Chapter Eight.

“You are only better than your enemy if you kill him.”

-Shiva discussing war with his son Skanda.

The old Yeti looked like something out of a nightmare, with scarred face, and enough weapons and tools strapped to his body to give even a special operations killer pause, he sat in the crew hatch next to Gunnery Sergeant Chavram kicking his bare feet back and forth like little boys sometimes do when sitting on a fence. It was a rather incongruous image.

“The old fellow looks like he is having fun. I bet this is a big time adventure for an old man.” Gunny Chavram thought to herself.

Leaning over from her vehicle commander's hatch, she said in a loud voice, “Master Sergeant Karak, if you don't mind me asking, how old are you?”

He smiled and without taking his eyes off the field glasses he was using to scan the tops of the tall grass in front of their vehicle replied, “I am eighty years old! I am in the prime of my life! My dear dead father was one hundred and twenty six when he died in a hunting accident.”

“No! A hundred and twenty six you say...” Gunny Chavram replied with a half teasing and mocking tone.

“Well he was! My grandfather was almost two hundred years old when he finally decided to mouth off to an Ourtai overseer. He grew tired of my father and my mother having to take care of him. Or so that's what I have been told.”

“You're not kidding are you?”

“No Gunny Chavram I am not. My father fought in the Infantry squares which broke the back of the Ourtai raiders when Kazars, both Yeti and half breeds fought to break the slave collars off our necks.”

Gunnery Sergeant Chavram must have looked shocked. The old man looked over to where the NCO was staring at him and began to laugh.

“Yes ma'am we Yeti live almost double your lifespan. But we don't have kids very often, I guess the creators in their infinite wisdom decided we didn't need to fill the world with children who could live to be one hundred and eighty years old.” Tapping his head with his blunt right index finger he continued, “But they gave us the collective memory of those who have gone before. I can remember back to over a thousand years, when we were a free people. When we lived in upland meadows and our beloved caves, hunting the giant mountain bears and the hairy elephants.”

“No kidding?”

“No kidding. There isn’t anything quite as nice as a comfy cave.” He winked his left eye at her.

“What a strange legacy to carry between their ears.” Gunny Chavram mused.

*****

Several wild herds of pigs and one mated pair of miniature deer, went whistling an alarm call through the formation in their terror and surprise. Tamari’s Kartikeya Industries MK-II eight wheeled AFV with its individual electric drives moved silently through the grass and the only sound they made was the greenery rubbing against their hulls as they pushed their way through the tall grass following the trails the new Yeti Scouts had blazed with brightly colored bits of ribbon and twine tied to the tall grass stalks.

“These boys seem to be natural at doing this work.” Tamari thought as her vehicle brought up the rear security. “I am heartily thankful we can at least talk to each other, even if we can't talk to higher command.” The jamming only seemed to affect higher communication functions and not the platoon net.

The best plan she and her officers and NCOs had come up with had been to use a modified diamond wedge shape for their movement across the country. Gunny Sergeant Chavram was at the point of the diamond in her “Durga's Girls.” While Lieutenant Sagwle of third platoon had her left flank in her AFV “Bomb Dancer.” On the right flank of the third platoon, Platoon Sergeant Paravati rode in her AFV “Hex Eight.” In an open box formation the Ammo, Fuel, Military Intelligence Communications and Maintenance, trucks lumbered along with their heavy duty diesel motors churning through the green vegetation of the grassy steppe.

Inside this open box were the two grain trucks full of Yeti from the village. To either side of them, two Mine Clearance Vehicles MCV-15's from third platoon rumbled along with their vehicle commander's sticking their heads out of their hatches holding onto the spade grips of their 12.5mm belt fed machine guns. And finally pulling up rear security Tamari Kapoor with MI deep reconnaissance/security gun trucks. The driver and co-driver both had 12.5mm belt fed machine guns on pintle mounts with a turret in the middle of the truck sporting a pair of 14mm belt fed heavy machine guns and they had their heavy infantry in their augmented armor on board.

