After a long half-hour of slogging in Barton’s wake, we reached a wide flat area. We’d been marching downhill all this time, sometimes winding around rocks and cliffs, but always downward.
This spot was different. It was wide, sandy and flat. What was more significant was the fact the two rails we’d been following had split apart, spreading in a great arc to surround the flat area.
“Natasha!” I shouted.
She came rushing to my side. I ordered everyone else to take a knee and keep their eyes peeled.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“It’s like a tableland. A plateau.”
“What? Underwater?”
“Sure. Undersea geography isn’t all that different from what you see on the surface of any planet. There are mountain ranges, valleys—everything. It’s just underwater.”
“Uh… yeah, I get that. But the rails have split apart. Why?”
Natasha looked around and took readings. She tried to send buzzers ahead into the dark regions, but they failed to operate just as they’d done far above in the shallows. After a few minutes, she came back to report to me.
“It seems like the field is still in place. The pressure here is still lower than standard water at any depth. But James—I found something else.”
She showed me a boot. At first, I thought maybe it was pulled off one of our troops—one of Barton’s unfortunate lights. But then I saw there still a foot in the boot, and a gray-white shinbone sticking up out of it. This soldier hadn’t just lost a boot, he’d lost his life.
I dropped the boot and lifted my rifle. “Unit, weapons out. Advance with caution. Let’s search this flat area. Whatever you do, don’t step over the rails!”
The troops did as I ordered, fanning out. The heavies were the first rank, then the weaponeers strung along a few paces behind them. A belcher would put out a lot of heat and bubbles underwater, but it was still an effective weapon at short range.
In the rear of the group were Leeson’s softies. They were bio people and techs for the most part. They looked more nervous than anyone else.
When we finally met up with the enemy, we were just as surprised as Barton’s troops must have been. They sprang up out of the sands at our feet. Cephalopods—better known as space-squids—grappled with our front line.
Many of the heavy troopers stepped right onto the squirming enemy, who’d buried themselves in the dirty seabed to lie in ambush.
Bolts flew, blasting bubbles as they super-heated the water they passed through. Surprised men shouted while huge, three meter tall squids battled with them. I was right there, but I didn’t use my morph-rifle like most of my troops.
Instead, I extended my force blades a meter out from each of my wrists. These weapons slashed through the low-density water very effectively. Soon, a dozen other heavies followed my example. The squids were in close on us, and they were wrapping their heavy tentacles around our bodies. Each heavy trooper that faced a squid had a tough time of it. I felt like I was wrestling a pit full of boa constrictors.
What saved us in the end was our armor, and our force-blades. Barton’s light troops had been down here in sheer suits. It must have looked like kids in pajamas fighting adults. Caught up-close and personal, they’d been torn apart. Just getting a rifle in line with a squid who was right there in your face, throwing his coiled tentacles around you, was damned near impossible.
“Use your force blades! Trim those tentacles and turn them into stumps!”
The water was soon black with ink and blood. There was no way to tell what was ours or theirs, it was all mixing together in a ghastly cloud.
The squid I was wrestling with was soon short three of his eight tentacles. Changing tactics, he gripped me suddenly in a bear-hug and his big thick beak came at me. That was a freaky thing. I could see it, spread wide and as big as a football cut in half. The nasty thing clacked against my faceplate.
Fortunately, my helmet held, but my air hoses weren’t so lucky. One was snipped, and bubbles poured out. My suit compensated by shutting off the flow. Still, it was only a matter of time before I suffocated.
Roaring with effort, my ears rang with my guttural vocalizations. Howling inside a helmet will give you a headache right-quick. Just ask anyone who’s done it.
I managed to get a force blade to twitch upward, slicing into the central meat of the alien that gripped me. He shuddered and gave one last convulsive squeeze before he reluctantly relaxed in death.
Cursing, I peeled away history’s biggest calamari appetizer ever. After thirty seconds or so, I was free and standing on the seabed again. My breath came in ragged panting, and already my air felt a little thin. I’d have to repair my suit soon, but the battle was still raging around me.
“Harris? Sitrep!”
“Centurion? Are you still alive? Wow, I thought you were squid-meat.”
“Sitrep, Harris.”
“We’ve got six dead, two seriously hurt. The squids are mostly dead now, however. We gave them a good old-fashioned Varus schooling, sir.”
“Good job. Finish them all off.”
“Uh… no prisoners, sir?”
“You heard me. These are renegade squids. They’ve already broken their oath to Earth. I’m not going to start coddling them now.”
Harris relayed the order, and the team mopped up the last of the enemy. The squids had had the element of surprise, but they hadn’t been able to take down a platoon of heavy soldiers with specialist back-up.
When we’d recovered as best we could, including a patch-job on my ailing suit, we proceeded with caution. We soon found the discarded remains of Barton and her light
