Chapter 6 from the Dharman Series Book I, Wild Zone
Wherein Lieutenant Ryan awakens to meet a most dangerous alien life form on the Safe Zone of Planet Dharma VI. Enjoy!
Ryan was awakened by a dreadful racket grating against the backdrop of quiet. His eyes fluttered open; muscles tensely alert. There was nothing moving in the room around him and, as his sensibilities gathered, he realized that the sound was coming from outside. Snatching up the Tech-Rifle, he struggled up onto unsteady legs and ran to the Outpost door.
The air was cooler now, almost comfortable. The swirling atmosphere showed no sign of the Dharman sun, though its light was still refracted across the dome of the sky in a dusky twilight. The source of the sound was overhead, a long wail descending on the wind. Ryan strained his gaze upward. Noting a dim heat signature through his infrared visor. The supply module from the Achilles was making its landing approach.
The module was a self-piloted device encased in a hard shell which enabled it to survive the heat of re-entry. Once the computers on board the mother ship determined the trajectory, it would cascade down like a meteor and fire a braking thruster until its parachute deployed. The roar he heard was the retro unit firing to slow the module’s descent.
“Nothing wrong with that one,” he mused as the signature became more defined. He could see the deployed parachute as the module fluttered down below the shelf of upper level winds and into the dense lower layer of the Dharman atmosphere. It would be a near miss. The module would fall a kilometer south of the Outpost.
“Here comes breakfast!” he shouted, picking up his satchel. Then he heard another warning siren, rising and falling in a rapid rhythm. It was the ZEKE sentry sounding an urgent call. His frame was shaken in a moment of anxiety as his flex suit received the ZEKE’s warning impulse and reinforced the urgency of the moment with a tangible sensation of anxiety.
Ryan emerged from the broken shell of the Outpost to see the robot floating rapidly toward him. Its synthesized voice bleated out a report: “Alert status one. Airborne contact now bearing at 047 degrees of arc.”
“At ease. The contact is friendly. Return to ground patrol duty.”
“Acknowledged.” The ZEKE floated away as though nothing had happened.
Lieutenant Timothy Scott Ryan
Ryan was relieved to realize that it had all been a false alarm, but the trace of adrenaline resulting from his suit stimulus was still unnerving. He thought for a moment and then slid open a panel on his belt buckle. While it was standard protocol to rely on sensory augmentation from his suit in any alien environment, he wanted to feel the situation through himself. The suit was suddenly becoming an annoyance to him. It was stressful enough without the jarring emotional warnings every ten minutes. He toggled it off, irritated by the error trapping reflex when the suit’s programming whispered a vocal statement in his headset: ‘You are terminating flex suit augmentation. Are you certain you wish to proceed?’ Ryan confirmed his action, passing a brief moment of discomfort as he adjusted to his new condition. At first he felt a bit naked, and realized that much of the time the suit had also been feeding him impulses designed to reassure and calm, even as it warned him of perceived danger. Now he could rely on his own instincts, but the reduction in sensory input would require some adjustment time.
He shifted his filter mask and sniffed at the atmosphere, comparing the unaided sensation to his prior experiences here. He was immediately reassured. “Better,” he whispered to himself, feeling suddenly lightened and unencumbered. There were times when you just had to put the technology aside and rely on simple Human instincts and reflexes. He was soon quite comfortable again, and turned his attention to the falling supply module.
It was falling some distance away, out on the featureless surface of the Safe Zone. The last thing he felt like doing was walking across that open plain to intercept the module. He would have to make several trips if he wanted to move its supply store here to the Outpost. It dawned on him that there might be a vehicle in the Engineering Bay! He was overcome by fatigue before searching that area yesterday. Now that he was rested, he started off around the building complex, still astonished by the extent of the damage.
The Engineering Bay fared no better than the rest of the buildings. The main door was wide open, equipment was overturned, tools were scattered on the floor, and cables and building materials were lashed together as though some attempt was made to construct a barricade. There was no sign of any life here, but a dried stain near one wall recalled the blood he saw in the barracks. There were three vehicles in the maw of the Engineering Bay. One of them was the second assault hovercraft, its front paneling and operator cockpit smashed to pieces. Another was a large mobile crane tipped to one side. It was blackened and charred by explosives and fire. The last was more promising, a land rover, damaged, but still reasonably intact.
