Perdition's Child

Chapter 4

It wasn't actually that unusual that an anti-technology cult had popped up on the edge of town and started illegally keeping its members isolated. It might not even be the only one.

Cults were a dime dozen among lellians. Medessians supposedly weren't as bad about that kind of thing, or at least that was what his mother had told him.

He doubted it.

What was unusual was that it had managed to succeed so long. It wasn't like Kraylic needed much excuse to organize a lynch mob. Lellians were intensely social, so leaving a group was hard enough without physical captivity. People didn't take to that too well around these parts.

Then again, he'd been driving into low-light for half an hour now. Vehicles without a backup power source were unable to reach this far, so it'd take a very motivated and well-prepared force to storm this group.

Or one guy with a bunch of firepower and a stealth tarp. Hopefully. Blow up an engine and then call Darkrei. He undoubtedly had his pack on standby waiting for an excuse to come out here, an anonymous call for help and smoke trail would be sufficient justification for his superiors.

Mehk drove until the sky darkened enough for stars to start twinkling in the dusk, not that he had the capacity to see them. He stopped a few miles short of the caravan to duck into the cover of a dead courl stump for a final once-over. His night-vision goggles were charged for the next several hours, the explosive was packed safe and now included starting material to actually use it, he had a pistol as last resort... Mehk strapped his stealth tarp onto the bike and looked it over. It was transparent from the inside, but the outside shimmered with a smart-fiber that chose a camo pattern based on the environment. It also blocked thermal and electromagnetic scans, rendering him nearly invisible to sensors.

Nothing left to do. A nap was tempting since he'd already been up for five hours, but ultimately it was more important to keep moving while things were so volatile. He ducked back under the tarp and onto his bike. One last check of his gun and other gear and he was ready for the final stretch.

As it happened, the final stretch was less stealth run and more 'stumble over the remains of what might have once been a large hovercraft while humming the spy theme from a movie under his breath'. He circled it once before settling the bike into idle.

Judging by the crater of glassed sand the ruined hunk of slag was melted in, the attack had come from the air, and it was laser rather than lead.

Laser weaponry was expensive, too expensive for Lequin and its long defunct military. Mehk tilted his head skyward warily and tried to work through the implications. Lasers were quiet and unlikely to be noticed. Valarka was known to have off-world ties. So, someone in the galaxy with a lot of money wanted these guys dead without the Lequin officials knowing about it.

He snapped a picture with his com and sent it to Darkrei with his suspicions, but the device informed him he was out of range and it would keep trying to deliver. Useless overpaid LAISA bastards couldn't do their one single job and he was the one who'd end up paying for it if the off-worlders were still around...

Mehk had just made up his mind to return to the relative safety of Kraylic when a flash of light in the distance caught his attention. He turned away from it and kicked his bike into drive; going home, going home, he'd done his job...