Their usual modus operandi made them dangerous to the uninitiated. They were nimble with fast legs and their tiny wings helped them move laterally through the branches of trees at head-height or higher. They ranged in packs, which effectively disguised their numbers, and finally attacked once their prey grew sufficiently disoriented.
Jan and his NCOs had seen it all before.
“Fall back,” he said to two men near him. One glanced behind him toward the hauptmann but the other did not, and both obeyed without question. They backed away barely in time. Huge black claws emerged from between two interlocked leafy branches and lashed at them, cleaving air where they’d stood only a second before. Both men gasped in shock but quickly redirected their rifles to the new source of the threat. The guns blazed and shredded foliage and flesh. Blood and chunks of both pink flesh and white bone sprayed and mingled with the destroyed plant matter.
The devilcrow slumped dead to the ground.
“Good,” he said. He turned toward what had originally been the front of the column. The vanguard had tried to escape the skirmish and pressed onward while their teammates repelled the mutants’ attack. Now, the unit they’d come to rescue had heard and seen the firefight and pushed through the jungle to join them.
“This way,” Jan called and motioned them over. The group had consisted of two squads and it looked like their losses had been only slight. “They had some slight resistance,” the hauptmann observed. At least they had their guns out and ready.
Something plummeted through splintering wood and tearing vines above them and to his left. His hand holding the pistol raised at the same time the men he’d greeted aimed their weapons, and all fired on the devilcrow. Two well-placed rounds from his handgun plus bursts from multiple automatic rifles were enough to cut the creature almost in half to splatter rather than perforate it. Various pieces, tissue, and bodily fluids fell on and around them like crimson rain.
Fortunately, he was wearing a helmet.
His platoon, meanwhile, held its own against the remaining devilcrows. The men simply tracked the creatures’ movements through the trees and mowed down the jungle itself to slaughter the attackers in the process.
“Reinforce the platoon,” Jan said to the men he’d rescued and they scrambled to obey. He moved up behind them to watch and listen for any further attacks. It seemed they’d killed most of the devilcrows, but he knew better than to grow complacent.
No sooner had he thought this than one burst out of the trees behind him. He pivoted instinctively, his gun already raised. His pistol might not be enough, but judging by the sound, he had a second or two in which his soldiers might offer aid.
“Sir!” Leutnant Ferris cried and suddenly launched herself to his side to spray fire from her rifle. He finished his turn and the two of them delivered a joint barrage at the oh-so-clever devilcrow to punch holes in its body and slow its advance. It looked for a moment like it was about to slump and die like a good bird but then it hurled itself forward, its jaws open to snap over his head. He threw himself sideways and rolled. The devilcrow’s beak closed around air before it fell, bleeding and twitching. The Bull put two more rounds in the back of its neck to be safe.
“Thank you, Ferris,” Jan said as he stood and brushed himself off.
“My pleasure, sir,” she replied. “It’s too bad we can’t give it a proper Lutheran burial.” She turned to the rest of the platoon.
There was only one devilcrow left, and it had turned to flee. Three men took aim and unloaded bursts of lead into its back and haunches. It shrieked, sprayed blood, and fell down a slight ridge to roll into a tree’s base, where it stiffened and grew still.
“We got the bastards,” someone exclaimed, and half the men burst into laughter and cheers. For many of them, this was probably their first battle.
And they’d won.
“Such noisy, youthful exuberance,” Jan mused. He stepped among them and motioned for them to be quiet. It took a few seconds, but they finally stilled.
“You all did very well,” he announced, “but we have already burned up most of the afternoon and do not have time to loiter. Night will fall soon enough. Rule Number Five. Never stay out in the Zoo after dark unless absolutely necessary. The danger out here triples at night.”
He paused to allow this to sink in. Some of them looked slightly disgruntled by his stick-in-the-mud interruption of their victory celebration, but by and large, they nodded. Already, they took the experience they’d gone through and made it worse, picturing what it would be like in the dark. In short, they now thought two moves ahead. Strategizing, he thought approvingly. Clearly, he was doing something right.
“Move out,” he commanded, and they complied with alacrity.
As his platoon retraced their steps toward the faint trail they’d used to enter the Zoo, Jan took the report of the beleaguered unit’s CO, a tall, thin man named Leutnant Dreiser.
“We got lost, Hauptmann,” Dreiser explained. “Our HUD communications stopped working, and everyone agreed we were being hunted by…something. We don’t know what. It seemed to herd us and tried to force us deeper into the Zoo and off the trail. One man, Gefreiter Tanz, disappeared and left only a huge bloodstain behind. We had to presume him dead since those crow monsters attacked us next. We were finally able to get a message through to a team on their way out, who passed it on when they returned to base. You know how the Zoo messes with our transmissions, so we couldn’t reach the base, obviously. And it could have been worse. If you hadn’t arrived so promptly, we might have had to spend the night.”
“Yes, that is to be avoided,” he agreed. “Did you get a look at what kind of creatures were pursuing you at first? I would assume the devilcrows—”
“I don’t think it was them. This was something different. These were sleeker and definitely smarter.”
