“Alan! Behind you!”
He and Ajaya were already aware, moving into a diamond-shaped defensive formation, backs to Walsh and Gibbs, as the animals gained more ground, slowly surrounding them.
She dropped Tom’s arm. She hated herself for doing it, but it couldn’t be helped. She slipped the breathing gear off her back and grasped it with her left hand, just as Walsh had done. Then she palmed the cold steel of the Beretta in her right and flicked off the safety with her thumb.
She couldn’t let them get cut off from her. She refused to lose all of them to this madness.
Her body vibrated with tension, itching for movement. She blinked in slow motion, a hyper-awareness sharpening her senses. She took off at a run. Nothing would get by her. She couldn’t allow it. Every pounding heartbeat brought her closer. They came to meet her with a greedy glint in every eye.
She swung her left arm like a metronome. Each sweep cleared the path between her and the others. She glanced back. One of the larger ones was smart enough to see she was distracted by the smaller ones and snuck by, heading for Tom.
She raised the weapon and braced herself. Without a second of hesitation, she fired. The recoil painfully compressed every joint in her wrist, elbow and shoulder. The scent of hot metal and burnt carbon stung her nostrils, but she’d hit it. It went down, possibly only stunned, but it was down for the moment, anyway.
“Jane—try to get away!” Alan shouted.
She didn’t reply. Resolution pushed her forward, inch by inch. She ignored the ache in her left arm and kept swinging. If she missed a shot the first time, she hit it the second. As she drew closer to the rest of the crew, the monsters came on her harder, faster.
Some of them got too close. She kicked at them viciously, hoping the military-issued boots were tough enough to protect her from the flailing stingers.
She curled her lip in contempt. The nepatrox would just as soon have a bite out of each other as they would out of the humans. The mass of them hissed and spat and sniped at each other as they advanced. There was but five feet left between her and the rest of the group. It might as well have been 100, because it was swarming with nepatrox.
The others were trying to use their tanks in a similar manner but they were tightly grouped and fighting both sides at once. They were being overwhelmed. They weren’t going to make it unless they tried something else. They needed some kind of strategy. She cast around, taking in the immediate environment.
Now that the lights were on, she could see there was a door, a few feet back and to her left. If that room were empty—if they could get inside—they would have the time to hatch a proper plan to get to the capsule and escape. That was as far as she could think, for now. They couldn’t keep going on this way. There were too many and more kept coming. They were all getting tired.
At worst, it would be just a break. Maybe they could pick off the larger ones, one at a time, through a crack in the door. At best, there might be something inside that room they could use. Tom was the only hitch in the plan.
She darted back to the door and tapped the door control. The door slid up. She smashed a few more animals then slipped inside. The lights came on, but nothing came to greet her. It appeared to be empty. Not even a slug. It was full of crates, like the first room they’d entered on the ship.
This room, like many in the storage hold, was vast. There was another door that opened into the room about 40 feet on the other side of Tom, closer to the deck transport. She wanted to kick herself. If only she’d dragged him that 40 feet farther or noticed the door sooner.
Old doubts prickled at her. She forced herself to ignore them and pounded back up to the group. “I’ve got a plan!”
“Oh, yeah?” Walsh called. “Let’s hear it!”
She looked down. A creature lashed its tail at her, way too close for comfort. She jumped back just in time, then bludgeoned the animal. Unless she got the angle just right, brute clubbing was far more effective at taking a nepatrox out than the pistol was.
“We’re going through this door. Ajaya, you’ll get there first, so you’ll have your hand on the door control and shut that door the second the last man is through. That’s your job.”
Ajaya nodded crisply. “Affirmative.”
“Ron, you’re the fastest runner. Once you’re through, I need you to head straight for the other door that opens to the corridor.” She gestured behind her with the pistol, toward Tom and the deck transport beyond him. “Don’t look back. Just get there and open it. I want you to lay down cover fire from there.”
Gibbs met her eyes and bobbed his head. “Understood.”
“Walsh, Alan, your task is to kill anything that gets through that door before it closes.”
“And what is your part in this plan, Holloway?” Walsh hollered.
“I’m going for Tom.”
Alan was shaking his head. “Jane—”
She cut him off with an order, “Spread out. You’re too bunched up. Give yourself room to move. Start moving toward the door.”
She clubbed a small one, then grit her teeth and fired at one that was getting too close to Alan. Her aim was true. It fell over on its side.
Alan jumped. “Jesus Christ, Jane.”
She ignored him and fired at one scuttling down the corridor, but all she got was a hollow clicking noise. She made an angry, frustrated sound. “I’m reloading! Someone shoot the one that’s going for Tom!” She fumbled with the release until the spent cartridge clattered to the floor.
There was hissing and magenta and orange flapping at her knee. Dammit! She hopped back and raised the canister a fraction of a second too late. The creature’s tail was quicker. It slashed at her leg. She grunted in disbelief before smashing the animal to bits.
“Jane, are you hit?”
“No! Stop looking at me and concentrate on what you’re doing!” She leveled a few more nepatrox before she could get a glimpse at her leg. She felt a small amount of pain in that leg that seemed to be growing. The fabric of her pants’ leg was torn, but she couldn’t see skin.
She stomped her foot as she moved a step closer to the group. She felt that. That was reassuring. She pushed down fear and ignored the pain. She’d be safe soon enough.
Over the din, Ajaya enunciated, “On a count of three, step back, Jane, and reload. I’m going to try something.”
Jane sent her a terse nod. Ajaya counted. Jane readied herself to slip the harness over her arm, go for a clip, and back out of range—in a single, time-saving motion.
Ajaya called out, “Three!”
Jane leapt back. As she slipped the new magazine into place, she looked up to see Ajaya executing some kind of ninja-worthy move.
With her tank of compressed air held neatly before her, Ajaya went low to the floor and spun in a swift, forceful arc, sweeping the animals out of the way, effectively clearing a swath before her. Then, in a sprightly leap, she was one foot closer to the open door and safety.
“Move!” Jane yelled. The men were reacting sluggishly to the sudden advancement. “Do that again, Ajaya!”
Jane put two bullets down the throat of a large animal that was under the mistaken impression that it was about to face off with her and smiled as the image of Indiana Jones shooting the swordsman in Cairo spontaneously came to mind for a split second. She vaulted back at Ajaya’s three-count, attempting a similar move as she went, shoving them sideways and back. The creatures were flung in their wake, sliding into each other, disorienting the general mass of them for just a moment.
They were almost there. It was working. She couldn’t keep the grim smile from her lips as she kicked one in the side of the head and put another one down with a round into its yawning mouth, spattering its brains in every direction.