The two score and three mercenaries continued on through the heat and buzzing insectoids. There was low cursing as people stumbled over branches or vines lying along the ground. One woman yelled out as her hand went through a rotting trunk she had attempted to push herself over, and numerous worm-like creatures swarmed over her hand. She jumped back and batted the creatures away, not one of which tried to bite through her gloves. It wouldn’t have done them any good, but it showed they weren’t carnivores and had probably been feasting on the rotting wood of the log.
“Quiet down,” hissed Jonah. “There’s no telling what’s listening to us.” He didn’t think there were surveillance devices this far out, and their passive electronic sensors had shown nothing, but Jonah wanted to live to a ripe old age and ignoring possible threats just because they were unlikely was not the way to do that.
Their guide led, pointing out hazards along the way. One looked like some kind of bog, except for the skeletal remains of animals that looked like they had been trying to get out and couldn’t. Another was a bunch of flowering vines descending from branches above; several bodies of small furry flying creatures stuck to them, a viscous purplish substance flowing over their forms.
Jonah knew that this would be a complete nightmare without the guide. He was considering the extra bonus he would give the native, something that would help his people considerably, when a scream from behind drove all thought from his head.
Like most of his people, Jonah was on the ground in a heartbeat, rifle coming up to his shoulder as a head motion flipped his visor down. Most had dropped to face the direction of the scream, but he was satisfied to note that enough were looking in other directions to give complete coverage. His people were thinking and not just reacting.
The guide ran toward the sound, stopping a meter way from the thing that had grabbed one of the mercs, and jabbed his spear into its flesh. The thing jerked immediately, then stopped moving. So that’s how they survive in this hellhole, thought Jonah. Some kind of poison, probably lethal to anything in the jungle.
“Doc,” he called out in a low voice.
Doc Salsbury came running up, medical bag over his shoulder to look at Cameron. He hadn’t paid attention to the guide, or maybe the signal hadn’t been relayed back, but Cameron was half into the maw of some horrible-looking thing, something that looked like a plant, but had multiple rows of teeth like an animal. Cameron was still alive, his mouth working in a soundless scream of pain.
Doc pushed an airgun into the neck of the man after pulling aside his protective scarf. The drug went to work, and Cameron calmed as the pain signals were damped. Next came a shot of nanites, while a pair of mercs cut into the creature with lasers, careful to not get the beams near their comrade.
“The guide said this is an ambush hunter,” said Charley, walking up beside the mission leader. “It doesn’t move very fast, but that maw can move like lightning.”
Jonah nodded and looked into the fearsome mouth. The creature appeared to be all mouth. As the people cut away parts from it, the small lower body was revealed, and the commander had to wonder how it had gotten around at all with the pitiful worm-like legs underneath.
“How’s he gonna be, Doc?” asked Willard, their heavy weapons man.
“Looks like there were no punctures, thank God,” answered the medic. “His body armor kept those teeth from digging in. But I think he has internal injuries from the crushing force.”
“Can he move?”
“Not on his own, and I would hate to leave him here. Something’s sure to come along and try to take a bite out of him.” That would be death to the attacker, but Cameron would still be dead, too.
“Rig a stretcher. We’ll carry him along. One trooper can watch him while we go in to the base.”
That would remove two people from his order of battle. He didn’t like that, but he also didn’t like losing people. He considered himself a good leader, and good leaders didn’t let people die without reason. They would have to make do. It wasn’t like any other fighting force in history hadn’t had to make do after sustaining casualties.
It grew dark while they got Cameron free and rigged up a stretcher. The guide had shown them what branches to use, though the mercs had acted like the dead wood was going to come back to life and attack them. Jonah couldn’t blame them. This jungle made his skin crawl, and he was sure they hadn’t seen everything it could throw at them yet. He wondered how the enemy’s snatch and grab crew was handling it, and he could only hope they were losing people at every turn.
Everyone had their visors down now, using the light gathering function to see in the dark. The jungle looked like a nightmare in night-vision mode, despite the clarity of modern equipment. The colors shown on their visors might have been accurate, but they wouldn’t be able to tell until they saw them in the daylight.
“We need to start moving,” said Charley, pointing ahead. “We’ve fallen behind schedule.”
“Right.” Jonah hated the thought of hurrying through this jungle. He hated even more the idea of spending an extra day out here, waiting for night to fall again. Even worse, the longer they took, the more at risk the hostage was.
Jonah cursed again and pulled the hatchet from his belt. His men joked about him carrying the small weapon, but he was good with it, and having a lot of backups was always a good thing. He looked at the razor-sharp edge, then secured it back in its harness. He doubted he would use it on this operation; if he did, the shit would really have hit the fan.
* * *
“Have we heard anything from the boss yet?” asked the leader of the small furry aliens that were the majority of the group.
