Hunters Ch. 04

**This is a direct continuation of Session #3. If it's been a while since you've read it or haven't read it yet, everything will make a lot more sense if you take the 5 minutes to read it now. Thanks. Don't forget to vote!**

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Max was taken back by the sight in front of him. Anders was not only a girl, but a good-looking girl. She looked like she'd been in the same clothes for about two weeks, she had no make up at all, but there was just something about her short messy blonde hair or the sexy athleticism that her body seemed to drool. Maybe it was the way her eyes were beginning to dull from captivity but there was still the shine of a predator in the blue-gray pools that were looking him over as hard as his eyes were examining her.

"Quit staring at her, you're still in deep shit," a voice said to Max. It took him a second to realize that it was his own thoughts trying to snap him back to the situation at hand.

"Corporal Anders?" Max asked, turning around and covering the hallway as best he could. He noticed his arm wasn't just numb now, but it was getting cold. He could hear the blood dripping on to the floor, sounding like a metronome keeping slow, but steady time.

"Yes sir," she said.

"I'm Major Morgan, and we're gonna get the fuck out of here," Max said and walked forward. Anders was right behind him, ready to go after being cooped up in a room for half a month Max walked down to the munitions room and motioned to it with his head. Anders ducked inside and Morgan followed her in, covering the door.

"So you're Morgan, huh?" Anders said and started grabbing pistols. She tucked two into the waste band of what looked like Special Forces BDU pants and grabbed a couple clips of ammunition. She picked up an HK and three extra clips of ammunition for it. All the while, she kept talking. "Martian Medal of Honor, 5 purple hearts, two silver stars, and two accommodations for bravery. Went AWOL in 70," she finished. Anders cocked all of her weapons and looked at Max. "How the hell did they get you to come get me?"

"Same way they do everything, bribes and lies," Max said and swung out the door, gun first. Anders followed him close, covering the stairwell with her HK. They both heard voices down below, but no Germans were on the stairs. Max reached in to his coveralls and tore off a finger sized lump of the explosive and wrapped a detonator around it after setting it to "01." He twisted the master to the same number and put it in his injured hand. He concentrated and made his fist contract around the device. "What's in here?" Max gestured to the door straight across from the stairs going down to the first floor. It had been blown in by Max's first gift for the Fourth Reich after leaving the munitions room, but it was still standing.

"Large room, goes to the end of the building. I saw it when they brought me here, but I didn't get a good look," Anders said still covering the stairs. Max knelt down by the handrail for the stairs and stuck the lump of explosive on the edge of the ceiling of the first floor. No one down there seemed to see him do it, and returned his hand with all of his fingers happily attached.

"That's our exit, transport is right outside," Max said and kicked in the cratered and heat stressed door. His HK was ready and his thumb was on the top of the control for the detonator. Max went in the room and was semi relieved to find it void of people. The room itself had a large picture window that over looked what Max hadn't realized before to be a scenic view of the heart of Rotterdam, with her steel and glass towers still gleaming through the grime of the city. A very small part of Max appreciated that, and it would return to him later; now was not the time for sight seeing or hesitation. Anders followed behind him, guarding the door and keeping a close eye on the stairs. The room itself had a large table running down the center of it, and that would be a problem.

"Major, the windows are bullet proof," Anders said calmly. Max kept striding across the room, but dropped its his gun to be supported by the sling and got another wad of the high explosive out of his pocket. He stretched it into a thin "X" on the window and pushed a detonator into it, turning it to "01."

"Corporal, I need this table moved clear of the window," Max said as he pulled another wad of explosive out of his pocket and stuck a third detonator into it, turning it also to "01." Max threw it against the wall of the stairs, and he watched it stick Anders looked at the table and sized it up. It appeared to be one long table, made of solid oak. It ran almost 50 feet, virtually the length of the room. She went to the side of the table and looked under it. Her HK came up and she pointed it at the first of the strong legs holding the table up. She opened fire and Max saw chunks of wood shoot out from under the table. Anders raked the underside, chewing the wooden legs apart. She had to reload twice, but after 25 seconds of work, the table creaked loudly over the jingling of hot brass on the floor and the table collapsed under its own weight.

