He couldn’t resist another taunt. “That is where you used the shuttle lasers to clear the enemy forces is it not? Yet the enemy is visible there to me right now, displaying what appears to be the head of a warrior.”
“I will go,” Tyroldor grudgingly relented. “I need time to return to the shuttle and travel to the cliffs.”
He was trying anything to delay the inevitable. His novices could kill the enemy if they could pin them in one place in this hellish thick jungle. You couldn’t see more than a half leap through the undergrowth, and the humans had crisscrossed the area earlier leaving a confusing series of recent scent trails, with potential booby traps anywhere.
“Motgar,” He called her on his com set, aware now that she knew of his problem concerning the loss of any warriors.
“My Leader,” she acknowledged his call.
“You heard,” it wasn’t a question. “I leave you as leader in my absence, to pursue and kill the enemy until I recall you if I confirm one of my octet has died at the hands of humans.”
Losses from the octet weren’t in doubt for her, because she had witnessed the death of Stokol, but was unable to say that to Tyroldor because he had terminated her report by invoking the “Path and clan” duty to obey without question.
At least now, she understood why her leader had done that, but in her mind, she wondered if Kimbo honor was being served by the extremes Tyroldor was taking to avoid admitting he knew of even a single death. If a human had displayed a severed head at the ridge, it had to be Sitdok or Pitda, and since they both had been paralyzed, both would surely be dead if a human had found them.
Fully half the octet was probably dead as were at least eight humans, so there would be no loss of honor to withdraw now, to pursue another hunt later. With equipment changes and force replacements, the next Kimbo hunt would be far more effective against these humans. No matter, she would continue to fight as ordered, until her leader commanded otherwise.
Kapdol, the only member of the octet previously uninjured, had lost his left hand in an explosion that was suicidally detonated by the human he stumbled on arming a claymore. The human had also died in the blast, but came within inches of killing another octet member.
There had been other narrow escapes. They discovered that the little hand bombs did not always wait so long to explode. These particular humans knew how to make them explode while in the air, or just after they struck the ground. She had two new fragments in her back from delaying taking cover, and Tyroldor showed fresh but dried blood along his right side for the same reason. Now they had to dive to the ground as they shot at the sound’s source whenever they heard something crashing through the leaves. Small Kobani animals did that often as they were disturbed, slowing the pursuit.
****
It was Dillon, shouting from over the edge of the ledge above that warned Mirikami of the shuttle’s rising above the distant jungle. “Tet, take cover, the shuttle may be on the way back.”
Neither wanted to use the suit com systems, which would positively confirm humans were active on the ridge, so their faceplates were slid open, allowing them to talk by shouting.
Without stepping out to look up to answer him, Mirikami called out from just inside the cave’s entrance. “Get under cover before they spot you, I’m already inside the big double cave.”
He had been piling loose rock around the front entrance as bracing for his final surprise, and making sure of the concealment, he had an opening just barely large enough for him to get back inside in a hurry.
As soon as he was sure Dillon had moved to hiding and wouldn’t see what he did next, Mirikami inserted the detonator in the now rolled up and mashed together sheet of plastic explosive he had been carrying, and wedged that into place in cracks at the cave roof. He made sure the lanyard he’d saved from the claymore was laid out, stretching back into the cave. He wished it were longer.
He hadn’t wanted Dillon to see him out of his armor, when he lay outside on the ledge. He might have done something equally risky and insisted on joining him to cover his back.
Mirikami crawled out, staying as low as he could until he was behind some rocks ten or twelve feet in front of the cave opening. He pulled a couple of previously uprooted teal leaved bushes over himself, which he’d gathered for that purpose. He hoped they would break up his outline if the shuttle flew over the ridge.
The shuttle didn’t make as fast a trip as Mirikami expected, and it appeared to circle the jungle one time before it started a low speed hover his direction. That had him worried, since the Krall always seemed to do everything in a hurry.
****
Telour too was watching events, using the Krall equivalent to binoculars that enhanced their already excellent distance vision. Tyroldor had taken an unusually long time to reach the shuttle, and when it lifted, he made a circle over the jungle once, before starting a slow cruise towards the ridge. He obviously was trying to give his warriors on the ground time to hunt down the humans they were trailing.
He had observed the two humans at work on the ridge; one on the higher level made changes to the undamaged booby traps there, and the little human clan leader, Captain Mirikami, had set up and concealed a mine in front of a small cave. Then he had gone farther down the terrace to a second cave. After pulling up some bushes and leaving them in front of that cave, he went into the shadows of the entrance.
The lenses Telour had could help him see into the dark opening slightly, but only from an angle. All he saw were rocks being piled near the front. Perhaps to provide cover if a warrior started firing at him. It would be no protection at all if the shuttle lasers were focused there again.
He was surprised when he saw Mirikami crawl out of the cave on his belly, dressed in some brown and tan clothing, without his armor. The small form disappeared into some rocks on the wide ledge, and then he saw the uprooted bushes move, obviously being used as additional cover.
