He contacted Motgar, the new ranking leader for Kimbo clan, although the inexperienced novice was unaware of her new status.
“Motgar, Tyroldor has been killed within my sight. That would leave you as leader of the Kimbo clan octet, but the death of a member of the octet must be confirmed by the leader to end the hunt. The proof is on the ridge, but you are engaged in a hunt in the jungle, and have no close transport to confirm an honorable end of the hunt. The transport you used to reach the forest is the closest you have. What is your decision?”
Telour wasn’t about to blur the rules for the humans they might yet find and kill. Kimbo needed to solve their problems themselves. He was surprised at the quick reply.
“The hunt is over,” Motgar answered. “I accept your word that I am the ranking member of the octet, because Tyroldor would speak on this open channel if that were not so. I need no additional proof of the loss of our warriors. We will withdraw to debrief, and if permitted, to fight humans on another day.”
Additional proof? Telour thought. She knows there were earlier losses, and isn’t ready to compromise her honor to pretend that it isn’t so.
“In that circumstance, I will send my own shuttle to recover your warriors, and also recover the shuttle currently at the ridge. How many warriors are there, and where are they located?”
“There are only the two warriors with me in the jungle. We will be traveling south to where we can find a clearing for your shuttle.”
“My K’Tal will contact you.” He answered.
A sense of excitement filled him with pleasure at the huge success of his plan. Only three Kimbo warriors were still alive. The little clan leader had organized a team of eighteen humans that had managed to kill five Krall warriors in one Testing Day. He wasn’t certain of the number of humans that had died, and that wasn’t important anyway, but there would be roughly nine grants of immunity awarded.
Graka clan, Telour in particular, stood to gain considerable status and possibly the right to start the protracted war on humanity. It was a great day indeed.
43. Life Goes on
It was a terrible day indeed. The architect of the best performance humans had managed against the Krall in five years of fighting and dying here had not returned.
The word of what the Primes were calling a victory spread like a rampaging herd of rhinolo through the dome. Nine survivors represented half of those that had fought today. Considering the one hundred percent fatalities usually suffered, this was a huge boost to morale.
Suddenly there were more applicants for volunteers to work with the scientist from the Flight of Fancy than they could possibly use. The incentive to live on the ship if they helped could no longer be offered if there were three people for every available bed.
As soon as the surviving three Krall hunters had returned, a somber Jorl’sn, accompanied by Greeves flew out to pick up the survivors from the jungle. They were the most exhausted, and near the end of their strength.
Thad practically had to carry one of the women a mile to a clearing they had found closest to where the four had prepared to make their final stand. They had heard birds and animals making noise as the Krall worked their way closer to them. All four had saved one grenade each, to use on themselves, rather than permit the warriors to take them alive.
It was well known that the last hunt holdouts were more often found butchered or skinned alive. Sometimes they were staked out for kants, wolfbats, or skeeters to eat them alive. The more trouble made for the hunters, the less quick the death.
To Thad’s exasperation, the four from the jungle didn’t express much gratitude to those that had made their survival possible, or acknowledge Mirikami’s sacrifice that had saved them. In fact, they hadn’t really known that other selectees had made it out alive. The full magnitude of the day wouldn’t sink in until later.
The second shuttle trip landed on the lower terrace, near where Tyroldor had parked the Krall shuttle. The other four “spiders” had climbed laboriously up to join Dillon. They were dead tired from the tension and stress of the day’s events, and from the dangerous climb. They could have waited below for the shuttle, but refused to let Dillon struggle on alone, pulling rocks from the cave entrance where Mirikami had died.
Dillon was determined to recover Tet’s body for a proper funeral. He also wanted to make sure the wolfbats had a full meal on the damned octet leader’s remains. The Krall’s lower body was all Dillon and the others had managed to uncover, due to a large slab of rock that had slid down onto the Krall’s hips and lower back. That slab would require more than human muscle power to lift.
