Author's Note: It's been a LONG time since I've written fanfiction... 10 years, at least... During my high school years, I was a prolific fanfiction author with over 100 stories penned, mostly focusing on Star Wars. I was a dedicated Obidala shipper then. Once I graduated from college, I disabled my account and found myself on other writing endeavers. I never thought I'd return to fanfiction, but then again, I never thought anything would inspire me quite like this. And then this little idea came...

It's good to be back. Enjoy.

The Howlers
Chapter 1
by: Theed

There was no point in reaching for a weapon. Even if NASA had issued firearms or other armaments as part of the Endurance's cargo supplies, Dr. Amelia Brand didn't know the first thing about using them. Even in theory. She'd spent too much time in a lab for that.

But the growing howls outside the camp bunker were making her nervous. The desert planet's indigenous nocturnal beasts liked to prowl shortly after dusk. To hunt. To feed. She had long believed that though formidable and frightening, nature wasn't capable of evil. But after seeing what the creatures had done to Dr. Wolf Edmunds—or, at least what was left of him—she wasn't so sure. If only he'd gotten to the pod before the rockslide had buried it...then maybe he'd still be alive. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw it again: the ripped and mummified flesh, the gnawed and cracked bone, the dried smears and pools of blood... She still had nightmares about it.

And tonight wasn't any different. Brand rose from her sleeping pad and wiped the cold sweat from her brow. Her head pounded. "CASE, what time is it?"

From across the bunker's sleeping quarters, the large black robot stirred. "According to which clock, Dr. Brand?"

She groaned and pinched her temple. "I told you before, always use this planet's time."

"My apologies, Dr. Brand. I just thought you might—"

"I'm not interested in sentiment, CASE," she snapped. "Just give me the time." She closed her eyes and pushed back the ever lingering faces: Miller, Mann, Doyle, Romilly... Even TARS. And then there was her father... and Cooper... and Wolf... All gone. All dead. And most likely all of planet Earth with them. She chewed the inside of her cheek. Yes, there'd been enough sentiment in the last few months to fill a lifetime. And considering Gargantua's time slippage had flung her forward a total of seventy-four years... She buried her heart right alongside Wolf the day she landed here. Carrying out the mission alone would be far easier if she couldn't feel. It wasn't her choice, exactly. But it was necessary.

"It's nearly twenty-four hundred hours."

Almost midnight. Another chilling howl echoed across the desert—this one far closer than the last. She shivered.

"And how long until sunrise?"

"Twelve hours, seven minutes."

Twelve long hours of endless howling. Brand rubbed her eyes, then massaged her throbbing forehead. "CASE, can you check the perimeter? I don't want those things getting inside."

"The last system check indicated the electric shield was fully functional."

Brand grabbed her sweatshirt and clumsily shoved her arms through the sleeves. "Those automated system checks occur only once every hour. Run it again manually. A lot can happen in sixty minutes." She pulled herself to the edge of the sleep pad and fumbled for the medical kit at the corner of her workstation. Hopefully there was still some Excedrin left.

"Roger." CASE's internal process began buzzing and whirring.

Brand unzipped the medical kit and peered at its contents using the dim glow of the overhead night lights. Blindly, she groped through what felt like packets of alcohol wipes, loose gauze strips, and endless Dramamine capsules... But where was the Excedrin? Of course, she could amplify the lighting to see better, but the camp was running on strictly solar power now, and she preferred to not waste the energy—especially during the long nights. There were backup generators, obviously, but she needed those for emergencies only.

After rifling through the medical kit for several more minutes to no avail, Brand determined she was simply out of Excedrin. Great. She'd have to go down to the medical bay for more.

"Dr. Brand," CASE began, "I cannot complete the system check. The controls are unresponsive."

She re-zipped the medical kit and tossed it on the workstation counter. "Solar interference?" she asked. According to Wolf's archived data, this sun emitted regular coronal mass ejections that often disrupted electronic communications—which was partially why the Endurance was unable to pick up his signal before going dark. Of course, that was just one reason.

A menacing chorus of long, low howls whipped around the bunker.

She'd rather not think about the other reason.

"I'm receiving signals from our other electronic systems," CASE said, "so solar interference seems unlikely."

Brand swallowed. "Is it blocked or disconnected?"

"It's possible the other systems are somehow disrupting the perimeter signal," CASE began, "but it's highly improbable. The signal's most likely disconnected."

