Dominant Species (32 page)

Decision time.

"It's a plan. Monster, give this thing a once-over before you turn the key, I don't want to draw a lot of attention if it isn't airworthy. Taz, you and I have watch."

"Roger that." With a quick nod Taz spun to the right and disappeared.

"Darcy, you listening?"

"Just trying to figure what we're gonna do for a gunslinger when Taz gets shipped off to engineering school."

Darcy's crack brought a scowling undercurrent of Aussie slang on the Com. A smirk creased Ridgeway's face, fueled by the irresistible energy of hope.

"We'll all chip in on his tuition when we get home. For the moment I want you to update Merlin and Stitch, have them prep for evac and be ready to go. We're not hanging around for tourist photos."

"Roger that."

Ridgeway turned to his left and looked as Monster burned through an abbreviated pre-flight. Externals looked solid, he noted in rapid appraisal, hopeful that the interior followed suit. Turning to his own task of securing Monster's flank, Ridgeway quietly slipped into the shadows.

He crept along a row of upright cylinders that ran like a fence line, crouched low as he moved. The muzzle of the CAR kept pace in a slow repeating arc as he moved past a break in the impromptu wall. Ridgeway entered the gap before his brain registered the anomaly.

Color intruded on the largely monochromatic world. Tinges of green overlapped the predominant orange hue that glinted from polished surfaces. Warily, Ridgeway stepped forward and peered around the corner.

The device sat on a low pedestal, roughly a meter square. Most of its volume was filled with small glass cylinders, each no more than ten centimeters in length. A dark green fluid swirled within each one, bathed in a light that radiated from the device's core.

What the hell is that? A scowl played across Ridgeway's face as he edged closer to the rack. Glass tubes sealed with metal endcaps. Tiny diodes flickered incessantly throughout the mass of vials like distant stars on a clear night. A chill sense of foreboding slithered up Ridgeway's spine.

"What the bloody hell is it, Majah?" Taz stood on the far side of the cube, giving voice to the natural question. His weapon was trained on the device.

"No idea." Ridgeway's measured reply was genuine. "But I've got a hunch it's bio."

"Bio?" Taz took a quick step back.

"Maybe." Ridgeway scanned his memory for anything that looked like the cube at his feet. "But I've only read about ‘em, never seen one. I'm just guessing, but it looks like some kinda CBS, Clustered Biological Submunitions. Fleet's got ‘em for long-term area denial. Little glass balls loaded with UVX."

"Aw shit, you mean that flesh-eating virus shit?"

"Yeah, that stuff. They case it in spheres of high-impact glass so nobody opens one by mistake. Missile-dumped; subbies go brittle from atmospheric friction so when they hit, the shit inside goes everywhere. Real fast stuff, spreads like hell."

"But what would these things need with a bioweap?"

The question had already crossed Ridgeway's mind. "Dunno," he knelt closer to the device, hoping to divine some clue as to its origin. "Doesn't figure it came off the Ascension. They set out to build worlds, not scorch ‘em."

"Maybe these bastards were planning a homecoming surprise if the neighbors upstairs ever came knocking."

Ridgeway tried to imagine the scenario. You're miles underground with a mining operation overhead. Could you hear the drilling through that much rock? He glanced back towards the main cavern. Maybe so, maybe you know something's coming but you don't know what. Maybe friends, maybe friends of the guys you ate.

He thought about his own protocol. Stuck in a box with unknown inbounds, his eyes fixed once more on the cube, you hope for the best and stick a claymore at the door.

As he looked at what by all logic was one hell of a claymore, a ghastly image entered his mind. By now a couple thousand Marines would be on the surface along with thousands of civvies and Rimmer regulars. Something like UVX, if this was a bio weapon, could cut them down like wheat. Who could guess how the shit might spread.

"Buggar me, Majah" Taz snarled as he lowered the magnum pistol. "We're not trained for bloody bio. Let's stuff some grenades in it and haul ass, let it eat the whole sodding Hive for all we care."

