Fatal Blade (Decker's War#3) (23 page)

“Of course.  I’ve been to this kind of dance before.”  He nudged his pack.  “I’ve got all I need.  But before we go, let’s take a real good look at the Takan place.  Just because they might have put a pro on the job doesn’t mean we skip a step.”

They spent a fruitless hour quartering the countryside with their sensors, but nothing and nobody stood out.

Decker slipped into the clothes he’d worn when they left
Phoenix
but switched over to a shoulder holster.  On a Rim colony, walking around armed wasn’t unusual, but an Imperial Armaments blaster might attract more attention on Garonne than he wanted.

Like Catlow and Nolan, he had transferred some water, rations and ammo to a small pouch, leaving his pack with any overt military equipment behind.  Unlike his two companions, he had also tucked a small hand-held sensor into a waterproof cargo pocket.

The three men, looking like hikers or maybe industrial prospectors, made their way to a gravel trail running along the river and emerged from the thick forest unseen by other human eyes.

It took less than an hour to reach the road leading to the Takan farm and the only local they met on the trail smiled and nodded politely at them as if he were an independence supporter who recognized men fighting for their collective freedom.  It was momentarily unnerving for Zack, who was used to being on the other side of the equation.

Once they were on the main thoroughfare bisecting the district, a few simple farm skimmers whooshed past them, but it seemed like most people in the area, on this sunny, warm morning, were hard at work growing the food that supported the colony.

Decker’s eyes never rested on one spot for more than a few seconds.  He was looking for anything that seemed out of place or that struck him as odd and memorizing his surroundings, just in case they had to get out fast.

On either side of the road and right up to the foot of the nearby ridge, an ocean of golden grain, each stalk as high as Zack’s shoulders, filled their immediate horizon.  Trees, precisely lined up in long rows and topped with thick green foliage, marked breaks between vast fields and provided relief for eyes tired of the endless flat vista stretching out into the west.

They reached the trail leading off the highway to the Takan farm without spotting anything, but Zack hadn’t expected them to.  Surveillance would either be at long range or very close in.  They couldn’t do much about someone sitting kilometers away watching the feed from a camera sitting at the top of a transmission tower, but now that they were getting near, the risk of stumbling across one or more watchers grew.

“I’ll take point,” Catlow said.  “The Takans know me, and they’ll probably be edgy after Mathias’ disappearance.  I know they’ve got a security system so there might be eyes on the access road.  If we find someone who shouldn’t be there, let’s try to take them down quietly.”

Zack and Nolan nodded their understanding, the former continuing to scan the environs with darting eyes while the latter glanced towards the distant farm outbuildings with visible trepidation.

Operating on sheer instinct, the Marine pulled out his sensor, taking care to keep it from being seen by unfriendly eyes and scanned the surroundings.

His pungent curse stopped the other men in their tracks, and they turned around to stare at him.

“What’s wrong?”  Catlow looked around with visible alarm.

“I think we’ve been made,” Decker replied.  “Keep your eyes on the road.  Whatever I say, don’t look up.”

He paused to let his words sink in.

“There’s a drone floating above us.”  He pointed upwards with his thumb.  “We can’t see it, and I would never have noticed if it hadn’t gone live to transmit.  Our crossing an invisible line on the road to the farm must have triggered something in its programming.  I was lucky to have my sensor out when it happened, otherwise…”

“Militia?”  Catlow realized how dumb that question sounded the moment it left his mouth and he shook his head.  “What now?”

“Now?  We continue with the plan, only a lot faster.  They won't have bothered with a drone if they’ve already taken the place.  What I’m worried about is whether they’ll move up their timetable and whether or not the snatch team is already in the area.  I doubt we can pass for mendicant priests of the Great Void, much less folks with valid business.  Anyone legit going around in full daylight would be riding a skimmer.”

Decker looked back at the main road, then down the lane towards the farm.

“We might not have long before we’re in a firefight, and we’d best be under cover when it happens.  Right now, the only cover in sight is over there.”

Decker set off towards the buildings at a fast trot, one hand slipping into his jacket to make sure his blaster was ready to draw.

***

Kozlev stuck her head through the open office door, a cruel smile revealing small, white teeth.

