“Just calm down. No one knows. Make a mistake now and they’ll figure it out, but stay calm and no one will have any idea. Just stay cool. Smuggling weapons is a dangerous job; you knew this when you accepted the mission. So why are you so worried. Just do the job. Stay calm. They have no reason to search you. Here comes the gate. Just smile, do what they say, and act calm. But don’t act like you’re acting calm. You can do it. You just make believe that you really don’t have weapons and just act normal. No big deal.”

Clive spoke under his breath low enough that Flynn and Elena didn’t hear what he was saying, but Jake noticed his nervousness. “Hey buddy, just cool off. Nothing’s going to happen. Really. We’re fine.”

Jake was more sure of himself than Clive, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t worried either. They were sitting on a package of weapons that would be a major contribution to the efforts of the rebels, but it was also enough to justify being shot on site if they were caught regardless of if they put up a fight or surrendered. The slightest problem surely meant death.

The long, green van pulled up to the checkpoint. A tall, menacing guard with the attitude of a traffic cop and the voice of the judge that caters to him walked up to the window. Clive rolled the handle until the window was fully down.

“Documentation. Please.”

Please meant “now before I decide to punish you for no reason.”

Clive produced a packet of information. The van was for re-supplying a few solitary outposts with rations and equipment. It would be out for twelve hours. The shipment had been authorized by the subchief of the 82nd East Infantry Division in charge of Maintenance and Reconnaissance. All lies.

They couldn’t forge documents claiming they were delivering weapons because the outposts wouldn’t need weapons unless there had been a firefight, and thankfully there hadn’t. Those types of documents were far harder to forge anyway. Supply runs were common and seldom checked. Flynn and Elena remained silent, Clive just stared ahead, and Jake silently hoped that this was just another seldom day. It wasn’t.

“The date on this form says the eighth. Today is the ninth. You’re late.”

“Must be a typo. We’d have gotten hell from the outposts by now if there was a real problem!” Jake smiled innocently.

After a long stare at the document, the guard spoke without looking up. “We’ll need to check your cargo. Please have everyone in the vehicle step out of the back. This will only take a second.” Jake’s smile wasn’t returned.

Clive winced in pain as though he’d been given an injection. Jake sighed and looked up toward the roof of the car. Elena and Flynn simply rose and approached the rear doors of the van. Plan B time.

The guard went around to the back of the van with his subordinate. Two other guards appeared and came to each of the front doors, waiting for Clive and Jake to step out. “Okay guys. Lets get it over with.”

The rear doors of the van were opened. Elena’s knife sliced easily and silently through the head guard’s wind pipe. He fell straight back into the dirt, struggling for the air he would never again have. His partner, shocked and stunned, went for his gun. Flynn’s katana dismembered him quickly and efficiently. The cuts were so quick that not a drop of blood actually remained on the blade.

Clive’s swift chop landed squarely in the throat of his responsibility. Jake was already wiping some of the blood spray off of his arm; a smoking pistol lay in his lap minus one bullet. It was all perfectly and quietly executed. Everything was perfect.

Almost.

Guard number five stood by the guardhouse. One shaking hand on the panic button, the other fumbling to unbutton the gun holster at his side, eyes locked on his colleagues’ bodies.

Jake looked at him for a second before putting it together. “Aw damn it.”

The guard managed to pop the button. His eyes shifted to Clive. The gun was raised. Then it fell. The guard blinked once. Twice. Then he screamed. Blood gushed from his wrist; a hand had been there only a moment ago.

Flynn’s blade was again clean. The back doors of the van slammed shut. Clive swore over and over again as the vehicle began to speed off into the horizon. All kinds of action was zeroing in on them.

“We can’t lead them to the base. We’re going to have to go it alone for a while guys. It’s going to be tough. But we have to lose them before we go back.”

Clive swore again. Elena knelt down and took out a small trinket from her pocket. She grasped it tightly and seemed to be deep in thought. Flynn, eyes closed, snickered. Jake looked at Clive. “You okay driving?”

Clive, still nervous, responded, “You’re okay driving. I’m impeccable driving. I may be nervous but that doesn’t mean there’s a bastard alive that can match me on the road.”

Jake nodded. “Fair enough.”

The bikes came first. Ten of them. Each rider had a long blade mounted on one arm and a small rifle on the other. The blades were for puncturing tires, the guns for puncturing heads. Flynn stood calmly, then flung the back doors open. The bikers closed up the distance, readying their rifles for action. Flynn swung himself up onto the roof the vehicle. His sword was drawn.

Elena took no notice of the bullets flying at the back of the truck. Her ritual was incomplete. Flynn’s blade easily deflected the shots fired, some of which went back towards the riders. One unlucky individual took a bullet to the stomach. The pain made him double over, ending any semblance of balance he once had. The bike cut hard sideways and man and machine slide on hard gravel for a quarter mile. Neither would ride again.

The carnage had only just begun. One biker pulled up on Jake’s side. He readied his blade for a stab at the tire. But Jake shot the weapon in half before it could be used. The biker cut closer in anger and received the full force of the passenger side door opening into his face. Jake then leaned out suicidally and grasped the collar of the rider. Pausing only briefly, he yanked him back past his hip hard into the side of the van. The hit no doubt knocked him unconscious and his limp body fell into the ground. Jake pulled himself back in, popped the clip out of his pistol, replaced one bullet, and returned it.

