With a thumping crash, the Predator landed down below, mandibles flaring, and ran across another rooftop, struggling with its control panel as it went.
Harrigan suddenly realized the alien couldn’t cloak. “There!” he yelled and aimed the grenade launcher he’d retrieved from Garber at the alien, letting the targeting system beep even as he shut off the safety and fingered the trigger. He launched two grenades at once, before taking off at a run again, Fernando staggering but close on his heels.
The Predator almost made it off the roof to another when the grenades hit, blowing up the ground beneath its feet. As it leaped into the air, trying to minimize damage, and whirled toward a nearby tree, trails of automatic gunfire flowed through the air all around it. Harrigan thought for sure it would be hit multiple times, but it landed with barely a grunt and glared back at him, then scanned the area below where the police and armed civilians had formed a line, assessing its options.
Harrigan lined it up in his sights again, preparing to use the second grenade launcher’s contents. Automatic fire tore up the edges of the roof, but the Predator was at an angle where the police and civilians couldn’t see much of it from the ground as their fire tore up the edges of the roof and the ceramic tiles and thatch, doing the alien no harm.
“That’n-da s’ yin’tekai!” the Predator shouted, raising its chin in defiance, back arched, mandibles flared as it typed furiously on its wrist control.
“Oh shit!” Harrigan yelled, realizing what that meant. The bomb. It was arming the bomb. “Run!” he called to Fernando, even as he took off to put distance between himself and the alien.
Then the air shimmered ahead and four Predators appeared—spears in hand, eyes narrowed with determination, mandibles flaring—and marched toward him.
“Meu Deus! We die!” Fernando exclaimed, shrinking back and halting his steps, uncertain. He cradled his wounded arm, fear shining in his eyes.
The lead Predator stopped and locked eyes with Harrigan, saying, “Na’tauk, ooman.” It raised its hand, holding a 3D cube of glass or some composite metal and aimed it at Harrigan.
Harrigan stopped running and prepared to dodge. Fuck. What was it—some new weapon?
Then the cube flashed and an image appeared—a picture of the Predator who’d been attacking the favela, his markings clear, bright, bold words in the alien tongue above and below. The layout resembled a wanted poster.
The lead alien nodded. “Tarei hsan,” it said and all three of the other Predators stared with contempt at their injured comrade, mandibles clicking rapidly as they emitted some kind of rumbling clicking—a form of laughter mixed with contempt, Harrigan thought.
The injured alien growled, staring at them with almost challenge for a moment, then lowering its head and eyes, as if in surrender. And the cube went dark again.
“Harrigan, get down!” Rios called as Harrigan looked back to see the police and civilian line redistributing themselves to positions where all four Predators were in range.
Harrigan turned and raised a hand. “No. Wait!” His eyes met Rios’.
“Are you crazy? There’s more, we can take them,” Villaça shouted.
But Rios suddenly understood and nodded to Harrigan. “Hold your fire!”
Harrigan sighed and turned back to the Predators, nodding. “He’s all yours.”
The Predator search party quickly surrounded their wounded comrade, stripping away his weapons and securing him with some sort of restraints then grabbing him by the arms to lift him. Two whirled him around and led him back toward where they’d appeared, up the hill near the remains of some shacks.
The lead Predator clicked, mandibles crossed, and nodded to Harrigan. It looked almost like respect. “That’n-da s’ yin’tekai,” the alien said warmly, as with great respect.
“Thatinda yinteki,” Harrigan did his best to repeat back and nodded.
With that, the lead alien raised a palm in salute, then whirled and followed its comrades, all four soon disappearing as if fading into a mist, only the air was filled with smoke and debris instead.
Harrigan turned back to Fernando. “You okay?”
Fernando nodded weakly, bleeding heavily but keeping conscious. “What happened?”
“He was wanted, a criminal,” Harrigan explained.
“Wanted by us, for sure,” Villaça said as he and Rios hurried up the hill to stand beside Harrigan and Fernando.
