Swapship Troopers Page 10

  Quantrill risked a peek over the top of the log he was hiding behind. There was no activity in the forest that he could see. The huge, flying Bug was lying still, up against a line of trees that leaned over at an angle under the weight of the huge beast. It was definitely not one of the Formids’ most stellar landings.

  He turned to Vanlanding, who pointed further down the hill and then twirled his finger above his head to signal a rally point. Quantrill nodded and then belly crawled through the underbrush in the direction the corporal pointed. He crawled about twenty meters and then got on his feet to cover the rest of the distance in a crouching run.

  About a hundred meters down from the buzzard, the Marines emerged onto a sandy beach and immediately moved down to the water’s edge to keep as much open space between them and the screen of trees as possible. The hotel and the settlement weren’t visible in either direction. Quantrill guessed the may have crossed over to the other side of the island in all their walking around on the trails.

  “B and C squads are on the way here now,” Vanlanding reported when he got off the radio with the Lieutenant. “They found diddly squat so I guess our buzzard is the winner for today.”

  “Awesome,” Quantrill replied wryly. “What do we win?”

  “We win the privilege of sitting here and waiting,” Vanlanding told him.

  The men sat down in the soft sand and got comfortable. Most of them tore open protein packs to get something to eat. Though they all kept a wary eye on the treeline in case that buzzard had dropped off some warriors, Quantrill couldn’t help but gaze out at the ocean from time to time. He wished he could pull off his armor and wade into the clear water. He imagined it would feel cool and refreshing on his sweaty, grimy skin.

  “So, Jabby,” Potter broke the silence. “What are you gonna do when your tour is up?”

  “Shit, I don’t know,” Jabara replied. “Go back home, I guess. My family runs this car dealership. We lost the business just recently because …” Jabara trailed off. The big Marine looked up at the clear, blue sky like he was deep in thought. “Because times are tough, you know. But I’d like to go back and get the dealership up and going again. That’s what I’d like to do.”

  Quantrill thought for a moment about what he might do after his term of service was up. He’d never really considered it before. Just surviving the tour seemed like accomplishment enough. Probably he would go back to Clevlenatti and get a job at the same factory where his mother worked. Then spend the next 50 years barely earning enough to get by. It was an old story.

  “Nice,” Potter said. “How about you, Van? What’ll you do when you get out?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Vanlanding protested. “It’s bad luck.”

  “Aww, come on, man.”

  “I mean it,” the Corporal insisted. “The guy who talks the most about getting back home. He’s the guy who buys it first. Mark my words.”

  “Whatever, man,” Potter grumbled. He didn’t ask his question again.

  They waited for an hour before Lieutenant Hardaway led Squad B around the corner. The Lieutenant conferred with Corporal Harper and Corporal Vanlanding. Then Hardaway waved the men to gather around him.

  “We’re going to go check out this downed buzzard,” he told them. The Lieutenant spoke softly to avoid alerting any Bugs. “We will approach slow and steady. Silent as a mouse. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” the men answered in a chorus of whispers.

  Hardaway walked up the beach and headed for the treeline. The rest of the Marines followed. They crept through the dense foliage like tigers on the prowl – or perhaps prey creeping away from a vicious predator. Quantrill saw that Hardaway had his M-20 bayonet knife and was using it to slice branches and vines out of his path. Quantrill fell in behind the Lieutenant to take advantage of the path he was clearing.

  When they came within sight of the buzzard, Hardaway sent four men to the right and four to the left with a series of hand signals. Then he approached the giant Bug straight ahead. Quantrill hadn’t been sent right or left so he followed directly behind.

  As he came closer to the buzzard, he saw that the creature’s massive outer shell was cracked and broken. Even the inner shell had been fractured, letting thick, dark fluid ooze out onto the ground. All was completely still as they approached and Hardaway, in the lead, was nearly close enough to reach out and touch the beast. From that distance, the buzzard was like a solid vertical wall of hard, black chitin.

  Hardaway bent down and slipped under the partially open outer shell. Quantrill dropped to his hands and knees to shine his flashlight after the Lieutenant. Hardaway produced his own light and peered into the hollow chambers set along the buzzard’s abdomen. “There are warriors in here,” he announced. “But they’re dead. Crushed.”

