Uncommon Loyalty

by Toby Neighbors

  “Pull yourselves together,” Gunny Tveit ordered. “There’s no time for this. You want to cry for Nick and so do I, but if we don’t get back to the mining complex, we’ll all die with him.”

  “Then we die,” Ember shouted.

  “No,” Kal said. “No, we can’t do that. Nick wouldn’t let us die and neither will I. Let’s go. Just keep moving.”

  Jules took Ember’s right arm, and Kal took her left. She stumbled along as the group hurried back toward the mining facility. They didn’t follow the infantry platoon, but made their own looping course back. It took them a painfully long hour. And when they reached the facility, Gunny Tveit realized things had not improved.

  “What now?” snarled the infantry master sergeant. His name was Horace Speilman. “This place is a death trap.”

  “It’s the only cover we have,” Beth Tveit argued. “Surely you see that, Master Sergeant.”

  “Out of the frying pan and into the damn fire,” he said angrily.

  “We’ve radioed for help,” Corporal Ariel Summers said. She had been waiting for them to return. “The Proxy say we have to hold out a few more days. Help is coming, but they’re out of the system.”

  “What about the hostages?” Gunny Tveit asked.

  “Four Proxy, two marines. They’re all wounded to some extent, but alive.”

  “Can they talk?”

  “Sure, I guess so,” Summers said.

  “Take me to them,” Gunny Tveit said before turning back to Speilman. “Look, we know they can attack from the ground and the sky. Our best bet is to move everyone onto the upper floors and rooftop. We should be able to hold them off for a few days.”

  “That’s your whole plan?” Spielman said. “Get on the roof and pray we can hold out.”

  “That’s right,” Gunny Tveit said. “If you have a better one, I’m all ears. But there is nowhere else to go on this rock. And no way to get there. We stay together, we fight smart, and we stay alive. You have a problem with that, then come up with a better plan. Otherwise, get onboard, Master Sergeant. Your true nature is showing and it reeks of fear. We’ve all lost people on this mission. I lost one of my best saving your sorry ass, and I’ll be glad to trade your whole damn platoon if it means I can get one of my people out alive. So get out of my way.”

  She stormed past the frightened master sergeant. The rest of her team followed, but it was clear they were distraught. She felt the weight of their grief on her shoulders, and while she tried to tell herself that they knew what they were signing up for, she felt too guilty that Nick had died.

  “We wouldn’t have made it without Private Nichols,” Ariel Summers said. “Where is he? I wanted to tell him thanks.”

  “He didn’t make it,” Kal said. “The bugs got him.”

  Beth Tveit couldn’t see the look on Corporal Summers’s face, but her body language showed her shock and regret.

  “He knocked down one of the spires right on top of the crawlers that were chasing us,” she explained. “We never would have made it back if he hadn’t done that.”

  “I suppose he was right about Staff Sergeant Blevins too,” Gunny Tveit asked. “Did he, Calloway, and Goreman run?”

  Summers’s head dropped, and Beth Tveit knew the answer. How cowards like Calloway and Blevins could survive for so long while good people like Nick died was a mystery to her. She knew that at any moment any one of them could die on the hostile worlds where they were sent. It was part of their jobs to risk their lives for the Proxy, but it didn’t seem right. Nor did she buy into the philosophy that the Proxy didn’t deserve more than a cursory amount of effort from the PMC. People like Staff Sergeant Blevins and Donny Calloway rationalized their cowardice by claiming they weren’t being paid to die for the Proxy didn’t fool Gunny Tveit for a second. They were untrustworthy and dangerous, the type of people she knew to avoid when lives were on the line.

  “Here they are, Gunny,” Ariel Summers said, leading them into a small room where several pallets had been set out on the floor.

  One of the marines was sitting up. His hand was missing, and there were rags around the stump that was halfway up his forearm, but the man’s eyes were clear. The others, including the Proxy, were lying down.

  “Will they survive?” Gunny Tveit asked.

  “If we get rescued, they will,” Summers said. “Some of the wounds are serious, but not life threatening if we can get them medical treatment.”

