Free SGA-13 Hunt and Run by Aaron Rosenberg Page B

couldn’t kill right away you sought to immobilize your target so you could finish it off quickly.
    Plus there was the whole issue of shooting from cover. That had been a completely new experience for Ronon — he had never been the “hide in the bushes, then attack by surprise” type. His attack formations had usually involved head-on charges, shooting and slashing all the way. But his last encounter with the Wraith had proven better than any lecture that such a technique would not be effective here. He couldn’t overpower three Wraith, not by himself. And he could never count on outside help or reinforcements, not even from Nekai. Especially not while hunting — if the Wraith ever figured out how their signals overlapped, they might devise a way to counter that, and then Ronon and Nekai would lose their one advantage, not to mention their one measure of cover.
    So Ronon had to take out all three Wraith as quickly as possible, as quietly as possible, and by himself.
    Which meant not shooting any of them. Not yet. He couldn’t guarantee he could take them all down before one of them tagged him, or called in help. And he couldn’t take that risk.
    Instead, he slowly, quietly shifted his hands forward and lifted the vine he had coiled just in front of his head. It was the strongest one he could find, strong enough to withstand his yanking on it with no ill effect, and he had looped a section of it and made a crude but very effective slipknot. Now he shifted his weight slightly on the thick branch he had chosen for his perch, and raised the loop, gauging the distance to the figures approaching his tree.
    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