She had to act alone or there would be no successful hunt here tonight. She moved low to the ground from her concealment, her belly touching the hard flat rock, keeping her claws retracted to avoid the sound of scratching or clicking. She wanted to close the distance silently, so when her charge came she would not be seen before she could strike and kill her first targets, the sentinels.
****
Using old cameras salvaged from wrecked ships, Jake had been given fiber optic “eyes” to watch out over each of the four entrances this week. Flashing an infrared image on the main screen, Jake spoke in his normal tone, “An image like that of the suspected predators is slowly approaching the Pink Nebula from one hundred thirty feet west. It…”
Mirikami interrupted with “Link to all,” without waiting he shouted “To your left Nan! A ripper is a hundred feet out from the Nebula, about to rush you!”
He had taken in the screen image at a glance and knew as he spoke it would not be enough warning. Through the Link, he heard Nan shout to Johnfem and watched her image turn to her left, and the ripper instantly turned into a blur of movement.
****
Telror knew the instant the sentinel snapped its head around in her direction, even before it called its warning, that her slinking silent approach had been detected. With no cover ahead or to either side she could only charge, retreat was not a consideration.
As the alerted sentinel moved to point the stinger stick her way, in slow motion, it finally flashed. Telror had watched the movement, and judged her bounds and timing so that as the stick finally pointed her direction, she leaped up and slightly to her right. The illuminated trail through the air of the rocket-propelled slug was visible as it passed below her to the left, even missing where she would have been without the leap. She twisted her body slightly in midair to land ready to leap in a different direction.
It was a good decision, because both sentinels flashed their sticks towards where she landed, the stings passing close behind just after she had immediately leaped away to her left. That precision was odd because they did not appear to have good night vision. The bloodsuckers always came very close before the small lights revealed them.
She realized, the lights, of course! How careless she had been. She had instinctively positioned herself so the half moon’s light was behind her would not reflect from her eyes toward them, but she had over looked the lights the prey used to see in the dark. She was running directly at those bright lights, like small moons to reflect back at her prey. None of the pride’s night prey had anything but moon light to see by.
The sentinels were smart enough to aim stings where her eye glow told them she would be. It was a simple solution. Close her eyes for three bounds. Then she would be too close for them to adjust when her eyes reopened. One last look as she formed a memory image of the flat wide open surface, and where her targets were standing.
Before she touched down on her soft footpads, she had her eyes shut and claws retracted again to make no clicks. She instantly made her next leap blind, but in a northerly direction that would take her into the shadow made by the flying thing from their lights. In two leaps, she would turn to face them. No bright eye reflections then.
****
Willfem knew she had been too slow the first shot, but yelled for Johnfem to aim for the eyes. The ghostly green fire marked the bounding predator’s position as it shifted direction. They both fired where they observed the two glows descend, but misjudged the timing due to the higher gravity and faster drop. The green glow had rapidly lifted even as they pulled their triggers.
Adjusting her aim and trying to estimate where the next arc would land, Willfem was trying to predict a point in front of the leap when the double glows winked out. This wasn’t like the brief quick eye blinks from before, now they simply disappeared. She fired where she had hoped it had landed, but now only faced darkness with the ship’s floodlights behind her, providing a perfect silhouette of her.
“Back up, get under the lights she yelled,” scuttling in reverse herself, firing randomly near where she had last seen those burning eyes.
The two women bumped into the back of the cluster of people at the edge of the now fully panicked crowd trying to go back up the escalator’s right side.
Those trying to return to the ship were colliding with people being steadily fed down on the left side, some being knocked down, dragging down others as they fought to avoid falling in the high gravity.
Suddenly a huge dark powerful form leaped out of blackness from an unexpected direction, from the shadows of the ship. Willfem screamed a warning as she fell to her left and raised her right arm to fire at the suddenly revealed gapping maw.
The beast rolled to the side as she pulled the trigger, grazing the ripper’s right rib cage. A mighty slap of a huge clawed paw knocked the gun flying and broke her right arm as the claws tore her flesh to the bone. The cat turned its head in passing and two inch fangs in massive jaws crunched into the skull of Johnfem, jerking her off her feet into the air and killing her instantly.
Releasing the head of the dead sentinel, Telror had no time to savor the killing experience of that prey. She landed and instantly pushed up with her front legs and spun around to leap back over the sentinel that had stung her side. She looked down into the frightened eyes of the animal, and felt its uninjured front paw shove up at her neck in a futile attempt to push her away. It touched her frill in the process.
The wonderful terror and pain of this new prey suffused her mind, with an undertone of regret that it had not killed her attacker and that it would not live to see her “people” defeat the pride. Her People? The mental sensation was the way Telror’s pride mates thought of themselves and each other. She had never sensed this in any prey.
Shaking her head in annoyance at her hesitation, she opened her jaws and crushed the life out of this prey. The last images Telror sensed from it, its paw still gripping her tough frill, were of pain of course, but also acceptance of its death and surprise as it experienced the mind of her killer.
