by Dan Decker
Was this nothing more than dinner time?
Jeffords took a left to steer clear of the incoming monster. Just before I followed him, I caught a glimpse of a soldier being pulled from the ground and chopped in half by the creature’s teeth. I sped by too fast to know if it ate him too. Soldiers fired their weapons into the massive abdomen of the beast as it went back up into the air. At first, I was cheered by the quick response, but as they fought, I realized that it was just like when they had fought the grenlings, this creature seemed to have a natural protection and bullets ricocheted off, flying in every direction.
Why don’t our guns ever harm the enemy?
As I ran behind a tent while following Jeffords, I caught a glimpse of the creature’s eyes as it came down in another dive—despite their insect-like appearance, their eyes did not look like insects—and something tickled my mind. I was unable to remember what it was but stopped thinking about it because I was too busy running to save my life. We were almost at the end of camp when Jeffords took a hard left towards a tent.
I was tempted to just go on ahead to meet up with the rest of my group, but I was curious about what could be so important to make him stop in the middle of all this. When I followed Jeffords into the tent, I was surprised to see a bunch of storage bins. I had just assumed he had gone into a barracks tent, guessing that Jeffords was taking something with him. He lifted up the lid of the closest crate and pulled out a rifle like the other soldiers had carried. It looked like something I might have seen back on earth, at least in concept, if not execution. It was recognizably patterned after a weapon that the U.S. Military had used. I believed the correct term was M-4 but could not be certain as I hadn’t paid attention to such things.
Jeffords scowled when he saw that I had followed him. “What are you doing here, Anders? You’re supposed to be heading to the south of camp as I ordered you.”
“Give me a weapon, sir,” I said with a straight face. Technically speaking, he was correct, I had disobeyed a direct order. I had not even thought about it because I just been following him while trying to understand what was going on.
He didn’t hesitate. “Take two. The ammunition is over there. Did you ever fire a rifle back on earth?”
I shook my head. “Not since scout camp.”
“This is nothing like that, and it is not as easy as the movies make it look, so I recommend you don’t try to shoot any of the lurkers.”
“Why haven’t you trained us on them before?”
“They weren’t scheduled for several more weeks. Do you have any more questions or should we get going?”
His sarcasm barely registered with me.
Several more weeks? In this environment?
With grenlings attacking every other day?
I shook my head and tried not to be irritated with the idiocy that seemed to surround me in this camp. Every time I turned around, I was convinced the decisions they made were geared more towards sending us to an early death than training us to fight in the supposed intergalactic war they had “recruited” us for.
I slung two of the weapons over my shoulder and found them light enough that I picked up another two, thinking I would pass out the extras to others of my team. It might earn me some goodwill, but I would not count on it.
The ammunition boxes were heavy. I hefted two of them and realized that I could probably take more if I had a way to carry them. After casting my eyes about, I found a bin of duffel bags and snagged one.
I threw in a bunch of the ammo containers and picked it up, or at least, I tried to. It was too much. I pulled out half of them, but it was still too much. Jeffords was already leaving and I did not want to get left behind. I took out another container and followed after Jeffords with the bag slung awkwardly from my shoulder.
I still didn’t know how we were going to escape, but I assumed we would fly out using our anti-grav boots after Jeffords activated them. It still puzzled me that Roth had not seemed to know what I was talking about when I had mentioned this to her.
Just one more of the many questions that keep popping up.
Most of our training squad was there waiting for us. I was number six, that just left three stragglers. I turned to face the camp as Jeffords nodded at the weapons I held.
“Give your weapons to the others.” Jeffords had taken an extra that he handed to Logan.
I unslung three of the rifles and handed them to the other men.
“All your weapons,” Jeffords said. “I don’t trust you. Scout camp, way back when, you say?”
“I saved your life. If you don’t trust anything else, trust that.”
Jeffords smirked. “You act like you did not hesitate. You wanted to leave me, hoping I would die. And don’t forget about your act of disobedience just now. You were ordered to come straight here, but instead, you took a side trip.”
I ground my teeth and was thinking about disobeying this order too when Jeffords got right in my face.
“Do it now or I will kill you right here, right now for treason. Nobody’s going to blink twice if you die in all this, you stinky mangy maggot.” He leaned forward. “I won’t have to tell them I killed you, not in all this.”
My insides turn to ice as I unslung the last weapon and thrust it out to one of Logan’s cronies who gratefully took it but who did not say thanks.
I clenched and unclenched my fists as I watched the men remove the magazines from the rifles and load the ammo while Jeffords showed them how to do it.
Treason?
Jeffords is the traitor. Roth ordered us to retreat.
I fumed in silence, watching as the battle engulfed our camp. It had only been half restored since the battle with the grenlings, and the enemy insects were making quick work of what was left. By my count, I figured there were more than thirty of them, with more still on the way from the two ships hovering above us.
