"It's not Sheregesh, of course, and not an elven forest, but it's very nice."
That was my comment on the landscape that opened up before me after the jumper emerged from the Stargate. It had become routine to instantly activate the cloak and climb steeply to change the possible trajectory they might track.
Having paranoia doesn't mean no one's watching you. Especially when you've flown halfway across the galaxy to find one person.
Scenery of the new world.
"I thought we agreed to avoid words that might be unclear," Teyla said. The girl sat next to me, while Alvar sprawled in the seat behind her, enjoying the views.
"And I have nothing against it," said the Ermen man. "Sometimes it's nice to hear about distant worlds where they've never heard of the Wraiths."
You'd be pretty surprised, brother, if you knew that on my Earth, they've never heard of Stargates, Atlantis, or human life in other galaxies either.
"So, let's start the search." I activated the scanner program Chaya had written.
The sentient we were looking for, marked by a blue pulsing dot, was far to the north. I suspected he was either in a forest belt at the foot of huge snow-capped mountains or running across the rocks.
Well, things weren't as bad as they seemed at the start. I just hoped he wasn't wandering through catacombs.
But after just ten minutes of flight, when the Stargate barely fell within the jumper's scanning range, fate weighed in heavily on our excursion.
"Is that what I think it is?" Alvar tensed up, spotting a dozen red dots far behind us. Some of them were moving faster than others, and that was a signal that the day was about to get a lot less peaceful.
"Wraiths," Teyla said grimly.
"Correction," I sighed. "A whole bunch of Wraiths. Including 'dart' types. Judging by their course, they've got no trouble pinpointing our unknown friend's beacon either."
"So there's going to be a fight." Alvar got out of his chair and headed toward the rear of the ship, getting ready for battle. "I have a suggestion, Mikhail."
"You're thinking we should watch how good he is first, and only then jump into the fight, coming to his rescue at the very last moment?" I clarified for the Ermen.
"Exactly," he said. "Back on my planet, we say: 'Great minds think alike.'"
"We have one too," I agreed. "Only our version doesn't mention great minds."
The look on Teyla's face made it clear she was curious about Earth's folklore, but the woman decided to put her curiosity aside for a better time.
* * *
A sharp energy pulse cut across the clearing, splashing across the body of a Wraith soldier. For a moment he froze, took another step, and then ran straight into a second charge.
Only then did the enemy crumple to the ground like a sack.
Right behind him, another soldier charged after the man darting through the bushes. Too stupid to recognize an obvious ambush, he ran several meters along a barely visible trail leading into the foothills before his foot went through the ground.
Sharpened stakes set into parallel wooden drums pierced his leg clean through, leaving him unable to either pull free or get into a decent position to defend himself.
That was the exact moment the man in rags — clothes stitched together from different scraps of fabric and strips of leather — dropped from the canopy of a nearby tree. The Wraith soldier heard the sound of his landing perfectly, heard the two quick steps behind him. But no matter how he tried, he couldn't turn around enough to aim at his enemy. And the enemy turned out to be experienced enough not to give his opponent any slack.
Choosing the moment when the Wraith was least of a threat, the man got behind him. His hands landed on the enemy's neck, and the next moment a characteristic crack rang out. The soldier went limp, collapsing to the ground in an unnatural pose.
The Runner, holstering an energy pistol on his thigh, pulled a massive energy rifle out from under the corpse. Right now he needed every bit of firepower he could get.
And a stun rifle, the standard weapon for Wraith soldiers, would have come in handy.
A Wraith stun rifle.
Wraith stun rifles, like their other projectile weapons, aren't designed to kill. In practice, you can easily see they fire an energy pulse that makes every muscle in the victim's body contract and relax at once. That causes temporary paralysis — long enough for the Wraiths to either take the victim to their ship or feed on them right there.
For an ordinary human, one hit is enough. But for a Wraith, or a human who's already been hit by these charges multiple times, it takes at least two hits.
How long it takes to regain consciousness also depends entirely on the target's endurance. Like a lot of other things.
