There was a chance Elliott could still save Rabinowitz, but whatever had struck him came back around and took off the top of the poor bastard’s head.
The creature came for him.
Lying as he was on the ground and looking at the monster charging his way, time slowed to a crawl. Elliott seemed to have all the time in the world to take in the details of the creature. The head of the thing, the face of the beast with its blown-out eye and tusks and a mouth full of fangs and mandibles that opened like some twisted, deadly flower.
He rolled away from the Claymore mine and started to stand, and still it moved in his direction. Reaching for his pistol, he felt the grip, caught it in his fingers and pulled it free, aiming with his mind more than his eyes. His eyes were only for the thing careening his way.
He was a dead man and he knew it.
But he would take the thing with him when he went.
His shot was true. The bullet hit his target in the bared part of the torso and punched a hole big enough to toss a lime through. Still it came, roaring as it pulled out a stick that expanded into something larger. He fired again and missed. The creature dodged to the side even as he pulled the trigger.
It thrust the spear at him and Elliott held his hand out as if that might somehow stop the thing. It did not. The tip smashed into his ribs and skidded across bone with a lightning bolt of pain. And then it was on him.
The spear was gone and the creature lifted him off the ground, one massive, hot, clawed hand on either side of his ribs. His blood ran along its left hand and drizzled down its forearm as it hefted him as easily as a parent lifts a toddler. He kicked at the thing and did no damage, then swung his hand at the nightmare face. One of the tusks punched into and through the web between his forefinger and thumb. The blade-like teeth beneath it were a hair’s breadth from his fingertips.
It pulled back and roared in his face, that one good eye burning with hatred. His other hand still held the pistol, and he aimed and fired—again without giving any thought. From two feet away he managed to miss. It shouldn’t have been possible.
Heavy claws scraped past his sweat-stained uniform and carved into his sides. Elliott fired again even as the creature threw him backward.
While Elliott was free-falling through the air, Burton shot the bastard four times in the back. It staggered and turned, the mounted weapon spinning and aiming for the man even as the blood pumped furiously from its wounds. The cannon did its business and Burton died in a flurry of brilliant lights that blasted through his flesh and took him apart.
Bloodied, perhaps even dying, the goddamned nightmare came for him again, screeching and warbling and eager to tear him apart. Managing somehow to stand, Elliott spotted the tripwire and moved over it carefully. He saw the Claymore, knew where it was pointed. He also knew that with just one step he could be out of the cone of effect.
He took two, to be safe.
As the thing came closer he leaned down and hit the tripwire with the butt end of his pistol.
The explosion was so much more powerful than he’d expected. He knew there would be damage to the trees. He knew there would be noise. In that moment, however, it was greater even than the hellish thing that was reaching for him. The pellets locked inside the mine escaped at the speed of sound and blew through his assailant. Elliott saw the ripple of flesh, of the odd tentacle things on its head, as the body was shoved backward by the concussive force.
Pain exploded in his calf.
He hadn’t gone quite far enough.
When he could think again—and he wasn’t exactly certain how long that had taken—Elliott examined the wounds in his calf. They were minor. His boots had absorbed the brunt of the force, though he had no doubt he’d have been destroyed by the explosion if he’d been in the direct path. Looking around, he saw a spill of fluorescent blood that spread over a dozen feet in any direction.
The damned thing had to be dead.
It had to be.
Two hours of searching proved him wrong. There was a long trail of the stuff that ran from the area and moved hard toward the north. Following it, he kept track of his path. He couldn’t afford to get lost in the woods, and he surely couldn’t afford to lose the bodies of his men.
There was a strange sound, and he picked up the pace as best he could. The trail of blood led to a new wonder— an aircraft the likes of which he had never seen before. He had a cheap camera on his hip, and managed to snap a couple of pictures before the ship lifted straight into the air. The sound wasn’t as loud as he expected it to be, though he had to protect his eyes from the debris it kicked up, and then it launched toward the sky.
He watched it vanish and tried very hard to tell himself it was all a fever dream.
* * *
But it hadn’t been. It had taken most of his life, yet here he was and there the nightmare lay, bound and soon to reveal its secrets.
A lot of very good men had died for this to happen.
Elliott intended to remember all of them, and to make sure they were properly honored.
* * *
The creature was angry with him. He had never seen it before, but it spoke to him and cast angry looks his way even as it went about scanning him with its primitive, boxy device.
The Yautja—the name for his people—seldom cared what others thought of them. Still, he was fascinated by the gray-haired individual’s anger. Was it because of the prey he had already killed? Or had it encountered the Yautja before? There had been incidents over the years. He himself had hunted these things in the past, but he’d made certain not to leave survivors.
There was always a chance that previous hunters had been here, and not returned. That was part of what made hunting a challenge. If there was no danger, there was no honor to it. There was no glory for striking down creatures that could not defend themselves or could not hunt just as well, regardless of their level of technology.
