The sky to the east lightened, but it was still some time until dawn. The team sat in the vehicle, parked up in the main square of the town of Samsun, watching the early morning traffic as people headed in to set up market stalls. The team were tired, some having stayed up all of the night, some having caught a little sleep as the truck wound its way along the coast road. Tads cleared her throat.
"Everyone, I think I owe you an apology. Especially you, Nadia."
She was greeted with silence, as they turned and looked at her.
"I said that if we needed to, I'd just go astrally and find Nadia's father, and tell her where she was. I've been thinking about that, and that's not right. It's not what magic is for. And it's not right to take that choice away from her. So, I'm sorry. I still think you're wrong not talking to family – especially since you still have some, but you'd agreed with Kai to talk to your father, so it's between you and Kai."
The silence deepened. From the looks on their faces, it seemed that none of the others felt that strongly about it – but it was obvious Tads did, and felt some moral or ethical compulsion about it. That in turn said something about her character, and her outlook – which did affect them all. Nadia nodded at Tads – but whether that was an acceptance of the apology, or just gratitude that she wasn't going to have her location revealed wasn't clear.
Breaking the silence, Marius announced that he was going to get a few hours of shut eye – and looked at Hunter expectantly. He was the only other member of the team with a datajack, and as the truck had no manual controls he was the only other person who could interface with the systems and drive it. Nowhere near as well as a rigger with the deep intertwining of man and machine made possible by the vehicle control rig, but well enough.
"I'm actually a pretty good driver," chirped Shimazu, "I'm just not putting one of those plugs in my brain. He shuddered at the thought of disturbing the delicate balance of mana and soul in his body by inserting high-tech composites into his nervous system.
"You don't have to you know, there are ways around it. You can get a 'trode net." Aswon yawned, but then pulled up a picture on his tablet. The electrode net was a fiddly looking collection of wires, sensors, probes and receivers, carefully positioned over someone's head – but the wire from the back ran in a bundle into a standard datajack port, and the superimposed image showed a vehicle driving through an obstacle course. Shimazu looked interested and Aswon described how he'd seen a mage use one to pilot an APC when he was a merc in southern Europe, without damaging his magical power.
Hunter logged onto the local matrix using a free wifi signal, and started to look for a local supplier. Despite speaking Turkish reasonably fluently – courtesy of the bioenhancement made to his brain – he was obviously not well versed with the written form. The frequent pop-up adverts from the free wireless service also distracted him, and every time he tried to close a window, it appeared two more opened. Eventually though he found a supplier, and placed an order – yet another pop up informing him that a drone would make delivery to his GPS co-ordinates shortly after 8am when the store opened.
They dozed for a bit, spreading out around the truck and finding some space wherever they could to get some rest. Window ports were opened to let some fresh air in, and a variety of gentle snores washed back and forth throughout the vehicle as they settled for forty winks. Hunter's alarm went off at 08:05, and he climbed out of the truck, looking around and waiting for the drone to arrive. He was confused when three separate drones appeared, one after another, each dropping off a small plastic package, roughly the same size. Climbing back into the truck he checked, and found that three orders had been dispatched, and his credstick was down 1100 Nuyen… the 'trode net was a grand, but he wasn't sure what the other two things were.
Shimazu meanwhile had opened the first box, and was sitting with his jaw open, holding a thick pink dildo in his hand. Foam packing peanuts had fallen out of the box all over his lap, but he seemed unaware of them, holding the sex toy in one hand while he pointed at Hunter with the other.
"Why? I mean, what. Um. WHY?" He put the dildo down on the dashboard, and the suction cup on the bottom made a weird little squelchy noise. As Shimazu let go, it wobbled gently from side to side, like the strangest little bobblehead.
"Ooops. I guess one of those pop-ups must have been a link to somewhere else on the site." Shimazu gave Hunter a telling look, but didn't say anything else. He reached down, and grabbed the second box, opening it carefully and pulling out the 'trode net and settling down to read the instructions. Almost fearfully Hunter grabbed the third box and opened it – revealing a larger and more elaborately carved piece of silicone, this time in a set of neon rainbow swirls.
