It took a moment for Greg Anson’s eyes to adjust to the harsh light of space. The oblong white disc of the Western Sphere Alliance frigate Eureka outside drifted in a cloud of debris its smooth white surface scarred by battle. Above it loomed the immense shell shaped silhouette of the Syn ship the former bound to it by boarding grapples slowly dragged his doomed ship to its fate. Glare obscured his view of the speckled white planet below. Anson craned his head to steal a look at the other pods. Doing so, he realized that there were not nearly enough pods around even if only a quarter of the ship’s crew had survived. His eyes bulged when he finally spotted a nearby pod as it exploded into a cloud of tiny fragments. Of course the Syn were shooting at them he thought swearing. Puffs of dark smoke began exploding around him as some Syn gunner adjusted his aim. Anson closed his eyes, and his pod shook. He exhaled, still breathing. “Oh my god,” He exclaimed hoarsely. Like a firecracker in the fist his frigate had torn itself apart in one massive detonation right as the Syn had been dragging it closer. The reactor must have gone critical. Nothing remained but the Syn ship, crippled and spinning away in a wave of debris that was rapidly approaching the pod. Throttled back, his head struck something and all he knew was melting blackness.

  The warm drip drip of blood down his aching forehead eventually roused Anson. It was dark in the pod, but warm light filtered in through the porthole. His eyes opened slowly, drinking up the light he had never thought he’d see again. He was upside down, the pod suspended above snow. Only then did Anson realize how dreadfully cold it was. He cursed, tearing off his restraints and punching the emergency escape button. The hatch locks detonated, flinging the dented panel away. Anson shivered in the fresh dry air, watching his vaporous breath drift away. Grabbing the restraining belts, he righted himself and dropped into the snow bank below.

  He was on a small rolling hill nestled amongst more that seemed to stretch out indefinitely. Strange rust red trees for lack of a better term jutted out everywhere. Leafless and smooth, they looked more like the inverted roots of a tree than a tree themselves. His pod was caught suspended in the rigid branches of one that must have towered thirty feet above the snow blanketed landscape. The air was dry, the bone chilling breeze causing the hair on his arm to stand on end. He tugged at his torn and bloodied uniform frowning. How much longer could he survive he wondered. Who else had survived? Debris streaked the misty blue sky. Losing himself he uttered a pained roar which echoed endlessly as the smoldering ruin of the Syn ship punched a hole through the clouds. Trailing smoke as it tumbled end over end the Syn ship soared through the air before smashing itself across a distant mountain ridge with a thunderclap. A gust a wind from the blast caught Anson in the chest, sending him flying back. It was deathly silent after that.

  Anson pulled the pod down by its parachute cord, straining his blistered hands as he tugged at the thin lines. Eventually something snapped and the tree gave up its prize. Rolling the pod upright, Anson rubbed his hands and opened the panel marked survival gear. Throwing the contents aside, he slid out the short-range radio receiver only to find a burnt casing. Syn shrapnel had torn right through it. He had no way to contact any other survivors if there even were any. Anson let it fall back into the compartment and slid down into the snow wondering what he would do next. They had surely managed to send a distress signal, but had anybody heard it? If they had would anybody come? Anson suspected that the system where the battle had ended was barely in the galactic catalog. He and anybody else who might have somehow survived would be casualties anyway by the time help would arrive if at all.

  Anson scooped up some snow and felt it burn his cut up hands. Tossing it aside in frustration he thought of all the friends he had already lost, torn apart in the last desperate minutes of the battle as they had ran for the pods. The towering plumes of black smoke billowing from the distant wreckage filled him with vengeful anger. Certain some Syn had survived. Anson pulled an insulating all weather suit from the canister and put it on. He considered the other supplies for a moment, but left them. He holstered the small survival pistol and began the long march towards the Syn wreck not quite sure what he’d find or what he’d do when he got there.

  He could already hear the crackling of fire by the time he had gotten within a quarter mile of the ruined ship. Like a shovel it had torn away the top few feet of snow and soil and had come to rest at the end of a miles-long burning scar. Large gashes had opened in its compromised hull while other portions had folded into jumbled barely recognizable scrap heaps. The huge craft looked as though it had been crumpled up in some large hand and flattened out again. Anson looked up as he approached the tattered wall of scorched metal. Barbed turrets sprouted from of the rumpled surface their barrels melted and bent as smoke drifted out of burnt holes in the superstructure. It was huge, but Anson didn’t think it would be this big. It was though an expansive building had fallen from the sky and in essence one had. Where were its occupants?

