Two hundred soldiers loaded into the haulers in under a minute. The column moved out.
Kian rode in the command Chira, issuing instructions over the vox as they drove.
"Five vehicles, heading west, trying to bypass our sector. Three bags a vehicle was apparently too steep a price. Their call — but the detour routes aren't safe. Rebel guerrillas operate all through the western tracks. Tragic, really."
Laughter from the vox net. They understood the assignnt.
"Old Kae — you're with , we take the front. Little Kae — take your hundred, push three hundred tres past the ambush point and hold the escape route. Nobody gets out the back."
Both company commanders acknowledged.
"Single-fire mode. Aid shots at the driver's compartnt. If you can't shoot accurately, don't shoot at all — I need those vehicles intact and running. We drive them out ourselves. On my signal, no early shots, and nobody escapes."
Kian had set this up in advance. The road tax operation had always had a second layer — observation posts with vox capability watching the western detour tracks, reporting vehicle movents. Anyone who declined to pay and tried to go around would be tracked.
The ambush point was a narrow farm track thirty kilotres west of the main position — Dirt Road Thirteen. Functional access to the Hive, but barely. Farrs had worn it into existence over generations. Narrow, rough, with economic timber plantings on both sides providing natural concealnt.
Kian pulled the column into the tree line, covered the vehicles with cut branches, and positioned his people.
Old Kae's hundred spread along both sides of the road in the undergrowth. Little Kae's hundred pushed forward to the cut-off position.
Old Kae murmured from beside Kian in the grass.
"My lord — there was sothing you promised. My eldest son. The chanical legs. He's been keeping himself together — no drinking, good behaviour. You ntioned—"
Kian pressed his palm to his forehead.
"I completely forgot. Right — after this, we're running the vehicles back to the Underhive. I'll take him to the Enginseer myself. We get it sorted."
The vox crackled — Little Kae, forward position.
"Five vehicles. All loaded. Coming through."
Kian keyed the command channel.
"All positions, targets in approach. Chamber rounds.
Command vehicle — activate jamming."
"Command vehicle copies. Jamming active."
Static across the vox. The suppression field covered over ten kilotres in every direction. No transmissions in, no transmissions out. Whatever happened on this road stayed on this road.
Engine noise in the trees. Five cargo haulers picking their way along the narrow track, moving carefully through the ruts.
When the lead vehicle reached twenty tres, Kian raised his rifle, found the driver through the windscreen, and fired once.
The glass shattered. The driver slumped. The hauler swerved hard and drove into a tree with a hollow impact.
The ambush opened up along both sides of the road simultaneously — controlled single shots, aid at the cab of each vehicle. Windscreens exploded. The drivers and passengers in the front seats took multiple hits before any of them had processed what was happening.
The last vehicle — partially shielded by the others — had a driver with fast enough reflexes to hit the brakes and begin reversing.
He didn't get far. Little Kae's hauler ca out of the trees ahead of him and blocked the track. His vehicle stopped.
Kian's soldiers closed in from all sides, firing into the cab until the movent stopped.
Total elapsed ti: under thirty seconds. Five vehicles, all cab personnel down, no escapes.
Kian was on his feet imdiately.
"Clear the site. Get the vehicles moving."
The operation was thorough. Brass casings swept up, broken glass collected, bloodstained earth cut away and removed. The bodies were loaded into one of the empty cargo beds. Several soldiers produced spray paint and covered the 81st Regint's white unit markings on every vehicle panel.
When the site was clean, the column drove to the nearest ventilation shaft access and descended into the Underhive.
The food cargo was offloaded and consolidated with existing stores. The five vehicles went to a reliable underground contact whose technicians were accustod to this kind of work — disassembly, component grinding to remove serial markings, distribution through untraceable channels.
The vehicle crews received a complete solution to the question of what had happened to them.
[End of Chapter 221]
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