Let Slip the Pups of War: Spot and Smudge - Book Three

by Robert Udulutch

  The wall sparked right above Aila’s head and she yanked her arm back, dropping her rifle. She cradled a bloody hand and slid down against the wall as she faced her husband.

  They stared at each other as another barrage sprayed chunks from the top of the wall and rained down chips on them. Dan smiled, picked up his wife’s rifle and pointed both guns over the wall, sending another stream of bullets downrange as Aila yanked a bandage from her backpack and quickly wrapped up her hand.

  Both rifles clicked empty and the former accountant dropped back down next to his wife. He spun to look at the burning ranch house, and leaned back to see the fires burning at the compound across the valley.

  “How are you enjoying your vacation so far, my love?” Dan said over the pops and snaps hitting the other side of the wall as he pulled out his last clip. Aila rummaged in her bag but she didn’t have any ammo left. She said, “It’s a little noisy, and I’m afraid my drink’s empty.”

  Dan slammed in the clip and pulled back the charger to chamber a round. As a big chunk of stucco dropped onto his foot from their side of the wall he leaned close to her and said, “I’ll have a word with the management. Let’s go.”

  She nodded and got her feet under her as another round of sustained fire thumped against the wall.

  The boma was only partially protected by the curved wall. They were facing a twenty meter dash through hell to reach the end of the patio, and then a steep drop that led to a thicket of thorny acacia.

  Aila smiled and said, “This is going to sting.” She cradled her hand, got ready to run, and said, “Love you.”

  Dan nodded, and as they turned to bolt they heard a bark from the back of the boma.

  Rook was coming full steam. The big boerboel’s black face and flopping jowls appeared through the smoke as he launched himself off the picnic table.

  They both stared as his stretched out body sailed over them. Before he disappeared over the wall they noticed his vest, and his helmet, and the flaming bursts that had started to shoot out from his front as a stream of hot, spent shell casings dropped on both of them.

  Aila brushed away the shells as Dan stood up with his assault rifle. He tried hard not to stare at the big brown police dog who had landed on the far side of the wall and was pissing accurate fire downrange from his swinging body.

  Semion watched the lack of progress at the ranch house on his tactical display and tightened his big fist around his control joystick. He zoomed out, watching his stalled cluster of human and canine soldiers lit up as green dots at the end of the ranch’s driveway. They were engaging a few barricaded red targets near the house from covered positions, but they were not advancing. He pounded on his window and thumbed his mic.

  “Komandy pyat I chetyre!” Semion said, and then waved an annoyed hand at Berluti who reminded him to speak in English. He took a breath and started again, “Teams five and four, why aren’t you pressing forward? Move!”

  Lobb responded curtly over the radio, “Sir, we’ve encountered a fair bit of coordinated resistance from the house and the west flank. The targets have significant firepower, again. It also seems their canines are using a modified version of our vests—”

  As if to punctuate his point Lobb was interrupted by gunfire and pinging metal strikes coming through his microphone, and they sounded very close. Lobb cursed, and then Semion heard a muffled thump.

  Semion heard Lobb’s canine partner let out a stream of barks and snarls, and a moment later her message scrolled across his display, …YES, AND I SAID TO STAY DOWN!...SIR, THEIR TARGETING IS MUCH FASTER, AND THEIR HITS-PER-SHOT PERCENTAGES APPEAR TO BE FAR HIGHER THAN OUR OWN, OVER.

  Semion’s face shook and he prepared to scream into the mic when he noticed a few large yellow dots creep into the bottom of his tactical display. More dots appeared, and an instant later there were dozens of fast moving yellow dots heading toward the rear of his soldiers from the watering hole valley.

  “Team four check your six,” Semion yelled, “Repeat, check your six…Look behind you!”

  Chapter 98

  Christa came to with Sholto licking her face. She shoved her dog’s furry muzzle away and rolled to her side, coughing as she sputtered, “Yeah, okay, I’m fine girl.”

  As her head cleared she slowly remembered what had happened.

