The Wounded Warrior

by Jim Laughter

  “Unseen One, help us,” she muttered under her breath. Leatha was having another episode, and at the wrong time.

  Leatha moved down the trail a short distance until she found a low rise in easy view from the trap and set the responder down. Anna grabbed both packs and joined her.

  “Tails see this and think food nearby,” Leatha said in that funny way of speaking Anna hated. “They run to find and not see trap. Crash! One hurt Tail that slows the others and is not thinking anymore. Easy to kill. Others be more careful and slower.”

  “Amazing,” was all Anna could say as she handed Leatha her pack and shouldered her own. “But we’ll lose the responder.”

  “No good anyway,” Leatha said, dismissing Anna’s objection. “Not good for fighting. Can’t eat.”

  “Then let me add a little touch to it,” Anna said. She picked up responder. Restoring its power, she then set it for alarm mode, carefully triggering the switch down while setting it back on the rise. Taking a stone, she set it so it would keep the switch depressed until disturbed. After double-checking her work, Anna stood up, satisfied that she’d contributed to the fight.

  “Why do that?” Leatha asked in that singsong voice.

  “When they pick it up, the trigger will activate the alarm which can only be deactivated by key code from the Preserve,” Anna said. “They’ll most likely destroy it for fear of discovery, but that won’t stop the silent alarm linked to the Preserve main switch. Either way, it will pinpoint its location. Someone will come to investigate if for no other reason than to clear up the mystery. Maybe they’ll be in time to help us.”

  Anna noticed Leatha’s look of skepticism.

  “They better come ready to fight,” the little girl said from within Leatha. “Or Tails eat ’em!”

  Anna had not considered that possibility. “Maybe I better not,” she said, reaching for the unit.

  “No, leave for Tails,” Leatha said. “Tails be busy looking for us. Give friends time to help. Now we go make other traps.”

  With this, she scuttered off up the trail, leaving Anna to follow. Anna looked at the responder and then at her retreating friend. Shrugging her shoulders, she turned and followed after the young trooper.

  ∞∞∞

  The commander was pleased with his soldiers. They were showing excellent discipline as the rough line slowly swept up the valley. And even though they were moving slower than he liked, the new pace was definitely faster than the usual search protocol.

  He called to the group leader on his left so he could fix the group’s position in relationship to his own. The return signal gave him a vector based on his own heading. The ridge-side group was starting to push ahead in their eagerness. Giving them the necessary order, they slowed so they would not outpace the center. Likewise, he checked the group to his right near the river. They did not need correction.

  Checking his timepiece, the commander realized he needed to increase their pace. The day was advancing much faster on this accursed small planet with its limited gravity and disgusting clear air. He called to both group leaders and ordered them to increase the search tempo. It did not bother him that he had just countermanded his orders of a moment before. That was a problem for the group leaders to solve. He had more important matters to consider.

  Growling to his own group in the center, he urged them up to speed while he fell in behind. Shortly thereafter, the group leader from the riverside search group called in. “One of the soldiers has gotten a fresh scent on a game trail.”

  “Verify,” the commander snapped back.

  “Confirmed, Commander.”

  This was good news. The trail they’d been following from the cave had become confused with the scent of other animals, causing his soldiers to lose it. Now they had it again.

  “Stay in formation,” the commander ordered. He knew the river group leader would not like it but he did not want to create gaps in their line by letting them rush ahead. The last thing he wanted was for the humans females to slip between his soldiers and disappear.

  The river group leader cursed at the order to maintain the slow tempo the commander had established. He had a fresh scent and was now being held back. Deciding to seize the initiative, he signaled for his small group to pick up the pace anyway. He would keep the regular tempo so the commander would not know what he had done. That way the transmitter would not give him away when the commander checked again. He could hear the nearest of his soldiers laugh their hideous blood thirst laugh as they surged ahead.

  Unaware of the river group’s insubordination, the commander kept tempo with his search party in the middle. Many minutes went by without further reports from his right flank. Puzzled, the commander used his transmitter to send out a pulse to the other two groups. The response was immediate and it showed they were maintaining the line.

  However, at that moment, pandemonium reigned on his right. Released by their group leader and unrestrained by any sort of order, the soldiers were running and growling by pure bloodlust in pursuit of their human prey, the low gravity of the planet aiding their speed and length of stride.

  Not knowing how he could recover from this disaster, the group leader broke into a full run to catch up with the others. He knew he had only a few time cycles before the commander would send another pulse. If he was quick, he could slow the stampeding soldiers and restore order before the commander found him out. But such was not to be.

  Surging ahead, one of his soldiers raced headlong down a game trail with distance-eating strides. Rounding a bend, he spotted an object on the trail that he was sure was not natural to this environment He concluded the humans had dropped it and must be just ahead. Exclaiming a snarl of victory, he charged forward toward the small prize but he never made it.

  The air of the forest was rent by a crash, followed by a strangled roar. All the soldiers that heard it converged toward the spot, the commander not far behind. Pushing through the brush, several soldiers arrived ahead of their commander. Moments later, he came upon them and they parted for him to pass.

