Sven improved his nest with his weapon as he fell into a routine. In the daytime, he would wander around, exploring the local city. At night, he watched entertainment discs, read for himself, or loaded new choices for his weapon. He was acutely aware that he was a fugitive so kept local contacts down as much as possible.

Anyone he met could be one of the Valhallen in disguise. One look at the weapon on his arm would tell them who he was. And that would bring trouble on the city and natives.

Excitement would have to take a place with other people. He had to keep a low profile as much as possible.

Luckily the local guard hadn't connected him with the bandits he had wounded. He wondered why no one was looking for him for the way he had repelled them. Maybe they wanted revenge for what he had done and told the guard a lie to placate them.

He wondered how long it would be before he had to repel an attack from them. He imagined they would want their revenge out of posturing. He decided to use something that would drive them off and make them never want to see his face.

His weapon had shown him the exact thing he wanted to scar them for life without actually having to hurt them.

Real Vallhallen soldiers would just kill them and put their heads on pikes as a demonstration of the Asgar way.

Being a fugitive meant he couldn't afford such extravagance.

He could live with that. Being a soldier was expected but he liked being a civilian more now that he was away from home.

Sven paused on his walk. He groaned when he saw a Vallhallen standing on the next street corner. The man was obviously one of the deserter's fellow soldiers despite the civilian clothes he wore. The fact that he wore a weapon was enough to give him away.

He decided that it was better if he walked away before the other man saw him. The last thing he wanted was a fight in the middle of a crowded sidewalk. The local guard would arrive, and then things would escalate even if he escaped.

He did not want to be in the middle of a search and destroy mission conducted by the natives.

“Halt, deserter!,” came the cry.

Sven paused to look over his shoulder before he started running. He headed for an alley off the street. He had practiced with the line produced by his weapon. Getting to the roof of either building forming the sides should be a breeze and leave a minimal trace to follow.

The other soldier ran after the deserter. His weapon had formed into a stun gun as he ran. One shot would put his quarry down long enough for retrieval by a team sent through an intersection.

He called in his coordinates as he ran. The Asgar didn't want a lot of attention being thrown on their operation, but they wanted Private Sven Sigmundsson back in their clutches before anyone else could grab him.

Sven turned into the alley, web gun ready. A flash of light hit the wall to his left. The other man seemed to be trying to shock his system for an easy capture.

The deserter pointed the web gun at the top of the wall on his right. He pressed the button and shot a strand up. He pulled on the line and ran at the bricks. He ran up the side of the building, pulling himself up on the line as fast as his arms could work. He reached the rampart and pulled himself over on the roof of the building.

Sven got to his feet and ran to the edge of the roof away from the alley. He jumped over to the next store. He hoped the soldier wouldn't realize what he had done. He wanted a clean escape from the scene.

He heard a thunk behind him. He groaned but kept running. The other Vallhallen had seen him climbing and was coming up after him. He should have known things wouldn't be easy.

A team would be arriving to back up their lone spotter. Then he would be dealing with six to ten men and women who might be ordered to bring him back alive. He couldn't count on that. Accidents happened.

Should he turn and fight? His weapon had a lot of wild card configurations loaded on it now. It might throw the other man off long enough for him to escape.

He still had the web gun active so he could swing across any gaps without problems. He turned. He wished he had a sight to help his aim. He would have to looking into building one if he was getting ready to fight more Vallhallen to keep his freedom.

Sven pushed the plunger on the web gun as soon as he saw his pursuer come into sight. He smiled at the cry of the web hitting and wrapping around the other man. He knew it would only hold the soldier for the length of time to change his weapon to cut through the strands.

He switched his own weapon and took aim as the other man produced a saw to cut through the strands. He flung a lightning bolt across the space seperating the two of them. The other man shook as the electricity ran through him. He collapsed on the roof.

Sven smiled. That had gone better than what he had thought. Now he had to get off the roof and away from the scene before more soldiers arrived to take him away.

Hopefully he had shorted out a standard issue locator on the other spotter. That would buy time for him to escape and try to blend in with the natives as much as he could while he tried to make it back to his fort.

He would have to think about ways to leave the city that didn't involve violating the local plane. The Asgar would be flooding the metropolis with their troops until there were more soldiers than actual natives roaming the streets.

He needed to grab his things and look for an intersection he could use to move sideways around the Tree. There were plenty of human worlds touching the central axis that he could set up somewhere else and blend in better than a world that didn't know about the aether and the clockworks that governed the multiverse around them.

Hopefully the Mountain, The Yellow, and the Jotun weren't looking for him too. He didn't have much of a chance evading his former people as much as he was willing to give it a try. He certainly didn't hold much hope if others got involved in the search.

A deserter could hold some valuable information for other factions if they could put him in a box and crack him with their powers.

And he had no doubt he would crack. Everyone did at one point. He didn't want to reach that point and be wrecked by their trying to find out things he didn't know, and didn't have access to before he left.

The Jotun would probably use him as some kind of propaganda piece if they caught him. He didn't want to be put in a cage and trotted out to show people that the giants were the best faction roaming the branches.

Sven ran along the roofs, scanning the skyline. How long did he have before someone showed up to start shooting at him? That was more important than the politics of being captured by one faction or the other.

He would give thought to moving on when he was sure he would be able to move on. The fact that the Asgar could shut access by intersection down if they used their Key was not lost on him. He might already be trapped on this world.

Sven put that worry away too. There was nothing he could do about that. If he was trapped on the world, he would find out soon enough when he couldn't use the space map to move away. Until then he had to get his gear, and take cover.

Once the sky was clear, he would try to move to another world he could use for cover. He might have to set up a system to move randomly along the human worlds without using the conventional intersections that spontaneously occurred across the Tree.

One of his old instructors had taught classes on that so they could use it to reach the Jotun without crossing the barrier worlds between the giants and the Asgar. Just step sideways, move forward, then step back.

Sven had packed a book of notes in his bag when he decided to leave the city. He could use the weapon to figure out the calculations needed to make his move smoothly and without fear of discovery.

He noted the pressure of intersections close by. He turned his weapon into a rail gun with a sensor array. He didn't see anything close by where he was running. He nodded at the thought they couldn't detect him either unless they had an array that could track weapons.

Sven realized that he was sending a signal from his weapon for them to do just that because it was active and ready for use.

He needed to stop running and shut his weapon off until he could get behind his shields.

He should have thought of that before he had used one of Zus's signature weapons on the pursuing trooper. Now he realized he had sent them a signal that said come get me.

The deserter took a moment to figure out where he was in relation to his home base. He would have to cross a few miles without his weapon being active. And he would have to do it on the ground.

He used the web gun to swing down to the ground. He put his weapon on standby. He looked around. No one seemed to be paying attention to him. He started walking toward the book store. Hopefully if they tracked him there, the bloodhounds would just think he used the books to read about the local area so he could blend in better.

Once he had his bag, he could think about where he should go from there. Any random place offered cover as long as he didn't use his weapon to do things without being under a shield to hide it.

Being hunted had been bound to happen. At least he was mentally prepared for it.