Chapter 10
Even before Jason made the command to take up defensive positions, the ten rhino warriors were already moving to encircle the team. Jason silently cursed himself for dropping his guard in what he knew was a hostile environment. Dira and Ricket moved to the center of the group, staying low and out of the way. Jason, Billy and the rest of the SEALs maintained an inner defensive circle, several steps behind the rhinos, with their multi-guns at the ready. The Serapins approached, moving forward slowly, tentatively.
“Cap, I don’t think these are the same guys we ran into on the Dreadnaught,” Billy said over their comms.
“Yeah, heads are a bit bigger. And those guys didn’t talk,” Jason replied. One Serapin was making more noise than the rest. He pointed an almost human-like finger and more Serapins scurried around to the assault team’s flanks. Deep growling sounds filled the air. A constant flow of drool, thick and stringy, dripped from bared teeth. At thirty yards out they had completed the circle around the assault team. Jason and the Serapin leader made eye contact. A silent acknowledgment between leaders—both stood immobile for several moments. At over seven feet tall, and easily a thousand pounds of mostly muscle, Jason measured his Serapin opponent. A warrior in his own right, a scar crossed from the left side of his long-flared snout to its other side, continuing up past his right eye. Almost inaudibly, the Serapin leader made one more singular sound. The attack came in a blur.
The Serapin leader came directly for Jason—strategically a good move. Jason was ready for him. He brought his multi-gun up, aimed for his head and squeezed the trigger. Nothing. In fact, nobody was firing their weapons. A rhino warrior had moved in front of the scar-faced leader.
“Ricket, what the hell’s going on with our weapons?” Jason yelled into his comms.
“You need to set the firing mode, Captain.”
“Shit!” Jason barked. He hastily selected the first firing mode from the menu selection, not knowing nor particularly caring what it was. Unfortunately, firing modes were listed from the least to the most lethal settings—inadvertently, he’d selected a stun-level setting.
He fired directly at the head of a rapidly-charging Serapin leader. At ten feet out, the beast momentarily staggered, then leapt towards Jason. As if in slow motion, Jason saw the approaching jaws gap open before his eyes. He saw bits of chewed meat clinging between jagged rows of pointed teeth as the creatures six-inch long canines thrust forward, like two razor-sharp spears—pointing and angled towards his own jugular—and drool that streamed and whipped back and forth into the air. No doubt, Jason was looking into the jaws of death itself.
Swung two-handed like a baseball bat, Traveler’s intervening heavy hammer connected at the side of the Serapin’s head, right at the hinge point of its upper and lower jaws. The cumulative force behind Traveler’s powerful swing and the weight of the heavy hammer’s blow caused the Serapin’s jaws to hyper-extend open far wider than nature ever intended. Bone splintered, flesh and muscle ripped, as his now disconnected upper and lower jaws flew off in separate directions. Jason stared, momentarily frozen, at the headless beast before him. Even before the Serapin fell to the ground, Traveler was gone and engaged with another Serapin. When two new Serapins charged him, Jason hoped he’d selected the most powerful level for his multi-gun. Apparently it was the rail-gun setting mode with explosive rounds. Both Serapins charged single file, one in front of the other. Jason squeezed the trigger. Both Serapins lost their heads simultaneously and fell to the ground. For the first time, Jason had a moment to assess the situation. The rhino warriors were still holding their outer circle. Four of them had been killed, with their partial remains scattered about, making it difficult to determine which arm or leg had gone with what torso. Another rhino-beast, also dead, was being dragged off into the desert by two Serapins. Two SEALs were dead and another one down and being attended to by Dira. The remaining SEALs quickly figured out their multi-gun settings, and that changed the tide of the battle. Within seconds, the rest of the Serapins scampered off. Again, Jason turned back and took in the carnage. Where was Ricket? Jason let out a sigh of relief, spying Ricket’s active icon on his HUD. But he still couldn’t see him anywhere.
