SNAFU: Hunters

“Damn,” Harris whispered, relaxing again. They’d hustled to get here from base camp, but several hours of hiking and then hiding while the sun set and night came was mind-numbingly exhausting. He’d been brought up to speed on the current mission while they were traveling, and now at least had an idea of what to look for.

“Giant bugs,” Sig described simply. “Your height or better, slick black or brown carapace, and serrated appendages. Pincers where their faces should be.”

“Don’t forget the shock,” Tighe added, keeping his own eyes on the road as he drove them to where the Cobalts had found more ’poneras.

Sig nodded stoically. “Yeah, they can generate bioelectricity. They hit you with it, it’ll knock you on your ass.”

“I don’t suppose you’re making this up, to pick on the new guy?”

Vida held out a cellphone with a photo on the screen. Harris looked at it and grimaced.

Now, like the others he waited to see one of those monstrous OHs in the flesh. He’d been informed these creatures were coming through tears in the fabric of reality. How they were engineering the rifts was unknown, and why was equally mysterious. They entered the world in unpopulated areas then immediately went searching for the nearest human habitation. There, they would attack and kill, or kidnap the people they found. Those killed were little more than shredded meat when the ’poneras were finished. Those who were taken, mostly children, went to an obscure fate. Once transported through the rift, none of them had ever been recovered.

“Heads up,” this was Tighe again, a note of tension in his low voice, and Harris scanned his surroundings for movement. “Esfir reports something coming in from the south-west.”

One of the Cobalts, little more than a shadow, moved out of the trees and flowed across the clearing before merging into the darkness at the western edge of the meadow. Electric blue flickered then was gone, and Harris guessed Vida had activated her weapon. The wind picked up, tree branches flailing and making peripheral vision useless; everything seemed to be moving.

The fitful breeze brought an acrid smell, and Harris wrinkled his nose at the rank stench. He turned and crouched, facing into the scent, eyes narrowed as he tried to see something moving besides the tossing underbrush and swaying trees.

“Harris, to your right!”

He swung right, disoriented by the dancing shadows. There was nothing to focus on, everything was in motion. Something big seemed to melt into reality, and the stench of acid and rotten meat filled the night. Harris brought up his gun and fired. At the same time, projectiles from another weapon hit the same target. Blue light pulsed, revealing something from a nightmare. Broad as a draught horse and close to seven-feet tall, the thing was neither human nor one of the ’ponera that had been described to him. It had an extra set of limbs and a jutting chitinous jaw protruding beneath two large ellipsoidal eyes. Harris managed to take that in before the projectiles from Vida’s weapon exploded. He ducked away as a spray of gore and viscera erupted from the thing’s chest plate.

“You okay?” Vida gripped his shoulder, and he nodded, making a face at the dripping goo that coated his left side. “On your feet, there’s more coming.”

He stood and followed her, not sure how she could see where she was going. There were more gunshots south of their position, and once the yowling cry of an angry cat. From the ear bud, Harris heard Tighe giving orders between firing.

“Tchaz, Kai, what’s the latest from the cats? Sig, check west. Goddamn these sonsobitches reek. Vida, keep an eye on the rift, and keep Nate’s ass out of trouble.”

“Two o’clock,” Vida said to Harris, seeming to ignore Tighe’s chatter. “See it?”

He didn’t, but waited before saying so. Something moved against the wind and light glimmered on something hard and glossy. “Got it.”

“Aim low, it’s carrying something,” she whispered, and brought her weapon up.

The next few seconds were like strobes through a kaleidoscope. The trees tossed and shuddered in the freshening wind, undergrowth like splashes of ichor in the uncertain light. Things moved, their shapes unfamiliar and difficult to recognize against the natural background. Vida fired, blue light limning her hands and flashing quicksilver designs on her arms and weapon. Harris aimed low, as she’d said, and the flash from his barrel picked out multi-armed alien creatures beneath the trees.

Time seemed to slow, and Harris could count his heartbeats between the recoil of his rifle. In mere seconds it was over, and he followed Vida to check that the enemy was down.

The earbud conveyed Tighe’s words as Vida shone her light on the dead monsters. “The rift, Vida!”

She paused only to shoot one of the downed ’ponera between its protruding eyes. “Check the victims,” she said to Harris, hooking her thumb at two still forms that had been thrown free when the creatures fell.