Earth Cry

by Nick Cook

  ‘But what about all the people here?’

  ‘That’s why you need to get out of there as quickly as possible. You can guarantee Alvarez won’t mind shooting civilians if it means he can get to you.’

  ‘Oh god, you’re right. We’ll leave right now.’

  ‘Good luck,’ Lucy replied.

  The glass room vanished and I was back in the toilet. I stuffed the Empyrean Key back into my bag and rushed out into the bar. I hadn’t said a word, but both Jack and Mike were already staring at me.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Jack asked as I reached them.

  ‘We need to make ourselves scarce, and quickly.’ I turned to Stefano. ‘Something bad is about to go down and we need to leave town straight away.’

  ‘Then I will drive you,’ he said.

  ‘No, it’s safer that you stay here.’

  ‘Safer?’

  I traded a desperate look with the others. ‘Look, I haven’t got time to explain it, but can we buy your truck off you?’

  ‘But…’

  Jack reached into his backpack and slipped him the container of gold sovereigns. ‘This should more than cover it.’

  Stefano handed the keys to me.

  ‘Thank you, Stefano. Thank you for everything.’

  ‘No problem, my friends. May god protect you.’

  I shook his hand.

  Outside, we heard the honking of car horns in the distance, getting louder.

  Jack jumped on to the back of the truck and began unzipping the holdall bags, as I leapt into the driver’s seat with Mike riding shotgun.

  Jack grabbed a pair of binoculars from his pack and peered through them. Then he spun round. ‘There’s a whole line of black SUVs headed into town. Get us out of here, Lauren.’

  I turned the ignition and the engine coughed into life. I clenched the wheel as we began to edge forward, squeezing the truck between the people packing out the street. In my wing mirror I could see Jack with his hand on a carbine, ready to snatch it from the holdall if the moment came.

  Slowly, too bloody slowly, we crept along the street and rounded a corner. Behind us, somewhere out of sight, the sound of honking vehicles was now accompanied by angry shouts and cries.

  I quickly scanned the GPS marker on the Sky Wire’s map. There was a small track heading out towards it on the far side of Cachora. We’d make for there and hide out until Niki arrived.

  We were crossing a junction when shots and cries came from behind us. I glanced in my mirror to see four black SUVs racing along the street, sending people scattering.

  ‘Fuck, their Reaper must have eyes on us,’ I said.

  Mike gawped at me. ‘They’ve got another one of those bastard things up there?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Shit!’

  I pressed the accelerator and leant on the horn to alert Jack. He grabbed the carbine and pointed it at the lead SUV behind us. People jumped aside, cursing us as we sped between them. At the next junction, another SUV raced into view and stopped, blocking the road.

  My heart thundered as several soldiers leapt out, their Uzis aimed at us despite all the people in the way.

  I slammed on the brakes and the truck slid to a stop. The convoy behind us pulled up too and soldiers disembarked, Alvarez among them.

  ‘Damn it, that bastard survived the car crash,’ I said. I scanned his vehicle, but couldn’t see any sign of Cristina. What had become of her? Had my little stunt cost Cristina her life? My heart scrunched up into a tiny ball.

  Mike stared at me. ‘All these people are going to be caught in the middle of a firefight.’

  ‘Don’t I know it.’

  I jumped out of the truck and Jack chucked a carbine to me. The locals stared at us with wide eyes and started to back away.

  Alvarez held up a hand to his soldiers. He walked towards us, pistol in hand, eyes narrowed on us. He stopped about thirty metres from our truck.

  ‘I don’t know about you, but I have no wish to see innocent people get hurt. I suggest you lower your weapons.’

  Mike climbed out of the truck with his dart gun in his hand.

  Jack shook his head. ‘Yeah, right. That’s a pile of horse shit and you know it. They’re witnesses to what’s about go down and you won’t want any of them left alive, will you?’

  The people in the street stared between us and Alvarez and his soldiers dressed in black.

  Alvarez raised his hands. ‘My friends, these people are nothing but antiquity robbers. They have on their truck a precious artefact that they stole from your precious Choquequirao. They are attempting to smuggle it out of Peru.’

