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I swear James Cameron will pull a Clive Cussler and raise the Titanic before I finish this series.

Rare Earth Common Ground Oasis of the Stars: Part III 2012 by Eldyran

By most accounts, Zeta Tauri-o5-638 was a tropic paradise.

Lush jungles covered the huge planet from equator to pole. Majestic kilometer high waterfalls dotted its rugged mountainous landscape. Its deep gullies housed more exotic arthropod species than Earth sheltered in its entire biotic prime. An expansive crimson sky only added to its alien allure.

Its native vegetation looked almost black; a photochemical byproduct of the red dwarf filling the sky above. Mineral poor, the Second Imperium had little reason to fully chart this planet or its host system of a burned out stellar cinder. A few fragments of star logs and abandoned trade routes from long collapsed civilizations sang of its awe inspiring vistas and natural beauty.

The Second Imperium, a collection of trillards of AI's spanning most of the known galaxy, cared little for such things.

But when ancient alien ruins on the surface of Zeta Tauri-o5-638 began emitting Electro-Magnetic Pulse Anomalies it finally took notice. Before being knocked offline, the Imperium Expeditionary Force probe scanned just one of the pentagonal pyramids and estimated the collective output of EMPA's at roughly 100 pentawatts.

If directed enmass, enough to cripple an Imperium Dreadnought sitting in high orbit.

Although scattered about on Zeta Tauri-o5-638's jungle surface in a largely defensive array, the Second Imperium had no record of the ruins' builders or purpose. Curiosity had never been a trait of |01-Prime|. But it did have excellent threat analysis subroutines. And this unforeseen threat warranted immediate investigation and probable neutralization. The smallest, most nimble ship stationed at Supply Outpost 001 Zeta Tauri that might be able to evade the extensive EMPA batteries was IEF Mineral Survey Vessel Lompo.

Due to localized EMP interference, remote investigation using synthetics was not an option, and without one to lead the expedition, |01-Prime| calculated the odds of organic survival at just under 32.3%. Rather than risk an experienced expeditionary party, |01-Prime| proceeded to send in disposable trainees and other troublesome assets. The only asset not assigned to this dangerous mission that had also been present on the hidden Centauran research facility back in |Karth Moons-Song|'s home system were the plasma beings collectively known as |Leyden|.

Assigning energy beings to a mission that guaranteed their outright disruption might seem overly suspicious.

After hot dropping shuttle Corvina and retreating to minimum safe distance, Lompo monitored Corvina's shaky descent to the planet's surface below. It noted their near disastrous crash and recalculated survival odds with impartial callousness. The two veteran explorers in charge, the Jovian Rowan Irskirt and the Sha'ar Engineer Ik'vas, were still under the impression that this was just another routine archaeological expedition ...

* * * *

Rowan watched his mate Karth Moons-Song slice through the through the green-black vegetation with an utility laser attached to the under barrel of his blaster carbine. Despite the thick humidity and the slow pace they made, the stocky Jovian didn't mind the view at all.

Rowan watched from behind as Karth's lean lupine muscles bunched at the arduous task of clearing a path for the rest of the expedition. A raven skull necklace bounced off the scout's textured thin suit each time he swung the humming laser around, betraying Karth's simple tribal origins. The way the small pockets of crimson light broke through the dense canopy above and glinted off the bipedal wolf's snowy white fur and bushy tail sent the stocky Jovian into romanticized daydream.

All Rowan thought about was how much this reminded him of his collection of vintage 1930's pulp serials: The noble savage sliced his way through the thick jungle, leading his intrepid band of explorers closer to the ancient five sided pyramids gleaned through occasional breaks in the indigenous foliage.

They emerged from underneath the dark canopy to a gorgeous view of a kilometer tall waterfall. Its thunderous roar drowned out the constant droning of swarming insects. The party looked up, watching the swarms dance about in the crepuscular rays of the twilight star. As they crossed a natural rock bridge formed from its surging rapids, a refreshing spray doused them. From this vantage point they got a clear view of the closest ruin in the nestled valley below.

From this view, it looked built from some type of pale yellow stone. Thousands of years of weather and erosion had pitted their surfaces, overgrown with creeping vegetation. Who had built these ancient ruins, and for what purpose? What was the source of the EMPAs, and why did they only now begin after an IEF scout probe entered the system? Where had their builders gone to?

Or had they even left?

Karth paused before entering the thick jungle again, scanning the tangle of dangling vines and mossy ropes before him. A free floating Virtual Retinal Display popped up in front of the wolf's left eye, rechecking the three dimensional topography around them. The hologram blurred with static as an invisible pulse of interference washed over them. The GPS module on this thinsuit flickered, their exact location jumping around his map.

"Hey Wolfy." Rowan called out behind him. "Your cutter run out of charge, or you just admiring the all the pretty plants?"

Karth ignored the semi-playful banter coming from behind him, opting instead to slice away one of the vines that had somehow snagged around his exposed ankle. The wolven scout glared at the slack vegetation lying on the jungle floor for a few moments until the Jovian put his hand on the wolf's shoulder. His wide fingertips dug into the scout's gray textured thinsuit with concern.

"Trainee Explorer Moons-Song." The Jovian's normally soft spoken tenor deepened in warning. "Is there a problem here?" Rowan didn't know if Karth was still bothered the small fight they had before departing Lompo, or something else entirely. His minor telepathic mutation sensed his mate's unease, but couldn't place it.

