Author's Note: In which conclusions are drawn, both erroneous and otherwise, and Faraday fails to use the sense his momma gave him.
We're really getting into the shit now. I think this is actually going to stay T, because despite my best efforts nothing is going to happen besides good old-fashioned horrible violence, but now we're pretty much done with all the aboveground stuff and get to open the can of whoop-ass.
Rating: T.
Disclaimer: G.I. Joe is the property of Hasbro, Inc. The Aliens and Predator franchises are property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. I derive no profit from the use of these characters and concepts, and have received no compensation. Please accept this work in the spirit with which it is offered—as a work of respect and love, not an attempt to claim ownership or earn money from these intellectual properties.
Chapter Seven: The Hunt is On
It took about thirty-five minutes for the dead creature's bitter blood to oxidize into inertness. By the time Lifeline finally picked it up—carefully, with a pair of metal tongs that still hissed a little as the last of the viable acid touched them—the Joes were already prepared for the mission.
They raided the Camp Carter armory, under personal supervision of Col. Folkes. The officer's concerns had been in no way assuaged by the sight of the thrashing, dying Dreadnok, but his objections to the Joes' methods were no longer an issue. One order from him sent the armory personnel scurrying for the doors, and the Joes had their pick of the equipment without anybody bothering them about forms or clearance.
The message, after all, was clear. Nobody was sure just what the hell had happened to Rat Man, but however it had gotten there, the serpent in the man's chest was clearly linked to Cobra Commander's pets the temple. It had taken no time at all for Storm Shadow and Tunnel Rat to track Rat Man's footsteps to a side door—a small hole, really, hidden under a tangle of dead bushes in the northwest area that the archaeologists hadn't even begun exploring yet. ("This is why Indiana Jones could never exist," Storm had proclaimed as he marked the area on the map. "Archaeologists are too concerned with treasure hunting instead of manhunting.") And the fate of Rat Man meant that, in all likelihood, the Cobras and Dreadnoks still in the temple would be less an issue than the monsters themselves.
While the Joes armored up, Lifeline took exclusive control of the corpses. As sundown neared, the heavily-armed Tango Team piled into a small examination room in one of the medical huts, gathering around and watching grim-faced as their medic dissected the two halves of the strange slimy thing.
"It appears to be a juvenile," he said, carefully peeling back a layer of tissue with tweezers. "At a guess, I would say it's the young form of the things that attacked us earlier. Now remember, I'm not a pathologist." He definitely wasn't, but any pathologists within five hundred miles hadn't been cleared for something like this. "But looking at this, I'd say it matures extremely fast. Take a look at the cell sample under that microscope."
Beach Head, who was nearest the microscope, peered at it. "Ah'm seein' a lotta anaphase an' telophase," he reported. "Sure was growin' like gangbusters. Just how fast is fast?"
"Hours. A day or two at most."
As one, Tango Team looked at the small specimen on the table. It was no bigger than Scarlett's forearm, half-curled up, tiny crooked forearms the size of a wishbone clutched against its chest. In death, it was pathetic. In life, it had broken a man's breastbone before it was a minute old.
"What about the acid, Lifeline?" Scarlett said sharply. "That stuff ate through stone like it was nothing."
"As far as I can tell, the acid is what it has for blood." Lifeline grimaced and held up a hand, stemming the outbreak of shouts and bad words. "I told you, this is not my area. But it seems to be constructed a lot like a spider or a crab—instead of a normal circulatory system with blood, it has this stuff."
"Spiders have acid for blood?" Tunnel Rat said, whistling. "Damn."
"No, spiders have hemolymph."
"What kind of acid is that?"
"It's not an acid. It's a—look, never mind." Lifeline rubbed his forehead. "Its body must have a very strong basic component, stronger than the acids. That's the only reason I can think of for why such a corrosive liquid wouldn't burn the animal from the inside-out. Cobra Commander has really gone out on a limb with this one. This sort of thing should never have existed."
"Acids an' bases. So, what, we kill it by throwin' bakin' soda at it?" Beach Head said.