There were two round polymer tires in the front of the vehicle, both dented, but sound enough to function as wheels. The condition of the propulsion tracks in the rear was also satisfactory. The transparent windshield was cracked, and fragments had spilled into the control cabin. He climbed inside, and engaged the starter. A low tone reverberated from the status panel, and a malfunction warning light blinked.
“Of course,” Ryan said, exasperated. He climbed out of the vehicle and wedged open the engine compartment. Aside from some smoke residue, everything looked normal. He would have to pull the engine panel and test the circuit patching, a lengthy process, but at least the tools were near at hand. After a drawn out search he located a flinching pin, diagnostic probe, and a few spare processing nodes. He went to work, using a phosphor tube to light the dim compartment.
Rotating two flat screws with the flinching pin, he removed the front panel. There was a metal tong clipped to the inside of the panel. He brushed away a layer of soot and grime, which revealed a label. “WARNING: Disable mainline switch before handling primary circuit panel.” Now where was the mainline switch? He located a silver toggle, flipped it to negative and two blinking red lights which were fluttering in a steady rhythm went out.
Carefully, he inserted the metal tong until it levered against a pin at the base of the primary circuit panel. The unit slid out from the interior of the engine. Rows of gilded processing nodes grinned at him in a confused maze of delicately fused electronic components. He took his diagnostic probe and began testing the nodes individually. As he did so the wand changed colors to indicate the condition of the component: green for good, yellow for marginal, and red for bad. He had to replace three nodes before he was satisfied. Carefully, he remounted the unit and front panel. Like a surgeon who had just completed a successful operation, he rubbed his gloved hands together and smiled with pleasure.
“I could take one of these things apart in my sleep,” he said smugly as he climbed quickly back into the cabin. This time when he pressed the starter, nothing happened at all. He realized he had forgotten to enable the main board power switch.
Sliding back out of the cabin, he suddenly heard the ZEKE’s shrill siren once again. It rose and fell in a peculiar whine, growing more resonant as the ZEKE sped towards the Outpost. Ryan kicked an aluminum supply case out of the way as he headed back out toward the yawning entrance of the Engineering Bay.
“Didn’t I tell you it was alright, damnit?” The ZEKE was at it again. At least he didn’t have to contend with the added adrenaline rush of his suit augmentation. “Look, it’s just a supply module...”
“Alert status one. Perimeter contact at 072 degrees.”
“Perimeter contact! That thing fell well inside the Safe Zone.” Ryan terminated his lecture as the meaning of the ZEKE’s words struck home. The ZEKE wasn’t referring to the supply module at all. There was something out there on the edge of the zone. The ZEKE must have observed it with its long range camera. Ryan ran outside and panned the horizon, but could see nothing in the empty reach of the Safe Zone receding toward the horizon. The ZEKE followed him, hovering at his side.
“Report.” Ryan ordered, granting the robot a measure of respect.
“Contact mobile at 075 degrees. Range approximate, three point four kilometers.”
Ryan slid his telescope viewer out of a side pocket in his flex suit and scanned again. Something was out there, a dark and blotted shape near the rise of the crater where the ZEKE first found him. It was masked in a heat sheen and he could not make out what it was, but assumed it to be massive if it was visible from this distance.
“Can you identify the contact?”
“Negative. No data on file.”
“Is the contact closing on this position?”
The ZEKE’s lens whirred as it altered its focus. “Range diminishing. Heading unknown.”
“Range now?” Ryan wanted to gauge the contact speed
“Range approximately three point three kilometers, and diminishing.”
It was moving at a steady pace, but was not fast enough to be a vehicle or hovercraft. He could send the ZEKE out for a closer look, or he could go himself in the land rover. He put his curiosity aside, favoring the business at hand. He was not ready to move north just yet. Eventually, he knew he would have to venture into the Wild Zone. But for now he had to finish up operations here, and get to the supply module. Was the contact hostile? He reasoned the situation out. The traps and minefields should still be in place out there. That thing was bound to run into one soon and he almost half expected to hear the echo of an explosion at any time.
