Koban: When Empires Collide

by Stephen W Bennett

  The longer remainder of the vine had fallen, and now dangled from its anchor tree, far enough away that the approaching Ragnar would be unlikely to notice. Greeves tied a knot, and coiled the vine over his left shoulder, and climbed down the tree to position himself just above where the Ragnar would arrive, at the strong anchor end of a lower vine. The Ragnar would be in a rush to climb down to the next path-vine, and Greeves positioned himself two body lengths higher than the vine where he’d arrive.

  He didn’t know why the pair was so far behind the two Ragnar that Macy intercepted. It could have something to do with the multiple ultrasonic pulses he’d heard. They may have encountered some sort of predator group that used echo location for hunting.

  As he hung on the back side of the tree, he first heard the other Ragnar, racing in parallel to the one he waited for. That ape was breathing heavy, and he could hear his scrambling on the rough bark, scraps of which broke fee and fall into the underbrush, causing additional noise. He wasn’t being very cautious in his hurry. He finally heard the ape he wanted to take, drawing close. It was faint, but he felt the slight vibration of the tree, as his target started running across the vine, also in a hurry.

  Using his leg strength to squeeze his feet and calves against the rough tree bark, to briefly support his weight, he pulled the carefully coiled vine from his left shoulder, and grasped one end with his right hand, his left hand resuming its grip on a ridge of bark, the coil of vine hanging from his forearm.

  The Ragnar reached the tree just below Greeves, and on the opposite side. The Ragnar reached half way around the tree trunk for a grip, and started his scramble down to the next vine. Greeves could see him clearly, and the ape never glanced up, focused on his rapid descent. Swinging around the tree over the ape, he released his grip, pushed back slightly, and dropped. It was a calculated risk, and he hoped the anchor attachment on the next lower vine was strong enough. There’d been no time to check that anchor point, and he was nearly sixty-five feet above the forest floor.

  The puffing breaths of the descending ape neared him quickly. As he fell silently, only two feet behind his target, he slipped the vine noose he’d made over its head, and jerked his right arm back sharply, to tighten the loop. As expected, he jerked the ape away from its grip on the tree, and his partly strangled squawk was the only sound. Thad, tossed the rest of the coiled vine with his left hand, so it would fall across the path-vine the Ragnar had wanted to reach.

  Greeves pushed down on the Ragnar, his hands on at his shoulders as it reached for the vine encircling its neck. That push moved the ape out of arms reach of the next path-vine and the tree trunk, and Greeves used the shove to move closer to the tree. The ape made a valiant effort to reach for the path-vine as he passed it, but he was well short. The tossed vine fell across the thick anchor point, and Greeves pressed and scraped his feet against the tree to slow himself, and instead of grabbing the anchor vine, which could have pulled it from the tree, he reached for the other end of his uncoiled vine, and took a firm grip. He wasn’t sure this would work.

  Using himself as an adjustable counter weight on the part of his improvised rope that he’d slung over the anchor point, the three hundred pound Ragnar started pulling that rope down on his side, as Greeves was lifted on his side. The green vine he was using as a hangman’s rope was smooth, and it slid easily around the anchor end of the path-vine. When Thad was pulled up to the anchor point, he grasped that and flung his end of the coiled vine around that again and gripped it tightly. The ape’s weight at the end jerked the rope-vine taut with an audible snapping sound, and the anchor tendrils threatened to tear loose, despite Greeves pushing up on it as best he could.

  At first, Greeves thought the snap sound had been the ape’s neck breaking, for a mercifully fast death. But the continued twitching, and a glance down, revealed the ape was using its left hand to try to support some of its weight, grasping the smooth vine above his head, but his grip kept slipping. When he used his right hand to reach towards a knife sheath at its waist, Greeves jerked the vine upward sharply, tightening the noose, and then let the Ragnar drop a foot, repeating that several times. This drew the noose tighter, and prevented the struggling and suffocating ape from pulling his knife, and the bare toes of his flailing legs barely touched the tree bark on closer swings. The previously winded opponent soon ceased to struggle, as his oxygen starved lungs were unable to enrich the blood that serviced his brain.

