“Damn it all,” Jakob groaned as he jammed the microphone back into place. Liz rolled her eyes. She was already on the floor stuffing supplies into a large traveling pack. Jakob grabbed for his plasma rifle and slung the weapon over his shoulder before grabbing another pack from the open supply locker. “Just stay put I said. Damn idiot,” he grumbled to himself.

  “Put that thing down and help me,” She said sorely

  “No way. Grab yours and as much ammo as you can carry. We got to be prepared,” said Jakob as he surveyed the snowfield outside with squinted eyes.

  “For what? The Syncline?” laughed Lizthrowing up her arms in disbelief. “Look out there! See any Syncline roaming around? This is class D uninhabited rock without a survey beacon. I doubt there is anything but us on this snowball. I don’t think it even has a proper name. We’re lucky this forsaken ball of ice has a breathable atmosphere. Face it marine you just hate being in a situation you can’t shoot yourself out of.”

  “We’ll see who’s laughing when I have to save your ass again,” Jakob said crossing his arms smugly. “Come on we got to find that little squirt before he becomes a popsicle.”

  Liz watched as Jakob jumped into the snow in full combat posturing. The lug head had forgotten his pack. She rolled her eyes again and grabbed for the rifle she had taken off a dead soldier on the Orion. Just in case.

  “What the hell are these things? Trees?” Jakob asked as he snapped a piece off a hanging branch. The bizarre rust red pinnacles of root like matter jutted from the rolling hills of snow like mounds of tangled vines. He handed the piece off to Liz who crumbled it in her hand. She watched with interest as the little filaments she had ground out of it blew away in a frigid gust of dry air.

  “I think its lichen or something like it. I’m afraid I’m not too well versed in this kind of astrobiology,” she admitted with a frown.

  “I thought you were supposed to know this stuff Liz. Isn’t that what the green markings on your suit mean?” Jakob asked curtly. The green chevrons on her shoulder indeed designated her as a SMCAF officer assigned to the Applied Science Division of the Orion.

  “I know about the Syncline, not random plants on random planets,” Liz said.

  “Obviously not enough if we’re in this mess.” Jakob replied. Liz didn’t have a retort this time. Nothing she knew about the Syncline could have saved the Orion.

  Biologically the Syncline were fairly simple creatures. The hoards the Syncline threw into battle always meant a wealth of bodies to dissect. The unusual mixture of vertebrate and invertebrate features meant that the average Syn soldier had both bones and an external exoskeleton. This combination of hollow bird like bones and tough external armor made them agile resilient fighters. Sharpened claws, hardened protrusions of their skeletal structure, could easily tear through both flesh and metal. It was their large human sized brains that were the most problematic aspect of Syn biology. The common foot soldier should have been intelligent, yet they fought without weapons and threw themselves into battle like mindless animals without concern for themselves or their comrades. None had ever been observed communicating in the decades since first contact. These facts were in stark contrast with the races overall technological advancement. The Syncline had mastered interstellar travel with ships whose plasma weapons were on par or better than anything humanity had. Despite this level of advancement no radio transmission had ever been detected between Syncline ships and none had ever attempted contact. When going into battle they would soften up resistance with long range weapons then fire boarding barbs loaded with mindless foot soldiers to massacre the hapless human crews of ships and fortifications. Once satisfied that their foes had been completely slaughtered the Syncline soldiers would then meander back into an awaiting warship to begin the cycle anew. This wordless efficient slaughter of countless worlds had gone on for decades as humanity struggled in vain to find some weak link in Syncline society. It was assumed they operated on a sort of hive or caste system but whom or what directed them remained a mystery. Some believed that the Syncline simply viewed humans as animals unworthy of conversation. That made sense considered the Syncline tended to eat those they had killed.

