Exodus: Empires at War: Book 05 - Ranger

by Doug Dandridge

  After jogging a couple of kilometers something flashed to her front, followed by a boom, and child dove for cover behind a rotting log that had fallen out of the jungle, her pistol at the ready. Smoke was rising from the ground about six hundred meters ahead and a couple of kilometers out on the veldt. She brought her pistol up, extending the optical sight system. All she could see was the smoke coming up from an otherwise clear section of the grassland. She swung the pistol outward, and cried out as she saw the three gunships heading toward that spot.

  * * *

  Cornelius almost panicked when he was down to one point of contact. The ground beneath was hard rock, on a heavy gravity planet. His bones might not shatter on impact, but there was the possibility of enough soft tissue trauma to kill. He went into overdrive mode just in time, slowing down his perception of events while increasing his strength and reflexes.

  The Ranger allowed his body to go into the fall, his one leg still in contact compressing, then extending, throwing him to the left. He spun around as he moved in that direction, back to the ground and not able to see where he was going. He started to twist around so he could look down, and just before he completed that maneuver he hit foliage that flashed by on all sides. Next came a branch that broke off as he hit it, slowing him some. It also knocked the breath out of the Ranger in a woof. He grabbed onto the next branch, tears in his eyes, and held on for dear life, trying to determine if he had taken any injuries beyond bruises. His bones were almost unbreakable. Almost. He scanned his body with his internal senses and moved what he could move. Everything still seemed to work, though some things hurt like a bitch.

  Just have to deal with it, he thought, maneuvering himself so that his feet touched down on another branch. From there he started his climb down, having to stop at times to orient the rocket launcher to get past limbs. He hit the bottom limb about four meters above the ground. An easy drop for his augmented body. He hung from the limb and let himself drop the final two meters, congratulating himself on a successful, if not as planned, climb.

  He grimaced as his left foot hit the ground before his right, all of the weight of his body and equipment landing on the member that hit on top of a rock that turned his foot. He landed heavily on his side, falling over onto his ribs with a grunt. He looked at his foot and didn’t see anything too out of place, but when he attempted to stand his ankle would not bear the pressure.

  “Crap,” he muttered, sitting back down and removing the boot from the leg seal. Pulling off the sock he saw that the ankle was starting to darken. He felt the ankle with his fingers. It was a little tender, but everything seemed to be in place, and he figured it must have turned and sprained when he landed.

  “So I won’t be running for a little while,” he thought, replacing the sock and boot, then setting the high top of the footwear for greater rigidity. I can still make it to where I need to be, and the ankle should be repaired in twenty minutes, tops. He stood up, gritting his teeth while ordering a pain block on the ankle with his mind. I already know the damned thing is hurt. I don’t need a reminder every couple of steps.

  He moved down the rocky slope, using a dead branch he had picked up by the tree as a walking stick. After about thirty meters of rocks he reached a slope that was wooded, and his alertness went up by magnitudes. Where there was jungle there was danger, and new areas meant possible new threats.

  Cornelius worked his way through the couple kilometers of jungle, his eyes and ears alert for any threat. He picked out some easily and moved around them, plantimals or animal ambush hunters that Rebecca had taught him about. He was grateful for all she had taught him, and felt that she had more than paid back his rescue of her. He felt bad about leaving her up on the cliff. There was no way he could have gotten her down on the wall, but there might have been another way down if he had taken the time to look. But I didn’t have the time, he thought. And I’m pretty sure this is a suicide mission. She’s better off up there.

  He fingered the ring on its chain, thinking about his late wife. At least I’ll be able to greet you in the afterlife with the knowledge that a lot of Cacas are heading to hell. If there is such as either place. His thoughts then swung back to Devera. I’m sorry, Honey. I had really hoped to get to you know you even better, maybe start a life that would last after this madness was over, if that ever happened.

  The Ranger stepped around a clearing that look like the pit ambush plant. Getting kind of maudlin, aren’t we, Cornelius. I’m still alive, I’m armed, and I don’t know the future. Many things could happen in the next couple of hours, and not all of them lead to my death. He smiled a bit at that last thought.

  The break in the jungle came suddenly. One moment there was a foliage crowding in on all sides. The next there were kilometers of open grassland ahead. Cornelius moved about ten meters out of the jungle and lay down on a small hillock, focusing his eyes across the prairie. It took a moment, but he could easily pick out the airfield, then the barracks to the north of it. Neither were his primary target, though it would be a bonus to take them out as well. He pulled out his map and lined up his position with the airbase, taking a grease pen and marking where he thought the headquarters must be, just inside the jungle on the other side of the plain.

  Now, how do I get closer without being seen. He was sure that the enemy was watching the area through both manned and remote sensors. He noted the hills, the clumps of trees, a few gullies. Anything that might get him within range of his shot. I could take a high angle shot from here, he thought, dismissing that idea immediately. The shot would drop the warhead back onto the target from altitude. The problem with that was that whatever automated systems the enemy had in place would surely hit the rocket in any kind of altitude flight. The rocket didn’t have the speed of maneuver to avoid, or the armor or electromagnetic fields to be able to take even one hit. The odds were really against it reaching target, and the fusion warhead probably wouldn’t even go nuclear in the event of a hit. Nope, I’ve got to get closer and take the HQ out with a ground following shot.

