Chapter 17

I watched the edge of the clearing closely as I continued beating the rock against the boulder.

It took a while but eventually after 20 minutes of doing this the sensors of the calipso started tracking movement and heat sources in the forest and Toby voiced warnings about multiple contacts deeper into the wooded area. I stopped my noise making and watched.

Eventually, a large dark shape stalked out of the edge of the forest. It moved extremely low to the ground and seemed to track it's head back and forth like it was a dog sniffing at the ground.

It walked on 6 extremely long limbs that were spread out very widely. Its front 4 limbs were vaguely human-like. It had clawed hands with four fingers instead of five, but it had a very human looking elbow and an opposable thumb on each hand. The limbs even seemed to have a human-like muscle structure.

Its two rear legs, however, were anything but human looking. Its rear legs had two joints each, both of which seemed to pivot in opposite directions of each other.

Its head was very round and had one extremely large and perfectly round eye on it. The combinations of its globe-like head and perfectly round lidless eye made for a disturbing sight.

Its mouth couldn't really even be called a mouth. It was a gaping hole below what amounted to a chin with a multitude of long worm-like tongues hanging out of it and writhing about. Its nose was recessed into its face. I could see the outlines of two holes lower on its face.

While the creature's limbs looked sturdy enough its abdomen was insanely thin. the creatures ribs could be clearly seen poking out of its chest.

As I watched the creature stood on its two hind legs and raised its body. It's height shocked me. Standing at full height the creature was actually taller than the Calipso.

It continued to swivel its head around in search of the source of the noise I had made earlier. As it did this its midsection bulged before suddenly deflating. It released an odd sound as it did this.

I truly don't know how to explain the sound perfectly. If you put me on the spot and demanded an answer, I would have to say it sounded like the sound of someone dropping a large rock into a body of water but magnified a thousand times mixed with the sound of a short bursting croak of a frog.

Further into the forest similar sounds answered back. The overlapping nature of the sounds made it difficult to guess how many creatures were in this pack. Most core beasts travel in packs but the size of the packs varied greatly. I hoped this wasn't a large pack.

Deciding not to reveal my position before I got a count of the creatures, I kept the Calipso as low as possible and out of sight.

Two more of the creatures stalked from the edge of the clearing that was about 40 meters away from my position.

I was extremely lucky these creatures had come from the front and slightly to the right. If they'd come from another direction I wouldn't have been able to observe them before they rounded the massive mound I was positioned on and came at me.

When the two creatures joined the first they all stood on their hind legs and began inflating and deflating their chest while releasing that extremely odd sound.

They released the sound one at a time in a constant pattern that grew louder and louder while their heads continue to track and search the area.

I could see more movement at the edge of the forest. More of the creatures were slowly stepping out of the forest. As I was counting and trying to gauge their numbers, the weird calls from the three standing creatures suddenly stopped in unison.

Looking at the three creatures and wondering why they had stopped, I was quickly given an answer.

Each of the three creatures massive single eyes were trained directly on me. I felt a chill run up my spine as the creatures stared unmovingly at my position. I was pretty sure I wasn't showing any of myself but it couldn't be a coincidence.

The jig was up. I activated the full link mode before standing while raising my submachine gun.

As I sprang from cover the creatures also suddenly burst forward into motion. They dropped from a standing position and onto their hands before bolting forward at an impressive speed.

The Calipso's aim assist systems overlaid aiming reticles and targeting data over the creatures, and I began to fire.

My aim wasn't quite as accurate as I had hoped, but it was better than I had expected. More than half of the rounds fired hit their target.

The leading creature took 7 rounds before it fell to the ground unmoving. As it fell to the ground I began tracking the second closest creature.

While I aimed at it, I noticed many shapes begin to burst out of the forest. I felt a tinge of panic for a second at the numbers. I didn't even have time to get an accurate count but there were at the very least 20 of them.

Throwing the panic aside, I focused on aiming and fired round after round at my second target. It too quickly fell just like the first. The third creature I fired at joined the first and the second moments later.

I aimed at the 4th creature and scored two hits before my submachine gun stopped firing and an indicator told me to load more ammunition.

I fought down terror as I slapped the Calipso's left hand to its thigh, pulled the “magazine” and inserted it into the submachine gun.

During these few moments, I watched as the creatures made good speed and covered most of the distance to the bottom of the mound.

When I began firing again the creatures had already begun climbing up. The first creatures followed the path of least resistance and went straight up the area I had left for enemies to funnel up.

Due to the clumped up nature of the creatures, by the time I needed to reload again I had killed five more.

The creatures, however, kept charging forward and were already halfway up the mound. They stepped directly over the bodies of their pack mates and continued forward.

