Nightmare Factory, page 18
Bishop smiled. “I like the way you Cajuns can have so many different ways of describing something so nasty. Kind of like the Eskimos with their fifty words for snow.”
“Yeah, Priest. Well, the snow that’s about to hit us is brown and smelly. I call it shit, and we are the fan.” They were in the small clearing for the landing zone; to their rear was a sheer cliff face of two hundred feet of near vertical rock. The incoming sensor video showed hundreds of small creatures, possibly modified capybaras, the beaver-sized rats they had down here. Those animals were docile, slow plant-eaters. What the bug cams were picking up was anything but that. It was a snarling mob of gnashing, razor-sharp teeth and mouths full of foamy, pinkish saliva. The legs were sleek, muscular, and tipped with long claws that dug up the ground like a farmer’s plow.
“Close those suits up. They’ll be here in thirty. Watch your firing lines.”
Halo had set out a series of tripwires, all attached to modified antipersonnel mines. It wasn’t much, but they were quickly running out of time.
Bayou squinted as the first of the mines went off seventy-five yards back into the jungle. Body parts and rat meat flew upward like a volcano exploding. Halo had either pointed it too high, or the first ones had knocked it down before it even triggered. The little bastards were fast. The team was quiet. They knew their jobs. No words were needed. She loved these guys, but damn, she missed Kovach. These recon missions were all hers, and she was okay in combat, but the master sergeant, well, he was the best she’d ever seen. He was patient, analytical, and able to unleash extreme violence at a moment’s notice. ‘Asymmetrical warfare,’ he called it. Hit the other fucks way harder than they can hit you.
She felt the rough edges of cracked ribs grinding together inside her chest. Despite the meds, this was going to hurt like a bitch.
“Ten seconds.” Another series of booms echoed through the forest. She could make out the separate sounds of anger and pain in the mass of creatures. We did this, we made these little fucks, she thought. Not the United States, but man did. Man always fucked up nature, usually to suit our own agendas.
“Contact!” Priest yelled.
A shot came from Bayou’s right. That would be Halo. She saw the front line of deranged creatures break out of the foliage, and they looked even uglier up close. She loosed a two-round burst of flechettes downrange. It cut a swath through the pack. The meter on her HUD showed 242 rounds remaining. Even if she could kill three or four with each shot, the suit’s battle AI estimated 1500 plus of the things. It would come down to numbers, and the math was not in their favor.
She aimed, fired, moved on. It was routine, and it was awful. The wails of the dying animals reminded her of children. Children being sliced apart by pure energy. She kept firing until the ammo count clicked zero.
“Switching to MRA.” She slapped in a mag rail ammo pack as the gun reconfigured itself for the new ammo. She heard Priest click on empty as well.
“Updating threat assessment,” Bayou’s suit’s AI intoned. The 1500 plus number had been steadily decreasing in her heads-up display. They’d gotten it down to just above 400. “New data,” as the count rose again to over 3000.
“Fuck me! Halo, find us an exit—this is not a fight we can win.”
“Working on it, LT!”
The count on her rail gun was dropping even faster. Every shot was taking down one or more of the rodents, but several were breaking through. In one of her displays, she saw Priest backing up and literally firing at his feet to kill the first wave. Her back was against the wall, so she couldn’t go any farther. She felt wind and a dark cloud moving in overhead. Great— rain, she thought. Every fucking afternoon in this god-forsaken place. That was just what they needed. She had to select the animals individually now. Unlike the carnage flechettes, she had to punch single holes with these almost like old school metal-cased rounds. The wind picked up, and she realized Jenkins was calling her.
“Go for Bayou. What do you have, Halo?”
When he answered, she stopped firing and looked back for the first time since the battle had begun. “Holy shit!” The giant black triangle sat stationary a dozen feet above them, the enormous white repulser disk glowing steadily with that unearthly bluish light they had. “Thank you, Master Sergeant,” she whispered, almost as a prayer.
“Move your asses. Our ride is here!”
