text: [Themes: family friendly, science fiction]
  
  When you reach the site of Chief Deadrick's demise, no one wastes time looking for survivors.
  
  "So much for Battle Mechs," Pehill says, surveying the wreckage. "These look like squirrels that've been torn apart by a pack of unwolves."
  
  Indeed, the four Mechs that the chief had boasted about just a few hours ago are now shredded into shrapnel, only a robotic boot or elbow recognizable here and there. The Cryndy didn't just neutralize the chief and his sons, they annihilated them and their ancient toys. The trail is covered with wreckage for a distance of about a hundred meters; you hold Olix back to keep him from scrambling over the jagged metal and cutting his paws.
  
  Laku emerges from the woods beside the trail, his gun held tightly to his chest. "There is more carnage to see back there," he says, gesturing behind him, "but the Thin-Skins aren't going to want to see it."
  
  Captain Anting is standing not far from you and Olix, his foot up on what remains of a Battle Mech skullcap, its crownhatch still firmly in place, silently surveying the wreckage glistening in the moonlight. His sergeant steps up to him.
  
  "I suppose this makes you chief now, sir?" Pehill says.
  
  "Mm-mmm," the captain responds ambiguously.
  
  "I'd vote for you, sir," the sergeant says.
  
  However, the possibility of being selected Chief of the Stead is not foremost on Anting's mind. "Joöno," he says, "it doesn't look like the Cryndy are still here. Can your men determine which way they went?"
  
  "We're looking now," Laku says.
  
  Harex nervously adjusts his hat again. "It was four against six. I'd have thought even Deadrick might've managed to take at least one Cryndy with him!"
  
  Considering you've never seen Harex, Skaäl, Laku, or any of these "new" Snowmen before, it's a mystery to you how he could have any impression at all of Jonos Deadrick, let alone an accurate one.
  
  "It makes me wonder if we're up to the task ourselves," Anting says.
  
  "Redling!"
  
  You are shocked out of quiet contemplation by the sound of your name. Turning, you see Joöno facing you in the moonlight.
  
  "You said there were only six Cryndy, right?"
  
  "Um, yeah, that's all I saw," you say.
  
  "But there could be more?" Anting asks the Snowmen.
  
  "I can't say," Laku the tracker says. "Their signs have been scattered. Could be six, could be sixty-six."
  
  "Six would be more than enough to do this," Joöno says. "Especially against an inexperienced patrol."
  
  The various Snowmen gathered around the wreckage nod in agreement, as if a sage truth has just been spoken. The Guardsmen look nervously to one another, then to the woods.
  
  "Redling, your fox is getting cold," Pehill says. "Look, he's shivering!"
  
  That can't possibly be; Olix is as well-adapted to this climate as any Snowman. But you look down anyway, and indeed he is trembling, causing a metal plate under his paws to rattle with him. It's not the cold that's getting to him; he's freaking out much like he did hours ago, the first time the two of you were out here.
  
  You crouch down and try and console him. "What is it, dude? What's got you worked up?"
  
  Anting must also intuit that Olix is experiencing an emotional response, and he immediately grasps what the cause must be. "They come!" he says — meaning, of course, the Cryndy.
  
  Joöno, Skaäl, and Harex stand with their backs almost to each other and scan the surroundings. Like you and everybody else, all they can see are scorched trees and twisted metal.
  
  "Hooo-aaaaw!" Laku calls out to the other three Snowman scouts, but there is no response.
  
  "It's another ambush!" Harex says.
  
  "Quick, we need to scatter before the circle closes," Joöno says. "In different directions! Hurry!"
  
  And then the most remarkable thing happens: the Snowmen all nod to each other and disappear into the woods without any further explanation.
  
  Anting and the Guards are all dumbfounded. "What? They flee, now?" Pehill says.
  
  "There's no time," Anting says. "We stay and fight! Quick, start propping up this wreckage, use it to cover yourselves!"
  
  All of this happens in such a short amount of time that you feel torn in each direction — to follow the Snowmen, who seem to have more experience in dealing with Cryndy, or to stay with the Guardsmen, who are going to stay and fight the aliens. Their actions certainly seem more honorable... but then you look at all the fresh wreckage on the trail, yet another artifact of yet another human defeat at the hands of the Cryndy.
  
