by J. F. Holmes
Zivcovic had dropped all his equipment and body armor, quickly taking off his shirt to reveal a heavily tattooed body covered with slashing scars. He pulled his foot-long fighting knife from its sheath, and set off in a run past the startled Boyd.
“Jonesy, stop that asshole!” said Reynolds.
The black man just held up his hands in a “who, me?” gesture, knowing full well the Serb was as likely to gut him as the enemy. Zivcovic flashed a grin as he ran past Jones, who shook his head.
“What is he doing?” asked the bewildered Warren.
“That dumbass is going to challenge the Wolverine Squad Leader to single combat,” answered Reynolds.
“That’s insane!” he said, trying to control his horse, which was jittery from the excitement.
“Yup!” she answered, nodded to Colonel Singh, and smacked the horse on the ass. It took off at a quick trot, and Singh followed on hers.
“OK, let’s go watch,” said Hamilton. “Even if he doesn’t get killed, the stupid ass is going to get torn to shit again.”
The entire team, except for Hamilton, activated their chameleon suits and moved out, down the path the Serb had taken. When they hit the tree line, they spread out into concealed positions to watch. Hamilton stepped out into full view; it would be assumed by the Invy that the man advancing across the field to them would be traveling with a companion. No one walked alone.
The Wolverines had seen Zivcovic, and one stepped forward. He wore the silver badge of a Hashut, and was probably the patrol leader. There was gray on his muzzle, and though he only stood a little under five feet on his hind legs, powerful muscles rippled under his skin, and the ripping claw on each hand/paw was sheathed in shining steel. Vicious canine teeth attested to the creature’s predatory nature, before they had been uplifted, and their plasma rifles curved around their thumb and three true fingers. His squad growled and barked and yipped, until he turned and struck one in the nose with his rifle. They fell silent, backing down low to the ground.
“Damn, they’re kinda ugly and beautiful at the same time, ain’t they?” whispered Boyd, who had lain down next to his team chief. Agostine started to reprimand him for not staying put with his bad leg, but then stopped.
“They’re killing machines, I’ll give them that,” answered Agostine, and unconsciously tapped his prosthetic.
“Did they do that to you?” Boyd asked.
Agostine nodded a yes, and whispered back, “In the fighting pits. I forgot, you’re Main Force, haven’t really been exposed to the Invy in combat.”
The new scout raised his rifle scope and looked at the Wolverine Non-Com, who seemed to be doing some elaborate challenge ritual, yipping and barking at Ziv. The human stood calmly, blade held low and ready, and chanted back at it in Serbian.
“I’ve heard about this, the challenge,” said Boyd. “If he kills the patrol leader, we go free? What if they kill Ziv?”
It was a moment before he got a reply. “Then we run for our goddamned lives, and give Colonel Singh enough time to get away with Warren.”
“Does he have a shot?”
Again, another pause, then, “The odds are going to catch up with him eventually. This is the fourth time he’s done this, no one else has survived more than one.”
Silence from both the patrol and the scouts as the Wolverine completed his ritual, grounded his body armor and weapons, and turned to face Zivcovic.
“Watch and learn, Mike. We think the Wolverines know about the existence of our forces, the Scout Teams at least, but they don’t tell the Dragons. I’m pretty sure they think it will ruin their sport. If there was a Dragon with them, we’d be in deep shit right now.”
With a cry of “URAAAAH!” the Serb launched himself forward, and the Wolverine answered with a wolf-like howl, both arms extended to slash inward.
Chapter 11
Although he pissed her off constantly, Zivcovic was Reynolds’ partner, and sometimes more in the dark of night. Her heart beat wildly in fear as the two met; there was a flash of steel in the summer sunlight, and then they sprang apart. Several bloody streaks exposed themselves on Ziv’s back, where the ripping claws had scored him, but the Wolverine was limping badly from a deep stab wound on his leg.
The creature held up both arms, and crossed the bloody steel claws in salute. The Serb raised his own reddened knife in return, and they started to circle each other. Reynolds could see that one cut had actually laid the skin open to his ribs, and muscles could be seen moving under the bloody tear.
