Snake unhitched his rifle and slid into the opening. He grabbed the edge of the vent and pulled himself up, legs kicking against the wall, until he could slide himself inside. It was tight, barely enough room to fit in there, and certainly no way to turn around and retreat. This was a one-way path into the nest of the bug mother.
He switched off his headlamp. Pale light emanated from the end of the vent where it dumped into the machine room. Better to go in dark and not let the mother know that he was coming.
The vent stunk of bug. The walls dripped with ichor, and even in the gloom, he could see where bugs had traveled through this vent, their pincers gouging the sheet metal, fragments of shells littering the floor of the vent.
Snake pushed the gun along ahead of him, wiggling and squeezing his way through. Every scrape, every clatter of metal, every breath amplified in the tunnel and he could not but help think that his slightest movement and sound alerted the mother to his presence. He imagined her waiting on the other side of the vent, ready to slam his head to a pulp the moment he climbed out of the vent.
But there was no turning back now. Only one way to go. Only one path forward to save Engstrom.
He tried to imagine her kiss on his lips again, to give him extra drive, but he could not. His reconstruction of her disintegrated.
He stopped a foot from the end of the vent. The cover was missing and he could see clearly in the air vent room. He saw the still machines, the slimy walls, the pulsing black eggs, hundreds of them, on the floor.
But he did not see Engstrom or the mother.
Snake slithered forward. His fingers hooked the edge of the vent and he pulled himself into the room.
Where was she? He hoped his eyes would better adjust to the light but still the room was ruled by shadows.
He looked left and then right. She was not hiding in wait.
He inched forward until he extended out as far as his chest. He clutched the gun to his chest, pushed with legs, tucked his body, and tumbled out of the vent and onto the floor.
He hit the ground hard, and maybe should have been stunned, but his body surged with so much adrenaline that he did not feel any pain.
He slowly rose to his feet, gun in his arms.
This was it.
The end.
Hunting time.
Chapter Forty-One
SNAKE CROUCHED AGAINST the wall hiding in the shadows of the air vent room of the Poros, waiting. In the distance, he heard the klaxon blaring. He could not imagine that much time remained. Not before the reactor of the destroyer blew up.
Sweat dripped beneath his collar, soaked him beneath his shirt. Over the past several minutes, the temperature had seemed to rise. He knew it was not just his nervousness. The ship was heating up. The core was looping into itself. Time was running out.
He scanned the room where the bug mother had set up her nest. One of the eggs shook, its surface undulating. Ochre fluid spurted out the crown on top. Then an alien bug head burst out, mandibles clicking, claws tearing.
Snake squeezed the trigger of his rifle. The air cracked. The bug's head exploded.
Something separated from the deep shadows of the far wall. The mother. A wailing chittering echoed through the air vent room.
Snake fought a chill that threaten to unravel down his spin.
The mother retreated to the shadows. She froze. She disappeared.
Snake had not gotten a good look at her. He had only seen a shifting along the wall. He had a good sense of where she stood.
But he did know if the mother still held Engstrom. He was not going to shoot and accidentally hit Engstrom. Not after all they had gone through. All this would be for nothing then. He had not come this far, through such strife and trouble, to fail.
He scooted along the wall trying to get a better view but still he could not differentiate the mother from the shadows. Worse he could not tell whether she still held Engstrom.
The klaxon blared. Time was running out. He needed to so something.
He took another shot at one of the eggs. Again the splatter of fluid. Again the shifting in the shadows and the lowing noise.
Snake cursed. This was taking too long. He could pick off the eggs one by one and still the mother would not come out. He did not think that she would be smart enough. She was a bug. Maybe it was not a question of being smart. Maybe she was uncaring. Maybe it did not matter to her that her eggs and children were being destroyed.
But he knew better than that. Each time he shot and killed one of those bugs, she shifted against the wall, and she cried out. She did care. She did not want her children killed.
