Last Days Of Colbosh

Chapter Two

Grey Stone Mining Corporation
Septis Four, outside of Novick City

The only sound Colbosh could hear was the wind, followed by gusts of sand blasting into his covered face. The only color he could see was a dull gray as the sun faded in the nonexistent distance. One foot here might as well be a mile in distance. A single degree off in direction and you could wonder the dunes for eternity. He had brought along a direction finder that was built into a unit that he wore around his gloved wrists, but it had stopped functioning several hours ago. His only hope at finding his way back to the safety of the city was to follow a herd of Bomars that were following the scent he had laid out several days ago. He had been hired by the mining company to eradicate these creatures from the nearby city, but instead he had been using them to his own means. Except now he was at their mercy. He should have gone back to the city hours ago instead of venturing out furtherer to find out how many of the beasts had picked up the scent.

He couldn’t see them so much as he could smell them. It was a sour weed smell. They were close by; he couldn’t see them yet, but that was a good thing. Bomars were extremely carnivorous; they fed off the Gomas that burrowed beneath the sand. If he got too close to them, it was possible they would pick up vibrations from his movements. Their eyesight was bad but they had special pads beneath their feet that allowed them to pick up vibrations beneath.

He stopped at the crest of a dune. Several meters away he could make out the outline of several Bomars. They stood on four legs, had torsos covered with long hair that extended out into long necks. Their heads were large, with big teeth protruding from a maw that could swallow several large boulders. There were no visible eyes, just a white ridge of some kind where eyes should have been which stretched across their faces. From Colbosh’s knowledge of the creatures, the ridge was geared toward smell.

One of the Bomars looked back in his direction. He froze in place. It made a loud noise with its head tilted back. The noise bellowed over the wind and then it looked back in his direction once again.

The weapon he carried on him was powerful enough to drop maybe one or two of the creatures before they reached him, but after that the rest of the herd would zero in on his scent or the vibrations of the weapon and he would be no more. His quest for vengeance would be over. The death of his people would no longer have meaning and those responsible would never be found. This was not how it should end.

Another Bomar looked in Colbosh’s direction. His hands were already digging beneath his cloak for the weapon he had strapped behind his back. If they started coming in his direction, he would take the time to try and take head shots. It was possible that with a couple of good shots he could take down several before they were on top of him.

The two Bomars looking in his direction were joined by a third and then a fourth. The weapon was in his grasp and drawn out from beneath his cloak. He went down on one knee, ratcheting the round chamber back. The AR- 517 was an excellent human weapon. It had a tactical scope on top designed for desert warfare. He flipped the lid cover back off the scope and put his goggled eye to it. A colored display filtered out most of the blowing sand and he was able to line up the crosshairs on one of the heads of a Bomar. The scope factored in wind and distance for the shot. If he shot now, the Bomar he had lined up in the sights would go down. There was no doubt about that.

His finger relaxed on the trigger and he pressed the safety release. In the distance one of the Bomars bellowed again. Through the scope he could see the creature move. It was scratching one of its large legs into the sand. Then another joined in. Soon all four were digging their feet in the sand with vigor. The Bomar in Colbosh’s scope stuck its mouth down into the hole made by their feet. When it lifted its head out, a baby Goma was wiggling in its maw. The Goma was only about half the size of the Bomar.

Black blood squirted from the Goma as the beast bit down hard into its long tubular body. A meaty part of the Goma fell away and the three other beasts dove for it with their long necks. He didn’t watch the rest; instead he stood back up and pressed the weapon’s safety back in place. It took several minutes for the beasts to devour the Goma, and when they were done they began to fall away one by one, back on track to the city.