The Xlatan’s ears made some quick motions, and the colonel thought Lrator had accepted what he’d said. The being was a warrior, and though he might feel out of his element—in fact doomed—he’d take the chance given to him and try. Jonah was starting to doubt his decision as he thought of that. Even without weapons, this creature, with his natural armament, could kill some of their Kalagarta allies. But he didn’t know what else to do. He wouldn’t kill a prisoner in cold blood, and he wasn’t about to let the Kalagarta have him.
Manny finished with the second restraint and jumped back, his own rifle coming up. The Xlatan hesitated for a moment, then turned and ran into the jungle.
The poor creature is probably waiting for a shot in the back, Jonah thought as the cat ran at full speed into the jungle, soon disappearing even from the heat sensors of the Human helmets.
“You sure that was the right decision?” Charley asked, not letting his guard down.
“It may not have been, but it was the only one I could make and still live with myself.”
* * *
Lrator ran as fast as his six legs would take him, brushing through the thick foliage, making enough noise to raise the dead. He didn’t care about the noise. Right now he just wanted to put as much distance between himself and the Humans, and their Kalagarta allies, as possible. He ran flat out, much faster than either of the species that might be pursuing could go. That might not save him from an ambush ahead, but he didn’t know of such a setup, while he did know he had enemies behind.
After a few minutes he was forced to slow. Xlatan bodies overheated rapidly, and with their thick fur, they didn’t cool down quickly. Lrator stopped for a couple of minutes, breathing deeply to re-oxygenate his blood and get rid of heat. He slowly quieted his breathing, calming himself.
The sound of the jungle intruded on his awareness. Sounds familiar and not. The unfamiliar were without tags, and in his mind all were associated with danger. Most Xlatan had been brought up in rainforest regions of the home world, though not all. Lrator hadn’t been one of them. He’d grown up in a city on a grassland that supported great ranches. However, even though he’d trained in the jungles of home, this wasn’t his jungle. He’d patrolled it on numerous occasions, eating the rations he’d brought along, moving in a squad group. Because of that, he hadn’t learned the ins and outs. The Xlatan had no idea what was edible and what would kill him.
He took stock of his equipment. The Humans had ripped out every bit of electronic gear in his suit. They’d given him his helmet for some reason, but nothing worked. He had no weapons but had retained his medical kit and rations. The rations would give him calories for a couple of days. The med kit was something else. There were some small sensors within some of the injectables. Not made to send out long range signals, but with some work, there were possibilities.
Physically he retained all of his advantages. His night vision was better than that of anything on this world. His sense of smell was better than that of his intelligent opponents. He was stronger than either species, and his retractable claws gave him twenty-four inch-and-a-half razors. They couldn’t penetrate the light body armor the Humans wore, but they could shred any exposed Human flesh, and any place on the bodies of the Kalagarta.
I need to get moving, the sergeant thought, trying to get his bearings. When the Human had released him, he’d been pointed in the direction that would take him to the area his people had burned out in their failed attempt to kill the Humans. He was pretty sure he’d run in a straight line, so if he continued on, he’d probably reach the area his people were still searching.
The problem was, living creatures didn’t move in perfectly straight lines without some markers in the environment. They tended to lean one way or the other. He’d approached this problem in training and knew he tended to move a yard to the right for every hundred straight ahead. If he kept that in mind, he could mostly compensate. He’d have to count the steps of a certain foot, moving one complete movement of all his legs for each half yard.
Lrator started moving in the correct direction, starting his count. The decision made, he would move at night and rest during the day. He’d risk running into the night predators but was confident he’d see or smell them before they could strike. In the morning, he’d start looking for materials to make some weapons, then sleep. The priority was to get himself back to his people in one piece. But of greater priority was to get his clanmates the intelligence that might allow them to catch the Humans.
The night seemed to stretch on forever. The Xlatan was sure he was moving as quietly as possible, though jungle sounds let him know it wasn’t quite silent enough. Animals stopped making sounds when he got within a hundred yards of him, frightened by the moving unknown. The animals that didn’t stop making noise had to be those that didn’t care what was moving, either predators or large herbivores. Those he avoided, which brought up another problem. Moving out of his straight line threw his orientation off. No help for it, he thought, hoping he could use the sun the next day to get back on track.
After several hours of getting off course, the warrior stopped and thought it over, and came up with another plan. It might still get him killed, but he thought it also might help him and his people more than simply running away.
* * *
“I still think it was a bad idea to let an enemy go,” said Xebraferd as they walked through the jungle.
“I know you do, Xebraferd. You’ve made your opinion perfectly clear.”
“I have offered you my counsel, Human, and you ignored it.”
“Only that once, Xebraferd. I’m willing to listen to you on any matter that helps us get closer to our objective. There was no reason to kill a helpless prisoner.”
“He’ll probably die in the jungle anyway,” said the Kalagarta in a tone that sounded to Jonah much like a childish rant.
“Then it really shouldn’t matter that I let him go.”
The Kalagarta stopped for a moment, glaring at the Human with his bulbous amphibian eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by one of his people, hurrying down the path.
