REDEMPTION

— by Jeff Karamales

Chapter 31
Invasion
 

"Suction," Riva Weicz directed Valerie Muir curtly as she tightened the thread of sutures that would dissolve over time, repairing damage to the tendon that was attached to the over-sized leg muscle that enabled Nan Pi-lei to walk upright.

The creature that had attacked her and clamped down on the vixen's left leg with astonishing strength, and it was only by chance or Divine Providence that it hadn’t completely severed the connective tissue that was attached to what would have been the ankle on a human, but for the Furs was the reversed ‘knee’ joint of their digitigrade legs. The Asian red fox had been extremely fortunate as far as that went, though there was enough other damage that was complicating the surgery. Fortunately, there were no broken bones, though the damage to the soft tissue was enough.

While ensuring that Nan Pi-lei remained unconscious, Etienne observed the work the former Israeli did, the bat eared vixen’s expertise having been earned in the worst possible conditions while patching up soldiers and civilians caught in the never ceasing struggle of the Middle East. Likewise, Suzette watched intently as she monitored the vitals of the patient and Valerie Muir filled in as the surgical nurse.

Once the damage to the tendons had been taken care of, Rive reattached what veins she could, then turned to the muscle injuries. "I think we’ll close with a four-oh silk. And we’ll apply the inflatable cast. We’ll all check on her periodically and a regular cast will prevent us from being able to see how Nan’s progressing."

"I think you’ve had to do this too many times," Etienne commented in his French laced English as he began to put the anesthesia equipment away.

Riva applied a spray that would coat the wound in a degradable protein base adhesive, sealing the lacerations from airborne contaminants before tugging the surgical mask that was made for Furs from her muzzle. "You could say that. At least this wasn’t from a bomb, she isn’t a child, and I don’t have thirty more casualties waiting with the first choice always having to be amputation." The bat eared vixen sighed. "I often wondered what it would be like to be able to take my time on an operation. Let’s give her a few minutes then we’ll move her to the recovery dome. I’ll go talk to Matthew and Sofiya." She paused as she took off the disposable yellow gown she wore. "Good work everyone. It’s a treat to work with professionals."

As Riva stepped out of the dome, passing through a double door set up to keep the operating section as sterile as possible, she gave a reassuring smile and nod to Matthew Sykes.

"She’s fine. It’ll be a few weeks before she’ll be able to get around without crutches, but there won’t be any lingering damage, and even the scars will be minimal and mostly hidden by her fur once it grows back," she told the male.

"Can I see her?" the red fox asked with eyes bright due to unshed tears. Matthew was attempting to put on a brave show, though it was evident that he truly cared about the little Asian Fur.

"In a few minutes we’ll be putting Nan in the recovery dome. You can sit with her as long as you want, just let her sleep, though. It’s going to be a few days before we let her out to run around."

"That’s going to drive her nuts, you know," Matthew said with a grin, the tension and worry leaving the set of his shoulders.

Rive grinned. "Oh, I know it will. The big thing will be getting her to take it easy and not to push herself too fast or hard or she’ll be right back in here."

The red fox male nodded and Riva stepped to Sofiya motioning the other vixen outside.

"So Nan is to be making a full recovery?" the red fox female inquired.

"Definitely. Judging by the wounds, I don’t think that whatever that thing was is a predator. Predators do more damage when they bite. This was more crushing and pinching damage," Riva told the colony leader as they stepped into the great dome for a cup of tea. "A predator is effective because of the massive injuries it can inflict quickly, often letting prey bleed out, or giving it time for venom to work. I am interested in what Daniel will be able to tell us, though."

Sofiya nodded, her expression serious as she absently scratched lightly at her ear. "As am I. I do not recall seeing anything like this in the previous colony’s records. I am concerned that this thing was here. And am definitely worried there may be more."

It was Riva’s turn to nod in agreement. "Here’s hoping that Daniel will learn something helpful."