Lifeline shook his head. "I don't think that will do anything. It would have to get into the system itself, and anyway, baking soda isn't nearly strong enough. I think you'll just have to kill them the old-fashioned way."
The ninjas exchanged glances. Then Snake-Eyes put a hand on his ever-present Uzi, and Storm Shadow nodded, frowning ever so slightly.
It was no secret to any of the Joes that Storm Shadow preferred the traditional weapons. This wasn't because he couldn't use guns—on the contrary, he had been one of the highest-scoring trainees to ever pass through the Benning firearms program. But unlike Snake-Eyes, Storm Shadow had trained as a ninja for as long as he could remember, and though he was comfortable with almost every form of weaponry on the planet, he would always be most at home with the traditional armaments. In this case, though, when an enemy's blood would quickly melt any blade it touched, it seemed that Storm Shadow would be forced to follow his sword-brother's lead in choice of weapons. A fact that he was clearly not pleased about.
A ninja's damaged ego wasn't the most important thing in Scarlett's mind, though. Her eyes were still fixed on the corpse of the juvenile monster. "Lifeline," she said carefully, "if this thing is a baby . . . How did it get in the Dreadnok?"
Silence fell. She had said it, but everyone had been thinking it. They had all been close enough to see the look on Rat Man's face when it burst out of his chest.
"I haven't got a chance to look at the other body yet. Short answer? No idea." The medic shrugged. His tone was determinedly calm, but there were deep lines in his face and shadows under his eyes. "This is . . . at a guess, I'd say Cobra Commander based these things off insect DNA. So my money right now is on a spike-tipped ovipositor—an egg-layer, like some wasps will use to paralyze their prey so they can implant the egg."
Chuckles made an odd gulping noise, his face green-tinged. "That? Is not right."
"Body armor," Lady Jaye said. She and Scarlett exchanged glances, both nodding. "Lots of body armor."
"Even for the ninjas," Scarlett added. Both Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow turned to look at her, their expressions as incredulous as possible through their masks. "You two have a habit of being up in the rafters, and that's where the Commander's new friends like to hang out. I'm not running the risk of having our best commandos turned into incubators for more of these things."
Ninjas weren't usually big on body armor: its very existence was based on the expectation that the wearer might actually get hit, which a ninja wasn't supposed to let happen. But Scarlett was even less enthused at the thought of Snake-Eyes—or even Storm Shadow—bent over on the ground, a bloodstain on his chest, hearing the hiss of that little-
She shook it off, and the ninjas raised no further argument. Not that it would have done any good: if Scarlett had to pull rank to save Tango Team from a gruesome death, then just call her Sergeant Hardass.
"Anything else?" she asked Lifeline, who shook his head.
"If you want me to conduct a thorough examination, you'll have to give me at least three hours. And judging by the way everyone's kitting up, I get the impression that we're going below sooner than that."
"Correct. However many of these things there are, it's too many." Scarlett turned and faced the group, putting her hands on the edge of the examination table and leaning forward. "We still don't know what Cobra Commander's up to. He seems to have used the Dreadnoks to bait a trap, if Buzzer's testimony counts for anything. He's going to be expecting us to come in with everything we've got, and unfortunately, that's exactly what we have to do. The only other option would be to bomb the temple off the map."
"What about gas?" Tunnel Rat put in.
"Not an option. We still don't have a working map of any of the sublevels below the second, and there's air shafts everywhere. We'd never get a high enough concentration to actually kill anything." Scarlett frowned. Her shoulders were tensed, her face ached, and the bruises and deep tissue damage from being thrown to the ground by the monster had only grown worse over the last few hours.
In an ideal world, she would've been able to throw this over and go home. Only a few days ago, she had been sitting on her bed in the pit, getting a neckrub from a wonderfully skilled ninja and teasing him about Incan and Aztec architecture. Now she was in a bad monster movie. But even if she was only human, she was also a Joe, and she promised herself that she wouldn't even entertain any more thoughts like that. Job to do. She took a breath, took one more glance at the dissected nightmare on the table, and focused on the mission.
