“Nope?”
“Nope,” she said. “Nada. Zilch. Nothing. I’ve got you, I’ve got that blip ahead of you that’s a suit, and that’s it for power supplies.”
“That sounds specific,” said Nate. “Like you want to say something else.”
“Did you bring a big gun?” she said.
Nate hefted Kohl’s rifle. It was a heavy action plasma affair, something that looked like it had come from military action. Twin barrels, rangefinder and massfinder for optimal charge per shot depending on target, big battery hanging out the ass of it. “Yeah, I got one from Kohl.”
“He’s awake?”
“I didn’t think he’d mind,” said Nate.
“Cool,” said Hope. “Thing is, you didn’t read the files, did you?”
“Files?”
“Right,” said Hope. “The Ezeroc come in different sizes.”
“Oh come on,” said Nate. “They seemed pretty annoying when there were thousands of them of just a little bit bigger than me.” Insects. Giant insects. You’re fighting a roach problem of epic proportions. He clamped his lips shut around a laugh that might have come out as a nervous giggle.
“There are huge ones,” she said. “Have fun dying. Or, you know, come on back. It’s warm here, and there’s cookies.” The comm clicked off.
Different sizes, huh? Nate hefted the rifle. Big game hunting it is.
• • •
The tower was dark and creepy. No other words for it. Dark because the damn lights were out, not a backup generator or power cell in the place to keep ’em on. Creepy, because the rusted fence was broken down and the place was crawling with vines and creepers and giant insects.
His sword was inside. Inside, and up.
He tried the comm. “Grace? Grace. It’s Nate.”
The line hissed at him, not the clear signal of tight comms, but interference. Something that sounded like voices, whispered at the edge of hearing.
Or, it’s just static. The place was creepy, and the creepy was creeping him out.
He set the comm to cycle his broadcast, then clicked it off. She’d get back to him, or she wouldn’t, and the suit could do the hard work without him wearing his voice hoarse.
So, what did we have here?
Creepy building: check.
Sign saying it was a science facility: also check.
Nasty-looking fence? Check on that too.
Nate tramped across the chain link fence, the thing rattling under his feet. He caught the hint of some other sound, more a sensation through his feet, and turned. His foot got snarled in the busted fence and he went down, just in time to see a massive — fuck that thing is huge! — insect bearing down on him. Where the Ezeroc he’d seen before were like a mad insect version of a centaur, this was more like an armored beetle. Wide, big crab-like claws, another six legs, and a horror mouth of transparent needle teeth.
He fell hard, his fingers jerking at the trigger of the rifle. There was a tenth of a second whine and then twin bolts of plasma spat out at the thing. Those twin bolts of plasma were a few thousand degrees C each, the kick of the rifle hard against his shoulder. The Ezeroc had a massive claw up in front of its face, where Nate had been firing, and the plasma hit, and … fizzled.
Nate looked at the rifle, then at the Ezeroc. At the rifle again. “Oh come on!” He readied the weapon again, pointed it at the Ezeroc, and flicked on the rangefinder and massfinder. The weapon cycled — never using this one again, it’s slower than a trade run to Ganymede — and then fired. Twin bolts of plasma blasted out, impacting with the Ezeroc. This time, cracks appeared in the claw, and the Ezeroc roared. It trampled towards Nate, who tried to move, but his foot was snared, caught in the fence. It swung at him.
The crack of the claw when it hit his helmet was like a thunderclap. Nate felt a horrible twinge in his leg as he was knocked free, but that was dwarfed by the pain in his head and neck, shortly followed by the pain in his back as he impacted with the side of the tower. The breath knocked from him, sounding loud in his helmet, and he lay on the ground for a couple of moments, unable to remember who he was, or why he was here.
Nate.
Sword.
Grace.
Got it. He clawed at the wall for support, pulled himself to his knees, and then the Ezeroc was on him again. Moves quick for such a big thing. It caught him in the side this time, knocking him away with the gentle touch of a locomotive. He screamed as something in his ribcage gave with a wet pop, and he flopped in the undergrowth like a landed fish. Nate had fallen on his rifle — how he still had that in his hand was a mystery — and he struggled to right himself. He could feel the drumming through the earth as the thing bore down on him.
He remembered those crab claws. Why hasn’t it snipped me in half? He looked up a split second before it hit him again, knocking him high up and over, and this time his shoulder dislocated. He didn’t have the breath left to scream. When Nate landed against a tree, he was trying to suck in air through a diaphragm that was paralyzed. He wanted to throw up, or breathe — just a teaspoon of air for Christ’s sake — but all the noise he could make were little hiccups.
All he’d wanted was his goddamn sword. That, and to have a conversation with Grace Gushiken.
And maybe get his completion bonus for taking the transmitter all the way out to this forsaken rock infested with killer bugs. And for rescuing the Rear Admiral, who was a real asshole. Just a little break, that’s all he needed, and here he was trying to suck air in the precious moments before he died.
Why was everything so hard? He tried to do the right thing. Look after people. Do the jobs on time. Not stiff his clients — except that one time, but they were huge assholes, like a collection of Penns. Maybe get one over on the Republic while he was at it, but who didn’t want to do that? What had it got him but a busted rib, dislocated shoulder, and a fatal appointment with a super crab.
The Ezeroc was almost on him again, and his adrenaline spiked higher if that was possible. His diaphragm gave a little spasm, and he coughed, and while he coughed his arm jerked. The arm that was still holding Kohl’s rifle. His finger clenched on the finger, and the rifle fired two more bursts of plasma. This surprised Nate, but it surprised the Ezeroc more, because the blasts went low. Under those massive armored claws, and hit a leg beneath it.
The leg exploded in a shower of barbecued lobster meat. The Ezeroc screamed, trampling its remaining five legs in a circle.
Well, that’s a thing. Nate squeezed the trigger again, blowing off another leg, and the Ezeroc toppled to the ground. Those legs were really clawing at the air now, lethal things each as wide as his two legs together. Nate wanted to pull himself clear, but his other arm was dislocated, and that wouldn’t do anyone any good. So he hefted the rifle again, took aim, and kept blowing legs off.
One of his shots missed, chewing into the underside of the Ezeroc, causing a rupture of fluids and scalded meat. It screamed even louder, if that was possible. Ah, hell with it, thought Nate, and just kept pulling the trigger on the plasma rifle until the screaming stopped.
Silence. Or, almost silence, a gentle hiss of air escaping from the crack in his visor. SUIT BREACH said his HUD.
Nate shouldered the rifle’s sling, then pulled himself upright using the tree. He leaned against it for a second, working himself up to the next bit, then rammed his shoulder into it. It went back into the socket with a pop, and he almost passed out. The only thing that stopped him falling over was the doses of stims and painkillers the suit was feeding him. He’d bought the suit at a crazy sale a couple jobs ago, the dealer promising a good emergency experience for a budget rate. Nate loved budget rates. He loved that it had a defibrillator built into it. Not that he wanted to test out how well it worked.