Some appropriate music (it gets louder fast after the quiet beginning, a heads up on the volume):
Chapter XII
„We’re going offroad, head north into the forest!” You shout into Paul’s ear.
„Are you crazy?” He replies, needless to say he isn’t pleased with the plan.
„I am your superior officer, that is an order!” You swiftly remind him.
“Very well.” The Unteroffizier acknowledges reluctantly. “Good thing I recorded a new farewell vid before embarking on this suicide mission.” He grumbles.
Two old Japanese cars, pursuing you like a pair of sharks that just smelled blood, their sirens wailing mercilessly. Deceleration, a sharp turn – the van is off the ring-road and heading north. Its pursuers – relentless, still on its tail.
“They’re still after us, can’t we go any faster?” You pester Paul.
“We can if you give me a damn Spacetech rocket booster!” He replies sarcastically, while pressing the gas pedal as hard as possible.
“Shouldn’t we try shooting them?” Sven asks.
“Not yet, if we use weapons we’re guaranteed to piss them off. It is better if we only resort to that if we fail to lose them.” You explain.
A persistent cacophony rings inside your head, the sound of the van’s roaring engine mixed with the wail of the pursuing Maibatsu Striders. Toledo becomes more distant with each second, the last of its lights disappears over the horizon in the van’s mirror. It is only you and the two cop cars, caught in a dangerous chase.
Another sharp turn followed by a bump in the road, your head hits the roof of the van.
“Watch it!” You yell at Paul.
“Better hang on then, this road isn’t getting any more comfortable in the near future.” Your driver replies.
You look in the mirror again, a cloud of dust obscures the silhouettes of the two police cars, their lights are barely visible from behind the dusty veil. But they are still there, trying to hunt you down.
“Scheisse!” Paul curses as he makes a sharp turn, the centrifugal force launches you straight into the van’s right side.
“Fucking visibility, almost hit a damn tree, damn Spaniards should have cut that thing down!” He adds. A loud crash echoes in the forest soon afterwards.
“Ha! The asshole must have missed that. No match for my driving skills now wasn’t he?” Paul gloats.
“I don’t see the other one.” You comment.
“They probably stopped to help.” Oskaras suggests.
“Where did you learn to drive a van like that?” Sven asks, that is indeed a good question – you think.
“I picked it up somewhere along the way.” He answers vaguely, is there something he doesn’t want to tell you about? At times it seems like everyone in this damn squad is hiding something.
You lost them, soon afterwards you resumed your travel towards the southern coast. After about an hour the van stops at the side of some backwater road.
“What happened?” You ask Muller.
“We’re out of fuel.” He answers.
“Already, how?” You query, annoyed by what Paul just said.
“Probably hit a snag and punctured the tank, you know, during that chase and all.” Paul explains.
“Then check it and fix it.” You order.
“You do realized we’re in the middle of nowhere with no fuel?”
“Yes and do you realize you are talking to your superior who just gave you an order? Cut the crap and show me respect or at least fake it.” You scold him. “Now check that tank and fix it.”
“I’m going.” He sighs before leaving the van with a toolkit at his side.
Paul dives beneath the van with a flashlight in his right arm, making a lot of noise as he keeps hitting various metal parts on the vehicle’s underside with it.
“I told you to fix it not to completely demolish it.” You comment irritated by his lack of progress.
“Don’t panic, I have this under control, not the first time I fixed something like this. It’s a ridiculously small hole, I’ll just plug it.” The Unteroffizier replies annoyed. “There, all done. Now we just need fuel.”
“We have a back up canister in the back, should last us until the nearest gas station. Now let’s just get moving.” You say. “I have had enough of Spain for a lifetime.”
The engine starts, the van resumes its journey south. This time you take the wheel while Paul guards the hacker in the back.
*
You drive south down the road, a pair of lights appears in your mirror. It accelerates getting closer and closer before driving to your side. A dirty Maibatsu Rancher pickup, two people sitting in the back, one of them waving his old QBZ-3 assault rifle around, both of them have their heads covered in dark rags. The driver in the front is accompanied by another towel-wearing scumbag with a rifle, he seems keen on pointing it at you.
“Pull over!” The other desert-dweller in the back yells, as he keeps making hand gestures, just in case you fail to hear him over the sound of your engine. Might as well see what these morons want before you shoot them. After all, their kind seems very susceptible to not expecting you to fight back, if you don’t start shooting the second you see them. The team knows what to do, they’re ready and waiting for your signal.