  Instead of the capture of a human as he had hoped, his eyes took in one of his soldiers down on the ground, seriously wounded. Broken off stumps of wicked-looking spikes protruded from the soldier’s chest and side. Approaching the wounded soldier struggling to stand, the commander grabbed one of the protruding wooden spikes with one claw, twisted, and yanked it out. The soldier roared in pain. The spike made a sickening sucking sound as it came out of his chest.

  Turning his full attention to the river group leader who had just arrived, he vented his fury on him for his obvious act of insubordination. With one swift movement, the commander removed his long knife and sliced the group leader’s leg just above and behind his right knee. The soldier fell to the ground, his thick blood flowing from the deep gash.

  With agility and speed that betrayed his great bulk, the commander roared and leapt high into the air, his long knife poised between both fore claws. He brought his full weight down onto the back of the fallen soldier, driving his knife into the soldier’s body at the base of his neck, burying it to the hilt. Twisting the blade so it would destroy any vital organs and both hearts of his victim, the commander withdrew the sword with a movement as deadly as its insertion. The soldier fell dead at the commander’s feet, a sickening reminder to the rest of the contingent that any breach of orders would not be tolerated.

  Snatching the transmitter from the dead group leader’s belt, he thrust it to one of the other soldiers standing nearby.

  “You!” he snarled to the soldier. “Reform your line!”

  The newly appointed leader hastened to obey. The remainder of the river group headed back to their area to continue the search. As the river group abandoned the fallen body of their former leader, one from the commander’s own approached him.

  “Commander,” he reported with the correct degree of deference.

  “What is it, drone?” the commander snarled. He was in a dark mood. Not only did he have blo
od on his sword, he had lost two soldiers due to stupidity.

  “There is device of human design ahead on the trail,” the soldier said and pointed. The commander looked ahead and saw a crowd of the soldiers from his group gathered around a small metal object on a rise. Finding this curious, he strode over and pushed through the half dozen soldiers looking at the object. Reaching down, he picked it up and the rock slid off the trigger switch, unnoticed.

  Immediately, the transponder’s alarm went off, screaming not only a high-pitched electronic squeal but the locator signals as well. While the sonic noise assaulted their ears, the commander frantically searched for a switch. Finally finding one, he flipped it and the painful noise stopped, unaware that it still transmitted a homing signal.

  Thinking it disabled, he tossed the device to the other command caste soldier that had accompanied him into the human’s cave.

  “Carry it,” he ordered. He turned his attention toward the game trail ahead. “It may prove useful.”

  Turning around to face his group, he started snapping out orders. “Reform the line!”

  When they were spaced to his satisfaction, he gave the order to restart the hunt, and at a tempo he assumed would be followed this time. There were still humans to catch and the day was fast approaching zenith.

  ∞∞∞

  “Troopers-Third Delmar Eagleman and Akir Asmed reporting, sir,” Delmar said to the mothership commander.

  He and Akir had pushed the Cabbage Patch to the edge of her limits to reach the mothership as fast as possible. He hadn’t realized until that day exactly how fast his little scout could go. It’s designation as a Fast Attack Recon certainly prove true.

  “You asked to see me, Trooper?” the commander said.

  “Yes sir.”

  The commander turned to Delmar and Akir and motioned for them to stand at ease. Besides the courier package, he’d been told the troopers brought news of great importance.

  “You asked for this meeting, Eagleman,” the commander said. “What’s up?”

  Delmar looked around the bridge of the great ship. Compared to the Cabbage Patch, it was a planet unto itself, capable of carrying a thousand crew-members and launching hundreds of ships. He couldn’t imagine the enormous responsibility that rode on this man’s shoulders, or the intelligence it took to command such a vessel.

  Yet this commander didn’t seem that much different from his own adoptive father, Robert Hassel, a retired trooper major back on Erdinata. He thought he saw just a hint of bemusement in the commander’s eyes while he examined them from his command chair; the same look he’d seen many times in Pop Hassel’s eyes.

  “Permission to speak freely, sir,” Delmar said. The officer nodded.

  “While enroute here on a routine courier run, my copilot and I intercepted a tight beam transmission from a Red-tail transmitter. We also determined its point of origin and destination.”

  The commander waited for Delmar to continue. Instead, Delmar waited for the commander to respond.

  “Do tell?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “And?”

  “Sir?”

  “What were your conclusions?”

  “We determined the signal originated from the planet Sharpton, sir.”

  The commander nodded.

  “And the destination?”

  “The Hadeous galaxy, sir.”

  “So you assumed…”

  “We assumed there’s a transit tube around here someplace, sir, and there’s a Red-tail advance force on Sharpton setting up an attack.”

  The commander stepped out of his command chair and approached Delmar and Akir. He’d heard there might be a Red-tail incursion in this sector but had yet been able to determine its location. Had this trooper and his copilot stumbled upon it by accident?

  “The Unseen One works in mysterious ways,” the commander said.

  “Sir?”

  Now it was Delmar’s turn to be curious.

  “We’ve been a month searching for a Red-tail contingent rumored to be in this sector. Now you tell me that you and your friend here found it while on a mail run?”

