Chapter 6

The following new character appears in this chapter and others:

John Cox

Conspirator, a tall thin man of about 40 years old with black hair and blue eyes

As we continued along the road, the scenery quickly changed from suburban with its many mansions and walled compounds to rural with fields, barns, and forests of mainly local plants with some Terran plants mixed in. Every so often there was a side road leading to other locations, but we had no real knowledge of where they went. All of our briefings, and the study materials furnished to us had dealt with the areas where the rebellion was active. Perhaps Trish, being the local Representative, had a better knowledge of the area around the capital.

“Take the next side road on the right,” the Chief Investigator told Trish after a time, and we soon turned right and slowed down as the road was narrow and less than straight with sharp curves. It was the perfect kind of road to set ambushes and abatis on to hamper or prevent the enemy from advancing. Even the landscape here helped with local trees growing thickly along both sides of the road, and even the slight rise of the land alongside the road, which had been cut into to level the road, prevented a normal vehicle from leaving it easily. This John Cox obviously had some knowledge of military tactics. Seeing this, I sent a warning to the Partners.

“Be prepared to abandon the vehicle in the event of trouble, and to fight our way out of here on foot,” I sent to them. Miranda had picked it up as well as had Trish. We would need to drag McHenry and the Chief Investigator with us if we abandoned the truck.

“You’ll see the Cox compound on crossing the next hill,” the Chief Investigator told us after a short time. Trish slowed the truck almost to a stop, as we came over the next hill.

“They’re painting us with a tracking radar,” she yelled over the sound of an alarm, as she threw the vehicle into reverse and backed up until we were below the top of the hill.

“You need to call this Cox guy and identify yourself,” I told the Chief Investigator, as I grabbed a rifle, grenades, other explosives, wire cutters, and ammunition, while I alerting my Partners.

“We’re going outside,” I sent to them.

“Yes, outside,” both sent back eagerly.

“I’m going to try to sneak up on his compound with the Partners. When they clear the Chief Investigator to proceed, Miranda, you go with him. Leave McHenry under an invisibility spell. Trish, keep the engine running while they are inside, as you may need to make a hasty departure.

“Mr. Henderson, play it by ear. If things go bad, Miranda will get you out of there. Listen to her. Now, I’m out of here,” I finished, as Bob and Susie went out the back door of the truck, with me following right behind them.

Chief Investigator Henderson had been on his communication device already, so a short time later, the truck moved forward again and over the hill toward the compound.

Bob, Susie, and I had moved off into the local vegetation well to the left of the truck after exiting it. We stopped in a small hollow on the ridge that was a bit lower than where the road crossed it and observed the truck as it approached the fenced compound stopping to be inspected at the entry gate. After a short time, it proceeded into the compound with an escort to pull up in front of the large mansion which was the main building on the compound. There were a several barracks buildings as well as garages, barns, and other miscellaneous buildings in the compound, but what held my attention were the four structures that were centered on the four sides of the compound. They were obviously recent additions holding the targeting radar for the missiles and for the perimeter protection guns that were a part of the structure. My portable detector was picking up signals from three of them. It didn’t take long to determine that the one on the back side of the compound was inoperative at present.

“We are moving to the back of the compound to see how close we can get before being detected,” I sent to the Partners before we moved back below the crest of the hill to work our way along it until we were past the back of the compound before moving forward again.

As we moved along the edge of the forest behind the compound, I continually checked for a signal from the radar controlling the ground guns, as we were way too close and small a target for the use of a missile, but there were no active signals from the structure guarding that part of the perimeter, and I had to wonder if it was operational? I also needed to worry about ground sensors, but there had been no radio frequency disturbances on my helmets sensors.

“Can they really be this sloppy?” I wondered, as I crawled along behind Bob and Susie who were on their bellies in attack mode as we neared the back of the compound. The night vision and thermal sensors in my face shield hadn’t revealed any guards walking the back of the compound either.

“Were they not operational yet on the back side of the compound, or were they perhaps down for maintenance?” I wondered but had no answer. “You would think they would have guards back here if they weren’t operational,” I thought next, but still had no answer, and we were nearly to the control structure.

“Smell electric,” Bob sent to me. He was actually smelling the ozone created by the high voltage running through the fence that was generated when insects were fried when hitting or landing on the wires. It appeared that getting into the compound, even here where the defenses were down, was going to be more difficult than I had anticipated.

While I spent some time considering my options for getting past the fence and into the compound, Bob and Susie had been sampling the breeze which had shifted in the last few minutes.

“Big, smell bad prey animals in trees. Can chase into fence, break fence, maybe eat when dead,” Bob sent to me about the time I was out of ideas.

