Galaxia

by Kevin McLaughlin

  “Yes, Doctor.” Jan seemed to pause and think. “Get everyone in. We must try to dig ourselves out and if that does not work, we stand and fight. Troops farther back can pass extra rifle magazines to our rear guards.”

  His orders were relayed down the line in German. She heard but could not see the soldiers who had led the way into the tunnel attempt to dig through the cave-in. The worst part was that she had no idea how bad the blockage was or how long it might take to clear it.

  The four rear guards positioned themselves such that all four could shoot at once, two low in front and two high behind.

  They did not have long to wait. Four primaraptor warrior males appeared in the circle of dim light at the bottom of the tunnel. They shrieked and hissed in rage but before they could advance, the troops opened fire.

  Laura reeled and opened her mouth. The cacophony of the rifles was even worse in this small space and downright painful. Furthermore, it seemed to hasten the dislodging of dirt from above them.

  All the mutants that had tried to rush them fell dead in oozing piles. Two more appeared and the soldiers cut them down as well. They now fired sequentially so the first two could reload while the next two covered them. She noticed that the gunfire had partially damaged the walls of the tunnel near its lower mouth.

  The earth-shaking footsteps grew louder and a huge, ugly form covered the whole of the opening. The rear guards were about to fire when the tunnel collapsed again, this time at its other end. Black dirt, rocks, and mud avalanched to leave only a strip of visible space.

  The queen put her hand through this and began to dig her way in.

  “Well, now we’re entirely trapped,” she observed. “I don’t suppose we could get a report as to how things have progressed at the top end?”

  A few people shouted to one another.

  “It is useless,” Jan said. “They might need an hour to dig through, at this rate. And we cannot move at speed with all these wounded, including me.” He grimaced, and Laura, still supporting him on her aching shoulder, actually felt him fume with helpless anger.

  “What do we do, Hauptmann?” Gunter asked. “They say you always come up with the best plans.”

  “We can try to keep shooting at that monster until it dies, of course,” he grumbled, “but even the whole team may not have enough ammunition.”

  To Laura’s surprise, he looked at her. “Dr. Curie,” he said. “You are the closest thing we have to an expert on these creatures and I do not have any brilliant solution. What would you suggest we do?”

  She took a deep breath and thought of all those eggs and on the apparent fragility of the earthen ceiling above them.

  “Actually,” she responded with a grin, “I have an idea.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Jan took a deep breath. They would take a major risk but Laura’s plan, as it so happened, was based on fairly sound military strategy. It might even work.

  First, it would involve a diversion—a rather basic, obvious, and run-of-the-mill tactic, but one with an impressive pedigree of effectiveness. And animals such as their current enemies, intelligent though they were, were not exactly likely to have read Clausewitz or Sun Tzu or Lind.

  Second, it would harken to the old precept of knowing thine enemy. He knew a fair amount about the way these things seemed to operate but Laura, despite her shorter period of experience, seemed to know more. There were advantages to being a scientist, he acknowledged. And when all parties involved in a conflict worked together and positioned themselves where they were strongest, all advantages were maximized.

  But it would be dangerous, and they did not have much time.

  “All right,” he said to Grün, who now supported him on his right side, as well as Laura and the four rear guards. “Is everyone ready?”

  “Yes, sir,” they replied.

  “Good. Laura, be careful. And that includes the rest of you. If we pull this off, no one has to die—all of us can make it out of here with our lives.”

  The tunnel now trembled steadily as the bloated primaraptor queen heaved herself against the passage’s mouth. Her huge hands tore away chunks of fallen earth and widened the opening even more. She would not be able to fit into the tunnel herself as it was, but in her fury, she seemed ready to dig through the entire span of earth that separated her from her human enemies. The reality was that it would not take her long.

  There was also the matter of her remaining warriors. From what Laura and the rear guards had reported, a few still lived. They had killed only six before the queen had blocked the passage.

  The seven humans advanced toward the grotesque monstrosity that wanted desperately to tear them apart. He would have liked to order Ferris to aid him, but in the event of his death, the team would need a competent officer to lead the escape. Klaus barely remained conscious and was therefore unfit for command until he received proper medical attention.

  The queen uttered another of her awful, hoarse, high-pitched roars as they approached, and his bowels clenched.

  “Ready,” he said and raised his hand.

  The four rear guards fell into position, two of them in the center prepared to fire high and low and the other two ready to either relieve them when they ran out of ammo or race beside Laura if they had to. She stood flat against the wall beside them. He and Soldat Grün would provide support and direction as needed.

  He lowered his hand in a chopping motion. “Now.”

  The two guards opened fire. Their rifles were set to three-round bursts and they squeezed off a couple, enough to stun the monstrosity and get her attention. Her massive reptilian eyes glared at them.

  Laura ran. It was only a couple paces to the mouth of the tunnel and by now, the queen had dug away almost all the fallen debris. The researcher leapt over the rest of it and slipped past the obese creature’s side before she even realized what had happened. As soon as she was safely through, the soldiers fired again and drew a couple of trickles of blood this time.

  “Three! Trei!” Laura cried.

  “Dammit,” Jan cursed. “We go down.”

