Jason Halstead - Screamer

Else found herself struggling against the current almost immediately. Beneath the surface it ran swifter, tugging at her and trying to send her downstream. She fought it, putting one foot after another into the rocky river bed. The armor had air enough for half an hour of moderate activity, more had she brought some of the modular oxygen tanks. Vitalis had an atmosphere that was ideal for human consumption — they’d all assumed there’d been no need for spare oxygen. Else bit back the curse muttered by deployed soldiers since the beginning of time — never enough supplies in the field.

She changed her display mode to a mixture of sonar and thermographic, mapping out the river bed and looking for potential hot spots. The water registered at a surprising eighty seven degrees Fahrenheit. Even at night it was warm enough to use as bathwater. She was trying to adjust her display to modify the thermal gradients when something bumped into her from behind.

Else jerked around, catching the blurred image of something swimming around her. She kept twisting, cursing the current for her slowness. On a hunch she counter-spun, rotating back around and catching what seemed to be a large fish coming at her. It struck, teeth scraping against her armored belly and sending her off balance. The current finished the job, knocking her off her feet and sending her rolling and floating over a dozen feet downstream before she was able to stop herself.

She looked up from her supine position and saw the carnivorous fish coming after her again. It was longer than she was tall and for the first time she wished the sensors in her helmet weren’t state of the art. She could make out teeth that would have made a Terran shark envious.

Elsa climbed to her feet, pulling out her V-Bar combat knife as she did so. Distracted by the current, the fish, and the adrenaline bursting through her veins she didn’t notice the faint humming that the powered up knife emitted. The fish came on, sensing an easy target, and tried to tear off her arm. Elsadora jerked her arm back, angling the knife towards it.

Twisting in the water she watched the fish swim downstream away from her rapidly. Had she hurt it? Her suit showed no sign of penetration but she had felt it tug at her arm on the way past. She turned again, staring into the murky depths and wishing she had more than a display based on echolocation.

Chemical sniffers in her display flashed warning lights. She called up the report on it and saw that there was blood in the water. Her knife attack had been successful. She kept the vibrating blade at the ready and continued on, hurrying to get out of the water. Another warning slipped into her display, notifying her of a breach in the arm of her suit.

“ What’s next?” She muttered, lowering her arm to minimize the amount of potential air loss. The thermal imaging showed an increased warmth at the spot of the strike. Fine bubbles emerged from it to be swept downstream by the current. She redoubled her efforts to get across, looking up in time for her sonar to present a cloudy image.

She realized it was localized after a catch in her breath. Refinement a moment later showed it was a school of fish swimming upstream this time, from the direction the wounded fish had gone. Her question had been answered, a school of hungry fish following a blood trail was what was next.

They swam around her and pecked at her armor. In a matter of seconds it turned into a frustrated feeding frenzy. Her armor protected her but the fish didn’t give up. Elsa clutched her arms to her chest, covering the minor breech with her other hand, and pushed hard against the current. Her suit showed no additional breaches but a quick glance at the integrity display showed that they were somehow able to wear away at the armored surface. There were dozens if not hundreds of fish swarming her, visibility was reduced to nothing and each step was that much more difficult as she was being hammered from all sides.

The swarm of fish scattered as quickly as it had appeared. Else stumbled, driving one knee into the creek bed without the sudden persistence of the voracious fish. She looked and saw them disappearing back downstream. “I really need to shoot somebody,” Elsa complained, driving herself back to both feet. She glanced up and grinned, the surface of the river was only a few feet above her. She’d made it!

She emerged from the water as fast as she could. Her arm was wet from the breech and she’d had enough of being stalked by alien piranhas. She kept moving across the loose rocks at the river’s edge towards the massive jungle that awaited her. Beyond that was her first waypoint, the cliff that she had to find a way to climb. She accepted that First Insertion Marines never had it easy, but this was ridiculous. She needed to find a spot to pop off her glove and drain her arm too.

A sound so powerful it felt like a physical blow sent Elsa into a roll across the broken ground. The speakers in her helmet cut out, preventing the overpowering decibels from ruining her ear drums. She scrambled behind some trees and jerked her rifle off her suit. Years of drilling herself and others allowed her to reassemble it by memory in a matter of seconds.

“ Holy shit!” Elsa was frozen, aside from that simple phrase. On the other side of the river a massive creature was staring straight at her. It walked on two legs and was covered with feathers. Rather than looking like a bird, the beast’s legs were massive, proving they had the muscle to drive it to impressive speeds. The front limbs were smaller but no less fearsome for the talons at the end of the fingers. What scared her the most was the head. Plumes of feathers emerged from the peak and back of it, giving it a crowned appearance. The eyes regarded her with a savage fury that spoke of trespass and hunger. Beneath the eyes was another avian feature, a curved predatory beak. It opened the beak to roar at her again, dispelling thoughts of any relationship to a songbird. The open beak also displayed a single row of teeth clearly designed to rend and tear meat. In this case, her meat.

Elsa brought up the sighting reticule in her display and fired. The charged ions zapped the creature in the chest, sending a puff of feathers out and drawing a fresh roar of pain. Elsa stared, a dread chill spreading through her. It took a step forward, plunging a massive taloned foot into the river. The current didn’t seem to bother it, nor did the depth. Then again her sensors measured it at nearly eighteen feet tall.

It looked down at the river, then raised its other foot. Thinking quickly, Else shifted her gun to a new target. “Let’s see if you hungry bastards like how each other taste!” She fired twice, scoring wounds on the other leg moments before it sank into the water. “Bet you think that water feels good, don’t you?”

The Marine energy rifle was the latest example of new science improving old technology. Ionized bursts had been used for centuries in a variety of ways, but armored material had quickly been developed to thwart their effectiveness as weapons. Against unhardened targets, however, there were few weapons more instantly incapacitating. Modern warfare frowned upon weapons capable of causing civilian casualties with such ease, but with preliminary data from Vitalis showed a trend towards highly complex technology breaking down faster, the X109 has been commissioned.

The primary fire mode of the X109 was a stream of charged ions. Against normal organic targets it had a lethal range of four hundred yards, depending on the density of the atmosphere. Against something the size of Big Bird she had no idea what it would do, but the supercharged ions should have turned at least portions of it into fried chicken. It wasn’t as impressed with her weapon as she was.