Karth unsure eyes darted to the wall of dangling vines partially obscuring their destination. He looked back to the rest of the expedition, licking his salt laced, black muzzle lips. The rest of the trainees looked back with trepidation. Aside from Veteran Explorer Rowan Irskirt and Engineer Ik'vas, their seven member squad was inexperienced and green.

None of the other trainees, the male human Venusian, the ber cetacean Wendu, the male synapsid Varan, or the two arthropod technicians hauling the majority of their gear and supplies on the backs of their sturdy carapaces, had even set foot on an alien world before.

Ik'vas hissed out from the back of the line, her dromaeosaurid claws tapping a chromometer on her other wrist. As the co-leader of the IEF expedition, it was her duty to make sure the mission kept organized and efficient. Without their usual synthetic overseer |03| to supervise, who else would? And while this planet reminded her of the Sha'ar home world, the maintenance synthetics on board Lompo lacked the ability to tweak its reactor core output for optimal performance. And if Lompo's Engineer didn't get back on board within twenty four hours for a quarterly containment calibration, it'd mean weeks of compensating other power grids later.

Rowan ran a hand through his dirty blond hair in stern impatience, his large sapphire eyes narrowing. Years ago kept it longer and styled. Now he cropped it shorter, preventing natural hazards from snagging on it. Had he kept his hair trimmed and by IEF regs back then, he probably wouldn't be sporting a small facial scar from a nesting Grall. He'd learned a lot in the two years since meeting Karth back on his icy birth planet.

And sentimental leeway was not one of them.

"Moons-Song!" Rowan barked out. "Report!"

Karth gruffed a little, but knew his gut feeling wouldn't be enough to convince Rowan. After the fight they had back up on Lompo before Corvina's near disastrous crash, Karth wondered just how Rowan felt about him and his perceived sensibilities.

"The GPS just went down again, Veteran Explorer Irskirt." Karth's gut sank, tail sagging a little. The wolf blinked away his VRD, but in truth, he couldn't even look his lover in the eye. Rowan let out a short sigh, upset at himself for getting angry with the green explorer again.

"Fine." Rowan turned to address the party. "Alright Explorers, we break here until we get directional guidance back online." His Universal Translator Emitter Module, the small blue jewel implanted in his adam's apple, flashed repeatedly but didn't quite convey the Old Solarian idiom. "Set fire to mouth sticks if available..."

* * * * *

The soft roar of the rapids below sprayed a fine mist into the air; a welcome relief now that they no longer had cover from the unrelenting sun. Kal Wren let the two arthropod technicians pour over their shoulder anchors with a wry smile. The Venusian walked up to the Jovian standing at the edge of the precipice, facing out toward the expansive view. Kal gave Rowan a playful nudge on the shoulder while the Jovian was lost in thought.

"Hell of a view, eh?"

Rowan just shook his head. What he really wanted to do was playfully shove the terraformer into the murky rapids sixty meters below them. Rowan never took his eyes off the awe inspiring vista.

"Is this what the Amazon feels like?" He asked rhetorically.

Kal just nodded. Both of them had spent most of their lives making Jupiter and Venus minimally inhabitable. If either of them stepped foot in Earth's largest jungle without the aid of a protective hardsuit, they'd fall dead in seconds from an engineered nanovirus. They both had seen the regenerated river basin though remote ecological drones and high powered telescopes, but neither of the human offshoots could ever step a bare foot on their home world again.

They stood there for a few more minutes in silence until the Venusian wiped a slight gleam of sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

"Yup. This is what it's like inside a dark sweat sock too."

"Stuff it, Snowball Hauler."

"Have I mentioned I love it when you get angry?"

Rowan choked out an involuntary snort. The two continued to banter back and forth like two old friends, even though Kal only came on board for Expeditionary Training a few months ago. The Second Imperium considered Solarians an endangered species, and while it was risky to have three out of the paltry thousand or so serving with the IEF on a single ship, |01-Prime| calculated the benefits in production efficiency far outweighed the potential risks.

Karth stood some ways away, standing over watch for the two arthropod technicians. He found it hard to concentrate on anything else but Kal and Rowan's conversation. Each little flinch or facial twinge distracted the wolf. He knew nothing of human same sex interactions. For all he knew they were fighting for dominance.

The Venusian sported an interesting patch of fur around his muzzle, looked in decent shape, and for a human, Karth found him objectively good looking. Did Rowan find Kal attractive as well?

"Troubled?" Someone asked from behind.

Karth turned to the cetacean in light exoskeleton. Wendu had three genders, male, female, and ber. Bers accepted both egg and sperm in order to incubate Wendu young. It was such an important societal role that few fertile ber left the Wendu homeworld. This particular ber, Wala-sha-Ken-du, found berself fascinated, ironically enough, by arid ecosystems. Besides Xenoecology, ber side specializations included Xenolinguistics.

The parts of ber outer skin that wasn't covered by a thinsuit looked smooth, with a color pattern similar to Earth's killer whale. The canid scout found ber sharp teeth and large tongue somewhat disturbing, but shrugged it off, turning back to his mate chat idly with another of his species.

"The terrain down to the pyramid is rough going. With GPS down I'm hesitant to take us into the undergrowth. If there is an accident ..."

"No, I mean the Solarians. Why are you so troubled by their song?" Karth's shoulders sagged, his carbine feeling a little heavier. He wasn't sure if his UTEM would be able to translate their complex relationship.

"The shorter one is my mate."

The Wendu turned ber head and squinted ber large black eyes. Wala-sha-Ken-du looked back to the furry bipedal canid.

"Who carries your young?" Ber asked delicately. Karth blinked.

"We are both male. We can not have pups."

