The Between (Earth Exiles Book 3)

by Mark Harritt

  The scout leader, Rakrim, had infilled with his team three hours before sunrise. They’d found a good location, and he’d set his team in what he’d hoped was a good ambush location, hoping to intercept the enemy. Closer to the river, another team had been infilled to set up an ambush as well. Now, three hours after sunrise, they hadn’t heard or seen a thing. Rakrim spit on the ground. Another plan of the Caon gone awry. That seemed to be happening more and more often.

  He saw movement to his left. He looked over to Jesunt. Jesunt had also seen movement, pointing where he’d see it. Somebody was walking towards them. Rakrim settled back into position. He scanned the woods ahead of him, ready to shoot.

  A silhouette appeared in the forest. As he watched through the dappled light filtering through the trees, the silhouette became more solid. It looked familiar. It was familiar. It was a Turinzoni soldier walking toward them.

  “Nine gods, it’s our own soldiers.” He turned to his team, “Don’t shoot, it’s our soldiers.”

  His men cursed as they relaxed. Rakrim stood slowly, so that the other Turinzoni wouldn’t shoot him. He watched the soldier quickly tense, and then, just as quickly, relax. The other soldier yelled out at his mates, “Hoy, don’t shoot! It’s Rakrim and his wanderers.”

  Rakrim turned to his team, “Okay, you can get up. Targe won’t shoot. It’s not like he could hit anything if he tried, anyway.”

  Targe walked forward and clapped hands with Rakrim, “Seen anything out here?”

  Rakrim shook his head, “No, quiet as the dead.”

  Targe cursed, “The old man won’t like hearing that. He wants to kill these zonceurs.”

  “Well, it’s not going to happen if we can’t find them.”

  “You think the other team will have any luck?”

  A sardonic smile painted Rakrim’s lips, “Doubtful. If anything was going to happen, it would have happened by now. Their position is roughly equal to ours over there.” Rakrim pointed toward the river.

  Targe shrugged, “It’s done then.”

  Rakrim nodded, “For now at least.” He looked at Targe’s soldiers, “Well, since this didn’t work, you mind if we join you?”

  Targe forked a thumb towards the river, “No problem. We’re thin in that direction. Why don’t you and your team move to the edge of my group. You can fill in between us and Jeem’s soldiers.”

  “You got it. Scouts, follow me.” The others fell in behind him as he walked towards the river. They fell in behind the line of Targe’s soldiers. Catcalls followed them as they walked.

  Rakrim thought about the situation. He didn’t like what was happening out here. He’d seen too many of his fellow Turinzoni lying dead. Everything that had happened out here had been very . . . unexpected. Whoever fed them the intel definitely had no clue what was going on out here. These soldiers, these ghosts that they were trying to find, knew what the hell they were doing. They weren’t the run of the mill primitives.

  Rakrim wanted this to be over with. He didn’t give a crap about these thregari soldiers. He just wanted to go back to the base. Hell, he didn’t even want to be a scout. He’d been picked when they came out on this mission. When the higher ranking scouts had been shot on the landing zone, he’d been promoted.

  He hoped he’d be put back on the slaver runs. Slaver runs were a hell of a lot less dangerous than this. They’d been lots of fun on the other continent. The girls of the thregari primitives were energetic, at least in the beginning before they’d been passed around. Now, that they were stepping up operations on this continent, he hoped they get a chance to experience the local talent.

  They reached the end of Targe’s unit. They moved to the edge and spread out. One of Jeem’s soldiers waved at them. They filled in the gap and the soldier that had waved pulled back, closer to the soldiers in his unit.

  Now, they walked in a line through the forest, one long line, waiting until they heard gun shots, and watched another soldier die. Then, hopefully, they could find the damn thregari, kill them, and leave.

  They walked for thirty minutes, then an hour. The day stretched out before them, and they kept walking. Two hours, then three more passed by. Rakrim was beginning to think that the thregari had given them the slip. The day was quiet. It was getting warmer, though. Rakrim felt sweat running down his chest under the body armor.

