The Free Citizen by TJ Sedgwick

Author:TJ Sedgwick [Sedgwick, TJ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781072856351
Published: 2019-09-01T16:00:00+00:00

12

He that fights and runs away, May turn and fight another day;

But he that is in battle slain, Will never rise to fight again.

Tacitus

R ae and Cora watched the armored escort rush under their perch on the iron bridge. Seconds later, tires screeched in protest as the lead APC’s headlights found the concrete debris Rae had left on the road. The near-kilometer-long convoy following the four APCs stopped in seconds and the three aerial drones swooped towards the debris on the highway. They hovered above the debris blocking the road, observing, awaiting commands. The APCs’ turrets came to life, sweeping the dark hinterland with their sensor arrays, their spotlights searching for the bandits that had dared block their path. One of the drones zipped vertically into the sky and buzzed around high overhead, another accelerated ahead to the south, the third hovered cautiously above the regrowth, then over the remains of the collapsed factory, advancing towards the burning van behind it.

“We need to move while there’s only one drone overhead,” he whispered urgently. “If our heat emissions are low enough, they won’t detect us on infrared. Hesitate and we’re dead. Jump with me.”

He held her gloved hand and they fell towards the trailer, sailing through the darkness. The hard jolt of the rope arrested his fall just inches short of the trailer’s roof. There beside him, hung Cora with the rope around her waist. He pulled the loose end of the knot to release himself. She copied him, landing cat-like on the balls of her feet.

“Get down,” he whispered, going prone, Cora doing the same.

He leopard-crawled to the back edge of the trailer. The roar of the van fire and the buzz of drones was punctuated by barked words from soldiers who’d left the lead escort to shift the debris blocking the road ahead. Rae poked his head down and examined the trailer’s sidewall. Lightweight and low cost. Nothing high-security about the dry-box trailer. Any bandits capable of taking out the Army APCs, a hundred troops, and three military drones, weren’t going to be thwarted by a dry-box trailer no matter how good its security. They were inside the security bubble now. They had to avoid detection for long enough to get into the trailer. He took off his backpack and withdrew the sturdy survival knife, clenching it in his teeth, before sliding feet-first over the side. Gravity pulled him down and he grasped the rim at the top and hung, first with two hands, then one, as he took the knife from his teeth and plunged it into the thin aluminum siding. He carefully sawed a line along the panel’s joint—easier to cut, easier to hide the cut. Every so often, when the burning in his muscles became too much, he’d swap arms and continue. There was no way of knowing what was inside—hopefully something that would allow them to get in. If not, he’d need to risk throwing stuff out to make room. With the rest of the convoy passing the jettisoned stuff, that’d be a last resort.

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