“ZEKE, close on the contact. Obtain image data. Report back to this position on completion.”
“Acknowledged.” The unit hummed away toward the horizon, a quiet gliding disk hugging the ground.
“I’d like to come along,” Ryan said after it, “but as you can see, the place is a mess.” His humor reasserted itself, easing the tension of the alert. He still wanted to check out the tower before he moved toward the supply module to the south. That was right on the way to his next objective, the Science Conservatory at the other end of the Safe Zone. Running back to the Engineering Bay, he shouldered his rifle and rounded up a magnetic grappling hook. He would have to climb up to the top of the tower from the outside. From there he would also have a better perspective on the contact.
The tower was a slate obelisk, rising fifty feet over the complex. There was an observation deck near the top which looked like a good prospect for the grappling hook. After three tries he managed to anchor it on the exposed railing, and began an exhausting climb up the side of the tower. Walking was hard enough, but the climb drained his strength like water wrung from a sponge. By the time his gloved hand grasped the walkway railing he was nearly spent. It was all he could do to heave himself up on the platform.
A loud distant crack reverberated from the horizon. Landmine! Ryan craned his neck around to look to the northeast. His view was much better from this elevation. The temperature signature of the contact was now clear in his infrared visor. It was embroiled near a seething heat flash from the exploded mine.
“Ha!” Ryan gasped, his chest still heaving with the exertion of the climb. A small satisfaction swept over him, a brief reprisal for the men of Outpost Beckerman. The mine had probably finished it off. He would sortie out to investigate the carcass when he finished his work here.
He settled his breathing down, slinging his rifle to a ready position. There was still the matter of the sealed tower to resolve. Cautiously, he moved along the walkway at a crouch until he reached the outline of a hatch entry. He examined it thoroughly before touching it. There was no sign of any damage or attempt to force it from the outside. The latch gave way under his clenched fist, and the hatch opened a crack. There was a sibilant hiss as air escaped from the inside. Ryan coughed, and nearly gagged on the smell. Even through the filter mask the reek of decomposition assaulted him to the point of nausea.
He backed away from the entrance, reaching around for the oxygen bottle to clear the vile odor from his nostrils. The cleansing wash of the cool gas restored him. He remembered the elevator, stuck at the top. This would have been their last refuge, he thought. If there were any survivors, they would have holed up here. Brandishing his rifle, he kicked the hatch open with a sudden blow.
“Anyone in there?” he shouted. The muted echo of his own voice rebounded from the shadowed interior of the tower. The stench wafted out at him again. With a flick of his wrist he flung a phosphor tube into the chamber. Taking one last breath of clean air, be bolted through the opening. Something brushed against his right shoulder, and Ryan spun violently around and fired by reflex. The muzzle flash of his rifle drove the shadows further into the recesses of the chamber, and the sharp concussion of the weapon in these closed quarters jarred him.
The exploding round sent fragments of tissue and bone splattering in every direction. At the extreme close range, the target was blown apart by the sheer velocity of the projectile. Ryan recoiled against the hatchway, eyes wide.
The ghastly scene in the chamber enshrouded him like the choking smell which pervaded the room. He had just blown off the top half of a moldering corpse, jostled by the headlong force of his entry. Scattered around the floor, their bodies contorted in twisted, unnatural poses, were four more corpses, all in various stages of decomposition. Decayed flesh exposed the chalky white bone beneath gaunt faces. Though his immediate instinct was to retreat from the horrid scene, Ryan mastered it and stooped to look more closely at the nearest corpse.
The smell! He flipped his infrared visor up to get a better look at the contorted body. The flex suit ID read: “Jacobs PFC.” A silvery gel festered out from a wound in the man’s side. The smell! He backed away, shielding the mesh of the filter mask with his gloved hand. As revulsion shook his frame, he made one last survey of the room. The central control console was nearby. The log disc, he thought, stepping toward the device. The instrumentation on the panel was dark and silent, but he located the manual eject lever on the recorder. A silver disc, three inches in diameter, popped from a slit in the panel. He pocketed it quickly, and then retreated, shaken by the scene in the chamber.
