Exodus: Tales of The Empire: Book 2: Beasts of the Frontier. (6 page)

It took a couple
of hours through the winding streams and rivers of the Swamp before his uncle’s
dock came into view, well concealed from the air under some heavy foliage, his
father and mother waiting on it for him.

“Are you OK?”
asked his mother in a worried voice as the boat tied up to the dock.

“He’s fine,”
said Timothy.  “He just caught the full load of a sonic.  He’ll be fine.”

“I wish you
wouldn’t go out into that green hell,” complained Fara, sending a glare
Timothy's way.

“I wanted him to
go out with my brother,” said Tobias, coming forward and running a portable
scanner over Matthew’s head, then grunting in satisfaction when nothing came up
on the three dimensional image of his son’s brain.  “He needs to refamiliarize
himself with that, green hell, did you call it?  Because in a few days that
might be his only refuge.”

“And I wish you
and mom would find someplace else to stay,” Matthew told his dad as his mom
wrapped him in her arms.  “I hate the idea of you both being around me when
these people might be hunting me.”

“And what about
me?” asked Timothy with a smile.

“Hell, I’m more
worried about the hit men getting within weapons range of you,” said his dad
with a laugh.  The laugh cut off, and he looked at Timothy with a serious
expression.  “I really appreciate this, big brother.  You’ll never know how
much.”

“You’re family,”
said Timothy with a smile.  “One thing I learned in the Army, is nothing is
more important that family.  We’ll get him through this.”

“They’re never
going to give up, you know,” said Matthew, a tear coming to his eye.  “I am so
sorry I got all of us into this mess.”

“We’ll just have
to see about making them give up,” said Timothy, a feral gleam in his eye.  “I
just might be able to make them forget about you.”

“And how do you
plan to do that, big brother?” asked Tobias.

“I might just be
able to call in some favors,” said the former Ranger.

“They’re too
powerful,” said Matthew.

“Son, these
scumbags don’t know what powerful is.  But they’re going to find out, in the
little bit of time they have.”

*     *     *

“Time for you to
get off, Constable,” said Claude Deveroix, looking into the frightened eyes of
Farrell.  The side door to the combat aircar was open, and Deveroix glanced
again at the roiling waters below, and the score of giant carnotropes that were
milling around and disturbing the normally quiet surface.  One of the giant
creatures, that looked like a much larger version of a lizard that lived in the
interior desert of the Larussian continent, scared the hell out of the
Enforcer.  He wasn’t surprised that they would terrify a man who was looking at
his death in the form of the large carnivores.

Deveroix had
gotten the information he needed from the man, and would be facing multiple
major felonies if the Constable testified against him.  Maybe not enough to get
him executed, but more than enough to put him away for a century or more.  So,
much as it had been drilled into him that the law was off limits, in this case
he had a witness who needed removal.  Fortunately, the Swamp provided the means
of that removal.

“Push him out,”
he ordered two of the men, two of his enforcers who would follow his orders
without question.   Farrell looked into his eyes with a pleading expression,
but there was no mercy to be had this day.  The Constable could not put up much
of a fight with his wrists and ankles in restraints, and a quick shove put the
lawman into the air.  He would have screamed on the way down if not for the gag
in his mouth, but the set of his body showed the terror of the man through the
fall.  He splashed into the water, and the tropes were on him, a half dozen
great jaws closing on the parts they could reach, biting down, then pulling. 
In an instant the surface of the water was tinted red, and the man gone.

“I’d hate to go
like that,” said the Enforcer named Jubil.

“At least it was
quick,” said Francois.

Deveroix shook
his head, listening to the two men, watching the roiling waters where more of
the big predators were attempting to get their share of the food that had
dropped from the sky.  He had a bad feeling about this Swamp, this place filled
with death.  Not that he was a stranger to death, only he preferred it when he
was the one in control.  And this place felt like a spot where no stranger was
ever really in control.

