by Korza, Jay
The bite barely broke the skin of his target and didn't cause nearly as much damage as his instincts told him it would have. Later in life, the cub would learn that in this particular animal, females had extra bone structures in the abdomen in order to protect the womb from attackers. The bone structure did its job well, though the bite did cause pain and reminded the predator that she needed to divide her attention among her threats.
The predator reached back with her front leg and swiped the cub away from her abdomen, causing only minimal damage to him. She turned and snapped at him but missed. The dazed but ever vigilant cub on her leg refused to let go and stayed on through all of it. The predator tried shaking the cub off but that only caused her teeth to do more damage as she was shaken back and forth.
The predator changed her mind; safety was now more important than hunger. She might still win against the cubs but she was definitely going to take more damage in the process and no predator can afford to take days off from hunting in order to heal. She just needed to get that damned cub off her leg. She turned to bite the cub anywhere she could get to.
The pack was arriving with the runt almost in front now. He could see the has-been circling for an advantage and his sister hanging on to a leg as she got bit repeatedly by the predator. The overconfident beast was losing to only two cubs; the runt knew the pack was going to win this but he wanted to prove himself, prove he had been worth saving.
The lead cub started to slow so he could take a more coordinated attack with the has-been, who was reevaluating his strategy as his instincts had been wrong on his first attack. The runt sped by the lead cub and barreled full-bore into the predator, using his shoulder to knock the beast off balance.
As the predator fell, the runt stood fully on his two hind legs and jumped onto the predator's chest. The beast was already so much larger than a regular-sized cub that the runt seemed impossibly small in comparison. The runt yelled out a battle cry, the first semi-sentient vocalization anyone in the pack had made yet. It was the equivalent of a human child's first word.
The beast snapped towards the runt's face so he tucked his head into his opponent's chest. The runt then began using his hands to swipe at the predator's throat. The Shirka's retractable claws were a completely voluntary action so they stayed sheathed unless the Shirka intentionally deployed them. Inexperience and bloodlust kept the runt from deploying his claws so his slashes did no damage to their target. In hindsight, if his claws had been out, he probably would've killed the predator in short order. As it was, that didn't happen and his error would become a lifelong cause of teasing from the rest of his pack. The teasing was always with the respect that came from a family's love, but still teasing regardless.
As the alpha approached, he actually chuckled to himself as he saw the runt uselessly slapping the much larger and deadlier opponent. By now, most of the pack was tearing into the predator and the alpha joined in as soon as he was able to find an open spot on the dying animal.
They tore with teeth and claws, and blood was flung all around them. When the predator stopped fighting back, the pack's bloodlust began to slowly ebb away. When it was all over and they stood back looking at their first pack kill, the alpha looked around the circle at his siblings and felt pride.
The has-been was the first to go back to his sister who had originally been the prey in this fight. He found her still unconscious and bleeding from the face but it wasn't that bad. Her fur had done its job and matted around the wound while adding its anticoagulant outer cells to the mixture, helping the healing process.
With help, he brought his sister to the pack's kill and laid her next to her sister, who was still dazed from being bashed into the tree trunk more than once. In all, the pack had suffered very minor damage and achieved a great victory. They were all proud of one another and exchanging nips of congratulations.
The runt saw the new threat first. Out of nowhere, two more of the predators emerged from the forest and took up positions on either flank of the pack. Their kill was either a part of the newcomers' pack or the two were just opportunists and saw the already dead easy meal and the other potential meals standing around it.
The alpha was filled with confidence at their victory but he wasn't going to let that be their downfall. Two skilled predators with a planned attack could do a lot of damage to his pack. The alpha moved to stand in front of his two wounded siblings and motioned to the rest of the pack to do the same.
Shirka cubs used all four limbs as legs more often than not and as they grew and their structures changed, they would switch to a more bipedal lifestyle. For now, the pack followed their alpha and stood as tall as they could and puffed out their chests. The seven cubs seemed more formidable than they probably were, but they were willing to back it up with everything they had left in them and that was obvious.
The formation that protected their injured pack members left their latest kill unprotected and available to take away. The alpha looked at the predator he assumed was the alpha of the two and then looked at the carcass. It's yours, but leave us alone or else. He punctuated his offer with the deepest growl he could summon and his pack joined in.
With the entire pack of cubs growling and baring their teeth, the alpha predator looked to the fresh kill and decided that a fight wasn't worth it, especially when at least two days’ worth of food was waiting to be carried off. The predator shifted towards the offer but never took his eyes off the pack. When he reached the carcass, he stood by while the other predator grabbed the prize and dragged it into the forest. The transaction complete, the alpha predator backed into the shadows and left.
The pack relaxed a little but each one was arguably a little disappointed that they didn't get to fight a second time. With the latest threat gone, the pack gathered up their wounded and started back towards the cave. On the way back, they scented some prey animals and three cubs broke off to get some food. The small hunt was successful and each member got a couple more bites to eat before settling down in the cave for the rest of the night.
