CHAPTER 23
Chase caught the worried glance Kit gave him as she went into the kitchen heading for the front of the house. He came down off the ladder and followed her and the others as they went out onto the front porch. When he heard Kit say, “What is it Zip—?” and then, “Oh-oh,” he stopped short and ducked to the side of the doorway. Pressing himself against the wall, he peeked out at a group of a dozen or more Kra warriors dismounting a semicircle of fighting machines that faced the house. Several aimed tintza rifles at Kit, Ogilvey, Will and Gar, who stood frozen on the porch. Kit glanced back at Chase with a look of desperation but he put a finger to his lips. She gave the barest of nods and then turned to face the Kra, leaving him undetected inside the living room. He ducked low and scurried to the kitchen, stopping to see if the Kra had spotted him. They hadn’t. The first part of the plan coming into his head had succeeded.
Now for part two. Gar’s machine was parked outside in back. Chase stole through the kitchen and as he went out through the pantry he had to suppress a chuckle. This rescue business was becoming routine. He stepped onto the back porch anticipating the Kra’s surprise when he rounded the house with laser blasting. But it was his turn to be surprised. A tintza rifle came up under his chin. He held very still. On the other end of the tintza rifle was a Kra warrior, which cackled nastily as he raised his hands. It ushered him through the house to the porch with the others. Kit gave him a crimped smile. “Nice try,” she said.
Zippy continued barking and circling until one of the Kra raised a tintza rifle and fired a shot that sent him scurrying off, yelping but unharmed. “Hey!” Kit cried, then thought better of making any more noise.
The gravel parking area in front of the house was half-ringed by the fighting machines and their dismounted drivers. Within this semicircle of leering and cackling warriors was a familiar figure wearing a headdress of blood-red feathers.
“Oogon,” Ogilvey muttered. There was no mistaking the High Priest’s ornate feather-fringed armor, his haughty demeanor and the evil glare in his red eyes. He came to the foot of the steps and uttered some enraged cackles and caws at a pace that only Dr. O could translate. The professor leaned near Kit and Chase and whispered, “He’s just condemned us to death.”
“Again?” Kit asked wearily, but a bit too loudly. The Kra behind them jabbed her in the ribs with his rifle. Seeing the act of cruelty, Chase doubled a fist, but thought better of using it.
Suddenly Gar interrupted Oogon’s speech by raising an arm and calling out loudly, “Teenah!” which Chase understood to mean, “Wait!”
Gar strode boldly down the steps and went to the center of the encircling arc of warriors, where he began an oration in a loud voice, gesturing at Oogon and then at Ogilvey as he spoke.
Ogilvey translated, under his breath, for Kit and Chase. “Gar has invoked his authority as High Priest of Life to make a case for us, and for humanity. He says enough have died on both sides. He says that, thanks to him and to, um, well, me, the Kra and humans have opened a dialog that can lead to peace. He says this world has room for us all, Kra and hoonah—I mean, human—alike.”
Among the onlooking Kra, a few nodded in agreement. Others remained hostile.
“Ka-a-ahh!” Oogon charged into the center of the group, confronting Gar with a long string of venomous words. Ogilvey translated these too. “Oogon rejects the peace offer and vows to recover his forces and press on with the attack. Gar counter-argues that, without Saurgon to vote in the matter, Oogon lacks the authority to overrule Gar’s opposing vote.”
More Kra nodded their assent.
Suddenly Oogon raised his hands as if appealing to a deity on high and shouted, “Kra a-koota!”
The mob of Kra fell silent. Oogon shouted the phrase again. “Kra a-koota!”
“Oh, my,” said Ogilvey. “I’ve heard of this, but never thought—”
“Kra a-koota!” Oogon shouted again and this time many of the surrounding warriors echoed his words. “Kra a-koota!”
“What is it?” Kit asked.
“It is the only way the Kra can settle such a deep dispute between two equal leaders: a duel to the death.”
Gar spoke a few resolute words and Ogilvey translated again. “Gar has accepted Oogon’s challenge. He says if he wins, we go free and the Kra make peace.”
Oogon bellowed his agreement and a roar went up from the warriors. As they cheered in savage anticipation, Oogon turned to a Kra near him and snapped, “Neggok! Kelloo aseetan.”
Neggok, a high-level Kra officer by the look of his ornate armor and yellow feather trim, hurried to a quahka and returned with an armload of sickle-shaped knives. Gar and Oogon were each given two of these weapons, which they lashed to the insides of their ankles.
