Hunter's Home: Hunter's Saga Books 1-3

by Art DeForest

  They made steady progress throughout the morning. They only had to find cover and hide a couple of times when the ever present patrol craft would get just a bit too close.

  After a quick lunch of, you guessed it, protein bars, they continued on their way. Alex and Keisha proceeded more and more cautiously as they came closer to town. The effect of town being the focal point of the patrol routes was making the danger of detection from the patrol ships more and more likely.

  They were almost perpendicular with the edge of town on it’s up valley side. The afternoon sun was piercing through the tree branches. Alex and Keisha took off the camo cover after the last patrol boat passed over head. They had moved no more than 20 meters further on there way when Keisha noticed the scout ship abruptly turning around and heading back their way. “That can’t be good.” She said, pointing up at the fast approaching craft. It seemed to be heading right for them.

  Making a snap decision, Alex pointed deeper into the forest towards the hills rising up from the valley floor approximately 200 meters from where they stood. They dashed frantically through the trees and underbrush as the rumble from the scout ship grew louder and louder. Alex shoved Keisha unceremoniously through a gap in the brush and pulled her low to crouch near the base of a tree. He quickly threw the camo cover over themselves. This time however Alex left their faces free of it. Counting it less of a risk to not keep an eye on the strangely acting craft than to possibly be spotted by infrared on a hot summer day.

  As they sat huddled tensely under the cover, Alex noticed something odd out of the corner of his eye. It took him a moment to spot what he now saw was a small box like contraption pointed off to the side. It was well camouflaged, but definitely didn’t belong. As he studied the object he figured out how they had come to the attention of the scout ship.

  Getting Keisha’s attention Alex pointed out the box. “You see that?” he asked quietly. When she nodded he continued. “I think that’s a sensor of some kind. I bet that’s how they detected us.” he said with conviction. “Definitely something to keep an eye out for in the future.” she agreed.

  The scout dropped altitude and started circling ominously when it reached the treeline. As it came looming over them they quickly turned their faces toward the trunk of the tree they were underneath, obscuring their faces from direct exposure. The scout continued on in ever widening circles, but just as Alex was about to sigh in relief, the craft started to hover at the edge of the trees and rapidly began dropping in altitude. Eventually dropping out of sight behind the trees.

  “Damn!” Whispered Alex. “They’re landing. Quick and quiet, we’ll head for the hills.” he whispered urgently into her ear. Follow me.” As quickly as they could they darted from bush to bush trying to keep the cover between them and where the ship had landed. They heard a hissing clank, loud in the stillness of the forest signaling the troop hatch of the scout ship opening as the loud rumble of the ship spun down to nothing.

  They shortly reached the hills and started skirting them back the direction they had come. After a short run, they found a narrow gulch that gave them quick access to the hills without a steep climb in the open. “I sure hope none of these guys know how to track.” thought Alex, glancing over his shoulder and seeing the telltale signs of their passage.

  ------

  “Move! Go go go!” said Sergeant Alvarez, hustling his men out of the troop compartment as soon as the lip of the hatch touched the ground. “Skirmish line 10 meter spacing facing the trees! Hop to. Let’s go!” he barked. His squad dutifully followed their instructions, spreading out in a line running roughly parallel to the trees before taking crouched positions. Eyes and assault rifles scanned back and forth, searching the shadows for any sign of movement.

  Sergeant Alvarez maintained a confident expression as he scanned the area. Confidence wasn’t really what he was feeling at this point however. The Association was in many ways a technological marvel. It’s member planets had massive cities covering nearly all of the planet’s surfaces. As a result there was very little area in which to practice open field maneuvers and there were definitely no forests. Lack of resources was the main reason they had to resort to raiding. “Some of these men hadn’t seen a piece of greenery larger than a decorative houseplant before coming to this forsaken hick world” thought Alvarez. Still they had a job to do and he was going to do it as best as he knew how.

  “Stand up. Slow forward, and keep your intervals.” commanded Alvarez “Come on Sarge, its probably just another one of those whatdoyoucallit, deer things again.” said Private Simpson in a bored tone. “The sensors triggered on a large contact and we will proceed as if the contact is human and dangerous until proven otherwise.” rebuked the sergeant. Grumbling under his breath, private Simpson complied.

  The squad proceeded cautiously into the trees. They would stop every 10 paces and survey the area around them, looking for anything out of the ordinary. They proceeded in this fashion through the strip of forest all the way to the base of the hills. Alvares stood consideringly looking up the face of the hill whose base they currently occupied. Clicking over to the squad channel he said “Anything out of the ordinary? Sound off.” His men reported in orderly fashion that they had in fact seen nothing but the expected trees. Until Corporal Adams at the far end of the skirmish line piped up. “I think I have a human footprint over here sarge”

  “Hold your positions” said Alvarez as he moved down the skirmish line in the fading light. He came up beside the corporal as the man crouched near the opening in the hills, looking intently at the ground. “Right here Sarge.” he said, waving over his superior. “What do you think?” asked Adams. The sergeant carefully crouched down and inspected the area his subordinate was pointing at. It was unmistakably a shoe print pointing up into the open space between the hills. He wasn’t sure how long it had been there, but the impression was sharp and clean at the edges making him think that it hadn’t been there long. “Stay here.” he murmured to Adams.