"Can't," Ridgeway shook his head. "If we knew it was a direct-contact agent, maybe. But if this shit is airborne transmissive, the whole cave becomes a Hot Zone. Maybe beyond. We can't take that chance."

Taz shrugged, then knelt by Ridgeway. "What if we're on the wrong track, Majah? What if it isn't a weapon?"

"What are you thinking?"

"You've seen these bastards, they're like bloody hermit crabs, all cobbled together from junk parts, right?"

Ridgeway nodded his concurrance. "So what are you thinking?"

Taz crouched a little lower, his voice strained with discomfort. "What if some of the parts these things are made of were scrapped from humans, from the crew?"

Ridgeway was surprised that Taz had come to a similar point of analysis. Humans cloned spare parts all the time, replacement organs and limbs a commonplace occurrance. But those parts were grown to be indistinguishable from original equipment. Grafting across species added a huge level of complexity. Still, Ridgeway thought, with nanotechnology in the mix, anything seemed possible.

"That's what I'm on about," Taz muttered, picking up on Ridgeway's rapid glances about the area. "Cryogenic shit, little blinky lights on each test tube. This isn't some big batch all made of the same stuff, it's individual samples of DNA, a bloody spare parts farm so they can go on cannibalizing people for parts and eating the leftovers."

The snake in Ridgeway's gut pushed its way up his throat on a rising column of bile. He quickly scanned one side of the cube, making a rough tally of rows and columns. Eighteen, maybe twenty vials to a row, about the same in height. Somewhere over six thousand individual test tubes racked and stacked. Accounting for losses, that added up to most of the empty cryotubes in the Ascension. The odds were too great for coincidence.

Ridgeway stood rapidly. "It goes with us."

Taz holstered his pistol and walked around the device like a mover who eyeballed a piano. With a deep squat he wrapped his plated arms around the steel frame and grabbed the larger metal rails. With a groan he dead-lifted the refrigerator-sized collection of glass and steel.

"Remind me again why I joined the Marines." Taz hissed through clenched teeth.

Ridgeway patted him in the back as he stepped to the lead. "If you wanted to sit on your ass you shoulda joined the Air Force."

Taz only grunted as he plodded after Ridgeway. The duo had barely covered three strides when Darcy's voice exploded on the Com.

"I don't know what you just did guys, but it got everybody's attention. You've got inbounds from Lima, Mary and Romeo and they're all moving fast. It's about to hit the fan boys. I'm going loud."

CHAPTER 33

A sharp whine ripped through the air over Ridgeway's head, a rifle's deep thunderclap hot on its heels. Somewhere behind the evacuating Marines, a spherical tank burst in a huge ball of vapor that ignited half a heartbeat later. Flame rolled across the Hive floor.

With a burning wall at his back, Ridgeway's entire focus turned forward. His CAR snapped through a three-point sweep as he jogged at an urgent pace, providing constant cover for Taz as they closed on the skid.

Three more rounds from the railgun struck points around the Hive, each one punctuated by a shuddering explosion. Columns of black smoke rose to the ceiling.

Ridgeway sidestepped at a bottleneck and motioned for Taz to pass. As he did, a new set of tremors rattled through the floor, beating out a thunderous rhythm. From the sound of things, the sniper was carving a line of destruction to bar pursuit.

Kick some ass, girl. The thought had barely crossed his mind when he realized that something was missing between the storming drumbeats. No whine, no thunderclap.

That isn't Darcy.

Ridgeway planted hard and torqued his upper body as the massive shape smashed through an intervening line of machinery. It came on like a rhino, crushing everything in its path. Streamers of flame trailed from its enormous legs.

Bigfoot.

Ridgeway's eyes went wide at the sheer size of the behemoth. The damn thing was pissed enough to run right through the fire.

Two grenades jumped from Ridgeway's rifle on pure reflex. The volatile munitions slammed barely an arm's length apart on the front of the uneven metal sphere.

The creature's torso rocked back for an instant, then rebounded with elastic acceleration. Through the growing pall of smoke, Ridgeway could see that two gaping holes had little affect on its mobility. The floor shook with renewed violence as Bigfoot charged.

