Koban (76 page)

“Tet just reached the terrace; Dillon grabbed his hand to help
him up,” Noreen observed.

Thad was trying to understand what they were doing. “If there
were two warriors left behind Dillon and Tet would never have left their hiding
places, the cameras would let them see that. They never would climb up there in
plain sight if a couple of warriors simply moved away on foot,” insisted Thad.

“I want maximum zoom on Captain Mirikami,” Maggi ordered Jake.

“What do you see?’ Noreen wanted to know.

The screen image reached maximum for the camera they had installed
in the dome, and Mirikami still was only an image four inches high. The Ship’s telescopic
cameras were blocked by the dome.

“There’s something banging around at Tet’s thigh level, tied
to his belt I guess,” Maggi replied.

Suddenly the Captain waved in the direction of the dome, and
lifted the object tied to his waist to chest height, holding it out.

“I can’t make that out, even with binoculars. Did you make any
bombs that shape? It isn’t quite round. I wonder what that is?”

The little image of Mirikami detached the object from his belt
and held it over his head with his left hand, two fingers raised on his upraised
right hand.

Even as Jake answered Thad’s rhetorical question, he realized
what he was seeing.

“Sir, it has the same shape, size, and coloration as a Krall
head.”

“Goddamn! They got one!” Thad shouted. “Tet brought the head
up with him as proof.”

“They probably killed the other warrior we can’t account for
as well, or they wouldn’t be out walking around,” Maggi noted. “That’s why he’s
holding up two fingers.”

“Do you think Telour can see that? How good are their eyes?”
Noreen asked.

“They have good distant vision, but I’ve seen them use a binocular
like device on other hunts. Telour or some of his warriors will have some right
now watching this. I’ve seen their silhouettes at the top windows during previous
hunts, observing the action.”

He added, “We need to get the hunt stopped before the five people
in the jungle are slaughtered. If I use my suit com, I can tell everyone that we
see the head of a dead warrior. The Octet leader will have to admit the hunt’s over.”

He snatched the helmet off the table again and locked it in place,
faceplate open so the others could hear. Keying the same general push, activating
all channels of the com set, he made a broadcast he hoped would end the killing.

“Attention! A Krall hunter has been killed, and his head is being
held by a human where it can be seen by those in the dome. Telour knows the hunt
is over, and all of the human survivors have immunity. Stop the hunt, as honor and
the agreement requires.”

He repeated this several more times, in different words. He even
had to hush some broadcasted cheers from Primes elsewhere in the dome that had been
monitoring, and transmitted their own glee.

Mirikami and Dillon both waved that they had heard, but wisely
made no transmission of their own to revel their location to the hunters.

In the shuttle, Tyroldor heard the message, but because it originated
at the dome, and he didn’t understand the human language he ignored the transmission.

The three dome observers watched as Dillon climbed to the second
level, began inspecting the devises there at the various small caves, and sheltered
areas.

Mirikami too started looking at the destroyed defenses and traps
along the lower terrace. Some of the small caves could no longer be entered, due
to collapsed rock filling them.

Then he reached a cave where the destroyed claymore had been
concealed outside, intended to blast whoever entered or stood in front of the malodorous
opening. It was Dillon’s much maligned and joked about “shit cave.”

Mirikami placed his replacement claymore at the base of the same
scorched rock where burned brush had once provided its concealment.

He tossed the heat damaged back plate of the exploded mine out
in plain sight, in front of the little cave opening. Tossing scorched dirt onto
the replacement mine to disguise its intact condition, he detached the lanyard and
put that in a belt pouch. Then he attached a remote actuator, and carefully removed
the safety pin.

All he needed was to spot a Krall walking in front of the device
when he could actually see him, so he continued down the terrace to the larger double
cave, where one entrance had partly collapsed from the heat blast and exploding
rock. The other opening was still passable, if you climbed over the fallen rock.

