That these trucks still ran was testament to the slaves who maintained them, but wow, were they piles of junk or what? The seat covers had long since perished and had been replaced by sheepskin. The windows were all gone, and the dashboard lights had perished aeons ago.
While we were doing this, Nanako retrieved all of our spent arrows by plucking them out of the slain Skel – a task that would have turned my stomach, but she managed it, somehow. Then she handed the arrows back around so that our quivers were full again.
Madison interrupted the flurry of activity momentarily by grabbing Leigh by the arm. "Finally decided to grow a backbone, eh? I overheard David telling Shorty how you saved him."
"Whatever!" Leigh replied angrily, shaking off her hand.
Then, while Madison went on sentry duty behind a collapsed brick wall to watch out for more Skel, we began the slow and difficult process of helping the slaves into the backs of the trucks, leaving the wounded until last. Not surprisingly, none elected to stay behind. And the slaves, they were just skin and bones; they barely weighed anything. All the same, it was still difficult to hoist them into the trucks due to their lack of flexibility and the chains. These would have to be removed when we got to Inverloch. There was nothing we could do about it now.
"Jones, we got company!" Madison shouted suddenly.
"We’re going as fast as we can!" I shouted back.
"Go faster than that!" she replied, and then she began firing at targets up the road that only she could see. However, she had to manually load the gun between each shot so her rate of fire was pretty low.
The front two trucks were full, but we still had a dozen slaves to help into the last truck. That included Jack and Beth, who insisted on getting on last in order to make sure we didn’t leave anyone behind. A bullet suddenly ricocheted off the back of the truck, missing my head by inches. I ducked down by instinct, and then cried out in horror when the next bullet hit a middle-aged slave in the back.
‘Madison!" I yelled, "Take out that shooter!"
"I am trying," she shouted back while snapping off another shot.
I helped a teenage girl get onto the truck, and then turned and shouted with flash sonar so I could see up the street, and got a most unpleasant shock. There were at least two dozen Skel skulking down both sides of the street towards us, some with rifles, the rest with clubs. They were darting from cover to cover, exposing themselves only briefly while they came ever closer. And in their midst strode one cocky, fearless Skel who was wearing his bone armour suit. An involuntary shudder passed through me when I realised it was Ram-Horns, and that he was directing the rest of them, driving them to get to grips with us as soon as they could.
But they weren’t having a field day, ‘cause Madison was picking the careless ones off when they made their mad dashes for cover. I counted seven bodies strewn on the road, marking their line of approach. I even saw Madison hit Ram-Horns twice, but the bullets just glanced off his hardened armour.
Madison suddenly pulled back from her position and ran towards us, pausing twice to shoot back at the Skel. "Come on!" she shouted in my face when she reached us. "We gotta go and we gotta go now!"
More bullets flew past, and for a moment I thought we really wouldn’t make it, but at long last, we helped Jack and Beth into the truck, a difficult feat due to Jack’s broken arm, and then there was only us.
"Hop up in the back and cover our retreat," I ordered Madison as I gave her a leg up. She scampered into the truck – which had no tailgate – lay down, and resumed firing.
"Let’s go!" Nanako said as she grabbed me by the arm and dragged me towards the lead truck with an edge of panic in her voice.
"We going?" Shorty asked as we tore past the truck he was driving. I answered him with a nod. And I gotta say, seeing someone as short as him trying to drive a six-wheel, four tonne truck was a sight to behold, and would have extracted a laugh had the circumstances not been so dire.
With bullets whizzing past us, and Madison replying in kind, Nanako and I reached our truck and were about to clamber up into the cab when I heard the unmistakable slap of a bullet hitting flesh, followed by Nanako gasping in shock, and then collapsing in my arms.
Chapter Twenty-Five
"You're hit?" I panicked as a wave of dread stronger than I'd ever felt before swept through me.
"I'm okay, quick, boost me up," she gasped through clenched teeth.
