Operation: Sahara

by William Meikle

  "They've got us cut off," he said, again loud enough that all could hear. "And have you seen them feed? And what they did to Jennings? We can't fight the likes of these. We're going to die here. We're all going to die."

  His voice had been rising the whole time, and now echoed around the corridor. The donkey picked up on his panic and started to bray again. The sound of the beetles' drone outside got louder, more insistent.

  "Shut that bloody thing up," Mac shouted. I wasn't sure whether he meant the donkey or the officer but there was certainly one of them I could deal with immediately. I slapped the young lieutenant, hard. He went quiet, a new red mark on his cheek accentuating his sudden paleness.

  "I'll see you in chains and flogged for that," he said when he recovered his composure.

  "Better that than in the belly of one of yon beasties," I replied. "Now be a good gentleman and keep quiet; you're frightening my lads."

  He at least had the good sense to keep his mouth shut. He must have seen that I was more than ready to hit him again if it came to that. I turned my attention to the donkey, managing to calm it down without having to hit it; it clearly had more sense than our young C.O.

  But I was too late. Mac shouted out from the barricades.

  "Here they come again."

  I got back to the men just in time to get them lined up properly again.

  "Put that fag out, MacLeod. Eyes front, pick your targets. Remember, aim for the legs."

  The moon had risen higher in the past ten minutes and now lit up the full length of the valley floor. I had a good, too good, view of the throng of beasts rallied against us. They seemed to cover the whole area in a seething black carpet, the larger ones crawling over the smaller in their haste to be at us. I've stood in some tight spots in my years of service, but nothing had ever chilled me to the core so much as those few seconds before the shooting started.

  We just had enough room for all of us to line up along the barricade. Lieutenant Timkins was still holding back in the tunnel, so I called Hynd and Benson forward.

  "The Lieutenant has got out backs, haven't you, sir?" I said, and this time I made sure I said it loud enough for all to hear. The young officer still looked pale, terrified even, but he nodded in reply, and then I had to turn away, for I couldn't afford to waste any more time on him.

  The beetles were nearly upon us.

  "Fire at will!" I shouted, and the valley echoed and rang with the crack of Lee Enfield rifles. The first rank of beetles fell immediately but this time the pack behind did not stop, either already engorged on their previous feeding, or too intent on reaching us, I would never know which. I took the legs off a big bugger that must have been near twelve feet from pincers to rear end, and Mac took another that looked bigger still, but no matter how many we put down still more clambered over and among the fallen.

  The air stank of powder and also acidic tang I realized must be coming from the dead beasts themselves. Their bodies were piling up in front of the barricade, with ever more pushing up behind them, but luckily for us the press of beetles against their own dead was creating almost as effective a barricade as the old tables. And I knew my squad could keep pumping fire into them for quite some time yet, as long as the shells held out.

  Even as I had that thought the first call for ammo came down the line, then another.

  "Lieutenant," I called out. "We need a box of shells over here right now."

  I turned, expecting to see Timkins getting the long box off the donkey's back. Instead the corridor was empty, there was no sign of our lieutenant, nor of the donkey, and more importantly, we had no more ammo to hand.

  "I'm out," Mac called from the barricade.

  "Me too," shouted Benson, just as a large black beetle forced its way forward. Jock stabbed it in the eye with his bayonet, then sliced a leg from under it. It was a small victory, for another crowded in immediately to take its place, with more coming over the top from behind it. Jim Woods tried the same trick with his bayonet but was grabbed tight in a huge pincer and swept away out of sight before any of the rest of us could move. His screams were loud, but mercifully short lived.

  "I'm out," another man shouted from the line.

  The beetles were now forcing themselves against the overturned tables and we were being pushed back to avoid being swamped, back into the corridor. If we were pushed back all the way to where it opened out into the temple, we would then be overrun in seconds. I had few choices left. I emptied my revolver into a huge beast that was threatening to charge through our defenses all on its own, and gave the order.

  "Fall back, quickly now. Back to the temple, and back to yon staircase. It's our only chance."

