26. Two dozen? We shall begin drawing lots.
Horthus was beside himself. He had long disconnected with the human who had tricked him and was now coordinating with the local Named who could actually do something about the human’s attack on the most important resource of his planet.
Food was everywhere. The Aurealians had colonized dozens of worlds in this local cluster, and each of them possessed the food chain to produce the animals that the Nameless required to sustain their populations. But being edible does not make an animal good prey. Most of the animals that the Nameless subsisted on were too stupid to even know to be afraid. Even if you slaughtered dozens, the last one would walk into the abattoir as obediently as the first. No matter how the rest of them had screamed.
But the Aurealians? Those were prey! Those were worth the hunt! Fast, clever, willing to fight back once they were in a corner. Some of them even cooperated and resisted their hunters in teams, often to protect their young that were not worth harvesting yet anyway!
It had been a long time since Horthus had indulged himself in such a Hunt, he was simply too busy with his other duties. But he had heard rumors, rumors of one specimen who had survived for hundreds of hunts, who was approaching her second decade of life. After this crisis, after the swarm had been chased off and the humans finally listened to him when he said "go away, I don’t want you here," he would go and hunt her personally, if she was still alive.
And he would not stop until he had eaten her hearts.
But the humans first. The human crisis demanded his immediate attention, for all that there was nothing that he could do about it except for yell and threaten the Named Ones who were already working on it. And, in fact, he approved of their response.
He believed that he had discovered the secret to defeating the humans. On the ground, at least. In space, they had absurd amounts of antimatter which they could convert into near limitless amounts of energy. He had no idea why they had so much of the cursed stuff; if some of the warships he had heard described ever failed containment the resulting blast would be as destructive as a supernova.
But on the ground, what they had was all they had! That was the truth to Joncassonova’s surrender; he had been buying time for the others to retreat, reequip, and relocate to begin their assaults upon the cloning facilities. He had checked with orbital control, and they all agreed that there had been no additional drops from the human vessels. Whatever they had on the surface, Horthus and his generals and their lieutenants would force them to burn through their resources. Then they would capture the survivors, and study their weapons, and the human’s treachery would be repaid.
Satisfied, he watched as the forces harried the escaped prey and the erstwhile protectors. He knew it was a fool’s game to march his forces into the facilities themselves, not now that the humans had corrupted them so thoroughly somehow. He would force this fight onto the surface, where he held the advantages in numbers and resources. And where they would be weighed down by the very things which they intended to protect.
He saw again the four legged blitzkrieg warriors, although significantly less of them than had appeared in the assault on the city. The large knuckle-walker was there as well, dragging with her a metal canister of some sort. A weapon? He was intrigued.
He did not see the Rodentia, they were mixed in with the Aurealians themselves and did not register as important to the advisors feeding him information, as they had played little part in the violence after the forces had reached the surface.
Most numerous and troubling were the drones. The aerial drones were bad enough, although fortunately those seemed to be running low on fuel or munitions finally, as they were easing off their continual harassment. But there was another new human weapon being used against him.
The autonomous land drones were fearsome to behold. With four arms equipped with weapons it could use independently of each other, including additional weapons located in its torsos, they were able to stand toe-to-toe with anything the Horthians had been able to throw at it, even if it was using the human’s ‘nonlethal’ weapons only. With six legs, it had insect like mobility, able to crawl over all terrains and obstacles, and run at speeds to exceed the fastest of its pursuers. Unlike the quadrupeds, it was clearly non-living, and Horthus wondered why he had not seen it before.
And then his Deathsworn began to disable them, and he understood the reason. They were weak by human standards, but they were human weapons, and the humans did not want to share their weapons with ‘Jurassians.’ They only used them now as a desperate delaying tactic.
Huffing with glee, he shouted encouragement at his generals to be passed on to his planet’s deathsworn. He was thus occupied when Joncassonova’s tactical room was resynchronized with his own.
"Exalted Horthus, I bring you a dire warning. Those drones are equipped with self-destruct mechanisms. They are not built to the level of the one in my body, nor are their combat chassis, but they will still cause a significant explosion to prevent their study and use in your war," he said, his voice tight and clipped.
