It's a dream, Marco thought. I'm back in my tent. I'm asleep. This has to be a dream.
A soldier ran toward them, shouting something, but Marco couldn't hear. Before the soldier could reach them, a scum leaped onto him, severing the man's legs, then cracking the head open. Another soldier ran, burning, a living torch, and the scum leaped onto her, ripped her apart, and the woman collapsed into burning pieces. A jet was trying to rise from the port outside the fence, engines roaring, only for a pod to slam into it. As the jet dipped, scum leaped from the sand, grabbed its wheels and wings, and the vehicle shattered and blazed and lit the night. Soldiers fell from the jet, still alive, screaming, burning, falling into the waiting jaws of the scum below.
This is hell, Marco thought. The world is gone. All is darkness and fire.
"They're the sky," Lailani whispered. "They're the desert. They're everything. They are gods."
Two more scum raced toward Marco and Lailani. They fired, but the bullets glanced off the creatures' claws, and the aliens kept racing forward. Marco ran out of bullets, and he pawed for another magazine. Lailani cursed.
"My gun's jammed!" she shouted, desperately pulling the barrel down to fish out the stuck bullet.
The two scum leaped into the air toward them, and Marco stared up at his death.
White fire.
Blazing, stinking, searing plasma tore forward, ionizing the air, and washed over the two scum. The creatures screeched, torn apart, and both of them fell, shattered and burnt and writhing. Marco finally loaded another magazine and emptied bullets into their twisting forms.
He turned toward the source of the plasma. He saw Ensign Ben-Ari standing there, her silvery plasma gun—the weapon of an officer—in hand.
"Emery!" she cried, voice barely audible past the ringing in Marco's ears. "De la Rosa! To your platoon, now! Move it, soldiers!"
He nodded and ran toward his officer. Lailani ran with him. All around them, soldiers were firing guns, falling, screaming, dying. A man crawled toward Marco, reaching out his hand, begging for help. He ended below the ribcage, his legs, his pelvis, his stomach gone, spilling out organs. A girl curled up in the sand outside a burning tent, weeping, desperately trying to stuff entrails back into her slit belly.
"Papa!" she called. "Papa, please, I want to go home." She fell silent as the scum rose behind her, as the claws impaled her neck.
"Emery, de la Rosa, form rank!" Ben-Ari shouted. Marco saw the rest of his platoon standing outside their tent. A scum still twitched nearby, only one claw still moving, the head gone. Three recruits—no, they were privates now—lay dead around the creature. They were his friends, the people Marco had trained with. He couldn't even tell who they were. Their faces were gone, they were barely human, they were lumps of flesh peeking from tattered green rags, they were teeth stuck in strands of hair and red mush.
"Marco!" Addy cried, bleeding from a gash on her arm, her gas mask muffling her voice. "Last to the party as always, Marco!" But he heard the terror in her voice, saw the tears in her eyes.
"Battle formation!" Ben-Ari shouted. She fired plasma at a scum that raced toward them, burning the creature. Thousands more were scurrying everywhere. Gunfire and screams filled the camp. "Fireteams of three, move!"
The Dragons Platoon took formation as they had trained a thousand times, as the tents burned, as another pod slammed down a hundred meters away, as the fences collapsed, as the mess hall crumbled, as explosions from the trailers rocked the camp, as thousands of scum raced across the sand. A platoon. Three of its soldiers dead. Forty-seven soldiers. Forty-seven friends—terrified, guns raised, lost in a world of hellfire and death and alien vengeance. Marco, Addy, and Lailani formed one fireteam. At their side, Elvis, Beast, and Caveman formed another trio. Other trios stood together, guns raised, gas masks on, helmets on heads.
"He's dead," Sheriff said, pointing at one of the corpses, voice shaking. "Nick is dead, and—"
Three scum raced toward them, screaming, human flesh dangling from their claws, a head impaled on one. Ben-Ari fired her plasma gun, tearing into one alien. Dozens of privates fired their rifles, tearing into the other two aliens. One creature managed to reach the platoon, riddled with bullets, and grabbed Tamara, a private from Squad 2. She screamed as the claws ripped her open, tore out her ribs, tore out her organs. Marco screamed and fired his gun, and the others fired with him, and bullets tore into the scum, tore into Tamara, shattered both corpses until they melted together, fusing in death.
