Space travel is an adventure. Stepping aboard a ship made your stomach buzz with anticipation, discovering idyllic planets took your breath away, and when you came home, you had a hundred stories to tell over dinner. According to the movies, at least.

  Erika Krupin’s stomach did buzz when she stepped aboard the spaceship, but that was more anxiety than anticipation. The company forced Erika to sign a confidentiality clause, so she couldn’t share her story with anyone. Oh, and the idyllic planets?

  Erika was on a planet called Tartarus, named after the Greek underworld. The bush analogue Erika crouched in for the past hour had a fleshy texture, like torn skin. The surrounding trees stretched high in the sky, casting purple shadows across the ground. Above those trees hung bruised clouds, drifting toward Erika, and promising an unscheduled acid bath. Paradise indeed.

  Aymeric squatted at Erika’s side, net gun loose in his hands. He wore a blue enviro-suit, same as Erika. There were no tints on the helmets, so Aymeric’s face was visible inside. His expression sagged with boredom as he watched the clearing.

  In the glade sat a tree–except it wasn’t really a tree. It had a trunk that rose from the ground and split into jagged branches, and it grew leaves, but the creature had a fleshy texture. This was a tree analogue. They should really be classified as something else, something more accurate, but nobody had time to classify the alien flora. All that mattered was the bait smeared against the not-tree.

  Erika did her best to keep her eyes on the foliage, waiting for her quarry to rustle through, but she kept glancing up to the dusty sky. The clouds inched forward. She had taken a sample of the rain to study, and oh boy was it corrosive. It would eat through an enviro-suit and burn whatever flesh it came into contact with.

  “It would be so nice if our friend showed up sooner rather than later,” Aymeric muttered over the radio.

  “Yeah, it would,” Erika said. The clouds were closer.

  This wouldn’t have happened if SmallWorld gave the crew another month, if the flight to Tartarus didn’t take so long, if studying the aliens on the planet consisted of more than trial and error. There wouldn’t be clouds threatening to kill Erika and everyone else if SmallWorld would accept two new aliens instead of three.

  The foliage rustled.

  Erika tensed.

  Luther and Petra hid on the other side of the clearing, in another patch of bushes, but Erika knew the rustling hadn’t come from the other scientists.

  Aymeric strengthened the grip on his net gun.

  Foliage pushed to the side. A dark shape moved through the tan colored grasses, heading for the clearing.

  First came a head, large and insectile. It’s black eyes glittered. The mandibles on its cheeks fluttered.

  The emaciated green-gray body followed. The creature’s arms ended in taloned hands. It skittered forward on legs bent like a bird’s. Finally, the blade-like tail exited the grass.

  The creature had no classification and no official scientific name. Erika and the other scientists referred to it simply as the Carnifex. The name came from the Latin term for “butcher.” The name was appropriate.

  The Carnifex stepped into the clearing, and jerked its head around. The alien was cautious, though Erika couldn’t understand why. From her observation of the species, the Carnifex had no competition or predators. Once the alien was in an enclosure and Erika could study it, maybe she’d figure out its behavior. Or that behavior would disappear in a confined environment. Like everything else with the aliens, there were no assurances.

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  “Does everyone see it?” Luther asked through the radio.

  “Oh I see it.” Aymeric leveled the net gun.

  “Good. Count down to when you fire, please,” Luther said.

  Aymeric cracked a smile. He was not a scientist, at least not in the traditional sense. Aymeric was a big game hunter, and right now, he was in his element. Erika wondered if the storm excited him instead of terrifying him.

  “Three,” Aymeric said.

  Erika pulled her shock spear off the ground, but she didn’t flick the power on. Yet.

  “Two,”

  The Carnifex approached the bait in the tree analogue.

  “One,”

  The net gun fired with a hiss.

  The net flung through the air and tangled itself around the Carnifex.

  The alien chirped in alarm.

  Erika rushed out of the bushes.

  On the other side of the clearing, Luther and Petra did the same.

  The Carnifex struggled in the net.

  Erika jabbed her shock spear into the Carnifex’s body. The alien wailed and writhed. Its pointed tail lashed around and scraped against its own body.

  Erika stepped back, but kept her spear leveled at the creature.

  Luther jabbed the Carnifex with his spear. The Carnifex clawed at the net, but got nowhere. Its tail stabbed through a hole in the mesh.

  Luther scrambled back. The point of the tail reached centimeters from Luther’s helmet, then drew back.

  Petra took a confident step forward. Luther grabbed her arm before she could get into range.

  “We need to wait,” Luther said over the open channel.

  “One more shock could stop it,” Petra said.

  “It’ll probably make things worse,” Aymeric said.

  Erika didn’t join in the conversation; she was busy watching the Carnifex. The creature grabbed at the netting, but couldn’t pull it apart with its gnarled hands. Its tail managed to stab through the mesh through, and it would be sharp enough to cut out of the net if left alone…

  Erika jabbed her shock spear into the animal.

  “We can’t let it escape,” Erika said before Luther could argue. Erika absolutely respected Luther’s leadership, but there were times when something had to be done without waiting for the boss to give a thumbs up.

  The Carnifex screeched.

  Its tail stabbed out of the netting.

  Erika sidestepped.

  The tail swung in an arc and cut a gash into the net.

  “Stay back!” Aymeric shouted, though everyone else was already scrambling away.

  The net ripped apart. The Carnifex scratched the remnants off itself.

  The scientists formed a circle around the alien.

  The Carnifex ripped off the last piece of net. It examined the scientists surrounding it with quick, bird-like tilts of its head.

  Petra stepped forward.

  The Carnifex’s tail whistled through the air.

  Petra yelped over the radio, and stumbled back.

  The Carnifex rushed at her.

  Erika saw the future.

  The Carnifex would stab through Petra’s helmet, and through her skull. No one could stop it.

  Still, Erika ran forward. She held her shock spear ready.

  The Carnifex was closing in on Petra.

  Luther and Aymeric moved to intercept too, but they would be too slow. They would help carry Petra’s broken body back to the shuttle.

  No, no, no!

  The Carnifex leapt over Petra. It dashed through the alien foliage.

  Erika stopped next to Petra and spun around. The Carnifex could still be in the grass or the bushes. Luther and Aymeric came to Erika’s side and raised their shock spears to the alien landscape.

  Quiet.

  Petra scrambled up from the ground and brushed herself off.

  “Didn’t expect that,” she said. “Someone saw where it went, right?”

  Erika turned her focus to Luther, and Luther stared back. Neither saw where the Carnifex went. The pair looked to Aymeric. He shook his head.

  “I was too worried about Petra,” Aymeric said. “But, y’know, I can track. We can catch that bastard before–”

  Thunder rolled through the forest.