"Be silent human, you say this only so that your allies may escape," he shouted back.
"I say this because my replacement would not have used those weapons if he was not prepared to destroy them. That is how they work; they operate until they run out of ammunition and then self-destruct. Because you have never seen this tactic before, Captain Nathan is hoping to catch you by surprise with the explosion, triggering them at a time when it will do the most damage to your forces. I urge you to -"
"Why do you tell me this?" Horthus demanded, angry because he could not ignore the warning. "You are trying to get me to play to your ‘captain Nathan’s’ rules?"
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"No, I tell you this because if I do not then your men will die. I tell you this knowing you may not listen to you because my conscience demands that I do not remain silent when speaking has the possibility of saving Jurassian lives, even if those lives are Deathsworn with blood on their hands. I tell you this because if you ignore me, then their deaths are upon your conscience, not mine."
"If you are deceiving me with this warning, there will be consequences. Seefius! Issue a warning to the generals, the drones are a trap! Retreat from them immediately at maximum speed. Continue to pursue the escaped Aurealian game, do not let them escape!"
His orders were relayed and obeyed. And they came none too soon, for moments after the drones were evacuated, every one of the insectoid land drone exploded at exactly the same time. Including the ones protecting the escaped Aurealians. Or so Horthus had assumed. They were all dead. Tens, perhaps a hundred thousand Aurealians dead in a flash of light instead of at the end of a proper, satisfying hunt.
And only Joncassonova’s timely warning had prevented the same from happening to two tenth’s of the Deathsworn operating his planet’s land defenses.
~~~~~~~~~
"All unit commanders, this is Theseus actual. Headcount, casualty report. Fatalities and injuries. Take your time, get it right. If anyone needs emergent care, that takes priority."
"Heavy team. No injuries, no casualties. I brought back something interesting," Lucy answered after a second. Tony had survived then, that was good, although Nathan hadn’t been terribly worried about that. A moment passed as the rest of the units went through their roster.
"Canine commandos here. No casualties, no injuries. My bell is still ringing from when that little shit shot me but I’ll get over it," Rusty said eventually.
The final report was the one he was dreading, and it was the one that would take the longest for the simple fact that there were more Rodentia to count than anyone else. When it finally came, it had been translated from dance to text to speech, and Nathan didn’t know whether to be upset or relieved.
"Rodentia Corps casualty report: seventeen killed in action, thirteen missing in action, one hundred and thirty-two wounded. Confirmed killed in actions bodies deemed unrecoverable, next of kin will be notified per standard protocols. Everyone wants to know, how many of the song singers did we save?"
"I don’t have a number yet, Rodentia Corps. But it’s a lot. We were ready for them, though. Saving them is the entire reason we came to this terrible place, and we came ready to do whatever it takes to save as many of them as we can. I apologize that you were not told of the stakes we were playing for, that was not my call to make."
"We understand. We are pleased, we like the song singers. We wish to be useful in saving more of them. Tell us how to be useful and we will help."
"To start with, it sounds like it might be a good idea to get some of you to the Aurealian habitation complex to help the refugees adjust. It sounds like they bonded to you pretty hard, and vice versa. Do you have any corps members who would volunteer? About two dozen sounds right for now, if you can manage that."
"We have many many many. Two dozen? We shall begin drawing lots."
"That sounds great. Simon? How are they doing over there? You said you were ready for them," Nathan asked, finally beginning to relax.
"They’re freaking out a little, but less than I thought they would," the chimpanzee answered. "It helped to have the song playing already when the transfer went down. All of the groups popped in to hearing a familiar voice telling them that they are safe and loved, and that the bad things can’t reach them where they are. But there’s a lot of them, Nathan. I don’t have a number yet, but a lot. I don’t think Aurealian hab complex prime can handle them for more than four days."
"Then we’ll have to get them somewhere where they’ll be safe and taken care of within four days, even if that means splitting up the Theseus," Nathan answered without hesitation. "We have two more Aurealian hab complexes to fill, and I’m not leaving until either those are running bone dry, or we’ve picked up every last stray Aurealian on Horthus Prime."
~~~~~~~~