Iron Legion Battlebox

by David Ryker

  My watch readout glowed through the mist in front of my face, the only source of light in an otherwise night-shrouded forest. Thirteen minutes. I stared at it, breathing slowly, trying to calm down, watching it move closer and closer to twelve.

  When it was eight seconds to go, the stillness of the forest split like someone had driven an axe through it. A chilling howl echoed along the ground, making it shudder beneath my fingers, and then it picked up, climbing in pitch and volume until it hurt my ears to listen. I buried my face in the earth and let out one of my own. Time was running out and I didn’t have the strength to move forward. The bag pressed down on me, crushing me with the knowledge that I wasn’t going to make it out of this fucking place alive.

  My throat was like razor blades, drier than the plains outside the ship. I needed water. I had to drink something. I wouldn’t make it without a drink. I didn’t know what was in the water in my bag — what bacteria, or parasites, or alien fucking gunk was in there — but I couldn’t go without. I’d face that later. Just a sip. That’s all I needed. Something to lubricate my muscles, to let the air move down my throat without catching.

  Even before I’d finished convincing myself, I was fumbling with the zipper again. The bottle came up to my lips in the dark and a sip turned into a long draught. Before I realized, or I could stop myself, I’d taken almost half a bottle.

  I swallowed, ignoring the metallic tang, and ground my teeth together, beating the earth with my fist. Even if I made it out of this, I might have just signed my own death certificate.

  I sucked in a deep, misty breath and dragged the zipper closed, my fingers already more precise, my brain already chugging back to life, an oiled engine once more.

  On my feet before I realized, I could feel the adrenaline pumping into my system, fuelling my muscles. I didn’t even know if I was going the right way, but I was running.

  Watch check.

  Eleven minutes.

  It wasn’t enough time.

  Another howl.

  Another exposed root.

  Another stumble.

  Ten minutes.

  My feet pounded, my heart hammering even harder. The forest was endless, but I didn’t think my burst of energy was. Water or not, the air was still shit, and my breath was running out. The hunger of the creatures lingering somewhere behind me, though — that wasn’t. And if they weren’t chasing me already, once they realized their meal was trying to make a quick getaway, they would be.

  Dusk was happening — the sun already half behind the horizon. If it was sunlight they were afraid of, they wouldn’t have to fear for much longer.

  I kept running. Kept going. I had to. I wasn’t going to leave Everett alone. I’d promised her, and I didn’t like breaking promises.

  Another howl.

  Eight minutes.

  Fuck.

  I focused on my feet, and kept them pumping, keeping my heading. I couldn’t afford another sudden change of direction. A strong gust of wind would have blown me over. I was moving, and running, but if not for the momentum I would have been stopped already.

  I could hear movement behind me now, could see the fog rippling in my peripherals as something daggered through. Between my own ragged breaths, I could hear others, deeper, like bellows pumping.

  The ground was frosting under my feet by the moment, the cold air raking my skin. It rushed in over my teeth and made them ache. It picked at my eyes and pulled at my soaked clothes.

  Six minutes. I didn’t have much left in me. Every step was pulling me closer to collapse, and the wolves were at my heels.

  The trees began to thin, the fog dissipating. Through them, the columns of ink, I could see the horizon — a crimson line in the darkness, an orange glow hanging above it like some dim and distant lamp.

  I made for it, knowing it was somewhere beyond the ship. When I reached the edge of the trees it was like running into a wall of frigid air. The temperature was ten degrees colder outside the embrace of the forest.

  A breeze was driving across the plains, whipping every shred of heat left in the earth into the sky. The stars blazed overhead, illuminating the scene ahead of me — but there was something wrong. The plain stretched out, unbroken — and that was the problem.

  Where the hell was the ship?

  I stared straight towards the place where the sun had set, but there was nothing between it and me. The tail was a distinct shape — and it was sticking fifteen meters into the air. There was no way I could miss it. No, it wasn’t that I wasn’t seeing it, it’s that it wasn’t there.

