The first thing that hit them was the stench. Sharply acrid, sour, mixed with smoky metallic that shot straight down the throat. Bouts of coughing rose behind her. The urge to do likewise was strong but April forced it down. She cleared her throat and breathed slowly through her mouth instead. She did a quick scan of the uneven ground before her. It looked firm. She stepped out of the shuttle, assault rifle held ready. Her boots sank half a foot into the ground. For a moment, she wondered if the ground was too soggy and swiftly dismissed that thought. The shuttle would have sunk down further if it were so. There were no water sources nearby.
"Watch your step, terrain is soft," she said over her shoulder.
She split them up into threes so they could spread out to cover a wider area. She pulled Doc and Erial with her. Once everyone was out and on the ground, she signalled the pilot. The hatch slide shut and he took off. He would stay aloft until she gave the all clear. The marines fanned out cautiously. Taking point, she headed to the left of the landing zone, the truck with the beacon highlighted on her helmet visor. There was no other movement except their own. Other than the soft muffled steps of their boots, no other sound could be heard.
As she skirted pieces of metallic debris on the ground, she automatically catalogued them. Wires, components, vehicle parts of various sizes and shapes. Greasy dried dirty mounds. It took a moment to register. She halted and flicked on her omni-tool to scan the mounds, reading the data streaming through her helmet visor through the link.
"Doc?" She waved him forward. He crouched down, his omni-tool flared as he first visually examined the greasy muddy black pieces on the ground before he took readings.
"Human. Can't tell which parts," he said softly as Erial looked on uneasily.
"Was he eaten or something, doc?" she asked nervously.
"You ought to stop watching horror vids or you'll have snaggle tooth monsters rounding us up every time we go out," he said.
"I'm more afraid of little ones," Erial returned, stepping back to scan the surroundings carefully.
"Several days old as far as I can make out." McKey stood up, checking the results of the scan again. "About the time when they came out here."
"All right, let's move on."
April resumed heading towards the truck. Erial remained silent but she knew sooner or later, the private was going to mouth off again. That was a characteristic trait of hers whenever any shade of abnormality cropped up. A habit that April could not shake her out of. In a firefight however, Erial was a stolid buddy anyone could depend on.
The truck in question lay on its side, more or less intact but badly battered. The main cabin was almost flattened to a third of its size and the roof of the second cabin was caved in. The couplings that connected the flatbed to the cabin dangled like severed veins. April gingerly tested the large pile of metal debris next to it. Satisfied it would hold her weight, she clipped her rifle to the back of her hardsuit and climbed to the top. That brought her to waist level with the main cabin. The door of the cabin looked intact. It was doubtful the auto-door panel would work but she tried it. Nothing happened. She pulled at the manual latch but the door didn't budge. Another stronger tug produced the same result.
Heaving herself up, she climbed onto the door, knelt down to peer through the side window but saw nothing. It was too dark within. Flicking on her omni-tool, she flashed a light and saw bodies tumbled up at the other end of the cabin. She had no idea if they were dead or alive. Switching off the light, she balanced on the edge of the cabin frame and pulled the latch with all her strength. The door screamed. The other two waiting below instantly clapped hands to their heads but ended up slapping fruitlessly against their helmets. Although the auto sensors quickly dialed down the sound input, they heard enough that stung their ears for a moment.
"Ouch!" Erial, as usual.
"Be thankful you can still hurt," April said with grim humor. "Doc? Might have somebody alive in there-," she nodded down at the darkness of the cabin, bracing the door open.
"Hold the door," he said as he climbed up.
"Yes, sir. Would you like a drink while you're at it?" quipped April. "Tequila shot?"
"If that can be arranged." McKey grinned wolfishly at her before he looked in, omin-tool flashing. "Got a live one. Erial," he rapped out before clambering onto the edge of the cabin and lowered himself down.
The young marine hastily took his place, ready to lend her support. From her perch, she craned her head to look. The cabin rocked as McKey pushed away the corpses that trapped the survivor's legs. A man, as far as she could make out. The cabin glowed eerily from the light of McKey's omni-tool as he made a more thorough examination.
