When Maine came to pick us up, I decided to bring along Probius. I left MRR and GRR to watch the Food Truck in the garage. I didn't trust that some snobby bastard wouldn't try to sabotage it. We'd been pulling in a really good amount of customers the last couple of days. Word was getting around about us.

  Of course, I was in my Power Armor and David was still wearing my hand me downs.

  The looks Pilar was giving my Robo-Buddy were so full of longing that I also shot him. The man had an unhealthy relationship with machines. One day it would get him in real trouble. As it was Rebecca bonked him on the head with a sisterly growl.

  The crew had arranged for six vehicles. They didn't explain how they got the extra and I didn't ask. Though I guessed that they found them at a scrap yard and put them back together for this mission.

  Two almost dune buggy like things that they called Dust Runners. They looked like Mad Max hobby kits, that you might assemble with your kids. These had a few mods worked into their almost feral looking frames. Maine and Dorio would be driving those, they were fast, agile and each had a heavy machine gun turret in the back.

  Falco and Kiwi would be in Falco's custom Chevillion Emperor. Falco had obviously done a fuck ton of work on his baby over the years. The vehicle was as much a weapon as any of the guns we were carrying. Kiwi would be handling blocking communications in real time from a cooling unit they'd added in.

  Sasha and Rebecca would be in a modified Mahir MT28 Coach, that the crew had appropriated. Yup, that was a large automated overland bus. They'd added a lot of nasty surprises. They'd have it drive itself into the front of the convoy, then Sasha would begin quickhacking everything she could, while Rebecca would get to play with the brand new, hidden, double-linked autocannons added by the crew. Hopefully, they'd added enough armor to keep the girls safe. I didn't want to have to put them back together.

  Pilar and Lucy would sneak up behind the group while they were distracted in a nearly silent version of the Dust Runners. How Pilar and Falco got that little buggy so quiet was a real mystery. I would have loved to ask them about it but it would have to wait. Lucy would hack the cargo carrier they needed, to go to a new location, while Pilar would deal with the carrier's crew, probably lethally.

  David, Mith and I would be a in a throwaway Van, modified to hold me in my armor, as extra backup and medical support. Probius latched on to the top. To be fair, I still really hated being backup, but I really was starting to understand that me being ready to help as as critical to success as what everyone else was doing.

  David the little bastard, already seemed to have absorbed the lesson just from me explaining it to him. I was proud of him, but fuck if it wasn't annoying watching him surpass me, in real time. He'd even already got his Manashield working. We tested and it could bounce a couple of bullets from low caliber weapons before collapsing.

  All in all, this was a well thought out plan. But I remembered all too well what both John and Raynor used to tell me all the time. Almost no plan survived contact with the enemy. That many of our missions had was as they had both put it "beyond odd". I personally had chalked our victories up to them. And a lot of luck.

  Waiting in the Van, sitting on a small rise in the landscape so we could over see everything. David and I watched as the crew executed their plan.

  The coach smashed into the first vehicle in the convoy a Militech version of the MRAP I was so familiar with. At least the chaingun had been swap out with a rocket pod. Sasha seemed to be having a field day hacking those to turn around on the other vehicles. Rebecca's hidden panel popped off the side of the Coach and she laid into the MRAP with a couple of bursts of 30mm goodness.

  Ka-Boom. Down the first vehicle went.

  David tensed next to me. He was excited and terrified by the chaos. I completely understood the feeling.

  Rebecca started to line up another target.

  Three of the other vehicles were also MRAP style MTVs with a nice variety of weapons. I doubted that the armor they'd added to the Coach was going to last long against 20mm chainguns. Though those guns were getting very distracted by Maine and Dorio's crazy stunts in the Dust Runners, and couldn't quite get a lock on them. Though a few shots were close, too close for my comfort.

  The other six vehicles were Militech Behemoths, which I would have liked to say were unarmed, except they weren't. While it was nothing extreme all of them were equipped with turrets. Two of them were also carrying extra troops the jumped out to start adding to the bullet count.

  The real problem would be which truck had the cargo we needed to klep. Kiwi while intercepting and diverting the Comms traffic, was also sneaking a peak at the cargo manifests. In and of itself not super helpful, as all the Corpos lie about what they are shipping. However, their bullshit does tend to have patterns that you can parse through.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  I saw her quick message to Lucy that it was the third Behemoth from the rear.

  Boom!

  Rebecca had just tagged the engine of another Militech MTV. It ceased to exist.

  I could just make out Pilar and Lucy creeping up on their target.

  Another MTV went silent. This one seemed to have fallen victim to Sasha hacks.

  Then the last MTV turned it gun on the Coach, ignoring the Dust Runners. The first thing went wrong.

  Rebecca's hit, Medic!

  I snarled and floored the Van. On my way.

  Thirty seconds later, I arrived, jumping out of the still running Van. David exiting with me throwing up his shield. While Mith kept pace with him.

