Galaxia

by Kevin McLaughlin

  As she relayed all this, he listened intently. He might not have grasped all of it, whether due to a limited understanding of the underlying science or the partial language barrier, but she could tell that he was interested. What she was saying, really, affected them all.

  “But now, we have the opportunity to study one of these creatures from birth without any training or modeling from its peers getting in the way of things,” she pointed out. They would be at the doors momentarily. Once she was inside the base, things would be more difficult. She stopped again and pretended to massage her shoulder in pain. He’d been injured in the same fashion, so she imagined he would be empathetic to that.

  He stopped also and frowned in a concerned way as he watched her.

  She went on quickly. “By studying this egg as it incubates, and then if we can get it to hatch, we could potentially learn so much about the species that have developed here. How it is that they seem to spawn so quickly. How they mature, how they think, why they behave as they do. You men—the soldiers of the fort—would have all kinds of new insights into how to fight them and what to expect and avoid. And since I know a thing or two about how to study such matters, it might be enough to save me from being…sent back. This could be my big break. And it will help immensely in our overall research efforts.”

  “Ja, I see,” Grün replied, “that is good for you. But what about Hauptmann Shalwar?” His young face was furrowed with worry.

  “Yes, that’s part of it,” Laura assured him. “I know for certain that he’s still alive. Those creatures have taken him as their prisoner, exactly like they did with you and some of the others in your unit. But that still means he’s in terrible danger.”

  She paused and studied their surroundings with a critical eye. Then, she stepped to the right toward the transportation depot and away from the doors as though he’d ordered her that way anyway. He followed her, about to protest.

  “Look, I’m already inside the base. There are men everywhere here who can keep an eye on me and keep me out of trouble,” she said before he could speak. “Right now, the most important thing is the Hauptmann’s safety. Go find his right-hand officer—Lieutenant Ferris, I believe—or Leutnant, pardon—that Bull woman. Tell her everything I told you. She’s clearly good at her job and I can tell that she loves Hauptmann Shalwar almost like a brother. Please, find her and tell her. We don’t have much time.” She looked at him, her expression imploring.

  Grün met her gaze and his seemed to drift off for a moment. He was clearly deep in thought and she curbed her impatience. After a few seconds, he said, “Yes. You are right. I will find her immediately. Stay here, please.” He turned briefly to another soldier and ordered him to watch her.

  With that, he spun and ran toward the main entrance, obviously in a hurry but not to the point of carelessness.

  “Well, then,” she said quietly. She had to find some way to get rid of this soldier. “Excuse me. Would you mind escorting me to the vehicles area?”

  He looked unsure. “I do not think that is a good idea. Soldat Grün said only to watch you.”

  “Oh, please,” she said and gave him what she hoped was a look of wide-eyed innocence. “You would still be watching me. He will bring Leutnant Ferris so I’d have to go there with them anyway. I’ve come from the Zoo and could really use a moment to sit and rest so might as well do it while I wait. Unless you’d like to ask your commanding officer?” Hopefully, male pride would get in the way of that, she thought, knowing full well the CO was in the hands of the primaraptors and wouldn’t be available.

  “No, that won’t be necessary. Go ahead,” he said and she heaved an internal sigh of relief. “I’ll wait there with you.”

  They walked along in silence and she was pleased to see that her presence elicited very little notice. Roden must have simply assumed that Coop would handle her—if she even returned in one piece, to begin with—and neglected to put up Wanted: Dr. Laura Curie posters or whatever. It was certainly easier than having an entire base filled with eager soldiers all ready to pounce and take her into custody.

  Her gaze drifted toward the transportation depot now only a few yards away and filled with formidable vehicles that could cover large amounts of distance in short amounts of time and take a person far away from this base.

  In her satchel, she had one of the great scientific finds of the century. Even beyond Fort Archway, innumerable people would be very, very interested in it. What, she wondered, would she do now?

  It took her a moment to decide and she smiled.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Resolute as always, Jan clenched his jaw. He didn’t know exactly what it portended—their having been dragged into this massive nest—but it surely wasn’t good. Nonetheless, as long as he was alive, he still had a fighting chance. The primaraptors would have to come and personally bite his head off before he gave up. He would free first himself, then those men who still lived, and get them to the safety of the base. Only death was a guarantor of failure.

  Still, their situation was assuredly dire. Most of the other soldiers there looked like they would, after all they’d been through, barely be able to walk. Klaus was normally very vigorous, but even he looked and sounded like he might expire on his own in a few more hours or perhaps another day at most.

  And he had no idea exactly where in the Zoo they were. It didn’t seem feasible that the creature could have dragged him for too great a distance, but there was no way to be sure. For all he knew, this dome might have been constructed on the ruins of the original American research base at the jungle’s center, kilometers and kilometers away from familiar territory, let alone the edge of the desert.

  Plus, when he looked around, he saw sentries. The faint light that came through cracks in the dome’s rough materials was blocked here and there by tall shapes that had the posture of birds or lizards. There seemed to be no mutants inside the dome, but even one or two posted outside would make escape extremely difficult. They needed heavy weaponry. Or better yet, an armored vehicle with heavy weaponry.