Jan frowned. There were other creatures that might meet that particular description, but in the absence of further data, there was no way to be sure. He said nothing, for now. The important thing was simply that they’d rescued the group and were now headed to base.
Their orderly retreat from the Zoo proceeded without incident. The jungle sometimes launched multiple attacks across short periods of time as though trying to deter any and all human trespassers or as though it—the jungle itself—was hungry.
But at other times, it offered only token resistance. Based on the reports he’d read from the other bases in the area, this sometimes seemed to signal that the Zoo was busy—that it was preparing for something. Of course, it might mean nothing at all. Humankind could not hope to fully understand its bizarre, primitive, and alien intelligence.
They emerged at the crack of dusk. The sky grew dark save for a line of purplish-red luminescence on the western horizon and the ambient light faded to a deep reddish-grey. It was with satisfaction that Jan stepped out onto the sand and led his men toward the trucks. Dreiser had lost a man but he had lost no one. If enough missions went this smoothly, humanity might actually win this war.
Their trucks had waited for them. It was customary for the drivers to remain, resting but alert, until midnight. Thereafter, they were to attempt emergency communication before they returned to base in case the team was close to the edge. Anyone deeper in would not have been reachable due to the fact that the Zoo blocked all efforts at communication beyond its borders. He had brought his team back well before the cutoff time.
Everyone ached from injuries and fatigue on the ride to the base but there was also a kind of triumphant joy. The rookies who had been so nervous on the trip in now traveled out, victorious and very much alive. Soon, they arrived at the wall and rose from their seats to gather again on the sand.
As they stopped before the massive gate that separated them from Archway, the cameras pivoted to examine them, and Coop’s voice spoke over the sound system. “Hello there,” he said. “Captain Shalwar, I see. Back so soon?”
“We are actually later than I would have hoped,” Jan sai
d. “We were delayed by the unfortunate annoyance of having to actually fight and kill some of those disgusting devilcrows. By now, you’d think they would have learned their lesson.”
The Bull snorted from where she stood near him. “You give them too much credit,” she remarked. “Without a jungle for them to hide in, we could simply call an exterminator and be done with them.”
“Well, it’s good to see you made it back,” Coop went on. “Is anyone wounded? Infected? Are there any weird alien spores clinging to anyone’s back? Do you have any mysterious stowaways among your party there?”
“Negative,” he stated. He understood why the man had to ask all these questions, but the answer was almost always the same.
“You aced the pop quiz, then,” the guard replied in his deep, friendly voice and the gate slid open before them.
“Move along,” Jan said and waved the rest of the men through before he crossed the threshold himself. He spared a glance over his shoulder at the Zoo itself. This was an adversary he could handle and yet he knew better than to underestimate it. The loss of Gefreiter Tanz was itself a small win for the enemy. And the devilcrow that had burst out behind him had very, very nearly added a man called Hauptmann Shalwar to the toll.
He shook his head and followed his troops as they cleared the gate. Coop stood nearby and studied them carefully. Once their leader was through and gave the all-clear sign, he returned to his console and closed the gate behind them.
As they headed toward the bay from whence they’d departed a few hours earlier, Jan noticed a man storming toward them. He suspected he knew who it was, but the fading light made it difficult to be sure at this distance.
“Oh, no,” The Bull said in a gruffly sarcastic tone. “If you have ever seen one of those American sports movies, here comes the leader of the evil opposing team.”
“All by himself?” he marveled. “I thought his type never went anywhere without their crew or posse or whatever to stand menacingly behind them and make vague gestures like something out of a rap video.”
The individual in question drew closer and now, there was no mistaking his aggressive, determined gait or excessively large chest and shoulders.
“Hey!” he said. “Shalwar! How and why did you get this one?” He continued to swagger closer to the platoon.
“By standing near the communications equipment when the extraction request came through,” he said in as flat and bored a tone of voice as he could muster.
The hauptmann turned to The Bull. “Leutnant Ferris, get the men situated and hurry them along.” He glanced at the approaching figure. “They don’t need to see this. It’s not for children’s eyes.”
“But I would have thought they’d have so much in common…” The Bull grunted derisively. Nevertheless, she obeyed and turned on the men to yell at them and herd them into the bay while she reminded them of all the procedural details they still had to see to.
Jan turned to face his colleague and equal in rank, Hauptmann Klaus Grossman.
He waited patiently with his hands clasped behind his back, his face set in a pleasantly neutral expression that combined stoicism and innocence. It was virtually guaranteed to enrage the man.
That thought, of course, made it difficult for him to prevent the expression from transforming into a smirk of subtle glee.
“By rights, this mission was mine,” Klaus insisted, thumped himself on the chest, and came to a stop about three paces away. “By hogging all the best ones, you risk exhausting your men.”
“I rotated all my men from the previous exercise,” he stated. “This one was conducted largely with fresh meat. By an astonishing stroke of luck, we lost no one.”
Klaus glared at him and rolled his tongue around his teeth. “I have your measure, Jan. You pretend to be this consummate professional but you’re no different than me. You only do shit like this to keep your rank in the Death League. Don’t try to hide it.”
