From hell alex hunter 8, p.25
From Hell: Alex Hunter 8, page 25
Alex and his team of HAWCs stood in the street, watching the huge machine be lowered by a several helicopters – any conversation was blown away by the ferocious downdraft.
Tor sat beside Alex, its eyes narrowed and its ears flattened as the wind pushed down on him. Alex had kitted the dog out, and its back, neck, and flanks were covered in an armored harness. Its skull also had plating down over the forehead, making it look like some sort of dog-shaped war machine, except for the pale eyes and long ivory teeth in its mouth.
Matt had laughed at first, but glances from both Alex and the dog made him nod and give them both the thumbs up.
The group stood back an extra pace as the tank-like vehicle settled on six wheels made of a dark gray, heat-resistant, ballistic rubber. The machine looked powerful, formidable, and lethal as all hell. It was wedge shaped at the front with a large recessed window. It looked like an armored personnel carrier, in that it was heavily plate shielded.
Sam whistled as the machine settled. “Thing of beauty.”
“That it is,” Alex agreed.
“The glass takes the heat?”
“Mmm hmm.” Gray nodded. “Ceramic glass, three-fourths of an inch thick. Shatter proof, impact resistant and can withstand constant temperatures up to 1870 degrees. Just don’t drive it into the magma and you’ll be fine.”
“Good. And the cabin?”
“Like I said, same tech as your personal force field – it’ll create a sheath around the armored exterior, and even allow the side flap door to be opened while shielding those in the cabin from the heat. But once you step through it, you’re on your own.”
Gray pointed to the roof where two barrels were fixed, one long and one short and squat. “Weaponry is external. You have a GAU-19B, 50 Cal machine gun. Barrel cluster with Gatling rotation will fire 1000 rounds per minute. Rounds are armor piercing.” He pointed lower. “The second is the cannon. Shorter range, but it’s based on the Striker 40 design – 40mm automatic grenade launcher with an integrated fire control system.”
“Nice.” Casey came and stood at Alex’s shoulder.
“Capable of launching smart programmable 40mm shells plus various unguided rounds – with the latest in laser range finding and ballistic computer technology. In addition to being able to fire all NATO standard high-velocity 40mm rounds, it can fire MK285 smart grenades that can be programmed to burst after a set distance.
Gray turned to Alex. “This should get you in a little further. One driver, another up front, and room for four in the back only. Not many spaces, so I’m afraid it’s not a mass rescue vehicle.”
“Okay, good work. And thanks.”
“You can thank Jack Hammerson for sending it. But you can thank me by rescuing your family.” He smiled. “And bringing my toys back in one piece.”
“You got it. And good luck with Brice and Velez.” Alex shook the scientist’s hand and then saluted.
He walked a few paces, looking up into the sky. Even where they stood now the smoke was growing thicker. He could also feel that the heat was increasing, and beneath his feet he felt tingly vibrations and guessed that whatever was happening in the core of Etna was spreading out below them like a massive infection.
Alex knew they might be the last line of defense before the creatures started to make their way into the center of the city, where there was still hundreds of thousands of people who couldn’t be evacuated. Alex turned to his team – he needed all their expertise, but couldn’t fit them all in. So he chose.
“Sam, Aiko, Maria, you stay here. Protect the lab, as I’m betting we’ll be getting intrusions soon.”
Sam looked furious, but saluted nonetheless. “Yes, sir.”
Alex looked at Tor; the huge dog’s eyes were wide and staring. He was going to leave it behind as well, but something changed his mind. “Professor Kearns, up front with me. Janus, I’ll need your local knowledge, and Casey, you’re my shooter. Also Tor.”
Matt blanched, but Casey’s grin-sneer spread across her face and she fist pumped. “Yo.” She slapped Matt’s shoulder. “We made the cut.”
“Oh, yeah, great.” Matt groaned.
Sam went to protest again, but Alex held up a hand. “Tor will know which way to go if we don’t. Besides, if someone the size of you gets in, then three of us need to get out.”
