by Dan Decker
They moved with us. This still wasn’t much of a problem because we were out of distance of their clubs. Unless they started throwing them like missiles, we’d be okay. And even if they did, it shouldn’t be too hard to dodge them. They did not have a good position on the rockface to throw the clubs like they had back in camp.
“How worried should I be?” I asked.
Roth didn’t answer, but her lips had formed a thin concentrated line.
I had thought that the club strapped to their backs were their only weapons, but I now saw slings as well. One of the nearby grenlings stopped moving and held on with a clawed hand while using the other to spin a sling with a rock the size of a boulder. That grenling was soon joined by five more.
Roth increased her speed but only by a small margin. I wanted to just shoot up to the top of the cliff, but maintained my course, trusting that she knew what she was doing and that my desire to just haul up to the top was dangerous.
A hail of rocks came our way.
Roth didn’t budge, so I maintained my position as well, bringing up my hands and batting away the first couple boulders until there were too many to protect against all of them. Most bounced harmlessly off my suit, but one large one knocked me back, almost sending me careening into the rock wall behind us. I managed to shake it off, just like when I had run into the cliff wall in my fight with the lurker. The damage was slight and I was soon back on course beside Roth.
The grenlings called out, saying something that I could not understand. To my ears, it sounded like a bunch of growls and groans, but to somebody trained in such things, they might have appeared to be communicating in a language of some sort.
During our battle with the grenlings at camp, I hadn’t heard them do anything other than roar. Even though I could not make out individual words, I figured that what we heard was the precursor of a developing language for these people.
“Are you sure we shouldn’t just speed up?” I asked.
“We’ll be fine. Sticks and stones we can deal with. If we show up and the lurkers are waiting for us, things will be much worse.”
I shook my head and muttered something inaudible.
“What was that?” Roth asked sharply.
“Nothing.”
Another barrage of boulders came our way, I kept a vigilant watch this time, using my feet to skate out of the way while knocking as many away with my hands as I could, but just like before, I was unable to keep them all from hitting me. Several hit my head, and while it did not hurt, the effect was jarring.
“Stop fighting them so much,” Roth said as an unusually large boulder bounced off her head. She appeared to be just fine. “The suit protects us. The bigger concern we have right now is what we do when we get to the top. We need a way to keep them from following us.”
A large stone hit me in the chest and sent me back into the cliff wall behind me, but I soon regained my balance and maintained my course with Roth. She had been dealing with the boulders too, but I received the brunt of it.
She probably feels the same way.
I shook my head and blinked my eyes to clear them as a new attack began. The grenlings were now gathered and calling at us in frustration, a sort of chant forming that I was sure could be heard from Camp Myers. Their calls grew louder, and I feared the lurkers might come to investigate.
“If they would just leave us alone, I wouldn’t hurt them,” Roth said, more to herself than to me. “They are going to make us fight them.”
“Are these suits equipped for us to fight them in hand-to-hand combat?” I asked, unable to keep the sarcasm from showing.
She just grunted in response, apparently not appreciating my attempt at levity.
“I did not expect so many,” she said at length. “I think we approached this wrong. We should have just shot up the cliff and hoped to be well past it before the grenlings came up.”
“It’s not too late—”
Apparently, Roth was thinking the same thing, because she pushed her toes down and shot up fifty feet before readjusting. I did the same. We managed to get ahead of the grenlings, but only for a few moments. I was surprised she’d only gone so far, instead of the whole way, but before I had a chance to ask her about it, Roth repeated the maneuver, leaving me to catch up. This gave us a little bit of lead on them, one which they quickly closed.
We were fifty feet down from the top of the cliff when Roth came to a halt and turned to me. “We have a dilemma. I can burn enough of these suckers away in a couple minutes to send them all running, but we have a policy to not bother them unless they engage with us. Technically speaking, yes, they are following us, but we stirred them up.”
“You want to avoid killing them?” I was surprised at her discretion as she nodded.
“Yes, but I don’t see another way around it. If we cross the top of the cliff and they follow, that will only draw the lurker’s attention.”
“We could outrun them before we go over,” I said, pointing to our right. The canyon opened up in that direction, if we went over that way and then shot up, we might get ahead of the grenlings.
“Nice thinking, newbie. It’s worth a try.” Roth flew to the right as a chorus came up from the grenlings. I followed right after her.
37
Roth increased her speed, going as fast as she had before we reached the mountain range. I was just about ten feet behind her, keeping pace while feeling like we were in a race through a canyon with wild animals chasing us. We left the grenlings behind when we went around a turn. Our plan was working.
“Are we ready to go over?” I asked, looking at the wall to our left and thinking that now was the best time to do it.
“It was a nice thought, but we are going to have to fight our way through.”
It took me a moment to realize what she meant. Hundreds of grenlings were in the canyon ahead of us, those on ledges wielded their clubs or readied their slings.
