We War Not-Book I
Chapter One
"Fog"
Chapter One
Fog
Fog, much like a billowing cloud, would soon roll into the valley. Zane was counting on it. The timing of the fog’s presence was critical for the mission’s success and for his escape. Weather data from the Cloud Net, supplied by Von, indicated conditions were ripe for fog after 0200. Late rain and fall like air temperatures made conditions just right for… fog. The Cloud Net also had the convoy scheduled to pass the rock outcropping where he was tucked in at 0300. He hoped the Robotic Epornites would be timely and that the forecast would be accurate. The early morning rain had stopped, but drops still fell from the trees surrounding his perch. The wet surface of the road the convoy was to travel on was shining in the last rays of the soon-to-be-obscured moon. The fog was coming, and so were the Barnack. As Zane waited, his ear tuned for the sounds of the approaching MTrack Carriers, his mind drifted back five years to when he first woke up from stasis.
They should not have awakened him.
The past was its own kind of fog. Twenty-five years in stasis, the doctors had told him. A car wreck on Route 119 in 2050, a body too crushed for the science of the time. They’d put him on ice—a high-priority case for reasons his records only hinted at—and he’d awakened a ghost in 2075. He was supposed to be blessed, lucky to be alive. But the fragmented dreams told a different story—violent images that left him sweating and wide awake, a heavy sadness in his chest that said none of it was the truth.
Suddenly, a faint sound brought Zane back to reality. There it was again—the low rumble of the approaching Epornites MTracks. The fog rolled up the valley behind the approaching convoy, which, due to robotic programming, was right on time. The traditional advance patrol of two-tracked Roll Trac sentries led the convoy. Their sensor arrays swept for audio, visual, thermal, and electromagnetic signals, backed by 100-gig laser cannons and twin 360-degree pulse Gatling guns firing depleted uranium slugs. They were designed to fight a modern, technologically advanced army. By all rights, their sensors should have spotted and killed Zane long before they came within 1,000 yards. Still, advanced technology and machine intelligence have yet to match the inventiveness of the human mind—especially when a human is fighting for his life. Many years of hunting the hills and hollows of the Appalachian Mountains had given Zane a unique skill set. He'd honed these skills long before the accident and was about to use them against the foe ravaging his home.
They really should not have awakened him. Zane released the safety on the Barrett M82, a .50-caliber semi-automatic sniper rifle. It was the civilian version of the M107, a classic standardized by the US military decades ago. Zane had found it in the bunker’s armory. With a 10-round clip, a muzzle velocity of nearly 2,800 feet per second, and an effective range of almost 2,000 yards, the M82 was old-school at its best. The Barrett presented no electromagnetic signature for the advancing roll tracks to pick up. Combined with the masking sound of rain falling from the oak trees and the thermal waves rising from the old coal mine beneath his nest, the advanced tech of the convoy never stood a chance.
When the first .50 caliber round left the barrel, the roll tracks sensed it and began triangulating the sound back to Zane. I guess they never heard the echo of a mountain hollow. Once Zane started firing off the rounds, the echo in the hollow overwhelmed the roll tracks; they were blind. They just spun in a 360-degree circle, trying to locate the source of the attack. The convoy consisted of a supply train comprising four automated hover MTrack carriers and two mag tanks. The mag tanks controlled the carriers via a remote data link. If the data link were lost, the Cloud would attempt to contact the carriers and bring them home, but without the mag tank protection, the carriers became defenseless. The lead mag tank was 50 yards behind the roll tracks and was separated from the trailing mag tank by 200 feet. Despite the Mag tank’s advanced armor and weaponry, it had one major flaw. It had taken Zane six months to find the flaw, and he had exploited it ever since. The Epornites were deployed by someone using advanced warfare technology, but they were slow learners when faced with a foe who used skills taught to a 15-year-old Zane by his father in the Appalachian hills. The Mag Tanks floated on a magnetic cushion, their thrusters powered by a small nuclear reactor—an elegant design, but not a perfect one. It had taken Zane six months to find its single flaw: a small two-inch exhaust tube just below the commander’s access hatch that vented the reactor’s waste heat. A fatal vulnerability, learned not from a military schematic but from lessons taught by his father in these same Appalachian hills.
Through the 50mm infrared scope atop the rifle, Zane laid the crosshairs on the exhaust tube, targeting the trailing Mag tank first. The 2” opening shone like a beacon with the heat from the reactor. With a steady but firm grip on the stock, he released his breath and squeezed the trigger. Even after hundreds of rounds, the gun’s firing came as a surprise, just as his dad had taught him. At 1,000 yards, the fog began to swallow the rear tank, but not before the .50-caliber round punched through the 2-inch opening and into the reactor. The bullet tore into the reactor containment vessel and released the pent-up pressure in a sudden flash of heat and fire. The Epornites robot standing in the commander’s tower was blown 50’ into the air, and the wreckage of the Mag tank blocked any retreat for the carriers. Even before the trailing tank debris had hit the pavement, the second round was on its way to the lead tank. It also exploded, leaving the carriers with no escape route. Zane then fired a third and fourth round into the lightly armored roll-tracks communication interface, which resembled a head sitting atop the turret. They both came to a stop, and their gun barrels dropped, defenseless, as the fog completely enveloped the valley floor. The attack lasted 10 seconds, and the echo of the Barrett began to die away as Zane rose from his position and slipped away into the now-thick fog. Other humans living in that isolated mountain region, alerted by the explosion of the mag tanks, were even now making their way to that hollow to gather those supplies. They were all thankful for the food and medical supplies they would find on the carriers, but they were again asking, “Who was destroying the Epornites ?”
They really shouldn’t have awakened him.
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