Chapter 7

Xi Pegasi
Planetary Survey Site Six
March 25, 2057

“And I’m telling you that we’re going to be cat food!” Hollis snapped into his headset. “The damn cats have dragged off three of my people, and the rest of us are stranded in the rovers! We are nearly out of ammo, and the guns we have left only pisses them off, and we haven’t even seen the megatigers yet!” He ran out of breath and unkeyed, then he ripped his headset off and tossed it onto the tiny console. “Sonofabitch,” he rasped. “We’re dying down here, and they can’t even throw rocks to help us.”

Maria struggled to sit up. “We were supposed to go to Mars, remember? There was no reason to think we’d need heavy weapons for a long time.”

Hollis rubbed his head. “I know, I know. But telling us we have to go out there and put together an airplane is just stupid. The damn cats would tear us to shreds.”

“Boss, Jaime wants to talk to you,” Tony Blevins said quietly, his dark face calm. He pointed to Hollis’ headset with one massive finger.

“Thanks, Tony.” Hollis was thankful that the former Special Forces officer had been assigned to his team. He was the deadliest man Hollis had ever seen. Tony Blevins was the only reason their casualty count wasn’t much higher. When the pride of cats had appeared the day before, Tony had seen them first and he had reacted quickly.

Most of the team members were civilians, and they were spread out over five square kilometers of the plateau. Tony and three other former military people were the only members armed with rifles. The four of them somehow managed to save all but one of the civilians, at the cost of two of their own. Tony had personally saved three people and had killed over forty of the cats. He had killed the last of them with his survival machete after his ammo ran out.

Hollis clamped his headset on. “Jamie?”

“Hollis? I got the briefing. How is the rest of the team?” Jaime’s concern carried clearly in her voice.

“Scared as hell, but no serious injuries. Ammo is our biggest problem. The rifles are out. The pistols are worthless unless you’re really, really close.” Hollis himself could attest to that. He still had the fang mark on his armored vest.

“Can you move the rovers?”

“Not very far. The cats are tearing the hell out of everything, and our solar panels are wrecked. The rovers are stout enough to keep them out, but we need to conserve power for comms.”

“We can’t risk a shuttle landing, Hollis.”

“No. Don’t let them try that.” He thought for a moment. “Look, there’s islands right off the coast. If a team drops there and assembles a couple of planes, they can come get us, right?”

“Yes, but they’ll be attacked, too. Unless you have another idea.”

“How about a couple of gunships?”

Jamie laughed softly. “Sorry, we’re fresh out. But, you are right. We need a way to attack them from the air, and the island landing is a good idea, too. Let us work on it from here, and I will call you. Okay?”

“Thanks, Jaime. We will be here, I promise you.” He shut down the link and leaned back with a groan.

“Hollis?” Maria leaned forward and patted his leg.

“They have to think about it up there.” He looked at Tony. “What would you do?”

Tony shook his head. “I don’t really know, but I plan to think about it. We’re safe enough here - I hope - and we need to rest first.” He stood up in the cramped confines of the after compartment. “I’ll be right outside if you need me.” He pulled the manual override on the hatch and pulled it open by hand. Stepping through, he closed it again.

“I wish they hadn’t done this,” Maria shook her head. “I’ve got a broken leg, for god’s sake. You’d think I was pregnant or something.”

“What?” Hollis looked at her in confusion. He had been staring out the viewport.

“Everyone is crammed into the rest of the rover, while we have this all to ourselves.” She gestured around the compartment that was even smaller than their cabin on the Wells.

“The other rover has five more people, so they aren’t all that crowded.” Hollis pointed out. He sighed. “If they can’t find a way to help us, or if we don’t think of something, we will have even more room.” He sat next to Maria and hugged her tightly. She buried her face in his chest, and he nuzzled her hair. “We will get out of here. I promise.”

Xi Pegasi
Aboard the Wells
March 25, 2057

Jaime braced her feet against the bar and rose to her full height. She met each of her subordinate’s eyes in turn. “Look,” she said tiredly, “we’ve been talking about this for hours now. So far, we’ve gotten nowhere.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed.

