A visual sensor check, flying over alternately muddy or dusty sections of the private road to this ranch complex, confirmed a truck had left fresh tracks that resembled those Kit saw in the garage. A radar scan revealed a compatible sized truck was inside a large garage next to the house. She believed that somewhere along the road from Trail’s End was where her brother had been dumped. She would avenge him, and simultaneously learn where he was located, a detail she intended to extract from the woman.
As the shuttle settled swiftly, she ordered the rear hatches on both sides opened, and then instantly flashed out through the one on the side away from the back of the house. Initially using the shuttle as cover, she ran in the low twisting and turning moves rippers could perform at high speed, changing directions, and using any cover available, moving rapidly towards the single second floor window of the house she had detected was open by a few inches at the bottom. It led to a second floor bathroom, per the shuttle’s radar scan. She assumed all the windows were plazsteel and thus bullet resistant from potential shooters inside. She needed to get in the house quickly while avoiding unlocked doors, because they might have armed defenders posted there.
There were several hurried shots from men stationed on parapets around the roof, two shots were wasted firing through the open and empty hatch on the side towards the house, as Kit had hoped. They had been positioned similar to the men on the ground, with nearly all of the defenders stationed in the front. Many were located far from the house, based on the biased thinking that Kit would arrive on the ground from the southwest, following the road. The men on the roof now were rushing to the rear of the house, but they were too late.
Kit easily leaped the twenty feet up to the window, inverted her right clawed paw as she neared it, and reached under the gap to slam the lower widow sash up to its stops. Hooking her left claws through the opening, she pulled her head and wide front shoulders through, extending both of her front legs forwards as much as possible, in an effort to narrow down how broad her bulk was at the shoulders. It was a tight fit, and her back legs couldn’t gain any purchase on the false textured log exterior. It required her to use her front legs to push against the wall around the window frame, and she grasped at a toilet fixture with her jaws, to use her neck muscles help pull her massive body through. It worked, and her rear legs slipped over the sill before anyone on the roof could lean far enough beyond the setback parapet railing to see where she had vanished.
She was inside, but she couldn’t wait for the armed inhabitants to react to her unanticipated swift entry. She knew the basic layout of the house from the rough guide based on radar scans, but that was most clear for the third floor, which was above her. At least the hall corridors on the top two levels coincided. There was a solid impenetrable block visible on the scan, located at the backside of the first floor level. It had to be a metal lined room.
Kit needed to reach that room quickly, to see if she could intercept Brethard before she could seal herself inside. She didn’t want the delay of forcing her out of that room. Not while there would be armed men trying to assault her as she did that. She did have a backup plan if keeping the woman out of the Safe Room failed, but it wasn’t foolproof, and she might not extract her prey alive.
With that in mind, she smashed her way through a conventional wooden door that splintered and flew into what proved to be a bedroom. It was empty, but another door was open to her left, leading to the hallway she sought.
Just before she leaped through the open door, she heard the sound of running feet on the carpeted hall floor closing on her, two people, and the metallic sounds of rounds being chambered. She sprang through the door to the opposite wall, ten feet away, hitting it seven feet up the wall with her front paws, her rear paws arriving a split second later as she pushed off from the wall with her font legs. She twisted her torso as she launched herself next at the opposite wall, aiming closer towards the ten-foot ceiling and spiraled again to land feet first.
The two men running towards the sounds of the shattered door were also responding to transducer reports, which said the big cat had entered via a second floor window. The man in the lead fired at the flash of teal that came unexpectedly out of a bedroom door. He was too late and too low, and shot splinters from the doorframe. The second man, a step behind, fired wildly and just missed the first man’s right shoulder, as he fired into the wall where the cat had just rebounded. That was the final shot from those two.
Kit, using a push down from the high ceiling aimed for the gap between the two men, and a might swipe of her left paw decapitated the one in the lead, as she stuck the second man square in the chest, killing both almost instantly. The sound of the first man’s body thumping to the floor made less noise than the second man’s heavy thud, as Kit’s mass landed and crushed his chest. The sound of the bouncing head, ricocheting off the walls in the direction they came from, continued.
It served as a distraction to the horrified man just reaching the top of the second floor stairway, and as it drew his eyes as it bounced passed, he never saw his own death arriving with a snarl. He was batted back down the stairs, and his tumbling body hit the floor and skidded, pushing a large rug covering the hardwood floor, knocking over a decorative table with fresh flowers in a large arrangement sitting there.
Kit didn’t go down the stairs, instead she smashed through the elegant banister on the top right of the wide staircase, detecting shadows of backlit people standing at the front door and windows. A hail of bullets was fired up the stairs, and at where she had vanished through the shattered railing. A suddenly cut off scream from under the partly open area below the stairway provoked heavier fire around each side of the staircase, to keep the monster from advancing on the shooters at the front of the house.
