“I’ve opened the hatch already, Lieutenant,” Volo answered. “It’s daylight, and we must cover the ships immediately.”
“Copy,” Harry said, releasing his chest strap. He fell heavily against one of the instrument panels, painfully bruising his arm. He suppressed a heartfelt curse.
“Popping the hatch.”
He reached for the door lever, now inconveniently located over his head. After a pause, the capsule verified his intent, requiring a second yank before it obediently ejected the hatch outward with a percussive bang. Instantly, a cold wind filled his capsule, making him shiver. He poked his head outside and surveyed a bleak and rocky landscape which was partially obscured by the capsule’s billowing parachute.
After donning a hooded parka from a storage cabinet underneath his feet, he withdrew his personal equipment and weapon. Then, with an athleticism he didn’t feel, Harry used an inner handhold to swing outside. On either side of his aeroshell, the terrain rose several meters in elevation, forming a shallow canyon. His ‘chute was tangled in some stunted gray-green trees that bordered the drop zone. Knee high, rust-colored spiky grass poked up in between the fist-sized stones covering much of the ground. The breeze smelled wet and musty, but the ground appeared dry. A football field distant, Harry could make out another capsule, and began trotting over. It was supposed to be dusk on R’Bak, but the overcast diffused the light. Out of reflex, he checked his wristwatch, which rode alongside a new gadget doubling as a short-range radio and compass. Both were still set to SpinDog station time, adopted during the mission prep. He supposed he could check with Volo. It didn’t matter yet. Experience had taught the SEAL exactly what time it was.
The local hour is half past “your ass is in a sling.” My team is untested and outnumbered, the local population is mostly hostile, the wildlife carnivorous, and, in two years, the local star is going to approach its binary twin, boiling the oceans and scorching the land. Oh, and your extract off-planet depends entirely on mission success, so don’t screw up.
Welcome to R’Bak.
* * * * *
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* * * * *
The following is an
Excerpt from Book One of the Singularity War:
Warrior: Integration
___________________
David Hallquist
Now Available from Theogony Books
eBook and Paperback
Excerpt from “Warrior: Integration:”
I leap into the pit. As I fall in the low gravity, I run my hands and feet along the rock walls, pushing from one side to another, slowing my descent. I hit the pool below and go under.
I swim up through the greenish chemicals and breach the surface. I can see a human head silhouetted against the circle of light above. Time to go. I slide out of the pool quickly. The pool explodes behind me. Grenade, most likely. The tall geyser of steam and spray collapses as I glide into the darkness of the caves ahead.
They are shooting to kill now.
I glide deeper into the rough tunnels. Light grows dimmer. Soon, I can barely see the rock walls around me. I look back. I can see the light from the tunnel reflected upon the pool. They have not come down yet. They’re cautious; they won’t just rush in. I turn around a bend in the tunnel, and light is lost to absolute darkness.
The darkness means little to me anymore. I can hear them talking as their voices echo off the rock. They are going to send remotes down first. They have also decided to kill me rather than capture me. They figure the docs can study whatever they scrape off the rock walls. That makes my choices simple. I figured I’d have to take out this team anyway.
The remotes are on the way. I can hear the faint whine of micro-turbines. They will be using the sensors on the remotes and their armor, counting on the darkness blinding me. Their sensors against my monster. I wonder which will win.
Everything becomes a kind of gray, blurry haze as my eyes adapt to the deep darkness. I can see the tunnel from sound echoes as I glide down the dark paths. I’m also aware of the remotes spreading out in a search pattern in the tunnel complex.
I’ll never outrun them. I need to hide, but I glow in infra-red. One of the remotes is closing, fast.
I back up against a rock wall, and force the monster to hide me. It’s hard; it wants to fight, but I need to hide first. I feel the numbing cold return as my temperature drops, hiding my heat. I feel the monster come alive, feel it spread through my body and erupt out of my skin. Fibers spread over my skin, covering me completely in fibrous camouflage. They harden, fusing me to the wall, leaving me unable to move. I can’t see, and I can barely breathe. If the remotes find me here, I’m dead.
The remote screams by. I can’t see through the fibers, but it sounds like an LB-24, basically a silver cigar equipped with a small laser.
I can hear the remote hover nearby. Can it see me? It pauses and then circles the area. Somehow, the fibers hide me. It can’t see me, but it knows something is wrong. It drops on the floor to deposit a sensor package and continues on. Likely it signaled the men upstairs about an anomaly. They’ll come and check it out.
The instant I move, the camera will see me. So I wait. I listen to the sounds of the drones moving and water running in the caves. These caves are not as lifeless as I thought; a spider crawls across my face. I’m as still as stone.
Soon, the drones have completed their search pattern and dropped sensors all over the place. I can
