The Hero

by John Ringo

  * * *

  Ferret was turning his head as Thor spoke, and realized something was wrong. He didn't know what that thing flying in from behind the boulder was at first, but he knew it was bad.

  Luckily, he had been setting up his position behind a low finger of rock, to at least have the illusion of privacy. He ducked flat and hoped he'd be covered from whatever stupid stunt Dagger was pulling. He didn't care if he got laughed at for putting his face in the dirt. If this was a joke, it was a bad one.

  He felt the angry lash of the grenade, and knew he was wounded. At first, that's all it was, an agonizing rip through his body, bright flashes in his eyes. But he was alive. He concentrated on that. His awareness returned, with his feet kicking convulsively. The pain resolved as a searing, cramping burn from his mid-calves down. He'd been mostly covered from the rays of the blast, but his feet had protruded beyond the rock and been exposed, and it hurt, oh shit it hurt.

  Now he had to move. That couldn't have been by accident, and Dagger would be coming back to kill him. He also noticed as he scanned the area that the bodies in front of him didn't include Tirdal. Was that damned Darhel in on this? Not good. Whatever was happening was not good. He scrabbled for a gap between the rocks and tried to squirm through, but got stuck. It would be easy to push himself through with his feet, except his feet were not working, except that the nerves were working and they fucking hurt. There was firing behind him and that was a bad sign.

  By sheer force that strained a tricep into a sting that paled compared to his feet, he wiggled out. He held still as he saw Tirdal go jogging past below, headed downstream with the artifact.

  Oh, son of a bitch, he thought. Had it all been a setup to get that artifact? Or had Tirdal and Dagger cut a deal this evening? "Captain?" he whispered into his commo, craving a reassuring voice. There was no reply. He knew they were dead, but he had to check. Scrolling through channels, he tried, "Sarge? Doll? Thor? Gorilla?" with no responses. Panic set in as he realized he was in command now, with two traitors, and it didn't matter a damn, because he was going to be killed. And even if he wasn't killed, the neural damage to his ankles and feet meant he might get gangrene and die shortly anyway. He couldn't very well amputate, and he had no way of repairing nerves in the field. Was gangrene possible? He didn't know. Not that it mattered; he was lame.

  He scrabbled higher up the slope, keeping low, keeping hidden. This part he could do on hands and knees for now, though he'd have to watch where his dangling feet went or he'd leave a clear sign of his passing. He didn't just need to worry about Blobs now, this was Dagger who would be stalking him. And Tirdal could probe his mind. He wasn't sure there was anywhere safe at this point, but he couldn't just lie there and wait for a shot.

  Ferret was scared. He wasn't afraid to admit it. He was just old enough to grasp mortality, and it was staring hard at him. He couldn't see any way of coming out of this alive, but the few hours or days he might have were precious beyond anything else.

  Carefully, he made his way uphill under waving fronds and tangled stems. Height would give him a better chance at a shot, as long as he could stay hidden, because Dagger's sensors and eyes would be looking for him, and the way he'd shot against Thor was just terrifying. And Tirdal had been following Ferret the entire trip, with that Sense of his, staring into his soul.

  Ferret took a deep, slow breath and tried to calm down. He knew he was panicking, he knew he was in shock, and he knew his pulse was beating way too fast for health.

  There was a dimple in the earth, thickly overgrown with greenery, and slightly damp. It would shield him for now. His heat would balance out the evaporative cooling of the earth, and he should be able to blend into the background. He elbowed and kneed his way around to the far side and slithered in.

  * * *

  Dagger was happy. That was a rare thing. But a billion credits could buy a lot of happiness. With a billion credits he could move himself to Kali and spend the rest of his life abusing worshippers. He could have himself rejuvenated as many times as he wished and when even rejuv failed could have his brain transferred to a new body and go on having fun. Maybe a woman's body. Maybe he'd do that anyway, just for the kicks. A billion credits were going to buy a lot of pleasure.

  He stood up as soon as the grenade settled down, stepped down and glanced around the clearing at the spasming and very dead bodies. Good. They were all assholes anyway. Where the hell was the . . .