“Go ahead Sahir, see if you like anything.” The armed militant tells the one who told you to pull over. Sahir walks up to the driver’s side window and stares at you, after he takes off the rag covering his face.
“Ah, so nice, pretty.” Sahir muses as he gazes upon you lustfully. “A rare jewel, one I should seize for myself this night.” He says with a grin on his face as he touches your hair. He is a dead man.
Before Sahir even notices your move, your right arm is right in front of his face. He wonders why it stopped just centimeters away from it, why you didn’t just break his jaw with it. His curiosity is satisfied when the SMG hidden inside its frame exposes itself, and makes a bloody mess out of Sahir’s face. Yeah, that’s not how you should talk to a lady Sahir, at least not one as armed as you – you think after witnessing his bloody end.
“Kill the infidels!” Zafir, the jihadist driver, shouts.
Paul and Oskaras jump out of the van’s back. Paul fires at the rifle-armed islamist in the back, the raghead’s chest absorbs his three-round burst. Ali thinks of all the virgins he’s supposed to get in Paradise, just before he loses consciousness due to all the trauma he just suffered.
The Lithuanian shoots at the Arabic driver with his rifle, just as Zafir tries to jump out of the vehicle, however the driver manages to get into cover behind the pickup just in time.
Sven jumps out of the van as well, he hides behind the front right wheel of the van before unleashing a deadly storm of bullets. Ahmed, who was sitting next to the driver, now feels a sharp pain in his shoulder, he grips the wound with his hand grimacing in pain, before dropping his weapon on the pickup’s floor as he expires.
“Ha! You Alis make for easy prey, I’ve seen Elk that’s harder to kill than you!” The Swede mocks his enemies.
Only one target remains, he hides behind the Maibatsu Rancher, pinned down by the shower of bullets. Armed only with a machete, Zafir attempts to grab his dead comrade’s rifle, unluckily for him, as dark as it may be, you see his foolish attempt thanks to your SMG cam’s night vision. His brain gains a new projectile-drilled ventilation shaft soon afterwards.
“Well, that’s the last of them. Check if any is still breathing, put them out of their misery. I’ll see if our guest of honor is ok.”
You tell the team.
The Spanish woman lies tied up in a corner. You remove her gag, she takes a deep breath.
“Are you alright?” You ask her.
“Yes, no, I don’t know.” She answers confused, terrified.
“Are you hurt?” You ask again.
“No, I think.” She’s still shaken, not really sure of what is happening.
“You look fine enough, here have some food.” You hand her one of the energy bars you took with you. She stares at it suspiciously for a moment before finally grabbing it.
“Hey boss, Ali and Ahmed donated fuel to the war effort.” Paul announces. “We’ve got enough to reach the coast now, no need to stop at a station, I just need to finish pumping it.”
She stares at Paul, a puzzled look appears on her face. She doesn’t understand German it seems.
“I did my part, you paid me the other half. I would give you back the money, if you’re not satisfied. I know I didn’t do all that you wanted, thought we were good, since you transferred the second half of the payment. No need to grab me like that, we could have just talked it over.” The hacker whimpers.
You ignore her, she doesn’t need who you are or why you took her, at least not until she’s in Europareich territory.
“Eat, we’ll talk about that later.” You reply after a moment of silence.
“It’s not about the money is it, are you mercs hired by the DSE? Shit, should have figured they could hire some, even if it is a small corp. But I did nothing in the end, just took a stroll in the network.” She mumbles, scared.
“*Eat*, this is the last chance to do it for a while. Enjoy it while you can.” You tell her again, this time in a harsher tone.
Once she’s done you gag her once again. The van heads out.
*
Daylight, you’re about halfway to the southern coast. The van moves lazily towards the south along the filled with holes roads. You can see it clearly now, signs that there is a war going on out here. Abandoned homes, gardens turned into a lunar-like crater field. Things that ordinary people worked a lifetime for, only to be turned to rubble by a bunch of fanatics hell-bent on killing infidels. But it matters little who is fighting who, you guess, in the end the people caught between suffer the most.
You notice something in the rear-view mirror, it looks like a Chinese jeep rip-off. An RPG launcher hangs outside of the right-side window. Somebody fires a rifles in the air as a warning.
“Halt and your lives will be spared!” Somebody yells from the vehicle behind you.
