Page 1 of Dweller of the Mists

Prologue

Noelle Xander glanced up from the briefing documents projected on her comm to meet the hard gaze of the project commander. His brow lowered at her scrutiny, the grooves in his face deepening with disapproval.

“Do you have a problem with your orders, Mission Specialist Xander?” he growled.

Noelle exchanged a worried look with William Kim to her left and swallowed. Although they had carried out many survey missions for Darvel Corporation and had nearly won their citizenship due to those efforts, no mission had seemed as frighteningly ominous as their current assignment.

“Not exactly a problem, sir. More of a concern. Wasn’t planet Xal2614 pulled by United Earth? This ‘Mist World’ was flagged as uninhabitable. There are rumors that a team was sent in and just… disappeared, completely abandoning their camp.”

Project Commander Brock Garris narrowed his eyes on her for a moment before grunting in acknowledgment. “We’ve taken new surveys, and Darvel believes that it can still be useful if we focus on very specific terrain so as to avoid predatory lifeforms in the deep swamps and adaptability issues. Originally, we did not wish to set down exploratory vessels along themountain regions to avoid landing incidents, but new surveys reveal several plateaus that can serve our purposes while taking advantage of the resources in the neighboring valleys around them. Which brings us back to your job.”

“We are to catalog resources,” Kim replied to the silent prompt as he moved his finger over his comm, sliding through the pages of the document. “Scan plant life, mineral composites, basically everything. Report anything unusual.”

“And air scans,” Garris added. “Although we received basic scans from the drone fired down into the atmosphere that confirm you will be able to survive without issue after receiving several inoculations to protect you from the alien environment more efficiently than a thermos regulatory suit, we want more thorough recordings kept over the course of the yearlong mission logged with the daily temperatures on the surface. Isolated from the predators in the swamps, this mission should be a walk.”

“I see,” Noelle murmured, not the least bit reassured. Anytime someone told her how easy something was going to be, it made her itch.

“One last thing. It won’t just be the two of you this time.” Garris fought for a benevolent look and failed miserably in her opinion. “I will be adding two more people to your team. Amanda Kastle will be joining you for her fifth survey, and you will also have a new recruit, Samara Daniels.”

“The more, the merrier,” Kim replied with a polite smile.

He was totally kissing ass. They both knew it. It was his ass-kissing voice. He met her gaze with a faint roll of his eyes when Garris wasn’t watching, and she bit back a smile. Despite his antics, she could tell that he was worried and there was more to his words than he would ever admit to. Beneath it all there was a vein of truth in his statement that she could see that he felt from the disquiet in his eyes. And she couldn’t help agreeing. Ina place like Mist World, the more people she had at her back, the happier she was.

So she held her silence throughout the meeting, even though the apprehension grew and twisted more and more within her gut. She didn’t want to go but didn’t have a choice, not so long as Darvel Corporation held her contract. Non-gratas did not have the luxury of declining like citizen volunteers to the program did. Sweat gathered at the small of her back and lining her upper lip. Worse than that, she felt like she was going to throw up at any moment. The idea of another team was not reassuring enough to combat her growing misgivings that were becoming harder to ignore as Garris continued to outline the mission and the conditions that they were likely to encounter on the planet’s surface. It sounded like a place spun of nightmares. Who had ever heard of a planet where fog covered the majority of its surface at all times?

“Naturally, although we will be monitoring you from the nearest corporation station, you will be on your own,” Garris continued gruffly. “This will be nothing new for any of you, but I expect you will show Ms. Daniels the ropes. Once on the surface, you will have no one to depend on but each other. Good luck!”

Chapter

One

Noelle jolted awake with a gasp, looking around the escape pod in a confused panic. Squeezing her eyes shut, she dragged in one deep breath and then another as she allowed her thoughts to settle. The exploratory vessel was gone. She had watched the lights die from it seconds after her pod was launched safely into space along with the other three containing the other members of her team. Her memory was fragmentary after that, but what she was sure of was that the entire team was now stranded on the planet surface… wherever the rest of them were.

Samara Daniels. William Kim. Amanda Kastle. She had no idea where their escape pods had landed, or even those pods where their supplies landed that they had thankfully already sent down planetside the day before. At least she had a tracker for the supply pods and could only hope that she would meet up with the others as they also made their way to their provisions.

Her hand shook as she tapped her comm, bringing up Kim’s link. “Kim, you there? William?”

Her bottom lip trembled, his name falling from her lips with a stressed sound of despair when there was no response. Every mission they survived, she always had Kim watching her back.Without her partner, she didn’t even want to lift the latch on her pod. Mist World lurked just beyond it, more threatening than ever. Somehow she had gone from having even more people to count on to being completely alone in an environment so potentially dangerous that United Earth had scrapped the project.

It should have stayed scrapped. It was clearly cursed from the start.

She shivered as an icy dread filled her. Somewhere there was an entire camp just waiting for its ghosts to return to it. She definitely didn’t sign up for this. She was a successful member of her exploratory team because of her willingness to explore alien environments, as it seemed to be a good way to use her lifelong experience living in potentially hostile landscapes that she had gained growing up in the swamps. But this—this was something different.

Some things should just be left alone.

Noelle gave her head a firm shake, her hand going to the charm her mother gave her to ward off evil. All the stories her grandmother told of angry ghosts came rushing to the surface of her mind. A world filled with heavy fog would be the home of ghosts. She was certain of it.

She bit her lip uncertainly and hunkered down in her seat. She definitely didn’t want to go out there alone, not with her grandmother’s old ghost stories brewing in her head. Maybe she would just wait for a bit. If Kim were also temporarily rendered unconscious, it could explain his lack of response. Her fingers continued to tremble as she ate some of the stored rations, the water pods slaking her thirst. Thankfully, the life pod was equipped with a small toilet that pulled out of the wall for use when an inhabitable planet was within immediate delivery range, so she was able to take care of her needs. If there was anything to be grateful for, it was that and the fact that theplanet hadn’t been so far away to necessitate cryogenic sleep after entering the life pod. A good thing, too, since emerging from cryogenic sleep while traveling only to be submerged right back into it by the life pod could have ill effects on the human body. In her current situation, however, that was the least of her worries. Every hour she tried again to comm Kim, only to be met with silence. Eventually, her eyes grew heavy and she dozed in her seat.

“Registered occupant Noelle Xander.” She jumped awake as the fragmented voice filled the pod. “Darvel Corporation protocol prohibits any loitering in pods or vessels upon planetary arrival. It has been recorded that you have been within the pod for one full day and night cycle. Please exit and proceed with your mission.”

She rubbed her eyes at once both groggy from sleep and utterly bewildered. Corp actually programmed time limitation into the AI for their life pods?

The sound of moving hydraulics filled the cabin, and she jumped again as the hatch above her burst off its hinges with a loud pop. The sound of unfamiliar insects immediately surrounded her as the early morning air filled the cabin. Her pulse raced, her breath rushing in and out of her in frightened pants. Overhead, she could make out trees with dripping bioluminescent growth. This didn’t look like any mountain plateau. It reminded her of the swampy region she grew up in which might have been reassuring if there wasn’t one glaring problem with that—she wasn’t supposed to be in the swamp.

A very dangerous swamp that had already claimed two human lives—a rumor Garris had not bothered to discredit.

“Oh, gods. Oh fuck,” she whispered.

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