by Anthology
This gave the t-bird momentum to cross the far side of the bank, barely. The front landing gear plunged into the burbling water, but before the underbelly could meet the river's embrace, the running wheel clawed the gravelly bed of the river. In seconds it emerged from the drink and rolled upon the gravelly beach. By the time the rear wheels touched down, the t-bird had cleared the waters, leaving nothing but spray to moisten the rear tires.
As the engines dwindled to a gentle purr, I redirected the exhaust back into the maneuvering jets, allowing the t-bird to roll off the beach and over the ridge into a nearby clearing. Waiting for me there was a fuel tanker and a Bulldog panel truck, property of our refuel and refit team. At the edge of the t-bird's Low-Light vision, I saw Johnny's t-bird lurking in the darkness, like a giant steel puma peering on a herd of deer in the opening.
As my Banshee entered the clearing, a person wearing Low-Light goggles jumped off the back of the fuel truck and ran towards my vehicle. He switched on a pair of torchlights and began guiding me into parking position. Once I had piloted the Banshee into satisfactory position, the ground guide raised his torches above him in an "X." He then brought one light down across his neck, in a slitting motion, before killing both lights.
I powered down the engine in response to his signals. As the engines' purr gave way to silence, the vehicle control rig began its shutdown sequence, relinquishing consciousness back into my meat body. A wave of aches and stiffness washed over me as the virtual world melted away into the real one. I stifled a groan as I reached up to activate the dome light and switch off the last few manual controls.
Unjacking the datacord from the vehicle, I slowly climbed upward and released the hatch lock. The hatch swung upwards, as the cool night air descended into the warm cabin confines. Climbing up and out, I pulled off my helmet, allowing my long auburn hair to fall freely.
"That was some crazy stunt ya pulled there, Jo-girl," rumbled a low voice from behind me. I turned around to look at my ork gunner, who sat on the edge of his hatch and stretched his gigantic arms. "Next time ya try sumthin' like that, lemme know first, so I can put on my swimming trunks, 'kay?"
"O ye of little faith. We're here in one piece, aren't we?" I teased. Phil grunted something unintelligible in return.
As I climbed down the ladder, the fuel truck pulled up alongside the t-bird. One of the men in the truck ran over to me, while the others pulled a hose toward the Banshee's fuel cap. I jerked my thumb over my shoulder back toward the Banshee. "Fill 'er up. While you're at it, check the tires and clean the windshield?"
In the dim light, I could almost make out a smile on the crew chief's face. "Would you also like me to check the oil?"
"Nah. I got a million-kilo tune-up next week, I'll check it then."
"You got it," said the crew chief with a mock salute. He then turned to attend to his crew. "Okay, you guys, let's move with a purpose! Lady's got a plane to catch."
"Hey Phil, I'm going to go find Johnny," I called out to my partner. "You hang around and check for battle damage. Oh, and see if we can get some heavier ordnance."
"Gotcha, Jo-girl!" Phil's voice faded in the distance as I made my way over to Johnny's t-bird.
I ran into him halfway there, as he was walking over to come see us. "I'm glad to see you're still with us, Josie."
"Yeah, so am I." I recounted to him our dogfight with the other Banshee. Johnny's brow widened as I told him what Phil and I suspected.
"Are you saying someone set you up?" Johnny asked incredulously.
"I'm just saying it's an awfully strange coincidence we got bushwhacked twice the same way," I replied evenly. As the newcomer to this crew, I wasn't in a position to be leveling accusations. "You don't work for anyone, do you?"
Johnny shook his head. "No, we're completely independent, like most smugglers. Most of my logistical contacts, like the guys refueling your bird, I've worked with for several years, so I can trust them."
"Well, to get that good a drop on us, twice, someone had to have known our route in advance. I hate to say it, but it's the only thing that makes sense," I concluded.
Johnny shrugged and changed the subject. "I gotta go over and pay the refit guys and talk to Phil. Have you gotten the latest navigation data from Clio?"
I shook my head. "No, not yet. Something up?"