“A nice tidy box within a box. Feels like we are on an outing to the countryside for a picnic.” Tamari thought as she scanned the formation ahead of her. She turned to the west to scan the far horizon, and distant black pillars rising from the plain reminded her, Hegemony forces were fighting, and people both good and bad were dying.

Her fears and concerns were constantly running through Tamari's brain like a cascade of falling data bits. It was just now registering, “This was it! She was at war, and everyone was depending on her…”

“Stop! Halt Gunny Sergeant Chavram!” Master Sergeant Karak shouted.

“What?”

“I said stop moving. I need to scan ahead of us. Stop your vehicle.” The old Yeti said, as he began climbing out of the hatch.

Gunny Chavram gave the order to halt and called back to Captain Tamari Kapoor, “Mungus Six, Mungus Six, this is Mungus Five over.”

Tamari replied, “Go Mungus Five. What's your traffic?”

“Six, the scouts are calling for a halt. They see something or are not sure about something. I have the Karak element calling for a halt.”

“Affirmative Five. Get back to me when they have something to report. Break, Break, All Mungus elements halt in place.”

*****

1st Kapoor Yeti Scout Kron felt the energy for lack of a better description of his environment change, animals even the wild ones realized a man on a sputtering motorcycle was little threat to the wary. But something had changed. It was like swimming in a pool and diving down through a different thermal barrier and the water going from warm to suddenly and shockingly cool.

Whispering into the radio the Army women had given him and his fellow scouts, “Kron to Karak. Kron to Karak. Come in Karak.”

“Go ahead Kron.”

“Grandfather, something is not right. I have stopped at the edge of a clearing about fifty meters ahead of your location. I am going forward on foot. Pick up my motorcycle and I think it best if you bring the group forward to the meadow. I think we have Ourtai at our front. I am going forward to see how many.”

“Affirmative Kron. Go slow and easy. Report back as soon as you can, grandson.”

“Mungus Six this is Mungus Five over.”

“Go Five.”

“Six, we are going to advance forward another fifty meters or so to a large clearing. Scouts are picking up something funny.”

“Affirmative Five. Break, Break, All Mungus elements we are moving forward to a clearing on our immediate front.”

Kron had chambered a round in his antique 12.5mm battle rifle, just before he stepped into the grass. He had spotted a game trail and decided to walk parallel to keep from damaging any sign or spoor he might find along the way. The grass held its breath. This is not good. Even on the hottest days, insects could be heard chasing or being chased by other insects. Nothing. Kron could feel the sweat forming on his upper lip and around his eyes. Something is watching and waiting. The tension reminded him of when the villagers had to hunt the spotted cats who had decided domesticated goats tasted better than wild Auroch. Kron almost passed the mark on the trail because it lay in shadow. The trail was damp and a loamy brown color with moisture from nearby seeps. Three deep gouges, each one as long as the distance from his outstretched thumb to his little finger, sat in the middle of the trail with water collecting in the divots.

The sensation of cold water running down his spine, made Kron want to void himself on the spot, as inherited memories of the creature who made such a mark flooded through his conscious mind. HalalEszik! Terror Birds! Kron was doing everything in his power to stop panting. He had to contact his grandfather and let him know they were being hunted!

The booming noise of a 12.5mm rifle being fired was all the warning the engineers had. As the radio held in Karak's fist exploded with rapidly spoken Yeti repeating one thing over and over, “HalalEszik! HalalEszik! HalalEszik!”

With fear turning his keloid scars purple as it also bleached his face white, Master Sergeant Karak screamed at Gunnery Sergeant Chavram, “Fire! Fire Everything you have in front of you! Fire!” And he promptly rolled off “Durga's Girls” where upon landing he began methodically firing his own rifle at the grass in front of him.

Gunny Chavram yelled over the platoon radio net, “My Location! Action Front! Action Front! Fire! Fire at will!”