“Three men on foot turned down the road to the Takan farm approximately ten minutes ago.  We didn’t get a good look at any of the faces, but at least two of them are armed and one of those triggered a possible match in the database – a man who we believe headed for the hills to join the rebel fighters.”

Harend gently put his tablet down and breathed in deeply, letting a sense of satisfaction replace his irritation at Cedeno’s increasing demands for detailed reports.

“Taking Mathias may have proven to be your best recommendation to date, Rika.  I can only see one reason why three men would be headed for the Takan farm on foot on this particular morning, and it’s not to sell the latest in food preservation technology.  What do you propose?”

“The snatch team is already in Tianjin.  We could have them hit the farm now instead of waiting for darkness.  Even if we miss some members of the Takan family, taking three fighters who’ll know where the rebel bases are will more than make up for it.  We can always get the others later.”

“And if those three aren’t rebels?”

“Then I’ll get some entertainment at no additional cost, but I’m convinced they are.  There’s a certain aura around all three that tells me they’re fighters, not farmers, especially one of them, a big guy.  He moves like a pro, and he’s not visibly armed.  That triggered all my bullshit detectors, especially once I saw the footage of him running moments after the drone started transmitting.  We might have made them, but it’s entirely possible that he made my little eye in the sky.”

“Execute the raid, Captain.”

TWENTY-FOUR

Catlow and a grey-haired man with thick arms embraced briefly before the latter waved them into the house.

“Larn, these are Zack and Nolan.  Two of my guys.  We don’t have much time.  Zack figures the militia are on their way here.  They have a drone watching your place and what with Mathias disappearing the other day, it can only mean one thing.”

“Shit.” A look of pure disgust twisted the farmer’s tanned face.

“Mister Takan,” Zack said, “if the militia took this Mathias, they'd have discovered you’re his cell leader in the Tianjin district, and they’re going to want to make their way up the movement’s ladder.  Everyone eventually talks.”

He waited until the man nodded before continuing.

“We need to get you and your family out of here now.  They know we’ve shown up, thanks to that damned drone and they’re smart enough to figure we’re here to warn you.”

“I suppose I should have figured this would happen when Jamie, that’s Mathias’ wife, called to tell me he hadn’t come home even though when the guys at the Horse and Bull saw him leave, he was sober and walking upright.”

Takan seemed to deflate under the realization that his quiet life had come to an abrupt end.

“Do you have a skimmer, sir, something that can carry you, your family and us?  We need to leave now.”  The urgency in Decker’s voice seemed to revive him, and he nodded with some energy as if he’d come to a decision.

He turned towards the hallway and hollered a name.  Moments later, a plump, pleasant-faced woman in working clothes appeared, wiping her hands.

“Marnie, it’s happened.  We need to go.  Grab the bug-out bags and get the boys.  I’ll get the truck.”

Takan then walked over to a cabinet and pulled the doors open.

“Might as well take these, just in case.”  He pointed at hunting weapons and boxes of ammunition.  “Help yourselves.”

“Sir, is your family all here?”  Decker asked, taking a scatter gun and checking the action.

“No.”  Takan shook his head.  “My two sons and my wife are here.  My daughter Kari is in Iskellian, staying with some friends.”

“Shit.”  Zack slung the weapon over his shoulder and stuffed half a dozen ammunition packs in his pockets.  “Can you get in touch with her and get her to go into hiding?  Once the militia finds out that you’ve flown the coop, they’ll be looking for her.  Leverage to get you to surrender.”

Takan suddenly looked like he was about to vomit.

“They wouldn’t.”

“They would.  And once you surrender, she’s dead.”  He checked his internal clock.  “We have a few minutes.  Call her, but make sure she doesn’t tell anyone where she’s going to hide.  We’ll figure out how to extract her later.  Right now we need to extract our own butts.”

The farmer pulled a standard civilian communicator from his pocket and ran a thumb over the screen, then held it up to his mouth.

“Honey, it’s Larn.  We’re in trouble.  When you hear this, get away and hide, just like we talked about.  Remember, we’ll always be looking out for you, just like when you were a little girl and liked to visit.”

He cut the transmission and grimaced.

“Voice mail.  She’ll understand the moment she listens to it.”

“That wasn’t smart,” Decker replied.  “If you had a pre-planned hideout, it wasn’t necessary to remind her of when she was a little girl.  A good investigator can track that down in a few days, a week, tops.”

