Jake opened the shuttle bay door for them, and Roni tested the lift and balance before smoothly sliding out of the side of the ship, already fifty feet above the tarmac. Once clear, Roni took them higher and circled the dome once, giving them a view in every direction. They could make out the compound’s outer walls in the distance. Thad, his helmet off asked where they wanted to go first.
“We can sightsee some other time. I want to overfly the marsh and river, the jungle, and then the cliffs and hills.” He had already decided the grasslands were a bad choice for a fight.
After study of all the areas, Mirikami agreed with Thad that the hills, caves and cliffs did look like better places to defend, but offense was also on his mind.
“Thad, when the Krall land a shuttle near the cliffs, you said there was a flat place they used. Where is that?”
Thad directed Roni to the spot, and they circled it in a slow hover. The vegetation clearly showed where it had been worn away by repeated landings, and there were large bushes around the periphery, with one small house sized boulder on the side of the clearing closest to the nearby cliffs.
From their height, they could see several shallow cave openings or overhangs, and two others that looked deeper. There were a couple of artificial walls made of stacked flat rocks. These had provided cover for some humans in past battles. There were scars apparent from explosive and armor-penetrating hits on walls and rocks, proving the area had been used often.
“Thad, if the warriors arrive by truck or halftrack from the dome, where do they park to start a search on foot?”
He directed them over the highest ridge to a worn rutted track that led through a valley on the other side of the cliffs. There was a natural sheltered spot where two or three trucks could park with some cover from the heights on both sides. Trees and numerous large boulders would block snipers from clear shots at warriors if they left the trucks there.
“Roni,” Mirikami called up to the front, “Set us down in that flat spot on the other side of the ridge, where the Krall shuttles usually land. I want to look that area over on foot.”
After they set down, the three armored men went out the storage hatch as quickly as possible, while Maggi and the other two women pointed Jazzers and a Sonic at the opening until it slid shut.
Looking back towards the dome, Mirikami realized trees and brush blocked a direct view. “Thad, do you know what our distance is from the dome?”
“About sixteen miles to the top of the highest ridge peak above us, when I measured it with a helmet visor. Why?”
“The maximum range for our implants is about seven miles to transmit, but we can hear the ship from farther away, probably out to the compound’s walls if we have a direct line of sight. I was wondering if I could receive a signal from Jake. He might be a source of information on Krall movements out here.”
He walked over to the huge boulder, startled as a skeeter buzzed out from its shadow. There was a flock of wolfbats circling very high over them. He checked the ground at the rock’s base, and nodded.
“Thad, what are the best paths up to the ridge, for Krall I mean, not humans that can’t leap fifteen or twenty feet? You say you’ve watched them, I’d like to know where they scale the cliff face.”
Looking around, Greeves studied the possible routes.
“It partly depends on if there has been any firing on them as they move up the slope. Revealing your position by shooting at them is going to draw them right to you, but they will use the cover of that notch and some others along the rock face to block potential sniper fire. Not that that has been terribly effective in the past. These warriors have been trained to duck fire from other Krall, so they react as if we were really a serious threat. At least they do at first.”
“It doesn’t take long for a novice to gain a lot of confidence fighting us. If it’s an experienced warrior, or a novice that fought here before, they are a lot less cautious and rush in for an early kill.
“They’ll risk minor wounds for points, particularly if there appear to be several humans grouped together.”
Dillon had a question. “Thad, they call off the war if we kill one of them. How do they know if we do? We aren’t just going to stand up and wave if we kill one of them are we? When is it safe?”
“I wish I had a firmer answer Dillon, but it’s happened too seldom for any of us to see a pattern.”
“They do appear to honor an agreement, but when we killed that Krall on my one and only Testing Day the others were still hunting, and I’m sure would have killed any of us they found before the octet leader confirmed the death and called them off by radio. I pulled back into a cave up there, knowing more were coming my way based on the amount of shooting we’d done and they certainly had heard.”
“Thad,” Mirikami asked, “what do you think would have happened if you had killed several Krall quickly that day? Do you think they would stop hunting, give up the blood lust they would surely feel for revenge?”
Greeves gazed at him for a long moment. “What the hell do you have up your sleeve Tet? That’s beyond any confidence I’ve seen displayed before a fight here, and borders on delusional. You’re talking about killing multiple Krall. When we have only managed three kills total, in three different fights, spread over hundreds of fights in probably the last five years? I’m the only living person to have directly participated in killing a Krall that’s still alive. You’re thinking of multiple kills?”
“Thad, I don’t think we’ll have the element of surprise but this one time, and I intend to make the most of it. However, if we achieve more than one kill, will they call off the hunt? What if the octet leader is killed?”
“OK. I’ll humor you. The octet leader will have a dark gray uniform, but he will send warriors ahead and his job is to direct less experienced novices and warriors in practical combat. Even if you kill one or more novices with a booby trap, he will have to go personally to the bodies to confirm they are dead. If they are dying but not dead yet, then the fight isn’t over. They won’t bleed to death, since their body automatically prevents that.
