Infinity Squad (9 page)

"Flamethrowers," we all said at once.

I decided to have Zazlu and Juan drive the Heavies, and Ann-Marie and I would be on foot. They would be the squad's firepower, Butcher and I would be its speed. We would leave all the privates in barracks. The fewer people who knew about our secret spider informant, the better.

Juan was grinning like a Muppet as he stomped the thousand pound skeleton down the halls with easy motions of his arms and legs. "Why don't we use these things ALL THE TIME?"

"Because you'd die of the awesome," I replied as we entered the hangar. "Now be quiet for a second." I whispered into my mike, "Zaz, did Three-Spot mention any restrictions on taking helicopters this time?"

The Heavies technician had also tuned our four implants to a private channel since Grimmy wasn't there to do it this time. I wanted Grimstone in the barracks analyzing Ridley's band non-stop until he figured out what had happened to him. What really happened. So far each new piece of data had conflicted with every previous one.

"No restrictions," Zaz replied. "In fact, the distance requires that we take them. And Oakley ordered us to do so at the main gate, if you remember."

"Yeah, I remember," I growled, waving the Hangar Master over.

She pointed us to two idling helos at the front of the flightline. But as I ran up to the first cockpit to talk to the pilot, there wasn't one there. There weren't even seats to have pilots. Just a metal box the size of a Rottweiler with blinking lights and cables stretching from it.

No. Hell no. I backed away and waved the Hangar Master over again.

"Where are the human pilots?" I yelled over the noise of rotors.

She shrugged. "Only use them for emergencies! The auto-pilots are safer; they'll get you where you want to go!"

And report right back to Oakley where we did or did not go, with electronic precision.

"No!" I yelled back, shaking my head. "Where are the
humans
?"

She looked kind of angry and pointed to the far corner of the hangar where four guys were playing cards.

Zazlu helped me pick our pilot out. We wanted someone who could be bought by us, but not bought by Oakley. Someone loyal to soldiers, not to orders. Jinx thanked us all through his pre-flight check.

"Damn boxes are taking all our work," he yelled back to us while spinning up the rotors. "Flight Control loves 'em because they never deviate from course and never crash. But you'll never be able to remove the human element, I say. Thanks for picking me again, sir."

"No problem," I said, strapping in. "What kind of pilot name is 'Jinx' anyway?"

He grinned at me through the gap between the cockpit and the open cabin. "An old and sacred one. You all set?"

I looked; Ann-Marie was seated and belted in next to me, Zazlu and Juan were standing in their Heavies on opposite skids of the helo, hard points harnessed to the frame. "Yep, let's fly."

"No one else?" Jinx asked. "Most squads take at least five. The Immortal boys don't travel in less than packs of ten."

"Only one else I'd want is a medic," I replied. "And ours is already hurt."

Jinx gave me a wise and meaningful look. "Should I be wearing a buffering band for this mission, sir?"

I smiled. "It wouldn't be a bad idea."

We took off and headed north and west, right towards Hell-Spot's valley where the spider sightings were the most numerous. After we had gotten past the Night Hunting Grounds mountain, Jinx dropped to fly just above the tree line.

"The mass of the mountain blocks the base radar," he said into the intercom. "I've heard the Flight Control guys bitching about it all the time. They'll assume we kept on going to one of the usual patrol drops."

"Good," Ann-Marie said, then leaned forward to show Jinx a rarity in these modern times, a paper map. "Because here's where we're really going."

Jinx hovered the helo fifty feet over the desert. There were some stretches of sand, but also rocks and some light scrub bushes for as far as I could see. I turned to Zazlu skeptically.

"It looks pretty hot down there."

"Yes sir, but this is where Three-Spot directed us to go. As close as we can guess. Hell-Spiders think in landmarks, not 2D maps. The translation was...challenging."

"Lightning snakes love hot weather."

"Three-Spot says no snakes in this area. I inquired specifically."

"They need water to survive," Ann-Marie added. "This area doesn't have flowing water for lightning snakes to lay their eggs."

I unbuckled my harness. "And no Hell-Spider hunting parties?"

Zaz did the same. "Not today."

I looked around again. A rolling desert with barely any tree cover. From one of the small hills, we'd be able to see a threat coming for miles in every direction. And we were carrying enough firepower to crack open a tank. I tapped Jinx on the shoulder. "Okay! That flat spot there! Combat drop and dust off!"

Jinx handled it great, the skids barely touching the sand long enough for us to jump off, and then he crash climbed to a safe altitude again. I'd be damned if I was losing our ride home.

"Stay safe but stay within a few minutes range," I told him through our mikes.

"Roger. Climbing to overwatch height."

Ann-Marie led us forward, looking every minute at her paper map. We made good time. She was light on her feet, my new body felt like I could run for hours even in the stifling heat, and the Heavies did the work for Zazlu and Juan, even though their footpads sunk into the soft sand. If the Heavies had had calves, they would have been burning.

"Too bad about your reporter friend," I told Juan as he ran along beside me.

"Why's that, sir?"

"Benefactors never stay planetside for more than a day. Once the bots have toured the base, I'm guessing all the news teams will leave on the same transport they came in on."

He beamed while his machine muscles whirred and pumped. "Oh no, sir. Dakota's staying until the next transport at least. She's gonna cover that first farm colony thing."

Ann-Marie snorted. "Dakota."

"It's a cowgirl's name," Juan fired back. "I know because that girl sure knows how to ride a-"

"All right, all right," I interrupted. "Butcher- how much farther?"