  As a man, we turned and fled. I heard, but didn't see, the old tables of our barricade being torn into so much kindling as the beetles came through after us. Then there was only the sound of our running footsteps on stone and the ever increasing howl and drone of the beetles as they forced their way over and around each other in their desire to flood into the temple.

  The lieutenant was already on the staircase behind the statue, trying to coax the donkey up the narrow steps. He saw us coming across the temple floor and with a squeal like a startled child turned and ran, bounding up the steps with no seeming thought to the danger of falling. He was soon lost in the gloom above. I had no time to consider his treachery just then, I had to get the men organized before we were completely swamped. Luckily for us the donkey did not bolt with the lieutenant, and stood long enough to allow Mac to divest it of the ammo box.

  "Fill your sporrans, lads," I called out as I tried to find the box of cartridges for my revolver. "Then up the stairs, sharpish."

  That was my plan, the only one I had, but I soon saw it wasn't going to work. The beetles swarmed into the temple, pouring through the archway and quickly covering the whole floor, if we turned our backs on them we'd be taken immediately. Our only option was a retreat up the stairs, but not a full, running flight, we'd have to take it slowly, watching our backs the whole way.

  And hope against hope that the buggers would give us the time to make some kind of an escape.

  One thing I didn't have to worry about was the donkey; as soon as we got the ammo off its back it turned and fled up the stairs, following Timkins into the darkness above.

  "Follow that donkey," Mac shouted, and got a dry laugh from the rest of us. Then the beetles were upon us, and our fight for survival really began.

  As a man we backed away to the stairs and started up. I was among the first on the stairs, next to Mac, Benson and Hynd and the four of us did our best to provide covering fire for the poor chaps bringing up the rear. Having to fire over the heads of our men sorely hampered our effectiveness; we couldn't help them with the closest beetles, instead we could only hope to keep enough of them at bay so that the nearest could be dispatched.

  It worked, for a time at least, with us four at the top dragging the ammo box up with us, step by agonizing step, dispensing shells and providing covering shots where we could. But one by one the chaps fighting below us started to succumb to the encroaching horde of black carapaces. Ally Dunlop fell when he was too occupied with a pincer heading for his face to notice the smaller beetle that scuttled below his defense. It took a swipe at his shin, opening a wound down to the bone that sent the man to his knee, then quickly under a squirming, ravenous pile of the beasts. Colin Campbell stepped into his place and lasted as we backed up half a dozen steps, but a big brute of a beetle, ten feet long or more, barreled its way through its brethren, up the staircase and launched itself straight at the man. He put a bullet in its left eye and sliced its legs away from under it with his bayonet but its momentum carried it forward. A huge pincer caught Campbell by his waist, and his struggles, and the weight of the beast itself, toppled them both off the steps and away down to the temple floor, now some ten yards below us. At least the man was dead before he hit the ground, for the feeding frenzy that followed was a terrible thing to behold.

  Af
ter that we developed a strange kind of rhythm for several minutes, reloading, dragging the ammo, then volleying covering fire before starting the process all over again. Nim Asbury was now our last line of defense, he took to it with gusto. He'd dispensed with the Lee Enfield in preference for his service sword, which he used to great effect in slicing legs and popping eyeballs, all the while weaving and bobbing like a dancer, keeping himself just out of reach of advancing pincers. He was one of the strongest, fittest men in the squad, but even he weakened eventually. He mistimed a thrust; his sword stuck between adjoining plates of the closest attacker's carapace and was dragged from his grasp. A beetle caught him by the ankle, another took him around the thigh, and he too tumbled away out of view to the ground that was now thankfully lost from sight in gloom below.

  Still we climbed, ever higher into the darkness. There was little light to aid us from the temple below. When I chanced a look upward it was only to see a sheet of black, whether it was rock or merely a clouded sky I could not tell. In truth, it scarcely mattered, for it looked like we would be taken long before we reached the end of the staircase. The last two men, Smith and Henderson, both fell within minutes of each other, until there was only Benson, Hynd, Mac and me standing.

