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The doors parted, revealing a white sandy beach Twenty feet in, the beach was covered in a thick blanket of ash that stretched to a rocky ridge

The scientist glanced up at the darkened, ash-filled sky The re ash in the atht would return, but by then it would be too late forsubspecies 8472

The scientist trudged to the top of the ridge and looked back at the massive black ship, beached like an oversized mechanical whale The world was dark and still, like many of the pre-life planets she had studied

“Last recorded life signs are just beyond the ridge, bearing two-five degrees”

“Copy,” the scientist said as she turned slightly and set out at a brisk pace

Up ahead she saw a massive cave, surrounded by a rocky area covered in more ash than the beach She continued her ainst the ash and rock, as if she alking on glass covered in shredded feathers

Just before she reached theelse under her boot, neither ash nor rock Flesh and bone A leg The scientist stepped back and allowed the display in her helmet to adjust

“Are you seeing this?” she asked

“Yes Enhancing your display”

The scene came into focus There were dozens of them: bodies, stacked on top of each other all the way to the opening of the cave The emaciated, black corpses blended seamlessly with the rock below thees and luround roots of a massive tree

To the scientist’s surprise, the bodies were intact “Extraordinary No signs of cannibalism These survivors knew each other They could have been members of a tribe with a sharedshelter and food”

Her display switched to infrared, confiret on with it

She bent and withdrew a s a sample now” She held the cylinder to the closest body and waited for it to collect the DNA sample When it finished, she stood and spoke in a for, Official Entry: Preliminary observations confirm that subspecies 8472 has experienced an extinction-level event Suspected cause is a supervolcano and subsequent volcanic winter Species evolved approxi to collect sample from last known survivor”

She turned and walked into the cave The lights on each side of her hel the scene inside Bodies lay cluether at the walls, but the infrared display showed no signs of life The scientist wandered further into the cave Several lanced down Tracks Someone had ventured further Had it been recently? She waded deeper into the cave

On her helmet display, a faint sliver of crins She rounded the turn and the dark red spread into a glow of areens A survivor

The scientist tapped quickly at her pal to normal view The survivor was fe her black skin as if they could rip through with every shallow breath she drew Below the ribs, the abdomen wasn’t as sunken as the scientist would have expected She activated the infrared again and confirnant

The scientist reached for another sample cylinder but stopped abruptly Behind her, she heard a sound—footsteps, heavy, like feet dragging on the rock

She turned her head just in time to see a massive male survivor stumble into the cramped space He was alht of the other male bodies she had seen, and rotesquely, worse than the fehts that shone from the scientist’s hel in his hand The scientist reached for her stun baton and staggered backward, away fro The scientist activated the baton, but just before the ainst the wall at the female’s side He handed her the item in his hand—a mottled, rotten clump of flesh She bit into it wildly, and he let his head fall back against the rock wall as his eyes closed