Deimos Rising 13 (Valerie T.)

None of the colonists noticed my unfamiliar face as I shot my blaster towards the hostile tribe of Teludav natives.

And as soon as the short-lived battle was over, I made my way over to one of the colonists, my blaster holstered.
"Who's in charge here?" I asked. I was pointed in the direction of an african-american guy, probably
about my age.
"Are you Marshal Kavanagh?" I asked. He raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah. And who are you?"
"Valerie Titan. I'm a cargo hauler. The junker in your ravine is mine. I've come with supplies and a greeting from Chas."
Marshal's stiff demeanor eased. "Well then, I'm not one to turn down free supplies."

I turned, waving for him to follow. "Come on. I'm guessing you'll want to check out the cargo before it's un-loaded."

I led him inside the cargo bay, towards the stack of cargo crates. I picked up the clipboard.
"Okay, the cargo is just your basic supplies; water, food, some other essentials. By the way, what was with that Teludav attack? I thought they were usually peaceful." I said.
Marshal nodded. "The Teludav tribe usually is. Those weren't true Teludav, they're a hybrid of Katigur and Teludav DNA. They look pretty much like Teludav, but they have the critical strategic mind of the Katigur, which is bad news for us."
"I've never heard of them. Are they on any other planets?"
"They originate here, and we're pretty sure they've never...gotten off."
I narrowed my eyes. "You look worried. If they've never gotten off the planet then there's no worries. I said.

"Yeah, well...one of them actually did get off, a couple years ago. It snuck into the colony in mid winter, and one of the hybrid traits is camouflage, coming from the Teludav. Anyway, our scouts didn't see it, and it got past the barriers. It didn't hurt anybody, but it escaped in our only shuttle. The shuttle was pretty much beat, so we didn't think it would get far at all. In fact, we were surprised when it made it past the planet's atmosphere. We assumed that it died in space."

I bit my lip. "It's never a good thing to assume, especially when it comes to the enemy."