Miller pulled up an old map of the region. It was outdated, but the quarry was marked and surrounded by dense forest. Miller’s entire plan hinged on the assumption that the raiders hadn’t considered that anyone with actual tactical experience would be taking them on. A plan was set; things were put in motion that couldn’t be undone once Miller and Cortez put boots on the ground.
Miller would bring the missing excursion team home one way or another. If Lance was anything like his reputation suggested, he could have already gotten his entire team killed with his mouth. Miller prayed that when the time came, Lance could take direction. Otherwise, this entire operation would go pear-shaped.
~~~
The sun was nearly at its apex; noon was approaching as Miller and Cortez dragged a large wooden crate through a dusty dirt road toward the quarry. With help from Sam and Markus back on the ship, they had secured a large wooden box to a hand truck with inflated rubber wheels. It made the task much easier, but still, both men had a hand on the truck’s handle as they pulled it along behind them. The pair of them kept their attention on their surroundings as the forest was closing in around the dirt road. Without weapons, a surprise attack from roaming carriers could prove fatal.
“Is it wise to take this guy seriously?” Cortez asked, still a bit uncertain as to the veracity of this stranger’s demands.
“You can never tell with a desperate man. He may be telling the truth, or he may be preparing an ambush. With so little intel to go on, we’re going to have to play this by ear.”
“If we pull this off, Kayembe will offer you Lance’s team.”
“What if I don’t want it?”
“Lance is out regardless, so however this shakes out today—good or bad—he’s done.”
“When we pull this off,” Miller said without a hint of doubt. “What did you tell me when we first met?”
“I don’t know. I said a lot.”
“You told me that all of your people come home, every time. That’s what’s going to happen today. We’re bringing Lance and his entire team home. Period. This raider is not likely to stick to his promises. He’s just as likely to shoot us dead on the spot or take us prisoner and demand more. We’re not going to let him do either.”
“I’m not doubting you, Miller. You’ve more than proved yourself, but how do you suggest we accomplish this? We are unarmed.”
“Just follow my lead. I’ve got everything worked out.”
Ahead of them, the quarry was within sight. The landmark was a huge scar on the terrain: an enormous hole dug straight down into the earth with a winding dirt road spiraling down its edges to the floor below. A temporary project manager site was set up as the base of operations when this work site would have been bustling with activity. Bulldozers, backhoes, dump trucks, and other various earth-moving heavy equipment were lined up around the base’s perimeter. Raiders dotting the site patrolled the outer edges at the bottom. Near the center, the leader stood out from the rest with a worn red long-coat. Lance was on his knees at the man’s feet. The rest of the missing team was nowhere to be seen.
“Where are the rest of them?” Cortez was on edge.
“Don’t worry. I expected this.”
The rim of the quarry lay before them; they stood at its edge. From above, it looked like some celestial body had slammed into the ground, leaving behind a massive impact crater. Now its edges were lined with roads corkscrewing down to a hodgepodge of trailers and shipping containers, heavy machinery, and workstations. The raiders were spread out among the scenery. Two dozen or more was Miller’s guess after a cursory glance. Their overconfidence was palpable.
“That’s far enough,” the raider boss said through a bullhorn directed at a handheld communication device that broadcast his words through hidden speakers dotted around the dig site. All of it was for show. Either device alone would have been sufficient to get his message across. “I want the two of you to slowly make your way down here with the rest of us. Sorry I don’t have a car for you. You’ll just have to walk. Fuel has really become an issue these days,” he announced with a round of laughter from his men.
“That hike is going to take us forever. And we’ll be out in the open the whole time.” Cortez instinctively reached for a weapon that wasn’t there.
“I know, but that’s a good thing. This guy and his men will get complacent. They’ll get bored watching us walk in circles all the way down there. They already underestimate us, so we’ll take our time. They’ll lose what little edge they have watching us circle down to the bottom.”