  “Klaus,” he said to his comrade, “do you know how many of these men are still alive?” Most of them were not moving but he didn’t think all of them were dead.

  “I don’t know,” he replied, his voice weak, pained, and tired. “Some certainly are. But I think some have died and some of them were wounded, to begin with.”

  He closed his eyes and shook his head. While he still refused to give up, the situation was not to his advantage.

  Something rustled and he looked up as a primaraptor pushed its way through a narrow, almost door-like screen made of hanging leaves and sticks that had been stuck across a gap in the wood and dried phlegm. He went still, kept silent, and tried to observe the creature out of the corner of his eye. While he wanted to study it, he definitely did not want to draw its attention. Outside, he could still see silhouettes of at least two other mutants.

  The monster approached a soldier whom he did not recognize, a man who looked like he’d once been on the plump side but was now half-withered in his current condition of near death. The prisoner’s eyes drifted open and he moaned very softly but otherwise, he did not react.

  With a kind of careless interest, the mutant grasped the man around the arms and shoulders and pulled him upward while it used its teeth to cut and break through the hardened brown goop. Jan watched it with a kind of sick, horrified fascination and noted how sophisticated its ape-like grip was. Truly, the creature had hands rather than merely claws.

  Soon, the adhesive was mostly severed, and it dragged the man free and carried him toward the center of the dome. What was it doing? Jan bit his tongue to stop himself voicing the thought and suppressed the urge to try to break free and put a stop to it. That would only result in him being bound again with even more of the phlegmy substance, if not killed outright.

  The primaraptor dropped the man on the ground and his body fell amidst a group of eggs that seemed to bulge and already blossomed with c
racks.

  “Oh, God,” Klaus said under his breath.

  The two men could only stare as the adult retreated before the birth of its species’ next generation. The soldier, still barely conscious and possibly delirious, squirmed but did not try to escape. Eggs cracked around him. As the pieces of shell fell away, what emerged were, unsurprisingly, tiny, slimy, bald replicas of the parents.

  The baby creatures had not yet sprouted fur. They did not look helpless in the least, though. Already, their eyes were bright and their claws and teeth looked sharp. They opened their mouths and made high-pitched, mewling sounds. In seconds, all of them focused on the man sprawled among them.

  “No,” Jan protested hoarsely.

  All the infant primaraptors, perhaps seven or eight, pounced on the man and sank their teeth into his flesh. He stirred and finally attained awareness of what was happening as the small mutants ripped out chunks of skin, muscle, and fat. Blood welled around him to form a spreading pool. He wailed horribly and both the pitch and volume rose to fill the gloomy, open space above them.

  “We are fucked.” Klaus gasped. “The rest will be hatching soon. God, no.”

  The two men gaped in horror as the soldier was eaten alive. He began to thrash and writhe and tried in vain to sit and flee, but by the time he had enough presence of mind to attempt this, his legs were already savaged and the voracious little reptiles had eaten enough of him that he had to be in the early stages of death from blood loss.

  This soldier, then, was beyond all help. Jan shook his head as the man expired, and his tiny executioners rested around his corpse and looked very satisfied with their first-ever meal.

  Klaus uttered a sobbing moan. Again, he was not his usual self in the slightest, and something about that fact disturbed the hauptmann almost more than anything else he’d seen.

  “Stop it,” he snapped. “Keep your shit together and remember that you are a soldier of Germany, Gott verdammt. The others have not hatched yet, and the adults have made no move to feed the rest of us to them.”

  “They will, soon,” he responded. His cracked lips moved to open and close even when he did not speak, and his eyes constantly rolled back in their sockets. His normally impressive musculature had already begun to look wasted.

  “Help will come,” Jan returned sharply. “The British woman knows we are alive in here, and she was rescued when I was taken. She will tell someone what has happened. The Bull will hear. We can depend on her, at least, if no one else. Do not despair yet.”

  Klaus laughed, a weak coughing sound. “No one will come, Jan,” he said. “They won’t charge in to their own certain death when we are probably already written off as dead. I bet they’ve already commissioned the plaques to send to our families. The only person who would have had the balls to come after us is you, and here you are, in the same situation. It’s over, Hauptmann.”

  Jan saw Laura again in his mind’s eye, staring at him like a frightened deer on a nighttime road. If she did manage to get back and tell the base that he was still alive, Roden might shut down any attempt at rescue as too risky, too expensive, or too much of a bother.

  There was no guarantee that anyone else would follow Rule Number Three. Other people abandoned their teams all the time.

  His heart sank and for the first time, he considered that Klaus might be right—that they were doomed. A trembling tension that he recognized as fear radiated through his body at the thought of it. As it had been earlier when he’d spoken to young Soldat Grün back at the base, though, it was not really fear of his own death, exactly. He’d always known there was a good chance he might die in the line of duty. This was the fear of defeat.

  No—someone else would still be left out there on planet Earth to continue the fight on behalf of the human species. The aliens and their pets would never prevail. But he, Jan T Shalwar, might well be finished, unable to contribute to the war effort ever again. He might end up as nothing more than food for these creatures which he had sworn to overcome and destroy. And he would never speak to Michael.