“The Krall I nearly blew the head off of still moved his arms and legs for thirty seconds after his brain was covering the ground. His missing arm had completely quit bleeding, and so had the huge wound in his head in that time. I could see his twitching corpse from the cave where I retreated.
“If he had been the octet leader, which he would not have been attacking three of us alone if he were, the next highest status novice assumes command if he dies or is unable to lead. Even in a pack of novices, they damn well all know their relative status and who is next in line.”
“I had time to place one of my dead men, Randy’s body, near the mouth of another cave to draw them there first. I didn’t see it happen, but they must have passed right by their dead warrior and fired on Randy’s corpse with explosive rounds. I heard the firing, and Randy’s armor couldn’t be salvaged later with a bucket. It was at least five more minutes before the novices left the area, and I heard a broadcast in my helmet receiver that immunity had been granted.”
“So you came out of the cave to greet the octet leader?”
“Hell no,” he shook his head with a grimace. “I waited for a half an hour and several more transmissions to even peek out. I heard the Krall trucks pulling out and saw the dead Krall’s body was gone. I came back to the dome on my own in one of the two trucks we took out. The other survivors did the same, but not before the next morning. Waiting probably caused the other two deaths while still hiding. After I called them cowards and cursed and threatened them, I think they were as afraid of me as the Krall by then.”
“OK. Trust but verify,” agreed Dillon. “I’d have to agree that expecting an instant halt to the fighting would be hard to achieve, even if the blood thirsty bastards were ordered to quit on pain of losing a damned point after shooting one of us.”
“Thad, can you lead us up the easiest trail to the cave and ridges?”
They told the
shuttle where they were going, and started up a worn trail on a hillside that merged with a sloping rock face. It wasn’t long before Mirikami was sweating heavily, despite the small cooling system of the armor. He also thought he probably had the beginnings of a fever.
Following a couple of switchbacks of the trail, they found themselves about six hundred feet higher than the shuttle, on a roughly thirty foot wide ledge and another rock face about a mile long and another five or six hundred feet high, before it curved out of view to the right, ahead of them.
Mirikami spotted several natural openings in the cliff, ranging from narrow crevices a few feet wide to some six feet or more that had considerable depth into dark shadows. There were a number of long vertical chimneys that could be used for climbing higher up, to what Thad said was the last ledge before reaching the top of the ridge line.
Mirikami was recording it all with his camera. He stepped into the openings to check their depths. There were a number of fallen large rocks on the terrace that could be used for shelter by a warrior trying to approach the places of concealment.
Then he turned towards the direction of the dome and could see its top clearly at about fifteen or so miles. He raised his left arm, two fingers extended and waited.
“Sir, you raised your left arm with two fingers raised.” He heard Jake clearly.
He turned with a grin to Dillon. “Look towards the dome, raise your right arm, and extend any number of fingers.”
“Doctor Dillon has raised his right arm with a single finger extended.” Jake sounded in Mirikami’s transducer. Then added, “I believe that gesture is still considered socially rude, Sir.”
Realizing he had forgotten to ask Jake to include Dillon in the Link, and he was too far away for transmission to the ship, Mirikami laughed and explained.
“Dillon, our crewman in the ship has been watching and I told him to observe us when we reached this ridge. I asked him to tell me when I signaled by raising my arm and fingers, what arm and how many fingers. He thinks your middle finger indicates bad manners.” Understanding what that had been about both of the other men laughed.
“I wanted to make certain the ship’s telescope and cameras could see us clearly, even though I confirmed that the ledge was visible days ago. The real test was confirming I could hear him with my implant. This might be useful if we can get some live surveillance of this area.”
Now fully aware of Mirikami’s focus on the high ground, Thad felt he needed to offer his advice. “Tet, if anyone backs into one of these shallow caves it’s true the Krall can’t get above or behind you, and you would have a clear line of fire to anyone trying to enter. But if you check the floors of each of these, you’ll find small scraps of armor where they simply blasted away until the people hiding in there were shredded.”
All Mirikami said was, “I expect so Thad. That’s why I think it’s a good idea to get them to come after whoever is in there shooting at them.”
“It’s a death trap in any of these small crevices,” Greeves repeated.
“Oh, I don’t doubt it. That’s why Dillon and I won’t be in there doing that shooting. But I want them to think that someone is.”
“Ah. Drawing them to where you want them?” Greeves asked.
“I hope so. I don’t want a shootout with them, so I don’t expect Dillon and me to be on this ledge at all.”
Looking up the hundreds of feet above, he asked, “How hard is get to get to the next terrace, and are there more caves and such up there?”
“The ledge there ranges from ten to twenty feet wide, and has another rock face about a hundred feet high. It runs almost the length of this lowest terrace, which continues at least a quarter mile beyond that curve ahead, before reaching the steep gorge, where the river cuts through.”
“Caves?” He repeated.
“A few small openings, but not as deep as these. There are more and larger caves along this level we haven’t seen yet, just around the curve. Two of those are real caves, with branching passages in side, and the two larger entrances link up about a hundred feet into the rock. There are caves on the other face of the ridge, but I don’t know if any connect to this side. The hillside over there overlooks the valley where the truck park is located.”
