Chapter 12: War with the Bears

Time: November 26, 8235 7:10 AM

My wife and I crested the ridge a few minutes before sunrise, and saw a scene of utter mayhem before us. We both paused for a moment trying to understand the carnage.

We were on the western ridge of a small ravine about 120 meters wide, running north- south roughly parallel with the lakeshore. At the bottom of the ravine were the remains of what used to be a campsite very similar to our own. It had been successfully attacked by a large pack of bears.

From my past experience, I knew bear packs were very consistent in their make-up. There would be one alpha-male, the largest bear in the pack, plus two to four females, plus an occasional second male who was very much subservient to the alpha-male.

A six-pack was the largest size I'd ever heard of. There's no advantage for them to hunt in larger numbers, and they eat so much it would put a strain on their territory. Finally, it was my personal hunch they had such ornery personalities that a pack would tear itself apart if it had more than six bears in it.

There was no question here who was the alpha-male. He was a monster, bigger than I thought a bear could ever get. He was rearing up and roaring on his hind legs, and he wasn't one centimeter less that five meters as he stood. His size and power were breathtaking, even from sixty meters away, and in my mind I tagged him as bear #1.

The alpha-male and what I guessed were three females (bears #2, #3, and #4), were in a tight square pattern, surrounding a woman lying on her back on the ground in the center of the square. She was dressed in a full burqa, looking up and screaming in terror at the alpha-male who was roaring at her. A burqa! I shook my head in disgust at the infinite stupidity.

About thirty-five meters south of the alpha-male were two other bears (#5 and #6), which I guessed were the beta-male and another female. They each had a firm bite across the thigh of a human corpse and had torn the bloody torso almost in two with their tug-of-war for a meal.

My eyes flashed back to the alpha-male. I was transfixed by his behavior. Instead of pouncing and dispatching his prey, he had raised his forearms high above his head, splaying out his massive bear claws seven meters above the ground. He continued his mind-numbing roar, and I realized in shock he was intentionally looming and displaying himself above the woman, enjoying her terrified screams.

I turned to Abigail to tell her to switch to exploding darts, but she had already decided on her own course of action. She had sighted the alpha-male, and started firing slow-auto shots of the non-exploding darts.

Insanity! The great male bellowed with rage at the pain of three super-sonic needles per second burrowing into his massive chest. The roar vibrated the ground beneath us, and two large snowy masses directly in front of us started moving.

Shaitan! Two more bears, #7 and #8, right on top of us! The flat light of the pre-dawn had blended them perfectly into the snow. As they turned to charge us, I switched my pistol to full-auto and sprayed a dozen shots of exploding darts into the head of the bear directly in front of me.

The bear in front of Abigail reared up to pounce on her. She switched her pistol to full auto and sprayed her target a scant three meters in front of her, shredding the bear's stomach and intestines with thirty non-exploding darts.

Her pistol clicked on empty and as designed had loaded an exploding dart into the chamber but did not fire it. I was sure her target was mortally wounded, but unfortunately Abigail had not targeted any critical neural / motor control functions. I whipped my arm up and firing a spray of exploding darts high above the breastbone and into the neck, literally blowing the bear's head off.

The decapitated mass looked like it was about to fall on top of Abigail. I aimed for the corpse's chest and began spraying it with darts, hoping the explosions would push it over backwards.

I succeeded just as I ran out of exploding ammo. I took a quick look to assess the situation while yelling out, "Abigail! Switch to exploding!"

Surprisingly the alpha-bear was hightailing it away from us, climbing towards the opposite ridgeline. Bear #4 was moving in for the kill of the woman below, and bears #2 and #3 were charging us. Off to our right bears #5 and #6 were also charging us, but were farther away.

Abigail obeyed me and made a strategic decision. She decided to ignore the two closest bears and save the woman's life. She raked a dozen exploding darts along the middle of the bear's torso, and the bear #4 dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes.