The beasts went insane with rage and confusion at the sudden death of their leader, but the Pioneers weren’t planning on letting them regroup. Immediately, they began shooting at their hated attackers, letting loose on them with their full fury. The Xenomorphs, now in a disarray, didn’t hesitate to flee back to the safety of the trees, utterly defeated. Finally, as the last of them retreated and the final sounds of gunfire petered out, the remaining Pioneers gave out hoarse cheers of victory. Their voices, just like the rest of their bodies, had been stretched to their limits by the hard-won victory, and they quickly moved to bandage their injuries and check on the other wounded.

  They had won, but now it was time to count the cost.

  Besides the Pioneers still standing, only one of their other comrades still lived. Ramirez, one of the men in Daniel’s original group, had taken a spear to the chest and gone down in the close quarters fighting. It hadn’t hit his heart or penetrated very far, so his Constitution was good enough that he would survive. Many of the others hadn’t been so lucky. 7 Pioneers lay dead, and Daniel couldn’t help but notice that nearly all of them were from the smaller group that had originally gone with the Sergeant. The only survivors of those ten were Jordan, Omar, the Sergeant himself, and the cocky red head who had challenged Daniel to tell his story all those nights ago by the fire. He remembered that the kid’s name was James McNeil as he watched the poor boy stare off into the distance, gaunt face a strong contrast to the vibrant, cocksure boy from back then.

  As he watched the kid, Hardgrave realized that nearly everyone who had survived the fight had eaten Sparkhoof meat. The Sergeant aside, only Omar and McNeil had subsisted purely upon the fish and ultimately lived, a fact that lit the fire of anger in Daniel’s belly. Despite his heroics, their CO would have done a greater service for the group if he’d been less conservative and allowed them to take more risks. They would have lost fewer people if he had. Still, a hardier constitution was no guarantee to surviving this fight, a fact proven by the body before Daniel now.

  Alvin Peterson, Alvin the family man, stared up at him with glassy, vacant eyes, two spears protruding from his body. He had reportedly been one of the unlucky few to be hit by the opening volley of the attack. Though he hadn’t died immediately, the delay of medical care caused by the subsequent fight and the severity of his injuries had sealed his fate. The earlier flames of anger were doused, replaced only by the numbness of grief. Daniel steadily removed the wooden projectiles and closed the dead man’s eyes. They would get his body back to his family in the best condition they could.

  After they organized the bodies of their comrades, they turned to handle the corpses of their enemies. Daniel finally pulled up his notifications to figure out what’d just happened:

  “Diaboco: Apelike, humanoid Xenomorphs, capable of significant growth in intelligence and strength. Lesser Diaboco are often of the Low or Mid Zeta class, but they have been recorded as high as Beta class. Even weaker Diaboco have been known to hunt in deadly groups. Exercise extreme caution, even if apparently dealing with an individual specimen. Lesser Diaboco spotted! A pack of Diaboco spotted!

  Class: Low/Mid-Grade Zeta: Individual Threat Assessment: Low/Moderate: Group Threat Assessment: High.

  Greater Diaboco spotted!

  Class: Low Grade Epsilon: Threat Assessment: Very High.”

  The Greater Diaboco must have been the Xenomorph that the Sergeant had been dueling with. Speak of the devil, Daniel turned to watch his CO dig into the dark furred beast’s corpse and retrieve a fist sized stone. It was a perfect sphere, and it glittered with the same otherworldly, violet light that had surrounded the ape in its fight with Gulliman. More text ran across Daniel’s HUD as he watched:

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  “Epsilon Grade Morphic Stone: Psionic Capacity: Enforcer. Value: 82,400 Credits.”

  Both the text and the credit number prompted a sharp increase of breath from Daniel. A Morphic Stone was something that Xenomorphs with Psionic Capacities or Personal Attributes had a chance to possess. A Pioneer could assimilate the Stone using their Codex, allowing them to gain that Capacity/Attribute while also growing their stats. Even if the Pioneer didn’t have any empty slots remaining, they could use the powers of the Stone to improve an already acquired ability. Even a Zeta class Morphic Stone could go for exorbitant rates. However, most Stones were consumed by Pioneers in the field, so they were hard to even find on the market in the first place. Daniel had looked into selling some of his Diamonds and buying one, but without any meaningful connections in the military or upper society that had proved impossible.

