The grid map had been downloaded from Özgür, their Turkish guide, who had met them at the Turkish-Georgia border. He had hastily downloaded the complete geolocation maps of most of Anatolia to all the expedition members, and then quickly marked all the rendezvous points on them. No one in the expedition team should get lost as long as they followed the maps and stuck to the plan.
Rashid was thankful that neural implants was one piece of technology that the aliens had not been able to take away from humans. The neural implants ran on the blood glucose of the body, and was embedded under the epidermis. It was a mini computer that was always available to whoever was implanted with it. With the short-range networking capability of this minicomputer, two humans could network, exchange data or even collaboratively increase their computational power with the right programming.
With no access to networked computer, and the Internet infrastructure having gone down long ago, humans had increasing turned towards this embedded minicomputer for performing tasks, which they had either forgotten to do without computers or would simply have not been possible to do manually. Unfortunately, a whole new generation of humans was growing up, who would have no access to the neural implant. Chuck was probably the last of a generation which got theirs before the aliens invaded.
They were heading towards the hills which were surrounded by weird looking rock formations that were shaped like mushroom towers. Through those rock formation, and into a crevasse in the mountains was the point marked as ‘Delta’ in his map grid. This was the rendezvous point, where they hoped to meet up with the rest of the expedition team. Sarge glanced back and noticed that Chuck was falling behind. “Come on son. We are almost there, less than a kilometer. Pick up pace now, we should be there in a few minutes. We need to give the next guys a few more minutes of lead to be able to change.” The prospect of a finish to this grueling ordeal put an extra spring in Chuck’s step and he picked up pace.
Sarge didn’t expect to see the crevasse until he was right next to it, so he just followed the map grid in his head. He was right. He almost went past the crevasse. If he hadn’t been looking for it, he would have almost certainly missed it. The place had been chosen by Özgür for exactly that property, as it had been by countless humans over the centuries who had taken refuge in this harsh landscape. Most of their rendezvous points had been natural or human carved caves into the soft limestone face of the hills where Christian monks, scared villagers, and political refugees had over the centuries hidden. These were places designed not to be found.
As they entered the cave, they found four humans waiting for them. Two were stripped to their underwear. All four of them were sitting crouched in the knee-deep pool, with only their heads sticking out of the water. The moment Sarge and Chuck entered the cave, the two stripped humans stood up. Despite his tiredness, Chuck couldn’t help but give a gaping stare at the stunning figure of the partially blond woman who stood in the state of undress. She in turn couldn’t help but giggle at Chuck’s reaction.
“If you have stopped gaping, could you please be quick and remove your coveralls.” Dr. Dana Çalık said to the youngest member of their expedition team. Chuck was embarrassed. His cheeks were flush red from the exertion in the sun, but they turned redder. He quickly started removing his coverall, which gave him the excuse to look in another direction.
“Doc, you are sure you want to do this?” Lt. Hanks asked her.
“Don’t tell me that you are going all chivalrous and protective on me?! That is so twentieth century Kyle!” Dana exclaimed. Her slight German accent coming through in her protestation.
“No, it is not that doc! You know it. You are the reason we are going to Istanbul. It is not a smart move to put your primary objective at risk in an untested maneuver.” Lt. Kyle Hanks retorted.
“Aha! So now I am just an objective – a mission for you to accomplish, not a member of your team?! I think I prefer the twentieth century chivalry! At least a girl gets pampered!” Dana said with a mock hurt in her tone.
“Damn it Doc! You know exactly what I mean. Why the hell do you have to be this obdurate all the time?” Lt. Hanks protested. In his agitation he stood up from his sitting position, where he was immersed neck deep in water.
“Get back under the water Kyle. We don’t want too many of your sweat molecules floating in the air. That goes for you two as well. Both of you are freely sweating, and must be stinking like hell. All of us will be doomed if the demons’ machine sniffs this cave out because of your odor molecules. Get into the water quickly.” Dana ordered Rashid and Chuck, who had finished undressing and were now in their underwear. Dana had picked up Rashid’s coverall because Rashid was smaller and wearing a small coverall, while Özgür picked up Chuck’s coverall, since both were tall.
Dana and Özgür didn’t hang around. The moment they had put on the coveralls discarded by the previous two runners, they were out of the cave. On the way out, Dana turned and said to Kyle with a smile. “I know exactly what you mean lieutenant, but I just can’t resist needling you. Don’t worry, I will be just fine. I can run – trust me, and I know my limitation as well. I am not a fanatic feminist who insists on proving a point. I know the running capacity of an average female compared to that of an average male, and I will play this game accordingly. I know you are a better runner than me lieutenant, but I am fresh, and you have already done one round. Wish us luck!” Then she was gone.
The four men sitting in neck deep water could hear Özgür and Dana speaking to each other loudly outside the cave, as they started off on their run. The demons may have lousy sense of smell forcing them to depend on machines, but they had a fantastic sense of hearing, probably more acute than that of a dog.