  “So the buzzard crashed,” Quantrill suggested.

  “Looks that way,” Hardaway agreed. The Lieutenant rolled out from under the Bug’s shell and dusted himself off. “I want to check the other side.”

  Hardaway walked around the front of the buzzard. He passed right under the creature’s huge mandibles. They were just above head height, each the size of the blade of a gigantic bulldozer. The beast had six eyes the size of soccer balls with multiple lenses that gleamed like facets on a disco ball. Quantrill looked at the monstrous thing with a combination of revulsion and fascination. How could a living thing ever get so huge? Had it been intelligent? Or a near-mindless insect like the Formid warriors?

  Then the buzzard’s inner jaw slowly fell open, revealing rows of jagged fangs as big as a bayonet. Quantrill stepped back and raised his rifle. Did that thing just move? As he watched, the jaws slowly closed again, grinding the fangs together.

  “Sir!” Quantrill called out to Lieutenant Hardaway. “Sir, I think this thing is alive!”

  “What do you mean, alive?” Hardaway returned to ask.

  “It just … it moved,” Quantrill tried to explain. “Maybe it was injured in the crash, but not enough to kill it.”

  “That’s crazy,” Vanlanding insisted. He had heard Quantrill yell and came to investigate. “This thing has been here six months at least. How could it still be alive?”

  “That would explain why it didn’t implode,” Hardaway said thoughtfully. “And we know Formids can absorb a lot of damage.” At that moment, the inner mouth opened again and the buzzard emitted a frightful hissing sound. Its giant head swung in their direction and the enormous mandibles tried to close.

  The Marines backed away to a safer distance and the buzzard was still again. All around, the platoon watched Lieutenant Hardaway expectantly. They had no idea what to make of the situation and looked to him for guidance.

  “Everyone!” Hardaway called out. “Over here. Take a knee.”

  “Sir,” Vanlanding entreated. “We need to get out of here. If that buzzard keels over we don’t want to be anywhere near this area.”

  “Take it easy, Van,” the Lieutenant said calmly. “This thing has been here for months. It’s not going to die just this minute.”

  “Yes, sir,” the corporal replied, but still eyed the buzzard with a nervous glare. Quantrill could understand. He had been literally steps away from being sucked into oblivion by the last buzzard. He was itching to get as far away from this one as possible, too.

  “Now then,” Hardaway addressed the men. “This buzzard is alive for now but apparently too severely injured to move. I don’t have to tell you how dangerous a dying buzzard is.”

  There were noises of agreement all around, especially from Vanlanding and his squad. They had seen a death implosion up close and personal. It was the kind of thing that made an impression.

  “So as soon as we leave, this area will be off limits. Nobody comes back here for any reason whatsoever,” Hardaway told them. Quantrill didn’t think there would be much pushback against that decision. More and more of the Marines were eyeing the buzzard like a swimmer watching a shark fin slowly circling.

  “B
efore we go,” Hardaway went on. “We need to have a good look around. That buzzard has twenty slots. There are nineteen crushed carcasses under there. That leaves one Bug unaccounted for.”

  “One Bug?” Jabara exclaimed. “The Massacre of Lapis Lazuli was one fucking Bug?”

  “I guess you can’t believe everything you hear,” Quantrill told him with a shrug.

  The two squads went to work scouring the forest floor for any sign of the missing Formid. Quantrill decided to focus his own search as far from the buzzard as possible. He was as likely to find a clue there as anywhere and the head start couldn’t hurt if he had to make a run for it. “Double check before you put your foot down anywhere,” Hardaway reminded them.

  “Here, sir!” someone finally called out. Quantrill looked back over his shoulder and saw Hardaway and Corporal Harper and Private Shrike standing over something in the dirt. Hardaway moved further along with his head low to the ground. Then the Lieutenant jogged back.

  “Form up!” he yelled to the platoon. “We’re moving out!”

  Quantrill breathed a sigh of relief. The further away from that buzzard the better he liked it. A single Formid was no big deal. It was practically a walk in the park by comparison. He could handle one Bug by himself – as long as he had his AR316, of course. Two whole squads of Marines would tear the thing apart.

