Vitalis Omnibus (32 page)

Inside of ninety minutes she approached the entrance to the ravine. She studied it carefully from a concealed position between trees before hopping down to walk into it. Bones, both large and small, littered the ground. She began to question the wisdom of her route but figured her options were limited. Besides, she was so close to her unit — her family — that turning back would have made her want to run and jump off the cliff she’d climbed.

Elsa slipped through the rocky canyon floor as quietly as possible, gluing herself the shadows of one rocky wall. Occasional alien vegetation managed to eke on an existence by finding a chink in the rock wall or surviving amongst the dirty puddles and patches of dirt the broke up the rocks. She was glad her visor was down and her air recirculated, the piles of bones promised that she was in a very stinky place. She passed through clouds of large insects, doing her best to avoid them. Strange birds, some looking more like lizards with wings, hopped from rock to rock or rib cage to rib cage.

The ravine widened and the skeletons were mostly left behind. Scattered bones still dotted the trampled earth. A glance to her right helped explain why. A large creature lay on its side, parts of it torn away to leave exposed meat and other less than savory looking parts. Insects and birds flocked above it, trying to get their piece of the feast. Strange yodeling cries kept the birds at bay, as well as the occasional snap of jaws that came too close.

Elsa stared in horror at the five creatures that gorged themselves on the beast. They were babies, she realized, but they were each nearly as large as she was. Two legged and featherless, they were nevertheless predators like the ones she’d seen stalking the herd of grass grazers on the plain. And where there were babies, she knew there had to be a momma.

Chapter 11

Elsa turned quickly, expecting to stare into the open fanged maw of her imminent demise. Nothing awaited her. She glanced back at the macabre feeding, noting the range at one hundred forty feet. There was room enough for her to pass them by and continue down the pass, but for all she knew this pass was a breeding ground. Or perhaps mama was ahead of her, looking for the next meal.

Elsa swallowed down the fear in her throat, noting that it tasted a little like bile. So close, she was so damn close! One hundred forty feet, but if she tried to sneak past them it would narrow to less than sixty. They’d be sure to see her and come after her. Even if they weren’t hungry she’d make a great plaything. Then again, judging from the way they were eating she suspected hunger was a constant for them.

Maybe they’d fall asleep after gorging themselves? That’s what a Marine does when they’re safe and able to enjoy a good meal. What more dangerous predator was there than a Marine? Elsa frowned, suspecting she might have just found the answer to that question.

This was it then. All or nothing, just like everything else had been on this miserable planet. “Eat this,” she muttered, aiming down her rifle and triggering the first shot.

It took three shots to drop the first of the four babies. Using the primary fire mode the X109 recycled almost as quickly as she could pull the trigger. In that second of time the first baby carnivore had time to screech in agony. Its brothers spotted her instantly, two of them running around their dinner while the third hopped up on it to come straight at her.

It was on her fifth shot that the gun let loose a burst of flame from the energy pack. Acrid smoke smelling of burnt electronics curled out of it. Elsa let if fall to the ground and pulled her last grenade. She thumbed the grenade to the proximity burst mode as she was throwing it. The wounded baby Marine-eating monster was limping towards her, screeching with its high pitched voice. It was overtaken and passed a moment later by the one that had climbed over the dead animal.

The third thundered towards her, toothy beak opened wide and dripping blood from its prior feast. The grenade went off, sending a pulse of low frequency sound across the narrow ravine. Elsa and the baby dino closest to her were outside the effective range, though her suit still registered the shockwave. The other two mini-dinosaurs were sent tumbling from the concussive effects of the blast.

Elsa spun away from the charging creature, drawing her combat knife as she did so. One of its arms clipped her shoulder, sending her stumbling away as she spun. By the time she recovered it had stopped and turned to face her again. It was on her almost before she could plant her feet.

