Red Sun Bleeding Read Free Page A

these rifles back on Hesperus, he could have armed the based peasant farmers with the guns and routed every nation on the world – crowned himself emperor of the planet. He wouldn’t have been beaten on the battlefield, betrayed by his treacherous fiancée and then forced to ignobly flee his world into exile. Part of him was glad he had never been offered the temptation by the wizard who had turned out to be merely a rogue crew member. This rifle was a coward’s weapon, a knave’s weapon. No skill required. Neither strength nor patience. No need to put yourself in risk. Just sit back and slay at a distance like an indestructible god casting lightning bolts. Janet Lento’s wide eyes settled on the blood-mangled bodies quivering at the foot of the tree, seeming to find the carnage as much to her amazement as everything else she’d mutely observed. She shifted her gaze accusingly to Calder.
    ‘Better them than us,’ said Calder. ‘I know it isn’t exactly glory, but we’re about two hundred light years away from all that… and I’m not a prince anymore, so there’s not a lot left I can bring disgrace to, is there?’ Least of all the House of Durk .
    He checked the ammunition counter on the drum-like magazine. Two hundred pellets left. He had managed to fire off two thirds of his ammunition in one brief engagement. Great. Calder Durk. King of the Tree. He moved the fire selector to its sniper setting, single fire and maximum acceleration, to make his magazine last. An optical sight rose from the centre of the gun as he flipped the switch, an integral field projector to paint a target with a laser. Quite unnecessary. At this range a six year-old goat herder would be hard pressed to miss. Down in the jungle clearing the remaining spiders retreated into the neighbouring trees, foliage shaking as the creatures passed through the leaves. What are they up to now? Are they going to wait until we come down and see us off their domain? This part of the jungle was obviously serious spider territory. ‘I don’t suppose you know how these hairy monsters hunt… their pack behaviour… intelligence? Any nests near the mining camp…?’
    She said nothing.  Something moved below in the clearing, and for a second Calder thought he caught sight of a little child moving through the brush. But then it was gone. I must be going mad out here . He wondered how long it would take in the alien jungle until he ended up like the truck driver. Two blades short of a castle armoury.
    ‘Gods, I wish we had some of the camp’s big robot tanks to protect us.’ And sitting behind a laser fence topped with automatic guns would have been nice right now. Except they obviously hadn’t proved up to the task of keeping Calder on the right side of the defensive perimeter. And tanks wouldn’t have been able to fit in the clearing and stop the spiders… swinging across between the trees on sticky white webbing! Calder swore and moved his rifle up, but the spiders were too dispersed in the surrounding trees, arcing across at random… ones, twos, three at once, a dozen different directions. Too many to sight. He fired off shots as they swung over like great hairy pendulums – all quivering legs, victoriously whistling and clattering their fangs like sharpening knives for a roast, his bullets cracking wide as the creatures slammed into the tree’s high foliage. His tree. Foliage trembled above them. How would such a creature hunt? The answer came to him. Dropping out of the tree like an assassin on whatever unfortunate passed below seemed a more than effective method. He tried to hold down his rising tide of terror. Losing it out here, up here, would be the very last thing he did.
    ‘Get down!’ Calder cried at Lento. His shout was unnecessary. She was already shinning her way towards the clearing’s grass. He swung off the branch and grabbed the wood, finding handholds to desperately jab his fingers into. It had seemed a lot less demanding to