by Adams, P R
Symbra was breathing hard, although not as bad as Naru. The hacker sounded close to hyperventilating.
Riyun pulled her aside. “Update the rest of the team. You understand?”
Naru nodded and stepped back into the tunnel.
Symbra tapped him on the shoulder. “Where did it go?”
He pointed up the tube. “That’s the only way.”
“But there’s no…lubricant.”
“It doesn’t need it. That tube’s a lot bigger than the tunnel.”
“Oh. I was thinking it just used it to make everything easier.”
He grunted before testing the floor of the tube—no slickness or tackiness. When he turned around, he could see by her posture she understood they were going up. “Thirty-foot gap. Make sure Naru is on your tail when she gets back.”
He didn’t wait for her to confirm but charged up the tube as quickly as he could. His boots found a less than ideal grip. About a third of the way, he fell to his knees.
Before he completely lost his momentum, he got back up and charged once more.
It was slower this time, and after only ten or so steps, his footing failed again. He nearly tumbled back down to the tunnel entry.
Arms thrown out, he stopped his skid.
Then his boots shot out from under him, and he face-planted.
Hirvok needed help. If he died, he would prove he’d been right and Riyun was unfit for command.
There was no way Riyun was going to let the sergeant be right.
It took a few more tries, but Riyun got back to his feet and began to climb again. His legs pumped in defiance. This was about showing the team leadership, and it was about rescuing a friend.
Then there was the curiosity: What sort of beast could negotiate the tube but not the tunnel? Was it a matter of muscles needing to find a grip but not being able to compress to the size of the tunnel to do so?
It was a question for someone like Quil to answer.
At the top of the tube, where the rock was flat again, Riyun went to his belly and rolled away from the opening.
His radio hissed like it had in the tunnel below. “Hirvok?”
There was a signal—weak but detectable—off to his right. The side tunnels.
Was Hirvok still alive? Was the thing luring them into a trap?
Riyun sucked in a breath. “How you doing down there?”
Symbra gasped and grunted. “Not so good. Naru…fell.”
“Keep at it. I’m going to see if I can find where it went.”
“But—”
“Follow my signal.”
It was easy sounding brave and confident over the radio, but Riyun wrestled with doubt. The smart thing to do was write the sergeant off. The odds of him still being alive were slim, and throwing more people after a corpse…
Walking away was how Hirvok would approach the situation. It was how most leaders would approach it.
Riyun wasn’t most leaders.
He jogged to the closest tunnel opening and poked his head inside: Larvae wriggled around partway in, but there was no sign of the Onath sharpshooter.
The next tunnel, it was the same thing—just larvae.
Things were different at the third tunnel. The walls and floor glistened with the gel. Lubricant. Worm things slithered around in it.
And sprawled on the stone, the center of attention, was a gooey, armored human form.
Hirvok.
The radio connection hissed again. “Be…hind…”
There wasn’t even time for Riyun to spit out a curse or to scold himself for forgetting about the thing that had taken his second-in-command. Riyun twisted around and brought his weapon up.
Too late.
Something huge dropped from the ceiling, driving him face-down to the stone and pinning his gun against him. He had a vague sense of a bug-like shape, something almost arachnid but longer and with shorter legs. Even through the Juggernaut armor, the thing’s mass felt like it was crushing him. He tried to twist around, to push up and free the weapon, but there was no budging whatever had dropped onto him.
And then he felt something pushing against the armor—not the overall mass, but a concentrated pressure at the small of his back.
The Nakasham Juggernaut armor was as tough as any armor in existence, yet it was giving.
Whatever was on top of him had some sort of pincer or stinger that was stronger.
Riyun reconnected to the open channel. “Something’s got me. Hurry!”
Could they hear him? He’d had a hard time picking up Hirvok’s signal. Maybe the bug–thing had some sort of natural radio interference about it.