Elsa’s knife dug into it, glancing off a rib before it slid between them and into the tissues beneath. She ducked her head aside to avoid the snapping beak then was knocked to the ground by its powerful haunch. Through it all Elsa retained her grip on her knife, twisting it as it tore free.

She tasted blood from where she’d bitten her cheek. She rolled onto her knees and lunged forward, the powered armor driving her legs with greater force. She hit the beast in the side, wrapping her unarmored arm around its thick neck to hold on. It staggered from the impact, then tried to twist and throw her when her knife stabbed into its neck.

Elsa held on, not realizing until it was too late that it was throwing itself onto the ground. She squeaked, unable to generate any more air from her lungs, when it landed half on top of her. The impact also drove the knife in deep enough to cause a burst of scalding blood to spray onto Elsa’s arm. The beast convulsed on top of her, pounding her deeper into the ground before it went limp and lay still.

Elsa pulled herself out, pushing and rolling the dead creature off of her. She started to stand up in time to see the unwounded monster shriek at her from less than an arms width away. She raised her armored arm in time to intercept that snapping beak, but the force of the snapping maw caused fresh alarms to go off in her helmet. She didn’t need the alarms to feel and hear the form fitting armored plates breaking under the force and driving jagged edges into her flesh.

She barked out the command to release a burst of energy into the damaged armor before all the circuits were broken. Her command turned into a grunt that ended as quickly as it had begun. The electricity locked her jaw and stiffened her muscles from the brief but powerful jolt.

The baby dinosaur let her go, stumbling back and snapping its beak as it tried to spit out the painful burn. Elsa’s arm was broken, she could feel it even without looking to see the unnatural bend in her forearm. She grabbed up her knife in her other arm and staggered to her feet. She tasted fresh blood, this time from where she’d nipped her tongue.

It stared at her, still clacking its beak together. Like a bird it tilted its head to stare at her with first one eye, then the other. It was sizing her up, she realized. Re-evaluating her as a threat. It tilted its head back and let loose the loudest cry yet, this time a shriek that varied in pitch and tone. With a tightening in her gut she realized it was calling for reinforcements. Or in its case, crying for momma.

“I. Hate. This. Fucking. Planet!” Elsa screamed. She jumped at it, noticing that her suit didn’t help her this time. It reared back and she fell short. She cried out as her broken arm hit the ground and gave out, causing her to smash her shoulder and helmeted face into the rocky ground.

The taloned foot came down on her helmet, pressing her into the ground. Her arm was pushed into the back of her mind as she realized she was about to be squashed like one of the Vitallian cockroaches in the cave. She struggled to roll, driving her knee into the ground and pulling the other one up so she could plant her foot. Her neck twisted and her muscles wrenched in protest, but the armored seal held. Before the monsters foot slid off the HUD blinked once then disappeared.

She flopped onto her back and found herself staring up into the business end of the baby dinosaur’s crotch. Even if it was a baby and sexually immature, she had no doubt it was male. She jammed her knife up, driving it deep into the belly.

It chirped loudly, but rather than leap away it dropped its head down and bit onto her thigh. It picked her up, the powerful beak inflicting similar damage to the armor on her leg to what it had done to her arm.

“You’re coming with me you fucker!” Elsa hissed, tightening her grip on her knife and putting every last ounce of concentration into locking the muscles of her arm, shoulder, and chest. It caused her V-BAR to slice up through the skin and muscle of its belly, cutting the organs beneath as well.

It squawked around its mouthful of Marine drumstick and let her fall. Elsa hit the ground with a grunt, spots in her vision. Immediately the spots were tinted red as the bowels of the creature fell through the gash she’d made and landed on top of her.

Chapter 12

“You got a death wish?”

Elsa heard the words but couldn’t believe them. She brought her good hand up and wiped the ichor from her helmet. A man stood above her. Not just a man, but the kind of man that she suspected primitive cultures worshipped as a god. She tried to release the viewport and slide it up but it was jammed. She scowled then tried to sit up.

