Tally Road Original Story- Chapter 12

"About seventy percent of the ground vehicles got out OK! Maybe forty percent of the aircraft! We've got to reach Verss and then we can scatter and go to ground!"

Hals was yelling back to his passengers as he handled the big truck, yelling to be heard over the engine roar and road rumble- he'd been continually on the radio for the first few minutes, and was up to speed on the situation.

"Why only forty percent?" asked Boodins.

"They couldn't get out with the first wave of vehicles, the roof fell in!" said Hals, and Boodins winced.

Hals noticed it. "They were good people! But they'd want us to get away, even if they couldn't! We got enough to think about right now!"

Rairate was doing just that. "What type of attack are they likely to make? They're not closing on us, the planes are holding back."

Hals cackled. "Of course they are!"

"What do you mean? You people are a disorganized rabble! How can you be a threat to them?"

"We're not!" replied Hals. "Don't you get it? You know what they're usually doing?"

Rairate controlled his temper. "No. Please tell me, 'aons."

"They protect the road!" Hals yelled back over his shoulder so everyone could hear. "If the road was damaged seriously, Verss would collapse within days! Airstrips can't handle the demand!"

Rairate considered this. "Then what are they going to do?"

"I don't know! Don't think they know! Can you watch them for me? I can't see them clearly from here, and I have to be looking forward anyway."

Rairate nodded. He made his way back, past Boodins who was gawking at the crush of madly racing vehicles around and behind the truck, and was just taking a position where he could curl up on a seat and scan the sky out the back window when he noticed Dene. She was crying.

"What's the matter?" asked Rairate, and promptly felt foolish. Even he was feeling out of sorts.

"I think she's dead."

Rai blinked, his ears back. "Who? If you're feeling sorry for that, that..."

"Siertes. Her name was Siertes." said Dene.

"Whose... not that Tompar assassin? Dene, how on earth did you know her name? She was following us!"

"She told it to me. She called me a crazy wolfess, and she spared my life." Dene sniffled. "It was a bad way to die, I think."

"You saw her get hit in the crossfire, I take it?"

"No! No, I was lying on the floor of the truck and I heard something from underneath. She would curse this funny curse..."

Rairate nodded. "Yes- 'is'. For them that is also a prayer and the nearest they have to a blessing. You heard her under the truck?"

"She was hanging onto the exhaust pipe and when the engine turned on, that's when I heard her. I knocked on the floor twice. I don't know what she thought- but then she knocked back, twice."

"But," said Rairate, "a burn from an exhaust pipe wouldn't kill her."

"When we hit that ramp I heard a grinding noise and a scream..."

Rairate winced. "You're right- that's bad. But it's probably pretty quick." Dene looked unconsoled, and Rai hastened to soothe her as best he could. "Dene, she was a Tompar assassin, and a very good one apart from being useless with technological things. That's a very demanding thing to be. I don't know who hired her, or why she was following us, but you should know what that means."

Dene sniffled a bit. "Meant her life. And she spared mine."

"I never heard about that," said Rairate. "When was this?"

"That was the day I lost my job- actually, she also got me fired, she screwed up a timestamp and I got busted for hacking. She had me up against the wall, ready to kill me, trying to find information about you two, you and Boodins. She knew about that Elistary, too. But she let me go because I was panicking. And you heard her say she wouldn't hurt me."

"Dene, she might still have hurt you if she'd found a need to. She'd say 'Is!' and do it- but we don't need to be concerned about that now. My point is... well, even if she had known what would happen from clinging to the bottom of the truck, she might still have tried it, in case it worked. They're like that. It's a little awe-inspiring," admitted Rairate, "they're so stoic and tough. Some places don't even allow Tompar on the planet at all, like..."

"The plane's diving!" yelped Boodins excitedly.

Rairate cursed and scrambled for the back window. "Looks like a strafing run!" he cried. "He's not lining up on us, it looks like the target is the guy closest to the wall. Is that their usual strategy?"

"They don't have a usual strategy for this!" replied Hals. "We've never hit the road en masse before! Yeah, that's the target- good thing he's armored. What's that other one doing?"

Another plane was moving in from the side. A belly turret rotated, sighting on the same target, as the plane matched speed with the convoy. Rai stared for a moment, and then understood.