“You understood what I meant?”  For the first time, panic crept into his voice.

“Yeah.  I don’t know where, but I know what.  Like I told Catlow, this isn’t my first dance, and I’m going to bet the militia have a few folks who’ve got some experience too if they tracked down Mathias and have you under surveillance.”

Marnie reappeared, trailed by two teenaged boys, each with a pack and a hunting weapon.  She carried two duffels, handing one to Takan before taking the last gun from the cabinet.

“I thought you were going to pull out the truck?”

“Kari.”

The woman blanched.  “Oh my God.  Is she in danger?”

“I think she is, ma’am.  But if we don’t get out of here, we won’t be able to help her.”  Decker waved towards the door.  “And we’re running out of time to do that.”

Larn Takan took one last look around, to imprint the image of a vanished life deeply into his memory in the hopes of a return some day, then he flung the door open and raced towards a large outbuilding, duffle in one hand and weapon in the other.

“Shall we?”  Decker asked.

Within moments, a transport skimmer with a spacious cab and a large bed with high sides emerged from the shed, driven by whining fans that left a cloud of dust in their wake.

“Ma’am, I’d like you and the boys to get in with your husband.  Catlow, Nolan and I will ride in the back, where we have a good field of fire when the militia bastards get on our tail, which they will.”

Nobody even thought it strange that Decker, a newcomer to Garonne and to the cause, had taken charge.  They could instinctively sense that he thought and moved like a professional rather than a colonist reluctantly drawn into the struggle for independence; they obeyed without a word.

“Where’s the best place to get under some sort of cover, dump this thing and head for the hills?”  Zack asked.

“The river,” Catlow replied.  “There’s no other place.  We’ll go back in the way we came out.”

He shouted a few instructions at Takan, then jumped into the truck’s bed and wedged himself into a corner against the cab.  Once Zack was on board, Catlow slammed his hand on the plasticized roof three times, the universal signal to get moving.

Dark specks in the distance caught Decker’s eyes moments after the truck lurched forward and began to pick up speed.  He nudged his companions, gesturing towards the horizon with his chin.

“I’m going to guess that’s them, coming cross-country.  If they haven’t spotted us yet, it’s probably just a matter of seconds before the damned drone relays some candid images of our escape.”

The truck got to the end of the lane and turned left onto the main road.

Decker dropped into a crouch and rapped on the cab’s rear window.  One of the boys opened it, and he stuck his head inside.

“Are there any trails with a bit of cover you can take instead of staying on this road?  You probably know the area better than the militia pukes.  If we can drop out of sight, it’ll slow them down, even though it’ll take us longer to get to the river.”

“There’s an old track running along the edge of the Hartman spread just ahead.  It goes right into his tree farm a few kilometers down.  I think he’s cut a few trails that run along the foot of the ridge.”

“Do it.”

He pulled his head out of the cab and rose to his feet, eyes automatically locking onto the rapidly growing black dots.

“They’ve changed course to follow us,” Catlow said.  “If they’re riding standard militia skimmers, they’ll be faster than we are.”

Before Zack could reply, the truck slewed to the right and exchanged the broad road for a narrow track running between a row of windbreak trees on one side and head-high maize stalks on the other.

“The buggers want to take us alive,” he said when they’d regained their balance.  “They’ll either try to cut us off…”

He looked over the cab at the fast approaching tree line, “…which won’t happen quickly, or they’ll try to disable our transport.  The trick will be to make them keep their distance.”

Something winked on the first militia skimmer and almost instantly, plasma streaked by the truck, incinerating a swath of maize stalks.

“That was a warning shot.”  He pulled out his blaster and steadied his arm on the tailgate.  When he saw Catlow look at him as if he’d lost his mind, Zack grinned.

“I know I’ve got no chance of hitting them at this range, but at least they’ll see us shooting back, which they won’t expect.”

He aimed slightly above the skimmer and pressed the trigger six times in rapid succession, sending a stream of plasma downrange.  The effect was almost instantaneous.  The vehicle’s driver braked hard and slewed to one side, hoping to throw off his aim.

Decker fired again, still without a hope of hitting anything, but it was enough.  Seconds later, low-hanging tree branches whipped over the truck’s cab, forcing Catlow and Nolan down on their knees.

