Trident's Forge (25 page)

“I'll be fine,” ze shouted, the ringing in zer ears abating the slightest amount.

“Don't be too sure,” Benson yelled back, sweeping zer gun's light across the grassland. Dozens of eyes shone amber back at them.

Kexx reached for zer spear with zer good hand as Benson shouldered zer gun.

As one, they turned back toward the camp and shouted, “Kuul!”

F
or the second
time in four days, Benson found himself fighting for his life. The pacing of the occurrences seemed to be quickening, but he didn't have time to worry about that right now. A huge pack, really a herd, of alien predators stared him down through the holographic sight on top of his rifle. They weren't invincible, as evidenced by the very dead one missing the top of its head. But if the rest of the group was riled by the fate of their comrade, it didn't show.

Benson had hoped the light and noise of the rifle would startle the creatures and drive them off. Instead, they charged in a wave. Fortunately, the rifle's internal threat assessment VI was keen enough to peg toothy charging alien monsters as hostile and prioritize them by distance. The rifle jumped back into his shoulder as he pulled the trigger, a short burst centered on the nearest target, then moving to the next, and the next. The animals fell, eventually, those he didn't kill outright keening into the night with their injuries.

But the rest of them didn't break and run. Instead they halted the attack, held their ground, and studied him. Alarms built into his amygdala through millions of years of ancestors working their way up the food chain all went off at once, threatening to turn him around and send Benson bolting off into the night like a startled rabbit.

His rational mind knew that was the worst thing he could do. The one that had attacked Kexx had moved like a sprinter. The pack would be on top of him before he'd finished turning around. Just barely above the ringing in his ears, Benson could make out shouting coming from the camp as the warriors stirred from their slumber to face the sudden threat.

“What do we do?” Benson asked Kexx without bothering to translate it from English.

“Hold firm, don't take your eyes off them. If one moves, hit it, or they'll all move.”

“What are they?”

“I don't know.”

It was not a reassuring answer. Names could be frightening, but something with no name was somehow worse still. What stared back at them didn't even move like a pack of wild animals, but a single, coherent unit. There was far too much calculation and intention looking back across the grass for Benson's peace of mind.

“Let's call them calebs,” Benson said.

“Why?”

“Because I knew a Caleb. Ugly as sin and a dirty fighter.”

“Calebs it is,” Kexx agreed.

The shouting behind them grew closer as Kuul organized zer warriors and approached the new threat. In the minds of the calebs, the calculation shifted. As one, they charged.

“Fuck me,” Benson cursed. “Get behind me!” He started firing again. Benson watched his round counter drain down with each burst, twenty-eight, twenty-five, twenty-two. The calebs kept coming as if they sprang up out of the ground. A pile of corpses began to mount in front of where Benson stood, forcing the attacking animals to scramble over the top of their fallen brethren and giving Benson an extra, crucial moment to get a proper bead on them.

Abruptly, the attack shifted. The charging beasts broke off into two columns heading in opposite directions. Benson tracked one of them and put it down, but the rest moved too fast through the grass, coming in to flank Benson, Kexx, and the warriors running up from camp. Spears, claws, daggers, and teeth collided in the dark.

The wedge of light from Benson's rifle cut through the dark, jumping around wildly as he swept it from one target to the next. Wherever he turned the muzzle, calebs and warriors were already on top of each other. He couldn't risk hitting his allies. He wasn't that good of a shot. He'd have to get right up in their faces, just as he had with the beast that attacked Kexx.

“Find Mei,” Benson shouted over his shoulder to the truth-digger. “Protect her.”

The Atlantian nodded and ran into the fray toward the camp gripping zer spear, even as blood seeped from dozens of punctures in zer shoulder.

“Tough fucker,” Benson mumbled. He spotted a straggler just outside of the fur ball, sighted on it, and squeezed the trigger with a jerk. The shot pulled right, striking the creature in its shoulder, but missing the head. It noticed him and turned into the attack.

Benson pulled the trigger again, but instead of the bark of a gunshot, he was met with only a small
click
, barely audible above the ringing in his ears. He pulled the trigger again in a panic with no results at all. His eye flickered over to the round counter even as the beast picked up speed.

