It was hell. Waiting like that. Barten counted the footsteps of the davs and the type 3s that he could hear. One was a rumble. While the other was more of an impact. As the davs retreated into the mountains it wasn’t possible to see the fighting anymore. And soon after that he could no longer hear their footsteps.
Barten quickly scanned the still working screens. Tried every different mode to see as much as possible around his downed dav. And when he was finally certain that it was safe. At least safe from the type 3s. He decided to blow open the cockpit and try to get to Jamieson’s dav. There was no telling what happened to Smith and the others. And he wasn’t about to pass up a chance to help the one squad member within his reach.
It took some acrobatics to get out of the seat, the dav wasn’t flat on its face. And was maybe a 45 degree angle from how it was laying on its arms. Maybe it would have been a better idea to have invested more effort into his strength? Better physical stats would help with what was coming next.
Barten gripped the plasma pistol tightly as he pulled on the emergency release. It hissed and then the hatch to the cockpit went flying. There was enough of a push back that it might have caused him harm, had he not raised his Con to 15. He had hated the g force machine by the end of his time with it. But just that once, Barten thanked it for its service.
He stuck his head out of the cockpit and found nothing. Trusting in his body he jumped out onto the back of his dav, and then onto the ground. Barten landed low and scanned around him. Still not finding anything. Neither hostiles nor friendlies.
As Barten skirted around his dav, he kept a close watch so that he could cover at any time. There was a wide expanse between himself and the next dav. The path had been trampled in place as they walked to the object. A path now littered with the bodies of his enemies and comrades. Maybe even his friends.
Barten waited for several moments. Only there was nothing popping up to try and kill him. He took his chance and ran for the nearest dav. Crossing over the span between in mere moments. He took cover under the plasma cannon of the fallen dav. It had fallen face first and the weapon was sticking with enough of an odd angle for cover.
He looked around. Listened. Tried to push his senses out. Looking for sign of an incoming hostile. Either gigantic, large, or less large. And still there was nothing. What happened to all of the beetles and millipedes that were chewing at the davs’ ankles? Did they all get smashed? Or did they pull back?
After a moment's consideration Barten climbed on top of the dav. From there he could see the line between the wasteland and the area that the object hadn’t yet touched. Scattered everywhere were the remains of the smaller types. Along with what was left of the supply point. Maybe there would be something that he could use? That they could use?
He found the hatch leading to the cockpit. And after locating the secret panel Barten pulled the external emergency release. It would send a signal to the pilot and they could cancel it or disable the release entirely. Assuming that the pilot was in a state to cancel the release.
Barten counted down from 10 and jumped up onto the head of the dav. When he reached 0 the hatch was blown away. It only took a glance to see that this soldier didn’t make it. It wasn’t possible to notice due to how the dav was sitting. But one of the spear-like legs of the type 3s must have punched through the front armor and into the cockpit.
It only took him a moment of indecision before he grabbed the pistol out from the seat. If it made the difference between one dead and two dead then it was worth it. Even if Barten felt his skin crawl as he looted what had become the poor soldiers’ grave. He said a few words for the fallen, and would do his best to remember this soldier.
With a much more somber mood Barten dashed away to the next of the downed davs. It was laying on the side instead of its chest. And he did a quick run around to confirm that the cockpit was safe. But just as Barten was making for the hatch he heard a hiss and jumped away. It went flying by him. And Barten put his hand over his heart and took a slow breath.
“Friendly out here,” Barten called up.
“I know. Saw you on the optics,” Dane said as he peeked his head out.
“How is Marten? Since you’re alone I assume it means the worst happened to him, huh?”
“Marten? Was that who was piloting that dav,” Barten said and looked back. “I think that I knew him. In passing at least. And sad to say that he did not make it.”
“How…” Dane started the say and then stopped. He looked at the downed dav for a moment, grimaced, and shook his head. “It’s safe right? Otherwise you wouldn't be running around, right?”
Barten looked at him for a moment. Shook his head. And then changed the topic, “I’m going to round up who I can and then set out for Alpha Base. Are you in? Probably yes, since you blew your hatch and are no longer safe in your dav.”
“I mean. When you say it like that. Then yeah. I’m in,” Dane said. He jumped out of the cockpit and landed on the ground and winced. “You know. All this power and I still feel like a normal human at times.”
“You should have taken it in two jumps.”
“I know. But then I would be losing.”
“Losing how?”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“I can’t really explain it. You either get it, or you don’t. I kind of thought that you would.”
“I can kind of see why you get along so well with Conners now.”
“He’s a good guy. Charming and dependable,” Dane said and gave 2 thumbs up.
“Let's get to the next dav,” Barten said. Having more people to water down Dane’s antics would be good. They found a couple of Dane’s squad mates next. Young and Guntherson. The three of them got on well enough that Barten was happy to let them chat away.
After that they had rather mixed luck. Going from wreck to wreck, and more often than not finding that the pilot had died during the fighting. There was one good turn through. They found another group coming down the path from the north who were doing the same thing.
Barten stepped forward and shook Jamieson’s hand strongly. “Glad to see you old man.”