"Clear," Max said loudly and crisply. Anders moved quickly to the wall of the boardroom, putting 15 feet between her and the table. Max stood against in the corner against the other wall and pushed the plunger down on the switch.

The three explosions went off simultaneously. The men down stairs were no doubt killed instantly, and if any survived there wouldn't be enough stairs left to get to the second floor. The open stairway helped channel the explosive force to the second floor and the boardroom door blew off its hinges amid a column of flame. The explosion on the window weakened it and broke most of the glass, and the flying steel door finished the job nicely as it crashed through. Anders was on the way to the window before the door even hit the street. Max joined her a split second later.

It was quite a jump to the laundry truck below the window, but both managed it nicely. They jumped off the top of the truck and piled inside with Max behind the wheel. He turned the engine over and the pitter-patter of machine gun fire sounded behind them. Max heard the box of the truck getting chewed up.

"Put your head down," Max said. Anders ducked immediately, her shoulders touching her knees.

"Limber little minx," Max thought to himself as he broke the window out with his machine gun. Max hit the gas and turned right, exposing the passenger side. The machineguns from the building fired again and Max opened up with his, sending the guards scattering. Max put the gun down and put both hands on the wheel. The feeling was rapidly leaving his left hand again, and his entire arm was becoming washed with red.

"Sit up, Anders. We're not out of this yet," Max said as the truck lumbered down the street. Max remembered the way to theTwilight exactly. First he was going to go get his ship, and then he was going to get his gun back. They arrived relatively unmolested at the hanger, and Max plowed through the security check at the entry. The guards inside the shack shouted something at Max in German and waved his fist in the air angrily. Max didn't need to know German to understand the string of profanity streaming from the guard. Max whipped the van around inside the garage in front of theTwilight and killed the engine.

"Upton said you're a pilot. I was lied to about everything else on this little trip, did he lie about that, to?" Max asked getting out of the truck. Anders jumped out.

"No sir!" Anders said energetically and jumped in the pilot's seat in of theTwilight. Max tried to hurry, but it was feeling like his feet were made of lead and as if he were swimming through the air instead of walking through it. He drug himself up into the co-pilot's seat and shut the door behind him. Anders already had the computer fired up and was turning on the engines.

"Seat belt," Anders half sung in a worried little melody. More men in blue uniforms were streaming into the garage. Anders brought theTwilight up off the ground and spun her to face the incoming enemy and opened fire with the twin vulcans. She only hit one of them, and the rest scattered. Anders flipped more switches fastened her own harness. She pulled the stirrups on the control pedals and the ship shot up through the roof of the hanger. Max felt like she left his stomach back on the ground. He loved that feeling. "Where to, sir?" she said, the craft hovering in the air over the hanger.

"Über Sauber," he said slowly. Max started taking his coveralls off and looked at his arm. The main artery hadn't been severed, but he was still losing a lot of blood. He ripped the sleeve off the suit and tied it around the wound. Max found that he was forcing himself to stay conscious as the craft moved the few blocks to the building. "Set it down in the street," Max said. Anders responded immediately, dropping the craft quickly, but pulling up just before the landing gear connected. "Make me a door," Max said. Anders fired a burst from the machineguns and the front windows of the laundromat blew inward. The bullets hit something inside the laundromat and the glass exploded back out into the street, as well as formerly clean clothes, machine parts, and even a few random workers; or what was left of them.

Max jumped out after the fire sucked back into the building. He still heard metal clanging inside, and excited shouts in German that he couldn't make out over the other noises of the shop. He went in, arm bandaged, HK pointing ahead, with the explosive still in his coveralls and detonators clinking lightly in his pocket.

He walked in and there were a few workers tying to figure out what had happened. Most of them were missing hair or covered in suit. A few of them had clothes that had burned away in patches. Max counted 6 and possibly 7 of them moving around. He fired a short burst from the HK into the ceiling and whistled loudly. All of the workers' faces shot toward him, looks of fear and panic on them.

