“Bashar! Yes. Yes, it’s as bad as it sounds.”
Leta turned back to see Mic had pulled a sat phone from his pocket and was barking orders at someone.
He cursed in his native language before pulling the phone away and looking at Hayato. “Can you get us to Skyros? Better yet, Lemnos?”
Hayato shook his head. “I’ve never been to either of those physically.”
Mic cursed again, “The Governor says all operations in Greece and the Aegean are to evacuate to Sofia. Sofia pushed into Greece and set up a staging area at Delta Nestos National Park to funnel Chosen out and prepare for a counter strike. Istanbul has ships to get us out by sea and bring us there, but we need to get as far north as we can first.”
Without question, Atreus pulled out his tablet, flipped to a digital map, and handed it to Hayato.
“I can get us here.” He pointed to a small island several thousand kilometers to the north. “Skiathos. But that’s extremely far and will take a while to build a gate to, much longer than what it took for me to make the gate here.”
The Chosen didn’t even hear the fighter jet approaching until they were practically on top of them, flying so low they nearly blew the gazebo off its foundation as it banked low to intercept another fighter jet heading for the Defense Ministry.
They watched in horrified wonder as the pair of jets exchanged fire before twisting up towards the sky, both trying to outflank the other.
“That was an F-16 and a Rafale.” Stefana pointed out. “We should move. One or both of those planes are coming down, and I don’t want to be beneath them when they do.”
“How long would it take you to build a gate to Skiathos?” Atreus asked insistently.
“An hour. Maybe more. That’s a lot of ground to cover.”
“Can we evacuate by air and intercept Istanbul?” Atreus looked to Mic. “An hour being forced to be stationary in a war zone is too dangerous. Additionally, if we make it to Skiathos and there’s an emergency, we have no way to make a quick escape.”
He pointed one finger at a location on the map. “The Olympic Stadium. This is one of our landing zones in case of an emergency. It’s been under another renovation, so it’s not occupied right now. The pitch is large enough to land a few helicopters to get us out. If your team at Santorini has enough fuel to get here and out to sea, we can meet up with Istanbul’s fleet.”
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“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there’s an entire war going on right now.” Mic waved his hand angrily at the view of the city in flames. “Our helicopters won’t make it through those anti-aircraft guns.”
“They can if we get with our contacts with the Hellenic military,” Atreus replied calmly but firmly. “Give me your aircraft’s call numbers, and they won’t have to worry about the HAF; they’ll just need to be ready for the Costezian jets.”
“That still means running 5 kilometers through a war zone with missiles flying overhead.” Stefana pointed out, “Besides dodging panicking civilians and any Blessed laying in wait. The roads to the stadium will be clogged with people trying to get on the E94 and 6 trying to get out of the city.”
“Filothei Hill is between here and the Stadium, and it’s basically been undeveloped.” Allister added in, “Wide open space for us to see any oncoming attacks and avoid civilians.”
“Our ammunition won’t be enough in a true firefight.” One warrior pointed out. “We grabbed what we could from the Vault, but what we have won’t make much of a difference if we’re pinned down.”
Hayato answered, “After Filothei Hill, there’s a residential area to get through, and then we’re in the sports complex. We own a space across from a church there where our Blacksmith works. There will be ammunition there.”
“One caveat to this,” Allister winced, “Is that we’d just gotten intel of a den near a school less than 500 meters away. It was to be targeted later tonight by our second party.”
“Well, isn’t that wonderful?” Mic growled, his eyes narrowing with disdain as his voice slowly rose in volume, “A 5-kilometer sprint through an open field with a firefight taking place over our heads, followed by a brisk walk through Mundane territory full of screaming and panicked civilians, only to end up on a merry walk into an enemy domain, all on the hope that our helicopters can get in and out of a barrage of anti-aircraft fire. Have I left anything out?” By the time he’d finished his tirade, he was practically screaming, his teeth bared like an angry lion.
“Uh, guys?” Full of cautious uncertainty, Leta’s voice broke the tension. “Do you hear that?”
Everyone went silent, their eyes looking about as they tried to listen.
Small explosions and the crackling of fire were perforated by the sound of car alarms screaming, the cries of terrorized citizens, and the ‘tat-tat-tat’ of artillery fire.
There was the screech of car tires, the chopping of military helicopter rotor blades whirling in the distance, and the sound of dogs barking.
As they paused to listen, the canine barking seemed to get louder.
It also seemed to get more numerous, as if one or two dogs had suddenly turned into a dozen or more.
And then they heard it.
The bay of a wolf at the unseen moon.
“Allister.” Leta said in a slow and cautious tone, “You said the Stadium was in a general that-way direction?” She thumbed northeast over her shoulder.
“Aye, lass.” His answer was just as drawn out as he tried to scan the city below for signs of what was coming.
“Cool.”
Leta said nothing else or added any insights. She simply turned on her heels and sprinted up the hill, heading northeast.
Confused, the Chosen watched her for a moment before Allister and Atreus nodded in agreement and followed, with Bonnie, Hayato, and the rest of the Chosen close behind and whatever was pursuing them not far off.