CHAPTER
FORTY-TWO
“Ada, locate Sumo!” I shouted as I ran toward the hole.
“Twelve meters below your position. Life signs are in the green.”
The hole was a gaping slash in the ground a dozen yards across and twice that wide. The green and violet tendrils were already creeping up, out, and over the edge.
“Rappelling spike,” I yelled at my AI as I aimed, fired, and leapt in one motion. The rail gun fired a specialized metal dart that imbedded deep into the pavement above. The spike trailed a thin line of carbon microfilament. I hit the ground hard, my boots crushing through something thick and wet.
Realization that it could have been Sumo, or the woman, came to me slowly. Then, with a jolt, I turned on the gun light and swept the surrounding ground. Sumo was against one wall; he was straddling a body. Carol.
“Hey, partner...” I began just as a vine began wrapping its way around my arm and neck. The vines were about as thick as my thumb but incredibly tough. They were fibrous and felt more like a powerful snake than the harmless ivy that might cover your favorite aunt’s home.
In seconds, the goddam thing had everything on me locked up except my left forearm. My fingers strained to reach down to my side. I grimaced against the layers of vines that were feeling like bands of iron. With one last push, my fingers finally touched the Heidelberg blade in its sheath. One tendril around my feet began circling up my leg, constricting more with each turn. I shouted in pain. My grip on the knife vanished, and I fought to keep that side of my body free. I saw liquid running down my visor as the tendrils swept over my helmet. Then I recalled Voss’s mention of neurotoxins. “Stay away, Sumo.”
I found the knife again, still hanging from my rigging. Freeing it, I began to hack down on the vine wrapping my leg and then did the same to the one encircling my neck. The battle armor prevented me from choking, but it had restricted blood flow. I moved to free my other arm when a giant trunk of the plant slammed me from behind. The knife went flying this time.
My vision tunneled to a pinpoint of light as my body stopped fighting. I was trapped in a spiderweb of the stinging vines. Soon, I felt even gravity disappear as I was hoisted off the ground by the ever-growing tangle of plants. These things took down buildings. What chance did I have?
Vaguely, I heard Ada counting down. “Three, two…”
A snapping pop, followed by frying sounds, brought me back to the tableau of horror. My HUD was dark, as were many other suit controls.
“You’re on backup power now, Prowler. I used your suit’s batteries to stun the attacking vines. You need to move, now!”
It had been a brilliant move. One I wished I’d thought of. I grabbed my knife, lying several feet away, and cut away the rest of the vines still trapping me. I could see the rest of the angry mass writhing away a few feet from me. Ada was right. It wouldn’t take long for it to get over its shock and come after me again.
Quickly checking over Sumo, who appeared unhurt, and Carol, who was unconscious, I clipped the rappelling cable around her, then picked up Sumo. Ada signaled the spike above to retract. Two minutes later, I released Sumo and placed a hand on the edge of the hole and hoisted myself out. I could see Damiana there, enraged and yelling. My suit’s speakers were out, and frankly, I was glad. Yes, I had left her friend, and I didn’t need to read lips to know she was less than thrilled about seeing only me and my dog.
I unclipped and turned to pull up the rest of the cable. The thin hyperfilmanent was made of a hardened carbon-graphene composite and was ultra-thin. Without the armor, I would have needed specialized gloves when using it just to avoid it slicking through my hands. The spike round carries nearly a hundred yards in something the size of an old style match box. Damiana, realizing I had her friend suspended behind me, rushed to help, but I lifted my visor and told her to stand back. I needed her and Sumo watching for the above ground threats while I did this.
Carol wasn’t heavy, but it suddenly felt as though she were caught on something. I flipped on my helmet lamps, and my blood froze. Two vines were encircling her neck. Her face was deathly white, and her lips were turning blue. I held her with my left hand as I carefully removed my sidearm with the other. I heard Damiana yelling at me, undoubtedly even louder now, as she saw me aiming the weapon down at her friend.
