PROJECT GENESIS
CHAPTER 1: A NEW ENEMY

"I hate my job," David muttered to himself as he continued to hack his way through the increasingly thick Borinian jungle foliage.

"Major Hammer Sir! I think I've found something! I'd like you to come take a look."

David stopped and turned around, and behind Anna, his second in command, he saw what Taylor was so excited about.

"It's definitely reptilian," the private said enthusiastically. "It's too early to know for sure, but I'm guessing it's going to be classified with the large bipeds wouldn't you say sir?"

David eyed the animal carcass. "You're probably right Taylor. Run the necessary genome tests on the animal and get your pictures for the log. As soon as you're done we'll call it a day. Anna, you notify the rest of the team."

Anna jogged back down the trail to find everyone else, seemingly unaffected by the sweltering heat. "But sir! We only have-"

"I'm perfectly aware that we only have two days left to finish up here," Hammer said, rather annoyed. "HQ knows the slow progress we've been making because of the thicker-than-expected underbrush. They're also aware that the temperature and humidity are well above what we expected I'm sure they'll understand us not meeting our time goal."

"They damn well better understand because it'll be our asses and not yours if they don't," Taylor muttered under his breath as he was finishing up classifying the animal.

Hammer heard him but choose to ignore the comment. Working conditions were less than ideal and everyone was very irritable.

Starting the long trek back down the trail David wished he had decided to stock those climate controlled suits after all. Catching a glimpse of Anna going around a bend he jogged to catch up with her.

"Jesus David, you look like hell. No wonder you had us quit early. Are you OK? Maybe you should start visiting the exercise room more often."

"Just because I can't take the heat as well as you doesn't mean I'm out of shape. Besides, you didn't have to clear a path for everyone else the entire day."

"I know I know, I just like giving you a hard time. How about that Taylor huh? I think he's going to go places in his military career. He seems to really enjoy this type of thing. Nice kid."

"I'm not so sure" David replied, choosing not to repeat the comment that Taylor had made as to not ruin Anna's view of him.

They walked silently the rest of the way back to the ship. It took considerably less time walking back out since they had a clear walking path, nothing compared with the hell of chopping they're way in. As they were entering the ship's front hatch all David could think about was a shower and some sleep.

Back in the ship's personnel quarters David was feeling sorry for himself, as he had been quite a bit lately. "Do I really look this old?" Looking at his reflection in the bathroom's mirror David thought he looked at least 50 instead of the young age of 36.

"Nonsense, once you get some sleep and get a shower you'll look like yourself again."

"I swear these missions are going to kill me. This is NOT why I joined the service!" David could feel himself getting angry again and just let it come. "Is this what I get for being a war hero?? IS IT? I'm out here on the outskirts of the quadrant BUTTFUCK, classifying and identifying plant and animal life on some god-forsaken planet! I didn't go through 5 years of training for this!"

"Look David," it had become Anna's job to keep him under control. "What else are they supposed to do? There are no foreign threats of any kind, and no rebellions, basically, NO CONFLICT! Out society has basically become a perfect one. We're a dying breed. At least you're not working behind some desk like most of the others. At least you got assigned to fieldwork. Because we did our job, we're no longer needed, that's the harsh reality of things. We've been over this before, the simple fact is soldiers have no place in our society"

David was still very angry, not at anything in particular, just angry at the world, angry at the way his life was turning out, but he realized that once again, Anna was the voice of reason so he chose to just let it go. Anna went out to get some food from the mess hall while David took his shower. When he was finished cleaning up she had returned. As they were preparing their things for the next day the conversation once again turned to how absurd they're situation was.

"look David, I agree with you! This isn't how I wanted to be spending my life either. Except things they way they are. It's-"

He cut her off, "What happens when all the planets have been classified and researched? They're almost done already! I've estimated that with all the teams of military personal they have out there, every life form on every planet will have been discovered in only about a year! Where are they going to stick us then? What other mission that really shouldn't be under the military's jurisdiction at all are they going to stick us with doing next?"

"Look David. I can't answer those questions. I can tell you this though: we have our current mission that was assigned to us, and I plan on doing my absolute best to ensure that mission gets completed. No matter what it is. It may not be our ideal assignment, but nonetheless, I'm going to carry it out. I'll carry out any orders our superior officers tell us to, and you know damn well that you'll do the same.

"I guess your right," David said, for what seemed like the millionth time. "Anyway, I'm going to bed. He then left the common area that the two of them shared and entered his sleeping quarters. Anna promptly did the same.

A scream awakened them in the night. "WHAT IN THE HELL WAS THAT?" David yelled while immediately bolting from his room and pulling his pants on.

"Hell if I know," Anna replied while grabbing her shockwave pistol. While she uttered the word 'know' another scream, much louder, could be heard coming from outside. While they were running through the halls to the hatch they were meeting up with other crewmembers.

"Does anyone have any idea what the HELL is going on?" No one replied.

