Exodus: Tales of The Empire: Book 2: Beasts of the Frontier. (9 page)

*     *     *

“We’re in the
water,” yelled Jubil’s voice out of the com.  “Those damned amphibians are
coming for us.  Help us.  Help us.”  The voice rose into a scream that cut off
with finality.

“Goddammit,”
yelled Deveroix, turning in place and looking at the rest of his team.  “Jack. 
Are you there?”

“Heading your
way now, boss.  The guys wanted to look for the Swampers that set off those
remotes, but I think they are long gone by now.”

“Just get your
asses over here as fast as you can,” shouted Deveroix.

“I think I found
some tracks here, Mr. Deveroix,” said Sully, the only other member of his team
with any wilderness experience.

“Only the one?”

“Yes, sir.  Only
one set, and those faint as hell.”

“But you think
it’s our boy?”

“The size of the
tracks fit.”

“Then let’s move
out,” said Deveroix, waving the direction of the trail.  “You lead, Sully.”

Sully looked
like he wanted to argue, but one look at the face of the Chief Enforcer and he
swallowed, nodded his head, and walked ahead.

“Shouldn’t we
wait for Jack and his team?” asked Prescott, one of Deveroix’ regular muscle.

“He’s only one
man,” growled the Chief Enforcer.

“There’s more of
them out here.”

“I’m betting
that the rest of them are elsewhere,” said Deveroix.  “They’ve been hitting the
other teams, and there can’t be that many of them.”

Prescott shook
his head, but kept his mouth shut.  Deveroix was thankful for small favors.  He
let Prescott walk ahead, then followed, letting the last man take the trailing
position.

*     *     *

Matthew almost
shouted for joy as he saw the topor bush ahead to the side of the game trail. 
He approached cautiously, knowing that stink weed wouldn’t protect him from
what he was hoping to find in the bush.  The flowers were fully open, and the
intoxicating scent of the blooms made him lightheaded. 
So much the better
,
he thought.  The scent was intoxicating in all meanings of the word, and men
who were high did not have the best judgement.

Matthew took
some steps closer to the bush, a shiver running up his spine as he caught sight
of the flashes of red within the bush.  Just what he was looking for, if he
could work it to his advantage.  As he took the last step, less than half a
meter from the bush, one of the lizards thrust its head out and hissed at him. 
He stepped back, careful to put his foot back into the print he had already
left.  The lizard stared at him for a moment more, then retreated back into the
bush.

The young man
looked around, trying to find a way to get off the path without leaving a
trail.  He saw a log running toward the swamp about two meters away. 
I
think I can make that
, he thought, tensing his legs.  With a push he was in
the air.  His feet hit hard onto the log, and he thought for a moment that he
was going to fall off.  Swinging his arms through the air, he kept his balance,
barely.  Taking small steps he moved up the log, out over the water of the
swamp.  The trees here, growing up from the water, had a profusion of wooden
knees sticking up from the muck, much like an Earth cypress.  He carefully set
his feet on the knees, walking across the swamp without touching the water,
until he was stepping out onto the dry land on the other side of this small
neck of swamp.

*     *     *

“Where’s Pablo,”
called out the man behind Jack Duval.

The ex-Imperial
Marine Force Recon man looked back, seeing Chiun gesturing excitedly at the
trail behind him, where the rear security should have been walking.

“Did you hear
anything?” he asked Chiun, walking back to the rear.

“Nothing.”

Jack swore under
his breath.  He hadn’t heard anything either, despite his augmented hearing.  
And he couldn’t smell anything with his enhanced olfactory sense.  Nothing
except a stink that made him think of some kind of alien wildlife.  Like
nothing he had ever smelled before.

“Hold up,” he
said, looking at the dirt path, his eyes picking up every detail as he walk
slowly back.  He found where the deed had been done, where the footprints of
Pablo had scuffed, while another set intercepted his, then only one set moved
off the path.  The trail then disappeared, completely, into the bush.

“What happened?”
asked Chiun, while one of the guys toward the front shouted back.