With a shock, she realized that she had sensed the prey was a female, something she couldn’t have known about this unknown species, and that the prey in turn had sensed that Telror was also female before it died.
That mutual mental awareness had never happened with any prey she had hunted. Her people could sense the minds of their prey when their frills were in contact with a kill, but only other lessor “people,” smaller hunters distantly related to the pride had ever sensed them in return. Moreover, these other rarely encountered competing hunters had their own frills. There was no frill on these animals.
Her disorientation lasted but a couple of seconds, but that was a huge amount of time by the standards of her normal perception of events. Looking at the other screaming prey climbing over one another in a desperate attempt to return to the safety of their flying thing, she knew she could easily kill them all. However, wanton killing, no matter how pleasurable the kill itself is, was wasteful of prey and forbidden by her people. Without pride mates to carry the meat home, she could only carry the two she’d brought down.
She raised her head to the half-moon and the night sky and roared a signal to the pride mates she knew must be coming. Up until now, her stalk and charge had been mostly silent, with only low snarls and growls as she had made the final leap. The prey all screamed as one at the terrible roar.
Seemingly impossible, their screams increased when her call to come to the kill was answered, a short distance away out of the darkness by multiple answering roars. One particularly loud and deep reply told Telror that Haktor, a young new male that had recently joined the pride was coming. Hearing six separate voices, she knew they could carry much more meat home.
With pleasure at the chance to impress this new male and potential mate, Telror turned towards the terrified prey. She pounced on them, using only her claws to kill by tearing out throats or opening the abdomens to release intestines. For some reason she was reluctant to use
her jaws, unconsciously preventing frill contact. She killed exactly six more, though she could have easily killed more of the essentially defenseless animals.
As she expected, her six pride mates arrived just as she politely drew back to allow them to make their own kills. Quickly assessing the kills Telror had made, the rest of the rippers killed one prey each, although some collateral injuries could prove fatal for the slow fragile prey.
****
Watching in frantic horror on the bridge screen, Mirikami, Noreen, and Maggi saw fourteen humans slaughtered in less than two minutes, one a close friend.
There were at least thirty people still alive outside the Nebula, perhaps a dozen were part of the way up the ramp clawing and climbing their way over one another in their panic to get to the top faster, but actually slowing their progress. There was no doubt the rippers could kill them all easily. It appeared several people had fallen or been pushed from the boarding ramp, which might also prove fatal if they had fallen far or landed badly.
Mirikami had been calling and pleading for rifle squads to step out under the north garage overhang and fire at the rippers. The distance was over a quarter mile, but the slugs would still be lethal if not accurate. Driving the pride away was the only way he could see to save the passengers from being torn apart.
Except for two Stewards that had been driving two of the eight trucks assigned to the Pink Nebula, no one else went outside to try to drive the rippers away. The firing was ineffective because the rippers were in among the people the shooters were trying to protect, so they fired high, hoping the noise would drive them off.
He privately cursed the other people at the north entrance for their inaction, but after seeing the ripper’s speed and cunning, he understood the fear of drawing attention to one’s self. It was dark out there and an unknown number of rippers might be coming from other directions, despite his assurance that there were no others. After all, the first one had been unseen until it attacked.
He hadn’t yet had time to absorb the loss of his friend and crewmate. Noreen had screamed a pointless warning when she saw the huge cat shifting direction on the infrared image. Then it burst out into the flood lit area at the base of the ramp and knocked Nan down. They had assumed Nan died instantly, as clearly had Captain Johnfem from its jaws as it leaped past them.
It wasn’t until the beast had whirled back to stand over Nan’s body that Mirikami realized she was still alive. Her unbroken left arm pushed up into a frizz of fur around the cat’s neck. It was in the seconds while the cat stared down at her that he had pleaded by Link for someone to start shooting at the beast. Before he could even finish his plea, the animal shook its big head and opened its jaws wide to plunge its fangs into his friend, killing her.
It was only after Nan’s death, and the ripper’s skyward roar while standing over her body that the two Stewards reached the doors and started firing. Then the other six rippers arrived.
In less than fifteen seconds, they had killed more victims, but they suddenly quit their attacks. In an astonishing series of moves, with an ineffective stream of bullets passing over them, the rippers each grabbed a body by the head and swiftly dragged it to lie next to a second body. Then jaws wide agape, they were able to fit most of a head into each side of their large wide jaws.
Easily straddling two victims each, they ran into shadow from the floodlights. The infrared image showed that all seven predators were dragging two kills apiece, but at a much slower pace than they had arrived.
“Sir, there are four more ripper signatures leaving the woods, moving south at over forty miles per hour.”
A glance at the screen proved these were in a bigger hurry.
Mirikami had had enough of being a spectator. He used a general Link. “Get an empty truck to the Flight of Fancy cargo ramp now. I’m going to go help those people at the Nebula. Volunteers are welcome. Mirikami Out.”
He had headed for the lift as he spoke, and when the waiting lift’s door opened, Noreen and Maggi were right with him.
“Whoa there ladies. I meant people already down there and armed. I need you up here to tell me what you see on the screens.”