It took Shimazu about twenty minutes to get the 'trode net set up properly and he gingerly started up the truck by pushing an imaginary starter button on the virtual dash board that was displayed on the screen positioned just before his eyes. The others watched him as his arms and legs started to move and stamp, but the truck slowly pulled out of the square and joined the main road, driving slowly but smoothly. Watching Shimazu was like watching a small child pretend-driving. Motions were exaggerated, but his hand pulled the virtual steering wheel left and right, and his feet pushed imaginary pedals – but the truck moved, none the less. Unfamiliar with a vehicle this size, especially one with a trailer, he took it steady, and traffic started to build up behind him almost immediately.
They'd been driving for perhaps half an hour, with a small jam of traffic building up behind them, then overtaking on the few straight or wide sections of road, the local drivers all seeming to feel that anything less than a hundred kilometres per hour being unacceptable. Used to the constant beeping and tailgaters, Shimazu was paying reasonable attention to the traffic around them, and spotted a large army truck coming up behind them, approaching fast. He watched it carefully as it approached, growing with alarming quickness in the mirrors. It looked like it was going to slam into the rear of the trailer, but then pulled out sharply and roared past them. It was similar to their truck – a large green mass of metal with six huge tyres – but had at least one key difference. Whoever owned this thing had spared no expense on tuning up the engine, and it flew past them doing close to a hundred and forty kilometres per hour, the air turbulence making them rock from side to side. It pulled back in sharply in front of them, still forcing a battered old car coming the other way onto the verge with a blaring of horns and waving from the driver. The army truck continued along the road at high speed, rapidly pulling away from the team. In no more than a minute, it rounded a bend on the headland and was out of sight. By the time Shimazu had reached the same headland, the truck ahead was already cresting the next ridge, and was gone.
The continued along the route for a while, Shimazu gradually getting used to the large vehicle and the joys of driving with an ungainly trailer, slowly picking up speed and making steady progress along the route marked out. To their right, the Black Sea glittered, waves washing up against the shallow cliffs or gravelled bays, sometimes only a few metres from the road, sometimes a kilometre or more away with rich green pastureland in between the coast road and the shore. To their left was more farmland, barren and empty at the moment, but with the promise of lush greenery in the summer months. Behind the band of fields and pastures the land rose sharply, scrub and gorse covering hills that rose in a series of sharp defiles with the occasional scree slope marking a cutaway.
Along the way they passed through some small villages, mostly located around the infrequent roads that led into the interior, heading up the valleys and gradually climbing into the highlands. They were all small, sleepy affairs, with local markets set up in the village squares, mostly looking sad and forlorn with just a few die-hard stalls out on the bleak winter's day. The going was often sluggish through the villages, as they were forced to slow down for minor traffic jams as people just stopped cars to visit shops and stalls, or farmers drove livestock from one side of the road to another. As they were going through one village, Shimazu heard shouting and screaming behind him and checked his mirrors – alarmed to see a cow sprawling on the road, sliding towards some pedestrians who had dropped their shopping in an attempt to get out of the way. He couldn't see any blood, but it looked like he'd clipped it with the trailer, punting the five hundred kilo animal across the road.
He thought for a moment about stopping, but decided to press on. Maybe no one would notice… Distracted by the virtual dashboard beamed straight into his eyes, he never noticed Hunter sitting quietly in his seat in the rear, smirking to himself. The truck drove on, leaving the village and the angry farmer behind him, wrestling to get his herd of cows corralled back together and to their shed.
Hunter stared out of the window, still smiling at the image of a surprised cow sliding across the road on its back, all four legs kicking in the air. He watched the scenery out of the window, not really looking at anything in particular, just staring out. Suddenly, something caught his attention – up on the hill, inland from them. About a half kilometre back from the road, up a dirt trail that didn't even qualify as a road was a green army truck – probably the one that had overtaken them earlier. He focussed on some shapes by the side of the truck – his Zeiss optical eyes applying compensation and filters automatically to cut out the glare from the low-hanging sun. The shapes resolved just in time, and he saw half a dozen people throwing themselves flat, into cover under the truck and by the low stone wall running alongside the track. In a moment, they were past, and out of sight – but he knew what he had seen, and quickly alerted the rest of the team.