  The soldiers advanced, taking single or triple-burst potshots at the massive primaraptor as they went. Ahead of them, Laura fired her pistol. At that, the queen turned and began to waddle away from them and the tunnel’s mouth toward the eggs.

  “Go!” Jan ordered. Dr. Curie’s assumption had been correct.

  The three riflemen and one riflewoman sprinted to get past the mutant to aid Laura and engage any other male raptors that might still be roving around. He knew he ought to stay back but he couldn’t. Instead, he ordered Gunter to help him to the passage’s mouth, where at least he could see what was going on and he and Grün would be able to provide minor covering fire.

  He limped downward, braced against the soldat, and hefted his pistol. Of course, he would have to shoot it left-handed since his helper supported him by his right arm, but he could manage.

  They stopped about two meters short of the opening. Rifle fire crackled and he took in the whole scene at once.

  The rear guards had shot one of the three primaraptor males and engaged the other two. They had been forced to split up, partially because the mutants were on either side of the dome’s egg-pit and two of them needed to engage each one and partially to make way for the queen, who heaved herself toward the nursery of her many young.

  Laura stood a short distance below the rim of the dip in the earth and had picked up one of the eggs. She raised it over her head in an aggressive posture and could easily smash it against the ground at any moment. The monster howled as she surged toward her and ignored everything else in her monomaniacal rage. Her fur had turned such a deep, dark shade of red that it was almost black.

  “Come on, you big, fat-arsed old public-school, headmistress-type bitch,” the researcher shouted. “I can do more damage than this with ease.” She switched the egg to her left hand, drew her pistol, and fired it once toward the dome’s ceiling. A few fragments of wood and brown
phlegm-crust twinkled down.

  The queen howled again and continued her advance. The bulging rolls of her scaly flesh slipped over the edge of the decline and the sinking elevation aided her speed as she lumbered toward the woman who threatened her children.

  Rifles continued to fire as the four troops battled the last two primaraptors. To the left, both the man and the woman had trapped the creature and fired into its head and torso to leave it ravaged and twitching while it was still a couple of meters away from them.

  To his right, things had gone less well. The creature had advanced within a meter of them and one of the men tried to reload. Jan raised his pistol, but he could not get a clear shot without risking hitting the men. The one who was reloading stumbled in the mud, and the mutant lashed at him with its foot-claw to savage a long, bloody gash through his collarbone and throat. He fell back, choking on his own blood.

  “Nein! Gott verdammt…” Jan snarled his fury. The other man raised his rifle and released a volley at point-blank range. A stream of lead cut through its neck and its head toppled a second or two ahead of its body.

  The hauptmann shouted over his shoulder for someone else to come down and help them.

  Ahead of them, near the middle of the great structure, the queen had almost reached Laura. She rolled the egg beside her, spun it down between others toward the deepest portion of the depression, and sprinted in the opposite direction, around the monster, and to the side.

  The enormous monarch squirmed in place for an instant, not sure what to do. Then, she turned toward her quarry.

  Someone from the tunnel ran down to help them as Jan had requested. As this soldier approached, the three remaining rear guards converged toward the position where he still leaned on Soldat Grün.

  Laura had evaded the queen, crested the slope, and made her way toward them. The bloated monstrosity was right behind her. If this didn’t work, they might all be dead.

  “Shoot at the ceiling!” he ordered.

  All five soldiers with rifles, including Grün, opened fire, their guns upward at sharp angles and aimed toward the bent trees which supported the entire dome. Muzzles flared and the reports echoed in the vast space. Detritus fell from above.

  Jan motioned to Laura to weave to the side. She saw him but seemed momentarily confused by what he meant before it dawned on her.

  “Yes, I want to shoot the fucking monster behind you,” he snapped, although she probably couldn’t hear him over the noise of the guns.

  She swerved aside to approach them at an angle, and the space between him and the queen was now clear. He raised his pistol in his left hand, exhaled, and aimed.

  This would not be easy. The target was moving, he was using his non-dominant hand, and even if any stray bullets hit her, they wouldn’t do much damage. Still, it had to be done.

  Again, and again, and again, he fired.

  Sparks glinted off the big, scythe-like claw that grew from the mutant’s broad foot. Blood joined the sparks and two of her toes exploded at the same moment that his handgun clicked empty. The creature howled in pain and stopped her advance. He ejected his magazine and slapped in another.

  Laura dashed up to them and ducked around and under the gunmen as they continued their barrage at the ceiling. A loud creaking sound was audible even with the rifles firing and immediately intensified to an earsplitting crack.

  The queen, already halted in her implacable onslaught by the injury to her foot, now looked up.

  The dome collapsed. Dozens if not hundreds of kilograms of wood, phlegm-crust, stray rocks, mud, and clay caved inward and down to form something like a brown waterfall that fell almost directly on the mutant creature. She screamed, an awful sound like that of half a dozen women in terrible rage and pain and was lost to sight when she was buried within the ruins of her own nest.

  “Ha!” Laura laughed. “See, I told you it would work.”

  “Yes, yes,” Jan replied, “but…” He gestured upward.

