Koban (72 page)

Two voices said, “Stop” at the same time, and Mirikami saw the
silhouette of the shuttle rise and turn their direction. It appeared to have been
near the forest tree line. They were finally drawing the flies to their web. With
any luck, they would give these particular Krall a different experience than in
any previous fight with humans. It was still going to be one sided in Krall favor
if they couldn’t kill one of them fast, or if they found their hiding place.

The shuttle landed near the big rock and four Krall rushed out
to take up defensive positions. Two were at the ends of the huge rock to watch the
cliffs, and the other two on the opposite side of the shuttle.

Mirikami swore under his breath when he pivoted the camera’s
maximum down look angle. The curve of the boulder kept him from seeing the two crouching
Krall that had ran to its base. Switching to the tree mounted camera that Dillon
controlled, he could see the two Krall on the other side of the shuttle.

“Dillon, can you rotate your camera to see the warrior on the
right side of the boulder? I can’t see either one of them.”

“Tet, I see the top of his head, almost on the side of the rock.
He’s out of position for you, and I can’t see the one on the left because of the
shuttle.”

“Thad says they usually run and attack all the time. We need
to get these to move back before they start an attack. I’m going to use the triple
shot on the outcrop, see if they move back for better cover. As soon as I give you
the mark that I fired, wait one second and you blow the device.”

He moved the camera to sight the outcrop he’d used on the first
terrace, a couple of hundred feet farther to the right. He had aimed that triple
cluster yesterday, and hoped it was still on target.

Entering the device code, he poised his thumb over the send button
and asked, “Are you ready?”

Both said yes, and he warned them. “I’m shooting…, NOW!” and
pressed the button. He saw the faint puffs of smoke and a second later, he heard
and felt the explosive roar of the claymores erupting, spewing its shrapnel down
the backside of that boulder.

They had built several three-barrel gun clusters with two armor-piercing
rounds and one explosive round inserted in each set. The barrels were mounted on
braced tripods aimed at the clearing where they assumed a shuttle would land. They
were counting on any Krall hearing gunshots nearby would dart to the closest cover
as they normally did, then continue on an attack. It was that initial duck to cover
they intended to exploit.

As soon as the sound of the human attack sounded, all four of
the Krall had reacted. Two going were the humans had hoped they would.

Tyroldor exploded out of the shuttle hatch into heavy smoke,
both pistols in his hands. He was seeking a target, what he found was Pitda prone
by the large rock firing at an outcrop up on the cliff. Sitdok was also shooting
towards the cliffs from the other side of the rock.

Pitda was missing the lower third of both legs, and Sitdok, farther
from the source of the explosion, had several fresh punctures on the back of both
of his legs.

“Where is the enemy? He demanded of Pitda. He could scent old
human stink despite the residue of the explosives just used, and something else
he could not identify.

“We were first fired on from those rocks.” Pitda’s eyes never
left the cliff, despite the painful crippling injury. I ordered Sitdok to suppress
any enemy on the cliffs from that side.

Tyroldor called out to the other two warriors. “Gorpak, Kador,
are there any enemy that you see or smell near you?”

Each replied they did not see or hear any human activity, but
could scent that some had been here recently.

“How were you and Sitdok wounded? What weapon was used and where?”
Tyroldor demanded.

Pitda, still watching the cliff, pointed with one pistol.

Tyroldor saw a warped metal plate against the base of a midsized
boulder. A gap in the underbrush in front of the rock showed the path that the blast
of pellets had followed from the place of concealment. Pitda’s shredded lower legs
and taloned feet lay in the dirt along that path.

Motgar saw what her octet leader was looking at. “That is part
of one of the bombs they used in the marsh. A human could be near that pulled the
line to make it explode.” Her pistols drawn, she dashed around to the front of the
large rock. She was seeking a lanyard with a human on the end, trusting Pitda and
Sitdok to cover her while she was exposed.