Carol was suspended ten feet below me, caught in a vicious game of tug-of-war. The game was life or death for her. I fired, searing off one of the two thick vines, but I saw hundreds more moving in to take its place. I fired again and again. Finally, I felt the cable give, just an inch, then a bit more. I holstered the gun and heaved again with both hands. Suddenly, she was free, and I had her out of the hole in seconds. I reached to feel for a pulse.
“We’ve got more trouble, Joe,” Damiana said from behind me.
CHAPTER
FORTY-THREE
KOVACH
I wasn’t ready for another fight. Not yet. Despite my enhancements, I was feeling lucky to get out of that hole in one piece. Sumo seemed good, but Carol was an unknown. Now, Damiana was glancing between her unconscious friend and out toward the ruins we’d passed through minutes earlier. I felt a chill run through me as I saw her expression.
“That other thing you mentioned,” she said, her voice taking on a nervous quality that until now I hadn’t heard from the woman. “Did it sound at all mechanical?”
I was still struggling to unhook myself from the micro-cable and get back to my feet. Her words were a shock. “No.” The two encounters I had felt were creatures, living things. Although, seeing the tendrils of vine creeping around my boots made me wonder if I even knew the definition of creature anymore. My battle suit’s sensors began picking up a sound, very faint, but rhythmic and familiar. A clicking tap, followed by three more… click, tap— tap, tap, tap.
Just like at the closed door yesterday afternoon, the sound sent an involuntary shiver through me. I’d pictured a drooling creature, something evil and prehistoric, tapping a razor-sharp claw on the floor just waiting for me to open that door. Looking back to where the woman was pointing, I knew that assessment had been very wrong.
“Kovach, we have to go now!”
Damiana’s words were unnecessary. The glint of thousands of metal bodies moved almost as one, covering much of the western side of the complex, their metal legs tapping out in perfect synchronization. Each of the damn things were the size of a shoebox. The hoard swarmed over everything and were moving in every direction at once. I watched as they cut a swatch through a thick valley of the violet-colored vines as if they weren’t even there. “You had a division working on battle bots, too,” I stated as I bent to pick up Carol’s limp body.
“Swarm technology,” she said. Her tone was flat and unemotional.
“Ada, plot me a course out of here and get the truck moved to somewhere we can meet it.”
“Roger, Prowler. Be advised, though, the batteries have only partially recovered. Your range will be extremely limited.”
I’d already assumed that. We would need better transportation, but right now, I just wanted to stay alive. That thought made me consider something. Building J-7 loomed above us as I ran by. My future, my ability to live through next month, was likely somewhere inside those walls, and I was giving that up in this desperate dash from danger. Selfishly, I considered stopping and going back to find what I needed. What did I really owe these women, anyway?
I pushed the thought out of my mind as a thick vine burst out of a window above. Its ropy tendrils immediately began covering the exterior. The plants were underground, probably in the sewers and tunnels between buildings. The bot horde now seemed endless above ground; the tapping sound now thunderous, even with my battle suit systems dampening the volume. I stole a look at the woman in my arms. Her color was returning. Maybe she hadn’t been hit with the nerve toxin.
My life was probably over, but I could still do whatever I could to get them to safety, maybe even help her find her son. I’d chosen the path of a warrior in this life, and these were the people we served, not the politicians, not even the officers in our chain of command. I heard the J-7 lab beginning to come down behind us. A part of me seemed to die with it. Fat rain drops began to spatter against my visor. Looking back, the ground seemed to erupt as the plants sought the moisture. I began to run even harder.
“She’s stable, Joe, her injuries are not life-threatening,” Ada said.
My battle suit has the ability to do rough medical scans on anyone I can touch the suit’s tac-sleeve sensors to. Ada had scanned Carol via the sensors in my sleeves and administered a sedative, antivirals, and pain meds while we were winding our way through the thick forest. My truck was on an unpaved road high on a bluff overlooking a rust-colored stream.
