Lance Corporal Schultz, on the point, didn't make any missteps. He'd never before been in a forest quite like this one, but he'd been in enough rain forests that he didn't find it a totally alien environment. It reminded him more of the swamps of Kingdom than of rain forests. He stepped over roots rather than around them, and put his mass over his lead foot before applying all of his weight to it. He took care to walk on an automatic level; all his senses were directed outward. So far as the Marines knew, all of the Skinks were on the island, pinned down by Kilo Company. But that didn't mean there weren't any on the land on this side of the river. He kept himself oriented by listening to the sounds of the battle that raged on the island—the company was too far inland to see the water through the trees.
It was slow going in the forest. Captain Conorado followed between third and first platoons with a truncated command group: himself, Gunnery Sergeant Thatcher, Corporal Escarpo on comm, and a fire controller from the artillery battery. He didn't think he'd have any use for the artillery controller except as an extra blaster—if the battery had managed to clear enough trees forward of their position to fire, he was sure they'd already be firing in support of Kilo Company. By the sounds of the battle on the island, he judged the command group was nearly parallel to Kilo Company's position. When Company L advanced far enough that second platoon was slightly to the rear of the Skinks, he'd call a halt and change formation—third platoon would form a defensive arc upstream and inland, with first platoon doing the same from the opposite direction, while second platoon moved closer to the river to fire into the Skinks. Nobody knew whether there were more Skinks somewhere; when Company L joined in the battle, the Marines had to be prepared to fight in all directions.
The battle didn't seem to favor either side. Fewer of the murderous monsters were turning into lightning from the lightning balls thrown by the invisible monsters, and no more of the invisible monsters were being killed or injured either. The chief hunter left the other hunters where they watched the fight and clambered upstream through the trees. He went in search of a way he and his hunters could tip the tide in favor of the invisible monsters.
At its upstream end, well above the fighting, the island grew close to the far bank and the water ran slowly over a shallow bottom. When he was sure none of the monsters were looking in his direction, the chief hunter slithered into the river and swam to the shallow channel. Once there, hunkered low, he crawled onto the point of the island. There were many, many—the chief hunter's vocabulary didn't have words for the things—many things on the island. So many that the fight at the downstream end wasn't visible through them, and the lightning thrown by the invisible monsters couldn't get through them. A hunter could lie in ambush here safe from sight and injury. But lying there wasn't good enough; it was not possible to reach the murder-monsters, to injure or kill them.
The chief hunter moved closer, flitting from one thing to the next until at last he came to where he could extend his primary eyestalks around the corner of a thing and see a murder-monster. It was within the casting range of his spear. A six of spears lay in their quiver on his back. Without conscious thought, one came to his hand. It would be so easy to kill one of the murder-monsters from here. He hefted the spear, then lowered it. No, before he killed a murder-monster, he needed to bring more hunters, enough that they could do serious damage to the murder-monsters and tip the battle in favor of the invisible monsters. He returned to the water by the same route he'd come. A short while later he was back where the other hunters watched the battle.
"Is there any change?" the chief hunter asked.
An older hunter extended his dorsal eyestalks and aimed them at the chief hunter, his primary eyestalks remained fixed on the battle. "None," he told the chief hunter. "They remain with neither able to gain advantage."
"We can reach casting distance behind them unseen," the chief hunter said to all. "Those who want to kill a murder-monster, join me." Without waiting for replies, he turned about and clambered back upstream to where he would enter the flowing water.
Each of the hunters had lost at least one family member or close friend to the murder-monsters; some had lost many. All wanted vengeance. None remained behind to watch the battle from safety.
Captain Conorado couldn't fully trust his UPUD to tell him where he was, relative to the Skink positions on the island, since the Grandar Bay hadn't strung a complete string-of-pearls. He judged the company's position as much by the sound of the fighting as by the UPUD. When the UPUD's display and his ears agreed that second platoon was beyond Kilo Company, he called a halt.
"Take new positions," he ordered.
