Marines scrambled for cover as the grenade exploded in the air. The blast didn’t harm my squad, and another Marine decided he would try to best my attempt. He announced his grenade throw before he tossed it toward the hulking Queen. The enemy was more accurate with her strike this time, and she whacked the grenade into a group of Marines. The grenade detonated, and four Marines went down with injuries.
Our battle armor was designed to defend us against our most common enemy and their most dangerous weapons. It was not designed to protect us from our own gear. Those with injuries were pulled behind the line as the squad quickly dispatched the last Harbinger.
Fifteen Marines versus one Queen. The odds were pretty even.
The Queen’s entire body was covered in blood from peppered bullets, but she wouldn’t go down. I continued firing while I tried to concentrate my shots on a single point of her wing. I wanted to burn through and start doing some real damage, but the bitch kept twitching. I thought she was moving erratically because someone had finally gotten through her outer husk and injured her.
Then it occurred to me that she was doing it on purpose. She somehow knew that if she twitched and spread the shots out, she’d have a better chance for—
“Acid!” Reaver yelled the conclusion I’d come to half a second earlier.
I barely had time to roll under the cover of my shieldmate. He didn’t react fast enough and took a big splash of acid to his faceplate before his shield was up. I grabbed my med-kit and rushed over to help him, but the stuff burned through quick. He was out of the fight in seconds.
I glanced at my HUD and saw that it was back online. A quick check told me all I needed to know. There were fourteen of us against an uninjured Queen, and the blood covering her body did little more than give her carapace armor a neon green sheen. She disappeared in a glimmer, and all signs of her vanished from my HUD.
I’d thought this Queen was just like all the others with their significant lead times before they could spray another cluster of sacs. It seemed she was different. The odds had just shifted big time.
The outlines of the boulders around the cave began to shimmer, and a cloak lifted from objects scattered around their bases. Eggs the size of my palm appeared throughout the area, and I realized exactly what the Queen had been doing while we’d been fighting the regular alien soldiers.
Joker glanced at the spot where the Queen had disappeared.
“It it gone?” he whispered.
He hadn’t arrived at my conclusion that the Queen had been here all along and that she hadn’t left now.
I knew she was still present in the cave, reloading her mouth-spray to fire at us again. Hell, this bitch might have a reload capacity a hundred times as fast as the other Queens.
We couldn’t take another hit like the one before. It was now or never.
I spotted motion beside a mound of egg-sacs 15 feet to my right, brought my rifle to bear, and fired. I was proven right when the Queen materialized. My shot hadn’t done much damage, but it had forced her to drop the cloak and reveal herself.
“Charge!” I ordered as the other Marines realized the Queen was still among us.
Fourteen bodies sprinted forward. Fourteen brave souls ready to kill or be killed.
The Queen swept her wings out and caught two of the Marines with a sweeping blow. The impact wasn’t hard, but it ruined their charge.
I slowed my speed a little to be ready when she struck again. Her leather wing passed, and I leaned into it. I barely slipped inside her guard as her wings clamped over her like an organic shield.
I was stuck inside a protective cocoon, with my team was on the outside. Most Marines would have had difficulty fighting off a claustrophobic doom, but excitement rippled through my limbs as I prepared to strike.
I could hear static in my helmet, and I figured the Queen’s wings were somehow scrambling the signal to my team outside. They probably thought me dead, and I couldn’t wait to surprise them when I tore free of this bitch’s grasp.
My rifle wasn’t the best choice this close, so I threw it at the monster’s head. She battled it away mid-air with an arm but was distracted long enough for me to get a decent stab at one of her legs. She pulled away, but not before I’d cracked her shell.
Then a beautiful sound filled my ears.
She shrieked.
I pressed forward and swung my blade as I extended my shield, missed, and found my sword arm caught in the tremendous grip of a clawed appendage. She yanked me from the ground, grabbed my leg with another arm, and started pulling. My armor was holding, but damage indicators and alarms started flashing in my HUD. I tried to catch her next arm with my shield, but she dodged out of the way and continued to lift me higher.
Oh great, I thought. She’s gonna toss me. This is gonna hurt.
But she didn’t. Instead, she brought her massive head down and started chewing on my leg. Green HUD indicators turned red as my armor integrity readings dropped. With the way her razor-teeth were going at my leg, she’d penetrate the exterior plates any second. Then it would be a simple chomp before she’d cut through my webbing and puncture my skin.
I couldn’t swing my sword because my arm was caught in her grip. And my limited reach prevented me from shoving my shield between her spiky mandibles and my flesh.
I might have frozen, but this wasn’t the day for me to die. The Marines needed to know the Queen could be beaten. After all, this mission was as much about boosting morale as it was finishing these monsters.
I couldn’t bet on the Queen thinking I