  One down. Now I’ll have to chase the other one, Thad thought. Incorrectly, as it happened.

  He’d overlooked their memory enhancers. Just because the dying Ragnar couldn’t shout, didn’t mean it was electronically mute. A soft audible call, in Farlol, caused Greeves to look away from the dangling dead Ragnar.

  “Hankal. Where are you? Say again what’s wrong with your throat?”

  The sound came from one of the nearby trees. The partner had turned back, evidently when his choking comrade called him in the seconds he’d had before passing out. Greeves wanted him to come closer, and to be distracted. He drew his knife and slashed through the vine holding the recently departed Hankal. Then, before the body hit the underbrush, creating a directional noise for the other Ragnar to follow, he clambered quietly around the side of the tree, to stay out of sight. Closing his eyes, the sonic map in his memory matrix recalled a path-vine from that direction, which led to this tree. It was a plausible route.

  The crashing of the dead weight into the underbrush at the base of the Skytouch tree was suitably loud.

  “I see you. I’m coming.”

  When Greeves heard sounds of descent on the tree from above, on the same side where the body had fallen, he stayed where he was. When the sound reached the opposite side of the tree, Greeves moved around to grasp the same anchor point on the path-vine.

  He said, “Hello.”

  And stabbed Hankel’s startled comrade in the throat when he looked up at the vine he’d just passed. There was a look of shock on his face, which Greeves had seen on so many of the Krall he’d killed. Surprised that a mere human had beaten them.

  This time, that look might bother him later, when he thought about it. Right now, all he said was, “Goodbye.”

  The Ragnar, to his credit, snatched a throwing knife from his waist, and made a passable throw at the enemy that had killed him. As he clutched his throat and dropped to join his dead partner, he was treated to the amazing sight of his blade being caught in midair, by the handle.

  The Ragnar’s final thought, and matching memory enhancer transmission, was, “The south team has failed.” Jendep had heard the report of the loss of the other pair of fighters, also to a single Kobani. Now it was up to the other half of the team.

  On a Comtap link, Thad said, “Mel, head back to the compound with Macy. I just intercepted the other pair. I’ll catch up with you.” There was no need to mention he’d defeated and killed them. Saying he’d intercepted them was adequate.

  ****

  When Salmod reached the edge of the high forest, he knew he was in the lead of his group of four, and had just received a report that Felspan was a visually confirmed kill, and that her traveling partner, Candar, had not replied to attempts to contact him. The other pair to the south had only been delayed by a dragnak swarm, and he’d not heard more about them.

  On an island as wide as it was at this point, and the multiple reports that the humans repeatedly avoided the cameras where they entered the forest, it was not surprising he’d missed the four humans previously seen trekking north. Somehow, the enemy knew, or suspected, that camera images were being provided to the Ragnar team, or perhaps that they were receiving memory enhancer reports. Both suppositions were true, and the humans had been told that Ragnar all over Tantor would be watching today. It wouldn’t require a genius among the Kobani to deduce that their movements might be reported to Ragnar team members.

  He notified the other three team members behind him that he was at the central glade, and had not seen or heard any
of the four opponents sent north to meet them. There was no point turning back to try to seek one of them in the depths of the rain forest, when there was another one in plain sight near the compound, assuming he stayed alive long enough. Although the report Salmod received about that one sounded too improbable to possibly be accurate. He wanted to see this for himself, to kill the human that had personally turned his participation in this solemn Ragnar ritual of warrior honor into a shameful farce.

  ****

  The shameless, farcical one, was only trying to have fun. “Yee Haw, giddyup.”

  He kicked his mount gently with both heels to urge it forward, but it stupidly remained standing still, grunting in rage for the hundredth time, and tried to shake him off yet again. Even if Sarge managed to get it to herd any of the panic-stricken water buffalo into a grove of trees, he’d decided there wasn’t enough of the spare vine left, to use it as a lariat to catch one.

