Exodus: Empires at War: Book 05 - Ranger

by Doug Dandridge

  “And that’s powerful enough to get through body armor?”

  “Some of it. I wouldn’t want to try to put a round through heavy infantry armor. But through light, and even medium, the round travels at a high enough velocity and then punches through with a shape charge pushing a supermetal penetrator. For heavier armor we use grenade launchers, or the rocket launchers, like those over there.” The Master Sergeant pointed at one of the telescoping tubes.

  “Major Goldman,” said the Lt. Colonel, walking into the room at a quick pace. “What do you have for us?”

  Goldman looked at the fit man, who was wearing only a military T-shirt over his hard frame. “I’ve got some vids that we use to teach our children about the dangers of the wild. They have to learn quickly before we let them near the wild areas.”

  “What happens if they don’t learn quickly?” asked a Captain who had accompanied Colonel to the meeting.

  “They die, Captain. They die.”

  He let the Ranger officers view the vid, looking at the serious faces as they stared at some examples from one of the most dangerous jungles in human space. There were some frowns, a few grimaces, and widened eyes.

  “Why the fuck would anyone want to live here,” asked the Captain. “That looks like hell out there.”

  “You have to be aware of what’s around you,” said Goldman. “And be ready for anything. But we do lose a lot of people to the planet every year. And when you go out there and play hide and seek in the jungle you will lose people too.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” said the Colonel, his eyes focused on the holo that was showing a group of plantimals on the move. “And possibly we can use the planet to hurt the Cacas.”

  “There is that,” agreed Goldman, switching the vids to hell hounds attacking in their packs, then on to great bears, one of the most deadly of the solitary hunters.

  Goldman sat and watched the Rangers as they viewed more vid, which was also being sent out to the quarters of the squads, where they could watch it at their leisure. He noticed that the men were either completely still, or a blur of motion. There was no middle ground. And they give up twenty to forty years of life span to gain these abilities. Could that speed be an increase in metabolism, that burns the candle faster than otherwise? He was sure the experts already had the answer to that, but he didn’t know, and it wasn’t something he could have found on the planetary data net, even when it was up.

  The Rangers also ran him through the motions with their equipment, since he wouldn’t be allowed to carry anything that might give them away. It was amazing how the men shot. They located aimed and fired in less than a second, and they always seemed to hit what they shot at. When changing positions they were on their feet and moving in a blur to the next cover. Watching them practice hand to hand he couldn’t see how a normal person could compete.

  “Why are you bothering to practice?” he asked Lt. Colonel Su. There were now three battalions of the soldiers on the ground here. And more were on the way.

  “New planet,” said the Colonel as if that explained everything. When Goldman continued to give him a confused look he went on. “We perform better if we have gotten our bodies used to the gravity field and atmosphere. We can do some training in artificial gravity before we deploy, but it always helps if we do some on the actual ground we’re going to fight on. I’d really prefer to get a couple of weeks tracking through that jungle before we actually go hunting, but I can’t see that happening.”

  Goldman had heard the Rangers were the best, though Marine Recon and Naval Commandos were very vocal on that point. He could believe that Marine Force Recon could equal what the Rangers did, but Commandos really weren’t land warriors, though they were sometimes forced into that role. Their specialty was spec ops in space, something a ground pounder like the Major couldn’t imagine doing.

  On day four he was walking with the Colonel and his command team through the jungle, pointing out dangers along the way. There were plenty of plantimals in the area, and it didn’t take the men long to figure out that the mobile half animal/half plants were the deadliest things in the jungle, based on their ability to blend in with the vegetation just before they struck.

  At one point a squad of Rangers walked right into a plantimal ambush. Goldman heard their yells in the near distance, and was on the heels of the Colonel and his Sergeant Major as they ran. Or at least he was on the heels for a couple of seconds before the speedsters distanced him and pulled away.

