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  Pia, sitting with her back to a rock, bent over to shield from the rain the energy bar suspended halfway to her mouth; Atlas agitated, not mollified by Captain Amalfi’s decision concerning Pia and me; Gorilla and Ferret squared off at each other across the camp, silent but still engaged in eye warfare; Sergeant Shiva chiseled huge and with the scar on his face inflamed in the gray, wet remnants of the day, busy erecting his bivvie; and Captain Amalfi only partially registering how traitorous fate manipulated by a traitorous subordinate had selected him for death. His eyes riveted on the grenade, following it as it slugged directly at him.

  They were all dead. They just didn’t know it yet.

  The Captain still gripped the lindal by its handle. He had been studying the inscriptions on it as he prepared to put it in a safe place for the night. That was what Blade was after. If he eliminated everyone else, he had the treasure to himself. It wasn’t enough to strip us of our weapons and gear and turn us loose for the savage local wildlife to take care of. Everyone who outranked him had to be eliminated in order for the pod to accept him and let him board for blastoff back to the orbiting Stealth. That meant witnesses had to be taken care of as well.

  Blade had it all figured out. He returned to Galaxia a hero, ultimately a very rich hero, while claiming the rest of the team perished violently during the mission. His greed would unleash upon the galaxy once again the depraved curse of the evil genie.

  I experienced a flicker of intense sadness over the team’s fate, especially Pia’s. That little brown Human female had touched me and awakened my Human side to a depth that her recent rebuke of me under the influence of the Presence in no way dissipated.

  Then I acted upon the only choice left to me if the evil in the Indowy case were to be contained. I had to take the case myself and destroy it. I summoned the full depths of taa, acknowledging even as I did that I might go into lintatai and be destroyed by the overdose.

  Captain Amalfi could not have seen me as I acted. I used a knife hand strike to release his hold on the case, breaking his wrist bone. I snatched the prize with the other hand. I dived for the nearest boulder with it, propelling myself over with my free hand. My fingers dug into the solid stone, leaving it scarred.

  The neural lash of the exploding grenade turned the rain to red fire. Erupting air ahead of the lethal core threw me the rest of the way across the boulder and slammed me hard to the ground out of the blast radius. I landed hard on my shoulder and felt a sudden wrenching burst of pain in bones and muscles. The red snarl of the detonation blossomed above me and merged in a hellish crack with a bolt of lightning.

  Panting to prevent lintatai, I rolled desperately on the soaked and water-puddled soil, clawing for my Punch Gun. I popped up and fired toward what I assumed to be Blade’s hide in the rocks, the place where I had seen him disappear. I justified the defensive action under the guise that I wasn’t shooting at a sentient. I was shooting at a stone. If a vile Human just happened to be hiding behind the stone …

  The boulder disintegrated with a mighty bang, along with anything behind it.

  It wasn’t a kill. Not really a kill …

  I stood in the rain looking miserably upon the wreckage. They were all dead now, although a couple of the bodies were still twitching. Maid wasn’t moving. She lay on her back, as though only napping. A neural grenade did not rip and shred flesh, as other explosions might. It simply demolished the central nervous system of any exposed living thing within its detonation radius. It was incredibly effective.

  The burning of taa always left me weakened, reducing what powers remained to a level equal to or only slightly above that of the average Human. Blade with his implants, intensity of purpose, and expertise with weapons, driven by greed and simple cussedness, could never be considered average. He was a worthy combat adversary.

  Underestimating him was almost the end of me.

  He had used an old infantryman’s ploy — disappearing behind one boulder as a diversion, then reappearing behind another at a safe distance, from which he hurled the grenade. He was now lying quietly in hiding to make sure the enemy was dead or, if one were alive, to finish him off. I had foolishly fallen for the trick, inexperienced in combat as I was.