"Broken legs, internal injuries," he said. "Can't do anything here, have to get him outside."
He checked that the man's legs were clear before sliding his hands under his shoulders and pulled him up. Huffing a little at the man's weight for he was taller and much heavier than him, he pushed him towards Erial.
"Try not to bang him around too much."
"Got it, Doc," said Erial, pulling with some effort.
McKey began to say, "Just brace him on the-," as he reached for the man's legs when Erial exerted a stronger drag that overextended most of the man's upper torso. Quick as a flash, he held on to the man's waist when the debris began to slide out under Erial. She yelped. Letting go, she tucked as she fell.
"You ok?" asked April as Erial picked herself up.
"Yeah. Sorry, Doc," Erial called apologetically.
McKey shook his head as his eyes met April's. "Hold on to him and don't move."
"Right." Stepping onto what remained of the debris, Erial grabbed hold and waited. With April's help, McKey got out of the cabin.
"Get the other side," he said as he caught hold of the man's left arm. "Easy, now. Pull." Hooking his fingers into the man's belt, he exerted a steady pull and together, they got him out onto the ground.
April let go of the door which fell shut eagerly with a bang and dropped down. "How is he?"
"It's a good thing he's unconscious, his legs are a damn mess," McKey said grimly. "Knocks to the head, concussion," he muttered, tapping his omni-tool as April crouched down beside him. "Some internal bleeding. He's dehydrated. I'm surprised he's held out this long but that enclosed cabin may have helped in reducing water loss."
"He's got a lot of bruising." April noted the dark contusions on the man's face. Likely inflicted when everyone in the cabin was tossed about.
"He's banged up everywhere." McKey cautiously felt along the man's ribs.
"So." April turned to look at the truck. "Something had a go at the truck and everyone's thrown like peas in a pod."
"Are you saying what I think you're saying, LT?" Erial gulped, blinking rapidly as she looked around.
"What do you think I'm saying?" April returned patiently.
"Uh-," Erial shifted uncertainly. "A large giant grabbed the truck and tried to get at them? Hey there is such a thing you know," she said plaintively when McKey let out a bark of laughter.
"Erial, don't think I don't know what you've been watching during downtimes," he said, taking tiny medical modules from his waist pouches and rapidly injected his patient. "You know damn well they're not real. That vid about a giant gorilla landing in Toronto is plain popcorn hogwash and an underhanded swipe at groundpounders."
"Hogwash or not, how do you explain this?" Erial pointed at the truck. "And those?" She waved at the wreckage strewn around them. "There's no sigh of any firefight, there's just pieces of bodies and hammered metal."
"For all we know, they could have come upon a herd of local antsy fauna that's bigger than a truck and were run over."
"That still doesn't explain the little pieces of people we found," Erial said stubbornly.
"People panic when they're threatened. They could have jumped out of the trucks or were forced to leave them, tried to run, got trampled or were sliced when the trucks went to pieces," McKey said patiently.
"Then we should be finding bigger pieces, don't you think? Not little itty bitty pancakes-," Erial returned hotly.
"All right, canned it," April cut in before Erial could get carried away. Erial fell silent and stared into the distance, pretending to survey the surroundings.
"Alpha1 to all teams, report," April said, listening as the other squads responded.
None had found any survivors. There were a lot of metal debris from flattened and shattered trucks. There were also several pools of dried organic sludge. Corporal Toombs found a decapitated head half buried in the churned up soil. No one had touched it, they'd preferred McKey to examine it himself so he was unable to say how the head was removed. A few almost intact corpses were found, strewn haphazardly about and in odd conditions.
"What's the body count?" she said.
"About ten, within fifty metre range," said Toombs.
That was only one tenth of the total number of the pioneer colonists. Were there others also trapped in the cabins of their trucks? The odds of finding more survivors was very slim but she was not going to write off the colonists. They need to push the search further out. Time was of essence. She checked the chronometer on her omni-tool. The rest of the company was due soon. She had better report in to the skipper so he could begin forming teams to scour every inch of ground, every wreckage the moment they arrived.
"All right, keep searching but keep within range of LZ."
"Yes, sir."