The Natural Selection Retaliation

by Kyle Robertson

  Maybe Steve protected his own. Maybe he thought no one was as serious as him. He just wanted his team to be safe.

  “Okay, I’ll get the Devastators. Don’t just show yourself. Let me introduce you. After all that happened in Japan, they’re a bit ‘tribal’, so to say.”

  “I’ll wait for you before I scare them to death.” She stayed stoically somber.

  Steve put the racks of rifles on an anti-grav hand loader and emerged from the armory.

  “Three things, people!” he yelled to get the attention of Neo-Khaos. “One, we have some scary new weapons! Two, I found another survivor, Major Cavanaugh! Three, we have a menacing new threat patroling the base’s front entrance! Major Cavanaugh will explain!”

  Katherine emerged from the armory to see why Steve was so apprehensive. They weren’t hardcore soldiers. They all looked like summer camp counselor apprentices.

  “You weren’t kidding, Soldier, they’re all kids,” she said and began to tell them of their new threat.

  “This base is abandoned of every other living human! So don’t look!”

  That was when Carlos and Alikira came from the empty billets.

  “I told you this place was empty. There were no life-sign signatures in our Immediate vicinity,” Alikira said.

  Katherine saw Alikira, thought she was a threat, grabbed Steve’s Magrupt, and fired!

  “GET DOWN! RENEGADE BORGEY!”

  As she rapid fired in a prone position at Aklikira, they all just stood there.

  “Get up, Major. That’s Di. Chip augmented her frequency signature weeks ago, so she wouldn’t get accidentally shut off,” Steve told the prone positioned firing Katherine.

  Cavanaugh looked up at Steve.

  “You all have a pet borgey?!”

  “She’s not a borgey and I wouldn’t call Di a pet. She’s the reason your Magrupts were so efficient when your platoon blanked the new borgeys.”

  Sledge came out of a building.

  “What’s all the ruckus?!” He saw Cavanaugh. “Why the hell are you yelling at my troops?! Who are you?!”

  Katherine stood.

  “I’m Major Cavanaugh. I was informing your troops of a danger before I thought there was an immediate threat with Miss Shiny over there. I trained Navy Seals. I guess my voice is a little loud because I was a trainer.”

  Sledge took her reasoning and wondered what was this new threat.

  “I’m Sledge. Neo-Khaos Commander. What threat?”

  “You sound like a cartoon character, Sledge. What’s your full birth name?”

  “Look. Lady. Nobody knows me by that name and I’m not revealing it to a stranger! Now. What threat?!”

  The major saw his aggressiveness but knew how to negotiate.

  “Katherine Cavanaugh, Major. Now I’m not a stranger. If you want to know about the dire threat against your troops, you’ll tell me your real name.”

  Sledge was stuck. He couldn’t make a Navy Seal trainer tell him anything, but he had to know. He bit the bullet.

  “My real name is Terrance Smalton. Now, what’s the threat?”

  She began to smile.

  “Hey, Terrance. I would have gone with Sledge too. You know those Seals I trained? They died just like most of the soldiers on this base. I put them on ice for burials at sea, but after a massive vurial, the survivors drained all the ships to fill one to escape and those nimrods did not leave me the unlock code to the tanks.

  A month ago, the borgeys deactivated and enemy bats replaced them. I hid, but they went for cold storage and bit those dead Seals. Their nanite-filled venom reanimated those dead soldiers. Now, they’re killing anybody breathing in the vicinity. Magrupts don’t work. That’s why Steve Reynolds has all these Devastators to distribute. They take multiple rounds, center mass, to drop them. It’s time to storm the gate,” she said.

  “Hold on. My people have never shot a loaded weapon before.”

  “It doesn’t have any kick, Terrance. It’ll be like firing a Magrupt,” Steve interrupted their conversation.

  “My name is Sledge, Steve. Remember your place, kid.”

  “Come on. I had to say it at least once. Here, hit that tank with one.” He handed Sledge a Devastator.

  Sledge cocked it and fired.

  The tank’s reactive armor was ineffective. The round penetrated the tank, knocked it back 12 meters, and a fireball burped from the cannon!

