by C. R. Turner
Sam’s been quiet ever since she caught that glimpse of something in the jungle. I want to hug her, but I can feel the team watching behind us. Instead, I reach out and touch her arm. She lifts her hand and gently touches my elbow, but her shoulders are slouched, and her usual glowing smile has vanquished.
After unloading Falone’s and Smith’s body bags and unsaddling Max and Jade, Sam and I unpack some beef from our supplies and cut a couple of large chunks off for the canines. Half rations seem to have had no effect on their energy. From the trek Max and I took getting to Arcadia, I know a Canine Maximi can go a long time without eating.
Max settles next to Jade as I set up my swag next to Sam’s. Bradley has a good campfire going and we sit and eat our meals around it, while Hawkins tells Sam and me about one of SF Raptor’s missions to a planet I’ve never heard of. We both sit wide-eyed listening to the extraordinary tale. Even Pisano and Taylor are smiling as they gaze into the flames. I don’t know how far the truth’s being stretched, but knowing these guys, and what we’ve just been through, I tend to believe every word. Listening to their past adventures of how they’ve risen above overwhelming misfortune, I’m just starting to appreciate the strike force credo at the top of their shield: Greatness in Adversity.
Stage six – I wake, still sleep-groggy, to a rustling sound. The campfire has burned out. Sam, Bradley, Hawkins and Emerson are fast asleep. Taylor’s snoring. Pisano’s bed is empty.
I look around and freeze in fear. A huge creature is dragging Pisano up a tree, just a few feet away from his bed. My heart skips a beat, then hammers back to life.
The creature is reptilian, probably rivalling Max in weight but bigger and leaner. It creeps up the tree, leaving huge scratch marks in the bark from its clawed hands and feet. The end of its long, thin tail – probably ten feet long – is wrapped around Pisano’s neck. Pisano’s unable to call out as he gasps for air. We make eye contact as he desperately tries to get free – his face a white canvas of terror.
I rip open my swag, yelling, “Bradley.”
Startled, he sits up, his cat-like reflexes going straight for his Ashra. The creature squats on a large branch. Its black scales make it hard to see in the dim light. It has Pisano’s ankles in one hand and its tail still wrapped tightly around his neck. It lays Pisano at its feet, then tears at Pisano’s leg, ripping away a huge chunk of flesh. Blood pours from the jungle canopy like rain. An Ashra blast flies over my head. Bradley. The shot hits the creature in the shoulder, and it loses its balance. Timber cracking and splintering, Pisano and the creature crash to the ground. Everyone’s on their feet.
The creature gets up. That’s impossible! I’ve never seen anything survive a blast from an Ashra before. The creature’s shoulders are about eight feet off the ground as it hunches over on all fours, ready to attack. It lowers its head, which sits on the end of a six-foot-long thin neck – long bone-like spikes on its back and neck stand upright in a threatening display – then lifts it again and roars, exposing an armoury of sharp teeth. The raucous bellow hurts my ears. Bradley fires again, hitting it in exactly the same spot. I cover my ears as it roars even louder. Bradley and Hawkins both open fire. Several of their shots hit their mark, and the creature turns tail and runs, disappearing into the jungle.
I grab my backpack and run to Pisano. His neck has ligature marks around it, his trachea probably crushed. Pisano gasps, spitting up blood as his arms thrash about. I try to roll him onto his side. His pants are torn to shreds and his hamstring ripped clean from his leg. He’s bleeding heavily and his femur is smashed from the fall, multiple jags of bone protruding. Bradley and Taylor drop to their knees by his side.
I’m not sure what to treat first. The adrenaline raging through my veins is making it hard to think straight. I swallow and try to calm myself. Right, airway, then circulation. But the amount of blood spurting makes me question what I’ve been taught. I grab a tourniquet from my backpack and tie it firmly around his upper thigh, then palpate his throat.
Pisano stares me right in the eyes, sending a wave of fear through me. This is nothing like my training.
I inject a painkiller and Pisano falls to a deathly calm. Before I lose my nerve, I grab a digital tracheostomy tube, then rip a scalpel from its sealed plastic packet. I can’t believe I’m about to do this. Bradley holds Pisano’s head down, and I glance up at him – I guess he’s seen this done before. I feel for Pisano’s thyroid cartilage. The touch of his warm skin and the glistening scalpel makes my adrenaline surge again. My breathing quickens. I press the razor-sharp scalpel against his throat, hesitate, then push. It slices through his throat with ease. Blood spurts everywhere, spraying my hands and his throat.