Knowing that she was anything but okay, but aware we couldn't stay out here and be shot at, I quickly manhandled her up into the cab, which caused her to scream in agony. I slid in after her and slammed the door shut. But when I reached out to take the gear stick I realised my left hand was slick with blood.
Her blood.
"Where are you..?" I began to ask, but she cut me off again.
"Just drive!"
Fortunately, the engine was still idling happily. If it had stalled while we were loading the slaves into the trucks, we'd be in a real jam now. So with my heart thumping away mercilessly out of concern for Nanako, I got the truck moving with a loud meshing of gears as I tried to coordinate using the clutch and accelerator. I could drive a truck, but had rarely done so.
The truck moved off agonisingly slowly at first, but we soon hit a good enough speed to leave the Skel behind. I drove us to the next corner and then hung a right, heading towards the Princes Highway. The truck only had one working headlight, which pointed down and to the left, illuminating just enough of the area ahead to help me navigate around buildings that had collapsed halfway across the road or abandoned vehicles.
"Where are you hit?" I demanded more strongly.
"My left thigh," she replied with a gasp.
"The bullet?"
"Still in my leg."
"Blast it!" I said. Why, oh why did this have to happen here and now, when there was absolutely nothing we could do about it? I wanted to stop and see to her wound, but as the Skel were no doubt chasing after us, it wasn’t an option. And as it would take us several hours to get to Inverloch, there was no relief in sight.
"Put pressure on it," I suggested.
"Doing that!" she snapped.
"Is it bleeding badly?" I looked at her thigh, where she was pressing her left hand against the bullet wound. Blood was seeping out from between her fingers, but it wasn't gushing out.
"No."
We reached the Princes Highway. I turned left, and then glanced over my shoulder through the hole in the back of the cab to make sure the other two trucks were still on my tail. To my relief, they were.
With one hand on the wheel, I manoeuvred around the wreck of a small hatchback car and used my other hand to pull my hoodie off over my head. I handed it to her and then gave her my combat knife. "Quick, cut a pad out of this and then tie the sleeves around your thigh." If we left this too long and she passed out, she could bleed to death.
Nanako nodded and then cut a strip from the bottom of the hoodie, folded in into an impromptu gauze pad and placed it over the wound. After that she cut off one of the sleeves and tied it around her leg. And then she sighed and slumped back in the seat, but continued to moan in pain.
"Now talk to me, I don't want you going into shock," I insisted as I nudged the truck up to fifty klicks.
"Talk about what?" she said with a trace of anger.
"About why you never told me Ken asked you to marry him."
"How do you know about that?"
"Remembered it a few days ago."
"Yet another thing you didn’t tell me."
"Sorry."
"If you’re gonna keep making the same mistake, sorry’s really not cutting it, Ethan."
"I thought..." How could I explain I didn’t tell her because I didn’t want to embarrass her, when she was just gonna tell me off again for not telling her the memory had returned.
"Just tell me what you remembered," she demanded gruffly.
I shot a glance in her direction, and quailed when I saw how pale she was. "I remembered when I w
as up on your neighbour's roof watching the ocean, and then your two families came out. After Ken's parents left, I heard you and Ken talking."
Nanako turned her head to face me. "How much of the conversation did you remember?"
"All of it, I think."
"For example."
"Like his lame reasons for wanting to marry you, and your reasons for rejecting him."
Nanako ran a bloody hand over her face. "Of all the things to remember, couldn't you have found something better than that? That would have to be one of the most embarrassing moments of my life, all the more so 'cause you heard."
"Really? How so?"
"'Cause I had the hots for you, you big doofus," she said humourlessly. "Can you imagine how I felt, knowing you'd heard him say he wanted to marry me because he felt sorry for me?"
"And because you've got a great body, don't forget that one," I added, trying to raise a laugh.
"How could I?" she moaned, my attempt at humour falling flat.
