Exodus: Tales of The Empire: Book 2: Beasts of the Frontier.

by Doug Dandridge

  “We need to move,” Thomas told her, grabbing her by her arms and holding her away so he could get a look into her eyes. “This needs doing.”

  She nodded as he released her, then followed him through the high ferns to their next attack position.

  * * *

  Jack Duval swept the game trail ahead with his sensitive eyes, the gift of the augmentation the Imperial Marines had given him in what seemed another lifetime. He wondered what made the trail, what kind of animal. He thought that most paths were made by herbivores, which meant carnivores would set up ambushes along them. He didn’t know what kind of carnivores would stalk these trails, but was sure that there was one, the kind he had been taught to hunt, humans.

  “Status?” came the call from Deveroix.

  “We’re still following a trail, but we haven’t caught up to them yet.”

  “Be very careful. Jubil ran into an ambush.”

  “What happened?”

  “They led them into the hunting ground of some kind of ambush predator, then hit them while they were occupied.”

  “I’m leading the way,” said Jack, his eyes sweeping the woos to both sides.

  “Jubil had his augmented leading the way too, and they still got caught.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Jack, a smile stretching his face. “They’ve never run into anyone like me.”

  “Just be cautious. We’ve already lost enough people.”

  “Still want him alive?”

  “I don’t care. Bring me his head if that’s all you can get.”

  The com terminated, and Jack looked back at the people following him. Two were in combat armor, which was probably proof against anything this planet might throw against them, The other three were in hunting skinsuits, which might protect them, but, then again, might not.

  The trail led to a small footbridge made of metal alloys that linked to another wooded island. Jack looked closely at the water and didn’t see anything, so he walked across on soft feet. After looking over the other side he waved his people forward. First came one of the men in combat armor, his footsteps echoing over the water. The next was one of the men in hunting garb, looking nervously at the water on the east side of the bridge.

  He never saw the giant carnotrope that rocketed out of the water and hit him at head and shoulders with a wide open mouth. In the blink of an eye the giant predator, carrying the man in his jaws, splashed into the water and was gone. Three particle beams struck the water, raising steam and splashes.

  “Cease fire,” yelled Jack, staring at the water. There was no way the mercenary was still alive, not trapped in jaws like that. “Everyone else. Over here, quickly.”

  One of the men hesitated, and Jack cursed under his breath, waving the man forward. He man shook his head for a moment, then hurried across, breathing out a sigh of relief when he reached the other side.

  “Come on,” said Jack, turning back to the path and moving quietly away. “We have a fucking job to do.”

  * * *

  Shit, thought Matthew as he approached the nesting area. Giant carnotropes were always dangerous, wherever they were encountered. Their nesting areas were particular hazardous. Scores of adult ‘tropes, females laying and caring for eggs, dominant males guarding the area. All hidden in the thick foliage in order to protect the eggs from aerial predators.

  He had two choices. He could go around the nesting area, and hope that his hunters still stumbled into it. Or he could go through the nesting area and depend on the stinkweed to keep the adult ‘tropes away. That was the best bet for hitting the hunters hard.

  Taking a deep breath, Matthew walked ahead, trying to make as little noise as possible. The carnotropes were mostly silent as well, though a few snuffled loudly as the odor of the stinkweed hit them. The ‘tropes really hated the smell, and most times stayed well away. Since this was a nesting area, and at least one big male thrust his head out of the brush to see why the despised weed was in their home.

  Matthew froze as the huge head came into view. The ‘trope sniffed, drawing in great draughts of air. He localized the source of the odor, and his eyes locked onto the still form of the human. Matthew didn’t move a muscle. He depended on the nearsightedness of the great predators, and prayed that the male wouldn’t shuffle out for a closer investigation. With a final sniff the great beast shuffled back instead, disappearing into the foliage.

