The bullet skipped off of the heavy, armor-impregnated glass. Mrs. Meade waved at the guard. He fired twice more, to no effect. A final series of clanks sounded under the Battle Wagon.
"There it goes," she said. "See? It took no time at all. Nothing for you to worry about, Mr. Oliver."
"Gooooooooooo," Little Timmy whined.
Mrs. Meade shifted back into reverse and applied the accelerator again. This time the front wheels gripped and pushed the Battle Wagon backward. The gate bent and buckled. With a creak and a rumble of disintegrating stonework, the pillars gave way and the Battle Wagon crashed to the ground.
More guards had arrived, and taking their cue from the first, opened fire on the Battle Wagon.
"We have to get out of here!" D'khara cried.
Oliver, flustered and panicking, yelled the one thing that Fleer had told him never to say except in an emergency.
"Mrs. Meade! It's time to go fast!"
She smiled her gentle little smile.
The Battle Wagon's engine roared, and it lurched backward. The cables clung to the stonework, yanking the pillars apart as the Battle Wagon tore away from the gate. One cable trailed the van, dragging a lump of stonework the size of a man's head. The other was pulling half the gate along. The gate skipped and jerked crazily along the ground as the Battle Wagon picked up speed.
Careening wildly, the Battle Wagon shredded its way across the property in reverse. It chewed up the carefully maintained lawn. It exploded whimsical topiary animals. It flattened small, decorative trees and bounced heavily off larger ones.
D'khara clung to the hard wooden bench, trying to keep his seat and stuttering out dwarvish, either curses or a prayer, it was hard to say which. Little Timmy was standing, both hands wrapped firmly in the hand straps hanging from the ceiling, being whipped mercilessly back and forth by the Battle Wagon's travel and hooting with glee. Roger sat quietly, rolling smoothly with the movements of the vehicle.
Oliver just had his eyes covered.
As the Battle Wagon rollicked across the grounds, guards leapt out of the way, dodging the maniacal vehicle and the deadly masses it trailed, the concrete whistling by with deadly speed and the gate bouncing and cartwheeling unpredictably. Turning, the guards fired fruitlessly, the Battle Wagon's thick armor plating shrugging off their light rounds.
The Battle Wagon flew backward, gaining speed, and plowed through the fountain in a phenomenal cloud of mist and concrete dust. The mangled plumbing of the fountain began spraying madly in all directions. Continuing through, the Battle Wagon mounted the front stairs of the mansion, its solid rubber tires staining the marble and continuing to gain speed as it rocketed toward the doors.
With a bang and a crunch the Battle Wagon blasted butt-first through the front entryway in an explosion of glass and exotic wood, burying itself in the mansion nearly to the driver's door. The wide tires chewed at the expensive oriental carpet in the foyer as the Battle Wagon shrieked and howled.
The engine finally died, and the Battle Wagon sat cooling and ticking.
An eerie calm settled over the scene. Guards from outside the mansion slowly converged on the Battle Wagon. Inside, security forces crept closer in wonder at the violation of the vehicle inside the grand foyer.
Three guards came toward the rear of the wagon. The Battle Wagon hulked there, inert.
Roger shattered the quiet by kicking open the rear doors of the Battle Wagon with a sprung grenade in either hand. He screamed "It's ketchuppin' time!" and began flinging grenades willy-nilly into the room. They bounced heavily and rolled around the expensive marble floor as the panicked guards scrambled for the exits. One grenade lodged, all unlikely, in the chandelier.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
D'khara grabbed the back of Roger's flak jacket and yanked him back into the Battle Wagon as grenades started going off. The Battle Wagon could soak up the grenade shrapnel, but Roger... well, Roger could technically soak up the shrapnel too, but he probably wouldn't hold up so well.
Roger, all a-glee, grabbed his Borka automatic rifle and hopped back out of the Battle Wagon as the explosions subsided. Glancing briefly around, he picked the stairs as a likely direction, and skittered up them. He turned left at the top and darted off to do his job.
Roger's job was to create a mess and a distraction. And he was very, very good at his job.
D'khara remembered Oliver's briefing. "Roger should go first," he'd said. "You'll want to give him some room."