“Move out.  I’ll
take the rear for now.”

“What about
Pablo?”

“Pablo is dead,”
said the Team Leader.  “Now move out.”

Minutes later a
shout from the front brought Jack running, wondering how he was supposed to
cover front and rear.  As he approached the front he opened his mouth to yell
at point man, who was standing in the middle of the path, pointing.  The words
died in his mouth when he saw Pablo’s head, hanging from a branch over the
trail.

*     *     *

Timothy smiled
as he watched the expression on the leader’s face.  
Only four more to go in
this group.
  If it had been four ordinary goons, he would have them all
headed for the afterlife in less than five minutes.  But they had an augmented,
someone who had probably been in one of the services.  But which?  He was
guessing Army or Marines, which meant he knew how to move around and fight in
the bush.  But he didn’t know the Swamp.

Timothy turned
away and walked quickly but silently through the bush, heading for his next
ambush spot.

*     *     *

“It looks like
he came through here and headed into the bush at this point,” yelled Prescott,
pointing to the large flowering bush to his front.  One of the other men came
up to stand next to him, peering into the bush.

That’s a
fucking topor bush
, thought Deveroix, staring at the open blooms.  He felt
a little light headed as the fragrance hit his nose.  He realized that was an
effect of the flowers, and wondered how much more it was affecting the men
standing less than two meters from it.  There was something else about the
bush, some red flag going up in the back of his mind, but he couldn’t seem to
find the information at the moment, and for some reason connecting to the
planetary net seemed to slip his mind.  Now the blooms.  Those were worth real
money.  It would have been better if they were still buds, but each flower was
still worth hundreds, and there had to be seventy or more blooms on the bush.

“Hey, there’s
something moving in here,” called out Prescott.

“Get away from
there,” called back Deveroix, remembering why the topor was so dangerous. 
Something about toxic animals that lived in symbiosis with the plant, killing
whatever got too near, eating the animal, and leaving the remains to help fertilize
the bush.

Prescott
screamed as a stream of venom struck him in the eyes.   He dropped his weapon
into the dirt, hands going to his eyes.  Another stream struck the face of the
man standing next to him, missing the eyes, but still raising smoke and
blisters from his skin.  Seven of the red streaked lizards jumped from the bush
onto the two men, three to Prescott, four to the other man.  They unerringly
sought out exposed flesh and sank their fangs in.

Immediately both
men stopped screaming and fell to the dirt, their limbs twitching.   Veins near
the skin popped out, in some places burned through by the caustic venom,
letting the blood flow.  Both men had full complements of nanites, but the
venom overload was too much for them to handle in time to preserve the internal
organs that the poison was soon attacking.  In seconds the bodies stopped
moving, and more of the lizards jumped from the bush and starting eating the
feast laid before them.

Deveroix
stumbled back, almost falling in his haste to put as much distance between
himself and the deadly lizards as possible.  He aimed his rifle and played the
particle beam over the bodies, killing dozens of the lizards.  Some of the
survivors looked over at him as they scrambled away from their food, murder in
their eyes.  A couple started shuffling his way while the rest moved back to
the bush, seeking cover from the demonic force that had killed so many of them.

The Chief
Enforcer shot down the two lizards coming his way, and was almost ready to turn
the beam on the bush to get the rest of them.  The thought of the wealth that
plant represented stayed his hand.  The remaining man came up beside him, eyes
wide.

“What are we
going to do?” stammered Clark, one of the mercenaries, wearing light body
armor.

Deveroix thought
for a moment of ordering the man to go harvest blooms.  After all, his armor
should be proof against the venom.  Should was the word that stopped him.  If
Clark was killed, Deveroix would be alone in this wilderness.

“We’re going to
wait here for Jack to get to us,” said the Chief Enforcer.  “And we’re going to
take the last aircar and get the fuck out of here.”  This operation had been a
screwup from the start, when they found that the family wasn’t home.  And then
to follow them out into their backyard.

“Come in,” he
said over the com, trying to link to the aircar.  “Come in dammit.”