The Wendu seemed to contemplate this, realizing that the Second Imperium banned engineered genetic modification. Their union could never produce offspring. Ber's mechanical limbs slacked a little, and the non-verbal cue made Karth wonder if it was more than just wanderlust that drove Wala-sha-Ken-du from Wendu. Karth felt pulled by the need to commiserate with ber, but basic IEF Xenopsychology files downloaded through the remote interfacing cybernetics implanted at the base of his canid skull had informed him not broach the sensitive subject with a suspected infertile Ber.

"But why are you troubled?" Ber asked again.

Karth looked away, a pang of jealousy ripping through him. This was a feeling altogether new to him. Back with his clan, few circumstances allowed for such feelings. Everyone in the clan worked together to ensure survival. Few members had access to things that others did not. Karth did witness the occasional accusation of straying between mated pairs, but the scout never thought his wanderlust heart would let him settle long enough to share such envy over someone.

"We had a fight back on Lompo. All his words to me since have been impatient. He speaks to another of his kind with warmth."

"And this worries you?"

"I do not expect you to understand." Karth looked down, making as if to double check the charge indicator on his cutting beam. The red sun continued to beat down on him.

"While I do not fully understand the complex mating habits of Solarians, you may take some comfort to know Trainee Explorer Kal Wren prefers females of his species." Wala-sha-Ken-du's mechanical fingers wiggled a bit, the exoskeleton's attempt at relaying the non-verbal gestures of ber fins. Karth's white ears perked. His amber eyes widened as a mixture of hope and unease flushed through his envious stomach.

"How do you know this?"

"We have fed together. Reminisced of our pods. Even sung of our perfect mates." Ber large black eyes seemed to swirl about, more poky teeth showing through that predatory smile. The look in Karth's amber eyes told ber everything. "So. Do not worry about their song." The cetacean's metallic fingers fluttered again. After a hesitant moment, ber turned and went back to double check ber equipment.

A couple of pops and clicks got Karth's attention, who was glad to see the Sheen-Yes had his GPS module up and running. He didn't quite understand the technical jargon the Sheen-Har's UTEM spouted off, but at least the lobster spider and giant pill bug seemed to know what they were doing. The wolf snapped the module back onto his shoulder harness as Rowan approached, sapphire eyes narrowing again.

"Well scout. You going to earn your bread for today?" Karth's tail curled slightly at the question the UTRM implanted in the tips of his white ears had problems understanding. Rowan expounded. "Do. You. Have. A. Route?"

"Yes. Veteran Explorer Irskirt." Karth responded despite folded ears. "We'll have to cross this river five kilometers upstream, but I can have us at the pyramid's base in three hours. We should be able to construct base camp before starfall."

"Good." Rowan quipped, easing a little. He turned to the rest of the party. "Move out. And someone please get Hok Ort's claws out of the spare parts supplies ..."

* * * * *

Karth stood just outside the white circle cast by three banks of floodlights, watching the last tent of their base camp go up. The harsh banks of fluorescence illuminated one entire side of the 100 meter tall pentagonal pyramid, but despite the colossal structure dwarfing him, Karth didn't feel awed at all.

Instead the wolf's thumb claw flickered over his carbine's safety in anxious repetition. Each time it disengaged, the weapon in his paws thrummed with charging plasma. Even with the warm reminder, Karth could not help but wonder if the weapon lulled him into a false sense of security.

The trek down to the base of the pyramid proved uneventful, but the task of erecting base camp took longer than expected. Besides intermittent equipment failures, they found huge pitcher plants dominating the immediate area which proved difficult to work around. A cursory inspection of the pyramid entrance located halfway up the structure revealed nothing extraordinary: just a few large rooms covered by untranslated runes and more overgrown vines. A more thorough investigation would have to wait for morning.

Still, Karth could not stand still. He unconsciously shifted weight from one leg to the other, looking up the pyramid as the Sheen-Har and Sheen-Yes continued to place lighted poles up along the walkway. Since arthropods did not sleep, the task kept them occupied until Wala-sha-Ken-du could start deciphering the glyphs tomorrow morning.

The wolf watched Kal and Wala-sha-Ken-du bunk down in nearby tents without incident, but there was a small squabble as Ik'vas found Hok Ort in unexpected possession of her heating pad. Once the grumpy Saurian ran the Varan off, Hok Ort loped up to Karth with his usual one legged, two armed gait and handed him a questionably requisitioned hypostim. What he needed it for was anyone's guess, but Karth had a hard time refusing it after watching the Varan's rainbow sail unfold and refold in a giving ceremony particular to his overly polite race. Rowan spent the entire time trying to contact Corvina and letting Dey-Jay know they would re-establish check in intervals after a good night's rest.

Karth looked up to the planet's single moon between breaks in the dense overcast, which threatened rain. A brief pang of homesickness ripped through him, but he shook the feeling out as if wet. Every fifteen minutes, as if by clockwork, an EMPA would trip the banks of lights off. A few moments later they would flicker back on. He continued to stand out along base camp perimeter, lost in thought and mild exhaustion. He hadn't realized he'd been standing there an hour until Rowan walked up.

"You coming to bed?" Rowan asked with empty words.

"Not yet." Karth looked down at his shorter human mate, tail dangling limp and neutral. Neither one felt like apologizing or giving ground. Both still felt hurt from the ideological fight back up on Lompo. "I'll take first watch." A soft breeze rippled Karth's white fur. Thunder rolled in the distance.

