Read Dark Victory - eARC for Free Online

they don’t have good lubricants? Is that it? Cripes, maybe we could have avoided all of this crap if we had offered them a WD-40 trade deal or something.”
    I look at the torn bodies of the man and woman again. Hah-hah.
    I watch the Creeper, feeling everything else slip away except for me and for it, getting into the zone. And I shake my head in frustration.
    I don’t have a good shot.
    The only weakness Creepers have is a section of the center arthropod, where there’s a metallic membrane of some sort that helps them process the Earth’s atmosphere and breathe. But the way the Creeper is facing, rooting around in the rubble of the cottage, I can’t see it.
    I inch backward down the slight slope of land, evaluate my options. My flare gun is digging at my side. Think about taking it out, inserting a yellow cartridge, finding an open spot to shoot it up into the busy night sky. Yellow flare, meaning Creeper in sight. Abby would spot my signal out on the dirt road, would ride furiously to a local telegraph station, signaling for other units to arrive here, set up a perimeter. If I was lucky, the first guys on scene would be other members of my Recon Ranger platoon. They’d fan out as trained and set up an overlapping field of fire.
    But that would take time.
    Lots of time.
    Hissing and clicking sounds from over on the other side of the slope.
    One other thing. Hard experience over the years had shown that a one-on-one fight has the best chance of success against a Creeper. For some reason, Creepers either know or sense when there is more than one armed human out there. Lots of squads, platoons and companies of brave soldiers and Marines had died to learn this very important lesson.
    A bark.
    And they usually ignored dogs.
    I climb back up, eyeball the Creeper. About fifty meters away, it’s still doing its alien work. If I move to the right, and if it stayed in roughly the same position, and if I’m not detected, I could get a good shot off.
    Lots of ifs. Not many choices.
    I ease myself down the slope, touch the front of my vest, where my rosary and picture of my family are hidden away.
    Take a deep breath, and another.
    Finally put my hand to my bandolier, I take out a 50 mm round for my Colt M-10. In the faint light from my goggles, I easily grab the base. It’s set on safe. I twist it once to the right. It clicks into place. The round is now set for ten meters. There are two other settings, twenty-five meters and fifty meters. I slide the bolt open, insert the round, close the bolt.
    “Rock and roll time, baby,” I whisper, getting up.
    I move to the right, taking my time, moving through a stand of saplings. Another bark from Thor in the distance. Keeping an eye on the Creeper for me. The ground opens up; I slowly slosh through some mud. Gauge in my mind’s eye how far I’ve gone. Look up to the sky. More chunks of debris, burning into the atmosphere, lighting up this stretch of forest with ghostly shadows.
    I clamber up the slope, steeper now, my breathing getting harder, the Colt M-10 firm in my hands. Ten or so meters, I guess. That’s how the rounds were designed to work. A lot of research, a lot of experimentation, and a lot of dead soldiers led to this round in my Colt. It’s a binary chemical weapon, two types of chemicals contained in one cartridge. When fired, it flies to the pre-selected distance and explodes, the two chemicals blending into one. A cloud envelops the Creeper right around the center arthropod, where the breathing membrane is, and if you had a good shot, and there wasn’t much of a breeze, then you end up with one dead Creeper and one relieved, sweaty soldier.
    What kind of chemicals? Damned if I know; one of the many things that are on a “need to know” basis, and I didn’t have a need to know. Didn’t care either; so long as it worked, the chemicals could be salt and sugar. Not technically correct of course, but so what.
    Up the slope, getting closer, passing by some rotting