“His own will punish him in their way,” Harrigan explained, realizing his understanding was more intuitive. He hadn’t understood the words but somehow the meaning still reached him.
Rios glanced around them at what was left of the ruined favela. “What a mess,” she said, shaking her head. “Think they’d fix this?”
Harrigan laughed. “I think the rest is up to us.”
Fernando grinned, hopeful. “So now you take me to City of Angels?”
Harrigan grunted. “Are you sure you want to leave all this excitement behind?”
All three Brazilians laughed.
“Just a normal day in Rio, amigo,” Fernando laughed, but it soon turned into a wet cough. He crossed himself.
“If only that was a lie,” Rios added. Harrigan joined them then in laughing.
“Let’s get you some help, hero,” Harrigan said, clapping Fernando on his good shoulder as ambulances began joining the other vehicles at the base of the favela. Fernando beamed proudly and they all started down the hill together.
RECON
BY DAYTON WARD
QUẢNG TR PROVINCE, VIETNAM—JANUARY 1968
Sergeant Daniel Roland ducked and sprinted to his left, bullets chewing into the mud behind him. He threw himself against the trunk of a wide tree, forcing himself to take slow, deliberate breaths. M16 and AK-47 rifle fire pierced the air around him, punctuated by the occasional bark of the shotgun carried by his team mate, John Coffren.
Cries of pain erupted from somewhere over Roland’s shoulder, and he shifted his position for a better look. Voices to his right indicated where members of his team were reacting to the ambush, seeking whatever meager cover they could find. Two figures scrambled behind a fallen tree to his right, and he saw the barrel of Coffren’s shotgun as the other man angled for another shot. A native of northern Maryland, the young Marine had been a shotgun aficionado his entire life and preferred it to an M16, which was fine with Roland. At close range, the Remington 870 in Coffren’s hands could be devastating, and Charlie was plenty close.
“Roland! You okay?”
The shout from Coffren drew fire from the jungle somewhere to Roland’s right. Pushing his soft-brimmed jungle hat farther back on his head, he aimed his M16 in that direction and emptied the rifle’s magazine, uncertain as to whether his rounds were finding any targets. Feeling the weapon’s bolt lock to the rear, he ducked back behind the tree.
“I’m good!” he shouted, dropping the spent mag and fishing a replacement from the pouch on his equipment harness. He jammed the new magazine home and chambered a round. Shifting his position for a better look, he scanned the bush in search of threats and gave thanks to the hillside at their backs. That would reduce the likelihood of ambushers slipping in behind them, and they’d already cleared the bunker hidden there, so no surprises would be coming from that direction. Still, Roland knew the longer the firefight dragged on, the better the chances of Charlie getting reinforcements.
The repeating metallic snap of an AK-47 on full auto erupted from the undergrowth somewhere very close, and Roland crouched lower as several rounds chewed into the other side of his tree.
“Scotty! How’s about it?”
Rather than say anything, Lance Corporal Scott Pearson pushed himself to a kneeling position behind the fallen tree and fired his M79 at something Roland couldn’t see. The hefty round of buckshot tore through the jungle foliage along with any soft bodies that happened to be in the way.
Now we’re talking.
Hearing yells of alarm in the wake of the shot, Roland aimed h
is M16 toward the voices, unloading another magazine. Coffren added his shotgun and someone else, either Bill Leisner or the team’s leader, Lieutenant Matthew Byrne, was firing their own rifle.
New cries and what sounded like terrified shrieks burst from the nearby jungle, followed by a wave of intense, sustained weapons fire. Roland hunkered down behind his tree, but after several seconds he realized none of the fire seemed aimed in their direction.
What the hell?