"You're going to get wet you know." A hint of a sardonic smirk played across the Jovian's soft features. Karth looked away, giving up defiance against superior reasoning, but did not move. Rowan's features hardened, sensing his mate's stubbornness. The telepathic Jovian mistook the worry hanging over the wolven scout.

"Hey, if you'd rather stand out here in a monsoon than spend it in a warm sleeping bag with me, that's your choice Wolfy." Rowan spat out before turning and storming off to their tent. Only after Karth watched Rowan flip their tent flap entrance closed in disgust did Karth allow his tail to tuck ...

* * * * *

The rain came half an hour later; a solid sheet of water that staggered Karth with its sheer force. He stood his ground fighting it, blinking away the blurred, fish eyed view. The torrent drenched him to the bone. A crack of lightning felt muffled in his waterlogged ears. The tree he stood underneath swayed in the storm, but it's shallow roots held in the thin ground. Karth watched sheets of rain hammer the small dotting of tents at base camp. Spears of lightning stabbed the dark canopy above him. The high tension cables holding the larger banks of lighting up strained, but never snapped.

Karth stood there for what seemed like an eternity, bearing silent witness to this planet's natural fury. He had heard tales about such weather on his ancient home world. The Moons-Song Elders spoke of wind and water that swirled from the sky with such force that it toppled entire swathes of evergreens. Back on his icy birth planet, Karth rarely saw falling water.

The tropical storm eased just as abruptly as it began.

Thunder continued to roll, but the rain itself slacked to gentle spatters. He paused long enough to shake the excess off, knowing that it could just open up on him again. Karth gave a cursory inspection of base camp before walking its perimeter. He flipped on his shoulder light and flicked off his carbine's safety. The thrumming warmth in his paws and the cone of light projecting forward gave him some sense of security, but something about this place worried him.

His patrol loop took him along the lighted perimeter of base camp. Aside from the patter of rain and the chorus of cicadas, all was quiet. Almost peaceful even. Karth marched his lonely patrol, mind absorbed in what ifs.

What if Rowan had grown tired of his naive, unsophisticated ways? What if Rowan found sacred things laughable? Would the Jovian still see him the same way? Karth stopped to look up at the pyramid: an universal structure built many times for divine reasons. The dominant life form on this planet once believed in something.

His gaze followed up to breaks in the dissipating overcast. Stars shimmered overhead. The dust of his ancestors filled the vast desert between them, scattered in the war that swept his home world away like a forgotten memory.

No. He would not forget. He would not disown them or their teachings. Rowan may scoff at his clan's ways, but they were not primitive.

Sudden motion caught Karth's eye. A distant din of metal hitting stone quickly followed. The wolf brought up the carbine's stock against his shoulder in trained reflex and immediately noticed something off about the rows of lights going up the right side of the pyramid's walkway. Karth popped up the carbine's scope and squinted through it. Bathed in fluorescent green hues, lines of rain splattered against the eroded stone steps. Karth slowly scanned the side of the pyramid, searching for what knocked down one of the lit poles. The natural camouflage of the mossy vines covering its sides made making anything out difficult.

A sudden flash of lightning blinded the enhanced optic. The deafening crack of thunder in what was an otherwise serene setting sent an eerie chill down Karth's spine. Where were the technicians? He looked back at base camp, a good 100 meters through thick jungle. He'd feel pretty silly for waking Rowan if all they were doing was taking shelter from the rain.

Karth turned back to the base of the pyramid and stalked toward it, rifle pointed at the ground but still at the ready. He maneuvered around trees, stopping occasionally to bring up the night scope again. Near the tipped light pole he found an open toolbox, exposed haphazardly to the elements.

The short whiskers of his muzzle twitched. What had him so spooked?

For a moment Karth wished the two arthropods had thinsuits on. At least then he'd be able use the GPS module in his VRD to pinpoint their exact position. The wolven scout slinked out of the ring of foliage surrounding the pyramid. He turned this way and that, aim sight up until finally creeping his way up to the first steps.

His hind paws squashed the over soaked moss as he took the first step. It sent his already uneasy stomach hitching. The regular EMPA tripped the light poles off. The gentle thrum in his paws died, cooling quickly in the rain. Karth paused in the absolute darkness. His trigger claw flicked over the useless trigger. He stood there, rain pattering down against his soaked fur, until the lights came back up.

A third of the way up Karth turned to the banks of lights illuminating base camp nearly 300 meters away. The novice explorer cursed his greenness. He wasn't used to bringing others through unexplored wilderness. Karth swung around, watching the constant rainfall bounce off the lighted walkway.

The wolf made his cautious way up to the downed light pole. A sonic chisel laying next to the pole glinted wetly as he swept his light over the area. Karth paused when he realized there was no hole made for the base of the pole to rest in.

He swung his cone of light around, heart pounding, carbine's aim sight pointed out before him.

Something happened to the technician as the arthropod was about to punch a hole into the stone slab. Karth didn't know what, but whatever it was took the pill bug by surprise. The wolf's lungs huffed in and out, his fur matted chest heaving with adrenaline. He tried pulling up the comm for Corvina, but this close to the source of the EMPA, all Karth could get was static.

Without anything else to go on, Karth stepped over to the sonic chisel, hind paws careful not to get caught on the tangle of vines around it. He knelt down, sniffing the tool. Despite the rain washing the blue remnants away, Karth's sensitive canid nose picked up a strong whiff of coppery hemocyanin.

The warning came too late.

The vines near Karth's right ankle sensed a sudden concentration of hemoglobin, chemical kin to hemocyanin, and wrapped around it. Karth looked down for a split second before being yanked off his hind feet. He fell forward, head and chest slamming hard into the slick unyielding stone of the walkway. Karth blinked the stars in his field of vision away, shaking out the rain falling into his eyes. He licked the warm wetness away from under his square nose and tasted iron blood.

