“Or fly,” Scott said. “Because even if we radioed for a chopper, that bastard would blast it out of the sky.”
“So we wait?” Marcus said.
“Well, we don’t know where that thing is, so we can’t exactly attack it.”
Scott lapsed into silence, thinking furiously. Beyond the rocks behind which they were hiding was yet more jungle, thick and impenetrable. He looked up at the trees around the clearing, at the vines hanging down. Finally, he said, “We’re sitting ducks here. There’s no real break in the trees from where that thing killed Collins to the jungle at our backs. If it wanted to, it could work its way around the clearing and sneak up behind us. We’re no safer here than we would be anywhere else, so we might as well be on the move. The question is…” He tailed off.
“The question is?” Marcus prompted.
“The question is, do we split into smaller groups and give the enemy a choice of targets, which would give more of us a chance of getting away, or do we go for safety in numbers?”
Before Marcus could offer an opinion, Ishfaq, who from the cover of the rock he was crouched behind was still scanning the trees on the far side of the clearing, suddenly hissed, “Captain! Visitors!”
He was ten meters to Scott’s left, with two other guys. All three of them were now pointing their rifles at the far end of the clearing, where Ellison and four of his mercs had died.
Scott leaned forward to peer again in that direction. He saw armed men in black body armor, their faces smeared with camouflage paint, emerging from the trees. They moved cautiously, warily, looking all around. As one of them knelt to examine the body of one of the mercs, Scott recognized him. It was Dutch Schaefer.
He was trying to think of a way to attract the attention of Dutch and his men without drawing their fire – or, indeed, the fire of the Hunter – when a sizzling bolt of light shot from the trees almost directly opposite Scott’s position. Scott and his men ducked instinctively, though the bolt wasn’t aimed at them. It flew across the clearing like a flaming comet and exploded right in the middle of Dutch’s team. A fireball erupted into the air, sending scorched chunks of earth, rock and foliage flying everywhere.
They’re dead, Scott thought with numb horror, they’re all fucking dead. But then, as the smoke from the explosion mushroomed into the air, he saw men scattering in all directions, like rats at the sudden appearance of a cat.
His shock lasted only a second, and then he half-rose from behind his rock, yelled, “Fire!” and began blazing away at the spot in the trees across the clearing where the energy bolt had come from. Within seconds the rest of his men were doing the same, the trees sparking and jumping as bullets tore into them. By now some of Dutch’s men, having realized where the covering fire was coming from, were scrambling through the passages between the rocks to join them, most not even stopping to draw breath before joining in the fusillade.
The firing went on for what seemed like minutes, leaves and bits of bark raining down like confetti, when Scott’s attention was caught by specks of luminous green liquid falling from the trees. He watched in fascination as the specks became a spattering, and then almost a gushing, as if a pipe had burst. By now others had noticed the glowing liquid too, and were training their fire just above where it was coming from. Moments later there was an almighty crashing and snapping of branches as something heavy fell out of the trees.
There was a thud and earth puffed up in a cloud amidst the tumble of branches, though for the moment there was nothing to see. Some of the men trained their fire on the ground, where the dust was settling, and bullets seemed to spark and dance off nothing, as though changing course in the air, producing spurts and spatters of floating green liquid.
The air shimmered, flickered like a computer game effect, and all at once the Hunter was there, sprawled on the ground, as large as life and twice as ugly. Its body still twitched and jerked where bullets were hitting it, but aside from that it was motionless. Knowing that taking back a relatively intact specimen would be a huge coup for Dutch and his employers, Scott raised himself to his full height and held up his hand.
“Cease fire!” he bellowed. “Cease fire!”
Little by little the firing stopped as the order was relayed down the line. Eventually there was silence.
