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actual spider-mind. But we had one of Commander
Taylor's presents. While I zigged, Fly zagged. Albert
and Hidalgo did their part by staying alive. The show
belonged to Fly.
I never thought I'd see a BFG 9000 again, the
crown jewel of UAC's weapons division. Three blasts
would take care of a fully operational spider-mind.
One blast proved more than sufficient for the imps
who had themselves a great tank but weren't properly
trained to use it.
"Praise the Lord!" shouted Albert.
"And pass the ammunition," said Fly, sweat bead-
ing on his forehead and a big grin growing under-
neath.
"Better than a chain saw," was my on-the-spot
report.
"Regroup," said Hidalgo. "It'll be a shame to lose
that fine weapon when we go through the Gate."
Albert tried for optimism. "Maybe we could leave it
on the other side for when we return?"
"We could never risk that," answered the captain.
"This place is crawling with vermin. We don't want
them to get their claws on this weapon."
None of us said aloud the obvious: If we return.
The plan we'd made with the Bova was "no news is
bad news." By now they knew we weren't alone on
this rock. We'd continue observing radio silence be-
tween ourselves and the ship.
Fly summed up the situation. He's always good at
doing that. "We've seen this place when it was crawl-
ing, Captain. Right now it's almost deserted. I don't
have any idea why or how long it will last, though. It
could be swarming again by this time tomorrow."
"Commander Taylor and Lieutenant Riley know
the risks," he said, which struck me as a little odd.
Seemed to me that the primary subject on the table
right now was the fire team.
"Then we're enjoying good fortune," said Albert--
a bit pompously, I thought. A problem I've always
had when I fall for someone is that I become hyper-
critical. I think Fly has this problem as well.
Hidalgo gave us the word, and we moved on. I was
astonished that I hadn't fired my plasma rifle yet. But
it's wrong to wish for such things. I'm just supersti-
tious enough to believe that you get exactly what you
wish for.
My opportunity to test my weapon came with the
appearance of a new monster. I hate new monsters.
This one I mistook for a pumpkin. There were plenty
of similarities: big round floating head, one eye, a
gasbag with satanic halitosis.
The differences, partly obscured by a sudden
change in the light, were most annoying. We might
have become a little lazy. We had the best weapons,
and the opposition was thin. Seeing a round thing
come floating around the corner seemed almost too
easy. One lousy pumpkin. Who was going to lay dibs
on it? Who would have the pleasure of hosing it?
Hidalgo's reflexes might have been a little off, as
well. He hadn't experienced Phobos when the shit
storm came down nonstop. Even so, he got off a shot
with his Sig-Cow. Some of the shots connected.
He'd succeeded in getting the thing's attention. It
returned fire. I expected the usual: lightning balls. But
this one had a surprise in its gullet. We were treated to
a stream of flying skulls pouring out of its mouth,
each one as nasty as the one Albert had shot out of the
sky a short time before.
But now the sky was full of them.
19
The colors started shifting. That was a new
trick. The corridor went from normal light to blue
and then red, distracting us just enough so we
wouldn't notice that this pumpkin was something
other than a pumpkin. As its single eye focused on
me, my only thought was that here we had a larger
than usual pumpkin. As it vomited out the first flying
skull, I still didn't understand what was happening. I
had the dumb idea that it had eaten one of the smaller
heads and couldn't keep it down. (Down what?)
As a second and third skull came zooming out of
the ugly mouth, I started to read the picture. The first
skull reached me before I could bring up the BFG. I
heard Arlene shout, "Fly," just as I did the next best
thing to shooting the little bugger: I kept it from
taking a bite out of my shoulder by swinging around
so that it collided with my helmet. There was a metal-
on-metal sound as it dented the helmet and bounced
off, making itself a perfect target for Hidalgo, who
popped it.
Around about now we lost count of the skulls that
filled the narrow corridor. It looked as if we'd
knocked over a basket of candy skulls from Mexico's
Day of the Dead celebrations ... but there was noth-
ing sweet about our tormentors.
Hidalgo froze for a few seconds. That was all. A
brief moment of battlefield shock. If we lived, I could
count on Arlene chewing my ear about it. And I could
hear myself answering that we hadn't scored all that
high in the reflexes department on this one. If we
lived.
"I'll try for the pumpkin!" I shouted. The BFG [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]