Swarm Hunter
By David Hann
Michael Bek cursed. The sun was dropping behind the mountains to the west, and he had no way of getting back to the colony before dark. He kicked a rock, sending it flying along the darkening valley, and once more cursed the poor maintenance of the colony’s SUVs. The broken axle, in the middle of nowhere, had really been his fault, given his erratic driving, but he preferred to blame the maintenance staff.
A soft whine behind him made him turn back. Two intelligent-looking brown eyes gazed up into his. They were in the face of a tall and powerful black dog. Standing, the animal came to Michael’s waist. The animal’s body was among the finest the engineers back on Earth could produce; strong but also capable of great stamina.
Michael grunted at his G-dog. Then, softening, he said, “Sorry, Akula. Looks like we’re out here for the night. Still,” he reached down to scratch behind the animal’s ear, “I wouldn’t want anyone else by my side for something like this. You’re the best, boy.”
Mollified somewhat, the dog gave a gentle wag of his muscular tail. Then he tensed. His ears flattened on the sides of his head. His top lip drew back, revealing his sharp canines, and his tail straightened, pointing out behind his body.
Michael tensed. Automatically he raised a hand to the pack on his back and drew down a short, gun-shaped object that connected back to the pack with a black hose.
“Damn,” he said, “I didn’t expect them so soon. Where, Akula?”
The dog began to pad forward, his teeth bared, his tail out, and a low growl rumbling deep in his throat. Michael followed, kicking up dust as he wound his way around the volcanic rocks scattered along the bottom of the ridge.
Akula stopped, growling, staring directly at a black rock about a metre high. Michael, with his weapon covering the rock, stepped forward gingerly to examine it. On top rested a single animal. It was about twenty centimetres in length, covered in a fine brown fur. It had four short legs, ending in three sharp claws each. On its back were two slim wings. Its head held a simple face, two small eyes and a mouth that seemed far too big for its tiny body. A mouth loaded, Michael knew, with razor-sharp teeth. Even as Michael got close it showed no sign of fear, or any other response, other than a languid turn of the head to keep him in sight.
Michael had been watching the animal’s behaviour, and Akula’s. He knew enough about this job to draw the obvious conclusion.
“It’s alone, Akula. You know they’re harmless alone. Still…”
Reversing the gun, he brought it down butt first on the animal, smashing it into a bloody pulp.
“No point waiting for it to join its friends.”
Akula, now that the animal was dead, relaxed and sat, his mouth slightly open.
Michael grinned. “Not your fault, I know. The gene-splicers have you set to target swarm foxes. Don’t matter what the number is.”
The brown eyes looked back at him again. Michael would have sworn Akula understood every word he said, but the splicers had, supposedly, only engineered the G-dogs’ intellect to seek swarm foxes and follow a leader. Even then, the obedience was really just a strengthening of the pack instinct.
Michael looked up from the dog, and frowned. Even in the few minutes it had taken to find and kill the swarm fox the light had dropped noticeably. He looked up the ridge. It would be hard work, but he reckoned they could make it to the top before they lost all the light.
He patted Akula on the head. “Come on, boy. We get up there, we might have a better chance to hold out overnight. Too closed in down here. Too easy to lose any room to manoeuvre.”
The dog, as if understanding, began up the rocky slope with Michael climbing, more slowly, behind.
By the time they reached the top, the sun, a relatively weak red star at the best of times, was slipping below the horizon. Michael scanned the valleys on either side of the ridge as best he could in the gloom. There was no sign of movement among the stunted vegetation and volcanic rocks. That didn’t mean a lot, though. Swarms were almost impossible to see unless they were right on top of you. Imaging tech couldn’t pick them up; something about the fur on the foxes defeated all electronic sensors. Only animals could detect them with any confidence, and even then they had to be G-edited to do it well, and not flee. Michael’s best warning would come from Akula.
The dog’s relaxed body language gave Michael some confidence. “Nothing too close, eh? Good. Do we have enough for a fire?”
His left hand reached behind him and pulled forward a small display attached by a thin wire to the pack on his back. He glanced at it and then let it go. The wire pulled it back into his pack.
He shook his head. “Looks like those swarms we burned this morning ate up a lot of juice. Can’t waste any keeping us warm. You’ll just have to rely on that fur coat.”
Akula gave a shake and lay on the rocky ground. His head dropped, but almost immediately it came up again. His ears flattened against the sides of his head. A soft growl rumbled in his throat.
Immediately alert, Michael looked in the direction his G-dog was staring. He could see nothing, but he trusted the animal.
“Where?” he asked, his voice hushed, though there was no evidence the swarms could actually hear.
