Exodus: Empires at War: Book 05 - Ranger

by Doug Dandridge

  Goldman pulled the trigger and sent a burst of protons in an angry red beam into the man. With a burst of steam the face of the man and part of the rifle disappeared.

  “Goddammit,” yelled another of the men while the third just cried out in horror. “Does everyone but us have one of those things.”

  “He’s going to kill us all. Just like the little bitch did to the others.”

  “Throw down your weapons and no one else needs to die,” he yelled out, moving the pistol and trying to track onto one of the remaining men.

  “Bullshit,” yelled one of the men. “He’s an officer. And we’re deserters in wartime. I’m not for going back to a firing squad.”

  Then don’t, thought Goldman, tracking in on that voice. He saw the man through the optics at the same time the man saw the pistol. The deserter fired first, and the round bounced from the aircar not centimeters from the pistol. If he had fired on full auto he would have hit for sure, but training had taken over, and the deserter had gone for a penetrating shot. He got off one more, just a microsecond before the beam of protons converted his head and shoulders to steam and burnt meat.

  “OK,” yelled the last man, standing up and dropping his rifle to the ground. “I surrender.”

  Goldman came from behind the car slowly, his eyes searching for anyone who might be hiding to take him unawares. He couldn’t see anyone else, and he kept the pistol leveled at the last man, prepared to take him down if there were any tricks.

  “What happened to my little girl?” he asked as he walked up to the man, who looked back with sullen and frightened eyes.

  “She ran away into the jungle,” said the man, his eyes locking on the particle beam pistol. “She killed Bill when he tried to fetch her, then hit Chan, Cliff and Jonesy when they tried to shoot her.”

  “I thought you said you killed her.”

  “I swear we didn’t,” stammered the man. “Clarence, that was our leader, thought it might make you do something stupid if we said that.”

  “And he got his brains vaporized for his trouble,” said Goldman, looking at the man and recognizing the partial militia armor he wore. “You’re a deserter. That means I can shoot you where you stand.”

  “Please, sir. We were just trying to survive. Please don’t kill me.”

  A coward dies a thousand deaths, thought the Major, staring into terrified eyes. “I’ll give you one chance. You can walk out of here and take that chance with the jungle, just like the little girl you chased off.”

  The man nodded, then bent to reach for his rifle.

  “Uh uh,” said the Major, waving his pistol. “You go out in the jungle without that. I don’t want you sniping at me when I’m not prepared.”

  “But, I’ll die out there without a weapon,” stammered the man. “Please. Look, your little girl had a weapon.”

  “No thanks to you. Now get your ass moving, before I change my mind and just vaporize you.”

  The man stared for a moment, then looked at the pistol, and Goldman was sure he was thinking about his chances of getting the weapon away from the Major. He must have thought better of it, as he turned and ran away from the officer, moving toward the edge of the plateau and going down the slope. Goldman walked over to the edge and looked down, following the man with his eyes until he disappeared into the jungle.

  The entrance to the cave was a mess of melted and fallen rock, the signs of a particle beam weapon. A mess left by his little girl. The interior was in better shape, though the deserters had not been good housekeepers. There was garbage scattered across the interior of the cavern that had been set up as a house. The trash was in every room, though they at least hadn’t put sewage on the floors.

  After setting the security system at the front of the cave, something that had seemed to have been beyond the capabilities of the squatters, the Major did a quick inventory of the supplies and found that almost seventy percent of what they had laid in was still there. The battery packs were at ninety percent. He was amazed that the deserters had not figured out how to turn on the pumps that kept the water tanks filled, and had resorted to carrying water from the spring outside, the same source the Major’s family had piped in.

  The last thing he checked was the weapons stock, which was behind a hidden stone door in one of the bedrooms. Something else the lazy fuckers who had taken the refuge for their own had not discovered. In that small armory were dozens of different hunting weapons, and a few that were not made for hunting anything but other intelligent beings. There were ammunition stores that would last for years.

  If only they had made it, he thought of his family. His wife, his in-laws and other family members, would have been able to hide here until either the aliens left or the Empire forces returned. Why did you let this happen? he asked his God. Why the fuck did you let this happen to good people?

  The last thing he had to do was hide the aircar. Originally they had planned to leave the cars in the jungle a couple of kilometers away. He didn’t want to leave here, not with the last deserter still lurking in the vicinity. So he powered up the car, set it on auto, and sent it on its way. It would fly to the small clearing he had seen about ten kilometers to the north and land, there to wait for his signal if he needed it. Then he settled down to wait, which was the only possible course of action at this point.

  Chapter Twenty

  War is a series of catastrophes which result in victory. Albert Pike.

  AZURE. MAY 10TH – 20th, 1001.

  “These humans were not what we were led to expect,” said Prime Hunt Leader Sybalis, looking at the other members of his team. They had been stalking a human patrol, some of these jungle specialists the humans employed. They had all rejoiced in the stalk, the hunting of creatures that were their inferiors. Until it became apparent that they were anything but.

