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Authors: Stephen W Bennett

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“You said it yourself, they have a tree-like growth on their
heads. Gloria and Yancy said they are wide antlers that resemble a moose’s
headgear. They also have tusks and a short trunk-like proboscis. Now you know
why I didn’t repeat their claim. I assumed they were pulling my leg, waiting
for me to repeat their ridiculous description and look like an idiot.”

He looked towards the still thundering line, growing clearer
by the minute “We’ll have good shots in five minutes.”

As the big animals grew closer, it was obvious they were at
least nine or ten feet high at the front shoulders, with a back that sloped
somewhat to the rear quarters. The legs were thick and very similar to an
elephant’s, but slightly longer, better suited for running. They had mostly
white shaggy, snow blending thick hair, with traces of teal that suggested they
wore that frequently seen color in summer.

The line of the stampede angled to pass to the front of the
hill, offering a perfect choice of shots for the two hunters.

Lying prone Thad and Dillon discussed which animals to bring
down and how. They decided shots behind the rather small, two-foot wide
flapping ears on those massive heads would likely be a fatal shot. Dillon
cautioned that they would have to avoid hitting the seven-foot wide and
slightly up curved antlers, which might deflect their bullets, firing from
their high vantage point.

The tusks angled down and forward, at least six feet long,
one on either side of a trunk-like lower lip that was wriggling up and down as
they ran, as if in agitation. From time to time, they made loud bugling sounds,
not at all like an elephant’s call, since their so-called trunk was not a long nostril,
but an elongated prehensile lower lip.

“Thad, you take the first shot at that animal on the edge
closest to us, and then I’ll do the same to the one behind him, as soon as you
fire.” They lined up their selected targets.

The boom of Thad’s big rifle cut through the sound of
thundering feet, followed immediately by Dillon’s own shot at an animal just
behind Thad’s target. Both of the huge creatures staggered for a few steps and
bugled loudly.

Thad’s target dropped to its front knees, its tusks digging into
the trampled snow and ground. Momentum caused it to execute a slow motion flip onto
it head and antlers, and then crash to the ground on its back before rolling to
its side. Dillon’s animal ran into Thad’s kill, and simply crumpled to the
ground and fell over. Diverting around the two dying animals, the other
moosetodon’s didn’t even slow.

After the last of them had passed the hill, Thad gave an estimate,
“I think there were perhaps a hundred fifty in that herd.”

“Did you see the blood and gashes on some of the animals in
the rear?” Dillon asked. “I wonder if they did that to one another in their
panic.”

“I saw some blood streaks, now that you mention it. However,
you bring up a good question we haven’t asked ourselves. Why
were
these
big suckers in such a panic? That was a long stampede for such massive animals.
What had them frightened? We’re the only hunters out here.”

A huge roar behind them proved the fallacy of that
statement.

Leaping from rock to rock near the bottom of the hill was a one
and a half ton, thirty foot long white feathered raptor, a huge eighteen inch
long claw on each of the hind feet. Powerful legs were rapidly bringing it up
the hillside to meet and disembowel this fresh prey. The gaping jaws in a
narrow head on a long neck seemed more than enough threat to Dillon.

Both men manually chambered fresh rounds on their
bolt-action rifles, but the agile leaping beast was a hard target for a weapon
configured for scope use. Dillon missed his first shot at a weaving head, and Thad
merely winged the monster, which appeared evolutionarily related to Koban
birds. He grazed the five foot long feathered and clawed left arm, or winglet.
It roared its anger, and this time pain.

Two additional roars in reply sounded from below and behind
the two men, from the base of the drop off where the men now stood, completely exposed.
Thad looked back and saw two more raptors, one standing atop a dead moosetodon that
they had obviously been chasing. The third raptor was using mouth, winglet
claws, and clawed feet on muscled legs for purchase to scramble up towards the
men.

It was too late to wish they had brought the semiautomatic
versions of the .50 caliber rifles, selecting instead the more “sportsman-like”
bolt action long-range sniper weapons to use for hunting. The raptor on the
easier slope was likely to reach them, even if wounded, in just two or three
more long leaps.

