

They’re psychic, they can probably sense you’re different from us, Omori said.

Paracitica Jin put his hand on Arai’s shoulder. I’d rather not destroy them. They show signs of advanced intelligence and they’re clearly not mindlessly destructive.

Do you think they’re self-aware? Omori asked.

Better to assume so, the Paracitica said.

Arai willed her Armash back into her suit. “I’ll give it a go.”

The Hornets parted for her to step through the doorway. Seo grabbed her wrist as she passed. Don’t get bit.

She squeezed his hand and stepped clear, making no sudden movements. There were sundogs down the hall on both sides, three abreast, their shield wall solid. The humming intensified, along with the flashes of almost-thoughts. Emotions. Color and shapes, but with a strange filter on top. Like sonar. Or echolocation.

Arai kept her hands empty and loose at her sides. How exactly did one attempt to make contact with a creature that hadn’t existed a mere two months ago? Could they be complex enough for language as Arai understood it? Were they giving the sundogs too much credit?

One of the dogs stood up from the shield wall. Its blue eyes glowed with some internal light. Arai saw Seo stiffen at the edge of her vision, his Armash inched higher, and she held her hand out carefully. “Hold,” she said. “Don’t make the first move.”

The impressions in Arai’s head shifted in tone. She felt curiosity and familiarity. A concept like unity/belonging superimposed over the wrongness of only two legs. They knew she was like them, but not one of them.

Arai tried to hold greetings and peace in her mind, but hadn’t the first idea how to broadcast. Being psychic wasn’t as intuitive as the movies made it look.

Her own greeting echoed back to her, though, so maybe it was working?

The dog sent danger/threat and a peculiar scent Arai knew to be the super-heated bullets as they fired from her Armash. The emotion overlayed on a sharp, precise picture of a Hornet in combat armor.

Of course, the Hornets had killed a lot of them.

“I’m going to retract my helmet,” she said.

No you’re not, said Seo.

“They associate the armor with a threat. With our bullets. We’ve killed them. I’m just doing the helmet.” And before Seo, or anyone else, could protest, she called the helmet back slowly, not the snap of movement she usually used, until it absorbed into the suit’s body.

The sundog lifted its head. Its long tongue flicked out like a lizard, once, twice.

The Hornet power armor image faded a bit, overlayed with a sense of delicacy. The concept of protection.

Yes, that was it exactly, a soft squishy inside. Like the sundog’s mouth and tongue, protected by armor. And teeth.

The sundog bared its teeth. Arai stomped the urge to call her Armash and instead pictured the sundog’s double eye, soft and squishy, then the plated bone ridge and the large crest. Protection.

The sundog covered its teeth and echoed protection back to Arai.

Protection.

This was important.

Arai held protection and overlayed with an image of the sundog before her. With the idea of pack. Family. Were these things even a pack? Or did they see themselves as a single entity with many bodies?

Pack came back weak and unformed.

What had the sundog said earlier? About her being one of them?

She sent unity and the sundog image again, multiplying. Pack.

Unity echoed strongly. Then pack came after it. Protection.

Protection.

Paracitica Jin’s voice broadcast startled her, even though the volume stayed low. “Your face says you’re working on something. What’s going on.”

“I’ve established communication… somehow. It’s not words, it’s more feeling and emotion. Some images. Concepts,” Arai said. “They understand that we’re a vulnerable creature inside armor, like they are. We’ve also established they’re a pack and they’re protecting each other. The protection is important somehow.”

“Can you ask what they want?”

“Working on it.”

The protection echo faded as Arai spoke. She brought the idea up again and opposed it with an image of a researcher in a white lab coat.

The lab coat image came back overlayed with fear and weakness.

Then protection rose opposed to the Hornets. The sundog growled, low, the sound undercutting the humm Arai still heard in her head.

She sent unity/pack, changing the Hornet armor image to one of herself with the helmet retracted.

Unity echoed. Pack was rejected. The nuance surprised her.

Unity, then.

She sent protection opposed to the repressor, that awful, aggressive sound that had knocked her out and sent the sundogs running.

Protection echoed hard, and the sundog snarled. Acid spit dripped to the floor below and hissed.

“Arai?”

“It’s ok, we’re ok. We’re talking about things the dogs need protection from. They’re not happy about the repressor. Frankly neither am I.”

Arai reflected protection and this time she left the opposed space blank, filling instead with curiosity/question/other.

Nothing came back for a while. The concept faded in the space without an echo or shift.

Then the sundog sent protection opposed to an idea Arai couldn’t identify. A sound/vibration that wasn’t the repressor. It was deeper, like deep-penetrating sonar. The sundog overlayed it with the sameness walls of the research facility—the building was maze-like to them. Hard to navigate.

“I’ve got something…” Arai said, trying to put the concepts back into words. “There’s something being broadcast from here. It’s like the repressor but deeper. Slower. Longer. They think it’s here in the building but they can’t navigate the hallways. They don’t see like we do, it’s more like echolocation, so all the halls are identical.”

Arai sent the Hornets opposed to this new vibration concept. Then she sent the sundogs opposed to same vibration.

