Koban (92 page)

His rider screamed “What the hell are you doing, turn around!
It’ll catch us.”

“We need to warn them,” he shouted back. “He have time, we’re
faster than a rhinolo.”

However, the speed of the lumbering looking animal was deceptive,
and the big beast was making close to fifty miles an hour, despite his age and mass.
As Seiko passed the first truck, the driver looked over in surprise but quickly
saw where they were pointing. He immediately started veering to his right to turn
back.

“Turn around, now!” his rider screamed again.

“In a moment, we can make it after we get their attention.”

The man pointed his rifle across his lap at Seiko and shouted
“Now. Turn Now!”

As he made his threat, they were passing the second truck in
the line, and that driver and rider looked their way as they heard the clattering
tracks. They too started a right turn.

“You turn back now or I’ll kill you and do it myself, damn you!”
Seiko’s rider shouted.

Reluctantly, Seiko nodded and started drifting to the right starting
a turn. However, he had never pulled back on the power rod, and as they swung past
the back of the other truck, they barely clipped its rear, as Seiko had intended.
At a nearly twenty miles per hour faster speed, the bump wasn’t terribly hard, but
it was enough to jar Aaron’s rifle against his trigger finger.

The buckshot hit Seiko in the ribs of his right side. Because
he wore his body suit the pellets didn’t penetrate, but the force of the impact
broke several ribs and punctured a lung.

He was knocked to his left, and his right leg pushed against
the steering yoke, causing a sudden hard swing back to the left, tipping the vehicle
up onto the right side wheel and track. It balanced that way for a precarious moment,
traveling dozens of feet before it heeled all the way over onto its side, skidding
with sparks flying.

There were no doors on Krall trucks to impeded rapid dismounts,
nor any safety restraints. Aaron found himself frantically grabbing at anything
to prevent falling out of the cab and becoming a smear on the tarmac. His rifle
did fall, and snapped in half as its butt caught on the tarmac.

Seiko, using his left arm to hang onto the side of the cab, now
the top, also used his legs to push against the floorboard and console to keep from
falling on Aaron. The pain in his right side was excruciating, and he was having
trouble taking a breath. He couldn’t believe the bastard had actually shot him.
It looked like they were both going to die here.

As the truck slid to a halt, the vehicle they had bumped had
looked back, slowed and was turning towards them. Seiko could see them through the
open roof of the cab. That driver had been so focused on who had hit them and the
crash that they apparently still had not noticed the charging rhinolo. Either that
or they were suicidally brave.

He started to feel the heavy thumping as the rhinolo came thundering
onto the landing apron, and its bellow of challenge could be easily heard now, with
the noisy tracks automatically shut down when they tipped over.

Proof that the other driver wasn’t suicidal came when Seiko could
see his eyes and the gunner’s eyes widen in terror. They had finally spotted the
big teal colored bull headed straight at them, a quarter mile away.

Slamming their power bar full in, the rear wheels spun as they
turned hard left to loop back towards the dome, leaving the other truck to its fate.
However, the excess power to the rear wheels was enough that they refused to take
a firm grip as they squealed and spun, accelerating the truck far slower than the
two desperate men wanted. The rhinolo thundered past the fallen opponent, making
for the still standing challenger that had started to flee.

The truck started picking up speed as the wheels finally gained
traction. They were up to nearly forty miles per hour when the gunner had the foresight
to stand and face the rear through the roof hatch. He aimed his rifle, dismayed
that it would be almost impossible to miss because the beast’s head was only a few
feet off their right rear side and closing.

He fired repeatedly with zero effect before he remembered he
had loaded a buckshot clip for skeeters. He threw that clip on the seat and pulled
one from his belt that held soft nose slugs, regretfully the heaviest ammo he had
brought. Before he could fire again, the broken tipped horn slammed against the
right side with stunning force, the strength of the rhinolo briefly lifting that
side and causing them to skid slightly, losing some speed.

