Blood Contact

by David Sherman

  "What's going on?" MacIlargie twisted around to look back toward the landing zone. He saw the flashes of blasters firing along the side of the island, and brighter flashes downslope from the blasters. He lifted his infra and saw the silhouettes of shapes he hadn't seen before. "Oh, shit." He spun back to his front and saw what he hadn't seen through his infra screen. "Fire! " he screeched, and put his words into action. Thirty meters away a skink flared. "They don't show in infra," he shouted as he picked another target and fired on it.

  Kerr and Claypoole each fired a blind shot before lifting their infras to see what they were shooting at. The skinks were close enough to shoot back. Green fluid spurted out from their weapons and spattered a wide area around the three Marines.

  Bass and the Marines with him were halfway back to the landing zone when PFC Dobervich let out a bloodcurdling scream and fell, doubled over in agony. Corporal Dornhofer, the closest to Dobervich, saw the green fluid smoking as it ate through the wounded Marine's chameleons and into the flesh of his right side. Beyond Dobervich, Dornhofer saw several forms wielding what looked like hose nozzles. Short streams of green fluid spurted from the nozzles, one stream just missing him. He twisted to point his blaster and flamed the nearest enemy. The shock of the skink flaring up staggered him backward a couple of steps, and that stagger saved his life as another stream of green fluid squirted through the space he'd just occupied.

  "Rotate right!" Bass bellowed. "They're on our right," he added unnecessarily. He thought he saw more than a dozen skinks, some running about, others down in kneeling positions, all spraying green fluid indiscriminately. He flamed one before dropping his infra and looking to see that his Marines were reforming to face the threat. Corporal Pasquin already had his fire team down and returning fire, and Sergeant Ratliff was positioning Stevenson and Kindrachuck where the gun could do the most damage. Dornhofer and Schultz were coolly picking off the skinks nearest them, and the corpsman was shielding Dobervich with his own body as he tried to tend his horrific wounds. In seconds half of the skinks were vaporized, and Dobervich was still the Marines' only casualty.

  Bass looked down the slope beyond the attackers and saw more skinks rushing up to reinforce them.

  Corporal Goudanis looked up the slope and saw the Marines caught in the open by the attacking skinks. It looked like there were too many skinks, they could easily overrun Gunny Bass and the eight Marines with him. With a glance he took in his own situation. Clarke was heavily sedated and couldn't do anything. Despite his years in the Corps, Quick had no infantry experience beyond the training exercises on Thorsfinni's World. The only man he knew he could rely on was Van Impe. No, there was one thing he could rely on Quick for—to keep watch. After four years of embassy duty, Quick knew how to keep watch and guard things.

  "Quick," he ordered, "watch the swamp, let me know immediately if you see anything. Van Impe, come with me." He got up and ran.

  They didn't go far, only fifteen meters, but it was far enough to give them enfilading fire to support first squad. They dropped into prone positions and began pouring fire into the flank of the skinks.

  "What's going on?" Lieutenant Snodgrass cried when the attacks broke out all around the perimeter.

  "We're under attack by those things, you dumb shit," Rhys shouted as he tried to crawl under the skirts of a Dragon.

  Lowboy hadn't moved from his place yet, he was shaking too hard from terror to find a hiding place. The navy officer's question got through to him, though, and he lashed out with an open hand to smack the side of his head. "They're gonna kill us, and you called them ‘the greatest scientific discovery of all time.’ " He balled his fist to hit Snodgrass again, who dove away from him and looked at him wild-eyed.

  "But—But—" Tears washed down Snodgrass's face. He hadn't done anything wrong to get hit for, but everything was going wrong, very wrong, all around him. Then he knew what he had to do. The pirates needed a leader. Somehow, he had to get them armed and organized. They could fight the aliens and win. Then he'd be recognized for the great officer he was. The idea that he might be thinking irrationally didn't occur to him.

  MacIlargie's first shot was rushed and he missed. So did the blind shots from Kerr and Claypoole. One of the skinks yelled something in a voice halfway between a liquid gargle and a harsh bark. The other skinks, about twenty of them, screamed out in similar voices and began running toward the three Marines.