Sumo had already made it to the truck and sat watching us, seeming to ask why humans were so damn slow. I could tell, though, the shit we’d just been through had shaken the animal as much as us. This wasn’t his kind of battle. An enemy with no throat to rip out was no enemy he cared to face.
I slid Carol into the back seat, rolled up the now frayed solar blanket still flapping behind the truck bed, and climbed inside with the others. Damiana leaned warily against the side of the truck, then climbed in and got busy checking over her friend. I’d already relayed to her what the suit’s sensors had indicated.
“Will those things keep coming?” I asked.
Damiana shrugged. “No idea. I’d read up on the Thunder Vine, but the bots were never mentioned in any real detail.”
The power levels on the GMC were reading barely ten percent. I put it into gear and began following Ada’s meandering route overlay in my vision. I could still hear the relentless tapping. Maybe that was just my imagination, but if so, even the memory of the sound set my teeth on edge.
I flipped the helmet off my head, feeling better to be rid of it. Damiana looked up from her friend, then raised a hand to touch something on my neck. Her touch sent a shock of pain through me.
“It got you?”
I reached up and felt the twin ridges that were raw and hot to the touch. Now that I was aware, I could feel the intense pain. Until now, it was something that would not have done me any good to know, so my body compartmentalized it away from my consciousness.
“You should be dead,” she said. “Not just from the nerve agent, but that jump down into that hole should have killed you.”
Her fingers lingered on my skin a moment more. I had to admit, I didn’t mind the feeling.
“Dr. Reichert really did the full program on you, didn’t he?”
The man saved my life, but I was still coming to grips with everything else he’d done to me.
“I have a lot of enhancements,” I said, nodding.
“More than that, you were augmented. I saw some of the reports.” Apparently satisfied that Carol was just asleep from the sedation and not unconscious, Damiana climbed back up to the front. “Like, I know they use a nanocoating of carbon and kevlar mesh to reinforce your bones. Probably why you can jump into a hole that deep without injury.”
“They told me some of it, but I’m not even sure of the full extent.” I wasn’t sure I liked this stranger knowing more about my body than I did.
“Some of your blood was replaced with something called respirosites. Essentially, artificial red blood cells, capable of carrying many times the normal amount of oxygen your organs need to perform at peak levels. I’m betting you can run for hours and not get tired.”
I could, but I didn’t enjoy attributing that to her former boss. “I was an Army Ranger before I became a Space Grunt or lab rat. I was already in reasonably good shape.”
“I’m not talking about fit for duty. They were making you into a weapon, Joe.”
She must have seen the look on my face. I had a strong sense of being violated by everything that had been done to me. They saved my life, but then they made damn sure I knew Joe Kovach was government property from that moment on. “They did a lousy job on it, if you ask me.”
I felt her hand again, this time on my arm.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t get what you needed back there.”
We both knew what that meant. Just like the batteries in this old truck. We both had a limited shelf-life remaining.
I shrugged, unwilling to show how crushing the loss really was. “What about you? Did you find what you were looking for?”
Her eyes glanced back at Carol before she answered. “Why do you think I was looking for something?”
I smiled; she knew I knew. But I was ok with her keeping her secrets, for now.
CHAPTER
FORTY-FOUR
BANSHEE
“Where are we heading?”
“Lieutenant Riggs, I am RTB on the IAS Alice Springs,” the pilot said.
“Since when do U.S. dropships base on Alliance Space craft?” The still classified TriCraft dropships were the taxis of the Space Force. Rumored to have been built using reverse engineered technology, they were unlike any other flying craft in the world. They were shit slow for flying from one spot to another, but incredibly perfect for going from ground to space in mere seconds.
“Since Space Command went dark, ma’am,” the pilot said.
Even after all the rides up with Bayou’s drop teams, she still couldn’t get over how they could be on the ground one minute and in the dark of space the next with absolutely no feeling of movement. The acceleration had to be in the tens of thousands of miles per hour. The G-forces should have left them as greasy smears on the back wall, yet the TriCraft’s inertia dampening made it feel like nothing. They were a one-trick pony, though, so only a handful existed.
