Marko Kloos: Terms of Enlistment

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant replies. “If you wouldn’t mind, just split up your people and pad my three teams.”

“No problem,” the XO says. “Ensign Halley and Mister Grayson, you go over to Corporal Harrison. Lieutenant Davis and Lieutenant Grazio, you go over to Corporal Schaefer, and do whatever he tells you to do. I’ll stay here with the sergeant and do the same.”

By the time Halley and I reach the corner of the roof where Corporal Harrison’s fire team has set up shop, the impact tremors coming our way are strong enough to rattle the prefabricated wall sections of the admin building fifty feet below us. Something very large is coming through the rainy haze in front of the terraforming station. I notice Halley looking over to the landing pad, where the drop ship sits on the gravel like a huge insect at rest. On the whole, I’d rather be twenty thousand feet above the ground right now, and I can tell by Halley’s expression that she feels the same way.

“Here it comes,” one of the Marines from another fire team shouts. “One o’clock, four hundred.”

We look over to the spot he indicates, and see the outline of a massive shape in the haze a few hundred yards ahead. It’s still mostly obscured by mist and fog, but the general shape and size of it is terrifyingly large, like a fleet destroyer coming at us through the rain squalls. Then our visitor steps out of the obscuring mists with slow, giant steps that feel like small earthquakes under our feet.

“Holy shit,” Corporal Harrison says. All over our thin battle line, I hear Marines shouting in surprise.

There’s no doubt about the alien origin of the creature that’s now coming across the rocky plateau toward us. My mind tries to come up with a comparable example of terrestrial biology, and draws a blank. It somehow looks reptilian, avian, and mammalian all at the same time. I see a huge, eyeless head that slowly swings from side to side, and what seems like acres of rain-slick skin the color of eggshells. Its front limbs are much longer than its hind limbs, and joined at the center in a way that seems structurally impossible. It walks hunched over on its forelimbs, like a giant fruit bat walking on its wings. Even with its stooped posture, it’s probably fifty or sixty feet tall, and it looks like it could unfold itself to twice that height if it stood up straight on its hind legs. Its overall appearance is familiar and unsettlingly strange at the same time.

“Autocannon,” Sergeant Becker shouts. “Hose it down!”

On the opposite corner of the roof, the autocannon crew opens fire. The squad automatic weapon sounds like a giant jackhammer. It pours out three hundred rounds per minute in a slow, authoritative staccato. I watch as the rounds from the autocannon swarm out to meet the towering form coming out of the mist, and then bounce off in brilliant little explosions, sending sparks in every direction.

The alien creature lets out a piercing scream that is ear-splitting even at this distance. It sound like nothing I’ve ever heard before-a high-pitched, trilling wail that sends shivers down my spine and makes me want to find a hole to crawl into. A quarter mile away, the creature staggers and sways to one side. Then it regains its footing and continues on its path. Its sheer size makes it look like it’s moving in ponderous slow motion, but it’s covering the distance between the mist line and the terraforming station at alarming speed.

“You have got to be shitting me,” Corporal Harrison says next to us.

“Rocket launchers,” Sergeant Becker shouts from the central position. “Ready, aim, and fire on my mark.”

The autocannon is still hammering out its streams of tracers in long, steady bursts. The alien is walking right into the incoming barrage, tracers bouncing off its hide as if the creature is wearing ceramic composite armor. The Marine gunners are raking its torso, trying to probe for a weak spot, but there doesn’t seem to be one. The autocannon’s standard round is a dual-purpose shell, an armor-piercing penetrator with a piggybacked high explosive fragmentation warhead, and those rounds pack enough of a punch to take out an armored vehicle at a thousand yards. Against the tough hide of this creature, the shells burst in a shower of sparks, like oversized fireworks. The creature is clearly annoyed, screeching its earth-shaking wail, but it’s still coming at us.

Along the edge of the roof, Marines shoulder the stubby tubes of their MARS launchers, and draw a bead on the approaching creature. I only have the rifle and its low-pressure grenade launcher, which will barely reach out this far, but I open the launcher’s breech and feed it a fragmentation grenade anyway.

“In three, two, one. Fire !”

Half a dozen rocket launchers boom at the same instant, and half a dozen missiles leap out of their launcher tubes. They streak toward the alien creature, their exhaust nozzles glowing like a swarm of very large and angry fireflies. One of the missiles lands short, hitting the ground in front of the creature and throwing up a geyser of dirt and rocks. Another one streaks past the alien, missing its left side by a few feet. Then the other three warheads explode against its torso in huge fireballs that light up the night in the distance.

The simultaneous impact of three MARS rockets manages what the fire from the autocannon failed to accomplish. The alien creature is knocked off its feet. It tumbles to the muddy ground, screeching its nerve-racking scream. The Marines start shouting and cheering in triumph.

The autocannon ceases its relentless fire. I look through the optical sight of my rifle and switch to maximum magnification. The creature is flailing on the ground just three hundred yards away. There’s smoke rising from its hide where the MARS rockets slammed into it. The limbs of the alien throw up mud and dirt as it thrashes around. Then it manages to steady itself, and slowly rises back to its feet. It takes a step as if to make sure its legs are still working, and then continues its march toward the terraformer, albeit a little less steady than before.

“Fuck me,” Halley says in astonishment. I can only shake my head in agreement. The creature just absorbed enough explosives to tear a drop ship into fine shrapnel, and now it’s back on its feet, looking only a little worse for the wear.

“Launchers, reload!” Sergeant Becker shouts into the common circuit. “Load the armor-piercing shit. On the double!”

The MARS gunners load new cartridges into their launchers, shoulder the rocket tubes once more, and aim their weapons. I would grab one of those launchers myself, but our reinforced squad only has six of them, with three rockets each, and they’re all in the hands of Marines right now. All I have is my rifle, whose grenade launcher shoots wet firecrackers in comparison, but I bring up my rifle anyway, and put the ladder of the launcher’s aiming reticle over the creature that’s now again approaching with thundering steps.

“On three, two, one, fire !”

Again, half a dozen launchers send their payloads downrange with a muffled bang. This salvo is a little more precise than the last one. Only one of the rockets goes wide, and then rest connect with the bulk of the alien’s torso. One of the missiles clips the shield-like protrusion at the back of its head, and I can see chunks tearing off as the high-speed penetrator of the armor-piercing rocket tears into it. The other three rockets slam into the center of its torso, with far less pyrotechnic drama than before.

This time, the creature falls forward with a wail, carried by its own momentum. I only realize how close the alien has come to our position when I see its head digging a furrow into the ground a mere fifty yards at most from the landing pad where our drop ship crouches like a resting insect. The roof under our feet shakes with the force of the creature’s impact. The alien wails again, and starts flailing, this time less vigorous than before. Something about it reminds me of a bird twitching on the ground with a broken wing—panicked, frenzied, mindless desperation.