Dominant Species (37 page)

A primal scream tore from Ridgeway's gut as his blades snapped open. He slashed at the nearest arm, cutting through a cluster of hose. The heavy limb sagged amid the squeal of pneumatic gas.

The truck's frame crumpled beneath Ridgeway's feet as the Spider heaved itself up in a whirlwind of thrashing arms. He fell beneath the sweep of a corroded stump, the hex-eaten metal bright and pitted. In rapid succession the creature threw two more blows. The limbs swept aimlessly through a wide arc as the head hung skewed to one side, empty sockets bejeweled with fragments of shattered lens.

Blind. The word flashed through Ridgeway's mind as a load-bearing limb stomped down to his left with a crash. He rolled to his right, sloshing through coolant as the roof crumpled down into the lake.

The huge torso hung just above Ridgeway's face. Battle-damage scored the collection of metal plates, stained dark by an amalgam of blood and oil. In the midst of it all, tucked in a shell of heavy steel, Ridgeway spotted a large fleshy mass that pulsed with blood vessels.

"There you are you son of a bitch." Ridgeway hissed the words as he drew his legs up beneath him. His right arm hauled back, fist closing around the blade's upper grip.

A crushing impact caught Ridgeway on the shoulder and suddenly coolant surrounded him. He struggled against tons of pressure, raking the limb with a flurry of blows. Somewhere in the blue haze, something powerful grabbed Ridgeway's arm. He was yanked up, bursting free of the lake to swing wildly in the creature's grasp.

The creature shook Ridgeway so violently that broken pieces of carbonite came loose. Curved plates spun away as Ridgeway's shoulder screamed. He fought the onrush of darkness and swung weakly with his free arm but struck only air. Blackness devoured him as his imaging system burned out with a flash. All sense of pain and motion subsided.

Several seconds ticked by before he realized that the shaking had actually stopped. Ridgeway's eyes fluttered, dull surprise forming as he noted the flicker that came with every blink.

Facemask gone. Deprived of artificial vision, his brain transitioned on its own to conventional sight. He squinted hard, trying to force the blur before him into clarity.

The creature leaned forward, close enough to bring the dangling Marine within arm's reach. Lost in numbness, he could only watch in silence as a section of torso rocked open like a bulldog's lower jaw.

Great, motherfucker's gonna eat me. His brain processed the thought with detatched resignation.

With a broken grind the underbelly maw yawned toothlessly. Something moved in the depths of the throat, a fleshy mass that rose and extended, bringing the innermost surface to front.

Cold cut through the layers of pain that swaddled Ridgeway's brain. He struggled to focus at the thing that shuddered between the metal panels. Fluids drooled from the aperture, but Ridgeway's gaze went beyond the edge, fixed on the face within.

A single glassy eye sat deep in the left socket, framed by skin whose translucence was that of deep-sea fish who never saw sunlight. Only a hint of a nose remained, bracketing two misshapen nostrils that flexed rhythmically. Filigree capillaries fanned out across both cheeks, fine blue-grey threads that merged into strings as they swept down beneath sparse patches of dry grey beard. Thin wizened lips were drawn tight around blackened, toothless gums.

The pale eye squinted at Ridgeway as though unaccustomed to light. A corroded stump of mechanized arm reached up and, with unexpected care, brushed aside the remaining scraps of Ridgeway's helmet. The Marine was drawn even closer, where the ancient face peered at him with wordless intensity. A long moment passed before the hazy eye widened. The hideous figure began to shudder, moisture glistened on the ghostly eye.

How many parts could you replace and still be human? The ghastly answer stared at him from within the metal shell.

The words spilled from his lips in a horse whisper. "The crew. You're part of the crew."

The spider slowly lowered Ridgeway to the ground and released its grip on his arm. He staggered for a moment, then looked at the shape before him, a living thing encased in metal. Ridgeway raised his hand and flexed fingers encased in carbon. Armor. The notion struck him like a thunderbolt. Not designed, but patched together like some kind of ad hoc evolution, layer on layer, year upon year.

