Golgota (a science-fiction novel)

Chapter 23

The first thing to be fired were the neuron projectiles. Each carried only a certain number of the small, handy bombs, but there was no skimping. The men took no more notice of anything. They dashed forward and threw their explosive shells at the scurrying, hungry crowd. Four men backed them up and attacked the hungry offspring spilling out of the mother's torn body. Among the Ngoys, even the fetuses were deadly. Driven by instinct - their inbred nature - they bore through the green slime, plowed up the dregs, burst forth, pounced on the men.

But their weapons were faster. The offspring literally dissolved in the bombardment. Drops of black bodily fluids splattered on Kovacs' visor. He wiped quickly, as fast as he could. A moment of poor vision was a moment too many.

When he could see again, a Ngoy erupted at his feet. He was small, wriggling, mean. Kovacs lifted his boot, kicked. The spikes pierced the small body, and there it continued to wriggle. By the time Kovacs ran toward the rock wall at Nakamura's side, the little Ngoy was already dead. Bluish glow ahead of them as the neuron rounds went off. Kovacs could see - his ears deafened by the men's screams - the Ngoys being hurled into the air.

Ngoys were falling.

Ngoys were raining.

Most were dead when they hit. Burst in the heat. Their bodies turned inside out.

More drops of the black liquid poured down his visor. The light from the headlamps on the other men's helmets was now refracted, sliding in glaring streaks like a prism across Kovac's face. He didn't even have time to wipe the blood from the Axon glass. Weapons spat, fired, hammered. Death everywhere. From all sides. Death rolled on the ground.

Screaming men. Bleeding Ngoys.

Kovacs thought he saw Yates. Yates, twitching all over, his suit full of feeding Ngoys. A familiar sight.

Then he was gone again, out of Kovacs' field of vision. Kovacs had kept running.

He had lost Nakamura, but he felt no fear, no panic. He was now composed only of nerve endings, of eyes, of legs, of hands, of the extension of hands - his weapon. He consisted only of instincts.

The world was dying, but Kovacs knew it no other way.

Kovacs jumped over a dying man whose name he had forgotten. A neuron bullet must have hit the man. He was missing his legs - easy prey for the Ngoys, and the Ngoys were boring out of the ground on all sides.

Kovacs thought he felt a touch on his ankle. It was the fingers of the man who was trying to grab him, begging him to do something. Kovacs did not understand.

He kept running.

You will just run, do you understand, Kovacs? You're going to run as fast as you can.

In front of them he saw the stairs. He had already run between the two rocks, and hadn't even noticed. He saw the steps that had been cut into the rock. He saw how narrow, how steep the steps were.

And you will only shoot when you have to. You will only care about yourself. You will not be a hero to anyone.

The neuron rounds had cleared the way for the most part, but there were still plenty of ngoys. Kovacs saw a man in front of him suddenly stop, then begin dancing with a ghastly, twitching manner. The Ngyos had eaten into his suit from below.

He had been too slow.

You just have to stay alive until you get to that damn tower. That's the only thing you have to do.

He saw a cave behind one of the pointed rocks, and there like a pale blur, a mother beast brooded. Slippery maggot bodies slithered out of her side.

Someone threw a neuron projectile.