by S. H. Jucha
Darts spit at the adults, taking them down before they could cross half the distance to the defensive line. Then the Loopah weapons accurately targeted the larger juveniles. Soon after those insectoids were eliminated, the smaller ravenous young reached the defenders.
Unlike the adult insectoids, who possessed sentience and tried to flee in the face of overwhelming odds, the juveniles had two imperatives. One — they followed the adults. Two — in the absence of adults, their ravenous appetites drove them.
If the young had focused on evading the widely spread line of warriors and serpents, many of them might have escaped. Instead they saw the opportunity for food and swarmed toward the more than thirty opportunities to feast.
The warriors danced backward, using their great clawed feet, to tear the closest juveniles.
The Usaanans faced a dilemma. Their weapons’ proficiency was inadequate to the task of hitting the rapidly moving young, some of which were as small as a third of a meter. And unlike the warriors, they didn’t have the ability to retreat and fire simultaneously.
However, sand serpents were fast.
“Retreat,” Uggert, the leader, hissed, and the eight remaining serpents dropped low and raced up the long, stacked ledges of flat rocks.
“Get low,” Uggert ordered, when they’d gained some height.
From their vantage points, the Usaanans had time to target the juveniles. Although, they expended five to seven darts to hit one insectoid.
With the overwhelming number of young, the warriors abandoned the effort to crush them and joined the serpents. From atop the ledges, they watched the juveniles struggle to assail the steep incline.
Then the shadows burst from the green. Immediately, lasers targeted the remaining young. In less than a minute, not a single insectoid, who had broken clear of the brush, was left alive.
Homsaff kept her eye on the green from her side. Seeing through her squad leaders’ views that the far side was clear, she ordered the shadows to search the brush. They weren’t to burn their way through. Instead, stealth was ordered.
Time ticked by slowly, while the queen, warriors, and serpents waited.
In the meantime, the Dischnya collected the serpents’ near-empty drums and passed out fresh drums from the satchels they carried.
There wasn’t intent to deprive the Usaanans of replacement drums. The sand serpents didn’t have a means of carrying a satchel or of strapping on a belt unit. Anything that was tried only impeded their ability to drop low and slither, if necessary.
The pop and sizzle of intermittent laser fire could be heard.
“What’s happening?” a serpent hissed quietly to Hessan.
“Sometimes adults won’t run with the rest. They’ll hide and wait for the danger to pass,” Hessan explained. “The shadows detect them through their fine sensors.”
“Will the shadows find them all?” a serpent asked Simlan.
“Probably not,” Simlan replied. “At some point, the few left will make a break for it.”
“Will they include young?” Usslert hissed. He’d been especially disturbed by the young who swarmed toward him. The thought of dying from a bite of a small nonsentient creature was abhorrent to him.
Two reds and a single gray, who understood the relentless approach of the stranger’s devices, decided there was no advantage to remaining undercover. Rather than exiting the green in the same direction as they’d heard the firing and commotion, the adult insectoids raced through the brush to escape in the opposite direction.
The three insectoids encountered a single enemy. A red and a gray broke to either side of the strange figure, intent on escaping, and a single red charged the lone entity.
Homsaff’s bright yellow eyes shone. She dispatched the three large insectoids with three perfectly delivered darts. Each one struck the adult just below the head, truncating the spine.
There were the sounds of two more shadows firing. Then all was quiet. The Dischnya and the Usaanans continued to wait for another quarter hour.
Finally, shadows emerged from the green in every direction. Immediately, they responded to their commander’s signal and raced around the perimeter to reach her.
Homsaff recalled her squads, and biologicals and shadows boarded the pair of travelers.
Simlan had glanced toward the two Usaanans as they fled, which gave Homsaff an indication of their direction. She ordered the pilot to track the wayward serpents.
As directed, the pilot left the ramp down and flew in reverse, while the traveler carrying the shadows followed.
Five Dischnya took the opportunity to sit on the ramp and feel the cooling breeze. Their keen eyesight combed the barren desert for the two runaways.
“You won’t find them,” Uggert hissed to Homsaff.
The queen eyed the Usaanan leader, waiting for him to explain.
“They’ll be ashamed for fleeing the fight,” Uggert continued. “That’s not our way. As a race, we tend to die fighting.”
“Your mentality is understood,” Homsaff replied. “Why won’t we find them?”
“At this moment, I suspect that they’re deep under the sands,” Uggert replied. “When their air runs out, they’ll briefly surface and return below.”
“We can’t spend cycles searching for them,” Homsaff said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Uggert explained. “If they heard your call, they wouldn’t surface. They’ve no intention of returning to us. It would mean their deaths.”
“We wouldn’t kill them for deserting,” Homsaff objected.
“You wouldn’t,” Uggert said.