  “What about the Dragonfly shuttle?” Tveit said. “We could get the wounded out on it.”

  “If they get the wounded out, will they come back for the rest of us?” Ty asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Summers said. “The Proxy said it was too dangerous to send the shuttle back down. We’ll have to wait for the other ships to arrive in the system.”

  “What’s your name, Corporal?” Beth Tveit asked the wounded infantryman.

  “Dawkins, Danny,” he answered. “Echo Platoon.”

  “What happened down here?” Gunny asked.

  “We were stationed here for several months. Had a few skirmishes with the crawlers. Nothing serious, though. Then one day, they came in wave after wave. We couldn’t stop them.”

  “So they killed the members of your platoon?” Gunny asked.

  “Some. Most of us were taken alive.”

  “And what did they do with you?”

  The infantryman held up his bloody stump. They ate us. Not all of them, just the big ones. The queen and her kings, I guess you’d say. They kept us in their hive deep underground, trapped in some type of chamber like a giant honeycomb. I tried to get out, but couldn’t. I thought they would kill me for sure until you all showed up.”

  “They don’t eat you, just the kings and queens?” Gunny Tveit asked.

  “There’s just one queen. She feeds about once a week and lays eggs constantly. The kings, there are maybe ten or twelve of them, they ate most of my platoon. After they eat, they feed the larvae.”

  “What about the rest?” Kal asked. “We saw hundreds, maybe thousands of them.”

  “Those are the workers,” Danny Dawkins said. “They eat each other. The old ones die and get eaten by the younger ones.”

  “Man, this is like a twisted nightmare,” Jules said.

  “How long were you held captive?”

  “A couple of weeks, I think. It was hard to tell without seeing the sun,” Dawkins explained.

  “You lost your hand when they fed on you?” Ty asked.

  “No, when they captured me, but they took my hand back to their people, and I saw them eat it.”

  “Man, I’ll have nightmares about that,” Kal said.

  “Don’t,” Ember warned him.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “Is there a chance that they took Nick to the same place they held you?” Jules asked Dawkins.

  “Who’s Nick?” the infantryman asked.

  “He’s one of us,” Ty said.

  “He was captured,” Ember said. “The crawlers came up from under the ground and carried him down.”

  “I don’t know,” Dawkins admitted. “But we got reports that the different hives raided one another. So it’s possible that another group has your friend.”

  “Gunny, I volunteer to go look for Nick,” Ember said.

  “Denied,” Gunny Tveit said. “We have a mission here, and that comes first. Let’s get these people moved up to the top floor.”

  “Sarge,” Jules said. “You’re really just going to let Nick die?”

  “No,” Gunny Tveit said. “Once this building is as secure as we can make it, I’ll lead a team to go look for him myself.”

  “He could be dead by then,” Ember said, her voice loud and on the verge of hysteria.

  “You think I don’t know that?” Gunny Tveit said. “That’s our job. You’re Recon specialists. Dying is always a possibility, and like it or not the job comes first. Now, move these people up to the top floor. We have to establish a chain of command and set a watc
h. If the Isopterans came once, they’ll come again. And we have to be ready when they do.”

  “Would you like help, Gunny?” Ariel Summers asked.

  “Actually, I need you to do an inventory of the munitions here in this building,” Gunny Tveit said. “Find out what we’ve got and move it all up. We’ll make the top floor our headquarters and station people in the stairwells on the second floor.”

  “Yes, Sergeant,” Ariel said.

  “Dawkins, can you walk?” Gunny asked.

  “Sure, just not very far,” he replied.

  “Alright, come with me. We need to devise a strategy, and we’ll need to know exactly what happened here so we don’t repeat the mistakes that were made. Is everyone clear about their assignments?”

  “Yes, Sergeant,” the other team members said.

  “Good, let’s do our job. Then we’ll see what we can do for Nick.”

  “If he’s even still alive,” Ember said.

  “Don’t give up hope, Gracie. Nick’s resourceful,” Gunny Tveit said, even though she felt certain that they would never see Nick again. Still, a tiny part of her wanted to believe that he could somehow survive and rejoin them. Hope, it seemed, didn’t want to die.

