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It took another five minutes to reach a large metal door. It was locked and no amount of fooling around with the keypad seemed likely to open it. “Right,” Keyes said, as he examined the obstacle. “Let’s get this door open.”
“I’ll try, sir,” the Tech Specialist, Kappus, replied, “but it looks like those Covenant worked pretty hard to lock it down.”
“Just do it, son.”
“Yes, sir.”
Kappus pulled the spoofer out of his pack, attached the box to the door, and pressed a series of keys. Outside of the gentle beeping noises that the black box made as it tapped into the door’s electronics and ran through thousands of combinations per second, there was nothing but silence.
The Marines shifted nervously, unwilling to relax. Sweat dripped down Kappus’ forehead.
They held position for another few minutes, until Kappus nodded with satisfaction and opened the door. The Marines drifted inside. The electronics expert raised a hand. “Sarge! Listen!”
All of the Marines listened. They heard a soft, liquid, sort of slithery sound. It seemed to come from every direction at once.
Jenkins felt jumpy but it was Mendoza who actually put it into words. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this . . .”
“You’ve always got a bad feeling,” the Sergeant put in, and was about to chew Mendoza out when a message came in over the team freq. It sounded like the second squad was in some sort of trouble, but Corporal Lovik wasn’t very coherent, so it was difficult to be sure.
In fact, it almost sounded like screaming.
Keyes responded. “Corporal? Do you copy? Over.”
There was no reply.
Johnson turned to Mendoza. “Get your ass back up to second squad’s position and find out what the hell is going on.”
“But Sarge—”
“I don’t have time for your lip, soldier! I gave you an order.”
“Whatis that?” Jenkins asked nervously, his eyes darting from one shadow to the next.
“Where’s that coming from, Mendoza?” Sergeant Johnson demanded, the second squad momentarily forgotten.
“There!” Mendoza proclaimed, pointing to a clutch of shadows as the Marines heard the muffled sound of metal striking metal.
There was a cry of pain as something landed on Private Riley’s back, drove a needlelike penetrator through his skin, and aimed it down toward his spine. He dropped his weapon, tried to grab the thing that rode his shoulders, and thrashed back and forth.
“Hold still! Hold still!” Kappus yelled, grabbing onto one of the bulbous creatures and trying to pull it off his friend.
Avery Johnson had been in the Corps for most of his adult life, and had logged more time humping across the surface of alien planets than any of the other men in the room combined. Along the way, he’d seen a lot of strange stuff—but nothing like what skittered across the metal floor and attached itself to one of his men.
He saw a dozen white blobs, each maybe half a meter in diameter, and equipped with a cluster of writhing tentacles. They skittered and bobbed in a loose formation, then sprang in his direction. The tentacles propelled them several meters in a single leap. He fired a short, almost panicked burst. “Let ’em have it!”