They all reached the hatch at about the same time. Outside was a gruesome display of carnage. Laying facedown was one of the female crewmembers that neither David nor Anna was acquainted with. She had a gaping hole in her back that was so fresh it was still bleeding. The girl was obviously dead. Nothing could be found anywhere around the ship, and no one had seen anything. It was against policy to be outside of the ship alone unless you had prior permission, and now it was clear why. The job of examining the body and performing an autopsy fell on the ship's doctor, Laura Kerrigan. Despite David and Anna's disagreement, she insisted that she work through the night examining the body while the crew slept. There would be a briefing in the morning as to her findings.

The next morning all 84 members of the crew assembled in the auditorium and soon after Kerrigan began her presentation. "It is very unfortunate that more could not be discovered by examining the body. What I did find out was already clearly obvious to everyone who saw her lying outside. The cause of death was severe hemorrhaging of the stomach caused by a rather large puncture wound. Unfortunately the only other information that could be gathered is that after she was punctured the sharp object was shaken around violently, as seen by the widening of the hole. I'm sorry that I could not discern more information as to what happened yesterday by examining the body, but these are the only conclusions I can draw at this time. Thank you." She stepped off of the stage and people began to shuffle out, irrationally upset that the doctor had not been able to discover all the answers by performing a simple autopsy.

This same crew had been together close to three years doing this work on unexplored planets, and this was the first death of any kind. Everyone decided that the best course of action would be to just hurry the hell up and finish their job so they could get the hell of the planet and erase these bad memories from they're mind. No one could seem to justify the fact that no hostile creatures had ever been seen or noted the entire time they had been here.

As that days work was coming to a close a brilliant Borinian sunset was taking place. David and Anna were leading the pack back to the ship.

"You know, at least were lucky that they assigned one hell of a ship. After all, it's not like these missions are life-or-death." Realizing what he had just said, David shut up, rather embarrassed.

Anna ignored his bad choice of words. "Yeah, it's kind of an overkill, duel light-speed drives, 5 frontal Ion cannons, 3 rear, EMP shockwave equipped� Barracks for 300� we have way more ship here than we need. Of course, it's more of a reward than anything, we WERE war heroes after all," she said looking at David with a wry look on her face. "Hey I'm going to go talk to Taylor about what happened. I understand he was awfully close to that girl." David nodded and entered the ship. Anna jogged back down the path looking for Taylor. Finding him, she calls him over.

"So you and she were close huh?"

"Yeah we were. We told each other everything. You know what? I really don't want to talk about it," he said suddenly getting angry. "So what exactly do you and David have going on?" Taylor said, changing the subject. "The entire crew has been wondering about you two since we've been on these missions together you know."

Anna laughed. "No, I guess I didn't know that. We don't have anything going on. Ever since we met at the academy we've just been friends, nothing more. As a matter of fact, I've never really even considered David as anything more. We make better friends anyway I'm sure. Hey you wanna to come get something to eat with me?

"No thanks, I think I'm going to stay out here a little while and watch the sunset if you don't mind." Anna decided to leave him alone and proceeded to head to the mess hall.

Anna was having an animated conversation with some of the crewmembers when she heard someone yell "What the hell is that?!?" followed by shockwave fire from outside. She immediately ran in the direction of the hatch along with everyone else. As she stepped outside she saw something that made even her, the hardened military veteran, gasp. Some animal, no, some thing had Taylor in it's grasp. It was clearly mechanical, its body was a dull gray metallic color and it strangely resembled a huge crab. Only instead of pinchers, it had two sharp appendages that moved apart and together resembling scissors. Suddenly, while she stood there, the crab grasped on to Taylor with one scissor-hand and drove the other one completely through him. Anna screamed and the monster looked up at her and flung Taylor to the side with amazing force. It began to slowly make his way towards her. She looked and saw Taylor's body lying facedown, motionless. Enraged, she fired three times at the monster, an attack that would take out even the most powerful creatures. The shots hit it squarely in the center of the chest each time. The monster took two steps back from the shots, and then looked up at Anna, unharmed. "Oh Jesus!" she managed to squeak.

Realizing that if she didn't act quick things were going to take a turn for the worse she took the initiative "WHERE IN THE HELL IS SOME BACKUP?" she screamed, not realizing that virtually 20 people were already behind her. She took a few steps back and sounded the alarm as the crab began to slowly make his way over to the ship. Several more crewmembers showed up within seconds responding to the alarm. Blast after blast from shockwave pistols were repeatedly doing no damage, merely knocking it off balance enough to keep him away from the ship. Three minutes had passed and still the monster continued its advance. Finally they were finally able to distract the monster enough to get someone behind it with a cerebral bore. The soldier fired the bore nearly point blank in the back of the monster's head and it proceeded to delve into his skull.

"Let's see you live through that!" The soldier said with satisfaction. Yet the Crab actually turned around and began advancing on the soldier before the bore finally took its toll: the monster jerked twice, then lay motionless. Everyone rejoiced at the bittersweet victory of finally destroying the unknown enemy only to have one of their crewmembers lay dead. They had overcome, they had been victorious. While hugging and crying at the same time someone happened to look up into the jungle.

There, 30 yards away, were 40 of the monstrosities, slowly making their way towards the ship.