It was a surreal experience climbing inside the VDF crawler, the large vehicle that looked like an APC. The space inside was pretty tight, as Alex found out when he almost smashed his head against the metal frame.

“Careful with that,” said Dave, seeing Alex duck at the last second. “More than a few guys have smashed their heads open on that edge. You don’t want to be the next one.”

Inside the crawler were two rows of seats on either side. The front two seats were for the driver and the spotter, positions filled by Dave and Carla. Carla was the one doing the driving today while Dave took up the spotter position. Alex found himself sitting just behind Dave while Ellie went to Carla’s side. To no one’s surprise, Jenna placed herself right next to Alex.

“You’re going to be somewhat of a celebrity once we get to Vesta,” said Dave to Alex, once the crawler was moving forward.

“Why’s that?” asked Alex.

Dave grinned at him. “You’re aware that women outnumber men in Vesta by three to one, right? A good-looking guy like yourself will have the pick of the entire litter. Not to mention, if you’ve really killed two bears, they are really going to be focused on you. You better start taking your vitamins once we reach the city. Trust me, you’re going to need them.”

Alex shot a nervous glance at Jenna, who was hanging onto every word coming out of Dave’s mouth. And she didn’t look too pleased about it.

“By the way, do you have any combat experience?” asked Dave.

Alex nodded. “I spent a good portion of the last two decades fighting in the Orbital Wars. You can say that soldiering is what I know best.”

Dave grinned at him. “We’ve heard a little bit about those Orbital Wars here on Vesta. If you really know how to be a soldier, you should think about a career with the VDF. We’re down to less than fifty of us now, out of a colony population of 479 people.”

“What did it used to be?” asked Alex.

Dave let out a low whistle. “At our peak? We had nearly three times that amount. That came shortly after the bears attacked but our numbers have dwindled since then. Too many of us have died, most of them near the mining biosphere. That seems to be where the worst of the attacks happened.”

“In any event, I’m sure Commander Rooney will be happy to see all the newly-arriving colonists,” continued Dave. “He’s the leader of the VDF by the way. He wanted some of the toughest men available to come to Vesta to fill out the ranks again. That’s why he wasn’t disturbed that all of you were convicts. He thought you’d at least know how to fight and hold your own when the shit hit the fan.”

“That’s the case with a good majority of the male colonists coming here,” said Alex. “But some are a little too far gone, if you get what I’m saying. They were convicts for a good reason.”

Alex’s mind turned to Serrano at that moment. He wondered if the man had survived the Racine disaster and whether or not he might already be in the Vestan city.

Dave only shrugged. “Not like your life expectancy is that long here anyway, especially for men. We used to have the same number of men as we did women. I hope you didn’t think this was some kind of resort colony you were coming to. We need all the help we can get.”

Truthfully, it was what Alex was coming to expect from Vesta. He had the nagging suspicion that the crew of the Racine weren’t being totally forthcoming about the situation on Vesta, and his first week on the planet had shown him just how deadly things could be.

For Alex, it was a moment of truth. It was an admission that his life could be on the line. In a way, it was like being back in the Orbital Wars, where death could have found him at any second.

But for someone like Jenna, it was truly a frightening prospect. Alex felt her hand creep into his a moment later. Alex squeezed it for good measure, as if to reassure her that it was going to be okay.

Although, he didn’t really know if it would be.

The crawler sped closer to Vesta. They were traveling at a pretty fast speed over the Vestan landscape, something that made Alex curious about the name.

“So Dave, why are these things called crawlers? We’re going pretty fast, aren’t we? Certainly nowhere near crawling.”

Dave gave him a sly grin. “You haven’t seen all the things these bad boys can do. They are all-terrain vehicles, so they’ll go over both land and water. The bottom is waterproof and there’s a separate compartment that opens up that allows both a rudder and motor to propel you in the water. But that’s not what designated them as crawlers. This is.”

Dave pressed a button on the dashboard and the entire crawler started to shake. Alex watched out the window of the vehicle as metal “legs” pushed out from the front, rear, and sides. Those legs were already moving as they were lowered and quite suddenly, the entire crawler was lifted off the wheels and into the air as the legs became the primary surface touching the ground.

Quite literally, the crawler turned from an APC to a mechanical spider, able to dash across the terrain at nearly the same speed as the wheels could turn.

“This comes in handy when we go into the foothills or the mountains,” explained Dave as Alex gaped at the dashing legs beneath them. “It climbs so well that you can go up nearly a vertical cliff without any trouble. Just need to buckle in tight.”

Dave pushed the button again, making the legs start to retract. A few moments later, the crawler rocked as the wheels hit the dirt and the legs pulled back inside.

Dave grinned at him. “Cool, right?”

Alex was in awe. “Really fucking cool.”

*****

All it took was about another twenty minutes before Carla announced that the crawler was coming up on the Vestan city.

Both Alex and Jenna placed their noses against the windows, eager to get their first view of their new home.

The view definitely didn’t disappoint.

The first thing that Alex saw was a giant dome growing on the horizon. Giant might have been a bit of an understatement. The dome was nearly the size of a stadium back on Earth, and certainly as high. What was even more impressive was that it was completely see-through, and Alex could start to make out the tops of trees that were touching close to the roof.