“No, Niplo. We have not,” growled the Besquith who was the overall leader. He really hated working with the little aliens. They were weak and stupid; they were the worst soldiers he had ever seen. He would have preferred to have more of his kind, even if he was just a lowly soldier among his own. Here he was the commander, even if his command was pitiful.
The little alien looked down at his feet, then up at the larger Besquith. “I am worried. I don’t like this place. Another of my males is missing from a patrol, and I suspect a party will be coming to rescue our hostage before long.”
The Besquith growled deep in his throat at the cowardly creature. There was no way the company whose factor they had kidnapped would know where they were. He thought about that for a moment and remembered they had believed the same of the other operation, the one that the damned Human mercenaries had attacked. Sure, they hadn’t recovered the hostage, but the group hadn’t gotten their ransom either. So the boss had decided they would try again, as if that wouldn’t lead to the same result.
“We need you to keep sending out patrols,” said the Besquith to his minion.
“But you said the Humans will not find us here.”
“And so they won’t. But it shows a lack of discipline to not keep up our guard.”
“My people are starting to grumble. Some may refuse.”
“And any who refuse will be grumbling in my stomach,” said the Besquith, leaning over and glaring at the small creature, showing as many of his carnivore’s teeth as he could. The little alien shivered in fear, but didn’t dare run away from the larger monster that could run it down. “Make sure your people continue to patrol the jungle surrounding this place. If I find out otherwise, you will pay with your life.”
The alien gave its version of a head nod, then ran out, the stink of its fear staying behind. The Besquith growled again, then cursed the uselessness of the race. If he had his way, they would all become rations before they left this planet. And then he wouldn’t have to share the reward with the weaklings.
* * *
Thankfully, the planet, even though a backwater world, still had an orbital navigation system. Jonah hated to think what it would have been like trying to navigate with the age-old tools of map and compass. He had the training, as did most of his people, though the maps were projected onto the v
isors as heads-up displays, and the compass was projected beside it. But trying to find the way through the jungle, even with the directions of the compass, could still be the ultimate confusing experience. The orbital system allowed them to get an exact fix on their location.
“We should be there in an hour,” he told Charley after checking the three dimensional representation of their position. There were some hills ahead, and with them a change in the biome, going from jungle to dense forest. From what he had read, it was a much less dangerous area. There were regions of exposed rock, and from the intelligence they had, the hostage was located in a fortified area within those rocks. Orbital photos had given them a probable location, and the sighting of a Besquith from a high-flying drone had confirmed it.
“The guide is concerned about our night attack,” said Charley, squatting down for a moment.
“What’s his problem?”
“He says it’s better to move during the day, since the jungle plants will come alive.”
“And what the hell does he mean by that?” asked Jonah. He looked down at the ground and spat on a small worm-like creature that was crawling along. The worm curled up and started to thrash, then stopped, curling into a circle. What the hell. It couldn’t handle the enzymes in my saliva?
“The trees will awake at dawn,” said the guide, appearing like magic behind the team leader. His voice was high-pitched, almost beyond the range of Human hearing, but the translator box he was wearing converted it to English in the normal audible range of the mercs.
“I think he means the vegetation around here starts its business when they can get energy from the sun,” said Charley.
“Noise increase,” said the guide, eyes blinking in what they recognized as his race’s version of a nod. “Plants pump, sound fills the forest.”
“But we’ll be easier to see,” replied Jonah, not sure he liked the idea of changing plans.
“See for little bit,” said the guide. “Can hear for much further.”
“He’s right, you know,” agreed Charley. “And we’ll have to push it to make it to the jump off point before dawn.”
“Okay. We’ll do it your way,” he told the guide, almost reaching out to pat him on the shoulder, then thinking better of it. He didn’t know the mores of these people, and didn’t want to offend the one person they were depending on.
20 minutes later the jungle threw the next assault their way.
* * *
“We have intelligence the Humans will be assaulting your position within a couple of days,” said the Besquith that the group leader only knew as The Boss.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Be ready to move to the secondary location, today, and make sure the hostage is safe. We can’t afford to lose another one, since his company has increased security on their other high rankers.”
The group leader acknowledged. They were in this for the ransom; kidnapping vital operatives of an Interstellar conglomerate to have them killed was not attaining their objective. The only problem he could see with their plan was that the company didn’t seem to want to play along.
“I could use more of our people,” he told The Boss. “These little, furry insects don’t fill my heart with confidence.”
“They’re all we have for now. After we buy our way back into the good graces of the leaders of the guild, we will be able to recruit all of our own kind we need. But for now, these are the instruments we have, and we will use them.”
And after they are of no further use, they will make fine meals, thought the group leader.
“Get your people ready,” barked the group leader over the local comm. “We will be moving in three hours. Full security, and I don’t want anything showing to the air assets of our enemy. Now, get to it.”
* * *
The people were grumbling under their breaths as the column made its way through the jungle. The night was filled with the continuous buzzing of insectoids, and all the Humans had their scarves up, protecting their flesh from painful bites. The insectoids would die, but that was small consolation for the itching that resulted from the foreign anticoagulants entering their systems. And of course fully-covered faces led to more sweat rolling down faces and onto torsos. And more cursing.