The platoon commanders and platoon sergeants of first and third platoons began directing their squad leaders to get their Marines into position. They hadn't rehearsed the maneuver, but everyone knew where he was supposed to be relative to the Marines on either side.
Conorado watched what movement he could see on his UPUD, and listened to the orders given over the command circuit. When first and third platoons were in position, he ordered, "Second platoon, advance to the river."
Before second platoon reached the bank, the forest a half kilometer upstream erupted with the impact of a barrage of missile impacts.
"Get Battalion, ask if that was ours!" Conorado ordered Escarpo. "Second platoon, continue to the river."
Before either could obey the orders, the roar of landing shuttles sounded from the area of the missile impacts.
When second platoon reached the river, they saw the Skinks rapidly withdrawing from the island.
The hunters were paddling across the river, completely submerged except for their dorsal eyestalks and snorkeled nostrils, when the shock waves from the explosions slammed through the water and violently buffeted them. As one, they stopped, paddling enough to keep from being swept downstream. Most of them extended primary eyestalks to look at the chief hunter for guidance—none had ever experienced a buffeting like that.
The chief hunter was aware that the other hunters watched him, waiting for instructions, but he paid them no attention for the moment. He had no more idea than they did what caused the monstrous explosion. Before he could tell them whether to continue or retreat, he needed to know whether it was a threat. Maybe the murder-monsters could tell him what they were doing? He aimed his dorsal eyestalks beyond the middle of the island, toward where the murder-monsters battled the invisible monsters. He was too low, there were too many things in the way, he couldn't see to where they were. Then new vibrations came to him, conducted from the air through the water. He rolled to one side and raised himself to expose a tympanum. A roaring sound grew, a roaring he had heard before—the strange nests that took the murder-monsters to beyond the sky! He rolled back and lifted enough to aim his primary eyestalks in the direction the sound came from. Yes, he saw several flying nests rapidly descending toward the forest upstream and inland from the top of the island. Were more murder-monsters coming?
He looked back at the island and saw the murder-monsters racing toward its end; some were almost at it. The flying nests must be coming to take them beyond the sky! This could be the only chance the hunters had for vengeance. He signaled the hunters and swam rapidly toward the shallow channel. They could reach it before all the murder-monsters crossed it.
"Third platoon, the Skinks are withdrawing. Move upstream on line. Fast! Cut them off," Captain Conorado ordered as soon as second platoon reported the Skinks' retreat. "Try to cut them off." He turned to Corporal Escarpo. "Report to Battalion, the Skinks are withdrawing." Escarpo had already relayed a message from Battalion—the missiles that erupted in the forest were not theirs. The Skinks had a ship up there, so it had to be the smaller one that had vanished while the Grandar Bay was fighting the Crowe-type ship. The missiles had to have been fired by it to clear a landing zone for the shuttles he heard coming down. "Second platoon, fire on them. First platoon, catch up with third platoon."
"You heard the man," Lieutenant Rokmonov ordered. "Le
t's cut them off. Move, move, MOVE!"
Third platoon scrambled, slipping and sliding over roots and through mud. First squad struggled to catch up with second squad and get on line with it. They batted wet foliage out of their way instead of going around or ducking under. This was not the time for stealth.
Lance Corporal Schultz was the first to spot the Skinks. He threw his blaster into his shoulder to fire at one, but didn't shoot. "What the . . .?"
The first of the murder-monsters was already across the shallow channel when the hunters reached the top of the island, and the last were approaching it. The chief hunter pointed, and the hunters surged onto the tip of the island. Their mid and hind limbs powered them forward into the trailing monsters, and they crashed against their smaller foes and bowled them over. Their spears stabbed into the bodies of the monsters, and the monsters screamed in agony as death rattled through them. The monsters were so intent on flight and so surprised by the attack of their former slaves that none of them fought back immediately. That delay cost them their lives.
The chief hunter shrilled a command, and the hunters raced into the shallows to fall on the fleeing murder-monsters from behind.