That meant Snake had a chance. He could draw her out. He just needed to do something spectacular. Picking off the eggs one by one was not enough to make her step into the light.
Snake toggled his gun to the flamethrower mode. It purred in his hands. He shook the gun slightly and heard the liquid slosh. Not a lot left at this point but hopefully enough.
He crept forward out of the shadows until the pale light from above lit up his skin. He was exposed now. The mother knew exactly where he was. She would be able to charge out and attack him.
He hoped for a second that she would, that making himself visible would be enough. But she did not come out of the shadows. He saw no movement at all. It was as if she burrowed even more deeply in the darkness.
"Come on out, you beast!" Snake called. "Play time's over. You should have just left us alone."
A mandible clacked in response.
"You won't come out on your own. Then let's see if you come out for this."
The gun rumbled in his hands. It had primed. He knew that with the amount of fluid still in the gun he would have only one chance for this. Then the mother would be on him. He would need to be fast.
He flicked on the pilot flame at the end of the gun, leveled it with the mass of eggs on the floor in front of him, and then squeezed the trigger. A stream of flame burst from the end of his gun. It poured out over the eggs, roiling, tumbling fire. The eggs lit up, bursting into flames. They sizzled and crackled. He heard the chittering screams of the babies still in the eggs and some of them broke free, not quite fully formed, their soft exoskeletons melting in the heat. Other eggs simply exploded. Ochre fluid exploding out of the leathery shells, the liquid steaming beneath the column of flames.
Snake stepped forward fanning left and right with the fire, sweeping over the eggs, his face pulled back in a snarl, his one good eye squinting against an almost unbearable heat that reflected back at him, making his face itch and ache.
But he kept firing. Beneath the whoosh and roar of the flames, the chittering bugs screamed, a high-pitched shrieking that made the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck stand up.
"Die, you cockroaches, die!"
He laughed as the eggs popped and sizzled. He would destroy them all. He would send them all back to the dark hole from which they had crawled out of.
And he would have but then the flames leaping from the tip of his gun sputtered and died. He cursed and shook the gun. One more fireball leapt out and then only a wisp of smoke.
He looked down at the gun and shook it, trying to slosh more accelerant into the firing chamber. It seemed useless.
An ear-piercing shriek made him straighten up and fire the spent gun. The mother burst out of the shadows, mandibles clacking, racing through the smoldering remains of her child. She lifted up on unfolding wings, crossed the distance in a heartbeat, and with a single swipe of her arm, hit Snake so hard that the gun flew from his hands and he was lifted off his feet and bounced off the wall.
He tried to pick himself up. He tried to orient himself in space. His hands felt around for the handles of his machetes but his belt had been torn off. His armor was half-ripped off and hung at an odd angle.
Before he could get to his feet, a giant pincer clamped around his waist, lifted him towards the ceiling, and then slammed him into the swampy mess of the liquefied eggs. He scuttled away on his
hands and knees towards where he did not know, but just away.
He did not get more than a few feet away when the pincer slammed into his side and sent him skidding to a jarring stop against the wall. Then he was lifted again and smashed against the wall, the floor, the wall again.
He tasted coppery blood in his mouth. He spit out a tooth. He wiped at the blood and ichor from his eye. He smashed against the wall again. Blinding pain raced through his shoulder. He sucked in a breath. Half a breath. If felt as if his ribs had collapsed inwards.
Then he was in the air, upside down, the pincers released from their crushing grip around his waist. For a second, he could breathe again, painfully but fully. Then he hit another wall. He blacked out for a second and when he could see again, he found himself crumpled against the floor.
He wiped his eye with the back of his wrist. He had no idea where he was in the room. Sea of ichor, the klaxon blaring, and the massive shape of the mother rising up in front of him consuming all his vision.
He pushed himself to his knees and then to his feet. The mother raised her pincer overhead and dropped it. The blow shook Snake through his bones and he crumpled to the ground. He forced himself to his hands and knees. He could not catch his breath.
