If we didn’t make it, then we’re probably dead. And the company’s over. And everything’s no longer our problem anymore. I got twenty minutes’ sleep after everyone cleaned their weapons and sorted the new gear, and that was the last thought I had before I drifted. I think I dreamt about that bar and John Strange. He didn’t say anything. Just looked real disappointed. And when I fell off a cliff and woke up with a start because the crawler’s engines were firing up and sounding like death by killer robots, I swore I hadn’t slept at all.
“Get it done, Orion,” I muttered, and got myself up and moving. Tired was for another day. I was gonna do my best not to lose anyone else.
The Kid handed me a coffee he’d gotten from the crawler before they closed up. I took a sip and looked at him.
“Havin’ fun?” I said over the rim as I tasted it.
“Yes, Sar’nt.”
But I couldn’t tell if he was scared, or just Company now. Both are the same.
All we had to do was survive killer apes. Infiltrate an alien starship that might be something more than what it was thought to be. Rob a bank. Hijack a dropship. Execute a high-atmo sub-orbital ship-to-ship transfer. And then blast our way into deep space before the Monarchs could catch us. But that’d be XO’s job and the Spider would have to handle all that. All good space marines know that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is just sit there during a ship-to-ship shootout and try not to lose your bowels as the guns open up and the hulls collapse. Death by vacuum is always sudden. But I’ve seen the look on people’s faces when they get sucked out through a hull vent. It’s not sudden enough.
That’s all.
That’s all that happened before the apes began to shoot at us with guns in the canyon as we approached the great mystery of the Crash.
Chapter Forty
In most combat situations, both sides sorta just start shooting at each other until one side senses an advantage and tries to assault forward and murder everyone trying to murder them. This often has only two outcomes. One or the other side gets killed a little too much, really slaughtered and there’s no one left. Or they surrender at some point before total unit annihilation. I’ve seen a third outcome once but that was just weird.
My job, as the unit leader under fire, is to get all guns up and returning fire because we are now in a firefight. Then I assess the situation and try to exploit a weakness in the enemy position to bring the conflict to a violent and favorable end, for our side, as quickly as possible. Assault. Indirect fire. Flank with supporting fire. Options. These are some of mine in a normal firefight. Note, there are no normal firefights. Every one you remember forever, because of some singular weirdness that makes it a novelty.
Dude gets his head blown off and keeps firing. Someone chokes on their gum when an explosive goes off and the concussion, or just before it, makes them suck a quick breath in because they know they’re about to get the wind knocked right out of them. Or you actually get the Needle D right when you have to relieve pressure on a wounded man’s heart or he’ll suffocate.
Needle decompression protip. It helps when everyone’s got the Needle D tattoo in the right place. Murphy’s law. Some get the tattoo in the wrong place because the tattoo artist got it wrong and they didn’t know better. So yeah it was weird that one time under heavy fire when Hustle got it wrong because he was in a hurry but the tattoo itself was in the wrong place to begin with and so Hustle actually ended up getting it right and Super lived another couple of days.
Hoser cut loose as the ape attack started, standing with the Pig blazing death as the first enemy rounds came in from low across the rocks, further down the winding canyon we were heading into. We’d been watching the scout high above us, hoping he didn’t spot us, this strangely bipedal figure that seemed to crawl across the rocks on all fours like it was the most natural thing in the universe, but it barked some war cry and seconds later the swarm of apes came from up the canyon we were headed into.
Shooting at us.
“Thought they were supposed to just be animals, lady!” shouted Punch as he dove for cover and the terrain around him erupted in whistling incoming. Rounds ricocheted off rocks, smashing fragments that came off in sudden dusty sprays.
The Monarch didn’t reply and wisely took cover behind a long-ago fractured rock she could shoot from.
The apes leapt over rocks like huge gray acrobats. With guns. Flying and firing weird small submachines at the same time as they washed over the terrain like some system virus suddenly wiping out all the root command files. Others of their ferocious and hairy kind scrambled around larger boulders, covering and firing as they streamed toward us like a river of gnashing nasty yellow fangs and animal barks that were about the worst thing I’ve ever heard. All of these things didn’t go together. Yes, here they were coming to kill us all. These were the cries of wild animals on the hunt. Hooting and barking. Grunting and bellowing war cries that curdled your blood and reminded you that you only had so many magazines of the good stuff. There were no cages. No fences. No zookeeper between you and these savage animals. These things were coming straight for us
