Shepherd Moon: Omegaverse: Volume 1 (3 page)

“Tonight?” Duncan asked, draining his beer.

“Definately not,” said Matt, signalling Shannon for another round. “This beer isn’t going to drink itself. We’ll play tomorrow.”

“After the hangover,” added Clancey.

Chapter 3

“Out! Move move move!” Matt shouted in his best drill instructor imitation, “Last in, first out!”

Duncan rose and moved through the opening door. Under a bright, blue, earth-like sky, he began to look around. Everything was recognizable, if not specifically identifiable. Trees forested the area to his right, but not like any trees he knew. The colors of the world, too, were close to being right, but not. The blue of the sky, the green of the grass; not quite what he would have expected, but not quite different enough to be jarring. Everything about everything he could see was just a little bit off. Alien. Then he realized that, in truth, in this place, he was the alien.

He heard his friends moving behind him, to the left and to the right, and saw a small, translucent square appear in the lower right of his field of view.

“This is your map view”
said Clive
“You are the centered blue dot, your friends are green. Yellow will represent unknown entities, red for enemies. Your detection radius is currently limited to visual and aural distances and wavelengths. Equipment to expand upon your abilities is available for rent or purchase from the station commissaries or player auctions.”

His friends had moved to cover his flanks and rear, so he began to walk forward. He glanced at the map. He was heading more or less north, at least according to the markings on the map. Whether that had any relation to the magnetic poles on this planet, he didn’t know. The forest was to the east. To the west were gently rolling plains, as far as he could see. Ahead of him, several hundred yards out, were a low cluster of buildings. A spur of the forest reached out to them, nearly touching the nearest building.

“Where to?” he asked “Those buildings?”

“Yeah” said Vince “that’s as likely a place as any.” The green dot to his left flank pulsated gently as he was speaking, so Duncan assumed that meant that’s where Vince was located.

“Heads up. We landed close. No chance of sneaking up on whatever’s in there,” said Clancey on his right flank.

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” said Matt. “There’s nothing to worry about. Unless I chose a red, of course.”

“What?” asked Clancey.

“You did, didn’t you?” growled Vince. “You dick.”

“What’s a red?” asked Duncan, slowing his pace. They’d covered half the distance to the buildings. He could make out more details on the plain, boxy structures. They were really nothing more than cubes, the roof just another flat side. The side fronting him, on the closest structure, had a window, about a meter square. Just around the corner, he could see that a door, opened, was in the middle of the side facing an open area bounded by the rest of the structures. They were similarly laid out; facing inward, spread around like a group of pioneers had tried to make a defensive circle with too few wagons.

“Missions are color coded according to their difficulty,” said Matt. “Most missions are in the green to yellow range. Green being the easiest.”

“And red being the ‘don’t choose this or you’ll die’ option,” said Vince.

Clancey, in a mocking, singsong voice, sounded out “
‘Oooh, let’s take Duncan on a milkrun, he said. It’s his first time, he said’.
And we’re not equipped for a red.”

“Color coding is based on your equipment, as well as the experience level of the team,” explained Matt, “We’ve only got assault rifles, and it’s Duncan’s first mission. That’s probably why it showed red for our group. Probably,” he laughed.

“I’m going to kick your ass,” said Vince, “if it’s a shit-ton of greenies with blasters. Or werewolves.”

“Greenies?”

“Yeah. From ‘little green men’. Short, aggressive little fuckers. They work well in teams. I forget what they’re real name is.”

“The Arn,” interjected Clancey.

“Yeah,” continued Vince, “but most people call them greenies or LGM’s.”

“And werewolves?” asked Duncan.

“You’ll know them when you see them,” said Matt.

“Ok, hold up a sec,” said Matt. “This is a feeder colony. A starter group of colonists. This planet has been terraformed, and this is the first foothold for humans. The group that sent them lost contact. We’re here to find out why.”

“Wait. Is this a human mission?” asked Clancey.

“Yeah.”

Vince groaned, “So, when you say it’s a red …”

“Yeah.”

“What?” Duncan asked while sweeping the area in front of him, for the fifth time, with his rifle.

“Well,” said Matt, “with automatic, host generated, missions. The difficulty color level is pretty spot on. This mission is generated by another player. He puts up a reward, and it gets dropped into the mission pool. He selected the difficulty parameters. He might be wrong, it might be easier, much easier, than a host generated red.”

“Or not?”

“Or not,” agreed Matt. “It might be a case of ‘
this is a red because there’s no color for a mission much, much worse’
. That’s part of the fun!”

“Fun. Right,” said Vince.

“Shit. You’re insured. Your equipment will be regenerated. All you have to lose is whatever loot or experience you gain in this mission.”

“Shit. You’re insured”, mocked Clancey, “but if you start getting croaked a lot, your insurance goes through the roof.”

“Simple solution to that,” laughed Matt.

“Don’t croak!” said Vince and Clancey simultaneously.

They were a few meters from the first dwelling. Duncan began moving around to the left, keeping his weapon toward the door on the northwest corner. As he got closer, he could see a leg, human, just inside the door, on the ground and stretching into the darkness of the interior. As he reached the door, he turned on the flashlight attached to the end of the rifle’s barrel.

The leg ended just above the knee. Messily so. He raised the rifle, moving the light beam further into the darkness. The rest of the leg’s owner, more or less, was strewn around the room.

His friends had moved past him, around the first building toward the center of the open, grassless area surrounded by the buildings. More similarly disassembled colonists were in a pile next to a large container.

“Well,” said Matt, “it wasn’t greenies.”

“Nope.” agreed Vince.

“Werewolves?” asked Duncan.

“Yup.”

“Are we screwed?”