Her first attempt reminded her of her broken arm. She yelped, then chastised herself. Weakness wasn’t allowed now, she wasn’t alone. She tightened her muscles in a show of mental self discipline and used her other arm to help her to sit up, then to rise to her knees. Her leg felt bruised and shaky, but aside from the broken armor plates grinding together it still worked.

“Gunnery Sergeant Elsadora Quinn, of FIST team 3,” She said after she stood up.

The man grinned. She noticed for the first time he was dressed — if dressed was the right word — in animal hides. He held a sharpened stick and had a bow and a sack full of arrows across his back. “Tarn Bledsoe,” he said with a grin. “I been chasing you for a while. Could have saved you a lot of trouble if you weren’t so damn fast.”

“Sorry to have inconvenienced you,” Elsa said. “Your name wasn’t on the list of personnel in the research station.”

“Only a couple of them left,” Tarn said. “Look, you want to stay here and chat or do you want to get out of here before momma and poppa come back?”

Elsa swore. “Let’s go — my unit’s supposed to meet up at the research station.”

Tarn chuckled. “Ain’t much there anymore. Kira and Fiona should’ve brought the survivors from your unit back to Treetown.”

“Survivors? What happened?”

Tarn shrugged. “Beats the hell out of me. Vitalis don’t take kindly to visitors from other worlds. Your screamers fell straight into the biggest damn flock of wyverns I ever seen!”

“Wyverns?”

“Yeah, legendary giant flying lizard.”

“Dinosaurs? Like a pteranodon?”

He nodded. “Something like that, except these are bigger and meaner.”

Elsa swore again, then realized what Tarn had said. “Wait, you know what a screamer is?”

Tarn shrugged. “Yeah, humans ain’t native to this planet. Well, at least not till there were some babies born back in Treetown.”

“Babies? How long have you been here?”

“Three years maybe? Easy to lose track of time, no real seasons where we’re at and the days kinda turn into one another. Some lawyer lady that survived the research station said the kids were natives and as long as no intelligent life was found, they owned the planet by TCS law.”

Else clipped her knife back into its sheath and wiped more of the blood from her view plate. “I still need to find my unit, I had ‘em on my radio a little bit ago, but my suit’s out of power, I need to recharge it.”

Tarn laughed. “Don’t bother, it’s beat to hell and even if it would work, it won’t last long.”

“Why not? Each part is independent and modular.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself, but I’m telling you technology don’t last long here. Otherwise why’d you ditch your gun?”

She turned to see where the broken weapon lay on the ground. A black spot on the side of it showed where the ruptured energy cell had destroyed the weapon. Faulty power packs weren’t uncommon, but she hadn’t heard of one bursting into flame in decades.

“My team will wait for me.”

“There’s something up there that you don’t want no part of. If Kira and Fiona can rescue them, they will. Otherwise we’d best stay clear of it.”

“Fiona?” Elsa mused. The name was familiar. She went through the names of the researchers assigned to the outpost but came up blank.

“Fiona Kate, Lance Corporal,” Tarn said. “She was part of the Marine force assigned to defend the research outpost. Ain’t much defending to be done against a Megasaur though. Like I said, only a handful survived.”

“What’s so bad up there, the Megasaur? And is that what these were, baby ones?”

“Naw, this are just screechers. The adults get a little over 20 feet tall. A Megasaur is damn near twice that.”

She turned to stare at the dead screechers. They were toddlers then, each around six or seven feet tall. She shook her head. “They’re Marines, they’ll find a way and they’ll wait.”

Tarn sighed. “Fine, let’s go.” He glanced behind him. “Can’t believe their momma left them alone this long. Unless maybe daddy got eaten by something bigger.”

She stared at him. Something bigger like the Megasaur, she wondered. She had a lot of questions but if Tarn was right, time and distance were more important. “If something’s bigger than daddy, I really don’t want to meet it.”