Aaron Rosenberg - Hunt and run

“What is it?” Ronon studied the image. “What is this dot and why is it throbbing?”

“It’s not.” Nekai glanced around again, listening carefully. Then he gestured. “Come on.” And he began crawling back out of the cave.

“I thought we needed to stay out of sight,” Ronon asked even as he followed the other man. He was happy to get out of that tight space, to breath fresh air again and to stand up straight, but at the same time he didn’t want to present the Wraith with an easy target. Not now, when he was just beginning to believe that it might be worth surviving a little longer.

“We do, but a minute or two won’t give them enough time to pinpoint us, and I can’t show you how this thing works if we’re that close together.” Once they were out, Nekai moved away, stopping perhaps forty paces from Ronon, who still stood right by the mouth of the cave. “Okay, look at it again.”

Ronon glanced at the screen and saw that now there were two red circles. One was still around the green dot but the other was a short distance away. And neither of them were pulsing — they both glowed steadily.

“It’s a tracking monitor,” Nekai explained. “It shows the tracking devices they implanted in us. This is how they find us.”

“Not much of a range,” Ronon commented, studying the screen again. Given the distance between them, and the spacing on the monitor, he guessed it had an effective range of a mile, perhaps less.

“It’s set to close-range right now,” Nekai replied. “It took me a while when I first acquired it, but I eventually figured out how to scale in or out. Trust me, it’s got enough range to cover the entire galaxy.” He gestured at the device. “That’s how they find me no matter what planet I go to. Once they reach the planet themselves they can zoom in to pinpoint my exact location.”

Ronon frowned. “But before, in the cave, it was pulsing.”

“Exactly!” Nekai started walking slowly back toward him. “Keep your eyes on the screen,” he instructed. Ronon did so, and saw that as the two circles — his and Nekai’s — overlapped, their edges began to waver. They flickered more and more, their shapes wobbling, until Nekai was standing beside him again and the circle was only a faint shape brightening and dimming randomly around the green center dot.

“I met another Runner once,” Nekai said, taking the monitor back from Ronon. “I’d just happened to look at the monitor — not much point in it usually, since it just shows my own location — and there was a second circle! I used the thing to find him, and that’s when I discovered what happens when two Runners are less than ten meters apart. The circles overlap! Apparently the Wraith never expected Runners to meet, so they didn’t take any precautions against it — the tracking devices cancel each other out when they’re this close together.”

Ronon understood the implications at once. “So as long as we stay close, they can’t track us.”

“Exactly!” Nekai grinned, a predatory look, and Ronon knew his own expression matched it. “We can get the drop on them.”

“Excellent.” Something didn’t make sense, though. “What about that other Runner?” he asked. “The first one you found? Where is he? Two are strong but three would be stronger.”

Nekai nodded. “They would, yes.” He looked away. “I found out something else that day, too. Because the first thing we did when we met and realized we were both Runners was agree to remove each other’s tracking devices. Then they wouldn’t be able to track us at all.”

Ronon nodded. It made perfect sense — render the trackers useless, or better yet remove the tracking devices but keep them operational. Then you could use them to bait an ambush. “What went wrong?” Obviously something had, since Nekai still had his tracking device.

“They’re rigged, the devices,” Nekai answered quietly. “If you tamper with them — they explode.” He didn’t have to explain beyond that. “But if we can’t remove them, at least we can negate them,” he added, shaking off the memory. “Which means we can turn the tables on the Wraith.” He studied Ronon. “So, what do you say now? Still want to throw yourself at the nearest Wraith and go out in a blaze of glory?”

Ronon smiled and stroked the pistol at his side. “No. Not any more.” He faced the smaller man. “Teach me how to hunt. Then I will show these Wraith what happens when they allow a Satedan to live.”

“Good.” Nekai clapped him on the back. “We’ll start at once. But for now — ” he gestured to the cave entrance. “We should get back inside. They might have noticed us while we were separated.”

Ronon nodded, but hesitated a second before crouching and ducking back into the cave. “Is this part of being a hunter?”

“What, sitting in narrow spaces for extended periods?” Behind him, Nekai laughed. “Oh yes, my friend. A very big part.”

Ronon sighed. Still, if it meant being able to kill many Wraith, it would be worth it.

“You’re dead.”

“What? No!” Ronon rose from his crouch, but slowly. It wouldn’t do to move too quickly — not with a pistol pressed against his temple like that.

Nekai lifted the pistol, then holstered it. His reply was a single word: “Again.”

Ronon was still processing recent events. “How did you find me?” he demanded. “I was careful!”

“Not careful enough,” his mentor told him.

“I watched where I stepped.” Ronon insisted. “Nothing but solid rock. No tracks.”

That got a smug smile from the other man. “Too bad you didn’t look up.”

Ronon glared at him. “Explain.”

“You did a good job with the tracks,” Nekai agreed. “But you forgot that the ground isn’t the only way to keep track of someone’s progress. You brushed against branches, vines, tree trunks — you bent leaves and disturbed moss.” He shook his head. “It was even easier than following footprints — at least this way I didn’t have to stoop.”

Ronon sighed. “This isn’t working,” he complained, leaning against the nearest tree. “It’s been weeks, and I’m not getting any better. Actually, I think I’m getting worse.”

“Learning to hunt takes time,” Nekai told him, but he perched on a nearby tree root himself. “There’s a lot to cover. And I’ve got to unlearn you a lot as well.”

Wasn’t that the truth, Ronon thought, idly drawing, spinning, and holstering his pistol in a single move. Before Nekai, he had thought he was an expert fighter, a trained warrior and strategist capable of handling any combat situation. But it turned out that was only true for open warfare. This was hunting, the art of tracking prey and then moving in silently, striking without warning and killing quickly and quietly, and for that he had no background. In fact, much of his prior military training directly contradicted what he needed here — he’d been taught speed over stealth, maximum damage instead of subtlety. This was all different. He really did have to forget half of what he knew so that he could learn a new way of doing things.

Fortunately, Nekai was proving to be a patient teacher. No, that wasn’t really true — he wasn’t patient, not in the sense of waiting for Ronon to figure things out on his own or leaving him time to get things right. But he was persistent, and dogged. And he yet to explode at Ronon, to insult him or belittle him or call him stupid — all standard tactics in Satedan military training, getting the recruit angry enough to focus past the pain and fatigue. Nekai kept telling Ronon he was doing well, that this took time, that he had fine skills and excellent potential, but he also never let up. This, too, was a whole new way of doing things.