The enemy stood eight feet off the ground with their large wings protruding behind their backs when not in use. Their heads were all covered in the same scaly material as the rest of the body. While they resembled insects, the scales made me think more of reptiles.
Their snouts were short, with their two eyes buried deep in the sides of their head. We were not close to any on the ground, so we were not in any immediate danger because of all the fighting soldiers in between them and us.
Once the others had loaded their weapons, Jeffords ordered us all into a line. I went to my place at the front.
“All right, you filthy maggots,” Jeffords said, yelling to be heard above the din of the battle. “This is your first taste of what it is we’re up against. Fortunately, for all of you, General Roth has ordered you not to participate in this battle. The weapons you have are a precautionary measure only. Do not use them under any circumstance unless you must save your life. Although these might look like something you used back on earth, I assure you that there are some intricacies you will not understand with just a glance. Again, I cannot say this strongly enough, you are not to use these weapons unless as a last resort.” He looked around. “Have I made myself clear, maggots?”
“Yes, sir,” we all said.
I stared on with thin lips, trying to understand what he was doing. He was not evacuating us as ordered, and while he might have been waiting for the stragglers, I doubted it. Instead, he was making us watch the battle while giving us loaded weapons and expecting us to do nothing.
Giving them loaded weapons.
One of the monsters went down, but I did not have an adequate vantage point to see how it was done, perhaps there was a place where their armor was weaker so the bullets could penetrate and kill.
“These lurkers,” Jeffords said, “are some of the deadliest creatures in the universe. Most of the soldiers you see out there fighting are going to die today. They caught us unaware, our soldiers are not properly armed and lack appropriate armor.”
Then why aren’t we evacuating?
Jeffords paced in front of us, his eyes angry. “Many good men and women
are going down. These are not the slow and dimwitted grenlings you fought yesterday. These creatures are fast and mean. They will eat you alive in one gulp if given a chance. If you’re still alive when you hit their stomach, they will start to digest you. It is not a pleasant experience. Word is that you can live for days before you finally die. I have seen soldiers rescued from the bellies of these beasts. All of them committed suicide rather than go on living.”
He stopped right in front of me.
“Do you have a problem, Anders?”
I shook my head, doing my best to keep the simmering cauldron from showing.
“No, sir.”
Jeffords stared at me for a long moment. “I don’t like your attitude, soldier. It’s time I punish you for your disobedience. Go take a lap.”
I stared.
He wants me to run in all this? I shook my head. Of course, he does.
I was surprised but should not have been. For a moment there, I had thought Jeffords and I would finally be on the same team because we were facing a terrible foe. I had even hoped that we might start to come to terms with one another as we worked to extricate ourselves from the situation so we could live to fight another day.
Yet, he was once again trying to send me to my death.
“Are your ears not working? Do you not understand the words coming out of my mouth, soldier? You rotting maggot puke ball of flesh better get moving if you know what’s good for you.”
I took a step forward and Jeffords acted as if he thought I was going to punch him—the thought had crossed my mind—but instead, I pushed past him in a flat out sprint, resigning myself to face the battle empty-handed while the rest of my team evacuated in my absence.
4
To: Brigadier General Forrest Brown
From: General Gregory Seed
Log date: 00429.211-08:19:11
Re: Planet B24-X52745
General Brown,
Those recruits are not trained for a full-scale invasion. I suggest you order an evacuation as soon as possible.
I want the recruits to live. I don’t care about the planet.
We can’t afford the setback their deaths would bring.
Respectfully,
General Gregory Seed
5
I assumed as I took those first few steps that Jeffords was going to leave while I was running my lap. I hesitated and thought about turning around to argue my case but knew it would do me no good.
If I was going to survive the situation, I had to do it myself.
“Get going, soldier!”
I glanced back and saw Jeffords had pointed his rifle at me, his finger was on the trigger and he already had his head down on it as he aimed for me, heedless of the other recruits that looked on.
Nevermind the fact that we’re under attack right now, I thought as I increased my speed, you choose to aim your weapon at me instead of the enemy.
A gust of wind nearly swept my hat off my head, which was saying something because it had managed to stay on through everything I done, all through my training exercises, and even those times I had jumped off the cliff into a ravine.
It secured into place after I jammed it back down. I couldn’t remember what I had done to loosen it, but I didn’t think of it again.
Jeffords would not have the slightest compunction against pulling the trigger. I hated how he always managed to put me in a situation where I had no choice but to do what he said because I would die if I didn’t and I’d probably die if I did.
Several steps later, I was running as fast as I could, far faster than anything I had ever done before as I was eager to put as much distance between myself and Jeffords so I could find a way out of this mess.
The heat of the day had increased in just the short time since the alien invasion had started and sweat dripped down the back of my neck and shirt. The air smelled like death, but I wondered if that wasn’t just my imagination.
I came around the tent and saw a group of dead men and realized the source of the stench.
