Exodus: Tales of The Empire: Book 2: Beasts of the Frontier. by Doug Dandridge

so many of them.
    The Chief
Enforcer shot down the two lizards coming his way, and was almost ready to turn
the beam on the bush to get the rest of them.  The thought of the wealth that
plant represented stayed his hand.  The remaining man came up beside him, eyes
wide.
    “What are we
going to do?” stammered Clark, one of the mercenaries, wearing light body
armor.
    Deveroix thought
for a moment of ordering the man to go harvest blooms.  After all, his armor
should be proof against the venom.  Should was the word that stopped him.  If
Clark was killed, Deveroix would be alone in this wilderness.
    “We’re going to
wait here for Jack to get to us,” said the Chief Enforcer.  “And we’re going to
take the last aircar and get the fuck out of here.”  This operation had been a
screwup from the start, when they found that the family wasn’t home.  And then
to follow them out into their backyard.
    “Come in,” he
said over the com, trying to link to the aircar.  “Come in dammit.”
    *     *     *
    Sophie lowered
her rifle, a smile on her face.  Not that she liked the idea of killing
sentients, but these people had come out here to kill members of her family. 
They had gotten what they deserved.
    “Go ahead and
take out the engine compartment,” said her father, lying on the ground beside
her and looking through field glasses at the aircar and the bodies of the pilot
and his copilot.  “They’re deader than hell,” he said approvingly.  “No way
their going to be fixed.”
    “Of course not,”
agreed Sophie, centering the crosshairs of the scope on the forward engine
compartment of the aircar.  “That’s why I went for the head.  Same as you.”
    She squeezed the
trigger and the angry red beam instantaneously linked the barrel of the rifle
with the car, while the angry buzzing sound filled the air.  She loved particle
beam weapons.  There was no drop off over any kind of practical range, and the
recoil from the beam came straight through the line of the barrel into the
stock, so there was also no barrel climb.
    Alloy started to
flow on the aircar.  With a shower of sparks the beam was through, and the
ultra-fast moving protons were now doing their damage to the machinery and
electronics under the covering.  She used an entire proton pack, and the barrel
of the weapon was glowing almost white hot when she was finished.
    “Ok,” said her
father.  “Now you’ve got to let that weapon cool.  And then…”
    “And then?” she
asked.
    “And then we go
looking for some more trouble.”
    *     *     *
    “What the hell
was that,” yelled the man at the front of the team.
    Jack didn’t miss
that sound, something exploding in the near distance.  It didn’t take augmented
hearing to tell that some kind of explosive had just gone off.  He ranged in on
the direction, not sure what was out there that might be worth using an
explosive device on.  Then he heard the hooting sound, and the ground shook
slightly as if something heavy were pounding it.  Or running.
    “Shit,” yelled
the point man as a small tree fell over just ahead.  Or was it pushed over? 
    Something very
large ran onto the path, and Jack realized what kind of creatures must have
made these wide paths.  A body that had to mass a hundred tons, sort of like an
Earth sauropod, but built on the six legged plan of this world.  Smallish head
towering ten meters above the ground.  Heading right for them in a strange gait
that seemed to eat up the distance.  Behind it ran four more of the creatures,
two adults, a youth and a baby.
    The point man
screamed out and started to run, in a panic staying on the path.  The giant
forepad came down on his head and crushed him into the ground with the
splintering of bones.  The second man, in the suit of light armor, took a shot
that tore into the flesh of the creature.  It hooted in pain and veered toward
the man.  Light armor was not protection enough against the