“How can there be so many in such a small space? What do they even eat?” I shook my head. “Should we keep on going and hope we can outrun them?”
“Unfortunately, that’s not gonna work. The canyon ends just up there, you can’t see it yet, but I’ve flown over here before, we have maybe another half mile. One way or another we’re going up, I will give it a little bit longer to see if we can outrun these guys, but I think we’re just gonna have to fight them until they back off.”
“A flick of our feet and we’ll be higher than they could ever go.”
“Negative. We are not going to risk that. As much as I don’t want to send a bunch of these guys to their deaths, that’s exactly what we have to do.”
I let out a sigh, surprised at how adamant I felt about protecting the grenlings despite the way that they had ransacked our camp the day before. “Okay, let’s give it a little longer.”
Thirty seconds passed and even though we were moving along at quite the speed, it was clear that there were just too many grenlings about. Maybe we had stumbled upon a yearly gathering.
“Are you ready to fight?” Roth asked me.
I didn’t relish the idea of more hand-to-hand combat, even with the incredible suit. I imagined them all piling on top of me and taking me captive.
“Any chance you can give me something to actually kill these creatures that doesn’t take five seconds?”
Roth just grunted. “On the count of three, we stop and engage.”
“One.”
We zoomed through the canyon as the number of grenlings seemed to grow, the chant had been taken up by all. I could not tell if the ones that had chased us had caught up, because they would have been lost in a sea of their people.
“Two.”
I shook my head, wondering exactly how Roth was going to fight these creatures, but she never got to three. From the cliff on our right, no fewer than a dozen leaped from up above us, several throwing their clubs, making both of us take evasive action so we did not get hit.
One club came within two inches of my face while I had bee
n moving to escape another. It had been going fast enough that I was glad I had not found out if the suit would turn it away.
On instinct, I spread my feet and went down, increasing in speed just like I had with the lurkers before, only this time I did not have as far to fall, I would have to pull up soon. I outpaced the grenlings that aimed for me.
As I came out of my fall and skated forward, I noticed that the closest to me had wings like that of a gliding squirrel and had turned to chase after me.
Are the wings a feature of their suited armor?
I studied one that glided by that was unable to get to me. I decided my assumption was correct. Just like they were covered in armor, some had suits that were made to fly. When I caught a glance of another flying grenling, I realized the armor they wore appeared to be something other than metal.
Leather?
I couldn’t tell.
I just could not believe they had not considered them sentient creatures.
Cursing, I changed my direction and shot back towards the grenling, hoping that I could overshoot it before it got to me. It did a somersault in midair and then impossibly reversed course, though not with as much skill as a lurker.
I could take out a lurker, they were far more advanced.
How much harder can a grenling be?
I gritted my teeth.
It’s just difficult because they were impossible to fight yesterday. My paradigm had not shifted as easily as I had put on the suit.
I can do this.
Five seconds later, I changed course again and ran into a grenling. It lashed out, its claws wrapping around me as if I were a child, but doing no harm because of the suit. This was once again a weird phenomenon because it felt like I was in my own body, not the suit. There was pressure on my skin where the grenling’s claws touched me, but it seemed to just be an indicator that something was touching the suit.
The grenling was more than double my height and broader as well, though not by much. It was lithe while my suit was thick and sturdy, I did not have a clear view of its clawed hands, but it did not look like they wrapped all the way around me. On instinct, I reached up and pushed its head with one of my hands because it was about to take a bite of me, even though I knew there was a helmet between me and the grenling. I brought up my other hand, punching the creature’s side and then pulling the trigger.
If the grenling had known what I was up to, it would have pushed me away; instead, it maintained its hold with one claw while trying to get at me with the other.
It was a strange mid-air battle as the anti-gravs kept me in the air and upright, but the forward motion of the grenling sent us backward. If it had not been for my weapon, I would have been using the anti-gravs to escape. Instead, I wanted to be as close to this creature as I could to maintain the requisite hold for five seconds.
When I hit the count of five, the effect was instantaneous. Its fur caught fire, the insides of the grenling gurgled and then blew out the other side opposite of my hand, splattering me with blood while killing the creature. The grenling released its hold and fell to the canyon floor.
I can’t believe this suit was underneath our camp the entire time we fought the grenlings and that nobody bothered to bring it out. I expected the reason was that they didn’t want to expose us to the suits yet or because they wanted to give us a real-life battle situation as practice.
Regardless, it was reckless they had not handled that situation better.
A large rock bounced off my suit, and I turned to see that the source was a grenling who had flown by and flung it with a sling. Like before, I could feel the pressure on my skin where the rock had hit. I recognized it as a response from the suit to indicate what had happened, not something that was specifically caused by the actual rock.
More rocks were thrown my way, but I ignored all of them unless they got too big. The suit was made to withstand them, and I took full advantage of that protection.
I pushed down with my toes and shot up. When I saw another grenling, I aimed my weapon but was unable to get a fix on it for as long as required.
