David Golemon - Legacy

“Will, get as many of the men together as you can and get them into the bunker any way possible. Maybe we can find a level here that these things can’t squeeze into.”

There was no answer for the longest time. She once more took General Kwan by the oxygen pack and pulled him along. She had only gone a few feet when a giant hand crashed down through the strange composite material and crushed the wall nearest them. She looked up as she fell and saw the robot staring down at her and Kwan. They were had. The thing towered over them in the silent vacuum of the Moon’s atmosphere. She saw that it had no mouth, no ears, and a head that looked like some kind of buffed or stainless steel. The red eyes were like quartz crystals. It had no numbers or distinguishing marks. The gears inside its body spun, stopped, and spun some more. There were pulsating bladders protected by a series of giant metallic ribs separated by only inches. Even if they had ground-to-air missiles, she didn’t know if anything like the BGM-71 TOW system could penetrate the strange alien armor. These things were built to survive, and had done so on this hostile rock for 700 million years. As she tried to get up, the metal beast raised its steel-entwined arm into the air and leaned over the high wall of the first building. Kwan kept firing, aiming for the eyes, as he was thinking that maybe they were some sort of information-gathering device. To Sarah’s way of thinking this was right, because robots certainly didn’t need eyes for aesthetic purposes. She knew that she and the general were about to be smashed to pieces, but at that moment several dozen kinetic rounds slammed into the steel and threw the robot off balance.

Sarah saw this and pulled on Kwan harder. This time the general didn’t need much convincing. They both turned and struggled down a not too wide hallway, one that wasn’t accommodating for their bulky suits, and made their way deeper into the alien complex. As she did, she heard Will Mendenhall ordering the survivors of the attack inside from someplace where they had attacked the first robot. Thus far she didn’t know the disposition of anyone.

Sarah saw a smaller room off to her right and made for it, closely followed by the general. As Sarah turned she saw through the open roof the robot searching for the small humans who had escaped it. Then something caught its attention and it moved off, smashing the remaining roof off a building further down. As Sarah frantically looked around, trying to find something they could use to fight back with, someone’s COM system opened up and she heard a man scream. It was one of her own. She also heard Mendenhall directing fire from somewhere. Sarah had never felt so helpless in her life. The general turned and faced her. Inside his helmet she could see a determined look on his face.

“We have to get to the landing vehicles and leave the Moon. We can do no good here. The mission is over.”

Sarah looked at him with shock- All of this to turn and run? she thought.

“We have to bring something back,” she protested.

“Listen to me. We have the coordinates for the downed ship. That’s more than we ever hoped to get. That is heavy weaponry, Lieutenant. We have found what we came for, but if we don’t get off the Moon it will be for nothing. We cannot fight these things. We don’t have the firepower.”

Sarah saw the general’s point. If they remained, no one would ever know about the warship in the dust, and no one would know what they needed to fight these things.

“Okay, I’ll agree that we have to get off the moon, but how the hell are we going to get past these things?” she countered.

“That, Lieutenant McIntire, is the problem we face.”

“How far is your LEM?” she asked. She felt a sharp vibration as one of the two creatures struck somewhere close by. As she ducked, she saw several of the boltlike rounds rip into the wall opposite of their position. She knew then that they still had men close by.

“That is what I was thinking. Our lander is actually closer, as you Americans are fond of saying, as the crow flies. If we follow the valley just to the left of Shackleton, on the east side, we would have cover all the way to Magnificent Dragon. If I could get half of the men into that small valley and follow the terrain, not exposing ourselves to these creatures, we may make it all the way to our LEM. If we don’t use the radio, we have a chance; I don’t think they can track us without the use of electronic signals.”

“I was thinking the same thing. I believe that’s how they hunt. They were probably sent here seeking out human life to destroy. As soon as Mendenhall used his radio rather than his suit-to-suit COM, one of those things attacked.”

“Well, that’s one theory, and for now I’ll accept it, Lieutenant. So now the question is, how do we communicate?”

“Mendenhall to McIntire, where are you?” the voice came over the radio.

Sarah hit her COM switch. “We’re in the first set of buildings on the west side. We have a-” Sarah realized too late that she was doing exactly what she had said they couldn’t do. Instead of the line-of-sight transmission of a suit-to-suit call, Will had used his radio COM system to contact her. The next sound she heard coming through Will’s system was him shooting and she looked up just as hundreds of kinetic rounds flew upward from somewhere to her right.

“Damn!” the general said. “Listen, to all who can hear my voice,” he said, taking a chance on using the radio. “Get to the center of this complex. We’ll meet there. Now move!”

Kwan angled out of the small room and chanced the hallway that had no roof. Sarah followed and saw one of the metal monsters as it disappeared over the high wall of the building they were in.

“Look!” Sarah said, hitting Kwan of the back. They both stopped, one running into the other as they saw the ramp leading down. At that moment, several men appeared ahead of her. She saw a white-colored NASA suit in the lead. It was Mendenhall and he had several American, European, and Chinese troops with them.

“Look out,” Kwan shouted, as a giant three-fingered hand smashed through the wall and knocked Will over. Instead of grabbing Will it grabbed the next man in line. Sarah’s eyes widened as she recognized Sergeant Demarest, one of the older Green Berets on the mission. He was lifted out of the bunker and they all watched helplessly as Demarest and the arm vanished. Sarah thanked God the sergeant’s COM system was off.

Kwan waved the men ahead of him, indicating that they should go forward down the large ramp that angled downward at a 30 degree angle. He just hoped there were no more nasty surprises waiting for them at the bottom. As the men went, Sarah and the general followed, not knowing if they had found a covered haven beneath the bunker or if they had just found another way to hell.

As they continued heading down into the bowels of the ancient complex, Sarah placed her hand on the strange plasticlike wall. She stopped and felt the movement of the monstrosities above. It felt as though they were tearing the bunker system apart-perhaps trying to dig them out of the rat hole they could be heading into.

“You feel it too, yes?”

Sarah looked up and saw the general looking at her. He had stopped next to her, along with the comforting face of Will Mendenhall.

“They’ll dig and dig until they find us. It’s like their programming won’t allow them to do anything else,” she said as she lowered her gloved hand from the wall.

“I’ll tell you, whoever built them crazy bastards would have to be related to us somehow, because only our species could ever be so brutal,” Mendenhall said, shaking his head inside his helmet.

“I agree, Lieutenant Mendenhall,” Kwan said. “But I may venture to add, as long as it was beings like us that built them, it can also be counted on that those same beings can destroy them.”