“I am here, Captain,” Jason heard over his comms, “above you, here in the cliffs.” Jason spun around and saw the small robot-cyborg thirty yards away, halfway up the side of a ragged cliff line. “What the hell are you doing up there?” Jason asked, his anger helping to hide his relief at discovering Ricket was still among the living.
“Captain, this man requires time in a MediPod,” Dira said. Jason knelt down next to Billy and Dira and the fallen SEAL. She had attended to his left shoulder and upper arm; blood had saturated his field dressing and he’d lost consciousness.
“I’ll take them back,” Morgan volunteered.
Reluctantly, Jason nodded, not wanting to break up his already fractured team. “You better get going then. Ricket will tell you how to gain access back into The Lilly.”
“Never mind, Captain,” Dira said. “Petty Officer Dolan has expired,” she informed as she reassembled her med kit.
“What do you want us to do with the bodies, Captain?” asked Billy, who stood and surveyed the remains of the fallen SEALs and rhino warriors. “I don’t think we can bury them deep enough—the Serapins will get to them.”
“I have an idea,” Jason said. “Where’s that damn Ricket?”
Within ten minutes, eight bodies, both of rhino warriors and SEALs, lay side by side on the ground, body parts reassembled on a best-guess basis and secured together using straps from their own packs. Meaningful words were spoken by Traveler for the fallen rhino warriors, and by Jason for the fallen SEALs. A long silence followed. When the time was right, Jason nodded for Ricket to start. Beginning with the first body, the largest of the deceased rhino warriors, Ricket knelt down, accessed the rhino’s wristband, and within several seconds the body disappeared. One by one, Ricket activated each dead body’s phase-shift device until all had disappeared. Dira, sharp rock in her hand and standing before a flattened area of the rock cliff, finished inscribing each of their names. She stood back and assessed her work. As if on cue, the remaining twelve assault team members looked up to the rocky cliff where two hundred feet into solid rock, eight bodies would remain undisturbed in their final resting place.
“We need to secure a suitable campsite for tonight. We’re losing daylight. Grab your packs and be ready to move out in three minutes,” Jason commanded.
In three minutes the team headed off towards quadrant 2. Jason led, with Ricket beside him. “Captain, I believe I have found a suitable camp location for tonight,” Ricket said, looking up at Jason. Not getting an answer, Ricket continued: “That rock spire—the tallest one—half a mile ahead.”
“When did you have time to investigate potential campsites?” Jason asked, his voice not hiding his irritation.
“I’m uncomfortable around violence. When the Serapins attacked I—”
Jason stopped and looked down with contempt. “You what? Abandoned your fellow crewmembers? You hid while others died fighting?” Jason yelled.
The remaining SEALs and rhino warriors had caught up and formed a semicircle around the two of them. Ricket stared up at Jason, seemingly tongue-tied.
“Let me make something perfectly clear to you, any of you—I don’t care who you are—an emperor, or the f*cking Queen of Sheba, in battle or otherwise—you don’t leave your post—you don’t leave your team. I need to know you’d gladly lay down your own life protecting the warrior standing next to you. Next time that happens, any of you, I’ll shoot you myself!”
They headed off again in the same direction. No one spoke for a long time. Then Ricket broke the silence.
“I apologize, Captain,” Ricket said. “It won’t happen again.”
“Tell me about your campsite.”
“Yes, sir. I hadn’t used all five phase-shifts when everyone else had. I looked for locations that would not be easily accessible by the Serapins, or anyone else. I determined that the outcropping or spire on the side of that distant cliff is inaccessible from above or below.”
Jason adjusted the optical zoom on his HUD. Midway up a sheer, thousand-foot-high ridge was indeed a protruding ledge jutting out from the cliff face.
“Water is available as well as shelter from the elements. It requires two phase-shifts: one to the base of the spire and one up to the ledge.”
“How do you know it’s safe?”
“Other than insects and rodent-sized creatures, I detected no other life forms,” Ricket replied.
“Alright, let’s get up there. Go ahead and give everyone the phase-shift coordinates.”