Zero flashed red at him.

“Dammit!” Benson's feet backpedaled as he fumbled for the magazine release, cursing himself for not spending more time practicing with the new equipment. The empty magazine clattered against the hardpack dirt. Benson slammed a fresh magazine home and almost had time to rack the charging handle before the charging caleb crashed into him.

Almost, but not quite.

In an instant, Benson found himself wheeling through the air, grass below him one moment, stars the next. The rifle wrenched free of his grip and spun away. He fell back to earth like a pile of bricks. His head still spinning, Benson managed to get a foot underneath himself and kicked up onto all fours. The beast that hit him had overshot. It looked back, pinpointed its prey, then dug its claws into the clay and spun back around. Benson saw the light from his rifle a couple of meters away and frantically scrambled to reach it, but a heavy paw landed between his shoulder blades and shoved his face into the dirt.

The beast's thick black claws flexed, trying to pierce the strange wiggling creature it had trapped underfoot, but the back plate on Benson's riot gear held fast. He tried to roll out from under the caleb, but it was too heavy, and he remained pinned as it snorted hot, sticky breath onto the back of his neck. He screamed, more out of frustration than fear, dug his fingers into the clay, and dragged both himself and the monster on top of him, inch by agonizing inch, toward the butt of his rifle. Teeth tried to tear into his shoulder, just as they did to Kexx. Were they trying to immobilize their prey? It didn't matter now.

Benson's hope soared as he managed to get a single fingertip on his gun, then another. But just quickly as it had come, his elation was snatched away as another foot stepped on his wrist. An Atlantian foot, followed by an Atlantian hand wrapping its tentacle fingers around the handle of his rifle.

“Kuul!” Benson shouted up at the warrior. “What are you doing?”

Kuul ignored him and picked up the gun, then dropped zer spear and turned, content to leave Benson to his fate. “You son of a bitch!” Benson shouted at zer retreating back.

But the moment Kuul moved away, the beast on Benson's back shifted its attentions. It already recognized the danger anyone holding the rifle represented. With a surge of pressure, the caleb lunged off of Benson's back.

“Behind you!” Benson shouted in untranslated English, but Kuul heard him and turned anyway, just in time to see the beast's claws reaching out. Kuul snapped the rifle up, leveled it at the Caleb's head and pulled the trigger, flinching in anticipation of the bang. Ze'd obviously been studying Benson carefully.

But the bang never came. The shifting light and patterns of Kuul's skin had just long enough to register zer confused surprise before the animal reached zer. Fortunately, zer warrior reflexes moved Kuul far enough out of the beast's line of attack that ze wasn't taken straight to the ground, but it lashed a paw out as it passed, leaving three deep gashes in Kuul's abdomen that began seeping blood immediately. In a flash, the creature wheeled around with disturbing speed and was on top of Kuul once more, slashing viciously as the warrior tried to parry blows with the rifle.

Benson scrambled back onto his feet and took up Kuul's abandoned spear in his hands. Summoning a growling shout, he leveled the point at the caleb and sprang forward; his powerful legs pumped like pistons, building up as much speed as he could over the short distance. Benson aimed the bouncing spear right for the dead center of the beast's forehead.

A small depression in the dirt threw off Benson's gait on the last step and sent the spear plunging into the caleb's shoulder with a sickening tearing sound, followed by an equally sickening squeal of pain. Benson jerked back on the shaft to ready another stab, but the spear point wouldn't budge. Instead, Benson reached over and grabbed his rifle from Kuul's uncomprehending hands, racked the charging lever, then shoved it into the beast's face and blew it messily in half with a three-round burst, throwing bits of bone and brain tissue in every direction.

Without missing a beat, Benson spun around and trained the muzzle of his gun on Kuul's left eye. For the briefest of instants, his finger tightened, taking the slack out of the trigger. The gun seemed to beg for the release that would send a tiny electric charge into the base of the caseless round sitting inside its chamber. It would be so easy. Just another few grams of pressure and a persistent and growing threat would be eliminated. It wouldn't even burn up a calorie.

Cutting through the adrenaline, Benson's rational mind asserted itself. The red faded from his vision. Murder was not why he'd decided to stay. He shook his head and eased off the trigger. “Don't touch my shit!” he shouted at Kuul, then turned back to the fight.