Still, it's better to have even this kind of weapon in hand than to have nothing at all — or too little of it.
It was only his sharpened hearing — honed over his time as a Runner — that caught the barely audible snap of twigs behind him and saved his life. His trained body threw itself into the bushes on its own, away from the corpse.
A white-blue energy bolt shot through the spot where he'd been standing a moment ago. Expectedly, it didn't do his enemy any good.
Getting to his feet, the Runner managed to spot his new enemy. It was a Wraith Hunter. And that was bad.
Firing his rifle at the enemy and waiting for him to take cover so he couldn't shoot him in the back, the man broke into a run. Blending his tracks and never moving in a straight line for more than a couple seconds — to make aiming harder — he plunged deeper into the forest. Unlike most people living in the galaxy, the Runner knew perfectly well that a Wraith projectile weapon's charge became useless if there was even a small obstacle between it and the target.
Leaves and tree branches would do the trick.
The Hunter knew it too, and chose to give chase rather than waste shots at his back.
Of all the Wraiths he'd encountered over his years on the run, the Hunters were the most dangerous. They knew how to read tracks and navigate terrain perfectly. They sometimes even had physical augmentations that let them better tolerate radiation on planets, see in the dark, and run and jump farther and better than ordinary Wraith soldiers.
At first, he'd confused them with Wraith Commanders, who were also usually armed with nothing more than a hand stunner and wore more elaborate clothing than the soldiers. But the differences were obvious to anyone who'd faced both categories.
Wraith Commanders typically didn't cooperate with each other; they didn't band together in squads of several heads to hunt down a single Runner. For that, they had plenty of squads made up of ordinary soldiers.
But Hunters... They operated in groups. They were masters of ambush tactics, victim pursuit, and many, many other things. Where there was one, there were bound to be others.
And it was proof that he'd given them a hard time on the previous planet. Hunters were usually sent after him only after he'd wiped out a dozen or two dull-witted soldiers on a given world. But by then, he'd already managed to move on to another planet, leaving behind a few deadly "surprises" on the approach to the Ring of the Ancients.
He had to factor that into his planning. Under no circumstances could he let the Wraiths find the cave where his shelter was. Which meant he had only one chance to survive: kill them all.
Lost in thought, he almost missed the Wraith Tracker that jumped out in front of him. The Tracker hesitated too, but his right hand was already rising, gripping a stunner pistol...
A Wraith hand stunner.
Apart from its shape, compact size, and one-handed firing capability, this weapon was no different from the enemy's other projectile weapons. One shot, maybe two, and he'd be paralyzed.
And this Hunter would be happy to feed on him.
Maybe. But not today.
"Catch!" he shouted, throwing the trophy rifle at the Wraith.
Naturally, the Wraith didn't react like a human and instinctively try to catch it. The Hunter sidestepped, but that was enough to make him miss: the Runner dodged the shot and pulled a short blade from its sheath — a blade he never parted with, even in his sleep.
His first lunge took the tip of the stunner pistol. The expertly sharpened blade damaged the weapon's glowing energy cells, making it useless for another shot. The Hunter realized that too.
Throwing the broken weapon at his prey, he attacked without a moment's delay. But aside from his hands — one touch from which was lethal to any living creature — he had nothing else. He hadn't even managed to draw his own knife.
The Wraith Hunter attacked in the classic style of his race — spreading his arms and lifting them slightly above his shoulders, he lunged at the Runner. The latter slashed at the right hand, on whose palm the dangerous organ was located, and dodged aside, smiling at the fact that he'd cut the hand clean off at the wrist.
A grimace of pain flickered across the Wraith's face. But for his race, serious injuries weren't especially dangerous — Wraiths regenerated hundreds, if not thousands of times faster than ordinary humans. The Runner had seen wounds heal on his enemies right before his eyes more than once.
The Hunter lunged at him again. But that only hastened the resolution.
