Return of the Ancients

Chapter 39 Reconnaissance Mission-1

Colonel Marion Briggs had taken over the command centre, and now walked up the line of five rod-straight men and one woman. All wore green fatigues and cradled M16s. The six elite Green Berets stood like statues as she gave them their final briefing.

‘This is a reconnaissance mission: take a look around, get me some intelligence on the terrain. If you see the kid, grab him. But I also want… samples.’ She paused. ‘The indigenous inhabitants are approximately human-sized, and have little more than knives and swords. But I don’t need to tell you not to underestimate them — if you’re threatened, shoot to kill.’

Briggs stopped and stared at Albert Harper, her expression hard enough to break stone, her voice lethally soft.

‘Once we confirm that my team has survived the jump, your man will be going through.’ Her eyes challenged him to object. When he didn’t, she turned to look at the bank of screens beside him; each of the six small displays showed an image of her — taken from the corresponding cameras mounted on the helmets of each of the soldiers.

The vision was clear — her team was ready. Satisfied, she shouted, ‘Good to go, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s do this.’

The Panterran camps were advancing on the castle. Trees had been felled for their fires and war machines, and huge swathes of forest had been flattened as the main army moved forward like a living mass of fangs and steel. Behind them was a wasteland, crushed and burned to ashes.

Advance parties of Panterran and Lygon scouted ahead. Goranx led his party of ten Lygon up a hill, atop which stood a single tree. At close to nine feet in height and weighing more than a thousand pounds in his battle armour, he was a fearsome sight, even to his own kind.

He held up one large, clawed hand, signalling for the patrol to halt. He could sense something — a vibration deep in his gut. In the dark, his eyesight was exceptional, but he could find no cause for this strange feeling anywhere on the barren hilltop.

But there was something coming. His giant warriors, sensing it too, began to breathe heavily. Six-inch claws extended from the ends of their thick fingers, tightly gripping axes and clubs that were nearly as long as most creatures they battled.

Then, from out of the dark, six strangely dressed bipeds crested the hill, pointing small metal sticks, the other ends of which they cradled against their shoulders. One of the Lygon shifted, his huge belt clanking at his waist. The creatures froze in surprise.

‘Man-kind,’ Goranx muttered.

One of the creatures fled back down the other side of the hill. Goranx roared at the sudden movement, drawing back an arm thicker than a tree, and flung his club at them.

The humans screamed in a tongue he couldn’t understand, and then a noise like thunder roared from the ends of the small sticks they carried.

Goranx responded with his own roaring scream as he felt the small projectiles bounce off the plates of his armour, or embed themselves in his thick hide. The Lygon reacted in kind: they charged.

Captain Chris Masters was first through the rift, as they were now calling it. The sensation was unpleasant and disorientating, but not debilitating. Jumping from a bright white laboratory room, to the darkness of the dank tunnel… It was a surreal experience, to say the least.

The team moved quickly to the hole in the ceiling, and Masters pushed his M16 up over his shoulder. He pulled a long-barrelled hand gun from his belt and aimed it up the shaft, firing a tungsten-tipped bolt straight up, which embedded itself in the rock wall, a rope trailing behind the spike. He tugged it once to see if it held, and then turned. ‘Fuentes, you’re up first with Doctor Takada. Jenson, you’re last. Let’s move, people.’

In a few minutes they had pulled themselves up out of the deep shaft. Masters checked his compass, and was relieved to see it still worked.

Fuentes offered Takada some water, which he refused. ‘Take it, Doctor,’ she said. ‘This party has only just started.’

Masters motioned towards the sterile landscape and led them out in a jog. It would be many hours until they saw the lines of trees signalling the start of the forest.

Time passed, along with the miles of sand beneath their boots. Night had already begun to fall when the horizon rose up into an enormous green, buzzing, slithering presence around them. The forest dwarfed anything Masters was used to back home, and though this was a recon mission, personally he would be happy with just locating Singer and evac’ing immediately. He’d leave the sightseeing for the next guys.

He heard a soft wheezing behind him, and turned to see Takada bent over with his hands on his knees — the man had done well, but desperately needed to catch his breath. ‘Let’s get to the top of this hill for a look-see, and then we can take five. Okay there, Doc?’

Takada nodded.

‘Good man.’

They moved to the top of the small hill with a large tree at its apex. Masters raised his hand and they slowed.

Fuentes sniffed. ‘Phew, what the hell is that smell?’

Takada straightened and frowned. ‘Like ammonia — cauxin, I believe — it’s in cat urine.’

Masters still had his hand up, and now made a fist — the team stopped. Watery clouds passed across the moon and then cleared, bathing the hillside in a silvery glow.

Fuentes looked up. ‘That is one big mother of a moon.’

The trees shifted slightly. Masters sucked in a breath. There was a metallic clank. They froze.

‘Holy Christ — tighten up, people. We got company.’

The giant creatures were armed with clubs and axes, and armoured with what looked like thick metal sheeting — way too heavy for even a large man to carry.

Masters cursed — he and his team had packed standard rounds — not tipped for armour piercing.

So much for human-sized inhabitants, he thought. Typical crap military intel.

No one moved, or even breathed. The large, luminous green eyes locked onto them, and some of the ogreish creatures growled.

Chris Masters, captain in the Green Berets, had thought he was afraid of nothing.

‘Oh God, oh God, oh God.’ It was Jenson, behind him. ‘We need to evac, now.’

‘Hold your ground!’ Masters hissed. ‘Don’t move a muscle…’

Jenson ignored the order and sprinted back down the hill.

The sudden movement caught them all off guard, and the lead creature opened its mouth wide enough to fit Masters’ entire head inside. Teeth like a bear trap flashed in the moonlight as the thing roared. The noise was so loud, it chilled Masters and his team down to their very marrow.

Something struck Fuentes, who was standing beside him, and she jerked backwards with a grunt and a sound of crunching bone. Fear shot up Masters’ spine, but his training took over.

‘Engage! Engage!’ The four remaining M16s sprayed streams of lead.

Colonel Briggs watched with cool detachment. One by one, the cameras were destroyed by things that could have torn themselves from the pages of a horror story. In the darkness, their features were unclear, but what was clear was how little effect the M16s had on these massive, fur-covered creatures.

She couldn’t tell what happened to the scientist, as he hadn’t been wearing a helmet-cam. But when Fuentes was taken out, he had been standing there with his hands to his head, and his face ripped with shock. She doubted there’d be any need for a rescue mission.

She looked across at Jenson who had come back through the rift, and her mouth curled slightly in distaste. He was still shivering uncontrollably. Some Green Beret, she thought.

She turned to her military aide. ‘Three things: one, get an armed guard on that rift — heavy-calibre weapons — I don’t want anything paying us a visit unannounced.’ The aide nodded. Briggs jerked her thumb over her shoulder. ‘Two, get that pathetic, gutless worm out of my sight… and out of my army.’

Jenson looked up for a second, then buried his head in his hands and sobbed.

‘And three, I want two squads of Delta Force, and some bigger ordinance. And make sure you get Samson on the team.’ She half saluted, dismissing the aide. Her lip curled slightly as she rewound the image loop. ‘We’ll shown ’em we’ve got our own monsters.’

Briggs gritted her teeth and spoke at the screen. ‘Military Rule-1 — when pushed, push back harder. Brigg’s Rule-1 — if you want something done right, do it yourself. This time I’m going too.’ She looked across to where Harper knelt beside the shivering soldier. ‘I mean, we’re going too.’

She smiled at the chaos and destruction on the screen. ‘Thank you. Now I have no reason to play fair with you at all. I’m coming, and I do not come in peace.’