  She had seen the first helo missile striking the ridge right in front of them, and Sholto darting away. Her dog ran along the ridgetop, stopping every few meters to return fire with her twin rotary guns. Sholto was drawing the chopper away from her, and it was working until several more choppers converged on them. The last thing Christa saw was the entire ridgeline blooming brightly in front of her.

  The smell of burning brush was thick in Christa’s nose and she drew a few long breaths through her shirt to clear her lungs. She sat up and rubbed at the sting in her eyes. The smoke was so thick she couldn’t see.

  Feeling around next to her in the dark she found the sniper rifle, ammo box, and her pack.

  She also felt a familiar weight missing and reached down to feel her legs. The plastic sockets that fit over her thighs were still in place but what had been the titanium knees joints were just warm, twisted stumps. Her shins and shoes were gone. She checked her bandaged neck and felt it was still secured. She was pretty sure her wound hadn’t opened, and then she realized if it had she wouldn’t have woken up to notice.

  The ground was cool under her but her clothes were hot. She could hear the snaps of the burning trees, and feel the heat coming from flames that were just a few meters away. Sholto must have pulled her away from the fires.

  From the compound below she heard a constant stream of weapons fire. Automatic weapons mixed with the deadly burping of the hellacious rotary cannons of the attack dogs.

  She felt Sholto’s face and said, “We gotta get out of this smoke, girl.”

  Christa started to pick up the heavy rifle but Sholto stepped on it, and nudged her muzzle into Christa’s hand. She slowly shook her head left to right.

  Christa paused, letting her hand rest on Sholto’s snout.

  The fact that Sholto had been accelerated came flooding back to her. That familiar whiplash feeling started all over again and she cursed those damn black pups.

  “We can’t see anything from here,” she said, “we gotta move.”

  Sholto paused, and slowly shook her head again. She moved forward and licked Christa’s burning eyes.

  Christa held the dog’s face close to hers. She pressed her lips to Sholto’s cheek and kissed her warm, ash covered fur. She said, “I got it. It’s just me who can’t see.”

  Sholto nodded.

  “Okay,” Christa said, “Well I’m getting pretty tired of losing my legs and having you drag me out of tough spots, but we don’t have much of a choice.”

  Sholto shook her head again.

  As more gunfire rang out and echoed around the valley below them Sholto drew back and took Christa’s hand in her mouth. She brought it down to the grip of the big sniper rifle.

  “Are you kidding me?” Christa said, “Just exactly how is that going to work?”

  Chapter 99

  Kelcy hid inside the rhino’s pen, watching over the low wall as two of Semion’s soldiers moved down the path from the burning clinic.

  The human and dog pair took turns covering each other as they advanced on the paddocks. Kelcy saw they were wearing the same gear as Ben and Tera, and the side panels on the dog soldier’s vest were open.

  As the canine soldier passed the first pen something crashed into the gate right next to him. He instinctively leap away, spun, targeted, and held his fire after seeing it was a little gray rhino calf. The human soldier shook his head and laughed. He booted the dog in the rear as he passed, animatedly stepping over the little trail of pee his partner had left.

  They moved to the next paddock and the big canine’s ears swiveled forward as he approached the low wall. He sniffed the air, stopped, and grumbled lowly to his human counterpart
. The man read his display, nodded, and raised his rifle.

  The big shepherd took a step back and leapt up onto the low wall. He leaned into the pen and saw the curve of a human’s back cowering in the corner. He jumped down into the paddock and could see the back belonged to a young female. She turned to face him, and as she started to raise her hands his display outlined her in flashing red.

  He wagged, and bit down on his mouth trigger.

  As the rotary cannons started to spin a meter long horn spiked into him from below and yanked him off his feet.

  Bullets streamed from the dog’s vest. They carved a trail into the wall just above Kelcy’s and continued spraying up in an arc.

  Impaled on the rhino’s horn, the dog shook violently and kicked the air with his legs. His flailing drove the sharp horn further into his body.