More than once his chieftain had said that the technology of the Yautja came at least partially from adapting what they had found on other worlds, when the hunters discovered creatures that were more advanced in one way or another. There were precautions in place for protecting the technology they used. Their ships were hidden when they traveled, and when they landed their craft were locked and secured. The weapons were coded to the individual hunter. The key was kept in the control gauntlet.
He didn’t know the faces of these creatures sufficiently to read them, but he trusted his instincts well enough to believe the gray hair was taunting him. It may have harbored an unresolved vendetta, or it might have been unsettled at encountering life from another world. Though the species possessed some capabilities in stellar travel, they were extremely limited.
In any event, he had only to wait. The gray hair was not done with him, and when it came back he would see how he could use that unexplained anger or fear to his advantage. If he could get past his restraints, the rest would be easy.
Let the weapons be taken. Even the control gauntlet. No one was foolish enough to leave without redundancies. If he could reach his ship he could track every item that had been taken from him, and he could either deactivate them remotely or set the self-destruct to eliminate the problem—along with the entire facility that held it.
He had always been a patient hunter.
17
Elliott stared at the bodies for a long time. He memorized their faces and reconciled the corpses with the young men he’d trained.
That was his responsibility. That was the cost he had to pay for being in charge of an elite team and sending them to their deaths. In time he would write the letters of condolence to any family, and he would make certain that the cause of death was listed as part of the ongoing skirmishes in the Middle East. That was one of the few advantages to having a war going on as far as he was concerned. There were plenty of politicians who might have pointed out the monetary benefits, but he wasn’t a bureaucrat. He was a covert operative who trained others to handle shadow work.
<
br /> He’d been “Pappy” to those boys, those deceased men who’d come up against a nightmare and failed to survive. He was the man who was supposed to keep them alive and well while they fought his demons.
In that, he was a failure.
There was success to crow about, yes. They’d caught the damned thing and now, hopefully, they’d learn enough to justify the expense both in money and in lives. With the technology they’d taken they could very likely find a way to locate the ship it had landed in, and then they’d have struck the mother lode when it came to technological superiority.
None of that made the need for a drink any less overwhelming.
No. Not a drink. He wanted to get ripped. His mouth watered at the notion of tipping back a bottle of tequila, or getting in a few serious snorts of vodka, gin, or Scotch. He knew he needed to stay away from the booze, but it called just the same and promised to ease away all of the anxiety in his guts and the doubts in his brain. It always made the same promises and he did his best to ignore them, because he knew in his soul that they were, in fact, lies.
Still, he salivated at the thought, and his left eyelid twitched just enough to make him grind his teeth.
The alien was one demon. The thirst was another. He needed to keep both of them in check, especially if he was going to accomplish everything he knew Woodhurst expected from him. But every damned time he closed his eyes, he could see that thing looking at him, and he could feel the guilt trying to wrestle its way into his mind over the deaths of four boys young enough to be his grandkids, if he had any grandkids. They were dead because somewhere along the way it became more important to capture that thing alive than to teach them how to survive against weapons that broke all the rules.
With an effort he pushed those thoughts aside and then peered at the pictures on his computer screen. The images were clear, not the least bit blurry, and Pappy shook his head, overwhelmed by the knowledge that this was hard evidence. This was vindication for decades of doubt and ridicule.
Woodhurst would be pleased.
That had to be enough for now.
He uploaded the files to the secure server and sent them to both Woodhurst and Traeger. Not all of the images, of course. Three pictures of the alien, four more of its devices. The rest would wait for later, but for the moment these would do the trick. They would make the point for any doubters.
When he was finished he looked at the autopsy shots of his boys. Those he would not send on. There was no need. There was nothing all that unusual about a dead soldier, after all.
“Enough, old man,” he growled. “Stop being a whining little bitch.”
He opened a new file on the computer, a Word document. A quick note and the address was in the right spot. Another look at the paperwork and the names were just so.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Strand,
It is with profound regret that I must inform you of the passing of your son, Elmore.
I have had the pleasure of working with Elmore for the last two years. As the commander in charge of his unit I did my best to make certain he was prepared for any situation.
This Thursday, October 27th at 16:47 hours, Elmore had the misfortune of encountering several hostiles intent on attacking the installation where we both work and live. The attack was unexpected, as terrorist attacks most often are, and the sad fact is that Elmore was at the western gate when the hostiles attacked there, using several explosive devices in an attempt to breach security and proceed with the intent to kill as many innocents as they could.
Witnesses to Elmore’s bravery are numerous, but Corporal Heath Duttweiller said it best, I believe, when he told me that if not for Elmore’s bravery, the gates would have been breached and the entire facility would have been compromised.
I cannot possibly explain to you how very sad I am to have to write you this letter. I cannot hope to clarify the depth of my sorrow. Your son, Elmore, exemplified everything that a soldier should be. He was honest, he was brave, and his courageous actions saved the lives of every person at the base.