  Both Sledge and Steve marveled at the devastation.

  “What type of round was that and why didn’t you shoot me with it?!” Steve asked.

  “That’s the Syntoc D-18 anti-tank Devastator. The reason I don’t use that one is that I still wanted to bury them at sea. That’s a little difficult when you make them red mist. The thing to change my mind is your crew. When it was just me, I could handle it. Your crew has disrupted the order. I know they all do deserve a proper burial. But when lives are at stake, they’re just undead annoying ravenous meat cubes.”

  “Where’d you find this one, Steve? In a rusty barb-wire pit? Sledge asked.

  “How many wars have you been in, Terrence?! How many field surgeries have performed in the mud under live fire?! If you say none, don’t question my attitude!”

  Sledge was slightly nervous but intrigued.

  All of a sudden, Alikira pointed out a bat on a building roof.

  “Is that one of the infiltrators?”

  Chip looked at the bat.

  “I think that’s a Mexican Free-tailed bat. They’re indigenous here.

  Cavanaugh took the Devastator from Sledge and blew off the top corner of the roof along with the bat.

  “That was a surveillance droid, Genious. You all have never been in a heated close quarters combat situation before. That tactic in spy-craft is called camouflaged monitoring. Right now the dead Seals know we’re here. They’re about to pay us a visit in about an hour, maybe less. Grab a Devastator B-14, find a barricade, and shoot center mass multiple times to damage their organs!”

  “What if we blow off their arms?” a Neo-Khaos soldier asked.

  “Weren’t you listening, Soldier?! They’re animated by nanites. That Circumscriber thing created highly advanced prosthetic limbs years ago. You blow off anything non-vital to reanimation, the nanites will create a prosthetic within minutes. I tried that earlier and the regeneration freaked me out. I’m telling you to hit center mass because I have the experience you do not.”

  Dopamine shot into Sledge’s brain. Her dominance was an attractive quality for him.

  “Okay, People! They shoot like Magrupts! Just with more devastation! Remember, those monsters are dead already! You’re not killing, you’re stopping functionality! Think of them as meaty borgeys!” Steve yelled and began to dole out the Devastators.

  Sledge went to Katherine.

  “You knew these people when they were alive. How tough were they?”

  “You don’t have to worry about the mental. When they died, so did the synaptic memory,” she said. “But having ultimate physiques make the greatest remote-controlled killers possible. Shoot them before they can touch you.”

  “And you trained them?”

  “Sea, air, and land. If you reside on Earth, they can get to you.”

  “If they’re as mean as you are, we need to drop them quickly.”

  “I’m mean when it’s necessary, Terrance. Otherwise, I’m a nice lady.”

  “You calling me Terrance wasn’t nice.”

  “We’re about to go to battle, Terrance. Niceness is on hold until this is finished.”

  “Then we better win. I want to see the nice Katherine.”

  “Call me Kat. I was the leader of Seal Team Panther. That was my call sign.” She pulled out rounds from her flak vest. “Here, use these when they’re at a distance. They’re Hadron singularity rounds. When they hit anything, they activate concentrated mini-black hole fields for three seconds. Whatever they hit will be sucked in a blackhole bubble; easy clean-up.”

  “It’s about to
be dawn, so my troops can see them.”

  “Even if they were in the field right now, your troop’s eyes have adjusted. They won’t have to worry about not being able to see. Can they shoot?”

  “Magripts shoot a cascade, so accurate aiming wasn’t a priority for them.”

  She stopped talking to Sledge and talked to Steve.

  “Reynolds, your people can’y aim with accuracy, so we need more ammo. Get the B-14 rounds from the armory cache. They’re labeled behind the D-18 rounds.” She threw the key at him. “Okay, people! I didn’t know you only knew how to shoot Magrupts! You need more precision with the accurate B-14 rounds! Reynolds is getting more B-14 rounds you need to load into your clips when you’re depleted! Start shooting and hitting the letters on the bow of the U.S.S. Bannon from here! Adjust your aim accordingly. This is a crash course on firing! You don’t have to be sniper-like, just adequate!”

  Steve came from the armory with a cart of B-14 rounds.

