TEXT: BattleCorps
  FORGOTTEN 
  WORLDS
  Book One
  The Hunt for Jardine
  Herbert A. Beas II
  
  BattleCorps
  Forgotten Worlds: The Hunt for Jardine • Page 
  Chapter Three
  
  BattleCorps
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  Dearest Tyler,
  I almost forgot how much easier exploring dead worlds could be 
  compared to live ones.
  Our entire journey to Shasta was spent in arguments, mostly be-
  tween us and the Shastan authorities over the extent of our access 
  to the Mesozonia. They may have bought the cover story T and M 
  worked up (when those two weren’t fighting), but they insisted on 
  a local guide.
  I’m not sure if I’d have been more or less suspicious if they hadn’t, 
  to tell the truth. Holyfield’s work wasn’t too long ago, meaning 
  anyone who’d be out to silence her would likely be on guard for 
  any follow-ups like us. Marie worked up our own excuse for being 
  here, of course: an exo-biology expedition, examining the hazards 
  facing rare Terran-exported species. (She somehow found that an 
  obscure, recently-noted decline in an introduced rat population 
  is endangering a special form of Amazonian rainforest tree the 
  Shastans have cultivated here, and thinks that the culprits may be 
  a certain scavenger species newly introduced, like our furry firecat 
  friends. So, our goal is to act like we’re examining the ecological 
  imbalance without any ideas as to the culprit. Clever, but maybe 
  too abstract to convince the paranoids.)
  Anyway, so we have a guide assigned to us, Esok. He seems 
  knowledgeable and provincial, and he’s even helped us out of a 
  few uncomfortable (and embarrassing) jams since we’ve been 
  here over the past week. But, I don’t know. Could be I’m the one 
  being too paranoid...
  At any rate, the real problem isn’t the guide these days, but Marie. 
  It seemed like such a good idea to have her along, but now I just 
  can’t be sure. Since coming into the field, she’s become like a tem-
  peramental eichhornchen—moody one day, excited the next, and 
  downright pissy the day after that. I hate to admit it, but maybe 
  Trouble was right.
  (But please don’t tell him I said that!)
  Love!
  —Brooke
  
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  North Mesozonia Rain Forest 
  Shasta 
  Free Worlds League 
  14 September 3067
  Brooke could tell just by glancing at her it was going to be one 
  of those days again. Marissa’s lips were drawn into a tight, thin 
  line, neither smiling nor frowning. Her eyes had a predatory look 
  to them that lased through her glasses, and her hair had been tied 
  into a tight bun, pinned beneath a dusty green, wide-brimmed 
  bush hat.
  After more than a week in the rainforest, battling all manner of 
  insects, setting and resetting sensor probes, flinching at every un-
  familiar noise, and facing at least one close encounter with some 
  six-armed thing that Esok had called a “skatha ape,” Marissa was 
  in her ever-more-popular “let’s just get this damned mission over 
  with” mode again. Seated behind Esok, she turned away from her 
  brooding stare out the clouded windows of the Ibex and caught 
  Brooke’s gaze for a moment. She flashed a weak smile as the RV 
  lurched again before resuming her angry staring contest with the 
  greenery beyond.
  She almost looks like I feel, Brooke told herself, trying to ignore 
  the irritating throbbing that had plagued her legs for the last few 
  days.
  Brooke turned a little further in her harness and gave a slight nod 
  to Lawrence, who met her eyes with a smile and a shrug. He also 
  knew the signs of Marissa’s foul moods by now—and had long 
  since become an old hat at reading Brooke’s own discomfort.
  She hated this time of the month.
  Settling back in her seat, Brooke adjusted the brim of her sim-
  ple cap and drew in another long, deep breath of damp forest air, 
  catching only the faintest whiff of gasoline from the modified RV’s 
  grumbling engine. The two-ton, muddy-tan Ibex lurched violently 
  as it drove on through the dense forest, shocking her spine with 
  every bump and adding to the irritation she tried so hard to bottle 
  up. Anything resembling a beaten path had vanished days ago. 
  But the Shastans prided themselves on accurate maps of the “un-
  marked trails,” one of which the dark-haired, dark-skinned Esok 
  claimed this was. A clearing, he said, lay just ahead…somewhere.
  
