The heavily armed hovercopter dove into Noctis Labyrinthus, descending parallel to a viaduct support pillar. Jagged rock walls as tall as Terran skyscrapers arose around them.

Sujin McCrory grinned with hunger, clutching his arcblade cane.

Several days had passed since his last trip to Noctis. His trip to the arctic north could not have been avoided. But by delegating to Page, he'd made good use of the time.

Rubrum regressed. Though he never would have said it aloud, Sujin sometimes felt as if the planet and the ecosystem were an actively aggressive force, consciously holding the colonizers back from their full potential, as surely as it held them down with gravity.

But now Sujin had confirmed that at least in part, that was true. The presence of the Martian predator beasts that slaughtered his construction crew—seemingly to mark their territory—screamed that Rubrum was actively fighting against him. And since Sujin was one of the elite few of the entrepreneur class on Rubrum who's every decision actually impacted hundreds, if not thousands of lives, he took the attack personally.

His eyes danced over to his new personal security guard, Russell. The man stood as a living testament to the Rubrum force that opposed Sujin. And the man had paid dearly for it. Luckily, Sujin hired the best cyborg technosurgeon on Rubrum to reshape the dying man into someone that could live to fight another day, saving his life in return for Russell defending his.

Based on their interaction with the tentacled beasts, he'd assigned rounding up a team of mercenaries and trappers to Page. He wanted folks rough around the edges, ready to get their hands dirty. What he ended up with were no less than five hovecopters equipped with gauss gatling railguns, and one freighter full of large cages. This way they could capture the beast alive, to sell back to Terran scientists to study. Or, if things went to shale, they could slay them all and be done with the nuisance.

Aside from the lives of his slain employees, Sujin was glad that the Martian creatures revealed themselves. Now he had a face to put to the opposition, one that he could combat with equal and opposing force. Once they won this skirmish, he'd root out the hive of the beasts, learn their habits and destroy their home, exterminating all threats to his future viaduct project.

They reached the bottom and grouped near the abandoned toolshed. A team of preassigned men exited the ramps and one by one hopped in the cabs of the construction equipment, removing all of the expensive vehicles out of the way.

As that was happening, a mercenary made of pure muscle led a group of similarly muscled mutts on leashes into the structure. He affixed their leashes to a support beam held in place by a magnetic lock near the gaping hole where the bodies of his former crew still lay. No doubt decomposition already set in, which in turn set off the dogs.

The canines were to act as bait. Since dogs were territorial by nature, Sujin was betting that the territorial nature of the Martian terrors would kick in, and they would reveal themselves.

The muscled merc retreated back to a hovercopter. Everyone donned goggles displaying the heat signatures of the dogs. Then they waited.

Russ spoke up, his cryptic voice breaking his stoic silence. "Here it comes."

Sujin felt it too.

Not long after, a new signature popped up. Even at this distance the yips, howls, and snarls of the mutts reached Sujin's ears above the thrusters echoing off the Noctis walls. The mercenary who planted the dogs pushed a button, releasing the mutts from their leashes. As one the group rushed the beast.

The jaded mercs broke comm discipline with chatter, aghast at the surreal monster.

"Look at the size of that thing."

"Six legs. You boys seeing that? Six."

"Size of a speeder. If not bigger."

"Tentacles. It really has tentacles."

"The maw is the most dangerous," added Russ. "They'll get you good, if you're not careful."

After a glare from Sujin the merc commander shouted obscenities over the comm, reeling the men back in.

The thing crouched low, then sprang on the dogs. Tentacles lashed out like living leashes, entangling each dog, splitting up the pack, ripping them off of their legs. It held them in the air by their necks, the tentacles acting as nooses. One by one it ate each dog alive.

Sujin's own revulsion was mirrored by the merc point. "Oh man. That's crazy. It's tearing them apart like they're pups."

On Sujin's mark, they riddled the area above the hole where the beast emerged, causing a cave in, trapping the beast.

The merc commander yelled, "Hit it with a tracer."

A sniper perched on the edge of an open side door fired a shot. "Tracer embedded. Link to target established."

Sujin gave the second signal, and they hit the toolshed itself with railgun blasts that penetrated the walls, shredding them to bits. The walls collapsed, forcing the Martian to flee and find another route back home.

The tycoon raised a hand putting a halt to the gatling gunfire. The massive cylinders clicked as their spinning slowed to a stop. The smell of burning electrocharged metal filled the hovercopter. Below them the beast bolted, running along the canyon's floor.