  Sergeant Alvarez walked a short distance up the draw searching for more prints. He found a few more farther up, but between the rocky ground and the fading light he quickly lost the trail. Frustrated he abruptly stood tall. “This is Sergeant Alvarez! We know you’re there. Come out with your hands up and you won’t be harmed!” He was careful not to announce the name of the Association. They were under strict orders to maintain as much anonymity as possible.

  The crosshairs of Alex’s rifle held steady, dead center on the man’s chest. “This guy’s an idiot.” he mumbled quietly, as Sergeant Alvarez issued his command. Keisha snickered almost silently into her hand. 100 meters further up the gulch they’d found a climbable section that lead them out onto a brush covered saddle between two hills. Now under the cover of some brush and under the camo cover, they had a perfect view back down to the mouth of the gulch. The sergeant’s voice was quiet but understandable still, his shouted commands having been channeled up to their ears by the gulch

  Alvarez waited and shouted for a few more minutes as the light continued to fade. He was merely a shadow in Alex’s scope when he finally turned and headed back down the gulch. Alex and Keisha stayed still and silent under the camo cover. Waiting to see if more troops would enter the gulch and take up the search as full darkness closed around them.

  After about an hour with no further action, Alex took a deep breath and murmured, “We need to get out of here.” Keisha looked at him curiously. “Why not wait for morning when we can see?” She asked. “They’re still out there.” Alex whispered, staring down the narrow defile intently. “The scout ship never took off.” Keisha considered that for a moment. “So you think they’re trying to keep us bottled up and wait for morning to flush us out.” Alex nodded affirmatively. “I bet they’re going to have help by morning too.” he said grimly.

  “I would bet they’ll maintain their positions overnight and move up into the hills with reinforcements come daylight.” Alex could feel Keisha tense up as her imagi
nation considered hordes of troops invading the hills. “So what do we do?” she asked. Alex continued to stare down the draw, considering his options carefully. “This saddle we’re on kind of parallels the forest for awhile. We’ll keep following it and then come down to the valley after we’re sure we’ve gotten past their line. It’ll be faster and quieter to move down on the valley floor.”

  Sergeant Alvarez returned to Corporal Adam’s side. Anger and frustration written on his face. He keyed his communicator. “Spread the line. 50 meter spacing and take up watch positions. It’s going to be a long night.” His gut was telling him that they were up there not far away, but there was no way he was going to find them from the ground in the dark.

  He switched over to the aerial channel. “Scout 2 come in” he said into the receiver. “Scout 2 here sir.” came the immediate reply. “I need a search pattern 2 kilometers square, starting from the skirmish line and going into the hills.” His communicator squaked back. “Acknowledged sir. Dust off in 5. Scout 2 out.”

  His next communication was on the command channel. “Sergeant Alvarez to Commander Walsh. Come in.” Walsh’s response was almost immediately. “What have you found sergeant.” he said brusquely. Wondering where the fugitives were and what would happen next had him on edge. All the false alarms from the motion sensors hadn’t helped anything either. “Sir, we found what appears to be human footprints leading up into the foothills near where the sensor alarm came from. We were unable to follow them in the dark. I have my men in a skirmish line along the base of the hills to restrict their movement. Scout 2 is running a search pattern in the hills trying to spot anything using infrared.” replied Alvarez.

  “Finally some action!” thought Walsh. He had no great hope that infrared was going to discover anything at this point, but it was a good place to start, He needed to get men on the ground in order to find them. “Well done Sergeant. Hold position for now. I’ll comm you back with further instructions.” Signing off he headed towards Colonel Sampson’s office.

  Alex and Keisha crept slowly and carefully along the saddle stretching between two hills in the long chain of them surrounding the valley. They had to keep the camo cover over themselves constantly as the scout ship was now flying circles around their position. After several hours of shuffling from one bit of cover to the next they came to the head of a ravine that allowed them relatively easy access back down to the valley floor. “This should be far enough.” he said. trying to make out terrain features in the dark. The scout ship had departed the area a little while previously, headed back in the direction of town. Alex thought they probably needed fuel. He might have liked to move farther along the saddle, but with this path to the valley before them and no craft over them, he judged it as worth the risk.

  They removed the camo cover and started down the narrow ravine. The sand and grit washed down from the saddle over millennia into the bottom of the defile made walking much easier, not to mention quieter. Before long they were following a meandering course as the ravine cut through the surrounding terrain.

  They moved like ghosts along the draw’s winding bottom. It was slow going in the dark however. Stealth was their main ally and speed had to be sacrificed in favor of secrecy. They were both stumbling a bit as night lengthened into early morning. Alex figured they had maybe an hour until dawn started making itself known. They trudged along in the near exhaustion of a night spent on the move. Keisha lagged somewhat behind, her feet dragging a bit as she moved. Alex was in little better shape. Most of his concentration spent on putting one foot in front of the other. He was moving around yet another sharp bend in the ravine when he quite literally ran face to wide eyed face with a man coming up the draw.