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  Thank Bast for small favors! she told herself.
  “You should find many more samples here, Doctor Stevens,” 
  he promised once more, breaking the semi-silence. His Shastan 
  accent had a distinctly Asian style to it, and reminded Brooke of 
  something she’d expect to hear a Kurita character say on some 
  holovid picture.
  “Yes, you mentioned that,” she replied, fighting back a sarcastic 
  snap. The man could still be someone’s plant, and giving in to her 
  own annoyance could only put him more on edge if he was wait-
  ing for a sign to do something rash.
  “According to the map,” she added, “this was one of the original 
  groves, wasn’t it?”
  “Certainly was,” Esok said proudly. “The first settlers dreamed 
  of recreating the Amazon in this unspoiled wilderness. They suc-
  ceeded beyond their wildest expectations with these woods.”
  Without any real warning, the thick walls of green and blue-green 
  leaves parted ahead of the blocky snout of the Ibex. As another 
  pass of the vehicle’s wiper blades cleared off the misty fog on the 
  windshield, an irregular clearing of thick grass and patches of dark 
  brown earth sprang into being before Brooke’s eyes.
  Esok practically slammed the brakes, bringing the 2-ton RV to a 
  sudden halt that rattled both the delicate equipment racks and the 
  rest of Brooke’s team.
  “Here we are,” Esok almost sang. “Your ‘Point Charlie,’ I be-
  lieve.”
  And not a moment too soon!
  With a more genuine smile, Brooke half-turned to the others while 
  her fingers worked to release her four-point harness. Marissa was 
  already out of hers, brushing off the straps and scowling slightly. 
  The younger woman had one hand on her door handle, ready to 
  leap out, and another on the holster of her Nashan Subjugator 
  tranquilizer pistol, as if she half expected to drop into battle.
  “All right, kids,” Brooke called out. “We’ll be camping here tonight 
  and there’s maybe six good hours of daylight left, give or take 
  the next bout of heavy rain. So the sooner we make ourselves at 
  home here, the sooner we can start setting up the pods. Lawrence, 
  want to give me a hand with the tent?”
  
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  Hearing the veteran spacer’s grumbling “yes,” Brooke caught 
  Marissa’s eyes. The scowl on her face had softened; for the last 
  two days, Brooke had put her to work on pitching the tents, a task 
  she clearly hated.
  “Sensor perimeter,” Brooke told her. “Esok’s going to stand 
  guard.”
  Marissa nodded silently and hopped out. As the others 
  also climbed out, Brooke closed her eyes and steeled herself. 
  Moving her body—let alone jumping out of a vehicle—had 
  lately become a major chore. Her legs and feet felt like they 
  weighed a half-ton each, and had lately started to ache far 
  more than usual. Of course, the normal pains were something 
  she’d naturally grown used to decades ago, but something 
  about the rainforest was really starting to enhance the ef-
  fect.
  That, she told herself, or it’s just the company.
  As soon as her hiking boots hit the soft, green earth, she reached 
  for the communicator hooked into to her upper-left cargo vest 
  pocket. Tied into the antenna she’d mounted on the Ibex, the sig-
  nal was just strong enough to tap into the local satellite nets and 
  reach Tibor and their DropShuttle.
  “Guten tag, Chief!” his voice crackled. “How’s it going?”
  Brooke closed her eyes and again took in the musty odor of wet 
  soil and alien vegetation. The aromas felt somehow soothing, 
  but also chilling—despite the sweat-inducing 28 Celsius (and 80 
  percent humidity) that the locals called the “Mesozonian Winter.” 
  Opening her eyes again, she scanned the small clearing and made 
  sure everyone was busy and out of earshot, pulling equipment 
  from RV’s rear hatch.
  “We’re at Point Charlie now, Trouble,” she reported, then grum-
  bled, “Just remind me to watch my cycles before trekking into the 
  woods next time.”
  Tibor made a funny noise the communicator transmitted as stat-
  ic. For a moment, Brooke got the image of him spitting a mouthful 
  of coffee across the sensor boards, and the thought almost made 
  her laugh.
  “Unrequested Info Surplus, woman!” Tibor snapped. “You know 
  they have pills for that, right?”
  