Dillon’s remaining energy confounded the other four, who had essentially only sat in their hot cramped holes all day, except for their struggle to climb up to provide moral support and thanks to their surviving benefactor. Fortunately, they still had protein bars left to give to Dillon. His new metabolism needed a lot more fuel now.
As Thad walked towards the five survivors, they looked up with a combination of sadness, but also relief at being alive.
Dillon on the other hand couldn’t accept that when the chips were down, he had allowed Tet to send him up to the higher terrace. He was haunted by the thought that his being with the older man may have evened the odds, could have saved him. He sat dejectedly on one of the rocks Mirikami had used for cover.
Placing his hand on his shoulder, Thad promised him. “Dillon, we will have a crew out here with block and tackle, crow bars, whatever it takes. But that’s for tomorrow. The sun will set in an hour. If we can’t get in, neither can the skeeters and wolfbats. At first light, we’ll send out trucks and the shuttle with people and tools. OK? You can’t stay here all night, you need sleep and rest.”
Dillon patted the hand on his shoulder in appreciation. Still staring at his feet, he nodded. “I know Thad. Thanks.” Then he placed his hands on his knees to help push himself to his feet. Man, he really was worn out. Gene mods or not, this gravity and heat took a toll.
“Let’s get out of these stinking sweaty body suits, and clean up.” He told the others.
Back at the dome, the jubilation of the Primes was offset by the somber tone of everyone from the Flight of Fancy. The newcomers hadn’t lived for years with once or twice monthly death sentences handed out for eight to sixteen people. What the Fancies felt was the loss of a respected and loved leader, whose decisions had saved so many of them when the Krall had stormed onto their ship.
Noreen tearfully greeted Dillon with a hug, despite his objections that he smelled too bad.
Maggi, with more tenderness and somber a mood than Dillon could ever remember, touched his hand and smiled up at him with moist eyes. “I was terrified for you and proud of you both today. Get something to eat and some sleep. I’m going out there with you at first light in the morning.”
The hurried shower and hearty meal were quickly behind him, when Noreen led him back to her cabin.
“Noreen, I don’t have the energy, I hope you understand.” He was making his excuse in advance.
“Dillon, I’m going to whack your package myself, you big dummy,” she responded in irritation. “I’m taking you with me to make sure you do get a good uninterrupted sleep. Maggi and I will have you up, dressed and fed by dawn, so get your butt in bed and to sleep.”
“Yes Mam,” he answered meekly.
As soon as he was sound asleep, she slipped out to meet with Maggi, Aldry, Willfem, Jorl’sn, the Chief and Thad, to discuss what they would say to Telour. They were going to discuss how a new leadership committee would continue in Captain Mirikami’s place.
Their concerns and arguments prepared, they went to the Bridge to use the Krall transceiver to call Telour.
The Krall of course never slept, but he answered so quickly that he must have had the unit attached to his equipment belt.
“What do you want? I have little time for your problems, I have important tasks to complete,” he responded gruffly. He sounded distracted, different from the
usual Krall intense focus on any dealings with humans, particularly Telour when his own status hinged on his getting humans to do what he wanted.
Noreen spoke for the group. “I am Captain Mirikami’s First Officer, his second in command. I’m accompanied by a group of people that have been working with the Captain to organize the human combat teams, like the groups your hunters faced today.” She was about to continue, but was interrupted.
“Those were not my clan’s warriors, they were from Kimbo clan, a small unimportant clan. Your dead leader prepared a surprising day of entertainment for me. I am pleased. But I repeat, what do you want?”
“We wish to discuss the continuation of your plan, and the agreement you made with Captain Mirikami.”
“I am departing for a joint clan meeting tomorrow. I don’t have time to waste talking about continuing an old agreement with new prey.” He clicked off, leaving them wondering what he had meant.
Aware that Telour could still hear them, Maggi said, “Do you suppose that without the Captain’s presence that Telour thinks we can’t continue what we’ve started? We can of course.” The latter said for the eavesdropping Krall.