Jan sighed. “Hauptmann Grossman,” he said, “as I believe I have explained before, I do not give the slightest shit about the Death League.” Everyone on the base had a ranking in the Death League. The person considered most likely to die next held the number one position. Without even trying, he achieved the bizarrely coveted top place more often than anyone else.
“Well, then, you’d be the first and only one who doesn’t.” The man snorted his undisguised disbelief.
The hauptmann suddenly wondered if Klaus had ever participated in a football-oriented street brawl before the beginning of his military career. Or perhaps even after.
“Allow me to explain the philosophy of my command,” he said and kept his face impassive, although he relished the opportunity to use the word “philosophy” when discussing military matters with Klaus. “My sole purpose and only goal is to protect Archway until Wall Two is finally complete and we have achieved a measure of lasting security. In order to protect the base, it is sometimes necessary to send men into the jungle. However, every person who dies there gives the Zoo more biomass to work with—our casualties, in addition to being both tragic and wasteful, feed the place. By taking unnecessary risks, we deliver resources to the enemy. I will do whatever is necessary to stop that from happening. The survival of as many of our people as possible must be among our top priorities.”
The other man folded his arms over his chest, which emphasized how top-heavy his figure was. “That is a very noble speech,” he said. “I mean, yes, of course we want to preserve the lives of our men—anyone can agree with that—but I don’t fucking believe that you don’t care at all about the Death League. I can tell that you gloat about it in private when you think no one is paying attention.”
Klaus’ demeanor seemed to waver between outright aggression and good-natured, good-old-boy ribbing. Jan suspected that the man didn’t see much of a line between the two, anyway. He wasn’t too bad as a soldier but merely allowed other priorities to intrude.
“Tomorrow, I will earn a ton of points,” the beefy hauptmann went on. “The mission is already approved and scheduled. You’d have to pull strings far above your rank to get it changed at this point. The Americans reported that one of their teams went missing deep into the Zoo near our territory. We’re going in to investigate.”
“Oh,” Jan said. “Good luck. With the Death League points, I mean.”
Chapter Five
The helicopter landed and raised a wispy cyclone of sand around it, and Laura breathed a sigh of relief. She had made it to North Africa. Part of her was surprised that this had all worked out.
“Hi,” a man said as he approached her. He was tall and burly and she assumed he was some kind of military policeman, although she didn’t know enough about uniforms or insignias to be certain. “You must be Dr. Laura Curie, then?”
“Yes, I am,” she replied.
“Good. I’m Sergeant Wendell. I’ll be your escort around Fort Archway for now. You’ll have a tour of the base and then I’ll show you the lab and introduce you to Director Roden.”
“Brilliant,” she replied and hitched the straps of her backpack on her shoulders. She’d brought hardly anything, really, but that’s what they’d recommended. The base was apparently well-stocked enough that it made more sense to travel light. She also put on her hat for the trek across the desert. It was only a short distance but already, she’d realized that temperatures considered normal there were in the range considered non-survivable in England. She had an Australian friend who never tired of mocking the British for their dependence on mild, middling weather.
“It’s a little warm, isn’t it?” she ventured.
“That it is,” he agreed. “Although this is the relatively less-hellish part of the year. Don’t worry, though. You’ll get used to it in a month or so if you don’t perish of heat stroke first. This way, please.” He gestured for her to follow as he strode toward what she assumed was the front entrance.
Hot sand shifted under her feet as she trudged along and struggled to keep up with the serg
eant. Why on earth had she worn heels? Of course, she’d simply assumed they would go straight into a building and that she could get herself outfitted with proper boots later.
For a brief moment, she wondered if most people learned to easily think of things like that in advance because their parents paid them enough attention to remind them, so it was inculcated at an early age. Her parents were both busy professionals who rarely seemed to have time for her—or, for that matter, each other. They’d divorced when she was six. It seemed to her now that she was an adult herself and had some measure of perspective, that they’d had children together almost as an afterthought. She tried not to think about that kind of nonsense, though. Much more interesting things were in progress.
Wendell spoke to a security guard and did something at a console before a large double door, then opened it and held it for her.
“Thank you,” she said.
The man caught up easily and walked beside her. “We’ll get you your own security clearance soon enough. Until then, show your ID badge to whoever’s working guard duty and they’ll look your name up.”
They proceeded down halls that were sparse but brightly lit. The ambiance was not quite as bad as a hospital but it was certainly less cozy than the university, barring the more antiseptic lab areas, anyway. Many people bustled around. Most were in military fatigues but some wore civilian dress and others sported white lab coats.
Laura turned her head at two young soldiers who stood in a slight corner near a recessed door. The men were speaking to one another, but not in English. It took a second for her brain to process what she’d heard as they passed out of earshot. It sounded like German. Not that she actually knew the language, but it did have a rather distinctive sound. She furrowed her brow. It struck her as odd that there would be foreigners present at a semi-secret UK military base. Wasn’t there a security risk?
Still, neither Sergeant Wendell nor anyone else seemed concerned, so she did not press the issue. Perhaps German Intelligence had a couple of liaisons there.
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