Once he reached the farmland, Jack headed straight west, away from the city proper. He needed to make it back to the drop ships, a good five kilometers south of the city. He didn't want to make his run for the ships close to the city, so he continued running west through the fields. He didn't know about the fallback order. He just wanted to be safe. He circumvented the city entirely and then ran south towards where he thought the ships would be. They were already in the air. He fired a short burst from his blast rifle in their direction in the hope of signaling them, to no avail.
He fell to his knees and let his head slump down. His thoughts raced between the facts, that it would likely be at least a year before Fleet returned to Amber, and that meant he would be in hostile territory for a year. He thought back to a map he'd studied of the area. The city sat atop a plateau of sorts, more of a large flat depression really. To its east, an ancient river cut out a canyon in solid rock. To the west, the map had shown jungle. To the north the plain stretched out almost indefinitely.
South seemed to be his only option. It would be plains for a while then turn into forest for a kilometer or so, then into rocky hills. The rocky hills would have caves. Jack could likely survive in those caves for a year. He stood up and got his bearings then started to run to the south.
Jack read up on Amber on the trip there, standard procedure for Fleet personnel. Large white bears roamed the mountains, and they would attack people. Large felines lived everywhere, and the researchers claimed the cats possessed a nearly Human level of intelligence. In the summertime two varieties of poisonous snakes would be active, one had red and black markings, and Jack forgot the color of the other one, maybe green.
Game should be plentiful in the jungle and forest regions. The majority of the native plants should be edible. Winter would be harsh but short-lived. Jack went through all of this in his mind as he ran towards the jungle region and the hills farther on. He ran for kilometer after kilometer, and the wheat field turned into a plain of wild grasses and flowers.
Another kilometer running and he ran into a stream, and then the trees started. He slowed his pace to a solid march, checking behind himself with the zoom sights on his blast rifle every so often. The jungle lasted about three kilometers, and then the ground turned to solid rock. Perfect, no way they could follow his trail across solid rock.
He marched into the hills, looking for a good-sized cave. He noticed one with an entrance as tall as him. He entered it and flipped the flashlight on his blast rifle on. He'd never heard of a flashlight on a blast rifle running out of battery power. It recharged when the weapon fired. A growl sounded in the cave, and he moved the light around. There were a pair of eyes and the biggest cat he had ever seen, at least two meters from head to rump. Jack started backing away, out of the cave. The cat continued to growl but didn't follow him.
Jack kept moving south looking for another cave. He found a stream and followed that west for a while. He ran across a cave and ventured into it. It curved into a hillside and opened up to a fair sized room. He didn't find another cat, although he did find a bone pile in one corner of the cave. He figured it would make for a good homestead, with ready access to water, too. He thought back to his research on Amber, and the colonists all had to take immunizations because of microorganisms in the water. Fleet didn't give Jack a shot because Fleet literally didn't have any of the shots.
Jack figured he needed to try the water, and he needed it after that run. He went to the creek and took a long draught, which tasted fine, crystal clear even. He realized he could use some food, too, and he had a "just-in-case" food-bar, but he wanted to try the local plants. He took off in a run to the north, back to the jungle region. Roughly half the trees he'd seen in his march through the jungle bore either fruits or nuts. Jack filled up the top half of his jumpsuit with fruits and filled his pockets up with nuts. He figured the nuts would taste better roasted, but he had no way to roast them even if he had a fire.
He made it back to his cave easily enough. He just ran until he hit the stream and guessed which direction to follow, and it led him back to the waterfall and the cave. That's when his stomach started cramping. He went into the cave to hide in case the Lithor sent out patrols, removed the fruits and nuts from his jumpsuit, and proceeded to curl up in a ball on the ground in pain from the stomach cramps. The water might as well as have been poison.
* * *
Within a week or so the stomach cramps went away, and Jack could venture farther from his cave. The fruits and nuts he ate seemed a healthy enough diet, but he wanted fire and meat. He started simply by stockpiling dead tree branches, large and small. He hauled them from the jungle region to his cave and made a pile inside. The jungle teemed with large flightless birds and wild pig looking critters. He wanted to shoot one and cook it, but without fire, it wouldn't do any good. By the fourth day of gathering dead wood, he decided it would be enough to start a fire. He didn't realize it, but he stockpiled enough for ten or fifteen fires.
