by P. A. Piatt
Winaki and Lily scrambled up to assist Kilfoy. She grunted over the comm circuit as she struggled to climb free, but her grunts quickly turned to screams and her body began to convulse. Hawkins got to the top of the hillock in time to see Winaki and Lily haul Kilfoy clear of the hole. Attached to her right leg just above the boot was a large bug with an oval shell and glittering red eyes. Blood flowed as the bug gnawed at Kilfoy’s leg and she writhed in agony.
Lily drew his kukri and swung it in a short arc, chopping the bug in half and knocking it off Kilfoy’s leg. Bright red splashed all over the hillock until Lily could get pressure on the wound. Kilfoy’s screams faded to a soft mewling when Winaki stuck her with a powerful narcotic. Lily treated the wound with a topical antibiotic powder and wrapped it tight.
“Can she walk?”
Lily waved his bloody hands. “Walk? Hell, Gunny, we’ll be lucky if she lives. I don’t know if that bug is venomous or not, but it shredded her leg. We’ll have to hump her out on a litter.”
Winaki peered over the edge of the hole. “We should get the hell out of here. There’s a bunch more of those fuckers in there.”
“Pick her up and let’s get away from here. We can lash together a litter somewhere else.”
Lily hoisted Kilfoy onto his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and Hawkins picked up her rifle.
“Hey, Gunny, her pack’s down there.” Winaki pointed at the hole. “With the drone.”
* * *
“Did he say how long it would take them to get back here?” Fortis asked Trenas.
Fortis, Pell, and Ystremski were gathered around Trenas in the command mech.
“No, sir, but he sounded like he’d been running.”
“They’ll be moving with a purpose to put some distance between the dead test tube and themselves,” said Ystremski. “My guess is that they’ll push hard for an hour, catch their breath, and take off in another direction and cover their tracks.”
“Is there anything we can do to support them?”
Ystremski shrugged. “Not right now. Without knowing where they’re at, we’d be stumbling around blind in the jungle.”
“Can we put up a drone and fly it northeast of the base with an IR sensor? Will the sensor work during the day?”
“Sure, the sensor can work during the day. The resolution won’t be great, but it will definitely detect body heat signatures if the canopy isn’t too thick.”
“Hmm. Okay. Let’s wait two hours to give Gunny and his team time to get closer and then launch the drone. Maybe they’ll hear it and realize we’re looking for them. Worst case is we don’t see them until they hit the sensor belt, right?”
Pell nodded, and Fortis turned to Ystremski.
“Corporal, get a small force together, maybe two squads, and keep them on a short leash. They don’t have to suit up, but get their gear staged. Just in case, you know?”
Pell and Ystremski acknowledged for their assignments and left the command mech. Fortis poured himself a cup of coffee and settled into the seat next to Trenas to do what officers seemed to do most of the time.
Wait.
* * *
As Nesbitt ran along the overgrown road between the GRC headquarters and the colony, an idea came to him. He called a halt and contacted Beck.
“Beck, it’s Nesbitt. When we were forming up at the colony we discovered a sentry was missing. We found him stashed in the jungle with a broken neck.”
“Any idea who did it?”
“No. They left a trail, so I sent Brinks and our best trackers after them, reinforced by a platoon of test—ah, engineered soldiers. The trail goes north, but they’ll have to turn west at some point.”
“What’s your status?”
“I’m on the road back to headquarters with the rest of the troops. What I’d like you to do is send every soldier you have to form a picket line straight north between the HQ and the sea. You’ve got six hundred guys, so space them ten meters apart. I’ll do the same with my three fifty along the road between headquarters and the colony. Whoever it is, we’ll have them boxed in against the Mineral Sea and the Southron Ridge.”
“You’re looking for a needle in a haystack, Nesbitt.”
“Listen to me, Beck! If you send those troops immediately, they’ll have a head start to the sea. Every minute you waste puts us a minute further behind. Whoever killed that sentry might know what’s going on in the colony, and that’s not a risk we can take. So, yeah, maybe we’re looking for a needle in a haystack, but it’s an important needle.”
The circuit was silent for a second before Beck responded.
“Okay. I see your point. I’ll organize the picket line from here and you get yours set up. What about Brinks?”
“I told him to track them, and take them alive.”
* * *
Hawkins kicked dirt and leaves over the blood staining the dirt on the hillock, but there was no way he could cover it all. There was too much splashed on the surrounding foliage to stand up to anything more than a passing glance. He entered a waypoint into his nav computer in case they got the chance to return and recover the drone, then stepped off behind Lily and Winaki.
They halted a short distance away to fashion a litter for Kilfoy. Hawkins chopped down two saplings, Winaki collected some vines, and they quickly lashed up a two-man litter. Lily spent the time working on the Marine’s wounds, but there was little he could do besides sprinkle on more antibiotics and change the bandage. Kilfoy was unconscious and her face was an unnatural shade of gray.
Lily pulled Hawkins aside for a private discussion.
“I don’t know how long she can hang on, Gunny. She survived the initial shock, but there’s something else going on.”
“Venom?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t see any of the classic signs, but we’re on another planet, so who knows? We should have brought that bug with us to give Doc Kramer something to work with.”