In that moment Scott glanced up and down the line, and saw each and every one of his men peering with awe and fear at the prone Hunter on the far side of the clearing. Even felled and bleeding, it was a majestic and awe-inspiring sight. Not short of three meters tall, it had the physique of a supremely fit athlete and the head of something conjured from mankind’s oldest nightmares. What could be seen of its flesh was a shimmering blue-green, albeit speckled with brown, leopard-like markings. Its huge mandibles looked as fearsome as an elephant’s tusks, and its long, fleshy dreadlocks fanned out from its head in a Medusa-like corona. Scott wondered if the rest of the men were gripped, as he was, by the same two diametrically opposed urges. There was a part of him that wanted to turn and run, and to not stop until he was somewhere safe and far away from here. And there was another part that was irresistibly drawn to the creature; that wanted to approach it, gaze upon it, touch its alien flesh.
Was it now safe to approach the Hunter? It was pockmarked with bullet holes, each of which was trickling green blood, but what level of damage had it actually sustained? Could it be that the thing was merely playing possum, waiting for its enemies to emerge into the open before surging to its feet and unleashing hell?
Scott looked to Dutch for guidance, but at first he couldn’t spot him. Then he did, kneeling beside a fallen comrade next to the crater where the energy bolt had hit. Ordering Marcus to keep the men under cover, he scrambled out between the rocks down to the clearing, then moved in a half-crouch behind the row of tents, keeping watch on the fallen alien all the while. He emerged beside the collapsed tent, which smelled of dead meat, and called, “Major Schaefer! Dutch!”
Dutch turned. There was a grim expression on his face. As his body shifted, Scott saw that the man Dutch was kneeling beside had lost both his legs from the thighs down. The red-black pool in which he was lying was already attracting hungry insects. The man’s bearded face was the color of bread dough, and his eyelids were flickering. Taking another look at the alien, Scott hurried across to the two men. Under the circumstances, Dutch didn’t seem surprised to see him.
As Scott hunkered down next to Dutch, the bearded man gave an almost regretful sigh, then his eyes glazed over and his head dropped to one side. Dutch sighed in echo of his dead comrade.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Major,” Scott murmured.
For the first time, Dutch spoke. “Me too.” Then he rose to his feet, turned, and began to walk across the clearing toward the fallen Hunter. “Let’s see what we’ve got here.”
Scott trailed Dutch, trying to bite back on his instinct to advise caution. He kept his gun trained on the Hunter, his finger on the trigger, primed to riddle the alien with bullets if it moved so much as a muscle. Then the Major raised his right arm, as if to point at the alien, and Scott noticed he was wearing a kind of fingerless gauntlet strapped tightly over his body armor, which stretched from his wrist to his elbow, and attached to the forearm of which was a stubby, cannon-like weapon. Could this be an adapted form of the energy weapon that Schaefer had retrieved from the alien crash site at the Zuni-Bandera Volcanic Fields a few years ago? Dutch saw Scott looking and said, “There’s a pressure pad in my palm. All I do is press it with my fingers, and… zap!”
“Fighting fire with fire,” said Scott.
Dutch nodded. “It’s the only way.”
With every step they took toward the Hunter, Scott’s heartbeat increased. The only alien he’d seen up close before was the dead one in the cockpit of the crashed alien shuttle, and that had been so badly mangled there had been nothing left of its face.
This one, though, was virtually intact, and it was both hideous and beautiful. Scott hung back as Dutch w
alked up to it and kicked it in the side of its meaty leg, his wrist cannon pointing directly at its face. The thing didn’t stir, and up close Scott saw that it was leaking green blood from dozens of different wounds, including several in its domed forehead. Its vast mouth, full of razor-sharp teeth, was hanging open, and its tiny eyes beneath its heavy brows were nothing but dark slits.
“It’s definitely dead?” Scott said.
Dutch nodded somberly. “They’re tough bastards, but a hundred or so bullets will do it.”
“Have you ever had such a complete specimen before?”