He had no time to think about it. The ZEKE’s warning siren cut through the air again. The unit was bolting back toward the tower, and so was something else. Ryan gaped out across the rutted Safe Zone and saw what looked like a giant insect scraping forward on jointed legs. It was far off, but was moving steadily toward the installation. As it moved, it made a dry rattle, which vibrated at a peculiar pitch.
“Alert status one. Extreme caution advised.” The ZEKE had reached the exact spot where Ryan had first sent it away, hovering near the open door of the Engineering Bay. He realized that the mine explosion had not stopped the alien contact. Instinctively, Ryan sighted down the barrel of his rifle. The laser targeting beam acquired the range. He squeezed off a pulse round and watched as the projectile arrowed out toward the creature leaving a scarlet tracer. It struck home and exploded. The creature reared up on its four backmost legs, and the rattling vibration intensified. A long probing appendage sampled the air as the thing swayed back and forth. Then it slumped down with an audible thump and hurtled forward toward the Outpost.
“Great idea,” Ryan said aloud. It was time to move out. In one fluid motion he shouldered the rifle and cinched his belt clip onto the climbing cable. Stepping over the railing, he thrust away from the side of the tower with a kick, and rappelled rapidly toward the ground. Though the tensile cord guided his descent, he misjudged the increased gravity and barely had the strength to rein in on the rope to break his fall. With a jolt he banged against the siding plates of the lower building, scraping his left knee. Ryan winced with the pain and tumbled to a heap on the ground.
He strained up onto his feet, glancing over his shoulder to the northeast. The Dharman sun was now inching back up over the horizon. In the background it silhouetted the irregular, hedgy outline of vegetation. The Wild Zone was wreathed in a blue haze and dappled with the orange dawn. In the foreground a dark monstrosity was backlit against the glowing sky, its sharply jointed legs jabbing like thorns into the terrain. It was close, perhaps 200 meters out. The vibrating scratch of its movement dominated the silent air.
Ryan set off at a limping run for the Engineering Bay, stooping to scoop up his satchel as he loped into the entrance. “Trouble, ZEKE!” he called to the hovering unit. He picked his way across the jumble of the Engineering Bay and jumped onto the land rover to jam his thumb against the starting button. The vehicle sat in lifeless silence.
Then he remembered the power switch.
“Range to contact 100 meters.” The ZEKE calmly updated its report.
Ryan lurched back out of the land rover, his knee weakening from the extra stress. Frantically, he searched for the tiny linchpin that would enable him to get the access panel open. He was down on all fours, pawing through the grimy rubble on the floor. It was nowhere. For a fraction of a second he contemplated shooting off the panel bolts with his rifle, but he could not risk damaging the delicate components behind them. Then he reached into his right pocket and pulled out the linchpin. He was a creature of habit. The panel was off in a matter of seconds, and Ryan leaned in to slap the silver toggle switch tersely with his gloved hand.
“Contact at 70 meters and advancing,” the ZEKE reported again. Ryan was running out of time. As he slammed the panel back into place and raced for the cabin he could smell the creature, a fetid musty odor, worse than rotten eggs. The rattling clamor of the alien echoed through the Engineering Bay.
This time when Ryan hit the starter button the status panel resounded with a long, unbroken tone. The green power indicator light appeared, then dimmed. Ryan closed his eyes. If one of the replacement nodes failed to take its data burn...there was a three second pause, then the engine thrummed to life, its turbine turning over in an ascending whine. He engaged the treads and stomped on the accelerator. With a creaking scrape, the rear tracks bit into the flooring and propelled the vehicle forward.
The land rover bucked over the mass of rubble in the bay, crushing an empty crate as it passed into the open. The alien creature was nearly on top of him, rearing up on thick, briny hind legs. Its multi-sectioned abdomen was bowed by its own weight. Spiked appendages bristled from its fore section and a rough mantle of hide was stretched over the sharply etched outline of its skeletal structure. A seething rattle shook the air, and one of the creature’s hind legs seemed to emit a fetid black vapor.
