Koban 5: A Federation Forged in Fire (55 page)

With a hundred feet of open dirt ahead of her now, she looked back to see if the beast had slowed to attack the stranger. She watched in amazement as he leaped towards the animal and twisted as he left the ground, reaching out with his right hand towards the long central horn, suddenly thrust up and to the side at him. Remarkably, he grasped the horn a foot from its tip, used it to alter his trajectory to pivot around it slightly, and used the up-thrust of that massive head to gain height, pushing off the side of the animal’s face with his left hand.

He performed a twisting summersault over the snorting animal’s head, and landed on his feet on the bulging hump over the front muscular shoulders, facing the rear downward slope of the animal’s smooth back. He slid down the teal colored thick armored skin, and lightly jumped off her rear quarters, as the beast actually ran out from under him.

Akilah, now alone in front of the monster, feared it would continue after
her
now, following the man’s miraculous avoidance of that vicious looking horn. It had already lowered its rear haunches, front legs pushing up and back to stop its charge, hooves kicking up showers of red soil from front and rear feet. The rhinolo was now determined to turn and attack the audacious little predator that had dared to challenge her.

She spun to her right, the same side the man had swung around while holding onto her horn, in plain view of her right eye. He, on landing nearly at rest in the arena behind her, had immediately started to sprint towards the rhinolo’s
left
side before she even started her turn, as if he’d known which way she would spin. In fact, he had better than a guess to guide him in that, since Haveram had put the idea into the beast’s mind while he was in contact with her, touching her with his left hand on the side of the face in passing, with an image of him running away to her right.

She spun to face where she expected him to be running, and then took a number of lumbering steps back along her previous path, seeking the creature she had felt leap off her rear end. She looked all along her back trail, and then her head quickly snapped around towards the sounds of roars, which she had ignored earlier in her single-minded focus on a possible threat to her calf. There were two rippers, nipping at the heels of the bull, and it was pivoting to face them. Her calf and the older female had pulled up, fearful of the rippers, but unwilling to run away from the protection the bull offered.

The older cow had also anticipated that additional rippers might appear, had she had intervened with her shoulder to prevent the inexperienced young male from putting its head down, and recklessly charging at the two smart and deadly predators. If they tore at his weakest points, his lower legs, he might be crippled and fall prey to these agile and fast moving killers.

The mother, seeing her offspring had two adult protectors near him, a wall blocking an attack from one side, and only two rippers present, decided she should resume her attack on the two smaller predators out here in the open. She whirled around in place, and promptly caught sight of the one that had jumped on her back. It was running quickly towards her initial target.

Good! Instead of spreading out, they were concentrating where she could pursue both of them together, then she would select whichever one made the first mistake, or stumbled again. 

She pushed off with her powerful rear legs, again surprised at how light and powerful she felt in this strange place, and cleared the ground by nearly three feet as she restarted her charge. The small predator that had dared touch her was amazingly fast. It was easily overtaking the other one, which had a respectable lead. She wasn’t sure she could catch the fast one before it reached the wall, but she knew she could reach the slower one before then. Besides, where could they go, hemmed in by these gray cliffs in this odd canyon?

Looking back over her shoulder, Akilah was surprised to see the stranger was still alive, and overtaking her at what seemed an impossible speed. He was covering ground in huge bounds. That wasn’t a reassuring thought, because she saw the rhinolo had started a bellowing, thundering stampede, coming her way again. It would reach her before she got to the door, where she had pinned her hopes on finding a grip at its edge to use for climbing higher than the animal could reach.

She put on a bit more speed, saving no energy reserves for when she reached the door and would have to try to climb. The principle was basic. She didn’t have to be faster than the man, just far enough ahead that the rhinolo would reach him first. As it happened, beating him in that race had never been a viable option.

