lenses. If there were more guardian spiders out there, their camouflage would render them all but invisible to me through these lenses. “We better get out of here,” I said to Freeman, and I started running.
And then the world fell apart around me and I was knocked to the ground.
The spider-thing might have sneaked up on me as I left the cave, or it could have dropped from the shadowy reaches of the top of the cavern. It did not land on top of me, but it struck me with one of its legs, and that was enough. The leg clubbed me across the back of my helmet and along my left shoulder.
All I knew was that I was lying facedown and barely conscious. The world had gone dark and silent. Even as my head cleared, the world around me remained dark, and I knew that the electronics in my armor had failed. With my visor on the blink, I could not see or hear the outside world. Without the interLink, I could not call Freeman for help.
I would not be able to find my way out of the caverns blind. If I removed my helmet, I’d inhale the fumes from the gas. Feeling around blind, I tried to find my particle-beam cannon and came up dry. I accepted that I was going to die, but that did not mean I would die empty-handed. I reached back for my spare rifle and discovered that it was gone as well.
Something closed around my shoulders and lifted me to my feet. At first I thought it might be one of the guardian spiders, but this thing did not slice me or squeeze me to death.
“Ray. Ray. My gear’s gone dead!” I screamed it at the top of my lungs. My voice echoed loud inside my helmet. It did not matter that he wouldn’t hear me, not at that moment. I did not know if he was still beside me, but I suspected he was already gone. He had helped me to my feet, and now he was running to safety.
If I had stopped to think about it, I should not have expected Freeman to come back for me at all. He was a mercenary, not a Marine. Marines have a code about leaving no one behind. Mercenaries, lone-wolf soldiers with no real allegiance, have no such code. But here he was, my friend, my former partner. Some part of me still hoping to survive this thing, I made the intergalactic sign of distress—I stumbled around like a man gone blind, groping in the darkness with my hands outstretched before me.
At any moment I would stumble into one of those spider-thing drones and get pulled apart, but I didn’t care. I probably had more adrenaline and testosterone flowing through my veins than blood, the combat reflex was coming on so strong. I felt no fear. My thoughts were clear, and I knew I would die, but I was okay with that.
Freeman did not leave me. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me forward. I followed, stumbling and unsure about every step. I was completely useless. Now the clarity of my thoughts worked against me; I understood my helplessness all too well. For the first time in my life, the combat reflex only added to my frustration.
Freeman led me across the floor cavern, then slowed as we started the uphill slope at the end. I could feel contours in the ground beneath my feet. If I stepped too far, I could lose my balance and topple into a divot and under a drone. It would not see me, I would not see it, but I would die nonetheless.
Something scooped up my right foot, and I flew face-first, hitting Freeman in the back—at least I assumed it was Freeman—and landing on my stomach. It may have been a guardian trying to kill me, or a drone may have accidentally tripped me while digging its hole. I did not know, and I never did find out. A tense moment passed, then Freeman pulled me back to my feet.
We started up the ridge toward the entrance to the cavern. I could tell because we would run twenty or thirty paces in one direction, turn sharply, and switch back in the other direction, all the time headed uphill. At some point Freeman set off the explosive charges he had placed around the cavern earlier. The sound of the explosion penetrated my helmet in the form of a faint growl.
And then just when I thought it would never happen, we had reached the tunnel that led out of the mountain. Freeman set off an explosion meant to keep any spider-things from following us. The powerful blast pushed at our backs, and suddenly I felt fresh air on my face as Freeman pulled the helmet from my head.
“You okay?” Freeman asked. We were in the open, standing outside the caverns. I could only squint because of the glare coming from the silver-white sky.
He handed me my helmet. There was a crack in the armor along the back, and the visor looked smoke- stained, like glass pulled from a fire. I could tell something had burned the back of my head, and my right shoulder throbbed. My neck hurt, too. “Fine,” I said, as I headed toward the ridge and the climb down to our ship.
Climbing down the cord to the ship, I knew that something was wrong with my shoulders, but I was glad enough to be alive. I kept reliving the moment when I thought I was blind and alone in that cave. As much as I told myself that I really didn’t care, I wanted to survive. I didn’t want some spider-thing to tear me in half. I didn’t want to breathe the contaminated air. I wanted to make it out of that cavern.
“So what did we get for our trouble, Ray?” I asked. “We know they have giant spiders digging a big hole in the side of the mountain. That seems like a big waste of time.”
“Remember that underground city on the Mogat planet?” Freeman asked. “It had to start somewhere.”
“You think that’s what they’re doing here?” I asked.
“I want to know about the gas they were spreading.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“Damn, what happened to you …sir?” Private Skittles, just back from his tour of duty at the Hen House, added the “sir” as an afterthought.
I had barely stepped into the barracks, and Skittles was the first Marine I saw. I had a sling over my right shoulder. My collarbone was broken, but the military had good medical facilities in Valhalla. The doctors grafted the bones back together and mended them well. The collarbone smarted, but I barely noticed it compared to the throbbing of my dislocated right shoulder.
When it dropped on me from the ceiling, the guardian spider had struck with enough force to dislocate my shoulder and shatter my collarbone. It also gave me a severe concussion, but the combination of instinct, neural programming, and high doses of combat hormone in my blood had masked the effects of the concussion.
I also had burns on my scalp and shoulder. Toxic fumes had seeped through hairline cracks in my helmet and shoulder pads, charring my skin. The armor itself was a complete write-off.
“I had an accident,” I said.
“No kidding,” Skittles said. “I always figured you were indestructible. That theory’s out the window.”
“Thanks,” I said, and excused myself. I saw someone else I needed to speak to. Sitting on his bunk, playing a happy tune on his harmonica, Sergeant Mark Philips looked downright perky. He had his back propped against the wall, and one of his legs dangled over the edge of the cot, swinging with the beat of the song.
He put down the harmonica, and said, “I’d salute you, sir, but you might hurt yourself returning the salute.”
“How did you like guarding the Hen House?” I asked.
“It beats running through a forest filled with shit-colored aliens,” Philips said. “How do I sign up for another tour?”
“Did you see any action?” I asked.
“Oh, I saw action,” Philips said with a schoolboy grin.
It did not take a genius IQ to interpret that message. He had found his way into some officer’s house. Thomer had been right about him.
The team of scientists and soldiers that designed the clones had wrestled with the idea of stripping out their sex drive. In the end, the officers overseeing the project argued that an army of eunuchs would be worthless in combat. Those officers were long dead, but maybe Philips had found his way into the bedroom of one of their descendants. If so, they deserved what they got.
I left the barracks, hoping to slip back to my quarters for some rest. The doctor had even given me some pills to help me sleep, but no one in his right mind would take sleeping pills this close to the front. Get luded before a fight, and you might find yourself asleep when the enemy comes knocking on your door.
I went to the elevator. Tired as I was, I lacked the concentration to tell my men from any other clones. Men walked by and saluted me. I nodded, not sure if they were from my company.
When I entered my billet, I found the room just as I had left it. My white combat armor sat on the table beside my neatly made bed. Even here, with no one inspecting my rack, I kept a tidy room. I turned off the lights and
