Set to rapid pulse, she sent a stream of five or six laser blasts into the creature’s face. The force of the shots sent it back a couple of steps. Daylight burst through the hole she’d made where its nose had been.
The creature toppled backwards. It hit the ground with a heavy thud that shook through the soles of Reyes’ boots. She looked out into the cove.
Federichi had seemed slow when the creatures were inanimate. Now they were on their feet, she appeared to move at a glacial pace, burdened by the lame Peacock. Reyes watched her look around as the other monsters closed in on them. The thunder of their feet galloped through the cove. The creatures snarled, hissed, and swung their large arms at the two Commandos. They moved in on them from all sides. No escape.
From the look on Federichi’s face, it seemed like she understood the futility of a fight. Their only hope rested on getting back to the shuttle. Any other course of action would be suicide. From the look on Federichi’s face, she knew they wouldn’t get back to the shuttle.
No one gave Patel the order, but he spun the door’s manual lock anyway. As much as Reyes wanted to stop him, she didn’t. Instead, she watched the gap close in front of her.
Still fifteen to twenty metres from the crashed shuttle, Federichi and Peacock stopped. Reyes watched them through the small window in the door, a lump in her parched throat, a knot in her guts.
Three beasts converged on them. They hit them hard, knocking them to the ground. Even through the thick door, Reyes heard the oomph of air being driven from the Commandos’ lungs. It sounded like something cracked too—more than likely several bones had shattered. The three creatures moved like they had rocket propulsion.
Two beasts pinned Federichi. From the way her limbs and head flopped, she’d already been knocked unconscious. At least she wouldn’t feel any more pain. One of the creatures clamped a large hand over her head. It roared as it twisted it free.
The ripping sound ran straight to Reyes’ guts. The beast then discarded Federichi’s head while the other one stood up from her body.
By the time Reyes looked across at Peacock, he’d already been decapitated. The bloody line of his spine hung down from his detached head. His blood soaked into the dry ground.
Although the other Commandos didn’t look out of the window, they’d clearly heard what happened. Silence swept through the space.
Then Reyes saw the torches. The three that Federichi and Peacock had recovered between them and the ones on their breast pockets. All of them were smashed. The loose ones had been trampled, the others looked like they’d been shattered in the scuffle. Did the creatures do it on purpose? Had they worked out their plans?
Reyes shook her head to herself to banish the thought. She turned away from the door and looked at the pile of torches they’d recovered in the middle of the shuttle. For the entire time she stared at them, she felt the WO glaring at her.
When she finally looked up at him, he said, “This best bloody work. I’m not losing any more people.”
Chapter 12
Two days ago. Five dead.
Reyes watched the monsters outside as they stalked through the cove. They needed to get out of there without any more casualties. She had a theory and, hopefully, it was correct.
The beasts all suddenly dropped into their shells and hit the ground. The door had a timer beside it. Reyes slapped her hand against it to start the countdown. They had two minutes.
“That’s the third day in a row now,” Reyes said as she looked from the clock to the creatures outside.
They lay scattered around the cove as forty or more piles of yellow rock. Whenever Reyes had counted how many creatures there were, more always appeared, so she couldn’t be sure. Regardless of numbers, all of the ones she could see had dropped into their protective lumps. It looked like something had triggered it.
A glance up at the thermometer on the wall showed her it read fifty degrees Celsius. Reyes handed her empty cup back to the WO, swallowing the dry paste in her mouth as she did so. Another half cup of warm water each. Not much. Not enough, but something at least. Better than nothing, which was what they would be left with very soon.
One minute and forty-five seconds remained on the timer.
A nod at Patel on the door handle, Reyes said, “I’m ready. Let me out.”
The WO tried to stand up, but he didn’t make it. Instead, he puffed out a hard breath and fell back into his seat. When he spoke, he winced as if every word caused him physical pain. “I thought we’d already spoken about this. You’re not going out there.”
One minute thirty seconds. “I have a theory,” Reyes said. “We have to try something; otherwise we’ll die of thirst and you’ll die from infection. Let me out, Patel.”
When the WO didn’t protest, Patel looked back at Reyes and slowly turned the handle to open the door. The heat from outside rushed in. The hottest day yet, it swamped Reyes, lifting more sweat on her already damp skin. Stripped down to just a T-shirt, she still felt like she wore too many clothes.
Because the WO couldn’t get up, Rousseau—as his second in command—walked over to Reyes with her gun. At over half a foot taller than Reyes, she looked down on her. “You know what you’re doing?”
“No. But we have to try something, right?”
Rousseau’s frown looked like she wanted to say something in response, but she clearly had nothing, so she didn’t argue the point. They had to try.
One last check of the timer on the wall. One minute and ten seconds. Reyes slipped out into the scorching heat of the cove.
The fierce burn from the sun dealt Reyes a physical blow and she stumbled, shielding her eyes against its glare.
Several blinks—the sun’s light so strong it turned the rocky ground into a mirror—and Reyes recovered her sight to see Henry nearby. He lay on his back, mummified from the fierce heat.
