Infinity Squad (25 page)

Because this prey had never been seen, not by any living spider. Last year, the spiders manning this outpost had been killed off one at a time over a month, none of them even able to send a clear picture of what they had been fighting before they died. And before all communication stopped, the last spider left alive had only sent one terrified thought back to Red-Stripe's clan: 'White Thought Eater'.

So we knew it was white. And could kill Hell-Spiders almost instantly. And could sense our thoughts from probably a mile away. And that we should try to stay calm.

I took a deep breath. Calm.

"How come Zaz and I have to be buried six feet deep while you guys get to lay around topside?" Juan demanded.

"Because they don't make snow suits for Heavies," I said, calmly.

"Then why are we even here?"

I tightened my finger on the trigger. "Because we're playing this one safe. And now you're not allowed to talk for 30 minutes."

I got two minutes of blissful silence.

"Forrest, you could even tell us which of your superiors needed killing for your squad to gain control."

"At least let him kill Oakley," Zaz chimed in.

"Shut up Red-Stripe. Shut up Zaz. 30 minutes for you too. That's an order."

Twenty minutes later: "Five more minutes and we're switching places."

"Shut up, Juan."

"If he is talking, I need to address balancing the scales for Yellow-Sun."

I exhaled while still staring through my scope. "We've agreed to kill something even your clan is afraid of. That's balance enough."

"We are not afraid. We are being cautious, just like your General Lee at Gettysburg."

"And what happened to him?" the Iranian added.

"Shut up, Zaz. Shut up, Red-Stripe. 30 more minutes. Order."

I got my silence.

Then: "Seriously. I'm getting claustrophobic down here."

"Pee on the snow walls around you," Zaz said. "That will expand them."

"Some hunters are discussing sneaking onto your base to injure those that injured Yellow-Sun. I am leaning towards allowing them."

"No one's sneaking onto our base. No one is peeing on the snow, and we're not moving until-"

"Contact," Ann-Marie whispered, shutting us all up.

I pressed my tired eye to the scope again. There was a white silhouette moving behind the rocks, heading towards the gap. We could see about two inches of it above the rocks. It would be at the gap in seconds.

I settled my finger on the trigger and pulled it back to the decision point. "Prepare to engage. Inhale."

I heard Butcher take air in.

We exhaled together.

And then it hit the gap. For one moment, the White Thought Eater stood silhouetted perfectly against the blue sky. It stood on two legs, had two arms, a head, and was covered in white fur. It was a god-damned yeti.

It may have had a face, but the pure white fur covered its body so completely and so perfectly, blending white into white into snow into ground that I couldn't see any features on it at all. Anywhere. Not even its muscle tone, and I could count the snowflakes falling on it through my scope. But just from its size- it was larger than three polar bears combined- I knew that, at this distance, even a sniper rifle bullet to the head wouldn't be able take this thing down.

Which is why we had brought the .50-cals instead.

Ann-Marie and I pulled our triggers simultaneously and I watched the yeti's chest explode right where my crosshairs were. Literally explode, half of its massive torso shredding as the armor-piercing, anti-vehicle round hit it. Butcher's bullet took out the other side. One second there was a yeti, the next, a pair of hairy legs standing in the middle of a blue blood fountain. Then the legs fell over.

"That's a kill!" I yelled. "Confirmed!"

Juan and Zazlu hooted as I gave a victory swing of my scope around the still falling body parts.

I saw a white shadow leap the gap in the rocks towards us and then disappear.

"There's a second one!"

"You have been spotted!" Red-Stripe said. "Run!"

"No, wait-" I swung my scope across the snow-covered valley that separated us from the outpost. I couldn't even see the
footprints
this thing was making. "It can't just disappear! That's impossible!"

"It is coming for you! Run!"

Fuck, this was going to hurt.

"Evacuate!" I yelled to Juan and Zaz. "Evacuate!" And then the hand of God jerked me backwards.

The two Heavies burst from where we had buried them in the snow, sprinting downhill full speed away from the outpost. The cords from their frames to the harnesses Butcher and I wore around our chests pulled us after them like dog sleds. Like little human-sized dog sleds being pulled by two-ton nuclear-powered dogs.

Luckily the snow was soft and deep, but so is water, and this was just as much fun as falling off your water skis and being pulled behind a speedboat for a mile. I looked left to check on Butcher and she was bouncing around like a rag-doll behind Juan's sprinting Heavy but still tried to raise her rifle and draw a bead on the second yeti. I tried too, but I could barely see past the snow spray we were kicking up to target anything, much less an invisible monster.

"Split! Go to fall back positions!" I yelled, and Zazlu started peeling right while Juan peeled left. First a little, and then more until they were pulling directly away from each other. I could look straight and see Ann-Marie being pulled backwards up her side of the valley just like I was, to our fall back positions against opposing rock walls.

As soon as the heavy stopped I unhooked the harness and dropped into a shooter's stance laying forward, trying to clear my spinning head. I made one pass, then a second over the hill we had just come down, looking for the monster that was hunting us, and then aimed my rifle at the target we had agreed on. At Ann-Marie.

We had spray painted rings of black circles around each fall back position last night. If we were going to fight a camouflaged enemy, at least we'd make him cross some black lines to get to us so we could see him. So the opposing sniper could hopefully shoot him before he killed the other one. Yes, I understood the irony of waiting at the center of a huge bull's eye with a sniper's rifle, but I lowered my eye to the scope and targeted Butcher.

Zazlu stood across my body, flamethrowers and Gatling gun at the ready, but I could hear him swinging the Heavy's arms side to side, trying to find anything to target. He couldn't really see the black painted lines from his vantage point, only Ann-Marie could. As I could see hers.

