Parker's Folly (27 page)

“Folly, shore party. Could you have the drone move slowly into the chamber, in the direction of the spire?”

“Roger, shore party.” Almost instantly the drone began advancing toward the spire, moving at a walking pace. As it did, its IR illumination unveiled a floor littered with strange objects and shards of alien equipment, most at least partially crushed by rock fallen from the cavern’s ceiling. The shore party personnel stood staring at the alien detritus that littered the chamber floor.

JT expressed what they all were thinking when he exclaimed, “holy shit! We've found an alien junk yard.”

“Folly, shore party. Are you getting this on video?”

“Roger, shore party. We are recording everything. Could you bag a few samples for later analysis? It might be best to do that before proceeding deeper into the chamber.”

“Roger that. Cpl Sizemore, have your men grab a few of the more intact devices. Dr. Saito, JT, could you help identify the most interesting samples? I don't know what any of these things do but we may learn something about whoever was here before us from them.”

“Aye aye, Lieutenant.” The corporal was happy to have something to do, just standing staring at the cavern was creeping him out. “Washington, Sanchez, help JT and the Doc bag some of this stuff. Then hump it back to the sleds.”

Bear sidled up to Lt. Curtis and said over the local link, “Lieutenant, I think we might want to halt the drone where it is. At least until the Marines come back from taking out the garbage.”

“You're right. Let's not push any farther in until we are back up to full strength.” Gretchen replied, and then keyed the comm link to the ship. “Folly, shore party. Please halt the drone in place until we have collected the samples.”

“Roger, shore party. Let us know when you are ready to advance again.” The drone once again halted, patiently hovering.

“Excuse me, Captain,” said Ivan, from the engineer's console, where he and Rajiv had been studying imagery taken during the ship's descent into the crater.

“Yes, Colonel?”

“Captain, before I was a cosmonaut I flew attack jets, fighter-bombers. Part of that job included reviewing bomb damage photos. Though the markings on the crater floor are not exactly the same, I am thinking that the cavern's collapse was caused by an attack—some form of bombardment.”

“I'm afraid I have to concur, Captain,” Dr. Gupta chimed in. “Those lava flows do not seem proper for normal impact melting. In a number of places you can see where the lava flowed over small impact craters in the larger crater floor—that means the lava flow occurred after the main crater formed. Something caused the rock along the northern crater wall to melt and flow inward. I would say that either directed energy weapons or multiple nuclear explosions in very close proximity caused the damage within the crater.”

“Captain, the drone is picking up more emissions from the buried power source. It seems to be directly under that spire in the center of the open area of the cavern.” Jo Jo Medina reported.

I don't like the way this feels at all
, the Captain said to himself. “Sound General Quarters, I want the weapons systems manned and ready.”

“Aye aye, Captain. Powering up weapons systems.” On the ship's hull two pair of metallic blisters opened like eyelids, revealing the black glittering pupils of X-ray lasers. Over the PA came the ahooga of the klaxon followed by, “General Quarters, all hands General Quarters! This is not a drill!”

“LCpl Feldman, you have the lower port side weapons console, and Col Kondratov you are on the upper console. Dr. Gupta can give you a quick rundown on how it functions but, with your training as a fighter pilot, you should have no problem getting the hang of things. Mr. Danner, please assist LCpl Feldman.”

“The console in front of you doubles as fire control for the close support X-ray lasers,” Bobby said, leaning over to bring up targeting mode for the Marine. “Don't worry, if you've played any FPS video games—like
Halo
,
Killzone
or
Call of Duty
—you're going to find this real familiar.”

“Sure, no problem,” the anxious Marine told Bobby. “Man Ronnie would really groove on this,” he said, referring to his friend still recovering in sickbay.

“Sir?” called Jo Jo from the engineer's console, “there is something at the edge of the drone's sensors. Movement...”

The Marines had just returned from the surface when Bear suddenly snapped around to face the side of the cavern. “Did you see that?” he growled.

“See what, Lieutenant?” JT asked.

“I saw movement in the shadows on the right side of the cave.”

The party crouched down behind the best cover they could find and froze in place. Nothing moved.

