Terran marine Andara Rax’s drumbeat heart resonated through the graphene-coated polymers of her armoured battle-skin. This was it: the moment humanity finally struck back against the alien menace that had razed the outer colonies.

The gentle voice of her AI feathered through her mind. “You gonna miss this place?”

Andara took a final look through the deployment carrier’s viewport where Terra’s all-encompassing industrial sprawl lay grey beneath the clouds. She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. Shelby was more than a neural implant, and Andara knew her AI was well aware of the desolation that had spurred her to enlist.

Terra was a world of thirty billion in a confederacy of seventeen planets. Countless tiny, perishable humans, dispersed across the galactic spiral, and among them Andara was alone. Her family had been the first to die when the Kashabi scourge laid waste to the outer colonies. Bases closer to the Sol system had been wiped out. Soon, Terra Prima would be under threat, and that could not be allowed.

Andara marched in line with her squad down a maze of identical corridors, arriving at the pod bay which would house them for the next five years, or, from their perspective, a single night.

“It’s all relative,” Shelby mused. “I’ll be online throughout the whole trip. At least you organics get to nap.”

Let me know if you spot any interesting nebulae.

“How? You’ll be cryo-snoring while I play ‘I Spy’ with the other AI.”

Should give you time to work on your poetry.

“Ha freaking ha. I won’t miss your wit.”

Andara knew she would, and was grateful Shelby would remain linked with the ship throughout the voyage, monitoring her vitals, administering nutrients, conditioning her responses for enemy terrain—constantly updated based on the latest scans which would grow ever more accurate as they neared theirtarget.

A target, it appeared, which had at last been found.

After Kashabi attack-probes reduced Terra’s colonies to ashes, they had vanished into deep space, undetectable.

Millions died.

Millions more sought vengeance, and soon they’d teach the enemy the price of their repeated incursions.

“What do you think they look like?” a nearby marine asked.

“The Kashabi?”

“Who else?”

“Squid monsters,” another stated. “I heard they’re covered in tentacles that can suck the life from you before you get anywhere close. That’s why the brass had to re-engineer the battle-skins.”

“They’re more like spiders,” another said. “Some kind of freakish insect-race.”

“Arachnid race,” Andara corrected.

“Whatever, Rax. I can pull the legs off spiders as easily as flies.”

“They’re not squids or spiders,” a third marine said. “They’re lizard people. It’s always lizard people.”

Andara laughed, though a part of her found it troubling no details of Kashabi appearance or biology were known.

That was where the Cresari came in. As the first non-human sentient race to have been discovered, the Confederacy had been eager to cosy up to them and acquire new technologies. But the Cresari remained aloof, rarely making contact, almost mythical in their commitment to seclusion. Still, it was from them the location of Kashab had been determined.

Bulkheads vibrated as thrusters fired. The largest fleet ever assembled was underway. Six thousand warships primed and outfitted for long-term engagement would overwhelm theKashabi defences and clear a path for Andara and thousands like her. Though the number of days until arrival would tally beyond her reckoning, to Andara it would elapse in the course of a single night. This time tomorrow—five years from now—she’d be knee-deep in Kashabi guts.

* * * * *

Andara stirred. The post-cryo mind-fog usually cleared within seconds, but her head became more groggy as she stretched. Her limbs ached, somehow weaker. Perhaps a poorly calibrated circuit in my stasis unit or— All at once, her memories clarified. She jerked her eyes open, expecting the enclosure to auto-raise and the excited calls of her squad to fire her for battle.

The lid failed to disengage. Condensation dripped from the inner surface. Are the vents offline? No response. Shelby? About to ask again, daylight gripped her attention tighter. She fumbled for the manual release, heaving with tired arms to unlatch the seal. A hiss confirmed success, then faded into silence. Andara eased the lid open an inch. Though distant, an intermittent chirping carried on the breeze. Why would there be birds … or a breeze? The scent of grass wafted in, and something else. Smoke?

She filled her lungs. Definitely smoke, though not the sulphuric, charred residue of exploded munitions. A more earthy scent gusted in, like crops burning.