  Immediately the crowd’s eyes locked on to us, their expressions hostile.

  ‘Don’t listen to him!’ I shouted.

  But I was only answered with boos and whistles. Three burly Peruvian guys started moving towards us.

  ‘Oh, fuckity fuck!’ Mike whispered, raising his dart gun towards them.

  My gaze tore to Jack. ‘There’s only one play left to us here.’

  He nodded. ‘Do whatever you have to.’

  I pointed my carbine into the air and squeezed the trigger. With no suppressor attached, it crackled with muzzle flashes and spat bullets into the sky. People screamed and dived into doorways. Within a matter of moments the street was deserted.

  Jack nodded again. ‘Nicely done.’

  I aimed my carbine at Alvarez as he plunged behind a stall for cover.

  And then the world exploded with bullets.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It was as if we’d been dropped into a western movie where we were the good guys and the outlaws, the Overseers, had ridden into town. Of course the locals saw it the opposite way, thanks to Alvarez’s little speech. But now, whether they realised it or not, it was down to us to stop Alvarez bringing a whole world of hurt down on the heads of the citizens of Cachora.

  As incoming rounds exploded around us, Jack returned a steady stream of fire from his position on the back of the truck. The slab of battered metal and bags of gravel that Stefano had picked up when we’d got into town were thankfully giving Jack and the micro mind some much needed cover.

  I hunkered beneath another parked truck as I tried to think our way out of this. Tactically our situation was beyond awful. We were surrounded front and back and pinned in on both sides by buildings packed with innocent people. Alvarez and his mercs could afford to take their time. However skilled we were with our weapons, this would still be the equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel for the Overseers. No, we needed to get out of here, whatever it took.

  As bullets sparked off our truck, Mike stared at me through the open door as he ducked down in the passenger seat.

  ‘We’re not going to get out of this, are we?’ he said. But then his eyes widened and he pointed past me. ‘Hey, look, Lauren.’

  I glanced round to see a street stall selling earthenware pots just beyond the nose of the vehicle. At first I didn’t understand what Mike meant. But then I spotted the shadows of people running away down a narrow alleyway just behind the stand. Narrow, but still just about wide enough to squeeze a truck through.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ Mike said.

  ‘Only one way to find out.’ Red laser dots danced over the wall just above my head and the render exploded with bullet holes. ‘Jack, can you cover me from the soldiers at the rear?’ I called.

  ‘Sure, but what are you going to do?’

  ‘Oh, you’ll see. Just get ready to lay down some suppressing fire on my order.’

  ‘Understood.’ Jack took a huge machine-gun with a large round bullet belt clip attached out of his bag.

  I vaguely remembered him telling me it was a Rheinmetall MG 3 when he’d helped himself to it from Lucy’s weapons supermarket.

  I slung the carbine over my shoulder and swapped it for my LRS. ‘Fire!’ I sprang forward towards the open passenger door, whilst firing at the two SUVs ahead of us. Meanwhile, Jack blazed bullets from his MG 3 at the Overseers’ vehi
cles at the rear, quickly peppering them with holes.

  I crawled across past Mike and dropped down into the driver’s seat. As the MG 3 gave its staccato bark of a hailstorm of death, I swung the wheel over to the right and accelerated. Return fire ricocheted off the truck. I aimed the vehicle straight at the stall and couldn’t help but grimace as we ploughed straight through the trestle table, shattering the pots as we went. The woodwork smashed apart on the truck’s bull bars and then we were through into the alley beyond the stall. A scraping bang came from each side as the wing mirrors snapped off on the alley’s walls.

  I glimpsed a young girl staring at us, frozen, just ahead. Before I could react, a woman grabbed hold of her and yanked her into a doorway. I threw a silent prayer of thanks to her guardian angel.

  Just a few more seconds…

  In the rear-view mirror, I saw Alvarez appear, gesturing down the alley to his mercs.

  ‘Watch out!’ Mike shouted, pointing forward.

