Muerta
By Robert Walton
Evening light flows over my right shoulder, floods the tilted plain below me, and kindles red sparks in crystal spires beyond – The Blood Needles, ultimate source of this planet’s wealth. Should my quarry reach the Needles, it will take some days to find him.
Movement, a twist of dust stirred up by a vehicle’s wheels – I center my scope on it. “AI, confirm target ID.”
My own voice answers me. “Target parameters match those of Tully Pazool – Muerta enforcer and assassin – with a probability of 99.4 percent.”
Tully is driving his ORV slowly, carefully, but not carefully enough. He feels the proximity of his sanctuary and becomes impatient. He has two kilometers to go and is four kilometers from me. I adjust my scope for the range.
An incompetent or a sadist would shoot the vehicle, put Tully on foot and let him run for his life. I’m neither. I center my crosshairs on the center of his back and squeeze my trigger. It always surprises me when intention becomes an explosion, when the fourteen-millimeter round leaps into its journey. My scope is still on him when the heavy slug swats him from his vehicle like a hand smacking a fly.
I move twenty meters to my left and freeze. My drones swoop and soar like the tiny night insects they are – sniffing, listening, peering – finding nothing. Hardacre’s three moons rise, and I rise with them. Only fools think that darkness conceals. No, night reveals trysts, hungers, ambitions, true intentions, secrets of all kinds. My stealth cloak ensures that my intentions remain my own, even if no one now watches for me. Sound, sight, heat, radar reflection – all are hidden or muted. I will seem like what passes for a Hardacre rodent if I’m detected at all.
I follow a zigzag path with pauses to listen, to watch. Two hours of cautious movement brings me to Tully’s ORV, a few meters from its former owner. I activate its wilderness emergency beacon. A white light strobes into the sky and will do so every thirty seconds until it’s deactivated. Though I can’t hear it, a com-call for help is going to emergency services via satellite. I move away from the vehicle and begin my return to my hidden cycle.
I am a contract law enforcement agent. Some would call me a bounty hunter. From Tau Ceti to Barnard’s Star to Altair, sentients believe that I am a cannibal, believe that I eat the hearts of those I kill. I don’t, but fear is a tool I use – hence my name. It is professionally useful to inspire horror. Some surrender rather than live with the dread of my pursuit. Some don’t.
Chance is my tool, as well. “AI?”
“Yes, Hearteater.”
“How many towns are within a five-hundred-kilometer radius of this place?”
“Six towns, nine villages and fourteen emergency shelters.”
“Choose one of the towns at random and take us there.”
“Yes, Hearteater. Will Tufatown do?”
“It will do.” I need food, fuel and rest – even I must rest – but my movements must remain as unpredictable as possible. I have enemies, especially here on Hardacre.
The Muertas are my enemies. Gangs, like fast food restaurants, are franchise operations. Muerta Central sold the franchise to this planet to a group of entrepreneurs. Mr. Pazool, my recent target, was one of them. Islamic State, Sinaloa Cartel, Russian Mafia – the model is time tested. Use murder, rape, kidnapping and drugs to destroy established civilization and implement total physical domination of an area, or even a planet. Overwhelm the rule of law and law enforcement. After that, suck power, resources and money from the subjugated people. Muerta Central of course supplies weapons, tech and recruits to their entrepreneurs – for a price.
Hardacre’s mineral riches – fine, pure crystals used in fusion boost technology – and its small, scattered population make it a ripe target for gangs. The planet’s citizens and police are fighting back, but they’re losing. That’s where I come in. My business is destroying franchise gangs, more than thirty so far. Their members are my prey. I serve law’s ends from the margins of the law. I am a monster – a monster in service of civilization.
“AI, please secure lodging for me – the usual arrangements.”
“Yes, Hearteater.”
Jenna touched her brother’s wrist. “It’s him!”
“What?”
“The Hearteater – he’s going into Barter-Mart.”
“Wow!” Beau’s mouth hung halfway open. He pulled Jenna’s hand. “Let’s follow him!”
“You’re crazy!”
“I’m not! We can tell stories about this to our grandchildren.”
Jenna sneered, “You won’t live long enough to have grandchildren.”
