Abyss Deep. Ian Douglas

      “Armor up!”

      I squeezed into a waiting Mark 10 hanging on the rack, sealed it off, and accepted a helmet from Thomason. “Thanks, Staff Sergeant,” I told him. “What’s going down?”

      “Some of our people are on the ice,” he said. “Trapped … by one of those things.”

      Wiseman handed me a Mk. 30 carbine. I checked the safety, wondering if a half-megajoule laser pulse would even register in a cuttlewhale’s consciousness. I might have better luck throwing snowballs at the things.

      “Open the hatch!” Hancock called. The dim red-dish light of Abyssworld spilled into the lock as the ramp lowered in front of us.

      Haldane had touched down on the ice perhaps a kilometer away from the spot where the cuttlewhale had lunged up through the ice. Thirty Marines and two Corpsmen were out here, converging on the ship as quickly as possible. I could see several of them using their meta-thrusters to make low, bounding leaps across the pressure ridges, their combat-armor nanoflage making them almost invisible in the dim light. In the distance, the snaky silhouette of a cuttlewhale weaved against the swollen red face of the sun.

      “Perimeter defense!” Hancock called. “Dalton! Set up your weapon to put fire on that thing!”

      We spread out, creating a broad circle around the grounded Haldane. Visibility sucked. The wind from the west had picked up, and we were staring into a layer of blowing ice crystals and freezing fog perhaps two meters deep. I dropped to the ice alongside Bob Dalton, helping him unship his M4-A2 plasma weapon.