The next day, they found water and more food. Over the course of the next month, they set up a camp around their cave and made defensible positions that they had to use more than once during that time.
They increased their size by at least twenty-five percent each. With a much larger than normal pack size, they were able to take down much larger game and eat more per cub. Most cubs only gained fifteen to twenty percent mass before their mother came back for them. The runt had actually grown to the size of a normal Shirka cub, though he was still much smaller than the others in the pack.
They also ran into a couple of other new packs and had the chance to practice their socialization skills. The other packs were much smaller in number and physical size but they were still doing well for themselves in the forest. Without the need for the packs to compete for resources, they got to engage one another in positive ways: wrestling, racing, climbing, and grooming to name a few. Early socializations such as these tended to foster lifelong friends and bonds that often led to the pairing of mates.
~
On a particularly sunny day, the runt was basking in the sun while lying atop a warm boulder. One of his sisters was near him, their heads touching at the ears. They still didn't have advanced language skills and didn't know any words, but each pack developed its own basic style of growls, grunts, and barks that meant something to them.
The runt grumbled and sighed. This is the best.
His sister silently replied with a smile and snuggled closer. Pack-mates that stuck together after emerging were almost always extremely close to one another and absolute best friends for life. The runt was and always would be closer to his alpha brother than anyone else, but no one minded their shared bond.
The alpha walked up and took the spot between his brother and sister. The pack was big enough in number and physical size that they were almost never bothered anymore by other predators. They never let their guard down but they did get to enjoy more re
laxing times than most cubs did.
As the three napped in the warm sun, a new scent floated to their noses. They each stood immediately and inhaled the deepest breath they could to make sure they got as much of the scent as possible. They looked at one another in unison and then took off on all fours towards the scent.
The rest of the pack was already on the move and the three caught up quickly. The runt was now the fastest in the group and he passed his brothers and sisters with ease. As they reached the nest they emerged from over a month ago, the scent became overwhelming.
The runt saw her first and let out an excited bark as he slid to a stop in front of her. More frantic barking. Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!
The adult Shirka looked down and saw her first son. “You must be my alpha!” she said with pride. “So big and strong. The first to come and meet me. Now, where is the rest of your pack?”
No sooner had she finished her sentence than she heard the trampling of feet coming towards her. A lot of feet. When the first daughter crested the hill, followed closely by seven siblings, the mother was shocked to say the least. “Wait until your father sees THIS. We have a lot of hunting to do.”
She knelt and sniffed each cub to make sure they were all hers and no strays had entered the pack. Yup, all hers. She wouldn't be leaving any strays in the forest today.
She looked to her litter and found her alpha. “You did this to me. So many mouths to feed!” she said with a smile. “You kept them alive and brought them to me. Only the strongest of alphas could have accomplished a pack of this size. You will be a great leader someday.”
Gathering up her cubs, she led them out of the forest to her transport. All around her the excited pack was barking. Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom! Mom!
“If you guys keep this up for the entire trip home, I swear your father will eat at least one of you.” Among Shirka parents, this wasn't an idol threat; it was an extremely possible outcome.
~
Many years later...
Beast then looked up and saw his brother standing before him. “I've missed you, brother.”
“You did well out there today.” The brothers embraced. “Runt.”
Chapter 48
The Warrior Interrogation Planet
Blaze was trying to open his eyes but the light in the room was like lightning through his brain. Reaper was coaching him through the pain. “C'mon, buddy, I know it hurts but we need you up and running right now. I've given you some steroids to help with the swelling in your brain and some stuff for the pain. I'm also trying out a new cellular regeneration drug that acts basically like our dermal regenerators but on your interior cells.”
“Thanks, Doc.” Blaze was starting to be able to tolerate the light now. “Is there any reason my mouth is dry and my eyes are tingling?”
“Um, could be an unwanted side effect of the new drug”, Reaper said as he reached for his own hydration pack tube and offered it to his patient.
“Um, could be? You're not exactly filling me with confidence right now, buddy.” Blaze drank the recycled water and realized just how thirsty he must be when he thought the recycled sweat and urine tasted like the freshest mountain spring water he had ever had in his life.
Reaper turned to Surgeon. “He'll be up in a few minutes and ready to go a few minutes after that.” He gave a brief worried look to Blaze and then looked back to Surgeon. “He's already showing signs of unwanted side effects from the experimental cellular regeneration medicine. They're minor but they aren't ones even listed on the reference sheet for the medication.”
Surgeon knew Reaper was worried but they didn't have any other choice. “You are following my orders, Reaper. If Blaze has a bad outcome, it's my fault.”