Mirikami set the severed head on a prominent rock pinnacle near
the cliff edge, just past the freshly booby-trapped “shit cave.” The head was visible
from both the dome and from below.

The problem with manually triggering the mine was that he wouldn’t
be able to see the booby trap from inside the cave. He’d have to lay prone on the
ledge behind fallen rocks for his observation point, and duck into the cave if he
missed his target. Inside is where he’d have to make his final stand if pursued.
He was going to try to keep them away from Dillon, which is why he sent the impetuous
younger man up there.

Mirikami pulled out his small detonator and opened his chest
plate to reach the quarter inch thick rectangle of plastic explosive. This improvised
bomb would be his last hope to kill any warrior that came into the cave after him.
He started preparing for that final stand, if needed.

****

Telour had been completely surprised to see his human clan leader
pawn climb up onto that ledge. He realized that he had never asked him
which
humans from his group were joining the fight. Mirikami had told him he would not
accept immunity without earning it, just like any of his people, so he had chosen
this hunt to do that.

His presence and planning obviously explained the most successful
defense so far by a human team on a hunt. Even though seven humans were dead, Telour
had expected much higher human loses by now. It seemed probable that there were
two dead warriors, which the octet leader was bordering on dishonor by pretending
he didn’t know, avoiding confirmation.

Then he and his K’Tal, plus two curious warriors, saw clear proof
that his chosen human organizer had definitely made a kill. A warrior’s head dangling
from the human’s waist demonstrated beyond any question that the hunt should be
over.

To drive the point home the head was raised high and the little
human raised two digits on his other hand.
Did that mean two dead?
Telour
wondered. There seemed to be only four warriors on the shuttle, of the six that
had arrived at the ridge. The octet potentially had lost half of its warriors. This
was far more than Telour had ever expected. Two dead warriors was a huge success
of his plan to prove humans were capable of fighting. Only three warriors over nearly
five years of various types of testing had died, measured against thousands of human
deaths.

The suit broadcast from somewhere in the dome was unusual, he
thought, but not unprecedented. Humans often watched events play out in the hunts,
and sometimes gave warnings that had never offered any real benefit to the hunted
in the past. This time might be different, because for the first time humans here
knew that immunity had been earned for the ones still alive, and the hunters were
in the jungle, apparently not aware.

Kimbo clan’s risky rushing tactics didn’t seem to be proving
very effective against booby traps. Their recently successful methods were something
Graka clan had wanted to observe, but they never expected to see them flounder against
mere humans. It was instructive.

Finally, as a method to counteract the surprise human weapons
and tactics, the octet leader had used his shuttle’s capability. This seemed like
an overreaction, since they could have withdrawn to obtain armor and scanners, and
then return. That would have cost them valuable time, and the shuttle weapons were
only being used against mere prey animals, not another clan. The humans were using
new weapons they had devised themselves, and which the octet hadn’t expected. It
wasn’t clear if a combined clan council meeting would be critical of the Kimbo octet
leader or not.

The dilemma Telour faced now was how to end the hunt without
seeming to push the Kimbo clan’s hunters to withdraw; something he didn’t have the
authority to do. However, he wanted to keep his little clan leader alive for organizing
future hunts.

The manner in which the octet leader had manipulated reports
and evidence to maintain his presumed “ignorance” was clever, but that would be
over if he saw his dead warrior’s head on that rock. Telour thought of a way to
present proof that the octet leader could not deny, and that did not require that
he accept the word of a rival clan member.

Tapping his com button for the appropriate channel, he sent a
message every member of the octet would receive.

“Tyroldor, this is Telour, compound commander for Graka clan.
While you hunt in the forest and jungle, a human on the ridge has presented evidence
visible to us in the dome that may prove they have killed one of your warriors.
If this is so then the hunt should be suspended by an honor agreement with the prisoners
that if they fight well and kill a hunter, those human fighters that survive will
be granted immunity from this and future fights.”

