They moved at a steady jog through the darkness between two warehouses. The soldiers advanced with their guns up, torches scanning all around the group. Freyr’s chest began to burn; she’d done almost no proper exercise since being put on leave months ago. Even at a time like this, she admired the Cradle’s attention to detail. The alien’s response didn’t make much sense, but Freyr’s mind was also too scrambled to understand anything right now.

One of the soldiers tripped and fell suddenly. The whole group paused; several took a knee and aimed out into the dark. Shining her torch down on the floor, Freyr could see it was a cable access box jutting a couple of feet from the group that’d caused it. Another soldier helped the fallen man get up. “Is it just me, or has visibility gone to shit?” One of the grunts asked, adjusting the sight on her longer range rifle. “Same here.” Someone else called.

This set alarm bells ringing in Freyr’s head. She had the timings of regular Cradle storms memorised for the next ten years in her head. Even in this frontier sector, there shouldn’t be one for another few months. She shone her torch straight up in the air. “Let’s move, the trucks aren’t far.” The sergeant hollered. “Wait!” Freyr cried. “Look!” Large particles like snowflakes were floating through the torch beam in the air directly above their heads. “These flakes peel off the Border wall...but they shouldn’t be this close…” Freyr murmured, confused. “Sarge, we’ve got a problem!” Another voice yelled. Several of the torches moved to cover the side the voice came from.

A cold chill shot up Freyr’s back when she saw it. They were in a crossroads between four testing sheds. Visibility had reduced significantly, but even then she could see the multiple lights trained down the road hitting what appeared to be a solid surface. Except it wasn’t. She could make out the familiar purple arteries running across it, and the gentle ripples moving from the ground up into the sky. It was the Border, come to greet them. It filled the entire road between two of the warehouses, and Freyr could see it slopping over the roofs like the sea encompasses a sand castle. It was barely fifty metres away. 

Just then, a shout issued from the Border, and before their eyes a CraSec grunt, helmet removed, emerged from its depths. His eyes were wide, and he appeared to be weaponless. He sprinted toward them as the soldiers all aimed their weapons at him. “Behind!” He screeched, as a long, slick appendage with a spike on the end shot from the Border and impaled him. Everyone, including Freyr, seemed to let out some kind of involuntary sound. For a split second, the soldier was just standing in front of them with the spike protruding from his chest, before it violently opened into an ‘X’ and pulled back, lifting him off his feet and back through the Border.

“RUN!” The sergeant bellowed, pointing the way they’d been going. “Everyone to the trucks right NOW!” Freyr wasted no time as all hell broke loose, grabbing Osman’s stretcher as she began running, to speed it up.