Jennings did not speak. He wasn’t sure if the colonel was waiting for a response or lost in memory, as he gripped the armrests of his chair so tightly that his knuckles were turning white. A heavy silence had fallen over the room, so thick that he could feel the gentle ever-present thrum of the distant atmosphere processor through his boots. In the end, it was Sanchez who spoke first.

  “There is only one thing left to do,” said the colonel as he stood, his tone becoming more formal. Jennings straightened to attention. “Sergeant Jennings, I’m giving you command of all operations.”

  “Sir?”

  “The Argos will be here inside of a week. You hunker down. You get everyone out. Then, you tell them to nuke the entire site from orbit.”

  “What about you, sir?” he asked again as his mind raced to catch up, but a growing knot was steadily forming in his stomach as the grim implication dawned.

  “I’m going to hand myself over to the yautja,” confirmed Sanchez.

  Jennings was incredulous. The colonel was so calm, so matter-of-fact, discussing how he was going to hand himself over to be killed. Not just killed, but butchered. “With respect, sir, you can’t be serious.” His tone was measured, but he knew he had just stepped over the line.

  Sanchez didn’t flinch. “This isn’t a war, Sergeant. It’s a vendetta. I won’t let any more die for my sake. It’s my head it wants, and sooner or later it’s going to get it, so let’s just get it over with.”

  Jennings stiffened. His throat was dry, and the sweat ran freely down the back of his neck, but he could not remain silent. “I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t let you do that.” The colonel’s eyes narrowed, and the knot in Jennings’s stomach had become a bottomless pit. If looks could kill, his body would be a small pile of smoking ash.

  “I’m sorry, son, I seem to have given you the impression that I was asking for a favour. You are to assume command of the remaining forces, and that is a direct order. If you can’t follow that order, you can surrender your weapon right now and I’ll find someone else who will. Is that clear, Sergeant?” he growled menacingly.

  Jennings swallowed, and kept his eyes locked dead ahead. “Crystal clear, sir. But as Acting NCOIC it is my duty to inform my commanding officer that it is a dumbass order, sir.”

  “You are relieved, Mr Jennings,” Sanchez snapped.

  “Sir,” said Jennings, the razor-thin ice now cracking beneath his feet, threatening to swallow him. “You said it yourself. It’s a hunter. A warrior. It has been nursing this grudge, this blood debt, whatever you want to call it, for almost fifty years. It doesn’t want you staked down like some sacrificial lamb, or handed to it on a silver platter. If we just hand you over, I think it would be insulted, and then who knows what it might do.”

  The colonel’s eyes bore into him. His clenched fists strained with barely contained rage. The stale air that had once felt too thin now felt cloying. But behind the rage, Jennings could see the cogs turning as the older man considered what he had said. He was getting through. Sanchez sighed, and his shoulders relaxed slightly.

  “Sir,” he pressed gently, sensing it was safe to speak. “We’re barely holding together as it is. If you surrender to the yautja, what do I tell the rest of the company? What do I tell the civilians? That you just gave up? I can’t do this job without you, sir. Without you, I don’t think we’ll make it.”

  “It has to end here,” he said quietly, seemingly more to himself than Jennings.

  “Then I say we end it on our terms, sir.”

  A moment passed, and the colonel seemed to consider it.

  “Alright, Sergeant. The job is still yours. What do you suggest?”

  This time, it was his turn to relax. Though he remained at parade rest as he quietly released a breath that he hadn’t realised he’d been holding.

  “This thing wants a fight? I say we give it one. But this time, we’re ready for it. Sloan’s men were over-confident and under-prepared. But we know what we are up against,” he turned his head slightly, meeting the old man’s gaze. “You’ve seen it in action, sir. You know how to beat it. It’s not a ghost. It’s not a demon. It’s flesh and blood. If it bleeds, we can kill it.”

  *

  “Commander on deck,” barked Jennings as Sanchez entered the dark, cramped confines of Command, and all present snapped to attention. Ops would have given them more room, but following the xeno attack it was still barely functional, and still undergoing repairs. Besides, the colonel had ordered that this briefing be kept quiet.