A Leader ran behind his Fighters, harshly barking at them, exhorting them to run faster—the shuttles wouldn't wait long, and they had to get to them before they lifted off. Run, run, run, he barked, faster, faster, faster. The Fighters ran as fast as they could through thigh-deep water. When the Leader stopped barking, only one Fighter, who had a genetic defect that afforded him more intelligence than all other Fighters, wondered why. He turned his head to investigate and his eyes bugged at the sight that met them: a mob of the local creatures, the semisentients the True People used as slave animals, milled among the Fighters behind him. The creatures knocked the Fighters and Leaders down and stabbed them as they foundered in the water! The river flowed red with the blood of Fighters and Leaders.
The Fighter pushed himself harder than any Leader or Master had ever pushed him, and got ahead of his fellow Fighters just before they reached the far bank. He barked commands at them—stop, turn around, and fight! The other Fighters hesitated; he was a Fighter like them, not a Leader. But he barked orders as a Leader or even a Master might bark them, so they stopped and turned around to see the unthinkable. At the command of the Fighter who gave orders like a Leader, the other Fighters unslung nozzles and pointed them at the creatures who were starting to charge toward them. The Fighter barked FIRE! and they sprayed their greenish fluid at the charging creatures. Several of the creatures fell, screaming in agony, pawing at the acid that ate into their flesh. The others dove into the water and swam away from the streams of acid.
Then the crack-sizzle of Earthmen Marine forever guns came from their left flank. The Fighter with the genetic defect barked more orders, and the Fighters with him fled from the forever guns, racing to catch up with the others. He didn't go with them. Instead he dove into the shallow channel and swam to the point of the island, where he had seen bodies of Fighters and Leaders sprawled dead on the ground. He crawled to shore, barely below the sight of the Earthmen Marines on the bank. The bodies lay close to each other, so he didn't need to waste any time pulling them together. He lay near one and took the fire maker that months earlier he'd taken from the corpse of a Leader on the Earthman world called Kingdom. He used it to flame the body. Moving quickly, he touched fire to more bodies. The heat of the flames nearly touched him off, though he rolled away each time. Satisfied that all were burned or would burn, he dropped the tanks from his back and dove into the river. Underwater, he swam rapidly upstream for a short distance before climbing the bank. As he went he saw a few of the local creatures watching him, but none approached.
On land again, the inexplicitly intelligent Fighter raced through the forest toward where he heard the crack-sizzle of Earthmen Marine forever guns firing at the soldiers of the True People.
Lance Corporal Schultz only hesitated an instant when he saw the headless centaurs spearing the Skinks. Other Skinks had already made the bank, and he shifted aim and fired at them. His first bolt missed, his second was met by the flash of a flaring Skink. Corporals Kerr and Doyle fired almost as soon as he did, then the rest of second squad caught up, along with the gun attached to them, and they all fired into the forest. Lights flashed among the trees where Skinks flared. The flashes had stopped by the time first squad caught up.
"Third herd, MOVE!" Lieutenant Rokmonov roared on the all-hands circuit. Third platoon scrambled through the forest in pursuit of the Skinks, firing as they went. Occasional flashes showed they were hitting the Skinks.
"What?" Corporal Claypoole screamed when he looked up into the trees and saw a roughly man-size creature skittering through the branches five or six meters above. He shook his head and looked again, using his light-gatherer and magnifier shields. The—The thing undulated on six legs and didn't have a head! No, it wasn't running along the branches on six legs—one limb ended in a hand, and that hand held a spear! He dropped his infra into place—the thing showed as brightly as a man, not dim like a Skink. In his peripheral vision he saw MacIlargie raise his blaster.
"Stop!" he shouted at MacIlargie. "It's not a Skink!"
"What is it?" MacIlargie shouted back, his quavering voice indicating how shaken he was by the strange creature.
"I don't know, but I think it's chasing the Skinks."
