The First Six

Log 1

We were on a fact-finding mission. I was scared. The entire team was scared, moving through the forest on Zeb-9. I kept staring through my visor at the woods, saying, ‘I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be here.’ We went through the forest in the dark, and these bugs were climbing the trees and singing, ‘Kee-kee kee-kee kee-kee.’ The mission went on for seven weeks. Forty light-years from Earth, and I worried about home. It changed my life exploring the forest on Zeb-9, with the bugs and the dark and the heavy suits.


Log 2

The first group to enter the cave got torn to bits, and we heard the screams. The next group stumbled, and the beast took most of them, and it kept coming with its horns. One man was on the back of the beast, and he stabbed into the green fur, and the beast clawed him, and he fell to the dirt and died. Then the rest of his group went wild and tried a coordinated attack. The men yelled for backup but it was too late and we couldn’t help them. We came out from the tree line and had to kill or be killed because the thing had a taste for us now, but we were scientists and had no weapons. I could hardly move. The beast got five of us and then stuck its horns into a tree. We were quiet for a while and it looked like it was really stuck, so I took a knife from a fallen soldier and did what none of us could do and put an end to the beast with the green fur. I fell to the dirt and was sick and my nerves were on fire, but two of my friends held me up and carried me back to basecamp.

Log 3

We funnelled through the wooden archways out of basecamp as the storm wrecked everything. The equipment carts were loaded with food and materials for us to build another camp. Strange worm-like creatures were popping up in the mud, watching the evacuation. The storm went on all night. Our plastic rain coats were no good. Two soldiers struggled in the mud with an equipment cart broken to bits. The streets through basecamp were rivers of sludge. The south archway, which led to the hills, got hit by lightning and went up in flames. Soldiers rushed to put it out. I nearly suffocated in the squeeze, but I made it to the hills and lay on my back in the rough grass and watched the rain and thought about home. There was a kid holding his bandaged face. I was just a kid, too, and I went over and sat with him. We watched the sun come up in the morning.


Log 4

I transferred from the expedition team to work with the botanists in the gardens. We cultivated the land from the north side of basecamp to the river. The first time I saw a space rat, it came over the garden wall, and before it dropped over, a guard killed it in one shot. We waited for more to come over and the guard killed them, too. The rats had no hair and looked innocent when they fell into the garden dead. I didn’t like it that they were killed. They were hungry for our crops and we shot them all.


Log 5

We had Christmas Day off. Everyone had the day off. We’d got into the spirit of it and put up a massive Christmas tree in the courtyard. It was great. Roasted space rat was popular among the camp. There were tents with mulled wine and the weather held up and we enjoyed the wine in the sun. The scientists were drunk, and the officers and soldiers and everyone was drunk, and we showed each other photos of our loved ones, and we cared very much for one another. It was a great day. We were sad to see the tree come down the next day, and we had to remember where we were.


Log 6

They named themselves the Red Faction and shot seven officers who were supposedly keeping secrets. The courtyard was a bloody mess. Documents lay about the courtyard, stamped with bloody footprints in the dirt. We’d come to the planet for scientific reasons, but the Reds claimed to know why we’d really come. All of them died that day. Two of my friends joined the Reds in the morning and were shot in the afternoon.