"We're going in with everything, and I do mean everything. Col. Folkes is equipping and briefing his chosen soldiers as we speak, so we may still have people to look out for. But he says they'll pull their weight, and I think that since he saw what happened to Rat Man, we can trust his judgment." Scarlett's gaze was hard. "We're going to follow Rat Man's trail in there, and we aren't going to stop until we've swept the whole temple clean of anything that shouldn't be there."
There were nods from all around—all except Tunnel Rat, who was frowning slightly himself. After a moment, though, he nodded as well, and Scarlett raised her head.
"Pack up, Lifeline. Yo Joe!"
The settlement was alive with Oomans, hundreds of them. The eldest of the Blooded chittered softly, remembering his first hunt—so long ago that the little creatures of this planet had barely discovered electricity, when he had slaughtered his way through dozens of them and claimed so many skulls that they had been worthless as trophies. He was aged now, honorably so, but he didn't doubt that he alone could have the camp fleeing in terror of the nameless invisible hunter. It was a good thought.
Unfortunately, there was no time for a proper Hunt now. The Bloodeds' leader led them, invisible, in their climb up the side of the temple. There, in one of the rooms that had been built under the directions of the great yautja ancestors, was the device that would give them the advantage in their unusual task.
Scarlett surveyed Col. Folkes' chosen troops with mixed feelings. British, Australian, and American soldiers, drawn from the ranks of those assigned to the Peacekeepers. Nine of them—seven infantrymen, a certified sapper, and a medic. Of the infantrymen, one was depressingly familiar. Faraday grinned as he watched Scarlett pace, Jaye behind her.
"Colonel Folkes has already briefed you," she began, crossing her arms and giving the grinning trooper the fish-eye. Faraday's smile slipped a couple of notches. "But before we go below, there are a few things you should know. This is a top-secret operation. All of you will be duly compensated by your respective governments, but that comes with a measure of risk and confidentiality. When we are below, you will follow my orders and the orders of my team. This may violate the chain of command-" That comment was aimed in the direction of another sergeant major, a broad-shouldered Japanese-American by the name of Yutani- "-but this isn't exactly a by-the-book kind of situation. Every deviation we make from regulations, we make in the name of keeping all of you alive and functional for as long as possible. My name is Scarlett, and you will report to me. If I'm put out of action for any reason, my second-in-command is Lady Jaye. After that, find any of the three men in masks. Understood?"
There was a mixed chorus of "Yes ma'am" from many of the troops, some of whom were confused about Scarlett's rank. A bellow of "She ain't a ma'am!" from Beach Head silenced that pretty quickly, though, and Scarlett smiled despite her nerves. She herself might be in charge of a monster-hunting mission in the depths of an ancient temple, but no power in the world could stop Beach Head from treating everyone else as if they were unruly greenshirts making lousy time on an obstacle course. It was oddly comforting.
She arranged the expanded squad with minimal difficulty. The two medics were placed carefully, with Lifeline more towards the front of the column and the other, Pvt. Stokes, closer to the rear. The new troops were interspersed between experienced Joes. Scarlett still loathed the thought of going into battle with a large number of unknown factors in play, especially in her own squad, but she couldn't deny that after seeing that creature burst out of Rat Man she was grateful for having the extra weapons in play. They double-timed it across the rocky slope towards the side entrance, Scarlett in the lead with Storm Shadow and Tunnel Rat, and Beach Head as ever bringing up the rear. (The big sergeant major seemed to have found a friend in Yutani, who was also the one with the sapper tabs. Scarlett would've paid good money to be a fly on the wall during those conversations.)
The slime trail was faint, reduced by the afternoon sun to dried-out scuffs in the dirt, but the ninja and the tunnel specialist followed it like dogs on the scent. It circled around to the northwest side of the temple, where most of the structure had crumbled into rubble, and stopped at an overgrown patch of dying greenery that half-covered a small, dark door. Tunnel Rat was their pathfinder now, and he went first, ducking gingerly down and testing the strength of the tunnel and the rough-cut steps there.
"We're good," he called out. He beckoned, and the newly-expanded Tango Team followed.
The Blooded were gathered in the darkness of one of the temple's uppermost rooms. Their leader hissed as he placed a hand on the ancient stone dials, turning them ever so slightly. Deep in the bowels of the structure, a clock began to tick. One reconfiguration, just enough to confuse and disperse the Kainde Amedha, and the cleanup could begin.
