Another sound of movement in the forest spooked the doe and broke Travis out of his reverie. Something was coming towards him from the left, faster now, and it was making a lot of noise. Coming towards him, waving her arms in recognition, was a girl. It was a girl he knew!
“Ressa?” he choked in disbelief. She was covered head to toe in mud, and looked to be in the last stages of exhaustion. Her eyes were haunted hollows, and her blouse and skirt hung on her like a gunny sack. He shouldered his rifle just in time to catch her as she collapsed into his arms. She was shivering with fever, the heat coming off her in waves. “Help,” she gasped through chattering teeth.
Travis huddled with the other Bandits sometime later. The situation was not good. Ressa was showing signs of improvement. Hasinski had shot her full of diclozomine, the same stuff they’d all been given before shipping out. It took care of the basic diseases encountered in jungle environments and enabled Armada personnel to drink the water in places like Askura without being incapacitated by Monctezuma’s Revenge. He’d also poured several electrolyte juice packs down her throat and fed her crackers. Her fever had broken within an hour, and she was able to tell everyone about her adventures with Otto Spielman.
As a result, the prince and Captain Bainbridge were at loggerheads. The Captain felt intense pressure to keep the mission moving, and Nahuatl was furious about Ressa’s treatment at the hands of an outlander. Bainbridge wanted to leave her in a fighting hole to be picked up by her father and Hardesty, but Nahuatl refused to leave her alone in the heart of lizard man country for another twenty-four hours. He was threatening to abandon the expedition, along with his tracker guides, to remain with her. Bainbridge was over a barrel. The prince and his people were technically civilians, but necessary civilians. To shoot them in the back for disobeying orders and desertion would complicate matters.
“Bottom line is, she’s coming with us. That’s the only choice Bainbridge has. He’s about ready to have kittens.” said Travis.
“Can she keep up?” asked Evans.
“She’ll have to.” he replied. “She’s a tough kid. Hell, she just spent two days in the jungle evading predators and sleeping in trees. I can’t wait ‘till I run into Otto again,” His eyes glinted dangerously.
“You aren’t the only one,” said Derek Driveway, joining the group. “That bastard’s a disgrace to the unit, and word has it he’s sold us out to the enemy. He won’t make it to a court martial.” He slammed a new clip into his rifle for effect. “We move out in ten minutes. We march ‘till sundown, then dig in.”
Chapter 11
It’s procedure to have two men in a fighting hole, one awake at all times. It was fortunate for Travis Buckley that his roommate in the trench that night was his friend Private Numbnuts. It was also fortunate that neither of them was asleep when the attack came.
The unfortunate one was Deron Evans, who was away from his hole on watch that night. His throat was torn out by the first blow of an enemy he never saw, so he didn’t sound the alarm. It was also unfortunate that the lizard men used the trees to get close. By the time the ground sensors went off, the enemy was already inside the perimeter.
Travis and Numbnuts had been fast friends since boot camp, when Numbnuts had needed the assistance of Travis and Struts McCaskey to survive the pressures of recruit training. Travis was also sympathetic to the needs of the vulnerable, and he was sure the slow but lovable farm boy had unusual gifts that only he had caught glimpses of. The two were quietly chatting about the usual things: home, girls, boot camp, big breasts, asshole sergeants, movie actresses, and so on. After a while, Numbnuts stood up and announced he was going to find a place to piss before settling in. Travis said he would amuse himself by sharpening his combat knife. Travis also warned Numbnuts about the dangers of excessive masturbation, and both boys had a fine chuckle. However, as the laughter was dying down, two things happened with shocking speed. The perimeter motion sensors sounded the alarm, and Private Numbnuts was yanked out of the fighting hole by unseen hands.
Travis would have shouted and gone to his friend’s aid, but he was too busy fending off the lizard man who came boiling into the hole. It made straight for him and tried to tear his throat out. All he saw were yellow eyes and sharp teeth coming right at him. Travis reacted on pure instinct and slashed at the thing, holding the deadly mouth at bay while he stabbed for what he hoped was a vulnerable underbelly with the other. He was lucky, for in leaping headlong into the cramped confines of the fighting hole, the lizard man impaled itself on Travis’s knife. With a hiss almost like a sigh, the reptile collapsed on top of the shocked marine like a dead lover. In a moment it was over, and Travis was left gasping and grateful for having survived.
