The Time of The Cat 45
ESTES PARK
The Estes Park transporter link led to a door on the second floor of what turned out to be the Stanley Hotel. We verified that the dimly lit hall was empty, but the closed doors gave us a rather uneasy feeling. There could be a lot of Pugs in there, just waiting to pop out.
I turned a nearby corner and found the stairwell. I led our group quietly down the carpeted stairs. There was a window at the landing, but we ignored it, trotting down the steps as rapidly as possible.
The scene at the bottom of the stairs was enough to clue me that Rudy had been there before us. There were dead Pugs all over the place and the furnishings looked like a series of grenades had been used. It was a mess and the owners of the hotel were doubtless going to be angry. No, wait. The owners were most likely dead, killed by Pugs.
Combat-like sounds were coming from the rear of the hotel. As I listened, it became obvious that there was a fight going on there. I could hear faint “Poof” sounds from a number of splinter-guns shooting in ragged volleys. There was also a lot of hissing that sounded like enraged Pugs.
Keeping my head down, I sneaked over to a convenient window and looked out. It was past dusk, but I could see that there were a lot of Pugs in the well-lit, garden-like courtyard outside. They had their backs to us and were keeping low behind whatever cover they could find. Just then Rudy’s face popped into my field of vision. He was high up, looking down over some rocks near a waterfall that descended into the rear courtyard of the hotel. The rock wall was about a hundred feet from the back porch of the main building and about twenty feet higher. As I watched, I could see that Rudy was aiming at something. He sighted and shot, and one of the Pugs below dropped its gun and started thrashing about.
That was enough for us. We slipped quietly to the rear door and prepared to flank them. As we moved around the free-floating stairway, the sergeant put his hand on my arm and pointed up, indicating that he’d go to the landing halfway up and shoot out of the window. I nodded, and he and the other remaining Marine slipped back around to the front of the free-floating staircase. In a few seconds, I heard them running up the stairs.
The rest of us arranged ourselves on both sides of the door in such a way that we could shoot out at almost any angle. I ducked down and unfolded the attached doorstop, then shoved the door hard. The stop dragged behind, wedging the door open.
None of the Pugs had seen anything, but I caught a quick wave from one of the men on top of the rocks by the waterfall. They had seen us and that relieved me a lot. If given the choice I’d rather have a whole roomful of Pugs shooting at me than any one of Rudy’s group.
We picked out as many targets as we could and then let fly all at once. The Pugs were thrown into total disarray. They first didn’t know where the additional fire was coming from and then they apparently thought that Rudy’s group had gotten behind them because they all turned towards the hotel.
We had to duck back as a hailstorm of needles flew past us to shatter on the underside of the stairs. This, however, was perfect for Rudy, because his group popped up and fired rapidly at the Pugs’ exposed backs until some of the enemy turned to shoot back and his guys dropped out of sight.
The Pugs had set up in a spot with a couple of low stonewalls, some heavy planters, and some tables. It was well lighted and there was no difficulty picking out our targets. The walls offered them no protection from shots fired from the hotel side. They could hide from us behind the planters, but that exposed them to Rudy’s group. A few of the Pugs had thrown tables on edge between them and Rudy and they tipped more over when we started shooting and hid between them. That was the best cover they had.
This was kind of like a shooting gallery, and I was almost enjoying myself. With the exception of the chance of being killed, it was entertaining. There were still over fifty Pugs between us and the rest of our force. I unslung the eraser-gun and swept it across as much of their line as I could see from my position.
The remaining Pugs jumped up and started to run up the stairs beside the waterfall. They knew the eraser-gun would wipe them out if they stayed in sight. I followed them up the stairs with a long burst of anti-matter and got most of them. Rudy’s group shot the remaining few as they crested the top.
I’d over-timed that last burst. The waterfall was now running into a deep hole where the base of the stairs used to be. It looked like we’d be climbing over the stacked rocks to get up to Rudy’s location.
He stood up at the crest of the hill and waved at us to come up. He shouted down, “There may be a bunch more of them coming along, so get up here now.”
Behind us, I could hear the two Marines running down the stairs. We exited the door and headed for the rocks, stepping over dead Pugs and watching carefully for living ones as we went.
We had made it partway across the open garden when I heard someone shout an obscenity inside the hotel. The shout was followed by the “Poof” sounds from a couple of splinter guns. Right after that, the sergeant came running through the door at a full sprint, but he was alone.
“One came out of a room and shot James!” He was cursing as he ran.
“Did you get him?” I yelled.
“Yeah! Damn his eyes! I should have been more careful!”
You could see that he was really torn up about James. He’d already lost two other members of his squad. The only other survivor of the group was the Marine that went with Juan. I hoped he was OK.
We ran the rest of the way across the garden area and scrambled up the sloping rock wall to where we were greeted by Rudy.
“Man, I’ve never been so glad to see someone in my life!” he exclaimed. “We weren’t making any progress against those Pugs, and I was about to try and run for it when I saw you looking out of the door.”
My first question was in the nature of criticism of his strategy, “Why the Hell didn’t you use your eraser-gun?”
He looked embarrassed, “I broke it.”
He shrugged his shoulders and explained, “A Pug jumped on me, and in the scuffle, I landed on the thing and it broke. I could have used it when the recently deceased – ” Here he waved his hand at the dead Pugs scattered out down below
, “ – first chased us through the hotel. I tried and the only thing it would do was spark a little around the receiver area. I thought it might explode, so I ditched it under the seat of that antique car in the lobby.”
“That’s a Stanley Steamer for your information,” I responded.
Liz came up carrying the cat, as usual. She seemed concerned about the time and was trying to get a glimpse of Rudy’s watch. When she saw what time it was, she drew a deep breath, composing herself before speaking.
“We only have about eight hours before the EMP detonation. I think we’d better see if we can get to the off-planet transporter link and cause some kind of problem while it’s still dark. If we wait, it might be too late to do anything.”