Pushing the lid fully open, she looked for signs of her squadron, of battle, listening for the fizz of energy discharges or the screams of the dying. Scorched earth lay scattered in all directions, piling against the sides of a crater. Shreds of what appeared to be an outer hull littered the ground, the torn edges still glowing red from whatever had caused its destruction. An escape pod? Her cryo-module stood upright in the debris, a focal point in the wounded landscape. Corn swayed above the lip about twenty paces away, though from her recessed position, she could not see beyond.

“You the one who put a hole in my farm?”

The pod’s hatch prevented Andara from seeing who had spoken. Instinctually, she reached for her weapon, then remembered it was stashed with her battle-skin in the locker outside her pod. Dressed only in her jumpsuit, she stepped out of her berth.

The voice, which had conveyed its message in a calm tone muddied by an unfamiliar accent, belonged to a man squatting at the far side of the crater, holding a fragment of scrap metal over his head with one hand. “Peace, my friend.” He showed his other hand, empty of weapons, and pulled aside his coat to reveal no armaments beneath. His clothing, plain, well-worn and muddy, supported his claim that he tended this land.

The haze in Andara’s mind lingered. Her watcher shifted position to his other knee, cocked his head and peered at her with simple curiosity.

“Where am I?”

“I told you: my farm.”

“Which is where?”

“Mushori.”

“Why’s that metal on your head?”

He grinned. “Umbrella.”

Great, Shelby. We’re lost in the middle of nowhere with a halfwit.

Shelby, again, failed to respond.

Don’t worry, Andara reassured her silent AI, or maybe just herself. I’ll run diagnostics when I get my suit on, assuming it’s intact.

Her legs wobbled as she stepped away from the capsule.

“Easy.” The man approached. “Stay out of the rain.” He adjusted his unusual umbrella.

Andara glanced at the sky: clear, blue, no sign of intemperate weather. “I asked you where I am.”

“And I told you. I should be very annoyed by the dent you made in my crop.” Despite any misgivings about her presence, he smiled. He was a brawny man and his biceps tested the limits of his simple shirt as he peeled off his coat. “You’ve been through a lot, I’m sure.” He offered a hand.

“Stay back.”

He slowed, inching forward a half-step every few seconds. “The name’s Pellerut Spee. Pel, for short. And you are?”

“Separated from my unit.” She clung to the rim of the capsule. Mounting questions plagued her worse than the unexpected weakness in her limbs. “Do you have a comms unit?”

“There’s nothing like that here.”

“How far is the nearest town?”

“About a day’s traipse, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Rain’s coming.”

Andara checked the sky where sunshine beamed down, unblemished by cloud. “I’ll survive.” After determining she could stand unaided, she released the pod and checked the mud around the base for the storage locker. “Fuck.”

“Problem?”

“Nothing you need to worry about.” Steaming earth caked the lower end of the capsule, hardening into rock, too hot to touch. The locker lay half-buried by the impact, its precious contents in uncertain condition.

The clang of metal impacting metal burst through the stillness. Andara flinched. Pel hadn’t moved. He clutched the underside of his steel umbrella like his life depended on it.

“What the heck was that?”

“Like I said: rain.” He kicked a scrap of pulverised hull plating towards her.

Andara lifted it, checking it for markings. “Is this from a ship?” She fixed her stare on Pel. “Did something happen to the fleet?”

“Which fleet is that?”

Frustrated, Andara crossed the mud towards him. Perhaps a quasi-threatening shake might increase the value of his information. Before she reached him, another impact slammed into the ground between them, leaving a smoking hole and a tremor that shuddered through her feet.

“It’s not safe.” Pel scrambled up the embankment. “Follow.”

“Where?”

“Anywhere else.” He left her to her decision.

Andara shielded her eyes. Not a single cloud obscured the sun, though now that she noticed it, its size and hue seemed odd. Slightly larger and adegree or two paler. The sky too appeared shaded by a different brush.