He started pulling dead leaves off a branch and made a pile of them then he stacked a pile of sticks on top of the leaves. He removed the flint from his knife and replaced the steel cap on the end. He struck the flint against the steel, casting sparks onto the leaves. He did this a number of times. The leaves didn't catch fire. 'Hmmm,' he thought. Jack stripped bark off one of the tree limbs and tried throwing sparks at the bark. He tried bark from a different kind of tree, and that didn't work either.
He pondered what to do. He tried another tree bark, a white bark this time. The bark came off like paper and stuck to his hands it had so much sap in it. He rolled the mess of bark into a ball and placed it under his stack of sticks. He threw sparks at it, and it burst into a clean blue flame. Jack smiled. The sticks caught fire easily enough, and Jack singled out the branches that caught fire with just a spark and set them aside. He broke up some of the big branches and started a raging fire.
He left the cave in search of an animal to kill and slaughter. He came across one of the flightless birds first. Shooting it with the blast rifle, he dragged the carcass back to the cave. He butchered it downstream from his home. He put breast meat onto sticks and held them over the fire. Once they looked done, he ate them, and they tasted good. They could have used some barbeque sauce, but for in the wild, he had done ok. He tried cooking up a leg and a wing next. They turned out pretty good, too.
* * *
He started spending the early morning hours spying on the Lithor, and their farming efforts. The typical farming effort would be four or five Humans to each armed Lithor guard, plus heavy machinery they would need for whatever they farmed that day. Orchards covered the Eastern side of the city, fields of grain on the other sides. Jack made sure he never went within two or three kilometers of the Lithor, and he used his sights to see them. He had a mission, survival, stirring up trouble with the Lithor wouldn't help him survive. He also had an obligation, as a soldier in enemy territory: to interfere with supply lines, to intercept prisoners of war, and to generally cause mayhem.
Jack kept himself busy learning the plants and animals of Amber. He picked out which of his favorite fruits to keep stockpiled. He had a whole pig roasting over an open fire when the weirdest thing happened. A cat, one of the native cats, an adolescent one by his size, stepped into the light of the fire and stared at it as if pondering its nature. Jack said, "Hello. My name's Jack."
The cat did a, "Rawr!"
Jack smiled. The cat still had a lot of growing to do—with oversized paws and a striped face with yellow and black stripes running down its body. The cat moved in closer to the fire as if to smell it. Jack said, "No! Be careful!"
The cat stuck his nose in the fire anyway, and his whiskers burned. He cried out with a "Yelp!" and backed away from the blaze.
Jack said, "I said no…"
The cat moved slower to the fire again, not too close, but closer. He sniffed the roasting pig. He went to lick it. Jack growled. "No!"
The cat pulled his tongue bac
k in, sat down next to the fire, looked up into Jack's eyes and proceeded to bat his eyelids at Jack, as if begging. Jack wondered what would happen if he reached out and petted the creature, so he did. The cat started to purr, and Jack started to rub it behind the ears as well as on top of his head. The cat reached up one paw on Jack's arm and proceeded to gently claw Jack. The cat "Meow'd," more urgently this time.
Jack grinned at it and took his knife and cut a slice from the hind leg of the roasting pig. He set the piece of meat on a slate sheet that he used as a plate and said, "Let that cool first…
"Great, I'm talking to myself. Stupid cat doesn't understand me… It is nice to have somebody to talk to. I think I'll name you Jack, Junior.
"Well, Junior, go ahead, that meat is cooled off enough." Jack pointed to the slice of meat.
Junior snatched the meat up like lightning and purred as he chewed on it. The meat looked done to Jack, and he wanted to eat, too. He started carving on the roast pig, filling up two slate plates of food. Once the pig had been carved to just a carcass, Jack slid one of the plates of pork towards Junior. Jack said, "Go ahead," and the cat started to eat like a hungry, wild beast, growling between chewing.