She stopped and wiped off her brow with her shirt, then checked her map again. She looked up and pointed to a Joshua tree-like-thing standing alone at the top of the next hill. "That tree. Three-Spot says it's one of the last things the hunting party saw."

We stopped to drink some cold water, the four of us kneeling in a circle facing outward, weapons ready. I was looking towards the Joshua tree, about a two-minute jog away.

There was no noise but the breeze rustling sand and our breathing.

"They're still going ahead with volunteer farmers starting colonies here?" I asked no one in particular. "With Hell-Spiders sneaking into our base?"

"The transport was probably already underway before that news got back there," Ann-Marie said. "It takes a week to get from Earth through to our wormgate."

"And if they are like normal farmers," Zazlu added, "they are already in debt to pay for their equipment. They are probably eager to start planting, no matter the security situation."

"And I'm sure Spider skulls on the walls will make them feel safer," I snorted. "Everyone ready?" My team nodded. "Then let's go."

We jogged the valley between us and the Joshua tree, but slowed as we approached it. Ann-Marie went first, creeping forwards with her rifle on her shoulder. Zazlu covered her, weapon ports open. I went around the tree the other way, looking up, down, over, but not seeing anything. We formed another circle around the tree, weapons out, and listened. Nothing.

"What did Three-Spot say killed this hunting party?" I asked.

"He did not," Zaz grunted. "And we had no more lightning snakes to offer in trade."

"We'll have to fix that. Anyone see any dead spiders?"

"I see a live one," Butcher said, looking through the sniper scope on her rifle.

We turned back in the direction we had come. A lone black dot was clearly visible on the sandy horizon, scuttling towards us. As soon as I pulled up my binoculars to look at it, it stopped and sat down, folding its legs below itself just like Three-Spot did. I stared at it for thirty seconds, but it didn't move any closer, just sat there.

"Great. Juan, you watch it watching us. Butcher and I will start searching. Zaz, you cover us."

Ann-Marie and I started spiraling outwards from the Joshua tree while Zazlu stomped around the crest of the hill, keeping us in sight. Ann-Marie was glistening pretty heavily at this point, her shirt sticking to her, and she rolled up her fatigue legs to let the dry breeze cool off her calves. I did too. The sand felt just as soft as Earth sand, and was a nice change from the muck and streams near the Night Hunting Grounds.

We were most of the way down the hill when Juan heard a very faint buzzing, as he told me later. He had been looking through the electronic sights of the Heavy, practicing placing the crosshairs of his long range mini-missile on the Spider's torso.

"Come on
punta
," he was muttering to himself. "Move. I dare you."

That's when something that looked like a slightly larger Earth bee circled and landed on his exoskelton's arm. Juan told me he looked at it annoyed, shook his arm once, and it buzzed off. He continued keeping the distant Hell-Spider in his weapon sights, putting the crosshairs right between its eyes. "That's right."

By this point Ann-Marie and I had found the dead hunting party, mostly covered in sand. I brushed it away to reveal the tops of five adult Hell-Spiders.

"Pretty well preserved," I noted. "They could pass for fresh killed if we cleaned them."

"Dry desert air will do that," she agreed, then bent closer to one of the skulls. "Sir... look at this."

One of the Hell-Spider skulls already had a bullet hole in it.

"There's no way," I gasped. "No one would come out this far." I looked at Ann-Marie's buffering band. Instead of five green lights, there were only four. "I mean, we're already losing signal. No one would have come out this far."

She was looking at another spider body, and pointed out a cluster of round holes on its side. The size of the entry wounds looked bigger than anything we carried by hand, and there was a burnt ring around each hole.

".50 cal chain gun?" I asked. "From a helo?"

"We would have heard about kills made that way," she said. "All of Immortal's and Omega's kills have been on the ground."

I sighed and started cutting through a neck with my knife. "Easier to explain than lightning snake bites on the bodies, I suppose." I keyed my mike. "Zaz, we've got them. Bring the Heavy and we'll start loading you up."

At the top of the hill, Juan was still watching the Hell-Spider when the bee returned, landing on the same spot of his arm and crawling around. He shook his arm again but this time the bee stayed. Juan brought that part of the exoskeleton near his face and blew it away. We were loading up the cargo rack on Zazlu's heavy with a second severed head when the bee settled on Juan's arm a third time and he raised the other metal hand of the exoskeleton up and slapped it down on the bee, hard.

Ann-Marie and I dropped into firing positions when we heard the single
CRACK
from the top of the hill, ringing out like a rifle shot.

"Juan! What's going on?" I demanded as Zazlu deployed his weapons, one bristling arm facing each way. "Is it the spider?"

"Naw, it was just a bee or something," he said. "Just dazed me a little."

"You fired a rifle at a bee?" Butcher asked.

"No man, it was the bee that fired on me!"

"That doesn't make sense," Zazlu said. "Have you been drinking your water?"

"I'm not seeing things! I'll show you the burn mark on the armor when you get here!"

I looked at Butcher, then at the round holes in the spider bodies. "Let's cut faster," I said, and we both went to work on opposite sides of the same neck.

That's when Juan saw his second bee, a tiny black dot in the sky trundling towards him. It bumbled closer, twenty feet above him, and then dive-bombed down into his chest and went off.

"Owww! Damn it!" he cried. The bee had exploded against the chest plate of the exoskeleton, but he said it still felt like getting punched in the ribs. "Guys, watch out for these bees! They really kick when they explode!"