Koban: Rise of the Kobani (36 page)

The upper lake was nearly a mile wide behind the ridge, and the low point in the center sloped very gently, a reflection of the wear pattern of high and low water levels over the years, and of the animals that trod this natural barrier only when the levels were low, as at this season.

The water at the edges of the lake sloshed gently, perhaps the result of that same wind. The stillness of the surface on both sides gave no hint of its depth, but the dark water suggested it was too deep for a large animal to wade if it fell in, on either side of the solid walkway. If the level of the lake was as little as a half foot higher than today, the flow could be great enough that an animal that lost footing would be gently swept from the fifty feet of stable pathway before regaining its feet. A two-horn with its heavy head armor might easily drown if unable to find purchase to clamber back up against the slow current.

Ricco looked at Mel. “The ceratopsians have a bit less ground to belly clearance than the bottom of these trucks. This halftrack should have as good a grip on the rock as any of our trucks, and better than dino feet. If I stay more to the right, away from the slightly faster current near the left edge I won’t have any problem, probably not on the left side either. I wouldn’t want to cross if deeper water was going to push against the sides of the truck, but it’ll pass under us if it went under the animals.”

“I agree. Go slow and we’ll watch for the undercarriage clearance as you near the low place in the center. Back out if the surface feels like you’re having slippage.”

Ricco looked at Neri, “Watch for any water build up on your side if it gets deeper than expected. I’ll just put it in reverse.” These trucks had passed through four-foot streams with stronger side currents on Cenozo, except there it was on sand and rocky bottoms, not flat rock.

“Hey, you want a ride to keep your feet dry?” He was offering this to the three cats.

Unsurprisingly, the miffed rippers turned and walked back to the other three trucks, preferring the company of someone who had
not
belittled their hunting miscalculation. Nevertheless, their natural instincts wanted them to resume the hunt when they reached the other side. Fateful decisions can rest on such trivia.

   Ricco eased out into the first few shallow inches of water, about four truck lengths, staying ten feet from the right side edge. Informing the others by com set what he was doing, he applied combinations of motor power to test for traction or slippage. The drive motors of the front steering wheels gripped well against the drag of the switched off rear tracks. Then the tracks proved they too had a good grip.  He used all four motors together in a surge of acceleration in forward, and then in reverse. The wheels and tracks worked with no significant slippage. There was a good gripping surface on the submerged rock.

This testing proved the other trucks would have no problem crossing, at least as far as traction went. Who would have thought this small delay and sense of caution was of more critical importance than tire grip? Perhaps the ceratopsians that had been seen rushing across earlier would know that. More significantly, it should have been the bones littering the downstream banks. They told everyone not to delay.

Ricco and Neri, their heads leaning out and looking down as the water rose, were relieved when the level quit rising with ten inches to spare from touching the undercarriage. All eyes were fixed on the truck. Except for those of the wolfbats, that had little curiosity about the not-life creature that sometimes carried them.

They watched the sky, their normal domain, for the frequent birds they encountered and sometimes hunted, and listened for distant cries of cousin bats that might hunt this far from the forests they normally chose for nest areas. That didn’t mean, sitting so low and vulnerable, that they didn’t look for other potential threats. They had lost squad mates that flew too low over “harmless” water in the past. Things sometimes leaped out of the water unexpectedly.

Streaker first noticed the moving bulge out on the lake. He squeaked an alert to Flight Leader, but it was low, because they were sitting side by side. No one had sent them aloft again, since the destination had been reached. Alarmed when he saw that the bulge was moving, Flight Leader sounded a louder warning call, of essentially “look out, a thing in the water.” It was actually a composite warning of an alert, and an unknown water threat.

Cory heard and glanced back, because he recognized the first part, an alert call. He saw where they both were looking, and that they had slightly unfolded their leathery wing membranes for a sudden departure if needed.

He looked out over the water, and saw the hump of water, moving towards the natural dam. It was well out, but moving quickly. “Hey, what’s causing that?” He pointed.

Mel, when he saw it, said, “It’s a wave of some kind.” He switched on his com set.

“Ricco, get across fast, there’s a wave coming downstream towards you.”

There was a momentary pause as Ricco and Neri did what every human does, only slowly to a TG2. They looked out at the odd wave, on an otherwise smooth lake with mild wind ripples dimpling the surface. “You want me to come back, or continue?” Ricco asked.

He didn’t want to be stuck on the other side alone, and had decided the bulge was coming slow enough and right at the center, that he could go either way to escape. Another delay.

Danner, also looking, said, “I think it is increasing speed. Tell him to get moving.”

In fact, the rounded wave crest was also a bit higher than it had been, and a bit faster.

Mel sounded much more worried now. “Ricco, move now! Get going!”

The truck lurched into reverse, and Ricco decided he wanted to stay with the group, and was convinced he could beat the wave to get clear. It was only thirty or forty feet wide, and coming directly at the center, where the water was deeper. What he had not counted on, none of them had, was that the wave wasn’t directed at the center of the natural spillway. It was directed at the unnatural object that happened to be there in the center. As Ricco backed up, at a faster pace than he had been using, the wave deformed slightly and altered direction to intercept where he would soon be.

Neri came on the com set. “I’ve seen soliton waves, but those are wider, and this one is changing direction.” In the background, Ricco being focused on driving backwards and staying centered on the ridge, shouted, “It might be a tidal bore, I’ve seen those in rivers on other planets.”

He was wrong, but i
t was no time to debate with them, so Mel shouted, “Get moving faster, it’s picking up speed.”

