by J. L. Curtis
A Little Help
Three weeks later, Fargo was sitting at his living room watching an e-tainment infomercial, when the video alert beeped. “Accept.”
The picture swam for a second, then revealed Mikhail sitting in his office, “Ethan, hate to bother you, but there’s a problem with some crop and livestock raiding over on in the Deep Creek area. GalPat says it’s not their problem, since no people have been harmed. Would you be willing to go see what you can do?”
Fargo nodded, “Okay, any idea what’s doing the damage?” He saw Mikhail shake his head, and sighed. “How do I get there? That’s a tad far for the liteflyer.”
Mikhail replied, “How about I pick you up in a half hour? I need to check some things in that part of the country, and I can drop you off.”
“Done. Let me get a few things packed. Disconnect.” Fargo quickly threw together a go bag, slipped his rifle into a hard case, and added a case of ammo, not sure what he was facing. He added his NVGs, photo-chromatic Ghillie suit, and decided to throw soft armor coverall with the light plasteel chicken plates into the trunk, along with his field gear.
Twenty minutes later, he locked up the house, sent Canis and Cattus away and walked slowly toward the end of his little runway, his trunk bobbing along behind him. Ten minutes later, the shuttle descended into the field, the ramp came down, and Fargo was surprised to see Daman step off it, kukri on his belt as always, “Need a hand?”
“Nah, this thing will follow me around. Where do I need to store it?”
Daman said, “Stick it by mine. It’s not like we’re full back here.”
Fargo laughed, “True, what are you doing here?”
“I was down in the village, and Mikhail asked me if I wanted to go. If we’re out there for a while, you’ll need some relief at some point.”
Fargo shrugged, “Never turn down help.”
Mikhail yelled down, “Hey you two, stop gabbing and get things secured. We’re burning daylight here.”
***
Mikhail brought the shuttle in for a landing a hundred yards from the cluster of buildings, and Fargo and Daman offloaded. Mikhail picked the shuttle back up and disappeared into the distance as they walked forward to meet the men, trunks in tow.
Fargo met a harried looking older man flanked by three younger men at the gate, “I’m Ethan Fargo and this is Daman Rai. Mikhail said you’ve got a problem that needs some pest control?”
The older man shook Fargo and Daman’s hands, “Rolly McMurtrie. My boys Chris and Arthur,” he nodded to the two younger men on his right. “Peter Keenan, one of the consortium members, he runs the farming operation across the river. Yes we’ve got a big problem. Something has come out of the water the last two nights, and taken cattlelows out of the lower pasture.” He swung his arm to indicate where the shuttle had landed. “We’ve moved the herd out of there for now, but something tore the hell out of the crops on the other side of the river, too. Don’t know if it’s the same thing. We’ve not been able to see anything other than blurs on the screens, don’t have real good cameras out here.”
“Any tracks?”
“Chris, show Mr. Fargo the pictures you took this morning.”
Deferentially, the young red head pulled out his datacomp, “Got these about an hour after sunrise.” He hit the holo function, and a round track about ten inches across with three claws popped into existence. It looked to be about four inches deep, and the claws extended another three inches.
Daman whistled, “Damn, whatever it is, it’s big and heavy!”
Chris said, “And it appears to be pretty mean. It took a cattlelow without any problem and carried the whole thing off.”
Fargo asked, “Full grown one? Around two thousand pounds?”
Rolly replied, “Yes. One of my prize bulls, too.”
Peter put in, “And whatever it was also tore up ten acres or so of prime corn across the river. Same tracks.”
Fargo and Daman looked at each other, then Rolly said, “You want to see the tracks for yourself? Both men nodded, and Rolly continued, “Chris, take these gents down to where the bull was killed. Arthur, take their trunks up to the house. Peter, you want to go with them, or come up to the house?”
Peter said, “I’ll go with you. No need for me to tramp around and mess things up. If you gents want to go look at the other side of the river, I’ve got a liteflyer at Rolly’s place.”
Fargo replied, “Let us take a look at what you’ve got here, then we’ll decide.”
***
Chris watched as Fargo and Daman quartered the ground, rifles in hand, then met back at the skimmer. Fargo asked, “What do you think?”