“ZEKE, follow!” Ryan yelled over the din. Then he jolted the land rover into full power and tried to break past the towering mass of the monstrosity as it dove for the vehicle. The ZEKE barely avoided the sweeping lunge of the alien—the land rover did not. It was wrenched off the ground by a violent force, the twin treads sputtering in the air. The creature had seized it in a tri‑sectioned set of jaws, two bony clampers compressing the upper canopy of the vehicle from either side, and a third crushing from above. Ryan bent forward as the roofing began to buckle, then he caught the blinding flash of a yellow, streaking light. There was a crackling arc of energy and the searing smell of ozone. ZEKE had fired its laser directly into the jaw of the creature.
With an angry growl the creature let go of the land rover and swayed to confront the tiny robot on its flank. Ryan felt the tracks of his vehicle grind into the soil again and it jumped forward. As the land rover moved, ZEKE darted away on a parallel course.
Ryan looked over his shoulder. He was already pulling away as the land rover’s magnetic turbine fed steady power to the propulsion tracks. The ZEKE was keeping pace with him about ten meters to the right. As he was letting out a sigh of relief, the land rover shuddered under a driving impact, as if a hail of gravel was flung against its metal exterior. The polyglass rear view port, which was cracked by the creature’s initial attack, was shattered by a score of tiny barbed objects, which burst into the rear of the cabin. One was imbedded in the Mylar coated headrest, only inches from Ryan’s helmet.
The pursuing creature, seeing that its prey was escaping, had flung a cluster of organic burrs at the land rover. It was a lethal sting, intended to paralyze and halt its intended meal until it could close the distance once again. But the metal vehicle, riddled and bent as it was, did not succumb to the venom. Ryan had escaped. He drove flat out, the blood red sun burning in the wake of his dusty trail.
Eventually the oval shape of the supply module appeared ahead. Ryan turned to starboard, and the ZEKE matched the maneuver smartly, arcing in a graceful bend. They reached the module in another minute and ground to a halt. Ryan leapt out of the cabin, coming down hard on the injured left knee. It gave way, spilling his lanky frame in an ignominious heap on the ground. The ZEKE drifted over, its visual camera whirring as it focused on the Human. It seemed to be inspecting him very closely.
“Don’t worry,” Ryan said, “I just tripped over my own big feet, that’s all. But that was sure some little surprise you pulled back there ZEKE! I didn’t know you had it in you!”
The robot’s vocal processor sifted through Ryan’s elated stream of words, but it could discern no clear command sequence structure in the sentences.
“Standing by,” ZEKE chimed, still watching the Human closely. The unit had noticed a tiny animated barnacle crawling along the back of Ryan’s shoulder. As the Human struggled to his feet the ZEKE quickly deployed its specimen probe, a slender metallic shaft that slid out and whisked the barbed object from Ryan’s flex suit. The clamping end of the probe constricted, and crushed the needle ridden thorn. Ryan stared at the ZEKE as its probe began to retract.
“Wait!” he shouted, flipping up his visor. He squinted at the residual mass at the tip of the probe. It was like an animated bone spur. How could it move? He cast his arms about, searching his body more of the objects. He was clean, but the back of the land rover was peppered with the tiny burrs. Off in the distance, the dim silhouette of the thing that had launched them was taking shape again. He watched the crawling bones as they inched over the back of the rover. One by one, the movement ceased, and the barbs froze into a calcified mass. They lost their grip on the metallic surfaces and clattered off to the ground.
“What is that thing?” he asked, pointing out to the shape on the horizon.
“Identity now confirmed as Asectovorus Gigantus.”
“Data?”
“New entry. Type F foraging pathfinder. Threat classification 1A. Extreme caution advised.”
“You got that right,” Ryan interrupted the data output, and the ZEKE deferred, its vocal processor immediately switching to a listen mode. Ryan wanted to ask the ZEKE if this was the thing that had ravaged the Outpost. It certainly seemed to have a single minded aggressive aim—Very hostile; the type of beast the security teams had to hit hard. Total eradication, that was the only way to deal with that kind of monster. Wipe it forever from the face of the world, and never let another of its kind struggle back up the evolutionary chain again. He flipped his infrared visor back down to get a look at its signature. He could only imagine what impression the sensory array in his flex suit would have fed him, and was glad for the decision to turn it off.
“Contact range?”