  Probius detached from the Van, and started to provide cover fire with his six modified Omaha Xs. He was precise and efficient. His shield was also more than enough to bounce anything sent his way.

  Then I saw Rebecca and cursed. A 20mm round had gone through the edge of the makeshift shield they'd added to the autocannon. It then went through her right hip with enough force to tear off her leg and take out a good chunk of her guts. Bits of her insides were strewn everywhere. It was a miracle she was still alive. Thankfully she was unconscious.

  David looking over my shoulder, threw up violently. I understood, it was a fucking mess, and it all hits you differently went you know the person. It gets proportionally worse for every bit you get closer to them. Thankfully, I barely knew Rebecca, or I might have been hurling myself. It was that bad.

  Mith whined, his ears laid back.

  I wrapped her in my mana, "No you don't, you little bitch. You don't get to leave yet." I slammed my hands into the mess as I forced a shit ton of mana into her and kept her going while rapidly healing her missing parts.

  Sasha came over, "Is she... " she was pale. Worried sick.

  David answered for me as he was wiping his mouth, "He's got her. She'll be fine." His confidence in my skills was... heavy. I know it came from when he saw me heal those people on the highway, after healing his mom. But damn, kid.

  Sasha nodded and her eyes flashed, throwing out another hack.

  It took me almost two minutes of insane mana dumping to get Rebecca stable, it would take quite a while to fix everything. We didn't have the time right now, and she could now safely wait.

  Rebecca's Stable. I sent so the others could focus on their own problems.

  I carried her, sans a few parts to the Van. Hooked her up to an IV unit in there. I hopped back into the driver's seat. Mith and David crawling in the passenger side.

  Sasha joined us in the Van, as Probius clunked down on the roof. Sasha didn't need to be trapped in the wrecked Coach anymore to do her part.

  I backed the Van away from the debris, then turned and began to circle around the mess. So we could get eyes on the situation.

  Then the second problem occurred.

  Target Vehicle secured and on route.

  Pilar and Lucy were successful, now they should be retreating full speed out of the area.

  The Dust Runners, Sasha and Rebecca were to keep up the pressure, for a few more minutes. But Rebecca was down, and they went to their first backup plan.

  Scatter. After all, there was only one vehicle capable of any speed left. The problem with that was that the Behemoth they highjacked was going to be moving fast either.

  That's why it was running straight for part of plan they hadn't told me about until this morning. A series of mines and turrets had been laid out in the path of the booty. Pilar and Lucy would wait near by to activate the surprise, once the target passed. Then they would book it to the next point.

  There was no third plan. But that part of the plan did work. The defenses stopped the Militech gonks cold. Sure the MRAP could've handled running over a couple of mines, but not those and the turrets chewing it up at the same time.

  So all's well.

  Except as I was booking it to the place were we'd change vehicles. An AV swooped low overhead. I recognized the black and red markings. Arasaka.

  A single hulking figure dropped in front of us from about fifty feet up. The form looked vaguely familiar.

  Only the face look organic, and that just barely. My brain started to put it together.

  Oh fuck.

  The form raised a foot and used it to stop the Van cold. The engine compartment crumpled around his foot. David and I were thrown into our seat belts. Mith vanished, hopefully using his dancing ability. Rebecca had been strapped down good, so she barely moved. Sasha had been thrown into the back wall, now unconscious, but seemed remarkably okay, for the moment.

  My armor absorbed the force of the crash, I was fine.

  I popped the airbag bags with a knife from my survival kit. Then began cutting myself free as fast as I could. I checked, David was still stunned. Probably better that way. I threw open the door and pulled my way out.

  I looked at the figure I was now sure was Adam Smasher.

  He hadn't been moved by the force of a two ton Van slamming into him while it was going over 80 miles per hour. He was just standing there waiting. Staring at me.

  Please anyone but him.

  "Your friends have something I want." He slowly began to walk toward me. Step by lumbering step.

  Last time I'd seen him, I had John and Raynor. I had watched that fight, with what was surely an outdated model of what this cyborg motherfucker was rockin' now.

  I look toward Probius, who'd had detached for the wrecked Van. His shields had served him well.

  I saw Mith pop into existence two hundred yards behind Smasher.

  No, there was no way in Hell I was going to throw them at this monster.

  Not when I had the perfect tool for the job.

  "And if they do, what then?" I asked as my aura expanded.

  "You're going to have them drop it off, where I tell them. Then I let you and your friend here go, a little broken and probably spoiled, but alive." He was absolutely sure that was how this was going to go.

  As my aura touched his cold cyborg body I replied, "Yeah, that's not going to happen." I snapped my fingers. Once.

  "Oh, that's what I was counting on you sayin'. Don't disappoint me." He smiled if you could call it that. I snapped my fingers. Twice. He looked at them and grinned. "Whatever your little trick is, it won't work."

  I opened my visor cover so he could see my smile, "It already has, you're mine shithead."

  I snapped my fingers. Thrice.

  He began to move, but it was far too late.