Infinity Squad (5 page)

"Yes. You do not want to be on the Night Hunting Grounds then."

I jumped off the table to my feet and started towards the door. "Okay. No noise, no choppers, stay in the shadows, leave by noon. Got it."

My hand was on the doorknob when he said, "And when will your leaders enter, so that we may discuss the terms of a peace treaty between our two races?"

"Um... I'll have to get back to you on that. Soon. But thanks again!"

I was actually pleased with myself and feeling better about the mission until I exited the room and saw Ann-Marie leaning against the wall in her battle fatigues, smiling.

"So the Hell-Spiders can talk, huh?"

"How the hell did you know where I was!"

She laughed. "Wouldn't be much of an intelligence officer if I didn't."

I ran my hand over my face again. "And you heard everything?"

"Well, just your side, obviously. That room's got five cameras in it, recording 24/7."

"Fuck! Fuck! I can't let anyone see those recordings-"

"Already done," she said, pushing off the wall and falling in by my side as we walked back to barracks.

"You erased it? Without a way to trace it back to you?"

"Wouldn't be much of an intelligence officer if I didn't."

"Okay good. And Butcher, look, I know breaking the news that the Hell-Spiders are psychic would get you a medal or something, but could you keep it just between us for now?

"Wouldn't be much of an-"

"Yeah yeah. Come on. We've got a long hike and not much time."

Grimstone was in the Mech Bay, wearing five hundred pounds of powered exoskeleton jam-packed with sensors and weapons. It responded to his motions with no delay, like he was wearing a metal coat. The floor shook with every heavy step he took, and he threw the test weights around with ease.

He yelled over the sound of the hydraulics, "THIS IS AWESOME! Why don't we wear these things ALL THE TIME!"

A bored looking technician looked up from his readouts. "Because there's only five of them on the whole planet. And one of them is worth a hundred of you."

Grimmy pointed his arm towards the test targets at the far end of the range, and five different types of weapons emerged from the suit's arm, one after another. Each made a really cool, ear-scathing
SNICK-SCWING!
as it came out, aimed automatically, then retracted without firing.

"THIS IS AWESOME!" he cried.

I had seen enough. "Grimmy!" I yelled from the doorway, Ann-Marie next to me. "Get out of the suit- we won't need them today!"

"Awwwwww!"

We popped our head into one last room on the way back. It was a small office, filled with a large desk, a rifle leaning against the corner, and file cabinets and folders everywhere else. A worried man sat behind the desk, behind mountains of paperwork.

"Hey Captain Morse," I called around the mountains. "The General's sending us on a bug hunt on the big mountain."

The captain of the infantry looked up, and I could just feel his eyes dying to look back at the form he was filling out. "Very well," he clipped. "Carry on."

He returned to his paperwork and Butcher, Grimmy and I looked at him for a few seconds. "It sounds pretty dangerous," I added.

Morse made absolutely zero motion to get out from behind his desk. "I'm sure you'll be fine."

I looked at Butcher and shrugged. "Okay. Just thought you should know," I said as we left.

The sun was dawning as I gathered my motley band inside the main gate. Ann-Marie had sobered up sharply, as I knew she would. Zazlu always imbibed lightly of his own products, and now with a field promotion to my second in command he had to come, to lead the squad if I fell. Juan was still mostly gone, but we needed both him and Zazlu's carrying power if we wanted a chance to bring Ridley's body back. Zazlu would give Juan his rifle back after a few hours and a sobriety check.

Grimstone and Steve were coming too, even if they were going to slow us down. We needed their skills. I sighed, then began.

"Soldiers, as the bravest, most dedicated and most... sober... members of Infinity Squad, we are about to take on a mission of the highest importance. We are not going on a bug hunt today. We are going to retrieve one of our fallen, to discover his true end, and to make sure he gets a proper burial."

"We may encounter enemy today, but my plan is to avoid them, totally if we can. Anyone who fires first without my order, I'll have you shipped to Immortal Squad by nightfall. After I spend the afternoon kicking your ass up and down the length of the barracks, hear me?"

They nodded.

"We're going in on foot, we're going in far, and we're going in quiet." I gave them my best Lieutenant look. "Stealth and noise discipline will be paramount to us coming back alive. So, for gods sakes... put your cellphones on vibrate!"

The squad laughed, ready to go. Then Juan's eyes got big. "Shit!" he cried, reaching into his pocket to shut off his phone. "Sorry sir!"

I sighed and rubbed my face. "Grim, are our implants activated?" Grimstone hit some buttons on the device he carried, then gave me the thumbs up. "Check check implants check," I said, speaking into the mike clipped to the collar of my fatigues in a normal voice. Grimstone was still giving me the thumbs up. I took ten steps back and whispered into my mike, "Zazlu's mother was a grilled cheese sandwich."

"Hey!"

"Alright, mount up!" I laughed, turning. I motioned to the guards and the twenty-foot tall steel gate in the security wall started cranking open. And with a wave of my arm, we were off. It was a good feeling.

Even 'impassible' trails on Earth are somewhat friendly to Earth creatures. They have a logic to them, an Earth logic. Here, everything was wrong.

If the tree branch wasn't too small to hold you or too prickly to touch, it was too large to grab with one hand. If the rocks weren't flaky or too slippery to walk on, they were at the wrong angle for your boots. Mud puddles that looked ankle deep were knee swallowing traps. You couldn't squeeze between the trees- they grew at weird intervals and we were always walking around them. Even in the cleared area in front of the gates, strange alien roots grew up to catch your boots or make holes to twist your ankle in. In short, I'm saying we made horrible time.

The day was getting hotter when I signaled for a break an hour later, at the foothills of the Night Hunting Grounds mountain. The squad all took a knee in the shadows, as I ordered. Zazlu came up to my shady spot, panting and drenched in sweat.

