by Randy Dyess
“You’re just going to leave us? What kind of person are you?”
Michael ignored them again, and as he moved farther away, more of the survivors followed him. “If you’re coming with me, you have to be quiet. These monsters attack noise and movement. Do what I tell you, when I tell you, and we might just make it through this.”
The small group of survivors walked in the shadows for hours, fleeing the destruction of their city. Several times, they saw streams of spiders carrying cargoes of captured people, but none of the spiders attacked them. Several small groups joined them on their march out of town to safety.
As they moved into the outskirts of the city, a uniformed man stepped out of the group. “Do you think it’s safe to talk?”
“I think it should be,” Michael said. “We haven’t seen any spiders since we left the city. I don’t think they like open areas—nowhere to hide.”
“How did you find out so much about these damn things?”
“I watched them. I got lucky, at first.” Michael and Skylar introduced themselves, and the man told them that he was Sergeant Major McCoons. “What brings a marine sergeant major to Candus?”
“We were practicing planet jumps when these things hit us. Didn’t stand a chance.”
“What about your weapons? Couldn’t you fight back?”
“Nothing worked—even our EMP-shielded stuff went offline. Whatever they used to knock everything offline was something we have never encountered before. They ate up my squad in minutes, and I barely made it out alive.”
Sergeant Major McCoons looked Michael over. “That sword on your back—have you used it, yet?”
“Yes. I killed a spider back when I found Skylar. They may be big and scary, but this cut through them like butter. They have no armor and no weapons.”
“What else have you learned?” another man asked. He introduced himself as Dr. Jones and told them that he’d been on Candus for the past month studying the native spiders. He was very interested in finding out what everyone had learned.
“They can’t see very well. If you stand still, they won’t see you. They hear well and will pounce on noise, but if you stand still and be quiet, you’re safe.”
Sergeant Major McCoons looked at Michael. “Really? Is that how you killed yours?”
“Yeah. It kept turning between me and Skylar, which allowed me to get close enough to attack. I cut off the front two legs, and stabbed it in the chest and behind the eyes to finish it off.”
“I’m impressed. I had twenty-four experienced marines with me and they didn’t kill a single one before they were taken. I did manage to get one, but only because I had my sword,” Sergeant Major McCoons said.
“You have a sword? I didn’t think you guys carried swords anymore?”
“Usually we don’t. I got mine in a battle with some pirate years ago. It has saved my life multiple times and I don’t go anywhere without it.”
“Didn’t any of your men have swords?”
“No, they’re actually illegal for us to carry, but I did anyway. None of my men had any and when their weapons stopped working, they were taken. But, I’m still impressed you managed to kill one. Not too many civilians would be brave enough to stand up to one of those monsters, let alone with a sword.”
“Don’t be too impressed. There’s nothing to it, if you have a sword and catch one by itself. I’m sorry about your men. I didn’t know any marines were stationed on Candus. Where’s your base?”
“There’s no base here, we just came into the system a few days ago for training. Candus City made a perfect place to practice a new kind of space jump being developed. Not a lot of air traffic to get in the way while we work out the kinks in the equipment. We had just made a jump when all hell broke loose.”
“Any chance the Navy will come help us?” Skylar asked.
“I wouldn’t count on it. The Terran Navy wouldn’t leave the core worlds to come all the way out here—we’re not important enough to save.”
“What about the Marines? Don’t you have some way of calling for help?” Skylar hoped Sergeant Major McCoons could tell her something.
“No, all of our equipment went offline. We had a drop ship in orbit, but a battle took place, and I figure the spiders destroyed any ship before invading.”
“But, you’re the Marines. Shouldn’t you be able to do something?” Skylar pleaded.
“I wish we could. I’ve been in the Marines for a long time. I’ve been trained to protect ships from being boarded and to capture pirates. I’ve never been trained to invade planets, though, and I’ve never seen any equipment for taking a planet back from anyone.”
“What do you think will happen now?” Michael asked.
“Well, if the Senate and corporations do anything about this, it would be to build up defenses in the core worlds. They’ll use us to buy time to save themselves.” Sergeant Major McCoons continued, “I’ve never heard about attacks like this. Either this is the first one, or they’ve been covered up. I don’t think anything will happen. They’ll tell everyone that Candus has been hit by a plague and make the whole system off-limits. They’ll put up a few monitoring satellites and write us off. If we want to get out of here, we’ll have to come up with something on our own—and fast, before they respond and trap us here.”
Michael and Skylar both lowered their heads. Everyone wished they were important enough to save, but they knew Sergeant Major McCoons was probably right. They lived on an outer-rim world as far from the core worlds as you could get. Their lives meant nothing to people on core worlds, or to their senators. If some corporation could figure out how to make a profit from their deaths, then they would die.
