Doomsday Warrior 17 - America’s Sword (7 page)

Once they reached the bottom of the long slope and started carefully in through the outer edges of the thick vegetation, they could see it really was jungle; with thick leaved trees, vines hanging down everywhere. Huge orchids and flowers, the likes of which none of them had ever seen, were everywhere. Bluish mists covered the lower portions of the ground, while bird and animal sounds emanated from every direction.

“Watch out for the ground,” Rock yelled back to the men behind him, who passed the warning back. “It looks as soft as quicksand in some spots.” The trail they found slowly weaved its way through the trees and seemed safe enough. But around them, sometimes just yards away, the earth was soft enough to take a man or a whole ’brid down.

Rockson suddenly heard a whole chorus of sharp sounds and looked up. Sitting in a tree all along a twenty-foot perch were hundreds of exotic birds. He had only seen such variation of plumage and beaks in picture books of the old pre-war world. Nothing like that should have even existed in this part of the country. The Doomsday Warrior thought he had seen it all in his day, but not this.

“Check it out,” Detroit half-whispered, half-shouted up to Rock from about thirty feet behind as the whole troop plodded slowly through the misted terrain, their eyes wide in amazement and some fear. “Up at nine o’clock.”

Rock looked up and saw another sight that made his jaw drop open. For scampering all around the branches and vines of the trees were monkeys. Several species he could see right away—from creatures hardly bigger than a cat to some large ones that looked like small gorillas. The creatures barked out warnings to one another but didn’t seem particularly terrified of the passing entourage below. They sat and watched, hanging by feet, tails, whatever.

“What the hell is going on here?” Detroit piped in from the back. “There shouldn’t be anything like this in this part of the world.”

“It’s here,” Rockson replied, turning his head around. “The evidence is before our eyes.” And as a dropping plopped right down on his shoulder, the evidence was more than just visual.

“Man down!” a voice screamed out from near the end of the expeditionary force, and all eyes turned as one.

It was like something out of man’s worst nightmare. Only this was real. The very last Freefighter on the line was being dragged right up off his hybrid into the trees by a snake. This was no ordinary snake; the thing was a good twenty, perhaps thirty feet long with a body as thick as a beer keg. The trooper’s head and chest had already disappeared inside the creature’s immense jaws and his legs kicked wildly as the beast pulled him right up into the vines and lower branches of the trees.

Some of the troopers took out their Liberators and began firing until Chen ordered them to stop. The snake slithered through the vines and leaves about twenty feet above them all with amazing speed, shimmering gray and black coloration undulating like pieces of shined metal.

The ’brids couldn’t follow where the thing was heading, as it was too thick with foliage, but Rockson, Chen, and Detroit leaped down from their mounts, yelling out for the rest to stay behind. They went tearing after it on foot.

It was a difficult pursuit, as the three Freefighters could hardly see the thing through the trees above. It moved quickly, still holding and slowly swallowing the man. The Freefighters had to leap and jump from log to log, to avoid the thick dank pools of bog-tar that lay everywhere like traps waiting to take them down. The tropical forest seemed to grow wild with excitement, as monkeys howled and birds screamed out choruses of fear.

It took the three of them nearly a quarter mile to catch up with the huge beast. It must have thought it had lost whoever was pursuing it for it stopped on an immense branch, wrapped its tail around it a few times and gulped down its meal for real. When Chen reached it, stopping about fifty feet away, all he could see was the unfortunate trooper’s feet sticking out.

Rock pulled out his shotpistol, aiming up toward the head of the snake, but Chen told him not to shoot. He whipped out two star-knives, and eyeing the target, suddenly released both of them. One got the thing near the end of the tail, the other star-knife Chen threw hit about midsection of its fat serpentine body.

There were two muffled explosions as the plastique-filled star-knives ripped the thing open. The snake uncoiled like a worm on a hook and fell the forty feet to the ground. The Freefighters rushed over to it, and Rock jumped on top of the neck as blood spewed everywhere. He pulled out his Bowie knife and slammed the blade into the thing’s skull over and over, making sure he didn’t push it too deep, so as to avoid hurting the victim who had now disappeared completely inside. They could see the outline of the man in the first six feet or so of the snake.

It continued its death throes, the lower half of the body just bloody shreds from Chen’s deadly toys.

