Koban (77 page)

Fully half the octet was probably dead as were at least eight
humans, so there would be no loss of honor to withdraw now, to pursue another hunt
later. With equipment changes and force replacements, the next Kimbo hunt would
be far more effective against these humans. No matter, she would continue to fight
as ordered, until her leader commanded otherwise.

Kapdol, the only member of the octet previously uninjured, had
lost his left hand in an explosion that was suicidally detonated by the human he
stumbled on arming a claymore. The human had also died in the blast, but came within
inches of killing another octet member.

There had been other narrow escapes. They discovered that the
little hand bombs did not always wait so long to explode. These particular humans
knew how to make them explode while in the air, or just after they struck the ground.
She had two new fragments in her back from delaying taking cover, and Tyroldor showed
fresh but dried blood along his right side for the same reason. Now they had to
dive to the ground as they shot at the sound’s source whenever they heard something
crashing through the leaves. Small Kobani animals did that often as they were disturbed,
slowing the pursuit.

****

It was Dillon, shouting from over the edge of the ledge above
that warned Mirikami of the shuttle’s rising above the distant jungle. “Tet, take
cover, the shuttle may be on the way back.”

Neither wanted to use the suit com systems, which would positively
confirm humans were active on the ridge, so their faceplates were slid open, allowing
them to talk by shouting.

Without stepping out to look up to answer him, Mirikami called
out from just inside the cave’s entrance. “Get under cover before they spot you,
I’m already inside the big double cave.”

He had been piling loose rock around the front entrance as bracing
for his final surprise, and making sure of the concealment, he had an opening just
barely large enough for him to get back inside in a hurry.

As soon as he was sure Dillon had moved to hiding and wouldn’t
see what he did next, Mirikami inserted the detonator in the now rolled up and mashed
together sheet of plastic explosive he had been carrying, and wedged that into place
in cracks at the cave roof. He made sure the lanyard he’d saved from the claymore
was laid out, stretching back into the cave. He wished it were longer.

He hadn’t wanted Dillon to see him out of his armor, when he
lay outside on the ledge. He might have done something equally risky and insisted
on joining him to cover his back.

Mirikami crawled out, staying as low as he could until he was
behind some rocks ten or twelve feet in front of the cave opening. He pulled a couple
of previously uprooted teal leaved bushes over himself, which he’d gathered for
that purpose. He hoped they would break up his outline if the shuttle flew over
the ridge.

The shuttle didn’t make as fast a trip as Mirikami expected,
and it appeared to circle the jungle one time before it started a low speed hover
his direction. That had him worried, since the Krall always seemed to do everything
in a hurry.

****

Telour too was watching events, using the Krall equivalent to
binoculars that enhanced their already excellent distance vision. Tyroldor had taken
an unusually long time to reach the shuttle, and when it lifted, he made a circle
over the jungle once, before starting a slow cruise towards the ridge. He obviously
was trying to give his warriors on the ground time to hunt down the humans they
were trailing.

He had observed the two humans at work on the ridge; one on the
higher level made changes to the undamaged booby traps there, and the little human
clan leader, Captain Mirikami, had set up and concealed a mine in front of a small
cave. Then he had gone farther down the terrace to a second cave. After pulling
up some bushes and leaving them in front of that cave, he went into the shadows
of the entrance.

The lenses Telour had could help him see into the dark opening
slightly, but only from an angle. All he saw were rocks being piled near the front.
Perhaps to provide cover if a warrior started firing at him. It would be no protection
at all if the shuttle lasers were focused there again.

He was surprised when he saw Mirikami crawl out of the cave on
his belly, dressed in some brown and tan clothing, without his armor. The small
form disappeared into some rocks on the wide ledge, and then he saw the uprooted
bushes move, obviously being used as additional cover.

The plan was obvious to Telour. The little clan leader was planning
on watching that trap, to set it off remotely when a warrior passed it on the way
to inspect the head placed on the rock spire a short distance past that opening.
With a fresh scent trail, the opening was an obvious ambush point, and any warrior
would be likely to check it before passing it by.

An interesting plan Telour thought, and one that would probably
have worked earlier in this hunt. Now he doubted that a forewarned and experienced
warrior like Tyroldor would fall so easily to that trap. Not after having seen
so many traps, such as those they had already found and destroyed.

He decided the human clan leader was about to discover how a
Krall warrior adjusted to new combat conditions. It was a shame to lose a good tool
on its very first use, but now that these methods and their effectiveness had been
demonstrated, some other human would step up to accept immunity and follow in Mirikami’s
example. With a few more results like today, there wouldn’t need to be many more
hunts. Never had humans defeated two warriors on a single hunt.

Tyroldor eventually reached the ridge, made a slow cruise high
over the original landing area, and realized that Pitda was nowhere to be seen.

However, Sitdok’s body was covered by three wolfbats, feeding
on his remains. It wasn’t possible to see if his head were missing with one animal
feeding at the top of the carcass. Flying lower to frighten them away wasn’t in
his interest right now, so Tyroldor shifted his attention to the ridge. He spotted
what could be the head Telour had described. There was no doubt he’d be forced to
go identify the remains.

He checked with Motgar before landing. The three warriors were
still tracking the humans, following their intertwined trails and backtracks that
they had carefully laid out all that morning and afternoon.

He chose a wider place on the terrace well down from the location
of the head. By now, he was certain he would find the proof he had been avoiding.
However, he didn’t have to rush to embrace the evidence.

Perfectly aware that he was being watched closely from the dome,
he pulled both of his pistols and ignored the tightness in his chest. One of the
most recent hand bomb fragments had passed through his right side blood pump organ,
reducing his dual circulation by almost half, as the leaky organ pumped part of
its blood into his chest, and reducing the volume of air he could pull into the
lungs on that side. The pain had diminished, but the decrease in functionality could
not be ignored.

