Serpents and Vipers Read online

  Centurion Marshal pulled an infrared eyepiece from a utility pocket in his chest armor and scanned the jungle in front. There were many small animals but they were scattering as if something was coming beyond them. Marshal concentrated at the distance and shortly could just make out some warm-blooded forms coming towards the cave. The serpents were warm-blooded reptilians and could be tracked with the infrared scope. The only problem now was the presence of four warm bodies moving towards them, not the two they expected. The centurion waved the others to the front of the cave and when Lorenzo and the Slones arrived, he said, “There are four serpents out there. Could some have survived the explosion?”

  “I doubt it,” Alaya responded. The Draco exploded with the force of a room full of explosives. Nothing could have survived that.”

  “The flight crew of their hover craft. We thought the guards were the flight crew, but I’ll bet there were still two in the cockpit.”

  All agree that must be the solution, but it also meant there were twice as many enemies facing them than they expected. Those at the entrance went down on one knee and crouched behind their body shields. None had ever fought a serpent and had no idea what to expect. They had all seen the claws on a serpent’s hands and feet, and they knew those claws could do a lot of damage. Only the Slones’ had ever seen one in action against humans, and it was not a pretty sight. The four in the back stood far enough away to allow any serpent who jumped the front line to land on their swords. No one bothered with guns, they knew the serpents would come in fast and hard and bullets had trouble penetrating their scales. They had to use the serpents’ momentum against them. “Here they come,” Centurion Marshal said and all stood up and locked shields forward with swords sticking out between the shields. Suddenly four serpents bolted out of the jungle and hit the shield wall with all their might while stabbing over the shields with their tails and pulling at the top of the shields with their hands.

  The Romani deftly defended themselves, and managed to hold onto their shields, but one serpent pull down Allyson Cartwright’s shield low enough to swipe with the other hand and claw the front of her neck, just under the helmet. As she fell back, the serpent passed through the shield wall and Raul, who was standing at her side, thrust out laterally with his sword and pierced the side of the serpent’s chest, between the middle ribs. The sword passed through the scales and sank to its hilt. Raul twisted it and pulled it out. Blood gushed from the wound but it was not immediately fatal. Serpent anatomy was different from human and the heart was much better protected. The wounded serpent rolled back into the cave and tried to rise to its feet. The Consul did not want to kill a serpent if it was not necessary, but the hatchling sprung into action and sank its teeth into the front of the neck and the serpent died quickly.

  “Well, that settles that one,” Alaya said.

  The hatchling was now more excited than she had been and they felt it was the bloodlust of her first kill. Meanwhile, on the front line two more legionaries fell, one of the bodyguards and Albert Claudian. Both were mortally wounded with their throats ripped out, but another serpent was also dead. The remaining serpents had pulled back a little and the line of legionaries pulled into the cave, since there were not enough left to form a line across the entrance. They pulled back Allyson, who was badly injured but still alive. The survivors formed a circle with their shields with the hatchling and Allyson in the middle. They were down to seven, but some, from the front line, were wounded with bites and deep scratches on their extremities. The serpents fought with all of their appendages and were more flexible and stronger than the humans were. What helped the humans was their practice of ignoring the legionaries on their flanks as they pushed in one of the humans on the line. Both serpents killed were stabbed from the side. The Romani now stayed as dense as they could and awaited the next attack. They did not have long to wait. Suddenly the serpents shot through the cave opening at full speed and leapt into the mass of humans with hands and feet outstretched and claws extended. Their tails arced around from the side and stabbed at the humans and their shields. Though there were only two of them, they fought like three times that number. The Romani had to fight each extremity and the flashing teeth constantly attacking any human in the front. As two of the Romani went down, Tavia was able to jump on the back of one of the serpents and plunge her short sword into the base of the skull where the spinal cord enters the brain. This was instantly fatal. The final serpent was badly injured and dragging a leg, when it move quickly out of the cave and ran back towards the ship.