  They moved through the forest in single file. Their progress was slow, with frequent stops. Quantrill was too far back to know why they kept stopping. He only saw Jabara signal a stop whenever Vanlanding stopped ahead of him. He figured Hardaway was just looking for tracks or markings left by the surviving Formid.

  Eventually Quantrill caught up with a crowd of Marines. As he approached he saw Lieutenant Hardaway shining a flashlight into a large tunnel dug into the side of the hill. It was just tall enough for a man to crouch down and fit inside – if anyone was crazy enough to actually go inside, that is.

  “Who’s going to come down there with me?” Hardaway asked the platoon. He shrugged out of his pack and dropped it on the ground beside the tunnel. “Any volunteers?”

  “Sir!” Quantrill called out. He rushed forward and pulled off his own pack.

  “Good man, Q,” Hardaway said. He fixed the light onto the multi-mount of his rifle and moved into the tunnel. “Harper, you have command until I get back. If anything comes out of this hole besides us, kill it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Corporal Harper agreed.

  Hardaway climbed into the tunnel and Quantrill followed close behind. The two men shuffled along and soon left any trace of sunshine long behind. Their flashlight beams illuminated a dozen meters of tunnel ahead before being swallowed by the inky blackness. The Bugs loved underground passages. Any territory in Formid hands for any length of time would be riddled through with tunnels of all shapes and sizes.

  “Sir,” Quantrill inquired quietly. “Have you been in one of these tunnels before?”

  “Yep.”

  “How did that go?” Quantrill asked when the Lieutenant didn’t elaborate.

  “Ten men killed. Twenty wounded.”

  “Oh.” The two went on in silence. The silence was short-lived, however. First a quiet clicking drifted up the tunnel. Hardaway stopped and shouldered his rifle. The clicking became louder and was joined by a rough scraping sound. The sound got louder but it was impossible to tell where it was coming from. It echoed all around in the narrow tunnel until it seemed to be coming from every direction at once.

  Finally, a dim shape emerged from the darkness. A Formid warrior with mandibles gnashing rushed up the tunnel. Hardaway wasted no time firing. He put a five-round burst right into the creature’s abdomen, but it kept coming. Quantrill was behind the Lieutenant and didn’t have a clear shot. He dropped to the floor and fired lying down, nailing the Formid in the underbelly. Hardaway fired two more bursts in quick succession and brought the Bug down for good.

  “Shit,” Hardaway swore. “Are your ears ringing?”

  “Yes, sir,” Quantrill agreed. Firing an automatic rifle in an enclosed space was not the most pleasant experience. But the Bug that caused all the fuss was dead. Mission accomplished. Quantrill got back on his feet and prepared to head back up the tunnel, when he noticed that the Lieutenant was heading the opposite direction.

  “Sir?” Quantrill asked. “Aren’t we going back to the surface?”

  “Not yet,” Hardaway told him. “I want to know what this son of a bitch was up to down here.”

  “Yes, sir,” Quantrill replied with some reluctance. He joined the Lieutenant in climbing over the dead Formid. Its shell was rock hard and covered in little pointed bumps, like the no-slip texture covering a stairway that gets icy a lot. He had never touched a Formid shell before and wasn’t particularly eager to be touching this one.

  The tunnel went on for a hundred more meters – at least it seemed like a hundred meters to Quantrill as he was shuffling along in the dark. That lonely Bug had been a busy fucker. Finally the tunnel ended in a small chamber. It was the size of a walk-in closet but the walls and floor were jagged and uneven as though the Bug was still working. In fact, it probably had been – right up until it heard the Marines coming down the tunnel.

  “Seems a little pointless, doesn’t it?” Lieutenant Hardaway asked absently.

  “Yes, sir,” Quantrill agreed.

  “Hold on, what’s this?” Hardaway knelt down to look at a pile of sticks in the corner. He picked one up and Quantrill could see it was actually a bone.

  “Holy shit!” Quantrill exclaimed. The Bug had killed somebody – maybe more than one person, the pile was pretty large – and hauled their body down this hole. “Uhhh, sir,” he quickly added.