  “Give us the room,” ordered Sanchez, and the handful of remaining operators silently filed out, leaving only Jennings and six handpicked Marines. “Is this them?” the colonel asked quietly, although still within earshot of the group.

  “Yessir,” he confirmed. They had less than thirty marines left, and most of them were young, like he was. Only eight had graduated from MOS sniper school, and only one of those had completed the MARSOF advanced marksmanship. These were the six with the highest scores.

  “At ease,” said Sanchez, and everyone relaxed slightly. “You’re probably all wondering why you are here, and it’s probably not lost on you that the six of you share a particular skillset. But, first things first. This op is classified. Everything said from here on does not leave this room, understood?

  “Yessir,” the group responded as one.

  “We’re going after the yautja. Now, I cannot stress how dangerous this thing is. However bad you think it is, it is worse. Full disclosure, I have history with this bastard. Personal history. You might say “unfinished business”, and that means I will not order anyone to participate. If anyone wishes to leave, do so now.”

  Not one of the Marines moved.

  “That son of a bitch killed our friends, sir. It’s personal for all of us now,” said the female marine.

  Sanchez gave a silent nod.

  “To business, then,” he said, leaning over the central console. Jennings hung back a little as everyone crowded around the illuminated tactical display showing the layout of the entire base, and the surrounding terrain for a couple of clicks in every direction. “We’re going to set up here,” the colonel tapped his finger on a non-descript part of the map, about a kilometre west of the perimeter wall. “Our intel is limited, but it shows the xenos always seem to approach from the east, so we should be on the other side of the base from where they have established their new hive. But they’re still out there, so don’t get complacent.”

  He glanced up before continuing.

  “I want three sniper teams. Set up here, here, and here,” he explained as he traced a rough triangle, about four hundred metres on a side. An easy shot for a trained sniper. “The plan is simple. We establish an overlapping field, and we lure it into a kill zone, here.” He tapped the dead centre of the triangle. “That’s where I’ll be.”

  Jennings quietly tensed as the team glanced from the colonel, to him, then back again. He still wasn’t fully onboard with the old man’s plan to use himself as live bait, and it still unnerved him how matter-of-factly he spoke about it, but in the end he had insisted.

  “Excuse me, sir,” one of the older men interjected. “But there’s no cover out there. You’ll be completely exposed. What is to stop the yautja from just taking a shot at you from the top of the atmo processor?”

  The colonel shook his head. “That isn’t how he operates. This is personal for him, too. He’s going to want to look me in the eye when he takes my head.”

  “Sir, permission to speak freely,” requested the female Marine.

  “Granted,” said Sanchez.

  “It’s pretty fucking obvious this is a trap, sir. Unless this yautja is dumb as shit, it isn’t going to just waltz right into our crosshairs,” said the woman.

  “You’re right, he’s not stupid,” Sanchez agreed. “He’s bigger than us. Stronger than us. Faster than us, and that makes him arrogant. He will see a mile off that it is a trap, and take it as a challenge. He’s going to think he can just waltz in while still coming out on top. Hubris. That’s how we’re going to beat him. Trust me, he’ll take the bait.”

  A round of nods from the Marines signified their agreement.

  “You all know what he can do, and that means we’re going to need something way beyond standard issue firepower. You can thank Security Director Sloan, who in a fit of patriotism has decided to loan us some equipment from Delta Sec.”

  That got a chuckle from a couple of the Marines.

  “Keep your pulse rifles with you, as I said we cannot be sure we will not encounter xenos, but on top of that each team will be issued an L33E fifty cal sniper rifle. You’ve all been trained on the standard L33A? Meet its big brother. One of these will put a round clean through the door of an APC, so be ready for the recoil. Each will be equipped with a full-spectrum night scope. It won’t completely mitigate his cloak, but it will make him a good bit more visible than he would be to the naked eye, so look for distortions or shimmers,” explained Sanchez. “But make damn sure you have the shot before you take it. You won’t get a second,” he added quickly.

  “Yautja see primarily in the infrared, which means we’ll all stick out like sore thumbs out there,” continued Sanchez. “To counter that, everyone except me will be wearing ghostweave ghillie suits.”

