Koban (73 page)

Gorpak paid for his failure to recognize the possible threat
those two grenades had represented. They had hit on a bare rock strip in front of
the rock face and rolled closer. He grunted and paused as his vision disappeared
in his left eye with a dazzling burst of pain. The impact was not great and there
was no deep penetration, but a piece of grazing shrapnel had torn through the bulge
of his eye socket.

Deanna tripped the actuator for another grenade catapult, and
launched two more hurtling out towards the Krall.

Tyroldor saw them, as did all his warriors, so they went prone
to be below most of the fragments when they exploded. However, he now recognized
the threat the human’s fragmentation bombs represented to his unarmored warriors,
and there would certainly be traps along the easier climbing points of the rock
face.

The leader still considered the explosive weapons a low enough
threat that they could complete the attack, but if a warrior died within his view
in the process, he could not deny the knowledge of the death. The ledges were visible
from the dome.

He remained confident they could kill these humans, but not if
the hunt was terminated because of a ridiculous agreement.

He commanded that Motgar and Gorpak continue to the rock face
and find a route to the first terrace that avoided the easy places to climb, which
were likely booby-trapped. These two warriors were now his least effective fighters.
They could be a distraction for the human defenders when he and Kador used an advantage
he had that the humans did not, aerial transportation and the shuttle’s lasers.

Technically the lasers were not usable because the humans did
not have them, and the shuttle should be used only for scouting and delivery of
his warriors. Nevertheless, it could be argued that his octet did not have artillery,
fragmentation weapons, armor, and explosives, and the humans did.

They waited a ridiculous amount time on the ground before the
last two small bombs exploded. Tyroldor had no idea what advantage that conveyed
to the humans, but timing them made it easy to work around their threat. After the
ineffective explosions, he bolted for the shuttle, ordering Kador to follow.

He commanded the novice to sit in the second cockpit seat for
another pair of eyes, and to operate the laser controls if they saw a target where
they could be used. He lifted the shuttle and swiftly flew the length of the ridge
top, made a return pass of the next lower ledge from the top, then the lowest ledge,
the lowest and widest with just enough room to set the shuttle down.

He could see the two warriors using their talons to find purchase
in the open rock face when he passed over them, and they were over halfway to the
first level. He set the craft down facing the location where he had seen the gunshots
originate, and beyond that the place where the grenades had been thrown. There was
considerable cover on the ledge, with midsized boulders and bushes all along its
length.

Aware that the slow moving humans would not have had time to
travel very far since they had conducted their last attack, they would be in the
vicinity, and would leave a fresh scent trail.

The two of them stepped through the hatch close to the rock face,
and squeezed along the length of the shuttle, until their guns commanded the area
in front. The two climbers rolled over the edge in a coordinated move facing opposite
directions and lay prone, not using the shelter of the rocks or the scraggly shrubbery.

There were only a couple of the blood-drinking insects hovering
nearby to see, and they quickly flew away.

The four warriors carefully sniffed the air for fresh human scent.
It was present but was hours old. Tyroldor had the other warriors cover him and
he went personally to the small stack of rocks where he knew the last shots had
been fired at them. He did this himself because he did not trust his inexperienced
novices to be cautious; something they had been trained to disregard.

Not seeing a potential trap in the bare rock around the small
artificial stack of stones, he approached closer. He found the small three tube
gun cluster, braced with stacked rocks and the little radio controlled actuator
that had “pulled the trigger” on the set. The tubes were not currently aligned with
the former shuttle parking place because Tyroldor’s own return fire had struck and
shifted the rocks within two seconds of their having fired.

He uttered a low snarl when he realized there was no trail to
lead them to the humans responsible for not only the last series of gun shots and
explosions, but probably not for the previous more costly attack that had cost him
his most effective warrior and a talented novice.

They had been led around by these little piles of defecation
while remaining completely hidden, except for the three trapped and killed in the
marsh. Even that simple action had somehow cost him one of his superior novices.