  There was a gulley about fifty meters to his left, south. He couldn’t tell much about it other than its shadow ran about four hundred meters out into the plains, running near to a trio of hills. It looked like his best chance of making it. With that thought he was on his feet and making his way south in a crouch. The ankle was still a little tender, but he could tell that it had almost healed, and soon he would be able to run on it.

  When he got to the beginning of the gulley he saw it was about five meters deep and had muddy water on the bottom. Not the most savory of pathways, still, it would have to do. He jumped down, careful to land on his good foot, and started off to the west along the gulley bottom. It curved in places. At one spot there was the stripped skeleton of a big herbivore. Cornelius wondered how it had gotten there. Had the animal come here to die? Jumped in to get water and was unable to get out? Or had a predator killed it here and the bones were all that were left after it fed and the scavengers got to it.

  He made another couple of turns and came across another skeleton, this one looking like a predator from its jaws and the claws on its feet. It was a bit more of a puzzle. The predator looked like it had been an agile beast in life, and should have had no problem jumping from the gulley. Yet here it was. He took a close look at the bones and saw that all of them were intact, though there seemed to be strange marks on the long bones. Studying them a moment he realized they were like those of the prey of river lampreys on New Detroit. They had rasping tongues that took the last bit of flesh off of bones. He wasn’t sure if native life had something like marrow in their bones, or if anything would try to crack those hard members to get to it.

  Forty meters further there was another skeleton. Actually a pair of them, a medium sized herbivore and a small carnivore. Both had died here, and it was an even greater puzzle. He had stepped through the muddy water, sometimes into the deep mud, and neither would have held these creatures in place here.

  There’
s something down here, he thought, pulling out his Wakizashi. I don’t know what it is, or where it's hiding, but it is here.

  He stepped around the next corner, every nerve quivering, eyes darting to each side, ears straining to pick up any sound. He thought he heard something moving, but he couldn’t locate it. Something is going down, he thought, holding the sword at the ready.

  When it came it was a complete surprise. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but a meter long, thirty centimeter thick snake rocketing from the mud was not it. All he saw was the open maw with teeth running around it in a circle, three of the teeth longer that the others. Fangs? There were six short legs attached to the body, two behind the head, a pair at mid-body, and the final legs twenty centimeters from the tail.

  The creature hit him before he could move, striking his chest, its teeth trying to dig into the suddenly rigid area of the survival suit. The legs grasped for a hold, getting one caught on his web gear.

  Cornelius cursed and grabbed the creature just behind the head with his bare left hand. Spines erupted from the neck of the creature and pierced his flesh. He yelled and jerked the creature away from him, tossing it into the air. Swinging the short sword in his right hand he slashed the creature in two. It fell into the mud, both ends writhing in pain. He thought to strike it again, when the second one came flying up from the mud, aimed or his face.

  He slashed this one out of the air before it got within striking range. Two more leapt out while that one was falling. Cornelius wanted to go into overdrive, giving himself a greater physical advantage. But he used overdrive on the cliff, and his glands were still not running at full capacity, not even half way.

  The sword met one creature in midflight at the head, the ultra-sharp blade cutting through tough skin and hard bone like they were cobwebs. A quick duck sent the other one overhead, its rear claws grabbing for him and catching his bush hat. Cornelius turned quickly and swung the sword down at the creature. The blade caught it at the midpoint of its body and again two pieces of creature were writhing on the ground.

  Leaning down to pick up his bush hat he noticed that his left hand was red and swollen, with a black bruise spreading from where the spines had penetrated his skin. He felt lightheaded, and his vision was starting to blur. Pushing the point of his sword into the ground, he quickly opened his med kit and pulled out a spray syringe of nanites. He sprayed the microscopic robots on his hand, replaced the syringe, and retrieved his blade. The hand was still swelling, though the blackness had stopped spreading. He grunted and moved on with wobbly legs.

  Cornelius stumbled and staggered for two hundred meters, hoping he didn’t run into any more of the snake things. His luck held, and he thought that group he had tangled with must be the only ones that had inhabited this particular gulley. Checking his hand, he found that the swelling was going down, the black spots had almost disappeared, and the flesh was almost back to its normal tone.

  Wonderful things, those little guys, thought the Ranger of the nanites. His system had housed them from the time he was conceived, come over from his mother. And he had received boosters all his life. There was no possible natural contagion or poison that could get past the little guys, as long as there were enough of them to disassemble the virus, bacteriod or protein.