He described the group of half a dozen people, clearly wearing combat fatigues and carrying assault rifles and machine guns, and how keen they had been not to be seen. They discussed for a few minutes, wondering what was going on. They had no reason to stop, or to turn back and investigate – it was likely to get them involved in something else that would distract them from their mission. So, they continued on their way, keeping their eyes peeled and looking out for anything else strange.
It was getting on for 11am when they hit the outskirts of Sinope, the road that had drifted inland a little suddenly angling down and back out towards the coastline. They were on a slight hill, and could see the town below them on an isthmus, and the road they were on curving down into the town centre. Another road emerged further north, running along the coastline and past the airport – a small regional affair at best. Several ships were at anchor in the bay, and more in the port, tied up alongside the piers. Houses were scattered along the road, and a small village lay before the main town, almost a suburb of the larger settlement, connected via the string of residences along the roadside. To the east, on the flat plain leading to the sea was a large power station, half a dozen enormous plascrete cooling towers rising up scores of metres into the air, with steam gently drifting from the top in wispy little columns.
As they descended the slope, the traffic slowed considerably, and became much thicker. They found themselves in a column of beat-up and battered cars, a mix of knock-off and local build brands, all marked with spots of rust and bare metal.
After a few minutes of crawling through steadily slowing traffic, Shimazu was forced to stamp on the virtual brake as the cars ahead of him suddenly stopped. The team that were dozing jerked awake, asking what was the matter and looking around the truck, bemused to find themselves in a sudden traffic jam. The rise in noise levels was enough to wake up the sleepers in the back of the truck, who squeezed their way through into the cab, also taking a look around. The traffic was stationary ahead of them, stretching off along the road with no sign of movement at all, but the odd car or truck was still heading out of town towards them. They were in the middle of the little village, next to the opening that passed for a village square, and could see a couple of stalls set out, with vendors plying their wares, people leaning against walls chatting, and a horde of small children that were going from car to car, banging on the doors and brandishing small bouquets of flowers that appeared hand-picked.
There was a rap on the door, very faintly – as if made by a small child suddenly finding out how painful it was to knock with bare knuckles on heavy Krupp steel. Kai leaned over and opened the door, watching the small child duck under it, swinging precariously by one hand and waving his flowers with the other. He grabbed some loose change with one hand and plucked the flowers with the other, releasing the change into the pudgy waiting fingers.
"No," shouted Hunter and Aswon, almost simultaneously. But it was too late, and the child dropped out of reach, his hand clenched around his reward tightly. He started to shout in Turkish loudly as he zig-zagged away from the truck.
Kai looked around at the others, seeing Marius face-palm and the others staring at him.
"What?"
"You just gave him the equivalent of about forty to fifty Nuyen… that's like a week's wages for some of these folk. And the kid has just shouted to everyone that we're rich. Look!"
Kai looked at the swarm of children that were now running towards the truck, abandoning their efforts to get the odd coin from the car drivers and concentrating on them instead. Within moments a number of them had climbed up the side of the truck like monkeys on crack, hanging off handles, window sills, mirror frames and any other protrusions they could find, all shouting and waving their wares at the windows, staring into the one-way glass with huge fake smiles and hope in their eyes.
"Let me sort this out," Aswon said as he squeezed over to the door. "What's 'get off' guys?" He listened as Marius spoke a word, then turned back to the door and grasped it firmly with both hands and wedged his feet into position. With no warning, he pushed the door open a few inches, then pulled it almost closed with violent suddenness, then pushed it open again. "INMEK! INMEK! INMEEEEEKKKK!" he bellowed. Small children went flying, quickly losing their grip and falling to the floor. The lucky ones landed on other children, bouncing and rolling away. Some sprawled on the floor, crawling away rapidly with their flowers left strewn behind them. The unlucky ones landed badly, falling on knees or faces, and several of them curled up in balls of pain, holding hands to cuts and split lips and starting to cry. Aswon looked out and assessed them quickly, then pulled the door shut.
"A few cuts and bruises, nothing serious, no lasting damage or minor injuries. No need to treat them." He pulled the door shut with a click.
Around the square the children scattered and moved away quickly, the injured hobbling after friends and getting away from the truck. Angry glances from some of the elder bystanders were shot at the truck, and some of the stallholders shouted and raised hands against them in obviously hostile motions – but nobody approached the truck. At least, not for a few seconds.