With a howl, the alien charged forward again, low, trying for Ziv’s hamstrings. His claw pierced the bottom of the leg, and Ziv stumbled sideways to prevent the muscle and tendons from being ripped out. As he did, he pivoted, and drove the chisel point of his knife down hard on the Wolverine’s shoulder blade, burying it several inches deep through the tough pelt, then withdrawing it, rolling away from a backslash.
Again they separated, but this time, there was no ceremonial salute. Both knew that they were in the fight of their lives. One alien trooper raised his plasma rifle, but another wearing the bronze disk of an Afshut, or Corporal, knocked it downward with a harsh bark.
Warily, both bleeding heavily and sides heaving with breath, they stood two meters apart, each waiting on the other to make a move. Then the Hashut, shaking his head, seemingly to clear it, drool flying from his jaws, launched himself in another low stab, intending to gut the human with an upward stroke. Ziv rolled to the side at the last minute, and the razor-sharp blade flicked out, seeming to disappear into the fur at the side of the creature’s neck. In return, a ripping claw caught the side of his face, tearing more than slicing from eye to ear, and the Wolverine’s teeth sank deeply into his arm, leaving a ragged slash.
Each regained their footing, and turned to face their foe again. The Wolverine could barely stand, and blood flowed freely from his neck, shoulder and leg. Gathering strength, the thing rose up to its full height, let out a weak, trembling howl, and then fell forward, dead.
Pandemonium erupted from the five remaining Wolverines, barks and howls, but they held their place. The triumphant human walked over to the prostrate form and cut the two ripping claws off. Then, staggering, he moved to the Afshut, and handed him the long fighting knife. The Corporal took it and sheathed it in his belt, then barked an order. Two of them moved out and collected the Hashut’s body, placing it in the back of their APC, and the rest filed in. With a rising whine, it spun up on its air cushion and headed north, following the dirt road.
Hamilton ran forward, grabbing at his aide bag. When he got to the Serb, he saw that the damage was worse than he feared. One eye might be a loss, sliced directly across, and the deep cut along his back was raw and leaking blood profusely, mirroring the wound on his leg.
“You stupid fuck, you’re going to die from infection,” he muttered as he started to field dress the wounds and injected nanos.
“Doc, I am champion still, yes?” answered Zivcovic weakly, with a bloody grin.
“You’re going to lose that eye, dickhead, and maybe the arm too,” Hamilton answered, “but yeah, you’re a damned legend now.”
“Good! Maybe Singh go on date with me now?” said the bloody form, and he passed out.
Hamilton grunted, tying off another bandage and starting an IV, saying to the unconscious form, “The stupid shit we do to impress women, I swear.” He heard someone approaching, and didn’t look up, in case there were more patrols and sensors, not wanting to give away someone in a chameleon suit.
“Is he going to make it?” asked Master Sergeant Agostine.
“I’m going to need blood from Jones and Boyd, and he’s going to lose that eye and possibly the arm, but yeah, he’ll make it. He’s too stupid and stubborn to die.”
He heard Agostine breathe out, then say, “We can meet you at hide Viking, there’s power there and some medical supplies. It’s about forty miles, though, so you can take the two other horses.”
“OK, if we push, I
can get him there in a day. I hope it’s not too much on him.”
“Give us three days to meet you. Do your best, he just saved our lives.”
Hamilton knew that, but he still hated patching people up for what he considered stupidity. “Yeah, and he’s going to be insufferable when he wakes up.”
The medic left him lying on the ground, and went back to the tree line, where Reynolds had brought up the two remaining horses.
“Can I go with you?” she asked, knowing better, but unable to keep the concern out of her voice.
“Nope. No more than three on the road, you know that, and they’re going to check us out if there are three of us, and one wounded.”
She nodded, and removed her Barrett .50 and Zivcovic’s M-2010; both would be cached in hidden air tight canisters at the nearest weapons hide point, about ten miles away in a ruined town. The others’ carbines would join the sniper rifles.
“Alright, people, let’s move out,” said Agostine. “Jones, you team with Boyd. Reynolds, you’re with me.”
Jonesy rumbled from his hidden position, “Boyd, I’m going to have to snuggle with you for body heat. If you catch my drift.”
