Koban (74 page)

Kimbo clan had not been given the information they needed to
meet this new enemy, and Tyroldor would present charges of misconduct against Telour
and Graka clan before the clan leaders on Koban. However, he was determined to complete
the hunt first, using the information he now had.

At the far end of the ridge, the lower terrace ended at a steep
canyon where the river flowed through. He picked up the two warriors so they could
complete their search of the next higher level. There wasn’t room to set the shuttle
down here, so he raised the hatch and let them jump to the smaller ledge. He planned
to land the shuttle on the wider lower level to wait for them to report on scent
trails at possible booby trap sites, then lift to blast them with the laser.

That was what he had intended to do, but they found what they
had been seeking. Both Motgar and Gorpak immediately reported fresh human scent
in the air when the craft had backed away. Nothing was detected on the ledge itself,
but the scent was rising with the wind out of the canyon.

Raising the shuttle above the top of the canyon, he could see
a darker color stone in a horizontal band closer down by the river. He lowered the
shuttle slowly, and the shadows proved what he had suspected. Softer stone had been
eaten away by water in the past, leaving a sizable wide ledge of uncertain depth
on each side. He didn’t see any easy access path for the humans, but he felt sure
this must be their hiding place.

Carefully scouting the ridge top near the canyon, he didn’t see
any logical place to place a mine or trap, so he returned to collect his two warriors
and landed at the top.

They all searched carefully and immediately found metal devices
hammered or drilled into cracks at the top, and at places down the rock face. Even
though it was over eight leaps away, they could see similar devices on the opposite
rock face.

“The humans used ropes to climb down, I think.” Motgar told her
leader. “But there is no scent from today, it is older.”

“But the scent was fresh in the air from down below, so they
must be there in the caves on each side now. The humans may have come a day early
to prepare their defense and to dilute the scent.

“With their mines and bombs this is a hard place to enter by
surprise, and the cave on one side can support the other side. The shuttle noise
has told them we were searching here, so they will be ready.”

Kador hoping to win favor offered the usual Kimbo solution. “If
we climb down and enter from both sides at once, we can kill them without risk for
us all.”

The octet leader displayed an uncharacteristic hesitation. “A
loss to us here will end the hunt without killing every human, if there are others
hiding in the jungle. I want them all destroyed to preserve Kimbo honor.”

Again, Motgar sensed their leader avoiding Kimbo clan strengths,
and he openly said the hunt would end if they lost warriors in honorable combat.
Losses in battle were acceptable so long as the clan was victorious. She didn’t
understand why the hunt would end now, because the hunt didn’t end when Stokol was
killed.

Path and clan were not invoked in this case so she asked her
leader a question. “How will we kill the enemy below us if we do not attack them?”

Tyroldor roared out a savage response. “They
will
be attacked,
but their cowardly hiding does not deserve the honor of direct combat with Kimbo
warriors! We were not told of the weapons humans have, we were not given armor for
bombs and poison, not told they remotely trigger explosions on radio frequencies
different from Krall clan use. What else were we not told?” he was on the verge
of berserker rage.

“Get in the shuttle! We will destroy them here then return to
the jungle. They drew us here when we were ready to hunt there, so they did not
want us to look there. They will pay for this he vowed.”

Cowed by the octet leader’s rage they leaped to obey, and the
shuttle quickly lifted and hovered over the center of the canyon.

Kapdol armed the side lasers, and Tyroldor quickly descended
to draw even with the wide crevasse on each side.

“Fire in sustained mode,” ordered Tyroldor, and the ravening
beams blazed into the cave depths, as Kapdol directed the laser mounts so they pivoted
back and forth to cover the full width.

The evidence that humans were present was quickly confirmed when
a series of com set communications were detected as coming from both sides, and
four near simultaneous claymore blasts scoured and pitted the hull of the shuttle.

