Kama thought for a second about their next move. How could Voluga not detect anything until they were this close? It didn’t make any sense, she thought. “Are all doors shut?”
Voluga responded, “Doors locked and sealed. Counting fourteen anomalies, humans. There are no friend-foe identifiers.” .
Calliope said, “I knew this was a bad idea!” Everyone was out of breath and wide-eyed from sprint and fear.
“Shut up,” Mirabella said. “Kama, we should go back!”
Kama wasn’t sure what to do next.. “Yes, right.” She stepped on the accelerator and grabbed the wheel. The armorcar rolled forward for only a few meters when someone jumped right onto the car’s hood and smacked the windshield glass with a rifle stock. Thump thwump thwump thwump echoed into the car until the windshield splintered across its surface. Spidered fracture lines drew themselves across the glass. Kama stopped the car. She could not see anything past the opaque shattered web of carbonglass.
“Vehicle breach detected! Sealing windows now!” Voluga’s voice hurriedly announced. Black panels rose up from the dashboard and sides to shield them. The panels snapped home to cover the windows except for one, the passenger side front window. A gun barrel crashed in and was shortly pinned against the topmost windshield edge and the black shield panel as it tried to wind up. The panel’s drive motor objected to the unwanted blockage. The motor whined and whirled against the Raider's gunmetal barrel, raaaa, raaaaaz, raaaazzzaaa, and then nothing.
Dusty grabbed the barrel and pushed it hard t. He locked his arms tight while the barrel wriggled up and down. And then a loud blast emitted from the gun and knocked out the rear deck light. Dusty let go of the gun when he his palms seared into a painful heat. “Oh shit!” He flapped them up and down and grimaced.
Voluga announced, “Operator! Advise shell shock!”
Kama yelled back and into the dashboard, “Yes! Yes! Shellshock! Do it! Do it!” She didn’t really know what shellshock meant exactly, but something had to be done.
Another gunshot clattered into the car and Mirabella fell forward. The bullet ricocheted from the car’s rear and smacked into her armor vest's back panel. She belted out a strained cry and then rolled herself into a ball, her head between knees as she sobbed into her lap.
The Raider aimed his gun in blind sweeps and then squeezed off two more rounds. Voluga’s voice rose with such intensity that she vibrated the dashboard speakers against their protective grills. “Do not touch the vehicle’s metal! Three, two, one, clear!” A low pitched hooouummmm resonated throughout the car for two seconds and then stopped.
When the gun barrel ceased its erratic motion Kama reached up to the passenger side ceiling and slapped the barrel out of the armorcar. A muffled tha-thud came from the vehicle’s metal and carbon fiber hood as the Raider unconsciously ragdolled onto it. The shield panel rolled up to seal off the narrowly opened space.
“Can you drive us back to the City Voluga?” Kama asked with a quavered voice.
Voluga responded, “Yes, autodrive is mapped and ready. Thirteen anomalies detected. Advise.”
“Take us back! Leave the shields up Voluga!” Kama said.
The armorcar started to move slowly at first. Everyone could feel that they were turning around although there were no visual cues for the windows remained sealed up. The steel seats shuddered and moaned as Voluga pushed the armorcar faster. Kama realized she still had a hold of the steering wheel. She let go and grabbed her Coilgun which lay between the front two seats. Voluga announced, “Range remaining four point seven kilometers. Destination unreachable without charge.”
Calliope said with a pressured voice, “Voluga you said we had forty kilometers left!”
“The shellshock event depleted battery storage in mains one and two,” Voluga explained.
Dusty looked over to Kama, wide-eyed and dotted with perspiration. “What now?”
“I don’t know, let me think.” Kama stared at the dashboard as they rumbled down the road. They could hear an occasional plink as bullets bounced off the car's outer armor plates. The Raiders shouted and smacked rifle butts against the vehicle as it went along. Calliope guessed that there were probably three on the roof and the remaining horde on either side. Kama looked at the speedometer. They were only going seven kilometers per hour. “Voluga, what is our maximum possible speed right now?”
Voluga said, “Maximum speed predicted at one hundred twenty percent voltage would be fifteen kilometers per hour.”
“And how far can we go at that speed?” Kama asked.
