Delphi Caen slid her way through the busted security door. The control room of DynaCorp's Livestock Health and Wellbeing Facility had seen better days. Spilled tranq cartridges and an abandoned stunrod told the story of just how effective the staff's response to a total power outage had been. Emergency generators had kicked in, but only after the majority of the staff had fled or had been eaten.
"Alright Doctor Baddon, what's the problem?" she asked, resting her carbine on her shoulder. The weapon still bled residual warmth from recent, frequent use.
The older woman had her eyes pressed so close into the terminal it was almost a VR headset. Data and technical jargon filled the monitor like digital cuneiform. Delphi couldn't make sense of it, but she didn't have three Ph.Ds.
She hadn't allowed hundreds of predators loose from their bonds in a secured research facility either, so Point One for Delphi there.
"The Thrak has broken free of its containment vessel," the doctor replied.
"Fine, then. Just point me at it and I'll put it down."
The scientist looked up from her screen for the first time in nearly an hour. Her pupils blossomed in the dim office lighting, and it took a few blinks for her vision to come back. "You don't understand. This isn't some Flederratte or a Bandersnatch. This is a Thrak. A bull, in fact, in prime mating age and pumped full of adrenostims."
Delphi held up her hands. "Why the hell would you do that?"
"That was Gertrude's project, not mine. Let me see..." The doc went back to her computer for a moment to pull up the requisite information. "It looks like the plan was to dose him, fridge him, and ship him off to a megafauna farm on Rynox. Then they could airdrop him in full breeding frenzy into their cow pens. You can make some incredibly thick armour for very cheap with a herd of Thraks. Herd? I wonder what the collective noun for Thraks is?"
"Focus, doc. There's just the one in there, right?" Delphi jerked a thumb to the heavy blast door behind her. Three dents in the ten inch thick metal plating showed where something very big and very heavy had tried to break through.
"Correct. Just a single two ton freighter made of meat and bone that broke loose from restraints meant to hold down a Leviathan."
Delphi checked her weapon. Full mag of armour piercing rounds. "Then what are we waiting for?"
***
The general consensus was that opening the dented blast door into the room with the deadly monster alien was a bad idea. Doctor Baddon directed Delphi to the second floor, where a catwalk lead to the observation room overlooking the large containment bay.
Delphi crept as quietly as she could along the suspended gantry, wincing with every metallic creak under her feet. It was an enclosed corridor, but portholes along the path revealed the destruction that the behemoth had caused. Scientific equipment littered the ground in dozens of glittering pieces. Articulated lifting cranes torn from their bases lay sprawled out like the remains of a dismembered colossus. Delphi's characteristic bravado drained the more she saw.
Yet the beast was nowhere to be seen. The portholes only offered limited visibility. Though the only thing scarier than being able to see a violent monster is being unable to see it. But it was here. If the destruction beneath her wasn't enough evidence, she could hear a low rumbling through the metal. Every five seconds, another quake that shook the catwalk.
Its breath.
Delphi entered the observation room and locked the door behind her. The small corner room had enough armour to keep a Thrak out...for a little while, at least. Open to the bay through a grating in the ceiling, she was able to smell the thing for the first time. She gagged. It was the worst gym bag stench she'd ever encountered!
She tapped the com node behind her ear. "Doc, you there?"
The voice came in clear. "Go ahead, Ms. Caen. You make it into observation?"
The hired gun coughed. "Doc, what's that smell?"
"Smell? Checking the passive air sensors, just a moment...Oh, oh dear, yes. The Thrak is emitting a powerful pheromone, designed to lure in females of its kind. With the vents closed to keep the Bandersnatches from using the air ducts, I suppose that room is lousy with it by now."
"Thanks for warning me. Is it dangerous?" Delphi asked.
"Not as far as I know, but I didn't study them like Gert did. I've been going over her notes. Goodness, there's so much to learn about these creatures. And they're so useful! Their bones are nearly as strong as plasteel. I imagine they'd have to be to carry that weight around-"
"Doc!"
"Oh, right, sorry. I'll go into her notes to see if she said anything about pheromone effects. Meantime, try not to breathe too much!"
Delphi rolled her eyes. "Can do. Kinda wish I brought my spacesuit for this."
"Indeed. Poor preparation on your part. Oh! Incidentally, I found out what the collective noun for a group of Thraks is called!"
"It's not herd?" Delphi asked.
Doctor Baddon cackled. "It's an apocalypse. An apocalypse of Thraks."
Delphi killed the com channel and checked the monitors. Most of the cameras were nonfunctional, but a single viewpoint showed the containment apparatus that the beast had broken free from. She gulped. Plasteel torn apart like saplings. Her carbine fired depleted tritanium penetrators, but this was unlike anything she'd put down so far. Her thumb flipped the switch to full auto. Aim would be a secondary consideration; she needed to put as many bullets into the Thrak as possible.
Her palms were sweating when she worked up the nerve to open the interior door. She threw the manual override lever and it popped open. Pressing her shoulder into the heavy metal made it budge, slightly. She heaved, squeezing her curvy frame through the crack and onto the remains of a metal stairway leading down. With as much stealth as she could manage, she made her way down the bent, twisted steel, eyes scanning for any hint of motion.
The air felt twenty degrees warmer than it had in the catwalk. Sweat slid down her face, stinging her eyes. The smell, while still noticeable, was no longer gag-inducing. Her nose felt...spicy. She suppressed an urge to sneeze, lest it give away her location. The fear of being detected only grew as she reached the bottom of the staircase without seeing the Thrak. The containment bay was only the size of a spacious gymnasium, and the beast was gigantic. It had to be there somewhere.
A snarl sent something crawling into her guts to die. It was here. She brought her weapon on line in every direction she could think of, but there was no sight of it.
And then she remembered the catwalk.
Delphi brought her eyes up to the ceiling. A giant stood on furred digitigrade legs, a trio of sharp claws digging into the metal. With a body the size of a ground car standing vertically, it was the largest animal she'd ever seen in person. Two equally clawed arms connected by a thin membrane to the rest of its body resembled wings, which the beast's ancient ancestors may have once used. It was far too large to fly in the current gravity, but her tactical awareness hinted that it might very well be a powerful jumper. The source of the snarl was a snout with foaming, bifurcate jaws. In the shadows, four glowing blue eyes stared unblinking at her.