At the floor of the quarry, the raider and his men paced. At first, they joked at Miller’s expense as he and Cortez took turns pushing and pulling the large hand truck. It was clear for the raiders that an entire morning of dragging this crate from the ship to the quarry had taken its toll. Miller and Cortez were spent. It was humorous for the raiders to watch these two sweat so, despite the cold winter air.
After a grueling forty-minute trek, Miller and Cortez reached the management area of the dig site. Two of the raiders ducked behind a large cement mixer; one handed the other a bottle of something that Miller could only assume was alcohol. He hoped it was. Miller almost smiled as the raiders’ leader spoke up.
“Okay, that’s close enough.”
Miller stopped a solid twenty feet from the boss.
“Push the crate up here slowly, then back away.”
Miller did as he was told. The crate lay halfway between Miller and the raider boss.
With a smug grin, the leader motioned for one of his men to inspect their prize. The lackey shouldered his rifle as he brandished a crowbar. The crate was secured well; it took all the raider had to pry the lid from the container one small section at a time until a corner was raised only an inch or so. The raider continued along the perimeter of the box, loosening nails; the effort was taking a toll on the man.
“You went a little overboard with the nails there, didn’t you, champ?” the raider boss said, frustrated but still amused.
“I didn’t want your supplies to get damaged if we got jumped on the road. If we had to make a run for it and come back for the crate later, those things weren’t getting in.”
“Smart. I didn’t think of that. I don’t want that pus-ridden filth anywhere near my shit.”
Before the raider with the crowbar could finish opening the crate, his boss approached.
Miller stepped forward a few feet. “You have your supplies. Maybe now we should discuss letting me see the rest of my people.” Miller inched closer to the leader as the raider boss approached his cache.
Lance was on his knees at the raider boss’s feet. He was bleeding from a head wound but otherwise looked unharmed.
“I’ll tell you what. If I like what I see in the box, I’ll put you two with the others. Then I’ll call your captain and we can start this trade deal all over again. If I don’t like what I see, well, let’s just say there won’t be as many mouths to feed tonight, starting with you and your buddy over there.” He waved his gun in Cortez’s direction.
The raiders within earshot laughed. The man with the crowbar almost had the crate open.
Miller inched forward just a bit more. “I thought things might go down like this,” he said, drawing the raider boss’s full attention.
“Well, you know what they say about listening to your gut.” The raider boss shrugged. “You could be back on that ship of yours right now, sipping drinks and watching the pretty girls go by. Instead, you’re trying to play hero out here with me in the cold and you’re about to be in chains. Probably not how you imagined the day would turn out, huh?”
“Who’s trying? And this day is going exactly how I expected.”
“Is it?” The raider boss chuckled. “So when you got out of bed this morning, you thought that by lunchtime you were going to be taken hostage? That’s a pretty shit outlook for the day.”
“I’m not going to be taken hostage today. People like you are so predictable I could w
rite a textbook on it.”
“Is that so?”
“It is, and all of my people are coming home with me.”
The raider boss nodded with an air of amusement.
The hum from a truck’s engine was faint in the distance but quickly grew louder. The raider boss looked around to his men, who shrugged as if to say, I have no idea. The raider boss grabbed Miller by his collar and demanded, “What is this?”
Miller simply smiled.
Over at the crate, the man with the crowbar was at last finished with his task. He had the final corner of the container lifted. He opened the crate with a grin. A thick green blanket was wrapped loosely around the spoils; it looked to be filled to the top. The man with the crowbar was pleased; once again his boss had got one over on a bunch of sorry saps who thought they knew how the world worked. He looked over to his comrades, who all shared a hearty chuckle at Miller’s expense. When he looked down to inspect the goods, he grabbed the sheet and yanked it aside as a shot rang out, sending him back with a shocked look in his eyes. He was dead before he hit the ground: a single gunshot wound to the center of his face.
