Destroyer grabbed Sarge under the arms, pulled him from the ATV just before it went up in a fireball.
All of them — even the enemy — were knocked flat by the secondary explosion. Reaper’s jacket caught fire; Duke had been stunned; Destroyer’s eyebrows had been burned off. He must have been a terrifying sight as he got to his feet, smoke rising from his brows as he stood over Sarge, firing his chaingun, mowing down the surprised insurgents. The guerillas had expected to find these outlander ’Privines’ without any fight left in them. Duke and Reaper opened up on the enemy on one side, Destroyer on the other.
Sarge had gotten movement back, some of the mist cleared — and looked up to see Destroyer towering over him like a giant statue, an ancient wonder of the world. Sarge was flat on his back and Destroyer was standing over him, boots planted to either side of his chest, ready to go down protecting his NCO.
When he’d run through the last bullet on that chaingun, he’d run through all the guerillas, too. Twelve of them were lying sprawled on the face of the dune, blood seeping into the yellow sand. Dead or dying.
Then Destroyer had tossed the gun aside, stepped back, and hunkered down, helped Sarge up. Sarge had tried to walk — and had collapsed. He’d sustained a pretty serious concussion.
Destroyer shrugged and picked Sarge up, only grunting once with effort, slung him over his shoulder, and carried him — a man who weighed as much as Destroyer himself — off down the road, toward the Marine outpost, seven miles away.
Now that, Sarge thought, was a real set of balls. Destroyer was a helluva damn soldier.
He remembered all this, thought all this, as he stared down into the holding pit, his gunlight picking out the two bodies on the floor, wrecked cadavers still smoking and bloody, barely recognizable: Destroyer and the monster he’d killed, locked in lethal, terminal embrace.
Sarge let out one long low rumble, deep in his chest, which is as close as he ever got to expressing grief, and went to find a ladder.
In the wormhole chamber, Pinky was thinking about Sam. He’d always liked and respected her. He hoped she was going to get through this. He suspected few would.
A sudden motion from the monitor drew his attention back to the crisis at hand. He checked the squadron thumbnails. Sarge was now jogging down a corridor where the lights flickered on and off. Duke was looking at Sam —
Pinky scowled. Duke’s cam was squarely pointed toward Sam’s rear, as she worked over a table. Though the cam was on Duke’s chest, you could tell by the centeredness of the image that he was staring at her ass.
“What a dog,” Pinky muttered.
He looked at the other thumbnails — Portman’s guncam was pointing under the door of the bathroom stall…
And something was moving toward Portman’s stall. Moving toward that camera angle…something big. Moving slowly, in a careful way. The way an animal does — when it’s stalking prey.
Pinky stared — then found his voice, hitting the comm button. “Portman!” Pinky was yelling. “Holy shit, Portman, get out of the bathroom. Sarge! Portman! Can you hear me!”
No response. Portman had cut off all input from the others. Pinky could see what was going to happen to Portman and had no way to tell him about it.
In the lab bathroom, adjusting the equipment, Portman was feeling nervous about Destroyer. He’d heard him shouting to come out. Easy enough to ignore that. Then there was another noise from out there — something crashing around maybe. But he’d been listening to his headset, not really paying attention.
But finally it occurred to him that maybe Destroyer had been jumped by one of those things…
Fuck it. He was going to finish what he’d started, then he’d check on Destroyer. What he was trying to do here might well save Destroyer’s life.
Another moment’s adjustment, and he got the quantum-send connection he was looking for. He let out a relieved breath and hit SEND, transmitting his digitally recorded message home. He hoped.
The comm screen announced:
Transmission sent. Time until reception
2:56:18…17…6…
Fucking hell. Almost three hours before the message arrived through the Ark transfer.
Okay, so he’d get in trouble later, when the reinforcements showed up. Sarge might haul him up on charges for disobeying orders — but most likely he’d take care of it himself: beat the crap out of him. Maybe kick him out of the unit. So fucking what. He’d never belonged there anyway. They’d never really accepted him. Especially Sarge — who’d had to let him into the unit only because Portman’s uncle, in Marines Op, had pulled some strings. Fuck ’em. Let ’em punish him.
It was better than being dead.
Anyway, he had to get out of here and find Destroyer — even that stone-cold killer might need some backup…
Portman plugged his guncam cable back in, re-tuned his comm, immediately hearing Sarge calling to him:
“Portman — what’s your position…get out of the bathroom, repeat, get out of the bathroom!”
Portman swallowed. He dropped the earpiece from his ear.
“Portman, we’re tracking something —!” came Reaper’s voice, distant and staticky from the fallen earpiece.
He reached down and switched the comm off, not wanting whatever was hunting him to hear it jabbering.
Silence. And then a snuffling sound. A scrape, from outside the cubicle…
He opened his mouth to call out, to ask if it was Destroyer — and then thought better of it.
He knew damned well it wasn’t Destroyer.
Slowly, feeling the sweat start popping out on his forehead, holding his breath, Portman bent down and laid hold of his rifle, very slowly picked it up, trying to make no noise at all…but the strap scraped on the concrete floor.
Portman winced and looked into the breech — the weapon was unloaded. He fumbled in his pocket for a clip.
Something was definitely breathing out there. There was a sharp smell, and the sound of claws on the floor…
Portman tried to load the gun — and the clip fell from his shaking hands. It skidded with a rattle under the cubicle to his right.
Immediately, something large snorted in reaction, on the other side of the cubicle wall.
Trembling, Portman knelt and looked under the divider — there’s the clip. He couldn’t see anything else over there. Just the toilet and his ammo. He reached for the clip…couldn’t quite get it. He got down lower, the floor cold under his fingers, and squeezed partway under the divider, swiping at the clip…almost had it…But…he was stuck under the divider. Christ!
Grimacing with discomfort he forced himself a little farther — almost laughing at the ludicrousness of his position.
Don’t you fucking laugh, he told himself. You’re on the edge of hysteria. Stay fucking frosty. Almost got the damn thing.
Then he heard the creature again. Snort. The click-click of claws…
Where was that clip? There! Got it. He writhed back into his stall, sat up, pressed the clip in place as quietly as possible, and stood. He took a breath, dizzy from holding it, and slowly pressed the door open with the muzzle of his gun, inching out to look into the bathroom, finger on the trigger, ready to blow the thing’s head off.