"Granny!" she cried.
"Alice, wait!" Bastian shouted, aiming his pistol at the cobweb.
She ignored him. She reached the web, leaped up, and her fingertips grazed the cocoon. It didn't budge. Alice jumped again, pawing at the cocoon, trying to pull it down. It hung above her like a piñata.
"Bear, cover me," Bastian said.
The giant nodded, eyes dark, and hefted his rifle.
Bastian rushed toward the cobweb. Alice was still reaching for the cocoon, tears in her eyes. And then Bastian saw it.
A strand of white hair stuck out from the webbed bundle.
Somebody was inside.
"Bas, boost me up!" Alice said. "I can't reach on my own. It's too high even for Bear."
Bastian obliged. He hefted Alice upward, elevating her toward the center of the web. She grabbed the cocoon with both hands and tugged, but it wouldn't budge.
"It's glued on tight," she said, hopping back down.
"Hang on," Bastian said. "Let me try something."
He drew his knife and began sawing at the cobwebs. Maybe he could bring the whole structure down, cocoon and web alike. The strands were damn sticky. Several times, the cobwebs caught his hands, ripping off little hairs.
Impatient, Alice began to climb the web. Not too smart. She quickly found herself glued in place. She had to wriggle out of her coat, then hopped back down, leaving the jacket stuck to the web. She shivered in the cold.
"Brilliant, Allenby," Bastian said.
Alice hugged herself, teeth chattering. "Shut up."
Finally Bastian cut enough strands that the entire web sagged. The cocoon drooped toward the ground. With Alice pulling the cocoon, and with Bastian cutting through cobwebs, they managed to free the bundle. They laid it on the snow.
Bastian slipped his blade into the cocoon, then carefully sawed it open. It was like sawing open a cast.
And there she was, lying inside.
Hannah Allenby.
"Granny?" Alice whispered. "Granny, wake up!"
But Bastian knew the old woman was dead. Her skin was pale blue. Her eyes were open and still. She was frozen solid. It was not the cold that had killed her, though. A hole the size of an apple gaped open in her chest.
Bastian frowned. "There's no blood. There's no blood anywhere." He touched the corpse. "Not on the cocoon, not even inside her. She's been drained."
Alice wept, holding the dead woman's hand.
Charging Bear knelt by the body. He looked up at Bastian, eyes cold. "I've heard of such things."
Bastian shuddered. "What the hell did this, Bear? What could drain a woman of blood?"
"My people tell stories of a demon who comes from the dark," Bear said. "For many eras, she sleeps. She awakes in winter to feed. We call her Sowuti."
"A giant spider," Alice whispered, looking up from her grandmother.
Bear nodded. "Yes, you're familiar with our mythology? In my tribe's stories, Sowuti appears as a great arachnid, though in some tales, she—"
"A giant spider!" Alice cried again, raised her pistol, and fired.
Bastian spun around.
God above.
It came charging through the forest, coming right at them.
A spider the size of a cow.
Bastian shouted and opened fire.
* * * * *
The spider raced toward them. The bullets didn't faze it. It charged over the ice, opened its jaws, and shrieked.
Bastian kept firing. His bullets glanced off the enormous arachnid.
"What the hell is that thing?" he shouted.
The spider leaped over a fallen log, vaulting toward him. Its eight legs shone like katanas. Fangs filled its gargantuan mouth. Those jaws could put a shark to shame.
Bastian stood his ground, firing his pistol with both hands. Bullets hit the spider's abdomen, dented the exoskeleton, but did not penetrate. One bullet shattered something on the spider's back. Fragments of bone flew.
Skulls, Bastian realized. There are skulls on its back.
Then the spider slammed into him.
Bastian howled and fell. It was like a train plowing into him.
The hideous creature raised one leg. A gleaming claw tipped it. The alien brought the leg down hard.
Bastian rolled. The claw punched into the frozen ground, digging several inches deep. Another leg rose, fell. Bastian rolled again, nearly impaled.
Charging Bear and Alice stood nearby, firing at the creature. But they couldn't penetrate its thick shell.
"What are you?" Bastian shouted.