Thad made a snap decision; he shoved Dillon towards the on-rushing
ravening predator, pushing down on the man’s shoulders as he flailed arms and
legs going over the flat toped rock’s edge, losing his rifle. He yelled at Thad
in hurt and shocked reaction.

Without hesitation, as the beast reached the last spring
point to reach the top, Thad raised his rifle vertical against his chest, leaped
forward and dropped down the rock face after Dillon. He felt the blast of hot
air and fetid breath as the raptor snapped down at him as it passed over the
gap in rocks.

Falling into the snow-filled crevasse, the same one he had
previously told Dillon he should have pushed him into, he banged his knee
painfully against Dillon’s dropped rifle, lodged in snow. He sank into the
deeper snow, bumping against his friend’s shoulder, driving Dillon even deeper
into the crevasse.

Dillon, belatedly realizing what Thad had done to save him, frantically
shoved snow away from Thad’s legs, and guided his knee off his own bruised
shoulder, allowing the other man to sink a little lower. That was none too
soon. The raptor had whirled around and thrust its narrow head and slender neck
down into the top of the crevasse. It was mere inches from biting onto the top
of Thad’s parka hood, which had flapped up from its resting place on his back.

Dillon reached up and grabbed Thad’s shoulders and pulled
him down hard, wedging the two of them tighter together in the crack, and
shouted at Thad to pull down his parka hood. The animal scrambled to get belly
down over the rocks, to be able to force its neck and head deeper into his
prey’s hiding place.

The raptor finally succeeded in getting a fragile grip with
its front teeth on the prey’s fur. As it tugged, the hair began to slip through
its teeth, so it released and quickly lunged downwards again to get a slightly firmer
purchase, using its raspy tongue to pull more of the hair into its teeth. It
had a better grip this time so it should be able to drag the meal out of its
hiding place.

The prey was struggling and making noise, spurring the
raptor to try harder to dislodge the unfamiliar creature. It repeated the previous
release and lunge to get a firm grip this time. Snorting in triumph, it
couldn’t roar without opening its jaws, it steadily pulled the struggling
animal up and out of its burrow.

It yanked hard and the animal came free, with a cry sounding
from his prize. The raptor flexed its neck and tossed the annoying thing into
the air; it quickly gained is footing and was able to snatch the prey in
midair, crushing it between its powerful jaws.

“Thad!” Dillon screamed for his friend, as he felt his legs
slipping upwards through his desperate grip. Thad’s rifle suddenly dropped down
to wedge next to Dillon, just as he lost grip on his friend’s foot. He snatched
at the rifle, which had a round already chambered.

Dillon raised the rifle, looking for a way to shoot without
hitting Thad. Suddenly the light improved as the raptor leaped to its feet. Dillon,
on the verge of pulling the trigger in a last ditch effort to save Thad, saw
the sliver of sky darken again, and something jammed the rifle butt painfully
into his shoulder, and the ‘something’ grunted in pain.

Grunted in pain?

“Get the damned muzzle out of my crotch, will you? Damn that
hurts,” Thad complained.

Slipping the rifle butt’s painful pressure off his shoulder,
it slid down along Dillon’s front, with Thad riding down with another grunt. The
two fit a little deeper in the crevasse now, without Thad’s bulky parka to take
up as much room.

“I thought it had you, man.” Dillon’s relief was obvious.

“It would have if I hadn’t dropped the gun and raised my
arms. I was all the way to the top before I wiggled free of the parka. I looked
down when I fell back and you had my rifle pointed up at me. Were you about to
pull the trigger with my nuts on the muzzle?” Thad demanded.

“Well, you did shove me into two snow filled holes without
warning today,” Dillon answered in his own defense. They both laughed the laugh
of men that have
literally
just
escaped the jaws of death.

The sound of the frustrated raptor above, tearing apart the
mysteriously “skinned” animal stilled their laughter. Two of them soon appeared
over the narrow opening, cocking their fearsome feathered heads like giant toothy
birds, looking down at them. Dillon had raised the rifle, ready to fire if either
one put its head down into the gap again.

