Shi Lang and Amelia hid inside the crown of a tree watching three shamanti warriors facing a ferocious beast, the flaming leopard. They were carrying black metal weapons. Shi Lang asked using hand signals, “Do you have any idea of what these weapons are made of?”

Amelia nodded and using her communicator, she shared with him the data gathered by the on-ground staff. Some time ago, she was able to get hold of such a weapon from a patrol team troop, and they researched it. The discovery, however, made the people surprised and shocked. The weapons were crafted from oxidized metal mined by the natives.

Shi Lang read the reports and sighed. Amelia asked him using hand signals, “Is something wrong?”

“To think, these aggressive people were capable of such craft.” replied the boy.

They watched the fight happening on the ground below. The falling leopard was swift in movement and quick in reaction. The beast had no fear in his gaze as it stood against the three natives. Their weapons were incapable of damaging the beast anyhow, but the natives were not getting impatient, they were all moving around and dodging the claws very swiftly.

Amelia was also not impatient and watched the whole proceeding. She had become used to waiting in one spot for hours, ever since she had picked up scouting missions. Shi Lang used hand signs to make the girl shift her focus to the fourth Shamanti hiding in the bush a few meters away.

Amelia did not have the support of high tech equipment with her, so she took out a binocular and observed the direction mentioned by him. She spotted a native squatting within the bushes. It was a male, he seemed to be holding something in his hands. Upon a closer look, Amelia discovered that it was a caged blue bird.

She sharply turned her head to check with Shi Lang, only to find him missing from the place. She did not panic as she knew that the guy had better skills then her. She shifted her focus back to the natives fighting with the beast. Now that Shi Lang has made his move, her job was to provide him cover.

She was smart enough to predict that Shi Lang was going to take out the native holding the blue bird. The blue bird seemed to be have a very crucial role in whatever the natives were planing. So, she took out her compound bow and knocked an arrow to aim at the natives, ready to take them out whenever she found an opportunity.

…

Shi Lang moved quickly through the surroundings, he deliberately took the long route to position himself behind the hiding native. He held his black drill like dagger in a reverse grip as he moved forward slowly with his back bend and weight evenly distributed. His steps were slow, but they did not make any noise, preventing the hidden native from catching any wind of his approach.

As the distance between the two reduced the noise of the blue bird became obvious. The native did not seem to care about the bird flickering and jittering. His focus was occupied by the battle in the front. Shi Lang was aware that the reflexes of the natives was better than the outlanders. Otherwise, he could have noticed Shi Lang’s approach.

The boy was not going to under estimate these cunning natives. He almost visited the underworld under their hands once, never will he be over confident of his own capabilities. Shi Lang was ten meters away from the native when he crouched down on the ground, shifted his weight forward and raised his knife in level with his sight.

It was like a beast lying in wait for his prey to drop the guard. He blinked and calmed his aura, and then by exerting force in his legs, his whole body propelled forward like a bullet. Ten meters were covered in a blink and before the native could even react, a drill-like knife was inserted in the back of his neck.

Shi Lang did not hesitate and pulled the knife out, and then made a second stab at the back of the skull. The native was dead before he could even guess what attacked him. Shi Lang carefully took out his knife, flicked it swiftly and cleaned it. Then he took a look at the small cage lying on the ground, and the fluttering bird inside it.

He used his communicator and typed in a message for Amelia, “Take out the tangos.”

…

Amelia was waiting for his signal and as soon as she got the message, she decided on the target and let go of the arrow. The arrow whooshed through the air and lodged itself in the skull of the native standing at the back of the fighter team.

The natives were facing the beast with impeccable teamwork, a momentary lapse caused them to suffer. After a native finished his attack and retreated, the next attack did not link with the chain and the beast found an opportunity to attack exercise vengeance. The leopard opened its big mouth wide open and bite at the head of the native, who had just finished attacking it.

The last Shamanti warrior wailed at the death of his two companions, and turned to look in the direction where Shi Lang was, but before he could shout, Shi Lang shot at the guy with his phasor hand gun. Then he walked out of the bushholding a cage in his hands. The shamanti warrior was shocked at his abrupt appearance. While the flaming leopard, that was about to attack the remaining native, froze.

It growled at Shi Lang. The youngster however, just aimed his hand gun at the beast and after fidgeting with the back of the gun with his thumb took a shot at the beast, hitting the hind leg of the leopard. The attack hurt the beast, and with the presence of the blue bird, it gave up all its intention of attacking and exercising revenge on the natives.

It rushed away, vanishing in the woods. Amelia jumped off the tree, and quickly came beside Shi Lang. The guy said, “The beast was tagged with a tracking shot, we can track it back. First, we need to deal with this native. Would you like to take make the call?”

Amelia shook his head and said, “They are your kill. You do it.” she was clear. I do not want to owe you anything.

Shi Lang nodded and using his communicator, connected to the camp monitoring room. The call was answered quickly and an excited voice greeted him, “Brat, get me that native, alive, I have dispatched a chopper, I want to extract information from him.”

Shi Lang replied, “Yes, instructor Dalia. How long do I have to wait? If it extends five minutes, then this guy will die. I shot next to his heart.” his tone held no regards for her superiority.

Dalia replied, “The chopper is inbound to your location, in two minutes.”

Shi Lang replied, “Roger that. Wazir made good contribution by taking down one guy too.”

Dalia replied, “We saw it all, calm your balls, romeo. Hand over the situation to the cleaning group and go get that cat.”

Shi Lang did not reply and turned off the communication. He said to Amelia, “Wazir, lets wait for the chopper to come over, and the second phase will begin.”

Amelia nodded and said, “Sir, I have a question.”

Shi Lang nodded and the girl replied, “Sir, the tracking bullet can only last up to twenty kilometers, the range of satellite tracking is only ten kilometers on the standard zoom. We cannot contact the base for any support, how do we proceed about this?”

“The range of twenty kilometers is enough for us to catch up with the beast, and if by a chance it does outrun us, it will be leaving a lot of traces on the way, with a data left all over the distance, I can caliberate the sensors in my mask to track it further.” replied the youngster.

Amelia put forward a few more questions and Shi Lang patiently replied to her, quickly two minutes passed away and they could hear the slight buzz coming from the stealth chopper over head. Ropes fell down from the chopper and three people jumped off, they were a group of two assaulters and one medic.

They saluted Shi Lang and the latter replied, “Take charge of the situation. Mangle the corpses to look like that, and take away the half dead after dragging it in that direction. Let the natives think they died while hunting.”

The soldiers nodded and replied, “Yes, sir.”

Shi Lang turned to face Amelia and after exchanging a glance they moved to chase the fleeing leopard, with the boy carrying the caged blue bird. Amelia followed him with a distance of two steps. Suddenly, the guy said, “Shit, Wazir, use your ability from now on. We are near a native settlement.”