Attack of the Yetis, page 1
ATTACK OF THE YETIS
Eric S Brown
www.severedpress.com
Copyright 2017 by Eric S Brown
ATTACK OF THE YETIS
Corporal Laybourne thought he saw something moving in the blowing snow up ahead of Rover 1. Whatever it might be, it was as white as the snow and he caught only a fleeting glimpse of its form amid the sea of white.
“Bring us to a stop!” Corporal Laybourne ordered gruffly.
Specialist Nicholson hit Rover 1’s brakes. The massive tank-like vehicle skidded to a stop, sliding forward several feet before it came to a complete halt.
“What is it, sir?” Hendricks asked, turning in his seat beside Nicholson to glance up at him.
“I think there’s something out there,” Corporal Laybourne answered, already getting his gear ready.
Nicholson laughed. “If you’re right, sir, that makes this one of the easiest hunts I’ve ever been on.”
Rover 1 had left base camp less than an hour earlier, her crew under orders to locate and bring in one of the strange beings that their unit had been sent to capture.
“I’m not picking up anything on the sensors, sir,” Hendricks cut in.
“You just don’t want to get out,” Nicholson joked.
“I know what I saw,” Corporal Laybourne said firmly, “and there is something out there. That means we’re going to check it out. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Nicholson and Hendricks chorused together.
“Hendricks, gear up. We’re heading out,” Corporal Laybourne barked.
Hendricks slipped on his gloves, made sure his parka was tight about him, and grabbed his rifle as Corporal Laybourne headed for Rover 1’s side door.
“Call this in to the colonel,” Corporal Laybourne told Nicholson. “And keep the engine running.”
Nicholson nodded. “Count on it. You guys be careful out there.”
Corporal Laybourne slid open Rover 1’s side door. He and Hendricks stepped through it out into the icy wind and the blowing snow. The temperature was somewhere in the area of negative fifteen degrees. It was a fairly warm day all things considered for Antarctica. The sun was high in the sky and its rays cut through the falling light snow, making the sea of white surrounding Rover 1 appear to sparkle. The effect was beautiful, but Corporal Laybourne had no time to enjoy it. He and his men had a job to do and if even half of what they had been told was true, it was a very dangerous one. Their unit had been dispatched covertly to Antarctica to recover what the higher-ups though was an artifact of extra-terrestrial origin. The radiation signature of the artifact was unique and easily tracked. Upon their arrival and closer proximity to the supposed location of the artifact, they had discovered that there was more than one spot giving off the radiation their gear was set up to track and that those signatures were on the move. The colonel had been just as baffled by the discovery as everyone else in the unit. The science geeks at base camp and back aboard the USS Hobart were going wild over the new develop. It didn’t take long at all for rumors to start flying that their unit had actually been dispatched to capture a real, live alien lifeform. Everything was playing out like they were all caught in a bad sci-fi movie one might see late at night on a B movie channel. Corporal Laybourne wasn’t sure what to believe, but he couldn’t believe that any kind of artifact, alien or not, was capable of moving around by itself.
The snow crunched on his boots as he and Hendricks tromped through it in the direction of whatever it was he had seen. Corporal Laybourne couldn’t help but wonder if his mind was simply messing with him. He had heard of snow mirages, seeing things that weren’t really there just like with mirages travelers in a desert might see.
Hendricks kept a small distance behind him as they moved. Both of them carried their rifles at the ready. Corporal Laybourne’s was loaded with tranquilizer darts, each packing enough sedatives to put down a rhino. Hendricks’ carried an M-16 rigged out for the weather. Corporal Laybourne was glad that at least one of them had a real weapon in case the darts didn’t work like they were supposed to. If whatever they were after really was not of this Earth, the tranquilizers might not work on it like the science geeks hoped they would. Aside from the tranq rifle in his hands, Corporal Laybourne’s only other weapon was the sidearm holstered on his hip. As he replayed the glimpse he had caught of the thing moving in the snow in his mind, it confirmed his thinking that his sidearm wasn’t likely going to be enough to stop whatever it was that he had seen. He couldn’t be entirely sure; the thing he had seen had looked to be far larger than a man though it still appeared to be moving on two legs.
