by Eric Thomson
“Good.” She shuddered. “The hive is behind the window. On the other side of the hatchery is a tunnel. The left side leads to the nursery, the right side to the queen. Amali has placed his two remaining soldiers in a special holding pen in another part of the facility. I can show you where.”
“Thanks, Prof, we'll get to it right after this.”
“And Amali?”
The anger and loathing in her voice rung a chord with Zack's own feelings. Their eyes met for a few seconds.
“Dunno. Wait.” Decker switched to the squadron net. “Niner, this is Gunner One. Can you give me a sitrep on Amali, over?”
“Two Niner here, Gunner One,” the leader of the second troop replied. “He escaped into the jungle through an underground tunnel. If we have time, Niner says we can go look for him, over.”
“Gunner One, thanks, out.”
When he told Rocheford what he had just learned, the woman's face hardened into a mask of hate.
“I can find him for you, Mister Decker, by using the two soldiers in the pen.”
Her eyes met his and held him in their powerful grip.
“I guess that makes two of us who want to see Amali receive what he deserves,” Zack growled. “We'll do it. Right after we clean out the hive.”
He turned towards Warwick. “Unless you have objections, let's do this.”
“Right. Everyone, clear out of the room. Berenguez, take the Professor back to the last bend in the corridor. Grabowski, arm your LAW and prepare to fire on order.”
Moments later, the only people left were Decker and Trooper Grabowski. The latter lifted the LAW's disposable launch tube to his shoulder and aimed.
“Ready, sarge.”
“Fire.”
Spouting a tongue of flame, the short, stubby missile erupted from the tube and slammed into the window. It exploded, shattering the reinforced plas alloy and lighting up the room bright as day. The back blast knocked Grabowski and Decker off their feet.
Zack rose and breathed in deeply. But instead of smelling the familiar scent of burnt explosives, a dry, acrid stench assaulted his throat.
“God Almighty,” Grabowski swore. “I haven't smelled something like that since we destroyed a vytyrek nest on New-Tasman.”
“It's the stench of bugs, Trooper.” Zack walked to the window, shattered plas crunching under his booted feet. “Prepare another rocket.”
The hatchery was bathed in orange light, but the eggs glowed with their own internal luminescence. Decker felt the rest of Third Troop gather behind him as he looked at the obscene, glistening spheres. He was oblivious to the curses, comments and half-jokes circulating among the Pathfinders.
With slow, deliberate care, he raised his carbine to his shoulder and aimed at the first egg. He pulled the trigger twice and watched it burst in a spray of gelatinous, off-white matter. The sound was sickeningly wet and gooey, like throwing a rock into a hot mud pit.
Chitin rubbed against chitin as three drones burst into the hatchery, bent on protecting the precious eggs. Even without a soldier's stinger, Quas drones were formidable killing machines.
“Grabowski, target the bug on the right. You,” Decker grabbed another trooper with a LAW by the arm, “take the one in the middle. Someone else with a LAW, front, and center and take the left one. Move! Fire when you're ready.”
The words were barely out of his mouth when Grabowski fired. The rocket hit the bug squarely in the upper segment and exploded. A bare second later, the center bug also vanished in a flash of light. When the explosions subsided, nothing remained of the two drones except a few jagged pieces of chitin. A bright smear of ichor decorated the stone wall behind the bugs. Oblivious, the last bug kept on heading for the invading Marines, but a trooper with a medium machine gun fired his weapon on full automatic and disintegrated the Quas.
Zack methodically started shooting at the eggs again, one round per egg, one egg after the other. By the time he'd done ten, several more Pathfinders had joined him by the broken window, and each took their own row. Gradually, the acrid stench of Quas succumbed to the even more sickening odor from the burst eggs.
The Marines worked in silence, dispassionately; they stopped merely to concentrate their fire on the eyes of a fourth drone that belatedly came to check on its charges. It survived only marginally longer than its three comrades did. When the last egg disintegrated with a splash, Zack jumped over the window ledge and into the unhealthy miasma of the slime-covered hatchery. After a moment's hesitation, the others followed.
