“Careful,” Layla said. “There’s more debris up here.”
Les checked his HUD again. The radiation levels inside Red Sphere were too low to register, but he still didn’t want to tear his suit or a boot on a snag. He brought his gun back up and kept moving toward an intersecting corridor.
“Take a left,” Timothy said.
Michael walked around the corner, then waved his laser rifle at a translucent web blocking the passage.
“Shit. I’m…,” he said, struggling.
Layla pulled the knife from her duty belt and cut through what appeared to be a spider’s web Michael had stepped into. While he was getting free of the sticky strands, the others all looked for the creature that had spun the web.
“Not detecting any life-forms,” Timothy said.
“So this is hundreds of years old?” Michael held up his left hand, the glove still covered in the white substance.
“I doubt that,” Layla said.
Michael wiped his hand on the bulkhead and started walking. Layla looked over at Les, shrugged, and followed Michael.
Their next turn was at a stairwell. Every step Les took, his mind raced with questions. How could a spider live here all this time unless there was an ecosystem they didn’t know about?
Timothy coalesced in front of the team, looking up from two stairs below Michael. “Commander, I’m not getting any electrical outputs down here, but I am seeing something quite unusual. Aside from your three heat signatures, Deliverance is now detecting a faint heat signature three levels below us, but it is not from the exhaust plume of a defector.”
“Maybe it’s the spider,” Michael said.
“Doubtful, Commander,” Timothy replied. “This entity is the size of a person.”
Layla stopped on the stairs. “Maybe a really big spider?”
“Perhaps,” Timothy said. “Or it could be a false positive, since the chances of finding anything alive down here are, for all practical purposes, nil.”
“I think we need to check this out,” Michael said. “You good with that, Lieutenant?”
Les took in a deep breath. He really didn’t like the idea of looking for some mutated bug the size of a human, but his scientific side itched to find out what was causing the anomalous reading.
“LT?” Michael entreated.
In answer, Les walked past Michael and Layla.
“I’ll take point this time,” he said.
The battle for the coastal city raged in the distance. X and the Barracudas moved silently along the remains of a three-story brick mansion with a tile roof that was mostly intact.
A brick-and-stone pathway meandered across a courtyard. Fountains and upended sculptures of lions and other old-world creatures marked the terrain.
Rhino held up a fist, then motioned for the team to get down.
A pair of Sirens sailed over the rooftop and flapped away, their eyeless faces scanning the ground with echolocation or whatever they used to hunt their prey.
The electronic wail that followed told X they had been spotted. Rhino, apparently realizing the same thing, flashed a hand signal toward a brick building on the eastern edge of the property.
The roof, once glass to support an indoor greenhouse, was gone but for a few jagged shards attached to the metal support beams.
This wasn’t the first time X had walked into a building that reminded him of some prehistoric monster’s rib cage. The curved metal bones rose overhead, some of them broken and hanging loose—daggers that could impale a man.
Rhino directed the team to fan out, away from the broken-out windows that provided an aerial view inside the building. X pulled out his battery unit, powering down so the beasts couldn’t detect his energy signature.
He kept close to the western wall, on the left side of an isle framed by hundreds of concrete and stone planters. Most of the pots were cracked and broken.
Only one plant remained.
A flashing orange stem supported a barbed ball of closed petals from a planter two rows down. X approached cautiously, using the glow from the plant and the sporadic flashes of lightning to guide him through the destroyed greenhouse. He had seen one of these creatures on the surface before and knew that getting too close could result in a nasty bite, injecting venom that would make for an even nastier death.
Rhino, Wendig, and Whale moved down the other aisles, but Fuego lumbered down the aisle of broken pots with Ricardo, both of them oblivious to the threat. As they approached, the stem began to move, creating a strobe-like effect of orange light.
The petals opened, exposing a circular jaw and fangs the length of a finger, each of them dripping purple fluid. The barbed petals shot forward and latched on to Fuego’s left arm. He gave a muffled cry of surprise that echoed in the broad open space.
X drew his sword and brought the blade down on the extended stem, severing it. Green fluid shot across the floor, spattering Fuego’s armor.
Ricardo laughed uproariously, the noise crackling through the ruined greenhouse, but Rhino didn’t find it amusing. He hurried over, grabbed the spiked ball of petals still attached to Fuego’s armor, and tore them off.
X would have laughed if not for the flicker of movement across the room. All at once, a dozen of the bizarre flowers rose up on thick stems.
Fuego ignited his flamethrower and engulfed the mutant flora in a wave of fire before Rhino could stop him. The plants shook as the flames consumed them, and it took only a few seconds for the fragile stems and petals to wither and die, filling the pots with ash.
“¡Imbécil!” Rhino growled. He looked skyward at a Siren swooping down toward the flames. The rise and fall of the ethereal screech receded above them as the beast sailed away to alert its cohorts.
X secured the battery unit back in its chest slot to bring his HUD and NVGs back online. Reaching over his shoulder, he drew the short spear and waited with the sword in one hand, and the spear in the other.
The Barracudas moved out into combat intervals as a second electronic wail answered the first.
Rhino pointed his double-headed spear toward the exit at the other end of the greenhouse.
The men cautiously made their way down the aisles, helmets turned skyward. Lightning forked through the clouds, and in its glow, a missile came shooting down.
Tucking its wings, the Siren smashed into the metal bones of the ceiling, breaking them like so many twigs and hitting the floor, where it wrapped its body with its wings and crashed into a planter near Whale.
Still wrapped up, it barrel-rolled through several pots, crushing them and the smoldering remains of the poisonous plants. Whale jumped clear, dropping the Minigun as he hit the ground.
The Barracudas all moved to help him dispatch the beast, but it was just a distraction. By the time Whale was on his feet with his axe in hand, three more dirty-white torpedoes crashed through the metal framework.
A draft of air hit X, and he looked up as a beast lowered through the gaping hole, flapping its wings to slow its descent. The long, spiked tail whipped, and a pasty, wrinkled face opened to let out a raucous whine.
X hurled his spear into its gut, then ran for cover. Concrete and stone shattered all around as other beasts bolted away from the first gunshots.
Rhino stabbed at one of the creatures and retreated with Wendig toward Whale, who was pinned down by a massive Siren. He punched the beast with his brass knuckles, breaking its jaw, and then pushed it off him.
In less than thirty seconds, the team had been divided: X was cut off with Ricardo and Fuego on one side of the greenhouse, and Whale, Wendig, and Rhino were on the other.
Another Siren crashed through the ceiling and twisted to scan the room, baring jagged teeth.