Species War: Battlefield Mars Book 3 Page 7

  A crackling sound punctuated her transmission.

  Alarmed that her rashness might get her killed, KLL-12 sped around a bend. The floor leveled and he burst into the chamber. Across the way stood a yellow Martian. Between it and him, there had to be a hundred creatures of all kinds.

  And there, in the thick of them, battling for her life, was KLL-13.

  23

  There was no time for Captain Archard Rahn to climb into the RAM, no time for Lieutenant Burroughs and the rest of the strike team to reach the Thunderbolt.

  The Martians flowing over the rise and those charging out of the tunnel would be on them before they could.

  “Grenades!” Archard bellowed, feeding a frag into the launcher under the barrel of his ICW. He aimed at the tunnel roof, thinking that he might be able to bring it crashing down and not only kill a lot of Martians but bottleneck them inside.

  The explosion blew Martians to bits and produced a cloud of dust but the roof stayed intact.

  Private Everett spun toward the incoming tide and fired. His frag hit smack in the middle of the crustoid ranks but the blast barely slowed them.

  They would soon be surrounded.

  “Head for the Thunderbolt but keep formation!” Archard shouted. Their only hope lay in breaking through and taking flight.

  Already, though, Martians were flowing around the aircraft in a torrent of scuttling limbs and waving eye stalks.

  “We’re cut off!” Sergeant Kline hollered.

  “Fight!” Archard said grimly.

  “Fight like hell!” Lieutenant Burroughs amended.

  Fight they did. Frag grenades, incendiary grenades, autofire, they unleashed a hailstorm that cored and blistered the Martians, piling creatures in heaps. Yet despite of their most frantic efforts, the ring of crustaceans closed centimeter by centimeter.

  A scream rent the bedlam.

  A red Martian was clinging to Private Stratton with its four pairs of legs while its forelimbs tore at his helmet. Stratton smashed at the thing with his rifle stock but couldn’t knock it off. Private Everett sprang to help and struck the Martian on its carapace but it had no more effect than beating on the shell of a crab with a stick.

  Archard turned, knowing he shouldn’t break formation but also knowing they couldn’t afford to lose anyone. He managed a couple of strides when the inevitable happened.

  A gripper shattered Private Stratton’s helmet. The inrush of Martian atmosphere caused him to break out in convulsions. Unable to breathe, he gasped and heaved. He was dying of suffocation---and evaporation. Inside his body, the alveoli of his lungs were being boiled away, along with most of the water in his body. Not because of the surface temperature but because of the pressure differential.

  “Close up!” Archard bawled, hoping the others heard him over the bedlam. There were only five of them now; five against a horde, and their ammunition wouldn’t last forever.

  The Martians poured in, mostly the red but now a couple of giant blue warriors were among them.

  “God,” Archard blurted. He had fought the blue warriors before. They were terribly tough, unbelievably tenacious. He had barely been able to hold his own in a RAM. In their EVA suits, the five of them stood no prayer at all.

  Still, he was U.N.I.C., and troopers never gave up, never said die. He let loose with his last incendiary at one of the blue warriors and had the satisfaction of seeing it enveloped in chemical flames. But it kept coming.

  “Tighten up!” Archard ordered. “Back to back!”

  They pressed against each other, their final defiance in the face of imminent death. Any instant now, the ring of Martians would tear one or two of them down and the rest would be overrun.

  A loud sound from above almost caused Archard to almost break his concentration and look up. It sounded like engines but that couldn’t be, the only aircraft on Mars was the Thunderbolt. He triggered a burst into a leaping Martian, catching it in the underbelly and ripping it apart, swiveled, and fired into the “face” of another.

  The engine sounds grew louder.

  “Drop ships!” Sergeant Kline shouted over his commlink.

  Archard focused his fire on the onrushing blue warrior. It was like shooting a tank. His armor-piercing rounds failed to penetrate deep enough to inflict a fatal wound.

  The warrior was almost on them.