To his right, Coffren and Pearson rose from behind the massive log that was their makeshift shelter, aiming their weapons toward the source of the gunfire. Pearson let loose with another buckshot round from the M79. With practiced ease and confidence, Pearson dropped the spent shell from the grenade launcher, replacing it with another round in quick fashion while Coffren provided covering fire. Then Coffren recoiled, dropping to the ground as something bright and yellow-green tore through the underbrush and slammed into Pearson. There was time for Roland to register that the shot—whatever it was—passed completely through the other man before the grenadier lurched backward. Pearson’s arms flailed as he fell to the ground.
“Scotty!”
Shouting toward his friend, Roland divided his attention between Pearson and Coffren, scanning the tree line, looking for the source of the shot, but saw nothing. Further back in the jungle, he still heard frantic cries and AK-47s firing as though in every direction.
Then, everything went quiet.
No gunfire, no voices, nothing. The abrupt, surreal change was enough to make Roland and Coffren exchange befuddled looks. Shrugging, Roland moved from behind the tree, his M16 leading the way. Coffren mimicked his team mate’s actions while making his way to the fallen Pearson, who lay in an awkward sprawl, his rucksack arching his back. Beyond them, Roland saw Corporal Bill Leisner rise from where he’d been lying prone in a small depression. Damp mud and a few leaves clung to his dirty uniform.
“Where the hell did everybody go?” asked Leisner.
Unable to answer, Roland simply shook his head.
“Pearson’s dead,” reported Coffren, gesturing down to the body of their friend. “Don’t ask me how.”
That was obvious to Roland even from where he stood. The man’s eyes were open in a fixed expression of shock, and the wound in the center of his chest, surrounded by blood and blackened skin and muscle tissue, was at least as big as his fist.
Cradling his M16, Leisner stepped around the other two Marines. “Where’s Byrne?”
For the first time, Roland realized he hadn’t seen or heard Lieutenant Byrne since the beginning of the skirmish.
“Sweep the area. Find him.”
* * *
From his vantage point, camouflaged within the thick canopy of the tree branches high above the ground, Nk’mecci watched the final moments of the fierce skirmish taking place far below him. The two groups, one far outnumbered by the other, had ceased firing their weapons and the larger contingent moved deeper into the jungle, its numbers greatly reduced both as a consequence of the fight as well as his own influence. Heat signatures generated by the bodies of the combatants and picked up by his bio-mask’s visual sensors told Nk’mecci that the smaller cluster of fighters now numbered three. They had survived the clash with their enemy on the ground, though two had fallen to him, along with several others from the larger group.
In truth, he could have taken all of the combatants with little effort, but there was no sport in that. Besides, a simple hunt was not the purpose of his visit. That might come later, provided the current circumstances didn’t change to any significant degree.
He regarded the skull in his hand, still covered with blood and remnants of tissue from his quarry’s body. Cleaning and polishing it prior to adding it to his small yet growing trophy collection would have to wait. Only with great reluctance did he set aside the skull, perching it atop a branch just above his head. As for the others he had taken, Nk’mecci disliked the notion of leaving them for the local animal life to consume. He would return for his trophies before departing this world, if at all possible.
With slow, deliberate movements, Nk’mecci checked the wounds he had sustained while on the ground. Removing his left hand from his side, he saw that the bleeding there was slowing. Despite his cloak, he was unable to avoid being injured by the humans’ projectile weapons. Vital organs appeared to have been missed, but the injuries to his torso and leg still required attention, if for no other reason than to prevent infection. His leg injury would be simple to treat, if painful, but he would need to remove the projectile from his midsection. His movements might be hampered in the short term, though it was nothing he could not endure.
His equipment was another matter. The power cell for his cloak had also been hit, and now the shroud only operated in intermittent fashion. Continuing to use it in its damaged state might draw more attention than if he simply moved without it, so Nk’mecci opted to deactivate it. From this elevation, he could escape detection with greater ease, but attempting to stalk the humans would prove problematic. On the other hand, this new limitation would increase the challenge as he carried out his mission.
