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here on Mars ready for them to use. The incredible journey was massively expensive and complex. It was also dependent on planetary and solar alignments, so that intermediate resupply operations were out of the question. Men, equipment, machinery, food, water and most precious of all, air. Thank God for the air scrubbers, before then they were dependent on huge tanks of oxygen and nitrogen to keep them alive. The slightest leak or damage meant the threat of an agonizing death, but now they used reprocessed air. It allowed for larger crews on the planet and the returning ship could take a much bigger cargo, which meant more money for all of them. Thank God for trevanium, it was the mineral that would make them all rich. The drill was biting down straight and good, it promised to be a good bore. He went to shake his head, for perspiration had formed on his forehead inside the helmet of his pressure suit. As he did so he caught a reflection in the clear faceplate. What the hell was that, had something moved? He lifted his head and studied the ground around them, but it was clear. With relief, he bent back to the drilling operation. It was more a sixth sense than anything else. It was enough to make him look up again. He gulped and stood up fast. Taurons. Five of them, and they were heading straight towards them.
    They were huge, eight feet tall, powerful and muscular. They were humanoid in appearance; bipods with two claw-like arms each equipped with five digits. Their skin was scaly in appearance, tough and hard to pierce. Other than that their similarity to humans was uncanny, except that no human would wish to possess such ugly, angular features. In the early days they had even learned to adapt their speech so that they could communicate with humans, using a combination of grunts and sign language. Their superior skills were beyond doubt, as they’d developed faster than light travel just so that they could exploit the trevanium deposits on Mars. But the main factor that set them apart from humans was their behavior, their colossal brutality. When they fought it was with a savagery that would be typical of an insane serial killer on Earth. To the Taurons, battle was little more than a pleasant activity, part of normal life like eating and drinking. It was something to be savored and enjoyed. They even managed to combine the activities of eating, drinking and fighting. Early Mars crews had been horrified to see Taurons tearing apart the corpses of their victims, eating the flesh and drinking the blood. Grant heard Eddy scream into his helmet microphone, but it was too late. The Tauron that stood over him was gigantic, even bigger than most he’d seen. It leapt at him, and it was only because of the low gravity on Mars that he was able to twist away as the huge alien monster hurtled down on him.
    He raced for the buggy where the weapons were stored. He could hear screaming inside his helmet and knew it was his own voice. Then one of his drillers shouted.
    “Grant, where are the fucking guns? They’re all over us.”
    Merkel cursed the fact that he hadn’t noticed the attack earlier. He’d been busy checking the instruments that measured the drilling speed and depth, alongside the all-important sensor that detected the presence of trevanium. One of the Taurons snatched his body away from the equipment and dashed it against the Martian rock. Three other Taurons were slashing at the crew, two of them were already lying on the surface, their pressure suits ripped to ruin, the life-giving air pouring out of them. Two others were trying to draw their weapons. Damnit, how could he have been so stupid as to forget to put armed pickets out? Had he really expected the Taurons to have packed up and gone home? But there was no time for anger, as another Tauron loomed in front of him. They were so big, the Taurons, two feet taller than the average human. The only way to deal with them was to shoot the bastards and then they still kept