John Ringo: The Hero

The pack could smell the prey ahead but they were wary. This was probably the “prey” that had killed the pack of tiger beetles. And the smells were wrong. But they were the smells of protein on the claw, the smells of meat. So it was worth the danger to try to take it down; meat was hard to find. Dangerous it might be, but hunger drove them. They too could be cautious slinks. The female retracted her legs in closely and cautiously probed ahead with her antennae. There was no movement, though wounded animals often didn’t move much until attacked. There was something there, insubstantial as it was, but it was definitely an animal of some kind. She sprayed a hormone signal to the others, and squeezed between two more blades of grass.

The chemtracker function of the scope was off the scale. The Target had likely sealed up, but there would still be vapors in the air, especially after exhausting exercise. Sweat laced with ketones and pheromones dispersed slowly. So the Target was nearby, probably behind that rock on the right, waiting for Dagger to show himself or shoot. Where, exactly?

Dagger’s helmet highlighted a small IR trace as a probable threat but he carefully stilled any rush of feeling. The Target was waiting for him to come fully into view before he took his shot. That would be his undoing. Dagger would shoot from right here. Then he would divert to the right and shoot again, and work his way around that cover. This was it. That protruding ripple might be a head or a hand, but an antimatter round would shatter it. He thumbed the selector, breathed, relaxed and squeeeezed.

Overhead, chunks of rock shattered, sharp pieces stinging through his suit though they did not penetrate. Tirdal cursed the Aldenata that had put him in this mess and flattened out on the rock, then hunched low. Dagger had him pinned down but the reverse was true as well. If he could get one shot he probably would be able to take the sniper. Unfortunately, if he tried to move he’d be a target. But… the punch gun could be set to repeat to the helmet systems. He toggled the punch gun’s sight into his HUD and cleared the direct view. He could switch it back in a moment and he didn’t need to see what was around him right now, but did need to see what the gun saw. Now, if he inched it around the rock…

Dagger triggered another round at the Darhel’s position and grinned. Sure, if the Darhel got one good shot he was dead; there was no such thing as “cover” with a punch gun. But the Darhel’s chosen spot had nowhere to crawl back from and he wasn’t going anywhere so it came down to who could outwait who. And a sniper is the definition of patience. There was another faint disturbance, and he shot the edge of the rock. More chips flew.

He stilled his thrill as the heat sensor noted a movement to the side. He saw the edge of the Darhel’s weapon come around the rock and took up slack on the firing button…

The pack paused at the crack of the shot and then the flurry that followed. However, again, the sounds were strange but meat was meat. They waved their antennae at the scents to the east. Close, very close that meat was. Tantalizing. And the insubstantial animal was barely moving.

Tirdal cursed his foolish eagerness as the weapon spun out of his hand, tumbling in two large pieces with innards hanging out. The weapon’s casing was tough, but antimatter didn’t care. He hunkered back down and carefully drew his rail pistol, it being mounted just above the wound on his thigh. One last chance. And it would really be bad to use it, because the EM field it emitted when fired was obvious to any sensor. It was all he had, though. Calm. He must remain calm. The ripples reflect the clearness of sky. The ripples are steady and even. The ripples wait for the shore, they do not rush to their fate.

The pack paused. They were scavengers, not predators. But this soft prey would be no threat. They waved their antennae in momentary indecision then leapt.

Dagger’s first warning was the sound of scuttling behind him as the dog-sized pill bugs charged. Their mandibles were even more oversized than the predators, designed for rapidly ripping chunks of flesh from recent kills, and the first took his left leg and snipped the foot off at the ankle, right through the suit’s tough fabric. Another ripped a hole in the thigh. Neither of those wounds registered at once; they were too quick and too clean for conscious thought to follow.

Then he was being chewed all over. Large bites, small bites, sawing and chewing through the fabric, his skin, muscle and grating on bone. He thrashed around in instinctive reaction, tried to swing his rifle around and realized there was no room. He reached for his pistol.

At the shriek, Tirdal froze. Then he peeked around the edge at a fusillade of pistol shots. He noted the scene and leaned back to wait. Dagger was occupied. It would be interesting to compare his abilities in this type of battle to Tirdal’s. It would be best though, to wait for resolution before peeking again. Tirdal listened to the crunching of brush, the curses and screams and shots. Underneath, barely audible, were the chitters and the scrape of super chitin. Pistols, he recalled, were not likely to have any effect at all on these creatures, and it didn’t sound as if Dagger were disposed to seek cover or evade. It was proof, after all the suspicions, that the man really was too cowardly to do the brave thing. His mental and physical courage was weighted by an emotional cowardice that was leading to this… In only a few seconds, the shots became scarcer, the screams softer. Shortly, they died down to rustling moans.

When Tirdal at last came out, the eerie quiet had returned to the woods. A glance suggested the pack and Dagger were about done with each other. Some had fled. The remaining creatures were each chewing on some severed part of Dagger.

Cautiously crossing and approaching from upstream, he located the shattered growth that pinpointed the battle. He crept in, wary of Dagger’s thoughts, but found only the basic kernel of personality there. The man was badly injured. Still, he crawled into the area with only desiccated, crackly trees as cover. He kept his pistol low and ready in case of attack from either threat, or a new one entirely. His Sense was at minimum, tal tightly controlled to a trickle lest the feedback from a death throw him over the edge.

There was Dagger, and he was down and well bloodied. Some lobbed rocks and a couple of careful shots confused and drove off the scavengers, who chittered angrily but deferred to what seemed to them to be a superior predator. They knew their caste and moved off, dragging parts of Dagger with them, to seek other sustenance.

Tirdal pulled the gauss rifle away from Dagger’s twitching form. The pistol was already well to the side, still clutched in the severed hand of the renegade.

Renegade, traitor, Quisling, sellout, turncoat. Humans had a rich array of words for this type of betrayal. They despised Darhel, who always abided by a contract for the sake of honor, yet saw nothing wrong with “screwing each other over” or “sticking it to them” or even “Jewing them down.” That last one had taken some research, then a study of the concept of racism before Tirdal could define it. He still didn’t understand it. That was something else that would require more meditation.

Back now to the business at hand. Tirdal stared for just a moment, then gave a very Darhel smile; all teeth. His ears flicked in appreciation of irony. Then he started applying tourniquets to the limp form before him. He was, after all, crosstrained as a medic.