It had taken August nearly an hour to fall asleep. He’d snuggled up with his skybeam from the moment he’d donned his armor and rested his head uncomfortably on the ground. Rosek had made a little snake-like sound to get his attention. They seemed to be the only ones struggling to sleep, the two youngest of the squad. General Wolf paced a good dozen yards away.

“Don’t do that with the gun,” she’d whispered.

“What?”

“The cuddling,” she chuckled, maintaining the whisper throughout. “It’s not a good idea.”

“I want to be ready in case I wake up with a bug in my face,” August whispered back.

“I get it,” she said. “You’ve got to understand, though. If you wake up with one in your face or anywhere near you, really, you still won’t have time to do anything about it. So it doesn’t really help you, and also, it’s quite dangerous. People move in their sleep. They do things subconsciously. Sleepwalking is always a possibility, as well as physically reacting to whatever dream you may be having.” She looked around and shivered beneath her thin foil blanket. “Nightmare out here, most likely.”

“I see.” He pushed the gun away after flipping the safety back on. The last thing he’d wanted was to blow a squadmate's head off, or his own for that matter.

He didn’t recall any further conversation and drifted into a nightmare-laden sleep, just as Rosek had predicted. If there was ever a string of nightmares specifically tailored to trick the resting body into a trigger-happy rampage, it was the ones that haunted him that night.

* * *

He awoke with a start as Sterling kicked his leg—the one without the bandage, at least. He’d just been running through a field of red grass with a black cloud of dolo in chase, getting closer and closer as the dream had gone on.

“Time to go,” Sterling said.

August nodded and sat up. He was the only one not ready to leave. The firebox had been packed up, and the squad stood together looking out westward, likely assessing the road ahead. Rosek was back in her mech suit. Her opaque face shield was open as she partook in the group’s conversation. He assumed the face shield was transparent from the inside.

“You hear me?” Sterling snapped impatiently.

Not a morning person, I see. He kept the thought to himself and nodded again as he got up. His leg was stiff but much better than what he’d expected. Belmont rushed toward him once she’d noticed him awake. “Take the armor off,” she said.

“Oh, come on,” Sterling said.

“We’ve got to check the wound,” Belmont said, never looking his way. “You want an infection in the group? That’ll slow us down, even more, trust me.”

Sterling sighed and left to join the rest of the squad.

August took the armor off, including the helmet, even though it wasn’t necessary. The drink of fresh air raised his spirits while also sending a quick shudder through his limbs.

Belmont knelt before him and rolled his bandage down to inspect the wound. She grinned, whipped a small knife from a pocket, and cut the bandage. She let it fall to the ground. More litter. “That healed faster than I thought.” She spoke loud, undoubtedly hoping the general would hear.

“Thanks again.” August’s voice was hoarse. He suited up, left the face shield open, and joined the squad with Belmont by his side.

“All good, Private?” Wolf asked once they got there.

“Yes, sir,” August said. He met eyes with Rosek, who’d raised her face shield. He smiled but got nothing in return.

“Alright,” Wolf took on his commander’s voice. “Let’s move out.”

“What about that thing?” Dalton West asked, pointing to the dead dolo in the distance. “Is there anything we can take from it? We are going to be pretty exposed out here. It would be foolish to leave anything of use behind.”

“You don’t mean meat, do you?” Rosek asked, her face twisting within the shade of her suit.

West chuckled. “Of course not. I don’t know what I mean, to be honest. Just that maybe its wings are made of something useful, or its hide. Maybe that stinger!”

August cringed at the thought of the stinger.

“Chitin,” Sterling said. “Not hide. No. There is nothing useful on that thing—at least, nothing worth the trouble of harvesting. That chitin is nice and hard, yeah, but that thing’s blood is like acid. It would take a long time to carefully chip it off without getting burnt, and that’s with the proper equipment. As for the stinger, yeah, it can probably make a mean knife or something, but again, the venom.”

West put his hands up. “Fair enough. It was worth the thought.”

August looked down at the hole in his glove.

“And the last thing we’d want is to smell like the damn things,” Wolf added. He made a swift motion with a fist, and the squad moved out.

They marched along the border of the forest, always making sure to keep a good amount of field yardage between them and the trees. The straight line from home to their objective ran west, and for the first time since crashing, they veered from that line and traveled south. Something about that felt wrong to August. Even though Sterling had said he was part of the squad, he kept the thought to himself.

The sun climbed its way to noon, and the day had continued the same as it had all morning. They marched along, speaking very little if at all, and shot occasional glances toward the forest. A fat, lumbering raccoon had stopped them in their tracks at one point. Rosek’s hulking mech suit had stood with its hands clasped over its heart, like a little girl seeing her first puppy, and they’d made light of that for a bit before returning to silence.

They stopped for lunch while the sun was still high in the clear sky. Each of them sucked on packets of Slupman energy gel—his was field berry flavor. Rosek was the only one who didn’t let the packet touch her lips. August found it peculiar and watched her for a while. She stood a few yards between the squad and her empty suit and raised the packet over her tilted head. She squeezed it until brown, chocolate-flavored gel plopped into her gaping mouth. Why does she do it like that? He thought about it a while longer. Why do I care?