  > stay with the Guardsmen.
  You have no idea what the Snowmen are up to, and the possibility that they are merely flying off in the face of danger is disturbing. After all, this would be more like the Joöno Öoto you've always know, the one lost in his tippards of ale. This heroic Joöno, the one displaying self-control and strategic acumen, may just be a sham.
  
  At any rate, the Guardsmen are engaging in an effort you can immediately understand: the enemy is coming, and the need to establish some measure of protection is preeminent. Therefore you release your grip on Olix and join the men in trying to arrange the scrap metal into an effective barrier.
  
  Neither Captain Anting nor Sergeant Pehill seem impressed; rather, they are more bothered by the absence of the Snowmen.
  
  "I was harboring a hunch all night long that something wasn't right about them," Pehill says, helping the captain lift a large piece of metal plating. "And here they go and demonstrate the reason I've never liked them."
  
  Anting doesn't respond directly. Instead, he shifts his focus to his other men: "No, not there! That will never hold. Here, like this!"
  
  You do your best to help, although the metal is heavy and this barrier seems flimsy; hardly anything is holding it up, and if the metal couldn't protect the Battle Mechs, how is it expected to protect an infantry patrol?
  
  Instead, you shift your attention to Olix, who is still trembling beside you. He more than anyone is going to need a safe place to be in the coming fight, so you find a metal casing in the rubble that is still more or less intact and lift him inside it. Then you slide the improvised kennel under one of the propped-up pieces of plating. "Sorry, dude," you whisper. "This is the best I can do under the circumstances."
  
  At that moment you feel what seems like a sudden spike in air pressure, which plugs your ears and makes the frantic shouts of the Guardsmen go briefly silent. A young private next to Sergeant Pehill bursts into flames before some horrific force rends him in two. When the air pressure drops you can hear the reaction.
  
  "Jupiters! What was that?"
  
  "Myson! Did you see what just happened to Myson?"
  
  "Captain, where did that come from?"
  
  "Red stars, where did those Snowmen go?"
  
  Meanwhile, the smell of ozone lingers over the post.
  
  The Guardsmen crouch behind the plating fragments, their Mechkillers pointed at the surrounding woods, anxiously watching. One man openly sobs over the fallen comrade.
  
  "Roward, quiet!"
  
  "Leave him be, sergeant. I'm pretty sure the Cryndy already know exactly where we are."
  
  Shuffling sounds can be heard in the woods, and shadows can be seen sorting themselves out among the other shadows. None of these sights and sounds, however, resolve themselves into concrete evidence for the precise locations of any Cryndy. So far the men have been holding their fire, but impatience weighs on their brains. One man begins opening fire at the trees, and soon the others follow suit. You can't tell if they actually see something, or if they're just shooting their own imaginations.
  
  The air pressure spikes again, and before the sound gets canceled you hear Captain Anting begin to say: "Another surge—" The air heats up, as if a pulse of raw electricity were radiating through the trees, burning the air itself. You dive for cover, but the metal plate is fluttering like a piece of paper in the wind. It tips over unhelpfully, leaving you exposed to the charred atmosphere.
  
  When you regain your sense of hearing, the first sound that reaches your ears is that of a body dropping behind you. Don't look, you tell yourself; it doesn't matter who it is this time, and there is nothing you can do for him anyway.
  
  "Red star, that one was close. Wasn't it, captain?" Pehill says from the far end of the post.
  
  "It burned the hair off the top of my head!" a trooper exclaims, not taking his eyes from his gunsight.
  
  "Captain Anting, sir?" Pehill says, sounding concerned by the lack of response. The troopers, though, are preoccupied with the incoming shadows.
  
  "I see one! Focus your fire by that tree!"
  
  "There's two of them over this way!"
  
  This time you fire too, aiming at a dark figure several meters off the trail that might be a Cryndy, or it might be bearphant for all you know. It's hard to fight off an enemy you cannot see.
  
  Sergeant Pehill is creeping over to the other side of the post, more intent on finding Anting. "Captain!" he finally shouts. "Argh, no, they killed the captain!"
  
  No one can resist looking now, including you. There is Captain Anting collapsed on the ground, the entire top half of his body sered by a tremendous heat, his legs seemingly untouched — but all of him completely dead.
  
  The Cryndy afford you no time to mourn, however. The air pressure spikes once more, and the atmosphere surges with energy. This particular pulse finds its way to you, and for a brief second you know what it feels like to be burned by a thousand suns. Then you collapse lifelessly to the ground.