Exodus: Empires at War: Book 5: Ranger by Dandridge Doug

Author:Dandridge, Doug [Dandridge, Doug]
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2013-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy. Friedrich Nietzsche.

AZURE. APRIL 25TH-26th, 1001.

Cornelius put another foot down on the jungle floor, careful to step where there was nothing that made any sound. Also careful to make sure there was nothing that might attack his foot or leg after he stepped. He had been in this jungle for a week, and it was becoming familiar. Or as familiar as hell could be.

His eyes darted this way and that, trying to pick up any threat that might be trying to sneak up on him. It was dark under the canopy, but to his enhanced eyes it was as bright as day on most worlds. Sniffing the air he caught the now familiar scent of an acidic poison. He searched some more, until he spotted the form of a plantimal to his right front. Wonder why the local animals don’t use that scent to avoid them, he thought of the hybrid creatures, knowing that there must be a reason. His not evolving in this environment meant that reason did not pertain to humans.

Cornelius stopped for a moment, raising his left hand in the air and signaling the men behind him the reason for the halt. This place still scares the hell out of me, he thought, as he tracked out a path that would take them away from the dangerous creature while not taking them too far out of their way. He could just blast the damned thing out of existence with a spray of mini-shotgun pellets. But they were trying to move through this jungle without calling attention to themselves, and that might cause problems.

About ten meters to the right of the plantimal was a likely looking path, but he had to wonder if that was distant enough to not set the thing off. They had already lost five men in the company from attacks by the mobiles of the kingdoms on the planet. And there had been literally hundreds of attacks that the Rangers had been able to fight off without loss, though some had been close.

The Corporal signalled the team to move forward. He was at point, despite being the team leader, because he was the best at it. His assistant team leader was watching himself and the other three men of the team, while the five men of Sergeant Chantamurta’s team were a hundred meters back, along with the squad leader, Staff Sergeant McAllister. This was a single squad operation, just the eleven of them. The rest of the platoon was even further back, preparing a surprise.

Walborski breathed a sigh of relief as he passed the plantimal without any reaction from the creature. At closer look he could see that it was definitely an ambush predator. Hopefully it would still be set in ambush mode when they passed this way again, and would not have moved into their path. Normally they wouldn’t use the same path to retreat that they used to advance. In this jungle that practice was out the airlock.

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