Exodus: Empires at War: Book 2 (14 page)

The creature hit the
ground on all fours, then stood to tower over the human.  The creature had to
weigh a half ton, much larger than a gorilla or most bears.  It had the body of
some kind of ape, and hands like a chimp on all limbs.  It was obviously an
arboreal animal, and just as obviously a carnivore.  It let out a screech that
was answered from the trees, then stalked toward the woman.

Jennifer turned to run,
hearing the intake of breath and crunching of needles as the creature ran after
her.  She flipped the engage button on the pistol, aware that it would take a
couple of seconds to build up the charge of fast moving matter in the built in
accelerator.  She glanced back at the animal, which was keeping the same
distance between them, and wondered if she might be able to make a dash back
for the air car.  A look at the loping stride of the creature disavowed her of
that wish.  It would pluck her from her seat before she could get the canopy
down.  She looked down at the pistol and saw the red light turn to green on the
top, and knew that she was as ready as she would ever be.

One of the enhancements
that had been bred into humans was greater speed and agility than was the
baseline before the changes.  Jennifer spun on the run, throwing herself
backwards on an arc that would land her on her back on the needle covered
ground.  She brought the barrel of the pistol around, lining it up on the
beast, seeing the claw tipped paw coming toward the gun out of the corner of
her eye.  As soon as the pistol was pointed center mass she pulled the trigger.

The particle beam only
threw a small amount of matter, less than a gram in any single shot.  While not
being shot at relativistic speeds, it was still traveling quite fast enough to
develop considerable energy.  Jennifer had only been able to get one hand on
the pistol before she had to fire or be ripped by those massive claws.  She
felt like the pistol was going to fly out of her hand and hit her in the face,
despite the miniature grabber units on the barrel that offset the recoil
somewhat.  That didn’t happen, more from luck than any skill on her part.  The
effect on the carnivore was as advertised.  The beam, a dirty red with the
sound of a thousand angry bees, struck the creature on the left side of the
massive chest.  That area flew into an eruption of steam, blasted out of
existence.  The heat generated by the beam spread almost instantly from that
area.  Fur blazed, then fell as ash, while the meat for over seventy
centimeters in each direction cooked and charred.

Jennifer screamed as
the superheated steam hit her hand and wafted back into her face.  She
reflexively shut her eyes, and saved her vision, but the burns across her face
hurt like hell.  She remembered Glen telling her to not shoot at anything under
twenty meters of range.  There had really been no choice.  It was either shoot
or die, so she had shot.

Jennifer fell back to
the ground, expecting the body to fall on top of her.  When that didn’t happen
she opened her eyes, barely keeping a scream from her lips from the pain of
moving her facial muscles and the skin that overlay them.  Then all attention
was on the beast, which had fallen down in place like a sack folding in on
itself.  Jennifer smiled for a moment, the smile turning to a frown as she saw
that a half dozen more of the beasts had arrived on the ground and were
advancing cautiously on her position.

“Crap yet again,” she
said, looking around, trying to find a place that she could defend.  But there
were only the trees, and she doubted climbing would protect her from things
that lived and hunted from them.  There were some rocks about fifty meters
further to the right, but she doubted she could outrun the creatures to make it
to them.  Then her decision making was taken from her as two of the beasts, the
largest of the sextet, roared and charged at her.

Jennifer swung the
pistol toward the nearest beast and sent off a shot that struck it in the
face.  The head exploded under the assault, sending red and pink tissue
everywhere.  A glob hit Jennifer on the left hand, burning into her flesh, and
she cried out as she dropped that hand from the pistol.  She kept enough
presence of mind to continue bringing the pistol to bear on the other
carnivore, pulling the trigger as soon as it came on target. 

This shot was not very
good, and the beam missed the beast to the right of its head.  It took the
right ear off the head of the beast and caused burns to erupt on the side of
its face.  The beast roared and fell away to the side.  Jennifer took the
moment of chaos to run for the rocks.  The creatures seemed confused for a
moment, between her retreat and the damage to several of their own members. 
But only a moment till they were back in pursuit.

Jennifer jumped over
the first rock, a meter high specimen, and plopped down behind it, turning with
a quick motion and bringing the gun back to bear.  She expected to see four creatures
coming her way, maybe five if the injured one joined the assault.  She gasped
as she saw the ten beasts coming at her, fanned out in a spread that she could
not cover completely.  She fought down her panic and aimed at the one that
looked the most dangerous, firing as soon as the barrel lined up.  The shot
went wide, not even injuring the creature.  The sound of the passing particles
must have disturbed it somewhat, because it fell to the ground, rolled away,
then back peddled as soon as it regained its feet.  Jennifer fired two more
shots, also misses, and the creatures backed away and took cover.

They’re smart
, thought Jennifer,
firing a couple of more shots into the woods to keep them thinking about her
weapon. 
Ape smart?  Could be.

There was some rustling
in the low shrubs by some trees and the doctor took a shot at them.  The part
of the bush the beam hit scattered leaves and branches, and the area around the
strike burst into flame.  She didn’t know if she had hit anything other than
vegetation.  A moment later the bush shook again and she took another shot,
again scattering shrubbery and starting a small fire.

The doctor looked at
her left hand, where a piece of the second beast she shot had hit her.  There
was a nasty burn on the back of her hand, but nothing that wouldn’t heal in a
short time.  She felt her face and winced at the blisters she felt on her
skin.  Also something that would heal quickly with treatment. 
If the damned
things don’t get me and eat me first.

Several bushes rustled
and she took shots at them.  A howl at the second shot let her know she had hit
something, though from the timber of the yell and the grumbling roar that
followed she was sure it was not fatal.  The trees rustled overhead and she
fired a trio of shots that way.