  “Squid suits? Fancy,” said one of the Marines.

  Cuttlefish, Jennings thought to himself, but said nothing.

  “Even fancier,” said Sanchez. “These are the new Mark VI variant. Top of the line. They’ll mask your body heat, even in sub-zero environments. But if anyone needs to take a piss, do it before we disembark. You need to relieve yourself out there, the thermal sig will be like ringing the dinner bell.”

  “What about comms, sir?” someone asked.

  “Sergeant Jennings?”

  That was his cue. He stepped forward to address the squad. “We’re going to use direct laser pulse only. No open mics. That means line-of-sight. The yautja won’t be able to eavesdrop or triangulate your positions. The only way it’ll be able to intercept comms is if it is standing in the beam between you and Colonel Sanchez. The only downside is you’ll be able to talk to the colonel, and he will be able to talk to you, but you will not be able to talk directly to one another. It also means no comms with HQ. Once you’re out there, you’re on your own.”

  “This is getting better by the minute,” said one of the younger Marines with a grin.

  “It’s a small price to pay,” said Sanchez. Everyone nodded in agreement. Jennings even allowed himself to feel a slight pang of optimism. They were trained. Prepared. This could work.

  “One other thing,” said Sanchez, his tone harsh. “If you have a firing solution on that hijo de puta and you cannot take the shot without going through me, I’m ordering you to pull the trigger.”

  *

  The air in the garage was freezing. Usually, before an op, there was a tension in the air. A vibration that hovered just outside the range of human hearing. But not this time. The air felt empty, still, dead, as the squad donned their squid suits. Even in the dim light, the loose-fitting coveralls almost shone, with the iridescent green catching the meagre light the overheads could put out. Loose enough to wear over their standard issue armour, which Sanchez had insisted on, the suits looked comically oversized. Indeed, standing there in what looked like glowing surgical scrubs five sizes too large, they looked borderline ridiculous, and a cold, cloying doubt began to creep in.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “On the ready line in two minutes,” he barked. “Right, callsigns, I need to be specific. So, left to right, name, callsign, and role. Starting with you,” he gestured towards a tall, lean man with rough greying stubble and a gold crucifix hanging from his neck.

  “Sergeant Dawes, sir. Callsign “Preacher”. Shooter,” the man confirmed in a thick, southern accent.

  “Sergeant Dawes,” said Sanchez, sounding it out. “You’ve completed advanced marksmanship?”

  “Yessir.”

  “You’re running top on this op, understood?” said Sanchez.

  Preacher nodded, and Sanchez turned to the next member. A short woman in her mid-thirties with her hair tied back in a tight bun.

  “Flores, sir,” she confirmed. “Callsign “Mouse”. Spotter.”

  He nodded and turned to the next. A younger, blonde-haired, blue-eyed man.

  “Murphy, sir. Callsign “Lucky”. Spotter.”

  “Lucky?” Sanchez raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  Murphy gave a half-hearted shrug. “Murphy. Murphy’s Law. Lucky. Got it my first day at sniper school.”

  “Right, and what about you, Private,” he addressed a young man with slicked back black hair who looked barely old enough to be out of college. But if he had graduated SSBC, at his age, that made him every bit as dangerous as the rest.

  “Chico, sir. Callsign “Joker”. Spotter,” confirmed the young man.

  “Don’t let the name fool you, sir,” Mouse chimed in. “He’s not funny.”

  “Hey, Mouse, spot this,” Chico spat, grabbing his crotch.

  “Simo H?yh? couldn’t make that shot,” she clapped back.

  “Bigger than yours.”

  “That’s enough, both of you,” snapped Dawes. Mouse and Chico both turned away, but stayed quiet.

  “Corporal?” Sanchez continued, addressing a pale man with a do-rag sitting on a crate as he chambered a massive round into his rifle. He could have been anywhere between twenty and forty-five, thought Sanchez. Possibly on the younger end of that, but something about his eyes made him look older.

  “Casey. Callsign “Reaper”. Shooter,” said the man quietly.

