Bogo stood by the bulky APC, one hoof resting on the black grenade-proof metal, staring at the remains of the crashed UFO… or lack thereof.

He'd had the intel checked over and over. And over. This was definitely where the object had landed. The whole point of this excursion was to alleviate his anxieties over the coincidental timing of the incident. Find the object, identify it as a meteorite, and write it off as a freak accident that had nothing to do with the Company's secret project or Green's untimely demise.

So where the flying fuck did it go?

The more he and his marines examined the crash site, the less the site made sense. If there were any tire tracks, any signs of a vehicle large enough to carry the object away from the scene, then he could ask the Company about it later, accept their non-answer and be done with it. If the Company had it, then it was no longer his problem, and he could go straight back to worrying about the saboteur.

But there were no tracks here except those left by the APC. If anyone had gotten here before they did, they would have done so on foot.

The object that almost took out the Vidar had impacted here, but was now gone without a trace.. All that remained was an incredible trench of up-turned earth carving a wide, scorched path through the jungle. Any fires ignited by the crash had died out before they got there, leaving behind trees reduced to ash and cinders. He'd had his men search the area for any unusual fragments that could have broken off, but they'd returned empty handed. Bogo had been so infuriated that he'd sent them straight back out again, even though he knew deep down that they wouldn't find anything. Other than the trench, the site had been wiped clean.

He couldn't wrap his head around it. An object tough and big enough to seriously damage a ship didn't just up and vanish.

Private Santaures, the ox designated to drive the APC, was still sitting in the driver's seat, bored out of his mind. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"Go ahead, Private."

"Y'don't think aliens did this, do ya?"

Bogo snorted. He'd only known Santaures since the start of this little excursion, but he didn't seem like the smoothest bullet in the mag. "Private, here on Rhamusia, we're the aliens."

The APC interior was quiet for a moment. "Point taken, sir."

Bogo watched as his marines continued to scour the site for traces of the object. "Aliens is the best you can come up with, Santaures?"

"Well, it doesn't look like any meteor crater I've ever seen." The ox drawled.

That's right, Bogo realized with a start. It didn't.

Until now the most plausible cause of the Vidar incident was a collision with a meteorite, which had gone on to strike Rhamnusia. But if a meteorite had been responsible, one big enough to cause the damage it had done to the Vidar, they should be seeing far more destruction than this. They should be finding pieces of it everywhere, tiny fragments of metallic rock that would have taken weeks, if not months to gather, even for the Company. No, this damage was caused by something else. And the way the trench looked was familiar. He had seen damage like this before, some time in his career. It had been caused by… by…

By a large vessel crash landing and skidding to a stop.

Feeling his heart race just a little faster, Bogo ducked his head into the APC. "Santaures, start the engine." He took his head back out and barked into his headset. "Scavenger hunt's over! We're going home!"

Everyone stopped at the order, some of them looking rather relieved to hear it.

"Now?" The closest marine, a lion, asked.

"No, tomorrow, marines, now!" Bogo entered the APC and sat down on the hard seat closest to the driver.

"Should we secure the site, sir?" Santaures turned his head to look at the buffalo.

Bogo shook his head. "Forget it. We're not going to find anything here. Someone made sure of that."

Once all the marines was inside and accounted for, Santaures turned the tank away from the trench and set off on the long journey back to the colony. Bogo clutched the metal harness tightly, letting his mind become distracted by the constant rocking of giant tires on wild terrain. Until he got some answers, this would probably be the last moment of peace he could get.

And if the worst case scenario he was imagining came to pass, he wanted to be as close to Ben as possible.


Assistant Administrator Clawhauser was simultaneously furious and terrified. It was a combination Nick had never seen on the cheetah before. He loomed over the fox and rabbit, casting a shadow over them both. Bogo had been rubbing off on him.

"Why didn't you look harder? What if he was right there, just lying in the bushes out of sight?"

Nick felt like he had been hauled before a senate subcommittee. Clawhauser was in full bureaucratic mode, demanding answers the fox couldn't give. Normally Nick would be resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Typical bureaucratic entitlement and all that shit. But this was Benji Clawhauser, who never treated the marines like soulless grunts, and never had his heart in the wrong place. And the more he berated them, the more Nick began to worry that he was right. His impatience to get back to civilization could have made the difference between life and death for Hornbull and his escort. The way Judy's ears drooped suggested that she was feeling the same guilt.

"Sir- Clawhauser." He amended. "If there was a wounded mammal nearby, I would have sniffed him out. And there was the whole issue with the- the storm, you know."