Thad touched Dillon’s hand, “Don’t pull the trigger if you
don’t have to, we might be trapped down here if you do.” Killing a ton and a
half beast right on top of their crevasse could prove just as fatal to them. It
was certainly a much greater weight on Koban than it looked to their eyes,
perhaps forty five hundred pounds here. They might not be able to move its
heavy carcass from over the narrow opening.

Obviously, the two predators didn’t recognize the danger
from the weapon, but they were smart enough to know they couldn’t reach the two
morsels either. The men could hear distant growls, most likely from their pack
mate feeding on one of the two dead moosetodons. The two raptors above decided
the big meal below the hill was worth more than the fun of a hunt that had
devolved into a waiting game. They could hear them leave as they scrabbled down
the rocks.

“So…, they seem to be leaving for the larger feast.”

“You know the old saying,” Dillon improvised, “a moosetodon
in the hand is worth two men in a cleft.”

With a pained expression, Thad told him, “I should have
jumped in without you and let them eat your ass. It would serve you right.”

“Maggi would be proud I kept my good humor,” he retorted.

“Be serious, she’d whack you in the head for dropping your
rifle.” Shifting subjects, Thad added, “I don’t know how long it takes one of
those things to fill its belly, but I’m not climbing out of this hole for a couple
more hours, just in case.”

“You’ll be putting your cold adaptation to the test before
then. How about we shift positions a bit and let me open my parka to share some
body heat. Promise not to tell Noreen we got so cozy?”

“I don’t intend to tell
anybody
we got caught flat
footed by a gaggle of big white birds, like rookie hunters. By the way, what do
you think we should call them Mr. Scientist? Not Thad or Dillon’s Terrible Turkeys,
that’s for sure. How about something a little smarter sounding than moosetodon?”

“They resemble dinosaur raptors from Earth’s past, so why
not whiteraptor?” Dillon suggested.

“OK, that’s good enough for me,” agreed Thad. “We’ll have to
wait awhile. Want some jerky?” he offered.

Dillon looked at his offering, “I’d rather yak.”

3. Slaughter on the Nook

 

Telour was disappointed. The team the humans had called a
SWAT did have weapons somewhat equivalent to those they had provided to test
subjects on Koban, but they were not as effective as he had expected.

Hand held rapid-fire weapons, called submachine guns, had
managed to injure all four of his hand of warriors, but the ammunition pellets were
so small that the injuries caused were hardly life threatening, even when his
novices were struck multiple times. Had a human been able to steady their aim
on the heads, there might have been the possibility of killing a careless
warrior.

A captive human leader he had briefly permitted to live, for
interrogation purposes, had told him these were the heaviest weapons allowed
for his “officers.” He said the frangible bullets, as he called the pellets,
avoid deep penetration and needless deaths. They were the only ammunition type
they had. Irrational animal behavior like this frustrated Telour. The leader
died slow, and poorly.

The SWAT humans had worn a partial type of body armor that
proved somewhat effective against the Krall pistol ammunition. However, it did
not cover their arms and legs, and the helmets were open on the front except
for a fragile transparent shield. The warriors simply targeted the exposed
limbs and faces, and the enemy fell quickly to almost any wound. Most disgusting
were those that tried to surrender. There were more bad deaths for those
cowards.

He did have a brief thrill that quickly turned to
disappointment. In an effort to make an assault on his warriors, the humans
with submachine guns first threw small hand bombs. They only made a bright
flash and a loud noise, and were useless as weapons.

Telour had thought they were the same hand held explosives
that humans used in their final combat testing on Koban. Those that the human
clan leader, Mirikami, had ordered made. These he had called fragmentation grenades.
Those humans had killed a warrior with a grenade, and significantly injured two
other warriors with them.

After eliminating the SWAT team, he had released his
warriors to roam at will, killing any humans they could find. He joined them
for a time, hunting with his K’Tal pilot in a nesting area where human families
lived. This kind of social grouping was a bizarre cultural feature found with
some other alien races the Krall histories described. It was convenient to have
all of the genes of the group clustered this way, to eradicate their line all
at once.

BOOK: Koban: The Mark of Koban
12.47Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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