The nursery was exactly as Decker had seen on the vidscreen: a honeycomb-like structure with dozens of niches occupied by white, moving blobs: Quas pupas, rapidly maturing into fully grown adult bugs.
The gunner stepped back and slammed a fresh magazine into his carbine. He sent a burst into the first niche, puncturing the pupal bag. An eerie, nerve-rending screech erupted from the hurt creature as it thrashed about in pain, ichor flowing from half-dozen shot holes. Taken aback, Decker lowered his carbine and stared, but only for a moment. Other Marines joined him, and the wholesale slaughter of immature Quas began, to the horrific concert of alien death screams.
More shots resonated from the corridor as the Marines massacred the remaining drones rushing to defend their charges. When the last pupa died, the Marines suddenly realized that another, desperate voice had been answering the dying bugs. Chills ran down Decker's spine at the horrible sound.
“The queen,” he whispered, and jogged off deeper into the hive, towards the chamber.
As he entered the warm, stifling room, he saw the immense female Quas writhe, as if fighting something. Then, with a nauseating sound, she tore free of her egg sack and stood up, raising her wet, glistening, stinger-equipped tail in challenge. She bellowed something in her chittering, incomprehensible tongue and charged at Decker.
Sudden terror gripped the gunner, and his finger closed around the carbine's trigger, spewing round after round of plasma at the huge bug. The plasma splashed off her chitin like drops of water as she kept coming. Her tail swooped around her lower legs, and the stinger scraped across Zack's chest armor with a scream of tortured metal.
The sound somehow snapped Decker's ancient, racial fear of killer insects and he aimed his stream of plasma where it would do the most damage, in the eyes. Before he could punch through to the creature's brain, her tail swept at Zack again, knocking him down. The female bellowed, but her triumph was cut short by a rocket from the entrance to her chamber. She exploded in an apotheosis of light and sound, her body transformed into chitinous shrapnel that rattled against the Marines' armor like hail. Decker was drenched in sticky fluid and nearly vomited in his suit. When he finally hauled himself up, he turned his blank visor towards Warwick.
“What the hell took you so long, Reggie?”
“Don't you know it's impolite to enter a queen's palace without an appointment?”
“And I suppose the royal chamberlain wasn't available to make one.”
“Yeah. C'mon, let's find you somewhere to wash off.”
While the troop leader and his Marines placed explosive charges in the hive and the adjoining labs, Zack returned to the shower room where he'd punched out a merc on his last visit and washed the queen's bodily fluids off his armor. As he did so, he remembered Rocheford and the two penned-up soldiers.
He found the researcher waiting in a lab nearby, eyes bright with hate. She explained her idea in a few sentences and Zack, after calling Ryent, took her to the ops center.
“I can't say I approve of this, Decker,” Ryent told Zack, after introductions, “but we have a bit of time. You have one hour to find Amali. After that, we leave, whether he's dead or not.”
“Aye, aye, sir. I need just one thing to help, and that's an airborne sensor to pinpoint his location so the Prof can vector the bugs.”
“The Warthogs are inbound. I'll have them overfly this side of the island in a standard search pattern. In the meantime, the Prof can start by directing you
r bugs towards this area.” He pointed to the spot on the tactical display that corresponded to the secret exit.
The search took very little time.
“Got him.” Zack's tone held no particular pleasure. The sensor feed from the hovering Warthog was impersonal as if the quarry wasn't a human being.
“Roger,” Rocheford replied, “vectoring the soldiers to the spot. Shall I release them from control to take Amali?”
“No. Keep them from attacking until I tell you. I still need to talk to the bastard.”
“You can use the Warthog as a relay, sergeant.”
“Thanks, sir.”
*
Walker Amali heard the rustling of chitin and the chittering of hunting Quas in the darkness. A fear he'd never believed possible burned through him. Somehow, the soldiers had escaped from the pen and were hunting for food.
