Report: Orbital Insertion Event #12

Date: [redacted]

Time: 13:14:26 GMT

Location:38.814 x -81.399

Object detected in low Earth orbit, altitude 1400 meters, and in an observed controlled descent.

Velocity 1400 meters per second, bearing 274 degrees.

Object of unknown origin. Spectrometer readings indicate mixed results—54% Unknown ally of carbon, titanium, and aluminum.

Mass readings indicate 12.47 metric tons.

Object was not detected prior to initial sighting upon atmospheric entry.

Object estimated at 58 x 15 x 21 meters.

Object is an elongated ovoid cylinder with no visible means of propulsion.

Object did not respond to any form of communication.

Object presumed to have impacted near the ruins of Ripley, West Virginia.

No trace of impact or evidence of unknown alloy was located after the drone swarm search of the region.

-End Report-

I stood up from where I sat, raised my hands, and moved into the open. I did not want to seem hostile or sneaky.

One of the guards saw me and called to me. ”Halt! State your business.” He demanded. That brought the attention of several others. A couple pointed their rifles in my general direction. They were all dressed in Pinkerton Security uniforms, and each had a rifle, pistol, and a stun-baton. Each had a flag with four six-pointed red stars on a blue background—the flag of Chitown.

I replied calmly, “Just passing through, I’m out of Free Columbus, and I’m up here bounty hunting.”

“Anyone else with you?” Demanded the guard as one of the truck drivers came over. The trucker was a mutant. I could see he was one of the Jokers. Mutants had taken to labeling themselves after George R. R. Martin’s Superhero anthology. Jokers were mutants that had some disabling mutation, and Wild Cards were Mutants with any other mutations. Aces were variants of any sort.

“Nope, just me and my bicycle,” I said honestly.

They lowered their weapons, but one guarded me while the others went to check out the area. The driver had a normal-sized single leg, and the other looked to be not much more than a flipper. He walked with a crutch over to me. He looked at me and asked, “What you doing this far out of Columbus?”

“I’m hunting bear-wolf mutants. Well, trying to find them at least so I can figure out if I can hunt them.” I replied evenly.

“Ahh, them things are bad news. We saw one on a hill a couple miles back. Scared it off with a couple shots from Ma Deuce over there.” He pointed at the lead truck's heavy machine gun. The good old Browning M-2 machine gun.

“Good to know, thanks.”

“Uhn, huh. You see anything on the way from Columbus?” He asked.

“Nope, open roads. There was a Puritan attack on the city, though.” I told him. I saw other truckers and guards moving around the area now. This must be a pit stop for them, I think.

I don’t hang around. I get on my bike and head up the road.

I roll up to the crest of a hill, and I can feel a couple of big things moving around in the undergrowth not far away. From my vantage, I can see the wrecked Honda plant. A string of radiation markers marks the site as dangerous. A nuke of some sort had been used on the car factory sometime during the Fall.

Small time stuff but still dangerous after all these years. The bomb had flattened a one-mile circle flat and made the area radioactive for effectively the rest of time. Tukey had told me about it. A “dirty bomb,” he had called it. Some foreign power had not wanted cars being made anymore. Or, more realistically, the ability to make other machines of war.

I step off the bike and lay it aside in the grass off the road. I draw and check the shotgun, loaded and safe but ready to go. The things I could sense in the thicket we big, bigger than me by a lot. I knelt and touched the ground with my hand. I felt my stealth skill kick in as I sensed the things in the bushes.

I didn’t want to ping them as they might have good hearing and want to investigate the sound. There were two of them. Heavy footfalls on padded feet, four legs. That’s all I could tell from this distance. So I did what any kid does. I threw a rock.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I tossed it in a high arc off the thicket’s side. It cracked off a few branches of a tree and hit the ground with a thump. I felt the two things pause and then investigate.

Holy shit! Bear-wolf was a misnomer. More like an overgrown hyena. They were big mutants, the size of a grizzly bear I had seen pictures of. Brown and gray fur that looked thick and bristly covered them. Their heads were disgusting, knobbly pink flesh with no hair from nose to neck. Long doglike tails and a thick hump of flesh at the shoulders. I could see lots of pointy yellow teeth. They ran along on thick dog-like legs. I saw big ripping claws on their toes. I was glad I was downwind of them and not at the same time. They smelled of carrion, and if I could smell them from here, they shouldn’t be able to smell me.

I watched them move around for a minute, sniffing and looking. I lay on my belly in the knee-high grass and watched them carefully. One, I could take; two would be iffy. I had three pieces of rebar, each about three feet long, my machete, and the sawn-off.