The spider laughed. Its eight eyes shone, red gemstones full of fire. Saliva dripped onto Bastian, sizzling hot. The creature opened its hellmouth wide, revealing a quivering gullet.
"Death …," the beast rumbled, voice like steam.
Bastian fired his last bullet into the open mouth.
The spider recoiled.
Bastian seized his chance and kicked hard, hitting the creature in the face. The spider screeched and stumbled back.
Bastian rose to his feet, reached into his pocket, and pulled out his spare magazine. He reloaded. Meanwhile, Bear and Alice kept pounding the creature with their own bullets, knocking it a few steps back.
The spider lunged toward Bastian again.
He fired.
A single shot into one eye.
The eye burst, splattering red juices.
The spider screamed.
Bastian fired again and again, pounding the creature. He took out a second eye. And still the spider leaped forward. The mighty jaws closed around Bastian's arm.
He bellowed.
His blood spurted.
"Bastian!" Alice cried.
She ran, vaulted off a boulder, and landed on the spider's back. The creature's spikes rose around her. Alice began screaming, stabbing the spider with her knife. She sank the blade into another eye. Charging Bear drew his own knife, began stabbing at eyes. One of the spider's legs slammed into the giant, knocking him into the snow.
All the while, the spider kept gripping Bastian, chomping on his arm.
But inside the creature's mouth, Bastian was still holding his pistol.
He fired.
His bullet plowed through the spider's palate and burst out the back of its head.
The spider opened its jaws to scream. Bastian fell to the forest floor, his arm a bleeding mess. Tooth marks ran along the forearm.
The spider was still alive. A hundred bullets filled it, and the damn thing was still screeching. The creature was down to a single eye. Alice leaped off the spider, her blond braids fluttering, and reloaded her pistol. The spider turned toward her, limping, bleeding. She fired. The spider's last eye exploded, and the beast crashed down.
Still it twitched, legs kicking blindly. One leg caught Charging Bear, ripping his jeans, cutting his thigh. The giant roared. He was out of bullets, but he began pounding the blind creature with his rifle.
"Goddammit, die already!" Alice shouted, stabbing the wounded creature.
Bastian limped forward, groaning in pain. Blood flowed down his arm. He had one bullet left. He had to make it count.
Even without eyes, the creature sensed him. It seemed to stare at him with empty sockets.
"You cannot stop us …," the spider hissed.
"Great, it speaks English," Alice muttered.
"We … are … the rahs," said the spider. "You … are … meat. Humanity will fall!"
The enormous arachnid chuckled, spraying saliva and blood from its mouth.
Bastian fired into that open mouth. This time the bullet drove into the brain, and the spider finally thumped down dead.
Bastian spat on the corpse. "Bastard."
Then he fell to his knees, and his blood speckled the snow.
* * * * *
Bastian looked at his arm. What a mess. Gingerly he tried to pull up the sleeve, then grimaced in pain.
"Let me help you," Alice said. She raised her knife.
"Get that blade
away from me," Bastian said. "It's covered with spider eyeball juice."
"I need to cut off your sleeve. Shut up." Alice gripped his arm, then began sawing the sleeve off. Roughly.
"Be gentle!" Bastian roared.
"Be quiet!" She got the sleeve off, looked at his injury, and tsked her tongue. "That's all you've been whining about? A few tiny little tooth marks?"
"Those teeth were the size of box cutters." Bastian looked at the wounds and grimaced. They were still bleeding.
"Good thing your arm is so fat," Alice said.
"It's muscle!"
She pulled a med kit from her pouch. They were combat soldiers of the Alliance Marine Corp. They always carried basic medical supplies. There had not been a war in decades, but now Bastian was thankful they stayed ready.
Are there any more of these damn spiders? he wondered.
"I'll patch you up for now," Alice said. "You're lucky I took all my first aid classes. But you'll need to see a proper doctor back on the base."
She tended to his wounds. Her eyes were still damp with tears, and her grandmother's body still lay nearby. But she dedicated herself to her task, cleaning the bite marks one by one, then applying auto-stitch strips. God bless her. She busted his balls a lot, but she was a damn loyal sergeant. More than that—a loyal friend.