A woman appeared out from behind a stall, holding a large wicker basket on a sling. She was dressed in a flowing dark robe that covered her from shoulders to ankles, and wore a headscarf, but the scarf was pushed back quite far on her face, leaving it and most of her hair visible. Her complexion was a flawless olive tone, and her almond-shaped face was framed with flowing black hair. Her eyes were dark, so dark brown they appeared almost black, and were also classically shaped, framed by gently curving eyebrows and rich lustrous eyelashes. Her mouth was pulled up into a slight curve of amusement, and she wore a strong red lipstick that made her lips stand out against her skin tone. She stopped about a metre from the truck, and looked up expectantly at them. A gust of wind blew down the street, flattening the robe against her body, revealing a lithe and toned figure for a moment – but not showing any subtle signs of armour or concealed weaponry.
"That's probably one of the kid's mothers, come to complain about you, Aswon," said Hunter with a grin.
"No. No, she's not angry. She's….. hmmm." Both Kai and Shimazu were looking at the woman, and their brows furrowed. "She's concealing something. But she doesn't look hostile. More nervous."
"Yes. Definitely. See how she keeps glancing to the left, behind us? Waiting for something? An ambush, maybe?"
There was the sound of clips being clicked, actions being worked and magazines being seated in the wells of guns, as the team readied themselves, and looked around. They waited a few moments, but nothing happened. Nothing, until the woman waved at the truck, anyway.
Kai squeezed past the others to reach the door and with a muttered "Cover me," opened the door and slid out of the truck. The woman backed up a few paces, and said something in Turkish, and when Kai didn't respond, she switched to English.
"You understand me? Ahh good. Children hurt, parents angry. They discuss calling the police. I can help you?"
Kai smiled at her. "That would be good. How?"
"You give me, perhaps a hundred Nuyen. I split amongst hurt children, a little each – make up for the bruises. Children happy, adults happy. No trouble."
"And let me guess, you get to keep a few Nuyen for yourself?" He watched her shrug, not denying it. "Ok, sure. Here, here's some cash. You sort this out, however you feel is best."
The woman took the proffered notes, quickly checked them and then called across the square in rapid Turkish to the children hiding behind the corners of buildings and stalls. The looks of hostility changed – still not friendly perhaps, but a lot closer to neutral.
"So, what do you sell then?"
The woman pulled open the wicker bag, revealing 4 large mason jars, with lids tightly closed. In each were a number of small black slimy shapes, clinging to the glass or the bits of bark and debris in the bottom.
"Leeches. Magical leeches. Rare creatures gathered from up in the mountains. They have special powers, curative powers. Able to take poison and disease out of the body." Kai listened, and waved over his shoulder at Tads, beckoning her down. When she climbed out of the truck, he asked her to examine the creatures. He waited, as she took on that slightly glassy-eyed look she got when she was not using her eyes to see the physical world.
"They're certainly magical creatures of some sort – not anything I've seen before though. The magic is faint, but it's definitely there."
"Ahh, your friend is wise, a very wise woman. Indeed, they are magical creatures. The tales through the ages tell of their healing powers. And they are a bargain – but one the people around here cannot afford. I was resting with my friend on the stall, before heading to the port. But this traffic… there is no bus. No one here can afford a thousand Nuyen for a jar, even if it would save their life."
Kai and Tads shared a look, and Kai watched as Tads shrugged, clearly uncertain what they were worth – or if they were what the woman claimed. Then she turned and looked up into the sky, staring to the south east at something unseen, a deep frown forming on her face.
Behind her Kai haggled with the woman for a minute, eventually agreeing to pay sixteen hundred Nuyen for a pair of jars, getting six leeches in all. He used up some more of their stock of cash, and passed the jars up into the truck where they were passed from one team member to another with various looks of horror and revulsion.
He turned back towards Tads, and then paused, looking at her with concern. She had leeched of colour, looking pasty white under the pale winter sun. She didn't have the darkest of complexions to begin with, having grown up far to the north – but even so, the colour change was noticeable. He reached out a hand, gently touching her on the shoulder. The touch startled her, and her head snapped around to face him.