They were near, very near, yet the richest man on Pacifica was unable to move from the spot, paralyzed by his terror. His nose twitched as he caught a hint of the Quas' acrid scent. A sudden chatter on his right drew his attention, and he saw the outline of a soldier, close enough to touch.
Wetness ran down his legs as he voided his bladder in fear while tears ran down his cheeks as he sobbed, mind teetering on the edge of madness. A brilliant beam of light stabbed through the canopy of leaves and illuminated his hiding place. The two Quas appeared in all their terrifying bulk, stingers sweeping the bushes as they waited for their controller's next command.
“Amali,” a loud voice called him from above, from the source of the light. “It's your old friend Zack Decker. Remember me, your second test subject? I promised you I'd come back and see you die for your crimes. We'll I'm back, but I've had a better idea. I'll let your little monsters take care of you like you wanted them to take care of me. Fitting isn't it: a punishment that measures up to the crime.”
The richest man on Pacifica fell to his knees and weakly raised his hands towards the voice.
“Please, no.” The desperation in his whine made Decker want to puke. “I'll make you a wealthy man. You know I can. Just call these things off. I haven't done anything. I demand justice. I have the right to a fair trial before a jury of my peers.”
“You lost that right when you used me like a fucking guinea pig.” Decker trembled with rage as he shouted into the comms unit. Major Ryent laid a calming hand on the gunner's shoulder and spoke.
“Mister Amali, we found the body of a young woman in your bedroom. Your work, I believe.”
“Yes, yes, I admit it. Just get me out of here.”
“Then you admit to committing murder, Mister Amali?”
“Yes.” The twitching Quas were pushing him into the arms of full-blown panic. “I'll tell you anything, admit to everything. Just call them off.”
“Too late, Mister Amali,” Zack Decker whispered. He nodded at Rocheford to release the soldiers.
He and the Professor forced themselves to watch the video feed as the Quas, responding to their primitive instincts, tore a screaming Amali apart and ate him. The Marines turned away, unable to face the horror exposed by the Warthog's uncompromising illumination.
When it was over, Ryent, in a quiet voice, ordered the pilot to destroy the last two Quas with the Gatling gun slung under the Warthog's nose.
Decker and Rocheford stared at the screen for a long time after the picture had faded, trying to come to terms with what they had done. Revenge was rarely, if ever, satisfying. This time had been no exception.
In the end, Walker Amali hadn't been a rich, perverted monster whose ambitions could have led to another civil war. He had been a wretched, terrified human being who, for all his crimes, did not deserve such a horrible end.
Zack knew the final image would remain with him for the rest of his life. He had appointed himself judge, jury and executioner. That a real court would probably have acquitted a man like him, with his political friends and money enough to subvert any judge, didn't make it any more justifiable.
“You know, sir,” he said, throat tight with long suppressed emotions suddenly boiling to the surface, “revenge is a dish that is better not eaten at all. There is no honor in something like this.”
“I know, sergeant, I know.” Ryent gripped his shoulder in sympathy. “I've been there myself. You never get it out of your memories, but if you remember the next time, you won't do it again, and that's something we can claim over those of Amali's bent. They never learn the price of honor. If it makes you feel any better, we couldn't let Amali live after this. That he died at the hands of his illegal pets was justice of a kind.”
“The kind that had best not happen too often,” Vanlith chimed in softly, “even if it sometimes must.”
“Time to go, people. Professor, we'll have to take you with us. What will happen to you depends on the Fleet.”
Rocheford shrugged.
“I've deserved any punishment they want to give me.”
“Your help tonight will be noted, and will mitigate whatever the authorities decide.” Ryent turned towards his executive officer. “Mo, order the load-up. Sunrise is in less than an hour, and a nasty storm is brewing to the north. We won't have a better time to slip away unnoticed. Release all the prisoners and tell them to head for the hills. This place is about to become a massive bombing range. If they're lucky, someone will come and save them before they die of hunger or disease.”
Ryent invited Decker to sit in the lead Warthog's empty co-pilot seat, to give him a front row view of the compound’s devastation.
