The Greatest Commodity (First Draft)

The Search

They were armed to the teeth. Everyone, including Dr. Ori, carried high-power railguns; powerful rifles that fired solid slugs with an electromagnetic field.

Tensions had risen through the roof since the discovery of the alien corpse; and the nature of its death, its torso bitten apart by some unknown predator.

A new trail was being cut. Dr. Remni Ori made sweeping cuts with his laser. Slicing away the thick brush to clear a path.

He had with him a team of thugs; security officers from the ship. No enemy would get close to them without being pumped full of supersonic lead.

The forest was thick enough to blur the lines between night and day. The canopy was like a roof, casting eternal night over those on the ground.

The wildlife was loud, a cacophony of chirps and croaks. The colonists had become used to it, but never as loud as it was in the forests. The only time the creatures stayed quiet was when it rained.

"I really wish we'd brought a clearing drone!" One of the officers moaned. "We would've had a hundred kilometers of paved road by now!"

"Well, we didn't," Ori replied, sweat dripping down his forehead; he had been doing this for miles. "Everyone thought this world was going to be a tropical paradise, we thought we would be able to build nice beachfront homes on the sunny sands and never have to worry about having to clear brush with the density of a brick wall again."

"So what the hell happened?"

"I don't know! Nobody knows! The ship has been doing scans for months now, no signs anywhere of what might've transformed this planet so radically. Not even the native species bear resemblance to each other!"

"Ugh. Don't we have any more of those cutting lasers?"

"We do, but you're not trained in precision cutting like I am. You could easily damage something important; not to mention the safety risks, if one of you were to absentmindedly shoot someone else with one of these..." Ori gesticulated with his hands to make his point. "there would be lots, and lots of blood and gore and death."

"Nasty!"

"Indeed."

Conversation ended. They continued onward. The forest seemed endless, there was virtually no pattern to it, and so every direction looked the same. It was good for them that they had a cleared trail to follow.

There was a scurrying sound in one of the trees. Started, everyone looked up; one of them barely prevented themselves from standing still, that would have been a nightmare.

A furry creature sat luxuriously on a branch over ten meters above them. Its body held the shape of an octopus, eight legs with a huge head; but covered in soft-looking fur. It made a continuous chirping sound as it sat there.

"What is it doing?" Asked one of the officers, Ronnil.

Ori shushed him. "Listen!" He whispered.

It sounded like a knife on wood. They looked more closely at the creature and noticed the small chunks of wood that fell to the ground.

"It's a literal woodchipper." Officer Varus said.

The creature chirped contentedly as it munched on the tree branch. "Anyone else think we should name it, 'Treeopus'?" Ronnil asked.

There was a storm of replies, some agreeing, some disagreeing, most suggesting names of their own.

"Quiet!" Ori barked, silencing them all at once. "Do you know what kind of injuries could be inflicted by a creature capable of gnawing through wood? Don't be deceived by its cute appearance. You all saw the corpse!"

They had. The Alien corpse had become the first big exhibit for all the colonists. Its reveal had prompted expressions of shock; some people screamed out loud, others jumped half a meter into the air; the reactions would then be followed by a lot of whispered conversation, all in tones of fear or anxiety.

"What do we do?" Officer Huffi inquired. "Do we just... walk away? Do we kill it for scientific examination? Or do we provoke it into attacking so we can see what it does?"

"I'm thinking," Ori replied. "Keep your guns trained on it. I wouldn't be surprised if such a creature is fast as lighting. So be alert."

The thugs deactivated the safeties on their guns and aimed it at the creature; which remained up in the trees, chewing away to its heart's content, seemingly not a care in the world.

"Alright," Ori said. "I've made my decision. We leave it be, and continue on."

The thugs nodded, still keeping their guns aimed at the furry creature.

"Stand down!" Ori ordered. "And follow me."

The thugs obeyed. One of them snapped a picture of it, no doubt Ori would want that, but was too stressed to think of it on his own.

Ori sighed. "When the next android shows up... I'm gonna give her a thorough lecturing!" But he doubted he would live to see that day. Though the android was already en route, she wouldn't arrive for another sixty years.

"This planet... why? Why couldn't it have been as advertised?" Someone moaned.

They kept on hiking.