by Michael Todd
“Just…shut up,” Kennedy snapped. “Fuck!”
Sal glanced at her quickly, alerted by the sharp edge to her tone. A scrape in the paint of her shoulder armor indicated that one of the bullets had struck her.
“If these motherfuckers aren’t in trouble, I’ll fucking kill them myself,” she snarled. With that, she adjusted her grip on her weapon and headed in. The animal sounds of rage and pain told him that whoever these people were, they actually were in trouble. He couldn’t tell if Kennedy was relieved or disappointed.
“Get ready for some action,” she said and leveled her weapon.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Unlike the animals that had attacked them at first, these appeared to be mostly reptiles teamed up with the massive grasshoppers. There were a couple that weren’t locusts, though, Sal realized. Not entirely, anyway. They had the same six legs and wings, but tails protruded from the back that made them look suspiciously like they might have merged with scorpions.
He shuddered because that was the last thing they wanted right now—the most numerous of aggressive creatures in the Zoo to suddenly grow pincers and poison-tipped stingers. Hell, knowing the kind of creativity with which these creatures were being created, maybe the pincers would contain poison too. Or they’d be tipped with acid, with their luck.
Sal held his weapon at the ready but made sure to record as much as he could of the tailed locust creatures before they were gunned down.
The animals seemed surprised with the sudden arrival of and attack by the four humans from behind, and after a brief battle, they backed away. Once the last scorpion-locust dropped, the remaining creatures quickly broke away and disappeared into the jungle again.
It wasn’t always easy to ensure that both teams’ lines of fire didn’t place each other in jeopardy. At one point, he was worried that Kennedy might try to shoot them on purpose if another round impacted her armor. He knew that it had to hurt, but more importantly, Boulos would charge them through the nose to have the dents removed.
Sal looked around once the animals were all dead or had retreated. He could say with some degree of certainty that the party that they had saved were Russian, or at least equipped by them. He didn’t give it too much thought, though, as he quickly applied his scalpel to collect the stingers of the new creatures as well as samples of the poison.
Kennedy moved in closer to the men. “Hey there. Correct me if I’m wrong, but are you guys from the Russian base?”
A couple of them responded in a different language that definitely wasn’t Russian before one of them came forward.
“We are from the Russian base, yes,” the man said, but his accent sounded South African. “We really appreciate that you lot stepped in and helped us out like that. We’ve run from what looks and feels like the same group of animals for days now. They’ve backed away and given us some breathing space, but they always come back harder than before. It felt like this time, they might have had us. We really appreciate the assist.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Sal said, “but Gregor said that it was mostly hyenas and panthers that attacked you when he was separated from the group.”
“Gregor is alive?” the man asked and looked shocked.
“I’d say alive and well, but he sustained some injuries and a destroyed suit that required us to evacuate him to the Staging Area,” Sal said. “He thought that you were all either dead or merely assholes who left him behind.”
“Well, that’s some very serious language from him,” the man said. “But we’re glad to hear that he’s alive. He ran our little team and kept a lot of us alive throughout the run.”
“Well, I’m Sergeant Kennedy,” she said and stepped into the conversation. “This is Corporal Ito and Corporal Carson. This is Salinger Jacobs, our specialist. Who are you guys?”
Sal studied the five men, including the one who had spoken to them. With the heavy helmets and armor, it was difficult to make out anything else about them, except that one had to be a medic since he knelt beside another. The patient lay on the ground with the left leg of the armor removed for treatment of what looked like a very serious wound.
“My name is Janko de Beer. These men are Kotze, Lutz, and Malan. The young man you see on the ground is Solaratov, the only other Russian assigned to our team,” Janko said. One of the others whom he’d pointed out as Malan looked up from where he treated the Russian’s leg.
“What happened to him?” Sal asked and moved closer.
“One of those new insects with the stingers managed to get some of the poison through a crack in his armor and under the skin,” Janko said quickly. “Malan is our medic, but since there hadn’t been any encounters involving venomous creatures, we didn’t think to bring any anti-venom with us.”
Sal moved to where Malan worked. “I don’t have much experience,” Sal said, “but if there’s anything you might need from our medical pack, it’s all yours.”
Kennedy nodded. “I’d suggest that we move on before those animals attack again. I doubt that they’re finished. If you follow us, we know somewhere with some open ground for us to set up decent defensive positions.”
Janko nodded and barked orders to his men as Sal helped them to get Solaratov onto an improvised stretcher made from the tarp from their tents and the poles used to erect them.
Madigan had said that they were four or five klicks away from the Pita plants that they had headed to all day, and it took them almost an hour to cover that. By the time they finally set the stretcher down, the sun had already begun to set. Sal knew that because, unlike the last bushes they’d made camp next to, the trees seemed to avoid this group. It was larger than the last, although it had considerably fewer flowers. Or maybe the same number of flowers, but spread over more plant.
“There’s a clear line of sight, so it should be easier to defend,” Kennedy stated. “What’s the situation with the wounded man?”
Sal looked up. The Russian had passed out during their walk, so he felt better about talking about him while he was present.