  "I'm right sorry to have got you lads killed," I said as I shot out the front legs of the nearest attacking beetle. Mac leaned over my shoulder and speared the beast through the right eye, before sending it tumbling away with a push.

  "Dinna talk shite, man," he said, edging past me to take what should have been my place at the rear. "We're no' done yet." He put a bullet into the head of a huge beetle, an instant before it was set to lop off his head. Then, dropping the rifle at his feet, he stepped forward and swung his backpack at the thing. I heard the pipes inside the pack squeal, and the beetles below us, as if in reply, answer with a louder drone of their own. The huge beetle Mac had shot wavered, and I thought it might tumble over. Then it steadied, and pushed forward. Mac planted his legs firmly against the join of step and rock and pushed back, grabbing its front legs and holding the beast high and away from his body. Its bulk covered the staircase, blocking any access from below. Mac had effectively created a new barricade, one that would only hold as long as he had his strength.

  "Now, awa' ye go, man," Mac said. His muscles were bunched tight, and the strain showed in every feature, but he managed a grin, his teeth showing too white in the dark. "Get up the stairs. If yon wee jobbie Timkins is nae here, he must have got out. Go find him and give him a kick up the arse for me and the lads."

  Even then I might have stayed, but Benson and Hynd dragged me away, and put themselves below me on the staircase. They stood over the remaining ammo in the box, loading their weapons. I took the chance to reload my revolver with the last six cartridges I had in my sporran and moved to cover them, but they too pushed me away.

  "Do what Mac said, Sarge," Benson said. "We'll watch the big man's back for ye."

  Hynd spat out a wad of chewing tobacco.

  "Aye, get yerself gone, Sarge," he said. "We're right ahin ye. Somebody's got to get out of this mess, how will they ken who to give the medals to if we're all killed here?"

  Mac shouted.

  "Stop bloody arguing about it, just fuck off the lot of ye." His legs slipped, then he caught his grip again, but I saw he was weakening.

  "I'll see you all up top," I said. "And that's a bloody order."

  "Aye, right you are, Sarge," Benson said, moving behind Mac on the stairs. Hynd moved to stand next in line.

  "Tell your wife I love her," Hynd said, winked, then turned his back on me.

  I turned so that they would not see my tears, and ran, full pelt, up the empty staircase.

  I didn't turn, didn't look back, so didn't see them fall, but I heard well enough; I heard the Lee Enfields crack and whistle, I heard Mac bellow and cry, heard his defiant shout of 'Fuck off, bastards,' then a last howl of pain. Hynd and Benson's guns fell quiet seconds later, and no matter how much I strained, I heard no more.

  -Davies-

  The captain and Wiggo were still poring over something on the laptop. Davies and Wiggo stood in the doorway smoking.

  "Stay here and watch my back," Davies said. "I'll have a reccy out across yon plain; I don't like the idea of something sneaking across there without us being able to see it."

  Davies made his way out to the main entrance and stopped, gazing in amazement at what had minutes before been a flat plain. Now it was liberally studded with dark oval shapes that he at first took for boulders, then had to re-evaluate when he spotted that several of them were most definitely moving.

  "Cap, Sarge," he shouted. "You need to see this."

  The sound of his voice caused a chain reaction of movement out on the plain. First the closer boulders moved, then it rippled out to the others until all of them were shifting and turning, as if focussing on Davies' position. Then the nearest, less than twenty yards away, rose up, six legs showing beneath a raised carapace. A squat head carrying two wicked pincers showed, rose and looked directly at Davies. The now well-known drone filled the air, taken up by firstly the closer of the beasts, then out across the plain until the canyon filled with the high, almost metallic, wail.

  The first beast came forward, a giant black beetle some eight feet long from pincers to tail end and almost four feet tall at the highest point of its shell. The carapace gleamed, a rainbow of glimmering color as the squat legs propelled it at surprising speed. Behind it more of the beasts were rising up from the ground, heads swivelling to gaze at the doorway.