"Clio just got off Shadowland and told me there's been a recent raid by Tir forces against Rinelle rebels around Seneca," Johnny noted. "That's a little too close to us, so I thought we'd take a more easterly route."
"I'll head over and download the mapchip overlay from her."
* * *
I clambered up the handholds on Johnny's Banshee to get to the turret hatchway. I could see a trio of ghostly rectangular eyes blinking randomly at me; Clio must be busy with the monitors in her cabin, and some of the monitors' illumination escaped out around the hatch window slits.
As my boots clomped on the t-bird's top, the hatchway opened and Clio emerged from below. The display monitors inside bottom-lit her silhouette, making her ascent like a restless phantom from its grave.
"I have new navigational data for you." Clio's voice had as much life as the ghostly illusion.
I held up my hand to interrupt her. "I know, I talked to Johnny. You have a map chip for me?"
"Wait a moment." Clio descended down the gunner's hatch in as ghostly a manner as she had risen. I glanced down the hatch and saw a multitude of consoles, far more than necessary for an ordinary gunner and making the normally roomy turret as cramped as the pilot's seat. I had already guessed that Clio served double-duty for Johnny as both navigator and decker. (Quite normal with most smuggling groups, who hack weather and navigational satellites, not only for the latest forecast, but also to spy on border activity.) Confirming my guess was the tricked-out Fuchi Cyber-8 sitting to the left of the gunner's seat, a deck with so many modern upgrades that belied its antiquity.
Clio's hand suddenly appeared in my face as she thrust a mapchip out to me. "Here's the new route overlay. It will take us through an area with high paranimal activity. You should prepare for opposition."
I took the chip from her. "Well, at least the paracritters shouldn't bushwhack us."
I couldn't see her face with her silhouette backlit, but I could tell that it had twisted into a frown. "What do you mean by that?"
"Hm? Oh, nothing." Clio's suddenly suspicious tone set off an alarm in my head, so I put on my best poker face.
Clio climbed out of the hatch to look at me. Her head cocked to one side as she tried to read me. "No, it's not nothing. What do you mean that the paracritters 'shouldn't bushwhack us'?"
I continued to keep up my stone-faced look. "Nothing. Phil told me about how Gonzales got geeked, but I don't think we have to worry about something like that happening again."
"Mmm hmm." It didn't sound like Clio believed that, but she didn't press the issue. She turned back and descended back into the turret. "We take off again in an hour. Make sure you're ready to leave by then."
* * *
Phil's voice cut in over the whine of the turbines. "I got something showing up on thermo."
"Yeah," I responded as I shifted restlessly in the pilot's seat.
The ork apparently wasn't reassured. "Hey, Jo-girl, don't go to sleep on me."
"I'm not." That much was true. Although it was way past midnight, I'd been jacked in for the past seven hours, which messed up my biological clock so I couldn't sleep if I wanted to. In fact, I was so keyed up I was flying on manual, with only the minimal simsense to keep us from ramming into the mountainside.
"Well, you want to do something about it, or should we just let it walk up and say 'hi'?" Phil was getting annoyed.
I glanced at the sensors. The contact was radiating in the far-infrared spectrum, not hot enough to be a vehicle. That must mean that it was a paracritter, and judging by the sensor feed, a pretty big one, too.
I reached up to my flight helmet and clicked on the mike. "Looks like
a critter, Phil. I'm not getting a good fix on sensors, though. Can you scout it out on astral?"
"No probs, Jo-girl." As Phil's voice cut out, I felt a brief shiver up my spine and noticed a slight distortion in the forward visual sensors, probably Phil's astral form shooting forward and passing through me and the sensor dome. While technology and magic don't mix, I've always noticed some distortion whenever I watched magic through sensors, centered around the spellslinger. Not enough to interfere, but still enough to notice.
While Phil was having his out-of-body experience, I decided to slip into mine. I reached forward with my left arm to press a simsense-generated button floating in front, and the darkened view of the cabin interior dissolved into the green-tinted Low-Light view of the surrounding landscape. I could feel my pulse quicken slightly as the simsense translated the engine activity into bodily sensations.