  The yells and screams from ahead led him to think he would come upon a slaughter when he got within sight. It was a slaughter alright, but not in the manner he expected. There were dozens of plantimals going wild, flailing with vine like tentacles while trying to catch the Rangers. One Ranger was down with a wound in his neck, and the Major thought there might be a good dose of poison in the man’s system. That didn’t stop him from shooting at the plantimals, hitting one with each shot.

  The rest of the Rangers were ducking and dodging, moving with speed and precision while swinging monomolecular blades that were slicing through the creatures like they were made of smoke. More Rangers ran into the battle, no hesitation at facing what must have looked like monsters to them. Within moments there were no more plantimals in action, only the broken and severed bits of them.

  A medic knelt beside the wounded man and gave him an injection of nanites. It was obvious that the poison from the creature was not having much effect on the man, but Goldman knew with native life forms it was better to be safe. A moment later the unit was again on the move.

  “We’ve got something ahead,” said the Colonel to Goldman, waving his hands to another man who was signaling him. “This looks like it might be that first action we’re looking for.”

  Goldman nodded, not really sure if he wanted to be out here in the jungle confronting the Cacas with no armor protecting his soft hide. Any weapon they fielded could kill him. And all he had to fight back with was a chemically powered rifle, the capabilities of which he was not really sure he trusted.

  The Cacas had established a small compound in the jungle, just a half kilometer from a large town that was only ten kilometers outside a city. It was a good spot to run patrols from, and they had the compound protected to the max with all kinds of sensors.

  Goldman really couldn’t see the Rangers deploy. They moved silently through the jungle, not disturbing a branch. The Colonel was moving his hands in fast flicking motions, the men around him nodding and sending the same signals on to those in the chain.

  One rifle opened fire with a muted phut. Within a second a hundred other rifles followed suit, and every Caca in sight in the compound went down. Some more came out of the bunkers within the compound, only to fall as soon as they became visible. A string of rifle grenades exploded across the compound, then the Rangers moved, away from the target and back into the jungle.

  “I think we can take it from here, Major,” said the Colonel when they made it back to the Ranger base camp.

  “I believe you can,” agreed Goldman, happy that he did not have to go out into the jungle with the Rangers again. And even more thankful that he wasn’t on their target list.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy. Friedrich Nietzsche.

  AZURE. APRIL 25TH-26th, 1001.

  Cornelius put another foot down on the jungle floor, careful to step where there was nothing that made any sound. Also careful to make sure there was nothing that might attack his foot or leg after he stepped. He had been in this jungle for a week, and it was becoming familiar. Or as familiar as hell could be.

  His eyes darted this way and that, trying to pick up any threat that might be trying to sneak up on him. It was dark under the canopy, but to his enhanced eyes it was as bright as day on most worlds. Sniffing the air he caught the now familiar scent of an acidic poison. He searched some more, until he spotted the form of a plantimal to his right front. Wonder why the local animals don’t use that sce
nt to avoid them, he thought of the hybrid creatures, knowing that there must be a reason. His not evolving in this environment meant that reason did not pertain to humans.

  Cornelius stopped for a moment, raising his left hand in the air and signaling the men behind him the reason for the halt. This place still scares the hell out of me, he thought, as he tracked out a path that would take them away from the dangerous creature while not taking them too far out of their way. He could just blast the damned thing out of existence with a spray of mini-shotgun pellets. But they were trying to move through this jungle without calling attention to themselves, and that might cause problems.

  About ten meters to the right of the plantimal was a likely looking path, but he had to wonder if that was distant enough to not set the thing off. They had already lost five men in the company from attacks by the mobiles of the kingdoms on the planet. And there had been literally hundreds of attacks that the Rangers had been able to fight off without loss, though some had been close.

  The Corporal signalled the team to move forward. He was at point, despite being the team leader, because he was the best at it. His assistant team leader was watching himself and the other three men of the team, while the five men of Sergeant Chantamurta’s team were a hundred meters back, along with the squad leader, Staff Sergeant McAllister. This was a single squad operation, just the eleven of them. The rest of the platoon was even further back, preparing a surprise.

