Exodus: Tales of The Empire: Book 2: Beasts of the Frontier. (2 page)

Dang looked down
at the ground.  His rig had a winch that would have lowered him to the ground,
but without power it was just more weight.  The hundred meters of thin cord
might still be useful though.  After climbing down the branches, stifling cries
of pain, to the point where there were no more limbs, he found himself still
looking at a twenty meter drop to the ground that had minimal snow cover. 
Pulling eighteen meters of line from the tiny winch, a cord that would cut
through his hands if not for his gloves, Dang tied it around the trunk and
belayed the rest of the line down.  Next, checking to make sure none of the
line contacted bare flesh, he rappelled down from the tree.  Even with the
nanite pain blocks, everything hurt.  He almost considered ordering a complete
nerve block, changing his mind as he thought about the trouble he would have
with no feeling in his body.  At two meters up one of his hands lost its grip,
and he released with the other to keep from getting tangled up.

“Crap,” he
yelled as he hit the ground, going into a roll to take up the shock, the pain
from his left ankle and calf rushing up his spine.   He lay there for a few
minutes, collecting himself, using his implants and the nanites to search his
injuries.  He cursed under his breath as the break in his ankle appeared on the
image in his mind.  Sitting up, he crawled on his buttocks until his back was
against the tree. Then ran his fingers down his boot to unseal it.  The
foot-gear opened up and slid easily off, and Dang ran his fingers over the
ankle.  The image had shown a break of a simple nature, and when his fingers
ran over the tender outer flesh he verified what the internal diagnostics
systems had told him.

The boot went
back on his foot, and a little manipulation of the seam caused it to tighten
around his ankle, forming a cast that would allow him to walk.  That done, he
limped around and gathered some dead wood, building a fire and pulling out the
laser lighter that still sat in his upper jacket pocket.  Soon there was a
roaring fire going, warming at least the part of his body facing the flames. 
He then proceeded to go about checking the rest of his gear.

The battery pack
had some claw marks in it, but no penetrations of the tough nanocarbon fiber
box.  The computer was the same.  Most of his electronics were housed in black
box type technology that would take a major weapon hit to breach.  So the radio
should have survived as well, and when he found it, he found that it had, to a
point.  The radio’s box was still intact, but the wire pack running out had
been severed at its attachment point.  The radio had been cut off from its
power source, and now there was no power source to energize it.  Two of the six
lifting units of the rig had been crushed by the jaws of the bear that had
mauled him.  Their cases were made of much thinner material in order to save
weight.  Too thin, and though the unit wasn’t breached, the circuitry inside
had been broken.

The last thing
he checked was the first thing he should have.  His rifle was gone, and the
spare proton packs he had were useless without it.  The pouch containing spare
power packs was ripped open, and all the packs gone.  So no way of using them
to power the radio.  His mag rail pistol was still in its holster, and the
spare packs were still in their pockets, attached to the gun carrier.  No spare
batteries for it.  It had been the plan to use the power packs for the particle
beam rifle to recharge the pistol if necessary.  He thought for a moment about
trying to drain the pistol into the radio, rejecting that idea after a little
thought.  If something went wrong, he would be without both radio and weapon.

His backpack had
also been ripped open, and much that had been in it was lost.  He still had
some rations and tools, as well as an emergency blanket of ultrathin
hyper-insulating material that could come in handy.  There were a couple of
rips in the blanket, but not anything he couldn’t work around.  Some of the
backpack material could go to mending his mountain outerwear.

By this time his
front was warm to the point of overheating.  He stood to orient his back to the
fire, then shrugged out of his clothing so he could take stock of it.  The
skinsuit was torn in a dozen places, but he thought he might have enough
material to fix it.  Finding the tube of nanogel in the repair kit attached to
the suit’s left leg, he moved the skinsuit into position and squirted the gel
on the exposed tears.  Five minutes later that side of the suit was almost like
new, and he repeated the process with the other side.  By that time he had
turned again, and his back was starting to freeze.

