“I don’t know what to think, Krista, about this whole damn mission.” There was an unfamiliar note of anger and frustration in Dade’s voice as he got to his feet. “You call it in to the boss. I’ll stay on point for a while.”
* * *
Two kilometers farther on, Dade stopped again. The preplanned course had taken the scouts into an area of soft ground littered with numerous outcroppings of stone. Most of these heaps of white, limestonelike rock were knee-high. A few were taller than a man. Many of the outcroppings were decorated with the fantastic crystalline growths that the Marines had seen all along the “Roman road” through the hills. In the middle of these cairns, the scouts found another set of tracks, similar to those they had encountered earlier. Here there were more of the large bare footprints that had become so aggravatingly familiar. There were also numerous gouges left in the soil by the passage of what Krista Black had dubbed the spider-walker.
“I don’t think it’s the same bunch as before,” Dade said. “There are more tracks here, and look at this.” He pointed at a set of walker tracks. “See how these gouges aren’t a single channel, but three of them all clustered together? I think we’re looking at another machine here.”
“I think you’re right, Rick,” Black agreed. “The spacing between the tracks is wider, too. Unless this guy was moving at speed, we’re talking a bigger machi—”
A loud, harsh pop echoed among the stones, followed by the muted clang of metal striking metal.
Dade looked up sharply, as his partner broke off. She was twisting her upper body like a cat trying to control its fall. She was barely able to get her hands under her before she landed heavily. Her rifle was caught between the ground and her chest. The weapon’s raised-sight/carrying-handle assembly drove into her abdomen, forcing the breath from her lungs in an explosive whuff that Dade heard clearly without the aid of a communicator.
Dade dropped to the ground next to his partner, breaking his fall with the butt of his M-18. He tucked the rifle in close to his body and rolled quickly to his left. The move was intended to throw off the aim of anyone who might have been targeting him, as well as to bring him under the shelter of a stone outcropping.
“Krista,” he hissed, his attention divided between his stricken partner and the search for an aggressor. “Krista, are you all right?”
His only answer was a whooping gasp.
Something moved among the rocks a few dozen meters away. Instinctively, Dade brought up his rifle and let off a three-round burst. Chips of stone flew from the outcropping where he had seen movement. The shriek of spent and mangled slugs ricocheting off of the rocks was all but blanketed by the echoes of the rifle’s stuttering bark.
“Rick,” Black rasped out. “Rick, I’m okay. I just got the wind knocked out of me.”
“Can you move?” he barked.
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Then move, dammit! Get under cover.”
Black rolled away from her partner, turning over twice before scuttling forward in a low crawl, to take up position behind a meter-and-a-half-high pile of white stone.
“Lion, Lion, this is Falcon, FLASH! SITREP! Falcon is under attack from an unknown number of hostiles. Request immediate support.”
A trio of pneumatic reports split the air. Something ricocheted off the outcropping in front of Dade, shattering one of the delicate crystal “bushes,” showering the Marine scout with glittering ruby shards. Black snapped up her rifle and let off a burst. Her attack was rewarded by a sharp, animal yelp of pain. Then, silence.
The exchange of gunfire blanketed Captain Taggart’s reply.
Dade rolled right. Carefully, he peered around the edge of his sheltering rock, searching for signs of the enemy. Nothing moved among the stones. He looked across at Black, who shook her head. Either they had driven the enemy off, or he had gone to ground and was waiting for the Marines to make the next move.
“Dade, what the hell is going on down there?” Taggart snarled from Dade’s communicator.
“Lion, situation unknown,” Dade answered quietly, continuing to scan the area as he spoke. “The enemy may have withdrawn, or he may have just gone to ground. Falcon Two took a round, but seems to be unhurt. C’mon in, Captain, we aren’t too proud to ask for help.”
Switching his communicator to standby, Dade raised his left hand, snapping his gloved fingers in a silent demand for Black’s attention. When she looked toward her partner, he placed the palm of his left hand on top of his head, instructing Black to cover him. She nodded her understanding, and brought her rifle up into firing position. She kept her head raised, looking over the weapon, observing the whole area, rather than just the narrow field of view afforded by the Pitbull’s sights.