  “Yes sir. Seems so.”

  The commander laid his hands on Delmar and Akir’s shoulders. “I could us a drink. How about you?”

  Delmar smiled. This commander really wasn’t that much different from Pop Hassel after all. He turned to his second-in-command and ordered him to set course for Sharpton.

  “And goose it,” he said. “Let’s see if we can get to Sharpton as fast as these boys got here.”

  ∞∞∞

  Leatha and Anna topped a rise near the river. The drop-off would afford them a more defensible position and allow them to more easily spot any approaching Red-tails. Anna dropped her pack and sagged against a tree. She grabbed her water bottle and food bar while she watched Leatha eye some of the trees topping their bank.

  “What are you thinking now?” Anna asked as she took another swallow. She was amazed at the energy shown by the younger woman. Neither of them had eaten anything except food bars and berries for the last few days and it was beginning to tell. Add that to being almost constantly on the run with little rest, and even the normally robust Anna was ready to drop.

  Leatha, on the other hand, seemed more energized than she was before all this began. And as far as Anna could tell, Leatha had rested or slept even less. The young captain appeared to be drawing from an unseen reservoir of energy. Even now, although Leatha was looking gaunt and disheveled, she was still moving like someone fresh from a month of rest and relaxation.

  “These trees will make a good deadfall.”

  “What are you going to do?” Anna asked. “Chop them down?”

  Instead of answering, Leatha unsheathed her captured Red-tail sword and started notching one of the trees on the side toward the river. The unusually sharp alien metal bit into the wood. In short order, the tree was sufficiently undercut and Leatha methodically moved on to the next one. She stopped unexpectedly in mid-swing and froze.

  “What?” Anna started to say when her own ears picked up the noise. Floating on the wind was the clear sound of the sonic alarm from the transponder.

  “They found it!” Leatha said with glee. “Stupid Tails!”

  A moment later, the alarm stopped and the forest fell silent as if in response. After not hearing anything else for a few seconds, Leatha resumed chopping the trees.

  “How are you going to topple the trees?” Anna asked, hoping she could help. Different ideas such as using vines to pull them down came to mind but all of them took time they did not have to spare.

  “Blast ’em,” Leatha said as she finished the second tree. Anna realized she had forgotten about the Red-tail blaster hanging from Leatha’s belt.

  “Why not just shoot the Red-tails?”

  “Gives you away,” Leatha responded as she moved on to the third tree on the rise. “Even stupid Tails know how to follow blast back to where you are. Shoot trees. Tails not trace that. Too busy with falling trees, ha!”

  Anna had to admit that she had not considered things quite that way. Even worse, the feral child was emerging again.

  Not only that, the preserve authority isn’t going to like us blasting these trees.

  Within a matter of minutes, Leatha finished several more trees. In a smooth motion, she re-shouldered her pack and plucked out her water bottle. A short sip and it was back in the pack. Anna noticed it was still better than half-full.

  “Now what?” Anna asked.

  “Now we go find hiding place,” Leatha said as a matter of fact. Anna looked around for a place that could safely hide both of them. Nothing apparent stood out to her.

  “There isn’t much,” Anna said. “Especially together.”

  “Good idea. We hide in two places. Tails not think that. We kill more Tails that way.”

  Clearly, Leatha was delighted with the suggestion. Anna wasn’t so sure.

  Leatha scampered off looking for good hiding places. The
spot selected for Leatha was situated for a clear shot at the trees and the area where they would fall. Anna’s hiding place was more to one side behind a small hummock of brush. She wanted something more substantial but Leatha vetoed it.

  “Tails smell you,” she said, testing the wind. “Better here. Then you can run if I call.”

  Anna wasn’t quite sure what Leatha was referring to and was about to ask when Leatha froze again. Straining, Anna couldn’t hear anything.

  “Tails coming,” Leatha rasped. “Hide now.”

  She shooed Anna away. Reluctantly, the older woman hunkered down on her belly behind a small rise in the forest floor. Looking across at where she knew Leatha was hiding, she could not see any indication of the young trooper. She had no doubt Leatha was eagerly waiting to make another ‘good kill’.

  Faint at first, then slowly growing louder, Anna heard the sound of something trampling through the woods. Another sound sent a chill up her spine. It was a feral growl emitting from Leatha’s hiding place.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The mood was electric among the Red-tail soldiers as they picked up the tempo yet again. The blood hunt was on and the commander was finally letting them run. Hot blood coursed through their veins to the pounding of their hearts and hooves. The scent of meat was in the air and none could resist. Their trail was fresh and the prey near. Tearing through the alien foliage, the line charged up the vale driving everything else ahead of them.

  The sound grew progressively louder as what Anna feared most approached their hiding place. The throat-clutching fear Anna felt was like nothing she had experienced before. Looking for any indication of what to do, she peeked out through her covering screen of brush and dirt. Across the cleared area at the base of the rise, she could see Leatha’s hiding spot but no sign of the trooper herself. Hunkering down even lower into the soft soil and leaves of the forest, Anna tried to calm herself for action. She did not know what she was going to do but did not want to die frozen in fear.