  The gulley finally ended, about forty meters to the south of the triple hill he had seen from the edge of the jungle. Getting onto his stomach he low crawled toward the hills, keeping his head low. The grass was fairly high, tall enough to conceal him completely, unless something was looking down on him from above. He made it to the hills and got up into a crouch, moving around the nearest one and to a position in between the two forward most. Here he crouched in the grass and again located where he thought his target was. There was another hill to the northwest that he thought was right in the extreme range of a ground following shot.

  Cornelius was really tired. His systems were better than human. That said, he really wasn’t superhuman. He still got tired as his body produced waste. Even though his filtering systems were much better than normal, the last couple of days had taken their toll. He leaned against the sloping ground of the hill and caught his breath for a couple of minutes. He would have preferred to spend more time resting, but he thought that every second he wasted brought him that much closer to discovery.

  With that thought in mind he started to low crawl toward the hill he wanted to set up the shot from. It was slow tedious business, crawling, though it also entailed the stress and tension that came with the possibility of running face to face with a predator while he was hugging the earth. He got there, sweat pouring down his face under the heat of the late morning sun. The planet was supposed to have cooled five or more degrees from all the dust in the atmosphere, but from the heat he felt he wouldn’t have sworn to it.

  Setting himself up on the top of the hill he started to get the rocket launcher ready. He took another glance toward the target, and cursed as he saw a trio of what looked like gunships rise from the airfield and turn his way. They were coming fast, and he was sure if they hadn’t spotted him yet it was only a matter of moments.

  Something took off from one of the gunships and flew into the ground near the gulley, exploding and sending a spray of dirt into the air. A couple of predators took off from the area, probably interrupted from stalking him. But the ships were still on an intercept course with his hill, and there wasn’t much he could do about them at the moment.

  * * *

  “She must have gone over the cliff here,” said the Lead Scout of the group to the Prime Hunt Leader.

  “And why would, she, do that?” asked the Hunt Leader, looking down his muzzle. They had determined from further back, as they were following the track off the road and into the rocks, that what they were tracking was a female of the human species. They had a slightly different scent than males, and it was unusual enough to make the differentiation. And as far as they knew, female humans were not among their augmented warriors. Which begged the question as to what she was doing out here? Whatever the reason, if she was out here there must be a reason, and the Prime Hunt Leader intended to find out what it was.

  He looked down into the mist, seeing nothing beyond five meters. The sound of water running down a falls sounded to his right, and he thought the mist must be generated by the liquid hitting, something. A bed of rocks, a pool, he really didn’t know what.

  “Launch a drone to take a look down there,” ordered the Prime Hunt Leader. “She is down there. That is a surety, as her scent goes nowhere from this point. And there is no way she could have jumped across this chasm. So she either made it to the bottom in one piece and moved on, or she lies dead below.”

  One of his party had deployed the drone by this time, a tiny robot that looked like some kind of four winged insect, supported on the ground by eight robotic legs. The robot took off into the air with a buzzing sound, its wings a blur. It flew over the chasm, then darted downward. The Maurid that had deployed it watched the robot’s take on a small screen. He turned it so the Prime Hunt Leader could see. The falls were visible first, cascading down the rock steps from greater heights. It went lower and the pool appeared.

  “That looks deep enough to jump in,” said the Prime Hunt Leader, looking over at his lead team. “Jump down and take a look. The rest of us will follow, except for this pair,” he said, pointing with a hind paw finger at the trailing group. “They will move back to the cliff and give us observation from the high ground.”

  The ones he had ordered to jump gave him a dubious look. He knew what they were thinking. Maurids were muscle dense creatures who didn’t float well, which affected their swimming. Water was fine for drinking and bathing, but for immersing the entire body for locomotion?

  “You have your orders,” he told the pair. They quailed before his glance, knowing the penalty for disobedience. “Inflate your suit bladders before you jump, and you will have no problem reaching the surface once you hit the pool.”

  The pair
still looked unsure of the order, but did as they were told. They inflated their bladders, situated toward the top of the suits, then, with a moment’s hesitation, jumped into the mist.

  The Prime Hunt Leader waited a couple of moments, until his team reported in over the com. He really didn’t like the idea of even using directional coms like they were equipped with, something an enemy could possibly track. He also wasn’t about to jump the rest of his squad and his own precious neck into a situation where they might be killed for no return. Especially himself. Maurids were selfish that way.

  “All clear,” came the call over the com. “The pool is deep enough, though we did drop to the rocks when we penetrated the water.”

  “We’re coming down,” said the Leader, motioning for his other two Hunters to jump. He waited a minute after they jumped, giving them plenty of time to get out of the way, and followed over the precipice. It was not a long drop, just long enough to remind him how he hated jumping into places he couldn’t see with his own two eyes. And then he was through the mist and hitting the water. As he was told, he hit the bottom of the pool, but the water took most of his falling velocity away and it was a gentle touchdown.

  When he got out of the pool it was obvious which way they needed to go, as there was only one way out of the grotto, in the direction of the stream. He took a moment to look at the falls, wondering if the female might have tried to climb up those steps. He dismissed that idea as he saw how high some of the steps were, over twenty meters, and climbing them against the rush of water would be very difficult, if not impossible.