When he reached her side, he unexpectedly slipped his right arm around her waist and lifted her with a jerk as he pulled her to his side, nearly draped over his right shoulder, and continued his run for the wall. She noticed he didn’t continue with her angled path along a longer track to reach the door, but was moving directly at the wall. That shortened their distance to the wall and increased the distance the rhinolo had to run to catch them, but they damn well couldn’t climb that flat rock face. He was going to get them both killed. She wanted down.

“Stop kicking. I’m trying to save you. You’re dead if I set you down.”

She understood him well enough to stop squirming, surprised at how calm he sounded, not even breathing heavy, despite all of his strenuous activity in the last few minutes. Besides, his grip on her hadn’t yielded a millimeter when she pushed with all her might. She was going with him, no matter what their fate was to be.

As he neared the wall, he repositioned her and shifted his grip to place his left hand and forearm under both her thighs, and she thought he was about to cradle her in his arms in what would seem a less efficient means of carrying her at a full run.

Being carried, she had been free to look back, and realized they were about to die anyway, because the rhinolo was barely twenty feet from them, horn lowered, and because they were slowing slightly, it was about to catch them. She closed her eyes, grateful nevertheless for the stranger’s attempt to help her. She seldom had received any beneficial or altruistic male attention that didn’t come from her father, or a brother who had died in this very arena last year.

“You’re welcome,” she thought she heard, but it hadn’t arrived via her ears. The next words also appeared directly in her mind.

“When you reach the top of my throw, grab the railing and climb over. Then lay flat behind that one-foot support wall below the railing. There may be bullets coming this way.” Amazingly, she saw images of what he meant, and with that clarification, the half-understood words in Standard were redundant. Only what did he mean by
throw
? She immediately found out.

The right arm around her waist suddenly released, as the left arm lifted rapidly under her thighs, and she knew she’d never reach the top of the wall with that push. That was when the real thruster was applied, abruptly and somewhat painfully to her shapely posterior, and the man shoved her up with a splay-fingered right hand planted on her butt. He then jumped powerfully and added his leg muscles to increase the upward motion, the front tip of his left foot planted on the wall to divert some of the forward momentum into more lift. She sailed clear of him and grasped at the top of the rail as she actually overshot the target slightly. She was slung around the rail by her momentum, and thudded on her shoulder onto the walkway, banging her head as she did.

She heard a bellow of rage and pain from the rhinolo below, and felt the thud and heavy vibration as tons of meat hit the wall, moving at least forty miles per hour. Despite the warning to keep her head below the foot high wall, where the three-foot metal railing was mounted, she looked over the side, her vision a bit blurred by the head blow.

She didn’t believe what she saw. Her benefactor was sitting astride the hump of the rhinolo, which appeared to have stunned itself with the impact against the wall. Almost three inches of the tip of its horn had broken off.

Haveram looked up. “I wish I had a saddle and reins. I hear these can be a wild ride.” With that, he got to his feet and used the eight foot height advantage of the cow to jump easily over the railing, where he grasped her shoulders as he pulled her down flat.

“I told you to keep your head down. Sayed’s security might start shooting, now that the show is mostly over. I’m sure they were willing to wait and see us both get killed, but we made it out of the arena alive.”

“They kill us now, even if run,” she replied in a fatalistic tone. Her Standard was broken and heavily accented, but he would have understood her, even if he didn’t have the advantage of a hand on hers for the Mind Tap.

“Nope, they’re not going to be able to chase you, but stray bullets could ruin your day before we disarm them.”

He linked to the team to get information.
“Shandra, what did the sheiks do when the rippers and I jumped into the arena?”

“Most of them applauded, thinking it was part of the presentation. Sayed called Kadar over to speak privately. I could only hear part of what was said, but I think he’s ordered you killed. Even wolfbat hearing has its limitations when cats are roaring and rhinolo are bellowing. That was a neat demonstration you put on, so I might put in a bid for your ass myself.”

“I’m not for sale, but I’m available for rent so I hope you brought plenty of extra credits.”

“Right. I see you snuggling down with that dark haired beauty you rescued. If she has any money I think we’ll have a bidding war.”

“What’s happening with the three men in the arena?”

