By then, crepuscular rays of light had started spilling onto the wet earth below as the morning sun made itself known. Were that we were not on the run, it would have been an altogether idyllic morning like any other.

We saw the UCAV zoom over Kaufmann's house as a blur in the side mirrors display as it disappeared into the mountains. We were not dealing with ufologists but unknown private mercenaries, at least according to the SI’s infodump.

“ Can you intercept its transmissions?” I asked Irina.

“ Unfortunately it is much too late for that. The data packet was sent as soon as it detected that something had changed on the Kaufmann's compound―I am bringing the ship around to rendezvous,“

Much like the AutoNavi’s autonomy, the drone was capable of some degree of self operation. Therefore, it was doubly hard to intercept it when its instructions had already been preprogrammed. The Ghosthawk was a deploy-and-forget model. It was heavily shielded with inbuilt firewalls, EMP protection and had communication systems worthy of military grade encryption.

“ The drone operators have already been notified and a convoy is enroute. I regret to say that the EVA has been outmatched in terms of aerial maneuverability. You have a lead―pursuit is 30 minutes, 15 minutes and 7 minutes away respectively!”

“What?! How?” Cassandra gawked.

“ I've picked up on radio chatter, it appears they had divided into four groups of 5 each spread out at various areas with the Kaufmann's residence as the centre—three persons are using two wheeled terrestrial vehicles to range ahead,”

“ Who is that?” Lucas asked befuddled.

“ Not now Lucas!” Cassandra snapped. She’d really put the pedal to the metal on the Volta Type R , dangerously so. The road was narrow and had sloping sides and despite collision warnings, she was under pressure to avoid running into any farm trucks or livestock on the road.

The worst that could have happened was if the drone had been armed which it obviously wasn’t. It must have been difficult to smuggle the military grade drone into the country, let alone with a weapons loadout. However this was not any better, they were corralling us like wolves— meanwhile I had another unanswered question.

“ How'd they know where to look in the first place?” I asked, jaws clenched with frustration.

“ There's a bounty I found in the dark web with your details, it appears there was a leak or someone willingly posted it or information was sold,”

“ Fuck!” Lucas cursed. “ What about fam? Maybe we should warn them.” he said, apprehensive about his parents.

“I doubt they're in any sort of peril, Authorities have been alerted and I guarantee they wouldn't waste time on them. Besides, the bounty was explicit that civilian collateral would not be tolerated.”

“ And you're sending us towards a cliff ,” I said, questioning Irina’s choice of destination as I looked it up on the AutoNavi’s main console. The TOLED screen changed to show the topography on my side as Irina added,“ I deemed the route optimal to outrun your pursuit. There are branching trails off your route which would be too obvious. Also the vehicle is suited to the terrain.”

I caught sight of our pursuit in the side mirror's display and what I saw made dread coil my guts into cold knots. Four men, two sharing a dirt bike and two others on bikes of their own tailed us. One wielded a rocket launcher while the rest had semi-autos.

In what seemed like slow motion, the former brought their weapon to bear like a lance—it was doubtless we were the target. But almost as if she'd predicted it, Cassandra spun the wheel to the left .

The Type R suddenly veered off the road at the same moment I got an eyeful of the rocket propelled grenade with its fins splayed tearing through the air. Time resumed—the ground to our left exploded into clods of dirt and debris that pelted our windscreen. My breath hitched as if I was winded. At the corner of my vision I noticed the blue bar had depleted by half, I had unknowingly triggered my ability but what? I did not have the headspace to care―

“ Shit!” Cassandra swore as she steadied the steering wheel. The hydropneumatic suspension quickly compensated for the sudden motion as the vehicle rocked. The report of gunfire started tearing up the ground, strafing a sweeping divot that we knew all too well was coming for us.

“What the fuck?!” Lucas cursed, adding another string of expletives.

“Stay on course Miss Cassandra, I'm covering your rear! Rendezvous in T-minus 2 minutes!”

Sure enough the EVA we’d been using as a scout and relay came flying beside the car. The staccato barks from the pursuers' rifles grated against an invisible wall of tessellated panes that shimmered blue as bullets thunked against the EVA’s energy shield.

“ I have parsed their transmissions―the language of conversion is Slavic with 98 percent certainty. Their mission parameters indicate that they were to capture at least one of you alive― ”

The revelation was not very assuring in the least. Those were the worst people we could have the ill-fortune of tussling with. No one mentioned the unspoken consensus on their minds.

Nonetheless, if our pursuers had been surprised by the invisible shield that stopped their shots they did not show it. that could not be said for the next thing which they did not see coming. The grenade launcher toting men in matte black helmets and combat utility vests had their bike suddenly hit the EVA. The droid had stopped, appearing as though it had run into an invisible feature of the terrain.

The two men went flying ass over tea kettle, their bike twisting and skipping through the ground. The others jerked their bikes to the sides, almost over-correcting their swerves. Subsequently, the wobbly motion made sure that their aim had been fouled while we put more distance between us.

