Where in the hells are those heavy weapons? the sergeant thought, sweeping through the legs of two of the behemoths. Both went down. The sergeant realized they weren’t going to stop the stampede with their personal weapons. The heavy lasers could cut all the way through the herd in seconds, and probably save them. A cold chill went up his spine as he realized whoever had initiated this attack had probably made sure those emplacements were no longer working.
Time seemed to slow, but not slow enough. In seconds, the herd changed from a distant charging mass to one that was trampling over the Xlatan. Soldiers screamed in pain and terror. The screams were cut short, as happened when multi-ton creatures stepped on chests and heads. Any who survived that first trample were subjected to more, and more. The herd thundered over and past to run into the jungle, pushing aside trees, knocking some of the smaller ones down.
Nlorn groaned in pain. He was shocked to find he was still among the living. From what he could gather, he was the only one of his command. None of his limbs worked, and from the pain, it was apparent that all six were damaged. Most probably broken. It hurt to breathe, and he assumed he had broken ribs as well.
Nlaton, his squad second, was in his field of view, unmoving. Several of the warrior’s limbs were bent at unnatural angles. The helmet was intact, though pushed down into the ground. That might have been what killed the male. Or it could have been the multiple pads that had stomped on his body. There was another Xlatan lying beyond Nlaton, also unmoving, his faceplate turned too far over his shoulder.
It was a miracle he’d survived. When he tried to engage his comm, to no result, he started thinking it might have been better if he had died with the rest. Instead, he was doomed to lie here helpless, hoping Mmrash noticed when his unit didn’t perform their comm check. If so, he might be lifted out to the medical facility. If something didn’t come along and kill him in the meantime.
* * *
“Good job, people,” Jonah said, patting the chief of his mortar team on the shoulder.
“Easy as pie,” said the chief of the crew, Ahmed Mohammed, pulling the light mag accelerator tube from the baseplate and biped assembly.
His countryman, Yusef bin Sherif, smiled as he grabbed the plate and tripod, quickly folding them for transport. In these days of laser defense systems and tracking, the high-arc weapons seemed to have passed into the annals of history. Jonah had thought they still had a use, especially when configured as they were now. The weapon could be used as both a high-angle and direct-fire weapon. Or, with the proper programing by the crew, as something in between.
Jonah hadn’t been able to see the fast-moving shell with his eyes, but it had appeared on his HUD. Minimal arc, taking only a third of a second to cover the distance, hiding in the shadow of the tree the Xlatan were using for shade. The impact was almost perfect as well. Too far from the herd to kill any of the large herbivores, but close enough to panic them. Of course, several dozen of them had been killed by the Xlatan, but that couldn’t be helped.
“It’s too bad,” said Xebraferd, standing beside him while looking out on the plain. “A waste of meat.”
“They killed a bunch of your enemies.”
“They did that, but still it sits hard with me.”
Jonah looked over at the area where the Xlatan had been set up. They’d done everything right. Protective berms, dug in, good fields of fire. If his people had tried to cross the prairie, they’d have been targeted at range, and he had no doubt many Humans and Kalagarta would have been burned down. And if he’d tried to attack their position, the heavy weapons would have hit the Humans from the flank.
“We could have just bypassed them,” Charley said, helping the mortar team get their weapon stowed in their backpacks.
“Yeah, and we’d have had to face them further on down the road.” Jonah figured they’d have to kill all the Xlatan to take the compound, and the fewer on the field at that point, the better.
“You still plan on trying to take the compound, don’t you?” his partner asked. “You know that’s madness.”
The colonel nodded. Of course it was crazy. The Ravagers were supposed to come in and fight the battle. The Eagles were supposed to stay on the periphery and provide intelligence and support. The Ravagers had more than five times the firepower per man than the Eagles, and they had almost infinitely greater protection. Add to that the numbers of heavier CASPers that were supposed to drop, and he really had nothing in his quiver.
“Well, we can try to do something while we still have something to do it with, or we can hang around out here in the jungle until our weapons and equipment degrade to the point of becoming unusable.”
“We could still survive.”
“Are you asking me to hide?” Jonah asked, looking his friend and subordinate right in the eyes.
“Hell no. But it’s my job to present the counter argument, isn’t it?”
“It is. And it’s time we got moving, before we have more company to entertain.”
A minute later the company and their allies were moving at a fast jog, or, in the case of the Kalagarta, hop. They ran off at an angle to their predetermined route of march, putting some distance between themselves and the target they’d painted on the terrain.
They heard the sound of shuttles in the air when they’d gotten four miles into the jungle. The Kalagarta were winded, while the Humans could have continued the pace for several hours. Xebraferd croaked out a command, and the colonel was gratified to see that the amphibians were prepared to push themselves beyond their limits.
After half an hour more Jonah decided to call a break. They were seven miles from the prairie. If the enemy could spot them out here, there was no way they could get away.
“Let’s start angling back to the river,” Jonah said after taking fifteen. As soon as they started out, the sound of shuttles passed again, this time to the west. By the sound, they’d turned to the north and were heading toward the big river along the path the Humans would have taken if they’d only moved a couple of miles back into the jungle before changing their march.
