Just because the nest here was gone, didn’t mean the scourge had forgotten about us. The flyers from nearby nests came by often, and the hunters had warned us that this warm season the scourge would try to reestablish a nest since there was plenty of food about. Namely us.
Several hunters were already waiting in the courtyard along with their mates. The hunters made it a point to stay in New Franklin on planting days because the sheer number of people working the fields made us a target. Their job was to destroy all the scourge before they could come and ruin our crops. Just one dead flyer in the field was enough to render that part of the land forfeit for the year. It took at least one full season for the microbes in the ground to clear up the fungus.
It wasn’t just the space bugs that were deadly, but their symbiotic fungus. Accidentally ingest it, and you’d turn into a zombie ready to be picked up by the scourge and brought back to their nest. Sometimes, even if one survived the creature’s bite, they still succumbed to the fungus, especially if their immune system was lacking. It was why we always had antifungals on hand; they were crucial.
But the hunters wouldn’t actually mobilize until about mid-morning since the scourge rarely attacked until then. Right now, the sun wasn’t even really up yet. It was too damn early for the scourge. Hell, it was too damn early for me. I was a bit of a night owl.
“Hey, Dottie! Janice! Over here.” Alice waved us over.
Next to her were Natalie, Tilly, and Waffles. Waffles looked more than ready to dig in the dirt. I’d seen them work last year, with Waffles digging like the field owed her more Milk Bones, and Tilly plopping the larger seedlings in and closing up the holes behind her. They made a good team until they got to the end of the row, and Waffles started digging the plants back up.
“Let’s hurry and get started. We need to get the clear covers on the fields before the flyers show up,” Alice said, looking ready to take on the day.
Next to her, Natalie looked more like me, ready to go back to bed.
We’d learned to use transparent crop covers over our fields to protect our crops. It meant we had to collect rainwater and water the crops daily, but we all agreed the extra work was worth it to know our crops weren’t contaminated by the fungus.
Originally, we’d planted in greenhouses; there was one attached to the hunters’ compound and another to the mainsurvivor building. But we found it wasn’t enough to feed the growing population. So now those were considered private gardens, with the one in the main survivor building converted into a year-long ornamental and medicinal garden, which I was certain had been instrumental in saving lives every winter when we all went stir-crazy and depression hit hard.
Because the settlement was situated at the edge of an industrial park, we had large fields extending away from the former city at our disposal. As the settlement grew, our food production would be within our midst, and while that was strange for those of us who only knew of North American city planning, our handful of Vietnamese residents assured us again and again that it would work perfectly fine in the long run.
Apparently, the city of Dalat was interspersed with fields and greenhouses, producing a wide variety of food, including artichokes, dragonfruit, persimmons, avocados, tea, and, most famously, coffee, right in their backyards. We didn’t have the climate for all that here, but we were sure we’d be able to make it work with whatever plants we had.
We’d just gotten the last clear cover up when I noticed the hunters who had been helping us were no longer here, and Alice and Natalie looked visibly worried. Tilly had put Waffles’ leash on and was keeping her closer than before.
Not one for guessing games, I asked. “What’s going on?”
Before anyone could respond, the sound of the scourge alarm had us scrambling into the tents we’d set up in each section of the field to hide us from flyers. Flyers hunted by sight, and an empty field meant they kept on going.
Usually the hunters were already in the air, distracting the flyers so we could get to safety. But the attack came so early thatwe hadn’t been ready. We were running to the tent when the first scourge arrived.
They were like no flyers I’d ever seen. Normal flyers looked like giant scorpions with wings and had an impaler instead of a stinger. This abomination was more like a wasp, except it was bright red. It had a large abdomen and a tiny wasp-waist. But instead of a stinger, it had a long, whiplike tail. I had no doubt that the tail was covered with the same neurotoxins that were on the scuttler’s front claws or the centicreep’s blades.
Each one was the size of a large van if you didn’t count the long tail. The wings moved fast, making a terrifying buzzing sound that made me want to cover my ears and hide. It was even worse than the sounds of the scuttler’s feet.
The turrets, old Xarc’n shuttle blasters, set up at the edge of the settlement shot at the creatures, but they were fast in the air and moved out of the way.
“The mutations!” Janice said, taking the word right out of my mouth
This past winter, when the Xarc’n warriors had lost their mothership after it was infected by a scourge-corrupted mining vessel, several pieces of the infected vessel had fallen to Earth. The scourge had shown strange activity, fighting over the pieces we’d located. We finally got our hands on it and destroyed it, but not before it had already been inside a scourge nest. That nest had started pumping out strange mutations.
I squished into the tiny tent after Janice, trying not to knock over the flat of seedlings.
“I thought they got rid of the mutant nest before it was fully established,” I said.
“That’s what I thought too,” Alice said. “Kaj’k helped burn it out.”
“Does that mean the mutation is out and it’s spreading?” Natalie asked.
I was afraid to answer because I had a feeling she was right. That was horrible news, because the mutations were most active during the only time we had to work, dawn and dusk, when normal scourge were resting. They circled our settlement as more of their kind started arriving.
It wasn’t long before hunter shuttles, uncloaked and using themselves as bait, flew in to draw the creatures away. Because of the fungus, fighting the scourge over the settlement was always a bad idea. As the hunters led them away, our turrets shot at the creatures from the ground.
What bothered me the most was the fact that we hadn’t had a report of these mutations or had any attacks on our settlement for a while. It was like they’d known to come to look for us, like they guessed when planting day was. I didn’t like it.
Suddenly, a large form crashed into the tent we were hiding in, pulling it right out of the ground. I swore as we tumbled into each other. I got a face full of potting mix when the flat of seedlings toppled all over me.
The loud buzzing intensified and sharp claw-like legs slashed at the outside of the tent, ripping it. I stifled a scream as I came face-to-face with the aberration.