One of the yellow piles of rocks lay close to the fallen Marine. Reyes had watched the creature stand over him like it was guarding a prize for days now. Although it had no interest in eating him, maybe it would have been easier to take if the creatures killed for sustenance. At least she would have been able to understand that. Everything needed to eat, right?
When she got close to the beast, Reyes nudged it with her foot. It felt as heavy as it looked and didn’t budge. She clenched her jaw from the effort of shoving it again. It felt like trying to shift a tank.
Rousseau called out to Reyes when she raised her gun and pointed it at it. “What are you doing?”
But Reyes ignored her and pulled the trigger. The gun shook in her grip from the pulse of fire, but the blasts bounced off the creature’s thick hide. If they could survive a grenade, a gun probably didn’t have much hope with them in their current form.
“Thirty seconds,” Patel called out.
Reyes spun on the spot and took in the cove. She looked at the dead Commandos, the forty or so creatures pulled into piles of rock, and the route out of there through the narrow pass over three hundred metres away.
“Reyes!” Rousseau called, shifting from foot to foot as if she needed to piss. “What the fuck are you doing? You have fifteen seconds.”
Another look up at the sun, the glare so fierce it would blind her to look at it for too long, and Reyes shook her head. What was she doing? She’d learned nothing and she’d run out of time.
Not wanting to push her luck, Reyes stepped closer to the shuttle just as the creature on the ground twitched ever so slightly.
Adrenaline lit the touchpaper in Reyes and she sprinted back to the ship. Just three metres between her and safety, but with the potential of one of the creatures behind her, it felt like miles.
The creature groaned. A split second later, a whoosh sounded out from where it had clearly jumped to its feet. It roared so loudly, it nearly threw Reyes off balance.
Rousseau raised her gun and shot over Reyes’ head as she dived into the shuttle. She hit the metal floor hard, white-hot pain running through her right shoulde
r from where it took most of the impact.
The creature screamed and the sound of a rock slide hit the ground.
Patel moved faster than Reyes had ever seen from him, slamming the door shut before any more of the things got to them.
Heavy pants rocked through Reyes as she stood up. Her right shoulder throbbed from the impact, her throat was dry with thirst, and her body felt even heavier with her exhaustion. A look out of the window and she saw the monsters had all gotten back to their feet. The timer on the wall showed two minutes and eighteen seconds. The temperature had dropped to forty-nine degrees Celsius.
“So what did that achieve?” the WO said.
Although she fought to recover her breath, Reyes still got her words out. “I think we can get out of here when they’re rocks.”
“In two minutes?”
Reyes shrugged. “It’s been two minutes every time. And it happens at the hottest part of the day. It must be how they protect themselves against the heat. At least we know we have that and when it will happen.”
“The LZ is five minutes away and the Crimson Destroyer can’t help us any more than that. The only weapon it has will turn this entire planet to dust, so it can’t use it. Besides, how do we know they’ll do it again tomorrow? How do we know it will be hot enough? What if the temperature drops and they wake up early?”
Reyes looked down at the WO’s leg. The material of his trousers was sodden with blood. She then looked at the water supply. “I figure we’ve got to take a chance, right?” Two buckets sat in the corner of the shuttle. One for piss, one for shit. “We don’t have all the time in the world. Also, I think I’d rather die trying to get out of here than take another crap in front of you lot.”
The WO looked like he was about to respond, but Rousseau stood up and said, “I’ll take a team out tomorrow. We’ll use those two minutes to see if we can find somewhere else to move to that’ll get us closer to where we need to be and protect us from those things. Even if we take a few days to get to the LZ.”
“I’ll go with you,” Reyes said.
Both Rousseau and the WO replied as one. “No!”
Before Reyes could say anything else, the WO said, “You’ll get everyone killed. You’re a fucking liability.” He then turned to Rousseau. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to go out.”
“What other options do we have?”
At that moment, the radio beside the WO crackled.
When he answered it, a female voice came through the speaker. “Shuttle Eight Seven Four, this is the Crimson Destroyer. We need to know what’s happening down there. We can’t orbit this planet forever. You need to make a play. Over.”
After a long hard look at Reyes and then Rousseau, the WO sighed. He shuffled in his seat and winced from his clear discomfort before he pressed the button on the mic. “Shuttle Eight Seven Four to Crimson Destroyer, we need a couple more days at the most. By then, we’ll either be ready to pick up, or we’ll be dead. Over and out.”
Chapter 13
Now. Thirteen dead.
The WO stood up and stumbled over to the window. Reyes tensed as she fought against her desire to help him. She’d be ready if he started to fall, but she needed to make sure she didn’t convey that message to him. The proudest man she knew, he’d tear her head off if the rookie dared to hold him up.
Not only did Reyes have to fight her need to help him, but she also had to stifle her reaction to the stench. It must have been his wound. Dirt, sweat, piss, shit … all of those smells had become a part of their lethargic wait. But now she smelled rotting meat. Rancid like it crawled with disease. That stink could only come from one place. Whatever poison those things had in their claws, it didn’t mix well with human flesh.
The WO stared out of the small square window at the darkness outside. “I’m not sure about this, rookie.”
