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tend the flock. These days, stock was too valuable to risk.
    Mari sighed. She wouldn’t miss her old City. After the death of her parents, nothing much tied her there. Home had been an old shipping container with two small windows covered by curtains her mother had sewn herself. Her father had slept at one end; Mari occupied the other, with a living room of sorts in the middle. Underneath them had been prim, irascible Josie, living with her son in her own container.
    As the population recovered, demand for housing was going up. Rent had increased, and the owner of the container had eventually asked for more money than she could give, spurred on by Tim, who wanted to drive her into his arms. Hopefully, the cost of living in Scar City would be cheaper, for she didn’t have more than a few dollars left.
    That meant she would have to locate her father’s stash sooner rather than later, and hope whatever he’d left behind fetched her a decent price.
    Gareth’s shoulders tensed, and all Mari’s thoughts fled. Had he seen something out there? She checked her watch again, realizing she’d been standing there for nearly an hour. And it was still a good six hours until sunrise.
    The faintest of barks reached her ears, a low, gruff sound. Oh God. One of the aliens must have caught sight of the train and come to investigate. Worse, it was calling its buddies to come as well.
    The first one came into sight a few seconds later, its long, powerful hind legs gleaming white in the moonlight. Mari’s breath caught in terror. The urge to run was powerful. She forced herself to hold still, knowing that movement would attract the carnivore’s attention.
    Another emerged over the horizon, lolloping behind the first as they came over to check out the train. Mari knew that the locomotives had the ability to completely encase themselves, so the driver would be safe behind several tons of metal. Passengers, on the other hand…
    Oh hell. Were there other passengers? She shook her head, trying to remember. No, this was the only passenger carriage. The rest of the train consisted of freight cars, and she devoutly hoped there wasn’t any livestock aboard.
    Then again, maybe the stock would distract the Barks from eating them .
    Mari swallowed hard as three of the creatures came toward them, the third having seemingly materialized out of nowhere. Gareth made the tiniest of gestures, finger pointing to the floor of the carriage. With reluctance, she obeyed, making sure she moved slowly and carefully.
    Somehow, not being able to see the aliens made things ten thousand times worse, even though the way they moved made her vaguely queasy. How could they walk so sinuously? Triple-jointed freakish carnivore aliens. Nobody had seen that coming. Not even the NASA technicians who’d first reported the approach of the motherships decades ago.
    Half an hour passed, during which she stared at her watch, prayed and kept her hand on the Glock. Then, suddenly, Gareth moved as a flurry of white nearly overwhelmed him.
    Instead of reaching for his daggers, he raised his bare hands—and Mari blinked as spears of light arrowed out. One pierced a Bark, and it shrieked, falling to the ground as blackness spread along its side. A scorched smell wafted toward her, overlaid with an unnatural sweet scent that she assumed was from the Bark itself.
    Gareth wasted no time dispatching the thing, kicking its corpse to the ground. Then he resumed his watchful stance.
    Minutes ticked by, turning into hours. Mari was just beginning to relax when there was another attack. This time, she heard woofs and yowls from the rear of the carriage and knew Finn must be fighting as well. With a white-knuckled grip on her gun, she watched Gareth kill two more of the things.
    He was right. There wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that she could shoot one of the aliens. They whipped around too fast, and each part of their segmented bodies