Dustin laughed. “I killed them. I killed a bunch of them, Ping-Pong. It was glorious.”
“You sound like a love-sick teenager,” Steve joked.
“You sound jealous.”
“Got that right. What the hell happened down there?”
“The slime. The junk on the side of the tree. It’s powerful stuff, man.”
“Huh?”
“Yeah. Hey, fire up the laser. Let’s get Micah and Anna on the horn. I need some pain meds and I’m overdue for a shot of muscle-growth stim. I’ll do that and you let me know when you got ’em.”
Steve got to his feet, and got to work.
“That is utterly fascinating,” Micah said. “It sounds like a specifically-evolved acid base coupled with a spore-infusion system. We could be seeing how the massive fungal trees reproduce. I wonder, if we did some surveying, if we would discover that these trees tend to grow where the slaver creatures have their nests. It could be a valuable thing to know. They have evolved a defense mechanism that also procreates. Incredible.”
“But,” Dustin added, “the goop doesn’t hurt any other creatures, including the parts of the mutants that were human. So the stuff doesn’t defend against everything.”
“Yes . . . ” Micah said. “Perhaps the spore material was evolved to give other animals a chance to climb to safety. To further the fungus’ reproductive growth using the movement of the smaller creatures in the jungle. Similar to how plants protect and feed bees that spread their pollen. This is next level biology, Dustin. Breakthrough discoveries that will alter the field.”
“Annnnd the shit kills these bugs,” Dustin added. “Can we focus on that? Can we remember that they won’t even come near it, or touch it? They give it a wide berth and show fear of it.”
“Yes, yes. That’s all well and good, too,” Micah dismissed.
“Dustin how is your leg? Any redness in the skin, new inflammation? Are you running a fever? How’s your fluid intake?” Anna asked.
“I’m good, Anna. Some tearing in the wound during the exfiltration and fight but it’s not bad. No worse than I expected at least. I just took stims and pain meds. No redness, no fever.”
“Okay good. For the record–”
“Shush,” Dustin said. “I know. Let the record reflect you’re a good doctor, thank you.”
“So what now?” She asked.
“Waren. He’s still around and he still wants to raise havoc. I was stupid last night to think he’d have left us alone. Stupid.” Dustin’s guilt ran over him, trampling away a good portion of the joy he’d gathered up.
“What could he want now?” Phillip asked.
“He’s fucked,” Ping-Pong said.
“Yeah, he is,” Dustin agreed. “I underestimated what he was going to face when Ghara sends the next wave back. If we’re still alive to tell them what happened, and he’s still out there, they’ll hunt him down like a dog for what he did. He also alluded to there being no one for me to go home to, and that scares me.”
“What do you think that means?” Anna asked.
“I think he did something to the ships. Some kind of sabotage so they’d fail the return voyage. I don’t know. I do know he didn’t want to get into the Armadillo to hide. He knew the top hatch was defective before we got to it, and if I’m not mistaken, that Armadillo had the markings of the tank Private Stahl was working on when he was killed.”
“Waaaait a minute . . . ” Phillip said. “Are you insinuating that our first death here on Selva wasn’t because of these creatures, but because of Waren? You think he beat Private Stahl to death and we blamed one of those creatures?”
“I can’t say for certain, but there’s enough circumstantial evidence for me to think it’s possible. Sabotaging the vehicles to slow us down would’ve been a good first step if I were trying to make this expedition cost too much without killing people.”
“What pushed him to shoot you?” Anna asked.
“After messing with the tank, then doing whatever it was that he did to the ships, or whatever he knows about what’s going on at home, maybe he figured it was time to make a move. That, or he figured he only had to run faster than me to stay alive. Opportunistic? Survival instinct? I mean, I don’t know. His motives are his to know. I’m sitting here looking at the damage he’s done and I need to address that. At this point, he’s done a lot of dumb that almost cost me my life, definitely cost me in pain, and I’m thinking he’s done a lot more he needs to pay up for that we don’t know about yet.”