  Letting out the breath he had been holding in, Matthew walked softly out of the nesting area, making sure that on each step he ground a foot into the soil, leaving a trail. If the people following him had been Swampers, they wouldn’t have fallen for this trap. But they weren’t Swampers.

  * * *

  “He must be getting tired,” said the Scout, stopping for a moment.

  “Why do you say that?” asked Claude Deveroix, closing up with the scout. This thing was not going the way he expected. Two of his teams had already been hit, once cut down to half its strength. And they had not only not caught sight of their target, they had not come close to hurting any of the people who were helping him. In the Enforcer’s experience, things like this did not happen. They were the Crime Lords, the masters. Ordinary people were their prey, not the other way around.

  “Because he left tracks through this part.”

  “You sure?” he asked the augmented, a former Naval Commando.

  “What else could be going on?” said the Scout.

  Dammit, thought the Chief Enforcer. I should have brought Jack along, or gone with him. Jack Duval was not just a member of the syndicate, he was ex-Force Recon, and so would have more experience operating in wilderness settings.

  The path had a strange look to it, wider than the one they had followed to this point, as if something really big had crashed repeatedly down the trail. He wasn’t sure what kind of creatures lived in this place, except for the ‘tropes. Were there large herbivores here? And were they any less dangerous for being plant eaters?

  “Every second we waste, Mr. Deveroix, the little shit is getting further away.”

  “OK. Then let’s get him.”

  Deveroix still had a bad feeling about this whole thing. He was a city boy, coming from a core world. He had only come here because it offered an opportunity to move up in the organization. Even though it was a frontier world, it was still a step up from local enforcer to the chief enforcer of an entire planet. It’s just all of this fucking swamp, this jungle, creeping me out.

  The Scout moved ahead, one of the men in combat armor following close behind, then one of his regular sergeants, Francois, wearing a civilian hunting rig. Deveroix was about to step into line, directly in the middle of the formation. He stopped in his tracks as loud hissing rose to both sides of the path, followed by a grunting roar. Death then came rocketing from both sides of the path.

  Francois was the first to die, as four tons of carnivore came out of the brush with a hopping leap, jaws open. When the jaws closed they crunched through the chest and back of the man. His mouth opened in a soundless scream, and he was jerked out of sight as the giant carnotrope pulled back into the brush.

  The man in the combat armor fared slightly better, in that he survived for a little while. The jaws of his ‘trope closed on his helmet and shoulders, and the man frantically pounded his gauntleted fists on the head of the creature. The ‘trope, this one a mature female, opened and closed its jaws, trying to bite through the armor without luck. So it did what instinct to it to do with any prey that didn’t succumb. Gripping the man in jaws and front claws, it backed through the brush and into the stream that flowed beyond. Pulling the man underwater, it wedged him between a couple of fallen logs. There the prey could die over time, and the predator could later enjoy a tender meal.

  The Scout dodged out of the way of the first carnivore, his superior reflexes coming to his aid. Unfortunately, he moved right into the path of the second, which clamped down on his waist and shook him like terrier shaking a rat. The Scout struck the armored head of the amphibi
an with both of his hands. They were blows that would have killed or crippled a human, and did almost nothing to the ‘trope. The dagger like teeth slice through the skin suit and into the flesh below, meeting in the middle and severing the spine in the process.

  Deveroix aimed and fired his particle beam rifle at the beast that was tearing apart his scout. The beam burned through the armored hide of the creature with a flash of steam. The creature opened its mouth in a loud, pain filled roar, throwing the body of the Scout away into the brush. From the look of the man, he was dead, and his injuries were so severe that there was no way he could be brought back with what the mobsters had on hand. The creature looked around as Deveroix continued to sweep the beam into its body, its eyes finally locking on the Enforcer and taking a hop forward. It moved about ten meters a hop, a terrifyingly rapid advance. Deveroix kept his beam on the creature, his mind screaming for him to run, and sure that turning his back and fleeing would only lead to his death.