This was followed by a barrage of explosive and armor piercing
rounds from the cave depths. These hammered the hull with ringing impacts, leaving
larger pits and several struck and cracked the side view ports of the cockpit. However,
a craft designed for interclan combat, capable of short space flights with the attendant
collision risk with battle debris, was not going to be penetrated or disabled by
mere handgun fire.

The return fire quickly diminished as the superheated rock within
the caves exploded in shrapnel like fragments, and the armor proved virtually no
protection from the ravening energy. They continued to play the beams almost a full
minute after the last sign of resistance was detected, and quit only when the overheat
warnings on the plasma fed beam pumps sounded.

The rock roof of the caves had collapsed as the stone shattered
where the beams passed, and tons of rock buried whatever remained of the defenders.

Watching the cave roofs collapse, Tyroldor was satisfied that
nothing had survived through that hell of exploding rock and the crushing tons of
rock. He climbed above the sides of the canyon, and rotated to see the distant jungle.
Now the next part of the hunt could start.

Motgar, also certain these particular cave defenders were dead
asked, “We will not search the remainder of the hiding places of the ridge?”

“We found no fresh scent on the lower ridge, so they only intended
us to walk into their traps.” He affirmed.

“We found their hiding place by their scent rising in the air.
We were pulled away from the jungle by them before because I believe they have much
of their force hidden there. I will hover slowly back and forth over the treetops
with both side hatches open, where you will watch and sniff. If we detect their
scent that way, we will circle to find the center of the infestation, then land
and approach from four sides.”

Then Tyroldor put the ridge behind them, heading for the jungle.

“Poor bastards,” Frank said, of the people in the canyon.

Earlier, when the two warriors leaped out on the narrow upper
ledge and stood sniffing towards the canyon after the shuttle pulled back, they
suspected the worst. They saw the craft disappear briefly beyond the canyon edge,
and return to land on the top.

The warriors looked over the edge for a minute or two, then all
returned to the shuttle and it descended out of sight again, between the canyon
walls.

****

Panic was evident when Mirikami’s team heard helmet
broadcasts from the men in the canyon caves. They screamed to one another that the
Krall were using the heavy lasers.

This wasn’t a complete surprise to the six in the sealed tubes,
buried almost under the previous parking place of the Krall shuttle. They had watched
as the craft’s lasers had wiped out every trap they had set on the lowest terrace,
and expected them to continue the process at the next higher level.

They’d next heard frantic transmissions as the four trapped men
tried to coordinate their fire on the shuttle, triggering all four claymores at
once.  They ducked as far back and to the sides of the dead end caves as possible.
Desperate to hide from the beams seeking to turn them into cinders.

The last transmission Mirikami’s team heard was “They got Cravens.”

Dillon asked, “Who was Cravens paired with?”

“That sounded like Farley Blagson to me,” responded Juan. “He’s
friends with Cravens.”

“Well, warning those four was pointless, as we had discussed.
If they were found they had nowhere to run. I put it to all of you now; should we
send a warning to the five in the jungle and reveal to the hunters that there are
still people alive over here, or let them take their chances?”

“They may think they killed the ones responsible for the bobby
traps here,” said Frank. “If we say anything they’ll come back for us. I vote they
take the same chance we already took.”

“I agree,” said Juan.

“They had an opportunity to join up with you Sir, and they chose
to go it alone.” Deanna reminded him.

“Clarice, you’ve been quiet,” Dillon said.

“I don’t want anyone here to risk their neck for them, since
they didn’t want to help us. But if none of you object, I want to get the hell out
of this hole and go kill those two bastards lying out there with skeeters on their
asses!”

“Obviously this isn’t a humanitarian gesture you have in mind,”
Mirikami observed dryly. “Unless they revive or get picked up, the skeeters and
wolfbats will kill them eventually, so you want to make sure?”

“To make sure, for Albert,” she stated firmly. “I don’t want
to die doing it, and I don’t want to put any of you at risk either. But I can’t
stand not making sure that at least two of them are dead for sure, because we aren’t
positive they lost any warriors elsewhere.”

“Let me make a proposal. If Clarice and I both climb out, and
I rebury her and my empty tube, we can make sure these two are dead and keep the
rest of you hidden.”