“He’s not going to kill us!”
“If he doesn’t, Mom will. We should wait for her.”
“I’m going!” Beau ran across the street, just avoiding a rumbling drone truck filled with ore.
Jenna muttered, “Monkey-poop!” and followed. She caught up with her brother in the produce section. Just ahead, basket on his arm, the Hearteater inspected strawberries.
Beau whispered, “I can’t believe it. He’s got celery and tomatoes in his basket.”
“So?”
Hearteater plucked up a container of blueberries and deposited it in his basket.
“And fruit! He likes fruit!”
“What’s strange about that?”
Beau shrugged. “I thought he’d be going for raw liver and pigs’ feet.”
The children following me are innocent of hostile intent. No enemy would have had time to weaponize them in hopes that I might appear in this store at this moment. Still, their attention is irritating. Hearteater has no friends, for Hearteater travels beneath a cloud of menace. It is lonely beneath the cloud, but safe. I must discourage their curiosity, gently so – if possible.
Beau peered toward a tall pile of bananas. “He’s not in the fruit section anymore.” A great shadow loomed behind him,
Fear squeezed Jenna’s throat with an invisible fist. She croaked, “Behind you.”
Hearteater’s heavy hand gripped Beau’s shoulder. “You want something from me?”
Beau went white as milk. His eyelids fluttered and he made noises like a strangling chicken.
“Speak again, boy. I did not understand you.”
A woman stepped directly in front of the huge agent and looked unflinchingly into his much-modified eyes. “Mr. Hearteater?”
“Just Hearteater.”
“I’m Ellen Park. We met briefly at the enforcement house. Tufatown’s Chief Enforcement Officer Park is my husband.” She pulled Beau close to her side. Jenna stepped behind her.
“I recall.”
“My children are only curious. They mean no harm.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“You frightened them.”
“I’m aware of that, too.”
“May we leave?”
“Please do.”
Ellen herded Jenna and Beau before her toward the market’s door.
“Madame?”
She turned. “Yes?”
“It would behoove you to make your daughter and son understand that it is unwise to attract my attention – or the attention of anyone like me.”
Ellen Park nodded.
I choose temporary quarters in the most densely populated part of each town I visit. This mitigates the threat of area weapons being used against me. I rent three rooms, each in a separate hostelry or apartment complex, and use them randomly, even though my stay is always brief.
Tufatown’s small size limited my AI’s choices. All of my rooms are, unfortunately, in the same building. I enter the room closest to the building’s main entrance. Beige – they’re always beige, or ochre, or ecru. I pause: when does being counter-intuitive become predictable? Should I have chosen the farthest room for my night’s rest? Perhaps I think too much. A shower? A shower.
Clean for the first time in three weeks, I sit down to a simple repast – a decent cheese, slices of a fresh baguette and grapes, fetchingly plump and sweet. Bed beckons.
Sonic blasts and gunshots awaken me. I blink my eyes and assess sensory information, both my own and that of various remote devices I’ve placed outside of my room and building. The shots are half a kilometer distant. I rise and arm myself.
I find the aftermath of chaos in the town’s northern residential block. Smoke billows from a corner apartment’s front room and flames lick at another apartment’s eaves. A shattered car leans drunkenly against a scorched tree. Construction on frontier worlds such as Hardacre tends to be robust. Several blast resistant windows are bent or shattered. An ambulance’s crew tends the leg of an injured woman. I see people standing near the entrance of the most damaged apartment. Among them is Ellen Park, the woman I spoke with earlier. Her face is pressed against her husband’s shoulder.
“Officer Park, what has happened here?”
Park glances at me. “A Muerta attack.”
Ellen Park looks up at me. “They took Jenna and Beau.”
“They knew where we live.” Officer Park looks down. “I guess everybody here does.”
Ellen sobs.
I conceal my distaste for her lack of control. “They are safe for now.”
“How do you know?”
“The Muertas will want ransom, concessions, safeguards. They know that none will be forthcoming if they cannot prove that your children live.”
“I’ll call in resources from the other towns, assemble a rescue force.”
“Do so. Allow me to reconnoiter.”
Park nods. “Message me. Tell me where they’ve gone.”