The pressure intensified, and it seemed as if the weight somehow increased. Then the back plate of the armor was pressing painfully against Riyun’s skin.
Whatever the bug was doing was close to punching through.
He needed his blade. That was his only chance: cutting the bug.
But there was no getting his arms free. The monster easily outweighed Lonar—five or ten times the big man’s weight.
Riyun tried again. “Can you read me? Are you picking up my signal?”
A sharp prick dug into the flesh above his kidneys. Was that his armor still deforming, or was it the monstrosity’s natural weapon?
“It has me pinned down! I can’t—”
The pricking sensation became agonizing. Whatever the monster was using must have penetrated the armor. Now it was driving into his flesh, digging into his spine.
If he could, he would’ve screamed, but he was paralyzed. His heart beat somewhere far away. His breath became just as distant, and there was a faint foulness to it that was reminiscent of the head colds he’d suffered as a child. Something was in his blood, in his breath and head.
Venom.
Paralyzing venom. It was a tingling in his extremities, a thickness in his fingers that made them useless as rubber.
When he’d seen Hirvok sprawled on the ground, Riyun had almost chuckled at the idea of the little larva things trying to break through the armor of their meal. Now he realized even battle armor could be pried open and the juicy flesh within torn apart by the white worms. Or by the thing that cared for them.
But Hirvok had talked. Was the venom fading already?
Somewhere far, far away, thunder boomed in the sky.
The dull sensation of the monster’s weapon prickling Riyun’s spine lessened. Then the weight seemed to lift from his back. If he hadn’t been paralyzed, he would have sucked in a desperate breath.
He tried to twist his head around and managed to get a little movement, although the muscles in his neck seemed unsure of how they were supposed to work. His vision was blurry.
No. Something had covered the front of his helmet. His optics were obscured…
The gel!
Even so, he now could make out two forms—human, armored—with feet planted wide. They held assault weapons, and they fired them in short bursts.
Controlled fire, he noted. Disciplined.
Off to his right, something big and dark gray skittered with improbable grace and speed. Chunks of rubbery flesh hung from a long, writhing abdomen. It seemed ready to charge the humans, then the guns would fire, and sections of its body would tear away.
And it would just…freeze. Was it confused?
It had to be! Nothing had ever hurt it before. It was an apex predator facing a legitimate threat for the first time.
The firing came again, and this time a section at the front of the terrifying bug exploded. Black slime oozed from the wound, and it backpedaled from the two forms.
Another burst, and more slime gushed in a dark fountain, splashing onto the stone.
Then the thing shuddered and the legs curled beneath it as it collapsed.
One of the forms separated from the other and rushed to Riyun. “Lieutenant?”
Symbra. Her voice sounded so pleasant and welcome at that moment. He tried to tell her that, but his throat was tight and unresponsive. He cou
ld barely breathe.
The Onath ran her hand over his back, a pressure he had to imagine rather than feel. “He’s wounded!”
More forms came into view. Quil was at the front, helmet removed to reveal a worried face. He set his backpack down and knelt at Riyun’s side. “Is he responsive?”
“No.”
“Help me get the helmet off.”
Beeping sounded inside the helmet: Quil had sent the emergency code to unlock. They all had each other’s emergency codes. It was part of operating in the field. If you wanted to get someone out of their armor for treatment, you had to be able to unlock it. Riyun’s display flashed red, then green as the code unlocked the pressure seal.
The pseudo wrapped his hands around Riyun’s head and twisted it around. A light flashed in his eyes. “Dilation. There’s something dripping from his nose. You hear that gasping?”
“An obstructed airway?”
“More likely paralyzation. It must have injected him with something.”
“There’s a hole in his armor. Here.”
Once more, Riyun had to imagine they were pushing against his armor. It was becoming harder to breathe, and a certain desperation started to slither around in his skull. Paralyzation would get to the heart. It would get to the lungs. The victim would die. Didn’t Quil know that?
