Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers (Exodus: Empires at War.) by Doug Dandridge Page A

the point of
origin.”
    “Any idea what
this one was doing here, sir?”
    Ishuhi looked
over the tracks, trying to reconstruct what had happened in his investigator’s
mind.  He really couldn’t come up with reason one of the creatures might
have needed to get to the tracks.  And why now?  Why here?  And
why didn’t it realize that the train was coming?
    “Nope, and we
can figure that out later, if it becomes important.  Right now, I just
want to locate this nest of roaches and wipe it out.”
    The Lt.
Commander nodded at the reference.  Roaches had followed humanity into
space, even making the journey from the homeworld on the Exodus III . 
They weren’t really that much of a problem anymore, not with modern pest
control techniques, but there were still enough outbreaks that people
understood the reference.
    “I’ve got one
squad of suits to do a high scan, and a squad of Commandos to follow along the
ground.”
    “Make sure the
suits are fully stealthed,” he cautioned the other officer, who was also
augmented as a commando, just as Ishuhi was.  “I don’t want them to get
wind of us tracking them.  We have an opportunity here, and hopefully we
can get rid of these things once and for all.”  He really didn’t believe
that.  These things had gotten too entrenched into the area.  Stomp
on one nest and another sprung up.  Nevertheless, he had to try.
    Moments into the
search they found what might have chased the Yugalyth onto the tracks, or at
least over the fence.  The body of a Mardog, a wolf like pack predator
that was the bane of these woods.  The beast had been shot by a laser,
then partially eaten, probably by pack members.  Ishuhi thought that the
alien must have run from the predators, taking a shot at one before another
knocked the pistol, which they found a short distance away, out of the
Yugalyth’s hands.  Forcing it to run to the only place it knew it could
get away.  To the fence and over.  It was just bad timing that a
train was already coming, and there was no way it could stop in the hundred
meters it had.
    Sometimes things
just happened, circumstances, random occurrences that were the downfall of the
best laid plans.  This seemed to be one of those cases.  And the
Yugalyth had passed through the woods recently enough that they could still
backtrack them.
    “We’ve found
something,” called out one of the commandos over the com.  Ishuhi was
about four hundred meters back, and seven kilometers of rough terrain up from
the tracks.
    “What have you
got?” he asked, looking through the eyes of the commando and seeing the open
maw of a small cave.  At least small from the outside.  “I’ll be up
there in a moment.  Hang tight.”
    By the time he
got there two more of the commandos and two spacers in combat armor were under
cover on the ground, looking at the dark opening into the granite cliff. 
The opening itself was about a meter and a half tall by two wide, and was
partially covered by brush.  Ishuhi looked through the viewpoint of a man
still in the air, grunting as he saw what looked like a normal rock cliff and
vegetation.  He ordered the man to shift, and as the view changed he could
finally see the opening, realizing it was naturally camouflaged, and, for all that,
still very hard to spot from the air.  And unlikely to be spotted from the
ground.
    “Send in a
couple of probes,” ordered Ishuhi, looking over at the nearest suited man.
    A pair of small
disks lifted from the back of the suit and sped toward the cave opening. 
They slowed for a moment, then slid into the opening, their passive sensors
straining at full power to scan the interior of the cave.  The entrance
continued as a narrow tunnel for about twenty meters, then opened up
dramatically, the ceiling rising to forty meters, while the cave widened to
thirty meters.  The cave continued back to disappear into darkness, and
the sound of dripping water came back over the audio