CHAPTER 15
Not having a map or compass didn’t make finding Tabuk City impossible, not when Felix’s ears worked. The crump of explosions carried through the valley, growing stronger as he approached.
He stayed in the jungle, a few dozen yards away from a highway leading to the city that he intersected with a few hours after leaving the Antares priestess behind. The encroaching night drew him closer to the shoulder as light faded out.
The occasional flash from explosions and delayed booms served as a wartime lighthouse to guide him in, though what he’d find in the city—or even which side of the lines he was on—remained to be seen.
Felix stumbled through low vines, cursing the darkness. He took a sip from his water bladder and spat out grit. The whine of approaching electric trucks rose behind him. He ducked behind a tree trunk before the headlights could pass over him. A pair of open-topped trucks, both full of armed insurgents, sped toward the city.
Light glinted off chrome in a slight depression next to the shoulder. He waited until the sound of the trucks died down, then rushed at a crouch to the object. The corpse-smell hit him first, strong enough to make him gag.
A dead man lay beneath a motorcycle. He was elderly and dressed in the normal Dahrien attire of linen tunic and pants that ended at the calves. Flies buzzed around his face and hands.
Felix couldn’t tell what killed him, but the motorcycle’s front tire was badly bent and blown out.
“Sorry, buddy.” Felix waved the mat of flies away and lifted a small hatch on the motorcycle body just behind the handlebars. The power rod was still in the housing. He hooked a finger into a ring and twisted.
The power rods were high-density batteries. Empty rods were deposited and exchanged at charging stations for smaller vehicles like motorcycles or bundled together for light trucks. Thanks to one of the fewer brilliant moves by the Hegemony Acquisition Corps, civilian power rods were compatible with Flanker and Cataphract armor.
Felix removed his helmet and popped the rod into a recess on the back. He thumbed a panel open and almost dropped the helmet in shock when it read nearly half charged.
“Ha ha!” He lifted the helmet and shook it over his head in triumph.
A truck came around a bend, the headlights stabbing into the jungle behind Felix. He cursed and dove into the underbrush, rolling into tall grass. He slipped the helmet on and breathed a sigh of relief as the cooling systems activated.
The approaching truck was a rusted-out ramshackle wreck of a vehicle. The cab’s panels came from several different models. The passenger window was missing and the windshield had a crack across the bottom. The cargo bed was full of scrap metal and appliances. It was all piled close to the cab, but the back looked vacant.
The driver must be working on a washing machine collection, Felix thought as he readied his carbine.
The truck screeched to a halt. The bric-a-brac in the bed shifted forward. A bucket full of hand tools fell out and dumped its contents across the shoulder. A man with a lit cigarette in his mouth hopped out of the cab. He kicked the tools back toward the bucket as his head craned up to look over the crashed motorcycle and dead man.
He took tentative steps towards the wreck, then jumped back waving his hand at his nose to dispel the smell. He picked up most of the loose tools and chucked the bucket into the truck bed, then went back to the cab.
An idea came to Felix, one his sore feet endorsed. He slid out of the brush and hurried toward the back of the truck. He put one hand on the back gate and peeked over it. The view to the cab was blocked by the piles of scrap metal and there was enough room for him to lay down. He waited for the truck to roll forward and jumped in the back.
It headed down the highway and didn’t immediately pull over, as Felix feared. He fought the urge to sleep as it rumbled on. Not that the hunks of wood and old wrenches between his back and the truck bed were going to make much of a cushion.