The Cray fell, its limbs splayed.
I scrambled to my feet, began to run, put a foot on the body to propel myself into the air, and jumped just as Olivares lost his grip on his attacker.
The Cray reared back, prepared to strike, and I hit it from the side like a Kevlar-armored linebacker. I sent it slamming into the wall.
Both of us were stunned for a moment.
I turned onto my back and shoved my right hand into my cargo pants pocket, looking for another magazine, but I couldn’t even find my pocket. I swatted the side of my pants, but my head was too fuzzy to complete the search.
Olivares fell on top of me with his MP5 outstretched and fired twin bursts, sending the Cray into alien oblivion. Then he turned his head toward me without moving from my chest. “You’re bleeding like a stuck pig.”
I groaned. “I’d probably stop bleeding if you got your fat ass off me.”
He backed off and checked our perimeter. Satisfied we didn’t have any live aliens in our midst, he moved back to the corner they’d come around.
As he checked, I managed to sit up, then found my left cargo pants pocket and pulled out some bandages. My head had pretty much stopped bleeding, but my back was burning. Probably had a pound of dirt in the wound. At least it might stop the bleeding. It’s not like I could actually bandage it.
I struggled to my feet. My NVD knocked against my chin from where it hung; I ripped the useless device free and tossed it across the room, then found a full magazine and slapped it home.
I moved to where Olivares was standing above the helmet, frowning at it.
“What’s going on?” I stared down at the Faraday netting that now hung free.
“One of them must have pulsed. I didn’t get a chance to cover it.”
Now we had no way to get information to the attacking force. Our mission, after all we’d gone through, couldn’t be completed. The attacking forces were going in without our aid.
Damn it!
I felt my face turning red. I recognized what was going on. I’d never been able to put it into words before, not until Olivares had gotten in my face and laid me low.
Yeah, our mission was a failure, but it didn’t mean we couldn’t make a new mission. And where the previous mission required a leader, this one required a hero.
I licked my lips and said the words most men never live to regret. “I have an idea.”
Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
O
LIVARES LAUGHED HUSKILY.
“Let me guess.”
I nodded. “Hero time.”
“I thought we talked about that.”
“Was that before or after you took a swan dive into the volcano?”
He thought for a moment. “Before.”
“And then you jumped to certain death trying to save my life.”
“But it didn’t work out that way.” A thought struck him. “And anyway, didn’t you try and kill yourself right after my”—he made air quotes with his good hand—“‘heroic gesture’?”
I sneered. “We both messed that up, didn’t we? I guess we weren’t meant to die.”
I grabbed the pack and opened it, passing him two thermite grenades and sliding the other two into pouches on my vest.
I removed the four kilos of Semtex, inserted blasting caps, and attached them to the homemade kitchen timers the techs had created. They’d thought it was a joke, until we told them what we’d wanted it for. Going old-school was the only way to keep the devices on the working side of the Cray EMPs.
When I was done, I handed two to Olivares and shoved the other two in my pockets.
“What am I going to do with these?”
I shrugged. “Blow shit up. How’s your weapon holding up?”
He nodded. “Good. Why?”
“Mine’s shit. I got too much dirt inside it. It’s going to seize up and I don’t want to be depending on it.” I tossed all but three of the magazines to him and shucked out of my MP5, letting it fall to the ground. “Take these.” I shoved the remaining three mags in my pockets.
“If you aren’t going to carry a weapon, then why are you...” Then he got it.
“If you go down, I don’t want to be rifling through your pants to get spare ammo.” I cleared his weapon, slapped in a full magazine, and handed it back to him. “Just don’t go down.”
He smiled. “I don’t even know what we’re going to do.”
I grinned like the maniac I felt. “Me neither. Are you ready?”
He checked himself, then reached for the pack.
I stopped him. “We’re not going to need that. We’re going to move fast.”
“But I’m still not sure where we’re going to move
to
.”
