Dark Victory - eARC Read online

  Wait.

  A faint sound.

  I wait some more.

  I don’t dare move.

  I can’t even hear Thor breathing.

  Then it comes again, probably because the wind shifted.

  A faint click-click sound.

  Metal rubbing against metal.

  Click-click.

  Creeper sign.

  I lower the night-vision goggles over my eyes. I get up, Colt M-10 in my hands, and Thor gets up as well, as we go deeper into the woods.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Before the war, night vision goggles turned night into day for my predecessors. A decade later, the goggles are substantially more low-tech, designed with some form of liquid crystal that works to amplify the ambient light out there. Only one eyepiece has the crystal; the other is left blank so that a sudden burst of light, like from a hidden Creeper, won’t overwhelm and blind you. They’re not perfect but they work better than nothing, even with the blind spots on either side of my head.

  Thor at my side, I hold my Colt M-10 at port-arms and take my time. Right now, I’m in the Recon part of my job description, finding out where the Creeper is and what it’s up to.

  Click-click.

  I take my time, mouth dry, heart thumping merrily along. I move as quiet as I can, moving randomly, here and there. I keep the Creeper sound in range, but I don’t blunder straight ahead. I don’t move in a pattern, don’t move in a predictable way. Doing that means another way of getting torched to a cinder, and Abby doesn’t dance with cinders.

  With the aid of the goggles, I stalk slowly through the woods and brush. Moving a few yards. Stopping. Moving to the left. To the right.

  Thor is right by me.

  Thought about his ancestor, the one that went up against bin-Laden. At least his handlers were part of a larger group when they dropped into that village in Pakistan, with the full force and fury of the United States behind them. Here, except for Abby, out there pedaling and my fellow Recon Rangers, up and down this valley, I’m on my own.

  Hell of a way to run an interstellar war, but that’s all we can do.

  I stop.

  Click-click.

  Sounds louder, but something is wrong.

  Something is wrong.

  I kneel down, rub at Thor’s neck. He’s softly panting but he isn’t trembling.

  Click-click.

  In front of me is a rise of land, and I catch a glow of light reflecting off the leaves of an oak tree.

  I try to swallow.

  No joy.

  Thor rustles some.

  But he isn’t trembling.

  Click-click.

  I get up and move to the right of the glow of light, and work my way through a low collection of ferns and brush, and the clicking sound gets louder.

  What the hell?

  The light is coming from a small campfire, and sitting around the blaze are two men. Large canvas bags are nearby, and the man nearest the fire has two pieces of metal in his hands. Every now and then, he strikes one piece with another, making the click-click sound.

  I shake my head. Idiots.

  Easy enough to go around them but I can’t do that. Can’t have these morons at my rear, screwing things up, doing God knows what.

  I clear my throat, call out. “Hello the camp! National Guard, coming in!”

  The two men whirl and stand up. I pull my goggles up, letting my eyes adjust to the campfire. I sling my Colt M-10 over my shoulder. They seem to be in their 30s, or maybe in their 50s. Hard to tell in the light, especially since most civilian men, it’s hard to guess their age. Going from the twenty-first century to the nineteenth century in the space of a weekend ten years ago can do that to a fellow. Wearing torn, dirty jackets and pants. Old sneakers that look like they’re rotting on their feet. Bearded faces and suspicious eyes. Civilian model shotguns up against a fallen tree trunk, within easy grasping range.

  “Name’s Knox,” I say. “With the National Guard. On official duty. What’s up, guys?”

  The guy on the left with red beard looks to the guy at the right, whose facial hair is black. “We’re huntin’,” black beard says. “Same as you.”

  “How’s that?”

  Red beard holds out the metal pieces. “We know a Creeper was out here the other night. We plan to call ’em over.”

  I try not to laugh. “And do . . . what? Ask him for a ride?”