He peeked out of the trench and looked for Numbnuts’s remains. What he saw was his friend standing over the dead bodies of three attackers battering a fourth to death against a nearby tree. One of the fallen lizard men had Numbnuts’s knife in its belly, while another lay with its jaws ripped apart. A third had its head turned around backwards. “Tommy, quit screwing around and get back here!” Travis yelled. Numbnuts gave a final heave, the reptilian skull cracked like a coconut against the tree, and Numbnuts jumped back down into the trench. Both men readied their rifles and prepared to defend their trench against reptiles they saw swarming out of the jungle and dropping from the treetops.
The jungle darkness was lit by the actinic glare of flares, and shots rang out as weapons were brought to bear. The lizard men had come out of the jungle and attacked the camp thinking their superior numbers would overwhelm the intruders one-on-one. What they had not counted on was the devastating effects of automatic weapons fire from men in entrenched positions. Tracer bursts outshone the red of the flares as Travis and his teammates opened up on their attackers with devastating effect. The first advancing lizard men were literally chopped in half by the curtain of fire. Arms and legs struck the reptiles surging in from behind in a crimson spray. The lizard men who tried to crawl over their mates were cut down by the hail of bullets. Those upright had their legs pulverized. Those who crawled saw heads explode. After the first surprise surge into the trenches, the lizard man advance was driven back on all sides and became a slaughter. In minutes it was over. The lizard men gave up their attack and retreated into the jungle.
“Cease fire!” called the captain, and the pounding roar was silenced. After the sound faded, Bainbridge gave the go order, and Marines came out of their holes at a bound. Somebody threw another flare ahead to light their advance. Prince Nahuatl and his wingman stood back to back, flailing away with their macahuitl at the last remaining attackers. The obsidian tipped clubs were devastating, hacking off limbs or laying open abdomens at a blow. The two men were surrounded by heaps of scaly, reptilian bodies.
“Where’s your other scout?” Bainbridge asked.
“Murerto. See?” He showed the Marines an arm. “The lagarijos took the rest back to their holes. For food. Don’t tell his mother.” The prince spat in distaste.
“Ressa,” cried Travis, “where is she?”
The prince cursed and leapt away. A second later they found the remains of the hammock where the girl had been sleeping. One side had been ripped from its tree and hung in tatters, but there was no sign of blood. “They did not kill her,” he said. “See the path of leaves? She struggled as they dragged her away.”
“Are they gonna eat her, or what?”
“Not yet,” said the prince. “In my great grandfather’s time the swamp was not so large. It did not come so close to the road as it does now. Their home is very near here. Their dens lie to the west, near the delta of the great river. Many hatchlings. The young, they say, love the taste of human flesh.” His face was tight.
“Evans is dead, too.” The captain’s face was grim. “They killed him before he could sound the alarm. Prince, can I speak with you alone for a moment?” The two strode off together.
“I know what you are going to say, el capitán, and the answer is
no.”
“She’s already dead, son, and we both know it.”
“No! She is not dead, not yet. They will want a live kill for their young, I know it! If we go now, we can catch them before they reach the lair. We can save her!”
“And I have a mission to complete, the outcome of which could affect the lives of millions. What decision would a king make? She’s dead, Nahuatl!”
Nahuatl threw up his hands in frustration and spun away. After a moment, he spun back. “A deal, Bainbridge.”
“Young man, I am in charge here. I do not make deals.”
“A deal, or we will lead you no farther. Without the Emparedar, you will never reach Pericu; you will have no outlander war; your mission will fail.” He locked eyes with Bainbridge and did not look away.
The captain’s voice was cool. “What do you want?”
“I will leave my remaining scouts with you. In return, I ask for one man to accompany me on a rescue.”
“You can have Nowitski.”
“Nowitski is an idiota.”
“Who, then?”
“Give me Buckley. He is very brave, no? He likes Ressa.”