“It’s— It’s to be like a cock-fight,” Ogilvey explained tremulously. “With blades attached to their feet.”
“Like utahraptor claws,” Kit observed in horrified fascination.
Once the blades were secured to each foot, the two combatants cast off their breast armor and helmets. As they began circling each other, the Kra formed a ring around them, shouting encouragement or repudiation as each saw fit.
Oogon attacked first. Rearing up, he directed a vicious kick at Gar’s stomach. His foot lashed out with enough power to disembowel but the sickle failed to find its mark. Gar leaped aside and before his opponent could recover his balance, countered with a side-slash of his foot that narrowly missed Oogon’s thigh. They separated, each still untouched, and resumed their wary circling. Saliva dripped from Oogon’s jaws and from Gar’s as well. Each combatant feinted forward and back, looking for a momentary advantage to close for a killing kick. Oogon leaped high, flailing with both feet, but Gar leaped up as well and parried with his feet, counter-slashing with his own sickle claws. Again, no thrusts found their mark. But at each flurry of kicks a roar went up from the Kra mob.
Now, Oogon tried a new strategy. He caught hold of Gar’s arm and drew him into position for a gut-splitting kick. Gar twisted away and Oogon’s foot missed its mark, narrowly. For an instant the two combatants stood off balance, side by side with their arms entangled, each trying to force his opponent into position for a fatal slash. Being equal in strength, they pivoted first left and then right in a circling death-dance that would end fatally for one of them.
Oogon lunged and sank his teeth into Gar’s neck, giving a mighty shake of his head to set his teeth deeply into Gar’s flesh. Blood gushed from a dozen wounds made by the dagger-like fangs. Kit turned and buried her face on Chase’s shoulder but Chase kept his eyes on the fight. It seemed Oogon had won. Then Gar gave a mighty heave and momentarily pulled the High Priest of Death off balance. Pivoting his body to face Oogon’s, Gar lashed out with a sickle-bladed foot—and struck true. The blow caught Oogon square in mid-gut and made a ripping sound as Gar’s foot tore downward, laying Oogon’s belly open wide.
Oogon pulled free of Gar’s grip and staggered back. His face registered the reptilian equivalent of shock and disbelief. Gar clutched his bleeding neck and observed Oogon keenly. The Kra mob fell silent. A drizzle of blood spattered the gravel at Oogon’s feet. The High Priest of Death wavered. Watching the red puddle spreading under him, he gasped for breath once, twice—and then collapsed.
But the urge to fight was strong in Oogon, and like a stricken prizefighter, he rolled to one elbow and tried to rise although he was weakening rapidly from loss of blood. His head drooped and a mantle of dullness clouded his eyes.
Gar looked around sternly at the silenced Kra. Slowly, boldly, he began to speak. “Toonag tettani hasto—”
Ogilvey whispered a translation. “By right of Kra a-koota, I am your undisputed leader. Lay down your arms.”
The Kra began to comply but Neggok hissed defiantly. He leaped between Gar and Oogon, leveling a laser rifle at Gar and squawking a pugnacious streak of Kra words.
Ogilvey whispered, “This Neggok claims to be Oogon’s second in command. Now he claims the title of High Priest o
f Death.”
As Oogon collapsed in a final death throe, Neggok cawed shrilly at Gar. Ogilvey, gaping in amazement at the turn of events, continued to translate. “As the new High Priest of Death, he vows to carry on as Oogon did. He says all hoonahs must die, and those who help them as well.” As shouts of acclamation from many Kra confirmed his ascension, Neggok called to several, who obediently leaped on Gar and forced him to the ground. They stripped him of his sickle weapons while their new leader uttered more Kra-naga words that Ogilvey translated. “Before you die, Gar, know this. We will retreat to the high valleys and make war on the humans again, and this time we will be victorious.” A roar went up among the Kra, but Neggok silenced them with a gesture. He cackled a command, and one of the two Kra grabbed the feathers of Gar’s mane, bending his head backward. The other raised a sickle blade to Gar’s throat.
With all eyes focused on the crisis, Chase saw an opportunity. Unobserved, he suddenly sprinted to the end of the porch. Before his guard could react, he leaped aboard the nearest quahka and immediately powered it up. He snapped the canopy down just as his guard fired a tintza rifle shot. The laser glanced off the canopy and Chase returned fire, putting a huge hole through the warrior before he could fire a second shot.
