Chapter 13

We allowed the Marines and the National Guardsmen to sleep until 0730 hrs, since they’d had a busy night. I, however, was up just after daylight and set out to find my Partners and their prisoners. I knew that they were something over a half mile back in the jungle, but I soon realized that they wouldn’t be that hard to locate. All I needed to do was to follow the trail of broken and mashed vegetation that had been created by the rebels advance and retreat in the dark. I found them sitting on the prisoners who were now awake. There were several weapons off to the side that Bob and Susie had obviously removed from the prisoners. Those two were afraid to move since the Partners were staring into their eyes with their teeth bared.

“Well, what have we here?” I asked out loud as I approached them. I had already contacted Bob and Susie to let them know that I was approaching them. It was obvious that both prisoners were mercenaries from their clothing, field gear, and weapons.

“What the hell are these things,” one of them demanded but winced when Bob lowered his face directly into the prisoner’s face.

“They are enhanced Siberian Tigers and my Partners,” I told them and noticed both men turn pale when they realized who had captured them.

“You will be perfectly safe as long as you don’t try to escape or create any trouble. If you should, either one of them would have no compunction about tearing out your throat. Don’t worry though, they wouldn’t eat you, as they don’t consider humans very tasty,” I told them with a grin.

“Bob will now remove his weight from you,” I told the first man. “Stand up and place your hands behind you. Do not do anything else, as Bob will be watching you, and he is much faster than you are,” I finished.

He sat up and then stood with some difficulty when Bob moved his weight off of him. I secured his hands behind him before searching him for additional weapons. The second man followed when Susie moved off of him and I secured him also. Then I had to deal with the Partners.

“Hungry,” both Bob and Susie sent.

“Eat at camp,” I told them before we set out for the camp. I carried the various weapons while the Partners watched the prisoners. I called the Colonel as we approached the edge of the jungle and advised her that we were coming in. She alerted those on guard to our approach. A couple of Marines under a Corporal met us outside the perimeter and took charge of the prisoners and the weapons.

Everyone had finished chow before 0800 hrs. Bob and Susie had downed thirty pounds of meat each after being up all night, or at least half awake guarding the prisoners.

Following a quick check of the troops, three quarters of them were sent out to begin collecting the dead and stacking them in front of the camp and behind it. The savanna on either side of it would be needed for the aircraft to land on and taxi. Since they probably hadn’t taken off until after daylight, they wouldn’t arrive before most of us departed to search for the rebel camp. Bob and Susie were asleep until we left.

Two Marines from each squad would be remaining here to guard the prisoners and the camp. The two wounded would be part of them. Miranda left a ward around a small area of the camp as protection, since one of the Marines had a very limited use of Magic, she had discovered.

Once the bodies and the weapons had been collected and stacked up separately, we prepared to set out for the rebel camp. On checking the edge of the jungle for more bodies, we discovered that they had left their mortars and needed to wait while they were disassembled and the parts and their ammunition were moved into our camp before setting out again.

It was later than I expected when we finally got moving toward the rebel camp. I had persuaded the Colonel to stay in camp, as she wasn’t really used to traveling in the jungle. She had objected but finally decided to remain, as someone would need to deal with the Chief Investigator and the police.

The seven plus miles or so through the jungle was a study in difficulty and surprise. The rebels had created a path of broken and mashed vegetation on their way to attack us, which made travel easier in some respects, but more dangerous, as we couldn’t identify where they may have left booby-traps, or set up ambushes. Bob and Susie proved to be invaluable by detecting the booby-traps and where ambushes had been previously set up. We still needed to approach these places with caution in case of other kinds of traps. There were also the indigenous animals and insects of Addison III to deal with, as they can be very ingenious and persistent. So it was seven plus miles of stop and go before we approached the rebel camp. Our first warning that we were close came from the Partners.

“Smell many men, some sick,” Bob sent to me, as we moved cautiously forward searching for booby-traps and warning devices. I was about to ask how far ahead the camp was when a shot rang out. Everyone went to ground, but a woman Marine began to cuss.

“Damn that really smarted. Where the hell is that bastard?” she demanded shortly after that. It appeared that she wasn’t hurt, only mad.

Several seconds later there was another shot from the sniper and then a shot from one of our men.

“Damn Sarge, that bullet went clean through that helmet,” I heard someone say.

“Yes, but he gave away his position with that second shot,” a familiar voice said, and I recognized it as Sergeant Butler’s. Susie was also contacting me then.

“Body fall from tree. Dead. More man and big gun wait see you. We take,” she sent, and a number of seconds later there were screams both human and Tiger. Shortly after that Bob and Susie appeared on the roof of what could only be a well camouflaged bunker.

“Man taste bad,” Bob sent as they cleaned the blood from their fur. We moved cautiously forward to where they were sitting and quickly discovered a line of bunkers, but only the first one had been occupied. I checked inside the bunker, but what the Partners had done wasn’t pretty, and I kept the others away from it.

Bob and Susie were soon ready to move out again, and we moved up the trail toward the camp even more cautiously with the Marines spread out in the jungle on either side of the trail, and the National Guard hunters backing them up. We soon came to the camp in an open area surrounded by jungle with camouflage netting suspended from the trees and covering most of the camp.