“The Grasslands are ahead, war chief. We will be at their edge in another half an hour.”
Jonah brought up the local map on his HUD. He’d seen that terrain feature while studying the region before the mission but had forgotten about it while they were moving through the jungle. Damn, he thought, looking at its extent. There was no way they could cross that area without being spotted. Perhaps if the Xlatan weren’t using drones and shuttles it might be possible, but there was no chance of that.
“The closest edge is a mile from here,” reported Xebraferd, looking to the right. “It would be easier going across, but I am sure they will spot us.”
“How the hell did something like that form here in this jungle?” Manny asked, whacking a vine with his carbon nanotube machete.
“The Murta feed on the plants for decades,” said one of the Kalagarta, “clearing an area where their herds can roam with relative safety from the jungle predators. They continue to feed along the edges, while making sure the trees don’t grow back along the grassland.”
“I thought you said they had nothing to fear from predators,” said Sandra, who’d wandered up to listen in, rifle across her shoulders.
“The adults, no,” agreed Xebraferd, looking up at the canopy where beams from the sun were streaming through, “but the young are vulnerable, and Murta are very protective of their young. One reason we must take extreme care in hunting them.”
“It’s like in my homeland,” Amobi Kabir said, also walking up. “In the national park, the elephants clear out areas by feeding. Nothing quite like what you’re talking about, though.”
Xebraferd gave the Nigerian a questioning look at the unknown word that didn’t come through the translation.
“A large herbivore, slightly smaller than the Murta,” Charley explained. “Also protective of their young, though not to the extent you say your beasts are.�
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The Kalagarta leader gave an eye blink the Humans had come to interpret as acceptance, then looked over at Jonah. “I estimate we have another four hours of light, so I suggest we keep moving. We will be at the river by midday tomorrow, then you will be the River Tribe’s responsibility.”
He’s really pissed I didn’t let them have the Xlatan prisoner, Jonah thought, shaking his head. Well, once they reached the river, there would be other motivated Kalagarta to aid the company.
Two sweaty hours later, they were almost halfway along the edge of the Grasslands. Jonah walked to the edge, ordering the rest of the party to stay back, only keeping Charley by his side. The expanse of savannah was impressive—flat grasslands with single trees here and there—and close by, a large herd of Murta working on the trees on the edge, their multiple tentacle/trunks tearing branches down and pulling them toward their mouths.
“Do you see, over there?” Asuka Yamashuri asked, squatting next to his wife. The pair had been scouting along the edge. Even the jungle-wise Kalagarta had been impressed by the stealth abilities of the Japanese couple.
“Yep,” Jonah said, zooming in with the visual function of his faceplate. He could see a half dozen of the cats, sitting under the shade of one of the few trees in the area. “They’re waiting.”
“And there are a pair of them with a heavy weapon emplaced just four hundred yards up, at the edge of the jungle,” Hotaru said with smile. “I got within ten yards of them and they hadn’t a clue.”
“Their sense of smell is very good, Hotaru,” her husband said in a cautioning voice.
“I’m wearing the goop our friends gave us,” she said in return, her smile growing larger. “Besides, I was downwind. The strong odor of those smelly beasts was blowing in their faces. And there are more of them out on the prairie, another three with a heavy laser.”
“It looks like they were hoping we might try and cross the grasslands to save time,” Charley said with a soft snort. “They don’t know us very well, do they?”
Jonah was silent, thinking, planning. He took a good look at the placement of the herd of Murta. There were over four hundred of the beasts, almost the entire herd responsible for this grassland.
“What are you thinking?” Charley asked, giving his partner a quizzical look.
“I’m thinking this might be an opportunity to take out some of our enemy, since they put two full squads of them here for us to play with.”
He took one more look at the setup. “You two,” he said, looking over at the Yamashuris, “think you can take out those two in the emplacement?”
“We can, but it would be better if we had a distraction,” Asuka said, glancing over at his wife, who was nodding her head. “Can you provide one?”
The smile on the colonel’s face grew. “I guess I can do that. Be ready to attack as soon as it begins.”
* * *
“This is even worse than walking through that ash,” complained one of the Xlatan soldiers, gritting his teeth.
And I wish all of you would just shut up, Sergeant Nlorn thought, narrowing his eyes to glare at the soldier.
Not that the soldier didn’t have a point. It was even hotter out here on the grassland than in the jungle, something he wouldn’t have thought possible. Here, the sun poured its heat down on them without interference. Then there was the smell of the damned beasts, tearing into the trees a couple of hundred meters away.
At least the damned biting insects aren’t as bad out here, the sergeant thought. He was still wondering himself why the commander had placed them here. Surely the Humans wouldn’t be foolish enough to cross an open area like this one. Of course, it was about the only place short of the cleared zone of the operation where they’d have the range advantage in a fight. If there was any chance, they had to take it.
He was still ruminating about why they were here when the sound of a round flying through the air intruded on his concentration. He looked up quickly, but the anti-shell laser wasn’t engaging, so it wasn’t heading their way. Not directly. It hit and exploded almost six hundred yards away on a low trajectory.