The mother lifted her pincer again.
"Fried eggs!" He spit out blood and laughter. "I won!"
The beast unleashed an ungodly howl, and Snake braced for the final blow.
Instead, the mother froze mid-strike, her chest arcing towards Snake. She seemed to balloon for a moment, and then she exploded. Ichor and fragments of shells rained on Snake. He could not cover his face fast enough and fragments tore into his skin, pounded his skull. A shuddering flash of wind compressed him against the wall and the whole room lit up for a second.
He could see everything the swamp of ichor, the mother disintegrating before his eyes, his own hand, blood-soaked, raised up before him.
Then he was swallowed in complete darkness.
He heard the rattling sound of his own breath and a steady dripping. He wondered if this was it. Was this death? Did he finally escape living hell to settle into eternal hell?
A flicker of light. A single overhead neon light jarred back on.
Something stirred in the sea of ichor. A shape rose, blood- and gore-drenched.
Snake gathered his feet beneath him. One last battle. He was ready.
"Snake..."
Engstrom rose from the ichor. She wiped the blood from her lips, her teeth flashing a trembling smile. In one arm, she held her gun, still smoking, the gun that had blown the mother to kingdom come.
"Saved you again," she said. "Honestly, this is getting old. I thought you were supposed to be the hero."
He laughed, rushed to her, fell to his knees, got back up, and stumbled into her arms. Suddenly he was aware of the urgency of the klaxon. "Let's go. Let's get out of here."
Chapter Forty-Two
NOW WAS THE time to run.
Engstrom knew this. Now was the time to get back to the Phaeton.
The Poros's core was melting down on itself. Time was slipping away.
Engstrom stood in front of the solid wall of bug strands that blocked their exit back to the hallway and Snake's ship. He hacked at it with his machete. Small white chips flew over his shoulder. He was making progress but it was taking too long. They did not have the luxury of time.
"Step back," said Engstrom.
He turned to her, his face glistening in sweat, and he retreated from the wall.
Engstrom primed the gun and fired. A missile raced out the gun, knocking her back several steps. The wall exploded.
She grabbed Snake's hand and they ran.
The nightmare seemed never ending.
Even as they ran, after she had blown the mother into a million bloody bits, Engstrom could not help feel that they were not free. Not yet. She almost expected another mother to rise up out of the gloom before them.
The halls were thick with smoke, lit by the flashing emergency lights. The air was choking. Even as she ran, her throat burned and she coughed and hacked. But she knew they had to keep going.
"Do you know where we are going?" asked Snake. His face was covered in blood, a seeping gash cutting across his forehead. His single eye was bloodshot. Saliva stringed between his lips. As hard as he ran, he could not hide the severe limp.
He sagged with each step, and Engstrom shifted her hand and gripped him by the elbow, dragging him along.
"I'm slowing you down," he said. He stopped suddenly and vomited blood-streaked bile. He panted, staring at the floor, both hands on his knees. He looked up, face drawn and haggard. "Just leave me. Get to the Phaethon. Get the hell out of here. Save yourself."
She laughed. "Not without you. You fool." She tightened her grip on his elbow and yanked him back into a staggering dash. "You came back for me, and you think I'll leave you?"
He spoke through a ragged breath. "I came to save you. If you die now, because I'm too slow, it'll all have been for nothing."
She pinched the flesh above his elbow. "You're a drama queen, aren't you? Stop your whining and move your feet, soldier. I don't leave anyone behind."
"Even if it means your own death?"
"Move your feet!"
She pressed through the smoke and blaring, the lights clearly marking a pathway. But even so, she was disoriented. The smoke was so thick that it was hard to see where the intersections were.
She coughed. She lost her grip on Snake and he fell to his knees, hacking. She too collapsed. So much choking smoke. She pushed herself and Snake to the floor, where the visibility was slightly clearer. She sucked in air. Ash bit her throat, clogged her lungs. She pulled her shirt up over her mouth and nose. So hard to draw in even a single breath. Her lungs felt as if they were on fire, itching, constricted.