Sundogs and Hornets, unity.

She didn’t send pack.

The sundog Arai faced distinctly shifted its head to look at Seo and Tomatsu in the doorway, then back at Arai.

Hornets overlayed with weakness opposed to the repressor.

Arai shook her head and sent herself weak to the repressor. The Hornets were strong. The Hornets could fight the new vibration, too. The Hornets protected Arai. Pack.

Hornet protection echoed deeper in her chest, as if the sundogs had turned to talk to each other and she could overhear. Opposition arose. But so did unity. They were individuals, then, and the conversation was like a bowl of everyone’s thoughts and emotions. Individuals that acted in consort based on the most agreed path.

Perfect, direct democracy.

The echo came back to Arai, Hornets and sundogs. Unity. But unity was fragile, easy to break.

Trust, but only temporary.

“Ok, we can work with this.”

“You have the lead, Arai,” said Paracitica Jin.

“Seo put your gun away and come stand next to me. Slowly.” Arai put her hand out and gestured to him.

Seo didn’t move for a moment. Then the Paracitica said “Maybe. Do as she says.”

Seo must have said something snarky. Arai couldn’t hear the team’s chatter without her helmet. He retracted his gun and stood up a little too fast. The sundog shifted.

Arai sent gentle unity and Hornet/pack. “Come to me.” She held her hand out until Seo grabbed it and she pulled him to her. “Just stand here for a minute.”

“I’m not taking the helmet off,” he muttered over the mic.

“You don’t have to,” she said. “Squad, if I was going to broadcast a low frequency continuously, where would I send it from?”

“Lowest basement level,” Tomatsu said immediately. “Dense material transmits low frequencies the farthest and the jungle on the surface is too wet.”

“Ok, we’re going to B4 and we’re finding whatever is transmitting. Hornets and sundogs have a temporary alliance against the transmitter on the assumption that it can also hurt me.” She squeezed Seo’s hand. “The Hornets are my pack and the pack protects its members.”

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Paracitica Jin said. “Tomatsu, Omori, Takata, go down ahead and open every door you can find. Report if you stumble over anything suspicious, otherwise do not engage with anything. Copy?”

Arai didn’t hear the responses but motion started on the edge of her vision and she didn’t want the sundogs surprised. She sent Hornets, pack, hunting. Hornets opposed to the vibration.

The sundog stepped forward, echoing hunt. Echoing opposition. Unity.

“I think the dog wants to follow.”

“Everyone back up. Up the stairs.”

Arai and Seo stepped away from the door, clearing the path.

The sundog lunged forward, singing hunt/seek, and the entire shieldwall broke to follow.

Seo jerked but Arai squeezed his hand in hers. “Steady. They’re hunting. Tell the others to treat them as backup who can’t see well. We are not enemies.”

A dozen dogs ran past, their six legs pounding, short claws punching dents in the floor. They crashed against each other turning into the hall and slammed against the guardrail on the way down, teeth snapping at each other like hounds loose in the woods.

Arai snapped her helmet back up and felt herself shake as the immediate threat ran right past her. It worked. She had talked to an alien creature, and they’d come to an understanding.

She was going to pass out.

Easy, I got you, Seo said, gripping her around the waist. Need to sit down?

The sundogs sang hunt/unity/protection.

Arai shook her head. “Lets go down stairs. I’m the only one who can talk to these things.”

They headed downstairs with the Paracitica and the rest of the squad close behind.

Something unnerving underscored the sound in her head. The presence she was starting to recognize as the entire sundog pack. It hummed uneasily. It hummed warning and danger. It churned her stomach and made her re-think the offer to sit.

“There’s definitely something down here,” she said. “I can feel it buzzing.” She turned Seo, leaning on him more heavily. “That way.”

The sundog emotions were everywhere, confused by the straight hallways and plain composite walls. She felt them echoing Hornet/pack in small suggestions and she got the impression they were following people to help themselves navigate.

She sent hunt with herself overlayed with weakness. To me, she called. This way.

They couldn’t orient on the walls but they could find her. Sundogs turned away from their paths and converged on her from every direction. Arai shuffled down the hallway toward the storage room, forcing her breath to come evenly. Whatever the researchers had built down here was going to make her sick. Seo wrapped her arm around his neck and held her up.

Omori had broken the door to the storage room. It hung open, the lock smashed and bent, the doorway equally dented. They found him yanking dust covers off stacks of standard storage blocks. One meter by two meters.

“Keep going,” Arai gasped. “In the back. There.” She gestured at a tall thing draped in dust covers and sprouting wire and tubes like a ball of spaghetti.

Seo sat her down on a transport crate. He left her there to yank the sheets away. One of the sundogs approached her cautiously. It nudged her hand. Weakness echoed on the link.

Arai looked up and realized none of the other dogs had come into the room. They milled just outside the doorway, knocking into each other, hissing and whining. Snapping teeth. Yawning wide and turning away. Pacing.

The one in the room could have been the one she spoke with in the hall. She couldn’t tell them apart.