Soraya leapt from the crate, guns blazing. Three more of the raiders fell as the rest scrambled for cover. Miller headbutted the raider boss in the nose before he and Cortez ducked behind cover while Soraya threw weapons to them. Lance scrambled to cover behind the crate. He picked up the crowbar as a weapon; he could still swing it with bound hands.
The hum of the engine grew louder as, far above, a yellow school bus came barreling over the edge of the quarry. The out-of-control vehicle plummeted to the quarry floor. Upon impact, the bus smashed through the manager’s office and broke in half. As the pieces of the mangled vehicle scattered around the dig site, the bus’s previously unseen occupants were thrown to all corners of the quarry floor. Dozens of carriers littered the area and were up in an instant, attacking the dumbstruck raiders.
A carrier landed at the feet of the raider boss and immediately began to tear at his pant leg. The raider boss stumbled onto his ass before turning and dragging himself toward cover behind some heavy machinery. Another flying carrier hit one of the drink-sharing raiders center mass. The impact shattered his sternum, leaving him in a crumpled heap in the dirt and helpless to stop the creature from tearing into his face and neck. Chunks of meat easily pulled away from his face as the weight of the carrier sank into the man’s broken chest.
The carriers without broken legs from the fall were up and, in a frenzy, chasing the discombobulated raiders around the equipment and back into the mine.
Above, at the rim of the quarry, Marisol and her team, who had been in hiding since before dawn, unleashed a barrage of fire from the high ground. The raiders didn’t stand a chance. One by one, they fell from an unrelenting assault on three fronts: Miller, Cortez, and Soraya from the ground; Marisol and her fireteam from above; and finally a group of weaponized carriers. Together, they easily tore through the raiders’ disoriented ranks. Even Lance joined the fray with his crowbar, smashing raiders and carriers alike.
A raider ducked for cover into the bucket of a front-end loader; from the safety of the metal box, she put down the carriers that were chasing her. She eyed a car from across the dig site. She knew it was gassed up and ready to go, and in one swift move, she leapt from the bucket and sprinted for the car. She made it two steps before her face exploded, spreading gray matter along the quarry floor. High above, Marisol grinned as she lined up another shot.
Miller circled around from the east, Cortez from the west. With Soraya taking up the middle and the support from above, every raider was put down in a hail of gunfire. As Miller made his way through the carnage, he passed raiders who were tangled up with carriers on the ground and begging for help. Miller would casually kick their weapons out of reach as he pursued their leader. Cortez and Soraya fanned out and put down every raider and carrier they passed.
The raider boss dragged himself to behind an abandoned cement mixer; his arm and leg were bleeding profusely. He wasn’t sure who shot him. Someone from above or this brazen fucker who just ruined everything. “Fuck,” he cursed and almost laughed. “We can make a deal,” he said. “I was just fucking around. Let’s talk about this.”
Miller approached the raider boss with his weapon trained on the man’s head. “The time for deals is over. I gave you a chance to walk away. You wouldn’t take it.” Miller stood above the injured man. He aimed his sidearm at the raider boss’s head and said, “This is all I have for you now.” Miller pulled the trigger and watched the hostage taker’s life escape from the back of his skull.
~~~
When the dust settled, Miller fired three shots into the air. All covering fire from above ceased. Those of Miller’s team who were hidden among the blind spots along the quarry’s edge emerged from cover and began the long trek to the bottom of the dig site. Ahole, Genevieve, and the rest of the excursion team greeted Miller and Cortez with smiles and hearty handshakes; Marisol and Jeremiah were with them as well.
“How did it go this morning?” Miller asked with a cocksure grin.
“Like clockwork,” Marisol responded. “We were here before dawn, early enough to see the first of the raiders rise and begin their day. Not one of them so much as attempted to hike up and out of the quarry in preparation for the meet, just like you said they wouldn’t. You were right, Miller. These guys didn’t know what the fuck they were doing.” Marisol looked around the battlefield at more than a dozen raiders lying dead in the dirt. She patted Miller on the back as she passed to help secure the well-earned spoils of war.
