Aaron Rosenberg - Hunt and run

They had a tracking monitor, of course. Which meant they could find his position, no matter how carefully he hid.

Fortunately, it had apparently never occurred to the Wraith to look up.

They were about to learn the folly of that particular oversight. Too bad they wouldn’t survive the discovery long enough to pass it along to the rest of their kind.

He would snare the one to the right — a quick toss would put the loop around the warrior’s neck, a sharp tug would tighten it, cutting off the warrior’s air, and then a solid pull would lift him off his feet and into the air, hiding him within the thick canopy. To his companions it would seem as if the warrior had simply vanished. At the same time, a branch snare would strike the warrior to the left, knocking him off his feet and distracting him long enough for Ronon to kill the snared warrior and then shoot the downed one as well. That would leave only the commander, confused and alone. He’d be searching the trees for Ronon by then, but Ronon would have switched perches as soon as the first warrior was dead, and for all their skills the Wraith were hardly woodlands masters. He would be able to escape the Wraith commander’s detection, sneak around, and take him out from behind before the Wraith could figure out what to do next.

Assuming everything went according to plan.

Time to find out, Ronon told himself. He hefted the loop. The Wraith were almost directly beneath him now, and he tossed the vine down and out, making sure to give it a small snap of the wrist so the loop floated wide rather than closing up.

It settled perfectly around the warrior’s neck.

Ronon gave the rest of the vine a sharp tug, and it tightened obediently —

— and caught on a protrusion of the warrior’s heavy breastplate.

Nine hells!

The vine went taut as the warrior pulled it to its full extension, and the impact stopped him short. It didn’t lift him off his feet, however, and with the loop snagged it didn’t interfere with his breathing at all. All it did, in fact, was alert him and his companions to the fact that there was someone or something in the trees just overhead.

Not surprisingly, the warrior raised his stun-rifle and opened fire on the canopy.

The second warrior stepped forward, shifting to get past his commander and get a cleaner line of fire — and the branch snare struck him full in the chest. Exactly as planned.

Only he didn’t fall down.

He did stagger back from the force of the blow, but his rifle rose at the same time and he began shooting into the foliage around him. The Wraith weapons were designed to stun rather than kill, so that the Wraith could then feed upon the helpless victim, but they did still produce some kinetic impact, and so the shots tore at the branches and leaves all around.

The commander, meanwhile, had taken a step back. He surveyed the plant carnage calmly, studying the scene — and then he looked up. Right at Ronon. Their eyes met, and the Wraith smiled, showing all his pointed teeth.

Nine hells.

Ronon was up off his branch in an instant. He hurled himself forward, landing full-force on top of the commander before the Wraith could raise his stun-pistol. Rolling forward, Ronon came to his feet just behind the two warriors, who were still firing wildly and had just started to realize there was a foe standing among them. He had his own pistol in hand in an instant, and snapped off a quick shot at the one on the left, wounding the Wraith and sending him to his knees. But that was all Ronon had time for. He could already hear the commander stirring behind him, and in a few seconds he’d have three very angry Wraith on him, and no cover whatsoever. That was a recipe for disaster.

So Ronon did the one thing Nekai had worked so hard to drill into him, the one thing that went against not only all his military training but against the very core of who he was.

He ran.

In four long paces he was hidden from immediate view. In eight even his motion was lost among the trees. In ten he had swung to the right, sliding between two tree trunks. Several more steps put him beside another tree a little further removed, and he caught a low branch and pulled himself up into its leaves. Then Ronon forced himself to take slow, deep breaths to stop his gasps and calm his racing heart, and he tried to listen past the thudding of his own blood.

The Wraith would be after him in seconds, he knew. With the tracking device, he couldn’t hide no matter how good the cover. And though they had no aptitude for this terrain, there were three of them and they could communicate telepathically so they could coordinate without a sound. There was only one of him. He didn’t have any other snares ready. He hadn’t prepared any backup plans. And he had only the one gun and the one knife.

Ronon listened for pursuit, and grinned.

Time to improvise.

There was an old tree up ahead a ways, one that had rotted through and fallen at some point years past. The trunk had shattered when it fell, but large sections still survived, covered in moss and vines. Ronon had noticed it when he and Nekai had first arrived on this planet, and he’d used it for cover once during his training. Now he took a second to orient himself properly and then ran for it as fast as he could. The Wraith would be cautious, fearing a second ambush, but they would still be right behind him. He didn’t have much time.

There was the little clearing the tree’s fall had created, and there were the trunk segments. One of them was a little over eight feet long, almost completely hollowed out by rot and rain and insects, large portions of the top missing completely. Perfect. Ronon skidded to a stop just past it, deliberately took several more steps beyond that, and then carefully stepped to the side and retreated to the trunk, leaving no additional footprints to mark his change of course. That would give him an extra second or two, no more.

He studied the shattered trunk. Moss covered much of it, and vines had already crept around it as well. Rain had made the ground beneath it soft, and it had sunk in slightly. Perfect.

Squatting, he dug his fingers into the crumbly bark as far down as he could. Then, tensing his back and shoulders, he lifted. He felt his muscles pop with the strain as the ground resisted yielding its treasure, but after a few seconds something shifted under his hands. Then the trunk rose suddenly, as if the earth had surrendered all at once.

The ground beneath the trunk had been worn into a small crevice. It was damp and slimy and covered in grubs. Lovely. But Ronon didn’t have time to be squeamish. Making sure his pistol was secure in its holster he stretched himself out in that narrow depression, all the while holding the trunk off with one stiffened arm. Then he slowly lowered it back into place. It didn’t fit into the ground again, of course, but judging from the thin sliver of light along its side it should be close enough that only close scrutiny would reveal it had been moved.

He didn’t intend to give them enough time to notice that.

Then he waited. It wouldn’t be long, he knew. The Wraith were angry now, and the commander was intrigued as well. They would be after him as quickly as they could manage without blundering into another trap.

Too bad for them the trap was already waiting.

Ronon had his head to the side, the rough bark on the bottom of the trunk scraping his cheek, his arms folded and hands on either side of his head, palms flat against the tree. The air was musty and rich and dank, but it wasn’t a bad smell, just earthy. Grubs squirmed under him but he did his best to ignore them and concentrate on the sounds beyond his makeshift hideout.

After a few seconds he was certain he could feel a faint vibration through the ground. Footsteps.