  My diminished senses failed to pick him up; perhaps he was blocking me as he had demonstrated himself capable of doing. I received only a warning from somewhere – the fanger again! To my surprise and later consternation, self-preservation proved stronger than my prohibition against killing. I ripped off an antimatter Punch shot in the general direction I assumed the sniper to be hiding. A boulder exploded into its individual molecules. Trees beyond all but vanished in a white core of released energy.

  Blade’s shot came from somewhere else entirely. I had expended my current production of taa. I felt like I was now moving in slow motion. I half-turned toward the crack of the rifle. He couldn’t miss. He used a Hornet round that tracked on a heat source once it was fired, like an anti-spaceship missile. It left the barrel at a relatively low velocity, then went into supersonic speed upon acquisitioning its target. It contained a tiny core droplet of antimatter in a depleted uranium coating. It could tear the guts and bone out of a Galaxia mammoth sloth at ten thousand meters.

  Fortunately, I still wore my battle harness. Its defense sensors spotted the round and emitted high-intensity protons in an EMP field to shut down much of the bullet’s impact energy. It still slammed into my torso at more than one hundred meters per second. It knocked me to the mud in a paroxysm of agony. It felt like every bone in my body was broken. I couldn’t breathe and for several seconds it was all I could do to retain consciousness.

  Pain wracked my entire body as, verging on lintatai, I pulled myself into the rocks, expecting another “smart” round to follow the first and finish me off. When it did not come, I lay panting and spent behind a slide of moss-covered, rain-slick rock and shale. It occurred to me then that Blade had no more Hornets. I remembered the arrogance he always expressed in his marksmanship. All he had left were “dumb” rounds. He was waiting for me to show a piece of myself as a target.

  “Elf?” he called out from beyond the range of my Punch Gun.

  I waited, remained still, hoping he would show himself and move in closer if he thought me finished.

  “Can you hear me, elf?”

  I felt nauseous at the thought of killing him. My stomach muscles contracted with dread and revulsion. I lay silently. From where I hid, I saw only a corner of the camp. The background hum of Human life had vanished, snuffed out like flames from a row of decorated scented candles. Gun Maid’s body lay with the rain beating down into her face in the last gray of daylight. How small she looked, dead. I recalled the wonderful sound of her giggle, how she was always coming up with her old, old Earth expressions.

  I was now in command, being the ranking living member of the team. Due to the way the landing pod was programmed, Blade could not leave Aldenia without first killing me, and he had five more Galaxia days to do it in before the pod took off without either of us. Besides, I had the treasure for which he had just murdered six of his teammates.

  I rolled over on my back to study the terrain above. I still felt weak and nauseous, and not only from the afterburn of taa. Blade’s Hornet round had undoubtedly cracked my chest plate. Add to that the wrenched shoulder from where I landed on it and I was reduced to the level of an ordinary Human. Say an ordinary one hundred-year-old Human who had never received rejuv.

  The rain had slackened into a steady drizzle and bolt lightning had turned to sheet lightning. I batted my eyelashes against the rain. The high ground stuck up above me like a giant leg bone supported by beds of boulders that resembled skulls in the dwindling light. An observation point anywhere up there provided a clear view of the camp and its litter of dead Humans.

  I sensed the sniper out there. Somewhere. Near. I was unable to pinpoint his precise location in my sapped condition, but his energy source appeared to be moving uphill from his previous location. That
meant he did not intend to come directly into camp to check on me and finish me off, wily predator that he was. He was circling above, out of range of my Punch Gun, to look down and take care of me at long range. Long range was his deadly specialty.

  Darkness on Aldenia always came quickly, but it would not come quickly enough tonight. Long before the cover of night fell, Blade would have reached a point from which he could pick me off. I almost felt his sights burning into a point between my shoulder blades.

  I slithered in the mud to the other side of the rock slide, but the feeling of being targeted persisted. I looked around for an option. Further downhill, the twisted thick forest resumed. A flock of giant dragonflies settled into a copse of taller trees near a stream, their gossamer wings beating the rain into a mist that surrounded them like sheer lace. They were roosting ahead of the approaching night.

