by J. L. Curtis
As he closed within a hundred yards, he started to see movement, but it was all close to the ground and very quick. He couldn’t pick out what was moving, but there appeared to be three, maybe four different sizes of things moving. He cautiously moved a little closer, and suddenly the barking changed to howling, and he saw something big rear up at the base of the falls. Whatever it was, that was the source of the desire to kill.
Fargo made an almost unconscious decision that whatever it was, it needed to die before it killed anything else. He moved in another few yards, and it reared again. Without even thinking, the rifle rose, he got a good holosight picture of something with six limbs and fired just as it twisted.
The roar cut off with a huff, and the entire tableau froze as the animal dropped. He started forward and sensed something in extreme pain directly in front of him. Glancing down, he saw a large wolf like form that was bleeding badly from a slash in its hip.
He projected friendship and calm as he glanced quickly at the falls, but the thing at the base of the falls hadn’t moved, so he knelt as close as he dared to the wolf and slipped off his go bag. Reaching in, he pulled out a clotting spray and said a quick prayer as he leaned closer.
The wolf bared its teeth at him and gave a half-hearted growl, but didn’t move. Fargo quickly sprayed the area with the clotting and antiseptic spray, and touched the wolf lightly, trying to see if there were other injuries. He almost jerked his hand back when he sensed more wolves. This was a female with pups, and she was near term.
He cursed under his breath and racked his brain for what else he could do. Remembering he had a tube of surgiseal, he reached back and got it, pulled the wolf’s pelt closed and applied the surgiseal to hold the wound closed. Lastly, he pulled out an auto injector and injected the wolf with enough nanos to hopefully keep her alive.
She sniffed the spray, and roughly licked his hand as he sank back on his knees. Looking up, he stiffened, he was surrounded by wolves, and what looked like mountain lions, with at least two bear-like beings sitting on the outside of the circle. Oh shit, what have I got myself into now? I’m dead meat. Shit… I can’t shoot them all. Hope they leave enough for Mikhail to… The circle parted and a huge mountain lion stalked toward the wolf, nuzzled her and licked the wound. It turned to Fargo and stared at him, then licked his face with a tongue that felt like rough sandpaper. Fargo was shocked to feel that the lion was also a female, and also had kits almost ready to be born.
Afraid to move, and projecting calm as hard as he could, he continued to sit there as one of the bears came through the circle of animals, and did the same thing. It also licked Fargo, knocking his NVG goggles off and whuffing as she breathed in his scent. The wolf got up slowly, and limped toward the object at the base of the falls, giving Fargo time to recover his NVG goggles and slip them back on.
He was amazed at what he saw. The limping wolf peed on the carcass, followed by the female mountain lion and the female bear. The three of them sat in a row and howled, yowled and roared together, and the others did the same almost in answer. Fargo slumped back in the grass, not sure what had happened, and not sure anyone would believe it if he told them.
The three groups intermixed as they departed, with each one pacing slowly by Fargo and catching his scent. Fargo continued to sit in the grass until the last animal had been gone at least five minutes. Getting slowly to his feet, he repacked the go bag, slung it over his shoulder, and retrieved his rifle.
Pacing slowly forward, he saw the shape of the monster he killed resolve into a Silverback, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. Extending his senses, he couldn’t sense any other animals within range, and he quickly poked it in the eye with the barrel of his rifle, with his finger on the firing stud, just in case. Confirming the Silverback was dead, he suddenly realized he needed to piss, and decided he’d rather do that in the privacy of his cabin rather than add his scent to the carcass like the others.
Walking quickly and carefully back, he was soon safely inside the cabin with the door sealed. Stepping into the fresher, he realized his hands were shaking, and he was getting an adrenal dump. Finishing up, he stripped off the shipsuit, and made a quick pass through the fresher, then collapsed on the bed.
***
Fargo leaned back on his haunches, marveling once again at the luck of his shot from the night before. He cut away more tissue, exposing the twin hearts, and the fact that his one round had burst both of them. After skinning the beast, he finally got the skull cracked, and saw a lesion of some kind on the brain. He took more pictures of it, and measured the thickness of the frontal skull plate at almost a half an inch. He shuddered, realizing there was no way a 16mm bead was going to get through that much armor to kill it via a brain shot.
