“We’re good to go here, sir,” Rai answered, “except the squad that went to check on Alpha Breaker hasn’t returned.”
“Who gave the order for that?” Colonel Hendershot demanded.
“Simon asked if he could take a squad, sir. I approved it. He took one of my CASPers with him,” Rai could tell the colonel wasn’t happy about it.
“We expected losses on the way down, Lieutenant,” Colonel Hendershot said with sadness in his voice. “And we don’t have time to wait around. We should be hauling butt into the woods toward the target area already. If that squad isn’t back in five minutes, you tell Kennedy to get Alpha Banger airborne and to return to Byrne A.S.A.P.”
“Yes, sir,” Rai snapped.
“We’re moving out in five, Rai,” Colonel Hendershot repeated. “I need your CASPers in the lead, since we don’t really know what’s waiting for us out there.”
“We will be, sir,” Rai confirmed. “Any word on whether Robert’s Guard took losses on the way down or not?”
Colonel Hendershot snorted over the comm. “Two dropships,” he told her. “So much for their top-of-the-line crap doing them any good here.”
“Understood,” Rai said, and turned her attention to the CASPers under her command.
“Everyone form up. Scouts in the lead,” she ordered over the general comm channel.
Rai took a final look around for Simon and the squad he had taken, but they were nowhere to be found. Both she and Kennedy made a final attempt to contact him by comm, but they got no response. The EM storms above were still raging, and even the comm chatter inside the drop zone held an edge of static. Depending on just how far Simon and his squad had ventured out, it was possible the storms were scrambling their attempts to reach him. In any case, they couldn’t afford to wait any longer.
Kennedy looked heartbroken as she ordered him to get Alpha Banger in the air. He and Simon had worked together for so long they were like brothers. Kennedy didn’t protest the order she gave him though. He knew death was part of the line of work he was in. No one was ever safe in the field. A random bullet, a messed-up landing—pretty much anything could take you out, no matter who you were or how tough. It was just the nature of the beast.
She was upset about Simon, too. She hadn’t been as close to him as Kennedy, but she knew the kind of pilot he was, and that he would be sorely missed. Still, she had her orders, and there was nothing she could do about it. She shoved the thought into the back of her mind.
“Hellhounds, move out!” Colonel Hendershot yelled over the general comm, and the unit got moving, with the CASPers taking point.
* * *
Simon and Williams ran through the jungle like the devil himself was chasing them. They had cut a pretty impressive path through the undergrowth during their trek to Alpha Breaker, and heading back through the treacherous terrain wasn’t nearly as difficult. The forest, however, now had a maze-like quality, with each twist and turn carved out as they ran headlong into the thicket like mice in search of the exit. Make all of the right turns and get back to safety; take a wrong turn and end up impaled on a native spear.
What made it so difficult to traverse wasn’t just the density of the scrub, but the root systems of the uncatalogued plants that snaked above the ground, spiderwebbing outward in many directions. Both men were agile and fleet-footed from months of physical training, but trying to avoid all the root tangles was like trying to complete an obstacle course designed by the founder of the Hellhounds himself, who was known for making the physical requirements for entry nearly impossible to meet.
Both men vividly remembered the drills and how they’d needed to ice their feet at the end of each day. After completing a rigorous round of training, their bodies would be a canvas of bruising, cuts, and scratches. This was similar—they were bleeding in a dozen places where branches and thorns had lashed out, snagging their flesh.
They had made it then, however, and they would make it now. Hellhounds didn’t fail. At anything.
“Any sign of those things?” Williams gasped, glancing over his shoulder as he hurdled a particularly gnarly entanglement of roots from a tree that interstellar botanists had catalogued as a Ganglion tree, given the way the root system resembled a network of nerves.
Simon struggled for breath. “I don’t think so,” he said. “Maybe we lost them.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Williams said. “We have to keep going. We need to get back to the others.”
