Koban Universe 2: Have Genes, Will Travel by Stephen W Bennett

Author:Stephen W Bennett [Bennett, Stephen W]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Stephen W Bennett
Published: 2016-01-30T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5: Kit Cat Maddi Whack

Kit was enjoying her day. She’d chased eight Giant Longhorns, satisfied she could not only outrun them, she could out distance them. These were mostly two and three year old cows, one combative bull, and a recently microchipped calf that, after the roundup and auctioned to a buyer, had been released back onto the open range. She had caught up to each animal she chased, leaped on their backs, and brought them down with her weight and momentum, and without inflicting serious claw marks, held them so she could press her frill against them, to sense their terror and fear. That “taste” was fun, but somewhat diluted because these prey animals didn’t have the same superconducting nervous systems as comparable Koban animals, and the nerve impulses were less intense.

One meat animal she pursued was a native animal that she knew, from Ethan’s briefing of Chisholm, was what was called a bison here. It was almost the size of a Giant Longhorn, but had much shorter inward curved horns, and wore a shaggy dark brown to black coat. It wasn’t as fast as the cattle, but she decided that they would give her a good run over a long distance. These animals had once roamed this country by the tens of millions, but over hundreds of years, they had dropped greatly in numbers, mainly because they competed with cattle for forage. They were hunted for dog or cat food, and for limited human consumption, for those that liked the rangy wild tasting meat. Aware that the two animals she chased were relatively rare and endangered, she didn’t perform an actual takedown.

She had scented two types of large predatory animals, and thought several old tracks she came across could belong to Chisholm range wolves, which hunted in packs of six to twenty.

When she picked up a fresh scent, and saw tracks that entered a canyon leading towards some highlands, the imprints excited her. They appeared to be smaller versions of her own tracks, although the scent was so foreign that she had no idea what body type it might have.

She followed it at a trot for a mile before she suddenly realized, with a combination of admiration for the creature, and annoyance with her carelessness, that it was up on the canyon rim to her right, following and stalking her. She had spotted movement of a couple of low limbs of scrub trees, which wasn’t caused by the light breeze, and knew she was being watched by the predator she followed, or in a flash of insight, knew it had to be a companion to the one she followed, since it couldn’t have doubled back that quickly. Rippers also specialized in distracting prey and letting a pride mate, normally a large male, attack the target from the flanks.

She was undecided. Should I let them spring the ambush, or disrupt it by going after the flanker?

She was confident she could handle whatever threat they offered, because they couldn’t possibly know what she was.

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