  That was when the sky rained living forms---twenty-two of them---beings every bit as alien, in their way, as the Martians. The drops ships were fifteen meters above the ground but the tall figures that sprang from their bays leaped down without the aid of parachutes or paragliders. They simply jumped, a feat no human could duplicate and live.

  Archard was both elated and confounded. The presence of drop ships meant the fleet from Earth had arrived. But they weren’t due for a week to ten days. Why hadn’t he been told they would arrive sooner? Did the governor know? He shook off the questions and drilled a red Martian that, inexplicably, froze in front of him.

  Then Archard saw that all the Martians had stopped fighting and every last one had raised their eye stalks toward the drop ships and the reinforcements from Earth.

  Those reinforcements appeared to be---amazingly enough---reptilian. Covered in copper scales from their hairless heads to their pointed toenails, they gave the impression of being two-legged lizards. An impression dispelled when one of them landed with a surprisingly light thud between Archard and the blue warrior. Up close, human traits were apparent. They were hybrids, half-human and half-whatever the geneticists had mixed in the chemical brew.

  The hybrid in front of Archard turned its head, fixed eyes with vertical pupils on him, and smiled.

  “We’re the BioMarines, Captain Rahn. General Augusto sent us to retrieve you.”

  Before Archard could recover his wits enough to reply, the ring of Martians came to life. In a rush, they renewed their assault. Except now the BioMarines had formed a protective circle around Archard and the other troopers.

  To Archard’s further surprise, the hybrids raised a fist in the air, and in unison gave voice to the U.N.I.C. rallying cry.

  “Booyah!

  “Booyah!” Sergeant Kline and Private Everett echoed.

  Archard, Burroughs, and Private Keller added their own.

  And the battle was joined.

  24

  General Constantine Augusto was pleased with himself. His fleet had arrived on the Red Planet and his forces were being deployed according to his plan. KLL-1 and the BioMarine unit had gone after Captain Rahn, and his secret stealth op was underway at Albor Tholus. An auspicious start to the war, if he did say so himself.

  Bradbury’s citizenry had turned out to greet their rescuers. Asimov Street, which ran from the main airlock into Dome One to the Admin Center, was lined with colonists waving and smiling and cheering.

  Marching at the forefront of the U.N.I.C. contingent he had brought from Earth, his uniform immaculate, his helmet and medals gleaming, his boots spit-shined, General Augusto returned their waves and smiles. He could do without the adulation. He was a soldier, not a politician. But these people were scared and he needed to reassure them that their saviors had arrived. The Martians would soon learn the hard way that when you messed with Mother Earth, you called down the thunder and the lightning.

  Slightly behind him, Major Fogarty, his aide-de-camp, remarked, “They’re ecstatic to see you, sir.”

  “As well they should be.”

  “Do you think they’ll feel the same once they’ve been told martial law is being imposed?” Major Fogarty said.

  “Who cares how they feel?” General Augusto said. “We’re here to kill Martians, not mollycoddle civilians.”

  A girl of ten or twelve ran out from her mother’s side and held a flower up. “For you, General.”

  General Augusto smiled and accepted it. “Thank you, child.”

  Giggling, a hand over her mouth, she turned and ran back.

  General Augusto handed the flower to Fogarty. “Dispos
e of this when we reach admin.” He resumed waving and smiling.

  “Do you mind my saying, sir,” the major said, raising his voice to be heard. “Isn’t protecting these people our primary directive?”

  “Securing this planet for Earth is our mission,” General Augusto said. “Everything else is subordinate to that.”

  “I just thought…” Major Fogarty began.

  General Augusto silenced him with a glare. “Don’t think, Major. Just do as I tell you. You’re newly assigned as my aide, so I’ll overlook your lapse this time.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  General Augusto waved to several women and keyed his commlink. “KLL-1, sitrep.”

  The answer was slow in coming, and when it did, crackled with static and the unmistakable sounds of pitched combat.

  “We have located Rahn. Enemy engaged. More later. Out.”

  General Augusto had every confidence in the BioMarines. They were his babies, as it were. True, a scientist by the name of Greenspan developed the biogenetic techniques that made test-tube hybrids feasible. But it was he, Augusto, who recognized the military applications, and who persuaded those who controlled the purse strings at the U.N. to fund research into the creation of a hybrid unit.

