by John Ringo
Now it was time to wait. It was warm though not hot, but between exercise and sunlight, Dagger was sweating. At least he was still sweating. If the sweats stopped, it meant heat exhaustion, followed shortly by death. There was no one here to treat him.
* * *
Ferret noticed movement out of the corner of his eye and turned his head. "Shit, Tirdal, you've got a flock of giant bats moving in."
There was a moments' pause before Tirdal replied, "I see them. They are not overhead yet, though."
"I think they will be soon. What happened on the way in? Do you remember what the captain said about them?" There were six of the things, circling in the sun and moving across the savanna. They obviously saw something they liked. Ferret realized he was actually afraid it might be Tirdal. Of course, the same things might come after him shortly.
"I missed that discussion also, Ferret. I think it was between the captain and Gorilla," Tirdal said. "But there's nothing I can do about them at this point."
"Tirdal!" he said urgently. "They're not only carnivorous, but if Dagger figures out they've spotted you, you're toast."
"I realize that," was the calm reply. "However, there is nothing I can do at this point," he repeated. "I am open to suggestions."
Ferret thought it was rather obvious. "Shoot them some bait," he said. "If they have fresh meat they don't have to worry about, they'll ignore you."
"Of course," Tirdal said. "If I could find game within range that I could kill with a punch gun, that would be an excellent suggestion." There was a moment's hesitation before he said, "And if I could withstand another psychic blow from killing something that has a consciousness."
It hit Ferret at once. Of course. There were a lot of sensat Darhel. It seemed as if they were all that way. Everyone had assumed that it was mostly their sensats volunteered, but there didn't seem to be any that weren't. If the emotions of those around them were present like that, no wonder they avoided crowds. And no wonder it was hard to kill, or be around killing. "Ah, hell, Tirdal," he said, "I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"Nor were you supposed to, Ferret. Nor any humans. But it's somewhat obvious now and still leaves me in a quandary. If you can get close enough to perhaps hit one, I will trust you to do so. Especially as I don't have much choice."
Ferret thought about that for just a moment. "Tirdal, as soon as one of us fires, Dagger will track the shot. So we want to shoot at him only. If he isn't ducking bolts, he's going to be shooting back." Meanwhile, the pterosaur flyers were steady. They seemed to have acquired a target.
"Patching through," Tirdal said and at once, Ferret could hear Dagger say, "So, Tirdal, the flappies tell me you smell like chicken yourself."
"What are you referring to, Dagger?" Tirdal asked, pushing just a hint of curiosity into his voice.
Either it wasn't good enough, or Dagger was too shrewd to be misled. "They're circling over you, my friend."
"Oh, those," Tirdal said. "I see them, Dagger. Some distance away. Ferret might be there, as he seemed nearly dead last time I spoke to him. Why don't you go investigate?" Ferret snickered under his breath. Yes, Dagger, go investigate and I'll shoot your sorry ass in the back.
"I really don't think so, Tirdal," Dagger said.
"No? Why don't you call him, then? Ferret seems to have stopped responding, and I can't Sense him anymore. In fact, he was rather weak the entire way through this."
"Right. I'm not as dumb as you look, Elf. But I will see you soon."
"As you keep saying, Dagger. It's been over three days now. You make promises like a human politician."
"Bye, Elf," Dagger said. The channel closed.
Tirdal said, "Well, Ferret, that's where we stand."
"Yeah," Ferret said. Just then, Dagger called him. He patched it back to Tirdal as a courtesy.
"Oh, Ferret, are you there?"
Ferret kept totally still as Dagger continued, "I'm about to take a shot at the Darhel. You know I'll get him. And then, buddy, pal, I'm not going to kill you. I'm just going to leave you here. I don't reckon you can last six weeks of transit time back, plus six more weeks of transit time here, assuming anyone decides to corroborate our findings. You might want to just do yourself now, or snuggle up to the Blob base and hope for a nice clean nuke."
He absolutely burned to call the man a psychopath, a freak, a piece of shit, anything. But he had to say absolutely nothing. He gritted his teeth and took it.