Ellen sobs again.
I turn to her. “Ellen, I shall find where they’ve taken your children.”
It is, of course, a trap. Aside from the potential benefits of a ransom, they hope to lure me into a kill zone. Often the best way to avoid a trap is to attack it instantly and without mercy, to make your enemy’s intended kill zone your own.
I walk directly to my cycle, disarm its security measures, put it in pursuit mode and depart. I deploy three tracker mini-drones as my bike accelerates to optimum speed. I engage the autopilot as yellow numbers scroll down the right side of my helmet’s faceplate. My weapons bins are full. I make tactical choices, compose possible firing sequences and enter them into my AI’s battle computer.
One of my scout drones alerts me to movement, a convoy twenty-two kilometers distant. A dozen cycles screen two large ORVs. I ponder accelerating into an attack. It could succeed, but such a fight would be chaotic – better to allow the Muertas to reach their base. They’ll feel safe and relax. Then I can pass through their sensors and be among them before they can react. Many will die without knowing how or why.
I deploy my full drone array and settle in for a long chase. They will not evade me now.
“I’m thirsty.” Beau’s left elbow bumped Jenna.
She looked at her brother. “I don’t think the ride will last much longer.”
Their ORV hit a gully and flattened its springs. Beau and Jenna bounced around its enclosed cargo bed like peas in a rattle.
When they came to rest, Beau rolled onto his side. “These plastic handcuff thingies don’t make it easy to ride out the bumps.”
“I don’t think being kidnapped is supposed to be easy.”
Beau’s face collapsed into despair. “Do you think they’re going to kill us?”
“I don’t know.”
Naked fear blazed in his eyes.
Jenna bumped his shoulder with hers. “Not right away – and Mom and Dad will come for us.”
Beau sniffed and slumped against her shoulder, something he’d never done before.
The Muerta base is two kilometers in front of me. It’s time to choose my tools. I use no beam weapons, laser or microwave. The most effective such are crew served and are not useful in my work. I use a needle pistol, a sonic shotgun and an old-fashioned slug-throwing rifle. The pistol shoots glass needles at hyper velocities and is good for precision work. The shotgun fires sonic bursts out to thirty meters. When you need to obliterate six enemies at once, it’s the perfect weapon. The rifle is for sniping. I’ll not need it today. Rocket-propelled grenades prove useful, however. My suit’s launcher is loaded, its eight-shot magazine full.
I activate my cycle’s stealth systems, sling the shotgun over my left shoulder, engage the grenades’ targeting system, pull the pistol from its holster and begin my approach. My cloak defeats their radar motion sensors. They’ve deployed no seismic alarms. After one klick, I reach their perimeter minefield. The mines glow purple on my face-shield. I side-step them easily. I pass their sentries, three of them, deployed in a wide arc. I target them for grenade strikes once the shooting begins.
I pass over a small rise and see a fiberglass dome shelter three hundred meters distant, likely a temporary cell for the children. I slow my pace. I must now choose a course of action.
“AI, tactical analysis, please.”
“Optimal results may be obtained by accepting the children’s deaths as collateral damage and initiating a general grenade bombardment. You may then assume a fallback position and await the Muertas’ main strength in ambush mode. Success for this plan is rated at 94.1%.”
“And the next best option?”
“You may infiltrate and attempt to rescue the children alive. Chance of success is 73.7%. Returning them safely to Tufatown rates only a 48.2% chance of success.”
“Thank you.” I check my grenade targeting sequence.
“Hey, sweetie!”
Jenna stared into dust-reddened eyes. The man’s facial scarf slipped open, revealing multiple rings on the right side of his nose and a brass stud in his lower lip.
“Don’t be scared.” His right hand squeezed her thigh. “Bernard will take care of you now.”
Jenna writhed and twisted, but his grip was too strong.
“Hands off.” The gang lieutenant, a lean man with a lean moustache, scowled at Bernard.
“Lighten up, Luis. I ain’t going to hurt her none.”
“The boss will be here by morning. He wants her as is. You want to argue with him?”
Bernard released Jenna.
“I didn’t think so. Get them outside.”