  Sanchez winced slightly at the mention of “Reaper”, and memories of Vulture Six came flooding back. The jungle. The base. The hanger. The smell of the blood turning in the heat. With tremendous effort he pushed it down into the pit of his stomach, maintaining his composure with by sheer force of will. Mercifully, no one seemed to notice.

  “Hey, Casey, what’s the count?” asked Chico.

  “Eighty-three,” said Reaper coldly, his voice barely audible.

  “How many misses?” Chico followed up, sporting a wolfish grin.

  “I don’t miss,” said Reaper, and Sanchez believed him. Eighty-three. That meant he had seen combat. Real, bloody combat. Good.

  “And you?” Sanchez addressed the final member. A man of apparently Japanese heritage whose age Sanchez could only guess at.

  “Watanabe, sir. Callsign “Tallahassee”. Shooter,” he confirmed in oddly accentless English.

  “You don’t sound like you’re from Florida,” said Chico. Watanabe stared back, his face giving nothing away, until Chico looked away.

  “That’s enough with the friendly introductions. On the line for inspection,” Sanchez barked, and the six Marines formed a perfectly straight line in front of the APC. “Hoods up and masks on,” he ordered, and their faces disappeared behind featureless white masks. “Power up.”

  One by one, they vanished. The absurd shining green replaced by empty space. With the APC visible behind them, it was like looking through light drizzle as the suits projected the background image around their bodies. Eerily reminiscent of the cloaking tech the yautja used, though not quite as good. The physics of their cloaks was still not fully understood. But it was damn close, and the loose fit made them formless, blurring their outline, concealing their human shape. If he had not been looking right at them, he might not have noticed them at all.

  “Remember, the target uses thermal imaging, so that means no exposed skin, no cigarettes, no flashlights. Nothing.” He had even insisted they only carry standard carbines rather than plasma weapons. Against the freezing rock and ice of LV-784’s terrain, he was concerned even a tiny bit of bleed from a plasma rifle’s power core would give them away. “Spotters, keep an eye out for xenos. Remember, they’re still out there.”

  Without warning, he pulled out a pair of IR glasses. This would be the ultimate test of the suits’ efficacy. Putting them on, the world morphed into a mass of cold blues and blacks. But he could still see where he was. The outline of the APC, crates and vents were all clearly visible, and the weak overhead bulbs glowed a soft orange. But the team were gone. The effect of the suits was even more impressive in infrared. Not even the hint of an outline. His earlier doubts about the suits evaporated. To the yautja, they would be completely invisible.

  “Listen up. Assignments as follows. Preacher, Joker; you’re on north overwatch. Reaper, Mouse; the west. Lucky and Tallahassee; the south. You all have your exact coordinates. I’ll give you all a ten-minute lead, then I’ll proceed to the target point. Once we’re set, I’ll call him in. No chit-chat. Speak only when necessary. Comms checks and sit-reps at ten-minute intervals. Move out.”

  With that, he yanked down the control lever for the shutter, and the large door began to rise. He struggled to follow the barely visible shimmers as they filed out into the night, disappearing completely the instant they stepped beyond the threshold of the lights. Satisfied he was alone, he pressed his comm to his ear.

  “Sanchez to Jennings. Sniper teams moving into position. Heading for the target point. You have your orders. Radio silence. Sanchez, out.”

  *

  The frost crunched beneath his boots as he trudged through the darkness across the open ground to the centre point. It was here that all three lines of sniper fire converged, forming a kill-zone, with himself at the centre. With no cover, there would be no escape. Not even for that thing. The wind had died down a bit, but it was still enough to kick up a steady pitter-patter of razor-sharp dirt and grit, forcing him to shield his face with his gloved hand, while clutching his pulse rifle in the other. It wouldn’t do him much good, but it gave him peace of mind.

  “Okay, sir, you’re on the X,” the voice buzzed in his earpiece. It was Preacher.

  “Copy that,” he replied, throwing down a couple of flares. The pinkish purple glow did not provide much illumination, the light dying after only a few metres, but it was something. “All sniper teams, confirm visual on me.”