“Pay up how?”
“I’m going to track him down, and make sure he doesn’t do anything else.”
“Are you going to kill him?” She asked.
“I won’t harm a hair on his head,” Dustin lied.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Dustin’s hunting grounds, ruins of Stahl, planet of Selva
30 October 163 GA
Armor donned, and the sun sleeping over the horizon for the night, Dustin departed the towering tree. At the waist of his ceramic and polymer armor in the canvas pouches he’d stitched together were the four small jars filled with the organic green gel.
When his feet hit the damp ground, he examined the thinned layer of protective coating at the base of the tree. He checked where he’d scraped a layer off and found the tree hadn’t recovered full density. Then he went to the next tree, and took some of its green stuff. He smeared a thick layer on his shoulders, arms, stomach and legs, then his head as he watched for signs of Waren. He rubbed his backpack against the tree, and then headed toward Stahl, keeping his head down, and moving through cover.
“Ping-Pong, I’m at the edge of the jungle.”
“Stahl’s covered in the things. Is that what you want?”
Dustin fought off an arrogant smile. “Yeah. A target rich environment is what I wanted for my birthday. You keep the mutant humans off me. I don’t think they’ve learned enough to know to stay away from the jelly. I’ll focus on the others. In and out as fast as we can.”
“Roger that. Hey . . . wasn’t your birthday a few days ago? Shit. Did you like what I got you? Same thing as last year.”
“You didn’t give me anything.”
“Yeah like I said, same as last year.”
“I hate you.”
“But . . . I’ve got your six, and you’re clear to go,” Ping-Pong said.
“You’ve a point. Watch out for Waren.”
“Like it’s my job, Vindicator One. Like it’s my job.”
I don’t hate him at all. Dustin strode out of the foliage and into the scarred earth of the battlefield and its utter lack of cover. If Waren had the shot, he had the shot. Worrying about it felt pointless. Shrouded by the dark of night with the world covered in slavers plus their mutated minions all the while shooting at a moving target several hundred meters away? Dustin wouldn’t worry about it.
He knew Waren wasn’t that good a shot.
But he did know who was. He gave the grip of his rifle an affectionate squeeze and walked into the cool and lethal night. Above, Selva’s auroras flickered and glowed, uncaring.
Dustin hunted, and he reaped the rewards that came of it.
His body thrummed with bubbling fear and thrill. His vision–enhanced by his helmet’s systems–had tunneled to laser focus, and his hearing had become otherworldly; superhuman. He felt powerful. He felt deadly.
He felt at home.
The monsters of Stahl knew he walked among them. He could sense their fear as he stalked them. He could hear the tiny click-clack dance of the skitterer feet. He could hear them run and hide, tipping and tapping, ducking and peering at his smooth, poisonous armor. When he approached too close, they ran.
The rock monsters in service to the slavers lumbered and plodded away from him as fast as their heavy army of legs could take them. They sought out the safety of distance, or the safety of a hard surface they could put between the strange thing on two legs that wore poison as its skin.
No, not you. You live,
for now. I want your leader. Dustin watched as a pair of the stony insects panicked and fled around the corner of a storage unit, hitting the side of it hard enough to rock the building. The structure creaked with a metallic groan and settled back. Dustin turned, and kept up his hunt.
He moved for hours through the ruins of Stahl. He walked past piles of human corpses, rotting and bursting at the seams, covered in the wriggling offspring of a dozen kinds of disgusting vermin. He walked through clouds of thick black smoke wafting into the sky from overheated devices, or explosions still smoldering weeks after the battle. He watched in the distance as the things that were formerly human peered around corners and over garbage at him, their alien eyes registering enough human fear to tell him what they thought. He wanted to give them peace; to kill them and free them from their torment. When the bravest or dumbest of their kind tried to come at him, arms flailing, legs pumping, claws unsheathed, Steve dispatched the soft-skinned men and women with a well-placed shot from far away. They would go the ground twitching and bleeding, struck down by a hand they never saw.
