Prologue 13 page

The soldier fought.

Grant had never seen such a fight.

Even though suddenly the aliens were all around him, like ants around a lump of sugar, they quaked and blew apart from the plasma blaster.

Then the havoc there stilled, and Grant could see the things scrabbling away, carrying bloody bits of suit, and pieces of the soldier, like trophies.

He had to turn away.

Without a hitch.

He'd never before seen his optimism turn to sewage, right before his eyes. His stomach turned, and he felt as though he was going to throw up. He contained himself, though. He reached down deep for strength, found it.

"Hell with the perimeter. Just have him blast those things! Cover the retreat!"

"I'm sure Argento is doing what he can."

"Look, can you get at least a partial up. Use what you got, man! Give them some time!"

He'd come light-years with these people, eaten with them, come to respect them in an odd but compelling way. And now they were being torn apart before his eyes.

O'Connor nodded. "I can try, sir. I can try."

Sergeant Argento cursed.

How the hell was he going to kill all these bugs alone? Should he start blasting, like O'Connor seemed to want—or should he clear out a crater and send off a harpoon?

He decided to do both. He blasted away with all the guns, making sure he didn't hit any of the troops. The shells streaked out, scattering whole swaths of bugs, and making craters.

Not exactly as far as they would like, not as close to the entrance of the hive as they needed—

But it would have to do.

He sent off another volley.

Excellent! It was giving the troops a fighting chance.

He swiveled the guns slightly to the right, concentrated on aiming—

And then heard the hissing.

Damn!

He reached down for his hand weapon and spun around, but it was too late. The bug jumped down from the hull of the Anteater like a spider pouncing on its prey.

Its secondary set of jaws rammed through Argento's neck, speckling his guns with rich arterial blood.

They were moving back.

She'd watched Rodriguez go down. Go down bravely and well, taking a lot of bugs with him and maybe giving them a second or two extra to retreat. No time to grieve now, Kozlowski knew.

It was time to fight.

And she'd never fought quite like this before in her life.

Her rifle was discharging so quickly she could feel the heat come off the thing even through the gloves of her suit. With skill and precision she didn't know she had, she slammed away at the monsters, blowing them apart as fast as they came at her.

The thing was, she didn't have to think about what she was doing, it was all coming automatically. Because of these suits, the acid-splatter factor was not significant. She didn't have to aim at the knees, and then finish with their heads. She could just keep the rifle level and rip off fire at precisely the moment her instincts and skill dictated.

All the rest of the soldiers seemed to be doing equally well. The aliens were going down in huge numbers. The problem was that their numbers kept on getting replenished.

Sensing something on her peripheral vision, she wheeled around and found one of the bugs almost on top of her, its gooey saliva dripping as though in preparation for a feast.

She fed it a blast of plasma.

The thing's head lifted up off its neck in the gout of fire and flipped back like some obscene rocket aborting in its takeoff. She ripped off another round of fire to give herself some breathing room, and then took stock of the situation.

They'd all made it back to within the original perimeter... all but one.

Private Jastrow was just outside the area, his rifle blasting away.

"Jastrow!" she said. "Step back, dammit! Step back so we can put the field on!"

The man's radio apparently was not working. He did not respond. He just kept firing away at the things.

She was going to have to go out there and drag him back in, dammit. She started wading through the pile-up of dead bugs, firing away, then stopped dead as she looked back in the direction she was going.

The bugs covered Jastrow.

One was blasted away, but another took its place.

The radio screeched. "Ellis! Ellis, I need some backup! Ellis!" There was a muffled scream, signaling the end of a jazzman's military career.

"Argento! Start pounding the perimeter wall!" Kozlowski radioed.

No response.

What had happened to the guns, dammit! What was going on!

"Argento! Push them back with the guns!"

Another voice on the radio: "Argento's down, Colonel. There's a bug up there!"

Shit. Only one recourse now.

"O'Connor! Reactivate the southern wall! ASAP!"

Another bug charged her, dripping with human blood.

For some reason, Daniel Grant could not take his eyes off the gory demise of Private Jastrow.

