There was no sign of activity at the mines, up the hill from the gate. Night was falling, and it was becoming difficult to see in the pale light of Durin II’s twin moons. The air held a tinge of…something, as Neill stared up toward the mines.
“Boss…” Robbins called to him. “I don’t think going up there is a good idea.”
“Yeah,” Dustin added, “I heard that colonel say he was sending CASPers out here. I think we should wait for them and let them handle this one. It’s okay, boss, the cavalry is here now. You can relax a little.”
Neill frowned at the two men. They already saw him as subordinate to Colonel Travis, and that wasn’t fair. The only difference between him and Travis was the mech suits. His group would have fared just as well if they’d been armed like the mercs, and if that had been the case, nobody would be questioning his authority to lead or looking at him with pity, the way these two were. Instead, they would be showing him every bit of the respect he deserved. Neill sighed. Maybe it was best to just let Travis take over and get the victory…or take credit for the defeat if that’s how things went.
Neill had desperately wanted to examine the scene of the attack personally before the heavy mecha showed up. His gut told him that Robbins and Dustin were right, though. Going up there with just the weapons they had was suicide, if the damage done to the fence was any indication of how many monsters had come out of the mines during the attack. One or two, they might be able to handle if they were lucky. More than that, and they were likely as dead as poor Dillard and the last of the miners who’d been working this evening.
The guard shack wasn’t too far inside the fence. Neill figured it was worth the risk, given the situation, and decided to check it out. Through his field glasses, it looked like an oversized coffin, stained with the blood of the man who had died inside: Dillard, the young recruit who wanted to go home. Neill could only imagine how the boy’s parents would feel when the remaining parts and pieces of their son returned home in a body bag. The thought made him angry.
“Dustin, get this gate open,” Neill barked. “Robbins, Roja, keep him covered. Shoot anything that moves, except me. This is our mess to clean up. Not Travis’.”
The two men took up positions that gave them a wide field of view, one on each side of the shack, as Dustin struggled to unlock the gate. Robbins carried a shotgun like Neill, while Roja had only his sidearm. Against most threats, the firearms would have been sufficient, but they still didn’t know what they were truly up against. Their eyes were wide, and their breathing heavy; it was clear they were spooked. The sound of something howling in the distance didn’t help.
“It won’t budge,” Dustin said, putting his weight into the job. The gate, however, remained in place.
“Power’s offline, moron,” Robbins said, pointing at the LED indicator that should have been glowing green.
“Fine,” Dustin grunted. “Let’s just get it open. The sooner we’re done, the sooner we can get back to The Sanctuary and let the mercs handle this.”
With a little skill, a lot of cursing, and some luck, Dustin fumbled with the mechanics of the gate latch until he was able to trigger its release, and the lock popped open with an audible click. Neill was the first one through, with Dustin following reluctantly after him. Robbins and Roja held their positions.
From afar, the guard shack looked like a can of brown paint had exploded inside. Up close, it was much, much worse. At the base of the mountains, a cool breeze carried the stink of death and wafted it like a war perfume. Neill put his hand over his nose and mouth to block out the stench, but it was a stopgap measure.
“Easy, old boy,” he told himself. “The last thing Travis needs to hear is that you lost your lunch out here on the front line.”
As he and Dustin approached it, Neill could see that the guard shack’s window had been shattered. Its door hung at an angle, dangling from its last intact hinge. Neill motioned for Dustin to hang back as he brought up the barrel of his shotgun and crept up to the shack’s doorway. Peering inside, he saw what was left of Dillard and two other men on the floor of the shack. In their current state of dismemberment, they were barely recognizable as human. The two men appeared to have entered the shack to collect Dillard’s corpse, but that was as far as the miners had made it. There was a body-bag resting on the floor near one of them, with the hand of a severed arm still clutching it tightly. Clearly, the attack on Dillard had just been the beginning, and the creatures had returned to finish the miners on their second round.