  “I’m going to show you once how to reload! Then you’re on your own!” He began to switch cartridges on his Devastator.

  Katherine looked at Sledge.

  “All they’re doing is adjusting their firehose from a spray to a targeted stream. Don’t look so concerned. Did they blank borgeys?”

  “They were masters at deactivation.”

  “Then they can already shoot, they just need to tweak their targeting,” she said.

  “Is this why your Seals were so good?”

  “When you train willing participants, you have to expect them to want to do it. Stop thinking your troops can’t do this. If you’re in doubt of their accomplishments, they’ll sense that and unconsciously fail. You train with confidence. If you’re not confident in your troops, you’re a sad trainer.”

  Sledge was given healthy food for thought.

  “Okay, People! You have around thirty minutes before the Ghoul Squad Murderers come-a-knockin’! Cover each other and take ‘em out!”

  Katherine looked at Sledge.

  “Feels kinda good being mean in war, doesn’t it?”

  “You’re just opening me up, militarily, Kat.”

  “You just want to see me nice. If this is a success, maybe you will.”

  That veiled flirt motivated Sledge.

  He yelled at his troops, “If you people still like me, let’s get this done!”

  

  Everyone was behind barricades. Alikira used her zoom function to see the Seals coming their way.

  “We have about three minutes! Those monsters are about two kilometers away and are running like cheetahs! I think the nanites reversed their rigor mortis because those are the most limber dead people I have ever seen.”

  “Are they in any formation?”Cavanaugh asked.

  “They look like a triangle.”

  “That damned Circumscriber knows the military S.O.P. They're in Delta attack formation. Who’s your best Magrupt marksman?”

  “I told you in the armory I’m the borgey deactivator,” Steve said.

  “Get over here, Reynolds. I need you to snipe the right second soldier in the formation and leave the point man untouched. It’s an old sniper trick to put them in disarray. They expect the point man to buy it first with an inexperiebcrf enemy. When you take out the second, they’ll know you you know tactics and could hit any of them. Your sight is ranged for two miles, so you’re at maximum effectiveness.” She looked through her sight to confirm the kill.

  Steve got in a prone position, saw the right second Seal in, breathed out, held it, and squeezed the trigger.

  It took a second after the boom, but Cavanaugh saw the second Seal’s chest explode and he was propelled backward in a messy fireball.

  “I can’t say confirmed kill because they’re already dead, Soldier, but you got him.”

  “I’m not finished yet.” Steve fired again and blew up the fleeing bat. ”Now I’m finished.”

  “And you thought your troops couldn't handle it,” Katherine told Sledge. “You’ve got an accurate solder in your troop.”

  All the Seals scattered.

  “Don’t worry. I was able to tap into the nanite digital signatures and I know where each of them are.” Alikira said.

  “That’s a strategic tactic. You painted the targets, so they can’t try to sneak us,” Katherine said and looked at Sledge. “Now, I know she’s not a borgey. They don’t have the mind, skill, or equipment to do that. You found Circumscriber’s antithesis. We have to get to Maryland.”

  “Why do you think Chip’s working so hard to pop the fuel tank nozzle lock? He’s not a wimp, he just knows his role.”

  “You can delegate, I’ll give you that.”

  Alikira saw Chip’s frustration and went to him.

  “What’s the problem. Are you stuck?”

  “All my tech skills and L don’t have the combination to the loop lock to the enter button door. It was probably an admiral’s code and he died. That’s probably why the Navy drained the destroyers.”

  “All that knowledge and you never knew how to crack a physical lock?” she asked.

  “I’m a binary guy, you’re the Tech-ripper. A little help, please?” he asked.

  She looked at the lock.

  “That’s a carbenium biorhythm lock. It opens through a preprogrammed DNA brainwave signature. You can’t unlock it without the owner.”

  “I’ll just find the owner then, oh wait. Everybody left or is already dead!” He was getting cynically upset.

  “I can’t unlock it, but if I had a plasma cutter, I can open it.”

  You’re just full of knowledge to ruin my day, even more, Di. Ask for a diamond saw while you’re at it.”

  “Calm down, Chip. I just need a plasma cutter on this base.”

