SNAFU: Survival of the Fittest

Then at the last second, the two speeding worms altered direction just slightly, and she could see that they would pass right next to each other. Knight leapt from the reddish worm to the brown one, rolling on the back of the latter. Pawn altered her trajectory to follow the brown worm. As the red worm’s tail cleared the brown’s tail, Knight activated his transmitter, and the speeding red beast’s front end exploded in a gout of thick white fluid and chunks of brick-red skin. Much of the obliterated head was involuntarily swallowed by the hollow, fast moving cylinder of its body, before the creature ran out of steam and seemed almost to deflate, finally stopping its momentum.

Pawn chased the brown worm as it fled into the storm with Knight now surfing on top of it. “Brick-red one’s down. That leaves the brown one Knight’s on and the one you guys filled with lead,” she announced on the open channel. “What next, Knight?”

“Run alongside,” Knight told her. “I’ll lower a rope.”

“Why not just get down?” she asked, frustrated that he didn’t get off the thing. How could she blow it up, if he was still in range?

“This one is going our way.”

“The first one is still out there,” she pointed out. “We need to get them all.”

“Nah,” she heard Rook’s voice say, followed immediately by a resounding boom. “Queen and I just took care of Chuckles, the Swiss Cheese Worm. That just leaves yours, Knight.”

Pawn ran as fast as she could, but she didn’t think she would catch the fleeing brown worm and the man riding it. The ground rumbled hard under her feet, making every leap and hop treacherous. Her boots had slid more than once, and she was afraid she would turn an ankle. She was also starting to sweat and overheat in the warmed suit.

“Guys, I’m seeing a much bigger Richter pattern than before. The seismic readings suggest a full on earthquake is coming. Maybe all the tunneling from the worms?” Aleman sounded uncertain. “I think you should bail. You can re-arm and come back for the last worm.”

“Shit,” Knight blurted.

“What is it?” came King’s voice. His words no longer stuttered from cold, and Pawn assumed he had reached the helicopter and a spare environment suit.

“It’s turning,” Knight replied, and just as he said it, Pawn burst through a cloud of swirling snowflakes and grit that gusted so hard it almost knocked her backward. She saw the brown worm turning. It would cross her path if she didn’t hurry. Getting stuck between it in front of her and an earthquake behind her, with the helicopter on the other side of it did not appeal to her. She poured on the speed, intending to run past its head, like racing a train, and continue through the storm. She had already seen the thing was slow to corner, so she wasn’t worried it could change direction at the last second and maul her.

“Time to get down, Bronco Billy,” she said, as she raced past the thing’s black-tentacled mouth. As she passed it, she saw Knight slide down the creature’s ribbed side like it was a playground slide. Until its curvature stopped at its widest spot, a good ten feet off the ground, and dipped back under the fast moving beast. Knight dropped those last ten feet into a sand dune and rolled in the dirt, his furred suit flinging a spray of grit in the air like a car’s tire spinning in mud.

Pawn veered toward Knight, but he was already rolling to his feet and running toward the distant helicopter on the other side of the storm’s whipping frenzy. He wasn’t waiting on her to catch up, so she forced herself to sprint faster.

When she felt they were far enough from the receding brown worm, she activated her transmitter, and the sky behind them filled with an orange ball of flame and smoke, billowing from the last worm’s split open center. The massive creature rolled across the ground, out of control.

The ground shook hard, and Pawn realized it wasn’t from the explosion, but from the earthquake Aleman had mentioned.

“Don’t look back, Anna,” Knight called. “Just run!”

Her eyes grew large inside her faceplate as she realized what he was saying.

It wasn’t an earthquake.

She really didn’t want to know how big this one was.

She really didn’t.

But she looked.

8

“Report,” King’s voice came over the comms.

“Umm,” Rook said, taking aim with his spear gun. He pointed it up in the air like an English longbowman, and Queen, to his side, picked up on his intent and did the same with hers. “Knight and Pawn are being chased by the biggest friggin’ large intestine you can imagine.”

With that description to King, he fired, and Queen did likewise. The twin bomb-spikes arced through the air and over the heads of Pawn and Knight, who were running toward them full tilt. Behind them was a massive death worm. This one dwarfed the others, with a diameter at the head of forty feet. As far as Rook could see, the thing’s body trailed behind it a hundred yards.