Five of the longest minutes of Benson's life later, the last of the calebs tucked tail and ran off into the night. Funny how that particular mannerism transcended lightyears. It had been a hard fight, and not without cost. Two of the caravan's warriors, including one of Kuul's handpicked guards, had returned to Xis. Four more had suffered serious injuries, including one missing arm, and everyone else had suffered scrapes, bruises, and lacerations.

In that regard, Benson had gotten off light. Despite rolling around in the dirt with a caleb doing its best to open him up like a can of beans, his body armor had taken the majority of the abuse, including long furrows carved into the high-impact plastic panels on his back and shoulders. That left him with only a few small cuts and abrasions to tend to. For the last two days, he'd been whining endlessly about the way the ill-fitting gear's straps dug into his clavicles, how he felt like a roast cooking inside it, and how much its weight slowed him down. Now, there was a real chance someone would have to cut it off him before he'd part with it.

He broke into his small med kit for bandages and antiseptic salve. Couldn't be too careful about infections. God only knew what kind of microorganisms were lurking around in the ground out here. Aside from the bandaids and cream, the fight had cost almost two full magazines' worth of bullets, which were not a resource he'd wanted to part with.

Mei sat next to him, quietly munching on a ration bar she'd snatched. Unlike the rest of the caravan, her porcelain skin was dusty and streaked with sweat, but otherwise unblemished.

“There's not a scratch on you.” Benson said. “How'd you manage that?”

“Unbound, remember? Good at hiding.”

“No argument there.” They went back to eating and dressing wounds in amicable silence. The adrenaline spike had worn off and Benson knew he was going to crash hard in another handful of minutes. Three of the others returned to the fire with the dux'ah that had panicked and run off during the fight, half the caravan's supplies with it. Finally, a little luck.

Benson felt Mei's small body tense at the approach of footsteps. He looked up to see Kuul bearing down on where they sat. Benson's eye flickered over to where his rifle sat, loaded and ready. He considered reaching for it, but Kuul's hands were empty. Benson decided to let the encounter play out and hope for the best.

“Deadskin,” Kuul said as ze came to a stop, towering over where Benson sat.

Benson nodded. “Cuttlefish.”

“That is not my name,” Kuul said.

“And ‘deadskin' isn't mine.”

Kuul's skin flashed irritation, but ze quickly suppressed it. “Benson.”

Benson got up and smiled politely. “Kuul. I'm sorry about your warrior.”

“Ze fought bravely and earned zer place with Xis.”

“Indeed ze did.” Benson pointed at the three parallel tears in the warrior's abdomen. “Are you all right?”

“I can fight,” ze replied. “But, I do not understand why.” Kuul looked down at the rifle. Benson tensed for a split second, believing the warrior was going to make another play for it. But instead of avarice, Benson was almost certain he recognized shame in the alien's features. “I took your gon, left you to die.”

“I haven't forgotten.”

“Then you saved my life.”

“I did.”

“Why?” The question was direct. It wasn't pleading, or searching for absolution. It just wanted a direct answer to something that didn't make sense.

“We've both lost enough people. I'm here to find out who's responsible so we can have justice. That's my mission. You're a powerful warrior. My mission has a better chance of success with your help.”

“That's it?” Kuul asked.

“That, and I'm not a murderer.”

“You are, I watched you murder today.”

Benson almost took offense, but there was confusion in Kuul's response. Instead, he ran the word “murder” through his plant's translation software. Sure enough, the Atlantian language didn't have a concept of murder distinct from the simple act of killing. They were the same word. It explained quite a bit.

“Only to protect myself, and everyone else. I don't kill without a good reason.”

“I think I understand,” Kuul said.

“Good, now understand this. I don't want to hurt you or anyone else here. We're a team, with the same goal. But I swear to Cuut, if you try to pull some shit like that again, Kuul, I'll shoot you in the knee and your ass can crawl back to the village. Are we clear?”

Kuul's jaw tightened at the threat and his skin fluttered, but ze remained calm, like a soldier receiving a dressing down from a superior. “Clear as still water.”