“Hold on Captain,” Dillon told him. “I swore to back you up out
here, and you are not going to get me to back down from that. If you go, I go, and
I’ll tell right now that I want to do it. Clarice, if I set the camera so you get
to watch, will that satisfy you?”

“I’m willing to do it myself, but if you both are going anyway,
you don’t need an old lady slowing you down. You will have to go someplace else
to hide, and I can’t go too fast.”

Mirikami studied his camera view from the top of the boulder.
“They are flying over the jungle, so we need to be a bit sneaky if we climb out.
They have spectacular vision. Now is as good a time as any, so I say we do it while
we can. Are you ready Dillon? No cramps to work out first?”

“I can’t do that in this tin can anyway. My butt’s numb from
this little bench, with creases from armor probably permanently impressed there
by now.”

“OK. Let me get out first Dillon. I’ll go slowly and my size
will let me squeeze out with less disturbance of the dirt. Then I can lift the sod
plug off of you.”

Mirikami pulled at the vacuum seal tape they had used inside
the home made six-foot tubes. This had made them airtight, thus requiring the soft
suit packs to keep their air breathable.

He carefully lifted his inch thick plastic cap, covered with
a couple of inches of dirt and blue-green sod. He removed his helmet and used that
to prop the cap open enough for his slight frame, even in armor, to fit through.
He crawled out on the surrounding grass.

He spoke into his open helmet so Dillon could hear through
the fiber optics, asked him to thump repeatedly on the lid so he could be sure he
found him. They each were buried about ten feet apart, and it was hard to spot the
sod-covered circles.

Once located, Mirikami gently lifted the grass plug,
thumping back on the cover, and Dillon lifted his lid straight up.

Grasping the underside as it raised, he held the edge high enough
for the larger man to climb out, using his three-foot high bench seat as a step.
He told Dillon to disconnect his fiber optic line and drop it in the tube. Next
Dillon helped him set the cover back in place carefully, and they arranged the sod
to obscure the circular cut.

They went to Mirikami’s tube, and he spoke one last time to the
four still concealed, then detached his own fiber line and let it fall inside, and
put on his helmet and lowered his own lid and sod plug.

Standing, they waved at the hidden camera in the tree, which
was set to show the clearing and the big boulder. Mirikami’s camera had been left
aimed over the jungle. Unfortunately, the other four had no way to control the
cameras now.

Satisfied their former hiding places were well concealed, they
looked at their two targets. Having only glanced at their motionless skeeter covered
forms as they emerged.

Each Krall had three bugs on their backs and legs, sipping at
their life juices. It wasn’t as easy to do on a Krall as on a human, because the
blood flow kept stopping after ten or fifteen seconds. They had to penetrate the
tough reddish hide at a new location to get a fresh flow of blood, but they had
been at it for at least an hour.

The wolfbats had remained circling high when the shuttle was
close, content to grant the skeeters their slow kills. They waited patiently, ready
to descend to eat the tough stringy flesh once they were sure the dangerous companions
of the red things, inside the hard flyer, were truly gone.

They shrieked their anger when they saw the first of the new
creatures climb from the ground. At first, the new Flock Leader thought the big
red ones had been waiting for his squadrons to dive to feed, prepared to kill them
when they came close. Then he noticed the new creature’s smaller size and slowness.
He knew they were two of the hard-shelled animals that tasted so sweet. They
died out here often.

Recently these had proven almost as dangerous as the big red
ones. He was glad they had stayed high, conserving energy on the warm thermals that
could hold them aloft all day.

Dillon and Mirikami held their pistols ready, but didn’t intend
to fire a shot that might carry farther than intended. Even with the miles between
them and the jungle.

Dillon had strapped on a machete, similar to the one Thad often
wore. He carried that in his right hand. Mirikami had only a nine-inch hunting knife.
Neither carried a Jazzer, so the blades were the best means to drive off or kill
the skeeters, and then to cut the throats of the Krall.