  Now, he made eye contact with the Sergeant holding the Stone, before Gulliman made the prize disappear in a flash of blue. He would doubtless use the Stone himself, Hardgrave realized with a sinking feeling, and there was nothing the younger man could do about it. That anger Hardgrave had felt earlier ignited, but he smothered his frustration and started organizing the other Diaboco bodies. It wasn’t as though Daniel himself had earned it, but he had saved the Sergeant’s life at the key moment. By all rights, it would go toward the group’s Quota. It was possible that the CO would do just that, but Daniel didn’t anticipate it. Still, it wasn’t as if the lesser Pioneers would go without their benefits.

  “Corpse of a Lesser Diaboco: Weight: 106 kgs. Value: 2,106 Credits.”

  Thanks in no small part to the Sergeant’s assistance, they had stacked numerous bodies of their Xenomorph opponents. The Pioneers spent some time searching through the forest for every enemy corpse they could find, and the final body count was 96. A large chunk of that number had been cut down by the Sergeant with either blaster, sword, or shield, but the CO only collected the body of his dueling opponent and 12 of the lesser enemies. In the back of his rational mind, Daniel recognized that there was a certain fairness to that, since the Sarge had contributed so much, so he took a deep breath and moved on. They split the remainder evenly amongst the other 12 Pioneers, meaning that each of them gained 7 bodies.

  The sun had begun to rise as the remaining Pioneers wordlessly made camp by the river. They were too exhausted to speak and had collectively decided to pause their migration to lick their wounds. The bodies of their comrades were covered by tarps, and their presence made the camp’s usual lighthearted joking a thing of the past for now. Their now depleted numbers were sobering in more ways than one. The group Quota wouldn’t change one iota in response to the deaths, meaning that all of them would need to work nearly twice as hard to ensure they hit the mark. The men’s inventories would be lost to them, locked in response to their deaths, and the living would need to carry the corpses back to the pods to conserve what value they possessed for the sake of the Quota. Then again, Daniel had no intention of burying Alvin, or anyone else, on the foreign soil of a remote world.

  Still, the difficulty of the task ahead of them was daunting, and each man stewed on the subject as they sat by the fire and cooked some of their newfound Diaboco meat. It was slightly disturbing, eating the meat of the humanoids, but it wasn’t technically cannibalism as they were likely totally unrelated to the freakish Xenomorphs. The Pioneers couldn’t afford to spurn such a valuable food source, and Daniel bit into the meat with a voracious gusto born from harsh exertion. He finished one steak and was looking for another when something truly strange happened.

  Gulliman approached his campfire, where he was sitting with Jordan and some of the men from his original ten. The CO stared at Daniel, and the younger Pioneer met his gaze without flinching. They looked at each other wordlessly for several long moments, both men barely blinking. Then, slowly, Gulliman bowed his head in a singular nod. Daniel didn’t have the time to be shocked before the Sergeant looked away and grabbed something, proffering it to Hardgrave for inspection. The younger man was surprised to see the well-cooked heart of a Diaboco in the Sergeant’s hand. It might be gross to most normal people, but Pioneers were trained not to waste a single part of a Xenomorph, and the heart was one of the most nutrient rich pieces of the body. Daniel could tell, by the longsword shaped hole in the center, that this was the heart of the Greater Diaboco. It was also a peace offering.

  The young man looked up and was deeply shocked to see the smallest measure of apology flicker across the eyes of his superior. He mirrored the Sergeant’s nod and accepted the offering. Hardgrave was still conflicted about his belligerent commanding officer, but now he knew that the man wasn't the total scumbag he had come to think of him as. It made Daniel think back to one of the old man’s adages:

  “People will always surprise you, Danny. For better and for worse.”

  Hunger satiated, the Pioneer’s set a watch and hustled off to bed. Sunrise or no, they all desperately needed a good recovery. The moment Daniel hit the ground; he was off to dreamland.