Chapter 409

... Ann raised a foot from the muck to shake off something that wiggled and flopped about as it tried to use its teeth and suckers on the near-impervious suit. But the skin suit sluffed off the creature’s actions without much notice, and she stomped it into the muck. A few minutes later, they were out of the water and on a long peninsula of muddy land that extended partway through the swamp. Tired, the two stopped for a breather. Turning, Ann started to make a comment, but instead screamed out to Arlene, “Look out!” just as one of the spider/crocodile things crashed down on her, its weight smashing Arlene prone into the muck, its web spinner already beginning to wind strands of its sticky contents around her prone body.

Jeff had continued to be with his young wives, not as a participant, but only an observer; however, he was otherwise fully immersed in the scenario. This included the dogfight in space and the nail-biting ride down to the planet where he had to continue telling himself he wasn’t really in the craft with them, that it was just Ship’s simulator training. He certainly felt their tension as they sat quietly in their ship waiting for the alien vessel to give up and leave, then he felt immense pride as they left their interceptor to continue toward their objective with only their skin suits, basic survival equipment, tactical carbines and the bomb, of course.

At least he didn’t have to experience the intelligent vines as they reached out for the two at every opportunity, nor feel the sucking mud of the swamp. But the attack of the spider/crocodile thing startled him just as much as it did the women. He had to bite his lip to keep from calling out as Ann unlimbered her carbine and turned toward the spider and Arlene.

“Arlene. Arlene!” Ann yelled into her mike, but the massive weight slamming down on the young woman had rendered her unconscious – Ann fervently hoped it was only unconsciousness that prevented Arlene from answering.

Just as she leveled her weapon at the spider, Ann caught movement out of her peripheral vision. Of course, by then, Jeff was trying to scream out a warning, but since he was only an observer, Ann could not hear him.

The second spider/crocodile was actually in the air – they could jump an enormous distance – when Ann threw herself to the side, landing in the mud on her back, her carbine already firing. But the carbine was only a compact survival tool for interceptor pilots who might have to ditch in enemy territory, not a formidable military weapon to take into serious battle. On this mission, the pilots were supposed to sneak in, not fight their way in, let alone back out. Consequently, the carbine did not have the high capacity power source that would allow a full energy laser beam to remain viable for an extended period of time. In other words, there was no slashing with the laser since it only fired pulses. If it had been a full-blown infantry weapon, she could have held the beam on and slashed the spider to pieces. Or if she could have used the particle beam, she could have blown the spider to bits, but that would have alerted the enemy. She was left with only punching holes through the creature with roughly tenth-second pulses.

Practically gnashing her teeth, with her thumb itching to flip the switch and change the weapon from a simple laser to a particle beam enhanced laser, she rolled aside as the spider bounced and changed direction. Its big, multifaceted eyes locked on her, and its mouth dripped something she assumed was venom or some other obnoxious substance as her laser silently stitched holes across the spider’s head and belly. The big head drooped, but the eyes remained open as it sprang again, only slightly slower now.

When it jumped toward her, she again scrambled/dived to the side while continuing to fire, riddling the underbelly and left side of the thing with multiple holes that gushed something that showed up in her night visor as a slimy-looking green. That bastard bounces around like it’s on... and a thought hit. Frantically scrambling aside again as the spider chased her with short hops, she began snapping off multiple shots at its hips and upper legs instead of trying to hit its brains when she didn’t even know where they were located. What passed for bone (cartilage?) exploded as she pumped laser pulses into the legs on the nearest side. When it jumped this time, its body sagging to the left because of two destroyed legs and hips, its intended trajectory was off. This gave her more time to concentrate when she fired her next burst to take out the last leg on that side.

The thing kept trying to get to her, but it could no longer jump, which gave her more time to aim a short burst at the spider on top of Arlene. Intellectually, Ann knew that only seconds had elapsed, but it felt like hours. By the time she could direct her full attention to the second spider, Arlene was practically encased in a cocoon of the white mess the thing was spinning out. Even as Ann moved to get a clear field of fire, it had tried to sting/pierce Arlene over and over with a pseudopod of some kind that protruded from its middle, but thanks to the skin suit, it had not been able to penetrate – yet.

Kneeling to lessen the danger of hitting her partner, Ann set about giving the big beast something else to think about – if it did, indeed, think at all. With more time to fire and less time spent on trying to survive, she concentrated on the giant eyes. Expecting them to burst when the laser hit, she was sorely disappointed for the eyes seemed to be built as sturdily as the rest of the beast. Nevertheless, the laser tore into them just as it did the rest of the body. With repeated shots as tissue and ichor burst from the heat, not to say anything about the holes the laser was leaving, the thing was soon blind on its left side – she hoped.

Without his having realized, Jeff had screamed out warnings to Ann more than once; the simulation was just too real for him not to. The frustrating part was that he could not help. Ship even intervened once, reminding him that it was only a training scenario, but that got her snapped at by the Prime. Seconds later, he was as deeply involved as he was before Ship’s interruption.

Ann tried to stay on the side with the damaged eye as she concentrated on taking out the thing’s hip joints, and since the beast towered several feet above the prone Arlene, Ann now had a clear target for her laser. But ... by the time she had taken out the first joint, the spider had decided it needed to kill this thing that was irritating it.