Instead of reloading I pulled one of the explosive grenades and tossed it. It sailed into the midst of the creatures and detonated. There was a boom and a cloud of shrapnel tore five more of them apart.

While I reloaded another magazine into the submachine gun, I checked my flanks. I could see several of the creature struggling to climb up the more uneven terrain on either side and over the trees I had strewn in their path.

With the submachine gun loaded I aimed down the open path and smiled. The grenade had caused chaos. The creatures were having trouble getting over their fallen comrades. They're overly long limbs tangled with each other.

My plan was working perfectly. More than half of the creatures were already dead. Soon they would all be dead.

I fired in short controlled bursts at any creature that was able to climb over its allies and begin making its way up towards me. It had turned into a chicken shoot and I truly believed the battle was over. It was only a matter of time now.

But as I shot one after another of the creatures I began to notice a high pitched squeal. It was extremely loud.

Taking my eyes off the cluster of tangled and struggling creatures at the bottom of the path, I look to the left and right for the source of a sound.

Not finding the source in either direction, I looked further out in front of the mound and was met by the sight of a massive balloon.

No, it wasn't a balloon. It was one of the creatures, but its extremely thin torso was no longer extremely thin. Its had expanded until it resembled a massive balloon.

It squatted on the ground with its mouth hole wide open and its body expanding more and more. It was releasing the high pitched squealing sound.

The high pitched squeal suddenly stopped and its mouth flicked to point directly at me. Its head seemed to roll back while its neck thrust it's mouth forward and it's mouth opened wide before suddenly closing to a small circle.

It was at that moment I realized something was terribly wrong. I was far too late to react though.

In the same instant I thought about dodging, the massive balloon-like torso of the creature nearly instantly deflated and I was struck by an incredibly powerful shockwave.

The Calipso and I were thrown back and into the air to smash into the massive slab of stone behind us. It felt like I had been hit by a runaway train. The submachine gun flew out of the Calipso's hands and skittered across the ground.

My mind went fuzzy for multiple moments. Pained coursed through my body and head. I struggled to get control of my body. I could taste blood and felt the trickle of something wet from my nose. Even in full link, I could still feel my human body. It was something I regretted very much. A definite design flaw.

By the time my head cleared and I brought the calipso to its hands and knees, I looked up to find one of the creatures cresting the edge of my flattened position and lunging towards me.

It grabbed the head of the Calipso with one of its right hands and the neck of the calipso with the other.

I was jerked up and over to be slammed against the stone slab behind me. The creature slammed the Calipso's head into the slab 2 more times before I got my wits together enough to pull the force blade out and begin to defend myself.

I slashed out and across its chest, cutting the beast directly in half. Its entrails and blood poured out from below its chest cavity and it released me to slump on the ground.

I didn't have time to celebrate as more and more of the creatures rushed me.

I swung the blade in an arc and cut two reaching and grasping arms directly off from their owner. The creature recoiled and began to shriek while thrashing on the ground.

Another two creatures lunged forward while reaching for me with their incredibly long arms.

These creatures seemed to be grabbers. They loved to reach out and grab their targets before giving them a thrashing.

Deciding to kill the creature on the right first and maintain the clearance needed to swing my blade, I sent out another arcing swing of the blade which decapitated the beast.

The beast on the left managed to grab the elbow of Calipso's left arm with one of its hands before I twisted the left arm, shaking off the hold and grabbed it by the throat.

I gave the beast a heavy jerk which took it off its feet and held the creature out before leveling the force blade and driving it home into the creature's chest.

As I tried to pull the blade out and reposition myself for more incoming beasts two sets of hands grabbed the Calipso's right arm all along its forearm and pulled.

The pull nearly caused me to lose all balance and fall to my knees. I steadied myself against the force of the creature and sent a left hook directly into its stomach.

The beast let out a howl but kept a firm grip on the Calipso's right forearm. I couldn't use the blade with my arm and wrist caught as they were.

As I was about to throw another left hook, two more sets of hands clasped themselves around the Calipso's left arm much the same as the right.

Between the force of the two beasts gripping the Calipso's arms and jerking before suddenly lunging, I was taken directly off my feet. Both of the Calipso's arms were pinned to the ground.

The creatures rapidly lifted both of the arms they held and smashed them into the ground over and over.

Just as I was about to bring the Calipso's right leg up to knee the beast on my right in the belly, more sets of hands began to pin the Calipso's legs to the ground.

Very quickly I found I couldn't move the armor at all. I was completely pinned and weighed down by the mass of a half dozen creatures.

They pilled on top and began to grab and thrash the Calipso against the ground. One of them jumped on the Calipso's chest and began to rain blows down upon its head and chest.

Every blow to the armor jolted and impacted my fleshy body inside the cockpit. If I hadn't been wearing my harness I would have probably been bounced around the inside of the cockpit like a rubber ball.