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  “They make me bloat,” Brooke said with an evil smirk. “And if 
  you think it’s bad hearing about it, try living with it. How’re things 
  over there?”
  “Well,” Tibor said, “this may darken your mood some more, but 
  I’ve been watching the Able and Baker Point sweeps for the last 
  two days, and I have to say, I’m not getting anything beyond the 
  indigenous species. The rat populations seem lower than expect-
  ed, but not extinct.”
  “Damn.”
  “Yup, and no direct sign of our feline friends, either. Just the local 
  bugs, bees, rats, and skathas.”
  Brooke sighed, feeling the surge of unfocused anger again, but 
  pushed it aside. After six days and a mere fifty-seven kilometers 
  from civilization, could she really expect an easy hunt?
  “Still wouldn’t hurt to at least have a clue we’re on the right track,” 
  she mumbled to herself.
  “Say again?” Tibor’s voice came back.
  “Nothing, Trouble,” Brooke told him. “Just grousing is all.”
  “Marie giving grief again?”
  Brooke narrowed her eyes. “I take it Lawrence is still feeding you 
  the inside scoop?”
  Tibor chuckled slightly. “He fills me in on whatever the cameras 
  miss,” he admitted. “Can’t say I didn’t try to talk you out of it.”
  Had to get your digs in again, didn’t you?
  “Very funny, Trouble,” Brooke said flatly. “Listen, we’re about to 
  set up camp now, and then we’ll start deploying sensors in the 
  area. I’ll check in at the usual intervals. Okay?”
  “As you say, boss,” Tibor came back, serious once more. “Just 
  watch yourselves out there.”
  “Always do,” Brooke said and closed the connection.
  Taking another deep breath of heavy, earthy rainforest air, she 
  surveyed her surroundings again. Not really so much a clearing 
  as a patch of lower vegetation compared to the towering rainfor-
  est around it, the area was perhaps no more than forty meters 
  
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  across at its widest, and covered in long wild grasses. Blue-green 
  shrubs and several large rocks spattered with a brackish moss 
  broke through the surface in several locations, each one a hiding 
  space for who knew how many insects and small animals. Esok 
  had managed to tear up some of the looser earth with his braking, 
  and—Brooke noticed on closer inspection—had narrowly missed 
  crushing the rotting, slim corpse of a long-dead tree.
  Had it been a vacation, and not a mission site, Brooke momen-
  tarily wondered how much she would be able to enjoy the view, 
  rather than be wary of it.
  Already, she could see Marissa stalking the rim of the pseudo-
  clearing, driving sensor stakes into the ground while Esok, hefting 
  some locally produced hunting rifle, stood half a meter behind 
  her, eyes probing the wilderness. Brooke studied the guide once 
  more, focusing on his body language and—once more—finding 
  nothing amiss. Even with his weapon at the ready and his three 
  “charges” too obviously busy to notice his action, he remained on 
  guard against the natural dangers of the forest, not preparing an 
  attack of his own.
  “Doesn’t prove anything,” Brooke whispered to herself. “Stay on 
  your guard, girl.”
  Just behind the Ibex, Lawrence had already pulled out two of 
  the sleeping tents and had started to erect the first on the closest 
  patch of relatively level ground he could find. Swatting away a 
  close-buzzing insect, Brooke made her way over to him on legs 
  that already felt heavier than lead.
  Lawrence looked up, gracing Brooke with another good look at 
  his face full of days-old gray stubble. The tips of his hair, now ex-
  posed to the forest’s heat and a few minutes of labor, were already 
  plastered to his forehead. Still, he smiled warmly.
  “Hope Trouble’s enjoying his vacation,” he joked.
  “Having such a great time, he wishes he were here,” Brooke an-
  swered. “Once we get these set up, I think we’ll break into two 
  pairs. Each of us will take a pack and start laying the sensors in 
  opposite directions.”
  Lawrence nodded as he turned to stake another corner of the 
  field tent into place. His breathing was slightly more labored than 
  Brooke liked, but she also knew he was still having trouble with 
  Shasta’s 0.96 gees. For spacers his age, Brooke suspected that 
  
