Arachnosaur

by Richard Jeffries

  Key pointed at the general.

  “I tapped into the comm noise throughout the country,” Logan said.

  He, too, wanted to hear what Logan ordered. The man might be an overly ambitious bureaucrat at heart, but he was Operation Arachnosaur’s commander, simply by being in the right place at the wrong time. In other words, no one in authority could get anyone of higher rank or greater experience there in a timely fashion.

  “Usual extremist bullcrap in the north,” Lancaster said, once more inwardly cursing that he had retired, and couldn’t lead the attack himself, “but the south was full of hysterical radio calls about monsters that gutted everyone.” The general was both regretful and relieved that Yemen was not a more modern country. The word would have gone out faster if the mountain villages had smartphones, but it would have started an international panic, and the sociopolitical clusterfuck that always engendered.

  Key held up his finger. Logan was talking again. “We are dealing with a force of spider-like creatures, who, according to reports, are as large as wolves, but fast and vicious. Their eight legs end, apparently, in razor-sharp pincers that have been reported to be able to dissect a human or animal within seconds.”

  The landing force commanders couldn’t stay silent at that. As they buzzed amongst each other, Key pointed at Rahal.

  “Most spiders are solitary or even aggressive toward each other,” she said, “but not these. They’ve developed, evolved.”

  “‘Evolved,’” he said. “From what?”

  “We don’t know,” she admitted. “Most likely, whatever root produced the familiar spiders people know and don’t love so much.”

  “How many?” Key returned to more urgent matters.

  Rahal was unfazed by his rapid shifts, his desire to pin this down in his own brain. She, better than anyone alive, knew the urgency of the situation. “Studies have counted certain colonies of modern spiders numbering as many as fifty thousand—”

  Lancaster cursed under his breath.

  “Yes,” she said. “A formidable number. But these were restricted to a cave hollow, and must have cannibalized each other to survive. I estimate—hope—no more than two hundred.”

  “Two hundred or two hundred thousand?”

  “The former,” she reassured him.

  Key held up his forefinger again.

  “It is vital for you to know,” Logan said, “that these spider things do not create standard webbing. Instead they emit thin strands that can—” The captain paused, scarcely believing what he was about to say. “That can cause male blood to boil and detonate if you come into contact with it.”

  “Detonate,” Key repeated carefully. “Explode?”

  “Violently,” the captain answered. “Think of it as the obscene bloat that comes from the venom of a lethal creature like the coral snake, only accelerated, with greater inflation and beyond the point of bursting.”

  The buzz that ensued after that bombshell put the first to shame. Key knew what was coming next, so he pointed at Rahal again.

  “I still don’t know enough because Private Nichols is the only survivor,” she said. “She’s awake, but confused. Apparently her captors thought they could control her through the light in her eyes. Tests on her transfused blood suggest that she could transmit the toxicity with a touch.” Key raised his finger.

  “We will do everything possible not to come into contact with these creatures,” Logan said, “but it should be obvious that our frontal force should consist of as many females as possible.”

  Key grimaced a mirthless, sympathetic, grin for poor Logan. His mind unavoidably went back to the days when African Americans were used as cannon fodder as recently as the Korean War. His pointing at Rahal now took on an ironic edge.

  “Has to be the double-X chromosome,” she stressed. “Men have an X and Y chromosome—women have two X chromosomes. It’s a difference of only seventy-eight genes, but one of those has to be a corrective component for the ammonia picrate and picric acid.”

  Key nodded, almost unconsciously, his forefinger drooping to a forty-five-degree angle as he thought about all the obsessive research he had been doing about spiders since discovering his adversary.

  “It is an absolute imperative,” Logan said, “that we stop these things before they reach the coast.” He did not need to say why. Everyone knew that if they could move underwater, remain near the surface where the pressure wouldn’t crush them, they could spread throughout the world with virtually no possible opposition. For that matter, their exoskeletons could make it possible for them to withstand the seabed. Certain species of crab did.