As most of the Kra scattered for their quahkas, Chase leveled his laser arm at the two who held Gar. A quick shot put a hole through the one about to slash Gar’s throat. The other dashed away, winged but not dropped by a second shot.
Next, he turned his weapon toward Neggok as the renegade rushed toward his fighting machine, sending a blast after him that narrowly missed. By this time, other Kra were getting their machines moving and Chase was threatened by potentially overwhelming firepower. Some of the quahkas backed away carefully, maintaining neutrality, but several fired laser blasts at Chase. Beams ricocheted off his canopy or missed by small margins. He returned fire, but one shot took out a knee of his walker. As it tumbled over sideways he hit the canopy release and rolled away on the ground just as another shot demolished the machine in a ball of flame. He tried to rise but as he reached his hands and knees, the laser arm of a quahka pointed in his face, just inches away. He straightened upright on his knees and held up his hands. The firing around him stopped and his captor’s canopy raised. A Kra in green feathers cackled a triumphant laugh, covering him with the laser arm.
The Kra appeared divided. While some quahkas continued their cautious withdrawal, others crowded their machines closely around that of Chase’s captor. As canopies raised, Chase recognized the leering face of Neggok, who muttered a few Kra-naga words that meant, if Chase understood them correctly, “Now, you will die.”
Chase looked around desperately but saw no means to escape what was about to happen. Then a ripping noise cut the air. Just as he recognized it as the sound of an incoming artillery shell, the projectile hit the fighting machine that was covering him. The quahka exploded into smoke and flames and the green-clad warrior vanished. Detached arms and legs—mechanical and Kra—hurtled in every direction. The force of the explosion knocked Chase flat on the ground but left him uninjured. The rest of the Kra scattered in their quahkas as pieces of the demolished machine clattered around them.
Astonished, Chase turned and looked up the hill to see where the shot had originated. High on a switchback overlooking the house—was an Abrams tank.
Suarez kept his head tightly locked into his command gun-sight. “Target destroyed,” he shouted to Quinn. “Pick another.” As the enemy in front of the ranch house scattered, Quinn shifted the pointing angle of the turret slightly and took aim on a second machine. The gun thumped and the muzzle flashed and another round was on its way as Walt hefted a third shell to reload.
As the second shell completed its arc and demolished another fighting machine Suarez thought to himself the best defense is a good offense. He had sighted the enemy only a moment before as the tank reached the final switchback and came in view of the house. When he spotted the Kra he knew they would see him too. Without hesitation, he had ordered his men to open fire. Excitement and hope rose in his chest. Maybe this was the ‘something good’ he had told Crom to expect from Fox Troop’s sacrifice.
Another round left the cannon barrel and a moment later another machine exploded, along with the Kra who had just climbed aboard.
“Keep ’em coming,” Suarez shouted as the rest of the Kra dispersed in disarray. A fourth round missed its target when the fighter-walker put a zigzag jink in its retreat. Suarez counted nine machines moving off fast. Meanwhile, the occupants of the house ducked inside with their Kra friend.
At the moment Suarez had bigger things to worry about than those folks’ safety. He had enemy on the move, some of whom were firing their weapons in his direction. As another round from the cannon exploded near two machines that turned to fire laser shots, setting them reeling on their mechanical legs, Suarez popped his hatch and seized the grips of his machine gun. He sent a spray of bullets pocking the ground around the enemy and sparking across their canopies.
“Yeee-haw,” he shouted as the last enemy holdouts fired a few more wild shots and then turned to flee. “They’re on the run. Keep firing.”
Quinn sent more rounds after the elusive machines, which eventually disappeared up the canyon in front of Sandstone Mountain. Suarez looked to the sides and to the rear for any other threats, but there were none. Juniper trees partially obscured their position from the enemy and Suarez guessed the Kra might be confused as to how many tanks—or how few—were attacking.
“They must think we’re a doggone brigade,” he laughed. “They’re gone. Solid gone.” His crewmates let out a cheer. “We did it, boys,” Suarez exulted. “We finally chalked up a win!”
A minute later the tank rolled to a stop in front of the house. Chase, Kit, Will and Dr. Ogilvey stepped onto the porch. Gar stood cautiously behind them. Suarez grinned and snapped them a salute. “Fox One at your service, folks.”