He taunted the alien bugs. He flaunted his bravery, his lack of fear, and he walked among them tall and proud. He made noise. He threw objects at them when they stayed still too long. He did all he could to incense their tiny, primitive minds.
Dustin had kept his roaming in the burnt out and blood stained Stahl to a small central area filled with hard structures and tiny open spaces. He didn’t risk moving to the openings through which Waren might see him, and the monsters were smart enough to play along.
To push one of the slavers into attacking him, Dustin had to risk being seen by Waren. He had to move into more open territory. He walked out into the area where the marines had built an outdoor gym. He surveyed the space, and sat down on a rough wooden bench cut from a Selvan tree. He sat still, like he intended to rest, or had become weak.
“Ping-Pong, call it out if something moves behind me.”
Dustin pulled out one of the jars and rested his forearms on his thighs. His rifle pointed at the low ready and he matched it with the rest of his body.
It didn’t take long for one of them to take the bait.
Dustin didn’t need Steve to tell him the creature approached. He could hear the creaking of the roof as the mantis-monster stalked atop it toward him. He listened, amplifying the sound in his ears with a series of motions from his eyes. He heard as it placed each leg, one by one. One clack after another it came up and over the electronics filled habitat until it lowered itself to the ground at his back.
“Big one on your six. Biggest one I’ve seen, Dustin. He’s mammoth. Two and a half meters tall.”
“Good. It’ll be hard to miss him.” Dustin fingered the jar and loosened the lid. “Come get lunch, you arrogant piece of shit.”
Dustin heard the creature’s heavy feet and felt it take another handful of cautious steps. Then, it hesitated, and he knew the time was right.
He smiled, stood, spun, and hurled his grenade.
“Catch!”
Dustin’s glass jar spun end over end, then smashed into the slaver’s chest,splashing its contents onto the creature.
A frenzy of motion and noise exploded from the giant nightmare. It ripped the quiet night apart with a high-pitched whine that vibrated Dustin’s teeth and chest inside his armor. As it bellowed, its lower set of claws tore out chunks of flesh as it tried to excise the pain. The hard armor of the monster melted like ice held over fire, spilling its wet insides.
Using its larger grappling arms, the slaver tried to grab the roof edge of the electronics suite to climb up and over, away from Dustin. The creature’s strength waned with every passing fraction of a second–every drop of its foul blood–and one claw came loose from the roof’s edge as it pulled its weight up. The massive insect collapsed into a mewling, sizzling heap on the ground, its arms and legs twitching, mouth-tubes extending and retracting spasmodically in death throes. Blue fluid leaked impotently to the ground as it died.
Dustin watched and reveled.
“The nerds can hear the thing screaming,” Steve said. “Micah wants to know what worked. Sealed jar or open jar?”
“That was a sealed jar. I think we’re good to go. I know how I can kill Waren now.”
Dustin kicked the thing’s legs. It twitched again, and Dustin took a step back to look around.
“You learned how to go after him doing that? Talented man. Come on back. It’s gonna get light soon enough.”
Dustin scanned to the left and right at the shadows and the glossy eyes that peered out at him and his fallen foe. A thousand eyes on a hundred enemies gauged the moment, and found it beyond reckoning. He saw faces with four eyes, ten eyes, many with just two, and they all were fearful.
In the shadows close by Dustin saw a tall human with an irregularly shaped skull watching him. His vision filtered the ambient light, casting the hidden man into enhanced black and white, rendering him visible.
It was Theo Wendell.
He stood silent and alone. He watched Dustin with his still-brown, still-human eyes. His brows clustered low and tight, and he wore a scowl over a mutated face that still showed the ability to reflect faint confusion.
Dustin lifted his rifle until the muzzle pointed at Theo’s feet, but he didn’t put his finger on the trigger. Theo’s two eyes slid downward, and his head tilted, curious.
“Dustin, what’s up?”
“Theo again. He’s like a ghost, man. Staring at me.”
“Put him down. No need to let him suffer.”