***

"I think that should do it for pictures," Daniel, the North American grey fox Fur, said as he put on a pair of safety glasses and readied the selection of battery powered tools that he would use to systematically disassemble the creature that Richard had shot. As the silver fox put the camera down on a plastic work table he finished donning a plastic gown and glasses as well. "Let’s begin with a general examination of the carapace."

Richard watched as the biologist moved from the head to tail, his observations being recorded to his PBJ, his expression one of rapt fascination.

"We have a well evolved body of overlapping plates, good articulation points. Richard, if you used one of the standard pistols from the armory module, I doubt you would have penetrated the outer shell." Daniel used a pair of calipers to measure the thickness of the entry wound to the body. "A little over three eighths at the first entry wound. Composition looks to be analogous with terrestrial arthropods…" The grey fox paused. "Now this is interesting. Look at this point," he said, pointing at a slightly discolored spot roughly three inches across. "This was an injury that has healed…fairly recently it appears."

Richard moved with the other Fur, though he did his best to stay out of the way. It might have been some of the prejudices carried over from his time in the military, but the silver fox was far more interested in learning how to put other creatures like this one down quickly if they posed a threat. Paranoid, to be certain, but being on a world that wasn’t their native planet, that trait might not be a bad thing.

"Ah! Look at this! These are air holes along the lateral line, but there’s something strange going on in here," Daniel informed his cohort in a distracted tone. "Hand me that saw with the round blade."

Richard found the power tool that Daniel wanted. The bulk of it was the handle that contained the rechargeable battery with the actual saw blade a half circle of thin, stainless steel and an edge that was coated with an industrial grade diamond matrix. The motor would cause the blade to vibrate at a high frequency and could cut through a wide variety of materials, though it was fairly safe in that accidentally bumping the blade wouldn’t result in a laceration unless one applied extended pressure.

Daniel accepted the saw and activated the trigger with his furry thumb before cutting around the section that interested him. Once the section of the carapace was removed, the grey fox dove in with small instruments such as scalpels, forceps and an extra set of glasses that magnified what he was looking at.

"This is astonishing! Richard, it has both lung and gills! Not unlike some of the crustaceans we had on Earth. Things like crayfish, mudskippers…but this is far more evolved."

Richard was happy that Daniel was thrilled, and tried to follow what the other Vulps was saying, though he gave that up and simply handed off tools as asked and watched as the bug was taken apart. It seemed like hours passed, and then Daniel asked for a testing kit. The only things that the silver fox understood clearly was that the creature could live with ease on land and in water, actually ate decaying plant matter and carrion, more than likely burrowed to develop its lairs, and with the testing kit’s results, was completely edible.

"It’s like a lobster," Daniel told the other Fur with a wide grin. "Completely edible meat in the legs and the joints here along the body! And there’s a small repository of some kind of substance I need to look closer at, but I think there’s something that might be worth the entire endeavor of sending us out here!"

"What do you mean?" Richard asked, a furrow between his brows. "All I know is it chewed up Nan Pi-lei pretty bad and was hard to kill."

The grey fox shook his head. "The damaged point I showed you earlier is very recent! This…this grass lobster…lob-ipede?...healed that spot in a matter of days. Even the bullet holes you put into it are already closing! The tissue beneath the wound is filled with this substance…and it repaired it in a fraction of the time that should have been required." He snorted as the silver fox still failed to grasp what he was trying to say. "Enhanced healing, Richard! It might be something that can be modified for humans and Furs!"

"Possibly," the silver fox said, looking over the other fox’s shoulder at the plastic sample tray that held the gland and the thick, strange green colored viscous fluid. "Just remember that it was the secretions that came from the slink that killed the Felis colonists within a day."

The grin crumbled from Daniel’s face. "That’s right," he mumbled with a nod. "But this doesn’t show any of the chemical markers that the slink had."

"It still doesn’t hurt to be cautious, Daniel. If this turns out to be what you think, then so much the better. Until we know for certain, though, let’s just be careful, alright?"

