Operation: Sahara

by William Meikle

  There were thousands of them. They seemed to congregate tighter together in the center of the caldera over a mile away where Banks saw a black, domed hump, the unmistakable shape of a great beetle. He hoped it was dead, for it was the height of a house and seeing it move wasn't on his list of things to do for the day.

  "Can we no' just call in a wee air strike, Cap?" Wiggo said. "Blast all these fuckers away at one time?"

  "We're not even supposed to be here. You ken that. They're not about to let us provoke an international incident, or even a war, over the sake of a few beetles, no matter how fucking big they are. No. We get out of here, shank's pony, right fucking now, and we leave the big decisions to those that get paid to make them."

  He went to the other side of the turret to check out the view below. He'd hoped to see a quiet scene of dormant beasts but the whole causeway was a seething mass of beetles. It took him several seconds to realise what he was looking at; they were scavenging their dead, eating the soft parts and carrying the shells and debris away. A steady train of beetles went over the side of the causeway and down into the caldera where they joined the file heading into the center, towards the large hump.

  The only ones not in motion were the four beasts, each the size of a small car, who sat directly in front of the doorway that was the squad's only means of escape.

  -Davies-

  Davies joined the captain in looking down over the causeway. Standing had proved to be less of an effort than he'd feared and his bad ankle was bearing his weight just fine, for now at least, so he held off on the self-administered morphine in favor of a clear head.

  "In coming to get me, you've managed to trap yourself here," he said.

  "Aye. But we got to you, so I count it as a win," Banks replied. "How's the ankle?"

  "Bearable. I doubt I'll be doing any five-minute miles though."

  "Don't tempt fate, lad. We might have some running to do this day."

  I bloody hope not.

  The captain was still looking down at the four huge dormant beetles guarding the doorway.

  "I've got a plan," he said. "But you're not going to like it."

  Banks called the others over.

  "I want you three to get down to the bottom but stay around the first bend above the main entrance."

  "What about you, Cap?" Wiggo said.

  "I'll be up here, lobbing two grenades down onto those four beasties," he said. "When they blow, you head for the foot of the stairs up to the rim. Then you cover me from there while I leg it down and across to join you. Just don't fucking shoot me."

  As a plan its main benefit was its simplicity; there weren't too many parts to go wrong, but Davies knew it would all depend on speed. He could only hope his ankle stood up to it.

  He was at the rear of the group of three going down the stairs five minutes later. The captain had synchronized his watch with Wiggo's but Davies had no means of checking the time; his own watch had stopped, broken at some point during the adventures of the night before. All he could do was follow Wiggo and Wilkins down the steps and hope that the captain and the sergeant had got their timing right. They came to a turn near the bottom, Wiggo went down four more steps then turned and motioned them backwards for four. He looked at his watch.

  "One minute," he said softly.

  A minute had never felt so long to Davies, then Wiggo held up three fingers, two, one, and right on cue there was a deafening crash from ahead and down in the entranceway.

  "Leg it," Wiggo shouted, and took the lead without turning to check if he was being followed.

  The immediate area in front of the doorway was a blasted jam of black ichor and bits of carapace. Davies splashed through it, all thought of a damaged ankle forgotten as adrenaline kicked in. All around them beetles had scattered after the grenade blasts but already heads were turning and talons scraped on rock as the now well-known high drone was taken up all along the causeway.

  The first part of the captain's plan was successful enough; the three men reached the foot of the steps and turned, weapons in hand, already taking aim. Captain Banks appeared in the doorway of the turret but the brief respite provided by the grenades hadn't lasted; the beasts closed in on his position. Davies went to step forward to his aid but Wiggo held him back.

  "Cap's got this," he said. "Cover his left flank. Wilkins, right flank. I've got his back."

  The captain broke into a run while at the same time maintaining rapid fire from his rifle aimed directly ahead of him. Wiggo took out a large creature that attempted to come up behind the running man; there was no subtlety in it, no finesse of going for head or legs. Wiggo blew holes in its shell from just above its head along its back and kept firing until it went down. Davies chose a target that was moving in on the captain's left flank and, taking Wiggo's lead, kept firing until it went still.

  Things were happening fast. Wiggo put down two small ones almost under the captain's feet, Davies concentrated on a large one that was just beginning to move, taking out its front legs as the shell lifted from the ground. The captain was only yards away now but a horde of twenty or more of the beasts were gathering ten paces behind him.

  "Grenades," Wiggo shouted.

  He, Wilkins and Davies all had a grenade in hand two seconds later.

  "Fire in the hole," Wiggo shouted. All three men pulled their pins and threw at the same time. The pineapples fell amid the bunch of beetles and they went off in three distinct crumps, blasting a haze of vaporized shell and ichor across the concourse.

  The cap arrived on the steps, breathing heavily, but he didn't stop, immediately heading up the stairs towards the crater rim.

  Davies followed at his back, aware as he took to the stairs that his ankle was hurting.