"Get out," Max said loudly, clearly, and slowly. Most of them ran out into the brightness of the street only to see theTwilight sitting in the street, gun barrels still smoking. They scattered like cockroaches in the sunlight and Max started moving slowly through the shattered shop.

Small fires were still burning in the front of the store, consuming what was left of the clothing and of a few random workers. He made his way to the back, keeping an eye open for any remaining in workers. He was almost back to where the lockers were and he heard the sound of clanging metal across the main stretch of the building. Max spun around and felt something land solidly on his back between his shoulders. He lurched forward but managed to keep his feet. He spun around and pulled the trigger on the HK, but the only noise was a loud click as the bolt slammed forward into the empty chamber. The big German, the first one Max spoke to in Über Sauber not even an hour ago was standing there with a chunk of pipe, smiling broadly.

"Gutten Tag, bischen Mann," the German said and took a stepped to Max. Max hit the release on his HK's sling and threw it aside. The German swung with the pipe and Max dropped to one knee before the swing connected and punched his opponent square in the solar plexus, moving him back, but not affecting him much more than that. He reacted by swinging the pipe in a low arc, still aiming at Max's head. Max threw himself backward to the floor and kicked the German solidly in the groin. Max felt a squishing crunch and the man spun around with his momentum, collapsing into the burning machine wreckage with a crunch. Max stood up and tightened his bandage. He grabbed the pipe and kept walking back to the lockers. They were locked, but badly damaged from the explosion.

Max wound up with the pipe and smashed into the door of the locker where his things had been put. The locker shuddered and the door rattled open. He saw his boots inside, and thankfully, his gun. He pulled off Otto's boots and put his own back on, lacing them quickly and strapping the armor plates into place. He grabbed his flight suit and went back out to theTwilight, checking to see if his gun was loaded. He saw brass and let the slide slam back forward. He hurried as best he could back to theTwilight. By the time he was outside, he could hear sirens over the shouting people. Max barely registered the gathering crowds as he climbed in.

"Sir?" Anders said and lifted up.

"American West, Desert Brigade H.Q." Max said slowly. He felt like he was coming out of a dream; his body felt weighed down by heavy blankets, the air was cold, and he wasn't sure if he was awake or not. TheTwilight took off and headed for the setting sun. Max passed out before they lost sight of Europe and drifted into a black, dreamless sleep.

He was shaken awake what felt like seconds later. Max's hands immediately shot to where the controls should have been and tried to straighten up in his seat. He found that he'd been strapped into the passenger seat of a two-seater fighter and it took him almost a full second to remember everything that had happened.

"Anders?" Max asked as theTwilight skimmed along the desert floor. Another explosion off the port side of the ship knocked it sideways a little, and Anders was quick to correct for it. She didn't answer right away and Max looked down at the radar. There were three dots chasing them, and they looked to be about 500 meters behind them.

"Sir, there are three ships chasing us, they've been doing so since Texas. They aren't answering their radios and they aren't very good shots."

"Why aren't we at the Brigade?" Max asked, still groggy. His eyes wouldn't quite focus on anything outside of the cockpit. The ground was a blur of brown and the sky was an open field of blue.

"I didn't think that they'd much appreciate us bringing in three hostiles, sir," Anders responded. Max nodded his head. It still felt like his skull was made out of stone and he discovered he had a headache "Sir?" Anders questioned.

"Corporal?" Max asked. His senses were slowly returning to him.

"You might want to strap yourself in tighter, sir. I'm gonna shake 'em," Anders said quietly and checked the straps on her harness. Max did as she suggested and sat up. He didn't see how they were going to shake them; he could start to make out some rises and buttes, but nothing maneuver worthy. Then the whole world rose up before Max. He slammed up into his harness and his stomach felt like it was in his throat. Max could feel himself trying to pass out again, but he fought it back and kept his vision from going completely blank. The small dot of light that he could see re-expanded and he realized that they were in a canyon. It was plenty wide, but he saw that it must have been terribly curvy; it looked like Anders was speeding toward a wall.

Max's eyebrows arched and he stole a sideways glance at his pilot. Anders was biting her lower lip in concentration, moving the craft as close to the walls as she could and twisting theTwilight through the bending canyon with the touch of an expert. Max looked down t the instrument panel and saw that their relative ground speed was fluctuating between 1700 and 1720 kilometers per hour.

