The Hero lota-5 Read online

  “Yeah, I could just see that one. ‘We found this Aldenata artifact and dropped it in a lake. So sorry. but it really was cool at the time.’ I can’t see them buying that.”

  “Right,” Bell Toll chuckled. “Well, I’m going to wrap it back up, so show and tell is over.”

  “Right, sir. I’ll keep an eye out tonight. And I can set some of my sensors to act as additional alarms if you’d like.”

  “Please,” he agreed as Dagger walked in a crouch back across to his gear. He reflected that Dagger wasn’t so bad when his interests were challenged. It was boredom that made him awkward.

  It was dinnertime again. Hopefully, there’d be few more of those on this patrol. As shifting, flashing sparks of false dawn warned of the coming light, they plowed into their food. Hunger helped and so did long practice, as well as awareness that they’d be out of here in very few sleeps.

  “Tuna again,” Gun Doll bitched. “Who eats this crap?”

  “Sorry, Doll,” Thor said. “But I’m not swapping my pork fritter.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said, resignation and a sigh in her voice. “I’ll eat it.”

  Dagger said, “Be right back. Gotta drain the vein,” as he rose and walked toward the large rock.

  “Why didn’t you go in the stream like the rest of us?” Thor joked. Then he wondered why the sniper was walking out past the rocks, and with his rifle. “Hey, Dagger, the slit is over th—”

  As he passed the rock, Dagger grabbed a neural grenade from the pouch on his harness and tossed it back into the middle of the team.

  Chapter 10

  Tirdal felt Dagger’s aggression smack him. It was palpable, vicious, and thoroughly emotionless under the surface. The incoming feeling was so strong, it was one of the few visual senses he’d ever had. The feeling hit him and rolled over him, creating a link for a bare fraction of a second. He could feel the callous smirk on his/Dagger’s face, see the grenade arc from his/Dagger’s hand. The sudden image of a fangar, a predator on Shartan, came through clearly. Dagger was not only committing mass murder, he was enjoying it. It was an intense moment, the sensat equivalent of orgasm, personal and powerful. They were Tirdal’s specialty. He couldn’t always “feel” people in his area. But he always knew when they were participating in a kill.

  He also knew that there wasn’t time to stop it. His punch gun would go right through the boulder the sniper was using as a shield against the neural lash but the grenade was already in the air as the Darhel surged to his feet. Stopping to kill the sniper would just leave the entire team dead on the ground. Their vital information, and the possibly more vital artifact, would never make it back.

  This thought process occurred in an instant and Tirdal knew what he had to do. Saving the team was out of the question; he couldn’t reach the grenade and throw it out of range in time. All he could do was avoid the death himself. And keep the box, which had to be Dagger’s target, out of the hands of the sniper turned traitor.

  But to do everything that he had to do, it would be necessary to use tal hormones. Which was another problem.

  Tirdal summoned the tal, letting the natural anger at the sniper’s betrayal slither a tiny tendril past hard-held defenses. The mere touch of anger triggered the tal gland, dumping a modicum of hormone into the Darhel’s system and slowing his subjective time and the world around him as he reached for the box.

  The captain was slowly looking at him in consternation but Tirdal didn’t pay any attention; the captain, who was a decent person, really, was dead and didn’t know it. Tirdal’s knife-blade hand struck the officer’s wrist, breaking it and releasing the hold on the box.

  As soon as he had the box secured Tirdal turned and dove over the boulder behind him. The whole world seemed to slow as he could see both Shiva’s and Gun Doll’s looks of horror at the sight of the grenade out of the corners of his eyes. His vision split, one eye tracking on potential threats to the right as the other looked to the left where the grenade was coming in. Humans couldn’t do that, he remembered. It might be useful knowledge later.

  He had the box, his punch gun and his combat harness with its small patrol pack. What he didn’t have was his rucksack. But as soon as he had the bulk of the granite between him and the grenade he intended to teach the sniper a few things about Darhel.

  One of which was that they really hated traitors. At least Bane Sidhe Darhel did.

  He leapt up and back, and one hand struck the top of the boulder to correct his course with a twist. Fingers tougher than granite left small scars as they drove him forward and down into the tangled undergrowth. The landing would receive no praise from his master, and he felt one shoulder give. But then he was flat on the ground, if somewhat battered, when the neural grenade gave its snarl.

  Breathing slowly and deeply to prevent lintatai, Tirdal spun around on his belly and, carefully controlling his tal reaction, fired back along the line towards the spot the sniper had thrown from. Carefully. He was just shooting boulders and dirt. Not a person. If the person happened to be in the way that would be a pure accident. But not a kill. Never a kill.

  * * *

  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 sta
ring 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 Gorilla 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 grenad
e 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.