SNAFU: Unnatural Selection

by Christopher Golden

  Mindful of where he’d seen the RPK, Nielsen sent another grenade hurtling through the air. Folen’s came shortly after, both of them hitting right on top of each other.

  There was silence for a moment; then, a single round fired from Erwin’s EBR. “Erwin?” Nielsen said.

  “Saw some movement. Just wanted to be sure.”

  “All right. Buddy ACE report, then let’s get out of here.”

  He moved to Macy’s position, quickly checking the other soldier for any injuries he might not have noticed in the brief adrenaline rush of combat. “Ammo count?” Nielsen said, checking the soldier’s night-vision pouch and tapping his rifle-mounted optic systems.

  “500 rounds,” Macy answered. “Should have shot more. Shit’s heavy.”

  “Yeah, well, until we link up with Team 2 we need to play it safe.” Nielsen tapped his soldier’s helmet, and quickly showed Macy his own sensitive items. The junior infantryman quickly checked his team leader for any injuries before returning the helmet tap. “Good work, Macy.”

  None of the others had been injured, and ammo levels were still at acceptable levels. Not like it matters, Nielsen thought. We’ve got one or two firefights like that left before we need a resupply. He pulled a HOOAH! energy bar out of his pocket, gnawing on the slimy peanut butter mess. Gonna need to start rationing chow if we get to the objective and no one else is there.

  Just the thought of it formed a knot of anxiety in his stomach. “I’m not fucking ready for this,” he muttered, washing the energy bar down with a swig of water before turning to the rest of his team. “All right, pick up. We need—”

  “Hey sarn’t?” Erwin spoke, looking down his scope. “You’re gonna want to take a look at this.”

  Nielsen pulled his rifle to his shoulder, glancing through his ACOG scope. The dust was beginning to clear from the enemy position, but he could see the bullet-ridden pine trees shaking. Small landslides of shale tumbled off the opposite ridge, along with a body twisted and bent almost beyond recognition.

  There was something massive lurking in the dust cloud. Nielsen caught a glimpse of a broad, black shoulder, bristling with sharp spines. One of the pine trees collapsed underneath a massive claw, its yellow talons circling around the trunk and pulling it up out of the ground.

  “What the hell is that?” Macy asked.

  “No idea,” Nielsen answered, his heart thundering.

  “I’m gonna shoot it,” Coutts said, reaching for his M249’s charging handle.

  Nielsen snapped, “Standby, dammit. Just... standby.”

  They watched for a moment as whatever it was lumbered down the opposite side of the ridge. For a moment they could still hear it snapping trees and triggering shale-slides in its wake. Then it was gone, leaving nothing but silence in its wake.

  “Well, that’s it,” Folen said, putting in a fresh pinch of Copenhagen. “We’ve all gone crazy. Time to kill each other.”

  “Oh thank God,” Coutts said, stretching. “I’m tired of carrying this stupid thing.”

  “You fucks don’t have my permission to die,” Nielsen said, shaking his head. Just get to the rendezvous site. “We need to double-time it to meet up with Team 2. Bianchi has the Tacsat, we’ll be able to call back to Desolation and see if they can get eyes on that... thing.”

  “It was a honey badger,” Folen said. Coutts snickered. “Honey badgers don’t give a shit.”

  “Whatever it was, I don’t want to be with you idiots when it shows up again.” Nielsen turned and headed back up the spur. The others fell into place, the sound of doubt hiding inside their muttered jokes and curses.

  * * *

  Team 2 was dead. Not just dead; devoured, ripped apart, scattered all over the plateau where they’d been supposed to meet. None of them were remotely identifiable. It was all a jumble of torsos and spent shell casings.

  “Honey badger got here first,” Coutts said, kicking at a massive claw embedded in a rapidly-cooling torso. “Look at this thing.” He pulled it free, holding it up like a sword. “Almost as big as my dick.”

  “We gonna talk about this?” Erwin said, glancing at Nielsen. “Or are we just gonna keep pretending nothing weird is going on?”

  “Pretending has my vote,” Folen said. He pulled a blood-soaked grenade bandolier off a limbless corpse and strapped it over his shoulder. “I know I can’t deal with this right now.”