"Soldiers!" Ben-Ari shouted. "Hear me! Our jets are lost, but help is on the way. Transporters will be here in fifteen minutes. We're going to evacuate and bomb this base from the air."
"We won't last fifteen minutes!" Sheriff said, weeping, shaking. He fell to his knees. "We won't last one min—"
"We're seven hundred meters from the sand tigers," Ben-Ari said. "We'll fight from the armored vehicles. Behind me now. Charge!"
She turned and began to run through the base, firing her plasma gun.
"Charge!" Marco shouted and ran after her, firing bullets.
The survivors of the Dragons Platoon ran, howling, firing their guns.
Seven hundred meters away, Marco could see the lot of armored vehicles—the massive sand tigers. A battle seemed to rage there. He saw fire, heard screams, heard bullets. Seven hundred meters. Five minutes of running, maybe four. An eternity. The distance to the heart of the galaxy. And across the sand, countless centipedes, each twice the size of a man, reared, lashed claws, fed on corpses. And still more rained from the sky, burning the sand, melting stones, emerging with the poison miasma to leap onto soldiers, to rip them apart.
"Charge!" Ben-Ari shouted, running at their lead, her white plasma carving a path ahead, shattering scum. Severed claws flew through the air.
"Charge!" the privates shouted, running with her, firing their guns.
Marco screamed as a stray bullet, fired by a fellow Dragon, seared across his arm. Another soldier screamed and fell, a bullet in his leg. Friendly fire claimed a third solider. The rest kept running, firing their guns at the scum that leaped toward them. A centipede reared, grabbed a soldier, and ripped him apart. The alien tossed aside the legs and fed upon the still-living torso and head. Another scum rose from the sand, grabbed a private, and pulled the woman down, twisting her head until the neck snapped, then cracking open the skull. The bullets shrieked everywhere.
A nightmare. Just a nightmare. Just keep running. Just run until you wake up.
Addy screamed as flying debris—a chunk of exoskeleton—scraped across her hip, tearing her uniform, tearing her skin. But she kept running. Lailani knelt, fired her gun, ran onward. A scum leaped toward her, and Lailani fired, knocking it back, suffering a blast of venom against her thigh. She screamed and fell, leaped up, kept running. Marco fired his bullets as the sand rose everywhere, and the fire lit the night, and the aliens tore into the troops.
"Scum, scum!" Caveman shouted, running nearby. "Scum attack!"
"We know!" Addy shouted. "Fire your gun!"
Caveman fumbled for his weapon, still running. "So loud. So loud!" He dropped his rifle and covered his ears. "I can't take the noise. I—"
"Keep running!" Marco shouted, reaching toward his friend, but it was too late.
A scum raced toward Caveman, seeing an easy target. Marco fired, and his bullets glanced off the scum, unable to crack the exoskeleton. The creature leaped toward Caveman. The heavyset soldier made a desperate attempt to raise his gun, to pull the trigger, but the scum was faster. Mandibles grabbed Caveman's leg, tearing deep into the flesh, and the bone shattered, thrusting out from the wound. Caveman screamed and fell.
"Caveman!" Marco cried and ran, firing his gun. From closer range, his bullets tore between the scum's segments, digging deep into the creature. It squealed and released Caveman, and a bullet into its head silenced it.
"Keep running!" Marco shouted to Lailani and Addy. Both had paused and were approaching him. "Get to the sand tigers
!"
"Fuck you, Poet!" Addy shouted, firing her gun at a scuttling scum. Lailani was screaming, firing in the other direction, holding off the creatures.
As the women covered him, Marco grabbed Caveman. The brute was wailing, covering his ears, calling for his mother.
"I want to go home," he blubbered. "Mama. Mama. I want to go home. I want my flowers. I want my mama."
"I'm taking you home, buddy." Marco groaned as he lifted the heavy soldier. Caveman easily outweighed him by seventy or eighty pounds. "Come on. Come on!"
He managed to sling Caveman across his shoulders. Stooped, Marco trudged toward the lot of armored vehicles. The weight threatened to crush him, but Marco had walked two marathons through the desert, carrying all his equipment and a litter. He could now carry his friend.
Ensign Ben-Ari's words returned to him. The harder the training, the easier the battle. Marco had hated the past ten weeks, but right now he was thankful for every sweaty, horrid moment.