“Range at fifteen will be, estimating.” Voluga paused. “Range will be two point two kilometers.” The compass overlay continued to render onto the front black shield panels. It appeared fuzzy as it reflected from the dull panel surfaces. Red dots peppered the horizontal compass line all the way across as they slid left or right to indicate the Raiders' positions outside.
“Do it! Max velocity now. Run us out of here!” Kama yelled.
Ryan spoke up. “Kama we’ll be sitting ducks!” A Raider shouted and thumped his weapon against the metal armorcar to the left of Ryan’s head. “Jesus, we’re gonna die out here!”
Mirabella maintained her head tucked down into her lap. She appeared to be passed out. Ryan raised her head up and back to hold her upright. “Mirabella's unconscious!” Ryan said.
Calliope said, “She’s breathing. Just hold her in place Ryan. Strap her in good so she doesn’t hit her head.” Ryan complied with her request and pushed Mirabella against her seat as he tensioned the overstraps tightly down. Her head bobbed up and down with listless abandon as Voluga desperately pushed the armorcar past its maximum service limit.
Kama turned her head around to face everyone. “Our only option is to fight them off. Here’s what we’re going to do. We will be ahead of them by about ten minutes. You guys will stay in the car here and I will take care of them from the outside. Anyone ever fire a weapon?”
Ryan raised his free hand, the other occupied in order to hold Mirabella’s upper torso in place. “I have. Not anything big. Just hunting rifles.”
Kama said, “Good enough. Okay. Ryan and I will take cover. When they come up the road,” She patted her Coilgun in her lap, “We’ll take care of them.”
Six minutes later the armorcar rolled down to its inexorable stop. Voluga said, “Batteries depleted. No anomalies detected.”
Kama said to Ryan, “Okay I think that storage bin that you’re sitting on has a couple of rifles. The ammo should be in there too somewhere.”
Ryan unbuckled his overstraps and crouched to open the underseat compartment. He reached inside and pulled out a standard assault rifle. It felt light and balanced and naturally manageable in his hands. There was a metal box with the letters MG spray painted onto its lid in a dulled yellow-brown in the compartment’s rear. He flipped the lid and retrieved a magazine from the box’s interior. He then turned it right-side up and looked at the magazine’s opening. It was filled to the lips with brass colored ammunition. He handed the rifle and magazine over to Kama with a quickened outreach. “I’ve never used this one, you know how to load it?”
Kama grabbed them and inspected the rifle’s underside for a moment. “Me neither. But, well hell with it.” She intuitively slapped the magazine’s curvature to the weapon’s front and it clicked into place with a springy tink-klanck and then handed it back to him. “Everyone stay here now. Don’t touch anything. Okay?”
Everyone nodded yes except for poor Mirabella who remained comatose, her head lay helplessly to the right as her helmet jangled forward. Ryan said, “Let’s do it.” He looked at Mirabella for a second and then frowned.
Kama opened her door and jumped outside. Ryan scrambled into the front cabin and said to Dusty, “Dude. It’ll be alright man. We’ll get back.” Dusty did not respond but shrugged and shook his head. He exited the craft and quietly closed the heavy door as best he could. Even with his slow and deliberate movement the armorcar door clanged shut f
ar too loud for comfort.
Kama said, “Come on. Over here.” She looked back down the road from which they traveled and noticed that they were almost at the top of a modest rise. Their position was either sheer luck or perhaps Voluga had decided that this was the best place to stall them out.
Kama marched into the overgrown brush that was just ahead of the armorcar. Ryan followed behind her as they broke a short trail until Kama decided they were in the best tactical position.
She whispered to Ryan, “Get some branches to cover your front. Watch me.” She broke off a few small branches from a nearby tree and them piled them at an angle to the road. She hit the dirt and lay prone. She jutted her Coilgun through her newly made camouflage nest.
Ryan followed Kama's suggestion and quickly assembled his own small camouflage nest. He flopped behind it and then positioned his rifle and body as best he could. They watched and they waited for the Raiders to come.
“Pull the bolt back,” Kama said. Ryan nodded and retracted it. The weapon responded with a confident ka-thunk as Ryan primed the rifle with a round.
“Thanks,” Ryan whispered back. “How many you think we have to hit?”