“One managed to climb up ten feet, using a grip on the edge of the door and his bare feet on the wall, but a security guard pointed a submachine gun his way and he let go and dropped back down. I watched the guard’s finger and if it had gone inside the trigger guard, he’d be a dead man now. The man that fell back into the arena is running to the other two men, over by Sarge and the door for the blue streaks.”

“Has anyone made a threatening move towards Kim or Karl?”

“No, they’re stealing the show right now, keeping the other three rhinolo dancing around and away from the three men. The sheiks, except for Sayed, love this. Do you want the rhinolo herded to the end to let in the blue streaks? Both Juan and Sven are down in the front, by the pavilion’s arena rail now, facing the security guards and sheiks. If the guards get orders to shoot, they’ll be dead meat.”

Haveram had been given authority for this operation, so he altered their rather loose original plan.
“Thad, I want to keep the rhinolo inside the arena now, so you can vacate that door and go to the pavilion. Sarge, if you can protect the men over by your door from the blue streaks, how about opening that door to let the antelopes out, and let those men in, then you go to the pavilion. Once the herd animals are in the arena, we’re going to take out security, and give the sheiks an expensive education.”

Switching to full link for the entire force, he started the next phase of the conquest of Khartoum’s Destiny.
“Take out all of the cutters, disabled if possible, destroyed if not, but we don’t want them launched. Then destroy all of the heavy plasma batteries. You people at Sayed’s landing pad, clean out crews on all those ships, but we want the yachts usable later.”

Haveram heard the rumbling of the door where the blue streaks were contained, and promptly heard screams and yells from the three men that hadn’t known what was behind that door.

Sarge reassured Haveram that all was well.
“The antelope have been huddled at the other end of the passage, ever since they heard the rippers roaring. The sight of more teal colored animals scared the hell out of those three men when they ran through the door, but they’re more afraid of the rippers and rhinolo than what they think are deer. The Menagerie Master is wringing his hands, certain that his Sheik will feed him to the rippers after today. They all can get out through the personnel doors at the middle. I’m headed for the pavilion.”

He called out over the arena in Standard, “Kim, Karl, you can quit harassing the rhinolo, and in just a minute you get to show the sheiks just how useless their arena walls were.”

He switched to local mode on his Comtap. “Shandra, Juan, Sven, use microwaves and infrared to force the guards to drop their hot weapons. Sarge, Thad, and I, will join you in a moment. I’ll be last, since I’m not in armor. Let me know when I can stick my head up without getting shot.”

There were some howls as guards suddenly found their rifles and submachine guns too hot to hold, and pistols when drawn were the same. Haveram heard a couple of shots fired and a scream and he asked quickly. “Who’s shooting?”

Sven answered, sounding sheepish. “Ah…, that was my fault Sir. I had too high a power setting on infrared, and set off some ammunition in a pistol.”

“Don’t Sir me, just call me Chief.” It was his usual response to being addressed as Sir. “Anyone hurt?”

“A sheik with a concealed pistol shot another sheik in the leg when a bullet in the chamber went off, and then ammunition in the magazine went off and fragments tore into his hand.” 

“OK. Can my lady friend and I safely get up now?”

Shandra was quick with her quip to the man she knew had a way with the ladies, herself being one of them. “Are you sure you don’t want to spend a little more personal time with her Chief? I saw your hand on her shapely ass earlier.”

Haveram, who had been sensing Akilah’s unguarded thoughts, as they lay concealed, offered a cautionary word for them all. “Shandra, I absolutely know you mean that as a joke on me, which is fine, and I find it funny in that context. But now I know what this young woman’s offense was that earned her a penalty from Sheik Sayed, which morphed into a death sentence, simply to demonstrate how much damage a rhinolo could do to a person. She failed to satisfy an animal trainer the Sheik wanted to reward for some noteworthy service to him, and Akilah never even knew what he did to earn his bonus. As if that mattered anyway. She was presented as a sex toy for him to use as he wished.