A burly Muerta enters the dome. A smaller man pauses at the entrance and then walks away. A moment passes and the burly banger emerges, dragging the male child. The female rolls from the shelter, scoops up a double handful of sand and flings it full in the Muerta’s face. He drops the male child’s arm and clutches his eyes. The female pulls the man’s force knife from its sheath strapped to his leg and cuts her brother’s bindings with it. She turns its blade toward its owner.
The smaller Muerta tackles her from behind, crushes her to the ground before she can plunge the knife into his partner’s groin. The boy, now unbound, kicks him in the right ear. He’s immediately sent flying by a punch from the big Muerta. The two children, now bleeding, are quickly bound once again. Their guards dispense cautionary slaps and punches.
The Park children are fighters. “AI, implement the targeting sequence for option two.”
“Confirmed.”
Three men perform camp chores twenty meters to the right of the two who subdued the children. Four more lounge in shade thirty meters to the left. I must create a perimeter. I must kill from the inside out.
I take a deep breath. There is no multi-tasking in combat – first things first. I raise my pistol and fire at the guard holding the girl. He is dead, pierced through the left nostril, before the flat slap of the needle going hyper-sonic reaches him. The other guard dies with a needle through his right eye.
I shrug my shoulder, and the sonic shotgun slips into my left hand. The group of four rises, weapons in hands. They have some idea of where I am, and they intend to saturate my general environs with fire. Aiming a sonic shotgun is superfluous. I point it and fire. The blast is like a free-falling granite boulder. It takes three of the Muertas, crushes their torsos, mashes their faces and flings their instantly dead bodies into the boulders ten meters behind them. A second blast does the same for the one survivor.
A slug howls by my right ear. Another tears through my cloak and punches my armor. I do not resist the punch, but fall with it and roll. When the three remaining Muertas enter my field of vision, I fire my pistol on full auto. Thirty needles flash out in less than five seconds. More than a few find their target.
I rise to a kneeling position. “AI, launch grenades at the sentries.”
The grenades chug out of the tube on my left hip. I remain frozen until three explosions sound in the distance. “AI?”
“Direct hits, Hearteater. The sentries are neutralized.”
“Medical assessment?”
“Your armor defeated a nine-millimeter slug. There is bruising, but no penetration. Analgesics have been dispensed.”
“Thank you.”
I sling my shotgun, holster my pistol, remove my cloak’s hood and approach the shelter. The children cower beneath its shade, eyes wide with shock.
“You are Jenna and Beau?”
They nod.
“I’ve come to take you home.”
Neither moves.
“My cycle will carry us all. It’s some distance from here, though. Can you walk?”
Jenna answers. “Yes. They didn’t hurt us.”
“Much,” Beau adds.
“More Muertas will come before long. We must leave now. Come.”
The children scramble out of the shelter and stand, but they make no move to come closer to me – understandably so. I turn and begin walking, hoping that they will follow.
They do.
We walk the first kilometer in silence. At last, Beau asks, “Will the other Muertas chase us?”
“Yes. We have an hour, perhaps more.”
Jenna looks back at the still smoldering sentry pits. “An hour?”
“Their main base is in the Needles. It will take at least an hour to get here from there.”
Both children lengthen their strides. We are within fifty meters of my cycle when targeting radar lights up my sensors. No time for words. I grab both children and dive for the shelter of a small hummock. I mash them into the rocky soil as a star-hot pulse scorches the air a meter above us.
“Don’t look! Don’t move.”
I hope they will comply. I roll away from them. “AI?”
“Remote five-centimeter blaster, crew served.”
A trace of professional admiration trickles into my thoughts. The hidden crew resisted urges to join the fight at the camp and waited until I reached an ideal range for their weapon, waited until I stepped into a perfect kill zone. Their blaster requires at least seven seconds to recycle its barrels for the next shot. That time is nearly up.
“Targeting info?”
“Sketchy.”
“Grenade salvo, four rounds ten meters apart. Now.”
My launcher chugs once, twice. White-hot light and screaming fire envelop me.
The children approached their rescuer’s steaming corpse a step at a time, staring at it with fascinated horror. They stopped a meter away. A yellow light blinked on a weapons belt. Jenna leaned forward to inspect it.