The platoon communication channel exploded in exclamations and shouts of distress. Captain Tamari Kapoor looked down at her drone feed to see what was happening at the front of the formation. Large winged saurian nightmares exploded from the grass line into the vehicles of the second platoon. Unit cohesion disappeared in a swirling melee of giant lizard bird hybrid things attacking her AFVs while making a concerted effort to get to the center of her formation. Shock held her motionless for a moment as she tried to process what was happening to her soldiers.

Hearing their cries of dismay over her comm's channel as images of the two meter tall evolutionary monsters of Yeti nightmare made flesh and blood in front of her, which wasn't a bird, and yet wasn't a dinosaur either, yet had elements of both filled her drone feed touchscreen. She saw Platoon Sergeant Paravati's upper torso disappear into a cleaver like mouth. Seeing one of her troops eaten snapped Tamari out of her fugue.

“Mungus Two, Mungus Three, dismount your engineers, and stay in the rear of the formation. Break, Break, Shikari One and Two dismount your security boys. Have them collect the engineers from Mungus Two and Three push up through the formation. Then follow me. I am going to push around to the east and swing round their flank and take 'em from the side.”

Tamari didn't wait to hear her orders acknowledged. Touching the 'push' button on her helmet she activated her crew communication system.``Bahai kick this donkey in the ass and get us moving! Head due east for a hundred and fifty meters. We want to swing wide to the right so we can come in on their flanks.”

“Affirmative ma'am!”

Tamari could feel her AFV lurch forward picking up speed.

“Sita load anti-personnel rounds. I want to blow those bloody lizard chickens all to hell.”

“Ma'am yes ma'am!”

Whirring! Clunk! Captain Tamari Kapoor felt the auto loader for the 60mm main gun, cycle through its ammunition storage carousel beneath the turret, as it selected a four round ammunition cassette, as Sita Chambial her gunner changed out their gun load. The whine and hollow chunking noise as the ammunition blast doors opened and closed could be felt through the soles of her boots. Can of Peaches began to buck and bounce as Bahai her driver gunned the feeds to the drive motors. The tall 'Hathi' or Elephant grass which it resembled from back home in the Hegemony made a confusing kaleidoscope of green images in Tamari's eyes, as she desperately tried to force her AFV up to where her command was fighting for its very existence.

Tamari's breath caught in her throat as the drone circling above the battlefield sent her images of a Terror Bird and a humans riding on their backs. One rider hugging the back of his strange mount dodged through several vehicles and made straight for the lead grain truck full of Yeti villagers. Clutched in his right hand was a long bamboo pole with a bulging metal canister fixed to the end; which in the moment made Tamari think of an old fashioned cavalry lance. The Ourtai rider dipped the lance forward and with an underhand throwing motion, pitched it into the radiator grill of the truck. A tremendous explosion wrapped the entire forward half of the truck in flames and smoke.

“Holy shit! They have taped HEAT rounds to the end of their lances!” Tamari shouted into the vehicle's communication channel. “Sita you service any of those damn over sized Chicken riders you see with the main gun! Kill everyone you can hit.”

“Ma'am yes ma'am!”

“Bahai Halt!” Tamari quickly looked behind her to see the two Military Intelligence assigned Shikari gun trucks pulling hard behind her in the wake of her AFV. She stood up and turned around so the drivers could see her. She motioned left and right using hand signals. The drivers split the trail coming on line with her on either side.

Tapping her helmet where they could see her. She switched over to their private communication channel, “Gentlemen prepare yourselves. We are going to do a counter cavalry charge. We are going to take em in the flanks and I want you to kill anything you can see and I especially want you to use your guns to shoot any of those fucking chickens off our vehicles. I'll lead. You keep em off my back!”

Both vehicle commanders waved their hands in acknowledgment. Tamari looked down and turned off the safeties on her commander's gun mount.