“Maybe we’re coming at this from the wrong direction,” Roger Evans said quietly. He was the next survey team leader, and by default, the rescue team leader.

“How so?” Jaime kept her eyes closed against her headache as she listened.

“We’ve been talking about getting the team out of the area. The problem is that the tigers, or whatever they are, are in the area.”

“That’s right.” Jaime opened her eyes.

“Then let’s make the cats move. If they leave, the problem is solved.”

“Unless they come back.”

“Then let’s make sure they don’t,” Evans replied evenly.

“You’re kidding,” Jaime sat back and looked at Geri. “Pepper spray and dog chasers? These cats are like lions and tigers, not tabbies.”

Geri Rogers shrugged. “Their physiology’s about the same. I looked at the tissue sample data that someone on the ground had collected from a dead cat before the rest showed up. The DNA analysis confirms it; they’re about the same as the cats on Earth. In fact, the plants we’ve examined are nearly identical, too.”

“Which means that the repellents should work on them the same as they would at home,” Roger Evans put in. “The chemicals are natural plant products. They’re just concentrated.”

Jaime chewed her lip. “And this will work how, again?”

“The noisemakers transmit above our hearing range, but they’re smack in the middle of the cats’ range. At the decibel levels we’re proposing, they won’t be able to hear themselves think.” Geri paused, and Jaime nodded in understanding. “It will probably be quite painful to them, so they’ll run. The pepper spray should affect the cats the same as it would us. If they’re allergic, the stuff will kill them. The people will have to have hearing protection and gas masks, or they get the same effect as the cats.”

“This is far-fetched, isn’t it?” Jaime rubbed her temple as she thought.

Roger placed his hand on the table. “Yes, but we don’t have heavy weapons, so this is the best we can do until we land enough people with rifles to beat them back. We can drop the noisemakers from the turboprop, using a fairly simple canister. The spray can be put in a tank and sprayed with a nozzle. We have firefighting equipment that will work just fine. We mount a large unit on a mini-rover and make up a few backpack units. The troopers can shoot any cat that is still fighting, but this is a lot better than just landing and trying to fight them.”

“Why not just airdrop the rescue team?”

“We can’t risk scattering the team out, or injuries on landing. If the cats don’t scatter, we’d be in trouble with no way out.”

Jaime considered for a moment. “I’ll take it to Tamako. Get your crew ready, because we need to rescue Hollis and his people, one way or another.”

Xi Pegasi
43 Km SW of Planetary Survey Site Six
March 28, 2057

The surf washed around Roger’s feet as he walked down the pristine beach. A flock of sea birds fished in the shallows just off the beach, and the sea breeze ruffled his hair. The strange part, he thought, was that this world looked about the same as Earth. The sea smell was slightly different somehow, but it was not unpleasant. The narrow barrier island lay some forty kilometers from Hollis’ group, and was blessedly free of predators. Roger’s team had parachuted in without incident.

He stopped and turned around. The beach was about one hundred meters wide, and a line of grass-covered dunes rose up five meters tall behind the beach. Behind the dunes, the ground was solid and level. His team’s turboprop transport should have no problem flying from here. He’d though about using the beach as a runway, but the sand was treacherously soft.

Roger slogged through the soft sand and climbed to the top of the dunes. Looking to the west, he could just make out the mainland. He raised his binoculars and selected maximum magnification. The coastline zoomed in, and he soon spotted the narrow cut in the distant bluffs where a river flowed into the bay. Survey Team One was trapped on a plateau that bordered that river.

They’d been there for four days, and the cats still prowled the plateau. The team hadn’t been able to refuel the rovers, and their fuel cells had run dry last night. Once the batteries ran out, the team would be without lights, sanitary facilities and communications. Much of their supplies had been destroyed. Roger had two days to rescue the team before their food and water ran out. The attention tone sounded in his headset, and he keyed his mike. “Go ahead.”