There was a long wait, unusual for a Krall warrior to take a
quarter minute to respond, but it finally came.

“Telour, there are four humans we are about to surround, and
we just killed another. They cannot escape us. If I leave to confirm a possible
death we may lose the advantage.”

Telour answered, scorn dripping from his pointed teeth, and revealed
by his snarl. “You have four warriors against four humans, and if the octet leader
leaves for a short time your three novices will lose the advantage over these slow
puny animals?”

There also was no mistaking the snarl behind the quick response
to the provocation. “You knew these humans had weapons my octet was not equipped
to detect and counter. Had we been properly briefed, we would have swarmed over
them and they all would now be dead. These cowardly animals fight only from hiding,
always with weapons of treachery that they do not wield themselves.”

“So you find these humans to be a worth enemy?” That was a loaded
question, because proving they were worthy was Telour’s plan to gain status for
himself and his clan.

Another snarled reply answered. “If cowardly fighting with hidden
traps and use of trickery makes them worthy, then some clans may find them so,”
hinting that Graka clan could be one of those. “Kimbo clan fights bravely and attacks
our enemies directly and defeats them openly.” He finished.

“Then your objection to what is a completely new human method
of combat means that if they do not fight like Krall warriors, then Kimbo does not
want to participate in the war to come? Perhaps we can train the many billions of
the enemy to fight as Kimbo wishes?” Telour half expected a challenge to result
from that taunt.

Tyroldor restrained himself with great effort, remembering that
the goal of his clan was to gain an early role in a fight against the human worlds.
To admit that Kimbo’s methods were less effective against this new enemy would not
achieve that goal. If properly equipped, his novices could have faced the unexpected
weapons more effectively. He tried a compromise course that would allow his novice
warriors to continue the attack on the retreating humans, even if he had to leave
them.

“Until I confirm the death of any of my warriors at so distant
a place, my warriors here will continue the pursuit and kill any humans they find.”

“Pursuit?” questioned Telour. “You said they were almost surrounded.
They are so swift now?”

“They have the weapons you did not tell me about,” he said accusingly,
enraged. “They explode from concealment when they leave them behind on the trail.
The human we killed here died as it set such a weapon, and it injured another one
of my novices. Because I can’t permit even a single death in this hunt, we need
to proceed with caution in this dense jungle.”

Telour told him “Unless you say that three of Kimbo’s finest
novices are unable to defend themselves from four fleeing humans that have never
fought before, you perhaps should protect your clan’s honor and confirm or disprove
the death of a warrior at the ridge.”

He couldn’t resist another taunt. “That
is
where you used
the shuttle lasers to clear the enemy forces is it not? Yet the enemy is visible
there to me right now, displaying what appears to be the head of a warrior.”

“I will go,” Tyroldor grudgingly relented. “I need time to return
to the shuttle and travel to the cliffs.”

He was trying anything to delay the inevitable. His novices could
kill the enemy if they could pin them in one place in this hellish thick jungle.
You couldn’t see more than a half leap through the undergrowth, and the humans had
crisscrossed the area earlier leaving a confusing series of recent scent trails,
with potential booby traps anywhere.

“Motgar,” He called her on his com set, aware now that she knew
of his problem concerning the loss of any warriors.

“My Leader,” she acknowledged his call.

“You heard,” it wasn’t a question. “I leave you as leader in
my absence, to pursue and kill the enemy until I recall you if I confirm one of
my octet has died at the hands of humans.”

Losses from the octet weren’t in doubt for her, because she had
witnessed the death of Stokol, but was unable to say that to Tyroldor because he
had terminated her report by invoking the “Path and clan” duty to obey without question.

At least now, she understood why her leader had done that, but
in her mind, she wondered if Kimbo honor was being served by the extremes Tyroldor
was taking to avoid admitting he knew of even a single death. If a human had displayed
a severed head at the ridge, it had to be Sitdok or Pitda, and since they both had
been paralyzed, both would surely be dead if a human had found them.