The next morning they shouldered their packs, filled to capacity with water and food cans, and walked out of the cabin. Rebecca set the lock after they were out, hoping that maybe Ted would make his way here and find use for what they had left in place, which was most of what they had found there.
The road stretched ahead, a couple of hundred flat meters under the canopy, then the start of the upward slope, about a kilometer still under the trees. They had climbed about two hundred meters in altitude when the road came out of the jungle and onto the barren scree slope that led up to the cliffs six hundred meters further up.
It was not easy footing on the gravel road that had been blasted through the larger rocks of the slope. And to Rebecca it felt like they were bugs walking across a kitchen floor. They were much too exposed, anything that flew over would have a clear line of sight on them. She looked at the Ranger, who also appeared uncomfortable, continually looking up into the sky. She took a little bit of comfort in the way their survival suits were blending them in with the rocks. Not quite as good as an electromagnetic cammo field, but still good camouflage.
Her feet slipped out from under her on the loose gravel and she almost went down. Only a quick step over and a hand on her arm kept her up, and Cornelius gave her a concerned look.
“You OK?”
“It’s just a little steeper than I thought,” she said, wiping her arm across her forehead. “I don’t think it’ll be as bad when we get to the switchback. I…”
“Get down,” hissed the Ranger, grabbing her arm and pulling her down to the rocks while letting his body fall next to hers. A shadow passed over, and Rebecca forced herself to keep an arm over her head and not look, hoping the cammo of the suit would cover her just enough.
The shadow passed, and she craned her neck to look up. A dot moved in the sky away from them, curving over the ridgeline of the mountains and heading south.
“Let’s go,” said the Ranger, jerking her up to her feet. “Hurry.”
“It’s going away,” she protested.
“I think it's turning to come back. So hustle your little butt.”
Rebecca nodded and started off at a jog after the man, heading up. The rocks underneath turned under her feet, and she felt herself a centimeter from going down on several occasions. She was still ten meters behind the adult and falling further behind every step.
“Come on,” called the man, going off the road into the boulder field that was the scree slope. “I can see it turning.”
Rebecca picked up the pace, going from a fast jog to a full run. She felt the rocks turning under her feet, threatening to drop her to the ground. Somehow she kept her feet and reached out an arm for the man. He grabbed her by the wrist and jerked her off the road, then pulled her down under the overhang of the boulder he had chosen as shelter.
They lay there in silence, not moving for minutes. The hum of an aircar’s fans came over the road, and the Sergeant started fingering the controls of his new rifle.
“What are you going to do?” she whispered, fear almost paralyzing her.
“Nothing, if they don’t land any soldiers,” he whispered back. “If they do, I’m going to shoot the damned thing out of the sky, then try to kill the troops.”
“Do you think you can take them all like that?”
“Nope, but I might not have any other choice. And then they’ll know something is up here, and they’ll come at us like a flight of vultures.”
“Like what?” she asked, confused. But Walborski held up a hand to silence her. The sound of the engine fans got louder. If it had been a grabber powered aircraft it wouldn’t have made a sound. But since the supermetals used for grabbers were expensive, it seemed that both powers used ducted fans for their air only craft.
The fans increased in pitch, then moved on, and Rebecca breathed a sigh of relief. She started to crawl from under the rock but the Ranger put out a restraining hand. They lay there for a few minutes, and then the sound of the fans returned, and the enemy air car came sweeping over the rocks off the road. It came over slowly, and Rebecca tried to crawl deeper into the opening of the large rock that formed almost a small cave.
The sound moved on, and Walborski held them beneath the rock for ten minutes. When it didn’t return he crawled from under the rock, looked around for a moment, then helped Rebecca out into the open.
“I thought they might come back,” he said, his eyes searching the sky.
“How do you know they won’t come back again?” she asked, trying to spot something he might have missed.
“I don’t. But we can’t wait here forever.” He looked at the gravel road and shook his head. “That’s too damned open for my taste. I want us to work our way up these rocks to the switchbacks.”
“That’s going to take a lot more time,” she answered, looking at the boulder field and not liking the idea of trying to climb through it.
“Better more time than no time, as in getting stopped,” he said, looking into her eyes. “Do you think you can make it?”
“I think so,” she said, afraid that she wouldn’t be able to, afraid that he might leave her here if she said no.
“Then let’s go,” said the man. “I don’t think I’m going to get to the climb down point in time to do anything today, so we can take our time. I would like to walk the switch back tonight, then we’ll rest for a few hours and take the ridgeline in the morning.”
The next three hours were a nightmare of moving around boulders, interspersed with some fairly open areas the child had to spring across to keep up with the Ranger. Sweat was pouring down her face, and her heart kept beating faster whenever she thought she heard something that might be an aircar.
The afternoon rain came down as usual, cooling them off while providing some cover. Walborski moved them back onto the road to take advantage of that cover. Water was soon cascading down the gravel road, making it more difficult to keep footing, but it was still a relief after walking through the boulder field.
