“And it’s your job to make sure that doesn’t happen,” growled Tobias.
“And I can’t protect you all day, every day.”
“You can’t get some more people? Deputize them?”
“I could at most get two more constables in here, and we know these people are going to escalate. And who do you want me to deputize. We might be able to get two or three people to sign on, but for how long before they have to go back to their own lives. Listen to your brother, and get your ass to safety.”
* * *
“I can have my team ready to go in an hour,” said Claude Deveroix, looking down at the floor to avoid the gaze of Centari Numbra. “But you realize we will be operating on their territory.”
“I want these fucks,” screamed the Boss, her voice rising to a high pitch. “I don’t care where they are. This whole planet if my territory, and I can’t allow people to get away with this shit.” She waited for a moment for Deveroix to look up, pinning him with her glare. “If you don’t think you can do this, let me know, and I’ll get someone else.”
Deveroix felt a shiver run down his back at her words. She was talking about retirement, and there was only one way someone retired from the Organization.
“I can do it,” he said quickly, before she could think otherwise. “I want some more people. That’s a big area to search, and from what I know, that bastard who killed our people is one tough son of a bitch.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“I know some boys just out of the military. Really top rate. We could hire them for this mission, and if they work out…”
“If they’re so good, why weren’t they recalled, with the war and all?”
“Let’s just say that they prefer to remain in civilian life. That’s one reason they came here in the first place, since it’s out of the way.”
“Hire as many as you want,” growled Numbra. “Just bring me that boy.”
“And his family?”
“Kill any of them that get in your way. But I want his father, mother and that uncle dead. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am. It will be done.”
Deveroix turned and walked away, his skin crawling as he felt the eyes of the woman following his every move. And knowing that with a word she could have his life as well.
* * *
“Thanks for taking us out with you, Uncle Timothy,” said Matthew, holding the control rod that was the rudder and throttle of the boat. The ten meter long craft was cruising slowly through the stream, Matthew keeping it in the center. Heads poked up from the water here and there, the top oriented eyes and nostrils of several species allowing them to breath and assess threats without exposing the rest of their bodies.
A giant carnotropus grunted at the slight sound of the boat, its eyes following the craft. A moment later its massive, toad like body hopped forward, the four rear legs moving it while the smaller front pair took up the landing. With a final jump it landed in the water and went under, coming up a moment later with only its eyes and nostrils showing.
“I don’t think he’s coming after us,” said his Uncle, holding onto a heavy magrail rifle and pointing it in the general direction of the predator, just in case. A moment later one of the smaller amphibians thrashed in the water, its whole head and upper body rising above the surface, followed by the massive jaws of the tropus as it struck its prey.
“Pay attention,” said his Uncle, pointing to a bend in the river. “I’m hoping you don’t find yourself on foot out here, but if it happens, remember. You know this ecosystem. The people coming after you don’t, so use that to your advantage.”
“Yes, sir,” agreed Matthew, nodding. That was one of the reasons his Uncle had taken him on gathering trips. To refamiliarize him with the Swamp, an area outsiders would know little about. But the family should be able to handle them, shouldn’t they? he thought, recalling the meeting the night before.
Timothy and Tobias had been the leaders at that conference, along with their other brother, Sebastian. An uncle from his mom’s side, Thomas Staffman, had also come, along with a number of adult cousins and a half dozen neighbors. All had seemed to be hard, competent, self-reliant men, the kind who could live off the Swamp, while tracking intruders sight unseen. His cousin Sophie, Thomas’ daughter, was also there, and she was as hard and competent as any of the men. He had felt confident that they could handle anything the Mob sent at them. But his Uncle Timothy had not seemed so sure.
“Tell me what you see there, Matthew,” said his Uncle, pointing to a small cove.
“It’s a trope nest,” answered the young man, seeing all the signs of the predators on the banks of the cove.
“Giant or lesser?”
“Lesser, I think,” said Matthew after a moment’s thought.
“Correct, and still something to avoid. Or something you could lead enemies into. And what about the tree?”
Matthew squinted his eyes to try and focus the writhing mass at the bottom of the trunk. It took a second, but he recognized the murder vine after a short time. It wasn’t really a plant, though there were carnivorous flora on the planet. It was an animal that mimicked a plant, waiting motionless until something eatable passed underneath, at which time it fell from above and wrapped around its prey like a nest of snakes. It was hard to spot before it struck, and several gatherers through the years had fallen prey to the killer.
“Murder vine,” he said with conviction, then followed his Uncle’s pointing finger to another tree, where one of the creatures was in its waiting stance, looking for all the world like a set of flowering vines wrapped around the tree.
A greater hopper moved through the underbrush, stopping every couple of leaps to crop the vegetation with its sharp incisors. An herbivore, at up to eight tons it was too much for most predators to handle. It hopped under the murder vine, which remained in place, knowing from the vibrations of its hops that this was something it didn’t want to tackle.