“OK, let's have the drone move closer to the spire and see if that gets any response. Folly, shore party. Could you have the drone resume its advance on the spire?”

“Roger, shore party. Be advised, we have had another spike from the buried power source. Also possible movement in the shadows. Some thing or some one is apparently reacting to your presence.”

“Thanks for the heads up, Folly.”
Now what,
Gretchen thought,
are we about to meet ET?
The probe resumed its slow advance. “JT, Washington, move into the chamber. Carefully.”

The big ex-Green Beret and the equally large Marine moved forward crouching, weapons at the ready. They had moved about 8 meters into the open chamber when they stopped and knelt down.

“I got movement on the left,” said the Marine.

“And the right,” added JT. “Can we get some illumination? Whatever is out there seems to know we are here.”

“Folly, shore party. Could you move the drone up close to the chamber roof and use it to illuminate the chamber?”

“Wait one, shore party.”

“Everyone find cover with clear fields of fire. JT, Washington, work your way back to us slowly.” As the two exposed men began to back toward the jumbled rock near the entrance the drone silently rose to the ceiling and flooded the cavern with visible light.

As the dark recesses of the cavern were illuminated, a number of moving objects could be seen. Spherical bodies, much like the ship's recon drone but twice as large, were converging on the shore party. The paths they followed weaved around the mounds of wreckage and rock, bobbing with a noticeably jerky gait. As they neared, it became clear that each was suspended from six slender multi-jointed legs that emerged from the tops of their spherical bodies.

“They look like giant daddy longlegs,” exclaimed Washington.

“Great,” muttered Gretchen, “I hate spiders.”

“Not enough legs for spiders,” said Sanchez.

“So now you're a spider expert?” Cpl Sizemore snorted, “bugs is bugs.”

The nearest bug stopped, its underside opened and a gun shaped object emerged. The muzzle of the extruded object swiveled toward the two retreating men, who were most of the way back to the pile of rock and debris that provided cover for the rest of the party.

Shit, if that thing fires it will catch JT and Washington in the open,
thought Gretchen.
Well, drawing and pointing a weapon at two of my people is a hostile act in my book.
She thumbed her grenade launcher to HE and, using the time-to-detonation, range setting feature that she had not bothered to explain to the others, fired a single round into the space separating the two exposed men and the lead spider.

“Jump for cover you two!” Gretchen shouted just a fraction of a second before the high explosive grenade detonated noiselessly at head height about twenty meters beyond her position. The exploding grenade caused a bright flash as shards of casing flew off in random directions.

Almost instantly, the spider thing's weapon shifted position and fired a bright, red-orange bolt at the point of the explosion. The bolt, striking nothing, continued overhead and caused a splash of sparks against the cavern wall behind the huddled shore party. Mean while, both JT and Washington reached cover with their shipmates.

“Damn, what was that?” Asked Sizemore.

“I would say that it was a plasma discharge of some form,” provided Dr. Saito. “Focused and very hot. I would not suggest being hit by one.”

“Roger that, Doc,” agreed Sanchez. “So what do we do now, Lieutenant?”

“I think we try to back out slow.”

The spiders had different plans. At least a half dozen had produced the belly mounted plasma guns and, in a synchronized volley, fired on the expedition’s positions.

“Incoming!” yelled JT as he tried to become one with the rock he was hiding behind. Sparks and glowing, partially melted rock  fragments erupted all around, cooling quickly and fading out. Five seconds later a second volley raked their positions.

“Seems like those plasma things require a few seconds between shots,” commented Bear. Now in hunt mode, he was intently studying the spider creatures as though they were seals or walrus.

“Right, so after the next volley,” sparks and rock shards again showered their hiding places. “Now!”

Lt. Curtis and the rest of the party popped up and fired several bursts at their assailants. Two spiders slowly slumped to the ground and a leg flew off a third. The shore party sucked ground as the multilegged aliens returned fire.

“Put your velocity selectors on high and go to full auto,” Gretchen yelled over the radio net. “Take them all out.”