  “Me neither,” Coutts added, holding the claw against his crotch and thrusting suggestively. “Not getting paid near enough to even start to care.”

  “The whole team is gone,” Erwin said. The beginnings of panic edged into his voice. “Hajji didn’t do this, sarn’t. That... thing killed all of them.”

  “Sure looks that way,” Nielsen said. He pulled off his Oakley’s, and put his hand on Erwin’s shoulder. “Look at me. Take off your eyepro.” Erwin obeyed, his pupils darting all over Nielsen’s face. “It doesn’t matter who did this. Hajji, honey badger…”

  “It was the Loch Ness monster!” Coutts said. Macy and Folen laughed.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Nielsen repeated. “We’re gonna get through this. We’re gonna find the Tacsat, call back to Desolation, and get the hell out of here. You with me?”

  Erwin stared over his sergeant’s shoulder for a moment. Nielsen slapped him. Erwin blinked, and nodded.

  “Yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “Yeah. I’m with you.”

  “Good.” Nielsen embraced him, and kissed his cheek. “Now let’s find that damn radio.”

  Something started screaming to their south. They turned as one, dropping to a knee in a firing line, facing the direction of the spur they’d followed up the mountain. The stand of trees on the edge of the plateau disappeared, pulled down by the same yellow claw now strapped to Coutts’ back.

  “For the record,” Macy said, slamming a fresh belt of ammunition into his MK48. “It was a pleasure serving with you gentlemen.”

  “‘All remaining rounds to my position!’” Folen quoted as whatever it was roared again. “‘For the record, it was my call!’”

  “‘Lovely fuckin’ war!’” They all shouted together as a monster came charging up the spur toward them.

  It wasn’t a honey badger. It was a bear, or a wolf, or an amalgam of both. It lumbered on all fours, the sharp spines that covered its shoulders quivering with every step. Its wild, white eyes were already rolling, a purple-black tongue lolling between fangs the size of Nielsen’s combat knife.

  It was easily seven feet tall at the shoulder. When it suddenly reared up on its hind legs, spreading scythe-like claws, it was tall enough to blot out the setting sun.

  Too close for grenades, Nielsen thought as he switched his M4 selector switch to BURST. Too close to miss.

  Macy was already firing. He leaned back, letting the recoil of the MK48 drive him into the ground. The 7.62mm rounds snapped through the air alongside Coutts’ lighter 5.56mm bullets, the heavy tungsten projectiles peppering the behemoth. Folen and Nielsen joined in a second later, followed by the steady crack of Erwin’s marksmanship rifle.

  The beast dropped onto all fours, charging despite the firepower leveled against it. It swiped at Coutts, its claws ripping apart his ceramic armor and sending his M249 flying. He fell, rolling to his feet and yanking the recovered claw free. The soldier lunged forward, hacking at the thing’s nose and maw, screaming incoherently. Nielsen circled, trying to get a better line of sight, blasting away at the thing’s thick, knotted skull.

  “Fuck you honey badger!” Coutts shouted. Its huge head snapped forward, catching him around the waist. He screamed, coughing up blood as he rammed the claw furiously into its snout. The claw snapped in half as the beast shook its head wildly, hurling him like a shotput. Coutts went flying, disappearing over the edge of the plateau.

  Erwin lunged, driving the barrel of his EBR into its chest. He pulled the trigger until his magazine was dry. The creature roared, ramming him with the spines on its shoulder. They burst out the back of
his skull, shredding his body armor. It grabbed his body with a clawed hand and shoved the remains into its cavernous maw.

  Nielsen cursed as he reloaded, fumbling with his polymer magazine. The thing turned on him, snarling, its white eyes rolling back into its head. He slammed another magazine home as it charged, Macy and Folen’s shouts drowned out by its thick, throaty bellow.

  It was nearly on top of him when it suddenly began thrashing about. It shuddered, skidding to a halt, throwing up clogs of dirt in all directions. It pawed at its own head, snarling, foaming at the mouth.

  “Hey! Over here!”

  Nielsen turned to see a soldier emerge from a stand of trees on the other side of the plateau. His thick beard was covered in blood. There was a vicious wound on his left arm, a claw slash nearly six inches long. In his right hand he clenched a dish-shaped device attached to a massive backpack by thick, gray wires.