When he passed a cleft that led up from the base of the terrace,
he instantly detected the fresh stink of two humans that had passed there recently.
They had clearly been hiding somewhere below and climbed up here only after he and
his warriors had departed for the jungle hunt.

That had given the humans the opportunity to find the two warriors
he had left behind, and kill them, as they lay helpless. He had not taken his injured
warriors on the shuttle for fear the poison that had paralyzed them would kill them
while in his presence. He had abandoned his clan mates to keep the hunt alive. That
act may have ended the hunt for him.

As he sniffed the air, a familiar odor rose to meet him from
over the edge. Pitda was somewhere close below, but the scent had the faint taint
of death. Either he had recovered and crawled to the cliff, or the humans had brought
him there. This still wasn’t proof of death that Telour could force him to admit
having found.

He followed the fresh scent trail to where it split. One human
had continued towards the head, the other had climbed to the higher level. There
were still potential booby traps on the higher level, so he continued straight ahead.

The scent trail led to each opening that his warriors had previously
checked and they showed the effects of the laser burns and fractured and ruptured
rocks. Nevertheless, he did not pass any of them without checking for current signs
of human scent, and looking for fresh activity outside the holes and along the wide
ledge in front.

As he grew closer to the location of the head on a slender rock
spire, he smelled a sharp odor of some animal’s defecation. It wasn’t fresh, but
it came from a tall narrow opening just a leap and a half ahead. The smell bore
the unmistakable connection to human scent, and the trail he had been following
was much stronger and more recent here.

The breeze brought it to him from a wider area than just the
opening. The human had moved about this place for some time in the last hour. It
could be just inside, hiding, waiting for him to approach.

Tyroldor studied the area in front of the opening in the rock
face carefully. A half leap in front, and slightly offset was a scorched rock where
the laser had burned it, and there was a warped metal plate from a human mine lying
on the ground. This was where they had exploded one of the booby traps.

The brush in front of the scorched rock was fresh. It couldn’t
have been there earlier. With that realization, he instantly fired four explosive
rounds and four armor-penetrating rounds into the cave opening, in case the human
was waiting for him to step up and look inside.

His recalibrated com set sounded an alert as a remote actuator
was sent a signal, and the mine immediately exploded with a powerful blast, pellets
striking the rock face and some ricocheted, striking him on the arms and chest.
He had instinctively dived to the side at the sound, too late to avoid the blast,
but it had missed him. His first thought was that he might be poisoned by the pellets,
as his two warriors had been.

He looked at where he had been struck, but there were no penetrations.
From the corner of his eye, he caught movement several leaps beyond where the head
sat on the rock. The human, after triggering the mine, was firing at him with his
pistol as it ran towards a cave opening. Tyroldor leaped into the air from where
he had landed and twisted to present as small a target as possible along the enemy’s
line of sight.

In midair, he began firing towards the figure as it dived
into the cave opening. He felt a shattering pain in his left foot as an exploding
shell hit home, blowing off a toe. His own shots were on target, but they only struck
rock at the entrance to the human’s bolthole, where he had just disappeared.

Ignoring the injury to his left foot, and the increased tightness
in his chest from the fragment lodged near his right side heart, he came down in
a tuck and roll, coming to his feet running with a slight limp, not quite as fast
as normal. He started for the human’s hiding place, determined to end him now,
firing as he ran for suppression.

He passed where the severed head sat on a rock, observing Sitdok’s
dead eyed stare towards the place where he had died. He vowed to replace that with
this human’s head in a matter of seconds.

As he approached the larger cave, the human began firing out
at him, in fitful and wide shots, clearly trying not to expose itself. The Krall
poured its own rounds into the rocks that were piled inside the cave entrance for
cover, creating a hail of bullet shards and rock fragments, emptying his clip of
explosive rounds.

Reloading explosive rounds as he ran, his view angle improved.
He could see the shape of the small human pressed against the cave wall, sheltering
behind the rock stack. His pistol was in his hand firing out at him. The stacked
rocks that were his cover began falling in on him as Tyroldor’s explosive rounds
dislodged them. The upper part of the stack fell inwards on his gun arm, forcing
a shot to strike between the onrushing warrior’s feet. The human’s return fire ended
when an accurate round from the Krall shattered his pistol and the hand that held
it.

A savage pleasure gripped Tyroldor as he fired armor piercing
rounds into the torso of the trapped human, an animal species he had grown to despise
in a single day. He didn’t shoot into the head because he wanted that as his own
trophy, to end this cursed hunt.

He lunged to reach over the fallen rocks to tear off the helmet
when something sounded just above him. He had an instant to see a line fall away
from a gray lump stuck to the cave roof before a hammer blow of an explosion smashed
him to the ground. He felt tons of rocks fall across his back, snapping his spine,
a crushing weight pressing the air from his massive chest.

Instantly recognizing his situation, he struggled to turn his
pistol on himself, to deny the enemy the honor of his death, but rocks held his
weakening hand firmly.

Unable to breathe, Tyroldor knew his prey’s final clever trap
had been set up to draw him in close, to kill its own killer. He would die leaving
a blemish on the honor of Kimbo clan. His final thought was that his frozen seed
would be destroyed, his genetic line ended.

****

Dillon heard the firing then the blast of the claymore. His hope
that the mine had ended things was dashed immediately when he heard more shooting,
which continued for about fifteen seconds. A final heavy explosion was felt through
his feet, and left him wondering what had caused that, since Tet had only had the
single claymore.

He had started for the front of his hiding place as soon as he
realized the attack was on the level below, scrambling recklessly over the two claymores
he had positioned to blast out of the narrow opening.