He peeled the meat away, exposing the forward set of shoulders, and measured the thickness, then decided to do an experiment. Getting a large sheet of plastic, he managed to load the remains of the Silverback on the gravsled, and carried it down to the range he’d set up. Putting the top half of the skull on one target, he propped the skeleton of the Silverback up on a couple of logs so that the joints were extended as if it were standing. He packed what he thought was roughly the right amount of meat around each shoulder, and went back to the one hundred yard line.
Firing two rounds at the skull, he shifted and fired one round at each front shoulder. Walking back to the target, he whistled as he looked at the skull. There was a crack, but, as he expected, neither bead had penetrated it. The beads penetrated the front shoulders, but not the back ones. A chill ran down Fargo’s back as he looked at it. He repacked the meat, and put the two hearts back in their original positions.
Walking slowly back, he went to the line and fired two more rounds. They both got through the back shoulders, but didn’t penetrate either heart or lungs. One more trip back to the line, and he fired three more rounds, one at each heart and one at the lungs. Tramping back to the target, he confirmed the two hearts and lungs were penetrated. He leaned against the gravsled thinking, No frikkin wonder I never killed one in the sim on the ship. I never thought about having to make it through all that damn bone structure. I’m glad I’ve got a fifty round mag, because if I ever encounter two of these damn things, having to change mags would literally be the death of me.
Checking the wind, Fargo made a pile of the meat, offal and bones of the Silverback, popped a mini-thermite grenade on a thirty-second delay and quickly rode the gravsled back up to the cabin. He saw the reflection of the glow in the gravsled’s mirror and made a note to himself to make sure to scatter the ashes later.
Back at the cabin, he looked around for something to use on the Silverback’s hide. He remembered watching an info-newsie on tanning hides and he thought back. Gotta get all the flesh off the hide. Flensing? No, fleshing the hide. Need some kind of scraper. Looking through the tools in the storage container, the only thing he could come up with was a rotary grinder. Oh well, maybe this will work.
Four hours later, covered in sweat and bits of Silverback flesh, Fargo stepped back from the now cleaned hide. At least I got it this far. I’ll make a run to Rushing River tomorrow. Hopefully Mikhail knows somebody that can finish it off. Stripping off his coveralls, He sniffed and wadded them up and inserted them in the incinerator. Walking butt naked into the cabin, he stepped into the fresher, setting it on the refresh setting. Twenty minutes later, feeling a lot better, he slipped on his old shipsuit, and punched up a twelve hundred calorie dinner.
***
Fargo landed the liteflyer, glad to be on terra firma again. The flight down had been bumpy at best, even with the anti-grav stabilization. Parking on the pad, he hefted the Silverback hide out of the cargo compartment, and started walking toward the gate. Doc Grant, the retired GalPat surgeon that ran the local clinic, pulled up in a runabout, “Need a ride?”
“It would be appreciated. I’m going to Mikhail and Luann’s store.”
“Hop in.” Fargo slid the Silverback hide in the back
and Doc asked, “Where did you get that?”
Fargo buckled in as he replied, “Killed it on my place yesterday morning.”
Doc whistled, “Impressive. And from what I’ve heard, you’re one lucky man.”
“There was only one. Don’t know where the mate was. This one was a male. Speaking of which, I’ve got a picture of the brain, it looks like there was a lesion on it. Can you take a look at it?”
Doc nodded, “Yep. Let’s get to the store and I’ll be happy to look at it.”
***
Luann fussed around, putting some cookies on the table, and shuffling the kids out of the kitchen as Fargo loaded the pictures into the holo. Bringing them up one by one, he explained each as Mikhail and Doc looked on in amazement. Doc finally said, “Yep, he looks like he was incapacitated in some form. Glad you were able to take him out before he came down here and rampaged around. The seven shots worry me though. I don’t know too many people that could or would stand in there to shoot seven times at a charging Silverback. I still wonder what happened to the female.”