  And, of course, it was all because he had broken his own fucking rules.

  Chapter Forty

  Laura sauntered into the transportation depot with the soldier beside her. She had half-expected him to be a little surly at having been dumped with her but he made no effort to talk and seemed to simply take his duty seriously in a quiet and unobtrusive way. Now, all kinds of opportunities were arrayed before her.

  At first, after Soldat Grün had taken his leave of her to find Leutnant Ferris and she had persuaded his replacement to agree to her suggestion, she wondered if she’d encounter any further obstacles. Thankfully, no sentries had been posted inside, although there might still be someone standing guard beyond the door that led deeper into the base’s main section.

  This was, of course, the same area she had wandered into during the power outage and lockdown that happened after she’d first arrived and where she’d met Jan. That had been under less than ideal circumstances, it was true, but still, she could not help thinking of him.

  He was still out there somewhere, a prisoner of the Zoo and its vicious denizens.

  She shook her head to clear it of unpleasant thoughts and focused, instead, on the task at hand. That’s what Jan would have done, would he not? And in this particular case, the task at hand was selecting a vehicle. Even though she did not recognize any of them as something she definitely knew how to drive. She set her satchel down carefully, conscious of the prize tucked away in it, and turned her attention to business.

  Again, most the vehicles looked similar to pictures or videos she’d seen of armored trucks and military personnel carriers, although they might be newer models the Germans had introduced that the British didn’t know much about yet. Advanced motorbikes of some kind also lined the far wall and there were the weird hovercraft-type contraptions that almost looked like spaceships.

  Those were tempting, but she decided against them. Learning how to drive—or fly?—them would be too difficult. She could probably manage something like a truck. Besides, she wanted the biggest, most well-defended and well-reinforced set of wheels she could find. She extended a hand toward the nearest large APC.

  “Hey!” a loud, vaguely female voice bellowed.

  Her head snapped up. A short, stout shape with brown hair pinned up stood before her. One hand was balled into a fist and set at the hip and the other was raised with the index finger extended toward her face.

  “Leutnant Ferris,” she said and breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m so glad it’s—”

  “Rule Number Forty-two. No unauthorized personnel touching the transportation equipment,” The Bull replied. Both her tone of voice and her facial expression suggested something like total, unhinged fury.

  Laura was confused. Why, she wondered, would merely touching a vehicle anger her that much?

  Before she could say more or explain herself, the woman charged. She moved so fast that she seemed to almost teleport over the two meters that separated them and bowled into her. A solid shoulder pounded into her midsection and she catapulted back as though she’d been struck by a battering ram.

  “Ugh!” She gasped as the breath was knocked out of her. She pinwheeled her arms as she tried to keep her balance and in alarm, she wracked her brain as to what the hell she ought to do in this situation. What, exactly, had Grün told her? Had the language barrier created a terrible misunderstanding?

  “You’ve done too many reckless things in the short time you’ve been here,” The Bull went on with less volume but even more grating wrath. She took two steps forward and shoved her again.

  She staggered back and ironically, collided with the nearest vehicle—a large armored truck—which was her first experience in actually touching the transportation equipment.

  “You compromised base security,” Ferris said. She lunged from the side and seemed to twist an arm around her, shove her laterally, and trip her all at the same time. Laura lost her balance this time
, fell to her knees, and struggled to stand as quickly as she could. She was on the verge of panic now and not only alarmed, but deeply confused.

  The Bull moved toward her once more. “You broke every rule of the Hauptmann’s that you could and basic safety rules of the base, as well,” she accused. She thrust forward with what could only be called a slamming motion, grasped her jacket at the front as her hands came down, and jerked her forward before she threw her back to crash into a motorbike. It tumbled with a loud clatter while she struggled to stay upright.

  “Wait, let me explain!” she cried. “I’m trying to tell you, I—”

  “You are trying to escape now after you have done the worst thing of all,” the woman shouted. Her eyes blazed and she actually trembled with wrath. “You left Jan out there alone after he went in to save you. You abandoned him!”

  With dawning horror, it occurred to Laura that Ferris might actually intend to kill her. She really, truly was that enraged. This was different, somehow, from being attacked by the Zoo monsters. They were merely animals. Now, she was assaulted not only with physical force but with another human being’s raw, unhinged emotions. She tried to speak, but in her sudden terror, no sound emerged.

  Her adversary attacked again. This time, she grasped her arm and threw her over her shoulder to land on her ass on the dusty floor. Her tailbone and injured shoulder screamed in pain and she found her voice again.

  “I’m not trying to escape. I’m trying to fucking save him,” Laura yelled. “I tried to tell you that. It’s why I sent Grün to find you—I need your help so that we can help him!”

  The Bull had moved closer after the last onslaught and now almost looked like she intended to stamp on her head with her boot heel. Thankfully, she stopped. The twisted expression of cold fury on her face softened, at least a little, and she drew back a step and assumed a more relaxed posture.