I could feel panic creeping up on me again. Fighting the urge to vomit that wanted to overwhelm me, my mind raced in an attempt to find a solution. My head was too chaotic to find an answer at the moment and I truly thought this was the end.

I watched the creature who had mounted the Calipso's chest as it gave the armor blow after blow, and simply couldn't find a solution to my current predicament.

Just as I was giving up hope my view through the sensors suddenly dimmed to almost complete darkness. For a moment, I thought I was dying or that the cameras had been damaged too badly to work anymore.

A split second later my view was instantly almost too bright. There was an awful ear-piercing wailing sound accompanying the sudden brightness.

Though my view was almost blindingly bright now, I could still see the shapes of the beasts as they all collectively recoiled and howled. They flung their arms up in front of their single massive eyes to shield themselves from the massive amount of light and sound that assailed them.

None of the beasts were now restraining me. I took the opening and smashed out with the force blade set to an extra long length of 4 meters.

I scored hits on the two beasts to my direct right and they fell to the ground in a twisting, squirming heap and began to bleed out from the massive and deep bloody wounds I had left on their chest. Several of their arms had been cut off.

Not taking any pause I reached up and grabbed the beast straddling the Calipso's chest by the neck and drove the force blade through its eye before throwing it corpse directly into the beast that was still reeling back while covering its blinded eye. The two beasts collided and the still living beast fell to the ground in the tangle of the dead beasts limbs.

Eyeing the beast that had clamped down on my left leg earlier, that had now stood and looked to be drawing back in pain and fear, I kicked out with the armor's left leg and pulverized one the joints in its legs. It fell to the ground screaming.

With my immediate surroundings now somewhat clear I rolled the Calipso onto its left shoulder before using its left arm to jab out towards the ground and almost instantly brought the armor to its feet.

A quick evaluation of my surrounding showed every beast not dead or writhing on the ground was beating a fast retreat and nearly throwing themselves down the side of the slope.

In a fit of rage, I chased one of the slower ones down and grabbed it by its left shoulder from behind. With a vicious thrust of my force blade, the creature was run through. I pulled the blade out and ran the creature through a second time before tossing its corpse aside.

By the time I had dispatched the beast and tossed it aside the other creatures were halfway down the slope and fleeing as fast as they could. I could see 4 more beasts scrambling down the slope.

I decided to not chase the beasts down the uneven ground to avoid any reversals of fortune and turned to the pile of corpses and the still thrashing beasts not yet dead.

Finishing the beasts was just a simple matter of a few swipes of my force blade that took less than a few seconds.

I searched around the ground and eventually found the submachine gun. Grabbing it up into my hands after stowing the force blade, I leaped to the edge of the flat area on the slope and leveled the weapon. I could still see multiple beastly shapes making a rapid retreat towards the forest.

Familiar aiming reticles sprang up and I held the trigger down while screaming in rage.

Another beast was shredded by a dozen rounds while a second was punctured in three separate areas of its body before the submachine gun ran its magazine dry.

The rest of the fleeing beasts escaped into the forest while I reloaded.

I stood at the top of the mound overlooking the battlefield strewn with corpses and felt sudden relief.

While I viewed the battlefield I noticed a contact still in the clearing marked red by the Calipso's friend or foe sensor systems.

On the ground in the clearing was one of the beasts on all of its limbs nearly frozen in place. Its body shook and twitched. Its chest rapidly expanded then deflated in little gasps.

It seemed frozen and hurt somehow. It didn't have any external wounds I could see, so I didn't understand at first what was happening.

Then I realized this core beast was the one that had used that weird shockwave ability on me earlier. It looked like using the ability had come at a cost to the beast. It was in some sort of shock from the use of its ability. That explained why the beasts hadn't all used the powerful ability. There was a price associated with its use.

A cruel smile split my lips and I leveled the submachine gun at the beast. I held the trigger down and the beast appeared to fall apart in a bloody mess as round after round passed through its body.

I used entirely too many rounds to kill the beast, but each splatter and puff of blood and guts satiated a sick desire I held to punish this awful creature.

When the last round cycled through the chamber the battlefield fell silent. I stood absolutely still and surveyed the bloody scene. The corpses of the core beasts were littered everywhere. The lay in jumbled heaps here and there.

I waited a full 5 minute to make sure the battle was truly over before deactivating the full link and slumping into the pilot's chair.

I let my head lull back against the headrest and brought my right hand up to cover my eyes. I felt all the tension in my mind and body drain out of me and felt a sudden feeling of weakness overcome me.

I didn't mind the feeling at all. It felt like relief. I signed before smiling and giving a barking almost insane sounding laugh.

"I'm alive!"

The words never sounded so sweet before.