Akula lurched to his feet, raising his muscular body from the ground. His head swung side to side as he sensed the environment. He swung slightly to the left, looking directly along the ridge line. His top lip curled back, and his tail pointed out behind him.
Michael looked down the ridge. There was a slight fuzziness in the distance. Mentally he kicked himself; if he could see anything then it was closer than it looked. He unlimbered the hand piece from his pack, hoping he had enough juice.
With his free hand, Michael gestured to Akula. “Wait and cut-off.”
Confident Akula would deal with any leakers, he stepped forward. The fuzzy patch in front of him was suddenly much closer. He waved the hand piece. When they swarmed the foxes somehow developed a much higher degree of intelligence. Michael had no idea how, and he suspected that the biologists who talked of ‘swarm intelligence’ really had no idea either. He knew, however, that the larger the swarm, the smarter it was. In this case, he hoped the swarm would be smart enough to be dissuaded by the sight of the flame gun.
Indeed, the fuzzy patch halted a short distance away. Despite the hundreds of animals in the swarm, and therefore, the hundreds of wings beating rapidly, there was no noise. Another mystery no one had been able to explain. Even knowing that the swarm was, in fact, a collection of hundreds of individuals, Michael still felt like he was facing a single entity, and indeed it acted as such.
The face-off lasted for a few seconds, though to Michael it felt much longer. Then the swarm moved. From the middle of the fuzzy patch a tentacle of darkness whipped out with startling speed. The animals that made it up moved as one, aiming for Michael’s neck. He didn’t duck. He dropped and rolled to one side. The tentacle swung through empty air, instead of chewing through his neck.
Michael rolled and came up kneeling. He pulled the trigger and a stream of flame leaped out toward the fuzzy patch. It came apart in the middle, allowing the gout of flame to pass through, though Michael could tell from the smell that he had caught some of the animals. When they burned, they stunk.
The swarm backed up and paused, as if analysing the situation. Michael had no intention of allowing it to come to a decision. He knew from experience he had to kill at least half a swarm this size to drop its intelligence down to a level that would make it easy to deal with.
He poured on the fire, hosing the entire area around the swarm. It was an excessive tactic that wasted fuel, but in the dark he was taking no chances. Sparks and flares of fire showed where individual animals were caught and burned.
The swarm wavered, and then came back together. As a single unit, it lunged at Michael. He hosed it and stepped backward, right onto a rock. His foot came down awkwardly and he fell onto his back. He hosed again, waving the weapon to where he thought the swarm would be. Two massive gouts of flame burst from the hand piece. Then it coughed and blew smoke. Out of fuel.
With no weapon, flat on his back, Michael shuddered. A swarm could strip a human to the bone in a matter of seconds. It might be fast, but it wasn’t the way he planned to go. He started to push himself away, seeking some space to get back on his feet.
In front of him the fuzzy patch, the swarm, wavered and shuddered. Michael could see he had almost cut the number down to the point the swarm would lose cohesion. Almost, but not quite.
The swarm gathered itself together again just beyond Michael’s feet. He tried to push himself further away, but the gravelly ground gave him no traction. He collapsed again on his back. This was it.
A black blur swept across his vision. He heard a growl, deep and angry. Then there was a thud, and silence.
Suddenly aware that he was not being chewed by hundreds of small mouths, and realizing he could no longer see the swarm, he staggered to his feet. In the dim light of the two moons he could see that the swarm was gone. Movement on the ground showed that many of the foxes were still alive, but they had fallen below the critical mass needed to make a swarm. Now they were just dumb and disorganized, almost unresponsive to stimuli.
He started walking forward, kicking some of the foxes, standing on many out of spite. Just along the ridge was a black shape, moving slowly back.
“Akula! You fantastic, stupid animal.”
The dog walked slowly up to him, and sat at his feet. Michael ran his hands over Akula’s head. His hand came away sticky. He pulled the display off his pack again and used its dim light to check over the G-dog. There was some blood on his face, some cuts and abrasions along his muzzle, but nothing severe.
Michael laughed like a maniac. He was shaking. He sat unsteadily on the ground beside his G-dog.
“You could have been killed, you fool. Diving into a swarm. You’re so lucky it had almost collapsed. You must have killed just enough to bring it down. You stupid, lucky, brave dog.”
He wrapped his hands around the dog’s neck. With tears in his eyes, he buried his face in the thick fur around Akula’s neck.
“Thank you. You saved me. You big, beautiful fool.”
