by Eric Thomson
After a wait that seemed to last an eternity under the unrelenting tropical sky, the sound of rustling leaves reached Zack's ears, the sound of a Quas' limbs rubbing against its chitinous armor. The opening round was about to be decided. He picked up a grenade and prepared to join the wires.
The Quas burst through the tree line twenty meters below Zack and stopped, head swiveling, antennae quivering. It chattered softly to itself, its deadly tail swishing through the low vegetation. Then, like an anti-tank missile on terminal guidance, its cold, dead eyes locked onto Zack's hilltop hideout.
Decker twisted the exposed strands of his first grenade together, counting down the fuse delay time.
Six, five, THROW, three, two, one.
The grenade exploded three meters to the bug's right, and Zack raised his head to look. He swore at the sight. Shards of shrapnel stuck out of the thing's body, but it seemed to treat them as annoyances, brushing them away as if they were lint specks. He primed another grenade and held it until the last moment. Then, he reared up and threw, shouting in defiance.
The goddess who watched over all reckless old Pathfinders had a light workload that day. By an incredible chance, the jury-rigged grenade blew in mid-air, less than a meter in front of the Quas, at the height of its head. Jagged shards of hardened plas and metal sliced through the bug's composite eyes and penetrated its brain.
The creature let out a bone-chilling scream and keeled over, bluish ichor flowing from multiple gouges. Zack shivered at the sound and absently brushed a sting from his cheek. His hand came back bloody, and he realized he'd caught shrapnel from his own grenade. A few centimeters higher and he would have lost an eye himself.
Like a man hypnotized, he watched his alien hunter twitch and thrash on the rocky slope as its autonomous system refused to follow its higher functions into oblivion. Decker stayed at a healthy distance, lest he was caught by the long stinger as it swept the ground with a horrible rasp. The Quas soldier took a long time to die.
“Good guys: one. Bugs: zero,” Zack whispered, stunned at his own success. “So now I know your weak spot, you bastards. Aim for the eyes and you kill the Quas.”
With a last look at the dead creature, Zack turned to pick up his three remaining grenades and stuffed them in his pockets.
“Time to make tracks, Decker, you're about to have two of the critters on your tail.”
*
“You’re sure it’s dead, Professor?”
“Yes, Walker,” Rocheford replied in a dull voice. “It suffered massive trauma to the head and died within minutes.”
“And we have no idea how he did it?”
“No, sir,” the mercenary tech replied from the sensor console. “The guy busted every receiver in the area. Six in all went down right after he came within range.”
“Why would he want to do that?” Amali wondered, frustration replacing his earlier good mood. Then, an ugly thought made him frown even more.
“Captain,” he turned to the mercenary commander, “can those sensors be used as weapons?”
The stocky, flat-faced man scratched the side of his head
“Anything with fuel cells can be made to blow, if you know how,” he replied in his low, raspy voice. “Those little things wouldn't generate much of an explosion, but if it's strong enough, you have yourself a grenade. It could be enough to kill the beasties with the shrapnel.”
“Would a man like Decker know how?”
“Marine Corps Master Gunner, and Pathfinder to boot? If anyone can, he'd be the one to bet on, sir.”
“But to kill a Quas soldier?” Amali shook his head in disbelief. “It has to be a fluke. Professor, release the next two soldiers. Captain, put a pair of drones in the air and find Decker. If he’s using my instruments as weapons, I want to know, preferably before he causes any more damage. You shouldn’t have any problems vectoring on his position. Just wait until the next unit goes offline.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Once you’ve found him, make sure you don't lose him. I want the Professor to steer the Quas to his position. Then, I want to see how he killed a soldier.”
“Sir,” the tech turned his head towards Amali, “we have him again! He's backtracking towards the estate.”
A small red blip appeared on the schematic of the island.
“Good.” The magnate smiled, eyes narrowed in malice. “That will make life simpler for us. Tell me, Captain, do you think he intends to use his new-fangled weapon to penetrate the estate?”