The way Dana and Özgür were shouting and talking to each other, the demons were sure to hear them from miles away – at least that was the hope. The four men inside the cave waited with their hearts in their mouths hoping and praying that the demons would pick up the scent and the sound of Özgür and Dana. It had worked once before at the first changeover, when Sgt. White and Chuck had relieved Lt. Hanks and Pvt. Perez.
The doc’s theory was that the demons hadn’t become completely land adapted in their evolutionary journey. As a result, they don’t have a well-developed olfactory sense. They probably can taste even a few molecules of blood in water just like a shark, but on land have a hard time tracking scent wafting in the air. The demons have been reported to use sensors to detect smell to help them track prey, just like human marine biologists use sensors to taste the water to track fish. The thing about using machines to track, is that it is not intuitive. One misses all the subtleties that one’s natural senses can detect. Sensor detection works on aggregates. Whichever direction provides the strongest signals is the direction that the sensor points towards.
That was the theory and the hope of the humans, who were finding themselves in the unfamiliar role of prey for the first time since their ancestors walked the grasslands of Africa couple of millions of years ago. The cave in which the four US Marines were hiding was bat infested, and the stench of guano bat dropping was overwhelming. It should mask the smell of four humans almost completely submerged in water, even for a machine sensor, and instead point the direction towards the two runners whose coverall would be emanating a strong smell by now.
The chemical signature emanating from the coverall of the two runners would register as the same as what the sensors had been tracking all along, and hopefully that should be enough for the sensors to lead the demons towards the runners rather than towards the cave where the four men were hiding. If that didn’t happen, and somehow the demons’ detectors followed the trail of the scent molecules into the cave, then the four would be slaughtered within seconds.
“So, what made you walk all the way from Germany Doc? If you don’t mind my asking.” Özgür started small talk as the two of them settled into a rhythm after the initial tense moments when they needed to let the demons come close enough so that their scent
was picked up, but not so close as to be caught. The demons had taken their bait, and now after having put some distance between themselves and the demons, the two were a bit relaxed.
“We didn’t come from Germany. We were stationed in Mariupol in Southern Ukraine. We were part of the permanent international observation and peacekeeping force that is stationed on the border with Russia, when the demons invaded Earth. I was supposed to be visiting the NATO garrison out there for just three months to make a report for the military. That was over three years ago! Might as well have been a lifetime ago! All our lives have come to a hold, we are all stuck wherever we were on the day of the invasion!” Dana said, longing to get back home. Longing to know what happened to her parents and her brother. She had heard from the military grapevine, that Leipzig had been particularly badly hit. Information and communication had been one of the first casualties of the demon invasion. A generation of humans used to being able to connect directly to any other human with just a thought were now totally disconnected, unaware of what may be happening in the next village.
“What kind of report were you making, Doc? If you don’t mind my asking.” Özgür persisted.
“Well… technically I should mind you asking Özgür.” Dana said with a smile as she turned towards the tall and well-built Turk running along with her. “My work was supposed to be classified and sort of secret, you know. But now those silly secrecy and those petty fights we humans had within ourselves look so meaningless. I guess it no longer matters. The government I was working for has disintegrated, the military for which I was making the report is on the verge of collapse. I guess if we humans survive this invasion, and that is a big if, then none of the old order is going to survive. So, what the hell, I will tell you Özgür.
“The western governments suspected that the Russians were involved in insidious biological warfare on the West Ukrainians. The suspicion was that they had supplied the East Ukrainians with biological agents that worked at the genetic level. These agents would use benign viruses as vectors to deliver the rogue DNA strands into the victims’ bodies. These DNA strands would then get to work on the victims’ bodies causing various forms of cancer. It was suspected that East Ukrainians were infiltrating into hospitals on the West Ukrainian side to infect their victims in the west. I was studying DNA samples of reported cancer patients taken from hospitals in Mariupol, where there has been an abnormally large incidence of cancer in the population.”
“Ahh… I get it! You are doctor. That is why the Sayyid wants you to come to Istanbul, to help with the wounded.” Özgür exclaimed in realization. “I was wondering why the Sayyid was expending so much of our stretched resources to get you from Europe.”
“Well, I am not exactly the kind of doctor you have in mind, but close. I am not a practicing doctor of medicine, although I do have a license and a degree to practice if I wished to do that. I am a geneticist. I study DNA and its overall effects on the body. I research and teach genetic mutations and its effects at the University of Leipzig. Rather I should say I used to do that, in what seems like another life… and to answer your question, your Sayyid Chinggis invited me to study the demons, not to treat your wounded. Although I would be happy to help, to whatever extent I can.” Dana replied.
“How did the Sayyid find you? How did he know that there is a DNA expert in the war zone between the two Ukraines? It is impossible to get in touch with anyone these days. I have no contact with my family in Izmir and it is only a few hundred kilometers from Istanbul. All lines to everywhere have been cut by the demons.” Özgür asked skeptically.