Blaze interjected himself between his friends both physically and verbally. “It's neither of your guys' fault. This is a mission. A mission that our enemy made unavoidable. If it's anyone's fault, it's theirs. Besides, you guys are talking like I was already dead. Please don't. It hurts my feelings.” Blaze laughed, patted his friends on their backs and then started to pick up his gear. Surgeon just shook his head and chuckled while Reaper sighed and began to put his medpack back together.
From the other side of the hallway, Seth was pretty much finished working out the details of the next part of their plan. It wasn't the greatest plan of all time, probably wasn't even in the top thousand plans of some of the time, but it was what they had been able to come up in the time they had with the resources they had. Surgeon was approaching them and saw an odd makeshift contraption being built with one of their visors as the centerpiece.
Seth looked up from his work. “We'll be ready to go in just a minute. I have to warn you, though, this plan is built around a lot of 'ifs.'” Surgeon just nodded for Seth to continue. “All right, like I told you before, this station gets views from eighteen different cameras but the operator can only see three of them at any one time. This station was set up so the operator had to manually cycle through the cameras, though I suspect it could also be set to rotate through them at a set interval.
“We have found a dead spot on the hallway cameras that is almost the length of the hall starting from the front of the camera then going forward and about one meter from the ceiling. The camera is about forty meters down the hall from where this pod connects to that hallway.”
The pod the team currently occupied joined the hallway almost directly next to the elevator they needed to access. In order to get to the camera monitoring the elevator, they would have to walk down forty meters of open hallway with nowhere to hide. Or...
Seth took a deep breath. “Our plan is to shoot a climbing piton in to the wall about a half meter in front of the camera and a half meter below the ceiling. Even if the camera is viewing the hallway when that happens, the piton and climbing line should be in the blind spot the entire time.
“Then, Shorty will get on the line, because he's the smallest, and pull himself up to the camera. He'll hang the visor on the camera so it's looking into the viewfinder of the visor. We'll set up another visor on a camera in the other hallway and it will be recording the hallway from the same height and angle as the camera we're trying to fool. The hallways are nearly identical, so whoever is viewing the other security camera will just see the empty hallway on the other side of this station. If they're paying close attention, they'll realize the elevator isn't in the image and we're screwed. In theory, we'll have all the time we need to open the elevator and get into the complex.”
Surgeon had come up with more than one plan in his life that he wasn't proud of but looking back, they weren't half bad in comparison. “Let me get this straight, we're using the old 'loop the video feed' scam from like a hundred movies from a few hundred years ago?”
Beast shrugged. “Loop the video feed?”
Seth smiled. “See, different species—he doesn't get the reference. I'm sure these guys haven't seen Speed either.”
“Okay, Cadet, but it also relies on the sentry not looking at the hallway video feed while Shorty attaches the visor. Because no matter how convincing that feed is to the camera once the visor is set up, it won't be convincing to anyone watching it if you can see Shorty's hands draping a visor over the camera. And what if we can only see three images at once because we don't know how to operate the system but someone else who does has their screens set to monitor multiple feeds at once?” Surgeon still wasn't convinced.
“Yes, sir, all that's true. But along with the negative 'IFs' there are also the positive ones as well. What if there aren't any other sentries? What if their system allows only one guard to be on at a time in these pods? What if they are monitoring six images per screen, making each image smaller and our actions less obvious?” Seth knew Surgeon wasn't buying it. “Look, it's all we've got. It's not a good plan but show me something better. The only other choice is to waltz into the hallway and get to work on that elevator. We know we'll be spotted with that plan but we might not be with this one.”
Surge
on knew Seth was right. The plan sucked but it's what they had. “All right, Cadet, set up your feed visor and the tension line.” Turning to the rest of his team, he ordered, “Hey Shorty, come here. We've got a great plan and you're the centerpiece.”
Shorty heard the plan and shook his head. If this didn't work, he'd be exposed and by himself when it didn't work. “It sucks being short.”
All of the camera views were uniform and their angles were as exact as any engineer could have made them. Seth used that to his advantage and set the visor to display its image at the proper angle regardless of how it was placed on the camera.
Once everything was set, Shorty got onto the tension line and pulled himself towards the security camera. As he prepared to put the visor over the camera, he heard a soft click coming from the camera. He paused, waited, and about twenty seconds later, he heard the same sound. He then subvocalized to Surgeon, “Standby, I need to check out a theory.”
Shorty heard a comm click, meaning Surgeon copied the transmission. Every twenty seconds, Shorty heard the same soft click coming from the camera. He wasn't sure but he thought he knew what the click was and told the rest of his team. “Every twenty seconds, I hear a soft click coming from inside the camera. I think it's the noise some pieces of electronics make when power is supplied or cut from them. So every twenty seconds this camera is cycling on or off.”
Seth shook his head and looked to Surgeon. “If he's right, then someone is monitoring that feed on a timed loop. If it were just a default setting sent to all of the stations, manned or unmanned, we'd be seeing the feed switch at our console every twenty seconds.”