I reached out with a virtual hand and called up the communications window. "Speedy Delivery, this is Angelfire. We got a contact on long-range, possibly a biological. Ghost Rider's checking it out on the astral. Over."
"Roger, Angelfire. Check it out and advise. Out." As Johnny's radio cut out, I dove forward as the engines kicked on the afterburners.
"Awww, frag!" Phil's voice suddenly cut into the intercom as he snapped back into consciousness. "Bad news, Jo-girl, it's a thunderbird. Actually, two thunderbirds. And I mean bird, as in feathers, wings, and bad attitude."
"What?" I looked at the scanners again. He was right-there were two signatures, so close together that they only looked like one at casual glance. "Can't be right. Even two birds don't create that big a thermal signature."
"Look, Jo-girl, I ain't drekking ya," said Phil. "Maybe they got SURGEd or mutated to grow big, but those are definitely thunderbirds. One of 'em almost tagged my astral form with a lightning strike."
"Oh, crapola." Thunderbirds are a kind of Awakened giant eagle that generate lightning storms around them. If a thunderbird hit our Banshee with its lightning bolts, it could fry the rigger control module and generate nasty ASIST spikes that would turn my noggin into hot Sloppy Soy.
"Looks like they're heading our way," I noted. "You didn't attract their attention, did you?"
"No," denied Phil, "I think they're just hunting for dinner. Thunderbirds are dual-natured, so I probably startled them when I showed up in the astral. I zipped out of there after that."
"Well, they're definitely heading our way," I observed. "They're still a ways out, so we can probably just alter course and take evasive action."
"Good idea, Jo-girl," agreed Phil. "Critters generally leave you alone if you leave them alone, and I've already seen too many dogfights on this trip."
I keyed the communications window and radioed Johnny. "Speedy Delivery, this is Angelfire. Confirmed the biological as two giant thunderbirds. Probably SURGEd or something. Suggest we break off and take evasive action, over."
There was no reply from Johnny. "Speedy Delivery, do you copy? Over."
I glanced back to make sure Johnny was still there. Not only was he there, he was gunning his engines to catch up. "Johnny, did you hear me? We should break off and leave them alone. Over!"
As Johnny's t-bird closed on mine, his turret turned on us and opened fire. Giant sparks flew, and the aircraft shuddered slightly to the right as the autocannon slugs strafed down the left flank. I felt a sharp pain in my left arm as one of the slugs penetrated through the armor on the canard and struck a circuit box.
"JOHNNY! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!?" I screamed. Phil swung the turret to return fire, but his shots went low and whizzed underneath the belly of the Banshee.
"I can't get a good fix on 'im, Jo-girl!" yelled Phil through the intercom. "His ECM must be jamming our sensors!"
"He damaged one of the control circuits for the port flaps, but it's not serious." I fought to keep the t-bird under control. I could keep flying straight, but right turns were going to be a slitch. "Phil, if I can get behind him, think you can disable his engines and force him down in one piece?"
"I'll try, but it's gonna be- what's he doing now?!?" As Phil shouted out in confusion, the turret on Johnny's t-bird snapped forward and let out a long burst at the two thunderbirds. The flurry of rounds flitted through the air between the two critters, but the t-bird made no effort to walk the fire towards either one of them. As soon as it had their attention, the t-bird launched a flare, momentarily blinding my Low-Light vision. Although I couldn't see, the radar tracked the craft as it ducked into a side valley and hightailed out.
"He hosed us, Phil," I said. "He riled up those two thunderbirds and then popped a flare to screen his escape. Those two birds will think we shot them and come after us."
"Jo-girl, look out!" One of the thunderbirds swooped above the aircraft. The tip of one wing brushed against the side, and sparks flew from incidental contact. I yelped in pain as a simsense spike shot through my head.
The other thunderbird rose high into the sky and joined the tips of its wings together. Lightning bolts crackled from the wingtips as an electrical aura began to form around the bird. As the bird parted its wings, the aura burst, and a torrent of lightning roared towards us.
