Chapter 1

  3 Days before First Contact

  Ginny and Zach

  “Zach!” Jake yelled across the field where his son and daughter worked, weeding the crops.

  Zach’s head popped up above the tall stalks of golden wheat, soon followed by his sister’s. The sight drew a brief spark of mirth—Jake found himself comparing them to a pair of prairie dogs.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t have time for humor.

  He stared into the empty pig pen. The simple wooden fence he’d built a couple winters back lay broken, the rails splintered and crushed.

  He turned as both of his children jogged over.

  “What’s up, Pa?” Ginny arrived first, scrunching her face as she took in the hole in the fence.

  Zach came up behind her, took one look at the empty pen, then nodded with a sigh and a faint smile. “I’ll go round them up.”

  “Jeez, I hope they’re okay,” Ginny muttered under her breath.

  Something about the damage tugged at Jake’s mind. The supports had snapped inward, not out. The crossbeams were trampled into the mud—on the inside of the pen.

  “Ginny, go with your brother,” he said after a moment. “Have him take the rifle. I’ll start patching this up.”

  Ginny frowned. “You sure about the rifle? Seems like overkill for runaway pigs.”

  Jake chewed the inside of his cheek, then nodded. “Rather you have it and not need it.”

  “Than need it and not have it, yes, Pa.” Ginny rolled her eyes, smiling as she jogged off to grab the rifle.

  She caught up to Zach a minute later and handed him the old lever-action along with a belt of ammo. “Pa wants you to take it.”

  “Need it and not have it?” he asked, rolling his eyes as he slung the belt over his shoulder and chambered a round the way he’d been taught.

  The rifle wasn’t as flashy as the high-tech gear he’d seen the Marines carry, but the heavy .45-70 rounds could drop most of Caldera’s wildlife with a single well-placed shot. And out here, on the edge of human space, they were easy to reload.

  “You know it!” Ginny giggled, flashing a smile that made half the boys in the village lose their minds.

  That smile was trouble. And only Zach seemed to know it.

  They walked in silence for several minutes, following a trail of broken twigs and churned earth. Ginny found herself wondering just how far the pigs had wandered. She wasn’t overly worried about predators—Caldera had its share of wolf and wildcat analogues, but most had been driven off during the early days of colonization.

  Not gone. Just rare.

  Her thoughts were cut short by something wet and sticky brushing her cheek. She wiped at her face—and froze when she saw thick red blood coating her fingertips.

  “Ah! Zach—look at my face! Did something cut me?”

  Zach stopped and leaned closer, then turned sharply to scan the brush behind them. “It’s not yours,” he said. “I think you walked through—”

  He stepped over to a trampled bush and turned over a broad leaf. Dark smears of blood streaked the underside.

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “This isn’t good.”

  “You think it’s the pigs?” Ginny asked quietly. “What could drag off a whole herd?”

  Zach didn’t answer right away. “You should head back,” he said finally. “Get Pa. Maybe the Sheriff.”

  Ginny clenched her fists. “Pa sent us together. We don’t split up.”

  Before either of them could say more, the ground vibrated.

  A deep, rolling rumble—answered by another. Then another.

  The basso purr of a pack of quill-cats reverberated through the earth, the sound carrying up through the soles of their boots. Ginny spun and pressed her back against Zach’s, breathing in short, controlled bursts as panic clawed at her chest.

  Zach slowly unslung the rifle, eyes sweeping the dim woods ahead.

  Just as the buttstock settled into his shoulder, the largest quill-cat he’d ever seen crawled out from beneath a bush barely twenty meters away. He stiffened as Ginny pressed closer—already knowing, somehow, that something had appeared behind them too.

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  “Zach…” Ginny hissed.

  “I know,” he said, forcing calm into his voice.

  He thought about firing a warning shot.

  And if it doesn’t run?

  As the thought crossed his mind, a third and fourth shape emerged from either side, closing the circle. Behind him, he heard the quiet click of Ginny’s pocketknife snapping open.

  Then the cat in front lunged.

  Zach was already lined up. He adjusted instinctively and fired.

  The recoil surprised him less than the sight of the quill-cat taking the round square in the face. The impact reversed its momentum, spinning the creature into a bloody backflip.

  Pain exploded in his left thigh.

  His world tilted as one of the flanking cats slammed into him, dragging him to the ground.

  “Aaaagh!” Ginny screamed as she fell backward. The cat in front of her latched onto her left arm. She stabbed wildly with her right, plunging the tiny blade wherever she could.

  Somehow, it worked.