  “Elf?”

  It came from upslope.

  “Elf, throw the case out into camp and I’ll let you live. Do you hear me? I know you’re not dead. Yet.”

  What kind of fool did he take me for? He couldn’t leave Aldenia without killing me first. But — I glanced north toward the river and the pod — I could leave without him. If I could reach the pod first.

  Before long, before night came, unless I did something, the sniper would have found a good hide and the next sensation I felt would be that of a slug blowing out my heart.

  The choices were downhill or uphill. If I broke contact and reached the forest downhill, chances were that I might evade and prevent his getting a shot at me until I recovered my strength. Then I could make a break for the pod.

  Terrain on the high ground was more open. Zentadon were descended from fleet, heavy-grav predators. Ordinarily, there would have been little contest in my outrunning a heavy-muscled Human. These, however, were not ordinary times.

  Better I take to the low ground that offered more cover and concealment.

  I required survival items from the camp: food, helmet, shelter, medical supplies, sensors. I had bolted when the grenade came in with only my battle harness, the Punch Gun, and the plasteel Indowy case wrenched from poor Captain Amalfi’s fist. My chameleons wouldn’t even camouflage without the power source contained in the helmet. I needed Gorilla’s tech gear to reconfigure the bots’ sensors so that I could utilize them. I glimpsed one of the robots perfectly inert on the other side of camp where it had been posted as sentry. Useless as an old fuel can in a trash dump.

  Without basic subsistence and defensive items, I might just as easily fall prey to the planet’s feral fauna as to Blade’s rifle. I shuddered at the prospect.

  “Elf?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Fu-uck.”

  The way I saw it, Blade had all the advantages. He was much more experienced in the field than I. As the old, old Earth expression went, he had more time in combat than I had in the chow line. In fact, other than the Blob battle bot encounter where we hadn’t really been targeted, this was my first time being shot at. Shot at and hit. His rifle had one hundred times the max effective range of my Punch. He had been to Aldenia previously. Somehow, he survived when his expedition was annihilated; he probably killed them himself as he had just killed his fellow DRT-bags. On top of all this, he had access to the camp supplies and I did not. My dashing into camp for the items I needed was out of the question. Blade surely had the camp covered. What he didn’t take he would likely destroy when I cleared out.

  To kill him, if I could summon the resolve to override the veneer of recent Zentadon civilization, I would first have to survive, then get in close, past the long-range deadly accuracy of his Gauss and battlefield sensor implants. If he killed me, he took possession of the case and the potential power of evil it contained.

  Either way, one of us had to die – or we both died.

  I looked across at Pia’s body, stifling the emotion that welled in my throat. I had an old, old Earth expression for the sniper: Make my day.

  C·H·A·P·T·E·R

  TWENTY NINE

  Runoff water turned the hill into a waterslide, fortunately for me since it required little of my waning strength to belly downhill like a salamander and escape the trap that the campsite had become. It took me out of Blade’s range, at least for the moment, and into the dripping forest. Night came with a suddenness that always surprised me. I thought to continue moving through the short night, using the lightning flashes to guide my way. Few deadfalls clogged the wildlife trails since lightning strikes splintered the forest giants into smaller versions instead of dropping them. The remarkable adaptability of nature, no matter the planet.

  However, when I struggled to my feet, everything whirled around me and I thought I was going to black out. In my debilitated condition, it would be an easy matter to fall into one of the deep ravines and break more bone and cartilage, providing I could make any progress at all. Or blunder into a sleeping predator and really piss it off. I decided to opt on the side of caution. I doubted Blade would attempt to travel either in the dark. He was probably digging in for the night and devising plans after discovering that the elf had disappeared with the precious Indowy gadget.