The Marines followed, but the Skinks were more agile in the drenched forest. Before the Marines came in sight of the clearing made by the missiles, they heard the roar of the shuttles launching.
"Third platoon, hold up," Captain Conorado ordered. "First and second platoons, link with third."
It took another five minutes for Company L to link up and form a defensive position. During that time, Lieutenant Rokmonov joined third platoon's second squad in looking at the strange sight in front of them.
"Skipper," Rokmonov said on the company command circuit, "I think you should take a look at this."
A dozen creatures stood in the trees ten or so meters ahead of third platoon. They stood on roots and branches, grasped branches with crudely formed mid-limb paws, gripped with a hand on a forelimb, held spears in their free hands. Their bodies folded upward at the joint of the mid-limbs, similar to the centaurs of ancient myth. They didn't have heads.
"My God," Conorado whispered.
"What are they?"
"I don't know. There wasn't anything about tool users in the BHHEI reports on this planet."
"They have eyestalks sticking out of their shoulders," Rokmonov said softly.
"Yes." As he watched, one of the headless creatures retracted its eyestalks and extended a second pair from alongside the snout that projected forward from between its shoulders.
"They look almost like they can see us."
"Yes," Conorado agreed. He raised all shields and watched as the centauroids focused on his face. He turned his head to Rokmonov. "They don't see us," he said. "They see the rain running over us."
"We're invisible men."
"More likely invisible monsters. Everybody," he said on the third platoon all-hands circuit, "raise shields. Let them see your faces. Don't point any weapons at them."
One of the creatures swiveled his eyestalks along the line of Marines; his gaze seemed to pause at each of them. Then he dropped down out of the tree he was in and lowered his forebody with his hands supporting his weight. When his muzzle almost touched the mud, he extended his dorsal eyestalks at the Marines and spoke. His voice came in grunts, clicks, and whistles.
"I wonder what he's saying?" Rokmonov murmured.
"He's probably thanking us for helping to drive the Skinks away."
The creature pushed himself back up and climbed into the tree. He grunted, clicked, and whistled to his companions, then all of them clambered through the trees to the shallows and headed for the island. Conorado alerted Kilo Company.
Intensely curious, Claypoole climbed a tree to watch. The creatures ignored the Kilo
Company Marines, who were still at the downstream end of the island, and went straight to a long shed, which they broke into.
"What are they doing there, Rock?" Conorado asked.
"Holy . . . They're leading more creatures out of the shed. Jesus Mohammed, they look sick. Some of them can't walk by themselves. The guys who chased the Skinks, they're carrying a couple of the others." He paused to see what the creatures would do next. "They're heading for the river and getting in. I lost them, they're underwater. No, wait, some of them are bobbing to the surface. It looks like some of the healthy ones are holding sick ones up where they can breathe. They're at the other side now, getting out of the water." He looked down at his company commander.
"Skipper, remember what you did on Avionia? I think we just did the same thing here." On Avionia, Conorado had freed the sentient aliens who were being held as research animals by a senior scientist.
Conorado nodded, he believed he was right about the centauroid thanking the Marines for helping drive the Skinks away—it looked like the Skinks had been using some of them as slaves. That was confirmed when the Marines searched the camp.
The shuttles docked in the amphibious barge-type starship and the Skinks filed off, to be led to the troop holds by crew members. An Over Master stood in the entrance to the passageway from the docking bay and studied the passing Fighters. He saw one without a weapon and stopped him.
The Over Master stared at the Fighter for a time. "You're the one," he said.
The Fighter said nothing. He stood, head bowed, before the Over Master. He wondered if he should dread this encounter. Losing a weapon in combat was sometimes punished severely.
"Your unit's Leader was killed. Instead of continuing to follow his last order, you saw the threat from behind and assumed a Leader's position. You gave new orders to the other Fighters in your unit and fought off the slaves who were attacking. Then you fired our dead so their helixes would not be left for the Earthmen Marines to discover."
Kingdoms Fury Page 30
