Traveller Manifesto
60. Aengland

Aengland

Skid’s injuries turned out to be worse than expected.

Moran looked to his squad-mate and pulled a face. “Sorry good buddy, but there’s no way you can complete the mission.”

Skid grunted as Woodbury carefully bandaged his torn calf muscle. It could have been worse. The hound could have torn the tendons at the back of the knee. The muscle would heal as long as there was no infection. But dog’s mouths were filthy, so they could take no chances

“So, we have a choice,” continued Moran. “Do we continue without you, or abort?”

“Bloody hell,” complained Woodbury. “No offense, Skid my old son, but it will be another few hours before we can communicate with Command. We have to make this decision on the run.”

Because of the fear of interference from villagers from Giolgrave, the download of the data module from the Area of Convergence was made every six hours, so they had to await a decision from Command to coincide with the pickup and then receive a response.

“All’s good. I can pretty well tell what I can do anyway,” suggested Skid. He looked disappointed. “I think I’ll hightail it back, only move at night. You’ve patched me up well enough, but I agree, I won’t be able to finish this. I’ll just hold you back.” He knew the score. He wasn’t complaining. Skid was never a complainer. He just stated the obvious.

Moran knew Woodbury chafed in having to wait, especially as they feared discovery from more locals. All they needed was another hunting party with dogs and they would have to kill more of them. Woodbury seemed to anticipate any further action with a certain relish, for he, like many of the new Travellers, treated the locals as if they were but shadows, that they really didn’t exist. Because they were a thousand years into the past, these people were already dead, killed a thousand years ago. To believe this was to absolve themselves of guilt, but Moran wasn’t sure. To gun down the locals, even if they were armed with spears and dogs, jarred at his oft-cauterised sense of right and wrong.

While they waited, Skid removed the mini drone from the hard-shell pack on the right arm. Each of them carried a drone as part of their kit. “Might as well make this time useful,” he suggested. The drone unfolded to look almost batlike. Once the drone was activated, they watched its outline skirt the leaves of the ubiquitous trees and then head south, in the direction they believed Hunter and his wife had taken. According to the flight programme they had selected, the drone would execute in a circular search pattern with a twenty-kilometre radius. It would then fly the 125-kilometre circumference of the search pattern and would, hopefully, pick up a faint signal from Hunter’s chip.

They waited while the drone scanned the countryside. The weather was overcast and somewhat drizzly, so conditions were not ideal for a photographic terrain scan. But the drone operated well. At a maximum speed of only 60kph, it was not as fast as some of the larger unmanned aerial vehicles but was perfect for widening their search for the target. The mosaic of images and radar was compiled into maps and uploaded to their heads-up display. They now had an excellent idea of what to expect.

“There! We have him!” exclaimed Skid with a whoop of delight as the computerised map flashed with a bright marker indicating Hunter’s current position.

“Where is he?” asked Woodbury eagerly as he ate his rations. Each of them had climbed out of their exoskeleton to rest, a difficult task as their blood surged with the chemicals they were required to ingest. The drugs made it difficult to sleep. Moran felt as if his vision was greying at the edges, while Woodbury had become even more irritable and impatient.

“Not too far,” replied Skid with satisfaction as he grunted to relieve the pain of his bite. “We had to catch him eventually! It seems they’re at the old settlement that will become modern Birmingham.”

“Ha!” laughed Woodbury. “I used to live there. That was where I first enlisted.”

“So, going home then,” joked Skid with a gasp, his face suddenly pale. His wound hurt more than he admitted.

“We could get there in, what, four or five hours at full sprint?” added Moran.

“I think so,” nodded Woodbury, “Though we have to make a final decision regarding Skid’s injury. That’s s a nasty bite.”

Skid nodded, obviously irritated at how he slowed the team. “Well I guess we can’t wait for that Command order,” he agreed. While Woodbury seemed to gain energy and touchiness from the drugs, Skid looked exhausted. “I’ll return to the Area of Convergence by myself.”

“Are you sure?” replied Moran. Like Woodbury, he was eager to get on with their mission, though he felt conflicted about abandoning Skid to travel back alone. Even with his exoskeleton, it would take him two to three days.

“The mission has to be completed,” Skid replied and Woodbury nodded in respect. Spoken like a true soldier. Or Super Soldier. Even now, with all of their tech, each found the title favoured by some as bordering on ludicrous.

As if to solve further debate, their radios clicked into life as Command came online.

They spent the next minutes giving the details of Skid’s wound and their evaluation of the mission to an officer who had been sent to the glade where Michael Hunter had originally Travelled all those years ago. Supported by a team of heavily armed guards, the officer was their intermittent contact with the modern world. The guards were there as much to protect him from the hunters of Giolgrave as from the wolves which were still observed to frequent the glade. They would collect the data module that collected all of their radio conversations and data, replace it with a new one, and then return.

Moran thought it amusing at how even the fantastic had faded into almost normalcy. Once a realm beyond belief, now Special Forces operatives were being sent a millennium into the past every day. Even their exoskeletons and fantastic weapons seemed almost old-hat.

The discussion was brief and the assessment thorough and prompt. After a day of rest, Skid was to follow by night to the location beacon and return to the Area of Convergence for extraction, while Moran and Woodbury would continue their mission in pursuit of Hunter.