  “Any progress?” Lancaster asked Rahal.

  Rahal gave Key a meaningful look, which he missed, before returning the general’s stare. “Only the most rudimentary,” she admitted, “but I’m truly doing the best I can.”

  “I know you are,” Lancaster assured her, his hand on her shoulder. “If you join Cerberus, I assure you the finest facilities possible—”

  “If there’s any Cerberus left to join.” Logan was suddenly at their shoulders in the doorway, trying to sidle past as the commanding officers behind them fell out to find female volunteers in their units. “You’ll be happy to know, I suppose, that we’ve found and arrested Jean Bernard Toussaint.”

  “Great work, Captain.” Lancaster grunted, stepping away so Logan could get past. “We need the ventriloquist; you got the dummy.”

  That snapped Key out of his reverie. He and Lancaster shared a silent glance. Both knew, but neither needed to say, that Usa Awar was still in the wind, and, for all they knew, could have been in Timbuktu by now. Instead of checking on the terrorist weapon dealer’s whereabouts, the Captain had spent all his free time trying to deny Cerberus’s influence. As Logan sourly went, double-time, back to his command center, Key and Rahal followed Lancaster up the stairs toward the deck of the Leon.

  They emerged into bright ocean sunlight where the Arabian Sea met the Gulf of Aden. Normally the Leon stayed in the southern Red Sea, many nautical miles to the west, but extraordinary times called for extraordinary locations. One thing it had in common with its usual location was proximity to the Arleigh Burke class destroyer, the USS Nexus. Both had been ordered into position off the coast of Yemen as soon as the threat had been discovered.

  They did not have far to go. US Navy ships had been a common sight in the waters off Yemen, to prevent any threat to the three million barrels of oil that cruised by every day. The entire area of Yemen, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates were about as large as the east coast of the United States, so travel time was not a desperate concern, especially with the jets and helicopters available to the Marines and Cerberus.

  As soon as Key, Lancaster, and Rahal appeared, Gonzales and Daniels flanked them, all heading for CJ-the-jet, where Faisal awaited in the cockpit. It was parked on the corner edge of the Leon’s flight deck. Luckily, the LPD—landing platform/dock—had already been at full alert, so it incorporated a hanger facility as well as a flight deck for planes and copters, and a well deck for landing craft and amphibious vehicles. They were going to need all of them if they were going to pull this off.

  Lancaster stopped Key before he started up the jet’s steps. Key turned back to the general without reluctance. He knew if Lancaster had something to say it would be important. And it wouldn’t be about the immediate mission. They both already knew that, while the newly dubbed sergeant major was not part of Logan’s attack force, he was reluctantly allowed to serve as observer and consultant.

  Daniels was just behind Key, listening intently, but all the preparations for the assault was drowning out the words, even though he was only inches away.

  “I thought you should know that I was the reason you went to Shabhut in the first place,” Lancaster said in Key’s ear. “Davi was a double agent, so we’ve known about, and been working on, the situation f
or some time. But powers that were made a deal with the Awar devil when he contained these monsters. I kept pushing until the order went out to clean Shabhut. That’s when FUBAR took over.”

  Every soldier knew that acronym. Fucked Up Beyond All Reason.

  “Your unit went in ignorant,” Lancaster confessed, “inadvertently empowering Awar. Now you got to correct my mistake. Got it?”

  Key turned his head and looked directly at Lancaster. The expression on the general’s leathery, lined face was one of conviction and faith. He had been looking to recruit the ex-corporal ever since he saw Key’s battlefield report.

  All the sergeant major did now was nod, then look at Rahal as she stood beside the tall, tough, old war bird. Her expression held the same concern it had since they returned with Nichols inside the steel coffin. She impulsively grabbed his hand, jumped up, and kissed him full on the mouth.