  “We still make kills,” said one of the other Maurids, showing a toothy smile that his troubled eyes denied.

  “Yes,” said another, “but the unfamiliar jungle also takes its toll. As do these warriors of the humans. Maybe it is time to abandon the small hunting parties and gather enough hunters to take out one of their larger bodies in a swift assault.”

  The Prime Hunt Leader imagined that and liked the image. They might still lose some hunters, but not in comparison to the human losses. And if they destroyed enough of the superior humans they might stop patrolling the jungles and killing the masters. And that would also accomplish their mission.

  “I will send your idea up to the Supreme Hunt Leader,” said Sybalis, looking at the second male. “If he gets permission from the masters maybe we can implement your plan.” And maybe someday we will be free of the masters, and can do things the way we want them to be done.

  * * *

  Rebecca wandered through the jungle for days after leaving the vicinity of the refuge. She really didn’t have a final destination in mind. Any of the towns and villages on her map could be temporary refuges as well, or they could be dead ends, and she had no way of knowing without going there. After the death of her brother and finding that the refuge their family had prepared had fallen to an unknown number of criminals, she had lacked the energy to make another decision. So she had found a safe tree and set it up as a temporary home, placing a poncho up as a rain cover and counting on her height above the floor for concealment. Then she had just existed, eating rations as she felt hungry, drinking rainwater when thirsty. Otherwise doing nothing but thinking, sleeping when needed, crying at frequent intervals.

  I can’t just make the jungle my home, she thought one morning as the sun came up. I can eat native life as long as I have my internal nanites. But I won’t like it. I might even get sick at times, and getting sick could mean my death, if I can’t react to the jungle. But, where do I go?

  She knew that walking through the jungle was more dangerous than sitting in the tree. There was always the chance that something would climb to the bole where she was and get to her, despite the chemical defenses of the tree. But the
odds were much greater if she walked through that jungle, as much as she had learned about it in the time since the invasion. She was really an expert on it compared to most who had lived on this planet. Ted had told her that knowledge of the jungle allowed people to survive in it, but knowledge didn’t guarantee survival.

  Later that day she heard voices moving below her perch, thirty meters down. They grew louder, until she could distinguish them as Ca’cadasans, out on patrol through the jungle. They moved on, but several hours later there were more, and she realized that she was now in an area of their operations. That made it even more dangerous, when she was finally forced to go foraging through the bush, and ran the risk of running into one of the Cacas, or, even worse, one of the new things they had brought to the jungle.

  She slept one more night in the tree, eating the last of her rations before retiring. She woke in the night to the sound of something scrambling up the bark of the tree. Did I wait too long, she thought, cringing into a ball and hoping that whatever it was would just go away.

  Suddenly there was shouting in the distance, human voices, and the sounds of weapons fire cracking the sound barrier below her. The thing on the tree stopped scrambling up, and she was sure it must have dropped off and ran away. The sounds of the fire fight continued for some minutes, then she heard a couple of voices whispering to each other below. These sounded like human voices.

  Before her run in with the deserters she would have let any humans know who she was and where she was located, hoping that they would help her. Now she was afraid to do so. These men might not be organized troops, but more riff raff wandering the jungle, with enough firepower to beat off a Caca attack. She couldn’t chance it, and remained hidden until they moved off.

  When the sun came up on a new day she packed up and climbed down the tree. As always it was humid, though the daily rains were hours in the future. She took a look at her inertial locator and compass, wondering if she was making a good decision. Last night it had looked good. Now, in the light of day, she wasn’t so sure.

  Shrugging her shoulders she started on her way. One way was as good as any after a moment’s thought.

  The jungle was alive with the cries of animals and the songs of bird analogues. Insectoids buzzed by on their tasks, while other creatures flew through the air hunting them down. Rebecca moved easily through the bush, almost automatically finding the easy path that didn’t cross any obvious clearings. She could hear the sounds of various herbivores going about their feeding, avoiding them both as the threats they represented and the attraction they were to predators. She kept her particle beam pistol ready at all times, set to power that would kill a small predator and hopefully chase away a large one, not wasting her one remaining proton pack.

  At one point she saw the signs of a plantimal ambush in the tentacles that draped across the ground like vines. It took her a moment to realize how easily she had spotted the ambush while she moved around it. Further down the path she found some fruit that was astringent to the native life, but not too bad for the humans it had never evolved to deter. She pulled down a couple of the pear shaped bluish fruit, carefully avoiding the poison tipped thorns that speckled the branch.

  Later she pulled down a leafy tube and dripped water into her mouth. At the end of the day she checked her inertial finder and was surprised to find that she had covered twenty-five kilometers of fierce bush, while not having one encounter with any kind of ambush predator. I’m getting pretty good at this, she thought as she located a safe tree and started to climb. She shrugged away that thought, knowing that arrogance could get her killed, while a healthy amount of fearful respect would keep her alive.