"They're not going to try to blow us all up- they're trying to turn us! They're going to try to force you away from the wall by attacking the far left edge of the convoy."

Hals snorted. "They are, are they? We'll see about that!"

He got on the radio again, and it wasn't possible to hear everything he said, but the gist of it suggested that the convoy would hug the wall, and keep full speed- presently, Hals turned again, yelling back over the engine noise with a cocky air. "They're not the only ones who can play that game! Watch this!"

The Ungovernment planes, a motley collection of aircraft, had been engaging with the government planes to little effect, trying to draw them off the convoy as it raced ever closer to the big city. Now, that plan was altered.

A vast transport plane that had been flying the same direction unexpectedly swooped in, heedless of the other aircraft, and it dropped a notch of flaps and was seen deploying speed-brakes, squared panels jutting out into the airstream to impose drag.

It ponderously matched speed with the convoy, and began to sink lower and lower, slightly ahead and to the left of Hals' vehicle. The plane was large enough for its fuselage and wings to shadow the sun- Boodins cringed, as the jet exhausts shook the truck, for it looked as if the plane was inches from crashing right into them. There was a burst of gunfire from one of the attacking planes, and then it stopped, and the convoy tore on with the massive aircraft leading it, unmolested.

Hals crowed with delight. "It worked! Hope the stragglers are okay. They can't touch us now! They don't know how full or empty those fuel nacelles are!"

Boodins whimpered, and Dene appeared awed into silence, leaving only Rairate to ask, "Do they normally fly as low as that? Are you trained for it?"

"Course not! If he slips up, we're all dead! But that's just it, don't you see? If he crashes, the explosion from his plane, and our cars and trucks and things, it'll completely tear up the road! They can't even try to force us out of the high traffic zone now, for fear Kend will crash! The shooting's stopped completely, do you hear?"

It was hard to hear anything. The jet exhaust buffeted the truck brutally. Dene hugged Boodins, who whimpered again, terrified and staring unblinkingly as the huge plane shifted, speedbrakes flaring out and merging into the fuselage again, drifting over them on the edge of a stall. There was a grinding noise overhead and Boodins yelped and started trembling.

Hals was on the radio again. "Kend, dammit, you don't have to show off- don't be scraping us, you psychotic bastard! Leave a cushion!"

The giant plane began grudgingly rising, in a howl of redoubled jet exhaust. Hals cursed. "Some of the lighter vehicles are having trouble with that. I saw someone go end-over-end when the blast got under them. They'd better hang on, we'll hit Verss in not much more than half an hour. My concern is what we're going to do with the plane guys then."

"I don't understand." said Rairate.

"The conduit goes right through Verss. We're going to scatter, I called ahead to line up places for everyone to dive into, mostly on the lower levels. Most of the planes can't do that. They depend on being able to land at official airstrips, and they're going to be met with police if they're lucky and artillery if they're not. Well, some of the little ones ought to be able to find places to put down, but the big guys like Kend, they'll never find a place. We gotta..." said Hals, and broke off into muttering and talking on the radio again, as the road screamed by and the giant plane drifted overhead.

The government aircraft kept pace, stalking the convoy- their numbers gradually depleted by their work picking off stragglers. If a stray vehicle or two faltered, a plane would swoop in, firing at the straggler and trying to disable it. A tire would blow, or a body panel would be ripped off by the force of the wind, and the vehicle would be forced to veer off, the plane diving down on its prey.

Boodins watched closely, but there weren't any explosions. They seemed to be police aircraft in their way- they disabled the Ungovernment vehicles and captured them, but didn't try to kill the occupants. The convoy acted similarly- there was a continuing light weapons fire, as if to keep everyone alert, but neither side was making an all-out assault on the other.

The terrain was flat, but there was a mountain on the horizon, and they were heading for it. The giant transport plane hung overhead, drifting slightly and hanging onto the air by juggling the use of flaps, throttle, speed-brakes and, perhaps, desperate grovelling prayer. Keeping pace with ground vehicles was an impossibly tough task for so large an aircraft, one that was designed for supersonic cargo transport.

The other planes weren't going away. They dogged the convoy, shifting their positions from time to time.

"They're not shooting us, but what are they doing?" asked Boodins.