Sam grunted and glared at the animal, which stared back for a moment before snorting derisively.
“Okay, let’s get back in there, people.” Alex led them toward the vehicle.
“Wait,” Aiko said. She approached Alex, and in a fluid movement drew her sword still in its scabbard. She gave him a small bow, and held it out with both hands. “Silver, and cuts true. Those who wield it do so for honor and justice.” She looked up. “It also works for vengeance.”
Alex took it and bowed in return. “Thank you; it will be very helpful.” He pushed the sword inside the strapping of the armour on his back then continued to the car. The side door lifted smoothly. Inside it was a high-tech armory, and there was also a four-foot silver canister, like a giant vitamin pill. A control pad had arrays of tiny lights along its top, small screens, and too many knobs and dials to fathom.
Alex looked from the canister to Gray, eyebrows up. “Spare fuel?”
Gray shook his head, smiled, and rubbed his hands together. “It was something I had in the armory, but I adapted it to your requirements. It’s basic massive ordnance penetrator technology, but without the computer-aided delivery system.” He hiked his shoulders. “This one has to be hand delivered.”
Gray climbed in, crouched beside the silver drum casing and laid his hand on its exterior. “Inside this steel casing is just on 500 pounds of tritonal explosive – a mixture of TNT and aluminum powder. The aluminum improves the brisance of the TNT – the speed at which the explosive develops its maximum pressure.”
“I know,” Alex said and crouched beside him. “The addition of aluminum makes tritonal about twenty percent more powerful than TNT alone, right?”
“But we’ve given it a bit of a kick. I’ve added a layer of silver nitrate. Once the MOP detonates, it’ll be dispersed right throughout the volcano.”
“A silver bomb.”
“Cauterize and kill the infection at its source,” Gray said. “If there is a center of collective intelligence, or a single archaean creature at the core that is the source of the contamination, then this will give it something unpalatable to swallow.”
“Very good work.” Alex slapped him on the shoulder, making the scientist wince. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to tag along and watch the fun?”
“Only if I weighed another hundred pounds and was twenty years younger.” Gray chuckled. “Oh, and was slightly insane.”
“Sanity is overrated.” Alex stood. “Time to go to work.”
“Good hunting, Captain Hunter.” Gray backed out of the armored vehicle, and the team piled in.
CHAPTER 39
“Make a hole, soldier; we’re going in.”
Alex drove, and beside him Matt held on tight to the seat. In the back, Casey and Janus were silent, checking their weapons, or trying not to be nudged onto the massive bomb in the cabin with them. The dog balanced lightly, trying to see between Alex and Matt.
The smoke was so heavy now they needed to rely on GPS mapping and Alex’s intuition. Once, something loomed from out of the dark cloud to lumber right at them, with limbs flaying. Rather than veer around it, Alex turned toward it and accelerated.
The impact was hard and wet, and as they went past it, Matt saw that many of the creature’s limbs had been torn off. Craning forward, he also saw that the front of their vehicle, though covered in slime, wasn’t damaged at all.
Alex spoke over his shoulder. “Franks, I want to test our external defenses – the 50 Cal first – pick a target, and see what you can do.”
“On it.” Casey slid to a screen and lit it up. It showed a view from a camera mounted on the gun, and she swiveled it back and forth, the gun responding smoothly on its carriage, and the barrel-cam giving her a 360-degree view.
Matt watched over his shoulder as she stared into the screen, her eyes unblinking as she watched and waited for something to appear as they moved along the wide cobbled streets.
In another few moments a grin spread on her face. “Got something.”
A bulky shape materialized from the gloom between two buildings to turn multiple eyes on them. Casey sighted on it, and Matt saw crosshairs appear on it, dead center.
She pressed the trigger, and though the recoil wasn’t felt inside the heavy vehicle, Matt could see each impact as the 50 caliber rounds punched into the creature. Casey didn’t bring the Gatling gun rotation up to 1000 rounds per minute; she didn’t need to, because in just a few seconds, the thing was shredded, obliterated, and fell apart in the street, leaving a cloud of blood and other fluids where it once stood.