  The next day she only had to use her weapon once, two quick shots that killed the leading males of a hell hound pack. The rest of the pack ran away, back to whatever place they laired in. The morning after that she saw three cubs at play below her tree, under the watchful gaze of an adult, and realized that fearsome as the carnivores were, they were still social animals that had to feed their young, little ones that they cared for fiercely. After that she vowed to only shoot them if she couldn’t back them down with a warning shot.

  When she finally reached the village she had another disappointment to deal with. This one was a total wreck. Every building had been burned out, every vehicle shot or blown to pieces. The jungle was doing a good job of taking back over the land it had lost when this habitat had been created. Still she searched the ruins, carefully. The only terrestrial life left in the village was a small population of now feral cats, able to eat the smaller native life due to their internal nanites. She wondered how long they would survive when the jungle had completely taken over, despite their adaptability.

  One building she searched, what was once a store, was still full of canned food that she could use as rations. Fish, corned beef, basic protein puddings, she filled her pack. What she was hoping to find was not available, proton packs for her pistol. She did find some ammo for her mag pistol, and some spare batteries that would fit just about anything, and she packed them away.

  Two days out of the village, heading for the next, she walked across the remains of a fight. There were a couple of Ca’cadasan bodies and many more humans, all obvious victims of weapons fire. Most of the bodies had been savaged by predators who had probably eaten some of the supposed bounty of proteins, then got a good taste and moved on. Some plantimals had rooted themselves in some of the bodies, not as picky about taste as their animal cousins. The bodies may not have provided perfect nourishment, but for the hybrid creatures it was enough.

  Rebecca left the scene of the fight with a more cautious attitude. She had thought originally that most of the fighting would be confined to cities, battles of attrition among the ruins. Instead the war had moved into the wilderness areas as the humans used the cover of the jungle and the Cacas pursued them.

  The next village she visited was much like the last, only there were a couple of buildings that were still standing. She walked through the streets, avoiding all the native vegetation that was mostly opportunistic weeds that were known for their toxicity. The first building she came to was complete only on distant examination. On closer examination it was full of holes, from what had to be bullets, to the large slash of a particle beam, to a door that had to have been blown open by a rocket or grenade. She shook her head, and moved up the street four blocks to the next one.

  It’s intact, she thought excitedly as she looked at the closed door, untouched walls, and complete windows that fronted the street. I hope it’s not locked, she thought, moving to the door with her pistol in hand. The door slid open as she stopped on the stoop. She looked cautiously inside as the lights came on, almost wanting to yell with joy that the house still had power. She forced herself to spend the time to stand there and look, making sure nothing was waiting for her just inside the threshold.

  Satisfied that the living room of the dwelling was unoccupied, she walked into the house. Weapon at the ready, she checked it out, kitchen/dining area, bathrooms, all three bedrooms. It looked like the house of a common worker, filled with the mementos of a life of working and raising a family. Holographic pictures of that family sprung to life as she entered various rooms, and she felt a wave of sorrow thinking of what must have happened to those people.

  Rebecca made sure the outer door was secure and sat on the couch, contemplating how much her world had changed since the aliens had come. Azure had been such a happy world. Sure, the biome was hazardous, but people made lives here, in a technological civilization that saw to their almost every need. And now we’re barbarians, hunter gatherers, fugitives, those that survived.

  As she sat there thinking tears of sorrow flowed from her eyes. As she continued to think, focusing on the aliens who had caused all of this, the tears turned to symbols of her rage, and her body shook with her feelings. I’m going to pay you assholes back, thought the child, if it takes me my entire life. You will suffer. Rebecca laughed at that last thought. She was
still only a child. But I won’t be forever. One day I’ll be a soldier, or a scientist. And then we’ll see.

  * * *

  Major Joseph Goldman had to admit that the refuge they had set up was very comfortable. That said, waiting for his daughter to return, if she ever did, was not a comfortable feeling. She’s not going to come back here, he thought once again as he stared mindlessly at an entertainment program on the trivee. The refuge had been set up with all the comforts of home, and was completely shielded from detection.

  She could dead out there for all I know, he thought, not liking the idea at all, but realizing that it was a realistic one. The jungle was full of things that would just love to kill a small biped walking among them. Ted Stephenson was the best woodsman I’ve ever known, was the next thought, trying to regain some hope. He had met Ted through the engineering firm, a retired Naval Commando who had also worked as a naval engineer and had a wealth of experience. Ted had liked to spend all his free time hunting the wilderness areas of the planet, and had eventually transitioned to a full time job leading those less gifted through expeditions, bringing them all back alive. That was something to be proud of, as even the most experienced guides lost people on this world. All but Ted. And he taught my little girl about the wilderness. She learned enough to get from wherever she had been to that village where the Rangers found her. And she learned enough to get from there to here. So she has to be cognizant enough of the dangers to survive,

  The next moment he was wondering if that was just wishful thinking. People with survival skills got killed in that jungle all the time. And Rebecca, smart as she was, was still a child. But she’s really bright, he thought, grabbing at the next morsel of hope. She tested out in the top ninety nine point nine percentile. Smart enough to go into engineering, or any of the sciences, and excel.