“Whatever that was, it had that cattlelow in its jaws and didn’t seem to be bothered by the weight. I don’t see any drag marks going back to the water. Looks like the strides make it around ten maybe twelve feet between its front and back legs.”
Fargo nodded, “Agreed, and it was moving when it came out of the water. It was in a dead run within a couple of strides and they were about fifteen feet apart. Wasn’t much of a battle, either. Looks like the bull turned to attack and it was killed pretty quickly. Lots of blood in one spot and not many hoof marks.”
Chris said, “All we saw on the video was a grey blur. But it was at least as big as the bull, if not bigger.
***
Eight hours later, Fargo and Daman sat on the bluff above the river, taking turns on watch. Fargo was just getting ready to take over when they both saw movement in the river. Watching closely, they saw shapes coming down river and moving slowly into the field on the other side of the river. Fargo increased the magnification, saying, “Huh, looks like… Uh… Hippopotamus. Or whatever they’re calling them here.”
Daman said, “Well, do we shoot? We are supposed to protect the crops, right?”
“You’re on the gun. Have at it. I’ll spot for you.”
Daman wiggled back down into a shooter’s position, “Target.”
“Send it.” A loud pop signified the round going down range and Fargo saw the Hippo go to its knees with a squalling cry. “Nice sho… Holy shit! Did you see that?”
Daman replied softly, “I’m not sure what I saw.”
“Well, that hippo is gone. Something took it. I’m just not sure what that something was.”
“Got another one coming out of the water. Target.”
“Send it, then swing left toward the river.”
Daman said, “You want to get on the gun? You’re more familiar with it than I am.”
They quickly swapped places, and Fargo dropped the hippo in the field, immediately swung toward the river and saw a gray blur come out of the water. He chased it across the field, finally hitting it as it picked up the downed hippo.
Coming off the rifle he looked over at Daman, “Is it my imagination, or is that another hippo?”
Daman shivered, “It’s a hippo alright, a frikkin’ carnivorous hippo! What caliber do we need for them?”
Fargo sat up, “I didn’t bring enough gun.”
***
The next evening, just as the sun started setting, and George and Celeste rose over the horizon, Mikhail landed the shuttle in the field adjacent to the river. Fargo and Daman beat feet toward it as soon as the aft ramp started down, and pelted up the ramp, “Close it, close it and get airborne!”
Mikhail jumped the shuttle into the air as the ramp closed, and brought it into an anti-grav hover at a hundred feet. “What the hell is going on? I got one of the twenties from the militia, but your message was garbled. Something about carnivorous hippos? Really?”
Fargo leaned against the back of the pilot’s seat, “Not garbled. They’re big and hungry. I killed twelve last night, saw more in the river, but I couldn’t get them from the perch we were on. No way in hell was I getting down to get closer.”
Mikhail glanced over his shoulder, “Okay, how do you want to play this, then?”
Fargo said, “Gonna use the twenty mil to kill the ones in
the river. Daman will be plinking the ones that go to the banks. We’ll be lying on the aft ramp, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t dump our asses out. I figure five hundred feet ought to do it.”
“You going to call the maneuvering up and down the river?”
“Yep, we’ll be on IC with you. First, I need you to take a quick run down to the falls that are apparently a couple of miles south of here.”
Mikhail nodded, and eased the shuttle down river to the falls, which appeared to be about three hundred feet high. Fargo said, “This cliff marks the edge of the McMurtrie consortium lands. Okay, let’s head back.”
Mikhail positioned the shuttle on anti-grav at three hundred feet after a discussion with Fargo and Daman, got them in safety harnesses and opened the ramp to a twenty degree down position after Fargo had fastened the twenty mil rifle to the ramp deck at the aft edge. Daman eased down the ramp to the edge, tugged on the harness, and then leaned forward putting on his NVGs, “Okay, I’m good here.”
Fargo did the same on the opposite side of the ramp, but remained standing behind the twenty, “Going hot.” He nodded at Daman and ran the bolt on the twenty, loading a fourteen hundred grain HEI caseless round, “Let’s see if they like this…”
***
Fargo peered through the NVGs and the ghosted holosight muttering, “I don’t see any more movement in the river. Mikhail, make one more pass up river, please.”