Far ahead on the river the neck of a hooter stuck out of the water, its jaw working the soft water weeds that made up a good bit of its diet. The huge herbivores were too large for any native life to threaten, and as he watched another of the beasts stepped closer to the river on one of the paths they made, reaching its head on its long neck to crop some leaves from a tree. The one in the river looked over at the other and hooted loudly, the sound they derived their name from.
‘There’s a topor flower,” said Matthew as he spotted the bloom from ahead.
“Why, so it is,” agreed Timothy, smiling. “Pull on up to it and check it out, but slowly.”
Matthew nodded and started the boat on its way to the valuable harvest. His eyes were not just focused on the bloom. The numerous unopened buds around it that were just as valuable. Almost every valuable botanical on the planet had its hazards, if not part of the plant, then creatures which called the flora home. Valuable animals were even worse, as Congo had more venomous creatures than any other know planet, and the Swamp the most.
“We’ve got some fire lizards on the stems,” called out Matthew, spotting a dozen of the scarlet streaked lizards hanging out on the branches of the plant.
“Steer clear for a moment until I can stun them,” said Timothy, setting his sonic stunner while motioning for Jacob, who was also with them, to get the capture nets.
Fire lizards were not named for their color, but for the caustic venom they projected. Enough could kill an uninoculated human in seconds, causing so much agony that that quarter minute would feel like hours. Those with a full complement of nanites would survive, but would experience the full range of pain for the time it took the nanobots to clean out the venom, while still suffering massive tissue damage. But that venom was also a valuable biological resource for the medical industry.
While his Uncle stunned the lizards one at a time, Jacob caught their falling bodies in the net and secured them in a box. Matthew kept an eye out for more of the lizards, as well as other threats, though the probabi
lity of something else living on this bush along with the scarlet killers was unlikely.
“I think I’ve got them all, dad,” said Jacob, moving the net around in the foliage.
Matthew looked through his heat imaging goggles and couldn’t spot anything. He looked over at his uncle, who was also checking out the topor bush, nodding.
“Let’s get this thing harvested so we can get home,” said Timothy.
Matthew and Jacob both grabbed the harvest poles and started to work on the plant. The poles had bulbs on the end that surrounded the buds and snipped them off. With practiced moves they dropped each bud into a container that would preserve them and their valuable biochemicals. There were over fifty buds, most near to opening, each worth almost two hundred imperials on the open, legal market. The one that had already opened into a large bloom was not worth as much, and Timothy decided to let it stay. It would produce seeds and spread more of the plant’s kind, which would be all to the good.
“Watch out,” yelled Jacob as a scarlet form rocketed from the bush toward Matthew, jaws wide open and tongue pulled back, forward legs outstretched while the back four were tucked under. It was in its attack profile, aiming for Matthew’s eyes.
Matthew was frozen in place, seconds to react but unable to act. He had a full spectrum of nanites in his system, which would not keep the venom from destroying his eyes, necessitating a full regrowth that would take at least a week. At a time when he needed all of his senses.
The lizard went slack in midair, while Matthew felt numbness come over him, his vision going from blurry to black in an instant. He felt his legs go out from under him as he fell. The next thing he felt was his head hitting the deck, and then nothing.
“You OK, son?” asked Timothy, as Matthew came to in a fog.
“What, happened?”
“I stunned the lizard, but you were in the line of fire. I’m sorry, nephew, but it was a choice between stunning you, or letting the little hellion take out your eyes.”
“Thanks for making the right choice,” said Matthew, shaking his head. “Did you harvest the lizard?”
“Of course,” said his Uncle with a smile. “We’re not going to pass up a bag of Imperials like that.”
“Where are we?”
“We’re heading back to the homestead. I don’t think you sustained any kind of lasting harm, but I still would like your dad to check you out.”
Matthew sat up and nodded. Concussions were still fairly common. The effects of concussions lasting beyond the quarter hour or so it took nanites to repair the damage were almost unheard of. But Matthew could see the logic of getting him back to the homestead, especially since his uncle had just harvested a week’s worth of valuable biologicals in a morning.
It took a couple of hours through the winding streams and rivers of the Swamp before his uncle’s dock came into view, well concealed from the air under some heavy foliage, his father and mother waiting on it for him.
“Are you OK?” asked his mother in a worried voice as the boat tied up to the dock.
“He’s fine,” said Timothy. “He just caught the full load of a sonic. He’ll be fine.”
“I wish you wouldn’t go out into that green hell,” complained Fara, sending a glare Timothy's way.
“I wanted him to go out with my brother,” said Tobias, coming forward and running a portable scanner over Matthew’s head, then grunting in satisfaction when nothing came up on the three dimensional image of his son’s brain. “He needs to refamiliarize himself with that, green hell, did you call it? Because in a few days that might be his only refuge.”
“And I wish you and mom would find someplace else to stay,” Matthew told his dad as his mom wrapped him in her arms. “I hate the idea of you both being around me when these people might be hunting me.”
“And what about me?” asked Timothy with a smile.
“Hell, I’m more worried about the hit men getting within weapons range of you,” said his dad with a laugh. The laugh cut off, and he looked at Timothy with a serious expression. “I really appreciate this, big brother. You’ll never know how much.”