  They had started a chain reaction of destruction. Not only the central part of the dome had collapsed. Now, the entire nest began to fall apart.

  “Back into the tunnel!” he yelled.

  Laura and two riflemen rushed ahead, and the others hung back to cover the rear while Grün and Jan struggled through the entrance. Once everyone was within the tunnel, the hauptmann immediately questioned the wisdom of his order.

  “Scheisse,” he muttered. The walls and ceiling shook, and there was a continuous rain of dirt on their heads. They might still be entombed alive, even outside the dome itself.

  “How has the digging up there progressed?” he asked, his voice even hoarser than it had been. He snatched the tube from Grün’s hydration pack and sipped from it. If he had to die, it might as well not be while he was thirsty.

  “Twenty minutes,” someone shouted back.

  Two minutes, he thought, would be far better. And they might not even have that long.

  His stomach tightened with fear as this prediction seemed, for an instant, to come true. The earth beside them groaned in a frightening fashion, and the wall to his left began to disintegrate and spill dirt and mud around their feet. Undulating wood moved through the flowing earth. Then, the wall itself detached, ripped away by the massive tree which had freed it with the violence of its roots as it fell toward the center of the ruined nest.

  Open air and clear skies were above them.

  “Hahaha!” Someone laughed and a few people whooped with joy.

  Jan breathed deep. “Yes, very good, wonderful,” he grumbled. “Now where are these trucks you brought?”

  “Over there, sir,” said Grün and gestured over the chaotic jumble of earth and wood where the tunnel wall had been.

  He squinted and could barely make them out. It was nighttime—he reflected idly on the fact that they were all breaking Rule Number Five again—but the moon was almost full. The contrast between the bright silver light and the deep blue-black shadows of the jungle made it hard to see after the deep brownish gloom of the raptors’ domed lair.

  They climbed over the remains of the structure. Laura came to help Grün and they managed, but Jan still had to go slowly and exert what seemed like far too much effort. His leg still howled in anguish at being even slightly jostled. Part of it felt like it was growing numb and stiff by now, though.

  The first few troops to reach flat land ran to their vehicles to get them started. He noted with approval that they had brought three of the new, heavily-armored personnel carriers, which could double as supply trucks—and even somewhat resembled them—but were effectively combat vehicles. The Zoo would not be able to do much to stop them from leaving once everyone was loaded into them.

  Of course, loading in the wounded and unconscious men would take a few minutes and they had made considerable noise.

  Jan and Klaus were the last of the ex-captives remaining outside, along with Laura, Grün, and three other soldiers, when someone shouted, “Mehr von ihnen kommen!”

  Jan looked up. The APCs had bludgeoned through the jungle on their way there and left a large open area around the dome’s wreckage. Half a dozen primaraptors now streaked toward them, their fur bright red under the moonlight, and clearly weren’t concerned with stealth in their enthusiasm to avenge the destruction of their nest.

  Troops fired, and the first couple of mutants fell. Those remaining began to weave from side to side to make difficult targets. They raced into the foliage nearby and emerged again and generally returned to their usual tricks. A few even jumped up and down as they advanced, which looked entirely odd but did make them harder to shoot.

  “Get those guns ready!” he ordered. The APCs were equipped with heavy machine guns and even flamethrowers, but the crews might not be able to bring them to bear in time. The attackers would be upon them in seconds.

  Suddenly, and seemingly from out of nowhere, a primaraptor swooped down, bowled into Grün, and knocked him onto his back. He dropped his rifle.

  Jan also f
ell, as alarmed by what was about to happen to his leg as he was by the fact that a creature had snuck up on them so effectively. Some of his weight came down on his injured right calf and the pain was so intense that his vision clouded. He blacked out.

  It seemed only an instant later, though, that he came to. He lay on his back in the grass, his pistol half a meter from his hand, and terror surged through him at the sight before him.

  The monster had cornered Laura, pinned her to the side of the APC with its hands, and opened its fanged jaws in her face. There was no way he could act in time to save her.

  “Beißen Sie dies,” said Klaus. The raptor turned its head to look at him.

  An automatic shotgun boomed. The barrels rotated in his hands and the primaraptor catapulted away into a midair backflip as its head shattered and a giant blood-spewing crater opened between its blasted ribs.

  Jan stared in amazement. He hadn’t thought the man would be capable of handling a rifle right now, much less a shotgun.

  “Guten tag,” he said to Laura in a weak, ragged voice. “I am Hauptmann Klaus Grossman. Someone may have told you that I am an arschloch.” He extended a big, powerful hand.

  Laura took the hand in her own. “No, and I wouldn’t have guessed. Not that I know what ‘arschloch’ means, but I have a fairly good idea. Thank you, and nice to meet you, Klaus. I’m Dr. Laura Curie.”

  Jan took a deep breath as Soldat Grün came to help him to his feet. Or foot, rather. Around them, fires burned and gunfire faltered. The troops must have activated the flamethrowers and neutralized the remainder of the primaraptors.

  He looked at Laura and Klaus. “It’s so nice to see the two of you finally acquainted,” he remarked.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  “You took three armored personnel vehicles?” Ernest said in disbelief, quite obviously aghast with horror.