The Force of Temptation - Chapter One, Page Five

Hearing a rush of footsteps moving from the camp in his direction, the Captain took the closest rifle from the ground and began firing it at the three beasts he saw in the distance rushing towards him. They immediately took cover and started returning fire. All hopes of a continued surprised encroachment was now gone.

The plan quickly shifted towards winning through tactical management. He began to wonder how he could split up the groups of attacking soldiers so that he could fight them in smaller groups rather than the possible ten or twenty aliens now coming for him.

He looked back ad the nearly vertical ridge he ascended and wondered how he could use it to his advantage. Moving swiftly through the brush, keeping his head down, and trying to make as little noise as possible, he moved towards the cliff.

Once at the cliff, he started to descend quickly, moving toward the rope he had left on the shelf near the bottom. He dropped down quickly, not paying too much attention to his footing, and instead concentrating mostly on his hand holds. His assault uniform slowly got shredded by the rocks, resulting in his avatar to skin its shins, knees and hands. Malcolm felt a fair bit of pain in moving like this, but he knew it was necessary. It wouldn’t be long until the soldiers would find their dead comrades and be after him looking for vengeance.

He then attached the rope to the rigging spots on his clothing, and the cliff face securely. A large howl came over the cliff as he checked how secure the rope was. It gave him a chill down his spine.

“They don’t sound happy,” he said to himself before looking at another ledge around twenty-five feet to the south of him. It had a cave, which could provide him with cover, and also act as a funnel, giving him an advantage in fighting back against his would-be attackers.

Malcolm looked up and saw the head of one of the creatures looking down at him, reacting quickly, he fired off a shot from the rifle, and the dead body toppled over the end, falling past him, and further down the plateau’s side for hundreds of feet. He knew he wouldn’t get many more opportunities like that, and he was right as they started just moving their arm over the edge with weapon in hand and firing wildly down the side of the cliff.

Enacting his plan, the Captain leapt off his ledge and swung towards the cave entrance. Cutting the rope as he grabbed a handhold right above the mouth of the cave, he dropped onto another ridge, and then proceeded to enter. As he did, he could hear the continual shots coming from the aliens, who were hopefully still too concerned about their own lives to stick their necks over the side to see that he had moved out of view.

The Rothchild family was always very adventurous and industrious and so he had started working on taking the raw materials around him to set up traps, create shadows that looked much like he did when crouching, and other simple devices that might give him a way of beating this next challenge.

Rocks, twigs, vines, and other basic implements would give him an edge, but he had to act quickly. It wouldn’t take too long before they sent at least as scouting party to check and see if Malcolm was still in the area. He though about hiding until they went back to their post, but they’d still be much more suspicious of any noise when he’d go back to try again, and so not hiding would be more beneficial, as it would allow him to hopefully reduce their numbers.