Dade rolled back to his left and crawled carefully around the end of the outcropping. When he’d crawled a few meters forward and left to the shelter of a waist-high pile of stone, he rolled right and came up on his knees, his rifle at the ready.
The movement seemed to be the cue the unseen enemy was waiting for. Another flurry of reports echoed across the valley. Dade spotted what appeared to be a human head covered with thick shaggy black hair. He snapped his rifle up and touched off two rapid stuttering bursts. The head vanished.
Then Dade realized that though the being he had fired on appeared to be human, it was not wearing an environment suit. Perhaps the target had been some new kind of Neo-Soviet mutant, one created specifically to endure atmospheres hostile to normal humans.
“Krista, did you see that?”
“Yeah, it looked human—well, sort of.” Black sounded as confused as he felt.
“Yeah, sort of.”
Black’s voice became a shout. “Rick, nine o’clock!”
Dade spun to his left, bringing his Pitbull up to his shoulder as he dodged. Less than three meters away, charging at him, was an ugly humanoid creature. A wicked-looking metal club clenched in its fist, the being rushed headlong at the Marine. Dade heard Black cursing, knowing that he was blocking her shot at his attacker.
The creature was upon him before he could bring his rifle to bear. The saw-edged club looped in toward Dade’s face. Frantically, he brought the Pitbull up to cross-block the attack. Though his humanoid foe was a full head shorter than Dade, the strength of the blow that smashed into the Pitbull’s receiver was astounding. Had the club struck his head, Dade would have died from a crushed skull. Cocking the rifle back over his shoulder, Dade lashed out at the creature with the Pitbull’s reinforced plastic stock. The butt stroke should have taken his enemy squarely in the face. But, with surprising speed, the creature slipped aside. The club again licked out. Dade twisted, desperately trying to avoid the blow. If the creature scored a hit, that saw-edged club would rip a hole in Dade’s combat environment suit. Death from exposure to the ammonia- and carbon dioxide-laden atmosphere would be neither pretty nor quick.
On the edges of his awareness, Dade heard the stuttering report of Black’s assault rifle. He vaguely wondered if she had seen an opening to fire, or if more of the ugly creatures had decided to join the fight.
Dade tried to take a long step backwards so he could fire the rifle. But before he could level the weapon at his attacker, the creature suddenly changed its tactics. The thing made a halfhearted swipe at Dade’s face again, which the Marine avoided easily. Lunging forward, the being dropped its club, letting the weapon dangle from a lanyard looped around its wrist. With both hands, the thing seized Dade’s rifle, trying to twist the Pitbull from his grasp.
Dade lashed out with his right foot, aiming for the creature’s left knee. He missed, catching the thing in its shin. The impact felt as though Dade had kicked a small tree trunk. The creature seemed to sense the Marine’s desperation. It gave a mighty heave on the Pitbull, finally tearing it from Dade’s clutching fingers.
The thing tipped back its head and let out a guttural snarl of triumph. Dade saw a mouthful of snaggled, rotting teeth. Fighting a qualm of revulsion, the Marine lance
corporal yanked his heavy Pug automatic pistol free of its holster. Its trophy secure, the creature was loping off among the rocks. Dade centered the Pug’s sights on the thing’s back and squeezed the trigger twice in rapid succession.
Both shots went home. The humanoid monster dropped the Pitbull, staggered, and pitched over on its face. From the corner of his eye, Dade saw a shadow bearing down on him. He spun to face it, the big pistol grasped firmly in both hands.
“Rick! Rick, we’re clear!” Krista Black shouted as the Pug’s sights lined up with her chest.
Dade sighed, and lowered the pistol.
“Krista, you took a hit. Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Black said, still a bit breathless. “Whatever they hit me with tore the heck out of my ruck, but I don’t think it got anything important.”
“Lemmee take a look.”