There were perhaps a hundred meters left to the sand tigers. Ben-Ari had already reached the lot, and blasts of plasma lit the night. The battle raged ahead between the massive metal machines. Marco concentrated on walking, one step at a time, carrying the wounded Caveman. Addy and Lailani flanked him, firing their guns, emptying magazine after magazine, clearing a path for him. More venom sprayed Addy, and she bellowed and cursed but kept walking even as her leg sizzled.
Finally they reached the lot. The metal fence had collapsed. The scum had overwhelmed the place. The giant centipedes were racing across the asphalt and over the armored vehicles. One scum was tearing off a sand tiger's .50-cal gun. Three other scum had managed to rip open a vehicle, and they were tearing apart its engine. Soldiers knelt between the sand tigers, firing their guns.
Marco saw Corporal Webb running between two vehicles on her metal legs, screaming, firing her gun. Before Webb could reach new cover, a scum leaped at her from a sand tiger's turret. Corporal Webb fell, and the scum ripped off her metal legs, then ripped off her arms, then died in a hailstorm of bullets. Webb screamed beneath the corpse, limbless, falling silent when a twitching claw sank into her chest.
Marco refused to let the horror overwhelm him. Horror would come later. For now he had to survive, to save his friends.
"There, that one!" Marco said. "543A!"
Carrying Caveman, he pointed at a sand tiger near the back of the lot, the serial code 543A painted on its rusted hull. The scum had not yet disabled it. He trudged forward. A centipede raced across the asphalt toward him, but Addy and Lailani blasted it. Severed claws clattered across the lot.
We just have to last ten more minutes, Marco reminded himself. Ten minutes until help arrives.
The battle had been raging for only a few minutes, though it seemed like hours already. Corpses lay everywhere. Marco focused on walking. Nearby, one armored vehicle began to move, then another. A third vehicle's engines rumbled to life. Marco spotted Beast rising into one sand tiger's turret, grabbing the machine gun, and firing. Massive bullets tore into scum on the lot.
Finally Marco reached sand tiger 543A. He paused, sweating and panting, Caveman still slung across his shoulders.
"Addy, the door?" he said.
"Ladies first," she said, tipping her helmet. She grabbed the armored door on the sand tiger's rear. It was large as a garage door and thick as a man's fist. She pulled it open, and a scum spilled out.
Addy screamed, fell onto her back, and fired her gun as the scum leaped. Bullets tore it in two. Both halves of the creature fell, still alive, still scurrying. Lailani screamed and fired her gun, slaying one half. Addy jumped back, spraying bullets, and killed the other half. Both women stared into the armored vehicle.
"Fuck me, it laid eggs inside!" Addy said. She gagged.
Marco could barely keep carrying the heavy Caveman. He stepped toward the vehicle and gazed inside. A handful of eggs, football-sized, lay in the cramped interior of the sand tiger. He placed Caveman down beside them. The soldier was shivering, his leg blasted open, the bone sticking out. His face was ashen, drenched with sweat.
"Marco," he whispered. "Marco, I need you to promise me something, Marco . . ."
"Soon, buddy," Marco said. He looked around at the yard. A few other sand tigers were moving. Corpses of both scum and soldiers lay on the asphalt. Gunfire blazed.
"Addy, you want to drive?" he said.
She nodded, leaped over Caveman and the eggs, and propped herself into the driver's seat. "You man the turret!"
Marco noticed that Lailani was still outside the vehicle, panting, shivering. Marco leaped out toward her. She looked up at him, pale, eyes damp.
"I can't climb," she whispered.
For the first time, Marco saw it. A scum's severed claw was embedded in Lailani's thigh. Around it, the wound sizzled, turning purple, infected with scum venom.
"Just a mosquito bite," Marco said, terror pounding through him, his eyes filling with tears.
He lifted Lailani. He carried her into the sand tiger. He laid her down beside Caveman.
Scum screeched, racing toward them across the lot, and Marco fired his gun, then pulled the door shut. The scum slammed into the metal.
"Addy, drive!" Marco shouted.
As the vehicle began to move, Marco rummaged through his pack and pulled out two bandages. He slapped one onto Caveman's wound and secured it with duct tape. He grimaced, inhaled deeply, then pulled the claw from Lailani's thigh. It came free with a spurt of blood and venom. Fingers shaking, Marco pressed the second bandage against the gushing wound. Lailani shivered.