This device, and probably all of them on the ridge had been remotely
activated. So one thing he knew with a certainty, they were watching this area right
now.

At least they could see the sheltered parking area that was the
most probable place to park a shuttle. They had known just when to activate their
devices, and they had to use a radio transmitter to send the signal.

It had been an effective strategy thus far. The only member of
the octet they had not damaged with these simple, almost primitive weapons was Kador.
Gorpak would require surgery to excise the eye socket for his eye to regrow. Motgar
might need her deepest fragments surgically removed. His fragment wounds were relatively
minor, and his muscle tissue would eventually expel the foreign material.

There was something different effecting Pitda and Sitdok, because
they had been paralyzed in some fashion, and might even die. That was why he left
them behind. If they did indeed die, he would not be aware. It was proving harder
to maintain the pretense of deniability and retain his clan’s honor.

The Krall com sets were already linked together to triangulate
communication sources in the frequency range of the radios in the Krall built armor
that humans wore. These units used typical Krall com frequencies, and the only detections
had been from a source in the marsh after those humans had already revealed their
position. The dome’s normal radio traffic was programed out of the triangulation
calculations to eliminate false alerts.

However, the humans had used devices on frequencies the network
clearly had not been set to use in triangulation. They wouldn’t have manufacturing
capability as prisoners, so he and Pitda had discounted that possibility. Clearly
that had been a mistake; one that he could correct now. They did have a field response
to the human designed radio controlled actuators.

He explained what he had found to his warriors and what he would
do to solve the problem. Returning quickly to the shuttle he used the command console
to reset the software in all of their com set buttons. Now they would tell them
where the enemy’s transmitters were located in any reasonable frequency range.

When the shuttle lifted off Dillon used his tree-mounted camera
to check the two warriors they could see were left behind.

“I think those two might be dead, but the hunt is obviously still
continuing. If we can’t count on their obeying the so-called rules, then immunity
doesn’t mean squat because no one is likely to survive to earn that.”

“Hey,” Juan Wittgenstein yelled. “I saw the left one blink an
eye.”

“Are you sure?” Dillon asked. “I’m zoomed to the max on him,
and I can’t see breathing. Or any movement, not even when the mortar landed just
the other side of the rock and made me crap my pants.”

Frank laughed, a sign his tension was easing, since you couldn’t
stay scared stiff for hours. “Why don’t we just watch his eye for a bit? I can see
the red pit now, so if it… Hey! He did blink! And he moved his eye.”

“You’re right Frank. I saw it too,” said Deanna. “Could they
be playing dead to draw us out?”

Mirikami discounted that. “If they suspected we were damn near
under their feet they would have dug or blasted us out. They are not noted for subtlety,
my dear.”

“Then what would leave them alive but paralyzed?” asked Clarice.
“Did we break their spines or necks?”

“I think my Death Lime thorn cocktail did that. I mixed the thorns
in with two sets of claymore pellets. The one I placed behind the big rock was one
of those mines. We know the toxin kills humans, but it might not kill a Krall. It
might wear off after enough time.”

“They’re alone and helpless,” said Clarice. “God I wish I could
go blow their brains out for my husband, Albert. They killed him last year.”

“They’re all up on the first terrace,” Dillon noted. “They can’t
see behind the rock. I could climb out and kill them and get back in my hole.” He
proposed.

Mirikami opposed that idea. “Then your airtight seal will be
breached for a few minutes, Dillon, and they would see your tracks and smell your
scent trail if they return. We don’t have our shuttle to blow way the tracks and
scent this time. If they find your spider hole, they can follow the fiber optic
cables from yours to everyone else. I’m not saying I don’t feel the same way, but
we can’t risk their lives to kill those two.”

“What if I reseal my tube, cover it and wipe my foot prints,
then lead them away by making tracks and a scent trail towards the river?” he continued
in a rush to put off the objections he knew were coming. “With two obviously dead
Krall in plain sight, how can they claim to have followed the rules?”

