Chapter 6-170: The Portal to the North (+ Survey) (1/2)
-Sama, there’s a problem up front.-
Sama’s eyes opened as Lily relayed what she was seeing on the horizon ahead.
Sama could have been sitting up in front on the comfy seat and heating, but was instead riding in the back, keeping the snide comments of the women there to a minimum as she endured the ride with them. Just the gentle force of her breathing basically lulled most of them into quiet Meditation, which most of them naturally knew, especially as it was an easy way to pass the time.
-Is there a blockade?- she /asked calmly.
-Looks like about a mile ahead,- Lily /confirmed after a moment.
-Pull the convoy over immediately.- “Hup!” she said, but she had Voice. “Pull it over and prepare to disembark!”
The three troop carriers ferrying her relief company towards Portal immediately pulled over to the side of the road as eyes around her snapped open in surprise, to find that she was already on her feet, and her eyes had that wicked light in them...
The carrier hadn’t even stopped when she swung out over the tailgate, hit the ground sliding and pulling around onto the road to take a look at the sky to the north.
Her Mask glowed for a moment, her eyes zoomed ahead at the obstruction across the road ahead... military vehicles, with men manning it.
Far more worrisome was the inky black cloud getting shot through with yellow-green flames near the town that was the major crossing point for the American and Canadian border for hundreds of miles.
Borders were more than lines on a map in a magical world. When magic descended, the perceptions of so many millions of people that there was a division where one did not actually exist had created roiling chaos along the border, terrible storms related to the conflict between reality and law.
It had taken several years to erect Stelae all along the border, formalizing on the land a border that was only metaphysical before then. For thousands of kilometers, the Stelae symbolized the border, and more precisely, the paths between them on a magical and spiritual level.
It didn’t mean that people could only pass through at the designated roads. It did mean to many a wandering spirit that there was a barrier there, and their ability to move back and forth was now impeded.
They didn’t take it too well, and the Spirit of North America would probably have been annoyed at the artificial line, but wasn’t Aware enough to do anything about it.
Portal was one of the ‘stations’ by which magical entities like Fey and Elementals could pass through, along with normal people. However, this was very much dependent on the border staying ‘open’. When it closed, the spirits couldn’t go on through, which tended to result in some violence from such things on both sides of the border.
Thus, conflicts with fey, roving air Elementals, and some magical beasts happened with some frequency at Portal, as it literally channeled their travel paths through the town.
Now, people weren’t stupid, and didn’t want to fight the mostly-uncaring spirits who wanted to flit by overhead. At the same time, there were plenty of things on the ground they didn’t want crossing over, and this was a good way for the forces on both sides to do something about them.
Thus, it was a fairly combat-heavy posting, and a lot of Powered got sent here to get blooded. They could almost pick their fights at times; there was a wide variety of opponents, and there was no schedule to the things, save that action tended to happen at night when they closed the border much more often.
A demonic hellcloud forming there was something much, much worse than that.
“Everyone check their phones and coms. Do not message the base ahead. Call back to headquarters,” she ordered. “Get off the transports!” She banged the armored side hard enough to leave a small dent in it, and lithe, very athletic women spilled out of the back of the trucks. “Assemble off the road. What’s up with coms?”
“Sir, no signals. We can’t raise anything!” one of the new sergeants relayed quickly, backed up by the other squads.
Sama turned around to look at the long, straight road behind them, the cold plains going right to the horizon. “We’re in range of the tower relays. Coms! Are you getting jamming?”
It was an unexpected question, and the communications people immediately scrambled to test their gear, even as everyone moved off the road, including the drivers.
“Sir, we just got a call from the road ahead! They are wondering who we are!”
“DO NOT RESPOND TO THAT CALL!” Hands froze. “Coms! What’s going on?” she demanded.
“Sir, there’s no jamming, there’s just no signal! The call from ahead came in just fine!” Corporal Nikita shouted out, rapidly backed up by the others.
“They’ve cut the relay towers in the area.” Sama’s words made everyone straighten up. “Awright, here’s the plan! Channissey! Pick two squads, render them invisible, and Disk them up to that blockade ahead and give me a sitrep pronto!” The Wind sorceress hurriedly pointed at another squad, Sgt. Pilleny’s, as she moved her hand and the Disks came up.
“Move the front two trucks to block the road! Everyone down in cover! Lily, take truck three and two squads and peel out for that relay tower ten miles back there at full speed! You will assume it is being held by hostiles and possibly booby-trapped! You will splice into the landline and send out the alert that this area has gone dark and there is a Demoncloud brewing in Portal!
“Smith! Pop up a Disk for yourself, and I want a covering Holo screening our approach! Everyone left form up behind Smith’s illusion! I want guns loaded, safeties on!”
There was a roar as the first two trucks turned sideways and blocked the road, not incidentally screening away the view of the third truck pulling rapidly away after Lily and her squads raced to get back on it.
They didn’t get three hundred yards down the road before Sama shouted, “HIT THE DECK!”
Voice was wonderful. The soldiers didn’t pause to wonder why, they just slammed their faces to the ground.
The streaks of fire came in and blew the transports into flaming wrecks with loud explosions and sprays of scattering metal, sending both tumbling as ruined scrap.