"Very well, Ferret. If you're dead, you won't notice. Rest in peace."
The channel closed, and at once Ferret said, "Tirdal, I think we all know where we stand now."
"Yes, Ferret. Very much," was the reply.
"Fine. But when we bag this son of a whore, you are going to tell me why you have the box."
"Ferret, unlike Dagger, I won't lie to you. That information is not going to be available. There are things I cannot discuss, just as you have things in the Republican Army you can't tell Darhels. But we do know where we stand regarding Dagger."
Sighing in frustration and pain, Ferret said, "Okay, Tirdal. I'll trust you for now. But I have no ideas about those flyers."
"Nor I," Tirdal said.
* * *
Dagger sat patiently, waiting. It was what he was best at. He often got frustrated on long crawls or chases, but not while waiting. There was always a payoff in a good shot. The sun was bright, his gear chafing and his helmet was heavy. He'd take that off, not being worried about incoming fire, except that he needed the imaging screen. The discomfort was minor enough. His cottony mouth and cracked lips were far more annoying, as was the rumble in his belly and the fatigue dragging at his eyelids. He kept twitching from tiredness, almost asleep and then back awake.
He didn't believe Ferret was dead yet. Soon, certainly, and Dagger would be glad to help with the process. But he was alive now. The tracer showed the box to be down there, about under those gliding reptiles, so that's where Tirdal was. Ferret was playing silent. That was a pity. It was also a bit of a pain in the ass. But he'd nail Tirdal shortly, then get back to Ferret.
Ah, there was the trace. It was moving steadily, enabling him to compare it to terrain features, and there was low bank ahead where he might get a shot. Nodding slightly to himself, Dagger rolled forward into a crawl and eased up to the edge of the bluff. He stopped about a meter back from where the edge rolled down to meet a cliff face of earth and tumbled growth. The grass curled over him and he was nearly invisible. Once he triggered the chameleon circuit, he effectively was invisible.
His visor still showed him the tactical display, and he waited, ready to kill that image and go to the scope proper, which was nestled against the matching window on the visor built into the sniper's visor. He had the rifle in a good position, and squeezed the control that extruded the bipod legs. They sought the surface, spread out their paddlelike feet, and the rifle was as steady as it was going to get. All he had to do now was wait.
The dot moved north, closer to that shallow area, where he could see the narrow waters widen and ripple around the rocks, glinting in the light. Dammit, that water looked cool and tasty. Soon, he told himself. Don't get distracted.
There! Bare hints of Tirdal's chameleon helmet showed above the edge, just ripples, but Dagger knew what they were. The rifle's rounds could punch right through that soft sand. If the first shot was only a wound, it wouldn't matter. Once Tirdal slowed, Dagger would get into position and take him out joint by joint. Or try to get Ferret to do it for him, which could mean he'd need even less effort. He focused through the scope, through the target, inhaled and relaxed, letting part of the breath escape, then held firm and watched the image. Tirdal intersected the third line of the reticle, which should be enough lead. The oscillations caused by Dagger's tremors were as slight as they could get, almost nonexistent, even considering his condition, and he squeezed the stud. The rifle recoiled in the slight fashion gauss weapons did, twitched slightly and steadied. There was the crack of the projectile's hypersonic passage, t
he wounded air trying forlornly to keep pace with a thoroughly unnatural event, and in his scope he could see the flat, barely arced passage it left, heat-damaged air molecules showing on the screen. Dirt flew from the bank . . .
And the little bastard fell!
Chapter 16
Ferret heard the shot. It was close enough to be a good crack. A quick scan with his sensors narrowed the source to a grid about one hundred meters on a side. And Dagger was within that box. Sure enough, it was up on the ridgeline. But without a scope, there was no way to get a good shot. He couldn't start picking away at random, because Dagger would backtrack the energy discharge. It was frustrating.
What he could do was slug the intel to Tirdal, assuming, hoping, Tirdal was still alive. That would show where he stood on things, and with two of them tracking Dagger, just maybe they could get him on the run. It would have to get dark again, too. That, added to the rest, might give them the edge they needed.