  "Roll!" Kerr shouted, too busy to notice his fear. "Change position." He dove to the side and rolled over twice. When he stopped rolling his blaster was in his shoulder and he flamed the nearest skink. Two other bright flashes showed that Claypoole and MacIlargie also had hits.

  "Keep moving!" Kerr shouted. The ripple of ground the Marines were behind stretched across most of the width of the island. He knew the skinks couldn't see them unless they could see in the infrared, but they'd be able to see where the Marine fire carne from and would concentrate their own fire on those places. There were too many skinks coming for the Marines to dare allow them any stationary target. A stream of green fluid struck where Kerr had just moved from and spattered. He didn't notice, he was too busy picking a new target. All his earlier fears about how he'd react to danger and combat were forgotten as the instincts and reactions he'd honed during his years in the Corps took over and he directed his men in fighting this strange foe.

  "Enemy right!" Corporal Pasquin shouted as soon as he heard Dobervich scream. He dove to the side and found a skink to flame. There were so many of them it was almost too hard to pick one to shoot at. He looked for his men. Claypoole was prone on his right, firing steadily. MacIlargie was on his left, firing more maniacally, but his aim seemed true. The darkening sky was strobe-lit by dying skinks. He picked another target and had the satisfaction of seeing another brilliant flash.

  "Shit-shit-SHIT!" Claypoole shrilled. A spray of green struck the ground a meter to his front and a globule hit the back of his hand on the forestock of his blaster. Instinctively he slapped the hand onto the mud. The burning eased and he grabbed the forestock again and flamed the skink that had just shot him. The flash the skink made when it flared up was all the anesthetic Claypoole needed. He laughed out loud as he flamed another skink. This was his second wound. He figured he'd be a laughingstock for having two "dumb stripes" on the sleeve of his dress scarlets.

  MacIlargie's eyes were wide and his mouth gaped as he shot skink after skink. The fluid they sprayed came close, but the mud that most of the acid streams hit dampened the splashing. Smoke rose from spots on his chameleons where drops landed, but he wasn't hit himself—at least he didn't think he was, he didn't feel pain anywhere. But there were so damn many skinks.

  George Cameron—ex-Marine ensign Baccacio—ignored the byplay between the navy lieutenant and the pirates. He was busy trying to find a weapon. None were laying about and there weren't any wounded Marines nearby for him to take a blaster from. He searched out Hyakowa.

  "Staff Sergeant," Baccacio said when he dropped next to Hyakowa where the platoon sergeant was trying to direct the defense of the landing zone. "I know you hate me, but I can use a blaster. Give me one, I'll add to our firepower."

  Hyakowa gave him a quick but hard look. Baccacio was right on both points: he knew how to use a blaster, and Hyakowa hated him for a coward. But the Marines could certainly use all the extra firepower they could get.

  Hyakowa pointed at one of the Dragons. "I put your weapons with the medical team. I'll tell Dr. Bynum to give you a blaster. Better yet, I'll give all of you your weapons; before this is over we may need every hand that can pull a trigger. I guess I'll have to put Snotty in charge."

  "Thanks. Then where do you want me?"

  Hyakowa listened for a few seconds to the flood of reports coming to him from the fire team and squad leaders, then pointed to the east. "Two-two's in danger of being overrun. Go there."

  Two-two. "That's Corporal Kerr, isn't it?"

  Hyakowa nodded.

  Baccacio jumped
up and bolted for the Dragon with the medical team. He'd refused to call in a medevac hopper for Corporal Kerr when the man was nearly killed on Elneal—he'd insisted there wasn't enough time to wait for one to come. And he had abandoned one of Kerr's men. Baccacio wasn't wearing chameleons. Not only did he have to run across a hundred meters of open ground to reach Kerr's position—a hundred meters in which any nearby skink could see and shoot him—but if Kerr saw him coming, the Marine might shoot him, and Baccacio wouldn't blame him if he did.

  Baccacio couldn't let worries about what might happen slow him down. They were in a fight for their lives and needed every possible man fighting.