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  getting one’s “land legs” back could take almost a month—often 
  just in time to go back to the relative comfort of microgravity.
  “Fair enough,” he said. “We should pack ponchos, too; feels like 
  rain.”
  Brooke shook her head as she started to stake the second tent 
  beside the first one. “Damn,” she muttered. “I knew I forgot to ask 
  Trouble something.”
  Lawrence sighed as he locked his tent’s uprights into place with 
  a loud click. The slate gray waterproof polymer that rose along 
  with the support already glistened with the ambient moisture and 
  random drops of rainwater that fell from the leaf canopy above. 
  After six days in the field, none of them even noticed the constant 
  dripping that made everything not covered in plastics sopping wet 
  by the end of the day.
  “So, who’re the pairs?” he asked. “Or do I even need to guess?”
  Brooke smiled. “You know me too well, old man,” she said. “I’m 
  giving you Marissa. The way I’m feeling today, I just don’t think I 
  could deal with her mood.”
  “So you’ll expose poor Esok to your mood, then?” Lawrence said 
  as he finished his tent and came over to help Brooke.
  “Mine is under control,” Brooke snapped back. “I just prefer to 
  keep an eye on our guide a bit more.”
  Lawrence’s ice-blue eyes flicked over to where Marissa and Esok 
  were now talking over another sensor stake. Almost thirty meters 
  away, and half-hidden by the Ibex, they both knew there was no 
  way the two could hear them. Lawrence still lowered his voice and 
  spoke bluntly. “If he were going to try something, hon, I imagine 
  he’d already have done it. We’re over fifty kilometers from no-
  where as it is.”
  “I know,” Brooke said with a wink. “But a little paranoia never hurt 
  anyone. We are, after all, ethnic Lyrans in Free Worlds space.”
  Lawrence’s grin returned. “Touché!”
  v v v
  Brooke’s legs burned and her mouth watered with the memory 
  of her last cup of coffee. Her skin crawled with the feeling of her 
  
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  own sweat and the rain that had picked up in the last fifteen min-
  utes and found its way inexorably through the gaps in her light 
  green poncho. Traversing the broken, uneven rainforest terrain—
  in almost twilight-level darkness thanks to the forest canopy and 
  the rain clouds beyond it—while hefting a bulky pack of five sen-
  sor shafts hardly made the journey any more miserable.
  But what concerned her most was that she felt as though she 
  were being watched—and this time, not by Esok. In fact, Esok was 
  sloughing through the forest ahead of her, his rifle at the ready 
  as ever. They had encountered almost no creatures of any kind 
  since leaving the campsite, which Brooke had found a welcome 
  surprise, considering the abundance of snakes, rats, and the occa-
  sional skatha they had run across at the other sites. But the initial 
  relief soon faded as she started to wonder why.
  It also occurred to her that Esok’s tour guide banter had started 
  to taper off as well in the last few minutes. When they first set out, 
  he had begun a proud tale about Shasta’s first colonists—mainly 
  peoples from Terra’s Argentina and Colombia regions—and their 
  efforts to recreate the lost glories of the Amazon region here. 
  Brooke was only half-listening then, giving noncommittal or bland 
  replies as Esok went into how, if one looked really close, one could 
  almost see the orderly rows to these trees here, a hallmark of their 
  origins as an artificial grove and natural preserve.
  But now he was silent, and his eyes were sweeping the woods as 
  he went onward. His pace had also slowed. Instinctively, Brooke 
  tucked one hand under her poncho and released the catch of the 
  Sternsnacht Python at her right hip.
  “Something wrong?” she finally dared to ask, keeping her voice low.
  “Oh,” Esok said with a slight start, his tone still light. “Maybe 
  nothing, Doctor. The forest just feels unusual to me here.”
  “‘Feels’ unusual?”
  Esok stopped finally and glanced back at her, but kept his rifle 
  pointed away. Then, suddenly, he started sniffing the air. Brooke 
  did so too, and immediately picked up a stench she was surprised 
  she had not noticed before.
  The smell of something dead, something close.
  Her eyes darted around as she sniffed the air again, her tongue 
  curling in her mouth as she fought back the nausea. Whatever it 
  was, it was very close.
  
