Chapter 2
As years passed they explored new places, hunted escaped mudokons and renegade vykker experiments, tracked down villages of mudokons for harvesting, fought off attacks from the natives and continued to participate in hunting the increasingly rare meeches.
Meeches had natural sonar, which made them different from hunting scrabs or paramites, as they would almost always see you coming from fifty metres away and either run away or hide and prepare an attack. With scrabs or paramites, you could charge in and shoot all you could of the group, but hunting meeches was a much more subtle process. The group would ride towards where they knew a pack to be on mugs, moving as fast as they could, firing their weapons, shouting and generally making as much noise as they could to scare away the meeches before they came in range of the sonar. Then, once the area was clear they would set traps in the meeches’ territory. When they were done they would leave the area and come back the next day. The meeches almost always returned in the night and many of them would get caught. The rest would move away quickly. The sligs could then pick off those they had caught easily with their guns.
Ironically, it was the defence given by their sonar that was causing the meeches’ downfall. When hunting packs of scrabs or paramites, the hunters would pick off as much as the pack as they could and the rest would run away and have time to regain their numbers before they were targeted by industrials again. But because hunting meeches required the preparation of locating pack from a distance before attacking it, sligs would follow a pack of meeches, never giving it the chance to recover the lost members, until it was wiped out. Hunted meeches never had the time to breed. It was when they stopped to lay eggs that they became the best targets, because if they were forced away from their nests they were even more likely to return looking for their eggs, which was when they would fall into the sligs’ traps.
Meeches were becoming the best way to make big money for sligs like Tilic’s pack, and that meant a lot of competition for their services from the big companies, which in turn meant an increase in their wages. Things were looking good for them and they had managed to save up a fair amount of money which was being put towards that new portable generator.
When they had chased the creatures from their territory, three of the sligs would patrol the edges of the area to make sure the creatures didn’t come back before they were finished, while the other three would get off of their mugs and set the traps. They organised shifts of who was doing what; Stivik preferred to be on the back of the mug, as it made him feel ready for whatever happened, and after they had been hunting a meech pack for several weeks it wasn’t uncommon for the creatures to try and break back into their territory, especially if they had been laying eggs. They rarely saw the eggs as the meeches hid them too well, but there were signs that said they had been laying. After a few weeks of following the meeches it became boring, the less experienced three would complain about the unchanging work, and the travelling, but Tilic could keep them on it; a meech pack was too rare to abandon half-finished. Once Stivik was on the back of his mug when noises from inside the territory caught his attention; he tensed and aimed his gun at a bush which clearly had something in it, prepared to fire, when a slig’s head suddenly appeared from it, “Whaddaya doing Burn,” Stivik yelled, “You scared the Hell out of me!”
“What do you think I’m doing?”
“You expect meeches are going to be crawling in the bushes? You’re setting a trap in there?”
“No, I was looking for eggs. The price of those is rising; glukkons are getting interested in breeding them again, now the price of scouts is up.”
“Well don’t. These guys are getting nervous and we won’t be able to hold them off so long if they decide to come back.”
“Can’t blame them really, we are killing them all.” Burn grinned when there was a shout.
“Hurry up, Stivik! I’ll be overtaking you if you sit around chatting all day.” It was Stack, riding his mug. He often got bossy when he was nervous.
Stivik nodded back to him and called back, “Sorry, Sir!” Using the title would probably let Stack know he was getting demanding. Stivik hurried his mug forward away from Burn who called after him, “That’s right, Stivik. If you were going any slower…”
Stivik made a rude gesture and passed him by.
They finished setting the traps without any trouble and the six of them headed back to camp. Braz spent an hour up a tree, listening to the radio for any news before coming back. “It’s all clear; there’s a mudokon village about 20 miles away but they’ve not moved much for a few days. If we get to close we might have to fight them for the meeches-”
Dekas interrupted him, “Which’ll mean splitting the rest of the pack with a Cartel force, and they’ll take more than their share.”
Tilic snorted and shrugged. “If it gets to that we’ll bag ourselves some muds to even the deal. Someone’ll be interested in buying the labour.”
The generator decided to work that night and they huddled round it talking until Stack started snoring. The next morning just after sunrise, they headed back to the meeches’ territory and reached it just before midday. Seventeen meeches had gotten themselves caught in the traps and they busied themselves finishing them off and loading the bodies onto a cart. The less bullets you used on a creature, the more it was worth, but the meeches tended to writhe about and fight back if you got too close, and their armoured backs made it hard to get a good shot so they took their time with the job. They were nearly half done when Dekas, the only slig on guard, rode towards them and told them something was heading towards them from the south. They looked to Tilic, who sent Dekas back to look out, ordered Stack and Burn to start attaching the cart to a mug while he, Stivik and Braz finished off the remaining meeches, “And do it
quickly, guys. Don’t worry about bullets.”
