The route I have chosen takes me past the main generating plant that supplies electricity to the ranches in Cimmero Canyon and to Menassa. The canyon floor has opened out into a broad space that nearly qualifies as a valley, rather than a canyon, with the open Adero floodplain nearly ten kilometers beyond. From the standpoint of human aesthetics, this is pretty country. I find it attractive for reasons of my own. The open terrain makes it more difficult for the Enemy to lay an ambush. There is plenty of forest cover on both slopes, which rise gently toward the heavier timber at the higher elevations, but the Enemy cannot establish firing points directly overhead, concealed from my vantage point.
This is cause for celebration, given my current pitiful state.
I parallel the main road, trying not to crush it under my remaining treads or dig massive furrows into it with naked drive wheels. Beyond the power plant lies a small cluster of single-family dwellings that house utility crews and foremen working at the Cimmero Canyon electrical generating plant. Like the massive Klameth Canyon hydroelectric dam, farther south, this plant produces power from turbines built to harness the outflow of the Bimini Reservoir, created by damming a small river that flows down through a deep, weathered gorge. The reservoir is small, compared with Klameth’s, and so is the total wattage produced by the station, but it needs to supply only the ranches in Cimmero Canyon, Manassa, and the small town of Gissa.
Even so, its generating capacity is sufficient to create a haze of background power emissions that crackle through my sensors. The plant was built sufficiently close to the road that I maneuver across a short section of pavement to reach open ground on the other side. I do not wish to knock down, even accidentally, a tower carrying high-tension wires that carry several gigawatts of electrical power. A sprawl of buildings shoulder their way past my port-side drive wheels as I grind my way toward the still-distant mouth of the canyon—
AMBUSH!
The Hellbore blast catches me flat-footed. Raw destruction slashes across my forward turret, targeting the base of my forward Hellbore. I reel. I stagger drunkenly in an attempt to swing my own Hellbores into action. I snap my defensive screen into place just as a second mobile Hellbore flashes on-line. It pours energy into my screen, which strains to contain the damage. Then both enemy Hellbores fire simultaneously, delivering a second one-two punch. It slices perilously close to the previous gouge, trying to punch through my damaged hull.
Fury sweeps through my personality gestalt center. I roar into Battle Reflex Mode, enraged. I dig my bare drive wheels into the ground and execute a spinning pivot-turn to port. I cannot reach either enemy Hellbore with direct fire, not without risking critical power-plant infrastructure. They have, naturally, hidden behind that infrastructure, hoping it will constitute an inviolate shield.
I engage with high-angle mortars. Warheads drop like blazing rain around both enemy guns. Their crews, however, have already taken evasive maneuvers. They manage to avoid the mortar rounds with minimal scorching. They shoot at me on the run, dodging and ducking behind other buildings. Several bolts strike my screens on the oblique, recharging my energy screen rather than punching through. Missed shots whip past my warhull and slam into the valley’s far slope, igniting a forest fire. I rush forward, trying to gain a vantage point from which I can shoot without taking out half the generating plant in the process. Minefield warnings sparkle on my threat-assessment processors. I disdain them, smashing my way through to reach an optimal firing position. I sustain damage to my central track, but reach my objective.
I fire on the nearest mobile Hellbore. It vanishes in a violent expansion of flame and debris. The second Hellbore rushes for cover, vanishing from visual contact behind a massive concrete building. I no longer care about collateral damage. I open fire with my forward Hellbore, punching through the concrete structure in an effort to pinhole the fleeing gun crew behind it. One, two, three blasts rip through the building, reducing it to smoking rubble and flying debris. The mobile Hellbore rushes into the open for zero point nine-two seconds, then lurches out of sight, again, behind another structure.
I give chase. I cannot move as fast as the renegade crew trying to escape my wrath. I therefore plow forward on the diagonal, crushing the corners of two houses belonging to the power plant’s utility crew. I must destroy the enemy’s heavy armaments at all cost, before the rebels deal my own death blow.
I catch a snippet of communications from somewhere nearby, probably not from the running gun crew. It is in code that I cannot break. I cannot even accurately pinpoint its origin, which prevents me from opening fire on the transmitter. The fleeing Hellbore has rushed far ahead of me, having skipped and dodged its way around sufficient bends in the valley that I cannot see it. I am able to track power emissions from its mobile platform and fire more high-angle mortars, trying to blanket the valley ahead with a shotgun peppering of rounds.
I hear detonations, but these are low-tech mortar shells, not smart-rounds that can transmit pictures back to me or allow me to fly the weapon into the target from a remote position. I have long since used up those munitions and POPPA has not seen fit to replace them. I am therefore left with a hit-or-miss proposition known as “carpet bombing” in an effort to strike a small, moving target.
I need intel. My on-board maps show several small feeder gorges into which the crew could duck and shut down, hiding successfully for hours in spaces too narrow for me to pursue. They could also continue their rushing flight through the town of Menassa, relying on the buildings and the civilians in them to deter my pursuit and attack. Or they can run for the nearest maze of major canyons, twenty kilometers south of Menassa. I do not have enough information to determine the crew’s intention. Striking out across country would be its greatest risk, but would give it a greater chance of ultimate escape, rather than temporary concealment nearby.
I target the feeder gorges with a steady barrage of mortars, hoping to create a blockade of raining munitions that will prevent the crew from taking advantage of those smaller, closer gorges as a hiding place. My inability to see what I am shooting at is infuriating. I decide the most logical move the crew could make would be to head for Menassa, which will keep it shielded for at least half of its twenty-kilometer dash toward the canyons farther south.
I therefore anticipate loss of visual contact as I reach the valley’s mouth and Menassa spreads out in its long, ropy line along Route 103. I am therefore stunned to see the Hellbore’s mobile platform rushing straight down the highway, nearly at the horizon line, within smelling distance of safety. The crew has opted for the riskier high-speed dash for safety, thinking my own progress slow enough to prevent me from overtaking them. I do not need to catch them in a road race to destroy them. I exult. I target. I acquire weapons lock. I fire. Hyper-v missiles streak down the long, beautifully straight road, locked onto the vanishing tail-lights of the racing truck.