The corpse’s eyes flickered.
Both children gasped and leapt back. Jenna whispered, “He’s alive!”
A voice issued from the belt. “I am an AI in emergency mode. Are you first responders?
Beau gasped, “You sound like Hearteater!”
The AI repeated, “Are you first responders?”
Beau shook his head. “No.”
Jenna interrupted him. “Yes – I mean – we’re the only responders, the only ones here.”
A video wand rose from the corpse’s utility belt and described a full circle. “Are there immediate threats?”
Beau shook his head. “Everybody is dead, except for us.”
“Good. My client is near death. His suit med unit will keep him stable in an induced coma for some hours, but he needs competent attention as soon as possible. Do you have transport?”
Jenna glanced at the wrecked ORVs. “No.”
“I shall summon my client’s vehicle.”
A few minutes passed before another yellow light flashed next to the video wand. “Place your hand on the blinking light.”
“Why?”
“The vehicle is here. I will now scan your identity and give you operational authority.”
Jenna covered the light with her palm and felt a warm tickle.
“The vehicle has three modes: normal, off-road and rescue. Number three – rescue – would best suit our present needs.”
“Where is this vehicle?”
“I’ll turn the refraction camouflage off. Look to your right.”
The children turned and saw a large motorcycle, bronze colored in the sunlight, standing ten meters away.
“Wow! A magneto bike!” Beau ran toward the cycle.
“Stop!” ordered the AI. “The vehicle will incapacitate you if you are not cleared to touch it.”
Beau skidded to a stop and looked back at the AI. “Well, scan me in!”
Jenna stepped past him, walked to the bike and studied its control screen. At last, she swiped a green triangle and stepped back.
“Please mount the vehicle and bring it to me.”
Jenna climbed into the seat, touched the central control pad with her right hand and the machine’s engine throbbed. She advanced her palm. The bike rolled forward. Jenna guided it in a gentle arc that terminated at Hearteater’s feet.
“There is an extendable loading ramp. The blue rectangle controls its operation.”
Jenna pressed the blue rectangle. “Now what?”
The bike buzzed momentarily and transformed. A platform supported by a single fat tire extended from its rear.
“There’s a cable at the rescue gurney’s front. Pull it out and attach it to the ring on the back of my client’s armor. Then press the control again to retract the cable.”
“Okay.”
“Please guide the transfer so that my client is not injured further.”
“Sure. Beau, watch the other side.” Jenna activated the control.
The cable pulled Hearteater’s ruined body onto the platform as the children cradled his cracked head in its cracked helmet. Once he was on the gurney, foam spurted from multiple jets, covered him and immediately hardened into a protective shell.
“Now what?”
The AI paused before answering. “We are 78.7 kilometers from Tufatown, a place where emergency medical assistance is available.”
Beau nodded. “Tufatown’s where we live.”
“That is our destination. I’ve sent an emergency pulse to authorities there and entered the coordinates in the cycle’s nav-system. Please board.”
Jenna took the main seat. Beau climbed on behind her. The bike rolled into a gentle turn and accelerated to ten kph.
Scarlet crystal towers slowly receded behind them. “Won’t this thing go any faster?” Beau asked.
“Not in rescue mode. The rescue gurney limits our speed to twenty kph, maximum.”
Beau watched a rusty boulder drift past. “This isn’t twenty.”
“The vehicle’s systems dictate a lower speed on rough terrain.”
Rough, rusty desert rocks rose to either side as they proceeded over the flat sands of an arroyo.
An hour passed – and another. The arroyo opened onto a plain flanked by low hills. Jenna looked to her left and saw a dozen mounds of loosely piled gravel poking out of the flat distance.
“AI?”
“Yes?”
“Do you have a name?”
“You may call me Arnold.”
“Arnold, do you have access to your client’s information?”
“A very limited data base was provided to me.”
“Are there weapons on this cycle?”
“Of course. Do you detect a threat?”
“Not yet – I mean there’s nothing that would require shooting.”
“Elaborate, please.”
“Those mounds to our left are signs of a hyena-scorp den.”
“Hyena-scorp?”
“Pack predators – there could be fifty over there, or more.”