He looked up at the ancient face, breath fogging in the intense cold. "I didn't... we didn't," his mind burned with the enormity, "recognize each other." Ridgeway had no idea if the creature could understand his words.

A loud bang echoed from the ceiling. The Marine staggered drunkenly and looked up to see the skid listing badly. His gaze snapped back to the spider. To the truck. To the Thermalite.

"Run!" Ridgeway barked, urgently motioning the creature back. He grabbed the doorframe and yanked, splitting Hex-eaten metal. The spider stood motionless, gazing at the Marine with its one pale eye.

"RUN!" Urgent fear clogged his voice as he repeated the command. Ridgeway shoved a battered mechanical leg but the creature wouldn't budge. "Its gonna fall, right here. This is all gonna blow!"

The spider's heavy forelimb reached up and planted itself against Ridgeway's chest. When it shoved, Ridgeway toppled back in a sprawl. "Wait," he sputtered as he floundered in the lake. "you don't understand."

The sound of tearing metal stopped Ridgeway in his tracks. He does understand. The roof of the rear compartment folded back with an agonized squeal. As the Spider brought the stump of a second limb into play, a third shoved Ridgeway farther back as effortlessly as one would push a child from a powertool. The Marine backed away in slow, sloshing strides.

Without warning, something lanced through the air like a thunderbolt, the streak ripping past the spider's torso. A voice crackled over the Com, weak and gravelly. An impossible voice. A dead voice. "Get down."

Darcy?

Ridgeway spun around and stared into the long dark cavern. "No, NO!! Hold your fire, hold your fire!"

He turned back to the truck where the Spider had clamshelled the cabin apart and now crushed the truck's sidewall down into the lake, exposing the cargo within. Mechanical arms reached inside, lifting the bound blocks of thermalite into view.

From within the core of the creature's ruined frame, the tear-streaked face looked at Ridgeway before the eye closed and the head bowed low. It raised the incendiaries high overhead.

It'll blow the skid. Ridgeway saw the chain reaction, massive heat rising to engulf the vehicle above.

He choked out a whisper. "The thermalite Darcy, hit the therm" as he dove beneath the surface.

A streak of white-hot plasma ripped through the air and slammed into the wire-strewn package. Even underwater the shockwave hit Ridgeway like a sledgehammer as twenty kilos of thermalite transformed the truck, the Spider and a couple thousand gallons of coolant into a column of superheated steam that rose like a nuclear cloud. With a temperature of over eighteen hundred degrees, it enveloped the overstressed skid.

The gravitic core of the skid went off like a suitcase nuke. Huge chunks of rock rained from above, crashing down on the charred bit of lake bed that until moments ago had been the truck and the Ascension's last guardian.

CHAPTER 41

Taz found Dan Ridgeway flat on his back, drifting in and out of consciousness. Blood ran in red rivulets from both of his ears, pooling in the hollows above his collarbones.

"Majah! Can you hear me?"

Ridgeway's eyes drifted for a moment, rolling beneath half-closed lids before they fixed on the anxious corporal. His right hand rose awkwardly.

"Crikey but you've been through the bloody meatgrinder." He tried to count the injuries that criss-crossed the figure at his feet but even gross assessment proved daunting. Taz couldn't tell where one injury ended and the next began. "Don't worry Majah, we got you reserved at a table for one."

Ridgeway's expression remained distant.

"Just as well," Taz muttered. Ridgeway hadn't seen the machine used properly. Even now Merlin lay in quiet repose as his injuries were pieced together with microscopic care. He hefted Ridgeway from the ground, careful to avoid needless josteling.

"Can you walk?" Taz shouted, hoping to penetrate the haze that seemed to enshround the bigger man.

Ridgeway nodded slowly and he took a hesitant step. His weight wobbled aimlessly.

"Whoa there Majah," Taz said firmly, "let's take it one step at a time there, eh?"

The senior Marine pulled up short and waved a hand toward the bowl-shaped depression burned into the rock. "Not alien," he stammered, the shattered arm swinging aimlessly.

The grey dome of Taz' helmet bobbed. "Yeah, we know." his voice was solemn. "Stitch found some kind of log. It tells the whole story."

