Hell Heart

by Robert E. Vardeman

  But no. He knew Diego. Never would his brother use such evil technology, even if the Union were capable of it. Unlike his older brother, who loosed Neo-Sov mutants on his enemies.

  Below, there was a sudden commotion as one of his guerrillas burst from hiding and ran into view. José’s heart sank. After his first glimpse of the hideous zombie creatures that had once been his friends, he had hoped to remain hidden and let them pass. How did you fight creatures that were already dead?

  But the sight of one of the zombies had galvanized the man into action. He skidded to a stop in front of one of them, a woman. “Ana,” he pleaded. “Do you not know me? What have they done to you?”

  José recognized the woman—she and the man had been lovers before the explosion of the warehouse at Revancha had torn them apart. Now she stared at her former lover from flat, uncomprehending eyes. He reached out a pleading hand to her. In response, her arm whipped out quicker than José’s eyes could follow and left a red, gaping wound where the man’s throat had been.

  With a look of blank surprise on his face, the man fell, dead before he hit the ground. There was a moment of frozen suspension, and then José’s guerrillas attacked.

  With a roar, several dozen guns opened up from their hiding places. The bullets staggered the zombies, but did not kill them. As one, the army of rotting corpses rushed forward, wielding wickedly sharp steel knives and bars.

  José reflexively ducked as a ricochet tore through leaves above his head—a bullet had bounced off a metal backpack and went zinging into the jungle. He brought his rifle up, ready to fire—and then froze as he saw something new emerge from the jungle onto the trail, something that winked in and out of sight like a poorly remembered dream. And fast! It moved with the speed of an attacking jaguar—faster.

  Even from across the clearing, the stink of the monstrous being caused José’s nose to wrinkle. He had been in many cemeteries, but this was worse than the simple stench of death. This was the odor of centuries of corrupted flesh.

  From the glimpses he caught of it, this creature wore far more elaborate gear than José’s former comrades. Clad in interleaved metallic armor, it danced about, almost in sight and then vanishing, only to appear elsewhere. If Mary and the others were dangerous, this creature was utterly deadly.

  The fighting had dislodged several guerrillas from their hiding places, and one unwary woman strayed into the monster’s field of vision. From some sort of peculiar energy weapon the creature carried lanced out a ball of green lightning that engulfed the unfortunate woman in a field of crackling electricity. She screamed as her body stiffened and her limbs began a spasmodic dance. The lightning dissipated, and she crashed to the ground, still twitching involuntarily. From a distance, her eyes found José’s, high in his tree, and her trembling lips formed the word “Please.”

  His heart aching with horror and pity, José unclipped a grenade from his belt, armed it with a quick twist, and lobbed it toward her. The grenade hit the ground next to her, bounced once, and detonated with a roar. José ducked against the trunk of the tree to avoid the worst of the blast, his ears ringing. When his vision cleared, he looked down at the sad remnants of what had once been a soldier, and his throat tightened. At least the putrid creature would not be able to resurrect her into a pseudolife of slavery.

  This had to be the chupacabra that Flaco had spoken of and that José had so casually dismissed. Poor, jolly Flaco—who was jolly no longer. He watched in horror as the shambling wreck that had once been his trusted lieutenant aimed a crushing blow at an opponent’s head, sending the man crashing to the ground. José lifted his Kalashnikov and sighted on the armored creature when it flickered back into view next to the downed guerrilla. It knelt and donned a knobbed gauntlet. Its victim never flinched as a long needle penetrated his chest; he simply withered to an empty husk.

  José lowered his rifle. He could not shoot and be certain he could kill, because he was not sure whether this tall, commanding monster was not already dead, like the humans with it. Its head was wrapped in greasy rags. Sticking up from the top of its backpack was a bullet-ridden set of lenses, possibly a weapon or a solar collector. This creature had been in battle.

  And had survived.

  José lifted his rifle straight up and fired into the air to gain his soldiers’ attention.

