DT 2023: Creekbed Creatures

Kaye knew just about every animal and plant to call the world of Furthest Point home. When she didn’t recognize them, she knew where or who to look for answers. Furthest Point was an earth analog world, meaning a planet terraformed in the manner of humanity’s homeworld in every possible way. The same atmosphere, gravity, weather, and landscapes. And with the same animals and plants.
When hunting quarry species in the woods behind her farm, Kaye found novelty in sightings of odd-colored wild deer and sheep, like purple and pink furs. Her father explained them as a reminder no matter how hard humans tried, nature would fight to stay wild. Whatever alien bacteria or life reached Furthest Point before humans influenced the planet’s biosphere even after the conquest by human ingenuity.
Odd things drew her curiosity, but never in fear or shock. But on a midweek day in 256X, Kaye paused in her trek to the sound of rapid squelching beneath the underbrush along a seasonally-dry creek bed. The unknown phenomenon had a consistent but panic-like tempo, as if heaving in an almost industrial way. Against the vast greenery, she could see an earthly brown half-sphere with a clear-yellow sheen expanding and deflating to the beat behind leafy blades of butterbur and dogwood. The object was shrouded deep beneath the shade, and buried halfway into the ground nesting between river stones and yearlong mud.
Uncertain of this new creature, Kaye unslung her M395 marksman rifle and laid down in the grass to observe the phenomenon from a careful distance. Through the scope, she toggled into infrared and noted the bulbous entity was about the size of a beachball and warmer than the ambient temperature around it appearing yellow in a sea of blue. Two other yellow entities drifted near the breathing beachball, crab or spider-like with eight or ten digits each. The two creatures crawled around and atop the breathing sphere, seeming unaware of the outside observer and carrying on with their mysterious activities.
After three minutes of observing the strange routine and flicking between a few different visuals and magnifications, Kaye did the natural, curious thing. She pulled the trigger, and with a loud bang, the spherical entity vanished in a cloud of green and orange spray. One of the spider-like creatures atop the other entity sailed through the air, shaking helplessly for control against the sky and surprise.