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  Then she saw it, just as Esok started to take a few steps toward 
  a clump of rocks. The carcass lay in the opposite direction, and 
  a swarm of red flies scattered as Brooke drew near it. Struggling 
  against her urge to gag, Brooke removed her backpack and knelt 
  down.
  Whatever the creature was, it didn’t look like the agouti rats 
  Marissa had been telling her about. In fact, with its six bony arms, 
  covered—partially, anyway—in gray-brown fur, it looked to Brooke 
  like a juvenile skatha ape. Only its head had been ripped off, and 
  what remained of its torso cavity had been obviously scorched by 
  something, with fur and flesh burned almost to blackness.
  So close to the carcass, amid the smell of rotting flesh and some-
  thing else strange and chemical, Brooke struggled against her gag 
  reflex, coughing once. 
  “You see something?” Esok asked.
  Turning slightly away, Brooke nodded and coughed again.
  And that was when she saw the claw, lodged in a hunk of fallen 
  bark. Curled sharply and blood red, she knew it didn’t come from 
  the skatha. She picked it up as Esok cautiously drew near. His 
  sharp, hazel eyes kept probing the trees around them, but finally 
  settled on Brooke’s when she rose. 
  “Wha—?”
  “Skatha, I think,” she explained. “Any idea what kind of claw this 
  is?”
  Esok stared blankly at the red hook, and shook his head dumbly. 
  “Maybe a lute shrike,” he guessed, naming what Brooke presumed 
  was a local avian, “but they never venture this deep into the for-
  ests and their claws are never quite so red.”
  He glanced around again, and this time Brooke’s gaze also swept 
  the area. Something was making the man nervous, and she began 
  to suspect that it was something close by. Her right hand once 
  again disappeared beneath her poncho to hover near the Python.
  “What about acid?” she asked, her voice low.
  Esok turned a questioning look to her.
  “The creature looks like it’s been burned by some kind of acid,” 
  she told him. “Does anything in this forest secrete an acid?”
  
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  “Acid?” he sputtered, his rich voice suddenly unsure. He looked 
  over the remains with a slight choking sound. “N-No,” he said. 
  “Nothing here. Nothing that burns like that.”
  Keeping one hand close to her Python, Brooke pocketed the 
  claw and reached for her communicator with the other. A single 
  click put her through to Tibor.
  “We may have something here,” she said simply.
  “And hello to you too, Sunshine,” Tibor said. “What’ve you got?”
  “Looks like a baby skatha, dead. Judging by the remains, some-
  thing with red claws and an acidic venom or spit did the poor thing 
  in.”
  “You’re kidding!”
  “Nein,” Brooke said. “Here, Esok. Can you get a sensor camera 
  on it?”
  Esok looked down sharply, and Brooke realized he’d been watch-
  ing the surroundings again. Her own eyes darted about and saw 
  nothing.
  As Esok reached for the sensor pods tucked into his pack, a 
  sound—something between a growl and a hiss—drew both of 
  their attention to a dark cluster of trees ten meters away. In the 
  dusk-like shadows, she thought she could make out a shape in 
  motion, and from the corner of her eye she saw Esok sweep his 
  rifle toward the shape.
  He waited for a few moments, holding his breath as Brooke’s 
  hand tightened around the handle of her Python. 
  “Brooke?” Tibor’s voice came through the communicator.
  “Hang on, Troub—!”
  The thunderous crack that followed startled Brooke so much 
  that she stumbled into the thick grass, landing less than a hand’s 
  breadth from the skatha carcass. She heard an answering report 
  from Esok’s rifle almost immediately, only to realize that he held 
  the weapon skyward. With a strangled cough, the dark-skinned 
  guide fell to his knees, the life in his eyes already gone by the time 
  his head hit the jungle floor.
  “Scheiße!” Brooke yelled out, finally drawing her pistol as an-
  other loud crack ripped through the trees and blasted apart the 
  