“Range approximate, 870 meters and diminishing.”
“A persistent little bastard, isn’t it!”
“Please repeat.”
“Standby.” Ryan smiled. He had some work to get done, and quickly, before the pursuing creature caught up with them again. Making his way over to the supply module, he pushed aside the edge of its parachute. He removed an access key from the inside buckle of his belt and inserted it into a tiny opening in the side of the module. With a flick of his wrist, four explosive securing pins burst sharply, blowing the panel latch away. The ZEKE pivoted quickly, its camera swinging around to investigate.
“Relax,” said Ryan, “there’s help inside.” He pulled the plate away and revealed a bundled section of crating. There were six sleek polyfibre containers tucked neatly inside. Ryan knew exactly what they held. There was food, enough for thirty days, a power pack, medical supplies, another pulse laser beacon, electronic gear, and one more very special container. He went for it first, sliding open the latch to reveal a bundled object wrapped in a weave of copper colored fiber, and secured by two clamps at each end. Ryan turned and smiled broadly at the ZEKE.
“Our troubles are over.” The robot simply hovered, watching the Human, but not understanding his actions. Ryan did not care that the unit did not have a complete English language parser in its database. There was no one else around to talk to, so the ZEKE would have to serve for the time being. He launched into a brief lecture.
“This,” he said, hefting the long bundled object, “is a super high velocity implosion weapon, SHVI for short, fully automated, with precision beam laser sighting, and a full compliment of self‑charging ammunition. It’s a state of the art prototype, which I managed to wrangle away from the R&D unit when I pulled the duty on this slag heap. It can hit like nothing I’ve ever seen and, by the way, it’s highly illegal, so you’ve never seen it either.”
Ryan shifted the bundled weapon, testing its balance and weight. Then he nodded toward the growing shadow in the distance. He sat the gun down gingerly, and examined the other crates. It was time to get them loaded into the land rover.
Making his way back over to the vehicle, he opened the dented hatch at its rear, being careful to avoid any of the spiny barbs. Most of them had already calcified and fallen off the vehicle, but a few still crawled along the interior of the rover. He squashed any he found with the butt of his rifle, and lifted up a tarp concealing the cargo port. Inside, sitting square in the middle of the trunk, was a rapid fire chain gun on a tripod.
“My luck is getting better all the time!” He hadn’t thought to look in the back of the vehicle before, but after all, it was a military land rover. Beckerman must have made sure that all of his vehicles were well provided with protective armament of some kind, even a courier unit like this. The odds, considerably evened with the arrival of the SHVI, now shifted another notch in his favor, or so he thought. He inspected the chain gun. It was in good condition, with a full cartridge of uranium tipped shells already mounted, and extra ammunition below. While older technology, it was still brutally effective when it came to pouring concentrated firepower on a target. The army was always careful to provide itself with a wide array of killing options. This was a smaller, portable version of the gun that was standard issue on all assault hovercraft. It was ready for action, he noted, but had not been fired recently. He wondered about that. Something was bothering him about the battle scene at the Outpost, but he was so preoccupied with his immediate tasks that he was unable to sift through everything he had seen there.
He removed the chain gun, lugging it to the module as he considered the lumbering shape closing on them again. Its rattling sound could already be heard in the distance. Nodding his head as though satisfied with some internal decision, he shifted the chain gun to a hollow depression dug by the module’s impact. The metallic egg of the module would provide some overhead cover. He mounted the chain gun at the edge of this shallow area, planting the tripod’s legs deeply for good anchorage. He swiveled the sleek, multi‑barreled weapon on its horizontal axis, and then checked the angle of its elevation. Satisfied with his field of fire, he dragged the trailing edge of the parachute over the gun, concealing it. He didn’t know how the creature sensed and located on its prey, but his natural instinct told him that the fiber of the chute might confuse whatever senses it was using.
“Range to contact?”
“Range 420 meters and diminishing.”