Beau added, “We’ve never seen live ones. Dad scorch-bombs the nests close to Tufatown. Those suckers are mean.”
The cycle’s video wand traversed and zoomed in on the reddish bumps. “The mounds are three meters in height, 1.4 kilometers distant and appear to be un-bombed.”
Jenna nodded. “We should be okay if we don’t get any closer. They usually hunt at night.”
“There’s a Wicki-reference I may pull up.” Arnold manipulated databases. “Yes, hyena-scorps, similar to arthropods, about twenty-five kilograms in weight.”
“Yeah,” Beau nodded, “like big dogs.”
“Big dogs with stingers. The venom is neuro-toxic and lethal. Also, their vestigial hind legs rub on a tympanum to produce their characteristic yips and moans – hence the name. Interesting - they’re intelligent; the sounds organize pack behavior.”
Jenna shivered. “I watched a vid of a small pack, twenty or so, attacking a spirelope and her fawn. A few drove the lopes into a hidden swarm. They stung and stung.”
Arnold increased the cycle’s speed and turned it to the right. “We shall make a wider turn around this nest. Can either of you shoot?”
Beau looked up. “I’m good at video-sims.”
“That will have to do. Look in the compartment by your right leg.”
Beau looked. “It’s a needler.”
“My client’s backup needle pistol – at need, depress the gold button. That’s the safety. It will change color to red when the weapon is ready to fire.”
Beau plucked up the pistol, cradled it with both hands. “Cool!”
“The magazine is a small one, thirty rounds. Please avoid full auto. You may wish to select the three-shot burst option on the dial above the safety.”
“Cool,” Beau repeated.
Jenna eyed her lethally armed little brother nervously. “Have you got a weapon for me?”
“You might productively supervise the grenade launcher.”
Beau looked up. “The what?”
“Grenade launcher. It’s below the handgrips in front of you. You may aim it manually, but it would be best to trust me for the targeting. It has a twelve-round magazine. They are high-end stun grenades, not usually lethal, but they are effective against mass attacks.”
Jenna leaned forward. “Show me.”
Arnold did.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go.”
Ellen closed the last Velcro fastener on her armored vest and looked at her husband. “It probably isn’t, Wayne, but just try to stop me.”
Chief Enforcement Officer Park smiled. “Never.”
“How many officers are you leaving to guard the town?”
“Two.”
“That makes four of us on the rescue team.”
He looked down. “Not enough.”
“We’ll do the best we can. When will the re-enforcements from Pill Hill and Katrinaville arrive?”
“Not for a couple of hours.”
“Can’t wait.”
“I know.”
“Where did that satellite emergency pulse originate?”
“About eighty klicks to the northwest.”
Ellen slipped an extra carbine magazine into a pocket in her vest. “Let’s go.”
The children sat slumped on the cycle’s seats as it lurched over desert hummocks. A yellow light blinked on the bike’s control panel, rousing Beau. “What’s that?”
“Satellite feed.”
“Please explain,” prompted Jenna.
“My client arranged for observations of certain data to be forwarded to him.”
“What data?”
“Processing –” A moment passed. “It appears that we are about to be intercepted.”
“Who?”
“Forty-plus Muertas have emerged from the Needles and rallied to a place ten kilometers to our southeast, directly between us and Tufatown. They’ve formed a sweep line with a mobile reserve and are headed toward us.”
Beau squirmed. “There’s no way to get around them?”
“None.”
Jenna nodded to herself. “Call my dad.”
“Pardon, your dad?”
“Chief Enforcement Officer Park – on the emergency frequency. I’m sure he’s on the way.”
Beau grinned. “Mom too?”
“Yes, Mom too.”
Chief Enforcement Officer Park scanned the terrain ahead of his small rescue posse. Ellen leaned close to him. “Wayne, do you think this will work?”
“I don’t know, but it’s a better plan than the four of us taking on the entire Muerta gang.”
“But Jenna’s only twelve.”
Wayne smiled. “She’s also your daughter.”
Beau watched a wide dust cloud gather behind them. “Can’t this thing go any faster?”
“No,” Arnold murmured. “You’ve asked that question before.”
