Desperado (Murphy's Lawless: Watch the Skies Book 2), Kevin Ikenberry [reading the story of the txt] 📗

for a long time and considered whether a wild herd of whinnies would migrate naturally through this area at this time. Since his forces had repositioned from the high country near Camp Stark, he hadn’t seen many whinnies, but that didn’t mean the occasional herd might not cross the valley, especially with a good-sized river flowing through it. Bo carefully weighed the pros and cons before deciding the whinnies would be his best effort. By the time the others were awake, he’d settled on his plan.

Eager to get moving on an actual operation, his troops were ready by 0900. He and the whinnies traversed the narrow end of the valley to reach the western edge of the plateau, a total U-shaped move of more than fifteen kilometers by 1300 that afternoon. The speed and sure-footedness of the alien creatures made the journey easy. Clambering up where the plateau’s exposed rocks were only a couple meters tall, they were prepared to hasten eastward…but the whinnies slowed, and finally, a kilometer up the plateau, refused to go further.

Bo frowned. As a teenager on the family farm in Mississippi, he’d been out riding one day when his horse, Magic, slammed on the brakes and nearly threw him to the ground. After Bo had caught his breath, he’d seen a copperhead crossing the path. The big whinnie’s reaction was frightfully similar.

“What is it, Scout?”

Scout turned his triangular-shaped head hard to the right as if to study Bo with one dark eye. Then the whinnie pointed with its snout at a tall, stalky plant with a curious assortment of purple and gold flowers roughly ten meters away. There were more in the distance, gathered in loose bunches, drawing a line across the plateau.

Bo squinted. “The plants?”

Scout didn’t respond, as usual. They sat for a long moment and Bo wondered why until he heard rustling on the ground ahead of them. A six-legged, lizard-like creature scurried across the rocks near the plant, and the plant flinched. Several lower branches swung toward the advancing animal. Bo heard several small popping sounds and saw, with the last, a tiny, white projectile strike the animal on its hindquarters. The lizard thing frantically tried to run away, making it about three meters before it fell over, twitching. Less than thirty seconds later, the animal was dead.

Well, shit.

Loitering at the base of the plateau was not part of Bo’s plan. The reason for the whinnies was to move quickly and avoid detection as they crossed the valley and scaled the higher terrain. Observation of the roads showed no one on them that morning, and Bo was confident in their ability to cover their tracks when they crossed the roads so no one would know they had passed. But, no matter whether the biological defenses had been planned or were naturally occurring, the patrol was not only stopped a kilometer up the flank of the plateau, but in increasing danger of detection.

Bo tugged gently on Scout’s reins to the left, intending to move north and find a way around the plants. Scout refused to budge in that direction. When he moved, the whinnie turned hard against the reins to point back toward the relative cover at the base of the plateau.

“You want to go back?”

Bo heard another whinnie approach. He looked over his left shoulder and met Lieutenant—former Sergeant—Stewart’s eyes. “What’s the trouble, sir?”

Bo gestured toward the plants ahead of them. “Some type of defensive flora. They’re all over before us and far as I can see on both sides.”

“And the whinnies won’t go through?”

“I get the feeling they could go through, but I don’t think any of us would make it.”

“We can’t find another way around?” Stewart asked.

“I don’t know,” Bo replied.

Stewart nodded at the colorful plants. “You know, the intel we had on some of these plants said they were diurnal; they go dormant at night.”

Bo looked at the young lieutenant. “These? You know that for sure?”

Stewart shrugged. “I don’t, sir. But it may be worth checking in with headquarters.”

Breaking radio silence outside of scheduled reporting times was not something Bo wanted to do, especially to ask for clarification on an alien plant.

“You think we should wait until nightfall?” He wasn’t just asking Lieutenant Stewart. As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized it was fairly stupid to believe Scout or any of the whinnies knew what he was talking about.

Stewart replied, “I see two options, sir. Wait ’til nightfall and find out if we can go through. Or we risk going around, which might take days. Last I recall, we didn’t have that kind of time.”

The young officer was right so they turned back to the western edge of the plateau. Bo directed the patrol down into a thick grove of alien trees. They reminded him of the baobabs he’d seen in Africa, short and stocky, but they had trunks and hexagonal leaf combinations which were decidedly alien. A type of moss or lichen grew in a thick, flat carpet atop each of the thick stalks. They provided some shade, though, and if the patrol was going to wait until nightfall, shade was important. He relied on Scout and the other whinnies to graze and find a water source on their own.

“We’ll try again at sundown,” Bo told the patrol. “If we can’t make it, we’ll figure out what our options are. Rest up, drink plenty of water. When the time comes, be ready to move.”

As he waited, Bo Moorefield couldn’t help but think he was leaving Aliza without protection. He hoped she would understand.

Approaching Imsurmik posed difficulties greater than slipping through a swath of defensive plants. Moving at night, presuming they could get past the damned dart-firing flowers, was an advantage he intended to exploit to its fullest, even if it meant missing his report time with Aliza, since there