Black turned and dropped to one knee to allow her partner to examine the damage. The enemy projectile had torn the top flap of her rucksack almost completely away. Some of her gear had spilled out of the gash as she rolled and dodged during the brief firefight.
“Hang on a second. I think . . .” Dade reached into her pack, grasped a shiny sliver of metal, and tugged it free. “Yup, there it is. That’s what they hit you with. It was jammed against your pack frame.”
Black stared at the heavy metal spike, almost a handspan long and as thick as her gloved finger.
“Dang, if they’d have hit me solid with one of these . . .”
“Even if they’d have grazed you,” Dade amended. “The atmosphere would have finished the job. That spike look familiar?”
“Yeah,” Black answered. “It’s just like those we found along the trail.”
“Uh-huh,” her partner confirmed. “What in the hell were those things?”
“I don’t know.” Black shook her head and shrugged. “I think you dropped that last one. Let’s go have a look.”
When the Marines reached the spot where Dade’s attacker had fallen, they found the stolen Pitbull lying next to a pool of dark, reddish purple fluid.
“I would have sworn you killed it,” Black said in awe.
Dade retrieved his weapon and examined it closely. The creature’s saw-edged club had gouged the metal of the rifle’s upper receiver. Dade dropped the magazine and worked the Pitbull’s bolt several times. Satisfied that the damage was only superficial, he replaced the curved thirty-round box and chambered a fresh cartridge.
“I thought I killed it, too, Krista,” he said. “That’s an awful lot of blood if I didn’t. Assuming that purple goo is that thing’s blood. How ’bout you? You drop any of ’em?”
“Yeah, I think so. We’d better check.”
A search of the rocky outcroppings yielded several more puddles of reddish purple ooze, and dozens of bare footprints. Next to one of the larger pools of what the Marines assumed was blood, lay what appeared to be a big pneumatic spike driver. It looked like an oversize pistol. The gaping muzzle was big enough to accept the spike Dade had pulled out of Black’s backpack.
“What a nasty hell of a weapon!” she said.
“Uh-huh,” Dade agreed. “I guess we can be happy they didn’t bring up whatever heavy weapons they mount on those spider-walkers.”
“Yeah.” Black sighed. “I think we’d better call the boss, let him know it’s over and we’re all right.”
16
* * *
C aptain Taggart reviewed the digital recording of his scouts’ firefight with the strange creatures. After watching the video for the third time, he passed the data reader to Gunnery Sergeant Frost. Taggart waited, withholding comment, until she had seen the recordings.
“Well, Dade, Black, do you have anything to add?” he asked in a flat voice.
“No sir,” Dade answered. “Everything happened pretty much as you saw it. We took incoming fire, Krista got knocked down, then things hit the fan.”
Dr. Cortez, who had watched the recording after Frost finished with it, passed the reader back to Taggart.
“Corporal, are you certain you hit that creature?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” Dade replied. “I drew down on his back, center-of-mass. Capped off two rounds. No way I could have missed him at ten meters—not twice.”
“You certain about that, Corporal?” Frost growled.
“Yes, Gunny. As sure as I can be.” Dade shrugged. “I put two slugs into him. He yelped, and took a header into the ground. If I didn’t hit him, where did all that blood come from, and why did he drop my rifle?”
“So where’s the body?”
“I dunno, Gunny. We try to recover our casualties whenever possible. Maybe they do it, too.”
“That would explain why there are no bodies at all,” Taggart said. “Though that kinda makes me wonder. If these critters really are some kind of new Neo-Sov mutants, they’d be really anxious to recover any that got damaged both to keep them out of our hands, and to see how they can ‘improve’ them. The question is, are they really some new kind of mutant, or are we, as Dade puts it, in a first-contact situation?”
“Well, Captain, what I’m about to say isn’t going to clear things up any,” Cortez said. “Take a look at the tape again. Pay close attention to the creature that your man Dade wrestled with.”
Taggart gave the doctor a quizzical look, plugged the data reader back into his recording/playback unit, and swung the display monocle down in front of his eye. When he hit the play command, an image formed on the small viewscreen.