“Cut him open,” Rock exclaimed, as he started slicing from the mouth down while Chen started up from about eight feet below. It took them only a minute to cut through the thick, bloody guts and scaled skin. And both men, as much horror and death as they had seen, found it hard to keep from vomiting. For as they cut, the remains of the trooper came pouring out. The snake must have had a digestive system like pure acid.

The Freefighter had only been inside its slimy gullet for several minutes at most—but there was nothing recognizable as human that poured out when they finished cutting. Just bones, and a bloody mud that oozed out, joining the snake’s own pulsing innards.

The two Freefighters stood up, as Detroit stood a few yards back, his black face turning pale. He’d been covering with his rifle.

“God,” Rockson said, looking down at the mess of human being and snake all mixed together. The three of them couldn’t tear their eyes away even as they wanted to run off. It was just about the most vile sight any of them had ever seen. Above them, crowds of monkeys and birds all stared down in noisy witness to the theater of death. And as the three Freefighters began walking away, their heads bowed, the animal army above descended to enjoy the feast.

Eight

“M
ount up, men,” Rockson said as he and the unsuccessful rescuers returned to the other Freefighters. They all had looks of fear on their faces. Seeing one of their buddies ripped off like he was an insect had done something to them.

“He’s dead all right,” Rock said, addressing the unit as they sat up on their ’brids in a semicircle around him. “He went out fast. That son-of-a-bitching snake had digestive fluids like acid. I’m sure he was dead within seconds.” The Doomsday Warrior lied, for he had seen that the poor bastard’s feet were still flailing around after several minutes.

“Everyone face toward the jungle there, where he lies, and give a moment of silence for a fallen comrade. Even though Andrews didn’t get to engage in battle—this was his last battle. He gave his life for his comrades, his city.” They all stared at the greenery. Ordinarily, it might have appeared beautiful with its lushness of fruits and flowers. But now it was a killer. A monster-in-green ready to take any of them out.

The silence wasn’t long. “Amen,” Chen stated softly, after a bare ten seconds.

“All right! Let’s get the hell out of here,” Rock shouted as he started forward. “Andrews is dead, let’s not allow ourselves to follow him. Look out, you hear me? Anything that moves, any shadows, shoot first and ask questions later.” He pushed Snorter forward, searching for the narrow trail which was a dry way through swampland on both sides of it.

They rode for about half an hour, getting deeper into the wet greenland. The animal life was profuse. There were frogs, ducks, and the several species of monkeys, many of which followed along swinging through the trees in big groups, curious as to these new invaders into their domain.

Rockson kept seeing snakes too, slithering, not appearing afraid of them. Here and there further off in the brush he saw just the edges of tails or long, flapping tongues that made him know there were other snakes bigger than the one that had gotten Andrews. He gulped hard and tried not to think a hell of a lot about it all.

They had gone on a good hour when they came to a series of low, rolling hills covered with fields of fruit, nectarines, huge golden apples.

“Jumping pack-meals,” McCaughlin laughed out from the line. “What do you think, Rock? Let me test a few for poisons, then we can load up. Fresh fruit’ll make the men damn happy over the next few days!”

Rockson deliberated for a moment. They needed a rest for a few minutes anyway, the jungle trekking was hard work on the ’brids.

“Sure,” Rock said with a grin. Real outdoor fruit. Some of the men had never had anything but the hydroponically grown kind within Century City’s artificially lit agricultural levels. Rockson had eaten fresh fruit here and there in his travels. The taste was totally different.

“You two, come with me,” McCaughlin said to two of the recruits, who jumped down immediately from their saddles. He walked over about twenty feet to the nearest of the trees lush with large, red globe-like fruits. Taking out a small needle about as big as hypodermic, he poked it into one. Wires in it ran out to a device—the Poison Detector—another one of Shecter’s field-engineering miracles.

“These are fine,” McCaughlin said as he did an instantaneous sampling of the juices and read out the digital moving letters across a mini-screen on the small computer/monitor. The device was small enough to hold in his hand. “Take as many of these as you can carry in these bags. We’ll throw it all on the extra ’brid.” He knew it was cruel in a way to talk of the dead man’s hybrid so quickly after his demise. But the dead weren’t hungry. It was the living who had to go on.

