She emerged from the water as fast as she could. Her arm was wet from the breech and she’d had enough of being stalked by alien piranhas. She kept moving across the loose rocks at the river’s edge towards the massive jungle that awaited her. Beyond that was her first waypoint, the cliff that she had to find a way to climb. She accepted that First Insertion Marines never had it easy, but this was ridiculous. She needed to find a spot to pop off her glove and drain her arm too.
A sound so powerful it felt like a physical blow sent Elsa into a roll across the broken ground. The speakers in her helmet cut out, preventing the overpowering decibels from ruining her ear drums. She scrambled behind some trees and jerked her rifle off her suit. Years of drilling herself and others allowed her to reassemble it by memory in a matter of seconds.
“ Holy shit!” Elsa was frozen, aside from that simple phrase. On the other side of the river a massive creature was staring straight at her. It walked on two legs and was covered with feathers. Rather than looking like a bird, the beast’s legs were massive, proving they had the muscle to drive it to impressive speeds. The front limbs were smaller but no less fearsome for the talons at the end of the fingers. What scared her the most was the head. Plumes of feathers emerged from the peak and back of it, giving it a crowned appearance. The eyes regarded her with a savage fury that spoke of trespass and hunger. Beneath the eyes was another avian feature, a curved predatory beak. It opened the beak to roar at her again, dispelling thoughts of any relationship to a songbird. The open beak also displayed a single row of teeth clearly designed to rend and tear meat. In this case, her meat.
Elsa brought up the sighting reticule in her display and fired. The charged ions zapped the creature in the chest, sending a puff of feathers out and drawing a fresh roar of pain. Elsa stared, a dread chill spreading through her. It took a step forward, plunging a massive taloned foot into the river. The current didn’t seem to bother it, nor did the depth. Then again her sensors measured it at nearly eighteen feet tall.
It looked down at the river, then raised its other foot. Thinking quickly, Else shifted her gun to a new target. “Let’s see if you hungry bastards like how each other taste!” She fired twice, scoring wounds on the other leg moments before it sank into the water. “Bet you think that water feels good, don’t you?”
The Marine energy rifle was the latest example of new science improving old technology. Ionized bursts had been used for centuries in a variety of ways, but armored material had quickly been developed to thwart their effectiveness as weapons. Against unhardened targets, however, there were few weapons more instantly incapacitating. Modern warfare frowned upon weapons capable of causing civilian casualties with such ease, but with preliminary data from Vitalis showed a trend towards highly complex technology breaking down faster, the X109 has been commissioned.
The primary fire mode of the X109 was a stream of charged ions. Against normal organic targets it had a lethal range of four hundred yards, depending on the density of the atmosphere. Against something the size of Big Bird she had no idea what it would do, but the supercharged ions should have turned at least portions of it into fried chicken. It wasn’t as impressed with her weapon as she was.
Elsa fired three more times, confusing the beast but doing little more than slowing it down. It had taken three more steps, covering nearly half the width of the river, when it looked down at the water. It picked up one foot and stomped, then the other.
“ Yes!” Elsa cheered, seeing it starting to circle as it tried to step on whatever was nibbling at it underwater. “Who’s the turkey now?”
It roared at the water, turning more rapidly. Else jumped back when she saw its tail swing around and up into the air, then slam down into the water behind it. Spray from the impact spattered across her, reminding her that she wasn’t nearly far enough away. She pulled back, keeping her eyes on the creature in the water until the jungle enclosed her and prevented her from seeing it. She continued to hear its roars, but soon even those faded away.