  The cat tore free, yowling and bloody as it retreated.

  Zach barely registered it.

  The rifle lay several feet away. The second cat was still anchored in his thigh, teeth and claws buried deep.

  He twisted awkwardly, drove his knee down, and caught the animal at an odd angle.

  It loosened—just enough.

  He rolled, kicked with his good leg.

  The cat dodged easily, but released him.

  The cat’s eyes never left him.

  Zach scrambled backward, dragging his wounded leg, his hands slick with his own blood. The animal crouched low, quills rising along its spine as it prepared to spring again.

  “Gin—” His voice broke.

  She was on her knees a few yards away, clutching her arm to her chest, blood soaking through her sleeve. Her knife lay forgotten in the dirt. Her face had gone pale, eyes unfocused, breaths coming in short, panicked gasps.

  Then the ground vibrated again.

  Not one rumble.

  Many.

  Shapes moved through the trees—more quill-cats, slipping between shadows with practiced ease. One stepped into view. Then another. Their eyes reflected faint light, pinpricks of gold and green in the gloom.

  They hadn’t fled.

  They’d regrouped.

  Zach’s chest tightened. There wasn’t enough time. Not to crawl. Not to reach the rifle. Not to think.

  The nearest cat lunged.

  Something snapped inside him.

  It wasn’t a thought. It wasn’t a choice.

  It was refusal.

  The world seemed to fold around them.

  A pressure like thick air slammed outward from Zach’s chest, accompanied by a soundless pulse that rattled his teeth. The lunging quill-cat hit an invisible wall mid-leap, its body flattening unnaturally before being hurled sideways into the brush.

  A translucent shimmer flickered into existence around him and Ginny—an oval of distorted light, like heat haze wrapped in glass.

  Zach gasped, the pain in his leg suddenly distant, muted. He stared at his hands, palms trembling.

  “What—what did I—”

  “Zach.”

  Ginny’s voice sounded wrong.

  Strained. Resonant.

  He turned just in time to see her lift her bloodied hand, fingers splayed. Her eyes were wide, unfocused—reflecting something that wasn’t there a moment ago.

  Light gathered.

  Brilliant blue-white arcs snapped into existence around her arm, crawling over her skin without burning it. The air filled with the sharp crackle of a building storm.

  “No, no—Gin, stop—!”

  She screamed.

  The sound tore out of her as a spear of lightning erupted from her outstretched hand, lancing forward in a blinding flash. It struck the first quill-cat dead center, then jumped—branching violently, chaining from body to body in a cascading web of light.

  The smell of ozone hit an instant before the thunderclap.

  Cats convulsed mid-stride, collapsing in smoking heaps as the energy tore through them. Leaves ignited. Bark exploded from nearby trees.

  Then it was over.

  Silence rushed back in, broken only by the ringing in Zach’s ears and Ginny’s ragged sobs.

  The shimmering barrier flickered… then shattered like glass, vanishing as suddenly as it had appeared.

  Zach collapsed beside his sister, vision tunneling.

  The last thing he saw before darkness took him was Ginny slumping against him, her fingers still faintly glowing as the light finally died.

  *****

  Bezo and LATCH

  “That’s interesting.”

  Bezo took a slow breath, let it out, and waited for more.

  Finally, he asked, “What’s that?”

  “Something just attempted a connection,” LATCH said inside his head.

  Bezo arched an eyebrow and waited again before asking, “Yeah? That’s it?”

  “Sorry, Boss. We’re miles from a hub, so—”

  “Nothing should be attempting a connection.”

  “Exactly. And considering you never purchased that Q-Comm upgrade, we only have each other for company.”

  Ignoring the subtle dig his A.I. threw out, Bezo scanned the field where his sheep grazed, taking in the scenery. Satisfied with his initial scan, he shifted to the infrared spectrum, watching red-hot silhouettes bloom one by one across the hills.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary that I can see.” He shrugged, deciding that if there was a kill team out here, this far from the Inner Rim, it was likely beyond his ability to deal with anyway.

  “Again, that’s why it’s interesting, but…” LATCH began in mock exasperation. “There it is again.”

  “Okay,” Bezo said. “Should I be worried?”

  Nothing.

  “LATCH?”

  He waited another moment before a subtle hint of alarm began to creep in. Bezo stood from the log he’d chosen as his seat—not sure what he was going to do, but certain he didn’t want to do it sitting down.

  Just as he felt himself on the edge of a quiet, violent panic, LATCH finally responded.

  “Uh, Boss… I think I just made first contact.”