  Chapter 33

  Nick came to in darkness, but fortunately his helmet was still functional. His entire body hurt, as if he’d been kicked and dragged for miles. He lay curled on his side, and even with his helmet’s night vision he couldn’t see, like he was enclosed in a tight space.

  His first thought was to try the GPS program. He didn’t want to move in case it might alert his captors. Nick had no illusions that he wasn’t in grave danger. There was no way of knowing how far the Isopterans had carried him or how deep he was in their hive. The GPS program came to life on his HUD, but after searching to connect for several seconds with the orbiting satellites, the program failed to connect.

  Next, he tested his com-link, but it, too, could not reach out of the nest of the alien creatures. He remembered seeing the Proxy captives stored in honeycomb-shaped pods at the bottom of the deep trench. Perhaps he was in the same place. He sincerely hoped not, since fighting his way out of such a place would be almost impossible. He had drawn those creatures up through one of the narrow tunnels, but only his sidearm had kept them from catching him.

  Nick’s right arm was pinned beneath him and completely numb. He hoped it was from lying on it and not because it was broken. With his left hand, he slowly felt his waist. The ammo belt was still there. He felt the hard outline of an ABR magazine. He didn’t still have the rifle, but if they left him the ammunition, it was possible he still had his pistol. Moving slowly, he shifted his arm back and tried to roll onto his back. Something firm behind him kept him from moving that way. It was soft enough to give him the impression of organic matter, not just rock. That, he decided, did not bode well. He hadn’t really thought that they would just discard him, but he didn’t want to be trapped in one of the storage pods either.

  Moving forward felt riskier, but he had to do it. If for no other reason than to get his weight off his right arm. He wasn’t able to move far before encountering the membrane. He was certain that was what it was. His vision was solid green, like he was covered over with something, but he was able to see his hand, which meant the helmet wasn’t disabled. He was just trapped in a very small space, but the membrane was flexible.

  Fear that the aliens might see him pressing on the membrane made him feel weak. Although why they would wait for him to be conscious to do whatever they planned to do to him made little sense. Nick did his best to remember that he was dealing with an alien species, and that if they reasoned at all, it was probably so different from his own that he couldn’t make sense of it. The only thing he could do was try to escape, and short of that seemingly impossible goal would be to take as many of the aliens down with him as he possibly could when he died.

  His left arm reached down and found his holster. Hope glowed to life like the embers of a dying fire when his fingers felt the cold metal of his sidearm. He had a weapon, and that fact changed things. His HUD showed that his armor was intact. There were minor injuries, small lacerations between the segments of his armor, and some bruising, but no broken bones. His situation was improving.

  He ran his hand along the small of his back and found, to his delight, the four concussion grenades he had picked up in the mining facility. The D-Garr combat knife was still in its sheath, and a little more checking showed that his karambit was right where it was supposed to be as well.

  Nick knew that if he was going to get free, he would have to restore the blood flow to his right side, which meant shifting. He couldn’t roll forward or back, but there was just enough room that if he could lift his body, he could twist around. His small prison was round, and there was room above him. When he shifted and twisted, he ended up on his back, with the honeycomb-shaped compartment gently curving upward. Nick could see more and his body felt instantly better, although his right side tingled and stung as the blood began to return to his arm and shoulder.

  Nick reached up and couldn’t touch the top of the compartment he was in. After giving himself some time to recover, he drew his sidearm and checked the weapon. It was loaded and ready to fire. He was careful to keep his finger off the trigger. The last thing he needed was to accidently shoot the pistol and alert his captors that he was trying to escape. Stealth was his biggest advantage. The Isopterans thought he was neatly tucked away with no hope of escape, but he would prove to them how wrong they were.

  With his left hand, he drew his karambit. The small, curved blade was razor sharp on both sides, the point as deadly as a tiger’s claw. He pressed it lightly on the membrane cover that held him in the honeycomb. The blade punctured the thick, rubbery substance. No light came in, but sound did. Nick could hear chattering and clicking. He wasn’t sure if it was the sound of the aliens moving around, or the way they communicated, but it sounded as if there were a lot. Not that he had expected that the aliens had left him alone to break free with little resistance.