"Back in the truck, now. Ritual magic!" She matched actions to words, scrambling up the steps and handholds and throwing herself into the truck, scrabbling for handholds to climb into the back. The others pulled back out of her way, their complaints at being climbed over fading as they saw how she looked, and thought about how she normally handled herself. Kai climbed in after her, slamming the door shut behind her, and the tension in the cab was palpable.
"Someone was looking. For me? Maybe for us? I'm not sure. But someone was looking for us magically. I could feel the flow of mana, searching for us. The astral was tingling, power building up. It wasn't a spirit – I would have seen it. The only other thing I know is a ritual group. Maybe just a couple, maybe a whole tribe – all taking part and focussing their power towards their target. One of the tribe goes out as a spotter, to focus and guide the power to its destination. But it was too soon for that, the power was building." Tads wrapped her arms around herself, clasping her arms to her side and rocking back and forth slightly. The others glanced out into the cold winter's day, as if they might see something.
"Can you feel it now? Here in the truck?" asked Kai.
Tads rocked for a moment, then was still as she glanced astrally. Then for another moment. Then for long seconds, as she looked around carefully, not sensing anything. Ten seconds passed, then twenty, then thirty – before she blinked rapidly and shook her head.
"No. Nothing at all. They may have just got a sense of me or us or whatever, but lost the link when I was behind the ward. As long as we're in the truck, we're probably safe… but it's a risk if we go outside."
They sat in silence, watching out of the windows at the street, and up into the air. The people in the square went about their business, unaware of the worries of those nearby. The air was still, just the occasional bird flying past, wheeling down to grab a morsel of food from the road before flying up and away to a high perch. The traffic didn't move, and the seconds ticked past, turning into minutes.
Marius poked Shimazu on the shoulder to get his attention and the two swapped places and control of the vehicle. Marius flicked a mental switch, and the speakers started to hiss, and garbled voices and snatches of music came out, as he hunted through the frequencies until he found the local radio station. They listened to a couple of tracks of Japanese Turbo-Rock, the one hundred and fifty beats per minute making the windows vibrate and the pair of dildos stuck to the dashboard wobble. At the top of the hour, the music blended into some host chit chat, and then went into local news, Marius gave a running commentary.
"There's some kind of massive accident in town. A bus tipped over, a crash with some kind of tanker. Fuel all over the road, and more leaking, and there's a bunch of kids trapped on the bus – so they've closed off the roads and stopped anyone getting nearby. There's fear that any spark could trigger an explosion. Something about the emergency services being trapped by the accident, having to carry rescue gear in on foot. Appeals for people to avoid the town centre, massive traffic jams. That's going to affect people heading to the airport. The local hospital is activating their emergency plan, so non-vital injuries go to their doctors… yeah, they're moving on to other stuff now. Ok – so now we know why we're not moving."
They sat and waited for a few more minutes, watching as drivers got out of their vehicles nearby to go and buy food or drink from the shops, just leaving the doors of their vehicles open. Some stood in small clusters talking, arms waving in an animated fashion. Shimazu just happened to be looking to the rear, keeping an eye on things – and saw the army truck approaching. It was driving on the opposite side of the road, which had long since emptied of traffic.
"Whoh! That army truck from earlier, coming in fast, other side of the road – heads up everyone!" The team scrambled to the side of the truck, craning for a view – except Marius who slumped in his seat as he melded with the vehicle sensors. The truck approached quickly, moving ridiculously fast down the empty road. Hunter threw open the top hatch and poked his head out, shielding his eyes with his hands to stare at the truck as it went past in a blur of green.
They saw several people dressed in para-military style, poking out of our similar hatches on the other truck, and as it went past, they saw a few people hanging off the back of the truck, on some kind of harness, swinging from side to side – but there was no mistaking the machine guns in their hands. They came past, probably still travelling at around a hundred and forty kilometres per hour. There were a couple of crunching noises as it smashed through the doors that had been left open as drivers got out of their vehicles to wander, some just slamming shut, others being ripped from their hinges and thrown down the road, impacting on other cars or sliding across the tarmac in a shower of sparks.