Matt knew it would eventually be able to pull itself back together, but for now, it was so down and out that it’d need to start from scratch.
“Test successful,” Casey said. “Another target?”
“Yeah, now the grenade launcher. Medium range.” Alex swerved around an abandoned car.
Casey opened another screen for the 40mm rooftop cannon, and her eyes blazed with excitement. She finally found another of the lumbering creatures a few hundred yards out. She targeted, and then …
“Fire in the hole.”
There was a whoomp as the plug-like explosive was blown from the barrel. This time Matt watched his screen and saw the 1000-pound creature explode in a geyser of flesh, blood, and bone. If it was going to be able to pull itself back together, it’d need a bucket and mop to collect the scraps no bigger than a postage stamp.
“Fuck yeah!” Casey yelled. “I love this ride.” She leaned forward to peer at the screen, and then got out of her seat to look out of one of the porthole-style armored windows.
“Boss, lot of activity out there. Want me to target some more?”
“No, save our ammunition,” Alex said as he peered through the front window. “I can see them – all going in the one direction – the same one we are.”
“Guess they know we’re coming now,” Matt said. “So many of them.”
“Either more have risen from the depths, or perhaps more are being created from their raw materials … us.”
“Hey.” Casey craned forward into the scope. “Not everything is heading up. Lots of those assholes with their heads covered going the other way.”
“The faceless,” Matt said. “What do you mean, going the other way?”
Casey moved the scope, her frown deepening. “All heading down the mountainside, like in a herd, and they don’t give a shit about us.”
“Why not? What are they doing?” Janus asked.
There was silence for a few moments.
“Damn.” Alex exhaled. “They’re going for the lab. Matt, try and raise them.”
Matt tried, and tried again, and then again. But the comm. system just filled the cabin with squealing static. “Can’t get through. What’ll we do?”
Alex shook his head. “Nothing. It’s up to Sam and Aiko now.”
“Maria,” Matt whispered.
Alex left the road and drove across a steep field, heading toward the crevice in the side of the mountain they had entered once before. He briefly looked down at the console and read some data. “140 degrees already out there. Getting hotter.”
“Like Gray told us, the infection is spreading,” Janus said and then leaned around Alex’s chair. “You never told us – all my people in there, how will we save them?”
Alex stared straight ahead and there was silence in the cabin for a few moments. Finally, he turned. “We can’t.”
Janus lowered his brow. “But we must try … something.”
Matt looked at Alex and then over his shoulder to Janus. The man’s face was creased with concern, and he knew Alex had a tendency for brutal honesty.
“Don’t worry, we’ll try,” Matt replied, knowing that even if the missing civilians were somehow alive now, the reality was the temperature down there was lethal. How would they get them out? He tried to give the man a reassuring smile. “But we need to be realistic about our chances.”
“But he goes to save his woman and child. I heard this.” Janus’ expression darkened. “You were brought in to help us, not yourselves.”
The vehicle jumped and the wheels spun for a moment as the incline increased to around 40 degrees.
“Look out the window.” Alex was curt. “There are more of those things out there now than there ever was; and we know where they’re coming from – us. You heard Gray: it’s like a goddamn infection. We’ll help by stopping it spread if we can.” He turned briefly. “And save the people not yet contaminated. Maybe save your entire damn country.”
“Hey, buddy, you think we’re here on holiday?” Casey said. “We’ve already lost two good soldiers. Be thankful we’re here at all.”
Janus exhaled and sat back. “We must try. We must.”
Alex slowed the armored vehicle as they came to the crevice opening. “Franks, make a hole.”
“You got it.” Casey took the controls of the heavy machine gun, pressed the trigger, and moved the muzzle up and around the outside of the crack in the wall of the slope.
Rock exploded out of the way, smoke billowed, and in a few seconds, Alex waved her down.
“Hold fire, I’ll do the rest.”