I waited for about ten minutes while they sniffed around the rock I had thrown. They went back to whatever they had been futzing around with before in the thicket. I started to creep closer when I heard something that chilled me. A howl in the distance. It came from the direction of the Honda plant. It carried across the flat landscape, and I saw the two perk up and listen. After a moment, one howled, then the other. These things were communicating. That was bad news. Smart monsters are worse by far than dumb beasts.

The bear-wolf-hyena things loped off. I am sure someone somewhere had a name for these things unless they were new. For now, I thought of them as Dire Wolves. They moved quickly across the grass at what looked to be an easy jog. They were fast. That jog was my run, and I am sure they can run faster than my sprint.

They head toward the ruined automobile plant. Of course, they made their home in a radioactive spot. Tukey had once again taught me how to deal with this. Goggles, dust mask, gloves, and hope. Also, avoid phasing if at all possible. The worst part of a dirty bomb was the radioactive dust. The explosion was terrible, sure. But the spread of highly radioactive dust was the worst part. Contaminated areas had to be left alone until they weren’t radioactive anymore or cleaned up. No one had the time or want to clean anything up around here.

“I should be okay,” I thought as I followed them into the plant. The facility was massive. One central factory with many side buildings. A parking lot full of rusted, ruined hulks of burned-out cars was closest to me. I saw a few skeletal remnants inside some of them. Grass and weeds grew up through the cracked pavement, and dandelions sprouted from moldy car interiors.

I kept my distance and followed the two Dire Wolves back toward the plant. They were on my radar, and I kept them there. I crept between the old cars, moving far more silently than ever. Go, Beginner Stealth! Maybe I should have taken that Ghost specialization. Too late now, hindsight and all that.

I saw them move into a building to my left. I heard yipping and baying from inside there, and I paused. I touched the ground and waited. More Dire Wolves were inside, and another pair was coming from my right. I slid under a truck and lay there waiting for them to move past my area.

I just lay there for a while: thirteen adults and three smaller ones. Eight of the adults were scrabbling over something. The building was a large warehouse filled with all sorts of stuff I couldn’t identify.

My skin tingled in the dust.

*ting*

[Radiation exposure] - [Resisted]

*ting*

[Radiation exposure] - [Resisted]

*ting*

[Radiation exposure] - [Resisted]

*ting*

[Radiation exposure] - [Resisted]

The notifications started to bother me, so I silenced them and waited. So far, I have been resistant to the radioactive dust. I hope that kept up. I kept an eye on the pack of Dire Wolves and looked at the building to the right of the warehouse. It was all one building, but you could tell they were just additions to the central building. I could see inside the building. The wall was torn loose. There were machines and a fallen catwalk.

I crept towards the opening of the wall, where I could see the catwalk. If I could maybe get above the Dire Wolves, I could possibly have some easy kills. Doubtful but possible. I made it inside the old factory easily. The catwalk was separated from the building next door, but I could get out to the roof. I climbed up the ladder and out onto the roof. The hatch had long since rusted and fallen in. The old tar roof had long since failed. Water pooled in places and obviously drained through big holes in others.

I crept toward the warehouse where the Dire Wolves were done squabbling and were all lying down for a nap. I got to a point where I could see down into the space they were in. They had pushed aside some cars and had made a sort of nest. Branches and other detritus, bones, and old dried-out carcasses littered the area where the pile of the Dire Wolves slept. The three smaller ones must be pups, despite being bigger than a mastiff. They were not cute.

Two of the Dire Wolves were awake, gnawing on a fresh kill. A deer or cow, maybe? It was a pile of bloody flesh and bones almost the size of one of the cars.

I watched the monsters carefully as I went back down and out onto the factory floor. I hunted around the blasted area. Notifications pinging faster as I got closer to the center of where the bomb fell.

I found some metal scraps and a big spool of wire. This would not be a one-day killing spree, but I was prepared for that. I went outside into the parking lot and set up a few things.

I watched as the Dire Wolves roused and headed back out in pairs. They left one behind with the three cubs, perfect. I waited another half an hour for the hunters to get good and far away when I started yanking on the wire.

I had rigged up a car trunk to make a crude noise maker. Pull the wire to open the trunk, let it go, and it would slam down on a sheet of metal.

I watched as the cubs and their babysitter got quiet. The babysitter howled once and then moved to investigate. I heard an answering howl from a ways off. Timing would be crucial. Reinforcements were coming. I lay under a car between the noisemaker and the den, next to the direct path to the den.

This one was the easiest kill I made all day. The babysitter trotted out, growling toward the noisemaker. As it warily approached, it must have smelled me. It slowed and started growling louder as it came closer. As it passed next to the car I was under, I slid the street sweeper out under its belly—two barrels of birdshot at point-blank range gut even a D-rank.

*ting*

[You have slain Mutant Wolf, Irradiated - Experience gained

First kill bonus experience earned

Survivor Class bonus experience earned]