  “Hey, look it’s another pod!” Jakob exclaimed. Another pod lay atop a small hill in the distance draped in its parachutes. Liz ran after him. As they got closer however a certain sour smell began to waft in the wind. Jakob slowed to a stop. He must have recognized the peculiar odor as well. Liz had endured it countless times during dissections and again during the battle on the Orion. It was a pungent smell that reeked of rot and the sharp scent of death that usually radiated from the unkempt feathers of a Syn. Liz was the first to raise her rifle and proceed with Jakob close behind. At the top of the hill they found the pod on its side, the open hatch smeared with blood. They dared not look inside because it was obvious what had happened. A group of Syncline had made it aboard the doomed capsule just before the automatic launch protocol. The creatures had slaughtered the survivors inside and were now loose on the surface as the bloody footprints sprinting off into the snow now attested.

  “Just great,” Jakob grumbled, “like we needed more problems.”

  Taylor stumbled through knee high snow drifts crying out with each exhausted vaporous breath. “Is there anybody out there? Jakob, Liz?” he yelled hoarsely. He paused to catch his breath at the top of a hill. The air was thinner than he was used to and the snow difficult to push through despite the sub Earth standard gravity. He scanned the sky for a rescue ship, anything that meant he wasn’t alone but saw nothing. Debris no longer streaked the clear blue sky. His eyes burned in the painful glare of the bright snow. Rubbing frozen snot from his face with a sniffle Taylor began to trudge down the hill. “Hello! Is there anybody out there?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Hours passed. The sun was now sitting high in the sky, an unfamiliar pale white orb that seemed to struggle to shine. Taylor was resting in the shade of one of the weird red plants sucking the moisture out of a piece of ice. The cold thin air left him exhausted and red faced. Taylor rubbed his raw snow blinded eyes. He’d been walking all morning without any sign of his friends. His shock had worn off and now he felt like an idiot for ignoring his friend’s pleas. The good news what that he was within walking distance of them otherwise the radio would not have picked up the signal. Although walking distance in this case probably meant more than one rotational period on this planet and he shivered just thinking about how cold it would get overnight. He had to keep moving if what he had skimmed over in the planet profilehe had caught a glimpse of on the Orion was accurate. Altaire IV was this planets name, a place so desolate it had never been properly surveyed or named. Altaire was the name of the star and he was on the fourth body out from the center of this system. It was a D-class uninhabited rock of no strategic value. Altaire IV also apparently had an 18-hour day. Thinking this put Taylor back on his feet and he trudged on.

  “Hello, is anybody out there!”

  “Hello?” a distant voice answered. It sounded vaguely feminine if hollow sounding and thin. Hearing this lit a fire in Taylor who suddenly found the strength to sprint in the direction he thought he heard the voice. As he crested another snowdrift, he saw somebody marching through the snow towards him. He stopped. Though still hundreds of meters away he could tell they were not a survivor of the Orion. Their limbs were wrapped in strips of the white material, head obscured by a white hood and shawl. Maybe there was an unregistered settlement nearby. Plenty of people had fled the Syncline advance to settle on whatever planet their ships could take them and no one had ever managed a complete census. Whoever they were had noticed him and waved.

  “Just stay there I’ll come up to you,” they said. Their voice still confused Taylor who could no longer be confident it came from a woman. The way they accented their words was strange, as if they exhaled their vowels and scraped out their consonants. The word wait had come out as wha-hey-t. Their height became very apparent as they sprinted up the hill. They towered over Taylor by at least two and a half feet by the time they were close enough for Taylor to fall back with terror on his face. A pair of big hawkish amber eyes where peering at him from its hooded oval beaked face. “Please calm down I’m a friend,” the Syn said.

  “You’re speaking to me!” Taylor managed to say as he scrambled backwards in the snow.

  “Yes, I’m sure you’re just as surprised as I am to find you!” It exclaimed with obvious excitement.

  “What?” Taylor asked. The terror had waned, but he was still very much in shock. He hardly processed what he was saying. “What are you talking about?”