The rain stopped and the clouds cleared to show the sun dropping to the trees to the west. Rebecca started to head off the road, but the Ranger stopped her. “I think we can walk up the rest of the way on the road.”
“You think we’ll be safe?” asked the child, her hands on her hips, feeling as tired as she had ever felt in her life.
“I’m willing to chance it,” said the man with a slight smile.
Rebecca felt like hugging the man in thanks, but she was too tired to lift her arms. Instead she trudged up the road behind him, going another half an hour until they reached the switchback that first ran up the cliff then over it to the slope above.
“We’ll stop here to rest and get something to eat,” said the Sergeant, finding a sort of flat area off to the side.
Rebecca nodded and moved after him without saying a word, plopping to the ground. She shrugged off her pack, then pulled a ration can from it. She popped the can open, letting it heat up for a moment. The food didn’t look very appetizing, and she really wasn’t hungry. Still she spooned it into her mouth, forcing herself to eat just to get the calories.
After an hour the Ranger got up and motioned her to follow. She nodded, still too tired to speak, and followed him along the path. A solid rock wall towered to the left side, a straight drop down to the rock field on the right. As they climbed the cliff got shorter in incremental gradations, while the drop off to the boulder field got larger.
“Anything we need to look out for while we’re gaining altitude?” he asked as they walked the steep slope of the road.
“Not that I know of,” she answered, trying to remember if she had heard anything about life in the mountains. “There are some animals that live up here, but dangerous?”
“So you really don’t know,” said the Ranger, slinging the particle beam and pulling his long blade from its sheath. “Keep a look out for anything I might miss, and let me know immediately.”
They walked three kilometers of switchback, gaining almost a
kilometer in altitude. The temperature started to drop, whether from the increase in altitude or the normal night decrease she didn’t know, though it was probably a bit of both. At several points they passed through cuts, and the mountain towered on both sides. There were some sounds at other points, something scrambling over rock. At one point something jumped onto the road, and the Ranger pushed the child back as he held his sword at the ready. Rebecca caught a glimpse of the animal in the light of the now full moon. It stared at them with one side looking eye, then scrambled off the road on narrow hooves and back into the rocks.
“I guess that’s Azure’s answer to a mountain goat,” said the Ranger, relaxing a bit.
“It looked like a herbivore,” she said, trying to remember if she had ever heard of the creature and coming up with a blank.
“Then we need to be alert,” said the man, looking back at her. “Because if herbivores live up here, on God knows what, then sure as hell something hunts them.”
As soon as he said that something hissed out in the night and came running at them.
* * *
Major Joseph Goldman took his car up at dusk this day, hoping to maybe pick up something on infrared that night. He had aborted going up earlier after seeing more than usual aerial activity that day, then had waited out the rainstorm, having learned that the severely limited visibility made flying useless at that time. Then had come nightfall, and his only chance to fly that day.
And this is really completely stupid, he thought as he banked over the mountains, looking at the terrain below through the infrared scanner. She’s not up here. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to pick up anything over the jungle, where she most likely was. So he had to play the odds and just hope she was someplace where he could pick her up.
What’s that? he thought, seeing two faint dots appear on his scope. It was on the high mountain road that Ted and his friends had made in order to run their recreational vehicles up to the heights and hunt some mountain runners, this planet’s version of bighorn sheep. He had asked Ted why he just didn’t take an aircar up to the heights, and with typical machismo the ex-commando had said it wasn’t the same.
His car was high in the air, several kilometers above the highest peaks, and he started to drop to a lower altitude to get a better look. The scope exploded with red dots as he did, and he swore under his breath. He had found a herd of mountain runners. Then he looked closer, and saw that the runners were moving off the road, on the rocks of the mountain, while the original two dots moved straight up the road. Could that be her? If so, who is she with?
His tracker alarm went off at that moment, and he realized that he was way too high in a civilian aircar in enemy controlled airspace. He dropped the car lower and banked, hoping that he might be able to lose whatever was up here with him. That hope died as something slammed into his car and he started to flip through the air.
Something continued to slam into the car, and his systems dropped out one after the other. Particle beams, he thought, seeing pieces of his car flying past his canopy. His car was not armed, besides the personal weapons he carried with him. And those would be of no help to him in this situation.
He almost righted the car, just before it slammed into the ground and slid forward on the rocky surface. Gravel flew up around the canopy and bounced off of the hard plastisteel. I’m on the high road, he thought with the detachment of shock. The car slid to a stop, and he was almost about to celebrate the landing he could walk away from when something slammed into the canopy and plastisteel came bursting in and shredded his back and shoulders.
I’m not going to get out of this, he thought, looking up through the canopy to see a military air superiority craft like the Cacas used flying over, then banking ahead for another pass. It wasn’t a transport, and had no way of dropping troops off to inspect his craft, and possibly take prisoners for questioning. But he had no doubt that one was coming for him.
Chapter Twenty-six
It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it. Thomas Jefferson.