The sand tiger rocked as scum slammed into it, then jolted, rose, landed hard, rocked again. A small screen revealed a view of the outside, and Marco saw the centipedes slamming into the armored car. The door dented as claws bashed into it.
"This'll help." Marco pulled out the needle from his first aid kit. Lailani's eyes widened, and Marco slammed the needle into her thigh, right into her wound.
She screamed.
Marco's fingers shook, but he managed to pull a second needle from Caveman's pack, then punch it into the heavy soldier's leg.
Caveman bellowed, then lost consciousness.
Marco felt close to fainting too.
"What the fuck was that?" Lailani said, shivering and pale.
"Antidote to scum poison," Marco said. "You must have fallen asleep in first aid class." He smiled and stroked her cheek. "Typical."
Lailani coughed. "I only care about killing scum. I—"
"Marco, man the fucking turret!" Addy shouted from the driver's seat. "They're climbing up!"
Marco nodded. Leaving Caveman and Lailani, he approached the ladder in the center of the armored vehicle. His legs shook. His heart thrashed.
No terror. Climb. Fight.
He had climbed halfway up when, below him, the scum eggs began to crack.
"Oh, fucking hell," Marco muttered.
The sticky ovals dripped slime as they bloomed open. Scum the size of garden snakes emerged.
Grimacing, Marco leaped down, crushing one creature beneath his boots. Its claws reached out, ripping his trousers and skin. Other eggs were opening; Marco counted seven of them. He dared not fire his gun here within the armored vehicle.
"Marco, the turret!" Addy shouted again. She looked over her shoulder from the driver's seat, a cigarette dangling from her lips, and paled. "Fuck me. Baby scum! Forget the turret! Kill those things!"
Marco leaped over the wounded Caveman and Lailani, pulled open the back door, and kicked the hatching eggs. They tumbled outside onto the sand, spilling out the spawn. Three of the clawed creatures were still inside, fully hatched. Lying down, Lailani kicked one with her good leg, shoving it out. Marco swatted the others with his gun's barrel, finally driving them out.
One adult scum raced across the sand after the vehicle. It leaped toward them. Marco fired a bullet, knocking it back outside. He slammed the door shut.
"Addy, reverse!" he said.
&
nbsp; She nodded, and the sand tiger rolled backward, crushing the spawn beneath its tracks.
"Now get up there!" Addy said. "There are scum climbing the goddamn sides! Shoot them off."
Without time to bandage his burnt leg, Marco grabbed the ladder. He climbed into the turret, his head and torso emerging into the night. A massive stinger-class .50-cal gun was mounted here, but this was a two-man job: one soldier to fire the gun, the other to operate the wheel that turned it from side to side. Resigning himself to firing in only one position, Marco grabbed the heavy weapon and pulled the trigger.
Marco's personal weapon, a T57, was a deadly piece of technology, able to slay three men with a single bullet, tear through brick walls, and even crack the exoskeleton of a scum. The sand tiger's machine gun made it look like a peashooter. The stinger's muzzle lit the night. The bullets tore into scum, shattering exoskeletons. The sand tiger, weighing in at sixty metric tons, crushed the dying creatures beneath its tracks. At his sides, Marco saw other armored vehicles leaving the lot. Corporal Diaz stood in one turret, firing another machine gun. Dickerson stood beside him, wheeling the weapon from side to side. Beast was shouting in another vehicle, muscles bulging as he fired a second stinger, tearing into other scum.
Addy drove their sand tiger onward. It moved at a slow, rattling pace. Another scum raced forward, and Marco fired his gun, but he couldn't hit it. Damn it! He needed a second person here, somebody to turn the winch, to aim the gun, and the scum leaped up the side of the vehicle, and—
The gun spun sideways. Marco fired, blasting the scum apart. He turned his head to see Lailani in the turret beside him. She gripped the winch, already spinning the gun in the other direction.
"Fire!" she shouted.
Marco pulled the trigger, and hot casings the size of sausages flew. Bullets tore into the scum ahead.
"Lailani, back inside!" he said. "You're wounded."
She scoffed. "Fuck you, Emery. I'm not missing this."
They drove over the broken fence, leaving the lot, plowing over scum. The aliens cracked under this massive box of steel. Lailani kept spinning the gun, and Marco kept firing, slaying the scum in the desert, bullets ripping off claws and chunks of exoskeleton.
Earth Alone (Earthrise Book 1) Page 24