With a precision born of long practice, the four gunboat pilots methodically destroyed the estate's aboveground buildings, swooping down like birds of prey. The charges set by the Pathfinders added to the havoc.
Zack's final view of the island where he'd nearly lost his life was of eight fuel-air bombs exploding in a huge ball of flame that flattened and charred everything on the shores of the lagoon. Amali's estate vanished, along with everything he and his people had done there.
The few survivors in the jungle would spread the word pour encourager les autres. Even if they didn't survive, the thoroughness of the attack was a strong enough message to the Coalition.
Nineteen
“It's been a hoot having you on the mission, Zack.” Vanlith beamed at Decker. “Here's a little souvenir for your collection.” He pressed one of the 251st's squadron crests into Zack's hand. “If ever you feel lonely, call us. We’ll keep a scout suit your size handy.”
“Will do, Gus,” Decker grinned, but his smile didn't quite reach his haunted eyes.
“Sergeant, you're always welcome in the 251st,” Ryent offered his hand. “The Corps didn't do itself a favor by retiring you at the end of your hitch. If you ever re-enlist, give us a yell.”
“Thanks, sir. But it wasn't much. A baby could've walked into Amali's shit hole, what with all the ordnance you guys brought down.” Decker shrugged.
“Whatever you say, sergeant,” Ryent smiled at the man's off-hand embarrassment. “But you can be sure your name will come up in my report. I wish you and Captain Ducote could stay for the post-jump blast.”
“Sorry, sir, but we better be on our way. The less time Demetria spends attached to Charles Martel, the less trouble we'll encounter later. She's back to normal now and has a living to earn.”
Ryent locked eyes with Decker. His excuses were plausible, but the major knew it wasn't that. The retired sergeant had suffered too much and had let his desire for revenge go beyond his own moral limits, and he needed to distance himself from direct reminders of the events. It probably wasn't the healthiest way to deal with the problem, but he couldn't force the man. He could only hope Decker wouldn't self-destruct. Though God only knew what the probe had done to his mind.
“We all do things we regret later, Mister Decker.” Ryent's voice was soft. “The important thing is not to let the regrets destroy us. In the end, what's the difference between killing a man with a shot between the eyes, and letting his own horrible machinations
destroy him? I'll tell you what the difference is: none. Dead is dead, and that's what Amali deserved. Only you can decide whether what you did was dishonorable. I have no right to judge, nor does anyone else, because none of us went through what you did. For what it's worth, I think you're a hell of a Marine, Decker, an honorable Marine and I'd be proud too see you in my unit. Take care.”
Zack snapped to attention. “Sir.”
With a final nod, Ryent and Vanlith left the airlock. Decker and Talyn were alone. She was wearing a commander's dark blue uniform, with an impressive row of ribbons on the tunic.
“I'd like to talk to you in private before you leave, Mister Decker.”
“Sure,” Zack shrugged, the mask of the carefree warrior slipping now that Ryent and Vanlith were gone. He looked exhausted, driven by ghosts and haunted by his memories. “Down in Demetria.”
“I'd prefer it if we were alone.”
“And I'd prefer it if Avril was there. Whatever you want to say to me, you can say in front of her.”
“Very well,” she acquiesced, knowing that Avril's presence would tilt the balance against her offer. “After you.”
*
Ducote broke off her pre-flight check and came to stand beside Zack, placing a possessive hand on his shoulder.
“I spoke with my superiors earlier today. They’re impressed by your performance and agree that you should never have been retired. They authorized me to offer you reinstatement in the Marine Corps, with a promotion to warrant officer and detail to Intelligence, where your natural talents will be put to good use. Your records will show you never left the Corps but came to my department the day of your original retirement. And you'll receive all the back pay too. It's only fair, since you worked for us all along, even though you didn't know it. And as a warrant in Intelligence, you’ll have a good shot at a direct commission to captain in two or three years.”
Zack Decker was speechless. He felt Avril tighten beside him. He'd just been offered the one thing he had dreamed about for so long. Back in uniform, back in the Corps. A genuine Marine warrant officer no less. Then why the hell where there so many butterflies in his stomach?