Hawkins patted Lily on the shoulder. “Do the best you can, and we’ll get her home as soon as possible.”
The three Marines secured Kilfoy to the litter, did a quick sweep of the area to make sure they left nothing behind, and headed west. Hawkins had planned on a slow, careful patrol back to their base to avoid leaving a trail, but Kilfoy’s injury put them in a race against time.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Five
Nesbitt was spreading his troops along the jungle road when his satellite receiver beeped. It was Brinks.
“Hey, boss, we found the spot where they crossed the road to the Mineral Sea. I made out at least three separate boot prints, so we’re probably looking for four to six individuals.”
“Boots?”
“Yeah. Those tracks aren’t some half-assed colonist sandals, they’re boots. My guess is Space Marines.”
“Space Marines? What the fuck are Space Marines doing at the colony?”
There was a shout on the other end of the circuit.
“Hang on, boss.”
After a moment, Brinks came back on the circuit. “Look what we just found.”
Nesbitt’s receiver beeped again, and a digital image downloaded to his screen.
“It looks like a battery.”
“That’s exactly what it is. A battle armor battery.”
“Fucking Space Marines.”
* * *
Winaki plunged ahead to scout out the easiest terrain for them to traverse. They were close to the waypoint three klicks north of the GRC base where they would make the turn southwest toward their own base.
Lily panted into his mic as he and Hawkins shared litter-carrying duties.
“Hey, Gunny, I have an idea.”
“What’s that?” Hawkins gasped in return.
“Instead of turning southwest and humping through the bad bush straight back home, let’s head due west. The ground is easier that way, and we’ll make better time. We can turn straight south near Mine Shaft Two and then we only have about a klick of thick stuff to
bust through. I think we’ll save a lot of time that way.”
Hawkins thought it over as he lurched along behind Lily. He’d been secretly dreading the turn toward their base and the dense jungle that stood between them and home, so the logic of Lily’s plan appealed to him.
“Yeah, that sounds good. Let’s hold up here for a second. I’ll try to get a fix and figure out where we’re at.”
They set Kilfoy’s litter down in a small clump of bushes, and Lily and Winaki crouched next to it.
Hawkins spied a bright spot in the canopy a short distance away that looked like it was clear enough to allow him to connect with an orbiting satellite. He stopped under the opening and held his nav computer overhead to achieve a satellite signal lock.
And froze.
Fifteen meters west of him, a large group of test tubes were pushing through the brush, heading north. They hadn’t seen him, but he knew his LBA battery was long dead, and they would see him if one of them looked his way. He lowered his arms and crouched, but none of the test tubes raised an alarm. He slowly crawled back to the other Space Marines, who had taken cover when they spotted the test tubes.
“What the fuck’s going on?” Winaki whispered over the comm circuit. “What are they doing?”
Hawkins shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Lily’s voice quivered nervously. “It’s a picket line. They’re looking for us.”
* * *
“Nesbitt, it’s Beck. I deployed the artificial soldiers like you asked, from the camp all the way to the Mineral Sea. Now what?”
Nesbitt stood on the overgrown colony road and considered their options.
“Stay put until I hear from Brinks and the trackers. If we try to advance the lines like we’re driving wild game, it’ll be chaos. The trackers will either catch up to them or drive them into our lines. Either way, we will have them.”
“Makes sense to me.”
“Hey, Beck, one more thing. Brinks reported that he found the boot tracks of at least three individuals, and they also discovered a battle armor battery. The colonists don’t wear boots or battle armor. I think we’re chasing Space Marines.”
“Space Marines? What are Space Marines doing at the colony?”
“If the person they recovered in the jungle was a colonist, they might have run a reconnaissance mission to verify his story. Maybe that sentry caught them and they killed him when they panicked.”
“Which would explain the battery. Their auto-flage is very effective, but it requires a great deal of power. Do you think they got into the colony?”
“I didn’t see any, but—ah shit! There was a man, a crazy old bastard, who told me that the walls came alive and grabbed him. I thought he was just another miner who’d been underground too long. But what if he saw them? What would a Space Marine wearing auto-flage armor look like inside a building? A wall?”
“Yeah, I guess so. It makes sense that it would.”
“Then they’ve been in the colony. We have to stop them before they report to the UNT.”
Beck chuckled. “I’ve taken care of that.” He explained what he’d done to the Space Marines’ communications system, and Nesbitt grunted.
“It’s a good first step, but it’s a temporary one. We need to do something permanent, and soon.”
“You’re right. Let’s catch the guys who were in the colony first, and then we’ll deal with the rest.”
* * *
Hawkins, Lily, and Winaki huddled together over the prostrate Kilfoy.
“Why aren’t they moving, Gunny?”
“They aren’t looking for us,” Hawkins said. “They’re a blocking force. The guys looking for us are somewhere back there, behind us.”
“We need to turn south and get into the heavy stuff. If we keep moving, we can play hide-and-seek until dark and then find a way through.”
“What about her?” Winaki gestured to Kilfoy. “It’s hard to sneak around lugging a stretcher.”