“How many?” I sent hoping for an estimate better than I usually got from Bob.

“Some,” he sent back.

“How many? One, two, five, two fives?” I sent back.

“Not sure,” Susie sent. “Some,” she repeated.

“Wait for now, while I see how the others are doing,” I sent to them before switching to Miranda.

“How is it going?” I sent to her.

“Not as well as expected. This guy is not as conceited as McHenry was and is a lot more careful. He has refused to send his men out of the room, only moving them to the other side of the room and away from us while we talk under a cone of silence. We need a distraction to get rid of his bodyguards, and so we can get out of here,” she sent to me nervously.

“I’ll have a distraction coming up shortly. Be prepared to move. I’ll try to give you some advance warning,” I sent to her before switching back to Bob and Susie.

“Are you sure that you can drive those prey animals into the fence?” I sent to them. I was going to ask how long it would take, but remembered that they didn’t think in terms of minutes and hours.

“Can you do this soon?” I sent instead.

“Yes,” Bob sent.

“Why?” Susie sent.

“Miranda and the Chief Investigator are having trouble with this guy. He is a lot more careful than the first man was,” I sent to them.

“Yes, go now,” Bob sent, and both Partners disappeared into the trees and brush behind the compound. It was six or seven minutes later when I heard them roar.

“Come on, Cleve, things are rapidly going to pot here,” Miranda had sent in the meantime. She only called me by my first name when she was very nervous.

“The Partners are working on it now, get ready,” I sent to her. A minute later, I not only heard the thunder of many heavy feet moving but felt the vibrations in the ground.

“Another minute or so,” I sent to Miranda, as I quickly moved away from the fence and back the way we had come. By now the sound of the moving animals was like thunder, and I wondered how many of them there were. I quickly found out as the lead animals of the stampede came into sight.

On my night vision screen, they looked something like the Rhinoceroses of old Terra, but bigger than the white rhino that I had once seen. They had three horns, a vertical one on the front of their heads and two horizontal ones that projected forward from the side of their heads and they were butt ugly. I knew that male white rhinos weighed around five thousand pounds, but these things being larger probably weighed more than that, and they were fast. I had been told that rhinos could run at thirty miles an hour. These things were certainly that fast if not faster.

There were a lot of them also, more than a hundred certainly, an entire herd to be exact, and Bob and Susie must have really scared them, as they plowed into nearly half of the length of the electrified fence at the same time, since they were that spread out. Those at the front of the stamping heard were ‘instantly crispy’ as they struck the high voltage fence, but there were so many of them that there was no way to stop them in their blind rush to escape what they feared. They tore into and ran over the fence shorting it out and taking down the generator supplying the electric to the fence and the compound. They ran over their own dead. In the sudden darkness, they continued on into the compound and ran on to crash into anything in their way; people, buildings, or vehicles.

Bob and Susie rejoined me at the ridge we had used to get behind the compound as the stampede continued, and we quickly moved back to the road to await the others. I sent our location to Trish so she would know where to stop.

The truck soon arrived and stopped to pick us up, but it was in worse shape than when it had entered the compound. There were dents and a missing fender as well as areas where the paint had been scraped away. The Chief Investigator opened the rear door, which had a dent in it, for us.

“What the hell did you do?” Miranda demanded aloud, as she was still controlling Cox with her Magic while locking him down in a prisoner restraint seat.

“Bob and Susie said there were SOME bad smelling prey animals in the forest behind the compound, and they would chase them into the electrified fence. It turned out that there was an entire herd of them, at least a hundred or more, and they looked like rhinoceroses only bigger and uglier. The Partners were a bit off in their estimate,” I finished.

“They are called ‘Rhino Rex’ by the locals, and they are built like bulldozers and are about as bright as one,” Trish told us. “They don’t usually come this close to civilization though,” she added.

“The forested area around and behind Cox’s compound is quite extensive, and it’s still a relatively pristine enough example of the planet’s original biodiversity, which would be why a herd of Rhino Rex would have found it so inviting,” the Chief Investigator told us.

“You cut that one pretty close, Cleve,” Miranda said, as she finished securing John Cox and canceled the Magic spell she had him under.

“You’ll never get away with this. My men will have me free before you can get to town,” Cox told us with a sneer, as he came out of the spell.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” I told him. “There were over a hundred of those rhino things, and even though the lead ones got fried taking down your fence, there were still a lot of them running wild in your compound, running into and over anything that gets in their way. The Partners really spooked them and drove them right into your compound,” I finished.

“This vehicle is armored, and that’s the only reason that we made it out of your compound. It still took some damage from those things,” Trish added from the cab, as we tore down the road toward Arnold and the warehouse.