  We raced out of the alley into another street filled with vehicles. I leant hard on the horn. With a squeal of brakes, two battered old trucks swerved to avoid slamming into us. I yanked the wheel hard to the left and almost threw Jack from the back in the process. We slid sideways as I centred the wheel to correct the skid. As the wheels regained traction, the truck surged forward and we sped away along the road.

  My mouth was dryer than a desert as I kept blasting the horn. More vehicles scattered in front of us as we tore between them. I pulled out my Sky Wire and checked the map. The lane leading out to the east side of the town was the next turning on the right.

  It seemed to appear out of nowhere. Almost too late I skidded our truck round the bend and we slammed hard into a bin, sending it flying and Jack nearly pitched off again. I saw him glowering at me in my rear-view mirror.

  But Mike was grinning. ‘Holy shit, you can drive, lady.’

  ‘I guess I can.’

  The buildings started to thin on either side of us and we reached some corrugated metal buildings on the outskirts of town.

  ‘Stop!’ Jack shouted from the back.

  I scanned my mirrors and couldn’t see anything, but I trusted Jack. I slammed on the brakes.

  Jack pivoted his MG 3 towards the sky and started firing.

  Mike peered up and paled. ‘He hasn’t a rat’s chance of hitting that.’

  I turned to see a point of light rushing towards us. My stomach clenched into a ball as I realised it was a missile about to wipe us out of existence. But Jack didn’t so much as flinch as he kept firing tracer rounds straight at it, as the missile ate up the distance between us.

  Impossibly, I saw bullets sparking off the nose of the streaking missile as it flew into the cone of tracer Jack was firing. With a huge flash and a roar of explosion, the shock wave from the blast smashed into the truck and the buildings nearby, shaking us like an earthquake had just hit. Tiles from the roofs around us came crashing down into the street. The shuddering slowly subsided and the truck settled on its shocks absorbers as it stopped bouncing. The wail of car alarms echoed between the buildings.

  Mike whooped and leant out of his window. ‘Good shooting, Tex.’

  ‘How many friggin’ times…’ Jack said, waving a hand dismissively at Mike. He laughed. ‘That sucker had to be a five-hundred pound laser-guided missile going by the sheer power of that blast wave.’

  ‘Shit!’ Mike said. ‘And they were happy to drop that over a populated town.’

  ‘Yep, absolute bastards. The good news is that a Reaper can only carry two munitions of that size – alongside four Hellfires.’

  ‘So the bad news is that it has one big missile left?’ I said.

  ‘Exactly, so let’s shift our asses before we bring more bombs down on this town.’

  I stamped my foot on the accelerator and we roared off. A large corrugated metal building appeared as I sped round a bend.

  ‘Another incoming!’ Jack shouted from the back as he opened fire with the MG 3 again.

  As amazing as he’d just been at shooting down a guided missile, I was doubtful he’d be able to pull off the same stunt twice in a row.

  I swerved in behind the building, throwing Jack sideways and forcing him to halt his firing.

  ‘What the hell, Lauren?’

  ‘Your turn to trust me,’ I called back.

  I counted down in my head. Five, four… Please let this work. I turned the wheel into the opposite lock. The truck bounced over the ground as its rear fishtailed. I steered into the skid and then straightened the wheel. Our truck shot away from the building at a right angle.

  One!

  The whole building exploded behind us, engulfed in a massive roaring fireball. I fought to control the truck as the blast wave lifted it into the air and slammed us down hard. The truck ploughed into the earth, the wheels sheering off and flying away. The nose dug in and we skidded round until we were facing the mushroom cloud rising into the sky.

  ‘I hope to god nobody was in that building,’ Mike muttered under his breath, not looking at me as he threw his door open and stumbled out of the cab.

  I felt a surge of guilt as I climbed out too. I hadn’t had a chance to even think about that.

  Jack jumped to the ground, clutching his MG 3. ‘How’s the crystal doing?’

  I glanced at the micro mind. It was now strobing with bright blue light. ‘This looks like Lucy did just before she took off.’

  ‘So we just have to buy the micro mind a few more critical moments and it can do the rest,’ Mike said.

