Young Sven enjoyed the cool mountain breeze and the warm sun as he stood on the rise watching Dorce, his father, below working in the open pit mine. A few moments before he had been playing hide and seek with some of the other children bounding through the forest, laughing and running, hiding and being very quiet.
It was little Karla, the youngest of the group at eight years of age, who had found him and tagged him out. Now he was resting as she looked for the other children.
The sound of the picks hitting the ground and churning up the dirt was like a continuous string of fire crackers, ratta tat tat tat - ratta tat tat tat, with no hesitations. The 53 men of the Bear Clan would work all day uncovering, cleaning, and packing away the crystals into the leather bags. An hour before the sun went down they would send the children home and lead the mule train down the trails to the Pike where they would unload the crystals into transports to be rushed away to the spaceport next to Newusa.
The mining of the crystals was never done with phasors. There was something about the rays which could damage the crystals making them useless and unsellable.
One of the children, Erik, sprang from the underbrush and ran for home base—a large boulder near the bottom and to the left of the open pit. He was the last one in and Sven would have gone down to join the other children in another game, but they had been playing for several hours, and he was getting bored.
He was just thinking about joining the four boys standing on the other side of the pit when he saw a red ray flash through the air and strike Borg in the back. At that moment everything started moving quickly. Borg, Erik's father, looked down at his chest where something red was running from the front. With a stunned look on his face he slowly dropped the pick and fell to the ground and died.
And then red rays seemingly came from everywhere. Twenty-three of the Bear Clan miners were down before they even knew anything was happening. Sixteen were dead before they hit the ground and seven were mortally wounded.
The rest of the miners ducked behind boulders or ridges—anywhere they could hide from the phasor bolts. Most of the children, including Sven, just stood in a state of stupefaction, watching in horror as their fathers were being killed. But little Toby, a nine year old, started running toward Jask, his father, who was hiding behind one of the boulders.
Jask stepped out to gather the boy into his arms, but a red ray bore through little Toby's back. Blood spurted like a fountain from his chest and little Toby pitched to one side. He landed with his back and shoulders flat on the ground, but his hips were twisted in an unnatural position. His eyes were staring into space.
Jask stood in horror for a moment. Tears came to his eyes, and finally he drew his phasor and started a suicide run—run, swerve, fall and roll, jump to the feet, swerve, fire the phasor, run swerve, run swerve, run swerve, fall and roll . . . His phasor cut through a tree taking off the head and shoulders of a hooded enemy. Run, swerve, run, swerve, fall and roll, jump to the feet, his phasor bore through another tree taking out another hooded enemy. Red rays were striking all around him. Run, swerve, run, swerve, run, swerve his phasor took out another, but just as it did a red ray hit him in the shoulder spinning him to the ground. Three more rays hit him in the torso. It was a relief as he died; the pain of watching his young son being murdered would vanish with his death.
The only remaining visible targets were the children standing near the forest frozen in fear. Some of the fathers stood up and yelled to the children to run, but it was too late, phasor fire came out of the woods, killing in a bloody spectacle and littering the ground with small corpses.
The phasor fire stopped and the hooded men and women then started moving through the forest in a circuitous direction toward the top of the pit. They needed to get a better angle on the men hiding behind the boulders and the ridges.
Dorce, Sven's father, looked up and saw him standing motionless at the top of the pit. "Run Sven, run," he yelled.
His father's voice brought him out of his shock. And just as he started to turn he heard a twig snap behind him.
His hand fell to the phasor which was fitted snugly in its holster on his lower abdomen and angled sharply down toward his left side. All the Mountain Men and women wore their phasors for fast and easy draw—a design which had saved many lives over the years.
Just like we practiced, he thought. All those hours, just like we practiced. He remembered his dad telling him that if it ever came time to shoot a man, when you look into his eyes just keep thinking, 'it's just another target.'
His phasor was out in an instant as he whirled around. And as he pulled the trigger he thought, it's just another target. The phasor bolt hit the hooded enemy full in the chest ripping his heart into two.
He stood staring at the man as blood poured from his chest onto the ground. "It's just another target," he said out loud.
He turned and looked back into the pit. How could he run away and leave his father to the mercy of these hooded monsters? The other clans were too far away to get help.
He hunkered down until he was in a hunched position and then quickly ran to a boulder about twenty yards down the side of the pit. The boulder was small, but so was Sven and he hid behind it easily.
He heard a noise from further down. He peeked over the top of the boulder and saw a hooded man coming toward him. The man's attention, however, was focused on the men in the pit. The man aimed his phasor at one of the clansmen and started to pull the trigger, but Sven fired first. His bolt hit the man in the leg and he went down cursing and yelling in pain and agony. Sven fired again, with true aim, and the man lie still.
More hooded monsters were in the woods coming up the side, firing in the pit at the few remaining miners. Sven's father took a hit in the stomach and went down so violently his phasor went spinning several yards away into the dirt.
There were only three miners still firing at the hooded enemy, but they were killed quickly in the cross fire coming from both sides.
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