“You’re family,” said Timothy with a smile. “One thing I learned in the Army, is nothing is more important that family. We’ll get him through this.”
“They’re never going to give up, you know,” said Matthew, a tear coming to his eye. “I am so sorry I got all of us into this mess.”
“We’ll just have to see about making them give up,” said Timothy, a feral gleam in his eye. “I just might be able to make them forget about you.”
“And how do you plan to do that, big brother?” asked Tobias.
“I might just be able to call in some favors,” said the former Ranger.
“They’re too powerful,” said Matthew.
“Son, these scumbags don’t know what powerful is. But they’re going to find out, in the little bit of time they have.”
* * *
“Time for you to get off, Constable,” said Claude Deveroix, looking into the frightened eyes of Farrell. The side door to the combat aircar was open, and Deveroix glanced again at the roiling waters below, and the score of giant carnotropes that were milling around and disturbing the normally quiet surface. One of the giant creatures, that looked like a much larger version of a lizard that lived in the interior desert of the Larussian continent, scared the hell out of the Enforcer. He wasn’t surprised that they would terrify a man who was looking at his death in the form of the large carnivores.
Deveroix had gotten the information he needed from the man, and would be facing multiple major felonies if the Constable testified against him. Maybe not enough to get him executed, but more than enough to put him away for a century or more. So, much as it had been drilled into him that the law was off limits, in this case he had a witness who needed removal. Fortunately, the Swamp provided the means of that removal.
“Push him out,” he ordered two of the men, two of his enforcers who would follow his orders without question. Farrell looked into his eyes with a pleading expression, but there was no mercy to be had this day. The Constable could not put up much of a fight with his wrists and ankles in restraints, and a quick shove put the lawman into the air. He would have screamed on the way down if not for the gag in his mouth, but the set of his body showed the terror of the man through the fall. He splashed into the water, and the tropes were on him, a half dozen great jaws closing on the parts they could reach, biting down, then pulling. In an instant the surface of the water was tinted red, and the man gone.
“I’d hate to go like that,” said the Enforcer named Jubil.
“At least it was quick,” said Francois.
Deveroix shook his head, listening to the two men, watching the roiling waters where more of the big predators were attempting to get their share of the food that had dropped from the sky. He had a bad feeling about this Swamp, this place filled with death. Not that he was a stranger to death, only he preferred it when he was the one in control. And this place felt like a spot where no stranger was ever really in control.
“Let’s go get our boy,” he said, turning to look at the forward cockpit of the aircar, where the two man crew was controlling the vehicle. The pilot nodded and pulled the joystick over, setting the car on the course for the homestead the Constable had told them about. The copilot got on the com to the other trio of aircars.
The vehicles flew quickly and silently over the Swamp, just about the tree tops. All were civilian models that had been modified to the point where they were the match for most military transports of the same class. Armed with beam weapons, automatic cannon, even a few hidden missile pods, they carried the two man crew and up to seven heavily equipped passengers each.
Those passengers included twelve of the mob enforcers and twelve mercenaries, not including their boss. All had either been in the organization for decades, with the training that Deveroix made sure all of his men received, or were ex-Imperial military, including three who had been augme
nted. The Chief Enforcer didn’t know everything about most of these men, except that they were desperate killers who would do anything for the proper amount of money. And Centari had authorized top pay for this job.
“We should be over the homestead in ten minutes,” said the copilot, turning his head to look over at his boss.
“Follow the plan when we get there,” said Deveroix, looking out the window at the wilderness below. And we should be back to civilization for dinner if all goes well, he thought, wondering why that thought didn’t seem to bring much comfort.
* * *
“They’re heading your way, Uncle,” came the voice over the com. “We’re located sixty-three kilometers from your homestead, and I estimate they’re going at five hundred KPH.”
Matthew did the math in his head. They were just under eight minutes from his Uncle’s homestead. If they had been there, it would be a scramble to get away, and the mobsters would have been able to find their track in no time. As it was, they were ensconced in one of Timothy’s cabins, thirty-five kilometers to the north of the homestead. His father, mother and aunt were at a friend’s homestead, as safe as could be. Especially when the friend was an unknown to the mob. People in the Swamp were close, even if they weren’t friends of record.
“You ready for this, Matthew?” asked Timothy.
Matthew looked over at the other men, and a woman, who were gathered on the porch of the cabin. Three cousins, all grown men of two his uncles on his mother’s side, along with Sebastian, one of those uncles. All four were experienced Swampers, if not Timothy’s equal in combat, at least as knowledgeable of the area. So was his cousin Sophie, who prided herself on being the equal to any man in the Swamp. With them were two old friends of Timothy’s both Imperial Army veterans who had been hunting the Swamp for decades.
His mother still thought he should just hide until the hunters left. But he knew that they would just keep coming back, until they finally found him. The only way they would leave him in peace was if their entire party disappeared into the Swamp, a mystery to their bosses, and a sign the some parts of the planet were off limits to even them.
Exodus: Tales of The Empire: Book 2: Beasts of the Frontier. Page 5