Will watched the sky beside her. “Nothing I hate worse than the calm before battle.”
“You get used to it,” Rhea said. She glanced at him, confused. “Not sure where that came from.”
“Blame your past life,” he said.
She nodded. “Good call.”
The next few minutes passed very tensely. Finally, when all the tankers were topped up, Miles gave the order to seal the bypass.
“Careful not to close it too fast!” Miles shouted at the robots. “You’ll cause hydraulic shock!” Instigating a water hammer in a pipe of that size would probably be bad. Their goal was to steal some water from Aradne, not to cause major damage to the supply.
The robots disconnected the hoses. Rhea and the others waited a few moments in trepidation, scanning the pipeline on both sides for signs of hammering, but all seemed calm.
“Looks like we’re good!” Miles said.
“All right, time to go our separate ways,” Rhea told him. “Good luck!”
“No, good luck to you. You’re the diversion!” Miles climbed down from the tanker and darted toward one of the smaller vehicles that would be heading directly west. The canopy overhead would shield him from the spying eyes of the satellites.
Rhea could only smile wanly at his words. It was true that the three tankers were the diversion. Miles and his team were the real mission; it was important they returned at all costs.
Rhea watched them leave, then she leaped onto the rooftop of the semi and swung into the passenger seat, joining the already waiting Will and Horatio. The other two semis that composed the diversion were babysat by Renaldo and Chuck respectively. The pickup trucks with them, along with the laser turrets in their beds, were operated by AIs. Rhea had wanted Renaldo and Chuck to join the others, and Will and Horatio, too, for that matter, but they all refused to leave her. In theory she didn’t need to be here either, but she thought it would be too obvious this was a diversion if no one accompanied the semis. And she wasn’t about to order anyone else to do a job she could do herself. Not when that job was as risky as this one.
And so here she was.
The semis departed almost due south, ripping away the canopies formerly draped between the tanks and the pipeline. They were headed toward the ruins of a city located fifty kilometers away—roughly half an hour of driving. The relatively close proximity of those ruins was another reason they had chosen this particular spot to perform the operation: they hoped to take shelter there before or during the fight, because if they stayed out in the open, they had no chance at all.
Rhea kept her gaze on the western horizon. So far, the sky remained clear.
“Aradne security is late,” Will said.
“Maybe they won’t come at all,” Horatio commented.
“Don’t jinx us,” Will told the robot.
“They’ll come,” Rhea said. “It’s only a matter of time.”
“Tell me again why we’re doing this?” Will said. “We could have let the AIs operate these machines.”
“I’m insulted,” Horatio said.
“We’re selling the diversion,” Rhea said simply.
She glanced at the drones overhead. Most of them had joined the diversion: having them accompany the main convoy would’ve served only to betray their position. Besides, all that airborne weaponry would be needed in the coming fight.
Gizmo was up there, flying on the eastern edge of the drone swarm. In theory, that was the safest position at the moment, considering that side was the farthest from the incoming enemy.
She returned her gaze to the ground, which passed in a blur beside them. The terrain was rockier than she would have liked, but so far, she still hadn’t felt any jolts, courtesy of the super-gimbaled shocks.
“Giz is detecting the ruins of several skyscrapers ahead,” Will said. “Looks like we’re going to make it before the Aradne forces arrive after all.”
Rhea looked south and zoomed in. Yes, she could definitely see the tops of skyscrapers. At this distance they looked like small sticks poking up from the ground.
“Spoke too soon,” Will said. “Got several police drones incoming from nine o’clock.”
“All right, it’s time to show our Warden what we’re made of,” Chuck said over the comm. “You wanted to prove yourself in combat, Stick Arms? Well, now’s your chance.”
“You’re the one who’s going to be doing the proving,” Renaldo transmitted. “I’ll be busy fighting.”
“Good comeback,” Chuck commented. “Too bad it makes no sense.”
Rhea switched to Gizmo’s feed and spotted the combat drones approaching from the west. She recognized several different models, based on the specs Brinks and the other Wardenites had familiarized her with—specifications that weren’t available to the general public on the Net. Most were police drones drawn from different precincts, along with a few military models no doubt borrowed from the parliamentary garrisons. These latter were the size of gunships with the firepower to match.
Many of the drones were equipped with missiles, but Rhea doubted the machines would be utilizing those against the semis, not when the tractor-trailers carried tanks full of all too precious water. No, more precise weapons like lasers would be in play for this battle, which meant if she left the cabin, she’d always have to be on the move.
“Deploying laser shield,” Will announced.
Because lasers had such a long range, the enemy would be fast approaching effective firing range—if they hadn’t already.
Metallic sheets began unfolding across the windshield of the semi, and the windows on either side. They were reinforced with ballistic plates meant to repel plasma blasts and painted with a laser reflecting coating. That latter wouldn’t completely prevent the weapons from penetrating, but it would ensure that any laser strikes hit with only a quarter of their intensity. The hood and doors were similarly reinforced and coated.
The semi began swerving randomly, knowing that the AIs manning the attack drones would attempt to fire at the same spot repeatedly in order to defeat the protective metal. Random directional changes made such precise targeting all the more difficult.
There