  Gunshots sounded in the distance. It was in front of them. Rakrim had to think about that. Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe the other team was further down the valley.

  “Hopefully they killed the enemy soldiers. I might get a chance to chase thregari tail again,” he thought.

  Everybody tensed and slowed, waiting for the screaming to start. They didn’t hear any, though. Which was unusual since the gunshots sounded close.

  He looked over at Targe. Targe pointed, shaking his hand to indicate that they should keep moving toward the sound of the gun fire. The line started moving en masse again. Nothing else happened, and Rakrim wondered what the shooting was about. Tedium didn’t take long to set in again.

  He just wondered what the hell that smell was.

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  Matki put the pistol away. Now, he planted the open container in a group of tree roots and covered it with pine needles. He’d shot three times to bring the grey men toward him. Matki hid until he knew the line was past him. Then, just to be sure, he waited longer, maybe thirty, forty minutes. It was a good thing that he waited. There was a trailing group of soldiers, some of them obviously leaders. They passed, and he waited another fifteen minutes. Then he moved quietly up the valley. As he disappeared into the vegetation, he heard the chatter of automatic and semi-automatic fire behind him as screams filled the air.

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  Chapter Five

  Verjon’s headquarters had been moved further down the valley so that he could be closer to his men. He’d had it moved into one of the landing zones that he’d had scouted yesterday. It was close to the river, and it was colder here, with a slight mist in the air. His tent had been set up for him in the wood line, just off the landing zone. He was inside, staring at a map, contemplating the tactical situation. In the distance, he could hear shots, and it sounded like a major battle was beginning to intensify.

  “Good, maybe they finally found the hell’s damned enemy,” he thought.

  As the sound of gunfire rang from the side of the mountains, Verjon stared at the map. He would have to put the scouts further down the valley. He’d gotten calls telling him that the main force had already met the scouts, with no sign of the damned enemy soldiers. Somehow, the thregari they were looking for had slipped around the two groups of scouts. Now, he was trying to figure out where he could get the aircraft to land to pick up his two scout teams.

  His finger ran naturally to the mouth of the valley in which his forces were deployed. That area was much larger, opening into a thirty by forty-mile area that ultimately led down to the plains. He would need a blocking force there. That area would be very dangerous. Some of the Dostori Rev’s more dangerous creations were active in that area.

  His finger traced over to the mouth of the other valley that led back up into the mountains, and to the old iron mines where this had all started. He would have to put a blocking team there so that the enemy forces didn’t head in that direction. He’d never been to that city, but he’d heard about it. That city had been destroyed five hundred years ago. The Dostori Rev was jealous when it came to this world, not wanting to share with anyone, not even the original inhabitants.

  Of course, the original inhabitants had tried to kill her. That may have had something to do with her dim view of the local populace. When they realized that she was different than them, they’d been concerned. Then as she acquired more and more land, they’d tried to kill her. They’d failed miserably.

  He shook his head. The primitives had thought her some kind of sorcerous witch. They had no idea about adva
nced technology. To them, with her seemingly eternal youth, mastery of genetics and other technologies had seemed like magic. They’d learned much too late what they’d allowed into their midst. Then she’d systematically destroyed them.

  He hawked and spit on the ground. Personally, he didn’t care at all what happened to this overrated hell hole of a planet. It was too hot and humid for his tastes. He didn’t care what kind of biologicals the Dostori Rev found on this planet. He couldn’t wait to be done with it.

  The white/yellow light of the local sun was jarring to him. He preferred the dimmer, redder glow of his home star. He was nostalgic for a moment, remembering the hunts of the huge, reptilian, shashari carnivores on his planet. The shashari came into the shallows and preyed when the poisoned, narcotic mists drove them from the metallic waters of the heavily salted oceans.

  Plus, he was tired of these insignificant thregari races. Back home, he would have slaughtered them for sport. He sighed, thinking about the blood feuds of his clans. He wanted to lead raids into the hills for new women again. That was the future, and, until then, he had a job to do. A low sigh escaped him. Enough of his daydreams. Now he had to get back to business.