And why would he be? The creatures came to life at night. Where they’d stalked around with a slow and laborious shuffle in the hot sun, they now darted from place to place as children would. Some of them play fought as a way to spend their clear abundance of energy. The moon shone down on them, nearly as stark as the sun. It cast a blue hue over the sparse landscape.
“Neither am I,” Reyes finally said when he turned his attention on her. “I wish I had certainty, but we’re doing this on the back of a theory. All we know is that we’re going to die if we don’t try, and that no one has any better ideas.”
Eight Commandos left and fourteen torches between them. They stood around them, silent while Reyes and the WO discussed the mission.
When the WO didn’t respond, Reyes turned to the others. “Right, we need to strap up with two torches each. One on your gun, the other one on the breast of your flak vest.”
“But there’s only fourteen torches,” Singh said.
“The WO won’t need any,” Reyes replied. The shuttle fell silent and the WO scowled at her. “It’s all he can do to walk with his wound. We need to form a protective ring around him so all he has to worry about is getting out of here. He won’t need torches for that.”
“So who’s going to lead this mission, then?” Patel asked.
“Me,” Reyes said.
The WO clenched his jaw. “You ain’t leading shit.” Clearly a way to salvage some pride because he’d been demoted to the middle of the group.
“Yes, I am,” Reyes said.
A familiar heavy scowl and the WO spoke slow and deliberate words. “Fine. Just make sure you don’t get anyone killed, kid.”
Reyes nodded. She understood the burden that came with leading a team. She turned to the others. “We move as a unit. Keep the WO protected in the middle and shine the torches outwards. The most important thing is we keep a perimeter of light. That’s going to get us out of here, not gunfire.”
None of the troops replied. Instead, they went about attaching the torches to themselves. This could be a suicide mission, but it had been a day since the water had run out and the Crimson Destroyer had to leave soon. Much easier to risk your life when it already hung in the balance.
Chapter 14
One day ago. Five dead.
A grip on the top of either of her shoulders and Reyes looked into Rousseau’s brown eyes. Would this be the last time she looked into them? “You have two minutes and no more.”
Rousseau nodded as she zipped up her flak vest and then cast an anxious glance out of the small window in the door.
Reyes picked up Rousseau’s gun for her and put in it her shaking hands. “Get as far out as you can, check out where we can move to, and get back. You don’t have time for anything else. Watch the shuttle. I’ll help you keep track of how long you have left.”
Although Rousseau didn’t reply, the clenching and tightening of her jaw suggested she struggled taking directions from a rookie. Of course she would, she’d been in the Marines for years, and now she had to listen to her tell her what to do. But she had no other option, and the look on her face showed she’d accepted that—if somewhat reluctantly.
The rest of Rousseau’s team got themselves ready. Flak vests and guns. Both essentials would make running harder, but both of them could be the difference between life and death.
Six Commandos in total, Rousseau would lead them. McTavish, the pilot, had volunteered to go along with four Marines: Finnegan, Carlile, Smith, and Huat. Despite so many Marines going out, the WO still wouldn’t let Reyes be amongst them. She could do so much more outside if he’d just let her go. Sooner or later she’d have to tell him to go jump. He could discipline her when they got to the Crimson Destroyer. If they got to the Crimson Destroyer.
Patel stood by the door, ready to open it. Reyes divided her attention between the thermometer and the view outside. Forty-eight degrees Celsius and the sun seemed to be as high as it would get in the sky for that day. It shone down on the landscape, turning the sand into a mirror where it bounced off it like an arid lake.
About forty creatures outside, Reyes looked from one to the
other, watching their clumsy gait. She’d spent a lot of time observing their behaviour. She’d watched them wrestle and play fight when it got cooler in the evening and night. She’d watched them earlier that morning when they dragged away their fallen brethren, the one Rousseau had killed the previous day. She now watched them as they all dropped into piles of rock. “Now, Patel!”
Patel’s arms turned into a blur as he spun the door open and Reyes slapped the timer to start the countdown.
The second a gap large enough opened in the door, Rousseau led the charge from the shuttle.
The heat rushed in almost as quickly as the Commandos had run out. It forced Reyes back a step as she watched the six Commandos charge through the stifling scorch. Weighed down with their equipment, it seemed impossible to run in such conditions.
The six passed Henry first and then the sandbank concealing Adoteng. They’d gone about one hundred metres away already.
A glance up at the timer and Reyes nodded to herself. They were making good progress. “Ninety seconds,” she called out into the cove, her voice echoing around the walled-in space. None of them reacted. Hopefully they could still hear her.
The group got close to Jones as they headed for the cove’s narrow exit. His large corpse lay like a fallen tree in their path.
They passed him without ceremony, none of them showing any sign of slowing down.
Then a loud boom! exploded through the cove and Reyes stumbled backwards for a second time. The echo of the explosion whipped around the cove as she watched Finnegan fly through the air. Hard to be certain through the dust and sand it kicked up, but it looked like the explosion had turned his left leg to red mist. He spun like a rag doll.
Finnegan hit one of the huge rock obelisks with a loud crack. He looked unconscious at least, but probably dead. He fell to the ground like a sack of sand as the smell of smoke reached the shuttle.
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