If he’d thought there was real danger then he would have ordered them back onto mugs and out of the area, but they’d been assured by local intelligence on the radio the night before, and again this morning, that the area was clear. The six of them were spread widely across the area when a small army of mudokons bore down at them with clubs and bows.
Panic ensued. The sligs were outnumbered 4 or 5 to one, and the mudokons had the element of surprise though the sligs had better weapons. Stack who had been hefting the cart towards one of the mugs dropped his strut and yelled at the less experienced slig, “Forget the cart, get your gun out!” He pulled out his own weapon and started firing at the nearest natives. Burn had been pulled to the ground when Stack suddenly let go of the cart, and now crawled under it and shot at a couple of mudokons as they approached them.
The mudokons had driven down in the middle of the group from three ways, splitting Dekas and Braz from the others; Tilic and Stivik were trapped together and the four of them were cut off from Stack, Burn and the mugs.
Stivik’s first move was to dive for cover, but he didn’t realise until it was too late that he had thrown himself straight towards one of the trapped meeches, which lunged for him. He barely dodged and shot at it wildly, killing it, but the noise drew attention to him and he had left himself without cover. Several mudokons shot at him and he was hit on the arm by a bolt of spooce energy, burning him. Barely holding onto his gun by his injured arm, he scrambled for cover and ducked into a bush. Swapping arms, he fired at the mudarchers he could see. If there were any of those clubmen among the attackers, he hadn’t spotted them yet. A sudden crash from behind him made him grab the knife he carried attached his pants and twist round, swinging it. Tilic appeared and ducked under Stivik’s swing. “Careful, it’s me! Are you ok?”
Stivik quickly lowered the knife. “I’m good.” Tilic wasn’t really paying attention, but peering through the bushes.
“I think they’re focussing their attack on the mugs. I don’t know how long Stack can hold them and I wouldn’t put faith in Burn.”
“What’s the point in this, what are they doing?”
“Fighting for territory like the meeches? Trying to prove they’re better than us because they can beat us 5 to one? Odd knows.” He turned around and said suddenly. “What happened to your arm?”
Stivik answered quickly, “Nothing, I was careless and got shot. It just grazed m-LOOK OUT!” Stivik kicked Tilic in the legs and he fell over, Stivik fired his gun past him at a surprised-looking tomahawker who had just swung his club at Tilic’s head and hadn’t expected to miss, let alone be shot open seconds afterwards. Stivik dodged aside as the body flopped between them.
Tilic picked himself and looked at the mudokon and then said to Stivik breathlessly, “Thanks.”
Stivik answered sounding equally winded, “Any time.”
On his mug Dekas had seen only one group of mudokons who had come slowly, noisily through the trees as a decoy. The rest had stayed deep under cover until they were in position to attack.
Dekas had begun firing on the muds from his high position as soon as they appeared, but soon had had to drop off the mug: he was too much of a target up there. He landed heavily and his gun slipped out of his hand. The cable attaching it to his mask snapped. Looking around he couldn’t see it and guessed it had fallen into a plant or had rolled out of sight. Before the attack he had been checking on where the others were, and he had seen a number of the mudokons very close to where Braz had been when he saw him last. His thoughts were to protect his pack mate, so he pulled on the reins of the mug until it pointed in Braz’s direction, and then gave it a sharp kick beneath its armour. It bellowed and charged forward.
Braz was hiding under a bush, but a number of mudokons were searching for him, mostly by hitting every possible hiding place with those huge clubs. He had been planning a dangerous and potentially disastrous attempt to get away when Dekas’ mug came charging past. The mudokons scattered and he took the opportunity to seize onto the mug, heft himself off the ground and let the hurrying animal carry him out of danger.
Feeling his weight, the mug began to try and shake him off and quickly he lost his grip and dropped to the ground. The mug ran on and left him without cover. He scrambled towards a heap of bushes until he spotted a slig beckoning him from some plants. He ran towards the figure and dived into cover to find Tilic and Stivik, the latter sporting a nasty looking wound to his right arm. Stivik saw him looking and explained, “Spooce.”
Braz understood. Spooce wounds usually seemed insignificant at first (assuming you didn’t simply die immediately) but they got ugly and painful very quickly.
Tilic asked, “You saw Dekas?”
“No, but I saw his mug.” There was a grim quiet. He added hopefully, “Maybe he abandoned it.”
