» Mon Oct 12, 2009 4:48 am Before the Android Came
Bullets exploded around Halie as she ran in a crazy zigzagging fashion across broken ground. Her cyborg body moved her with enhanced speed and efficiency. Then, with a great thrust of strength, she leapt straight across a fairly wide but very deep crevice in the ground. The landscape was blasted because of its proximity to where a large armoury had once exploded, having fallen victim to an enemy missile. The irony was that the bullets came from automated gun turrets that were still trying to protect the armoury though it was little more than a big crater in the ground.
Once there was a big military base in the area and she could see some abandoned buildings in the distance like dull grey blocks. In the growing brightness and heat of the summer day the air shimmered and broken outcrops of rocks threw dark shadows in contrast. Termite mounds thrust up into the air like crude mud skyscraqers for giant termites dwelt in the area. Yet so did normal termites and their impressively sized termite mounds. The light power-armour clad figure kept zigzagging for a short while until she realised that the guns had stopped firing, that the turrets had automatically noted she was out of firing range and had switched back to passive sentry mode. Her armour was dull browns and greys from the top of her helmet to the toop of her boots.
Crouching, she closed her eyes and accessed datafeeds. According to her internal navigation systems she was just two klicks from her objective. It was an abandoned bunker in which, old databases had stated, were hidden hardware, software and other items needed by her people. Problem was that the databases were old and clearly of little use for they had not informed her about the destroyed armoury. Nor had they informed her about changes to the defense-security boundaries that had caused her to get too close to still active heavy machinegun turrets.
Something moved in the distance, a pebble rolled and hit the ground. Human hearing would not have picked it up, at least not normal human hearing. Focusing on her enhanced hearing she noted the heavy tread of boots that by the sound of them belonged to power armoured figures. Then an Enclave soldier came into view from behind a half collapsed metal signboard that read AUSTRALIAN DEFENCE FORCE ZONE: TRESSPASS IS PUNISHABLE BY DEATH in five different languages. Then another appeared. Like the first he held a plasma rifle but behind came a third with a minigun. They moved slowly and carefully as a small hovering antiminer robot zipped out ahead of them. The altered eyebot bobbed lightly just above the ground as it scanned and probed for mines.
Enclave soldiers were dangerous enough but these were elite Long Range Patrol troopers who were more highly trained and better armed. The Enclave Bases in Australia were quite isolated from their comrades in the USA so they suffered from shortages of the many of the best weapons and other technologies. Standard Enclave Troopers had to go in unpowered armour and used mostly autorifles, light machineguns or submachineguns built in captured pre-war arsenals. Corrupt Enclave non-elite officers sometimes traded equipment and supplies to locals, even rebels in disguise, in return for drugs, services by local women or alcohol. She hoped to meet such an officer as part of her mission and to trade home brewed beer for a few boxes of ammo but both the big crater and the automated turrets had slowed her down. There was a good chance the corrupt officer would be spooked by her lateness and would leave the meeting point before she got there.
Why had the Enclave come down under in the first place? She did not know and did not care much. Her people, a loose collection of ghouls, cyborgs, free progam androids and others, had good reason to fear both sides. The Alliance forces were just as prone to shooting first and asking questions later as were the Enclave. Ironically enough the biggest enemies of the Enclave so far in Australia were other American forces allied to Australian ones, the Alliance. Halie was not on either side, her people were neutral because they feared destruction if they got too involved in the on and off war. They traded with and sometimes allied themselves briefly with Outbacker communities, Survivalist homesteads and a few others including the more civilized ghouls. Trick was to make her way through Alliance held green zones disguised as an Alliance citizen to take her prizes back home, if she managed to get those prizes.
It seemed that they might miss her, that they might just keep on going if she kept frozen there, crouched in front of a big, heavy rocky outcrop and a tough gnarled scraggy tree. If she moved there was a chance they might pick that up. As it was she was more than half concealed behind an ugly hard berry dotted bush. The berries could be eaten if they were soaked and the toxins were flushed out of them. Of course one did not drink the water. Trouble was there was not much water to be had in that whole region except in a few scattered spots. She tried hard to think like a bush.
That was when the aging fighter jet, supersonic and deadly, shot overhead and from it tumbled a big fat juicy clusterbomb. The Boomberang Type-2A3 ground attack and secondary role fighter jet was gone in a moment because it was travelling easily over Mach-1.5. Despite her enhanced vision all she picked up was the blurred image of its delta shaped body.
Despite her lightening fast reflexes she only made it to the ground just in time before a whole lot of horror filled up the air, shook the ground and through EMP everywhere. Not just EMP but shrapnel, explosive force and something called super napalm. All she really knew about the stuff was that it was super deadly, had been manufactured in Australia and she had only run into it once before at a good safe distance. Not now, though, for the heat of it schorched against her back armour plating. Then it was gone and Hali slowly, gingerly sat up.
Her network-system, her entire set up of hardware, firmware and semisoftware, was not badly hit and would repair, adjust, back to 99% effectiveness. For the moment she had to take matters easy and try to avoid any firefights. She computed it would take about half an hour to be ready to move again, switched her network-system mainly to fixing herself up and sat with her back to the scorched rock. The semi-arid area of land was now a blasted hell of burned plants and even more broken landscape. Hali was angry for the environment in the region had taken enough stupid punishment with out more being dealt to it because of a stupid war she was not part of and did not wish to be part of.