He was stricken by grief, an unfamiliar emotion. He'd actually liked Jastrow, he suddenly realized. He hadn't realized before that he could like anybody. That concept just didn't seem appropriate to the kind of businessman he was.

He felt helpless. If only he could do something!

Then he heard Colonel Kozlowski's command come in.

At least she was still alive.

"Will do, Colonel," said O'Connor. "I've got the thing rerouted, and I think it's possible."

No more from the colonel. Grant watched as she swiveled and her plasma rifle shredded an approaching alien.

O'Connor leaned forward, hand outstretched toward the switch that would effect the renewal of the force field.

Dr. Begalli reached forward and stopped him. "Wait!" he said.

"Wait my ass! What's going on?" said Grant. "More and more of those things are starting to notice the breech. You've got to close it up. Lives are being lost down there!"

O'Connor reached for the switch again.

Begalli said, "No!"

Grant stood up and pulled Begalli back. "What are you trying to do, Doctor?"

But O'Connor paused as well. "He's right!"

"Right? What are you talking about?"

"Marines!" said O'Connor through his headset. "Get someone up on those guns!"

"What are you doing?" demanded Grant.

"Dr. Begalli's right, Mr. Grant. There are too many of those bastards down there. Only thing that's going to kick them out is that gun array. First off, there's going to have to be someplace to go to. Second place, using those guns with the force field up full is damned dangerous to the lander. That's what Dr. Begalli means."

Begalli looked furtive about the whole thing. "Uhm... Yes, of course. That's what I mean."

"Does the colonel know that?"

"Yes, sir," said O'Connor. "They all know that."

When she killed the alien that almost got her, Kozlowski didn't have time to enjoy its death throes.

"Get that bug off those guns! Get 'em going again, dammit, or we're cooked," she said, surveying the situation. "Private Mahone! You're the closest. Do it, dammit!"

"But, sir—"

Mahone was on one knee, spraying charging bugs, keeping them at bay.

"We'll keep them at bay. Do it—"

A pause... and then Private Mahone was up. She sidled on, and Kozlowski got a look at her face through the mottled faceplate. She looked uncertain and scared.

"Mahone. That xeno squatting up there by the guns. Looks an awful lot like that old boyfriend of yours, doesn't he?"

"Yes, sir. He kinda does."

Immediately the private began to hustle. She moved up the steps on the side of the lander. The alien hunkered over the remains of Argento. It hissed at her, wobbling like a spider guarding its prey.

"Don't let it bleed on the guns, Private."

Two steps forward.

The private dropped to the steps, avoiding a lunge from the alien. Brought her plasma rifle up at just the right angle.

Fired.

The force of the fiery discharge impacted on the thing's torso, pushing it over the edge even as the blast cindered it. The thing wilted to the ground and dropped, a flaming husk, not even giving a good heartfelt spasm.

"Good show, Mahone. Now, you think you can fire those guns?"

"Yes, sir." The private clambered up the stairs and over the body of Argento. "They're all starting to look like somebody's boyfriend!"

She jumped into the seat.

Immediately the guns started to swivel, pointing downward at the bugs already inside the force field, and those still crawling through.

They spoke.

The shells came hot and heavy... and well placed.

"Okay, guys. Let's get out of the rain, before we get blown up as well," said the colonel, motioning an ally-alley-in-come-free.

The troops seemed all too happy to obey, retreating and contributing their own fire.

The result was a rout. Between their concentrated wall of blasts and the powerful guns above them, those aliens not smart enough to retreat through the opening of the force field were obliterated.

Soon, all that moved among their ruins was smoke.

"Okay, O'Connor. Give it a try now."

The force field shimmered back into place.

"Okay, people," Kozlowski said. "Fan out and finish off any still alive!" She sighed. "Then we can count our dead."

The task was grisly, and it took a while, but the remains of the dead were placed in body bags, zipped tight, and then lined outside the ramp to the Anteater. All it would take was the okay from Kozlowski and they would be carted back into the freezer inside the lander.

When the bags lay in a row beside the lander, Colonel Kozlowski called for a moment of silence for the dead. When that was over, she spoke.