I grabbed him by his shoulders. “Listen to me, Olivares. You’re a damn good sergeant. Don’t ever tell anyone I said this or I’ll deny it, but you’re a better one than I ever was. But you are a terrible killer and you’re not much of a hero either. You don’t like for me to tell you how to be a leader and I really don’t appreciate you telling me how to be a killer. Just follow my lead, keep your head down, and keep up.” I let him go. “Think you can do that?”
When I finished, he stared at me a moment, then said, “For a second there I actually thought you had a plan.”
I grinned. “That’s one of the secrets to being a hero.”
“What is?”
“Plans are for people who worry too much.”
I picked up one of the blades and stuck the other in the empty scabbard in my belt. “I’m not scared of dying at all. Hell, I tried to off myself enough times and failed. If the damn Cray want to try and do what I’ve failed to do, more power to them and I wish them luck. But I think I can’t be killed.” I glanced at him. “And you better think the same. Being worried about dying is what gets other people killed.”
He rolled his eyes. “Now you tell me.”
“Ready, steady... go!”
I took off at a jog, my eyes turned to slits against the sudden assault of light. I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from—everywhere and nowhere at all.
Several non-winged Cray stood to the sides of the path, their arms hanging limply, their heads raised towards the ceiling.
I passed them by, not bothering to attack. We kept moving deeper into the light. When we went past the first alcove, I found myself stopping and staring. I fought to find the right word, but the only thing I could think of was
larvae
. There were hundreds of the things, man-sized caterpillars, squirming and undulating in a pile that filled the alcove. Were they food? Or immature Cray?
Olivares was standing agog beside me. I grabbed him and we took off again. The reproductive cycle of the Cray had little to do with the efforts of the moment. That they were creating even more soldiers was more of a reason to hurry.
The light became so bright it was a constant stabbing pain. I blinked as we jogged past several other alcoves. I began to feel something brush the top of my head. I saw lines of darkness above us, like curtains hanging from the high ceiling.
Olivares opened up behind me.
I spun in time to see one of the curtains fall to the ground, only to resolve itself into a standing Cray. It fell back under Olivares’s assault.
I brought my blade up and began to cleave the dark lines above me. Dead and dying Cray fell from the ceiling. They came down headfirst, their wings hanging down to brush our heads.
“Follow me!” I shouted to Olivares as we moved deeper into the lair.
I pulled out a thermite grenade, removed the pin and tossed it into the next alcove. It fell atop a mound of Cray larvae and ignited, its flame suddenly brighter than the light we were drowning in. The violent heat made the grenade melt through the larvae. They sizzled as they burned.
The air was suddenly split with screams as Cray ran towards me. I brought my blade up but they went past me. One. Two. Six. Ten. All furiously trying to rescue their offspring, making sounds I’d never heard them make before. The first reached in and grabbed the grenade, only to have its appendages melt off. The one behind tried to do the same with the same result.
I backed away as more and more piled into the alcove to try and stop the damage I’d caused. For a moment I felt a little sick, then I spied Oliveras down on one knee. Dead Cray lay around him. His face had been opened by a terrible gash. Blood dripped to the ground.
I pulled out my other thermite, pulled the pin and tossed it in the alcove we’d just passed. Then I ran to him, got his thermites and tossed them into two more chambers. I had just enough time to press him to the wall as hundreds of Cray ran to save their brood.
We edged deeper into the light until the corridor finally opened into an immense chamber. In the center was the source of the brightness. It was like a miniature sun. As we stared, it pulsed, firing intense light out in all directions, then resumed its normal blinding state. What we’d thought had been round was actually an oblong shape roughly the size of a tractor trailer. I realized it was organic as it began to brighten again to its impossible brilliance. Like an incandescent bulb slowly turning up to supernova. I tried to peer through the painful light. At one end, larvae appeared. At the other were Cray, hovering over a pile of human bodies.
I remember wondering if there wasn’t some alien queen creating more Cray. I’d been right—and they were feeding it our dead. At least I
prayed
they were dead.
