The six-wheeled AFV, by contrast, was old and reliable. Both Klane and Hamilton had ridden in the troop compartments of vehicles just like it. The solid tires and heavy construction made it highly battle-resistant. The twin plasma cannons, deactivated for the recruitment drive, quickly came back online. Whatever the AFV itself couldn’t batter its way past, the cannons would soften up or dispose of rather effectively.
The Falcon gunship, though lightly armored in comparison, made up for that lack with agility. Having the gunship run interference for the AFV would improve their chances of escape immeasurably.
The downside with being in the belly of the gunship and facing rearwards was that he had no direct visual input on what was going on ahead of them. A tiny display did show the forward gun’s view of the terrain, but it was subject to movement by the pilot.
Maybe I should have gone in the AFV. He thought. At least I could see what was going on.
*****
In the big AFV, Carl was at the wheel. Part of his skill set as a bodyguard involved defensive driving techniques, so he was the best choice as a driver. Klane sat next to him in the two man crew compartment, manning the gun turret.
She was in considerable pain, but they had brought a small supply of battlefield meds along on the mission, expecting at some point that somebody would get hurt. Even so, having two rounds embedded in her abdomen were doing her no favors. Her damaged cybernetic arm was giving out pain signals, too. Once again she mentally cursed the medics at Tantalus Station who had replaced the military-grade limb with a standard civilian prosthetic.
But she had one good arm and the turret was joystick controlled, so she could sit and man the cannons easily enough.
“Uh-oh!” Carl muttered, peering at the view-panel in front of him. The AFV had no physical viewports. Everything was relayed by hull-mounted cameras.
Klane glanced at the turret’s eye view she was presented with.
Ahead, the second cordon, thrown up by the local police, came into view. It was comprised of two vehicles, parked diagonally across the roadway to prevent passage. The standard tactic of police everywhere.
Of course, such a roadblock was never meant to prevent something like the eight ton AFV and the cops manning it knew that. As the AFV barreled towards them, they hastily abandoned the barricade, scattering to the sides. A few of them fired at the vehicle with rifles and pistols. Small caliber, low velocity sidearms that had about as much effect on the AFV as if they had been throwing dried peas at it.
From somewhere overhead, the gunship fired its forward mounted plasma tube, striking the ground just in front of the roadblock, blasting the road surface to fragments and hastening the officers’ retreat.
The gunship fired again, but this time its shot went beyond the cars, again striking the roadway.
“Oh, for…!” Klane muttered, wrenching the turret’s joystick around. A moment to aim, then she thumbed the firing button.
The twin turret’s discharge caused the AFV to rock slightly. Both plasma bolts struck the left hand vehicle, vaporizing the engine bay and sending the rear half of the vehicle cartwheeling through the air to smash into the building next to it.
There was no time for a second shot. The AFV’s size made it look like it was moving slowly, but it was an illusion. Hurtling forward, Carl clipped the remaining vehicle expertly, sending it spinning off the road and into a set of stone steps leading up to a house entrance. The steps and the vehicle came off equally badly, shattered and smashed in equal amounts. The AFV roared past the roadblock.
Carl glanced over at Klane, grinning happily. “I always wanted to do that for real!”
Despite the pain, she found herself grinning back at him.
*****
In the back of the AFV in the troop compartment, Jones sat with a laze pistol in one hand and a stunner in the other. Tane sat across from him, apparently lost in thought. On the floor between them, the ImpSec agent that Walsh had possessed lay unmoving, but breathing. She was still unconscious.
Jones wondered who she was. Someone important in ImpSec, of that much he was certain. It didn’t seem likely that Walsh would implant just anybody. The man’s arrogance wouldn’t allow that. He’d want control of the best and most important individuals. Either way, she was a captive now.
Jones had few scruples. He was a thief, after all. But even he felt a little twinge of sympathy for what the woman would endure, if they managed to escape with her. She was the first obvious link to the alien invasion of human space that they had found. She would be poked and prodded, presumably by Anderton, as they tried to fathom how Walsh’s control implant worked. Unlike her assertions when she had confronted them, her future was not looking terribly bright.
“So,” He said conversationally, more to distract himself from his train of thought than any real desire for discourse. “What’s it like being a psion?”
Tane looked up and smiled. “Not nearly as much fun as you might imagine.”
Jones nodded. “I know what it’s like to be hunted. Not quite in the same way as you, but I do at least understand.”
Tane nodded. “Especially now, I wager. We’re all wanted men now.”
“What was it that you did? I missed most of the conversation.”
Tane sighed. “I tried to help others secede from the Empire. I wasn’t even the ring-leader. I just tried to help. Because of what I am, I was labeled the instigator and hunted down.”
“But you got away?” Jones pointed out.
“Yes. My…talents allowed me to escape.” Tane smiled wanly.
“I’m curious though.” Jones frowned. “The fake identities. How did you make those? It’s said to be impossible to forge them.”
