***
In the previous night’s escape, Gar had followed on foot while Chase piloted the fighting machine several miles overland from the ranch house to a hiding place Kit suggested. They had hidden deep in the scrub-brush of a gully where neither Kra nor humans were likely to find them. They had listened through the night as the sounds of battle faded on the far side of the ranch.
In the morning Gar made it clear by means of pidgin English and Kra-naga that he still intended to make peace between humans and Kra, no matter what the cost. For several hours, he tinkered with a spare kekuah cylinder retrieved from a hatch in the rear of the fighter, using his box of odd tools. Working with some bits of electronic gadgetry he cannibalized from inside his machine he puttered, hour upon hour, with what looked like an odd collection of spare parts. Chase tired of waiting with nothing to do. “What’s he up to?” he asked Kit, who sat on the ground watching Gar work. “Repairing the laser?”
“Not exactly,” she said. “He tried to explain but I’m not as good at Kra-naga as Dr. Ogilvey. It’s something he calls vonv.”
“Vonv?” Chase puzzled. “What’s that mean?”
She shrugged. “Got me.”
Gar decided to show them rather than tell. He held up the product of his labor for their inspection. The kekuah cylinder now had several wires and a small metal box attached to it.
“Ah-hah!” said Kit. “A bomb!”
Gar nodded affirmatively. “Vonv,” he repeated through his fangs.
Kit smiled at Chase. “His teeth are getting in the way. It isn’t a Kra word. It’s English.”
Within another hour Gar’s device was operational. The tube of kekuah powder came to be swathed in colored wires and the box had a display window glowing with strange red symbols. In pantomime, Gar explained it was a timer that could be set in motion by a radio signal from his quahka. A button on the box’s side, he explained, would illuminate a small green light that indicated the bomb had been placed and was ready. Pointing at Chase’s wristwatch, he indicated that, once his radio signal had set the timer running, the digital numbers would decline and they would have a period of about ten minutes to escape.
“But what do we do with it?” Chase asked.
“I gonna show you,” said Gar. Climbing into his fighting machine and leaving the cockpit canopy open, he motioned for them to follow him out of the gully. They made their way onto the switchback road leading to the upper prairie and Arran Kra. As they walked, Gar explained his plans and suggested, to dispel the suspicions of any Kra they might meet, that Kit and Chase walk in front of the quahka as if they were his captives. This was a wise precaution. As they came around the last turn leading onto the prairie they met two Kra who had dismounted from their fighting machines and were squatting in the shade of a pine tree. Both Kra stood and raised their tintza rifles as the party approached. Chase reached out to squeeze Kit’s hand. “I hope Gar knows what he’s doing.”
“Me too,” she whispered nervously.
“Leenkoo!” shouted Gar.
“That means halt,” Kit whispered. They stopped with Gar overlooking them from his machine. The sentries eyed Kit and Chase with great interest. They had been sitting among the remains of a bloody meal. Dozens of gnawed pink bones were scattered on the ground, buzzing with flies. Nearby in the dust was a more disturbing sight: a pile of blood-soaked military fatigues and a discarded Army helmet. There was no escaping what the Kra had feasted on. “So that’s how they clean up after a battle,” Chase whispered to Kit. “They eat what’s left of the enemy.”
The sentries kept their rifles leveled at Chase and Kit until Gar hailed them with a Kra greeting. “Zootahn!” Chase recalled hearing it among the words Dr. Ogilvey had translated. Comrades, or something like that.
“Ick toto leetook,” Gar went on, and the words had a surprising effect on the sentries. They lowered their weapons and fixed their eyes rapaciously on Kit and himself.
“Do you know what he just said to them?” Chase asked Kit nervously.
“Huh-uh. He said he’s brought them more food!”
Chase looked up at Gar for a moment, wondering if the sincerity of the last three days had all been for show. The sentries approached until he could smell their fetid breath. Then Gar leveled the laser arm and fired two quick blasts. Both Kra dropped to the ground thrashing in their death throes. Each had a smoking hole in its chest.
Acting according to plan, Chase quickly mounted one of the Kra machines and Kit followed, settling in behind him as he snapped the canopy down. Gar lowered the canopy of his own fighter and moved off toward Arran Kra with Chase tailing him in their new prize. “Okay,” Chase muttered. “That was the easy part.”
On the prairie Gar sped his fighter to a swift run and Chase followed him closely. They headed for the left-hand tunnel of the citadel, dodging around the burnt hulks of tanks and fighting machines that littered the battlefield.
“I hope this works,” Chase murmured. “Otherwise we’re gonna end up like these guys.” They passed one final smoldering tank and then were at the portal. They slowed to a walk as they neared two Kra sentries who lolled confidently beside their machines. Gar raised his machine’s right arm in a salute as he walked past them into the opening. They responded with lazy salutes of their own.
It was Chase’s turn to pass their scrutiny next. With only the dark tint of the canopy to shield him, he crouched low and Kit bent down too, lessening the chance the guards would spot them through the shadowy cover. When Chase raised the machine’s right arm as Gar had, the guards returned his salute without looking them over closely.
“Whew,” he wheezed as they moved into the tunnel entrance. “A shoot-out now wouldn’t get us anything.”
“Except dead,” Kit murmured. She shuddered against his back and clasped her arms around him more tightly. He accelerated the machine a little, caught up with Gar and followed him into the gloom of the catacombs.
Dinosaur Wars: Earthfall Page 60