  Now here he was, on Mars, with a squad of BioMarines, about to demonstrate to two worlds that they were the ultimate in warfare.

  Awash in pride, General Augusto paused to look back at his troopers and the column of tanks that had come through the airlock. The first of the new RAM’s he had brought was just emerging. It was a shame the airlocks cycled so slowly but slow and safe was preferable to quick and dead.

  “General Augusto! I say! General Augusto!”

  Reminding himself to be civil, General Augusto turned. Hurrying toward him were Governor Blanchard and a striking blonde woman in a lab coat. “We were to meet in your office, Governor,” Augusto reminded him.

  “I’m sorry. It couldn’t wait,” Blanchard said and motioned at the woman. “This is Dr. Katla Dkany…”

  General Augusto remembered her name from the reports he had read. He held out his hand. “You’re one of the few survivors from the other colonies, yes? A pleasure to meet you.”

  “There’s no time for pleasantries, General,” the woman said. “I made the governor bring me. You need to be told.”

  “We don’t have any proof,” Blanchard said. “Just her word.”

  “Word about what?” Governor Augusto said in some annoyance.

  “The Martians,” Dr. Dkany said. “They’re inside the domes.”

  25

  The strangest sensation came over KLL-12 there in the large chamber in the bizarre Martian edifice. A sensation he had never experienced. A feeling, or better yet, a compulsion that came over him so swiftly, he was in motion before he realized what he was doing.

  The cause of the compulsion was KLL-13. The sight of her battling with all her considerable might against a nigh-overwhelming number of Martians filled KLL-12 with fury. Why, he couldn’t say. All he knew was that when she started to go down under the crustoid onslaught, he bounded into their midst---and went berserk.

  KLL-12 prided himself on his supreme self-control. He never, ever, let his emotions get the better of him. They were the human part of his genetic makeup, and he had an extremely low opinion of everything human. Nonetheless, in this particular instant he let his emotions out, and it was like a dam bursting. Rage, potent, fiery hot, boiled in his veins.

  KLL-12 wreaked havoc with uninhibited abandon. He rent legs. He ripped off forelimbs. He crushed carapaces. He swung and punched and kicked and smashed with a savagery even the Martians couldn’t match. Within moments, he swept them from around KLL-13 and pulled her to her feet.

  She looked at him in astonishment, her face and body bleeding in multiple spots.

  “Fight!” KLL-12 cried, and suited his actions to his command. He tore into the Martians, a whirlwind in a wheat field, ripping and breaking and destroying his way toward their yellow leader.

  Ever the vocal one, KLL-13 uttered a piercing yip of pure joy and joined in, her own control cast to the Martian winds.

  Most of their foes were the reddish-pink variety. A few were brown. They went down easy. A blue warrior was trying to make it through the press but there were too many red crabs in the way.

  Seizing one of the latter by its legs, KLL-12 employed it like a scythe, swinging it in great arcs that knocked others aside or fractured their limbs and bodies. He sent a last couple tumbling, cast his makeshift weapon aside, and reached the yellow leader.

  Three meters high and a meter long, they were different than the rest in that they possessed two sets of three legs instead of two sets of four. They had the same forelimbs, and the same multifaceted eyes at the ends of long stalks that could be retracted into recesses in their large, bowl-shaped heads.

  This one showed no fear as KLL-12 seized hold. To his surprise, it didn’t resist as he hauled it toward the tunnel through which they had entered. All it did was turn its obscenely large head in the direction of the blue warrior.

  Something happened. KLL-12 couldn’t say what, but suddenly the giant blue Martian exploded into motion, propelling its lobster-shaped bulk toward him like an express train.

  “Take this thing,” KLL-12 shouted, shoving the yellow Martian at KLL-13. “Get out of here.”

  The red Martians were scuttling from the blue creature’s path, even those with their backs to it.

  How they could know it was behind them when they weren’t looking that way was a mystery.

