In Earth's Service (Mapped Space Book 2) (15 page)

I cranked my listener to high gain and my infrared
optics to maximum as a distant howl came rolling in across the plain. Sometime
later, I spotted a thermal ghost slinking through long grass, working its way
toward me.

I soon discovered it wasn’t alone.

* * * *

Prowling apparitions crept toward
the ruined bait trap while I searched desperately for a weapon. In spite of
having been abandoned for more than a century, the cage was still strong enough
to provide protection on three sides forcing any attacker to come in over the
broken door. Some cage bars were rusting, others were bent from having been
charged by creatures larger than a tankosaur, while several bars in the wrecked
door rattled loosely but wouldn’t twist free.

Frustrated, I retreated to the enormous skeleton
in the middle of the cage. Its ribs were thicker than my chest and twice my
height, jutting from a spine composed of immense anvil-like bones. They were
too heavy for me to lift in Hardfall’s oppressive gravity, but eventually I
found a small joint-bone that had the makings of an adequate hammer. I lugged
it to the broken cage door watched by a lone sawtooth perched on its haunches
off to the right and a pair of four legged nightstalkers creeping through the long
grass further out. Most dangerous of all, a few knee-high infrared blurs hopped
in the distance with growing agitation. Most of the fleshripper pack were
sleeping, but my alien scent was drifting their way, rousing them from their
slumber.

The hulking sawtooth gave off a lazy howl as it
sniffed the air, forcing me to act. I drove my bone hammer into the ruined cage
door, shattering the night with a thunderous crack that startled the skittish nightstalkers.
They scampered off into the darkness while the big shouldered sawtooth just sat
watching me through the grass.

I lifted the hammer again, smashing the twisted
bars until one broke free. It clattered onto the rock floor noisily, then several
blows later, a second bar came loose. I dropped the hammer and carried my
makeshift spears back into the cage. They were heavy polysteel tubes with blunt
ends incapable of piercing tough hide, but were as long as medieval pikes, giving
me reach.

I took cover behind the tankosaur skeleton, hoping
I could hide there until help came, but the sawtooth stood on his muscled
forearms and started toward me. The infrared orbs of its eyes glowed brightly above
a blockish snout sniffing uncertainly as it savored my scent. Even though we
were in sight of the colony, it had little knowledge of humans. Colonists
either kept well clear of the plain’s predators or dispatched them with armor
piercing slugs, giving Hardfall’s monsters no chance to learn to fear men.

After resting one of my metal bars against the
tankosaur’s skeleton, I held the other ready as the sawtooth approached. It paused
at the edge of the grass, studying the artificially smooth rock base and the
unfamiliar cage. The creature seemed strangely misshapen with large powerful
shoulders, muscular forelegs and short rear legs for balance. Its head was square
with broad jaws lined with thick, yellow teeth. It wasn’t armored like a
tankosaur, but its hide was tough and its teeth could tear bone plate from
flesh with a flick of its head.

Sniffing tentatively, it started forward again, shifting
its angular head slowly from side to side as it neared the cage, never taking its
recessed eyes off me. It hesitated at the fallen door, confused by its strangeness
and by my alien scent, but like every predator roaming Hardfall’s dry plains,
it was racked by a hunger that overcame any fear. It pawed the trap door warily,
causing it to clatter noisily against the rock, then bent its forelegs and
leapt over the door, landing fully inside the cage.

Now its demeanor changed, from prowler to killer.

The sawtooth’s head dropped slightly as its eyes
bored into me, its lips curling back to reveal serrated teeth in a snarl dripping
with saliva. When it saw I wasn’t easily flushed from my hiding place, it moved
forward growling constantly, never letting me out of its sight. When only the tankosaur
skeleton separated us, the creature opened its wide mouth and gave out a
ferocious roar, then seemed puzzled that I refused to run.

Realizing it would have to drive me out, it
started around the skeleton. Thick muscles rippled under a dark brown hide pulled
taut against bone from days without food. As the big meat eater skirted the
tankosaur’s rounded skull, I moved back, trying to keep the skeleton between us.
Suddenly it leapt forward sweeping a massive forearm at me, but I rolled away with
ultra-reflexed speed, coming to my feet and slamming my clumsy weapon onto the
point of its black snout.

