30 miles outside Concordium

Unincorporated Territory

June 21, 2443

David Fleer peered worriedly through one of the gun ports of the Battle Wagon. The deceptively pastoral landscape drifted by, grasslands and gentle green hills fading in the distance to friendly forests. Occasional grass-eating animals stood around, contemplatively grinding away at their cud.

The Riotfish mercenaries hunkered in the Battle Wagon as it trundled across the landscape on the poorly-maintained road, followed closely by a luxury gravcar that was easily worth ten times as much as their vehicle.

The Battle Wagon had been a military model in the distant past, some type of brick-shaped armored cargo van, but scratches, dents, and general mistreatment had flaked away most of the white paint, revealing older colors underneath. The wide gun ports were open, their armored port covers dropped down to give the Riotfish a clear view outside.

They were nearly home safe.

They puttered past a rusty sign. It had a silhouette of one of the cud-chewers, but the wording was faded with age and nearly unreadable.

"Something hornspitter something, danger of loud something not approach, something liability something," Fleer read, as best he could. "Hm. I wonder what that's all about? Something about the creatures, I guess. No sign of bandits, in any case. Yet."

It might have seemed odd for a former corporate assassin to fear bandits, and truthfully, Fleer could handle a couple rowdy fellows. But the bandits of the Between were merciless hordes. They attacked by the hundreds-- armed madmen sweeping across a convoy like locusts, leaving picked-over vehicle husks and dead bodies in their wake.

When they left bodies, that is. Sometimes they took their victims with them.

In any case, the Riotfish were only thirty miles from safety. Thirty miles from their home base in Concordium, that vast unified city where anyone from any corporation could gather in peace and harmony. If you considered passive-aggressive voice messages and sharply-worded contracts "peace and harmony". But it was better to fight with contracts and policies than with bullets and bombs, usually. Concordium was the grandest, most breathtaking, and above all wealthiest city on the planet-- if you could get there.

Fleer moved to the back of the Battle Wagon and louvered open one of the rear windows to check the gravcar following them.

"Mr. Galloway's in good shape," he informed the crew. "Good shape for now. No excitement." And because Fleer did not trust the malignancy of the universe, he added a little sotto voce "please."

He took a calming breath. The Riotfish were in a financial bind-- when weren't they?-- but this job would put them in the black for the month. Cash flow positive for the first time in... he tried running some mental calculations, but gave up. It had been a long time.

They'd had some luck with a recon contract, followed by two weeks of guard augmentation for a corporation concerned about threats from a nearby corp's territory. The escort mission they were on now would round out the month nicely, if their client paid up in the next week or so, and Mr. Galloway seemed like the paying-promptly kind. Which was great. Very strait-laced. It was also great that he never asked to meet any of the Riotfish crew, since they were all whatever the opposite of strait-laced was. Tangle-knotted?

In any case, a profitable month would keep them out of the soup. The crew could get paid, he would stay off the target lists of independent assassins, and they could carry on for another month. He sighed. It felt as though the last three years had been one long exercise in making the best of a bad situation, though at least he'd avoided making any more mistakes as big as he had when he'd bought the Riotfish.

A gentle snore rasped, and he turned to find Little Timmy, their perpetually unshaven demolitions expert, snoozing on one of the benches in his tattered jeans and a t-shirt.

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"Wake up!" Fleer barked. "You're supposed to be watching for trouble on the passenger side!" Little Timmy blinked awake, parsed Fleer's admonishment with little distress, and rolled his eyes.

"We haven't seen anything in like, 200 miles," Little Timmy scoffed, but he nevertheless took his post on the passenger side and stared out his gun port at the scenery, resting his face on one hand. After a few minutes he began snoring again, sitting up.

Little Timmy was the kind of employee that resulted in eye-wateringly specific HR policies.

"Whee bungles," said Roger the lizardman. "Angry mangry flies! Zoot!"