  * * *

  Tirdal couldn't localize the satisfied emotion but he heard a movement that wasn't thrashing and fired along the vector. But as he did he sensed the surprise and flight emotions as well. He ripped out a series of shots to either side of where he thought the sniper had been but realized that he'd missed. It wasn't really surprising. It was all he could do at this moment, though. Dagger might dodge into a beam. What was the motive here? Was simple greed enough to cause a trained professional to kill his teammates? Or did Dagger harbor some deeper issue? The human mind was a difficult thing to understand. For now, the motives weren't important. Tirdal kept shooting as he skittered down the hill with the artifact, leaving obvious drag marks but needing distance and time.

  * * *

  Dagger dove and rolled, knowing what was going to happen. He also noted that the damned box was gone. The heat detector on his rifle had the Darhel more or less pinpointed so he let loose a hornet round and got the hell out of dodge, keeping those rocks between them as a punch gun poounked behind him. Then there was more firing. It wasn't very accurate yet but that could change. What the hell had happened? He'd seen that damned Darhel in the clearing. He'd made sure of it, because killing the damned smart-ass Elf was the frosting on the cake. Certainly it had sensed him, but how in the fuck had that little bastard got the box and lit out over the rocks into a shadow zone before the grenade had fuzed?

  * * *

  Tirdal's shoulder was hurting but he ignored it as he stood up and started to the side. It was that moment that the hornet round came flying around the boulder.

  The hornet round could track on several items but the chameleon suit was giving off enough heat that that was the easiest. It lofted at a relatively low velocity until it decided it had a good track then went into high-speed acquisition.

  The shot had been just a hope and a prayer for Dagger. The defensive sensors on Tirdal's harness spotted the energy release on launch and as the device came around the rock a beam of high-intensity protons met it. The protons caused the body of the device to emit its own personal EMP field, tearing apart most of the electronics that controlled it. The weapon had lined up for its attack run but the EMP shut down its systems and although it continued towards the Darhel it was at far below killing velocity.

  The projectile still slammed into Tirdal at over a thousand meters per second. Bullets, or even hypervelocity beads, don't knock people down, but the impact cracked his lower chest plate and knocked the air out of his lungs. He managed to roll away from the rocks to a new cover position, wincing in pain and controlling his breathing to maintain consciousness. He hunched deeply under an alcove in the slope and kept his punch gun pointed up and out, in case Dagger should appear in front of him. Then he got his brain working again, through a miasma of sparks in his vision and a roaring in his ears.

  He could Sense the silence from the camp. He was not good at picking up humans with his normal senses, but the background hum of life, human life, was gone from the small camp. And he could Sense the sniper out there, somewhere. The empathic sense that had been honed by the Bane Sidhe disciplines was not precise. It could tell him if something was very near or very distant. Everything in between was gray. The sniper was leaving "near" though. Which meant he was probably finding a good place to take a shot, which meant it was time to move out.

  There were things up there in the rocks that Tirdal needed. His gear. His food, which was designed for his enzymic limitations as well as to provide the high calorie content he needed. Clean water. Some of the killer bots that Goril
la had carried would help with the sniper. On the other hand, wandering into the camp was out of the question. Before long Dagger would find a good hide and the next sensation Tirdal would pick up was the feeling as he squeezed the delicate neural trigger of his rifle.

  He glanced at the box that was the center of the difficulty then looked around. The area was rolling and lightly wooded, the bones of the earth sticking up through the loam. If he kept to low ground and the trees, the chances were the sniper would not be able to get a shot at him. Of course, that would really add to the travel time.

  If he could break contact with Dagger, he might be able to take to the ridges and outrun him. Darhel were descended from heavy-grav predators; this world was to him as Mars was to a human and humans moved like so many cattle. He could easily outdistance Dagger.

  On the other hand, there was no question that Dagger had the advantage on him. The sniper had much more experience in the field than Tirdal, whose training was mostly mental and personal. And Dagger's rifle had about ten times the range that his weapon did. That meant that Tirdal had to either leave him far behind, or get in tight and kill him, assuming he could do so without going into tal overload and suffering the consequences. That also would be a failure of the mission. He grimaced. It was one of the few expressions that was the same for both races.

