Snow swirled animatedly around Kazimir Aleksey Miroslav's ankles as he stomped the cold away. He ran a hand through his jet black hair. A wolfish grin formed on his face as his rebellious blue eyes narrowed slightly, he bent down and scooped a handful of snow into a ball and tossed it at the girl behind him.
“Kaz!” she yelled, turning from her datapad “The hells what that for?”
“Just tripping.” Kazimir chuckled “Chill Alex.”
Alexandra Ellen Sterling flipped her bronze hair and stared pointedly at Kazimir.
“What?” he grinned sheepishly.
Alex simply began laughing, rolling her forest green eyes. A few seconds later, Kazimir joined in.
“So where do we put the plasticube?” Alex asked, taking a moment to gain control over her laughter “There are a few trees over there, they'll make good shelter in a blizzard or crap.”
“Nah, we park the snowtrack there.” Kazimir pointed at the Arctic-gray vehicle behind them “And then we put the cube behind it. If anything comes the alarm's gonna scare whatever it is away.”
Kazimir got into the snowtrack and tapped an icon on his datapad. The machine came to life with a growl as its hydrogen engine spun up. He grabbed the control sticks and carefully maneuvered the vehicle, its four tracks adapting their profile to the snow. It crawled towards the stand of trees and shut down, Kazimir placing its sensors on proximity alarm.
Alex laid a flat sheet of white plastic on the ground and programmed a set of instructions into her datapad, the plastic folded up and inflated into a large, 10 meter cube.
“Let's get this over with.” Kazimir said as he pulled sheets of insulation and carbon-nanofiber reinforcements out of the track.
About an hour later, their small outpost was finished. It was fully insulated and heated and had space for three people to do their work. However, only two people occupied the structure, the leftover space taken up by a weapons rack and a holographic workstation.
“Oi.” The holoprojector flared to life “Kaz, I'm forecasting increased numbers of Furies at the area around 15 miles to the west, around three Hosts prowling the area. There's a blizzard coming from the north in eight hours.”
Kazimir rubbed his chin, scratching at the stubble. He looked at Alex, who was reading something on her datapad.
“Well then,” he said, a grin creeping onto his face “Peter, keep us posted. We're going out to hunt.”
Peter merely put his face in his palm.
“One day,” he groaned “your guts will get you killed.”
Kazimir laughed and closed the connection.
“Alex,” Kazimir said “let's get a shooting.”
“Alright!” Alex jumped off the bed and zipped her field suit up.
Kazimir took a shotgun from the rack and slid 7 shells into its magazine chamber. He slid his goggles on and stepped out of the shelter.
“Well Godsdamn.” Kazimir said as he wiped blood from his field suit.
A Re'kei lay dead at Kazimir's feet, a bullet lodged neatly in its skull. The black and gray feathers tinted red by the setting sun. A spent shell twirled from the shotgun's ejection port as Kazimir mashed a button on the gun's side.
“Aha!” Alex leapt from the bushes, holding two Roreil up by the legs “I finally got...” Alex looked at the dead Re'kei forlornly “Nevermind.”
“Alas,” Kazimir said, taking on the tone of a narrator “the huntress failed to meet her mate's expectations.”
Kazimir promptly ate a snowball. Just then, low moaning howls interspersed with quick barks and growls erupted from a small cluster of trees.
“Oh you've got to be kidding me.” Kazimir muttered under his breath as he clenched the shotgun “Furies!”
Alex snapped upright, quickly walking towards him.
A blur of Arctic-gray burst from the trees, a Fury landed on the snow several meters away from Kazimir.
“Get to the snowtrack!” He yelled, raising the shotgun “This better not be birdshot.”
Kazimir pulled the trigger as Alex started running. Boom! The report drowned out the calls as the Fury's rear leg disintegrated in a shower of blood and muscle. It bared its fangs in shock, still managing to look deadly. Dozens of razor sharp teeth made of naturally occurring Ilen alloy glinted dully in the fading sunlight.
Kazimir stepped back as he loaded another shell into the shotgun's breech. The beast lunged at him, its jaws snapping just a few inches from his face. He made a point to shove the gun into its eye cavity and fire.
Two Furies moved to flank him, finger-length teeth clicking together.
“Aw fuck me.” Just his luck, the solid-slug shells were next to be fired.
Alex had just leapt into the snowtrack and started its engine when a Fury landed right on the temperglass windscreen. She grabbed the controls and shoved the throttle forward as the predator slid off. The tracks swallowed the Fury whole and spat chunks of meat out as the vehicle passed over.
Two shots from the shotgun and two Furies lay dead; one with a slug through its heart and buried in its spinal cord, the other missing an eye and approximately half of its brain. Kazimir checked the ammunition counter, he was all out. He dropped the weapon and drew his combat blade, the three-foot long blade seeming to suck light in as it caught the sun's dying rays.
Claws dug into his arm, going down to the bone. Kazimir grunted an oath and swung the blade around, its monomolecular edge slicing effortlessly through several layers of bone and muscle. Warm blood splashed on him as the Fury fell limply to the ground.
Alex cheered at Kazimir from the snowtrack's window. And then a dent appeared in the cargo cabin as a ton of flesh and bone landed on composite metal. Two massive gashes were torn into the roof, acrid breath wafted onto her face as she clawed at her belt. She found whatever she was looking for and held it out. The Fury lost its head as it snapped at the woman, a shaft of light in its neck.