Uggert didn’t say anymore, but the meaning to Homsaff was clear. Usaanans didn’t tolerate cowardice in the face of an enemy. As the serpent leader had said, “As a race, we tend to die fighting.”
“Are you advising us to abandon them?” Homsaff asked.
“There’s no other option,” Uggert replied. “You’ll never find them, and they won’t seek you because of our presence.”
Homsaff’s yellow eyes studied Uggert, who held her stare. She barked an order, and the warriors left the ramp and hurried inside. The pilot closed the ramp, and the travelers, with troops and shadows, shot for the next oasis.
33: Serpent Veterans
The next two isolated islands of water and green offered no targets for the warriors, serpents, or shadows. After the pilots collected their passengers, biologicals and devices, they moved on.
The fourth oasis was surrounded by sand dunes, and the serpents dropped low to slither through the soft material, while the Dischnya and shadows sunk deep in the shifting sands.
Near the vegetation, the telltale skeletons of small avians, reptiles, and tiny mammals indicated the presence of a group of insectoids.
The warriors had shared their observations that there weren’t as many larger juveniles. None more than two meters in length, as expected. That indicated that, despite the length of time on the planet, the invaders’ life cycle had been limited to one generation.
Even at the edge of the green, the sands didn’t dissipate. The soft ground cover wove through tall, slender trunks of trees with wide broad leaves at the top. The brush was sparse, allowing fairly unrestricted views through a significant portion of the vegetation.
Simlan commented privately to Homsaff and Hessan.
Homsaff instructed he
r pilot to observe the far side of the pool.
The Dischnya linked to the traveler’s controller. They used the ship’s hull sensors to investigate the terrain.
The traveler silently held station forty meters above an enormous pile of boulders that had cascaded down a crumbing edifice of stone.
The squad leaders realized that without the use of a plasma weapon it would be hard to extricate the insectoids from their hideouts. The problem was the massive size of boulder debris. They could expend two or three plasma rifle charges merely destroying the first three meters of the barrier’s face. That left another ten or eleven meters of stone rubble to carve away, and this assumed that the adults hadn’t found caves that might extend deep under the edifice.
Homsaff had considered the same idea, and she sent the pilot up and over the cliff face to see the extent of its width.
“Black space,” Hessan muttered, which drew the attention of the Usaanans.
The ship’s sensors displayed a broad plateau that extended for a hundred or more kilometers.
Homsaff linked to the other pilots, requesting that they identify their past and present locations. Their coordinates built a map for her.
One pilot had visited an oasis at the base of the plateau. The Sylians had found evidence of the Colony’s presence, but not a single individual was eliminated. The Sylian squad leader surmised that the insectoids were hiding in the deep boulder field. Without authorization to use a plasma weapon, she had marked the location for a revisit and moved on.
Homsaff shared the information with Simlan and Hessan.
“Might we go into the shade?” a serpent asked Hessan, interrupting his conversation. The squad leader regarded Homsaff, who nodded.
“Seek cover under the tall trees, but don’t proceed inward,” Hessan called out.
The sand serpents quickly slithered forward, forcing the warriors to run to keep up.
Unlike the Usaanans, the warriors eyed the deeper areas of vegetation. Also, they gazed upward, inspecting the broad leaves that hung as a canopy, which kept the sand cool under their feet.
“You seem reticent to begin operations, Queen Homsaff,” Uggert said quietly.
“We’ve encountered the present problem several times,” Homsaff replied. “There is no simple solution.”
“If you would explain the dilemma, we might offer some advice,” Uggert replied. “We have extensive experience in this type of terrain.”
The conversation brought Usslert, the Lemgart Usaanan, slithering near the pair. In his wake, Simlan stepped close, and Homsaff divided the targeting of the two serpents between her and him.
Both Usslert and Uggert noticed the Dischnya sharing efforts to watch them. It reminded the Usaanan leaders that the Dischnya weren’t humans. They wouldn’t be lulled into complacency.
Homsaff ordered the shadows out of the star’s hot rays and into the cool interior of the green. Then she put them on alert and ordered the pilot to return. “We’re boarding,” she ordered, as the ship hove into view.
Aboard the traveler, Homsaff directed the pilot to return to the length of boulders on the opposite side of the green. She activated a portable holo-vid to display the extent of the natural fortress.
“The Colony prefers these types of hideouts,” Homsaff explained. She stood back to allow the serpents to get close to the projection, and the warriors were careful not to be trapped by them.
“Narrow entrances,” Usslert commented. “Too small for Dischnya or shadows.”
“Not too small for sand serpents,” Homsaff replied.
The queen eyed the Usaanan leaders, who quietly stared back. She had no intention of entreating them to say more.
Simlan proved prescient. In the next instance, Uggert, the leader, said, “Usaanans might investigate these boulders and root out the adults. According to your wisdom, when the adults are removed, the young will be undirected. Under those circumstances, they’ll flood out at the scent of food.”