Recovering from a painful slam against the hatch edges, the gunner
started firing rapidly at the top of the head and the massive shoulder hump. He
drew blood, but these were superficial to the big bull. He had suffered worse injury
from male challengers in his own herd.

The next powerful hit came as the truck had started to regain
speed and pull away. The horn slid under the rear frame and the bull’s neck strength
not only lifted the heavy truck, it flipped them so high that only the left front
wheel stayed in surface contact. As they came down hard, the rear wheels bouncing,
the gunner lost his grip on the rifle. The rhinolo battered them again, this time
tipping them all the way over.

Seiko saw all this through the roof hatch of his own overturned
truck. He and Aaron were now both crouched on the cab’s side panel and tarmac below
the cab. Despite the pain in his ribs and breathing trouble, Seiko pulled his left
pistol, holding his right arm against the pain on that side.

The other truck was only a hundred or so feet away, with the
bull banging away at its bottom, slewing it around like a toy. He took aim and started
firing at the animal’s rear quarters, all that he could see from their position.
Aaron screamed at him and shoved his hand down.

“Stop it! It’ll come after us. You can’t bring one down with
a damn pistol.”

He countered. “The ammo for pistols is the same as for rifles.
If you hit them enough and in the right place you can bring one down.”

“I don’t give a shit, I don’t want to eat it I want it to leave
us alone.”

Seiko aimed his pistol at Aaron’s face. “I have an armor piercing
clip. Load your heaviest clip and start firing with me or get the hell out of this
truck. You shot me once, so I owe you one.”

“I’m getting out, you’re crazy.” He stepped through the roof
hatch and moved around the front to place the bulk of the truck between him and
the rhinolo, which was pounding the other truck into scrap.

Seiko started shooting again, emptying his first clip, and he
inserted a second with armor piercing rounds. He was sure he had hit the thing a
few times because he saw some blood streaks on the rump. However, so far it had
given no sign it felt the damage.

The bull backed up slightly and slammed the rear of the overturned
truck so hard it spun around completely. For the first time Seiko could see the
two terrified men through the open roof hatch. Moreover, they could see and be seen
by the attacking bull.

The bull bellowed as it spotted the smaller animals that it connected
to the small “bites” it had been feeling. The confirmation was when they bit him
again in the face and head. He felt the impacts on his thick boney skull plates,
which protected him when he dueled with other bulls.

The two men were firing point blank at the enraged animal, and
realized that someone from the other overturned truck was also shooting. For a moment
they had hope they could drive it off or even kill the massive monster. That hope
didn’t work out for them.

The bull charged straight at them, and thrust its horn through
the hole where they hid. He was rewarded when he withdrew his head to see the result
of his attack, and found one of them dangling and wriggling from the horn. Completely
run through at its midsection it was making a lot of noise, and pushing at his face
to get free. He knew how to help it do that.

The bull tossed its head up sharply, watching as the creature
slipped free of the horn and rose straight up. It was a maneuver the bull had used
in the past on similar sized predators that came after calves he was protecting.
He agilely moved under it to catch it again on the horn, and it stopped making noise
and struggling.

This time he shook his head side to side and felt the limbs slap
against the sides of his head several times before the animal tore open and flew
away to hit the ground and tumble several feet before laying still in a heap. That
one would bite no more. Because he still felt “bites” nipping at his head and rump,
he returned to the place where the other one was still hiding.

The driver had dodged the first irresistible thrust of that cruel
long horn, but one of the shorter side horns had ripped through the top of his left
thigh. He knew he was bleeding to death, but wouldn’t do that before the beast came
back for him. No way was he going out like Mike had died. He loaded his last clip
even as he heard the man in the other truck firing again. He looked over at his
helper in gratitude, but knew it was too late.

When the bull turned its bloodied face back to look for him,
he started blazing away, hoping to hit its eyes. He didn’t manage to do that with
his hand shaking so badly. When it trotted to within twenty feet and lowered its
horn, he fired a final shot into his temple.