Tane nodded. “And so it is. But they weren’t fake. They were genuine identities. I merely assumed the mantles of people who had died. It is, as you say, impossible to make new identities. But it is much easier to convince people in records offices that you are someone listed erroneously as dying, especially if you have my abilities. An amendment to an existing record. Nothing more complicated than that.”
Jones was silent for a while. “What was it you did that got Walsh so interested in you?”
“Our alien friend believes I hid something that will tell him what happened in the war between his kind and the Humals.”
“Does it?”
“In truth, I don’t know.” Tane admitted. “But I do know it is a psionically accessed data storage medium. After some study, I was able to look inside it, as it were. There were things within – technological secrets – that I decided were not in the best interests of man to know. Perhaps I was conceited to be the judge of what should and shouldn’t be known, but I foresaw problems if certain things became available to man.”
“What kinds of things?” Jones was curious.
“There were many.” Tane answered. “Effective immortality, perfect virtual reality simulators, genetic manipulation on a scale that makes your Enjun friend look like a child’s drawing by comparison.”
“Those don’t sound terribly worrisome.” Jones said, cautiously.
“Perhaps not at first thought.” Tane admitted. “Why don’t you give them some thought and see if you can envisage a future where those technologies are rife? See what problems you might think of?”
“Alright.” Jones said. “But if the technologies are so dangerous, did they affect the Humals? Is that why they died out?”
Tane smiled widely. “You think well. Perhaps the Humals discovered something that led to their destruction, that much is possible. But as a race, it appears the Humals lived…what’s the phrase…well within their means. They used a fraction of the technology that they discovered. Perhaps they saw the dangers and refused to use it. If so, I’m sure you can see that, in that respect, they were far smarter than we are, right now.”
“So you feared we’d misuse the technology? That’s why you hid it?”
Tane nodded. “You don’t give a loaded weapon to a small chi
ld and not expect the worst. I hid it out of fear of the consequence for us all.”
“Does it hold information that we might use against Walsh and his kind?”
“I don’t know, for sure.” Tane said. “It seemed like an encyclopedia, to me. There were articles on everything, not just technology. It may have relevant information. I had to dispose of it before I could study it fully.”
“What did you do with it?”
“I had a research assistant. A young woman who was almost as idealistic as I was, once. I explained what I had found, what the consequences might be. It took some convincing, I can assure you. But, eventually, she agreed to help me get rid of it. I arranged passage for her on a corporate freighter. Used my talents to ensure the crew would forget her the moment she left the ship, and sent her off on her own with the artifact.
“Where she went, I have a vague idea. But I left the final choice to her. The crew were under….duress…to take her wherever she wanted. You might say I influenced them almost as much as these aliens do with their victims. The difference was, once she was off the ship, they returned to their normal routine with no knowledge of what they had done. All they knew was that they had lost several weeks of time and had no idea what had happened.”
“So it was a one-way trip? She never came back?” Jones asked.
No.” Tane shook his head. “Someone had to take the blame for the theft of the artifact. It was her choice.”
“But if you don’t know where she went…”
“I can find out.” Tane told him. “The crew do know, they just don’t remember. No amount of hypnosis or torture will ever make them remember. But I can extract those forgotten memories.”
Jones drew a deep breath. “I guess we’ll have to find them, then.”
*****
The north entrance of the dome was similarly barricaded with vehicles. Klane wasted little time in blasting both the vehicles and the entrance to bits. By the time the AFV passed through, the entrance was a lot larger than it had been. Sections of the dome structure above and to the side of the entry had been obliterated by the combined efforts of the plasma turret on the AFV and the cannon in the nose of the gunship.
The AFV made its deceptively slow rush through the opening, battering the larger pieces of debris aside without effort and grinding the smaller ones under its huge tires.
The gunship flew through the opening at extremely low altitude. A few optimistic shots from unseen gunmen plinked off the hull harmlessly but Hamilton didn’t bother searching for the attackers.
The civilian authorities had nothing that could harm or really hinder the progress of the military vehicles. Whilst they were in the city, the military response would be minimal to reduce civilian casualties. Whatever control or influence Walsh might have over things, it didn’t extend to ordering all-out war in an urban setting. That would raise too many questions. Walsh might be pissed at them, but he was not stupid.
Plus, he wants Tane alive. He reminded himself. The psion was no help to Walsh if he was dead. The response would be appropriate.
Once they left the city, however, Walsh would be able throw a lot of hardware at them to stop them. Then things would get interesting.
Outside the dome, Carl put his foot down. The roads were wider and, at that time of the night, there was almost no traffic. Hamilton fancied he could hear the gas turbine’s whine even through the gunship’s hull.
They quickly gathered a retinue of police and ImpSec vehicles behind them. The locals hung back a long way, eager to not become targets. But they were thinking in civilian terms, not military ones, when it came to what they believed to be a safe distance.