“Yeah, Priest. Well, the snow that’s about to hit us is brown and smelly. I call it shit, and we are the fan.” They were in the small clearing for the landing zone; to their rear was a sheer cliff face of two hundred feet of near vertical rock. The incoming sensor video showed hundreds of small creatures, possibly modified capybaras, the beaver-sized rats they had down here. Those animals were docile, slow plant-eaters. What the bug cams were picking up was anything but that. It was a snarling mob of gnashing, razor-sharp teeth and mouths full of foamy, pinkish saliva. The legs were sleek, muscular, and tipped with long claws that dug up the ground like a farmer’s plow.
“Close those suits up. They’ll be here in thirty. Watch your firing lines.”
Halo had set out a series of tripwires, all attached to modified antipersonnel mines. It wasn’t much, but they were quickly running out of time.
Bayou squinted as the first of the mines went off seventy-five yards back into the jungle. Body parts and rat meat flew upward like a volcano exploding. Halo had either pointed it too high, or the first ones had knocked it down before it even triggered. The little bastards were fast. The team was quiet. They knew their jobs. No words were needed. She loved these guys, but damn, she missed Kovach. These recon missions were all hers, and she was okay in combat, but the master sergeant, well, he was the best she’d ever seen. He was patient, analytical, and able to unleash extreme violence at a moment’s notice. ‘Asymmetrical warfare,’ he called it. Hit the other fucks way harder than they can hit you.
She felt the rough edges of cracked ribs grinding together inside her chest. Despite the meds, this was going to hurt like a bitch.
“Ten seconds.” Another series of booms echoed through the forest. She could make out the separate sounds of anger and pain in the mass of creatures. We did this, we made these little fucks, she thought. Not the United States, but man did. Man always fucked up nature, usually to suit our own agendas.
“Contact!” Priest yelled.
A shot came from Bayou’s right. That would be Halo. She saw the front line of deranged creatures break out of the foliage, and they looked even uglier up close. She loosed a two-round burst of flechettes downrange. It cut a swath through the pack. The meter on her HUD showed 242 rounds remaining. Even if she could kill three or four with each shot, the suit’s battle AI estimated 1500 plus of the things. It would come down to numbers, and the math was not in their favor.
She aimed, fired, moved on. It was routine, and it was awful. The wails of the dying animals reminded her of children. Children being sliced apart by pure energy. She kept firing until the ammo count clicked zero.
“Switching to MRA.” She slapped in a mag rail ammo pack as the gun reconfigured itself for the new ammo. She heard Priest click on empty as well.
“Updating threat assessment,” Bayou’s suit’s AI intoned. The 1500 plus number had been steadily decreasing in her heads-up display. They’d gotten it down to just above 400. “New data,” as the count rose again to over 3000.
“Fuck me! Halo, find us an exit—this is not a fight we can win.”
“Working on it, LT!”
The count on her rail gun was dropping even faster. Every shot was taking down one or more of the rodents, but several were breaking through. In one of her displays, she saw Priest backing up and literally firing at his feet to kill the first wave. Her back was against the wall, so she couldn’t go any farther. She felt wind and a dark cloud moving in overhead. Great— rain, she thought. Every fucking afternoon in this god-forsaken place. That was just what they needed. She had to select the animals individually now. Unlike the carnage flechettes, she had to punch single holes with these almost like old school metal-cased rounds. The wind picked up, and she realized Jenkins was calling her.
“Go for Bayou. What do you have, Halo?”
When he answered, she stopped firing and looked back for the first time since the battle had begun. “Holy shit!” The giant black triangle sat stationary a dozen feet above them, the enormous white repulser disk glowing steadily with that unearthly bluish light they had. “Thank you, Master Sergeant,” she whispered, almost as a prayer.
“Move your asses. Our ride is here!”
CHAPTER
FORTY-TWO
“Ada, locate Sumo!” I shouted as I ran toward the hole.