"I'd better say something now, because I might be the next one to go into one of these things. These were good people. There will be plenty of time to honor them properly and grieve later. They gave their all to the mission. Others may not recognize their contribution later. But we always will. Argento, Jastrow, Rodriguez, McCoy, Lantern, Chang. Their shells may be zipped up, but their spirits are still with us, and will be as long as we do our jobs with dedication and sincerity."

She bowed her head and observed her own moment of silence. In her mind, she heard a sweet snatch of some tune that Jastrow had played once. It sounded like hope, even now.

"Okay," she said, keeping herself stern and businesslike.

The bags were put on a wagon and taken up the ramp.

A raucous squawking made Kozlowski jump.

She turned around, hand going to the sidearm she was wearing.

Sitting on the edge of a folding chair that had been used for lunch was Private Ellis, lips around the end of Jastrow's saxophone. He moved the mouthpiece. "Sorry, Colonel."

"That's all right, Private. I'm just a bit on edge."

"Think I can ever learn to play this thing?"

"Why would you want to?"

"Jastrow. He always wanted me to try. I always told him I had no musical ability and besides, there was spit all over it." He sighed. "That part doesn't seem that important anymore."

"Sorry about your friend."

"Yeah. I figure we've gotten about a thousand or so bugs for every man killed here."

"It's not worth it, is it?"

"No. It's not."

She felt someone looking at her. Turned.

Daniel Grant was walking down the ramp.

She was about to get on her soapbox and rant at him, but then she noticed his face. It was white. In his eyes were the beginnings of tears.

She turned away and let him come up to her. Let him start the conversation, if he wanted to.

"I want you and your people to know how sorry I am," he said finally, after a long silence. "I guess when you see life turning into death so abruptly, it puts things in perspective."

"Some business we're in here, eh, Grant?" she said.

"Some business." He nodded thoughtfully. "My problems... they can't compare with this." He sighed. "We can't quit now, though, can we?"

"No. My country sent me here to accomplish something. It's my duty to do that. You'll get what you came here to get, Grant."

"And maybe more than I bargained for."

"Definitely."

"Colonel. There's going to be a linkup with the Razzia in ten minutes. We're going to confer on the situation and decide a course of action. Naturally I want you to be there."

"Yes. I'll be right there."

She turned and continued to do what she could in the time remaining to her to give her the confidence and grit that she herself felt rapidly escaping from her.

It was a makeshift conference table at best, but it would have to do.

"I've just finished a full transmission to Captain Hastings of the events that have just occurred here," said Corporal O'Connor. He swiveled and turned a switch. "He's waiting to join the conference. Permission to let him in?"

Grant nodded.

"Permission granted," said Kozlowski. "We'll need all the input we can get."

Captain Hastings bid his regrets at the turn of events. His voice sounded even more subdued than usual.

"Now then," said Grant. "We've got a situation on our hands. I'd like to say, why don't we just give it another try with the perimeter extension harpoon. However, after what we've just been through, I don't think so."

"It's possible we're going to have to," said Kozlowski. "But that doesn't mean we can't explore other possibilities. Dr. Begalli... you seem to be the resident expert on the present situation with the aliens. What's your prognosis?"

"Clearly our projections were quite accurate," said the man, after scratching his large nose. "There is a genetic offshoot of the aliens, and the originals are attempting to eradicate them. Only we never anticipated this kind of scale... Or that it would hinder our actions to this degree."

"Not quite true," said Kozlowski. "We've got the technology. It's just not working as well as we would like."

Begalli's ferretlike eyes flicked back and forth over those assembled. "Despite our feelings of loss and frustration, I cannot forget just how correct my projections were about the recessive gene. Something that was quite unlikely. Naturally we're sorry for the loss... But after years and years, my science seems to be correct." He tapped his finger emphatically. "What we all want is in that hive. It's the answer to our dreams... Maybe, ultimately even to the whole alien conflict."

"Why would you say that?" said Henrikson.