“Roger, backing up the river, again. For the tenth time.”
Fargo asked, “Daman, you seeing anything?”
Daman rolled up on his elbow, “Not a damn thing. And I’m glad. I think I’ve got three rounds left, maybe.”
Fargo queried the twenty with his neural lace, and was surprised to see he was down to ten rounds left, “Damn, I’ve only got ten!” Groaning he straightened up, coming off the gun, “I think we’re done.”
Mikhail set the shuttle down in the pasture, and the three of them basically collapsed in various locations, getting a little bit of rest. As the sun rose, Fargo heard banging on the side of the shuttle, he got up slowly, and climbed into the cockpit, shaking Mikhail awake, “Somebody’s knocking.”
Mikhail groaned, hit the PA and said, “Lowering ramp, stand clear interior and exterior.” He toggled the ramp open, stood and stretched, “Let’s go see what they want.”
They climbed down to the ramp, and both laughed to see Daman still asleep, curled in one of the fold out seats on the side of the shuttle. Rather than wake him, they continued down the ramp to be met by McMurtrie, his sons, Keenan, and some other men.
McMurtrie asked, “What was all that shooting last night? None of us could get any sleep!”
Fargo looked at him, “You had a bigger problem than you knew. Not only were there hippos, and carnivorous too, there were over a hundred of them. I didn’t have enough gun to kill them from the perch we were on, and neither of us wanted to get any closer to the water after we saw how quick they were. Mikhail brought a bigger gun and we shot them until there weren’t any left.”
Mikhail chimed in, “That was about six hours to actually take care of them all. Or at least, as far as we know, that’s all of them in this pod.”
Keenan asked, “Are you sure?”
Fargo shrugged, “Sure? No. But there wasn’t anything moving from the falls to ten miles above your holdings when we landed.”
Arthur McMurtrie, the youngest son asked, “What were you shooting? I kept seeing streaks of light. Was that a plasma rifle?”
Fargo laughed, “No, Arthur. That was a twenty millimeter battle rifle. I was firing high explosive incendiary rounds when I saw them surface.”
“Cool!”
Fargo winced, “Not really.” Loosening his shipsuit, he pulled it off his shoulder and showed him the bruise already turning interesting shades, “One hundred ninety rounds is not fun.”
Arthur blushed, “Sorry. Does it hurt?”
Fargo nodded, “Yep, I was stupid. I rode the gun rather than using the remote fire capability.”
Keenan laughed, “Bet you won’t do that again.”
Fargo laughed ruefully, “Nope.”
McMurtrie said, “What do we owe you?”
Mikhail and Fargo looked at each other, “Nothing. You needed help. I guess, technically, you got a response from the militia, in that both Daman and I are in it.”
McMurtrie replied, “Are you sure? I mean those rounds can’t be cheap.”
Fargo chucked as he pulled his shipsuit back up, “We’ll charge it to GalPat for training.”
Train, Train, Train
Fargo took off the VR glasses in frustration, “Dammit, I screwed that control sequence up again! I’m too old for this shit, much less trying to learn new armor.” Canis woofed at him, and he said, “I’m not talking to you.” Glancing over at Cattus, sprawled in one of the last rays of sunshine, “It’s not my fault she got there first.”
Laying the glasses aside, he punched up the personnel files again, starting on the L names.
TGL PII PERSONNEL NOT FOR RELEASE
LEVESQUE, NICOLE CHERIE (MN- BARTON 27691212) (DAU- HOLLY 27740332)
DOB- 27431221 POB- EARTH. STRASBOURG, EU GENIE-Y SPEC- HOSTESS*
*GENIE HOSTESS- EMPTH- LVL 2, LANG- 40, SEX ATTR- Y, POLY- N
PREV SERV- 27801231-28161231 GALPAT SPEC- INTEL LVL 5 IND OPS E-8
PREV SERV- 27651225-27800923 L. LÉGION SPEC- INTEL LVL 4 SEC/LANG E-7
AWARDS- L.L.- LOM, GC, EX-R/P, INT STAR, L. CB W/STAR, L. ACH, L. MC
GALPAT- INT STAR, CB W/2 STARS, GP MC, JCM, CON, ACH
DUTY STA- 3FLT, JIOC, 4 BATT, ICMD, 8BATT, JIFMIC, JIOC
Fargo decoded the shorthand almost without thought, whistling softly. Nicole had been a heavy hitter in the intel world to have held the billets she had. Three joint intelligence tours, plus a tour at the intel head shed was nothing to sneeze at. And two combat stars, probably one with each battalion, and finished up at Third Fleet. The oddity was she didn’t get forty years, only thirty-six and never made E-9. She must have pissed off somebody somewhere.