“We should have all been in CASPers,” Simon said. “If I had just ordered that to begin with, we might have stood a chance.”
“Don’t think so,” Williams said, slowing his pace to a comfortable jog instead of an all-out sprint. “Look what happened to Norman. He was suited up.”
“Maybe,” Simon conceded. “Still, I guess I’d feel better if I knew there was nothing else I could have done.”
“There was nothing—”
Williams’ reply ended with an audible grunt and a cry of pain. Simon stopped and immediately realized why. Williams’ foot had gotten entangled in a patch of root and he’d tripped. He clutched his ankle as he rocked back and forth, his face a twisted mask of agony and fear. Sweat dripped down his face, partly from the heat and humidity, and partly from the injury he’d sustained.
“Is it broken?” Simon asked. “Can you move it?”
“I’m not sure,” Williams whispered. His face was a ghostly shade.
Simon knelt and helped Williams extract his boot from the bear-trap-like hold the roots had on his foot. Although he wasn’t a doctor, and didn’t have the benefit of medical technology to diagnose Williams, it was clear from the strange angle of his foot the ankle was broken.
“This is probably going to hurt,” Simon said. “Just try not to scream. We don’t want to tell those devils where we are.”
“I’ll do my best,” Williams said. However, his resolve wasn’t as strong as he’d imagined. He howled as Simon gingerly moved his ankle, inadvertently grinding the broken bones together. “Ok, ok. It’s broken, Simon,” he said. “Broken, in this case, is code for ‘we’re screwed.’”
Simon took out his comm unit and tried to turn it on to call for help. The display didn’t light up. He smacked it a couple of times, hoping it would come to life. He hadn’t used it since they came through those EM storms, and wasn’t sure whether it had sustained any damage or not. Even the hardened circuitry was no match for the electromagnetic charge the clouds carried.
“Where is your comm unit?” Simon asked. “We’ll call for help. Mine is dead—I think the storms fried it.”
Williams rummaged in his pocket for a few seconds, finally bringing out a broken, mangled device that would be good for nothing but spare parts.
“I must have broken it during the fall,” he said. “You’ll just have to go on without me. Get help and come back.”
“I can’t leave you here,” Simon said. “Those things are out here. I can carry you out.”
“No,” Williams said. “With me on your back, you’ll end up tripping over one of those roots like I did and killing us both.”
“I’m not leaving you,” Simon said.
“Help me up then,” Williams said. “I’ll limp out of here if I have to.”
Simon nodded and got under Williams’ arm. “On three,” he said. “One, two, three.”
With a lot of grunting and cursing from Williams, they got the injured man to his feet. It was like watching the start of a three-legged race.
Williams gingerly put weight on his foot and nearly fell; the pain was excruciating. “Put me down,” he said as beads of sweat rolled down his face. “This isn’t going to work.”
Simon lowered the man back down. Williams hissed in pain and clutched at Simon’s arm. Williams didn’t loosen his grip even when he was back on the ground. Simon realized why when he looked up and saw that they were surrounded by the biggest, ugliest humanoid creatures he had ever seen.
Huge, hulking, and vicious, the bea
sts had encircled them without them realizing it. Heavily muscled and standing eight feet tall, the creatures looked like devils, with glowing eyes, teeth like railroad spikes, and claws that were a match for any man-made knife. Yet it was the weaponry they carried that truly made both men realize that these savages were more than bloodlust.
The blades were intricate, with etched designs and bone handles that had been carved into totems. They were works of art as much as killing tools. But just when you accepted that fact, and realized that maybe these humanoids were more civilized than they had given them credit for, the gruesome souvenirs on their belts said otherwise. Severed hands, ears, and feet dangled from hooks like trophies, tally marks to account for the number of men they had murdered.
One of the beasts, however, stood taller than the others. Towering over them, the devil must have been at least ten feet tall, with thick layers of muscle, legs like tree trunks, arms like boa constrictors, and glowing eyes that looked like they were capable of peering into a man’s soul, burning him up from the inside out. He had forsaken the practice of taking the usual trophies the other devils were fond of. Instead, he had taken Norman’s head and secured it to his belt.