Another howl resounded, this one followed by several more against the rushing wind. When she first arrived, all the beasts did was howl; night after night, she could hear them in the distance, groaning and baying somewhere in the great stretches of endless red desert. They were like a lonely pack of lurking phantoms, both elusive and unrelenting. But week after week, they began creeping steadily closer to the camp, until one day, she glimpsed the terrifying creatures near the edge of the perimeter: large scaly quadrupeds armed with long, vicious claws and teeth—and that was just what she could make out from the distance. The biologist in her was curious about these alien creatures—howlers, she called them—their anatomy, their habitat, their social behaviors. But then she'd remember Wolf's broken body... Despite her personal vendetta toward the creatures, Brand reasoned her reluctance to study them was due to a lack of resources; she didn't exactly have appropriate protective gear or field equipment. Besides, she couldn't lose focus of her primary mission: to ensure the survival of the human species. And right now, that meant keeping herself alive—and the electric shield was her only guard against them.

She crossed her arms and dug her nails into the thick cotton. "A disconnected signal doesn't necessarily mean the shield's down, right?"

"Correct," CASE said. "It just means we can't communicate with the system controls. There's no reason to believe the shield is deactivated considering the positive readings from the previous checks."

"Yeah, but because of the disconnect, we have no way of confirming it's up and running properly either...and any reconnecting must be done manually." She ran a frustrated hand through her hair. The electric shield's control panel was located outside of the bunker. And with those creatures slinking about... The mere thought of being outside with the beasts nauseated her. Of course, she needn't leave the bunker at all; she could send CASE instead. But if the shield was indeed down and the creatures got to him—the way they had gotten to Wolf—then she'd have to confine herself to the bunker and wait until dawn...and in the meantime hope the beasts wouldn't damage any equipment...or find a way inside. Still, it was a far better risk than waiting until morning to reconnect the signal. "CASE, what's your defense setting?" she asked.

"Defense setting: 100% and fully charged."

"Good, because you're going to fix the signal connection."

"I'm what?"

"CASE, how's it looking so far," Brand asked through the radio transmitter.

"Making my way to the control panel now, Dr. Brand," CASE responded. "I should arrive in two minutes."

She dug her thumb into the bridge of her nose, still fighting the stubborn headache. "Alright, tell me when you're there. And don't dawdle. Between the wind, the dust, and the howlers, I don't want you outside longer than necessary."

"Roger that."

While Brand waited for CASE, she padded down the corridor toward the medical bay, careful not to bump into anything in the darkness. If something happened to CASE, she needed to think and move quickly, and a piercing headache would only slow her down.

Her radio buzzed. "Alright, I'm at the control panel."

She slid open the medical bay door. "And?"

"Some of the wiring's loose. Could be from the strong winds. It'll take a few minutes to reconnect and reboot the system."

Brand searched the cupboards until she found the Excedrin. "Just do it fast, CASE. Restarting the system will take the shields down." She took two tablets, threw them toward the back of her throat, and swallowed.

"Only momentarily."

She grabbed extra Excedrin capsules to replenish her personal medical kit. "I don't care. It only takes a moment for one of those creatures to get in."

"Roger."

And that's when she heard the sharp scraping and groaning of metal. At first, she thought it was coming from the outer shell of the bunker—a rough gust of wind or the structure settling into the desert ground—but as the clanging and clatter grew louder and louder, the flooring rhythmically rumbling and reverberating against her feet...closer and closer...she realized these sounds were coming from inside. Her heart began racing.

Brand abandoned the capsules and turned the volume down on the transmitter. "CASE," she breathed, "how much longer?"

"Approximately ten minutes."

"Hurry up," she hissed. "A howler is inside the bunker with me."

"Hang tight, Dr. Brand. I'll be there shortly."

"You better." She carefully set down the transmitter and poked and prodded through the cupboards for something—anything—she could use as a weapon. The darkness made searching difficult, but she dared not turn up the lights for fear of giving herself away. The closest thing she could find was a bottle of hydrochloric acid and a small, thin suture knife. They would have to do.

Meanwhile, the beast's movements edged closer…the creaking and scraping growing louder.

Brand unscrewed the cap from the hydrochloric acid, then discretely positioned herself along the short partition wall inside the medical bay and waited. A surprise attack was her only advantage in taking down the creature. Her timing and precision had to be perfect. One wrong move, and she'd be dead in seconds—either from the creature or from her own careless handling of the makeshift weapons. Breathing as quietly as possible, she gripped the knife in one hand and the bottle of acid in the other. Her head still pounded, blood thundering in her ears, but she had to stay focused.

The scuffing and clanging grew closer...and closer...and closer...