  “We can’t let him get away to bring reinforcements,” Christopher Slone said.

  The words were hardly out of his mouth and the less injured humans were running after the serpent when there was a great deal of movement in the jungle along with loud hissing and barking.

  “There are more of them out there,” Alaya said.

  “Wait,” Tavia shouted. “Look at the hatchling.”

  They all looked and saw the hatching moving to the cave opening and hissing, clicking and barking. It was obvious she was communicating with those outside. Shortly a serpent came to the cave entrance and said, “Sss. How are humans?”

  “Sly,” Tavia said immediately and came over to her. “We are all wounded and some of us are dead. We are glad to see you.”

  “Sss. Come with Sly. We will bring your dead and help your wounded. We must hurry, we have a ship near.”

  “Come help us, Sly.”

  Sly barked a few words and some more serpents came into the cave. They examined the humans, determined which ones needed the most help, and checked the dead. Four humans were dead. Both of the Romani body guards as well as Albert and Allyson from the Draco crew. The surviving humans had various wounds, most of them deep claw mauling and Raul Ortega was missing his right hand. Tavia had placed a tourniquet on his arm, but he was looking pale and they had no human blood to give him. He told them he was just fine. If he survived, he would have a new hand cloned and attached to the arm. The serpents with Sly helped the humans through the jungle to a clearing where a hovercraft was parked and guarded by other serpents. All of the humans were carefully loaded aboard as well as their four dead.

  Chapter 4 – The Sea Clan

  The hovercraft flew them into the mountains. The craft was more streamlined than Romani hovercraft. It has a dark blue color, which must be the Sea Clan color. There were no detachable hover tanks or antiaircraft hovers. There were 15 serpents aboard along with Sly and the hatchling. What must have been serpent medics tended the wounds on the humans as best they could. They put a salve of some kind on the claw wounds and they felt immediately better with less pain. As the humans slowly removed their body armor and some of their clothes, the extent of their injuries became evident. They had just escaped with their lives. Another attack and they would all be gone. The serpents marveled how the hatchling would not leave Tavia’s side. They must have asked Sly about this, since after Sly spoke with them, they treated Tavia with great deference.

  Sly looked at Tavia and her lips began to undulate to speak. “Sss. Tavia, where are the other serpents from the hovercraft?”

  Tavia looked up from watching the serpent medics take care of her wounds. “When they entered the Draco, we blew it and them up.”

  “Sss. That is the explosion we saw. We were worried they had blown up humans.”

  “It was the only way we could reduce their numbers,” Juan Lorenzo said. “When I see what just four of them did to the ten of us, we were wise to kill all we could with that explosion. The ship was not leaving here anyway.”

  As they entered the mountains, they saw structures in the jungle that looked like part of the vegetation. This was a city of the Sea Clan. The hovercraft brought them into the center of the city and landed below the jungle canopy. The city was exceptionally beautiful and blended into the surrounding jungle as if it had been part of it from time immemorial. The houses were created by training the jungle trees into the structures desired and the ho
uses continued to grow along with their trees. The city was teeming with serpents. As soon as the hovercraft was down, Sly and the others came out into a huge town square. Sly gave some orders to the medics and the craft left with the human dead. Sly then turned to Tavia and began to quiver her lips, “Sss. Tavia, your honored dead will be cremated and placed in containers for your Mountain of Remembrance ceremony.”

  “Thank you, Sly.”

  A large number of serpents surrounded the group after the shuttle left. Soon there were thousands of serpents surrounding the humans. If the Romani did not trust their relationship with Sly completely, they would have been overwhelmed. Sly finally began to speak from a small pedestal brought out for the purpose. As she stood on the pedestal, she started to hiss, click and bark in the distinctive language of the serpents. At some point, Sly must have mentioned her human companions, for the serpents all looked at them. At one point, she directly indicated Tavia, with the ever-present hatchling at her side. The Slones assumed she must have told them of the assassin and Tavia saving Sly. Suddenly there was a hushed silence and all the serpents faced Tavia and bowed their heads.

