The Beast of Eridu

by Richard Fox

  “Slow down there…boss,” Garrison said.

  “Go with him,” King said.

  “Running’s not my thing.”

  “It is today. Stop being a meathead and go. I’m right behind you,” King ordered.

  Hoffman reached the top and saw where the boulder had been pried loose. Garrison arrived gasping for breath a moment later.

  “Cover me,” said Hoffman. “I want to clear out that corner. Looks shady.”

  Garrison laughed. “You’re killing me, LT! Boss has jokes.”

  Hoffman sidestepped as he approached hanging rocks. It looked like the type of juncture that might have a rope bridge higher up.

  He paused at the edge of the shadowy space but not in time to arrest his forward momentum. Swearing, he slid feet first, using one hand to grab the wall and the other to aim his gun into the blackness.

  “LT!”

  Hoffman bumped several obstructions as he slid, but his armor held. It was dark, even with night vision, and objects jabbed against his armor and stuck to him. Activating his helmet lights—something he rarely did during combat—he saw he was covered in splintered wood and sticky goo.

  King arrived at the top of the hole. “What the hell did you do to the lieutenant? Why is our team leader in a pit full of punji sticks? Why are you not dragging said team leader out of…that?”

  “Laugh it up, gentlemen. I’m sure there’s a punji pit on this planet for each of you.” Hoffman pulled slime from his weapon, then his visor, and finally his armor. “Does anyone have a wet wipe?”

  By the time Hoffman climbed out, every member of the team except Opal and Gor’al had become entangled in a version of the trap.

  “It just fell on me! I’m not in the mood, Garrison,” Booker spat. “I can’t have this crap on my med kit. I didn’t fall in a hole like Hoff and Duke.”

  “I can’t have it on my comms,” Max complained.

  Hoffman searched for and found Duke. “You fell in too?”

  “Not. Talking. About it—behind you!”

  “What?” Hoffman asked just before he spun around, throwing up his right arm as he raised his gauss rifle with his left. A second before he got both hands on the weapon, he was forced to block…

  …a stone axe.

  The axe haft struck his forearm and the sharpened stone stopped an inch from his visor. A gray-green hand with four fingers gripped the weapon. A lithe Karigole—its skin covered in scales, a hint of reptile in its humanoid face—stared at Hoffman with wide black eyes.

  A war cry echoed off the mountain and more Karigole sprang over the rocks, all armed with simple weapons.

  Hoffman shoved the warrior away, using just enough strength from his armor to separate himself from the threat. The Karigole flashed pointed teeth at Hoffman, hissed, and then reached back with the axe and hurled it at the Strike Marine.

  Hoffman swiped his hand across his chest and smashed the axe into pieces. The Karigole froze and his face fell. Hoffman wasn’t an expert on the alien’s body language, but he was sure the Karigole just realized it had made a huge mistake.

  “Stop!” Hoffman shouted. “We’re Strike Marines and we—”

  Something whacked into the side of his helmet and sent him stumbling. He saw the Karigole rushing toward him, an obsidian knife in one hand. The Karigole lunged forward, blade aimed at the seams of Hoffman’s neck armor.

  A massive hand caught the Karigole by the wrist and hoisted the alien up into the air. Opal held the alien up like a fish caught on a line.

  “Karigole bad?” Opal asked as the alien hissed and thrashed around like a cat held by the tail.

  “No, no, Opal, don’t hurt him.” Hoffman touched the side of his helmet and felt an arrow embedded in his IR transceiver. “Hold fire! Everyone, hold your—”

  “Stop!” A new voice thundered through the canyon. “Thrag maka tan shi!”

  Hoffman turned around as a figure in old-style Strike Marine armor emerged, a beat-up gauss rifle in his hands.

  The Karigole warriors slunk back from the new arrival, eyes averting him.

  “Trag maka tan shi.” The Strike Marine pointed at Opal. “Drop that one, war beast.”

  Opal looked to Hoffman.

  “Let him go, Opal.”

  The doughboy tossed the Karigole against a boulder. The alien clutched his wrist to his chest and worked his hand open and shut.