The vines around his ankle yanked him backwards, and Karth slid on his chest a meter before realizing what was happening. His paws shot out to the plasma carbine lying just beyond his reach. Wolven laws dug into the eroded stone for desperate purchase before another yank dragged him bouncing back down the pyramid. More vines encircled his arms and torso, flipping him over. Karth was about to howl out a warning to base camp when something clamped his muzzle shut.

The back of Karth's skull bounced off a stone step. The sharp metallic bong rattled his wolven ears. Darkness swallowed the wolf ...

* * * * *

Karth thrashed awake, splashing the shallow pool that came up to his chest. His claws fumbled about blindly against the thick membrane containing him. He opened his eyes and instantly regretted it. He howled at the pain, slippery mucus burning his milky corneas. The wolf fell forward on his knees, crunching down against some leftover bits of chitin.

His claws slashed about the burning pool in blind panic. The secretions he knelt in had already dissolved away the fur from his chest down. Blood oozed from raw sores running up and down his naked lower body. Little of his thinsuit remained. Karth's labored breathing came in short gasps, lung burning in the caustic air around him.

The wolf didn't know where his was. His paws pressed hard against the leathery walls of his prison, creeping down momentarily in the pool to feel about its squishy bottom. They fished out bits of carapace. Only then did Karth figure out where he was.

He was in one of the pitcher plants, slowly being digested.

Karth's claws slashed about the walls of his living prison, but his claws did little. The pitcher plant felt no pain. No remorse. No pity. Each time the wolf flailed about his bare sheath swung about in the semi-clear pool, its outer protective skin slippery with lipid breakdown. The pool had already ate away his once bushy tail to bloody segments of delicate bones and ligaments.

The plant felt its food squirm about between its closed leaves. Sharp things slashed about inside itself. This morsel proved troublesome. Its wall like leaves opened up without warning.

Karth's blurry vision sensed writhing movement, but the sudden light dazzled him. Vines attached to the base of the pitcher plant whipped around his neck and wrists. They yanked the wolf up, more vines wrapping around his bare thighs. Karth writhed, gasping in the red sunlight. He couldn't see where he was. His head and body hurt too much.

A squishy, sweet tasting vine pressed its way between Karth's muzzle lips. Something slippery squirted into his gritted fangs, and it neutralized his sense of taste. Vines between his neck and jaw flexed, putting agony on the pressure points there, and Karth opened his maw in reflex. The pulpy vine shoved itself deeper into his muzzle. Karth suspected it was headed for his stomach.

To digest him from the inside out.

Karth snapped his canid jaws, slicing off the tip of the vine trying to gain passage inside of him. The tentacle like vegetation jerked back. Juices gushed from the severed feeler, burning Karth's nose. The wolf spat out the pulpy tip like an overripe cucumber. Three more of the feelers rose around the suspended wolf's body and prodded it, seeking a less sharp opening. Karth's milky eyes closed when one nudged under his half bald tail.

His fangs gritted. He bore down on his lower body, forcing his sphincter closed. Sensing muscle tension, the vines holding his arms and legs forced him half upright, ankles apart, thighs open. Karth whined when another vine wrapped around his muzzle. It left him defenseless as the probing, slippery feeler pushed its way inside his tail hole.

The invading feeler wriggled about, sliding deeper into Karth's rectum. The mammal yipped out at the pressure against his prostate. Not used to such a reaction, the carnivorous plant paused. It wiggled itself inside the wolf, feeling for anything that might injure its feeler. Karth thrashed at the rape. He tried to flail his arms and legs, but that only tightened his bowels. The feeler flexed against the sensitive spot to test the creatures reaction.

A small trickle of precum dribbled from the opening to Karth's bare sheath.

The drops fell into the pool of digestive secretions below. A few moments later the feeler resumed its movements. Karth strained against his bonds, feeling his insides tighten as the plant milked him. Whatever was in his precum the plant seemed to want more. A small jet squirted from Karth's tip. Again the feeler paused, the pool below breaking down the enzyme rich secretion this strange creature gave.

The feeler resumed. More of the same vines probed other places of his body. One found his growing knot and squirted more slippery juice all over it before slithering around it. Karth bucked at the forced sensation, more of his precum flowing unwillingly into the pitcher's open maw.

The more it slimmed and caressed the creatures bulb, the more secretions came. It full on milked him. Faster and faster. And when no more secretions came, it'd choke off the thing's airway until it stopped struggling. It'd then lower the creature back down to digest it in peace.

Like the other pitcher plants had already done to most of the other unfamiliar creatures.

Karth thrashed helplessly, groaning out at the invasion inside him. His milky eyes sealed tight as the carnivorous plant forced climax upon him. The wolf's insides throbbed before his watery cum shot out, falling like cloudy rain. It splattered into the pool below. Once the pulse of cum slowed, the plant began lowering Karth back down into its waiting maw.

Vines tightened around Karth's neck. His eyes bulged out from the pressure. It wouldn't take long before darkness descended over the wolf one final time. Karth made peace with his consumer before reaching out to his ancestors, to join them ...

* * * * *

The plant's digestive pool ate Karth's semen. Enzyme attacked enzyme. Alkaline proteases cleaved Karth's DNA, but more importantly, attempted to break apart the tightly engineered mRNA in his spermatozoa. According to legend, Karth's creator (Thank the Stars) had the foresight (or, if one gave credence to some of the more darker tales, vanity) to put in a fail safe against breaking down said RNA using alkaline proteases for reverse transcription and eventual cloning.

