Raiders (15 page)

And it did, for none of them had ventured outside the City, ever.

The moon was out, lightly crescented and silver-grey. The moonlight plucked across the river’s waverolled surface. Uniformed glowed sparks flashed into being and then just as quickly winked themselves away. Kama sat herself down onto the moistened dirt and the rest followed her cue. For some time everyone sat and watched the water go by. There was no sound, not a single noise from anything save the gentle burbled waterflow.

Dusty leaned over and wrapped his left arm around Kama. He broke the silent vigil, looked around left to right and said, “Think it’s safe to make a fire?”

Kama did not respond but instead leaned over and kissed him. Dusty tried to clutch her even closer but her battlesuit made it difficult for him to hold her. His hand slipped away and he leaned back. Kama reached for the back of Dusty’s head, leaned over him and knocked him down. And then she kissed him some more.
.

Calliope said, “Guys, come on. Get a room or something.” She brooded and then threw a small rock into the water. It returned a muffled
pa-ploop
and disappeared from sight.

Kama straightened herself up and sat upright. “Sorry.”

Ryan asked Kama, “Tell us about your gun. I heard you have to make your own ammo for that?”

“Yes,” Kama said.

Ryan asked, “What’s the upside? I mean I know it is accurate but don’t you get sick of having to make your own ammo?”

Kama said, “Where can you find bullets out here?”

Ryan said, “I don’t know. Where?”

“Nowhere. You could scavenge for weeks and never find a single unused bullet out here. My Coilgun can fire things made out of scrap metal. Anything will work, so long as the metal can carry a charge.

I see.” Ryan smiled and looked at the Coilgun which lay next to Kama.

They sat in silence. Mirabella thought she heard something faint, a sound barely audible over the river's gentle roar,
Was that someone's voice?
Mirabella thought but she couldn’t be absolutely sure. It was the river that played tricks with her hearing, perhaps. “You guys hear that?” She asked.

Calliope perked up and said, “Yeah I think I hear..”

“Shhhh.” Kama hissed. She waved her left hand up and down. “Quiet.”

And then they heard it.
Bblip-blip-blip. The noises
repeated and they could just make out a faint hint of a voice, female.

It was Voluga's.

Kama bolted onto her feet and focused on the armorcar about fifty meters away. She could hardly see anything since the armorcar's floodlights beamed at her. Kama froze when she saw a tiny red indicator flashed onto the armorcar’s windshield on the right hand side. And then two red dots glowed. Three dots. And then more, too many to count. It was at that moment that Kama realized what the little red dots suggested.

Anomalies detected.

“Go to the car. Now!” Kama quietly seethed past her gritted teeth, pressured with urgency. Nobody moved for a few seconds. “Go!” She said.

The group sprang up and then ran for the armorcar. Kama pursued them as she scanned into the darkness on both sides. She primed her Coilgun with a high pitched electrical
taw-eeeee
. Despite her night-enhanced vision that was genetically gifted to her, she saw nothing. Everyone scrambled into the side door. Voluga announced, “Anomalies detected. No friend-foe identified. Eleven anomalies within one hundred meters.”

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 far 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!”