Most of the guys were trying to read Victor's expression to determine whether he was joking or not while a few simply laughed without even considering that he might be serious. Abe kept looking at his feet. He was moving them slowly under himself as he sat on one of the benches which lined either side of the vehicle where all of the bullet-proof vests, head gear, firearms and explosives were centered. If you had been Abe at that moment and had any sense of humor or timing whatsoever, it would have been precisely the moment to act, but you aren't Abe and he didn't. Instead he sat, cowering from his own thoughts in the middle of the most visible area of the vehicle and attempted to hide there. No one but Abe and Leer knew what he was thinking at that moment and because Leer did know he said this,"We're all going to die." The men were really beginning to wonder about Victor at this point. He gave a quick glance in Abe's direction to ascertain whether Abe was paying attention or not and determining that he was continued,"you see, gentlemen, I believe we are going to be ambushed but not quite yet and the only way we can avoid a fight, which I much rather would, is to make sure it never happens, so," he walks over toward Abe and sits right down next to him. Then, he throws a helmet from the wall above his head onto the floor and props his feet up on it. "Let's all relax a minute, shall we, I have a plan I'd like to share with you." The men walk toward him but do not sit down. "Sit down, put your feet up," he says jovially as he grabs Abe by the leg and yanks his foot up alongside his own, placing it on the helmet. The men get the point and sit around him. Now there are two on either side of him and Abe and the rest, sitting directly across from them on the other side. "Alright, now the first thing we have to do is take a deep breath." He breathes in deeply and the men do too as Victor smiles at all of them, particularly Abe, who returns an uneasy and half-hearted grin. "Next," Victor somersaults forward from the bench, grabbing both of Abe's feet as he spins back toward him in a single motion, "we grab Abe." He motions with his head to Marv, who is seated directly on Abe's right side. Reacting quickly, Marv is able to stop Abe from reaching for his gun and also thwarts his attempt to move from his seat. Victor's empty seat is quickly filled by Samuel, a very large man who, had this been Earth would most certainly have been characterized as Native American. He quickly held Abe down while skillfully laying the brutally sharp point of his knife to the trembling man's throat. "Let me have that, will ya Samuel?" Victor asked in his most polite voice, his eyes resting on the knife. Samuel flipped the knife so quickly that it was nearly imperceptible to the eye and handed the knife to Victor, the tip balanced between his forefinger and thumb. "Nice touch," Victor chuckled as he pointed to the shallow crimson slice left by the blade on the neck of Abe. Taking the knife from Samuel he immediately sliced at the feet of Abe, artfully carving his boots from his feet in seconds. He pulled them off quickly and just as quickly drove the blade to its full length threw both feet, binding them together in a single motion. Without hesitation he reached inside of one of the boots removing its cargo of explosive putty and shoved it into the screaming mouth of the impaled Abe. "Tie him," he said to the men who held him, "we'll deal with him later," he continued as he threw on a helmet and barked the command of,"Stop" into its microphone. Immediately the convoy came to a halt.
Victor threw open the armored door just beyond the writhing form of Abe. He tossed out the boots and fired at them, exploding them with a single shot as he closed the door to shield himself from the blast. He quickly instructed the men to grab every explosive device they had in the vehicle for a rendezvous in two minutes, outside. He opened the door, smoke still hanging in the air, areas of earth still on fire, his vehicle blackened from the explosion. Leer ran to the front of the convoy. As he ran he called all of the men to action, instructing them all to meet outside the vehicles, and fast. In less than a minute they were all outside, every one of them loaded with hand-held explosives. Victor quickly planted an explosive under one of the vehicles, directly in front of the men assembled closest to him. "Like this", he said,"everywhere." Then he turned to Max, "You and I are going to release the drones, I'll take the front half." he smiled as he ran to the first vehicle in the line. Without hesitation, Max dove into the closest vehicle and headed for the drone deployment station. It was simply a matter of typing in an access code and pressing a button and the drone was launched. Victor and Max repeated the routine in each of the vehicles and within minutes, the drones were off.
"What do we do now?" Franco asked Victor as all of the men had emptied their arms of explosives.
Sure enough, he was right. Hobbling, but on his feet, only moments after Victor called it, Abe appeared in the doorway of the large transport vehicle. He fell his way out of it, mostly but managed to scramble fifty feet away before Victor gave the order to,"FIRE!" All Varst broke loose as the convoy erupted in a series of blasts. It was really quite beautiful the way they fired off, one by one as the men shot them to life then one would start the other in a rhythmic daisy chain of blasts. None of the explosions were powerful enough to destroy the vehicles but they sure gave the appearance of a major attack. If someone had been planning an ambush, and Leer knew that they had, they would hear the explosions and investigate, only to find the convoy decimated and empty.
As the last of the explosions fired off a low rumble seemed to be coming nearer to the men of the convoy. They looked around suspiciously only to discover Victor smiling and moving slowly closer toward the source of the rumbling. Less than thirty feet from him the ground opened up as a large claw burst from the ground, seeming to eat the very dirt it had just pulled it way through. The points of the claw arched up again then turned down and spiked right into the surface, each lodging itself into the ground by about a foot of dirt. This created a sort of archway, inviting them to enter, which Victor was only too happy to oblige. He turned to the others, "Hurry along now, our ride is here!" then he walked through the archway, down into the darkness.
As the last man followed him down the claw jumped back into action, scraping and digging in an apparently random pattern, effectively sealing itself back inside of the ground, leaving no obvious evidence of what had just transpired.
Abe, looking up from his painful, face-down, shrapnel encrusted landing did his best to understand all that had just occurred. He heard the sound of engines roaring their way toward him. He pulled himself up from the ground and tumbled in the direction of the new arrivals. These must be the people he had nearly martyred himself for, the people who would have remembered that he had sacrificed himself for their cause and in so doing avenged the death of his friend Bobby. At least he had tried, at least he could tell them what had happened. Abe was beginning to feel relieved that he did not go through with the suicide bomb detonation. He felt somehow stronger, more confident now that he was a fighter, wounded in battle. He walked toward the approaching vehicles, through the smoke and dirt of the explosion and as he did one last explosion burst forth, sending shrapnel toward the new arrivals. They caught sight of Abe moving slowly toward them through the smoke and quickly shot him in the head. His mouth still stuffed with explosives, his face burst apart, dropping his headless body to the ground, his sacrifice complete.
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