I believed Colonel Pettigrew -- I couldn’t not -- but no one else in our crew did. Why would they, when all the great scientific minds insisted Venus had to be uninhabited? That was why every political leader of the United Countries of Terra thought it would be an excellent idea to claim it for our planet.

And since circumstantial evidence decreed that, as the sole survivor, the Colonel was the culprit, he’d have to be returned to Terra to face the music.

In photographs, he’d been attractive, but in person, his dark hair and blue eyes took my breath away. How could this man be responsible for the deaths of nine men and women?

Something was very wrong, but all I had to go by was my certainty Colonel Pettigrew couldn’t have committed such an atrocious crime, and the creeping feeling that tiptoed up and down my spine.

Colonel Yeats ordered us out to search for the remains of the Defiance’s crew.

“No, you don’t want to do that. I’m telling you death stalks the land outside this ship. I had to use a flamethrower to clear off those vines to get back in --”

“There are no burnt vines out there.” Yeats sneered at Colonel Pettigrew. “You can act as insane as you want. I still intend to see you hang.”

We might be on the verge of the 22nd century, but the military tended to be set in their ways.

Our chief medical officer looked concerned. “Beau, the odds of anything being left of Pettigrew’s crew out there after all this time are slight.”

“There’s nothing but vegetables out there,” Yeats snarled. “But either way, uniforms and protective gear will be left. Bones will be left.” He wheeled to face Colonel Pettigrew. “You’re a murderer, pet, and you’re going to swing.”

Pet? That seemed rather ... familiar from someone who’d claimed not to know the colonel beyond hearsay.

But as it turned out, part of Colonel Yeats’s statement proved to be correct -- we did find a couple of human skulls, the skin stretched tight, almost as if it had been mummified. However, there were no tracks or trails to follow, and that was all we came across.

“Never mind,” Yeats barked, his frustration palpable. “This skull is enough.” The second skull had a neat hole puncturing the front of it, while the back was blown out, a typical exit wound. XK-75 pulse rifles had been brought for the crews’ protection ... and apparently personal side arms, as well, which were similar to the old-fashioned revolvers of fifty or seventy-five years ago. They’d been outlawed, as were most hand weapons. This was fortunate, since some of those fire arms were loaded with hollow-point explosives, guaranteed to vaporize a man no matter what the distance.

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem as if they’d helped.

We salvaged what we could from the Defiance, took the deceased crew’s personal effects for their families, and transferred everything to the Defender. Colonel Pettigrew was confined to quarters, and we completed the last assignments and experiments his crew had been unable to get to. This included taking samples from a mound we happened to come across that strangely matched the radioactivity we’d found near the Defiance.

Finally, after a brief service committing the bodies of our departed comrades to this alien soil in the sure and certain hope of their resurrection -- I heard Colonel Pettigrew choke softly, “Blue skies and tailwinds, my friends” -- we were ready to lift off. By that point, Colonel Pettigrew was allowed some time in the mess hall. I wasn’t sure if it was worth it, considering how the crew ignored him, and Yeats never stopped sniping at him.

I started to wonder about that.

“Sugar babe --” He sauntered up to me and tried to slide an arm around my waist.

God, I hated when he called me that -- or any pet name, for that matter -- as if he thought of himself as my sugar daddy.

“Go collect whatever plants you need,” Yeats murmured. He leaned forward, this time as if he was about to blow in my ear.

I stepped away and frowned at him. We’d had that brief -- as in not-more-than-a-couple-of hours-brief relationship -- and I’d warned him not to call me that.

Now he ignored my look and instead sent a wink my way.

“I already have what I need,” I told him.

“Well, go get some more.”

“I’m not likely to find much with all the mist that’s creeping in on the Defender.”

“It’s just mist. Take a fucking flashlight.”

I had that feeling along my spine again, but all I wanted to do was get away from him, so I ignored my intuition and grabbed my protective gear. Before I could climb into it, though, Colonel Pettigrew intervened.

“Don’t go out there, Lieutenant.” He was sheet-white. “That’s what we walked into before all hell broke loose.”

“A likely story, pet.” Yeats mocked the colonel’s misery. “I gave you an order, lieutenant.”

A hollow thud rang through the ship.

“What the fuck was that?”

“You saw what the Defiance looked like when you got here. Those vines pulled her down. I’d say the Defender is about to get the same treatment.”

“Beau, you can’t take that chance with the knowledge we’ve accumulated,” his second-in-command urged.

More thuds sounded against the ship’s side, and she began to shiver.

“Andy, are you sure we have enough specimens?”

“Yes.” I’d have said yes even if we hadn’t. That feeling along my spine had climbed my backbone and wrapped itself around my throat.

“All right, everyone, go to your stations and prepare for lift off.”