Fear that man

dark.
        These three things swam and erupted through one another, cold-dark-blue/blue-dark-cold like a psychedelic toto-experience show, throbbing through the grass that licked them like a thousand tiny tongues as the scene of violence ahead became plainer, clearer, uglier and uglier.
        The slug laser weapon was concentrated on the hull, and although Crazy and Lotus had begun to spin the ship under the net, the beam would soon trace a black line around the sphere and slice it in half.
        Sam fought the weariness that ached in every joint of his body. Fatigue, he told himself, was one of those mental disorders you could overcome with the proper tools of concentration. But concentrate as he would, his legs still throbbed madly, and his lungs heaved like sacks full of hot coals suddenly come to life.
        “Here,” Coro said.
        They dropped to the earth at the edge of the grass, staring across five yards of open ground to the trees and the indentation in the forest where the floater spun and was fired upon. “What now?” Sam asked, his throat dry and cracked like his lips.
        Coro wiped perspiration from his forehead despite the cool breezes playing inside their minds and bodies. “I count… fourteen. But there may be more hidden in the trees. Don’t start fanning your rifle right off. That wastes too many darts. But look how they are standing. They all have their backs to us. If we pick them off, moving inward, the boys in front won’t realize the boys behind are going down.”
        “I don’t know about my aim-”
        “The gun will handle most of that. You just sight through the keyhole bubble here. The gun will correct for the rest.”
        They dropped to their bellies, crawled forward the last few feet until their heads were exposed beyond the tall grass. Sam raised his gun, sighted. The nearest slug on his side was a dozen feet away. His finger encircled the trigger, and he felt things rising in his stomach. Then he forced himself to think about all those guns from the jelly-mass ship-and that he knew how to work them. And they were to kill; these were only to drug. He pulled the trigger, closing his eyes with the soft whuff of discharge.
        When he opened his eyes, the slug was lying on its side, fuzzy, thin lids closed over its eyes, still alive but out of action for a while. Coro had gotten two in the same time. Carefully, Sam raised his gun again, sighted in on another slug. Whuff! This time he didn’t close his eyes. The dart spun forth, buried itself in the tender flesh of the slug-form. The alien started to turn, a pseudopod lashing around to clutch the dart in bewilderment, then it was toppling sideways off its snake-like locomotion tail and onto the ground, its eyes staring fixedly at nothing for a moment before fuzzy lids closed over them.
        It was like a game, really.
        The slugs were like little cardboard targets, five feet high and relatively easy to hit. When you were on target, they fell over almost instantly. And the blue lights flashed almost as if in notice of a score.
        The game neared its end. Six slugs remained standing, still oblivious to the eight unconscious comrades behind. Then Sam fired on the next closest of the gross creatures, caught it in the middle of the back. It bent convulsively, straightened to pluck the dart from itself, and toppled forward. Forward! It struck the slug in front of it a glancing blow. That slug turned to see what was the matter, saw the bodies, and sounded the alarm.
        “Fan them now!” Coro hissed.
        Sam swung the barrel of the rifle back and forth, not bothering to aim any longer.
        Three more slugs toppled to the ground before they could swing their own weapons up.
        Another dropped, four darts in its chest.
        The two aliens operating the beam weapon swung it off the floater and toward the open meadow, playing the blue fire over the men’s heads and setting the grass on fire behind them. Sam sighted on one of the remaining duo, but they both fell as Coro fanned a burst of darts and caught them in midsection.
        The beam winked out.
        “Hurry!” Coro snapped. “They might have gotten a message back to their ship.”
        They were up, running.
        “The net!” Sam shouted.
        Coro nodded. Together they hefted the heavy beam-projector, palmed what seemed to be the control panel. Blue light burst out of the nozzle, humming.