  Sly turned to the humans and prepared to speak. “Sss. They are honored to have you here, though not under these circumstances. Will you all attend a meeting with us?”

  “Yes, anything we can do,” Consul Lorenzo said.

  They followed the serpents into a large cavern at the foot of a mountain. Only then did the humans realize there was more of the city in the mountain than outside. The cave was used as a fortification, with the entrance sealed with a wall and a gate. Within the cavern, there was a large area with a vaulted ceiling extending up and out of sight. Light in the highest areas of the ceiling suggested it went up over 300 meters with layers of hanging dwellings that covered every available space. Christopher would later learn there were many of these caverns in the mountain range and the Sea Clan consisted of several hundred thousand serpents living across the home world. The civil war made them all return to their home continent. Sly also later told the humans that most of her clan was scattered throughout serpent space and could not make it back in time to help with the war effort. All told the Sea Clan in space and on Nova Romae numbered in the millions. Though all could fight, most were non-combatants.

  Slone looked around the cavern and saw bustling activity with constant movement in and out of shelters on the floor of the cave. Slone also noticed some much larger serpents dressed in battle armor and carrying large weapons of some kind. They were built like the other serpents but were huge and extremely muscular. The other humans had also noticed the large serpents and Alaya was the first to remark about them.

  “Sly, who are the large serpents in armor scattered around the cave?”

  Sly’s lips quivered and she said, “Sss. They are fighters. They are serpent males, good only for mating and fighting. Not as smart as serpent females.”

  Alaya had to suppress a smile as she noticed the rather sour expressions on the faces of the human males. It also explained why Sly tended to direct most of her conversation to the women of the human group. All joking aside, the serpent males looked like an impressive force given their size and the armor they wore. Sly continued to lead them into a large structure in the middle of the cave floor. Once inside what they saw astounded the humans. The building consisted of a single, large room, similar to a warehouse, but with finished walls and ceiling. The room was filled with row after row of monitors and electronic equipment. Some of it looked familiar but most looked alien. In the air above the electronics were multiple holographic projections, showing the planet, various areas of the planet and the space surrounding the planet out to the edge of the system. There were many whistles heard in the room coming from the various serpents standing in front of keyboards that looked like the ones installed in ships as part of the cloaking system. The humans had heard these whistles before coming from Sly as she controlled the ship’s invisibility. They naively thought Sly was just keeping herself busy; now they realized this was part of the system of communication with the electronics. A combination of sound and keys made serpent systems work. All aspects of the body were involved and now it was obvious why the serpents insisted on being aboard the ships to control the invisibility. No human could duplicate the sounds.

  “Sss. Come this way,” Sly said and pointed in the direction of a table around which stood several serpents. There were no chairs, so the humans stood along with their allies. When you have a tail, sitting on a chair presents a problem.

  Sly began speaking with the other serpents and all ignored the humans for about a half hour. This was typical of human, serpent interaction and the Consul and others were used to it. When they were finished, Sly turned to her allies, “Sss. The situation is grave. The Mountain Clan has totally subdued the Valley Clan and taken all of the food stores. Some of the Valley Clan escaped and are trying to reach us here, but are under constant attack. In our history, the Valley Clan was always neutral in wars and no side ever attacked them. This can only mean that the Mountain Clan wants to destroy all of the other clans.”

  “That is indeed grave news, my friend,” Consul Lorenzo said. “What can we do to help?”

  “Sss. The Mountain clan has over three million serpents on the home world. We have less than one million with my clan and the survivors of the Hill Clan and The Valley Clan. We will fight, but we will not win.”

  The mood among the humans became somber. Given what happened in the jungle, the Slones and their companions had no illusions they could bring anything to the table. “I am not sure how we can help here,” Slone said.

  “Sss. We need serpents that live on Nova Romae. They are all from my clan. Four hundred thousand there can fight. With them, we stand a chance. We also ask for help from the Romani senate, will they help us?”

