Dark Victory - eARC Read Online Free PDF Page B

to go. My lips stick together and I try to moisten them with my dry tongue, and it doesn’t work.
    I work around a stand of trees, see the flickering light grow stronger.
    Now.
    I quietly drop my assault pack, leaving only my gear harness and bandolier. I get on the ground, start moving among the leaves and branches, taking my time.
    Click-click.
    Click-click.
    Click-click .
    The sounds of the Creeper exoskeleton at work, whatever the hell its work happens to be.
    I keep crawling low to the ground. Moving a few inches here and there. Another bark from Thor, but he’s a smart puppy. He knows his job, just like I know mine. I move up some more. The light grows stronger, as does the smell of cinnamon, now really a stench, and the sound of the exoskeleton.
    I pause.
    Real close now.
    There’s good cover where I am, some low brush and ferns.
    I slowly raise up my head sideways to keep a low profile.
    Look down.
    Look down upon Hell.

CHAPTER FOUR

    I fight against the urge to pull away, to race back to my assault pack and run all the way back to the dairy farm. This isn’t my first Creeper sighting but by God, each one is different and terrifying in its own way.
    You’d think you’d get used to after a few years, but you’d be wrong.
    I take a deep breath, let it out, take another deep breath, let it out.
    My hands tight against the Colt M-10, hoping they don’t shake.
    The Creeper is below and to the right of me, maybe fifty or so meters away.
    It looks . . .
    Looks like a . . .
    Well, looks like a damn nightmare, it does.
    Start by thinking small.
    Think of one of those black scorpions that live in the Southwest. Eight legs, long tail with a barb at the end, two claws and tiny head. Remove the long tail, put it where the head belongs. That’s the new head, a segmented length almost as large as the body itself. The center arthropod. Reduce the size of the claws. The claws are now tool-based. Sometimes they are pincers. Sometimes they are weapons. No matter what they are, though, they’re always dangerous. Instead of a living exoskeleton, the Creeper’s exoskeleton is made of a blue-gray metal alloy, said alloy still being studied and analyzed ten years after the war began, any weaknesses still undiscovered.
    Inside the exoskeleton is the living creature that’s a Creeper, which looks about the same as the exoskeleton, except uglier, if that’s possible. Its flesh is a purplish-gray, it’s segmented like a real scorpion, and the braincase and eyestalks are the stuff of nightmares.
    Oh. By the way, the exoskeleton is essentially bulletproof, flameproof, and resistant to almost every type of explosive save nuclear.
    Got it?
    Now take the image of a scorpion, maybe the size of a child’s hand, and expand it up to the size of a small school bus.
    That’s a Creeper.
    Close enough to nearly spit at.

    This one is busy at its hellish work. Around it are the remains of a cabin, up against a wide stream. Strange but true, Creepers have a fixation with moving water. Don’t know why, just is. It has one weapon claw, up in the air, moving about, constantly scanning 360-degrees and evaluating. The center arthropod moves side to side. The other claw is a manipulator, and it’s moving bits of lumber and shingles from the cabin it’s trampled. This Creeper looks like the Research model. Around the perimeter of the cabin, two pine trees burn merrily along. Off crumpled past the debris are the bodies of a man and a woman. Their clothes have been stripped off, and it looks like the Creeper’s done a quick vivisection. My jaw tightens right up. Another reason for the 9 mm at my side is to make sure I don’t get captured. Lots of rumors and stories of civilians and military personnel being captured by the Creepers over the years; not one tale of anyone escaping.
    Click-click.
    Click-click.
    Click-click.
    I remember a joke from Wolwoski, one of the guys in my squad. “Insect bastards come all this way across interstellar space and