I have made recommendations that Sergeant Elmore Strand receive the highest possible honors for his bravery and sacrifice. I have never had the privilege of being a parent, but if I were and Elmore were my own son, I could not be prouder of all that he accomplished. Nor could I be more diminished by his passing from this world.
It was my honor to serve with Elmore, and to know him as well as I did.
You have my condolences and the gratitude of a grateful nation,
Sincerely,
General Douglas F. Woodhurst
That was one. Only three more to go. He would personalize each of them and send them to the general for his approval. Woodhurst was a busy man, and Elliott knew from conversations they’d had in the past that the man tended to procrastinate when it came to letters like these.
The boys didn’t deserve to have their families kept waiting.
He finished the rest of the letters as quickly and carefully as he could, making certain to note the circumstances he created for each of their deaths. Then he shut down his computer, stood up, and headed for his quarters before he could do something stupid like reach for the flask he had locked in his desk.
* * *
Traeger looked at the images and made hard copies. He would not risk carrying that sort of intel on his phone. That was the kind of thing that caused trouble down the line.
Pulling them out of the printer, he stared at each and every piece, fascinated and damned near ready to drool. The alien creature was decidedly scary, and one look at that face confirmed what he’d already suspected—this thing was a predator. Anything with that many ugly-ass teeth and forward-facing eyes was guaranteed to be a carnivore. At least that was what he’d learned watching the National Geographic Channel.
Didn’t explain sharks, but they were fish.
More importantly, there was proof of the technology. Not anything that couldn’t be faked, of course, but there would have to be a little trust somewhere along the way. He had to trust that the people he spoke to would respect national security, and they had to trust that his evidence was genuine. Anyone who couldn’t play by those rules was a waste of his breath.
While he was folding the pictures and sliding them into his jacket pocket, Woodhurst called.
“General,” Traeger said, “I was just getting ready to call you.” A lie, but a small one. At this point the man was a hindrance—but he could hardly say that.
“Will,” Woodhurst said, “these images are positively astonishing.” The man sounded excited. That was unsettling. Normally the closest he came to emotion was sounding disappointed in the world around him. Eeyore could be more cheery.
“I think it’s going to make a difference, General,” Traeger responded. “We’re going to see big changes when it comes to financing the project.” Both of them were careful not to voice any details. They had top-of-the-line cell phones, but even those would never be as secure as they wanted. That anyone could break the security coding was about as likely as a sparrow winging it to the moon and back, but why take chances?
“Just in time, I say,” Woodhurst replied. “We needed a win, and we got one.”
Traeger nodded and made sure to sound pleased. “A whole different world tomorrow, after our meetings. I don’t think they’re going to know what hit them.”
“It’s going to be a long day, Will. You get a decent night’s sleep.”
“I have a warm cup of milk and a shot of Scotch waiting to send me to dreamland,” Traeger said. “I’m going to suggest the very same thing for you, General.”
“Goodnight, Will.”
“Goodnight, sir.”
Sleep. Hell would freeze over first. He had four calls at the very least, and if he could make it happen there would be an equal number of short but necessary meetings before he went to bed. Politics could be a nightmare, no two ways about it—but some nightmares led to pleasant dreams. He just had to make sure his went that way.
Arm
ed with his charm and a collection of amazing photos, Traeger left his room and prepared to change the world for the better.
* * *
Night settled over the Stargazer facility. Twice as many men as usual stood guard around a complex that only a handful of people even knew existed.
The stars came out and were half hidden by a deep humidity that marred the light and smothered details. Those poor souls forced to stay outside in the night air did not perspire, they sweated. The air was thick and the heat of the day continued on into the night.
Inside the complex the people who had taken endless pictures of the newly captured alien saved the information they had gathered, speculated on what they would soon learn, and went for more coffee in the mess hall. There was no food permitted in the area where the alien hunter rested. Just entering the labs required hazmat suits and decontamination, per orders of Commander Elliott.
There had been a brief moment of sloppiness when everything happened at once, but it hadn’t taken long for them to realize the risks of alien contagions, and just as importantly the risk that they might kill their prize with something as simple as a common cold. There was no way to know the immune system of an alien creature, though at this point blood and saliva samples had been collected and were being studied and cultivated.
As late as it was still the lab was a hive of activity, though everyone who came and went did so in silence, save for the soft beeping of the monitor strapped to the beast’s chest and the occasional wheezing noises of the blood pressure cuff that strained on the alien’s massive bicep. After a while, however, there was a lull in the activity. All of the samples were collected, and the researchers took them elsewhere to examine them well into the night. The lighting remained subdued, and four men constantly monitored cameras that were aimed at the creature. It appeared to be asleep, or in some other state of replenishment.
THE PREDATOR HUNTERS AND HUNTED Page 12