She grabbed her rifle and fired a few shots into the thicker concentrations of them. The overgrown cockroaches superheated and exploded instantly. She barked out a laugh at them and fired again until they got it into their insect brains that she was a threat they didn’t want to mess with.
Elsa realized she was breathing hard again, then felt the pang in her stomach. It had been almost a day or maybe even longer since she’d last eaten anything other than water. Intel said there was lots that could be eaten on Vitalis, one such meal, pre-cooked, had just been disposed of by the bugs. Elsa sneered and set about putting her armor back on. She’d been caught with her pants down, literally, and she expected she’d catch hell when she was debriefed. Debriefed by her superiors, that is, not the debriefing she’d given herself the night before.
Elsa’s eyes went to the passage to the surface. Her instincts had been right, light was shining down through the tunnel. It was daytime again. That meant she’d been out for several more hours. Once her armor was clamped back in place she slipped her helmet on so she could see if anything had changed. No messages from her unit and nothing from command. She had been asleep for another five hours, time she knew her body needed but she didn’t have. She was down to twenty two hours before the deadline. Less than a day.
She paused on her way to the tunnel, eyeing a pile of dead bugs. She knelt down and reached for one with her right hand. She stared at her hand, realizing that the pain in her shoulder was gone. She picked it up and rotated it, grinning at how well it worked. He cheek felt smooth and flawless as well, as though she’d never been injured.
She picked up a bug and pulled out her knife with her other hand. She peeled away the shell then carved out a chunk of the cooked meat inside. Holding her breath she tossed it in, chewing quickly and swallowing before her stomach realized what she was about to do to it.
Elsa waited a long moment for the convulsions or tremors to begin. Nothing happened. She stared at the carcass in her hand for a long moment, then carved out more of the innards. Insects and stranger sources of nutrition had been part of Marine FIST survival training. She’d never enjoyed that part, but then again she’d never gotten sick because of it. Her luck held true as she worked her way through three of the partially cooked Vitalian insects.
“ Not quite eggs and bacon with a side of home fries,” she said. “Then again, even the synthetic version on the ship tastes like dead bugs.”
Elsa stood up and made her way to the tunnel. She had to push her rifle ahead of her and struggle to wiggle her way up through it. She consciously focused on not thinking about how tight the short tunnel was, nor did she wonder what the odds of the tunnel collapsing on top of her. Instead she stared at the bright disc that promised sunlight and the top of the cliffs.
Elsa emerged unscathed, if dirty. She pulled her helmet off and stared, letting the bright sunlight warm her face and bring tears to her eyes. A soft wind blew through her hair, reminding her how badly she wanted a shower. She felt alive and filled with sudden hope.
Grinning widely Elsa turned away from the morning sun and saw another ridge ahead of her, several miles distant. It was jagged, promising to be more mountainous and hilly instead of a vertical line of rock. Her smile faded slowly, then was replaced by a feeling of numbness in her chest when she saw a small herd of massive creatures on the plain between her and the ridge.
Chapter 9
Against her wishes, Elsa had to put her helmet back on. She used it to gauge the distances and size of the animals. They were the largest things she’d seen so far, some of them close to thirty feet tall. Smaller animals stalked about on four legs but the largest ones had six.
Not only were the animals massive, so were the grasses growing out of the plain. They were tall enough that Elsa was able to slip through them without crouching to stay concealed. Her global positioning might have been useless but the smart armor was able to track her movement based on the images she’d taken of the plain and the pedometer tracking her movement. A small corner of her display had a localized map rendered on it. The only thing she couldn’t do was mark and track the indigenous animals.
Elsa’s concerns had grown to a point where the sweat now beading on her forehead was caused by concern more than the humidity and heat. As if in answer to her unspoken prayers she stopped abruptly before a large mound in the dirt ahead of her. It rose up to nearly twice the height the grass, rising to a spire at the top that resembled a stalagmite. She studied it for a moment, noting the oddity of it in the middle of the otherwise flat plain, then shrugged and broke her rifle down so she could climb it to get a better view.
Movement at the base of the mound stopped her. She studied it, but couldn’t be certain what it was. Her helmet cycled through multiple display modes until the thermal imaging picked up movement near the base again. She studied the entire mound more carefully, noting the temperature of it was a few degrees warmer than the ground beneath it. Perhaps it absorbed the sun’s radiation. It was either that or the mound was something else altogether.
Else reassembled her rifle and held it in one hand. She drew her vibro-knife with the other and approached close enough to jam it in and pull it out. The knife sliced through easily but she noted the outer layer of dirt was crusty, almost like a shell. She stared at the wound in the earthen mound and saw it begin to shift. Dirt sprinkled out of it for a moment then a multi-segmented insect crawled out at an alarming speed. It had to be at least six inches long, but that was the last thing on Elsa’s mind. She was already back peddling and bringing her rifle up defensively.
More of the Vitalian termites poured out of the opening, some even leaping in her direction from the hole. She stumbled backwards, tripping on some grass, and then scrambled to regain her feet and put more distance between herself and the newest alien terror.
A blur of action burst through the grasses to her right, flashing in front of her and then disappearing to her left. Two more followed, sweeping some of the bugs with each of them. Elsa saw just enough to know it was a sort of animal. Smaller than everything else she’d seen but fast.
The bugs fell back to their mound, retreating from the newest threat. Elsa gathered her feet under her and rose carefully, watching carefully around her. She turned slowly, cursing the thick grasses for preventing her sensors from seeing any further than her eyes.
Her rotation stopped when she saw one of them on the path she’d made through the grass behind her. It stood a little over half her height on four legs. Elsa thought it looked feline, but it had a long neck and a head filled with teeth. The critter in its mouth crunched with each chomp, then it straightened its long neck out as it swallowed the mouthful. It’s appetizer out of the way, it turned to stare at Elsa.
Elsa returned the stare, although hers was down the barrel of her rifle. “There were three of you, where’s your friends?” Whether it could hear her or not it lowered its body down into a crouch, gathering itself to spring. Teeth bared it hissed at her. “Really? You’re going to try that? Is everything on this planet stupid?”
She fired her rifle, sending it spinning around in circles as it hissed and spit at her. Smoke rose from the scorched region along its flank where the ions had cooked the meat. She tracked it and fired again, scoring a hit on the center torso of it. It jumped into the air before falling flat to the ground and convulsing. Elsa grinned, she’d guessed right and cooked off some of its important organs.