I tensed as the lightning storm overwhelmed the craft. Many of the bolts crackled harmlessly past. One struck us, but the electricity seemed to wash over. Little sparks popped as the lightning crossed over some rough surfaces, and I felt sharp pinpricks on random parts of my body as ASIST spikes pulsed across the simsense. As quickly as the electrical torrent had arrived, it passed us by.
I blinked in surprise that we survived mostly unscathed. "Phil…?"
Phil was breathing heavily into the mike. "Spell defense. Never tried that against a critter. Get us outta here-I need to catch my breath."
Pulling up on a virtual flight stick, I cut loose on the throttle. The aircraft pointed upwards at an angle and roared as the afterburners kicked in. We were out of there at the crack of a whip as the t-bird broke the sound barrier, leaving the real birds spinning in our vapor trails.
* * *
"Frag!" I cursed, as the flashlight slipped from my headband and clattered on the t-bird's hull. I got up from where I was kneeling over the circuit box and tried to stretch the kinks out of my back. Massaging my neck, I looked up into the starry night sky.
The sonic boom caused by our getaway undoubtedly set off a number of ground sensors, especially considering how close we were to the Tir Tairngire border. So I found a remote valley a few dozen kilometers northeast in Salish territory to set down, cool our heels, and make some necessary repairs.
I picked up my jacket from where it was lying and put it back on to ward off the night chill. As I bent down to pick up the flashlight, I heard the faint thumping of helicopter blades in the distance. Switching on the Low-Light amplifiers in my cybereyes, I scanned the surrounding slopes and spotted Phil clambering down from his vantage point on the hillside.
"See anything?" I asked.
"Naw, we're clear," Phil replied as he approached. "The only thing was that patrol copter you heard, and it was heading away from us. We should be alone for at least a few hours."
"Good. Get up here and help me pull out this LRU." I held out a hand to help Phil up onto the canard. Seeing the circuit box I had been struggling with, Phil got down to look. Finding a handhold, he reached in and pulled it out a little more. Seeing where the box had caught on a jagged edge, I put the heel of my boot on it and kicked. Between the two of us we managed to wriggle the box out, albeit with much struggle and profanity.
With the circuit box out, it was much easier to repair the damaged sections I had been trying to fix. Phil stood over to watch as I knelt down to attend to the box. "How long d'ya think this'll take, Jo-girl?"
"Shouldn't be more than a few minutes, now that the box is out," I guessed.
Phil walked off and plopped down to sit on top of the turret. His head hung in defeat. "I'm sure Johnny's already halfway to Denver by now with our commission."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that."
The ork raised his head to look at me. "Why not?"
"I logged onto Shadowland after we landed," I replied. "Remember that Tir raid Clio mentioned? Well, whoever called it in got it wrong. Someone else posted later with a correction; it was actually a cross-border raid into Salish territory near Boise, and that lies smack dab in the middle of the new route."
"He could just find a new route," Phil countered.
"Not after all that noise we made. Every Salish and Tir patrol within a hundred kilometers of Boise has got to be on alert. Lucky we headed in the opposite direction." I closed the lid on the circuit box. It wasn't the best of patch-ups, but it should at least hold up to Denver (assuming we made it that far, of course).
I waved my gunner over to help me set the circuit box back in place. It was a lot easier to put back in than it was to take out. Phil placed a steel plate over the hole and mumbled a few words under his breath. The plate momentarily glowed red as the edges softened and melded with the rest of the armor. The ork stood up and admired his handiwork. "Kinda sloppy, but it should hold up."
I picked up a rag to wipe my hands clean. "Now all we have to do is find a needle in a thousand kilometer haystack."
* * *
"You sure about this, Phil?"
"Trust me, Jo-girl, I know just about all of Johnny's hideaways," reassured Phil. "If you think Johnny went this way to beat the heat, then this hideout is the perfect spot."
"No, I didn't mean that," I clarified. "I was asking, are you sure he's not going to spot us this way?"