“Twelve meters below your position. Life signs are in the green.”
The hole was a gaping slash in the ground a dozen yards across and twice that wide. The green and violet tendrils were already creeping up, out, and over the edge.
“Rappelling spike,” I yelled at my AI as I aimed, fired, and leapt in one motion. The rail gun fired a specialized metal dart that imbedded deep into the pavement above. The spike trailed a thin line of carbon microfilament. I hit the ground hard, my boots crushing through something thick and wet.
Realization that it could have been Sumo, or the woman, came to me slowly. Then, with a jolt, I turned on the gun light and swept the surrounding ground. Sumo was against one wall; he was straddling a body. Carol.
“Hey, partner...” I began just as a vine began wrapping its way around my arm and neck. The vines were about as thick as my thumb but incredibly tough. They were fibrous and felt more like a powerful snake than the harmless ivy that might cover your favorite aunt’s home.
In seconds, the goddam thing had everything on me locked up except my left forearm. My fingers strained to reach down to my side. I grimaced against the layers of vines that were feeling like bands of iron. With one last push, my fingers finally touched the Heidelberg blade in its sheath. One tendril around my feet began circling up my leg, constricting more with each turn. I shouted in pain. My grip on the knife vanished, and I fought to keep that side of my body free. I saw liquid running down my visor as the tendrils swept over my helmet. Then I recalled Voss’s mention of neurotoxins. “Stay away, Sumo.”
I found the knife again, still hanging from my rigging. Freeing it, I began to hack down on the vine wrapping my leg and then did the same to the one encircling my neck. The battle armor prevented me from choking, but it had restricted blood flow. I moved to free my other arm when a giant trunk of the plant slammed me from behind. The knife went flying this time.
My vision tunneled to a pinpoint of light as my body stopped fighting. I was trapped in a spiderweb of the stinging vines. Soon, I felt even gravity disappear as I was hoisted off the ground by the ever-growing tangle of plants. These things took down buildings. What chance did I have?
Vaguely, I heard Ada counting down. “Three, two…”
A snapping pop, followed by frying sounds, brought me back to the tableau of horror. My HUD was dark, as were many other suit controls.
“You’re on backup power now, Prowler. I used your suit’s batteries to stun the attacking vines. You need to move, now!”
It had been a brilliant move. One I wished I’d thought of. I grabbed my knife, lying several feet away, and cut away the rest of the vines still trapping me. I could see the rest of the angry mass writhing away a few feet from me. Ada was right. It wouldn’t take long for it to get over its shock and come after me again.
Quickly checking over Sumo, who appeared unhurt, and Carol, who was unconscious, I clipped the rappelling cable around her, then picked up Sumo. Ada signaled the spike above to retract. Two minutes later, I released Sumo and placed a hand on the edge of the hole and hoisted myself out. I could see Damiana there, enraged and yelling. My suit’s speakers were out, and frankly, I was glad. Yes, I had left her friend, and I didn’t need to read lips to know she was less than thrilled about seeing only me and my dog.
I unclipped and turned to pull up the rest of the cable. The thin hyperfilmanent was made of a hardened carbon-graphene composite and was ultra-thin. Without the armor, I would have needed specialized gloves when using it just to avoid it slicking through my hands. The spike round carries nearly a hundred yards in something the size of an old style match box. Damiana, realizing I had her friend suspended behind me, rushed to help, but I lifted my visor and told her to stand back. I needed her and Sumo watching for the above ground threats while I did this.
Carol wasn’t heavy, but it suddenly felt as though she were caught on something. I flipped on my helmet lamps, and my blood froze. Two vines were encircling her neck. Her face was deathly white, and her lips were turning blue. I held her with my left hand as I carefully removed my sidearm with the other. I heard Damiana yelling at me, undoubtedly even louder now, as she saw me aiming the weapon down at her friend.
