Gregg Hurwitz - Minutes to Burn

Shoving himself up to his feet, he clutched the branch tightly, searching for rage. He stepped forward, raising the tree limb above his head, but became nauseously weak. He crouched, his head bowed as if in sup-plication, his shoulders heaving with sobs.

"She's just a baby, Cam," he said. "She's just a baby."

Cameron looked frantically at the forest. Somewhere in the dark patch of trees this was all taking place, and she was unable to do any-thing about it. "Derek, listen to me. If you don't pull your head out of your ass ASAP, we're all gonna be in a fuckload of trouble. Now toughen up! Do it!"

Derek stumbled to his feet, moving toward the cocoon. It swayed and convulsed, something pumping beneath its surface. He drew back the branch like a baseball bat, flexing his arms and his shoulders and throwing his full force into the swing. He struck the side of the cocoon, rocking it between the trees. It was hard, and much denser than he'd expected. He was just drawing back the branch again when a massive splitting sound filled the air. A seam had opened straight down the pupation chamber.

"It's hatching," he said. He stepped back in horror. "Jesus God."

"Run, Derek! It's too late-we're gonna have to deal with it later. Get the fuck out of there. Come back to base. Just run!"

Derek fought through the weakness. Closing his eyes, he felt anger return slowly to him, felt his soldier's instincts quickening his heart. When he opened his eyes again, the world was back in focus. "And leave everyone else to pay?" he said, his voice thick with mucus and tears. He shook his head. "Not again."

He clicked out as Cameron screamed into her transmitter.

The others ran toward her from the hole, Justin leading the way. She was still yelling when they got there, and then she fell silent. They stood around her expectantly. It was impossibly silent.

Derek saw a head rear through the slit and burst the shell of the cocoon like a melon. Pieces of hardened silk clung to the mantid's face in slimy strips as it slowly emerged. The new head was an open maw- sawing mandibles, yawning labrum, quivering maxillae. The face was alive with motion.

He snapped the head to one side with a swing of the branch.

The mantid's body slowly followed the fearsome head. First, a pair of snapping legs, then the thorax, then the orb of the abdomen. The man-tid unfolded from the white pupation chamber like a phoenix rising. Her head lifted on a high, towering neck, a ring of crusted silk clinging to her throat like a gory necklace. She rose unsurely on her legs, then shook herself like a wet dog, freeing her limbs from the slime and drawing out her mass.

It seemed inconceivable that the larva could have metamorphosed into such a large and terrible thing. The mantid was expanding still, like a chick fluffing itself out after hatching. Derek darted forward and struck its back with a solid blow, but the wing didn't crumple. He aimed for the thin neck and swung, but the mantid reared up and he hit only her armored thorax. He ran quickly out of range before she could focus on him.

Her raptorial legs practiced a few quick snatches at the air, jackknifing shut like a steel trap. She approached him, leaving the husk of her cocoon clinging to the trees.

When her front legs lowered, Derek lunged forward, hammering her head with a flurry of blows. The attack seemed to confuse her, and it kept her from striking. Sometimes hitting the head, sometimes the thorax, he continued his assault as the mantid adjusted to her new body and the onslaught. Finally, she raised a front leg, blocking a blow, and the branch snapped. Derek hurled the remaining piece at her, his arms aching.

She reared up, towering over him, rank and fetid. He stared up into the black pools of her eyes. Her mandibles spread slightly as her rapto-rial legs drew back. In the brief stillness before the strike, Derek drove himself up at the mantid, a whirlwind of fists and elbows.

The soldiers stood around Cameron on the dark grass, the distant torches at the hole flicking above the shadowy outlines of their faces like infernal halos. Cameron was shuddering all over, though it wasn't more than cool, and she crossed her arms against her chest to keep them from trembling. She opened her mouth to speak, but her jaw was shaking, so she closed it.

They stood in silent rank, waiting for something, though no one knew what.

Echoing from the darkest folds of the forest came a petrifying scream. It circled them once, twice, then departed, leaving only the wind whispering against the grass.

Samantha couldn't remember the last time she'd slept. Despite the continuing activity at the makeshift work station outside the slam-mer, she dozed off, forehead pressed to the window. Donald came over, amused, and tapped lightly on the glass. She awoke with a start. "I didn't do it," she said.

He smiled, cuffing his sleeves. "I feel we conveyed the environmental and medical complications quite admirably to your superiors."

"First time I've offered expert testimony through a window."

"I'm relieved Rex and Diego made it off the island." Donald crum-pled his shirt in a fist and released it, admiring the new folds and wrin-kles. "I hope the others will be all right." He brought his lips together, his white beard bristling. "A courageous bunch."

"I like that Cameron," Samantha said. "Smart and tough. That's how I want to be when I grow up." She heard the clicking footsteps that announced Colonel Douglas Strickland's approach, and when she looked, she was shocked to see Secretary of the Navy Andrew Benneton at his side. On his way from a Senate subcommittee meeting, Benneton wore a sharp, well-tailored suit. Donald stood nervously, fingering the back of his chair.

The men shook hands, and Benneton nodded to Samantha through the glass.

"I'm glad to hear Rex is safe," Benneton said. "We're going to be able to get the rest of the squad off the island in a little more than twenty-four hours."

"How about the air strike?" Donald asked. "Is it called off?"

Benneton shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry, Donald, but the team here feels that the risk of the Darwin virus's spreading is unacceptable."

Samantha banged her head gently against the glass. "'The team here.' I trained half the goddamn 'team here.'"

"As soon as the squad extraction is complete, we're going to send in a B1 from Baltra. Neutron bomb," Strickland said. His tone was smug, almost proud. He removed his beret, pressing it to his side with his left elbow. "We received UN approval this morning."

"That's a surprise," Samantha muttered.

His legs shaking, Donald eased himself down into his chair. "A neu-tron bomb. That'll kill all the terrestrial island life. Boil the surrounding waters and send out a shock wave. Everything within miles…dead."

Strickland ran his tongue neatly across his lips. "That is the point, Doctor."

Benneton looked away, annoyed with Strickland's tone. Samantha sensed that there was no love lost between the two.

"Andrew," Donald said. "If I could inform you that the known virus reservoir was exterminated, and the island's water system was no longer infected, would you be willing to hold back the air strike?"

"Can you inform me of that?"

"No," Donald said. "Not yet. But Rex and the Acting Director of the Darwin Station, Dr. Diego Rodriguez, are heading to the Station to test water samples as we speak, and it is my understanding that the soldiers are hunting down the remaining carriers."

Strickland shook his head. "I don't think that's sufficient grounds to-"

"Dr. Everett," Benneton said, cutting Strickland off. "Do you think we will have reached a plane of reasonable security if these criteria are met?"

"Yes," Samantha said. "Of course, we never know when this virus could resurface, but if Sangre de Dios's water system is uncontaminated and the accountable virus reservoir exterminated, that provides us with as much guarantee as we're ever going to get." She glared at Strickland. "Certainly as much as a bombing will give you."