  Walborski breathed a sigh of relief as he passed the plantimal without any reaction from the creature. At closer look he could see that it was definitely an ambush predator. Hopefully it would still be set in ambush mode when they passed this way again, and would not have moved into their path. Normally they wouldn’t use the same path to retreat that they used to advance. In this jungle that practice was out the airlock.

  A hundred meters further on Cornelius could hear the movement and speech of creatures ahead. He was not yet fluent in Ca’cadasan, though he could pick up words in their language. He heard eat and food, and knowing what they ate, those were not comforting words.

  Cornelius saw the outpost well before the two beings within it could have detected him. Again he stopped, and gave hand signals to the men behind him. He strapped his rifle to his chest with some quick release straps, then pulled his monomolecular blade, a Wakizashi, from its sheath and got on his stomach. Again he felt some anxiety. There were some dangerous insectoids and reptiloids that lived on the jungle floor. He could only pray that his survival suit and the local pheromones would keep them away if they happened to come upon him.

  The Corporal slowly crawled forward, stopping in place whenever he thought the enemy soldiers might be looking his way. His survival suit was covered with a layer of active camouflage, using chemical energy to change its color to match its background. It wasn’t as effective as the electromag light bending fields of battle armor, but had the advantage of not giving away its location by electronic emissions.

  Something crawled over Cornelius’ hand, and he looked down in revulsion as a twenty legged reptiloid touched his flesh, then moved off quickly as it got a whiff of the pheromones meant to drive it off. I wonder if the Cacas can smell the pheromones? he thought. He didn’t have any of his own, and had to figure that they didn’t associate the local kind with humans. At least that was the theory. It might be safer to wear my gloves, he thought. But the gloved affected his manual dexterity, and most of the Rangers prefered to work without them for that reason.

  The Corporal was sweating profusely by the time he was within ten meters of the Cacas, who, while not really all that alert, were looking into the jungle on occasion. They were still talking, with common words about food coming through, as well one word that made the Corporal shudder in horror. Humans.

  Cornelius watched the aliens carefully, hoping to establish a pattern he could use to his advantage. It took some minutes, but he found one. One alien looked to the jungle to the right, while the other one looked down and put food in its mouth. Then they switched off, then talked as they both looked back toward their camp.

  The next time they went through this process Cornelius was on his feet and running at them. One looked up and yelped at the bipedal creature that was coming at him with extreme speed. Cornelius hit the mechanically powered jammer on his belt with his left hand, sending out static to interrupt any calls the aliens might get off before he killed them. With his right hand he swung the blade into the neck of the first Caca. The blade slid easily through the tough armor and into the flesh of the creature, severing its throat and spine as he pushed it in and pulled it out with a draw cut.

  The second Caca grabbed at the rifle that was laying on the ground to his front. Before he could level it at the human Cornelius brought the sword blade down on its helmet and punched through the skull and into the brain.

  Cornelius looked down at the two dead aliens for a moment, adding them to his total. He thought for a moment about taking a trophy from each of them, then realized that he hadn’t the time. He imitated a local animal call, letting the rest of the squad know he had taken out a perimeter picket, then moved on.

  Cornelius moved quickly now. Time was of the essence. As soon as the Cacas tried to com check those soldiers they would have to suspect that something was up. He moved in fifty meters until he was at the edge of a clearing. At ten meters from the edge he went back to ground, then waited for the rest of the squad to move up.

  Ahead was a clearing about a hundred meters in diameter. And in that clearing was a company of Cacas, building a fortified position around their lines of tents. All the way across was a pair of aircars, with crewmen performing basic maintenance functions or rearming weapons.

