“I did,” Sergeant Morgan said. “One of the tentacle things picked her up, and she shot it while it was holding her. The tentacle threw her, and she flew through the air to splash down about 100 feet offshore.”
“So she’s probably at the bottom of the ocean in a suit that’s shut down,” Walker said. “You’ll have to go in and get her.”
“Fuck that,” Morgan replied. “There might be more of those things in there. I’m getting paid to kill MinSha, not fight some damn kraken-looking monster on its own turf.”
“I will go get her,” VVR said.
“It will probably take both of you to drag her out,” Walker said. “But at least if you can find her, that will be a good start. Before you go, though, set your suit to link me back to base camp.”
A window opened and a picture of Captain Anderson, his company commander, appeared. “Hi sir,” Walker said. “Staff Sergeant Walker here. I’m going to need another squad out here, as well as all the suit retrievers we have.”
“What the hell for?”
“We ran into some big-ass sea monsters, sir, and then almost all of our suits died in combat. I only have two operational CASPers remaining, and Sergeant Loftis is at the bottom of the ocean in a dead suit.”
“What? The suits died? How the hell did that happen? What the hell did you do to them?”
“I don’t know, sir. The second time we tried to fire, the suits just went into emergency shutdown mode. We’re going to need to get them back, figure out what went wrong with them, and get them fixed ASAP. My suit did a burst transmission before it died. I don’t know who it contacted, but there’s a chance someone knows our suits are dead.”
“Well, all I can say is I hope you have some proof you weren’t just screwing around.”
Walker looked at the dead sea monster on the beach. “Yes sir,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll have any problem corroborating our story.”
“Okay,” Captain Anderson said, sounding a bit mollified, “we’ll get another platoon out there, and I’ll have them send the suit retrievers. Do you need a start cart to get them back online?”
“No sir, we all got emergency shutdown notifications; there’s an issue with our suits I think we better troubleshoot prior to starting them back up again.”
“All right, help is on the way. Anderson, out.” The window closed.
Walker sighed. “Well, that could have gone better.”
“What?” several people asked.
“The captain is worried we were screwing around and messed up our suits.”
“Well, that’s just bullshit,” Sergeant Morgan said. “Did you tell him to come on out here? ‘Cause, like, we’re having sushi forever.”
“No, I didn’t,” Walker said. “I also forgot to tell him about Toth, although I think I’ll wait on that until we get back.” He looked at his two remaining CASPers and added, “I guess it kind of goes without saying you shouldn’t try to fire your suit’s main weapon. It will be good to have a couple that aren’t currently dead so that maintenance can check—”
“Sir, you better see this!” Private Enkh said.
“See what?”
“Turn around.”
Walker turned back to the ocean. Five figures were coming from the water, with three in front. The two in the back appeared to be carrying something between them.
“Holy shit,” Corporal Burke muttered.
The squad turned as a group and aimed their weapons at the…giant sea otters? Yes, Walker saw; it appeared to be the same species they had seen walking toward the water, only these must be the adults. They looked the same, but these walked on two legs and stood nearly five feet tall. The resemblance to sea otters was uncanny, except that their noses were flatter—nothing more than slits that opened and closed periodically. The group stopped as the weapons were pointed at them, and the three in the front held out their paws?—hands?—showing they were empty.
“Put your weapons down,” Walker said, “but keep them handy. They must have seen the battle with the sea monsters; it looks like they know our rifles are weapons.”
The group of otters stood on the beach, silent, as if waiting for Walker to make the first move. “Crap,” he said finally. “Anyone know if there’s a bonus for first contact?”
No one said anything so he shrugged. As squad leader, it was up to him. “Polanis, Kane, you’re with me. Everyone else, wait here.”
The three men approached the otters and stopped about 10 feet from them. “Um, hi,” Walker said. “Uh, I guess that’s kind of lame,” he added with a half-smile. “Sorry, I’m Staff Sergeant Daniel Walker, and this is Sergeant Mark Polanis and Sergeant John Kane. We’re from Earth.”