“It would take more than a grenade, sir,” the merc replied. “I don't -”
“Another receiver down,” the tech interrupted. “He's off screen.”
The red blip had disappeared again. And this time, it didn't come back. After a wait that seemed to stretch for hours, Walker Amali’s anxiety grew and he began to fidget. Zack Decker had already killed one alien warrior. What else was he capable of doing?
The drones couldn't find Decker through the thick foliage; the Quas couldn't find him either, and the sun was setting. Somehow, Amali got a mental picture of a grinning Zack thumbing his nose at them all. It wasn't until the captain gave him a strange look that he realized his hands were gripping the back of the tech's chair so hard he was shaking.
*
Hunger gnawed at Zack’s innards as he slipped back into the saddle between the two hills. Pacifica’s sun was kissing the horizon, turning the ocean into a fiery sheet of molten lava, and it would be night soon, with the abruptness so characteristic of the tropics on any planet. The darkness would enhance the bugs’ biggest advantage, the eyes, while it would blind him. He had heard the two new soldiers move through the trees, talking to each other, searching for their prey. He had also spotted the dangerous drones. They were looking for him, and once they found him, the Prof would vector the bugs to his position. Amali wasn’t playing fair, but the gunner hadn’t expected him to do so.
Zack had spent the afternoon exploring the area, secure in the knowledge that his captors could not know where he was, and what he was doing. Had Amali invested in better gear, things might have been different, but he figured he’d earned a break.
Decker crawled into the little tunnel he’d found hidden beneath a bush, just a stone’s throw from the stream. It was narrow, barely big enough for a Quas soldier, but not big enough to let the bug swing its tail. And it had a smaller exit, which Zack had enlarged just enough to make a human sized escape hatch, at the price of bloody, torn hands.
He made a final check of his dispositions, then tossed a bloody rag, a strip of t-shirt with which he’d cleaned his hands, out of the tunnel. The drone couldn’t help seeing it if it came over the spot before full darkness and if the tech at the other end was alert. A lot of ifs. With luck, he’d be able to take a break in the underground warren, sleep all night if they didn’t find him, but the first sound of chitin against stone would wake him in a flash.
It was infiltration training all over again. Except the Corps’ Pathfinder School didn’t use human-eating Quas as opposing force.
The sliver of light at the mouth of the tunnel vanished as the sun set, plunging Decker into blackness. Now was the time at which Quas composite eyes became an asset no human could match unless he wore a Marine battle helmet, with built-in night vision gadgets. He chuckled at the thought. If he had a battle helmet, he’d have the rest of the armor suit too, and a plasma rifle, and a whole damn troop of Marines, while he was at it.
Soon, he fell into a light sleep.
*
Decker's eyes popped open as alarm bells went off in his head. He knew instinctively it was late, well past midnight. A faint rustle of dead leaves had woken him. He strained to listen again, heart racing, blood pounding in his ears. The small hairs on the back of his neck stood up in fear, and he shivered. Quas raised a primal terror within him, now compounded by the obscurity.
There it was, in front of him, near the entrance to his tunnel. He groped for the grimy, rubber-sheathed wires he'd found near th
e estate earlier, part of an older system. The long wires were connected to a grenade tied to a stick wedged into the tunnel, at what he judged would be the level of a crouching bug's eyes.
Zack listened, trying to decide whether the creature had entered his burrow or whether it was still screwing around outside, trying to figure out what the bloody rag on the ground meant. Then, he heard it: a scraping of chitin on rock. But it wasn't coming from the front. It was coming from the back, from his emergency exit.
Panic closed his throat at the thought of being boxed in by the bugs, to be torn apart underground without seeing the stars again. He tried to breathe in and couldn't. His fear rose further when he heard what sounded like strong claws tearing at the rock and dead coral, widening the hole. Then, a slithering from the front made him turn his attention back again. The bug was in the tunnel. He could smell it, sense its mindless, evil presence, its instinctual desire to kill and devour. Closing his eyes he asked for the intervention of a deity he had long ago abandoned and joined the two wires.