  He sat and waited. Was it night? Would the creatures sleep? If he waited, would he waste his chance of getting out? There were too many unknown variables to consider and not nearly enough information to make a good decision. He would just have to do his best.

  Stealth was his first course of action. If it was possible to sneak away from the aliens, he would do that. If not, he would go out in a blaze of glory, but he tried not to think of failure. Fear made Nick feel weak. He didn’t want to think about dying. It was a terrifying prospect, especially when Nick had so much to live for. He didn’t want to leave his friends short-handed. And when he thought about Ember, his eyes watered. What a fool he had been, he thought to himself. Why had he waited so long to let himself feel love for the one person he desired the most? It was because he thought he had time. It had felt like they had nothing but time when they were stuck slaving away in the Unskilled Labor Union on Earth. He has squandered his chances, and there had been plenty, to tell Ember that she was the one he wanted above all others. She would probably never know how he really felt, and that thought filled him with a burning desire to escape the aliens and get back to her no matter what it took.

  Nick cut a little more on the membrane, and the rubbery substance began to pull apart. What started as a three-millimeter slit, pulled itself to a gash over fifteen centimeters. The membrane, under tension, was tearing itself apart and also losing the rigidity it had at first. Nick shifted, trying to see out of the opening, but his helmet picked up almost nothing. It was tempting to turn on his helmet’s LEDs just so that he might see what he was dealing with, but that would alert the aliens for certain. He had used that tactic when causing a diversion and knew the aliens could sense light.

  The one small victory in his favor was the fact that the membrane made no noise as he cut through it. Using the karambit, he slipped the blade down along the original cut and left the rubbery cover dangling like curtains. He stuck his hea
d out slowly, expecting to see the aliens rushing toward him. Instead, the murky night vision revealed an empty space. He was close to the ground, and not far away was the large, swollen egg sack of the queen. The largest of the Isopterans, the queen was mounted higher up what looked to be a trench in the rock. Nick had to crawl partially out of his honeycomb and turn to look upward. The queen was enthroned on a web of the membranes that covered Nick’s pod. Beyond her, there were hundreds, maybe thousands of the Isopterans.

  The aliens covered the walls of the trench, crawling up and down as they moved over and around each other. Simply climbing up to escape would be impossible, Nick realized. He needed another plan. He crawled out of his cell but remained kneeling by the honeycomb. It was a meager safety, but like a child with a blanket, Nick felt better knowing he could crawl back inside his cell if the aliens came for him.

  The walls of the trench were the same craggy material the spires on the surface of the world were made of. Nick knew he could climb up, but he couldn’t see the point of trying. There was no way past the horde of aliens. Even with his pistol and extra ammunition, he couldn’t fight his way free. There were simply too many of them. Eventually, they would overrun him, and while the thought of killing the aliens was appealing on some level, Nick still didn’t want to die. His desire to live refused to be ignored. He knew there had to be a better way out, some way to solve the problem his eye revealed. And then, like the answer to his unspoken prayers, he saw it. A creature that was larger than those above, but smaller than the queen, came trundling out of a hole in the wall. It appeared slowly, at first just the massive head, then the segmented body. It crawled out and up the wall, moving closer to the queen, who moved slightly in response.

  There were holes, tunnels that could possibly lead to the surface, Nick realized. It was his best chance at surviving. All he had to do was climb up to the tunnel without being seen. The larger creature was familiar to Nick. Not the individual alien, but the type was the same as those that had burrowed under Nick and taken him captive. He surmised that the smaller aliens were the unskilled workers, the drones, so to speak. And the larger creatures were obviously the tunnelers, the architects of the hive. Understanding the aliens didn’t make Nick feel anything other than revulsion for them. They were large bugs, consumers that had devoured everything on their world until they were all that was left. It was disgusting and sad, but mostly, Nick just wanted to get as far away from the Isopterans as possible.