"Sir? Any way we can go a little slower for the next hour? For those still in our old bodies?"

"You know, I hadn't wanted to say it, Zaz. But this body... I feel like I could run flat out for another hour!"

"Well, I can't," he panted. "Grim's looking pretty toasted too."

I looked over. Our tech expert was collapsed on his back, tongue hanging out. Butcher was pouring water on his head, while marshaling a panting Juan into the shadows. "Ann-Marie's not having a problem."

"Well, in my next life," Zaz gasped between breaths, "maybe I'll play a real sport like women's college soccer."

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Zaz," Ann-Marie whispered, the radio implants carrying her soft words to us from twenty meters away. She was barely sweating, like me. "Grown men groping each other in tights is a real sport too."

"Grappling," he panted. "It's called grappling, not groping."

The exhausted Juan resisted her efforts to move him deeper into the shadows. "Why do you keep pushing me into the shade all the time?"

"A psychic hell-spider told the First Lieu it was a good idea."

"Just once Butcher, I want to get a straight answer out of you," he complained, but did move into a darker spot.

"Quiet!" I hissed. "All of you! Right down that slope are hundreds of spiders waiting to rush up and eat your brains at the slightest noise. Five more minutes rest and we move out." I turned to my second. "Zaz, point taken. I'll slow the pace from here out." He nodded and went to throw up in peace.

The squad sweated in silence, their heavy panting occasionally tricking the mikes into transmitting like we were talking. Ann-Marie picked her way toward me, staying in the darkest shade at all times.

Next to me, she extended the arm of her camouflaged fatigues into the light for just a second. In the direct alien sun, our camo pattern glowed with a yellow hue I had never noticed before. It was green like the forest, yes, but our yellow tint would make it MORE visible at a distance than not. She pulled back into the bluish-tinted shade and became hidden again. Then Ann-Marie pointed silently out at the wide valley stretching below us, the valley we had just circled a third of a mountain from our base to see. A valley which could see anything on this side of the mountain. The valley were the Hell-Spiders theoretically lived.

"So it looks like our intel was good, huh?" I whispered, hand over my mike.

She nodded. "Or it's luring us quietly into an ambush."

"There is that. But we can't turn back now."

I gave everyone six minutes instead of five, then growled into my mike. "Everyone up! Moving out. And keep your eyes open, we're getting closer!"

It did get more claustrophobic from here up, the rocks and dense bush barely letting us see past the next bend. I had a gnawing, growing feeling that Ann-Marie was right. I fought not to fire at every wind-blown branch as Zazlu lead us by GPS deeper and deeper into perfect ambush country, to the Immortal's patrol's last known position.

We were 90 minutes behind schedule, sweat pouring off of all of us, except the glistening Ann-Marie, when Zazlu held his fist up, indicating a tactical stop. We crouched and readied our weapons. Zazlu was looking down his rifle barrel at something intently, finger on his trigger. Then he relaxed and stood up, waving us forward.

The Hell-Spider looked alive, crouching behind a tree. But a second glance showed the part of his head hidden by the tree was blown away, blue blood soaking the ground around it. The squad pulled up to look at it.

"Well, I guess we know they don't bury their dead," Grimstone said.

"Or enjoy bullets," Steve said, inspecting the head trauma. "It took a lot of bullets, though. At close range."

"The close range wasn't part of the plan," Zazlu said, lifting a large leafy branch to reveal a dead, gutted Immortal soldier hidden under it. He still had his rifle, all ammo, and all grenades. I looked at Ann-Marie.

"Surprise attack. Rest of squad couldn't come back for his weapons."

She nodded.

"And he's the First Lieutenant," Zazlu added. "Hector. Probably didn't give many orders after first contact."

"Look around," I whispered into my mike. "Look for other clues. But stay with a buddy, and stay sharp."

We found a second Hell-Spider body further on, legs and half its thorax grenaded off. And bullet wounds all through it.

"Squad in good firing formation," I said. "Maybe only ten seconds later, but either their Second Lieu or Ridley had taken charge by now. They were ready for this one."

"And this one," Ann-Marie said, pointing out a third dead spider in line with the first. Then she pointed at a separate blue blood stain on the ground, lacking a corresponding spider body. "But not this one."

"Or this one," Zazlu agreed. He pointed at nothing but a deep, fresh claw mark in a rock. "Or these." Enough claw marks for ten charging adult Hell-Spiders.

I took a good look at the terrain, the trees, the rocks, the slope. What would First Lieutenant Ridley have done? What would anyone have done?

"Higher," I said. "They would have fallen back up the slope. Let's go."

We followed the trail of claw marks, blue blood, shell casings, then red blood and bodies up the side of the mountain. Bullet holes always told a story, and this story wasn't pretty.

Yes, there were spider bodies. But the squad was losing bodies too, choosing offense over defense when the chance presented itself for kills.

"Ridley would never have done this," I said, shaking my head. "It's a waste, a war of attrition that we'd lose. Their Second Lieu Samson had to have been in charge."

"He was, up until now," Steve said quietly into his mike. I could see him looking at another two gutted, dismembered clone bodies about twenty feet away. I looked at Ann-Marie.

"So Ridley's down to what, five grunts now? He takes command. What would he have done?"

She nodded even higher up the slope, and I agreed.

The heat was really pouring on us now as we broke tree cover, climbing and climbing the mountain. Now there were only spider bodies, very few bullet casings, and only grenade damage.

"No turning back to fire," I said. "Ridley was having them toss grenades behind them. Smart retreat."

We continued higher up the mountain. Now the damn root holes were everywhere, one of the squad would drop their foot in one and quietly curse every minute or so. And then we saw it.