“Probably ten at least,” Kama whispered. “We have a good view but you have to shoot at least three. I won’t be able to shoot them all.””
“Okay,” Ryan whispered as he peeked into the rifle scope’s viewfinder. “Damn. Hardly see nothin.”
Kama whispered, “Look for a switch or something. Maybe there’s night vision on it .”
Ryan nodded and scrutinized his rifle. He detected a small switch and then pushed it up. The scope’s image turned green and black. “Yeah that’s better.” He could see the faint green outlines of two Raiders as they walked toward the armorcar. Behind them were grainy silhouettes that revealed even more but Ryan could not count them.. “I see two in the front,” He whispered to Kama.
“I see them too,” Kama said.. “There are five behind the two leaders, and the rest are behind them.” She looked through her Coilgun’s target scope and observed her former fellowmen silently tread toward them. The armorcar looked like nothing more than an obsidian outline against the darkness. It wasoffset to the road’s rightmost shoulder. She said,, “Ryan. Take out the left one I got the right. Then cover your side of the road.”
“You mean the left?” Ryan asked.
“Yes.” Kama ticked her Coilgun slightly up and over and then painted the Raider within the Coilgun's reticle.. She pressured the trigger down and shot off a round. The Raider fell mid-step and tumbled forward. Ryan fired at the left leader a second later. The second Raider appeared to buckle in and fell down straight away. Ryan looked over to Kama who said to him, “Don’t look at me! Keep it up!”
Which he did. They could see through their scopes that the Raider horde threw themselves into a frenzied chaos. They Raiders fanned out and scrambled into the blindscrubs on either side to gain cover. They were easy to spot behind the leafbare foliage.
Kama shot off two more rounds, ka-thwaaaa ka-thwaaaa.. A Raider was thrown back, his shrilled scream resonated back to Kama and Ryan. . Ryan targeted another Raider who crouched off the darkened road's left shoulder.. He could see the Raider’s green outline behind the blindscrub's stumpy growth. Kow-blam. He dispatched another round down the road. He saw the Raider flinch in response but remained crouched as a faint tuft of dirt poofed up. Ryan raised his reticle so the crosshairs were over the Raider’s shadow altogether. Kow-blam-kow-blam, Ryan shot twice more, this time his twitched his sights offset to the left and right of the hidden Raider. He guessed that he must have shot too low before.
Ryan's quick decision worked for his shots bracketed the Raider.. He could see the Raider fall backward in dusk-fallen mirk.. The injured Raider tried to wrangle himself into a stand but faltered back and did not move a muscle after that.
Kama scanned across the road with her Coilgun. She could see no movement or sign of any living thing. Ryan could see nothing as well. Together they swept their scopes left to right in an attempt to capture a glimpse or motion or even a diminished outline, anything. They’ll never get up the road at this rate, Ryan confidently thought.. “Think they’ll give up and turn back?” He asked in a whisper.
“No,” Kama responded.
Ryan looked over to Kama. “They got night vision?”
Kama wiggled her Coilgun and then looked at Ryan eyes half rolled. “Um, hello! What do you think?”
“Oh yeah, right.” Ryan resumed his watch as he peered down his scope’s glass. “Nothin. They haven’t even shot at us.”
“I don't know.. They won’t shoot unless they are sure.” Kama looked into her Coilgun. “Just wait.”
The Raiders presently were only a few hundred meters from the armorcar. Ryan rubbed his eyes in disbelief. Kama repeated, “Wait.” She looked down the road. “Don’t shoot.”
What Ryan saw next sent him into a silent panic. He saw three Raiders outlined against the shadow night. Then six. Ten? More? His mind could not process the impossible spectre. There must be twenty, maybe more of them, he thought. “Kama you seein’ this?”
Kama did not respond but instead vaulted into a crouch and then said, “Come on.”
“What? Why?” Ryan asked.
“Just come on. Now!” Kama slithered through clenched teeth. She tugged on his arm. Ryan sprang up and then followed her deeper into the forest wild. They scurried into the scrubs and quickly bellied down to prone about a hundred meters from where they were before. Kama pushed him further down, as a veteran survivalist would perhaps do to an uninitiated apprentice.
