Operation: Sahara

-Banks-

The fight across the causeway into the turret doorway and onto the stairs was already taking on the flickering shadowy semblance of a bad dream. The three men had almost been overrun in the first seconds and it was only Wiggo’s smart thinking to make use of the high dome of the largest beast in the area to take the high ground that saved them.

“To me,” the sergeant shouted, as he took out the legs and head of the massive beetle and climbed up onto the top of the shell. From there he began ploughing a furrow between them and the doorway to the turret. When Banks and Wilkins leapt up to join him the three of them joined in a rapid-fire volley that sent bits of shell and limbs and pincers flying in a mist of tarry black ichor. The ferocity of their assault seemed to give the beasts pause, and they stopped coming forward in quite so many numbers.

Banks saw a chance.

“Wiggo, lob a grenade towards the doorway, then, when I make a run for it, leg it after me. Don’t be slow.”

When the grenade went off, the beetles that weren’t caught in the immediate blast scattered away from the area. Banks leapt down and ran for the vacant space, hoping that Wiggo and Wilkins were right behind him. He reached the turret doorway to find a large beetle facing him in the hallway. He took it down fast, legs and head and had to leap up and over it to get into the stairwell proper.

After that it was an interminable fight for territory up a dark stairwell, gun lights sweeping into shadowed areas, beetles making darting attacks from around bends, boots splashing in tacky oozing gloop as they climbed in a haze of stink, gunfire and the steady high wail of ever more frantic beetles. At one point he heard Wilkins shout out.

“Fire in the hole.”

Three seconds later there was a muffled crump below them and then a quick blast of heat at their backs. Gunfire came down from above them. Davies was still alive, still fighting.

The battle for the stairwell went on. Banks’ mag came up dry and he allowed Wiggo to squeeze past him while he reloaded. He watched for anything that might get past Wiggo’s rapid fire and tried to avoid standing in any of the dead beetles they had to go over to go up.

Wiggo’s mag went dry. When Banks moved to squeeze past him a beetle almost as wide as the stairwell launched itself full pelt down towards them. Banks put six rounds in it before it fell an inch from his toes, his bullets blowing holes in its shell and splashing stinking black gloop all across his chest and thighs. They had to climb over the creature before they got sound footing once again on the stairs.

Davies’ gunfire was much closer now and when Banks took the next turn of the stairs, shooting two more dog-sized beasts in the back as he climbed, he saw dim moonlight ahead. He burst through the doorway in time to see a huge beast making straight for Davies, who was struggling to get a fresh mag into his weapon. Banks put six shots in the thing’s arse, blowing its whole rear end to pulp but it didn’t slow, crashing straight into Davies who was now hidden under its bulk.

“Wiggo, get in here, I need a hand.”

The two of them caught the beast by the rear end, their hands covered in the black gore, and lifted and pushed at the same time. The beast went away over the parapet and they heard a crash as it hit the causeway below.

Sudden silence fell over the balcony. Banks looked down to see Davies smile up at him.

“You took your bloody time.”

Wilkins spoke from the doorway.

“All quiet below, Cap,” he said. “I think we gave them something to think about.”

Banks sniffed at the mess of goo that coated his fingers.

“Aye, and they did the same for us.”

He looked around at the sticky remains of dead beetles that coated the balcony.

“Let’s send this lot to join their mate,” he said. “And see if we can make this spot habitable, at least until sunup.”

They spent ten minutes tossing beetles and bits of beetles over the balcony and made an attempt at getting rid of the worst of the gloop using one of Wiggo’s spare shirts from his pack as a mop.

“I don’t think this would pass the sniff test,” Wiggo said, holding up a sodden, blackened mass of cloth. He tossed it away over the balcony.

By the time they had a stove on and a brew of coffee bubbling, the adrenaline rush of battle was fading and the ringing in Banks’ ears no longer sounded like church bells tolling beside his head.

Davies brought them up to date with his adventures in the city and Wiggo told a lurid version of their own journey from temple to turret while they had a smoke and a coffee.

“What now, Cap?” Wiggo asked.

Banks addressed Davies first.

“How bad is the wound? Will you be able to walk on it?”

