by Jim Laughter
They carefully approached the site where their comrade had been killed, hopeful another of the beasts like the one that had killed him might be there. After observing from afar that the site was still undisturbed, and disappointed that no other game was in sight, the hunters stepped out of the concealing brush. One had started to break out his digging tool when his fellow hunter stopped him.
“Smell that?” he growled, again sniffing the air.
“What do you smell this time?” his comrade complained.
“Human,” the first replied as he started sniffing around the area.
“Wishful thinking,” chided the other. “Now quit fooling around and help me dig him up.”
Bending down, he started digging the loose soil around the extended forearm of the dead soldier.
“But I smell humans!” the first declared. “Two humans. Female humans!”
The second Red-tail took a tentative sniff and his eyes became wide in surprise.
“You’re right!” he agreed and quit digging. He also sniffed around the burial site. He bent low and examined the clawed forearm sticking up out of the soil. “They’ve been here!” he roared angrily to the other hunter. “They’ve desecrated his grave!”
By this time, the first hunter had moved away from the mound in an ever-enlarging circle. His powerful tail whipped back and forth as he crashed through the underbrush in search of human sign. The further he ranged from the gravesite, the more agitated he became. Fifty feet from the burial site, he found what he was looking for.
“I found a piece of native wood with both the scent of human and fresh soil on it,” he growled to the other. “This is what they used to desecrate his grave.”
“All the more reason we must hunt them!” exclaimed his fellow hunter as he charged through the brush to join him. After taking the stick and examining it, he threw it back into the brush.
“I’ve got the scent!”
“The commander will be pleased with this kill,” the first hunter said. “We haven’t had human meat in many seasons.”
“I don’t care about the commander! I’m going to rip these desecrators to shreds with my own claws and taste their flesh while they still breathe.”
The first hunter roared his agreement. “Let’s hunt!”
After sniffing around the trail, he found what his snout told him was there. As if for confirmation, he spotted a boot print from one of the human desecraters in the soft dirt among the native fauna.
With revengeful and violent gleams in their eyes, they started off through the brush in search of their quarry. The fore claw of their fallen comrade still held its silent salute to their home world.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Anna and Leatha hiked inland away from the game trail four-hundred yards before turning on a parallel course back toward the river. All this time Leatha said nothing, silently leading Anna through the thick brush. Her terrible conclusion that another close encounter with Red-tails was inevitable caused her to withdraw into herself. She could feel the old fear from her childhood rise up in her. What could she say about an enemy she normally fought from the safe confines of the Aurora – an enemy so ferocious and deadly that words alone could not describe them? How could she relay to Anna the very real probability that a hand-to-hand confrontation with the monsters from the Hadeous Galaxy would end in their deaths?
Leatha stopped to examine their surroundings. There was no game trail for them to follow, only thick underbrush interspersed among stands of trees. The ground was uneven and covered with fallen leaves and limbs from many seasons, making the going rough and unpredictable.
A fallen tree provided the perfect place for the women to stop and rest. Leatha hadn’t planned to stop for at least another hour or two, but Anna insisted they take a breather.
“You’re killing me, Trooper,” she said. “Let’s give these old bones of mine a rest.”
Leatha sat down on the tree trunk opposite Anna, her mind filled with the images of fighting the Red-tails in this wilderness environment. She knew their enemy preferred combat in open areas due to their great bulk and slow speed. Perhaps this forest was exactly what they needed to gain the upper hand, assuming she was able to draw them into a fight where she controlled the situation. With nothing to say, she just sat there staring off into the distance. She held her water bottle in her hands, wishing it was her blaster.
Anna decided this had to change. “You still in there?” she chided, giving Leatha a nudge with her elbow. The younger woman sprang away from her and landed in a crouching feline combat position, then stopped when she realized it was only Anna.
“Sorry.” Leatha reached down and picked up her water bottle from where she had dropped it.
“Are you alright?” Anna asked, concern written on her face. The last thing she needed now was her friend wigging out again like she did the first evening on their hike. There was some sort of strange danger Leatha claimed they needed to flee from; a danger she knew nothing about. Only the urgency of Leatha’s statements led her to agree to follow her deeper into the forest. She spoke of the red creatures as if they were the most hostile beings in the universe. Maybe they are.
Anna knew Red-tails were dangerous, but beyond pictures and the testimony of others (Leatha included) she had no experience upon which to base any conclusion.
“I’ll... I’ll be ok,” Leatha finally said after taking a sip of water.
“I suppose you know you had me worried back there talking about the Red-tails,” Anna admitted. “You sure things are as bad as you say?”
“At least,” Leatha replied with some of her old conviction creeping back into her voice.
“Take it easy,” Anna said. “I want you to explain to me a little more clearly what it is you are worried about.” Leatha hesitated for a second and then turned to face her friend.