Pitda, feeling oddly sluggish and experiencing far more pain
than the inconvenient injury should cause, advised his octet leader, “The shots
were poorly aimed, .. they were.. not close.. but I..” He found himself speaking
slowly, with odd pauses he couldn’t prevent.

He snarled from a tremendous increased in pain from his stumps,
but the bleeding had stopped. The pain of his wounds should have been blocked from
his awareness, as it had been when he first rolled to his stomach and crawled back
to the large rock, firing at the attacker’s position.

“There is something… wrong,” he struggled to speak. “I took..
cover.. after shots.. and there was.. explosion… I fell..” he screamed this time,
as overwhelming pain burned at his upper legs and lower body, blocking his ability
to think.

There was also a snarl of pain from Sitdok, who was no longer
aiming at the cliffs, and had sunk to his knees, rubbing at his lower legs, where
small punctures speckled them. The puncture size matched the earlier ones he had
received in the marsh, and were no longer bleeding.

“Leader, I have great pain and my legs are on fire and will not
obey.” He snarled again as the pain increased and moved higher up his legs.

Tyroldor called his other two novices to him, and Motgar had
returned after she had circled the large rock. She reported she had seen no current
sign of a human, but had smelled their scent here recently, within several hours,
and saw tracks towards the cliffs.

“Motgar did you and Sitdok have pain and a temporary loss of
ability to move after your wounds in the marsh?”

“No octet leader. Only the normal pain when I was first injured,
and then it faded as I fought. Sitdok did not say he felt as he does now.”

Pitda was quiet now and barely breathing, a rictus of pain revealed
by the drawn back lips that had frozen with his teeth revealed and his mouth half-open,
purple tongue hanging down. He seemed still able to move his eyes, and to blink,
so he was conscious but unable to move.

“The humans have another new weapon. It can paralyze us and cause
pain. We need to find and kill them all, and discover what they have used. There
is an odor that does not smell like an explosive material.” He sniffed at Pitda’s
shredded leg parts.

“Sitdok,” Tyroldor called as he looked at the slumping warrior.
The left eye that he could see blinked and turned in its socket as if trying to
look towards his leader, but like Pitda, he could no longer move or speak.

“Novices, we are four now, and the humans refuse to face us directly
because they are too weak to meet us in open combat. They use trickery instead of
strength.”

“What would you have us do, octet leader?” Motgar asked this,
senior in status over Gorpak and Kador, now that Sitdok was disabled or dying.

“We will stay aggressive and attack, but we cannot charge without
thinking when the humans try to force us to one place or attract us to another.
There will be more traps.

“Observe how they forced Pitda and Sitdok to take cover where
they had placed their mines. I do not know how they made them explode, but they
did not pull a line to do this.”

“This treacherous enemy is too weak and cowardly to face us unless
they are trapped, as they were in the marsh where they were all killed. As they
all will be killed when we find them.”

As the lowly inexperienced novice listened to her respected leader,
Motgar considered that the octet now had but one hand of active warriors. She knew
of only three dead humans for certain, so as slow and puny as they were, they had
taken a toll.

She considered another matter. The highest status warrior of
all six novices had not rejoined them after leading the pursuit of the first scent
trail. Had a human trap found him as well, or did one of the soft puny cowardly
things die with him as a bomb shredded them both?

In interclan warfare, when the attacking or defending forces
had been reduced by half, contact was usually broken by the weakened force to preserve
the breeders, and to debrief on how to change their tactics or weapons. They needed
scanners to seek the hidden bombs and humans, which certainly must be available
at the dome. Tyroldor was refusing to follow this honorable option, and she did
not understand why.

****

On his helmet visor screen, fed from Dillon’s tree mounted camera,
Mirikami could see the tops of the heads of the four clustered Krall, the octet
leader clearly talking to them. Only one of the other two shuttlecraft warriors
could be seen, lying at the base of the big boulder, apparently covering the cliffs
on the left.

