by Weston Ochse
As he checked, I managed to sit up, then found my left cargo pants pocket and pulled out some bandages. My head had pretty much stopped bleeding, but my back was burning. Probably had a pound of dirt in the wound. At least it might stop the bleeding. It’s not like I could actually bandage it.
I struggled to my feet. My NVD knocked against my chin from where it hung; I ripped the useless device free and tossed it across the room, then found a full magazine and slapped it home.
I moved to where Olivares was standing above the helmet, frowning at it.
“What’s going on?” I stared down at the Faraday netting that now hung free.
“One of them must have pulsed. I didn’t get a chance to cover it.”
Now we had no way to get information to the attacking force. Our mission, after all we’d gone through, couldn’t be completed. The attacking forces were going in without our aid.
Damn it!
I felt my face turning red. I recognized what was going on. I’d never been able to put it into words before, not until Olivares had gotten in my face and laid me low.
Yeah, our mission was a failure, but it didn’t mean we couldn’t make a new mission. And where the previous mission required a leader, this one required a hero.
I licked my lips and said the words most men never live to regret. “I have an idea.”
Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
OLIVARES LAUGHED HUSKILY. “Let me guess.”
I nodded. “Hero time.”
“I thought we talked about that.”
“Was that before or after you took a swan dive into the volcano?”
He thought for a moment. “Before.”
“And then you jumped to certain death trying to save my life.”
“But it didn’t work out that way.” A thought struck him. “And anyway, didn’t you try and kill yourself right after my”—he made air quotes with his good hand—“‘heroic gesture’?”
I sneered. “We both messed that up, didn’t we? I guess we weren’t meant to die.”
I grabbed the pack and opened it, passing him two thermite grenades and sliding the other two into pouches on my vest.
I removed the four kilos of Semtex, inserted blasting caps, and attached them to the homemade kitchen timers the techs had created. They’d thought it was a joke, until we told them what we’d wanted it for. Going old-school was the only way to keep the devices on the working side of the Cray EMPs.
When I was done, I handed two to Olivares and shoved the other two in my pockets.
“What am I going to do with these?”
I shrugged. “Blow shit up. How’s your weapon holding up?”
He nodded. “Good. Why?”
“Mine’s shit. I got too much dirt inside it. It’s going to seize up and I don’t want to be depending on it.” I tossed all but three of the magazines to him and shucked out of my MP5, letting it fall to the ground. “Take these.” I shoved the remaining three mags in my pockets.
“If you aren’t going to carry a weapon, then why are you...” Then he got it.
“If you go down, I don’t want to be rifling through your pants to get spare ammo.” I cleared his weapon, slapped in a full magazine, and handed it back to him. “Just don’t go down.”
He smiled. “I don’t even know what we’re going to do.”
I grinned like the maniac I felt. “Me neither. Are you ready?”
He checked himself, then reached for the pack.
I stopped him. “We’re not going to need that. We’re going to move fast.”
“But I’m still not sure where we’re going to move to.”
I grabbed him by his shoulders. “Listen to me, Olivares. You’re a damn good sergeant. Don’t ever tell anyone I said this or I’ll deny it, but you’re a better one than I ever was. But you are a terrible killer and you’re not much of a hero either. You don’t like for me to tell you how to be a leader and I really don’t appreciate you telling me how to be a killer. Just follow my lead, keep your head down, and keep up.” I let him go. “Think you can do that?”
When I finished, he stared at me a moment, then said, “For a second there I actually thought you had a plan.”
I grinned. “That’s one of the secrets to being a hero.”
“What is?”
“Plans are for people who worry too much.”
I picked up one of the blades and stuck the other in the empty scabbard in my belt. “I’m not scared of dying at all. Hell, I tried to off myself enough times and failed. If the damn Cray want to try and do what I’ve failed to do, more power to them and I wish them luck. But I think I can’t be killed.” I glanced at him. “And you better think the same. Being worried about dying is what gets other people killed.”
He rolled his eyes. “Now you tell me.”
“Ready, steady... go!”
I took off at a jog, my eyes turned to slits against the sudden assault of light. I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from—everywhere and nowhere at all.
Several non-winged Cray stood to the sides of the path, their arms hanging limply, their heads raised towards the ceiling.
I passed them by, not bothering to attack. We kept moving deeper into the light. When we went past the first alcove, I found myself stopping and staring. I fought to find the right word, but the only thing I could think of was larvae. There were hundreds of the things, man-sized caterpillars, squirming and undulating in a pile that filled the alcove. Were they food? Or immature Cray?
Olivares was standing agog beside me. I grabbed him and we took off again. The reproductive cycle of the Cray had little to do with the efforts of the moment. That they were creating even more soldiers was more of a reason to hurry.
The light became so bright it was a constant stabbing pain. I blinked as we jogged past several other alcoves. I began to feel something brush the top of my head. I saw lines of darkness above us, like curtains hanging from the high ceiling.
Olivares opened up behind me.
I spun in time to see one of the curtains fall to the ground, only to resolve itself into a standing Cray. It fell back under Olivares’s assault.