  Then the warrior was on him, its large grippers spread wide. Leaping high, KLL-12 avoided them. At the apex of his jump, he performed a somersault and came down on top of the blue creature’s back. As he landed, he drove his claw-tipped fingers as deep into the carapace as they would go. Before the Martian could divine his intent, he ripped its carapace open.

  A serrated gripper streaked at KLL-12’s head.

  Ducking, he wrenched harder, peeling back a section of carapace as if it were the skin of an orange. The creature’s other gripper whipped at his chest, and he flattened. Quickly, he drove his claws deeper into its. The sensation was akin plunging his hand into mud; cool and clammy and sticky. He groped wildly, seeking an organ, any organ. Supposedly, the Martians had hearts and circulatory systems and other internal parts that corresponded to their crustacean counterparts on Earth.

  Luck was with him. KLL-12’s splayed fingers made contact with what felt like a pulpy sac. Gripping tight, he ripped whatever-it-was out of the creature’s body.

  The blue warrior broke into convulsions.

  Coiling, KLL-12 vaulted clear over the smaller Martians and came down not two meters from the tunnel.

  KLL-13 was waiting, the yellow leader clasped like a giant doll under her arm. Oddly, the creature still wasn’t offering any resistance.

  “I told you to go!” KLL-12 exclaimed.

  “Not without you.”

  “Go, damn you!” KLL-12 bellowed.

  Smiling, she did.

  KLL-12 at her heels, they retraced their route to the topmost level. Reaching the terrace, they each took hold of the yellow leader forelimbs. Then, their free arms outspread and their membranes taut, they launched themselves from the terrace.

  Their escape route had been worked out in advance. Once again, thanks to Captain Rahn’s intel, they knew there was a large tunnel on the west wall of the cavern, a passage that would eventually take them up to the outside world. All they had to do was reach it.

  Below them, on arches and ramps and rooftops, Martians watched, their eye stalks immobile.

  “I said it before and I’ll say it again,” KLL-13 said. “Spooky damn things.”

  “You took a big risk back there,” KLL-12 said.

  “We caught one, didn’t we?” KLL-13 said. “Speaking of which, why isn’t this thing fighting us?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  KLL-12 scanne
d their vicinity for flyers. “Stay focused. We have a long ways to go.”

  Bending her head, KLL-13 looked over at him and became uncharacteristically serious. “Thanks for the save.”

  “It was nothing,” KLL-12 said, and his ears grew warm.

  “I didn’t know you cared,” KLL-13 said with a grin.

  “Don’t make more of it than there was. You’re essential to the mission, is all.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  They passed over an archway crammed with Martians, all of which raised their grippers in unison.

  “Did you see that?” KLL-13 said. “I’m beginning to think they have some kind of telepathy.”

  “Let’s hope not or we might not make it out of here alive.”

  26

  Captain Archard Rahn was in awe. The previous times he fought the Martians, he was lucky to survive. They were tough as anything, brutal as could be, biological killing machines.

  But now the U.N.I.C. had killing machines of their own.

  The BioMarines met the assault with a ruthlessness that was astounding to witness. Not only did they possess lightning reflexes the equal of the Martians, but their superhuman strength also matched that of their adversaries, enabling them to tear the Martians limb from limb and crush Martian carapaces as if the shells were so much plastic.

  Moving so fast it was difficult to follow, the BioMarines smashed and rent in an orgy of destruction. It helped that they fought as a synchronous whole, each supporting the other, coordinating their tactics in totality.

  The Martians tried to bring them down. In ranks they drove at the hybrids, and in ranks they were slaughtered.

  A blue warrior threw itself into the fray and was met by three BioMarines simultaneously. One leaped onto its back, another attacked its legs, the and third slammed a scale-covered fist wrist-deep into its head.

  The blue warrior buckled in its tracks.

  Archard had never imagined they could be defeated so quickly. His appreciation was cut short as he joined in, he and his ops team adding their firepower to the melee. Shooting in three-round bursts to conserve ammo, he dropped Martians where he could, careful not to hit his new allies.