Her work was some of the best in the known galaxy. Had it not collapsed seven thousand years ago, the First Imperium might say, too good.

This was also fortunate for Rowan. Had she decided to use acidic proteases for said prevention, the Jovian would have had quite an unfortunate surprise waiting for him the first time swallowing Karth's sperm. This also was very fortunate, at this moment, for Karth.

For the carnivorous pitcher plant, not so much.

Specific sequences in Karth's spermatozon mRNA, once unraveled and uninhibited, immediately began their dark task of counter-attacking the plant's enzymes for reverse transcriptase. The chain reaction spread exponentially through the digestive pool and into the plant's veiny network of phloem. Its metabolic processes screeched to an abrupt halt.

* * * * *

The vines holding Karth up shuddered violently. He drew in a long gasp of rich oxygen moments before the slackening restraints dropped him unceremoniously to the ground. Karth hit the thin soil with a hard thump. Once his head cleared, he clawed away until his nose came in contact with a standing pool of rainwater. As Karth flushed his damaged eyes the vines behind him flailed, whacking anything and everything around it in its death throes.

The wolf panted hard, eyes closed for a few moments, listening to the commotion behind him settle into death. He blinked a few times, his irises now a perfect shade of amber. Karth stood, shakily at first, but then growing with confidence. The sores on his raw body no longer wept.

Aria had sequenced him to be a survivor.

Karth turned to the dead pitcher plant. Its leathery walls had collapsed outward, revealing a thick black ichor draining from its center. The wolf strode over to his dead foe before sticking a paw into the goop and cautiously sniffing at it. His keen canid nose confirmed his suspicions.

Despite the mild burning, Karth's paw tips marked his brow and muzzle.

For war.

* * * * *

Karth howled, slicing off an attacking vine with a crudely made spear. The ichor covering its sharp arrowhead contaminated the vine's xylem. The lethal poison raced through the host. Death came to the pitcher plant within minutes. The athletic scout ducked and weaved through the jungle threatening to snare him, racing back to base camp, leaving a wake of destruction behind him.

He ducked and rolled past two vines that whipped at him, springing off his strong hind legs past the banks of lights. Tents were tore open. Vines had toppled and strewn supply crates everywhere. There was no sign of Rowan or the rest of the expedition. Three more vines shot out at him from the closest pitcher plants. The bipedal wolf performed a spinning roundhouse to bat away the first. An underhanded spin of his spear lopped of the second. The third latched onto his torso, rejuvenated fur covered there matted with black goop.

The vine squeezed. Karth bit the sassy plant, which absorbed a small amount of ichor through the bite.

Karth flung his spear in the direction of Rowan's scent. It skewered the base of the pitcher dead on. A few seconds later the plant gave Rowan up, spitting the Jovian up in a nasty sputter of black vomit. Most of his thin suit remained intact. A quick pounce brought Karth in reach to check his mate's vitals. He licked Rowans face clean after confirming a heartbeat.

His amber eyes narrowed at the remaining pitchers. Their vegetative walls still bulged with their meals. With a wild howl the wolf went feral, loping quadraped through the remains of base camp, slashing with tainted claws, gnashing at wriggling feelers. He leapt over snares. Rolled under vines that swiped at him. He tore one of the pitcher plants apart with his bare claws, dragging Kal out of the shredded remains.

One of the quivering pitchers puked up a light exoskeleton. Nothing else remained of Wala-sha-Ken-du except her memory.

As Karth dragged the unconscious Venusian over to the other human to tend to their burns, a piercing saurian sheik filled the air. Karth turned just in time to see Ik'vas spill out of an uprooted pitcher. Some of her guts spilled across the ground on impact. Half of the Sha'ar's thin suit was gone; half of her snout as well. The dromaeosaur's body twitched, tail thumping the ground in neurological collapse.

The wolf's eyes widened in horror at the gruesome sight. He felt helpless. One of the supply containers near him rattled, and the lid opened slightly. Hok Ort poked his head up to see what the scream was about. Once making sure it was finally safe to come out, the meter tall synapsid loped out and applied a stabilizer to the stricken Sha'ar. The field medic loped over to the two humans after gathering what little medical supplies hadn't been trashed, working triage.

"Will she live?" Karth asked him, cradling his injured mate. Hok Ort looked back at him. Karth didn't need empathic mutation to know her situation was grim.

"We need to contact Corvina and get her back to Lompo."

"We can't." Karth whined with worry and guilt. "I tried before I was attacked last night. There's just too much interference."

"Then someone has to either get help or shut down the interference." Without a working dermal regenerator, the synapsid resorted to a simple burn cream, applying it to Kal's legs and arms. "I'm sorry I can't do more."

"No." Karth replied, laying his mate gently down into the thin dirt. "This is my fault. I'll get help, one way ..." The scout looked at the pyramid only a few hundred meters away. "... or another." He scavenged around for a utility harness and working transmitter, then yanked his spear out of the collapsed remains of Rowan's dead pitcher plant, before taking off toward the ruin.

* * * * *

Karth knelt by his carbine to retrieve it, giving a distrustful glance to the entrance way just a short distance away. His paws felt over its unfolded polymer molding. He thought about the Sheen-Har | Yes and the Wendu. All of them were dead because of him.

Maybe even Ik'vas.

