Koban Universe 2: Have Genes, Will Travel

by Stephen W Bennett

  Casually flicking the gun belt off into the darkness, Kobalt turned to go up the hill. He checked with the other four. “One man was with the horses here, he’s running away. I’m going up to find the sniper on the hill top.”

  Kit answered him first. “Horses scattered here, there were three men, two at the campfire, and one was with the horses. The man with the horses fled with them. The two at the campfire were hired gunmen drinking coffee, and had just arrived on one of the shuttles. They were too slow, and should have asked for a lot more money. At least enough to cover their burial. Jace sent some of his men around to the front of the hill, but he went to the top. I smell his trail.”

  Ethan was next. “I had to wound the guard here, but he’ll live. The horses bolted when they heard Kit’s roar from the speaker. Good thing I had warned Beau first, and calmed her, or I’d be sitting on my ass in the woods. The guard doesn’t know where Gregos or Edgerton are, but thinks they will be on one of the high spots using night vision glasses. Only the men with night scopes went to the hilltops. Those men are fair game.”

  Carson had a complaint. “I knocked out and tied up the two guards over here, but all the damned horses bolted. At least I have two pistols and belts but I’m on foot. Neither of these men was part of the CCA death squads. Those hired guns, including those from the other shuttle are all either at the front or between the hills, and working their way closer to the ranch house. I think most of the ordinary cowhands are sort of taking a back seat to the pros that were hired. They mostly joined forces with Sheriff Ackerman, and are covering the back of the ranch house from the trees on the west side. That’s where the weakest resistance might be, and the least number of hard case killers are located.”

  Ethan said, “I hear rifle shots from above me, but they must have heard the roars from all sides, and the panicked cries of the horses. They’ll know we’re coming now. Be careful.”

  They started rapidly working their way up the dark and wooded hills, except one, who had decided on a different path to the top.

  ****

  Egerton was exasperated. “You missed again Clampton. You should have pulled the trigger when I told you.”

  The cattleman might know ranch business, but as a spotter for Clampton, he sucked. “Sir, we’re nearly three quarters of a mile from the front of the house. By the time you see an infrared glow in front of a curtain or at the bottom of a door, and say shoot, you haven’t told me which window or door, and before I can adjust, they’ve moved. They aren’t stupid down there, that’s how they got three of our men when they spotted us earlier. They know not to pause by a window or door. They stay behind the thick hardwood logs that Chastain used in construction, keeping back by several feet so there’s no heat buildup. I have the only rifle out here that might penetrate at a joint between logs to get to them. My .30-06 couldn’t do that. They damn well know it, and stay towards the side walls, and particularly the back, where Ackerman and his chicken shit rabble, mostly with six shooters, 9mm pistols, and couple of carbines are located.”

  Edgerton shrugged. “They serve to keep Chastain’s people away from the well and windows in back. If we get a fire started, they can’t get inside water via that small pump house fast enough to douse the flames. Then they’d have to go out back to get buckets full while under fire from those guns. It’s one way to keep Ackerman and the squeamish from seeing too much. If anyone comes out the two front doors, they’re dead, surrendering or not.”

  “Well, I think I’ve hit one or two anyway, before they got cautious about the windows, and those flimsy doors. One of these .50 cal slugs messes a man up pretty bad.”

  “If one of those hit was Chastain’s wife or kid, we’d better hope we can burn the place down to avoid that bit of news leaking.”

  “What? You think burning them alive is more merciful than a clean shot through the chest?”

  “No, dumb ass. An accidental fire, which we can claim was their fault, or inadvertent, is better than a head of a woman or child blown off by a bullet. I want plausible deniability for the deaths of anyone we can’t claim is a rustler.”

  “Then, when you asked me to shoot just now, you knew somehow that there was no stupid kid by that window I shot through?” His logic was valid, but using it against the man that had paid him handsomely for previous murders wasn’t likely to increase his bonus level today.

