Free Bigfoot War 3: Food Chain by Eric S Brown Page A

uppercut to the next beast in the unending line of the monsters that was threatening to overwhelm him.
    A pack of six of the beasts encircled him as he tried to press forward. PFC Maberry checked the icons of the other Wolves on his display screen. His hopes sunk as he saw most of them were already offline and down. He’d failed to reach the firing line in time and the larger mechs had paid the price for it. No one had known the beasts would still be so thick in numbers when they closed in and things descended into a hell of close-quarter combat. It was an oversight that was going to cost the whole squad of Wolves their lives. His duty now was to merely stay alive.
    “Ed,” he cried over his comm. link to the other Mark III driver. “We’ve got to disengage and make for the rally point!”
    “Roger that!” Ed screamed back at him.
    Maberry’s Mark III squatted close to the dirt, putting a good deal of the suit’s power into a single jump. Its mighty legs thrust it into the sky and over the bulk of the beasts’ forward ranks. He hit the ground running. Ed landed several feet from him, but far too close to one of the faster, snarling Bigfoot. With a roar it, it plunged a giant fist into his Mark III’s faceplate. Maberry heard the sound of shattering plexi -glass and Ed’s pained-filled cries as his Mark III flipped over backwards from the force of the impact. The beasts swarmed over him like the dead tearing at a living body. The active icon of Ed’s suit on his display went dark.
    “Damn it,” Maberry yelled as he sprinted away from the beasts, heading south where help was supposed to be waiting in the form of Commander Weger and his support troops. He made it a total of three steps before one of the warning lights he’d been seeing flared a brighter shade of red and the servos of his Mark III Wolf’s right leg locked up from overheating. His suit went sailing through the air from its own momentum to land with a thud face first on the forest floor. Maberry managed to roll over and bring the mech’s sword up into the belly of a beast that dove on top of him. Its yellow eyes bugged out as its intestines spilled over the giant blade of his powersuit . It grabbed his arm as motors strained against desperate muscles. The beast snarled at him, leaking a mixture of blood and saliva onto his faceplate. Maberry rolled again, catching the creature by surprise, and knocked it off of him. He took a swing at it but missed, his blade barely nicking its shoulder, as he tried to get to his feet. A second beast tackled him, its hand ripping power cables from the side of his suit. The damage shorted out the control of his sword arm.
    “No!” Maberry howled as he grabbed the beast’s head by its fur and smashed his own armored head into its face, crushing the monster’s nose. The beast let go of him, spitting blood and teeth as the remainder of his Wolf’s systems failed one by one. The beast took hold of his dead armor and plunged two of its thick fingers through the glass of his faceplate into Maberry’s skull. PFC Maberry twitched inside the suit as the beast withdrew its blood-smeared hand and left him where he lay.

    * * *

    Commander Weger had watched it all via the screen of his comm. hook up. He cursed, flinging the small, handheld device aside. “The Wolves are down, boys. It’s up to us now.”
    “Is he crazy?” Greg asked Meagan. “If those things took out those suits, how in the world are we supposed to stop them?”
    Meagan shook her head as the beasts came tearing through the trees into view. “It’s too late to run,” was all she had time to say before she jerked up her AK-47 to her shoulder and opened fire at the approaching horde.
    All of the vehicle-mounted .50 calibers thundered as one, meeting the beasts with their combined firepower and turning their front ranks into something that looked like it leaked from the bowels of a meat grinder. Greg emptied his clip in a continuous stream of