Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [53]
“To the left it is, people,” Jackson said immediately. “Let’s move out.”
Harris continued to lead, with the file of castaways staying just within the shade of the overhanging trees, close enough so that they could get frequent looks at the open water and the flats of reedy muck. For another hour they kept moving. It was hard to tell if they were actually following a curve of shoreline or if the marsh was just a vast blob of impassable terrain. Remembering his Ohio–-to–New England comparison, Jackson shuddered at the thought that this barrier might be the size of Lake Erie.
Nor did it seem that the sunset was going to come along any time soon to help them figure out which way was west. After three hours on Batuun, the sun seemed as high in the sky as it had been when they had landed. Jackson was forced to accept the realization that the days on this planet could be much, much longer than the neat twenty-four-hour intervals they had grown up with on Earth.
He was lost in those gloomy thoughts when he heard a loud splash like something very large moving through the water. The sound was followed by an even louder “Holy shit!” in Falco’s voice.
Jackson spun to see a whole slew of green water rising into the air, flowing away from a platform of some kind, about 100 meters from shore. It looked like a submarine was rising out of the muck, flat and broad and long, lacking only a sail to resemble a sleek undersea craft.
Until it opened its mouth.
Jackson’s mind seemed to trip over itself as he saw a gaping maw filled with rows of massive fangs, teeth that looked to be nearly a meter long in the front of the mouth. The monster shook itself, and stinking water sprayed, some of it splashing into the fringe of forest where the castaways were trudging.
Then the beast roared, and it was a volume of sound that struck them like a physical attack. The lieutenant actually felt himself stagger backward under the onslaught of noise.
“Give me a break!” Falco cursed. “Not a fucking dinosaur?”
If not, it certainly would have been at home in the Triassic. With a furious shiver, it threw off more of the muck, and the SEALS could make out a studded back with jutting ridges of bony plate. A great tail, ten meters long, thrashed through the brackish water while the monster held itself on four massive legs. A stench of rot and musk filled the air, almost gagging them as gases were released from the bed of the marsh, and vile breath spewed from the monster’s lungs.
And it was coming for them! Those horrible jaws gaped as it moved forward, not fast but with implacable determination, churning up a wave of brown water two meters high. Shots ripped out from the line of SEALS, but the rounds seemed to have no effect as the monster charged from the marsh, shouldering between a pair of massive trees and knocking both of them down as if they were matchsticks.
“Run!” Jackson shouted to the three civilians, unnecessarily, it turned out, as Parker and Char-Kane were stumbling away. Doctor Sulati had started to flee also, but she tripped on a vine and sprawled headlong as the looming horror approached.
Ruiz and Harry Teal were blasting away, aiming for the creature’s head, with no apparent effect. G-Man launched a round from his rail gun, the hypervelocity slug tearing through the great maw and passing out the other side without giving it any pause. Rocky Rodale could see that the mountain of angry flesh was already too close for him to use his M76 Wasp on it. The warhead wouldn’t have time to arm itself before it struck, and the creature was getting closer every moment. How could something so big move so fast?
The beast came closer as if drawn by the curtain of fire. Falco helped Dr. Sulati up and pulled her deeper into the forest. Someone threw a grenade that went off like a firecracker against the monster’s skin but only made it snap to the side in annoyance.
“Fall back!” the lieutenant shouted, wondering what