“We should get to the river a couple of hours after nightfall,” said Xebraferd, still breathing hard through mouth and gill slits.
“You think we should continue into the night?”
“I do. The River Tribe will know we are coming, and meeting us at night puts them, and us, at lower risk.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Jonah said, clapping the Kalagarta on the shoulder.
The alien looked startled for a moment, and Jonah wondered if he’d broken some taboo. An instant later the alien gave him the Kalagarta version of a smile, mouth opening and closing like a fish.
We’re just one big, happy, diverse family, the colonel thought with a chuckle.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Two
Commander Mmrash stared down at the prairie as the gunship orbited over. Another shuttle was down, its carried squad deployed around the scene of the battle.
Not a battle, the Xlatan officer thought. More like a massacre.
The Humans had proven that they were innovative, using the wildlife as a weapon against his people. It wasn’t something he’d have thought of. Maybe not even something anyone of his species would have come up with. Either the Human leader was a military genius, or—and he hated to think this way—their species was just smarter than his. Mmrash was realist enough to know that the Xlatan weren’t the superior species most of their people liked to think they were. The Besquith were stronger and tougher. Many of the technologically superior species were where they were because they were faster or deeper thinkers.
“Nlorn is alive, commander,” the call came over the comm.
“What does he have to say about what happened?”
“We have him on pain medication,” the medic on the other end of the comm replied. “He’s not in any condition to answer questions.”
Mmrash cursed under his breath. Much as he hated to see any of his people suff
er from a combat injury, he needed information. If the sergeant had to suffer to give him that information, that was just too bad for Nlorn. It had been the medic’s on-the-spot decision to put him under. If he’d been here to counter that order, he would have. He hadn’t been, and it was no use coming down on a soldier for doing his job.
“His condition?”
“All of his limbs have been broken, multiple fractures. Definite internal injuries.”
The shuttle took off, rising to five hundred feet and accelerating in the direction of the compound. Within an hour Nlorn would be in surgery, and if the surgeon wasn’t Xlatan, he’d been attending to them the entire time the warriors had been on the planet.
His other shuttle came over, this one without embarked soldiers.
“Get that bird down there and pick up the troops,” Mmrash ordered that pilot, “then set up a search pattern.”
“They’re going to be hard to pick up in that mess,” the pilot said.
Of course they are, the commander thought, choking back a curse. The Humans of the Fierce Eagle Company were stealth specialists. They could operate with equal efficiency in jungle, arid, or mountain conditions, but the jungle expressly played to their abilities. They couldn’t move as fast as soldiers in powered armor or riding in aircraft, but they could sneak into an egg-laying flyer’s hutch without the guard animal being the wiser.
Mmrash thought for a moment of starting another fire down in the jungle, trying to burn the enemy out, but it hadn’t worked before, and he wasn’t sure where they actually were. The most likely result would be more burned commodity and a very angry leader.
“A call is coming through from the boss,” the pilot said, his ears twitching in an unreadable series of signals.
Mmrash wasn’t sure, but he’d guess the pilot was extremely anxious at how his commander might react, while at the same time silently laughing his ass off. “Put him through.”
“Don’t give me any excuses, Mmrash,” Jillor growled as soon as his image formed over the dash. “You screwed up again and lost more of your command.”
“We’ll get them, boss. I’ll bet my life on it.”
“You already have. If I wanted to call in the chips, you’d already be dead.”
“But…”
“No excuses. All I want from you now is your people back here. I’m pissed that you disobeyed my orders and kept the gunship out there.”
“I thought we’d catch them out in the open, and the gunship was my best chance of getting them.”
“Then why wasn’t it waiting over the ambush?”
Mmrash couldn’t come up with an answer to that. He’d decided to hedge his bets, playing both chances, and he’d blown it again.
“Just get your people here. I want them in place when the Humans come at us.”
“There’s no way in all the hells they’ll get across that dead zone.”
Jillor returned a cold stare. Mmrash could guess what the boss was thinking. There’d been no way they could get off the plateau, then no way they could reach the lowlands. Now they were within a hundred miles of the compound. They were like ghosts, walking through all the high-tech advantages of their opponents like they weren’t there.
“We’ll be back in twenty minutes,” Mmrash said, feeling a hollow cold in the pit of his stomach. He was wondering if he’d actually live past the twenty-first minute.
* * *
“Stop,” said Xebraferd in an authoritative tone. “We are being watched.”
The Humans all looked around, checking every angle, weapons at the ready. Jonah glanced at the Kalagarta, who appeared alert but unworried.
“The River Tribe has found us,” said the war chief, looking over at Jonah.
The colonel looked back, the night vision of his visor making the amphibian look like a glowing green creature of nightmare. It was a very clear image, an improvement over what generations past had been saddled with. Color was still a problem, since there weren’t enough photons bouncing around at night to fill in the chromatic regions, but he could recognize individuals as well as if the sun was in the sky. From the expression on his face, Jonah could tell the war chief was relieved that contact had been made.