  Chan stopped firing and looked with dazzled eyes for more targets. He didn't see any, though he heard continuing fire from other positions and could see the flashes of more skinks vaporizing.

  "Report," he said, suddenly remembering his new responsibility as a fire team leader.

  "I'm okay," Nolet replied. "I think. Got enough ammo."

  "I'm all right," Rowe said. "Three spare batteries."

  "What do you mean, ‘I think,’ Nolet?"

  "Some of that stuff splashed on me. Burns like hell, but I think I'll be all right. It doesn't burn as much as it did a few minutes ago."

  Chan scrambled the few meters to Nolet to check out his wound. His stomach churned when he saw it. A large globule of acid had hit Nolet's upper right arm and eaten away a chunk of flesh all the way to the bone. The raw sides of the wound were congealed; it was effectively cauterized. Most likely the pain was ebbing because the nerve endings were deadened by the tissue damage. At the bottom of the hole Chan saw a glimmer of green. The acid was still there, still eating at flesh surrounding the bone. "Corpsman up," he said into his helmet radio's squad circuit, "Two-three." Then to Nolet, "Hang on, this might hurt." He got out his knife and started digging out the remaining acid before it could eat all the way through the arm.

  Nolet screamed.

  "No!" Bass bellowed. He aimed at a skink pointing its weapon nozzle at the corpsman working on Dobervich and pressed the firing lever. The skink flared just as it fired and its shot went wild. Another skink was running toward the corpsman and Bass shot it as well. He saw the fire coming in at the skinks from the side and knew who it had to be from. He toggled his radio switch.

  "Goudanis, protect the doc," he said. "Who's watching your front?" He grunted at the reply; he understood why Goudanis left that job to the former embassy Marine. Then he returned his attention to the skinks in front of him and the Marines to his sides.

  Schultz was as cool as Bass had ever seen him under fire. The career lance corporal was in a kneeling position, calmly switching his aim from one skink to another, picking them off like targets on a range. Schultz had noticed the same thing Bass saw about the skinks—they held their fire until they were close, about thirty meters from their targets. Did everyone else notice that? He hoped so, but it didn't matter now because most of the skinks were within range of their weapons and beginning to fire at the flashes of the Marines' weapons.

  Bass saw the corpsman sharply shake his head, then grab his medkit and scramble away from Dobervich.

  Baccacio stopped before he reached the east outpost; the skinks were almost on top of it. He deliberately put his blaster to his shoulder, just like on the range, and flamed a skink. He wasn't distracted by the alien flaring up, he'd seen that a year earlier when he first fought them. He picked off another skink, then tried to see where the Marines he was reinforcing were. He couldn't see them because he wasn't using infras, but he could see the flashes from the muzzles of their weapons. The flashes came from too many places for only three Marines. He smiled tightly. Yes, that Corporal Kerr was a fine Marine, he had his men moving between shots to keep the skinks from zeroing in on them. He picked another target and flamed it.

  Hyakowa spun toward the medical team's Dragon when he heard a scream from inside it. He saw two skinks charging toward the amphibious vehicle. Neither was firing its weapon, but both were aiming odd nozzles at the open back of the Dragon. The platoon sergeant threw his blaster into his shoulder and flamed one. He shifted his aim toward the second but didn't get his shot off—he didn't need to. A bolt of plasma shot out of the inside of the Dragon and the second skink flared. Hyakowa raced to the Dragon, shouting to identify himself to the people inside.

  Dr. Bynum stepped outside just as Hyakowa reached the rear of the Dragon. She held a hand-blaster at the ready.

  "As a doctor, I'm supposed to save lives," she said. "This is the first time I ever saved lives by taking one." She began trembling and looked like she was about to fall. Hyakowa caught her and held her to his chest.

  "Yeah, the first time's really hard," he said soothingly. But when he thought about it, he couldn't remember the first time he'd flamed a man. He guessed that was the kind of memory he didn't want to keep. "Everybody okay in there?"