Ahead a small group of people were crossing the road, not paying any attention to the side out of town. The noises alerted them, and they started to react – but for some of them, there was just no time. Two adults and a child were caught in the middle of the road, unable to get out of the way in time. The speeding truck struck them, and their bodies were catapulted down the road, shreds of limbs exploding outwards. Screams and gasps of horror could be heard from both sides of the road, and several people turned away in disgust as a cloud of blood splattered across some of the cars. It wasn't much of a mercy, but at least it was quick – the people struck died instantly from the force of the impact, and it was clear to everyone that first aid was not going to be required.
The truck did not waver, did not deviate and continued down the road without slowing. Marius played back the sensor footage frame by frame, isolating the ones that were in sharp focus and binning the rest. Now they had a good chance to look at the vehicle, they could see that a massive amount of extra armour had been welded or bolted onto the front – along with something that looked like a dozer blade or scoop. The sides and rear of the truck looked unarmoured – everything was on the front, but looked almost impregnable.
"Battering ram. Has to be." Aswon looked around at the others and didn't see anyone arguing with him. "But why? What the hell is going on?"
Hunter dropped through the hatch, pulling it closed behind him. "I could smell the nitrous on that thing – they weren't holding back on that. But I also picked up a trace of AmFo." He saw a few blank looks. "Ammonium based explosives, made from fertiliser. Home brew stuff. Like the sort of thing you use for car and truck bombs."
Ahead of them the truck screeched and swung through a ninety degree bend in less than a truck length. It looked like an impossible manoeuver, something done with complete disregard to the laws of physics. There was no way the truck should have been able to do that – not unless there was a kick-ass rigger driving that with some state of the art kit. The guys hanging off the back at the end of the ropes were not immune to physics though, and whipped around on the end of the rope, suddenly pulling more g's than was comfortable. But the truck finished the slide, and jets of flame shot out of the exhaust as more nitrous oxide was dumped into the engine. The burst of power helped the truck smash through the cars sitting nose to tail, and then the truck smashed into an outbuilding, sending plastic and sheet steel into the air explosively.
The team sat in stunned silence for a moment, looking at the scene of devastation ahead of them – as did the pedestrians around them. Kai looked out of the window at the square full of shopkeepers and customers.
"Can't see that woman any more. She's disappeared in the last few seconds."
Aswon's eyes suddenly went wide, and he pointed as Hunter and clicked his fingers loudly.
"Map of the area, close up if you can?" Hunter obliged and pulled up his navigation map on the roll out screen, showing the town and the area surrounding it. "Over this way, we have a guerrilla war with people fighting for independence. Up in town here, we have a bus crash full of kids that has paralysed the local law enforcement and created massive traffic. And this battering ram truck has just turned 'bout here, and is headed this way." He traced his finger towards the coast, and then tapped on the map at the square boxy area. "Right towards the power station. In a truck that smells of homemade explosives. Crewed by guys with guns." I saw something like this back in '52 – bunch of locals took out a bridge with a truck bomb, didn't care about the local damage."
"So, what do we do? Actually, what kind of power station is that? And more importantly, if it explodes, how far away do we need to be?" They leaned over, and looked at the map.
"No coal stores."
"Can't see any gas reservoirs or oil terminals or stores."
"Definitely not solar or microwave."
"It had cooling towers, so it's something based off steam turbines. And if it's not coal, gas or oil – that only leaves one option… nuclear. And if they cause a breach, then the explosion, or the poison – it won't matter how far or fast we go, we won't get away."
If they thought the atmosphere was grim earlier when Tads announced the ritual tracking, it was nothing as to how they felt now. Kai blew air out of mouth in a deep sigh.
"Come on. Time to save the town. We know we're going, because we're the only ones around. So let's not waste time… get moving, Marius."
"ARE YOU MAD?" blurted Nadia. She glanced around, but saw no support from the others. Marius started the truck, and she glared at him for a moment, then climbed over the seat into the back, with Aswon moving to follow her. She grabbed her bag and went to the rear door, but just as she reached it there was a click as Marius hit the deadlock. She rattled the handle for a moment and then kicked the door and shouted his name loudly – but he didn't respond. Instead it was Aswon that spoke.
"Look, you're not safe out there. No safer than with us anyway. It's probably better if you just tuck yourself into one of the bunks, and if you believe in a deity, pray." He watched as she sullenly complied, and then grabbed two of the armoured vests and draped them over her to try and keep her safe, before grabbing some hardware and returning to the cab. He staggered a little as Marius swung the truck over and rammed a car out of the way, hearing the massive diesel engine roar and pushing the lightweight vehicle aside with ease.