After Jack and Junior had their fill of the wild pig, Junior walked over to Jack and bumped his head into Jack. He figured that meant more petting time. The cat did want to play a little rough at times. Jack would tell it, "no," and the cat would calm down.
Jack curled up in a ball on the floor of his cave, thankful for the companionship of the cat. Junior curled up next to the fire to go to sleep.
That morning Jack woke up and looked around for Junior. The cat left in the night. Jack didn't know why he expected anything else from the cat. Jack started out his morning routine. He blew on the coals from the fire last night and piled on a few sticks and branches. He didn't like using the special bark that caught fire with just a spark, so he tried to keep his fire burning. He walked out of his cave to the stream to wash his face and hands and to get a drink of water.
Jack finished with the stream and turned to go back in the cave when there came Junior from downstream, with soaked paws and carrying a big fish in his mouth. Jack smiled. "Hello, Junior!"
The cat nodded its head and then headed for the cave. Jack followed. Junior dropped the still flopping fish down next to the fire and then, "Meow."
Jack grabbed the fish and took it out to the stream to clean it. He stuck the fish on a stick and roasted it over the open flame. After ten or fifteen minutes, he pulled the fish out and put it on a piece of slate. He cut it in two and filleted the two halves. He handed half to Junior. The cat licked his lips after eating his portion. Jack's tasted good too--he might have to learn to fish. Junior ran off after they'd both eaten. Jack started out on a run to patrol Amber: his daily scouting mission.
As Jack spied on the Lithor, he noticed something creeping up behind him, and he turned and faced Junior, again with a still live fish in his mouth. They ran back to the cave, and Jack roasted the fish for Junior. He tried to give the whole fish to Junior this time, but the cat wouldn't have it. He ate half and pushed the remains back in Jack's direction. Jack smiled and ate his half.
* * *
A month passed, Junior stayed by Jack's side unless the cat went off fishing or hunting. Jack liked having the cat with him when he went scouting Amber, hard time for a Lithor to sneak up on Junior. Jack patrolled in the orchards that day. He saw a band of harvesters. Just five trucks, five Lithor guards and about twenty Humans, harvesting peaches.
The smell started to get to Jack, the smell of morning dew, the peaches. The harvest trucks might have been the same trucks used on Artemis, from a distance they looked the same. An image of Jack's father leaned up against the big wheel of one of those trucks flashed through Jack's mind. One of the Lithor smacked a Human female down to the ground. A familiar something clicked in Jack's mind, and the soldier in him took over.
He targeted the leftmost one first, right through the heart. Jack cut down the next one in line before his mark made any kind of move to defend himself. Jack's third in line had at least raised his weapon to his shoulder and shot back before being cut down. The fourth Lithor dove to the ground. Jack took aim and fired--another clean shot. The fifth and last Lithor turned and ran as Jack shot him in the back.
Jack looked down at Junior. "That's how it's done."
The cat looked back at him with the widest eyes Jack had ever seen on the cat. Maybe terror, maybe glee he saw.
Jack slung his rifle across his back and started sprinting to where the Humans hid behind trees and behind the trucks. He shouted to them, "Were there just the five of them?"
One of the women shouted back, "Yes."
"Ok everybody, listen up. We can't stay here. They'll come looking, so we have to run, strip their bodies of anything useful, especially their laser rifles and ammo; knives too."
A woman in her thirties asked, "How large is your force, Sergeant?"
"Just me and the cat I'm afraid, ma'am."
"And why exactly did you rescue us? What are we supposed to do now?"
Jack thought it through for a second--he didn't really have a good reason besides wanting those Lithor dead. He figured he'd be diplomatic. "Well, I've been living quite comfortably in the hills for some time. I thought maybe you would enjoy some freedom. You can go back to the Lithor…"
One of the guys holding a laser rifle like he planned on keeping it spoke up, "I'm with you, Sergeant. Lead the way."
Jack looked at them. Four men held laser rifles, and a woman gripped the last rifle with white knuckles. Jack turned and took off in a slow run to the east, towards the rocky canyon that led back to the jungle in the south and the caves. At the edge of the orchard, Jack stopped. His entourage fell to their knees or just collapsed on the ground. One of the few that didn't collapse walked up to Jack and said, "You're running us too hard, Sergeant."