The otters continued to look at them, saying nothing.
“That’s weird,” the medic said. “It looks like they have nose holes to breathe air, but they also have some sort of side vent on their necks that might be gills. Do you suppose they can breathe both air and water?”
“No idea,” Walker replied.
The aliens continued watching them.
“Uh, we mean you no harm,” Walker said. He nodded to the beached sea monster. “I hope that wasn’t your friend…or pet…or something. We didn’t want to kill it, but it attacked us and we didn’t have much choice.” Well, the last bit wasn’t technically true; it hadn’t really been necessary for Walker to feed the second one the final L bomb; he hoped they wouldn’t quibble over the details.
The otters gestured at the sea monster and then at the Humans.
“Maybe they don’t have a vocal language,” Polanis said. “If they live underwater, they might not need it. Maybe they use sign language or something.”
“Good point,” Walker said with a nod. “Up until that last bit, though, I didn’t see them do any signs between them or anything.” He cocked his head, thinking. “You’re right,” he said finally. “You wouldn’t use sound like we do if you lived under water. You’d probably use some sort of higher frequency sound, like a dolphin or something.”
“Is that what I’m hearing?” Sergeant Kane asked. “I thought I heard a high-pitched whine.”
Walker looked over his shoulder. “Hey, Morgan. Have your suit look for frequencies above normal hearing.”
“Yeah, I’m getting something there,” Morgan said. “There’s a lot of activity in the 30 to 40 kilohertz region.”
“Record all you can of it; that is probably their speech. Can you transmit a steady tone at 35 kilohertz for a couple of seconds?”
“Sure; just a second.”
Walker could tell when he did it; all five otters threw their arms over their heads as if to defend themselves, then stared at the CASPer once it was over. The two otters in the back picked up what they had dropped to defend themselves; it appeared to be some sort of line or rope.
“They’re doing it again,” Morgan advised.
“They’re probably mad you shouted at them. Do it again, but softer, and run the scale from 30 kilohertz to 40 and back.”
“Transmitting.”
This time, the otters seemed much happier about the tone; they bobbed their heads and danced back and forth. When it ended, the three in the front split and the two in the back came forward. These otters were a little bigger than the ones in the front, and Walker saw he was right; it was some sort of rope. The two otters came forward and held the end out to Walker. He took it from them and glanced down at it; the line was some sort of braided plant material.
“Thanks,” Walker said. When the otters just stood there and looked at him, he added, “Morgan, do the sliding tone again.”
The otters bobbed their heads again, and the two went back to stand behind the three. After a few seconds, the otter in the middle began making shooing motions with his hands.
“You want me to walk with this?” Walker asked. The otter continued making the motion, so he turned and began walking away with the rope.
“That must be what they wanted,” Sergeant Polanis said; “they’re do
ing their happy dance again.”
Walker kept moving away from the group, and then was brought up short as the line hit the end of its travel, almost pulling him over backwards. Ignoring the chuckles from his squad, he turned back to the otters. The middle otter began making the shooing motion again.
“I think he wants you to keep going,” Polanis said.
“Yeah, well why don’t you come help me pull this, because it’s tied to something big on the other end. Hey, Morgan and VVR, come give this a pull.”
The two CASPers came over, took the rope, and began pulling.
“I wonder if there’s another sea monster at the end of the rope,” Morgan said as the mechs strained to keep moving forward.
“I wonder what the tensile strength of the rope is,” Walker said. “Looks like you’re pulling something pretty big out.”
The two CASPers had almost reached the start of the dunes when a shape could be seen in the water. “Is that…” Walker asked. “It is! It’s Loftis!”
