Vorpal Blade

21

“Holy grapp, the boat’s gone,” Gunga-Din said.

“We are so grapped,” Bischel added. “First a damned crabpus eats Berg’s armor then another one eats the grapping boat?”

“Stay frosty,” Onger snapped. “And watch your sectors. Until the Skipper says we can panic, we don’t panic.”

“Sergeant, our ride just got eaten,” Bisch pointed out. “I think it’s a perfect time to panic!”

“Can it,” Gunnery Sergeant Frandsen growled. “Panicking isn’t going to get nobody home. There’s no proof the boat’s destroyed. Until we’re sure it’s gone, we just assume it’s going to come back up. It’s a submarine.”

“Doctors,” MacDonald said over the open freq. “All things considered, I think we should withdraw.”

“Yes,” Dr. Dean said. “But what about the boat…”

“That is not a discussion for right now,” the Marine ground out.

“We need to withdraw,” Dr. Robertson said. “But there’s a problem.”

The large herbivores from the south were nearly opposite their position, skating wide of the human contingent. The large plates on their back were about ten meters across on the largest, but the creatures ranged down to “babies” that were only the size of rhinos. Instead of the relatively long and slender tentacles of most of the species, their legs were short and stumpy, holding them no more than a couple of meters off the ground.

“Back up into the longer grass?” MacDonald asked, switching to a discreet frequency.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, either,” Julia said, a tone of worry in her voice. “They’re feeding on the same sort of grass. But there’s a fringe that runs along the forest. They don’t eat that.”

“Poison?” MacDonald asked.

“No,” Julia said. “I think they’re afraid of something in the forest.”

The pack had been waiting patiently for the big herbivores to pass. They had shifted, slightly, when the herd of bipeds had crossed the open area. If they got to the edge of the grass, they were prey. The pack knew its dash distance and the speed of their prey. If the bipeds moved to the edge of the grass, they could get them.

But the big herbivores had moved away from the bipeds, fearing that which they did not understand. They were out of range. And the pack was hungry.

Hungry enough for one of the younger members to lose her patience and dart from cover.

“Movement!” Prabhu screamed. “Oh, Holy Vishnu!”

While not as big as the herbivores, the individual pack members were nearly three meters across the shell and two meters high on their long tentacles. Compared to Jaenisch’s Crab Lion, these were more like Crab Tyrannosaurs.

Prabhu fired low, scything into the tentacles and trying to cut the giant predators down. But it was a losing battle…

“Back!” MacDonald shouted. “First Platoon, hold position! Third, pull back and prepare to give cover fire! SF, get the scientists out of here!”

“Go, go!” Runner yelled, pushing the scientist towards the cape.

The herbivores had started to panic, lumbering into a run southwards, some of the bigger members breaking off to face the predators as the young shifted away from the threat.

The scientists were going to have to run right through them.

As the mandible crunched down around his middle and the armor started to smoke and buckle, Prabhu let out another scream, this time of rage.

“I am created Shiva, the Destroyer!” he shouted, sticking the muzzle of the minigun between the mandibles. “Die you mothergrapper!”

The stream of 7.62 mm bullets tore the monster’s brains apart and the mandibles separated but containment had been breached and Arun could smell the stink of the enzyme burning through his armor as he fell.

Onto his back. As the pack closed.

“Oh, grapp me,” Arun muttered as one of the mandibles bit down, ripping out his round feed. “I hope the next life is better than this one…”

“Around or through, Dr. Robertson?” Runner asked as they approached the defensive line of massive crabpus.

“Around,” Robertson said, panting. “You do not want to get near an angry elephant!” She swiveled her sensors to the rear where the line of predators had hit First Platoon and saw a Wyvern tossed through the air.

Dr. Dean was out in front of the rest of the party, having taken an early lead. And he wasn’t interested in professional biological input.

“Dr. Dean,” Runner shouted. “Go around them!”

“Grapp… you,” Dean panted. “I’m not going to get caught by…”

As he tried to pass between two of the huge crabpus, one lifted a massive foot and stamped down. The crunch was clearly audible through the armor.

“Aaaaagh!”

“There goes our geologist,” Runner said. “This is going to look great on my evaluation report.”

“I’m sure Mimi can fill in,” Dr. Robertson said. “Go north. Away from the rest of the herd.”

“Gunny!” Bischel shouted as the majority of the pack passed the fallen Hindu and charged into the Marines. “The grapping rounds are bouncing off!”

“Fire low, into their legs,” Gunny Frandsen ordered, moving forward in support.

“Alpha, move right,” Lieutenant Dorsett said, calmly. The six foot three “Mammoth” was a graduate of the Naval Academy in Annapolis and wasn’t about to let something like a charging band of invulnerable, elephantine, alien, predatory crabpus break his smooth. “Lay in defilading fire on the predators. Bravo, Charlie, hold position to screen…”

“Grapping DIE already!” Bisch shouted as the pack closed. He was pouring cannon fire into the pack but except for accidentally blowing off a couple of legs it wasn’t slowing them down any. One finally dropped back, too wounded to continue the assault, but…

“Onger!”

