A part of Jack wanted nothing more than to lie down and give up, but the rest of Jack was screaming to get up, hunt down the raiders, and get Em'brel back. However, lying in the mud with a spear sticking out of his leg was going to slow him down a bit.

It took a moment for him to realize Angela's voice was talking to him through his headset. "Jack, Speak to me, Jack! I'm sorry...I couldn't...I didn't know what to do! It all happened so fast, and all I could do was watch in horror. I was certain you were going to die...and now Em'brel is...she's..."

Jack shook his head and scowled. "Em'brel is fine, and I'm going to go get her. Call S'haar, and let her know everything that's happened. I'm going to need her and any help she can get to start heading this way five minutes ago!"

Jack reached down and grabbed hold of the spear, bracing himself for the pain of trying to pull it out again when a gruff voice cut him off. "Determined to be a fool then? That's going to end the same way it did last time, and it'll accomplish just as much. Get your hands off that."

Ger'ron was standing over Jack, who released the spear and nodded. The old guard lowered himself slowly, using the crutches he'd evidently retrieved after the battle as leverage. Grabbing ahold of the spear, rather than pulling it out the way Jack expected, he snaped the haft off just above Jack's injury. The pain caused by the sudden jolt caused Jack to blackout again, but it must not have lasted long because when he opened his eyes, Ger'ron was still in roughly the same spot as before.

Angela spoke up again. "S'haar already knows. She's getting a group of hunters together because they can move through the wilds faster than anyone else. They're going to use the worker's coats so they can keep moving longer. The town guard will follow after. They'll be using more traditional cold-weather travel, utilizing campfires as needed. They're lead by B'arthon."

Jack laughed as though Angela had told a bad joke. "So, they'll be of no help then."

Ger'ron helped Jack to his feet and handed him one of the crutches. It was far too large for Jack to use as intended but worked well enough as a walking stick. Getting back to the cave like this was going to take an agonizingly long time. With every second, Em'brel was being carried further away. No other option presented itself, so Jack got moving.

On the way back to the cave, one of the dead raiders caught Jack's eye. He slowly and painfully knelt down next to the corpse to inspect it more closely. Looking at the coat, Jack could see it was cut and shaped like the worker's coats. It was made of cruder skins and leathers, and the stitching was not nearly as skilled, but the seams were all in the same spots. Flipping the coat open, he could even see pockets, exactly where they should be.

Angela's voice was confused and angry. "Those aren't similar to my design. Those ARE my design! How'd they get their hands on it?"

Reaching into a pocket, Jack pulled out a stone that had been heated. It was still warm to the touch. He threw it on the ground in disgust before standing back up and continuing to the cave. "I don't know how they got one, and that doesn't matter right now. The good news is, these aren't nearly as efficient as your coats, and that might be what makes the difference."

Angela was quiet. Her voice sounded as if she didn't want to say what came next. "Jack... Even with S'haar leaving now... She's a full day behind. The raiders will be back in the mountains long before she can catch them...and even if she did somehow catch them... When I focused my sensors on following the raider who escaped, I could track him as far as the edge of my range. He met up with more argu'n. I could only get a rough glimpse at how many heat signatures there were, but there weren't dozens. There were well over a hundred. They sent out a whole camp. I don't know what to do..."

Jack grunted in pain as his leg moved in such a way that it aggravated his injury. "There's only one option. I'm going to go ahead and slow them down."

Angela sounded as if she was worried Jack had finally lost his grip on reality and needed to be reminded of the obvious. "How will you do that? You can barely walk, even with your 'human endurance,' you'll never catch the raiders!"

Ger'ron was silently following right behind Jack, keeping an eye on the younger man. He couldn't understand a word of what he was saying, but Jack's tone was unmistakable. He was thinking of doing something stupid. "Yeah, but you can rapidly heal my leg like you did when I fractured my ankle by kicking that goon in the face months ago. If I remember correctly, you mentioned that the more pain medication you used, the slower the healing went. How long would it take to heal my leg if you didn't use any?"

This time, Angela knew Jack had gone insane. "That's not possible. Even if I was stupid enough to try, you'd go into shock from the trauma and pain. Also, that would only heal the bone. I could also surgically reattach the muscle, but even speeding up the healing process as much as possible, it wouldn't be fully attached in nearly enough time. You'd be at risk of the muscle tearing again. On top of all that, there's nothing I can do about the nerve damage you've suffered. I simply can't heal you in time!"

Jack walked in silence a moment. When he spoke up again, his voice unreasonably calm. "What if you just deaden the nerves directly? Then you won't need to use pain medications, and the pain of the bone growth would also be manageable."

Angela's mirthless laugher had the sound of someone who knew they were dealing with someone beyond reason. "Do you realize how insane that is? Setting aside all the possible complications and side effects, by rapidly healing both the bone and the muscle, but leaving the nerves untended, then going cross country hiking followed by a life or death battle, you'll be lucky if all you get is a permanent limp!"

Jack's voice remained calm, and his gaze focused beyond the rock wall. "I don't care if you tell me my leg might rot and need to be amputated in a few days. Will it do what I need it to do right now?"