"Corporal, are you. . ." Max started to say. The gravity of what was going on hit Max and it snapped him back to crisp, clear reality.

"Yes sir. Shut up," Anders said. Max looked down on the display and saw that one of the dots had fallen off radar, but the other two were still on them. Max turned and looked out the back of the pod and saw that they were above them, easily keeping pace. An alarm started to beep and Max looked down at the display. "Missile" started flashing in red over the top of the radar and Anders pulled back hard on the control sticks and Max saw her twist her feet in opposite directions. They had slowed down some, but now they were up out of the canyon and flying backwards. Max was impressed that theTwilight was holding together, and even more impressed with Anders' flying. At least he wasn't lied to about that.

Anders didn't even hesitate. As soon as they were pointed at the incoming fighters, she opened up with the machine guns until the "Radar Lock" light came on over the display and she launched 2 missiles at the craft straight ahead of them. Not half a second later did that craft explode in a white ball of light and flame. Anders banked hard to port and used the drag of theTwilight to slow them down just enough for her to get a bead on the second ship and she cut it in half with the 40mm vulcans.

Max was in awe. He'd never done anything like this in recon before, not with the skill and finesse that Anders just displayed. The radar showed the third blip appear on its edge and Anders took off for it immediately. She had acquired a missile lock on the target and was prepared to fire when a panicked voice came over the radio.

"Don't shoot!" the voice pleaded. Anders looked to Max and Max shook his head no.

"Who is this? Identify yourself," Max said with a strength that he didn't even know he had.

"This is Xio Lin," the voice said, still shaking.

"Who are you working for? Black Dragons? Consortium?" Max asked. Silence answered him. "You'd better start talking. You might just live through this if you do. If you don't, you won't live to hit the desert floor," Max said with anger joining the strength in his voice. Still there was nothing. Max waited a second and started laughing. Anders looked over at him a confused look on her face.

"You have to be Black Dragon. The Consortium doesn't have power on Earth yet and if you were Red Dragons, there wouldn't have been 3 fighters, there would have been 10. Hope it's been a good life," Max said and flipped the radio off. Max pushed the thumb switch for the missile himself. Max watched as the twin trails of smoke shot out from theTwilight. A few seconds later there was an explosion a little over 4 kilometers from them; Max simply shook his head.

"We need to get to the Brigade," Max said.

"Where are they located, sir?" Anders asked obediently.

"An old airfield in New Mexico. We can't be far from there now," Max answered and turned the radio on. He turned it to 300.780 and cleared his voice. "Lt. Dire, Sgt. Greene, anyone there?"

"Yeah, Dire here, what do you want?" sounded a familiar voice to Max's ears.

"Dire, it's Morgan. I'm in a pretty big hurt and I need some emergency work. If you got the time I got the cash," Max said.

"Morgan, eh? Yeah, I can see what I can do. The old man's at the coast picking up a delivery," Dire said back. The sound of ice clinking in a glass could be heard through the radio.

"I really appreciate it, Lieutenant. We'll be there in about 5 minutes. Morgan, out," Max said and switched off the radio. Max punched the coordinates into the navigation system and leaned back. His arm started throbbing painfully. The harness was uncomfortable and he unbuckled it. After slouching in his seat, Max closed both his eyes and enjoyed the feeling of the speed as they cruised above the desert. "That was some superior flying back there, Corporal Anders."

"Thank you, sir," Anders said proudly.

"You don't have to call me 'sir,' Anders," Max said, opening one eye and rolling it over to look at her. "I left the military a long time ago and left all that behind me." Anders nodded.

"Why did you leave?" she asked after a long pause. Max found himself suddenly wanting a cigarette. He licked his lips only to find that his mouth had gone dry and he forced himself to salivate.

"I left the military because I was tired of being used. You're a tool, Corporal. You let yourself be marginalized and you let yourself be used because someone with more brass on their lapel or a bigger patch on their shoulder says you have to," Max said, closing his eye again. "It's all bullshit, and it's all for nothing," he added with a sigh.