“Have you ever seen a Red-tail? I mean live up close instead of in a picture?”
Anna shook her head.
“I thought as much,” Leatha said. She remained silent for a moment and then an idea dawned on her. “You’re familiar with bears and mountain lions and other forest predators.”
“Of course. I know all about them. I work in the woods.”
“No offense intended,” Leatha reassured her. “I’m just trying to establish something to compare them to something we’re both familiar with.”
“I’m not a city girl, kiddo,” Anna said with a smile. “I may be older than you but I haven’t gone senile yet,” she added, trying to break the tension she felt radiating from Leatha.
Leatha eyes still had that cold seriousness in them. She knew Anna was only trying to lighten her serious mood, but now was not the time for levity.
“I want you to imagine a bipedal animal that has the disposition of Sweet Mama protecting her cubs.”
“That’s easy,” Anna said. “I assume this reflects a Red-tail when it’s really angry?”
“No,” Leatha answered. “That is its normal baseline disposition. Now add to it the ferocity of a mountain lion in a fight, and the strength of another fully grown adult bear.”
“Wow!” Anna exclaimed while she formed the mental picture. “And this is what you told me you once fought hand-to-hand?”
“Not quite,” Leatha corrected her. “That time I had a fully charged blaster, and even then it was a close call.”
“Ok,” Anna said after a moment’s reflection. “I think I get the picture.”
“Not quite,” Leatha said, her demeanor all business. “Now think of this thing, or most likely several of them because they rarely hunt alone, on your trail with one thought in mind.”
“And what thought might that be?”
“Dinner,” Leatha said coldly.
“Let’s get going!” Anna said, jumping up from the fallen log. “Care to lead?”
“If I read the terrain correctly, we’re not too far from the river,” Leatha said as she rose and stowed her water bottle, still wishing it was her weapon. “I t
hink it’s time we start angling toward it. I don’t want to intersect our original trail in case they’re following it.”
“Why would they do that?” Anna asked, starting through the woods. “If it’s us they want, that trail would be much older.”
“They won’t follow it to find us,” Leatha replied as she stepped over another fallen log. “It will be to find where we came from. Then they’ll bring others to help harvest us.”
“As food?”
Leatha knew they probably wouldn’t make it back to the main camp before the hunters caught up with them, but she saw no reason to alarm Anna any more than necessary. If they could make it back across their fallen tree bridge, they might stand a chance of escape without having to engage in mortal combat.
“As food.”
“But those are just exaggerated reports in the news services.”
Leatha froze in her tracks and turned back to fix a cold glare on her friend.
“No, they’re not,” Leatha said icily. “Believe me, I know. And I’ve been on the front lines with these predators and there is no exaggeration.”
“So what do we do?” Anna asked as Leatha turned back and started again through the brush.
“We get out of here as fast as we can,” Leatha said over her shoulder. “We’ve got to get back across the river and notify the service as quick as we can. And I don’t mean the park service. We need troopers, not politicians.”
∞∞∞
Dirt flew in all directions as the two Red-tail hunters dug away the small landslide with their trenching tools.
“Good thing we brought these along,” the first hunter said as he heaved another spade of loose dirt into the brush.
“You just better hope we find these humans,” the second one growled, continuing to scoop the soil away. “Otherwise, it will be you the commander flays.”
“You’re just angry because he is!” the first hunter shot back. “Be glad you don’t have to touch this planetary soil with your claws. Now keep digging!”
“You keep digging too. You’re the one that wanted to stop and investigate. I said to follow their trail.”
“Shut up and dig!” the first hunter roared. “I said we might need to know what we learn from this! What if those humans are some of their fighters? Did you think of that? Walk right into one of their blasters is what you would do. Me, I want to know something about what we’re chasing. We’ll catch them anyway, so a little time taken to learn something won’t hurt. Now dig!”
“Female fighters?” his companion scoffed and glared at him, scooping out another spade full of the sandy soil. “You’re such a fool. Not even the human mass would use females as combat fighters.”
∞∞∞
Pushing through the last of the brush, the two women spotted the river ahead of them. The fallen tree they’d used to cross the rushing torrent rested only a hundred yards upstream from where they’d emerged from the thick forest. Carefully surveying the edges of the clear area between them and the river, Leatha and Anna could not detect any sign that anyone else had come this way since they had passed here less than twenty-four hours ago.
“Looks like we made it,” Anna said. She started to step out of the screening brush into the open but Leatha reached out and held her back with a firm hand on her shoulder.
“Wait a second,” Leatha said, her voice cautious. “Give it a minute or two. Something doesn’t feel right.”
“But this is our chance,” Anna pleaded. “We can be across the river and back at camp in no time.”
Before Leatha could argue, a crash resounded in the woods further upstream. Both women ducked down. Leatha unconsciously checked the wind. It was blowing toward them from the direction of the noise.