  “It has been so long since I’ve talked to anybody,” The Syn gushed. Its hood shook off its hood as it stomped excitedly in place. Its face was like any other Syn Taylor had seen but its eyes, big and amber, sparkled with something else. Her slit like pupils had a warm intelligence behind them. He could not help but see glee in its otherwise emotionless oval shell of a face. “I stopped what I was doing when I saw your glorious pod drift down from the sky,” it relished snapping its beak.

  “Right,” Taylor said as he got back to his feet glancing around for some way out of this bizarre situation. Where was Jakob and Taylor? Suddenly the Syn embraced him. He squirmed in her powerful grasp as the Syn lifted him up into the air and squeezed him. “I’m so glad I found you. You have no idea how alone I’ve been.”

  “Please you’re hurting me,” Taylor squeaked. At that, the Syn dropped him to the ground and took a step back with its hands on its head in embarrassment. “I am so sorry. Where are my manners? I haven’t even introduced myself. My name is Agra, Agra Anson.”

  Taylor gasped for air as he processed its words. Anson was a human surname. Hadn’t he met an Anson before? He looked at Agra and finally decided that she meant no harm. A Syn that spoke? Curiosity had completely replaced his shock and fear. “My names Taylor Flint, it’s nice to meet you too Agra.” He walked up and extended his hand. Agra rubbed her hands nervously as he looked at his.

  “You don’t know how to shake?” Taylor asked. Agra blinked, narrowing her vision as she tilted her head back.

  “Oh,” she stammered. “Yes of course.” She stared at his extended hand and reached out with her own. Her grip was strong, the wrappings she had around her arms ending in the palms of her clawed three fingered hands. The shake went on a moment too long as Taylor stared at her lethal fingers.

  “Don’t worry I said I was a friend Taylor Flint,” she reassured with what passed as a smile. Parts of her plated beaked mouth parted with a disconcerting emulation of a human mouth, the vertical slits unused. When the handshake was finished Taylor and Agra stood together at the top of the hill.

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” Taylor said running his hands through his frost flecked hair.

  “What’s happening?” Agra asked stooping uncomfortably close to his face. Startled Taylor took a step back. Agra recoiled as well, a hurt look in her eyes. “Manners,” Taylor heard Agra mutter to herself.

  “Agra what are you?” Taylor suddenly asked. It was a rude question, but one he needed to ask. Agra blinked confusion at him. Taylor was getting better at interpreting the emotion in her eyes. Now she seemed hurt more than anything.

  “I’m a person,” she snapped back at him, her beaked mouth quivering. Taylor felt a chill run down his spine as he watched her clawed hands ball up into clenched fists.

  “I know that,” Taylor quickly clarified. He should have known that kind of question would spark this kind of response. “I mean like what are you exactly?” Taylor pointed at himself and said, “I’m a human for instance while you are a-?” Now Agra understood. Her narrow shoulders relaxed, and her eyes lit up again.

  “Oh,” was all she managed at first. Taylor thought she would be blushing if that were even possible. “Well, I guess you would call me a Syn. That is the human term, right?”

  “Yeah,” Taylor said. “Agra, I sort of wanted to know what your kind calls itself.”

  Taylor had found another sore issue. Agra twisted her three toed bandaged feet into the snow as she avoided his gaze. “I’m sorry. I wish I knew,” she said hesitantly as if holding something back. No, maybe it was shame thought Taylor. Wouldn’t he be embarrassed not to know what he was? Agra looked back up at him with renewed conviction.

  “I’ll be happy to answer to answer any more questions at my home, but we need to get moving before the sun dips any lower on the horizon.” Agra said looking up at the sky. “We only have a few hours before it gets too cold to stay on the surface.”

  “Wait!” Taylor remembered, “Jakob and Liz!”

  “What’s that?” Agra turned around and asked.

  “They’re my friends we need to find them.” Taylor pleaded.

  “Others?” Agra realized with glee. “Why didn’t you say so! Where are they? We must find them!”

  As she scanned the horizon Taylor wondered how Jakob and Liz would react to Agra and her quirks.