He walked on and sampled another fruit, this one green and long. He poked the needle in again and the digiscreen read out, CITRUS—ACIDIC, BUT EDIBLE. DO NOT EXCEED TWO IN 24-HOUR PERIOD.

“Take just a few of these,” McCaughlin pointed out to the other recruit who was standing alongside him. The big Scotsman’s face was absolutely beaming with joy at the thought of what he could do with such culinary treasures in his recipes. The men would eat like kings for the next week, that was for sure. No need for the vitamin C pills to ward off scurvy.

“Here you go, Rockson,” McCaughlin laughed like a Santa Claus who’d just gotten a shipment of gifts. “Have one.”

Rock leaned down from Snorter as the Freefighter held up his plastic food storage bag. The Doomsday Warrior reached down and took a green and a bluish colored fruit and took a bite of out it, thinking maybe perhaps it was some immense blueberry, his favorite fruit. The juices had barely reached his tongue when Detroit shouted out. Tried to shout anyway, as his voice croaked halfway through. “Look Rock, we’re—we’re surrounded—”

Rockson froze, his chewing lips in midstride. And he turned to where the ebony-skinned Freefighter was pointing. Coming out of the groves of jungle trees—with their blankets of rainbow fruits was a mini-army of men, and crawling alongside all around them—snakes. Hundreds of the slithering reptiles. All sizes—from tiny ones, up to over ten feet and a few as large as twenty. Rockson was so struck by the force arriving that he just sat there holding the fruit an inch from his mouth. There were about fifty of the men. Rock suddenly saw through the dappled shadow and light streaks of the jungle, as the sun worked its way down from high above, that they were wearing snakeskins, cut to size into pants, vests, jackets. Over their heads were rounded, tight snakeskin hats as well, every one a different color.

Suddenly there were more men coming from the other side of the fruit forest—and then behind them, as Rock suddenly turned in the saddle. In the space of a bite of fruit they’d been virtually surrounded.

“Weapons out, men,” Rock screamed as the advancing force now grew truly alarming. Rockson could see that the snakemen were holding long double-headed spears on long poles. They kept prodding the snakes, which slithered all around their feet, but the snakes never even tried to bite any of them. And Rockson could hear a faint crackling sound each time as a snake was touched. The snakemen’s spears didn’t enter their flesh, just poked them and released a blue spray of sparks. The men were controlling them all, like goddamned dogs on an electric leash.

By the time Rockson had gotten his shotpistol out and was wondering where to start, he saw that they were completely cut off. There were hundreds of the snakeskin-clad men, and more trained snakes than Ted Rockson, or any of them, would have wished to see in ten thousand nightmares. The entire terrain for an acre around them was a slithering pool of hissing snakes, all eyeing them with most interested orange and red eyes. It was the tongues that got to Rock as he froze with the shotpistol, not sure what the hell to do: tongues so long and forked, slapping out fast. They made a sickly wet sound as they flew back in and out.

“What the hell do you think, Rock?” Chen asked, from several yards behind. “As fucked up as this whole scene looks—we don’t know if they’re hostile. Remember your Anthro lessons back in C.C.,” the Chinese Freefighter said. “Never assume hostility—no matter how weird some races may appear—unless they actually attack.”

“Yeah, right,” the Doomsday Warrior said, with a snort. He was wondering how the hell the man could even have an iota of humor in him at a time like this. But he held his fire and held his left arm up, the signal for the others to hold fire until Rock decided otherwise. The recruits atop their ’brids were trembling, their eyes wide. They held their Liberators, ready to deal out hot lead. Not that any man had the slightest belief that he had one chance of surviving if this crew came in, fangs a-snapping.

Suddenly a huge man came up to within about ten feet of Rockson and stopped. He was a truly formidable-sized fellow, about six-foot-seven with his bizarre outfit of snakeskin sewn together in all sorts of geometric patterns: crosses and circles and squares. He had a large gourd around his neck and pulled it forward, gripping it with both hands. The snake-general, or whatever the hell he was, blew hard on the device and an unearthly noise came out of it. Rockson had heard the sounds of Tibetan Dharma-Horns on an old video of the Himalayan monks once, and it sounded a lot like that. A thunderous bass sound seemed to ripple up his very backbone. The ’brids were nervous as hell and kept fidgeting around, but most of them stayed under control, a testament to C.C.’s stable-hands’ good training.