"Thanks, Alice," he said. "When you leaped onto that spider and began stabbing eyes, you saved my ass."
She splashed antiseptic into his wounds. "You'd have done the same."
Bastian winced at the fresh explosion of pain, then took a deep breath. "I'm sorry for your loss, Alice."
She sniffed, and a tear rolled down her cheek. She said nothing more.
As Alice worked at bandaging his arm, Bastian looked at Charging Bear. The giant stood by the dead spider, examining it.
"What do you make of it, Bear?" Bastian said.
The tracker looked at him. He suddenly seemed a decade older. Bastian had known the guy for thirty years. For the first time, Bear looked afraid. And it took a lot to make a seven-foot, rifle-toting giant who collected chainsaws look afraid.
"In my tribe, we tell stories of Sowuti, the spider goddess," Bear said. "Centuries ago, long before white men reached America, we spoke of her in whispers. We fought her in the winter forests. It's said that Sowuti had many sons. This dead creature, I believe, is one of those sons. The spider goddess has risen from her long slumber, and she's spawning again. An ancient evil has returned."
When his arm was bandaged, Bastian walked toward the spider. He kicked it. It felt like kicking solid steel. Spikes rose from the spider's back, impaling various skulls. Some skulls with horns. Some with four eye sockets. Some long, others triangular. Bastian didn't recognize any of them.
"Well, an old demon is one possibility," Bastian said. "But if you ask me, this thing hatched in a Red Dawn lab. You know those damn equalists. They're always doing genetic experiments, trying to breed supersoldiers. How do you think Katyusha stays young? She keeps cloning herself, killing the clones, and implanting her brain into their bodies. People who'd do stuff like that, well … I wouldn't put breeding giant spiders past them."
Alice chewed her lip, looking at the dead spider. "Maybe it's an alien."
"There's no such thing as aliens," Bastian said.
"Sure there are," Alice said. "My grandfather has seen a bunch of them."
Bastian rolled his eyes. "He claims to have seen little green men probing his chickens. Not the same."
Bear remained dour. He never removed his eyes from the dead creature. "Maybe Alice is right. In the legends of my people, Sowuti came from beyond a great darkness. A creature of the night sky. Maybe … an alien."
"This creature called itself a rah," Alice said. "Bear, are there any legends of demons called the rahs in your tribe?"
The giant shook his head. "No, but demons often go by many names."
"Whatever that bastard is, we better haul its corpse back to Fort Liberty," Bastian said. "We can find a lab to—"
His MindLink rang, interrupting him.
Stacy appeared before him—a hallucination standing on the hilltop. A very pissed-off hallucination. She crossed her arms.
"Bastian! You were supposed to be here three minutes ago. I have to leave now. I'm heading to Bemidji, and I'm taking Rowan with me."
"No!" Bastian blurted out, speaking aloud as he telepathized. "Ah, crap. Look, Stacy, I'm running late, but I'll be there in five minutes. Okay, ten minutes, fifteen tops, just—"
"What the hell is that near you?" Stacy said, grimacing.
Dammit. Bastian had forgotten to turn his eyesight link off. With the feature switched on, Stacy could see what he was seeing. Damn MindLinks.
Bastian switched off eyesight sharing, but it was too late. Standing in her kitchen, Stacy would have seen what he saw. The giant dead spider.
"It's nothing," Bastian said. "Just … please wait, Stacy. Please. We agreed I can spend half of Christmas with Rowan."
Stacy's eyes shot daggers. "She's better off at Bemidji. To spend Christmas on an army base? With whatever the hell creature that was you got over there?"
"I wouldn't be living on an army base if you hadn't taken my goddamn house!"
"Oh, is it about the house again, is it? Well—"
"Please let's not do this again, Stacy. Okay? Just please hold on. I'm racing over right now."
She groaned and rolled her eyes. That meant okay.
Bastian hung up.
He looked at his friends.
"Bear, mind if I borrow your horse?"
The giant gave him the thumbs-up. "Not at all. Go get Rowan. Alice and I will drag this creature back to the base. We'll build a litter."
