Operation Orion - Kevin Dockery [53]
He was barely done speaking when he saw movement. The nearest of the creatures rose to a kneeling position—it did look like a goddamn polar bear!—and raised a gun, sighting down the slope toward the valley floor, where Jackson and the rest of the Team should just be coming into view.
That was enough intent for Sanders. He released a controlled burst—three 6.8-mm rounds—from his G15, shooting the creature in the back before it could squeeze off its own shot. Each bullet struck home, impacting right between what should have been its shoulder blades. The burst would have been lethal to a man, but this target seemed to find the attack merely annoying. It rose with a roar, spun around, and cracked off a very loud shot from the long rifle.
The round went wide, and Sanders opened up on full automatic, sending a stream of thirty slugs into the creature in the space of a few seconds. It tumbled onto its back, the rifle falling from its hands, a wide crimson stain spreading across the white fur of its belly.
It was, Sanders realized with shock, like a goddamn polar bear with opposable thumbs. At least, it towered some ten feet tall and was covered all over in shaggy white fur. The face was more apelike than bearlike, and its limbs, too, suggested a simian suppleness. But it was huge and powerful, and now its companions were fully up in arms. They rose from their firing pits, shooting those big guns at the SEALS above and below them, and the SEALS returned fire with the full complement of their arsenal.
Each of the alien guns seemed to release a single shot, but it was like the burst of a small cannon, accompanied by a gout of yellow flame and a billow of smoke. Sanders felt the impact when one round hammered into the rock nearby, splintering the stone and sending a cloud of snow flying. The officer returned fire and watched more of the aliens fall backward, shredded by dozens of G15 rounds.
One of the white, shaggy creatures lunged up the slope, dropping to all fours and springing with catlike agility toward Marannis just as the scout was snapping a new magazine into his G15. In the blink of an eye the SEALS dropped his gun, letting it dangle from the sling, and raised the breaching tool he kept strapped to his hip. He brought the breacher, an axlike tool with a superhardened blade on one side and a puncturing spike on the other, down in a slash across the alien’s face, cutting into the cheek and drawing an outraged howl. The creature slapped at the scout and sent him tumbling with a powerful blow.
As soon as Marannis fell, two more SEALS opened up with their G15s, cutting the charging beast down. More rounds boomed from the big guns, and Schroeder, Baxter, and Mirowski replied with grenades fired from the assault guns’ underbarrel launchers. The rocket-propelled missiles sputtered through the stormy blizzard, booming and flashing as they impacted the shaggy aliens. Each blast cut one of the big fellows down, leaving a bloody crater in the middle of the shaggy coat.
The nearest of the alien ambushers had all been cut down, but the rest of the group, those that had been farther along the ridge than the SEALS when the battle began, roared and howled for vengeance. More of the aliens charged, some carrying their guns and lumbering on two legs, others dropping the firearms, which dangled from slings below their bellies, as they galloped on all four limbs. The caseless rounds from the Team’s G15s tore through the attackers, but the aliens seemed unaffected by the initial hits; it took the force of a full burst to cut one down.
More grenades spit outward, adding to the chaos on the steep slope. Sanders dropped to one knee in the deep snow, aiming carefully and emptying his weapon into the nearest beast. The alien continued to lunge closer, looming over him before it collapsed with a groan and started rolling down the hill, leaving blood imprints every time its belly contacted the snowy ground.