“What else have you figured out?” Sergeant Major McCoons changed the subject.
“I think they only capture one person at a time. They take them back to their ship before they do anything else.”
“Are you sure?”
“Not one-hundred percent, but we’ve bumped into them several times and they walked right past us. I’m sure they saw or heard us, but they just kept walking. What do you know about them?”
“Not much. I’ve been running for my life ever since they started their attack. I know they bombed the city to clear landing zones.”
“Interesting story,” Dr. Jones said. “What else do you know about the spiders. Did they have any equipment? Use armor? What were their attack patterns?”
“What? Why do you want to know their attack patterns?” Sergeant Major McCoons asked. “Do spiders normally use patterns when they attack?”
“Some do,” Dr. Jones replied. “If we can find a normal spider which acts like the ones which attack, it might help us figure out a way to fight them. We’ve haven’t had any luck so far.”
“What do you mean ‘so far’? Are you telling us this has happened before? I’ve never heard of any attacks by three-meter spiders before. And I never heard of ships that can take every piece of equipment on a planet offline all at once. Or ships that look like asteroids. Where did you get your information from?” Sergeant Major McCoons asked starting to think the doctor knew more than what he was saying.
“What I meant,” Dr. Jones said quickly, “is that no one else on the planet I’ve talked to had any luck with fighting off spiders. You two are the only ones.”
“Who did you say you worked for?” Sergeant Major McCoons asked. He had a feeling that he knew the doctor from somewhere. He looked and acted very familiar.
“Triton University. I’m on the staff there and teach biology. This was supposed to be my sabbatical. I’m working on a book about the spiders of the outer rim. A lot of them haven’t been studied before.”
“Like the monsters that attacked us,” Skylar said. “No one ever said anything about three-meter high spiders. Why didn’t you warn us?”
“I didn’t know until recently,” Dr. Jones replied before being cut off by Sergeant Major McCoons.
“Recently? You already knew about these things?”
<
br /> “No, that’s not what I meant. I meant, I didn’t know about them before today,” Dr. Jones replied. “No one knew about them.”
Dr. Jones left Sergeant Major McCoons and his group and headed over towards a group at the back of the pack. Sergeant Major McCoons couldn’t shake the feeling that he knew the doctor from somewhere, but he’d never been to Triton or anywhere close to a biology class. “Kinda strange,” Sergeant Major McCoons muttered.
“What’s strange?” Skylar asked.
“Oh, just a feeling I have. I think it’s kinda strange that the doctor happens to be on Candus, studying spiders, and in the city, which has no spiders, when monster spiders happen to attack. I just get this feeling something’s off about him. As I used to tell my men, my alarms are going off in my head. It’ll come to me sooner or later.”
Michael looked at the sergeant major and then at Dr. Jones. “I get a vibe about him as well. It does seem strange he happens to be here at the right time.”
“Should we do something?” Skylar asked nervously.
“No. Whatever or whoever he is, he’s not doing us any harm. Let him ask his questions, maybe, he’ll figure something out which can help us. Ignore what I said before. We’ve all been through a lot and I’m jumpy. What are your plans?” Sergeant Major McCoons asked Michael.
“I know of a park just outside the city. It has a large lake with an island, and I’m hoping to hide there, until things settle down and we can figure out something else. I just don’t want to be in the open when it gets dark.”
“Why an island and not just somewhere out of the city? There’s plenty of buildings around here we could hole up in?” Sergeant Major McCoons asked.
“The island isn’t large enough for their ships to land. I’m hoping that will save us if they start landing again.”
“It might, but those damn things can jump a long way. They might still attack, and we’d be trapped.”
“Do you have a better idea? What were you going to do?”
“I was heading toward the spaceport. If anyone came to help us, that’s where they would land.”
“We can’t make it there before nightfall. I really don’t want to be out in the open when the sun goes down—I’ve heard that spiders hunt at night.”
“We could ask Dr. Jones,” Skylar said.
“I don’t think so,” Sergeant Major McCoons said. “I have a feeling the doctor wouldn’t really know.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t think the doctor is what he says he is. He still looks awful familiar. I think I’ve seen him before. He might be an agent of some kind sent to get information on what happens during a spider attack.”
“Wouldn’t that mean the Senate knew about this. If they knew, why wouldn’t they have sent help. Why would they only send one man?” Skylar asked.
“Because they only know a little and are trying to figure this out. I bet there has been other attacks and they were covered up. This is not the first one, and Dr. Jones is here to get information back to them so they can figure out a plan.” Sergeant Major McCoons said.
“What makes you think he isn’t studying spiders like he said he was?” Skylar refused to believe that the Senate would not protect them if they knew about the spiders.