Following the next round of plasma fire the shore party again uncovered and fired, this time longer bursts of full auto at 4,000 fps. Half of the visible spiders came apart under the withering hail of flechettes, but more of the six legged creatures were rising from the floor of the chamber, where they had evidently been nestled among the debris.

This time the Marines didn't return to cover immediately, instead they continued firing at the new spiders that were moving up to replace the ones lying shattered on the ground. Bear was firing his much larger rail gun as well, each time it sent a round down range a spider disintegrated into a cloud of legs and shell fragments.

“Lieutenant, the Captain wanted a live specimen if we found any,” Bear reminded Lt. Curtis. “Give me some cover fire and I'll go grab the closest one.”

With that Bear slid his rail gun into its case on his back and made a low dive to a prominent slab of rock near the closest of the resurgent spiders. His movement drew a cascade of plasma bolts, sending molten globules of rock splattering in all directions.

The rest of the shore party resumed firing into the mass of spiders that were converging on Bear's position. Washington stood up and fired three long, well aimed bursts, taking out three more of the creatures. This attracted counter fire from the spiders, one shot striking the rock directly in front of the big Marine. Yelling in pain, Washington went over backward. He fell with movie like slow motion due to the low lunar gravity, clutching at his chest as he settled to the ground.

Lt. Curtis was quickly at his side, checking his suit for damage. There were a number of burn marks and a couple of pencil sized holes in the chest area. Washington was still breathing and his suit had sealed the punctures on its own, though it was clear that he was in considerable pain. Gretchen pressed the medical aid button on Washington's waistband, injecting pain killers into his body.

She took the Marine's rail gun and handed it to Dr. Saito. “Doctor, defend yourself while I move Washington out of the direct line of fire.”

Though Yuki had not taken part in the pre-mission weapon familiarization he had evidently been paying attention. He darted from behind the slab in front of him and loosed two quick bursts, taking down the spider that had wounded Washington. Jumping back to cover, he looked at the Lieutenant and said, “in life, as in kendo, attack and defense are one.”

Bear rose up from the rock outcropping he had sheltered behind and grabbed one of the spider creatures, pulling it back to cover with him. With a single swipe of a massive gloved paw, he disarmed the creature by ripping the plasma weapon from its belly mount, causing the spider to thrash as though it was in pain. He quickly dumped the spasming creature and the now detached weapon into a carry bag, slung it over his back and bounded for friendly lines.

“Pull back by pairs,” Gretchen commanded, shouldering the now unconscious Washington and moving back into the entrance tunnel. Bear galloped past her and up the passageway to the surface. “Be right back, babe,” he said on the suit-to-suit as he passed within range.

“Yuki and Sizemore, fallback on me. Then you cover for Sanchez and JT. Let's move people, we got a ship to catch.”

As the party worked its way back out of the cave they continued to take fire. Bear returned and relieved Gretchen of the inert LCpl Washington. As Bear bounded back toward the cave opening Gretchen moved to help cover the retreating members of her command. The Lieutenant had only advanced a few meters when Yuki and Cpl Sizemore emerged and quickly took positions to provide covering fire for JT and Sanchez.

“These things are following us down the tunnel,” JT reported.

“Try hitting them with the shotgun rounds. They should work well in close quarters,” replied Gretchen, moving her own selector from HE to canister.

Five meters farther in, Sanchez and JT activated their 20mm launchers, stood and let fly with three canister rounds a piece. In front of them the clustered mass of spiders following them was shredded. But before they all went down, one of the pursuers fired a plasma bolt as it staggered backward.

The bolt struck the ceiling above and just behind the two retreating party members, sending a hail of rock shards and molten droplets onto them. Sanchez had already turned to run up the tunnel and took the shrapnel on his helmet and shoulders. His helmet was not punctured but at a number of points starred cracks radiated from the impacts. Sanchez went down on his knees, crying out in terror.

JT felt a sting in his shoulder. Looking over at Sanchez, he noticed that his own helmet also had a starred impact on one side. As he watched, the radiating fracture lines began to shrink and then disappeared as his helmet's self healing liquid layer repaired the damage. Sanchez's helmet was also repairing itself.