A beast came charging
from cover, heading her way with a roar and a flash of teeth.  Two more
followed, and Jennifer almost panicked.  She took aim at the first and pulled
the trigger.  The pistol bucked, but not as much as she thought it should.  The
beam struck the beast in the lower stomach, and it rolled away with a whine,
paws clutching at its stomach region.  Jennifer swung the pistol to the next
target and squeezed.  And squeezed again when nothing happened.

Shit
, she thought, looking
at the side of the pistol and seeing that the proton charge was empty.  She
glanced up at the charging animals, joined now by another trio coming behind
them, and realized she would not have a chance to reload.  Her hand shook as
she did the only thing she could, reaching for another proton pack and hoping
that she was wrong about the progress of the beasts toward her, or her speed of
reloading.  Anything that might get her out of this.  She mouthed a quick
prayer, then an apology to Glen, while watching the first beast jump to the top
of the rock and look down at her, red eyes squinting.  It reached a large paw
toward her and she knew that it was over.

The animal fell to the
side at the same time as a quintet of wounds opened on the opposite aspect,
blood spurting into the air.  The beast rolled from the rock onto the ground,
and Jennifer found herself looking at a scene of salvation.  Another three of
the beasts were down, and the rest were running for the trees.  Jennifer caught
movement out of her eye and turned toward the four newcomers, all in battle
armor and carrying heavy assault rifles.

“Are you OK, doc?”
asked one as he bounded to her position.

“I will be now,” she
said with a smile, a feeling of relief passing through her body, followed by
one of fatigue.  “I will be now.”

*     *     *

Sean was enjoying this
dream.  He had been afraid to go to sleep, after the last couple of horrible
lucid dreams that had ruined his nights.  But this one was one he could enjoy. 
He had Jana Gorbachev in his room, and was peeling the clothes from her taunt
body, his hands lingering over her small breasts, stroking her flat stomach. 
She was the forbidden older woman, the one that excited him.  Through almost
three decades his senior she was still a very attractive woman, young by the
standards of Imperial society.  And totally forbidden to one such as he.  In
his chain of command, a commoner, and not someone to cement an alliance with
another strong family.

Sean leaned down and
placed one erect nipple in his mouth, sucking on the tender bud while she
sighed.    Her hand reached down and started to stroke his rising penis,
eliciting a groan from his lips.  He teased the nipple with his teeth, then
moved up to kiss the mouth and taste the moans that were coming from the soft
orifice.  And recoiled as soon as her face came back into view, because it was
no longer a face, but the sardonic grin of a skull.

The dream shifted, and
Sean knew he was in one of the prophetically lucid dreams that were part of the
gift.  He found himself at his duty station in the control room of the B ring. 
Jana was again alive, calling out commands and sit reps from her station.  The
ship was shaking from multiple hits, and Sean was getting out of his seat. 
Another hit threw him to the floor, and he looked up to see something blast
through the ceiling of the chamber and spread fire throughout.

The view shifted, and
Sean was no longer inside the ship, but had become an omnipotent observer from
outside.  The
Sergiov
was a wreck, breaking up, while in the near
distance ships of an alien configuration closed.  It took a moment to recognize
that those ships were similar to the ones he had seen in an earlier dream.  And
then a missile struck the
Sergiov
and plasma spewed in all directions as
the ship broke up.

Sean sat up in bed with
a cry; the emotional impact of the real seeming dream still with him, though
the visuals were now nothing more than memory. 
When is that supposed to
happen
? he wondered.  The main drawback of the dreams was the lack of a time
or location reference.  It could happen tomorrow, or ten years from now.  Based
on his feelings for the Navy, and his appearance in the dream, he would guess
much sooner than ten years.  Beyond that he just didn’t know.

Sean was still a young
man, and in a moment his thoughts shifted to the other, more pleasant part of
the dream. 
She would kill me if she knew I was thinking of her that way
,
he thought, a smile stretching his face. 
Or would she?  After all, it would
have to be flattering to have the attentions of a member of the Imperial Family
. 
Sean dismissed that thought from his mind as he got up and got ready to face
the day.  It was not worth the effort.  Beside all the social and military
obstacles, he was sure she didn’t feel any attraction toward him.  She treated
him as a surrogate child, and that was all.  No matter what he wanted, that was
all.

*     *     *

Purgatory was the one
prison planet in the Empire.  There were other prisons in the Empire, some even
built on moons, but none that dedicated an entire heavenly body for the
warehousing of the most dangerous residents of the Empire.  An airless rock
rotating around a gas giant in an independent orbit of the great black hole of
the Supersystem, it was as an escape proof prison as had ever been devised by
man.  That didn’t mean that no one had ever escaped.  One had.  But getting
through a hundred kilometers of rock and past the patrol ships made it one
tough prospect.  Add to that the on call presence of the Navy, and it was
almost sure death to even attempt getting away.

All of this was going
through Lucille Yu’s mind was she sat in her cell, waiting for the
interrogators to arrive.  She already hated this place, but it was an easy
place to hate.  She had seen none of the other fifty thousand inmates, having
been totally isolated from the general population since arrival.  She hated the
low gravity of the rock, the cold temperature that seemed to seep into her
bones despite the climate control, the food that had a taste of institutional
sameness.  She hated the skin tight prison uniform they had given her,
insurance that she would not hide anything on her body.  As if she could, with
billions of spy nanites in her system and constant external scans of every
description.  Most of all she hated being away from her work at such a critical
time, when the thinking head of the organization had been all but decapitated
from the working body.

I should be thinking
about the death of the Emperor,
thought the scientist, shaking her head. 
I
should be more bothered by the death of the ruler of the Empire and his family.
 But it’s so hard to get past the deaths of so many colleagues.  It’s just too
damned much to deal with.  I don’t have any more tears to cry.