The sergeant’s ammo counter was dropping like a waterfall as he poured out four thousand rounds per minute of quarter-inch high-velocity fire, but the damned rounds were just bouncing off.

He’d slowed one down by hitting its legs but that was luck as much as anything. Gunga-Din had gotten one and two more had been put down by the combined fire from Alpha and Bravo but they were still coming. On Earth, predators would be turned by the sound of the fire, they’d quit attacking, they’d leave! These things just kept coming…

The pack barely paused as they cracked the latest suit of armor and tore at the insides, spreading carmine that disappeared on the vegetation.

First Sergeant Powell stood beside the CO watching the slaughter of the unit, then blinked.

“Sir, recommendation.”

“Anything,” the CO said. “Third, echelon left,” he continued, marking his designators. “Get those things off First so they can pull back.”

“All Marines,” the first sergeant said calmly. “Directly under the mandibles there is a curved patch. Concentrate fire on that curved patch.”

“Oh, grapp me,” PFC Walker said. The rangy West Virginian had wanted to be a Marine since the first time he saw Full Metal Jacket. But that movie had never covered being eaten by a giant grapping alien monster. On the other hand, Aliens had. And this sucked just as bad.

He was scything away at the tentacles, trying to stop the pack from closing on the line that First Platoon had formed but the crabpus seemed to be shrugging the fire off. Some of them had dropped tentacles and just kept coming.

“…Concentrate on that curved patch.”

“What did Top say?” Rad-Man screamed. Lance Corporal Radovich was pouring cannon fire onto the beasts but while the cannon had some effect on them, it wasn’t much more than the Gatlings.

“Fire at the patch under the mandibles,” Sergeant Dunn said. If he was perturbed by the distinct possibility of being torn apart by giant crab-octopi it wasn’t apparent. He readjusted his fire and hit his laser designator. “On my spot!”

The combined fire of two Gatling guns and a cannon managed to punch through one of the crabpus’ armor and it immediately started to spasm in death throes, its tentacles jerking wildly as it rolled to the side.

“We got it!” Walker screamed. “We got it!”

Just as the rest of the pack closed.

“That’s what I needed,” Berg said, breathing deeply. “Sergeant Jaenisch, permission to move myself to the support of First Platoon?”

“What?” Jaen shouted. “Are you grapping nuts? No you can’t ‘move to the support of First.’ ”

“Sergeant,” Berg said, drawing one of the pistols. “This has got twice the penetrator power of one of the cannons. Those are grenade rounds, not penetrators. Forget the 7.62s.”

“Grapp,” Jaen said, wincing. “Go. Just grapping go. Gunny Hoc…” he said, switching frequencies.

“Are we down to runners, now?” Runner asked as one of the Marines vaulted a sanger and stared sprinting across the veldt. A few of the big herbivores were between him and the action and Runner hoped the Marine went around them. Pinging the armor he got the name “Bergstresser.” It took him a moment to figure out which Marine it was, but then he noted that the armor was wearing pistols.

“Two-Gun!” Runner said, direct linking the armor. “Are you grapping nuts?”

“Fifty cal pistols, Master Sergeant,” Berg said. “They’re about the only BMG systems except sniper rifles on the boat. I can kill these things.”

“Watch out for the herbivores, Two-Gun,” Runner warned. “They crushed Dr. Dean.”

“Got the solution for that issue,” Berg replied.

Going around the herbivores was out of the question. Sensors indicated that there were more of the predators closing on the Marines and they still hadn’t finished off the first group.

Berg wasn’t sure if he was an idiot or a genius. But if the patch under the mandibles was a kill point, he’d be able to prove it on the herbivores. If the pistols killed them, they’d kill the carnivores. If not… Well, they looked slow enough to outrun.

So he kept sprinting forward, drawing the right pistol as he approached the remaining elephant crabpus. There were three of them, spinning from side to side as if they couldn’t figure out which was the bigger threat, the predators they knew or the Marines. Berg didn’t intend to let them guess.

One of the massive beasts, fully nine meters tall at the top of the shell, started rumbling towards him on its stumpy tentacles and he paused, bringing up the pistol in a two-handed grip.

He carefully targeted the patch the first sergeant had noted and fired. The round punched through the refractory armor but the thing kept coming. After a second round, though, no more than a hand’s span from the first, the giant herbivore practically jumped into the air, then came crashing down.

It slid to a stop less than three meters away but from Berg’s perspective that was perfect. He took a running jump onto the top of its shell and then bounded off the far side between the two remaining herbivores. Dropping to a knee, he fired left in a two-handed grip, punching two rounds into the patch of the left-hand monster, then fired one-handed to the right, dropping that one with his last remaining round.

Bounding to his feet he dropped the clip, an unfortunately cumbersome operation with the converted rifle, and slid another magazine in place.

“Third Platoon,” he said, the system automatically switching to that platoon’s frequency. “Gang way. Two-Gun coming through.”

“Back, back!” Mammoth shouted. “More coming in from the south.” The lieutenant swept his Gatling gun to the right and shook his head. “Gunny, we have a situation here.”