  Dr. Bynum pushed away from him. "It's not hard, Staff Sergeant," she said. "This wasn't. I killed that one and I'm glad. I'll kill any more that come toward me or my people. Now, you Marines take care of us, and the medical corps will back you up." She hefted her hand-blaster. "With bandages or blasters, we'll back you up."

  "You got it, Doctor." He looked around for more skinks that might have broken through the defenses.

  Corporal Linsman looked for more targets. There weren't any on his part of the ridge, though the sky was still filled with the lights of skinks flaring up elsewhere around the perimeter.

  "Report," he automatically ordered.

  "Present and accounted for," Watson immediately replied. "Ammo's fine."

  "Hruska?" Linsman said when his new man didn't speak up.

  "Where'd they go?" Hruska asked. "I don't see any."

  "Are you all right?" Linsman asked harshly.

  "What? Yeah, I'm okay. Where'd they go?"

  "We killed them, that's where they went. When I say 'report,' you're supposed to tell me if you're all right or if you're hit, and how your batteries are holding out."

  "But the skinks, they were just right here."

  "They aren't here now. This is when you tell me if you're okay and if your blaster has enough power."

  "Huh? Oh, right. I forgot," Hruska said in a rushed voice. There was a moment's pause, then he added, "I'm not hurt and I have two spare batteries for my blaster."

  Linsman shook his head, then made his own report to Sergeant Bladon.

  Bladon told him about Nolet getting hit. "The corpsman says he might lose that arm," he finished.

  Linsman swore. He looked around. Fewer flashes of light were brightening the evening sky.

  Goudanis and Van Impe fired repeatedly into the flank of the skinks attacking the rest of their squad. Strangely, the skinks didn't seem to notice the fire coming from their side. It was as though they had been told to attack straight ahead and keep going forward no matter what. Goudanis kept glancing to his right, down the side of the knob, looking for skinks coming at him and Van Impe. None came that way. He checked with Quick a couple of times, but Quick reported no activity from the swamp at the end of the island until the very end.

  "I see some going back into the swamp," Quick reported. "They're headed northeast." He suddenly realized he hadn't seen the skinks come from anywhere else. They must have been in hiding along the edge of the swamp below him, waiting to exploit any opening along this portion of the island when other skinks broke through the Marines' lines. If they had, he might have been the only one in their way. He listened and heard their voices and splashing move away.

  "They're headed north," he reported.

  The fight was over.

  "Squad leaders report," Bass ordered as soon as the firing stopped. There was a pause while the squad leaders checked with their fire team leaders and the fire team leaders checked their men. The reports came in. He already knew about Clarke and Dobervich. Dornhofer, Nolet, and Claypoole were also wounded. Staff Sergeant Hyakowa reported no casualties among the medical team or the pir
ates.

  "Snotty's doing his best to make a major nuisance of himself, though," Hyakowa said. "You listen to him, you'd think we just precipitated a major intergalactic incident, or destroyed the greatest scientific discovery of all time."

  "Asshole," Bass muttered. "I should have sent him back to the Fairfax." There was another question he needed an answer to: "How many of them got away?"

  It took a moment for the answers to get back to him—an unknown number of skinks was heading to the north. Either they were regrouping prior to making another attack or they were fleeing.

  "Everybody, to the perimeter," Bass ordered over the allhands channel. "Including the OPs. I don't want anybody in an exposed position."

  Chapter 24

  "Sir, it's your call," Bass said to Captain Tuit, who was sitting on the bridge of the Fairfax County in orbit far above Society 437, "but they're on the run and we can't waste any time following up, before they regroup or reinforce. The tactical momentum is with us now, sir, and I don't want to waste the advantage. We can run them down and kill them."

  "Don't you want to talk to them, Gunny, find out who they are and what they're doing on this planet? This is a tremendous discovery, an alien intelligence, and all you want to do is stomp these things out like bugs?"

  "Sir, I'll talk to anything that doesn't have a weapon in its tentacles. But if they're armed and want to fight, I'll shoot first. Besides, for all we know, they might still be holding some of our people prisoner. At least I've got to find out where their base is and search it. If they resist, I'll kill them; if not, I'll sit down and have a beer with them. But it's your call, Captain."