“If you want to kill yourself, go ahead. I won’t order any of my men on a suicide mission.”
“Ask him, then. If he refuses, I will go alone.”
Bainbridge tried again. “Prince, I don’t want that girl to die, but where I’m from the mission takes priority. It’s more important than the life of any one man. It’s not my personal choice. I have my orders, and they may not be set aside.”
“I understand the life of a soldier, capitán. You will do what you must. But I will not abandon Ressa when I think I can save her. Ask Buckley. I know he will come.”
Bainbridge made up his mind. “All right,” he said, “I’ll call Buckley over here. If you come out of this alive, you are going to owe me a big one. and the Stellar Armada doesn’t forget.”
Chapter 12
They stood in front of the cave entrance while Travis showed the prince how to adjust his night vision goggles. “Keep the filter on high in normal light or you’ll be blinded for sure. Switch to mid range if we run into torchlight. I have a light installed under the barrel of my weapon – “ he showed it to Nahuatl, “ – that I’ll keep on UV at all times. It won’t give away our position, and it’ll provide a light source for the goggles to read when there is no outside light. These things are so good that the lowest filtered settings should give us outlines and depth perception even in near-total darkness.”
The prince pulled on his goggles, which were not much bulkier that regular swim goggles, and winced as he adjusted the filter levels by tapping at his temples. “Marvelous!” he admired. “We can see in the dark.”
“We’re lucky Bainbridge was planning for some night reconnaissance on our snoop and poop. Numbnuts passed me these when he wasn’t looking.” The side pockets in his pants were bulging with extra ammo. Travis checked his M1B one last time, making sure no mud or dirt clogged its workings. Under the barrel, just past the sights, was a wicked, double edged bayonet. He wore machetes crossed on his back. Nahuatl had showed him break-away knots so he could draw by pulling them over his shoulders. The prince carried double macahuitls crossed on his own back, plus a large dirk on each hip.
Travis remembered how his teammates had gathered around him, offering ammo, slaps on the back, and quiet words of encouragement as he and the prince prepared for their rescue mission. Only Numbnuts had betrayed his true feelings. His red rimmed eyes watered as he handed over the night vision goggles, and he could not hold back a sniffle as he clutched Travis in a childlike embrace. “Easy, son,” Travis said, rubbing Numbnuts’s head, “you’ll see me again. I ain’t planning on dying.”
They set off at dawn. Nahuatl was an expert tracker, so Travis followed his lead as they picked their way through the wetlands of the river delta. “Many years ago, the swamplands were not so big,” said the prince. “Now they come almost to the causeway.. The men of Pericu knew how to tame the river, to drain away large, rich areas for farming. Now the river takes back his land, year after year.” The trail the lizard men left was not hard to follow, even for Travis’s untrained eyes. They tended, like humans would, to follow the highest ground they could find. Nahuatl was just as at-home in this environment. He set an even quicker pace that the forced march, his eyes scanning the ground and nearby brush for sign of their quarry.
Travis hung in with grim determination. Though he was in good shape, the pace, the climate, and the extra burdens he was carrying wore on him. He did not want to show weakness in front of the prince, but after a few hours his breath came in ragged gasps.
“Come on, outlander,” said Nahuatl. “If we catch the war party before they reach the lair, we won’t have to fight them in their home. We’ll have half a chance to come out of this alive.”
“I know that,” gasped Travis. “Just give me a minute to catch my breath! That’s all I need.” He was bent over with his hands on his thighs, but he kept his head high as he sucked for oxygen in the heat and humidity. “Besides, what’s the deal with this Pericu, anyway? Ressa’s father seemed to think he knew why the Machai went there. It had something to do with Dr. Arnac, and something to do with the lizard men. What do you think?”
“Pericu is an ancient place. There are ghost stories told to frighten children. I just know the Libera never tried to rebuild the city. They moved east, to found Copalta and south to build Asilyo.”
“You ever been there?”
“I’ve been there, yeah. There aren’t many places I haven’t been. I know where one of the entrances to the lair is, but I haven’t been underground. I might have become their dinner.” He grinned.
