Exodus: Tales of The Empire: Book 2: Beasts of the Frontier. (7 page)

“There,” said
Deveroix, pointing at the area.  “All units.  On my command, head for this
area.  We will come in at one hundred and twenty degree angles from each other
and surround them.  As soon as you’re in position at three hundred meters out,
assault teams will drop and come in on foot.  Aircars will be prepared to
provide cover if needed.”

The acknowledgements
came back and the aircars all pivoted in the air and headed for the area they
assumed was a camp, twenty-seven kilometers distant.  They accelerated up to a
hundred kilometers an hour, quick enough to get there fast without making so
much noise as to be spotted at a distance.

“They’re
moving,” called out the Pilot, and Deveroix turned to see the dots from the
satellite image flowing from the gathering point.  Two stuck close together,
while the other two split up.  At that moment the entire satellite image broke
up into static.

“They’re jamming
the satellite feed somehow,” said the Pilot.

“And when we get
back, someone will pay for letting that happen,” growled the Chief Enforcer. 
“Change of plans.  We’ll land everyone in the gathering place after we scout it
for traps.  Then we’ll go after them on foot, with the aircars in support.”

“Are you sure
that’s a good idea, Boss” asked Francois from the back.  “That’s putting us in
their playground.”

“Yes, dammit,”
screamed Deveroix.  “I’m not going to let them get lost in this damned Swamp.”

He looked down
once again at the water, where the giant predators were still fighting over the
food that had dropped into their laps.  They reminded him of some of the
predators that lived around the capital, on another continent.  Only much
larger.

“Will you ride
with me, sir?” asked the Pilot.

“No.  I’ll be
getting out as well.  We’ll need everyone we have on the ground.” 
Especially
since we’re now short one team.

“We’ll be there
in about seven minutes, sir.”

And how far
can they get in that time
, thought the Chief Enforcer.  He didn’t like the
answer to that question.

*     *     *

“Good job, son,”
said Timothy as they walked along the trail.

Matthew nodded
as he continued to spread more of the stink weed on his skin.  He was
purposefully making a trail that a five year old could follow, leaving
footprints in muddy soil, snapping the branches of shrubs that hung out over
the game trail.  His Uncle, conversely, was  moving like a ghost just off the
trail, leaving no sign of his passage, while he rubbed some of the same weed
all over his skin and clothing.

The predators of
the Swamp could not stand the scent of the weed, and would do just about
anything to avoid it.  It was something the early Swampers had discovered, and
one of their main tricks in navigating the predator infested land they hunted
without become the prey.  The people after him would have no idea about the
weed, or so they hoped.

“Ok,” said
Timothy, sliding back off the trail.  “Go to stealth, and keep going.”

“Don’t you think
the aircars might spot us?” asked Matthew, stepping off the trail himself and
walking carefully as to show no sign of his passage.  He knew the Swamp, though
not as well as his uncles or cousins, who traversed it every day.

“If they get
close, pull that poncho around you tight, and it should obscure your heat
signature.  It will get a little bit hot, but nothing you shouldn’t be able to
handle for a quarter hour or so.”

Matthew nodded,
one of his hands touching the special material of the poncho his Uncle had
provided.  They were Ranger issue, capable of blending in with their
surroundings like a chameleon, as well as holding in almost all body heat,
rendering the wearing invisible to infrared sensors for a short period of time.

“And keep
moving.  If you hear anything like a cry or a scream, it’s just me doing unto
them.  So don’t come back.  Keep moving, and let the Swamp work for you.”

“Yes, sir,”
agreed Matthew. 
Just like playing a game of hide and seek
, he thought,
remembering how he and his cousins played in the Swamp when they were younger. 
Only this time, if he were caught, he wouldn’t just become
It
.

*     *     *

“Jubil, you take
your team down that trail,” ordered Deveroix, pointing to the game trail that
disappeared through the brush.  “Jack,” he said, looking at the ex-Marine Recon
Ranger, “you take that one.  “Francois, I’ll go along with your team.  Now,
move out.”