Ryan looked toward their previous position's direction which was close to the roadside. Through his scope he could see two Raiders as they shuffled and kicked their makeshift camouflage made only minutes before. The Raiders talked in Mandarin. Kama said with a whisp, “They don’t know where we are.”
Ryan started to stand up but Kama pushed him back down. “If we fight them now and we die.” Ryan ducked low as a Raider quickly spun around to look. “Too many,” Kama said. a She let her Coilgun go with a resigned relaxation. A Raider blindly shot a single round into the darkened forest beyond out of sheer frustration. Ka-bloooth. The bullet sheened over their tiny nest. The Raiders’ passive night vision equipment was as worthless as a blindfold this far in.
Kama and Ryan could see the armorcar’s front and left side while the lay on the forest floor. The Raiders lit up four solar torches. They were large grey sticks covered in cells of black with an illuminated orange-blue top. The torches appeared overtly bright since their eyes had grown accustomed to the ever-present darkness. The Raiders emerged from shadow and slowly gathered around the powerless armorcar until it disappeared from Kama and Ryan's view altogether. They heard diffused and muddied conversations while one Raider patted a small clay block onto the armorcar’s driver side door handle. The Raider pushed something into the clay but it was impossible to make out from the distance.
Someone shouted and then the Raiders backstepped away from the car. A loud BLA-FOOOM! blasted across the night and the car was soon enveloped in smoke. When the newly borne cloud casually rolled itself away another Raider smacked at the armorcar door with his rifle stock. The door creaked open and the Raider poured inside.
“Jesus,” Ryan muttered as he looked at the breached car. The side door slid open. Calliope and Dusty jumped out, their hands nervously raised. Calliope bawled and shook as she exited while Dusty quietly stepped away with his hands held half-way. They hauled Mirabella from the armorcar.She remained unconscious. They tossed her up and then slumped her enervated body over a larger Raider's battlesuit’s shoulder pad with a dull smack.
They talked in Mandarin while they bound Calliope’s and Dusty’s hands with small ropes. Several Raiders entered the derelict car and removed anything valuable. They extracted the guns in storage, all the ammunition, three containers of iodized water, two food storage bins, a flashlight, the armorcar’s only portable field trau
ma medkit, a box of thirty-six ponchos, a collapsible spade and three pairs of leather utility gloves.
Kama whispered, “Thirty-five. It's hopeless, I'm sorry,” and then sighed. Ryan continued to assess the Raiders. He observed Mirabella draped over the Raider as their forms flickered against the solar torches’ bluish-orange luminance. He wanted to charge at them and pull Mirabella somewhere far away from this mob of leatherbound travelers from some barbaric and unknowable world. But there was nothing that he could do, nothing at all but watch them from the safety that the darkness and the distance and the wildgrown thickets provided. If it were three hours later then they would have been spotted and killed in the early morning light. For now however the moon tucked herself quietly away as if to somehow help them hold onto their obscure and unseen place.
The Raider leaderman spoke to the group and then pointed to the soldiers who held the solar torches. Three Raiders, two men and a woman extinguished them in response. And with a final command from the leader the Raiders marched down the road. Kama and Ryan heard Calliope as she helplessly cried and shuffled herself in tears while a Raider coaxed her with his rifle stock. And the last Raider who trailed the scouting group turned round, squinted into the darkness and toward the direction where Kama and Ryan hid out. He pivoted on his left foot, marched forward to catch up with the others, and was gone.
Eleven
Colonel Eiger sat and darted his eyes between the two, his face pulseborne red and eyebrows knitted down. Kama and Ryan sat silently across him. The Colonel shook his head and then pushed out a breath. He held up his hands and said, “Do you.” He paused and held his gaze right into Kama. “Do you have any idea how stupid that was? Taking them out there?” Kama's face expressed uttermost sorrow. She tried to say something but only moved her mouth in abbreviated silence. “You took not one, not two but FOUR civilians out past the Control Zone unescorted in a basic gunless armorcar. Now three of them are captured! By your people no less!” The Colonel shook his head. “This is insane!” He stood up and paced around the room as he waved his right hand at Kama. “You know they wanted to leave you in your cell, throw you away and let you live out your days but what did I do? I gave you a second chance, that’s what! And now here we are.”
Raiders Page 12