  I swallowed hard, my breathing settling, the heat peeling off me in thick swathes. The ship. Where the fuck was the ship? I’d lost my way, maybe gone off course by a couple of degrees, a wayward step here or there, and I’d moved myself hundreds of meters laterally.

  I did the only thing I could do. I sucked in a deep breath, felt my hands curl into fists, and then I screamed. “Everett!”

  My voice rang across the barren desert and died.

  I tweaked my ears and strained to listen, but nothing came back. I looked left and right, but against the black canvas of the night behind, I couldn’t pick anything out — and it wasn’t exactly a small thing to pick out. Without the light of a moon above, I couldn’t even see my feet.

  “Everett!” My voice was strained and hoarse. I turned right, aware of the presence of the trees looming over my shoulder. “Everett!” Nothing. I turned the other way. “Everett!”

  Jesus — where was she?

  A shiver ran down my spine. It didn’t matter what my watch said anymore, the light was gone, and time had run out.

  “Red!” Her voice echoed through the trees, coming from all around. It was faint, far away, but there. It took everything I had not to just take off in a random direction. With every passing second, the night was stretching out and those monsters would be coming closer. I felt like they were just in the trees as it was — one good leap away.

  “Everett!”

  Four seconds later. “Red!” Two seconds to register and to reply — maybe two seconds for travel time. Fuck, hundreds of meters. But which way?

  A hiss rang out behind me and I made a choice, going with my gut. Standing still was a death wish. “Everett! Light!?”

  “Light?” It was getting louder — just.

  “Light-house!” I squeezed out between breaths.

  Nothing. There was no response. Fuck, was I running the other way? I ground to a halt and turned back, looking over my shoulder. The faint glow of the mist spilling out of the trees hid what lurked behind, but I knew they were there, watching.

  I swallowed hard, turning on my heels. My eyes roved from the trees, out across the plain, and around, moving quickly, but methodically in a complete circle until I saw it. A flashlight in the distance, strobing, waving. It was all I needed.

  I was running before I realized, my hand fumbling under my jacket for my Arcram. I could hear them now, in the forest. That last lick of light had disappeared completely, and I was relying on the flatness of the ground to keep me upright.

  Everett’s voice was constant now, growing as I went.

  I glanced right, at the treeline. I was trying to come away from it, slowly, not to entice them too much to chase me, but I didn’t think there was any point anymore. I could see them. Their eyes glinting, side mounted on their skulls, in the flickering beam of Everett’s moving flashlight. She was searching for me on in the desert, but I couldn’t call out anymore. I didn’t have the breath.

  The Arcram slipped out of the holster with a cool slither and wheeled through the air. The trigger rebounded off the grip, the muzzle spitting bullets dully into the trees. The blue-tinged muzzle-flash lit up the trunks and what ran between like snapshots. Still images of bared teeth, slitted eyes, muscles rolling beneath spined leathery skin, as dark as the night they lived in.

  The bullets seemed to disappear, not hitting anything, or doing anything. I kept pulling the trigger, seeing their numbers g
rowing. Behind the trees, then in front, barely jogging as I hammered along.

  Everett’s light fell on me, blinded me as I pumped my legs. She was still yelling, louder than ever now. “Come on! Faster! Red! Red! Look out!”

  I dived forward on instinct. Something sailed over my back. My elbows slammed into the ground and I bounced, dust shooting into my face. I coughed and spluttered, hearing one of the beasts, at least four meters long, landing in the dirt on my left and skidding. The earth shook, and I rolled sideways, pulling the pistol up. I steadied it with both hands, leveled it at the open, charging mouth, and snapped the trigger as quickly as I could.

  With each flash, the mouth grew larger, big enough to take my head and shoulders, too. It was almost on me when I saw scarlet rosettes on the pale gray skin its mouth. Six of them on the tongue and roof. It swayed, snapped shut, and then sagged, crunching to the ground less than a meter from me.

  Its visage burned in my mind as I got up and kept moving. Everett’s voice was clear now and urgent, screaming my name over and over. It wasn’t far, maybe a hundred, a hundred and fifty meters; but with my legs aching like they were, it could have been a thousand.