*     *     *

Sophie lowered
her rifle, a smile on her face.  Not that she liked the idea of killing
sentients, but these people had come out here to kill members of her family. 
They had gotten what they deserved.

“Go ahead and
take out the engine compartment,” said her father, lying on the ground beside
her and looking through field glasses at the aircar and the bodies of the pilot
and his copilot.  “They’re deader than hell,” he said approvingly.  “No way
their going to be fixed.”

“Of course not,”
agreed Sophie, centering the crosshairs of the scope on the forward engine
compartment of the aircar.  “That’s why I went for the head.  Same as you.”

She squeezed the
trigger and the angry red beam instantaneously linked the barrel of the rifle
with the car, while the angry buzzing sound filled the air.  She loved particle
beam weapons.  There was no drop off over any kind of practical range, and the
recoil from the beam came straight through the line of the barrel into the
stock, so there was also no barrel climb.

Alloy started to
flow on the aircar.  With a shower of sparks the beam was through, and the
ultra-fast moving protons were now doing their damage to the machinery and
electronics under the covering.  She used an entire proton pack, and the barrel
of the weapon was glowing almost white hot when she was finished.

“Ok,” said her
father.  “Now you’ve got to let that weapon cool.  And then…”

“And then?” she
asked.

“And then we go
looking for some more trouble.”

*     *     *

“What the hell
was that,” yelled the man at the front of the team.

Jack didn’t miss
that sound, something exploding in the near distance.  It didn’t take augmented
hearing to tell that some kind of explosive had just gone off.  He ranged in on
the direction, not sure what was out there that might be worth using an
explosive device on.  Then he heard the hooting sound, and the ground shook
slightly as if something heavy were pounding it.  Or running.

“Shit,” yelled
the point man as a small tree fell over just ahead.  Or was it pushed over? 

Something very
large ran onto the path, and Jack realized what kind of creatures must have
made these wide paths.  A body that had to mass a hundred tons, sort of like an
Earth sauropod, but built on the six legged plan of this world.  Smallish head
towering ten meters above the ground.  Heading right for them in a strange gait
that seemed to eat up the distance.  Behind it ran four more of the creatures,
two adults, a youth and a baby.

The point man
screamed out and started to run, in a panic staying on the path.  The giant
forepad came down on his head and crushed him into the ground with the
splintering of bones.  The second man, in the suit of light armor, took a shot
that tore into the flesh of the creature.  It hooted in pain and veered toward
the man.  Light armor was not protection enough against the heavy pad that came
down on him.

“Get off the
path,” yelled Jack to Chiun, waving as he ran off into the brush himself.

Chiun ran off
the path, just ahead of the beast, which rumbled by.  After they had passed
Jack ran across the path to see what had happened to Chiun.

“Christ,” he
hissed as he looked down at the headless body of the man.  He quested about,
the skin crawling over his spine as he realized that now he truly was the
hunted. 
I’m getting the hell out of here
, he thought, looking into the
brush and taking a random path.  He moved smoothly, quietly, as he had been
trained, his ears questing for any noises that might be following him.

The jungle was
quiet at first, most of the inhabitants still frightened by whatever had caused
the loud noise minutes before.  Soon they started to make their presence known,
and Jack found himself starting at every noise, jumping at shadows. 
The
hell with this
, he thought, stopping for a moment to get his breathing
under control. 
I’m a Marine.  I’m the baddest dude in these woods.  If
anything comes after me, that’s its tough luck.

Something moved
in the brush to his left.  Jack dropped into a crouch, his rifle pointed that
way.  The rustling grew louder, until some small furry creatures came running
into sight, saw him, and took off.  Jack let out a short laugh, straightened
up, and made to turn back the way he was heading.  That is, until he felt the
keen edge of a knife at the back his neck.

“So,” said a
cold voice.  “What branch were you in?”

“Marines,” said
Jack, tensing, getting ready to do something, anything, to turn the tables on
this guy.  “Force Recon.  You?”