She sent weakness overlayed on the image of herself without the helmet. Then the Hornets with strength.

Pack is strength, the dog echoed.

Pack is strength, Arai agreed.

Sheets flared as they dropped to the floor, revealing a tall cylindrical container made of a clear polyglass. Fluid filled the chamber and a sundog, or perhaps, something that had not quite become a sundog, floated inside. A squid of wires and tubes connected the creature to the chamber, no doubt feeding nutrients and oxygen.

Beside Arai, the sundog growled. Pack mother. Pack divided. Pack found.

“Is she alive?”

Seo glanced back at her. It’s a she?

“The first one. The mother.”

She’s alive, Omori reported. He stood scanning the readout of an adjacent interface.

“Can you release her? Drain the tank and open it?”

She’s alive in the tank, supported by a lot of tech. I don’t know if she’ll survive being removed.

Arai took a deep breath through rolling nausea, trying to figure out how to convey that to the sundog beside her.

It looked up at the tank and walked closer, licking the air. Tasting.

Pack found, It sent to Arai. Pack complete.

Arai echoed pack found, but overlayed loss. She tried to picture the machine as a whole, connecting it to pack mother and life. Then pack mother without the machine and loss.

Pack mother without the machine echoed hard, as if nothing else mattered.

“Drain the tank,” Arai said. “I don’t know if they understand it’ll kill her, but they want her out.”

Omori punched a few buttons, then dragged his finger down the screen. The tank bubbled, slowly at first, then with enough speed to rock the sundog inside from one edge to another. Arai saw her eyes open. Blue, but not lit inside like the others. As if her spark had gone out.

The tank drained. The weak body inside settled to the floor and the sundog in the room inched closer, sniffing its tongue against the glass. The dog inside was clearly smaller, by nearly half, and resembled the natives more than the sundogs. If she was pack mother, she might have given live birth, not converted these dogs with bites.

Omori lifted the polyglass, but there were a dozen wires and tubes attached and it took time to remove them all.

The pack mother gasped and choked as her breathing tube was pulled. Her body shuddered and quaked. Arai felt intensely queazy and realized the message wasn’t coming from the machine, but from the sundog mother herself. Warning her pack away. Screaming in the psychic wavelengths.

“Everyone back away,” Arai said. “Back off. Let the dog in.”

Omori swapped with the sundog, who nudged the pack mother. Pack found. Pack complete, it sent.

The warning message broke and stuttered. And the second it eased, Arai’s nausea backed off. She took several deep breaths in relief.

The lower wavelength sent confusion. Unity. White lab coats and danger.

The sundog’s higher pitch sent peace. Unity. Satisfaction at the end of a hunt. Rest. Sleep.

The pack mother echoed rest/sleep.

The sundog settled down beside the mother and lay its head on her back.

Seo sat down next to Arai on the crate. She grabbed his hand and sighed. “They understand she’s not going to live. They probably knew the whole time. She was broadcasting a warning to stay away. Her message is on a lower frequency than theirs. I imagine a lot of genetic tweaking happened, and the researchers impregnated her with the results.” Arai swept her hand toward the doorway where the other dogs still milled and yawned. A sign of stress.

The pack mother’s frequency dimmed.

And went silent.

The dogs outside stopped whining.

The sundog with the mother sighed heavily. After a minute it rose and walked away. It paused as it passed Arai, sending Hornets, sundogs, unity. This time unity was stronger, like a handshake. Not pack, but it was good to be friends.

Arai echoed unity. She sent her memory of the sundogs outside, lined up at the edge of the jungle. Pack complete, she sent.

And like a ping from sonar, Arai could suddenly hear the distant call of the other dogs, orienting them out of the confusing hallways.

“Everyone head for the front doors,” Arai said as she stood a little shaky on her own feet. “The sundogs are leaving. Show them the way out.”

En mass, a dozen, two dozen, three dozen dogs as tall as Arai’s hip and as wide as two Hornets filed quietly and subdued through the hallways, lead by Paracitica Jin and the others up through the stairwell and out the front door.

The sundogs milled in front of the building as all their members exited, followed last by Arai and the dog at her side. They looked at each other.

Arai sent hunt satisfaction. She sent unity.

The dog sent Hornets opposed to the repressor, then unity.

Arai laughed and echoed the feeling. “We’re allowed to stay friends if we destroy the repressor.”

The Hornets formed up around Arai and Seo as the hundred-strong sundogs walked quietly into the jungle, disappearing easily in the heavy coverage.

“Kaya, I’ve been meaning to ask,” said Arai. “Why the name sundogs?”

Oh! Well when we arrived they were spitting acid all over the place so I thought aciddogs at first, but that doesn’t really feel smooth and sunshine is another word for acid. So: sunshine dogs. Sundogs for short.

“And Kaya,” said Arai. “Why would you know street names for LSD?”

Errr… well… you know…

Someone cuffed Kaya’s shoulder.

I’m sure there’s a perfectly legal explanation, Seo taunted.

Yeah! Totally! Ummm…

Arai laughed.

It was good to have a pack.