|
 It
was, as always, a dark, moonless night; Tau Ceti Three--Demeter--had no natural
satellite to lighten its nighttime sky, yet to its human colonists, this new
world had proven a kindred spirit to their old home. Tonight things alien moved
about the old growth forest; strange creatures that brought with them the
ancient need for war.
It stood among the tall wind-blow
grass at the edge of the forest; at about one foot at its shoulder. Its
appearance was that of something man-made, but it moved with a grace and
certainty that could only come of a born hunter; a cat. Clad in contoured armor
plating affixed over a heavy mesh suit, one might assume that this was some
soulless machine of war, rather than a creature of flesh and blood. Both
descriptions had merit. The creature was a Parr, a by-product of the
mind-machine interface experiments conducted by Dr. Jonathan Parr. Equipped
with the end result--a synaptic interface--they have become the covert eyes and ears
of the Alliance military.
"Don't
go too far up range," psicommed a voice in scout Ma'Rou's head, "with you transponder off, it's hard to keep
track of you."
Ma'Rou stopped, casually turning to
look back in the direction of his teammates. On his display were three
florescent green triangles superimposed over the scenery, each one had a
slightly different internal marking and was capped by a three-letter reference
code designed to mimic the name of its user. The icon MKC was the closest. The
other two were back behind it and proportionally smaller to help denote their
relative distance.
"Suit
Mode, range to nearest icon," he thought; a branch appeared from the icon
linking it to a line of data; TRP MKC SCT 021. Ma'Rou shifted his attention to
the compass displayed at the bottom of his helmet's visor; it read 284 as he
lined it up with the icon. After some quick math, "I'm at twenty-one meters, bearing one-oh-four." He thought; in a
fraction of a second the suit's onboard computer interpreted his message and
transmitted it via the Psicom.
"Acknowledged," Trooper
MacKencey, his handler and friend, responded. "Do you have anything?"
Ma'Rou turned to look across the
grass-filled clearing before answering, "I
thought had something on the EM scan, but its signal was intermittent."
Then as if on cue, small rhythmic pulses peaked along the green line of the
electromagnetic graph. "Stand by," he
added. He tried to localize the direction by moving his head from side to side.
Suddenly, the EM peaks grew rapidly in strength.
More
out of instinct than training, Ma'Rou crouching down as low as possible on all
fours and used the grass for cover; with his armored belly touching the ground,
he realized that he could feel the vibrations of something approaching, and approaching
fast.
With his fur puffing up under his
armor and the primal part of his mind screaming run, he held his ground and tried to get a bearing on whatever was
heading his way.
"MacKencey!" He mentally
yelled over the Psicom; without waiting for an acknowledgment he added, "Something big; grrrrrrowl."
That was all he managed before
whatever it was ran past him. He tried to get a good look at it, but couldn't.
Even through his suit's night-imaging scopes it was just a dark silhouette
against the background of the night. The thought filled him with primitive
terror.
"Ma'Rou,
say again," psicommed MacKencey as he rushed to take up a kneeling position
next to one of massive tree trucks. He surveyed in the last known direction of
the Parr.
In light-amp
mode, his helmet's imaging scopes could pick up and amplify enough ambient
light to turn the dark world around him into a pseudo color day; but still
nothing around him looked out of place.
"Troy, report,"
inquired the voice of Sergeant Thompson over the trooper's com.
"Standby, something may have
happened to the Parr," he commed. Taking a deep breath he shifting his weapon
up into the ready position, making sure to keep the helmet-displayed targeting
reticle aimed high, for there was no way of knowing where Ma'Rou was.
"Ma'Rou
from MacKencey…" he psicommed, then strained to listen to his mind's outer
thoughts, "… can you hear me?"
Unlike the conventional com system,
the Psicom has no click or beep to announce the beginning or end of a message, and
in personal contact all you're suppose to receive is the voice of the sender,
nothing else; but as the message started to form in his mind, an overwhelming
sense of imminent danger surged through his body.
"It's
coming your way!" screamed Ma'Rou into MacKencey's brain, seemingly willing
him to get up and run from some unseen horror.
It felt like he'd stuck his finger
into a powered light socket; MacKencey fought to regain control over his body
and suppress the false sense of terror. Disengaging the Psicom and getting a
handle on his emotions would have been the smart thing to do, but that would
have left Ma'Rou out on his own, and that wasn't going to happen. With the
sound of his own heart pumping in his ears, MacKencey forced himself to slow
down his breathing and get his mind back on the business at hand, namely
looking for whatever was moving up on him.
"Sergeant, Ma'Rou reports that
something is moving up on us, but I still have nothing on light-amp," he
commed. "Suit mode, thermal imaging," he instructed his suit's Pacscomp, as his
display shifted into shades of cool blues and warm reds, something leaped into
his field of view at the very edge of his peripheral vision.
He heard the beginning
of a response from Sergeant Thompson when whatever was out there landed with a
heavy thump just behind him. It struck like an explosion. There was a blur of
motion and MacKencey's consciousness faded out.
To be continued...
|