Seiko saw that happen, and knew that the man was dead even before
his body was ripped apart and trampled. He held his fire now since there was no
one over there to help any longer. He pressed himself into the hollow of the floorboard
space, as far away from view through the roof hatch as possible.

He heard the bull’s snorts and wide padded feet thumping as it
came closer to his truck. If it came down to the same choice the other driver had
made, he’d save a bullet to do the same thing. He knew it was time when he heard
it bellow and its pace picked up. As the thundering hooves grew close, he placed
the pistol barrel under his chin.

Just when he could hear the bull really close, there was a rapid
series of gun shots from at least two guns, close beside the truck. At first he
thought Aaron was trying to help him, but then heard him screaming as he fired.
He must have been seen peeking over or from behind the truck and was spotted. The
bull was after him now.

Despite what the ass had done to him, he would add his own firepower.
He painfully stepped out through the hatch and heard the screams and shots farther
away now. Rushing around the front end of the truck, he saw Aaron running away,
firing over his shoulder at the rapidly gaining rhinolo.

Seiko emptied his last clip of heavier ammo at the back end of
the bull, the only target he was presented with so far. He looked away as it caught
up and lowered the horn. Aaron’s scream quit in mid shriek, and Sieko moved back
around to the other side of the truck, not willing to watch the destruction of a
human body for a third time. He inserted a clip of buckshot, confident it could
get the job done if he put the barrel in his mouth.

The clop of hooves sounded again as it started back to his truck.
He wasn’t going to get back inside the cab, bending over was too painful with broken
ribs, and the other truck had shown the futility of that. He was bitter about the
rib injury, but Aaron had paid a high enough price. He sure couldn’t try running
when he could barely get his breath. Not even a Hub class athlete could out sprint
a rhinolo.

He stepped onto the side panels of the rear truck bed, where
he’d be more sheltered and he could stand upright. As he sought a grip for his left
hand, the truck was struck by the four-ton battering ram, and as it spun around,
he was thrown out onto the tarmac, losing his pistol. He scrambled after it as the
bull continued past him and the truck, and lowered it haunches to stop quickly and
turn back.

As it pivoted, moving too nimble for its mass, Seiko could see
its eyes on him. He crawled to his pistol, prepared to take a few shots at his killer
before turning the gun on himself. He took careful aim at one of the eyes in its
heavy bony socket and pulled the trigger.

He heard the usual whoosh of the rocket propelled round, and
was startled when the beast jumped and reared on its hindquarters, raising its front
legs several feet in the air before they thudded back to ground. He figured he’d
hit something sensitive near its eye, and was aiming at the other eye when, before
he could fire, the bull jumped violently again. This time Seiko heard a distant
boom that followed the leap. The animal looked over to its right, then back at him,
and again started coming towards him. Seiko managed to get to his feet and planned
to run around to the other side of the truck. Then the bull shifted the direction
and speed of his slowly building trot to cut him off from that shelter.

The animal shuddered just as another boom reached Seiko’s ears,
and he was startled to see blood spurt from the nostrils of the rhinolo. It took
several more steps towards him, and bellowed so loud that it hurt his ears. It terminated
with the bull’s collapse just as a louder boom sounded.

He looked over to his left towards the dome, past the other wrecked
truck, and saw one of the haulers from the Fancy coming his way. Perched on the
front forks he saw Doctor Martin, holding the largest damn gun he’d ever seen.

Seiko felt drained, and his legs would no longer hold him up.
He sat down hard on his butt, jarring his broken ribs painfully. As the hauler drew
close, he raised his pistol and fired another load of buckshot at the four tons
of dead meat ten feet away.

“Hey Jason, I think you got him,” Chack said laughing, from the
driver’s cage of the hauler.

Dillon quickly stepped off as the machine stopped, and rushed
over to the grinning Steward. Concerned that the man wasn’t clear headed enough
to know that he was safe, he put his hand on the gun and pulled it away from his
weak grip, saying “You can stop shooting man, it’s dead.”