The reckless and panicked shooting produced a random benefit for Kit, when a guard posted at the rear of the house rushed out of a study, only to be mowed down by at least two shooters that fired merely because they saw motion. Kit was no longer under the staircase, having dashed down a corridor directly behind the stairs. She was seeking the large dark radar shadow, with an open several inch thick door she had spotted on sensor scans. The Safe Room was located near the back of the house, with its entrance below ground level, in a basement.
The blank wall she passed on her left was the upper level of that cube, based on the radar scan. That scan had needed to penetrate through the roof and three floors to the basement, which had distorted the perspective. The room occupied two levels of the house, and the door was on a level below ground. Now she had to find her way down there, and the scans of this and the lower level were overlaid with confusing details of walls and partitions of the upper floors. She wasn’t sure where to go, and decided she needed a guide. Assuming she could catch a live one.
She’d killed four gunmen, and they had killed one of their own, but from the sounds and volume of firing from the front on the first floor, there had been at least four shooters there, and possibly more that had not been in position to fire at her. She needed at least one person that was braver than they were smart, to chase after her.
Across half of the back of the house was a veranda and garden, with a line of glass doors and windows, which she had avoided for her entry attempt because the transparent substance would surely be plazsteel. Not affordable for an average household, but a wealthy man with enemies could pay for that for a fraction of the cost of a large armored Safe Room.
It took a large caliber explosive round, a laser, or a plasma bolt to shatter the substance into the dangerous jagged shards when it finally yielded. She might not have thumbs, but she had a Comtap, a Bandit, and shuttle lasers.
“Bandit, can any of the shuttle lasers bear on the back of the house?”
“Yes, Kit. But my radar and sensor scans see that you are near the rear of the house.”
“I’m moving away, when I’m clear I’ll tell you when to blast the rear doors where I am now, and blow a hole that’s large enough for me to pass
through.”
“Are you evacuating? Should I open a shuttle hatch now?”
“Be ready when I say open, but not before.” Kit was moving along the spacious corridor along the back part of the house, and paused at a swinging door to room where the shuttle’s radar had revealed outlines of equipment for a kitchen. She entered a few paces as she looked around for a moment, opened the latch of a large refrigerated walk-in food locker, and found it roomy and satisfactory, even mouthwatering, because of the sides of beef hanging there.
Next, she dashed across the hallway to what appeared to be a small room of unknown purpose. She used a paw to lever down the “L” shaped handle and pulled the door open. It was a storage room for cleaning equipment. Looking around the hall, she spotted a security camera on the ceiling, aimed towards the clear double doors, and she estimated how much to the side it might see. Quickly rechecking her hiding options, the kitchen or supply room, she made a final preparation, and selected the best place of concealment.
“Shoot now Bandit.” She ordered by Comtap.
“You are too close.”
“I’m in a place of adequate safety. Do it.”
There was a loud crackling sound, immediately accompanied by the blast of heat stressed plazsteel, with the whirring crystalline sounds of thousands of long shards of plazsteel striking and penetrating walls, ceiling, and floor, as the unequal thermal expansion violently ruptured the material forming the transparent armored door material.
****
“Daddy, it flew right into the back yard. You don’t have all your men here yet and some of them you sent up to a mile away, towards main road.” Her words were interrupted by shots from the roof, and in less than fifteen seconds, the sound of splintering wood upstairs, followed by multiple shots inside the house.
She screamed. “It’s coming to kill me.”
Her father reacted just as she expected, at her supposed panic. Although, she really was frightened at how fast the tiger had reached the ranch. Its flying here, by shuttle, had never crossed her mind, and it potentially could have beaten her home had it acted any sooner.
Her father grasped her arm and pulled her towards a heavy secured door, which he unlocked with a quick code entry. “Maddi, get down the steps and into the Safe Room. I’ll follow you as soon as I start pulling my men back to the house. This plasma rifle will keep the tiger from getting inside that room even if it can figure out a way to burn through or blast open the door. I think the man from Koban is still inside the shuttle. I told my men on the roof to keep it covered. He shut the hatches as soon as the tiger ran out, so he’s clearly waiting for it to draw us away. He’s the more dangerous threat, and he’ll come out shooting if we don’t keep him contained. I’ll go up to the roof by elevator to see if I can blast through the cockpit windscreens, then kill him with plasma bolts reflecting around inside the shuttle.”
His daughter grimaced as she started towards the door to the basement. She was torn between the truth, and saving herself. Truth won, but entirely for selfish reasons, as she opened the door and stood at the top of the steps. “Daddy, he isn’t in that shuttle, the cat’s all alone. I told you it’s intelligent. Come with me and we can both take shelter until your men kill it or drive it off.”
“Baby, it didn’t fly that thing here by itself. Smart or not, it’s an animal without hands, but the man with her can kill people with his guns. He might also figure out a way to get into the Safe Room, eventually.”
“No, he can’t do that daddy, because he’s dead. That’s why that thing came after me. It followed me here, but I didn’t know it could call down their shuttle. It must have an AI helping it fly the damned thing since it can speak to give instructions. Please, come with me. That plasma rifle will keep it from getting inside the Safe Room.”