“I’ve bound it up tight and it hurts like blazes, but I should be fine, for a while anyway.”

“We’ll see how it is in the morning. Getting out of here is going to be hard enough in daylight; I’m not about to risk it at night. This is as good a position as any to defend, so we’ll rest up here. Two hours watch each and we’ll get gone at first light. I’ll take first watch. Wiggo, take an inventory before you bed down; I’ve got a feeling we’re going to need every bit of ammo we have left if we’re going to get out of here.”

Wiggo’s inventory proved him right; they were down to a mag and a half of ammo each for the rifles. All of them had handguns with full clips and between them they had eleven grenades remaining. If they were going to get out of here, they’d need to use stealth more than force, given that the horde of beasts appeared to be almost limitless in number. To make matters worse they were running short of water; he estimated they’d have enough, if rationed, to get them back to the oasis and fresh supplies but it would be tight, and they’d have to leave as soon as they were all rested. Then they’d only have a horde of rabid giant beetles to contend with between them and safety.

“Where the fuck are they all coming from?” Wiggo asked as he and Banks shared a smoke in the doorway after Davies and Wilkins got their heads down. “And what do they eat out in in the middle of fucking nowhere?”

“We’ve already seen that they eat each other, in a push,” Banks said. “But I’m sure they’d fancy a bit of us given half a chance.”

“Do you think it was them that had away with all the people that used to live here?”

“I think that’s probably more likely than not, don’t you?”

“One thing’s for sure, the beasties didn’t build yon statue you destroyed. So what did we have here? Do you think they worshipped them? Beetlemania?”

Banks smiled thinly at that.

“Speculation gets us nowhere. Let’s see what the morning brings. Get your head down; we’re all shagged out and living on fumes.”

After Wiggo finally bedded down, Banks stood looking over the moonlit city. It was strangely beautiful, ageless and solid under the stars. He knew that some of the darker shadows concealed more of the beetles but for now the beasts had returned to ignoring the men. If they were still quiet in the morning there was a chance the squad might be able to creep through them and make an escape.

He hoped that would be the case, for this was already a fucked-up rescue mission.

It couldn’t get any worse, could it?

He was asleep a minute after Wilkins took over watch duties from him.

He woke with the dawn to see Davies and Wiggo standing at the balcony looking over the opposite view from that across the city.

“Fuck me sideways,” Wiggo said.

Banks rose to join them. He was forced to agree with Wiggo’s comment.

Last night they’d seen the huge crater from up on the lip but the night had hidden its secrets. Now, with the coming of day they were exposed. The ancient dead volcano stretched away for several miles below them. At the nearer end, below the causeway wall, there was a ledged platform containing what appeared to be an altar. Strewn around it, covering an area the size of a football ground, was a sea of bleached bone, all too human, long dead skulls grinning in the morning light. Beyond that, the crater was a natural oasis, a vast forested area punctuated with pools of water that appeared to steam in the daylight. Between these pools, on long used trackways, moved beetles, travelling in trails like an army of ants, but ants the size of horses, and many larger still.

There were thousands of them. They seemed to congregate tighter together in the center of the caldera over a mile away where Banks saw a black, domed hump, the unmistakable shape of a great beetle. He hoped it was dead, for it was the height of a house and seeing it move wasn’t on his list of things to do for the day.

“Can we no’ just call in a wee air strike, Cap?” Wiggo said. “Blast all these fuckers away at one time?”

“We’re not even supposed to be here. You ken that. They’re not about to let us provoke an international incident, or even a war, over the sake of a few beetles, no matter how fucking big they are. No. We get out of here, shank’s pony, right fucking now, and we leave the big decisions to those that get paid to make them.”

He went to the other side of the turret to check out the view below. He’d hoped to see a quiet scene of dormant beasts but the whole causeway was a seething mass of beetles. It took him several seconds to realise what he was looking at; they were scavenging their dead, eating the soft parts and carrying the shells and debris away. A steady train of beetles went over the side of the causeway and down into the caldera where they joined the file heading into the center, towards the large hump.

The only ones not in motion were the four beasts, each the size of a small car, who sat directly in front of the doorway that was the squad’s only means of escape.