“That we do, sir,” Big-Foot said. The last team was backing on their position, firing in a continuous stream at the pack. But, worse, there were motion sensor readings indicating more of the beasts no more than fifty meters away. The gunny targeted one of the remaining three carnivores, whose tentacles were shredded, not that it seemed to care, and began pouring rounds into the patch under the mandibles. Most of the rounds bounced off, some of them doing more damage to the tentacles. But if you put enough kinetic energy on a spot, it tends to crack. Finally, rounds began to punch through and the predator slid to a halt.

Mammoth had finished off another. But Wangen was down, the last predator’s mandibles fixed on his arm.

“Mothergrapper,” Wangen snarled, hammering at the beast. “Maulk, I can’t get up.”

“Gunny,” Mammoth said, chopping at the mandibles with his combat knife. The monomolecular blade rapidly broke through one of the mandibles and the arm was released. But the predator still pinned the suit.

“Sutherland,” Frandsen said, grabbing one side of the beast. “Other side. And a one, and a two…”

“More!” Lance Corporal Corwin shouted as another pack of the predators broke cover. There were more this time and, if anything, they were bigger. These were striped in red and green. The first pack had been flat red.

“Retreat,” Captain MacDonald said. “Just grapping run. We’ve got it.”

“Too close, sir,” Mammoth said, dropping to one knee and targeting the nerve junction. “Get Third out of here, sir. Semper Fidelis…”

“Third Platoon,” Captain MacDonald said. “Prepare to retreat…”

“Two-Gun, what the grapp are you doing here?” Top snapped as the PFC barreled past.

“Penetrators, Top,” Berg panted, holding up the modified sniper rifles. “Get… going… Got… it.”

“PFC Bergstresser…” the CO said, then paused when the first sergeant raised a hand. “Go get ’em, boy.”

“Go, sir!” Sutherland said, dropping to one knee and targeting the lieutenant’s beast.

“Staff Sergeant, this is an order,” Mammoth said. “Get your team out of here.”

“Sir…”

“I gave you an order, Staff Sergeant,” the lieutenant said. “You will obey it. Go.”

“Sir,” Sutherland said. “Alpha Team. Make for the boat.”

As Alpha retreated, Berg seriously reconsidered his sanity. There were nine of the charging monsters and only three remaining Marines. He knew he was pretty good, but he’d hardly used these things.

On the other hand, these things were much faster than a Wyvern. If somebody didn’t slow them down, they were going to be all over Alpha Team, and Third Platoon, like stink on maulk.

As Alpha ran past, he stopped and targeted one of the monsters, firing two rounds.

“Sir…” he said, pausing and blanking on the lieutenant’s last name. “Mammoth! Get the hell out of there. I’ve got it.”

“What?” the lieutenant asked as another beast crashed to the ground. “Who the hell…”

“Two-Gun?” Frandsen said, standing up as one of the predators closed. “Go, sir! Go!”

Mammoth had dropped one of the monsters and he got to his feet, backing up fast.

“Come on, sir!” the gunny shouted.

“Too late,” Dorsett said, firing point blank into the monster’s mouth. But its packmate took him by the arm and lifted the Wyvern off the ground, tossing it through the air to the rest of the pack.

“That kid’s got spirit,” Top said, turning to the rear.

“First Sergeant!” Captain MacDonald said, then paused. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Powell said. “You too, sir.”

As the pack closed, Berg reloaded, then drew both pistols. Two rounds per beast was about right, sometimes three. He ran through the right-hand pistol killing two and putting a round in one, then backed and fired with his left hand, killing one more. He started backing faster, trying to reload on the backwards trot, dropping his first full mag as he stumbled over the rough ground. The predators were nearly on him as he fumbled a magazine into place.

“Nice pistol,” First Sergeant Powell said, snatching out his right-hand gun. If he was bothered by the closing predators it wasn’t apparent. He simply removed a magazine from Berg’s harness quite calmly and reloaded as if he was giving a demonstration.

“Yes, Top,” Berg said, stopping his retreat. He just couldn’t run backwards and fire worth a damn.

“Got to talk to Lurch about getting one of my own,” Top said, lifting the pistol in a two-handed grip. Six rounds ripped out fast enough that it sounded as if the pistol was on auto-fire. And three of the beasts dropped. “Want the last one?”

“Sure, Top,” Berg said, putting two rounds into the sensitive patch. The beast slid to a stop at his feet, thrashing on the red grass. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Report, Lieutenant,” MacDonald said as the last of Third Platoon cleared the sangers.

“Five MIA,” Lieutenant Berisford said. “I think we can count them as KIA, sir. The big crabpus that got the ship got them, too.”

“Any news on the ship?” the captain asked tiredly. Three Wyverns were just clearing the obstacle of the big herbivores, two of them leaping across the backs. Three out of thirteen with Top and Two-Gun not far behind.

“No, sir, not yet,” Berisford replied, stoically. “I’m sure they’ll be back.”

“Hopefully before our air runs out.”