  Black beard spits into the campfire. “Nope. Gonna capture him.” He kicks at the canvas bags. “Got some heavy duty chains here, two fire extinguishers, wool blankets and water. We figure, we get him close, we can keep his weapon claw cold with the extinguishers, wrap ’em in wet blankets, long enough to chain ’em up and keep ’em from moving.”

  I say, “Why in God’s name would you want to try that?”

  Black beard says, “Word we heard, the Gates Foundation people, they’re lookin’ to pay out ten-thousand New Dollars to anyone who can capture a Creeper live. We’re lookin’ to do that.”

  “Guys, the Gates Foundation has been offering that reward for about nine years. You know how many civilians have won it? Zip. Zero. None.”

  Red beard is defiant. “Don’t care. We’re gonna try. You can’t stop us.”

  “Negative on that, guys,” I say. “Since yesterday’s Creeper attack this whole county has been declared a military reservation. You don’t have authority or permission to be here. So get the hell out and leave it to the Army.”

  Black beard laughs, spits in the fire. “Leave it to you, a damn kid, hunh?”

  It shouldn’t, but the insult burns at me; one I’ve heard many times before, and which still ticks me off. “No, leave it to the Army. Final warning. Put the fire out, get the hell on your way. Otherwise, you’re interfering in my mission and I’ll be authorized to—”

  “The hell with your mission,” the red beard says defiantly.

  “Insulting my mission won’t work,” I say. “Look, guys, I’m also trying to save your lives. So how about some consideration?”

  Black beard says, “Tell you what, you get the hell goin’. Okay? Woods are big enough for all of us, hunh? You do your thing, we’ll do our thing.”

  I sigh for their benefit, pull out my 9 mm Beretta, cock the hammer. Red beard laughs. “The hell you going to do, pop us?”

  “That’s right,” I say, and I shoot his friend in the leg.

  The sound of the report is sudden and loud, followed by black beard crumpling and red beard yelling. I step closer and aim the pistol at one head, and then another, and then back again. “I’m now ordering you to leave this military reservation immediately. Or under the current Martial Law Declaration, I’m authorized to use deadly force against you both.”

  The guy I shot is rolling side-to-side, hands on his right thigh, moaning, blood seeping through his clenched fingers. His friend red beard is standing still, hands empty. He looks over to the shotguns, looks to me. Thor growls. I guess he’s on a steep learning curve, because the guy doesn’t move.

  I say, “Are we through here, fellas?”

  Red beard says, “Yeah, we’re through here.”

  “Outstanding.”

  Keeping my Beretta trained on him, I reach to the side of MOLLE vest, tug open a quick-release, package dropping it into my hand. I toss it over to the two men. “First aid kit. Get your buddy bandaged up and get the hell out. Do you understand?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then let’s make it more specific. Get the hell out, and if you hesitate, you go for those shotguns, you make any trouble for me at all, I drop you both here. Then I’ll complete my mission. Then I’ll tell my superior officer where to retrieve your bodies, if it doesn’t slip my mind.”

  The guy with the black beard groans. His friend reaches down, picks up the first aid kit. “Give me a couple of minutes to dress him before I kill the fire?”

  I step back, Thor at my side. “I’m a pretty level guy,” I say. “Sounds fair to me.”

  As he works on
his friend, I quickly secure both shotguns, unload them both, and toss the shells into the darkness. With Thor I back away and go back in the woods, and looking back a couple of minutes later, the glow from the fire disappears.

  Glad to run into a couple of reasonable civilians for a change.

  Another hour of going humping through the brush, pausing and waiting, listening and watching.

  Nothing. Nothing at all.

  Thor stays by me, though sometimes he runs ahead or to the side, sniffling and poking about. The woods thin out some and it looks like we’re coming to a stretch of pasture. Open ground. Dangerous, but I’ll just poke around a bit.

  The woods are gone now, with a stone wall ahead of me. I climb over it and Thor covers it with one easy jump, and it’s a field all right, a field of hay. I look around and don’t see anything out of the ordinary.

  Nothing.

  Then I look up at the night sky.