Hals snorted, and yelled back, "They're photographing, that's what they're doing! Fat lot of good that will do them! Can't blame them, though- what else can they do when we got no tracers on us?"

"No what?"

"All cars have ID tracers built into them! If you aren't emitting your tracer signal, which identifies you and shows wherever you go, the police can take you in, fine you, even take your car! Trouble is, they already know we're all a bunch of bad guys, right? So it's just adding insult to injury that none of our cars have tracers either. When we hit Verss we're gonna vanish like water on sand and they know it."

"So they're photographing everybody?" asked Boodins.

"Yeah. Won't work. There's several million vehicles in a big city like Verss. They depend too much on the tracers- and even if they were used to it, the best they can do is pick out a few likely leaders and put out the word on those vehicles. And we'll just change 'em..."

The mountain was closer now. There seemed to be something odd about it. Boodins squinted, and then his jaw dropped.

That wasn't a mountain. It was Verss. It was the city.

It would have been more impressive by night. In fact, it would have been unmistakable by night, but by day the sun, even through the omnipresent smoggy overcast, outshone the city lights. It reflected off individual buildings in a confusion of glass and metal. One would quickly identify the result as a cityscape, except that individual buildings were on the scale of grains of sand on a beach.

Hals was laughing, still on the radio to others. "Metz says the cops wanted to run a roadblock!"

"Wouldn't that be a problem for us?" asked Rairate.

"No, no, get this! A number of Verss corporations are depending on time-sensitive transport deliveries coming over the road. Metz knew some private numbers and tipped 'em off, and they refused to let the cops run the roadblock! They're forbidden to impede traffic!" Hals gloated.

"So what are they going to do?" asked Boodins.

"Ask me in... oh, fifteen minutes..." said Hals.

The radio grabbed his attention again, as the convoy hurtled towards the city. "Kend, you can't do that! You can always say we put you under duress... what? Yes, I know, but... now wait a second, you want me to do what? You've got to be kidding me. No, I can see that, but... look, just veer off and hope for the... what?"

Rairate asked, "What's the matter?"

"Kend wants to join us! This is so not the right time..."

"I thought he must already be one of us," said Dene. "I mean, look at what he's doing."

"I'd rather not." said Boodins, looking nervous.

"Metaphorically! I know, it's freaking me out too. I mean, look at how he's aiding us..."

"Us?" said Rairate.

It hadn't occurred to Dene to question that. She dithered, "Well, I mean, here we are, and it's good that we got away from that place... and hey, I actually think they make a lot of sense..."

Rairate looked polite but unmoved. "I am certainly indebted for their help, but we must remember our motives, 'aons?"

"Um, and what are those?" said Dene.

Boodins offered, "Finding Finn? I mean Elistary?"

"Shut up, will you?" barked Hals. "We don't have time for this. Yeah, Kend? You gotta think of something else, it's no good..."

"What does he want?" asked Rairate.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you... Kend, you can't do it, you'll never work as a pilot again... what? Yeah, but is this the time? Oh, very funny, 'ten minutes', you're just killin' me..."

"How could he bail out of that thing? Does it have autopilot, so it can land itself?"

Hals snorted. "Yeah, right! No, they operate on such tight margins that the whole thing is manual. Autopilot would mean the company could be exposed to more liability, and intelligence is cheap but servo actuators are expensive. Hell, these guys sometimes have to land dead-stick when their hydraulic assists cut out. No autopilot."

Rairate looked disapproving. Back home on Ause, the cargo airbodies were piloted by a combination of Nerre pilots and elaborate computer systems- yet they never exceeded a sedate crawl, a mere fraction of the speed of Kend's giant transport. It was irresponsible to fill the skies with powerful, manually controlled aircraft, and worse that they were poorly maintained and flown until they fell apart. It was, however, very Runge to do so.

Hals was glancing at Rairate, speculatively. "Don't like that, do you?"

"It's not my place to comment on it."

"Would you do us the honor of helping to rescue our compatriot, vraonse?" Suddenly, Hals was coming over all diplomatic. Rai's ears perked up, and he studied the Runge intently, his tailtip twitching.

"...I will prefer not to injure or kill any more people, vraonse. But, we owe our lives to your protection... what would you have me do?"

Hals grinned, glancing manically back and forth between his passengers and the plane overhead.

"Here's what we're gonna do..."