I saw Gunny do a stutter-step and drop back into the brush. More flashes of pulsed energy, then she was up again and running toward us.
We didn’t stop until we were into the cleared area outside the compound. Gunny and Hercules knelt, weapons raised, ready to blow away whatever came out of the brush.
Nothing stirred.
We stayed that way for a full five minutes. I was listening so hard I’m pretty sure I stopped breathing.
“Noog?”
“Yeah, Gunny?”
“Check to see if our alien friend heard all that racket.” I checked the sensor readout. None of the occupants of the compound had moved.
“I think we’re good, Gunny.”
She lowered her weapon and stood. “All right, gentlemen, let’s complete our mission.”
Then she fell flat on her face.
Hercules got to Gunny first and rolled her over. I snapped on my helmet light. Our squad leader’s eyes were wide open, the muscles of her face rigid. Her pupils did not respond to the light. Hercules ran his hands over the armor on her legs. “She must have been bitten by that thing,” he said. “Oh no.” He pulled his hand from behind her right knee and it came away dark with blood. That’s the one chink in a Marine’s armor—to allow us to kneel.
The big man’s hands shook as he found the catch on Gunny’s armor. The swelling was so bad, I heard a sucking sound as he stripped the armor off her leg. It didn’t even look like a leg anymore, more like a giant flaccid worm with tendrils of dark veins running through it.
“Mambo, this is Herc.” His voice was breaking. “Medevac now—”
“Wait!” I said. “I have a better idea.” I bolted to the five-sided bell and started ringing it as hard as I could.
Avalon stood in a pale nightgown made translucent by the glare of Hercules’ helmet light behind her. She stared down at Gunny’s body, her eyes taking in the ghostly white flesh of the still swelling leg and our battle gear.
“You were coming for K-Tor,” she said.
“Yes,” I replied. “But, please... help her. You must know what kind of animal did this.”
The other two couples from the compound huddled behind her. The alien was nowhere to be seen. “Why?” Avalon said, her tone flat and hard. “Why should I help you? You would have killed him—”
“If you help her, I promise you nothing will happen to the alien,” I said. “You have my word.”
“He has a name.”
“K-Tor,” I said almost screaming it. “His name is K-Tor. Please, help her. Before it’s too late!”
“What about him?” Avalon said, turning her glare on Hercules. “And the pilot? Do they agree to this?”
Hercules looked at me from beneath his visor, his face a mask of indecision. Finally, he nodded. “There! He said yes. Now please help her!”
Avalon’s eyes tracked from Gunny’s pale face to Hercules then back to me. She nodded. “Let’s get her inside.” Hercules started to kneel next to Gunny, but Avalon stopped him. “We’ll take it from here.” K-Tor appeared at her side as if she’d just conjured him up. He was bare to the waist, and his dark skin seemed to absorb rather than reflect light. He knelt next to Gunny and lifted her inert form while Avalon stabilized the injured leg. Gunny’s body was rigid in his arms. I wondered if we were too late.
“You stay here and wait for Mambo,” I said to Hercules. “Tell her the deal. The Scythian lives.”
“Gunny won’t like that deal, Noog.”
“Yeah, well, if she lives, she can kick my ass.” I tried to sound like the man in charge, but I had no authority to cut a deal with the enemy under any circumstances. I ran after Gunny’s body rather than wait for Hercules to figure out I was in over my head.
The medlab in the compound was modern, much better than I expected, and I was surprised to see K-Tor donning medical scrubs while Avalon started an IV in Gunny’s arm. She spoke to him in soft, whirring, chirpy sounds as she worked and he responded in kind.
“Yes, I’ve learned his language,” she said when I raised a questioning eyebrow. “He tells me I have the vocabulary of a preschooler.” K-Tor cracked a smile.
“He knows human anatomy? He’s a qualified doctor?”
Avalon faced me, and I got another dose of her withering blue eyes. “We’re both doctors, both very well qualified to deal with a nasty sandshark sting.” She flicked her hand toward the doorway. “You can stand over there. Out of our way.”
I stripped off my body armor and piled it in the corner, then leaned against the wall watching them work. K-Tor’s slender brown fingers gently probed Gunny’s leg as if searching for something. With his finger centered on a spot just above her knee, he held out his hand and Avalon dropped a laser scalpel in it. When he slashed across the white skin, a thick brown gel oozed out of the wound and a foul odor filled the room. He inserted a pair of forceps into the incision and cocked his head while he fished around. Finally, he clamped the forceps closed and jerked them out. A hooked thorn about the size of my pinky finger was trapped between the blades of the surgical instrument.
The end of the thorn was wiggling like a worm on a hook.
“The sandshark buries a live parasite in its victim,” the alien said in his mechanically translated voice. “We’re lucky it hasn’t multiplied yet.”
I gulped.
K-Tor and Avalon set to work draining the brown ooze from Gunny’s leg by cutting small incisions in the flesh and inserting drain lines. The laser scalpel flared and died, but both of them had their hands occupied. Avalon looked over her shoulder at me. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Noog—I mean, Tom.” I got to my feet.
“Okay, Tom.” She nodded her head at the far side of the room. “Around the corner is a supply closet. We need another Type M power supply for the scalpel.”
I edged past them. The supply closet was next to a room with a thin curtain drawn across the opening. A soft light pulsed through the material.
“Third shelf from the top,” Avalon called. I ran my finger along the edge of the shelf and found what I was looking for.
“Got it,” I said, shutting the closet door. I angled my head so I could peek through the gap into the next room, then I pushed the curtain aside. A medical examination table dominated the center of the space. In the background, I could see a bank of monitors glowing. One flashed a message. I squinted to read the words: gene sequencing complete.
“Tom!”
I hustled back into the operating room with the power supply. Once they had drains inserted, they packed a heavy, green poultice around Gunny’s limb and wrapped it until she looked like she had a tree trunk for a leg. I rested my head against the wall, watching them work, wondering. I was no medical expert, but I knew I’d just seen a very high-end genetics lab and I was watching two very skilled doctors.
The handheld sensor was hanging from my utility belt. I unclipped it and turned it on, holding it in my lap, dialing the sensor range down to the lowest and narrowest possible settings.
Two signals showed on my screen. Two Scythian signals. Avalon walked to the side of Gunny’s bed, giving me a clear read on K-Tor. Strong signal. I angled the device toward Avalon.
I got another Scythian signal. Not as strong as K-Tor’s, but an unambiguous alien signature.
Impossible, I told myself. Every report that had ever been published said our species were genetically incompatible. Everyone said so. I gathered my body armor and stood up. The Zeron scanner clattered to the floor. Avalon picked it up. She stared at it for a long moment before handing it back to me. “Thank you for your help, Tom.” Her eyes sought mine, but I looked at the floor.