Her lungs bellowed but she barely could drawn any air in.
She could not give up now. She crawled forward, one hand pulling and urging Snake. He had slowed even more. He had tried to pull up his shirt over his face too but it kept slipping. With each passing second, he slowed down more and more until he was only inching forward despite her pulling and cajoling.
She tried to speak words of encouragement but she had no air for words, only for breathing. Even that was vanishing.
Her vision spotted before her. She needed to keep crawling. To stop was to die.
But her arms and legs failed to do what she asked of them. She rolled to her side so that she could face Snake. His eye was closed. His chest spasmed like bellows. She stretched out a hand, touched his lips hidden behind his shirt, and blinked at the tears in her eyes.
Then she heard them coming. A clattering. A chittering. Had the bugs found them? She wished the core of the Poros reached its boiling point. She wished the ship would explode. She wished all this would end.
A gloved hand separated from the thick smoke. She felt her head lifted and then a mask pressed over her face. Cold, pure oxygenated air raced into her lungs. She sucked at it greedily, her ribs and lungs swelling. The dark blotches retreated. The tears continued to run down her cheek.
An arm looped beneath her and she was pulled to standing, and then she was running down the hall again, through the dark swirling smoke, rounding one corner and then another, and then running down a straight away that seemed to last forever.
She slammed to a stop against a door. The docking door to the Phaethon.
The smoke here had thinned, and she saw next to her the face of Fifi, brow knit behind her helmet glass as she cranked at the handle and pushed Engstrom through the compression chamber and into the Phaethon.
Engstrom stepped into the ship, through wisps of smoke, heard the door slam behind her, and fell to the floor. Snake collapsed next to her, both of them stretching their hands for each other, fingers intertwining, too intent on drawing breaths to pull into each other's arms.
She heard the thudding of the external clamps releasing. The Phaethon shuddered as its engine blaste
d.
"Go, go, go!" screamed Crunch.
Engstrom wanted to rise. She wanted to help, but she could not move. Lying there on the floor not passing out was as much as she could do.
Fifi and Crunch spoke to each other in sharp, clipped tones. Engstrom could not make out what they were saying. She could not figure out why they were so worried.
Engstrom pulled herself up on her elbows to see the screen in the cockpit. She saw a feed of the Poros, alone against the stars. Then it exploded. The core finally melted down. Brilliant light flashed against the dark tapestry on which the stars nestled. She raised a hand to block the blinding light from the screen.
Then she heard the crack, and the Phaethon surged forward. Fifi screamed.
Engstrom held her breath for a moment, expecting the flames of the Poros to engulf them.
But that moment passed. The Phaethon shivered and rocked. An alarm blared. The AI issued a damage report.
They were safe. They had made it. They had escaped the Poros.
Chapter Forty-Three
"OUCH!" SAID SNAKE as Fifi bent over him positioning a field stitcher over the cut on his brow.
He sat in his chair in the cockpit of the Phaethon, dressed in clean blue gray coveralls, a towel draped around his neck. He had showered off the ichor and blood.
"Don't be such a baby," she said. The device hummed in her hands and he could feel the tiny brushes, needles, and threads doing their work. "You should be happy this is something we can repair out here. What if you lost a limb? Or you lecherous eye?"
"Ow!"
"We're almost done." Fifi pinched him hard and whispered into his ear. "You keep up all that whining and your girlfriend might start having second thoughts."
Snake looked over to where Crunch was similarly tending to a wound on Engstrom's shoulder. She saw him looking at him and she smiled.
"She's not my girlfriend," muttered Snake.
"You kiss all the soldiers like that. In all my days, I never thought I'd see the scoundrel Snake Walker turn into such a softie, but here we are. And falling for a marine who could probably chew you up and spit you out. This is almost comical."
Alien Infestation Page 22