  “Retreat!” he shouted. “Disengage!” He slithered down from the tree, nearly falling in his haste, and collided with Gunther on the ground. The man’s eyes were so wide that white showed all the way around the edges.

  “Get your squad together and get them out of here,” José ordered. “We cannot fight these things now. Get them away!”

  Dazed, Gunther nodded, then visibly shook himself and began shouting orders. One by one, then by twos and threes, the guerrillas abandoned their former friends and stumbled into the jungle. The zombies seemed to lose interest once their opponents were no longer immediately before them.

  From his hiding place crouched in the bushes, José watched as the tall monster in golden armor gathered its obscene flock back to it. For a time they stood quietly as the creature issued instructions to them in a strange, hissing language. When it had finished, a half dozen zombies turned and lurched into the jungle. The creature herded the rest of its slaves down the trail in the direction of the crater. José watched as they passed, and for a long time after they had disappeared from sight, he remained, staring at nothing.

  He flinched as he felt a tentative touch on his shoulder, but it was only Consuela. “Was that the thing Flaco spoke of?” she whispered.

  “It was not the creature you saw at the crater?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, her eyes wide. “This was something new. And the things with it . . .” She shuddered.

  José crawled out onto the trail and stood silently as the other guerrillas crept back to him. Only a few had been lost in the brief, abortive battle, but all were pale and shaken by the horrors they had just witnessed. Even Gunther was uncharacteristically silent, clutching his rifle to him like a talisman.

  “All right,” José said, then had to pause and clear his throat. “We need to decide what we’re going to do.”

  “Decide?” Gunther asked hoarsely. “There is no decision necessary. We must destroy that thing.”

  For once, José was in complete agreement. “Don’t worry, Gunther,” he said, meeting the man’s eyes. “That monster cannot be allowed to live. But we must plan our attack carefully. You saw what happened when we fought without a strategy. If we are to have a hope of defeating it, we must be very careful.”

  Gunther nodded reluctantly. José turned to Consuela. “I have a special task for you, chica,” he said. “I need you to follow the zombies who split off from the main group. We need to know where they are going and if there are more of them elsewhere in the jungle.”

  Consuela nodded and melted into the trees, wasting no words.

  José turned back to the remainder of his force. “Come,” he said. “We follow the monster to its goal, and there we will find the means to stop it.”

  The guerrillas nodded as one and prepared to follow José. They were all on board now—anxious to stop the horror that had enslaved their friends and relatives. José only wished he had the faintest idea how to do it.

  23

  * * *

  Diego Villalobos had never seen such destruction. The village of Portillo had been burned to the ground, and then the ashes had been turned into the thin soil by some kind of laser beam. Hurricanes routinely destroyed property and killed campesinos, but such complete devastation was unheard of.

  The village was gone. Too many of the campesinos remained. Diego had seen combat and its resulting death and injuries. But his gorge still rose when he stared at the head-high pile of bodies.

  “All the old folks, Colonel,” Lieutenant Suarez said in a choked voice. “Small kids, too, the ones under seven or eight.”

  “But what happened to the rest of them?” Diego wondered.
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  “Unknown, sir,” Suarez said. “They’re gone without a trace. And whoever did this didn’t leave anyone alive to tell us what happened.”

  Diego stared at the devastated village. This was the second settlement his squad had visited this morning. The first had lost only a few people—nothing on this scale of destruction. And the remaining campesinos had reported seeing a tall golden creature appear out of nowhere to steal their friends and relatives away.

  It was the sort of tale Diego might ordinarily dismiss, if not for two things. First, he had seen the video of the crystal alien with his own eyes. Where he had seen one monster, he was prepared to believe in others. And second, the villagers he had spoken to were deeply frightened. People who ordinarily would have been hostile now crowded around him, eager to talk, anxious for the well-armed Union soldiers to protect them.