The storm in question tore at their fur and clothes. It wasn't hitting them full blast, but it would be soon. Clawhauser let out an exhale that was lost to the wind. "You're right, I'm sorry. I keep thinking we're already too late."

He sat down on the hood of the car. There were two marines in the area with them, Fangmeyer and Private Reyes, a large warthog. The others had disappeared into the jungle, following a scent trail picked up by Corporal Wolfowitz.

Upon reaching the site of the crashed vehicle, Nick and the others had conducted a sweep of the area and turned up the body of a lion. More accurately, the parts the scavengers hadn't liked. Nick had swallowed back bile upon seeing what had happened to the body. Gorgons were the largest scavengers in the region, and had at first been assumed to have been the killer. Until they found the hole in his skull. After a quick examination, Judy had determined that the wound had been caused by a projectile with the power of a 50 calibre anti tank rifle. How the head hadn't been completely obliterated was a question only MINERVA could answer. For now, they were assuming foul play.

The message came through marine comms, and with the storm screaming in his ears, Nick had to ask Wolfowitz to repeat what he had said. Something about a cenote. A cave system. An order for Fangmeyer to bring the climbing gear…

"Hornbull's in a cavern?" Judy asked once the information was relayed to Clawhauser.

"Sounds like they stumbled across one of Rham's cave systems. A new one." Nick said. "Sounds right up Spots's alley, don't it?"

Judy glanced up at Clawhauser. "His alley?"

"What, you thought Clawhauser got that fabulous figure just by pushing pencils?"

Clawhauser dropped down from the hood and zipped his overalls higher over his neck. "Where is this cenote?." He had a contemplative, troubled look on his spotted face, like he was catching on to something, but desperately hoping he was wrong.

Fangmeyer spent a few minutes packing enough gear for four mammals before they set off. The trees, bulked up with leaves, provided some protection from the storm as they trudged through the jungle, rising steadily uphill until they reached a rocky plateau, led by Fangmeyer and her bag of ropes, flares and spare batteries. The marines had their own backboard stretcher, or the improvised corps equivalent, and Fangmeyer carried that, too. Her thick arms showed no signs of tiring out, even as they cleared the trees.

The marine search party was gathered around a ragged wide crack. Three of them were removing their armor, which would have been a hindrance underground, and Fangmeyer approached them to hand over the bag of gear. The dark fur covering Wolfowitz's face swayed like short grass in the wind as he approached the trio. The face itself was hard as stone, as befitting a wolf that had seen it all.

"Clawhauser…" His gravelly voice had very slightly softened in the two years that had passed since he quit smoking.

"Did you find him?" Clawhauser asked.

"Negative." Wolfowitz jerked an elbow at the chasm. "We tracked him down to this pit back here."

"And?" Clawhauser wrung his paws tightly.

"He's not at the bottom. But I dropped a glow stick, and there's a tunnel entrance big enough for a rhino to fit through."

Wolfowitz left it at that, leaving Clawhauser and the others to make their own assumptions. Nick decided to ask a question or two before making any assumptions of his own.

"Is that rappel yours, sir?"

"It is, Private. We didn't find any equipment when we got here, so it's unlikely anyone climbed down of their own volition. Can't think of anyone dumb enough to try without it." He turned to Clawhauser. He had a half-hearted glint in his eye, that look of not wanting the cheetah to be there but sympathizing with him at the same time. "Simple rescue op. I take a team of four, head down and bring your boss up dead or alive."

Clawhauser's paws clenched tight around each other. "Have you ever done this before? I mean, it's not like raiding a terrorist hideout. You gotta think about flooding, cave-ins, getting lost…"

"We got it, kid." Wolfowitz grumbled. "One hour tops, then we come out the same way we came in."

"Okay. Sounds like a good plan." Clawhauser breathed. "Just watch your step in there, okay? I know you guys have infrared, but still…"

"I said we got it." Wolfowitz waved a paw at his team. "Comma won't work for shit down there, but we've gone without before- hey!"

Nick jumped, the wolf's shout startlingly loud even in the storm, when he spotted Judy standing at the edge of the pit, the wind buffeting her tiny body as she stared straight down. The fox hadn't seen her leave his side.

"Hey, cabbage-for-brains!" Wolfowitz shouted, startling the rabbit. "You got a death wish? Get away from there!"

"I was just checking something out!" Judy called back indignantly.

Wolfowitz stepped toward her and beckoned with his finger. "Rabbit, back away from that hole!"

"But-"

"Now!" Wolfowitz looked ready to drag her back by the ears before she relented and returned to Nick's position. The wolf turned his frustrated glare to the Private, who resisted taking a step back.