  “Shut up. If it moves down there, kill it.”

  “You got it boss.” He smiled slightly, with his cheek shielded by the rifle stock and the growing darkness.

  That was when the chilling and echoing roars of large predators sounded from all sides of the valley below, and most loudly for them, from down the slope behind them. Egerton, carelessly rose up to rush over to the drop off behind the flat rocky top of the hill, seeking whatever made that sound, and trying to see what had clearly spooked their horses. They had left several men to tend the animals, but he heard no shots. There was a distant shot heard from his far right, but shots had sounded every few minutes for over an hour.

  He had his IR glasses up, scanning through the trees a hundred feet below. He quickly spotted several dozen horses breaking out of the trees into the open flat ground, some running together, others scattering in their own directions. The sounds had been too deep to be the higher pitched yowls of cougars, and it certainly wasn’t the yip of range wolves, which wouldn’t come this close to so many humans. In fact, neither would cougars and not four of them in any case, since they hunted in mated pairs, and didn’t share territory.

  He was soon joined by Clampton and Cabe Wilkins, both of whom had exercised better sense and crawled back from their perch overlooking the ranch house, before risking being a silhouette against the starry sky from the ranch house.

  Cabe offered his opinion. “Them wharn’t no cougars Mister Edgerton. Not four of ‘em ‘round a place like this, with ranches and houses an sech. Ya catch sight of em with those night glasses?”

  “No, but our horses below were just run off.” He swiveled his night vision goggles to where he’d heard a gunshot at another hill outpost. “The horses in the remuda over there are running away too. I suspect all of our rides were just spooked at the same time, leaving us on foot. I don’t think those are cougars either Cabe. I think we have larger company than that, and it can’t be good.”

  “Shit. Rippers.” Clampton knew exactly what his boss was thinking. “Greeves only had one with him, and from what you told me tonight, it went out to Brethard’s ranch and tore it up, looking for Maddi. Her daddy told you it killed her, and he was headed for his property on Queensland because he thought it was coming after him.”

  Egerton shook his head. “Well, I think we have more than one of them here tonight. Kit couldn’t get here from Brethard’s place this fast on foot, but he did say it had use of a shuttle. He claimed that animal killed at least nine of his men, who were all armed and waiting for it to arrive. He says it somehow killed his daughter, and gave him a head start to escape. I think he probably traded his life to give his daughter to that ripper. I’ll bet now it knows who paid her for Greeves death. It can read minds.”

  Clampton, hearing this, knew who had first told him about Greeves being dead, but no details. This was the first he’d heard about an attack on Brethard’s spread by the ripper.

  “When you told me and Jace that Greeves was dead, you didn’t say it was Maddi that did it, and that you paid her. Now his pet ripper is out for revenge.” He wasn’t accusing, simply explaining what he now knew. He regretted not getting to collect that big bounty by killing Greeves.

  “The only way for there to be four rippers here, is if more Kobani brought them here because of you having Greeves killed.” Now he was making an accusation, with the intention of extracting some promise of more money.

  Egerton wasn’t capitulating just yet. “Greeves was shot yesterday morning. And that cat can’t radio home for help. Even if it did, Koban is a month of Jump flight time away from here, and no radio call could
reach there for centuries.”

  “Way I see it, boss, no matter how you explain it, there were roars from something like those big bastard tigers, at four different places. Our horses were run off, and those over there were too. I think they all were. I’ll take on whatever’s coming our way, but I want double whatever you paid Maddi for each one of them I can kill. From Koban or not, Greeves proved they ain’t bullet proof, and I got some big damned bullets that can kill at long range, even in the dark. What do you say? Deal?”

  “It’s a deal. A half million Hub credits per kill. For either of you.” He was too terrified to haggle, or to remember that nobody knew how much he’d paid Maddi.