Carol was suspended ten feet below me, caught in a vicious game of tug-of-war. The game was life or death for her. I fired, searing off one of the two thick vines, but I saw hundreds more moving in to take its place. I fired again and again. Finally, I felt the cable give, just an inch, then a bit more. I holstered the gun and heaved again with both hands. Suddenly, she was free, and I had her out of the hole in seconds. I reached to feel for a pulse.
“We’ve got more trouble, Joe,” Damiana said from behind me.
CHAPTER
FORTY-THREE
KOVACH
I wasn’t ready for another fight. Not yet. Despite my enhancements, I was feeling lucky to get out of that hole in one piece. Sumo seemed good, but Carol was an unknown. Now, Damiana was glancing between her unconscious friend and out toward the ruins we’d passed through minutes earlier. I felt a chill run through me as I saw her expression.
“That other thing you mentioned,” she said, her voice taking on a nervous quality that until now I hadn’t heard from the woman. “Did it sound at all mechanical?”
I was still struggling to unhook myself from the micro-cable and get back to my feet. Her words were a shock. “No.” The two encounters I had felt were creatures, living things. Although, seeing the tendrils of vine creeping around my boots made me wonder if I even knew the definition of creature anymore. My battle suit’s sensors began picking up a sound, very faint, but rhythmic and familiar. A clicking tap, followed by three more… click, tap— tap, tap, tap.
Just like at the closed door yesterday afternoon, the sound sent an involuntary shiver through me. I’d pictured a drooling creature, something evil and prehistoric, tapping a razor-sharp claw on the floor just waiting for me to open that door. Looking back to where the woman was pointing, I knew that assessment had been very wrong.
“Kovach, we have to go now!”
Damiana’s words were unnecessary. The glint of thousands of metal bodies moved almost as one, covering much of the western side of the complex, their metal legs tapping out in perfect synchronization. Each of the damn things were the size of a shoebox. The hoard swarmed over everything and were moving in every direction at once. I watched as they cut a swatch through a thick valley of the violet-colored vines as if they weren’t even there. “You had a division working on battle bots, too,” I stated as I bent to pick up Carol’s limp body.
“Swarm technology,” she said. Her tone was flat and unemotional.
“Ada, plot me a course out of here and get the truck moved to somewhere we can meet it.”
“Roger, Prowler. Be advised, though, the batteries have only partially recovered. Your range will be extremely limited.”
I’d already assumed that. We would need better transportation, but right now, I just wanted to stay alive. That thought made me consider something. Building J-7 loomed above us as I ran by. My future, my ability to live through next month, was likely somewhere inside those walls, and I was giving that up in this desperate dash from danger. Selfishly, I considered stopping and going back to find what I needed. What did I really owe these women, anyway?
I pushed the thought out of my mind as a thick vine burst out of a window above. Its ropy tendrils immediately began covering the exterior. The plants were underground, probably in the sewers and tunnels between buildings. The bot horde now seemed endless above ground; the tapping sound now thunderous, even with my battle suit systems dampening the volume. I stole a look at the woman in my arms. Her color was returning. Maybe she hadn’t been hit with the nerve toxin.
My life was probably over, but I could still do whatever I could to get them to safety, maybe even help her find her son. I’d chosen the path of a warrior in this life, and these were the people we served, not the politicians, not even the officers in our chain of command. I heard the J-7 lab beginning to come down behind us. A part of me seemed to die with it. Fat rain drops began to spatter against my visor. Looking back, the ground seemed to erupt as the plants sought the moisture. I began to run even harder.
“She’s stable, Joe, her injuries are not life-threatening,” Ada said.
My battle suit has the ability to do rough medical scans on anyone I can touch the suit’s tac-sleeve sensors to. Ada had scanned Carol via the sensors in my sleeves and administered a sedative, antivirals, and pain meds while we were winding our way through the thick forest. My truck was on an unpaved road high on a bluff overlooking a rust-colored stream.
Sumo had already made it to the truck and sat watching us, seeming to ask why humans were so damn slow. I could tell, though, the shit we’d just been through had shaken the animal as much as us. This wasn’t his kind of battle. An enemy with no throat to rip out was no enemy he cared to face.