Bastian nodded, slapped his friend on the arm, then mounted the robotic stallion. He galloped as fast as the machine would go.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Starship Freedom
High Earth Orbit
14:25 Christmas 2199
King slammed down the phone. For a moment he just stood at his desk, jaw clenched.
"Another dead end," he growled. "General Forester is away for Christmas too. Vacation on his ranch. MindLink turned off."
He turned away from the phone. He looked at the two officers in his cabin.
Mimori stood by a framed parchment map, a treasure from the eighteenth century. The android was wearing her fancy parade uniform, complete with white gloves, a black bow tie, and golden aiguillettes. She was all decked out for the Christmas gala, though the event was now in question. The android stood very still and silent, holding the Rubicon report she had prepared. For the past hour, she had been sending this report to Alliance admirals and generals on Earth.
So far, nobody read it.
One general said he'd get to it right after Christmas dinner. The others didn't even answer.
Lieutenant Commander Jordan stood by a bookshelf. He too wore his parade whites, looking like some fairy-tale prince. King had always thought the Alliance dress uniforms looked a little silly, even pompous. But they were standard at military ceremonies. King himself still wore his blue service uniform, a simpler outfit. He hadn't bothered changing into his own parade whites. He wasn't thinking about the upcoming Christmas dinner now.
"We should call High Commander Archer," Jordan said.
Jordan was normally calm, collected, more liable to sing than shout. But now the XO's face was hard, his eyes dark.
"And go over the heads of the admiralty?" King said.
The high commander was, as his name implied, the head of the entire Alliance, the leader of the free world. Even as a dreadnought commander, King did not report to him directly.
"Jim, we've already contacted every admiral." Jordan heaved a sigh. "They're all out for Christmas."
King barked a laugh. "Well, we left messages with their secretaries. I'm sure that will help."
Jordan pursed his lips. "Is this really what's become of the Alliance? Have three decades of peace made us so complacent?
Back during the war, we could get anyone on the line within moments. Even the high commander."
King eyed the bottle of Martian ale, which still stood on his oak desk. "Back then, we were a warship. Now we're a joke."
Mimori raised her chin. "Sir, I'm no joke!"
"No, you're not," King said, a kindness in his rasp. "You're a damn fine ship. The best in the galaxy. But when the admirals look at me, they don't see the commander anymore. Hell, some of the officers down at HQ hadn't even been born when we stormed the Red Dawn strongholds." He sighed. "They look at me, and they see a carnival barker. The crazy old man who runs the flying spa, casino, and resort." He gave in to temptation and poured himself another drink. "I used to fight enemy fleets. Now I book magicians and stand-up comedians."
Jordan smiled, accepting a drink too. "Well, I've always wanted a career in entertainment. I do hope to sing at the gala tonight."
King harrumphed. He lifted the model of the Freedom from his desk, ran his hand along the railgun. "Such a beautiful ship. She was always beautiful."
"Please don't rub my rails while I'm standing right here, sir," Mimori said.
King snapped his head toward her. Jordan raised an eyebrow.
The android winked.
Jordan laughed—a deep, mellifluous sound. "You're leaving me with one sassy android, Jim."
King snorted. "All right, enough sass. We'll call the high commander. Mimori, make the call. Connect it to my MindLink. Going over the admiralty is a breach of protocol. But hell, what are they gonna do, fire me? I'm retiring tomorrow. Let me break one last rule."
Mimori nodded. "Calling right now, sir."
The android closed her eyes. Semitransparent screens, dials, and progress bars floated around her head, a visual interface. It looked like holograms, but it was a hallucination. King's MindLink was turned on, connected to the starship. While Mimori worked, King was able to see what she was working on.
Funny, King thought. On my last day, I'm finally using my MindLink. I'm still getting the damn thing removed tomorrow.
The android scrolled through her contact list and chose High Commander Archer, who worked in Alliance Headquarters down in Washington, DC. King had visited Alliance Headquarters many times. The building was roughly shaped like two hands pressed together in prayer. At least if you squinted and used your imagination.
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