As the sun kept moving across the sky, she stopped frequently to rest. Whenever she glanced behind her, she could still see a rising column of smoke from the downed jump-car. It didnt look that far away at all.

Give up, that same small voice kept insisting. Find a way back home.

But she couldnt do that. Not with so very much at stake.

The valley walls grew steeper, with narrow, rubble-filled ravines branching off to each side. A little while later, she came to a halt, seeing a column of dust rising up ahead.

With a start, she realized that it came from a line of trucks making their way in her direction. She stood and watched numbly as one of the vehicles broke ahead of the pack, bouncing its way straight towards her.

She licked suddenly dry lips. They had clearly spotted her. Tiny black dots, which had been hovering above the convoy like fireflies swarming above a campfire, were now moving in her direction as well: drones, and almost certainly hunter-killers at that. Against them, the weapons she carried would be worse than useless.

Megan glanced around frantically, noticing a dense thicket of desiccated jug-leaf bushes spreading all across one side of the hill. She darted towards them. They wouldnt provide much cover, but it might be enough to fool the drones for a few minutes until she could figure something out.

She pushed her way in deep amongst the tangled bushes, their dry branches scratching viciously at her exposed flesh. From there she saw a dark shape flying immediately overhead, before it doubled back again. A mechanized voice said something unintelligible; by the sound of it, the drones speech circuits were shot to hell.

Through the dense tangle of bushes, she could barely make out the dark shape of the machine, but from its movements she guessed it must be zeroing in on her, most probably by detecting her heat signature.

She aimed the rifle and fired. The drone spun in the air for a moment, then darted away.

Megan made a break for it, snow and dirt puffing around her ankles as she dived from cover. To lighten her load, she deliberately left her rucksack, containing its vital supply of water and food, among the bushes. She knew shed be dead in no more than a day or two out in the open without her supplies, but maybe if she could get away from those drones and trucks, she could double back after nightfall and retrieve them.

She slid and half fell or half ran down the hillside, aiming for one of the ravines. Some of the boulders filling each ravine were the size of houses, but there were enough gaps between them to let her find her way through and there would be no way for the trucks to follow her.