Two more bikers had been dispatched by Flynn at this point. One was from another stray bullet. The other found himself riding a bike with no front wheel after a glimmer of metal removed it. This lasted for only a moment.

Elena finished her ritual in time to see the choppers arrive. Three small assault choppers hovered only a few meters above the top of the van. Jake noticed them in the rear view mirror. Clive altered his driving into a more sporadic form. The choppers would open fire soon and he had to keep the vehicle in usable shape. If they got stopped, they were done for.

Flynn, still deflecting biker bullets, pretended not to notice the choppers. Then one got too close. A quick uppercut and one of the three dangerous obstacles was damaged beyond use. The small craft veered to one side violently in a perfect arc, altered by contact with a rock outcropping. The explosion sent shrapnel into another biker’s face, clearing him from the field.

The other choppers kept their distance.

Elena entered the action. She produced a small throwing knife. One of the bikers saw this and almost laughed in disbelief. This gesture was cut short as the point of something metal found the man’s throat. Gasping for air, he slumped forward on his bike which swerved back in forth in greater and greater swaths until the vehicle toppled sideways and then begun cart wheeling end over end down the road.

Elena swung herself onto the roof of the van next to Flynn. Now back to back, they faced four more bikers and two more choppers. The bikers hung back a little now, holding their fire; their bullets had only been used against them thus far. The choppers took turns feinting, in response to which Elena and Flynn guarded, waiting for their opportunity to retaliate.

The left chopper rushed. Elena and Flynn went airborne, each grabbing a side of the craft. Confused and alarmed, the pilot cut sharply to the side, not even realizing the favor he had done for his comrades by separating the four fugitives.

The other chopper was free to open fire, as were the bikers. Shots bounced very close to the tires, but they never made contact. Clive’s driving was indeed perfect. Each shot told him volumes about where the gun was, where it was pointed, and where the bullet was going to hit. As a result, the van moved with precision and remained on inflated tires.

Elsewhere, Elena and Flynn attempted to raid the chopper. Destroying it would have been easy, but the plan was to keep it in flight. Elena made her way to the rear emergency hatch. It wasn’t large enough even for her small frame, but she could get an arm inside the cockpit from their. Meanwhile, Flynn had managed to situate himself by the main hatch on the side of the craft. The glass was bullet proof, but that didn’t stop his sword from easily cutting the hatch away. The pilot went for his gun, but was stabbed from behind by a lone arm. Flynn didn’t miss a beat, and the lifeless body was tossed from the air before the craft could fall. He regained control and flew himself and Elena ahead, towards a dusty battle now a few kilometers away.

The bikers were becoming frustrated. Not a single bullet could hit a fatal spot on the van or its occupants. One biker advanced. He came up the driver’s side, slowly. The mirror had been shot off a while before, but Clive heard the approach. The biker at first was going to attack the tire, but then decided to go for the kill shot by attacking the driver.

The van lurched. The biker flew up quickly, now parallel to the front fender. The van went back in gear and cut sharply, knocking the bike clean out from under the rider. His body hit the ground and bounced up under the rear tire. The other bikers held back while they formulated a new plan.

One of the bikers was further behind the other two. He almost didn’t notice the strange bump that suddenly shook his bike. Elena’s body was light and the rider never knew he had been boarded. Suddenly, he was jerked hard down into the ground. Elena accelerated slowly in a move to come between the last two bikers, each unaware of her approach. Finally, she was directly in-between them. The two bikers looked at her, and then back at the road. Then they jerked their heads back, completely floored. She gave them each a glance, wearing a wicked smile. They drew their guns and fired. Elena leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest, then rapidly swung them out in an action resembling a child’s wild attempt at flying unaided. Two blades hit their targets. Two more bikes fell.

The final chopper, assuming he still had three ground units, hovered just above the van. He had decided to try and force the van into a rock outcropping by physically moving it with the force of his vehicle. Then, something ahead of him caught his eye. Another chopper? It was. The pilot smiled; his wingman had returned and had set up an excellent maneuver for him. The van would be shredded in the crossfire.

Flynn snickered again. He pressed the trigger. Two massive turrets began pumping out hot metal.

The pilot thought it was odd that his wingman would begin firing at the range he was at. The maneuver normally involved shooting through the windshield at point blank range so the driver of the vehicle wouldn’t have time to react. Of course, range wasn’t a factor if the driver, or pilot, wasn’t going to think to react. Bullets and glass destroyed the pilot, and his craft sank back behind the van and into the ground. The explosion nearly dismounted Elena, but she popped a wheelie and managed to use the shockwave to get some air. The bike got close enough to the back of the van the she dismounted her bike and landed safely back by the boxes of guns. Flynn soon joined her as an unmanned chopper floated harmlessly into the ground behind the van.

The doors were shut. The van made a turn at a familiar rock outcropping and headed west for a few hours. The valuable shipment of weapons was received.