  The rhino turned, lifted the dog above the wall, and pointed the vest’s flaming guns at the soldier. The man dove off the walkway as everything around him exploded in chips and sparks.

  The dog went slack as the point of the rhino’s huge horn slid out through the top of his neck. His mouth opened and his tongue lolled out, and the gun vest stopped spitting bullets.

  The human soldier sprung to his feet and raised his rifle at the rhino, picking a spot between its staring eyes for a target. A second rhino charged from the rear of the paddock and crashed into the thick wall, bellowing and stomping as it tried to jump over it. It’s front feet scrambled along the top of the wall for a moment before it fell back into the pen in a heap.

  Realizing neither of the huffing beasts could get to him the soldier called out, “Show yourself now or they both die.”

  Kelcy raised her hands. As she slowly stood up the rhinos trotted along the wall until they converged on her, and nudged her away from the wall. She fell hard on her backside as they put their bulk between her and the soldier.

  The frustrated soldier leaned into his rifle and aimed at the forehead of the bigger rhino.

  Fulfort shot from the shadows of the brush behind the soldier. In one move the young father grabbed the rifle, twisted his body against the bigger man, and tossed him over his shoulder just as Dan had taught him. The surprised soldier recovered quickly and kicked away from Fulfort. He got to his feet and pulled his sidearm, but before he could aim a hand appeared on the side of his neck and a knife was buried deep into his skull just behind his opposite ear. Fisho had used one of the rear-attack moves he’d seen Nikki teach the rangers, and he finished it with a quick twist that turned the soldier off like a light switch.

  When Kelcy heard a yelp and a thump she shoved between the rhinos and looked over the wall. The father and son poachers were standing over the body of the soldier, smiling big white smiles at her. She leaned over the wall and opened her arms to pull the men into a big hug.

  “Thank you,” she whispered as she kissed each of them on the cheek.

  She turned when the big male rhino came up next to her and used the top of the paddock wall to scrape the dog carcass off his horn. She patted the rhino’s snout, and motioned for him to raise his huge head high above her. She reached deep into one of his neck folds and yanked out the two needle-tipped, spring loaded syringes stuck into his carotid artery.

  She waved for the poachers to open the pen gate as she pulled out two more of the empty vials from under the female rhino’s neck.

  Kelcy ran out of the paddock with the rhinos following her. She held up a hand to stop them, grabbed the points of their horns, and looked into their smart eyes.

  She said, “Go. Protect the humans and dogs that have been protecting you.”

  The beasts snorted, nodded, and turned. She smacked them on their rears as they crashed away into the brush towards the sounds of gunfire.

  Chapter 100

  The flaming boma roof crashed down, showering sparks and burning bits of thatch behind the running Dan and Aila. Rook’s charge had pushed the attackers back far enough for the parents to escape the boma wall and move behind the large planter boxes near the house.

  As Seamus and the police dogs pinned down the soldiers at the far end of the driveway the battle lines were temporarily frozen. The open ground of the driveway’s turn-around was a killing field and the guard or soldier who tried to advance immediately paid a heavy price.

  The fires around the ranch were spreading. The thick forest at the rear of the house was engulfed, and Dan saw the stalemate would end soon. They would be forced to push forward or risk picking their way down the steep slopes of burning jungle behind the house.

  Dan heard Seamus’ guns run dry, and the way Rook and Vuur were slinging lead he figured even their extra canisters had to almost be empty.

  He moved closer to Aila and raised his voice over the sporadic bursts of gunfire, “We can’t stay here. That farthest truck looks to be intact and if I can get to it maybe we could ram through.”

  Aila nodded just as Rook’s gun stopped and he jumped behind the safety of their planter. Dan moved around the big dog and prepared to run but Rook bit down on his backpack and held him back. The dog shook his big head at them, and then barked at his brother.

  Vuur stopped firing and leapt behind the planter next to Theo and Nikki.

  A moment later a sudden silence fell over the ranch as all of the soldiers at the far end of the driveway had stopped shooting as well.

  Seamus and both boerboels tipped their heads, and all of their ears turned forward. They started to wag in sync.