  “Come on, Red! Faster!” I could make Everett out now. Some of the glow sticks we’d tossed on the floor of the living quarters were bundled together, hanging from the mouth of the doorway above her. She was standing, legs spread wide, pistol raised, flashlight in her off hand, hugging the barrel.

  “Everett!” I could barely breathe now. I’d come as close as I could to being beaten without feeling the teeth in my own skin.

  “Get your ass over here!” Everett was grappling with not leaping down. She kept shuffling to the edge and then jumping back. She swore loudly and grabbed a bunch of glowsticks overhead instead. She wound up and slung them down into the wake of the ship. They bounced on the frosty ground and settled about twenty meters from the door. She took another bunch and hurled them halfway between the first bunch and the tail. The third she tossed under the tail. She gestured frantically toward the trench. “Follow the sticks! Get in the light!”

  She didn’t think they’d keep the creatures off — and neither did I. That’s not why she’d thrown them. No, it was so that she could see what the hell she was shooting at.

  My heel hit the ridge and I jumped, the ground falling out from under me. Silence reigned for a second as I flew, arced, and then fell. My boots hit the churned earth and I rolled, tucking my good shoulder under me, tumbling down into the trench.

  The wind was knocked out of my gut, but I still had a ways to go. The dull spits of Arcram fire echoed in the night. Bullets whizzed overhead, hissing past. I didn’t look back — if Everett was shooting, she needed to, and I already knew what she was shooting at.

  I still had my pistol in hand. I shoved it under my arm and popped off a few shots behind me.

  Hisses and roars rose up on my heels.

  I kept going, throwing my arms out to try and keep my momentum. My legs were burning, my chest on fire. I’d stopped thinking, stopped wishing and wanting. All I had in my head was footsteps. Boom. Boom. Boom. I couldn’t tell if it was my heart or my heels.

  The first clump of glowsticks passed. I stole a look back and watched them swallowed under a mass of charging beasts, mouths all agape.

  Everett was putting bullets in them, but they just seemed to get swallowed up.

  I neared the second bundle. I could see the ship. I could see Everett. They were right there. I was going to make it. She’d lowered the crate onto the pile of dumped earth. If I could reach that, I could kick myself up. It was there, within reach. Just a few seconds more.

  A sharp pain lanced through my calf and I fell, spinning. The rucksack came over my shoulder and I clattered to the ground, landing flat on my back.

  My leg was throbbing, but it wasn’t a twist or sprain — it was what I thought I could outrun.

  The clan of beasts skidded to a halt next to me, the one whose claws had clipped my ankle standing above me. It took a step forward and came right over me.

  In the ether I could hear Everett, her voice straining at the limits of her vocal chords. She was firing. I could see the bullets burying themselves in the shoulders of the creature, dusty plumes popping up where they went into its leathery skin, but it didn’t seem fazed. One pinged off its head above the eye and ricocheted into the air. Its hide was too thick, the bone too hard. Spines shivered, sticking straight up and flattening down in time with my breathing. Its face, flat and wide, teeth long and curved, loomed above me, eyes the size of pool balls glowing in the darkness, fixed on my jugular.

  Everett’s voice died away. The only thing I could hear was my heart. My breathing had stopped altogether. The sheer weight of the thing over me had compressed every cubic centimeter out of my body. I was crushed by its presence alone. I couldn’t see anything else, only its face swimming over me as it savored its meal.

  Everett’s magazine ran dry. She screamed. She swore. The Arcram bounced in the earth somewhere behind me. She was still yelling, but it died away. Silence took over.

  My attention came back to the thing above me. It cocked its head, meeting my eye — yellowed and slit down the middle. It watched me, its mouth opening slowly, measuring my head so that it could take it in one bite.

  In that moment, I thought of Everett. Out there alone — for God knows how long. She could get the water off my corpse if the beasts didn’t drag it back to their lair. Survive a few days more. And Alice — out there somewhere, dead already, probably. Of Volchec, slumped over in her chair, then in the box, arms folded across her chest, stiff and cold. Of Mac and Fish, at each other's throats, joking and arguing in equal part, grinning all the while. Of Greg, lost out there, life slowly fading as the desert swallowed him up.

