Page 18 of Kryxis

She glanced over at the others sitting around the glowstick, at Myrell who was drinking heavily from her canteen. She rose from her spot on the wall and joined them.

“Myrell, pull up the map of the area,” she said.

They loomed over the map, Dani scanning the buildings. Their next target was the shipping yard, where they were to retrieve crates of ionized metal mined from the planet. Special enough the company wanted it back. Probably because it was worth trillions, making one wonder why they had left it behind in the first place.

She looked over the warehouses and the storage units. There was a generator room beside them.

“I have an idea,” Dani said. “Once we get to the shipping yard, I want us to go to this generator room first.” She pointed.

“You still want to go out there?” Lex said. “After that thing attacked you?”

“Yes,” she said. “If it doesn’t get caught by the security team soon, then we are going.”

They were let out of the room an hour later. This time, it was Saul at the door along with Garret. Seeing that she couldn’t fathom the monster being able to mimic two people at once, she unlocked the door.

Saul had a twinkle in his eye and Garret looked smug.

“We got it,” Saul said.

Dani raised her brows. “Really?”

“Come see.”

“Is it safe?” Lex asked, poking their head out.

“We cleared the outside and scanned every corner of the ship,” Garret assured. “Come see.”

They followed the two outside. Dani treaded carefully as they rounded the front side of the ship.

Tristan and Ryatt were standing together, blocking what looked like a large pile of ice, guns relaxed at their sides. As Dani got closer, she slowed.

The pile of ice was a creature, frozen until it looked like a statue, its long, lithe body curled up, jaws open like it was screaming. She didn’t know why but her stomach dropped looking at it.

“Caught it lurking near the side of the ship,” Saul explained. “It tried to run from our guns and got itself trapped by our net.” He kicked at part of the net still tangled around the body.

Dani crouched down to better examine the specimen. One of its limbs was broken off, crumbling next to it. Most of it was unrecognizable as the ice melded the body to the ground. She couldn’t tell if it really was her creepy stalker or not.

She rose and went around to study its backside. There was a small section along one shoulder that the ice hadn’t fully gotten. She got closer, shining one of her lights.

There, just on the surface, was a set of flat, strange-looking blue scales.

No. Not scales. They were shaped oddly like…

Dani took out a pair of pliers from her pocket and tugged one, popping it off. She studied it closely.

“What is it, Dani?” Garret asked from beside her.

“It’s fungus,” she whispered. The head of a flat mushroom. A cluster of them had grown on this creature’s back, made to look like an extra layer of skin.

“Did you say a fungus?” Garret said.

Dani rose and the others crowded around her.

“Strange,” said Tom. “It was growing on the body?”

“Yes.”

“But it looks like scales or skin, doesn’t it?”

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