“No. Something’s up with him. He’s looking at me different. I don’t know. I think some of him is still in there,” Dustin said.
“How is that a good thing for us?” Ping-Pong asked.
Dustin lifted his left arm, and moved it back and forth at the wrist, waving his hand at his former friend. Theo watched the hand wave at him with focused–almost obsessed–eyes, then nodded as if his brain’s neurons suddenly found the highway to travel on. Theo’s eyes went to the black, featureless faceplate covering Dustin’s eyes, and he nodded again.
“Ho. Lee. Shit.”
Theo turned, glanced over his shoulder at Dustin, and walked into the depths of the Selvan night. Dustin looked around for more glowing eyes, but the wraiths of Selva had disappeared.
The void caused by their departure didn’t make him feel safer.
Many hours after the sun came out from hiding, casting its warm rays across the plains, Theo returned to the body of the giant slaver. With his still-very human hands he used a glass cup to scoop up the blue fluid that made him what he had become. His part-human friends watched him with interest, and the slavers that had lost one of their kind did the same.
Theo took his blue chalice of change and walked away with it.
None of his new kind dared to follow.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Ruins of Stahl, planet of Selva
1 November 163 GA
Dustin was wrong about Waren running far. He’d barely run at all. The gangly marine put a round into his former best friend’s leg and scampered away to the far side of Stahl where the latrines had been built. He crawled under the raised structure beyond the wooden panels where the barrels of human waste sat, and hid in the shadows, surrounded by filth, and the pieces of the broken datapad he’d used to transmit his traitorous message.
Like a wise man he listened to Steve and Dustin react to his actions. Like a fool he talked to them. In a sensible moment, he pulled his suit off the team’s network, and went black. His armor provided him with everything he needed to remain hidden, so long as he didn’t move, or use the integrated weapon firing system. If he stayed off the grid, he was safe.
Other than the smallest of vermin that came to feast on the feces, and the things that came to feast on those things, he had been the only living thing to go near the bathrooms. The irony of his new companions hadn’t been lost on him.
Over feverish, paranoid nights alone, he prayed that hi
s friend had died quickly of blood loss, or a freak infection inside the Armadillo he’d sabotaged. But as the team’s medic, he knew the wound wasn’t lethal. Regret clawed at him like the worst hunger imaginable. He knew what he’d done.
Waren scrounged for food, returning under the dim light of Selva’s auroras to the case he’d taken and helping himself to the contents. He had slipped away just as a hungry pack of human-things came attoward him. The hunters loped on misshapen legs, following his scent in the air, or the sound of his footsteps. He lost them by crawling under a set of steel stairs and sitting still in a black shadow for an hour. They had abandoned their search just steps away from his hiding place, hissing, slathering thick fluids on the hard ground and leaving puddles of piss and alien shit that ran into the depression where he sat. The hunt abandoned, the pack moved nearby and fawned over one another, cleaning each other and making pathetic noises, unaware their prey sat beside them. They ran off when one of the slavers came plodding through on its many limbs and gave them a rattling series of harsh clicks with its mandibles and claws.
He ate like a diseased buzzard in puddles of shit, and he kept it down.
Unless someone grew up as he did, in the stiffening cold of Sota, hungry and sick while those on the older, established moons enjoyed a life of relative luxury, they wouldn’t understand why he did what he did. Why a man with a perfect military record would turn on his friends and colleagues. Why he would stand up against a government that killed ten times what he did every week through negligence and bureaucracy. Why he would kill fifty trusted comrades to save a hundred thousand strangers.
Without a pointless and resource-wasting expedition continuing on Selva, his sister’s children back on the frozen ball of Sota would get a stable power grid like the kids on Phoenix. They would get schools with heat. They would get a proper agricultural industry in biodomes. They would be warm, and they would eat, like the people on Pacifica. His nephew and niece wouldn’t rot away like the miners on Ares; neglected to die young with miner’s lung, or crushed under a million tons of rock in a shoddy mine.
Colony Lost Page 30