Jeremiah rounded a rusted-out trailer; the two men exchanged a handshake.
“Thanks for having my back, Jerry.”
“I will soon be a father, Miller. How could I look my child in the eye and teach them to be a good person if I were to let you go at this alone?”
In the distance, far above at the rim of the quarry, a lone raider came sailing through the air. He crumbled at the dig site floor atop a piece of heavy machinery. Up at the rim, Ulrich stood proud with his ax in the air. Alex stood beside him, waving.
“Look what I found.” Ahole led Lance’s team out of a nearby cave. They looked the worse for wear, some were more injured than others, but the team was intact. All were accounted for and alive, wounds notwithstanding.
Chen, one of Lance’s men, moved forward with a fellow excursion team member at his side. He was helping the man along. A woman with a badly broken arm followed close behind. “We’re going to need to see the doc, ASAP. Pak was stabbed in the leg; I think they hit his femur. They shot me in the side and crushed Marta’s arm. It’s been mangled”
“I’m so sorry about this, guys,” Lance began.
“Save it,” said Chen. “Your recklessness caused this. Either you’re off the team or I’m out. The rest of the squad agrees with me. I told you this place was sketchy, and as usual, you refuse to listen to anything but your own ego.”
“Bullshit. I said this place looked like a gold mine, and it was. Look around.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Pak and Marta are fucked up. They’re lucky to be alive. They’re certainly off the team, no question. Pak is going to have a limp for the rest of his life, and Marta will be lucky if she can keep the arm.”
“How is that my fault?”
“That you even need to ask that question speaks volumes. We are done. Do you hear me?”
“Oh, come on,” Lance said to deaf ears. He looked around at his unit. No one said a word, though they all nodded in solidarity with Chen’s declaration. Lance was left standing alone as the rest of his team limped toward the raider’s trucks.
The man who was arguing with Lance, Chen, jogged up to Cortez with an outstretched arm. They shook hands and nodded.
“Thanks for the save, Cortez.”
“Don’t mention it, but this whole operation was Miller’s baby. He’s the one you should thank.”
“Ah, the infamous Captain Miller. I
t’s good to finally meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you. The name’s Chenglei, by the way. You can call me Chen.”
“Good to meet you, Chen. I only wish it could have been under different circumstances.”
“Well, better late than never. There’s about to be a few changes as far as the excursion teams are concerned, so I’m sure you’ll be seeing a lot more of me.”
“Let’s get you guys out of here.” Cortez guided Chen and the others onto the light-swept quarry floor where Soraya and Petrova were busy filling the crate with the raiders’ things.
“Not a bad score, all things considered,” Petrova said.
“We can use much of this stuff.” Soraya was carrying a case of canned meat she liberated from a nearby storage container.
Cortez gave Soraya a pat on the back as he, Miller and Chen passed.
Chen limped forward while clutching his side. “They said they were teaching us a lesson. Fucking assholes. We said they could have our scavenge and we’d be on our way. They wanted more.”
“They always do,” said Miller. “Look what it got them.”
“Yeah. If it’s all the same to you, I’m ready to get the fuck out of here.”
“Agreed.” Miller whistled for the attention of the merged teams that were scattered around the quarry. He mounted the bed of a nearby pickup, lifted the raider boss’s bullhorn, and spoke through it. “We’ve got what we came for. Let’s not press our luck. Secure what you’ve found, then load up into these trucks. We’re Oscar Mike in five.”
~~~
Lance’s excursion team and their rescuers were locked away in de-cons for the mandatory seventy-two hours. The injured were set up in the newly established medical wing of de-cons. Captain Kayembe made a rare appearance—he paced the hallway between the wall of cells, praising Miller and his team while reprimanding Lance.
The Roaming (Book 3): Haven's Promise Page 40