Seeing the shack was clear, Neill motioned for Dustin. “Get in there and bag up what you can of Dillard. I’ll be damned if I’m not at least sending something of him home to his family.”
Dustin had turned a sickly shade of green and looked on the verge of being sick as he saw the mess of scattered body parts, split entrails, and blood-smeared walls of the shack’s interior. To his credit, though, he managed to keep it together as he put on a pair of gloves. Neill watched as Dustin picked up the blood-soaked bag the two workers had carried in with them and stuffed some pieces of Dillard into it.
“Make sure to get his head,” Neill told Dustin, trying not to think too much about the order as he gave it.
“Got all I can, sir,” Dustin said after a few moments of grisly work. Neill knew there was plenty of room left in the body bag, but he wasn’t going to push the issue. Both of them had been through enough already. Besides, he wasn’t the one up to his elbows in the remains of another human being. He made a mental note to promote Dustin at some point, if they made it out of this alive. The recruit had waded into all the blood and muck without hesitation and followed orders. That was a sign of bravery and loyalty, both good qualities to have.
“Good,” Neill nodded. “Let’s get out of here before the things that did this decide they’re still hungry.”
They left the shack, starting back for the gate as another shrill cry rang out in the darkness from the hill above them. It was answered by another…and then another. A chorus of inhuman voices seemed to come from everywhere at once.
“Run for it!” Neill shouted, his cautious walk turning into an all-out sprint for the gate, and the jeeps waiting beyond it. The body bag swung at Dustin’s side as he tried to match Neill’s pace.
Robbins and Roja opened fire at something behind him. Neill didn’t dare glance over his shoulder to see what they were shooting at. Instead, he pushed his legs even harder, and his breath came in ragged gasps. He briefly regretted not working out more, but there was nothing he could do about it now.
Someone shouted in the amplified voice of a CASPer, “Get down!”
Neill threw himself to the ground as the cracks! of the CASPers’ magnetic accelerator cannons overpowered the sound of the small arms fire a fraction of a second later. The roar was felt as much as heard, and sounded like the mercs were using thunderbolts instead of artillery. The skies directly above them were lit with a man-made thunderstorm that rained death and destruction. Neill kept his face buried in the alien soil until the barrage of MAC fire fell silent. Only then did he finally look back toward the guard shack to see what had been on his heels. The corpses of three creatures twitched in their death throes on the ground, not ten feet from where he lay.
None of the creatures were exactly alike, but they were all bipedal and human-shaped. There the resemblance to anything human ended. Their bodies were covered in scales as dark as the ore Father Valero’s men had been mining, and the razor-like claws of their hands gleamed in the dim moonlight, still sticky with the blood of the men they’d killed.
The dead, sightless eyes of the fiends were yellow, cat-like, and seemed to track them even though there was no light in their gaze. These were the stuff of nightmares, and Neill wasn’t sure he would be able to sleep again for a while. He hoped he’d be able to erase the sight of those cold, feline eyes from his brain. It wasn’t likely.
“Commander!” Neill could barely hear Robbins shouting as he ran to help him to his feet. “Are
you okay, sir?”
“I’m fine,” Neill grunted. “Help Dustin up, and let’s get out of here.”
Robbins looked at him as if he had gone insane. “Dustin didn’t make it, sir.”
Neill fully turned toward the guard shack, and saw that Dustin lay in an expanding puddle of his own blood. One of the monsters had overtaken him as they ran, and put a clawed hand straight through the center of his back. Although it was a fatalistic view of the occupation he had chosen, Neill couldn’t help thinking that this was the reward you received for being brave. So much for Dustin’s promotion. So much for the rest of Dustin’s life.
“Mother of God,” Neill breathed, rubbing at his face in disbelief. How had things gotten so bad so quickly?
“If Major Bowie and his men hadn’t shown up when they did…” Robbins stammered.
“Forget about it,” Neill grunted, walking over to where Dustin lay to collect the body bag the man had been carrying. He shoved it into Robbins’ hands. “This is what’s left of Dillard. See to it that it gets sent to his family.”