Travis stood up and clapped the prince on the shoulder. “I don’t want to be dinner, either,” he said. “Come on. Let’s catch them and get her back.”
They set off again, moving even faster than before. The terrain moved steadily downhill, and dry ground became tougher and tougher to find. Sometimes they stepped through puddles, sometimes they waded through waist-deep marshes. Once the prince pulled him to a silent stop and pointed. About twenty yards away, on the bank of the next high ground, lay the biggest salt water crocodile – its Askuran equivalent – that Travis had ever seen. “Seven meters!” whispered the prince. “About twenty-five feet,” agreed Travis. “That’d be a world record back on Earth.”
The prince looked scandalized. “A juvenile!” he said.
Travis sighted his rifle. The monster croc’s hide was more greenish-blue than the ones back home, with some gold tints on the side. It would make the most badass set of boots in the galaxy. He cursed the fact that this wasn’t a hunting trip. Nahuatl gently pushed down the nose of the rifle. “He’s leaving,” the prince whispered. As he spoke, the prehistoric reptile slid into the water and disappeared below the surface. The slightest motion of its tail showed it moving down the bank to the right. The trail was now clear. The two waded to the far shore. Travis held his weapon high and wondered what else could possibly be slithering around his ankles, just out of sight.
As the afternoon turned to evening and the sun sank lower in the sky, the prince became more and more displeased. “Hijos de puta de mierda!” he swore. “We should have caught them by now.” Travis resigned himself to the fact that their would be no above-ground battle.
“It’ll be dark soon. How much farther?”
“Not far.”
In the end, the entrance to the lair of the lizard men wasn’t that impressive. They came to a place where a low hill rose out of the marshland. At the foot of the path lay two small boulders, the space between covered in vines and overgrowth. Pushing aside the camouflaging revealed the entrance to a cave. “This is one of their back doors, used for small raiding parties. They may have taken Ressa through another entrance, one I didn’t know about. We can’t have missed them by much.”
“I’ll light the way,” said Travis. “You stay on my shoulder and tell me where to
go.” He made sure the concussion grenades he’d brought were ready and accessible. He ducked inside the vines. Nahuatl followed him into the darkness beyond.
The floor of the tunnel, lit by the ghostly phosphorous of the night vision effect, sloped steadily downward. There was no signs of any craftsmanship or attempts to smooth out a floor, only the rough tunneling of an animal burrowing into the earth. The darkness was total. Without their goggles they would have had no chance at all except by hand-held lights. The walls were wet with seepage, and the air soon became close with oppressive heat and dampness. The deeper they went, the more their senses were assaulted with an incredible foulness that went beyond putrescence into corruption so profound it made the mind reel. The thought of Ressa dying in this terrible darkness kept both men going when their instinct was to flee.
The ultraviolet beacon on the M1B picked out the details of the floor and walls of the tunnel ahead of them, while dreadful chittering and slithering sounds whispered from catacombs below. Finally, after an interminable length of time, Travis and Nahuatl stepped clear of the suffocating tunnel into a much larger space.
They stood on a ledge which extended over a natural limestone cave. Travis panned his gun light around to reveal more detail. High above, stalactites hung like threatening spearheads, dripping moisture into pools of inky darkness far below. Ahead they could see other tunnels branching off, some larger, some smaller, like doors in a demented hallway. The cavern was a natural junction to other chambers deeper in the lair. Suddenly a sound drifted to their ears out of the darkness: a muffled, whimpering cry.
The two men bounded ahead to the opening where they had heard the noise. Travis flattened himself against the wall, weapon ready, and peered around the corner. The purple radiance of the UV lamp revealed their quarry. Two lizard man made their way up the tunnel carrying something between them. There, bound by wrist and ankle to a pole like a trophy deer, was Ressa. The rear lizard man gave a gurgling screech as Travis drove his bayonet through its spine and heart. The front lizard man didn’t have time to make a sound as Nahuatl buried his obsidian-tipped mace in its scaly neck, cleaving it to the sternum. In a moment Ressa was freed and she threw herself trembling into his arms.
Rear Echelon Page 6