Angela sounded defeated. "It MIGHT. At best, I'd say you have a thirty percent chance of your leg holding together long enough to even catch up with the raiders. And for the record, yes, after a few days, your leg might well start to rot. Even if it doesn't, you'll definitely be crippled for the rest of your life. Then there's the question of what will you do if, by some unholy miracle, you pull this off and you catch the raiders? How are you going to slow them down long enough for S'haar to catch up?"

Jack finally smiled, but his eyes remained cold. "That's easy. This time I go on the offensive."

-

Angela's avatar was glaring at Jack in the medical bay. "Just so you know, doing what you are asking me to do would be considered criminally irresponsible in civilized space."

Jack didn't look to be in a much better mood as he responded. "Well, we're not in civilized space, or else we'd just call in the actual military to resolve the issue, rather than leaving it to an explorer with delusions of grandeur. Now can we get on with this? We don't have any time to waste!"

Angela wasn't cowed one iota. "I ought to lock you up to keep you from doing anything stupid! I miss Em'brel as much as you, maybe more! But letting you go off and commit suicide won't save her. I'll just end up losing you both!"

Jack closed his eyes and calmed himself, but any sense of kindness or understanding was lost when he opened them again. "Listen, I get what you're doing, and why. I might even try and do the same thing in your place, but this is something I need to do! The only question is will you help me or not?"

The AI wasn't going to be so easily defeated. "I can lock the doors!"

Jack felt guilty about what he was about to say, but time was of the essence, and he needed to end this debate. "Yes, you can. Then I'll use the manual override. Then you can try and restain me, but how long can you hold me? If you wait until S'haar gets here, we'll have to chase them into the hills, their home territory, and the odds of our survival fall further. If you try and keep me indefinitely, you'll run out of power, or I'll run out of food, and you'll have to let me go anyway, but I'll be weaker and less prepared by then."

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He softened his expression and his voice. "Listen, I appreciate your concern, and I love you too, but this is something I absolutely have to do. I would never be able to live with myself if I didn't at least try. When our parents were killed, I was too young and naive to do anything, but this time I can do something, and I must do something. Anything else will leave me a broken shell of a man. It will kill me."

Angela looked at him, tears flowing freely down her digital face. Her voice was as ragged and broken as Jack's was becoming. "And just what do you think it'll do to me to sit and do nothing while you die this time?"

The two siblings stared at each other wordlessly for a few more moments before Angela turned her back to him. "Fine! You win! However, you WILL demonstrate to me that you fully understand the ramifications of what this could mean and that you are at least somewhat sane and capable of making this kind of judgment call. I say 'somewhat,' because there's no way a completely sane person would come up with this ridiculous plan of yours!"

Jack bit back his retort, closed his eyes, and visibly calmed himself. Angela was just doing her best to look out for him. She was probably even more scared than he was at this moment.

Opening his eyes, he spoke clearly and calmly. "I understand that this will be incredibly painful, will definitely cripple me one way or another eventually, and that it could even endanger my life. I also understand that even if I do this, the patch job you're about to give me might fail early, or my leg may go lame sooner than expected, and this will all be for nothing. I also know that if I don't at least try, I'll never be able to live with myself. So can we do this... please?"

Angela turned back around and searched his face intently for a few moments before sighing in defeat. "Alright. Whatever you do, don't die on me because of this, got it! I don't care if you have to punch that goddess of death of yours in the face this time!"

A mechanical arm held out something that looked like a long thick piece of leather. "Now bite down on this. This first bit is going to hurt... a lot..."

Not long after that, the screaming began.

-

Jack couldn't remember much of what happened after that, not for two hours at least. He knew it had seemed like a much longer period of time while he was experiencing it, but his memories of the pain were mostly academic. The whole thing felt almost like an odd dream now.

Angela hadn't deadened the nerves completely, explaining that he'd never be able to walk on it quickly enough if she'd done so. Instead, she cut down his ability to feel by about ninety percent. It turns out that that left just enough feeling for the experience of rapid bone growth and surgical muscle reattachment to be a harrowing one.

He was surprised at how annoying it was to walk on a mostly numb leg. It felt like his foot was asleep, and he kept expecting the pins and needles feeling to start up at any moment. Angela had also made him wear a special boot she'd designed as she'd worked. It allowed him to walk relatively normally but limited the range of movement to reduce the chances he'd re-tear the muscle again.

Still, that was all behind him now, and his mind was already onto the next task. He was now digging through storage, finding everything he'd need for the rescue. Being a scout by profession, his ship was stocked with all sorts of equipment he rarely used. He was even required to show proficiency in their use every few years, so he knew he could handle them well enough.

The rifle was the first and most important piece of gear. It was meant more for hunting than fighting, but it was designed to use up to 10-millimeter rounds. In other words, it was meant to have the stopping power for seriously big game if needed. With a decent scope and a suppressor, he hoped he'd be able to avoid detection long enough to cause some real fear and confusion.