It was not Nk’mecci’s first visit to this planet. Many cycles ago as a young, unblooded Yautja, he had accompanied his father and older sibling to hunt. The choice of location was altogether different in both terrain and temperature, and the indigenous weapons and technologies had been somewhat less advanced. As now, though, the humans tracked and killed during that previous hunt were caught up in the grips of their own conflict, albeit on a much larger scale in terms of numbers and the level of wanton violence and destruction. The hunting had been fruitful, with the three Yautja bringing back numerous trophies and other mementos to mark the occasion.
For this excursion, Nk’mecci traveled alone for the first time, as was customary for blooded hunters. Preliminary scouting reports of the escalating conflict on this world had drawn much interest, and many Yautja were clamoring for the chance to revisit such fertile hunting grounds. The opportunity offered by his clan to investigate this region of the planet was one he could not ignore, and to do so on his own would also be viewed as something of a test.
Based on the observations made since his arrival, Nk’mecci concluded that while the invading force was better equipped and possessed armaments and vehicles not shared by its adversary, the combatants who seemed to be guardians of this region were defending it well. There were indications of influence and assistance by yet another contingent, which also wielded better weapons and technology, but their role appeared limited and confined to areas well away from here. Nk’mecci guessed that situation might change, depending on how long this conflict persisted. It would be fascinating to observe, he decided.
For now, the defending force seemed well-suited to the battle it faced. Nk’mecci guessed that a familiarity with the terrain was at the heart of the advantages these warriors enjoyed. While observing their movements, he discovered a network of underground tunnels and passages which seemed to be all but unknown to the invaders. The tactic was noteworthy, in that it allowed the defenders to transport personnel and materiel through the unforgiving jungle almost without detection and at speeds greater than their counterparts. It was not a true equalizer in the grand scheme of things, but it served to make things interesting.
As for the invaders, they appeared reliant on their superior weapons and equipment, almost to a fault. They infiltrated enemy areas of this vast, unrelenting jungle in small numbers, using their primitive airborne conveyances to transport combatants from secure locations to these remote areas. They moved with relative stealth, as though conducting reconnaissance of their own. Perhaps they were gathering information for later use by a larger force with a more conventional goal of securing territory and resources. This made sense from a strategic perspective, but only time would bear out such a theory; time Nk’mecci did not possess.
Below him, the humans from the smaller force were gathering around the remains of their comrades,
doubtless attempting to deduce what had happened. It had been a simple matter for Nk’mecci to identify the leader of each group and remove them from the equation, allowing the remaining combatants to process and adjust to the change in status quo so that he could study their reactions. This activity was not a component of his mission parameters, but remained within the acceptable sphere of deviation. Such opportunity could not be forsaken, particularly if it provided valuable insights about the object of a hunt.
What would they do now?
* * *
Staring down at the corpse, it took Roland an extra moment to ensure himself that he was in fact looking at the remains of his patrol leader, Matthew Byrne.
The brass bracelet on the lieutenant’s right wrist—a gift crafted from old shell casings by a Montagnard villager— was a better identifier for Byrne than the man’s own face, which was all but unrecognizable owing to the complete lack of a skull. It, along with the entire spine, appeared to have been cut or pulled out by some measure of force. How was that even possible? Blood was everywhere, dark red and glistening after having drained from Byrne’s body to stain his uniform and equipment. The stench of loosened bowels and bladder was almost overpowering, and Roland forced himself to breathe through his mouth. Reaching for the M16 lying on the ground next to the lieutenant’s right hand, he inspected the weapon.
“He never got off the first shot.” He ejected the full magazine, sticking it in the pocket of his drab green uniform blouse.
“The gooks did this?” asked Corporal Bill Leisner, who along with Roland served as one of the team’s riflemen. Roland heard the uncertainty and fear in the other Marine’s voice.
“Who else?” Even as he asked the question, Roland shook his head. “What I don’t get is how. We were out of each other’s line of sight for, what? A minute?”
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