“He may have meant that the agreement is unchanged, and there’s no need to talk about anything,” suggested Noreen.
On a hunch Willfem, who had been staging rehearsed conversations around the Krall transceiver in the Drive Room, said, “I’ll bet we all wonder what Telour would say if he knew we plan to continue to support his plan, and to develop more new weapons and tactics for combat.”
She shrugged and looked at the others, as if to say it was worth a shot to let him overhear their intentions. Then Jake’s voice sounded in their transducers.
“The Krall transceivers are both deactivated, they are no longer sending data.”
“Let’s go down to deck 8,” Noreen proposed. Not trusting an unguarded conversation near the transceiver, despite Jake’s assurance.
Leading the group to the small conference room, Noreen asked behind the closed doors, “If Telour isn’t going to monitor us, and isn’t interested in talking about plans to boost his own status, do you think the whole deal is off now?”
“He didn’t say it was called off,” said the Chief, “only that he didn’t have time to talk about it because he had a meeting to attend.”
“Actually,” Thad corrected, “he said he didn’t have time to ‘continue an old agreement with new prey.’ What’s the significance of calling us new prey I wonder? They’ve been testing us for years, why describe us as new?”
“Good point,” Maggi agreed. “I’ve never heard him or any translator describe humans as new prey before, just as prey or animals. This is coming right on the heels of the first good human combat showing against them. It sounds like something important is being discussed at this clan leader meeting.”
Noreen was uncomfortable with her new authority, but needed to take the helm. “Well, we all have an early morning. I plan to be up an hour before dawn if anyone wants to have breakfast with Dillon and me at sunrise. Thad you’re welcome to grab an empty room here. Ask our friend to find one for you.”
“Thanks, I’ll do that. G‘night, and I’ll see you at breakfast.”
After that they all split up, exhausted from the stress and tragedy of the day.
****
At five thirty, Jake sent Noreen a wakeup call, and sharing the bed with Dillon, she shook him gently awake. With a kiss, she jumped into the shower as Dillon dressed. Then they made it to their usual dinning nook, where they found Thad already there with an order of simulated eggs, bacon, and coffee. Maggi and Willfem joined them shortly, and the rest of the dining room had many more people than usual for such an early hour. Apparently, a lot of people were going out this morning to help retrieve Mirikami’s body.
Despite the risk of wolfbats and skeeters, more people wanted to go than the shuttle could carry in a half dozen trips. Jorl’sn was preflight checking it now, and had loaded some tools and a few small explosive packets they might need for larger blockages.
Five or six trucks and halftracks were being readied for a slower trip, with eight people per truck. Deanna and the other three survivors from Mirikami’s team were driving four of them. Forty to fifty people so far had asked to go along.
Thad wondered if they knew how congested that twenty-foot wide terrace was going to get. Not to mention that those in the trucks would have to make the risky one hundred foot climb up to the lower terrace.
When the shuttle left, five trucks were already three miles out, in convoy, with a sixth still loading. The flight out was somber and quiet. No one looked forward to this task. The video of Mirikami’s final moments left no doubt of the condition of his body, even before the explosion brought down the cave roof on him and the Krall. The infrared camera had penetrated the shadows enough to see him firing out, and the impacts as the Krall’s bullets struck home in his chest armor, mere seconds before the explosion had obliterated the cave’s entrance.
Roni landed far enough away that her thruster exhaust would be well clear of the workers and the closest climbing route when the trucks arrived.
Walking towards the cave, they could see four wolfbats fluttering around the rock slab, nervously looking their way to see if they had guns drawn. When Thad drew one of his pistols, they all scattered in a rapid flapping of leathery teal wings.
As they drew near, they could see that the Krall’s legs, even the bones, were completely gone, and animals had been trying to dig under the large rock slab to get at the remains of the corpse still pinned beneath.
