The jungle moved. Dense leaves and thick grasses surrounded trees bigger than the drop ship that had brought them in. Sensors were off due to the constant motion.

“They say that everything changes at night.”

Karen glanced away from the window to her friend with concern. She didn’t know what Vicki was thinking about and part of her didn’t want to know. Her friend had changed since Karen had last served with her and Karen didn’t know why.

“Look, we’re fine. The compound was just deserted. There’s no sign of a struggle, no spent rounds, nothing. I don’t know what happened. Maybe they went native. It doesn’t matter. We’re here and we got a job to do, right?”

Vicki nodded slowly.

“Good. Grab the data and we’ll get out of here. The corp doesn’t want us to investigate too closely and honestly, with those bastards, ignorance is bliss. I don’t want to die for information that is just going to be buried anyway.”

As she downloaded the file, Vicki tried not think about the orders she had received last night.