Michael Siemsen - Exigency

Finally perched atop Epsy’s equivalent of a redwood—the towering, lichen/fungi that Angela named epsequoias —Minnie slowly scanned the landscape. The closest Hynka roamed more than 5K south of her, which was about 7.5K from the EV landing site. There were three of them on the move even farther south. In search of other life forms, she surveyed the area with various optics, spotting only scattered rodentia until something paralyzed both her mind and body. A monstrosity so ghastly that any thought of Hynka evaporated to nothingness: the Giant Flying Spider Monster.

It had been a big laugh on the station. Those with a healthy distaste for arachnids cringed and squealed when Tom Group-M’d the sped-up loopvid to everyone. One of his dragonflies had caught the thing on camera on an island the team called Badagascar, but which was officially tagged LI 52S-232.

The autonomous dragonfly had clamped itself to a vine about a meter off the ground and aimed its sensors toward a cave. A short time later, a bristly creature emerged from the darkness, skittering on ten long, multi-jointed legs. Its body alone was the size of a beanbag chair, with a single shiny eye as big as a human head. And it moved with unnerving speed, even without the loopvid’s playback doubled. But the worst part, the part of the vid that inspired more than one crew member to shriek, laugh, and attempt to flee their own skin, was what happened next.

The hellspawn folded four front legs, leaning forward so its cycloptic head almost touched the ground, extended two pairs of hind appendages, and began excreting a viscous yellow-green fluid, like snot, from some glands in its backside. Saturating its rear legs with the substance, the goop kept coming, and soon after, the thing began inhaling through a wide-open mouth where one would expect a neck, shooting the air out its backside, and inflating the thick fluid like a soap bubble. After a couple minutes, the bubble had grown to twice the creature’s size and the light breeze lifted the horrific thing off the ground and out of sight.

There were GM’d replies of Noooooo!and Welp, nothing left to do but burn down the planet.And, of course, Ish—the self-appointed champion of all that nature had to offer—later blasted the group with a thousand-plus-word finger-wagging on why they’d all come in the first place, asking how they can rate by appearance one species’ right to exist over another’s, that everyone should be ashamed of themselves, blah blah blah, blah blah. She’d pretty much sucked the fun from the moment, and John had to send out an oh-so-serious brief on respecting each other and the research subjects.

Now, from her supposedly safe position, no more than 6m away, a dangling spider monster drifted slowly by, hanging from its bubble, wide-open mouth sucking air as it passed. Minnie froze in place, turning her head with it, unblinking eyes tracking the thing until it disappeared into a stand of mushpalms.

Several years had passed since the original discovery, back when they were finding hundreds of new species a day, and the Giant Flying Spider Monster was known to be a harmless consumer of root worms. Despite this fact, and a mind that strove for logic over emotion, seeing one in person had Minnie’s neck hairs standing on end.

After she was certain it was gone, and after verifying it was not the point-monster for an entire air force of unholy miscreations, she reminisced and enjoyed a smile. Briefly.

Oh, Ish, did you strand us all on purpose?

From her lofty vantage point, Minnie studied a recommended course through the forest. A thick red line marked the path, tapering thinner all the way to the EV’s previous resting spot. The app flashed warnings in areas where topo was either unknown or known to be hazardous, and she adjusted accordingly until satisfied with the route.

On to mapping a backup option.

JOHN: How’s it going out there?

MINNIE: Good morning! I didn’t want to wake you. Want to see where I am?

JOHN: I see where you are in the mapping app. Congrats on making it up the rope.

MINNIE: Yeah, thanks! But I meant optics.

JOHN: Oh, yes please!

Minnie shared her optics with him and, beginning with a distant shot of the sinkhole entrance behind her, she slowly panned across the scene. He’d yet to see it all in daylight.

JOHN: So far away. Beautiful. Hynka?

MINNIE: None close to the EV site, though I can’t seem to pick up the EV itself. Worried they might have taken it somewhere.

JOHN: The beacon?

MINNIE: If you recall, the beacon hasn’t been up for over a week. Either too far or they destroyed it.

JOHN: Right. Sorry. Forgot. Well, carry on. Don’t let me distract you. Be careful.

MINNIE: Yup. I’ll leave optics up for you as long as you don’t backseat hike.

John replied with a sealed lips emoji and Minnie began climbing down the flat “branches.” She mused that a skydiver with a parachute malfunction would need only target an epsequoia on the ground. Slamming into 100 layers of thick, squishy pads would probably slow them to a safe stop, while breaking off half the pads on the way down.

JOHN: What do those feel like?

MINNIE: Ever walk in arctic moss?

He replied with a smiley face and resumed his silence.

Sometimes conversing with him hurt. Since his injuries, John had become this pleasant, agreeable stranger. It was as though he knew he was dying and saw life through cheerful new eyes. Pain meds may have had something to do with it, but regardless, there was little evidence of the man she’d often despised, and so she frequently found herself assailed with guilt. Perhaps this was who he’d always been. Maybe she’d been such a jealous, egotistical, competitive jerk that she’d never seen the real him.

She reached the ground, unholstered her multiweapon, and activated route guidance. The transparent red line appeared before her, overlaying the terrain. Just ahead, the planned path led around a large boulder, continuing beyond the obstruction as a dashed line. Minnie cracked her visor open to allow in outside air and she broke into a jog.

Running felt good. She noticed her energy level increasing the more time she spent outside the oppressive cavern. In the beginning, the limitations of the cave occasionally provided comfort, like tightly swaddling a newborn that had spent its first nine months in a room no bigger than its body. Hynka aside, the idea of the surface’s unfamiliar and boundless expanse had felt wholly unsafe. But after several days, even with the calorie bars and supplements, Minnie had noticed a growing fatigue weighing on her in the cave. She’d felt lazy and unmotivated, useless and depressed. In there, her only consistent drive was handling John’s medical needs.

Fresh air, despite the higher nitrogen level, had made all the difference.

One of Epsy’s rodentia popped out of a hole just in front of her before startling and disappearing just as quickly. Biologically, the Hynkas’ favorite prey were closer to birds, their coats consisting of very fine, downy feather structures like young chicks, but they were millions of years from flight, if that’s where they were headed. For now, they behaved much like timid squirrels or rabbits, and the crew fondly referred to them as bunnies . Though no one ever put it in an M (as it’d violate conversation topic rules), curiosity abounded on whether or not, this far from Earth, an animal would still “taste like chicken.”

As cute as they were, Minnie planned to bring one back for supper. She’d settle the chicken question, once and for all. And this one seemed as appropriate a candidate as any other. She posted over its hole, spun off a length of trapping wire, and fed it into the burrow. When it felt like it reached the end, she snipped the wire, wrapped the ends around her MW’s stun posts, and cranked up the voltage. She pulled the trigger. A sad, muffled peep let her know her very first hunt had been successful.