The plan was obvious to Telour. The little clan leader was planning on watching that trap, to set it off remotely when a warrior passed it on the way to inspect the head placed on the rock spire a short distance past that opening. With a fresh scent trail, the opening was an obvious ambush point, and any warrior would be likely to check it before passing it by.
An interesting plan Telour thought, and one that would probably have worked earlier in this hunt. Now he doubted that a forewarned and experienced warrior like Tyroldor would fall so easily to that trap. Not after having seen so many traps, such as those they had already found and destroyed.
He decided the human clan leader was about to discover how a Krall warrior adjusted to new combat conditions. It was a shame to lose a good tool on its very first use, but now that these methods and their effectiveness had been demonstrated, some other human would step up to accept immunity and follow in Mirikami’s example. With a few more results like today, there wouldn’t need to be many more hunts. Never had humans defeated two warriors on a single hunt.
Tyroldor eventually reached the ridge, made a slow cruise high over the original landing area, and realized that Pitda was nowhere to be seen.
However, Sitdok’s body was covered by three wolfbats, feeding on his remains. It wasn’t possible to see if his head were missing with one animal feeding at the top of the carcass. Flying lower to frighten them away wasn’t in his interest right now, so Tyroldor shifted his attention to the ridge. He spotted what could be the head Telour had described. There was no doubt he’d be forced to go identify the remains.
He checked with Motgar before landing. The three warriors were still tracking the humans, following their intertwined trails and backtracks that they had carefully laid out all that morning and afternoon.
He chose a wider place on the terrace well down from the location of the head. By now, he was certain he would find the proof he had been avoiding. However, he didn’t have to rush to embrace the evidence.
Perfectly aware that he was being watched closely from the dome, he pulled both o
f his pistols and ignored the tightness in his chest. One of the most recent hand bomb fragments had passed through his right side blood pump organ, reducing his dual circulation by almost half, as the leaky organ pumped part of its blood into his chest, and reducing the volume of air he could pull into the lungs on that side. The pain had diminished, but the decrease in functionality could not be ignored.
When he passed a cleft that led up from the base of the terrace, he instantly detected the fresh stink of two humans that had passed there recently. They had clearly been hiding somewhere below and climbed up here only after he and his warriors had departed for the jungle hunt.
That had given the humans the opportunity to find the two warriors he had left behind, and kill them, as they lay helpless. He had not taken his injured warriors on the shuttle for fear the poison that had paralyzed them would kill them while in his presence. He had abandoned his clan mates to keep the hunt alive. That act may have ended the hunt for him.
As he sniffed the air, a familiar odor rose to meet him from over the edge. Pitda was somewhere close below, but the scent had the faint taint of death. Either he had recovered and crawled to the cliff, or the humans had brought him there. This still wasn’t proof of death that Telour could force him to admit having found.
He followed the fresh scent trail to where it split. One human had continued towards the head, the other had climbed to the higher level. There were still potential booby traps on the higher level, so he continued straight ahead.
The scent trail led to each opening that his warriors had previously checked and they showed the effects of the laser burns and fractured and ruptured rocks. Nevertheless, he did not pass any of them without checking for current signs of human scent, and looking for fresh activity outside the holes and along the wide ledge in front.
As he grew closer to the location of the head on a slender rock spire, he smelled a sharp odor of some animal’s defecation. It wasn’t fresh, but it came from a tall narrow opening just a leap and a half ahead. The smell bore the unmistakable connection to human scent, and the trail he had been following was much stronger and more recent here.
The breeze brought it to him from a wider area than just the opening. The human had moved about this place for some time in the last hour. It could be just inside, hiding, waiting for him to approach.
Tyroldor studied the area in front of the opening in the rock face carefully. A half leap in front, and slightly offset was a scorched rock where the laser had burned it, and there was a warped metal plate from a human mine lying on the ground. This was where they had exploded one of the booby traps.
The brush in front of the scorched rock was fresh. It couldn’t have been there earlier. With that realization, he instantly fired four explosive rounds and four armor-penetrating rounds into the cave opening, in case the human was waiting for him to step up and look inside.
His recalibrated com set sounded an alert as a remote actuator was sent a signal, and the mine immediately exploded with a powerful blast, pellets striking the rock face and some ricocheted, striking him on the arms and chest. He had instinctively dived to the side at the sound, too late to avoid the blast, but it had missed him. His first thought was that he might be poisoned by the pellets, as his two warriors had been.
He looked at where he had been struck, but there were no penetrations. From the corner of his eye, he caught movement several leaps beyond where the head sat on the rock. The human, after triggering the mine, was firing at him with his pistol as it ran towards a cave opening. Tyroldor leaped into the air from where he had landed and twisted to present as small a target as possible along the enemy’s line of sight.
In midair, he began firing towards the figure as it dived into the cave opening. He felt a shattering pain in his left foot as an exploding shell hit home, blowing off a toe. His own shots were on target, but they only struck rock at the entrance to the human’s bolthole, where he had just disappeared.