Before Robbins could say anything else, a hulking Mark VIII CASPer with the insignia of crossed knives on its right shoulder stepped up to them.
“You’re lucky to be alive, Commander,” the man inside the CASPer told him. “I’m Major Bowie, second in command of the Marauders.”
“I guess I should say thank you,” Neill replied, instinctively extending his hand in friendship then realizing that it was a futile gesture.
“Just doing our job,” Bowie replied, his voice coming through the comm. “We’re paid to keep you safe.”
Neill bristled. That was the same reason he was being paid. Obviously, he had failed. So far, the mercs hadn’t.
The CASPer extended a metal finger toward the corpses of the creatures. “I need your men to collect one of the creatures. We need to study it and see what makes it tick. Learn what we’re up against. The colonel is going to want a look at these.”
* * *
Sawyer had long since left the surface of Durin II. The supplies she’d carried had been offloaded and moved into The Sanctuary, but there was still a great deal of work to be done. Major Robert Evans, the company’s ordnance officer, and his assistant Lieutenant Blair, were busy getting spaces set up for the unit’s CASPers, heavy weapons, and ammo. This was no small feat when you considered that they were having to use a church as their base of operations.
Large stands of lights were positioned around The Sanctuary’s spaceport, which they were converting into a repair and storage area. Somehow the colonel expected them to have it all done before sunrise, which meant there was no choice but to make it happen. The colonel wasn’t big on excuses.
Major Evans barked orders at the unit’s small team of CASPer techs, and they scrambled like ants from a gasoline-soaked anthill. Lieutenant Blair, meanwhile, watched Major Bowie’s squad heading toward the command center Colonel Travis had set up in the spaceport’s control tower. Two jeeps belonging to the colony’s security force accompanied them. One of the jeeps carried something large and tarp-covered in its rear cargo space. Blair saw the jeeps pull up to the newly established command center. Colonel Travis and Dr. Amos Polland, the unit’s medical officer, came out to meet it, walking at a pace that suggested they were on an urgent mission and wouldn’t be deterred.
The jeep with the tarp-covered heap pulled forward so that men waiting nearby could unload it, and Blair gasped as he saw an oily, scale-covered hand slip out from beneath the heavy industrial plastic. It immediately reminded him of the warning he had received.
Only death can be found on Durin II.
The cryptic message Blair had received before Sawyer arrived on Durin II continued to haunt him. He hadn’t told anyone about it. Who did you report something like that to anyway? The colonel was too busy, and unless it had to do with the unit’s CASPers and ordnance, Major Evans wasn’t going to care.
The comm signal had come from an untraceable source and then erased itself from the logs. He didn’t have any proof it had ever even existed, and yet, he had no reason to question it. Lots of people had been dying on Durin II as of late. That’s why he and his unit were here. You didn’t have to be a genius to realize that the death that might be found on this frontier planet would probably come at the hands of creatures like the one under the tarp.
Blair tore his gaze away from the blood-caked alien claw and the scene unfolding outside the command center to see a strange man walking toward him. The man wore a brown leather jacket and was grinning from ear to ear. The smile alone was enough to put Blair on guard. Smiles, and happiness in general, were in short supply. Besides, he had spoken to several of the colonists living in The Sanctuary, and this guy stuck out like a sore thumb. He certainly wasn’t one of the colonists who had been drafted into helping them get things set up.
“What’s going on over there?” the man asked, sticking a thumb out toward the squad of CASPers and those gathered in front of the command center.
“Uh…Who exactly are you?” Blair frowned.
“Name’s Crockett.” The man grinned at him. “I’m sure you’ve noticed the transport docked at the rear of this port. That’s my ship, the Bear.”
“So, you’re not a colonist?” Blair stared at Crockett.
“Nope.” Crockett shook his head.
“I thought this world was off limits to pretty much everyone who wasn’t of Father Valero’s faith,” Blair said.
“I said my name is Crockett, kid, as in David Crockett. Maybe you’ve heard of me.” The strange man looked at him expectantly, as if a flash of recognition should strike him at any moment.
