Nearby, I hear the familiar sound of thundering footsteps. They echo along the street, and the vibrations make some of the loose rubble on the sidewalk move a little. A hundred meters to my north, I see the familiar cranial ridge of a Lanky head towering over the roofline of some nearby buildings, and it’s heading my way.
I run for the entrance of the partially destroyed office building behind me and turn on my polychromatic camouflage at the same time. But as ruined as the top half of the building is, the security lock at the entrance is closed, a double-layer polyplast sliding door secured by a roll-down security barrier made from titanium-alloy mesh. I would need a MARS launcher to blow the door open, and I didn’t bring one and wouldn’t have the time to use it anyway. I turn left and run along the front of the building, away from the approaching Lanky, looking for a way in. The Lanky appears in the street behind me, half a block away, just as I reach the corner of the building and skid around it to find some cover. The polychromatic armor has worked well against the Lankies so far, but I’ve never had one come closer to me than a hundred meters, and I don’t want to be the test case to see if the electric camo can fool them at very short range.
The space next to the building is a service alley. Fifty meters ahead, I can see a ramp that leads down into the office building’s lower levels—a parking garage or emergency shelter. I sprint the distance and run down the ramp, very mindful of the vibrations of the concrete under my feet heralding the approaching Lanky on the other side of the building. But the vehicle-sized opening at the bottom of the ramp is sealed with another security barrier, and I crash into it with a curse.
Behind me, at the corner I just turned, the Lanky steps into sight and then stops at the mouth of the service alley. Its head swings around, first left, then right. Lankies look nothing like dogs, but the way this one is moving reminds me of a hound trying to catch a scent. I duck behind the retention wall of the vehicle ramp and make myself as small as possible. To my own helmet optics, I’m just a vaguely concrete-textured outline, but we know precisely fuck all about how the Lankies sense their environment, even after having dissected a few dozen back on Earth, so for all I know I could be as obvious to the fucking thing as a clown at a funeral. I check the loading status of my rifle again. If the Lanky decides to check out this alley and come any closer, I’ll have to see if one magazine of gas rounds is enough to stop one of those things in just fifty meters.
The Lanky turns the corner and takes one step into the alley. I know I have about three seconds to decide whether to keep running or stand and fight. I know I can’t outrun the thing if it has spotted me, so I slowly bring my rifle to bear over the lip of the retaining wall and aim the reticle square at the center of the Lanky’s spindly body.
The Lanky takes another step into the alley. Their strides are so long that he’s already a quarter of the way to the spot where I’m hiding. I tighten my finger on the trigger and take up the slack.
Five rounds, and then I’ll run my ass off if he’s not down, I tell myself.
Behind the Lanky, a rolling cavalcade of gunshots thunders. The echoes roll up the alley and bounce back from the nearby buildings. The Lanky shrieks its earsplitting, piercing wail and stumbles forward, then starts to turn around. Its cranial shield clips one side of the building to my left and sends chunks of polyplast and twisted steel raining into the alley between us. I put my targeting reticle right in the middle of the Lanky’s mass and pull the trigger once, twice, three times. The heavy gas rounds hit the Lanky in the side and tear big holes into it, the gas mixture from the rounds igniting inside the body and blowing chunks out of its tough skin from the inside. Whoever is firing at the Lanky from the other side lets loose another fusillade of half a dozen rounds at least. The Lanky wails again and falls onto its side, blocking almost the entire alley with its massive bulk. The head hits the concrete not ten meters from where I am crouching, and the impact knocks me off my feet and sends me sprawling on my ass. I get up again and aim my M-95 at the Lanky, but the head blocks my shot at the rest of its body, and I know better than to shoot at a cranial plate I’ve seen deflect autocannon rounds. But the Lanky’s wail dies, and then the creature stops moving. I take my finger off the trigger and exhale sharply.
Up at the mouth of the alley, behind the now-lifeless form of the Lanky, a group of troopers in SRA battle armor appears. One of them gives me a two-fingered little wave, and I know it’s Dmitry. He trots up the alley past the dead Lanky and ejects an empty case out of his rifle on the move. The brass case clatters onto the concrete with a metallic ringing sound, and Dmitry pulls a fresh round from his harness and reloads his gun before the empty shell case stops rolling.
Behind him, two of the SRA marines and the Eurocorps lieutenant bring up the rear of the little group. The German lieutenant looks at the fallen Lanky with awe, and I notice that he keeps as far away from the body as he can in the tight confines of the alley. I remind myself that the Euros have had very little exposure to the Lankies, and that this is probably the first time he’s ever seen one close up.
“You can turn off magic invisible armor now, I think,” Dmitry says over squad comms. I toggle the polychrome camouflage off, and my armor becomes matte black again instead of reflecting the background.
“Where’s the rest of your guys?” I ask.
“Leytenánt Bondarenko is one kilometer further in city,” he says. “Pod dropped on top of very tall building. Sergeant Anokhin is close, two blocks that way.” Dmitry gestures behind us with a gloved hand.
“Thanks for the backup,” I say. “Figures that my pod lands practically right in front of one of those things.”
“Is no problem,” Dmitry says. “Will be first kill of many today, I think.” He holds out his hand to help me up, and I get to my feet. “Come. We go meet Lieutenant Bondarenko. He is in good place for looking around.”
In the distance, we can hear the slow thrum-thrum of Lanky footsteps. They’re far off, probably several blocks away, but they sound like they’re heading our way. Maybe the gunshots got the attention of the nearby pair of Lankies, but the shrieking of the one we killed just now probably didn’t help to keep our entrance stealthy, either.
I check my suit’s vitals: oxygen 93 percent, power cell 97 percent, all functions in the green, no damage.
“Higher ground sounds good right now,” I say, but then remember the Lanky crawling up the atrium of a PRC building in Detroit a year ago. “Just bear in mind that these bastards can climb pretty well.”
As we trot off toward Lieutenant Bondarenko’s position, Dmitry looks back at the dead Lanky sprawled out in the alley, five meters of cranial shield blocking most of the thoroughfare like a wall made from bone.
“Is shame we cannot take head with us. You know, as souvenir.”