Marius had a trailer to think about, but wasn't going anywhere near as fast as the first truck, so made the turn easily, picking through the wreckage and debris with ease. The path taken by the first truck was not difficult to follow – it was an almost straight line heading east, and the truck's massive ground clearance and all terrain tyres made easy work of it. They were behind, and had taken time to discuss and work out what was going on – but they didn't have to make a path. The ramming truck had destroyed buildings – houses and shops, outbuildings and garages, and had carved its way through cars and trucks on the way, each of which would have cost it some speed.
They burst out of the housing estate and joined a new looking access road at a ninety degree angle, crunching over some trees. Ahead of them was a fence, several metres high that stretched off right and left. But the gatehouse and left gate that spanned the road was destroyed, and bodies lay all around in various states of dismemberment. They wore uniforms, and most of them had guns out – some in hands, some near the bodies. But everyone appeared dead, stitched with bullet impacts. A few of the bodies looked to have been sawn in half, by sustained automatic fire, legs lying apart from torsos and large pools of blood staining the ground. In the distance, they could see the truck closing on the cooling towers and huge boxy building of the power station.
Aswon staggered through the doorway from the rear of the truck, passing over the LAW to Hunter, who shouldered open the hatch whilst he was extending the tubular launcher and flipping up the sight. Marius slammed on the brakes, and the cab of the truck dipped as the speed dropped abruptly. Hunter watched the receding truck, gauging the distance between them. The LAW wasn't a smartlinked weapon, so it didn't integrate with his targeting system – which would normally place a virtual dot overlaid in his vision that showed him exactly where he would hit. But he didn't have to do this the old-fashioned way either.
His built-in GPS system interfaced with the orientation processor installed at the back of his skull, feeding data accurate to half a metre to him. The grey matter added to aid his learning wasn't the only bio-enhancement he'd received. As he mentally worked out the trajectory, the posterior parietal cortex, ventrotemporal occipital cortex, and the prefrontal cortex all exploded in a burst of activity, neurons firing as he estimated the range and the trajectory needed. All of these areas had received a complex series of treatment, expanding the gyri and convolutions of the natural growth. With the increase in surface area came a large effective increase in connections and neural networking, and numbers danced in his head as the complex series of 3d calculations fell into place. He squeezed the trigger – just as Marius hit a pile of rubble that had exploded outwards from the gatehouse, causing the truck to bounce half a degree.
The rocket flew up in an arc, motor burning bright and leaving a plume of smoke. It was a long range shot, and took a couple of seconds for the high explosive warhead to cover the distance. Reaching apogee, the warhead arced downwards and slammed towards the truck – impacting into the ground about two metres behind it. The explosion impacted the back of the truck, causing it to slew wildly, but it shot out of the smoke with only minor damage to the vehicle – though the men who had been tied to the back had not fared so well. One hung limply in his harness, and the other had been thrown away from the truck and landed on the ground limply, and lay there unmoving.
"Fuck. Reload." Hunter dropped the tube and dangled a hand down into the cab, trusting that someone would pass him their second – and last – LAW. Aswon reached up and slapped the tube into his hand, watching him raise it up and out of the hatch, and starting to extend it again. The first shot had been at very long range – this one would be almost impossible. Hunter would have to fire up at nearly forty-five degrees to get the range to target, and the attackers knew there was someone behind them now.
"WAIT," shouted Aswon. "Listen!" Hunter paused for a moment and the others tried to keep still, straining their ears. Once again though, Aswon's enhanced senses let him pick up on the faint noise before anyone else could. "Chopper, sounds like the one back in the mountains. Echoing oddly though – behind the towers maybe. THERE!"
The others could follow his outstretched hand, but Hunter had to look for himself – not that it was a problem. A grey helicopter banked around the cooling towers, skimming them with almost suicidal clearance and sliding sideway through the air. They heard the intercom speakers key up almost immediately as Marius slewed his sensors skywards.