Roger was a Dipso, one of the legendary race of lizardmen, and he shared the light-green skin and tapered head of his kind. But instead of being a ripply-muscled, keen-eyed warrior, Roger was the opposite of all those things. Skinny, with limbs and joints that hung at awkward angles, twitching randomly, with large round black eyes that rarely registered any intelligence. He wore a white t-shirt that hung loosely on his narrow frame, and cargo shorts that had probably been khaki once, tied to his waist with a knotted rope.

Roger sat on the floor of the Battle Wagon with his legs splayed out, working diligently to discover how far into his earhole he could jam his pinky finger. He kept turning his head at neck-snapping angles as he twisted his finger around. He was already up to the second knuckle, a personal record.

"Roger, do you want to keep watch for a while?"

Roger giggled lightly and popped his finger out of his earhole. He playfully somersaulted across the floor and climbed onto the bench, looking through the rear gun port on the driver's side and flicking his tail.

Fleer wondered if he should have made everyone wear their uniforms, but it wasn't as though Mr. Galloway was going to be popping into the back of the Battle Wagon to say howdy. It was fine.

It was probably fine.

The ruminant herd they'd been driving past was growing denser. The creatures looked like a cross between a rhinoceros and a goat with a goiter. They stood six feet tall at the shoulder, with large herbivore teeth and broad, flat heads. Their eyes poked comically out to the sides.

The Battle Wagon idled low. Their speed had been steadily drifting slower and slower over the last few miles. Fleer turned to his driver.

Mrs. Meade sat in the driver's seat, her tiny, aged form dwarfed by the controls of the massive groundroller, with a wrinkled, absent smile permanently hanging on her face. She peered dimly through the windshield from under the rim of the steering wheel.

"Mrs. Meade, do you think we might be going a little too slow?"

"Oh, you're right, dear," she answered.

The Battle Wagon sped up slightly. Coming up from idle, the sudden richer gas caused the elderly vehicle to backfire.

Everybody in the Battle Wagon jumped a little. "Just a little burp," Mrs. Meade reassured everyone.

Fleer tried to calm himself. He louvered the rear window open again to check on their charge.

One of the animals, having been startled by the sudden report, was charging the Battle Wagon.

"Brace for--!" was as far as Fleer got before a resounding WHAM shook the Battle Wagon, knocking him over. The heavy vehicle rocked, but the creature wasn't satisfied. With a throaty bellow he charged again, this time bringing a few of his more adventurous brethren with him.

"Mrs. Meade, we need to go--" Fleer's sentence was cut off as another ruminant strike shook the Battle Wagon. Fleer grabbed one of the hand straps hanging from the ceiling. He flipped open the rear louver to check on their escort.

Fleer spat a curse.

"Galloway's under attack, too! Little Timmy, Roger, see if you can scatter the creatures from our rear."

Roger giggled as he grabbed one of the Borka automatic rifles off the rack. Little Timmy pulled a small satchel of high explosives from his stash and pushed in a timer. He eyed the attacking creatures and carefully pulled out the timing knob.

"Cover your ears!" he cried. He swung the dense satchel toward the louvers and the creatures outside.

The explosive bounced off the edge of the louver. It clattered loudly and fell back into the Battle Wagon.

"Oh frag," Little Timmy said.

Roger smoothly snatched up the satchel and stuffed it through the louver on his side. He dropped to the floor, with his hands covering his earholes.

With a roar, the explosion lifted the rear of the Battle Wagon off the ground, throwing them forward. Little Timmy scrambled back to his feet and peeked out.

"That's one," he said, pointing at a messy spot on the road.

The explosion had drawn more of the hornspitters. The males were spoiling for a fight, and more of them began charging the Battle Wagon.

"Let's see if we can just drive away from them!" Fleer shouted over the banging of near-constant attacks.

"Weebly whoopsing," Roger said, pointing outside.

"Oh no." Fleer watched two of the creatures slam into Mr. Galloway's exceptionally expensive limousine. The light gravcar tipped, leaned, and rolled gently over onto its roof.

"Oh no no no," Fleer said. "Mrs. Meade, stop!"