"I am agreeing with this," Sofiya said from the doorway of the dome. "I would prefer more testing if you please."

"No, the both of you are correct." Daniel’s ears perked back up. "But here’s hoping! Something that can increase the healing of wounds and injuries like I think this does might get a permanent colony dropped here even sooner!"

***

Sofiya led the way out of the dome that had been added to the science cluster to the Great Dome where Elena and Mandy waited with cups of herbal tea for the other two Vulps. "Daniel may be correct in that a discovery that important may encourage a permanent colony," the red fox vixen said as she slipped her arm around the male. "I, however, am wanting to know where this…thing was coming from."

"You and me both," Richard said. "I don’t think it’s a truly dangerous bug. I think Nan may have stepped on it by accident. I still want to make sure it’s not part of a larger colony or hive, though." He sat down with Sofiya on the other side of the table and smiled as a slightly shaken Amanda nestled close to the silver fox.

"All I know is that Nan’s scream scared about ten years outta me!" the Scottish Fur husked, her eyes still a little wide, the fennec snuggling tight under Richard’s arm about her shoulders. "Is she really going to be alright?"

"It will be taking some time to heal," Sofiya said as Elena sat close to the red fox vixen. "Riva is being a very good surgeon and knows what she is doing. She will be quite alright I am thinking."

They sat talking for a while, Richard doing his best to project a calm, confident demeanor in support of Sofiya before tossing back the rest of his tea. "I think we’ll require hand lights until we can get a string of security lamps put up. The latrines aren’t near the main complex area and they’re far enough away that it’s a sensible precaution." He quirked a grin at Sofiya. "That is, if my Captain feels like it’s a good idea."

"Silly fox," the vixen chuckled. "I asked you to be safety officer for a reason."

"Well, I’ll get a crew and start on it in the morning. Right now I think I want to go back to bed. I was feeling all sorts of happy and warm before all of this tonight, and wouldn’t mind getting back to my pile of pretty ladies, then."

***

Two whistle blasts from the southeast caused Richard and every other Vulps to look up as Daniel waved his arms on the outside perimeter of the compound. As soon as the others joined he pointed to a strange discolored spot on the far hill ridge past the old colony site while passing a pair of binoculars to Sofiya. "I think that the bug that Nan found has relatives. I was out here following the tracks the first one made and saw that," the grey fox informed the rest as he pointed.

"Layno! How many are there?" Sofiya asked, her ears drooping.

Daniel shrugged. "A quick guess? Several hundred…possibly several thousand? It doesn’t look like they’re really forming a colony, though. They’re more like a biomass, like a crab's form, but from what I could tell, it looks like they’re simply migrating."

"They give me the creeps!" Amanda said with a shiver, the fennec vixen’s ears flattening as her tail pressed against the backs of her legs and hugged herself to repress a shiver of revulsion.

"That makes two of us," Charity Hanover, one of the females that had gone through the program with Richard agreed with a wince and tremulous voice.

Daniel held out his paw-like hands. "At least we know they aren’t here to eat us. Their diet is vegetable and decaying matter."

"Maybe," Richard commented softly. "But those jaws of theirs can do some serious damage. We can’t afford to have them latch on to one of us like they did Nan, and I’d rather not have them chew on our equipment for any reason." He accepted the binoculars from his mate and gave the approaching hoard a better look. "At this rate we have maybe three hours before they get here, so if we’re going to come up with a plan it needs to be quick."

***

Ideas ranging from eliminating the rolling mass of arthropods to using fire as a deterrent were brought up, though most of the ideas were extremely spur of the moment and the flaws were rapidly pointed out. Fire was far too dangerous and likely to get out of control and there wasn’t enough ammunition in the armory module, even including the supplies salvaged from the previous colony, for the Furs to stop all of the creatures — not to mention that many of the foxes, Richard included, didn’t condone the slaughter of animals that had just as much right to live as the colonists, perhaps even more so as this was their planet.

