WHAT A sentimental fuck, Nikka thought as she moved quickly across the rocky terrain. Millard had delivered though. The encounter with the Sycophant in the bar hadn’t been planned. He had a good eye. She could give him that.
The ragged hills stretched in a thin line from the river north and west across the ruined fields. She was now some distance west of where she had met Millard, but she could still see the small hill. Something there glinted in the filmy gray.
He’s probably still sitting there, she thought to herself.
She moved well here, dodging between stands of dry brush and limestone outcroppings. The elevation, however slight, gave her a good line of sight to the east. The wide flat valley below still sat silent and staring. Old dirt roads marked off the even sections of what had been wheat and sunflower fields. Nothing moved. No birds marked the sky.
Nikka’s borg body made it easy. Her stamina was almost limitless and in this body her agility was cat-like. The recoilless bounced on her back but never threw off her balance. Hydraulic compensators pushed and pulled within her legs. She began to pick up speed.
This was too easy, she thought and for a moment, in the back of her mind, a vague doubt formed. She tried to suppress it without success. The thought lingered. There was no way the Fash would send a ‘phant out carrying a load like that. No matter their inherent stupidity, it was difficult to believe that they could be THAT stupid. Maybe they were though. When she scanned the area before the hilltop meeting she had picked up nothing. No ambiguous data climbs, no hotspots, no sentries... nothing. It had been quiet. But still there was that thought. Something seemed vaguely off about the entire situation.
Fuck it, she said outloud to herself.
Just as the words fell dead into the wind her data feed lit up red. The word WARNING dropped down from her data cloud. Countermeasures deployed immediately from the canisters on her alloyed back and spun into the wind. It was too late. A high energy round plowed into the hill side a metre ahead of her and detonated. The blast threw her into the air and slammed her down a significant distance further up. She felt her left arm pancake under the weight of her mostly metallic body. She rolled out of the impact and came up on her trac like feet. Her sensors were picking up a second round. INCOMING 2 SECONDS flashed into her data feed. The countermeasures that were still hanging in the air had caught on too and were streaking to the east. One second later there was a flash as they connected with the round. A bubble of heat and plasma formed about 40 metres above the floor of the valley. In the same instant she reached for the 20 millimeter that was no longer slung around her back. WARNING was flashing constantly across her feed now. Without thinking she started to make for the ridge behind her. Three long steps and a leap and she was tumbling down the other side. The hill shuddered as 6 more high energy rounds impacted the place she had been. A large limestone boulder stopped her cold. She heard the steel and iron brackets that made up her shoulder snap. Hydraulic lines hung limp from her smashed left arm and bled fluid into the reddish soil. She screamed, more out of frustration than from pain. Of course, she no longer experienced physical pain, not in any tangible, human way. It held only a far off spot in the back of her half borg/half human brain, just an abstract flicker that acknowledged damage.
She looked around quickly and spotted the 20 atop a stand of brush a short distance away. It appeared to be intact. She pulled the remains of her left arm free from the ruins of her shoulder and made her way to the rifle. Holding it across her lap she patched in and initiated a diagnostic. OPERATIONAL lit up in her feed. She pulled the large clip with her right hand and blew ash and dust out of it. Everything looked good as she slammed it back in to the receiver. Another message came into view: TARGETING COMPROMISED. She tapped the scope on and clicked off the safety.
This is going to be tough with one fucking arm, she thought.
A SINGULAR snowflake appeared in the air directly in front of Millard. Only one, hovering there delicately suspended between the windy vortexes that swirled around him. A moment later it lifted and was carried away. A rare hint of precipitation in these barren parts, he thought. It hadn’t snowed here in some time. It rained on occasion in the later months but it was an ashy, hostile rain that made the earth and the sky blend together. Everything seemed wounded. It was worse in the cities where the fascists and their puppets held sway. People never looked up. There was nothing to see. And it was safer to keep your eyes on the steps before you anyways. The RUP militias patrolled endlessly with the cops always in tow to arrest anyone that looked...however an enemy looked to them. The arrested never returned and their families never sought them out. Their hearts had become as gray as the concrete claustrophobia that surrounded them. Millard felt gray too -- as gray as the tombstone across from him and the snake of hills in the distance behind it.
Something glinted among the far off crags. Even with augmented vision he couldn’t pick it up but he figured it was Nikka. She knew the region well and knew the way back.
Millard realized he was tired. The cold and wind and the derilict graves of the dead had that effect. His adrift mind felt cool and good. Was any of this even real? He wasn’t dreaming but a dream existed. This wasn’t it. The dream was in full color. In the dream there was quiet and the sun and the air were good. Valleys like this one were green. The farmers farmed and the workers worked always, in their own interests. There were no empty tables and no one was lost. It didn’t matter. The world felt alien. The dream felt alien.
He sighed heavily and registered a series of low concussions. Away to the west an explosion ripped across the rim of the hills followed by another in the air above the valley. Several more shook the horizon in rapid succession. A red blob jigged in the corner of his feed. Contact. He leapt to his feet. Still nothing moved on the valley floor. Scans negative. But, someone was firing and firing at Nikka. Moments later a series of manned counter-mechs erupted from the ground along the edge of the dead river.
Already they were moving west.
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