On Distant Shores (Exiles Triology Book 1) (29 page)

Robert swallowed, “Sir, Ma’am, no worries, I won’t let you down.”

Pang smiled, “If I thought you would, I wouldn’t put you in charge of defending the warehouse.”  Robert’s shoulders weighed down with the new responsibility.

It was Mike’s turn to reassure the Airman.  “Don’t worry; Lieutenant Pang will take charge up here, so send her quality Airmen that she can depend on.  Downstairs, the people don’t need to be as steady, they just need to shoot anything that comes out of the elevator shaft, and be ready to run into the stairwell if things don’t go well.”

Mike stopped talking, cocked his head and reached to his ear, “Oh, hang on, Everett’s on comms.”

“Ah, Mike, you there?  Please respond.”

“Yeah Everett, I’m here, what’s happening.”

Everett sounded worried, “Ah, well, there seems to be a new player on the remains of the carcass.  It’s as big a bear, has a bad disposition, and is running off the other critters. Oh, and that’s the good news.  The bad news, there seems to be a pack of them.”

Mike responded, “On a scale of bears, are we talking black bear, grizzly, or polar?”

“Mmmmm, I would say grizzly.  Definitely brown bear, Kodiak size.”

“Dammit,”
If Everett was concerned, Mike was concerned. This was not a good turn of events, at all.

He turned to Pang, “You need to get security here, as quick as possible.”

She and Stein noted the concern in his face, “What’s wrong?”

He motioned towards the front of the cave, “Large pack of very angry, bear sized carnivores out there.  You need to get some shooters up here, and get them quickly.”  Mike turned and hurried to the front of the cave.  He could hear growling.  Mike heard Pang running Robert off to take care of organizing security. 

It was twilight, and he could see large shapes around the bloody meat.  What he saw and heard was chilling.  As he climbed his mech armor, he could see more details,and hear deep, angry growling as the animals challenged each other.  It was a large pack of animals as big as bears, thickly muscled.  They were hungry, and they were fighting to establish dominance.

Everett spoke up, “Mike, you better get your ass in the mech armor.  I think we’re up wind of them.  When you came out, a few of them stopped and started sniffing the air.”

Mike had no intention to be the next meal for these large carnivores.  He thought about Jo and the baby.  He promised Jo he would be back.  If there was a way to get back, he was going to stay alive to make sure he found it. Mike cycled open the hatch, and climbed into the armor.  He put on his helmet, and ran up the systems.  He could still smell the vomit.  The IR and Starlight vision cycled up, and he could see the bear pack.  There were a few smaller scavengers struggling around the pack to get to the food, but they were quickly run off or killed.

Mike did an ACE call, ammunition, casualty, and equipment.  The team reported in, all green across the board.  Nobody was having problems with equipment yet.  Equipment failure was Mike’s biggest fear.  If these big hunks of carbon fiber and titanium armor stopped working, there was no chance of survival for any of them.

The buffet continued, the bear pack snarling and hitting each other with paws the size of dinner plates.  Mike wondered what pack life was like when the pack didn’t have this much food.  Then he realized, they have to have this much food all the time.  Which meant there has to be an ecosystem that could feed this many large, mean carnivores. “Fellas, you realize, that from the size and amount of this pack of carnivores, there has to be some pretty big prey out there.”

The net grew quiet, and then Tom, the hunter, started speaking, “Well, when you have dragon lizards the size of a school bus, and a pack of . . . friggin’ bears, for God’s sake, there has to be something that they can feed on.  Small animals won’t do, they need a lot of protein, and they have to have it pretty damn often.”

Rob spoke, “That means that there are a lot of large animals in this world that can kill us?”

Tom followed up, “Uh huh, and most of them aren’t going to be happy to see us. Or, they will be happy to see us as a new protein source.”

Mike asked, “Any suggestions about the future?”

Everett started the round, “.338 Lapua.”

Mickey said, “.50 BMG.”

Rob threw in, “.50 Smith and Wesson.”