I insert the tube. The air flowmeter on the med-screen in my backpack reads zero. Crap! He’s stopped breathing. Once I have the airbag connected to the tube, I start squeezing, counting as I go.
I swipe the med-screen with my free hand to display Pisano’s biometrics. Heart rate, thirty BP. Pressure, fifty over zero – it’s not even returning a reading.
“Hell. Stay with us,” I yell. “Bradley, take over the airbag.”
With Pisano’s peripherals shutting down, I’m scared he’ll go into hypovolemic shock. I grab a cannula, a line and a bag of fluid to try to raise his blood pressure. Once the cannula’s inserted into his brachial vein and the line’s connected, I hand the bag to Sam.
“Hold it up and squeeze,” I order.
Reading Pisano’s biometrics and watching Bradley squeezing the airbag, I fear the worst. But Pisano sputters and starts breathing on his own. I straighten his leg so he can be turned. “Get him onto his stomach. Keep the tube out of the dirt,” I order.
All I can do is stop the bleeding, strap him up tight and hope to get him off this planet as fast as possible. While Bradley and Taylor roll him over, I find my forceps and a vascular clamp. Bile rises to the back of my throat as I look at the flesh, blood and bone. I push the forceps through the muscle, trying to find the femoral artery. It slips away. I grab it again, gripping harder, and slide the vascular clamp over, secure it, then release my forceps. After cleaning the leaves and dirt out of Pisano’s leg, I pull out a large antiseptic field dressing and wrap it tightly around his leg.
“Roll him back over,” I order.
He looks beat, like he’s about to check out. His foot is deathly white. I palpate for a pulse. Nothing. His leg injuries are so severe I already know he’s going to lose his leg. I get out more bandages and splint his leg. When I’m finished, Bradley gestures to step away.
“Is he going to make it?”
I can hear the stress in his voice. I open my mouth, but all that comes out is a whisper of air. I swallow, try again. “Only if we get him out of here. He needs a hospital.”
Taylor and Emerson are kneeling next to the Kyt’s radio. When Taylor finishes talking, she looks up at us and shakes her head.
Bradley scans the canopy. “We need to find shelter.”
Taylor and Emerson get a collapsible stretcher ready, and it’s not long before we’re ready to move out. I hope this isn’t the last time I see Pisano alive.
“Hang in there,” I whisper.
I run back to Max – my hands covered in blood. In my rush to help Pisano, I forgot to put gloves on. Rookie mistake! Sam opens her drink bottle, and I hold my hands out. A tear runs down her face. My hands shake as the last of the blood washes off. I take a deep breath and exhale.
“Hawkins, take point. Taylor, grab the tail,” Bradley orders.
As we set off again, I look over my shoulder at Pisano. We can’t lose another.
Stage six – half a mile down. Hawkins has slowed, allowing Bradley and Emerson to keep pace as they carry Pisano. By my Core-link, we’re only about five miles from the crash site. Max’s ears twitch back and forth, and he looks into the jungle. Three or four hundred feet away, at the base of a cliff face, a dark patch stands out – a cave maybe. After stopping, I squeeze with my right heel and Max turns his h
ead toward the dark patch. Two short sharp tugs of the reins and he pricks his ears and listens, then he lowers his head and pins his ears back, just like Akron said he would.
Bradley joins me. “What is it?”
I point. “It looks like a cave. Max can hear something up there.”
“Okay. Thanks, mate,” Bradley says.
We follow Bradley and Hawkins toward the cliff face as they scan ahead with their Ashras shouldered. The cliff face towers a good hundred feet above us. It’s a cave alright. In the shade of the cliff face, the pitch-black cave entrance is roughly ten feet wide by twenty feet high.
There’s no way any of us would be able to see inside without a light, not even Max. Bradley and Hawkins turn on their Ashra lights, the powerful beams bouncing off the cave walls.