  Only the Consul could respond to this. “I think I can convince them to send help, but it will take weeks to get here after the senate approves. When we liberated New Wales, it took a human month to assemble one legion. In addition, the transit time between worlds is two months, round trip. We will also need a ship.”

  Sly looked Lorenzo straight in the face and said, “Sss. serpents cannot change time or space, but ships we have. You will need three, two to distract the ships above the planet and one to run past the blockade when they move away.”

  Lorenzo nodded and watched as Sly gave orders to the serpents around her. How odd, Lorenzo thought, that all this time they had one of the leaders of the serpents serving on a scout ship. Moreover, Sly never let on who she really was. Now Lorenzo watched as Sly was in complete command of her clan. The electronics in the cave were also far beyond what the humans recognized. He was sure the computers told them what human computers did, but they also accomplished more than that. The images some projected into the air above the electronics appeared to be just random colors, some stronger than others and some very faint. They meant nothing to the human eye, but every change in the pattern was noted by the serpents and some of the changes caused increased activity. Lorenzo had to admit, he was at a complete loss as to what it all meant. Finally, Sly came over with another serpent, “Sss. This is the captain of one of our ships, Captain Artok. She and her crew will be at your disposal. Her human speech is good, but not as good as Sly.”

  Lorenzo looked at the other serpent. She was a little shorter than Sly and stockier, but the claws and teeth looked just as dangerous. “Thank you Sly, and it is a pleasure to meet you, captain,” Lorenzo said as he turned to face the new serpent. The ship’s captain nodded and her lips began to quiver.

  “Sss. Two ships are ready to leave before us. They will lead the blockade ships away. Then we run to slipstream.”

  At this point Slone asked, “When can we leave?”

  “Sss. We must wait until night. Ships harder to see at night and disturbance from invisible ships harder to see in the atmosphere. Other ships will not leave invisible to distract blockade ships,” the serpent captain said.
r />   Sly then turned to Tavia, “Sss. Tavia, take hatchling with you to speak with the clan members on Nova Romae.”

  “Gladly Sly. I hope you will be safe here.”

  “Sss. If I die, then all the clans die and the mountain clan wins. I do not want that, but cannot escape the future.”

  Christopher Slone noticed a sudden change in the feel of the room. Almost simultaneously, high pitched, shrieking alarms began to sound throughout the cave. Some of the serpents sprang into action and moved to control panels previously left unattended. Slone wondered what was happening, but it soon became evident. One of the overhead projections switched to a view of the city outside the cave. In the distance there were small dots coming closer. A larger group of dots was coming in behind the first group. As they watched, the forward group resolved into hovercraft that were being followed by almost twice as many pursuers. The forward hovercraft were white, the color of the Valley Clan and the pursuing ones were green.

  Outside the mountain, there was a great deal of activity in the city. The back of the city was up against the mountain entrance. As Slone watched on the screen, gun emplacements began to arise in a semicircle around the edge of the visible portion of the city dwellings. Since most of the habitations were in the mountain, there was actually much less city outside than the population would suggest. Each gun platform rising out of the jungle mounted four railguns in two double mounts. As the two groups of hovercraft streaked across the water, the rear craft opened fire at long range on the leading group. To hit at that range would be sheer luck, but if enough projectiles are thrown at the problem, a few will make contact. One hovercraft was hit and just made it to the beach before dropping out of the sky. The surviving serpents quickly exited the craft and ran into the jungle as follow up shots began to pepper the beach. Two more serpents went down and the rest made it into the jungle. Slone did not know how many serpents fit into the hovercraft, but it appeared to be close to one hundred. Before they all vanished into the underbrush, he could see several were wounded and being helped. The pursuing craft that brought down the crash victim left the second group and landed on the beach near the crash site. Armed and armored serpents came out of the craft and quickly checked the crashed ship. There must have been some more injured serpents still in the craft since Slone could see the new group firing their railguns into the opened door of the vessel.