D'khara glanced at the floor of the wagon. Little Timmy was upside down, having been rattled loose of the hand straps during the crash. Slowly he rolled upright and picked up his Kealan SMGs, wincing at new bruises inflicted by the sides and floor of the Battle Wagon. Shaking himself, he strolled up next to D'khara and stared out of the Battle Wagon.
His pinprick pupils swam in bloodshot scleras, and a crazed, toothy smile gripped his face. With a Kealan in each hand, he gazed out at the remains of the grand foyer, now pocked with grenade craters and scattered with bodies and viscera.
"You want to do this together?" D'khara asked, not wanting the company so much as he wanted to not run alone.
Little Timmy hopped down from the wagon into the foyer without looking at D'khara.
"You do your thing, stumpy, and I'll do mine." So saying, he jogged toward the hall.
D'khara stared hard at Little Timmy's back, fingering the trigger of his automatic shotgun.
"Now let's mash some faces!" Little Timmy cried. As he continued down the hall, he started indiscriminately spraying 9mm bullets at guards, light fixtures, furniture, and anything that looked like it might take a bullet in a fun and exciting way.
D'khara climbed carefully down out of the back of the Battle Wagon. A pair of grand, curving staircases led up. Beyond them was an open hall. Immediately to the left of the Battle Wagon, an ornate arch opened to a well-stocked library, and a well-appointed dining room lay to the right. Also to the right was the hallway Little Timmy had trotted down.
D'khara stared around, indecisive.
"If I was a file room, where would I be?" he said aloud. The echoing of his voice in the foyer made him self-conscious, so he quickly picked a direction, moved to the nearest staircase, and started struggling up the stairs. He was not built for staircases, and his thick hobnail boots left nasty rows of scratches in the marble surface as, chest heaving, he flung one foot up after another.
At the top of the stairs, even over his gasping, he could hear Roger cackling and gibbering in the distance to his left.
He chose to go right.
"Help find the file room," he huffed. "Make noise. Draw attention." Nodding at his mental checklist, he turned right, opening fire. With luck, they'd find the file room quickly, and be out of here before the security forces had any idea what was going on.
In the foyer, the Battle Wagon sat for a few more minutes as Roger, D'khara and Little Timmy focused all the attention on themselves. No more curious guards came to look at the monstrosity lodged in the house. They'd all been drawn deeper inside to deal with the noisier parts of the Riotfish crew.
The engine grumbled back to life.
Slowly, the Battle Wagon rocked itself back and forth, wheels slipping and squeaking on the smooth floor where the carpet had shredded away. With each little bit of traction, it loosened itself more and more from the crunched up bits of wall that held it in place. Soon, and with a horrible squeal of raw wood on metal, the Battle Wagon lurched free of the mansion and rolled quietly off into the twilight, unnoticed.
----------------------------------------
Oliver cut a unique figure as he cut through the night air. He was hanging out of the passenger door of the Battle Wagon as it rumbled slowly across the lawn.
He and Mrs. Meade had looped around toward the west side of the mansion and were looking for an infiltration point while the Battle Wagon's broad, knobbly tires did unspeakable things to the landscaping. There were no guards in sight; they'd all been drawn indoors, as hoped, so Oliver and Mrs. Meade could scout in peace.
Near the rear of the mansion, Oliver spotted a small door with three narrow concrete stairs leading up to it. He figured that was as quiet an entry as he was likely to find. He pointed it out to Mrs. Meade and hopped down, jogging along on the grass to slow down as the Battle Wagon lumbered on.
"Be watchful of the enemy, Mrs. Meade!" he called out in that hoarse voice people use when they're trying to make their voice carry, but don't want to be overheard.
Oliver watched worriedly for a moment as Mrs. Meade turned the Battle Wagon to make her slow way to the exfiltration point. He hunched over and started scooting toward the mansion, swiveling his head around nervously, as unobtrusive as a cactus in a nudist colony. Fortunately, all the attention was indoors, being hogged by Roger, D'khara, and Little Timmy. There wasn't anyone around to see Oliver.
With any luck, that state would hold, and he could search for the file room in peace.
He neared the door. Gently trying the doorknob with two fingers, he found it locked. Glancing around to make sure no one would hear, he placed his palm flat against the door near the jamb and simply pushed.
Locked doors are an optional obstacle for an orc.