The alien was on its feet now, and plainly in control of the situation again; the cannon stayed up and ready, but didn’t lock on or fire again. Instead, the creature advanced deliberately toward Schaefer.
It was bleeding from a gash across its chest, and one hand and its mouth were dripping greenish goo-Schaefer was able to see that much, even dazed as he was. At least he had hurt the thing.
In fact, it looked angry. It was so alien Schaefer couldn’t be sure, but he thought something about the eyes looked really seriously pissed.
”Come on, stud,” he said, struggling to stand upright and meet the thing head-on. “Give us a kiss.”
The creature didn’t say a thing as it stepped toward him; it just raised its right fist.
With a click, those double blades on the back of its wrist snapped into place.
”You!” someone shouted.
Schaefer blinked away his own blood in time to see Ligacheva leap forward as the creature turned its head. The thing had been so focused on Schaefer it hadn’t seen the Russian…
Or her weapon. Ligacheva had an AK-47 in her hands, and when the monster turned to face her she thrust the muzzle into its open mouth and fired.
The specifications for the AK-47 say it fires six hundred rounds per minute, but the standard magazine only holds thirty rounds-three seconds at full auto. Standard use is two- or three-shot bursts, to conserve ammunition.
Ligacheva, just then, didn’t give a shit about conserving ammunition; she kept the trigger jammed down tight until the full clip was expended.
That was perhaps the longest three seconds of Schaefer’s life as Ligacheva emptied the weapon into the monster’s face. The creature didn’t budge; it stood and took it as glowing yellow blood and shredded yellow flesh and fragments of white, needle-sharp teeth sprayed out the back of its skull.
One clawed hand reached toward the heavy gauntlet on the opposite wrist, as if trying to reach some of the controls on the wristband, then fell limp. The black tube on the left shoulder rose up and began to swivel.
Then, at last, as Ligacheva’s finger clicked uselessly on the trigger of an empty weapon, before the shoulder cannon could lock on to its target, the creature tottered and fell, toppling forward onto the lieutenant, knocking her flat on her back in the snow.
The shoulder cannon jerked and fell still.
Schaefer cleared his eyes of blood as best he could and staggered over to where the two of them lay. Ligacheva, trapped beneath the thing, stared up at him with terror-filled brown eyes.
”Is it dead?” she asked unsteadily, her breath little more than a gasp due to the weight on her chest.
Schaefer bent down and heaved the thing off her, rolling it to one side.
”It’s not exactly dancing,” he said. He sat down abruptly, not caring that the action split the seams on the thighs of his snowsuit, spilling yellow goo a few shades lighter than the stuff smeared all over the dead alien.
At least the stuff from the suit didn’t glow in the dark, he thought.
Then he looked over at Ligacheva, who was sitting up now, staring down at her dead foe.
”Nice save,” he said. “Thanks.”
”Is it over?” she asked. “Was this what killed all my men and the workers at the station?”
Schaefer looked around carefully before answering, peering both ways down the canyon.
”I get the feeling that old Lunchmeat here was just a security guard,” he said. “A sentry, keeping an eye on things. If there were more right here we’d probably be dead by now, but I’d bet there are more of them down the road there, just where your scientist buddy’s map says the ship is.”
Ligacheva got to her feet, brushed glowing slime from the front of her overcoat, and looked down at the dead creature. “If it is as you say,” she said, “its friends will not be happy when they learn this one is gone.”
Schaefer smiled humorlessly and wiped blood from his face again. “I’d say you’re right, and that suits me just fine,” he said. He spotted his dropped blanket and recovered it, wrapping it around his head as much to stanch the flow of blood as for warmth.
Maybe it was the loss of blood affecting his senses, or his recent exertion, or maybe the ravine blocked the wind, or maybe it was something else, but right now he didn’t feel the cold quite as much as he had.
”Are you all right?” Ligacheva asked.
”I’m fine,” Schaefer said. “You mentioned this boy’s pals,” he said. He parodied a bow, then pointed down the canyon toward the alien ship’s location. “Shall we take a little hike and give them the bad news?”
”Yes,” Ligacheva said. “Let’s do that.”
She ejected the magazine from her AK-47, then picked up one that someone had dropped during the massacre. She rammed it into place, then looked around at the bodies of her men-or rather Yashin’s men.
She stared at the dead monster again.
”Should we strip this one?” she asked. “Its equipment might be useful.”
”If we knew how to use it,” Schaefer said. “Sure, the science boys would love to have it, but let’s pick it up on the way back, shall we? There might be booby traps, and I’d rather not worry about them until after we’ve had a look at whatever’s around the bend here.”
Ligacheva hesitated. She reached down toward the monstrous corpse.
The shoulder cannon swiveled toward her.
She froze, staring at the black tube. Carefully she pulled her hand away, preparing to fling herself sideways if the cannon fired.
The tube did not move again. She waited and watched, but it remained motionless.
She didn’t know whether that final movement had been caused by some final twitch of the creature’s body, or some unfinished task the device had been performing, or some sort of automatic protective system. She decided she didn’t care-Schaefer was right, the body might be booby-trapped, and stripping it could wait.
She straightened up slowly, watching the black tube. It never moved.
She stepped back, away from the body, then turned to face Schaefer.
”Let’s go,” she said.
Chapter 27
“General Mavis?” the aide said. “If I might have a word with you in private, sir?”
Mavis tore his gaze away from the video monitors and glowered at the aide, recognizing him as White House staff. He pointed down the hall. “My office,” he said.
A moment later, as the aide closed the door, Mavis demanded, “What is it?”
”They know, General,” the aide replied immediately. “The Russians know everything.”
Mavis frowned. “What do you mean, ‘everything’? Just what do they know?”
”I mean the president just received a private cable from the Russian president, telling him that they knew we’d sent in a team with orders to capture or destroy the alien ship. The Russians are pissed as hell; they’re threatening war if we don’t get our people out of there or order them to surrender.”
”War?” The general snorted. “Those bastards can barely feed their own people or keep their tanks running, and they’re going to take us on?”
”They still have most of their nuclear arsenal, sir,” the aide pointed out.
”Yeah, with an anticipated seventy percent failure-on launch rate, thanks to their manufacture and maintenance…”
”Which they allowed for in building the damn things. Even if only thirty percent get through…”
”That’s thirty percent that launch.”
”Still, sir, the throw weight…” The aide caught himself. “Why are we arguing this? With all due respect, sir, we don’t want a war with the Russians in any case.”