“We can’t stop here, this is jihadist country.” Sven jokes, quietly.
“Well, you know the drill.” You tell him with a certain tone of boredom noticeable in your tone. You haven’t seen this many Ahmeds since you left France.
“Of course.” Gefreiter Borg says as he prepares his submachine gun for another firefight.
The van stops at the side of the road, the jihadist vehicle stops in front of it. A towel-covered militant with an RPG launcher exits it as his friend keeps pointing his rifle at you. The rocket armed goon approaches the driver’s side window.
“What do we have here, foreigners? Your governments will pay use a nice ransom yes, make Abdul rich man.” The wannabe kidnapper muses. How ironic, kidnappers running into kidnappers. Too bad Abdul and friends don’t know that, probably would have avoided you like the plague if they did.
“Check the back Ali!” Abdul orders his comrade.
Ali walks up to the van’s rear door, he opens it. To his surprise he does not see a pile of German cleaning products, such as the “Schmutz Raus” dish washing detergent, but a Lithuanian and a German, both armed with assault rifles.
“Curse you foul djinn!” Ali yells just before falling under a barrage of automatic fire.
You punch Abdul with your cyber-limb and hit the gas pedal as he falls to ground. The vehicle runs into a slight bump as it moves forward, probably ran over Abdul’s toes with the van’s rear left wheel you guess.
Paul locks one of the rear doors. At the same moment Sven attempts to shoot Abdul as the van is moving away, he hits one of his legs crippling him even further. Needless to say Albdul isn’t going anywhere for the rest of his life.
The van rides away leaving a sole survivor behind to bury the other jihadists.
*
You’re getting closer to the coast, the driving is becoming rather monotonous as you travel along a single road between some hills, not even a single turn leading elsewhere for another 5 kilometers. The van makes a sharp turn behind yet another one of them, as you quickly realize a most troublesome sight is hidden behind it.
“Scheisse!” You curse. “Damn Spaniards put up a checkpoint here!” You yell upon the sight of two jeep-like lightly armored vehicles, with soldiers standing in the middle of the road between them thus blocking it.
“What now?” Paul asks.
“Well, think fast. We can turn back but it will look very suspicious. They’ll definitely chase us, maybe call in drones for support or a patrol. It’s going to be a hunt for the great white Raul’s Cleaning Goods van. We can’t just let them search the damn thing, they’ll see the hacker and get suspicious after all.”
“Hey, I can be very persuasive, maybe they’ll fall for my obvious charms and let us go.” Muller interrupts you.
“Can’t we just ambush them and shoot them like with the other natives? They can’t call back up if they’re dead.” Sven suggest a blood-thirsty option as usual.
“If you want to deal with pissed off politicians we could, probably a better choice than spending the rest of your life in a Spanish jail caught in some diplomatic bullshit. The Ahmeds there like it when you drop the soap I hear.”
“Ram them. Full speed, now or never.” The Unteroffizier suggests as he gets another idea.
“And you said I was crazy.” You reply to Paul’s idea.
“If we’re lucky they’ll think this is a kamikaze jihadist truck and run away. The element of surprise will increase our odds of success.” Muller adds.
“Or they’ll be wannabe tough guys that fight till they die, probably showering us with lead until then. They’ll probably call back up afterwards.”
“Or they may run away and be too afraid to mention to their superiors, that they soiled their pants as they *let* a vehicle past their checkpoint.”
“Might as well just ram the guard rail at the side of the road and tumble downhill. Go out with a bang, you know.” Oskaras suggests, you’re not sure whether he is joking or not.
Decisions decisions.
You will deal with the checkpoint by…
A)…turning back and seeing if this van can ditch them as they attempt to follow you.
B)…going through it like a good citizen. Bluff or bribe your way out of having to submit to a search.
C)…ambushing them. Political ramifications? Better that than Spanish prison.
D)…using the “Adama Tactic”. That is to say, ram the frak fuck out of the checkpoint, full speed.
E)…going downhill. See them try to chase you down there*.
*you have no fucking idea what is down there. Could be a minefield for all you know
, ok I’m not that sadistic. The fall is at least ten meters downwards, could be as much as 30 or 40.
Note, if you fail to lose them odds are you will need to make use of your weapons anyway. Unless you just want to surrender and call it a day, thus putting an end to Ida’s military career.
Ahmeds and Alis are the kobolds of Europareich 2057....