Tilic nodded. “It would make sense. He would be an easy target up there.” He hesitated and then said, “I’m going to look for him. You two, try and get under the trees and make your way round to the mugs. If you can get a couple of strays just get away. Don’t wait for the rest of us… head to the camp.”
Tilic slipped away. He quickly spotted the nine or ten mudokons still searching for Braz. He realised then that there were more muds than there had been when the attack started. There were around forty he could see and maybe more still among the trees. He hesitated, wondering if he should leave those two younger sligs alone, but steeled himself and moved on: Dekas might be in serious trouble if he was injured or had been caught.
Tilic had a couple of smoke grenades with him in case of emergencies, and he threw one at the ten mudokons, scattering them. He slipped past easily in the confusion. Dekas called him over quietly from under a dead tree. The bottom of the tree was hollow and the space was full of meech eggs and now the two sligs. “I lost my gun when I came off my mug,” Dekas said immediately.
“We need to get to Stack; Burn won’t be helping him much.” Dekas nodded and the two of them set out side by side. Tomahawkers were combing the area and mudarchers were hidden among the trees, taking occasional shots at them when they broke cover which Tilic returned with bullet-fire. His second and last smoke grenade scattered some of the mudokons surrounding the mugs. One of the creatures broke away from the crowd through the gap in the mudokons and towards them. Tilic reached to grab its reins but Dekas stopped him. “It’s injured. You can see it limping.” Tilic nodded to his friend and the two of them slipped in with the writhing mugs. The mudokons were shooting at them and the animals had rather limited additional armour. The five creatures left among the mudokons were panicking and running around, pushing against each other. The two sligs were nearly crushed several times as they hid among them. Tilic picked out a couple that seemed uninjured and made to grab them when he noticed something else.
“The mudokons have stopped attacking them.” The sound of shooting had stopped and the mugs were calming down. He and Dekas exchanged glances and on an unspoken agreement headed towards where they could hear the most voices. Hiding among the jostling mugs they looked out and saw Burn being dragged out from under the mug cart by the mudokons. His gun lay in the mud near to the mugs.
Burn was detached from his pants and lifted out of them by the arms. Two mudokons held him in the air and one shouted to the crowd, “What shall we do with this one then?”
Tilic didn’t pause. He jumped away from the mugs and began shooting, killing the two muds holding Burn. The slig dropped to the ground and began crawling towards him, while the mudokons stood, shocked. They slowly gathered their wits and advanced on Tilic, but by then Dekas had joined him with Burn’s gun and begun shooting as well.
As soon as Burn was under cover they backed away. Tilic yelled to Dekas over the sound of gunfire, “Grab the two good mugs. We have to get out of here NOW!”
Dekas turned around and picked up Burn by the shoulders, “Where’s Stack?”
Tilic glanced over his shoulder for the answer. One look at Burn’s face was enough to tell him the worst. “The mugs, Dekas!”
He slid behind one of the worst injured mugs. It wasn’t moving and was barely breathing. Using it for protection he shot at the mudokons until Dekas nudged him, “Got ‘em boss.”
Tilic slid away and climbed onto one of the two mugs Dekas had chosen. “Pass me Burn.” Dekas handed the crawling slig up to him and climbed onto a mug himself. Burn wheezed.
“What about Stivik, Braz?”
Tilic hesitated, “They were ok when I saw them. I told them to get away. We have to get out of here ourselves.”
Tilic and Dekas steered the mugs out of the pack, keeping their heads down to avoid the spooce fire. The other mugs provided cover. Another barrier of mudokons fencing in the mugs fell to gun fire and the brute force of their mounts. Then they were charging through the trees towards their camp.
Running the creatures at full speed they arrived in the middle of the afternoon. There they found Braz and Stivik (his injured arm wrapped in bandages); they had caught Dekas’ mug and used it to get away. They had packed up a little of the camp but looked up as the others rode in.
Stivik took in Tilic riding with the legless Burn and Dekas riding alone, and then looked past them, expecting a third mug. When none came it was Braz who asked, “Where’s Stack?”
Tilic looked at them darkly and swung off the mug, before reaching up to grab Burn. Once he was safely on the ground, the crawling slig swallowed and answered, stuttering, “They shot at him with the bows… broke a leg off his pants. Then three of them, with clubs… They crushed him, flat, battered him till there was nothing…”
Silence descended, unbroken for a few endless seconds, until Braz roared as if he was in agony. Stivik marched quickly away from them without speaking, and sat among the trees in silence while the remaining four sligs packed away the camp, and the sun set. The moon came out, choked in clouds.