  They went up the staircase to the rim at a flat run and Davies was out of breath when they reached the top. The captain didn't pause but turned away onto an outer cliff path that threaded down the outer wall of the mountain towards the desert far below. Davies paused for several seconds to catch his breath before following. He happened to be facing into the long caldera. A movement caught his eye at the center. A vast mass of beetles was on the move, heading towards the city. The high black dome of the massive beetle rose up, a head the size of a cow emerged and even at that distance, Davies seemed to feel a malevolent glare that was directed straight at the squad.

  "It's coming," he said.

  "Aye, and so's Christmas," Wiggo said at his back. "Get a fucking move on, son. We hivnae got all day."

  Davies turned to follow the captain.

  His ankle was definitely hurting more now, and as he descended, he developed a noticeable limp from the flare of pain that came with every step.

  -Banks-

  Banks took the lead all the way down to the beetle burial pit they'd seen earlier. He stopped there to look back up the trail.

  There was no sign of pursuit, which was just as well. Davies was slowing the others' descent, obviously hampered by the wound in his ankle. The private saw Banks looking higher up the cliff.

  "Are they after us, Cap?"

  "No. Not yet at least," Banks replied. "Take it easy along this flat stretch. If there's still no pursuit, we'll take a rest at the high ledge; that's about halfway down by my reckoning. Are you okay for that?"

  Davies gave him a thumbs-up. Banks saw the pain etched on the younger man's features, but said nothing; there was an unwritten rule among them. If one of the squad said they were okay, you believed them until proved wrong; he owed it to the men to give them the opportunity to test their limits. Davies had come through adversity before, he had to be trusted to do so again.

  Banks waited until Wiggo and Wilkins had caught them up then continued along beside the charnel pit. He kept a wary eye on the cliff tops high above, but still there was no pursuit.

  He began to hope.

  Davies' condition deteriorated on the steep parts of the track down towards the high ledge. At some points they were forced to stop and help the private dow
n places he couldn't negotiate and Banks saw there was fresh blood showing at the wounded ankle. By the time they reached the ledge Davies could hardly put any weight on that foot.

  "I need to bind it again, Cap," he said. "That, and a wee shot of morphine should see me ready for another stretch."

  While Wilkins gave Davies a hand with dressing the wound, Banks and Wiggo walked to the other end of the ledge and looked at the trail that went down the slope.

  "Yon's more of a climb than a walk," the sergeant said.

  "Aye. The lad will never make it that way. And it's too narrow for us to be carrying him down it."

  "Do we have an alternative?"

  "We do. But you're not going to like it. We go back into the temple, back down the stairs, and out the main door the way we came in."

  "Past all them beasties? We'd never make it. We don't have enough firepower left."

  "Not if they're still there, I agree. But if our luck's in, they're all away up top feeding on the mess we left earlier."

  "Be fair, Cap. When has our luck ever been in?"

  "We've got to chance it, for the lad's sake if nothing else."

  "Let me go through first for a shufti then."

  "No, there'll be no splitting up; that's what got us into trouble in the first place. We all go through. You bring up the rear. And keep an eye on Davies. He's a tough lad. But he's in trouble."

  Banks was first into the narrow crevasse. It was as tight a squeeze as he remembered from the day before but the fact that he knew he'd made it through the last time made it somehow easier and it was less than a minute before he emerged at the top of the stairs high above the temple floor. The area below lay in shadow but there was no sound of the beetles' high drone, no odor to indicate their presence. As soon as the others had come through to join him, he took to the stairs, descending slowly and quietly.

  The farther down they went the more it became apparent that the temple was empty of the beasts; more than that, it was empty of all remnants of the ones the squad had left dead in their wake their last time through here. The bodies of the researchers and the Victorian squad were still laid out in rows, and if it wasn't for the toppled and smashed idol that lay amid them, Banks might have been wondering if their last time here hadn't been some kind of fever dream.

  They reached the temple floor with no mishap. Davies' injury was still slowing him down but he was taking the stairs with only a hint of a limp; Banks guessed the morphine might be having something to do with that.

  Wilkins looked at the bodies of the researchers. Two of them were buried beneath large chunks of the fallen idol, only their legs showing.

  "We can't leave them like this," he said.

  "We can't take them with us, and we don't have time to bury them. Besides, if we move them, we might alert the beasts to the fact we're here."

  "That's ascribing a lot of intelligence to them, Cap."

  "Given what we've seen so far, I'm not sure I'm ascribing enough." He looked down at the dead. "We'll see that their families get told. That's all we can do for them now."

  Without a look back he made for the main entranceway. With the squad at his back he stepped through and looked over the plain. He'd been right; he'd underestimated the beasts' intelligence.

  The plain was covered in a horde of the beasts in sizes from small dog to almost elephantine. Every one of them was up on their legs and all heads were turned on the entrance way, focussed on the squad.

  The high drone started up out on the open area and was answered from higher up in the city by a chorus that sounded like an army on the march. On looking back through the doorway he saw the concourse beyond already filling with more of the beasts and, behind that, a darker area that resolved into a view of the house-sized thing they'd seen in the crater coming down through the city with the other beasts swarming around it as if in supplication.

  They were caught in the open with no escape route.