  Clampton and Wilkins both dropped their jaws in surprise at that bounty. Clampton had made only fifty thousand for his most prestigious hit, and Wilkins had only collected four thousand for the raid on Danner’s ranch. This had to be a measure of how dangerous a ripper must be, or rather how much they frightened Egerton. The two men were certainly well motivated now, but only Clampton had a truly heavy caliber weapon with a night scope. Wilkins had his old lever action 30-30, a nostalgic weapon.

  Clampton had caught on to that implied measure of danger immediately. He was greedy, but not suicidal. “Boss, it might be a good idea to use your transducer to call our men just below us, to come up here and join us, before these cats figure out where we are. We may need a lot of guns.”

  Egerton did that, and relayed his suspicions to Gregos, who was over on the hilltop where he’d seen the other horses being chased off. A quick check with his men on and below the other hills confirmed that nearly all their horses had been spooked and chased away. Sheriff Ackerman had tried to send a few of his volunteer deputies out to round up some of the horses, but nobody had any inclination to go out in the dark looking for them. Instead, they were pulling closer together in smaller defensive rings.

  All of them had rightly concluded that nothing native to the planet sounded like that, and most of them had seen or heard the local news stories of the big blue tiger seen in Cayuga, and later at Trail’s End. It had acted friendly then, but the word was being spread that its master, owner, brother, whatever he was, had been killed, and the tiger was now out of control seeking revenge. It seemed to have gained help, too, unless those creatures could move that fast. They were said to be impossibly strong and fast.

  Only Egerton happened to think to call his men up the hill to him, and that actually was Clampton’s idea. Egerton offered each man that joined him a five-thousand Hub credit bonus on the night’s pay, if they got up there fast. It was obvious that the moneymen of the outfits were lacking in any tactical planning experience, other than being willing to pay ruthless men to go out and kill unsuspecting people for them.

  Clampton, Wilkins, and even Egerton, with his pistol and night vision goggles, were watching the slope on the backside of the hill, where their horses had been tied and the roars had sounded. Nearly thirty men were clambering up the front and sides of the hill in front of the ranch house to join them, and they were uncomfortably aware of their exposed position when they were above most of the trees. However, with no moon and the opposition apparently lacking night vision equipment, they gained confidence as they climbed the hundred-ten foot slope, leaving the cover of the trees at the base of the hill behind. The house remained dark, and only starlight illuminated them as they sweated.

  Most of the men wore some form of bulletproof vest, or a chest or full torso set of old military style armor, which offered more protection. It made for awkward climbing since it added weight, and limited flexibility. Two men, in their haste to earn the new added bonus, slipped and fell. One was injured, and he couldn’t resume the climb. The other man grunted loudly when he landed on his back, and he didn’t move again, nor did anyone go check on his condition. There wasn’t any profit there.

  Some of the men, apparently growing tired while climbing the steeper but more direct route to the top, the slope’s rocky center, removed parts of their restrictive armor and left it on ledges for later retrieval. Another man removed and dropped his shin and thigh guards for the same reason, but kept his front chest protector. Next to him, a man removed his full torso covering, and set it carefully over a broken stub of a bush, on a wide ledge, then climbed nimbly upward after that.

  One clumsy cowboy dropped his high priced rifle, and the stock shattered on rocks twenty feet below him, leaving him with just his semiautomatic handgun. Cursing at a couple of the men who laughed at his misfortune, he at least finished his climb faster. One fool, searching for an easier and faster path up, used a small flashlight held in his mouth to illuminate, briefly, the rocky slope ahead. It was brief, because the men nearest him threatened to shoot his ass if he didn’t shut it off immediately.

  The men, when they reached the top, were directed by Clampton in their disposition, around the sixty-foot wide ridge-like flat top, which extended perhaps twenty feet back to where the easier rear side slope led down to where the horses had been tied. They were all aware by now that the horses were gone, and of what had surely chased them away. By tacit understanding, neither Clampton nor Wilkins let anyone else know about the huge bounty arrangement they had been offered. Egerton, feeling far more secure with an additional twenty-seven gunmen added to the two he’d had minutes ago, didn’t feel nearly as vulnerable as he had a short time ago, and regretted his rash offer.