“How far are we going, sir?” Hendricks asked.
Corporal Laybourne gestured ahead of them with the top two fingers of his gloved right hand. “Up and over that ridge,” he said. “That’s where I saw …” His voice trailed off as he searched for the words to describe what he thought he had seen. He realized he didn’t have the words for it, at least not any that didn’t sound completely insane if he were to say them out loud.
“Roger that,” Hendricks grunted, keeping pace with him.
“Just keep that weapon of yours ready, Hendricks,” Corporal Laybourne ordered.
“I thought we were supposed to take whatever it is out here alive if we could, sir,” Hendricks said.
“If we can …” Corporal Laybourne replied. “That doesn’t mean it’ll play out like they’re hoping for back at basecamp. You just stay ready to waste anything these darts don’t put down.”
The song of screeching metal jerked the attention of both men back onto Rover 1 behind them. Corporal Laybourne stared at the vehicle in shock and horror seeing that its roof had been peeled back like the lid of a tin can. Rover 1 rocked about where it sat in the snow as the wind carried Nicholson’s screams to them.
“Holy …” Hendricks shouted and took off running for Rover 1.
“No! Wait!” Corporal Laybourne yelled after him.
The side door of the rover exploded out, sending shards of metal flying like shrapnel as the monster burst through it. Hendricks cried out as a shard of the metal pierced the upper thigh of his right leg. He stumbled and half fell, barely able to stay on his feet. Blood spurted from his wound, spraying hot red onto the snow. Despite the pain he had to be in, Hendricks managed to raise the barrel of his rifle at the monster. The thing stood close to eight feet tall. Shaggy hair covered its body from head to toe and was a white as the snow all around it. Its eyes glowed a fierce yellow. The fingers of its hands were tipped with curved, wicked-looking claws. The monster’s lips were parted in a snarl that showed a mouthful of fang-like teeth. Hendricks squeezed the trigger of his weapon, firing a three-round burst at the monster. The bullets slammed into its chest. The monster grunted but there was no other sign that the bullets had even struck it. The density of its muscles was too high for them to get any real penetration.
The monster closed on Hendricks as Corporal Laybourne stopped where he was jerking his rifle up to brace it against his shoulder as he took aim at the monster. His shot hit exactly where he was aiming for, a tranq dart striking the monster’s throat. Like Hendricks’ bullets though, it scored no penetration. The dart bent, bouncing away harmlessly. The monster didn’t even notice it. Its attention remained focused on Hendricks. The claws of its right hand slashed through the air, making contact with Hendricks’ face and taking half of it with them as they tore through it. The impact of the blow sent Hendricks sprawling in the snow, his neck twisted at an unnatural angle on his shoulders. Corporal Laybourne knew Hendricks was dead. He figured Nicholson was too. The thing had been inside Rover 1 with him before it came after them.
Corporal Laybourne tossed his useless tranq rifle aside and yanked his pistol free of the holster on his hip. Rationally, he knew that the pistol wasn’t going to stop the monster if Hendricks’ rifle couldn’t, but it was the only weapon he had. The monster roared as he opened fire at it. Holding his pistol in a two-handed grip, Corporal Laybourne fired five shots in rapid succession, hoping to score at least one hit that did some damage as he aimed at the monster’s face and eyes. His first and second shots smacked into the thing’s forehead. Tiny dots of wet green formed on its white fur, telling Laybourne that he had at least drawn some blood for his efforts. As large as it was, the monster moved with near impossible speed, twisting so that his other shots struck its shoulder and upper arm with no real effect other than perhaps to make it angrier than it already was. Snarling, it sprang forward, bounding across the snow towards him. Laybourne knew he was dead unless he came up with something fast.