Ryan loosened his collar straw and slurped down a long swallow of the high energy sap. He measured his advancing foe, sizing up his prospects as the creature continued its stalking march. When he had finished his ration he began to shift all the supply cases into the back of the land rover. He reached for the SHVI, considering it, then slipped it back into its protective case. A good soldier always made sure he had something to fall back on. If the chain gun couldn’t stop this thing he would retreat to the rover, fall back, and then ratchet up the ante with his SHVI. By the time he had packed the last case into the trunk the alien was 200 meters out. The vibrating noise filled the quiet air, drowning out the lamenting wind.
“Extreme caution advised,” warned the ZEKE.
“Acknowledged, ZEKE.” Ryan imitated the robot voice as he climbed into the land rover. He drove it off a short distance behind the module, and left the engine running. The ZEKE was heading his way, but it reversed its course when Ryan jumped out and began shuffling hastily back toward his gun position.
“ZEKE, I want you to sound off your siren when I give the order, then move off to one side, out of the way.” He planned to stay concealed behind the parachute until the last moment. If the creature sensed him by heat, as he could do with his infrared visor, the temperature resistant material of the chute would mask his body signature. If it used an echo location with that vibrating sound, Ryan hoped to confuse it by having the ZEKE’s siren blasting away.
“Sound alert on command and evade.” Ryan repeated his order in more precise command language.
“Acknowledged.”
He could smell the odor of the monster as it closed.
“Sound off ZEKE!”
The wailing siren cut the air, pulsing against the vibrating rattle of the alien. Ryan thrust aside the parachute. He jammed home the circular cartridge with his clenched fist, and looked up to find his target.
The creature was barely 20 meters away. It had stopped and was rearing up on its hind legs. All along its sectioned body, a score of other bony appendages moved in a grotesque rhythm. The triple pronged jaw flexed and opened. A curling protuberance extended up into the air, jabbing about wildly. The ZEKE executed its evasive maneuver, swinging rapidly off to the left. For a brief moment the creature swayed towards the robot, then angled back toward Ryan’s position. It had been fooled once already. Ryan swiveled the chain gun, lowering the barrels so the angle of fire would cut across the supporting legs and abdomen.
The cranking buzz saw of the gun was deafening as it discharged a scythe of metal from its breach. The rate of fire was so great that the stream of bullets formed one single tracer as they flashed toward the alien and caught it in a murderous, rending hail. The first impact of the fire stream blew two of the bony rear haunches away and sent splintering fragments flying in all directions. The abdomen was perforated by the piercing metal and a dark, smoking liquid gushed out. The creature reeled under the fire, careening to one side as it lost the support of its legs. The first burst had struck home with deadly retaliation.
Ryan stared at the reeking brute. It flailed its forelegs, struggling back upright once more. Ryan hit the reset lever on the gun. The circular cartridge cycled rapidly, and fed a second group of shells into the chambers.
The gun fired again.
Asectovorous Gigantus staggered under the vicious attack. This time Ryan had sighted on its snapping jaws. They broke into ragged shards under the weapon’s fire, and the whole upper tip of the creature withered away. It fell backward spasmodically and rolled onto the ground, the chain gun cutting a deep gash in the sectioned carcass. The creature jerked in a single shivering convulsion and then slumped in a lifeless heap. The dark gushing liquid evaporated in a hissing cloud of smoke. Ryan stared at it for a long second, and then broke into a laugh.
One for our side, he thought, and a grim satisfaction gripped him as he watched the curling, smoky trails stream up into the atmosphere. The ZEKE disengaged its alarm, and drifted over to Ryan’s side.
“Contact status?”
“Contact immobile. Presumed terminated.”
“Presumed?” Ryan spat the word out resentfully. “It’s damn terminated, and every other one like it will get the same treatment when I call the security force down here!”
* * *
All it takes is the right tool, he thought. Next time he ran into Asectovorous Gigantus he wouldn’t fool around with his rifle. He had a few more messages to deliver before he left this forsaken planet.
“Let’s get out of here ZEKE.” He looked over his shoulder at the distant silhouette of Outpost Beckerman. There were still a few unanswered questions there, but his curiosity compelled him to turn south to the Science Station now. “Reset to escort and guide,” he said. “Destination Science Station.”
Ryan had that warm feeling of victory after the engagement, but he had just made a very bad mistake, as CLEM would soon reveal.
Like Hard Science Fiction? This one has it all.
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