“No. I’ll call the chopper in. Get them to come pick it up.” In different circumstances, Scott suspected that Dutch would be ecstatic with his prize, but the death toll had clearly taken the shine off his triumph. In a way, Scott shared Dutch’s feeling of anticlimax. Awe-inspiring though this creature was, it had still killed six of his men, and injured six others, some of whom would no doubt have to endure months of painful recovery and rehabilitation. And for what? To make the world a better, safer place? No. He and his team had blundered into this situation with no idea of what they would be facing, and whatever the eventual benefits to mankind the vanquishing of this foe might prove to be, right now it seemed like a heavy price to pay.
He stared into the creature’s terrifying, incredible face, trying to cement the moment into his memory, and then he turned away. The enemy may be dead, but that wasn’t the end of their work here today, not by a long chalk. They still had the grim task of cataloguing and bagging up their own dead, and then arranging for them to be shipped out of this stinking hot swamp and back home to the States.
On the opposite side of the clearing he saw some of his team beginning to emerge from cover, ready for the task ahead. Marcus sent a couple of guys over to cut down Collins’s corpse, then began to walk across the clearing toward Scott. The first priority was to clear the area of bodies so a chopper could land and airlift the injured to hospital. That job would have to be done respectfully, but also – with pretty much all of the wounded needing more urgent medical attention than an IFAK could provide – as quickly as possible.
Scott was opening his mouth to ask Marcus whether the chopper had been alerted when he caught a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye to his right. His only impression was of the flash of something metallic hurtling very quickly toward him, and instinctively he threw himself to the ground.
The implement had not been aimed at him, though. Scott saw Marcus, who was about eight meters away and had clearly not seen the approaching object, look at him in surprise as he dropped to the ground.
Then the top of Marcus’s head disappeared.
It happened so fast that to Scott it looked almost like a jump cut in a movie. One second Marcus was blinking at Scott, and the next the top of his head from his eyebrows up was simply no longer there. Afterward, Scott would swear he saw a spinning, flashing implement – something like a flying circular saw – whipping by, trailing a dark splash of Marcus’s blood and brains. But he didn’t know whether that was a subliminal memory or whether his mind was simply adding the grisly detail to torture him.
In real time he had barely even registered the impossibility of what had happened before Marcus’s face went horrifyingly slack and his body simply collapsed, as if boneless, to the ground. He landed on his face and a mess of red and gray pulp fell out of his head, as if spilling from an upturned jar.
Scott stared, and couldn’t take it in. It was as if what he was seeing was too massive, too impossible to accept, as a result of which his brain simply froze, like a faulty computer program.
He had seen men die before, of course. He had seen friends get blown up, shot, eviscerated. But this was different. This was Marcus. Seconds ago he had been moving, thinking, the blood pumping through his body, his senses alert. And now all of that was gone, the accumulated weight of his memories, his experiences, his emotions, eradicated in an instant.
It was said that just before a man died his entire life passed before his eyes, but with Marcus snuffed out so suddenly – no time for a final thought, or a final word, and maybe in some ways that was a good thing – Scott felt as though he was taking on that mantle on his friend’s behalf. Memories began to unspool in his mind: his first meeting with Marcus, over fifteen years ago, when Marcus had looked at the picture of Scott’s mom and mistaken it for his sweetheart; one Christmas spent with Marcus’s gracious and loving family, his sisters giggling and whispering and blushing whenever Scott walked into the room, his mom enfolding him in one of her expansive hugs, his dad’s evident pride in his son’s achievements; the numerous missions they’d shared, on any one of which they could have died, but which, through a combination of good luck and good soldiering, they had both managed to survive; Marcus’s wedding day, and the almost overwhelming love he had for his wife and childhood sweetheart, Devon; Marcus’s eight-year-old son Michael, and his five-year-old daughter Precious, two beautiful children who would now never truly know their father’s loving, calming presence, never share many of their own life’s experiences with him.
It was overwhelming, almost too much to bear, and probably for the first time in his career, Scott was shocked into immobility. He continued to stare at his dead friend, trying and failing to accept what he was seeing, while around him men were running, shouting, firing their weapons, having been suddenly alerted to the fact that there had not been one Hunter here, but two, and that this second Hunter was now on the attack.