Desperate, he raced forward to meet the creature, trying to swerve around it as it came. He was partially successful. Laybourne made it by the charging monster but as he passed it, one of the monster’s hands lashed out to rake across his back. He screamed, feeling its claws tear into the flesh of his back despite the heavy parka he wore. Laybourne lost his footing and tumbled into the snow, rolling on by his momentum, leaving a trail of red in his wake. He ended up on his back, staring up at the sun, as he heard the creature coming from him. He felt his pistol still in the grip of his right hand and brought it up at the charging monster. Laybourne managed to fire at the last possible instant as the monster reached him. By the grace of God, his shot ripped into the monster’s left eye, turning it to pulp inside its socket. The monster shrieked an inhuman howl of pain and staggered away from him, clutching at the mangled remnants of its eye. Gritting his teeth, Laybourne forced himself up and took off running towards Rover 1. Th e rover was his only hope and he knew it.
Corporal Laybourne reached the vehicle’s shattered side door and flung himself through it to land on its floor. The smell inside the rover was sickening. Nicholson’s body lay not far from him, torn open, the man’s shredded guts protruding from what was left of his stomach. One of his arms had been ripped from the shoulder it had been attached to and rested on the floor of the rover near the driver’s seat. His face was contorted in a rigid expression of fear and pain, and Laybourne could only wonder what Nicholson’s final thoughts must have been before the monster tore him apart. Scrambling to his feet, Laybourne rushed over to the rover’s emergency cache of weapons and gear, frantically yanking it open. He reached into it, grabbing for a weapon. His fingers closed around the butt of a 9mm pistol. He snatched it out of the cache, readying it, and whirled about to see the monster standing at the rover’s side door, peering into the vehicle at him with its glowing yellow eyes. He fired three quick shots in the creature’s direction in the hopes of driving it back. The first two rounds missed the creature entirely. One flew out the rover’s side door, whizzing by the creature’s head. The second pinged against the rover’s roof just above the doorway, ricocheting about the vehicle’s interior until it thudded in the back of the driver’s seat. The third struck the creature’s right arm just above its elbow. The creature was so enraged and focused on him that it barely seemed to feel the bullet’s impact. It surged towards him, swinging a white haired-covered fist at his skull. Laybourne ducked the blow. The fist crashed into the rover’s wall behind him, denting the metal there. The creature was so close to him he could smell its rancid breath. Laybourne threw himself across the rover’s interior, scurrying away from the monster. It turned to come after him as Laybourne fired four more shots in rapid succession. Three of them thumped into the creature’s chest without much apparent effect. The last shot though nicked the softer flesh of the creature’s throat, scraping along its side. The monster howled in pain, clasping a hand over the wound. Laybourne’s victory was short lived though. The creature had already closed the distance between them and lashed out with its other hand, knocking him from his feet. The pistol was knocked from his grip as he crashed onto the rover’s floor. It bounced away from him, landing far out of his reach.
Green blood leaked through the fingers of the hand that covered the wound he had inflicted on the monster’s neck. It was clearly in pain, but Laybourne had no idea he had hurt it bad enough for it to bleed out from the wound. Even if it did, that would take time he didn’t have. Kicking with his feet, he pushed his body away from the monster as it reached for him. The fingers of its right hand closed about one his ankles, breaking the bones inside of it. Laybourne screamed, twisting himself about to kick at the monster’s face. His boot slammed into the monster’s lower jaw with all the force he could muster. The creature grunted but didn’t release its grip on him. It dragged him closer, its fingers growing even tighter about his shattered ankle. It took everything Laybourne had not to pass out, but he stayed in the fight through sheer force of will. He was under the creature now, its open mouth of razor-like teeth descending towards him. Laybourne lashed out, punching the side of the creature’s face so hard he felt one of his knuckles break. The creature grabbed him by the throat, holding him tightly against the metal of the rover’s floor. Laybourne kicked and thrashed about, unable to breathe beneath the pressure of the creature’s fingers wrapped about his throat. He met the thing’s yellow eyes with his own. Laybourne wanted desperately to spit at the monster, show one final act of defiance but he couldn’t. The same fingers that kept him from breathing prevented it. The last thing Laybourne saw was a fleeting glimpse of the monster’s open mouth before its teeth sunk into his forehead and his world went black.