  Anson had expected a confrontation, hundreds of angry Syn spilling from every smoking gash, but instead found nothing but charred bodies strewn about the debris. Most looked as though they had died when ejected, while a few looked as though they had been alive long enough to drag their shattered frames to where they had died in agony.

  “Look what you did,” cried Anson in frustration. He looked up at the silent ship and yelled. He heard no response. He would have to go in.

  Ducking beneath a torn beam Anson crept into the dimly lit interior. Snow was beginning to collect in the empty chamber the air already cold despite the recent scorch marks. There were no angles; the smooth walls having the appearance of being molded like a wasp’s nest. No marking of any kind was visible either. The adjacent corridor led into a similar domed room then another. The occasional light remained active casting the grimy chambers in a warm orange glow. The next hallway ended abruptly some foul-smelling liquid cascading down a deep trench torn in the ship. It was dark for the most part except for a few lingering fires. Anson Jumped across. He doubted anybody had explored the interior of a Syn ship like this. It felt as though he was in an ant hill.

  Anson crept cautiously through windowless room after room of equipment he didn’t recognize. In one room which he assumed to be an engineering space he found dozens of Syn bodies clustered around towering metal cylinders. Pipes belched fire and a burning liquid pooled in the corner of the room. Sparking wires hung from the ceiling, a burnt Syn still clutching a panel of levers. It and the others had obviously tried in vain to keep save their ship.

  Climbing a cascade of wires through the ceiling led Anson up into a rather large crawl space strung with cables and pipes. The grating sound of a generator trying to start echoed endlessly through the quiet catwalks. Dead Syn engineers were everywhere. Some had fallen from up above, impaled on broken pipes that still hemorrhaged steam. The farther he went the more bodies he found and the more things he found that seemed to be working. The air was still warm and stank of crawling horrors. Cautiously Anson pressed on, the pistol now constantly at the ready.

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  The levels ahead had pancaked on top of each other, a torn piece of floor now leading up a floor like a ramp. The weakened joints groaned around him with each careful step. Anson pressed his hand against the scorch free walls. They were still cool. This section had not been as affected by fire as the others. Another stark difference from the rest of the ship were the semi-ornate spiral etchings in the walls. Anson immediately got the impression that he had stumbled across something important. The esoteric symbols on the wall deeply unsettled him for reasons he could not quite express and he moved on.

  Anson emerged from the darkened hallway into a well-lit domed chamber. Natural light filtered in through a gaping hole in the golden roof, the exquisite floor mosaic littered with bits of metal that had shattered the intricate tile work. He had never seen so much Syn art yet alone known they’d made any. Fine red line drawings depicting dozens of Syn in profile adorned the gilded wall like an Egyptian tomb. The inverted sickle shape symbol of the Syncline featured prominently. The figures seemed to hold it with some reverence.

  Anson pondered this as his eyes drifted towards the center of the room. Swearing suddenly, he whipped his pistol around and fired off a volley of plasma shot that flashed with a sickening sizzle.

  “My god,” he said with breathless awe. At the center of the room sat a throne hewn from some sort of cracked black stone. There a solitary Syn slumped dead in a pool of blue blood. Lowering his weapon Anson realized with a nervous chuckle that he had overreacted. It was obvious now that it been dead for some time. A metal girder had pierced its chest skewering the strange dead Syn too its throne. Blood trickled from its beak, its red eyes blankly fixated on the floor.

  “What are you?” asked Anson with a frown as he inspected the deep red plumage and iridescent silvery carapace of the unusually large and regal Syn. He lifted its head with the barrel of his pistol and let it fall in disgust. The golden headdress the dead Syn wore clattered to the ground.

  “You’re the one who killed us all.”

  The sound of splashing water suddenly alerted him to a small antechamber.

  Anson followed the sloshing sound into a dimly lit gallery. The glint of shattered glass from numerous broken vessels was everywhere. Scummy water slouched around mossy floors. Anson gagged. The hot steamy air was heavy with the earthy stench of decay. Creeping forward, Anson heard something different snap beneath his boot. Bending down, he picked up what looked like a black molted eggshell covered in a slimy membranous fluid. Dozens of eggs presumably broken in the crash littered the floor as well dozens of little bodies. His eyes widen in panicked realization as he again heard the splash of water in the corner of the listing room.

  This was some kind of incubation chamber and something had survived. The room shook and groaned as the stricken ship continued to settle. The lights, glowing filaments which dangled from the ceiling, flickered to life. Anson pulled the trigger, peppering the polished bronze wall with plasma shot as something sent him flying backward into the water.