“That’s a generous offer,” Homsaff said, “and I’m wondering why you’d make it.”
“You’re the commander of this expedition,” Usslert, the sand serpent from the Lemgart home world, hissed. “You’ve the authority to grant us clemency for our efforts.”
Uggert turned toward Usslert. His mouth opened silently, displaying his fangs, and Usslert subsided.
“So that’s your offer?” Homsaff asked. “You want to engage the insectoids for some sort of exchange.”
“My associate’s statement was hasty,” Uggert replied, retracting his fangs. “I only meant to ask what value you’d place on our completion of such a dangerous task as entering the rubble pile by ourselves to eliminate the adults.”
Homsaff regarded Uggert. Her tongue lolled outside her long jaw, and Uggert drew back from the Dischnya’s derision.
The queen retracted her tongue and rose on her hocked legs, which tensed the warriors. Then she announced stonily, “Whichever of you are successful in the hunt within the boulders will have earned your lives for another cycle. That’s my offer.”
“This isn’t equitable. We’ve been betrayed,” Usslert, the Lemgart serpent, hissed angrily. He flexed his fangs, covering and uncovering them.
Uggert hissed stridently at Usslert.
“Explain this to me, Usslert,” Homsaff said, interrupting the Usaanan leader’s attempt to silence his associate. To emphasize her demand, she blocked Uggert’s view of Usslert with her back, and Simlan slid behind her, forcing Uggert, the leader, to retreat.
Homsaff knew Usslert had been responsible for operations on the Lemgart home world and the attack on Sam and Candace, and this was her opportunity to learn what Jess wanted to know.
Usslert stared angrily at Homsaff. He knew he’d spoken out of turn, but his hatred burned brightly. “You aren’t as you were supposed to be,” he hissed.
“Who isn’t?” Homsaff asked, leaning close to the serpent.
Usslert wasn’t accustomed to being intimidated by an entity closing on him. Nearly every species he’d met feared his deadly bite, but the speed and fearlessness of the Dischnya had been proven repeatedly to the Usaanans.
“Me?” Homsaff prompted, leaning closer and raising a dark-nailed hand.
“The outpost commander,” Usslert replied.
The leader, Uggert, worried that his associate was talking too much, and he rose slowly, but Simlan wagged a finger at him. The sand serpent had seen the warning gesture before, and he settled down.
“What was the commander supposed to do with you?” Homsaff pressed.
Usslert’s anger cooled enough for him to regain his reason. He knew he’d made a grave mistake by speaking without Uggert’s permission. He issued a dejected hiss and settled to the floor.
Homsaff rounded on the other serpents. She singled out one and repeated her question. He blinked and recoiled. One after another, the other serpents did the same.
Usslert continued to glare defiantly at Homsaff. Then the queen regarded Uggert, and the leader stared silently back at her.
“So, two leaders in the know, and eight others left in the dark,” Homsaff said. She signaled Simlan, and the pair stepped free of the ring of serpents.
Usslert eased away from Uggert, hoping for time to allow the leader to forgive his outburst.
Instead, Homsaff sent the pilot to the next oasis that didn’t abut the plateau.
As usual, the Usaanans didn’t feel the traveler’s acceleration, flight, or deceleration, which is why they were surprised by the sight when the ramp dropped.
“What about the boulder terrain?” Usslert inquired, as he slid off the ramp and gazed around.
“What about it?” Homsaff retorted, as she strode past him.
Usslert didn’t have a response for the queen, and, prodded by his squad leader, he followed the queen toward the green.
This oasis resembled the first one. Apparently, the rocky ledges protected the basin from the worst of the sands. They also did a good job of directing the infrequent rains into the pool without absorbing the water. In turn, the green was choked with grasses, shrubs, and trees with slender straight trunks.
The only difference between this oasis and the first one encountered was the diameter. With this pool possessing nearly twice the diameter of the first oasis, it was surrounded by four times the amount of vegetation.
The skeletal remains of prey appeared to be the same types. However, they were more numerous, and the reptile bodies appeared larger.
“Same deployment as the first location,” Homsaff directed, and Simlan and Hessan signaled their squads to follow them, as they circled the green and set up a defensive line.
Simlan eyed the steep ledges behind them. They wouldn’t be easy for the serpents to climb. Even the Dischnya would be challenged. He sent images to Homsaff.
Recognizing the danger, if the insectoid swarm pinned her warriors against the steep rocks, she sent half of the shadows around the perimeter with orders to protect the defenders. That would prove to be a tactical error on her part.
When the warriors, serpents, and shadows were ready, Homsaff directed the remaining ten shadows into the green. As before, they were doubled up. The front shadow burned a path, and the rear member watched for attacks from the sides and above.