They stood back to permit Dillon to start the excavation effort. He banged way at the rock slab with a pickax a dozen times, removing only small chips with each swing. It was obvious that method was going to take far too long, and the pry bars they brought couldn’t budge a several ton slab.
Next, they placed the small explosives they brought between the slab’s top and the cliff face, but realized they had underestimated the weight of what they needed to move. They wanted to blow it away from the rock face; possibly even over the terrace edge, but the small amount of plastic explosive didn’t seem adequate to the task.
Soon nearly a dozen people had climbed up, having parked the trucks a couple of hundred feet away from below the work area. Bob Campbell and Neri Bar were among them, and they had brought more plastic explosives. It was decided that those, combined with the smaller charges would be more than enough to kick the slab over the edge and out of their way. They placed the explosives in four places, with detonators wired together, and a single remote actuator.
Warning everyone away, the entire group moved beyond where the shuttle had landed, to make sure no rock fragments would hit anyone. Bob handed Dillon the transmitter for the actuator, granting him the privilege of removing the largest obstacle.
He hesitated. “I hate to do more damage to his body. It can’t be an open casket type service anyway after what happened, and his final requests said he wanted cremation. But this size of a blast might not leave much of anything to cremate.”
“Dillon,” Maggi spoke softly, “He’s beyond pain or suffering. This is only the shell of who he was.”
“Go ahead,” urged Noreen. “We need to bring him back, to complete our grieving and to move on, to continue what he started.”
With a sigh, Dillon armed the trigger and pressed the button. The blast was even stronger than they had expected, and the rock slab went spinning off over the ledge to crash with a heavy thud a hundred feet below. More rock rained down from over the cave entrance, but they were smaller pieces, and would be easy to remove. They waited several minutes to make sure the patter of rocks had ended.
Dillon was the first to walk back through the billowing dust, the others hanging back to give him a brief moment alone with the Captain’s remains. He stepped over the Krall’s crushed torso, and saw the shattered remains of Mirikami’s armor under the loose rocks. The helmet, its faceplate still unbroken and mercifully closed,
concealed his friend’s final expression.
He settled to one knee, and spotted the shattered pistol the Krall had shot from Mirikami’s hand. Dillon stared at its handle. He heard someone come up behind him. He glanced around and saw it was Maggi, with Noreen close behind.
“He went down fighting,” Maggi said.
“He fought exactly the way he thinks, smart but tricky.” He lifted something from under the gun butt, running into the darkness. It was the lanyard from Mirikami’s claymore.
From the dark recess of the cave came “If you’re through trying to blow my ass off, can I get something to eat and drink?”
With a whoop, Dillon charged into the cave, only to emerge a moment later carrying Mirikami, dressed only in his brown and tan body suit. The Captain was yelling at him to be careful of his leg.
Maggi stared in open mouth amazement at him, cradled there in Dillon’s muscular arms like a child.
Mirikami looked down at her, satisfied. “It’s worth raging thirst and a broken leg to see you struck dumb.” He chuckled as she blinked away tears, finally finding her voice.
“I’ll break your damned neck if you ever do this to us again.” She threatened as she wiped her tears.
Noreen was so overjoyed she rushed to hug Mirikami in a tearful embrace, as Dillon set him down on a nearby flat-topped rock. Tears and laughter were flowing equally free.
Thad had heard Dillon’s first shout, and had drawn his pistol and arrived at a run, just as the big man stepped into the light with the Captain in his arms. Holstering his weapon, he laughed and clapped Mirikami and Dillon each on the back, a silly grin plastered on his face.
Thad called back to the couple of dozen people that had stayed back by the shuttle out of respect for privacy, then out of concern when they heard Dillon yell and saw Greeves draw a gun and start running.
Thad’s words finally made sense when they saw Dillon set Mirikami down. The excitement and cheers spread. Jorl’sn radioed back to the ship with the good news.
Koban Page 59