The man stepped to the side, letting the enemy pass to his right. At the same time, he struck a cutting blow to the Wraith's torso on the right, from the side of the severed hand. The blade passed easily through the Wraith's innards, making him slow down to grasp the severity of his situation.
In the same motion, the man severed his opponent's head. Puncturing bodies or maiming them was a waste of time. To buy any time, you had to kill the enemy, not wound him.
The Runner examined the damaged stunner pistol of the dead Wraith and concluded it was beyond repair. Tossing it aside, he broke back into a run.
With every kilometer he put between himself and the forest, he led the enemy farther and farther from the caves he'd chosen. Over the years of his flight, he'd come to know his opponent pretty well.
The Wraiths followed the trail, but they didn't know the Runner's exact location on the planet until they came through the Stargate. That gave him a decent head start — he could set up several traps, prepare ambush sites, and at least get a little rest. After all, the farther the new planet was from the previous one, the better the chances that the Wraiths wouldn't come after him immediately.
That's how it turned out this time. He got a few days' respite before they came again. The fact that the Wraiths had sent Hunters after him so quickly showed their impatience. And that had never happened before.
When hunting Runners, the Wraiths didn't act hastily. He didn't know the exact reason why people like him existed. Sport? Hunting? Training? Entertainment? Proving themselves?
In the end, none of it mattered. Only survival mattered — his own and that of other people, without whose help it was very hard to live. He always needed ammunition, food, medicine.
But most of all, he needed doctors, healers who could at least try to remove the tracker implanted in his back. Except he still hadn't met a single doctor capable of doing it.
Then again, after recent events, he hadn't even tried anymore. Too many victims were left behind after every time he turned to people for help. The Wraiths weren't inclined to make life easy for their Runners.
A month ago, he'd stumbled upon a settlement in another world where he'd never been before. The address had been given to him by one of the doctors who'd tried to cut the tracking device out of his back. Almost two thousand people lived in the town where, he'd hoped, he could rest and regain his strength. The locals — open, welcoming people — took him in and fed him. Their healer, a funny old man with a reputation as a wonderful specialist among his own people and in many other worlds, with tiny glasses perched on his nose, turned out to be caring and talkative. And when he learned about the device planted in his guest's back — the reason the Runner had come to his home — he readily offered to help. But despite all his efforts, like the dozens of doctors before him, he was powerless to remove the Wraiths' transmitter from the Runner. And another scar was added to the Runner's back.
The Runner had stayed only one night — to gather his strength after the operation. Sleeping in a normal bed, on a soft mattress, without the fear of falling into enemy hands, felt like a true gift from the gods. For the first time in years, he'd gotten real rest. And he'd left in the morning, hoping to throw off the Wraiths following his trail. After going through dozens of worlds ravaged by Wraith scouts, he'd returned to that town anyway — to restock supplies, since the locals had been kind to him last time. And he'd seen with his own eyes what had come of it. All the residents had vanished, their homes reduced to ruins. No one survived — even though he hadn't found a single body, there was no doubt about their fate. Wraith fighters were circling in the sky — either finishing the harvest or waiting for the Runner himself. It was only by a miracle, setting an ambush at the Ring of the Ancients, that he'd managed to escape.
He'd stumbled onto this planet recently. Untouched by human or Wraith hands, it had lush vegetation where it was easy to lose ground pursuit teams. The thick tree canopies kept enemy fighters from finding him and beaming him aboard — they'd wandered around the area for several days while he holed up in a cave. And judging by the fact that the ships had left, and a large squad had come instead, the Wraiths hadn't managed to find him. And if that was the case, the Runner concluded he could stop here for a while — catch up on sleep, recover his strength.
And now he didn't stop, changing worlds one after another, never staying long anywhere.
Spotting two Wraith soldiers ahead, a little farther down the slope, he didn't even hesitate. They had — intentionally or by accident — come out onto the trail that led to his shelter in the mountains. He couldn't let that happen.
