While LIDAR would give away any enemies, it would also betray their own positions. Which is why Will sent Gizmo silently forward, well ahead of the rest of the party, and the drone released bursts at strategic intervals, transmitting the LIDAR data to Rhea and the others to see by so that their positions wouldn’t be revealed. They also kept their own communications nodes dialed way down, just enough to remain in contact with each other if they were forced to take cover.
Rhea would have preferred not to use any LIDAR at all, and simply rely instead upon the preexisting maps to the ruins, but that wasn’t possible, considering how much the streets had changed after the Aradne bombing runs, not to mention the drone attacks on the buildings. Plus, there was also a chance they’d wander in the dark onto a street occupied by sleeping Tasins: if they wakened one of the bioweapons while in their midst, that would be the end of the team. Actually, even without LIDAR, that wouldn’t happen: the feathered creatures would show up on the thermal band in the darkness. The living ones, anyway.
With the information Gizmo relayed, they weaved around house-sized blast craters that marred the sidewalks in front of some of the buildings and circumnavigated any carcasses. Even without being able to see the latter, the smell would have given them away.
The thermal masking clothing hid the party members on the infrared band, but it did require that they wore their hoods pulled quite low—which wouldn’t actually interfere with their vision, considering how dark it was. Rhea tightened hers at that very moment.
She did keep an eye on the buildings around her. Or their wireframes on the LIDAR, anyway. Just in case any enemies out there showed up on the thermal band.
Chuck led them toward the second fallback point, which was several neighborhoods away, near the outskirts of the ruins. Some kind of theater complex whose entrance had collapsed, making the inside completely invisible to the satellites above.
When they arrived, they found the complex still intact. Within, Gizmo reported that the SUV the advance team had parked there remained untouched.
“How do we know Aradne’s drones didn’t boobytrap it?” Renaldo asked.
“Because they never even got close to this area,” Will replied. “They were too busy searching the neighborhood where the tankers were last spotted.”
“You don’t know that for sure,” Renaldo said. “There could have been some drones out there we didn’t see. Scouting the city. Exploring all the places they saw the advance team go.”
“Except the advance team would have been very careful to take advantage of lapses in the satellite coverage,” Will reminded him. “Leveraging the ever-changing blind spots to leave the SUVs in entirely different neighborhoods than where the team was last spotted.”
That answer seemed to satisfy Renaldo, because he kept his mouth shut.
“I’ll handle the activation, just in case,” Horatio said.
The robot went into the theater complex alone and when he was close enough, he remotely started the SUV. Then he had it drive toward the entrance.
Though it seemed obvious that it wasn’t boobytrapped, Rhea had everyone keep their distance.
“All right,” Rhea told Horatio when the robot returned. “Send it on its way.”
She paused a moment to watch the self-driving SUV proceed down the street. It navigated the rubble, moving as quietly as possible and keeping its headlights turned off, acting for all the world like it carried passengers. The vehicle didn’t even release any LIDAR bursts, instead relying upon the map data Gizmo had collected.
As it navigated the streets, the vehicle purposely kept close to the northern sides of the buildings, staying within the green zone. It would be another minute before it finally entered the red zone on its way out of the city.
While she waited, Rhea decided to reposition for a better view. A mid-rise building had collapsed next to the theater complex, forming a ramp of sorts to the rooftop of the latter building. She led the group up the ruins of the collapse and onto the roof of the theater complex; staying low, she positioned on the far side, so that she had a good view of the autonomous vehicle as it continued past the different buildings toward the Outlands.
The SUV entered the red zone shortly. Now, although it was driving in “stealth” mode, the vehicle had no thermal masking whatsoever, and as such would definitely show up on infrared cameras.
She waited, watching expectantly. The seconds ticked past, but nothing happened.
“Guess it’s safe after all,” Chuck muttered.
And then the vehicle exploded.
“Spoke too soon,” Chuck said.
“They kept a predator drone in the area,” Horatio said.
“That’s the only explanation,” Rhea agreed. “They wanted to kill the instigators responsible for stealing water from the pipeline.”
“It’s definitely using the spy satellites for its targeting data,” Horatio said. “Otherwise, we would have been dead hours ago.”
“So what now?” Renaldo asked. “What does this mean for us? We can’t leave this city?”
“Not yet,” Rhea said. “We wait for the advance team to return this way.”
“What’s to stop this predator from bombing the convoy, too, when we emerge with them?” Renaldo pressed. “As a precaution?”
“Nothing,” Rhea said. “But they can’t be certain we’ll be a part of it. You have to understand: the advance team is going to time their entry to coincide with the hour when the streets are most screened from the spy satellites by the buildings. As far they’ll know, the convoy was just passing through, and didn’t collect any passengers.”
“She’s right,” Horatio said. “And besides, to destroy a convoy without direct evidence is a violation of the Outland Doctrine. They could be sued by the Civilians Rights Guild.”
“And we’re
