“You’re a fucking civilian!” Meyer said. “It was my job to protect you all, you stupid son of a bitch! Do you think I don’t know how bad I fucked up?”
Meyer and Lock squeezed close to the edge of the cut as the tractor passed them. The squeal and clanking of the tracks and the high-pitched whine of the generator were overwhelming. The driver and guard were anonymous in their hard suits, but the wounded and infirm looked down from the piled trailer with gray concern.
“Yeah, I’ll teach you to use a stinger,” Meyer said as the trailer came abreast of them. “If the major okays it. I owe you that much.”
“Holy shit,” Abbado said in relief when he saw the striker waiting for them beneath the trunk of a tree knocked down when the Spook ship crashed. “I didn’t think we were going to make it, snake. Even with you coaching us.”
“Hey, Sarge,” Blohm replied without turning around. “This tree’s been dead long enough that it doesn’t squirt poison, but don’t touch the bark.”
The tree was six feet in diameter. The upturned roots kept the bole high enough for the five strikers to walk under, but they all crouched anyway. Abbado’d left Methie behind for the knee and Glasebrook because, face it, Flea was clumsy.
While 3-3 trekked through the jungle, the scout had carefully circled the Kalendru ship. Abbado studied the fallen vessel. As usual, the first view of the objective thrilled him even though he’d gone over Blohm’s images.
“Is there any way in but that crack?” Gabrilovitch asked. He seemed more uncomfortable in the jungle than the strikers of 3-3 were. Greater exposure, Abbado supposed.
Everybody’s got a limit to the repetitive stress he can take. Abbado wondered how Blohm was holding up. You couldn’t talk about Blohm’s mental state in the terms you’d use for most people, even most strikers, of course.
“That’s the only opening I’ve found,” Blohm said. Their voices were barely audible. “It’s eight feet long and ranges from seven inches to about thirty. The hatches are closed. From the way lichen’s started to grow across the metal, they’ve stayed closed ever since the crash.”
“And the critter inside?” Abbado asked.
Blohm shrugged. “He hasn’t showed himself again. There may be more than one. It’s nothing from the database.”
“Naturally,” Horgen muttered.
The ruptured seam was eight feet up, running parallel to the ground because of the way the ship lay. Thick vines snaked into the opening, but they didn’t affect the wide point in the center. The root ends were lost in the jungle.
Spook ships generally had single-compartment decks. That meant there was plenty of room for the beast inside.
“We haven’t seen many animals,” Caldwell said.
“There’s the wogs,” said Matushek. “They’re animals. Did you see what they did to the civilians when they attacked?”
“Okay, this is pretty straightforward,” Abbado said. “We’ll go to intercom on the squad channel. Me and Foley go forward with two fuel-air grenades each. We toss them in. When they blow, we boost Horgen and Matushek to stand at the edge of the hole with rockets. The critter’ll be dead but it’ll likely still be thrashing around. You guys keep hitting him as long as he’s moving, four rockets apiece. Foley, you lift the rest of us to the hole, starting with me. When you’ve done that, you stay on the ground for rear security with Gabrilovitch and Blohm. Understood?”
Gabrilovitch grimaced. “We’re scouts,” he said. “You want us on point?”
“This is a standard clearance operation,” Abbado said. “Nothing Three-three can’t handle. You’re way too important to the major for you to get your ass blown away by a ricochet.”
“What if the thing sticks its head out when we throw the grenades?” Foley asked.
“Then Ace and me blow it off,” said Horgen.
Abbado unhooked a grenade with either hand and thumbed the arming switches live. “Let’s do it, people,” he said as he rose to his feet.
As Abbado took his first step toward the Kalendru vessel, the creature’s head rose snout-first through the crack. The triangular skull was too large to fit the thirty-inch opening any other way. Because the skin lay close over the bone without a layer of muscle between, the beast had the look of a reptile or insect rather than a mammal.