Fargo nodded, “No idea on the mate, I got extremely lucky. If he’d been charging me, I wouldn’t be here, because I would have shot once and expected him to go down.” Turning to Mikhail he asked, “You know anyone that can finish the hide? I got the flesh off, but I don’t have the right stuff to finish the tanning.”
Mikhail thought for a second and hit his comm unit, moments later they heard, “Hey, Mikhail. What can I do for you?”
Mikhail smiled, “Kelly, can you come over to the store? I’ve got something I want you to look at and see if you can tan it.”
“On the way.”
Mikhail turned to Fargo, “Kelly is our local gunsmith and expert in planetary species. I know he’s done some tanning before. I’m betting he’ll know what to do with it, and how to do it.”
***
After a quiet dinner, Luann got the kids in bed and the three of them sat around the table in the kitchen with bulbs of coffee, Luann finally asked, “Ethan, why are you not coming to town more? It’s like you don’t…”
Fargo sighed, “Luann, it’s not that I don’t want to see y’all, it’s just… Well, I’m more comfortable up there. I’ve got peace and quiet, I can sleep in when I want, and nobody bothers me.”
Mikhail cocked his head, but didn’t say anything as Luann looked searchingly at Fargo, “But we’re family.”
“I know. It’s not like I don’t talk to you a couple of times a week if not more. I just like my peace and quiet.” And I’ll be damned if I want to get wrapped up in a bunch of crap down here. I’m still trying to get my psi sense under control, but I’m not sharing that either!
Mikhail finally said, “Don’t know about you, but I’m tired. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.” He finished his coffee and got up, “Night all.”
Fargo took the hint and did the same, giving Luann a quick hug, “Night. See you in the morning.” He sensed her worry and discontent at his answers, and quickly let go of her.
As Mikhail and Luann lay in bed later, she turned to him, “Why didn’t you help me? I’m worried about Ethan, he’s not the same. He’s… He’s changed.”
Mikhail pulled her close, “Lu, Ethan is different now for a lot of reasons. Sixty years in the military, being a leader, and losing people is always life changing. He just lost a team he’d been with for over twenty years. He’s dealing with his grief in his own way. And his way is solitude.”
“But he’s my brother! He should… I mean… You didn’t change!”
“You met me after my service, you didn’t know me before. I’d changed too, but you never saw that. You just need to give him some room, Lu.”
“Room is one thing, but this Silverback hunting… People don’t do that and survive. It’s like he’s trying to kill himself.”
Mikhail said softly, “No, that’s called adrenalin rush. It’s him against nature. It is him proving his right to survive. I’ll keep him busy, okay?”
Luann snuggled into his shoulder, “Alright, but I still worry about him.”
“As you should. Now go to sleep, Love.”
Back to Work
About a month after the set-to with the Silverback, Mikhail messaged Fargo about working a site during the installation of a new subfeeder. Picking him up early one morning in the small shuttle that TBT owned, they’d travelled four hours to a site near the White Beach terraformer, chatting about family, and what had been going on in Rushing River.
As they started their descent to the site, Mikhail turned businesslike, “You’re going to be the new guy, and also in charge of site security. Any problem with that?”
“Nope, I think I’m pretty much up to speed on the operation, and I’ve read your previous reports on installations. Fargo stretched and parroted, “Basically, we have to provide twenty-four hour security until the sonic fence is up and operating, which is the last thing done. Four security people, four installation technicians, one combo work/Hab module, and two built out RCA buildings for equipment, and one tower, right?”
Mikhail nodded, “That’s it. Site prep is already done, sonic saw and laser have leveled the site. Module is dropping in this morning, along with the crew. Heavy lift shuttle will bring the RCAs tomorrow, and the tower in three days. I’ve got to attend a meeting in White Beach tomorrow, so you basically get sixteen hours to get up to speed.”
Fargo chuckled, “Nothing like a little pressure.”
Mikhail handed him an actual file, “Here’s the people on site. It’s not for public consumption. Read it and give it back before we land.”
