Toreus Rhann and the Thuvian Rangers chapter 16

Chapter 16: Garage

The team stopped in an old garage at the bottom of the hill that was dominated by the St Carson’s Church. There was no guard, guard dog or guard bot at the garage so it was easy for Colin’s people to pick the lock and move inside, closing the door behind them.

Once inside they were secure. The Ranger made coffee from their ration kits and spread a flexile tactical pad on a wide table. Toreus accepted a cup of the brew and linked the Tac-Pad into Ulysses. He then sent the bird up to scout the territory. Ulysses circled the neighborhood flying high using the spire of the church as a center point that he would home in on.

“Not much pedestrian traffic,” observed Toreus.

“It’s the curfew,” said Colin. “Everyone gets off the street by 1800 hours or risk being shot.”

“The Wallaces are getting that rough?”

“Send the bird close to the steeple and I’ll show you.”

Toreus did so. The image of the church zoomed up. In the bell tower an automated sniper bot had been set up so as to take advantage of the entire zone around the church.

“I’ll be damned,” Toreus said.

“Every tower in town has one.”

Toreus shook his head. “So anyone out after the curfew gets shot dead.”

“That’s the size of it,” said Colin. “Radu Wallace and his clan don’t have a hell of a lot of respect for the lives of the common citizen.”

Toreus leaned on the table and examined the map. “we have to find a way up to that tower and take out that sniper bot. as long as it’s still functioning we have no way to get to the church and no safe way to extract the Taylors.”

Colin’s hands flew over the pad controls at the corner of the map. The image grew from two dimensional to three.

“Let’s see how much cover we have.”