But assuming they succeeded, Tirdal was going to have to have some very believable answers to some tough questions.
He attached the grid to a transmission and sent it to Tirdal. Then he sent it to Dagger, just to let him know he was being watched. Ferret grinned a rictus that would have scared even him, if he'd had a mirror. Pain, fear, fatigue and grime gave him a visage to scare a gargoyle.
* * *
Tirdal felt the shot and launched himself into the wash, artifact flying clear. The bead cracked past, showering him with loose sand and bits of grass. That had been close enough for him to not only hear, but feel the slap of the shockwave. Then he realized it had hit him, slicing through his ruck and his shoulder. It was a minor wound, but would be extremely painful, as the mass of the ruck would rest on it. Still, he couldn't have Dagger thinking he'd succeeded.
"That was a good shot, Dagger," Tirdal taunted, keeping tight rein on his voice and the growing agony underneath. "Not good enough for an intelligent target, of course, but good enough for a rock or a dummy on the pop-up range." He rolled down deeper to secure the artifact again.
"My shooting is plenty good enough, Elf," Dagger snarled back in rage. "You're just a filthy little cheat." He definitely sounded upset over Tirdal's evasion. He seemed to feel that Tirdal not dying was an insult. Well, there were more insults where that came from.
"Cheating, Dagger? Is not the unofficial motto of the DRTs 'If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying'? By that argument, your control and coordination is also cheating, because not everyone can do it. No, if this game is to be played properly, each player must use his resources. Surely as great a shooter as yourself can predict my evasions . . . given time. In fact, if you're as smart as you believe you are, you should have seen a pattern already." That was a dangerous statement. Tirdal wasn't aware of falling into a pattern yet, but he just might have. But he had to goad Dagger into thinking even less, to level the field between them.
At that moment, the signal from Ferret came in. He cleared the screen and allowed it to appear, and studied the map revealed. His Darhel gear could come up with much of the same data for him, but of course Ferret didn't know that. And this did prove Ferret was an ally, at least until Dagger was taken out of the equation. After that, they'd have to see.
"As for cheating," he said with a deliberately human tone of malicious amusement, "it wasn't I who tossed a grenade into a resting party while hiding behind a rock."
That seemed to have done the trick, Tirdal thought, as four shots ripped overhead of his cover, blasting dirt into the water. And his Sense showed him Dagger's surroundings, the link between them suddenly solid. He saw the scope image, saw himself as a tiny form that had moved just in time and sunk out of sight. The sun was over there, so Dagger was on that bluff to the east, as Ferret had said. Tirdal brought the image of that back from his memory and confirmed with an image from the suit sensors' cameras. Dagger was . . . right about there, and that might just be in range of the punch gun, if he took the shot now. The punch gun, he reminded himself, was a speed of light weapon. All he had to do was account for the .7416 seconds of recharge time and dodge for cover in between shots. He set the artifact down and got to work.
The suit's computer set up the map for him, and he shifted to a slightly less steep section of the parched dun gully. Then he was up and poounk! firing, dropping, shoving to the right off a protruding rock, up and poounk! then down and left to the flat piece of shale and up and poounk! and left again to a hardened chunk of clay and fire and right and fire and left and again from the same location, as random as an ordered mind could manage.
A Sense came to him, but it was not of Dagger firing, it was of Dagger panicking. Tirdal grinned his toothy grin. Securing the artifact, he moved out.
* * *
Ferret just lay still and rested as the firefight ensued. Dagger was clearly not shooting well. Interesting. He was terrifying on the range, great in exercises, had done well enough against the bugs that had jumped them. As to real battles, Ferret knew of his record, but wasn't aware of any specific commendations for his shooting. Things did tend to go to hell in an engagement, true. But Dagger's cold, calculating façade was just that. He clearly wasn't that impressive a shot when it came down to it. That was good to know.
For now, Ferret inhaled the fetid odors, the grass and strange pollens, the dirt and casts left by things like worms. The local sun was to the west and into Dagger's eyes. After the four shots, he had the sniper located pretty much within a ten meter square, allowing for sonic distortion from the grass. He was sure that if he could get a look up that way, he could pin Dagger down exactly. He might even get a good shot off, as extreme as the range was.