There was more gunfire, and screams from the front of the house, the sounds of wood splintering and then extremely heavy and rapid firing on the first floor and another scream of pain. Obviously, the tiger had entered the house, and was now apparently on the ground level.
Her father looked at her with a shocked expression. “You had something to do with the man’s death, didn’t you? That’s why this tiger is after you.”
“Daddy, we can talk about this after we’re safe. Come on.” She started down the steps swiftly, just before there was a shattering blast, accompanied by the crashing sounds of crystalline material ricocheting at the rear of the house. She screamed in unfeigned fear this time.
She glanced back a moment and saw her father do a head tilt, and cup his right ear, which indicated he was listening to a transducer communication. He could have done that from the Safe Room, so she sure as hell wasn’t going to wait for him.
It was the ranch foreman, who had been placed in charge of the men guarding the front of the house. “Mr. Brethard, the damned animal got through a second floor window, killed several men upstairs, leaped off through the side rail of the main stairs, and killed at least one other man as it ran to the rear of the house. We nearly all shot at it, but I don't think it was hit. My God, it’s unbelievably fast.
“The men on the roof said a laser from the shuttle has blasted open the rear plazsteel doors. That might be an escape route, but they didn’t see the tiger run out to the shuttle, so it could still be inside, or so close to the base of the back wall it can’t be seen.”
“OK, Carl. Stay alert and try to track it down and kill it. I’m escorting my daughter to the Safe Room, and then I’m going to use this damned plasma rifle to send it to Hell. I just learned the man we expected to arrive with the tiger is already dead, and Maddi was involved in some fashion. The tiger must be out for revenge for that, and it’s after her. It seems to have communications with an AI in order to fly the shuttle, and to control the lasers. That makes it even more dangerous. I told you it speaks Standard. Try to reason with it, promise it anything. Ask it what it wants, and kill it if it exposes itself to meet with anyone.”
“Yes, Sir.”
While he spoke, his daughter, her mind made up, had raced down the stairs to the open Safe Room door. He went down the steps after his daughter, intending to seal her inside and then go hunt the predator that was after her. He needn’t have bothered, because the heavy armored door thudded closed as he reached the bottom of the steps, and he heard the rods of the bank vault style door sliding into place, and the pumps for internal positive pressure started up, to prevent any toxic gas or liquid from penetrating through the tight door seams. She hadn’t waited to see if her father wanted to join her, to be safe inside with her. He’d decided he would defend his daughter at any costs, no matter what she had done, but she hadn’t even let him make the fatherly gesture, or wait to give him a hug and kiss.
He could enter the code to reopen the door, but that would be a waste of precious minutes. Annoyed, he turned and started back up the steps, making sure his safety was off on the plasma rifle. He was already gone when the sounds of the internal failsafe manual locks were also engaged, disabling the coded electronic door lock. She was leaving her father to his fate, whatever that might be.
****
When Brethard joined his ranch foreman, in the corridor behind and below the main staircase, he found him crouching at the corner of the rear wide hallway, with two other men nervously peeking around him. Plazsteel, from the shattered rear doors, were scattered on the floor, with random jagged shards sticking out of walls and ceiling, where the heat caused laser blast had shattered the bulletproof substance. The opening to the rear veranda was wide enough to pass a truck. At least the shuttle lasers couldn’t directly bear on where they were, and it was out of sight.
“Where is it now Carl? The house AI has cameras at all entrances. What did it show right here?”
“Sir, it ran around this corner into the frame briefly, and just where it left the side view of camera coverage, it appeared to angle towards the kitchen. Now the camera is lying on the floor after the blast, and all it shows is a fixed sideways view of part
of the hallway. Luckily, that view includes the kitchen door and much of the hall. Ain’t nuthin’ come out of the kitchen or moved in the hall since I got here, and I had the AI play back the video of the minute before that. If it was in the kitchen or some other room off this hall before the blast then it’s still there, because I have the other kitchen door to the main dining room covered by two men, and I have two other men farther down at the far end of the hall. All of the other rooms have only one door, leading out to this hall.”
“Did you call to it like I told you? Ask what it wants?”
“Uh…, I didn’t know its name.” Truth be told, Carl had thought trying to talk to a blue tiger in a killing rage seemed suicidal. He’d seen that fast and powerful beast move, and it had easily killed four of his armed men, and a fifth died from their own wild shots when they couldn’t hit the damned thing. He didn’t really want it coming after the sound of his voice.
Brethard would address that lapse in discipline later. “OK, back me up, but don’t shoot me by accident. I’ll get on the floor and aim down the hall with my plasma rifle. Carl kneel over me at this corner, you two,” he gestured to the other two men, “get over by the opposite wall behind me, and be ready to fire down the hallway if it comes out when I call its name. Use your transducer to tell the two men at the other end to keep their heads back, but to be ready.”
They positioned themselves, Carl on one knee by his boss at the corner. The two men with them were standing or crouching at the opposite wall behind them, cautiously peeking down the hall, their anxious trigger fingers ready. This was no ambush of an unsuspecting unarmed farmer.
Koban Universe 2: Have Genes, Will Travel Page 21