I kept trying to engage her in conversation as our three-truck convoy meandered slowly down the Princes Highway, heading for Inverloch. I needed to keep her talking, but she didn't feel like it thanks to the pain, and because she was still mad at me. In the end, I concluded she wasn't going into shock, and abandoned attempts at conversation.
I couldn't see a great deal of the passing countryside as we drove, since it was so dark and the lone headlight was doing such a poor job, but I kept my wits about me even so, trying to match up the landmarks I could recognise with what I'd learned about the areas we were travelling through. Having a forager background was paying off big time now. I mean, I hadn't been here before, but like all Newhome foragers, had studied maps of Melbourne and its surrounds extensively.
So I knew when we passed through the centre of Dandenong, a large, sprawling shopping district that had definitely seen better days. Then as we continued east and went past the dark shapes of abandoned car dealerships and empty warehouses, I knew we were close to our turn off. All the same, I almost missed it, driving half way across the intersection with the South Gippsland Freeway before I realised that this was the turnoff I'd been looking for.
I managed a clumsy right turn, and with Shorty and Leigh following me – their headlights worked, at least – we headed due south. Several minutes later, the South Gippsland Freeway intersected with the Bass Highway, as indicated by an ancient, dirt encrusted sign at the edge of the road. I moved onto the Bass Highway, and drove southeast. We passed through the suburbs of Lyndhurst and Cranbourne, and then finally, we left the houses behind and entered the countryside, with great trees pressing right up to the edges on both sides of the divided road.
Nanako suddenly cried out in pain and doubled over, clutching her midriff.
"What's wrong?" I asked, using flash sonar to glance at her in the dark. She was even paler than before.
"Stomach cramps," she said, looking up at me worriedly.
"Toilet break?" I asked, preparing to stop.
"No, not like that. It's like..." and her voice trailed off.
"Yes?"
"Feels exactly like last time, you know, when I had a miscarriage." Her voice wavered. She tried to find my eyes in the dark – she knew I could see her – and then reached and gripped my left forearm in a vicelike grip.
My world came crumbling down about my ears. If she was indeed having a miscarriage, I would have to leave her soon, rather than put her through such misery again. So much for hoping Madison might be wrong. So much for wanting more time with Nanako before I had to make this horrific decision. But maybe, just maybe...
I turned to her and asked quickly, "What do we do? If we get you to a doctor soon enough, can they prevent the miscarriage?"
"Won't make any difference," she said, grimacing as another cramp ripped through her.
I refused to believe that, and besides, she needed to get that bullet taken out. So I pressed down on the accelerator, anxious to get to Inverloch as soon as possible, even though it was still several hours away. Not to mention we'd have to approach the town from the north. If we used the Bass Highway to get there, we'd pass through Hamamachi lands and the Rangers would be sure to spot us.
Nanako squeezed my arm. "Don't drive so fast. If you crash or drive us off the road we ain't gonna get there at all."
"Okay," I said, easing off the accelerator slightly.
I gave my attention back to the road, but at that moment, the area directly ahead of us suddenly lit up brighter than day as a whole host of dazzling lights temporarily blinded me. I slammed on the brakes and the rickety old truck juddered and groaned, coming to a stop directly in front of the source of those terribly intense lights.
"The drivers will step out of the vehicles and lie face down on the ground!" boomed a commanding, rugged voice that seemed to originate from all around us. "Do it now!"
"Rangers!" Nanako wailed.
"But how did they find us?" I asked as I frantically tried to see past the blinding lights. I used flash sonar and made out the shapes of three large black 4WDs directly in front of us, as well as the imposing figures of several Rangers surrounding us with assault rifles aimed at us.
"I don't know, but we'd better do as they say, and quickly," Nanako urged.
My hand strayed towards my bow, which was propped against the seat between us, as I considered my chances of success if I was to take on the Rangers.
"No!" Nanako grabbed my hand and pushed it away from the bow. "They'll kill you."