The general had been saying something to Dalton West about turning west again soon now that the forest was starting to thin. August hadn’t noticed it. The change had been gradual, but change had come. Instead of a thick canopy that barred entry to the sunlight, the forest to their right was now a loose collection of trees and brush, still unappealing compared to their open field, but manageable.

They were back on the move within twenty minutes. Belmont stayed at the rear of the squad, likely keeping her eyes peeled for more useful herbs. West stayed up front with the general. The old sniper was more talkative after their lunch break and shared his wishes for deer or any other type of game. “Hel, even a bird or two would be nice.”

Sterling laughed at that.

“You don’t think I could nail a bird?” West said. “You really overestimate this softening you claim I’ve gone through.”

“It’s not that,” Sterling said, still laughing. “I’m just wondering what meat you think will be left if you catch a bird with that thing.” He pointed to West’s canon of a sniper rifle.

West laughed, and a few others joined in as well, August included. “You’re right. Whatever meat’s left will be cooked for us by the time it hits the ground.”

Another bout of silence followed as they turned west again and began pushing through the brush. The path was clear for the most part, but sometimes they were forced to walk through a tangled wall of bush that came up to August’s chest.

Wolf was always the first to push through. His Kevlar was riddled with thorny bits that had latched on in his passing. Everyone had some, but no one came close to Wolf’s collection. Rosek was the only one free of them, but she had her own issues. Many branches came too low for her to pass under. At first, she’d ducked and gone beneath them, but she eventually started wailing her arms and snapped the branches off like twigs. Her outbursts had given Wolf the idea of getting her to go ahead and clear a path for the rest of them.

Travel came much easier after the change. Rosek would come upon another wall of growth, push through it like it were nothing but spider webs, and trample the thorny plants to the ground to allow easy passage for the others. Things were going so smoothly that Wolf allowed himself to focus on plucking the thorny bits from his Kevlar.

A few hours into the afternoon, Vern Slupman settled beside August. The engineer just smiled awkwardly, and August returned the gesture. “You doing alright?”

“Sure,” August said.

“I mean from the sting,” Slupman said. The engineer’s face shield was raised, and his sunglasses were on as always.

August could only see his own reflection when he went to make eye contact with the short man. “Yeah. It hurt at first, but that stuff Belmont used worked great. I didn’t even know those things were poisonous, to be honest.”

Slupman shook his head. “They don’t teach you that in school. They don’t even teach you that at the academy. I guess it isn’t anything you need to know until you get promotions and sent on bigger missions.”

“Do you know why I was chosen for this mission?” He knew the question was sudden, but it had been bothering him since he’d received the message from the Grand General’s office nearly two months ago.

Slupman went to scratch his neck, but his naked fingers bumped into hard armor. He kept the position awkwardly for a moment, as if trying to convince August that his initial intention was to stand there with a hand near his neck, then he put it down.

August waited for an answer but didn’t expect to get one.

“You’re a strong up-and-comer,” Slupman said, finally. “They wanted some promising youth on this mission. Especially for the role, you fill. You want a runner with good speed for a mission like this, and there ain’t nothing faster than youth. That’s one of the first things you lose as you get older, by the way.”

It was about the same thing the general had said. He let it drop.

“But about your sting,” Slupman continued. “Did anything… strange happen before Belmont’s medicine took effect?”

“Strange, how?” August said.

“Anything.”

He thought about it. “I was on a fast track to being paralyzed, if that’s what you mean.”

“What about your hearing?” Slupman asked.

August took a step to the left. The engineer had pierced the rookie’s personal bubble, leaning in toward him as if he were reciting the most gripping story he’d ever heard. “It never got that bad. I was able to hear through the whole thing. There was pain, the pain turned into a weird needle feeling, and it was hard to move. Oh yeah, and I lost the ability to speak for a bit.” It was the first time he’d reflected on what had happened. That poison would have killed him if left unchecked. He wanted to snatch Belmont up in a bear hug then and there.

Slupman was going to pry further, but August spoke first. “Are they all poisonous like that?”

The engineer shook his head. “The ones that come around the dome—the ones that most privates have to worry about—are as venomous as a kitten but mean as hornets—hornets with much, much bigger stingers.”

“Why don’t they tell us about the poisonous ones?”

“They tell you when you need to know.” Slupman held his head up proud. “Once you get a few promotions under your belt, they start sending you on deeper, more intense missions. That’s when you get access to more classified info on these things. You’d have some pretty bad nightmares if you knew what kind of bugs were out there.”

“Why didn’t they tell me?” August asked. “I understand what you’re saying, but they brought me along on a mission like this. The least they could have done was warn me.”

“I’m not sure,” Slupman said. “I guess they figured with a squad full of seasoned veterans like ours, either you’d learn it from one of us, or they flat out forgot they were sending a private out on such a big mission.” He shrugged, as convinced by his explanation as August was.

Rosek halted halfway through, trampling another wall of brush, raised a mechanical fist to stop the squad. General Wolf lowered his head and crept to her side. He craned his neck and gazed out for a tense moment before turning back to the squad with a blank expression. “There’s a town up ahead.”