"We can slow down some when we reach the canyon. What's your name?"
"Robert, but everybody calls me Rob." He had brown hair and a scraggly beard like it wouldn't grow in until later. His hair was a mess, and his clothes were dirty, but that could be said of all the Humans, easily.
"Everybody take a break," Jack said. "Pick some fruit and eat it, not too much though. We'll have meat tonight."
As they waited, Rob asked, "You tamed one of the wild cats?"
"I don't know if I tamed him or the other way around really. He's very spoiled: likes his fish cooked."
"The scientists that founded Amber claimed to high heavens that they're as smart as Humans, just lack the physical ability to communicate with sound or written language."
Jack reached over and petted the feline. "He communicates just fine, Rob. Eat some fruit like the others are before we start on the run again."
Junior growled at Rob at that point. A kind of friendly growl like the cat was thinking these new Humans' job in life would be petting him. Rob went to pick a piece of fruit and eat it.
Night fell before they reached Jack's cave. He bagged one of the full grown flightless birds and stoked the coals of his fire. It might as well have been a great feast for the rescued prisoners. They hadn't eaten meat in years. Twenty wouldn't fit in Jack's cave so he split them into groups of 4, one laser rifle per group, and sent them out to find caves for themselves. Jack explicitly told them, if they hear a growl, exit the cave. Do not under any circumstances, shoot one of the giant cats.
* * *
The five with laser rifles took turns with Jack each day scouting the Lithor activity. The Lithor didn't beef up their harvesting operations. They still used smaller groups of twenty Humans with only five Lithor guards. Jack called together a town meeting. Well, he told Rob to go round everybody up.
They met outside of Jack's cave. Jack wanted to call a vote. He started simply, "The Lithor are still sending out smaller harvesting patrols. We could easily free another 20 Humans. What are your guy's thoughts on this?"
One of the girls
, Sarah, immediately spoke up, "Go get them." She had kind of a dirty blond hair that was a mix of golden yellow and brown. It was cut short, like it had been hacked at with a knife, which it likely had. She was about as thin in the waist as one of Jack's legs.
The woman, who had initially questioned why Jack had freed them, added, "Do it. These hills will house more than just us."
Everybody nodded or grunted their approval. Jack looked around and asked, "Ok, I need two men with laser rifles to go with me tomorrow."
Sarah, who happened to have adopted a laser rifle some time ago, said, "I'll go."
Rob said, "I'll go, too."
Jack nodded at them. He taught them Fleet skills when they went on patrol, and they could be trusted in a fight.
The orchards made for the best ambush location. Sarah took the right side, and Rob took the left. Jack specifically ordered them to kill the Lithor on their side. Jack would fire first to start the party; he lined up three targets. He fired on the center Lithor. Sarah and Rob opened fire as well. Jack only killed two. Sarah bagged two, and Rob got his.
They sprinted up to where the Humans waited. One of them said, "The Lithor, they told us if you freed any more Humans there would be major reprisals. That they'd hunt us all down and kill us. You fool."
Jack ignored the comment. "Those of you who are coming with us pick up their weapons. Those of you who want to go back to the Lithor, be my guest."
One of the men stripping the Lithor of anything useful growled. "I'd rather be hunted down and killed then go back to the slave pens."
"We live well in the caves," Sarah said. "We have meat. We have some small pleasures."
Another of the new "refugees" added, "We'll all go with you, Sergeant. Just beware, the Lithor did warn us not to join you. That you'll be hunted down and killed."
* * *
The very next day Jack went on his morning patrol, and he wanted to check on the south side of the city. The Lithor should have figured that Jack's encampment started on the south side. Jack saw definite troop movement. A big tank, with a Kilken tied down to its front, 20 Lithor on both sides of the big tank, marching. The Kilken had his head down, so Jack couldn't see his face. Jack ran back to his cave and sent Rob and Junior to gather up everybody with rifles. They knew if Junior came running that Jack needed their support.
R.A.E.C.E. Genesis Page 17