He also reminded himself to be careful around her. He should have put two and two together and figured out that hostess meant empath. Thankfully she was only a level two, so had to be in close proximity. The forty languages was amazing, especially considering she wasn’t a polymath. He hadn’t seen anyone else with anywhere near the intel background, and made a mental note to have her put into the company as the chief of intel. He flipped to the next name, Luthra, Ganju, Only thirty more to go. I want to get a least another ten tonight.
***
Fargo woke up with a start, realizing he’d dozed off staring at records. Shutting off the e-tainment center, he got up, stretched, and groaned. Scratching his back, he headed for the fresher, until Cattus yowled. “Alright, alright, I’ll feed you! Damn animals. And I need to get another neardeer, you two are eating me out of cabin and home,” he grumbled.
Refilling their bowls, he groaned again as he straightened up, then rotated his shoulder slowly. Never should have shot that damn twenty that many times. Stupid shit. Better get OneSvel to check my pharmacope next time I’m in the village. I owe him an update too. Tomorrow…
Fargo landed the liteflyer at the spaceport, pulled two neardeer skins out of the back and caught a ride into the village. Stepping into the store, he heard Luann yell, “About damn time you came in!”
“What?”
Luann came out from behind the counter, “You’ve got two data cubes sitting at the port. They won’t release them to anyone but you. Didn’t you get my message?”
Fargo thought back frantically, “Uh, I saw that you wanted me to stop by, but…”
Luann put her hands on her hips, “Well, what did you expect me to do? Put stuff like that on an open circuit? Especially if there are Traders around?”
“Oh, good point. Sorry…”
Luann hugged him and he was flooded with her thoughts including worry about him, what she was going to cook for din
ner, whether Ian was coming down with a bug, and the fact that her period was late.
Disengaging after a quick hug he asked, “Can I borrow the runabout?”
Luann cocked her head, pulled the key out of her pocket, and flipped it to him, “Be back by eighteen. Dinner. Do not be late.”
Fargo smiled at her, “Yes, dear.” Luann took a mock swing at him, as he backed toward the door, laughing. Driving back to the spaceport, he wondered who was sending him sealed data, and what it was. Parking next to the admin building, he walked in, looking for Mrs. Smith, the deputy administrator.
If anybody knew where the cubes were, it would be her. He finally found her in the break room, singing softly to herself as she shook her coffee bulb, “Mrs. Smith? Rita?”
She looked up, “Ah, the wandering Mr. Fargo. I’m guessing you’re looking for some data cubes?”
He nodded and she continued, “Well, you came to the right person. I am the keeper of secrets and the sum of knowledge around here.” Fargo laughed and she smiled, “Well, that’s what the administrator said on his monthly arduous trip out here from White Beach, which is interesting, since he’s supposed to spend every other week out here.”
Fargo held up his hands, “Not guilty!”
Mrs. Smith took off down the hall, saying, “Oh I know you’re not. But he just pisses me off with his prissy little attitude.” Turning into her office, she palmed the safe open, extracted the two data cubes and the log and passed them to Fargo, “Confirm receipt for each, please.”
Fargo acknowledged each cube on the proper line, pocketed them and said, “Thank you, all seeing font of knowledge.”
Mrs. Smith replied with a laugh, “Get out of here, Fargo. I have music to sing, and people to piss off. And you’re not one of them. Oh, and make sure you talk to Mikhail. Apparently, you two need to go to New Tokyo to solve some issue with TBT.”
Fargo nodded, “Having dinner with Mikhail and Luann. Thanks again.”
***