They flick the lights back off, then disappear into the darkness. Max is still listening intently as I dismount. I hope I didn’t just deliver Bradley and Hawkins to that creature. A minute goes by and there’s muffled yelling from deep within, then silence.
Taylor’s on her knee by Pisano’s side with her Ashra at the ready. Emerson seems just as jittery as they scan the jungle canopy. Sam is standing close by Jade’s side a few feet away. I slide my Ashra off my back, thumb on the light switch and head into the cave.
“Stinson … what are you doing?” Emerson calls out under his breath.
I hear Sam call for me as I step into the darkness. Just like Bradley, I flick the light on, shine it at the ground and walls, burning a mental image in my mind, then turn it back off so I don’t give away my position. It’s eerily quiet … and cold. I fumble blindly in the dark, trying to check what setting my Ashra is on – stun, I think. Where did all the yelling go? My breathing quickens with my heart banging. I hear something. It’s faint.
I flick my light on and off again, then head even deeper into the cave. Taking small, quiet footsteps I feel the rough terrain with my feet. In the darkness, I think I see something, a faint light maybe. Whatever it is, I dare not turn on my light now. I’m sure I can hear voices. I have my Ashra pointed at the ground, my finger resting on the trigger guard. Further up ahead, a huge cavern, a good sixty feet high, is well lit. I turn the corner and find Bradley, Hawkins and three other people – SF Mustang’s prime and two more of their team.
Bradley and the rest of them spin around, startled to see me.
“Stinson … this is Prime Stiles, Specialist Sung and Specialist Scott,” Bradley says.
I take a deep stuttered breath. “You guys are a sight for sore eyes.”
Outside, Prime Stiles’ eyes are fixed on Pisano.
“What’s his condition?” he asks. He has the same northern accent as Sam.
“His hamstring’s been ripped from his leg, he has a fractured femur, and he’s lost a lot of blood. His trachea was crushed, but I’ve inserted a tracheal tube, and he’s maintaining his own respiratory rate. We’ve got to get him out of here.”
“Have you given him X72?” Stiles asks.
I take a deep breath, my face tightening. It’s the last resort of last resorts. From what Doctor Lister said, it will kill any infection and help stop bleeding, but in Pisano’s condition, it has an eighty per cent chance of killing him.
I shake my head. “No.”
Bradley addresses all of us. “Alright, everybody grab your gear and get inside.”
When we reach the cavern, I take Max’s saddle and reins off and head over to Bradley and Stiles.
“Pisano’s injuries are from a Ryuu … ay?” Stiles says.
“A what?” Bradley asks.
Stiles replies, “A Ryuu. They live in the jungle canopy. When we first landed, we were attacked by two. Alderson had his hamstrings torn from his body and died soon after. We’d only been on the planet for the whole of five minutes.”
“Pisano was attacked by one this morning,” I say. “Hawkins and Bradley hit it several times with their Ashras, but they had hardly any effect.”
“The Ryuu have a really tough scaly skin,” Stiles says. “The only way an Ashra would have any impact is if you were lucky and hit it between the scales. They’re incredible tough to kill.”
“How do you know about them?” I ask.
Stiles answers. “About a decade ago, I encountered Ryuu on a planet called Tex. The Ryuu on Tex were aggressive and territorial but nothing like the ones here. For some reason, these ones are totally psychopathic.”
“Have you found any of the Equilibria’s crew?” Bradley asks.
“No … this is as far as we got. We’ve been nailed down in here for weeks.” He kneels next to Falone’s body bag.
“What happened to your team?” I ask.
Prime Stiles takes a deep breath. “Houseman and Falone cooked up a small animal. When we woke the next day, they were gone …”
An hour later, I’m sitting by Pisano’s side in the dimly lit cavern, struggling to stay awake. I can’t afford to sleep now, not when Pisano might need me. He’s still pale and has a high fever. I get up and change his bag of fluid, in an effort to stay awake. When I’m finished, Pisano lifts his hand and briefly opens his eyes. He tries to talk but can’t. To allow half the air to pass through his vocal cords, I hold a tiny button down on the side of his tracheostomy tube until it beeps.
“Joel,” he whispers in a ghostly voice, with not even the energy to lift his head, “In my top pocket … there’s a letter.” He closes his eyes, a tear runs down his temple and he rests for a second before continuing. “Will you give it to my daughter?”