“I need to see the wound.” The pseudo sounded far too calm. He wasn’t concerned about Riyun dying.
There was the sensation of being moved, then Riyun was on his back. The rest of the team—except for Hirvok—looked down with concern.
“Hirvok’s got it worse than me!” But Riyun could only think that. He could wish it in his eyes.
The welcome pressure of his chest plate was pulled away, then he felt Quil’s fingers probing before rolling Riyun onto his belly again. “Nothing appears to be broken. It is just this wound. You see the discoloration and swelling?”
Someone big shambled closer: Lonar. “He needs to breathe.”
“He still breathes.”
“He’s choking, Quil.”
“Not choking. His muscles are failing.”
“Do something!”
“I intend to. Why not put your newly returned strength to use and retrieve the sergeant’s body.”
The big man growled, but he shuffled away.
Riyun found himself wondering if Tarlayn might be his only hope, but he could only see the section of the cave that led up to the chute. She wasn’t there.
Quil leaned in close and held up an injector. “This is an anti-inflammatory. It should make breathing a little easier. Next, I will inject a general anti-venom treatment. Since we don’t know the particulars of this creature’s biology, the treatment won’t be as effective as it could be.”
Something wet and heavy flopped to the ground next to Riyun’s head. Whatever it was, it ended in a wicked point and had a black gloss to it. A dark and green bladder sagged off the end of it.
“The poison sac.” It was Javika’s voice, of course.
The pseudo prodded the thing with a metal probe. “I will see if I can render something from that later.” He turned back to Riyun, and a second later there was a slight sting in his neck. “While the heart still beats, I need to treat what I know can be treated.”
Riyun had always admired the young man’s calm under stressful situations. Quil could probably analyze his own execution up to the moment the bullet obliterated his brain. That calm analysis was less admirable when death seemed imminent for the person being analyzed.
Another sting, and Quil settled for a satisfied nod. “Excuse me, Lieutenant. I need to check on Sergeant Hirvok.”
What did that mean? Riyun didn’t feel any better than a moment before. Had Quil just abandoned—
No. It was a little easier to breathe. The distant heartbeat sounded closer.
Lonar returned, wiping his gloves against the armored plates of his thighs and leaving a trail of the clear gel. “Feeling better, Lieutenant? Good. Tarlayn says we’re close.”
Close? To what?
“Ah! Hey!” The big man chuckled. “His face—it’s moving. You wondering what she’s talking about? Huh, Lieutenant? This power. The stuff the wizards use. She said you wanted to find it. Right?”
Riyun blinked, surprised at how glorious that simple action felt. How long had he gone without blinking?
The heavy weapons expert leaned a little closer. “Does that mean ‘yes’? Well, if it does, good. Soon as you’re on your feet, we need to head back down there. Because Tawod had his drone working, then it stopped. Now he’s freaking out. But what he saw before it quit working…” The big man shook his head. “Like nothing we’ve ever seen.”
What? What had it seen?
“Hey.” The big man’s blockish face turned more serious. “You know what this place reminds me of? Mining the big asteroids. Some of the things I saw there…?” He shivered. “You knew they were just big chunks of rock, but sometimes, when it was just you working in a shaft, and the lights flickered? I-I guess that sounds silly to someone like you, huh?”
Riyun had to remind himself Lonar was just a kid, not even twenty-five. He’d been put to work the day he turned ten, and work was all he’d ever known. Dangerous, deadly work.
“Maybe you won’t tell the others, huh?” Lonar looked around, worried. “Please?”
Lying on the floor of a cave, next to the poison sac of a giant, spider-like monster that had paralyzed two of the team’s most experienced and capable members, it was hard for Riyun to truly appreciate what Lonar was feeling.
Worrying about the others knowing he’d been afraid once.
Riyun almost laughed. They were close to some sort of…what? Energy? Structure? Something. Some important discovery. And the big man was embarrassed.