"We came here to get the queen mother royal jelly and we've got to do that. Do you know how much we've been working with in these last two decades? About two hundred gallons' worth, that's all. Our tank here can go up to well over two thousand gallons, and I'm sure we can fill it. With that amount to work with, all kinds of possibilities will open up.

"We can learn something, I suppose, from this red and black alien business. Still it's all academic curiosity. There are no practical applications yet. With the jelly, those applications may be possible."

"Oh. Like what?"

"The key to the genetic control of the aliens! It could be in the queen down there and her royal jelly! Sorry, Mr. Grant, but there's a lot more at stake here than money for your company, and hyperspeed for the armed forces." He tapped the table emphatically. "Why do you think the red aliens are attempting genocide on the blacks?"

"Isn't it the same old story? They're different?"

Begalli shook his head. "You've got to have a certain amount of intelligence to be bigoted. The xenos aren't that smart. No. It's because on a very real level, the existence of difference threatens each other.

"Eradication is programmed into the species. I would daresay that in hives every once in a while red eggs are laid—and immediately destroyed by the queen or the queen's guards. When we removed the queen from the black hive and killed her guards, it probably allowed time for these freakish red eggs already laid to develop and grow... And then escape and build their own hive."

"Look, this is all very interesting," said Kozlowski. "But how is it going to get us past the war going on down there, and into the hive, where we can do our job? And get out with our butts intact, I might add!"

"Yes," said Grant ruminatively. "A definite priority."

"Let's look at it this way then," said Begalli. "What we have here is warfare on a grand scale. Each of these alien races would like to eradicate the other. Annihilate. This mission is deeply embedded in their chromosomal structure." He shrugged. "Now if we just tilt that warfare in the favor of the blacks, that would be to our definite advantage. We don't want mutant jelly. We want the black jelly, the stuff we know something about and can use."

Hastings's voice crackled over the radio. "I got lots of great weapons up here, folks. If you want, we can just nuke the red hive."

Begalli nodded. "Excellent! That might just work."

"How?" Grant asked.

Kozlowski nodded. "Well, it would kill off the red queen mother for one thing and with her any psychic control of her drones. Which would send the red army into disarray."

"More than that," said Begalli. "Without that control, instinctively the red army would retreat toward their hive. Equally instinctively the black army would pursue!"

Grant snapped his fingers. "Leaving the black hive wide open!"

"That would be the theory, yes... It's the best choice, in my opinion," said Begalli. "We'd still have to deal with the black guards, and they will be bigger and fiercer. But they would be limited in number. What we're facing out there is a problem of sheer oppressive volume."

Grant smacked the table. "Yes. We're going to have to do it, I think! Opinion, Colonel?"

"Sure. Why not. At the very least we're going to kill a lot of bugs!"

"Captain. How soon can you have those warheads ready?" said Grant.

"Couple of hours," came the voice.

"Excellent. We can accomplish this well before nightfall," said Kozlowski. "Get started, Captain. We can always postpone till morning if necessary."

"I don't think that will be necessary," said Hastings. "I'll get right to it."

Grant was nodding, his face intent. "One more thing, Colonel. I'd like to come with you when you go into that hive."

"What for?" said Kozlowski. "You're a civilian. You're not trained for this kind of work."

"I feel responsible here. I feel a moral obligation. You need extra people. I can aim a gun and shoot it. I—"

"Okay," she said.

"I want—" He blinked. "What?"

"I said you can go. There's a spare suit about your size down in the holding tank in the locker room. We'll go over the situation here in a few minutes, I'll brief you on a few things you'll have to know... And then you can suit up."

Grant's mouth flapped for a moment like a fish out of water.

"It'll be good to have you along, Grant!"

Henrikson and Begalli excused themselves to start preparations for the next assault.

"All right, people," announced Kozlowski. "Now that we've got a plan, let's chew over some details."

She felt charged again.

Those bugs were going to pay.

Big time.

Kozlowski was letting him go along!

A few minutes after the hour-long meeting, Daniel Grant was making his way down to the locker room, brain buzzing with the "briefing" that he'd just received. He felt beat up with facts and instructions, as though somehow Kozlowski had put him through a brief but intense boot camp under the whip of Drill Instructor Koz herself. Not fun!

