The Hawaiian Special Forces

Chapter 18

They eyed the bright lights outside of Moscow warily. ::Are you sure this is a good idea?:: she asked.

::No. But do you want to spend another two months trudging towards Switzerland?::

Hokulani sighed, then shook her head slightly. They'd pushed themselves hard to get this far, and had suffered for it. Getting food had been hit or miss, but they'd managed well enough. Despite that, they knew the terrain would get worse, and the weather would get colder, the further they traveled.

::Which truck do we want to hitch a ride on?::

Hokulani scanned the vehicles at the truck stop carefully, before pointing to the one she liked. He nodded slightly. It was close to the edge of the parking lot, next to shadows. Aoloa slunk forward, careful to avoid being seen, and inspected the lock while Hokulani kept an eye on the general area, in case he needed to hide.

What he found was exactly what he'd been afraid of: a lock. Unlike before, their claws weren't suited for picking them. Instead, he made do with some bits of metal he'd scavenged on their travels. Hugging close to the trailer while his HUD displayed the people and vehicles in the area, he worked carefully. Why did we change so much? I don't have the dexterity I used to have.

::Hide! Fast!::He didn't think. He just ducked down, slipping under the trailer he'd been trying to break into. Headlights panned over him as another truck pulled in. Fortunately, the driver didn't appear to notice the black-furred creature on the blacktop of the parking lot.

He rushed back out as soon as the driver was gone. Taking a deep breath, he focused his mind, then worked at it again. This time, the lock gave way. Motioning to Hokulani, they slipped in just as they saw men with guns coming out of truck stop, armed with tire irons and other tools. ::That was too close,:: he said.

Hokulani just huddled down next to him, hidden far back in the truck while they waited for their ride to take them to Belarus. Nobody checked inside, to their relief.

---

The border checkpoint caused them... problems. Much to their dismay, the truck didn't make stops, and they had fallen asleep when the door to the trailer was slid up for an inspection. As Aoloa looked back at the door, a flashlight flickered on in his face, and he knew that his eyes were glowing like candles under that light.

Given the poor situation, he bared his teeth and growled at the guard, hoping to intimidate the man into slamming the door shut. A gunshot to the head would be a very bad outcome. ::Get behind me and stay out of sight!::

The guard backed up, but also raised his rifle to point at Aoloa, who dropped behind a heavily laden pallet. A lot of shouting followed their discovery, none of it in English, unfortunately. There were a lot of excited people outside, and they had guns. ::Any ideas, Hokulani?::

::Don't get shot.::

::Nice.:: He peeked around the corner and saw that five men had rifles pointed into the back of the truck, while several more were arguing, and the truck driver was in a heated argument with one of the guards, gesticulating wildly. ::I wish we'd used one of those vehicles with a side door, right about now.::

::Yeah, that would have been nice. Or waking up on time to avoid this.::

He sent his observations to her via comms, so she could look at the HUD and try to get ideas. ::Right now, they probably think he was smuggling exotic animals. Of course, he's going to be denying any knowledge, even giving them full details of where he picked up this cargo. The question is, will they try to take us alive, or just shoot us?::

::Perk of being at a checkpoint: wifi. Let me see what I can dig up about how they treat exotic animals.:: She began searching while he kept an eye on the border guards. After a few tense minutes of searching, she came back with, ::Fifty fifty chance they just shoot us, rather than call in animal control to tranq us.::

Aoloa growled his displeasure, which caused the men outside to tense up. They were at a stop with some trees a short distance away. If they could get out with only minor wounds, they'd probably be in good shape, even crossing the border relatively unharmed. He could hear some dogs barking at the excitement, but was sure they would be easily dispatched, if stupid enough to engage them.

::Help me push this over. They're waiting for us to come around or over. Let's go through.::

::It's risky.::

::Would you rather wait for animal control?::

::We'll be on camera.::

::Then the anti-UPS hackers will know who we are when we show up. I don't want to be caught or killed. They're getting organized.::

She sighed softly, then got next to him. With a shove, the pushed forward on a pallet of boxes, tipping it out the back of the trailer, causing the men to scatter with what sounded like cursing. As it fell out, they used the top of the pallet as a launching point to leap well over the guards and dash for the woods.

They maintained a low posture, occasionally using their hands for balance, as bullets began to fly past them. That spurred them on to a full quadrupedal sprint into the trees. A few moments later, they heard dogs in pursuit. They kept up the pace until they were about a hundred yards into the woods, where they stopped and turned to face the dogs.

The german shepherds didn't disappoint, arriving shortly after they'd stopped. There were only four of the dogs, which circled around them, growling warily. The sound of running men wasn't too far behind.

Linked by comms, Hokulani and Aoloa each attacked a different dog at the same time, taking them by surprise. They'd been trained to sniff for contraband and take down humans. They hadn't been trained to fight something that could bite back. Harder. With claws. The two dogs quickly fled, followed by the other two.

::Now we run for it, I guess. I just hope the UPS doesn't realize what we really are.::

Hokulani gave him a disdainful look as they crossed into Belarus side by side.