“It has reacted like some sort of hemotoxin, and I see a lot of neurotoxin activity too,” he said and assisted Malan to settle the wounded man as comfortably as possible.
“So…it’s a locust with a scorpion’s tail that injects rattlesnake venom?” Kennedy asked and shook her head. “It would be shorter to list the kind of shit that the Zoo doesn’t throw at us.”
“Can you help him?” Janko asked. He looked genuinely concerned.
Sal opened his mouth to respond, but the medic, Malan, answered before he could. His accent was harder to make out, though, like he’d learned English as a third or fourth language.
“The venom is too deep in his system now,” Malan rasped. “It’s already started to degrade the muscle tissue in his foreleg and thigh. Even if we had some anti-venom for this particular sting, he might still lose the leg, if not his life.”
Kennedy looked pointedly at Sal and gestured with her head for him to follow her a short distance away so that they could talk in private.
“Why don’t you do that thing with the Pita flowers that healed my leg all the way back when?” she asked. “I mean, I realize that there’s no certainty that it’ll work when it comes to this new kind of fun and adventure, but there can’t be any harm in trying, right?”
Sal shook his head. “It could take me hours to distill enough to heal that much damage. And by that time, it won’t matter anyway. I…I do have something that might help, though.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Really? What?”
“Well…it’s a company secret,” Sal said and scrunched his face. “Something that I’ve sat on for a while that we might be able to sell for a good price. I’d normally simply do it, but since we’re partners in this, I thought I should run it by you first.”
“If it’ll save this guy’s life, I say go for it,” Kennedy growled. “But try to make sure that they make some sort of verbal agreement about how we can sue if they try t
o steal it or something.”
“I’ll take care of it,” he said and moved quickly to where he’d left his pack beside the stretcher. He rummaged through the bag for a few moments in irritation. Of course, the damn thing would have to be all the way at the bottom for the very obvious reason that it would be difficult to find. That caution had backfired a little right now, he realized, but still.
Kennedy narrowed her eyes when he returned with a syringe with ‘Madie’ written on the side, but he put that aside for the moment.
“Look, we have something that might help,” he said to the rest of the men. “But since we’re freelancers, it’s a trademarked formula. We’ll need a verbal agreement from you that you won’t try to replicate it if it works.”
“What if it doesn’t work?” Malan asked.
“Well, I doubt you’ll want to replicate it then anyway,” Sal said. “I know it might not be published in any peer-reviewed journals, but I’ve tested it before on the sergeant, and it works to help repair damaged tissue.”
“It’s not like we have a lot of options out here,” Janko said. “If it helps, we will make sure not to cause any problems for your freelancing team.”
Sal noted that the man made no such promises if it didn’t work, which was a source of concern when it came from an almost two-meter tall Adonis, but he couldn’t worry about that at the moment. He had a life to try to save.
The syringe contained what he planned to take himself over the duration of the trip, but with a life in the balance, it seemed like a fair enough trade.
He shook his head and turned his attention to the man’s leg. The skin was mostly gone, or if it was still there, it had been blackened beyond recognition by the venom. He continued to search and finally managed to find the spot where the venom had been injected. Carefully, he slipped the needle into the same place and pressed the plunger. It had taken almost a full week to carefully extract the stuff milliliters at a time to get as much as he had in the syringe, and it disappeared depressingly quickly. He couldn’t see any immediate reaction, but the goop was in there. He watched the wound attentively for a few seconds and the goop didn’t come out again, so at least the body hadn’t rejected it.
“Is something supposed to happen?” Janko asked and peered over Sal’s shoulder.
“It takes medicine a while to work,” Malan said. “Have some patience, and we will check on his status later.” He looked at Sal to confirm that this was indeed the case.
“I do remember that it started slowly,” Sal replied with a nod. “Give it a few hours.”
“In the meantime, let’s set up some defenses,” Kennedy suggested in a voice that was more a command. She checked her weapon and looked around. “I’m uneasy about how long it’s taken these creatures to go on the offensive again. When they wait this long, it usually means that they’re getting ready for a knockout punch.”
The other men nodded, which indicated that they had at least some knowledge of English. Or maybe the concept of ‘get ready, we’ll be fighting soon’ transcended the language barriers. Sal stood from where he knelt beside the litter, but she waved him off.
“It’s best if you keep an eye on how our Russian friend is doing since you’re the closest thing we have to an expert in all this goop…stuff.”
It seemed like they were back to the silent treatment after that. He wasn’t sure what it was that he’d done this time, but he was sure that it was better to talk about this when they weren’t surrounded by foreign mercs and animals that wanted to get intimate with the taste of their collective bone marrow.
Sal nodded and dropped to his haunches. He watched as they set up some motion sensors at the perimeter. Cover didn’t matter unless they had to deal with something that could shoot projectiles, and it was better to keep a clear line of sight on all sides to make sure that they didn’t get caught unawares.
As the sun finally set in full, they all wisely decided to keep the heating lamps in their packs. Virtually everyone would keep their suits on, and after some discussion with the men equipped with Russian gear, it was clear that everyone had something to protect them from the elements. Besides, they didn’t want anything to interfere with their night vision when they expected a fight.
