“Absolutely,” I said, nodding firmly. “Your path is obviously the better choice. Have you submitted it for approval?”
“I haven’t. I was hoping that we could—”
“Just do it and deal with the consequences later?” I shrugged.
“Sort of,” she answered, her voice a little lighter as she heard my obvious indifference. “That all right with you?”
“All right?” I smiled. “I'd prefer it.”
I moved closer to them, glancing at Claire one more time to see if her expression had softened even a little. It hadn’t. If anything, she seemed more upset with me. Though, if what she had said to me a few hours ago was any indicator, that might have been a mask she was hiding behind.
Or maybe she had just wanted to use me to get her jollies, and that whole spiel about kissing a poster of me every night before bed was just a game to get into my pants.
If so, it seemed like a waste. I wasn’t the kind of egomaniacal dick bag who needed the women he bedded to fawn over him. In fact, most of the time, that sort of thing turned me off. It was just that, with a body like hers, she didn’t need to lie to get me on my back, and in this instance, I certainly didn’t mind being used a piece of meat.
“Annabelle,” I said, turning my gaze from Claire and back out into the dark of the cavern we’d have to go out into. “Analyze the map you just received from Mina and tell me what is, probability wise, the best type of vision we should use.”
“Affirmative,” she said. “Analyzing.” A few seconds went by before she spoke again. “Sonic vision with a thermal overlay is probably best.”
“Then do it.”
“Affirmative, Lieutenant Ryder. You should be aware though,” she continued, “that monitoring suggests a plethora of activity within this cave.”
“A plethora?” My eyes narrowed as I thought about the bugs we’d undoubtedly come across as we made our way to the eggs. We had hoped that the cave might be emptier, maybe one or two mother guardians that we could take out easily. I guess that wasn’t the case. “Well, isn’t that a son of a bitch?”
“I suppose,” Annabelle answered as though my question wasn’t rhetorical. “I suppose it is, in fact, a son of a bitch.”
“We have our work cut out for us, don’t we?” Mina asked, undoubtedly reading my expression.
“We do,” I admitted, realizing there was no need for bullshit around her. She wouldn’t believe it anyway.
“Good.”
Extending her arm, the pulse laser she’d bought with her complimentary upgrade earlier appeared in a flash of blue. She readied it and pressed it up against her shoulder, staring at me with dark eyes that were as intense as they were driven, and as driven as they were beautiful. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
25
Mina’s path, unbeknownst to the Alliance, took us down as opposed to up. The corridor that branched out of the cave we’d just rested in went two different ways as it curved away from the surface. The first way, the one the Alliance ordered (and expected) us to follow, took us up into the mountain. I had to imagine that this would bring us to the top of the hill, the place we were supposed to go after we took a pit stop at the nesting room where the Acburian bug eggs were being incubated.
We didn’t go up though. To deal with Jill’s claustrophobia and because Mina said so, we went down into a darker area of the cave tunnels. It might have seemed to be contrary to the point, but it would stop us from having to deal with the tighter tunnels and cramped rooms that our maps showed existed above. The maps showed us reaching the nesting room at roughly the same time, and from there, our bands would connect back to the Alliance, updating and transmitting all of our data to them.
They’d probably be upset, but it would be finished, and it was unlikely that they would scold either Mina or me because of a job well done, even if it wasn’t done exactly the way they saw fit.
Like before, the four of us formed a sort of horizontal line walking through the wide corridors. Mina and I were in the middle with Jill and Claire on either side of us.
I’d done it because Mina had followed Alliance regulations and told me to do it, but it always aggravated me when the most senior officers took interior positions in a battle line. Sure, they were the safer positions, and we were supposed to have ‘earned’ them. That didn’t change the fact that, because of our experience with all of this, we were the least likely to die. It didn’t have much to do with positioning. In fact, as far as I could tell, all this mandatory positioning did was put the weakest of us in the most vulnerable places. Then again, I wasn’t the Alliance, and I didn’t make the rules.
I thought about switching it out, about inverting things so the younger women were on the inside. I mean, hell, we were already screwing with what was expected of us, but I thought better of it. Mina was in charge here, not me. She’d made that very clear as we’d gone on about this mission. If she wanted things changed, she would have changed them. She didn’t, so neither would I.
My vision shifted to a mixture of thermal and sonic as we continued, and I realized my eyesight must have gotten down to below thirty percent efficiency.
“Thank you, Annabelle,” I muttered as I looked to Mina and then to the rest of the squad. Their eyes were also pulsing with a bit of energy, telling me their preferred visual modes had kicked into gear too.
“Mina,” Jill said from her position, furthest from me, “we’re about to come upon a pretty steep slope two hundred and fifty feet ahead. I suggest we turn on grappling gear, at least for our feet.”
I looked over at her. The woman was little more than a shapely configuration of red, orange, and blue echoes shooting out from the sounds she created. Still, I thought I could tell she was smiling. She had been eager to man the map, to play the navigator, and it the role suited her.
“I agree,” Mina said calmly. “Everyone turn on grappling gear.”