  3

  Private first class Granger maintained his post alertly for the first several hours, but as the night dragged on for what seemed like eternity, he began to lose focus. On top of that, his bladder had been complaining ever more loudly as the night progressed. Granger was a city dweller at heart and the thought of relieving himself out in the open where anybody could see made him very uncomfortable. He’d taken up his position at the mouth of an opening in the hills and the more he watched it the more he felt that it would give him some much needed privacy to heed his bladders dire warning of impending embarrassment.

  The opening was the end of some kind of huge…. ditch? He wasn’t sure what to call it. The ditch ran fairly straight for maybe 20 meters before curving sharply to the left. He was looking down for a spot to relieve himself when he bumped into someone else coming the other way down his ditch.

  Alex and Granger stared at each other in shock for a heartbeat. The private’s training kicked in and he reacted first. His hand reached for the pistol grip of the assault rifle hanging at an angle, across his chest as he simultaneously took a half step back. Knowing he couldn’t reach a weapon in time, Alex threw himself instinctively at the soldier in front of him. The air was expelled explosively from Granger’s lungs as Alex’s shoulder impacted his midsection and drove him backwards to the hard ground.

  The man underneath Alex seemed to be momentarily stunned when they hit the ground. Alex put his left forearm to the man’s throat, trying to pin him down and keep him quiet while at the same time his fingers scratched and fumbled at the still unfamiliar pistol on his right hip. He was just releasing the gun from it’s holster when the soldier’s fist came crashing into the side of Alex’s head. The force of the blow knocked Alex off the soldier and his pistol went spinning into the darkness. Bright lights exploded behind his eyes. He couldn’t remember how his arms and legs worked for a moment as he lay stunned on his side. Granger reached for his assault rifle once more while simultaneously trying to get to his knees and force himself to breath.

  Vision came back to Alex as the man started to rise disjointedly from the ground. He lashed out desperately with a foot. The toe of Alex’s boot connected squarely with Granger’s shin just as he was putting weight on it to thrust himself up off the ground. He immediately came crashing back down to the ground with an anguished grunt.

  Alex threw himself once again at his assailant and they grappled desperately. Granger’s assault rifle was pinned between them as they jockeyed for position, rolling back and forth at the bottom of the draw. The soldier out massed the slim Alex by a good ten kilos the added mass allowed him to gain the upper hand, forcing Alex down onto his back.

  Granger straddled Alex’s stomach, and grabbed him by the throat with both hands, brutally trying to crush his throat. Alex tried to pry his attackers fingers from around his neck while he desperately worked at sucking in a life giving breath. The large soldier kept bearing down on the young man’s throat with all his weight a vicious snarl on his face as he squeezed the life from his foe.

  Alex’s vision began to grow dim. He could feel his muscles growing slack as consciousness receded from him. He was mostly out when he heard a muffled pop. Abruptly his attacker’s fingers loosened their grip on his throat. Something hot and wet splattered across Alex’s face and the smell of blood assaulted his sense of smell as his attackers body slumped limply to the side.

  Alex continued to lay on the ground unable to do much more than take in ragged breaths of air through his bruised and battered throat. As oxygenated blood once more flowed through his veins, he started coming back to his senses. Looking around groggily he saw Keisha standing to the side. Her pistol grasped in a sturdy two hand grip, pointed at the space the attacker’s head had once occupied. As close as she was, the muzzle must have been in contact with the man’s head. “No wonder the shot sounded muffled” thought Alex fuzzily. As he came more to himself, he saw the pistol start to tremble in her hand. With jerk, Keisha dropped it to the sand at the bottom of the ravine.

  Stumbling backward, she fell to the ground and continued to scramble desperately backwards until her back connected firmly to the side of the draw. She drew her knees convulsively up to her panting chest as she huddled in on herself rocking and staring at the gruesome
mess that had once been a man’s head.

  Alex, seeing her distress quickly leveraged the corpse that was still half straddling him off to the side away from Keisha. He tried to leap to his feet and rush to her aid but a wave of dizziness and pain sent him crashing back down to the ground. Rolling, over, Alex was able to slowly push himself onto all fours. He crawled painfully over the rough ground to Keisha. Rising slowly up onto his knees he used his own body to block off her view of the grizzly scene behind him. Her eyes still looked towards corpse with a vacant stare as if she could see right through him.

  Gently he placed his hand on hers. “Are you okay?” he rasped through his damaged vocal chords. She flinched at his touch. She came back to herself enough to meet his gaze with a desolate stare of her own. Seeing the black looking droplets of blood covering Alex’s face, she shuddered and looked quickly away.

  Alex grabbed Keisha’s hand firmly to get her attention. “You need to get ahold of yourself. We have to get out of here, now!” he said in an urgent whisper. Keisha looked back up at him, horror still visible on her face in the dim grey of predawn. “I...I shot him.” she said in disbelief. “Oh my god. What have I done!” Her voice rose above a whisper as panic and revulsion threatened to overwhelm her. Jerking her gaze back to the ground she resumed rocking back and forth.