She started to turn away, then turned once again to face me.
"Commander, there is one weapon I neglected to list with my arsenal."
She met my eyes coldly and levelly.
"I also have a fully charged hand-burner, identical to the one you loaned Zur to burn a tunnel with."
So here we were. Ssah with her fully charged hand-burner, backed by Mahz, was guarding the cave and the flyers, while I clung to a tree trunk covering the balance of the team with my meager quarter charge.
Suddenly there was a flicker of movement a hundred meters into the meadow. A Leaper! It moved out of the brush into the open, hesitated for a few moments, then made a twelve-foot leap in our direction and hesitated again.
I studied it narrowly. It was relatively small, scarcely six feet long. This probably meant it was still young. Good. If our guesses were correct, its exoskeleton would be softer than that of a full adult.
I watched it as it leaped in our direction again and paused once more. Either it was hunting or it was being exceptionally wary.
Even though we had been observing them for over a month, I still had a horrified fascination with the nightmarish lethalness of its appearance. Its hind legs were twice the size of the other four, giving it incredible power on its leaps. The middle legs were primarily for walking and balance, but the forelegs...the forelegs were awesome. They had developed into slender pincers, saw-toothed on the inside and lightning fast. We weren't sure if they were poisoned or not; that was part of our mission today. More likely they were designed to grasp and hold a victim for the terrible mandibles. The Leaper's jaws were also enlarged pincers, razor-edged and saw-toothed and three times the size of the pincer forelegs. I had once seen a Leaper tear a four-footed warm-blooded creature in half with its jaws, which was one reason we didn't know if the forelegs were poisonous. Once a victim was dragged within reach of those jaws it didn't survive long enough for us to tell if it died of poison or not. Hopefully we would have the answer to that and other questions soon. Zur wanted a specimen to dissect, and we were here to get one for him.
The Leaper moved toward us again. It was definitely coming to the river and would pass through our ambush. I ignored it and began scanning the meadow behind it. There was no sign of other Leapers about.
I beamed a warning to the waiting ambushers.
"Get ready."
Although there was no betraying movement, I knew the teammates were readying themselves. Prolonged stillness tends to lock and cramp the joints. They would be alternately tensing and relaxing their muscles, restoring circulation so that they could spring to the attack without loss of time or motion.
There was still no sign of other Leapers on the meadow. This would tend to confirm our observations and disprove the current Empire theory. According to Zur's briefing, the Empire was aware of the occasional solitary Leaper, but chose to interpret it as an outlying scout for one of the major packs. It was our conclusion from prolonged firsthand observation that in actuality, most of the loners were just that-loners, unattached to any pack.
The Leaper was almost on our position now, and it switched to its short-distance crawling walk, a curious waddling procedure.
"Get ready," I beamed for a second time and scanned the meadow again. Still nothing. The Leaper passed under my tree trunk and approached the river bank.
"Now!"
Ahk seemed to rise up out of the ground to the Leaper's right. He drew back his arm and the spring-javelin snapped open, the two halves telescoping out from the center hand-grip and locking in place.
The Leaper saw him instantly and froze. It seemed both startled at his sudden appearance and torn by indecision as to whether to attack or flee. Then it saw Zur and Kor leaping from cover on its left, and its decision was made. It gathered its mighty hind legs for a desperate leap, but it was too late.
Ahk's arm flashed forward, and the spring-javelin darted out. It pierced the Leaper's thorax and passed through into the ground, effectively pinning it in place.
A high-pitched squeal rent the air, like a prolonged shriek. I quickly scanned the meadow again. Still no other Leapers in sight.
I started to call down to silence the beast, but saw my advice was unnecessary.
Zur stepped up to the pinned Leaper, hesitated for a moment to gauge its wild thrashing, then raised his wedge-sword. He darted forward with an agility surprising in one of his bulk, swayed past the snapping mandibles, and struck with all the power in his massive arm. In the same movement he ducked under-one of the groping pincered forelegs and rolled clear, coming to his feet with his sword raised again in the ready position.
His guard was reflexive, but unnecessary. The sword stroke had split the creature's head open, killing it even though its limbs continued to thrash and grope with stubborn life. Without guidance, though, its death throes were blind and easily avoided. Most important, the creature's alarm signal had been silenced by the blow.
I scanned the meadow once more. There was no sign of Leapers moving to support their fallen member. We had guessed correctly! Our victim was a loner. We had gambled and won. As a prize, we had a specimen for dissection.
Then we saw the Wasps.
CHAPTER SIX
When we made our initial strafing run on the Wasps, our targets were the queens and the nests. The battle plan had not included eliminating the workers. As it was our-first attack of the Bug Wars, High Command had deemed such an action a pointless risk of Warriors and equipment. Without eggs hatching or new eggs being laid, there would be no replenishment of the worker population as the existing workers reached the end of their life span. Thus, by the time the fleets returned to attack the Leapers, there would be no opposition from the Wasps.
This philosophy was fine for the fleets, but we were still on the planet, and so were the worker Wasps. Even though the initial attack had made a sizable dent in their numbers and still more had perished in the month we had been there, there was still an overwhelming number left.
They were constantly patrolling the airways, singly or in small groups, though we weren't sure why. They were there and that was all that really mattered. We had experienced no difficulty in avoiding them...until now.
There were three of them, apparently alerted by the death shrieks of the ambushed Leaper. The first warning we had of their presence was when they dropped from the treetops some seventy-five meters distant in the tree line. They approached us in a slow, heavy drone not more than a dozen feet off the ground. Caught in the open, Ahk, Zur, and Kor had no hope of escaping detection. With cold calculation they shifted weapons in preparation for battle. I was uncertain if I had been detected in my lofty perch. I remained motionless, and the other team members did nothing to betray my presence.
The Wasps seemed to be in no hurry to press the attack. As they neared our position, instead of swooping to the attack, they rose lazily to the treetops once more. They touched down in the higher branches and rested there, staring down at us and fidgeting nervously among each other.
I might have been able to burn the three of them where they were, but I was loath to further deplete the energy source if the situation could be handled with the hand weapons. Then, too, the day would come when the hand-burners would be fully discharged and we would have to rely upon the hand weapons entirely. It would be best to begin practicing for that day now, when the cover fire of the hand-blasters was still available.
"Confirm count of three Enemy, Commander," came Zur's telepathed message.
"Confirmed. No indication of additional Wasps or Leapers in the immediate area."
The two forces considered each other warily. This would be the first actual confrontation between the Coalition of Insects and the Tzen Empire. Surprise attacks such as the original strafing mission or our ambushing the solitary Leaper were deliberately planned to favor the attacker and play into the defenders' weakness. Now, for the first time, individuals of a roughly even number were squaring off for head-on combat, each side with an equal degree of preparedness or nonpreparedness, as the case maybe.