He was wishing he had placed more mines by the landing site.
They never expected the Krall to display any hesitation in their headlong attacks,
assuming they’d charge the probable hiding places on the terraces. Where of course
they’d find only booby traps waiting for them.

It was possible they were waiting to be joined by the last two
octet members, whom apparently were alive by virtue of the continuing hunt. However,
if any of their new weapons had killed or injured any of the octet the Krall were
not leaving nor were they attacking.

It was frustrating that neither camera could see the sixth warrior
that had taken cover by the big rock. Their view was partially blocked by the shuttle
for Dillon’s camera, and by the curve of the big rock under Mirikami’s tiny top
mounted camera. He had hoped the neurotoxin from the thorns, tumbled and mixed with
the claymore pellets would have had some effect, perhaps killing some of them even
if only wounded. It had been worth trying, anyway. The treated crossbow bolts would
be another chance to test the toxin.

He decided to try harder to draw them up to the first terrace,
and that meant using a couple more of their limited decoys and the last pre-sited
mortar. He coordinated with the others to get ready in their spider holes, as Thad
called the tubes they had buried near the landing site. They were linked by detection
proof buried fiber optic threads, as were their two external miniature cameras.

On cue, Frank caused a remote actuator to release a spring, and
a small mechanical catapult flung two grenades arching out from the lower terrace
in the general direction of the shuttle parking area. The pins were yanked out as
the short lines tied to them reached their limit.

Another triple tube set was fired by Juan at the big rock from
a different outcrop on the other side, and Deanna triggered a fat mortar tube on
the ridge top, where it chuffed its heavy projectile in an arc that, with luck,
would come down close to the shuttle.

****

Tyroldor had just told his three warriors how he wanted them
to rush the cliffs, avoiding hiding behind obvious points of cover. They all caught
the distant clinking sound of the little catapult’s arm striking its cross bar,
accompanied by a short burst of gunfire from a different direction. The rounds struck
harmlessly on the side of the large rock.

All four Krall had moved the instant they heard the first sound,
and had automatically split their force to come from behind the shielding boulder,
two per side. Tyroldor rolled away to the left firing at the outcrop where his eyes
and ears told him the poorly aimed shots had originated.

Gorpak moved with him, but sought different targets rather than
simply duplicate his leader’s action. He instantly spotted a pair of small round
objects flying away from the lower terrace, but he could see they wouldn’t come
anywhere close to them. He fired four explosive rounds at the ledge and the cliff
just behind, where his instincts said they had originated.

Kador followed Motgar, and they stayed away from the most likely
cover as instructed. His perfectly functioning ears picked up the sound of the mortar
launch before rounding the boulder. Oddly, Motgar did not appear to hear the sound.
He fired at the ridge top where the white smoke indicated the sound’s source.

Motgar, her right side hearing still impaired and the left ears
ruined, only heard and observed her companion firing at the ridge top, where there
was a white column of warm smoke. It was smoke like that which had drawn them from
the woods, and that one had been followed shortly by a heavier explosion.

She triple tapped her com button on one side, connecting her
on a priority channel to every member of her octet. “White smoke, ridge top, possible
artillery inbound.”

As she issued this warning, Kador dove to ground, having already
sighted the falling round as a dot nearly overhead. Motgar also dove to earth, but
on her back searching for what he had seen. When the motion sensitive part of her
vision detected it, she relaxed slightly. It was obvious from its very slight lateral
movement that it wasn’t dropping directly on her position, but it was less than
a second from impact.

The heavy blast was just in front of the huge rock, and other
than throwing up dirt and dust, it did them no damage. All four warriors were on
their feet as the debris was still rising, racing for the greater shelter of the
lower cliff face. They needed to get up to the next level where the gunfire came
from.

Suddenly there were two explosions a full leap in front of Tyroldor
when the delay on the two grenades, which only Gorpak had seen, expired. The octet
leader felt two stinging impacts on his upper right leg, and distinctly heard a
whirring sound very close to his left ear as a fragment passed near.