“It looked like it would be easier to reach the top of the ridge there.” Mirikami pointed up. “Climbing from that side with an easier slope.”
“It is, but in this gravity it’s still damned hard on a human, and a warrior can run up it like it’s a flat plain.” Greeves noted.
“So if they come by truck and park over there, instead of by shuttle, and there’s shooting over here, they run to the top of the ridge to get to the action on this side?” Mirikami asked.
“I’ve seen them reach the ridge top from my view at the dome, and they climb down to join any fighting over here. Unless there was someone in the caves on that side with a fresh scent to draw them there. You have to understand, once shooting starts anywhere, it doesn’t last very long. They swarm to the action and kill what they find.”
“Hmm. Then I don’t want anyone over there to distract them from getting here,” Mirikami mused, pulling his lip.
Graves was nodding his head. “It sounds like you are setting up an ambush for them over on this side.
“I’ll tell you that this is what my two men and I did, but we only revealed ourselves to one warrior to draw him to us, and we waited and focused our fire to take him down quickly.
“If successful we were going duck into those two larger caves around the bend for cover, and hope to ride out any attack until the hunt was ended by his death. That is what I was barely able to do, and it still required the sacrifice of my friend’s corpse to draw them away from me for long enough.”
Greeves shrugged. “Tet, I’ll grant you have smarts, and an ability to make complex plans. However, a complex plan falls apart the moment the enemy doesn’t do what you expect. My men and I were trained as soldiers on the Rim, where we had ample places to train without Hub government interference. With three of us working with a simple plan and one Krall after us, we were two thirds of a near failure.” He shook his head.
“You and Dillon have never trained as soldiers, and have just started getting your Koban legs under you. It sounds like your plan is to draw as many of them to you as possible, with your goal to be somewhere else when they converge, probably hoping to blow some of them up with a mine. I like you both, I really do. But I’m going to miss your company.”
“Thad, it’s not one complex plan, it’s several, and I’m counting on your advice to help me make the pieces of each more simple and predictable, so that at least one of them might work. I’ll give you my ideas, and I want you to help me make them better. We have two days to set this up.”
The three of them sat on rocks outside a cave, much like hunters of old, and discussed strategy for bagging the most dangerous of prey.
35. Loading the Dice
The shuttle made a brief stop near the edge of the forest to pick a few Death Limes, and headed back to land beside the Flight of Fancy. Both Dillon and Mirikami were definitely feeling feverish as they stepped out of the shuttle, proving the viruses were at work.
Dillon and Noreen carried the metal box with the fruit to the ship’s commissary while Mirikami and Thad carried a second box to the machine shop, and Maggi went to the lab to talk with Aldry.
“Bob, I have two projects for you, one is potentially dangerous for you,” Mirikami informed the machinist, placing the box on a table.
“Yes Sir? I hope it isn’t a big one since we are already hustling just to have the claymores you asked for this morning to be ready for tomorrow.”
Smiling in appreciation of the effort they were making for him, he clapped Bob on the shoulder and told him “I said dangerous, not big. I know you have plenty of the metal pellets and small scrap you’ve been putting into the claymores. Do you have something you could tumble them in, like a closed drum?”
Bob looked p
uzzled. “I’m sure I can rig something like that. I have a three-foot section of heavy eighteen-inch pipe I was saving to test as a large mortar tube, sometime down the road. One end is already capped. I could rig a cap to cover the other end and set it on a pair of rollers to spin the tube.”
He looked at his Captain, scratching his head. “You plan on polishing them Sir? I don’t have anything handy for suitable grit, but I might…”
Interrupting, Mirikami laughed. “Not polish Bob, I don’t need that and we wouldn’t have time anyway. I doubt we need more than thirty minutes per batch, and I think just enough filler for two of the mines is all we can manage.”
Then he explained the special handling required, and asked that two of their most reliable remote actuators be rigged to trigger the mines, with a trip wire as backup.
“OK Captain, that job won’t take long at all since we already have the claymore cases made. You say you have two projects?”
“Bob, after discussion with Thad, I have a simple but high priority manufacturing task that I need later today. I’m satisfied we have enough claymores and grenades for this Training Day, so put folks to work on making six large cylinders, Three feet wide by five and a half long, and half inch plastic might do. Thad here will give you some details since it was his idea, and he has the practical experience. Dillon will drop by after lunch to give you more specifications for wiring and electronics.”
Just then Maggi Linked and told him Aldry had ordered that he and Dillon needed to eat again, drink more of the “tasty” fluids, and take their supplements.
“With all due respect, Captain Reckless, get your butt up to Deck eight and eat right now. Noreen and I will watch you to make sure you both finish it all.”
“Aye, Aye Mam. Deck eight, dining room.” He meekly acquiesced, feeling more feverish.
“Well,” Thad winked at him, “you appear to have gotten some marching orders. Was it Aldry?”
Koban Page 47