AZURE. MAY 30TH, 1001.
Cornelius wasn’t sure what the animal was coming at them. It reminded him a bit of a King Tiger from New Detroit, only much smaller, maybe a hundred kilos. That it was the predator he thought might hunt the mountain runners he had no doubt. That didn’t mean it was the top predator, but it was enough to shred most humans it came at.
He almost fired his particle beam but thought better of it. That would give them away to the aircraft that had just flown over at high altitude, if it hadn’t already spotted them. The Ranger had to err on the side that it didn’t. He caught Rebecca out of the corner of his eye starting to pull her pistol from its holster. Reaching back with one hand he grabbed her wrist, pulling her hand away from the weapon, while his other hand pulled the Wakizashi from its sheath.
He spun around to set up his stroke, then came back on a reverse spin that allowed him to bring the sword down on the neck of the creature as it leapt in, moving his body out of the way of the extended claws at the same time. The blade sliced down into the thick neck of the almost feline creature and took its head off in mid growl. His feet slid on the gravel and he found himself at the edge of the road, the long drop just a footstep away.
The body fell lifelessly to the ground, and Rebecca stood there staring at the dangerous predator.
“Do they hunt alone?” asked Walborski, his eyes scanning the night.
“I don’t know,” said the child. “I don’t even know what it is.”
“So we’ll hope so, but act like it has a partner,” said the Sergeant, keeping his blade in hand and leading her up the path. The switchback carried them higher into the mountain, reaching its extension to the north, then turning south to continue along the cliff. It was only a couple of meters wide, and Cornelius noted how Rebecca hugged the cliff and didn’t look at the drop off. He kept to the center of the road, having no fear of heights, it having been driven from him in training.
After another hour they got to the top of the switchback, giving them a view into the valley kilometers below. Some of that jungle lay revealed under the bright moonlight, while much of it was obscured by mist. A couple of peaks towered into the night, moonlight shining from the snow that capped them. It was much colder up here as well. Cornelius could feel himself shivering, and he looked over at his charge to see that she was shivering as well.
“Get out your survival blanket,” he told her, shrugging off his own pack to get the emergency gear out for himself.
“Won’t we give ourselves away without our cammo?”
“It’s night, and the blankets are dark non-reflective material, so I really don’t think it will make any difference. But hypothermia could really hurt us both.”
Rebecca nodded and pulled the thin blanket out of her pack. Normally the suits did a good job of handling the cold, but both of the pair were soaked to the bone. The child covered herself in her blanket and Cornelius made sure she was wrapped tight, then wrapped himself up in his own.
“Let’s move,” he said, looking at the ridge road that stretched ahead. “We’ll warm up some after we walk a bit.”
The child nodded her head, her teeth chattering, and followed him along the road. A couple of kilometers up the road the Ranger motioned for her to get down and crouched himself.
He looked up as his ears picked up the whining of fans overhead. “There’s an aircraft up there. It doesn’t sound like a Caca car, but I really don’t know for sure.”
There was an explosion overhead, followed by the sounds of something ripping apart. The angry bee sound of a particle beam came closer, and Cornelius saw Rebecca cringing out of the corner of his eye, wishing he could do the same. An object whistled through the air, moving away from them to the north. There was another explosion, followed
moments later by the noise of something crashing ahead.
“Whose was that?” asked Rebecca, looking at him with wide eyes.
“I don’t know. But guessing I would say one of theirs shot down one of ours. And it sounded like it hit down on this road a couple of kilometers ahead.”
“So, what do we do? Go back?”
“Nope. We’ve spent too much time getting up here to just go back and start over on some other path. If there is one.” He looked ahead again, hoping to see what he might be able to discern, but the road curved around a hundred meters ahead and there was nothing to see. “If it’s too crowded with Cacas then we’ll go to ground for a while and wait for them to leave, then go on. Are you up to it?”
She nodded, though her eyes didn’t look like she was up to it. He decided to take her at her word though. It would be no kindness to just leave her up here on her own, but he couldn’t turn around and take her back down. The mission comes first, he told himself. He gave her a thumbs up and started forward, letting her take up the rear. He trusted her enough to do that, and his ears were still alert enough to cover what she missed.
It took over an hour to cover that couple of kilometers, and then he turned the final corner, keeping low to the ground, his eyes scanning the moonlit night ahead. He could see the shape of the aircar, definitely battered, silver light shining from the canopy.
“That looks like a civilian car,” said Cornelius, taking in the shape of the vehicle. “What the hell were they thinking?”
“That looks like the model my dad uses,” said Rebecca, starting to move forward.
“Hold up there,” said the Sergeant, grabbing her arm and holding her back. “That’s a popular model all over the Empire, a BMW-38. So I doubt seriously it’s anyone you know. But I’ll check it out and wave you forward when I know it’s safe. OK?”
The child nodded, clearly not happy, but willing to follow his lead. He nodded back, then started for the car in a crouch, moving silently over the rocks.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 05 - Ranger Page 33