“Not all lines have been cut. There are fiber optic lines laid over land which the demons haven’t found out yet. There is a NATO hot-line that goes over land from Istanbul all the way to the front-lines on the Ukrainian border. Since it is a dedicated line with no repeater, the fiber optic line does not emit any electromagnetic radiation. The demons haven’t discovered it yet. And it wasn’t your Sayyid who found me. It was me who found your Sayyid. He is a distant cousin of mine.” Dana replied with a smile.
“You are Türkiye?!” Özgür asked, surprised.
“I am of Turkish descent, whose forefathers immigrated to Germany many generations ago. We have kept in touch with our extended family in Turkey, and I met Chinggis just before the invasion, when he had visited the NATO peacekeeping force where I was stationed. He was on inspection tour at that time, and we had reconnected then. I had been desperate to talk to someone in my family. Since I couldn’t talk to anyone at my home in Leipzig, and I knew that the hot-line to Istanbul was still operational, I took a chance to see if I could at least talk to Chinggis. I know that he used to be some big shot in the Turkish Army, so if he was alive, someone would know his whereabouts.” Dana said.
“The Sayyid was not just the commandant of the Türkiye Army, he is also the bravest commander you will ever meet. We all fight for him. When he is fighting alongside us, we are not afraid of the demons. The Sayyid is as smart and cunning as he is brave. You will see when we reach Istanbul. He must have killed more demons than any other human has, which unfortunately is not saying much.” Özgür said despondently. “Too few demons have died at human hands, and too many of us have died at their claws.” Then Özgür looked behind and said. “We better pick up the pace if we don’t want to become the demons’ next casualty.”
–XXX–
Fast Current couldn’t believe that she had become a casualty to the very dangers that she had trained and warned all her novice hunters about – dehydration! How had things come to this?! Oh well – she knew how things had come to such a precarious situation. She and her sister had gotten sloppy and screwed up big time. They had broken all rules of the hunt. If she had caught one of her novices indulging in the act that she and her sister had done, she would have had one of their pincers clipped or put that novice on a full rotation of space watch duty as a measure of punishment.
Most would have preferred the clipping of a pincer as a punishment over a rotation of space watch. Pincers grow back, especially with regenerative treatment applied. One only had to endure the immediate pain of losing the part of the limb. In this target rich world of relatively weak prey, one could still hunt without the use of one of the pincers and have fun. Being put on space watch for a whole rotation would mean going back to space and spending the whole time in the drab and dull environment of the Hunting Shell – Ravenous, with nothing to do but monitor the sensing stations and file endless reports. Almost all the Bodars currently in space on the Hunting Shell on duty were there as punishment for some or the other misdemeanor. No one wanted to stand watch in space where nothing is happening, while a rich hunting ground existed below in this planet.
At that moment though, Fast Current and her sister would happily swap places with any of her fellow Bodar in space to get out of the quandary she had put herself and her sister in, due to their sheer stupidity and impulsiveness. The two of them had been happily hunting in the shallow waters on a reef they had discovered on a previous hunt. This reef was far away from their main base, and hence hadn’t been discovered by too many of her fellow Bodars. The reef didn’t have too many large sharks or large hunting game, but had plenty of smaller sharks and other delightful prey like dolphins which were both a pleasure and a challenge to hunt. Fast Current and her sister enjoyed such a hunt in a secluded place without having to jostle with other hunters for space.
Things had been proceeding pleasurably enough, when they heard the squealing and screaming of an animal that all Bodars on this planet had come to recognize. The sound was coming through the shallow water from above the surface. It was the sound of the young of the human animals. The humans had a different name for their young, they called them children. These young were usually tiny scrawny creatures even more pathetic than their adult versions. Normally a Bodar didn’t bother with these pathetic little creatures. They were very poor subjects to hunt. Fast Current and her sister were however interested in those sounds for a
different reason. Where there are human young, usually there were human adults. These humans took care of their young in small units called family, and the young stayed with the adults till maturity.
There were no human settlements listed in this part of the beach as per her display, which she brought up into her consciousness via the situational awareness combat computer embedded under her shell. The Lord of the Hunt had placed strict quota on the hunt of human game on this planet. There would be no repeat of the situation that had unfolded in their hunt on the previous planet the Ravenous had stopped, where they had hunted the extant species to extinction quickly in a frenzy of uncontrolled hunts.
The Lord of the Hunt had decided that this planet was to be preserved as a game reserve and a pleasure planet like Ixia and Groth. The Hunt Leaders strictly enforced hunting quotas for hunting humans. Hunting quotas had also been imposed for most land based wild animals, since they were too few in numbers. It seems that the human animal had hunted most other land animals either to extinction or to the verge of extinction. The humans were hunters too, which provided the Bodars with that extra element of thrill while hunting humans, since they were hunting a skilled hunter.
There were very few restrictions on hunting sea animals. The humans were not a marine species and weren’t particularly comfortable under water, although they could enter shallow waters for very short periods of time. As a result, they had left the marine environment in a relatively pristine condition. There were a few marine animals on the Bodar restricted list as well, which the Lord of the Hunt wanted to preserve as a showcase and for special occasion hunts, like the animal the humans called a Blue Whale.
Game Reserve: Earth (Shaitan Wars Book 5) Page 3