Hamilton fired the laze cannon a couple of times to ensure they understood the reality of the situation, causing a large pile-up of vehicles as first one, then the rest failed to stop in time to avoid the craters he made in the road surface.
LeGault was flying a little higher than he should have been. Hamilton opened his mouth to tell him exactly that just as something rocked the gunship.
“Damn!” LeGault muttered and dropped down between the buildings.
“What was it?” Hamilton asked instead. His gun position had little access to sensor data.
“Looks like a combat drone.” LeGault grumbled. “There are a few of them circling us at altitude and a few lower down.”
“Keep low to the ground.” Hamilton advised needlessly. He glanced again at the transmitter’s timer. Sixty minutes now. They were way ahead of the others. They would need to kill some time before venturing out on the dash along the highway. He consulted his data pane’s map of the city.
“Carl? You read me?” He said. He was still using the gumline transmitter and earpiece.
“What’s up?” The Enjun’s voice rumbled back.
“When we get to the ring-road circling the city, keep on heading north, as if we were heading towards the starport. We need to waste some time before we venture out onto the highway. So just drive around a bit but don’t go out along the north highway. I’ll let you know when we can make our run for the east road.”
“Roger that.” Carl acknowledged. “Waste time.”
Hamilton relaxed a little. Of course, wasting time just meant the military had more time to array their forces against them. But if they put a lot of effort into watching and defending the north road there would be less on the east side to worry about. The absolute last thing they needed to do was arrive at the pickup point early and be sitting ducks for whatever Walsh threw at them.
*****
Carl was good at time-wasting. He was equally good at driving in a manner suggestive of someone nerving themselves up to do something. In this case, his slow pass-by’s of the north exit to the city made it seem like he was weighing up his chances of making a run for the starport.
Out at the edge of the city, the buildings were smaller and had fewer stories. It meant LeGault was effectively flying along just a dozen or so feet from the ground. By now, though, he had gotten used to the controls and handling of the gunship and was quite comfortable at such a task. They followed the AFV along, occasionally pausing to, as LeGault called it “Look longingly at the northern highway” before heading after the ground vehicle again.
Hamilton kept an eye on the timer, gauging when they should make their run. All the while they loitered near the north exit made it seem like that was where they were going.
For the authorities part, they once again lurked at extreme range, probably relying on security camera feeds to track the fugitives. The military drones maintained their distance, being content to wait until the criminals made their move before pouncing.
At forty-five minutes, Hamilton decided they’d loitered long enough.
“Okay, Carl. Make your way back to the ring-road and head to the eastern exit. We’ll meet you there.”
“Roger. On our way.” He replied.
A moment later Klane’s voice followed up, tight with pain. “What are you going to do?”
“We’ll head into the center, try and confuse them as to where we’re all going a little longer.”
“Sounds pointless.” She argued. “But we’ll need you when we reach the highway. Don’t be late.”
“We won’t.” He assured her.
“Philip, let’s go!” He told the pilot.
LeGault swiveled the gunship on a dime and set off into the heart of the city, back towards the dome.
*****
Confused, the drones dithered. They were autonomous, acting on their own in accordance to tactical programs written into their software. But they were also inter-linked, able to share data amongst themselves and coordinate their attacks to achieve mission goals. After a few seconds hesitation, they split up. Four following the gunship and two going after the AFV.
*****
“Four.” LeGault noted. “We got four following us.”
Hamilton cursed softly. He had hoped for an even split. Three was a manageable number, it seemed to him. But four mi
ght well be difficult.
“Think we can manage it?” He asked the pilot.
LeGault nodded. “They can only fire forwards. We have an advantage.”
“Alright, let’s do it!”
*****
The gunship suddenly popped up into view above the buildings and accelerated violently, hurtling towards one of the drones.
The drone, reacted almost instantly, peeling off to one side.
It ran straight into the wall of plasma that LeGault had fired a fraction before, guessing which way it would go.
That’s why I was nicknamed ‘Fluke’. He grinned as he gunned the engine and streaked away across the city’s rooftops. The remaining three drones rocketed after them in pursuit.
The gunship and the drones had similar top speeds but the drones were meant to be more maneuverable. However, following along in the wake of the gunship, that maneuvering was limited to standard dogfighting jinks and dodges. And even the instant reactions of the electronics were no match for the laze cannon’s light-speed firing solution.
First one, then a second fell towards the rooftops blazing a trail against the night. They crashed heavily amongst the buildings, setting some alight.
Hamilton tried not to think about the additional loss of life that might be occurring below and concentrated on the last of the drones following them. It had gone into extreme evasive maneuvers, but it was returning fire with unerring accuracy.
The gunship shuddered as blast after blast struck its aft quarters.
“We can’t take much more of this!” LeGault called.
A Taste Of Despair (The Humal Sequence) Page 31