“Let’s go get
our boy,” he said, turning to look at the forward cockpit of the aircar, where
the two man crew was controlling the vehicle.  The pilot nodded and pulled the
joystick over, setting the car on the course for the homestead the Constable
had told them about.  The copilot got on the com to the other trio of aircars.

The vehicles
flew quickly and silently over the Swamp, just about the tree tops.  All were
civilian models that had been modified to the point where they were the match
for most military transports of the same class.  Armed with beam weapons,
automatic cannon, even a few hidden missile pods, they carried the two man crew
and up to seven heavily equipped passengers each.

Those passengers
included twelve of the mob enforcers and twelve mercenaries, not including
their boss.  All had either been in the organization for decades, with the
training that Deveroix made sure all of his men received, or were ex-Imperial
military, including three who had been augmented.  The Chief Enforcer didn’t
know everything about most of these men, except that they were desperate
killers who would do anything for the proper amount of money.  And Centari had
authorized top pay for this job.

“We should be
over the homestead in ten minutes,” said the copilot, turning his head to look
over at his boss.

“Follow the plan
when we get there,” said Deveroix, looking out the window at the wilderness
below. 
And we should be back to civilization for dinner if all goes well
,
he thought, wondering why that thought didn’t seem to bring much comfort.

*     *     *

“They’re heading
your way, Uncle,” came the voice over the com.  “We’re located sixty-three
kilometers from your homestead, and I estimate they’re going at five hundred
KPH.”

Matthew did the
math in his head.  They were just under eight minutes from his Uncle’s homestead. 
If they had been there, it would be a scramble to get away, and the mobsters
would have been able to find their track in no time.  As it was, they were
ensconced in one of Timothy’s cabins, thirty-five kilometers to the north of
the homestead.  His father, mother and aunt were at a friend’s homestead, as
safe as could be.  Especially when the friend was an unknown to the mob. 
People in the Swamp were close, even if they weren’t friends of record.

“You ready for
this, Matthew?” asked Timothy.

Matthew looked
over at the other men, and a woman, who were gathered on the porch of the
cabin.  Three cousins, all grown men of two his uncles on his mother’s side,
along with Sebastian, one of those uncles.  All four were experienced Swampers,
if not Timothy’s equal in combat, at least as knowledgeable of the area.  So
was his cousin Sophie, who prided herself on being the equal to any man in the
Swamp.  With them were two old friends of Timothy’s both Imperial Army veterans
who had been hunting the Swamp for decades.

His mother still
thought he should just hide until the hunters left.  But he knew that they
would just keep coming back, until they finally found him.  The only way they
would leave him in peace was if their entire party disappeared into the Swamp,
a mystery to their bosses, and a sign the some parts of the planet were off
limits to even them.

“I’m ready,” he
said, nodding.  “Any news about the Constable?”

“Any news on the
Constable?” asked Timothy over the com.

“They dropped
Farrell into a group of giant tropes,” said another voice over the com. 
“Nothing we could do about it.  But we did get it all on vid.”

So even if
they get out of the Swamp, they’re going down
, thought Matthew, shaking his
head as he thought about the Constable he had known most of his life being
thrown to his death.

“We don’t want
this bunch just going down,” growled Timothy, a killing look in his eyes.  “I
don’t want them coming out of the swamp.”

There were nods
and grunts and in a few cases smiles as those words sank in.  The Swampers were
a proud bunch, and outsiders messed with them at their own peril.  As these
would soon learn.

*     *     *

“This is the
place,” called out the Pilot, monitoring his sensors.

“I don’t see
anything here, except that dock over there under the trees,” said Deveroix,
peering intently from the side window.

“They’ve got it
well hidden,” agreed the Pilot.  “But I’m seeing underground structures on the
deep radar scan.”

“Any idea of
where the entrance might be?” asked the Chief Enforcer, pulling up the scan on
a side screen.

“Probably
there,” said the Pilot, highlighting an area close to the surface.  “I doubt
it’s going to be easy to open though, not if they went to this much trouble to
hide it.”