“Let’s save that option for later, Dillon. The power in our soft
suit rebreather packs are good until dark, with our suit batteries to help if we
cut off our cooling systems. We may get hot but we can still breathe without leaking
scent into the air until then. We can move to the caves after dark like we planned,
assuming the hunt is over or the Krall are someplace else.”

“Look at his rapid blinking now, and his eye is pivoting around,”
Deanna said. She had continued to stare at the image of the helpless Krall.

“He may be regaining muscle control,” Clarice said, frustrated
they might have to let the two killers revive.

Mirikami interjected, “Ahh, I have my camera aimed up at the
ridge, and I can see wolfbats circling in the sky overhead. Krall can hear their
ultrasonic calls, and the bats will feed on dead warriors. I’ll bet both of those
Krall are conscious and can hear them but can’t move.”

“That would be great, to see them eaten alive.” Frank was
almost gleeful in his bloodlust to see the Krall die. “Oh Oh, Here comes another
problem for them,” he added happily.

A skeeter settled right on the legless Krall’s back. It spent
several seconds working on penetrating the tough skin, but finally became still
and began to drink. Several more arrived and divided their attentions between the
two motionless warriors.

“As entertaining as that sight is, we need to stay focused on
the active warriors,” Mirikami admonished. “Put your camera on the shuttle Dillon.
The leader just ran inside after looking at the cluster gun tubes. I think he picked
up the actuator. He may have figured out how we triggered our devices.

“We anticipated their eventually tracing the burst transmissions,
like they do for the suit coms. If they get anywhere close to the tree with our
antenna, we will blow it to bits. The fiber optic is hair thin, so I don’t think
they could find it and trace it to us.” That was the hope, at least.

“Let’s watch them for a while,” Dillon proposed. “We have some
good mechanical booby traps that still might work.”

****

Tyroldor sent his warriors along the wide terrace seeking recent
scents, and looking for any kind of artificial item, such as a wire, or mechanical
device.

At the very first crevice, Motgar reported there was a scent
of two humans that probably had been there that morning. He instructed them to back
away, and he lifted the shuttle and hovered in front and above the opening.

Kador fired the high intensity laser into the opening and played
it around, fracturing rocks from the intense heating. Suddenly there was a blast
from within the little cave, and the multiple splatters of dirt from the ledge in
front and the billow of smoke out of the opening told Tyroldor that one of the mines
like the one that crippled Pitda had been inside.

He worked his way along the entire terrace and repeated the process
at every opening large enough to hold a human, and on obvious places where a warrior
might have taken cover from an attack. He was rewarded by two more explosions, and
found another mechanical device, which he burned.

Motgar reported that the device would have shot a metal bolt
from a bowed spring arm if a trip wire were pulled. After the device was destroyed
by explosive rounds, she and Gorpak sniffed at the end of the bolt and reported
that the tip had a yellow coating with a strange odor.

They had detected that same scent after the mine that wounded
Pitda and Sitdok had exploded. Neither warrior had encountered the scent anywhere
except that place. Tyroldor told them to avoid contact with the substance.  Advising
it could be the poison that paralyzed the other two warriors. He ordered Motgar
to preserve the bolt in a sealed pouch.

These humans were more treacherous and prepared for the hunt
than Telour and his clan had warned them. The Kimbo warriors should have been sent
with armor as protection from bombs with poisonous fragments and from poisoned projectiles.
Humans had been hunted on Koban for four or five orbits of the planet around its
star.

Finding so many of these unexpected weapons meant they must have
been encountered in past hunts. Kimbo’s rapid assault tactics were particularly
vulnerable to the human weapons because novices were routinely exposed to high risk.
However, they should have been given armor and scanners here, and told of the remotely
actuated booby traps on unusual frequencies. They could have found and eradicated
most of their foes by now.