Having one of its brains reduced to bubbling muck as well as the eye on that side, and having a hip destroyed, it misjudged its jump, and in addition, forgot to disconnect the cocoon material that connected its spinner to Arlene. When it jumped, it took Arlene along for the ride, which caused the jump to be short and to the side. Before it could turn, Ann ran past, her laser pulsing as fast as she could pull the trigger. If the laser had kept firing, she might well have ended the battle right there, but the energy canister was empty and as she struggled to replace it with her backup, the spider jumped again. Since the distance was short, it managed to land on her, its weight knocking her flat, and Arlene, still attached by the cocoon material, landed across Ann’s legs.

But the spider’s head had been riddled with laser fire, leaving the bubbling mass of destruction a little short in thinking capacity. Even though it could still see somewhat from the right eye using one of the backup brains, it no longer had anything to bite with since the head was mostly mush. Ann managed to pull the empty energy canister from her weapon, but couldn’t get her hand around to reach the backup on the left side of her belt, but she had managed to take out another hip before the canister was exhausted. Her mind screaming in frustration, she realized that she could reach her leg knife. Something happened in her brain and the knife was suddenly in her hand. With a swipe, she severed the huge strand of material linking Arlene’s cocoon to the spider. While she was at it, she swiped again, gritting her teeth and putting everything she had into it. The unbelievably sharp knife cut through the beast’s belly from as far as she could reach all the way down the spider’s middle, the foot-long blade, only three molecules thick on its leading edge, seemed to move through the arachnid with little noticeable resistance.

Revolting innards spilled out of the thing, steaming as they hit the soggy ground. As it tried to turn, its guts snagging in its remaining legs on its right side, she swept the long blade through the last hip joint on its left, gritting her teeth to push with all her might. She was rewarded with its dying body collapsing on both her and her partner, which really pissed her off.

Somewhere in the battle, fear, logic, reason and give-a-shit had left the young woman. The only things she had left were training and hate of the beast that had attacked her partner.

When she came to herself, she was totally covered in a thick, putrid semi-solid that once was the spider/crocodile creature, the gory knife still clutched in her hand. As the fog of battle continued to fade, she noted that the spider that had first attacked her had also ceased to struggle, presumably having died – at least it looked dead. Her carbine was somewhere under the spider that had attacked Arlene – the spider that she had cut to ribbons. Struggling to her feet, she slung the worst of the gore from her knife, cleaned and sheathed it, then struggled to pull Arlene’s cocoon from under what was left of the nauseous creature. When that was accomplished, she carefully began cutting the cocoon, now hardened, away from her partner, praying that Arlene was still alive.

When Ann finally had the material cut away enough to see her partner’s face through the faceplate of the skin suit, Arlene groused at her, “About damn time you got me out of this crap.”

“You’re not hurt?” Ann stammered.

Arlene bent her neck from side to side. “My neck is sore and I have a few aches and pains, but I think I’m all right. At least I will be when you get the rest of this shit off me.”

A few minutes later, Arlene kicked the last of the cocoon free from her feet and sat up to look around, “Oh, shit,” she whispered as she was finally able to fully see the carnage.

“If you’re through admiring the scenery, help me get this thing off my carbine,” Ann grumbled as she struggled to move the rear of the beast off her weapon.

“Oh, my,” Arlene whispered as she came to her feet, still amazed at what lay around them. “It looks like...”

“Quit gawking at the scenery and help me get this thing off my weapon before more of those spiders find us,” Ann snarled as she tugged futilely at the dead mass on top of her carbine. “And I need to find my first power canister. Come full daylight, it should partially recharge, at least.”

By the time they had found Ann’s carbine and empty power canister, Arlene had almost as much muck on her as Ann. As they stood to wipe the worst of the gore off each other, slinging their hands to try to get it off, Ann pointed to the blackened water of the swamp only a few feet away. “I hate to admit it, but even that stuff is better than wearing spider sludge for the rest of the mission.”

“Shall we go for a swim, then?” Arlene said with fake cheer in hopes of keeping the shakes, which had set in by then, to a minimum.

Wading in, they submerged themselves, then wiped each other’s suit as clean as they could with the water of the swamp. “Well, at least I can see better without spider guts all over my faceplate,” Ann said as they made their way back to the area where the spiders had attacked.

As Ann consulted her scanner, Arlene touched her shoulder, knowing how much she hated spiders. “Ann, I...”

The young woman shivered violently, but caught herself. “You’re welcome, Partner. And let’s not talk about it – please.”

Arlene grinned, but changed the subject, “How much power do you have left for your weapon?”

“Well, I never did get the second canister into my carbine during the fight, but I now have it locked in my weapon, and my empty canister on my belt, hopefully to re-energize somewhat during daylight – if we’re here that long. I guess I wasted a lot of power until I realized that destroying their hips was the best way to slow or stop them. Their eyes are almost as armored as the rest of their bodies, but taking out an eye does help, too. With the things jumping around as well as coming after me, hitting the eyes wasn’t the easiest thing to do, and with my half of the bomb on my back throwing my balance off ... Oh, well, we got the job done.”

“You mean, you got the job done. I vaguely remember being slammed into the ground, then a flash of pain before waking up with you cursing like crazy, but I couldn’t see anything, nor move inside the cocoon that thing spun around me. I heard some of the fight, but I didn’t want to distract you, so I kept quiet.”

Ann had taken several sips of water from the “straw” near her mouth, but she feared she would drain the pouch across her back if she drank as much as she wanted. They had filtering equipment, but she didn’t want to spend time using it right now, and she certainly didn’t want to open her faceplate in the swamp. “I’m tired and shaking, and need to rest for a while, but I want some place away from the spiders before we do.”