“Don’t hurt us,” Simon said, holding his hands up in front of him.
The chief lifted his frightening face to the sky and howled. The other devils followed suit, sounding like a pack of hyenas.
Then, the chief did something that defied explanation. He approached Simon and Williams and knelt down beside them, sniffing the men, leaning in to study them. His breath stank of raw meat, and his gaze carried a certain weight to it that held both men in place. He gave off a foul odor that was wild, primordial, and cloying. Even kneeling, the savage towered over them. Norman’s head, which was secured to his belt by a hook, dangled in front of their faces, staring back at them in lifeless horror.
“Dear Lord,” Simon said as he watched Norman’s head move and sway.
It wasn’t clear why the chief was studying them. Maybe he was trying to decide if they were a threat or not. Maybe he was trying to decide if they would make good trophies for his home. With a long, dirty finger, he poked Williams in the arm. Williams tried not to make any sudden movements, but it was clear that he was repulsed by the chief and his examinations.
At last, after some poking and prodding, the savage seemed convinced that neither of the men were a threat. He stood up, looming over them, Norman’s head still swaying from the hook on his belt. With a grunt, he reached down and grabbed Simon by the collar of his flight suit, lifting him up off the ground like a child’s toy. Simon flailed and struggled, frightened, yet unwilling to cry out for fear of angering the chief. His disabled comm unit fell from his pocket and struck a rock. Inexplicably, the accident did what Simon had been unable to do, and the device came to life, lighting up and blaring loud, raucous static.
The chief howled and tossed Simon to the side as someone from Kennedy’s unit shouted in a loud, nervous, static-heavy voice: “Simon, are you there? Simon, can you read me?”
The chief’s cry prompted a similar result from the rest of the pack. They all howled and cackled, pulling out their knives with the artistic handles and etched blades that were civilized in their look but savage in their purpose.
“Please, God,” Williams said as the savages advanced on him and Simon.
The devils chattered and giggled maniacally as they fell upon the men. The only soundtrack to this gruesome movie was the static from the comm unit and the screams of Simon and Williams as they died in pain, adding two more trophies to the chief’s belt.
* * *
It hadn’t been easy, but Rai had finally written the missing squad off in her mind. Leaving anyone behind, regardless of the reason, always really stung. Thankfully, she had a lot to take her mind away from her emotions. The Hellhounds were on the move.
The column of CASPers marched through the woods with the unit’s infantry following in their wake. The path they moved along was a clear one for this area of the planet. Rai suspected it had once been a river bed, but some shift in the world’s climate had left it nothing more than a dry canyon for her troops to exploit. If only everything else in this mission was as easy as finding a route this open and accessible…
Rai had all of her CASPers running continuous sweeps of the area ahead and around them, keeping an eye out for any sign of the natives they’d been sent to kill. So far, there was no sign of the creatures. It was only a matter of time though. Each passing hour carried them closer to the center of the natives’ territory.
Undoubtedly, the devils had spies on the lookout for intruders in every corner of the forest, and would spot them long before they made it to the enemy’s camp. Eventually, the creatures were going to have to make their move if they were planning to stop the column from reaching its goal. She kept her eyes peeled and her scanners on alert.
“Rai, I got—” Kylie called to her over her suit’s comm. Her transmission was broken by static.
Although Rai knew she couldn’t let the conversation she’d had with Kylie color her decisions or her judgment, she still felt uneasy and responsible for Kylie’s presence. Maybe she should have encouraged her to stay behind, given her current condition; however, she knew Kylie well enough to realize that she probably wouldn’t have gone along with it.
“Repeat that,” Rai said. “You’re breaking up. Over.”
“I got movement,” Kylie said, this time coming through loud and clear.
“Steady,” Rai said over her comm. “Nobody jump the gun.”