“Really?” asked the new scout, a tone of doubt in his voice.
“Knock it off, J,” countered Agostine. “Boyd, he’s kidding.”
“I’m not!” Boyd answered, “I’m a former sailor!”
They departed at ten minute intervals, after Doc had transfused blood into Zivcovic. “He’s lucky he didn’t get a major vein or artery cut, idiot,” he told Reynolds as she helped him stitch the wounds closed.
“Doc,” mumbled the Zivcovic, “give me pain killers. I am done being tough guy for now.”
“No, you’re not. Suck it up, buttercup. We’ve got miles to cover before dark.” Jones helped him get Zivcovic slung over the saddle, and they rode away south along the ridge.
Boyd and Jonesy were next to leave, heading west towards I-81. Reynolds and Agostine would parallel them, going down Route 13. Before they went, the younger soldier asked about pursuit.
“The Invy will give them twenty-four hours to clear the area, and therefore us,” answered Jonesy, whose ghetto accent seemed to disappear when things got serious. “Like the man told you, Boyd, the Wolverines suspect the existence of organized resistance, but they have a weird code of honor, and they’ve been beat. Leader of the pack bullshit, I guess, but good enough for us.” He shouldered his light machine gun and said, “See you at Viking in two, three days. It’ll be good to take a shower.”
They disappeared into the woods, and Agostine turned to Reynolds. “Ziv’s going to make it,” he told her.
“I hope so,” she answered, “because I’m going to kill him!” Her boss laughed, and they started walking southwest at a brisk pace.
Chapter 12
Major Takara Ikeda, CEF Scout Regiment (Far East), formerly of JDF Special Forces, lay perfectly still in the forest surrounding the Invy air base on Honshu, outside the ruins of Tokyo. He relaxed his breathing, calming his heartbeat, touching his inner wa.
The chameleon suit held his body heat in, converting it into electricity and directing it downward through a static line that was pegged deep into the ground. The heavy July heat also helped mask his IR signature, and he ignored the sweat running down his face.
Fifty meters away on a runway, a squat Invy shuttlecraft sat, engines throbbing with power, antigrav spooling up. The pilot, a tako, or octopus, hung by two limbs in the doorway, running system checks with some of his other arms and a tablet.
Ikeda ran through his own checklist, reviewing the flight controls from the simulator at CEF Far East Headquarters. Over five hundred flight hours, but it was all theory. No one had ever actually captured a functioning Invy craft. The majority of controls were through the pilot’s helmet mounted sensors, and designed for eight tentacles and two true hands, but they thought they had a work around patch using the emergency controls.
He put the thoughts aside and dialed up the gain on his night vision goggles, scanning slowly left and right. THERE! he thought. A wheeled transport was approaching; riding in the open cab was a Dragon and two Wolverines. They pulled up to a stop at the ramp into the transport, and all three disembarked. The two guards took up station at either side of the ramp, while the gold armored Dragon made his way in. His Scout Team had been watching this airfield for five months, and there seemed to be a regularly scheduled flight, according to some strange calendar the Invy used. Ikeda had been waiting here for three days.
He thanked the Americans and their R & D department that had come up with the scent neutralizer. The Wolverines sight wasn’t all that great, but they could smell you from a mile away, and he didn’t want to tangle with them on the ground. It would completely blow the plan, and probably end his life.
The guards moved up the ramp; it whispered shut, and the engines rose to a sharp whine. Ikeda toggled the mini oxygen bottle that fed into his face mask, counted San, Ni, Ichi, and took off running. He cleared the fifty meters as if a Wolverine were chasing him, grabbed onto the side access ladder, and vaulted upwards, swinging himself up onto the roof of the shuttle as it lifted into the air, quickly centering himself to prevent the pilot from sensing an imbalance. Then he waited as the craft rose upward, swung about, and headed southwest, out over the Sea of Japan.
After five minutes, they had reached a cruising altitude of thirty thousand feet, almost ten kilometers up, moving at a leisurely 200 kph. He rapidly grew colder, and gratefully sucked at the oxygen, then felt the craft lurch as it hit some turbulence, almost causing him to lose grip of the small magnetic grapnels that held him in place.