“Should I know you from somewhere?” Blair asked.
Crockett sighed. “I guess not. It’s a pretty big galaxy out there, after all.”
“Look, if you’re not part of the volunteers helping us get settled in you really shouldn’t be here,” Blair said. “This isn’t a place for civilians.”
Crockett laughed. “Last I heard this was a free world, kid, and I’m about as far from a civilian as you can get. These colonists may seem like nut jobs, but they like their liberty. Father Valero gave me his permission to trade here, so I figure that means I can go wherever the devil I want as long as I’m not causing problems.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, Mr. Crockett, Colonel Travis is in charge around here now, until our contract with the colonists is fulfilled. That means his rules, not Father Valero’s, apply. The last thing we need is someone else to look after. We have enough people to defend around here.”
“It appears my reputation definitely doesn’t precede me,” Crockett said with a lopsided grin. “But that’s ok. You’ll learn about me soon enough I think.”
“Just stay out of the way, Mr. Crockett. I’m asking you nicely.”
“Or what? Martial law and all that, I guess. I get it, kid; I just don’t care. Now, you still haven’t answered my question. What’s going on over there?”
“I don’t know any more than you do, Mr. Crockett, but I suggest you either start helping or get out of here before Major Evans notices you.”
“Too late for that, kid,” Crockett said as Evans came storming toward them.
“Who is this and what he is doing here?” Major Evans asked.
“He says his name is David Crockett, sir,” Blair reported. “He’s apparently some kind of trader.”
Major Evans’ eyes widened, and his expression softened. Rage turned into fascination. He looked Crockett up and down, examining him like a kid meeting his favorite superhero in the flesh. “You’re really him, aren’t you?”
“I am,” Crockett smirked at Blair. “At least somebody on this rock has heard of me.”
To Blair’s surprise, Major Evans extended his hand to Crockett. “It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Crockett. I’ve read all about your travels.”
Crockett winked at Blair as he shook Major Evans’s hand and released it. “See kid? Some folks do read.”
“
I read,” Blair protested grumpily.
“Blair,” Major Evans snapped. “Drop whatever it is you’re doing, and take Mr. Crockett here to see the colonel. Colonel Travis is going to want to meet him.”
“Yes, sir,” Blair managed, still trying to figure out why Crockett was so important.
“It was truly an honor to meet you, Mr. Crockett,” Major Evans said. “I hope we get a chance to talk before you depart.”
Major Evans spotted a volunteer carrying a case of repair parts in a manner he didn’t like and took off toward the man, yelling as he went.
“Guess you’re stuck with me, kid,” Crockett said as his smirk grew even wider.
“Right, then,” Blair nodded, ignoring Crockett’s annoying manner. “I guess we’ll both be finding out what’s going on over there.”
Crockett followed as Blair led him across the spaceport to the colonel.
* * *
Commander Neill and Robbins got out of the jeep. Robbins raced away, carrying the bag of Dillard’s remains, eager to be rid of its grisly contents. Colonel Travis and another man had emerged from the command center the mercenaries had set up, and Neill headed to meet them. They had been in radio contact since the incident at the mines, and the colonel was expecting them. Travis was eager to get a close-up look at one of the monsters that had brought him and his unit to Durin II. Neill thought the colonel might reconsider once he saw one of them up close.
“Neill,” Colonel Travis nodded at him. “Good to see you made it back alive.”
Neill let it slide that the colonel didn’t use his rank. There were far more important matters that needed attending to. Still, it rankled. Maybe he should start addressing the colonel as Travis to even the playing field a little. He knew he was being petty, thinking about pulling rank. Still, he couldn’t shake his intense dislike for the man.
“This is Dr. Polland,” Colonel Travis said, introducing the tall, lanky man standing next to him. “He’s the closest thing we have on hand to a scientist. If anyone can tell us what the things we’re dealing with are, it’s him.”
CASPer Alamo Page 4
