Warner watched the creature’s violent death throws and its explosive demise impassively. As the dust motes danced in the moonlight and floated down, he smiled. “That’s for Robbie.” He opened his hand and looked down at the dog tags, still encrusted in his friend’s dried blood. While the creature had been thrashing and screaming, he’d slipped his hand into his pocket, clutched the round metal discs into his hand and held on to them tight, feeling the edges pressing into the palm of his hand. Now, he slipped them back into his pocket for the last time and turned to Alpha Team.
Colby emerged from the shadows and walked across the floor, his footsteps making the softest of sounds and the Glock still in his right hand, just in case Binky had friends. He stopped in front of Warner and put his left hand on the lad’s shoulder. “You okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
Colby gave him a gentle smile. “You did good there, fella.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Think you could do that again?”
“Yes, sir. All day long.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” Colby’s face split into a wide grin and he looked back towards Gary and Micky. “Looks like we’ve got ourselves a new team member, lads. Waddya say?”
“I’d say he did pretty good.” Gary grinned and rested his M4 over his shoulder. “Mick?”
“Anyone who can face down a Taint in full yah-hoo mode is good in my book.” Micky nodded and gave Warner a thumbs up.
Colby turned back to Warner. “Looks like you passed, fella. If those two oiks say you’re good to go, you’re good to go.” He holstered the Glock. “Right then. Get Bravo team in here to do a sweep. Top to bottom. I want this place locked down until we’re absolutely sure it’s clear, okay?” His face darkened for a second. “And get a detail in to retrieve Corporal Moore’s remains.”
He looked at Warner. “We all lose friends, mate. That’s the way this gig works. You know what you’re signing up for now. You’ve got a missus and a kid. Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?”
Warner took a last look at the pile of ash that was all that was left of ‘Binky’. A draught blowing from underneath the broken front door was already dispersing the fine ash. In seconds, it was as if the creature had never existed.
Warner looked straight back at Colby, a determined look in his eyes. He was damned if his little boy was going to grow up in a world where these… things… existed. He’d seen what they could do first hand. His first hunt had gone from VR exercise to horrific reality in seconds. And if it could happen here, it could happen on the streets where his boy played, and where his wife walked.
No.
No, he couldn’t let that happen.
He would hunt these damn things until the day he died.
Terry Warner swallowed hard and nodded at Colby.
“Yes, sir. I’m sure.”
The Bani Protocols
Rose Blackthorn
Vida waited, crouched low to hide her silhouette. She leaned against a tree trunk, ready at the slightest warning to surge up or forward. Around her in the early pre-dawn darkness, leaves whispered in a fitful breeze. Insects had fallen silent, and songbirds had yet to begin their morning chorus. Still, breathing silently through parted lips, she waited.
Her heart thumped slowly, solidly in her chest. From a few yards to her right she sensed movement but didn’t react. Tighe was hidden there, as silent as she, impatient at the enforced delay. There was no point in rushing things; he knew that as well as she.
Something rustled farther back in the black shadows beneath the branches. Cautious steps moved closer, a nearly invisible figure slipping between the slender trunks. Vida closed her mouth and breathed slowly, tuning out the sound of her heart while she listened for the other’s approach. Her hands tightened on her weapon, but she didn’t arm it yet. In this preternatural quiet, even the slightest hum of its activation would warn their prey.
Stealthy but complacent, the ’ponera weaved through the underbrush on its way to the rift they’d tracked down. Glimmers of pale light glanced off its hard surfaces, and Vida followed its progress with only her eyes. Draped over one pair of the ’ponera’s long arms was the limp form of a child.
Vida clenched her jaw, nostrils flaring. How many had it brought back here?
As it neared the site of the rift, Vida heard a rustling from Tighe’s direction. The ’ponera heard it too, and twisted around more quickly than seemed possible. It dropped the unconscious child and charged, amazingly fast. A jagged line of bioelectricity crackled between the prongs of its jutting mandibles, allowing her to see its completely alien and hideous face. A bolt of energy came from Tighe’s position, which the ’ponera dodged.
Fast; it was so fast! Vida was up on her feet, her hands moving to complete the circuit that armed her rifle. The hum was low, but still caught the monster’s attention. Dodging Tighe’s shots, it jagged toward her. Vida threw herself sideways, twisting her left palm on the tech etchings. She rolled as the ’ponera launched at her. Tighe’s last shot glanced off the creature’s carapace and ricocheted past Vida’s head. The ’ponera fell toward her, two sets of serrated limbs reaching to rip at her. She pulled the rifle up and fired point blank, a dozen projectiles hammering at and then into its broad thorax. The rounds were hot, cauterizing as they passed through; but such rapid fire in such close quarters meant she got the messy end of the blowback. The ’ponera’s momentum carried it past her and it crashed into the underbrush and moved no more.
“You okay?” Tighe asked, his gun still held at the ready as he stared down at her.
“Yeah,” she said, turning her head as she spat. “Bug guts are my fave.”
His grin was wide and white. He didn’t comment, just reached out a hand to pull her up. “Nice center mass.”
“Huh.” Vida slid her hands on the tech etchings, matching her techtatts to the corresponding designs. In response, the rifle powered down and fell silent. “Hard to miss that close.” She turned from the dead ’ponera and back to the limp form of the child. “Medic?”
“Here.” Rakehall appeared and knelt near the unmoving kid. He dropped a satchel on the ground beside him and turned the child over, revealing the slack features of an unconscious boy no more than nine years old. “Heart’s beating, and he’s still breathing,” he said softly as he checked the kid out.
“All clear.” The voice on the comm was Bronze, calling out from the rear.
“We’d better check the rift.”
Vida nodded, leaving the kid to Rakehall’s capable hands. She and Tighe continued to the site of the rift, where the ’ponera had been headed with its prize.
“You got it?” Tighe asked.
Vida knew what lay behind the question; closing a rift was big juju, and they’d been on the move for two days with no rest and little food.
“Absoliman,” she said, answering in her mother’s language. Absolutely. She let her rifle hang on a strap over her shoulder and faced the thin spot in the fabric of reality. They had tech to find it, define it; but she could feel it, with the senses she’d inherited from both mother and father. Still and silent, she measured her breath and slowed her heart. When she was ready, she played origami with her fingers, meshing and rearranging her digits to line up the corresponding lines and geometric designs of the techtatts that covered her browned skin from fingernails to shoulders. When the proper channels were matched, the tech implanted within the designs glowed unearthly blue.