She screamed loud enough that the men on either side could hear her without using their radios, “Chaaaarge!”

Can of Peaches surged through the thin layer of 'Hathi' grass and burst into a scene from hell. All unit cohesion had broken down as each vehicle was fighting off two meter tall monsters with Ourtai rebels perched on their backs pitching shock lances or throwing grenades. If that wasn't bad enough, the Ourtai had dismounted two man rocket teams who were launching Rocket Propelled Grenades into her troops.

“Bahai! Drive us through the formation. Don't stop! Don't stop for anything!” With her boot, Tamari tapped Sita on the right shoulder, as the gunner sat just below her position, “Sita! Independent Fire!”

In her fear, anxiety and massive adrenaline rush flooding her system, Tamari barely registered the sound of the 60mm main gun firing off but she did register the angry insect noise as four thousand miniature tungsten carbide steel darts went down range into a group of Ourtai. The shotgun effect turned the four riders into an exploding gravy of human and animal parts. Sergeant Sita Chambial began 'servicing' targets left and right. A round here, then another over there. A final round of beehive and the ammunition cassette ejected out the back of the turret with a loud ringing “Kaching!” The auto loader pulled up another four rounds of ammunition. Sita coldly worked her way through the enemy who was attacking in waves.

“Switching to HEAT Rounds. Too dangerous to use Beehives ma'am.” Bamm! Bamm! Bamm! Bamm! Then she switched over to the coaxial machine gun, and she would go to town ripping 14mm rounds into groups of men or monsters as the auto loader cycled another four rounds up.

By this time Tamari had given up trying to coordinate her side of the battle. It was just too intense of a knife fight. Literally a knife fight. An Ourtai rider came screaming out of the right side of her peripheral vision swinging a long hooked catch pole, attempting to snatch her out of her turret or cut her head off. A burst from a twin 14mm from her rear Shikaris who were watching her flank caught the rider in the lower torso. His own forward momentum carried his severed upper half bouncing across her upper deck of her AFV leaving a bloody smear of fluids and body parts behind. Tamari didn't even register the crunching noises as Can of Peaches rolled over the Lizard Chicken corpse.

Fighting her way through the dodging, twisting ranks of the Terror Bird riders, Tamari spotted what looked like a command group with colored flags sitting just inside the wall of grass their monsters had emerged from. They had high tech radio operators and signal men who were making gestures with semaphore flags. Tamari traversed her turret around, lined the group up with her fixed sights on top of her eight barreled chain gun and mashed the trigger down. Die! Die you fuzzy faced bastards!

A ripping noise of 12.5mm high velocity full metal jacketed copper core rounds with one in five tracers, made a cone of destruction. Looking more like orange tinged lighting she raked the entire command group. Three distinct passes with her weapon chopped the Ourtai riders and their mounts as efficiently as a butcher jointing a chicken in a slaughterhouse. Men and saurian nightmares exploded in great gouts of blood and tissue. Bits of bone, metal, buckles became secondary missiles skipping through the bodies of their mounts and companions. And then she and her crew were through the other side of the ambush.

“Bahai spin this bitch around! Let's make another pass through this crap!”

Tracking with her turret, she saw a rocket team launch a missile before she could hose them with her gun. It shot down range into the heart of her formation, hit a rock skipped up and as if a malevolent hand guided it, slammed right into the drivers compartment of her maintenance truck. The overpressure wave blew the cab window and doors off the vehicle. Flames and a rapidly expanding smoke cloud obscured her vision of any potential survivors.

“Die!” She screamed as she hosed their position, keeping her finger mashed on the trigger until all movement ceased. Tamari looked over to where Hex Eight was idling. It didn't look like it had suffered any damage except for the dead Ourtai and his gutted Terror Bird laying draped over the top of the turret.

BAAAM! An explosion rocked Can of Peaches on its left side. A reactive armour panel had blown out just below where the turret assembly met the main hull of her vehicle.