Zack holstered his blaster and turned around to sit with his back to the bed’s high side.

“We’re not out of the woods yet, to coin a phrase,” he said, eyes twinkling with amusement at Catlow’s theatrical groan, “but they can only come on one at a time and more importantly, right now they don’t know where we’re going.”

“What about the drone?”  Nolan asked.

“Crap.”  Decker slapped his forehead.  “This is what I get for having too much fun with my gun.”

He pulled out his sensor and turned it upwards.

“Yup.”  Zack nodded after a few moments.  “It’s up there.  I can’t tell whether it has a lock on us or not, but if it does and the militia have accurate maps, they’ll eventually figure out where we’re going to come out of the trees and wait for us there.”

“I wish we had a way of warning the rest of the platoon without tipping our hand to the militia.  We could have had them come down to meet us and add some firepower to the little we have,” Catlow said, shaking his head with evident disappointment.

“Wouldn’t help,” Decker replied.  “Right now, it’s just a case of someone – us – tipping off the Takans.  If they figure out that we’re part of a platoon-sized patrol, they’ll put everything they can into finding us and more importantly, finding out where our home base is.”

“They’re still on our tail,” Nolan said, peering over the backboard.  “I just got a quick glimpse of one of them before we turned the corner.”

“If only we had some mines,” Catlow muttered, “or even brought a grenade or two.”

“Let me try something,” Decker said, getting on his knees and peering back at the dark, earthen track running beneath a dense canopy.  “Ask Takan to slow down.”

He steadied his blaster on the tailgate again and picked a tree to the left of the trail.  A thick stream of plasma stitched the trunk half a meter above the ground, eating through the wood.  The tree came crashing down across the trail just as they turned out of sight.

“I doubt it’ll stop the bastards for long, but let’s get busy and put down some more,” he told them.  “Any little bit might make a difference.”

The two rebels took up firing stances on either side of Zack and aimed their own blasters at the tree line.

“I hope this Hartman fellow is a firm independence supporter,” Zack said after they stopped firing, “because I think we’ve just started a forest fire that’ll torch a fair bit of his acreage.”

“Is the drone still up there?”  Nolan asked.

“Probably,” Zack replied, pulling out his sensor.  “It can’t have missed our bit of target shooting.”  He paused.  “Yep.  It’s there, still transmitting live telemetry, but it’s off to the side, so maybe it still doesn’t have a lock on us.”

One of the boys poked his head through the rear window.

“Dad says to tell you we’re about to run out of forest, and we’re still about a kilometer from where the river comes out of the cut.”

“Thanks.”  Decker nodded towards the cab.  “Let’s get set up to fire forward.  If they don’t know where we’re going to come out by now, they’re a lot dumber than any militia I’ve known.”

“Damn drone.  I wish I could shoot it down.”

“Good luck.  The thing might not be flying beyond weapons range, but with the stealthing it’s got, we can’t do much.  Get ready.”

The dark woodland trail quickly brightened and, moments later, they burst out into a field overrun by thick brambles and native giant ferns.  Ahead of them, a militia skimmer blocked the way, its twin barrel plasma gun facing the onrushing truck.

Decker and the rebel soldiers opened fire, joined by Marnie and her two sons, hanging out the side windows.  The militia troopers fired a warning burst over the truck, expecting Takan to slow down, but the farmer goosed his truck’s fans and sped on.

Another militia skimmer appeared to their left and turned towards the tree line, intending to deny them any attempt at a withdrawal back into the forest.

The truck rose higher and began to sway when it lost some of the air cushion beneath its skirts.  Unlike the sleek military vehicles trying to box them in, the agricultural truck lacked control vanes to concentrate the fans’ output.  Whether they’d clear the skimmer blocking the road ahead was questionable and even if they did, they’d expose the fans from beneath, giving the militia a chance to disable the truck.

Decker dropped down to yell a warning through the rear window when a stream of plasma connected with the car, at first creating smoking divots in the thin armor, then punching through the hull

As soon as the last round vaporized what remained of the top hatch, Takan poured every available erg of power into his fans, clearing the top of the vehicle by millimeters.  A heartbeat later, they were clear and headed towards the shadows at the base of the cliff where the Yangtze River spilled into the plains.  The militia vehicle, its power plant damaged beyond repair, began to vomit thick black smoke.