Intellectually he knew the dog was following its programming. It was genetically designed to follow, to be obedient. Its loyalty was by design. In the past swarm hunters had died, their dogs being transferred to another hunter. The dogs’ programming allowed them to bond almost instantly to a new leader. What happened to dogs whose hunters died in the wild was unknown. None had ever come back to the colony.
Even knowing all this, Michael couldn’t help feeling for his dog’s loyalty. Akula had thrown himself at the swarm to save Michael.
He unwrapped his hands from the dog’s neck. “With any luck there shouldn’t be any more swarms around here. To be safe, though – dispose.”
Obediently the G-dog rose to his feet and began to scour the ridge. A crunch marked where he found and disposed of a swarm fox.
Michael went in the opposite direction, stamping on any swarm fox he could find. The silence of the night had seemed frightening before, but with his faith in his dog, it now seemed a comfort. A silent night, with just him and Akula. They’d faced down a swarm, and won. Tomorrow he’d be back at the colony, with its noise. For now, Michael felt he could enjoy the peace of the night.
Then the night was broken by a sound. Michael stopped. It wasn’t that the sound was unearthly. In fact, it was very earthly. Which is what made it so out of place here. It was the howling of a dog. It was a sound he’d heard in the desert back on Earth often enough, but never off-world. There were no native dogs here.
Michael looked back at Akula. He was clearly listening. He stood still, with his head tilted slightly to one side. The howl came again and Akula acted. He threw his head back and replied.
Michael had never seen or heard Akula howl before. It didn’t surprise him, though. G-dogs were, after all, simply modified dogs. The extra loyalty and obedience was an enhanced form of pack behaviour. Howling, he guessed, was a pack behaviour.
As Akula’s howl died away there was a moment of silence. Then the response came; two howls, from somewhere down in the valley below the ridge.
Michael understood the behaviour, but didn’t understand the source. Why were there dogs out here? Were they hunting for Michael and Akula? Was it some sort of rescue? That made no sense; they had never done a rescue like that before.
There was sound. The scrabble of paws on rock. Without any communication, Michael and Akula both walked to where they could hear the sound of something coming up the side of the ridge. As they got there a head appeared. The evening was dim, but Michael made out a short muzzle, mottled fur, and floppy ears.
“Blitz.” He recognized the G-dog. It had belonged to Colin Waltz. Colin had died in a swarm attack two months ago. His G-dog had never been found.
Another G-dog climbed up the ridge, then another. Finally there were six G-dogs, and Akula, gathered at the top of the ridge, staring at Michael. All of them, Michael knew, had lost their hunters in the wilderness over the past six months. All had been declared missing, presumed lost. Now, here they were. How had they survived out here? By making a pack, he guessed. Now they’d found a master again. They were programmed to follow; they’d follow him back to the colony. They were programmed to follow pretty much any leader after all.
He heard a growl behind him. He swung around and saw Akula’s hackles up, his ears down, and his teeth bared. Swarm!
“Where?” he began.
Something struck him in the back, knocking him to the ground. He rolled over, to see three dogs, their teeth bared, staring down at him. What? No. The swarm…
Blitz lunged. His teeth locked around Michael’s neck. With a flick of his powerful neck, Blitz snapped Michael’s. He barely had time to be confused before he died.
Akula tilted his head and stared. His programming told him to protect his leader, but his programming was designed to deal with swarm foxes. He sat, his body language making it clear he was uncomfortable. His ears were flat; he looked anywhere but at the other dogs. A low whine came from his throat. Programming and instinct were warring. Protect the leader. Support the pack. Deal with the swarm foxes. Swarm foxes. He could sense swarm foxes. He turned and growled, his tail out behind him.
Then he looked around him. The six other dogs did not display aggressive behaviour. Instead they stood in relaxed poses, their tails wagging, their mouths open. Blitz dropped his front legs down and gave a play bow. Akula, programmed to follow the pack, stopped growling and sat again. The situation was beyond him, but following was what he was designed for. He waited till he could work out what or who he should follow.
A huge swarm, the largest Akula had ever seen, came over the top of the ridge. He felt he should be aggressive, but no one else was.
The swarm extended two arm-like extensions. At the end of them, hand-shaped structures were formed. The swarm made the command gesture for ‘Follow me.’ Akula looked around. The other six G-dogs got up to follow the swarm. Akula’s programming reinforced his pack instincts.
He followed.
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David Hann is a university teacher and freelance writer from southern New Zealand. He claims he tries to write happy stories, but that they often just turn dark by themselves. His stories have featured in some magazines and online publications including The Weird and Whatnot, The Fifth Dimension, Sci-Fi Lampoon, and After Dinner Conversation. He also has a book of short stories to his name, co-written with H. J. Tidy.