“Impressive, isn’t it?”

Alex turned to look at Ellie, finding her grinning at him. “What you’re looking at is the first biosphere my grandfather built. It’s also the biggest one we have. The dome is made of a polymer that combines glass and plastic together. It’s quite strong but it allows it to be transparent. That way, we can still get the benefits of the natural sunshine without being truly outside. The rest of the biospheres are constructed in a similar way.”

That was certainly true as they got even closer. Alex could now spy as many as nine different biospheres surrounding the big one in the center. All of them shared the same transparent roof but some were done in different styles. One of them was made in a bubble-type fashion, where the polymer was only visible in round bubbles as it spread out from the dome. Some of the smaller ones were set up in hexagon format, looking like out-of-place igloos on the arid surface.

Every biosphere was connected to each other by a long tube that ran parallel to the ground. In that way, it was possible to go from one end of the Vestan city to the other without ever going outside, just following the tubes as they led from biosphere to biosphere.

Outside of those covered walkways were various other pieces sticking out of the Vestan soil. Alex spotted rows and rows of solar panels for power, smaller vehicles hauling large loads between the biospheres, and even a security system, consisting of large cameras attached to poles sticking out of the ground.

Around the perimeter of the entire city was a very simple wall, made out of thick carbon-fiber polymer. It was only about a meter high, and it was the first thing that Alex saw that made him somewhat confused.

In terms of protection, it offered very little. That wall wasn’t going to stop anything from getting into the secure perimeter of the city. Not a human, and certainly not a bear.

“Why is the wall so . . . basic?” Alex asked Ellie. “It doesn’t seem like much of a deterrent.”

Ellie shook her head. “It wasn’t meant to be. Before the bears came, there were no threats to the colony so a wall wasn’t needed. So far, the bears haven’t been able to get inside the biospheres, and they don’t usually come inside our city perimeter anyway. Strengthening the wall hasn’t been a priority.”

“They can absolutely get into those biospheres if they wanted to,” warned Alex, thinking about how that first bear clawed its way into his escape pod. “That wall should be strengthened, especially before we start getting attacks inside the city.”

Ellie smiled at him. “Maybe that can be one of the first projects you take up? Especially if you find yourself with the VDF.”

Alex said nothing to that. He was a little annoyed by the lack of urgency or seriousness that Ellie took his proposal. If the colony had really lost such a huge amount of people, why were they not taking their defenses more seriously?

Either they didn’t know what to do or they didn’t care. Alex wasn’t sure which one was worse.

They arrived at the main gate to the city, where the crawler came to an abrupt stop. Dave had already made the announcement alerting the rest of the VDF to their arrival, alongside the fact that they had two more arriving colonists with them, as well as a special guest.

Looking back, it wasn’t a surprise to Alex that they received such an important host upon their arrival, especially once they heard about Ellie being with them.

As they exited the crawler, Alex saw a woman waiting for them, her hands on her hips, and her expression one that told him she wasn’t happy about their arrival. She was an attractive woman though. Alex guessed she was probably around her late twenties in age. She had incredibly long red hair, the kind that fell to her butt. She had a pale complexion and very pink lips, as well as a sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheeks.

The woman took one look at Alex and Jenna and actually smiled at them. She extended her hand.

“Welcome to Vesta,” she said in a sweet, feminine voice. “I’m Annette Moore. I sit on the Vestan council.”

“Nice to meet you, Annette,” said Alex, shaking her hand. “My name is Alex Hawthorne and this is my companion, Jenna Whitaker. We came to Vesta aboard the Racine.”

“We’re very glad to find you both alive and well,” said Annette, never losing the smile on her face. “We have been worried with how long you’ve been out in the wilderness. We found the first pods three days ago and rescue efforts have been underway to get most of the survivors but we thought we had all of them. So finding both of you after all this time is nothing short of miraculous.”

“And they have quite a few stories to tell,” said the voice of Ellie, now closing the distance between them. “These two are responsible for the death of two bears.”

Annette’s mouth dropped open. “Two . . . two bears, you said?”

Ellie nodded. “We have much to talk about, cousin. It’s good to see you again.”

Annette pursed her lips. “I wish I could say the same, Ellie. You shouldn’t have come back here. Belladonna and Cassara will be livid.”

“Let them be livid,” said Ellie before she gestured to Alex. “It was important that I brought him back. He’ll change everything.”

Annette didn’t look too pleased. Her eyes kept drifting to Alex and Jenna and then back to her cousin. Finally, she started to wrinkle her nose.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but all of you need showers,” she said politely. She turned to look at Dave. “Dave, would you be so kind as to escort them to the showers? I’ll arrange a detail to pick them up when they’re done.”

“Of course,” said Dave, gesturing to them to follow him.

Ellie almost went with them but Annette grabbed her arm. “Hold on. You and I need to talk before anything else happens.”

Alex was tempted to wait behind for Ellie but he could see they weren’t about to have a short conversation. Reluctantly, he and Jenna followed Dave into the first biosphere off the entrance. Dave wound them around two corners before opening up the door to the showers.

It was as Alex and Jenna entered the showers that they both stopped in their tracks. Jenna even gasped.

“You can’t expect us to shower here!” she exclaimed.