There were nods
and grunts of acknowledgement, and the three teams separated out.  Each had at
least two people in light combat armor, as well as at least one augmented
gunman.  Each should be able to handle two of these Swampers without problem.

The team
Deveroix had attached himself to started down the path, their one augmented
mercenary walking point twenty meters ahead, where he could use his enhanced
senses.  The rest trailed behind, ten meters between each, the Chief Enforcer
in the middle.  The group moved as quickly as possible, everyone looking every
which way, eyes in constant motion.  Sweat beaded the face of every man, while
the sound of slapping was an indication of the insectoid swarm that was
attacking what they saw as a new food source.

One of the men
fired his magrail rifle into the brush, cursing under his breath.

“What the hell
are you shooting at?” called out Deveroix, jogging toward the startled looking
man.

“I thought I saw
something,” said the embarrassed looking man.

“Well, don’t
fucking fire unless you’re sure, idiot.  You’re going to let them know we’re
following them.”

The augmented
mercenary at the front waved for Deveroix to join him, and the Chief Enforcer
found himself jogging forward once again, sweat pouring from his face.

“The track has
disappeared,” the man told Deveroix.

“What do you
mean, disappeared?”

“Look,” said the
man, shrugging his shoulders.  “It was a clear track, like someone struggling
along with no idea of what they were doing.  Until, suddenly, they knew what
they were doing, and stopped leaving a trail.”

“Crap.”

“What do you
want to do, Boss?” asked the Point Man.

“We keep going,”
said Deveroix, taking a moment to connect with the command aircar and its
Pilot.  “Any sign of them.”

“No, sir. 
Nothing on the infrared or chemosensors.  It’s like they disappeared.”

“They can’t have
just disappeared, could they?” said Deveroix aloud, looking at the Point Man.

“There are
ways,” said the man who used to work for the Empire, from which he had received
his gifts.  “I wouldn’t have thought that a bunch of yokels would have them,
but there are ways.”

“The boy’s Uncle
was said to be some hot shit Ranger at one time,” said Deveroix, looking around
him.

“Then we may
have just become the hunted, Mr. Deveroix,” said the Point Man.

*     *     *

Sophie Staffman
felt she was as good a Swamper as any of her male cousins, and, of course, she
was correct.  She had spent her entire forty-three years in the Swamp, and
could read the signs as well as anyone.  And she had her father along with her,
who was just as skilled and more experienced.

Thomas Staffman
started to move across the small clearing, to the pile of bones off to one
side, before looking up at about the same time that Sophie did.  To an
untrained eye it looked as if there was only the foliage of trees overhead,
along with some vines, a few of which trailed across the clearing, looking like
any other vines.  Both of the Swampers knew better, and with a nod at her
father, Sophie started around the edge of the clearing, careful to maintain her
distance from the vines.

“I think here,”
said Thomas, indicating a fallen tree that they could shelter behind.

Sophie nodded
and knelt down behind the fallen trunk, then fell into a sitting position,
breathing deeply, trying to get rid of some of the heat buildup brought on from
wearing the stealth covering.  Neither looked over the big log to see what the
pursuers were doing.  They would know soon enough.

The augmented
scout was the first to come to the clearing.  He called back to those following
him, then waited for his companions to come up.

“I’ve lost the
track,” said the augmented scout.  “But the game trail continues on the other
side of this clearing, so I’m betting if we follow it, we’ll come up on them.”

“Go ahead,” said
the man who must have been in charge.  “You, go around to the left.  You, to
the right.  And keep an eye out for tracks.”

The men told off
acknowledged, and started to move to their assigned paths, while the scout
started across the clearing, the leader right behind him.

The scout
stepped on one of the vines, a narrow specimen attached to the one of the
larger members.  The vine recoiled away, and one of the thicker versions came
lashing in to strike the scout in the back, knocking him down.  The vine
followed, slamming down on him while another went after the leader, wrapping
him in a tight embrace.  At that moment the creature they were attached to let
go of its attachments in the trees and fell toward its prey, its multitude of
sharp toothed mouths opening.