  Looking at the pile of bodies before him, he understood why. It was almost enough to take his mind off the wreckage of his career. Allen had not even bothered to see them off—Suarez had told him the scheming captain had left even earlier than they had on some mysterious errand. He was probably off making up more lies to feed General Ramirez. Diego should have been warier when Allen showed up, but he had simply been juggling too many burdens to pay too much attention to the man.

  That was a mistake, but he had no time to brood. The Union might have betrayed and abandoned him, but he was going to carry out the duty he had signed up for many years ago: protect its citizens.

  “Sir!” A voice from across the village square broke his concentration, and he looked up to see BJ Travis waving at him. Her battered face was split in a fierce smile, and the men behind her looked tired but contented.

  Diego saluted her as she hurried up to him, and she returned the courtesy, looking happier to see him than she had in a long time. Perhaps a couple of military victories against the guerrillas had finally reassured her as to his loyalties.

  “Didn’t expect to see you here, sir,” she panted as she skidded to a stop next to him. “If you’ve come to lend a hand with the mop-up, you’re too late—we tracked down and killed the last Cyclops just a few hours ago.”

  “Negative, Lieutenant,” Diego said. “This”—he gestured at the sad mound of bodies—“is what brings me here.”

  BJ’s face tightened. “We’ve gotten reports from other villages that have been attacked, too,” she said in a subdued voice. “Nothing on this scale, though. That’s why we’re here, in fact. We figured as long as we were here, we might as well look into it. But now that you’re here . . .”

  “Stay,” Diego commanded. “I may be able to use your help.”

  “Sir, what’s going on back at the post?” BJ asked. “I got some weird message yesterday that made it sound as if Allen ruled the roost. I figured he was just being bullheaded and ignored the comm.”

  “He is in charge now,” Diego said. This time the anger could not be suppressed. “HQ in Mexico City decided I had abandoned my post by taking my men to defend Revancha, and General Ramirez has relieved me of command pending an inquiry. So Captain Allen sends me out here to investigate the attacks on the villages.”

  “What kind of utter—”

  “Lieutenant,” he said to cut off her explosion, “I have my orders, and so do you.”

  “Bull—”

  “Lieutenant,” Diego snapped, “stay out of this. It’s political, and you’ll be ground up and spat out if you get caught in the middle.”

  “I take my orders from you,” BJ said forcefully, “not some preening peacock from up north. If Allen doesn’t like it, he can court-martial me right alongside you.”

  “Is there any doubt Captain Allen would recommend it?” Diego asked.

  “Didn’t like the son of a bitch from the minute I set eyes on him,” BJ grumbled. “What’s he want us to do?”

  “Carry on, protect the villages, and don’t give him any static,” Diego said. “I’ve been demoted to nothing more than squad leader, but at least he didn’t strip me of rank—he just took me out of the chain of command.”

  “That’s crazy, even for someone like Allen,” BJ snorted.

  “I appreciate your support, Lieutenant, but right now what’s happening here is more important,” Diego replied.

  “What could be causing this?” she asked, her expression bleak as she stared at the carnage surrounding them.

  “Did you get the report on the creature that attacked San Cristóbal?”

  BJ nodded. “Didn’t understand much of it. You think it might be behind this? Didn’t Allen blow the thing apart with a SPEAR?”

  “It might not be the only one, or there might be some other kind of alien roaming the countryside,” Diego said. “Whatever it is, we have to target and destroy it.”

  “You and what flight of neutron bombs are going to do this?” BJ asked.

  Diego said nothing. He commanded a partial squad of four men, none of them—apart from Suarez—veterans or even fully jungle-trained. They carried Pitbulls, a few grenades, and nothing more. If he encountered the golden alien, or even a guerrilla force of any strength, he could not hope to prevail. Diego knew that was what Allen expected—the man was secretly hoping he might die in combat and avoid the potential messiness of a hearing.

  “How many men do you have with you, Lieutenant?” Diego asked, his mind racing as he recalculated his odds.