There were huts and hovels all around the perimeter of the clearing, and a shack near the center. There were numerous sick people in the various shelters. There were also a couple of men, mercenaries, in camouflage clothing, field gear, and weapons who were hastily backing out of the clearing with their weapons aimed at us.

“Let them go,” I quickly warned the Marines who were ready to start a fire fight, but there were too many sick and injured present for that. I called Bob and Susie to me instead. I had twenty pounds of meat in my pack for each of them and quickly fed them.

“Follow those men. Take them down,” I sent to them as they finished their snack. “Come to last night’s camp when you are finished. I’ll have plenty of meat for you there,” I finished. They set out in pursuit of the mercenaries.

In the meantime, the Corpsman and the Medic had started examining those in the camp. Many were in very poor condition.

“These people have been eating the indigenous plants without them being treated. It’s no wonder that they are all sick and injured,” Jeff, the Corpsman with us, told me after Bob and Susie had disappeared. “We are going to need to get them to a hospital to be treated. They also need food that won’t make them sicker,” he finished. This was a very real problem, and one that I didn’t have a good answer for.

“We are so far from civilization that I’m not sure how we are going to do that,” I told him. Sergeant Butler stepped up then to speak to me.

“We have air trucks to move our kills back to the processing plants, but we are so far out that they would never be able to reach here without refueling. We have never hunted this far east on this continent before,” he told me. This wasn’t any help, but it did point out just how far we were from help. I decided to call the Colonel to see if she had any suggestions. I used our radio to call the Colonel and explain our situation. She in turn had some interesting news.

“The transports landed a short time ago. The Chief Investigator brought some interesting things with him,” she told me before explaining further.

“One of the first things unloaded was a cross between an air truck and an air ambulance. Chief Henderson says that it can move twelve people and their police escort easily, and more if necessary. They also brought a lot of food with them. They are using the vehicle now to move bagged bodies, but should be finished before long,” she told me. I was looking up at the camouflage system in the trees while she talked.

“We’ll need to remove the camouflage system covering the site before they can land here. Call me back when they are finished to be sure that we have it down,” I told her before giving her our coordinates from the new satellite navigation system the Navy had deployed around Addison III. It was the same system she had used last night to contact Chief Investigator Henderson.

Fortunately, the Marines were familiar with the camouflage system the mercenaries had used, and they were able to take it down in pieces rather than dropping the entire thing at once. It was actually quite a sophisticated system and more expensive than your average guerrilla or rebel group could afford.

The police vehicle arrived a few hours later. They brought in food and took out the most seriously ill first. They would be flown out to a hospital before dark tonight with a police escort. There were two more flights by the police vehicle before it was too dark to continue. The Marines and the remaining rebels remained at the camp overnight. Luther and Samson remained with them, while Miranda and I were on the last flight out of the camp. We had all heard shots several times that afternoon, but that was all. I had presumed that it was the mercenaries firing at shadows when the Partners took one or more of them down.

Miranda set up a ward around our camp for the night after one of the transports left that evening. The police had taken over the various defensive positions and ran their own guard duty. The few original prisoners had gone out with the sick and injured. A couple of SWAT officers ran the sensor equipment that night.

In the morning, flights to bring out the remainder of the sick and injured resumed, but without police escorts, as we began bringing out the Marines a few at a time on the return flights.

Bob and Susie showed up at about 0900 hrs. They had alerted me of their approach, and I made sure that the police knew they were coming in. Both were hungry and gobbled down the thirty pounds of meat that I had prepared for each of them before they went to sleep in the shade of a tent.

“Did you catch all of them?” I asked when they had finished eating.

“Yes, no smart men. Try to hide from we,” Bob told me in an explanation that was long for him.

“We smell them long way. Attack from behind stupid men,” Susie added. Since neither Partner was wounded, I had to presume that the mercenaries weren’t very knowledgeable about them.

The last flight from the rebel camp brought in all of the remaining Marines before mid-afternoon. Both transports took off for Arnold that afternoon with the police, their equipment and the remainder of the rebel sick and wounded. Tiger Team, the Marines, and the National Guardsmen remained for another night at our camp. It was a very quiet night with normal guard hours.

One of the transports returned the following day to pick us up. All of the still working sensors had already been policed up, and all of our equipment was packed and ready to load when it arrived. We were back at the warehouse by that afternoon. Those remaining there were glad to see us.

“We are sure glad to see you. It was lonesome without all of you,” Sergeant Cornplanter told us as we unloaded from the trucks.

“We’re just glad to be back,” Hanson told her.

The cook had a huge meal prepared for that evening. It even included thirty pounds of meat and organs in a stew for each of my Partners. Samson had immediately flown up to the nest when we arrived to check on Sara and their brood, but it was too early for the eggs to have hatched. There wasn’t much partying that night as everyone was tired from the mission.

That night the Colonel (Trish) invited me to sleep with her. We hadn’t had much intimate time together because of all of the sweeps we had run over the last five weeks or so, and we only slept that night as we had been up as much as the Marines. I held her all night.