  The Strike Marine in the old armor came up to the Karigole that assaulted Hoffman and turned his chin upwards. A Ka-Bar blade snapped out of a forearm housing, stopping perilously close to the alien’s bare neck.

  “Whoa, wait a second,” Hoffman said, raising a hand.

  “This one is rude,” the Strike Marine said with a heavy accent. “Impetuous and stupid. My son is too much like me.” The blade retracted and the Strike Marine slapped the Karigole on the back of his head. The Strike Marine held up a hand and made three quick gestures. The aliens vanished into the mountains without a sound.

  The Strike Marine lifted his other hand, a bionic replacement with five fingers instead of four, and removed his helmet, revealing a much older Karigole with an augmentic right eye.

  “Steuben, I presume,” Hoffman said. He removed his own helmet, frowning at the wooden arrow embedded in it.

  The Karigole looked Hoffman up and down. “Who are you? No one asked you to come here.”

  “Not the welcome we’d expected.” Hoffman pulled the arrow free and tossed it to one side. “We saw the dead Sanheel in your village. Maybe you all could use the help?”

  “Sanheel, that is their name?” Steuben asked. “They attacked without warning several days ago. Captured one of my people before they got away. I’ve not been allowed to lead a hunt and take their skins.”

  “I don’t know how the Kesaht or the Sanheel even knew about you all here,” Hoffman said. “We’ve been fighting them across Union space for months now.”

  “So you brought this fight to us?” Steuben asked. “We smashed our radios to sever all contact with the outside galaxy. And still the war found us. Just as I warned the gethaar.”

  “Do we even look like those ponies?” Garrison asked. “And what is this slime and how do we get the smell out of our armor?”

  “The youths of my tribe have never seen Strike Marines in your new armor.” Steuben touched his older model gear. “We live simply. They did not recognize the design. They attacked before I could stop them. Are any of you hurt?”

  “Good to go.” Booker gave Hoffman a thumbs-up.

  “Then why are you complaining?” Steuben asked.

  “Let me cut to the chase.” Hoffman lifted his rifle barrel to the sky. “We need you—Steuben—to come with us to—”

  “Useless.” Steuben hit Hoffman in the chest with the palm of his hand just enough to upset the lieutenant’s balance. “Do not speak to me.”

  “We can deal with the Kesaht first,” Hoffman said. “But the Terran Union has a situation that needs your unique skill set.”

  “Again, do not speak to me of this,” Steuben said. “I cannot agree to anything. If you make the offer to me, it is an insult to the gethaar.”

  “The…who?” Hoffman asked.

  “The Karigole owe a debt to the Union. To Strike Marines. I thought there were only two of us left in all of existence before Valdar and the Breitenfeld led Lafayette and I to more. You make your request to the gethaar, Hoffman. That is all I can do for you,” Steuben said.

  Hoffman maintained a poker face. His pre-mission briefings hadn’t mentioned these gethaar. The plan hadn’t factored in Kesaht either.

  “Just another day in the Corps,” Hoffman said.

  “Come. I must prepare you for the council,” Steuben said. “Are you wearing any clothes beneath your armor?”

  ****

  Hoffman and his team followed Steuben into a ravine. Karigole watched them from above, spears and nocked bows in hand.

  “Man, he’s from the Ember War,” Garrison whispered into his mic. “
Like, he was there at the end on the Xaros world ship. You ever see those stained-glass portraits in the chapels where an armor’s killing one of the Xaros big-bads? I swear Steuben’s in the background. Max, get his autograph for your kids.”

  “I am on your team IR network,” Steuben said.

  “Yeah, right. Sorry. Can you…”

  “No.”

  “Just one?” Garrison pleaded. “My…friend would really appreciate it. No, for the children. That’s the ticket. It’s for the kids.”

  “The only time Karigole write their name is when they carve it into the flesh of defeated enemy to mark a victory. Still want one?”

  Max made a swallowing sound. “Maybe just a selfie? What do you say, Garrison? Time to shut the hell up now?”

  “That’s exactly what time it is,” King interjected. “When we get back to the ship, I am going to PT you to death. Twice.”

