Roughnecks Against The Giant Spiders

Mara moved toward the painted yellow line. Her helmet felt slightly loose on the left and slightly ambitious on the right. She ignored it. The bay was crowded with bodies, rifles, supply crates, and the kind of nervous energy that made men inspect the same magazine six times. Beyond the sealed doors waited the mining colony below, where the intergalactic giant spiders had been chewing through workers and sucking the brains out through the backs of their skulls.

A small display above the hatch flashed LANDING IN THIRTY SECONDS.

The transport shuddered.

Mara’s helmet strap caught on something.

She took another step.

The helmet stayed behind.

Her neck snapped backward, and the helmet yanked her head toward the hatch like an embarrassed animal on a leash. Mara’s boots skidded across the deck. Her rifle swung forward and struck Pell in the thigh.

“Venn!”

“I’ve got it!”

She reached behind her head and found the strap hooked through the hatch’s emergency wheel. Not around it. Through it. The buckle had been installed backward, leaving a narrow metal loop facing the wrong direction. That loop had selected the wheel as its natural enemy.

Mara pulled.

The hatch groaned.

Her helmet tightened.

She pulled harder.

The transport’s warning klaxon began to howl.

“Why is the hatch moving?” Pell shouted.

“Because she’s opening it with her face!” someone yelled.

Mara planted both boots against the deck. The soles squealed. Her neck armor dug into her jaw. She could see the muster line upside down, along with Kroll’s boots approaching at speed.

“Stop fighting the equipment,” Kroll said.

“It started it!”

“That is not a military diagnosis.”

The bay lights changed from red to violent amber. A voice over the intercom announced, with the serene tone of a clerk reading a lunch menu, “External hull breach detected.”

The frost on the landing doors cracked.

Every Roughneck looked toward the sound.

Mara did not. Her helmet had her facing the hatch.

The outer door buckled inward. A black hooked limb punched through with a shriek of torn metal. It was thick as a cargo pipe, jointed in too many places, and slick with pale fluid. The limb flexed, probing the bay. Behind it came the chittering scrape of something enormous searching for a way inside.

Kroll drew his sidearm.

“Venn,” he said, “release the helmet.”

“I’m trying.”

“Release your head.”

“I’m also trying.”

The door split wider. A spider’s foreleg hooked over the edge. Then another. The creature forced its wedge-shaped body through the breach, plates grinding against the frame. Its eyes glittered in a clustered band, each one reflecting the amber alarm lights. A fleshy feeding tube flexed beneath its mouthparts.

Pell raised his rifle. “That thing has a face full of eyes.”

“Shoot the eyes,” Kroll said.

“There are too many.”

“Then shoot until the number improves.”

The Roughnecks opened fire.

The bay erupted in muzzle flashes and thunder. The air filled with hot propellant, scorched insulation, and the wet popping sound of armored spider plates giving way. The spider recoiled, but its rear legs dug into the hull. It hauled itself farther inside.

Mara fired one-handed over her shoulder. Her first burst struck the hatch wheel. Sparks sprayed across her visor.

“Venn!” Kroll roared. “Stop shooting the ship!”

“The ship is holding me hostage!”

Kroll lunged toward her and seized the helmet. He twisted it left.

The helmet twisted right.

Mara’s visor rotated until she saw the deck, the ceiling, and half of Kroll’s furious face in quick succession.

“Wrong direction,” she said.

“I know.”

He twisted harder.

The strap tightened across Mara’s throat. Her rifle slipped from her hand and clattered away. The spider thrust one long limb between the transport’s landing struts. Its hooked tip struck the deck and skittered toward the nearest Roughneck. Pell fired into it at arm’s length. The limb snapped back, spraying black fluid across his chest plate.

“Venn,” Kroll said, very calmly, “if you die attached to that hatch, I will resurrect you solely to shoot you.”

Mara looked at the wheel. Looked at the strap. Looked at the spider.

The buckle was backward. The loop was caught. Pulling had tightened the trap. Twisting had tightened it more.

The spider’s feeding tube unfolded.

Mara reached for the emergency wheel.

Kroll grabbed her wrist. “What are you doing?”

“Making the hatch help.”

“That sentence has killed more soldiers than spiders.”

She spun the wheel.

The hatch began to cycle open.

Cold air blasted through the bay. Loose ammunition cases lifted from the deck. A ration pouch struck the ceiling and burst, filling the air with powdered gravy. The spider screamed as decompression dragged at its limbs.

Mara’s strap snapped taut. The helmet slammed against the hatch.