I did not stop until I had gone around a curve of the camp and was no longer in Jeffords’ line of sight and beyond the dead soldiers. After that, I slowed but still kept a healthy pace while I racked my brain, trying to remember the location of the tent with all the weapons.
Unfortunately, I had been so distracted by everything else going on that I had not paid attention to where we were going. I had assumed that we would evacuate, so I hadn’t thought that I would ever need to go back there again.
That was my first mistake. I made an assumption. Never make an assumption, especially when Jeffords is around.
One of the lurkers landed a hundred feet in front of me.
I lurched to a stop on instinct but probably would have been okay to keep on going because it immediately hopped into the air and came down on top of a tent, crushing it like a tin can before it disappeared into the camp where I heard an uptick of gunfire.
I hesitated, trying to think of a better solution to this problem. Part of me wanted to cut through camp to see if I could bluff Jeffords on completing a lap, but something told me that he would know if I did and just punish me all the more, probably sending me to run multiple laps or order me to jump into a ravine again, while this time not engaging my anti-grav boots. He could get away with anything in this chaos.
It was an oversight for him to only order me to run one lap, probably because he had assumed that I would be killed on my way around.
I doubted he would make that mistake again.
He wanted me dead and was going to make sure it happened one way or another.
I looked suspiciously at my watch as I started running again, wondering what sorts of information it recorded about me.
I was perhaps a quarter of the way around the camp when a lurker came through a tent to my left like it was made of paper. This creature was a little smaller than the last and a darker shade of green.
A subspecies? Or just a younger version?
When it shifted, I caught a glance of its top and was surprised that it almost had a purple hue. Green all around and purple on top. I wondered if evolutionary factors had made it grow like that or if it was wearing some sort of protective covering.
I stopped just as my watch beeped, letting me know it was time to put on block. Stepping into the shadow of a tent, I pulled out my tube and applied it as fast as I could, leaving big smears on my face and hands.
The purple lurker was followed by several soldiers.
For a brief moment, the lurker studied me where I stood in the shadows. I figured I was a goner, even though it was still fifty feet ahead.
It opened its maw and roared but turned away and used one of its six legs like an arm, lunging forward to grab a soldier who was firing a weapon into its side. The lurker flung him back into camp like he was a ragdoll. I listened for the crash of his landing, but could not hear it through all the commotion. He had been high enough that I doubted he survived the fall.
Several more soldiers surrounded the lurker, maintaining its focus as their bullets pummeled its thick skin. Contrary to what I thought before, not every bullet was ricocheting off. Some were hitting their mark and penetrating, though there were still far more that bounced off. I started running again, careful to make sure the tube of block was secured in my pocket before I did.
It would be a terrible shame to survive all this and then die of a sunburn because I lost my block.
The lurker roared. Something about the way it stood and the sound it made tickled something in my mind again.
I’ve seen one before, but where?
Today was not the first time I had seen a lurker, though I could not say when I had. I certainly had never seen one on Earth and as near as I could remember, they had never shown us pictures of them here.
My heart beat faster than my feet as I ran, afraid that if the lurker in front of me didn’t get me, another would. It picked up another man and tossed him like he was a toy.
The soldier
was coming down in front of me, but at the last moment, he righted himself by activating his anti-grav boots and flipping upward in a maneuver that was both impressive and made my head spin. He stopped about ten feet above me while bringing his weapon to bear on the lurker and firing. A piece of spent brass hit the brim of my hat as I ran underneath him.
These lurkers make the grenlings look like child’s play.
I was not about to play the hero today, particularly when there were others who were far better suited and trained to the task. I had no weapon and I just wanted to leave as we had been ordered to by Roth, even though I knew the chances of that happening were slim.
If I do manage to get back to Jeffords, he will tell me to do something else if he hasn’t already left.
I needed another plan, but I couldn’t think of what to do, so I continued to run, fearing that each step would be my last.
Once I was past the lurker, I looked back, just to make sure it wasn’t following me. It had dispatched another of the soldiers, but several more had joined the battle. The man who had been in the air was back on the ground, firing at the creature.
Bright flashes came from the lurker—I could not see where they originated from—and all the men fell dead at once.
Stunned, I turned to run when the creature saw me.
It roared and chased after, the ground shaking underneath my feet as it moved.
Where did the flashes come from?
The lurker had no recognizable weapon. One moment those men had been alive, the next they had all been dead.
I look straight ahead at the empty wasteland in front of me.
I could not outrun it.
My only choice was to head back into camp and hope to distract it.
A thump came from behind that was accompanied by the wind of the lurker’s wings. When I glanced back, the creature was in the air, heading straight towards me. Flashes of light hit the ground all around me as I ran for the closest tent.
Being in the air might have given it a greater vantage point, but it also drew gunfire from other soldiers, which was probably the reason why the blasts had missed me. Even though it was now almost directly overhead, it received fire from at least six different directions, judging by the tracers I saw flying in the air as I glanced back right before I ran inside a tent.