  Theo shrugged at Dan from behind his planter. When they peeked out they saw all of the soldiers were facing away. Semion’s human and dog soldiers were staring down into the dark forest of the watering hole valley.

  A huge, familiar bark rang out. Dan smiled as he saw several of the soldiers flinch and take a few steps backwards.

  The bark was followed by a string of quieter, singing barks that cascaded through the forest all around them.

  Rook pushed Dan and Aila towards the house. As they ran low behind the planters they saw the dog soldiers had started to fire down into the valley. A moment later the human soldiers joined them.

  Another round of barks came from the jungle, and then the ground started to shake.

  Thunder joined the shaking, and then the shaking turned into an earthquake.

  A Cape buffalo ran out of the thicket on the far side of the driveway. It was a huge bull male, and it slipped and skidded when its hoofs hit the cement. It bellowed as it was immediately cut down by a hail of bullets from the nearby dog soldiers.

  Twenty more buffalo charged from the bush, shoulder to shoulder with their heads lowered and their legs pounding. Behind them was a wall of black muscle and curved horns almost as wide as the parking area itself. The hundreds of heavy hoofs clattering onto the driveway sounded like an entire army had opened up with machine gun fire. As Dan and Aila ran into the house they watched the wall of buffalo crash into and then over the soldiers.

  The barks and yaps seemed to come from everywhere and were closing on the ranch, keeping the stampede funneled into a concentrated mass. Waves of the buffalo thundered up from the valley and flowed around the planters and flower beds as they crashed onto the driveway and trampled anything and anyone in their path.

  As Mimi waved the team into the house she saw a gigantic bull rush out of the smoke. It was being chased by a pair of colorful dogs that barely came up to its knees. It smash into three of the flanking dog soldiers while they tried to form ranks and fire on the herd. The bull’s two-meter wide rack of horns and anvil-like head hit them at a full run before they disappeared from sight behind a burning truck. When she saw the bull emerge on the far side there were only bits of gun vest and innards clinging to his red horns.

  Mimi motioned to the large kitchen table and Aila and Dan flipped it on its side and pushed it against the far wall of the kitchen.

  Faith yelled for her son as the thundering herd neared the house. Theo helped Nikki limp through the huge hole in the wall and pushed her over the table
seconds before the first buffalo came skidding into the kitchen. It slid across the tile floor and crashed into the counter, sending silverware and plates flying. A dozen more huge buffalo ran into the house just as the police dogs leapt over the table. Some of the buffalo were bleeding, and one calf’s mane was on fire. It slid to a stop in front of the table and Theo pounced on it. He beat out the flames before letting the little animal up to rejoin the herd.

  Another wave of buffalo charged into the house and knocked against the large kitchen table as the family braced its wobbling legs. The big black and gray beasts clogged the smoking hole in the wall for a moment until a huge bark came from behind them. The animals skittered and scrambled through the house, pushing and shoving until they filed back onto the driveway through a missing outside wall at the far side for the house.

  As the last buffalo fled the kitchen Smudge appeared on the front porch with a dozen wild painted dogs at her side. She wagged and let out a big, happy bark at the row of human and dog heads watching her from behind the battered kitchen table.

  Mimi stood up and pointed at Smudge as she yelled, “Good on you, my smart girl! Now go skelp the bloody hell out of the lot of them!” Mimi swatted the rumps of the police dogs next to her and shouted, “Go on you curs, earn your damn suppy!”

  Seamus and the boerboels leapt over the table and joined Smudge on the burning porch. The dogs darted off into the clouds of smoke and dust, running into the parting buffalo as a pack of yapping painted wild dogs fanned out on their flanks.

  Nikki slid over the table, ignoring her screaming hip as she limped to follow the dogs with the rest of the group right behind her.

  Chapter 101

  Christa quickly whispered in Sholto’s ear, “I can’t make the scope adjustments so you gotta use the reticle dots…I’m zeroed at four hundred meters…it’s a lot hotter here than back home so our round will strike high, and for windage—”