“So…why did these creatures attack you anyway?” Sal asked. “They aren’t usually this determined to kill people unless you do something to piss them off—like try to pull one of the Pita plants or kill one of the big creatures.”
“You mean one of those big dinosaur monsters?” Malan asked and looked up.
“I see you’ve been introduced,” Sal said with a small, apologetic smile. “Yes, yes, I do mean the big dinosaurs.”
“One of them attacked us,” Janko growled. “When we killed it and tried to move on, the creatures swarmed us.”
“Well, if you get the chance, you might want to keep a mental note of where you killed it,” Sal said. “You can find some sacs right near the medulla that go for a hefty price on whatever market that you guys run on.”
“It’s mostly the Russian government,” Janko said with a grim smile. “They don’t really trust the corporations to get their hands into the dirty business.”
“Yeah, because the Russian government is the paragon against corruption,” Malan added with a smirk.
“If you guys are done being political, some of the motion sensors have gone off,” Kennedy warned and raised her weapon to aim toward the jungle. A few seconds later, they could hear the tell-tale chittering of the locusts. As his night vision-motion sensor vision kicked in, he could see that they were surrounded by a veritable horde of them, with more than a few scorpion tails in evidence.
“I don’t suppose you have more of that blue stuff on you, do you, Jacobs?” Kennedy asked.
“Nope.”
“Well, I suggest that everybody avoids those damn scorpion stings.”
“I’d say that’s probably a good call.” He retrieved his weapon and stood over Solaratov while the rest of the squad, including Ito and Carson, formed a staggered circle around them. They were all dressed in the same kind of armor, so aside from Malan, who was the medic, Sal couldn’t tell if any of the Russian team were specialists.
It didn’t matter now anyway.
It took the locusts a few minutes to gather what Sal assumed was the courage to charge at the group, but the night filled rapidly with the sound of gunfire. Even in the dark, he could tell who was shooting by the different sounds of the rifles. The Russian rifles had a loud clatter. He didn’t know enough about weapons to have any real opinion, and he was sure that weapons weren’t usually purchased by how pleasant they sounded. It wasn’t like the eardrum-shattering noise would ever be a priority.
Sal heard the now familiar growl of one of the panthers a few seconds before it broke through the line of fire. It seemed that it either didn’t want to get tangled with the locusts on the ground or was maybe smart enough to use them as meat shields. Exoskeleton shields?
Not the time, Sal, not the time.
He raised his weapon and realized that the rest of the team had their hands full with the horde that surrounded them and were unable to deal with the one that got through. Sal fired a couple of shots into the creature and scored a round to the shoulder and another to the neck. It emitted a gurgled roar before it dropped to the ground and its blood soaked into the dirt.
Malan spun and looked for whatever it was that Sal had shot at. As he did, the locusts surged and three of them powered past him, knocked the medic to the ground, and tried to attack the team from behind. Sal kept his weapon leveled and opened fire. The massive gun kicked into his powered shoulder. Six shots blasted through the creatures and opened massive, smoking holes in their bodies as the other man quickly regained his feet.
A pinged thumbs-up appeared in his HUD. Malan nodded as he moved into his position in the line. It didn’t matter, though, since for the moment it seemed like the locusts had decided to retreat. They backed away quickly, and their mandibles chattered
incessantly almost like they were talking.
“Well,” Sal said softly, “it looks like they’re done for the night.”
“Agreed.” Kennedy paused to glance at each member of the group. “Do you guys think we should set up camp for the night, or should we get moving again?”
“Neither,” Janko responded immediately. “From this location, we can send a signal to the base to send a pick-up team.”
“Really?” she asked. “Do you guys get radio signals around here?”
“Not exactly,” he said with a small smile and drew a flare gun from his pouch.
“Low tech,” Sal said, impressed. “Respect.” He stopped when she looked at him with a small smile on her face. “I can’t pull that off, can I?”
“Not even remotely, sorry,” she replied, her smile now apologetic. She focused on a quick weapon check and refilled the mag. “So, how do we call in a pick-up team?”
“Like so.” Janko raised the flare gun and fired. For a split second, Sal was almost blinded by the brightness of the flare. It reached its peak after a couple of hundred meters of flight, erupted into an even brighter explosion, and sailed slowly down to the ground.
“So…you simply hope that someone will look at the sky at the right moment?” Sal asked, a little confused by the logic of it.
“Firing this flare activates a GPS beacon that leads them to our location,” the man explained with real amusement at the scientist’s astonishment. “Given where we are, it might take them a couple of hours to get out here. Until then, we wait and maintain the defense. On the other hand, how is Solaratov?”
Malan moved to where the Russian still lay on the stretcher. “It looks like his fever broke. And the discoloration from the hemotoxin seems to have receded as well. It’s too early to tell if he’ll make a full recovery, but the signs are good.”
Janko grinned. “Well…that’s some impressive shit, Jacobs.”
“Thanks,” he responded with a smirk.