Operation: Sahara by William Meikle

Author:William Meikle [Meikle, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severed Press
Published: 2021-06-06T22:00:00+00:00

-Banks-

Banks watched Davies flee into the city then directed the others.

"Back to the temple entrance," he said. "Let's see if we can keep their attention off Davies to give him enough time to get free."

They stood in a line, retreating step by step and firing until they reached the temple entrance.

"Stand firm here, lads," he shouted. "Give them hell."

The entranceway rang with gunfire. Bits of leg, fragments of black pincer and chunks of shell flew as the bullets ravaged the clambering beasts. A sliver as sharp as any piece of glass tore a path along Banks' cheek and blood flew. That enraged the attacking beetles even more and they pressed forward, a solid wall now floor to ceiling of scrambling, wailing frenzy. Wiggo had to step back to reload and the consequent press of the beast's attack was enough to force the three men back a step, then another. It wasn't going to be too long until they were forced back into the temple itself.

And once there we'll be overrun in seconds.

When it came his turn to step back to reload, he reached instead for one of the four L109A1 grenades he carried in his jacket.

"Fire in the hole," he shouted, pulled the pin and lobbed the grenade into the mass of the beasts.

"Leg it, to the stairs," he shouted. He deliberately slowed his own escape to allow Wiggo and Wilkins to get away first, and almost didn't get enough distance between himself and the bang, feeling the force of it at his back and the thunder of it in his ears. Ahead of him, Wiggo reached the foot of the stairs and turned. He had one of his grenades in hand.

"To me, Cap," the sergeant shouted and as soon as Banks reached the bottom step the grenade was lobbed over his head back towards the entranceway.

The three men were already on the stairs heading up when it went off with a bang that rang through the temple.

They went up two dozen steps before Banks chanced a look back. The entranceway swarmed with the beasts. Many had paused to feast on the remains of their dead that the grenades had blasted into a mess of broken shell and black ichor but others had already entered the temple and were coming forward towards the stairway.

"Do we stand, Cap?" Wiggo asked.

"Nope. You read how that worked out for the other squad back then. Leg it, all the way up. Somebody got out of this mess once before. If he did it, so can we."

Banks stopped again on the first main landing some forty feet above the temple floor, a floor that was now almost totally covered by beetles in a wide variety of sizes from no bigger than a small dog to monsters the size of pickup trucks. He saw them swarming around the dead bodies, both modern and old. They did not disturb the dead, moving through and around them almost as if in reverence to the huge statue that towered over them.

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