“And there was clearly some kind of firefight outside with other infected Marines. There was some kind of insurrection. And our guy right there managed to fight his way to the inside of the bunker and lock himself in, even though he knew that when the infection changed his genome, he would no longer be able to open the door again. It must have been his final act,” Dane reasoned. “And that means that he, our guy who damn near sliced us to bits a moment ago, started corrupting the files himself, as a final act before he turned completely.”
“But . . . why would he do that?” Bruce said in a low voice.
In the dim gloom of the control bunker, it was Hopskirk who answered him. “Because maybe he didn’t want anything to remain of the mission . . . Maybe he was trying to make sure that no one repeated the mistakes that they made . . .”
A silence fell after Hopskirk said the words, as every Marine in the room considered whether they had just repeated the same mistakes, as well . . .
“Bruce, is there anything you can pick up on what this device is Honshou was talking about?”
Cheng shrugged. In front of him was a wall of code that looked impenetrable. “Not without some serious computing power,” he said. “I’ll forward the base files to the Gladius. Maybe with the extra server capacity on the ship, Corsoni will be able to get something out of it,” the big man said, before uttering an uncharacteristic snarl of frustration. “Why didn’t they leave a proper SOS or status reports!?” He thumped the control desk, for the lines of code to glitch a little.
“Hey, easy . . .” Dane said. This mission was getting on everyone’s nerves. Maybe it was the notion that any of them might be turned into slavering mutant monsters by the end of it . . .
“Forward the files. It’s a good idea.” Dane looked up. Hopskirk was still looking at the glitch noise recordings of Professor Honshou, glaring at them hard as if by will alone he could force them to reveal their secret doom. Dane checked his internal time.
Two point four Earth hours until the gate re-opened.
Dane heaved a sigh. He didn’t like mysteries. He didn’t like not knowing just what sort of mess he was already in. On his HUD, he could make out the orbital landscape map of the area around the camp, with the small bouncing marker where the Beacon was supposed to be.
“Okay,” Dane said. “Let’s get on with it then, sergeants. We still have to figure out why the Beacon stopped functioning and fix it if we can.” Dane grunted, already turning back to the door.
7
The Forest
“Guys, I got good news!” Corsoni’s voice met them as they made their way back up through the bunker to the main rooms above and back to the lobby.
“It had better be fracking good . . .” Hopskirk grumbled as he hoisted his rifle to his shoulder before the airlock door.
“Those bat things? They’re still around, but the Gladius’s readings are picking up a whole lot less thermal and biological activity. It’s crazy, but as soon as the sun came up, it looks like they went into a kind of hibernation . . . I can’t promise that they’ll stay asleep when you leave the compound, but . . .”
“Hmph.” Hopskirk made a disagreeing noise. “I’ll believe that when I see it,” he muttered.
Dane didn’t correct him—the guy had a right to be feeling uptight, as he was now the only one of their team who had an open faceplate to the elements of the alien world. And if there are any floating toxins out there, Dane knew, Hopskirk was going to be the first to get it.
“Good news, Corsoni,” Dane murmured, taking the point position by the door as Bruce settled his gauntleted fists on the door handles . . .
>Private Channel / Corsoni . . .
Dane shut down his mike and opened a private comms to the pilot of the Gladius in a few small movements. He didn’t want Bruce and Hopskirk overhearing what he had to say.
“Champ, what’s up?” Corsoni’s voice came back smaller over the narrowband transmission. “Why the secrecy?”
“I want you to keep an active watch on Hopskirk’s suit readings,” Dane breathed, knowing that the Marines outside wouldn’t be able to hear him, encased as they were inside their own suits, but still feeling somehow disloyal.
“What? This is about that mutant thing, right?”
“Yeah. Don’t do anything. No remote controls. Just keep an active scan going. If there’s any signs of fever or . . . I don’t know . . . something abnormal, I want to know before it becomes a problem,” Dane whispered. Before what? Before he has a chance to turn into a horned man-troll? Dane thought.