With grim determination Karth stashed his spear between his backside and the harness, never taking his eyes off the eroded, gaping maw of the ruin's entrance. As if in omen another EMPA thumped. The expanding bubble of invisible disruption took out the lines of lighted poles in sequence. When it washed over him his carbine went dead again. He waited until the weapon thrummed back to life again before continuing to the entrance way.

Fifteen minutes until the next pulse.

He stopped at the intersection of three rooms to give them a quick glance. Glyphs and mossy vines covered their ancient walls. They all looked the same. Karth knelt to inspect the floor, paw pads touching the carved stone. He leaned closer after something caught his eye. He blew out some grit from three intersecting angles, all heading to the room straight ahead.

Karth stood and followed the converging floor lines. The room he entered didn't look any different than the other two he had just passed. He pulled some vines off the wall where the line in the floor clearly led. Sure enough, the walls looked split in this section; a door!

The wolf glanced over the glyphs carved into the stone walls. Without the Wendu's help it'd take days to figure out how to open up the pyramid. Time Ik'vas didn't have. He took ten steps back, borrowing an expression Rowan's UTEM had chimed out quite a few times in times of great frustration.

"Copulate this!" He growled, setting his blaster carbine to maximum disruption with a couple quick taps. It beeped thrice in both warning and confirmation.

What took the ancient builders of these great stone works hundreds of years Karth blew apart in seconds. The wolf closed his amber eyes at the reverberating explosion which threw a cloud of pulverized stone his way. Its sandy plume reached high into the crimson sky. Channeled by the orientation of the three large chambers, its sound echoed for kilometers past base camp. The sudden high pitched crack and low frequency boom sent millions of insects swarming from the safety of their canopy perches.

Karth shook out the layer of coarse grit in his fur. He let out a short lupine sneeze before walking through the gaping jagged hole that at one time had been designed as a sacred entrance. The wolven scout stepped into the small, hazy room. Aside from the light filtering in from the entranceway Karth couldn't see anything. He flicked on the light accessory under the carbine's barrel, scanning the run covered walls with the small circle of illumination.

This was going to take forever.

Activated by design, the excited photons tripped a relay in one of the light sensitive runes. Neon green trim glowed an outline of the elevator's base. With an abrupt grate of stone it descended at a forty five degree angle toward the base of the pyramid.

The back of Karth's skull tingled, wireless queries making contact with the wolf's remote interfacing cybernetics. Though not completely compatible, the two systems shared enough protocols for Karth's mind to get fuzzy impressions. He sensed moving past rooms and rooms of immense generators, designed for only one purpose.

To disrupt invading synthetics.

The elevator ground to a halt at the end of its slope. Some of the glyphs carved into the stone wall facing Karth glowed fluorescent green. Instead of touching them, Karth's mind asked the elevator door to open. It slid apart with some trouble, a small amount of grit falling between the grating slabs of opening stone. Fluorescent green light spilled from within. A blast of dry heat roasted him. The hint of sulfur in the stuffy air made his sensitive nose water.

He crept into the next chamber, sweeping his light around. The beam didn't seem to touch the far walls. Aside from very distant green glows, the colossal chamber felt empty and echoey. Karth swept the circle of light down to the floor. An endless hole swallowed its beam just a few centimeters from his toe claws. The sudden vertigo made the wolf dizzy. He grabbed the wall next to him on instinct, dropping his carbine into the 12,000 kilometer deep thermal borehole below.

Molten heat wafted up from below at the planet's core. A small control room sat in the center of the pentagonal icositetrahedronal chamber. Electrical conduits shot down from each of its inner facets into the control room, fed by five massive downward pipes siphoning near limitless energy from below.

Karth looked around the dimly lit chamber. At first he didn't see a way over to the control room. Then some of the runes on the floor lit up, showing him a walkway around the edge of the chamber. He stepped across them, on paw gliding on the slanted wall next to him for balance. A few minutes later he reached what appeared to be a stone bridge leading across the expansive hole. He planted one hind foot on it, testing to see if thousands of years of heat and corrosive gasses had worn at its integrity.

He didn't fancy free falling for over two galactic standard days just to meet his carbine at this planet's core.

The wolf gingerly stepped across the simple stone bridge. A rune lit up each time his hind foot made contact with the two meter wide walkway. The sweltering updraft from below ruffled his white fur, and Karth absently wondered if the builders had any concepts of handrails. He reached the other side and hopped the last meter to more solid footing. This close to the nerve center of the pyramid Karth sensed a monolithic presence. It wasn't self aware that he could feel, but it definitely sensed him back.

The control room opened itself with a grate of stone. An audible hum of ancient electronics filled Karth's ears. Just inside a free floating green pentagonal icositetrahedron hologram spun about. Karth entered its center, looking around from within. His paws touched about its facets and two dimensional screens popped up.They offered him unreadable information about each individual EMPA generator. It'd take forever to shut down each one, let alone the multitude of other pyramids scattered across the planet, and the crude protocols his cybernetics shared with this alien interface wasn't going to make things all that faster.

All the heat and fumes made Karth feel light headed. His paw tips fumbled about the ghostly interface, but error beeps and unintelligible gibberish chided him. Even his UTRM had issues calibrating itself to make sense of it. His claws lashed out at the frustrating projection.

That's the problem with you wolves. A sinister snicker whispered in the back of Karth's muddled mind. All slash and no class.

Karth blinked. After a moment he realized who was speaking to him. The sinister vision that had stowed away on his ancestor's sleeper ship so many generations ago.

What do you want, trickster?

The same thing you want, puppy. To get off this pathetic rock and back on board Lompo. You do remember your little promise to me ... don't you? Karth reluctantly nodded. Good. We can't very well carry out our little payback from down here can we?