  Disoriented and helpless Anson winced as he felt the weight of something digging tiny talons into his chest. Hissing, spittle dripped from the quivering four-piece beak of the thing standing on him. Its segmented body was covered in dripping wet feathery down making it seem like a cat or dog in appearance if not size. Anson dared not move, not while face to face with its blooming beaky maw. The little devil cocked its head as it scrutinizing the man with big hawkish amber eyes. It sniffed him apprehensively.

  “What’s wrong? If you’re going to kill me just do it,” exclaimed Anson through gritted teeth.

  The nascent Syn recoiled its downy coat bristling in surprise. Anson saw his chance and slapped the little furball off him. Scrambling for his gun, the man once again went face to face with the creature. It stood above the weapon looking up at him timidly.

  “Can you please move, I need that to kill yah,” snarled Anson almost casually. It yipped back at him then sneezed. It looked so frail. Anson hesitated, slowly reaching out to grab the Syn instead of his gun. Standing up in the ankle-deep water Anson held the panting creature up by its neck watching as it squirmed. He had never seen a Syn so helpless. In an instant he could have squeezed the worthless life out of it yet he couldn’t bring himself to do it. There had been enough death for one day.

  “Don’t make me regret this,” Anson pointed sternly.

  It responded by painfully running up his arm. Anson spun around grasping at the little Syn as it scurried around his chest and abdomen with clawed feet. It settled around his neck right behind the lieutenant’s ear.

  “Comfortable?” asked Anson with a growl. He shivered as water trickling down his neck. He could feel the rapid pace of the young Syns heartbeat and its cold damp coat. It relished the warmth and company with half shut eyes. It was hard for Anson to believe that the frail little creature nestled around his neck was all that survived. The ground shook, rippling with the sound of a distant roaring collapse. The whole ship was probably going to fold in on itself at any second.

  “We need to get out of here.”

  The tremors had returned in the short time it had taken to return to the gilded chamber. The walls around him seemed to flex and groan as some distant part of the ship fell apart. The body of the red Syn was still skewered to its throne and Anson stopped to look at it again. The Little Syn around his neck on the other hand trembled and hissed. Yelling, Anson once again drew his pistol as the little fuzzball suddenly leapt from his shoulder and bounded across the floor towards the corpse.

  “What now you little aggravation?” It glanced back at Anson for a moment then returned to sniffing the air at the foot of the blood stained throne. The man lowered his gun. This thing had the same red downy coat as the dead Syn though lacked the silvery gray carapace. What even was it? Nobody had ever pinned down a hierarchy structure for the Syncline let alone even seen anything remotely like this. The most popular assumption was that the Syn had some sort of hive structure like the insects they resembled. Maybe this weird looking Syn was a queen. What did that make the juvenile he had found?

  “Ok let’s go,” said Anson as he plucked the squirming little Syn off the floor. It hissed and yelped for a second then went silent. Its big orange eyes were fixated on its mother before returning to the man. The little Syn was an orphan and Anson was surprised to admit that he felt a pang of sadness for the thing. They were both castaways now.

  Anson jumped down into waste deep snow drift outside. The little Syn around his neck bristled in the sudden cold.

  “Tell me about it.”

  The sun now sat on the horizon partly hidden by long wispy clouds. The little Syn yawned as it lay curled up on his shoulder. With nowhere else to go Anson figured it would be best to stay put for now. He frowned though, looking up at charred outer hull of the stricken Syn ship with suspicion. He was certain that nothing else had survived, but there was no way he was staying in there. The sun was well on its way to setting as he dragged a crumpled sheet of metal outside and lay it on top of a little rocky crevice. Tired and sore Anson lay back and stared sadly at the little bundle of red wood he had ignited with his pistol. The wind outside pelted the metal wall with snow as the little Syn watched the flames with wide eyed interest.

  “Fire,” Anson annunciated slowly. “Fire.”

  The Syn turned to him with a tilted head. He sighed. What was he going to do? He was stuck, alone with a little Syn that was liable to eat him if he gave it the chance. Anson reached up and put his hand on it. It squinted in pleasure as he stroked its warm down. “I wonder when you’ll try and kill me,” Anson wondered aloud. Maybe if he trained it like a dog.

  He shook his head. The thing was an alien, its kind intelligent and blood thirsty. He was better off killing it now. Then again maybe it wouldn’t turn out that way if he taught it right. Sighing, he returned to staring distantly at the fire. He thought of his wife and newborn daughter with trembling sadness. Would he ever see them again? The Syn squirmed as Anson reached out for another branch to throw on the fire. He was only certain of one thing now.

  “I guess we’re in this together,” Greg Anson said softly as the little Syn fell into peaceful sleep.