  He aimed the device squarely at the bellowing monster. A high-pitched whine filled the air. The creature’s snarl turned into a mammoth squeal of pain. It turned and fled, thundering back the way it had come.

  The young sergeant turned toward the stranger. The other man huffed with exertion, the device shaking in his arm.

  “Goddam thing is running out of juice,” he said. “You all right?”

  “Fine,” Nielsen answered. “Just peachy.”

  “Who the hell is this?” Macy asked, coming with Folen to stand beside Nielsen.

  The other soldier clipped the device to his belt. He pulled a wrinkled cigarette pack out of his shoulder pocket and offered one to Nielsen. Nielsen stared at him. He shrugged, and lit it for himself. “Sergeant First Class Morris,” the soldier said. “Attached to Task Force Griffin. Stationed up at Camp Eisenhower a click north of here.”

  “Bullshit, that’s where you’re from,” Folen said. “You’re stationed at Camp Bullshit, and you drink from a Camelback full of fucking lies.”

  “You wouldn’t know about Eisenhower,” Morris continued, ignoring him. “It’s a subterranean facility. CIA built it back in 2002 right after the invasion. We’ve been moving in and out for the last ten years.”

  “And let me guess,” Folen continued. “You’ve got all kinds of crazy nasty shit down there including that... thing.” He frowned, noticing the cigarette dangling from Morris’ lips. “Wait. Let me get one of those.”

  Morris handed him a smoke, and said, “Yes. All kinds of nasty shit, including Codename: BARGHEST, which you just met.”

  “That’s a stupid name for a honey badger,” Nielsen said. “A really fucking stupid name.”

  The SF soldier frowned. “It’s not a honey badger. It’s a genetically engineered grizzly with a load of mechanical augmentation. Small arms don’t work for shit; it’s got a solid inch of ballistic-resistant gel and synthetic spider-weave beneath its skin. Most of its organs are redundant, and the damn thing has a graphene battery as a power source if it suffers brain death.”

  “Can you kill it with that?” Nielsen asked, pointing at the device clipped to Morris’ waist.

  “No. It’s supposed to be a remote control,” Morris said, exhaling a cloud of smoke. “But the only setting that seems to still work is the one set to ‘screw off’. I can’t control them, but I can make them leave for a while. If we can make it back to camp I—”

  “Stop,” Folen interrupted. “You said ‘them’. Please tell me you meant ‘it’.”

  “No,” Morris sighed. “That’s one of two that are still left.”

  * * *

  The entrance to Camp Eisenhower was a hatch in the ground hidden beneath a false layer of loose rock. Morris led the way down a steel ladder, which dropped into a concrete hallway after twenty feet. Pale overhead lamps flickered as the rest of the team followed, spreading out with their weapons at the high ready.

  “If we can get to the bionics bay I should be able to access the control system,” Morris said. “I can recall them from there, and then use the kill switch once they get inside.”

  “Or you could just flip the kill switch now without calling them here,” Folen said, his eyes glued to the door at the end of the hall. “That would also work.”

  “We can’t leave these things lying around,” Morris snapped. “You think Uncle Sam wants the world to know he’s setting genetically modified bears lose to hunt down hajj? Does that sound like a winning strategy for hearts and minds?” They stopped at the door. Morris quickly punched a code into the keypad. “We call ‘em back here and flip the kill switch as soon as we hear them rooting around. Then I call for MEDEVAC, we go home, and all of you get a fancy award and a weekend in Qatar.”

  The hallway they stepped into was covered in blood. The remains of corpses were everywhere, mangled bodies and black, slick blood covering the walls.

  “Something must have gone wrong with the command signals,” Morris said as Macy cursed in disgust. “The three barghests were supposed to run a standard patrol last night. Instead they went berserk. My team was already on patrol when one ambushed us. Managed to take it down, but I was the only one to walk away from it.”

  “I thought you SF guys had special magic beard powers,” Nielsen asked, keeping his rifle tight in his shoulder. “Your beard didn’t protect you?”

  “Fuck you.” Morris winced, pressing a hand against the Israeli bandage over his wound. “Take a left up here.”