The two CASPers pulled until the suit was out of the water, and Walker ran forward to pull the emergency canopy release. He lifted the canopy and Sergeant Loftis took a long breath and let it out. “Thanks for coming to get me, Staff Sergeant,” she said. “I wouldn’t have lasted much longer; I was about out of air.”
“You’re welcome,” Walker said, “but it wasn’t me that brought you in. It was the otters—” He turned, but the otters were gone.
Main Base, Trigar 2-A, Trigar System
“What happened?” Sansar asked.
“They’re saying they got their asses kicked by some sort of sea monster, and it caused all their suits to die,” Captain Anderson said. “They must have done something to run them out of fuel, and now they’re all dead out there on the beach. They’re asking for another squad to come get them and to send all of the suit retrievers we have.”
“Well, there’s only two suit retrievers, so it will take a while to get them all back to base. I’ll take Third Squad out and go get them; I want to see this sea monster.”
“You think there really was a sea monster?” Anderson asked. “I think they were probably screwing off and just made that story up to cover up the fact they unnecessarily expended their fuel and ordnance.”
“I know Walker’s a new guy,” Sansar replied, “but he comes well-recommended. His honor was never questioned; in fact, just the opposite. If he said there was a sea monster, then in his opinion, there was a sea monster. That’s why I want to go see it. Hopefully they were able to capture it or at least can produce a body.”
“To prove it really happened?”
“No, I want to see it, because it might be our real adversary here.”
“Beside the MinSha that bombed our base?”
“Well, we’re going to have to kick their asses for that; I have no intention of letting that go unpunished. What I’m talking about, though, is the underwater mining facility that was destroyed; perhaps one of the sea monsters did it. If so, we’re going to have to figure out how to defend the mine from those things while defending our base from the MinSha. Things may have just gotten a lot more complicated.”
* * * * *
Chapter 14
Beach, Trigar 2-A, Trigar System
“That’s the last one,” Sergeant Morgan said as he dropped Sergeant Loftis’ suit next to the rest of the deadlined suits. “All of them are up away from the water.”
“Thanks,” Walker replied. Both Morgan and VVR had their suit radios set in router mode, and “wifi transmit,” so the squad was able to use their in-head comms system in place of the non-functional CASPer radios.
“Staff Sergeant Walker,” Corporal Burke called, “our relief is here. Holy shit! The colonel’s with them!”
Walker ran down the beach to where he could see the line of approaching CASPers. The group split up to provide perimeter security, while one came straight for him. He could tell by the markings it was Colonel Enkh’s.
“I heard you ran into a sea monster,” Sansar said. Her CASPer was facing the one on the beach. “And that’s quite the monster, all right. Is that a second one out in the water?”
“Yes, ma’am, it is,” Walker replied. “It’s dead, but it got Corporal Toth.”
“Got him?”
“Yes, ma’am. The damn thing picked him up and threw him into its mouth. The corporal detonated a number of L bombs once inside it, though, so I guess Toth got him back.”
“So, how did you run into a sea monster while on dry land?” Sansar asked.
“Well, as it turns out, there is another life form here. The creatures look like sea otters, and apparently, they come up on land to nest. As we were patrolling, we saw a bunch of baby ones heading for the ocean, but when they got there, one of the sea monsters attacked them…and it also attacked Private DeWayne, who happened to be standing too close to the water. After that, it was a free for all.”
“They’re pretty big; I can see how you’d use up all of your fuel fighting them.”
“No ma’am; that’s not what happened to our suits; in fact, I have no idea what happened. It’s got to be some sort of bug. Everything was fine when I fired my handheld laser rifle, and the suit worked when I fired the first round with my arm-mounted MAC. When I pulled the trigger to fire the second round, though, it died.”
“That’s…weird,” Sansar said. The way her voice trailed off, Walker knew she was trying to figure out what could have caused it. He hoped she did; he was stumped.
“It gets weirder, ma’am. All the other suits did the same thing—they all shut down on the second shot fired from a suit-mounted weapon, including Sergeant Kane’s suit when he tried to fire a second missile out of his missile pack.”