  A smile crossed my face as I stared into its bottomless, cold eyes — reptilian and hungry.

  I closed mine, waiting for it. There was nothing else to be done. No more running. I didn’t have the energy. I laughed. Who would have thought? I’d expected to catch a bullet, maybe die in some fiery explosion, or even to be sucked into space after some dogfight gone wrong. I never expected it to be like this, dying at the hands — or jaws — of some fucked-up overgrown reptile-thing.

  I felt my heart slow, my muscles relax. There was a low hiss, the smell of rotten meat on its hot breath.

  And then a whistle.

  And then a bang.

  6

  My eyes snapped open just in time to see half a dozen missiles wind their way through the frigid air, hissing and whistling like angry snakes, their white-hot trails casting a vicious glare over the plain.

  Twenty sets of glistening marbles all turned skywards, widened, and then explosions ripped through them, engulfing the beasts and their open mouths in flames.

  They howled and thrashed in circles, their flaming tails whipping back and forth as they fled. Their claws hammered and churned in the earth as they scrambled out of the trench.

  The one over me, on the vanguard, was out of the immediate blast zone. Its slitted eye pulsed and then homed in on me again, its lips peeling back, exposing long and thin teeth. The maw opened and it set itself to plunge them into my throat, rearing back for the fatal blow.

  I threw my hands up across my face instinctually.

  The ground rumbled, the chug-chug of a spooling minigun cutting through the din. The air split as the rounds ripped through it, raking sideways over my head and pumping the creature full of lead. It yelped and yowled, wheeling backward and dancing in circles before it collapsed, breathing quickly, its prostrate body illuminated by the glow of the fires burning in the trench — some of them from the mangled corpses of the creatures, others little flames flickering off chunks of debris and loose body parts.

  I kicked back toward the ship and rolled over, dragging myself forward on my elbows. I looked left, at the unmarked ship that had appeared out of nowhere and was laying down fire. It was some ancient-looking box-craft; a flying cuboid w
ith a sloped front and wings that cut sideways out of the body before angling directly downward. Two jet engines hung off them, spitting blue haze, and two more vertical thrusters at the back kept it hovering, stabilizer jets firing out of the nose to force it level. Between them, I could see the hanging minigun, the muzzle aglow from the heat of the fire.

  The ship sank low and then swung sideways, letting off another couple of missiles from under the wings. They sailed through the air, plaiting themselves before plunging towards the ground and punching it with fiery explosions. The minigun started spooling again and roved back and forth, sending the last of the beasts scurrying into the trees.

  I keeled over onto my stomach, breathing hard, the glare of the fires dancing in my vision. The ship started descending, and then disappeared behind the lip of the trench. A glow burst to life and bathed everything in a stark light as it switched on its floodlights.

  There was silence for a few seconds and I glanced up at Everett. She was on her knees on the ramp, mouth agape, eyes transfixed on the ship, squinting into the glare. I couldn’t stop looking at her, my knuckles white around my Arcram, trying to figure out what her expression meant.

  Something cold touched the back of my neck and I froze. I knew the touch of a rifle muzzle.

  “Don’t move, shit-bag,” a dark voice rang above me. “Unless you want me to blow your brains all over the fucking—” The voice started to crack, and then broke into laughter. “—floor. I’m sorry.” It kept laughing.“I can’t keep this up.” It evened out and changed back to a normal voice and I rolled over, glaring up at Mac.

  “You bastard,” I snapped, slapping it away.

  Mac dropped it to his side and let the old chunk of steel hang loosely in his grip. He was grinning down at me, face a little bruised, clothes tattered, but otherwise in good health. He offered me a hand and I took it, the anger fading. Gladness replaced it.

  He pulled me to my feet and dusted off my shoulders, slapping the dirt from my sleeves as he did.

  “Mac—” I croaked, not quite believing my eyes. “What are you — how did —” I cut myself off and turned back toward the side of the trench, where the ship had disappeared. “Are the others…?”