Taking a good running start, he launched himself at the enemies. The Wraith soldiers only noticed him at the last moment. Kicking both feet into the body of the first one, the Runner knocked both of them over, then, instantly back on his feet, slashed his blade across the first soldier's neck. The severed head flew into the bushes.
The second one grabbed for his weapon, but the man was faster. A sword thrust to the shoulder, a circular slash across the chest, a kick to the gut, and a finishing blow to the fallen enemy. The blade's tip went neatly under the jaw, piercing through and reaching the brain. The enemy went still, never having managed to put up a fight.
"That's better," the Runner wheezed, catching his breath and looking around. No other Wraiths in sight. So he shoved the bodies off the trail further down the slope and stashed two rifles among the roots of a large tree.
He had to keep running. Soldiers didn't wander around by themselves — there had to be a Commander or Hunter nearby. Wraith warriors were too stupid to act on their own. Which meant at least one had to be close by...
After a couple of minutes, he figured out why there was no Wraith Commander near his soldiers. It also explained the sluggishness of their behavior when they'd encountered the Runner.
A barely visible forest path — used by local animals to reach a clearing with tasty berries — caught his eye, and through the bushes, he spotted a Wraith Commander standing at full height. His snow-white long hair, black clothes, and a cloak that reached his ankles were unmistakable.
And the stunner pistol lying on the ground under his right hand, combined with a couple of conspicuous stones near the trail, told the Runner why the Wraith Commander hadn't even thought of leaving this spot.
"You could at least watch where you're going," the man muttered, picking up the weapon of the enemy who'd been killed by a trap. But the Commander's pain-twisted mouth and glazed eyes revealed a Wraith who wasn't much for conversation. The dead don't talk to the living.
And the Wraith Commander had lost his life thanks to another trap the Runner had set here. The enemy had stepped right into it with one foot. In doing so, he'd pressed the flat base of a primitive lever mechanism, on the other side of which was a platform studded with numerous stakes. The sharp wooden spikes had gone into the enemy's chest and neck, inflicting multiple internal injuries.
Not even a freshly fed Wraith would recover from that.
Taking the stunner pistol and searching the corpse, the man turned to continue his hunt. And at that same moment, he took a stinging but powerful blow to the face that threw him several meters off the trail.
Before he could get up, the Wraith Hunter was already in front of him. Kicking the Runner in the face, he knocked him onto his back, then kicked the stunner out of his hand. Spinning on his axis, the Hunter sent the Runner flying with a kick to the chest.
Landing on his back, the man could barely breathe as a painfully familiar convulsion wracked his body. And when speaking of pain, you had to understand it was completely real.
But he'd been paralyzed by a stunner more than once, so, slowly, fighting the pain all over his body, he began to get up, drawing his blade from its sheath. It was inglorious, but he had only one chance to kill this monster and give himself a chance at salvation.
"You've been elusive too long," the Hunter hissed in his face, aiming the stunner at his prey.
The Runner managed to let the first shot pass to his right, closing the distance to the Hunter by a couple of meters. Stunners had a major problem with rate of fire, but... This Hunter was clearly a veteran of many battles and had studied his techniques. Breaking contact and avoiding a blade thrust to the heart, the Wraith shot him in the chest with the stunner.
The man dropped to the ground like a limp rag, his fading consciousness watching as the Hunter leaned over him. Tearing the rags on his chest, the Wraith brought his right hand over the defeated man, revealing the feeding organ on his palm — a narrow slit that allowed him and other Wraiths to feed on humans.
"Of all the Runners in our hive, you are the sweetest and most worthy prey," the Wraith declared, jerking his hand toward the man's body.
Already losing consciousness, the Runner felt a sharp pain in his eyes — some flash flickered before his face, blocking the Wraith and the rest of the world from view.
"I see they're not much for conversation," came someone's voice at the edge of his consciousness. "Let's take this one."
* * *
His face was seared by cold that pierced his body like a stunner discharge. The man let out an incoherent sound, jerking, trying to swing at the dark figure in front of him. His vision hadn't fully focused yet, but his last memories demanded he fight for his life.