“Most likely,” said Clancey, “Duncan, check out that crate, we’ll get ready.”

Duncan moved to the crate, opened the lid. As he did, he heard a clicking sound. From the direction they’d just arrived. It sounded like something was tapping on the wall of the first building. On the wall opposite where they now stood. On the wall they’d just passed, a minute ago. His map overlay pulsated, yellow, on the lower, southern, part. Unknown sound.

The sound continued, and was picked up, in turn, by each building around the circle, clockwise. First to the west, then around to the north, finally completing the circle to the east. The tapping sound grew as more joined. The map pulsed yellow in all directions now.

Duncan stole a look into the crate, saw only a piece of paper. He grabbed it and thrust it into his backpack without reading it, and raised his rifle to his shoulder.

“Duncan! You take the north, Vince the east, Clancey the west,” said Matt, “I’ve got the south.”

The group was now spread, in a diamond, each about 2 meters from the other. A last stand posture, covering all directions. Surrounded.

“Did anyone bring grenades?” asked Matt.

“For a milk run?” laughed Vince. “Shit, I only brought a hundred and fifty rounds for the rifle, and a couple of magazines for the pistol.” The tapping continued.

“I almost forgot, Duncan,” said Clancey, “Ammunition is tied to its magazine. It’s not like a first person shooter game where, if you hit ‘reload’, it just gives you a full load from your total bullets. If you shoot off half a mag, then reload, the magazine that drops still has fifteen of your bullets. Pick it up. That half magazine might come in handy. But don’t let that stop you from reloading during a lull. If we get one.”

The tapping reached a crescendo, then, simultaneously all around the circle, stopped.

“When will they … “ Duncan’s question was interrupted when Matt opened fire. He forced himself to keep looking north. Nothing was coming from there, yet. Two dots of red rapidly moved on his map, from the south, northward, then disappeared. Matt had the first two kills of the day. Duncan’s hands began to shake. He heard a metallic sound behind him, and assumed that was Matt reloading. Howling took up where the clicking had left off. Matt opened fire again. Then Vince. Then Clancey. Red dots surged from the south, then the west and east. Duncan then realized Matt had been right. He knew werewolves by sight.

It wasn’t that they looked like stereotypical movie werewolves. They were tall, a little taller than human average. Hirsute. Massive, muscular shoulders and long arms. A long torso tapering down to small hips and short, thin legs. But it was the face that gave them their wolf like appearance. The long dog snout with a too large mouth that had an impossibility of teeth. They seemed designed solely to render; the top and bottom rows nothing but long canine teeth. It reminded not so much a wolf’s but a shark’s mouth. At least, he thought, from the shape of the teeth.

Duncan noticed all of this in the split second it took for the werewolf to leap over the building and charge. In the moment Duncan required to jerk his weapon toward the beast, it had covered half the distance. Probably fifteen yards. Quadrupedal, its massive arms propelled it at frightening speed, the legs providing direction. As Duncan squeezed the trigger, he realized that they look much more hyena than wolf.

The rifle jerked in his hands; the feedback of his haptic gloves, added to the staccato hammer of sound, surprised him. The werewolf's torso jerked to its left, stitched by a trio of holes. Duncan squeezed the trigger again, sending another three round burst. And again. It fell dead at Duncan’s feet.

Before he could recover his thoughts, two more attacked. One each from either side of the hut. He fired at the rightmost, hitting it in a leg. It wavered, so he switched targets and put two quick bursts in its direction. Most missed, but a couple hit, slowing it. A little. Duncan aimed and put a burst into its head. As it dropped, Duncan switched back to the wounded one.

The wreck of its leg had slowed it considerably, but it still came toward him. Now five yards away, Duncan could see its hands. Human-like, but with short fingers that ended in a nightmare of claws. He put two more bursts into it. Finishing it.

He wondered how many shots he’d fired. Enough. He pressed the magazine release on the rifle with his right hand while his left moved to the ammunition pouch on his belt.

As if waiting for this moment, a dark grey blur erupted from the door of the building. Duncan knew he wouldn’t have time to reload the rifle, so he dropped it and drew his pistol. Pulling onto target, he began firing as fast as he could. As the slide slammed open after his eighth and final shot, he stepped to the left to avoid the now lifeless corpse that slid through where he’d been standing a moment before. He was pretty sure he’d only hit it once, but the .45 caliber bullet seems to have been sufficient. He released the empty magazine, put a fresh one in and thumbed the slide release. Loaded, he replaced it in its holster, and bent to retrieve his M4.

He stood, put a fresh magazine in the rifle, and pulled the charging handle; startling himself as the bullet he’d forgotten was still in the chamber was ejected past his face.

He turned. “Well that wasn’t so …”, he choked on the rest of his sentence. The area behind him had turned into an abattoir floor; parts of Matt and Vince strewn among the corpses of their opponents. Clancey, on the ground, was pushing a dead werewolf off his legs. His left leg was a horror of ground meat, bone and spurting blood. A claw’s rake across his chest added to the gore.

“Wasn’t so … what?” laughed Clancey.

“I’ll help you get back to the ship.”

“Screw that,” said Clancey. “Just give me their rifles and pistols and haul ass. You got the loot, right?”

“A piece of paper.” Duncan gathered the weapons, some magazines from the corpses, and tossed them to Clancey, who began reloading them and placing them on the ground next to his legs.

“Yeah, could be anything.” The clicking began again, beginning in the north this time.

“Run,” said Clancey.

Duncan moved off to the south, quickly. As he reached the southernmost building, he slowed, crouched and moved his way around to the outermost wall. The tapping was still localized in the northernmost buildings, but he wasn’t taking any chances. The wall was clear of werewolves, so he began sprinting, south, toward the ship.