  Davies got his weapon up, took aim, and fired all in one movement, three quick shots into the tallest part of the first beast's back. Three puncture holes burst out a black, tarry ichor, but the thing didn't slow. He had to back away fast, still firing, three more holes in it and it kept coming. Davies backed away until he came up against the wall opposite the entrance to the temple area. The rest of the squad stood in the doorway there. But he couldn't chance stepping across to join them; the beast was still coming; it was almost on him.

  "Aim for its legs," the captain shouted. "Legs or head, it's the only way to stop them."

  The captain took his own advice and took out the attacking beast's front legs with a volley. Davies provided the coup-de-grace by blasting its head into fragments.

  "To me," the captain shouted at him, but Davies didn't get time to respond; three more of the beasts clambered over the dead shell of the first, filling the passageway and cutting off Davies' path to the rest of the squad. Out on the plain a horde of beetles swarmed forward in a frenzied rush. The whole squad was shooting now, the archway full of ringing volley fire and the wail of the attacking beasts.

  "I can't get across to you," Davies shouted after taking out the front legs of a creature only a foot from the end of his barrel.

  "Fall back into the city," the captain shouted back. "We'll meet higher up. Go now; we can't hold this position."

  Davies turned and ran, heading higher up a sloping causeway that led into the dark shadows of the city. Behind him the ringing gunfire continued before fading and becoming more distant as the rest of the squad backed away into the confines of the temple. He heard a muffled bang that sounded like the blast of a grenade but soon the sheer volume of stone around him muffled all sound save for the pad of his own feet...and the scuttle and scrape of insectoid legs on rock as the beasts came after him.

  He tried not to think of the sheer number of beetles he'd seen out on the open plain. There had been scores of them, ranging in size from some no bigger than a man to others the size, and approximate shape, of the motorcars that shared their name. But his mind's eye betrayed him, showing him images of them filling up the passageways behind him, crawling over and around each other, droning and wailing as they followed him up through the city.

  So far he'd been following the main route upward, a wide street that wound its way through the city, lined with what might have been commercial properties in some ancient past, a
nd with long narrow alleyways running off towards the canyon walls on either side. Davies was strongly reminded of the vennels and closes in the old town in Edinburgh, but he doubted whether any of these would hide a welcoming pub or eating place to give him sanctuary.

  But narrow might be better than wide?

  At least in a narrow space he could get them one on one and have less chance of being overrun. Decision made, he took the first alley on his left, judging that direction to be the one that might have the best chance of meeting up with the squad's possible escape routes out of the temple below. It led him onto a staircase. He took the steps two at a time then turned when he heard loud scrambling and scratching on stone behind him.

  A large beetle specimen had tried to follow him up the alley and proved to be too wide for the job. Its bulk now blocked the entranceway. Davies shot away its front legs then blew its head apart. It was so tightly wedged it barely slumped in death. A second beast clambered over the top of the wedged shell. Davies treated it the same as the first; legs then head spattering black ichor. It fell on the first one, effectively blocking the alleyway. Frantic scrabbling could be heard on the other side, the mass of beasts having been blocked from their prey. Davies wasn't about to hang around to see how long it took to clear.

  He turned to the steps and fled up the shadowed alleyway.

  Once again he was reminded of Edinburgh as he emerged at the top of a long winding flight of narrow steps onto a wider concourse built into the canyon wall some thirty yards above the valley floor. To his right a high parapet looked over the lower reaches of the city, to his left on the other side of the concourse it was a line of dwellings built into the main canyon wall, a series of regular rectangular doorways and square windows spaced with rigid geometric regularity. There was no sign that any of the beetles had made it up to this level.

  Not yet anyway.

  He stepped to his right and chanced a look over the parapet. The main thoroughfare was fifty feet or more below him and from directly below all the way down the steep walled alley to the main gate was filled by a swarming mass of the black-shelled beetles. Their drone filled the air with its harsh, almost electronic, wail.