Rigson’s home city had a river that passed through its center and emptied into the sea. It frequently experienced a tidal bore. It was always seen near the mouth of the river as the tide came in, and moved against the river current. This wave was nowhere near the river mouth or tides, and it was moving
with
the slow current. It was smaller and localized, and he was now convinced it was aimed.

“Get your rifles. Start shooting at the front of that wave. There is something pushing that water.”

Naturally, no one reached a weapon faster than the two boys, who leaped into motion as Rigson shouted. Danner grabbed his own weapon, a bolt action, but Cory took a few extra steps to grab the closest semiautomatic. In seconds of the warning, fifty caliber slugs were ripping into the wave that was now a quarter of a mile from the rapidly backing halftrack.

The slugs didn’t seem to have any effect, and Rigson said, “Try aiming lower than where I see you hitting. It’s deeper under the water I think.” They had been shooting into the center of the growing wave front, and the “It” that Rigson suspected was actually below the surface level.

The shots started hitting lower, but the wave was moving faster, building, and it would be a close race to see if the truck could avoid being cut off before reaching safety. The danger, aside from what was making the wave, was the truck being swept over the downstream side of the ford, by the force of the water.

The high velocity slugs were visibly affected by the water. As the slugs stuck, some deformed and deflected upwards, exiting the wave top.  Others may have slowed rapidly to ineffectiveness, or turned sideways. Heavy bullets that could do such terrible damage to flesh, and penetrate hardened armor or an inch of steel, were mostly useless for a water target you couldn’t see. Besides, both youngsters, and the belated firing of the other men all made the same wrong assumption. They fired into and in front of the center of the mass of water, assuming that was where the target lay they had to stop.

They were only partly right, and thus only partly successful. The center of the wave suddenly lowered and slowed, but the sides split into two onrushing sections, the right side the largest. The two waves, having gained on the truck now still a hundred feet out, angled back towards it in a move to prevent it from reaching dry rock.

The surge of water was turning so it presented more of a side shot to the men firing. Cory and Danner saw something with their IR vision and shouted at the same time. “Shoot down at the sides.”

Cory placed five shots quickly at a point a foot below the side of the near and larger wave, emptying his magazine, and Danner fired there as well. Mel did the same to the side of the farther wave, but with less accuracy. Cal and Jimbo split their shots between the waves, not seeing what the two TG2s saw. Suddenly, the rapid chatter of the thirty caliber automatic opened up, bullets striking the side of the nearer wave. Chack had pulled that weapon out from under a seat.

Abruptly, a long triangular fin briefly broke the surface below the front of the larger wave, and then a dark form twisted, dived, and turned away from them. The wave continued but was diminishing somewhat. Cory, racing to grab another magazine shouted, “There are at least four of them. We’ve hit two.”

Danner was also reaching into a truck for another clip, as Cory reloaded. The intensity and rate of fire reduced enough that the two remaining wave crests were going to reach the truck. The question now was would the truck’s weight and traction keep the vehicle from being swept away.

The double bulge of water merged, with the two combining to reach six feet high, with some of the additional wave momentum of the beast that had turned away still moving forward. The water struck the left side and rear of the truck the hardest, slamming it sideways. The back end swung towards the downstream side, still in reverse with full power applied. It moved ten feet in the wrong direction before Ricco, almost washed out of the cab, with Neri pushed against him, shifted into forward. He turned the front wheels to complete a right turn and try to reach safety in forward, forcing the blunt nose of the truck through the ebbing final five-foot wave of the creature that had ended its attack early. 

The water didn’t recede properly, and the truck suddenly halted against a dark wet resisting wave. The presumed frozen wave suddenly raised two huge dark brown flipper-like front fins, and then a monstrous long head filled with interlocking teeth appeared on the end of a six-foot thick neck. It used its long ovoid of a massive dark colored multi-ton body to shove the truck backwards four feet. It then hunched its back to pull its rear flippers up for another push. It was going to shove its prey into the downstream pool, and follow it in, to feed.

Cory walked towards the beast’s back, to get an angle where he could shoot without risk of a through and through shot that could hit Ricco or Neri. He put an opportunistic round through the top of the skull when it raised that for another four-foot push effort. He was surprised when it didn’t instantly drop dead. The truck went another four feet backwards, now eight feet from the edge.

Impossibly, the huge humped back rose again as the front flippers pulled the body forward, and the rear flippers moved close for the next push. The brain had to have been mushed.

Cory fired more rounds into the head, as Ricco jumped out of the truck, with Neri close behind. They both had their pistols out, firing at the head and neck. They may as well have been throwing rocks. The water was up to their lower calves, and they were moving away from the beast, to stay out of range of that long neck and damaged head that still was snapping its jaws. Another four-foot push. The next one could lose the truck.

Cal, running forward yelled to Cory. “Shoot into the hump at the base of the neck.”

Placing five shoots where Cal suggested, the beast did a massive shudder, and slid off the front of the truck sideways, moving it another two feet closer to the pool as it fell. However, except for some residual muscle twitches, it was done. Apparently, its main brain wasn’t in the skull.

As the neck and head had flopped towards Ricco and Neri, when the big body slid off the truck, they had danced backwards through the shallow and bloody water to stay clear of those fearsome teeth. Neri had drawn her hand back as if to throw something when it appeared the beast had lunged at them.

Ricco, realizing it was only the death throes of the
plesiosauroid-like
creature, put his left hand up to grab hers, before she could toss the grenade from which she’d already removed the pin. She had dug that out from the box under the seat as the beast pushed them backwards.

Holstering his pistol, he gently placed his thumb over the handle to hold it down, and asked the still petrified woman to give it to him. She looked at him almost startled, and realized what he’d asked. She shakily released her grip, and he told her to go on up the slope to the others.