The Highway Men (MacLeod novel)

"The Highway Men" is a 2006 science fiction novella by British writer Ken MacLeod.

His group has the task of connecting a new nuclear power station to the grid in the Highlands of Scotland, which have become colder and sparsely inhabited due to climate-change.

Jase and his fellow laggers encounter a hitchhiker named Ailiss, whom Jase identifies as one of a group of New Age Settlers (also known as crusties or bandits), people who foresee the imminent end of modern society and who have retreated to a semi-hidden rural commune.

Believing that they have inadvertently set the settlers up for arrest or worse, three laggers travel to the commune to warn them.

Discovering the commune under attack, they accidentally defeat the government forces by allowing their truck to crash into and destroy a helicopter.