  She was the first to turn and head toward the Leon’s control tower. With raised eyebrows, Lancaster shrugged and followed. Key stepped back into Gonzales’s private jet, finding she had left a note in his hand. As Daniels stood beside him, watching the scientist and military man go, Key read.

  Be aware.

  He looked up from the two simple words, back to where Rahal was nearing the pilot house bridge. As she took the first step onto the steel ladder leading to it, she turned her head and looked back at him. Even from fifty yards away, he could see the concern in those deep eyes of hers. He knew she had wanted to question his decision to be part of the operation, especially so soon after the transfusion, but he also knew she knew it would be useless, even foolish, to do so. Key could no sooner stay behind, even if he had given more blood, than she could stop caring.

  Their gaze was ended only by Faisal closing the jet door. Key turned, slipping the paper into the pocket of his gear, and strode toward his seat. He sat down and buckled up next to Daniels as the sergeant leaned back and spoke to the ceiling.

  “I’ve been meaning to ask Lionheart all along,” he said with exaggerated casualness. “What does Cerberus mean, anyway? Monsters of North America Really Come Hither? The Monsters of North America part works okay. After all, he came up with it to ‘investigate national and international threats beyond those of normal military protocol,’ right? But I’ve been having a hell of a time with the rest.” He was silent, but only for a moment. “Or maybe it’s not an acronym, eh? Maybe it just means king, like in the old movie King Dinosaur about just the biggest goddamn—”

  “Shut up, Sergeant,” Key said evenly, preparing for a fight unlike any other he had ever experienced. Then suddenly he knew. Not what Cerberus meant, but why Lancaster had promoted him to sergeant major rather than the six ranks between, including sergeant and corporal. “And that’s an order from a superior officer.”

  Chapter 30

  The command center on the USS Nexus looked almost the same as the one on the USS Leon. They were both dark enclosures with a wall of monitors that curved around a communications console which was manned by four Navy specialists.

  Captain Patrick Logan sat just behind the quartet in the center of the one on Nexus. Lancaster and Rahal stood behind the men in the one on Leon. The captain was planning to refuse the general’s and scientist’s presence on the destroyer, but Lancaster hadn’t even asked. To the general, Logan looked like Captain Kirk on the bridge of the starship Enterprise, and, to the Cerberus man’s mind, he was trying to act like him too.

  Logan is no Kirk, Lancaster thought. That go-get-’em quality in Star Trek was missing. In its place was calculation, the man’s eyes moving like little machines.

  On all the screens were images from the forward formation of drones. They had swept inland, and had started picking up the movement of the monsters within minutes.

  “We were just in time,” Lancaster rumbled. “Even an hour more and we would have been too late.”

  The men in Gonzales’s jet heard everything. All communications were patched into CJ, and anything they said in the air could also be heard by Lancaster and Rahal on the sea. Gonzales had all the jet’s outside lenses focused on the ground as he repeatedly came in low. The creatures showed the same disinterest in the jet as they would any bird.

  “Wish we were outfitted with napalm,” Gonzales muttered. “Or, at least bombs.”

  “We’re observation, consulting, noncombatants,” Key grumbled. “But let’s see if we can give them something to consult about.”

  Gonzales came around for another pass, careful not to block the sightline of any drone below them.

  “Do we have a count?” Logan asked flatly.

  A Navy man at the console used recognition software to seek out anything of spider shape. “One hundred eighty-three, sir.”

  “Are they all here?” Rahal asked.

  They could hear everything from the Lexus command post, but Logan could hear nothing from the Leon, unless a control board sailor contacted him directly. To Lancaster’s growing disgust, the captain had cited something about not wanting any unnecessary distractions.

  “Let’s hope so,” the general answered the scientist.

  Rahal leaned closer, her face troubled. “Why haven’t any Houthi, Hadi Government, or even Al-Qaeda forces taken these creatures on?”

  “They’re almost exclusively in the cities to the west—” Lancaster began, but was interrupted by one of the control board men.

  “Ma’am,” he said, pointing. “Ma’am?”

