Rogue Element

‘Save some of that water for your arm. You’re bleeding.’ He ripped off the other sleeve, then poured the last of the water into the deep gashes. The sleeve made do as a bandage, and he wound it around her arm a few times.

‘So are you,’ she said.

‘My blood clots quickly.’ Joe drank the remaining water.

Suryei noted his physique. ‘I thought you said you were a computer nerd. What’s with the muscles?’ Suryei was instantly annoyed at herself for asking the question. She played it back in her mind and she thought she’d sounded like some boy-happy bimbo. All that had been missing was the giggle.

Joe caught the rapid swings in Suryei’s mood. He put his shirt back on. ‘I box. Strictly amateur stuff, but I’ve been doing it since I was ten.’

‘Great,’ said Suryei.

‘I don’t do it to beat people up,’ he said, sensing the sarcasm. ‘I was bullied as a kid. You know, the weedy guy in the playground. Now I just do it to keep fit. It’s a sport.’ He shrugged.

She didn’t like boxers, was that it? Joe shook his head to clear it. There were more pressing issues at hand. They couldn’t just hide and wait for a rescue that might never come, or come too late. They had no food left, virtually no water and no survival training. They couldn’t just walk out — they had not the slightest idea what direction would lead them to the nearest outpost of civilisation. All they had was each other.

And then the unexpected happened. A soldier stepped out from behind the bush they’d been hiding in, the stock of the rifle at his cheek, eye positioned over the sight. The scare with the cobra had made Joe and Suryei forget about him completely. He sighted the barrel from one to the other. Joe’s mouth was open. It was like a movie they were watching, rather than something that was actually happening to them.

The three people just looked at each other, wondering what to do next. The soldier was nervous, shouting something in a language Joe didn’t understand. To his surprise, Suryei answered him. She put her hands behind her head and sank to her knees. The soldier gestured aggressively at Joe to do the same. He didn’t move fast enough. The soldier reversed his rifle and drove the stock hard into Joe’s stomach. The blow caught him by surprise, winding him, but a daily regimen of three hundred sit-ups prevented any real damage. Joe fought for breath, falling to his knees, gagging. The soldier still wasn’t satisfied with his level of compliance. He lifted the barrel of his rifle and pressed the flash suppressor hard against Joe’s cheek, prising his teeth apart.

‘No!’ yelled Suryei. The bastard was going to pull the trigger. ‘No!’

And then the cobra struck. It lunged through the bush beside the soldier’s leg and sank its fangs into his thigh. The man looked at the snake like he didn’t believe it was happening, but then it bit again and again, ferociously, and the reality of the attack suddenly hit him. He screamed and emptied the magazine of his weapon into it.

Joe and Suryei ran.

Sergeant Marturak heard the scream and the spray of automatic fire. It took them seven minutes to reach the spot where their comrade was lying on the ground. The soldier was convulsing violently and white froth bubbled from his mouth. The cobra’s shattered body writhed beside him. It wasn’t dead. Bullets had broken its back in several places and it was coiling itself into a knot.

One of the soldiers gripped the snake from behind the head and sliced it off with his machete. Sergeant Marturak had once before seen a man die from a cobra bite. He felt pity for the private. Fortunately, they carried antivenom in their kit. One of the soldiers administered a double shot of the pale liquid with a disposable hypodermic. The man shaking uncontrollably on the jungle floor was in a bad way. Antivenom or not, it was by no means certain he would survive.

Marturak cursed softly. He would have to leave one man behind with the stricken soldier. Morale would suffer if he just left the man to his fate. His force was steadily shrinking. Including the two he’d lost in the fire, his squad was now effectively reduced by twenty percent, with four men either dead, wounded, or otherwise out of action. Again, he wondered whether this man convulsing on the ground had walked into some kind of booby trap set by the man he was hunting.

He questioned the soldier babbling at his feet, but got nothing coherent. One of his soldiers called Marturak over to the base of the tree that dominated the clearing. There was blood. Another found a piece of material hanging on some thorns. More blood. There had definitely been some kind of struggle here. With luck, the injuries would slow the target. Sergeant Marturak now had a rich, red trail to follow. He deployed his diminished forces for the pursuit. Things were looking up.