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  skatha. A splash of loose earth and rotting meat sprayed across 
  her right side and sent her diving forward.
  “Brooke!” Tibor shouted from the communicator still in her other hand.
  “Call the others, Trouble!” she yelled back.
  Even as she forced her legs beneath her, Brooke’s eyes tried to 
  track the source of the shots.
  There!
  She could barely make out the figure in the shadows of the forest, 
  but the raindrops spattered around it, suggesting a man draped in 
  a full-body cloak. Brooke didn’t need to see his eyes to know they 
  were trained on her, along with whatever weapon he’d just used 
  to blast a hole straight through Esok.
  A flash of metal swung before the figure and she immediate-
  ly ducked low, scrambling for the nearest outcropping of rocks 
  at a half-crouching run. Her legs screamed in agony, but carried 
  her clear of the figure’s next ear-splitting shot, which punched a 
  fist-sized hole in the earth and scattered grass and soil in all direc-
  tions.
  In her peripheral vision, she caught the slightest hint of an elec-
  tric-blue muzzle flash and the silvery blur of the passing slug, even 
  as she juked her way to a thick tree. The stones that had spared 
  her life moments before shattered beneath the pulverizing impact 
  of another shot.
  It’s some kind of Gauss rifle!
  “Brooke!” Tibor was screaming again. “Talk to me!”
  “I’m taking fire here, you dummkopf!” she snapped back. Her 
  ears were ringing and her body was aching all over. Another deaf-
  ening crack punctuated her answer and fragments of bark rained 
  down on the brim of her cap.
  Too close!
  “Can you see who it is?” Tibor asked.
  “A little busy here, Trouble!” she growled as she forced herself 
  to run again.
  Wheeling around another tree, Brooke felt her boots slip on the 
  slick grass, and she nearly tumbled over an exposed root. Twisting 
  
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  back, she fired twice into the darkness. Shooting more by instinct 
  and guesswork, she hardly expected a hit.
  “We’re coming, Brooke!” chimed in a new voice, female, and 
  filled with worry.
  Marie!
  Marissa sounded breathless, her voice nearly lost to a low hum 
  somewhere in the background. Brooke suppressed the annoyance 
  that Tibor had somehow found time to turn her firefight into a 
  conference call.
  “Scheiße!” she snarled. “Guys, whoever this guy is, he’s wearing 
  some kind of electronic camo—!”
  Another slug pounded the earth nearby, moments after Brooke 
  spun around to squeeze off another shot. Twisting around the 
  other side of the tree, she fired again, and saw her amorphous at-
  tacker breaking for new cover. For just an instant, she caught the 
  flash of his long-barreled rifle and a very distinct—but strangely 
  disembodied—leg, clad in some kind of black armor.
  “Where’s Lawrence?” she barked.
  “With me!” Marissa answered. “Hang on!”
  With another heart-stopping crack, a slug ripped through 
  Brooke’s latest cover, but she was already on her feet again, half 
  running and half ducking under a low-hanging branch. Her legs 
  burned, but she continued to plunge into the woods, leaping over 
  thick jungle roots and darting between trees and rocks.
  Keep moving, girl! she told herself. Force him to chase. He can’t 
  shoot you if he’s too busy running!
  “Brooke?” Tibor called out again.
  “Still alive,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “Esok’s dead.”
  “I’ve got a fix on you,” Tibor’s voice grew calm and level. “Can’t 
  be sure on the thermals, but I think it’s only the one guy.”
  “Great!” Brooke sneered as she hurled herself down an embank-
  ment. The now familiar crack of her pursuer’s Gauss rifle heralded 
  another shot that sheared vines off a nearby tree.
  Turning sharply at the edge of another dip in the forest floor, 
  Brooke allowed her boots to slip on the earth and she tumbled 
  
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  back, facing backwards as she dropped a meter or two downward. 
  Holding her pistol out, she fired twice more, aiming wildly. 
  In the confusion, she barely made out the sight of swirling semi-
  nothingness coming up over the rise, scarcely ten meters behind 
  her, and caught a distinctive glint off the lenses of her attacker’s 
  goggles. His rifle poked out from his cloak, already drawing a 
  steady bead on her, and only then did she notice the faint violet 
  beam of a targeting laser.
  Too close!
  For a moment, she wanted to know who he was.
  Instead, she squeezed her trigger.
  The man shifted and his rifle swung wide, but whether it was 
  because she’d hit him or because she’d almost hit him, Brooke 
  couldn’t be sure.
  And then suddenly, he was gone.
  Cautiously, painfully, she pulled herself halfway back to her feet 
  before Tibor’s voice screamed, “Look out!”
  Instinctively, Brooke dropped to the jungle floor, practically 
  losing herself in the foliage, mere moments before the roar of a 
  laboring engine echoed across the forest. She peeked up at the 
  rise and saw her attacker turn and fire his weapon just as a mas-
  sive blur of black and muddy tan streaked past, impossibly close 
  to him. With ears still ringing, Brooke scarcely heard the thump of 
  metal on flesh, but her eyes were briefly glued to the sight of the 
  airborne Ibex RV as it screamed off to one side, eventually bounc-
  ing down to earth and crashing its way through several vines and 
  no less than two young, white-barked trees.
  “Christ!” she muttered, already looking for the attacker.
  Dazed, and with his cloak torn open by the impact, she saw him 
  much more easily now. He hobbled at the peak of the rise, strug-
  gling with his rifle. Definitely male, and definitely wounded, he 
  sneered back at her and raised his rifle with both hands. But in-
  stead of another loud crack, Brooke watched as the man’s weapon 
  instead spat a cloud of sparks.
  Brooke didn’t give him the chance to try again. Without even 
  standing up, she gave a primal growl and fired her Python three 
  times. The first slug caught the man high in the shoulder, spraying 
  