The picture was grainy, badly framed, and jumped around quite a bit. The first was a problem of the recording equipment, while the latter two were results of attaching a camera to a combat soldier’s helmet. Still, the image was good enough for Taggart to get a solid idea of what happened to his scouts. When the image smeared to life, he was watching white-gray rock and the business end of Dade’s Pitbull assault rifle. He heard the exchanges between his scouts via a link between Dade’s helmet communicator and the recording device attached to his belt. Black’s warning shout came across loud and clear.
The picture swung just in time to let Taggart see the wicked saw-edged club leaping out toward the camera. Then the video seemed to focus squarely on the creature that attacked Dade.
The scene jumped again as Dade blocked the thing’s attack. For a second, most of the being’s body was visible to the camera. Taggart pressed the pause control on his data reader. For a few moments he studied the frozen image of the attacking creature. It was not quite so tall as a man, perhaps five feet overall, but it was broad shouldered and powerful-looking. Matted, unkempt hair fell to its shoulders. Beetled brows drew together, whether by nature or in killing rage, Taggart could not tell. A mouthful of dirty, decaying teeth snarled at him through the vid. Then, as he contemplated the frozen image, he spotted an odd metallic patch on the creature’s right forearm. At first he took it to be a vambrace or jewelry. Then he realized that the flat, rusty metal plate was actually set into the being’s flesh. He switched his attention to other portions of the image. Along the thing’s legs were large metal knobs, like bolt heads, that were, again, embedded in the creature’s body. A power cable ran from the big, pistol-shaped weapon hanging across the thing’s chest. At first glance the thick wire seemed to attach to the brute’s crude rope belt. Closer examination showed that one end of the cable was attached to the weapon’s grip, the other was embedded in the thing’s abdomen just under its ribs. It was reminiscent of the various cables and tubes that penetrated the flesh of Neo-Soviet Cyclops mutants.
He switched off the recorder and gazed at Dr. Cortez.
“And what is your assessment of that creature’s . . . modifications?”
“Well,” Cortez replied in a speculative tone. “If I had to render an opinion based solely on the evidence of that video and your scouts’ testimony, I’d have to say that what we’re looking at is a being that is the slave of a more advanced race. The implants all seem to be rather crude, but I doubt those creatures
have the intellect to perform basic surgery, let alone to create a cybernetic interface. We can barely do it in the Union, and every time we attempt it, the interface fails, causing brain damage in the subject.”
“But the Sovs do it, don’t they, with their Cyclops mutants?”
“That’s right,” Cortez replied. “And every time Union scientists have had the opportunity to autopsy a dead Cyclops we’ve discovered that the poor bastard the Sovs twisted into one of those damned killing machines has had such critical damage to his cerebral and cerebellar cortexes, it’s a wonder he survived long enough to be killed by our troops.”
“So what about these things, then, Doc?” Frost put in. “You think these things might be some kind of new version of mutant?”
“They could be, Sergeant,” Cortez answered. “We won’t know for certain until we get our hands on one. I’d like to take one back alive, but it will probably be easier to grab a dead one.”
“Agreed, Doctor,” Taggart said. “But, only after we’ve completed our primary mission here. If we grease any of these ugly buggers, we’ll bag him up and bury him until we find out if any of our own people are still alive at the crash site. We may end up having to care for our own wounded and dead. I don’t want to be worried about dragging some dead Neo-Soviet mutants along. If we have enough hands on the return trip, you can have your prizes, assuming we run into any more.”
“Well, boss,” Gunny Frost said with a grim smile. “I don’t think we’re gonna have to worry on that account. I have a feeling that this is only the beginning.”
17
* * *
F or a moment, the Marines stared silently at Gunnery Sergeant Frost.
“Gunny, I sure hope you’re wrong about that,” Corporal Henry said at last. “We’ve got thirty men on this blasted rock, and ten of them are back at the LZ. If the Neo-Sovs really do have a base out here, and if they are testing some kind of new mutant, we could wind up in trouble real fast.”
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