Tchar fit right in with machinist mates.
21
“Holy grapp, the boat’s gone,” Gunga-Din said.
“We are so grapped,” Bischel added. “First a damned crabpus eats Berg’s armor then another one eats the grapping boat?”
“Stay frosty,” Onger snapped. “And watch your sectors. Until the Skipper says we can panic, we don’t panic.”
“Sergeant, our ride just got eaten,” Bisch pointed out. “I think it’s a perfect time to panic!”
“Can it,” Gunnery Sergeant Frandsen growled. “Panicking isn’t going to get nobody home. There’s no proof the boat’s destroyed. Until we’re sure it’s gone, we just assume it’s going to come back up. It’s a submarine.”
“Doctors,” MacDonald said over the open freq. “All things considered, I think we should withdraw.”
“Yes,” Dr. Dean said. “But what about the boat…”
“That is not a discussion for right now,” the Marine ground out.
“We need to withdraw,” Dr. Robertson said. “But there’s a problem.”
The large herbivores from the south were nearly opposite their position, skating wide of the human contingent. The large plates on their back were about ten meters across on the largest, but the creatures ranged down to “babies” that were only the size of rhinos. Instead of the relatively long and slender tentacles of most of the species, their legs were short and stumpy, holding them no more than a couple of meters off the ground.
“Back up into the longer grass?” MacDonald asked, switching to a discreet frequency.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, either,” Julia said, a tone of worry in her voice. “They’re feeding on the same sort of grass. But there’s a fringe that runs along the forest. They don’t eat that.”
“Poison?” MacDonald asked.
“No,” Julia said. “I think they’re afraid of something in the forest.”
The pack had been waiting patiently for the big herbivores to pass. They had shifted, slightly, when the herd of bipeds had crossed the open area. If they got to the edge of the grass, they were prey. The pack knew its dash distance and the speed of their prey. If the bipeds moved to the edge of the grass, they could get them.
But the big herbivores had moved away from the bipeds, fearing that which they did not understand. They were out of range. And the pack was hungry.
Hungry enough for one of the younger members to lose her patience and dart from cover.
“Movement!” Prabhu screamed. “Oh, Holy Vishnu!”
While not as big as the herbivores, the individual pack members were nearly three meters across the shell and two meters high on their long tentacles. Compared to Jaenisch’s Crab Lion, these were more like Crab Tyrannosaurs.
Prabhu fired low, scything into the tentacles and trying to cut the giant predators down. But it was a losing battle…
“Back!” MacDonald shouted. “First Platoon, hold position! Third, pull back and prepare to give cover fire! SF, get the scientists out of here!”
“Go, go!” Runner yelled, pushing the scientist towards the cape.
The herbivores had started to panic, lumbering into a run southwards, some of the bigger members breaking off to face the predators as the young shifted away from the threat.
The scientists were going to have to run right through them.
As the mandible crunched down around his middle and the armor started to smoke and buckle, Prabhu let out another scream, this time of rage.
“I am created Shiva, the Destroyer!” he shouted, sticking the muzzle of the minigun between the mandibles. “Die you mothergrapper!”
The stream of 7.62 mm bullets tore the monster’s brains apart and the mandibles separated but containment had been breached and Arun could smell the stink of the enzyme burning through his armor as he fell.
Onto his back. As the pack closed.
“Oh, grapp me,” Arun muttered as one of the mandibles bit down, ripping out his round feed. “I hope the next life is better than this one…”
“Around or through, Dr. Robertson?” Runner asked as they approached the defensive line of massive crabpus.
“Around,” Robertson said, panting. “You do not want to get near an angry elephant!” She swiveled her sensors to the rear where the line of predators had hit First Platoon and saw a Wyvern tossed through the air.
Dr. Dean was out in front of the rest of the party, having taken an early lead. And he wasn’t interested in professional biological input.
“Dr. Dean,” Runner shouted. “Go around them!”
“Grapp… you,” Dean panted. “I’m not going to get caught by…”
As he tried to pass between two of the huge crabpus, one lifted a massive foot and stamped down. The crunch was clearly audible through the armor.
“Aaaaagh!”
“There goes our geologist,” Runner said. “This is going to look great on my evaluation report.”
“I’m sure Mimi can fill in,” Dr. Robertson said. “Go north. Away from the rest of the herd.”
“Gunny!” Bischel shouted as the majority of the pack passed the fallen Hindu and charged into the Marines. “The grapping rounds are bouncing off!”
“Fire low, into their legs,” Gunny Frandsen ordered, moving forward in support.
“Alpha, move right,” Lieutenant Dorsett said, calmly. The six foot three “Mammoth” was a graduate of the Naval Academy in Annapolis and wasn’t about to let something like a charging band of invulnerable, elephantine, alien, predatory crabpus break his smooth. “Lay in defilading fire on the predators. Bravo, Charlie, hold position to screen…”
“Grapping DIE already!” Bisch shouted as the pack closed. He was pouring cannon fire into the pack but except for accidentally blowing off a couple of legs it wasn’t slowing them down any. One finally dropped back, too wounded to continue the assault, but…
“Onger!”
The sergeant’s ammo counter was dropping like a waterfall as he poured out four thousand rounds per minute of quarter-inch high-velocity fire, but the damned rounds were just bouncing off.
He’d slowed one down by hitting its legs but that was luck as much as anything. Gunga-Din had gotten one and two more had been put down by the combined fire from Alpha and Bravo but they were still coming. On Earth, predators would be turned by the sound of the fire, they’d quit attacking, they’d leave! These things just kept coming…
The pack barely paused as they cracked the latest suit of armor and tore at the insides, spreading carmine that disappeared on the vegetation.
First Sergeant Powell stood beside the CO watching the slaughter of the unit, then blinked.
“Sir, recommendation.”
“Anything,” the CO said. “Third, echelon left,” he continued, marking his designators. “Get those things off First so they can pull back.”
“All Marines,” the first sergeant said calmly. “Directly under the mandibles there is a curved patch. Concentrate fire on that curved patch.”
“Oh, grapp me,” PFC Walker said. The rangy West Virginian had wanted to be a Marine since the first time he saw Full Metal Jacket. But that movie had never covered being eaten by a giant grapping alien monster. On the other hand, Aliens had. And this sucked just as bad.