Kylie was in the CASPer next to her own near the head of the column. As much as Rai had wanted to lead the column herself, she knew that was a bad tactical move. If something happened to her, Peterson would take over, and she didn’t think the rest of the CASPers would survive.
Peterson was a fine officer and a competent guy, but he was a ground pounder and didn’t know squat about commanding CASPers. As the next senior officer present, though, command would fall to him, infantry or not. That simple fact alone was enough to drive her to stay alive at all costs. In Peterson’s less than capable hands, the squad would likely be annihilated. They needed her. Or so she liked to think.
“Where?” Rai demanded. “My scans haven’t picked up anything. Anybody else got a blip?”
“Nothing,” a few of the other pilots muttered.
“Uh…” Kylie hesitated as if she didn’t believe what her suit was telling her. “Rai…”
“What? Where are they, Kylie?”
“Everywhere,” Kylie said at last.
The hair on the back of Rai’s neck stood up as her instincts kicked in and took over. “This is it, folks!” she yelled over the unit’s general comm channel. “Keep it together. Control your fire and make sure you hit what you’re aiming for! I think they’ve been waiting for us. The red carpet should be rolled out any minute. Wait for it.”
Even as Rai gave the order, all hell broke loose behind her in the middle of the CASPer column. Waves of spears flew out of the trees overlooking the canyon. Rai watched in horror as several of the spears hit their targets. Only they didn’t just bounce away from their armor like everyone expected. Instead, the spears pierced the suits, skewering the troopers inside like insects pinned to a board. CASPers flopped to the ground with long shafts protruding from their chests, and men and women screamed throughout the column. No one had expected the creatures might be strong enough to hurt a fully-armored trooper in a CASPer, but they were. The downed suits, shooting sparks and leaking blood and coolant, proved it.
The return fire came fast and hard as Rai opened up on the ridge above her position with her suit’s MAC. A cacophony of gunfire rang out as high-velocity rounds blew apart trees and raked the woods. For every cloud of smoke and debris, there should have been a dead native. But the devils were well hidden. They knew the place well. This was their home, and the element of surprise was theirs.
After a moment, Rai shouted, “Hold your fire!”
The gun and cannon fire died down and fell silent. The tops of the trees above the canyon were on fire. The ridgeline trees were little more than splinters and shredded stumps, but Rai couldn’t tell if they’d hit a single one of the creatures that had been hiding in them. The forest was quiet, unwilling to betray its own.
“How many did we lose?” Rai barked at Summers.
“We’ve got seven CASPers down, sir!” Summers reported. “Six of them with dead pilots!”
“Frag me,” Rai muttered to herself. Summers must have heard her.
“Say again, sir?” he asked. “I didn’t quite get that.”
If these things could really hurt CASPers (and it was obvious they could), then being caught in such a spread-out formation along the riverbed was suicide. She would never have led her men into it if she had truly believed the natives were a credible threat. Rai did her best to hold it together. Panicking wasn’t going to help matters and would likely get them all killed.
“What about Peterson’s men?” Rai asked Summers.
“The infantry wasn’t targeted in this attack,” he answered, “It appears to have been aimed solely at us.”
Rai remembered there had been some CASPers with the initial survey team that had been wiped out. Could these creatures be smart enough to remember those CASPers and learn from their encounter with them? The odds of the Hellhounds’ survival on this contract were decreasing with every tiny bit she learned about the creatures.
The pounding of drums rang out along the ridge of the riverbed. The crude rhythm of the drums rolled like a chorus of thunder as a cacophony of shrieking voices joined it. The howls and cries were far more animalistic in nature than anything human.
“We need to get out of here,” Kylie urged Rai, snapping her back into action.
“There’s nowhere to run,” Rai said, “If we try to retreat we’ll just pile into Peterson’s men. There’s no room to maneuver down here. We’re just going to have to dig in and make our stand here.”
CASPer Alamo Page 15