It was only when the ground erupted five meters away from him that Scott was snapped back to the present. There was a bang, a flash of light, and then superheated chunks of rock and clods of earth were flying in all directions. The screen of smoke and gritty debris which rose up and hid Marcus’s body from view was like the snapping of the thread between sleep and wakefulness. Immediately Scott rolled onto his stomach and flattened himself to the ground, arms wrapped around his helmeted head. He felt his left leg burn for a moment, as though it was on fire, and then it went numb. Around him the thuds and thumps of falling debris went on for a long time, and a memory suddenly came to him of the story of Chicken Little that his mom used to read to him, who was hit on the head by an acorn and became convinced the sky was falling.
The sky continued to fall for a long time, but eventually it stopped. When it did, Scott, covered in debris, his hearing once again muffled by the explosion, raised his head. In front of him he could see nothing but swirling brown dust. Battered and bruised, he rolled over onto his back, and then, his gear weighing him down in a way he couldn’t remember it ever doing before, he sat up.
Dimly, he could still hear gunfire and men shouting, and though he felt oddly distanced from it all, he also felt the stirrings of duty surging within him. He shouldn’t be sitting here, wallowing in misery, he should be out there on the front line, leading his men against the enemy, avenging Marcus’s death!
The instant he tried to get to his feet, though, pain roared in his left leg, which promptly collapsed beneath his weight. He fell sprawling in the mud, waves of agony rolling through his body. When it had ebbed a little, he looked down and saw that his leg beneath his knee was a mangled, shattered mess. He couldn’t work out whether the red, ragged flaps he could see hanging from it were material or flesh.
One thing was certain, though. He had lost a lot of blood, and was still losing it. It was gushing from at least one, though more likely several wounds like water from a faulty tap, spattering on the ground and adding to the already sizeable pool of red mud beneath him.
Head swimming with shock and blood loss, he fumbled for his IFAK and opened it. After ripping his left trouser leg open to his thigh, he shakily pulled surgical gloves on over his filthy hands, then applied a tourniquet above his knee, pulling it as tight as he could. That done, he poured water over his wounded leg, which stung like acid and almost made him pass out, and then, sweating profusely, wound an elastic bandage round and round the leg before securing it with surgic
al tape.
It wasn’t much, but at least it would slow the bleeding a little. By the time he was done, his surroundings were spinning, black shapes were dancing in front of his eyes, and he was gasping for air. Somewhere close by a battle was still raging, a battle which, despite himself, Scott desperately wanted to be a part of. He felt he was letting his men down by sitting here; felt he was betraying them. Another minute, and he would again try to get to his feet.
For you, Marcus, he thought. For you.
The smoke began to clear. Through his blotchy vision, Scott saw men hunkered down behind what cover they could find, rifles pointing into the trees close to where Collins had been snatched up. Peeling off his surgical gloves and throwing them aside, Scott wiped his muddy hands on his uniform, then grabbed his gun, which he’d laid aside to tend to his wound. Still sitting in the mud, he raised the gun and pointed it at the trees, hoping for just one lucky shot, right between the eyes of the fucker that had killed his best friend. His leg felt alternately hot and cold, though there wasn’t much pain in it if he sat still. He didn’t know whether that was a good thing or a bad one.
A strange lull fell over the battlefield. For the next twenty or thirty seconds nobody moved or spoke. During that time Scott’s head and vision cleared a little, as did the drifting smoke from the new crater that the second Hunter’s energy weapon had gouged from the earth. Marcus’s body appeared out of the murk once again, a dark bulk to Scott’s left; he averted his eyes from it. He could see now that some of the trees across the clearing had been blasted to cinders, presumably by Dutch’s energy weapon. Several were still burning, and there was a hole in the green canopy beyond them, through which daylight glowed. Dutch must have returned fire when the Hunter had launched its attack, but the alien had clearly evaded serious injury. And now everyone was waiting for the Hunter to make its next move. Because you couldn’t attack what you couldn’t see.
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