  Ideally, since he couldn't get the artifact out past the human fleet anyway, he should just destroy it here. But it would take more energy than a punch gun to pierce that molecularly bound shell with its forcefield reinforcement. He'd just have to carry it until he could arrange disposition. Neither Dagger, nor any other human for that matter, could be allowed to access the damnable device.

  Dagger would expect him to go for the camp. Then he would expect him to run for it. And, frankly, Tirdal couldn't figure out any other options. But, since he already knew he wasn't going to go for the material in the camp, it was time to run, before Dagger came to the same conclusion.

  He trotted downslope towards the watercourse, then began paralleling it towards the west. Somewhere to the south, presumably, Dagger would be holing up, waiting for him to head for the camp. That should give him the time to break contact.

  * * *

  Dagger slid slowly into place under another shelf up the hill and extended his rifle. That damned punch gun made the Darhel too much of a danger at short range and that damned harness eliminated most of his smart rounds. But the free-flight projectiles would work well enough. That was so like a Darhel. There was always something they had to stick their manipulative fingers into. If he'd had the good grace to die with the rest, Dagger would be nearly home by now.

  He panned the holographic sight from side to side and swore. In the hollow below the team members had twisted into the characteristic spasming posture from the neural grenade but he didn't pay them any attention. He didn't need any of the commo gear. He hesitated over Gorilla's load of bots but this fight was going to be mano a mano; screw the electronic pieces of shit. He thought again about the local detector off Ferret's harness and the tracker control off the captain. Better take those. The only heat emanations were from the cooling bodies; the devious little son of a bitch Darhel was gone.

  Or was he just well hidden? The sight would pick up the slightest trace of heat but it was possible to spoof it. Just closing the uniforms like they were space suits would do it for a bit. Of course, you risked dying of heat prostration on a warm morning like this. With the remaining moisture in the suits from earlier, Tirdal should be stewing like a chicken. But he could be doing that, buttoned up and staying really still until Dagger moved.

  That was unlikely, though. He should have gotten at least a trace by now and the computer was saying the area was deserted. The fucking Elf had run. With the goddamned artifact.

  And it wasn't likely he could outrun, outwit and outthink Dagger. First of all, the captain had put a tracer on the box. He hadn't made a big deal of it, had actually been sort of cagey, like he knew it might come up missing. Did the Darhel know? Probably not, or he wouldn't have wasted time grabbing it. In fact, why had he? The box's mass was a hindrance to him that Dagger could exploit. His own greed had burdened him instead of Dagger with the bulky artifact, and it could be used to track him. Dumb. Second of all, there wasn't another tracker in the Galaxy like Dagger. He could track a Himmit on rock. Tracking a city-bred Darhel wasn't going to be too hard.

  He thought about the stuff he wanted. Ferret had a lifesigns tracker that could pick up complex nervous systems out to a hundred meters or so. It also picked up genetic traces like blood or hair. It was designed to pick up humans but it probably worked for Darhel as well. It didn't pick up Blobs, but between it and the tracer on the box he should be able to find the Elf bastard and put him down. The captain's tracer had a corresponding box to follow it. With those, even a blind man could find the Darhel. Then it was payday. But if Tirdal was there waiting, Dagger would be blown to bloody bits by the slap of a punch gun. Best not to risk it. Besides, he didn't need gadgets. This was a battle of wits.

  Dammit, yes he did need them. Fear wasn't going to dissuade him from doing this properly. Taking another scan across the area, he decided it was safe and darted down in long, low strides, hunched over. He kept the rifle slung, using its harness sling to hold it straight along his back over his ruck. It was a bit awkward, but left both hands free for his rail pistol and his knife. Reaching the depression, he looked for Ferret's body. It had been over there and now it was . . . not. Shit. Ferret was also alive. That was a stick in the ass he didn't need.

  There were faint but clear marks. Ferret had wriggled away through the rocks. That meant he was probably injured. His survival was still another complication though, dammit. The trail grew faint, and a quick scan didn't show any heat trace, so he was either gone or hiding. Still, Dagger knew he'd have to be fast, in case one or the other showed back up.

  Anyway, on to that asshole captain. He snickered again. The thought came to him, "That'll teach you to have me dig the shitter."