  “North watch in position. Good visual on you, sir,” Preacher confirmed. The rest did the same. With the optics on their scopes, he would have stood out like a neon sign. The yautja would not be nearly so obvious, but they would still be able to see it coming long before he did.

  “Okay, I’m going to call it in. Remember, line-of-sight comms only,” he ordered as he flicked the pulse rifle to full auto. He took a breath and readied himself before firing a full magazine straight into the air. “You want me? Here I am!” he bellowed as the deafening roar of the pulse rifle echoed into the night before he slapped home a fresh magazine. Now, all they had to do was wait.

  His eyes scanned the darkness for any trace of movement. A distortion of the light, the flicker of three red dots, the glint of a blade. His ears strained for the crunch of footsteps, or the purring “click click” of fangs. Nothing, except for the howl of the wind and the hiss of the flares as they burned at his feet. He half expected a burst of blue-white plasma to come from nowhere, blowing him to pieces, but none came.

  He struck another two flares as the first pair burned out, the soft light providing no warmth. He was already shivering. He had only been outside less than thirty minutes, and the cold had already chilled him to the bone. Old bones, he thought to himself. His knees hurt from the kilometre long hike, and the cold was making his other joints stiff. Holding one gloved hand up to the light, he could see it was shaking slightly, unsteady, and not from the cold. There was a time when he would have been able to hike in cold like this all night. Not anymore. He held his rifle at a low ready, his arms now too tired to hold it in a shooting stance, but he kept his eyes and ears open for any hint of company.

  A glance at his watch confirmed ten minutes had passed.

  “Sniper teams, status update,” he whispered into his comm.

  “North watch”, Preacher cleared his throat, “negative.” His voice was barely audible in his ear.

  “West watch, confirmed, sir. Negative contact,” whispered Mouse.

  South watch confirmed the same, and he gripped his rifle tighter. It would come. He was sure of that.

  He struck another two flares just to provide some more light. It didn’t help much. The darkness almost seeming to mock the flare’s feeble attempts to push it back. The lights of the perimeter wall equally impotent as twinkled in the distance, and behind those the towering cone of the atmosphere processor. He had almost ten minutes until next check-in, which gave him time to think. Too much time.

  He thought of Danny. For forty-five years that mission had haunted him. Like a dead hand gripping his shoulder, no matter how many decades or light-years he’d put between himself and Danny Alvarez’s ghost, he could not outrun the memory of him. Had it been tormented too? Both of them defined by a mission, a hunt, gone wrong a lifetime ago? Two old warriors, locked together in mutual hatred. He wondered, if their roles were reversed, what he would have done differently? What if he had found him first? Would he have done anything differently? He shook his head, sobering himself. He had to stay focused. His watch confirmed they were coming up on twenty minutes.

  “Sniper teams, twenty-minute check-in. Sound off.”

  “North watch,” Preacher cleared his throat, “negative.”

  “West watch, confirmed, sir. There’s nothing out there,” said Mouse.

  Lucky did the same.

  “Dammit,” he swore under his breath. There was no way it had not heard the gunfire, and he knew there was no way it would be able to resist such a blatant challenge. He could almost feel it, watching him, surrounding him, looking for an opportunity. It was out there.

  “Okay, next check-in in ten minutes. Stay frosty,” he added, more to himself than the team. The last of the wind died down, making the night air oddly still by LV-784’s standards. The only sound the hiss of the flares as they burned at his feet, and his own breathing.

  He hadn’t told them about the claymore he had strapped under his chest plate. It wouldn’t have been good for morale. “Survivor’s guilt” the psych boys had called it. But it was more than that. He hadn’t just survived, where others had died. He had failed. He had spent a lifetime looking over his shoulder, waiting for the day a yautja’s blade would come to claim his skull. He had always been willing to die. It came with the job, and he had long since made his peace with that. But out here, alone, he had time to think, and long dormant thoughts came unbidden to the fore. Now faced with the very real, very imminent prospect of becoming another trophy, he considered that perhaps some deep, buried part of him had prayed for it. Prayed for the punishment he deserved. Heller had been right. He was afraid of the yautja, and out here in the dark, for the first time since this whole mess began, he felt the icy grip of fear. He felt exposed. Isolated. Vulnerable in a way that he had not felt since that night.

