With his bait in hand, he hurried to the river’s edge. The nymph was already reviving, pushing out little appendages from its muscular segments, like legs on a centipede.
As it began to squirm more violently, he slipped out his dagger, slit the creature’s belly open, and held out the gutted carcass.
Black blood flowed into the river.
He waited until the nymph stopped writhing, then draped the body on the bank near the water’s edge. He bent down and tied a length of fishing line around its midsection—then took ten fast steps backward.
Once in position, Dylan signaled his teammates to move to his right side and switch the LRAD back on, to keep it pointed at the bone pile. While he lay in wait, he didn’t want those other nymphs to come flooding back to the nest. Unlike the nymphs, what he sought to lure here was deaf to these sonic discharges.
He crouched to one knee, slipped the assault rifle from his shoulder, and placed it at his toes. To hunt this prey, he preferred another weapon.
He pulled out the Howdah pistol from its holster. He’d already chambered the .557 cartridges, one in each of the double barrels. Though the gun was over a century old—used to hunt rhinos and tigers by his ancestors—he maintained it in perfectly good working condition, expecting it still to be firing another century from now when his great-grandson eventually wielded it.
But he wasn’t hunting something as meek as a lion here.
Faster than he expected, his prey arrived. The only warning was a V-shaped eddy in the water, sweeping toward the shore. Then from the river, a scintillating globe rose to the surface, borne aloft on a muscular tentacle. The toxic orb swirled in bioluminescent shades: brilliant blues, electric greens, blood reds.
It was easy to see how these deadly lures might dazzle and attract the denizens of this dark world, but Dylan ignored the display and used a thumb to draw back the hammer of one barrel.
The sphere lowered to the rocky bank, searching the shoreline blindly until discovering the slug’s body. Nymphs were the offspring of Volitox ignis, an immature stage of this monstrous adult hunter.
The orb rolled the limp body around. Its oddly gentle touch did not burn the nymph’s flesh, as if this Volitox queen could control her acidic fire. Little was truly known about the life stages of these creatures. They were too violent, too dangerous to truly study. But the researchers here had already recognized the strong maternal instinct of these queens.
Dylan took advantage of that now.
Lowering one hand, he pulled on the fishing line and drew the carcass farther up the bank and away from its mother. He teased the Volitox closer, letting it believe its offspring might still be alive and trying to crawl away.
The orb probed along its retreating path, stretching to reach the fleeing nymph’s body. Finally the queen had to arc its bulk out of the water to continue her pursuit.
About time.
Her head beached up onto the riverbank, revealing its torpedo-shaped bulk, the size of an orca whale, but tipped by a circular mouth, like that of a lamprey eel. Inside that puckering maw lay a bottomless well of spiraling hooked teeth.
Dylan let go of the fishing line and steadied his aim, cupping one hand under the other. He centered his shot on the exposed base of the stalk, where he knew a huge ganglion lay, leading straight to the brain.
One shot there should drop this beast.
And if he missed, he still had a round chambered in the other barrel.
I never need more than two shots.
His finger firmed on the trigger and began to pull—
—when gunfire erupted down the tunnel.
Surprised, he twitched and his Howdah exploded. The wild round sparked off the rocky bank and ricocheted harmlessly into the darkness.
The firefight continued at the far end of the tunnel, accompanied by the distinct chatter of a machine gun.
What the hell?
5:52 P.M.
Huddled in the cab of the CAAT, Gray took out another man with a shotgun blast to the chest. The soldier’s body went flying back. Out of shells, he tossed the weapon aside and lifted the Heckler & Koch assault rifle from beside his seat.
Nothing like commandeering a vehicle full of your enemy’s weapons.
Not that he and his partner hadn’t come without some firepower of their own.
Across the way, Kowalski stood outside the cab, crouched on the belted tread of the CAAT, shielded behind the open armored driver’s door. He balanced his machine gun on the door’s edge, creating his own makeshift gunner’s nest.
Bodies littered the ground around the vehicle.
Seven total.
The two remaining soldiers teamed up and strafed the CAAT, giving up their attempt to reach the tunnel leading out of here. They turned tail and ran into the depths of the Coliseum, fleeing the lights and disappearing into the cover of darkness.
Gray took a few potshots at them, but they were gone.
“What now?” Kowalski asked.
Gray stared off into that cavern. “Guard the fort,” he said, not trusting that the vanished pair might not try to retake this base. “I’m going after Wright.”
Kowalski hauled his machine gun up and hopped down to the ground. He pointed his weapon at the bigger CAAT. “Time to switch rides. We have a river to cross if we still want to reach that Back Door.”
It was a smart choice. Back at the bridge, he remembered overhearing a commando express concern about taking a smaller CAAT across those treacherous currents. The bigger vehicle would have a better chance.
“Keep a watch out there,” Gray said.
“You watch yourself.” Kowalski glanced back to the tunnel leading out from the Coliseum. “You’re not going to catch these bastards with their pants down. Not a second time. Especially Wright.”
Gray silently agreed, reaching to his ears and tugging out the plugs.
Their ruse had worked perfectly. Earlier, when he had first caught sight of the camp here, he had used the directional microphone built into his DSR rifle to eavesdrop on the soldiers’ conversations. He heard Wright talking to someone on the radio. He could only pick up the commando’s side of the call, but it was clear Wright had new orders, something important he needed to get before evacuating with his men.
Whatever that was, Gray intended to stop him.
Also, while en route, he had overheard the enemy’s plans to use the LRAD against the approaching CAAT, to knock the occupants out and take the vehicle by force. Knowing that, he and Kowalski had found protective gear in their ride: plugs and noise-dampening earphones. Down here, where many of the CAATs came equipped with portable LRADs, such emergency gear was likely standard equipment.