The sawtooth roared angrily, shaking its head in
surprise as I darted away. Seeing me run, it immediately charged, leaping with
both forelegs outstretched, but I dodged sideways around the skeleton. When it
landed, it slid across the smooth rock floor into the cage wall causing the
entire structure to vibrate from the impact.

“You like to chase, don’t you,” I said to myself,
realizing it had evolved to bring down fleeing prey. It expected me to run,
because that’s what herbivores did out on the flatlands. As soon as I ran, its
instinct was to charge after me, but it couldn’t keep its footing on the laser smooth
rock floor.

The sawtooth scrambled to its feet, then we
circled the skeleton again in a deadly stalking game. After one full circuit, I
broke into a sprint, testing my theory. The sawtooth instantly charged around
the end of the skeleton, losing its footing and sliding on its side across the slick
rock floor. Before it righted itself, I rushed forward and hurled my bar like a
spear, striking the beast’s sloping forehead with a thud that filled it with
fury.

It got to its feet, exploding with rage as I ran
back to the rib cage, triggering the sawtooth’s pursuit instinct again. Its large
feet scrambled on the smooth rock as it rushed to chase me down. A threading
indicator flashed into my mind, warning it was almost on top of me, then I dove
between the tankosaur’s ribs, landing on the segmented anvil spine. I rolled
and dived again, leaping through the other side of the rib cage and scooping up
my second iron bar.

The sawtooth charged blindly after me, hurling its
massive shoulders against the giant bones, shattering them on impact. Its chest
bounced off the anvil-jointed spine, then its head speared between the far side
ribs, coming to rest with its shoulders wedged against the tankosaur rib cage.
Its head and shoulders were pinned by its own weight and its small rear legs
were left sprawled across the backbone, flailing helplessly in the air.

Seeing my chance, I charged, holding the metal bar
above my shoulders with both hands, then drove the blunt end like a lance into
the creature’s eye. It roared in anger, twisting its torso, trying to break
free, but for all its immense physical strength, it couldn’t move backwards. On
Hardfall’s endless plains, it had evolved incredible power going forward, but
no ability to step back.

There wasn’t room for it to move its forearms,
only to push its enormous shoulders against the bone edifice trapping it. Knowing
I didn’t have long before the tankosaur skeleton collapsed, I drove the metal
bar deeper into the sawtooth’s eye socket, trying to puncture its brain, but
the metal bar struck bone and would go no further. I released the bar, now
firmly wedged in its skull, and stepped back as the creature whipped its head
from side to side, causing the metal pole to carve wild arcs through the air.

When the sawtooth lifted its head, raising the bar
vertically, I leapt forward, catching it and vaulting my weight toward the
tankosaur skeleton. As I passed over the sawtooth’s head, I jerked the bar
forward, hearing a loud crack as the creature’s neck snapped, then its head
rolled sideways limply, forcing me to jump clear.

Before I was even on my feet, my DNA sniffer was
flashing another warning, of multiple contacts approaching from the west. Fast,
hopping contacts! Dozens of them! The roars of the sawtooth and my scent had
attracted them and now the prospect of food was sending them crazy. Knowing I
couldn’t stay inside the bait trap, I ran to the entrance as a swarm of infra
red wisps appeared out of the darkness, bouncing toward me through long grass
on short, powerful hind legs. My listener amplified the patter of little feet
and a chorus of barking growls as the plains piranha closed in.

With nowhere to run, the only direction was up. I clambered
from the fallen gate to the top of the cage, then turned and kicked furiously
at the trap door’s rusted hinge, trying to knock the gate down. Suddenly, fleshrippers
surged out of the long grass in a wave of growling, bouncing death. They swarmed
over the flat rock toward the bait trap, then as the first one reached the
fallen gate, the rusted hinge snapped. The ripper leapt off the gate toward me,
slashing at my leg with blade-like claws extending from its small forearms. I
pulled back as it carved the air and wrapped one deadly paw over the edge of
the cage, then tried to scramble up, but I smashed the heel of my boot into its
little round face, sending it flying.