Ignoring the injury to his left foot, and the increased tightness in his chest from the fragment lodged near his right side heart, he came down in a tuck and roll, coming to his feet running with a slight limp, not quite as fast as normal. He started for the human’s hiding place, determined to end him now, firing as he ran for suppression.
He passed where the severed head sat on a rock, observing Sitdok’s dead eyed stare towards the place where he had died. He vowed to replace that with this human’s head in a matter of seconds.
As he approached the larger cave, the human began firing out at him, in fitful and wide shots, clearly trying not to expose itself. The Krall poured its own rounds into the rocks that were piled inside the cave entrance for cover, creating a hail of bullet shards and rock fragments, emptying his clip of explosive rounds.
Reloading explosive rounds as he ran, his view angle improved. He could see the shape of the small human pressed against the cave wall, sheltering behind the rock stack. His pistol was in his hand firing out at him. The stacked rocks that were his cover began falling in on him as Tyroldor’s explosive rounds dislodged them. The upper part of the stack fell inwards on his gun arm, forcing a shot to strike between the onrushing warrior’s feet. The human’s return fire ended when an accurate round from the Krall shattered his pistol and the hand that held it.
A savage pleasure gripped Tyroldor as he fired armor piercing rounds into the torso of the trapped human, an animal species he had grown to despise in a single day. He didn’t shoot into the head because he wanted that as his own trophy, to end this cursed hunt.
He lunged to reach over the fallen rocks to tear off the helmet when something sounded just above him. He had an instant to see a line fall away from a gray lump stuck to the cave roof before a hammer blow of an explosion smashed him to the ground. He felt tons of rocks fall across his back, snapping his spine, a crushing weight pressing the air from his massive chest.
Instantly recognizing his situation, he struggled to turn his pistol on himself, to deny the enemy the honor of his death, but rocks held his weakening hand firmly.
Unable to breathe, Tyroldor knew his prey’s final clever trap had been set up to draw him in close, to kill its own killer. He would die leaving a blemish on the honor of Kimbo clan. His final thought was that his frozen seed would be destroyed, his genetic line ended.
****
Dillon heard the firing then the blast of the claymore. His hope that the mine had ended things was dashed immediately when he heard more shooting, which continued for about fifteen seconds. A final heavy explosion was felt through his feet, and left him wondering what had caused that, since Tet had only had the single claymore.
He had started for the front of his hiding place as soon as he realized the attack was on the level below, scrambling recklessly over the two claymores he had positioned to blast out of the narrow opening.
He had his last grenade in one hand, a pistol in the other, and ran to the edge to look down towards Mirikami’s chosen cave. He saw dust drifting way on the breeze, billowing from a pile of rubble where the cliff face had fallen to form a modest slope of broken stone. It was the space in front of where Mirikami’s cave had been.
He sought a target but he didn’t see any sign of a warrior. Not at first anyway, but he soon spotted a Krall’s leg protruding from the rubble. He fired a carefully aimed round at the limb, tearing a chuck of meat from it without a twitch.
Dillon hurried to the chimney of rock he had used to climb up, and risked a dangerous fall in his haste to get down. When he reached the former cave opening, it was completely blocked. He ran to the second opening, intending to enter that to reach the place where they joined. However, the lasers had fractured the rock and it too had collapsed to fill the entrance. Without more help and tools, he wasn’t going to dig his way in without hours of effort.
If the hunt were not over now, it wasn’t going to end, so he used his suit com. “Tet, can you hear me? I’m outside your cave but it’s completely blocked. There’s a dead Krall’s le
g sticking out of the rocks.”
There was no answer for thirty seconds. Then he got a reply.
“Dillon, this is Thad. I’m afraid Tet didn’t make it. But he took the damned octet leader with him.”
“Thad, the hunt should be over, can we get some help out here? We can dig the Captain out. He’s probably behind the rubble in a pocket of air.” He wanted the shuttle out here with crewmembers to dig if the fighting was over.
Maggi’s voice, more tender than he had ever heard her speak answered him. “Dillon, I’m so sorry. We were watching and the infrared image was clear enough. We even played it back while you climbed down. Tet was hit multiple times as he shot back. He was just inside the cave entrance and was there when the explosion brought the roof down on him and the Krall.”
Slumping tiredly onto a rock in front of the rubble covering Mirikami and the Krall’s body, he said resolutely, “We still need to bring him back. I won’t leave him out here.”
Noreen talked to him next. The catch in her voice indicating she had taken her friend’s death hard.
“Dillon, we don’t know if the hunt is ended or not. The octet leader appears to have ignored other probable deaths of his warriors to continue the hunt. There are three warriors in the jungle tracking our people there right now. I’m sure now they know from your transmissions that someone else is alive on the ridge.”
“I’m ready for them. Tet will be joined by more of the bastards.” He knew it sounded like bravado, but he meant every word.
****
Telour had watched with amazement as the little clan leader sacrificed himself to draw the octet leader close, and triggered an explosion that killed Tyroldor as he himself died in a hail of bullets from his attacker. A very Krall-like lack of fear and a surprising and stunning demonstration of the potential humans offered, as a new opponent that they could use to travel the Great Path.
Koban Page 58