  It looks to be on fire.

  I take a break, sitting back at the treeline, my back up against a big boulder, taking a healthy sip of cool water. Overhead the night sky is a mess of moving dots of light, and an occasional stream of sparks as something burns through the atmosphere. Time was the night sky was supposedly a peaceful place to look at the stars and planets and moon, and think sweet thoughts about the gentle universe and man’s place within it.

  For the past ten years, though, it’s been a battleground, and normal people hate looking up at the night sky, since looking up there every night tells them the truth, that we are at war, and were losing.

  I was only six when the Creepers arrived. From what I’ve later learned, their arrival was mostly ignored because of other, supposedly more important things that were in the news. Like a mom in the United States accused of murdering her teen daughter, a political scandal in Europe involving underage prostitutes, and a war bubbling in the Middle East between Israel and almost everyone else. The stories of scientists being puzzled by approaching objects that looked like comets but didn’t seem to act like comets were put on the back pages, until it was too late.

  Looking up, what I see are the result of the Creepers arriving in orbit, when they destroyed every satellite up there, including the International Space Station, whose resident six astronauts (or cosmonauts, I can’t remember) were the first casualties of the war. So debris is scattered all around low earth orbit, and that debris field was greatly expanded last month when the Creeper orbital base was blown up by that surprise, last-ditch U.S. Air Force raid.

  More debris burns its way down to the ground, leaving a billowing trail of sparks.

  Then, off to the far south, something that’s definitely not a piece of space garbage. A quick pulsing flash, then a straight line hammers down to the Earth’s surface, like a glowing white string stretching up to space. I wait, wondering if I’m going to hear the sound of the impact, but I guess I’m too far away, since I don’t hear a thing. But I know what I’ve seen: one of the Creepers’ killer stealth sats, still at work up there in orbit. Even with the Creepers’ orbital base gone, the killer stealth sats are still at work, either on automatic or being manned by a Creeper or two, we don’t know.

  The target? A military unit. A convoy. A city. Somebody foolish enough to take an airplane up in the air.

  Who knows. Whatever it was, it’s now charred.

  But hey, remember, the war is over.

  The wind shifts. I catch a scent of something.

  I wait.

  Sniff again.

  Cinnamon.

  Creeper sign.

  Beside me, Thor whimpers and leans against me.

  “Yeah, I smell it too, bud,” I say. “Let’s roll.”

  I get off the stone wall and fade into the woods, Thor panting hard at my side. I go in, wait, stand near a birch tree. With the goggles on, I see ghostly shadows of trees, boulders and brush. The scent of cinnamon disappears, then comes back again.

  I scratch the back of Thor’s head, lean down to him. “Go, boy, hunt!”

  He springs out like a rubber band being shot from my finger, and he disappears into the trees. He’s a big dog but he knows how to move silently through the woods. I move as well, not going in a straight line, backing up, trying to be unpredictable.

  Creepers seem to like predictability, and I’m not going to give this one any advantage.

  I move deeper into the woods, the scent of cinnamon even stronger. I lift up my M-10. I know my predecessors, back in the days when they were hunting and killing fellow humans, carried loads of ammo and would often “rock and roll,” meaning they could fire their weapons at full automatic, emptying a magazine of thirty or so rounds in a matter of seconds. I don’t have that luxury. The other members of my platoon don’t have that luxury. And the U.S. Army and associated National Guard units and the Marines don’t have that luxury.

  What we do have is a single-shot, bolt-action Colt M-10 50 mm rifle, and as I go into the woods, the smell of cinnamon strong in my nostrils, I give up another prayer to one Cynthia Ellis-Kimball of Colt Firearms, once upon a time housed in Hartford, Connecticut. One of the few men and women who thought ten steps ahead when the war began, she was a senior engineer at Colt and managed to disassemble and evacuate lots of vital machinery and tools from their plants before Hartford was slammed.

  Thanks to her foresight, me and several thousand others have the only reliable weapon to fight against the Creepers.