After getting
back into the skinsuit, Dang draped his body with the insulating blanket, then
shrugged back into his partially repaired outerwear.  There were still some
areas that were not adequately protected, but on the whole he would stay warm
enough.

At least I’m
not going to die of cold
, he thought as he strapped everything he wanted to
carry back onto his body. 
At least not yet,
he amended as he caught
sight of something moving in the tree line across a small clearing.

A head poked out
of the forest, what would have looked like a carnosaur in the history books, or
perhaps at the Imperial Zoo in Capitulum.  It had a ridge of spikes running
down the top of the head, and as it moved out into the clear, more spikes could
be seen on its back.  It’s whitish skin blended in with the snowy environment,
even more so under the shadows of the trees.

Dang recognized
it from the videos he had studied of dangerous life on Everest.  Mountain
Raptor was the official name, also called walking death by the people who lived
on the planet.  It was a warm blooded creature not at all related to the
dinosaurs that had evolved ten thousand light years away.  It was evolved for
this kind of climate, with infrared vision and pits in the nose that allowed it
to find and follow prey by their heat emissions.  The biped stalked into the
clear, a second following on its heels, most probably a mate.  And they both
looked directly at where Dang had built his fire, unerringly
seeing
it
despite the obscuring trees.

The man knew he
had to get away from the fire.  Right now the fire was obscuring his own heat
signature.  Once the creatures had gotten closer they wouldn’t have a problem
picking him out.  He pulled his pistol at the thought, then shook his head.  He
was sure he could hurt the predators with the high velocity rounds of the
pistol, maybe even both of them.  Killing them both?  Of that he had no doubt. 
He would be walking death shit on the snow in a couple of days.

The creatures
separated and started in a run in his direction.  Their heads moved back and
forth suspiciously, always reorienting back in the direction of the fire.  Dang
thought it was time to get out of the area.   A quick look showed him the best
path, running away deeper into the woods, then taking off at a right angle to
get away, using the fire for cover.

The raptors
rounded on the fire, coming in from opposite angles, trapping their prey.  The
predators were about as intelligent as Earth wolves, meaning they were
intelligent indeed, not merely depending on instinct.  They recognized the fire
for what it was when they got close, not something they could eat, something
that could hurt them.  They sniffed for a moment, then turned their heads to
track in on the path of something.  With a grunt from the larger of the two
animals they both headed off onto the scent trail, their eyes soon giving them
another sign of the prey’s passage in the prints in the snow.

Dang struggled
to run through the snow, his feet going twenty centimeters down before he could
pull each out.  The lift rig had been intended to allow people to walk over the
snow without sinking deep, something it could do with minimal energy
expenditure.  While the snow was not so deep in the woods as it had been out on
the high mountain plateau, it was deep enough to make the man struggle.  He
wished he had brought configurable boots that converted to snow shoes, but with
the lift harness, it had not seemed necessary.  The large creatures tracking
him had been made for this environment, their clawed feet splaying out like
snowshoes to distribute their weight.  That and a gait that compensated for
their feet sinking somewhat into the soft surface despite that weight.

The man felt the
cold air rasping through his lungs as he fought to keep going.  He was still
well short of a hundred percent, tired, hurting, with two beasts chasing after
him that would make short work of him if they caught him.  He looked back, not
able to see the predators due to the trees, hearing their huffing breath as
they moved through the maze of trunks.  He looked back ahead, searching for
something that would provide safety.  A glance at the trunks showed that all
the trees were of the same type, with no low branches that would allow him to
clamber up.

One of the
hunters roared behind him, a sound that sent shivers up his spine.  He turned
to see one of the predators standing fifty meters away, looking right at him,
while the partner grunted in the near distance.  The death walker took a step
forward, then another, before taking off into a hunting charge straight at the
human.