I nodded and told Annabelle to go ahead and accommodate Mina’s command. Grappling gear was something like the tow haul package on one of the trucks you’d see darting along the back roads where I grew up.
In addition to cleats, spikes, anchors, grips on our boots, and a stronger gravity field intended to slow our descent, it also contained lines, ropes, and hooks in case we fell uncontrollably.
“Can’t do it,” Claire said from beside me.
“What?” Mina stopped in her tracks, leaning around me to get in Claire’s face. “Do not tell me that what I’m thinking is accurate.” She shoved me to the side, and I let her do it, swapping places with her. “You knew we were coming to a bug moon. You knew there was a chance the terrain would be dangerous. Grappling gear was in the guidelines packages I sent to both of you before we embarked.”
“That’s why I bought it,” Jill added, a bit of triumph in her voice.
“Shut up, kiss ass,” Claire said, glaring back at Mina. “I wanted to save my coin. You know I have issues at home. You know I need to—”
“Your mother’s health is not of any importance right now,” Mina answered gruffly. “Giving her what you can is commendable, but you won’t be able to continue helping her if you get yourself killed.”
Claire blinked, looking from Mina to me and back again. I might have been projecting, but I thought I could sense a little uncomfortable tension passing between us. Perhaps she didn’t like me knowing her mother was sick. Perhaps that was part of the mask she liked to wear.
“I’ll buy it now,” she lamented, nodding in consent.
“The hell you will,” Mina said, bristling. I knew why Claire wouldn’t be able to grab the grappling gear, but it wasn’t my place to impart that sort of wisdom on her. Besides, Mina seemed more than capable of doing that herself. “It’s a manual upgrade, too big to be downloaded. It has to be done in the Halls, which is another piece of information you’d have picked up if you had bothered to read the damned guidelines package!”
Claire let out a deep sigh. “I’m sorry. I messed up.”
“She can ride with me,” I said, cutting through the argument.
It wasn’t that I wanted to shield Claire from the ripping Mina was giving her, much to the contrary. I thought hearing it would do her good. It was just that enough was enough, and I didn’t see any need in wasting time on a point that had already been made. Claire knew she screwed up. That was all she could ask for at this point.
“I’ll go with Mina,” Claire shot back, her eyes darting over at me.
“You absolutely will not,” Mina said. “There’s not enough weight differential for that. If you hung onto me, it would only serve to nullify my grappling gear altogether. You need someone bigger to tag along with. Mark is the only person who fits that bill. Besides, unless I’m mistaken, he still has working thrusters. If things go to hell, he can use them to slow his descent even more.”
“But—”
“Listen,” Mina barked, cutting Claire off immediately. “You did this to yourself, so you can either hang on to Lieutenant Ryder, if he’ll still have you, or you can go back up to the mouth of the cave and wait for further instructions there. At this point, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass.”
Claire’s jaw set, and her body tensed. “I’ll ride with him.”
“If he’ll still have you after that showing,” Mina reminded her, looking from Claire to me and back again. “Why don’t you ask him?”
Claire huffed loudly and turned to me. “Will you?” She bit her lower lip again, a mess of reds, oranges, and blue flickers like Jill had been. “Will you still have me?”
I couldn’t help but think about a few hours ago, about me lying on top of her as she moaned with pleasure, about me ‘having’ her three times, and about how much she seemed to enjoy it.
“Of course,” I said, nodding firmly and keeping my eyes pinned to her.
“Thank you,” Claire said in a clipped whisper.
“Good,” Mina said. “Let’s get going. Claire, get close to him.”
We shifted back into our old position and began walking toward the slope, with Jill giving us proximity updates with each passing fifty-yard interval. Claire grabbed my arm as we reached the cliff.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “That won’t work. If your weight is this far removed from me, there’s no way I’ll be able to stop you from falling. I need you to climb on my back.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” she scoffed.
“I don’t kid.” I knelt down for her to get on my back. I felt her arms clasp together around my neck, felt her breath on my ear, and felt her legs wrap around my torso. The familiar feel of her body pressed against mine was almost enough to make me forget where we were. Almost...
“Besides, you didn’t mind getting close last night. Unless I’m completely off base with both emotional reading and math, you seemed to enjoy yourself… at least four times.”
“That’s beside the point.” Claire glanced toward Mina and Jill, but the other two women had moved ahead, giving us a few feet of relative privacy. “Last night was fun, but this is work.”
“Did it look like I was offering you a ring?” I hoisted myself to my feet and took a tentative step, allowing my suit to compensate for the added weight.
Mina and Jill started down the slope, sliding off into the darkness. I walked to the edge of the cliff and started downward, feeling the pull of gravity as the ground went sideways under me. “We’re both adults. Last night was fun. There’s no harm in admitting it. You don’t have to avoid me like the plague, and you sure as hell don’t have to pretend to hate me, especially after we both know it isn’t true.”
She was undoubtedly about to respond, but her words were cut off as the ground beneath me turned into a miniature rockslide, causing me to stumble.