  Which is currently unloaded.

  The land descends into a swampy stretch, and I still move about in random directions, pausing, waiting, and then—

  A barking dog.

  Off to my right.

  “Good boy, Thor,” I whisper. “Good job.”

  I shift my direction, slip out of the swamp, and in a low crouch, jog on up to drier land.

  A few minutes later, a light flickers in the distance, and something heavy in my chest goes thump-lump. Real close now. The smell of cinnamon is quite strong. Another bark from Thor, telling me where to go. My lips stick together and I try to moisten them with my dry tongue, and it doesn’t work.

  I work around a stand of trees, see the flickering light grow stronger.

  Now.

  I quietly drop my assault pack, leaving only my gear harness and bandolier. I get on the ground, start moving among the leaves and branches, taking my time.

  Click-click.

  Click-click.

  Click-click.

  The sounds of the Creeper exoskeleton at work, whatever the hell its work happens to be.

  I keep crawling low to the ground. Moving a few inches here and there. Another bark from Thor, but he’s a smart puppy. He knows his job, just like I know mine. I move up some more. The light grows stronger, as does the smell of cinnamon, now really a stench, and the sound of the exoskeleton.

  I pause.

  Real close now.

  There’s good cover where I am, some low brush and ferns.

  I slowly raise up my head sideways to keep a low profile.

  Look down.

  Look down upon Hell.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I fight against the urge to pull away, to race back to my assault pack and run all the way back to the dairy farm. This isn’t my first Creeper sighting but by God, each one is different and terrifying in its own way.

  You’d think you’d get used to after a few years, but you’d be wrong.

  I take a deep breath, let it out, take another deep breath, let it out.

  My hands tight against the Colt M-10, hoping they don’t shake.

  The Creeper is below and to the right of me, maybe fifty or so meters away.

  It looks . . .

  Looks like a . . .

  Well, looks like a damn nightmare, it does.

  Start by thinking small.

  Think of one of those black scorpions that live in the Southwest. Eight legs, long tail with a barb at the end, two claws and tiny head. Remove the long tail, put it where the head belongs. That’s the new head, a segmented
length almost as large as the body itself. The center arthropod. Reduce the size of the claws. The claws are now tool-based. Sometimes they are pincers. Sometimes they are weapons. No matter what they are, though, they’re always dangerous. Instead of a living exoskeleton, the Creeper’s exoskeleton is made of a blue-gray metal alloy, said alloy still being studied and analyzed ten years after the war began, any weaknesses still undiscovered.

  Inside the exoskeleton is the living creature that’s a Creeper, which looks about the same as the exoskeleton, except uglier, if that’s possible. Its flesh is a purplish-gray, it’s segmented like a real scorpion, and the braincase and eyestalks are the stuff of nightmares.

  Oh. By the way, the exoskeleton is essentially bulletproof, flameproof, and resistant to almost every type of explosive save nuclear.

  Got it?

  Now take the image of a scorpion, maybe the size of a child’s hand, and expand it up to the size of a small school bus.

  That’s a Creeper.

  Close enough to nearly spit at.

  This one is busy at its hellish work. Around it are the remains of a cabin, up against a wide stream. Strange but true, Creepers have a fixation with moving water. Don’t know why, just is. It has one weapon claw, up in the air, moving about, constantly scanning 360-degrees and evaluating. The center arthropod moves side to side. The other claw is a manipulator, and it’s moving bits of lumber and shingles from the cabin it’s trampled. This Creeper looks like the Research model. Around the perimeter of the cabin, two pine trees burn merrily along. Off crumpled past the debris are the bodies of a man and a woman. Their clothes have been stripped off, and it looks like the Creeper’s done a quick vivisection. My jaw tightens right up. Another reason for the 9 mm at my side is to make sure I don’t get captured. Lots of rumors and stories of civilians and military personnel being captured by the Creepers over the years; not one tale of anyone escaping.

  Click-click.

  Click-click.

  Click-click.