"Su83 Chopper. J or K variant – can't tell yet. Fast, light armour, single seat with fairly basic sensor package. But it's got a rapid autofire gun on the nose turret and normally carries a pair of Outlaw block 3's. They will totally mess up your day… ok, getting back scatter, the chopper is lighting up the truck, Ku band radar and some targeting LIDAR – he's locked on!"
They watched as the chopper continued to slide sideways through the air, facing the truck and circling it so it was actually approaching the team. The other truck slammed on the brakes and slewed around again, lightning fast, and twin tracers arced through the air, following the chopper. The lines of red fire got closer and closer to the chopper, the magnesium tracer rounds burning like a laser beam and helping the gunner adjust to keep up with the rapidly moving target. The tracers got closer and closer, but then the chopper pilot jinked, dropping behind a cooling tower and breaking line of sight. It saved him from the streams of fire – but also prevented him from firing his missiles at the truck. Not that it bothered the pilot of the chopper – he'd done his job, though nobody knew it yet.
Aswon cocked his head to one side. Why was there a dog growling? He glanced side to side – not seeing anyone else noticing the noise. He listened again. Hmm, not a dog. More of a low-pitched roar. Then a dark shape, a blur, appeared over the top of the station, coming towards them. Several of the team spotted it, and had just started to raise their hands to point at it.
Just off the coast, the TCG Göksu was accelerating, the gas turbines throwing up a massive wake behind the ship as the variable pitch propeller dug into the water. The general quarters gong was still sounding, and crew all over the ship were preparing their combat stations. The weapons officer didn't hear that, though – he was rigged into the missile, controlling it with deft mental touches as delicate as anything Marius could duplicate. In the mental picture fed back from his missile sensors, guided by the targeting information initially sent back from the chopper, he reached the centre of his targeting grid and sent a mental command. The naval weapon control system gently dismounted his conscious mind from the weapon, preventing him from getting dump shock from the abrupt loss of signal – and the SLAM exploded. The explosion accelerated the ninety-three individual bomblets downwards at high speed, driving the ten kilograms of explosive penetrators downwards. The explosion covered an area roughly equivalent to a large sports field, and the explosions marched towards them in a rippling wave of devastation. The conflagration was massive, the additive effects of each explosion driving roiling gasses and flames high into the air and blanketing the site in a black smoke.
"Sweet mother of god." Nobody remembered saying it, but nobody would disagree with the thought. That explosion might not have made it through the thick multi-layered armour on the other truck – but the sides, rear and top had all been unarmoured, and nobody had any expectation that the vehicle or any of the crew had survived.
Marius already had the truck moving, swinging around in a tight circle, and heading down the road away from the power station. Tads concentrated and wove her magic around them, struggling to overcome the pall of death and destruction caused by the massacre of the gate guards. However, she had incentive to make it work, and pulled on reserves of power and concentration, and with a ripple the truck and trailer took on the form of a battered white articulated lorry, with a dirty and grimy trailer, sporting a slogan in Turkish. Tads had no idea what it meant, but it had been written on the side of a truck she had seen earlier, and it was better than nothing.
They accelerated smoothly and headed along the road – running parallel to the main road and heading in towards the centre of town, but on the other side of the small housing estate. There was no traffic here, but they knew that at some point they would have to turn back onto the main road. Hunter was looking back along their route and trying to find a route over the highlands and the interior – it was miles out of their way, and probably slow – but better than the alternative.
Just as they approached the turn, a pair of police cars came rocketing around the turn, skidding wildly and clipping the kerb, before hammering past them and driving towards the power station.
"Brave… or stupid. Ok everyone, let's be cool. Marius… drive casual."
Hunter snorted and checked the magazine in his Ares Antioch, then his Alpha combat gun, and the others followed suit, checking that nothing was out of place. Behind them the black smoke dissipated from the blast scene, and the chopper nosed through the wreckage, confirming the kill to the ship. The pilot increased power and slowly turned the chopper, letting the sensors play around the area, looking for more targets. On the frigate, smoke still drifted from the vertical launch cell that had fired the first munition, but the remaining five in the set sat unused – waiting for targeting data from the spotter.
The team reached the turning, and could see the street ahead with a narrow gap where the police cars had snuck through the queuing traffic.
"Think you can make that, Marius?"
The truck rolled forward slowly, and the team held their breath.