  The captain was facing away. So, the coward had tried to run rather than fight. Typical. you could always expect the commissioned orifices to fight from the rear. And what the hell had happened to his wrist? It was not just broken, it was shattered. The fingers and forearm were swollen, the bones crunched so hard the limb would have flopped like a sausage if the muscles weren't cranked down tight from the neural effect. He must have landed on it very oddly. No matter, it wasn't important. What was important was finding where the bastard had stuffed the tracker, and quickly.

  Oh, wasn't that just fucking lovely. The asshole had it in his thigh pocket, and his suit was permeable to vent moisture, which also meant that the oozing shit and piss from his clenched then relaxed sphincters had drained down and into it. As he rolled the body over, he took one look at that face, which was more confused than anything. Stupid bastard probably hadn't had any idea what was happening, even when it came down to it. Typical. Dagger hawked quietly and spat across his nose and mouth. "Next time, die neatly you piece of shit," he whispered. Then he was up and running, kicking Gun Doll's sprawled and twisted form in the crotch as he ran, just because. Flaky bitch.

  He moved out and back to the east, fast but cautiously. Fortunately there was that range of hills between them and the Blob base; with any luck there wouldn't be any Blob presence over here. He angled carefully upslope, keeping low and keeping trees between him and the open grave of his former buddies. It would be interesting, he thought, to see how the local life disposed of the corpses. Would they do as Earth carrion and eat the eyes first? Strip the bodies, even inside their suits, to bare bones? Or would something jackallike chew the bones at once? What of the gear? Buried, dragged away as trophies or curiosities as rats would do, or left to form new "artifacts" for some other race to find a thousand years hence?

  It wasn't an interesting enough question to risk a billion dollar box over, though. But it could amuse his idle moments in the coming years. Maybe he'd commission
a picture. Or hell, on Kali he could pay to have it reenacted with prisoners and watch how they decayed. Import a truck full of bugs and mix up some drinks.

  He reached a slight knob about two hundred meters away that offered good visibility. The sun was just rising past it, burning off the haze that had coalesced only a few minutes before, and adding another element of excitement to this contest. The Elf would have an easier time detecting movement in daylight. So would Ferret, though he wasn't much of a threat. So would Dagger. But it negated some of his instruments, like the heat sensors. That pumpkin-orange ball would soon be a sun near as bright as Earth's, and was, by the time he'd shimmied around the clearing to the high point. It rose quickly with this short day.

  He settled under a mass of leaves, his chameleon gear blending in nicely. Using his scope, he scanned the area again but there wasn't any sign of the Elf. Good. Well, bad, but he'd deal with that at once. There wasn't any sign of Ferret. The little twerp really was a good sneak. Not good either. Though he might be dead in the weeds. It wasn't important, but it would be nice to know.

  Obviously Tirdal had gone the other way. So, it was time to head back down, and look for the signs of his passing. That would be like tracking a rhino through a ceramics exhibition. The Elf really had no clue in the woods. He was certainly quiet, but without Ferret to follow, he would leave plenty of sign.

  As to Ferret, if he hadn't popped up yet, either he was injured, or he'd decently crawled off to die. No worries.

  * * *

  Tirdal should have been able to break contact easily. What he had not anticipated was the amount of damage to his chest plate. His suit was broached, and blood leaked from the small hole.

  The Darhel chest plate was not just ersatz ribs. It had evolved as both a protection for the heart, lungs and a nerve node that the Darhel had in the same general area as humans, and as a functional diaphragm. Tirdal started off at a good pace, but after a couple of kilometers the tingling pain in his chest exploded into searing agony. He did a quick medical scan and it confirmed his worst fears. What he had hoped was just a hairline fracture in fact was a crack almost across the plate. Using it to suck in and out, especially at high rates of speed, was impossible. He'd be lucky if he could move as fast as the sniper, much less outrun him. Holding the box awkwardly across his shoulder pulled the plate up and sideways, making it hurt worse with every step. He swapped sides, shifting the punch gun to his left and the artifact to the right. That was a bit better. He vaguely recalled that humans were typically oriented to use one side only, usually the right. He'd keep that in mind.