“I know that I was joking with Conners about that before. But I’m pretty sure that I’m the youngest,” Jamieson said and smiled. He was armed with a pulse rifle in addition to his pistol. Several of the others in his group likewise had the upgraded weapons. “Ah these?” Jamieson said when he noticed Barten looking. “We found an apc that had made it through mostly intact. Several rifles were inside. They will help greatly as we retreat to base.”
There was a quick discussion between the two groups. From what they could tell they had hit all of the wrecks, and either saved the soldier inside, or left them with some parting words and promises of revenge. Which meant that they were all in agreement as to their next goal. Traveling back to the Alpha Base by foot.
“Do we even have enough food?” Young asked. Despite his name he was one of the older members of the Delta squads. Older even than Smith, his hair all gray and his body wiry.
“There is very little in the way of rations. The davs had pistols, a first aid kit, but nothing else. Even if there were MREs we currently don't have any way to cook them or gather potable water,” Jamieson said.
“Maybe if we had old guns with proper ammo cans,” Dane said. “Those ammo cans were good for just about anything in a pinch. Too bad these new scifi alien tech guns are useless on that front.”
The group looked at Dane for a moment. Many of them shaking their heads. Young finally spoke up, “If we were still using the old style of guns we wouldn’t be able to deal with the armor on the beetles or the pedes. Let alone the daddys.”
Someone groaned. Barten couldn’t remember, but he thought that she was a member of… 8th squad. “Please no. Let’s call them something else. Anything is better than daddys.” Her hair was cropped short and was a golden yellow.
“But Crisp they kind of look like daddy long legs right?” Dane asked. “If the beetle ones are beetles, and the pedes are millipedes. Then it only makes sense that the closest bug to match with the type 3s is a daddy long-legs. Why does it matter?”
“Let me have my secrets at least,” Crisp said with a smile. “How about we call them spiders? It’s two syllables less and easy to remember right?” There was a murmur of agreement. “See, all in favor,” Crisp said and held up her hand. More than half of the people there had their hands raised, Barten and Jamieson included.
Young sighed. “There goes my chance to name one of them I guess. Spider it is.”
“Moving on from the new name for the type 3s,” Jamieson said. “We can see what can be done about sourcing food as we retreat back to Alpha Base. At the very least we need to get away from the path that we used to get here. There is no way of telling when another wave of spiders might come our way. Either a new one from the g object, or returning after pursuing the retreating davs.”
Dane raised his hand. “Instead of just g object, can we call it geo instead? Would make it easier than just calling it object this, object that.” Barten did his best to hide his smile. Several others must have decided that they didn’t want to deal with Dane’s question and instead started moving to the southeast. Across the path that they took and into the thicker forest. “Wait, guys. I think that this is important. We all need to be on the same page here. As it might cause some confusion later if people are using both terms interchangeably.” Barten and Jamieson shared a look, and then an eye roll, before they started moving with the rest of them.
As they were making their way to the forest there were partial remains of a beetle. Either it was laying in wait for them, or someone got too close, as it suddenly jerked back and started screeching. The closest soldier quickly lined up a shot with their pistol and brought it down. But any damage would have been already done.
“Double time people,” Young said. “Word is still out on whether they use sound to communicate or not. It could have just been complaining about getting kicked in the nuts. Or it just told everything within ear shot where our butts are. And we need to get out of here before they come looking for lunch.” He didn’t have to say it twice. And everyone started moving.
Crisp in the forest was like a fish in water. She took the lead and told everyone to follow her as she bounded through the forest. Barten had gone hiking before. But that was on well traveled and curated trails. Pushing through the overgrowth like they were doing was harder than it should have been for super humans. Only Crisp made it look easy. Always spotting and taking the easiest path. She had found a combat knife somewhere and was using it as a makeshift machete to clear any brush in the way.
There was a shout from the back of the group, “Beetles in the rear!” followed by the sound of plasma pistols and rifles being fired. It didn’t take a moment for everyone to about face and race to the battle line. When Barten arrived found that not only were there beetles but also the rare millipede following after them.
He leveled his pistol at the closest beetle and took a shot. It landed right on top of the beetle’s head and it slumped to the side. Barten blinked and looked at his pistol. It was somewhat lucky to down a beetle in one hit. But then he repeated it again, and again. Even the millipede that he encountered went down quickly when compared his experience fighting against them back on Echo Base.
“Why are they so easy to kill?” He voiced his question out loud.
Dane patted Barten on the back, waggled his own pistol, and spoke, “Cause we are superhumans now. No sense comparing ourselves to who we were before right? These things are meat for us now that we’ve gotten strong.” Dane let out a whoop and started firing from the hit at the next beetle. Annoying as that was, he was actually landing the shots and doing damage.
Barten watched as most of the others were able to deal with the beetles as quickly as he did. Since he had been only training with the davs it was hard for him to notice just how far he had come. What would the world be like after the fight with the objects was over? What will he look like? Will he even still be considered human?
Jamieson nudged Bartan and motioned to the few remaining hostiles. “No sense over thinking things. And there’s still shooting to be done.” Barten showed a smile, shook his head, and raised his pistol for another shot.