  The carnotrope gathered its four hind legs underneath, ready for the next leap, the one that would land it on top of the man. Before it could complete the movement the light went out of its eyes and it fell face forward onto the ground.

  “Damn,” shouted one of the other men.

  Deveroix shook his head. His team had consisted of seven people, and within seconds the wildlife of this planet had killed almost half of the group. If it had done that much to his team, before he had even contacted the target, he could only imagine what would happen to them when they had spent an entire day out here.

  “Jack. Jubil. Come in,” he called through the com. “I want you and your people here with me.”

  “What’s up?” asked Jack, who had only lost one man on his team. “Are you sure you don’t want us to continue to track our targets?”

  “I want us to consolidate so these assholes can’t hurt us as badly.”

  “What people?” asked Jack. “We had one man taken by a beast.”

  “They killed three of mine, Jack,” said Jubil. “I’ll feel much better with more guns behind me.”

  “Contact your transports and get your asses here as fast as possible. No arguments. Deveroix out.”

  “Let’s back up from here, people,” he told the rest of his team. “We’ll find a secure location and fort up until the others get here.”

  I am not leaving here until I have that boy’s head. And the heads of everyone in his family.

  * * *

  “They’re not coming in together,” reported Tommy over the com. The family was using military grade communications, the encrypted transmissions sent by tight beam to the drones they had orbiting high up in the air, then directly down to the other com sets. It was as foolproof a way of communicating without being intercepted as the Empire could come up with. Not completely foolproof, but anyone intercepting the encrypted signal wasn’t likely to know who or what was transmitting.

  “Do the best you can, nephew,” said Timothy, himself watching the clearing where the aircars were heading. One was already on the ground, the one that had brought the big boss and his team. One more was on approach, while the other was hovering a kilometers away. They might not know something was waiting for them on the ground, but they weren’t taking any chances.

  The aircar on approach circled the clearing a few times, its fans a high pitched whine in the sky. The side doors were open, and some of the passengers were looking out with rifles pointed at the jungle. The same was true of the third car.

  “Tommy,” said Timothy into the com. “On my command, light ‘em.”

  “Roger,” replied Tommy.

  Timothy looked at the pair of large trees on the north side of the clearing, near oaks. They looked a lot like Earth oak trees, with the exception of their size. They stood at least forty meters tall, and each had almost a hundred meter spread. And normally only one kind of creature nested in them, something that needed a tree that size. He could see movement in the trees, enough to let him know that they were nesting there.

  The first aircar came down, barely touching its landing skids to the ground, then disembarking its troops. Timothy swore as he counted five of them. That meant the other car had the half team. Well, too late to worry about that now, he thought, watching as the one aircar left the ground while the other made its approach. That part was as he hoped. The boss must have been impatient, calling for his people to hurry up, get on the ground, and get to him.

  The cars were just about even with each other, passing by forty meters above the ground, when Timothy gave the signal to his nephew, at the same time triggering the hasty charges he had planted near the two huge trees. The charges exploded with a loud boom, sending up smoke. A second later the rockets that had been built within the charges took off, screaming through the air, trailing smoke and sparks. At a height of fifty meters they exploded, filling the air with more smoke, sparks and noise. That had the desired effect, and scores of large flyers left each tree, flapping away in panic.

  The creatures were among the largest aerial hunters on the low gravity, high atmospheric density planet. They hunted most of the mid-sized and smaller ground dwellers, and all of the other flyers over the Swamp. The largest had wingspans of over sixteen meters, the smallest ten. All were screeching out of their toothed mouths, arching their long necks. They were too panicked to pay much attention to the aircars.

  Tommy set off his set of devices near another stand of the great trees, sending more of the creatures into the air. Over a hundred of them headed into the paths of the aircars, banging their heavy bodies into the aerial vehicles. The pilots did what most pilots would, frantically trying to avoid collisions with large objects in the air. And they did just what Timothy had hoped, running into each other and falling in an arc from the sky, out of the Swamper’s sight.