"Maintain a good distance," ordered the merc point.

The hovercopters lurched onward. Sujin's weight pressed against the safety harnesses as they tilted forward in pursuit.

The six-legged creature bounded through the winding labyrinths of Noctis. The pilots navigated with expert precision, at one point forced to all draw in tight, flying in a straight line so as to not collide with the narrowing crevasse walls.

At that point, the beast pulled away from them, aided by its six strong legs.

"Don't lose it," yelled Sujin.

"You heard him boys. Reestablish visual."

But the walls pressed in closer, forcing them to rise to a higher elevation.

They lost visual altogether. Coming to a juncture, they were presented with six branching labyrinths, each veering off in different directions.

"Split up," barked the commander.

They scoured the various pathways.

After almost an hour of garbled communication back and forth, one of the other units caught sight of it.

"Visual reestablished," said a grainy, gruff male voice. "Hey what's it running through?"

Another voice chimed in. "Some kind of man-made looking canal system."

"What did you say? Repeat," commanded Sujin.

"It's running along a canal. This thing ain't a natural occurrence. It cuts right through the bottom of the canyon."

The hovercopters all reconvened with Unit 2, who had found the canal.

Had one of his competitors beat him to the punch and begun constructing this canal? Had they discovered some hidden resource at the bottom of Noctis? No. He'd have heard gossip of it. Surely. It was more likely that this was the failed experiment of a forgotten early Rubrum colony during the early terraforming phases. They'd tried a lot of failed experimentation back then. The abandoned dome Musk structures came to mind.

The hovercopters caught up with the beast as it followed the carved pathway.

"Look. It joins another canal."

Sure enough, another structured canal joined the one they were following. They moved downhill so it made sense that had these been flowing with water, or some other liquid, the system would continue to add additional canals as they delved further and further in.

The merc point silenced the speculation. "Let's keep our focus on the target. Let the archeologists worry about the canal."

Ahead, the base of the valley widened, but up higher, it narrowed, forcing them to drop elevation, almost skirting the canal, losing sight of the sky above. The labyrinth took a sharp turn. They rounded the corner and beheld something none of them expected.

"What is that?"

Before them the canyon opened into a wider basin. A web of canals joined a larger network, running together into a sprawling ancient city. Towers clawed upwards like skyscraping thorns. Dark pores covered every surface that was not smooth, like multitudes of shadow eyes leering at the trespassing humans.

Sujin's breath caught in his throat. He whispered, as if his mere breath might cause the eldritch ruins to crumble.

"A lost Martian city."

The pilots in the copters flew onward, drawn to the rediscovered edifices in stunned silence.

Russ leaned close to Sujin, speaking low in his ear. "We shouldn't be here. We need to flee while we still can."

Anger coursing through Sujin surprised him. He wanted to flash on Russ. And why? Because the man voiced his gut feeling, the intuition he was trying to suppress. Sujin wanted to rebuke Russ, but the commander spoke up.

"Target at our ten o'clock."

Sure enough the beast bounded towards the elder city with an undeniable familiarity. They lost sight of it as it passed into the maze of clustered stone briars.

The mercenary point eyed Sujin. "How do you want us to proceed?"

"Turn back," said Russ.

Sujin scowled at him. Sometimes intuition was wrong. He spoke to the commander, "Fly low and get after it."

The man paused. "We weren't prepared for this. We should come back at a later time. We can't fly these through there," he pointed at the towering city. "We'll have to go in on foot. We'd have brought different equipment if I knew about this."

"If anyone knew about this, it could spark a second-wave Terran exodus. No one could be prepared for this. Proceed. I paid you to capture the target, and any other of its kind."

"What you paid us doesn't cover this scenario. I don't want to put my team in jeopardy."

"I'll pay you double."

"You'll waste your creds," said Russ.

Sujin ignored him, and the rising unease creeping up from his gut. Against his will he scratched his hand, the one still healing from the sting.

The commander relayed the info to his team. "How's that sound boys?"

After a whoop of agreement, they set the hovercopters and freighter down.

"Alrighty boys. Let's get after it."

Sujin caught the uncertainty in the man's voice. If doubt filled the captain, it trickled down to the remainder of the team as well. Sujin could not blame them. This was a historic discovery that would change the course of Rubrum and Terra forever. But he wasn't paying them to gawk at the structures, or to question how they got there. He was paying them to get a job done. Now more than ever, he needed a live sample. This would prove without a doubt the existence of the lost city.

