Valentine's Resolve (Vampire Earth 6)

"With a motorcycle engine attached to an oversized food processor as a mount".

"So how were you going to get all the way up here without the flyboys?" she asked.

"I've had some experience with ships and boats. Thought I'd get to LA by hiring on with a convoy, then work north up the coast. But an opportunity presented itself, and I always wanted to know more about the Circus".

"Seen them buzzing around?"

"Something like that".

"I'd still like to try that gun. I've only ever shot over open sights since I was little".

Valentine showed her the points of the rifle. "You cock the first with the bolt. Crosshairs are zeroed for one hundred yards".

"Regular 7.62?"

Valentine nodded. She sighted on an old wooden post perhaps seventy yards away, peeping like an owl from a patch of brush next to the road, and fired. They walked over and inspected her shot. She'd almost centered the post.

"Again?"

Valentine decided that ammunition used in practice wasn't really wasted, and he wanted to test the stuff he'd picked up in Yuma anyway.

He fashioned targets by inking a couple of pieces of toilet tissue and fixed them to a tree trunk back toward the autogyro. She was an even better shot than he was at two hundred yards, using the stabilizing built-in bipod.

The only thing they disturbed with the gunfire was the birds.

"I'm convinced", he said.

"The old man sent me to bed hungry if I missed with my bullet", she said. "One shot, meat and all that".

Valentine examined the road. It had been used recently, light trucks by the look of the tread. Someone was taking care of the primary roads out here. He unrolled and studied his map of Washington State.

This could be one of the highways that communicated between the forces in the Cascades and Mount Omega - which wasn't really a mountain, of course. Strange that over all these years the Kurians had never located it. His contact with Southern Command was there. He hoped he'd have reason to visit.

Valentine cleaned and stowed the gun and they climbed into the autogyro. Valentine had flown it tandem before while learning, but never with his food, weapons and accoutrements, blankets and bamboo sleeping mat, and spare clothes aboard.

He worked the throttle and opened the engine all the way up. The autogyro ate highway as it sped up, and finally jumped into the air. Gide let out a gasp.

Valentine brought it up to about a thousand feet.

Flying in an autogyro is noisy and busy. The lift from the rotors makes it sway and bob like a cork in a choppy water.

"Oh shit. Land again. Land again", Gide gasped.

"Are you..".

A loud retching sound from above and behind answered his question. The smell filled the cabin, half-digested bologna-and-cheese sandwiches giving off a beery odor. Valentine fought his own gorge, rising in sympathy.

Gide cracked a little panel window, letting in even more of the engine's roar. "You can set it down, Max. I think I'd rather walk".

"Give it an hour", Valentine said, watching the falling sun and wondering if he could stand an hour with the vomit smell. "Fix your eyes on the mountains. That's where we're heading".

Twenty minutes of groaning later Valentine spotted a strange bare patch of earth below, a short hike away from a treelined pond. It was too good an opportunity to pass up. He passed low over the cleared oval of ground and sent small, chickenlike birds on short hop-flights.

He landed with a bad bounce.

"Thank Christ", Gide said as they halted.

"Let's clean out the ship", Valentine said. He extracted a collapsed plastic jug and passed it to Gide. "Your spew. You can carry the water".