“What in the hells were they shooting at?” asked the soldier who’d just been complaining. The Xlatan reached over to touch the laser mount that was set to protect them from any kind of projectile artillery.
A cacophony of trumpeting sounded, followed in moments by the heavy pounding of thousands of tons of Murta pads. Nlorn looked up and over as a sense of panic settled in quickly. Hundreds of the creatures were pounding their way toward the Xlatan position, tentacle trunks waving in the air as they trumpeted their calls.
“Shoot them!” the sergeant yelled, grabbing his weapon and pulling it up to a top shoulder, wondering if it was too late.
Some of the soldiers followed the orders, while others continued to stare in shock as the animals closed the distance. A quick thought went through the sergeant’s mind while he was triggering his weapon and sending beam of invisible energy into one huge leading bull, that maybe the heavy weapons were in the proper setup to cut off the stampede, if they fired in time.
* * *
Asuka waved a hand at his wife, across from him on another branch. They’d thought of coming out of the jungle, but that would have given the Xlatan a chance to possibly get a shot at them. But dropping on them from above… Fortunately, they’d been able to find an easy tree to climb that got them to this placement.
The Xlatan weren’t that cognizant of Human arboreal abilities. The Kalagarta were definitely not tree climbers, so the Xlatan laser crew weren’t paying attention to the overhead.
The muted crump of the mortar round exploding out on the plain came to the ninjas, followed by the trumpeting of the Murta. The two warriors started to turn their weapon, a heavy laser that could burn through the herd in seconds, and the two ninjas dropped the fifteen feet from their perches, carbon nanotube blades at the ready.
One of the Xlatan looked up, a snarl on his face. The other was paying attention to his weapon, which was set and ready to fire. He never got the chance, as Hotaru made a perfect strike through the exposed neck of the Xlatan, severing its spine and killing it instantly.
Asuka was not as accurate, and his blade hit the helmet of the Xlatan who was growling its hate up at him. He didn’t need to be, as the carbon nanotube blade, as sharp an implement as could be made by any technology, slid through the hard alloy of the helmet, past the much softer bone of the skull, and into the very soft brain matter below.
The pair landed on their feet within the position, absorbing the force of the fall with bent legs. With a flourish they withdrew their blades from their victims, the centrifugal force removing the bodily fluids from the frictionless surfaces.
“I wonder how the rest of the attack is going?” Asuka asked, waving toward the edge of the forest less than a yard away.
“Why not,” Hotaru replied, moving a couple of steps and taking a knee, watching as the rest of the show unfolded.
* * *
Sandra Clemenceau took careful aim, finger on the trigger guard as she sighted in on the target. That was all she allowed herself to think of the being she was about to kill. Target. The range was over twelve hundred yards, well within her capabilities.
“You ready?” she asked the woman lying beside her in prone position.
“Yeah,” Sarah Cohen replied, leaning into her much larger weapon. “I’ll bet you a beer I get the third one.”
Sandra snorted at that. She’d seen Sarah shoot, and had to admit the other woman was in her class. She wasn’t willing to admit that Sarah was better, but she had an advantage with her weapon.
The distant crump of the mortar going off was the signal. The Xlatan turned her way, his face showing shock as he pulled his rifle up. The heavy laser was behind him, the gunner not yet in her sights. She took what she could get, the rifle bucking hard into her shoulder as it sent the round down the magnetic accelerator tube that was the rifle’s barrel. The round covered the range in less th
an a second, and the face of the Xlatan turned into a blur of blood and gore. The Xlatan’s head jerked back and his body folded in on itself like a ragdoll.
Sarah got off her shot an instant after Sandra. She didn’t have a convenient face to put her round through, but her anti-material rifle didn’t need that kind of target. The rifle was set into the ground with a frontal bipod and a rear support, taking up the recoil that would otherwise have broken the woman’s shoulder. Her round blasted through the helmet and splattered the head within. This Xlatan was actually flung over the top of the laser to land a couple of yards beyond.
Come on, Sandra thought as she tried to target another Xlatan. This one had a helmet toward her, and she didn’t think her shot would penetrate. Sarah’s rifle would, but the woman was having to spend some moments repositioning it. That gave Sandra the opening she needed, and the Xlatan made the mistake of turning her way. A moment later she’d put a round through its face, and the threat of the heavy weapon emplacement had been neutralized.
That was the way Sandra had to think of it. Targets had been neutralized. They’d never been intelligent creatures to her, and that was the way she liked it. And she had a free beer coming.
* * *
Nlorn felt his heart speed up as he watched the thundering wall of flesh head toward him. The laser hummed in his hands, sending out a beam of coherent energy to slice through the legs of a bull. That creature went down with a trumpet of pain, cut off as the ones behind it went over.
“Shoot at the legs, you fools!” the sergeant shouted, glancing right and left for an instant and noting that his people were going for head or center body shots. They were getting kills, but not enough, and the animals behind the kills weren’t stumbling and falling on bodies. They were stumbling, but not falling. Instead, they were pushing through or over.
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