Youth is Wasted on the Young p.24
Rory fell in a living clutching cage of chitinous legs. He and the Wirrn hit the ground rolling, Rory bounced between the iron hard legs and the hard leathery carapace. Each bounce poked him with the stiff insect hairs and scratched him with the barbed legs.
They rolled down the hillside. Rory fought to turn to face the insect, trying to get leverage for his feet to push and break the Wirrn's hold. The Wirrn's exoskeleton was covered with hanging strips of flesh. It looked like a fruit that had overgrown and split. Glistening, oily green carapace showed between the slits, rags of dead skin peeled off all over it. It was one of the most disgusting things Rory had ever seen, especially this close.
They bumped down the hillside. The Wirrn stopped them rolling, and, lying on its side, reached down its head, its massive mandibles opened wide.
Clutched in the unbreakable bars of its legs, seeing that mouth reaching for his head, Rory yelled and rammed his ring against the Wirrn's side.
The Wirrn screamed and spasmed, scraping Rory against the stiff body hairs as the legs contracted. He was trapped within the beast's convulsions.
"Rory!" Jeff yelled.
Rory looked up and saw Jeff ramp his hoverbike up over the top of the hive, he twisted the bike sideways in midair and slammed the underside against the Wirrn's head.
The Wirrn knocked free of Rory's electric grip and its legs flew open, slinging Rory down the hillside.
Rory rolled and slid, he scrabbled at the thin grass and eventually stopped his slide.
"Get on your bike!" Jeff yelled. "Alex is almost done, we have to get off here!"
Rory scrambled for his bike, farther up the hill. Jeff turned his to watch, obviously desperate to get moving.
Rory grabbed his overturned hoverbike and wrenched it upright.
"Rory!" Jeff screamed behind him.
Rory felt a boulder slam into his back. He was catapulted over his hoverbike. He tucked his head, landed on his shoulder and rolled, coming up in a crouch, (who knew that falling off his hoverbike would be so instructive?)
A Wirrn loomed over him, the largest he'd seen. Gleaming green, shiny new, eyes red.
He didn't think. He reached behind his back, pulled the pistol from his waistband, and fired.
The Wirrn spun in a circle from the impact, lurched, but flew away.
The response was immediate.
The hive under his feet started buzzing like a kicked beehive.
Oh, I guess this is why the Colonel didn't start shooting yesterday, Rory thought in frozen dismay.
In a rush, Rory tossed the gun and threw himself on his hoverbike. He gunned it even before his feet found the runner boards.
"Go, go, go!" he yelled at Jeff who was waiting for him down the incline.
The young deputy spun his bike on one foot and shot off down the hive heading for open fields.
The sound of angry wings compressed the air behind Rory.
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Rory looked over his shoulder and blanched, nearly twenty Wirrn, a whole flight, had erupted out of the hive.
He lay himself down on his handlebars to give the least wind resistance and willed his bike faster.
He hit the bottom of the hive dome with a thump and shot off across the field hoping to get beyond the perimeter before the forcefield activated.
Something thumped the back of his hoverbike hard, bouncing him up and slewing him sideways.
He straightened out and shot off. He just went straight, trying to get as far away as fast as possible. Speed, speed, more speed. Jeff was in front of him about a hundred yards to the right - riding flat out.
He couldn't see Alex anywhere but in his rear view mirror he saw several of the Wirrn peel off in a wheeling turn, Rory hoped Alex had gotten the induction coil laid or they were toast.
He should have kept the gun.
Don't think about that, speed, speed, more speed. He urged the bike faster even though the wheat was whipping by in a blur.
He could hear the heavy drone of Wirrn wings gaining behind him. He scrunched his neck down, feeling the ghostlike pressure of alien mandibles on the back of his neck.
The rearview mirror didn't show any Wirrn that close, but he loosed a hand from the handlebars and swept a fist behind his neck anyway, just in case.
The hoverbike wobbled, Rory screamed and grabbed for the handgrip. At this speed a sharp turn would kill him. The bike dipped, rattling through the wheat heads with a sound like machine gun fire.
Sharp wheat kernels peppered him, stinging his face, he blinked and resisted the urge to throw up a hand to shield his eyes. He wrestled the speeding hoverbike higher, not daring to slow down.
Suddenly the air was peppered with real machine gun fire.
A chopper decloaked in front of him, huge and black, zooming in over his head, gun turrets blazing, he caught just a glimpse of pale blond hair through the window as it swooped over him.
He yelled with relief.
From off to the side, beyond Jeff, another chopper appeared, and gunfire behind him to the east indicated at least one more had decloaked.
He didn't stop, he leaned forward and opened the throttle. He actually passed Jeff who had started to curve around toward the west and the substation.
Rory risked a look behind him.
Four military choppers and an attack ATV were herding the flight of Wirrn back toward the hive.
They weren't shooting them, though he was sure there was a temptation. They were simply using the gunfire to direct them back toward the hive.
A few Wirrn tried to peel off, but the attack ATV projected some sort of wide beam that bounced them back into the herd.
Rory looked forward, checked where he was going, it was all clear fields, he looked back.
The Wirrn, surrounded, fled back into the hive. There was no indication of the force field.
Rory felt his heart clench. If they'd failed...
The choppers and ATV peeled off as the last Wirrn disappeared back down into the hive opening. They retreated and cloaked.
Rory leaned into his curve and concentrated on getting to the substation as quickly as possible.
He didn't trust the Wirrn not to try again.
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