“Shit,” yelled
Dang, fumbling for his pistol, finally getting it out when the creature had
closed the distance.  He flipped the selector to full automatic, looking up in
time to what seemed like the creature towering over him, though it was still
twenty meters away.  He aimed center mass and pulled the trigger.  The magrail
bucked in his hand as it sent a stream of high velocity rounds into the chest
of the predator.   Hot blood splashed onto the cold snow, and the death walker
let out a screaming roar.  The pistol ran through its magazine in less than two
seconds, releasing seventy pellets, each traveling six thousand meters a
second, pushing the man back.

The predator
roared again, then fell over onto its side, legs thrashing, blood dripping from
between its sharp teeth.  The mate came running, its gaze shifting from Dang,
to its partner, and back again.  The man backed away, hand fumbling with the
magazine release, dropping it from the gun to the snow.  He tried to pull
another magazine out from the holster, fumbling it with his fingers, then
turned and took off in a panic.

He could hear
the footsteps of the second predator coming after him, squishing through the
snow.  He frantically searched for someplace to go, but there was nothing. 
Could he feel the breath of the predator on his neck, or was it his
imagination?  Either way, it was closing.  He had almost resigned himself to
turning and facing the monster while he tried to reload, when the wounded beast
let out a plaintive roar, and the monster chasing him stopped in its tracks and
turned, hesitated for another moment, then ran back to the injured mate.

Dang turned and
stopped, his breath ragged, trying to regain his wind.  The one beast was still
on the ground, struggling to get up and not succeeding.  The mate sniffed at
the fallen predator, then tried to push it up with its nose.  Dang took one
last look, then stumbled away, hunched over, still trying to catch his breath. 
He kept looking for someplace to hide, some kind of shelter, because he was
sure the healthy predator would soon be back on his trail.

The sun was
starting to go down behind the high mountains to the west, the shadows growing
in the forest.  Dang was surprised that what had seemed like an endless day was
finally coming to an end.  With it would come freezing temps he wasn’t sure
even his makeshift winter protection could handle.  He needed a fire, but he
couldn’t stop and build one with the potential of predators resuming the hunt.

He stumbled on. 
Ahead, beyond a stand of trees, shadow loomed.  Not sure what it was, he
continued toward it, hoping it might be some kind of shelter.  Coming out from
under the trees and finding himself on a small open plateau, he could finally
make out what it was.   A drop off, a cliff, going down who knew how far.  He
turned away and was ready to walk further up the forest when the form of the
death walker came rushing out from under the trees, jaws wide and headed
straight for him.

The pistol was
in the holster.  Dang had been afraid of dropping it, so had put it in its
secure sheath.  And he had forgotten to reload it when he had the chance.   Now
he had only one choice.  He turned to the right, took three quick steps, and
launched himself into the air.  He last thing he heard was the roaring of the
frustrated predator, and then he hit the snow at the bottom of the drop.

*     *     *

When he opened
his eyes, Dang thought he might be dead.  Everything was still black, and he
was freezing cold.  That last settled that he was alive.  Dang was not a
religious man, but he was sure that when he died wherever he ended up would not
be cold.  The thought of Dante entered his mind for a moment, that Hell might
actually be cold.   He dismissed that thought as he pushed with his hands and
felt the snow overhead.

When his head
broke the surface he looked out over the field of snow, the moonlight reflected
from it lighting up the night.  Turning his head. he saw the cliff he had plunged
over, wondering that he was still alive.  The cliff had to be over thirty
meters high, and only the deep snow at the bottom had saved him.  The man
crawled out of the snow, then trudged to the nearest trees.  Soon he had a fire
going and was warming himself.  He belatedly reloaded his pistol, cursing as he
only found one magazine.  The other had fallen out somewhere along the way,
probably into the deep snow.

Animal sounds
came to Dang as he sat there gathering heat.  He didn’t know what most of them
were, with lent a frightening aspect to almost all of them.  He was determined
to stay awake through this night, sitting there with his pistol in hand.  He
was surprised when his eyes popped open and his implant indicated that over
four hours had passed.  The last images of his dream, he and Dallas in better
times, was still in his mind, quickly dissipating.  He blinked a couple of
times and looked down, to see something long and thin crawling over his boots.