  One of his radio operators stepped through the door of the tent, looking extremely nervous.

  Verjon looked up at him, “What?”

  “Caon Verjon, we’re getting some strange reports.”

  Verjon’s eyes narrowed, “What kind of reports?”

  “The men, they’re being attacked.”

  “I can hear that very well. What’s the problem? They’re supposed to find the enemy. If the enemy is firing at them, then they’ve found them, and they can kill them.”

  The radio operator’s face looked panicked, “That’s not the problem, Caon Verjon. It’s not that they’re being fired on. Instead, it’s what’s attacking them.”

  Verjon’s voice dropped into a growl, “Spit it out. What are you trying to tell me?”

  “There’s something huge out there. Their rifles can’t kill it. Their weapons aren’t big enough.”

  Verjon stared at the radio man, “What the hell are you talking about? It’s a small force out there. They don’t have any kind of armored resources. The only thing we’ve found are light infantry, and booby traps.”

  The radio operator shook his head, “No Lord Caon . . .”

  “I’m not a Lord Caon, don’t call me that,” he growled.

  The radio operator nodded, then shook his head again, trying to get back to his original point, “Sir, there’s a large animal out there. It’s killing the men.”

  It took a moment for what the radio operator was telling him to sink in. This new threat wasn’t the ground forces that they’d been facing for two days. Instead, it was something completely different.

  “What kind of animal?” he growled.

  The radio operator was perspiring now, “One of the big ones. One of the monsters from the plains.”

  Verjon cursed and ran out of the tent. Soldiers started as they realized that he was suddenly among them. They watched as he stopped and listened. He heard the sound of gunfire, and faintly, he could hear the sound of his men screaming. Over that he heard sound of a large animal bellowing.

  He turned, grabbed the radio operator by the front of his uniform, and yanked him in close, screaming at him, “Get the damned pilot of that aircraft ready to fly. I’ll be there with men in a few minutes. Tell him, that if the aircraft isn’t ready to go when I get there, I will personally skin him.”

  The radio operator didn’t say anything. He just waited until Verjon let go, and then sprinted toward the landing zone.

  Verjon turned to his guard, “Get your damn weapons, and come with me!”

  He ran back inside, and grabbed his gear and his rifle, shrugging it on as he came back out of the tent. He ran past his guards, who were hard pressed to keep up with him as he ran out to the aircraft.

  The engines were spooling up as he approached the aircraft. It was him and six of his guards. The other guards, the ones that had done night duty, were still asleep. He couldn’t wait for them to wake up and get dressed, though. He had to get out there and see if he could save his men.

  As he ran up the ramp of the aircraft, he cursed the situation. He’d been sent out here without enough information. Now, one of what was possibly the Dostori Rev’s genetic freaks was tearing into his men. The Lord Caon and the Dostori Rev would be the death of him. It was very hard to win victories when your superior officer and his customer were idiots. Not impossible, but certainly much harder.

  Verjon ran in and sat down behind the pilot. Shar turned to Verjon, his blue, throat pouch expanding and contracting. Turning to Verjon, the pilot asked, “Where do you want to go?”

  Verjon yelled at him, “Get this damn aircraft up so that I can see what the hell is going on out there!”

  The pilot had no idea what the hell Verjon was talking about. Verjon grabbed the pilot’s collar and pointed in the direction toward the mouth of the valley, “Down the valley, you moron!”

  The pilot wasn’t too happy about Verjon’s choice of words, and he shrugged the Caon’s hand off of his shoulder. As the Caon’s men climbed into the aircraft, the pilot pulled up on what a helicopter pilot would have recognized as the collective. It had the same effect but not through fluid dynamics, instead a completely different set of forces. As the aircraft pulled up, the men swayed and stumbled to their seats. The Caon looked out the back of the aircraft as the pilot pushed forward on the stick, watching the landing zone shrink as the transport pulled away.