Beau stared at the mini speaker from which Arnold’s voice sounded. “But they’re catching up!”
Jenna patted Beau’s hand. “Take it easy. It will be better if they’re close when we start firing.”
Arnold’s voice was irritatingly calm. “How close would you prefer?”
“A kilometer.” Jenna hesitated. “Or a little less, if possible.”
“I’ll slow us down.” Arnold adjusted the cycle’s speed and lurched it almost to a halt.
“Not too much!” Beau shouted. “We’ll be in range of their weapons too soon!”
Jenna spoke soothingly. “Don’t worry, Beau. They want to catch us, not shoot us – I hope.”
“Jenna?”
“Yes, Arnold?”
“You wished me to apprise you when we pulled even with the grenade target. We’re even with it now.”
“Thank you.”
“Do you wish to fire soon?”
“We should wait as long as we can.”
Beau stared through their trailing dust cloud and detected stray gleams of light reflecting off metal and glass. “I see them. I see their ORVs.”
Arnold added, “They are eight hundred meters distant from us.”
Jenna’s finger hovered above the launch button. “Wait for it.”
“They’re seventy-five meters from the target.”
“Beau, are you ready?”
Beau switched the needler’s safety off and glanced at his sister. “Sure.”
Jenna punched the firing tab. Three grenades thumped out of the cycle’s launch tube, arched through dusty sunlight and descended among the distant hyena-scorp mounds. Three flashes of light, followed by loud pops, announced the grenades’ arrival. “Let’s hope somebody’s home.”
“There’s movement.” Arnold put up a telescopic display on the cycle’s screen. A six-legged creature scrambled out of the circle of mounds. Its overlarge head was comprised mostly of serrated beak and mouth. Its erect, stinger-tipped tail twitched with agitation. Four more joined it on the rim of the nest.
Jenna fired two more grenades. “I don’t want to use them all, but the scorps need extra encouragement.” The line of Muertas slowed and wavered, unsure of what sort of attack they faced. Another explosion rocked the nest – and another. A wave of hyena-scorps swarmed out of smoke and dust toward the Muertas.
“It’s working.” Arnold decreased the view screen’s magnification.
The pack rushed the first Muerta cyclist. He fired his weapon on full auto and a scorp dissolved into green liquid and sharp scraps of chitin. Beaks snapping and stings plunging, the others leapt upon the Muerta. He and his cycle were reduced to shreds of flesh and metal in seconds. The scorps swarmed on.
“There go the grenades.”
“I hear them, Wayne.”
“Our turn. How shall we do this?”
Ellen’s lips compressed into a straight line. “Shoot as many of them in the back as we can, of course.”
“Uh-oh.”
Jenna turned. “What, Beau?”
“More hyena-scorps, maybe ten – they’re coming our way.”
Arnold verified Beau’s sighting. “Seven hundred meters and closing – they’ve decided we’re a threat, too.”
The scorps bounded toward them in low, irregular leaps. Moans, yips and eldritch squeals rose from their blurring legs.
“What should I do?” Jenna glanced toward the cycle’s screen.
Arnold’s voice was serenity itself. “Fire a two-shot burst on my command.” He paused. “Now!” Grenades leapt from the launcher, disappeared into murky sky and crashed down a few seconds later among the leading scorps. Serrated limbs flew. An armored head tumbled.
“Again?”
“In a moment.” Arnold analyzed drone reports. “That burst took out four. Good shooting.”
“Arnold, there are six grenades left!”
“Yes, yes – you may fire – now!”
Jenna punched the firing tab. Two grenades sprang forth.
“And now!”
Jenna jabbed the tab again.
“Excellent! You’ve incapacitated four more. That leaves two for Beau.”
Beau squeezed his pistol’s grips nervously. “Goodie.”
“A hundred meters out and closing.”
“I hope this works.”
“It will if they’re close enough, Beau. Don’t fire until you see the blacks of their eyes.”
Beau grimaced. “I’ve heard that somewhere before.” He squeezed off a three-shot burst.
His targets surged forward with greater zeal.
“They’re bouncing off! The needles are bouncing off!”
“Go to full auto and try for the junction of the head with the torso.”