As soon as the beast's shadowy figure turned the corner and moved into view, she lunged forward, throwing the acid first, then trying to jab the knife blade into an eye. But before she could make contact, the creature dodged the deadly acid, then snatched her wrists, pinching them, twisting them, forcing the knife just out of reach. She struggled against its tight hold, lurching and yanking. Any moment, Brand was sure she'd feel its sharp claws rip across her, or its jagged teeth sink into her. The creature squeezed tighter and tighter until she saw stars. Already, she felt tingling in her fingers. It wouldn't be long before she was completely immobile. Panicked, she began writhing and thrashing violently, throwing her limbs in every direction.

"Brand! Brand, it's me! It's me! Damn it, Amelia! Stop! Stop it! It's me!"

And then she froze, the suture knife falling from her stiff fingers and bashing against the metal flooring. She knew that voice, that low, smooth drawl—even when pissed off. But it couldn't be... She had to be dreaming...or perhaps just seeing a ghost.

"That's it, that's it," he said through labored breaths. The shadow's hold on her loosened as she relaxed. "Easy, now. Easy."

She looked up, and in the shallow darkness, fingers shaking, she reached forward and found the curve of a cheek, the brush of unshaven stubble, the ridge of dry, cracked lips. Her vision blurred, and she swallowed hard several times. "Cooper?" she croaked, choking on her own voice.

The shadow nodded. "Yeah. It's me." She could hear the smile in his voice.

Brand began trembling. "Cooper... Oh, Cooper." She threw her arms around his neck and started weeping as weeks of buried emotion flooded to the surface—tears she didn't even know she possessed—a deep, guttural wailing that sounded almost inhuman. Was this how Dr. Mann had felt when they'd woken him from his deep cryo-sleeping death?

Cooper leaned in, his arms enfolding her. "It's okay," he whispered, his lips and hot breath brushing against her ear. "It's okay."

"I thought I was alone," she sobbed. "Alone... The last of humanity... Everyone gone... Left... Or dead... So... so alone...in the entire universe..." Her uncontrollable tears were embarrassing, but in this moment of unexpected relief, she didn't care.

He gently rocked her, then asked, as if reluctantly, "What about Edmunds?" At the mention of Wolf's name, she crumbled, burrowing her face into Cooper's shoulder and tangling her fingers into the back of his flight suit. She felt his hands in her hair as he rested his head against hers. "Amelia, I'm so, so sorry."

The silence stretched between them, with only her muffled sobs and the grisly desert howling filling her ears. Cooper was back. After all this time... After so many weeks of isolation and desolation... It was all she'd been hoping for—to have somebody, anybody, with her. To not have to face life and rebuild humanity alone. In fact, it seemed too good to be true... She suddenly jerked up. "No," she said, backing away, though her clenched fists still clutched his arms. "No, no, no..." She shook her head. "I saw you... The wormhole... It's not possible... You left me... You left me." Her legs buckled.

"Yeah, I left you," he said evenly, holding her steady. "But now I'm back. I'm here."

"No," she repeated. "You can't be here. You're at home with your family... With Murph and Tom... During the mission, all you thought about was going home. You wouldn't leave them again...just to come back here... You wouldn't do that. You're just an illusion, a figment of my imagination...the result of too many weeks alone, talking to myself."

"Amelia—"

"Or maybe," she continued, "maybe you never even survived Gargantua at all. Its gravity could've pulled you further in from the tidal horizon, and you'd have been crushed. Or your oxygen could've run out, and you'd have suffocated. You died, Cooper... And in that case, I'm still imagining you here."

"Amelia, please—"

"Oh, I'm not finished," she said, chuckling bitterly. "Or...or..and this is the really crazy explanation... Say you did die—and I'm not having some insane hallucination right now—that would mean you're a... You're a..."

Cooper shook his head and swept the bangs out of her eyes. "I'm not a ghost, Amelia...not to you, at least," he said, his voice trailing off. "I'm here. I'm real," he whispered. Cooper took her hand and laid it against his face. "I'm real."

The warmth of his cheek and fingers burned her icy hand. "You're real," she repeated.

He gave a slow nod. "I'm real."

Hot tears streamed down her cheeks. "Then why did you come back?"

"Now that," he said, wiping her face with his thumb, "is a story for another time."

Static fizzed and popped over the radio transmitter. She'd almost forgotten. Brand reached over and grabbed the transmitter from the counter, fumbling with the buttons and clearing her throat. "CASE? CASE, are you there?"

Cooper followed her. "He isn't in here with you?"

"No, I sent him out to fix a disconnected signal. CASE? Do you read me? CASE?" She wiped her face in her sleeve.

"Signal?"

"Yeah, for the electric shield guarding the camp..." And then a sudden realization hit her. "Cooper... how did you get past the electric shield? The one guarding the perimeter of the camp?"

"TARS deactivated it."

Her heart pounded. "And did he reactivate it?"

Cooper's silence was all the answer she needed.

"Oh shit..."