The grenade blew after only three seconds and Zack's first, irrelevant thought was short fuse!
Then the horrible screech of the wounded Quas drove out everything else. He had to exit the tunnel.
Amali would know his little insect friend had taken a hit, know where he was. A new duo of bugs could be here in an hour or less.
The scrabbling and anxious chattering behind him reminded the gunner he had no way out. Grabbing his three remaining grenades, he screwed up his courage and headed for the front entrance, thankful that he couldn't see the damaged face of the Quas. When he neared the ambush site, he turned around so he could go out feet first. Within moments, his boots touched something sticky, wet, and crunchy: the bug's ruined head. Its body blocked the entrance, arms twitching in death, scraping against the rock.
The stench of the dead alien made Zack nauseous, and he gagged, thankful that his stomach was empty. If it hadn’t been for the live soldier behind him, he might not have been able to keep up his courage. Steeling himself against what he was about to do, Zack kicked the Quas' body with both feet to drive it out of his way.
His boots sank through the shattered eyes and into the creature's primitive brain. Ichor splashed all over the enclosed space, spattering his exposed skin with something that burned like a slimy acid. He retched again, tears flowing out the corner of his eyes from the stinging ichor mist. Zack stomped the dead body over and over, swearing and cursing in more languages than he could remember
Finally, the body rolled away as it popped out of the tunnel. Decker scrambled out behind it, sobbing as he saw the stars. He took several deep breaths of fresh night air to calm his racing heart. This was as close as he'd ever come to losing it. Not even the worst on Hispaniola had ever made him panic like that.
The bugs had been smarter than he thought, much smarter. He doubted that the drone had shown them the way. No, the Quas must have found his bloody rag and made the correct deductions, exploring the area and cooperating to corner him. That realization frightened him all over again.
A loud rustling drew his attention back to the here and now. The second bug was about to burst out of the shaft. Zack armed a grenade and tossed it in. Then, without looking back, he ran into the jungle, intend on reaching the shoreline on the other side of the island.
Smart as the Quas were, the second bug didn't recognize the grenade for what it was. A muffled bang and a loud screech marked its passing.
“Good guys: three. Bugs: zero,” Zack muttered to himself as he pushed through the dense foliage, feeling his way through the darkness, ignoring the thorns tearing at his skin.
“Now it'll be four against Zack. The odds are getting even.”
Decker knew it was just bravado. Without food, he was weakening fast, and with four of the things on his back, cooperating in a way he hadn't expected, his improvised grenades would no longer suffice.
If the next team of Quas didn't end his illustrious bug-hunting career, then Amali would. He wasn't the type to continue the game for sport with losses climbing so fast. At least he'd have shown the bastard that Marines died hard.
*
Zack reached the pristine beach on the far side just as the first light of dawn brightened the western horizon. He washed off the dried, caked-on ichor in the shallow waters, leaving red burn marks behind, his tired eyes were alert for any sign of Amali's killer fish.
By now, he must have passed at least one operational receiver, which meant they knew where he was. The next batch of bugs would be along soon.
He stretched, causing his muscles to protest in pain. His stomach rumbled in protest again, and Zack did his best to ignore it. The cold light reflecting off distant clouds made the reality of his situation frighteningly clear. He had nothing to eat, no way out and no hope of survival. All he had was his damned pride and an unquenchable desire to go down fighting.
For lack of a better plan, he returned to the tree line along the black beach and slowly made his way to the southern end of the island where an extinct volcano towered above the jungle. He had a vague notion of drawing the Quas into a wild chase through the crater if only to make a change from the jungle hunt.
Along the way, Decker took down three sensors, which he modified as he walked. The sun soon rose but cast an ominous, dull red glow behind the low clouds and growing haze.
With detached fascination, the gunner watched roiling, black thunderheads form an unbroken carpet of darkness that threatened to occlude the newborn light, giving the day a sick hue. High waves broke against the coral reef as surface currents fought the onrushing storm.