“So open it,”
ordered the Chief Enforcer, pointing at the area in question.

The Pilot
grinned as he activated one of his weapons systems, slaving it to the
joystick.  With a squeeze of the trigger, he sent a dark red beam of
hypervelocity protons into the area he thought was the entrance.  Dirt and
vegetation flew into the air, a tree exploded as its sap overheated, and
moments later the first puff of metal vapor jetted into the air.

“That door is
one tough bitch,” said the Pilot as he stopped firing for a moment to let the
particle beam projector cool down.

“You have
permission to launch a missile,” said Deveroix.

“You sure, sir? 
A hyper-v could end up taking out the entire upper floor.  I thought you wanted
this kid alive.”

“I would prefer
him alive,” answer the Chief Enforcer.  “But I’ll have him dead before he gets
away.  So fire when ready.”

The Pilot went
through the motions of slaving the missile firing system to his stick, locked
on, then fired.  The hyper-v looked like a streak of light linking the gunship
to target.  It looked to the naked eye almost like an illusion, a ghost.  The
area around the entrance blasting into the air showed that it was real.

“Team two,”
shouted Deveroix over the com.  “Dismount and check out that dwelling.”

Acknowledgements
came back, and another of the aircars moved with a swift drop to just over the
entrance, now a hole in the ground revealing the ruined upper floor of the
structure. Six figures dropped from the car, the assault team brought for this
purpose, their light armor suits levitating them softly down.  Before they
touched down a particle beam rose from the nearby foliage and speared one of
the suits.  The suit went limp, the sign that its wearer was dead or
unconscious.  From the ragged hole with melted edges through the chest, he was
most likely dead.  He floated down to land on the ground, unmoving.

The Pilot of the
command ship switched back to particle beams and swept it across the area from
which the enemy beam had originated.  Trees and shrubs exploded, a couple of
small animals fled in terror, and whatever had been hidden there with a weapon
did not respond.

The assault team
went into the house, Deveroix watching the take from their cameras from the
cockpit of the command craft.  The upper floor was a complete wreck, furniture
shredded, walls holed by shrapnel.  A pair moved to the lower floor, which was
in much better shape than the upper, though there were still some signs of
penetration damage.

“There’s no one
down here,” reported the leader of the team.  “Not a sign of life.  And only
one indication of power.”

Deveroix looked
over the schematic of the house that was superimposed over the images being
transmitted from the team.  The area showing power usage was not connected to
the house’s major systems.

“Get your men
out of there,” yelled Deveroix, comprehension dawning.

Before the team
could react the device went off, a class IV crystal matrix battery pack charged
to the point of instability, releasing a twenty kiloton blast within the
confines of the underground structure.  All com with the team ceased as the
blast wave rose up through the ruined entrance of the house, then areas of the
ground rose up, and a few penetrations occurred that released more of the blast
wave.  The aircar over the house was flipped over by the blast and thrown to
the side, to slide into the water with a heavy spash.  Within seconds a score
of forms, giant carnotropes, slid into that same water and struck out for the
rapidly sinking aircar.

“All units,”
yelled the Pilot into the com.  “Prepare for search and rescue.”

“Don’t bother,”
ordered Deveroix, watching as one of the multiton predators thrust its head
under water, then surfaced with the limp body of one of the men who had been
manning the car.  Another carnotrope grabbed onto the exposed part of the body
and began a tug of war that ended with both predators gaining a mouthful.  More
of the giant carnivores dove after the still sinking car.

“They weren’t
here,” called out Jubil from the back of the vehicle.

“No shit,”
yelled Deveroix, turning in his seat to glare at the Enforcer.  He looked back
at the Pilot.  “Bring up the other possible locations.”

The Pilot nodded
and sent the commands to the aircar’s computer system, bringing up a map of the
local area, showing other settlers cabins, camps, areas where Swampers were
known to gather.  Next he superimposed a satellite image over the map, and one
area in particular showed a half dozen dots that were the ambient temperature
of humans.