It was Kizu Ananori that called attention to the fact the mass of creatures was moving through the old colony. Then the Furs noticed that the arthropods simply flowed around the original domes, not bothering anything on their way to the northwest that would eventually take them to the coastline.

"Maybe we should just let them through," Matthew said as he squinted at the beasts. "It’s like they see those old domes as just an obstacle to go around." He pointed to emphasize his point. "They ain’t chewing on anything, just going by it. Maybe the best thing to do is nothing."

Sofiya frowned and lifted the binoculars. Even the few domes that were open were given only a cursory examination when one of the hard-shelled creatures paused at an open doorway before they resumed their migration. The red fox vixen nodded to herself. "Richard, gather three others that are being good marksmen. We will all wait for these things to be passing through in the Great Dome. They are ignoring the structures, and simply moving. We will close the dome and let them continue on unharmed. All others will be inside so there are no chances to be taking."

Richard tapped Hector, Matthew and Riva who had the highest consistent scores on the range and led the way to the armory module in the command dome, passing out the rifles and live ammunition. As each of the Furs checked the action on their firearms, he also belted his pistol on, the Chiappa Rhino revolver providing a little more in the way of comfort as it sat on his hip, glad that his vixens had gotten him a fairly useful gift. As they armed up, the other Furs headed to the Great Dome where Sofiya began a head count and Suzette and Etienne brought in Nan from the medical dome. Once everyone was inside the panels that served as the door were closed and latched.

Many of the foxes huddled together with their significant others as the hoard approached, their sensitive ears picking up the soft chitters, chirps and high-pitched noises the arthropods made as they drew near the new colony site. Then the sounds of chitinous plates clicking together could be heard. It was Amanda that stifled a scream when the first shadowy silhouettes appeared at the lowest level of green, semitransparent fiberluminum panels of the dome.

Some of the creatures paused to examine the structure, their enormous mandibles clicking on the synthetic materials before continuing on. A few of the strange bugs even tried to climb over the obstacle, though when the panels didn’t provide any sort of purchase, they continued on. It took almost an hour for the mass of strange beasts to finish their passage through the complex, but at no time did any of the things attempt to enter the dome.

"Are they gone?" Emanuella asked in a quiet voice, her eyes wide, wanting nothing more than to have Hector hold her while she went through a serious case of the shakes.

"It looks like it," Daniel said, more curious than afraid. "I think, though, it might not be a bad idea to make sure there aren’t any stragglers in anybody’s dome."

Sofiya nodded in agreement. "Are you minding, kokhanny?"

The silver fox smiled, the rifle stock resting in the crook of his hip. "Only because you asked so sweetly," He accepted a nuzzle or kiss from the vixen trio and nodded to Matthew to go with him, Hector and Riva moving to investigate the opposite side of the compound. "Looks like you made a good call," Richard told his former housemate with a smile.

"Well, when we looked at them through the binoculars, they weren’t eatin’ nothing. You know? And the bugs weren’t tearing anything up. I think it comes from when I was a kid and found a hornets’ nest. My cousin was the kinda kid that woulda poked at it, or thrown a rock, but I’ve been stung by one and knew better. I went my way and left them alone. It was kinda the same feeling here." The former West Virginian scratched at an ear. "Besides, there were a lot more of them things than there are us. I don’t want to lose no one, ya know?"

"I hear you," Richard agreed as they peeked into another shelter. "I think it might be prudent to discover where they came from, though. Those lobster-pede things…this might be like a game trail or something for them."

Richard paused and looked at his fellow Vulps. "You know, you might have something there. Etienne and Suzette said they’ve never seen things like that in the five years they’ve been here, but maybe you aren’t too far off. Game trail, or something like a salmon run."

"Mixed with those seventeen year cicadas," Matthew added.

— NEXT CHAPTER —

Unless otherwise noted, all material © Ted R. Blasingame. All rights reserved.