“I’ve been around senators and core-worlders before. They don’t care about us and would not hesitate to use us as bait. They don’t want anyone to know about these spider attacks. They can’t send a task force to stop them, even if they had one. It would cause too much panic and hurt business.”
Skylar didn’t want to believe Sergeant Major McCoons, but she didn’t say anymore. She didn’t care about Sergeant Major McCoons’ feelings about the senate. She just wanted someone to come help.
Michael looked at Sergeant Major McCoons, “They’ll try to cover this one up as well? Won’t they?”
“Yes—one of the reasons I don’t think they’ll come to our rescue Just a hunch. I’ve dealt with Senate agents before and Dr. Jones acts just like one. Leaves me to believe, we’ll be on our own.”
“Are you going to do anything about it?” Michael asked.
“No, but we need to keep our eyes on him. I bet he has some way off this planet. If we can be with him when he tries to make a break, we might have some hope of getting off.”
“Or he will just shoot us where we stand,” Michael said. “I don’t know much about the core worlds or the Senate, but I’ve heard stories.”
“Some of those stories are just stories,” Sergeant Major McCoons said. “Some, however, are true. Take it from me: don’t ever trust anyone from the Senate.”
“It looks like I’ll probably never get the chance to see if you’re right,” Michael said. “The park is only a few more hours away, and it seems that the spider activity is lessening as we near the edge of the city. Let’s hope they have already been here and left.”
“Let’s hope,” Sergeant Major McCoons said as he watched Dr. Jones question another group of survivors about the spiders.
Chapter 16
It took another three hours of walking before the small band of survivors reached the park. During the last part of their trip, they didn’t see any spiders, but they didn’t see other survivors, either.
“There it is,” Michael pointed to a group of buildings on the island a few hundred yards from the edge of the lake. “We should go there, until we figure out what else we can do.”
“There are no boats,” one of the earlier hotheads sounded off. “What are you going to do about that?”
Michael looked at the man, wishing he would just go away, “I’m going to rest, and then I’m going to break into one of those stores and find something to eat. I might even try to find supplies to take with me to the island.”
“You’re going to break into a store? What gives you the right to break into a Candus Corporation store and take what you want?”
Michael couldn’t believe the man. Couldn’t he see the burning city? Hadn’t he seen thousands of people get captured by spiders?
“The fact that Candus Corporation is not here protecting us,” Sergeant Major McCoons responded. “We have to do what we need to do to survive.”
“I don’t like it. In my entire life, I’ve never done anything against Candus Corporation, and I don’t think we should start now,” the man said.
In booming voice that seemed to be standard issue for every marine sergeant, Sergeant Major McCoons said, “We are going to rest, we are going to gather supplies, and then we are going to take a little swim.”
“Swim? I’m not swimming. If you can’t find me a boat, you’ll have to figure something else out.”
“Then stay here. I’m not dying to protect you. No arrogant idiot is worth my life,” Sergeant Major McCoons said.
“Aren’t Marines supposed to protect people like me?”
“Right now, I can’t even protect myself. Michael has been right about everything, so far; the best thing to do is listen to this young man,” Sergeant Major McCoons said.
“We’ll see about that,” the man said before stomping off.
“He’s acting like one of those self-important VPs. He still thinks he should be treated like he was before this happened and that everyone else works for him,” Skylar said.
“Believe me, I know the type,” Sergeant Major McCoons agreed.
“Are we really swimming?” Skylar asked.
“Can’t you swim?” Michael asked before sitting.
“Yes, but I’m not exactly dressed for it. I’ve already ruined my shoes, and I’d hate to ruin this suit—it’s one of my favorites.” Skylar replied before realizing what she was saying.
Michael grinned at the thought that, after everything that had just happened, Skylar cared about her clothes. She and Sergeant Major McCoons caught on to why he was grinning and they laughed as they plopped down next him.
*****
The small group rested for an hour before Michael decided it was time to find supplies and make the swi
m to the island. Everyone was tired, thirsty, and hungry after their long day, and he wanted to make sure they all had enough time to reach the island before dark.
Most of the survivors got up and started to make their way toward the stores, but others didn’t move.
“Why do we have to leave? Why can’t we just stay here for the night? There are plenty of buildings right here that we could hide in.”
“What if the spiders come back?” Michael asked. “Are you prepared to fight them?”
“We haven’t seen any spiders for over four hours. They’ve moved on to somewhere else—they’re probably attacking the rest of the planet.”
“Maybe,” Sergeant Major McCoons replied, “but do you want to take that risk?”
“No spiders attacked us the whole way here, and it doesn’t even look like the spiders have been here.”
