A reedy cheer went up from the Sentinels when their objective came down as if to meet them.
Hale lifted his glasses to watch the shuttle’s progress, and was just in time to spot one of the Hybrids who had been hiding in the rocks downslope from the wreck. The creature popped up and tried to run, but seconds later it threw its hands into the air and mouthed a silent scream as it disappeared under the advancing beetle-shaped wreck. Instantly it was lost from sight altogether.
Hale turned toward Nash and saw a wide grin spread across the officer’s face. Involuntarily, he grinned back.
“We need to hurry, sir,” he said quickly. “Your plan took the stinks by surprise, but it won’t take them long to recover. I suggest that you board the shuttle as quickly as possible. I’ll send Private Unver along to provide security and carry your tools.
“Thirty minutes, sir… That’s the most I can give you… So make them count.”
The rock slide had stalled by then, and while the wreck hadn’t slid all the way down the hill, it was at least four hundred feet closer. Nash could have taken offense to the way in which Hale had given him orders but knew the other officer was correct. “Thank you, Lieutenant,” Nash replied. “I’ll get right to work.”
Hale briefed Unver, and sent both men scrambling uphill, then turned his attention to Kawecki and Alvarez. They placed some of their men in strategic positions just below the wreck, where Chimeran projectiles couldn’t reach them.
“Kawecki… take First Squad, and half of Second uphill, past the wreck, and prepare a primary position plus two fallbacks. I don’t expect you to kill every Chimera on the butte. Just slow the freaks down. Once you fall back to the third position, the one immediately above the wreck, be sure to pull Nash out.” Kawecki nodded, his features set.
“As for you,” Hale said as he turned to Alvarez, “I want you to take four of your men down to secure the back door and guard the LZ. Be ready to provide covering fire for Kawecki and his people as they pull out. Questions?”
“How ′bout some command-detonated mines, sir?” Kawecki asked. “We could place them upslope from position one.”
“Good idea,” Hale said approvingly. “That’ll give the Hybrids something to think about as they come down. Don’t blow more than one at a time though… We don’t want another landslide.
“Anything else?
“No? Then let’s do this thing.”
The shuttle was roughly the size of two city buses sitting side by side, and had come to rest nose down—or was it tail down? The badly battered hull was shimmery black, boasting knifelike wing extensions and protrusions that were unlike any aircraft Private Mike Unver had ever seen before.
More important, given the nature of the assignment, the gull-wing-style main hatch was open and apparently unguarded. But Unver knew that the wreck had been home to half a dozen Chimera not an hour earlier, so he entered first, his Bullseye assault rifle at the ready. Take care of Captain Nash. Those were the orders Lieutenant Hale had given the Sentinel, and Unver was determined to do his best.
The main power was clearly off, but judging from some glow panels and dozens of indicator lights, some sort of backup system had kicked in. So it was dark and gloomy, but not pitch black, as Unver turned to his right and climbed a steeply sloping deck.
The tiny control compartment was about a third of the way back from the badly crushed bow. It consisted of a control panel and two chairs—both of which were occupied by dead Hybrids. Or that’s how it appeared anyway. But Unver knew better than to make assumptions, so he shot each pilot in the back of the head, just to make sure. A mixture of blood and brains splattered the instrument panel.
“Unver?” Nash inquired over the radio. “Are you okay?” He was still crouched outside.
“I’m fine, sir,” Unver replied. “Just tidying up, that’s all. Let me check the stern. Then you can board.”
Two minutes later, having carried out a quick check of the small cargo area in the ship’s stern, Unver returned to the main hatch.
“Everything’s okay,” he said confidently, and he gestured to the captain. “Come on in.” The Chimera had recovered from the initial shock of having the ship slide out from under them by that time, and they were streaming down the butte. Fareyes cracked as Kawecki’s group engaged them, and the aliens fired back.
But such was Nash’s eagerness to enter the shuttle and see what lay within that he forgot his fear. He pushed the tool bag onto a scimitar-shaped section of wing, placed his foot on a support strut, and hoisted himself up. Unver was there to grab the tools and give him a hand. From there it was only a few steps to the open hatch.
The first step, according to protocol, was to carry out a quick inspection of the so-called setting before zeroing in on specific items or groups of items. That procedure was intended to make sure field investigators didn’t become so enamored of a particular object that they missed something that might be of even more importance.
In order to carry out the initial survey, Nash had to call upon carefully memorized images of the Chimeran tech that had already been captured, evaluated, and in some cases reverse-engineered. He saw several things he recognized, but the whole point of a SAR mission was to find new tech. As Nash made his way forward he saw very little to get excited about, and disappointment began to seep in.
The blood-drenched scene in the control compartment made his stomach lurch, and he might have thrown up had he been able to get anything down earlier that morning. But Nash forced himself to stand behind the pilots and scan the instrument panel to make sure it matched the photos he’d seen. Everything appeared to be normal. So he left the Chimeran cockpit and kept his eyes peeled as he made his way back to the stern.
When he arrived in the small cargo area aft of the main hatch, he spotted a case that was secured to ring bolts set into the deck. Not recognizing the design of the case, he was curious as to what might be inside. Leaning his carbine against the bulkhead, Nash knelt next to the box, undid a series of latches, and lifted the lid.
Light splashed the officer’s face. His eyes went round, and his heart began to beat faster. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
The Chimera had taken casualties, heavy casualties, but they’d still managed to push what remained of First Squad into position two. And Hale was worried. Not just because of the snarling Hybrids—who fought as if possessed—but due to the fact that something even more dangerous was prowling the battlefield. Something so stealthy that two of his Sentinels had been decapitated without anyone seeing what had killed them.
Sergeant Kawecki had made the gruesome discoveries. But rather than broadcast the news to the entire team, he’d made it his business to tell Hale face-to-face, mikes off. Based on the evidence, it appeared as though a Chameleon was stalking the Sentinels.
And that was bad news indeed. Hale glanced around involuntarily.
Chameleons were ugly brutes with heads set low between their massive shoulders, and long claw-tipped arms. That was bad enough, but what made the creatures worse were the high-tech field generators they wore on their backs. Machines capable of rendering the Chameleons invisible. This capability was dangerous in and of itself, and it had a profound psychological impact as well. Because soldiers who worried about what might be standing immediately behind them had a tendency to fire at shadows.