While it looked
like a plant, the murder vine was all animal.  With perfect camouflage and an
asymmetrical form, it blended into its surroundings, ambush hunting anything
and everything that walked the land areas of the Swamp.  Only the larger
carnotropes, the hoppers and the hooters had nothing to fear from the hidden
hunters.  Now several tons of beast fell onto its dinner.

“Jubil,”
screamed the augmented scout as a half dozen mouths tore through his skin suit,
and a score of spike struck into body and limbs.

The leader was
too busy trying to extricate himself from the vine that was trying to pull him
to the body of the creature.  He was wearing light combat armor, giving him
three times normal human strength, and the vine couldn’t penetrate his
covering, no matter how many spikes it tried to shoot into him.

The scout also
had three times human strength, thanks to his augmentation, but he was fighting
the main body of the creature and multiple vine like tentacles.  While the
mouths were tearing into his flesh and spikes were penetrating into his vital
organs.  With one effort he tried to pull himself free, then went slack with
eyes rolling up into his head.

“Kill the damned
thing,” yelled Jubil, pulling free and aiming his particle beam rifle at the
murder vine.  The beam struck the creature a meter to the right of the scout’s
body.  The body mass of the predator for ten centimeters in each direction of
the strike converted to vapor, and the creature went wild in agony.  Four other
rifles opened up, burning deep into the vitals of the creature.

“Take the one to
that side,” Thomas told his daughter.

She nodded, then
rolled a few meters away and looked over the log, her own rifle tracking. 
Congo was both a frontier world and a class I threat planet, and any and all
personal weapons were legal.  Both carried military class particle beams, able
to penetrate light armor in less than a second.  Sophie sighted in on a man who
was wearing light armor, which let her know that her dad was shooting at one
sans protection.  A squeeze of the trigger and the dark red beam burned a hole
through the chest plate of the man’s armor, then deep into the torso, sending
jets of red tinted steam through the opening.

The man her
father was firing at didn’t even have time for a scream as the beam contacted
his head, blasting it into fragments.  The pair dropped back down behind the
log just before the three survivors started firing at them.  They crawled away
to the right, then rolled through some low, fernlike foliage and into a small
depression.  Particle beams tore holes through the thick fallen trunk, bursting
out the other side.  Without knowing where the targets were, they really didn’t
have a hope of hitting anything.

“Cease fire,”
yelled the leader, kneeling to present the smallest target he could.  The
creature they had been fighting was dead, along with the scout.  And the two
other men who had been ambushed by the people they had been following. 
“Everyone stay down.”

Sophie looked
over at her dad and smiled.  They had reduced this team by half, and reduced
the confidence of the survivors so that they would probably jump at their own
shadows.  Then the thought struck her that she had just killed a human being. 
She had hunted just about every creature in the Swamp, but never a sentient. 
She started to cry at the thought, and her father wrapped his arms around her.

“We need to
move,” Thomas told her, grabbing her by her arms and holding her away so he
could get a look into her eyes.  “This needs doing.”

She nodded as he
released her, then followed him through the high ferns to their next attack
position.

*     *     *

Jack Duval swept
the game trail ahead with his sensitive eyes, the gift of the augmentation the
Imperial Marines had given him in what seemed another lifetime.  He wondered
what made the trail, what kind of animal.  He thought that most paths were made
by herbivores, which meant carnivores would set up ambushes along them.  He
didn’t know what kind of carnivores would stalk these trails, but was sure that
there was one, the kind he had been taught to hunt, humans.

“Status?” came
the call from Deveroix.

“We’re still
following a trail, but we haven’t caught up to them yet.”

“Be very
careful.  Jubil ran into an ambush.”

“What happened?”

 “They led them
into the hunting ground of some kind of ambush predator, then hit them while
they were occupied.”

“I’m leading the
way,” said Jack, his eyes sweeping the woos to both sides.