“Easy for you to say, Arnold.” Beau flicked the auto switch and squeezed the trigger. Needles vomited from the pistol’s mouth. Dozens glanced from steel-hard chitin. Then the needle stream sawed into connective tissue. The scorp’s head canted sideways and it skidded into the dirt.
“Got him!” Beau crowed.
“I offer only useful advice, young first responder.”
“Here comes the last one.” Beau pulled the trigger once, twice, three times, eliciting only clicks from his weapon. An amber light blinked on the butt of the pistol. He screamed, “I’m out!”
“I’ve got two grenades left.”
Arnold spoke as calmly as an old man ordering croissants for breakfast. “Select single shot, Jenna.”
She did.
“Fire now.”
She fired a grenade. It burst two meters behind the streaking creature.
“Variables are changing too quickly for me to achieve a targeting solution. Jenna, I fear you must switch targeting to manual.”
“Right.”
The hyena-scorp’s demented yips sent shivers down her spine. Fifteen meters – it darted left. Ten meters – it darted right. Five meters – it leapt straight for her face. She fired her last grenade into a gaping, dust-red mouth.
Ellen and Wayne approached Hearteater’s cycle. A shattered hyena-scorp lay across its front wheel. Wayne kept his assault rifle pointed toward the still smoking scorp-mounds. The children were on the cycle, leaning motionless against each other.
Beau suddenly raised his head. “Mom?”
“Thank God!” Ellen rushed to them.
Hearteater used a small remote to guide his cycle up the ramp of a transport lorry. Once in the lorry’s cargo compartment, straps and clamps secured it for its ride to the spaceport. Though his gaze remained on the straps, checking their tension, he remarked, “Ah, Jenna, Beau – greetings.”
From directly behind him Jenna asked, “How did you know we were here? We were trying to surprise you.”
Hearteater turned. “My drones are deployed – as always. I don’t like surprises.”
Beau asked, “What are you doing?”
“Packing.”
“Why?”
“My work here is done. The Muertas are gone. Hardacre no longer has a franchise gang problem.”
“But you just got out of the med-center this morning!”
“Yes, regeneration of tissue and treatment took several weeks, a long time – this time.”
“You’ve been through it before?”
“Many times.”
Beau kicked some dirt. “What if the Muertas come back?”
“Your planetary orbital defense stations should prevent any future incursions. Muerta Central won’t be happy, but they’ll write this planet off as a business loss. Your father and the other enforcement agencies on Hardacre are prepared now and will make further security adjustments in coming months. Hardacre will no longer be an attractive target for franchise attack.”
Jenna shrugged “So that’s it?”
“That’s it.”
Beau kicked dirt again. “Do you want to come to supper at our house?”
“It’s not a good idea.”
“But we’d like to talk with you.”
“Why?”
Jenna hesitated. “Well, it was only Arnold, your emergency AI, but after all that happened, we kind of got used to you.”
Hearteater nodded. “We fought together and forged the comradeship of shared battles. It is powerful.”
“If you say so.”
“I do and I appreciate your offer, but I must decline. My friendships end the moment they are born.”
“What do you mean?”
“You will never see me again.”
Both children looked down.
“I am Hearteater first, last and always. I have powerful enemies, many. Ongoing contact between us would likely endanger you and would certainly endanger me. Do you understand?”
Both nodded. Beau looked up and extended his hand. “Friends anyway?”
Hearteater engulfed Beau’s hand with his. “Friends anyway.”
Jenna took his other hand. “Same for me.”
Robert Walton is a retired middle school teacher, rock climber and mountaineer with ascents in Yosemite and Pinnacles National Park. Walton is an experienced writer. His novel Dawn Drums won the 2014 New Mexico Book Awards Tony Hillerman Prize for best fiction. Joaquin’s Gold, a collection of his Joaquin Murrieta tales, was published last year and is available on Amazon. Most recently, his “Quarry,” a dystopian novella, was published by Alien Buddha Press.
Visit his website: https://chaosgatebook.wordpress.com
A futuristic high-dive into the pathology, zoology, and instrumentation of the future, with a good bit of old fashioned humanity thrown in for good measure.
An excellent story, driven by believable dialogue. Thank you!