Red Survivor Short Stories #4 - 6

The Red Survivor has responded to an emergency alert from the McClellan colony on Neptune 4. When they show up, nobody responds to their messages and Captain Marchant orders Commander Nick Williams to take a team down to investigate.Almost as soon as they arrive, things go wrong.Nick almost gets killed by a large rodent and then later at the door of somebody's home who refuses to come out. When they finally find a survivor of the McClellan colony, the man is crazy and cannot answer any questions.Nick and his team must expand their minds to understand the situation and the strange alien race they are dealing with.In the Red Survivor universe, these standalone space opera short stories focus on the inherent tension between Marchant and Williams. Buy your copy of this short story collection today! The gate in the wall hung open, one door wholly torn off and flung to the side. As we approached I noticed a corpse on the ground that appeared to be the remains of a furry creature."Hold up." I took a step forward, peering to the side while trying to get a clear look at it. "I think that's one of them.""The vicious rodents?"I nodded as I marveled at how well it camouflaged with the ground. When we had started out it had looked like it was just part of the land, yet it was now distinguishable as a dead creature.Hopefully it's dead, I thought, as I took another step forward."Don't you think we ought to shoot it?" Ensign Marchant asked.I shook my head. "No, it's dead. I'm sure of it." I took several more steps forward before turning back. "Let's go."I walked purposefully forward, making a wide berth around the creature just in case, and as I got closer I saw a stain on the ground that I assumed had formed when it had bled out. Surely this had been killed and left to die.It had been described as a large rodent, but the only thing that made me think of a rodent was the size of its front teeth. The ears were long and pulled down the back of its head, it did not have the typical shape you might expect from a rodent back on earth, it was leaner, and had longer legs. If anything, it reminded me more of an antelope.An antelope with big buck teeth.It was difficult to imagine the creature being so vicious, but as we passed by I aimed my gun at it just in case I was wrong.Once we got to the gate, I let out a small sigh of relief, turning back to the others. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"There was a scuffling sound and I turned just in time to see a living creature jump on top of me.