I brought my blade up and began to cleave the dark lines above me. Dead and dying Cray fell from the ceiling. They came down headfirst, their wings hanging down to brush our heads.
“Follow me!” I shouted to Olivares as we moved deeper into the lair.
I pulled out a thermite grenade, removed the pin and tossed it into the next alcove. It fell atop a mound of Cray larvae and ignited, its flame suddenly brighter than the light we were drowning in. The violent heat made the grenade melt through the larvae. They sizzled as they burned.
The air was suddenly split with screams as Cray ran towards me. I brought my blade up but they went past me. One. Two. Six. Ten. All furiously trying to rescue their offspring, making sounds I’d never heard them make before. The first reached in and grabbed the grenade, only to have its appendages melt off. The one behind tried to do the same with the same result.
I backed away as more and more piled into the alcove to try and stop the damage I’d caused. For a moment I felt a little sick, then I spied Oliveras down on one knee. Dead Cray lay around him. His face had been opened by a terrible gash. Blood dripped to the ground.
I pulled out my other thermite, pulled the pin and tossed it in the alcove we’d just passed. Then I ran to him, got his thermites and tossed them into two more chambers. I had just enough time to press him to the wall as hundreds of Cray ran to save their brood.
We edged deeper into the light until the corridor finally opened into an immense chamber. In the center was the source of the brightness. It was like a miniature sun. As we stared, it pulsed, firing intense light out in all directions, then resumed its normal blinding state. What we’d thought had been round was actually an oblong shape roughly the size of a tractor trailer. I realized it was organic as it
began to brighten again to its impossible brilliance. Like an incandescent bulb slowly turning up to supernova. I tried to peer through the painful light. At one end, larvae appeared. At the other were Cray, hovering over a pile of human bodies.
I remember wondering if there wasn’t some alien queen creating more Cray. I’d been right—and they were feeding it our dead. At least I prayed they were dead.
The light soon became too painful to look at again.
I turned towards the wall and prepared my explosives.
Olivares did the same.
When the light pulsed once more, we readied the timers, setting them for one minute.
I looked at Olivares and he nodded. I took his Semtex bundles in my arms and ran towards the creature. I became aware of the cavernous space above me, filled with Cray. They hung on the walls and flew in the air. Directly above the creature, the mound rose higher and higher, thousands upon thousands of the Cray hanging onto the walls.
Their sheer numbers staggered me. How could we defeat so many? It seemed impossible. And this was the smallest of the mounds.
Non-winged Cray began to run towards me from the alien queen. Looking up, I could see that I had the attention of the winged Cray as well.
I reared back and threw the first bundle as hard as I could. It landed on the ground beside the queen. The timer shattered and I cursed. Too far—I’d have to get closer.
I grabbed the second explosive and brought my hand back. As I did, a Cray grabbed it from me and soared into the air.
I only had two left and they were coming for me from in all directions. I made a desperate choice and ran towards those running towards me. They reached out as we closed on each other, me with my hands filled with explosives and them with their hands tipped with talons. There were more than twenty of them; I couldn’t get around them, I couldn’t go over them, I doubted if I could go through them. So I tried a desperate tactic, perfected one summer in seventh grade when my baseball couch had made me practice stealing base over and over until my legs were covered in purple bruises. I started the slide at full speed and felt the hard ground eating away the fabric of my uniform. My skin caught fire and I screamed. But my muscle memory was true and I slid beneath their outstretched arms, one leg extended, the other bent, to enable me to push up to a standing position right before I came to a stop. Which I did, now past them, and began to limp rapidly towards the queen.
It pulsed again, throwing light in every direction. It was almost physical in its intensity, and I flinched. In some way, the EMP was connected to the creation of new Cray. This was the mother of these creatures, and I was about to commit matricide. And I was about to get ripped to shreds. The knowledge left me strangely calm.
I’d halved the distance to my target and eaten up some of the delay. Thirty seconds left.
I threw one of the explosives along the ground and let it slide until it struck the side of the immense, pulsating beast. Then I did the same with the other one. But as I stood, I felt myself surge into the air, gripped around the shoulders by a Cray.
I twisted around and grabbed one of the claws holding me, and with my other hand, I pulled my harmonic blade free and swung, severing one of its wings.
I fell immediately, but before I struck the ground, I was plucked out of the air, this time by a Cray clutching the back of my vest. I flailed with my blade, but couldn’t get to it. We flew higher and higher; I looked up and saw it was taking me to the very top of the mound. I began to curse it at the top of my lungs. I knew exactly what it was going to do, but I was powerless to stop it. I’d share the fate of MacKenzie and so many others, smashed to a pulp as I fell from a terrific height.
I still had the choice to end it first. I had the blade. It would take nothing for me to slice across my neck, or stab myself in the chest.
I started to laugh at the irony of it all. This had all started with me trying to off myself, and now it was going to end the same way. I turned the blade on myself, holding it with two hands. I was preparing to thrust it into my chest when the first explosion rocked the mound.
Not from below; from above.