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  blood and twisting his body to one side. The second pounded on 
  his armored vest, nearly toppling him.
  The third drove itself through his right goggle lens and sent a 
  cloud of blood, bone, and bits of brain scattering behind him.
  As the man’s body pitched forward, Brooke suddenly felt her 
  own body giving out.
  “No!” she told herself. There may be more of them…
  “Tibor…”
  “I’m still here,” her communicator answered.
  “He’s down,” Brooke sighed. “Are you sure he was the only 
  one?”
  “No,” Tibor admitted.
  “Damn it,” Brooke mumbled. “Marie? Lawrence?”
  No one answered.
  “Scheiße.”
  Forcing herself up again, she worked her way to the Ibex. The 
  vehicle had slammed to a halt against the fallen remains of what 
  might once have been an impressive sample of Shastan hardwood. 
  Steam and faint wisps of smoke rose from the wreckage, but none 
  of that alarmed Brooke as much as seeing Lawrence slumped over 
  the wheel through the half-open driver’s side door.
  “Lawrence!” she shouted.
  The gray-haired man didn’t move, but in a few steps, Brooke was 
  upon him, her fingers looking for—and finding—a pulse. The gash 
  on his head didn’t look life-threatening, and she could see no other 
  open injuries from where she stood.
  Then she saw, amid the cracks of the shattered windshield, a 
  frighteningly distinct hole. Blasted through the passenger side…
  And Marissa’s body, twisted impossibly beside Lawrence.
  “No!” Brooke whimpered, feeling her own strength failing all at 
  once.
  She struggled to force Lawrence back into his seat and reached 
  across him, gave up and scrambled to the vehicle’s passenger 
  
  BattleCorps
  Forgotten Worlds: The Hunt for Jardine • Page 1
  side. Her hand reached out and found Marissa limp, unresponsive. 
  The woman’s eyes faced Brooke’s, wide open but unblinking, and 
  a trickle of blood ran from one corner of her gaping mouth. Blood 
  stained the front of Marissa’s khaki shirt so darkly that Brooke 
  couldn’t see the wound itself.
  Almost reluctantly, she reached higher, searching for Marissa’s 
  carotid, holding her breath, praying for a sign…
  But finding no pulse.
  “No…”
  “Brooke?” Tibor called out again.
  “Oh no, oh no, oh no,” she chanted. “Trouble, it’s Marie…”
  “Dear God…”
  Then came the sound again, the low mix between a growl and a 
  hiss—coming from right behind her. Despite the pain, exhaustion 
  and shock, Brooke heard it. With a final surge of adrenaline and 
  rage, she spun toward the sound, lifted her Python, and fired.
  “Brooke!” Tibor shouted, but his call didn’t really register.
  Instead, she stared dumbly at the creature before her. It was a 
  beautiful animal, graceful in form, surprisingly small. Its coat was 
  scarlet. Its head bore distinctly feline features. Its golden eyes 
  seemed to glow, even in the darkening shadows of the rainfor-
  est…
  Even as its very life drained away…
  With a final, strained death-howl, the Jardinian firecat—a new-
  comer to these strange lands—collapsed in a heap of alien flesh 
  before Brooke’s eyes.
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/BattleTech [multi]/EXTRA/Novels/Battlecorps Novels/Forgotten Worlds Pt 03 - Herbert A. Beas II.pdf