  Lancaster and Rahal looked to where the sailor was pointing, a screen on the far right. A drone had spotted a group of three locals with rifles, crawling on top of a bluff, above the arachnosaurs which were pouring down the valley below.

  “It’s like an Old Testament plague,” Rahal remarked. Then she said, “Maybe they were.”

  “Good men,” Lancaster said, interested right now only in results, not context or philosophy. “This will help us estimate the creature’s vulnerabilities.”

  The men took positions, aimed, and started firing.

  “They’ve hit one, sir,” reported a sailor, pointing. As they shifted their gazes to that screen, they all saw a creature rear up on its hind legs and start to shake.

  “They got him.” Lancaster smiled. But Rahal was not so easily convinced.

  “Wait,” she said. “I recognize that movement. Widen your focus,” she instructed the sailor, then remembered who and where she was. “Please.”

  But even before she said the magic word, he was already pulling back the lens so they could see around the area more fully. The creatures had stopped swarming and appeared to be maneuvering.

  “Can it be?” Rahal asked.

  “Can it be what?” Lancaster demanded.

  “It’s mimicking!” Rahal exclaimed. When she saw the perplexed expressions around her, she quickly continued. “Look, look, at what the others are doing!” She pointed at the screen, to where several other creatures were racing up the bluffs from the side and back.

  “The bastards are ambushing our guys!” Lancaster seethed.

  Rahal peered even closer at the screen, her troubled expression now also amazed. “They’re displaying cooperative division of labor, like ants, but with greater mobility…agility.”

  “Stop admiring them,” Lancaster snapped.

  Rahal was taken aback but apologized under her breath. He was right, in his brusque way; she was learning, but he was fighting. She’d forgotten her place.

  No one had to ask if the creatures’ new skills were bad, for, in the next moment, the three encircling arachnosaurs pounced. The humans all watched in dismay and disgust as the three villagers were clutched by black claws, held firm, penetrated, and burst open like erupting stove-top popcorn. Then all the attacking monsters pumped bulbous, thick sputum into the torn-open cavities, before speeding down to rejoin the main throng.

  “I need to see those eggs,” Rahal cried. �
��We have to get samples of those things!”

  “We’ll do our best.” Lancaster growled as a sailor passed on the request to the Lexus. “But first things first.”

  Obviously the Nexus had seen enough. They all heard the thundering boom of the destroyer’s Tomahawk missile launchers, and watched as Gonzales’s jet retreated before the thousand-pound high explosives smashed into the countryside. The valley erupted into yellow-orange flame and grey-white smoke that sent the drone cameras spinning.

  When the smoke cleared, everyone in the Leon control room could hear everyone in the Nexus control room cheering. When the drone views came back into focus the valley looked like scorched, empty, earth.

  Lancaster straightened, his smile growing, but Rahal all but put her face onto the nearest screen. “No, no, look!”

  One arachnosaur after another reemerged from what appeared to be organic trapdoors in the dirt.

  “They were burrowing,” she cried. “The missiles may have gotten some, but not nearly enough.”

  “Jesus Christ on a crutch!” the general boomed. “What else can these things do?” He looked at Rahal. “Awright. Now I’m listening.”

  Rahal turned to Lancaster, her face haunted. “Have you ever stepped on a spider?” she asked pointedly.

  “Of course.”

  “Multiply that by a thousand or more.”

  “That doesn’t help me,” he said. It was almost an accusation.

  “No, and this won’t either,” she said. “These spiders can step back. They can grab your foot and kill you with just that.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Shit,” Key muttered in their ears. “We’ll have to attack.”

  “No,” Lancaster said. “They will.”

  And, as he said it, they started. The Nexus’s two Sea Hawk helicopters, and the Leon’s two Sea Dragon helicopters, took off from their decks and sped inland. Gonzales’s jet stayed far out of the way, as the choppers came in fast and low before unloading all their Hellfire missiles directly at the front line of scurrying creatures.