  His watch hit thirty minutes.

  “All teams, sound off,” he spoke quietly into his mic.

  “North watch”, Preacher cleared his throat again, “negative.”

  “That’s a negative sir,” rasped Reaper

  “Freezing my fucking balls off, sir, but no sign of the target,” whispered Lucky.

  Sanchez let out an exasperated sigh. “Doesn’t look like the bastard is falling for it. Good plan, bad bait. Stay alert, we’ll give him ten more minutes then I’m calling an abort.”

  He almost took his finger off the comm, but he hesitated. Something just didn’t feel right. Something about the way Preacher cleared his throat. He didn’t know how a cough could sound “wrong”, but it did, and a voice in the back of his head told him something was off. A voice he had long ago learned to listen to.

  “North watch,” he said firmly. “Negative copy on your last transmission. Confirm negative contact.”

  “North watch,” Preacher cleared his throat, “negative.”

  Sanchez felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end as an ice-cold chill ran down his spine. “North watch, this is Ulysses Grant. Stonewall Jackson wants to know if you’re coming for Thanksgiving?”

  “North watch.” The words buzzed in his ear, followed by the sound of Preacher clearing his throat. In the exact same manner. The same tone. The same timing. The same cadence. “Negative.”

  A recording.

  “Contact!” he barked into his mic. “He’s at north overwatch. All units the target is at north overwatch!” he thundered as he broke into a run and bolted towards north watch’s position, his legs burning and his aging lungs struggling in the low oxygen atmosphere.

  “I don’t see a goddamn thing,” exclaimed Mouse.

  It still took him almost a minute of hard running to reach the coordinates. He slowed as he approached, his heart racing as he held his rifle at the ready, but instinctively he knew it had moved on. The first signs of blood, glistening black against the ice, reflected back in the weak beam of his flashlight. He popped a flare for more light. There was blood everywhere, and lying on the ground were the ruined bodies of Preacher and Chico, their remains barely recognisable as human, if not for the small gold crucifix. Both of their heads were missing.

  “All units, on me. Do you have visual on a trail?” With their scopes, they might be able to see details he could not. Perhaps a blood trail they could follow.

  “South watch, negative, sir. There’s just…nothing. No sign of it,” Lucky’s voice quivered.

  “Mierda” he swore. What had they done to give themselves away? “West watch, do you have a visual on anything?”

  Silence.

  “West watch, sound off. Over.”

  Nothing but the dead hiss of static in his ear.

  “South watch,” he yelled into his headset mic. “You’ve been made. He can see you. He sees the damn scopes. Ditch it and get out of there. Move, move now!”

  “I still don’t see a fu-” the answer was cut off with a sickening gurgle, and in the distance a piercing inhuman screech filled the void.

  Not again, thought Sanchez. Not again. He gripped his rifle, and hip fired a burst randomly into the darkness.

  “Come on, you ugly hijo de puta,” he demanded as he fired another volley. “Come on! I’m right here. Kill me. Come on, do it! Kill me, you cobarde.”

  Another volley of random fire and the gun clicked empty. He tossed it to the ground, throwing down another flare as he drew his combat knife, all fear replaced with a burning hatred like he had never felt before. His heart pounded in his ears as he strained to hear the slightest sound of its approach. His breathing was laboured as his knuckles turned white around the hilt of the blade, but his eyes still struggled to make out anything beyond more than few metres in any direction.

  Something hit him square in the chest with the force of a cannonball, knocking him to the ground so hard he struggled to catch his breath. If not for his armour, such force would have shattered his sternum. He crawled to his knees as waves of pain radiated through him as he gulped down air, clutching his chest with his free hand, and it came away slick with bright red. Blood, but not his. A few feet away, the severed bloody head of Preacher stared back at him with frozen, lifeless eyes. The mocking, demonic, half-human laugh filled the night, dying out as it faded into the distance, leaving him alone, kneeling in the frozen mud. He rose to his feet, and braced for the next assault, but it was gone. It had won this round, but the message had been clear.

  This was not over.