For one long second, she hung between the open bay and the transport, boots planted on the deck, neck bent at an angle that suggested poor engineering. The spider clung to the breach ahead of her. Behind her, Roughnecks fired around her shoulders. Above her, the ration gravy drifted in a brown cloud like a tiny, disgusting planet.

“Close it!” Pell shouted.

“Not yet!” Mara shouted back.

The spider’s front limbs reached toward her. One hooked around the edge of her helmet. The creature pulled.

Mara pulled the opposite way.

The helmet strap stretched between them.

The spider’s feeding tube opened inches from her visor. Inside, rings of pale teeth rotated with the patient confidence of a machine designed by a butcher.

Mara’s left hand found the buckle beneath her chin. Her glove was slick with sweat. The transport bucked again, and the buckle slipped.

The spider pulled.

Her helmet jerked forward.

Kroll fired past her ear. The shot struck the limb holding her helmet. The limb spasmed, but did not let go.

“Venn!” Kroll shouted. “Do your job!”

“I’m doing several jobs!”

“Pick one!”

Mara shoved two fingers under the strap and felt the reversed buckle. The release tab was facing her throat instead of her thumb. Whoever designed it had apparently believed helmets were worn by people with hands on the inside of their necks.

She jammed the edge of her combat knife against the tab.

The knife slipped.

The spider hauled again.

Mara’s visor pressed against its feeding tube. The glass fogged with her breath. Beyond it, the spider’s eyes reflected her own crooked helmet from a dozen angles. She looked like a recruit being devoured by a badly fitted cooking pot.

She drove the knife down.

The buckle released.

Her helmet flew free.

The spider jerked backward with it, apparently delighted to have acquired a new piece of equipment. Mara dropped flat onto the deck as Kroll seized the back of her armor and dragged her away. The helmet sailed through the breach, trailing its strap, and struck the spider between two armored plates.

The creature flinched.

Pell stared. “Did she just headbutt it without a head?”

“Keep firing,” Kroll said.

The Roughnecks fired as one.

Rounds hammered the spider’s face. Its eyes burst in bright, wet flashes. It shrieked, tore itself free of the breach, and vanished into the storm below. The open hatch sucked the remaining gravy cloud out into space.

Then the bay doors slammed shut.

Silence dropped over the deck, broken only by the ticking of hot rifles and the faint, distant clatter of Mara’s helmet striking something far below.

Mara lay on her back, breathing hard, one hand still gripping the knife. Her hair had escaped its tie and spread across her face. Without the helmet, her head felt absurdly naked.

Kroll stood over her.

“You lost your helmet.”

“It was tactically deployed.”

“It is currently on the surface.”

“It may still be tactically deployed.”

Pell wiped black spider fluid from his chest plate. “Sergeant, she did shoot the thing.”

“She also opened the landing bay.”

“For a moment.”

“A moment is all a spider needs to remove your brain.”

Mara sat up. The deck tilted under her. Her rifle lay three meters away beside a crate of emergency flares. The bay smelled of burnt propellant, spider fluid, and powdered gravy. Her throat hurt. Her neck armor had a deep crease in it.

Kroll extended a hand. She took it and stood.

“Helmet,” he said.

“Gone.”

“Protective gear.”

“Mostly present.”

He looked at the strap still hanging from the side of her armor. The buckle dangled from it, facing backward with unmistakable criminal intent.

Kroll picked up Mara’s rifle and shoved it into her hands. “Get to the muster line.”

“Without a helmet?”

“Use your skull. It’s what the spiders want.”

The landing-bay doors remained sealed, but something struck them from outside.

Once.

Twice.

A third time, harder.

The Roughnecks turned toward the sound. Kroll raised his sidearm. Mara lifted her rifle. Her neck ached, her visor was gone, and one side of her armor was smeared with gravy.

She stepped onto the yellow line.

Kroll inspected her from boots to bare head. “You look ridiculous.”

“Still combat effective.”

“Barely.”

The doors dented inward.

Kroll’s mouth tightened into something that was not approval but had been forced to serve in its place. “That will do. When we land, find your helmet.”

Mara glanced toward the breach. “If it landed near the colony, it may be ahead of us.”

Another impact boomed through the bay.

A warning light over the cargo ramp turned green. Somewhere beneath the deck, a crate unlatched and began sliding toward the deployment chute.

Kroll looked down.

Mara looked down.

The crate was marked REQUISITIONED MEDICAL SUPPLIES. Something inside thumped with a soft, wet rhythm.

Kroll raised his voice. “Nobody touch that crate.”

The crate slid faster.

End of chapter one. 35 more chapters and about 79,460 words in the full book.