Through the scope, I could see her brush her short sandy-blond hair from her eyes before she laid into the scope again, see her breath cloud as she panted.

"I got you, Butcher," I said. "We've got this."

"Yes sir," she said, and I saw her mouth move as she said it.

And then we waited again. Only seconds this time, but they were long seconds. I watched Butcher through my crosshairs and she watched me.

Fuck- how many green lights did I have? We were so far north, we had gone down to just two lights on the flight here, and then we had covered the lights at night to not give us away. I could be down to no signal!

I felt a brief moment of panic. Would I rather the yeti go for Butcher instead of me? No, that was my fear talking, and I pushed the thought away. But it came roaring back the moment I saw Ann-Marie frown and pull her trigger.

Twenty feet from me a sprinting yeti roared as his leg was hit below the knee. Blue blood splashed in front of me but he still kept coming, a white shadow driving down his massive arm to aim for my head. Butcher had missed the kill shot.

Zazlu threw his Heavy in front of my death again and the yeti howled as his fist bounced off the titanium frame. And even as I sensed him raise his other arm, I still could barely see the blank white furry thing which was going to kill me.

Red-Stripe burst up out of the snow like Jaws taking a swimming co-ed and stabbed his razor claw up into yeti's the plunging arm, holding him silhouetted up against the rocky background for a one breath. And then Butcher blew its chest open.

Red-Stripe stabbed the yeti in the spine as it was falling and then the thing was finally dead.

We all just sat and panted for a few seconds.

"I sense no more," the spider said. "Only two Thought Eaters made this outpost their home."

Zazlu lifted his heavy off of where it had mashed me into the snow and asked, "How did you know to tunnel to this side instead of the other?"

Red-Stripe pointed at me. "His thoughts of fear and panic were much louder than the Butcher's."

"Thanks," I coughed, standing up. "I think." Every muscle in my back and legs ached from the sled ride. My eye burned from the strain of staring through the scope for hours and my hands were shaking with excess adrenaline.

"What did you call this method of hunting- sniping?" Red-Stripe asked, cleaning his bloody claws in the snow. "I enjoy it. It is exciting."

Jinx picked us up a few hours later. Enough time to collect eight frozen and mostly non-eaten skulls from the outpost and to skin the two White Thought Eaters for their pelts. When Butcher held a pelt up in front of her, she disappeared into the snowy background like she wasn't there.

"This is insane," Juan said, staring at it. "It's like a cloaking device!"

"Or black magic," Zaz added. "Maybe it is a psychic effect?"

"The Eater may add to the prey's confusion while alive, casting its thoughts out, but certainly not now, after death," Red-Stripe said, getting into the helicopter first and pulling himself into a tight ball.

"Either way, we're keeping them," I said, securing Juan's heavy to one skid and Zaz to the other. With the spider, eight skulls, Butcher, me, and our gear in the chopper it was a cozy fit, but we managed.

"This is what the Trojan Horse must have been like, yes?" Red-Stripe said after a few minutes.

"I'm going to stop teaching you stuff," I grumbled, but soon was chuckling with the others.

And I broke my promise almost right away. On the long flight back, we reminisced about the near-disaster on the left flank during the boazelle hunt, and Red-Stripe admitted that was where they usually put their weakest or youngest hunters. So I had to tell him about Epaminondas overturning 200 years of Greek history by putting his strongest fighters on the left side instead of the right, to break the back of the mighty Spartan army.

Which led to us discussing Epaminondas' campaign against Sparta itself, which of course lead to talking about Sherman's March to the Sea, which led to us explaining the German Blitzkrieg as Jinx was finally landing the helo inside the spider village itself.

"You know, our race has a lot of other famous history besides war," I said, swinging onto the ground and unhooking Juan and Zaz. "The invention of Jazz. Pizza. The Moon Landing."

The large spider scooted sideways until he could unfurl his legs and step out of the helicopter. "The military history interests me the most, Lieutenant Forrest. I am already telling the other hunters about the Blitzkrieg as we speak. I may ask for more details later."

"Very well," I sighed.

Ann-Marie came up to me, sweating as she peeled off her snow-suit. "Leave our winter gear here, sir?"

Sneaking the .50 cals and snowsuits out of the armory had been tough. But sneaking them back IN, into the right crates, in seemingly unused condition, would be much tougher. My joints already ached from being dragged behind the Heavy. All I needed was for Hughes to catch us and run us to the farm tonight.

"Yeah," I said. "Add them to the stockpile."

We had started leaving equipment at the spider village, stuff we couldn't be seen stepping off a helo with. A cargo net with tree-monkey teeth marks on it. Trash can lids we had used as cymbals to drive boazelles in front of us. And now snow suits and winter weapons. I also ordered Zaz to add ten assault rifles, 5000 rounds of ammo, ten shoulder-fired missiles, med-kits, boxes of grenades and a week's supply of field rations for 10 humans. We didn't need any of that for our normal missions, but I just had this feeling.

I stripped out of my snowsuit and into standard fatigues right out in the open. It's not like the spiders cared. Ann-Marie had Juan put his Heavy in between us and her, and she came out the other side buttoning up.

I turned to Red-Stripe, who was being attended by his two wives. "So there's not any more of those yetis, right? Just like the river snake?"

"It is not known. They must live in the snow areas, but we only created the outpost last year."

Okay, that begged the obvious question. "So, what was the point of that outpost again?"

"Over that mountain ridge, there is another wet valley. Another vast stretch of hunting grounds. The Northern spider clan, ruled by just one alpha male and his thugs."

Ah. "And so you placed hunters there to watch them."