Tamari's skull rang like a bell and her vision kept going in and out of focus. She felt like her head was full of cotton, she couldn't hear what Sita was yelling at her.

“Wha? What tha hell?”

“We got hit! Those bastards hit us with a rocket!”

Can of Peaches staggered forward through the battlefield once more making the “T” in their line of advance. For Captain Tamari Kapoor time took on an elastic rubbery fly caught in amber quality. Her control went dead in her hands. As she desperately fell back on her training performing what her instructors called 'Degraded Gunnery” mode; Tamari grabbed the hand lever and began frantically cranking her commander's turret around looking for the ORM who had shot her and her vehicle. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the rocket team getting another guided anti-armor missile ready to fire.

Ohshitohshithoshithohshit! I ain't gonna make it! Ohshitohshitohshit!-She screamed in her head, as the turret seemed to take forever to traverse around...

Boom! Boom! Two HEAT rounds exploded in their position just as the rocketeers were ready to hit Tamari and her crew again. Looking around to see what or who had killed them, Out of the smoke and confusion Gunnery Sergeant Chavram and her AFV looking like the very mechanical Avatar of Lord Shiva himself rolled to her position.

With a feral smile on her face Gunny Chavram shouted to Tamari with her right fist shaking in the air, “Mongoose! Kick em in the ass! Bite their heads off!”

Tamari could barely move. It took an extreme act of will to make her right fist return the battle salute she was shaking so bad. She tried calling Gunny Chavram over the tactical radio push but all she got was static filling her ears. That's when she noticed two things. Can of Peaches wasn't moving and smoke had begun to flow between her legs and out the crew hatch to her left.

“Sita!” She screamed down between her legs, “What the hell is going on?”

“Little busy ma'am. Putting out a fire!” Was the muffled reply.

“Sita report!” Her attention was split trying to keep an eye out for more threats and worried about whether or not she and her crew was going to burn up.

Finally, Sergeant Sita Chambial yelled back, “Gods be damned in the void! I got it under control ma'am.”

Tamari saw a movement out of the corner of her eye, where the former command group she had hit with her chain gun was. She manually traversed her turret around and she emptied the last rounds out of her ammunition hopper into the area. Hot brass and links liberally carpeted the top of her turret and some of them had even landed on her hands. It took a moment for her to realize the back of her hands were blistered with small brass burns.

By this time almost all activity in the way of fighting had stopped. The cessation of combat was almost as powerful as having the roar of combat filling Tamari Kapoor's ears.

Sita popped her head up out of the crew hatch looking like a back alley Goondah had beaten the crap out of her and then dragged Sita through her own mud hole. The left side of her helmet was shattered. Her face and uniform was soaked in fire fighting foam and lime green hydraulic fluid. She was a total mess, but even still, her trademark smile was attached firmly to her skull.

“Durga! Sita are you alright?”

“Blowout panel saved us ma'am. And Bahai's trashy romance novel collection. Spalling on the inside of the hull it hit our hydraulic actuator unit. If it hadn't been for Bahai's damn 'Princess Mimi and the Handyman' books, I think I would have been dead. As it were they stopped me from taking a frag in the neck or the chesticles.” Sita pointed behind Tamari's head, “Whoa Shit! Ma'am that must have been close.”

Tamari turned around in her seat and looked where Sita pointed. Can of Peaches', Two radio masts and her crosswind sensor for her ballistics computer were gone. Just shattered stalks remained. If whatever had hit them had been a few centimeters lower it would have taken the top of her skull off.

Damn! That was close. I didn't even notice. Tamari thought as something began feeling like an ice cold burning sensation in her left leg. Then the pain hit and it began to build and finally the muscles began cramping in her thigh. What the hell?

Tamari reached down with her left hand and whatever it was, was embedded in her left thigh, and it hurt when she touched its ragged edges. Her hand came back wet with blood. Oh shit! That ain't good!”