“Will do. Are you sure you want him with you on this one? He could be useful back in the ship.” Corsoni sounded worried.
“No,” Dane said immediately. The thought that he would have to try and convince the already cynical Hopskirk that he was a danger to their mission, or might be, filled Dane with a sick feeling. That would only cause more problems, wouldn’t it? “No,” he said again, this time a little more firmly. “I want him nearby. That way we can look after him, in case . . .”
“Okey-doke, champ. I’m just the ride. You’re the ones who have to go out and shoot stuff . . .” the pilot clicked off. He hadn’t sounded convinced, and Dane didn’t particularly think he himself was, either.
But no one was going to get left behind, Dane reminded himself once again, before nodding to Bruce to activate the door.
>Expedition 892 . . . MARINE ID ACCEPTED . . .
The door hissed open to a dazzle of bright light, and Dane’s faceplate phased a shade darker to accommodate for it. The sun of Planet 892 was bright, and Dane thought that it was even brighter than Earth’s own middle-life star.
“Ready! Go, go, go!” Bruce still held onto one of the door handles, in case he had to slam the door closed at the first sign of a murderous horde of biting, winged things.
But there they were. Dane blinked, seeing the slow flap and shuffle of their dark wings around the edge of the door frame and lintel, and even the slow jostle as some of the alien bodies had to reposition themselves. As Dane watched, one of the bat-creatures slid from where it had been clutching the edge of the door to half flap its wings and fall to the floor in a heap. For a second, Dane thought that it was dead, until he saw it twitching slowly, sleepily, making small biting movements with its jaws and folding its wings over its head as it slumped to one side.
“Thank heavens for that . . .” Dane breathed, stepping forward carefully over the body to the outside. Behind him, Hopskirk and Bruce did the same, moving slowly so as not to disturb the half-asleep creatures until they were on the wide and rough patch of open camp ground, with the Gladius sitting right in front of them.
With what looked like a mottled shirt of more of the creatures, furring its hull in small colonies.
“Holy sheee . . .” Hopskirk breathed. The bat-things were just as stilled as the ones that clutched at the bunker, but Dane could tell what had alarmed the injured Marine. There had to be at least a hundred of the things there on the ship, perhaps several hundred.
“We haven’t got time to spare, people,” the larger Marine Bruce Cheng growled at them.
Gee, he has been in a foul mood this whole mission! Dane thought. But then again, he also considered that maybe the big man had reason to be on edge. This mission hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park, had it?
“We have to make sure we’re back and under cover before night time,” Dane agreed with a shiver of apprehension. He really didn’t want to be trekking in the dark through the jungle when those things were active again.
The Marines didn’t argue as they set out across the camp grounds towards the gap in the embankment wall.
The glimmering marker of the Beacon bounced merrily in the upper left corner of Dane’s HUD, with a very clear dotted line reaching from his current location to it. Although, that very nice and easy direction did not, in any apparent way, seem to match up to the chaos and confusion of branches, roots, vines, and stranger plant-forms that made up the jungle of Planet 892.
“They’re not trees like, Palm Beach trees, y’know?” Hopskirk muttered as Dane watched him hack aside some more of the vines that snaked in the way ahead.
“You’re not wrong,” Dane breathed, pausing for a moment to look closely at one of the gigantic trunks of tree-rock, which was striated with lines of tiny, organic holes. At first, he thought that it was the work of some kind of beetle, and then when he looked a little closer, he realized that it was the tree itself that had made them. What, breathing vents? he realized when he heard a faint, tiny whistling sound move through the vents, before turning to catch up with the others.
Some aspects were the same. The colors of the leaves were green, even if the many fronds weren’t in any usual teardrop shape, but rather clusters of long and thin fingers that faintly reminded Dane of gills or tentacles . . .
“Hey, wait up!” Hopskirk was calling, distracting Dane momentarily from his investigations. He saw that the younger Marine was struggling to keep up with the marching Bruce ahead.
“Formation, people,” Dane breathed over the suit comms—not hearing any response from the others.
