We discussed the situation for a few more milliseconds, but there were really not a lot of options open. With a sigh, I adjusted my frame rate back to real-time. The VR faded in, but I didn’t care.
The Deltans out-numbered the gorilloids by a significant margin, but the gorilloids were the stereotypical eight-hundred-pound gorillas. They went where they wanted and did what they wanted. It took a half-dozen Deltans with spears to hold one off. The Deltans were giving a good account of themselves, but the gorilloids just kept coming. Not only that, but they didn’t seem to be happy with one Deltan for a half-dozen gorilloids. Either they were really starving, or there was some aspect of vengeance involved.
A group of gorilloids had attacked group C and were beating their way through the defenders toward the women and children. Several of them started to break through the defensive line. The women and children tried to back away from the gorilloids, but they had nowhere to go. Archimedes was in the middle of the pack trying to hide behind his mother. I could see him shaking in fear, and I felt myself curling and uncurling my fists.
As one of the gorilloids made a break for the group, Arnold came out of nowhere and stuck a spear right through its back.
And that right there is what spear points are good for. I let out a breath and relaxed.
Too soon.
Arnold tried to retrieve his spear, but dislodging it would take more time than he had available. With a roar, another gorilloid charged him. Arnold managed to throw himself at the gorilloid’s legs, which tripped up the animal and allowed Arnold to roll away. But the gorilloid was unharmed and already getting up.
Arnold looked around, but there was nothing usable as a weapon within reach. As the gorilloid snarled and locked its gaze on Arnold, Archimedes yelled and tossed him the axe. Arnold caught it and swung it down onto the middle of the gorilloid’s head just as it came into range. There was a loud crack, and the gorilloid dropped like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
Arnold looked at the axe in his hand for a few moments.
Slack-jawed amazement. Yep.
Then, with a roar, he began to lay into gorilloids. Conan the Barbarian would have been proud. Arnold was an impressive specimen of Deltan, almost big enough to pass as a juvenile gorilloid, and the hand axe was about equivalent to a felling axe—Archimedes had been trying for the biggest he could make, and he‘d been very successful.
Within moments, Arnold had split several more gorilloid skulls. This was a new battle tactic with no real, natural equivalent, so the gorilloids simply had no defense for it. The other Deltan males rallied, and in a few more seconds Group C was cleared of attackers. Arnold and the surviving males headed off to the groups on either side to reinforce the defenders.
Then, disaster.
One of the gorilloids executed a successful feint and found itself inside the line of defenders, with nothing between itself and the women and children. And Archimedes stood right there, unarmed, frozen in place. His mother was screaming.
I could see Arnold turning, seemingly in slow motion. For a moment, I thought I might be in frame-jack. But no, I was simply in shock.
“GUPPY! BUSTERS! STATUS, NOW!”
[Coming up. Handing over lead unit… now]
Abandoning any shred of VR simulation, I jacked up my frame rate and slipped into the buster. I could see the battle coming up through my forward camera, and I picked out the gorilloid. Archimedes was just starting to back away, and his mother was running to him. Arnold was pushing himself toward the attacker.
I got there first.
Forty pounds of high tensile steel intersected the gorilloid at twice the speed of a bullet from a high-powered rifle. The impact was not merely fatal. Hydrostatic shock tore the gorilloid apart, almost cell by cell, and spread it evenly over the surrounding ground, Deltans, trees, gorilloids, and anything else in range. The sonic boom reverberated like thunder from a lightning bolt directly overhead. Every living thing in the area froze and crouched in fear.
The Deltans recovered first. Unknown noise or not, they had loved ones to protect. Several gorilloids went down before they could recover their senses. The quick deaths turned the tide, and the gorilloids turned tail and fled. A couple of dozen thrown spears followed them, and eight more gorilloids went down before they could reach the trees.
It was over.
The carnage was unbelievable. The gorilloids had been as much on a mission of destruction as they were on a hunt. Perhaps they’d been killing Deltans with the intent of collecting the bodies afterward. Perhaps they were just in some kind of feeding frenzy brought on by hunger. I realized how little I knew about the biology on this planet. I wasn’t a professional biologist; I was a dilettante, playing at biologist. A fake one, at that. And I might have caused a situation that made things worse.
The Deltan toll was thirty dead with another fifteen or so injured, some severely enough that they probably wouldn’t survive.
I gritted my teeth. Prime directive, my ass. I’m going on a gorilloid hunt.
I directed the observation drone to a different location, closer to Archimedes. He was examining the area where the gorilloid had been. There were a few pieces of gorilloid still there, but a lot of the momentum of the buster had transferred to the animal, and most of the detritus was downtrack. It took him only moments to notice that, and he started following the trail.
“Hey, uh, Guppy, anything left of the buster?”
[No information available. No telemetry]
“Yeah, that’s what I’m worried about.”
Marvin tapped the video image with a finger. “The kid is going to find wreckage if there’s anything left. Question is, should we be worried?”
“Hmm, fair enough. They don’t have any metallurgy at all, and our stuff is all going to have a very high melting point. They won’t be able to work it.”
We watched as Archimedes worked his way along the trail. He soon came to a deep furrow in the ground. When he reached the end of the furrow, the ground was mounded up. Archimedes stared at the scene for a few minutes, then took off at a run.
He came back within a minute with a piece of what I supposed could be called bark, in a scoop shape. I recognized it as a shared tool that was often used for digging up tubers.
“He’ll be at that a few minutes, I think,” Marvin said.
We switched to another drone and watched Arnold. He was demonstrating the use of the hand axe in battle to the males, fortunately not actually on anyone. The other males paid rapt attention.
“They’re going to want to make more axes.”
I nodded. “Archimedes is out of nodules. They’ve thoroughly searched the area where we dropped the first set. We couldn’t get away with dropping off any more.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t do anything.” Martin had a thoughtful look.
I looked at him sideways. “Okay. Why?”