Adam got no real impression of the pengies’ individual size until the distance was cut by half and he faced row upon countless row of rusty gray backs. These were massive creatures: the males six-foot-five and 350 pounds; the females only slightly smaller at six-foot-two and 300 pounds. Compact and powerfully muscled, both sexes sported ten-inch-long black beaks with slightly downcurved tips. In close quarters one female could outfight a dozen unarmed men.
As harvesters of fat and protein, and efficient depositories of the same, they were remarkable biomechanisms, which is why their species had been resurrected from thirty-four million years of extinction, DNA salvaged from frozen, fossilized bones, cloned and genetically tweaked. The effort to recreate them had begun more than a hundred years ago, well before skydark. Supremely designed for the polar environment, the reintroduced pengies were a new top predator, able to displace the previous top dogs: leopard seals, killer whales and great white sharks. In the sea they were agile and quick; by attacking in coordinated packs they could disembowel a much larger enemy in seconds. They were much slower and more awkward on land and genetically programmed to congregate there for breeding and egg laying, which was the idea behind bringing the species back in the first place—let the pengies harvest the frigid, deadly sea, then easily and safely harvest them whenever needed.
Hunting parties from Polestar Omega used to be able to land right next to the flocks, but that hadn’t been the case for over fifty years. What two generations ago was routine protein gathering had become dangerous duty. Pengies weren’t stupid. Their brains were almost human-sized. They had learned from experience to scatter for the escape tunnels beneath the ice field that led to the sea, or if they had sufficient numbers, to do exactly what they did in the sea: to envelop and destroy the threat.
Adam stopped his squad thirty feet from the edge of the circling mass of bodies, autorifles shouldered and ready to fire. Hundreds of pairs of huge, taloned feet shuffled and slapped the ice, friction heat in combination with free-flowing urine and excrement turning it into vile gray slush. As they danced past, thick layers of blubber rippling over dense muscle and bone, the pengies craned heads over steeply sloping shoulders to glare down at the party crashers. The look in their red eyes said they were not afraid of anything that swam, ran or flew, that they would kill and die to protect eggs the size of small boulders tenderly balanced on the tops of their wide feet.
As he opened his mouth to give the command to attack, Adam hesitated, his heart pounding under his chin. They were dwarfed, overmatched and outnumbered. The pengies didn’t have arms that could punch or legs that could kick, they had no hands to hold weapons, but their bulk could absorb many bullets before they went down, and with 350 pounds driving their beaks, they could punch through sheet metal as if it were cardboard. He had seen firsthand and in close quarters what the wrath of these animals looked like, and he knew he was about to initiate an uncontrollable, conceivably disastrous chain of events.
But it had to be done. The people of Polestar Omega had to eat.
He keyed his throat mike and said, “We need to ram a wedge into the outside of the flock as it turns toward us, and separate the pengies for harvest from the rest. Brad and I will chuck in flash-bangs to break up their ranks. William, you and the others will have to plow into the gap we make and cut out our forty animals—the farther away from the rest you drop them the better. We’ll hold the gap open with grenades while you work. We’ll try to keep the pyrotechnics to your backs, but don’t forget to turn down your suit mikes and avert your eyes. Whatever you do, don’t stop moving forward. Our advantage is surprise, and we have to finish the killing before they can recover and regroup. After you slaughter the quota, we’ll join ranks in front of the carcasses and prepare to hold ground while William retrieves the hovertruck.”
“Hey, William,” Brad said, “don’t be picking daisies along the way, huh?”
“Nah, I was gonna stop and make a snowman.”
Their attempt to break the tension of the moment failed. No one laughed.
“Get into position,” Adam said.
The four men stepped in front of him and Brad, weapons shouldered, bracing themselves for the charge. The impact of stomping pengie feet rattled their knees, the squawking hurt their ears and they couldn’t see over the eighty-foot-long, constantly moving wall of bodies.
Slinging his assault rifle, Adam unclipped a pair of grenades from his harness. After Brad followed suit, he said, “Toss ’em in four pengies deep from the outer edge. Advance alongside me and leapfrog my blasts with yours. We’ve got to keep pressing forward and widening the wedge so the others can do their job.” He yanked the pins on the grenades, holding down the safety clips. “On three...”
The grenades arced through the air, four small black objects disappearing into the sea of undulating bodies. A second later they detonated with bright flashes and earsplitting cracks, sending feathers and ice flying amid billowing gray smoke. Gaps in their tightly packed ranks yawned as animals were blown off their feet. Rust gray dominoes toppled, tripping those moving closely behind them.
Adam and Brad each chucked another pair of grenades, this time a bit deeper into the throng.
As a second volley thunderclapped and lightning-flashed, William led his men into the smoke and chaos, jumping the fallen and forcing the wall of oncoming pengies to split ranks. The first dozen or so slipped past on their left, but the line of animals that followed turned outward, shifting farther and farther from the central mass.
With Brad on his right flank, Adam ran after William, sidestepping pengies that lay on their backs, wings and webbed feet quivering. Others were unconscious, long pointed tongues drooping out of gaping beaks. On either side of Adam, the pengies continued to rush past in a blur, blocking the view—it was like running headlong through a deep trench.
William and the others turned toward the line of animals they had split off; multiple gunshots clattered as they fired at will with their G3s. Clean kills were essential for taking home the highest quality meat. Carefully placed rounds vaporized bony heads, sending plumes of blood and feathers flying, pelting the animals behind them with bits of skull, beak and brains. Decapitated pengies dropped to the ice, their rubbery bodies skidding to a stop, neck stumps spraying gouts of bright blood. The pengies who followed were pushed into the kill zone of the assault rifles by their brothers and sisters who were unable to see what was happening ahead.
It took two minutes of precision single fire to drop their quota. When the last shot rang out, a ragged line of nearly headless pengies lay on ice smeared dark crimson.
“William, get the hovertruck,” Adam said. “Everyone else, gather the kills. Make it quick.”
While he and Brad stood ready to hurl more grenades, the other crewmen raced to the most distant carcasses, thirty feet away. Grabbing the huge birds by the feet, they dragged them back into a rough pile. Once they got the heavy bodies moving, it was easy to skid them over the ice.
As Adam watched, the gap they had opened with explosives and blasterfire sealed itself shut. Screaming in outrage, pengies continued to wheel past. Then the edge of the churning mob suddenly split away, this time of its own accord, the flock shifting as one to try to flank and surround them.
“Back up!” Adam cried as he lobbed flash-bangs. “Back up!”
Rocking blasts of concussion, light and sound knocked the initial wave of pengies onto their butts, chest feathers blackened and smoking from the burning cordite. As Adam pulled grenades from his harness, unharmed birds rushed past, lunging and stabbing down at him with their beaks.
A second later a shrill scream erupted in his earphones. When he looked over his shoulder, he saw that Brad had been caught from behind. A pengie loomed over him, its head buried to the eyeballs in his back. Its beak had been driven all the way through and come out his chest—the tip making a tent in the orange fabric of his coldsuit. Brad’s legs churned wildly, his boots slipping on the ice as he tried to get a foothold, arms waving as he grasped for his assault rifle.
Before Adam could