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 grenade 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.
He thought about the stuff he wanted. Ferret had a lifesigns tracker that could pick up complex nervous systems out to a hundred meters or so. It also picked up genetic traces like blood or hair. It was designed to pick up humans but it probably worked for Darhel as well. It didn’t pick up Blobs, but between it and the tracer on the box he should be able to find the Elf bastard and put him down. The captain’s tracer had a corresponding box to follow it. With those, even a blind man could find the Darhel. Then it was payday. But if Tirdal was there waiting, Dagger would be blown to bloody bits by the slap of a punch gun. Best not to risk it. Besides, he didn’t need gadgets. This was a battle of wits.
Dammit, yes he did need them. Fear wasn’t going to dissuade him from doing this properly. Taking another scan across the area, he decided it was safe and darted down in long, low strides, hunched over. He kept the rifle slung, using its harness sling to hold it straight along his back over his ruck. It was a bit awkward, but left both hands free for his rail pistol and his knife. Reaching the depression, he looked for Ferret’s body. It had been over there and now it was… not. Shit. Ferret was also alive. That was a stick in the ass he didn’t need.
There were faint but clear marks. Ferret had wriggled away through the rocks. That meant he was probably injured. His survival was still another complication though, dammit. The trail grew faint, and a quick scan didn’t show any heat trace, so he was either gone or hiding. Still, Dagger knew he’d have to be fast, in case one or the other showed back up.
Anyway, on to that asshole captain. He snickered again. The thought came to him, “That’ll teach you to have me dig the shitter.”
The captain was facing away. So, the coward had tried to run rather than fight. Typical. you could always expect the commissioned orifices to fight from the rear. And what the hell had happened to his wrist? It was not just broken, it was shattered. The fingers and forearm were swollen, the bones crunched so hard the limb would have flopped like a sausage if the muscles weren’t cranked down tight from the neural effect. He must have landed on it very oddly. No matter, it wasn’t important. What was important was finding where the bastard had stuffed the tracker, and quickly.
Oh, wasn’t that just fucking lovely. The asshole had it in his thigh pocket, and his suit was permeable to vent moisture, which also meant that the oozing shit and piss from his clenched then relaxed sphincters had drained down and into it. As he rolled the body over, he took one look at that face, which was more confused than anything. Stupid bastard probably hadn’t had any idea what was happening, even when it came down to it. Typical. Dagger hawked quietly and spat across his nose and mouth. “Next time, die neatly you piece of shit,” he whispered. Then he was up and running, kicking Gun Doll’s sprawled and twisted form in the crotch as he ran, just because. Flaky bitch.