Just like they were supposed to, the anchors on my suit shot out, only instead of sinking into the stone, the damned things bounced off with a spray of sparks.
Worse, the impact threw me even more off balance, making it such that if I fired my thrusters, I’d rocket into the roof with enough force to turn Claire into a bag full of raspberry jam.
“Annabelle, fire them again. Use a heated bore bit,” I said, my mind racing for something that might undo my forward momentum as Claire’s grip on my body cinched down. The anchors fired once more, and this time they sank into the rock beneath my feet with a blast of superheated plasma that sent bits of slag in every direction.
Only that was a new problem in itself. The slagged rock didn’t have anything to anchor to. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem, but the gear was designed for my weight, not mine and Claire’s. As the clamps on the anchor tried to bore into the super-heated rock, our combined weight ripped the anchors free.
I slammed against the slope, tumbling up and down, over and over with Claire on my back right past Mina’s and Jill’s red and orange forms above me, and as they grew smaller and smaller, we slammed against a hard floor. Luckily, I was on the bottom. Otherwise, I might have crushed Claire.
“Are you all right?” I asked, looking up at her.
“Fine,” she choked out, pushing herself off me. “Oh my God,” she said, her voice cracking. “M-Mark, what the hell is this?”
I sat up, looking around and finding a thousand dots of red and orange surrounding me.
“Annabelle, get my vision back to normal and give me some lights.”
She did so, and I saw myself at the end of a flat expanse. The floor was covered in hundreds and hundreds of bugs I had never seen before, which, given the fact that the Alliance taught us about every sort of bug imaginable, shouldn’t have been possible.
My heart raced as I stood, my body tensing and my throat drying out. “I don’t know, Claire,” I said, unable to believe what I was saying. “I honestly don’t know.”
26
I stood, looking around at the bugs surrounding us. They were small but near infinite in number. Strips of shiny black flesh with glowing red stripes across their backs, they reminded me of leeches in both size, shape, and sheer gross-out factor.
I had never been a fan of any sort of bug. To be fair, not many people were after crunchy aliens with exoskeletons and antennae descended from the heavens with the evil intent of making your planet their own. Now, it was kind of hard for anyone to even look at cockroaches the same way.
Still, no bug ever quite affected me the same way the leech did. It was stupid, I knew that. Heck, leeches aren’t even insects. They didn’t have exoskeletons or even bones for that matter. That said, something about leeches just got to me though, and I knew why.
When I was a kid, my brother and I went swimming in a lake out in the woods in our family’s back forty. Our mother told us not to do it, but we were out in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t like we were getting to the town pool anytime soon. So, we decided to have a little fun.
To this day, I can remember the look on my brother’s face when I emerged from that water the first time. Reading his horror, I looked down at myself, to find I had become a buffet for leeches. I panicked as I looked down at the dozens and dozens of little buggers all over my chest, arms, and legs feasting on the blood that flowed right under my skin.
In my younger days as a Marine, I used to thank God, or my lucky stars, or whatever there was out there that there were no Acburian leeches for me to contend with. After all, Acburians were insects and leeches were anything but insects. There was no way I’d ever encounter monster leeches, right?
I’d spoken too soon.
“Damn it,” I muttered. I wasn’t going to react the way Jill had when our helmets came off but that didn’t mean I didn’t
need just a second to deal with this new reality.
“Are you guys okay?” Mina skidded to the bottom of the cliff with Jill settling beside her. “Why is your…” Her voice trailed off as her eyes scanned what we were now standing in. “Mother of God,” she said in a whisper. “What the hell are those?”
“Not anything I’ve ever seen before,” I admitted, looking from the bugs to her.
Mina’s eyes went back to normal, shrugging off the augmented vision and instead relying on the light pouring from my suit. Annabelle knew what she was doing. Instead of a bright, abrasive light that shot out in one direction, she gave the suit a softer and more even illumination. I was a walking nightlight for the most part, and I was acting as a beacon in a sea of mysterious dangers.
Mina blinked at me and, in our wordless exchange of looks, we both recognized how dangerous this situation was. If we had never seen bugs like this before, it meant the Alliance didn't know about them. For that to be the case, they had to be were unaware of the leeches’ existence
We'd have to learn the hard way and that made them more dangerous than anything we’d faced up to this point.
“There’s no protocol for this.” Mina sighed as audibly as she felt she could afford. “We’re going to have to connect with the Alliance for further instructions.” We all knew what that meant.
We weren’t supposed to be down here. We had broken Alliance rules and, because of this, we weren’t even going to have a completed mission to fall back on when they found out. Of course, we all knew we had to do it, regardless. Our own hides weren’t more important than this. Whatever these were, we were going to be the last Marines in history to ever be surprised by them. If we needed to get chewed out by the Alliance to make that a reality, so be it.
“You want to tell them, or should I?” I asked, looking at Mina with a bit of resignation.
“This is my mission. I’ll do it,” she said, with the unsaid and deal with the consequences caveat added in there.
Doomed Space Marine: A Space Adventure (Bug Wars Book 1) Page 16