He accelerated even though the smoke swirled around them and vision was down to only a few feet. There was a juddering crunch as the front of the vehicle encountered the last few remnants of the narrow opening, and then they were inside.
Alex stopped and switched on the multiple spotlights. “Eyes out, everyone.”
The group looked through windows, and used a range of devices to trace movement, including infrared and even ground-penetrating radar.
Up ahead there was the familiar red glow emanating from the far tunnel. Alex looked at the schematic image. “Matt, what do you make of it?”
Matt leaned across to look at the computer representation of the tunnel system. There were further tunnels emanating out like the branches of a tree, all leading down to various chambers. At the very bottom was a huge space and below that the image became distorted. “Holy shit, just like a hive.” He pointed to the red glow.
“Starts there. I’m guessing that’s got to be the way down to the hive queen’s chamber. And the image disruption here is probably from the magma bed.”
“That’s what I thought.” Alex traced some of the tunnels. “And these antechambers might be the storerooms, where they’re holding Aimee, Josh, and the civilians.”
“Boss, we got contact.” Casey watched her screen intently.
“Let ’em know we’re here – get on the Gatling gun and give ’em hell. We’re going in.” Alex jammed his foot down and the muscular armored vehicle leaped forward.
Huge lumbering forms appeared from side passages, many attempting to block the red passageway. This was as far as the HAWCs got last time, before they were beaten back.
Not this time, Alex thought, his mind infused with iron-strong determination, his eyes unblinking as they roared ahead.
They heard the staccato thump of the machine gun’s rotational barrels, and Casey yelling in unison as she punched fist-sized holes in the bodies of the things.
As they neared the red cave mouth, the monstrous creatures began to assemble, body to body, so close there wasn’t a sliver of space between them.
Alex frowned and slowed the vehicle before stopping.
“What am I seeing here?” he asked Matt.
Matt craned forward, watching as the nine-foot-tall creatures began to congregate in their dozens. The cave mouth narrowed here but it was still fifteen feet high and probably twenty wide, a sizeable passageway. Behind the beasts, the red glow from the inner chambers began to lessen as they blocked out all space and light. But that wasn’t what had made Alex stop the car. Matt realized that as the huge bodies pressed together, they weren’t just jostling up against each other, they actually began to merge, flesh melting into flesh to create a living wall. The thread-like tendrils wove them into a single entity.
“Jesus Christ.” His mouth dropped. Soon there was a giant barrier running from the ceiling to the floor, and from one wall to the other. From its front hung the obscene heads on long, finger-like stalks, covered in eyes and gibbering mouths, all screeching incomprehensibly at them.
“Fucking gross,” Casey spat. “Boss?”
“Make a hole, soldier – a big one.” Alex started to slowly roll forward.
Casey opened the sights on the roof-mounted cannon and grinned broadly. “Yes, sir, makin’ a hole.” She depressed the trigger three times, and the huge rounds sped away from them.
They struck the center of the flesh wall with three sickening thumps. Body parts, blood, and gobbets of flesh exploded everywhere, covering the front screen of the vehicle. Alex put on the wipers to try and clear the greasy mess that still smoked from being charred by the blast.
“The front door is now open,” Casey yelled.
“Going in.” Alex gunned the engine and they passed through the ragged hole of meat.
Their world turned red.
CHAPTER 40
Fear was something it had never known.
Deep in the heart of the volcano the leviathan became aware of the intrusion. Its bulk shifted, making the ground shake. It began to slide higher within the mountain-wide cavern. The heat from the magma was like a blast furnace, but it thrived down in the volcanic temperatures as it had done since long before recorded time.
It didn’t know what it was, only that it was sentient and survived by staying away from the light, remaining down deep in the darkness and heat. Nothing had challenged it, not the lumbering land beasts of millions of years gone past, the rise of the furred warm bloods, or even the coming of the thinking bipeds. Anything that came near it was destined to either be its slave or its food, and the small group of bipeds that approached now would meet the same fate.