  Besides, he doubted if he could keep the damned H-Rex from killing a cow even if he caught one. Therefore, if it wouldn’t go forward, he tried to see if it remembered how to follow the command to face to the right. He kicked his irritable mount with his right heel, tugged the reins to the right, and applied his left hand to the most sensitive tissue he could reach, the membrane covering its left ear, near the back of it’s skull.

  He sent a Mind Tap image via those nerves, to induce it to go in the direction he wanted, to reinforce the pull of the reins, and the kicking heel. This H-Rex was a lot dumber than he’d expected a mammal to be. It refused to take any cue from the reins when they pulled at the simple bridle, or from his heel thumping at the base of its neck. Feeding it a false image of its rider running away usually worked to get it moving. Except, if it saw any food animal of greater mass, it then shifted direction that way.

  He was harshly critical in his thoughts. Stupid beast, answering only to the demands of your stomach.

  Which reminded Sarge he was hungry. He pulled a protein bar from a pocket, peeled it, and munched as the monster lumbered down the trail after the imaginary human placed in its own thoughts.

  The best part of the morning had been when he’d dropped out of the red tree and quickly slipped the improvised bridle over the predator’s rising muzzle. He pushed on the beast’s nose to swing himself around the opening maw as it lunged towards the branch he just left, and he slid astraddle the back of its neck, his knees squeezing in just above the slight bulge of its puny front arm shoulders, holding him in place just above and behind those useless flailing short arms. The clawed hands couldn’t reach the vine loop bridle encircling its face, now positioned behind its wide-open jaws. It grunted furiously, pawed uselessly at the vine it couldn’t reach, shook its head, and twisted it massive body, all to no avail.

  Reynolds knew the vine reins would be too weak to force the beast to turn his head, so he merely pulled them snug to help him stay in place on the back of its neck, as his dino-bronco tried to shake him off. He allowed it to tire itself, and was relieved it wasn’t smart enough to try to scrape him off by brushing against a tree trunk. If it did that, he’d have to jump off into the lower limbs.

  He wasn’t fool enough to think his Kobani strength could fight this big sucker on the ground. It might not be able to crunch through his whiteraptor carbon nanotube reinforced bones, but he knew his newly puncture resistant skin, and carbon fiber muscles would yield to those sharp and serrated teeth, when driven by the bite force of those powerful jaw muscles.

  He wanted to let it get used to his presence, tire of trying to shake him off, and then spend some time trying to train it to take simple commands. At least until a Ragnar made it close to the compound. In the meantime, he intended to put on a show for the watchers, perfectly aware they wouldn’t dare to try this.

  Since he had the advantage of other Kobani watchers, who had become Sarge fans for now, he knew where several small herds of those water buffalo analogues were, near the compound. Eventually, he induced and guided the beast closer to one of the herds, with eighteen animals. They were browsing on shoots at the edge of the clearing, having scavenged all the recently dropped meaty fruit from the fallen seed pods. They did that until they heard the grunts and foot thumps of the H-Rex, as it came close.

  They formed a defensive ring, calves in the center, just as they had when Thad’s team passed another group. It seemed to Sarge, and his kibitzers, that the predator could safely take one of them down if it were separated from herd-mates. However, in a group, his abdomen would be exposed to the tips of multiple horns if he approached their defensive formation. He normally tried to ambush and separate a weaker or isolated animal, by lurching out from a side trail, or through a thin wall of weeds, as they passed him along a narrow trail, strung out so they couldn’t form a circle.

  Unable to play cowboy on a dinosaur, he decided to become an equestrian, of sorts, since this not only wasn’t a horse, it would eat one if it encountered a defenseless meal on hooves.

  When the reports came, first from Macy, and then Thad, that the four southern Ragnar team members wouldn’t complete the trip to the compound, he wondered if he’d left himself out of the more meaningful part of this exercise, that of teaching the Ragnar about the people they faced in the war about to start. It was four against four on the north side of the compound, so it was quite possible there wouldn’t be a chance for him to show off his true combat style skills for Hitok. Not if none of their team members lived to reach the compound. He’d overlooked the fact that rain forests were gloomy and dense with growth, and the ten-mile width of the island, just to his north, left room for someone to pass unnoticed.