Great. He sighed and picked up his pace under the alien, breathing trees. Some of their branches were so vast, as they undulated overhead, that Dane and the others could have easily walked along these boughs side by side. Intertwining these great old trees were masses of much smaller creeping vine-type things that hung from every available branch, limb, and bough. Sometimes these vines were as large as Dane’s waist (forming tiny trees themselves), and sometimes they were a cloud of tendrils like wires.
They were also hard work to chop through. Dane had to agree with Hopskirk as he swung his Field Blade to sever another two and got the blade wedged into the side of another one.
“Dammit!” Dane hissed, yanking and pulling at the blade until it finally freed itself for Dane to step forward.
“Hyurgh!” He heard a sudden gasp of breath.
“Bruce!?” Dane recognized it immediately, looked up—
To see Bruce being carried upwards, already two feet above the ground as vines wrapped themselves around him. He was hanging upside down, with Hopskirk hanging onto his arms and trying to wrestle the guy from the tree’s clutches.
What the . . . ? Dane didn’t have time to be confused as he jumped forward, bounding on one leg and kicking his back thrusters into life as he leapt.
WHOOSH! He felt the sudden kick of power behind him as the twin cannisters of pulse generators burst into an orange-yellow glow, and he was thrown upwards, past Bruce’s body . . .
To sweep his Field-Blade across the vines in a wide arc, severing several of the plant ropes that clutched at him. When cut, they twitched and dripped some sort of ichor or sap as Bruce dropped back to the floor. He was still attached, but only by two, which Hopskirk was dealing with as Dane landed on the far side.
“Kreeee-eeee!” And a terrible keening erupted high above them in the green-tinged darkness.
“Is that . . . is that the trees?” Hopskirk said in horror as Bruce staggered to his feet, kicking aside the still-twitching vines on the ground around them.
“Kreeee-EEE-eee!”
“I have no idea, but whatever it is,” Dane whispered, looking up to see many of the branches and leaf-forms moving, and all of them looking sinister, “I don’t think that it likes the fact that we just denied it dinner!”
Trees that attack? Trees that moan when struck!? This was almost too much for Dane to even consider. Why hadn’t Professor Honshou warned about that!?
“Come on. I’m not hanging around to find out,” Bruce said, breaking into a jog past an outcrop of tree roots in the same general direction as the Beacon. There was sort of a path here, although, as Dane and Hopskirk followed, Dane thought that it could be more of a trail. Of some creature.
The keening faded away behind them as they kept on moving, and the jungle ahead started to grow darker as less light filtered through from above.
Crack! Dane heard something above like the sound of a snapping branch. He shot a look upwards, but couldn’t see anything beyond green and dark.
Maybe it was just the normal process of trees in an alien jungle, on an alien world . . .
Creak . . . Another groan almost directly overhead as they jogged, zigzagging between trees and around boulders. This time, Dane thought that he saw something. A movement of shadow far above. A flicker of something over the top of his vision.
“Wait! I think . . .” was all that Dane got to say when the next attack hit. A spool of tentacle-like plant vines fell out of the shadows to slap into Hopskirk as he ran, a direct strike.
“Ooof!” Hopskirk went down, covered in the heavy vines before Dane could do anything about it . . .
“Hopskirk!” he shouted, as the wounded Marine was foisted upwards, moving quicker and faster than Bruce had.
“Frack!” Dane didn’t waste a thought as he ignited his pulse thrusters once again, leaping upwards after Hopskirk—but the stolen Marine was rising too fast. Dane missed him, flying past three feet or more underneath to one of the giant boughs of the trees.
“Williams!” Hopskirk shouted in panic over the suit comms as Dane skidded atop the giant tree limb. Bruce was flying upwards on his own jump-thrusters, criss-crossing to another tree limb as Dane had done.
“We go up!” Dane called out, picking his next great branch to land on and leaping outwards as he fired the thrusters. He crossed in the canopy below the rising Hopskirk to catch onto another branch, turn, and jump upwards, like he was climbing a massive set of stairs. Soon, both he and Bruce had to be a hundred feet up in the canopy, and Dane’s muscles were starting to ache and tire—and always, Hopskirk was moving just slightly too fast for them . . .
