Ambassadors and Scorpions by Michael Todd & Michael Anderle

Author:Michael Todd & Michael Anderle [Todd, Michael & Anderle, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2019-01-19T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

PFC Pérez was, as it turned out, closer to one hundred rather than two hundred yards from their camp. Of course, even that short distance seemed like far longer in the dense and uncharted jungle where screens of slimy vines, shuddering leaves, and fat tree trunks blocked human sight at any distance. In addition, the faint but all-encompassing sounds of the forest helped to mask those sounds which the plants themselves didn’t absorb.

“Well, you made it,” Peppy said in her dark monotone as Wallace broke through a curtain of mossy creepers. “Welcome, I guess. Sir.”

“Pérez,” Wallace replied, “are you injured? And did you find our targets?”

“I’m fine, to the extent that anyone can be ‘fine.’” She shrugged. “There is no sign of our lost politicians. They have vanished into the black void of oblivion, where at least they’ll probably meet many new friends. Our Stallion, however, is KIA.” She gestured vaguely toward a large mass of crumpled metal slightly behind her.

Wallace advanced into the tiny glade alongside the PFC and the fallen vehicle. Peppy did indeed look to be fine, if not overly cheerful, although that was to be expected. The Stallion, on the other hand, looked like it had been to hell and back. Its crude head-portion was destroyed to the point where it had caved-in, as though someone had run it directly into a tree. Its sides were dented and slashed. The legs were twisted and broken and the back left one was entirely gone. If Flemm or Graf had crashed, it must have been ravaged by scorpions or other Zoo creatures immediately afterward…which suggested that they’d probably done even worse things to the two politicians.

“Dammit,” Wallace said. Losing Flemm and Graf, with Blancheau injured and furious, effectively made this mission a failure. And until he at least got the last of his team back, it might, like the mission to apprehend Kemp and her forbidden fruit, even go beyond failure and into the realm of fiasco.

“Any news from civilization?” Peppy asked. “Not that I expect it to be good news. Just news in general.”

“If by civilization you mean our camp a hundred and twenty yards away, the main news is that we’ll be here overnight while Jimmy fixes the other two Stallions,” Wallace informed her. “We’d best get back.”

Peppy sighed. “Yes, sir.”

Above, them, on a large leafy branch, something rustled.

Both soldiers tensed and instantly adopted battle stances. They backed away from the offending branch, their guns up and ready. A dark form dropped silently from the limb and to the side of them. Wallace held his hand up and forced himself not to fire. He was glad that Peppy wasn’t the itchy trigger finger type.

It was Aade Graf.

“This operation is not going well,” she said and brushed herself off as she stood from the crouch in which she’d landed. She was dirty, scratched, and bruised, her outfit torn in several places, and her blonde braid had come partially loose into a ragged mess. She did not, however, appear to have any major injuries.

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