  ‘Exactly.’ I grabbed my Fire Wire phone from my bag and dialled Niki, putting it on speaker.

  He picked almost immediately.

  ‘We need immediate evac,’ I said.

  ‘OK…’ Niki’s voice was icy calm. ‘We’re about five minutes out. I’m locking in your current coordinates. Hang in there.’ The phone clicked off.

  I turned to the others. ‘We need to guard the micro mind until it reboots. Time to make a last stand.’

  Jack nodded. ‘Damned right. Let’s set a crossfire situation to make things as difficult as possible for Alvarez and his mercs.’

  ‘Good call.’ I scanned the terrain around us, assessing our tactical situation as if I’d been a soldier all my life.

  The blazing fire engulfing the buckled remains of the metal building billowed thick smoke, covering us with choking vapours. At least it was making it hard for us to be seen. To our right stood a rusting old tractor that looked as if it would offer good protection for one of us, a large pile of empty oil drums just next to it. Further away on our left, there was a tumbling down building with metal struts sticking out and a large pile of bricks at the front.

  After Mike’s sharp reminder about the building that had just been demolished, I was glad there weren’t any civilians around here to get hurt.

  ‘We need to set up an ambush,’ I said. ‘Jack, if take the MG 3 to that old building, it will give you a lot of cover. I’ll use the tractor.’

  ‘And what about me?’ Mike asked.

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t ask you to do anything you’re not comfortable with. But how about stocking up with flash-bang grenades and hiding out among those barrels?’

  ‘Yeah, I can live with that.’

  Jack grabbed one of the holdalls and the MG 3 and headed off to the ruined building whilst Mike helped himself to the flash bangs and sprinted over to the barrels. I loaded my carbine with a clip of ammo, stuffing spares clips into my rucksack, and squeezed under the tractor. Once in position, I rested my carbine on a rusting wheel beneath it. It wasn’t exactly a pillbox, but it would have to do.

  The polluted air scratched the back of my throat as smoke swirled past. Fire crackled in the twisted remains of the corrugated metal building. Was this the place we were going to die?

  But as well as fear, determination was also kicking in. This was what all my training had been about, not to mention what our recent experiences had prepared me for. Alvarez and his soldi
ers were dangerous, but we’d proved more than once that so were we.

  Through the hazy smoke, I sighted the carbine’s scope on the track. The minutes stretched on.

  Will you get a move on already…?

  I almost felt relief when I heard the rising note of vehicle engines. A few seconds later, the silhouettes of three SUVs barrelling along the track appeared through the smoke.

  The calmness deepened inside me as I put the carbine’s crosshairs on the lead vehicle and flicked the selector to semi-automatic.

  You’ve got this, Lauren…

  I aimed at the windscreen and squeezed the trigger. The carbine kicked into my shoulder as bullet holes peppered the SUV. I tracked the vehicle, firing bullets as it swerved violently and smashed into the stack of bricks. I kept my carbine trained on the vehicle as it crashed, but no one clambered out.

  Splash one bogey…

  The bark of Jack’s MG 3 snagged my attention and I turned to see his rounds puncturing the front tyres of the second vehicle. It skidded into an earth embankment, flew into the air and began to tip. It hit hard and flipped over – one, two, three times – before coming to rest on its roof.

  Like me, Jack didn’t pause and continued to blaze bullets into the vehicle, shredding the metalwork until it burst into flames. Whoever was inside didn’t stand a chance.

  Splash two bogeys…

  But then any surge of confidence that we might easily win this vanished. The final vehicle had stopped and five soldiers, led by Alvarez, were out and split into two combat groups.

  Bullets pinged off the tractor as one of the Overseers squads opened fire on my position. The other group was heading for Jack’s building. These guys were bringing the fight to us – and spreading out so as not to present a single target.

  Pinned down by a barrage of fire, I was unable to do anything as the other squad surrounded Jack’s building. One of them lobbed a grenade through an open window and it detonated with a bang.

  Cold hard dread churned through me until flashes of light came from another window. Jack was returning fire.