  “Unfortunately, not many,” BJ said. “I sent most of ’em back to San Cristóbal after we dispatched the last Cyclops and just kept a squad of eight soldiers to investigate the village attacks. I did keep the Aztec cycles with us, though I don’t know what good that will do us if we can’t find whatever’s doing this.”

  “Lieutenant Suarez,” Diego called. The man, who had tactfully moved a few meters away during this conversation to give them some privacy, hurried up.

  “Let’s gather our squad and Lieutenant Travis’s men and hit the next village down the line,” Diego ordered. “Maybe if we can plot the pattern of attacks, we can figure out where they’re coming from.”

  “I think you should take a look at this first, sir,” Suarez said, scowling down at his equipment. “I’m getting some anomalous readings here—power surges like nothing I’ve ever seen. See these spikes?”

  “Guerrillas?” Diego guessed.

  “Not unless they’ve gotten their hands on a fusion generator,” Suarez said. “That’s the closest I can come to these readings—but even that’s not quite right.”

  The two men’s eyes met, and each knew what the other was thinking. An unknown force attacks a village. An unknown power source is operating in the jungle not far away. Coincidence? Improbable.

  Diego peered over Suarez’s shoulder at the readings. Something out in the jungle was pushing the instrument readouts orders of magnitude above their usual levels, yet in such a way that he doubted space or aerial recon would reveal the source. The power leakages came out parallel to the jungle floor, as if being deliberately hidden.

  “It’s only about fifteen klicks due west of here, sir,” Suarez pointed out. “We could take the Hydra there—there’s room for Lieutenant Travis’s squad as well—and see what’s up. It might be a major Neo-Sov invasion force or some kind of secret guerrilla base that’s stayed hidden from us until now.”

  Staring at the readouts, Diego came to a speedy decision. “We’ll take the Hydra to within a kilometer and then go to ground and investigate on foot,” he said. “If somebody’s got the tech to hide that much power, they’ve probably got electronic nets scattered around to pick up something as large as a Hydra.

  “Get the men loaded up, Lieutenant,” Diego ordered. “This is going to be it. I feel it in my bones.”

  * * *

  Diego, Suarez, and two other soldiers slipped into the jungle away from the Hydra, which had powered down and was virtually concealed by the thick undergrowth. BJ and the rest of the men had been ordered to stay by the Hydra while Diego’s squad did a preliminary recon. Diego hesitantly kept to
a newly cut trail, although he was worried they might be walking into a trap. Suarez had point and kept up a constant chatter, warning of possible snares. They found nothing, but Diego felt the hair rising on the back of his neck as they approached the site identified as the energy nexus. He slowed, then motioned his scouts off the trail.

  “Colonel,” whispered Suarez, “my readings are sky-high now. Whatever’s there is a thousand times more powerful than I thought.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They are blanketing emissions. What I picked up before is just the leakage. This might be a weapons complex capable of defending the entire planet from space attack.”

  That meant the Neo-Sovs were not involved. Diego might have had some training problems, but such huge amounts of ordnance could never have been moved into the jungle without his men discovering it. José might have accumulated some energy weapons over the years, but nothing on this scale.

  If not the Neo-Soviets or José, then who?

  He fastened the latches on his body armor, loaded a grenade into the Bulldog, and began a quiet advance. Standing around asking questions he couldn’t answer was not the way to go. Seeing the energy source up close was. Suarez and the other two spread out, moving on cat’s feet through the vegetation. They moved so quietly all Diego heard was the soft wind in the high leaves of the jade jacaranda trees.

  The jungle ended abruptly, crisped by what looked like laser burns. Diego went to his belly and eased his rifle ahead of him. Using the Bulldog’s scope, he studied the new clearing stretched out in front of him. He gasped when he finally figured out what it was.

  “A spaceship,” he said into his mike. “Suarez, do you copy that?”

  “Copy that, sir,” the lieutenant reported. “That’s the source of the energy.”

  Diego slowly scanned the length of the ship, wondering at the construction. He knew the configuration of every Neo-Soviet and Union space vessel. This wasn’t any of them.