The light soon became too painful to look at again.
I turned towards the wall and prepared my explosives.
Olivares did the same.
When the light pulsed once more, we readied the timers, setting them for one minute.
I looked at Olivares and he nodded. I took his Semtex bundles in my arms and ran towards the creature. I became aware of the cavernous space above me, filled with Cray. They hung on the walls and flew in the air. Directly above the creature, the mound rose higher and higher, thousands upon thousands of the Cray hanging onto the walls.
Their sheer numbers staggered me. How could we defeat so many? It seemed impossible. And this was the smallest of the mounds.
Non-winged Cray began to run towards me from the alien queen. Looking up, I could see that I had the attention of the winged Cray as well.
I reared back and threw the first bundle as hard as I could. It landed on the ground beside the queen. The timer shattered and I cursed. Too far—I’d have to get closer.
I grabbed the second explosive and brought my hand back. As I did, a Cray grabbed it from me and soared into the air.
I only had two left and they were coming for me from in all directions. I made a desperate choice and ran towards those running towards me. They reached out as we closed on each other, me with my hands filled with explosives and them with their hands tipped with talons. There were more than twenty of them; I couldn’t get around them, I couldn’t go over them, I doubted if I could go through them. So I tried a desperate tactic, perfected one summer in seventh grade when my baseball couch had made me practice stealing base over and over until my legs were covered in purple bruises. I started the slide at full speed and felt the hard ground eating away the fabric of my uniform. My skin caught fire and I screamed. But my muscle memory was true and I slid beneath their outstretched arms, one leg extended, the other bent, to enable me to push up to a standing position right before I came to a stop. Which I did, now past them, and began to limp rapidly towards the queen.
It pulsed again, throwing light in every direction. It was almost physical in its intensity, and I flinched. In some way, the EMP was connected to the creation of new Cray. This was the mother of these creatures, and I was about to commit matricide. And I was about to get ripped to shreds. The knowledge left me strangely calm.
I’d halved the distance to my target and eaten up some of the delay. Thirty seconds left.
I threw one of the explosives along the ground and let it slide until it struck the side of the immense, pulsating beast. Then I did the same with the other one. But as I stood, I felt myself surge into the air, gripped around the shoulders by a Cray.
I twisted around and grabbed one of the claws holding me, and with my other hand, I pulled my harmonic blade free and swung, severing one of its wings.
I fell immediately, but before I struck the ground, I was plucked out of the air, this time by a Cray clutching the back of my vest. I flailed with my blade, but couldn’t get to it. We flew higher and higher; I looked up and saw it was taking me to the very top of the mound. I began to curse it at the top of my lungs. I knew exactly what it was going to do, but I was powerless to stop it. I’d share the fate of MacKenzie and so many others, smashed to a pulp as I fell from a terrific height.
I still had the choice to end it first. I had the blade. It would take nothing for me to slice across my neck, or stab myself in the chest.
I started to laugh at the irony of it all. This had all started with me trying to off myself, and now it was going to end the same way. I turned the blade on myself, holding it with two hands. I was preparing to thrust it into my chest when the first explosion rocked the mound.
Not from below; from above.
I strained to look up as pieces of Cray rained down around me. It must have been the one that stole the explosive. The creature carrying me flew to the side of the hive as the inner wall of the mound began to crumble. It latched onto the wall, but was hit by a truck-sized fragment of the mound tumbling into the darkness and was crushed. As it let go of its perch, I swung my blade into the interior wall of the mound. It sank two feet deep and I held on with both hands. The dead Cray swung below me, claws still entangled in my vest, and jerked suddenly on my arms, nearly ripping me loose. My vest rode up and pressed against my throat. I shrugged my shoulders and tried to dislodge the creature, but to no avail. I felt my fingers begin to slip. Just a few seconds ago I’d been ready to die, but the thought was gone. I wanted to live. I glared at my weakening fingers and tried to will strength into them. But inevitably they slipped, and my grip came free. I was falling.