Greenflies Read online

  Tongues of plasma lashed out from the grass. The bright, blinding, flashes associated with their firing made locating their source difficult, even through tinted helmets, but it was very clear where the plasma bolts were going. While the plasma spread rapidly and it wasn’t very accurate or damaging beyond a few hundred yards, it was effective enough to instantly melt through the combat medic’s parachute lines. He plummeted towards the ground, his chute trailing behind him like a tail on a fallen kite. Despite the fact that he landed on grass, a great splash of water shot upwards. His velocity had driven him into the water and mud quite deep. The only part of him visible was the chute, catching a little of the breeze.

  The sniper also took a plasma blast, but on his armor. The long range saved his life. Aside from the stench of burned hair beneath his armor and an impressive string of curses over the comm channel, the shot hadn’t affected his ability to fight.

  As they neared the ground, tugging at the lines on their chutes to aim for solid ground, a laser altimeter notified them with a beep that it was time to release their chutes. This system was designed to free a soldier from his chute quickly, so that when his boots hit the ground, there were no immediate constraints to keep him out of the fight. The assumption behind the early parachute jettisoning system, however, was that those boots were landing on solid ground. In this case, one of the soldiers was not.

  The communications specialist was a little off the clump of turf and trees that the rest of the soldiers had landed on. When his parachute detached, he was dropped abruptly into soft swamp mud, driving his feet two feet down into the mud. The water which had been hidden by grass a moment ago, now lapped at his collar bone. He attempted to withdraw a leg, but the mud slurped his other leg down an additional six inches for his effort. He was left scrabbling at grass for a grip, but going nowhere.

  “Hold on!” yelled the squad leader from the mound of more solid earth.

  The rest of the team had landed, and were spreading out across the small mound, surveying the surrounding bog for the Greenflies which had fired on them during approach. The scene was reminiscent of a childish game of king of the mountain. The mound itself was perhaps thirty feet across and had only a half dozen spindly trees. Seventy yards away, in the direction of the stuck communications specialist was the downed alien transport, a corner of it protruding from the marsh where it had sunk.

  Three of the soldiers scanned the marshlands while the squad leader attempted to extricate his comm man from the swamp. He leaned out with one hand gripping a spindly tree. The trunk bent but held as he used it to hang out over the mud. He dangled the strap of his gun down to the entangled soldier; a gap of only inches separated the soldier’s hand from the strap.

  Suddenly, the soldier was wrenched away by an unseen force beneath the surface of the marsh.

  His helmet disappeared beneath the waterline, and a great burst of air and dirt reached the surface from the soldier’s sudden removal from the mud. The squad leader thought he caught sight of something scuttling at the bottom of the swamp, but only for a moment. Visibility in the water was such that the Greenfly responsible for the abduction was invisible after only a few yards.

  “They’re under the waterline!” the squad leader shouted, “They don’t have to breathe.”

  The squad leader and the sniper knelt on the mound and pointed their guns in the direction the scuttling shape had moved. For nearly a minute, there were no bubbles or any other sign of life from either the Greenfly or the abducted soldier beneath the water. Then, there was a brief disturbance in the water 20 yards out. A black helmet popped to the surface, followed by a growing pool of red blood.

  “Open up!”

  The grass was ripped apart by a barrage of depleted uranium slugs, and the water turned to froth. There was no sign of what the bullets might be doing to the enemy, if anything. The squad leader chucked a concussion grenade into the marsh. After a three second delay, a great circle of marsh turned white and leaped skyward. It rained down in a drizzle reaching the mound. Two shapes floated to the surface another ten yards away from the edge of the circle, one that of a human soldier with his neck at an odd angle, and the other a Greenfly, its armor bugs falling off in great clumps.

  “Hydrostatic shock, sir,” the demo man said. “Explosives are more effective underwater. Like a depth charge.”

  “Chuck ‘em. Save one each. I want a perimeter cleared around this mound before we …”

  A shape stood from the swamp behind the sniper. The Greenfly, standing on its hind limbs, gripped its silver rifle with four arms. A plasma shot disintegrated the sniper’s torso in a cylinder about the size of a basketball, dropping the man and his left arm separately onto the mound. Before the Greenfly could drop back into the water, the three remaining soldiers let loose a torrent of slugs. The Greenfly turned to paste, its armor bugs no match for the penetrating bullets, but the soldiers didn’t stop. The hail of bullets gave way to grenades, thrown in all directions from the earthen mound. The series of explosions began an unnatural rainfall that lasted the better part of a minute. A third Greenfly floated to the surface.

  “Odds are that’s all of them; the pilot probably died in the transport, but let’s not play those odds,” the squad leader said, turning to the demo man, “Set the claymores around the mound. We’ll prep the javelins. We’ve got some time before any inbound flies arrive.”

  While the demo man began setting the shaped charges at the periphery of the mound, the squad leader began fishing the anti-tank weapon from the sniper’s remains. The combat specialist continued to survey the scene

  “Sir…” said the combat specialist, pointing to the horizon.

