“It… it encourages me to translate everything. It seems interested in the captain. It wants to know if you are our chieftain, Captain Najafi. What should I tell it?”
Najafi sat taller. “Tell it that I am and I demand to be released. That all of us must be released. Now.”
Murray spoke the words. The top and bottom of the maw curled, showing mottled gums. A rapid string of words was followed by the clacking of the claws on one of the creature’s hands.
As Murray opened her mouth to translate, a ball of dark fur about a metre in diameter fell from one of the trees that surrounded the clearing. It landed silently, then chattered as dozens of hook-footed legs pushed out of the fur. The feet scuttled it closer to the captain. As it turned, the fur parted, revealing a thin-lipped mouth lined with broken, jagged fangs. It stopped just short of Najafi and snapped those teeth twice in her direction.
“It says… it says you will be freed, Captain. I’m assuming this other… lifeform is to free you.”
In a blur, the furred creature sped around the captain, snarling and snapping. Like a flea, it hopped back. The vines securing Najafi lay in tatters around her. Naked, she rose defiantly to her feet.
The spindly creature smacked its top two fists against its torso and spat a handful of words. Then it gestured to the ground in front of Najafi. The head pivoted to Murray.
“It says that it is chieftain of its people as you are of yours. It wants you to put on your… the word it used was the one the villagers use for the thin fibre wrap they wear, but I think it means your armor. It wants you to put on your armor.”
Captain Najafi glared at the creature.
“Specialist Murray, do you know the local vernacular for ‘go fuck yourself’? Tell it I do not take orders from aggressors.”
Murray swallowed, then spoke to the creature. It bobbed its head, curiously like a nod. It clacked its fingertips together.
From the darkened edge of the clearing, one of the shadows detached itself from the others and slid silently across the ground. As it grew closer the shadow coalesced, drawing darkness into itself and taking bipedal form. Featureless at first with tar-like glossy black skin, it took on approximately human proportions. On feet that didn’t seem to quite touch the ground, it strode over to Corporal Tsang. Silently, the shadow creature grabbed Tsang’s hair with one hand and peeled off his right ear with the other. As Tsang screamed, ink black fingers flung his ear to the ground. Before it landed, the furry creature skittered and leapt, catching the ear and devouring it with a snap and a snarl.
The chieftain spat some words at Murray.
“Captain,” she said, “it wants you to put on the armor. It says… it says that Corporal Tsang has lots of parts that might be ripped free if you decline.”
Najafi was already reaching for her breastplate. As she strapped on her armor, Najafi glared at the chieftain. After pulling on her helmet, she glanced at Murray.
“Fine. Now what does this son of a bitch want?”
Murray translated.
The chieftain pointed with half its hands at Captain Najafi’s rifle. It made a motion of grabbing and pulling. It spoke, but Murray hardly needed to translate.
“It is telling you to take your rifle.”
Najafi smiled, showing teeth.
“Big mistake.”
She casually walked toward her gun. At the last second she rolled, scooped up the rifle, knelt and fired. A burst – six or seven rapid shots – blasted the chieftain off all four feet. Najafi turned her sites on the shadow creature. Before she could fire it dissipated, like smoke caught in a sudden gust. In a heartbeat she sought and found the furred creature, firing a pair of shots at it as those dozens of tiny legs launched it into the foliage.
“Chew on that,” she said. “Keep calm, Corporal. I’ll have you all freed in a jif—”
The captain fell silent. A series of rapid huffs came from the prone chieftain. The huffs became louder and more frequent.
“Murray,” I said, “is that thing still alive? Is it having trouble breathing?”
Murray’s face was slack. She bit her lip and hung her head.
“It’s laughing. Jesus Christ, Ted, it’s laughing at us.”
The staccato of exhalations grew louder as the chieftain rose. All six of Najafi’s bullets had found their mark, leaving considerable holes in the creature’s carapace-like torso. Black ichor oozed from the wounds. When a viscous dollop hit the earth, the ground smouldered and the vegetation nearby withered. As we watched, the ichor congealed at the edges of the wounds, sealing them.
The chieftain raised all six arms. Now it sounded like laughter to all of us. The tapered head turned to Murray and barked a few words.
“We are tiny,” she translated. “Tiny and weak.”
Captain Najafi emptied her clip.
A standard issue assault rifle holds thirty-eight shots in its clip. Najafi was so close that the remaining thirty must all have struck true. Throughout the barrage, the chieftain stood its ground, all four legs bracing and straining against impact. When the echo of the last gunshot faded, amid the shifting smoke of gunpowder, impossibly the chieftain still stood.
Its torso, head and arms were a slaughterhouse of trauma. Like a hypnotised person, I watched slack-jawed as all of that trauma folded in on itself and healed. The chieftain laughed and barked a single word, then it launched itself at our captain.
Nanocarbonfibre armor – a miracle material that requires extreme temperature and special tools to cut – lay shredded on the ground. All of the claws on the ends of all of those fingers on each of those six arms surrounded Captain Najafi in a whirlwind of motion. Before Najafi began to scream, the chieftain stepped back to regard its handiwork with those eight hard eyes.
In less time than it took to shred her armor, the chieftain had flayed our captain. As I reflect, I like to think that shock took her, then and there, shielding her from the agony. I like to think that. I just wish I could believe it. I can’t. As she fell, I saw her eyes.
Before she hit the ground, a carpet of things rattled from the tall grass at the edge of the clearing. No two seemed exactly alike. Some slithered faster than any snake. Some scuttled, sideways and crablike. Others lurched, or crawled or scampered. However they moved, all were lightning fast and all shared a common goal.
The creatures converged on Captain Najafi, blanketing her in an undulating, writhing, nightmare mass. Her muffled screams ended, replaced by crunching and the unwholesome chewing sounds of a thousand tiny mouths. We sat in horrified silence until the mass of creatures swept back to the tall grass, moving across the ground like a blanket of cockroaches confronted by a sudden light.
Not content with simply eating Captain Najafi, the creatures left an oval depression where she had fallen, devouring every hint of her, down to the tiniest drop of blood that might have soaked into the soil.
When I looked at Murray, she was shaking. All of us were. From the IPLO and the mapmaker, to the battle-hardened soldiers, each of us wept. Corporal Tsang, his lost ear forgotten, stared at the shallow void where our captain had been. Next to him sat Private Verne and Private Jimenez. Too far apart for physical consolation, they stared at each other, trying to give emotional support. They tried to be brave, but their features betrayed them. Fear was winning.
I didn’t really know the next three privates. They’d rotated in a month ago, just before we’d been dropped on this world. I wish I could tell you their names and what sort of people they were in life. I can’t. I can only tell you they died as well as circumstances allowed, which wasn’t well at all. Terrified and crying and often on their knees, they begged for mercy from the merciless with exactly the results you’d expect.