Then Tirdal was shooting back. So Darhel could shoot and mean it. Whatever philosophy kept them from engaging in war was a guideline only. Tirdal and likely others had obviously gotten over it. It was about time, he thought, that they took some of the load. It was also, he realized as an afterthought, about time that humans kept an eye on them. Militant Darhels would be bad, with the greater access to GalTech they had.
For a moment, Ferret just lay there and grinned. Then his fatigue-sodden brain realized this was the time to move. He pulled his knees in at once and started crawling under the waving stalks, hoping to close a few meters with Dagger. If this could be repeated a few times, he'd be close enough for a good shot from cover, well inside his practical range.
Of course, it would have to be a good shot. He'd get the one only, then Dagger would shoot back. He might hit, too, even if he wasn't showing the greatest aptitude at present. Obviously, Tirdal was dodging. Ferret had less agility at the moment.
* * *
Dagger's view was disrupted by the incoming map from Ferret. He scanned it at once, wondering what it was, as he hadn't triggered anything he was aware of. It took a moment for him to realize it was a map of his location. The little bastard was alive and had teamed up with the Darhel. Well, that was fine, because Dagger had planned on killing him anyway, and this would just make it that much nicer. He growled anyway. Asshole.
Then he flinched as the first shot snapped into the cliff. Tirdal was shooting back! He actually could do it. That wasn't a pleasant thought, if it was going to be a real fight.
Still, it was extreme range for the punch gun, and the Elf had little skill at aimed fire. He hunched to take a shot in case the little bastard showed up again, and he did, but over there. Dirt showered down from the first explosive hit, and the second bolt hit off to Dagger's left, then another hit beneath him some meters, then another. His flinch had turned to a wince but he was now coming out of it. The pathetic little bastard couldn't shoot for shit. Even with a punch gun, Dagger could have done better. He cursed himself, angry inside for letting the little twerp make him afraid.
Then the world shifted under him and the bluff started to slide forward toward the trees.
He rose to his knees and tried to scrabble backwards, but it was too late. The landslide was in full motion. He did manage to get far enough back to be agai
nst the fresh new bluff face as everything else collapsed under him, and the fall was not far, only about eight meters. The crumbling dirt gave him a soft surface to land on, and then through. It blew up around him and began to compact again.
Holding his breath and trying not to panic, he threw his arms around until he felt air. He half dug, half swam his way up and snorted in a dusty lungful of air. Clouds of the red clay still lingered in the air, and he could smell the earthy aroma of the newly dug dirt, as well as the silicate tang caused by the punch gun's beam burning dirt to vapor. He spit dirt and wished again for water.
He whipped his head around, terrified that Tirdal or Ferret would be right there. He clutched for his rifle, but it was still buried in the soil. His right knee struck it as he thrashed, and he reached in as far as his shoulder to get hold of it.
Dragging it out was a struggle itself, and the weapon was packed with dirt. He'd have to find cover soon and field strip it. For now, he banged the muzzle as clean as he could get it and fired a round point blank into the dirt. The projectile didn't make much noise, barely having time to create a shockwave. It did shower dirt and clean the muzzle the rest of the way. Likely, some had plated inside the barrel, but it would have to do for now. He tried to stand and fell instead, feeling dizziness, nausea and pain. What now?
"What now" was obvious. He'd twisted an ankle in the fall, was suffering the beginnings of heat exhaustion, and was burned out with fatigue. He needed rest, water, real food and medical care. What shape was that little turd in? Apparently he had water and didn't need food . . . no, wait, he needed a lot of food . . . maybe he had eaten animals. All right, then what was with his aversion to killing? Maybe it was killing sentients? Some kind of feedback into his brain? Hell, it might just take a few shots of large beasts near him to stun him. Why hadn't he thought of that earlier? And what of rest? What about Ferret? How was that little punk handling? True, he could stop for water, being last, but the injuries and fatigue couldn't be helping him.
