Chapter 5

Kamaria was slowly stroking his aching cock when the biggest damned insect in the history of the universe decided to take a bite out of the back of Gavril's neck. Slapping his neck with a yelp of pain, he felt his blood and the insect's guts mingle between his fingers. His dream fled. The sun was up and he was already sweating.

"Wake up, girls," Gavril called. "We still have a walk in the park on the schedule today."

"He thinks he is so funny in the morning," someone groused in a nearby tree.

"No one descends until Hairball reads the tracer," Gavril called out, even though his men had been trained during the last mission.

"All clear," Hairball called out. "Same distance, same track is showing."

"Lupe, blow a latrine hole with a burst and let's get on with our day," Gavril said, letting himself down. Even to take a pee, one man always stood by with a rifle at the ready. No one wanted to lose his dick first thing in the morning to a carnivorous flower. After eating, the men coated their necks, face and hands with mud from the jungle floor. The dried muck kept most of the insects from biting.

Once toilets and food had been dealt with, Gavril had each man inspected, including himself for bites, open cuts, and sores. Satisfied that there was no stinger in the back of his neck, he ordered the men to prepare to march.

A burst rifle went off, causing everyone to jump for their rifles.

"It was crawling and it was too close," the man furthest back said. "It was yellow with fangs and ruffles along a snakelike body. Do you think it tastes like chicken?"

"It could have been the last of its species, and now we'll never get to know its biology," Gavril said with a false solemnity.

"Thank God," came the expected reply.

"Let's move out," Gavril said and they trekked further into the jungle paralleling a game trail that went in the general direction of their pursuit. While the Vizz had the advantage of jumping from host to host when necessary, they were still bound by the restrictions of the host body. The Vizz couldn't make a body do something that it wasn't designed to do nor could they smarten a creature beyond its brain size. Forced to use dumb creatures of the Awanili wild, the Vizz were finally at an acceptable disadvantage as long as the humans used every advantage they had. An unthinking human, even for just an instant, was a decent target for the Vizz. In any case, the host-hopping bastards were confined to the game trails like everything else.

The day was long and wearying. The insects were incessant and one particular patch of undergrowth left everyone with thin red welts on their arms that burned whenever sweat touched them. Gavril regretted not toasting the evil looking plants when they first encountered them, but rules were rules. No sense giving the recon satellites overhead something to scan.

In the late afternoon, the corporal stopped and raised his fist high. The high-pitched whine of burst rifles ramping up from warm to hot filled the air. "We're hot at 270o: one boojum."

"Dunnel, you're point," Gavril said. "Everyone light your onboard tracers. Jojo, you're high. Everyone spread out to full intervals and we go to silent running." Gavril brought down his microphone and pressed the pickup into the underside of his neck, just above his Adam's apple.

Ordered in the shape of a half moon crescent with Dunnel standing alone in front, the platoon moved forward. Each man stepped as quietly as possible, hoping that the buzzing of insects muffled any crunching under their boots.

Dunnel reached a huge trunk of a fallen tree. He stopped and peered over the trunk with the scope on his rifle. He raised his right hand with one finger. Dropping his hand, Dunnel lifted his onboard tracer and then watched it find the target on his scope. He raised two fingers, indicating that the target was within rifle range.

Gavril was waiting for a thumb's up. Dunnel slowly raised himself from behind the log. His chest was just clearing the top when a horrible scream shattered the quiet. Gavril barely saw the large, flat body flash through the air, flourishing legs, claws and wicked teeth, before four bursts tore it. Dunnel ducked as something slammed into the tree trunk with a resounding "splut" of flesh on wood.

"Dead boojum!" Hairball announced, looking up from his tracer.

"Lupe, fry the body with a cannon and make sure the immediate area is dead too," Gavril called out.

"Aw shit," Dunnel said as he stood up. It was apparent that he had pissed himself.

Gavril saw the mess. "Did you get a shot off Dunnel?" When the man nodded, Gavril gave him a thumbs up. "That's all that matters. Who got the kill?"