Sudden gusts of wind tore at the palm trees, threatening to topple them. Then, a steady gale slammed into the island and snatched the breath from Zack's lungs. He withdrew deeper into the forest, but the elements found him nonetheless, drowning his hearing in white noise, the rain stinging his eyes.
A palm tree toppled across his path, almost crushing him under its weight. Even the jungle had turned against him.
He burst through the tree line back towards the shore, right into a driving, dense rain. Lightning flashed in the distance, blinding him for a moment. Straining to take each step, Zack walked into the ocean, in a half-baked attempt to blur his trail, even though what little remained of his rational mind knew it would be useless.
He needn't have bothered. On the spit of land ahead, four reddish shapes broke out of the undergrowth, tails swishing. They spread out and moved in, struggling against the chaos just as Zack was doing. The gunner stopped and tried to pull a grenade from his pocket. A wave toppled him over, and he went under, losing the plastic package.
When he came up for air, spluttering and wheezing, the Quas had come closer. The salt burned his eyes, and he tried to rub it out, but only made things worse. Tears streamed down his face to mingle with the downpour.
Zack could no longer escape. He knelt in the shallow water to keep his balance and pulled out another grenade. A blinding, suicidal madness grew out of a dormant part of his soul, pushing aside his rising panic. He raised his fist at the soldiers.
“Come on, you fucking bugs,” he yelled, the force of his shout searing his throat. Howling winds snatched his words away, and anyhow, the Quas couldn't understand him. “Come and die with Zachary T. Decker, Command Sergeant, Commonwealth Marine Corps, retired. The first of those who will wipe you out.”
He twisted the wires of his grenade together and counted down the fuse delay. At four, he threw it with all his might at the leftmost Quas. The grenade blew in mid-air, driving a spray of shrapnel into the creature. It staggered and was knocked over by a tall wave that almost drowned the human.
Coughing, retching and fighting the raging surf, Zack pulled another mini-bomb from his pocket and prepared to arm it. Just then, the water around the nearest soldier erupted in a violent boil. Decker nearly dropped his grenade in surprise.
“You can forget the heroic last stand, Sergeant Decker.” A loudspeaker-amplified voice
behind and above him momentarily drowned out the tempest. “Stand clear and prepare to climb aboard.”
He didn't dare look for the source of the voice. Two bugs remained standing and were still advancing on him like automatons. The plasma cannon erupted again, spitting a flash of super-heated matter on the next Quas, vaporizing it and a lot of seawater around it. While the gun cycled, Zack armed the grenade he was holding and tossed it at the last Quas. The bomb exploded as the cannon spoke again.
“Good guys: seven. Bugs: zero. Eat your heart out, Amali.” Only the wind heard him, but it was enough.
Now, Decker could look at his mysterious savior. He turned just in time to see a sleek assault shuttle, unmarked but liberally streaked with black from hard use, land in the pounding surf. A forty millimeter cannon poked out of its nose like the beak of an alien bird of prey. Heavily modified and camouflaged, Decker nonetheless recognized the naval Warthog attack boat, with its swept back fuselage, stubby wings, and graceful engine pods.
A hatch beside the cockpit opened, and a black-clad arm beckoned him inside.
“Hurry, Sergeant. Their air defense system spotted me on the way down. They don't know what I'm about, but they'll put two and two together fast enough now that we've killed their tame bugs.”
Stumbling through the surf, blinded by the rain and his tears, Zack Decker reached the shuttle just as legs were about to give out in sheer relief. He was about to climb aboard when he remembered the collar around his neck.
“Hang on,” he yelled at the woman in the pilot's seat. “I gotta take this crap off me, or I'll make a bloody mess in your ship the moment you lift off. It has a dead man's switch.”
She nodded and pulled a small tool case out from under her seat. “I've seen these things before. They’re a variation of the ordinary slave collars,” she shouted at Zack as she opened the case and selected her instrument. “Hold steady.”
Reaching out, she did something and the collar snapped open. Zack tore it off his neck and tossed it into the surf.