  “Get an HRP,” Hardaway instructed. “Let’s bag this up. These people’s families will want to have something to bury.”

  Quantrill pulled out his Human Remains Pouch and unrolled it on the floor of the cavern. Then he began setting the bones inside. He was glad for the dim light and his heavy gloves – he got the impression that the bones weren’t entirely clean of flesh. The Lieutenant helped, and they finished bagging the remains within a few minutes. There were no skulls but Quantrill counted four hip bones.

  Four people had to die, just because some buzzard got lost and crashed on an island. It was a crazy universe.

  Chapter 11

  Hotel Azure

  By the time they got back to the hotel the sun was slipping below the horizon. The sky and the ocean glowed in brilliant reds and oranges. The clean white of the hotel stood out in sharp contrast against the darkening sky. The hotel windows glowed with a warm, inviting light.

  Wait, light? How did they get the lights on?

  Private Lopez from Squad C was on guard duty on the patio as they approached. “Very nice, Lopez!” the Lieutenant called out. “Looks like you’re open for business.”

  “Yes, sir. We have vacancy,” Lopez replied. There was a row of scanners set along the patio. Lopez went to one of these and clicked it off so the men could come through without triggering the alarm. “Welcome to the Hotel Azure. We hope you enjoy your stay.”

  They filed into the hotel lobby where they found the members of C and D Squads lounging around. Some men were gathered around a billiard table at one end of the room, some played cards at the dining tables, and others were watching a stream on a big vid screen hung on the wall above the fireplace. They looked more like tourists on vacation than Marines in a combat zone.

  “Man, what the hell?” Jabara and Quantrill went up to Torvaldson, who was reclining in a big, overstuffed chair.

  “Right?” Torvaldson exclaimed. The big blonde stood and waved at the room. “All the comforts we don’t even have at home!”

  “How did you get the power on?” Quantrill asked.

  “Singh found a generator in the basement,” Torvaldson explained. “We didn’t know if it would still work or what. We just turned it on and – bam! – let there be light.”

  “That is awesome!” Jabara ent
hused.

  “And get this,” Torvaldson went on. “Sergeant Prince made keys for the rooms upstairs. We’re bunking here tonight, baby!”

  “Nice,” Quantrill and Jabara agreed at once. A night in a luxury hotel room! That beat sleeping in a tent on the ground any day of the week. They were definitely getting spoiled on this deployment.

  “Gather around men!” the Lieutenant called out. The Marines all dropped what they were doing and fell into ranks in the center of the room.

  “At ease,” Hardaway told them. They relaxed but still focused on the Lieutenant.

  “As you may have heard, we have an injured buzzard on the island,” Hardaway told them. “This is a unique situation. No buzzard has ever been taken alive before. Therefore, Command has a serious hard-on for this thing.”

  “Man, that beast is bad news,” Jabara grumbled under his breath. Quantrill nodded. He would rather just blow the thing up – from a nice, safe distance.

  “They are sending a science team down to investigate. We are assigned to provide security. So get comfortable, we’re going to be here for a while.”

  The announcement was met with laughter and cheering. Obviously the perfect weather, scenic beauty, and luxury accommodations were not a problem for the Marines. Quantrill felt the excitement, too. Lapis Lazuli was amazing. He just had to keep away from that damn buzzard. He had a feeling those scientists were going to learn the hard way to leave bad enough alone.

  “Since babysitting a bunch of scientists is a slam dunk mission,” the Lieutenant went on, “we have an opportunity for a little team building.” He held up a vial with a bright pink label. PinkVector!

  The room absolutely erupted with whooping and yelling. There were even several wolf whistles. It looked like Fleet Command was right – the gene splicing drug really did improve morale.

  “To be fair,” Hardaway yelled over the commotion. “To be fair! We will do this opposite from last time. Those of you who did not get injected on C224A line up by Sergeant Prince. You will be given the PinkVector this time.”

  Quantrill laughed. He was going to get a chance to have sex with a woman! An ugly-ass woman most likely, but a woman nonetheless. This day wasn’t so bad after all.