But his fist met only an impenetrable wall. And it felt like a couple of fingers had definitely broken.
"So you're not much of a talker either, I see," said a voice that sounded somehow familiar. On pure reflex, the Runner threw another punch, but that one hit the unknown barrier too. Which, for some reason, flashed with green light. "Easy there, kid. Only your friends here."
The pain finally cleared the fog from his head and eyes, and the Runner realized he was nowhere near a forest. He'd been in developed worlds a couple of times — until the Wraiths destroyed them. And he perfectly understood what a space or atmospheric ship looked like. Right now, he was inside one. And for some reason, he was without his jacket, his torso bare. And his back really hurt...
There were two men and a woman, all dressed in identical gray-blue suits reinforced on the limbs and torso with something like thin armor. One man was middle-aged, like himself. But the dark-skinned woman with chestnut hair and the man with short, obviously recently grown-out dark hair were ten to fifteen years younger than him.
What was unsettling wasn't just that they'd ended up on the same planet as the Wraiths and the Runner, but that they didn't even have weapons in their hands. Although in the compartment of the small ship, in the aft section where the four of them were, there were weapons. Not just unfamiliar firearms — the kind the Runner had used some time ago, until his ammo ran out. The weapons were lying on a seat, next to his blade. Along with several Wraith stunners — a couple of pistols and rifles. Something told him these were the exact weapons he'd had on him and had taken as trophies in the fight.
"Who are you?" He tensed, trying to keep as much space as possible between himself and the strangers. He needed room to maneuver. "What do you want?"
"Straight to business," the older man snorted. "Alvar."
"Teyla Emmagan," the woman introduced herself.
"Mikhail," the third man gave his name. Taking a closer look at him, the Runner noted with surprise that a translucent greenish haze was swirling around him. That seemed to be what the Runner had tried to attack when he woke up. And the guy's voice was very similar to the one he'd heard just before he passed out.
Mikhail. A Lantean of some sort.
"What do you want?" the Runner didn't react to the attempt at pleasantries. He'd already thought of at least three ways to escape from here. But only if he knew how to leave the ship...
"We need your clothes, your boots, and your motorcycle," Mikhail said calmly.
"What?" the Runner frowned.
"Ah, they don't know about the classics in this galaxy," the youngest of the three sighed. "Okay, kidding aside. We saved you, and we're not going to play the noble game. I'll be honest — you're not exactly the guy I was looking for. But I think you could be useful to us, and we could be useful to you?"
"That brings us back to my original question." The Runner made a quick move to the side and grabbed his blade. Backing toward the pilot cabin (at least that was the only place from which he could see the forest, and therefore the exit), he pointed the weapon at Mikhail, who was now in front of him. "What do you want from me?"
"You'll laugh, but help," Mikhail replied.
"Don't come closer!" the Runner warned.
"Or what?" The young guy took a step forward without the slightest hint of fear and drove his chest onto the tip of the Runner's weapon. Except instead of a terrible wound in the center of his chest, the blade pushed off his figure. The injured hand hurt again. "I think you've already figured out you can't hurt us. And is it even worth doing that to the people who removed the Wraith beacon from your spine?"
"What?!" The Runner stunned, reached his hand behind his back, feeling a mass of old scars... And a sticky bandage in the center of his spine. Right where that pair of doctors had said the Wraith beacon was. "How is that possible?! No doctor I've ever known could remove it...!"
"That's exactly why I'm proposing cooperation." Mikhail extended his hand. "You're a fighting guy. The way you took down those Wraiths impressed all of us. And we wouldn't mind if you joined our team..."
"Thank you for your help, if you're not lying, of course. But I don't work in a team," the Runner cut him off. "I'm a lone wolf. And I intend to leave. Right now."
"Your right," Mikhail agreed. "You've never seen us before, trusting in a situation like this would be stupid, but... In a way, I know you. You're a good man. And you're definitely not alone, Kirik."
The Runner felt everything inside him coil into a tight spring.