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I didn’t have to be told twice; I held on tighter than a belt after an all-you-can-eat buffet. I had seen the flashes of snow and ice against the window as the scourge rolled us around, but nothing could have prepared me for the frigid blast of air when the door to the pod finally opened. It was the type of face-hurting cold that cut straight to the bone.
“Jesus, it’s cold,” I hissed. “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore.”
“We never were in Kansas.” Then Kan’n was leaping out of the pod.
We landed in the snow, completely surrounded by scourge. Instead of staying to fight them, Kan’n ran. Several of the scourge gave chase, but most of them stayed with the pod, guarding it. I didn’t know how I knew, but I was sure they believed it was part of the mining shuttle. I bet all the pods were being snatched up right now, the scourge thinking it was part of the payload.
Boy, the queens were going to be very disappointed when they got nothing but useless spent emergency pods. If we’d known they were going to grab anything that fell from the sky, we could’ve used it to our advantage and tricked them into accepting some nice gifts of the explosively anti-fungal variety, though those only did so much to clear out the nests.
Early on, when US military had still been operational, they’d sent in incendiary bombs, but because of the way the nests were built, it was easy for the scourge to just collapse and sacrifice certain tunnels to starve the fires of oxygen. Fire was a good weapon but needed to be deployed correctly. Our anti fungal “bombs” weren't as flashy, but they did a better job at controlling the pesky scourge population.
Despite the focus on the pods, two of the scuttlers decided we were the better option. Holding onto Kan’n the only thing I could do was peer over his shoulder as the creatures gave chase. Normally, Xarc’n hunters were much faster than scuttlers, but the snow here was deep and it hindered Kan’n’s movement. His feet crunched through the top layer of ice. The scuttlers, however, were moving on top of the thick, icy top layer without falling through, which was something I’d never seen before.
Their many feet moved quickly in a blur, making the god-awful noise the scuttlers were known for. With bodies like ants, legs reminiscent of spiders, and fore limbs like praying mantises, scuttlers were the scourge type I saw the most. The thigh height varmint still creeped me out as much now as they had when they first came.These two rubbed their mandibles as they followed us.
“Kan’n, they’re gaining!” I tried to hold the panic back but failed.
“How many?” he asked without slowing.
“Just two.”
He put me down in the snow next to a fallen tree, then grabbed the tree—which was still partially attached to its trunk where it had snapped—and ripped it the rest of the way out of the ground. I gawked at the impressive display of strength. I expected him to use the tree like a club to bat the bugs away but instead, he swung and released, hurling the entire thing at the two creatures.
Wow. That was effective.
With the two bugs squashed, Kan’n picked me up again and continued to run. Soon, the other scourge that had been busy disassembling the pod, since they could not roll it with the door open, were hidden behind mounds of snow and a forest of conifers. I was getting cold despite being plastered to Kan’n’s front. He was warm, like my very own personal heater, but my ass was still freezing.
When he put me down again, it was inside a trailer park. The mobile homes were lined up in rows, the tops all covered by a thick layer of snow. In the summer, there must have been tiny lawns in front of each trailer, because there were faded pink flamingos sticking up out of a few of them. One of the trailers had a collection of tires in front of it instead, stacked dangerously high. Some had red and white flags with red maple leaves flapping in the wind.
Well at least that answered one question: we were somewhere in Canada. No wonder they called it the Great White North; everything was covered in snow—at least, at this time of year.
There were signs of an old scourge attack everywhere, including claw marks raking along the sides of all the trailers. Some of the plastic lawn chairs that had once formed a circle around a fire pit were knocked over. The power lines that hadprovided the trailers with electricity had been torn down and shredded by flyer claws. Whoever had lived here were long gone.
“I’m going to try to find some warm clothes,” I said. “I’m freezing.”
Now that Kan’n was no longer carrying me, I was cold in front too. I’d left my hoodie back on the mothership, but even if I had it on, it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference. One gust of wind, and I’d be chilled to the bone.
I approached the first door. It was still open; whoever had been fleeing the place never took the time to lock it. The place was covered in a thick layer of dust and it looked like no one had been there for years. I checked the tiny closets first, trying to find a winter coat that fit me, but only found a woman’s coat in extra small. I tried to put it on, but my long arms stuck out of the sleeves awkwardly, and I couldn’t zip it up.
I did, however, find a backpack and several stale granola bars. Jackpot!
I freed Pip from the confines of Kan’n’s belt and carefully placed him inside the backpack before tossing the belt at Kan’n who was standing awkwardly in the middle of the trailer, looking around curiously. He was too tall for the room and had to crunch his body over to the side.
“What is this place?” he asked.
“It’s a trailer. This one’s a single wide. People used to live here. They are portable, so that they can be moved from place to place.”
Kan’n frowned. “Like my shuttle.”
“Kind of, but not really. And not nearly as protected as a shuttle.”
“How does it move? I do not see a navigational console.”
I pressed my lips into a straight line, trying hard not to laugh. It always surprised me the way Kan’n acted like he’d just arrived on Earth. It was different from a lot of the hunters I was used to working with. “It, um, doesn’t. They have to pull it behind another vehicle.”
Kan’n’s frown deepened. “Then what is the point? Where are the weapons?”
“There aren’t any.”