“Urgh!” And then, there was a sharp noise as Hopskirk reached his destination. Dane looked up as he tensed for his latest jump. He saw some great dark body up there, some shape in chitinous green-and-brown armor . . . A suggestion of articulated legs like a beetle’s, clutching onto one of the giant tree limbs . . .
“Cheng! Williams!” Hopskirk was shouting. Dane made the last jump upwards, catching onto the side of the tree limb highway that the creature and the Marine were on with a powerful thump and hauling himself up to the topside . . .
He could now finally see what held Hopskirk, and it was big. At least three men lying down head to toe might not cover its bulk. The creature was bulbous and fattened, made of many broken and cracked plates—like the Exin body shells, Dane thought—over six stubby, clutching legs.
Its head was broad with two sets of eyes on either side of a bony shell—and it held a giant mouth open, from which spewed the disguised tentacles that Dane had thought of as plant vines—holding Hopskirk inside them and dragging him towards it.
Dane snarled, jumping to grab the barely-visible Hopskirk with one arm as the other swung his Field-Blade down in an arc that cut into the mess of tentacles, severing a handful and releasing a spray of ichor.
“KREEE!” The thing lurched, letting out an awful scream as it drew Hopskirk in closer, one foot and calf already disappearing inside the boiling mass of tentacles.
“DANE!” Hopskirk bellowed as more of the creature’s mouth-tentacles snapped out to slap around Dane’s boots, closing around the arm that held his blade and pulling.
“Get off them!” There was a shout as Bruce arrived, hitting a branch opposite them and rolling along it to come up firing his rifle into the thing’s side. Bright orbs of orange plasma hit the shell and burst apart in sparks, making the creature flinch and react—
It twisted its head, snatching Dane’s blade as it did so and flinging it far out into the canopy as a knot of tentacles formed a whip to strike Dane down . . .
“Ach!”
>Suit impact! Shoulder-plate 70% . . .
Dane overbalanced, spiralling one leg wildly over the edge of the tree limb he was standing on for one terrible, crystalline moment before he fell—
“No!” He hear
d Bruce’s shout, but Dane was already tumbling head over heels towards the forest floor. Scenes of green and brown flashed past him, and his suit’s sensors were screaming with the wind . . .
There! He reached out to snatch a handful of vines—at least, he hoped that they were vines—and half of them broke as he kept on falling, but then he was swinging on the remaining few, rushing through the canopy of trees towards another of the giant tree branches.
Dane twisted his body, reaching with both arms. He let go of the vines to seize onto the giant tree artery, scrabbling as he slid from its surface to the edge. He felt his gauntlets biting and tearing at the strange, whistling bark.
“Argh!” He snarled in pain as, even with all of the shock absorbers and strength assists of his suit, he had plunged his hands into the tree’s “breathing holes” and hung there, panting for a moment.
“Williams!” It was Bruce, far above somewhere, and over the suit’s comms came the dull thuds as he fired his rifle.
“I’m good!” Dane gasped, before he made the mistake of looking down. Still about a hundred feet from the forest floor. Using every iota of strength he had, he dragged himself upwards to the tree limb to grasp onto its top side, turning over to pant. “Hopskirk!? Where’s Hopskirk?” he called.
“Aiiii!” Hopskirk responded with nothing but immediacy.
“They’re on the move! Heading your way!” Bruce was shouting, and Dane could hear the crashing as the giant bug thing leapt from branch to branch with all the speed of a creature in its home environment. Dane could see Hopskirk’s suit identifier marker on his HUD moving with it at the same time, as it continued to hold its hard-won prey.
“I’m following below! Can we head it off?” Dane called, seeing that the branch that he was crouching on appeared to be heading in the same direction. He broke into a sprint, his metal boots slipping a little on the damp bark as he careened as fast as he could.
Metal Warrior: Precious Metal (Mech Fighter Book 5) Page 5