Tom chuckled, “Nope, you’re all under caliber on this one.  You need a 750 grain bullet at 2700 feet per second.  You need the A Square Hannibal .577 Tyrannosaur.  Made to stop rhinos, hippopotami, and rogue elephants; guaranteed to stop a charging T.Rex, if you can find one that’s alive.”

“Does that actually exist?” Mike asked.

“Oh yeah,” Tom answered, “I have a montage video on my laptop of people shooting the thing.”

Rob asked, “Have you ever shot one?”

“No, but I did some work on a .500 nitro express that a fella was taking to Africa on safari.  He was going after rhinos, and he bought a double barreled Anderson Wheeler .500 Nitro Express second hand for $23,000 and wanted to make sure all the parts were working correctly, when his life was on the line.”

That conversation continued for the better part of thirty minutes.  They talked about the energy imparted into the kill in foot pounds for each of the different calibers, which caliber was more accurate with which rifle.  The conversation could continue for hours.  The team was familiar with all of the weapons that they used.  Tom was the expert, though.  He was a hunter, hand loading all of his ammunition to ensure the perfect cartridge for his rifle.  He grew up shooting his dad’s Winchester .30-06, and then moved onto his own Remington .308.  Sniper school brought out the quest for knowledge, and now he knew every weapon out there that he might face across a thousand yards.  He had also attended gun smith school in Pennsylvania, and gotten his degree.  Tom knew everything there was to know about guns and ballistics, or knew where to find it.

The team was always like this when they expected trouble.  It came from spending too much time in the danger zone.  Mike watched this same banter among many men he worked with over the years, in the Rangers, Special Forces, and black ops.  It was the calm before the storm.  They were relaxed, but paying attention to business.  As they talked, they monitored the situation with the bear pack.  They all knew that it was going to hit the fan, or at least they assumed it would.  They just didn’t know when.  The killing would start as soon as the meat was gone, and the bear pack back tracked the blood trail.  There was always the chance that it wouldn’t happen, but better to be prepared if it did.  The banter continued.  It would have continued if they were stark naked, with bare hands, facing the bear pack.  It just wouldn’t have lasted as long.

Then Mike got the call, and the entire team tuned in.  It was Mitchem, but he could hear Jamison squealing in the background.  “You bastard, you get out of that armor right now and come down here and face me!”

Mike clicked on the mic, “We did that already, you lost, remember.”

“Screw you, get out here, I’m placing you under arrest, you jackass.  And I’m going to arrest your entire team!”  Mitchem was truly spitting mad, a term Mike had heard before, but never thought he would experience.  He could hear the saliva gathering in Mitchem’s mouth as he spoke on the radio.  He could imagine the spit flying as Mitchem talked.

Everett spoke up on a different channel, one that only the team was monitoring.

“Hey boss, Mitchem is attracting some attention.”

Mike thought about this.  It was completely dark now.  Mitchem probably couldn’t even see the bear pack that was fighting over the meat.  Mike watched as one, two, three of the big bears started looking over towards the cave.

Mike spoke up over comms to Pang, “Jennifer, are you out there?”

Mitchem was the one who answered, “She isn’t allowed to talk to you now. I’m in charge here.  You’ll talk to me!”

Mike voice was calm.  “Listen, you’re about to step into a world of pain.  Lieutenant Pang understands the security situation, you don’t.  Put her back on the radio.”

Mike was familiar with swearing in eleven languages, usually hearing it before he killed someone.  He could imagine the color of Mitchem’s face as he cursed.  It would have been amusing if not so tiresome.  Mitchem was a turd.

“Mitchem, put Jennifer Pang back on the radio, or I’m switching to speaker, and everyone will hear.”

This was not what Mike wanted.  He knew it would attract the attention of the bear pack, and what happened next would not be pretty at all.  Now, seven of the bear pack were looking over at the cave at the little man yelling among the tall, black figures.  One tentatively started moving towards the cave, sniffing the air, stopping to lick at the blood on the ground.

“I don’t care if you’re on speaker or radio.  It’s not going to save you now,” Mitchem was yelling at the top of his voice.

The one bear moved towards the cave with intent.