  The kill team headed down another blood-slicked corridor. There were rooms on either side of the long hallway; rooms with doors that had been beaten down, rooms with shattered glass panels and scattered laboratory equipment.

  Morris stopped briefly at one of them. “Sweet,” he said, ducking inside. Nielsen followed, nearly tripping over overturned weapon racks. Machine guns, semi-automatic rifles and anti-tank weapons were scattered everywhere.

  “Macy, Folen, get in here,” he said, quickly opening ammo can full of HEDP grenades. “Stock up on everything you can carry. Ditch your plates; they’re not going to protect us from those things anyway.”

  “Here.” Macy pulled two M72 Light Anti-Tank Weapons out of an overturned locker. He handed one to Folen and took one for himself. “There’s something else in here…” He withdrew a long, hollow tube fitted with a wooden pistol grip.

  “That’s a Gustaf,” Morris said, playing with a remote control he’d snatched from one of the few lockers still standing. “84mm recoilless.”

  “Will it take one of those things down?” Nielsen asked.

  “If you shoot it center mass, it should deal enough damage to the barghest’s mechanical and organic support systems to trigger a total shutdown,” Morris said. “And if not…”

  A large metallic crate in the corner suddenly toppled over with a loud bang. A tracked robot wheeled out from where it had been hidden and stopped at Morris’ side. At around four feet tall, the robot was armed with sponson-mounted machine guns and a quad-barrel rocket system.

  “This is MAARS-bot,” Morris said, patting the robot affectionately. “He’s armed with one XM806 .50 caliber machine gun, two M240L 7.62mm machine guns, and an M202AI FLASH Incendiary Weapon.”

  “Sweet,” Macy said. “Is it gonna go rogue and try to eat us, too?”

  His answer was an echoing roar from somewhere deeper in the compound. Morris cursed. “All right, one of the two little bears is already home,” he said. “We gotta go. Now. Follow me!”

  He sprinted out of the room, MAARS-bot cruising along behind him. The others followed, quickly slinging their rocket-propelled weapons as they sprinted down the hall toward the bionics bay.

  “It’s just ahead,” Morris shouted as they rounded a corner. “Oh, shit!”

  The barghest they had encountered earlier was just ahead of them. It bled hydraulic fluid and boiling, dark-red blood. It appeared even more massive in the tightly confined space. It roared, its spines scraping and gouging the ceiling.

  “Honey badger, 12 o’clock!” Folen shouted, immediately dropping to a knee and opening up. He fired on burst, burni
ng through a 30-round magazine in a matter of seconds.

  “Grenades!” Nielsen shouted as the barghest dropped and charged. The HEDP rounds sailed through the air, each of them smashing into the beast’s front legs. Nielsen could feel the intense heat of the blast at such close range. He opened up along with Macy, the other soldier’s MK48 filling the air between them and the monster with armor-piercing rounds.

  “Use your stupid ray gun, Morris!” Macy shouted.

  “I’m outta juice!” Morris answered, ditching the huge power pack with a curse. He snatched up the controls for MAARS-bot, muttering a litany of profanity as he adjusted the robot’s controls.

  “Any second now, Morris! Feel free!” Nielsen bellowed. The barghest was almost on them, growing wider by the second, undeterred by the gallons of blood and black hydraulic fluid pouring from its wounds.

  “Got it!”

  The robot chirped pleasantly, and suddenly the rocket pods on its central chassis burst into life. Four 66mm incendiary rockets screamed through the air, each one landing right on top of the other. The monster’s front legs were sheared clean off. One of the rockets detonated inside the barghest, showering all of them with blood, guts and machine parts. The metallic skeleton of the creature was revealed, along with sparking wires and steaming organs.

  The barghest mindlessly pushed itself toward them with its hind legs. The kill team kept up their rate of fire until it was only a few feet from them. Finally it stopped, right in front of Folen, a mechanical screech signaling the death of its primary power source.

  Folen peered down at its massive, bloody jaws. He chuckled, and kicked it in the eye.

  The barghest lunged forward, its teeth sinking into his leg. Folen screamed as it savaged the wound, jerking its head back and forth. His limb came away at the hip, bright arterial blood fountaining through the air. The others yelled, dumping rounds into the creature’s head until its skull was nothing more than a black and red smear on the shattered tile.