The Bounty Hunter: Into The Swarm

Free The Bounty Hunter: Into The Swarm by Joseph Anderson

Book: The Bounty Hunter: Into The Swarm by Joseph Anderson Read Free Book Online
Authors: Joseph Anderson
Burke could see and hear things moving. He took each step
slowly then, knowing that alerting one of the dross might awaken the entire
nest below him. The alien’s numbers wouldn’t help them much initially in the
enclosed tunnels, but if enough came from all sides he would be trapped no
matter how many he killed.
    Sometimes pathways would be blocked by collapses, either from the
ceiling falling in and filling the tunnel, or from the floor breaking away and
leaving a gaping hole in the floor. Burke avoided these just like the
descending pathways. He had never heard of anyone exploring deep into the
dross’s burrows, but he guessed that most of the aliens slept much deeper
underground than he currently was. There were too many to fit in the smaller
tunnels he traversed now, which meant they must have larger quarters under his
feet, where it would be easier for him to be swarmed and overwhelmed.
    He often felt they were going in circles. Each turn lead to other
diverging paths, most of which led downwards. They seldom found upward slopes,
and those that they did opened into even more branching paths. The dross had
clawed their way indiscriminately through the earth. Some tunnels breached into
the basements of homes, breaking directly through one wall and then continuing
through the opposite wall as if they had ignored the room entirely. Other times
they followed a path through ancient, dried out sewer systems. He moved slowly
in those areas, the sound of each step magnified and echoing between the old
stone walls.
    Eventually, through trial and error, they climbed up a particularly
long tunnel and into a small chamber where the drone sat. There were no dross
guarding it and that set Burke immediately on edge. He tried to remind himself
that they were animals, with no sense for what might be important enough to
protect, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that stumbling upon it was too easy.
He moved carefully around the chamber and checked each of its corners. They
were empty but he still didn’t relax. There was a second tunnel on the far end
of the chamber that led elsewhere. He moved to that before he approached the
drone.
    “Oh no,” Cass whispered. “Oh, you’re going to be angry. I’m angry.”
    “What?” Burke whispered back.
    He stepped into the tunnel and saw that it had a slight slope,
ascending upwards. He looked up and the light from the surface, now early
morning, frazzled the low light filter on the visor. There was a tunnel that
led directly up from the chamber.
    “Oh fuck,” he spat. “Really?”
    “I said you’d be angry.”
    He turned from the light and let his eyes adjust to the visor once
more. He shook his head as he moved to the drone. It was larger than he
expected, roughly twice the size of his aegis. Parts of it had been shredded
apart, either from the crash or the dross attacking it on the surface. Despite
its battered appearance, it still looked to be in better shape than the wrecks
on the surface. The drone hadn’t been on Earth long enough to be beaten and
weathered like the other things humans left behind.
    The drone seemed to be lodged into the ground, stuck in a third
tunnel that led out of the room, seemingly downward, like a dross had tried to
drag it deeper into the underground and instead gotten it stuck in a tunnel that
was too small. Burke carefully knelt next to it and started prying pieces of
its outer armor apart to expose the inside.
    “Do you see what might have caused it to crash?” he asked as he
worked.
    “No,” Cass admitted. “I don’t understand how this happened.”
    “The crash?”
    “This model of drone is a common one. The only alteration ACU did
was to automate it to the point that no one could remotely access its systems,
only its signal if they knew its frequency. The rest of its hardware is
normal.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Meaning,” she clarified, “it was to observe the planet from low
orbit, occasionally flying closer to the surface but

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