It was Jak who had the most difficult of the assignments and yet was the one best equipped to carry it out. He was the last to slip away from the camp, having no initial notion of where the roving sec patrol may be. The only thing he could do was pick any point from which to begin and listen to his instincts.
Having made his way out into the wood, so that the noises of the camp were filtered from his consciousness, Jak stopped and hunkered down, stilling his breathing so that he was as immobile and as quiet as possible. In this state, he was able to focus his senses and maybe determine a direction for the sec patrol. Wherever they were, they were out of range. He could hear nothing and his only choice was to take a direction and proceed as swiftly as possible. If he was traveling in a counter direction, then he would find them quickly. If not, it would take him longer than he would have wished to catch up with them. He shrugged to himself, stoically realizing that there was no easier way.
“THIS NIGHT IS TOO LONG for my liking,” one member of the four man patrol whispered as they slowly made their way from one post to another. They had traversed the woodlands between the sentry points and had gone as far as the beginnings of another flat plain.
“Do not have fear because of the darkness,” a second replied sardonically, “for the larger animals already share that fear and will not be seen until the daylight.”
“Easy to say,” the other replied sharply.
A third spoke with a weary tone. “Cease this petty squabbling. Neither animal nor man would be out tonight unless they had cause.”
“I had not thought of that,” the first mused. “Could there be other patrols such as ourselves for which we should look?”
The second laughed softly. “Truly, paranoia is a wondrous beast. You saw yourself that the nearest ville is at least a day’s march away.”
The first man turned to his accuser in the moonlight and smiled. “Not everyone has to march. Listen…”
In the distance they could hear the sound of a wag, high and whining across the plain.
“Adopt secure positions now!” the patrol leader barked, the banter of a moment before forgotten. Following his lead, the patrol fanned out and adopted defensive positions along the verge of the woodland, waiting for the wag to approach, for the note of the engine deepened into a drone and increased in volume as it headed toward them. Scanning the plain, it was now possible to pick out the shape—with lights extinguished—of what appeared to be a jeep, with at least three men on board.
“Do not fire unless we are seen. If they wish to pass and not enter the wood, we do not alert them to our presence. Understood?”
The other patrol members didn’t answer, taking it as an order rather than a question.
Away to the west, Jak had just passed a sentry post, having seen J.B. on watch and alerting him to his presence with the softest of bird calls. The Armorer had returned the signal and let Jak pass, now knowing that the barest sound of his passing wasn’t an unknown danger. Jak scouted around the post without anyone even realizing he was there, and continued on his search for the patrol.
It was soon after that he caught the sound of a wag engine on the night air. Realizing that it could only come from an outside source, and having no idea where the sec patrol may be, Jak increased his pace so that he could intercept the wag to ascertain its purpose. Within a few minutes, the engine had grown louder and Jak had arrived at the point where the sec patrol had positioned themselves.
Swiftly and silently, Jak climbed a tree so that he had an overview of the situation. He could see the wag clearly on the plain and could pick out four men in the pale moonlight, all armed. Below him he could see the four patrol members, armed with Glocks and H&Ks, which were the standard Pilatan sec hardware. The patrol was focused and ready to fight. The approaching patrol wouldn’t be. They were either an outlying sec patrol themselves, or nocturnal hunters. In either case, their primary concern would be the wildlife and they wouldn’t expect a four man sec patrol to blast them.