They took turns riding, unwilling to lose even a single minute. It would surely prove fatal, with the Devils on their tail.

Jas accelerated after a sharp turn around a ruined wall that almost threw Alyona from her makeshift crib in the Sparrow's skeletal front frame. When they decided to leave the pipe, she made herself a seat from her jacket and webbing and snuggled in, nursing the Galahad rifle and talking quietly with the Ghost. Jasker admired her resourcefulness. He would have tried to come up with a more sophisticated solution. She simply made it work and beamed at him.

She was also the first to recognize the sound of cloaked Skiffs overhead for what it was. Three glassy, shark-like shapes descended to the site of the firefight and hung there, motionless, as one of them disgorged tiny crewmen. The site itself was hidden from sight by the same hills that kept Jas and Alyona safe. They had no idea what the Fallen did there, but when one of the Skiffs blared a sort of an alarm and the other two started disembarking their troops, Jasker decided it was time to leave. Nobody objected.

They made another few hundred meters before being spotted. After that, it was a mad scramble to get, at first, onto the bike and then - as far away as possible from the Fallen ships, with grass and dirt puffing up in tiny explosions where arc rounds impacted around them.

Strangely, only a single Skiff followed them at a respectable distance, well out of shooting range. The other two disappeared in thunderclaps of air rushing in to fill the space where, just a second before, hung a now-distant ship.

Jasker did not put too much thought in choosing a route. He just rode in the general "away from the Fallen" direction and hoped for the best. The best was that the Skiff stopped following them in an hour or so.

In another two hours, he and Alyona swapped seats. Her crib was surprisingly comfortable, and Jas caught himself dozing off. He fought it, for a time, then gave in to sleep.

When he woke up, they were riding through the ruins of what appeared to be a significant city. It looked almost intact, if terribly overgrown with local vegetation. What impressed Jasker most was a trio of birches growing on the roof of what may have once been a grocery store.

While they did hear a few distant thunderclaps of atmospheric re-entry, the Ghost, which, to its dismay, found the name of Glazok sticking, assured them that no sensors were trained on them. Then, just as Jasker switched seats with Alyona once more, the shooting began.

They banked and weaved, dipping in and out of derelict alleys, hearing the incessant hissing whine of the bullets around them. Alyona returned fire at the invisible attackers, aiming awkwardly at full speed over Jasker's head. It was loud and the muzzle flash strobed in front of his eyes until they hurt.

The shooting stopped just as abruptly as it had begun. Still, Jasker did not dare stop - so he rode on, with an alert Alyona scanning the buildings around them with quick, practiced sweeps of her rifle. There was no sign of further ambushes.

Exhaustion - not as much physical as mental - started gnawing at Jasker's resolve. He found a ruin with a large enough door and semi-intact roof, and drove in. Alyona looked at him, a silent question in her eyes.

"I'm tired," he whispered back. "Can you drive some more?"

She smiled, reassuringly.

"Sure. Why are you whispering?"

"Thought we should keep quiet."

She looked pointedly at the Sparrow, its engine groaning softly on idle. Jas felt like a fool.

"Strap yourself tightly and catch some more sleep. I know my way in this city. This is Orenburg."

Jas looked at her, but decided that the time for questions would come later, once they would be sure that no Fallen remained on their tail.

Alyona rode much more slowly and methodically, picking her way along the heavily damaged streets. It was easier to lose any possible pursuit in the maze that the city was than trying to outrun them on a plain. They only needed a good shelter to stop, recuperate and choose their next destination in a more conscious way.

Jas said something about checking a possible research facility in the Southern Ural mountains. She did not know of any being there, but that is the whole point of keeping something classified. She would have preferred to go directly for the Astrahan AI Development And Control center, but that was way more distant.

She found a suitable building in the industrial district east of the Ural river. An old warehouse or a stripped clean manufacture silo - she could not tell, but it was spacious, had an easily defensible entrance and rows of catwalks halfway between the floor and the rusted ceiling.

Jasker woke up just as they rode into the warehouse, even more groggy than before. He helped set up the camp, feeling his head clear, and was fully awake by the time Glazok returned and made a quiet report of their environment.

They have not been followed, but there were a lot of 'keep out' signs stencilled in Fallen glyphs on the buildings around them. There was also a massive biological signature in a similar warehouse three buildings south. Glazok did not go there, of course.

Jas smiled, again, at the Ghost's honest admission of fear. It made him feel a tiny bit more brave himself. Not brave enough to go and check what the signature was, though.

They ate and slept, with the Ghost projecting a gossamer web of light in a sphere around them, large enough to cover the windows and the door. Glazok woke them at dawn, and generated a map on the floor in front of them.

"We're here," it said. "The closest location from Jasker's list is here."

Two bright dots accompanief the Ghost's words.

"The question is, how do we get past the Fallen. I was never sure I'd get even this far," said Jas.

"I'm the only one here with military training, right?" said Alyona. "The answer is quite simple - when infiltrating enemy territory, blend in. Find a uniform, fake the accent, steal a vehicle. Even better - find someone local who is willing to help."

"That was true before the Collapse," said the Ghost. "We're not fighting humans anymore. These are aliens. Uniforms and accents are not an option."

"What about a vehicle? Could we steal... a Skiff?" asked Jas.

"A typical crew counts anything from ten to twenty Fallen. Even if we could overpower them all, the Skiffs themselves only touch the ground when docking with the Ketch they are from."

"Glazok, you overcomplicate things," said Alyona, looking up. "I have a plan."

Jasker was once again amazed by its simplicity and elegance. As he sat down and started working on the lure, the Ghost helping him however it could - highlighting broken circuits, holding up holograms of what the final piece would look like - Jas remembered something that has been nagging at him ever since he first saw the Ghost.

"Glazok, there's something I need to know. How did you know my name when we met?"

The Ghost did not reply straight away.

"I... have been told to expect you. That you were following my trail exactly and we would sooner or later meet."

"What? How?"

"I met an oracle in a caravan, when I was crossing the Wastes. Her name was Helena. She told me to resurrect the first Light-capable person as my Guardian."

"She also said you'll come and inherit what is yours. And that we are to help you."

***

//static//

//the s....en a... ....ing.//

//..he ...ve... ..re c... m...//

//the se....n are com...//

//the seven are coming//

//THE SEVEN ARE COMING//

++looped transmission, origin point unknown, appears to be wandering around the Iberic Peninsula++