When the wolf shook his head, it brought out a tinkle of delighted laughter from the demented coyote. Karth thought it sounded like crushed glass. You and I have played this game before, remember? Follow the moving lights.

A portion of the ghosted green panel before him lit up, and one of Karth's paw tips tapped it. Another part lit up. And another. And another. Pretty soon Karth's paw tips danced about the virtual interface, led by the last of the Coyote Elders. The hologram around him flickered, morphed into a digital representation of Zeta Tauri-o5-638. Small yellow triangles jutted up from its surface, hundreds, thousands of them.

Uplink to planetary defensive array established a semi-garbled voice rang out_._ It was hard to tell if it was male or female, or perhaps neither of those. But Karth felt tingling from the back of his mind, the cybernetics there tapping at his cerebellum in full duplex comprehension. The generators above him whined, drawing power from the planet's core for another omni-directional burst.

Shut down all EMP generators. Karth thought out, racing against time. He didn't know what would happen if another burst hit him while he was uplinked to the planetary computer network. Disengage autonomous defensive protocols.

The planetary computer network paused as it assessed his directive. The crescendo above him turned into an ear splitting whine as their capacitors reached maximum threshold. The wolf fell to his knees, clutching his head from the skull rattling vibration. Something in his brain exploded, and the wolven scout slumped across the hot stone floor ...

* * * * *

IEF Lompo detected an interruption in the EMPA intervals fifteen minutes later. The pilot of Corvina made contact shortly afterwards. With the local interference dissipated, Lompo sent synthetics, on recommendation from | Dey-Jay-Twil-Dee | to retrieve the last surviving member of the expedition. Trainee Explorer Wala-sha-Ken-du did not survive IEF training. The remains of the Sheen-Har | Yes technicians were never located. Engineer Ik'vas sucummed to her injuries halfway into orbit.

The Second Imperium expunged their personnel files and access codes from all active data banks. It archived any remaining backup files, reclaiming 0.2 terabytes of data storage. The replacement for Lompo's organic engineer had already been selected from the available pool of candidates back at Supply Outpost 001 Zeta Tauri long before Corvina touched down.

Lompo placed The Sha'ar's remains under refrigeration for eventual transport and ritual disposal on her birth planet, adjusting its planetary survey itinerary to compensate. The Second Imperium had learned long ago to respect the illogical customs of the recently deceased. If not, it'd note a sharp decrease in the production efficiency for the rest of Lompo's organic crew. The same could not be said of the not so recently deceased.

Within minutes of Corvina's return, three IEF dreadnoughts null shunted directly into equidistant planetary orbit. Synchronized planetary bombardment leveled any standing structure on the planet's surface. After all possible threats had been neutralized, a level three biohazard quarantine was placed on Zeta Tauri-o5-638. Aside from ecological drones, no non-indigenous organic would be permitted access to its surface. Under the Second Imperium's stewardship, Zeta Tauri-o5-638 would remain a biotic preserve, and a reservoir for unaltered genetic material.

Coincidentally, much like Earth ...

* * * * *

A blurry vision swam before Karth. Incomprehensible, soulless words echoed about his muffled ears. It brought about the attention of a close green and white blur, which turned to address him.

"... awake." The thin figure garbled out. His skin was green. The angles of his raven black facial hair sharpened as Karth blinked away the last vestiges of unconsciousness. The physician pulled out a pocket light from an otherwise seamless white lab suit. His thin Martian fingers pried his eyelid wider. A sudden spear of light stabbed its way into the wolf's crispy brain.

"Which ... too bad. I much prefered ... when you ..." Karth's amber eyes swirled, pupils dilated. "Alas, pupillary reflex is normal, however cognitive function ... Dr. Chako paused with a condescending smirk, dark eyes narrowing "... is always questionable."

Karth pushed the back of his head deeper into the infirmary pillow, head shaking back and forth in vain attempt to sweep the last cobwebs from his mind. Something pricked his right paw. When another peck came a few seconds later, Karth looked down from the 45 degree slant of the infirmary bed to the small blue blob that started to chirp angrily at him.

"Next time you decide to collapse unconscious," Dey-Jay tweeted, ruffling the feathers on her wings, "Do it after I retrieve Rowan and get him to proper medical facilities."

"Is he?" Karth's eyes widened.

"Just fine Wolfy." A sedated voice crackled out. Rowan lay drugged on the other side of infirmary while medical synthetics delicately applied synthetic skin to his caustic wounds. "But seriously. Next time. Do what she says and spare us all the grief of trying to convince Lompo to retrieve your sorry carcass."

"Did ... Ik'vas make it?" Karth croaked out, his throat still burning. His bleary eyes darted about infirmary for her.

"No." Kal coughed out from his own bed. "She didn't." A medical synthetic offered him nutrient rich fluids, which the Venusian waved away.

Karth's head turned, staring blankly at the white curved bulkhead. He had never let anyone in his clan die before. A cloud of self doubt formed over him. Dr. Chako tapped away on some yellow virtual screens hanging in the air next to his bed, a darker than usual frown framing the sharp angles of his goatee.

"Everything dies, Tribal. It's just a matter of when it loses the will to survive ..."

Karth looked back to the unconscionable physician. His kind had tweaked their genetic makeup when faced with isolation and starvation. The unfeeling carnivorous plant hybrid looked back at him, the chlorophyll pigmented skin of his bald scalp wrinkling as he sneered at Karth's remorse.

Karth wondered just how strong his will to survive really was.

Would it be enough to survive IEF training?

~ Fin Part III ~