They passed a sound amongst themselves, a wordless chirrupping purr that every yautja knew. It was time to ready their weapons. Shuriken gleamed in the half-light, and the eldest of them all examined his combi-stick with satisfaction. In honor of the occasion, he had chosen his oldest and best, still decorated with the teeth of Oomans from his last hunt on this little planet. Maybe he could take a few more.
If the first descent had been claustrophobic, this one was like being buried alive. At its highest, the tunnel roof provided about five feet of clearance, leaving even the shortest of the soldiers uncomfortably stooped. In such a tight space, the breathing of the gathered troops was more of a racket than ever. Down, down, down they climbed, and soon muttered obscenities joined the heavy breathing of the men. The light from the tunnel entrance had long since faded, and in the glow of multiple flashlights and halogen lanterns, every man cast a dozen overlapping shadows that danced across the wall and flickered eerily against the carvings there.
And carvings there were, more of the serpents and disembodied hands and triumphant warriors. The builders of this temple had been obsessed with their apocalypse myth. Lady Jaye whispered a few words of translation to Scarlett as they passed the reliefs, though Scarlett almost wished she hadn't. Even Tunnel Rat, who was even more at home than the ninjas in a tight space, was looking unusually drawn and tense; his face grew grimmer with every image of the serpents that they passed.
The motif of the monster, repeated again and again, taunted Scarlett. Trying to distract herself, both from the claustrophobic presence of the men around her and the long darkness of the shaft below, she focused on the problem of the monster. How long would it take Cobra Commander to breed a creature like that? Months, if not years; he was building an entire being almost from scratch. She could imagine Mindbender having that kind of patience, but not Cobra Commander himself. And the temple itself hadn't been rediscovered that long ago . . . They must have jumped on the idea of the monster and formulated the trap almost immediately. It took a level of long-range planning and doublethink that Scarlett had trouble attributing even to Cobra.
"'Five foot high, and three may walk abreast,'" Jaye murmured behind her. It seemed to be a quote, but Scarlett couldn't place it.
After twenty minutes of steady downward descent, Tunnel Rat let out a low whistle. "We're there," he said softly. "Fifth sublevel, womens' apparel and . . . whatever the hell that is."
One by one, the Joes and peacekeepers emerged from the shaft, blinking. Tunnel Rat's whispered estimate confirmed his earlier comment: they were much deeper than they had ever been before. That cramped stairwell had probably been how the Dreadnoks and Vipers were getting to their camp. The technical details, however, were slightly overruled by what they now saw.
It had probably been a normal corridor, judging by its height and width. Now, though, it looked like no place they had ever encountered. The stone floor was completely obscured, coated with a thick slime that had begun to condense into gummy resin. That same resin coated the walls, forming dull black-and-gray ridges and strangely organic shapes that gleamed only when the strongest beams of light struck them. Thin strands of clear liquid were strung from wall to wall, and when Tunnel Rat put his hand through one of them, it stretched and snapped like soft rubber. Strange spiderlike shapes, half-coated in the same liquid, lady discarded in the corners.
Faraday's grin was completely gone now. "What the hell is . . ." he began, bending down to examine one of the shapes. He drew his kabar and dipped it into the mess of slime, aiming his flashlight at it as he pulled. A strange skeleton was pulled clear of the mess, tail trailing, its legs clenched in a rictus.
"Put that down." Beach Head again, his voice soft in the corridor but every word carrying steel. "Gawddammit, boy, didn't anybody ever tell ya that ya don't go pokin' strange shit at close range?" Faraday was pulled back into line, chagrined, and Beach kicked the gooey skeleton aside. "Which way, 'Rat?"
Tunnel Rat aimed his halogen lantern ahead, ducking his head to avoid another of the rubbery strands. "The corridor branches off in two different directions up there, but there's recent foot marks towards the left-"
At which point the clock ran out. Something rumbled deep within the temple, and Storm Shadow flinched violently, clapping his hands over his ears. And the walls began to move.