  ****

  One Ragnar had slipped past the Kobani team by chance, and Salmond was now on his way to the compound, secure in the knowledge of where his opponent was, and that there was no risk of accidentally encountering the only Drathor in the glade today. He could make good time. It seemed the rider had left himself foolishly exposed, up where he couldn’t be missed by a knife throw, or Salmond’s short spear, strapped to his back. The human would be at risk if he jumped to the ground from the back an animal that wanted to rip him to shreds and eat the scraps.

  Salmond, now following the less demanding ground trails instead of running along path-vines, was alternating his left eye projection between two camera channels, suggested by his watchers. One camera was over the north gate, another on a pole at a Sweet tree grove, and so long as the Drathor stood upright, it and the human on the back of its neck were always in view. He had triangulated where the human and animal were, and he’d approach them quietly from behind, from downwind, because a Drathor had an excellent sense of smell. The ape was unaware that a Kobani was nearly as sensitive to odors, despite the smaller nose and fewer scent receptors. In this case, having to sneak up on the Drathor was a bit of good luck. Neither one would smell him as he approached. At least, this was his initial plan. Then Hitok delivered disastrous news.

  “Salmond. I fear we cannot win even a single match of the eight we forced the humans into accepting. We’ve heard from, or seen, what happened when your three other teammates met individual humans in the forest. It was like with the team to the south. They died easily, even when the humans gave them some advantage. One of them never even drew a weapon, and deflected Balnag’s knife thrusts, with his bare hands. We could see it clearly on a camera image, and we believe the human deliberately staged the fight where we could see what happened.

  “They are too fast, we have no chance to block them if they use their own weapons, and we can’t get past their blocks, or they twist out of the way of our attacks. They are possibly as strong as they have claimed to be. Balnag wasn’t killed by a blade. His chest was crushed inward with a fist blow over his heart, and then his was skull cracked by a hammer-like fist blow on the top of his head. I know this was done to mock my nickname, because that human then turned and looked directly at the camera.

  “All seven of them are now traveling back to the compound, and I’m convinced they
have found a way to intercept our camera images. The four to the north did not pause to look for you. I think they know you are moving towards the compound. Which means the one named Sarge will be expecting you, and he now appears able to direct the Drathor where he wishes. He will come at you with that animal.”

  “Commander, that is not a weapon we gave him. It isn’t a fair test of his warrior ability.”

  “Salmond, all participants were free to use whatever was available in the woods or the glade to their advantage. One of them, the leader called Thad Greeves, choked Hankal to death with a section of young path-vine that he cut. The one called Sarge is using a Drathor. I am sorry. I should have insisted on the use of modern weapons. A gun is an equalizer. Now you must face eight of them alone, and a Drathor that one of them commands. All Ragnar will honor your bravery.”

  He would fight to the death, of course. As he’d volunteered to do. But the odds of eight to one against him and the use of the Drathor, changed the equation in Salmond’s mind. He changed his plan. He’d use something available at the center of the compound, which the humans had also had a chance to use, but did a poor search.

  It was a way he could kill at least one of them, and neutralize the Drathor threat at the same time. He’d face the other seven inside the compound, in full view of all those cameras, and fight them to the death. One at a time, or all together.

  Changing direction, he shifted to smaller game trails, where he could avoid intersections and Sweet tree groves that had pole cameras. He was well ahead of the other seven humans, and if the eighth continued to try to teach the Drathor new tricks, he could get inside the compound unnoticed, and into the Administrative building.

  When he drew close to the compound, he saw that the careless humans had left the north facing gate ajar. His plan to scale the wall became one of slipping through the gate for a faster entry. If the humans were really watching the broadcast images, the motion following cameras over the gates would show him climbing the wall anyway.