Fargo scanned quickly through the folder, noting that there were four Ghorkas, three men and one woman, for security. One Arcturian technician, one from Earth four, and a Kepleran from 62E. As usual, the Kepleran’s name was unpronounceable, and Fargo idly wondered if he went by Pop. “I thought there were normally four techs?”
Mikhail sighed, “There are, but I’ve got one on the far side of Hunter, so I’m the fourth for this install. I needed to get back in the field anyway. And after the meeting tomorrow, I’m sure I’ll be needing to work off some frustrations!”
“That bad, huh?”
“It’s Klynton and her crowd: always demand, never request, and always the highest priority…”
“Nuff said.”
Mikhail brought the shuttle in for a smooth landing at the subfeeder site, as Fargo took in the area and the site itself. Stepping off the shuttle, Fargo extended his empathic senses as far as he could, but other than the TBT team, he didn’t detect anything but a few lower level species, most of which were cowering in fear after the shuttle landing.
Mikhail came down the ramp saying, “We make the site bigger than is actually required, that way if we ever have to come do maintenance, we can drop the shuttle and parts right next to the installation. This is the shuttle pad,” swinging his arm to the right, “That area over there will be the RCAs and over there.” Pointing straight ahead, he finished, “The antenna will be up on that little rise back there. We do that at all of the sites.”
Fargo nodded, “About three acres then. What’s the height on this one?”
“Four hundred thirty-one actual, total with ground rise is eleven sixty-six. That will yield about a forty-two mile direct path, which covers the both existing and all of the planned additional habs in this area for the next ten years,” Mikhail replied.
***
The Hab module was placed and the sensor sticks elevated as Mikhail finished the introductions, “Mankajiri is the lead, goes by Jiri.”
Fargo shook his hand, “Nice to meet you Jiri. Former CSM for Third Corps? How the hell did you put up with those dirtballs?”
Jiri laughed, “I hear the Marine in that tone, and they were my dirtballs. They did pretty good.” Turning to the lone female of the group, he said, “Kamala is our sensors expert. She can also go combat if required.”
Fargo could only stare for a moment. Kamala was a beautiful woman, da
rk shining hair, green eyes and sparkling teeth sat atop a body even the bulky fieldsuit couldn’t hide. Fargo nodded, “Kamala.”
A tinkling laugh answered him, “My name means Goddess, but these guys say it should be she-devil. I didn’t see as much combat as they did, but I can handle myself.”
Jiri chuckled, “This is Adhit, he and Daman are the outside guys, so to speak.”
Fargo shook hands with them both, and got nothing but calmness and curiosity from their minds. Noting the necklace of large claws Daman wore around his neck, he asked, “Uh, Daman, what the hell are those claws from?”
Daman smiled, sending chills up Fargo’s back, “Oh, these? Slashgator.”
Fargo thought back to the tapes he’d reviewed: Slashgator. Water and dry land predator. Fourteen to eighteen feet in length fully grown, double set of teeth, claws on all four legs. Runs at twenty MPH for short distances. Armored body with overlapping scales, upper and lower body both. Double lungs, double hearts. Native to Hunter. No known predators. Located in tropical/semi-tropical environments surrounding equator. “Okay, I’ve got to ask, how did you put it down?”
Daman’s smile deepened, “Oh, we had a slight disagreement over my campsite. I stuck the stove in its mouth, and got behind it. I used this,” patting his kukri at his belt. “And it lost, once I figured out the overlap pattern on the scales.” Flicking the necklace, he added, “This is just one claw. The others are at home, along with his shell.”
Fargo shook his head in wonder, “Just another day in the field, eh?”
All the Ghorkas laughed as Daman said, “Pretty much. We’re not real good at backing up, or backing away from trouble.”
Fargo flashed back to his dead team. Shit, I swore I wasn’t going to lead anybody again, and I get Ghorkas. I’ve never worked with them, but there are plenty of stories. Smiling he replied, “So I’ve heard. Well, I’m a former Terran Marine, retired GalScout. I’m the newbie, so y’all tell me what I need to know, and how I can fit in.”