I opened the truck door and was in the process of clambering out when a hand grabbed me and flung me to the ground.
"Face down and put your hands behind your back!"
I did as instructed, and then stifled a cry when the Ranger placed a knee in the middle of my back while he quickly slapped a set of handcuffs on me. "Lieutenant, it's Jones, I've got him," he hollered once he was done.
"'Bout time. Cuff him," replied the lieutenant with a voice that had obviously been overused.
"Already done."
"Where's Hirano?"
"In the truck, Sir. Looks like she's been injured," the Ranger replied.
"My name's Jones," I heard Nanako protest weakly from within the truck. I wondered why they were calling her by her maiden name while I lay helpless, face down on the dusty road with my hands cuffed behind my back.
"Get her out!" the lieutenant instructed.
"My wife she needs immediate medical..." I tried to say to my captor as I twisted around in an attempt to see him.
The Ranger booted me in the ribs, cutting me off mid sentence. "Silence!"
I heard another Ranger haul Nanako out of the cab, and the blighter was none too gentle about it, going by the way she cried out. She was dropped unceremoniously on the ground beside me, where she whimpered and sobbed.
"On your stomach and put your hands behind your back, Hirano!" this second Ranger ordered angrily.
"It's Jones," Nanako objected again.
"She's been shot in the leg, you stupid losers!" I shouted, incensed at the cruel manner with which they were treating her. All that achieved was another boot to the ribs. And while I writhed about on the ground, I saw the Ranger pull Nanako's arms behind her back and cuff her. He didn't force her onto her stomach though, but left her curled up on her side in a foetal position.
I heard more shouting from other Rangers as they moved down the line of trucks, and I watched from the corner of my eye as they ordered Shorty, David and Leigh out of the trucks, after which they searched the cabs and confiscated all of our bows and arrows.
The slaves were told to remain in the trucks, and it was with some satisfaction I noticed they didn't single out Madison, nor find her rifle. She must have pretended to be a slave. Clever girl. I hoped she would get an opportunity to escape before they got to Skel territory.
Once the cabs had been cleared of weapons, I heard the Ranger lieutenant order Shorty, David and Leigh back into the trucks, and that they'd be driving the convoy back to S
kel country. A Ranger hopped into the truck that I'd been driving. And then, with one black 4WD leading the way, the three trucks turned around and headed back the way we'd come.
We'd failed.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I deflated like a popped balloon as I watched the trucks recede into the night. I couldn't even begin to imagine how Jack and Beth and the rest of the slaves must be feeling right now. To have experienced the incomparable elation of escaping the Skel, only to be caught and dragged straight back there. It was just too cruel. My heart went out to them and I wished there was something, anything, I could do to save them from this fate. Furthermore, my three fellow foragers – my friends – were on their way back to become Skel slaves, to be underfed, mistreated, and worked to death. And then there was Nanako and I. What was to become of us? The Ranger colonel was overly keen to get his hands on me alive, which surely couldn't be good. No doubt he wanted to grill me over what had happened two years ago when I wiped out my own Ranger team, and then there was that small matter of me killing the Ranger sniper he'd sent to terrorize Newhome last year.
"Right," boomed the lieutenant after the trucks had disappeared from view, "bag these two. The Colonel wants to see 'em."
A Ranger stomped over to me, pulled a black bag over my head – which had absolutely no effect if I echolocated – and dragged me roughly to my feet.
They bagged Nanako too, but they abandoned their attempt to pull her to her feet when she cried out in agony, clutching at her leg and stomach.
"Go easy on her, you heartless morons – she needs a doctor!" I cried out.
"Just stick her on the back seat," the lieutenant growled.
So while I was manhandled forcefully into one of two remaining 4WD's front passenger seats, two Rangers picked up Nanako and dumped her on her side in the back seat behind me, where she curled into a ball, moaning softly. One Ranger sat beside her while another climbed into the driver's seat.
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