I slid Carol into the back seat, rolled up the now frayed solar blanket still flapping behind the truck bed, and climbed inside with the others. Damiana leaned warily against the side of the truck, then climbed in and got busy checking over her friend. I’d already relayed to her what the suit’s sensors had indicated.
“Will those things keep coming?” I asked.
Damiana shrugged. “No idea. I’d read up on the Thunder Vine, but the bots were never mentioned in any real detail.”
The power levels on the GMC were reading barely ten percent. I put it into gear and began following Ada’s meandering route overlay in my vision. I could still hear the relentless tapping. Maybe that was just my imagination, but if so, even the memory of the sound set my teeth on edge.
I flipped the helmet off my head, feeling better to be rid of it. Damiana looked up from her friend, then raised a hand to touch something on my neck. Her touch sent a shock of pain through me.
“It got you?”
I reached up and felt the twin ridges that were raw and hot to the touch. Now that I was aware, I could feel the intense pain. Until now, it was something that would not have done me any good to know, so my body compartmentalized it away from my consciousness.
“You should be dead,” she said. “Not just from the nerve agent, but that jump down into that hole should have killed you.”
Her fingers lingered on my skin a moment more. I had to admit, I didn’t mind the feeling.
“Dr. Reichert really did the full program on you, didn’t he?”
The man saved my life, but I was still coming to grips with everything else he’d done to me.
“I have a lot of enhancements,” I said, nodding.
“More than that, you were augmented. I saw some of the reports.” Apparently satisfied that Carol was just asleep from the sedation and not unconscious, Damiana climbed back up to the front. “Like, I know they use a nanocoating of carbon and kevlar mesh to reinforce your bones. Probably why you can jump into a hole that deep without injury.”
“They told me some of it, but I’m not even sure of the full extent.” I wasn’t sure I liked this stranger knowing more about my body than I did.
“Some of your blood was replaced with something called respirosites. Essentially, artificial red blood cells, capable of carrying many times the normal amount of oxygen your organs need to perform at peak levels. I’m betting you can run for hours and not get tired.”
I could, but I didn’t enjoy attributing that to her former boss. “I was an Army Ranger before I became a Space Grunt or lab rat. I was already in reasonably good shape.”
“I’m not talking about fit for duty. They were making you into a weapon, Joe.”
She must have seen the look on my face. I had a strong sense of being violated by everything that had been done to me. They saved my life, but then they made damn sure I knew Joe Kovach was government property from that moment on. “They did a lousy job on it, if you ask me.”
I felt her hand again, this time on my arm.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t get what you needed back there.”
We both knew what that meant. Just like the batteries in this old truck. We both had a limited shelf-life remaining.
I shrugged, unwilling to show how crushing the loss really was. “What about you? Did you find what you were looking for?”
Her eyes glanced back at Carol before she answered. “Why do you think I was looking for something?”
I smiled; she knew I knew. But I was ok with her keeping her secrets, for now.
CHAPTER
FORTY-FOUR
BANSHEE
“Where are we heading?”
“Lieutenant Riggs, I am RTB on the IAS Alice Springs,” the pilot said.
“Since when do U.S. dropships base on Alliance Space craft?” The still classified TriCraft dropships were the taxis of the Space Force. Rumored to have been built using reverse engineered technology, they were unlike any other flying craft in the world. They were shit slow for flying from one spot to another, but incredibly perfect for going from ground to space in mere seconds.
“Since Space Command went dark, ma’am,” the pilot said.
Even after all the rides up with Bayou’s drop teams, she still couldn’t get over how they could be on the ground one minute and in the dark of space the next with absolutely no feeling of movement. The acceleration had to be in the tens of thousands of miles per hour. The G-forces should have left them as greasy smears on the back wall, yet the TriCraft’s inertia dampening made it feel like nothing. They were a one-trick pony, though, so only a handful existed.