“We can’t stay here, and we’re not leaving her behind. Grab the litter and head south. We’ll take our chances in the heavy jungle.”
Winaki and Lily picked up Kilfoy and stepped off. Hawkins swept the ground with a dead branch to erase any evidence of their presence and then turned south.
* * *
Fortis and Pell watched as Trenas completed pre-flight checks on the drone. The aircraft was three meters long and had a wingspan of five meters. It carried a standard video camera and an infrared sensor under its wings.
“This is one of our long-range, high-endurance birds,” explained Pell. “It’s nowhere near as noisy as the quad-rotor drone the test tubes shot down over Mine Shaft Four. The electromagnetic motor can keep it on station for up to six hours before it needs a recharge, and it can stay on station indefinitely if the arrays on the wings catch enough solar radiation. We can control it by a local control unit, or via satellite from the command mech.”
“Can it carry weapons?”
“There are two ordnance hard points, one under each wing. Each drone can deploy up to fifty kilos of gravity weapons, but heavy weapons have a significant impact on maneuverability.” She smiled. “I told Trenas to load two fifteen-kilogram bombs. They aren’t much, but they’re better than nothing. Maybe we can scare off some bugs.”
“Or attract them.”
The drone launching system was a monorail with a catapult system, like a giant slingshot. Trenas positioned the drone at one end and ratcheted the rubber strap back until she could hook it on a wheeled carriage that rode on the monorail.
“Pre-flight checks are complete, Warrant,” called Trenas. “Strickland has positive control from the command mech. Request permission to launch.”
Pell turned to Fortis. “LT?”
“Oh, yeah.” He gave a self-conscious chuckle. “Permission granted.”
“Stand by for launch,” called Trenas. She verified the launch area was clear, shouted “Launch!” and pulled the lever, releasing the rubber strap. The drone sped down the monorail and into the air. The wheeled carriage fell free and bounced to a stop against a pile of sandbags downrange.
Fortis watched as the drone climbed into the sky and circled overhead.
“Post-launch checks are complete. The drone is available for operational tasking,” announced Trenas.
“Let’s go watch the fun,” said Pell.
Fortis followed her across the compound and into the command mech.
* * *
Winaki and Hawkins set the litter down and slumped to the ground, exhausted. The trio had struggled through the jungle for an hour, taking turns carrying Kilfoy, and they were burning their last reserves of strength. Hawkins had slipped hoisting his end of the litter over a fallen tree and wrenched his back, and every step was agony. Their armor protected them against cuts and scrapes, but they experienced twisted knees and turned ankles as they struggled to carry Kilfoy through the jungle.
“Gunny, are you sure someone is following us?”
Hawkins looked at the surrounding jungle. “It’s the only thing that makes sense, Winaki. If they lined the test tubes up to drive us east, they’re taking their time about it.”
Lily said, “Why don’t you guys stay here with Kilfoy and I’ll scout back the way we came and see if there’s anyone back there.”
“Do you think it’s a good idea to split up?”
“Do you think it’s a good idea to keep running away from someone who might not be chasing us?”
Hawkins thought for a second.
“Okay, Lily. Backtrack and see what you can find out. Me and Winaki will move Kilfoy into that thick stuff and wait for you there.” He caught Lily by the arm as he stood up to go. “Good luck.”
Lily laughed into his mic. “Don’t worry, Gunny. I’ve been running around this jungle for seven years, and they ain’t got me yet.”
He took three steps and vanished into the thick undergrowth.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Six
Fortis
and Pell spent an hour watching while Staff Sergeant Strickland flew the drone in a long, slow racetrack over the jungle north of their base. As the minutes ticked by, Fortis’ frustration and anxiety grew. He sat until he couldn’t take anymore and then paced along the back of the control space. Finally, Warrant Pell grabbed him by the arm and forced him into the seat next to hers.
“LT, you’ll wear a hole in the deck if you keep pacing. You’ll also drive me insane. Please, sit down.”
Fortis slumped into the seat. “We should have seen something by now, shouldn’t we?”
“Sir, why don’t we expand our search area? I can fly the drone in a wide zigzag to the east and see if we pick them up that way.”
Fortis looked to Pell, who shrugged.
“Okay, let’s try it. Put in some waypoints so I can see what you want to do. Whatever you do, don’t fly low over the GRC camp.”
Strickland traced out a flight path for the drone. It was an advancing zigzag pattern with three-klick legs that stayed a klick north of the GRC camp.
“We can fly this pattern outbound, shift it north a couple klicks, and fly back that way. That should give us overlapping coverage of the area we expect them to be in.”
“Good thinking, Strickland. Make it happen.”
Fortis watched as the drone icon began the time-consuming zigzag pattern over the jungle north and east of their base. On the video display, the jungle was a mottled green sea passing far below. The infrared display was a blurry smear of gray and black, with an occasional sparkle of white that showed a higher temperature.
“The sun reflects off the jungle and creates those transient bright spots,” explained Warrant Pell. “The operators call it leaf sparkle. If the system detects a persistent hot spot, it will generate an alert and Strickland can zoom in on it.”
Fortis leaned back in his seat and tried to ignore the sour smell of scorched coffee wafting from the pot behind him.