  A set of parachutes was visible descending far to the east. That explained why Mu team was not here to reinforce them. They were both late and way off target. If Beta survived this, the squad leader would recommend some serious remedial training for Mu. Losing half their men in the first few minutes meant Beta was ill-prepared for the Greenfly extraction transports that would arrive in between twenty and fifty minutes. If the flies were running too far behind schedule, the alien transports might arrive at the tail end of the teleportation window and be trapped here. The standard Greenfly reinforcement group lately had been four transports. With any luck, the flies would be too scared of losing those transports to commit them. Unfortunately, Beta was not having a very lucky day. On the positive side, contrails could be seen overhead, the team’s air support out of Pensacola.

  The squad leader had the four available javelin anti-tank weapons extended, safeties deactivated, and placed in a row for easy access. When the time came, they’d be ready at hand, one for each of the anticipated alien transports. The downside was that the flesh of an alien transport was so thick, tough, and at the same time spongy, it frequently took more than a single missile to incapacitate one. If it came to it, the air support could fire upon the transports, but in this environment, that would certainly catch Beta in the blast radius. What they needed was helicopter gunships, which according to the squad leader’s radio were not within a practical range. There were two flights of marines en route, but they, too, would arrive after the teleportation window had passed.

  The team waited. The humid Florida morning was made all the more so by the explosive-induced squall earlier. The earthen mound steamed, evaporating the unexpected rain. The armor was allegedly temperature-controlled, but the heat and humidity crept in as the soldiers switched from self-contained to environmental air. The air tanks were only intended for short term use after all. The minutes crept by slowly, the squad leader reporting through his radio and monitoring troop deployments.

  When change occurred, it did so suddenly. Forty minutes after Beta had landed, there were two blue flashes in the sky far above and four simultaneous flashes placed equidistantly in a square around the downed transport. The nearest of the four newly-arrived transports was perhaps thirty yards from the earthen mound. From the limited cover of the trees, the squad leader
held up his hand to indicate for his men to be ready, but to wait. In his other hand, he himself gripped one of the javelin missile launchers.

  The sides of the transports opened to allow the turret bugs to crawl out.

  “NOW!”

  Three missiles lashed out, each towards a separate transport. The missile launched at the nearest transport neatly passed through the open portal prior to detonation. The transport burst like a blister, its walls bowed outwards, looking like the petals of a flower afterward. It bucked in the air for a moment before collapsing, presumably its repulsors behaving like the legs of a beheaded chicken. The other missiles failed to penetrate their targets, the transports taking them on their more heavily armored anterior surfaces.

  The turret bugs clambered to the tops of the three remaining transports, and nine Greenflies leaped out. They sank beneath the surface of the marsh, scuttling like mud crabs. The turrets let loose with a barrage of plasma, blasting huge chunks from the front of the earthen mound and sending up a cloud of steam. The humans crept backwards along the mound, two of them returning fire with their rifles. The squad leader prepped the last javelin for a parting shot.

  The steam cloud had grown opaque, and now neither side had any idea where the other was. The volume of fire had not reduced, though. Plasma and depleted uranium slugs carved small holes in the fog to no great effect. Eventually, the humans stopped firing, and the Greenfly transports followed suit.

  There was silence across the battlefield. The transports drifted slowly towards the earthen mound, and the Greenflies scuttled beneath. Half were retrieving samples from the original transport, and the other half were advancing alongside the transports. The fog slowly faded.

  A trail of smoke raced out of the fog and struck one transport at nearly exactly the point it had been wounded before. The front of the craft caved in, and it went careening into the marsh, half embedding itself in the mud.

  The Greenflies re-engaged with plasma, and the soldiers were forced to back away further on the mound until they were standing in the water. At this point, they knew it was just a matter of time before the Greenflies rushed over the mound or outflanked them beneath the surface of the grassy marsh. There were no more missiles or grenades to engage with. The troops were down to their last stand.

  Unfortunately, they weren’t given the opportunity. There was a clap of thunder as an alien void bomb landed somewhere to the north of the mound. It had most likely been intended for the human troops, but the fog had obscured proper aim. In addition to the colossal wind generated by the sudden disappearance of a football field worth of air, water, and mud, an incredible current was generated in the water. The squad leader had been gripping a tree for support, but his men weren’t so lucky. They were swept out of his sight, no doubt to be deposited at the base of the void crater and buried with water and mud.

  The void bomb had taken the Greenflies aback too. The fog had been completely blown away, but the transports were just hovering there. Greenflies were pulling themselves out of the mud and standing above the waterline to perform a headcount. As for the squad leader, the entire earthen mound which had been his cover had been eroded away in an instant by the explosive current. All that was left was a couple of the deepest rooted trees and a five square foot section of soil, upon which the squad leader was laying. There was no sign of his weapon.

  One of the Greenflies took careful aim. The squad leader looked into the muzzle.

  Suddenly, there was a rain of solid objects splashing into the water. They were dropping all across the battlefield, save for the area in the immediate vicinity of the squad leader. The Greenflies looked about quizzically, one of them catching a falling object and inspecting it closely. The squad leader recognized it, and did his best to pull as much of his body out of the water as possible.

