The squad moved out with our observer, Lt Randolph, tucked between two troopers, as if it would keep him any safer. Randolph was nominally in charge due to his rank, but we all looked to Gunny for our orders. I watched the squad move out and waited my turn at the end of the line.
“Richards, get moving,” Gunny called out over the link.
I looked at Richards, crouched to scan the brush. He didn't move. Gunny went over and carefully tapped him on the shoulder — you never knew what a new grunt would do his first time out in combat.
Richards just fell over and I could see the viper thorns stuck in his thigh. Gunny and I looked at each other for a moment. Then he pulled the tags from the body and set the timer on the disposal charges. He followed the line of troopers down the trail, me on his heels. We were out of sight of the clearing when the blast of heat bounced off the hillside, reducing Richards and his equipment to ash on the wind.
One down.
We traveled for better than an hour before Gunny called a break. Three times Cutter had to lop the heads off cane snakes as they reached down for James. Twice I dropped a minibomb down the dome holes of fire beetles, plugging the horde inside after the scouts entered to report our presence. If those one-inch bugs boiled out of their nest, they would devour anything that fought back. Digging in through the exposed face and hands, the creatures could strip a man to his armor in less than a minute, leaving not even bones to mark the death, as they consumed anything organic.
Once Billings slapped the observer's hand away from a lace orchid. He motioned Randolph to watch as he touched the end of a cigarette he pulled from his pocket to the lovely blossom. You could hear the hiss of acid as the tobacco dissolved, feeding its nutrients to the flower. Billings tossed the butt into the center of the blossom to feed the lovely bloom and they both watched the remains dissolve. It was just another reminder this wasn't Earth, and more than just the natives were unfriendly.
As we sat around in the brush, in sight of each other and watching behind our neighbors as we caught our breath, Gunny went through the specs again with the observer.
“Okay, here's how it goes,” Gunny said to us when he was done with Randolph. “We approach the Thorn site, get Lieutenant Randolph here close enough to use his fancy toys, get the intelligence, and then head for the backup LZ. OPs know we're out here with our asses in the wind but they want what Randolph will give them so they will have a pickup arranged.” He stared us all down, quashing any objections. “Once we make contact with the site, we button down. No unnecessary noise or movement. They may be Thorns, but they still have surveillance equipment as good as ours. With any luck, we get Randolph back and we don't have to do this shit anymore.” We all looked at each other and laughed quietly. “Okay, okay. I don't believe it either,” Gunny added. “But that's the line from the brass. Harris, you take point this time since you've seen one of these sites before. Let's get moving people.”
We started off through the brush, carefully avoiding anything that looked like a trail. I kept my eyes open, knowing we were fighting the jungle as well as the Thorns. It had been like this of late: Thorns flew over one of our planets and seeded the atmosphere with their life forms. We dropped in and tried to contain the infection before it got out of hand. Only on this planet, the Thorns had knocked out the communications first, giving them better than a year to get set up and build their ‘homestead’. The first we poor humans knew of the invasion was when a supply ship dropped into orbit and barely made it back out again after lasers took out their landing shuttle. Six months it had taken the supply ship to limp back to base on one rocket and a prayer.
Now our team was supposed to find a way to stop the Thorns. That was just our name for them. Their own name was more like Kruk't Kr'n T'Or' Urnz, which translated roughly as ‘Brothers To All Growing Things’, or some such crap. Which was, of course, why we called them Thorns. We were in a war for all the prime oxygen-based real estate at this end of the galaxy, and right now, the Thorns were winning this planet by the simple method of planting seeds. Considering they were more than part plant, it made sense. Trying to talk to them in diplomatic terms had about as much success as convincing your front lawn not to grow more than four inches high. You still had to mow them down every once in a while. But this lawn fought back.
A scream cut through the jungle sounds. I crouched and froze, scanning the brush in front for Thorns before I looked over my shoulder. Cutter and Jonesy were behind me scanning left and right. Nothing showed. It wasn't a diversion… this time.
Thirty meters back, Gunny was carefully lifting the edge of a mat of leaves and twigs. Two huge eyes showed briefly before James emptied a clip into the toad inside the hole. The toad was one of the Thorns favorite predators and had all the worst qualities of a snake's poisonous fangs and a toad's long tongue. The quiet rattle of the suppressed weapon barely ruffled the silence of the forest. The stench as the toad exploded, stung my eyes and wormed its way into my gut, making me gag, but the smell would keep other predators away for a while. We couldn't leave that creature behind us. They ran in loose packs and anyone that found enough food for more than itself would call others together to hunt their prey. Gunny reached in to snag a set of tags. I looked around to see who was missing and couldn't find Brock.
Two down.
Gunny motioned to me and I started off again, everyone paying extra attention to the jungle. It was quiet for the next hour… if you didn’t count snakes, venomous insects, carnivorous plants and an occasional animal predator that took one look at us and slipped quietly into the brush. When we came to the ridge near the Thorn center I halted the squad and moved up alone.
There was a small, blue-flowered plant growing near every Thorn sensor that released a cloud of acrid gas if disturbed. It was a dead giveaway for the location of the sensors but required a special touch to keep from setting them off. I disabled the sensors along that section of the ridge with inert caps and moved forward. Somewhere on a Thorn control board, sensors were repeating their last five minutes of readings in an infinite loop I hoped the Thorns wouldn't notice.
When we reached the edge of the compound, we circled around Randolph, just outside the edge of the clearing, and let him do his thing. Sensors built into his vest and pack gave in-depth readings of the Thorn control center and whatever it was it pumped out. We needed to know how they controlled the growth of their plants, their creatures in order to make our defenses more efficient. This whole setup was a Garden of Eden to homesteading Thorns. I guess they liked their flowers with a bite. But to the humans that had been here, it was death.
The earth-colored dome before us was almost hidden beneath the riotous growth of the forest. Something moved on its surface. It was as if the dome itself was alive, with skin that rippled in the afternoon breeze. The jungle itself seemed to be one movable segment of life after another. To the Thorns, even the buildings were alive, it seemed.
“Sergeant Gunderson,” Randolph said quietly. “I have what I need. Let's get out of here.”
Gunny tapped me on the shoulder and pointed out our direction. I moved out to disable the sensors along the route. We had moved about a hundred meters when James pushed aside a huge elephant-ear leaf and stepped directly on a sensor I hadn't seen. The cloud of gas wrapped around him like an attacking snake, filling his lungs with acid and spores. James had time for one gargle then collapsed. I didn't need to check to know his lungs and airways would be filled with tight rootlets, growing at fantastic speed, choking him as they ate into his body.