Chapter 3

With Porky coming up next, I didn’t want to be fooled again by assuming that it was a mammal with a central nervous system like I was used to. Dammit, it was a good thing that I was suspicious. Porky had two brains that controlled its nervous system. One brain was where I expected to find it—inside its skull. This brain was devoted to sight, hearing, smell, and taste as well as controlling the use of it mouth, and especially its teeth.

The other brain was hidden back where I would expect to find its bladder. This was used to control its feet, its sex life, and most of its other bodily functions. However, there were some cross-connections that let one brain control all of the animal if the other brain was out of commission. That was really an efficient and sophisticated system for a fighting machine like Porky was reputed to be.

This thing really scared me. I couldn’t afford to let this beast get anywhere close to me because it could kill me with one motion of its head that hooked me with a tusk. I thought long and hard about what weapon to use against Porky, and I decided on an AA-12-style combat shotgun with a drum magazine. However, I was going to use HEAT (High Explosive Anti-Tank) rounds. I was going to forget the idea of preserving the carcass for the end of the show. That was too much of a chance to take!

It was possible to get a 20-round drum magazine which could be reloaded without taking it from the gun. All I would have to do would be to push a live shell into the place of the ejected shell. This was sort of like reloading a revolver with the action still closed. I practiced for three days on a shooting range until I was confident that I could do everything required. I practiced both with a bandolier and a pouch of loose shells at my belt. I finally settled on the pouch of loose shells on my left hip where I could easily reach it with my left hand.

I also studied some photos and drawings of Porky with his skin and without it. I was not worried about finding the brain in the skull, but I did work on spotting where the rear brain was located. The problem was that brain was protected by a kind of pocket formed from its pelvic bones. I concluded that I should take out the front brain first and then work on the rear brain. I figured that if the Porky couldn’t see me, smell me, or hear me, I stood a much better chance.

I just hoped that I didn’t have to chase it because it could run at 20-25 MPH (Miles per Hour). If it came to that, I was going to ask the replicator for an ATV (All Terrain Vehicle). However, there was a problem here because Porky was partial to forests, and I wondered if I could shoot and still drive around trees. On the other hand, if I was successful in blinding it, Porky might spend a lot of time running into trees.

An adult Porky was a good eight feet wide. There should be plenty of paths where they had pushed the trees out of the way, and that was what I was looking for. I had decided to use an ATV for as much of my travel through the forest as I could because there was a good chance of me being attacked by one of the juvenile Porkies. That was another distraction that could get me killed, so the ATV seemed more and more like a good idea, the more I thought about it.

All of our cameras were mounted in drones so that they could keep up with me. That arrangement had worked so well on Holith that we decided to stick with it. The one concession we made on that was to double the number of cameras because of the trees. The drones were controlled by a computer that I classed as being at the level of an artificial intelligence (AI), so I was not worried about them.

It was while I was thinking about the drone camera systems that it occurred to me to have an equivalent computer drive the ATV for me. We rigged a device that could take vocal commands from me and relay them to the AI controlling the ATV. That was another advance that was only possible because of my employers technical sophistication. I practiced with that for two days, followed by a day of riding in the ATV and shooting at targets. By then, I was comfortable enough with the system to be willing to risk my life on it.

We were teleported in our spaceship to Asgood and I went to the planet to scout the territory. We knew approximately where to find the specific Porky that we wanted, so that was where we looked. That was when I had an inspiration to mark our target with a paint splotch so it would be easy to find in case there were more than one large Porky in the neighborhood. The drones found it for me and sprayed a mark on each hip with an aerosol can of white paint. We would include an explanation of that white paint in Lola’s introduction to this episode.

Just to be sure that everything was on the up-and-up, we waited two days before I went down to hunt for the specific Porky. Dammit, it was a pain to have to deal with all of those trees while I hunted my quarry. It took me just over four hours before I spotted the Porky with the white paint on its hips. I didn’t want to take any chances, so I switched my shotgun to full automatic mode and fired a burst of three rounds at the creature’s head.

Every round hit the animal in the head and exploded, but the bone of its skull was too tough to let the rounds penetrate. Well, at least I had the Porky’s attention. It was blind in one eye because of the explosions near it, but that was not much of a favor to me. I almost shouted the order, “Replicator, supply six rounds of shaped charge explosive.”

That was not a standard ammunition for the AA-12, but the replicator came through like a real trooper. I was able to switch four rounds before the Porky spotted me and charged. I fired the four rounds that I had loaded in the magazine and three hit the animal in the forehead pretty much between its eyes.

Before you get ready to cheer my excellent marksmanship, keep in mind that there was at least a foot of space between those eyes. Furthermore, the fourth round, the first one I fired, hit the animal in the throat and burned its way into the animal’s body. I think that it cut the creature’s windpipe, but I am not sure.

Anyway, at least one of the three to hit between Porky’s eyes must have burned its way to the animal’s brain. It staggered and acted like it did not know where to find me. At the moment, I didn’t care why the animal couldn’t find me, I was just happy that was the apparent situation.

Porky was frozen in place, but I was not sure how long that would last, so I had the ATV move so that I had a clear shot at the animal’s rear end. I fired four HEAT rounds essentially up the animal’s rectum, not because of any silly thought of kicking it in the ass, but of having the best chance of entering its body without running into bone. That seemed to work because there were four explosions inside the animal’s body and it fell to the ground.

Take it from me, those HEAT rounds were as powerful as a hand grenade, and yet they hardly distorted the animal’s skin. I was amazed at how tough a Porky was.

Dammit, I had no time to gloat over my victory because two juvenile Porkies attacked the ATV by running into it and hooking the sheet metal with their tusks. They ripped long gashes in the side, but were not able to do any more damage. I fired HEAT rounds into their faces and blinded them, and that was what saved me. They continued to slash at the ATV with their tusks, but they were not doing any serious harm. Of course, if they ever caught me, the situation would change very quickly.

I got more shaped charge shells from my replicator and shot each Porky with three of each between the eyes. That stopped the attacks on the sheet metal, but it was not enough to kill the beasts. This time, I had to shoot into their backs where they had bone sheathing to protect the rear brain. More shaped charges did the job, but it took six for each of the two Porkies. My God, these things were walking tanks!