  “I like this one,” Steuben said. “Reminds me of another sergeant you might have heard of.”

  The trail wound downward into the ravine then twisted upward into a secluded section. A final stretch of rough, semi-natural steps led to a broad cave entrance. Sanheel heads decorated pikes on both sides of the approach.

  “We ambushed a small group to the east. Some escaped,” Steuben said, barely looking at the macabre spectacle. His demeanor was disrespectful and nonchalant. “Stop here. I must explain the rules.”

  Hoffman signaled his team to stop.

  “Only the lieutenant will come with me. The rest of you are to remain here. Do not speak to my people. Do not make eye contact with them. They may shoot an arrow or throw a spear at your feet to test your restraint. Just ignore them.”

  “They’re just counting coup.” Gor’al wagged a finger in the air. “Like the plains Indians of—”

  King put a heavy hand on top of the Dotari’s helmet.

  “Your technology is forbidden beyond this point.” Steuben gestured to Hoffman’s armor. “Remove it. All of it.”

  “If the Kesaht show up and I’m in my pajamas,” Hoffman said, “I won’t be much help in that fight.”

  “We are watching.” Steuben’s organic eye darted to the Karigole staring at them. “The Strike Marine standard is to don power armor in less than one hundred and eighty seconds. Have standards slipped?”

  “They have not.” Hoffman stuck fingers beneath his breastplate and pulled a cord. Plates of power armor fell off and landed in the dirt, leaving him in the pseudo-muscle layer, boots, and helmet. He organized his armor into the shape of a prostrate man and set his helmet down to make the head. After removing his boots, he looked at Steuben, who held out a leather loincloth.

  “You’re kidding.” Hoffman eyed the rough-looking garment.

  “This is not Earth humor.” Steuben pulled the emergency release on his own armor and tossed the loincloth to Hoffman. The Karigole removed his bionic eye and dropped it into his helmet, then snapped off his mechanical hand and tossed it onto the pile. He stripped off his pseudo-muscle layer and walked stark naked into the cave. Someone tossed him a set of leather breeches as he vanished into the darkness.

  “That’s going to stay with me,” Duke said. “And not in a good way.”

  “Don’t worry, sir,” Booker said, turning around. “I won’t peek.”

  “Just another day in the Corps,” Hoffman said through gritted teeth and stripped down.

  He adjusted the loincloth and followed Steuben inside. A group of Karigole females, with short white hair and wraps crisscrossed over their chests, examined Steuben where he stood just inside the cave.

  “There,” Steuben said, pointing to a ring of flowers on the floor. “They will look you over.”

  “What’s all this about?” Hoffman said as he entered the ring. A pair of Karigole touched his arms with sticks and prodded him to raise them up to his sides. One of the females leaned close to the side of his neck and sniffed. She spoke to Steuben quickly.

  “Your face is wrong,” Steuben said. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “The gethaar are with child. They will not allow deformity into their presence. They believe it can harm the baby. Answer me or these handmaids will reject you. You want another of your Marines to take your place?”

  “Yeah, I’ll send Garrison in here. That’ll work great. I was a doughboy officer during the Ember War. My face and voice were changed to match that of Jared Hale. After the war, I got my looks back,” Hoffman said.

  “Jared Hale…I remember him.” Steuben bent forward and a handmaid looked into his empty eye socket as the Karigole sibilant language continued around Hoffman. He felt a stick touch his lower back.

  “What happened there?” Steuben asked.

  “Stabbed by a Naroosha spike drone.” The stick traced down the back of his right arm. “Vishrakath claw.” The touch went away.

  “They say you are very ugly.” Steuben switched to his native language for a moment. “But you do not appear to be genetically inferior.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  “You are very lean. You must work out,” Steuben said. “What? Is this not proper to say? Many Marines have told me to say such things to disrobed human men.”

  “I’ll explain the faux pas later. Can we see the gethaar now?” Hoffman asked.

  “You may pass. Now you need to relax,” Steuben said.

  “Relax? It’s bad enough I’m dressed like someone’s about to stick bills in my thong and now—” A hood came down over his head and rough hands lifted him off the ground.