"What use is a fox in the corps if he can't control a fucking bunny rabbit?"

Nick saluted snidely. "Won't happen again, sir."

Wolfowitz walked off to join the others in gearing up. Clawhauser's black ears went completely flat when he saw that they hadn't discarded their pulse rifles. Nick felt the same twang of dread the cheetah must surely be feeling; one bullet in the wrong place could bring the tunnel crashing down on their heads. Nick sucked in a breath through his nose, ready to point out this major strategic error regardless of the ass-chewing it would get him.

Nick stiffened. He inhaled again. He looked up at Clawhauser, who was still wringing his paws and staring at the rescue team.

"D'you smell that?"

Ben paused. He sniffed. His eyes widened. Judy looked between them, and her nose twitched as she too caught the scent.

The hint of rhino musk that had drawn the marines here in the first place. A second smell beneath that, a stench of sulphur and vinegar, a reek that would have made his fur stand on end if not for the wind blowing it in all directions. And finally, the strange scent he'd detected at the clearing where they'd found the giant snake.

Nick swallowed nervously. If he smelled it, so did his fellow marines. Suddenly their decision to take weapons underground didn't seem so stupid.

Wolfowitz and his rescue team used the nearest trees as anchors for the ropes, then tossed the ends into the pit. The team members had been chosen carefully, mammals not too big to fit through the tunnels, nor to small to carry and injured rhino back to the surface. They checked their equipment one more time and hooked themselves to the rappel lines, leaving their rifles safely strapped to their backs. The wolf went first, and one by one the others followed, vanishing beneath the stone and moss.

Nick wished them luck and sat in the shelter of a damp alcove on the border between the plateau and the jungle floor. They had a good view of the cenote's opening, where Ben stood with the marines and stared at the hole with bated breath.

"Mind if I join you?"

Judy stood just outside the field of calmness where the rock blocked the wind from reaching. Her ears flapped uncontrollably, and she held the wildlife pamphlet to her chest. Nick hadn't noticed that she'd taken it with her. So much for the corps making him sharp. He had better smarts when he was a hustler.

Nick shrugged, which Judy took as permission to sit next to him.

"I wasn't trying to get myself killed, you know." She said.

"Beg to differ. I think your reckless streak is the real reason you don't have a team."

That earned him a light punch to the arm. "I was looking for more of that gunk you found."

"Dare I ask why?"

"I can't say for sure until MINERVA's checked it out, but I think it may be the same substance that was on the Gorgon."

"The one that nearly pancaked us?"

"Yes. The poor thing had that same gunk in its wounds. I think it was saliva."

Nick shifted his position slightly. "You think the thing that attacked the Gorgon attacked Hornbull as well?"

"The same species at least. I've going through this book over and over, trying to find a creature powerful enough to take down a rhino and be willing to inhabit a subterranean environment."

"Gorgons don't like caves." Nick said blandly.

"So it's either a new species or a serial killing maniac." Judy tapped the pamphlet against her lips, slipping into deep thought.

Nick pulled out his water bottle and smiled drily at the bunny. "If there was a creature like that, don't you think we'd have found it in the last twenty or so years?"

When Judy didn't answer, Nick decided to leave it at that and check the time. Eleven minutes had passed since Wolfowitz had made his descent. One hour was the plan. Not quite time to worry yet.

The minutes passed by as the fox and rabbit sat in uneasy silence. Ben and the marines passed the time mingling, updating HQ on the situation, and watching the swaying trees. The next time he checked, thirty three minutes had gone. If there was any development, they wouldn't know until Wolfowitz and his group returned.

Fifty eight minutes later, there was a shout from down below, almost lost in the storm.


The Hunter did not know what had caused the cave-in, and it doubted it ever would. Anger spurred it onward as it crawled through the caverns to the nearest exit, its vision showing nothing but different shades of black.

The last two serpents had fled in the chaos, either out of self-preservation or at their alpha's command. The Abomination had disappeared in pursuit of the escaped rhinoceros, and the cave-in had prevented the Hunter from pursuing in turn. Worst of all, the Queen had eluded capture.

The Hunter bled from a dozen cuts on its body, the low green glow the only light for miles around. It had been a brutal fight, and the Hunter had been enjoying it until the Abomination interrupted, nearly killing it with its own laser trap, and then abandoned the assault just as swiftly.

A minor setback. The Hunter had faced worse on planets of fire and ice and came out with a blood-drenched trophy held high over its head. It would patch its wounds after it returned to the surface. It would pick up the rhino's trail. Then the hunt would begin anew.