I strained to look up as pieces of Cray rained down around me. It must have been the one that stole the explosive. The creature carrying me flew to the side of the hive as the inner wall of the mound began to crumble. It latched onto the wall, but was hit by a truck-sized fragment of the mound tumbling into the darkness and was crushed. As it let go of its perch, I swung my blade into the interior wall of the mound. It sank two feet deep and I held on with both hands. The dead Cray swung below me, claws still entangled in my vest, and jerked suddenly on my arms, nearly ripping me loose. My vest rode up and pressed against my throat. I shrugged my shoulders and tried to dislodge the creature, but to no avail. I felt my fingers begin to slip. Just a few seconds ago I’d been ready to die, but the thought was gone. I wanted to live. I glared at my weakening fingers and tried to will strength into them. But inevitably they slipped, and my grip came free. I was falling.
The light flashed once more from below, and then all hell broke loose as the remaining two Semtex explosives detonated, setting off the one with the broken timer in turn, blowing the mother-creature in all directions. Every Cray capable took flight, but there were too many to fly. They fought and tore at each other in the explosive light. I felt one slash at the creature attached to my back, releasing its dead-hold on me. Then everything went dark.
I bounced off several more Cray, then hit the wall. I blindly grabbed at it, scrabbling to stop my fall, and my hand struck an outcropping and somehow I held on. I dangled by one arm for a moment, then reached up with the other and pulled myself up. I believed I was on the inside of what we’d thought of as a launch tube. I scrambled as far back into it as I could and prayed the Copperhead rounds wouldn’t find me here.
The air inside the mound was a frenzy of panic. I heard more explosions, then the sounds of Hydra missiles going off. Suddenly the entire universe was filled with the rattling whine of Vulcans firing from somewhere below, the sound like the universe being unzipped and rezipped. I heard Cray falling like ducks in winter as the rounds scythed through them.
The cavalry had arrived.
The rest of the Romeos had made it inside.
I allowed myself a smile as I leaned back, put my arms behind my head, and watched the Cray die by the hundreds. In the back of my mind I was aware that a Copperhead might take me out at any moment, but I found myself unconcerned. I’d been so willing to die for nothing, that to die for something now meant everything.
I believe our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this Cosmos in which we float like a mote of dust in the morning sky.
Carl Sagan
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
WE’D DONE IT. The massacre was complete. There wasn’t an alien left alive that hadn’t already been taken by Mr. Pink and the surviving members of his team for further study. After the battle, I’d managed to climb down the outside of the mound and cross the plain to our compound. Now I stood inside what had once been the mess hall, staring across the floor and thinking of the movie Zulu. Was this what the old sergeant major had felt, in the aftermath of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, his hundred and fifty men having survived a battle against five thousand Zulu warriors? Dead Cray lay whole and in pieces on every possible surface.
For every ten Cray corpses, there was one human. The tired grunts who’d served me rations lay in a cluster, as if they’d fought back-to-back, their food-serving apparel no match for the claws of the aliens. The colonel who’d hero worshipped me and had been the first officer I’d ever known to undress me with her eyes stared towards the ceiling, perhaps gone to a place where God waited to explain to her why her life had been meant to end at this moment, her torso and stomach skewered by Cray claws. The generator mechanic who’d probably seen me naked had survived and now lay on a gurney with her left arm ripped free, trauma surgeons working feverishly to save her.
Damn, but I was tired.
Was this what the Army of the North had felt at the Battle of Gettysburg? Even after winning the day, were they stunned at the immensity of the mission? D-Day? Pusan? Did we have the will to continue?
One thing we finally did have was knowledge. The Cray had had a terrific advantage with our ignorance. They’d leveraged their weaknesses by keeping them unknown. That they couldn’t see below our visible spectrum, making them effectively night-blind, would have been an incredible boon for our early battles, had we known. We would have attacked in blackout, covering all light sources, including the operational lights on the outside of our EXOs, keeping the Cray off balance and on the defensive.
I picked my way through the mess hall and into the TOC. The carefully constructed operations center was completely destroyed. Pieces of desk merged with pieces of flesh and plasma televisions. A fire had raged inside and melted the whole mass together. I couldn’t tell where a computer monitor stopped and a Cray began. I remembered wanting to kill the Italian battle captain, but even he hadn’t deserved this.
As it turned out, Olivares and I might have saved the day. I learned that the Cray had attacked thirty minutes before our scheduled assault. They’d destroyed the Howitzers first, as if they’d known the capability of the Copperheads and had feared them. Then they’d surged through the underground, engaging in hand-to-hand melee like the Earth had never before seen.
I moved on, bumping into another grunt.
We exchanged bone-tired glances, then staggered off in different directions.
I was heading towards our squad bay when I saw Olivares. His face had been bandaged, but it would leave a terrible scar.
“You made it.”
I nodded. “You as well.” But I noted the look on his face. Something was wrong.
“What is it?”
He stared at me with sorrow in his eyes, then made a decision. “You have to see this.”
I trudged towards him, careful not to step on the remains of a human, but gleeful in the way the Cray crunched beneath my booted feet. When I got to him, he put out a hand to stop me.