  "Don't struggle so much. Maybe struggle a little. Make them feel like they're earning their honor today. But don't struggle too much. It will take longer," Steuben said.

  ****

  Hoffman’s wrists and ankles were bound to a rough stick and he swayed from side to side as Karigole carried him deeper into the cave. He couldn’t see, but he heard aliens moving around and Steuben answering to shouts that echoed off the walls. The air was damp and growing colder, which came as a slight comfort, as the sensation of fire might mean he was the guest of honor at some sort of Karigole feast, and he’d likely be on the menu.

  “Steuben?” Hoffman asked.

  “They like you! You are pink, like a little baby,” the Karigole answered.

  Sounds were strange this deep underground. Dripping water sounded too loud while Steuben's voice sounded far away when it was right next to him.

  "You are doing much better than Ken Hale would have done," Steuben said.

  "You mean this never happened to him?"

  “It would have if he’d been allowed to visit. The gethaar decided we should have no further contact with the outside galaxy once our home was established here. They ordered our radios smashed…I was opposed to that decision.”

  Hoffman felt his path go down several steps, then a wave of cool, fresh air passed over his body. He heard a knife whack into the pole and he fell into dirt. Someone yanked off the hood. A Karigole behind him wrapped an arm around his neck and pulled back to lift his chin. He felt the knife touching his throat.

  He looked around as best he could. He was in a round space, and rock walls reached straight up to the sky. When he craned his neck up, he saw stars. They were in some sort of a small caldera within the mountain range, the top of a dead volcano. Torches provided light, sending shadows dancing over beautifully ornate paintings done with simple dyes and paint. He remembered a childhood trip to view pictographs in the Valley of Fire in Nevada, but those were long gone. Erased by the Xaros. The Karigole paintings were anything but primitive.

  Steuben stood nearby, his arms crossed. He wagged a claw-tipped finger at Hoffman and the grip around his neck vanished.

  "You’re treated as out-clan. So this is completely normal,” Steuben said.

  "Oh, good. Thought I was in trouble." Hoffman looked around the room, studying details of the space in case he needed to escape. Armed Karigole stood beside a tunnel opening. Screens made up of woven grass blocked anothe
r tunnel on the other side of the caldera. Unless he was going to climb up and out of the volcano shaft, he was going to have a hard time getting out.

  Adult Karigole came out from behind the screens—more handmaidens and armed males—all armed with spears and knives.

  "Say nothing. Pretend you're invisible," Steuben said.

  A Karigole holding a spear decorated with bright-colored feathers banged the haft against the rock floor twice, and Steuben went to his knees then pressed his forehead to the ground.

  Three aliens came out from behind the screens, all shorter than the other Karigole and with wide hips, full breasts, and pregnant bellies. Each carried a baby on one hip, and toddlers followed them, clutching to hands and woven skirts.

  The gethaar.

  The young Karigole stared at Hoffman with wide eyes, some ducking behind the gethaar and peeking out at him.

  The three gethaar handed the children off, then sat down in a semicircle in front of Hoffman. Adult males sat behind them and used their backs to prop up the pregnant matriarchs. The one in the middle clicked her claws twice and Steuben ended his kowtow.

  “You have brought death to us,” the middle gethaar said.

  “I don’t…” Hoffman looked at Steuben but couldn’t read the alien’s expression. “My name is Lieutenant Thomas Hoffman. Terran Strike Marines. We come in peace." He paused and studied his audience. No reaction. "We didn’t know the Kesaht were here. They arrived before us. How—”

  The gethaar to the left hissed at him through sharp teeth. “You know the thieves’ name. Your Terra is at war with them, yes?”

  “They attacked us. Unprovoked. We’ve beaten them on many worlds, but the war continues.”

  “The Kesaht spilled our blood because your metal guards our skies,” a gethaar said. “Why did your metal fail? The last hairless ape that was here promised we would be safe.”

  “I don’t know,” Hoffman said. “Let me go find the Kesaht. I’ll ask them.”

  “Good spirit,” a gethaar said. Her belly bulged slightly as the baby within pushed against the inside of her womb. She put her palm against the unborn’s touch.