  “Good job, Walborski,” whispered Staff Sergeant McAllister, coming up beside Cornelius and dropping to the ground. He turned and flashed hand signals in one direction, then rolled back over and sent the message to the men on the other side.

  “Get ready,” said McAllister, aiming his rifle at the clearing on a firing line through the vegetation.

  Cornelius nodded as he aimed his own rifle, targeting the closest of the Cacas, one who was lounging on the ground sans armor.

  McAllister fired, his rifle giving a muted bark as it sent a round unerringly into the face of a Caca soldier. The rest of the squad fired a micro-second afterwards, and there were eleven dead aliens in the compound falling to the dirt. For the next ten seconds it was a pure slaughter, as nine of the Rangers fired a shot a second, each hitting a target with each round.

  Cornelius swung his rifle onto the next target, placing the sighting reticle onto the back of the Caca running for cover. He pulled the trigger and the rifle bucked hard into his shoulder, recoil that a normal human without armor couldn’t have withstood without serious injuries. The twelve millimeter round sped at five thousand meters per second to strike the armor of the creature. Upon striking the small explosive charge within sent a half dozen needles of supermetal through the armor and into the flesh beneath. The kinetic energy and shock wave destroyed hundreds of cubic centimeters of biomass, killing the creature instantly.

  The two Rangers with auto-grenade launchers sprayed the compound, hitting their targets with an accuracy that was almost as good as that of the riflemen. Small explosions popped throughout the camp. Then the rounds tracked in on the aircars, blasting holes in their hulls and rendering them useless pieces of metal.

  Five seconds into the firefight the enemy started to return fire, at least the best of them. That made them the priority targets. At ten seconds most that were still alive and uninjured were under what cover they could find.

  Cornelius sighted in on one piece of cover he knew a Caca was sheltering behind. As soon as he saw the movement of a helmet at the side of the stack of boxes he fired, scoring a hit that dropped the big male to twitching helplessness.

  Sergeant McAllister blew his whistle as particle beams and heavy projectiles ripped through the jungle around them. Cornelius crawled backward into the
jungle, splitting his attention between the Cacas to his front and the jungle around him. When he had moved back forty meters he got up into a crouch and started back at a faster pace. Beams and projectiles were still zipping through the jungle, ripping into trees and in some cases exploding trunks from the transfer of the kinetic energy of protons into heat. This filled the air with fast moving splinters of wood.

  Cornelius winced as several large splinters hit his survival suit. The fabric hardened from the chemical reaction started by the impact, bouncing the splinters off. Cornelius ducked down, putting an arm over his face, hoping to protect his features. An angry humming slashed overhead, a particle beam that would have hit him by chance if not for the timing of his duck.

  “Anyone missing?” he asked Sergeant Chantamurta as he came to the rally point.

  “Stranson got hit with a particle beam,” said the Sergeant with a grimace. “At least he got it quick and clean.”

  “Yeah,” said Cornelius, the image of the smiling PFC who had a talent for the guitar coming to mind. Getting hit by a particle beam might have been quick, but being reduced to cooked meat was anything but clean to his way of thinking.

  “Take point, Walborski,” ordered McAllister. “Let’s lead our hunters a merry chase. I think that plantimal might be a good first friend for our other buddies.”

  Cornelius nodded and started off into the jungle. His anxiety was even higher at this point, with not only an enemy sure to come after them, but the need to move quickly made his every step all the more dangerous. Because of that he almost missed the plantimal, which wouldn’t have missed him if he had stepped into it. He stopped just before he entered the ambush range of the creature, which was the size of a small tree and sure to be as deadly as anything on the planet.

  A hundred meters past the plantimal they heard the screams and yells of the tracking Cacas as they ran into the beast. Cornelius wished that he had a scanner back there that could have shown him what was happening. He was sure there were few casualties, considering the armor and weapons of the aliens. But if even one of them was killed, while the rest were put on warning about the threat of traversing this jungle, the plantimal had served the purpose of the humans, if not its own.