Mike flipped the switch. He was now talking through the speakers on the armor, not on the radio, “Lieutenant Pang, prepare for attack.  The bear pack is coming.  We’ll try to intercept, but you’ll need to kill anything that gets pasts us.”

That was all it took.  Mike’s voice opened the dam.  The pack surged towards the cave, anticipating new prey.  There was a shriek over the microphone.  Mike assumed that the bear pack was now in view of the people in the cave.  The bear pack swarmed.  Mike and his team fired with laser and rail guns.  Blood flew, the bears not near as tough at as the dragon.  The rail guns wounded and killed the bears, but they kept coming.  Then it was hand to hand.  The bears were startled as the five mech armor suits came alive and started pounding them.  They were smaller than the dragon lizard that attacked previously, but they were faster, more agile, making it harder for Mike and his team to stop them.

The bears were confused by the armor.  They bit, clawed, slammed into it, and tried to crush it with blows from their huge paws.  Nothing the large bears tried caused any damage.  A few made it through to the cave and tried to find easier targets.  Mike grabbed one by the leg and pulled it back out to pummel it until its head was mush. 

Pang initiated the defense in the cave.  She sprinted forward to get past Mitchem and his crew to keep them out of the line of fire.  She didn’t notice, since she was eager to get into the fight, but the security team was standing flat footed, looks of disbelief at the size and amount of the bears on their faces.  She opened up with her shotgun and started pumping rounds into the hugely muscled, snarling beasts.  She was dwarfed by the sheer size of the great animals.  But she stood and killed, no fear as she snarled curses. 

Jamison’smouth was slack with dismay.  His heart jumped into his mouth, and the only sound that came out was a muted, strangled cry.  When Pang’s shotgun spoke, he squealed, then turned and ran.  The sound of her shotgun broke the inactivity of the security team, as they realized the danger.  The rest of the security team started shooting, some with rifles, the rest with their pistols.  Stein was grabbed by Mitchem as he was setting up the security.  When Mike announced the bear attack, he ran forward, also in the mix, slaying bears on the other side of the security team.  Spent shell casings flew through the air as he shot.

Three of the bears broke through the Mech team.  One was grabbed by a leg and drug back out of the cave, its head pounded into pulp.  One was riddled with bullets and dropped just past the cave opening.  The last one made it through to the team,covered in blood, horrendous wounds weeping fountains of blood.  Even as it died, it lashed out with one of its great paws, crushingAirman Babcock.  Babcock flew across the ground, chest caved in by the blow, skin and flesh rended by claw.  Blood streamed from his body as the bear corpse crashed against the floor.  The large bear shuddered as death took it.

A pile of dead bears surrounded the mouth of the cave.  Two of the bears were gravely wounded, in immense pain, crawling back towards the trees, blood gushing to create a huge blood trail.  Judging from the other animals in the area, Mike didn’t think they had a very good chance to live.  Mike took pity on the two wounded animals.  He targeted the backs of the head of each animal, and triggered his rail gun until each stopped moving.  The rest of the pack lay on the ground, dead and dying. 

Mike checked his display and looked at the camera feed into the cave.  Pang was standing, shotgun smoking.  The security personnel around her were reeling from the attack.Mike spoke over the speaker, “Lieutenant Pang, I need an ACE report.”

“Ah, ACE report?” she asked.

Mike could imagine her confusion, “yes, a status report.  ACE, ammunition, casualties, equipment damaged.”

A look of understanding came over her face.  She remembered from the fight with the dragon.  She turned and interrogated each person, and then noticed the young airman’s body lying on the floor, “Oh, God.”

Mike asked, “What’s going on?”

Pang answered, “One of our Airmen is down.  I think he’s dying.”

Two of the security team ran forward to help Babcock.

Mike spoke again, “Jennifer, I’m coming out.  Mickey come with me, security has a wounded man.  Everett, you Tom and Rob stand guard.”

Jennifer turned and started talking to the security team.  Emotions were running high.  Many of the security personnel were upset as they talked to the lieutenant.  Murphy was pointing back to the cave tunnel, and yelling.  Mike turned up his audio to catch what Murphy was saying.