He looked at a few frag grenades before putting them back in favor of more flashbangs. Even with a backpack and cargo pants, he only had so much storage space, and the shrapnel probably wouldn't have enough power to pierce through argu'n bone plates to any vital organs. On the other hand, the flashbangs could buy him precious moments to move and reload when needed. He also grabbed a few "pepper" grenades. They were a wide dispersal chemical irritant, strong enough to ruin even a grizzly's day. Topping off the list, Jack included a few knives, rope, a night vision scope, emergency ration bars that were all protein and calories with zero taste, a few first aid supplies, and of course, his handgun.

As he was leaving, Angela met him at the door. She pointed to one last emergency pack that had always been stored by the door. "Take that one too."

Jack raised an eyebrow at her. "You know if I need that, I won't be in any condition to use it, right?"

Angela shook her head. "I don't care. Take it anyway. You still have enough room in your lower right pants pocket."

Jack shrugged and packed it away as Ger'ron came hobbling over. "I wish I was coming with you, lad. Even with that thunder stick of yours, what you're planning is suicide. Least I could do is die with ya since the young lady got herself captured because I slowed us down."

Jack crossed his arms and shook his head. Angela translated as he spoke. "First, she didn't get captured, helping you. She got captured saving me. Second, her capture wasn't either of our faults. The responsibility lies solely with the raiders, and whether this works or not, they'll pay dearly for what they did. For now, focus on your recovery, and think more about my offer. If I do come back, we'll need all the help we can get."

Angela glared at Jack, fists on her hips. "WHEN you come back!"

Jack grinned a little forlornly. "Yes, when I come back."

Not having much more to say, Ger'ron simply nodded and watched as Jack left.

Once out in the cave, Angela had more to say over the headset. "Once you get out of my range, you'll be on your own for a while. But keep your headset on and ready. When S'haar gets close enough, I'll be able to pick you up on the mobile transceiver and be your eye in the sky, so to speak. Also, remember to take it easy on that leg. I know you are in a rush, but if you cripple yourself before you catch them, you won't help anyone."

Jack grunted his ascent but focused on how his leg felt as he moved forward and at a steady pace. Not knowing what to say, Angela traveled with him in silence, observing and recording every little thing she could think of. She only spoke up again once Jack neared the limit of her range. "Jack, I know how much Em'brel means to you. She means just as much to me in some ways, maybe more in others. But remember, others are waiting for you too. She won't thank you if you get yourself killed going after her. Not that I think you're going to suddenly change your mind or anything...but... Just be smart about this, ok? Use every cheap and unfair advantage you have. Worry about honor and guilt another day, ok?"

Jack frowned a little to himself before agreeing. "Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. It's time for me to introduce this world to the darker side of humanity."

-

Em'brel was resting by the campfire. One of the raiders handed her a bowl full of some slop, but she refused to eat it despite the growling of her stomach.

She was sore all over. Her captors hadn't been gentle with her. The only saving grace, so far, was the fact that they were so busy running that none of the raiders had found the time to abuse her like they had the first time she'd been captured. Though she was sure it was just a matter of time.

When she'd first woken up, Em'brel had hoped that Jack would send S'haar to rescue her again, but when she saw how many raiders surrounded her, that hope had evaporated like the morning mist. She'd honestly considered killing herself then and there, rather than face captivity at these monsters' hands again.

As weird as it seemed, the only thing that kept her going was all the knowledge she now carried in her head. It seemed like sacrilege to just throw away everything Jack and Anglea had taught her. Not that she was willing to use it to help her captors, but she couldn't let it go to waste either.

And yet, she couldn't bring herself to eat or drink anything they offered to her. She knew this was at odds with her determination to not give up and die, but something in her simply refused to accept anything they gave her. She'd just decided to let herself pass out from hunger and make them force feed her when she was approached by the most terrifying male she'd ever seen.

Em'brel couldn't quite figure out what made him so scary. He was nowhere near as large as Dol'jin had been. He didn't bear a single scar from any duel or battle, nor did he seem to move with much swagger or bravado. If anything, he moved with the delicate grace of a dancer. Despite all this, all the other males pulled back from his approach, seemingly unwilling to even let his shadow pass over their own.

When he reached Em'brel, he looked down at her bowl, still full of her uneaten lunch, and frowned. He crouched down with the kind of grace not even S'haar could manage, and reached out a taloned hand that crossed the distance between them far quicker than it appeared to move. His hand covered her mouth with his thumb and forefinger digging his talons into her cheeks until they drew blood.

When he spoke, his voice was quieter than she would have assumed but seemed all the more menacing for it. "If you continue to play these games, I'll have you brought to my tent tonight to make sure you eat well before you share my bed. However, if you're a good girl and do what I say, I'll let you sleep outside, chained to a post like the mongrel you are, cold but untouched."

Em'brel stared at him a moment longer before reaching blindly for her bowl and lifting it expectantly. The male chuckled softly and withdrew his hand, waiting until she took a sip before standing and walking away.

The thing that really bothered her about him was his voice. It lacked the harsh accent of the rest of the hill people. It was smooth and refined, as though he had grown up in a proper village. At the same time, the sound of it cut like a knife made of ice. Simply listening to his voice convinced Em'brel that this was someone who could kill quickly and without remorse.

As he left, Em'brel could just barely make out his parting words. "That's a good girl..."