She shook her head. Residual mind-fog, that’s all. She scraped the hardening rock around the pod’s base with a debris shard, only succeeding in uncovering the top section. Exhausted, she sat back and considered her options. The DNA lock will keep it safe until I find something to dig it out.

Whistling caught her ear, fading as Pel ambled further away. Andara scooped up the tornhull-plating and left the crater. Corn swayed as far as she could see, broken by occasional wisps of smoke from what Pel referred to as rain. Deciding his suggestion might have more practicality than initially thought, she covered her head and hurried after him.

He strode through his crop with purpose, though no destination seemed evident.

“Where are we going?”

“Home,” he said as she caught up. “You’ll be safe there.”

“How far is it?”

“Closer than you think.” His answers, though short, uninformative and infuriating, were delivered in a playful way: a slight taunt conveyed with a sparkle. Whatever it was, it coloured his voice with a warmth she did not feel threatened by.

“Private Andara Rax,” she said, answering his earlier question.

Surprise reshaped his brows. “Isn’t that a man’s name?”

“Not that I’m aware.”

“Huh. Must be different where you’re from.”

“Where am I now?”

“Where were you going?”

Andara resisted the urge to punch him. “I was assigned to the Terran fleet.”

“Ah.” Pel nodded. “That sounds exciting.”

“Almost as exciting as that death-rain. How about you bring me up to speed?”

“You should eat first. And rest.” He pressed on. “We’ll be there soon.”

Andara grabbed his arm and spun him around. “Where are we and why’s the sky trying to kill us?”

Pel repositioned his umbrella. “Your escape pod must have collided with another. I plotted its trajectory and realised it’d land around here. I couldn’t believe my luck: the biggest skyfall this year and it was headed right for me.” He waved a hand at a patch of sky where, even in daylight, tiny specks like shooting stars sparked, fizzled and died. “Most of it burned away in the upper atmosphere and I thought ‘That’s it, Pel. No bounty this time. Consider yourself lucky to scavenge a few trinkets from the ashes.’ But the main casing survived re-entry. It only lost integrity about thirty metres up. Your sleeper pod must have saved you.”

“From what?” Andara blurted. “Why was I in an escape pod?” And still in cryo. “Nothing you’ve said explains anything.”

“Funny. I thought it did.” With a shrug, he continued through the field. “How long were you asleep?”

“Five years.” The uncertainty in her tone surprised her.

Pel counted on his fingers, then folded them down and started again, and again. “Five years out, twelve since.”

Andara froze. “That’s not possible.” Her arms slackened and she dropped her head-shield. “This is some last-minute training simulation, screening troops for how we’d deal with the unexpected. I never left Terra. It’s the only explanation.”

“Unfortunately not.” Pel nudged her fallen umbrella with his foot. “Your war is long over, soldier.”

“End simulation!” When nothing happened, she gaped at Pel. Her mind-fog returned in a blaze of agony: too many questions and no Shelby to help sort through them. “What happened to the fleet?”

“Six thousand ships causes quite a debris-field. Most escape pods crashed into their neighbours or other fragments of the armada, which, over time … ”

Andara gasped. “The rain.”

“For twelve years what’s left of your invasion force has encircled us. Gravity snares one here, one there, and another wound in our planet’s battered skin is cut. Mostly it delivers bullet-hail. Today it delivered you.”

Andara’s confusion railed against her training. Twelve years in orbit, floating among the corpses of my squad, and now … She flipped her scrap-metal umbrella up, grabbed it, and brandished it like a shield.

Pel watched. “That goes on your head.”

Even weakened, Andara had no doubt she could subdue one corn farmer. She scanned the terrain as the familiar-yet-foreign crop swayed in the breeze. She studied her adversary: a creature indistinguishable from a Terran. Shelby, how can he be what he claims?

“There’s more to discuss, if you’ll follow.” Pel brushed a flattened layer of ‘corn’ aside, revealing a stair which led to a doorway about three metres below field-level. “I welcome you to Kashab, Private Andara Rax. We are not your enemies.”