Astronomicon: Behemoth

Chapter 25 - Aggressive Tendencies

"It's happened again, Aron," said Megan, trying hard not to begin shouting at him. "I put you in charge of an expedition and you ended up in a battle again!"

"We were just defending ourselves," he replied calmly. "The creature opened fire on us immediately. We had no chance to do anything else."

"No chance at all?" she demanded.

"The creature saw us and just opened fire – no warning, no attempt to communicate," he replied.

"Now we've got a badly damaged buggy, another smashed helmet and you got shot in the leg!"

"I can fix the buggy and Santiago said my leg will heal."

"Ekono's helmet won't!"

"That's not entirely fair."

"Maybe not, but we can't go on losing E.V.A. suits like this. What the hell do we do now?"

"Take the other buggy and find out if that creature was alone?" Aron asked.

"And if it wasn't?" she pushed.

"We arm up and kill them all," he replied, still calmly.

"What!?" she shouted, no longer able to avoid raising her voice.

"We have no choice," he shook his head slowly. "We have to wipe them out."

Ekono, who had so far only listened to the heated discussion, chose this moment to lean forwards and join in. "He's right, Commander. While any of them are alive, these creatures are a clear threat to our survival."

Megan looked at them both incredulously before she replied, "When did you two get so gun-happy?"

"I am not gun happy," stated Ekono quite matter-of-factly. "It's for our protection; nothing more."

Megan continued to stare at him in disbelief for a moment before saying, "I think it's only ethical that we make some attempt to communicate first. This entire event is almost certainly a massive misunderstanding. I'm not prepared to write this one off yet."

Ekono replied, "Currently, they don't know much about us, where we are based or how many of us there are, Commander. That gives us an advantage that we should not waste."

Megan snorted. "They don't know?! We don't know how many of them there are either. They might outnumber us ten to one!"

"It does not matter how many of them there are, Commander. We must wipe them out before they do the same to us."

"Is this some sort of revenge thing?" she asked, sounding more collected. "They attacked us and, even though we outnumbered them three to one and caught them by surprise, they put two of you out of action and trashed your car. Are you just embarrassed or angry?"

Aron replied this time, "No, it's not like that. I don't know what it is. It's just something we must do."

"I will not sleep until they are all dead," said Ekono slowly and calmly.

"Listen to yourselves!"

"Megan, that creature fired on us as soon as it saw us!" said Aron. "There was no attempt to communicate, nothing. It just started firing."

"So you keep saying. There were three of you and the buggy," she replied. "If it was alone, maybe it felt threatened? Maybe it panicked? We know nothing about its psyche."

"Those creatures are a direct threat to us, Commander," said Ekono, "Our safety is in question. We've already killed one of them, so it is only a matter of time before they come looking for us."