In addition to paying the men double what he intended, he'd have to have them sign a non-disclosure agreement. He and he alone would find out everything there was to know about his city. It was his claim by the universal law of finders keepers. Who knew what wonders lay in the ruins? The fact that intelligent life existed anywhere besides Earth opened a whole new universe of possibilities. The knowledge they might gain from a place like this. Lost language, culture, and possibly even lost technology. All of it lay at his fingertips. Red Prince , they called him. Prophetic. For one day soon, he'd sit on a Martian throne.

The squadron moved into the city on foot. Sujin remained behind with Page, Russ, and a pilot. They listened to the chatter on the comms. After several minutes passed, Sujin noted that the comms became infrequent.

"Commander, do you copy?"

After a drawn-out silent moment, a whisper came through. "Yes."

"What's going on?"

"Following target. We may be closing in on the—oh shalemerda—"

The comms cut off. Static feedback buzzed instead.

Sujin struck the comms in frustration, but the static persisted.

The pilot fidgeted with the settings, but to no avail.

Russ pulled his gauss revolvers from their holsters, priming each hammer. "We should have left."

Suddenly the comms blared back to life with screams of pain and torment.

But Sujin didn't have time to understand what was happening. Heat signatures cropped up all around them, emerging from the ruins, surrounding their hovercopter.

Sujin's blood ran cold.

"Pull up. Get out of here."

The pilot hesitated. "My brothers—"

"We'll die too. Now, pull up."

The pilot hesitated. Until Russell pressed a cold barrel against his head.

"Okay. Okay, pulling up."

But it was too late. The fanged beasts charged the ship, tentacles lashing at the metal hide, fangs gnawing at the exterior. Scraping and crunching sounds grated on Sujin's ears. He gripped his cane hard, all the blood fleeing from his knuckles. The pilot tried to pull up, but the thrusters strained under the weight of the massive beasts piling atop of it. The low thrum of the thrusters climbed to a high wail as the pilot pushed the throttle to its maximum limit.

"We're not moving up. They're too heavy."

Blood curdling sounds of the hull torn open like canned food made Sujin recognize the mistake he'd made. Underneath his skin, his wounded hand throbbed, then pulsed. He dropped his cane, clutching his hand. It burned. Molten pain spread up his arm as he fell, balling up into the fetal position. He screamed in agony.

"Mr. McCroy!"

Page knelt at his side, trying to help, but not knowing what to do. Sujin was not even aware of his presence, no longer aware of where he was. There was only the burning, throbbing pain, until every fiber of his being existed only for the purpose of pain.

The hovercopter spun out of control, falling from the little height it gained, crashing into the ground. The pilot rebounded, manning a gatling gun, adamant to go down with his boots on. Russ stood, guns leveled over the merc's shoulders.

When the beasts finally shredded the exterior enough to breach the ship, they were met with a relentless wave of gauss fire. But not for long. The gatling gun downed three of them before they snatched up the pilot and ate him whole.

Russ downed another three by himself, before they nabbed him, and Page next.

By the time the tendrils coiled around Sujin and yanked him off of the metal floor, he was weeping, begging for the pain to simply end.

Mummified from head to toe in a seaweed-like tentacle, the Martian predator carried Sujin away from the wreckage and into the city. He was only semi-conscious of this fact, knowing deep down. In the moment his pain ebbed, diminishing.

The padded footfalls of the monster's six legs comforted him in his state of shock, like a child being rocked to sleep. Waves of pain morphed into waves of pleasure.

Without warning he was thrown down upon a hard stone surface. He gasped as the tentacle that had wrapped him now loosed, giving his lungs room to fully expand.

The thing's maw hovered over him.

Sujin felt neither pain nor fear. He simply was.

The maw opened wide, rows of fangs pointed towards Sujin.

But, instead of devouring him, it's throat ballooned, like a toad, then convulsed. Sticky yellow bile erupted like a fountain, spewing from the Martian's mouth, covering Sujin in a liquid coffin.

The ichor bubbled, expanding like foam, encasing him in an alien cocoon. The fumes and odors emanating from the fluid nauseated Sujin at first. But as it enveloped him from head to toe, the smell changed, soothing him, lulling him into a safe and secure rest. He closed his eyes, curled up into the fetal position, and fell into a dream.