Jonah was alerted to the attack by a loud noise, followed quickly by more shouts and the muted sounds of magrail rifles. Jonah was pissed at the shouts; his people should know better.
When he saw the creature, he understood the noise. Even the best-disciplined soldier would have a hard time not shouting when a multi-ton mass of bone and muscle erupted claws-first from the jungle. It had collided with Jess, one of the smallest of the mercenaries, and the one who must have looked to be the easiest target. Its mouth had closed on her helmet, crunching it inward despite the toughness of its alloys. Claws had raked her chest, ripping through the cammo cover, but had been unable to penetrate the body armor. Still, it looked like Jess was gone; her neck had to be broken the way her body flopped around as the creature swung her.
Rounds hit the creature, penetrating its thick fur and the leathery-looking skin underneath. Jonah raised his own weapon and fired a burst. He aimed at the head of the beast, but hit Jess instead, not that she noticed. The guide ran toward the predator, spear at the ready. The beast must have noticed the alien, and must have had some experience with the natives and their weapons. With a tensing of its hind legs, the predator became a blur of red fur and disappeared into the jungle.
“We have to get her back,” shouted Zack, starting after the beast.
“Stand down,” shouted Jonah. “She’s dead. We don’t have time to chase that damned thing around in the rain forest.”
As he spoke, the first drops of a heavy rain started falling, almost as if he had called it down.
“She needs to be avenged,” shouted Zack, storming over to his leader.
Jonah shook his head. He was sure the beast would find a way to get enough of her flesh to fill its belly, and then it would sicken and die in agony, poisoned by her incompatible proteins. It would have to be revenge enough.
“How many more of those things are there around here?” asked Charley of the guide.
“Should be only one. They are very territorial. Not to say there won’t be other predators around, but none that large.”
Great, thought Jonah, turning to walk toward their objective. He waved everyone else on. They wouldn’t have to worry about any more of those big bastards, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t run into any ambush predators, or packs of smaller, swarming beasts. His experience in jungles hadn’t prepared him for this. Nothing here was familiar, and there was so much that could kill them without warning. Right now, all he wanted to do was get this mission over with and get out of here.
The rain started coming down harder, hitting the thick canopy and pounding down on them with heavy drops. All they could hear was the rain, and visibility was less than 20 meters. In one respect it was an aid to their mission, as no patrol could see them. On the other hand, they could walk by a patrol waiting in ambush and not have a clue.
Minutes later the rain stopped. The Humans were still mostly dry in their combat suits, whose fibers repelled water. The air started to steam up as the rays of the morning sun penetrated the canopy in places, and the incessant murmuring of the plants rose in volume until it almost drowned out any other sounds.
“We are near,” said the guide, pointing the way with his spear.
He would know, thought the team leader. The natives had been the first to notice the aliens, intruders on their territory that had come and set up camp without asking permission. The natives had not attacked, which was good sense on their part, since they would have been slaughtered. Instead they had reported it, and word had gotten back to the company, which led to the second contract. They needed to fulfill this one, or the bills would again go unpaid, and Jonah and Charley might find themselves working for someone else.
“No damned way,” said Jonah und
er his breath. He and his partner had worked too hard to start up their specialty company. They were small, but the contracts they pulled in were lucrative, since few other companies could do what they did.
The point man, Ivan, knelt 30 meters down the trail, at the edge of visibility in the thick foliage, raising a hand to stop the column. It would have been nice to use the comms, but it was too much of a risk this close to their target. Instead, Jonah jogged forward at a crouch, his anxiety rising as he thought about what might be in front of them. He knelt beside the man and followed his pointing finger, to see movement further out in the jungle.
“See them?” whispered Ivan.
“Yeah.” Small gray forms moved through the jungle up ahead. They were the same creatures they had run into on the last op. The same aliens of unknown origin. Someone probably knew where they came from, and what their world was like, but no one that Jonah knew. All Jonah cared about was that they were known associates of the Besquith that seemed to be leading this operation, and they needed to be killed so they could accomplish their own mission.
The merc leader waved more people forward, and the well-trained mercenaries knew who he wanted—the stealthiest of the group and the best at the silent kill. The rest stayed low, weapons at the ready. Jonah waved the three that came up to the right, while he and Ivan went to the left. There appeared to be seven of the creatures, a squad-level patrol, but he wasn’t sure if there were any more. He doubted it. The creatures were small and stealthy themselves, but obviously not at home in this jungle.
Jonah and Ivan cut along the brush at an angle, reached the path the aliens were taking, and set up 30 meters ahead of them. They waited for the few seconds it took the creatures to get to them, then came out of the foliage in a rush, cutting blades in one hand, and pistols in the other.
A Fistful of Credits: Stories from the Four Horsemen Universe (The Revelations Cycle Book 5) Page 26