I look at his pocket, then back at him. “You’re going to be alright.”
“If I don’t make it … will you make sure she gets it?”
I nod and squeeze his hand. I’m hoping by some miracle it won’t come to that. Exhausted, I struggle to my feet and approach Bradley and Hawkins.
“How is he?” Bradley asks.
Anger at my powerlessness wells up from deep inside. “Not good.”
“How bad is his infection?”
“Significant, but it’s his haemoglobin level I’m worried about. If it falls too low, his vital organs will fail.”
Bradley purses his lips and gazes over my shoulder at Pisano. “Give him X72. That’s an order.”
I close my eyes, immediately feeling sick. This will likely kill him, and I’ll be the one administering it.
“Yes, sir,” I reply with dread.
I kneel next to Pisano. The vial has an unmissable wide red band around it with “X72” in big black writing. As I draw the correct dose, Pisano opens his eyes. He looks scared – I presume he knows what I’m about to do. I pause to steady my nerves before injecting the X72 into his bag of fluid. I feel his pulse. It’s slow, shallow and irregular. God, I hope I didn’t just kill him.
Hawkins calls to Taylor and they head toward the cave’s entrance with the Kyt’s radio. Sam comes over and sits by my side. I try to think back to my training, questioning every little thing I’ve done.
Half an hour later, Hawkins and Taylor still haven’t returned. I get up and walk toward the cave’s entrance and Bradley follows. We stand together and look out into the jungle.
Bradley faces me. “Can I give you some advice?”
“Yeah … sure.”
“Whatever happens … if Pisano doesn’t … don’t take it personally,” he says. “This job’s hard enough. You don’t need to be piling on guilt to make it even harder. You’ll drown.”
I nod and look down at the ground. We stand together for several minutes before Bradley heads back into the cave. The surrounding jungle is quiet, as though it’s been silenced by some ominous force. Except for a few nearby that are swaying a little, most of the trees are as motionless as statues.
I spot Hawkins and Taylor heading back to the cave, and I’m relieved until they’re about a hundred feet away and a Ryuu drops out of the canopy with a thud.
“Run,” Hawkins yells, as he unleashes with his Ashra.
The Ryuu roars.
T
aylor bolts with Hawkins right on her heels. Two more Ryuu drop out of the canopy and knuckle-gallop toward us with incredible speed. Bradley and Emerson run to the entrance.
As Hawkins sprints toward us, he screams, “Grenade.”
Bradley unclips an energy grenade from his jacket, twists the top and smacks the end with the palm of his hand to trigger the timer, just as Taylor and Hawkins make it back. They skid to the ground as Bradley hurls the grenade. The grenade makes a high-pitched whirring sound as it flies through the air, and someone drags me to the ground by the sleeve of my shirt.
Boom. Timber shrapnel rains down from the trees along with Ryuu blood and guts. My ears ring. The air fills with the smell of ionised air, smoke and dust. Some larger pieces of timber, weighing probably forty pounds, crash to the ground a good ten seconds after the explosion. As the ringing subsides, the remaining Ryuu call to one another with raspy barks as they retreat.
Chapter 11
Stage six – five miles to crash site. An hour after Taylor and Hawkins return to the cave, Sam and I sit by Pisano’s side as he sleeps. I’m hoping, by some miracle, I don’t have to deliver his letter. I couldn’t bear it.
“There’s nothing more you can do for him,” Sam whispers.
I nod. I know there isn’t, but I can’t escape the feeling I should be doing more. I can’t stand just sitting here.
“Alright people … gather around,” Bradley calls out as he reads his Core-link. “The Firestorm is airborne and will be here soon, so we’ll be moving out in fifteen. Hawkins, I want you taking point with your TA-60 in hand, followed by Taylor, Stinson then Miller. Emerson and I will carry Pisano with SF Mustang covering our rear. Understood?”
Everyone replies with a respectful “Pos, sir” and goes about preparing to move out. Although we need to get Pisano out of here, I'm tense knowing we have to go back out there. I give Sam a quick hug. The thought – this better not be our last goodbye – pops into my head and I worry even more.
Hawkins has his box of cartridges out and is loading the massive brass rounds into the matt-black magazine. The men are quiet, focused.