The air filled with what sounded like two lions fighting each other. The trees and underbrush upstream began to shake and contort as if a herd of wild mammals intent on destroying the forest was crashing through it. Anna could not imagine what kind of creatures could emit such unworldly noises.
Peering through the brush, Anna and Leatha watched nervously in the direction of the cacophony. Preceded by yet another burst of noise, first one and then a second Red-tail soldier burst out of the woods just past the fallen tree bridge. Having never seen one live before, Anna stifled a gasp at the sight. The descriptions Leatha offered did not do justice to the horrible apparitions now inhabiting the clearing.
Working their way along the riverbank toward the fallen tree, the two aliens sniffed around like two hunting canines on the scent of prey. One stalked over to the fallen tree trunk and angrily growled at its companion who was examining the sapling the women had tied their ropes to earlier to get their packs across the river.
The first alien indicated for the second to step out onto the tree. Knowing what she knew of Red-tails, Leatha doubted it would support their greater weight. The second Red-tail bent down and sniffed the top of the fallen tree. Satisfied, it stepped out over the rushing water below.
A loud crack rent the air as the tree broke and shifted beneath the alien’s clawed feet. Only its rapid leap back to the bank, aided by the outstretched arm of his companion, kept the Red-tail from falling into the torrent. Behind him the tree tore loose from its mooring on the far bank and crashed into the rushing water. He watched it being swept away by the fast current. The two women watched it float past them while the two Red-tails argued, growling and snapping at each other, their guttural language impossible to understand.
Anna and Leatha hunkered down even lower when the argument ended and the two aliens pushed away from each other and started looking around. Then one of them spotted something caught in the brush. Another argument ensued about something neither woman could see.
Leatha couldn’t remember anything that either of them might have left behind after crossing the river. She looked at Anna in silent question when the air was split by a deep guttural laugh. They snapped at each other again like two mad canines fighting over a bone. The Red-tails then strode back into the woods, heading back along the path the two women had originally taken after crossing the tree bridge.
Anna turned her attention from the aliens back to Leatha. Unexpectedly, she saw a confused, almost child-like expression on the young trooper’s face.
“Leatha,” she whispered, not wanting to raise her voice loud enough for the aliens to hear. The expression on Leatha’s face made her look like she was a thousand light years away. Anna wondered what kinds of terrible thoughts might be going through the young woman’s mind.
“We’re trapped on this side of the river,” Anna continued, her voice still in a whisper.
Leatha shook herself. Her expression changed from the haunted look on her face back to a more normal appearance. Anna thought she detected signs of suppressed fear. The sounds of the aliens faded as they moved further along the path.
“I know,” Leatha agreed.
“What are we going to do?”
Cold fury washed across Leatha’s features. Anna would almost swear the temperature dropped twenty degrees at that moment.
“The game just changed,” Leatha said in a quiet, stronger voice. “Now we are the hunters.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Miles away the Red-tail commander noted the prearranged time was approaching to send a tight beam signal through the nearest transit tube. To meet the schedule he had his underlings drag the necessary equipment up to the mouth of the cave complex. He knew there was some grumbling because the two hunters were not there to help. However, he ignored the urge to help. It was beneath the duties of one in his command caste.
After aligning the transceiver, he ordered his soldiers to return to the underground hideout while he made his report. This was not normally something forbidden for underlings to hear. In fact, it usually enhanced the status of whomever was receiving new orders since it showed trust by the Main Hive.
However, this time the commander had other business to deal with that he did not want overheard. Managing the fifteen u
nderlings remaining in his immediate command was difficult enough at times. No need to add reasons for them to doubt his ability and invite bedlam, or worse, mutiny.
First, he would have to report the unfortunate destruction of the ship that was to be the relay between all of his different detachments scattered throughout this sector. This, he knew, would displease the Hive Representative. The commander hoped it would be understood as one of the hazards working in this alien galaxy. Ever since the incident, he had been marshaling his arguments in his favor for this report. The fact that the Hive Rep had insisted on this direct backup means of communications gave him hope of a sympathetic response.
Worse yet, he would have to report that the ill-fated ship had failed to deploy one of the recently developed experimental scanners. The Main Hive had considered his mission as an opportunity to test the device for scanning a planet for evidence of human mass installations and population centers. Although this particular planet had been previously scouted for this mission, they considered it a good place to test the silent probe. The information it would have gathered would have been compared to the scout reports and his own observations on the ground. Now he would have to explain to the Main Hive that the probe was lost along with the destruction of his ship.
The commander knew there would be disappointments and possibly even recriminations at its destruction. Extreme effort had gone into designing the probe to be silent and inert to detection. Only a particularly keyed squirt signal would activate it. A second signal would allow it to transmit its entire database back to the transmitter on one carrier wave. It was an ingenious device to be sure.