****
“I didn’t ask for this fragging job,” Colonel Brannon muttered under his breath as he walked along the corridor between the makeshift shack where the team’s quarters had been set up to the main building of the base camp. The corridor was made of a tent-like material and flapped inward as the wind blew against it. Brannon tugged his parka tighter about him, frowning as he picked up his pace. The temperature was below freezing outside but then it almost always was here. He had only been on site for two days and he was already sick of the place. His unit had been deployed to run what was essentially a black op. No one was to know that they were here, much less what they were up to. Their mission was to find and recover an artifact of possible extraterrestrial origin. The whole operation had been thrown together in less than a week and it showed in everything from the flimsy construction of the base camp to the poor intel they had been given. He was sick of freezing his butt off and sicker still of not knowing what he and his men were really after down here. It clearly wasn’t an “artifact” as his superiors had told him. The artifact was supposed to give off a distinctive radioactive signature that would help them locate it, but instead of finding a single signature, the science geeks assigned to him had found over two dozen such signatures and a new one seemed to pop up every hour or so. The number of the signatures they were picking up wasn’t the truly disturbing part though. The signatures were moving. That assured him they were dealing with something else entirely than what he and his men had been expecting. Brannon didn’t care for surprises. In this line of work, they often ended up with people dying.
Brannon reached the door to the base camp’s main building. There was no fancy keypad lock on it or any real kind of security. It was just a normal wooden door and almost always left unlocked so the team’s personnel could come and go as needed. His gloved hand closed around its knob, turning it, as he shoved the door inward. He closed it hurriedly behind him. Heat was a precious thing and not to be wasted in an environment like this one.
Quinn looked over at him from the communications console as he entered.
“Morning, sir,” the young tech said, beaming at him.
Brannon grunted in reply, opting not to point out that it wasn’t really morning anymore. He had slept in after pulling a long night overseeing the search teams getting geared up and out into the field. Their base camp might be a pile of crap, but they had at least been issued three state-of-the-art snow rovers. Each of them was now crewed by three of his soldiers out there chasing down a specific radiation signature that the science geeks had sent them after. They couldn’t go after all the signatures they were picking up so the ones that had been chosen to go after first were the three strongest ones closest to the base camp.
The base camp’s main building was fairly small. It contained the main communications room, a small storage room, a power room, a mess hall without a real kitchen, toilet facilities, and a rough and tumble lab/work area for the team’s science staff. Quinn was the only other person in the comm. room, so Brannon figured Harvey, Leah, and Seeley were all in the lab area up to whatever the devil they did in there. Cash was still asleep in the quarters he had just came from so that only left Dobson unaccounted for. Everyone else was out in the rovers.
“Where’s Dobson?” Brannon asked.
“Went to the mess hall, sir, to fetch us some coffee,” Quinn answered with a smile.
Brannon nodded and took the only other seat in the comm. room next to Quinn.
“Sitrep,” Brannon said, sighing.
“All the rovers are out there, sir, closing in on the signatures they were assigned.” Quinn spun his chair around to look at him with a concerned frown. “There’s a storm rolling in though and something is playing havoc with our communications. Don’t know if it’s the weather or the radiation from the things we’re hunting. Either way, it’s making it difficult to keep in contact with the rovers. Things are sporadic at best.”
“Great.” Brannon shook his head, wondering what else could possibly go wrong for them down here.
“Everyone has been able to check in though, right?” Brannon asked. All of the rover crews were under orders to report in every hour.
“Rovers 2 and 3 have at regular intervals, sir,” Quinn told him, “… but Rover 1 didn’t report in at the last check, sir.”