His mind reviewed the time table, and right at the exact second he expected, his watch buzzed in alarm. Behind him, most of the way down the craft, sat the secondary power plant access hatch, used for maintenance and moving large parts in and out. Moving very carefully, lying on his stomach, the wind tearing at him, he made his way to the hatch, then activated the Invy laser cutting torch that was strapped to his arm, aiming at the hatch seal.
With a BANG, the hatch flipped up, caught the airstream, and slammed backwards, making the ship buck wildly. Depressurized, the air howled out of the opening, and he waited until it had equalized. As the pilot fought for control, taking it into a steep dive to get to better air pressure, Ikeda swung himself down and out of the slipstream, into the cramped engine compartment, and unstrapped the heavy bag he had slung around his shoulders. As he had practiced a thousand times, he found the main communications relay, and placed a capacitor against it, then set a timer for sixty seconds. When it discharged, the shuttle’s communications and tracking beacon went with it. Taking off the restricting suit hood as the dive leveled out, he crouched back and waited for the engine access doorway to open, wakizashi held ready, as they fell to a breathable altitude.
The first Wolverine opened the door, and Ikeda stabbed straight into the creature’s side, seeking the joint in its body armor, feeling the blade drive deep. Then he let go and struck with a Karate Tate Empi Uchi, feeling his elbow crunch into the thing’s soft muzzle, stunning it long enough for the double heart to stop beating.
Reaching down and pulling out the short sword, he stepped into the corridor that led to the cockpit, moving as silently as possible. He heard the pilot chittering on their coms, probably declaring an in-flight emergency, which was by the plan.
The taser in his hand centered on the back of the Dragon, who had an oxygen mask over its lizard face. The other Wolverine sat strapped into its seat, nervously pawing its fur and barking at the pilot. Then something must have betrayed the Japanese officer’s presence; the body guard unlatched and spun, throwing itself at him, lightning fast. Ikeda swung his arm holding the taser and pulled the trigger, and the darts, extra heavy to pierce Dragon hide or Wolverine fur, smashed into the pilot, sending thousands of volts into the eight-limbed creature.
The craft immediately rolled, throwing the scout and the wolverine to th
e floor, and he felt the sharp ripper claw bury into his left arm, then wrench back out; the pain was immediate and intense. Then the autopilot kicked in and they rolled level. With his good hand, Ikeda struck at the nerve junction on the side of the Wolverine’s neck, stunning it, and barely missing another swing of the claw. Through this, the Dragon watched impassively, strapped into his seat. Even when Ikeda fired his pistol, and the dark coopery blood of the Wolverine splattered on the monitors, the Dragon didn’t move.
He turned and aimed the gun at the ruling Invy’s face; it touched a button on its collar, and hissed in its sputtering language. What came out was perfect, classical Japanese, though synthesized.
“Human, I know your face, and in a minute, it will be transmitted to our database. Kill me, and we will destroy every village on Honshu, after we have hunted down everyone you have ever been registered with.”
“I think not. We need a prisoner, not a dead Invy,” answered the Major, checking his watch, and the commo system crashed as the capacitor overloaded the electric circuits. “You arrogant prick, as the Americans say.”
He withdrew a dart gun from another holster on his belt, and, before the alien could move, he fired. The neurotoxin went to work quickly; it had been designed to effect a Komodo dragon, the closest they could get to an alien Invy Dragon. The creature started to rise, but then stiffened and flopped backwards.
Taking a moment to bandage his arm, Ikeda returned to the engine compartment and retrieved his bag, placing it by the exit ramp, and then went back to where the Dragon lay looking upwards, sharp hisses emanating from its mouth. He grabbed it by the hind legs and dragged it back to the ramp area, then pulled out another taser, hand held. He jammed it into the space where the Invy’s neck met its powerful shoulders, and allowed a small smile to cross his features when he heard a distinct ‘pop’ from under the skin. The suicide charge could be detonated either by remote or by the individual, and he had just neutralized both the neural link and the radio receiver. It was only by long study of a dead Dragon that R & D had finally figured that one out.