The fleshripper pack swept into the bait trap toward
the dead sawtooth, yelping with glee to have found one of their most dangerous
enemies dead before them. They swarmed over its carcass, tearing its thick hide
open with their claws and gorging themselves on its still warm meat. The big
animal’s blood spread across the bait trap floor as more of the ravenous little
creatures swarmed into the cage, eager to join the feeding frenzy. The
sawtooth’s carcass disappeared beneath a mass of squawking, slashing
fleshrippers, then once the food was gone, their attention turned to me.

Dozens of blood crazed little carnivores squealed
furiously as they tried to find a way to reach me, clawing the bars, hopping onto
the tankosaur skeleton and leaping hopelessly up at me. Perched on top of the
cage, I was trapped, but just out of their reach. Even if my P-50 had been
fully loaded, I could never have killed them all. There were too many and they
were too aggressive. Watching those ravenous, little fleshrippers staring up at
me, it was abundantly clear why every attempt the colonists had made to move
down from their high fortresses had failed.

It was the uncompromising brutality of life on
Hardfall’s dying plains.

* * * *

Several
hours after the fleshrippers had swarmed the bait trap, a
dozen of them still prowled the rock floor below, staring up at me
in frustration. The rest had drifted away into the grass, some to sleep after
gorging themselves, others to wander restlessly nearby waiting for their next victim.

Far off in the distance, the lights of a speeding ground
vehicle pierced the darkness of the plain as it raced south. For a long time, it
seemed unaware of my presence, then it slowly turned toward the bait trap,
following an old dirt road linking the trap to the colony.

When it was still some way out, my infrared optics
picked up another heat source approaching from the opposite direction. As it
drew near, I realized it was larger than a fleshripper, smaller than a sawtooth,
heading toward me at a leisurely pace. There was no stalking, none of the
initial caution shown by the sawtooth or the frenzied charge of the rippers.
Soon the ghostly apparition took on the form of a man, walking alone across the
plain, seemingly unaware of the danger.

When he was several hundred meters out, he stopped
to study me and my little friends below. I tried DNA-locking him, but got
nothing. I considered shouting a warning, but feared that would rouse the rippers
sleeping in the grass between us. I tried waving him back, but he ignored my
efforts, renewing his approach. Soon he was close enough for my threading to
read his body temperature – a few degrees above the human norm.

On the rock flats outside the bait trap, a
fleshripper got wind of his scent and hopped uncertainly into the long grass, toward
him. Its red blur moved leisurely at first, then it emitted an excited barking
sound, rousing the others. Suddenly the long grass was alive with movement as
rippers surged toward him. The creatures below immediately lost interest in me
and raced after the pack, fearful of missing their share of the prey.

The humanoid stopped as he became aware of the
wave of death rolling toward him, then calmly reached over his shoulder and
retrieved a two-handed weapon. When the rippers were almost upon him he fired a
steady energy blast, sweeping left to right and back again, creating a
cone-shaped inferno that incinerated all before him. High pitched squeals of
shock and agony filled the air as the ripper pack died while the alien
continued to unleash controlled destruction upon them. The glow of the flames
revealed his dark helmet and body armor, identical to what the large humanoid
who’d pursued me on Krailo-Nis had worn.

Suddenly I realized neither the Tau Cetins nor the
Intruders were following us. It was him! He’d tracked me from the streets of
Nisport to the plains of Hardfall, making me – not Izin – the target!

More infrared fleshripper ghosts converged on his
position from the right. For a moment, I thought he’d hadn’t seen them, then as
they were almost on top of him, he leapt away. Ionized light glowed from the
base of his boots as he power jumped through the air, drawing them after him. When
he landed, he waited for the second wave to swarm after him, then he fired
again, calmly annihilating his attackers. When the only thing left alive out
there was him, he locked his weapon on his back and power jumped over the
spreading grass fire toward the bait trap.

Wheels skidded on smooth rock behind me, then the
metallic click of a hatch opening sounded. I turned to see a six wheeled, all-terrain
vehicle with four powerful floodlights mounted on top parked alongside the bait
trap. It was painted in savannah camouflage, shielded by rectangular plate
armor that gave it a faceted look and crowned by a round roof turret mounting an
impressive seventy five millimeter autocannon. Painted across the side of the
hull were images of plains animals and in red letters the words ‘Prairie Runner’.
Above the middle pair of wheels, a hatch lifted up vertically, gull wing style,
pushed up by a black prosthetic claw.