A trio of Kalagarta came forward into the open. They were dressed, or not, the same as the tribesmen with them. No clothing, leather bags hanging over shoulders. All had blowguns sheathed in other bags and spears over shoulders. All but one, who was carrying a laser rifle made for a much smaller species, as well as a web belt of power packs.
They’re guerillas, Jonah thought, recalling some of the storied irregular fighters of Earth. What came to mind were the Mujahedeen of Afghanistan and the Cong of Viet Nam, but they didn’t have the support of a rival government, and they’d had to procure what advanced weapons they possessed from their enemy.
“We are safe now,” said Xebraferd with conviction.
Jonah looked up at the overhead canopy as they followed the people who’d come out to greet them. He was looking for the inevitable gaps that would allow the folks in the sky to look in on them. They walked for minutes, and the colonel couldn’t detect any breaks.
“They’ve woven the canopy to provide cover,” Charley said, pointing up to a section.
Jonah zoomed in with his visor to look more closely at the point Charley was indicating. He could pick up the woven mat, and the strands of something that shone in his visor’s night vision.
“But is it enough to hide that,” he said, pointing ahead to where a large fire was burning in a small clearing.
The canopy was also woven across that space, but Jonah didn’t see how a mere camouflage netting of foliage could cover that much of a heat signature.
“The plants reflect the heat back at us,” said Xebraferd, following the gazes of the Humans. “We use the leaves to insulate when needed. We were hoping it would do the same with the devices the invaders use. So far it seems it does.”
“The plant life around here incorporates a lot of carbon crystals in their leaves and branches,” Ivan said, picking up a leaf from the ground and rubbing it with his fingers. “It could reflect the heat back to the ground.”
“One advantage for the home team,” Charley said as they passed numerous huts along the way. “But I want to know how they knew we were coming?”
It was obvious the Kalagarta of the River Tribe had been ready for them. There were a number of females cooking over the fire, and it looked like more than even a large village like this would need for a meal. The odor of cooking meat reached their noses before they sighted the large animals turning over spits. Huge pots of stoneware sat over parts of the fire, cooks stirring to make sure the heat was evenly distributed to the vegetable matter.
“The trees let them know,” said Xebraferd, looking back at Charley.
“The trees?”
“Well, not all the trees. But the messenger trees communicate across the distance and let us talk to other tribes.”
Charley looked over at Ivan, asking for an explanation from their best-read trooper on botany.
“I’m not a scientist, Major. I have some conjecture, but that’s all I have.”
“Well, however it works, it gives our friends another equalizer,” Jonah said. That might not have been quite true, since the Xlatan and their Syndicate allies had high-tech comms with full Tri-V capabilities.
“The chief would like to meet with you in the council chamber,” said one of their escorts.
“Might the chief meet with our guests out here?” asked Xebraferd, his eyes blinking out a message to the other Kalagarta. “They are not at home in the water like us.”
“The chief has said he will meet with the Humans in the council chamber.”
“We’ll meet with him wherever he wants,” the colonel said. He wasn’t sure what the deal was, but he wasn’t about to sour relations with their only allies.
Xebraferd made a gesture to the local, who turned and started away.
“Come on, Major,” Jonah
said, nodding to his subordinate. “If I’m about to go through some obnoxious crap, you can sit through it with me.”
A body of water shone in the night vision of the helmet, and their guide was heading right to it. He was starting to wonder if the council hut was across what appeared to be a creak feeding the great river and started looking for a bridge, but his guide turned to the north and followed the creek bank until he came to a long, low hut that was built halfway into the creek.
The Kalagarta waded out into the water, then dove under. Jonah stared, not sure what he was supposed to do now. He looked over at Charley, who shrugged his shoulders. A moment later the Kalagarta reappeared, staring at the Humans with eyes blinking and gill slits opening and closing, a sure sign of confusion.
“The hut entrance is under water,” said the Kalagarta, coming up behind them. “It’s a short swim to the entrance, and there is air to breathe inside.”
The guide dove again, and Jonah nodded at Charley and went in himself. He went under, holding his breath, wondering if he should have engaged his breathing mask. The guide was waiting and turned to swim ahead. As Xebraferd had said, it was only a short swim. There was a light ahead, not much, but enough to guide him into the entrance. A short but claustrophobic swim down an underwater tunnel, and he could see the light above.
The chamber itself was mostly underwater, but there was three feet of space between the surface of the water and the ceiling of woven branches. Again, there were strands of some shiny substance woven through it, and he wondered if it was some of that natural carbon fiber he’d heard of.
A dozen Kalagarta sat in the chamber, water up to their necks as they formed a partial circle around the entrance. Their guide motioned for the two Humans to take the one open area, then dove back into the water to leave.
Jonah sat, and found that there was a woven seat underneath his buttocks. The water came to mid chest on the taller Human, though Charley looked very uncomfortable sitting neck deep in the liquid.
When Eagles Dare Page 27