“ T-Minus 30 seconds to rendezvous…”

Cassandra kept a cool head, trusting in the SI's navigation cues to bring us to safety. The Type R easily scaled mounds, rocks and a rundown picket fence with its 38 inch variable cleated rover tyres. We found ourselves suddenly cresting a small knoll at high speed leaving terra firma for a few seconds of airtime yet our driver didn’t flinch. Ahead, the land slopped and then abruptly cut off to a steep drop.

Lucas bit back a shriek as the Type R landed from its brief flight; I had my hands clenched tight against the panic bars . Our trio stared into a looming cliff with a feeling of impending doom. The AutoNavi blared a warning but Cassandra kept going in blind faith.

While Irina was sounding the tail end of the countdown, I saw more vehicles appear on the horizon from the side mirroring display . At 10 seconds, the EVA passed us by, materializing right ahead after dropping its refracting shields.

At 5 seconds, we felt the lurch of the ground falling away from beneath the wheels. We couldn't hear ourselves scream as we dove―into the open bay doors of the Velastra. Contact with the ship’s cargo bay was jarring, but for the safety harness strapping us four ways we would have snapped our necks. I know I was very close to biting off my tongue.

Cassandra slammed the brakes sending the Type R squealing against the deck before we came to a sudden stop. Our daze cleared just around the same time we heard Irina reach the end of their countdown..

“ Zero…” The bay doors closed behind us

“ Report!” I prompted as I bundled out of the vehicle. Lucas looked green around the gills. Cassandra was frozen stiff as a statue with her hands still behind the wheel; she’d been of a good mind to switch the car to neutral.

“ Evasion successful Master Ryan― adjusting cargo bay gravity to 1 g of Earth”

I let out a nervous chuckle as I slumped on the deck plates. Irina had stalled our momentum with an increase in gravity.

I went to the bridge as soon as I’d caught my breath. I wanted to see about where we could go for resupplies, somewhere out of Europe most definitely. Also, I needed to find out what Irina had gathered from her reconnaissance. Cassandra fell into step besides me, leaving Lucas to tussle with his luggage, her own gym bag right slung behind her back.

“ Do we have weapons?” she prompted, fighting the quiver in her voice. I could tell she’d been shaken. That RPG struck way too close for comfort and yet she’d pushed through the fright to drive us away. I was not sure I could have kept my composure like her. On second thought because of her Gestalt Insertion, the cocktail of hormones would have been a steadying anchor.

I realized I was not as fazed from the encounter as I should have been; the Gestalt Insertion had also been rewiring our psychology. Then again I wanted to ask myself, if we had weapons, would we lack the aversion to killing?

“ Irina?” I asked as we entered the bridge.With inertial dampeners we’d barely felt motion while the Velastra had taken to the skies.

“ Unfortunately, most of the heavy anti-personnel weapons were left aboard the Velastra’s secondary hull, ” Irina said as her hologram coalesced at the front of the bridge. The viewscreen showed clouds zooming by. “ However, the smaller armory on the bridge hull should have sidearms you can use. Would you like me to show you?”

“ Uhm, not now,” Cassandra replied. She pulled a scrunchie from her gym bag to bind her hair. Lucas happened to walk into the bridge lugging his bags as he gasped in awe.

“Get out! Is that a hologram of a space elf?” he said, dumping his bags while he looked around the bridge.

“ Hello again Lucas, I believe we have yet to be acquainted,” Irina said with a wide smile on their face. “ My name is Irina,”

“Oh, hi?” Lucas muttered flusteredly. Cassandra snorted and rolled her eyes. I walked down the bridge to sit myself at the primary pilot’s console then I swiveled to regard our motley crew of three people and an agendered SI.

“ So what next?” Cassandra asked, crossing her arms.

“ First, we need to resupply—I don't know if Central Intelligence has frozen my account but I would hope not. Secondly, we need to find somewhere to hole up until D-Day,”

“What's D-Day?” Lucas chipped in.

“ We're liberating the ship's secondary hull from the Arctic,” I replied. Lucas would have swallowed a fly.

“There's more of the ship?” he gawked. ”Just how big is she?”

“Allow me to make a juxtaposition,” Irina said, looking towards me for direction. I shrugged and nodded that they could go ahead. A hologram bloomed into existence in the shank console showing the blue outline of the Velastra and an Earth Naval ship.

“ Excluding the aetheric translation manifold—” Irina motioned, separating the structure encircling the main thrusters reminiscent of Alcubierre's ring.“The Velastra's main hull is almost long as a Visby Class Corvette at 240 feet,”

”Damn…so what are we up against?”

”I was just about to get to that,” I pointed out. “ Irina, if you will?”

“You might want to sit down for this,” Irina said. “May I suggest a destination for resupplying?”

“By all means,” I remarked as the rest took their seats. Cassandra sat on the secondary pilot's seat while Lucas sat at the shankside seat near the hovering hologram.

“ Affirmative—I have set our destination. Greenland,” Irina remarked. “ And now to start, this is the information I dredged up from the darkweb—”