  It seemed as if the entire marsh turned white and shot towards the sky. When the water fell, those Greenflies that weren’t dead were thoroughly disoriented. The transports still hovered there, the turret bugs skittering around with no idea what to shoot at. The squad leader looked up, at the source of the grenades.

  Six soldiers were fast approaching. Their parachutes could barely be called such, as they consisted of just four patches of cloth held together by cord, no more than half the surface area of a conventional parachute. They were descending fast, at a speed the squad leader was sure would break their legs or embed them irrevocably in the mud. Fortunately, they didn’t land in the mud. Their chutes detached inches above contact, and each of them found themselves on something solid. Two soldiers landed on top of each transport, and one soldier landed bodily on one of the Greenflies that had not been killed by the grenades. They both disappeared beneath the waterline. The last one, a relatively short one, landed a couple feet to the left of the squad leader, where the surface was a little denser than the surrounding mud.

  The squad leader strained to make out what was occurring on top of the transports. It looked like the soldiers there were working in unison on each transport, one holding the barrel of the plasma cannon to keep it from aiming, and the other filling the turret bug full of depleted uranium. The soldier that had landed on the Greenfly had emerged from beneath the water again. It appeared he was savaging the Greenfly beneath him with an electrical baton. Sparks were flashing through the water, armor bugs were flying every which way, and the Greenfly itself was flailing uncontrollably.

  The shorter soldier was kneeling next to the squad leader, “Captain Arnold, are you injured? Where are the rest of your men?”

  “Broken ribs, I think,” he replied. “Gone. They’re gone. Swept away.”

  “Stay with me, Captain,” the soldier, now obviously a woman, said. She began unfastening several parts of his armor.

  The squad leader was still fixated on what was happening on the transports. One soldier from each transport was firing through the roof, and the other was jumping off into the water. From that vantage, the soldiers on the ground were firing into the base of the transports, where the repulsor organs were. It all happened in a moment, a moment in which the alien pilots may have been trying to teleport away. As it was, both transports settled into the water in a burst of sparks and brownish blood. It had been seen in the field before; once a transport was grounded, it could not retreat with teleportation. These vehicles were going nowhere.

  The squad leader tried to shout out about the danger of standing in the water but he was too late. One of the soldiers was yanked under the level of the marsh. That is when he felt the soldiers began to defy the laws of physics. With barely enough time for the squad leader to move his eyes, the soldier atop the grounded transport there was diving into the water. From the way the soldier hit the water, the squad leader was certain he had tackled the submerged Greenfly squarely.

  “Captain, I need you to take a deep breath for me. I need to see if you punctured a lung before we move you,” the woman above him said. The squad leader was dimly aware of the woman’s fingers pressed in a gap in his armor. He knew there were microphones in that glove to serve as a stethoscope.

  “Your squad…”he said.

  She glanced over her shoulder to see two black armored figures emerge from the marsh. Between them, they restrained the much larger Greenfly, immobilizing its upper four arms and forcing it to walk on its hind limbs The squad leader hadn’t even known such a thing was possible. The woman above him appeared unimpressed and continued to listen to the squad leader’s breathing.

  He watched as the new soldiers prepared to breach the transports and deal with the pilots inside. He was only dimly aware that he was being injected with something, and less aware by the second thereafter.

  Several days later, Captain Arnold was sliding a shirt over his bandaged ribs, preparing to go leave the infirmary for the first time since the mission. He had awoken in the infirmary of the base in Utah nearly a day after the incident and informed that his wounds were minor and the breaks were clean. The following two days quarantine had been a standa
rd procedure for any soldier whose armor was breached in contact with the enemy. He’d spent the time filling out mission reports and writing letters to inform the families. This was the first night he’d actually be able to make it to the mess and inform their friends. The other interceptor teams no doubt were aware; the casualty lists were posted, but the ‘how’ of it would be extremely important to fellow soldiers who had trained together.

  With most uncomfortable buttoning of his life, he was back in the simple BDUs which were the standard uniform for the interceptor teams.

  There was a knock at the door. His first thought was that it was the infirmary staff, but they had yet to knock before entering. He hobbled to the door, opened it, and found himself staring into the face of a two star general.

  He shot to attention, sending a lightning bolt of pain through his rib cage.

  “As you were, Captain,” general Lassiter said, “May I come in?”

  “Yessir,” he replied, his posture relaxing, but only slightly, “Can I help you, sir?”

  General Lassiter stepped in and gestured for the Captain to have a seat in one of the two chairs in this simple infirmary room. He himself took the other.

  “A helluva thing, Captain,” he said, “Having to see your men go like that. A helluva thing.”

  “Yes sir,” Captain Arnold replied, “they were all good men. Best I’ve ever worked with.”

  “I’ve been there, before, myself. I was special operations in Vietnam long before I was a paper-pusher. I saw terrible things. Terrible things. I was a POW briefly. I was in that camp for only a week before the cavalry arrived. There were men there who had been there for years. But I’ll tell you, when they showed up, I would’ve sworn they were angels sent by God. It’s only natural to think highly of those that come to your rescue.”