Not that he wasn't sincere about wanting to go along.

He just hadn't really expected for her to agree to his volunteering.

Well, nothing for it now, old man. You're in for the full nine yards now. Play it out, do your job, and this will turn out fine! Just fine!

He entered the familiar smell of the locker, particularly ripe now from the recent press of ripe bodies that had just passed through.

Where was it that Kozlowski had said the spare suit was? Oh, yes, over in the cabinet yonder.

No lock, no latch.

Sabotage was the last thing on Grant's mind, he was so preoccupied with the lessons he'd learned about alien killing.

He opened the door and saw the suit, and reached for it.

What he did not see was the alien egg pod sitting in the shadows.

The thing stood like an obscene, fleshy orchid bulb.

Grant smelled it before he saw it.

That now-familiar, intense acidic blast of stench.

As he reached for the suit, his foot stubbed against the growth. It gave like a stink cabbage.

He looked down.

At first, he didn't want to believe his eyes.

Then he saw the tangle of talons, wiggling at the opening of the bulb, like the beginnings of a sand crab, emerging from its shell.

He froze.

He'd seen alien larvae before, of course. He'd seen them prey on test animals plenty of times. Only they had been behind thick glass at the time... Now this one was mere inches from his face.

It hissed at him, and began to come out faster, bending the petals of its deadly flower as it came.

"Screeeee!"

It launched.

Directly for his face.

Sheer desperation somehow prized the freeze lock off his muscles. Off to his right was a hanging suit. He reached out, grabbed it, and pulled it between himself and the face-hugger.

It bounced off it and flopped onto the floor.

Grant had just enough time to let off a yelp and take a step away from the thing before it animated again, leaping up toward him as though its legs were spring-loaded. As though his face were metal and the thing were a magnet, it headed straight for his eyes.

He reached out and caught it.

The talonlike claws tore at his skin. The pain shot up his arm, causing him to throw the thing down. It hit the floor, but it had clearly discovered its mission. It jumped around and was about to leap back up at him, when a blur flashed off to the left and a suited foot kicked it square in its crabby ass.

The thing hit the wall like a hockey puck smacking the sidelines, sluiced along the floor.

A rifle went up, tracked, sighted.

Energy sizzled out.

The blast smacked it like the finger of God, smushing a demon. Some of its acid came out, bubbling a small hole in the floor... But most was consumed in the incendiary blast.

He stepped back, his legs hit a stool, he sat down hard.

"Thanks," he said.

"Just my job," the person said, with bite.

He looked over to his savior.

It was Colonel Kozlowski.

"Looks like one of your pets wandered off the beaten track," she said, already going for a bucket. She put it in a shower stall, started filling it with water. "I'm losing count of the screwups in your 'harmless' project, Grant."

Grant shook his head. "I don't understand. I only authorized one creature for incubation." He drew in a breath, savoring it. "Take a look in the armory closet there!"

"In a moment."

She took the bucket and sluiced the water in the small crater. Hissing steam rose up, and that was that.

"The closet."

Grant nodded. "That's where the thing came from."

She looked and grunted. "Yep. You got yourself a pod here, Grant."

"I was the only one not armored, so it's obvious this thing was planted to get me when I came back here." He smacked a fist into a palm. "It's got to be Begalli. He must still be working for those scumbags at MedTech. I want you to put that bastard under arrest—hang him... keelhaul him... something."

"Yo! Rein yourself in, Grant. Then come here and take a look at this."

Grant walked over reluctantly. He looked in the closet. Kozlowski was pulling something off the side of the pod.

She pulled it into view.

"You know what this is, right?"

In her hand she held some kind of metal clamp, attached to a bottle-shaped thing.

"Of course," said Grant. "It's a timer clamp. It's used to hold the lips of an egg shut to ensure the creature can't escape during transportation."

"And it automatically falls off when the timer expires," she continued for him. "The planter is nowhere near the eggs when it activates. Looks like it's got a motion sensor on it, too. Anyone could have walked into this trap."