“Sounds like you might be onto something with a programming bug. Still, that’s really odd; we’ve never had anything like that ever happen before.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like it, ma’am,” Walker said.
“No,” Sansar said. “Neither have I. Is that it?”
“No, ma’am. The weirdest thing is, before my suit shut down, I swear it sent out a burst message. The suit died before I could see what it was, but I’m pretty sure it sent something to someone…and I doubt it went to anyone we’d want to know our suits aren’t working correctly.”
“Or working at all.”
“Yeah,” Walker said ruefully. “Or at all. That’s why I wanted the suit retrievers to take our CASPers back to base so they can get looked at. I don’t want to still have them down when the MinSha come back.”
“True.” Sansar paused for a moment, then added, “Well, if indeed it is a bug, it’s a good thing it happened to you.”
“Uh…I’m not real sure I understand why it’s a good thing two sea monsters almost ate my squad ma’am.”
“Look at it this way,” Sansar said; “if it had happened when we were fighting another merc unit…”
“Oh. Yeah. We’d all be dead right now.” Walker shrugged. “Yeah, I already thought about that.”
A window popped up in Walker’s in-head display; it was the intel officer, Second Lieutenant Jim Parker. Walker activated it. “Hi sir, Walker here.”
“Hi, Staff Sergeant,” Parker replied. “We just took a look with one of our telescopes, and it looks like the MinSha launched their remaining fighters. We saw three take off. We expect them to be here in 15-20 minutes. Without our tracking equipment, it’s unknown whether they will come for you or go another round with us here.”
“Got it, sir,” Walker replied. “We’ll be ready.” How, he had no idea. All of his suits were dead, and only about half of the platoon had anything heavier than a laser pistol.
“Copy; Parker out.” The window closed.
“All right, folks,” Walker said. “We need to get ready to receive incoming fighters. I just heard from base, and we’ve got three fighters coming in. Base can’t tell whether they’re coming for us or not, but right before my suit died, it sent some kind of transmission, so I�
��m betting the MinSha know our suits are dead, and they’re coming to finish us off. Maybe destroy our suits permanently, who knows? Either way, we’ve got 15 minutes…well 13 now, to prepare positions in which to fight them from.”
“What are we supposed to use on them?” Private Berkelun Enkh asked.
“Some rockets or missiles would be nice,” Sergeant Kane said, lightly kicking the missile pack of his downed CASPer. “Too bad all of mine died when the suit did.”
“Och,” Corporal Mike Smith said in his Scottish accent. “Ye need rockets? I can build ye some rockets out o’ this crap.”
“You can?” Walker asked. “How?”
“Well, I’m kind o’ a jack-of-all-trades. I keep trying new specialties, but none o’ them have stuck. I did demo for a while and have stripped these things down tae their wee parts. Give me what we’ve got, and I’m sure I can build some that will work.”
Walker narrowed his eyes. “You can? What’s your deal? I never asked, but you’re pretty old to be a corporal. You’ve obviously been busted several times to still be one. What’s your vice? Drugs? Alcohol? I don’t want a drunk playing with rocket motors and high explosives.”
“Och, no, Staff Sergeant. I ain’t been busted for none o’ that; I just don’t want tae be in charge. I have too much fun learning new stuff tae waste time playing squad leader or platoon leader…or something worse.”
“You haven’t been busted for drugs or alcohol? What have you been busted for?”
“Well, I’m pretty good at forging signatures when needed, but I never got caught for that; I got busted because I forgot tae initial a form, and they caught it. Ain’t that some crap? What a dumbass thing tae get caught for!”
“But your hands are steady?”
“Like a rock, Staff Sergeant!” He held out his hands to prove it.
“Okay, get on it then. Burke, VVR, you two give him a hand, and do what he says.”
The Golden Horde (The Revelations Cycle Book 4) Page 18