  “Where are they, Tommy?” asked Timothy over the com. If they came down in a soft landing, the men aboard might still be able to join their companions, not the outcome he was looking for.

  “They’re sitting in a nice deep patch of swamp right now, both slowly sinking.”

  “What about the passengers?”

  “Oh, they’re trying to get out, right enough. And the greeting committee is swimming out to them.”

  Timothy sat back for a moment, letting his breath out. We won’t have to worry about those bastards. He closed his eyes for a moment, only a moment, then opened them to look back at the clearing, where five men with rifles were moving out, weapons at the ready. No rest for the wicked, he thought, getting to his feet and cat footing it into the jungle. The poor fools probably still thought they were the hunters, and he was about to disabuse them of that notion.

  * * *

  “We’re in the water,” yelled Jubil’s voice out of the com. “Those damned amphibians are coming for us. Help us. Help us.” The voice rose into a scream that cut off with finality.

  “Goddammit,” yelled Deveroix, turning in place and looking at the rest of his team. “Jack. Are you there?”

  “Heading your way now, boss. The guys wanted to look for the Swampers that set off those remotes, but I think they are long gone by now.”

  “Just get your asses over here as fast as you can,” shouted Deveroix.

  “I think I found some tracks here, Mr. Deveroix,” said Sully, the only other member of his team with any wilderness experience.

  “Only the one?”

  “Yes, sir. Only one set, and those faint as hell.”

  “But you think it’s our boy?”

  “The size of the tracks fit.”

  “Then let’s move out,” said Deveroix, waving the direction of the trail. “You lead, Sully.”

  Sully looked like he wanted to argue, but one look at the face of the Chief Enforcer and he swallowed, nodded his head, and walked ahead.

  “Shouldn’t we wait for Jack and his team?” asked Prescott, one of Deveroix’ regular muscle.

  “He’s only one man,” growled the Chief Enforcer.

  “There’s more
of them out here.”

  “I’m betting that the rest of them are elsewhere,” said Deveroix. “They’ve been hitting the other teams, and there can’t be that many of them.”

  Prescott shook his head, but kept his mouth shut. Deveroix was thankful for small favors. He let Prescott walk ahead, then followed, letting the last man take the trailing position.

  * * *

  Matthew almost shouted for joy as he saw the topor bush ahead to the side of the game trail. He approached cautiously, knowing that stink weed wouldn’t protect him from what he was hoping to find in the bush. The flowers were fully open, and the intoxicating scent of the blooms made him lightheaded. So much the better, he thought. The scent was intoxicating in all meanings of the word, and men who were high did not have the best judgement.

  Matthew took some steps closer to the bush, a shiver running up his spine as he caught sight of the flashes of red within the bush. Just what he was looking for, if he could work it to his advantage. As he took the last step, less than half a meter from the bush, one of the lizards thrust its head out and hissed at him. He stepped back, careful to put his foot back into the print he had already left. The lizard stared at him for a moment more, then retreated back into the bush.

  The young man looked around, trying to find a way to get off the path without leaving a trail. He saw a log running toward the swamp about two meters away. I think I can make that, he thought, tensing his legs. With a push he was in the air. His feet hit hard onto the log, and he thought for a moment that he was going to fall off. Swinging his arms through the air, he kept his balance, barely. Taking small steps he moved up the log, out over the water of the swamp. The trees here, growing up from the water, had a profusion of wooden knees sticking up from the muck, much like an Earth cypress. He carefully set his feet on the knees, walking across the swamp without touching the water, until he was stepping out onto the dry land on the other side of this small neck of swamp.

  * * *

  “Where’s Pablo,” called out the man behind Jack Duval.

  The ex-Imperial Marine Force Recon man looked back, seeing Chiun gesturing excitedly at the trail behind him, where the rear security should have been walking.