Noreen tapped Maggi on her shoulder. “You’re it! You stay, because I’m Goddamned well going! Nan was my best friend.”
Maggi looked up at her sympathetically, but found the courage to speak the truth. “Yes my dear young friend, but she is gone now and I am deeply sorry. But you can’t recover her body and you know what to do up here.”
Softening her initial angry retort Noreen replied, “I know that Maggi, but I can help lift a wounded body into a truck and I don’t think you can. You have good eyes and intelligence, and Jake to connect you to anyone. I have to go.” She stepped in to the elevator next to Mirikami.
Nodding her head in understanding of Noreen’s deep-seated need to do something physical to help, Maggi smiled and stepped back as the door closed.
Using the override code, the elevator mimicked a Krall dome elevator plunge to the lowest deck. When it arrived there were over twenty heavily armed passengers and crewmates waiting, and several trucks were pulling up to the base of the ramp.
Momentarily flustered, Mirikami said, “Darn it, I need to limit my broadcasts. I don’t need this many people, but three trucks might be needed to move the injured into the dome fast enough. How many of you are under forty years old?”
He grinned when only seven hands went up. “Youth wins again. You seven had better have strong backs for lifting. Get in the trucks; carry armor piercing or explosive rounds. Swap clips if you need to do so, and let’s go.”
He walked down the ramp with Noreen, the “youth group” in trail, all of them sliding in new clips. He and Noreen sat together in one cab, and the rest sat in cabs or the back of the three trucks. They accelerated to the maximum speed of the well-used trucks, about seventy miles per hour, and barreled around the northeast side of the dome.
It only took moments to spot the Pink Nebula’s lights on the north side, and he was surprised to see two other trucks from the north entrance pulling out as well, with several people riding in the back of each.
“Link to Maggi…Where are they Tiger Lady?”
“The two groups met up in the marsh, smart ass,” she answered back in pretend aggravation. “Want to guess what they did next?”
“Show me the Tiger Lilly side for once,” He sassed her back “Tell me without busting my balls.”
When she laughed, he knew the news wasn’t bad. “They all turned back north. Our friend and I don’t see any sign of more rippers anywhere, but of course we all missed seeing the first one,” she reminded him.
“We weren’t looking that hard in daylight, and didn’t have infrared activated until it was already dark. It may have been waiting there for the right opportunity.”
The rest of the rescue trip was spent loading nine injured, some severe, and one woman was dead where she had fallen from the escalator, over the side halfway up somehow. There were injuries from those knocked down by rippers in passing, but they had clearly not killed people when to do so would have been easy.
One man with broken ribs said something odd as Mirikami helped place him in the back of a truck, “It came right at me with its fangs exposed and I was sure it was going to tear my head off. However, it knocked me aside. It was so close that the hair around its neck brushed across my face as it passed.
“For that one instant I knew why it had passed me by for the woman behind me. It was because I looked it right in the eyes and accepted that I was going to die. It had decided that the screaming woman would taste better. But it wasn’t exactly taste like flavor, but more how her fear of him would give him more pleasure.”
“Him?” asked Mirikami. “Why do you think it was a male?”
“I don’t know how I know, now that you ask. It was in my thoughts as a male. Funny, it also knew when it touched me that I was a male.”
After returning to the dome, Mirikami briefly met with the
Captains of the seven landed ships, and the still shaken First Officer of the Pink Nebula. He told them offloading of passengers and cargo would resume only after daylight, provided the Krall allowed them the respite.
The eight big ships needed the smaller ships to ferry their people down, and that had yet to be approved by the Krall. Two potential ferry ships were too low on fuel for more than one more round trip, but the landed cargo ship had fuel that wouldn’t be used. There was a small fuel tanker on one of the cargo ships in orbit. That could shift the available fuel around once the ship was down.
Just before midnight, Mirikami left the Great Hall for bed. The new captives could be briefed on their new lives by other Kobani. He made an effort to think of everyone as Kobani now, including his own crewmates and former passengers. However, he knew he would always have a tighter bond with “his” crew than anyone else.
****
After a half night of rest, the people transfer resumed at dawn, and they started moving cargo containers out onto the tarmac. For a change, the long-time captives did much of the work, being better adapted to the gravity. They also were eager to find out what luxuries or necessities might be in each big container. However, before opening they were being stored on the tarmac, placed close to the dome.
At midmorning they had finished the passenger unloading, and no more ships had been sent down. Mirikami’s transmissions to talk to Parkoda, Telour, or any Krall with authority went unanswered.
The work shifted to unloading the cargo ship, and the supplies on the passenger ships. The haulers from the Flight of fancy rolled up the Pink Nebula’s cargo ramp, and started pulling out the cargo that had blocked access to its two similar haulers. Once they were free, the Nebula’s drivers took over the job of moving their cargo items into the north garage doors.
The Marimba Destiny had only one hauler, but it was a large heavy-duty version, and could move heavy cargo containers by itself after the portable crane set them on the tarmac.
Koban Page 65