"Go, go, go!" Ridgeway screamed as he aimed at the closest of Bigfoot's knees. The first grenade flew wide but the next two struck home. The joint splintered in a burst of metal and plastic. As the creature's full weight came down, the shattered limb snapped. Bigfoot pitched forward and crashed to the floor, bulldozing a trench of metal and rock.

Ridgeway had no false illusions of trying to finish it off. At best he'd bought a good head start.

Just stay down for a minute.

Bigfoot thrashed for barely twenty seconds before it hauled itself up on five remaining legs. Still connected by strands of sinew, the shattered limb swung wildly with every stride. Twice, the creature tripped on its own broken limb, allowing Ridgeway to add to his precarious lead.

The advantage was short-lived. Bigfoot's violent gait caused the final strands of fascia to tear away and the drum-sized severed limb fell to the wayside. The creature surged forward with new-found speed.

A freight-train rumble closed from behind and Ridgeway threw himself into a flat dive as a massive leg slammed down, hurling fragments of shattered stone in every direction. The Marine rolled frantically as impacts trailed with a piledriver's ferocity. Ridgeway scuttled across a stream of nanites and felt his hands slip out from beneath him.

ohshit.

Ridgeway's senses exploded as something slammed him into the floor. The TAC skittered and broke into discordant lines that coalesced into the silhouette of an oak tree growing from his own chest. The curse on his lips hung unspoken, abandoned by airless lungs.

The huge blur leaned back and lifted the wire-splayed stump of its shattered leg from the chest of the prone Marine. The underside of the sphere clamshelled opened to reveal a cluster of cold glass lenses. Moving only the stump, Bigfoot assessed the amputation with mechanical detachment, as though noting for the first moment that half of the limb had been lost.

Ridgeway seized the apparent confusion and extended an empty right hand towards the exposed inner surface. A stream of liquid fire lanced out from his forearm and filled the compartment. The hatch slammed shut as the great mass staggered backward.

Ridgeway sucked for air as he rolled to his feet and launched his body over a section of pipe that ran parallel to the floor. As close as his own shadow, an intact foot crushed the plumbing into the floor.

Ground equipment squealed as another dark shape scrambled rapidly in Ridgeway's direction. A third silhouette bore in from above as Bigfoot wheeled back from its last charge. Motion closed from every side.

Too many--

The fringe of a gravitic field knocked Ridgeway to the floor as the skid hurtled past on his right. Metal crumpled as the heavy barge plowed into Bigfoot with horrific force. The nose of the floating skid climbed up across the creature's torso, the gravitic cushion peeling strips from the creature's side. A second leg crumpled under its own exaggerated weight and Bigfoot fell.

The skid wheeled about and Ridgeway could see Monster wrestle the controls with one good hand as he brought the craft to a hover. Taz lay prone on the deck, arm outstretched. "C'mon Majah!"

In a thunderous return, Bigfoot's mangled form rose from the floor. Ridgeway bolted up the side of the crumpled shell and launched himself from the apex. Carbon-clad hands met in a vise-like grasp as the skid lurched skyward. A powerful heave yanked him up over the rail and he sprawled across the deck.

Metal shrieked as a picket line of spiked legs, each the size of a man's arm, curled over the port rail. Sharp tips left pockmark holes across the duraluminum skin. In a blur of motion, a centipedal mass curled up and over the flattened rail. Mismatched legs bristled along both sides, fanning back from a lamprey-mouth carpeted with drill bits and grinders.

Fighting the sudden weight, Monster struggled to counter the sharp portside list. Warning buzzers howled as the skid slewed wickedly into a yawing, downward spiral.

The creature slammed into Monster's back and pinned him against the console. A torrent of machine shop squeals filled the air as the lamprey's maw sealed itself flat against the big Marine.

Ridgeway's voice boomed over the maelstrom. "Down!"

Taz dropped to the deck beneath a sudden lance of covalent fire. White-hot metal sprayed as round after disruptive round tore a chasm through the writhing invader. Ridgeway screamed in rage as the wound gaped wide, then peeled apart.