  The pilot reached for the controls to close the back ramp, but Verjon gripped his shoulder, and yelled, “Leave it open.” The thrum of the engines wasn’t loud, but wind whipping through the open interior made it hard to hear.

  The pilot’s hand left the control, and he concentrated on flying the aircraft. The aircraft banked slowly, built to carry cargo, not for high speed. While the aircraft didn’t rely on lift from the air, it still needed concentration to control. The thing was shaped like a brick, so the air currents could shift it from side to side. Its lift was derived from counteracting local gravity, which shifted depending on the local mineral content, and the density and thickness of the local crust. This was even trickier in the mountains. Those two factors made it a beast to control. Quick was not a word used to describe the transport.

  They flew toward the sound of the gunfire. Verjon could tell that the pilot wasn’t happy about this. He didn’t care though. He would deal with the pilot when they got off the battlefield. If he had someone else that could fly this aircraft, he’d have shot the pilot already.

  One of the guards in the back waved at Verjon and pointed toward the ground. Verjon staggered up against the thrust of the aircraft, and made his way aft. The guard pointed at the forest below. Verjon watched as a large shadow made its way through the trees. Verjon could see its progress through the vegetation as the leaves and trees shook from its passage. Whatever it was, it was truly massive.

  Bullets and tracers flew through the air. He couldn’t hear the screams, but he knew that his future was being destroyed in the forest below. His men were dying, and there was nothing he could do to save them. From the size of the monster, everybody in the aircraft could all shoot at it, and they wouldn’t be able to harm it.

  He gripped the webbing at the back of the aircraft, and looked around toward the line of travel of the great monster. His jaw dropped as he realized what he was looking at.

  He turned and screamed at the pilot, “Go back to the landing zone!”

  The pilot didn’t hear him. Verjon stumbled back over to the pilot, “Go back to the landing zone! Call them, tell them to be ready. Tell them what’s coming for them!”

  The pilot turned the aircraft around and started flying back. He was talking rapidly over the comms to the radio operators at the landing zone. He didn’t know what the hell Verjon was talking about, but he relayed the Caon’s emotion effectively. Verjon
ran to the back of the aircraft, and stared down at the ground. They flew over a small clearing, and he watched as some of his men broke cover. They were screaming at the aircraft to come down and pick them up.

  The great beast broke out of the tree line. It was massive, covered with scars over its entire scaled hide. It was bleeding from multiple gunshot, the blood splattering across the ground as it ran. The whine of the aircraft engines drew a baleful glare from the evil monster, tentacles whipping wildly around its neck and head. It was distracted by the figures running across the clearing, and it roared as it ran them down, men snatched from the ground, screaming as they were swallowed whole. Some of the men fired into the open maw of the beast. The new pain just seemed to drive the monster into a greater frenzy.

  There was nothing Verjon could do to save his men. If the aircraft landed, it would just be overwhelmed by the monster. He could just pray to fourteen foul gods that they would make it to the landing zone to pick up his remaining guards before the beast got there.

  He watched as the monster disappeared back into the forest behind him, knowing that the men were pleading and cursing him as the aircraft flew away. Still, as fast as the aircraft was, he didn’t think they would have time to land and load the soldiers at the landing zone. If he could pick them up, he might still be able to track and kill the enemy thregari. It was a long shot that they would get there first, but all they could do was try. He didn’t know how many of his men were left alive in the forest. Probably not many, and not for much longer. He could only imagine the horror that was occurring on the ground. Thank the Gods that he was on the aircraft.

  Verjon watched the progress of the monster via the shaking tree tops. The monster remained damnably close behind the aircraft. They wouldn’t have much time to land and load his remaining men. Whoever was ready and waiting were the only ones they would be able to take. They wouldn’t be able to wait for stragglers, not with this monstrosity on the loose.

  They arrived at the landing zone. The pilot circled to get closer to the few men waiting. He dropped the aircraft so quickly that Verjon’s stomach threatened to heave up his breakfast.