  I dragged myself cautiously along a game trail, feeling the way with my hands, until I came to a small waterfall made by drainage across a rock ledge. Strobe lightning revealed a sort of cave up underneath the ledge behind the waterfall. I crawled inside and found a small dry area. I desired nothing more than to rest, close my eyes, and escape into sleep. I forced myself not to succumb until I had taken complete stock of my predicament and devised some kind of plan myself. The military had drilled into me that you accomplished nothing without a plan. Undoubtedly, Blade was an expert at OpPlans.

  I was wet and miserable without my helmet, which controlled not only my uniform camouflage but also the life support system within the uniform that kept the wearer dry and comfortable. The helmet also contained various sensors, such as the one that allowed me to see in infrared the heat emitted by someone else wearing full-activated chameleons. What this meant was that my enemy remained dry and comfortable and blended into his environment, at least as long as his chameleons continued to work. He could see me; I couldn’t see him. Predators could see me; they couldn’t see him.

  The first thing I did was check for wounds. I stifled a cry of pain when I touched my ribs. I heard and felt crepitas, crushed bones grating against bone, but the battle harness EMP field had blocked Blade’s bullet from penetrating. My shoulder felt sore and inflamed. Obviously, ligaments were torn. It would take a number of days, even weeks for me to fully recuperate. By that time, this deadly little game between the sniper and me would have ended, one way or another. I simply had to play the game, like it or not, while enduring handicaps.

  I mentally compared our respective weapons.

  Blade was armed with the Gauss 7mm sniper rifle, the high point of Republic infantry technology, with a maximum effective range of 10,000 meters, over three miles. While my battle vest possessed the capability to defuse “smart” rounds and reduce their power, it was useless against straight “dumb” rounds.

  I had the Punch Pistol, incredibly lethal, but only up to fifty meters, seventy-five at most.

  Blade was probably at this moment sacking the camp, loading up for the duel with rations, extra weapons, and anything else useful. He would most certainly have access to Gorilla’s LF tracker capable of picking up complex nervous systems out to several hundred meters. This, on top of his own tracking skills. I was sure he would destroy everything else in the camp he didn’t need and then booby-trap the vicinity should I attempt to circle back to it.

  I had never lived off the land before; I understood only the rudimentary survival principles taught during military basic training. In any event, this was an alien planet with exotic fauna and flora whose edible properties were totally unknown. One bite of the wrong thing might cause agony and death.

  Comforting. It was said in basic training that when you got hungry enough you
would eat your own combat boots.

  So, give my enemy the advantage of food, concealment, experience, health, superior equipment, and firepower. What did that leave in my column?

  I was of a higher intelligence level than the Human. So what? Deceit, cunning and a 7mm round from Blade’s Gauss were more than equal to brain mass.

  Taa was a two-headed beast, at best. It was good only for a burst every several days, after which it left me weak and vulnerable for some time. Besides that, taa could be a destroyer. Zentadon sometimes went into lintatai and self-destructed during an emotional crisis or while under great stress, no matter that for generations we had been taught control of it. Many younger Zentadon even used it as a “recreational drug,” ignoring its dangers.

  Finally, I was a Sen. Although my telepathic powers seemed to be expanding for some strange reason while on Aldenia, were in fact growing, I had discovered Blade capable of blocking my mind probes. If I couldn’t read his thoughts and emotions, decipher his intent, then I was hard put to counter his moves.

  That was the situation. I was lucky if I lasted tomorrow on the run. I again considered getting up now and trying to put some distance between him and me, but when I attempted it I was so stiff and spent that I could hardly drag myself to where the waterfall formed the door to my cave. I sank back. I probably wouldn’t make a hundred yards if I fled for the rest of the night. I needed rest first.

  One final option remained. I examined the lindal, more by touch than sight in the cave’s darkness. Hiding it somewhere was out of the question, as the mysterious Presence had already located it once for Blade. Destroying it seemed even more improbable. First of all, the thing felt, and probably was, near indestructible, at least considering what I had to work with. Even if I somehow smashed it, say pushed a mountain on top of it, the Presence could still find the pieces so the damnable thing could be reconstructed.