Not knowing what else to do, and not seeing Roth because of the other flying grenlings that swarmed around us, I charged the closest grenling, latched on, and repeated what I had just done, sending it down to its death. More rocks came my way, and even a club or two, but that was not as common. While I watched, a grenling leaped onto a ledge, scooped up a large rock that it put into a sling, and then jumped off again, heading towards me.
Rather than skate out of the way, I pointed my weapon directly at it and slowed to maintain my aim. Five seconds later, it rippled, and a blast came out of its back. It flew forward but not for long, soon losing control and toppling down into the ravine.
That one had looked younger than the others. I felt a flash of remorse for what I had done, but another grenling came whizzing by, keeping me from focusing on it.
It was an interesting experience to fly with the grenlings because they were not nearly as skilled as the lurkers.
The lurkers had been flying since the day they were born, whereas the grenlings had learned to use their flight suits in the same way I had learned to use mine.
And their technology is not nearly as advanced.
Two down, dozens more to go, I thought as another dozen flying grenlings jumped from the canyon walls on either side of me. It appeared that their strategy was to attack with brute force, kind of like how they had attacked the camp.
“Roth, where are you?”
There was no immediate answer, and for a moment, I wondered if maybe something had happened to her.
“The question is, where did you go?” Roth asked me a moment later.
“I’m deep in the canyon, with these flying grenlings circling overhead. Why didn’t anybody tell me they had suits that help them fly?”
“I guess it never came up, did it?”
“And nobody thought to consider them sentient beings?”
“We sent somebody to meet with them early on, but it didn’t go well. If they are self-aware beings, and I admit there is evidence that points to that possibility, they certainly don’t do themselves any favors. They’re probably one of the lowest we’ve ever encountered.”
“What other alien races are there?” I asked.
“Now is not the time to get into that.”
There never is a good time to get into anything. I shook my head as I scanned the sky to find Roth. But she has a point.
I soon spotted her. She had not lost a foot in altitude and was up there fighting the grenlings. Every now and again I saw a blast of light come from her suit, tearing a grenling in half and sending it to the ground.
“Don’t you wish you would’ve taught me to do that?” I asked as she ripped apart another.
“Where are you?”
“Down about two hundred feet.”
“Come back up. Now.”
I pushed my toes down, but just as I did, a flying grenling slammed into me, pinning me against the wall.
Then we both fell.
38
To: Brigadier General Katrina Roth
From: Lieutenant General Regina Adams
Log date: 00429.211-14:44:53
Re: The asset
General Roth,
I just received word of the invasion. This should go without saying, but the asset is your highest priority. Please make sure he is protected at all times and evacuated as soon as possible.
I don’t want to start over again, we’ve already lost too much time as it is.
Lieutenant General Regina Adams
39
I tried to right myself by moving my feet, but the anti-gravs were not responding. Why weren’t they working? Every time I had been knocked around, the suit had righted itself. Was it because the grenling had a tight hold on me?
Or were the anti-gravs deactivated when I was crushed against the cliff?
Hoping that the suit had not been damaged, I pressed the buttons on my arm and
felt them kick in, but we still continued to fall, probably because my feet were in the air and the suit was confused by my present orientation. I tried everything I could to fix that, but nothing seemed to work as the grenling clutched me tight, keeping me from maneuvering.
The grenling shifted. I was now right side up.
I could not see the ground and could only see the grenling, which clawed at me with its other hand as if trying to figure out how to get me out of the suit. It dawned on me that my feet were spread and the velocity of our fall was now increasing. If I didn’t do something soon, we would hit the ground at an incredible speed. I couldn’t close my feet because the grenling’s knee was in the way.
I jammed my hand into the grenling’s side, pulled the trigger, and waited. Each second seemed to take forever as I feared we were about to slam into the unforgiving ground. When the weapon finally went off, the stupid grenling did not let go of me even though blood gushed out of its side like a broken dam. Twisting so I had a better view of its arm, I jammed my hand into its arm, pulled the trigger and waited for another eternal five seconds before a gaping hole appeared there. Finally, he released me. The grenling hit the ground with enough force that it seemed to break every bone in the creature’s body, regardless of the fact it wore armor.
I came inches from colliding with the bottom of the ravine as I pushed my toes down and shot up into the air.
“Where did you go?” Roth demanded a moment later.
“A grenling jumped on me,” I said between gasps for breath, “nearly went down. Coming now.” I moved so fast that if I hit another grenling, I was liable to take it down with the force of my upward movement alone.
In moments, I was back in the thick of things. A grenling came right at me, and rather than engaging, I shot forward, looking for Roth.
She was two hundred feet ahead and a hundred feet above me. I closed the distance in time to see her dispatch two grenlings with the laser beam. I gritted my teeth and forced back my anger. I would get access to that weapon. The weapon she had given me was nice, but it didn’t work nearly as well as the laser. I needed something that was far more responsive if I was gonna help her out.