  The beetles began to advance.

  -Davies-

  "Back to back," the captain said, "for all the good it's going to do us. Let's take as many of these fuckers with us as we can."

  Davies happened to be the one facing the main gate when they formed up and so was first to see the beasts there move aside and the big one make its way forward. It moved slowly, majestically Davies thought, as if it knew it was king of all it surveyed here in this place. It raised a black pincer the size of a horse as if waving to its subjects in acknowledgement. All other movement on the plain stopped as the beetle reached the doorway. It filled the whole arch, almost as if the gate had been made for the purpose.

  "Fucking hell," Wiggo said, "it's built like a fucking tank."

  "Well that's handy," the captain said. "It so happens we've got a way of dealing with tanks. Quick, lads. Grenades, before it gets out of the gate."

  All four of them took a grenade each.

  "On three, pull the pins. Don't throw them high. Lob them under it, take it out from below. One, two...three."

  Following Banks' lead, they lobbed the grenades underhand just above ground level. The beast caught one of them with a great pincer, the other three rolled out of sight below it, and the squad had just enough time to throw themselves to the ground before the grenades went up with a crack that echoed around the canyon.

  Banks got them on their feet as soon as the roar faded, weapons raised. The huge beetle lay in the doorway, a great seeping hole all along the back of its shell, its head totally vaporized and smoking. Its bulk blocked the main entry to the city; none of the beasts backed up behind it would be able to get over it, for a few seconds at least. A high drone rose from all the beasts on this side of the gateway but now it didn't seem coordinated, as if some kind of coherence had been lost. Davies' suspicion was proved right when he looked over the plain; the beasts were no longer paying attention to the squad. Some were already heading to the fallen creature in the gateway to scavenge its parts, others, more than half of them, had taken to fighting among themselves. The plain became a battleground of snapping pincers and flying black ichor.

  "Leg it, lads," Banks shouted. "To the cliff, before they get round to electing a new leader."

  Davies was slow to push off on his bad foot and the others were already three paces ahead before he even got going but that proved to be a blessing in disguise for the three of them provided an arrowhead wedge with the captain in front and Wiggo and Wilkins on either side. Davies was able to slot into the space behind them and gain a degree of protection while they dodged fighting beetles, snapping pincers and pools of tarry goop. So far none of them had needed to use their weapons; the beetles were more concerned with fighting each other. As if to prove the point, two of the beasts took down a large one only five yards to the squad's left as they ran past. That was a cue for a swarm to pour over the dead one. It was already in pieces before Davies passed it.

  Davies tried to concentrate on the captain's back, one step at a time, trying to ignore the pain. He felt wetness and heat at his ankle again, more blood flowing into his boot. The flight to get off the valley floor turned into a prolonged feat of endurance as white flaring agony shot up his leg and his limp got ever more pronounced.

  They were halfway to the cliff path before they had to fire their first shots; one of the larger beetles took an interest in them and headed in from their right flank. Davies took out its front legs. Wiggo heard the shots, turned and fired, blowing its head apart and within seconds the spot where it fell was a mound of swarming, snapping, feeding.

  We're going to make it.

  The captain reached the cliff path first and headed down, the others at his back. Davies chanced one last look back at the carnage that was still playing out before the great wall. The beetles' fighting was now concentrated around a series of seething mounds of frenzied feeding. Over at the main gate was another, even larger mound where the beetle king was being scavenged for parts. A cacophony of drones and whistles echoed around the canyon walls but almost as soon as Dav
ies began on the downward trail the noise got softer, less insistent and soon it was drowned out by the pounding of blood in his ears. His senses narrowed, his sight concentrating on where he put his feet, everything else subsumed by the agony that shot through his body with every step. His mind played tricks on him; one minute he was on a high trail on a mountainside looking over desert sands, the next he was fleeing down a graffiti laden stairwell in a Glasgow tower block, screaming tormentors at his heels.

  "Give us a smile, blackie, so we can see where you are."

  He realised he had a rifle in his hands at the same instant as he heard heavy footfalls only a pace or two behind him. He screamed, years of pent-up fury unleashed as he swivelled on his bad foot, letting the pain guide him rather than take him.

  "Come and get me if you think you've got the balls for it."

  He didn't need to aim; the dark shape loomed up right there at the end of his barrel. He fired at it until it went away. The recoil took his balance, his pack decided its weight was better off going backwards and Davies tumbled down the rocky path, arse over tit. His bad ankle hit a jutting rock, white pain became cold dark and he fell gratefully into it.

  He came out of it lying on his back looking up at a carpet of stars. A dark shape loomed at his left and he reached for a weapon, any weapon but stopped when he heard Wiggo's laugh.

  "Look who's in the land of the living. Welcome back, lad."

  Davies tried to sit up. Pain shot through him at both ends, white hot in his ankle, red hot and sticky at the back of his head when he felt there.

  "You took a wee bump. Well, a big bump really. But no worries; we're back at yon oasis and we're safe and away. We lugged you here like a sack of coal. The beasties gave up the chase after you took out yon last one on the path and we've even got you a ride the rest of the way back."