What had the tweak said? Like nothing we’ve ever seen?
More and more, that seemed to describe terrible and dangerous things.
30
They made camp for a while in the cavern, just long enough for Riyun and Hirvok to get the strength back in their limbs and for Quil to extract some venom from the sac Javika had cut from the monster. As sensation returned to Riyun’s fingers, he sipped a bitter concoction Quil had put together. The pseudo swore that the foul-smelling drink was chemicals from his medical gear, but Hirvok’s assertion that it was derived from the venom became more believable with each sip.
Javika paced in a circle around the wounded men and the monster’s corpse, boots whispering over the black rock. When she fixed her angry gaze on Riyun, the cold of the cavern seemed to reach to his bones.
Finally, the pressure got to him. “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t break stride. “You are sloppy. You took the two most inexperienced with you.”
Riyun finished off the bitter remedy with a grimace. “They were the closest, and every second counted.”
Hirvok snorted. “I don’t think she cares that much about saving my ass.”
Javika shrugged. “You would have done nothing to save anyone else in that situation.”
“That’s fair.”
Riyun set the empty cup down. “This is about me. My mistake. I take the blame.”
The Biwali warrior’s brow furrowed. “That is not enough. You put everyone at risk. You put the mission at risk.”
“Noted.” The lieutenant struggled to his feet, muttering under his breath when she didn’t offer any help. Once he had his balance, he extended a hand to Hirvok and helped him up. “Stretch your legs.”
The sergeant snickered. “Never did care for lovers’ quarrels.”
It was a strange way to describe Javika’s foul mood, but the younger man had a way of making odd assessments that Riyun would probably never understand completely. He staggered over to the terrifying monster’s corpse, long knife in hand.
The graceful assassin hustled after him. “What are you doing?”
“Seeing if I could have done any better than I did.” He maneuvered to one of the legs, gripped the h
ilt of the weapon tight, and hacked down at a joint.
The blade bit into what seemed like a chitinous coating. Bit into but didn’t cut all the way through. A few more hours to completely regain his strength wouldn’t have made a difference, either.
She drew her sword, assumed an offensive stance—legs spread shoulder width, one foot before the other—and swung down.
Her blade cut deep into the limb but also failed to cleave through.
He worked his blade free. “It dropped from the ceiling. My optics didn’t pick it up, although I’m not sure I would’ve noticed.”
She planted a foot next to the blade of her weapon and tugged it free. “You were too concerned with impressing the young women.”
“Is that what you think?”
“It is obvious. You have been drawn to Symbra’s scent from the moment you hired her.”
“I had no idea you had so little respect for me. I’ve been trying to mentor her—”
“You have been trying to bed her.”
“You know better than that. I never allow myself to become involved with anyone on my team.”
“You forget about Shilulla.”
“She wasn’t on the team. And that was just a one time—”
“And what about Lonasci?”
“Lonasci? That was three years ago. And we never—”
“I saw her leave your tent in the field wearing nothing but a frown.”
“Because I told her no. She misunderstood my attempts to train her.”
The Biwali warrior sheathed her sword and crossed her arms. There was no mistaking the satisfied look on her face. “As I said.”
“You have a strange imagination, Javika. We can talk about this some other time, but right now Tarlayn is down there in the tunnels, waiting.”
Javika stepped into his space, so that her face was maybe an inch away. Her eyes bored into his, and for a second her lips twisted into unfamiliar shapes. It was as if she wanted to say something only he could hear but didn’t know what. And then she looked away and bowed her head with a sigh. “We will talk at some point.”
“Definitely. For now, let’s get everyone headed back down.”
They took the tube a little more cautiously this time, with fingers lightly pressed against trigger guards. Riyun noticed with some satisfaction that the slime the huge creature had left had indeed dissolved down to barely visible flakes that fluttered after them when they passed. No doubt the flakes would break down into fine powder before long.