  For some unknown reason, the ripper had not exploited the time before his reinforcements arrived. Now he was considerably less inclined to respect that huge bonus. He’d improvise now. If the animals were gone, then he was out nothing. Or, he could always have Clampton shoot Wilkens, to cut the bonus in half if that man killed a ripper.

  What Egerton didn’t know was that the animal at this hill had wanted the enemy concentrated exactly where they were, and now they were all closer to their next nightmare.

  Most of the men were poised along the rear slope or at the ends of the ridge top, watching close to where they were told the roars had sounded, because the steep front slope had just been swept clean by the men that had scrambled to the top. That’s why the huge roar from just below the front lip scared the holy shit out of nearly everyone.

  One man near the far right end reacted first, and whirled around to start firing his rifle downwards at the edge of the precipice. He shouted. “Get it before it reaches the top, we can kill it while it’s exposed on the front face.” He was doing exactly as he’d advised them to do, firing his rifle steadily as he advanced on the steeper side, and twenty-nine men joined him, firing as they moved to block the beast from reaching the top.

  When the first man fired one of his final shots down the face of the hill, a wild scream of animal pain sounded. He shouted, “I hit it, don’t let it escape. I need to switch guns.” He stepped back and laid down his rifle, and drew his handgun.

  The others, firing in a continuous staccato of gunfire, got closer to the edge and fired down. Two men, a half million Hub credits dancing in their eyes, raced to be first, and the booms of the big rifle, and the smaller crack of the 30-30 was mixed with carbines, pistols, and hunting rifles of various makes and caliber.

  There was a second scream of rage from down slope, near the center, and the focal point of the gunfire pivoted to there. Suddenly there were human screams, as six men on the right end flew out into space, as if they had leaped, arms and legs pin wheeling, dropping their guns in a panic at falling. The gunfire at the center and left end continued, with their attention focused intensely below them, seeking the tiger they could hear, the screams of the men not yet registering. Not until six more men, closer to the center, also flew forward screaming and flailing, as a new and even louder roar came from very close below them. In an instant, eight more men, shoved hard into each other from their right, slipped over the rim.

  The man that had first claimed he’d shot the beast was now behind the remaining nine men on the top, clustered at the center. They were staring in disbelief at the men tumbling lik
e broken dolls down the steep slope, several desperately hanging onto scrub brush or rock outcrops, two laying broken, arms and legs at odd angles and visible on ledges. Even for those the fall didn’t kill, they were not going to be part of the remaining fight.

  The man at the rear quickly shot seven of the nine men that had started to turn around to see what was going on, striking them all in the side of their heads or through an eye in rapid succession. There were two exceptions he made, but not related to mercy by any stretch of one’s imagination.

  He stepped closer and fired a bullet into the bolt and carrier assembly of Clampton’s sniper rifle, just below the scope, where it was held waist high. The man let go the damaged weapon, and used his now free but stinging right hand, swinging his arm wildly around to push backwards at Wilkens on that side, using the man’s dead and collapsing body to stop himself from following him over the edge.

  Egerton’s pistol had been snatched from his hand by a whirling dervish seconds earlier, as said dervish raced along the backside of the hasty firing line, delivering powerful pushes, and kicks to butts, which swiftly sent preoccupied men over the edge.

  It had taken mere seconds, once he had them all at the edge, their attention focused on firing at a perceived, but false deadly threat.

  “Holy shit.” Clampton was stunned, and moved a half step away from the drop off he’d narrowly avoided.

  Edgerton was equally shocked by who he saw. “Greeves! That lying bitch Maddi said you were dead.”

  Ethan smiled grimly. “She certainly thought she’d earned her money. I’m happy to see you too, by the way.”