Ridgeway's left hand clutched Taz' collar in a sudden grip and the Marine stood fully erect. "The cube." His eyes danced rapidly around the surface of the lake. "Did we save it?"

"It's fine Majah," Taz interjected, patting his hand against Ridgeway's fractured chestplate. "Tucked safe and sound."

Taz felt the sudden tension drain from Ridgeway's body, weight sagging once more against his shoulder. "Pretty clever idea using the truck and all." He tossed a nod back toward the crater. "Punched a right clean hole through the ceiling."

He glanced up at the circle of light that sparkled down from the cavern's black sky. Searchlights swung back and forth along the rim. Marines above, the invasion force, had secured what was left of Cathedral and were already dropping emergency supplies.

"Bet they bloody well shit their knickers when the floor fell out, eh?" Taz hitched Ridgeway's bulk a little higher. "So how'd ya set it off?"

"Railgun," Ridgeway said, his voice a little clearer in tone. "Shot the Thermalite."

Taz stopped short and rocked his head abruptly. "Railgun--" He paused in mid-sentence as his mind replayed the terrible scene on the edge of the Hive. "But Majah, we didn't find the LTs rifle."

"Lucky you." The ragged voice echoed in from the left. "If you'd touched my rifle I'da had to kick your ass."

Taz felt a sudden rush as the sniper emerged from the fog, the long silhouette of the rifle in her grasp. Like Ridgeway, her armor was a scorched, broken wreck.

"LT!" Taz spun so hard that Ridgeway almost slipped from his grasp. "I don't, I-- shit LT, you were dead, flatlined."

Darcy limped to a stop. Charred bits of ash flaked away as she removed her facemask. Taz took a sharp breath as she looked up. Tiny pinpoints of ember light sparkled among the blackened stretch of flesh along her throat.

"Yeah. I was," she said quietly, then added with a shrug, "at least I think so." The sniper raised a hand and tapped at the neckline of her armor where the swath of burned flesh dipped out of view. "That bastard I gutshot went kamikaze on me; don't know what he had but it went off right in my face. Everything went black. Dead black." She paused and took a slow breath. "Next thing I know, something hit my chest like a thousand volts and the lights came back on."

"Crikey," Taz muttered, shaking his head slowly. "No wonder the bloody creepy-crawlers could suck up so much and keep coming back."

"Yeah, maybe so." She looked back towards the Hive and her voice lost all emotion. "I just wonder how far the similarity goes."

"What, you mean you going all buggy on us?" Taz shook his head emphatically. "Ain't gonna happen."

A glower passed across Darcy's eyes as she jerked a thumb back towards the Hive. "Tell that to them."

Taz shook his head. "You're asking the wrong bloke for a science lesson. Merlin can explain it better than I can. It's like they're all a one big brain, right, each little bug talking to each other."

"Yeah, neural processing, so?"

"Well, the more you get, the smarter the brain gets. Only the guys that built em didn't know that the bugs could talk over a distance. So instead of a bunch of little brains, they got one big brain. The ones in their bodies, the ones in the ship, zillions and zillions fixing everything, all on the same channel and all getting creative. Pretty soon the little bugs could throw away the rulebooks and make parts out of just about anything. All the little buggars had to go on was keeping things running, not how it looked. Improvisations compounded." He paused and looked down at his feet. "So did the errors. Only these poor bastards didn't figure that part out until it was way too late."

"So I'm not gonna--?"

"Hell no, not s'long as you get out of here and don't go back on the table again. Two runs puts too many in your system and all bets are off." Taz shifted to an oddly encouraging tone. "You ain't gonna be alone either. Merlin got tore all to shit and he's on the table now. Stitch'll hit it after we get the Majah fixed up. He's busted up pretty bad, so we're likely to be two hours before I bring up the tail of the dog."

"You look like you came through all right."

Taz shrugged then looked Darcy in the eye. "You go, we go. We're a team."

Darcy opened her mouth as though to speak, then simply nodded and reached out a fist. Taz thumped it roughly and they turned to the entrance of Papa-Six when Darcy added, "What about Monster? Don't tell me he's still pushing his tough-guy routine."