  They both heard the wiring coming from her right arm. As they looked at it, her hand folded in on itself and constructed a plasma cutter!

  “Chip, I had no idea.”

  “Say I need a spanner drill. I just wanna see.”

  She said it and the plasma cutter was replaced with a spanner drill.

  “You’re my new advanced toolbox! Go back to the plasma cutter.”

  She did it and cut the lock.

  “We’re cookin’ now, Di! Take out those Seals and we can refuel.” He opened the door and pressed the button. The pump lock clicked.

  Alikira went back to Sledge.

  “Chip popped the lock mechanism. We just have to neutralize the Seals and we can refuel before noon.”

  “I need you here, Miss Shiny,” Katherine told Alikira. “My old team is built for speed and it looks like the bats downloaded my training manual.”

  “I’m called Di, not Miss Shiny, Major,” Alikira told Cavanaugh. “Heads up, bogey ten meters north-west, eleven ‘o clock!”

  A Seal jumped at a Neo-Khaos soldier! Cavanaugh blew him away.

  As he landed in a smoldering mess, the bat escaped! Steve tried to hit it but was unsuccessful. Cavanaugh shot another Seal and the bat bit the Neo-Khos soldier before Steve shot it.

  The soldier began to scream after 30 seconds and was infected! He turned into a mindless living-dead attacker! Steve shot him.

  “Make sure you kill all the bats! They’ll infect you when they lose their host!” Steve yelled out.

  As he yelled the warning, the bat he missed went directly toward him! Steve tried to shoot it, but it was too fast! He tried to swat it but missed the first time! He grabbed it out of the sky to bash it on a rock, but it bit his finger as he crushed it.

  “BASTARD BIT ME!”

  Alikira knew how fast the infection rate was, jumped to Steve, and used her plasma cutter to cut off his left arm right below the elbow!

  “AHHHHHHH!”

  “I’m keeping you alive, Steve! We’ll fix your arm later! Sit the rest of this one out!” she yelled at him.

  Chip drug him to safety as Alikira continued stopping the bats and Seals.

  Alikira jumped on a Seal and pushed her plasma cutter deep in
his back to lance and incinerate his heart. Raheem shot the bat. Three down. The rest of Steve’s marksman squad helped more than the others.

  A Seal grabbed Sledge! Sledge dropped from his grasp, tripped him, put the Devastator to his head, fired, and was splashed with bloody brains. Cavanaugh shot the bat.

  “Good lookin’ out, Kat!”

  “Sharing ‘blood in the mud’ is mandatory in war, Terrance!” She was good but kept up her chiding.

  “When we wipe out these Seals, call me Sledge!”

  She shot another renegade bat out of the sky.

  “Win and I’ll think about it!”

  Sledge mowed down four more with a smile on his face. His Neo-Khaos crew cleaned up the bats.

  Marc got up from all the noise and went to the deck to see his brethren fighting some crazy soldiers. He went back to inform and secure the rest. The stragglers were almost mobile with their mending legs.

  “Don’t try to get up! Neo-Khaos is on the defense protecting us from some crazy soldiers! There must be a reason they’re fighting the U.S. Navy. They’ll tell us later, just stay put and recoup!”

  Linda ran to Steve.

  “Are you okay?!”

  “I lost my damned hand!”

  She looked at his left arm and saw it cut off and cauterized twelve centimeters above the wist.

  “It’s clean! Who did this?!”

  “A bat bit me and Di saved me from getting infected by chopping off my arm! This hurts like hell! I am not having a good day!”

  As he fainted from the pain, stress, and an impromptu field surgery, Linda grabbed a Devastator to finish what he started.

  They began to get their system down. Di pinpointed the Seals, some Neo-Khaos shot them while the rest shot the bats. It took thirty-eight minutes due to Cavanaugh’s training, but they finally neutralized the last Seal and bat.

  They all were tired as the sun started the day.

  “Whew! I didn’t expect a fill-up to start this way,” Sledge said.

  “You got ‘em all, Sledge,” Katherine said to a surprised Sledge. “I thought about it and you’re an okay commander.”

  “I just have to assess the damage and thanks for the respect.”

  “You earned it, Soldier. My Seals were top notch.”